#the old ''you can't do anything to be liked or respected or treated decently or even valued for doing what other ppl are valued for etc''

[unproduciblesmackdown]

working off a presumption that winston gets sent off in the first quarter of the season, Also presuming that it's not simply like as fond in-universe as possible (e.g. reluctance all around, a nice chat with taylor, kiss on the head, etc) b/c like, nobody ever gets that, & even though it's more possible re: finales, again, just Presuming winston sure won't get that:

ofc possible that it's decided that the Conclusion for winston's character ought to be an "answer" to his being autistic, but interpreted both in & out of universe as oh this person is inconsiderate, arrogant, hostile, etc. so that is just finally allowed to "catch up with him" and like seize any conflict or grievance anyone has with him as the excuse to push him out, pwning him one last time b/c he refused to Learn His Lesson & either become allistic or just essentially see himself out, either by quitting or shutting up forever

but imo it would obviously be more fun at all if the Conclusion for his character is instead focused on the also more substantial "if a character is on billions their life has gone awry; they have shown up with their [problems] suitcase at the [more problems] sunk cost factory" wherein like....winston's autistic, he's trying to be valued as a person by being valued for his quanting, and this whole time he's been succeeding Enough at that in that he was hired & hasn't yet actually been fired, but like, probably actually nobody's working back from [begrudgingly valuing winston's quanting] to valuing winston himself, even also begrudgingly....you've got rian wringing "value" from him more generally b/c by & large their moments of friendship seem to just be something she wants to take from him in those specific moments, check back 5 seconds later & that may have stopped being true & she'll be lashing out b/c What Matters is that this is all on her terms serving what she wants, which is also winston's (& anyone's) relationship with their role in his job overall. rian's above him in their own social duo, also as an employee in tmc, everyone else wherever he works are also always above him socially/professionally....i know it was like oh too busy to film much and we can't really come up with an explanation so winston's just absent from tmc get-togethers in s4 w/o anyone speaking of it at all, but like, forever whew ouch the Verisimilitude that aligns anyways like. of course he'd just unspoken collective agreement be singularly excluded

anyways to this end we Know he's not going to get an ending of finally finding [ppl have liked/valued him as a person b/c he convinced them to want to try b/c they like/value his quanting :) ] like that's never a guarantee for anyone, the [irl autistic ppl trying to "make up for" the dislike / rejection they garner for being nd by being a Good Co/worker] just leading to having to quit / be fired b/c of burnout anyways and nobody cares....there'll be some extra shit in the mix to be sure, but what i'm saying is like, if winston just Does cause a Problem on his way out out of pettiness, out of [ruin everyone's day this once like how has been done to him fifty thousand times] out of [make people pay attention to His Work(tm) b/c they won't pay attention to Him even in the end here] out of [just being pissed & getting any revenge by even like doing the equivalent of taking a not precisely aimed huge swing at mpc as a Fuck You that anyone will have to care about / exert any energy over, vs that if winston himself just expresses Fuck You interpersonally then nobody would care & would just ignore him as he left]

point is like i wouldn't be mad if he gets petty at Anyone b/c like uh, yeah. singled out at Taylor would ofc be a downer but like, if they actually get to interact about it? that'd be Something, for sure, and we're never guaranteed something. he has plenty of cause to be hostile to rian b/c to the end here she's decided to be [the person who hurts him, deliberately, continually], all while getting preferential treatment from the person he's Really been here for the whole time, just as salt in that wound even if rian didn't choose that part entirely on her own. could definitely anticipate it at least being marginally more enjoyable than what's easily expected: winston only getting some unceremonious sendoff in the midst of a scene about other shit, with everyone getting to immediately completely move on

all of this ofc about like, pretending like oh whatever billions does with winston cannot hurt me. but also not Really pretending that, and also it already has lol, i'm frustrated & annoyed as i have been abt things we've learned like [hip hooray rian and dollar bill on the trading floor. what bliss] and [nobody will mention that william exists or has ever existed behind the scenes like ugh please] and that [victor's staying power is so so annoying too just like it was when are you kidding we're getting rid of bonnie instead of him? kill me] but like. it'll hurt me and i'm just bracing to roll with that and it's also been about already clocking in at the [ow. ouch] factor abt this shit Ahead of time lol, you can't have just flipped some switch....but i also know billions may not just completely let us down & may even give us fuckall, and that knowledge is also further setup for pain lol. Can't truly have zero hopes, unforch. but also whatever also begrudging forch b/c like, we do have fun. i have my hater energy but it's not genuine but it also is lol like leave me to my galaxy brain idiosyncratic exact experience that i am having, as [we are not the same] w/frustrations & grievances as w/delights & revelations (when you are reveling in something)

basically it's like, i Would rather that the [quantessence] of winston's character be His emotional hangups that are required to even be on the show, namely, an autistic person desperate for recognition of his personhood through "merit" fruitlessly proffered to offset his rejection, or, as stated, to indeed at least be Needed so that he can have the like bare begrudging hollow inclusion of [being allowed in the building, literally], and have the "resolution" of this issue even being, very billions aptly, simply to be forced to give up on / let go of / have taken from you the means to keep acting on that motivation as you have been: for winston, naturally, having this job, working for taylor as Thee taylor mason loyalist, and understander, and supporter....all that, rather than centering Everyone Else's Hangups abt hating & rejecting an autistic person. tragically, can't put it fully past billions to not prioritize any & all other characters, and at winston's expense, basically just as has been happening to winston in-universe the whole time (& already out of it, like, where are his little arcs even just for fun? where is his being allowed to talk to taylor, or like, in general? where is he in most of s7, now? you didn't have to send him off early at all.) but also can't put it fully past billions to suddenly devote thought & effort to the character, god forbid that truest conduit for our hopes & dreams manifest which is that, if nothing else, winston gets to say something to taylor that they listen to b/c they choose to actually consider things he says, even though, indeed, they don't "have to," 4x11 to 4x12, through tears "Q is for Quantitative, babey," for sure. and even this time make it clearer that's obviously what happened, though like, there is fuckall on this show that can be made "clear" to the whole audience out here so yknow. at the same time like as though someone couldn't go "for the wynnstans" like look all the audience who also doesn't devote a neural spark to winston no matter what is not gonna care either way. but i will care so much forever. already i will probably be thinking "winston dick energy" every day for the rest of my life

you may notice as i have that i'm basically like gee billions would be fun if you at all gave winston material about him being a person in his own right rather than solely getting in one more Use of him as whatever object resource plot device for other characters' [being a person] like. would it count if (this will not happen) rian has to think about how what it means for her as a person that she Hasn't been treating winston as a person? eh, that's sure indirectly anything i guess. taylor's our best bet, someone who has already listened to winston & talked to him person to person & understood him & whom he's here for, & because of, & etc. tuk is winston's friend for real but he probably won't get to do anything, it'd be fun if idk they hug, or are confirmed to continue to hang out & get laid together, or wave & smile across the room, or anything. really obviously would go off the rails do anything blast off for the winnie n tay but you know. here we are, forever, doing it for them

[yestrday]

bro like

imagine if reader and housewife scara had a kid that looks practically exactly like one of them and yet got the personality of the other parent 💀💀💀

🍡 anon back at it again

ghiwefi i can imagine the domestic shenanigans here istg kuni's reactions would be fucking hilarious. also you get called papa once because i couldnt think of any gn parental terms

you might like: yandere! genshin malewife au ft. scara

"oh my gosh say that one more time for the camera, sweetie."

your eight-year-old flips you off from his seat, glaring at you over a bowl of cereal. his [hair color] is messy from tossing and turning in his sleep and his pouty lips are in the most bitter scowl you have ever seen adorning them. you squeal as you capture your vulgar child on camera and begin fawning over it on camera, whilst kuni karate chops him on the head.

