#coincidentally I also just re-read three parts dead

[sixth-light]

I have been re-reading Martha Wells' Books of the Raksura for comfort reasons and with the perspective of another half-decade since I first read them, may I present a proposition: these books are to Stargate Atlantis as Shards of Honor in the Vorkosigan series is to Star Trek, to wit, it's nothing like as simple or boring as "filed off serial number fanfic" but the underlying vibes are very, very real

[thetypedwriter]

Cold Iron Heart Book Review

Cold Iron Heart by Melissa Marr Book Review 

I don’t think many people are aware or have read the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr, but that’s alright. I originally started this book blog as I had so many thoughts and feelings about the books I was reading and yet no one to share them with. 

So I might be talking to me, myself and I in this book review, but at the end of the day, it’s still a way for me to express how I feel about the literature I’m consuming even if no one else is reading this. 

Wicked Lovely is one of my favorite series from when I was young. I still remember very clearly how my love story with these books started as it was odd and coincidental. I was at the grocery store with my mom and a promised “quick” trip quickly turned into an hour-long shopping spree as my mother was prone to do. 

Back then I was in middle school, had no cell phone, and was bored out of my mind. So what is any pre-teen to do? I went over to the small, sad book selection in the grocery story and picked up the novel with the most interesting cover. 

This book was Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. 

I read it the rest of the day and finished it that night, consuming page after page. I was completely transfixed. It was dark, gritty, violent, sexy-all things that my twelve-year old self found entirely fascinating. 

It was a fantasy book about fairies, but these fairies were deadly, life-sized, cruel, violent, beautiful and loving. 

I’ve been enamored with fairies and fairy lore ever since. All because of this book and the series that followed. It hooked me in ways that I still don’t fully comprehend, but I understood then that I hadn’t read anything like it before and I was drawn into Melissa Marr’s world and never quite left it, even all these years later. I’ve gone back and re-read Wicked Lovely multiple times and each time I still found it enjoyable and alluring. 

Cold Iron Heart is a different beast. 

A few days ago, my best friend (who is a journalist) sent me an email saying that local Arizona author, Melissa Marr, was releasing a new book and that she might have the opportunity to interview her. 

I was ecstatic, of course, and not so subtly tried to persuade my friend to let me silently snoop in on the interview (I didn’t, by the way). 

It was then that I realized I hadn’t checked in on Melissa Marr for some time-what had she been writing? Imagine my surprise that one of my favorite series of all time not only had a new book-a prequel no less, but also several new short stories. 

I was flabbergasted. And beyond excited. 

So I ordered the book immediately and read it the moment it arrived on my doorstep to eventually find myself with...mixed feelings with a negative tinge. Okay, more than a tinge, more like a cascading waterfall of negative feelings. 

First off, the book is a prequel. 

Now. Melissa Marr could have done so many cool things with this. There are so many interesting characters that I would have loved to see more in depth or delve into their histories. 

Like Miach and Beira, for example. I’ve heard about the late Summer King since book 1, but never got to read about him as he was dead before the series began. However, his legendary love with Beira, the Winter Queen, would have been so incredibly bewitching to read about it, especially if it involved the birth of Keenan. 

This would have been an awesome choice. 

Irial and Niall would have been another incredible one, probably the best one. We’ve been told over and over again throughout the series that these two hot-heads with a past used to run the Dark Court together, wreaking havoc, taking lovers, seeking new heights, etc. 

But do we get to see this transfixing time? Nope. 

I would even have settled for a story about the Hunt, Sorcha and Bannanach, literally any character done in the right way. 

But...no. Melissa Marr decides to write a prequel that is literally a carbon copy of the first book Wicked Lovely, but innumerably worse. 

Everything in the prequel is exactly the same as the original novels. Miach is dead, Keenan is looking for his Summer Queen, the Winter Girl is pissed off for not being the chosen love of Keenan’s, Irial is temptation in the flesh, Niall and Irial are at odds, Bananach is causing discord, Sorcha is isolated and frigid, the list goes on and on. 

Nothing of consequence, novelty, or importance happens in this book. 

Frankly, it just felt like a terrible redo of the first novel, just set 100 years back. 

I didn’t give a single flying crap about Thelma or Tam or whatever her name was. She was a worse version of Leslie, of Aislinn, of every other cool female character we eventually get to read about in the main series. 

Thelma was contradictory in the worst of ways. She said one thing, like she would rely on no man and never have children and then turned around and did every single one of them like some sort of hypocrite galore. 

She was so irritating and boring to read about that I tended to skim her parts because it was just paragraph after paragraph of bitching and moaning about the same goddamn things over and over again: stay away from fairies, oh god this fairy likes me, no sex, no children, no love and then bam! She just throws it all away. 

Urgh. 

The worst part too is that this isn’t a well written book. It’s repetitive, quite boring at times, and caters way too much to the reader. 

Something I loved about the first Wicked Lovely is that Melissa Marr kinda just tosses you into her world and calls it a day. She doesn’t hold your hand or over explain. She just describes and lets you glean for yourself. 

I loved this aspect of the original series. I liked learning about her world and the characters this way. 

Cold Iron Heart spits on the idea of this concept. Marr repeats herself so much about the same things, who Irial is, what fairies are, why this is happening, that I grew increasingly irritated as the book went on. 

Who on earth is she explaining this for? New readers? Why in the world would any new reader start with this book? The newest one that comes after six others???? It makes no goddamn sense. 

So not only did I feel patronized and aggravated, but the love story between Thelma and Irial grated on me as there was no basis for their love. 

It was ridiculous with no shred of authenticity and I hated it, especially knowing that he already loves Niall and Leslie only to come back and say, “wait a moment! I had another true love that I’ve never mentioned before. Yeah. Her name was Thelma. Or Tam. Or whatever, I don’t know. I knew her for three days, most of which was just sex, and then I lost her after she had my baby but I conveniently forgot about it because of nonsensical plot! Hahahah, good right?”

No. Not good. Horrible. 

Overall, this book is a waste of time and trees. 

I don’t know why Melissa Marr even wrote and published this. I can see her writing this for herself because why not, but as a fan and a reader this was beyond disappointing. 

It’s like how all Harry Potter fans felt when J.K. Rowling wrote The Cursed Child and we got movies about Newt Scamander when we literally wanted anything else-Marauder series anyone??

It’s a particular kind of egregious offense when a favorite series or author of yours ends up ruining the canon you’re in love with. For that reason alone, I am stripping Cold Iron Heart from my heart and mind, like it never existed. 

Just like I did with Cursed Child, or the fact that you-know-who dies in Death Note (if you know, you know). I just...don’t believe it. It ruined all the lovely things Marr had previously written and the stories that defined so much of my love for YA, for fantasy, and for my own writing as a whole. 

I know for a lot of you this was a bumbling mess of a review with little to no clarity of the plot or who these characters are. Frankly, I’d be surprised if you are still reading if you didn’t know the book or the series in the first place, but that’s alright. 

Like I said at the beginning, this is a way to get my intense feelings and thoughts down onto paper and now that I have I feel marginally better, although still pissed off that this book exists and that I currently own it. 

Sigh. 

Well if you stuck around for the ride, I appreciate it. If you skipped this particular book review, I understand that too. 

Recommendation: Burn this book. However, if you want a gritty, tantalizing fantasy story, pick up the original Wicked Lovely and be whisked away into a world that has stuck with me since the first moment I read it on the fateful day at the grocery store. 

Score: 3/10

[nettlestonenell]

Part Two: 

Ardent Human Desire vs. Fate and the Manpasikjeok OR Why Are There So Many Obstacles Between Lee Gon and Jeong Tae-Eul’s Ultimate Reunion?

If you haven’t, please go back and read Part One: Questions About the Flute OR User Manual, Manpasikjeok Edition

Let’s agree to a few things to start, here.

1.       In a parallel universe, everyone has a counterpart/doppelganger.

2.       In TKEM’s version of this, your counterpart/doppelganger shares not only your birthday and therefore your age, but also your exact genealogy—which is to say you have the same parents, grandparents, bloodline across each universe. In TKEM this means you will have the same family name (Jo, Lee, Jeong, Myeong) across all possible universes, though your first names will change depending on your iteration. This also means that you are fated to be with the same family/lover/spouse across all possible universes. This is pre-appointed and applies to everyone. *exception: as the worlds begin to show their cracks, Jo Yeong’s parents have divorced, while Jo Eun-Sup’s stayed together, and have had twins. (The finale, when the worlds are again harmonized, reunites Jo Yeong’s parents and they do have twins, which seems to signal that this was their proper Fate)

3.       Episode 16, the series finale, seems to really muddy the waters of #2 in a way that I probably lean toward being sloppy consistency rather than deliberate revoking of world-building absolutes [Example: Jo Yeong’s parents are together in 2022 and have twins, but those children would be several years younger than their Republic counterparts (who are said to be starting Kindergarten at that same time), which is…not parallel universes in balance? It would signal exactly the opposite—that time and life flows entirely differently in each universe after repairing the flute…and 1:1 doppelgangers are no more--which is maybe yet another post needed to ponder that on…]

If we take on #2, we are left asking ourselves about three particular characters and their doppelgangers: Lee Gon/Lee Ji-Hyun, Jeong Tae-Eul/Luna, and Kang Sin-Jae/Kang Hyeon-Min

Across all universes, how are they fated to hook-up? OR Who is Jeong Tae-Eul’s true, fated love across all universes in the mind and will of Manpasikjeok?

Is it Jeong Tae-Eul/Luna, and Kang Sin-Jae?

For example, if Shin-Jae of the Kingdom is fated for Luna, and vice versa, and he’s been taken to the Republic (against the will of the flute), he can’t be with Luna. BUT, if that is the fate, that those two are to be together--especially to have a child--then it translates across all parallel worlds, and means that Jeong Tae-Eul is meant for Kang Hyeon-Min, yes? The two Republic-based iterations. This also would illuminate two other things:

1.       The fact that Sin-Jae "has feelings for” Tae-Eul. She’s not the “right” iteration for him (he’s Kingdom and she’s Republic), but she’s the closest he can get to the satisfaction of his heart, in a frustrated Fate.

2.      It could be suggested -- Did you ever notice that the youth embodiment of the flute appears at least twice in situations that throw KSJ and JTE even closer together? In one, he’s leading that group of high schoolers past the TaeKwonDo center where KSJ first sees Tae-Eul, and in another he’s bullying KSJ so that JTE fights for KSJ. It doesn’t seem coincidental to me that the flute makes an appearance trying to throw these two together—even though they’re the wrong match. Poor thing, it’s trying, in its broken state, to still do its job, to still steer fate.

3.       But yet, Tae-Eul never--even long before meeting Lee Gon--has romantic feelings for Sin-Jae.

4.       And what we’re shown in the final episode of the series between Sin-Jae and Luna in the Kingdom could at best be called pre-romantic. (and more likely be termed platonic) Their relationship mirrors the JTE/KSJ relationship in the Republic, of her hyung-nim well before Lee Gon appeared, before KSJ expressed that he had feelings for her.

Is it Jeong Tae-Eul and Kang Hyeon-Min?

If it’s meant to be JTE and Kang Hyeon-Min as a fated couple, that’s impossible, as KHM has been rendered comatose in a way that we’re not shown is related to either the Traitor or the Treason. We are shown in Episode 16 what was “supposed” to happen was that he would NOT be struck by the car—his original fate doesn’t hold, there, and as such, his character in 2022, now a chaebol, is removed entirely from JTE’s circle of acquaintance. I’d say, importantly, in the Episode 16 re-set (pre-LG’s return), she not only never looks him up, she never encounters him, which if he were her fate or her potential fate, she surely would have.

Is it Jeong Tae-Eul and Lee Ji-Hyun?

I confess this is where my money is. Of course, Lee Ji-Hyun, in the Traitor’s made-over version of the Republic, dies at age 8, so JTE would never have met him, and therefore I posit would have lived as a single, childless woman until her death in that version of the Republic. (Without the LG re-set)

(Had she not met Lee Gon) I believe that JTE and LJH were fated, in the will and agenda of the flute. They are its preferred match.

What about Lee Gon, then? Who for him?

Remember, in Episode 16, Luna gets a found-family re-set, and PM Koo is jailed after some political intrigue (though not having risen as high as PM). While Lee Gon would not likely have met Luna 1.0 the street rat, it’s not impossible to think that he might, at some function or another, have met a politician’s sibling who was college-educated and working as a civil servant.

I choose to believe that all versions of JTE and LG are fated to be lovers and ultimately parents to children. It is only Lee R/Lim’s cockblock that makes it impossible for the Republic’s iteration of JTE to meet Lee Ji-Hyun, dead aged 8. 

Which is where Ardent Human Desire comes into play in altering Fate.

What is Ardent Human Desire when we’re talking about Fate?

Let me direct you to a little moment in a show called Goblin/Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, written by Kim Eun-Suk, the writer of TKEM. 

A moment of set-up: the Grim Reaper has a tea room behind a solid (to living human eyes) wall. In it he entertains dead souls before they leave this world. In one episode, a living human man comes through the door, begging for a bathroom. Both Goblin and Reaper are stunned: no one living should be able to come through that door, much less see it. It’s not their Fate. Fate is unchangeable, right? But after directing the living man (in pain from a need for the toilet), they muse that ardent human desire can perhaps open any door (alter any assigned fate). [Something Goblin is eager to accomplish, subverting fate]

Seeing as it’s from the same author’s mind, I’d argue that that concept comes into play in TKEM, too.

From the Night of the Treason forward, Lee Gon has an ardent human desire to find JTE. Not Luna. No, he wants to meet the woman from the Republic who’s a police officer. That’s 25 years of a (let’s be clear: non-sexual, non-romantic at the time) persistent desire that never lessens, never fades. Furthermore, it’s a desire of the king who’s a potential player of the flute, of the growing child who heard the flute call to him. Of the man who chooses ultimately to retrieve the flute whole at ultimate personal risk (and risk, even, to his relationship with JTE, the object of his Ardent Human Desire).

And the flute tests him—in fact, I will argue with you all night and into the weekend that what we’re shown of him opening every door in the universe is just that: a test by Manpasikjeok. “Are you sure she’s what you really want?” it’s asking him. “How far will you go to find her? How many iterations of her happy can I show you until it lessens your desire for her? Until you give in?”

I think it’s terribly important that in no iteration does LG find a JTE doppelganger that’s in a bad situation, in need of rescuing. [Case in point: Luna 1.0 street rat--he’s allowed to see nothing similar] He expressly tells JTE that she is happy every time he finds a version of her. And yet, because of how fate works in TKEM’s universes, he likewise never finds her married or involved with anyone, or with children—because, as Part One laid out: if one Lee Gon/JTE has children (same birthdays)/hooks up with their fate, then ALL iterations of Lee Gon/JTE have children (same birthdays)/have hooked up with their fate--particularly once the timeline and flute have been repaired.

We know that if those JTEs had met their LG iterations they would have AT LEAST recognized our LG’s face when he presented himself. But they don’t. Nope. She is always employed, always still living in the same building with one, if not two, parents. Because of that we’re never shown that LG has trouble locating her (as JTE did in the Kingdom locating her mother, checking their address, b/c there her parents were both dead).

This shot will never look above-board.

To think about how these/this situation works, keep in mind that last leap during their epilogue dating trips—where LG had just left the Kingdom and they were blipped back there only minutes later. The flute, in its whole form, is clearly controlling where they are sent and when (and perhaps that’s a different post, too, about how the flute is preparing/teaching Lee Gon to be its eventual player). The flute, when whole, controls where you end up. It’s not a transporter where you dial up your destination, it’s spinning a roulette wheel if the roulette wheel is fixed by the House.

Here, in the immediate wake of resetting the night of the Treason, the flute is actively NOT LETTING Lee Gon get to JTE. It is MAKING HIM open every door in the universe, seeing if he will persist, showing him what it wants him to see. (Her happy and at peace, not in need of him.) The flute is trying to see if it can convince Lee Gon to let her go since, as they are from two different worlds, they are not each other’s assigned fate.

Obviously, showing him a JTE in straitened circumstances would only encourage him to find her. That’s not going to lessen his desire, so the flute doesn’t go that route. Instead, it shows JTE with purpose, first (I think) as an airline pilot, then a soldier, a graduate of the police academy, and finally as some version of an ‘Idol’ (I think.) [*All positions that also do a surprisingly good job of showing qualities that would sync well with being the Queen of the Kingdom, so perhaps the flute is a little conflicted about JTE as well…]

And what’s more, during this time, as LG is opening every door in the universe (and also, I assume, only being able to venture into the liminal space and leave the Kingdom occasionally b/c he’s still got King Work to do), the flute decides to put someone directly in bitterly lonely Tae-Eul’s path as well.

And it’s not to break her heart (nor viewers’). 

Think about when she encounters Lee Ji-Hyun on the street. On my original views it seemed to me that he didn’t take any notice of her at all (she is, at her height, well out of his line of sight), but upon closer re-watch he DOES actually have a second of looking at her. It’s not extended eye contact, and maybe not direct eye contact at all, but he does see her. In this, the flute gives Tae-Eul the chance to see her original, pre-LG fated love. And what does it have him dressed in, just for her sake?

That’s right: his military uniform. It’s not the same coat Lee Gon wore when washing rice, that was white—but it’s the black one he and Yeong are wearing in their selfie. “Here he is,” the flute/Fate seems to be saying to her, “he could be yours if you’ll only accept him.”

[*It is also perhaps because Lee Ji-Hyu- iterations are serving his military service that the other JTE-iterations have not met him yet in the other parallel universes]

But the Ardent Human Desire of these two lovers refuses to be swayed, even after a year of separation and total ignorance of each other’s post-reset situations. Persistent. Ardent. Human. Desire.

The flute is indebted to both of them. They each took steps that culminated in a destiny/fate they each chose to embrace (to use Prince Buyeong’s words). They sacrificed their own Ardent Human Desires to fix the timeline and the parallel universes while knowing it might well separate them forever from that which they desire (the exact opposite of villainous Lee R/Lim’s actions). [In fact, making  ultimately Kingly choices, shows of wisdom and worthiness.]

The King Lee Gon chose for not only his subjects, but also the citizens of the Republic, and the future Queen JTE chose to brave the liminal space with Lee R/Lim for her love, the King.

And in the wake of that, fate—and the Manpasikjeok—agreed to bend.

Which is why LG and JTE then become what is fated.

[daleisgreat]

The Avengers: Endgame

Over the last couple months I finally upgraded to somewhat modern TV and gaming rigs in the form of a 55” Samsung 4KTV and Xbox Series X. I own three 4K UHD discs, but one I already covered a couple years back with my entry of the BluRay version that came bundled with the 4K disc of Die Hard. The other is a two pack of the first two John Wick films, and rest assured those will get their day in the sun here eventually. From my research, the Xbox Series X is not a top shelf 4K BluRay player, at least not at the system’s launch before presumable system software updates, but also sounds like a fairly better quality version of the drive that came in the Xbox One X|S, and also supports upscaling of regular BluRays to 4K. Coincidentally, on top of my movie backlog pile was a movie I absolutely wanted to take advantage of that 4K upscaling and thus here we are with today’s write-up for 2019’s The Avengers: Endgame (trailer). WARNING: Unlike nearly most of my other movie recaps I will be diving into serious spoiler territory ahead. The amount of hype leading up to Endgame was insurmountable. Anthony and Joseph Russo did an astounding job directing the first part in 2018’s Infinity War (read my entry for it here). Both that and Endgame top the three hour mark to squeeze in as many characters, references, periphery side plots and so much more from the previous 21 Marvel Cinematic Universe films that lead up to this finale. By accomplishing just that, both movies are the breeziest three hour viewings I have experienced because the Russo brothers do a commendable job at keeping the scenes flowing and doing their best to give everyone their proper time to shine. The ending of Infinity War saw Thanos (Josh Brolin) deliver the snap heard around the world that vanished half of all life in the entire universe. It was a soul-crushing downer of a cliffhanger to end on, but the post-credits tag hinting at the cry of help for Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) left crowds with a glimmer of hope. This being based around comic books there is the unwritten rule where no one truly stays dead either, so part of the experience going into Endgame was to see how the remaining Avengers plan to bring everybody back. Endgame kicks off with the fresh effects of ‘the snap’ when it starts with Hawkeye’s family all getting dusted from him in the middle of a picnic.

The film transitions to the remaining un-dusted Avengers squad of Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Iron Man (Robert Downer Jr.) floating aimlessly in space until the convenient deus ex machina that is Captain Marvel miraculously tracks them down and hauls them back to Earth. A few weeks Avengers HQ tracks down Thanos on an isolated planet and with Captain Marvel’s power, they anticlimactically kill him off in a brief scene. This was one of the parts of the film that did not sit well with me after building up Thanos as this unrivaled threat in all the previous films, and to have the Avengers cold-bloodedly put him down in quick order seems so……unlike them, but he did off half the universe so I understand how the Russo’s felt justified for filming it that way, but I cannot help that it did not come across right, and could have been handled better. Of course, a more proper Thanos battle would be coming later in the final act thanks to my pet peeve plot device that is…. …TIME TRAVEL!!!! This and alternate dimension traveling I despise and have turned me off to many shows over the years like Lost and CW’s DC shows. The worst of it is indeed present here because meaningful character deaths that happened in Infinity War to Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Gamura (Karen Gillan) become undone and their sacrifices proved for naught. All that griping aside however, I will give the Russo brothers credit because even with those qualms I feel they pull off time travel and have it appear as more than a convenient storytelling method. Again, major props because that is a hell of a hurdle to overcome. The filmmakers go out of their way in a couple scenes to directly call out Back to the Future’s style of time travel bullshit, and have a couple characters ever-so-carefully explain in detail and for the laymen how “real” time travel works.

This is all thanks to a rambunctious rat who inadvertently zaps Ant Man (Paul Rudd) out of the Quantum Realm…after being trapped there five years due to his team being on the end of a dusting before bringing him back. Ant Man deduces upon his return that he is able to undo the dusting through his van-quantum-realm-contraption, and convinces the Avengers to conjure up a plan they cleverly dub the “Time Heist” to travel back to capture all the Infinity Gems Stones before Thanos does. I loved how these scenes played out, and there is a plethora of fan service throughout it as the three squads of Avengers jump to different periods like the final battle of the original Avengers film, and a 1970 military base where Howard Stark (John Slattery) unknowingly meets his son. Plans do not proceed swimmingly to say the least, and past timeline Thanos becomes clued in to their plan and thwarts the Avengers attempt at trying to undo the past in a CG showpiece for the ages with his assault on Avengers HQ. The CG fireworks continue to dazzle for the bulk of the final hour of the film with a climatic showdown between Thanos and his forces against The Avengers and the returning of the dusted Marvel characters. I have seen too many comic book films fail at translating over-the-top comic book action on the silver screen, but the Russo brothers always manage to pull it off. I fondly remember the theater crowd going gaga when Captain America (Chris Evans) summons Mjolnir and wallops Thanos with it. The women of Marvel have another moment to shine together where they collectively team up to kick ass. Moments of levity are brilliantly peppered in throughout the chaos for a much-needed chuckle from the nonstop adrenaline-boosting action. That final battle masterfully builds up to the dramatic sacrifice of Iron Man in the standout emotional scene of the film.

The resulting aftermath was heartwarmingly done here with a pre-recorded farewell from Iron Man, and a collage of nearly all the major and minor MCU characters at Iron Man’s funeral. I believe this is the first MCU film without a post-credits tag, and that is 100% fine by me, because the beginning of the credits is a lovingly crafted tribute to the original Avengers cast done in the fashion of the Original Series cast of Star Trek VI that resonated with me feeling the end of a pivotal era of the MCU that I have been largely enjoying since the original 2008 Iron Man. I usually do not dive into this much detail and spoilers when recapping the movies here, but due to this being the final chapter of this era of the MCU films I could not help myself, and believe me there is so much more I wanted to dive in here on because like I said, the Russo brothers crammed in an incredible amount of narrative into three hours. There is so much ground in here it is impossible for me to recap it all, and that it will in all likelihood be the fastest three hour movie you will ever endure. I did not get a chance to even touch on over-the-hill Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and the hybrid Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo (spoiler: they both killed it!)). Endgame unsurprisingly did major bank at the box office, so I feel safe knowing most of you reading this already watched it by now which is another reason I went all out on the spoilers.

I re-watched the film for this entry a second time with commentary from the Russo brothers, and writers Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, and that greatly helped explain some little tidbits that were easy to miss and/or not fully comprehend in the midst of the three hours. I know this is a little detail, but I want to give props to Marvel for being one of the few companies out there for shelling out resources to caption the commentary track! I exponentially appreciate it more than you know! The commentary helped with understanding why they did not do a lot for Black Widow’s (Scarlett Johansson) aftermath of her death because she has her prequel film set to release. Other notable takeaways from the commentary was how Stark’s “I am Iron Man” line was a last minute addition to the film, giving credit to Star Trek VI as inspiration for their credits sequence, being hopeful for Marvel capitalizing on Falcon donning Cap’s shield and lots of understandable love for the visual effects team for their hard work. Aside from the commentary track, the BluRay has a second disc with just under an hour of bonus material. There is the requisite short, but top-of-the-line gag reel that is standard in most Marvel Studios home videos. There are five minutes of deleted scenes worth a look, with some of them lightheartedly covering up plot holes. Remembering Stan Lee is a touching tribute to Stan, filled with archived interviews from him on his experiences in the cameos, and showing plenty of delightful off-camera interactions with the cast and crew. There are well done character profile pieces for Thor, Black Widow, Captain America and Iron Man, with each one having countless cast and crew state proper kudos to what the actors have done for those characters over the years. If you only have time for one then I recommend Man Out of Time: Creating Captain America, because it goes into a little more detail than the others and Chris Evans has some intriguing introspection from his years with the character. Finally, there are short, but worthwhile pieces on the Russo brothers and the women of the MCU that should not be skipped out on either.

As I mentioned above, the hype building up to Endgame was insurmountable, but Joseph and Anthony Russo overcame the odds and delivered a gratifying conclusion to this era of the MCU. Watching the BluRay upscaled in 4K on a TV about a third bigger than my previous set made it a grander experience too for those showpiece moments. Sure I had quibbles and nitpicks I mentioned above, but by and large those are easily overcome by how much the Russo brothers got it right with this film. I am kicking myself for waiting a year and a half to re-watch it, but picked up on a lot of little things that went right over mine and Drax’s heads the first time out. If you have yet to give The Avengers: Endgame another viewing, then do not hesitate because you will not regret once again taking in this landmark epic that delivered against all odds! Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve The Clapper Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Nintendo Quest Not for Resale Payback (Director’s Cut) Pulp Fiction The Punisher (1989) The Ref The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Pilgrim vs the World The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[writers-craft]

The Pit of Love

story i wrote for my creative writing class, not gonna re-read it, just gonna post it here because why not

Judith French looked at herself in the rear-view mirror. She looked a mess. Her eyes were red and puffy, for she had been crying just moments prior, and her mascara was smeared down to her cheeks, but her hair still looked nice. A few strands were poking out here and there, and it was damp from the water, but her bun stayed intact, despite all that occurred. And crying only emphasized the blueness in her eyes. It was like looking into the ocean, Len always told her. Blood was leaking from her leg—the one that met with the glass—and the inside of her once blue dress was now stained with blood while the outside had darkened with mud. Her bare feet, one on top of the other, had specks of the lake’s bottoms stuck to them. Heavens, she looked a mess. Evelyn Johnson would surely have a mouthful to say if she saw Judith’s appearance, or maybe this would be the one thing to make her go silent. Keith once said the woman would die talking.

