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chrysalis-the-butterfly · 6 months

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My Thoughts on the Roger Rabbit Novels

Who Censored Roger Rabbit?

The Plot: It's the 1980s, and human beings and comic strip characters ("toons") live side-by-side, albeit not on an equal social standing. Roger Rabbit approaches private detective Eddie Valiant and asks him to investigate a dispute he has with Rocco and Dominick DeGreasy, the brothers who own his comic strip. Roger claims his life is in danger, but Eddie, who's somewhat racist towards toons, doesn't take him seriously - which comes back to bite him when he finds Roger's dead body. Now Eddie has to work out who killed Roger, as well as who killed Rocco DeGreasy on the same night.

What I Liked: This is a very well-paced story. It sets up the mystery straightaway, it cracks along at a good speed, and you don't have the full truth of whodunnit until the very end. The chapters are short and punchy, and even the time spent on plot points that turned out to be red herrings never felt wasted. I was always eager to pick the book up again and read just one more chapter!

Also, in any other novel, the twist regarding Roger's killer would be a massive "What the heck?" moment, but here, it's set up far enough in advance that it doesn't feel unnatural when it comes.

And as a fun minor detail, Eddie casually mentions being one of four children, and then the next novel, Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?, gives him two brothers and a sister! It was probably a coincidence, but I was glad to spot it!

What I Disliked: I really wasn't a fan of the way Jessica Rabbit was portrayed. Who Framed Roger Rabbit subverts her femme fatale image, but Who Censored Roger Rabbit? plays it straight, which didn't appeal to me as much. I prefer the "looks like she could kill you, is actually a cinnamon roll" trope over the "looks like she could kill you, could actually kill you" trope.

At one point in the story, Jessica claims she was forced to pose for a racy comic, but when Eddie speaks to the owner of said comic, the man claims Jessica posed for those pictures willingly and was actually eager to make more. At the time the story was published (1981), one might just about have got away with such a portrayal, but in a post-#MeToo world, it's discomforting that Jessica's allegations of coercion and sexual abuse aren't taken seriously. (Also, the man who owns the racy comic is a creepy crossdresser, which ... what? Why was that in there? That didn't need to be in there.)

As a consequence of Jessica's portrayal, her relationship with Roger is nowhere near as sweet as in the film. Their entire marriage is basically a sham. No, thank you. Give me "honey bunny" and "love cup" instead, please.

Verdict: I saw the film first, and I prefer it to the novel. Who Framed Roger Rabbit will always be my favourite piece of Roger Rabbit media. But I can appreciate Who Censored Roger Rabbit? as its own thing - a product of its time, to be sure, but also a well-structured and fast-paced read.

Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?

The Plot: It's 1947 (more or less), sometime after the events of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Roger Rabbit, Baby Herman, and Kirk Enigma are three toons in line for the lead role in David Selznick's upcoming adaptation of Gone With the Wind. A box belonging to Selznick, a box of great importance, has gone missing, and Eddie Valiant has been hired to find it.

What I Liked: Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? has my favourite portrayal of Roger (after the film and the comics). We spend a bit more time with him than in the previous book, so we get to hear more about his worldviews and his backstory. We also get to see what a sweetie pie he is. He's an emotional bunny who loves his wife, just like in the film, and I frequently wanted to hug him.

A key highlight for me was the moment when Roger was singing like a Disney Princess and summoning a chorus of birds to wake Eddie one morning, which Eddie did not appreciate. Can someone animate that? I'd love to see it!

The second half of this novel also introduces Jessica's twin sister Joellyn (the six-inch-tall woman on Eddie's shoulder on the cover), and I enjoyed getting to know her. And, without giving away too many spoilers, I greatly preferred this rendition of Jessica over the one in Who Censored Roger Rabbit?

What I Disliked: Unlike the first novel, this one was pretty slow to get going. Eddie isn't actually hired by Selznick until Chapter 7, and most of the time before then is spent establishing Eddie as a down-on-his-luck private eye, using people and locations that show up once and then are barely used again. Some of that fat could have been trimmed, I feel. It made reaching the end of the book a bit more of a slog.

Something else that bothered me was the high volume of old-timey slang, brand names and Americanisms that I, as a twentysomething Brit, did not recognise. I could read an entire paragraph and think, "Well, he's either drinking alcohol, smoking cigar or eating a foodstuff, but I'll be darned if I can tell you which is the right interpretation." I think the noir detective vernacular was slightly overdone, to the point of incomprehension.

Verdict: I thought this would be my favourite of the novels because it seemed the most similar in tone to the film, so I was disappointed by my lukewarm reception to it. Maybe I was disappointed because I'd hyped it up too much in my mind? That's not to say I didn't enjoy it - I greatly preferred the second half to the first, once Eddie found out what was actually in this mysterious box - but I think it could have done with a few more edits before publication.

Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?

The Plot: It's the 1940s or 1950s, sometime after the events of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and director Barney Sands is shooting a movie set in Toontown starring Gary Cooper and Roger Rabbit. He's been receiving threatening letters warning him to stay away from Toontown and stop making this film, but he can't afford to let down his investors. So he hires Eddie Valiant to be Cooper's bodyguard while filming takes place. But Eddie soon finds himself wrapped up in another mystery, involving a porcine crime lord called Willy Prosciutto and the corpse of Clabber Clown.

What I Liked: The majority of this novel takes place in Toontown, so we get some really cool worldbuilding details. We find out how the school system works, which churches are based in Toontown, and how crooked toons launder their money. I was particularly intrigued by the calm and serious toons in the Sanatorium - apparently, if you're not loud and goofy and bouncing off the walls, you're considered insane, which is the opposite of how humans think about mental health.

The blonde humanoid toon on the cover is Caitlyn "Honey" Graham, Willy's girlfriend. I really like Honey. In fact, she might be my favourite of the novel-exclusive characters. Throughout the book, you're trying to work out if she's a good bad girl or a bad good girl, or if she's really just a bad bad girl. If Who Framed Roger Rabbit ever gets a sequel or prequel or spin-off cartoon series, I'd love to see Honey on screen.

What I Disliked: The Roger we meet in this novel is a bit too stupid for my liking. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Roger made seemingly nonsensical choices, but he had his own (cartoon) logic to explain his actions, and he was even proved right in his assumptions a few times. So I much prefer to think of Roger as the kind of toon where you're never quite sure if he's truly dumb or merely playing dumb for the sake of a gag. Here, he's just straight-up dumb, and that's not as fun to read about.

Verdict: This was the book I knew the least about before I read it, so I was more cautious going in - but it ended up being my second favourite of the Roger Rabbit novels. I enjoyed learning more about Toontown and its residents. My favourite parts of the film had been the toony parts - Roger, and Jessica, and Roger and Jessica together - so I guess it makes sense that I'd enjoy the novel that takes place almost entirely in Toontown.

Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business

The Plot: It's the 2020s, sometime post-pandemic, and Jessica Krupnik is a human in a toon-less world. She's working a dead-end job in a crime-ridden part of town, her stepmother bosses her around and belittles her, her stepsisters treat her like a servant, and her stepbrothers sexually harass her. She's basically a modern-day Cinderella. But instead of a fairy godmother, Jessica is rescued from her life of drudgery by an opportunity to apply for a role at XERIOUS, a crime-fighting organisation of secret agents. She gets the job, and is later put on a mission with Robbe, one of XERIOUS's most experienced agents, to catch a criminal mastermind called the Klown.

(And this is somehow a prequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Despite being set decades after that film. And starring a human Jessica instead of a toon Jessica. Cartoon timelines be weird, y'all.)

What I Liked: This was the most fun novel to read! I think that's because it was a spy novel spoof, rather than a gritty noir detective story. The other three novels could be quite dour in tone - yes, cases would get solved, but people would get hurt in the process, and relationships would be irrevocably altered, so there was always this undercurrent of sadness in the seemingly happy endings. After three novels in a row of that, a story spoofing spy novels was always going to feel like a breath of fresh air. Gary K. Wolf has stated that he wrote this book in lockdown and had a lot of fun doing so, and I feel that coming across in his writing.

Robbe was another great novel-exclusive character. I can't say too much about him, because that would massively spoil things, but I can say that I enjoyed witnessing his development over the course of the novel. To give the most spoiler-free explanation I can, Robbe starts out as a suave and competent spy, but also a misogynist - until something happens to him in the line of duty that shakes his confidence. Watching him grow and try to be a better person, especially towards Jessica, while also dealing with the aftermath of his accident, was truly engaging. It even got me thinking about the portrayal of disability in fiction, which I did not expect a Roger Rabbit novel to do.

What I Disliked: For a novel called Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business, Jessica herself was disappointingly under-developed. The first three chapters follow her miserable life and her desire for adventure, for respect, for something more. And then there's a two-year time skip and whoop, she's suddenly a confident and glamorous secret agent! And she's ditched her glasses and dyed her hair, so she's beautiful now! And she achieved her impossible hourglass figure with nothing but diet and exercise, despite being a human and not a toon! Sigh.

There was a real missed opportunity here. Robbe already has a plot where he starts off skilled and arrogant, but then has his worldview challenged and needs to learn to embrace vulnerability. So we could have had Jessica experiencing her own story of growth alongside him, but in reverse! We could have watched as, over the course of the novel, she transforms from the beaten-down self-conscious little girl into the sensational woman she was always meant to be. Robbe would start on top and fall down; Jessica would start at the bottom and claw her way up. The parallels could have been awesome!

Gary K. Wolf has admitted that, as a man, he would struggle to write a novel about women, and it shows. The sexism Jessica experiences doesn't have any nuance; the story just says, "Harassment is bad" over and over again. There's one moment where the Klown is sharing his nefarious plan to change the world, and Jessica responds, "I like the current world." And ... huh? You like the sexual harassment you receive on an almost daily basis? You like the system that trapped you in a dead-end job? You like all the poverty and crime and misery the world has right now? The story could have really benefitted from a feminist and/or intersectional analysis.

Also, in an effort to make Jessica seem smart, the men around her are extremely stupid, unable to see through the Klown's flimsy disguises. That is ... not the best way to make your female characters appear intelligent.

Verdict: My favourite of the Roger Rabbit novels! It's not perfect, but my criticisms are born out of love and a desire to see this concept reach its full potential. But even as it is, I still found this book a lot of fun to read, and I can excuse a few flaws if I'm having fun.

Final Ranking (Compared to Other Roger Rabbit Media)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Roger Rabbit and Roger Rabbit's Toontown comics

The three shorts

Jessica Rabbit: XERIOUS Business

Who Wacked Roger Rabbit?

Who Censored Roger Rabbit?

Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit?

#who framed roger rabbit #wfrr #who censored roger rabbit #who p p p plugged roger rabbit #who wacked roger rabbit #jessica rabbit xerious business #roger rabbit #jessica rabbit #roger rabbit x jessica rabbit #roger x jessica #eddie valiant #baby herman #caitlyn “honey” graham #willy prosciutto #robbe #the klown #sid sleaze #david sleznick #kirk enigman

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thessaliah · 1 year

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Something I have noted regarding your theories. Confusing wording aside, Chaldean does see CHALDEAS as his enemy. Kirei even clarifies during their private talk that is what he meant when he said "If mankind is able to excise all seven Lostbelts, I will finally acknowledge you as my enemy". That being said, him saying Novum Chaldea is 'different from the one he knows' could be taken, if he is Goetia, as him seeing NC different from the one he saw merely as Marisbury's lapdogs in Arc 1.

Chaldean never moves to attack Rasputin and asks if he can beat Chaldea after he established them as enemies of Chaldeas. He takes up the name "Chaldea Person" when he understood that means an ally to Chaldeas because he can't believe those who call themselves "Chaldeans" would turn against Chaldea before the ending of LB7. So it's a contradictory claim. He could be, at best, neutral but supporting Marisbury's grand order due to a contract. I suspect that, if he's indeed Solomon from Chaldeas (U Olga didn't pick up any emotion from him: the mental waves she can see in colors are feelings which this guy doesn't have), Marisbury did end that planet yet granted humanity and the Human Order a continuation. "You're the only one who understands me" was something Marisbury told Solomon before Solomon won a human heart through a wish and changed. It feels weird that Goetia too would call it "Marisbury's Grand Order" as if he's on a name basis instead of that "Animusphere's grand order" or something impersonal. Just a bit odd.

Goetia never cared about Marisbury. He enacts his plan in all timelines because he looks down on humanity and pities their suffering, not because of Marisbury Animusphere's ploys. Lev is the one who stops him. If we go by this massive plot hole (bad writing is also entirely within FGO hackery): Goetia knows Guda (his fate, his hate, etc) less than Kirschtaria? Because Kirsch figured out immediately Guda is different from the "Master raised by the Doctor." before even battling as a perfect stranger.

Novum Chaldea is no different in spirit than 2015 Chaldea. That was announced in Order Call prologue, it's that Chaldea, the Chaldea that beat Goetia. That Chaldea was up in 2017, a righteous figure. Goetia should be the number 1 person who knows exactly how they are since he had more contact with them.

IMO, while plausible that this guy is Goetia (with the amounts of bad writing involved, of course), I think "Chaldean is Goetia" is being pushed as redherring like Nasu manipulated the audience to think Daybit was David Bluebook (even in LB7, with false leads scattered in part 1) and Koyan was Daji's bunrei. Their identities are exclusively mysteries and part of this arc as revealed. If the guy were Goetia, there is no reason for this secrecy after so many years. Just in my opinion. Is there any point to keep "ooh a Beast returns" as a big enigma? Besides, he would be extremely callous to take up Romani's appearance and identity so unnecessarily knowing it hurts Mash a lot. It's taking steps back on his progression to embrace his own identity too. Again, bad writing can happen. But wouldn't be more ironic Goetia to appear as an ally against this Roman Alter?

There's also this "the appearance" is what matters, some people will say point. That's why he's Romani. Guda disagreed with that, but if you think about it, the appearance mattering is the basis of Marisbury's grand switch and the importance of the galaxies in the tree. As long it 'appears' like that, then it is. The surface and outward look are pivotal to Animusphere celestial model magecraft rather than the contents (those can be, dare I say, hollow?). This tied Chaldean even further with Chaldeas overall thematic thing.

#fgo ask #chaldean #theory #speculation #themes #meta

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clarktooncrossing · 1 year

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Giraffe's Eye View | Prehistoric Planet REVIEW (and Rant+)

Hey there people of today and robots of tomorrow! It is I, Clark, here with a fun fact about myself.

LOVE.

DINOSAURS!

Granted, so does everybody else on the planet, but how can you not? They've been a part of our imagination for so long, an enigma of time we can never fully understand, a chapter of a long forgotten history when titans trekked across the planet, and the inspiration for hundreds of great movies, television shows, video games, comic books, and theme park rides! Ask anyone and they'll tell you the exact moment they fell in love with dinosaurs. For some it was seeing the original Jurassic Park in cinemas back in 1993, shaking in their seats as the T-Rex erupted from its enclosure! For others it was when catching reruns of Walking with Dinosaurs on TV, rooting for Big Al as he desperately tried to survive a harsh world. Maybe Barney stole your heart when you were younger, following him into the Land of Make Believe where he'd remind you that any dream is achievable. Or maybe you're into really obscure crap like Hallmark's made-for-TV movie Dinotopia, the 90s cartoon Denver the Last Dinosaur, Phil Tippet's stop-motion short Prehistoric Beasts, any of the follow ups to Walking with Dinosaur, there's so much dinosaur media out there that it'd take me 65 million years to cover them all! It's why today I'll be covering just one.

I remember how frustrated I was when I first saw trailers for Prehistoric Planet. Not because it didn't look good. On the contrary, it looked incredible! The effects felt like the natural evolution of Walking with Dinosaurs, crafting creatures as realistic as one can make'm. On top of that it featured narration by David Attenborough, the main man behind Planet Earth who can somehow say 'arse' without making it sound silly. Not only was he narrating over footage of breathtaking beasts, he was narrating over a score by Hans Zimmer! Y'know, the guy behind the music of The Lion King? Yeah, that guy! No doubt he was brought over by Jon Favreau, the Iron Man and Elf director turned this show's Executive Producer. If I were to guess, he brought all of the knowledge he accumulated while working in Simba's Pride Lands to the time of ancient reptiles. Unlike that piece of Hakunah Makaka though, I was actually excited for this! So what was the problem?

Apple TV+. This show was exclusive to a platform I didn't have run by a company I barely tolerate. It was bad enough they were hording all the Peanuts specials and Wolfwalkers, but now this? Why did everything I enjoy have to be taken by Steve Job's Apple Store of Doom!? For that matter, why was this service even called Apple TV+? Heck, why does every streaming channel end with a plus now? Disney already annoyed me when they named their service that instead of something more creative like 'The Disney Vault' or 'The Digital World of Disney', now every other company was trying to ride their coattails. Just wait, when we're inevitably charged for going to a public bathroom, they'll call the program Toilet+! In any case, my salvation came via a Pizza Hut gift ad given to me by my family last Christmas. After using the $25 gift card to buy one pizza, the Hut's app offered me a month free trial of Apple TV+. Having a real 'screw it' moment, I elected to try out the free month.

Which is pretty stupid in hindsight considering I got Wolfwalkers and the other two Cartoon Saloon movies on DVD that same Christmas and I already owned Blu-Ray copies of the classic Peanuts Holiday specials. Remember folks, I never said I was smart, I only said I liked dinosaurs. As such, what did I think of this show?

Happy to say; it delivers what the trailers promised. This show is what happens when you mix Walking with Dinosaurs with Planet Earth, Attenborough's narration being a highlight as per usual. He brings a level of class to anything he's commenting on, even a Deinocheirus taking a massive dump. Insert obligatory Jurassic Park joke here.

AND FOR ANYBODY JUMPING AHEAD: NO! THE SHOW ISN'T CRAP. THIS IS JUST FOR A JOKE!

