#and the fact that every single character who survives the first 30 minutes has some sort of character development

[tarvastries]

murder on the orient express (2017) is a film. to me.

[eerienostalgia]

Not my usual content but I have some thoughts on the first two episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte

(P.s. this is unfortunately not a positive review)

WARNING: THE ACOLYTE SPOILERS AHEAD

I hate to say it but, God, I’m so disappointed.

This is a show I wanted to enjoy so terribly bad. I love the setting. I love the diversity but the writing just completely ruins it. It makes me so frustrated because I feel like Star Wars has really been lacking in having diversity in their shows, and I was so excited to see them actually create a diverse cast, but of course they had to be given a show with just an awful script.

There were so many problems thematically and narratively but I think that one that really was the most jarring was that: there was no tension the entire time I was watching it. Almost every single one of the big questions were answered in the first two episodes. All besides who Mae’s master is, but just having one singular big question isn’t enough to leave me intrigued, and with the way events have been unfolding, it will probably be answered in episode three.. There should never just be one question in a series marketed as mystery. The beauty of that genre is: all the little questions that present themselves slowly being answered *until* you reach the big question. The best shows are where you don’t even know the big question until the last half of the show.

Another killer of the tension was the amount of exposition. It’s the hallmark of bad writing to me when a character, or those around them, just start explaining their backstory, especially a backstory they presumably already know and have no reason to say out loud. This is the most apparent during that moment on the ship where Yord first confronts Osha, and starts explaining her entire traumatic history IN THE FIRST EPISODE. These scenes could have easily been flashbacks, or just, explained in a way that made sense narratively?

On that note: not to compare shows, but to absolutely compare shows, an incredible example of how backstories should be told is Andor. One fact I especially love about it, is that during the flashbacks to his childhood, either everyone is speaking a language we don’t understand or not speaking at all, and almost the entirety of it is told solely by visuals, context clues, and little off hand comments and we don’t know the full story all at once. It’s something that is gradually revealed to us. It’s a backstory that feels earned.

Think about how much more intriguing the story might have been if we didn’t know about the fire, and we didn’t know that Osha had a sister. If the narrative had let us believe for a little longer that Osha was the one killing Jedi. How long would it have taken for her to spiral? Would Sol still be able to believe her in the face of damning evidence? Who is this girl that looks exactly like Osha? Is it her? And most importantly we would have the question of WHY she wanted to kill all these Jedi in the first place! *But* we don’t get any of these questions, at least not for longer than 30 minutes, because the narrative didn’t suspend knowledge long enough to allow them to happen.

At times I also found the way characters got out of situations to be… too coincidental. Such as the fact that the designers of the ship Osha was first put on as prisoner seemed to think it was a great idea to have the escape pods right in front of cells?? As well as the fact she was able to survive the crash of said ship in the first place, seemed to get thrown out of the chair she was sitting in, blacked out, and stood up and walked away as if nothing had happened. The ship was quite literally on fire from the inside as it went down and her along with her clothing were completely unscathed? It’s just outrageous, and don’t even get me started on the fire… in the vacuum of space.

I am able to let go of a handful of incredibly lucky escapes out of situations, but the first two episodes of this show felt like it was just a series of incredibly fortunate events. Even after presumably murdering a *master jedi* she was allowed to sit in the ship completely unrestrained. I understand Osha was close with her former master but she should not have been let off the hook quite so easily, especially for a group of monks who take very seriously their lack of attachment rule. It was just so frustrating to see tension resolving itself almost as soon as any semblance of it was created.

I do believe a lot of these issues are problems of most modern TV shows now as a whole. Writers have begun to assume that the audience needs everything spelled out for them, which makes shows bland and boring. Perhaps my frustration with The Acolyte is from the disappointment I find amounting due to all of the horrible shows recently who have shared its weaknesses.

It’s so unfortunate, because I do believe this is a cast full of talented actors who were just handed an awful script. I unfortunately find myself already mourning for the show this could have been.

HOWEVER, through the sea of the multitude of negative thoughts I have concerning this show, there are a handful of positives. I think the choreography is very well done, especially compared to a lot of the live action Star Wars shows I have come across recently. I truly did feel interested during those scenes. However no amount of showy lightsaber duels will be able to overshadow horrid writing.

I believe the actors were good and did the best they could with the script they were given. I think a lot of them made some very strong character choices that made the characters pop out to me a bit more. I especially enjoyed the way Mae’s friend who made the poison was portrayed.

I also to a degree, enjoyed the sets and costumes. I found them intriguing on their own and I enjoyed the more intricate designs for the ships interiors. I just wish they had pushed the envelope more for what the Star Wars world would have actually looked like 100 years previous. To me it mostly felt the same as any other Star Wars project, which is disappointing because when you look at our world today vs. the world in the 1920s the difference is astronomical! I would have loved to see some more rudimentary versions of common place items. Perhaps an earlier version of the holograms that is blurry, or an earlier version of a droid like R2. (Which by the way, apparently the R2 units have been in production for a hundred years by the start of the Clone Wars considering they were mentioned in this show)… I digress.

The world would have been much more captivating with a stronger, more rustic aesthetic. It does the show a disservice to make it blend in so much with the previous Star Wars projects.

The worst part is that I do genuinely think these are interesting characters that could potentially be a part of a very intriguing story, but the writing just completely stifles any sense of mystery or intrigue. I want to be confused. I want to figure out the mystery. I want to feel like I am watching a story unfold rather than a series of events.

I am holding on to the hope that perhaps these two episodes are flukes and the reminder of the season is beautiful and thought provoking and action packed.

I don’t want another disappointment.

[nayialovecat]

The Ink Demonth 2023 - Day 30. Duck

Day 30. Duck Crossover: DuckTales "Let's split up," said Scrooge McDuck. Because what could go wrong? :D

In his "youth", Scrooge McDuck had so many adventures, sometimes accompanied by teenage Donald and Della Duck, that I assume they may have ventured into an abandoned, strange animation studio in the 1960s... Whenever I think about Della and Donald's past, I imagine her as a carefree, hyperactive girl running forward screaming "adventure" - and him as a sensible, prepared for everything, skeptical young man. Please don't deny my imaginations.

I love DuckTales. I watched this cartoon when I was a little girl - I even had a radio play based on a time travel episode on cassette. I learned to draw characters and their expressions using Donald Duck newspapers, using the tracing method on the glass. Comics about Donald was probably first I ever made. Donald Duck, his large family and, above all, Scrooge, whom I adored - this was a large part of my early childhood. Unfortunately, unlike W.I.T.C.H. my huge collection of Donald Duck and Gigants issues didn't survive - one day I discovered that my mother simply took everything and gave it to some library, hospital or simply threw it into the trash. I was very sorry :c

Let's talk about the DuckTales reboot for a moment. Generally, as an huge fan of various things, I am often quite skeptical about new products, reboots or new series and I'm strict in my assessment. Sometimes I will get into a new series, but often I will say "it's not as good as the original" (because very often it's not). But in the case of DuckTales, I think the reboot is wonderful. The characters have been refreshed, the nephews have gained individuality, Donald Duck has gained a much nicer character (just like Daisy). Sometimes a little voice inside me says "wait a minute, no, it was different in the canon" - but then I say to myself "but this is a different canon." There are three things that irritate me and I can't forgive for the reboot. The first one is Gyro. What the hell did they do to him? Where is my lovable, overworked scientist, too polite and gentle to refuse Scrooge a job for a miserable salary? No, Gyro is terrible in the reboot, I hate every single second of the show with him on the screen. The second one is Magica de Spell. Why is she completely, absolutely and totally evil? This was not the Magica whose adventures I read and loved! What did they do to her? Where is Magica's love for family (i.e. her niece)? Where's Magica, who treats Scrooge as her frenemy? Where's Magica, who cries her sorrows to her broom and is bound by a cursed fate to Number One Dime? They made her the main villain, completely leaving out cool criminals like the Beagle Boys! And the last one, but I should actually start with this... a drawing style. This one repels me. These square heads and crude drawing style irritate me terribly. But then I saw a new series of classic Disney cartoons featuring Donald, Mickey and Goofy - and I realized that there are worse drawn things. Of course, there are still a few things that irritate me, but I often dismiss them - and I enjoy watching the reboot.

Finally, I will just say that although I really like the past of the characters in the reboot, I am irritated by Della's character. I do not like her. Maybe it has to do with the fact that, being a mother myself, I give my child the highest priority - a woman abandoning her tiny children to satisfy her ambitions is something incomprehensible to me - I have neither respect nor pity for Della and I believe that family (or at least her children) should reject her and be unwilling to forgive her. I know that's a cruel opinion. I haven't watched the entire series, but the episodes I've seen of her return irritated me. I admire Donald's composure. I would probably totally beat up my sister if I were in his place. Della also annoys me in all the episodes with her and Donald's past. She's almost as annoying as Mabel from Gravity Falls.

Bendy and the Ink Machine (c) Joey Drew Studios Inc. DuckTales (c) Disney Sammy and the Ink Machine (c) Nayia Lovecat

[donnerpartyofone]

When MAD GOD aired on The Last Drive-In on Friday, the EIC of Fangoria quote tweeted me, where I'd said approx "What would you spend 30 years doing if you had no idea whether you would profit by it?" The comment he added was "Some of us know because we have," and this provoked a slew of responses from people announcing their many years of starvation in the various arts. It's nice that they all had a fun discussion but I found it a little insulting. I agree that "there's nothing to it but to do it" or whatever and I think that personal satisfaction should be your main motivator in any creative work, but I felt like my tweet got recast in this light as if I meant, "Can you IMAGINE doing something you don't get paid for?!", in order to prove something about who lacks character and who has the right stuff, and I thought that was really flattening. There's more kinds of people out there than those who Do and those who Don't, and if you don't get to do what you really want to, you don't always "only have yourself to blame" in every single instance. There are people who have to spend all their energy and resources surviving, combatting poverty or illness or both. Someone can always point to disabled and oppressed artists who built amazing careers despite it all, but the lesson isn't always "If they can do it then anyone can do it," sometimes the lesson there is "That particular person is extremely remarkable" or just "They have a totally different economy of energy than most people." There are people who aren't able to feel that they're good enough at what they want to do, so it's hard to fully commit to work that may not even have artistic value or entertainment value, let alone monetary value. Will power alone isn't always enough to bring together the material resources necessary to make the kind of thing you want to make, especially if it's as complicated as a movie (and let's not forget the creator of MAD GOD is an Oscar-winning artist partially responsible for the original STAR WARS trilogy, not some basement dweller with uncertain prospects). The more expensive and technical your thing of choice is to produce, the more support and ingenuity and self-confidence you need to get it done, and those things can be in short supply for many of us; just "being obsessed" doesn't always open every door.

Part of me thought, "Hey wait a minute, there ARE things I've done for decades-plus that are purely for my own satisfaction (my film writing is the biggest example), this isn't a foreign concept to me, I just think I'm asking a good question!"...and then another part of me thought, "I drew, passionately and prolifically, every single day of my life until I got into an abusive relationship in my mid-20s, and by the time I was 30 I basically never drew again. Something about that experience flipped a switch and there are now things I can't enjoy anymore, including things that had always been core parts of my personality. I hope this changes, but there's not much I can do about it." I think the Fango EIC is reacting in part to being constantly assailed by angry nerds who think they automatically deserve jobs at the magazine because they're fanboys and they're active on Twitter or whatever; a few years ago he wrote an editorial about doing creative work out of desire first and foremost, and how that *sometimes* does form the foundation of a career. I loved that, that's basically what I've been doing with my writing for years and I wouldn't stop even if I found out for a fact that I'd never see a return on it. I just HAVE to write for some reason, I don't question it. So yeah anyway I felt a little dunked on, and maybe I asked for it or something, but I didn't think it was fair. Thankfully I have enough sense not to go on the defensive with anyone on Twitter, but part of me felt like saying, "I co-run a horror academia non-profit, you don't have to explain to me the virtues of working for pride and pleasure above all else. I just thought it was worth posing the question in general, for anyone reading: What would you be willing to spend 30 years doing if all you ever got out of it, as far as you knew, was the work itself?" I mean yes, work hard, be obsessed, trust the process, make the journey the destination, etc. That's an excellent premise to start from, for sure. But not everybody who can't spend 30 years on their favorite thing is some kind of lazy ingrate, sometimes there's also circumstances. Anyway that episode of Last Drive-In was amazing, Phil Tippett gives an amazing interview, the whole thing was very inspiring and I highly recommend it.

[alberivh]

diluc five feet apart AU

diluc x gn!reader

warning : major angst, major character death, sickness (cystic fibrosis).

summary : where diluc fells for you in an unexpected time and life. Where all he could do are loving you from afar and take care of you from apart. Cystic fibrosis is the cause of his suffering and regret for loving you, so, how will he manage to get out from this hell before both of your time ran out?

a/n : i have a really bad writer’s block right now so do excuse my poor grammar and wording. This was inspired by five feet apart, i really love this movie even though it was too painful for me to even watch since i’m fragile. I do not take all of the idea’s from the movie, but i do think the movie was a big part of this making. So Anyways, hope you enjoy this short writing.

work’s note : This work would probably has a sequel in the future. So make sure to kept updated by following my page! // @ alberivh work

“Goodnight diluc…”

It was 1 am, the nurses are probably asleep and diluc have probably finish preparing his bed after you ended the facetime. It’s an ordinary night for you and him as a cystic fibrosis patient. The facetime you just ended this time wasn’t that meaningful either ; especially because how you both did it every single night after his honest confession you always think as if it were the nicest dream you could ever pictured. The facetime were either just diluc listening to your rant about the breathing ventilator being such a pain in a butt or him complaining about having a really bitter medicine or a non-edible food, It’s either were full of laugh or just you being his personal medication schedule.

tomorrow will be like this again won’t it. Sighing wouldn’t work to regret your fate for living with this infection. Cystic fibrosis has changed your goal since you were a kid, not only goal..maybe everything. if it weren’t because of this infection, maybe he could reach me. it’s so exhausting to think about this everyday and every single night, so you let the sleep drown you to tomorrow. Only to reminded by the fact diluc might be gone before you do.

And As you predicted. Same as the next day, you both have a late night facetime ; which took diluc a while to answer since he was still figuring out this ‘puzzle’ kaeya has brought to visit him a while back.

“Diluc have you taken your medicines? Just to make sure you’ve already—”

“I haven’t got any new medicines, the left overs are too bitter, and those nurses probably want me to have the lungs transplant faster even though i don’t want it..such a pain in the ass..” , before you could continue your words, diluc told you everything. maybe it was his complaints to be reminded about his deadly infection. Diluc is probably exhausted, same as you. but we couldn’t just gave up..right?

Then silence came. forcing you to kept quiet before diluc start his words again. Maybe there’s a change from his words..right?

“love..could you please take the lungs transplant for me..?”

and in a sudden, he ask you the one thing you’ve never wanted to heard. How can he just let this opportunity slips for your sake? How can he just left you because he wants you to survive? How can he..?