“Where are we going?” she asked the driver, but it was not the driver who looked at her. It was his passenger, the man with the gun, but he spoke no words.

It was a Tuesday, Judith French knew, when she realized she utterly despised her husband. Leonard French worked as a travelling salesman. And he enjoyed buying and selling so much, he did it during his free time too. He often came home to Stony Point with a completely different vehicle from the one he left with. Upon her crash, Judith French briefly wondered what his reaction might be when he learned his precious Volkswagen Sedan was currently sinking to the bottom of the lake. He wanted to sell it to Thomas Richfield, a neighbor two houses over.

Neither the driver nor his friend seemed eager to speak to her, so she opted to look out the window instead. They were going so fast it was difficult to see anything but the blur of the grass. It had gotten so long and green this past month, due to all the rain. She could see cows, too, which meant they were nearing Maxwell’s farm. Evelyn Johnson tried to convince everyone last Christmas that Rey Maxwell killed his wife, who coincidentally was also named Judith, but the people of Stony Point knew Judith Maxwell had been sick for years. It was her time.

Judith French looked to the man who sat between her and Keith and glanced down at his watch. Out of the three of them, the driver, the man with the gun, and the one beside her, the one beside her was the biggest and the nicest of them all. He had been the one who helped her out of the lake. He noticed she was looking at his watch and twisted his arm to give her a better view. His watch told her it was a quarter till six. Len would be expecting his dinner on the kitchen table, but his dinner was at the bottom of the lake with his precious Volkswagen.

She nodded her thanks to the man and went back to looking out the window. They were about to drive past the covered bridge. That awful covered bridge. It was red, or at least it had been before the paint had chipped off. It was mostly brown now, and really quite broken. Most of the wood had been broken apart, leaving gaps all around the bridge. The gaps had mostly been boarded up, though, except for the ones too high to fall from. The roof had gaps in it too, but Stony Point did not bother repairing the holes on the roof. Evelyn Johnson claimed her father was mugged as a boy, but it was during a time when Indians and bandits ran wild. She told Judith French the story the night they met, then several other times after, but assured her that the bridge was safe now.

The children at Stony Point High School called the pit beneath the bridge the Pit of Love. Teens would spend most weekends hanging out underneath it. Len said he and Patty Lesley kissed several times under the bridge senior year. Patty Lesley was now Patty Brown and she worked as a middle school teacher. He assured his wife they only kissed in the pit, and nothing more.

Three men had recently died in the Pit of Love. The first was a stranger. Like Len, he was a traveling salesman. It happened while it was raining, no one saw him.  They found his car a few miles from the bridge with its gas tank on empty and his keys still in the ignition with a few empty liquor bottles in the passenger’s seat. Keith said he must have lost his footing stumbling drunk and fell through one of the gaps. A young couple visiting the pit found him early the next morning.

It certainly was the topic of discussion for a while in Stony Point. Evelyn Johnson enjoyed talking about it, at least. She said the man committed suicide. She claimed his wife wanted to divorce him and he was so distraught he flung himself off the bridge. But people soon got bored of talking about the dead man. They moved on to the next craze, which was the high school’s undefeated football team.

And then Patrick Walter Mathews Jr., high school senior and football champ, was found dead at the bottom of the pit shortly after. She remembered the day exactly, because she and Keith were at a motel the afternoon the boy’s body was found. It was the day when she accidentally smeared lipstick on Keith’s jacket, and Harriett soon after insisted Keith eat lunch at home.

Keith again labeled the death as an unfortunate accident. The whole town followed the Mathews’ to town hall and demanded they repair the gaps in the bridge. And the next day Rey Maxwell and his boys hammred in thick pieces of wood over all the gaps, the ones they could reach. Evelyn Johnson, of course, praised Rey Maxwell’s actions, claiming she always knew he was a good man, and who would ever think such a man could murder his own wife?

Len had been away when all the chaos occurred, even with the salesman. He said he met the travelling salesman at a conference once. At parties he spoke of him as if it were his brother. Judith French knew his real brother died in Normandy in ’44. He raised his glass to the dead man, and everyone followed suit. For the young football star, he offered his condolences for the boy— “Kid had a damn good arm,” he said to Patrick Walter Mathews Sr.—and then Evelyn Johnson pulled out her bible and said a prayer for both man and boy. Everyone bowed their heads and listened to her prayer, except for Judith French. She looked out the window and watched a little blue car speed pass her home.

“Where are we going?” Judith French repeated her words when they drove over the bridge. They rumbled a bit as the tires hit the wooden bridge surface.

The driver, the boy, glanced briefly at her through the mirror. She saw all of them fully after she escaped the sinking Volkswagen and had made it onto dry land. They were all dressed in nice suits. The driver, the boy, was leaning against his vehicle, shiny, black and long—Len would be able to recognize the type, but Judith French did not bother memorizing vehicle like her husband. He was a boy of about seventeen and small for his age. The man who sat beside him now stood in front of him then like he was his guard. The boy whispered something to him and the man with the gun handed him a cigarette from his inside pocket and lit it for him. The man who was currently seated beside Judith French was beside her; he had helped her reach dry land after the crash.

No one said anything again. Keith attempted to, but the dirty handkerchief around his mouth prevented him from saying anything audible. She took a good look at him. He still had not buttoned his shirt since they last parted, half an hour ago. His white undershirt was now stained with his blood. He was sweaty too. He seemed to have a desperation in his eyes, and she wondered if she would die with him, but more importantly she wondered if she wanted to die with him.

She cleared her throat and turned back to the boy: “You’re quite popular here at Stony Point, you know,” she began. The boy did not look up, but she noticed his ears twitch. She heard Keith mumble something again. “You had us all believing those two men were to blame for their own deaths. I’m astonished, really. None of us ever thought anyone here at Stony Point could murdered.” Keith mumbled something again; she suspected he wanted her stop. “But, then there’s the third man in question. You got sloppy with him, didn’t you?”

The man in the passenger’s seat pulled out his gun and pointed it at her. Keith, at that point, was frantic. The man in between Judith French and Keith had to forcibly hold him down to prevent him from tackling the man with the gun. But the bullet in his stomach soon wore him out and he rested his head on the window and shut his eyes.

The boy chuckled and urged the man to lower his gun. “It’s refreshing to be around someone like you again,” said the boy. It was the first time she had heard him speak. His voice was deeper than she expected it to be, and a lot warmer.

“Someone like me?”

“You know, someone who tries to get to the bottom of things. Someone who cares. Someone good.”

She shook her head. “I’m… I’m not good.”

And he glanced up at her again, lingering a bit longer than last time. His eyes were blue, like hers, but his were lighter.

The third man was found dead in the Pit of Love three weeks ago with a bloodied bullet in his head. Like the salesman, a group of teens found him. She was with Keith when he got the call. Harriett and the boys were at her mothers and Len would not be back until that Tuesday, so they had the weekend to be together. He was not planning on working that night, but Judith urged him to take the call, in case it was Harriett.

She had a strange feeling that Harriett, or Len, would burst through the bedroom door at see them. Keith assured her they were safe, but the presence of Harriett or Len did not scare her; it thrilled her. She wanted them to see. She wanted to get caught.

Keith left quickly, and Judith French did not see him again until the following week. Harriett and the boys delayed their return a week, at Keith’s insistence, and Len arrived home the next day. Evelyn Johnson said there was a serial killer on the loose, and everyone believed her. The police blocked the Pit of Love with yellow tape and had a few officers on guard night and day.

No one knew who the third man was, like the salesman at the beginning. He had no identification on him, nor did his killer leave enough of his face to identify it with, but a woman one town over reported her husband missing shortly after the body was found. She identified the clothing on the corpse to be what she last saw her husband wearing.

The whole town was hysterical, including Len. He cancelled his next two business trips to stay and protect his helpless housewife. Harriett and the boys arrived again soon too. Keith said Harriett was growing suspicious. Judith French had mistakenly left her lipstick in one of her drawers. Keith tried to convince Harriett French it was her lipstick, but Harriet and Judith French did not wear the same colored lipstick.

She met Keith each time it was his shift at the Pit of Love. The officers with him would often give them space, turn their heads and pretend their superior was not with the local travel salesman’s wife. Most of the men on the force knew, but during dinner parties and other town functions, they would act oblivious. Judith French wondered if Keith kept their love affairs quiet, too; an unspoken rule between men and the women they betray their wives with. Judith always wondered if Evelyn Johnson was faithful to Rodger. Rodger Johnson went on business trips into Hughes every few months. Keith later told her that he went there to be with prostitutes. He got in trouble with the Hughes police once and Keith had to go bail him out.

She parked the Volkswagen out of sight, hidden behind bushes and a large ad for Chesterfield cigarettes and met Keith under the bridge. The pit was full of old cigarette butts and broken beer bottles, among other things. There was a sitting area made of old tires and boards of wood painted a faded red, most likely the wood from the bridge. Keith laid his jacket down on it to prevent splinters. And they were quiet, like always. The only sound was the occasional car driving over them. When Keith finished, Judith French fixed up her dress and smoothed out her hair, which was hardly disheveled. Then Keith kissed her goodbye and then she drove to the market.

She saw Mrs. Mathews there. Her hair was down, and she had no lipstick, but she seemed in pleasant spirits, despite everything. Judith French talked to her about her youngest, Carol, who would be singing at some recital later in the month, and her middle, Peter, her last boy, who was thinking about trying out for the high school baseball team. They talked as if her eldest had not been murdered a few months ago. And then Mrs. Mathews asked when she and Len were planning on starting their family, and she laughed and told her hopefully soon, like she always did.

It was on her way home when a sudden burst of emotion filled her, and she had to stop and pull over to collect herself. She sat, her forehead against the steering wheel, bawling her eyes out for no other reason than to get the emotion out. She let the tears fall freely, before drying her eyes and continuing her route home. She imagined Len probably listening to the radio or on the phone talking his way into a new sale, whether it be for business or for pleasure. She took a few deep breaths before continuing her drive home.

The boy’s vehicle appeared so quickly; she hardly saw it at first. She kept taking quick peaks at her rearview mirror, attempting to wipe away the smeared mascara. It was on the fourth or fifth wipe when she looked up and noticed the vehicle about to crash into her. She honked, then swerved quickly and drove into the lake. Her car door would not open, so she had to break the window glass with her heel and crawl out. She cut her leg on shuttered glass on her way out. The boy’s vehicle had stopped and reversed as she was climbing out, and the man in the back hurried to her before the vehicle had gone into a complete stop. She wondered if he was the one who persuaded the boy to stop, or if the boy had stopped on his own account.

She remembered yelling at the boy for his reckless driving. The man beside him grabbed his gun, but the boy stopped him from using it. She fell silent at the sight of it and dropped to her knees, her leg stinging as it collided with rocks and dirt, but she did not stay in that position for long. The man who helped her out of the lake, gently guided her back on her feet.

She caught sight of Keith, gagged and bloodied, as he walked her to the vehicle. Keith was leaning on the window, a bloodied handprint beside him, clutching the open wound on his stomach. For a moment she thought him dead until he turned his head to look at her. His eyes popped open and he tried to mutter something. The man with the gun, who had taken his seat in the passenger’s side by then, reached in the back to hit him. The force of the blow made Keith’s head it against the window hard.

The boy did not stop the car again until the sun, now an assortment of reds and yellows, was merging in with the mountains in the distance. They were in a field far away from Stony Point. No cars were in sight. Judith French watched as boy and his guard exited the vehicle and rummaged around the back trunk. They removed a few items, then the man with the gun opened the door on Keith’s side. Keith, too weak to sit up on his own, fell onto the man. The man kicked him away. The boy opened Judith’s side. He held a larger gun than the other man, but instead of pointing it at her, he held it to his side and offered her his hand. She took it.

There was chill in the air. She stepped onto grass that prickled the bottoms of her bare feet. The other man managed to lift Keith up off the ground. He stood as tall as he could, but the wound on his stomach forced him in a hunching position.

The boy let go of Judith French’s hand and lifted up his gun—Len showed her a similar gun in a photograph before they were married. He had called it a Tom gun, she thought. She felt strong hands on her shoulder and she turned to see the larger man holding her steady. The boy aimed the gun at Keith, and he shuffled a few inches backwards, then started mumbling something underneath his mask but he was quickly silence by the bullets passing through his head. He was now on the ground, no longer murmuring. She felt her heart sink as the boy shifted his focus onto her. The man holding her gently guided her next to Keith’s corpse. The boy again lifted his Tom gun.

“How did you kill the first two?” she asked.

The boy did not answer.

“Poison, wasn’t it? I’d use poison,” she said, “or something else to make it seem like an accident. But I think you’re like me.”

He lowered the Tom gun slightly and smiled. “How so?”

“You want to get caught,” she said.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

The Sammy Conundrum: did he work with Henry?

Ok, I said it in a reblog before, but I’m gonna have it on its own post.

We’re twisted in knots because Joey said he hired Sammy (and Jack) in 1931, two years after the studio opened, making it a year after Henry left. This creates conflict not only with plenty of fics, but also with the implication in the game itself that Sammy knew Henry, since he (almost) recognized his face (which is more than Joey could do after numerous meetings, according to himself). Now I’m going to propose... not a theory, exactly, more like a calculation, to offer up an alternative that doesn’t include Joey just filling up the studio with pictures of Henry and Sammy recognizing him from there. (I mean, not necessarily.) For that, we’re going to use the canon from the Handbook and from the Twitter Q&A. Fun!

Now, people tried asking about Henry during the Q&A, getting no response. What did get mentioned was a “sheep sheepy song”, Sammy’s favorite song which he worked on. 

Coincidentally, there’s an episode from the show called Sheep Songs! According to the Handbook, it was Boris’s debut! It would make sense, I think, to assume Sammy’s sheepy song belongs to this episode, wouldn’t it? Here’s the thing, though. That episode was released in 1929. 

It doesn’t fit Joey’s timeline. And it very much leaves Sammy working at the studio at the same time as Henry, since we know he created Boris and was there for his debut (Norman says he created all of them, and mentions Alice as a special case because he wasn’t there for her debut, implying that he was for Bendy’s and Boris’s), the he worked there from 1929 until some point before 1933. (I’m kinda confused, because I for some reason was under the impression that he left in 1930, but now I can’t find where that came from, so I just know for sure that he left before Alice appeared. Still, even if it says somewhere I’m not looking right now that he left in 1930, that would still fit the timeline of them working together.)

Now, it’s not a sure thing, since technically Sammy never said he wrote a song for Sheep Songs!, and, with a wolf character, it wouldn’t be out of place for him to have more songs referring to sheep. I do find it kinda interesting that the music “department” Joey describes showing to Sammy and Jack in TIOL only has a piano and a music stand, when Boris is shown playing a clarinet. Now, of course, Joey also said that they had foley and implied the existence of some musicians, so it’s possible they took care of that. But, the short is called a “musical cartoon”... 

Added now that I’ve listened to this part of the book: the timing definitely doesn’t fit because it implies that Sammy was the one responsible for Joey hiring Norman, and Norman was the one who told Buddy about Henry in DCTL! Not only did he say he created the main three (which he might have heard while creeping around), but he also called Henry a good artist and a decent person, the latter of which especially he wouldn’t have said without having actually met him! There’s still nothing definitive, since they could say that Norman was already working there and he just got a projection booth in the music department, or that he was, in fact, just giving Buddy and Dot a second-hand account.

(Edit, since I had this queued and it posted just as I was adding this 🤦‍♀️: I also had the fact that it used to solve a little discrepancy re: the studio’s address, but that doesn’t hold weight anymore (it’s what you get for theorizing without actually reading the material first :P). But I’m still fond of the theory, and it was like this: in DCTL JDS is uptown, but in TIOL it’s in the Meatpacking District. What I knew before now, specifically, was that Joey took Sammy and Jack to visit the place and he mentions that’s where it’s at. And, here’s what I thought. While the District went through great development in the 20′s... an area dedicated to meatpacking just doesn’t sound like it would make for the best neighborhood to put your animation studio in. Or the best neighborhood at all. These days it’s trendy and even gentrified (note that that happened once the meatpacking industry was pushed aside for the sake of hotels and retail, though), but it used to be pretty isolated until the construction of the High Line (elevated freight line) and, I can’t stress this enough, dominated by the meatpacking industry. Sure, there was other stuff, too, but generally speaking, it doesn’t make for the most pleasant and sanitary environment, it implies that, for them to afford rent, it would have to be cheap and, to put it plainly, if you locate your studio next to a butcher, you’ve probably been forced by your budget.

So, it makes sense that JDS would start out somewhere like that... just like it made sense for a studio as successful as Joey paints it to be located uptown. So it would make sense for the studio to have moved once it took off. The better quality music and sound Sammy and Jack brought with them probably played a big part in that. Since Disney exists in BATIM, I’ll assume that so did Steamboat Willies and its complete revolution of animation, which led to the expectation from audiences for cartoons to include sound, but also to their disregard for those that didn’t - their uninspired use of music, by which I mean that instead of truly incorporating it into production, they just added music to preexisting cartoons, led to the death of Felix the Cat’s cartoons, who used to be basically the original Mickey Mouse! So the surprise in all of this is that JDS lasted as long as it did without a proper music department. So, once again, it would make sense for their arrival to increase Bendy’s popularity, and so the studio’s financial success, allowing them to move to a more upscale area.

There’s one catch, though. How did Henry recognize the studio (and he did, since he also recognized changes like the bigger animation department), much less find his freaking desk there? Ok, so I suppose the desk is actually the most easily explained bit, since Joey could have taken it there and there might be some mark on it that would allow Henry to recognize it as the one he used all those years ago (according to DCTL, he carved not only his name, but also Alice’s halo and some eyes). The first point still stands. Henry recognized the studio, which couldn’t have happened if they’d moved after he left. But, he would if it happened before he left. And if both Sammy and him were working at JDS when the move happened...

Anyway, none of that matters now because Joey made several references to how JDS is still in the Meatpacking District, and them moving in between the memoir’s release in 1942 and Buddy’s hire in 1946 once again doesn’t fit with Henry recognizing the place. Henry visiting at some point also wouldn’t make sense since it’d be after the release of TIOL and Joey would be dead if Henry got within strangling distance. I know this. Still, it was a fun adventure in joining the dots while it lasted.)

[fineillsignup]

Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell update and wild speculation re: Gan Ning

So in the latest chapter of my (dark fic!! history is dark!! warnings!! read them!!) fic Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell, I weave a blend of Dynasty Warriors tropes, popularly accepted history (the Sanguozhi), and the 14th century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi) to form my own fic. When you consider that ROTK is basically historical RPF and that the late Qing reform era Anti-Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Fan Sanguo Yanyi) was historical RPF fix-it fic where the author’s OC got to marry his favourite character (whose OC I have borrowed for my own fic), I am truly standing on the shoulders of giants when I wildly speculate on what a) actually happened b) would never have happened but is fun to imagine.

Now there’s a reason why my doc file for this Gan Ning centric story is “nice pirates are still not that nice”, and that attitude is basically how I approach this character who was, after all, a pirate living in decline of the Han dynasty China. Now, note, I’m not saying “everybody has to like Gan Ning, it’s compulsory”; but I am explaining why I like him and am not ashamed of it, even knowing all I know. Gan Ning gets the longest original section in volume 55 of the Sanguozhi, and the most later annotations, so you know what, people have liked talking about this guy for a long time. Was he their problematic fave too? Probably.

Gan Ning: Chinese pirate, my problematic fave

For people who aren’t aware, but for some reason want to try and follow along at home, the background: Gan Ning was a Chinese pirate active in the southeast-ish part of China around the year 200AD as the Han dynasty was falling apart. As regional warlords jockeyed for power, he joined up first with one (Huang Zu) and then with another who was going to beat the first (Sun Quan). The second one turned out to be pretty good at consolidating power, and carved out a kingdom called Wu in southeast China that became actually the longest lasting kingdom among the titular Three Kingdoms era of China.

They make him look something like this in the game series Dynasty Warriors. The bells and the feathers were actually his Marketing Trademark, and people remember them 1800 years later which goes to show how important it is to market yourself.

So when people are like “OMG did you know Gan Ning LIKED to KILL PEOPLE???” I’m like:

"Yeah but you don’t understand he liked to kill people for NO REASON!”

Yeah I’m still sitting here not terribly shocked. Even assuming the worst stories about him in his pre-Wu days were true—that he deliberately waited in houses where the occupants were away, just so that he would get to kill the people who lived there, instead of simply looting the houses and moving on—and not embellished to make him sound like more of a terror.... well, the end result is that he sounds like a terror, which, if you are trying to make your living as a pirate, is exactly the reputation you want? Or, to come at it with the same result but reversed, a person who is that eager to kill by nature is exactly the kind of person who would rise to significant power as a pirate in a chaotic era. So look at Captain Kirk there again for my reaction.

And again, it’s the era. What’s the difference between small-scale freelance murder and theft, aka piracy, and large-scale wholesale slaughter and theft, aka invading and conquering? In the latter case, often somebody to retroactively declare that you were emperor all along. In such an environment, I am even less eager to pass judgment.

And then there’s of course, the id. “Aren’t you tired of being nice? Don’t you want to just go apeshitt” as the meme says. Well, actually, I’m fine with being nice in my real life, but as Lin-Manuel Miranda says, some part of you wants to experience everything. And stories—and historical stories are still stories—are a way to do that.

So that basically takes care of “he was a killer!!” as an objection to liking him, in my books.

So in this particular chapter of my story, I deal with the other reason people usually bring up for hating Gan Ning, which is a story from the Sanguozhi (and therefore probably at least somewhat true) that involves a kind of controversy about child death (I’m on the side of arguing: probably not a child), but even without the age controversy, definitely involves murder; so not everybody wants to read it, so it’s under a cut. It’s a really fascinating story on a lot of levels so if you can handle stuff like “what happened to the princes in the tower” and similar historical horrors then you should be able to handle this.

Alright so here’s the relevant section from the Sanguozhi, the more-or-less intending to be accurate historical record from the Jin dynasty, written by a man named Chen Shou who, to be clear, was not even born yet by the time that Gan Ning died. So “what REALLY happened???” can never be fully known in all details, particularly the little anecdotes that would naturally grow in the telling. But that just means that “so why did they write down THIS and in THIS WAY?” becomes its own interesting question.

Everyone who comes at this history seems to say “Chen Shou was biased in this and that way and what the truth must actually be is this, which coincidentally is my bias” so I might as well do that too.

So here’s the incident in question in the original Chinese in the Sanguozhi:

寧厨下兒曾有過，走投呂蒙。蒙恐寧殺之，故不即還。後寧齎禮禮蒙母，臨當與升堂，乃出厨下兒還寧。寧許蒙不殺。斯須還船，縛置桑樹，自挽弓射殺之。畢，勑船人更增舸纜，解衣卧船中。蒙大怒，擊鼓會兵，欲就船攻寧。寧聞之，故卧不起。蒙母徒跣出諫蒙曰：「至尊待汝如骨肉，屬汝以大事，何有以私怒而欲攻殺甘寧？寧死之日，縱至尊不問，汝是爲臣下非法。」蒙素至孝，聞母言，即豁然意釋，自至寧舩，笑呼之曰：「興霸，老母待卿食，急上！」寧涕泣歔欷曰：「負卿。」與蒙俱還見母，歡宴竟日。

I took only two semesters of classical Chinese but I never like anybody else’s translation of classical Chinese anyway so here goes (I also consulted a modern Chinese gloss). I am bolding stuff I am going to talk about.

[Gan] Ning’s kitchen boy [more on this in a minute] committed a fault, and ran to throw himself on Lü Meng’s mercy. [Lü] Meng was afraid [Gan] Ning would kill him, therefore he would not return him. Later [Gan] Ning brought many gifts to [Lü] Meng’s mother, going up to the house in person, so that the kitchen boy would be returned to [Gan] Ning. [Gan] Ning promised [Lü] Meng that he wouldn’t kill him. On the way back to the boat, [Gan Ning] tied [the servant] to a mulberry tree, and he himself drew the bow to shoot him dead. That accomplished, he ordered his boatmen to lengthen the mooring rope, and laid down in the boat with his clothes loosened. [Lü] Meng was enraged. He hit the drum to summon soldiers, and immediately went to the boat to attack [Gan] Ning. When [Gan] Ning heard it, he didn’t get up. [Lü] Meng’s mother ran out barefoot and scolded [Lü] Meng saying: “Our lord has treated you as his flesh and blood, giving you dominion over great things, so how can you kill Gan Ning out of your own personal anger? If [Gan] Ning dies today, even if our lord ignores it, you will have broken the law.” [Lü] Meng was always extremely filial. He listened to his mother’s words, and in a flash he comprehended their meaning. He went personally to [Gan] Ning’s boat, and called out to him laughing: “Xingba [Gan Ning’s style name, used between peers; here shows affection or comradery], my mom’s got food ready, hurry up!” [Gan] Ning shed tears, snorted, and sobbed, saying, “I let you down.” Then he went back together with [Lü] Meng to see his mother, and they feasted all day.

Okay so the first thing is this critical phrase 厨下兒 which has been glossed into some English translations as “kitchen boy” and similar and which English speakers have then looked at and then gone “oh my God Gan Ning killed a child, a literal child, a tiny baby boy”. Ok, Hold on. Please.

So modern Chinese gloss I consulted translates this as “廚房的僕人” which just means “kitchen servant”. Yes “兒“ means child but it has so many other meanings especially in a compound like this; and this “child” is not specifically the “under a certain age” form of child.

Moreover, even in English, when we talk about English phrases like “kitchen boy” or (more prominently) “cabin boy” we are not talking about a five year old or even necessarily a ten year old. A 13-16 year old could easily be covered under that phrase in English. So please understand how a Chinese phrase like this could also cover such an age range, and remember also, that in this era, Ling Tong was on the front lines of the battlefield at age ~15 with his father when he died. So the idea of when a kid is fair game to be killed as an enemy is not our own.

So I’m even willing to go with the phrase “kitchen boy” because I feel the original conveys the sense of a minor servant. I’m certainly not going to rule out that the servant was, by modern standards, a child. Gan Ning is doing something really bad here. He knows himself it’s bad, and that’s where it gets the most interesting.

The second point I want to bring up is what it put across in the phrases “On the way back to the boat,” “he hit the drum”, and “ran out barefoot”, which is everything happens so fast. Gan Ning doesn’t even wait to get the servant home; instead, he kills him between Lü Meng’s house and his boat (which presumably was how he traveled to visit Lü Meng). And he does it by tying him to a tree! Not exactly subtle! And then he goes to his boat and just starts chillaxing! When he tells his sailors to lengthen the mooring rope, he’s doing the opposite of trying to run away. If you wanted to get away quickly, you would untie the mooring rope, or at least have it ready to untie fast. But Gan Ning deliberately makes it difficult to escape. And then the story mentions that Gan Ning loosens his clothing, or could even be interpreted as undressing, and that he lies down. Again, is that what you do when you expect to want to get away?

And then we’re back to everything happening so fast: Lü Meng, it seems finds out that the servant is dead very quickly, immediately hits a drum to summon soldiers and just runs out. And when Gan Ning hears this, he doesn’t get up. Now some people interpret this as cowardly, that Gan Ning was hiding from Lü Meng in not getting up to meet him. But if Lü Meng’s mother hadn’t caught him in time, would Lü Meng not have known where he was? No, Lü Meng knew exactly where he was. His boat was still tied to the dock by the mooring rope, and all of Gan Ning’s sailors, remember, would strictly speaking have been under Lü Meng too.