It's also to help illustrate a weird point about this show: they do not shy away from the dino love-making or crap-taking. It's Dinos After Dark! Granted they showed this kind of stuff back on Walking with too, but it was just as disgusting there. Especially since the Deinocheirus eats where he poops. If you're thinking of enjoying a tasty bowl of popcorn while enjoying this, I'd recomend you wait until after Episode 3 aka Freshwater.

Those of you who have seen the Planet Earth series will recognize the naming convention here. Instead of going through the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous to see how dinosaurs evolved over time, this show sticks to the late Cretaceous while showing how far stretched the dinosaurs war. A pack of Secernosaurus struggle to find water in dunes made out of gypsum, we find out the Tyrannosaurs could beat you in a swimming contest, a troupe of triceratops are forced underground, one episode even sees how dinosaurs survived the cold.

I was actually super eager to see this episode, as a friend and I argued over the logistics of over-grown reptiles surviving in a snowy landscape. A quick Google search revealed that these early drafts of birds were indeed warm blooded, so I could totally buy them enduring the cold. Even if they couldn't, it looks freak'n cool! Pun intended, of course.

Really my one complaint about this series is how tame it is. When you watched Walking with Dinosaurs, or really any nature documentary, it's hard to guess what's going to happen. Will the baby antelope escape the hungry lion's claws? Will that one panda find a mate before the season's over? Will future generations have the privilege of ever seeing a rhino again? Most importantly, how did the people holding the camera get these magnificent shots? One cameraman working on Planet Earth had to live in a literal mountain of crap for weeks while filming cockroaches. Thinking about it gives makes my skin crawl. Even then that's nothing compared to the massive undertaking that is filming snow leopards. Not to say I want any people producing this to be in actual danger, but the Walking series at least simulated this aspect by having the creatures interact with the camera. Saliva would coat the lens after a T-Rex roared at it, it'd be knocked over after a adolescent Indricotherium charged at it, that sort of thing. This makes what's happening on screen feel natural. Here it all feels too choreographed and planned. There's no real edge. Still, I'd take this over any of the newer Jurassic Park movies any day. This doesn't make it feel my braincells are being smothered with a pillow before getting repeatedly kicked in their metaphorical crotches.

In conclusion, dinosaur lovers will surely love this. The effects will leave you speechless, David Attenborough's voice is a welcomed boost of nostalgia, and the variety of dinosaurs on display should satisfy any paleontology fan. That is assuming this all is accurate, which is getting harder to judge these days. Just wait, come tomorrow some bone-digging bozo is gonna say T-Rex was actually more of a giant woodpecker or somethin'. Until that happens, take a trip back and enjoy watching how life survived this Prehistoric Planet.

By the way, wanna read more rants against streaming services? Then check out my review of Spy x Family to see me complain about Hulu while gushing over how cute Anya forger is. Until then, may the glasses be with you!

NEXT TIME ON GIRAFFE'S EYE VIEW...

#clarktoon crossing #giraffes eye view #dinosaurs #dinosaur #prehistoric planet #apple tv+#streaming #rant #review #tv review

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tilbageidanmark · 2 months

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Movies I watched this week (#170):

2 with French-Algerian actor Ramzy Bedia:

🍿 Youssef Salem Is Successful is a broad French comedy about a failed Algerian writer, who suddenly becomes famous when his tell-all book about his family wins The Prix Goncourt for literature. I liked the score made up of electronic Berber beats, and the two strong female characters, unorthodox and feisty. 7/10.

/ Female Director

🍿 Pecan pie is a 2003 Michel Gondry short-short, made at the same time as 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'. Jim Carrey in pajamas drives a bedmobile while singing an Elvis tune.

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2 more by unique Austrian documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter:

🍿 Homo Sapiens (2016) is an eerie, wordless and scoreless vision of post-human abandonment. Without explanations and with a static camera, it visits deserted locations around the world years after the people had given up on them. Derelict concert halls, prison cells, bank vaults and train cabins, from Fukushima, and Chernobyl, and the many other disaster areas people have left behind, surrounding them to the elements, letting the birds and the rain and the weeds take over again. It's hypnotic and transcendental.

It's as if Edward Burtynsky and the Koyaanisqatsi guys had sex with Werner Herzog, but decided not to give the new baby any clues. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes. 9/10.

🍿 His 2005 Our daily bread was similar: Without voice over narration or subjectivity, it looks at the insides of giant agriculture factories, massive industrialized farms and high-tech conveyor belt food processing. How do the packages on the supermarket shelves get there? Who picks the tomatoes, the olives, the apples and peaches? Who inseminates the pigs, slaughters the cows, guts the salmons, collects the chickens and the salt in the ginormous mines? Endlessly fascinating. Makes you want to stop eating food.

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Steve Martin X 6:

🍿 STEVE! (Martin), the new 2-part in-depth documentary about this smart and melancholic comedian-musician. A warm and wonderful run-down through his rich life. He accomplished so much during his extraordinary career, and much of it so well. 9/10.

🍿 My third re-watch of his warm and funny An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life again, a riff on friendship. With friend Martin Short (Excellent in his 'Stepbrother to Jesus' number!). Impeccable comic timing. ♻️

🍿 Shopgirl, a wistful love-triangle, based on his novella and script, about class and romance. A lonely woman living in a Silverlake apartment, works at the glove counter of Saks Fifth Avenue. She is being wooed by two different men, an immature slacker and a sophisticated older Martin. Jason Schwartzman is generally unbearable to watch, but here he is an insufferable loser. Eventually, it's too slight, a perverted fantasy of a rich, white, old man. However, it's always nice to find Screenwriting Symmetry 101 touches, f. ex. when Martin kisses Claire Danes for the first time, it happens exactly at 46:00, one hour before the end of the story. 5/10.

🍿"Excuse me. May I go to the bathroom first?..." Another re-watch: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, an old-fashioned story with 60's sensibilities, which was indeed faithfully re-made of a 1964 Marlon Brando / David Niven vehicle. Mick Jagger and David Bowie were originally supposed to play the Steve Martin and Michael Caine roles. ♻️

🍿 The Absent Minded Waiter short (1977) was his first produced screenplay, directed by his friend and 'Jaws' co-writer Carl Gottlieb.

🍿 All of me, a lame "comedy" that aged poorly. Were the supernatural-themed 1980's nonsense the worst decade for movies? Just terrible. 1/10.

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2 more by Jean Vigo:

🍿 First watch: L'Atalante, the classic enigma about barge dwellers and incompatible newly-weds and an old skipper who loves cats. I'll need to watch it a second time in order to fully appreciate its beauty. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿 Jean Vigo directed only 4 movies before dying of TB at the age of 29. His Jean Taris, Swimming Champion was an innovative documentary that introduced some poetic avant-garde effects, slow-mo, underwater reverse shots, innovative freeze frames. (Photo Above).

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2 Eastern European classics from 1965:

🍿 The Oscar-winning WW2 drama The Shop on Main Street, still considered one of the best Czechoslovakian films. A dim-witted, henpecked carpenter in the Fascist Slovak State is appointed "Aryan controller" of a Jewish widow's store. With Ida Kamińska as the confused old lady. Another 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿 Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures was the highest-grossing Soviet comedy in 1965, with 70 million tickets sold. 3 unrelated episodes of weird slapstick featuring some nerdy student named 'Shurik'. Tom & Jerry meet Richard Lester meet The Three Stooges. 2/10.

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2 thrillers with lovely Paraguayan actress Lali González:

🍿 Rest in peace, a new, engaging Argentinian thriller about a debt-ridden industrialist who leaves his loving family behind in order to escape from a dangerous loan shark. Here Lali González plays a sexy young widow. The fancy Jewish wedding reminded me of a similar one in Damián Szifron's terrific film 'Wild Tales'. The ending was weak. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes. 7/10.

🍿 "Run, Victor, run!" 7 Boxes (2012), my first thriller from Paraguay. Like the Brazilian 'City of God', it describes a world of acute poverty, which made it a tense watch. It tells of a young pushcart boy at the sprawling Asunción market who has to deliver some wooden boxes with unknown content. This Lali González was a cute teenager here. 6/10.

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3 Temporal Loops:

🍿 Instead of watching my favorite rom-com 'Palm Spring' for the 14th or 15th time, I tried the other acclaimed time-loop story Russian doll, my first anything with Natasha Lyonne. But there was no comparison. The tired NYC hipster atmosphere didn't hold a candle to the sunny flow of Tala and Abe's wedding, and none of the characters were as lovable as Sarah & Nyles. Not even Greta Lee! The first season was hard enough to stay awake through. 2/10.

/ Female Director

🍿 Repeat Performance (1947) is the earliest film featuring the Time Loop Trop. But it works more with the Hollywood concept of 'Destiny', the idea that "If you wish upon a star, all your dreams will become true", no matter how unlikely. However, it's based on a second rate Noir script, made by an unremarkable director, and with uninspiring actors. 3/10.

🍿 12:01 PM came out before 'Groundhog Day', and set up many of the rules for playing 'Time Bounces' from that point forward. An ordinary office Nobody gets stuck but only during the one hour of his lunch break. It was nominated for the 1991 Oscars. 4/10.

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3 shorts by surrealist Kansas City artist Suzan Pitt:

🍿 Asparagus, an avant-garde feminist film, which was shown together with Lynch's Eraserhead. Strangely erotic, psychedelically-fetishist, and politically-ambiguous. A 'Planète sauvage' / R. Crumb sensual nightmare, full of (literal) shit and swallowed phallus symbols.

🍿 Joy Street (1995), a journey of a depressed woman from suicide to a colorful healing.

🍿 Pinball (2013), a drug induced, dissonant, nearly-abstract headache, played fast to the discordant Ballet Mecanique (1952 revision).

/ Female Director

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My second (after 'The Bigamist') directed by film pioneer Ida Lupino, The Hitch-Hiker. It was "the first American mainstream film noir directed by a woman" and, interestingly, portrayed the two men who were taken hostages by a psychotic killer as helpless and emasculated.

/ Female Director

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2 directed by Demetri Martin:

🍿 "Crest Atheist Formula..." Demetri Martin: Demetri Deconstructed, his latest stand up. The first five minutes were weak, but the rest was hilarious and funny.

🍿 Dean, his 2016 directorial debut, a low-key comedy about overcoming loss, was apparently a semi-biographical attempt to deal with the death of his father. Similar Indie vibes to 'People, Places, Things' and many other stories about young Brooklynite illustrators grappling with love, parents, and growing up. His clever drawings (here and elsewhere) are really lovely. 7/10.

🍿

2 Danish Oscar contender shorts:

🍿 This Charming Man won the 2003 Oscar for best shorts. It's a terribly outdated comedy of errors about racism and micro-aggressions and about a Dane who got mistaken for an Pakistani immigrant. 1/10.

🍿 The sentimental On my mind was nominated in 2022 for the Best Live Action Short. I actually forgot that I've seen it before. ♻️

🍿

The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob, my second (and last!) flimsy, nervous comedy with Louis de Funès. When I was 10, I thought he was the funniest man alive, but in hindsight, he's just not. 1/10.

🍿

The Orchard End Murder (1981), a uneasy and unpleasant English story about two weirdos complicit in the senseless murder of an innocent girl on top of a heap of apples. 1/10.

🍿

(My complete movie list is here)

#jean vigo #movies

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chrancecriber · 2 years

Text

Radio NET Bulgaria (November 05, 2022)