"ow! whaddya do that for?!" he complains, covering his bump with his tiny two hands as kuni locks him with an equally deadly glare.

"you brat, you better treat your parent with more respect!" he scolds. he looks threatening, despite holding a pan with the most delicious looking waffles while donning a frilly lavender apron. "if i see you flipping someone off one more fucking time, you're losing tv privileges!"

"why not?!" the child yells indignantly as he shakes his tiny fists at his father. "you do that to them all the time?!"

"just because i do it doesn't mean you can!"

"then you're not a very good parent, are you?!"

kuni pops a vein, and he feels the most vile sentence forming on the tip of his tongue before he bites it down and sighs. "for that, i'm still cutting down your tv time by one hour." he cries out in outrage, but he ignores him and slides the waffles onto a plate. "go play outside or something.... honestly, you look like this idiot over here—" he shoots a sharp glare at you, still fawning over the picture. "— but you're too goddamn rude to be anything like him."

"maybe it's because i get it from you!" the kid says, mouth full with waffles. kuni glances at him and scoffs, lightly hitting him again on the head.

"... make that two hours."

"never say that kind of sappy shit with my face ever again."

"but dad~" your daughter whines, tugging on kuni's kimono sleeve. "i love him! can't i just buy him one box of chocolates? please?"

kuni wrinkles his nose at the notion of a mere ten-year-old falling in love, and even more so when his literal carbon copy is pulling a lovesick expression with his face. she has the sharp eyes and all, yet they look so... girlish? dreamy, when on her. something about it grates on his nerves.

"how could you possibly like a guy like him?" he scoffs, scanning the aisle for a specific brand of flour. "you said he hated you. he throws your notebooks, mocks and humiliates you, and is basically anything but a decent human being. if it weren't for [y. name], i would've gone over to that school and ripped him and whatever vile parent he has into shreds."

"but! but!" she whines. "papa says you were exactly like that before!" kuni freezes. "then he could be the one for me!"

kuni snorts and grabs a bag of flour before dropping it into the cart. "your papa was and still is an idiot. but still," a fond smile graces his lips for a second. "we're the exception. doesn't mean it can turn out well for you."

"is that a no, then?" she pouts.

kuni is silent, and she perks up and pulls him down to give him a peck on the cheek. "thanks, dad!"

"whatever," he grumbles as she runs off to the chocolate aisle, holding the kissed cheek with an embarassed blush on his face.

[riskyraiker]

helloooo!! My request is kinda small, but can I request TFP decepticons reactions to a fem reader with a tiger alt mode?? (Colors are just white and black) she’s aggressive, but also gentle to ones she trusts and loves. Hope you don’t mind adding slight romance in it😓 Ty!<33

Reader with a tiger alt mode + the decepticons

Oh my god i love this😭🫶 btw there will not be anything about starscream except him hatin' predaking and reader :D since they're both like animals. Hope you enjoy!!

CW: there's a few dirty jokes so beware!! XD

-----------------------------------

Megatron

Finds you a good weapon in the battlefields ofc, but he does want you to be in best shape after every battle. Admires your strength to even defeat the last prime and almost eliminating him.

He rarely needs saving, but when you turned up, ripped optimus away from megatron, something lit up in him. The need of having you.

Talked to you after the whole battle and gave you best treatment he could with ordering knockout!!

The way you're actually gentle and caring didn't interest him before, but now he actually finds you slightly cute if he dares to admit it to himself.

Does like your choice of colour and style. Tigers do represent strength, courage and commanding respect! Like himself.

If he ever got the chance he would tell you he likes you and he will have you in his arms the rest of the day/night

Is really dominant in a relationship of course, but he knows how to be caring atleast.

If you insist of becoming his personal bodyguard he'd let you. Not because he's "weak", but so everyone knows not to challenge him even clearer.

Starscream yelling anything bad about you BANG He'll be getting treated by knockout soon enough. It was either you or Megatron but who cares, you both kick ass.

Any Autobot scum dare to hurt you? He WILL have their helm in under a week.

He actually loves you even if he doesn't say it :) You're on his good side with soundwave!

Soundwave

Does he care at first when he meets you? uhhh, no :) but when you start to check up on him while he works does make his spark a bit warm.

Stalks where you are going once he starts to take interest in you, but not in a creepy way ofc! He wants to know if you're safe or fragging somebot

Finds you pretty when he has time to look at you. Black and white is pretty old style, but fancied after all this time.

If you get injured in a battle he will make the autobots chase laserbeak and he'll comes and gets you back to the nemesis.

If you stay a lot in tiger form he gives you pets if you ask. He ain't that mean and can't say no to that face. (He can :))

He serves Megatron with huge loyalty so he's a busy bot, hope you can live with that. (just stay in the room with him and cuddle his pedes in tiger form)

If he he's busy any other way laserbeak will stay with you. Your little baby bird :)

He doesn't speak so he will just display hearts on his or any other monitor close to you <3

He's just a sweet quiet bot with speaking issues xD

Dreadwing

Treats you decently at first which is so cute. Since you're caring, sweet and follow rules well he thinks you're not that bad.

Once he sees you beat half of the autobot team, he wanted to stay on your good side ALL THE TIME.

Once he catches interest ohhoh, you will be smitten!

I imagine he's more of a gentleman so he would let you go through doors first and help you when needed.

Patrols together? Do you even have to ask :)

Admires your style and the way the black and white bring the best parts of your frame out.

If you're big as a tiger jus give him a ride to battle and just chuckle at autobots' faces.

Spends time with you much as possible, but serving Megatron is most likely higher priority to him than you.

HAND KISSES TO SHOW AFFECTION!!!!!!!!

Injured and need help? It's already taken care of since Dreadwing is in the battlefield with you.

Does say that he loves you multiple times in the week. (Maybe even in a day)

Doesn't like starscream, never did and doesn't now either since he's always trash talking you down.

"Stupid pest! You trashed the whole control room! Can you do anything good in this primus forsaken ship!?!? I might aswell rip you spa-"

"Whose the second in command, starscream? You better shut your intake and not speak a WORD of my love like that again!"