“You’re joking aren’t you? It’s not funny, diluc.” ,

“I’m not, love…just- you know what, Please, take the lungs transplant in the behalf of me, my time is short. It’ll be not long for you to see me pass and i want you to live as long as you can.. since i know you can an—“

“You’re so selfish diluc. How many times should i told you that i’m also in pain..how many times i..i told you we’re in this together,,,just how…why..” his plea made your tears flow onto the sidebone of your cheeks. Dropping like it was meant to flow every seconds. He want you to live, yet you want him to be here as always. How selfish for a sinner to wish, especially as the likes of you both. How can we live? We’re dying diluc..

diluc couldn’t look at you, everytime he tries to turn his gaze onto you, he feel some sort of-regrets. All of the tears which flew from the side of your visions are because of his words. He thought, silently. ignoring your heavy sniffs. Maybe his wishes couldn’t be grant because everytime he dreams, he died. So he changed his mind and prepared the things he need to brought for ‘you’. He ended the facetime you two have did for about 5 minutes now. The shortest and the last record of facetime you’ll have with him.

“hey i’m coming in..” , a voice came from the edge of your room. It sounded so familiar and soothing, the same voice which always comfort you behind the nights you lived through.

“Why’d you came here, diluc..we couldn’t even met at the first place..”

“just unlocked the door love..please. No one would warned us again in another time so please-”

he begs and begs for your permission to unlocked the door. He patiently waits for your answer and action, even after you ignored him when he gave you his last plea. The mask he wears while waiting for you are the same mask he used when he first met you, it still smells like the old days, he said it himself.

“I’m not going to push you to open this door..but please let us meet again..even if this were going to be the last. I want us to reach each other.”

diluc sounds so crushed and apologetic. he still stays in front of your doorsteps even when he knew you wouldn’t answer him in the slightest. Still, he is waiting for you to reach him up. He’s tired yet he still manage to live and wait for you. Same as you who always been there with him, ever since the first day of his arrival.

he open his mouth again, trying to catch a breath before he yells about his plea again. Until he saw you in the back of the door and at the perfect time. Diluc look so concerned at this poin, why must you hide from him?

he stayed out 2 meters away from you, a not-so good attempt to keep his infection from you. until a gentle composure came to hold his waist, softly and mesmerizing. although, in a sudden of time, he almost fall out of balance because of you, your body were so frail for him to even feel anymore, it were drowning onto his body. You were hugging him, so tightly, like he would fade in the moment. see? I’m also dying diluc.

“heavens..you’re so- warm..” , he whispered. It’s the same voice and tone you’ve heard from him at your first arrival in this so-called hospital, you’ve never changed diluc. Wish we could stay like this-

“Forever..”

The warmth of your hug last for a good 30 seconds, Cough and mucus came onto your throat, reacting onto the fast-spread infection. it’s not even surprising for both of you and him to saw this prediction happens in a sudden. You know it would happened, he would also knew this would happened. Everything just goes the exact same way as how you planned it to be.

But diluc, why do you look so upset? I though you knew this would happen. Just why must you took pity on me.. you saw this, his face, his trembling structure, everything. You knew the fate you have chosen for the sake of your lover. this way, the infections are killing you instead of him. He needs the lungs transplant, he still has a family who cares about his sake, he needs to live longer.

you silently thought about your future with him. so beautiful. if you both were to escape from this hell since a young-born, You think he would propose to you and live with you in a big mansion his family ran out for generation. Like a fantasy of a protagonist. And A ran-away patient, dreaming to live their dream life with those who can’t reach them anymore. How Ironic.

“If…if it were because of me you died..i..i would never forgive the gods for having you love me..” , still holding onto your infected mucus at the corner of your lungs, you could feel your once-smooth-breathing turned to a sharp needle. which would only disturb your way of reaching him again and again. Have i told him how much i love him? Have i gave him everything he needs? Have i told him about my newest art? haha…god’s if my duty haven’t been fulfilled this time, please protect diluc for my sake. Please let diluc live.

“darling..i love you so much-so much..i could hardly even recognize your sight now, my time..is near love, so..please..please..let go..” you cough out every single thing that have been holding your words. Mucus, blood, sweats, even tears. He could finally hears your confession, but his tears are forming all of it’s chance down to his cheeks.

And in one last pushes of your overflowing breathing. You took his words as your last word.

“goodnight my love..”

His goodbyes and your last farewell. He has heard you again, for the last time and forever. He broke onto a forming dwell of heavy tears, still holding onto your lifeless body as if it were meant to be his nature to keep you safe in his arms. He’d wipe the infected mucus from the filthy floor, he’d also wiped the small droplet of blood in your hands, meaning to clean the dimmed sins from your ‘pure’ body. He carries your body in a bridal style as a form of happiness and to the messy bed, he let you rest peacefully. It’s a form of the repeatful end of life.

“sleep well my love..goodbye”

[keltonwrites]

I'm not sure if that's a good thing

“Well you’re definitely the first.” This past week, we screened-in the eastern facing porch on the side of the cabin. The porch slopes to the South, with the brick-on-dirt floor crumbling in that direction as well until it reaches uneven slabs of stone acting as steps down to the “yard” below. A mixed material retaining wall wraps beneath the steps to the south facing garage, holding up one corner of the narrow deck on the front of the house. The deck, in the heat of a high altitude summer, droops off the house like it’s daydreaming about the winter snow’s embrace. It’s safe to sit on, though I would not recommend leaning on the railing.

The side porch takes the brunt of the wind. Our wooden rocking chairs have been rocked some 20 feet into the yard more than once in the two months we lived here. In the myriad of threats we heard about the weather, most people included the wind. We all know how I feel about this ongoing weather intimidation tactic. I asked, “what speed are the gusts?” “Oh, they get up to 70 miles per hour on some days.” This was the first quantifiable piece of weather information someone had offered — an actual number we could react to with data and our historical personal experiences of various weather events. And our reaction was: uhhhh…. OK???? Look, I get it. No one’s preaching the skin benefits of -20 degree wind gusts at 70 mph, building snow drifts against your house in the span of minutes that Cooper could die in. I am not going to pretend that’s pleasant. But 70 mph? Any wind I’ve driven faster than does not intimidate me. I used to rally the horses at 12 years old in winds over 70mph to get them in the barn before the latest tornado whipped through. I helped shutter the resort in the BVI as the Category 5 hurricane rolled in. Even in Topanga, 70 mile per hour gusts were not uncommon in Santa Ana events. We had our single pane windows shatter more than once from debris in the wind. We taped cardboard up and went to sleep. That “70 mph” was all I needed to hear to confirm our next project: we were going to build a catio for these cats, and we were going to do it on the pre-existing porch structure to save time and money. We spent a week framing out the structure. We had to carve into the logs of the house to embed the wood supports for the framing.

And from there, every piece of wood was custom carved and cut to fit around the existing timber supports. The existing porch was so wildly uneven that there are gaps between each piece of old wood and the new framing. Our plan is to mix all the wood chips from the project with mortar/chinking and stuff the gaps — a good solution for the log cabin look. We built a plywood pony wall up to 28 inches from the interior of the porch, which gives a height of ~4-5ft from the exterior ground below. It’s capped with a 2x6” railing for even the fluffiest of cats to find a perch. The exterior will be wrapped with corrugated metal that we’ll quick-age to match the metal that wraps the bottom of the cabin. On the interior of the porch, we’ll use shiplap to hide the framing.

The screens themselves can withstand winds up to 120 mph, but to-be-determined if they can hold the weight of a growing maniac cat who has already tried to climb them. In the event the screens succumb to cat (or wind or snow or neighbor judgment) we’ll reinforce with metal mesh. We’re going to maintain this screen porch regardless of what the screen is. We had the pleasure of running into one of our more industrious neighbors the other day, and Ben asked him, “hey we’re building a screen porch. Is this a terrible idea?” He laughed. “Well you’re definitely the first.” But he liked it. Great way to diminish wind into the house. Simple way to regulate the temperature with massive south-facing windows. And indeed a practical outdoor safe haven for cats in predator territory. Just because you’re the first doesn’t mean you’re foolish — just foolhardy. There’s plenty of that here. This town has the typical mountain town’s truncated version of a colonizers’ history: “established 1881.” But it was plenty established prior to that by the Uncompahgre Band of the Ute Nation, removed by the U.S. Army on September 7, 1881, nearly 140 years ago. The government relocated the Uncompahgre Ute People to Utah, and one year after the Ute were forcibly removed from their ancestral land, San Miguel County split off from Ouray County and was made its own political subdivision in the newly-formed State of Colorado. In 1879, the ore-laden valley already had 50 people living in it, with a new narrow gauge railway only 2 miles away. By 1885, it was a town of 200 people. There was a hotel, a couple saloons, a pool hall. Winters were treacherous; the valley was and is prone to avalanches. But where there’s gold, there’s gumption. The power needed to run the stamp mill to process ore drove innovation. Timber was scarce at such high elevations, so a wood powered steam mill wouldn’t cut it. But the San Miguel River just a few miles down from the mine looked promising. Thus began the development and construction of the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant. It was a hit. In fact, it was so successful that the Ames Plant led to the adoption of alternating currents at Niagara Falls and eventually to being adopted worldwide as a viable power solution. The plant remains, but the gold rush obviously didn’t. By 1940, the U.S. Census declared this little town I call home as tied for the lowest population in the country: 2 people. By 1960, it was one of four incorporated towns in the U.S. with no residents. But the joke was on the Census — the town’s single resident was just out of town the day the census came through. 1960 population: 1. By 1980 the population grew to 38, 69 in 1990, and about 180 now. (Plus 51 dogs according to the town’s website.) With modern amenities, it’s easier to be here. Studded snow tires, satellite internet, solar panels, instant coffee. No matter the hardships, there’s the reality of the present. In the 1880s, as the town boomed, the Ouray Times declared, “it will be at no distant day a far more pretentious town than it is now.” That day hasn’t exactly arrived, but I guess it depends on what you consider pretentious. I don’t think the town claims any airs of excellence beyond what’s true. In fact, the town hardly claims anything at all. There’s no sign indicating it’s even here. There’s just the old side and the new side. The new side, the Eastern half, was drawn out in the early 1990s, some 100 years later, and is separated from the Old Town by an avalanche zone—preserved open space for hiking in the summer, preserved open space for surviving in the winter. The town forbids short-term rentals, no one has a fence, dogs roam free, and all the houses have that cabin look to them. A boulder nests in a grove near a trailhead in the center of town with a plaque paying respect to the Utes who called this valley home. There’s no industry here. No businesses allowed. If you want a $7 latte, you can drive the 14 miles required to get it, assuming there’s not an avalanche blocking your path. You can, however, buy a pink lemonade in a

solo cup at the permanent lemonade stand run by the local feral child mafia. Crystals (rocks) can be purchased for an additional cost. We bought one, hoping to buy favor at the same time. The town plan has a few guiding principles, and it’s all in the name of preservation. We must preserve: 1 - the quiet atmosphere 2 - the rustic character 3 - the natural setting

And finally: 4 - protect the health and wellbeing of the people here No snowmobiles, no ATVs, no drones. In fact, the only sign of the outside world here are the passers-through. When you take the dirt road through town to the end, you enter National Forest, and you can hike over the pass saddle at nearly 12,000 feet before descending down the other side into Silverton. The pass road climbs rutted through an aspen forest before scaling across a scree field and then lurching over to the other side. Every day, it seems like 30 or so Texans and Arizonans in lifted and loud Jeeps with unused mods climb over this mountain in the comfort of their air conditioning, simply to drive down the other side. You could hike it, ride it, run it, and ski it, but they don’t. They rev their engines, kicking up dust in a town of feral children and roaming dogs, staring at us instead of waving. I’ve lived here for two months and look how salty I am. I’ll fit in yet. But today, there is a temperature that whispers of perfect trails and the dwindling of ogglers driving 35 in a 15. It’s already snowed in the mountains we see from our kitchen. Today, like a dedication to the Septembers of our youth, you can feel a chill in the air. A temperature akin to pencils and sweaters and reinventing yourself. A temperature that doesn’t exactly sing “screen porch” but could if you had the right slippers on. That’s what I did this morning: put my slippers on and sat there in the cool mountain morning air, thinking about the cemetery behind our house, about the Ute tribe, about the miners, about the mailman who died on Christmas in 1875 on the pass, about the 5 people who died in avalanches here just last year, about the people in their cars on their phones driving through, and all the people who’s very first question to us was, “so are you gonna live here part-time or full-time?” Maybe it will be a hard place to live. But at least we’ll have a screen porch.

Every week I'm writing about moving to log cabin in a small town at 10,000 feet. Subscribe here for free: tinyletter.com/keltonwrites

[justanotherlifeff]

Levi Ackerman × reader

Genre: Angst, Hurt/comfort, Fluff, matured themes, slowburn

Warning: There's mentions and descriptions of underage rape and suicidal themes and self harm.

Levi POV

She confessed about how her past was last night. About how her mother sold her off to prostitution at such a young age. About the fact that she killed the Garrison member because he tried to have his way with her. She was just a victim of circumstances. She never talked about these to the court or to Mr and Mrs (L/N) or Erwin. I was baffled by her sudden confession which made me do something as stupid as holding her hand and saying that she's strong enough to trust herself. That she could trust me if she wanted to and most importantly, I smiled at her. As stupid as it sounds, it was required at that time. 

I assumed that I should ask her if I could talk about it to Erwin because that would help her get rid of her criminal record. That would help her out if she ever retires given that she survives. I was willing to bet that she will survive given that she's really skilled. I was thinking all these while making breakfast. Yes, I woke up before everyone else  today. I made some mushroom soup and was pouring tea into cups when (Y/N) came downstairs with her book. She looked hung over.

 "Oi brat, how much sugar do you need?" I asked her as she looked at me and blushed. Needless to say that she tried to hide it and failed miserably before saying in a low voice "three teaspoons". "At this rate you will die of diabetes before the titans get to you" I told her with a straight face while mixing sugar in her tea. She sat quietly waiting. As I passed her tea to her, I asked "Do you remember anything from last night?" She was blushing again and muttered "Yes heichou." 

"It's okay that you shared those to me. I grew up in the underground too. I won't judge you for your past." I told her as I took a sip of my own tea. She didn't read books today as she usually does. "I feel like you deserve to know more about my past too since you trusted me enough to talk about yours" I blurted out. Wait, why did I say that? This was completely unnecessary but I felt like I owed it to her. She looked at me with curiosity. "My mother was a prostitute too in the underground. However, she loved me. Unfortunately, she got sick and died when I was a kid. That's when a guy named Kenny took me in. He taught me how to fight and survive in the underground. I was a thug before Erwin recruited me. I killed people for money and I don't think I regret it." I told her, looking straight into her eyes. 

She looked down at her tea when I was done. "I don't judge you either. Sometimes killing people for your own benefit can be justified. You needed the money to survive. I needed his hands and eyes off me." she muttered quietly. I didn't know what to say to that. She might have been the first person to understand this. The only other people to understand it were Farlan and Isabel.

 After an awkward silence, she spoke again "You wondered how I started cutting myself didn't you? You see, the two years in that brothel made me what I am. The customers used to hit me and cut me and I got used to it. After going through that for so long, I started doing that on my own because, well, I already told this to you before that it made me think that I'm alive as long as I feel the pain and that's why I do it." she told me while looking down at her hands. "Yeah, I assumed it beforehand." I told her. "Anyway, let's not dwell on things that happened in the past." she told me with a smile. That must be the second time I saw her smile. She should smile more often.

Your POV

I didn't expect to hear about Levi heichou's past. It shocked me. I knew that he was an underground thug but knowing that he was born in a brothel too like myself was really shocking. Other people filled in the kitchen/dining room after a while. I noticed Petra glancing at me with a weird look on her face but I didn't give much attention to it. When I was done having breakfast, I went back to the training grounds with Levi heichou as I decided that slacking off even for a day won't be good for an expedition. Other than that, I just had this immense need to prove myself to Levi heichou. I didn't know why but I just wanted him to look at me and say that he is proud of me. 