So then Lü Meng gets scolded by his mommy and realizes that he has to let Gan Ning off the hook. And he goes and the way he speaks to Gan Ning, in the original, is so casual and affectionate, which is why I translated it as “my mom’s got food ready”. Now within Chinese culture, as in many cultures, this invitation to food is in itself a mark of affection.

And then we come to the most interesting part of all: the original uses four characters to describe Gan Ning’s crying. Now, Chinese is terse, and classical Chinese is ULTRA terse. These people are not using any more characters than they have to. Yet Chen Shou spend four whole characters to describe that Gan Ning was not only “shedding tears” but “snorting” and “sobbing”. Holy shit. Believe me, if you read a lot of classical Chinese, this rings like a klaxon. The person writing this down thought this was important.

Gan Ning’s motivations throughout all of this are just so opaque. Impulsivity? But it involved a certain amount of planning. Did he want to be punished? Did he have even a death wish? Why was he so fixated on this escaped servant? (The silence of the original text as to what the servant did wrong exacerbates this. It could be almost anything.) Why did he, in some ways, play it so coolly and so arrogantly (the tying to a tree, the lying down half-dressed on a drifting boat), but then suddenly flip to abject, sobbing apology? Was the latter apology as much of a lie as his original promise not to kill the servant was? Or was Gan Ning truly stricken with remorse?

And what do we learn from the story? Utility to the state as a way to escape consequences? Crime and punishment are difficult to separate from personal considerations of revenge and anger? Efficacy of shame based on personal connection over physical attack? Chinese mothers are always right? (It’s that last one, isn’t it.)

So that’s why I had to write my own version. And yes, it’s a version that, while not condoning Gan Ning’s many horrible actions, does portray him as a person sympathetically.

[frostedpuffs]

A Simple Suggestion - Ch.9

A Simple Suggestion Summary: Breaks from patrol often allow time for Ladybug and Chat Noir to talk and be themselves. But when a silly joke starts to seem all that…well, not silly, the two find themselves considering something neither of them had ever before: moving in together. The tricky part is still keeping their identities a secret. Rated: T+ Pairing(s): Ladybug/Chat Noir, Adrien/Marinette

Chapter 9 - A Few Days Away Word count: 8,541 Also read on: ao3

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Moving day would soon be upon them.

Marinette patted her cheeks with her bare hands, her breath coming in quick, silent gasps. The nerves were starting to get to her in a way that made her stomach wrestle uncomfortably with her throat. She squinted her eyes shut as she stood in line at a coffee shop, the warm, bitter scent of coffee beans and fresh pastries filling her nostrils and making her head spin. It was all sort of overwhelming, the smells and sounds and thoughts swimming around in her head, and she just wanted to pick up the lattes the morning models had ordered and get back to work before her boss, Gabriel Agreste, complained about her elongated absence.

Three days. There were merely three days until she and Chat Noir—her partner, her most trusted friend and colleague—would be moving into the same apartment together.

Together, she mused, we're moving in together, holy shit-

"What can I get for you?"

Snapping out of her reverie, Marinette looked up to see that the barista (who looked like she could use some caffeine herself from the dark bags that hung underneath her eyes) had asked for her order. Which, at the moment, completely eluded Marinette's mind. Scrambling to open up the memo note on her phone where she'd written the orders down, she read them off one by one, getting a simple mocha frappuccino for herself to sip on during the walk back.

(She needed her caffeine too, after all.)

At least it was a short walk. The coffee shop was only seven minutes up the road from Gabriel and was a favorite for most employees.

As she waited for her order, Marinette sat at a table by the window. The sun was shining so brightly outside that she had to glance away from the street due to its reflection off of the adjacent shop's window. She went to rub her eyes—because, damn, she was tired—but stopped herself right before her knuckles brushed her skin. Right; she was wearing makeup. There would be no smudged eyeliner today, no sirree. Not when she was about to head back to work and see Adrien all prettied up in a spring suit he'd be modeling for the company's latest fashion magazine.

Continue reading on ao3 or under the cut! ↓

Adrien had offered to pick up the coffees himself, but Marinette declined. She was, at the moment, just a seamstress who fixed loose threads or tears in fabrics on models' clothing, so being gone for less than a half hour wouldn't be too much of a big deal. Besides, it gave her time to collect her thoughts.

A bird chirped outside. Marinette watched it flutter from one of the many trees that adorned the city sidewalks as she waited for her coffee.

Her first month at Gabriel had been interesting, to say the least. Though she and Adrien didn't get to work in the same room too often, they still got to see each other almost daily. Whether from bumping into each other whenever Marinette accidentally dropped something on the floor or taking an outing to a fabric shop, they spent whatever free time at work they could together. Sometimes, if it was a slow day, they would just sit in the employee lounge talking, laughing and making everything feel right. Their friendship has been saved by the job, coincidentally. Now they got to enjoy each other's company whether they wanted to or not.

(And Marinette did. Marinette wanted to spend time with him so bad.)

A sigh fell from her lips.

The job was exhausting on its own, somedays. From the constant running around in search of supplies or up and down the elevators to fix a model's frayed clothing, Marinette often found herself needing to take a couple minutes during the day just to catch her breath.

At least her workplace was nice at its core. Her pay had substantially increased from when she was working retail. She no longer felt guilty in treating herself to a nice dinner or new sewing supplies every now and then, and she even had the ability to bring gifts home for her parents every once in a while. She loved that she could surprise them with something nice when she returned to the bakery at the end of the day, weary but ultimately very happy.

Marinette sighed as a beam of sunshine washed over her. She relished in the few moments of quiet she could attain just from a simple outing to a coffee shop. Soon she'd be on her way back to work, where the hustle and bustle of the spring season would crowd her every thought and movement until she clocked out at five and was welcomed home by her forever-loving bed.

"Marionette?" a voice called, causing Marinette to open her eyes (which she hadn't even realized were closed.) "Is there a Marionette here?"

Oh, please. Rolling her eyes, Marinette stood from the table and slung her purse over her shoulder as she walked to the counter, taking the to-go carrier for the coffee with a grin and a polite, "Thank you." She didn't bother correcting the barista, as there wasn't really any point to it—the place was packed and she was probably just as overwhelmed as Marinette was herself.

The walk back to Gabriel was short. As a gentle breeze blew through the air, Marinette hummed a light tune while trying to distract herself from the impending anxiety that would no doubt assault her physically by the end of the night due to her move in a few days. Right now she had to focus on work. Work, work, work, work.

(And she did not, by all means, need to focus on the fact that she and Chat Noir would be sharing the same living space within three days. The idea that all of her personal belongings besides her bed and a few pairs of clothing had been stashed away in boxes wasn't what she needed to think about at the moment. Really, knowing that she'd be sleeping in the same house as her long-time partner and friend wasn't what should be on her mind!)

There was an instant chill as Marinette walked through the imposing glass doors at the front of the massive building that was her workplace. Gabriel always had a cold air to it no matter what the weather was like outside. Suppressing a shiver, Marinette stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button for the eleventh floor, tapping her foot as she waited to reach her destination.

She wondered if Adrien was still up there, looking so prim and proper and handsome. He probably was. The thought made her heart skip a beat.

The coffee carrier was warm in her hands. Her fingers felt slightly numb from the temperature.

In all honesty, Marinette really had tried to get over her near decade-old crush, but it'd been to no avail. She'd long since come to terms with the fact that she still held feelings for him. And even if she wanted to hide them from herself, it would be damn near impossible when she saw him on an almost daily basis. They often went out on their lunch breaks together—most of the time with other co-workers, but sometimes alone—and said hi whenever they passed each other in the halls. There was no way Marinette would have ever been able to deny her feelings with that type of proximity.

She had to remind herself that they were friends again. Good friends. And just that fact alone made her feel at peace with herself.

As she re-entered the room Adrien had been in for his shoot, she was blinded by a brief flash of white light, nearly dropping the lattes in the process. Marinette blinked fiercely for a few seconds to rid the spots in her vision. The shoot must still have been going on from the looks of it; bright yellow lights glaring on the scene and cameras flashing in front of three models—one being Adrien—as they posed in front of a backdrop of a field of flowers. Adrien sat in a chair while two girls (whose names Marinette could barely remember) posed at his sides.

They all looked so ethereal. They really did. The girls were gorgeous and Adrien—

Well, Adrien was like… Like everything that was great in the world. Like sunshine and spring and goodness.

"Marinette's back!" one of the models cheered. It was one of the two girls that were posing with Adrien—her name was Chelle, Marinette recalled with a sudden burst of memory. As she approached Marinette she held up the bottom of her orange dress and pushed her long brown hair over her shoulders, thanking her extensively for the coffee. "You have no idea how badly I need this right now. I feel like I'm about to drop dead."

Marinette laughed. "That would be unfortunate." Her eyes widened as Chelle dipped her head back and drank half of the latte like it was a shot of alcohol.

The second model came to her side, a taller girl with dark, curly hair donned in an orange dress much like Chelle's. Marinette hadn't met her yet. She must have been new.

"Thanks," the girl said. She took a sip of her coffee and let out a long, heavy yawn. "Oh, it's too early."

"It's ten in the morning, Amelie." Adrien stepped out from behind the cameras with a grin almost as bright as the suffocating lights they were under. Marinette had to take a step back to simply admire him. He was dressed up in a gorgeous spring suit; a blue flannel underneath a light beige blazer with blue jeans and matching belt. His hair was purposefully mused and his eyes—

His eyes shone like summer itself. Marinette reluctantly repressed the sigh she so badly wanted to emit.

Adrien gave her a smile that showed his dimples as he gently took the last latte from her hands. "Thanks, Marinette. I—we really appreciate it."

Amelie nodded. Her ringlets bounced with the movement of her head. "We do. I stayed up way too late last night to be awake right now."

Tossing the to-go carrier in the trash, Marinette chuckled after she took a sip of her frappuccino. "I've been up since six-thirty."

Adrien shot her a smirk. "Overachiever."

Marinette gave a good-humored roll of her eyes.

The models finished their coffee and resumed their shoot while Marinette stood the side and observed. It was one of her favorite parts of her job and a definite perk; she got to see fashion spreads come to life as the models posed and were photographed. The fact that Adrien was in most of the shoots made it even more fun.

(Not because she was attracted to him, of course, although that was a bonus; the real reason was that he'd occasionally make a funny face in her direction, or mouth something that only she could understand. It was difficult at times to explain to the photographers why she had suddenly burst into a fit of giggles.)

Adrien was too cute for his own good sometimes. Funny, too. His sense of humor was terrible in an endearing way.

Thoughts drifting, Marinette let herself wonder for just a moment how Adrien's life was going outside of work. They did talk every now and then of course, but he never mentioned much about when he was moving in with that girl he liked or even if it was still happening. Would it be a thing soon? Or did they already live together? She didn't know. And it wasn't really any of her business anyway.

What did their apartment look like, she pondered? Was it big? Pretty? It was probably pretty. But so was her and Chat Noir's place, too.

Excitement bubbled within her stomach as she thought about the apartment she and Chat Noir had picked out. Her fingers fiddled with the skirt of her floral-patterned dress.

They had toured it separately a month ago. She had gone first to check it out—and goodness, was it gorgeous inside, albeit a little small—and Chat Noir had gone after to sign the lease. It was a beautiful place with high floor-to-ceiling windows and a spacious living room where they could easily fit two love seats or a single couch, and although the bedrooms were quite tiny, they were quaint and exceptionally cozy. Marinette had chosen the one with the most space and the best lighting (which Chat Noir thankfully had no problem with) and the thought filled her to brim with untapped enthusiasm. She needed room for her designing, after all. At least Chat had reassured her that he didn't mind.

Though it only had one bathroom and didn't have a large terrace like she was used to, it did have an extended balcony that stretched across both bedrooms with enough space for some plants and a couple chairs. There was plenty of room for her flowers outside and even in the interior since enough light reached the living room and her bedroom that they could grow with ease.

It was a wonderful little apartment. Full of sunshine and warmth a feel of home.

As for how they would split the bills, they'd decided that Marinette would give Chat her half of the rent each month in cash and the rest (like groceries and utilities) they would figure out once they were settled.

It was a learning process. They both were still kind of clueless, but Marinette had her parents (or even Alya) to help with any rut she might find herself in.

Her parents had been so understanding when she'd told them she was moving out with Adrien instead of a stranger. They were happy, too; glad their daughter had a friend to live with instead of someone they'd never met before. Her mother adored Adrien and trusted him almost as much as she did Alya. Though they were a bit skeptical that she and Adrien weren't dating (as the lie had only been necessary for Adrien's father) they understood that the two were moving in together as friends until any future developments, if there were to be any.

And although she felt horrible for lying to her parents about who her roommate was, it was unfortunately very necessary.

"You still with us, Mari?" Adrien teased from his seat.

Startled by the sudden sound of his voice, Marinette regarded him with a playful glare as she gave a show of sticking out her tongue.

Eventually, she was called out of the room the shoot was in and had to rush down to the sixth floor of the building where a deep tear in an evening gown critically needed fixing. After that she was sent all over the building for the next few hours, sewing and critiquing and offering her assistance until her legs felt like jello from trekking across the entirety of the Gabriel headquarters. Once she'd retrieved some designs from Gabriel's office itself to send to the design team (since they desperately needed more), she collapsed into a cushioned chair in the employee lounge with a long, fatigued sigh.

Whew. She couldn't wait to move in with Chat Noir. Her job was so exhausting sometimes that coming home to one of his massages would feel like heaven.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Adrien - 2:03 P.M. Want to meet for lunch? I'm taking my break in 5 minutes

Marinette couldn't help the smile that split her cheeks. Her face warmed at the thought of spending her lunch break with Adrien. Where would they go today, she wondered? Maybe to a little deli around the corner for some sandwiches, or perhaps somewhere a tad nicer for a more dignified meal. It was such a nice day that she hoped wherever they went they would be sitting outside on the terrace so she could feel the breeze on her skin and see the sun sparkle in Adrien's eyes.

Minutes passed as Marinette sat lifelessly in the lounge chair before she realized it would be best to present Adrien with a response.

Messaging - Adrien - 2:07 P.M. Sure I'd love to!

There was a brief feeling of regret as she pressed the send button. Was that too excited of a reply? Did she seem too eager to spend time with him?

God, Marinette, you probably freaked him out, her mind hissed.

Ah, no matter. She waved the thought away with a nervous shake of her head.

Things would be fine.

Probably.

The two of them ended up meeting at their go-to café right around the corner. Their conversation was simple for the most part, added with the occasional joke or friendly comment, and only interrupted twice when the waiter asked for their orders and brought them their food. They'd both ordered chicken caesar salads and were given a pitcher of water to share.

The atmosphere of the café was nice. There was soft music playing on the overhead speakers and the sun outside was pleasantly warm. A light breeze danced through the air, but it wasn't strong enough to cause any disruption. Marinette smiled as she stirred her straw around in her glass.

Adrien looked so handsome dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans with his hair all mused. He seemed a little tired, but it was kind of working for him.

She felt her cheeks flush as she looked away.

"I love weather like this," she said after a moment. Her gaze moved up from the table to meet Adrien's green, green eyes. "Don't you?"

Adrien nodded as he swallowed a bite of his food. "Oh, yeah. Not too hot and not too cold. That's why spring is my favorite season."

"It's also the busiest season for you, I'm sure," Marinette countered with a grin.

"True," Adrien said. He leaned back in his chair. "But it's nice. I get to meet new people and have new experiences, even if it is exhausting sometimes."

A small gust of wind swayed through the café terrace, caressing the red awning that jutted out from the wall and causing leaves to scatter across the pavement. Marinette's face scrunched up as a couple strands of her hair flew into her mouth and she narrowed her eyes as Adrien let out a laugh full of mirth.

"You try having long hair in windy weather," she said. "This is why I never wear it down."

Removing the hair-tie she usually kept on her wrist, Marinette pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, much like how she kept it when she transformed into her alter-ego. It was easier to manage that way and kept it from obstructing her vision.

She didn't catch the way Adrien squinted his eyes at her for just a brief second, or how he cocked his head to the side as if he was feeling some sort of odd recognition…

The waiter came to take their plates once they'd finished their food. Marinette watched as Adrien refilled their water glasses.

"Thanks," she said, taking a sip. She swirled the water around in her cup before asking, "so, has your dad been bugging you about the whole relationship thing at all?"

For some reason, she couldn't meet his eyes once the question fell from her lips.

Adrien shook his head. "Not really. I mean, every now and then he'll ask about you and wonder what you're up to and when we're going to have dinner again, but for the most part he's been pretty quiet. Except for the last few days, that is."

Marinette raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Reaching back to fiddle with the hairs at his nape, Adrien shrugged. "Yeah. I'm moving out really soon so he's been a little 'concerned' I guess. He just wants to make sure I'm doing the right thing."

Ahh, so he was still moving in with that girl.

"And I know I am," he continued, pausing for only a second to take a drink, "because it feels right, you know? Like, I have this feeling in my gut that this thing is what I'm meant to be doing. It's another step in my life I'm taking so I can move up to where I want to be. And I'm happy I'm doing it."

Wow, he… He put that in words better than Marinette could have herself.

"I feel the same," she said. "My parents are kind of worried about me leaving the house, but… I know I'm doing the right thing. It's time for me to get on with my life and get somewhere."

"And you have been," Adrien told her. A proud gleam shone in his eyes. "You've got yourself a job you deserve now and I know that in no time you'll be moving up the ladder and become one of my dad's lead designers. You've got a lot of talent and so much potential, Marinette. I can't wait to see what you're going to be doing in five, ten years."

Were there tears in her eyes? Marinette felt like there were tears in her eyes. There probably wasn't, but she honestly felt like she could cry from the stuff Adrien was saying. To hear that coming from him, well… She wanted to just leap across the table and shower him with kisses.

Deciding that probably wasn't the best option, Marinette opted to reply with words instead of physical affection. "Thanks, Adrien. That… That means a lot to me."

Adrien's smile was blinding. "It's just the truth, Marinette."

"S-stoooop," she laughed, covering her face as it flushed all the way to her neck and ears. "Quit it, Adrien, you're gonna make me cry."

"I'm sorry," Adrien chuckled. He reached across the table and Marinette nearly squealed at how soft his hands felt as they enveloped her own, pulling them away from her face in such a gentle motion that it felt so- so surreal, like… Like she was dreaming.

"Are you?" Marinette teased.

Adrien grinned. "No, not really. I've gotta show support for my friends, right? I mean, besides Nino, Alya and Chloé, you're one of the only friends from collége and lycée that I've actually kept up with. Er, sort of."

"Sort of" being that five-month period where they hadn't spoken a word to each other.

Speaking of Nino and Alya, that reminded her…

"Since you mentioned Nino," Marinette said, a flicker of anticipation rising up within her chest, "I assume he told you the news?"

The way Adrien's face brightened and how he sat up completely straight told Marinette exactly what she was hoping for. She smiled knowingly.

"What news?" Adrien laughed, placing his hands on the table. "The fact that they're moving back to Paris in a few months, or the other minor detail that they're going to have a baby?"

"It's so crazy!" Marinette exclaimed. "I can't believe Alya's already two months. And that they're coming back to Paris after their baby is born is so- so exciting! I can't wait to see them again. I really can't."

"I kind of wish they were back already," Adrien said. He finished off the last of his water and frowned at the empty pitcher. "But I guess we could always fly up to see them."

"Oh, no doubt," Marinette said. "I've actually been thinking of doing that now that I can afford it. I've never been to America. It should be fun!"

"We should plan a trip, then," Adrien offered. "We could fly up together when we get some time off. Probably after the season is over."

Marinette felt something combust inside of her. "Th-that would be perfect."

The brimming enthusiasm that overtook her every other thought made Marinette fidget in her seat. It was amazing way. So amazing in fact that all she wanted to do was just stand up and scream to the world that her best friend was going to be a mother, to have a baby, and… And it was wonderful! And she and Adrien were going to visit soon!

Alya was going to have a baby and it was wonderful. It really, really was.

Except... It made Marinette kind of sad, in a way. She couldn't be there for Alya while she was going through whatever pains pregnancy brought her. Of course, Nino would be, but… It was different. She was her best friend. She wanted to be there.

(And part of her, just a tiny, itty-bitty little part deep inside of her was feeling the slightest bit of envy that Alya had managed to find someone who loved her so dearly enough to want to marry her, to give her a beautiful engagement ring and have a child with her. And Marinette felt a pit of sorrow in her chest because she was still single at twenty-one without ever having a real successful relationship.

But this wasn't about her. It was about Alya and Nino. And that was what was most important.)

After lunch—which Adrien had paid for no matter how much Marinette insisted he didn't have to—the two of them walked back to work with a peaceful air between them. They bid their goodbyes as they clocked back in, Marinette watching Adrien as he went up to his father's office while she herself stayed downstairs to find the bathroom.

As she stared at her reflection in the long mirrors of one of many of Gabriel's pristine bathrooms, she sighed. The dejected feeling that crawled up her body had certainly been unexpected. As well as the fact that she had found herself—just for a short moment in time—imagining what it would be like for her and Adrien to have a relationship like Nino and Alya did.

"Pull it together," she told herself, tapping her cheeks with a splash of water. "You can't keep getting distracted by pretty boys like Adrien and—"

She caught herself as the name of another boy she knew almost slipped from her tongue.

"—someone else," she finished. Marinette wiped her hands on a paper towel. Well. That was enough thinking for one day.

Once she'd collected her nerves, Marinette left the bathroom with a focus stronger than before and went through the rest of her workday determined to butt out any distractions that came her way.

She was strong. And she had good things to look forward to. Many, many good things.

"On your left!"

Adrien vaulted himself out of the way with his baton as Ladybug zipped past him, red-and-black spotted Lucky Charm in her hand. His transformation was three minutes from falling and the night's akuma—Switchblade, as he liked to call himself—stood fifteen meters above them atop the roof of a two-story ice cream shop. The place had been quaint before the akuma attacked, and it appeared to be family-owned, which was unfortunate because Switchblade had just sliced the building completely in half.

Adrien watched as one side of it crumbled to the street. The red-and-white striped awning bent and tore.

Ah, well. At least it was late and past closing hours.

"What kind of villain just carries around a gigantic blade?" he asked the bronze-coated man, running in step at his Lady's side. He leaned down and cupped his hands together so she could use his palms for leverage to leap into the air. "That's not very knife of you!"

His pun went ignored. What a shame; it was a really good one.

(Haha, "knife of you.")

"Chat Noir, focus!" Ladybug shouted down at him. Once she landed in front of the akuma, she used her Lucky Charm (a stepstool) to trip Switchblade as he lunged to grab her. Ladybug darted out of the way with her yo-yo just as the villain fell to the ground and made quick work to swipe the infected business card from his metal pocket before ripping it in half.

Adrien's eyes widened as the blade Switchblade had been holding came for him. He took two steps to the right, watching with a confident smile as the weapon stuck itself in the sidewalk with a springing sound. Jeez, how lame. The akuma were getting easier and easier to defeat these days. That, or he and Ladybug were just getting even better at their job than they already were.

As Ladybug purified the tell-tale butterfly that flitted out from the shredded remains of the business card, Adrien joined her at the front of the collapsed ice cream parlor and yawned. Man, it was late. Papillon had no business causing an akuma at eleven-thirty at night. What was Switchblade's deal, anyway? Who gets mad that their expensive, custom-made knives weren't selling well at nearly midnight? Shouldn't that have been a problem for like, tomorrow…?

The area was restored as Ladybug heaved the step stool into the air. There wasn't much of a celebration, though, and her obligatory shout of "Miraculous Ladybug" was surprisingly monotone.

After they comforted the akumatized victim and sent him on his way, Adrien patted a hand against Ladybug's back and smiled at her weary expression.

"Rough night?" he asked, chuckling as Ladybug let out a loud, drawn-out groan. "Oof, yeah. Looks like it."

"It's been a long, long day," she said, dragging her gloved hands down her face. "I had just clocked out from a nine- hour shift and was so ready to take a shower and go to bed after packing up the rest of my things and then all of a sudden Papillon decides to be a huge dickhead and screw up my sleeping schedule."

Their Miraculous'es beeped in unison. They regarded each other a reluctant frown.

Pointing to his ring, Adrien asked, "Meet up at the Tower in fifteen minutes?"

Ladybug's affirming nod was all he needed. "See you then, chaton."

Adrien used the last minute he had to his transformation to leap over several rooftops until he found himself in an alleyway between a liquor store and a small Italian restaurant. As the flash of green enveloped him, Plagg fizzled out from his ring and plopped into his hands with a high-pitched mewl. His whiskers twitched as he squirmed and complained.

"I'm so hungry," Plagg whined, kicking his feet. "I can't believe I was woken up from a nap for this."

Adrien cupped one hand over the other as a person walked by them on the sidewalk. Poking his head out from the alleyway, he glared down at Plagg once the coast was clear. "Shush," he whispered. "We're in public. We're right next to a restaurant so I'll get you some cheese if you stay quiet."

"It better be good cheese," Plagg hissed.

Rolling his eyes at his kwami's antics, Adrien slipped out from the alleyway and stuffed his hands (and Plagg) in his pockets, ignoring the way the tiny god nibbled at his fingers in resistance. He entered the restaurant with a smile on his face and was thankful it was small so that no paparazzi would follow his tail.

A heavyset woman with thick blonde hair greeted him and told him he could sit wherever he wanted and that she would be with him in a moment, so Adrien gladly took a seat and looked around. It was a nice place with warm lighting, paintings of Venice on the wall and an array of red chairs and booths. The floor was gray tile, and above him, Adrien noticed that each shade covering the lights over tables had a different yet equally as intricate design.

He never had chances to eat out at hole-in-the-wall places like this. If he didn't have plans to meet Ladybug, he might've stopped for dinner.

As he gazed over the menu for a simple cheese appetizer he could give to Plagg, a thought struck him. He sat up with a contemplative grin. If Ladybug had just clocked out from a nine-hour shift, she must be pretty hungry, right?

"Hey Plagg," Adrien whispered towards his pocket, thankful that the place was pretty much dead due to the late hour. He lifted the menu up just in case. "What kind of food do you think Ladybug would like?"

Plagg poked his head out from Adrien's jeans. "You can never go wrong with cheese."

"Does she even like cheese?"

"Who doesn't?"

Adrien frowned. "But she could be lactose intolerant and I would never know."

"Adrien." Plagg gave him a flat look. "Look around. This is an Italian restaurant. A lot of their food has cheese. Just get her something."

With a sigh, Adrien turned away from his kwami to scrutinize the menu. He wanted to get something good; to let her go to bed with a tasty dinner in her stomach and a smile on her face.

He hadn't expected choosing a meal for her to be so hard, though.

"Well, whatever you choose, hurry up," Plagg mumbled from his pocket. "I'm hungry."

Despite his selfishness, Plagg had a point. Adrien had promised he'd be at the Eiffel Tower in fifteen minutes and he still had to wait for whatever food he ordered to be made. Granted, the Tower was only a good five minutes away with his transformation, but he didn't want to keep his Lady waiting. She was the impatient type.

As the waitress asked for his order, he decided on a simple chicken parmesan for them both with a side of garlic knots (and some cheese bread for Plagg.) Ordering it to go, he waited only ten minutes before it was ready and made a quick stop to the liquor store on the way out to pick up some champagne for he and his Lady to share. They needed to celebrate, didn't they? They were taking a big step in their lives together. That warranted a little drinking.