That would turn me on WHO SAID THAT?! NOT ME :)))

Loves you unconditionally and shows it much as he can <3

You kept his knife/sword after he got killed :((

Knockout

"IS THAT A BEAUTIFUL PAINTJOB I SEE?!" his first reaction of you be like :D But like actually he loves it.

That's what he liked in you at first only, but once he gets to see your sweet and caring personality...oh he's probably passing out.

"Since you're the only medic here, I thought you'd like some help :)" You went to help Knockout with something and he didn't even ask? He must be in heaven/one with the all spark?? idfk

Imagine if you save his aft and his fabulous paintjob? He would give you big grin "So you do admire my paintjob, doll? I knew it ;)" Such a fragging dork he is

Go racing with him please!!! Your and Knockout's quality time is racing 100%

Oh and the drive-in theaters he mentioned in season 3! He takes you there for a "date" but doesn't say it is.

Just confessed a random day when you came to check up on him

"Helloooo Knockout, do you need any hel-" "I love you..." "I love you too dummy" *Smooch* Cute

Poor breakdown, now he's the third wheel :,) UNLESS POLYAMORY IS FINE WITH YOU ALL IS FINE ALL IS PERFECT <3<3<3<3

But when he dies you'll help Knockout with buffing :,( and support aswell.

The corniest couple of decepticons or any living cybertronian couples. Just cuteness everywhere nonethless!!!

Breakdown

He was intimated by you at first like he found Arachnid intimidating.

But once you show your sweet and caring side he lowers his walls. He also loves your style (And you already <3)

Talks about you to knockout and asks for advise since he's so clueless.

Seeing your strength in battle made his optics shaped like stars and he admired you for like a week after. He wants to challenge you, but holds his request back.

If your alternate form is a automobile...PLEASE GO FOR A DRIVE TOGETHER

He ain't got the balls to confess so ofc you made the first move

The big bot team in battles!! Go on and beat bulkheads aft and laugh together when you recall those fights back at nemesis (or when he's gone :(

POLYAMOROUS WOOOOOOO GET KNOCKOUT OVER HERE!!

Shows his love for you when there is not many bots around. (Professionalism!!) You're at work so behave!

Hugs, hugs, hugs and HUGS! He's a bigbuly bot so he gives good bear hugs <3

The only thing you have left of him is a pretty crystal he brought you before he died :((

Predaking

Another beast on nemesis? He makes sure you know who's stronger, mightier and loyal. But you managed to surprise him by actually being sweet once you get to know him.

Wants to protect you and if you both are in beast mode you WILL play fight

He might offer you a flight if you are nice enough to him

Fell in love with you when you bit Starscreams wing after he hit Predaking.

Most likely the deadliest duo on the ship unless Megatron joines too >:)

Autobots can go panic into a corner when you two show up on the battlefield :D It feels like a morning stretch to you two xD

You join Predaking if Shockwave decides to "borrow" him for a little bit and it makes his whole frame warm up.

Actually loves you show much and shows it even. SNUGGLES AND CUDDLING DURIN RECHARGE PLS

Wants to spend the future with you. And after the whole Megatron posessed by Unicron thing you both go and live on your own <3 Just him and you, no one else.

-----------------------------------------

AN: TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY WTF?!?!?! But here you go! Don't mind if the writing is a little scoodaddle, I wrote during the middle of the night and the next morning so it's what it is :)) Hope you like it and don't be afraid to request more!!!!<3333

[morethanwonderful]

Out of all of Wei Wuxian's traits, one of the ones that fascinates me the most is how incredibly casual and chummy he is with corpses. All the other cultivators are a bit desensitized to the dead by nature of their profession, yes, but Wei Wuxian in particular treats the dead very much the same as he treats living people, and I think it's simultaneously one of his best and most concerning attributes.

On the good side, the way Wei Wuxian treats the dead is absolutely an extension of his overall goodness and empathy. He stands on the side of those that are looked down on, and nobody faces more discrimination that the dead. He treats the dead like people because they are people, and they deserve to have their voices heard. That's what Empathy's for, and that's why he revives Wen Ning to stand as witness to his own murder. Wen Ning is not a thing! And even when Wei Wuxian is raising armies of dead Wens to fight on his behalf, we get illustrations of him giving a helping hand to a weak old corpse that can't stand on its own.

Wei Wuxian is painted in very deliberate contrast to Xue Yang, who treats the dead as tools and deprives them of agency. His closeness with them is a symbol of his kindness.

However, beyond treating the dead decently and like people, there is a point where his chumminess with them starts to get unsettling, and that's the point where it becomes a reflection of his loneliness and trauma. In particular, I'm thinking of his cuddliness with the ghosts he uses to torture Wen Chao and the corpse girls he's hanging out with when he invites Lan Zhan to drink with him. Because treating the dead with respect is a very different thing from having a corpse lay in your lap as you stroke its hair. And fierce corpses by definition do not have personalities (with Wen Ning as the exception that proves the rule), so treating them as companions to socialize with is rather concerning behavior.

So why is he like this? Isolation and trauma!

It's easy to understate the trauma of Wei Wuxian's three months in the Burial Mound, especially given that we don't see them play out but do get details about so many other horrible moments. But those three months? They Fucked Him Up. In particular, beyond the trauma of the near death experience (or presumably many many near death experiences in a row), he spent the better part of three months without seeing a single other living human. People are not meant to do that.

So what is a person gonna do when he spends three months in Worse Solitary Confinement? And when that solitude is spent on Fierce Corpse Mountain? He's gonna get really weird about corpses. He's gonna turn into the kind of man that would let a murderous ghost he's controlling lay in his lap as he strokes her hair, because for an extended period of time, that is the closest thing to human contact he's had access to.

And later, post-sunshot-campaign, Wei Wuxian does regain access to living humans and society, but he's still incredibly isolated. Just about everyone besides his siblings and Lan Zhan hates and/or is scared of him by the time we hit the scene of him and the fierce corpse girls throwing flowers, so it's no wonder he's hanging out with dead people. He already picked up the habit of replacing company with corpses once, so of course he doesn't see anything wrong with it. Maybe they're there as bodyguards, maybe he's just extremely lonely and doesn't have any human companions to drink with him, or maybe (probably) it's a mix of both. But in any case, it's a pretty clear expression of a horrifying degree of both past and present isolation.

That's why, though he doesn't lose his respect for the dead or his desensitization to touching corpses, we never see him just Hanging Out With Mindless Ghosts in his second life. It's a substitute for real companionship, not a healthy behavior, but lack of company is no longer an issue he has after being resurrected.

He doesn't need an entourage of corpse girls, because this time, when he wants company, he's always got Lan Zhan.

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 32 and Epilogue of Nona the Ninth

(Sorry for the delay, I went to California to attend my cousin's wedding over the weekend, and didn't really have time for writing lengthy tumblr posts.)