23:57 CJ RCM - Humans Of Space (Original Mix) 23:54 DAVID VENDETTA - Love To Love You Baby (Lounge Mix) 23:50 DJ MATISSE, LOUNGE PARADISE - This Love (Maroon 5 Cover) 23:44 KITARO - Caravansary Original 23:42 HOUSE MASSIVE, J. GOLUBEVA - Apologize 23:38 IDENLINE - At Sunset (Original Mix) 23:33 DON GORDA PROJECT - Attractive Qualities 23:28 DOWNTEMPO GROOVERS - Smooth And Sexy Mix 23:24 EXIMINDS, AELYN - I Feel You (Chillout Version) 23:20 BROCKMAN - Live Your Life (Free Your Mind) 23:14 COASTLINE - Adriatic Sea (Lounge Cafe Chillout Del Mar Mix) 23:10 INMOTION - Summer Days 23:08 INNA - Hot (Chill Out Remix) 23:04 CRISTINA CAMACHO - Thank you 22:58 AK47, TRACY DIAMONDS - It's No Good 22:51 HALDO, GEORGIA CEE - Clouds 22:47 DEPECHE MODE - Enjoy The Silence (Pacific State Chillout Mix) 22:43 GYSNOIZE - Loving You More 22:39 ELLIE GOULDING - Heartbeats (Cosmonaut Grechko Edit) 22:35 HEAVN - Bright Lights 22:32 DJ G.ROS, IAN CAREY - Keep On Rising 22:27 DJ A - Let Me Love You (Andreas Agiannitopoulos Remix) 22:23 DJ ANTOINE - This Time (Acoustic Mix) 22:19 DASH BERLIN, SECEDE, SARAH HOWELLS - Believe In You 22:13 DJ ARTAK SAMVEL, SONE SILVER - I Feel Your Body 22:09 DJ ELECTRA - I Feel You (Acoustic Version) 22:05 DIMA ZIMAKOV - Right back (original mix) 21:59 DIDDY, KEYSHIA COLE, B-STAR - Last Night (Slow Version) 21:57 DASH BERLIN, ROXANNE EMERY - Shelter 21:53 DARK MATTERS, DENISE RIVERA - Take Me Home 21:50 DIANA KRALL - California Dreamin' 21:44 DINKA - Hotel Summerville (Original Mix) 21:41 ROB NUNJES - Smells Like Teen Spirit 21:37 DJ GROOVE - So Late 21:34 DARK MATTERS, CATHY BURTON - Together (Album Mix) 21:29 DJ KODI - Love Will Tear Us Apart 21:24 DJ SHAH - Over & Over (Acoustic Mix) 21:18 ROAN PORTMAN - In Faith We Trust 21:13 RIHANNA - We Found Love (DJ Fernandez Chillout Remix) 21:02 ENVIO - Touched By The Sun (Rusch & Elusive's Chillout Mix) 20:57 ENRICO DONNER - Chicago At Sunrise 20:52 DJ MILEWS - Children 20:49 ENIGMA, SARAH BRIGHTMAN - La Mer 20:44 DJ OKAWARI - Luv Letter 20:40 ARMIN VAN BUUREN, FIORA - Waiting For The Night (Zetandel Chill Out Mix) 20:36 ROMAN MESSER, LJ AYRTEN - Break The Ice (UltraNova Chillout Remix) 20:30 ROGER SANCHEZ - Another Chance (Afterlife Mix) 20:26 EMILY UNDERHILL - Fly 20:22 20EDDIE THONEICK, SHAWNEE TAYLOR - Live Your Life (Eddie Thoneick Chill Out Mix) 20:18 EMILIA DE PORET - Weightless (Chillout Mix) 20:12 LOREEN - Euphoria (Cool Bill Seaside Mix) 20:09 JAMES BUTLER - Dinner For Two 20:03 LEO ROJAS - Brothers 20:00 SAGI REI - Your Loving Arms 19:55 CAPA - Julian 19:51 DASH BERLIN - Listen To Your Heart (Acoustic Mix) 19:46 DUB MARS - Slow Witted 19:41 CALAR DEL SOLE - Cafe Del Mar (Lounge Remake) 19:36 CANE GARDEN QUARTET - Chillaxin' 19:32 DARK MATTERS, ANA CRIADO - The Quest Of A Dream (Original Mix) 19:28 DUBDIVER - Reverie 19:23 DJ SHAH, ADRINA THORPE - Who Will Find Me (Acoustic Version) 19:19 CARDINAL ZEN - Warmth 19:13 LAZY HAMMOCK - You Light My Mind 19:09 KRYSTIAN SHEK - Devot 19:04 GANGA - Secrets 19:00 DREAMLOUNGER - Sunset Dream 18:57 KRISTER, DALBANI - Self Control 18:53 JAZZAMOR - Hidden Treasure 18:49 DT8 PROJECT - Hold Me Till The End (Unplugged Mix Lounge Edit) 18:45 EMMA HEWITT - Foolish Boy (Zetandel Chill Out Mix) 18:38 ARMIN VAN BUUREN, JUSTINE SUISSA - Burned With Desire (Chillout Mix) 18:32 C.A.T. - Could You Be 18:28 TRIANGLE SUN - White Song 18:23 CECILE BREDIE - Dreamland 18:20 AMAZONICS - Lovin' You (Astrovoid Remix) 18:16 TUKAN - Wonder Of Life (Chill Out Mix) 18:12 FLORITO - Saigon Morning 18:08 FOR FOUND FUTURE - Time Is Moving (Chillout Lounge Mix) 18:04 FRAINBREEZE, ANGEL FALLS - I'll Be There (Original Mix) 18:00 LEO ROJAS - Colors Of The Rainbow 17:58 DEON YATES - Suit And Tie 17:52 RHYTHM LOGIC - Sweet Talk 17:48 JONATHAN FRITZEN - Sweet Spot (feat. Paul Brown) 17:43 BLAIR BRYANT - Chocolate for Breakfast 17:38 RYAN LA VALETTE - Another Day In Paradise 17:34 THE SAX PACK - You Are My Starship 17:29 KAYLA WATERS - Zephyr 17:25 DEE LUCAS - Hot Ice (feat. Gino Rosaria) 17:21 KEN NAVARRO - Magic 17:16 NILS - Hey Ya 17:12 ART RUPRECHT - Never Alone 17:09 RAINFOREST BAND - Reflections 17:04 NORMAN BROWN - Not Like You Do 17:00 STEVE OLIVER - Vamonos 16:54 3RD FORCE - You Gotta Be Real 16:50 AL GOMEZ - Keeping It Together 16:46 NICHOLAS COLE - Playin Again 16:43 JAY KING - Feels So Nice 16:40 BE'NE MUSIC - Missing You 16:34 AMANDUS - One Day for a Lifetime 16:30 ROBERT HARRIS - Sign of the Times 16:26 ADRIAN CRUTCHFIELD - Lover 16:22 PAUL BROWN - Sugar Fish 16:19 DARREN MOTAMEDY - Last Flight to Vegas 16:15 BRANDON WILLIS - Fire It Up 16:08 KEITH MASON - The Sabbath 16:05 NICK COLIONNE - Joint is Poppin' 16:00 PAUL HARDCASTLE - Wavelength 15:59 KENNY PORE - Love Crossover 15:55 VINCENT INGALA - Groovin' U 15:50 WAKANA - Hometown 15:45 RANDY SCOTT - Copacetic 15:41 OLI SILK - Sanctuary St. 15:37 SHAUN LABELLE - Drive Time 15:33 ALTHEA RENE - Show You The Way 15:29 BOBBY LYLE - Tommy's Song 15:24 PIECES OF A DREAM - Smoothing Out 15:20 DEAN JAMES - GroovySax 15:16 LIN ROUNTREE - FuSion 15:13 BENNETT B - Groove Time 15:08 TOM BRAXTON - Hope For Tomorrow (feat. Bob James) 15:04 MEKIEL REUBEN - When I Get There 15:00 CAROL ALBERT - Mas Que Nada 14:59 DARRYL WILLIAMS - Turn Up (feat. Scott Wilkie) 14:55 NORTH 2UNES WOODALL - I Want Her 14:50 2UNES - Sweet Baby 14:46 JOHN NOVELLO - Give You My World 14:42 RON OTIS - Miles Like 14:38 JAZZ IN PINK - Steppin' To The Keys 14:34 FUNKTASTIC PLAYERS - Mj's Groove 14:31 RICK HABANA - Cheers 14:26 LOWELL HOPPER - Ever Lasting 14:22 JOHN E. LAWRENCE - Wake up the Groove 14:18 KEITH SLATTERY - Love Is All You Need 14:14 VINCENT IOIA - Linda's Sunset 14:09 EDGARDO CINTRON - No Scrubs 14:04 CHUCK LOEB - Affinity 14:00 DANIEL CHIA - Just Because (feat. Darren Rahn) 13:59 WILL DONATO - Espana 13:53 DREAMING IN COLOUR - Twilight Drive 13:49 DARRIUS JAMAR - My Everything 13:46 LES SABLER - Where Has She Gone 13:42 SAM BASSMAN JENKINS - Among Friends 13:38 SEAN U - Magic Hour (feat. Blake Aaron) 13:34 U - NAM 13:30 BIRDS OF A FEATHER - Hopscotch 13:26 ADAM HAWLEY - Can You Feel It (Feat. Marcus Anderson) 13:21 DERRICK HARVIN - Gone 13:17 BOBBY WELLS - End of Summer 13:12 DANNY LERMAN - No Ordinary Love 13:08 ANDRE DELANO - Face Off 13:04 ERIC MARIENTHAL - I Believe In You 13:00 JEREMY HECTOR - African Lady 12:59 BEN TANKARD - Last Minute Changes 12:55 FREDDIE FOX - Just 4 U 12:51 DEMETRIUS NABORS - Sugar Love 12:46 GABRIEL MARK HASSELBACH - Chill@Will 12:41 NATE WHITE - Long Way Home 12:36 CHRIS GODBER - Sax Therapy 12:32 RONALD BOO HINKSON - That's What He Said 12:28 BONEY JAMES - Solid 12:26 STEVE RAYBINE - Maui Blue 12:20 UNDER THE LAKE - George is His Name 12:17 CHRIS 'BIG DOG' DAVIS - Whatcha Gonna Do For Me 12:12 PHILLIP DOC MARTIN - Groove Step 12:08 KIRK WHALUM - Big Ol' Shoes 12:05 ROCCO VENTRELLA - Precious of Life 12:00 DAVID PETROSYAN - This Is My Way 11:58 LOUIE FITZGERALD - My Heart Beats for You 11:53 GERRY SMOOTH - Attitude Adjustment (feat. Judah Sealy) 11:48 MARQUEAL JORDAN - Sistas (feat. Brian Culbertson) 11:44 MARC ANTOINE - Cancun Blue 11:39 GINO ROSARIA - Island Life 11:34 GARY MEEK - Monterey Groove 11:31 JAREZ - All Of Me 11:25 JEFFERY SMITH - Shake It Up 11:21 DONALD HAYES - Riverside Drive 11:17 DWIGHT SIRLS - Dimensions 11:13 JULIAN VAUGHN - Always in My Heart 11:09 MICHAEL ROSS - Hot in Brazil 11:05 SKINNY HIGHTOWER - Blue Moon 11:00 TIM BOWMAN - Candy's Groove 10:57 SHAWN RAIFORD - I Like It 10:53 SPECIAL EFX - Night Shift 10:48 A & MARK R. HARRIS - Heartfelt Prayer (feat. Ignacio Nunez & Dean Rickard) 10:44 DARREN RAHN - Tale Of Two Cities 10:41 SPONTANEOUS GROOVIN' COMBUSTION - The Wind Whispers 10:37 AVENUE BLUE - The Conversation 10:33 PEET PROJECT - I Don't Mind 10:28 ACOUSTIC ALCHEMY - Same Road, Same Reason 10:24 CHAZZY GREEN - Let's Go Home 10:20 GARY PALMER - Windsurfer 10:16 JEFF LORBER FUSION - Curiosity 10:13 J. WHITE - Juicy 10:08 PAUL TAYLOR - Find a Way 10:04 MARION MEADOWS - Blue Cactus 10:00 LISA ADDEO - Listen To This 09:58 JOE MCBRIDE, THE TEXAS RHYTHM CLUB - Lakewood 09:53 ERIC DARIUS - All Around The World 09:50 PAUL TUVMAN - And I Love Her 09:45 JEANETTE HARRIS - Just Keep Holding On 09:41 MARCIN NOWAKOWSKI - Huggy Bear 09:36 DAVE KOZ - A View From Above (feat. Marc Antoine) 09:32 JODY MAYFIELD - Epiphany 09:28 AL DEGREGORIS - East 86th 09:23 ROB TARDIK - Bounce 09:19 QUINTIN GERARD W. - Times Like These 09:13 EUGE GROOVE - Too Cool 09:07 JOY RIDE - Swingset 09:03 VANN BURCHFIELD - That's the Way Love Goes 09:00 WALTER BEASLEY - Be Thankful 08:58 WARREN HILL - Under the Covers 08:54 DAVID BENOIT - The Bones 08:49 JOYCE COOLING - East Side 08:45 WILL SUMNER - Where We Go 08:42 DIRK K - Change Is Gonna Come 08:38 BRAD ALEXANDER - Lovely Day 08:33 KIM WATERS - Possession 08:29 BRIAN SIMPSON - What I'm Waiting For 08:25 PAOLO RUSTICHELLI - Superpassion 08:21 PATRICK YANDALL - Just Pray 08:17 THREESTYLE - Come 2 Me (feat. Magdalena Chovancova, Robert Fertl & Tim Owens) 08:13 KIM SCOTT - Best Part 08:08 JEFF KASHIWA - Voices 08:04 ANDRE CAVOR - Say Somethin' 08:00 ZOLBERT - Ocean Breeze 07:58 TONY SAUNDERS - And the Beat Goes On 07:54 R.L. WALKER - Memories Kept 07:50 RAGAN WHITESIDE - So Glad 07:46 WAYMAN TISDALE - I'll Do the Driving (feat. Brian Simpson) 07:41 ANDY SNITZER - A Few Wild Nights 07:37 ROBERTO RESTUCCIA - Liquorice Pizza 07:33 PHIL DENNY - Black Brim 07:29 TERENCE YOUNG - Make Me Say It Again 07:25 JACKIEM JOYNER - Where's The Love Gone 07:20 RICK BRAUN - Me And You 07:16 ROBERT CHRISTA - Mother Earth 07:12 MARCUS ANDERSON - He Lives 07:08 PATRICK BRADLEY - Lighthouse (feat. Allen Hinds) 07:04 DREW DAVIDSEN - I'm Into You (feat. Ron Tyson) 07:00 JACOB WEBB - Brazilian Moments 06:59 JOEL THIBAULT - Miss Foly 06:55 CHRISTOPHE GOZE - Lazy Sunday 06:50 THE SMOOTH JAZZ ALLEY - Bay Breeze 06:45 BLAKE AARON - Bumpin' on the Wes Side 06:41 DARRON COOKIE - Another Day at Work 06:36 JEFF RYAN - Edge of Tomorrow 06:32 RONNY SMITH - Groove 106 06:27 JAZZ FUNK SOUL - Fish Grease 06:22 MEZZOFORTE - Quarter Latin 06:17 CINDY BRADLEY - I'm All Ears 06:12 NELSON RANGELL - The Gathering 06:07 GREGG KARUKAS - You'll Know it's Me 06:04 MARK JAIMES - Miel's Song 06:00 PETER WHITE - Crazy Love 05:57 CHRIS STANDRING - All In Good Time 05:53 JIM ADKINS - Wind Dancing 05:49 GREG MANNING - Cruising' down the Road 05:44 DANIEL DOMENGE - Cool 05:40 BRIAN BROMBERG - Lazy Afternoon 05:36 NAJEE - Happiness (A Felicidade) 05:33 ALEXANDER ZONJIC - Living in the Past 05:29 DEE BROWN - I Will 05:24 RICHARD ELLIOT - Sticky Wicked 05:19 REZA KHAN - The Way 05:16 DEON YATES - Step By Step 05:11 RHYTHM LOGIC - Logically Speaking 05:07 JONATHAN FRITZEN - A Funky Night 05:04 496 WEST - Cflat 05:00 BLAIR BRYANT - Relentless 04:59 MARIEA ANTOINETTE - So Amazing 04:55 LEO P. - Timeless Love 04:51 RYAN LA VALETTE - Room For 2 04:45 THE SAX PACK - All At Once 04:42 KAYLA WATERS - Sunkissed 04:38 JOEL DEL ROSARIO - Delicious Vinyl 04:33 DEE LUCAS - Take The L 04:29 KEN NAVARRO - Out Of The Blue 04:25 NILS - Finally Here 04:21 ART RUPRECHT - City on a Hill 04:17 RAINFOREST BAND - Annisa 04:13 NORMAN BROWN - Amen 04:09 STEVE OLIVER - She's Got The Way 04:04 3RD FORCE - Out Of The Storm 04:00 AL GOMEZ - Groovesville 03:57 ROD TATE - Dinner and a Movie 03:52 NICHOLAS COLE - Feelings 03:48 KOOL&KLEAN - Feel Again 03:43 JAY KING - Soulful Bossa Nova 03:40 BE'NE MUSIC - Journey 03:36 AMANDUS - Sing a Song 03:32 ROBERT HARRIS - Keys to My Heart 03:28 ADRIAN CRUTCHFIELD - Mr. Right 03:22 DARREN MOTAMEDY - Love You Just so Much 03:19 BRANDON WILLIS - Melrose St 03:14 LARRY CARLTON, PAUL BROWN - Soul Searchin' 03:10 CHIELI MINUCCI - Anything and Everything 03:06 GEORGE JINDA - Lavish 03:00 KEITH MASON - Arisen 03:00 NICK COLIONNE - Spend the Night (extended vocals) 02:56 PAUL HARDCASTLE - Rythmn Of Life 02:52 KENNY PORE - The Road Chosen 02:48 VINCENT INGALA - Dream Girl 02:44 WAKANA - Saxcess Story (feat. Greg Manning) 02:39 RANDY SCOTT - Intimacy 02:34 OLI SILK - Steppin' Out 02:29 KENNY NIGHTINGALE - Coltrane to Montgomery 02:24 SHAUN LABELLE - Indio Sunrise 02:21 ALTHEA RENE - Blue Room 02:16 EVERETTE HARP - Old School 02:12 BOBBY LYLE - Nujazzy (feat. Nathan East) 02:08 PIECES OF A DREAM - Going Home 02:04 DEAN JAMES - To Hold You Again 02:00 LIN ROUNTREE - Fluid 01:57 BENNETT B - In My Mind 01:53 ROB SABADO - Let It Ride 01:48 TOM BRAXTON - As Long As I'm With You 01:43 MEKIEL REUBEN - It's 420 Time 01:38 CAROL ALBERT - Winter Rain 01:33 DARRYL WILLIAMS - My Story (feat. Jeff Lorber) 01:28 NORTH 2UNES WOODALL - Susie Mae 01:24 2UNES - Find Your Way 01:18 JOHN NOVELLO - Ivory Soul 01:15 RON OTIS - Stay In Your Lane 01:11 JAZZ IN PINK - Joy Joy! 01:07 FUNKTASTIC PLAYERS - Free Your Soul 01:04 RICK HABANA - LA to KC (feat. Blair Bryant) 01:00 LOWELL HOPPER - Affection 00:58 JOHN E. LAWRENCE - The Chase 00:54 KEITH SLATTERY - Round and Round 00:49 VINCENT IOIA - Caribbean Nights 00:43 EDGARDO CINTRON - Oasis 00:38 CHUCK LOEB - ... Of The Moon 00:34 DANIEL CHIA - Malibu Drive 00:31 WILL DONATO - What IT Takes (Feat. Steve Oliver) 00:26 DREAMING IN COLOUR - State & Main 00:22 DARRIUS JAMAR - Forget Me Nots (Feat. Dayve Stewart) 00:17 DOMINIC CAMARDELLA - Headwinds 00:13 LES SABLER - In The Light (Remix) 00:09 SAM BASSMAN JENKINS - Movin 00:05 SEAN U - Electrify 00:00 U - NAM

#Radio NET Bulgaria #Smooth Jazz #Chillout #Lounge #Downtempo #Ambient #Trance #2022 #November 2022

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therealvinelle · 3 years

Note

You or The Muffin made a post on your dream cast(s), but I’m not really familiar with those references/actors (with the exception of Bowie and Jean Claude Van Damme and Clint Eastwood I think you mentioned). Is there anyone you would choose that’s a little more recent (80s-present)?

Our dream cast.

Our dream voice cast, for those interested.

Fun fact, both those posts were composed together, so yeah we share these opinions. We composed this one together as well.

Keep in mind that this list is... well it's for Twilight as I would make it. Which means that of course we’re casting a Didyme, nevermind that she’s been dead for thousands of years, but Denali who?

And once again we’re disrupting the time-space continuum and casting big name actors you’ve definitely heard about as they were ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

Alright, so newer and shinier Twilight fancast, this time with a few alternatives because decisions are hard:

Alice: ... Audrey Hepburn.

I'm sorry. I tried. I tried to be modern, but I got to Alice and originally we thought Saoirse Ronan, appearances be damned because Ronan is a great actress, only to realize Ronan should be Renesmée.

So we're back to the dream cast. Audrey Hepburn was a tiny, pixie-like, yet ridiculously beautiful woman. Like Alice, her growth was stunted due to prolonged starvation during the War, so she's the perfect casting in a way no modern Western actress is going to be. She was also an amazing actress, just absolutely magnetic each time she graced the screen. She would be a fantastic Alice.

Aro: A young Tom Cruise.

Cruise is an absurdly beautiful man, and at 173 cm he is the right stature as I could never cast a tall actor for Aro. He's a very good actor, so I'm sure he'd be up for it. Also, he'd look great with chalky petrified vampire makeup on. He'd pull it off. I want to see this.

Optionally: Cate Blanchett

Yes, she's a woman. But that's what acting is all about, you play someone you're not. It's more a thing in theatre than in film that men can play women and women can play men, but I say fuck the rules, we're doing it theatre style. And Blanchett absolutely have that enigmatic, ethereal, otherworldly quality I'd want for Aro.

Bella: A young Sarah Michelle Gellar

Gellar is a petite beauty, she is spunky yet adorable, and very charming, the people of Forks and the Cullens would very believably gravitate towards her. Most importantly she has the acting chops to pull it off. She would portray an amazing Bella.

Caius: Daniel Craig

The man is the right age, he's someone you don't mess with. Craig has perhaps a touch too charismatic, but he's good enough that I'm hopeful he could tune it down.

Carlisle: A young Leonardo DiCaprio

DiCaprio is ridiculously attractive and has a bad case of The Babyface™. Watching him try to convince people that he’s 30 years old and has adult kids would be absolutely hilarious, and very faithful to the books. He’s a talented actor, too, very versatile.

Optionally: David Tennant

Tennant doesn't look the part, he is handsome but handsome in that particular way when flawed features come together handsomely. He does however have the perfect charm, gravitas, and energy for the character, so I think he could make a great Carlisle.

This is where the magic of movie adaptions come in - you’re not going to be able to translate directly from text to screen, that’s impossible. If you embrace that and make some bold choices, you stand to make a truly spectacular adaption. One of the reasons why the Twilight films failed is that they were too faithful to the books while failing to understand the spirit of them, whereas the TV miniseries adaption of His Dark Materials switched a lot of things up and is absolutely amazing for it.

Demetri: Robert Downey Jr.

Ridiculously charismatic and talented actors cast in bit parts and making them shine is a passion of mine.

Didyme: Cate Blanchett

Look, Blanchett had to be in this somehow, and we could think of no one more appropriate. She has too much enigma for Esme, is too womanly for Alice, and once the idea for Didyme was had it was hard to weasel out of.

Cate Blanchett would be convincing as Aro's sister, as a woman who haunts her lover and brother even thousands of years after her passing, an enigmatic and divine woman who can never be forgotten.

Also she's my fancast for her brother, so this works out quite nicely. Why cast someone who merely looks like Aro’s actor when you can just cast the same actor.