"Here," Adrien said to Plagg as he offered him the cheese bread once they were back in the alleyway. "Eat up. The Lady's waiting."

Plagg gobbled up the appetizer, voice muffled from his mouthful as he said, "Whatever, loverboy."

Adrien was only six minutes late by the time he arrived at their usual meeting spot. At the sight of Ladybug resting against a metal beam with her eyes shut and chest slowly rising and falling, he smiled warmly. Such a tired little 'Bug. He almost didn't want to wake her. But then her food would go to waste, and that would be no good.

Sitting down next to her, Adrien gave her shoulder a gentle nudge with his own. "Buginette," he cooed, giving her a second bump when she didn't stir. "Ladybug. Wakey-wakey."

Ladybug mumbled something under her breath as she scrunched up her face. "What?"

"I brought food. You hungry?"

Blinking open her eyes, Ladybug looked down at the brown paper bag he held in his hand, her stomach responding accordingly. "Oh, shit. No way!"

Adrien nodded. "Mhm. Want to find somewhere more comfortable to eat? I happen to know of a restaurant terrace that's empty after hours." It was only a few minutes away. He'd stopped there himself a few times to relax after a long day of stress. The atmosphere would be good for them—Ladybug especially.

The place was adorned with string lights that never turned off, and roses as red as wine planted along the terrace railing and seating area. It was behind a taller building so they could happily have their privacy. And, to make things even better, it had a beautiful view of the city skyline. Adrien had never eaten there during its open hours, but he figured it wouldn't do any harm for him and Ladybug to stop by after closing, especially if they weren't going inside. Nobody would even know.

"Come on," he said. "I'd offer to carry you, but my hands are a little full."

Ladybug laughed, but the exhaustion was clear in her voice. "I don't think I'd let you carry me, chaton. I am very capable on my own."

"Aw, even when you're tired?" Adrien's lower lip jutted out in a faux-pout.

"Especially when I'm tired," Ladybug said with a smirk as she stood. "If I fell asleep in your arms, I'd probably be trapped forever. Your hugs are like death-grips."

Adrien produced his baton from his back, extending it to his full height. "Nonsense. My hugs are just extra loving."

Ladybug twirled her yo-yo in her hand and shook her head, her lips curling upwards into a wide grin. She looked around, and Adrien was mesmerized by the way her ponytail swished with each movement of her head. "So," she said, one hand on her hip, "where is this terrace you're taking me to? Better not be too far. I can smell that food from here and it's making me hungry. What did you get?"

"You'll see," Adrien responded. With a cock of his head to the left, he signaled for her to follow him.

It only took them a few minutes to reach their destination, and as they landed, Adrien had to place a hand on his Lady's waist to keep her from stumbling. Gosh, the poor thing was so exhausted these days. It was like she didn't get much sleep anymore.

"You okay?" he asked.

Ladybug gave a wave of her hand to dismiss it. "Fine," she said. She opened her mouth to say something else but closed it again as she began surveying the area. The blue of her eyes reflected the lights into Adrien's own, and as he pulled out a chair for her to sit at, she was captivated by the sight of the city sparkling over the horizon. "Wow," she breathed. "You know, I've lived in Paris my entire life and you'd think looking at it would eventually get boring. But it doesn't. I still find myself amazed every now and then."

Adrien could understand how she felt. While living in the city was something he was used to, looking at it was something different entirely. Especially when it was just he and Ladybug like this.

His own stomach rumbled as a reminder that he hadn't eaten since two that afternoon. He'd been so busy at work that he hadn't even noticed he'd forgotten dinner. Part of him was thankful he had, or else he might not have been able to share a meal with his favorite person.

(And said "favorite person" was looking so beautiful, as she always did.)

"Alrighty," Adrien said as he took a seat across from her, scooting in the metal chair. "On the menu tonight for one gorgeous Ladybug and her stunning partner, we have two small side salads, a chicken parmesan to share, and an order of garlic knots with some champagne to celebrate. How's that sound?"

Ladybug placed her chin in her palm as she watched him unwrap all their food. "God," she said, voice quiet from weariness. "Marry me."

What.

Eyes darting up to meet his partner's, Adrien felt his heart beating in his throat. He was sure his mouth was hanging open but he felt too numb to confirm whether or not it was. Lady—Ladybug was tired. It was probably just a joke! No, no, it was definitely a joke. There would be no way that Ladybug would actually ask him to marry her—

Ladybug reached across the table to place a hand on his chin, her eyes glowing with something Adrien couldn't decipher. He could feel the heat of her hand through her suit and it was driving him insane. As she smiled at him, his heart melted into a puddle deep within his chest. His stomach felt like it was vibrating, a-and when her thumb stroked his jaw, his whole body tingled.

"Chat," she said, voice like honey.

Adrien swallowed audibly. "Y-yes, Ladybug?"

She pushed his chin up so his mouth would close. "Your mouth was hanging open. You'll catch flies like that."

Adrien's expression crumpled. Of course.

Shrugging it off with a smile—because he was happy to be in his Lady's company nonetheless—he delivered Ladybug her food and placed the side of knots between them, setting his own meal in front of himself. Just as he was about to open the champagne, he frowned, realizing that they had no flutes to drink from. He snorted at the thought of them both just passing the bottle back and forth to take swigs like some drunk teenagers at a lycee party.

"You think the owners of this place would get mad if I snuck in to grab us some glasses?" he asked, pointing backward at the glass doors with his thumb. "Unless you fancy drinking straight from the bottle."

"So long as you wash them, I think it'll be fine," Ladybug chuckled. She poked at her food with her fork. Adrien was thankful that plastic utensils had been placed in the bag for them. "Hurry back though."

"I'll be back in a twitch of a whisker," he said, throwing a smirk back at her as he stood from his chair. He didn't ignore the way Ladybug playfully rolled her eyes at his choice of words.

Slipping inside, Adrien wandered around the tables, thinking it looked quite odd to see all the chairs stacked on top of them in the dark. He made his way to the kitchen, where he glanced around for any sort of cups or glasses. His night vision was a wonderful aid in searching in the dark as it was pitch-black where there were no windows. Fumbling around, he pulled two champagne flutes from their holders and whistled as he walked back out into the light of the terrace.

"I hope I don't get charged for breaking and entering," he said with a laugh.

Ladybug snorted. "I think you'll be fine."

They shared their dinner with a relaxed air about them. The night was quiet as Adrien poured his Lady a glass of champagne, and he grinned as he held up his flute to signal a toast. "To us," he said. "For taking the next step in our lives."

Ladybug gave a soft laugh in response. She clinked her glass against his own. "To us. Bien joue, kitty."

"Bien joue." Adrien took a sip of his drink. It bubbled pleasantly against his mouth. "Three days."

Ladybug's face was full of light. "Three days."

As he watched his partner's ever-so pink lips brush the edge of the cup, Adrien's heart fluttered in his chest. What he'd give to be able to kiss her when she was like this: bathed in moonlight with a sleepy sheen to her eyes, which sparkled underneath the faint yellow glow of the string lights that were hung so delicately above them. He smiled when Ladybug took a sip of the drink and his heart swelled when she—his beautiful, beautiful Lady—rubbed at her heavy eyes with a sigh so sweet that Adrien wanted to capture it with his lips.

He could feel himself falling into a pit. Falling, falling, falling without ever a hope of clawing his way back up. But he wasn't afraid of that. If he fell into the amazing pool that was Ladybug, there'd be no reason to come out. If Ladybug was his fate, then, well… So be it. It would be the gentlest demise he could imagine and he would welcome it—welcome her—with open arms.

"Chat?"

Adrien blinked in surprise as he came out of his stupor. Ladybug was looking at him with a sly grin on her face. He smirked in response. "What?"

"What'cha thinkin' about?" she asked, and the way she placed her head in her palms with such an endearing expression made Adrien shiver.

He could do nothing but offer a shrug in response. His gaze fell to his food. "Definitely not a pretty girl."

"Sure," Ladybug chuckled. She gave his boot a gentle nudge underneath the table. "Let's go with that."

A silence fell over them. It was as calm as it was short, and as their food was finished and most of the bottle of champagne drained, Adrien was finding himself feeling freer and looser, allowing his body to relax into the back of the chair with his stomach full and mind at ease. Across from him, Ladybug was slumping in her seat. Her fringe hung in front of her eyes—which were closed—and her cheek rested against her knuckles, arm propped atop the back of the chair and legs spread in an exhausted (if unladylike) position.

Adrien didn't mind, though. He'd seen Ladybug at her worst and this was far from it.

Welp. By the looks of it, it was time to go home.

There would be more nights to spend with her in the future. In three days, to be exact. Within a mere seventy-two hours, he and Ladybug would be piling boxes of their belongings into their apartment, in their own rooms, where they'd live their lives for the next one, two, five or seven years or even more depending on where life took them.

Heck. Maybe they'd stay there together eternally.

Which… Was a ridiculous thought, really. Because, well, Ladybug had a life and so did he, and if they happened to come across a career opportunity and had to move or fell in love with someone else (although Adrien doubted he would ever fall for someone other than his Lady) there would be hitches in that idea. Big hitches. Like, instead of hitches, there'd be gashes because the idea was so stupid and so absurd that there was no way either of them would end up staying in that tiny apartment forever, right?

(And, even if his dream did come true where he and Ladybug married and had a family and knew each other beneath the masks, they would move to a bigger home eventually, where they would have enough rooms for at least two children and plenty of land for their kids to play in, and perhaps some space for a few cats. But that all would depend on what his Lady wanted.)

Feeling his eyes begin to droop, Adrien caught himself before his head smacked against the table.

Ladybug's laughter came from across him. "I almost just witnessed a casualty."

Through a yawn, Adrien said, "If I died here, you'd be the one cleaning up the mess."

"Psshh." She gave a nonchalant wave of her hand. "I could just Lucky Charm you back to the living. I'm sure I could bend the rules to somehow bring a fellow Miraculous user back from the dead. Tikki could make that work with some type of weird magic shit."

Adrien chuckled. "Wow, my Lady is so talented. Not only is she a famed superhero with awesome powers and devastating good looks, she's also a modern necromancer."

Crossing her legs with a confident grin, Ladybug nodded. "You know it, Chat Noir."

"What if I came back all gross, though? Like, as a rotting cat-zombie." Adrien rested his elbows on the table as he breathed out a laugh. "Like my tail and ears are fused to my head and I have no hair and my hands have fallen off."

"That's okay," Ladybug said. "I'll still live with you so long as you promise not to sneak into my room at night and gnaw on my leg or something. I need legs."

"Fair point."

Ladybug stretched her arms high above her head and sat up straight, piling the trash from their dinner into the brown paper bag the food had come in. Fixing her ponytail, she adjusted her position so she was more comfortable before sitting criss-cross on the seat. "Okay," she said matter-of-factly. "Time to get serious for a moment: I've got everything besides my mattress and like, two pairs of clothes packed. I wanted to let you know that I do have some outfits for us to wear and the masks are ready. So I can give those to you on Tuesday."

"Tuesday," Adrien sighed, his heart beating fast and face warming with excitement, "Tuesday is moving day. Wow. It all feels so fast, but like… A good fast, you know?"

Ladybug nodded. "I do."

They gazed at each other for a moment too long to be completely platonic. Adrien allowed himself to relish in that thought, just for a little bit.

"I'm happy we're doing this," he confessed. "I mean, really. I couldn't imagine myself comfortably living with anyone other than you. I mean, realistically, you're like… My best friend. And I'm really excited to live with you. And I know things are going to be hard and we're going to have some difficult times and may even get tired of seeing each other so much but like… I'm okay with that. I'm okay with us figuring our shit out together and being able to hang out without worrying about our Miraculous running out or an akuma kicking our ass or waiting on patrols just to see each other."

"We don't even patrol," Ladybug laughed. "That's our clever cover-up for chilling together."

"I know," Adrien chuckled, laying a hand on his Lady's, "but I'm serious. I'm really glad we're taking this step together and I'm… I'm happy to know you, okay? I'm glad I know you."

He felt slightly awkward spilling his guts like that, but it was the truth. He loved Ladybug and he loved that they were going to be sharing the same space and learning about each other more than they had ever imagined.

While it was true that Nino was his best friend, Ladybug was… Different. A good different.

"You're such a sap when you've been drinking," Ladybug chuckled. She squeezed his hand within her own and Adrien melted.

"I know," he said, fully admitting to it. "I can't help it though, Buginette. You make me feel stuff."

"'Stuff?'" she asked.

Adrien offered a simple shrug. His cheeks heated to an uncomfortable redness. "Stuff."

Patting his hand, Ladybug smiled, her face bright and eyes full of somethingso warm and soft that Adrien felt like he could just die. "You're a silly one, minou."

He grinned. But I'm your silly minou.

Oh, if only Ladybug knew what kind of "stuff" he really felt for her…

"I think it's time we both went to bed," Ladybug said. Adrien mourned the loss of contact when she pulled her hand away and stood up from her chair. "You've been such a sweetheart tonight, Chat. Thank you for dinner, I…" Her face grew pink as she smiled. "I appreciate it more than you know."

Adrien rested his head on his forearms. "I appreciate you more than you know."

Ladybug gave a playful roll of her eyes, but he didn't miss the way her cheeks turned a deeper shade of red.

"Goodnight, Chat Noir," she said with a final finger-brush to his nose, "I'll see you Tuesday morning, bright and early."

Breathing in deeply, Adrien brushed his fingers over her own before ever-so-gently grasping her hand and placing a loving kiss on her knuckles. The fabric of her suit felt smooth underneath his lips and cool against his skin. He smiled against her and practically swooned at how she reached up to comb her fingers through his hair in such a soft, wonderful motion before producing her yo-yo and giving him a wave.

"Tuesday, kitty."

Adrien winked. "Tuesday."

[thelionsauvage]

Saving Sansa and Justice for the North

Barack and Bardoul both grin at eachother as they and their thousands of men each ride into King’s Landing, knowing that even with the death of their cousin Robb; they remained loyal as they protected their younger cousins. And today? Today was going to lay waste to all those bloody Lannister’s have held dear as both brothers kicked their horses’ sides to gallop straight to the keep, their men and wolves right beside them.

They planned ahead to leave their banner down until they entered the keep, it was a tactic to keep their beloved Lady Sansa alive; they nodded as they rode into the courtyard before motioning for their men to dismount then doing so themselves. All their horses stayed where they had halted, almost as well trained as the Dothraki across the Narrow Sea.

The brothers then made their way towards the throne room, their own men shoving aside each Lannister soldier to keep the way clear for their lords. Barack nods to his second-in-command Sam, “Open the doors and wait for the signal.” The large red head nods before gesturing to his brother’s second-in-command, who just happened to be his younger brother Gregory and just as large, the two men kicked open the two large throne room doors shocking all that were present.

Barack and Bardoul glanced around at all the faces worth their time in remembering; Cersei, her bastard son Joffrey, their beloved cousin Sansa, Lady Margaery who just happened to have a true betrothal pact with Barack himself which caused the young man to grin, their grandmother, uncle, cousin Loras, Tyrion, even the Prince of Dorne himself, Jaime Lannister and finally Tywin. The brothers took one last glance at eachother before marching forward with their men spreading out behind them; no one had an army this size in the capital, not the Lannisters or Tyrell, not even the king himself.

“Who dares to enter my kingdom like this?!! Who are you people?!” Joffrey spews, ahem shouts, out at them before the two brothers raise their hands; one is handed a bag to which he tosses at the steps of the Iron Throne while their banner men finally unraveled their flags. “We are the last of the Starks. We serve our lord, Brandon Stark; who quite coincidentally was pushed out of a window by your father my king, as your mother kept yelling he saw us, he saw us. Now...strangely it was just...that day King Robert and our Uncle Eddard Stark were out hunting. Then...these were the last words as this blonde man sighed, the things I do for love. Meaning, Joffrey, the bastard born of Cersei and Jaime Lannister; your father...” Barack the only one who had been speaking as the entire throne room was struck with dead silence, “Is right here in this room. With one hand less. Imagine that. So this must mean...our dear princess and young prince are like you, bastardborn of incest. Also....Wolves! Grab them.” Their men rush forward, their second in commands going for the biggest threats which was Jaime and the Kingsguard. Both knocking Jaime out by a single punch each, before drawing their double-handed swords and chopping off all their heads except for Ser Meryn who they subdue and growl in his ear, “You bastard have a special role to play.” They drag him to where Cersei, Tywin, and Jaime were.

Together both brothers grab Joffrey by his coat, while the rest calmly gather up the Tyrells and their Lady of the North Sansa to the side safely. They all then watch as Joffrey is throne down the steps of the iron throne crying out in shock and pain as the brothers prowl slowly like direwolves they are and their own direwolves larger than horses now step up to the boy and snarl in the whimpering boy’s face as he tries to scramble backwards only to feel cold steel on either side of neck.

“We have heard of what you have been doing Joffrey Hill, to our cousin Lady Sansa. You pointed a crossbow at her while Ser Meryn ripped off her clothes and beat her. We thank ya, Lord Tyrion Lannister of keeping us informed. Now then...” Barack and Bardoul look once at eachother then towards those on their knees, “Bardoul kill Meryn and I’ll kill the bastard.” Bardoul pulls his axe away leaving a cut line of blood on Joffrey’s neck before he and his wolf Niko stalk towards the disgraced kingsguard. Upon reaching the man, he whistles sharply for Niko to grab the man roughly by his cloak to drag him in front of Joffrey and both the brothers then look as one at the Lannisters, “Well...time to pay a debt for you bastards isn’t it? But before we do...Sam, show them what’s in the bag.” The giant of a man stomps forward and grabs the bag before turning to the Lannisters and dumps the heads for all to show, “Mean Lord Bolton, traitor of the North who killed our cousin, his wife, and unborn baby. Lord Walder Frey who staged the killing and our most beloved Aunt, Karstark who betrayed the North with Bolton, all who betrayed the North and Riverrun.” Snarled Bardoul, who finally deigned to speak. “You like heads on spikes? Yours will be joining them soon. Wake up the Kingslayer. He deserves the sight of his bastard son’s death. And in case any of you think we are lying? Here’s proof from that very tower;” Bardoul tosses an old piece of a dress that Cersei is known to be fond of as well as another old piece of cloth that Jaime had been seen wearing that day. Tywin looks at his two children in disgust, “You bring shame to my name?!?”

“Oh! Like you keep saying to your true born son, Lannister? Luckily; don’t worry for Tyrion will be a great Lord of Casterly Rock especially when you’re dead.” Bardoul laughs before Barack slams the bottom of his spear to the ground, “ENOUGH! Now Bardoul!” Both brothers quickly choose their favorite methods of killing, just as Jaime awakens to see Joffrey speared from lower spine to straight up his mouth, gagging on both the weapon and blood; Cersei screams at her son’s death. While Bardoul swings his weapon up and down cleanly straight through the Kingsguard’s skull and down till his body was split in half.

Barack snarls while tearing off the pretender’s crown and tosses it straight into a brazier to crackle and melt. Their direwolves and wolves; as their men were known as, howl in victory as Barack looks towards his cousin Sansa as she cries out in happiness and runs into their arms. They protectively hold her close, knowing exactly why she isn’t minding the blood before they all turn to the three kneeling Lannister’s and their now Lord, Tyrion. “What would you like us to do with them, Lord Tyrion?”

The Imp looks at his siblings then his father before the Starks, “Kill all but my brother...he’s the only one who ever loved me out of this family and I’ll make sure he stays loyal.” The two Wolves nod at their men before each runs their sword through the two mentioned as Jaime just looks at his brother in surprise. “Why just me...?”

Tyrion looks at Jaime and sighs, “Who else will command the Kingsguard better than you? And Starks...who shall be our king if my nephew and niece are now considered bastards?” Barack groans as his hand raises, “Me, Lord Tyrion. As decided between myself and family in Winterfell with those of the Stormlands, Westerlands, Riverlands, Iron Islands as they’re now ruled by my brother and his wife, The Vale, and the North ruled by my cousin, and since....”Here he looks mockingly around, “Oh wait... Since I have Commander of the Kingsguard and Master of Coin with me here...you both rule the favor for the Crownlands...go ahead and vote. I need to meet my future wife.” He pulls out a large roll of paper and walks to the Tyrells with a smile, “Hello Grandmother, I’m here to accept the marriage proposal made between our houses from a very long while ago. Between the House of Stark and House of Tyrell; myself and...Lady Margaery. Seems you get to be queen after all.” Surprise was written upon many of the faces before him except his grandmother who stood up once he offered his hand to her and now is held out to Margaery with a slight smile in kindness to his future bride as she accepted his hand and stood barely reaching the center of his, she noticed with a huge blush. Her grandmother cackles at the sight while Barack just grins, “I am Barack Stark of Winterfell, my lady. It is an honor to finally meet you. I’ve read that contract so many times, the correspondence between our grandmother and I about you, hell even the small painting she had made of you just recently that’s joined all the others.” They watch as the red stained cheeks stay blushing, mutual grins upon their faces before his face is turned to face the Lady of Thorns; “You look just like her, you look like Amaris, your mother my boy. “ His eyes softened at that, his siblings as well as himself rarely speak of their mother since losing her all those years ago.

“Ahem, it has been decided...King Barack Stark, First of His name, King of The Andals and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm shall be our one and true King!” Tyrion yells out to the throne room, the lords and ladies there including his family and men all cheered; “Send out the word! Send it to the Kingdoms, to the Wall! We have a new king!” Jaime approaches the new king and kneels before him, swearing the oath of the Kingsguard before Loras kneels beside him, surprising everyone; after Jaime finishes his oath. “Accept me into the Kingsguard, your Grace. Any children you and my sister have, any son that isn’t your firstborn or second, could rule Highgarden in my stead.” Another surprise was Brienne of Tarth kneeling as well before the new king, “And me, your Grace; for you did what I could not. You saved your cousin, a task left to me by your Aunt who I swore to serve.”

Barack looks at those all around him, before he holds his hand up; “I accept these three as part of my Kingsguard, Jaime train them well...Another matter, Lord Tyrion; I may be a hard man but I am not cruel...Tommen and Myrcella will not be of the same fate as their brother and other members. They can return to Casterly Rock and live to serve the Lannister family at your discretion.” Jaime’s shoulders shake slightly in relief, only noticed by his brethren at his side, his king, his future Queen, and his younger brother. “And lastly, after my coronation; I shall marry my future bride Lady Margaery Tyrell of Highgarden, your future queen!” Many more cheers rang out in the throne room at the news before couriers ran to spread the word in the city while others ran to send out the ravens. “Bardoul, I would wish for you and your wife to choose your best captain to become our Naval Commander in the small council; I believe Lord Davos that served Stannis will be best don’t you? We have our Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, we need a new Grand Maester;” He ignores the sputtering of the old fool, “Oh. Kill him, I forgot he helped kill not just our Uncle but Lord Jon Arryn the Hand of the King, next...Tyrion will you be the Hand of the King again?” He smiles at the Imp who seemed very surprised before leaning down to Jaime, “That means Tommen and Myrcella will stay close by, as wards to the House of Lannister. Don’t worry Jamie, I’ve been planning this with my family for many years.” He stands back up to his full height with a nod as his Kingsguard and his second-in-command to stand up and step forward.

“Sam, return to Winterfell and take my place at Bran’s side...you know his mission. Also tell Jon, I say hello and hope his feelings aren’t too hard that Revna stole away that fire haired lass of his.” Both men chuckle at that, it happened before they marched south. Hearing of Wildlings on the other side of the wall, had Bran ordering that Revna and Barack take their men to fight and kill if they had too. Luckily, they killed those that were called the Stenns as a large red-haired man called them before Revna stopped the rest of the forces, which numbered in the thousands as many northern men knew that there were still Starks in Winterfell and had told them all of what happened. Let’s just say, the traitors were dealt with swiftly. After hearing the Wildlings out, they opened the doors of Winterfell to them on the orders of Bran. Now, here they are.

“The rest of the Small Council will be decided on later, no offense...Uncle you are a fool if you think you’ll be Master of Coin or on the Small Council ever again...Instead, Grandmother? I know who truly rules Highgarden and makes the coin.”

[christhatcher]

11 from 2017

Holden – The Animal Spirits

What a time to be alive!

Musically speaking. Great swathes of musical history lie just behind our little Black Mirrors (is there a more perfect summation of our relationship with technology than the phrase ‘Black Mirror’?… thanks Charlie Brooker). Previously, styles were pegged to moments, and evolution and revolution, inspiration and reaction took their turns gathering acolytes and detractors. But the Black Mirrors have done for that nice neat musical timeline and brought disparate styles within touching distance and enabled previously unthinkable musical bedfellows to spoon and make the beast with two backs at their leisure. It’s a freedom from purity that makes musical stews like Animal Spirits as inevitable as those monkeys with typewriters eventually turning in some Bard. Fantastical technology, older technology, rudimentary technology and the absence of technology repeatedly collide on this album, synthesisers sound like they’re genuinely trying to imitate the random patter of chimes and bells, graceful chord patterns churn in endless loops and wind instruments and wordless incantations bubble around the mix. An Esoteric Albion Rave Mixtape. With added Krautrock and Free Jazz and Aphex Twin and Prog and what can only be described as an Earthy quality (Earth as in grit and ooomska, Earth as in one of the Four Elements). It’s an amazing thing that manages to sound like everything and nothing at once, but it does beg the question:

What time are we alive?

Genres don’t explode out of nowhere very often any more, haven’t, for almost the last two decades, given their times a distinct flavour (compare and contrast with… oh, all the usuals). Do we live in an age of eternal musical re-hash or in an age of ever more imaginative re-combinations of existing styles? It’s not a major challenge - to be poured over by the Boffins for the sake of humankind’s future - But I’m guessing that the (probably already made) ‘Sounds of The Naughties’ is destined for a full blown identity crisis when it does emerge (if it hasn’t already). On the flip side, the overall quality and quantity of new music hasn’t dropped. And in answer to the question, What time are we alive? I’d argue that we might as well concede that Space/Time doesn’t like a straight line, musical or otherwise, that we need to get to grips with the cyclical nature of Things and that we should probably accept that we’re at the point where All The Music is getting thoroughly blended up as it spirals ever closer to the Event Horizon of a Great Musical Black Hole… Who knows what will spill out on the flip side? Maybe we’ve already ejected and The Animal Spirits is an emergent howl… something with distinct traces of Human, but augmented, magick and operating in ALL the dimensions, not just our earth bound ones. What A Time To Be Alive!

Space Witch - Arcanum

Speaking of Space/Time. Did I ever tell you about the time that Hawkwind found themselves at a loose end in the Midlands with nothing but a stash of Mandrax for company? Thought not. Well, they downed the lot and were about halfway through rehearsing Doremi Fasol Latido (during Lord of Light according to Wykypedia) when two things happened. 1) The Lemmons kicked in and 2) Brian Blessed, with little else to do and generally on the faff, stopped by and, infuriated by Dave Brock’s laconic delivery, decided to give some impromptu elocution lessons. The laws of Space/Time couldn’t handle the at odds ripples set off by a heavily sedated Hawkwind rubbing up against a Brian Blessed enraged by poor enunciation. During the first third of a critically lysergic rendition of Time We Left This World Today, the fabric of Space/Time ripped open like soggy kitchen towel and flung the results ‘forward’ into the future, emerging first in 1980 - where Brian briefly took the form of Prince Vultan in a film adaption of Flash Gordon – before shuddering to halt like an ectoplasm blancmange hitting a wall, in 2017. At this point the whole temporal merry-go-round-the-bend took the name Space Witch and spat out a child called Arcanum.