The chapter picture is the unlocked Tomb - no need to guess why

I know what she means, and it's a good mental image, but I can't get over the fact that I'm pretty sure that neither Alecto, nor Harrow, nor Gideon ever had the experience of riding a bicycle, and Nona didn't have one on New Rho either

She's so relieved that she won't leave her body to Naberius when she dies, haha

I mean, with the relationship you two have... she probably does, at least to a certain extent

I mean, Gideon becomes attached to literally anyone who treats her decently because of her childhood trauma, so this isn't surprising for her, but I'm a little surprised on Ianthe's part. Although, you know... Ianthe also grew up being the twin that everyone considered less pretty and less talented and less worthy, and she wasn't exactly treated with respect or affection by the other Lyctors or John, so maybe once she figured out how easy it was to gain Gideon's friendship and maybe decided that Gideon wasn't her romantic rival she went in for it, too. I could see Gideon doing something goofy like friendship bracelets

I think it's fascinating how obsessed with Harrow Ianthe is, but at the same time she doesn't actually know anything about what Harrow actually wants. And I guess Gideon never mentioned Harrow opening the Tomb herself to her? Or Harrow telling her that she wanted to see the body wake up? She doesn't mention it here, either, so possibly she's specifically keeping Harrow's secrets from Ianthe because she knows Harrow wouldn't like them to be told

This doesn't make any sense at all. Like I said previously, if John wanted to go to the Tomb and open it and wake up Alecto, he could have gone to the Ninth whenever he wanted to. Even if he was too busy getting drunk and boinking Cohort officers, he could have sent Gideon over there in a shuttle at any point. Like, it wouldn't have worked without Nona, but literally no one including the people who lived with Nona realized she was Alecto until quite recently (except for maybe Corona, who told Nona that she knew who she was, but who knows if she was actually correct). A plan to send Gideon to New Rho, a planet that's about to be eaten by a resurrection beast in the hopes that she would get captured by BOE and brought to the Tomb is just a fantastically dumb plan for someone who has the power to be anywhere in the universe in a short amount of time, and it also relied on Ianthe not interfering, which was never going to happen. But if this is something like, John mentioned something at some point and Gideon got the mistaken idea from that that she could kill Alecto and become John's cavalier, and then Gideon made this plan on her own, that might make more sense. Ianthe later guesses this is about Harrow, which I could believe, except that just like everyone else in this book, Gideon had no idea that Nona was Alecto or that Harrow was in Alecto's body when she first met them and declared that she was coming to open the Tomb. She didn't even know that Nona was dying at that point. I'm sure she mostly wants to save Harrow now, but that couldn't have been her original reason for coming here

Oh come on, Ianthe, you were totally going "gross, old people making out" in the last book. One of the old people was even John!

Is John actually more powerful if Alecto isn't in a coma? That's an interesting question that I think hasn't been answered yet, but I also am not sure Ianthe is really in a position to know the answer to it, either

People do, in fact, have to breathe in order to make pulmonic speech sounds, dude, when people take big breaths in order to say something or in preparation for singing it's not because they need more oxygen

The Herald bullets make another appearance! And also, Pyrrha was plotting to kill John even back when G1deon was alive, I think this makes me believe that Pyrrha does remember what happened before the Resurrection much more so than her offhand comment about disco

Yeah, I know where that's from. But this is kind of weird, since it's making an analogy of John being Jesus and Alecto being God, whereas previously it's been all about Gideon being Jesus and John being God. But I guess Christianity is canonically pretty confused about whether Jesus and God are the same person so

Who is this? Who's saying this? The only person who remotely makes sense is Ianthe, but she's back outside the Tomb being disabled by a Herald bullet

She came back with the news that her father was God himself, and it didn't make a difference in how Crux treated her, and she killed her biggest enemy, her principal abuser, and it didn't feel like a satisfying end to her story or the triumph over evil that she expected it would be as a child. I'm guessing when they eventually kill John it's also not going to be a satisfying triumph over evil

This whole chronology of how John tricked her into getting locked in the Tomb is really chilling, and I'm sure there's probably like a bunch of references to Judas in here that I'm missing. And of course he made a salt water pool, if there's anything at all we learned about her from this book, it's that she loves salt water. He lied to his Lyctors about who she was, he lied about having killed her, and he lied to her to lock her away

So Anastasia did lock herself up in the Tomb, and Mayonnaise Uncle was incorrect that the Ninth House didn't follow John's instructions on that. Presumably she just also had procreated before doing that and had some child outside the Tomb at that point

I'm not sure what Alecto's relationship was with Anastasia. Here it sounds like Anastasia was left there by John to stop her from getting out of the Tomb again, but in the epilogue she seems to be saying that she owes Anastasia a favor?

Hello, @wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess!

The epilogue is written in the kind of English that the bible is written in, and honestly my first thought was "the Earth is a lot older than KJV English" but on second take it really does work, especially with the themes of this story. Is the whole of Alecto the Ninth going to be written like this? Because that probably goes a long way to explaining why it's apparently taking so long to write it, if Muir is having to write it in a language that no one actually speaks anymore, that would be really difficult to edit, and I already found several errors just in this epilogue. What's interesting is that the other characters' dialog is also translated here, which you wouldn't normally do even for the sake of POV

This is the most perfect use of that meme that has ever existed, it honestly goes so much harder in this archaic English than it does with the uwuspeak. I feel like this meme has now served its highest purpose, it can go retire on a farm upstate now

I guess this refers to the zombies? I'm not sure if "all their sleep was perished with a noise" means that she actually did something to kill the zombies or if she just made a loud resurrection beast sound

This is not correct usage of my/mine and thy/thine. They are like a/an, "mine" and "thine" precede vowel sounds any "my" and "thy" precede consonant sounds. Although, I'm going to be honest that the only reason I know this is because the cantor at the synagogue I grew up at turned the English translation of the Shema into an actually fairly nice song and sang it with full instrumental accompaniment at every Friday night service and I was forced to go to all of them, so it's a bit burned into my memory (dare I say that these words are upon my heart) and there's a couple verses in there that exactly show how to use these words:

8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. 9 And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house, and upon thy gates.

and since it literally says "thine eyes" in there, I read "thy eyes" and was immediately like, nope, that's wrong, and so is "mine whole soul" and "mine whole strength", which is odd, since "with mine whole soul and with mine whole strength" almost strikes me as a specific reference to the Shema, which also has the verse "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

(These words have not been written upon the door-posts of my house for like two decades now, whoops)

I wonder what vow she swore to Anastasia and why, especially if Anastasia was left behind to guard her prison? Anyway, this is an interesting development, and I'm curious where it goes. Also, it's interesting that we've switched to formal "you" instead of informal "thou", I assume that's on purpose. I also note that in the earlier Harrow/Ianthe conversation, Harrow is using "you" for Ianthe while Ianthe is using "thou" for Harrow, which reminds me of when Tolkien did that with the conversation between Aragorn and Eowyn where he is rejecting her

But now here we have Alecto randomly switching to refer to Harrow and Gideon as "it" despite the fact that she's been referring to both Harrow and Ianthe as "she" during the rest of this epilogue. So I still have no idea what Alecto's understanding of gender and pronouns is

I'm not sure if this is saying that John and the Mithraeum are actually on Pluto now, or if Alecto traveled through the River to wherever they actually are

There's some questions that still haven't been resolved:

Does killing Alecto actually kill John, or just make him mortal?