Edward: A young Johnny Depp

Very few men are otherworldly beautiful. There are countless handsome men, yes, and many beautiful ones, but Depp has extreme and symmetrical features that come together beautifully. Robert Pattinson does too, for the record, so what makes me prefer Depp is the fact that he is an incredible actor. Pattinson is good, but Depp is the kind of talent who can power through even the worst scripts, give him nothing and he will give you the world. He’s on Al Pacino’s level, this man can salvage anything.

Emmett: Terry Crews

Terry Crews is a mountain of a man, he's massive. He'd nail Emmett's infectious cheer, too. He has a very symmetrical and attractive face that follows the golden ratio beautifully, so I could buy him being a vampire.

Esme: Anne Hathaway ten years ago. Ref one, ref two.

She’s out of this world beautiful and has the perfect Esme aesthetic. Hands down best Esme. The fact that she’s a very good actress helps.

Felix: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

He’s got the physique for the part and would be absolutely menacing.

James: Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt is a character actor who tragically got lost in the blockbuster scene. He’s good, he deserves cool parts. So yeah, Pitt as James. I think he’d be absolutely amazing for the part, it’d be the kind of performance where you can tell the actor was enjoying every second on set.

Jane and Alec: Child Dakota Fanning

Fanning was a good choice for Jane, it's just that she was slightly too old when she was cast (and they made her look even older!) and the screenwriters had written a different character than the one in the books (and not for the better - I’m all for changing things in an adaption! But, well, she was Marvel levels of bad villain). And as Alec is a bit part and supposed to be nearly identical to her, I’d just have Fanning play him as well.

Jasper: Clint Eastwood, every time.

Optionally: feels like blasphemy to even have an “optionally”, but here we are. If you somehow haven’t heard of the guy, then… er. No, sorry, I’ve got nothing. Know that I tried, though.

Marcus: Tom Holland

The man has such babyface, which fits since Marcus is 19.

Just Tom Holland, sitting around, looking young and depressed.

Renata: A young Natalie Portman

Yes, yes, Renata is a bit part, I know that, but this is my Twilight we're casting for so I do what I want.

Portman fits the physical description for Renata, and I find that description to be relevant to her character. She's a teeny tiny woman charged with protecting the most important man in the world, and gifted with intouchability. Portman looks is beautiful enough to fit the bill for a Twilight vampire, and tiny enough to stress the absurdity of this 5′0″ woman being anybody’s bodyguard, nevermind Aro’s.

Renesmée: Child Saoirse Ronan (Though Adult Ronan works too, she’s my cast for the hybrid gremlin period.)

She was an extraordinarily talented child actress, and she’s beautiful while odd-looking. I could absolutely believe I was looking at an otherworldly hybrid when looking at her.

Mostly I think Renesmée is going to be a very hard part for anybody, as the given actor will be portraying one of the most ridiculed characters in recent pop culture. It’ll take major talent to get the audience to care about Renesmée, but I think Ronan, if anybody, could do it.

Rosalie: Margot Robbie ten years ago

She’s out of this world beautiful, and more importantly she’s an incredible actress. She would be incredible for the part.

164 notes · View notes

anzu-kaiba · 3 years

Text

Some more thoughts on Azure Week 2021

Okay, so here are some themes I've come up with/heard from other fans elsewhere... I'd love to get feedback to see which ones we should narrow it down to. I'm also open to the idea of using quotes or song lyrics specifically as themes.

Theme Ideas

written in the stars/destiny

constellation origin story/myth

zodiac/astrology

planetarium

star of love

lucky stars

shoot for the stars, land on the moon/shoot the moon

the stars are aligned

the stars know everything

in search of the full moon

once in a blue moon

over the moon

many moons ago

promise me the moon

divine origins/god-goddess & mortal relationships AND/OR star crossed lovers

we are all stardust/Star stuff

illusions (Tarot: Moon)

purpose (Tarot: Star)

completion (Tarot: World)

Since songs tend to play a big role in coming up with themes or inspiring prompts, I like the idea of having a list of songs in general to choose from, to put together another Azure Week fanmix. Here are some that I have, but despite my massive music library, this is obviously not an exhaustive list. I'd love to get more genres/different artists in here, especially since it's often how I end up discovering new artists and albums that I love:

Songs

Arabian Nights: Scimitar Moon (Sarah Brightman)

Bad Moon Rising (Palestra, others)

Can't Fight the Moonlight (Leann Rimes)

Blue Moon (Beck)

Dancin' in the Moonlight (Toploader)

Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)

Falling in Love with the New Moon (Momoiro Clover Z, others)

Fly Me to the Moon (Frank Sinatra, others)

In the Land of Twilight, Under the Moon (Yuki Kajiura)

Moonlight Densetsu (DALI, others)

Moonlight Destiny (Hiroko Asakawa, others)

Moonlight Magic (Hiroko Asakawa)

My Moon, My Man (Feist)

Shoot the Moon (Jump5)

Talking to the Moon (Bruno Mars)

To the Moon and Back (Savage Garden)

In for the Night (The Moontrane Conductors) [instrumental]

Star (Akemi Sato)

Another Star (Najee) [instrumental]

Counting Stars (OneRepublic)

Paint the Sky With Stars (Enya)

Oh My Stars (Andrew Belle)

Rewrite the Stars (James Arthur & Anne-Marie) [The Greatest Showman OST and variations]

The Star and the Snake (Hands Upon Black Earth) [instrumental]

Shooting Star (Yoshihiro Ike) [From the Dark Side of Dimensions OST]

Star Chart (Yoshihiro Ike) [From the Dark Side of Dimensions OST]

Stargazers (Nightwish) [instrumental METAL]

Stars (t.A.T.u)

Starlight (Muse)

Starry Eyed (Ellie Goulding)

Your Star (Evanescence)

Written in the Stars (Tinie Tempah feat. Eric Turner)

Brand New Day (Ryan Star) OR

Brand New Day (Sting)**

From the Night (Stars)

Guilty Pleasure (Cobra Starship)*

Entropy Reigns [In the Celestial City] (Kelley Polar)

One ~ Even if This World Comes to an End, I Won't Leave You (Day-break)

Center of the Sun (Conjure One)

Following the Sun (Enigma)

Away from the Sun (3 Doors Down)

Rain in the Sun (David Gordon) [instrumental]

See the Sun (Dido)

The Sun Will Rise (Kelly Clarkson)

Sunrise (Norah Jones) OR

Sunrise (Simply Red)**

Sunglass (Hikaru Utada)

Sunburn (Owl City)

In the Sun (Joseph Arthur)

Bohemian Sunset (India) [instrumental]

Sun is Shining (Bebel Gilberto) [Español]

Aquascape – Sunrise (Tunguska Electronic Music Society) [mostly instrumental]

* Okay, the song itself doesn't have anything to do with "celestial" themes, but Cobra Starship is a good band, so...

** The songs with the same title are not the same song by different people, but I thought it'd be confusing to have two songs with the same title on a fanmix, so I'd ideally only like to pick ONE of each of those

Extra Challenge Fandoms (Crossovers/AUs)

Another thought I had was that we could give people an "extra challenge" to crossover their story or make an AU with other fandoms that use celestial elements in their name/concept somehow. Some fandoms I'm familiar with that fit this bill include:

Star Trek (Sci-fi)

Star Wars (Sci-fi/action)

Star Ocean (Adventure)

Sailor Moon (Shoujo modern magical girl fantasy)

Fruits Basket (zodiac) (Shoujo, family drama)

Fushigi Yuugi (constellations) (Shoujo, fantasy)

Full Moon o Sagashite (shoujo, tragedy)

Zodiac P.I. (astrology/zodiac) (Mystery)

Ceres: Celestial Legend (Shoujo/drama)

Stars Above (The Lunar Chronicles) (YA/adventure)

This can also be a fun way to introduce people to other fandoms you love, and I'd be more than happy to make a page on the Blue Eyes and Apricots fanlisting with a short summary of a series and where people can (legally) enjoy it, when possible.

Quotes I liked:

"There's something enchanted about night. All those heavenly bodies, shooting stars, the crescent moon, celestial phenomenon. Owls fly at night, and first kisses happen. Night is romantic. Alternately, darkness hides the worst of human behavior." —Luanne Rice

"Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise." —Victor Hugo

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star." —Friedrich Nietzsche (whom we know Kaiba reads!)

"In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing."— Robert Green Ingersoll

"No star is ever lost we once have seen, we always may be what we might have been." —Adelaide Anne Procter

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth." —Buddha

"The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to." —Carl Sandburg

"I feel like the moon is a very beautiful woman. She's in control." —Ravyn Lenae

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." —Anton Chekhov (A very handy piece of writing advice!)

"The moon is the accomplice of all things related to the heart." —Walter Mercado

"Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures." —M. F. K. Fisher

"What does it matter how many lovers you have if none of them gives you the universe?" —Jacques Lacan

What do you think? I know this is a lot, but please share any thoughts you may have!

#azureshipping #seto kaiba #anzu mazaki #téa gardner #seto kaiba x téa gardner #seto kaiba x anzu mazaki #azure week #azure week 2021

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randomvarious · 3 years

Audio

George Jinda - “Just My Imagination” Cool Covers: Smooth Jazz Plays the Hits Song released in 1996. Compilation released in 1998. Smooth Jazz

From critic David Jeffries:

A native of Budapest, Hungary, percussionist George Jinda began playing the piano when he was six but switched to drums by age ten. Tony Williams along with African and South American rhythms were early inspirations, but it was Jack DeJohnette who Jinda declared his idol. Jinda and his family moved in 1966 to New York City, the place where he would meet guitarist Chieli Minucci in 1982. The two formed one of the most successful smooth jazz bands ever, Special EFX. In 1992 Jinda shared the stage with Miles Davis in Japan and started work on his World News project. Special EFX released 13 albums before artistic differences separated the two in the mid-'90s. The split was friendly and Minucci agreed to let Jinda keep recording under the Special EFX name. The first Minucci-less album, Here to Stay, was released in 1996, and Jinda took the band on the road.

However, Here to Stay wasn't the only album that George Jinda released in 1996, because while that one came out under his Special EFX moniker, he also put out another album, Between Dreams, under his own name, which was released by the Shanachie label. On that album, which saw Jinda moving from, as critic Jonathan Widran puts it, "worldbeat toward a decided street vibe," is a wonderfully chilled out and mostly instrumental smooth jazz cover of The Temptations' "Just My Imagination." Then in '98, Shanachie gathered a collection of covers from their stable of smooth jazz artists and released the marvelous Cool Covers: Smooth Jazz Plays the Hits, which is where you can also find Jinda's rendition of "Just My Imagination."

Now, I've heard the style of percussion that George Jinda puts forth on this track in plenty of tunes before. You can find a slow snare-and-rustling-hi-hat type of backbeat combo in 90s songs like "The Sadeness" by Enigma and "Tom's Diner" by DNA featuring Suzanne Vega. It's actually an element of a lot of 90s tunes that I really cherish, but I've never read anyone actually describe that particular sound before. I wrote about it a little bit in a post about "Down That Road" by ex-Massive Attack member Shara Nelson a few months ago, and I described it as trip hop-pop, but I'll gladly accept "street vibe" as a way to describe it, too. There's something about that simple combination of drums and hats that just feels so blissful and liberating to me. And this one has shakers, too. Can't get enough of it. Such a good facet of 90s production.

Anyway, Jinda's performance is only a part of this well developed tune and it's his guitarist, Henry Johnson, who actually stars front-and-center by replacing the original version of "Just My Imagination"'s vocal melodies with full and rich, soul-stirring string plucks instead. Buttressing him along the way are pianist Alex Bugnon's light chords and whimsically cascading string synth touches as well as Mark Johnson's soprano sax, with whom Henry Johnson briefly and beautifully trades bars with on the second verse.

Fabulous piece of chill, mid-90s smooth jazz. Had a long and exhausting, alcohol-fueled holiday weekend myself and songs like this one are really perfect for those mornings spent after a hard-partied night. Just superb vibes all around.

Anyone wanna collab with me on a street vibe backbeat 90s playlist 🥺?

#smooth jazz #jazz #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music #90s smooth jazz #90's smooth jazz #90s jazz #90's jazz

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bouwrites · 4 years

Text

Even Heroes Have the Right to Dream: Chapter 8

Tonight I swear I’d sell my soul to be a hero for you.

First, Previous, Next. Ao3.

Story under read-more.

“Marinette?” Jon calls blindly into the apartment as he examines the note in his hands.

“What?” Marinette appears from the hallway. “What’s up?”

“Can you, like, convert this for me?”

Marinette furrows her brow. When Jon hands her the paper and she catches sight of what’s on it, she sighs heavily and rolls her eyes. “I don’t know American measurements. Just use what it says, you baby.” She says. Jon takes a step forward when she taps his shoulder so that she can squeeze past him and approach one of the cabinets. From which she pulls out a scale. Oh. I didn’t know we had that. Right behind the scale is some spoons from a drawer. “The butter is measured on the packaging. These measure mililiters. Everything else, use this like a normal person.”

“The butter is measured by tablespoons, not- oh, wait, no, I see it now.” Jon frowns at the stick of butter in his hands. “This is so much math.”

Marinette snorts and rolls her eyes again. “Americans. What are you making a cake for, anyway?”

“You remember Tamias?”

“From your speech class?”

“Yeah! His birthday’s coming up. David is freaking out over it, so we’re all pitching in to throw him a party.”

“David?”

“Hernandez? We worked together on a few projects. Massive crush on Tamias. Like, he’s adorable.”

“Oh, the one that got us into that debate about Harry Potter for like three hours.”

Jon snickers. “Yeah, that’s him.”

Jon can feel Marinette’s eyes on him as he gathers everything he needs to make the cake. He would think that having a baker’s daughter watching him bake would be reassuring, but to be perfectly honest? It’s not. It’s kind of terrifying. “Do you know what you’re doing?” Marinette asks.

“I’ve made cake before, Marinette.” Jon rolls his eyes. “And I cook for us half the time. Do you really have so little faith in me?”

Marinette just fixes him with a flat look and asks, “Do you want me to help?”

Jon maintains that he can do it on his own. Still, he wants the cake to be as good as it can be, and Marinette can be considered somewhat of an expert on the subject. And David wants everything to be perfect so he will get on Jon’s case if he finds out a baker’s daughter offered to help and he turned it down. So, Jon sets down the recipe and quietly says, “Yes, please.”

Marinette giggles. It’s an angelic sound Jon really should appreciate more. “Okay, move over.” She quickly grabs one of the bowls and starts throwing ingredients in without measuring a thing. “And for the record, you can do it alone. It’s just going to be better if I help.”

Jon opens his mouth to protest but ends up just groaning. “Yeah, that’s fair. Thanks, Marinette.”

“No problem. I need a distraction, anyway.”

“Oh, really?” Jon asks, picking up the bowl of sugar and butter to cream it together while Marinette flits around him to grab something he missed. They don’t have a stand mixer, mostly because they hardly have space for their coffee maker if they still want to use the countertops, but his muscles are good for something. “Studying?”

Marinette pauses. “Something like that.” She says. “So, when’s this party?”

Jon frowns at her behavior but, ultimately, if she doesn’t want to share, she doesn’t need to. She’ll tell him if it’s any of his business. “Saturday. You want to come? No one would mind.”

Marinette hums for a moment. “No, thank you. I’m just going to get a head start on studying for finals.”

He shrugs. “Probably a good idea. We’ve got real dumb shenanigans planned to set up David and Tamias and you are probably smart for not being there, honestly.”

“Oh, god.” Marinette mutters. “Alya used to pull some of the most convoluted plans to set me up with Adrien before we got together. I don’t even want to imagine what a boy’s version of that is.”

Jon can’t help laughing at the disgusted look on her face. “When David’s involved?” He says. “You really don’t.”

Predictably, David ends up setting the curtains on fire. It’s not his fault, of course, but it happens anyway. Their other friend, Mason (the most reasonable one, including Jon), gets $20 from each of them, though it’s Jon who actually puts the fire out. With a small fire extinguisher that Mason brings. Because he totally calls it.

Truth be told, Jon isn’t exactly close with anyone there. He meets most of them through projects or each other and sort of falls into this group by accident. He spends much more time with Marinette than with other NYU students. Partly because, now, anyway, he doesn’t have to hide around her. He doesn’t have to worry about small feats that normal people aren’t able to do. Too casually moving furniture, or forgetting to put on an oven mitt and not burning himself. And partly because when David does anything outside of his field of expertise, something ends up on fire or otherwise destroyed.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, it’s usually because of his area of expertise.

Today’s explanation boils down to “mood lighting.” Jesse is their lookout while David insists everyone light candles to “set the mood” so he can pull Tamias into the room later and ask him out. Luckily, they don’t get very far. Unfortunately, the reason they don’t get far is because David “I can make a chandelier in five minutes” Hernandez thinks duct tape, a prayer, and a bunch of random things he finds in his bedroom can make a cute chandelier.

It’s more about if he can than if he should. Jon gives Mason the twenty bucks while David is taping his creation to the ceiling fan. In hindsight, he should not have had faith that David would pull off the night without injuring something.

Anyway, the chandelier, surprisingly, works. The problem comes when he puts candles up there and takes a look at it and says, “This was a really dumb waste of time, wasn’t it?” And, to be fair, it is hideous, all wire and tape, so it’s not exactly the mood-setter he hopes for. David reaches up to take it down again, and that’s when everything goes wrong. He slips, lit candles fly everywhere, there’s wax on the floor, a curtain is catching fire, and Jon is already pulling out the fire extinguisher.

On the bright side, Tamias comes in, sees David wincing and holding his head, and rushes to his side to fuss over him. Mason ushers everyone else out of the room, leaving David with Tamias and a wink.