The Cosmic Dead – Psyche is Dead

Did I ever tell you about the time that a consignment of Monster Magnet’s Tab EP (it’s basically an LP) got washed up in Glasgow and Customs & Excise officers became embroiled in a game of Cat & Mouse with a bunch of local stoners who half inched a few cases, ostensibly because tradition states that Tab must be played as a first dance song at a local wedding? No? well… along with that definitely happening, I should probably point out that, unlike the plot of Whiskey Galore (which this story has up until now utterly coincidentally borne a passing resemblence to) the Customs and Excisists actually did round up all the copies prior to said nuptials. But. As it transpires. Not before a few of the ushers had had a listen through and decided that it wasn’t really a brutal enough listening experience and could do with a few less notes. So they dropped all but two notes and proceeded to played a game of musical chicken, whereby the first person to progress from the first note to the second would be… phhhhhhhh… I don’t know… just called a lightweight or something. Unfortunately the three pieces of music they’d prepared did not go down well at the wedding, even though one of them was actually quite beautiful, in the way that maybe Boards of Canada* are beautiful. The assembled Aquarian Noodling Muso Soup loving guests might have been mortified, but the experience was a proper Road to Domestos moment for The Cosmic Dead. They’d seen the truth behind the Haight Asbury tinted spectacles. They had given the newly betrothed Psyche. And it had Died. Psyche Is Dead was born.

*Boards of Canada might be a bit of a leap, but it’s genuinely the first thing that popped into my head when I last listened to the title track, and I can’t be arsed to try and avoid a tenuous comparison: we live in such a plural musical world now, the musical evolutionary tree is way passed the point that it can be pruned and indexed back into £50 man-style shape and order, let’s face it, who’d want to? Embrace the chaos (See The Animal Spirits).

Oh Sees - Orc

See that Orc on the cover of Orc (below), he’s the guy who made this album. They’re spikey, Orcs, both personality wise and physically, and it comes across in the music. Those boney fingers and sharp but fraying nails wring gnarly, scuffed riffs out of guitars stored in damp and dank. They also have a problem regarding attention span and the only way to keep Orcs on track, as is widely known by those in the know, is to employ two drummers to keep pace and hope that they tangle together like creepers vying for the same patch of sky. You can’t be a creature from the realms of Fantasy Fiction and not adopt some of the trappings of a Prog act, and this particular Orc appears to have decided that the two drummer approach is the most appropriate nod to that ouvre; it makes for some frenetic, seat of the cod piece, extended instrumental work outs, brought (presumably) to a close by some form of sacrifice or the booming exhortation of a wizard in the studio control room. There’s definitely a human aspect to an Orc’s voice, so the melodies are recognisable and at times sit about where you’d expect. However, all that time around fires of unknown origin, with just bare branches, mist and the detritus of deep forest for furnishings, has rendered their voices ragged and ever verging on hysteria – liable to take fright (screech) or fight (bellow) at any moment. Imagine trying to sing a lullaby with all those needling teeth. Never going to happen. Lyrically, Orcs have a tendency towards understated reportage of their everyday lives, “Let's witness the whole occasion, Piles of bodies fill the garden, Smash the hedgerow with their plummet, Stop with panic, ugly banquet. Floating in the vile moat yeah, Crack their skulls upon the cobbles, Ringing home their lemming's message, Fill the streets with awful messes.”. They don’t really do braggadocio or anything as flowery as metaphor either, and sometimes just sing to-do lists “Old is warrior drink the poison, I am warrior crush your head in”. They do love smashing heads in and this album makes an excellent accompaniment to said act.

Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales - Room 29

For this song cycle about the Chateau Marmont Hotel, Hollywood, Jarvis Cocker splits the difference between the kitchen sink magician fronting Pulp and his role as narrator of the nocturnally themed Radio 4 show Wireless Nights. An embarrassment of lyrical riches leap out as he pillow talks the exploits and tumults of famous patrons, ruminates on the way Hollywood is buoyed along by our suspension of disbelief and spills beans that can only sprout from time alone in a hotel room (if you want to read that as a euphemism, then it wouldn’t hurt). He’s part raconteur, part sage, part documentarian delivering filthy one liners the other side of a comma from heartbreaking observations. All the above is underscored by Chilly Gonzales’ minimal piano, occasional strings and the odd sound effect. It’s a perfect musical accompaniment that puts you right there, in the hotel, wandering the lobby, corridors and in and out of the rooms, drinking in the atmosphere and faded glamour, surrounded by ghosts, gossip and fading echoes of the Hollywood dream.

Here Lies Man – s/t

I’m pretty sure that it was Face-of-90s-Golf, Nick Faldo, who first uttered the immortal line ‘It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing’ (He really had a face for Golf-in-the-90s… God himself must’ve been imagining him prowling the Fairways like a 9 Iron toting lion, when he crafted that face out of his own ManFatTM) and the debut album by Here Lies Man is a strong candidate for the defence of that little aphorism. In this case, the swing is brought by African Clave beats trampling all over some Sabbath style riffage. This kind of explicit fusion can sometimes sound very cut n paste, sometimes at the expense of the magic of the original sources as they’re bent out of shape and squeezed into a mould they were never meant to fit into. HLM avoid that pitfall by allowing the Afrobeats to reign. Structurally, there’s very little by way of verse-chorus arrangement here. Instead the rhythms push the songs between percussive breaks and tone heavy, syncopated, Low Fi riffs with the vocals largely chanted, repeated phrases (honestly, if you read the tracklisting then you’ve got about 80% of the lyrics; “letting go of the human race, sailing to, into outer space” is the closest they get to Leonard Cohen). As a result, the 8 tracks all have a thematic unity but one that offers enough room for variation to keep the album from descending out of the groove and into a furrow.  It’s the use of keys and electronics that bring out beads of sweat though. They’re the last thing you notice, often washes of synth, tingling harmonic flourishes and bubbling organ stabs, but they glue the tracks together and provide borderline subliminal hooks and moments of revelation on repeated listens.

British Sea Power - Let The Dancers Inherit The Party

I couldn’t begin to claim to have listened to even a remotely measurable proportion of the music released over the last twelve months, so this is most likely bollocks, but concision did seem to be a recurring theme of many of the new releases I got round to listening to last year (The relative brevity of Endless Boogie’s Vibe Killer almost resulted in the band changing their name to School-Run Boogie, Kamasi Washington went from 2015’s triple album The Epic to half hour mini album Truth, Destroyer released an album simply titled Ken wherein 7 of 12 tracks came in at under 4 minutes… I could go on, but am a man of my time and my brutally diminished attention span won’t stand for it). I’m going to venture that perhaps a collective, subconscious realisation dawned in 2017 that we really don’t have time to fuck about with exploratory musings via the medium of theremin solos. Attention to detail, actually listening (let alone repeated listening) have not been hallmarks of this age. Maybe some actual tunes needed banging out, just to be sure that a flicker of humanity pulsed its way out into the universe, before one of the myriad nutters we’ve given distracted, denial ridden bunk ups to, finally locates the big red button that his staff have been desperately trying to distract him from. BSP certainly gave a lot of bang for buck on Let The Dancers Inherit The Party. Hooks were veritably ladeled in, exploratory urges were reigned in and yet none of the idiosyncratic and eccentric ticks and whistles that make BSP so special got lost. See Keep on Trying (Sechs Freunde), which, apart from opening with the fantastic couplet “If you must act like a beast of the field, oh what does it yield?”, has Yan Wilkinson yelping the ‘Sechs Freunde!!’ part of the title in a manner worthy of double exclamation marks and moist with euphemistic glee (he basically makes Sechs sound like sex… cad). See also International Space Station; a paeon to the titular escapee from our there-but-for-a-hair-trigger planet. Also. Fans of classic British Understatement… Tired of saying “This. Is. Typical” through gritted teeth? Try Saint Jerome’s opening gambit ‘Oh it’s strange the way that things work out, running out of matches and the fire keeps going out’, it’s wordier, but provides up to 64% of disappointing scenarios with a soupcon of tragic poetry/poetic tragedy. Delicious.

White Hills – Stop Mute Defeat

Another band positively not fucking about these days are White Hills. The ecstatic guitar pyrotechnics and eye on the horizon kosmiche workouts of the past may have been largely purged for the time being, and yet, in spirit, the album from their back catalogue that this most reminds me of is the one where they gave fullest vent to the afore mentioned inner/outer space explorations; their Dystopian Sci Fi epic H-p1. Thematically, H-p1 confronted greed and our societal dissonance, on Stop Mute Defeat Ego Sensation and Dave W sound a call to arms for those left standing as we reach what must surely (hopefully?!) be a nadir. Musically it comes over like H-p1 triple distilled and reduced down to base elements. That album was a largely instrumental workout. In 2017, a skeletal, industrial vibe pervades and although the tracks are shorter and punchier the vocals to music ratio probably isn’t that different, infrequent vocals punctuate the tracks like slogans racing across LED billboards. If H-p1 was their Abstract Expressionist masterpiece then Stop Mute Defeat is the Brutalist monument. Sounds depressing? Not really, the title track is something of a techno banger.

Pontiak - Dialectic of Ignorance

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking ‘I want to listen to something that sounds monomaniacally baked’, then Pontiak’s latest is probably the go to. You could be thinking ‘baked’ as in the bifter soused sense of the word or baked as in dry, it doesn’t matter, it covers both those bases… offering up tunes akin to visions brought on by a combination of dehydration and lens flare at sunset after a day chasing heat haze with your head in an oven and only Mary Berry for company. The sounds and performances are chitin hard, like a particularly determined scarab marching against the sun, through the sand, while listening to Pink Floyd’s ‘Welcome to the Machine’ on repeat. Returning to the baked metaphor, it’s certainly not an overcooked album, there’s space everywhere and I doff my cap to this sense of restraint, the drums often consist of little more than the simplest patterns over which guitar, bass and synth lines take turns at wringing the life out of subtly unpredictable riffs.

Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard

Of all the Lovecraft-ian feats that Electric Wizard have managed to pull off over the course of their long and subtly varied existence, perhaps the most satisfying, for me, has been their ability to sound like an inhuman approximation of Doom; The band themselves (Eldritch/Antipodean) imposters masquerading as humans in the vein of characters from The Shadow Over Innsmouth or The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward (if you want to go lower brow, imagine the Alien Cockroach in Men In Black who crams himself into the skin of that farmer, fronting a band). It’s an impression I get most strongly when listening to ‘Black Masses’ and ‘Let Us Prey’, but it could be applied to much of their output; their mixes in particular don’t conform to doom metal’s bludgeoning but crisp, stentorian but actually kind of conservative standards. The Wizeeeeerd consistently left instruments unsettlingly out of focus, FX broiling in a mire of fug so dense that your brain and outstretched devil horn salute gave up trying to settle into a comfortable 1-2 and just submitted to the Cosmic Horror.  With Wizard Bloody Wizard though, they’ve stripped away the elemental hideousness that have up till now left them unseeable, like the Horror bestriding Dunwich, left mics and amps together unchaperoned to let nature take its course and gone to town with the bass runs and some bouncing, rolling tempos… and it suits them… really suits them. They sound energised and souped up. At times (Necromania) they come across like Uncle Acid’s actual Uncle - he’s thicker set, looks at you with sunken, you weren’t there man eyes and definitely ran with a Bike gang who may or may not have (definitely did) perform satanic rites – and the results are actually (whisper it) catchy. But then I’ve thought that there was a great pop writer lurking in Jus Osborn ever since I spent more months than I care to remember humming Vinum Sabbathi to the point of Randolph Carter like distraction. Overall, this is the most human that E Wiz have ever sounded – there’s overt blues underpinning See You In Hell, a veritable romp in the form of the Witchfinder-General-covering-Hendrix’s-Manic-Depression stylings of When The Siren’s Scream and there’s an actual laugh at the end of The Reaper. Admittedly, the track’s called The Reaper and it’s a laugh that’s more Christopher Lee than Jimmy Carr, but it’s definitely a bona fide Human laugh.

Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats – Vol. 1

First things first. This album is more or less proto everything. It’s the borderline unreleased debut by a proto Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, actually dating from 2010 but only officially released in 2017. Secondly, It’s a proto-metal feast, a mud wrestling Blue Oyster Cult before the Pearlman got put before Swine, Masters of Reality style chuggers morphing into King of The Rumbling Spires rumpuses, a whiff of the Kinks at their speaker slashing-est, Crazy Horse getting stuck in a toy box with Alice Cooper, eyeing each other suspiciously but deciding to make a go of it for the sake of John’s Children. Thirdly, it sounds like a prototype of an audio recording to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that the drums were recorded using a pencil mike plugged straight into a cassette recorder. However, you couldn’t expect/wouldn’t really want it any other way. Uncle Acid is founded on tape worn thin and the impossibly red blood of no budget Amicus productions. Perhaps the moment that best sums up Uncle Acid’s determination to prevent considerations of taste, decency or proficient sound engineering from pissing on the bonfire of escapism is the fact that during Witches Garden they use a gong (3:24 in the link to be precise). A fucking GONG. The instrument drummers plump for when success has become inversely proportional to self awareness, usually around the same time they start thinking that going swimming with a limo is a reasonable way to fill days off. This album first emerged as a run of 30 CD-Rs. And they/he put a gong on it. And the gong sounds like it was recorded about 4 miles away. But it’s a fucking GONG. Inspired.

[abundantchewtoys]

HS^2 Re: CHAPTER 14. The Best Laid Plans, Part 2

So, time to read up, I think there were like three new updates since I last visited the site, hahah!

Oooooh boy, Chapter 14 continues, it's not even done yet. Eesh, yeah, what is Jane plotting to do. Massive laser beam from above is my guess. But yeah, that would cement it for Jake and Tavros that she really sees them as disposable, in the end.

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> Page 344

Ohh! So it switches to Vrissy and Vriska? And... Vrissy knows about the plan going on at the church? So they got told, before laying low at Roxy's place, it seems.

But now they're out.

And... Vriska wants to start a new Sburb session. To get Vrissy into the god tier. And set Earth C back a few eras, for a "hard reset" of society. Eesh.

That's indeed very on par for her line of thinking.

And it starts to point in the direction, finally, of what I had been thinking. I had thought the descendants of the Creators would start a session that would "coincidentally" be joined by the members of the races that Dirk and Rose are creating. Seems like it's heading there.

A black & white session, originating from a white (win state Earth C) and black (Black Hole Earth C) timeline. Ultimately merging into one.

But that means that Calliope (both versions of her) started a different session on the same Earth as one of these timelines (or both, depending on where Alpha and Alternate Calliope came from). That's not too surprising, as B1 Earth spawned a lot of sessions too.

Are they going to the meteor for the Sgurb play grubs? I think so.

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> 345

Uhmm. What? I don't think an ambush is any real incentive to enter the Medium for, like a meteor or a spaceship or drones.

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> 346

Uhmm. Yeah, Vriska is trying to engineer a situation where Vrissy has no choice but to play the game, I guess. Still seems stupid.

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> 348

Well then. Vriska was right. These soldiers of Jane look like they are closely related to her. Or maybe it's just the tiara.

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> 349

Oooh! Nice melee weapon there. Are those... nunchuck dice, or something?

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> 350

Not 2*8 agents around them, sadly.

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> 351

Nice overview of the carapace kingdom. A lot less purple and gold and a lot more blank buildings than I imagine. That seems to be the park where John made his choice in the epilogues, in the upper right quadrant of the picture. With a clock tower nearby, so probably "the" clock tower.

And don't think I don't recognize that shadow being cast from a certain ship owned by a certain coorporate mongul.

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> 353

Oooh, John is looking for them. Is he going to fly in the direction of the ship? But what about Harry?

Hah, look at those totaled cars. That's the aftermath of Vriska flipping out, during the epilogues. It wasn't cleaned up properly after all. Roxy's car is pink, that's perfect. ... So, does that mean she went for groceries without her car? Or did she have a spare car, also possible.

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> 354

Looking at it from below, the ship is actually more menacing. Less confusing design choices distracting from its size and menacing look.

It's really huge, isn't it? Compared with the clock tower.

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> 355

Huh, so there's already fire in the church?

Does that mean John's too late? Whatever Jane ordered has already happened? Or did the rebellion start the fire when they crashed the ceremony?

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> 356

Huh. John's house? Where is the ship even going??

Oh. Wait. The church where the ceremony was held was in the human kingdom, John's house is in the consort kingdom... So did Jane pick everyone up and is now taking them to the troll kingdom for some reason?

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> 357

What? A bomb? Has Jane really ordered a bomb dropped on an alternate version of her family home? She's really lost it. Then again, Blaperile has a good point. All those fires in the distance... They might just be bombing indiscriminately.

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> 358

Oh god.

...

Wow.

If John was relatively on the fence about Jane until now, he has just been swayed. His childhood memories... The last remaining things reminding him of his Dad...

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> 359

D: This is horrible.

The war has often felt surreal and stakeless. But it isn't, it really isn't anymore.

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> 360

John's just... Stopped. He's unwinded. I wouldn't know how to process what he's going through, either.

It's more than just stuff. It's a lifetime of memories. And the connection with his Dad, most importantly.

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> 361

He was so shocked he didn't even think of blowing out the fires to save at least a part of the structure. Then again, what would have been the point?

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> 364

That's Jade, right?

But I just thought of something. Jake would have been able to aptly sympathize. A batterwitch bombed his childhood home, too. If he ever connected the dots on those events, that is.

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> 365

FLIPPING KARKAT???

Wow. Look at that badass. Solid Snake for real.

Blaperile has a good point. The cape he's done evokes the Sufferer!

But this is what I'd call a Martial Messiah.

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> 366

Art whiplash!

... Wow I have missed these two interacting.

Even if it's true, and John is not getting the catharsis out of talking with Karkat he normally got. It's true what Karkat said. Noticing the problem and being able to solve it are different things. And he's been out of the game too long. He's back to square one, he'll have to let people with a slightly better grasp of things tell him where to start.

So, at least until now Karkat didn't mention Harry Anderson being caught. The Vriskas probably got caught in an elaborate ploy by Vriska Prime to engineer the perfect situation in which S***b is the only way out. :(

At least Fanny has been freed and already shown her competence to the other adults. So she's got one up on a lot of the other kids already!

So, what? Did Jane's plan of retaliation really constite: bomb it, bomb it all? And yes, a lot of ploys at stake by Jane seem to consist controlling the offspring, of her friends, of other races...

And did anyone else feel as if Karkat's rant against John, about listening to the experts when you notice things going to shit, could also be seen as a rant in favor of following Covid19 measures?

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> 367

John is like: this has GOT to become a two-way feelings jam. It's the only proper way to go about this.

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> 368

Pffffff. John is the one ranting now.

He has a good point though. They haven't discussed the Yiffy situation and should DEFINITELY discuss the Dave situation. If Karkat even really knows he's dead. Which would be weird if he hadn't, since Rose and Jade are part of the same organization.

So with Karkat immediately, momentarily and at present starting his rant about Dave, I'm sure you are reminded of how he was going to tell John how the kids fucked up the session. Only I wouldn't be surprised if this time we're in for a perspective switch.

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> 369

Seriously. Okay, perspective switch in 1, 2, 3...

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> 370

Okay, I was psyched, I'll admit it.

Hah! Just like Jade got accosted by two Karkat's, John is feeling ambushed from three sides by one!

...

Oh shit, Karkat REALLY doesn't know what happened with Dave yet. And here we'll find out what John and the others even know. Also, yup, Karkat is still in denial of his feelings for Dave.

---

> 371

Eeeesh.

Okay, his Dave impression is on point, points to Karkat.

But now John is going to be the bringer of bad news. Why even did no one care to tell the leader of the resistance this most important fact??

---

> 372

Welp. Karkat really wants to bury this topic. And...

The sad part is...

It's half done now, too.

But John is going to have to get through to him, so I fear he'll just explode and blurt it out, if he can't get a word in edgewise.

---

> 373

...

So they know. That much they know. So they found his body. And Davebot didn't leave a message.

---

> 375

... Aww.

That's actually a good point for Karkat to make, from a Doylist point of view. In story though, they must have thought it was a sudden, unexpected death, somehow in line with Heroic or Just? Or... Do Karkat & the others think Dave pulled a Dirk on them, that would be so sad.

The difference with the meteor, I mean, the pirate ship crew, can't be much bigger. In fact, I'd say as far as Meat and Candy go, Karkat's situation is basically flipped from the very start.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Claire Ward hires private investigator John March to look into the increasingly bizarre activities of her husband Charles Dexter Ward, an esteemed Rhode Island chemical engineer. Through a series of conversations with John, Claire reveals Charles’s recent unexplained isolation in their carriage house, his sudden uncovering of his family history, and their visitation to an abandoned ancestral farmhouse near Pawtuxet where he found a painting of a man named Joseph Curwen, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Since these events, Charles has purchased and moved into the farmhouse, leaving Claire without explanation.

Upon investigating, John finds that numerous deliveries are made to the farmhouse, and inquires about them to Charles, who is evasive; Charles explains that he is undertaking routine chemical tests using animal cadavers. Shortly after, an elderly man in a neighboring home is found brutally murdered, only a few remnants of his bones left in the house. Police assume he was attacked and eaten by an animal, but John is skeptical. Claire and John go to visit Charles together, and find him pallid and speaking with an archaic affect. They attempt to extract an explanation from Charles, but he simply tells them he is on “the edge of greatness”, and that in six weeks’ time, they will understand.

Claire agrees to have Charles committed to a hospital. Doctors find his metabolism to be inexplicably high, triggering ravenous hunger, and attribute his change in demeanor to hormonal issues; however, they are unable to explain his craving for blood and raw meat. Meanwhile, John uncovers a diary in the carriage house from Ezra Ward, Charles’s fifth-great grandfather, dated 1771. The diary explains how Ezra had an affair with Joseph’s wife Eliza, and that Joseph had been practicing necromancy in catacombs he constructed on his property. After a flood penetrated the catacombs, the townspeople discovered a grotesquely malformed creature in the river, which they burned alive. The diary ends leading up to the townspeople’s raid of the Curwen house, and Eliza’s admission to Ezra that she was pregnant with Joseph’s child; Claire, John, and John’s assistant Lonnie surmise that Charles’s biological great-grandfather was actually Joseph, not Ezra.

John and Lonnie decide to search for catacombs on the farmhouse property with Claire. They uncover the entrance in the house’s basement, and inside the catacombs find a laboratory and half-grown creatures in wells; Claire also discovers Charles’s briefcase. They attempt to flee but are attacked, and Lonnie is killed by one of the creatures. John leaves a bomb in the catacombs, and he and an injured Claire escape with the briefcase before the house detonates. John takes Claire to the hospital where she is sedated, and the doctor informs him she is pregnant.

John goes to visit Charles in the psychiatric institution, and confronts him with the briefcase, which he discovered filled with human bones. He accuses Charles of in fact being the 250-year-old Joseph Curwen, who successfully found a way to conquer death through his necromantic experiments. Joseph admits his identity, and confesses that the bones in the suitcase are those of Charles, whom Joseph killed after Charles raised him from the dead. He explains his plan to regain his health and eventually be discharged from the hospital, after which he can impersonate Charles. Joseph attempts to cannibalize John, but John pours the restorative potion from the laboratory over Charles’s bones. Charles’s skeleton reanimates, and begins to tear the flesh off Joseph, before the two disappear in a cosmic explosion.

DEVELOPMENT Two facets of Lovecraft’s work create problems for filmmakers, who must not only wrestle with expanding his short stories to feature length, but must also find a cinematic method of conveying the sense of malign cosmic conspiracy underlying many of his later plots. Perhaps the closest anyone has come to capturing Lovecraft is Roger Corman’s THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), which, despite its Poe title is actually a previous adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Though Corman retained little of Lovecraft’s plot, many of the author’s more outre concepts survived, and Corman’s visual style was a fair approximation of Lovecraft’s literary voice.

THE RESURRECTED was initially written as a spec script by Brent V. Friedman, whose interest in adapting Lovecraft was piqued by the work of Stewart Gordon. “I didn’t really start reading Lovecraft until I noticed that RE-ANIMATOR was based on his story,” recalled Friedman. “I went out and devoured everything I could by him. The one story that struck me as having filmic potential was The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, because there’s so much there. His stuff is mostly short stories I saw some great little ideas, but I didn’t see a film in any of them.”

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is one of only three short novels that Lovecraft ever wrote. At approximately 120 pages, its length seemed optimum for translation to the screen. Noted Friedman, “Because I was so naive at the time. I thought, ‘This will be easy to adapt.’ It was very difficult. The way the novella is written is just how the title implies—it’s written as a kind of objective look at this strange experience. There was no real main character. Unless you want to make a documentary, that doesn’t hold up.”

Friedman set about adapting the novella without being aware of Corman’s film. “I didn’t see it until after I’d written the script I didn’t realize what it was based on until someone told me,” admitted Friedman. “It’s an interesting little film, but it’s a very different version.” After several drafts, Friedman managed to dramatize Lovecraft’s tale well enough to show the script to producers Mark Borde and Kenneth Raich, who took it to Toni Scotti of Scotti Brothers Pictures. In looking for a director, Borde sent Friedman’s script, then titled SHATTERBRAIN, to Dan O’Bannon through a mutual friend. The choice was appropriate: O’Bannon’s RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD had been an effective low-budget directorial debut; perhaps more importantly, O’Bannon’s ALIEN, though an “original” screenplay, captures many of Lovecraft’s more visual concepts probably better than any official adaptation, particularly in the sequence exploring the alien planet and derelict spaceship.

Coincidentally, O’Bannon had already been trying to adapt Lovecraft’s novella, and he brought many of his ideas to the script. “My script is relatively different from the film,” said Friedman. “I set up the main character as a psychiatrist examining Ward. The thrust was how the case affects this psychiatrist. He’s coming from a scientific background, thinking there’s a rational explanation, and takes on a case which makes him rethink everything he believes. After finding out there’s a supernatural explanation, he ends up going slightly crazy.

“When O’Bannon came onto the project, he had been trying to write a script from the same material, and he felt that he had never cracked the third act. He read my script and said, You’ve solved a lot of the problems, but the way I’d always had it in my mind was the main character’s a detective.’ If he was going to get involved with the project-which everyone was very keen on-he wanted to tell the story his way. Everyone was skeptical at first, because my script was getting good response. O’Bannon wrote out a 15-page treatment to show how you could integrate parts of my script with what his idea was.

Rejected Creature Design

“I can’t even tell you what a thrill it was to find out he was involved with the project.” Friedman enthuses. “In just the past six months that I’ve been working with him. I’ve probably learned more about writing than in the previous 26 years of my existence. It’s almost as if, until that point. I was just winging it.”

“Dan’s thinking was this story naturally lends itself to a detective because there are so many clues to be discovered. It looked good on paper, but the execution was a lot trickier than he had made it seem. The toughest thing was to keep the detective not only intellectually involved, but emotionally involved. Dan’s idea was to involve him, a la CHINATOWN, with the wife—which works on a certain level but on another level becomes distracting.”

The change in lead characters resulted in a change of title as well. “The word ‘shatterbrain’ is actually a Middle English term for crazy,” explained Friedman. “It was more relevant in my original script, because the psychiatrist came unglued. It does sound a little like a B-movie, but at the same time it evokes a certain image, so it was appropriate. I pushed for it long into post-production-people got very bored with my suggesting it. THE RESURRECTED, to me, gives too much away. Once you meet the three main characters -well, one of them’s been resurrected, and it’s not too hard to figure out which one!”