Yesterday, he told me that to me and I don't know how to express the feeling that came over me. I never felt this way after getting a compliment before. All I knew was that I wanted more of that feeling. The look on heichou's face when I told him that I want to train made me feel the same way again. Sure, his expression was as stoic as ever but his eyes glinted with approval and that was enough to give me the motivation to forget about the splitting headache and go train.

 The thing is, I had never gotten such solid approval before. My parents told me that I always did a good job cleaning but their expression told me that they weren't too happy when I accidentally got all the colour off their clothes trying to make them clean. In my defence, I found ways to clean clothes without getting all their colour off later. Uncle Erwin used to tell me that I did a great job when I lasted for a few minutes against him in sword fights. However, we both knew that I wasn't good enough. He just gave up on me. With heichou, it's completely different. He would criticize me till I got something right.

 He would point out every flaw till I'm perfect. He would only acknowledge my work when I do it flawlessly. He didn't say that my spinning move was perfect. He just appreciated the effort. Getting his appreciation meant a lot because he never tried to make me happy with myself by faking it. The others didn't have training today because we all were hung over. Heichou and I both had equipped our 3DMGs on ourselves and he followed me as I cut the titan dummy's napes. I had gotten faster as heichou pointed out all the flaws in my usage of 3DMG.

Two weeks back

"Oi brat! You're wasting my time by making all those shitty unnecessary moves! Get down here!" Levi heichou shouted at me. This was the first time anyone thought my 3DMG skills weren't good enough. I was glad to accept any advice from him though. After all, he is the strongest of humanity. "Sorry heichou." I answered before I got down. "I'll show you how it's done. Follow me. Take a note of everything I do because you will need to use these in practical scenarios." he told me before flying off as I followed him. He cut down the same titan dummy with three shots from his 3DMG while I took seven. 

"This way, you get your work done faster and preserve gas as well. You need to use your eyes and analyse every single move you can make and apply the most efficient move. It all comes with practice. Go keep doing it without a break till you come down to 5 shots." he instructed me. I trained till dinner that day and wasn't able to go any lower than 6 shots.

Present day

Now, I was the only one in the whole army who was nearly as fast as heichou. Ofcourse, he was much more skilled than I was, with his special spinning move that I was able to imitate but barely. Heichou followed me as I used the most efficient of moves, cutting down all 10 dummies in less than 7 minutes. "Woah... Now that was as good as heichou!" Gunther exclaimed as I landed on the ground. He was on dummy movement duty. "No. I still have a long way to be as good as heichou." I muttered. Yes, heichou would do that in less than 5 minutes. I had a long way to go.

 "You made outstanding improvement though in just a month. Erwin and Shadis weren’t giving me any bullshit when he told me to look into your files. You ofcourse have a lot of room for improvement. You still make unnecessary movements. I believe it will improve with training and experience. Get some rest now before cleaning duties." heichou commanded me. "Hai!" I saluted before running off to my room. "Oi Gunther! Get Oluo and fix those dummy napes with him." I heard Levi heichou command Gunther.

 "Heichou! But I don't feel so good..." Gunther tried to get out of work but heichou stopped him and said, "Gunther, Petra has cleaning duties for the castle. Eld is helping me with paperwork. Hanji is experimenting on Eren and (Y/N) is the only one among you all to take training seriously and yet, she has cleaning duties in 30 minutes as well. Did I keep you and Oluo in my squad to slack off? I will send Oluo on my way". His monotone voice was full of superiority and thus Gunther went to the supply room to get the dummy napes with his head down. I went back to my room and took a short nap.

A while later, I got up and went to heichou's office to get my cleaning duties done. When I opened the door, I saw something that made my heart sink.

Levi POV

I was getting done with my paperworks. (Y/N) was supposed to come and clean my office in a while. That girl was really good at cleaning. Sure, I had to point out the few dirty spots that she missed but she never complained. I never imagined someone like that could exist because it seemed like everyone was fed up with my cleanliness. Suddenly, I heard my door open. "She's 10 minutes early" I thought. I looked up from the huge pile of papers on my table and saw Petra instead of (Y/N). 

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Heichou, I need to talk to you about something," she mumbled. "Go on?" I asked as I noticed that she wasn’t wearing the usual Survey corps uniform. She was wearing a short innocent looking dress. "What the hell does she want?" I wondered. I wasn't in the mood to talk to her now, given that I had a headache after drinking last night. I was expecting a good conversation with (Y/N), presumably about our past because I felt the need to know exactly how similar we were. It seemed like I did things that were out of character with her but she just gave me an excitement that I never felt before.

"Are you dating (Y/N)?" she mumbled again looking down at the floor. That simple question seemed to jerk me out of my thoughts and made me feel like someone threw a punch at my face. "What? No. Why would I date her?" I answered in shock. Her face lit up when I said that. What in the actual fuck was she thinking? "I always was interested in you, heichou" she told me and as she did, she was coming closer. I was in shock. I never had to face anything like this before so I froze. I had a fair idea that she was into me, since she constantly nagged at me, trying to be helpful, mostly trying to give me some sort of therapy session and failing because I had no intention to talk to her about my shitty ass past. 

"Everything is so different now, we have a titan shifter on our team, and I thought I lost you to (Y/N)..." she muttered as she got too close to me. I didn't like what was happening and just before I told her to back off, she kissed me. Coincidentally, the door opened just at that moment and (Y/N) stood there with a shocked face.

(Y/N) POV

Levi heichou and Petra were kissing. As soon as I saw it, I closed the door and ran towards my room. I felt tears running down my face as I went for the bathroom. I closed the bathroom door, took the small blade that I owned and I went back to my old ways of coping with unnecessary feelings. Why didn't he tell me about him and Petra? I told him every single secret I ever had. Why did watching them hurt so much? But then again, I had no right to be hurt. It's my fault that I told him. He had every right to keep secrets. But it still hurted. I tried to make deep cuts so that the physical pain would drown the emotional pain. It didn't work too well. 

"Well, (Y/N). You knew it all along didn't you? You knew that Uncle Erwin won't live forever. You knew that the next step in your dream for happiness was having a family. You knew that you fell in love with Levi heichou as you kept talking to him every single day about your views. You wanted him to return the feelings and you were fooled by his politeness." my mind taunted me. I was being naive yet again and I knew it. I knew that I had to suppress my emotions. I had to be strong and follow the plan that heichou mentioned. I had to stop hurting myself.

 With that, I decided that I shouldn't cut myself anymore because I had an expedition the next day. I bandaged myself up and got out of the bedroom to find Petra sitting on my bed. "We need to talk," she told me with a glare. I couldn't see the sweetness on her face that I encountered numerous times when I first joined the survey corps.

Levi POV

I pushed Petra away but (Y/N) had already stormed off. Great. Now I'll have to explain things to her. I don't want any new rumor to spread and for some unknown reason, I felt guilty about the whole thing. It was just a weird lingering feeling that I couldn’t get rid of ever since I saw the pain in her eyes. This hurted her feelings for some reason and I didn't want her to be hurt. Maybe because I felt bad about her past. "I'm not interested in you Petra. Please don't do anything like this again because you already made things awkward. You're a talented soldier and it would be bad for the squad if I have to transfer you." I told Petra calmly but coldly. "You love her don't you? Ofcourse. I'm sorry." Petra' voice cracked as tears left her eyes but there was a certain anger in her voice. 

"It's best if you go now. You embarrassed yourself enough" I told her, being colder than I intended to be. Why did I react this way to a simple assumption that she made? After dismissing her, I planned to see (Y/N) and explain things to her but as Petra walked out, Erwin walked in and mentioned, "Levi, we have things to discuss about the expedition tomorrow". Why did I feel so worried about what (Y/N) might think? Why do I feel the need to explain myself? I should be allowed to kiss whoever I want but why do I feel this guilt? I got stuck in a meeting with Erwin but in the back of my mind, what Petra told me kept ringing. Am I in love with (Y/N)?

(Y/N) POV

"What do you want Petra?" I asked her calmly even if thousands of thoughts were dashing through my head. I'm not the only one who he talked about his past to. He must have told her. Why did I tell him my secret? Why did I expect to be seen as someone special? What was I thinking? I had no right to have any expectations from him. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have fallen in love with him. "Stay away from Levi, (Y/N). He's my boyfriend. If I see you alone with him again, trust me, you'll regret it." Petra told me with a glare. 

"I don't have anything to do with Levi heichou, Petra. You don't have to act like a jealous girlfriend." I stated calmly even if her words felt like a hundred knives piercing me for some unknown reason. 

"Really (Y/N)? You seriously think I didn't notice the special treatment he gives you? He punishes you the least among everyone else. He actually talks to you a lot about God knows what! He even trains you personally! He...he smiled at you that day when you made a...a fucking mess and puked everywhere! You really think I don't know that you wake up that early just to talk to him? And I won't even get started with how you snagged his office's cleaning duties! No one was allowed to clean his office except himself! You're the only cadet that he actually treated as his equal! Listen, I know what you're doing here. You're trying to use your worthless sob story about the underground to steal him from me! I saw the look in your face when you saw us kissing! You love him. Don't you dare come between us (Y/N)!" she shouted at me. 

I never expected Petra to act like that. "I don't have time for your bullshit." I told her coldly, took my book and got out of that room. I didn’t have the energy to deal with her.   

The next day after half the expedition was over:

We were going into the woods. There was an uncomfortable silence between Petra and I and Levi didn't talk much either except for giving commands. Oluo bit his tongue already. Suddenly, I heard heavy footsteps. A titan was coming towards us. Our horses ran fast but I saw a faster different looking titan running towards us. Eren, as usual, started shouting but Levi heichou remained silent. I assumed that he had a plan, more accurately, he was probably trying to use us as bait for that titan. It seemed interested in Eren as it tried to grab him a couple of times. Were they thinking about capturing it?

 The titan looked like a female. Titans usually look like males and thus, as this titan looked so different, and the fact that it seemed to have a mission to get Eren, I assumed that it was a titan shifter, like Eren. After listening to Eren shout for a while, Levi heichou asked Eren to make a decision and Petra was coaxing Eren to trust heichou like the typical nosy girlfriend. "Petra is Levi heichou's girlfriend", this thought made my stomach turn. I shouldn't feel like this. As my mind was filled with thoughts of decapitating Petra because she was annoying, the titan almost caught up with us but got showered by a lot of harpoons. They caught the titan.

Levi POV

(Y/N) didn't say a word during the whole expedition. She never talks much but the silence between her and Petra was too intense to not notice. "Did Petra do something stupid after I rejected her?" I wondered. Petra usually always tried to make a conversation with her. The events from yesterday must have changed something.

 "You love her don't you?" Petra's voice rang in my head. Do I? Even if I do, I can't show it to her. My loved ones always seem to die. After the female titan was caught, I sent (Y/N) and the squad away from there with Eren. I didn't want them in harm's way. The logical thing to do would be to make (Y/N) stay because of her high potential but I didn't want her near me for now. I was confused about what Petra told me. Hell, I couldn't believe that I was even considering it.

To be continued

Taglist: @kingtamakimurder @realityisoftendisapointing

[vaguely-concerned]

I rewatched the mandalorian episode 8 and boy have I got feels for you

- lol gideon’s callouts to all of them though... you have ‘hey cara remember how we blew up your entire planet and killed your fellow soldiers’ and ‘hey din djarin yeah I know who you are lol the mysterious stranger thing doesn’t work on me remember how we apparently murdered a bunch of mandalorian children in one night’ (that’s how I’m taking ‘mandalorian recruits’ anyway) and then finally there’s just ‘greef karga. you’re really old enough to know better.’ 

- oh bb!din doesn’t cry at any point during the whole flashback :((( bb boy. he’s of course terrified but there are no tears. I’m guessing he’s in shock/dissociated the entire time. (probably also due to having a child actor but I think it makes a lot of sense in-universe too! to put on my trauma hat for a moment he’s always read to me as a combined freeze/flight type; he either dissociates or loses himself in work. I suppose he got started early) 

- the look on Papa Djarin’s (I mean I assume) face as tiny din reaches out for him and he knows he has to turn away and leave to save him :) exquisite burning agony

I still wonder so much what his parents did for a living. those red robes look almost like uniforms/religious garb to me or it might of course just be the fashion in this place, people in the background seem to be wearing similar things. 

- I LOVE the mando who saves him as a kid because that’s apparently the same actor who’s in the mando suit when it’s not pedro pascal or another stuntman (brendan wayne, I think it is?) so it gives this wonderful feeling that you get now where a lot of din’s body language and general bearing comes from but there’s also just enough difference that it’s clearly another person. with din there’s always this edge of reserve and a slight stiffness no matter how relaxed he is, and this guy has the same basic steadiness as him but seems a bit more open just from these few short shots. (there might be a little bit of character design in this as well -- din’s shoulder pauldrons are naturally uh ‘higher’ than this guy’s, who has smoother/flatter and more rounded shapes, giving the feeling of shoulders just slightly raised and relaxed down respectively)

it’s nice to see the mandos as a protective force even if they have the death watch symbol there to make you go ‘?!?!?!’, there wasn’t a lot of that in clone wars but it’s an ill wind and so on I guess 

- this confused jawa looking at the dead stormtroopers is everything. don’t worry you’re doing amazing sweetie

- the context for why din picks up the e-web (channeling the spirit of baze malbus, a man who also didn’t let the fact that his weapon was really meant to be mounted on a tank stop him :’) ) makes it even better: he sees that IG-11 has the baby and that he’s getting overwhelmed and he literally grabs the biggest gun he can find and goes to town to let him get away.  

- “I haven’t heard that name spoken since I was a child” ooof but also what are the logistics of that? I’m wondering if it might be the ‘Djarin’ part, if that’s his family name? maybe there hasn’t been a use for that among the mandos? surely someone has needed to call him by name somehow at some point in the last 30+ years lol

- one of the reasons gideon works so well as a villain is that he can get past the beskar. he knows exactly how to kill mandalorians because he’s done it before. he’s not only a huge threat emotionally -- he wants the baby and he’s done some fucked up shit to din’s culture -- he’s also one of the few people who can nullify the physical protection of our main boi in the helmet. and that scares me. because he’s my dad and I love him.

- I’m fairly sure din is properly unconscious for almost half a minute there. (which is very very bad. always go see a doctor if you lose consciousness after hitting your head if an IG unit with appropriate training and equipment is not on hand)   

- baby yoda passing out after doing one (admittedly spectacular) thing is a wholeass mood, #same buddy ilu 

- din is the first person to explicitly call the baby a foundling ;____;

- poor cara she’s already lost so much and her new bro is trying to convince her to let him throw himself on any sword made available to him. (I do love that neither she nor IG-11 buy mando’s bullshit for a moment here tho lol they’re openly saying they’ll take him with them anyway while he’s listening) 

- oh. oh din starting to jumble his words even as the gun remains rock steady in his hand is hitting me really hard this time. ow.

- I think the baby can sense din and IG coming (he gives a little sound right before they show up) 

- when cara checks in with him in the tunnel she touches her fingers to his chest so very lightly and he almost falls over backwards sdfaksdljhf

- well he definitely is trembling while picking up that helmet from the pile. so have fun knowing that with me 

it’s so messed up too because there’s not that many of them left; he’s all but guaranteed to have known every single one of them. 