While they wait for the lovebirds to come back out, they make an obstacle course for David’s cat. And David. There’s a lot of tape involved. Jon mostly watches, since he feels weird setting up all this in David’s home, but the others are a lot closer to him and they don’t hesitate a moment. Apparently, this is normal.

Note to self, Jon thinks, never let them in your apartment.

“Beer?”

Jon shakes his head. He has drunk before, but he can’t get drunk unless his powers are inhibited somehow, and alcohol tastes terrible, so he doesn’t see the point. It’s not a bad thing. He actually counts it as a blessing because if he could get drunk, he would be ardently against it. He does not want to see anyone with his kind of powers inebriated. That’s just asking for trouble.

Not to mention he’s technically still underaged. Marinette’s old enough, though, this year, as is Mason. No one thinks much about it when everyone’s in college together.

“You figure out your major yet?” Mason asks, making himself comfortable on the couch next to him.

“Nope.” Jon answers.

“Seriously? We pick classes like next week, dude. You going another semester undeclared?”

“Might have to.”

Jesse leans over the back of the sofa to say, “You were on that whole moral ideals thing a while ago. Why not study ethics or something?”

Jon has considered studying ethics, but that has always been just a joke. He can’t imagine himself having fun in ethics. “Because I know an ethics major.” Jon says with a snort.

“Ha! True. You could do, like… geology. Or archeology. I don’t know why; I see you digging.”

“That’s because I grew up on a farm.”

“Oh, right.” Jesse whispers. “Was that racist?”

Jon looks at Jesse for a moment. “…No. It’s not a bad idea, though.” He takes a moment to ponder those options. He would do well in archeology. Finding old things from past civilizations, learning about what they were for and the people that used them… it’s a good idea.

Ethics is too subjective. There are no real answers, so every argument will always end up circling around itself until everyone is infuriated. Especially Jon. Especially with him having been a hero. And maybe he really just doesn’t want to be told that he has to be a hero to be a good person. He’s starting to believe he doesn’t, just a little, thanks to the Girod, and he’s not risking diving into ethics and having that crisis again.

That said, one of Jon’s leading options has always been studying people. Politics or sociology or something in that vein. Archeology, or maybe broader, anthropology, might be exactly what he’s looking for. To study cultures and civilization, to learn about the dominant race on Earth in a way he’ll never understand Kryptonians. It’s a little exciting, when he thinks about it. And it’s funny – the alien studying humans. Jon will get a giggle out of that for a long time. “I could do anthropology.”

Mason hums. “I can see that for you. Cultural anthropology sounds like your jam, to be honest.”

Jon laughs somewhat awkwardly. It’s true, but he honestly didn’t think Mason knows him well enough to tell. Maybe he’s just that transparent. He can buy that. Despite how much he hides about his identity and abilities, he’s not exactly an enigma. He’s certainly no Damian. “You think?”

“Worth looking into.” Mason shrugs. “You’re running out of time, dude.”

“Yeah, good point.” Jon makes a face. “I’ll have to look into it.”

David and Tamias stumble out of Mason and Jesse’s makeshift hallway obstacle course, the former glaring and the latter giggling awkwardly. Everyone watches David expectantly, but they get a curt shake of his head and it’s all they can do to stop themselves from groaning. Maybe next time. At least Tamias is having fun.

The more Jon looks into it, the more appealing the option is. Or maybe it’s just because he needs to sign up for classes and any direction is a godsend.

He likes the idea of anthropology. It’s a grab bag of history, culture, human behavior, even biology if he wants to go in that direction, and to a lesser extent all the myriad specializations that go into the entirety of human history, which is basically all of them. Maybe he can even learn a bit about fashion history and surprise Marinette. Extant garments from history count under the sphere of anthropology, Jon thinks, so it isn’t impossible.

Actually, that’d be pretty interesting. If Marinette has taught me anything about clothes, it’s that they can tell you a lot about the people who wear them. I wonder how much we can learn about a culture just from its clothes.

And I wonder if anything I learn studying this could be applied to Krypton, too. That would be interesting.

Jon talks to Marinette about it, and then Damian, and then his parents, and every one of them is supportive of this direction for him. Granted, all of them boil down to, “If that’s what you want to do,” but still. Aunt Kara gets a big laugh at the idea, and then gets really excited about it, and Jon can’t help but wonder if she’s just supporting him in that odd, exuberant way she does (the way that he’s half-sure she’s only like with him, because she knows it’s a surefire way to make him smile – she’s done that since he was little) or if she gets the idea that he might use the techniques and methods he learns studying humans and turn his gaze back to Krypton. Maybe they can recover even a little of that lost culture that even Aunt Kara can’t hold onto.

Jon’s not against the idea, he just doesn’t want her to get her hopes up. As neat as it would be, Jon still doesn’t know how he would even start, much less whether he wants to. It’s just… an academic interest. Because he’s one of very few people with that option available to him. A path mapped by curiosity, not passion. Maybe that will change if Jon starts down it, but only God knows the future.

But once he talks to the ones he’s closest to, he talks to the boys again, mostly for reassurance, and then he talks to his advisor and all of a sudden things start happening a little too quickly

All at once he’s signing up for classes and running around to turn in forms to their proper places all without time to really think about what he’s doing. Fair enough, he supposes, once he has time to breathe again. He’s been thinking it over for a year and a half, basically. It’s about time something is actually done.

With everything over and done with, Jon sits on the sofa in his living room, leans back to stare at the ceiling, and smiles. He’s not certain he’s making the right choice, he’s not sure that this is definitely, one hundred percent the thing he wants to spend his time doing, but he’s finally taken that first step in a direction. Finally, the crossroads ahead of him has become a path, and even if it’s not the best path for him, it’s still a direction. That’s a lot less scary.

It’s not like he’s locked in place, anyway. He might be a bit locked into his major soon, if how quickly his first year (and this semester) goes by says anything about his college experience, but even then, that doesn’t dictate his career. He still has a lot of options; they’re just not swarming all around him. And it’s such a relief.

He sighs there on the couch and feels lighter than he has in a long time. He has focus, direction, something to work towards beyond some vague ideal of normalcy. He’s finding in his attempt to decipher the Girod some Frankenstein of an ethics system that doesn’t necessitate heroism for its own sake, even if deep in his heart he knows he’s crafting it himself and at least to an extent is working backwards from his conclusion, the one that he needs, that he’s not a bad person. (He’s not sure that’s a bad thing, though.) He’s actually excited about the future! For the sheer number of times he’s thought there might not be one, that’s quite an achievement.

And he can’t do this without Marinette. Through all of his floundering, his philosophical musings, his hesitation, his fear and doubt, she’s always right there. Something close enough to normal to matter. A rock that he can float back down to. She’s his tree on the farm, that sits quietly with him as he watches the stars, that holds him up when he’s scared of falling.

It’s been a long time since Jon has just sat down and felt content. When Marinette joins him and they watch a show on the television, Jon can’t help but think how lovely it would be for this to be his normal. If this feeling, this moment, could last forever, Jon would be happy.

Jon gets an unexpected text from Damian during winter break. It’s odd partly because Damian is the kind of person who calls more often than not, partly because Damian is the kind of person who will show up outside Jon’s window in every other situation, and partly because, to Jon’s knowledge, there’s no cause for Damian to contact him at all.

They’re friends, of course, but it would be a massive lie to say they’re the kind of friends who hit each other up just to talk. Neither of them are really that kind of person. Frankly, Jon is a little surprised that they’re still friends now that he isn’t a hero. Sad as it is, he half-expects them to drift apart quickly without them working together all the time.

But however much a text from Damian throws him off, the content is what takes his legs out from under him. It’s a link to a news article, with no additional context. The article is originally in French, but apparently the batcave translated it already so what Damian sends him is helpfully readable.

And Jon feels a little like something is grabbing his heart. Too-cold hands wrapped around it, constricting it, trying their best to mute its beating.

“Mayura Strikes Again,” the headline reads, “Ladybug Returns.”

Ladybug returns. The words echo in his head easily, finding nothing else to disrupt them. His mind is empty except for that one thought. That, and the sickening feeling he has in his gut. “Marinette…”

He scrolls through the article, dread and horror looming over him, drooling on him, sliding down his spine to send shivers all through him. There are pictures. Mayura, Chat Noir, a couple heroes Jon only knows tangentially – they were around before but stopped fairly early on, Marinette tells him their identities were outed – Queen Bee and Viperion, and there in all her glory, Ladybug. Marinette.

She’s older than the last picture of her. Her hair is longer, though Jon knows she’s thinking of cutting it short. She’s wearier, more tired, strangely enough, despite being out of the fight for over a year. Jon thinks it’s what Damian says is going on with him. He’s safe, so he can process everything. It’s hard, and Jon knows Marinette struggles with it too, but that’s why he can’t… He can’t fathom why she’d do this.

No. He can. He knows better than anyone why. There is no other choice but to fight, or so she thinks. Mayura got her Miraculous back somehow, so the battle, Marinette’s old battle, the one she became Ladybug in the first place to fight, is back on. She’s obligated to fight. To finish her duty. It’s her responsibility, and Marinette is, without a doubt, a responsible person. Jon understands, he just… feels betrayed.

It’s stupid to feel this way. She can do whatever she likes. If she wants to become a hero again, or even if she just feels like there’s no other option, then she can. But Jon thought they were in this life, this choice to leave heroism behind them, together. He thought they were working on this as a team, and he can’t help but feel a little like Marinette has guided him onto the field, handed him the football, and left him to face a whole team of linemen on his own.

Not to mention, as much as he hurts for himself, he hurts for her, too. He knows – he might be the only one who knows – how hard it must be for her to decide to fight again. He wonders what pushes her to this point, if Mayura is really so extreme on her own, and he pities her. Jon has been called back to duty more than a few times since he retired, and not just by Damian. He’s always refused. He always tells them that he can’t help them. Marinette is called back, and she answers. Jon doesn’t know if that’s brave or stupid, but either way he knows how she feels, and because he does, he can’t be angry at her. He feels betrayed, confused, and alone, but not angry. All he feels for her is pity. That she is put in an impossible position. He wishes her the best.

And then he turns his attention back to himself. He wonders what might cause him to don the cape again, and he fights the urge to retch. How can she do this? How can she be strong enough to do this? Jon isn’t. He doesn’t think he is, anyway. Just watching her, watching his normal soar over rooftops and beat down the bad guy, is enough to freeze Jon completely. It’s hard to breathe, to think, impossible to move. The very idea of doing that himself is… ridiculous.

Above everything else, though? Above it all, Jon is disappointed. And scared. Is this how his own retirement will end? Will he soon enough face that one call to action that he just can’t refuse? Is he wrong to resist it? Is he truly a coward, selfish, despicable for trying so hard to avoid it? Would refusing that irrefusable call to action be those things?

Jon tries to remember the Girod. Peace, his devotion to non-violence. Imagination, cleverness in finding the non-violent path even when it isn’t obvious. Hope, maintenance in his belief that things can and will be better. Restraint, to never take things too far when they can be resolved more gently. Purity, his ideals cannot be compromised no matter the situation. Justice… Must Justice be sacrificed for the rest of the virtues? Is it simply not possible to uphold them all?

Where is Justice if Mayura creates these monsters and Ladybug does not fight them? Where is justice if someone on the streets of New York cries out for help, and no one comes? Justice is the most difficult of the virtues for Jon to reconcile, and right now… he doesn’t know what to think.

He hates this. He hates everything about this. He hates the look on Ladybug’s face in the video and pictures, hates how disgusted she looks, hates that he’s one of few people who will understand that the look isn’t for the monster, but for herself. He hates that she’s in Paris fighting a battle she wants no part in while he’s on a farm in Hamilton County waiting for the stars to shine. He hates that there’s nothing he can do to help her, to save her from this impossible position she’s in. He hates that that desire itself is a little too close to heroism, and he especially hates the unreasonable panic and nausea that overcomes him.

How awful this entire situation is. How unfair and terrible the fates are to them both. But above all else, Will Marinette be okay?

The situation with Mayura escalates and resolves quickly. Marinette comes back to New York later than she usually does, but still before classes start. If Jon doesn’t know any better, he’d think she’s just more lax because they’re getting used to how college works.

All through break he agonizes over whether to reach out to her. To offer to contact the Justice League for her (pointless, since it’s Damian who tells him about the situation in the first place), to offer anything he can do to help, but every time he touches his phone he feels paralyzed. He doesn’t know what to say, how to approach this, or, really, anything at all.

He ends up not speaking to her much over the break. She doesn’t call him, either, but he supposes she has bigger things to focus on.

But he refuses to let this be a repeat of last year. He will not let this turn them into strangers in their own home again. He won’t allow this to be what breaks them apart. Jon is still friends with Damian. He still has other hero friends. If Marinette has to be a hero, then fine. Jon won’t let this stop them from being friends. Maybe they can’t be everything they thought, maybe things are different and uncertain and scary, but they can be friends at least.

So, when Marinette finally arrives in New York, Jon sits at their little table and waits. It feels almost like he’s preparing for an intervention, and he’s awkward and uncomfortable in that little wooden chair despite the cushion Marinette made for it.

Marinette walks into the living room, sees him, and shrinks in the hallway. “I take it you saw the news.” She says softly.

“I did.” Jon confirms. “Sorry to spring this on you, but you know we have to talk about it.”

Marinette flinches, but nods. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t… they needed me. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Marinette.” Jon thinks his voice sounds tired, almost dead, but for the way she recoils he’d think he’s vicious. It sends a little pang through him and he closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch. “I’m not angry. I’m just… sad.”

“…That’s worse.” Her voice is barely a whisper, but he hears it.

“Look.” He says. “I’m not letting this be last year all over again. I can’t handle that, I don’t think you can handle that, and neither of our grades can handle that either. So, don’t close off from me, okay? I’m not- I’m not angry. I’m not- I’m feeling a lot of things, but nothing at you. If that makes any sense. I just- I want to know. It’s fine if you’re going to keep being a hero. I promise. I’m still friends with all my old hero partners – I don’t have a problem being friends with a hero. Just don’t lie to me, Marinette.” He hears her suck in a hissing breath. “Are you serious about giving it up or not? Because I thought we were in this together, and… And now everything’s different, and I can’t keep doing this, either. If I’m doing this alone, I need to know. It’s fine if I am. That was the original plan, anyway. So, tell me the truth.”

Marinette doesn’t say anything for a too-long moment. Jon opens his eyes to peek at her when he hears the other chair pull out from the table. Marinette sits properly, folding her hands in her lap, and stares at the table between them. “I don’t want to be a hero. I promise, I was honest. I never wanted to fight again. I honestly thought I wouldn’t have to.”

“But you did.”

“I did. I’m sorry. I didn’t see any other option.”

Jon takes a deep breath. “Marinette… the life that I want, it’s non-violent. I’m trying my best to be as pacifist as I can. You inspired that decision. You told me that violence is violence no matter what it’s for. That heroes who fight can’t truly say they stand for peace. I know you’re not me, and I know your… values and ideals are different than mine, but… in the life that you want, is peace something you value?”

“Of course, it is.”

“Then why would you sacrifice that?” Jon sighs, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I- I’m just confused.”

“No. You’re right.” Marinette sniffs a little, and she’s all tension as she glares at the table. “I was… I felt trapped. Like I had no other option. But I did, and there’s no excuse for fighting. If I’d just looked closer, I could have found a way. I should have.”

“You said before that part of the reason you quit being a hero is because you felt trapped.” Jon says. “I think this might be why. At least partly.”

Marinette ducks her head, grimacing. “You’re probably right. But… I have to be honest with you. I am the guardian of the Miraculous. I don’t want to be, but I am. I left the Miracle Box with Chat Noir when I came here, and because I abandoned my responsibilities, nearly all of the Miraculous were stolen, and Paris had to deal with Mayura again.”

“Do you really blame yourself for that?”

“I do.” Marinette says firmly. “It’s my responsibility to look after the Miraculous, and they got stolen because I abandoned them.”

Jon can see how she comes to that conclusion. He doesn’t exactly agree, but her logic isn’t faulty. “So?”

“So, I can’t neglect my duties anymore. If I’m the guardian, I have to act like it. Otherwise, we’ll end up with another tragedy.”

Jon nods slowly. “So, you’re going to keep being Ladybug.” Marinette curls her lip and nods. “And you’re okay with that?”

“…No.”

Jon takes a deep breath. “Marinette… I don’t know what the right thing to do is. I don’t. But I want to see you happy. I don’t want you sacrificing yourself for ‘duty’ or whatever you’re obligated to do. That’s what heroes do, and being heroes has…” He chuckles helplessly. “Well, we left that behind for a reason.”

Marinette furrows her brow, worries her lip, and then sighs slowly. “You’re right. You asked me if I’m serious about giving up Ladybug. Adrien made me promise to be happy.” She takes another deep breath, preparing herself. A single tear escapes her, alarming Jon as it rolls quickly down her cheek. “This is my answer, then. I, Marinette Dupain-Cheng…”

Tikki appears out of nowhere, screeching her protest. “Marinette, don’t!”

“…hereby relinquish the Miracle Box and nam-”

The moment she starts glowing, and Tikki turns a deadly glare to him, it clicks in Jon’s brain what exactly Marinette is doing. He throws the table aside, accidentally tossing it quite a bit further than he intends, and dives to slap his hand over Marinette’s mouth. “Don’t you dare!” Jon growls.

Marinette, stunned speechless and no longer glowing now that her… ceremony, or whatever, is interrupted, levels a glare at him. She pushes him off of her and snaps, “Why not? I’ll never be happy so long as this stupid guardianship has me trapped in this life. No matter what I do, it’ll always be my job to clean up Miraculous messes, whether I want to or not. The only way to live the life that I want is to pass it on and forget it all.”

“But you’re the best Ladybug ever, Marinette!” Tikki protests. “You can’t just give it all up!”