PRE-PRODUCTION Devising a photographic look that would capture Lovecraft’s tone fell to cinematographer Irv Goodnoff, who went through an interesting audition process for his director. “There was one other director of photography interested,” said Goodnoff, “so Dan gave us an assignment to bring in what we thought our interpretation of the script would be.

I went back and studied a number of painters that had the flavor of what H.P. Lovecraft felt like, expressionistically speaking. I brought in 30 books, marked out with the pictures I liked. About a week later, I got a phone call saying Dan wanted me.”

Pre-production lasted from June to October 1990, followed by seven weeks of principal photography in Vancouver, Canada, which doubled for Lovecraft’s beloved Providence, Rhode Island. The Bridge Studios, which cover almost 50,000 square feet, provided ample space for the construction of a labyrinth of tunnels where dwell the ghastly results of Curwen’s experiments.

“It’s a contemporary piece, but there’s also the 18th century and the whole world of the catacombs, so, in essence, the picture has three looks,” explained Goodnoff. “We used two different film stocks: Kodak for most of it, and Agfa for the period scene. The Agfa has a more creamy pastel look; the Kodak is much higher contrast with a denser black.

I try to create a flavor and a feeling. Sometimes, a third of the screen is black, and there are shafts of light. When you’re doing horror, you don’t show everything. Dan O’Bannon told me, “You set an expectation for the audience. Then you make them wait, and you make them wait, and you make them wait. When you finally suggest that they see something, they’re going to be scared.’ That was basically our approach.

“It was the most difficult job I’ve ever had to do. The scheduling should have been nine weeks, but we only had seven. We wrapped principal photography just before Christmas. It was one of those deadline days. The plug was being pulled at midnight. I’ve been on a couple of pictures like that: because of bonds people, financial and contractual things, one minute over 12 means you’ve blown it. Those bottom-line people have no grace in a lot of cases. We had three different units going. I was running from one to the other, checking, then shooting my own unit. It was a 14-hour marathon.”

Sarandon with O’Bannon

“Charles Ward is basically a well-intentioned, good man who is led astray by a desire to conquer this great scientific problem that his ancestor has posed. It’s kind of a parallel to Frankenstein: a good man who is consumed with something that he shouldn’t be messing with. The big theme here is basically “Don’t screw with death.”  – Chris Sarandon

SPECIAL EFFECTS The premise of the story is best summed up by a passage Lovecraft quotes from the alchemist Borellus: “… from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a philosopher may … call up the shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust where into his Bodie has been incinerated.” Typically, Lovecraft refers to the results, when not all the “essential Saltes” have been gathered, simply as the “livliest awfulness” without ever describing them in detail.

Such restraint doesn’t work on the movie screen, according to Friedman. “He didn’t really show you a lot,” said Friedman of Lovecraft. “In a book that’s almost scarier, because the reader uses his imagination to fill in the blanks. In a film you can’t just keep talking. Ata certain point you have to deliver the goods. The way the script plays is you get up to the point where he left off and then you have to start creating on your own.”

Coming up with specific designs for Lovecraft’s livliest awfulness fell to Masters, who took his initial inspiration from Friedman’s script. “There were incredibly bizarre descriptions which I had a lot of fun interpreting,” said Masters. “When it finally came to materializing these, O’Bannon would show me books of paintings by Francis Bacon, who I’ve always been a fan of. He would express himself in these imageries, these strange concoctions of paint and color and light rather than form and shape. Dan really got into talking about the character rather than the form, so it was an interesting challenge to come up with a design. What we tried to do is take the human form as groundwork and completely distort a certain aspect of itas long as there’s something the audience can grasp, it’s quite frightening. We designed about 30 monsters; in the film there are about five. I’ve still got reams of designs that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use for anything else because they’re so weird.

The effects unit during principal photography was directed by supervisor Todd Masters because O’Bannon was on a tight schedule. “Dan would take a sequence all the way up to where the effects jumped in, and he would finish off a sequence,” said Masters. “He would leave us the middle. My crew worked nights, mainly for sound reasons we didn’t want to cause troubles with the other unit. We had to match a similar camera style. Things marry very nicely.”

“We’ve done more tricks on this film than on any other I’ve ever worked on,” said Masters. “We have monster suits, remote-control animatronic characters, puppet heads, stop motion, and pneumatics. We had a set of prosthetics on Chris Sarandon for a good portion of the end of the film. You can’t tell he’s wearing anything—they match his face-until we turn on the lights. It’s networked with fiber optics, so it gives the illusion that his veins are glowing when he comes to his climactic end.”

“For most of the monsters, I was given a long leash,” Masters explains. “O’Bannon started coming down with quite a strict design on one creature that I called the ‘Darwin monster,’ which in one of the early drafts of the script was actually supposed to be Darwin resurrected. As the script developed, that monster kind of got pulled all over the place. Some of the earlier maquettes had some really wild designs, but O’Bannon finally just said, “Well, you know, what I really want to see in this movie, which we haven’t done yet, is a half-skeletal body-being that these are supposed to be resurrected corpses with its other half this kind of swollen, amorphous, elephantitis looking guy.’

“I was never too excited about that,” Masters admits, “just because I always thought it was more interesting when [the Charles Dexter Ward character] made these mistakes out of these corpses’ ashes–they didn’t always come together in the right place, and would elongate and do strange things. Dan wanted something that was a little stricter, closer to human, so he actually sat down and pencilled out this sketch which would eventually become this monster, and I did a maquette and a variety of sketches to hone in on what he was trying to get.

“It’s a pretty neat monster,” Masters concedes, “but it’s not my favorite in the film, because to me it’s too much of a solid substance. Many of the other ones are so disturbing and so amorphous that it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what every piece is.”

I though there are a number of creatures in The Resurrected, Masters points out that there isn’t an overabundance of gore for gore’s sake-although there are some healthy sprayings of blood.

“That’s one thing that Chris Sarandon and I were really trying to steer away from,” he clarifies. “I’ve never been a fan of gore, and I don’t really care for splattering walls with blood even though I did splatter two sets with blood for this film. Actually, one day I flew in from LA, got off the airplane, and Dan came up to me and said, ‘Do you have a lotta blood?’ I said, “Well…yeah.’ And he says, ‘Well, do you have lots of blood?’ It’s like, ‘I don’t know.

Extensive visual effects, supervised by Todd Masters in post-production, helped the ambitious nature of screenwriter Brent Friedman’s evocation of the horror of Lovecraft. Though many of the effects in Friedman’s script were deemed too expensive, Masters-originally hired to produce makeup and physical effects-sought to find a way to retain them, working closely with production designer Brent Thomas.

“Thomas really pulled rabbits out of his hat,” said Masters. “He loved the project from day one. He and I would get together after office hours at the studio and sit down in the hotel bar to concoct ideas. That’s how the movie turned into such a crazy fiasco. We thought the whole idea of Brent Friedman’s script was so bizarre and wonderful that we kept wanting to play.

“Every time something was pulled away from us, because there wasn’t money for this monster or that set, Brent Thomas and I would figure a way to put it back in. We didn’t want a film that has small production value. Horror films deserve all the scope and scale they can get.”

The horror that was to be resurrected by detective John Terry early on in Curwen’s laboratory got axed so Masters’ effects unit could afford to rent a studio to work in. As a low-cost stop-gap director Dan O’Bannon suggested that Terry resurrect just two fingers, “a goofy idea,” said Masters, who came up with a believable, low-budget finger monster concept instead. “We had to keep fingers in it,” said Masters, “so we turned this thing into almost a crab monster with fingers, an eyeball, and some external organs.”

After principal photography wrapped, Masters and producers Mark Borde and Kevin Raich viewed a rough assembly to determine what effects were still needed. What was originally intended to be a few weeks of rotoscoping expanded to six months, four shooting miniatures and another two adding opticals. “The producers really wanted it to be an effects-filled film,” said Masters. “We made sure that we kept the budget down. I’ve coordinated a lot of visual effects in the past. Since our eyes were looking through the camera, and our eyes only, we cheated to hide all the expensive stuff just inches out of frame.”

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One amusing episode involved a four-foot-high balsa wood miniature of Curwen’s mansion, rigged to explode. “This was part of Ted Rae’s unit—he did two miniature shots in the film,” said Masters. “We had it set up in Ted’s parking lot, waiting for nightfall. As I was painting part of the chimney, I heard these little cracks in the structure. As I was ready with the final dab of paint, a big gust of wind came and blew the whole thing down! What a nightmare! Ted and I jumped underneath the house and tried to hold it up, but we ended up having to recreate the whole building in a day and blow it up the following night.

“Everybody that worked on this film put their blood into it,” Masters summed up. “It turned into a labor of love for a lot of us-which I know sounds cliched, but everyone was really pulling for it, and it shows in the film.”

The extensive post-production schedule turned out to be a hindrance for composer Richard Band. “They made about eight edits the night before my recording session,” said Band. “That’s a composer’s nightmare, but all too common these days.” Band came up with a synthesizer score that boasted a full orchestral sound. “To have done this score with an orchestra would have cost $400,000,” said Band. “The producers have resigned themselves to a synthesizer score.”

Summed up Friedman, “I think we retained more Lovecraft than any other adaptation I’ve seen. We didn’t just use the concepts as springboards for our own story. In fact, there’s one scene lifted word-for-word, dialogue-wise, involving the first time you see Curwen posing as Ward, and he’s talking this strange 18th century speak. So there’s some place where Lovecraft is completely intact, and there are others where liberties were taken. It’s not as grossly amusing as REANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND. It takes a much more serious, Gothic slant. In the end, I wish we could have made my original script, but I’m still happy we made something.”

CAST/CREW Directed Dan O’Bannon

Produced Mark Borde Kenneth Raich

Written Brent V. Friedman

John Terry as John March Jane Sibbett as Claire Ward Chris Sarandon as Charles Dexter Ward/Joseph Curwen Robert Romanus as Lonnie Peck Charles K. Pitts as Ezra Ward Megan Leitch as Eliza Lauren Briscoe as Holly Tender

Special Effects by Jason Barnett    … prosthetic effects David P. Barton  … prosthetic department head (as David Barton) Julie Beuscher   … prosthetic effects Bryan Blair  … prosthetic effects Evan Brainard    … prosthetic effects Kevin Brennan    … prosthetic effects Jeffrey Butterworth  … first assistant special physical effects (as Jeff Butterworth) Scott Coulter    … prosthetic department head: Todd Masters Company, Inc. (as John Scott Coulter) Bernhard Eichholz … prosthetic effects (as Bernie Eichholtz) Earl Ellis   … prosthetic effects: Todd Masters Company, Inc. Kevin Flemming   … special effects photography Thomas Floutz    … key effects makeup artist (as Thom Floutz) Mark Garbarino   … prosthetic department head Karin Hanson … prosthetic effects Marty Huculiak   … special effects assistant Timothy Huizing  … prosthetic effects (as Tim Huizing) Gil Liberto  … prosthetic effects (as Gilbert Liberdo) Geoff Martin … special effects key grip Todd Masters … special effects unit director Mike McDonald    … special effects gaffer (as Michael McDonald) Kevin O’Leary    … special effects assistant Gary Paller  … special physical effects coordinator Dennis Petersen  … special effects assistant Tom Price    … special effects assistant (as Thomas E. Price) Jonas Quastel    … special effects first assistant camera Robert Sheridan  … special effects assistant Mark Sisson  … prosthetic effects James Slavin … prosthetic effects (as Jim Slavin) Chris Spouler    … special effects assistant Candace Van Woerkom  … prosthetic effects Andrew Vincent   … special effects lamp operator Scott Wheeler    … prosthetic effects Shawn Wilson … special effects assistant Andre Bustanoby  … prosthetic effects (uncredited)Visual Effects by Bret Alexander   … visual effects miniatures Jim Aupperle … visual effects director of photography Asao Goto    … visual effects miniatures Dave Gregory … optical effects supervisor Todd Masters … special visual effects Jeff Pyle    … visual effects miniatures Ted Rae  … additional miniature / visual effects director of photography Marc Tyler   … visual effects miniatures David Williams   … additional optical camera: Illusion Arts (as Dave Williams)

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v22n06 Fangoria#106 Fangoria#112 Gorezone#22

The Resurrected (1991) Retrospective SUMMARY Claire Ward hires private investigator John March to look into the increasingly bizarre activities of her husband Charles Dexter Ward, an esteemed Rhode Island chemical engineer.

[bluewatsons]

Lake Micah, OJ, Boomer, The New Inquiry (December 24, 2019)

A onetime culture-hero of a liberal democracy, OJ Simpson’s manner of relationality is unrecognizable and incommunicable

To the extent that any prison sentence is also death sentence, O. J. Simpson may well be said to have returned from the dead. But any insistence on his death in the first place betrays the consensus view of reality, if only because Simpson is, by appearance and fact, not dead, no matter what Afropessimists might have to say about ontology’s antagonisms to blackness. And yet: It is right to observe that incarceration occasions a plunder of civil liberties in what, from the legislative perspective, is formally indistinguishable from the minimally capacitated status of the deceased; its ghoulish, transmuting power is to render (formerly) incarcerated subjects operative, if not always actual, corpses. We might term this occurrence social death, a process administered by that “peculiar apparatus” penality (to repurpose Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”), and proceeding from our nation’s own peculiar institution. An extractive, disenfranchising establishment, the prison’s undispelled intent is a total denuding of subjecthood.

Such framing—tendentiously derived—would mark the prison as functional opposite of the commons, where repeated invocations of the self serve aspiringly to bolster and promote one’s subjectivity into life-affirming excess. This is useful logic for understanding Simpson’s late restoration. As if to assert his status (mythic, alive) he has turned to social media, that newest of commons, pursuant to a connatural, creaturely desire: instantiation of his ego, in the original Latinate sense of the word. O. J. has come to say I.

Simpson’s Twitter videos began to appear in summer of this year. The unforeseen first arrived as ambuscade—amid warming, precedentless June, a week before the solstice—unwelcome omen of an abstruse half year still to come. “Hey, Twitter-world!” the man hailed, in close-up. “This is yours truly.” As mode of address, it was classic, an epistle recalling through rewriting Shakespeare (“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears . . .”). Yet it contained interesting violations of epistolary form, with the parting salutation (“yours truly”) used up top, and apparently to euphemizing, cozening, thoroughly ingratiating effect. What little else there was to note: Simpson spoke from the wide focal length of a cell phone’s front-facing camera; the act technically constituted vlogging. True to the vlog’s genre, he became more banal as he spoke: “Coming soon to Twitter you’ll get to read all my thoughts and opinions on just about anything . . . There’s a lot of fake O. J. accounts out there so this one, @TheRealOJ32, is the only official one . . . This should be a lot of fun. I’ve got a little getting even to do.”

I followed the unverified account, intrigued by the promise of a vengeance that I thought he had long ago exacted upon the world, and by the mystery of his “thoughts and opinions.” But I recalled the sophisticating, proliferating deepfakes, and was cautious. There was little need for trepidation. No parody or disinformation obtained. Here instead, evidently, was a cinema verité: dreary; nonscandalous; the work, in a sense, of a documentary auteur. Simpson’s thoughts and opinions were of sports and of athletes; his sense of revenge was historical, focused on amendment of an errant biographical record that he had felt to accrue around his name. In this he sounded like the cliché of a retiree father (“OK, boomer”), who offered ceremoniously the dim lights of his perceptions and recollections to an audience whose care extended from curiosity, or from a corrupted sense of cultural nostalgia. Still, I wanted to write about him, about his curiously wrought phenomenon, and to intellectualize through criticism his burgeoning oeuvre and Gesamtkunstwerk. I wrote a pitch, executing upon it no flattering revisions for the brief essay in which it would reappear:

What I’m interested in is the reappearance of O. J. Simpson, once a paragon of a certain kind of radicalized virility, as something we might recognize as daddish and Boomer-like, belonging to an aged fraternity of erectile dysfunctioning phallogocentrists. His mishandling of the medium of Twitter plays a hand in this re-envisaging. Here he posts videos—dispatches from his parolee’s purgatory—of himself engaged in what we might consider a region of re-enfranchisement studded, we know, with its delimited freedoms, and therefore recalling in that same nostalgic moment the surfeit of civil dispensations once enjoyed by the man. And incarceration has transmogrified his body, too: In the shaded sports lenses, brimmed hats, and relaxedly splayed collars of polo shirts, Simpson speaks to us from the slackening vessel of a Dad Bod, replete with its breasts and flabs—and approximating, in that way, a more “feminized” body. I want to consider this instance of convergence (of carceral conscription and en-gendering) as something fraught, and potentially revealing; that is, more than coincidental.

I’d like to say, too, that I want this piece to be rather un-self-serious, and maybe even ridiculous. Light of tone and humorous, if I can manage it. Yet I hope for it to retain some essence of rigor—analysis of a figure so emblematic of the kind of broadcast-delayed convulsions happening at the End of History, attributable to the unconscionable incursions of Western powers across the globe in earlier, midcentury decades. . . .

But I exhausted my interest in the same moment that I expressed it. The pitch and its essay became near-duplicate artifacts, the former contained in the latter, as in a kind of gnostic mise en abyme: self-returning replay of sentiment, ideation. The recursion seemed apposite, even convenient, as it corroborated the End as the End—locked and withheld in distinct, uninhabitable temporality unapproachable even by thought, indeed marking the final, impregnable terminus of so many converging vectors of world-historical machination.

This July 9th marked Simpson’s 72nd birthday, which he commemorated with another video. “I’m celebrating my 33rd annual 39th birthday,” he confesses from the end of a driving stroke of a golf ball. He feigns laughter at his own joke, which strikes as a recursion, too, an instance of semantic solipsism—return once more to the self—describing the limit of progressive speech, communication, interpersonal imbrication. A onetime culture-hero of a liberal democracy, his manner of relationality is unrecognizable, incommunicable. Perhaps Afropessimistically, his ontology finds a temporal/linguistic stymie, exists outside of the distension of event we call chronology. Simpson’s world, then, its histories and futures, ended three decades ago. He was his own arbiter, Horseman of the Apocalypse riding his white Bronco.

[jesusbukkake-blog]

Girls Scream Aloud story

Girls Scream Aloud is a story written by a man named Darryn Walker from South Tyneside that resulted in him getting taken to court for obscenity.

You can read the Girls Scream Aloud story online here because I realised there doesn’t appear to be anyone else who has created a mirror of it.

Obviously, I think it is absolutely terrible that anyone would be arrested for writing text and publishing it online.

This following story was not written by me in any part. Personally, I don’t think it’s very good. But fuck how my home and native land treat free speech.

Publishing this is definitely in the public interest. Motherfuckers.

This is the entirety of the text as it was originally posted on asstr.org

Everything beneath this sentence is his original post.

Girls (Scream) Aloud (FFM, nc, rp, inc, v, tor, bd, sn, mutilation)

By Blake Sinclair (blakesinclair69@yahoo.co.uk) ________________________________________ ________________________________________

WARNING! This story contains explicit imaginary descriptions of the rape torture and mutilation of five of the sexiest girls in pop today.

The following is a work of erotic/sadistic fantasy set in a world in which women are disposable sex objects that exist solely for the pleasure of men. It contains themes of extreme sexism, misogyny, torture, rape, mutilation, dismemberment, murder, execution and male supremacy over women. I cannot stress enough that this is STRICTLY FICTITIOUS and in no way reflects my own views or opinions towards women.

Under no circumstances should the violent situations of this story be re-enacted in any way. ALWAYS practice safe sex with consenting partners of a legal age.

The characters in this story are fictitious and any similarities between any persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

If you are easily offended by the themes I have described above then please read no further. If you are unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality and your actions are in any way likely to be influenced by these fictional events then you are not the sort of person that I want reading my work and you should commit suicide before an innocent person gets hurt because of your sick and perverted persuasions. For those who enjoy gratuitous sadistic erotica in the extreme and realise that this is nothing but fantasy, please read on….

***

Prologue

As much as I had always hated the sound of Girls Aloud’s so called music, like nearly every other man in the world I was willing to endure it in order to see their luscious soft female bodies on TV clothed in very little. How I fantasized about how I would kill five such sexy girls.

My most recent girlfriend, Lisa had looked a bit like Sarah Harding which my only reason was for ever dating her and for killing her in my favourite way when I got sick of her – to cut off her legs and tits whilst she was tied down naked and helpless.

Strangely enough though, in the last month nobody had heard anything from Girls Aloud. They had simply not turned up for an organised concert with no explanation.

I didn’t give it much thought as I would at least be spared that racket of their so called singing.

It was purely by chance then, that I stumbled across the most fantastic eBay offer I had ever set my eyes upon: Genuine Girls Aloud body parts plus a DVD of all five girls’ murder with every purchase.

I studied the images closely: Five pretty heads; five pairs if well formed tits; five carefully cut out cunts and five pairs of long sexy legs.

Hoping beyond anything I’d ever hoped for before that this wasn’t a hoax, I waited until the last possible moment and doubled the offer on Nadine Coyle’s legs and held my breath. I didn’t breathe again until I was satisfied of three things: Bid accepted; Payment confirmed; Goods dispatched.

It took only two days for my lovely new purchase to arrive and I eagerly opened the long box. My hands trembled as I tore away the soft inner packaging to reveal a pair of beautiful smooth sexy legs. They had been treated with a preservative called Soft Balm which kept a dead body from ever decomposing. It had been formulated to meet with the rising demand for men wanting to keep girls’ body parts as souvenirs of sexual their conquests.

Also in the packaging was the promised DVD. I loaded it into my player, sat down with Nadine’s legs in my lap and hit the ‘PLAY’ button on my DVD remote:

Victim #1: Nicola

According to its driver, the Girls Aloud tour bus had to be diverted in order to avoid upcoming road works.

The girls themselves were too engrossed to care so all he got was a simple “Yeah, whatever.” from Cheryl who was clearly annoyed that his announcement had distracted Kimberley from licking out her wet cunt. Beside Cheryl and Kimberley, Sarah lay in between Nadine and Nicola. Nicola lay behind Sarah and had one finger up Sarah’s tight little arsehole.

Sarah in turn had one arm stretched behind her and was fingering Nicola’s juicy cunt. Facing Sarah was Nadine who had one finger in Sarah’s cunt who in turn fingered Nadine with her other hand. Nadine was also fingering Kimberley’s cunt from behind. All the girls were well aware that they were being watched by the driver.

The driver hated these bitches and their teasing sex games which the little bitches knew he was watching on the bus’s internal CCTV monitor. They did so love to play their little teasing game for him which was why he’d spent months planning this particular detour. They wouldn’t be so arrogant soon, the overpaid little whores. Soon they’d be begging for their lives and making him very rich, not to mention very happy.

“I’m pulling into a garage here!” the driver announced. No one answered. They probably didn’t even hear him over their own moans and giggles. In fact they didn’t even realise that the bus had stopped and the driver had left it. They were too busy playing with one another’s cunts.

Cheryl gave a scream of ecstasy as her cunt shot its hot girl cum onto Kimberley’s tongue. Kimberley swallowed Cheryl’s cum and licked her cunt clean then giggled, as she wriggled with Nadine’s finger up her own cunt.

“Ha ha!” Kimberley laughed. “Cheryl’s out! She’s just shot her load.” Kimberley licked her lips at Cheryl. “And it tasted lovely.” Kimberley added and kissed Cheryl on the cunt then on her mouth so Cheryl could get a faint taste of her own juices. The others laughed as Cheryl stood up and walked away to get dressed.

It was only as Cheryl, still dizzy from the earth shattering orgasm Kimberley had given her, was sorting out a pair of tights to put on that she realised that the bus was no longer moving.

“Hey, we’ve stopped.” she called out.

“No, no, nooooo! Oh god!” Screamed Sarah as she was the next to orgasm. “Fuck you, Cheryl!” Sarah shouted “I was trying not to cum!” Nadine and Nicola both took their fingers out of Sarah’s arse and cunt. As they were both still in the game though, Sarah had to stay where she was and keep her fingers in both of their cunts.

“Where’s the driver gone?” Asked Cheryl to no one in particular.

“Filling up I suppose,” suggested Sarah.

“You’re right.” Said Cheryl. “I can smell petrol.”

The others instinctively sniffed the air.

“It’s getting stronger too.” Cheryl said.

“I don’t think that its petrol either.” Said Nicola, her voice straining with the effort of talking and keeping an orgasm at bay.

“Well bloody diesel, then!” Snapped Cheryl. “God, you can be a right pedantic cow at times!”

The smell got stronger.

Kimberley sniffed harder, “My car’s diesel,” she said urgently. “And I can tell you now that’s not like any diesel I’ve ever used!”

“What the fuck’s going on?” demanded Cheryl just before darkness took her and she hit the floor of the bus.

The others fell unconscious too.

Little did they realise what awaited them when they woke up.

* * *

Sarah’s eyes opened. Her vision was blurred. She was lying gagged on a cold stone floor with her hands tied behind her back. She was still naked except for the fact that someone had put a pair of sheer black stockings and black five inch heels on her.

As her vision cleared she realised that there wasn’t much light but she could make out the shapes of the others similarly gagged and tied. They had all had stockings and high heels put on them as well.

One of them moved, Nadine.

Nadine opened her eyes and looked pleadingly to Sarah. Sarah could only return her helpless stare. One by one the other three came round.

They all lay helpless on the ground as they came to their senses.

They hadn’t lain there for long when light suddenly flooded the building they were in. The lights were powerful and they all recognised them as familiar studio lights which they were well used to working under.

They were in some kind of large warehouse. It was sparsely furnished but for the lights and some odd looking apparatus in the middle of the floor and a couple of high definition digital movie cameras.

From somewhere out of sight, they could hear faint laughter: A man’s laughter. All five girls were getting very frightened. They wriggled futilely in their restraints as the sound of footsteps sounded in the distance and the shape of a man loomed into view.

He was large muscular and naked with a huge erection. His face was obscured by a black leather executioner’s hood and only his eyes and mouth were visible. The girls tried to back away as he approached them. He went for Cheryl first and effortlessly hauled her to her feet and dragged her to where five hooks hung from the high ceiling. He untied her wrists then snapped handcuffs on them, this time in front of her. Then he pulled her arms above her head and looped the chain of the handcuffs over one of the hooks so as she stood suspended with her feet just barely touching the floor.

Tears filled Cheryl’s eyes and she sobbed softly.

The man walked away and returned with Nadine. He repeated the process of hanging her by her wrists on one of the hooks then returned with Sarah followed by Nicola and finally Kimberley.

All five girls were crying now.

The man himself seemed to be adjusting one of the cameras so that it pointed towards the five helpless girls.

“Well, girls,” said the man in a rasping voice. “If you haven’t already guessed, you’re all going to die tonight.”

The girls all started shaking and pulling frantically at their restraints.

His cold cruel eyes looked at each girl in turn. The look of sheer terror filling each of their eyes was clearly pleasing him.

Finally he spoke, “Nicola. You’re first.” He walked up to Nicola and removed her gag.

“Nooooo!” she screamed “No! Please!”

The man lifted Nicola off her hook and dropped her screaming to the ground.

He then grabbed her by her long auburn hair and dragged her to where a work bench stood in the middle of the floor.

Nicola continued screaming. “No! Please! Somebody help me!”