Is Alecto telepathic?

How well does Alecto remember her time with Camilla and Palamedes and Pyrrha? Does she remember the free mustache rides shirt?

[nytehavyn-circle]

Tolaas Bluue

Putting this here for all my new followers (and old ones who need a refresher). All about Tolaas. It's expanded from his little blurb on the muses page.

FC: Joe Manganiello Sexuality: Heterosexual

Tolaas Bluue stands at 6’3”.

He’s a fairly attractive-looking 32-year-old; slightly weathered, but looks like he takes care of himself. In actuality, he’s 948. He’s a vampire. But, he’s what’s known as a Living Vampire. (He’ll explain it if asked.)

He has dark brown hair (slightly past his shoulders), the sides pulled back into a ponytail, leaving the back length free. His eyes are a deep brown. He has a stocky face – not thick or large, but strong.

He’s almost always scruffy. Almost a permanent 5 o’clock shadow. He’s got a very mischievous smile.

He’s muscular, but not overly – more thickly athletic and broad-shouldered. He wears a brown duster with many inside pockets (likened to a giant Bag of Holding - a very powerful witch "blessed" his duster as a thank you for saving her life), and several tiny stitched-up areas in the arms (this is where bullets have entered the fabric, and usually into him). He's thinking of getting the duster magicked to be bullet and blade-proofed. He's usually seen in a blue denim, button-up shirt (long sleeves), with faded faded blue jeans, the knees of which are even more faded, accompanied by brown snakeskin cowboy boots with silver tips.

He can sometimes be seen with a large hunting knife strapped to his right outside calf (hidden); two sawed-off shotguns crossed on his back; a katana on his left hip; and a pair of ivory-handled Colt revolvers strapped to his hips. He doesn't wear the shotguns when he's out in public unless he's on a Hunt. And yes, during these times, if he has anyone with him, he’s actually been referred to as a Walking Arsenal. When out in public, he usually just wears his ivory-handled Colt revolvers, secure in their holsters on his gun belt. Sometimes, he'll wear his katana. He also knows when and where he's able to wear his guns without incident.

His personality is that of someone who’s very flirtatious, and fun, but also down-to-earth (for the most part). Sometimes, he can be very blunt. He used to be brutally honest, but he came to realize that the 'brutal' part of 'brutally honest' wasn't worth it, so he's honest, but he tries not to be harsh. He can be abrasive, however. He’s a good guy with a good heart; he's a kind man. But he can't, and sometimes won't, butter things up with a lot of niceties. 

He'll treat people with respect (if they deserve it; the ones he doesn't respect, well, let's just say they'd find out quickly.) He has a high sex drive, but he refuses to do anything without the other's express permission. He firmly believes in consent. He has great respect for women, but he can't help but look; he likes to watch them walk, but he tries not to be a creep about it.

He's a ShadowHunter, sometimes bounty hunter, sometimes bodyguard - but he's definitely someone who likes to help people, and believes he has to protect people. He believes in the goodness that's in the world. (Even if he can be a gruff old bastard sometimes.) But he doesn't find what he does heroic, and even being called a hero embarrasses him. In his mind, he just believes in helping people, and trying to treat them decently; he's trying to make the world a better place. Over the years he has become even softer, gentler, a far distance from the harsh man he was years ago. He's more trusting and more likely to ask for help when needed than to try to do everything alone. But do not push him. Everyone has a snapping point. So does Tolaas, and his is not good.

He was raised in the ShadowLands, which he still visits from time to time.

Here is where I'm supposed to tell you about his past. But I won't. Suffice it to say, he wasn't always such a kind and good man. He's still trying to find forgiveness for himself in the world at large; he's still trying to redeem himself for what he's done.

In the meantime, he can sometimes be found on one of his four ranches - one in Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, and Montana. He spends time at NyteHavyn, too. He also spends a lot of time in some of the most expensive hotels in the world, usually in their largest room - which can be anything from a large suite, to a villa. But mostly New York City (in any number of alternate universes), at the Hilton in their villa on the top floor. It can only be accessed by a black keycard, so one must either know Tolaas or have the front desk call to inform him if anyone visits.

His best friend and mentor is Terran Nytefyer, who also happens to be his Sire. He is fiercely loyal to the man.

Tolaas is polyamorous, and he loves each partner deeply.

(Tolaas is fandomless, but made to be played across many fandoms.)

(Read the AU's link for a better understanding of how they work for my muses)

[vole-mon-amour]

3x12, Jamie edition, part 2.

Roy seeing Jamie and Keeley hugging, asking him out for a bear, letting Jamie fist bump him and suggesting he does this, being excited about spending time with Jamie. When early in the show Roy full on walked away from fist bumping and Jamie had to fist bump himself.

THE GROWTHHHH. I'm so happy for Jamie, honestly. I'm pretty sure Roy's posted was on Jamie's wall way before Keeley's one got there, so to be best friends with your childhood hero/crush... Good for you, Jamie. Good! for! you!

The different ways these two drink. I'm having Thoughts. Also, what are those dog tags, Jamie?

"Worth the wait." I'M HAVING THOUGHTS.

Fucking FINALLY. Tell him he's the best boy. Also, can't get over the looks Jamie always gives him. The never-ending puppy eyes with "Oh? Oh, for real? Ohhh my."

When will they finally kiss?

Older man, lmaoooo. Oh, Jamie. You wonderful, wonderful boy. The daddy kink can easily be a part of it.

Hey, you know how it looks like? "To you dying then." Look at them go.

Friendship? FRIENDSHIP? (stops myself from writing a fanfic right here and now) Oh, you are SO dating.

Roy, what are you, five? No, but for Real? Keeley deserves SO much better. He's insecure af, he tries to push Jamie away from her, he's crushing Jamie under this passive aggressive "She's mine, so don't even think about it."

If anything, if I were to choose from the inside of this triangle, it's Roy and Jamie for me. They WORK. It would fix so much if they kissed and explored each other's bodies. All that "All I need is Keeley & you stay away from here" would disappear.

However, if we're talking het ships (which I dislike but ok), it's Jamie and Keeley for me. I'd love Keeley with someone new. I'd LOVE to, with boys being together. But between Roy and Jamie. Jamie is SUCH a much bigger man than Roy. Jamie has done all the work since s1. No one held his hand, he's done all the work himself. He never ever hit on Keeley again despite all his love for her. He's been respectful of her wishes and never pushed himself on her or on Roy with "She's mine." If anything, he went with "I respect you and your relationship with Keeley" & stayed out of the way.

All Roy canonically does is pushing herself on her and on Jamie about her. Both Keeley and Jamie deserve better than an insecure man that can't get his head out of his ass. It's like one hookup, he went kind of normal, then he's back to his old ways again. Like???