“I already did!” Marinette says. “I already told you I don’t want to be a hero! I love you, Tikki, but you haven’t been paying attention. I’m sorry, but I’m not Ladybug anymore. I haven’t been since I made the decision to come to New York.”

“But-”

“Don’t ask me to keep doing something I hate, Tikki. Please.”

“But I-” Tikki flinches when she catches herself, and then finally whispers. “Okay. I just want you to be happy.”

“Thank you.” Marinette turns her gaze to Jon. “I expected Tikki to try, but why did you stop me? Don’t you see? This is the other way. This is how I can live peacefully.”

Jon watches her talk to Tikki with an understated anger simmering just beneath his skin, agitated like the surface of the ocean, rippling across his body like liquid. And when she talks to him, he can’t help how his voice raises just a little. “What did I just say?” He asks. “Don’t sacrifice yourself! Like it or not, your memories make you who you are. I’m not letting you throw away so much of your life just because you can’t see a better option! You’re Marinette Dupain-Cheng! You’ll figure out another option. I’ll make another option for you if that’s what it takes! But don’t you dare sacrifice yourself, again, for your stupid ‘duty’ you hear?!”

Marinette and Tikki both are staring wide-eyed at him. Then, all at once, both of them look ashamed of themselves. “You’re right.” Marinette says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Jon winces. He hates that temper of his. He hates that he gets angry sometimes when he shouldn’t. But Marinette just… giving up. After so much effort put into creating what they’ve found, and so much potential in the future, to just give up now is… “Sorry I yelled.” He says. “But don’t give up on this. Don’t give up hope. We’ll figure it out.”

Marinette nods. It’s uncertain and hesitant, but she does. “I hope so.”

——-=——-

Tag List: @moonystars14 @pawsitivelymiraculous @magic-miraculous @vixen-uchiha @buticaaba @bigpicklebananatree @lozzybowe @moonlightstar64 @amayakans @theatreandcomicfreak @toodaloo-kangaroo @too0bsessedformyowngood <3

#miraculous ladybug fanfiction #ml fanfiction #ml x dc #maribat #marijon #ehhtrtd

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Dark Knight: Why Heath Ledger’s Joker is Still Scary Today

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It’s one of the great villain introductions in cinema history. Standing with a slight hunch at the center of a massive 70mm image, Heath Ledger’s interpretation of the Joker not so much dominates the frame as he commandeers it. He seduces the IMAX camera, which is still capturing vast amounts of Chicago’s cityscape around him, and draws it closer to his sphere of influence, and by extension us. Before this moment in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the director’s Gotham City functioned with clocklike precision. Even its greatest villains were slaves to the need of rationalizing everything in cold, utilitarian logic.

Not the Joker.

Within our first breath next to Ledger’s clown, one senses a malevolent spirit has been summoned, and he’s chosen to manifest out of thin air at this exact moment, on this exact street corner. He’s come to claim Gotham’s collective soul, but he’ll settle for any individual with delusions of virtue who crosses his path—including you.

This is of course just a fleeting moment in The Dark Knight; a brisk tease before Ledger’s shown his makeup-encrusted face or uttered even a word. In fact, Nolan and the actor dole out the character with impressive restraint: first as a masked Mephistopheles who is primarily a sing-song-y voice until he unmasks at the end of a bravura bank robbery. Later he becomes an actual narrative presence when he shows up again more than 20 minutes into the film, demonstrating for Gotham’s criminal underworld how to perform a magic trick.

As an isolated performance, there’s an argument to be made that none has ever been finer in the realm of superhero movies. Sure, there’ve been showy turns before and since in comic book blockbusters; there have even been great interpretations of the Joker before and after Ledger. Yet what the actor was able to do in 2008 transfixed audiences because he, like the character, had the freedom to bend the film to his will—even as Nolan prevented the movie from simply becoming merely a showcase for the performance.

With the grungy strung out hair of an addict who hasn’t showered in three months, greasy self-applied pancake makeup, and a grisly Glasgow smile that’s as unnerving as it is uneven (suggesting perhaps half of it was self-inflicted to make a matching set of scars), Ledger’s anarchist supervillain was a long way from Jack Nicholson’s hammy version of the same character in 1989. For audiences, and even comic book fans baying for something darker than Nicholson, it was abrasive in its time—and electrifying, like a punk rocker leaping into the mosh pit. Indeed, Ledger reportedly based the character’s appearance in part on the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten, and there is more than a hint of Tom Waits’ gravel in Ledger’s cadence whenever the clown growls.

But more than aesthetic culture shock, the enduring horror (and not-so-secret appeal) of Ledger’s Joker lies in the effect he has on the film, both in terms of its narrative storytelling and its enduring pop culture standing. Speaking strictly about this Joker as a character, the villain is off screen for far more of The Dark Knight’s running time than he’s on it. Appearing in only 33 minutes of The Dark Knight’s epic 152-minute running time, the average length of a Hollywood spectacle passes without the Joker on screen. Yet he’s omnipresent in the film, a shadow that hangs over each of Nolan’s three relatively equal protagonists: vigilante Batman (Christian Bale), police lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman), and district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).

Nolan and his brother and co-screenwriter, Jonathan Nolan, have admitted the setup is somewhat inspired by another quintessential blockbuster, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. In both films, three disparate, combative male authority figures band together for a mythic battle against a presence so malignant and evil, it transcends being simply a shark or a madman in makeup—or even a comic book supervillain. Like that beast, Joker has no arc, no psychological growth, he’s a force of primal evil unbounded. And as the heroes’ battle against him creeps on, it seems like the sanity of their entire community is being dragged into the abyss.

This framing allows Ledger’s Joker to functionally be a catch-all stand-in for many of the social anxieties that kept American audiences up at night during the Bush years. Some of them still do today. There are of course obvious implications to the Joker being the terrorist, the non-state actor who cannot be negotiated with, and who doesn’t play by preconceived rules or notions of fairness. There is also shading of the lone wolf, the usually male gunman who inexplicably pulls the trigger. Most of all though, the Joker represents the hole in which much of humanity’s irrational predilections toward violence is collectively stored and ignored by our cultural memory… until it can’t be.

As Michael Caine’s Alfred Pennyworth famously reasons, “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” That summation of staring into irrational, needless cruelty is what gives The Dark Knight bite. And what a sharp bite it is in moments like when Ledger’s Joker laughs manically at the Batman, our ostensible hero who’s resorted to pummeling (or torturing) the villain in an interrogation room. The clown gloats, “You have nothing to threaten me with, nothing to do with all your strength.”

This is why the Joker is such an effective villain for The Dark Knight’s parable about how best to use moral power in immoral (i.e. irrational) times—and perhaps why the thrill of Ledger’s performance was so strong on first glance that it powered him all the way to a posthumous Oscar in the Best Supporting Actor category seven months after the film’s release.

Still, Ledger’s Joker, more than any other movie villain in recent memory, continues to haunt well after that Oscar night. The mental image of the character slipping his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, like a cobra, and licking his scars—a tic Ledger invented to keep his prosthetics in place while upping the creep factor—has stayed with us like a subconscious boogeyman. Thirteen years on from The Dark Knight’s release, Ledger’s depiction of the Clown Prince of Crime has gone down in the annals of cinema alongside Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs or, well, that shark in Jaws again. He’s an enigmatic and mysterious persona who is barely seen in his film, yet unmistakably casts a pall of evil over the whole proceeding.

We don’t know why Ledger’s Joker actually became the way he is, or what made him so obsessed with the Batman—to the point where he was inspired to put on “war paint” and declare his love for the Caped Crusader by saying, “You complete me!” The Joker gives multiple versions of his origin story in The Dark Knight, telling one mobster played by Michael Jai White that he’s a victim of an abusive father while later recounting to Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) that he scarred his own face to cheer up his similarly disfigured wife. Both tales are of course lies, transparent manipulations intended to prey upon perceived vulnerabilities in his victims. This touch was inspired by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke where the comic book Joker provides the reader with a sob story flashback, and then confesses he probably made it up.

“If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice,” he says on the page.

Movies

Joker: 6 Actors Who Have Played the Clown Prince of Crime

By David Crow

Movies

The Dark Knight, The Joker, and Game Theory

By Ryan Lambie

The Nolan brothers understand the horror of this, and they keep the Joker a manipulative and inscrutable evil. Beyond obvious sociopathic tendencies, we know nothing about his inner-psychology and barely can ferret out his real motives beyond an odd devotion to maintaining Batman’s attention. He claims to be an agent of chaos who wants to “just do things,” yet his meticulously planned attacks belie this claim. In the end, he sees himself in a battle for “Gotham’s soul.” Like Amity Island’s Great White Leviathan, or the original incomprehensible nature of Thomas Harris’ cannibal serial killer in the earliest books, we never know the truth about why he is, and how he’s able to do what he does.

That mystery makes him live on in our own heads for years after the story ends and the credits roll.

It’s interesting to consider that effect now, after years of pop culture storytelling going in the completely opposite direction, particularly in comic book movies and other fanboy-driven media. Rather than find satisfaction in the inexplicability of evil, or standalone visions, we like to rationalize it and sympathize with it, even while glorifying it. Most of all, however, we insatiably seem to simply want more.

The need for endless content being generated by intellectual property has led to prequels, sequels, and even spinoffs that explore and too often redeem villains. Even the Joker himself is not wholly immune to this.

Since 2008, there have been two big screen versions of the Joker. Jared Leto and Joaquin Phoenix both had the unenviable task of stepping into Ledger’s shadow, with at least one of them being dwarfed by it. Leto’s attempts at “method acting” stunts on the set of Suicide Squad shows what can go wrong when scenery-chewing is mistaken with Strasberg.

Phoenix obviously fared better in his own Joker movie two years ago, making the actor the second performer to win an Oscar for playing the comic book villain. However, his film’s interpretation is diametrically opposed to Ledger’s enigma. Instead Phoenix’s film attempts to rationalize everything about the character, depicting the Joker as a mentally ill sad sack whose motivations are borrowed from other iconic movie screen villains and anti-heroes like the mother-obsessed Norman Bates (Psycho) and ticking time bomb Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver).

It still makes for a fascinating (if unoriginal) portrait, but one divorced from the terror of the unknown. We understand who Phoenix’s Joker is and why he is. Society, man. Phoenix’s Joker even outright states it before murdering not-Johnny Carson (Robert De Niro). “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I’ll tell you what you get, you get what you fucking deserve!”

Technically, Phoenix’s Joker appears closer to our reality and our daily horrors. With clown makeup inspired by real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy and preening self-pity parties resembling the manifestos of so many mass murderers, Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck is modeled as much off nightly news nightmares as comic book panels. Writer-director Todd Phillips is inelegantly blatant about it.

Nevertheless, whatever ugly truth there may be in that approach, it’s not as haunting, or exhilarating, to witness as what Ledger did in his own rock star interpretation of evil. Save for a blink-and-you-miss-it insert shot, we never see Ledger with the makeup off. And while he might indulge in mocking “society,” he is a character who says more by basking in the chaos of a city in terror, literally sticking his head out of a stolen police car like a dog with the wind in his hair and our horror on his face. It’s a more enduring image than a didactic conversation about insecurities with a father figure. Thirteen years later, Ledger’s version of the character continues to confound, horrify, and ultimately thrill. He still has the last laugh.

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seriouslyhooked · 5 years

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Lost Souls and Reveries (Part 22)

24 part AU written for @cssns. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21. Story available on AO3 Here and FF Here. Banner created by the amazingly talented @shipsxahoy!!

Killian Jones is a wolf shifter without roots, without plans, and without a pack. He’s a rogue, someone humans should avoid and shifters should be wary of given his lineage. But one night years back set him on a path he didn’t realize he was taking, a path leading to a future he is destined for. That future is tied up in one woman – a human named Emma Nolan. Together Emma and Killian will find not only answers, but a love that’s truly fated. But will love be enough to set them free, or will past demons win out in the end? (Answer: love always wins – I am writing this so despite some tiny pockets of angst it’s basically a fluff-filled insta-love fest). Rated M.

A/N: Hey everyone! I know it has been such a long time since I updated this fic, which is crazy because the chapters are taking place one right after another still, but this fall has been filled with travel and very little free time for me. I didn’t get a chance to write, and though I wanted to get the story out there and share the ideas I’ve had all this time, I wanted to give myself the space to do this story justice. It’s been an ambitious AU for me, there’s a lot of moving parts and way more reveals than I ever do, making it a really big undertaking. But all of your support along the way and your continued interest has helped keep me motivated even in the time I couldn’t work on this. As such, I really hope you will all enjoy this chapter, and I thank you all for reading!

She is never leaving my sight again, Killian thought to himself as he held Emma to his side, keeping ever vigilant about their surroundings out here in the woods.

The two of them had stolen their temporary moment alone after the encounter with the bear, but both of them knew that quiet couldn’t really last forever. Nevertheless, the wish to run away with Emma and barricade her from anything that might harm her was strong in Killian. He resisted, knowing that leaving would not only put everyone else at risk, but that it would make his Emma deeply unhappy, but in the privacy of his own mind, he allowed those thoughts to wander. At the end of the day, his priority was Emma and the baby that she was carrying now, and there was just no changing that.

As if she could hear his mind’s rampant musings, Emma’s hand came to cover his arm, a silent show that she was here and that she was readily accepting his need to protect her. She looked up to him, and though he was certain he hadn’t pushed the worried internal dialogue her way through their mental link, he could see that she knew anyway. He couldn’t hide the hurt and the harried frenzy that nearly losing her had conjured up. It still lingered here with him, as it would until all of this was over and done.

We’ll get through this, she pushed to him quietly, and in response Killian quietly brought her hand to his lips, pressing a delicate kiss atop her smooth and creamy skin before leading it to rest above his heart. The smile she graced him with at the reassuring motion filled him with renewed hope, but yet again their quiet shows of intimacy were short lived.

“I still don’t get it,” a voice interjected, pulling Emma and Killian from their semi-private moment. “He comes to town, tries to kill us all, claims Anna, barrels into the magic force field, and now… nothing.”

Tink’s words, lobbed at the bear that had at first seemed like nothing more than a foe, prompted all of them to look in the beast’s direction. The grizzly was ferocious and imposing still, with eyes a tempered red color, but they lacked the vibrancy of before. Now, instead of glowing a sickening scarlet, they were more molten, a deep burgundy where they were once so bright. The mellowing out of the color signaled to Killian that the bear had calmed somehow, not breaking from its fever, but tamping it down. That didn’t mean he trusted this unknown shifter though, and until they were certain he posed no threat to Emma, that bear was getting nowhere near his woman again.

“Could we maybe keep our less helpful thoughts to ourselves for the time being?” Emma countered, and though the words were sharp, it was understandable why she said them. For as much as the bear was an enigma to them, he was just as much of a puzzle to Anna, if not more so. Emma’s friend was still somewhat dazed from it all, and currently Elsa and Liam were standing with her, the former trying to comfort her sister, and the latter keeping his reflexes sharp in case the lass made a break for the bear.

“Sorry, it’s just…” Tink trailed off, unsure of how to phrase this precarious situation.

“It’s just bat shit crazy is what it is,” Ruby exclaimed.

“And about to get crazier,” Emma’s Uncle Lance noted, commenting on the impending hubbub that was coming down the road right now.

The Nolan’s were all together in their car, not having had the chance to run as Liam, Killian, and Graham had. They’d also had to wait until they were given some sort of all clear. The situation was now somewhat contained, but before that there was too much risk in having Neal, Mary Margaret, or Ruth out here. Killian had never seen Emma’s father in action, but he knew the man had been trained his whole life to be a hunter. David Nolan would have all the necessary skills to have been a part of this fight, but as it turned out, the fight came down almost entirely to the instincts of Emma and her wolf.

“Emma!”

The car was still in motion, braking on the loose, dirt path, but it did nothing to stop Mary Margaret from jumping out and running to her daughter. Killian moved back ever so slightly, knowing what would come next, but he stayed as close as possible to the massive hug Emma’s mother bestowed on her. Tears of relief streamed down the older woman’s face, but she didn’t break down, even in her moment of vulnerability. She may have been human, but Emma’s mother was strong, and fiercely protective of the children she loved so dearly.

“I told you I’d be okay,” Emma whispered, attempting to share a smile with her Mum, and the words felt like a punch to his gut. He closed his eyes briefly, seeing again the image of Emma trapped beneath the snarling bear, but he shook it away, willing himself to be strong for his mate. Reliving that terrible moment did nothing but make him weaker and more worried.

Emma’s father, brother, and grandmother all surrounded her as well, hugging Emma close before turning their attention to the others. Mary Margaret immediately moved to Gwen, trying to take strength from a woman who had answered in their hour of need, and David clearly felt the support of his lifelong friend and capable shifter Lance, but soon the greetings and reunions were tossed aside, and all attention turned to the problem at hand. It was interrogation en masse, and the questions tossed out were free game for all of them and in dire need of answer.

“Is everyone all right?”

“Everyone’s in one piece,” Graham said, having taken account of the whole group’s status as soon as the bear was contained. No one had withstood anything that amplified shifter healing wouldn’t clear up by the end of the day. All in all, they’d been incredibly lucky.

“Any injuries?”

“Just to my pride. Damn bear got the better of me at one point, and I can’t say I’m too thrilled with that,” Granny quipped, prompting the ghost of a smile to tug at Killian’s lips. In another moment he’d laugh at the old wolf and her totally serious resentment at having been bested, but things being as they were, he couldn’t quite get to the level of comfort needed for a good dose of fun. “But other than that, we’re all fine.”

“Barely,” Emma’s aunt coughed out and Killian watched as Emma’s head snapped to her. A quiet contest of wills elapsed between them. Clearly her aunt wanted to disclose how close things had really come, but Emma wanted to spare her parents the pain of what could have been. It wasn’t clear who would prove victorious, but then Mary Margaret caught the exchange and there was no avoiding the conversation.