The man lifted Nicola effortlessly onto the wooden bench and unlocked her handcuffs.

Nicola tried to struggle against his superior strength but he easily forced her arms wide apart and tightened her wrists into leather straps at the corners of the bench.

Nicola kept screaming.

The hooded man then grabbed Nicola’s kicking legs and similarly tied them at the ankles as wide apart as painfully possible so that her wet cunt lips were parted and vulnerable.

Satisfied that Nicola was completely helpless, the man held up a huge twelve inch vibrator for Nicola and the others to see. Nicola’s eyes widened at the length and thickness of the huge phallic toy.

The man smiled and activated the dildo. It buzzed to life with a faint hum. Then he squeezed it tightly and a sharp eight inch blade sprang from its tip.

“No!” Screamed Nicola louder than ever “Oh God! No! Please!”

The man retracted the blade and smiled. “As soon as you cum.” He said unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. “As soon as you cum, the blade extends inside you.”

“No!” Screamed Nicola. “Please! I’ll do anything. Anything!”

The man ignored her and parted her already open cunt lips even farther with his fingers.

“Nooooo!” cried Nicola over and over again as she felt the huge rubber cock being forced up her tight cunt hole. It was pushed further into her than any real cock or dildo she had ever used on herself had ever been. She yelped in pain as the man gave it one last push and activated it.

The dildo vibrated fast inside Nicola’s cunt, stimulating that most sensitive area. Her clitoris sent all the usual signals of euphoric bliss to her brain despite her best efforts to resist. I mustn’t orgasm; she thought to herself, I mustn’t cum.

But the dildo was too powerful and after a few minutes of stimulation Nicola lost control of her cunt muscles as they squeezed and contracted around the huge dildo which was invading her body.

“No. NO. NOOOOOOOOOOO!” she screamed but it was too late. Inside her body she felt the release of her juices followed by a sharp horrendous pain of the cruel blade perforating her innards. She screamed her loudest yet as the man loomed over her once again this time holding a long knife. Nicola began to cough up blood from her destroyed internal organs. Her vision began to darken but she felt the man’s rough hand squeeze her tit hard. He then placed the knife blade under the tit and sliced upwards.

Nicola made a sound that was somewhere between screaming and gurgling blood. The man sliced excitedly until the soft tit was severed from Nicola’s dying body. He then did the same to her remaining tit, happy that she was still alive and conscious enough to still feel the pain and scream.

When both her tits had been cut off the man pulled the bloodied dildo out of Nicola’s cunt and with a smaller thin sharp knife, he cut around her cunt then pulled it out with a sharp tug. Nicola gave one final scream.

Although still alive, Nicola felt cold and numb and her vision was darkening. She could make out the shape of the man standing between her outstretched legs holding what appeared to be a large saw. Darkness finally took her as she thought she could hear a grinding sound and the feeling of something cutting trough her pelvis where her leg joined her body.

Victim #2: Kimberley

The four remaining girls looked in sheer terror at Nicola’s torture. She had stopped screaming now and the only sound they could hear was the sickly grinding sound of the man sawing the legs off Nicola’s mutilated body.

When the legs were cut off he placed them on the ground and unfastened the restraints holding Nicola’s arms. He then lifted her titless and legless torso and placed it on the ground beside her severed tits and legs.

The girls’ eyes flooded with tears at the sight of Nicola’s demise and at the knowledge that one of them was going to be next.

The man turned back to where the helpless four were hanging by their wrists.

They all began to struggle violently as he eyed each one of them in turn until his eyes settled on Kimberley.

Kimberley shook her head frantically as he walked towards her and removed her gag.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” screamed Kimberley. “Please!”

The man smiled “I’m betting you’ll do anything not to die like Nicola did?” he asked excitedly.

“Yes.” screamed Kimberley. “I’ll do anything. Anything you want! Oh God please don’t do the same to me. Please! I don’t want to die!”

“Well,” said the man menacingly, “Killing beautiful girls is horny work and I have the urge to cum in your mouth. Are you going to be a good girl and suck my cock?”

“YES!!!” Screamed Kimberley. “Yes I’ll be good and do whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt me!”

He lifted Kimberley down from her hook and forced her to kneel in front of him.

“Suck my cock.” He ordered her. “And swallow like the little slut you are!”

With that he rammed his hard cock into Kimberley’s open mouth. “Use your tongue, you little whore!” he growled.

Kimberley tasted the salty pulsating cock in her wet mouth. Under different circumstanced she might have enjoyed it. But now all she could think was that her life depended on this blow-job although deep down she knew she was going to die anyway.

The huge cock pulsated and throbbed in her mouth until it finally exploded and her mouth filled up with hot thick cum.

There’s so much of it thought! Kimberley. As she swallowed it seemed as though more was pouring from the hard erection and she began to choke as she struggled to get all the hot semen down her throat.

Finally the man stopped cumming and pulled his cock out of Kimberley’s mouth. Amazingly, it was still impressively hard.

Kimberley gagged and spluttered as she tried to breathe again.

“Did you enjoy that?” the man asked making no effort to hide the fact that he clearly had.

“Yes!” cried Kimberley hoping that this was the right thing to say. “I want to do it again. Please can we do it again?”

The man laughed. “I don’t have time.” He said. “I’ve got to kill you and three more to kill.”

“No!” Kimberley cried. “You promised!”

“I didn’t promise,” said the man. “You were brought here to die, all of you were! And you’re all going to die. Did you really think that you could tease men all these years and get away with it? All those poses in magazines, those videos of you all wearing next to nothing showing off your tits and legs making men horny. Making men want you and then laughing because you thought that they could never get near you.” He looked down at Kimberley and then at the three others while he continued his obviously frustrated rant.

“But then the law changed!” he said “The law changed and women were put in their places. No rights, none of this equality bollocks! Just dirty little tarts for men to do what they like with. And now that’s exactly what I’m going to do with you.”

He picked Kimberley up and fastened her onto the bench as he had done to Nicola.

Kimberley screamed and begged as he forced her sexy legs wide apart and tied her ankles. He then began to lick her cunt out. She had already cum. Most likely out of fear.

“I knew this was making you horny.” He laughed as he stuck his tongue as far up her cunt as he could.

He withdrew his tongue and parted her cunt lips so he could look inside her. “Any more up there?” He asked “I hope so. There’s nothing quite like the taste of a frightened girl’s cum.”

Kimberley just kept on screaming at her violation much to the man’s cruel amusement. To his utter delight and to Kimberley’s shame she came as he licked out her sweet wet cunt. He licked up her rich white girl cum savouring the taste of her fear in every drop.

Kimberley had screamed all through her orgasm but now she had quietened as the man finished licking her and stood up.

“I think we’ll do it different this time,” he said as he retrieved his blood covered saw.

“NOOOOOOOO!” Screamed Kimberley. “God no! Please kill me first! Please! I’m begging you!”

“Sorry,” said the man. “But I can’t do that. I need to saw off your legs while you’re still alive so you’ll feel the pain. And I need the practice for when it’s Nadine’s turn. She’s got the sexiest legs in the world apparently.” He looked over at where Nadine was hanging.

“The sexiest legs in the world,” he repeated, “and I’m going to be the one to cut them off.” Nadine felt herself cum at the thought of dying in such a way.

Hot sticky girl juice ran down the world’s sexiest legs.

The man laid a rough hand on Kimberley’s throbbing wet cunt to steady her helpless soft trembling body and pushed his middle finger into her slippery well lubricated hole.

She screamed at this latest rough uncaring intrusion into her most intimate opening.

“Please!” She cried desperate to be spared the same, if not worse pain that had been so mercilessly inflicted upon Nicola.

The man ignored her pleas for mercy just as he had ignored Nicola’s.

He positioned the jagged blade of the saw on the bone of Kimberley’s pelvis where her long shapely leg joined her body and began to saw back and forth.

Kimberley screamed as the cruel blade broke her delicate skin at first then bit into the bone itself.

Kimberley’s shrieks of agony filled the vast building as the saw bit deeper and deeper with each stroke and each stroke Kimberley knew was one stroke closer to her leg becoming detached from her body.

Kimberley’s world was one of pain, unimaginable ecstatic pain until the sawing stopped and she could no longer feel any sensation in her sexy leg. It had been cut cleanly off and all Kimberley felt was a searing pain where the saw had severed bone tendons nerves and sinew.

Her screams had died down to a pant as she felt herself going numb from shock and severe blood loss.

The man must have realised this and knowing that Kimberley would soon be dead he proceeded to saw off her remaining leg to make sure she would at least suffer right up until the end.

The new wave of pain from her other leg being sawed off momentarily brought Kimberley back to her senses and she began screaming once again. To the man’s disappointment, her screams were short lived.

The pain finally left Kimberley’s body as darkness overcame her vision. The last thing she saw was the man smiling as he sawed away at her half severed leg.

Victim #3: Sarah

Sarah, Cheryl and Nadine looked on as the man continued to mutilate Kimberley’s dead body. He removed her cunt in much the same way as he had Nicola’s then he sliced off Kimberley’s tits.

Finally he unstrapped Kimberley’s body from the bench and placed her remains beside those of Nicola.

The three remaining terrified girls’ eyes streamed with tears and their cunts dripped with cum.

The man turned once again to the girls.

“Which of you little bitches wants to be next?” He asked.

The three girls shook their heads frantically as he approached them to select his next victim.

He looked at each in turn before settling his eyes on Sarah.

His ever hard cock twitched in excitement as he soaked up the look of pure terror in Sarah’s crystal blue eyes. He removed her gag and she gave an ear-piercing scream.

He also noticed the looks of relief on Cheryl and Nadine’s faces although their relief would be short lived.

The man lifted Sarah from her hook and carried her kicking and screaming over to the now blood soaked bench and secured her onto it in the same helpless spread eagled position.

“Now,” said the man looking Sarah’s body up and down, “how would you like to die?”

“NOOO! NOOO! NOOO!” screamed Sarah “Not me! Please not me!”

“Yes,” the man said in a low taunting voice. “It’s your turn.”

“Please!” sobbed Sarah. “I won’t tell anybody what you’ve done! I promise! I’ll just say the group’s split up. Please! You don’t need to kill me as well!”

“Why should I care who finds out what I’ve done here?” Asked the man “You’re all just girls aren’t you. It’s not like killing you is illegal, is it? You’ll try anything to save your own tits, won’t you?” Said the man.

“Yes!” Sarah screamed “I’ll even help you!”

“And how do you think you can help me?” The man asked feigning intrigue.

Sarah looked to where Cheryl and Nadine were hanging.

“What if I sucked your cock while you killed Cheryl and Nadine?” She said quickly.

“You’re not much of a friend,” said the man. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Because I hate them!” Screamed Sarah “They’re the most popular. World’s sexiest legs! World’s sexiest woman! That should have been me!” Sarah screamed.

A look of disbelief replaced the fear on Cheryl and Nadine’s faces. Sarah was frightened, true, but neither Nicola nor Kimberley had said anything like this. Fresh tears welled up in Nadine’s eyes but Cheryl’s eyes turned hard and she glared hatefully at Sarah. I hope it’s even fucking slower and more painful for you. You blonde bitch! She though venomously.

The man pretended to consider Sarah’s suggestion then said “I’m afraid I don’t see a way to let you live and cut off your sexy bits.” He said “So it’ll be easier for me and more painful for you if I just kill you like I planned to. But I promise you, your two friends will die just as painfully. You have my word.”

Sarah didn’t doubt it as she began to cry once more whilst the man picked up the long knife he’d used on Kimberley and Nicola’s tits.

The man turned the knife towards Sarah as she screamed in panic at the impending pain she was about to endure.

“Let’s see if we can make you last a bit longer than your friends did,” he said.

Sarah just kept screaming as he groped one soft tit with his rough hand and brought the knife beneath it with his other hand.

“NO!” Screamed Sarah. “Please! Don’t cut off my tits. Please!”

The man ignored her pathetic plea for mercy and brought the sharp blade up to slice through Sarah’s soft helpless tit.

Tremendous pain engulfed Sarah’s body as the man slices effortlessly through her soft flesh and lifted the pert severed tit away and placed it beside her head.

Sarah jerked her head the other way so she didn’t have to look at her own cut off tit.

“Oh my God!” She screamed hysterically, “My tit. You’ve cut off my tit. Put it back on! Please put it back on!”

The man enjoyed Sarah’s hysterical pleading and screaming as he likewise sliced off her second tit and placed it at the other side of her head so that now whichever way she looked, she would see her own severed breasts.

Sarah stared wide eyed in disbelief at the bloody mounds where her pert breasts had been only minutes before.

The man now held the smaller of the two knives Sarah had seen him use to cut out Nicola’s cunt.

Sarah’s own cunt began to throb uncontrollably as the man pushed his rough finger up it and twisted it cruelly.

Sarah winced in pain and screamed.

“Kill me! Please kill me! I can’t bear the pain. Please! You’ve had your fun with me. Please do the rest after I’m dead! Please!”

The man laughed and waved the knife in front of Sarah’s wet cunt.

“Please!” begged Sarah “Please make it quick!”

“If I make it quick I won’t have the pleasure of hearing you scream while I’m sawing into you.” He said.

“Please!” screamed Sarah again. “Please! Kill me now!”

“Your cunt or your legs?” asked the man.

“What?” screamed Sarah “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to cut one more thing off before I kill you. Your cunt or your legs? Your choice.”

Sarah didn’t know what to say. She tried to think: Her cunt would take less time to cut out than it would take to saw off her legs. But the thought of dying without her remaining claim to womanhood attached scared her for some reason. Then she thought of Kimberley’s hideous screams as her legs were being sawed off. She was in enough pain already.

“My cunt!” Sarah screamed. “Cut out my cunt and please make it quick.”

“I’ve got a better idea.” the man said putting down the knife and lifting the saw “I’m going to saw off your legs and make it slow!” He began to laugh.

Sarah screamed louder than ever. Louder than she ever thought possible.

The man clamped his rough hand on Sarah’s wet cunt and positioned the saw and once again began the motion of sawing back and forth.

Sarah screamed as she entered a new world of pain hundreds of times worse than that of her tits being cut off. She could feel the saw grinding into her bone, severing tendons and nerves. She was loosing the feeling in her leg as with each successive stoke of the saw it became a little more detached from her sexy body.

Darkness clouded her vision and she did not try to fight it. She was grateful that she would not live through the agony of her other leg being cut off.

The last thing Sarah Harding saw in her young life was the sight of her own beautiful leg being lifted away from her mutilated body. The last thing she felt was the most fantastic pain and fear induced orgasm.

The man sawed off Sarah’s remaining leg and released her body from the bench setting it and its sexy severed members onto the ground with those of Nicola and Kimberley.

Victim #4: Nadine

Cheryl and Nadine were paralysed with fear. The sight of their friends being dismembered alive was horrific enough but the knowledge that the same was going to happen to them was worse still.

The man walked up to them and he licked his lips lustfully at Nadine.

Nadine shut her eyes and shook her head frantically. She felt his rough hands clasp her pert subtle breasts. Her small perfectly round nipples were hard and pointed.

The man ran his hand down her body to find the wet slit between her perfect legs.

“Oh, Nadine,” said the man breathing heavily. “Your legs are so beautiful.” He pulled her soft body against his own hard muscular frame. His rock hard erection pressed into her soft quivering flesh.

“I hope you’ll live long enough to feel the pain of both your legs being cut off.”

Nadine felt her cunt throb and release its hot girl juice. She was frightened but aroused at the same time. She didn’t understand why.

The man removed her gag to reveal her pretty mouth. Which trembled in fear? Her lovely eyes were filled with tears.

“Please,” Nadine whimpered. “Please.”

The man looked at her. His eyes softened though not with regret.

“I have to, Nadine,” he said. “I need to! You’re my dream victim. You’ve got the most perfect legs in the world.”

“I’d liked to have kept you till last,” he said turning to Cheryl. “But I need someone to suck my cock while I’m cutting your legs off.”

Despite all she had just witnessed Nadine still couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

The man lifted Nadine’s slender body from the hook and set her on her knees.

“Suck my cock,” said the man “Suck my cock and I promise I’ll only cut off your legs while you’re alive.”

Nadine whimpered and nodded.

The man freed her wrists from behind the handcuffs and he made her hug his well toned waist.

He then guided his huge erection into Nadine’s accepting mouth.

Nadine had taken men’s cocks in her mouth before but she couldn’t remember one being this hard.

This was what a man with power tasted like she thought. A man with real power over women. The man who was going to kill her.

Tears fell down Nadine’s face as she savoured the taste of the cruel cock in her lovely mouth.

Oh, God! She thought to herself. Oh God! Why is this turning me on?

She curled her velvet tongue around the huge throbbing organ then used the delicate tip of her tongue to gently lick its raw end.

“Good girl,” Panted the man. “Oh yes! Oh yes! OH YES!”

Hot thick cum spurted from his swollen cockhead into Nadine’s mouth. There was so much of it. Even his cum had a taste of power about it.

Nadine swallowed it all knowing that she had never tasted cum like it b before and that she never would again. She sucked and licked until every last trace of the potent cum was gone.

The man made to withdraw his cock but Nadine tightened her grip around his waist.

His strong hands clamped her delicate wrists. “Don’t be greedy.” He said in a mockingly playful tone as he forced her arms from around his waist.

The man withdrew his still hard cock from Nadine’s mouth then he lifted her light body to the bench.

Nadine’s body convulsed in panic as she was laid on the wooden surface of the bench, too weak with fear to struggle.

“No!” She cried “Please! No!”

The man bound Nadine’s wrists and then her ankles so she lay as the others had with her sexy legs painfully wide apart and her cunt lips open.

The man took a moment to savour the sight of Nadine’s beautiful helpless body in the final terrifying moments of her life.

The man couldn’t resist stroking Nadine’s long stockinged legs with his rough hands and finally licking all the cum she had let out of her sweet sticky cunt.

Nadine’s whimpering became moans as she felt the man’s tongue on her legs then on her cunt and finally inside her cunt. He was good with his tongue she thought. He’d probably had a lot of practice and Nadine wondered how many helpless girls’ cunts he had licked or how many terrified girls mouths he had cum in just before he tortured them to death.

The thought made Nadine cum. It was the most fantastic orgasm she had ever felt and she let out more cum than she had ever let out in her life. For that moment her fear was forgotten and all she felt was ecstasy.

The man licked up Nadine’s cum savouring the taste of her fear.

Nadine lay helplessly as the man returned to where only Cheryl now hung from the ceiling.

Tears filled Cheryl’s beautiful brown eyes as the man lifted her off her hook and ungagged her.

“You’re going to suck my cock while I cut off Nadine’s legs,” said the man to Cheryl. “Then I’m going to let you go.”

“What?” asked Cheryl in disbelief. “You’re going to le let me go?”

“As long as you’re a good girl and do what I want,” said the man. “Will you be a good girl?”

“Yes!” cried Cheryl “Yes I’ll do what you want. Oh thank you. I couldn’t have beared to die like that. I’ve been so frightened! Oh thank you! Thank you!”

Cheryl broke down in tears of relief. A blow-job for my life. She thought. I can live with that.

The man walked Cheryl over to where Nadine lay on the bench sobbing in anticipation of her impending painful death.

“Cheryl?” cried Nadine.

“Oh, Nadine.” said Cheryl without thinking. “He’s not going to kill me! All I have to do is suck him off while he–”

Cheryl looked at Nadine. “Oh, my God! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry but I have to live. I just have to! I’m sorry!”

Nadine screamed in protest. “NOOOOOOOO! Please! It’s not fair!”

The man ordered Cheryl to kneel in front of the bench. With her wrists still cuffed.

He approached her holding the blood soaked saw and directed his hard cock into her waiting mouth.

Cheryl accepted the hard organ gratefully and immediately she began to work her tongue around the rock hard shaft of flesh.

The man took a moment to enjoy the sensation of his cock in Cheryl’s mouth then he placed his hand on Nadine’s throbbing cunt in the customary gesture of steadying the girl’s body before he began to saw.

Nadine screamed as she felt the cold steel of the saw’s jagged teeth touching her smooth skin.

The man couldn’t wait any longer. He drew the saw slowly back and then pushed it forward with a mall amount of pressure so Nadine’s skin broke at the joint between her leg and her pelvis.

Nadine could only scream as the saw went backwards again then forwards burying it a little deeper as the pain increased into a searing hot agony.

The deeper the saw went into Nadine’s body, the greater her pain became, the greater her pain, the louder her screams got.

The man continued to saw through the Nadine’s beautiful body; Cheryl continued to frantically suck the man’s hard cock and Nadine continued to scream as her beautiful leg became more and more detached from her body.

The man stopped sawing and it took Nadine in her world of pain, a moment to realise that her leg was completely severed. The man lifted the sexy long limb up for her to see.

Nadine couldn’t scream. She just lay gasping for breath.

On her knees at the base of the bench Cheryl felt the man shoot his load of hot cum into her hungry mouth. Deciding to play safe she swallowed the hot salty cum and kept his cock, which was still surprisingly hard, in her mouth.

The man looked into Nadine’s tear filled eyes happy that she was still alive.

He then positioned the saw on the opposite side and again began to cut slowly at first then faster as the blade buried itself into Nadine’s body.

Nadine felt herself going cold and numb but the sight of her legs, her pride and joy, not to mention her money-making trademark, being sawed off her helpless body, ensured that she kept screaming even though the pain was beginning to lessen.

The saw did it’s work just as it had done on her other leg and Nadine lay, her vision darkening, unable to scream, unable to speak, unable to make any sound or movement save for her sexy mouth quivering ever so slightly.

The man lifted Nadine’s second sexy leg up and hoped that she still had enough vision to see it being discarded along with the other. He then unfastened Nadine’s legless body and set it on the ground beside those of Nicola, Kimberley and Sarah. The last thing Nadine saw was the pile of beautiful, sexy female body parts.

Victim #5: Cheryl

Cheryl knelt in front of the bench sucking the man’s hard cock and swallowing his cum each time he ejaculated.

Nadine’s hideous screams had finally ceased and tears spilled down Cheryl’s cheeks as she realised that all her friends were dead. She deeply regretted her thoughts toward Sarah before she died. After all, Sarah just wanted do live, as did Nicola, Kimberley and Nadine. But through her regret she was secretly relived that it was over and that she was alive. The price for her life was high but she told herself it had been worth it: she would soon be free, or as free as any beautiful girl was in today’s society.

“You can stop now.” The man said to Cheryl with a sound of immense sexual relief.

Cheryl let the man’s hard cock out of her mouth and sighed in a different kind of relief.

The man then lifted her to her feet.

“Thank you,” said Cheryl weakly as the man unlocked the handcuffs which bound her wrists. Instinctively Cheryl threw her arms around the hooded man and sobbed uncontrollably. She felt his hard cock pressing against her soft body.

“Fuck me!” She whispered softly. “Please fuck me! I need to be fucked!”

The man said nothing but moved his hands down Cheryl’s smooth back and took hold of her pert arse cheeks then heaved her body up so he impaled her wet cunt on his ever hard cock.

“Oh God, yes!” Screamed Cheryl as she slid down the hard column of his man flesh.

She wrapped her black stockinged legs around his thighs as he began to pump into her soft hot body.

“Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!” Cheryl repeatedly panted.

The man sat Cheryl on the blood soaked bench and then leaned forward forcing her onto her back.

He then proceeded to take her arms from around his neck and held her wrists outstretched towards the corners of the bench.

Cheryl just moaned at the massive cock filling her wet cunt. She didn’t notice until it was too late that the man had fastened one of her wrists to the bench while more and more vigorously he thrust himself into her.

It was only when Cheryl wanted to pull his muscular body closer to her own soft body that she realised her writs had been restrained.

“What are you doing?” She screamed suddenly remembering that she was fucking the man who had mercilessly tortured her four friends.

The man continued to thrust into her more violently now, not caring if he caused Cheryl pain as well as pleasure. He easily held her other wrist into place and tightly secured it in the leather strap.

“No!” Screamed Cheryl. “No! You promised! You promised you’d let me live!”

Panic engulfed Cheryl’s whole body and she convulsed with fear just as the man ejaculated, shooting his hot load up her throbbing cunt. Cheryl screamed as she felt the hot cum enter her body and burn its way up into her body.

The man slowed down and withdrew his cock from Cheryl’s trembling body.

“I lied,” said the man laughing at his own cruelty.

“You didn’t really think I was going to let you live after killing the others, did you?”

Cheryl couldn’t bring herself to answer. She just sobbed as he tied her ankles with the leather straps.

The man then picked up the long knife.

Cheryl’s eyes widened in terror as he squeezed one of her large firm tits and began to slice.

Cheryl’s head exploded into a world of pain as the sharp blade made its way through her tit-flesh.

The man held up her severed tit for her to look at but all Cheryl could stare at was the gaping wound on one side of her chest.

“Did you enjoy that as much as you enjoyed watching it happen to your friends?” Asked the man.

Cheryl screamed at the horrendous pain she was feeling.

The man quickly set to work slicing off Cheryl’s other tit and again he held it up to inspect his handiwork.

Next the man exchanged the knife for its smaller companion and began to cut round Cheryl’s stinging cunt.

Cheryl’s screams got louder and louder as the man pulled out her severed cunt. She wanted it to end. She wanted this to never have happened.

She didn’t want to feel the pain of her legs being sawed off but she knew it was coming as the man discarded the small knife and positioned the saw beside the gaping bloody hole where her cunt had been.

The pain was unlike anything Cheryl had ever imagined. Even as she had watched the others’ legs being sawed off and listened to their screams a part of her tried to convince her that it couldn’t have been so bad. How wrong she was!

She could feel the saw separating her body from her leg and she screamed because scream was all she could do.

Cheryl watched as one of her beautiful legs was raised up high for her to see and fully contemplate what had happened to her.

The man, delighted by the fact that Cheryl still alive began to saw at her remaining leg.

As them man sawed away at the her remaining sexy black stockinged leg Cheryl’s vision blurred and then darkened but not before the man held up her leg to admire his sawing skills one last time.

* * *

The man looked at the beautiful dismembered bodies of five of the world’s sexiest girls. He set about sorting into pairs their severed tits and legs. He then carefully cut off each head from its dead torso and likewise grouped them with their respective severed limbs. All that remained was to pay the coach driver, take photos of the body parts for their auction on eBay and burn enough copies of the DVD he had just filmed.

Girls Aloud: The world’s sexiest all girl pop group had died the painful sexy deaths they had always deserved.

Epilogue

I switched of the DVD player suitably fulfilled by what I had just watched. I stroked Nadine’s beautiful legs in my lap. They felt smooth and subtle and were even more beautiful in the flesh than I had ever imagined.

The front door opened and I saw that it was my sexy little sixteen year old sister, Vicki, coming home from school.

Vicki was in awe at how beautiful Nadine’s legs were and said that I should dress them up in tights or stockings and display them in my room.

I looked at my little sister’s own sexy legs and decided that after watching such a sexy DVD that needed to pay a game with her.

“Strip!” I said to her. “Everything but your stockings and heels.”

Vicki quickly obeyed. She loved our games as much as I did.

“What are we playing?” Vicki asked “The Princess and The Executioner? Or the Prostitute Punishments?”

“It’s a surprise,” I said to her. “Run upstairs and lie on my bed with your legs wide apart and I’ll be up in a minute.”

Vicki ran excitedly out of the room and up the stairs. I would follow her soon but first I went to the shed to find a sharp saw and some strong rope.

THE END

Author’s note: the named celebrities in this piece are fictionalised representations of themselves. I do not condone in the real world any of the acts described in this work.