- this image of him on his knees in front of this pile of the empty armor of the dead feels. I don’t know how to describe it but like a repeat. like he has been here before, this isn’t the first time and it’s hitting him all over again. (considering how things have been going for the mandos recently that might very well be true too. metaphorically this is essentially what’s going on in the background of the entire show, anyway. Friends I think mando Saw Some Shit during the night of a thousand tears or a similar event) 

maybe what gives me this feeling is how clearly he is in another time in some way during this part, before the armorer diagnoses him with Dad and brings him properly back. he’s trying to send them away with the baby, who’s like. basically the symbol of his will to live at this point. “I can’t leave it this way”, he can’t leave the dead behind and be alive, some part of him wants to stay with them. 

you can see this from how he talks about the baby too: in the scene where he’s hurt and trying to get them to leave he consistently calls him the child or the baby (not to mention the first foundling we get!) and focuses very specifically on keeping him safe. in this triggered state the baby briefly becomes it again and he doesn’t even mention him, he just tells them to take his ship and leave. in that moment all he wants to do is fight and probably die on behalf of those who are already gone. (I think bessel van der kolk has called PTSD ‘a profound loyalty to that which is lost’ or something like that. that rings very true to me here)  

the talk with the armorer is basically a very short debate between ol’ coping mechanism!din being like ‘hey I just remembered before all this I was doing my very best to work myself to an early and likely shallow grave, I should get back to that’ and Papa Wolf!din being like ‘except this is my son so we’re not doing that we’re gonna have to improvise something new on the fly here’. bless. 

(all of this is so subjective and probably me reading things into it that don’t really exist so don’t quote me on any of this but his anger at greef karga sounds to me like that of a younger, emotionally rawer man too, it’s so openly hurt and... active? I guess? these days when he gets angry he seems to tend more towards getting deathly quiet. then again this is one of the most genuinely upsetting things in the whole show so it could just be that)  

- hahahahahaha greef rests his hand on his gun before he follows them into the armorer’s workshop; it would seem he did not think it guaranteed either she or maybe especially mando wouldn’t try to shoot him  

- the way the armorer’s voice gains a brightness/warmth when she sees the child! the mandalorian ‘protect babies’ instinct in action haha, she’s like ‘oh this is why you did this bugfuck insane thing. perfectly reasonable, keep up the good work’.  the foundlings are the future is not just lip service it really is a central tenet of their culture even when it’s inconvenient 

there’s this sense that... in the face of his hurt she’s basically telling him to go be alive, to raise this child, to choose surviving and healing. I think she understands him very very well, I wonder how long they’ve known each other. (she had the mould for his signet ready <3)

- he sounds so crestfallen and lost when he asks if the baby is an enemy. and then she’s just fondly like ‘no it’s your son you absolute dummy’ and he’s like ‘...yeah I know’ 

- I. love that in these scenes he’s hurt (and not just physically) and other people are there to carry the baby until he can pick him up at the end fully as a father would.  

- I have talked about it before but I must restate how hilarious and endearing I find it that mando conscientiously leans the thing he tries to pry the boat loose with against the wall again while cara shoots the place up. one is never too busy to mind one’s manners. (this scene really showcases each of the characters too. greef: just keep fuckn pushing! mando: briefly kicks the thing with a growl then tries attacking the problem from a new angle. cara: GUN.) 

- oh the absolute sweetness of how IG says “And you will live”. there’s so much emotion in his droid voice there and all of it is peaceful and affectionate. I agree with din IG don’t goooooooo don’t leave us we need an adult

I keep whispering ‘pls someone think to shield the baby’s eyes’ through my tears in this scene, he didn’t need to see that happen D:

- I really need to repeat that despite what IG-11 says, he goes ahead with his plan anyway even though mando never satisfies his ‘programming’s’ demand. droid’s got free will and a huge big heart Y___________Y anyway... droid rights in the star wars universe when (...it would be very funny if din became embroiled in that fight somehow after this, oh how the turntables) 

- another continuity error: mando puts the jetpack on, then we get a shot of cara shooting and he’s standing there with it in his hands again haha. unless he realized he put it on upside down the first time around or something that seems unlikely. (he’s also lying in slightly different positions between cuts in the scene where IG-11 heals him, but that’s so small and subtle I don’t even really count it) 

- the jetpack scene is a beautiful encapsulation of din’s fighting style. he flails and gets jerked around a lot. he nearly blows himself up. I don’t think he’s fully in control of anything that whole time. and yet he gets the job done yet again. a disaster, but a glorious disaster still standing at the end of it all. one simply must stan. 

- a) I think din remembered how to take off better than he remembered how to land haha and b) BABY’S HAPPY LITTLE FACE WATCHING HIS DAD COME BACK DOWN c) THE BABY & MANDO MUSIC PLAYING WHEN DIN NOTICES THE BABY CLUTCHING HIS LEG *elmo surrounded by flames gif* (it’s a calmer/more grounded version of the same song that plays when they have that moment of connection right before the other mandos come to the rescue in ep 3 and also a few other times)

- baby’s joyful little trilling sound when his dad turns his head to check on him 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 and he strokes the cape with such contentment because it’s a safe familiar texture because this is his dAD (officially and legally too now, mandalorian-wise :’) im so happy)

- the unsympathetic comedy stormtroopers at the beginning could conceivably have survived (if not uh happily lol). if they become a recurring duo who show up and get more and more screwed every time I wouldn’t be mad haha

- I support these jawas in everything they do, I feel a great kinship with these lil goblins 

- anyway I love this show so much and I hope season 2 is good too and knows it holds my fragile heart in its hands 

[nikkoliferous]

Ragnarok Makes No Damn Sense (Part 1)

Having now laid out who Loki has always been and why there was an open agenda to demean and debase him, we come to why Thor: Ragnarok is antithetical to his character. Buckle your damn seatbelt. We've got a lot to unpack.

Off the bat, we're supposed to be appalled/annoyed/something that Loki has usurped the throne from Odin. Yet when last we left our heroes, Thor had abdicated his role as King of Asgard, knowing full well that Odin's health was failing, he was emotionally unfit to rule, and there was no other heir to fill his role. Oops! And for all that we're meant to believe in Loki's selfish ambitions for a throne, let us not forget that Loki-as-Odin at the end of The Dark World offered Thor this kingship. It was Thor who refused. What was it he said at the time? Oh, yes.

"For all his grave imbalance, Loki understood rule as I know I never will."

Now Ragnarok wants us to forget all that. It doesn't suit the narrative Taika Waititi wishes to spin. He wants us to believe that Loki is a terrible, lazy ruler who cares only about glorifying himself. But wait, is Loki a terrible ruler? The Hero™ tells us he is, so it must be so. And yet all we really know of Loki's reign is that he had a non-interventionist foreign policy, improved public infrastructure, and supported the arts. Wow, yeah, what a dick.

We will soon go on to meet Doctor Strange, a character who in comparison to Loki is a novice at magic yet somehow repeatedly manages to get the drop on the trickster. This is necessary in order to minimize Loki's power and competence in the eyes of the viewer. Let me also explain why the "I have been falling for 30 minutes" scene is not charming.

Does anyone think perhaps Loki may have a touch of PTSD related to the sensation of falling? No? Then perhaps we should instead analyze the deleted scene in which Loki is locked in a portapotty while men repeatedly urinate on him until Thor arrives to let him out. The fact that this was an idea someone had to begin with is gross. The fact that they came close enough to using it that it was actually filmed is downright shameful. Every single person at Marvel involved in approving this trash should commit seppuku in penance.

Ignoring the sexual assault implications here... I mean, this is literally toilet humour. Literally. What are we, five years old? Who the hell actually finds this funny?

"I keep a watch list of individuals and beings from other realms that may be a threat to this world." - Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok

So how did you miss the huge, purple nutsack wreaking havoc across the cosmos? I mean, no offense. I'm just saying.

Now we have the culmination of Odin's A+ parenting. He's at the end of his life just because he feels like it, I guess, so now it's time to pretend he gives a damn about Loki for a few seconds again. One "I love you" without even looking at him is supposed to make a millennium of emotional abuse and neglect all better or something. Even in his death, Odin can't seem to stop screwing with Loki's mind. What a charming man, I'll sure miss him.

Oh, but before he's on his way, he has a teensy weensy confession to make. Remember when he lied to you about your entire existence, Loki? LOL! He lied to Thor about being the firstborn too! And now the evil sister neither of you knew you had is coming to destroy everything and he's given you no time to plan how to stop her! Don't you feel much better now?

It's been about five minutes since we were reminded that Loki is a coward and an idiot or something, so contrary to Tom Hiddleston's own words that

"The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears."

it became necessary for Loki to immediately panic and lead Hela straight to the one place he knows she'll be most powerful. Whoops!

The Warriors 3 are quickly dispatched by Hela because it's important we remember that the first two Thor movies were trash and nothing that ever happened in them has any meaning. By the way, Heimdall is Thor's new BFF now and Thor will never mention his former friends ever again. Ever. Like, even in passing. Like they never existed. Those people who committed literal treason for him both before and after he was banished in Thor (2011). And then again in The Dark World. Those friends.

Meanwhile, Thor and Loki have both landed on a planet called Sakaar. It's a giant trash heap and that about sums up how I feel about this whole damn movie, so credit to TW for the symbolism, I suppose. Here's possibly the most cringeworthy moment in the whole debacle—and that's a very high bar. Or low, I guess, depending on how you look at life.

He's a Norse god... screaming, "oh my god!" I don't have enough hands for all the facepalming I feel like doing right now.

Anyhow, Loki and Thor have arrived on Sakaar separately and Thor has just noticed Loki sitting across the room, casually joking about his own suicide attempt. Because there's nothing funnier than suicide, amirite?! Especially when you still haven't sorted through any of the complex issues that led you to become suicidal to begin with. Who cares? We're just here for the lulz, yeah?

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Korg, I'm the director's annoying self-insert, and I'll be pissing on every poignant moment from here on out because reflection is for nerds. You just need to smile more."

Hey, remember that time in The Dark World where Loki was stuck in solitary confinement for a year and Thor didn't come to visit him even once? Now Thor is the one locked up and Loki has come to visit him almost immediately. To offer his help. To try to relate. Maybe mourn the loss of... everything together. But Thor's not interested in relating. He's interested in scapegoating Loki, because that's what this family does.

"What would you like me to say? You faked your own death, you stole the throne, stripped Odin of his power, stranded him on Earth to die, releasing the Goddess of Death.” - Thor, Thor: Ragnarok

To borrow a phrase from the late Luke Skywalker, "Amazing. Every word of what you just said is wrong."

► Loki has never faked his death. What he did is fail to die on Svartalfheim, through no fault of his own. It seems a little insane I have to defend Loki's right to not die, but here we are, I guess.

"We planned to have Loki have a redemptive death[...]We think he's wounded, but it wasn't a death blow." - Kevin Feige, The Dark World DVD extras

"Loki probably in his heart wants to be worthy, and the way he achieves his redemption—his salvation—is to ultimately sacrifice himself, for Thor and for Jane. I hope it’s a very cathartic and moving moment, by saving his brother’s life and avenging his mother’s death." - Tom Hiddleston, The Dark World DVD extras

The worst that can be said of Loki's "betrayal" of Thor at the end of The Dark World is that he failed to inform him that he had survived. And Loki had very good reasons to do so. What had Thor offered him in exchange for his help with the Dark Elves? He would return him to his cell to live out the rest of his days in complete isolation—a fate that I will just reiterate is classified as a form of psychological torture.

► Loki didn't steal the throne. As mentioned above, he offered Thor the throne. Thor said no.

► There is zero evidence beyond Thor's own assumptions that Loki stripped Odin of his powers. We are meant to believe this only because we are told that it is so. On the contrary: "It took me some time to break free of your spell," Odin tells Loki before his death. But if Odin had been stripped of his power, how then did he eventually break free? Upon examination, Thor's logic fails.

► Loki did not "strand Odin on Earth to die". He left him in a freaking retirement home where he had every expectation that Odin would be well-cared for. An argument can certainly be made that after everything Odin has done to Loki in the past, Loki was downright merciful not to kill the old man in his sleep and be done with it.

► Loki had no way of even knowing Hela existed. How is her release his fault and not, say, Odin's for dealing with all his problem children by tossing them out and throwing away the key? Or for not preparing his sons for the day they would be forced to face her?

Oh well. Now it's time for Loki Is A Coward™, Part Deux, because as I may have mentioned previously:

"The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears." - Tom Hiddleston

MINOR ENDGAME SPOILER:

Reminder also that this was Loki's reaction to the Hulk in Endgame, only minutes after being beaten to a pulp by him

Doesn't seem particularly frightened, but what do I know?

Hey, remember back in Thor (2011) when this happened? If the Valkyrie were already legend, why did Sif need to prove herself as a female warrior?

Shhh. You were supposed to forget about that minor detail. Now back to the butt jokes.

Now let’s take a short intermission, shall we? Because this movie blows so hard that if I put all my criticisms in one post, it’ll probably break Tumblr.

↩️ back to the compendium

[b-listbadboy]

Castlevania Season 3 was disappointing

(Spoilers for Castlevania Season 3, if you haven’t seen it yet it’s out now on Netflix. I suggest watching that first before reading this review)

I won’t say it was an awful season by any stretch of the imagination but man was it a drag to get through.

Almost nothing of significance happens for the majority of the season and the things that did happen felt extremely off and weird. 10 episodes, 25 to 30 minutes each, and every single one except for the fucking TWO LAST EPISODES were spent dicking around with a mystery that had little to do with anything from season 2 beyond a really out there twist that I’m sort of iffy on. Top that off with a lackluster arguably stupid ending to leave us off on a needless cliffhanger, and that’s the magic remedy that will leave me feeling pretty damn frustrated.

The best parts, in my opinion, were with Isaac’s massive undead crusade he was waging throughout his journey for revenge, and Trevor and Syph’s interactions with each other as well as with the little villagers. Isaac’s arc going from a servant of Dracula to slowing evolving into the master of the damned felt genuine, intriguing, and badass! I really wish he was the next main villain instead as it makes sense thematically. He carries out Dracula’s nihilistic views of humanity in a similar but now more direct way and that can lead into something really intriguing. However, for some reason, this season left him and his whole journey on a back burner, and virtually everything else that is implemented into main villain role fell flat on its face execution wise.

For example; The new vampires of this season are Camilla’s three other empress sisters, and while they do have a plethora of personality at the very least, that kind of comes at a cost of the main threat being extremely diluted. We go from this hurting sympathetic undead overlord with the power of an anchent GOD, to a couple of wicked sassy sisters who just wanna eat people forever? It’s a bit lame of a progression from what we once had, we know Vampires like to eat people that’s nothing new or exciting. There’s no real twist to it besides it being “led by women in the dark ages” and granted that makes sense here since it IS the dark ages, but come on we literally just had arguably the BEST adaptation of friggin’ Dracula! This shouldn’t be all they got moving forward from that.

Now, I have ZERO issue with the main antagonists being female or even two of the four sisters (not by blood don’t worry) being a lesbian couple. I hate that I have to emphasize this, hell I often defend Cinder Fall in RWBY more than anyone in the fandom at all despite her issues as a complex and sometimes flat out badly written character. However, The four of them in this season have the most basic of plans that it seems arbitrary status quote fluff at best. It felt like just because it’s Castlevania, we HAVE to have the vampires as the villains. Even though in the games the Belmont’s were literally fighting werewolves, dragons, skeletons, and the GRIMM REAPER??