I genuinely think you should have some gay sex. That would fix you a bit, Roy. I'm sure of it. Jfc. Is it me or is Roy incredibly weird this ep? What's with "She's a woman"??? What's that misogyny? You can't talk with a woman without thinking you're back on track to dating her? Keeley told you 'No" numerous of times.

Like, I'll tag it as anti Roy x Keeley, but I genuinely think shippers also should see it. Roy is regressing so fucking fast. You call this the man Keeley deserves? I don't fucking see it. "I don't want to be just friends." Well, she's not ready, why are you pushing so hard? Asshole.

See??? "I'm so insecure, but I'm pushing myself on her so hard, it's happening, we're getting back together, step aside!"

I want to beat Roy with a stick. Like, at actual tree stick, with leaves and all, so he'd understood what he's doing, that idiot.

Anyway, Jamie is such a sweet boy, immediately asking if they're official or not. He gets it.

You tell him, Jamie. Does this change anything for me in terms Roy x Jamie? No. Lol. But omg, I am still so anti Roy x Keeley, you guys. He should learn how to be alone and how to be a decent human being and how to treat people with respect.

I see only one child here & it's you, not Jamie. Grow up. No, tbf, they're both acting like kids, "I was with her first" — "I was with her last." But Roy is.... *deep sigh* My reaction to him is basically Jamie smacking lips and raising his eyebrows. Seriously, grow the hell up.

No but I think she should sit together, all three of them and talk. They don't actually consider what the woman in question wants. Maybe she wants neither of you. In the meantime, Roy and Jamie should kiss. They're going nowhere this way.

"She made that for me." I see hints of Roy getting physical & I swear to god, if he ever touches Jamie in the wrong way, just with one fucking finger, I am so fighting Roy. I can almost see Jamie waiting for the punch and for the need to defend himself. Jamie comes first, everything else comes second. Unless you're gonna kiss him and love him & cherish him, FUCK OFF.

Overall, even with how much I ship OT3, I'm tired of when it's presented like an actual triangle/two people running after one. This is seriously going nowhere & considering this might be our episode EVER, I dislike that very much. And them bickering like children? You guys should fix it.

Like, I had a feeling Roy might try to pull off something like this since he saw Jamie and Keeley hugging and got jealous but omg. *rolls eyes* Be a bigger man for once, will you, before calling Jamie a child?

P.S.:

This sounds SO much like a Phil's interview where he said that he wanted things with Keeley to go Jamie's way. Bc he feels all Jamie's victories and losses the same way Jamie feels.

[queercatboyrights]

thinking about my durge oc and going insane. like imagine you were the leader of a big murder cult and making plans to take over the world with some other freaks and then your sister gets jealous that your evil murder god dad favors you more so she does a little murder about it. stabs your brain full of holes. then you get to be the first person to get some weird worm shoved up in your brain and experimented on. AND that's not even the start of it!!!!

you forget literally EVERYTHING about yourself. stranded on a crashing alien ship with only a name and horrendous murderous thoughts. then you start meeting a bunch of other guys after you and the weird girls that want to kill each other manage to survive the crash. you start to get to know them as you travel together. some of them are kind of weird. some of them aren't even fully human/mortal anymore, but they still treat you decently. hell, they even still save your ass a few times in battle. EVEN AFTER YOU KILL SOMEONE IN YOUR SLEEP while reluctant they STILL manage to treat you with respect and still let you lead the group around.

you don't remember anything about your old life, but these people still fill your chest with a warm fluffy feeling. they do things to help you, even if they don't get much out of it, even when your murderous urges put them more at risk rather then help them out they still come to your aid. you start worry about them, in combat and out of it. you start thinking more strategically about battles and how you can keep your companions from getting hurt, you start taking their feelings into consideration when making group decisions, sometimes even to the point where you don't even know of you *can* make that kind of decision. it drives you mad but you couldn't bear hurting these people who have done so much for you for so little.

and then you start to delve into the thick of the whole illithid/cult mess. you start to pick up more pieces of the story, finding the crumbs of your old life scattered about through it all. you start to get this heavy and gnawing ball of steel all wrapped up in your guts. you wander through the halls of moonrise and **feel** the ghostly eyes of your past haunting you from afar, yet no matter how hard you try you just. can't place your finger on why being here makes you feel so sick. and as you and your party keeps moving forward that feeling only gets stronger. and so do your urges. fighting tooth and nail to not lose yourself. to not lose the companions you've grown to care about so much. to keep that soft warm feeling you've just learned about lingering in your heart. and yet your past continues to try and worm its way back into your life. slowly poisoning everything you now work so hard to try to protect. and you still don't know **why**

you've lost everything, but did it even matter? when the life you couldnt even remeber before was nothing but a cold and empty one? do you even want that so called power your butler tempts you with back? especially if it means losing the people that showed you you could feel more than just...*empty*??

is taking back a life that was forced upon you something you really want?

or do you give it all up? be content in your loss and rejoice in the people and love you've found for yourself, the love that you were never allowed to have before

[stargazer-sims]

Haru: Excuse me? What am I, six years old? You can't take away my internet privileges.

Sarah: I suppose if you want to disrespect and defy me, you'll find a way, but if you know what's good for you, your phone will be in my bag when I leave here today and you'll stay off the computer and everyone else's phones unless it's to call your family.

Haru: What if my grandparents want to call me, but you have my phone?

Sarah: I'll call your grandparents and let them know you won't have your phone for a week.

Haru: This sucks.

Sarah: Ryu, can Haru's grandparents call your phone if they'd like to speak to him?

Ryu: If he hasn't got his, I guess it'd be fine to use mine for the week.

Sarah: Thank you. I'll give them your number.

Keigo: So, that's it? He deletes a post and loses his phone for a week? That still seems stupid and unfair, compared to what me and Senjirō have to go through for literally doing nothing wrong.

Senjirō: *sniffling* I always get the short straw. I guess I should be used to it by now.

Keigo: You shouldn't have to get used to unfairness.

Sarah: I'm not finished yet, gentlemen.

Haru: There's more?

Sarah: There is more, Haru. If you manage to restrain yourself from sneaking onto the internet, you'll get your phone back at the end of the week, but you won't be posting anything on social media unless it's approved by me.

Haru: What?!

Sarah: You do not click 'post' on anything unless I've seen it first. Understand?

Haru: I'm not doing that! It's one thing for you to make me give up my phone for a week, but you can't tell me what to post on my own social media. And how am I supposed to do live streams if you have to approve everything? Are you going to sit there with me while I make videos?

Sarah: I suppose you'll have to stop doing live streams until I can trust you to be responsible.

Taiji: No more 'Marry me, Haru' live streams. Aww... too bad.

Haru: Shut up, Taiji.

Taiji: *snickering*

Haru: What happens if I don't want to go along with these stupid new rules?

Sarah: In that case, we'll be deleting your social media accounts. And before you start crying about how extreme that is, remember who you are and what you're doing. Not only are your image and reputation everything in this industry, you also have a responsibility as a decent human being to take care of those around you. Do you think it was acceptable to take a picture of Keigo and Senjirō and post it online without their permission? Do you think it was kind or respectful?