“What happened?” Her tone held the firm but alarmed kind of shrillness only a mother could produce.

“Uh, it might be totally out of the realm of normal, but it’s also kind of straight forward,” Tink hedged, shrugging a shoulder as she proceeded to give the barest of highlights, thus helping Emma keep things under wraps. “A giant, angry, magically roided up grizzly shifter came to town, we lured it out here, we got it in the magical crystal thing, and now here we are.”

“Is that all?” David asked, having caught on to his wife’s increased agitation. “Emma?”

Emma’s muscles tightened significantly as the conversation went on, her stance looking more and more like she might just shift and run away from all of this. But instead, she looked to Killian, asking him only with her expression if he’d have her back. Of course he would, and he sealed that silent oath with a kiss to her temple. She leaned into the action for only the briefest of moments before taking a deep breath and coming clean.

The look of anguish on her parents’ faces was likely punishment enough for Emma, who had already felt some guilt about the danger she’d put herself in. Neal, for his part, looked awed at her bravery, and at one point he even interrupted with a word of praise, before a look from his mother quickly cut that thinking off. When Emma was done, it was clear that her mother especially was both wracked with worry and terribly angry. Her emotions were big and jumbled and messy, but though she probably deserved to get them out, Killian felt it was time to step in.

“Obviously there’s a lot to unpack there, but the big thing is Emma is safe now and there will never be another similar instance again.” He looked to Emma, who nodded readily. “And right now we don’t have the luxury of examining this all again. Gold has essentially declared war on us with this attack, and we can’t assume that’ll be the end of it.”

“So we’re certain now that it’s him?” Ruth asked. She was struggling to keep up given how much had been happening and that was understandable. Between Gold and Emma’s great uncle George’s appearance, there were so many unknowns hanging about right now, certainly more than could ever be easily understood.

“There’s too much magic involved for it to be anyone else,” Ruby replied. “But we were hoping you might confirm. The enchantment on the collar is still pulsing even now. It should look similar to the charms you witnessed.”

Ruth followed Ruby towards the choker, which had still yet to be touched by anyone but Emma. Without any discussion about the chance of her being jinxed somehow by the object, Ruth reached out to examine it. She nodded as soon as her skin made contact with the magic itself.

“This is definitely Gold’s work. It looks and feels the same. It’s reptilian almost, if that makes sense.”

“It doesn’t, but not much does anymore,” Liam remarked, and again Killian wished he was in the place to laugh. God knew they all needed it, but with so much still unknown every bit of their energy needed to be tied up in solving this life threatening puzzle.

Ruth continued to examine the artifact, her eyes taking in the material that appeared to be leather bound together by some kind of silver or platinum. It was a strange combination, but there was something in Ruth’s eyes that spoke to familiarity. Killian didn’t know if it was just her identifying the magic or what, but the hairs on the back of his neck went up just before she turned the leather over, a shocked look rushing across her face as she dropped the object back to the ground.

“Grandma?” Emma asked, having picked up on the same nervous energy that Killian did even before it truly managed to manifest. They both moved towards Ruth, searching for answers, but she appeared speechless as she looked back at them.

“Mom?” David asked, moving towards her quickly, trying to see if she was all right before sparing a glance at the cursed collar. Instantly his face portrayed the same shock, and then he let loose a very rare curse. “Son of a bitch.”

“Language,” Mary Margaret and Emma’s Aunt Gwen both said absently, but it was obviously instinct and driven by no sort of real intention. Within seconds Emma’s mother was at David’s side and held his hand in hers once more. “David, what is it?”

“That sigil.”

Killian turned his focus to the emblem on the leather collar. It was all hard lines and angles, and though it was a random association, Killian thought of how it looked so unlike most shifter symbols. It was clearly old, dating back far before the flags and figures of most great houses, but it sliced through the collar with an authority and a bluntness that looked like many knives hard at work.

“You know it?” Emma asked, prompting her father out of the angry and confused mood he was now grappling with,

“It’s the Nolan crest,” her Dad said. “And not only that, it’s my Uncle’s work. See here,” he motioned at the ridges and how the slices were jagged but perfectly symmetrical. “Nolans for centuries used branding techniques to establish our crest, but my Uncle said it left the smell of smoke. He wanted something cleaner and so he studied the old ways. All this was done with one knife in one stroke.”

“But with magic anything can be recreated, can’t it? It could be a set-up, something to throw us off the trail,” Anna said. Yet even as the words left her lips, she was still trying to figure it all out for herself. “Still, the magic is so obviously Gold’s. No one else can recreate that, why bother with any attempted distraction?”

“It’s not a diversion. It’s a claim. Gold made his with his magic and my brother made his with this,” Ruth said, her words finally reappearing though her eyes were still somewhat glazed over by ghosts from her past. “God, I wished I’d never see this symbol again, never mind the man who made it. To think he’s working with Gold. This is a nightmare.”

“I just don’t get it. Why are they both doing this? What’s the end game?” Graham asked.

“My Uncle’s will be as it always was – to eradicate shifters.”

“Even family?” Killian asked and David nodded.

“But what about Gold?” Elsa asked. “He’s got no ties to any of us but Ruth. Surely she can’t mean that much to him. She’s been awake five years, and he could have found her in any of that time.”

“Look, I don’t know the guy, but from everything you guys have found out, does it really seem like he needs a reason?” Tink asked. “The man is clearly more than a few marbles shy of a whole set.”

“He’ll have a reason,” Ruth responded. “But Elsa’s right, it can’t be me. Most likely it’s you all.” She gestured at Ruby, Elsa, Anna, and Emma.

“All of us?” Emma asked. “I mean I get them, they’re witches, but I’m -,”

“The Nolan heir and a hybrid shifter. Not to mention you’re mated to the true alpha of one of the strongest packs in America. Elsa, Anna, and Ruby have tremendous power, to be sure, and having joined together in one place, they’d be a natural threat to a power-hungry beast like Gold. But you’re truly unique, Emma, something that can’t be recreated, and to Gold that’s worth more than anything.”

“Clearly he’s willing to die over it,” Liam said shaking his head as his eyes met Killian’s. “And he will. Soon as we can find that fu-,” A shove from Elsa reminded Liam of the smaller ears in the group now and he cleared his throat before finding another word that didn’t fit nearly as well. “foe?”

“Not terrible. Not a great save, but not awful,” Neal joked, earning a smile from the adults who were still all in awe that this young boy was managing to swim in the deep end of all of this shifter drama.

“Where’s Lance?” Emma’s father asked, drawing attention to the fact that his old friend was missing from this conversation. Killian hadn’t even noticed, a testament to the extreme stealth of mountain lion shifters.

“He picked up a scent earlier but with the bear and all there was no time. We had to get to you all as fast as we could,” Gwen explained. “He’s circling back to track it now.”

“Another shifter?”

“No. I mean I don’t know. I didn’t even smell anything, but he said there was something…”

At that moment, the low rumble of a wild cat running came through the underbrush and then Lance appeared at the tree line in his shifter form. In the blink of an eye he transformed to human again. This was pretty normal for all of them, as even Emma and her friends had more exposure to shifting this summer, but for Neal it was a shock and that manifested when the boy gasped aloud. One look spared in the boy’s direction showed he was nothing but excited. No fear, no dismay. Just the giddy look of childlike wonder that a kid might have in the face of a perfect Christmas or a trip to Disney World.

“You didn’t recognize it because it’s a scent from before we ever met,” Lance said emerging from the woods. “It’s feint, but it’s citrus rinds and tea leaves.”

“George,” David and Ruth said at the same time, both resigned but obviously perplexed.

“Lance?” Gwen asked, putting her hand to his arm in question, echoing everyone else’s confusion.

“Hunters bathe in salted citrus waters with tea leaves before an attack. It largely suppresses human scent and keeps them nearly untraceable, blending in with forest smells better than any other combination. I only know about it at all because it’s what David always smelled like growing up.”

“He’s here?” Emma’s father asked, skipping over the tea bath tidbit.

“If he isn’t then he was. Trail leads to the clinic. It’s strong there but no sign of him. SUV tire tracks in the dirt. Recently left.”

“Was the SUV big enough to hold him?” Anna asked, motioning towards the bear, her face angrier than Killian had ever seen it.

“Would have been a cramped cage,” Lance admitted, making the air around Anna practically crackle with her resentment of David’s Uncle. A breeze floated in the glen around them, and in it there was a glinting of light that spoke to something more than wind. It was Anna’s palpable energy, and though she did her best to conceal it, the storm inside her mind and heart was starting to brew in the world around them. “But there’s more. The clinic has been marked, and the animals inside are feeling very on edge. You’re gonna want to get over there before some humans do.”

“Wait but hold on, how is this even possible?” Emma asked, stalling everyone in their tracks before they sped off to the clinic. “How would your Uncle have had time to get here after messing with Neal? The bear attacked maybe thirty minutes after you left. And I’m sorry, I don’t care how skilled a hunter he is. You’re telling me he brought a giant grizzly in a huge SUV into the city Boston? Doesn’t that seem like a really dumb idea?”

“Emma’s right, the timeline is all off,” Killian affirmed, and it seemed to dawn on the others how accurate that was.

“I showed Neal a picture once we got back to the house, and he confirmed it was definitely George who approached him.”

“But what if it wasn’t?” Ruby asked, turning her inquiry to Emma’s brother. “Neal, was there anything strange about the man who approached you?”

“You mean other than the fact that he cornered me and said all that cryptic stuff about my being a hunter and his family?” Ruby nodded. “Uh, I don’t know he spoke kind of fast. Like a little faster than was easy to follow. Made the already crazy stuff he said even more confusing. It also felt like he was kind of talking to himself, answering his own questions when I didn’t really feel like he’d asked anything. And he kept flicking his wrist as he talked and then balling it up. His face got mad when he did that but only for a second.”

“That doesn’t sound like George,” Ruth said critically. “He’s a methodical man. His whole life has been about control and perfection. He speaks so well, he’s a vocal coach’s dream. Same with his movements.”

“Hunters don’t fidget,” David said, sounding like he was repeating words he was oft told in his past life as opposed to making any sort of additional commentary.

“Could a human smell a hunter, even though shifters mostly can’t?” Neal asked and Emma’s father responded.

“Yes but it would be almost unnoticeable. Why do you ask?”

“Well I didn’t really think much of it but I smelled something awful in the air when he came up to me. I thought it was just one of those city pockets you know? Where the air is just dirty and you kinda have to walk through it.”

“Could be,” Ruby said, “But sulfuric smells can be a side effect of dark magic. Ruth, what was Gold like when you interacted with him all those years ago? Do you remember?”

“Well he was much more unbalanced than George, that’s for sure. Gold used to talk in riddles anytime I met with him and always so fast you barely knew what he was saying. Now that you mention it the wrist thing sounds like something too. He used to kind of flick his up like this,” Ruth said, displaying a gesture that was almost caricature of what a person with magic might do.

“So the body language and the other clues hint that Neal was actually dealing with Gold and not George, and if that’s the case he must have used a glamour spell,” Elsa acknowledged. “Unless there’s another way?”

“No, for him to look like George it would have to be a glamour, it would explain the smell, but it would also take a lot of magical energy. He should be really weak after expending himself like that. I mean between that and the magic that’s been spent on trapping this bear… he shouldn’t even be alive.”

“’Should’ doesn’t really seem like a word that fits in our world at the moment,” Granny sassed and they all agreed. There was no reason to assume Gold was anything but fully healthy right now, no doubt through some sinister means.

“I think realistically we need to split this up. George has apparently left this mess for me at the clinic. We should start there,” Emma’s father said, nodding to Lance and his mother who both silently accepted their new assigned posts.

“Usually I’d say I’m all we need over at team ‘scent tracker,’ but with everything that’s happened today and all the breaches…”

“You need help,” Graham said, filling in for Tink without hesitation. “I’d go, but we need to keep up the appearance of normalcy for the rest of the town, and after this bear warning people are going to have questions.”

“I’ll go with Tink,” Granny offered, surprising most of them before letting out a disgruntled huff and straightening her shoulders. “Oh please, I’m old, I’m not dead. Heck the kids would say I’ve got ‘mad skills’ when it comes to tracking.”

“Any kids who would have said that are probably in their mid-thirties by now,” Killian whispered, and despite everything Emma squawked out something close to a laugh. She then sent him a sharp but loving look, telling him that now was not the time but that she did find him funny.

“As much as we have to find George, we need to track Gold just as badly,” Elsa proclaimed. “I still don’t sense him as being the biggest threat, but he’s in this too and if we’re ever going to get an idea of what the end game is, we need to know everything we can.”

“So that leaves what?” Ruby asked. “Bear watch? Liam and Killian can handle that.”

“What about us?” Emma asked, motioning towards her brother and her mother.

“We need to put some of that natural organizing to good use,” Ruth said adamantly. “Mary Margaret, you more than anyone could try and map this out. Getting everything we know in one place could help make everything more clear.”

“Plus no one is better at wrangling multiple groups,” Gwen added, waving her walkie talkie in the air before nodding towards Graham. “You’ve got a direct line to all of us, and the patience and know-how to get everything you need.”

“Well when you put it like that,” Emma’s mother said, clearly pleased with her role. “So what are we waiting for? This war ain’t gonna win itself.”

And since that was true, they all moved off to their designated jobs, though Killian kept track of Emma constantly. Luckily her mother decided to set up their brainstorming outside here in the glen, so as much as Killian was on bear watch, he was also looking out for his mate. Killian would not let anything happen to Emma and their family, so right now it was his mission to use all of his years of experience as a shifter to aid in their protection. In the long span of his life where he sought to avenge his mother, and then in the years spent tracking and avoiding any signs of Liam and his pack, he had become a well-honed machine. His skills allowed him to feel ready for whatever may come, and he trusted that his love of Emma and his want to protect both her physical being and her heart would make anything possible. Whatever foe may present themselves, he would handle them, because there was no other option as far as he or his wolf were concerned.

That readiness and familiarity with trouble, however, did not apply to everyone, and there was one person amongst them who more than anyone must be flummoxed and uneasy given all the tumult. Killian looked even now at young Neal and he felt for the boy. He was putting on a brave face, but there was still concern that made its way to the surface now and then. Emma’s brother hid it well from his overbearing and constantly watchful mother, but when Mary Margaret moved away to talk with Gwen on the walkie talkie about everything going on at the clinic, Killian saw a chance to try and do some good.

“You holding up all right, lad?”

Killian posed the question like it could in any way be straight forward to this young boy. Emma’s brother had woken up this morning a gifted but largely ordinary child. He was brilliant to be sure, but he had no real notion of what any of this meant. Human science alone couldn’t prepare him for this, not when the books they taught in schools mentioned nothing of this whole different part of the world. It must be a great shock to him, yet here Neal stood, ready for action and above the fray of questions most people, no matter what age, would grapple with when a situation like this arose.

“It makes sense in a way,” Neal admitted, shrugging his shoulder. “Not the whole my great uncle is working with a warlock thing. That’s just crazy.”

“Aye it is. But the shifting, and your wolf, they’re not as surprising to you?”

“I had dreams, back when everyone thought I was going to die.” Neal shrugged at the memory of those times, because his childhood illness was just a part of his life. It was a painful chapter of the Nolan family story, but Neal looked to be all the stronger for it now. “They were pretty all over the place. I was sleeping all the time and I was in and out, but there was a woman towards the end, that I remember. She was nice, with a smile like my mom. I knew I could trust her, and the next thing I knew she turned into a wolf and I did too. It was weird, but it felt right, you know?”

Killian gulped, knowing that the woman Neal spoke of was his mother. He debated telling the boy the full truth, but given everything that he was saddled with now, it didn’t seem wise. There would be time, hopefully, when all of this had been resolved and he and Emma could have a full discussion with Neal about all they’d learned. They’d tell him of Emma’s own dreams, of the process Elsa’s magic had undertaken to save them both, and how Killian’s mother found a way even beyond the grave to watch over him and the family he would one day love. But for now, the best course of action was bolstering Neal’s faith and telling him this would all work out okay.

“It must be strange, to learn of what you are later like this. I know for Emma it was a unique process. It can be overwhelming. But it’s also…” he searched for the right words.

“Uh, totally cool?” Neal filled in, looking genuinely enthusiastic. “I mean I can turn into a wolf. That’s pretty bad ass.”

Killian and Neal’s heads both whipped towards the direction of Mary Margaret, but despite her motherly senses, she seemed to have missed her son’s bit of cursing. That was likely for the best.

“It’s an amazing gift to be sure. I know I’d never feel truly whole without my wolf. I’m glad you and Emma will have that now too.”

“Yeah. I just wish I didn’t have to wait. I mean five more years? That feels like forever.”

Killian smiled and he knew that for Neal it must seem like just that. As a kid, years felt like they’d never pass, and time would never move in the direction that you wanted it. It took the benefit of hindsight to see that everything comes exactly when it should, and as a new shifter, Neal would be in much better shape if he had a few years of understanding who he was before moving into that phase of his life.

“When things calm down, we should talk. You’ll have questions, and while your father is well versed in much of the shifter world, he might not have all the answers.”

“Did your Dad have them?” Neal asked, not out of any malice, but because he just genuinely didn’t know the history of Killian and his family.

“No, but I was lucky to have an elder brother.”

“And now I will too,” Neal said, like Killian’s new status in the family was a long time given. Killian smiled at that, nodding.

“Aye. That you will. Whatever you need, Neal, I’ll be here to help. So will Emma, and Liam, and all of us.”

“Like a real pack,” Neal said and Killian thought about it a moment before nodding. After all, what else could they be called at this point? There were so many of them, shifter, witch, and otherwise, tied together through love, through family ties and friendship. If that wasn’t a pack as it was intended to be then Killian didn’t know what it was.