Therefore, the sense of urgency and tense calculating plans of ‘survival vs extinction’ is completely gone. And yknow in a way, I can kinda initially SEE that working in a sort of “Empire Strikes Back” esque plot. Yknow, with Alucard and the gang go around cleaning up Dracula’s leftover horde only for Isaac or even Camilla to have this huge vengeful comeback of dominance? But there’s no one exactly “striking back” or even taking any kind of immediate initiative after Dracula’s death. It’s been MONTHS after the whole event and no one seems like they really care about that world changing event from the last two season’s. Everything is fine and dandy, no one has a single worry in the world! How enthralling...I miss Godbrand 😑

Besides the plan the four empresses have as well as Issac’s revenge, which I hope will both be more explored in season 4, no one really has any goal to warrant THAT kind of length of a season. This is more of a Netflix problem that I have with most of their shows and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like watching them. Almost every singe show Netflix produces now, feels the need to overstuff itself with needless filler that gets us really nowhere until the very end where it SUDDENLY all comes together. But because of the nature of binge watching and considering how Netflix wants to desperately keep their subscriptions in fear of intimidating competition, they make these shows 12 episodes long with HALF HOUR OR MORE amount of filler content that’s supposed to satisfy us cause it’s “cute”?! No, stop this shit! Granted, Castlevania wasn’t nearly AS bad as the live action shows, but honestly, what exactly was shown to us that couldn’t have been reduced to like 5 solidly paced episodes focused on one or two plot lines ONLY like before? It worked perfectly back then, why change what ain’t broke?

As much as I don’t like the immediate rush of Trevor and Syph’s out of nowhere sexual relationship, I didn’t overall mind it too much since they still somewhat felt consistent. Their characteristics play off very nicely with one another and it’s pretty easy to see the chemistry between the two....HOWEVER I’M STILL GONNA COMPLAIN ABOUT IT SO HERE WE GO!

I get that they were setting them up as an endgame ship of the series, there’s no denying that, but they start fucking for what feels like (to the audience) two days after and I think that’s a bit ridiculous! Even if Alucard states that it’s been at the very least a month worth of time since the events of Season 2, there’s no real physical signs showing that statement to be true. Hell, Trevor’s beard and hair remains the same despite a HUGE passage of time where it would naturally grow out to indicate said time passing by. But both him, Syph, Alucard, and damn near everyone else looks the exact same as last season. So for all I know it could have been like a week since Season 2 and that to me doesn’t feel exactly earned. The Season 2 finale didn’t explicitly leave off Trevor and Syph officially a couple, they felt more like partners in crime more than anything else. Not to say that there wasn’t any chemistry there to develope INTO a relationship GRADUALLY, but going from a little spark of interest to the immediate jump of them sleeping together naked all comfortably as if they’re a goddamn married couple is a STRETCH! Even Trevor himself thinks so too so don’t jump down my throat about not being immediately swooned by the shipping fanservice given to us. I don’t dislike them as a couple at all, in fact I think their dynamic is cute! However, I would have also liked to have this couple feel natural and earned. They most certainly do not feel earned this way, at least to me.

Oh god, then there’s this out of nowhere sexual tension between Alucard and his new two recruits from another region hinted at in the previous season? Mind you, Alucard was doing literally NOTHING throughout the entirety of Season 3. Yep, literally the ONE DUDE WHO BASICALLY KILLED DRACULA gets about fuck all story progression afterwards out of the three. But what they DO give him are these two new vampire hunting student’s who look identical to one another (no racial they just literally look like fraternal twins) so I assumed they were either siblings or a couple, which makes it REALLY WEIRD WHEN THEY BOTH FUCK ALUCARD OUT OF NOWHERE?! I’m NOT making this shit up I promise! What makes even less sense is that it was really just a ploy for them to steal the Belmont knowledge of killing vampires to show to their people who have been enslaved. Which of course ends with them being killed so it really makes this entire conflict in his character damn near pointless besides “sad vibes check”, but here’s the thing...why didn’t they just keep doing training with Alucard?? There were virtually no downsides to having him teach you how to kill Vampires to save your village from being enslaved, he was teaching you both very well and gave you like the eternal knowledge of how to kill literally EVERY MONSTER and even let you live in the castle FOR FREE, food and wine included! What was the turning point for them to want to kill him all of the sudden? Cause he’s a vampire?? THEY FUCKING KNEW THAT ALREADY!!! Why was is suddenly not a problem at first but then coincidentally a problem now? If they wanted to use this to somehow depict this notion of “Oh my dad/Dracula was right humans are the worst” mindset, trust me, it was better conveyed with Isaac. These twins side plot not only made no sense, but also felt unjustified for Alucard to be an emo boi. I get that it’s supposed to be symbolic of him going through the same issues that both of his parents went through, but none of that really showed how bad human’s are. Just that those two twins didn’t think things through apparently. So the point of Alucard having this odd character convenience shift feels by the numbers cliché, and most importantly CHEAP.

It really makes no sense to me why they’re adding so much of this filler for such a long time, especially with some of this filler being oddly sexual. I don’t mind honest depiction of sex between consenting adults of course, but it just felt so misplaced and awkward at parts where it showed itself. I felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfic of Castlevania instead of the actual show itself! Granted, Season 2 had somewhat of a similar dilemma but the lull in between was still showing the character specifically doing things to further the story along. Towards the end, it gave us a way more satisfactory closure of that saga with Dracula that felt natural and well earned. This season however, felt like they were scrambling with different ideas here and there and didn’t know which to go with. Alucard training new recruits in his castle, Trevor and Syph figuring out an estranged (and BORING/GENERIC) cult of Dracula’s plan, Camilla setting up an army with her fellow sisterhood of evil vampires to gain ultimate power, Hector surviving captivity by using his wit and charm, Isaac raising up the dead for revenge on his deceased master, a new character introducing an all new world to the lore of Castlevania as we know it, all of these interesting concepts and ideas that could easily make up for a good season alone! And instead of focusing on one or two ideas to develope into something natural, they ended up saying “FUCK IT! Fucking I dunno what to- WE’RE DOING ALL OF IT I DUNNO!” and mixed the whole thing in a blender of different flavors that don’t necessarily blend together well enough for a tasty satisfactory meal. It just ends up being a mesh of okay at best, and gross at worst.

IN CONCLUSION, Castlevania Season 3 had a rocky start, an okay middle, and a kind of cool end. There was definitely some cool and exciting ideas implemented in here, but not enough to warrant that lengthy amount of time that Netflix seems to love to give to most of their TV shows. Sometimes less is more, and all that shiny cool glitter isn’t necessarily going to turn out to be gold. I’ll give this season a 5/10. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen but it certainly could’ve been a lot better.

P.S. “Who Do Ya Voodoo” from Dead Island is Isaac’s new theme song, you can’t convince me otherwise.

[ephemeral-afterlight]

Day 8: Stab Wound

(But hold on a little while longer.)

Whumptober 2019 Day 8: Stab Wound

Word Count: 2054

Relationships: familial Creativitwins, platonic/familial dlamptr

Warnings: Stab wound (obviously), other minor injuries, blood, minor dissociation, lots and lots of cursing

A/N: yes, i know this is late! it’s only by 30 minutes though D: hopefully my characterization of the trash man is alright! this was fun to write hehe

Well. That wasn’t a very fun camping trip!

Remus has always been one for surprise. He likes the excitement, the variety, the fun! It’s healthy to keep a little bit of spice in your life. He’s not afraid to live by this sort of motto, because life is about the little things. Although, he isn’t sure that getting stabbed in the middle of the woods at three a.m. necessarily counts as little, but he’ll take what he can get.

So sue him! Maybe he likes to have a little fun sometimes. Routine is boring! Fuck patterns! Fuck authority! Cause anarchy!

And, uh, yeah. He’s pretty chill with living on the edge like that. But maybe… maybe just a bit further from the edge? He means, like, the edge of harmful societal expectations and complacency, or whatever dumb shit Dee and Lo-Lo rant about to each other at one in the morning. Remus loves his roommates, and would totally rip out a bitch’s spine for them, but they’re fucking nerds. Speak ENGLISH.

Yeah, the edge of “normal”. Not the edge of death.

He’s not gonna die out here, no siree. If he believes he’s immortal strongly enough, he will be. That’s what Barbie movies teach you, right? In any case, even though he refuses to die, getting stabbed hurts like a motherfucker, and it doesn’t help that it’s also storming. He just wanted a nice, fun camping trip, but nooo, some shitty-ass god out there decided “Oh! Time to turn Remus into a shitty cliche horror movie protagonist!”. Why can’t he be the antagonist? Or… wait, what’s the one in the middle of the two? The side character? He wants to be the one guy who is in the midst of all the action with the protag, but seemingly dies halfway through the movie, and then comes back at the end to be like, ”Haha, surprise, bitch! I’m not dead!”.

Huh. Maybe he shouldn’t make all of his life choices based on movie stereotypes.

Anyway, he wishes that at the very least it’d stop fucking raining, because it makes it seriously hard to crawl through the underbrush while slipping in mud and falling flat on his face every two seconds. The stab wound is painful, sure, but as long as he can keep pressure on it and not lose too much blood before he gets to the main road, he should be fine. But having to deal with the downpour hindering his movement and blinding most of his senses sucks ass. How the hell is he supposed to utilize his tracking skills and make sure he’s going the right way without being able to see, hear, or smell a single goddamn thing? He might like making other people wet, but that doesn’t mean he likes being wet himself.

So, he thinks he’s going the right direction. Trying to escape a batshit crazy murderer in the middle of the woods doesn’t leave you a lot of time to casually sit down at a table with a cup of tea and pull out your faded, burnt treasure map, but if he had a table and a cup of tea and a partially burnt map, he would totally do that. Maybe the killer would be so confused, he’d have time to run away.

The thought causes Remus to bark out a laugh into the white noise of the storm, which is a VBI (Very Bad Idea), because it goes straight to his stomach. The pain that radiates out from the wound is like, actually excruciating, hahaha! But... Remus is supposed to be the one who actually survives to the end. He-- he has to be. Who else is gonna fill Roman’s socks with wet concrete?

Oh, Roman. His brother would probably be crying like a little bitch if he were here. Now he’d be the protagonist, the one who’d make so many stupid decisions and somehow come out of it alive anyway. He’s like those teenage girls in horror movies who make you scream at the screen “Don’t go in the dark scary basement, you fucking idiot!” but for some reason, never have a single repercussion for any of their terrible choices. (Remus would be the one who would sacrifice himself for the main character near the end of the movie at the dramatic climax, but Roman can never know that.)

Maybe he wishes Roman was here so that he didn’t have to crawl all this way on his own, but whatever. His brother would probably be too busy whining about his ruined hair to help much, anyway. Not-- Not that Remus needs help! He is having a blast slipping and sliding through the sticks and mud and bushes, thank you very much!

“C’mon out, dude! Don’t draw out the inevitable!” a voice echoes from the trees, a yell that’s far too familiar for Remus’ liking. God, can this guy just give it up already? Go find some other helpless damsel to terrorize! He does not wanna try Remus right now. This may all be fun and games, but Remus is starting to get pissed off, and he is unafraid to take out the stress on this crazy dumbfuck.

Somehow, Remus is able to hear the guy’s footsteps come closer through the sound of the rain splashing all around him, and he speeds up. Probably better to just avoid the guy. Although Remus’d totally win in a fight, the dude does have a knife, and Remus would really prefer to not get stabbed a second time. There’s a drop ahead, a place where it looks like the floor disappears, so Remus shuffles over to it and peers over. It’s a small cliff, with maybe fifteen or so feet to the bottom, and Remus curses under his breath. Fuck, he’s gonna have to do it, isn’t he? And now that he’s looking, he can just barely make out some headlights flit through the trees and disappear, so he knows that he’s close to the main road.

With a grimace, Remus steels himself, then slides off the edge feet-first, trying to use his shoes as a brace against the incline. Of course, because his life fucking sucks, he somehow manages to hit a rock embedded in the side in the wrong crevice, and it pitches him forward off the wall to tumble to the ground below. He smacks into the wet dirt, is just barely able to bite his tongue hard enough to stop the scream from ripping from his throat, and he lands at the bottom harshly. 

His stomach is on fire. It fucking hurts, feels like he’s being stabbed all over again a thousand times over. Bruises are definitely going to start forming all over his body from that fall, and coupled with the fact that his leg hit the ground at a weird angle, walking is going to be even worse than before. Fuck! Why can’t he just catch a fucking break?!

Remus pants hard, trying to work himself up to resuming his trek, when he hears his attacker’s voice calling out from above again. It sounds like he’s coming to the edge, so Remus just swallows hard and scoots himself over through the agonizing aches in his body to lay flat against the cliff wall. He just has to hope the dude doesn’t see him. He can’t really see very well through the storm, but Remus thinks he sees the guy look over the edge. Silence is key, and that’s pretty damn hard considering the absolute torture that is his wounds, but he has to. To survive.

He can’t die today.

And then the guy’s yelling for him again, and his voice is getting further away, and Remus waits in the mud until he can’t hear his footsteps anymore. Vigour and adrenaline now fully renewed, Remus bolts into the trees again, crawl morphing into a crouched run when he’s finally in cover. He clutches at his stomach to try to lessen the pain, which of course doesn’t help, but maybe it’ll keep some blood inside of him or something. Probably not best to bleed out right before he can get help. That’d be a shitty movie ending, if he’s being honest. Absolutely uncreative and unsatisfying. -11/10. 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Is Remus delirious right now?

Despite all that, the sight of the road through a break in the trees is like a blissful breath of fresh air, a shining light of hope in the darkness. He’ll get to see Roman again, and prank Patton with bugs, and absolutely destroy Virge at video games, and listen to Dee and Lo-Lo’s stupid philosophy talks, and give his adoptive uncle Thomas a heart attack every time he does something stupid, and holy fuck maybe Remus is dying because when did he become sentimental? Ew.

A car finally comes along right as Remus manages to drag himself up onto the shoulder, and he waves frantically from where he’s kneeled on the ground in an effort to flag it down. Thank fuck, the car actually slows to a stop, and the window rolls down almost immediately. The face that pokes out is cute, and innocent-looking, and Remus prays to a god he doesn’t believe in that this person will actually help.

“Oh, jeez, are you okay? Why are you out on the road like this? Is-- Is that blood?!” the driver asks, horrified, and Remus tries to stumble closer. He doesn’t know what he looks like right now, but it’s probably horrifying, and he wouldn’t really blame this stranger if he drove away immediately. Maybe Remus will become like those ghost stories, the spooky legends about ghost hitchhikers. Ooh, maybe he’ll become a local cryptid! They can tell stories about him, and sell merch with his face on it, and he’ll be famous, and he can rub all of his sweet, sweet royalties in Roman’s face.

“Got-- I got stabbed. Crazy fucker got me while I was asleep. Help,” Remus manages to force out through his grit teeth, voice hoarse under the weight of the pain he’s in, and the driver looks extremely worried. For whose well-being, Remus has no clue.

“Alright, I’m taking you to the hospital. I couldn’t live with a guilty conscience if I left you out here. I’m Emile, by the way-- please don’t murder me, okay?” the stranger, Emile, says, and Remus chokes out a laugh despite himself. Emile gets out of his car and rushes through the drizzle without any hesitation, and Remus can already see that this is a genuinely good person. Anyone else would leave him here to die. He knows that. Even he’d leave himself here. But here this guy is, the kindest anyone has ever been to Remus, and it makes him wonder if he’ll still be as nice when he realizes that Remus’ personality is awful and the polar opposite of good and kind. (He knows he’ll never be good enough. He knows. He’s heard it enough, and he doesn’t need to be told again.)