Haru: I already said I didn't mean anything by it.

Sarah: That isn't what I asked.

Haru: Listen, we're all adults here, and—

Sarah: Yes, we're all adults, which is why I expect you to behave like one.

Haru: If that's what you expect, then maybe treat me like one, too.

Sarah: When you demonstrate that you can behave like one, I will. Now, you can break the rules if you feel like it, but understand that I'm not joking when I say there'll be consequences if you do break them. Am I making myself perfectly clear?

Haru: Yeah. Whatever.

Sarah: Perhaps you didn't hear me...

Haru: *sighing* Okay, fine. Yes, I understand you. I'm sorry.

Sarah: Okay. Give me your phone. We'll revisit this conversation at the end of the week, and you can tell me what you've learned.

[the-firebird69]

And her son says there's nothing I can do stupid people are stupid no sweet dumb s*** to me you want to do dumb s*** and you're big and stuff and send it to Palladio who cares Matt wants you big not Mac but the max I already told you sad says it's lying and he says this respect I know you're not cuz you can have an effect if you look at the truth you don't want to look at cuz he's not treat you so badly you're afraid of what you'll find and so what is your life if you don't find it my thing is you don't find it and didn't find it yet it's 2023. They have an amazing schedule huge huge amounts of code it's everywhere it's on the dollars it's on the 20s the '50s they use you and you resemble a Mac it's like clans specific clans are using you in different characters it is the most f***** up thing you've ever find so he's looking around and he's saying things we do our distractions if you figure out the code you only need certain code level for certain level people. So I got interested in sorry looking at it people looking at now and said he said it back then and it works there's a real jerk that you people are huge stinking assholes what you did today and is going to lend is going to wind you up in prison whether we have control over it or not what you said you wanted to do and these people knew about it too and there's a guy ready to push you off the road it's not special that it's heavier than your truck. We're rather sick of it cuz you don't know anything he's proving something too it took 3 months for him to get peanut butter filled pretzels Publix is doing it that's a very decent product it's low in sugar and it's good for you the bacon they bake it in a lot of sugar gets cooked off in a chlorine bleach and it comes out of it actually makes it expand more so we don't want to hear from you what's looking tired of hearing from you

-we are enacting here the code of ethics and it's for our people he says we already have that and now we do and it's strictly followed in this area is very intense. It's leadership. Some things are going off the deep end one of them was Trump and his quest who after Mephistopheles and he's down there now hunting for him some people say he has a giant name and others say he does not. That's something it's Anakim there's good reason for saying it. The giant to the north of St Christopher people think it as a real old Indians and others said they can hear dark speech and it was from Lucifer talking about them these guys went out there and they demanded to know and they said we're a peaceful people like only 20 of them there so he brought a bunch of stuff damn thought it would be nice I said we don't live in campers anymore but we'll take the stuff and really they were not doing well they needed it. And they heard that the data is okay and they're talking about it just find information about the folklore and they're supposed to send them some stuff and pictures and copies of the book and they did you sent them a bunch of prefab homes and they're so happy that they thanked him and they got on it and started looking and someone said it's very dangerous they call them up and said someone said it's kind of dangerous in space and they said what should we watch out for and they heard computers so looking around and they said we can hear a humming is using gear and it's not Jason it's actually Indians in the same where and they found a computer it wasn't very big it was watching them and Trump went nuts it's like 10 years ago so he dug up information on it and he said this kid is telling me this stuff he doesn't like me and I looked at it and I can't remember what we did and he wants me to remember it and it's like really stupid wants to know if he's holding it and all the sudden stuff so he says it's kind of like Dave's stuff and I'm bothering him so as we know you're bothering me if you don't get off and we're going to cut you in half vertically so painful experience you can try and glue yourself together usually it's a mismatch it said in the low desert but it has a very specific meaning now you're the horse and that's what you act like which is rare. And we do hear what you're saying and we're tired of him so he went out there and started screwing around again and now he's really serious and he's trying to find out what it is and he's also understanding that if the giant gets out he might replace bja and bja might disappear and that could be a possibility

Thor Freya

Olympus

Oh yeah that's pretty cool I like it and he likes it too and he wants to do some work and he has to eat something

Hera

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #142

Ever been to a bonfire party? Yeah.

Have you ever been in a lighthouse? No, but that'd be very cool.

What do you enjoy most about your life? The people in it.

Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret? There's one occasion I can think of, where I snapped at him when I could've pointed out something that bothered me in a nicer way. I did basically immediately apologize for it, being completely unwilling for my impulsive mouth to take part in any argument we may ever have, but still.

How many people with the name Taylor do you know? Girt's very close friend that currently lives with him is named Taylor. I know there has to be a couple more that I know of, but idk.

Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance? Yes. Way too much, specifically about my weight.

Have you ever stripped for someone? No, that'd be way too awkward for me. I'm too self-conscious of my body for someone's attention to be fully on it, and even in high school when I wasn't nearly as bad, I still don't think I would've been able to.

Have you ever wanted to believe in something, but couldn’t? Yes, the most obvious in my life being religion. Even as a child, I just had so many doubts, so much didn't make sense, but I'd shut myself up whenever I let myself wonder about it in fear that I would abandon religion and go to "Hell." Christianity is such fucking fear-mongering and I can't stand it.

Do you know how old your dad is? Exactly 60 now I think; I actually thought he was 60 already, but he mentioned being that number at his birthday lunch, so. I'm regularly one or two years off with my parents' ages.

Were you sad that Panic! at the Disco broke up? I've never listened to them a whole lot, but yeah, they're still a band I enjoyed and knew since what, being a pre-teen or maybe younger? I completely and entirely respect Brendon's decision to prioritize his wife and oncoming child, though.

Did you cry when you watched The Notebook? I have at least teared up at the end every single time I've watched it.

Have you ever attempted to beat box? lol no

When was the last time you saw your “first love”? The beginning of February 2017.

Who’s the smartest person you know personally? Girt, he is super intelligent.

You can’t feel pain for an entire day. What would you do? Hm, if I had the appropriate funds, probably get this really big and detailed tattoo I want on my upper left arm/shoulder area. It's probably gonna be the most expensive shit I ever get done and will certainly take a majorly long time, so it'd be great to not feel it, haha.

Who makes you the happiest? Girt.

Do you think that deep down, everyone is good at heart? Uh, no. I think we've seen enough proof of that in the world.

How many people have you kissed? Four.

How many of those people are you still friends with? Just one, Girt, and we're still dating.

Where did you go, the last time you left your house? My county's medical complex, where I do physical therapy.

Did you ever see the movie Good Burger when it came out? Not when it came out, but I have seen it and love it.

Say something nice about someone you really don’t care for: He loves his kids a lot. But Mom and I both see that he treats Aubree (not his biological daughter) somewhat differently, which is absolutely not okay. Like yeah, he's decent enough/definitely not awful, but there is absolutely a difference in how he treats her versus Ryder and Emerson.