If you enjoyed this or my first story, Laura’s Execution, then I’d like to hear from you. Email me at blakesinclair69@yahoo.co.uk – Constructive comments only please.

[magnetic-force-of-a-may]

Now I See Daylight: Lover is Taylor Swift’s Brightest Glow-Up

I wrote a ~2,000 word review of Lover. I’m so proud of you @taylorswift buddy, and as someone who majored in literature, I always like to close-read and write about the art I appreciate. and I love love lover, and I hope you’ll like my review (skip to the last paragraph if it’s too long hehe). <3 @taylornation   The musical event of my year transpired last night when Taylor Swift released her hotly anticipated 7th studio album, Lover. It’s Taylor’s 13th year in the game, my 11th year as a Swiftie, and we’ve both never been better. After dancing/crying/listening to Lover since last night, I’m finally ready to write my review of this triumphant, exuberant pop masterpiece.

It’s been a whirlwind past few months, from five holes in the fence to the star-studded, not-without-controversy YNTCD to the gorgeous title track that is “Lover.” As always, Taylor and her team have orchestrated a business-savvy album roll-out, complete with an elaborate, year-long, Easter Egg hunt. There is always much speculation about a Taylor Swift album, and a marketing campaign structured around clues is a smart way of creating the speculation, shifting listeners’ attention somewhere productive; in this case, re-watching the “ME!” music video over and over to catch all the eggs and amp up the video’s views. But to hear Lover in its entirety at the end of an Easter Egg journey is ultimately rewarding and intimate. “I am an architect, I’m drawing up the plans,” sings Taylor in “I Think He Knows.” The Lover era confirms her skills as a powerful architect; she builds speculation, constructs masterful bridges (she really went to “bridge city” with many songs on this album), and shows no signs of stopping.

The opening track, “I Forgot You Existed,” is an understated earworm that essentially bids the reputation era (and the Kimye drama of 2016) adieu. “It isn’t love, it isn’t hate, it’s just indifference,” Taylor shrugs. Vocally, the song has a colloquial quality; throughout, Taylor speaks, laughs, even trails off. It’s the equivalent of the throat-clearing that launched Track 1 of reputation, “Ready For It.” The first and essentially last song about “drama” on Lover, “I Forgot You Existed” clears the path for the 17 raw, emotional tracks to come.

The immediate next track, “Cruel Summer,” is an absolute pop-bop that immediately takes us to the higher register (Taylor in soprano-mode is sublime). It’s likely the next single (Tay teased the title in the YNTCD video and in a recent Amazon ad). This is the first song on the album that takes us to BRIDGE CITY—Tay practically screams “he looks up, grinning like a devil” in the bridge, and it’s amazing. We get to hear several New Taylor Sounds in this album, and it’s a lovely surprise each time. The trumpet(?) tease that opens “False God” and the way Tay sings “lo-o-o-o-ve” in the chorus prove that it’s all in the details. Structurally, the song staggers the lyrics in the chorus, such that each bleeds into the next (“Religion’s in your lips / Even if it’s a false god.” The religious imagery in Taylor’s past two albums is fascinating). Something similar happens, with even more syncopation (and brass!), in “It’s Nice to Have a Friend,” which is the grown-up, dreamier version of “Mary’s Song.” Speaking of the debut album, the way Taylor sings the bridge of “Cornelia Street” (“Barefoot in the kitchen…”) sounds just like the chorus of “Invisible.” Are these callbacks to her debut album coincidental? Knowing Taylor, likely not.

Indeed, many moments in Lover remind us that the old Taylor is far from dead, as she previously proclaimed in LWYMMD. "Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” makes a direct reference to Tay’s song from the Hannah Montana movie (I looove “Crazier”), and in “Daylight” she sings that she used to think of love as being “burning red,” a lyric from “Red.” And Track 12 of Lover, “Soon You’ll Get Better,” is like Track 12 of Fearless, “The Best Day” (one of my all-time favs)—both are songs about Taylor’s mom, Andrea Swift, who is currently battling cancer. “Soon You’ll Get Better” is the album’s #1 tear-jerker, and features Andrea’s favorite band, The Dixie Chicks. It’s the closest thing to country on the album.  

But on Lover, we are undeniably listening to a new Taylor who brings the storytelling traditions of country into the energetic world of pop. This Taylor writes about love from a stronger place of growth and self-confidence. You know that meme that goes, “I’m you but stronger”? That’s Lover to Taylor’s early discography. Tay’s confidence jumps out clearly in ME!, which was the first single Taylor released on 4.26 and honestly still one of my favorite tracks from the album (catch me yelling “HEY, KIDS! SPELLING IS FUN! on tour). I truly love Brendon Urie’s part in that song. Although “ME!”might have a reputation for being a “kids’ bop,” it channels a form of self-awareness that we also get on “Afterglow,” which is about a lover who understands her own flaws: “It’s all me, in my head.” Both “Afterglow” and “ME!” speak to the beauty and possibility of experiencing a storm with someone and recovering together afterwards, be it in the rain or in the light. It’s not just self-awareness that Taylor demonstrates on Lover, but also social awareness—this is the year she finally became vocally political, after all. “YNTCD” was her first LGBTQ anthem. Although some have accused Tay of “queerbaiting” (there’s always some flaw to pick out, isn’t there), the song is truly Taylor’s love letter as an ally to the LGBTQ community. Then there’s “The Man,” which slams the patriarchy by imagining a world in which Taylor is not a woman, but a man. “If I was out flashing my dollars I’d be a bitch, not a baller,” she sings. She also gives Leo Dicaprio a well-deserved roast; while Taylor’s dating life has received extensive scrutiny, tabloids don’t hate on “Leo in Saint-Tropez” the way they lambast Taylor for ‘serial-dating.’ “The Man” also sounds very much like HAIM’s “Forever” (“Dress” on reputation gave me HAIM vibes too). And I’ll forever stan Taylor x HAIM.

In Red, Taylor sings “Stay Stay Stay” to someone who later likely breaks her heart. Interestingly, the song on Lover that sounds like a musical echo to that track is “Paper Rings,” an adrenaline rush of a song about getting married. The song is another perfect 60s bop, and I love all the counting that happens in the song; it lyrically and spiritually channels the “you’re the only one I want” energy from Grease. “I like shiny things,” sings Taylor (we know) “but I’d marry you with paper rings.” And theother elephant-in-the-room song about marriage is of course “Lover,” which has literal wedding vows in its beautiful bridge. Of the three marriage-related songs on this album, “Lover” wins my heart (and it’s Taylor’s favorite song that she’s ever written, I hear). It’s a beautiful ballad that comes straight from the heart. Like the best Taylor Swift songs, it’s personal. We get straight to the time and place, like in “Cornelia Street,” the street on which Taylor used to live. In fact, the song’s melody seems to share the same musical pattern as “Delicate,” and some fans even speculate that the “third floor on the West side” from “Delicate” is on Cornelia Street. Another song is that is very location-specific is “London Boy,” which is a personal favorite for its allusion-heavy lyrics and catchy beat. I know that some Londoners are shaking their heads at the lyrics, but oh well—it’s a cute nod to Taylor’s current boyfriend of three years, Joe Alwyn, who (if you haven’t figured it out by now) is the inspiration behind many of the songs on this album.  Another standout, should-be-a-single track is the aforementioned “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” which demonstrates Tay’s exquisite, imaginative storytelling style and mastery of metaphor (“Getaway Car” was the masterful-metaphor song on reputation). I could really write a paper on these lyrics. The Guardian seems to think it’s about living in Trump’s America? It’s a song that, along with “The Archer,” is reminiscent of Lana Del Rey’s dreamy pop (although the latter, while lyrically lovely, has yet to totally grow on me). Taylor has long been outspoken about her love for Lana’s music (they also share a producer: the amazing Jack Antonoff). If this means that Taylor’s music is beginning to take on a slightly indie-rock quality, I’m not complaining. For instance, “Death by a Thousand Cuts” has a slightly Vampire Weekend-quality to it, especially with the freestyle piano tinkling that emerges towards the chorus. But it would be remiss for me to compare Taylor to other artists (although maybe this at least proves that I listen to other music hahahahahah). As she sings in “ME!”, she’s the only one of her(!), and Lover proves this to a T (see what I did there?). From the records it broke even before release day to the pop perfection we’re getting on every track, Lover is bold and brassy, and Taylor knows it.

A few months ago, Taylor wrote in an Elle listicle that she has learned to “step into the daylight and let it go.” That line has indeed revealed itself to be a lyric from the final track of Lover, “Daylight,” a 5-minute long song that beautifully closes the album. “I don’t wanna look at anything else now that I saw you,” sings Taylor to her lover. But she also ends with a monologue: “You are what you love.” For Taylor, to love someone is to also love yourself. And that message of self-love radiates throughout Lover.

Earlier this year, I read an article with the headline, “Sad Taylor Swift is the Best Taylor Swift.” While it’s true that artistic production does often come from places of suffering and heartbreak, Lover steps into the daylight and delivers songs on an album that is wonderfully bright. The album cover, shot by the talented Valheria Rocha, captures the softness and loveliness of this glow. In Lover, Taylor is not our heartbreak princess. And we don’t want her to be, either. She’s braver than “Fearless,” and she’s more than simply “Clean.” I’d like to argue that Taylor is at her best at her brightest, which is to say at her clearest and cleverest. She’s someone who shines, inside and out, in her music and in her life. The illuminating, skin-clearing grace that she delivers on Lover lights up my room. This review is glowing, and so is Lover.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I don't know if you have noticed, but they have some serious clothing issues in season 12. Seasons 1-11 we just had Sam and Dean. But now that there's Mary, they can't all wear plaid. Because there would be too much flannel with three Winchesters. I'm being serious. I've rewatched season 12, and there's no episode where all three Winchesters wear plaid. One of them always has to sacrifice the hunter look.

Yeah, they don’t all wear it all the time anyway - Dean’s always had a bunch of stock shirts which are so boring he can wear them all the times he’s going to get killed or whatever gets him covered in blood to the point that he can’t use it any more :P Sam has slightly more variety, I think, because he doesn’t wear as many block colours in general, wears his shirts buttoned up so Dean can get away with wearing a block colour shirt and t-shirt, and Sam’s on the wrong side of the self-imposed class divide so doesn’t wear henleys either, all adding up to him needing at least subtle stripes on his shirts a lot of the time… Sam wearing boring grey in 11x22 should have been a warning something pretty horrific was going to happen to him because that’s Dean’s choice of colour for “I’m about to have a bad day and I don’t know it yet” which he at least also mixes into his regular wardrobe to add the element of surprise :P

Buuut yeah I bet there was at least 1 time they had a moment where they did all wear plaid and looked at each other and had to work out who had to go change immediately.

Anyway since we have a whole season now, let’s look at Mary because I like looking at Mary :D

12x01:

generic hunter jacket, jeans and boots (workman boots halfway between Sam n Dean’s). Shirt doesn’t look like much of anything she likes wearing, never did find out where Dean got this from for her, because finding perfectly fitted jeans at dawn in the middle of nowhere within apparent walking distance of the bunker?? There’s a weirdo gap where he stole clothes for his mom off a clothes line or something. I think the point was it was white and a little lacy at the top, mimicking the nightgown as a shirt, upgraded for hunter Mary. Easing the transition along :P

12x02:

she’s so SMALL.

At some point Dean also found her fluffy slippers. These are modern fluffy slippers because they don’t match ones we’ve seen him wearing around the bunker which I assume are period authentic ones.

Dean wears grey and black, I guess to match Sam’s nondescript colours, while Mary cracks out her first plaid, AND with a white henley underneath 

she’s still wearing white because mom, and Sam hasn’t seen her yet, but the plaid is the sign of hunting, and she’s officially dressing more like Dean right now. Dean wore red n blue and achieved balance in 11x23 and Mary is immediately the next one to wear it as the next plaid on screen since. I think it’s a sort of family integration theme since Sam n Dean often are red v blue coded.. I like this shirt because it has an XOXOXOXOX pattern embroidered on it. The mumsy version of their plaid :P

Cas is not wearing plaid. 

I noticed a couple of episodes further down the line that she almost always wears her shirt untucked on the right side, and I guess I thought she was just rumpled because of the fight but she already does it in both main outfits this episode.

Sam has swapped into plaid, but Dean and Mary are dressing identically except for the colour schemes and Mary’s untucking habit.

12x03:

Mary’s wearing the ring prominently for I think the first time, and of course is wearing her shirt tucked in like that (I think this is where I first noticed it) and is the outfit she cuts her hair in, so having her in 1 pale layer quietly mimicks her show-long look for a final time before she ditches it for having a much broader and more practical wardrobe. She’s wearing this to mourn John and read the journal, and also her conversation with Cas. Looking like a default Mary, as she “should” in the saint!Mary image influences Cas to feel he has to leave because she belongs or should feel she does and he wants her to bond with her sons, but she begins breaking away immediately after this.

Aaand Sam’s still the only one wearing any sort of pattern, and Mary is dressed like Dean (but belt, no untucked shirt) and Dean is wearing grey so he doesn’t step on anyone’s toes…

Mary also keeps wearing the red maroon of family, in a one off, no one else ever wears anything remotely like it, sleeveless jacket, which she wears exclusively in the car or in the dark so no screen shots

I think this is a lovely sweater, tucked into the left side, a tank top underneath it, which is like in 12x14 where she’ll be wearing a blank tank top similar but without the fashion layer on top, and her ring very obviously displayed. Going from white because mom to black because mourning, both her entire family, and in these conversations, the old way of hunting. She’s moved I guess from shock and non-stop action to the next step of grief.

At the motel Sam wears green and purple plaid, and Dean wears a denim shirt.

Look what you are doing to your sons, Mary.

12x06:

Mary is introduced boots first (the cowboy boots seen in her room in 12x02?)

This outfit is truly unflattering and practical - she’s swimming in the coat, but she’s also wearing a belt again like 12x03, which was the other way to distinguish how she wears her shirts, and on the family unity theme not only wearing red n blue plaid again, but has it half buttoned half unbuttoned, bridging the gap between how Dean and Sam wear theirs. She exists in a lot of spaces between - half-tucked, or half-buttoned.

Dean once again wears plain grey, and Sam wears grey plaid.

12x09:

White because Lawrence, plain blue shirt in closeness to Dean’s outfits, and wearing *dark* grey-green because she’s in mourning still. She’s not wearing plaid or family colours because she’s on her rejecting her living family tour in exchange for moping about the dead.

Swaps to red to yell at Cas for not wearing plaid. She’s angry, and she’ll later still be wearing this for getting Alicia’s call and going off on the path of distracting herself with hunting, a la Mark!Dean with random vampires, when Dean got really into wearing a red shirt of a similar hue. You couldn’t see the ring in Lawrence but it’s on top of her clothes again here. Maybe she just couldn’t bear to expose it while sitting in the same place she had her first date with John? Winchester repression and all.

Cas is not wearing plaid, and this is the epitome of ‘hey we’re gonna wear boring grey shirts to lose in 12x08 and boring grey jumpsuits all of 12x09’ for the Winchesters to keep them out of it, but Mary has the same under layers as at Mulroney’s but instead of dark grey-green she’s wearing her tan jacket, the Cas colour scheme because they’re bonding, and hilariously (or not >.>) the colour Sam is wearing in 12x21 in the letter scene… Dean has a plaid in these colours too which he wore in 12x13 to see Gavin reunited with his lost love, and first wore in 10x14 at the very end, so I’ve got it lodged in my brain as the Colette/pining set of colours on others. 

I guess in Mary’s case here it’s not about dead lovers, but an upgrade to focusing on a now problem instead of a past problem, and also of course is part of the huge Cas n Mary web of parallels, of which this episode visually doubles down on with the Cas missing Dean paralleling Mary in 12x03 missing John sitting at the table in the dark in the Bunker thing. Actually missing Sam n Dean, she sits at the kitchen table, the private family space, to avoid any cross-contamination of visual images, and links to the bacon scene in 12x03 where she and Cas both refused to engage with Dean’s happy family breakfast…

In the first scene Mary’s wearing this we get introduced by ANOTHER pan up from her boots (her… 3rd? maybe? already) this time again showing she’s wearing Dean-like boots, and her more killing-things friendly belt choice, and dark red plaid (so dark you can’t see it well >.>) and dark pink shirt, all of which screams Mark of Cain and Dean parallels.

Cas is still not wearing plaid.

this is the most generic Winchester plaid she has so far rather than one that yells mark of cain or the family balance and integration themes - everything from “what you needed most” to Dean n Sam getting to a better understanding re: all 12x22 did for them as well) but fits in the TFW plaid from earlier, with tan and blue (Dean is wearing his original tan plaid in that scene in 5x13 although not the first time he wears it - it goes back to Nightshifter and for some reason my brain always tells me he didn’t have the plaid until 8x01 at which point I briefly clip out of reality every time he first appears in it in season 2 :P) Anyway 5x13 is aaaall about Mary and their family destiny/curses (I say curses because it’s about the apocalypse but Michael throws in the Cain and Abel thing for free)

Since Sam n Dean didn’t get a chance this episode (and were purposefully wearing non-memorable clothes in 12x08 so nothing important got lost) she’s covered the whole plaid thing for them. She’s making the choice to work with the BMoL here and wearing Sam-like plaid in a Dean-like way - note the sleeves too - but ultimately this arc does fall on Sam.

Anyway she is acting as the representative head of the family here making the decision for them.

12x12:

ANON YOU ARE WRONG. All 4 Winchesters are wearing plaid, because my brain just clipped out of reality while I had it paused like this: 

and my brother who is coincidentally here on the other side of my monitor and I forgot was in the room because he’s listening to podcasts, stretched, and his plaid-covered elbow appeared behind Cas and I thought it was his.

(I’m very tired, it’s been a loooong day)

Anyway Sam’s wearing blue and white, Mary is wearing blue and black, Dean is wearing Burger Date Plaid which is more important for the diner scene than the rest of the episode, and Cas is at least going to have the decency to nearly die on the plaid sofa the same-ish pattern as Dean’s shirt next episode.

I suppose when 3 Winchesters get together all wearing plaid, Bad Shit Happens, so if all FOUR of them wore plaid at once, reality might fracture, and considering season 13 looks like reality is going to be having some serious fracturing issues anyway… Yeah. Bad idea.

Even Wally is wearing plaid…

Much luck it gave him.

Anyway Mary’s generally having some more dark arc stuff, with a blank henley and the evil version of sam’s plaid, and a nondescript pale green jacket over the top. The ONLY reason Mary has this many plain nondescript jackets of varying hues is for symbolism. In this case green is kinda toxic and since she and Sam have negative versions of each other’s plaid and connect over the yellow eyes thing, I think it’s more about her guilt.

This all transforms at the end to the 3rd version on a simple outfit, of the one from 12x09 but this time with pale blue to make her even more Cas-like, but these colours could honestly just be associated with bad decisions, given the context here… I mean, not like Cas isn’t a freakin beacon of them :P

She also blends nicely into the diner, with its blue and beige tones. Compared to Ketch in his fancy suit. She also isn’t wearing plaid for this, going under the table with this as it were.

12x13:

Sam, Dean and Mary aren’t all in the same scene but Dean is wearing dark grey/puple and Sam a dary grey/blue with thin red lines - Mary’s wearing the opposite again, white with thick red outlined in blue.

She’s also untucked on the same side again.

Sam and Dean swap into the generic red plaid for Sam and the TFW/Cas plaid I mentioned for Dean - beige, white and blue, which he wears the rest of the episode while dealing with the MacLeod family drama.

This is their most plaid intensive episode, then as all of them get a costume change and all opt for more plaid. They’re working on family loyalty stuff so it’s quite important.

Mary’s next one is for the very monotone scene with Ketch, where she’s wearing grey and brown, and her shirt isn’t tucked interestingly or anything.

I think that’s about as much as you need to say about this episode :P

12x14:

Ooops I forgot 12x13 fed into this episode. In my defence it’s a bad idea to split a 2 episode cliffhanger by cliffhangering like 3-4 minutes before the end of the episode, even though the next episode is going to start immediately where you left off with what of all of the things happening in your cluttered episode is the main plot thread… Ah well. 

Mary shows up in a cream henley, under a strawberries and cream plaid - although pink is a baaad sign on this show, I guess she may have been aiming for cute and mumsy again, but not wearing the cute XOXOXOX family integration theme plaid from 12x02 when it looked she might have a hope of doing that before draaaama hit.

Sam is wearing all black (keeping out of the way in the fight and thematically) and Dean is wearing a non-pink and much more tightly patterned shirt (he’s drawing those family lines closer together) in the same broad colour category as Mary’s, but does sort of link them - they have a fight that gets thiiis close to dealing with Dean had to be the mom all their lives not Mary, because Berens and all, but they don’t get close enough and it has to wait until 12x22 after this, but it aligns them in a different way to how Sam and Mary have been having night and day versions of each other’s plaids, just as her blue n red plaid is so similar to Dean colours, but not the ways Sam wears it.

We then cut to her wearing her black tactical gear, and in an alarming move for a Winchester, later just a tank top. Incidentally they should all do this more often, Mary right through to Cas. She however is not bearing all, because her texts just aren’t laying out the whole problem and I don’t think she can see it, because she brings sam to meet her, and gives him the pitch as soon as he gets out the car.

The main day of the action, Dean wears a red shirt, Sam wears blue, white and beige plaid (They own a LOT of these colour-combinations) 

Mary is wearing red and black plaid I think the same as 12x09’s main action, which aligns her with Dean (for the Ketch seduction parallel?) and sets her at odds with Sam so they’re not too conspicuously wearing night and day versions of each others’ clothes. They ARE both wearing hunter plaid (as Dean says, to do the job you put on a flannel…) while dealing with the hunter specific arc of the season, while Dean is wearing a plain red shirt, which he uses to face inner demons. Mary’s colour aligns her with Dean, the pattern with Sam, and he wears a red plaid shirt more often than Dean these days. For Sam and Mary it’s an episode where they’re doing their thing together. Especially as it deals with repercussions not root causes - their lives branched, and Mary’s giving Sam the speech about a world without monsters like he can reclaim what life he lost, but he is on the path to lead the hunters and all his MoL stuff, so the TFW/bad decisions colours are appropriate? Mary’s on a dark arc which the actions make clear but the red plaid is always a nice reminder of when it’s channelling Dean… Sam wears his with impunity.

12x17:

Another episode where Mary and Sam n Dean are separated for the most part so can get away with them all having at least worn plaid in the same episode, though 12x12 remains the only one they all wore it TOGETHER (see above: look what happens >.>)

I’m still bothered by the way Buckleming often write Sam and Dean as a total matching unit and I never managed to put my finger on it until this episode when they give Mick the “so yeah Lucifer’s baby is a thing” speech because it combines multiple other scenes they’ve written in the past to finally just make SamandDean a stock exposition unit. I probably have another post to write about this and how they helped contribute to an overall weird feeling with both sides of the fandom stanning for 1 brother and some who love both feeling their fave/s was totally sidelined this season - done right Sam n Dean as passive viewers to the story is a great device (11x14!!) and this season did it a lot as a way to lighten the load on dudes who managed to have 3 babies between the two of them this year in the space of a couple of months, but also to broaden the story to give Cas and Mary development and to follow some other threads beyond what the Winchesters see and know just because the show has grown so far out of its original bounds… But anyway this wardrobe moment the morning after makes Sam and Dean literally dress identically to talk to Mick, and the show knows the theme, it just wasn’t well-done here, and I love the use over all in the season but this episode made me really side-eye the execution.

The wardrobe in the Mary stuff was good though. She wears her XOXOXOXOX plaid with the red n blue blah blah family integration theme - Dean’s wearing his About A Boy plaid up there, incidentally, which is red and BLACK lines - Mary’s one was her uniform for saving Sam at the start of the season and she’s at a cusp of things here. She’s in a comfortable pattern working with Ketch, but I think lets her guard down to sleep with him, and though she puts up emotional walls immediately and there’s all the stuff with her ring and mourning and wanting to have both hunting and family (a GOOD side of the red n blue theme in other places) she’s really putting herself on the path that leads to her mini demon!Dean arc in 12x21/22 as the inevitable result of this Mark of Cain arc stuff since midseason.

12x20:

Grey jumpsuits, for her and Ketch, which now I’m looking at the costumes for season 12, should have been an even more obvious clue after 12x09, although honestly the fake out introduction to Mary in this episode with the shifter in captivity with her face > the end of the episode with Mary captured, was pretty telling without throwing in the obvious prison uniform imagery that this jumpsuit transforms completely depending on context; Mary in the chair or Mary out the chair.

Sam n Dean off on their side of things has Sam in the 12x12 light blue shirt, Dean in his off-brand demon!Dean shirt which isn’t a demon!Dean shirt at all, but one of coping and better decisions and trying a better way. But looks a whole lot like the old ways on the surface :P

Mary, meanwhile, is wearing grey plaid again. The prison jumpsuits thing is making me wonder belatedly if wearing grey this season has been about imprisonment, metaphorically or not - Sam wore it in 12x01 etc, and Kelly had a grey coat she wore a lot.

this one is darker, and with her black coat, her henley buttoned almost all the way up. Mary is defensive and secretive and beginning to be very suspicious about what she got herself into, investigating or interrogating in all her scenes except for the one where she kicks Ketch in the nuts aka the best thing Mary did for like all of 2 more episodes before she was like “I wanna punch the Devil in the face” because after killing Ketch she needed new goals :P

12x21:

Bearing in mind how MANY times she changes her clothes, including swapping out jackets and all, once she’s under the BMoL’s control, she has a freshly laundered set of exactly what she was wearing in 12x20 and no changes. It’s out of her control to decide now.

She starts dressed jacket and all, then is down to the plaid in the next scene and finally stripped down to the henley and a single layer as the BMoL metaphorically strip her inside too.

Then, new DARK jacket, I think a looser shirt, but the SAME grey plaid at the end. Untucked, on the wrong side.

Incidentally if you want bad things happening when all the Winchesters are in one room in plaid, Sam’s in a generic Sam shirt, Dean in his red and black checked plaid which is aaaalmost exactly like both Sam and Mary’s version of it, but not like the About a Boy one or other variations he has on the theme.

12x22

Hey guess who is now wearing grey plaid with RED AND BLUE in it under the black jacket? Aka Mary is imprisoned (we’re going with this, pls ignore how I’ve decided like 50% of the themes AS I analysed it :P) but has family back in her plaid - a sign she can be brought back, and a reason to hope at this point, and by the end of the episode, what she’s wearing for FAMILY REINTEGRATION :D

Hey look they all wear plaid :D

This may or may not open a rift in reality.

12x23:

Mary is back in white but in a wearing comfy plaid way, and it’s got blue and red in it. She’s mom again, but now updated and upgraded to being a hunter in the GOOD way not the way in 12x01 where she wore a white lace shirt just to hastily make her practical for one day of action, but she’s comfortably being Mom Winchester in the new understanding of what their family is.

Sam and Dean are in red and blue-ish colour coding although Dean’s actually in grey and you know what fuck them wearing grey. Take that shirt off right now.

nothing happens to Dean but he does kind of get shattered at the end of the episode and we don’t know what would happen to him next, so like I said maybe just avoid on principle.

Anyway the whole family looks all comfy and soft, at least until Dean and Mary put practical jackets over theirs, and Sam stacks the orange jacket over the brown-red plaid.

Cas continues to not wear plaid and pays the ultimate price. Get with the picture, buddy.