“Not g’nna murder you. I can’t-- can’t even walk on my own, so,” Remus mumbles once he’s sure Emile is close enough to hear, and the latter just clicks his tongue with hands that frantically wave all around as if they don’t know where to go. Luckily enough for Remus, Emile pulls himself together quickly, slings an arm underneath his shoulder to help support his weight, and they limp back to the guy’s car together. As they do, Remus realizes the rain has stopped outright, and, well, isn’t that poetic?

Once he’s inside, dripping all over this stranger’s seats (okay, maybe he feels a little bad about that. When he’s a famous cryptid, he can pay for Emile to get his upholstery fixed), Remus starts to fade in and out. Not like the dying kind of “fading”, because he knows from multiple personal experiences what dying feels like, but more like he’s losing time as an effect of a literal stab wound. Oh, what did Lo-Lo call it? Desecrating? Dissipating? No, dissociating. Yeah, that’s the bitch. Yeah. Yeah...

He gets flashes now and again. Streetlamps outside, a tall building, hands underneath him, bright lights, rapid conversation. It smells like an E.R. It feels like home. He’s not gonna die today. Not yet.

[sweetsmellosuccess]

The Sátántangó Experience

How exactly does one prepare to watch a 7.5 hour film? A bit like what you might do in preparation for major surgery: Pack a bag of necessities (in this case, water and protein bars), kiss your loved ones goodbye, and try to make peace with your god. Or, maybe less dramatically, treat it as you would a long train journey, one that takes you through some harrowing terrain on half a rutted track before depositing you to your eventual destination.

Of course, this sort of conception of time is entirely relative: If you have to drive somewhere that takes half an hour, it feels unduly long; but if the trip were normally three hours long, and you somehow found a shortcut that would cut the time down to 30 minutes, you would be flying on dulcet wings for that amount of time, and think you were blessed by angels. In other words, spending an entire standard work day watching one film might seem excessive, but it all has to do with your expectations.

In my case, I was at Philadelphia’s newly renovated Lightbox Theater at the University of the Arts to take in Béla Tarr’s magnum opus Sátántangó, all glorious 450 minutes, in a new 4K restoration (it’s currently playing at select theaters across the country). Armed with my snack survival kit, and safe in the knowledge that we would get intermissions at roughly 2.5 hour intervals, I settled in to watch what has been described as a masterpiece in cinephile circles, and currently resides at number 36 in the most recent Sight & Sound critics’ poll.

Tarr’s beyond-bleak film is broken up into 12 segments, each having to do with a failing farmer’s cooperative in Hungary during the last throes of communism in the late ‘80s. Each section has its own feel and perspective  —  some of them are more lighthearted, others are desolate beyond measure  —  but all expertly shot in low-contrast black and white (by Gábor Medvigy), which renders the people and landscape in various tones of drudgery grey.

It originally opened in America as part of the 1994 New York film festival, at a time when Hungary was undergoing a transformation from Communism to shaky democratic capitalism, so it served as a kind of epigraph to the era, a showcase, as it were, as to the imperfections of a political system built on a promise of human egalitarianism that proved to be depressingly difficult to put into practice.

The landscape makes up a lot of Tarr’s vision, the flat, moody farmland upon which the collective has been toiling, and the unceasing rain and wind that constantly pelts the characters as they venture outside for one business or another. As the film opens, the collective  —  made up of three couples; a curious “doctor” (Peter Berling), who spends his time spying on the others, making copious notes in his stacks of file folders, and daily drinking his considerable body weight in Palinka (Hungarian plum brandy); and the cagey Futaki (Miklos Szekely B.), who has to walk with a cane from an unspecified accident, but seems a bit more shrewd than the others  —  is anxiously awaiting their annual wages, which come all at once and is meant to get divvied up amongst the members equally.

Early on, there are various halfcocked plans from individuals to try and steal the small fortune for themselves, reflected in much idle talk about meeting that evening and decamping for parts unknown, but that ultimately come to nothing. However, when word reaches the group that the mysterious Irimiás (Mihály Vig, also the film’s composer) is, in fact, not dead as they had been told, but alive, and returning to the collective he started, the group dynamic is thrown akimbo, with various members fretting for their future, and, one, the owner of the local bar (Zoltán Kamondi), furious at the thought his business will be taken from him. 

Just why they respond like this remains vague. In ensuing segments, we see Irimiás, along with his associate, Petrina (Dr. Putyi Horvath), navigating through a police interview  —  where the local Captain informs them they will be working for him now in ways unspecified  —  though it appears the collective had very actively planned on not having to include their former leader (and his right-hand man) in their financial arrangements. As for the non-collective characters, including the aforementioned barkeep, and various prostitutes sitting idly around, the collective is virtually their only business, such as it is, so they, too, await this potential flood of cash eagerly.

As the segments begin to collect, they also begin to fold upon themselves: Scenes that we see from one vantage point in an earlier segment are revisited later on, from the perspective of a different character, enabling a thrilling moment of realization that the stream of time we’re following has breaks, jumps, and hiccoughs throughout. Never more poignantly than a moment with a young girl peering into a window of the bar  —  one of the only lit buildings in the otherwise dismally dark countryside  —  watching the adults inside drunkenly dancing and cavorting.

About that girl. Easily the most emotional moment of the film involves her, but not first without the audience paying a heavy price, depending on your empathy for other creatures. Before the film screened, during its introduction, we were made aware that there was a scene of animal cruelty involving a cat somewhere in the proceedings. The sympathetic presenter, himself a cat lover, suggested looking away for parts of that segment, though a friend of mine in attendance who had seen it before assured me looking away wasn’t really an option. Fortunately, he also told me that the cat in question wasn’t actually hurt, and was still alive at the time of a 2012 interview with Tarr.

Needless to say, my worry about this poor cat dominated my experience in the early going: Every time I saw a feline in the background of a scene, I worried that it was coming up, such that it was almost a relief when it finally happened. The situation is this: Estike (Erica Bók), the young daughter of one of the local prostitutes, caught up in her world of half-fantasies after being sent out of their apartment by her working mother, holes up in an attic with a grey tabby. At first, she pets and cuddles him, but eventually, she desires to control him, bend the cat to her will. To the cat’s increasing discomfort and fury, she grabs him by the front paws and rolls around with him, all the while muttering how she alone can determine its fate. Looping up the poor fellow in a net bag and hanging it from a post, she goes downstairs to mix a batch of milk with some rat poison powder and force feeds him until he dies (though in actuality merely tranquilized).

Wandering around the farm that night with the stiffened body of the cat tucked under her arm (a prosthetic, the director assures us), Estike runs into the doctor, shuffling outside to refill his giant jug of brandy, shortly after peering through the window of the bar. Eventually, she lies down amongst the deserted crumble of a bomb-blasted church and takes the poison herself.

As gruesome as the segment becomes, its haunting evocations permeate the rest of the film (though not immediately: in a jarring juxtaposition, the very next segment takes us back to the bar, where everyone is still dancing wildly about to a loopy accordion refrain —  only towards the end of this extended scene do we see the face of the soon-to-be-dead Estike peering inside). Eventually, Irimiás does indeed return, in time to give a moving eulogy for Estike, while at the same time transitioning the group towards his next vision, a new farm some distance away where he assures them they can finally live freely and thrive. All he needs to achieve this goal for them is the money they just received from their previous year’s efforts.

With nowhere else to go, and no other plan on the horizon, the members of the collective dutifully deposit their wages on the table in front of their leader. He sends them out to pack their things so that they may meet with him in a couple of days at the new farm he’s selected.

Gathering their miserable belongings, the group reassemble and trudge down the muddy road on foot, as the rain pelts down on them without ceasing. Distressingly, the members don’t have any proper rain coats  —  in an earlier soliloquy in the bar, Kráner (János Derszi) laments that his leather coat is so old and stiff he has to bend it in order to sit down  —  so they wear their woolen winter coats, which do little to keep them from getting soaked in the heavy fall rains.

As they make their way to this new destination, it’s clear that Irimiás is up to something. Most obviously, he could make off with their wages and move on, but it turns out his scheme is less direct than just taking their hard-earned money for himself.

Towards the second half, Tarr’s penchant for long, elegantly composed shots gives gradually away to more adventurous camerawork, including a single steadicam shot in the woods that’s like something out of a Sam Raimi film. There are extensive elliptical shots with the camera spinning slowly on an axis, this particular effect never more effective than when after the group arrives at their new farm, yet another dilapidated series of box-like concrete buildings. Once they dump their belongings and lie on the floor of the unheated, broken-windowed main house, trying to sleep, our narrator makes one of his occasional VO appearances to describe in intimate detail the dreams each character is having.

It’s a shot that could have served as an excellent final salvo, one would imagine. Indeed, by the last hour of this opus, time and again, Tarr arrives at what might be considered a conclusive moment  —  in this, the confusion is aided by his particular style: It turns out many films end on a superbly composed, static long shot  —  only to keep the narrative flowing, circling back, eventually to the original farm, where the doctor, having just returned from a stint in a hospital, begins to narrate, again, the original opening lines. Such is the perfection in this device (the segment is titled “The Circle Closes”) that once you finally arrive there, it’s clear there could be no other ending that would have sufficed.

When finally the film ended, it was later in the evening. I met up with my compatriots also in attendance, and the three of us ventured back out into the city, heading to a bar where we could nurse a beer and attempt to articulate the tangled mass of feelings and impressions of the previous nine hours. In one of the very few bars in the city that still allows smoking, appropriately enough, we debated about the film in an atmosphere swirling with the poisonous fumes of an earlier era. It seemed hopeless, but still necessary, somehow; like bidding farewell to someone already in a coma.

[moonlightmadnessreviews]

Child’s Play (2019): Chucky Come Lately, The New Kid in Town

We’re coming up on a month since the release of Orion Pictures’ Child’s Play remake. In the lead up to the polarizing release, there were two very different teams drawn up: you were either Team Good Guy, or Team Buddi. If you were the former, it was thought you were an elitist, unable to see past your love for the original and too closed minded to admit you were even a little curious as to how the new movie would turn out. If you wore the latter team’s jersey, you were part of what is wrong with horror today, ready to gobble up corporate studio schlock even if it means trampling all over the original. At a time when a remake is announced every other week, I want to discuss why it’s okay to root for the home town hero, while also being curious about what the rookie has to offer.

Child’s Play was originally released in 1988, having been written and directed by Tom Holland from a story by Don Mancini, produced by David Kirschner and distributed by MGM. The film was a hit, drawing enough at the box office to spawn six sequels, and the cult following was immediately under the spell of the pint sized, Voodoo practicing antagonist, Charles Lee Ray. I recently turned 30, and it wasn’t until I was in my early teens that I realized the original trilogy was called Child’s Play and not Chucky, as I’d always referred to the movies. Brad Dourif plays Chicago serial killer Charles Lee Ray, The Lakeshore Strangler. After he’s chased into a toy store and fatally wounded by Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), Chucky transfers his soul into the body of a Good Guy Doll. The rest of the movie follows Chucky and the first person he reveals his identity to, a six year old boy named Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), as Chucky murders his way through babysitters, old accomplices and Voodoo mentors! All the while, Chucky preys on Andy’s innocence, telling him they’re “Friends til the end!” simply to make it easier for him to transfer his soul into Andy’s body.

This set up was, and still is, perfect! For much of the movie, Chucky is a stoic rubber doll, resembling one of the Cabbage Patch Dolls that were so popular in the 1980s. It’s clear to see how excited Andy is when he gets the doll as a birthday present, and you feel genuine fear for the kid knowing there’s the soul of a serial killer trapped inside his new best friend! I would give anything to travel back in time to sit in the theater on opening night and experience the moment Chucky finally reveals his true nature to Andy’s Mom! What may seem silly to us now must have made for an awesome group experience in that theater, especially considering the amazing animatronics and Dourif’s fantastic voice over work, his animalistic aggression striking fear into children for years after.

For all the praise we can give Chucky and the lore his movies built up, they did become somewhat formulaic, but Chucky and pals had solidified themselves in the minds and memories of millions. It’s easy to see why fans were hesitant, and confused, when the remake was announced. Some went as far as to write off the movie completely before even hearing what the changes would be. Well, as it turns out, the changes were pretty drastic, in part due to the legal issues of having a remake separate from the Mancini Chucky universe, soon to make a place for itself as a spin off TV show on the SyFy channel.

Child’s Play 2019 has brought Chucky and Andy into the era of asking someone for their WiFi password as soon as you walk through their door. The film is directed by Lars Klevberg (Polaroid) from a screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith (Kung Fury 2) and produced by David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith (IT, Chapter 1 and 2). In our post-Stranger Things world, Andy, played here by Gabriel Bateman (Lights Out), is no longer a six year old child but rather a young teen having trouble fitting in and making friends in his new neighborhood. His mom, Karen Barclay (Aubrey Plaza), is still a single mother working in retail, but the doll she brings home for Andy’s birthday is incredibly different due to the exclusion of one incredibly important character: Charles Lee Ray. Gone is the Voodoo. Gone is the Lakeshore Strangler. Gone is the voice! The new direction is daring to say the least.

In this version, Chucky is a WiFi capable, Cloud connected Buddi doll. As part of their use as an educational tool for children, Buddi dolls learn from their Best Buddies, picking up on their sense of humor, social cues and behaviors. Eventually Buddi could help you keep track of your calendar and even control climate setting in your home. Seems pretty cool, right? Well it would be, except Andy’s Buddi doll was hacked by a disgruntled factory worker who does away with Chucky’s limiters for language, violence, and seemingly even his free will.

What I feel works especially well in the new take is Chucky’s innocence at the start of the movie. A Buddi doll’s only mission is to imprint on their new owner and be the best friend this child could ever ask for. We get scenes of Andy and Chucky playing chess, hanging out, and even looking through scrap books of Andy’s art. Chucky takes a genuine interest in Andy and simply wants to be his Best Buddy, so when Andy is scratched by his mother’s cat, we get the first glimpses into Chucky’s unlocked potential for violence. He wants to punish anyone, or anything, that wishes Andy harm. Chucky hasn’t just imprinted, he is frighteningly obsessed.

One of my favorite scenes plays out as Andy, and his friends Falyn and Pugg (Beatrice Kitsos and Ty Consiglio, respectively) are watching a particularly brutal horror movie. I was genuinely giddy in the theater when the clips started to flash on screen, so I won’t spoil it here. This is where we see Chucky’s gears start to turn. Much like a child who may pick up on violent behavior they’re exposed to, Chucky sees Andy and his friends laughing at the outlandish violence on screen and decides to “entertain” them with a butcher knife.

Through out the course of the 90 minute run time, we see Andy struggling with how to control Chucky, now having gotten the wrong impression of violence and feeling rejected by his Best Buddy. The stakes are raised as Chucky becomes increasingly violent, seeking to please Andy at every turn only to make things worse, like a genie who twists their master’s words, making them sorry for not being more careful with their wishes. Come the third act, we can start to see hints of Chucky’s own fully formed personality, now having been twisted and deranged by the movies events.