Feeling secure in the fact that Neal was okay, Killian planned to switch his attention back to the others and their deliberations, but the bear suddenly let forth a harsh huff of air, propelling the front of his body up into the air, before stomping its thick paws into the earth below. Killian went on alert, preparing to get to Emma if the grizzly should break free, but then he gathered that the others were talking about the bear and the bear was somehow communicating, though perhaps not very effectively.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” Neal said, shaking his head as he watched the captive beast.

“Seeing a mammoth grizzly in a magic cage? Yeah, weird is one way of putting it.”

“It’s not that. It’s the smell around him. It’s sterile and sharp. I swear it smells like when I was in the hospital. Like an IV but not quite.”

Sniffing the air, Killian could at first only sense the overwhelming stench of a shifter sickness and Gold’s magic, but there, underneath those notes, there was something he belatedly recognized as medical. Now that Neal said it, he wondered how he, or any of the other shifters had missed it all this time.

“I’ve got news for you, lad: those supposed genius tendencies of yours are not purely human. You’re gonna be a hell of a shifter.”

Neal grinned at that, and after Killian urged him to tell the others, a whole new door of inquiry opened. Everyone came back from their separate corners of Storybrooke, seeking to put a new piece of the puzzle in place.

“Magic and medicine? But that’s crazy. Can it even be done?” Tink asked.

“I think we’re looking at the proof,” Elsa hedged, gesturing at the bear.

“Did anyone get a bite of his neck?” Emma asked and the others who had been there in the thick of the fight shook their head. “He’s got two puncture marks there, I saw a flash of them when I took the collar off, but I just assumed…”

“Let’s all just make a plan to stop doing that for the time being,” Graham said and they heartily agreed, for surely assuming anything was getting them nowhere. They had to start from scratch and do as Neal had done, study the problem just with the facts and clues before them.

“Are the marks identical, Emma?” Neal asked and after a moment of reflection Emma nodded.

“Yeah, they looked pretty similar. I only caught a quick glimpse though.”

“Can you get him closer to us?” Neal asked and Mary Margaret shook her head.

“Neal, no -,”

“He doesn’t need to leave the enclosure, Mom. I just need to see his neck. Emma said there’s two punctures. That’s rare in medical treatment of any kind, human or animal. There’s usually only one puncture site. Whenever I needed more than one medicine they stuck me in different places or they’re infused through one site, resulting in only one puncture. Two identical pierces is almost unheard of. In fact, the only researchers I know that have regularly and successfully used two study genetically based nervous system manipulation.”

“Uh, can you repeat that in English?” Liam replied and Killian related to his brother’s sentiment. This was elevated stuff well beyond the experience set of any of the adults here, save for maybe Emma and David who had a veterinary background, and Neal was a teenager. How did he know about this?

“Basically treatment to regrow and stabilize a broken nervous system. Yes, it’s super complicated and obscure, and before you ask, I just spent the summer rooming with a medical prodigy who is headed to Columbia pre-med at 14. You pick up stuff when all your friend talks about is cutting edge science stuff.”

“That’s brilliant, Neal, but what makes you think that this has anything to do with that?”

“Well the dual needle there wasn’t just used for fun, it was necessary to yield any positive results. The doctors were trying to infuse damaged nervous systems with a lining that would revamp nerves and allow for an artificial system reboot. They needed two different solutions to do that, and they needed to mix at the same rate through the body while not being combined outside of the system itself. They said that allowing the chemical interaction to happen inside the body actually improved the lasting effects of the treatment.”

“So that begs the question, how do we get closer to him?”

Granny’s query prompted all of them to look to Anna automatically, but that only prompted Elsa to get defensive.

“No! No way! Absolutely not! You are not going in there.”

“Elsa we need to know,” Anna replied, her tone even, not matching the loudness or the fear of her sister. “And it’s like I keep telling you. He won’t hurt me.”

“Maybe we can just ask him to come closer?” Emma added, clearly not wanting her friend anywhere near that bear without the barrier still between them.

“But what if one of the solutions Neal is talking about isn’t just science?” Ruby replied, her brow furrowed together. “If it’s magical then we need a witch to gauge that and that would be damn near impossible with Elsa and Anna’s enchantment as strong as it is.”

“We’re not doing this,” Elsa said, her anguish clear, but the fight in her starting to fail somewhat.

“What other choice do we have, Elsa? We’re in danger and more than that we’re blind. We need answers. We need them to stay safe, and we need them to heal him. He has to be okay, Elsa. He just has to be.”

The connection Anna felt to this bear was strong already though she’d never even seen his human form. Killian understood that, and though it must feel impossible to accept that Anna might be in any kind of danger, Elsa did too. All she needed to do was think about when it was Liam. When the two of them first met, Liam was still unstable and unwell, perhaps to a different degree, but Elsa stood by him. She was devoted right from the start, and she did everything she could to heal his brother and to stop his pain. Anna wanted to do the same thing, and now Elsa had to support her, fear and all.

You will not hurt her, do you hear me?

The mental push came from Emma and was aimed at the bear, but Killian still heard it. Her eyes were wary, set on the grizzly as her face gave nothing but seriousness away. The bear snorted but gave a sharp nod, unwilling or unable to reply with coherent thoughts, but showing with animal action that he was not in an aggressive place.

“Okay, Anna. You can go in there, but only for a minute. You find out what we need to know and then you get back out here. Are we clear?” Emma asked and Anna nodded. Without any more deliberation she moved to the edge of the crystal enclosure and then she stepped in.

Not knowing how things would go made the moment of Anna’s examination emotionally fraught, but beyond that this was a moment that both Emma’s friend and this unknown shifter must be craving on a cellular level. They were fated mates, destined to be together and yet unable to have more than a brief interaction. They couldn’t even speak to each other, and the fact that this was all happening while he was a bear must make things even more confusing. Yet none of that translated. Instead, Anna approached with cautious determination, stopping just before the bear and pausing only for a moment before she raised her hand to the bear’s face. Her hand made contact and everyone held their breath until the bear made a low, but welcoming growl.

“Hi,” Anna murmured after a moment, her voice raspier than usual. “This isn’t how I thought something like this would happen. I had all these ideas about who you’d be and how we’d meet and this is just… well, different.”

The bear closed its eyes for a moment exhaling what could only be called a grizzly form of a sigh, and then nuzzled more so into Anna’s touch. A sign of agreement and docility that was so alien a concept with a shifter this sick.

“Anna.” Elsa’s calling out to her sister reminded Anna of her mission and she straightened her stance and nodded.

“Right. I have to fix this. I have to help you. And I don’t know if you heard what we were saying but -,”

The bear didn’t even need to hear the rest of her request, instead shifting so Anna could be up close and personal with his neck and the site of the punctures Emma had seen. Anna let out a sound of sadness at seeing where the bear had been injured.

“What do you see?” Neal asked.

“Two puncture marks, just like Emma said. And they’re really big and thick. I can see why you thought someone bit him. He’s started to heal over it but there’s scarring and…” she raised her hand over the wound but trailed off from speaking to them.

“And what?” Ruby asked.

“You were right Ruby, I can feel the magic. Some sort of potion of something. But there’s something else here. Some residue of something else.”

“We need to see that!” Neal said, his desire to figure out this puzzling situation clear as day. “We can test his fur or maybe get some blood work, but it would be better if we had the actual solution itself.”

With just the barest flutter of her fingers Anna used her magic to extract the droplets of whatever liquid coated the bear’s fur. It was entrancing to see, and the little bits of whatever injection was used hung suspended in the air. It was a small amount, but small was better than nothing at all. “I need something to put this in.”

A vile was produced from Mary Margaret’s bag, and no one bothered to ask why she had it. No doubt some sort of ‘always be prepared mentality’ and Emma brought it to the edge of the barrier with Killian right behind her. But while they expected Anna to come right away, she was stalled, wanting, no doubt, to stay close to her mate.

“I know how hard this must be, Anna, but the sooner we figure out what this is the sooner you can heal him.”

“I’m going to fix this,” Anna said, for the bear’s benefit and not for any of theirs. “We’re gonna find out what this is and I swear I will fix it.”

At the mention of her leaving, the bear’s eyes went dark, looking more onyx than any shade of red. It reminded Killian of his father and of Liam and it all clicked. This was some sort of manufactured alpha sickness. It had to be. But just as soon as that darkness came, the bear shook its head and pushed it back again, its irises back to a deep burgundy color. The bear hoisted its body up and then stomped its two front feet to the ground but made no more sounds. It was a dismissal of Anna, and a nonverbal warning that she had to go now before he lost control. Anna seemed to understand and she moved quickly towards the barrier and back outside with all of them. With shaky hands she used her magic to put the droplets in the vial and then sealed it before handing it to Neal.

“You want me to look at it?” Neal asked, his eyes growing wide.

“Yes, Neal, I do. You were right about the injections, and if we didn’t have that we’d pretty much have nothing to go on,” Anna said. “You are brilliant, and you are my brother, in every way that matters. Right?”

“Right,” Neal agreed without hesitation.

“I know it’s asking a lot, and I know you might not be able to handle everything alone, but I just need you to try. Anything you learn is helpful. Anything. I can do the magical stuff, but I don’t know anything about medicine.”

“I’m gonna need help,” Neal said looking to Emma and Emma nodded.

“And you’ve got it. You’ve got me and Dad. I don’t know much about double injections or genome treatments, but I’ll do whatever I can. We’ve got equipment at the clinic. We can run some tests and see what compounds we’re working with and -,”

Killian was about to speak up and say that Emma needed to think about this before making any bold decisions. She’d been through the ringer today, and this testing would no doubt be an involved process. It worried Killian that Emma would continue exerting so much energy when she’d had such a close call earlier, but surprisingly it was Neal who vocalized that worry first.

“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do, Emma. But I think Dad and I have got this for now. You should rest up. You’ve had a way longer day than the rest of us.”

“But I can help too,” Emma reasoned.

“And you will. But maybe tomorrow, all right? This is gonna take a while. We won’t find any answers right away anyway. You know that.”

Killian waited eagerly, hoping that Emma would reach that conclusion on her own as well, and he felt himself relax when she agreed. It was such a relief to know that Emma wouldn’t be over extending herself into the wee hours of the morning. The day was already fading away, with the sun dipping low in the trees, and Killian knew that what his mate needed was food, rest, and time away from the insanity of their world right now.

The others all agreed with Neal’s take, and with a new plan in motion people started to split up, headed for their evenings in different ways. The Nolans headed to the clinic to grab start testing things both at the lab and then back home, while Ruby, Anna, and Elsa agreed that they should try and process the magical concoction that Anna had sensed in the bear and in the collar. Ruby would do so with her family’s archives back at Graham’s, but where Elsa tried to offer a similar scenario for her and Anna, Anna was uninterested.

“I’m not leaving him,” Anna said sternly, looking back to the bear with a fierceness of conviction that had no chance of being swayed. Knowing this instinctively, Elsa let out a small sigh but nodded.

“Okay, so we stay.”

“You two mind?” Liam asked, and Killian smirked at his brother’s question. Even if he did mind it wouldn’t matter much. Liam would just camp out here with his mate and her sister. But there was no need, not when he had somewhere else he and Emma could go.

“Knock yourselves out,” he quipped, gesturing to the doorway. “We’ll just pack a bag and be out of your hair.”

“We’re not staying?” Emma asked, looking surprised, but also a bit relieved if the flash in her eyes was anything to go off of.

“I have a better idea, love. That is, if you trust me.”

“Always,” Emma said, and though he stole a fleeting kiss from her lips, it was but a mere morsel to tide him over until real privacy could be procured.

True to their word, they took only a few minutes to pack what they needed, and then they were off. They could have walked to their destination, or shifted and run over, but with George still on the loose and Gold MIA Killian wanted the opportunity at a faster getaway if need be. The drive was rather short, even with a stop at the town diner to grab some dinner, and the most notable change was that they went from the deep woods where their cabin was further towards the coast just at the edge of town. Eventually the paved Storybrooke road turned to one of pebbles and dirt, and Emma looked both amused and confused at why they would be going this way. Her eyes soon shifted though to mere enjoyment, as she took in the picturesque surroundings of this coastal lane, surrounded by greenery and bushes that held large summer flowers in shades of pinks and blues and whites.

“They’ll be paving this soon,” Killian announced and Emma’s brow furrowed as she looked from their surroundings back towards him once more.

“How do you know that? No one even lives here.”

“Ah, perhaps not yet, but the house has been recently purchased and a move in is likely inevitable.”

“Well the new owners have done a ton of work. This was all overgrown before. Has been since I was a kid. I always loved this house though.” Emma made the comments just before they pulled around the bend, and when she saw the house in question her jaw dropped and her shock was palpable in the car. “Oh my God! Look at that. It’s… well it’s…”

“Do you like it?” Killian asked and Emma nodded immediately though her brow furrowed with confusion.

“I do, it’s gorgeous, but I don’t understand. When you said there was somewhere else we could go I assumed you meant my place above the clinic.”

“We could have gone there, but tell me you wouldn’t have then been tempted to burn the candle all night searching for answers.” Emma couldn’t say that truthfully so she opted not to respond, giving Killian the space to pull her closer as he confessed his intentions. “When we were in the woods before I told you that someday would be here sooner than you think. This house was meant to be your wedding present, but I think, all things considered, we should cherish every moment that we have.”

“I thought you were talking about the baby” Emma whispered, her eyes misting over with happy tears as he stole a kiss from her lips with soft but sure affection. His hand came over her stomach automatically at the mention of their pup and when his lips pulled away from hers, he couldn’t help his genuine smile.

“I was, my love. Our family is on the path to exactly what we’re wanting. But as much as I cherish our cabin in the woods, this,” he waved his arms at the house before them. “This is the home you and our little ones deserve.”

With Emma still stunned into near silence, Killian produced the keys to the house from his pocket, having grabbed them from the cabin discretely enough to escape Emma’s notice. On the keychain there was also a token charm that had caught his fancy while in town. It had a swirling design that looked like the fur of a wolf when examined up close, or the sea in the midst of great uncertainty. In the foreground of the metalwork, there was an anchor, and for whatever reason, he found he liked that symbolism and that it made him think of his mate and the life that they were building together. In every way, Emma was his anchor, an anchor to goodness and love and hope, all things he now could no longer live without and that he wished to carry with him always.

“Killian.”

His name was all that Emma could seem to say in this moment, and her fingertips came to cover her mouth as she shook her head in awe. For a split second he wasn’t totally sure if he had made the right call. Buying one of her favorite houses in town might seem like a great idea, but perhaps Emma wanted to be more involved herself in the process of finding their forever home. There was so much that had to be selected and chosen to bring the house into this century and up to a livable code, while still maintaining the quintessential charm of the coastal Maine mansion. But when Emma’s green eyes welled with happy tears and her cheeks flushed that familiar shade of pink, he knew he’d made no wrong moves. Emma was happy with this, and that was all that he had ever wanted.

“Now I should warn you, love, not everything is finished. I gave them a timeline of the end of the summer, knowing that I wanted it done by our wedding night. But it’s structurally sound, and the upstairs is all furnished. Well at least it’s supposed to be and I -,”

Emma laughed at his sudden feeling of remorse, and then she pulled him in for a kiss so fast that he lost all sense of himself before his worry could actually begin to take hold. All there was in this moment was Emma and her happiness. Out here, away from everyone else, Killian allowed his overprotective need to kick in, and with a quick maneuver, he had Emma backed against the front door, knowing he had boxed her in, but never going so far as to hurt her. If anything, it just turned his mate on, and she arched even closer, taking as much from this kiss as he did, until they finally broke apart.

“You bought us a house,” Emma whispered.

“Aye, love,” he said, cupping her cheek after brushing some of her hair back from her beautiful face. “I bought us a house.”

“How do you always manage this?” She asked, and Killian didn’t know what exactly she meant by ‘this’ but he awaited her assessment whatever it may be. “Every time things go sideways, there you are, making things better. This is perfect, in every way. There’s only one thing I wish was different.”

“What is it love?”

“I wish I was already your wife. I wish we didn’t have to wait anymore.”

Hearing that amplified Killian’s own want for the same exact thing, but despite the fact that they had tonight ‘off’ so to speak, a wedding, a real wedding, worthy of his mate and all her hopes and dreams, just couldn’t be done. As such, he had to improvise.

“Do you, Emma Nolan, choose me, Killian Jones for this day and all your days? In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, in this life and any more we may be blessed enough to see?”

“I do,” Emma said, with tears glistening in her eyes as she smiled, looking at him with all the love in the world. “And do you, Killian Jones, choose me back? Will you promise to love me, to cherish me, and to honor me in every way I plan to do for you, for this day and for always, no matter what may come?”

“I do,” he replied and Emma let out a soft laugh, a tantalizing sound that caught on the wind before fading away as their lips came together to seal their vows to each other.

They were now, in their hearts, man and wife, mate and mate, and though it might not be ‘official,’ Killian knew in that moment that he and Emma had bound themselves together in a new and enduring way. And so, even though things might not be going exactly according to plan, Killian delighted in the moment when he swung his love up in his arms and whisked into the house of their future and showing her the place that would be the site of their hopefully impending happily ever after.

Post-Note: So there we have it! I know this chapter has taken so long to come about, but with so many elements that I had wanted to incorporate, I knew I needed time to not only write, but to read through what I’ve already written. This whole George and Gold fiasco will soon be coming to a head, BUT please be informed it might not all be in this particular story... For those of you who have been begging me for a story that includes CS but is mostly told from the POVs of others, you will be *eventually * getting your wish. Elaborating more would be spoiling what is yet to come, so I’ll leave it there, but suffice it to say I am really excited for this next cool idea when it does come to pass. aAs always I appreciate you guys reading this, and I hope you all enjoyed and have a wonderful rest of your week!!

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