This movie was more fun than I anticipated, and it even got my wife’s stamp of approval after I dragged her to the theater with me on opening night! Rather than try to be some incredibly bleak, super realistic take on the story, Child’s Play knew exactly what it was and went all out with the ridiculous concept. The movie’s R rating was also used to its full potential, and though most of the scares are pretty telegraphed, they shower you with so much blood and gore that you can’t help but laugh. Andy’s group of friends, though not nearly as charismatic or fun to watch as the cast of Stranger Things or 2017’s IT, really helped to give the movie some much needed warmth and heart. Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta), who played this movie’s Detective Norris, also gave a great performance, balancing comedy and that detective bravado just right.

The standouts though were Gabriel Bateman and this movie’s Chucky, none other than Mark Hamill (Star Wars and The Joker in Batman The Animated Series, I mean DUH!). Bateman gave a great performance as Andy, carrying a lot of the movie’s emotion, and Hamill helped give this Chucky his own voice. The third act culmination of Chucky’s deranged personality would not have been nearly as effective if not for Hamill’s amazing voice over work. This is not to say though that the movie was perfect. Aubrey Plaza was bland as Karen Barclay, giving every line that classic, so-edgy-it-hurts, Plaza sarcasm. It works on Parks and Rec and even the movie Safety Not Guaranteed, but it feels so out of place here. Thankfully, Bateman was there to sell most of their scenes together, or I would not have been able to buy into their relationship as mother and son, much less care about their survival. In addition to Plaza, there were a lot of jokes in the first and second act that simply didn’t land. The lines fell flat and hardly got more than a chuckle from most of the audience I was with. I’m sure they were after the wit and timing of the young ensemble cast of IT, but that came from time and intensive work building off screen relationships within that cast. Some jerky editing also made the movie feel like it would have benefited from an extra 15 or 20 minutes, leading to certain scenes that were meant to be emotional being brushed over and rushed.

Lastly, let’s address the elephant in the room: Chucky’s redesign. The very first reaction I heard as Chucky’s face flashed on screen was “Ew, what the fu-“. I want to give the effects team credit for sticking to mostly animatronic work once again, but Chucky’s face was simply horrendous. I’d like to think this was intentional, perhaps they wanted to play up the Uncanny Valley effect as much as possible, but I can’t see myself or any other fans saying the design won us over, no matter how fun the movie was.

Did Child’s Play 2019 have to be a Child’s Play movie? No, not at all. In fact, they could have called it “Alexa Gone Wild.” and it would have held much of the same effect. With that being said though, I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because of their new take. It impressed me just enough to leave me thinking “Wow, that was really fun!” I love the original Child’s Play, and Brad Dourif is quite honestly irreplaceable, but the film makers saw the challenge they had with this new version, knew the audience they had to try and win over and they swung for the fences. I may not be able to convince everyone to give this movie a shot, and I’m fine with that, but I think the most important thing to remember is this: If you’re going to update one of my favorite toys, my “Friend til The End”, then make sure the new version keeps me entertained til the end, friend.

Rating: 3.5 Full Moons out of 5 🌕🌕🌕🌗

[mobpsycho100]

dumbasses: “it was just a fight for 10 eps straight”

the actual narrative that was being presented throughout the entire fight:

it started with luffy going into the mirror world and smashing it so katakuri couldnt come out of it. what this did was impressed katakuri for the first time when he sees luffy determination to protect his crew (most of the fight was about gaining respect for luffy so this is important to keep in mind). luffy came into this situation where he knew he wouldnt be getting out easy just to save his crew. despite being clearly outclassed luffy chooses to go fight and this is the first thing he did that earned his respect. they fight some and what oda is tryna show at this part of the fight is that katakuri is better than luffy in every single way. no matter what attack luffy did, katakuri mirrored it and returned it but way stronger. their powers are the same (rubber / mochi) and the fight itself is set up in a mirror world because katakuri is a mirror / parallel to luffy. this initial part was to also showcase that luffy couldnt attack katakuri no matter what he did and set that mystery up. this was also set up for showing katakuri was a huge badass and a super powerful guy. and we learn the first part of his back story through the side characters expositing about how since the day he was born katakuri just sat up and fell asleep and has never laid his back to the ground ever in his entire life. its goofy and hilarious as hell but theres a deeper message to it that we find out about later on.

so katakuri uses a big attack after beating luffy down in basically every single way and just flattens him with this mountain of mochi because he became irritated at how luffy wouldnt stay down and kept getting back up after every single attack. we didnt know why he was so annoyed at this point in the story but we later find out that katakuri was frustrated cause he couldnt understand why luffy was okay with getting back up after being beat so much cause in his eyes, being beaten so badly is shameful and that you should be ashamed to show weakness. because of his annoyance towards luffy and the fact that he was late to his merienda time, he didnt check to make sure luffy was fully dead before leaving and going to make a house of mochi so he could eat donuts sinfully while laying on the ground.

then the biggest event in this entire fight happens. luffy survives the big attack and breaks the mochi house and sees katakuri's indulging in his donut private time and learns his biggest secret, which he kept hidden even from his family for the past probably 30 years. he sees katakuri with his scarf off and sees his huge fucked up mouth (which he was made fun of by almost everyone even his own family, growing up) open laying on the ground and eating donuts. this is the second thing luffy does to gain katakuri’s respect. luffy demonstrates he does not give a shit about katakuri’s appearance or what he does and is cool with it all and doesnt make fun of him UNLIKE most people katakuri knows would do. this was also establishing a strong parallel between them and sanji / pudding. so katakuri is mad as hell, that he immediately kills the bystanders who also saw his face and saw katakuri laying on the ground. he covers up his face (because he is still ashamed) and starts fighting luffy again but this time he’s angry as hell. and even tho luffy saw him clearly on his back he doesnt allow any of luffy attacks that land on him to get his back to the ground. because katakuri became flustered over being seen in such a vulnerable position by luffy he’s sloppy but regardless as the fight goes on its still clear katakuri is clearly stronger in every single way and luffy still cant do much to him.

until luffy learns why exactly he wasnt able to hurt katakuri. this is the third thing luffy does to gain katakuri’s respect. he lands the first solid blow on katakuri shortly after that and we learn that its been so long katakuri cant even remember the last time he was hurt like that. luffy presented himself to katakuri as a challenge, which katakuri had not had in many many years. but at this point luffy wasted alot of stamina and had to run out of the mirror world and leave katakuri there. those 10 minutes he was gone to catch his breath, it showed luffy in one of his rarest moments actually thinking about how exactly to defeat katakuri. it works because luffy doesnt really ever have to fight that hard to defeat his opponents usually.

and then the final thing luffy did to gain katakuri’s respect was return back to the mirror world despite the fact that he could have escaped and hid somewhere else. instead he came back for another round proving he can win and get stronger. at this point in the fight both katakuri and luffy know that katakuri is stronger than luffy in every concievable way so katakuri admires luffys courage to return and earnestly try to beat him rather than just disappear off. so the fight resumes and luffy continues to improve on his new technique but katakuri is still stronger.

and then the other big event of this fight happens. katakuri’s sister whom we learnt was president of the katakuri fanclub got a shot on luffy with some sort of  poison dart and katakuri doesnt notice and manages to land a huge shot on him and tear his stomach open while luffy is temporarily disorientated. because of all this build up throughout the arc with katakuri slowly gaining respect for luffy, he is understandably very pissed. because she dared laugh at luffy, somebody who was so strong and had earned his respect in so many ways. katakuri as a sign of ultimate respect towards luffy, spears himself with the same trident he used on luffy. and then he rips off his scarf that he used to hide his mouth and promptly told her to not interfere in a fight between real men. he speared himself to be on equal terms with luffy physically, and he ripped off his scard to be on equal terms with luffy who was being mocked and laughed at by his sister and her cronies. his sister flambe screams in surprise at how hideous he looks but then starts to make fun of his appearance soon afterwards but katakuri was so moved by luffys actions he doesnt care anymore that he revealed his 30+ year secret. he also removes his jacket at this point which has “charlotte” printed on the back which was a metaphor for showing that he’s not fighting for his pirate crew / family anymore. he’s fighting as himself against luffy.

which is FINALLY when they both start to actually go all out against each other, katakuri is still winning but not as overwhelmingly anymore as luffy masters his new technique more and more but katakuri still doesnt allow himself to fall on his back and thats when they both land a big blow and knock each other out which is when the fight ends and for the first time katakuri delibrately falls on his back to show his utmost respect towards luffy.

later on we find out a few chapter after the fight ends that katakuri didnt used to care about who made fun of him when he was younger because he was strong enough to take anybody on, but when some cowards went after his sister instead of him and manage to hurt her, thats what propelled him to hide his face in the first place and put on this persona of being the ultimate badass who never let his back touch the ground and never allowed himself to look weak ever. it didnt matter to him what people said about him or did to him, what truly hurt him deeply was that people were going after his family instead of coming to him. 

this entire arc / fight wasnt about him being a complete badass. it was actually us see him being pressured to become the most perfect big brother but as a result he ended up hiding too many parts of himself away to keep up his act. this is why he thinks falling down is shameful and doesnt allow his back to touch the ground in front of other people because being perfect is how he was able to be so strong and loved by his siblings too. but seeing luffy constantly not only get back up after falling down constantly throughout the fight but not make fun of him and accept him as he is and respect his strength too made him realise that falling down is okay as long as you get back up. that its okay to not be perfect. this is the final puzzle piece put into place for this fight so we could finally see the full picture.

this entire narrative was woven in throughout this entire fight with everything being revealed bit by bit as it all went down. none of this information was spoon fed in one go and then they proceeded to punch each other for 10 episodes straight. it was written with a lot of subtlety and care so things might not have seemed clear enough if you didnt pay enough attention but every little moment added a new layer and it kept building upon itself and revealing new information to the very last moment and then revealing a little extra more in the aftermath so our understanding of the fight was changing all throughout it. the characters we see at the beginning of the fight went through significant changes and come out as different people by the end of it.

[ganglylimbs]

Endgame Review

!Spoilers for Endgame! Also, I'm going to try to put this under a read more. If it doesn't work, I apologize for the long post.

I'll be honest, I did not expect to come out of Endgame liking it as much as I did.

Don't get me wrong. I expected to like the movie. I'm a slut for action movies, in fact my favorite type of movie is action-comedy, and Marvel has always pulled that off very well.

[[More]]

But with some of the spoilers I saw (Nat and Tony's death, Steve returning to the past, some things the directors have said that I'll get to), I expected for this review to be a lot more salty.

I mean, as a fair warning, I still don't like any of the things I mentioned above. I hate that Natasha died (hate it for the fact that until this movie, they never treated her like a character. And only do so now because they need to make her death sad). I hate that Tony finally got his family and was killed for it. I said before the movie even came out that I hate the thought of Steve returning to the past permanently.

But. They weren't as horrible as I thought they were going to be. (I did cry like a baby for both Natasha and Tony though.) And the way they did Steve, well I still hate it (for me, it feels too much like him giving up, abandoning his friends) but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and does give an end to Captain America.

So. The movie was a lot of fun, I liked the action scene. I really, really loved the big action scene at the end with everyone coming together to stand against Thanos' army. But you know why I actually came away liking the movie overall?

It's because, besides the first 30 minutes where Tony yells at Steve, this movie was about them being a team. This movie was about them being friends.

You have Tony and Nebula playing table football, where I suspect Tony let's Nebula win. Nebula pushing the last of the food towards Tony. Nebula setting Tony up as he's dying. Nebula and Rocket traveling the planet as they help Nat keep Earth safe.

Rhodey checking on Nat. Nat and Steve's friendship has always been great ("I'd offer to make you dinner but you look miserable already.") Nat bringing Clint back.

Scott is a delight with everyone and treats them all as friends. That scene when they all come together and Rhodey scares him. Then Rhodey and Scott arguing against Bruce and Nebula about the rules of time travel (and Scott's "You mean Back To The Future lied to me?" is amazing).

Rocket and Bruce bringing Thor back. Bruce telling Thor that he's here because Thor was the one to bring him back. Bruce, Tony, and Nat's brainstorming session about where the stones might be. Tony and Steve reconciling and even joking around with each other. Tony and Scott complimenting Steve's ass. That trust scene between Steve and Tony.

Basically, this was all I wanted from the past three Avenger movies. Them being more than a team. Them being friends. And it was so nice, to watch them work together on screen like that.

It's just sad that MCU decided they could only do that at the end. Because imagine if we got this in another movie? Where everyone survives and they beat the bad guy? How good of a movie that would have been.

Of course, that would involve them to actually follow through with friendships and romances which MCU is fucking terrible at. Look at Bruce/Natasha, who have no conclusion. They don't speak about the ending to AoU. Ever. Just a couple glances and Bruce being upset at her death. But they don't follow through with it. At least have a discussion about the events of AoU, even if the audience doesn't like it, dammit! Follow through on your ideas so they have a satisfying ending!

Or Steve/Sharon, who is never spoken of again. Like, she just never existed. Or Wanda/Vision, a couple that doesn't really have any buildup but I would actually be ok with. Except for the fact that Wanda barely mentions Vision in Endgame.

Look at the friendships. Steve and Tony have this great friendship in any other Marvel thing ever. And yet they are never friends in MCU, no matter how many times they try to imply that they are.

Bucky and Steve barely talk in Infinity War and Endgame, which is weird considering Steve destroyed Shield, the Avengers, and betrayed Tony for the guy. And then at the end, Bucky doesn't even talk to old Steve!

With Sam and Steve, my problem stems more from what the Russo brothers supposedly said. (I'm going to spend the next few minutes bitching about the supposed things they said. I am saying "supposed" because this is all second hand stuff I have seen). So, "supposedly" the Russo brothers said that the reason Steve returned to the past was because he didn't trust anyone in the future. Which makes no fucking sense considering his last moments in the future has him talking with Sam. Sam, who is practically begging Steve to stay with him. Sam, who cries at seeing Old Steve and getting the shield.

And so this begins my problems with the Russo brothers. All the memes about them becoming JK Rowling is true. Because again, I didn't like the thought of Steve staying back in the past but I still thought it was done well. Why do you have to explain it? Why not let the fans talk and discuss and theorize? Because any explanation (especially a stupid ass explanation like that) will just let people down.

Like the thing about since Natasha is a shadow, she wouldn't want a funeral. The thing is, Tony's funeral wasn't a big public thing. It was friends gathered around to send off another friend. While not make it a Natasha and Tony funeral, then? They both sacrificed themselves for the world. They both deserve that respect.

What makes it worse is that they could have so, so easily put it in there. If they just wanted the ending to be about Tony, ok, there's another scene right after she dies that could have been perfect. The group was already gathered around. Tony asked about if she had any family.  Steve says they were her family. There, right there, is a good time to have a mini funeral. Just...say a few words, remember your friend.

Have a funeral for her.

It's just...the Russos keep trying to explain things and talk about why they make certain decisions and it ends up all being bad.

Anyways. So here's a list of Good and Bad things I liked/hate about Endgame

Good

Nebula. Just Nebula in general. She has quickly become my favorite character. But I thought it was especially great that it was Nebula who pulls Gamora from the dark side this time. And it's a cinematic masterpiece that future Nebula kills past Nebula for Gamora, symbolizing Nebula letting go of the past.

The fact that Nebula and Thor are now official Guardians is amazing and I can't wait to see them in Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Also, more Peter and Thor interactions!

Gamora not being revived but being brought back from the past. I just think there is a lot of angst potential there, the Guardians having to deal with a just turned from evil Gamora. Also, we hopefully get to see the actual progression of Gamora's and Quill's relationship this time.

The best joke was hands down the America's ass bit. Every single thing about it, from Tony starting it till Steve commenting on his own ass, was amazing.

Steve vs Steve fight and Steve being exasperated by his own catch phrase. I loved it.

The Time Heist. Man, as someone who usually doesn't like time travel stories, the whole Time Heist plot was great. It kind of made me want to see what would have happened if the entire past! team saw Future! team and tried to stop them from taking the space stone, though.

Again, everyone bantering with each other! Being friends! Fuck yeah, for friendship!

Thor's talk with his mother. I know there are some problems with fat! Thor, but I thought that the fact that he got so excited about being still worthy was great.

Bad

Huce. Or whatever the Bruce/Hulk combination is called. Not that I hate that they combined, but that they didn't explain it. When the Russos' talked about the problems Hulk and Bruce had in Infinity War and why Hulk wouldn't come out, that Hulk was upset with Bruce because he felt like he was being used, I was excited to see how that would play out in Endgame. I wanted Bruce to talk about it! Or go on a journey to figure himself out. Except they didn't do that. They just breezed over it. They didn't explore that at all. How disappointing.

I have a few minor problems with the characterization of Tony in the beginning. Mainly that throughout the MCU, one of the few constant things they had was that Tony couldn't stop fighting. He couldn't stop being Iron Man, he couldn't stop thinking of the future and how to save it. So you're telling me, suddenly he doesn't want to fight anymore? I mean, it's not even that he turned the team down at first when they asked for his help figuring out time travel, because I can buy him being scared. It's that he doesn't change his mind till he sees the picture of Peter (I get that the whole thing they were going for is that everyone has a personal stake in this, but again, this is Tony, who has been trying to protect Earth long before Peter came around). And it's especially the fact that even figuring out time travel, he offers to hide it. To forget it and live in a post-snap world. What makes it more startlingly is you have those two bits of crap characterization contrasted with him still creating suits, for both Pepper and him. Again, this is a man they have made clear can't stop being Iron Man, can't stop trying to protect people, and suddenly he wouldn't immediately try to change back time to get everyone back? It just bugs me a bit.

Which leads me to an overall universe problem I have. I'm sorry, but I don't like Pepper/Tony in MCU and Endgame kind of brought that to the forefront. Because I suspect that they had Tony offer to throw away the chance to get everyone back specifically so they could have Pepper tell him to be a superhero. I get that it's supposed to be Pepper finally giving him permission to be who he is, but that's my problem. I just don't think it's a good relationship when one partner wants the other to change so drastically or change such a fundamental part of themselves. Tony Stark is Iron Man. That, again, is something they hammered into everyone. No matter how much it cost him, no matter how much it put his life in danger, no matter how much Pepper begged him not to, Tony could not stop being Iron Man. So yeah, I just didn't like their relationship that much.

Tony dying. Specifically, the fact that the one character that is constantly plagued with PTSD is only allowed to rest when he dies. And that he gets the family he so wanted, he gets the friends he so wanted, and he never gets to enjoy this. This wouldn't be such a problem if it also wasn't for the fact that the Russo brothers have also supposedly said that Bucky couldn't be a superhero because of his past and because of his mental problems. So yeah. If that part is true, then I don't really trust their stance on mental health and I can totally see them thinking that dying is a fitting ending for someone with PTSD.

Overall, I would absolutely watch Endgame again, if just to get those friendship feelings again.  It's sad that this is an end to an era, that we will probably never see the original 6 again, but I do hope that when Marvel needs to milk that cash cow again and re-do the Avengers, they actually have them be a family this time.

[satoshi-mochida]

Samurai Shodown will launch worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June, followed by Switch in Q4 2019 and PC at a later date, publisher Athlon Games and developer SNK announced. It will feature Japanese voice-overs and support English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Pan-American Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese subtitle language options.

The Unreal Engine 4-powered fighting game is a reboot of the classic series set between the events of Samurai Showdown V and the original game. It will feature 16 total fighters, including 13 returning characters and three brand new characters. Additional characters will be released via post-launch downloadable content.

Here is the official fact sheet:

About

After more than a decade, Samurai Shodown is back! SNK is rebooting one of its most successful series, carrying on the legacy of past titles with a new game that retains the same thrilling battles of past titles in a graphically advanced package. Samurai Shodown’s gameplay is driven by the tense atmosphere of being one strike away from death, and the exhilaration of defeating an opponent with overwhelming power and attacks. Taking place between the events of the original game and Samurai Shodown V, the new game carries on the legacy of the one true weapon-based fighter.

Key Features

Exhilarating Weapons-Based Combat – Samurai Shodown carries on the legacy of the tense battles the series is known for, where players are always one strike away from death, and one powerful attack away from victory.

Evolving the Presentation – Using the power of Unreal Engine 4, SNK is able to modernize the unique atmosphere and setting of past titles in a gorgeously artistic package that achieves a detail and graphical quality like never before.

Unique Cast of Returning and New Warriors – Samurai Shodown welcomes back iconic characters from past iterations, including the swordsman Haohmaru, his rivals Ukyo and Genjuro, the shrine maiden Nakoruru, and fan-favorite Galford. The starting roster will include a total of 16 characters—13 veterans and three newcomers to the franchise.

All New Gameplay – Carrying on some of the key fighting mechanics that made the series popular, such as the Rage Gauge, Rage Explosion, Sword Clash and more, Samurai Shodown will also include several new techniques, including a powerful, one-time use attack from each character called the Super Special Move.

Revolutionary New AI System – Titled Dojo Mode, SNK has developed a proprietary AI system that learns from player patterns and creates a specific Ghost clone from that data. With this system, players can fight against their own Ghost or take on the Ghosts of top players in mock battles.

The public will be able to go hands-on with the game for the first time at PAX East 2019, which runs from March 28 to 31 at the Boston Convention Center. SNK will also host a panel, “Samurai Shodown: Resurrecting a Legend” on March 30 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. ET featuring producer Yasuyuki Oda, director Nobuyuki Kuroki, original Samurai Shodown director Yasushi Adachi, and several other staff members from SNK.

Get a new trailer and 44 minutes of Gematsu-recorded gameplay footage below, as well as our preview of the game and interview with producer Yasuyuki Oda, director Nobuyuki Kuroki, and game designer Joshua Weatherford.

PAX East 2019 Trailer

44 Minutes of PlayStation 4 Pro Gameplay

Navigation

0:20 – Story Mode Introduction: Galford

2:04 – Story Mode Battle: Galford vs. Earthquake

4:49 – Story Mode Battle: Galford vs. Haohmaru

8:05 – Story Mode Introduction: Haohmaru

9:48 – Story Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Galford

12:09 – Story Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Genjuro

17:02 – Story Mode Introduction: Nakoruru

18:52 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Jubei

21:27 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Jubei (Rematch)

24:35 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Earthquake

29:13 – Battle Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Genjuro

32:42 – Battle Mode Battle: Earthquake vs. Charlotte

36:42 – Battle Mode Battle: Genjuro vs. Jubei

41:39 – Battle Mode Battle: Galford vs. Charlotte

Preview

I played about an hour or so of the new Samurai Shodown and it felt good—really good. I have stated this in the past, but I am not big on fighting games. I am generally not good at them and tend to only play for fun with friends. That being said, I went into playing Samurai Shodown without really caring much about it. But after some hands-on time with the weapons-based fighter, I am actually kind of hyped?

Samurai Shodown is being treated as a reboot to the long-running series. Story-wise, it is set in 1787, after the events of Samurai Shodown V in 1786 and before the events of the original Samurai Shodown in 1789. While the Kansei reforms have been enacted by the newly appointed Matsudaira Sadanobu, a mysterious dark force is looming on the horizon, prompting the warriors of Samurai Shodown to gather and set out on individual journeys and fight for their own beliefs. Each character character has a different story.

The game has a roster of 16 characters, 13 of which are returning from previous games. They are Charlotte, Earthquake, Galford, Genjuro, Hanzo, Haohmaru, Jubei, Kyoshiro, Nakoruru, Shiki, Tam Tam, Ukyo, and Yoshitora. The other three are completely new characters who have yet to be announced. I played as a few characters during my session, including Galford, Haohmaru, Nakoruru, and Jubei. As for stages, the stage selection screen appears to offer 13 total options.

Playing round after round of Samurai Shodown, I learned that no two characters are alike and that a single strike has a ton of pull, as one hit can deal massive damage and significantly turn the tide of battle. The game is built atop various mechanics, starting with the “Rage Gauge,” which fills up the more you are hit. When the Rage Gauge is filled entirely, your attack power increases, special moves become stronger, and you can use a “Weapon Flipping Technique” to disarm your opponent. You can also deplete the entire gauge to activate a once-per-match “Rage Explosion,” which enables the use of a “Lightning Blade” attack in which the character leaps forward and uses a quick strike that deals heavy damage. Each character also has a “Super Special” attack that, like Rage Explosion, can only be used once per match. Each Super Special plays out a character-specific scene that reflects their personality or style. Nakoruru’s, for example, captures her resolution to protect Mother Nature while also illustrating her displeasure of fighting. The commands to activate these techniques are simple and the same across every character, which means that there is no need to memorize complicated commands for different fighters. Finally, there are also “Sword Clashes,” which occur when two attacks perfectly clash, prompting you to mash the attack buttons to retain your weapon and send the opponent’s weapon flying.

I picked up on the game’s systems quite fast as I played, and even went toe-to-two with producer Yasuyuki Oda. (Though, I think he went easy on me.) The systems are incredibly easy to grasp, but the real challenge comes in utilizing them correctly while timing your strikes and preventing your opponent from dealing significant damage. It felt like there is quite a lot of strategy involved, and it is something that I found myself wanting to learn and master. Playing as Galford, I got the upper hand on Oda in our first match as he was so used to Galford’s behavior when playing against game designer Joshua Weatherford that he did not expect me to react in certain ways. (Or at least that is what I was told. I still just think he went easy on me!)

In terms of game modes, Samurai Shodown offers the classic Story Mode, an offline Battle Mode (which in itself includes modes such as Survival), an Online mode to compete against players across the world, a Practice mode (which includes Tutorial and Training modes), a Gallery Mode to view player-unlocked movies, artwork, and background music, and a new Dojo Mode in which you can upload and fight against your own “ghost data” or the download and fight against the ghost data of other players.

Dojo Mode is an entirely new asynchronous online mode, which according to SNK utilizes “deep learning technology” to have the game’s artificial intelligence learn from your techniques and habits during offline mode gameplay to create a “ghost AI” character that both you and other players can fight against online. An “Ironman Challenge” mode in which players can try to fight 100 ghosts in succession is also being implemented. SNK even has a patent pending for Dojo Mode. Unfortunately, SNK is not saying more about Dojo Mode for the time being, one of the reasons being that the mode is essentially built off player data, which the team does not currently have.

Visually, Samurai Shodown is an eyeful. From graphics to menus, everything is decorated in a traditional Japanese aesthetic—as is appropriate for its Edo period setting. That setting and visual design make the fighter stand out as something truly unique from the rest of the crowd.

Samurai Shodown is by no means the most well-known name in fighting games, but with the release of this spectacular-looking reboot and its participation as a main title in the upcoming Evo 2019 tournament, I really hope that it gets more recognition. I really want to pick this one up and learn its ins and outs.

Interview

This is the first new Samurai Shodown game in over a decade—the last new one being Samurai Shodown Sen for Xbox 360 and arcade in 2008. What was now the time for something new?

Nobuyuki Kuroki, Director: “There are various reasons, one being that when I was at SNK back in the day, I always wanted to work on Samurai Shodown more and more. I did a little bit of work on the Samurai Shodown 64 series. But there’s also just the fact that there has been a major focus on eSports recently, and I feel like this game in particular is very unique and will stand out on the eSports scene. And in general it’s just an iconic series for SNK, and we’ve had a lot of fan requests from the community to bring it back.”

Speaking of eSports, I think it’s safe to say a lot of people didn’t expect Samurai Shodown to be a main title for Evo 2019 in August. With the game due out in June, are you worried there won’t be enough time for players to learn how to play at a sufficient level?

Yasuki Oda, Producer: “I’m a little worried. (Laughs.) I’m a little bit worried that it might not be the top-level play that you’d see. But I also think that the system in general is just so simple and easy to pick up that people will jump right into it. And you might see a lot of people come out of nowhere that haven’t been on the scene before, who resonate with this game that’s so different from other games, and make a new entrance.”

Joshua Weatherford, Game Designer: “I personally think that the systems are not just simple, but also difficult to master. So it’s that perfect balance for me in game design. One thing that we like to point out is that we were very careful to stay as close to the roots as possible for some of this stuff. So you know a lot of times whenever you see modern fighting games, they’ll change the move sets around, cut some of them out—almost none of that happened here. We kept everything in—we just tuned it a little bit to be more balanced for modern fighting games—but there’s very few cases where you have a character that’s lost half of there moves or something like that. So people who know Samurai Shodown from the past, who know a specific character—they’re going to be able to jump right in, in my opinion.”

Moving on to characters, The King of Fighters XIV had a very generous starting roster of 50 or so fighters, compared to the 16-character roster of Samurai Shodown. Do you feel like that might be too little?

Weatherford: “Not really.”

Oda: “We’re not really worried about that honestly, because The King of Fighters is a team-based fighting game—three-versus-three, so you need a full team of three characters. So in my opinion, when you take one-third of that roster, you get about the amount in this game, so it works. Also, there’s not really a single clone character—that’s always been one of the things about Samurai Shodown. Even Hanzo and Galford, two ninjas that should play alike, play nothing alike. A couple of motions might be similar, but very few characters are actually similar to other characters. So all of them really stand on their own.”

And you guys aren’t showing the three original characters right now, but can you give us a hint?

Athlon Games representative: “No! We’re not answering that. (Laughs.)”

Hey, get out of the room! (Laughs.)

Weatherford: “They’re really cool, that’s all I’ll say. All three of them are really cool.”

Woo, big giveaway there. (Laughs.) Anyway, while we’re still talking about characters, given the rising popularity of guest characters, is there a possibility that we’ll see fighters from other franchises appear in Samurai Shodown?

Oda: “Yeah, we’re definitely interested, especially in finding a character that really fits this kind of gameplay.”

Say there were no restrictions on which guest character you could include, who would you choose to add to the roster?

Kuroki: “Oh man, that’s hard… Luke Skywalker.”

Oda: “(Pulls up an image of a Mobile Suit from the Gundam franchise on his phone.)”

Weatherford: “For me, I’d want TOEI Spider-Man. I love Spider-Man and I want something that’d fit this, so there’s actually a tokusatsu Spider-Man—like old school, giant robots—made back in the ’70s… None of these could ever actually be in because of licensing issues. (Laughs.)”

Oda: “If I’m thinking about swordplay, I’d like to put in Aragon from The Lord of the Rings.”

How do you plan to draw in beginners or players who don’t normally play fighting games?

Kuroki: “I think it really just comes from the basic fighting system of the game. Single strikes are so useful and damaging that you could win even if you land a lucky strike against a high level player.”

I think that’s what I did against Oda-san…

Oda: “(Laughs.) Well, we also made sure that all the super moves are the same inputs for each character. So as long as you know one character, you can easily jump into another character. Which is very different from say, The King of Fighters. That’s very difficult to keep up with everyone’s supers.”

Well, that about wraps up our time. Thank you for speaking to me! I wish you a successful public debut at PAX East 2019!