Would you say that you’re popular? lol no

Would you say that you’ve been in love with someone? I know I have twice.

What do you consider to be the most profound of emotions? Complete, genuine love. Both romantic and not.

What brand of deodorant do you wear? Secret.

Do you believe that love isn’t right for everyone? Uh yes, aromantic people exist. Not everyone wants a romantic relationship, and that is perfectly okay.

If you could only love one person, would you choose yourself? Ugh... I realistically don't think I would. I should, but I know myself.

What’re your brothers/sisters like? If you don’t have any, do you wish you did? Nicole: extremely independent, ambitious, and determined, and pretty damn fearless. She is a very hard worker and a legend of a children's social worker, a literal hero, and she's entirely open about who she is and you're either gonna take it or leave it. She's the person that'll say things you're too afraid to, and she has a strong moral compass. I look up to her a lot. Ashley: I barely even know what's really her anymore tbfh, Mom and I (and probably Nicole, I cannot see how she couldn't) have both seen her change so much since her marriage, and not in a good way. She's a very dedicated mother, but has become a submissive follower of whatever her husband and in-laws want. She's constantly stressed out and just not the person I knew growing up. I worry about her. Katie: she's the sibling I'm most like. We're introverts and both deal with bipolarity (but I'm pretty sure hers is bipolar 1, if I remember right), and have bad mental health histories. She's a brilliant cake decorator. I wish I got to see her more; that goes for the next two, too. Misty: she's a firecracker that changes for absolutely nobody and wears her beliefs and what she loves on her sleeve. She's a Harry Potter addict and a MASSIVE reader, like her dream is to own a big library. She's also very into witchy stuff and considers herself one. She has some WILD beliefs (I'm not attaching that to her considering herself a witch, this is a completely independent thing), some that are very problematic and straight-up ignorant, and she often makes me roll my eyes on social media with some of the bonkers shit she posts, but I mean I still love her. Bobby: just a straight-up good man. He's very intelligent with a fantastic heart and values, and he is probably the best dad I have ever met in my entire life, and a fantastic husband. He loves being outside and partakes in a lot of running events and jogs and hikes regularly.

Do you consider pets family? If you don't, you don't deserve pets, like at all.

Have you lost a family member recently? No, thank fuck.

Is there anyone you would take a bullet for? If so, who? I'm not going to list them all, because it's honestly a very big number.

What job does your significant other have? He works at a tire factory.

What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? A boxer mix named Cali.

How long has it been since you moved out of the house you grew up in? Oh I have no idea, a very long time.

The last time you ate leftovers, what was it that you were eating? Pasta with normal marinara sauce.

What are 5-10 things you love about being you? The people in my life, my love for animals and nature as a whole, I try my best to be a good person that encourages love, I'm creative, and uhhhhh... I'm empathetic and like to comfort people.

What is your favorite board that you've made on Pinterest? it's just a collection of Rammstein pics y'all 😭

What is your favorite apple-flavored treat? Uh... maybe an apple cobbler. I really enjoy apple-flavored lollipops, too.

Have you ever met anyone named Eden? No, but that's a beautiful name.

What is your favorite type of tree? Wisterias, weeping willows, and sequoias/redwoods (I know they're different, I'm just grouping them together cuz I can't tell the difference lol). Cherry blossoms are also noteworthy.

Have you ever had a spaniel for a pet? Yes; Teddy's mother was a cocker spaniel (he got like, zero traits from her lol), and supposedly Dale was part cocker spaniel too, but he looked more like a goldendoodle to me.

Do you any of your family members have birthdays on a holiday, and if so, which one(s)? Yes; my oldest half-sister was born on the 4th of July, my brother was born on Earth Day, and Nicole's birthday sometimes falls on Easter.

Which medication(s) do you feel have helped you the most, and why? Latuda with Lamictal used as a catalyst very literally saved my life. It's the reason I've healed this much from the breakup and found hope. I only ever stopped it because my body stopped responding to Latuda after some years, but thankfully I've never returned to the low that I constantly was prior to it. Intense therapy at the same time also helped without a doubt.

Is your current doctor a male or female? My primary care physician is a man, which I dislike, but he's a fine guy. My psychiatrist and therapist are both women.

What type of soda do you drink most regularly? Mountain Dew.

Do you like the band Seether? I do.

Do you have asthma? I suspected it my entire life, and fucking finally I'm supposedly getting some test for it the next time I see my PCP. It's way fuckin overdue, but I don't think even my mom knew there was a legit test for it until it was a topic brought up in physical therapy.

Have you ever performed on stage? What did you do? Yes, I danced for a very long time.

What is your favorite video game? Silent Hill 2, there are no words for how much I adore that game and the emotional journey it takes you on.

What’s your screen name? In the vast majority of places, it's Ozzkat, but not all.

When did you graduate from high school? 2014.

Are you planning to have a family? When? Not kids, no. Just lots of pets, so long as we can properly provide for each one.

What is the one thing people say about you the most? Uh... probably that I'm quiet, at least in real life.

What have you done that you’re particularly proud of? Healed as much as I think is possible from a very traumatic breakup.

How many televisions do you have in your house? Three, but one (it's very small) isn't up at all times.

Do you use your hand when you speak? YES, I am an extreme hand-talker; I do it without realizing it, but know I absolutely do.

What is your dream car? I don't care, odds are I'll never drive anyway.

Have you lived around here long? I've lived in this general area/county my entire life.

What do you do to pull yourself out of a bad mood? Talk to Girt, Mom, or Mazzy and Tez, watch something funny on YouTube, sometimes naps are a good "reset" on my mood if I'm down for no real reason, and often a Tumblr scroll will help, haha. Doing something productive is also helpful, but often when I'm really down, I don't have the strength to do it.

Why do girls follow each other to the restroom? Safety.

Who do you talk to most on the phone? My mom.

Are you pregnant? I can assure you I'm not.

Do you like poetry? Write poetry? I love poetry; I've written a lot of it and want to do more, as well as read more.

Do you know anyone who has any STDs? I'm aware of one person who has one, but I'm 100% positive I know more than just her without being aware of it. They're more common than people tend to think.

Have you ever taken a shower with someone that is not a family member? Only as a little girl, with a best friend. I have zero interest in doing this as an adult.

First type of porn you have ever watched? (ie. lesbian, hentai, threesome) I've never watched it and have a negative amount of interest in doing so.

Has any of your partners had sex with someone else? Not while we('ve) dated, no, but both serious partners have done so before we dated.

[thatbadadvice]

Help! My Son Can't Be A Bully Until He Beats The Shit Out of Somebody!

Care and Feeding, Slate, 9 February 2021:

My second grade son has been called a bully by two classmates and their parents. Yet nobody, including his teacher, says that he has ever laid a hand on anyone, because we don’t condone violence in our household. My son is known to tease other kids, but that’s what every second grader does! Have we become so sensitive as a society that kids can’t poke fun at each other without being labeled bullies? If these kids can’t handle that, then the real world will eat them alive. How can I tell these parents that their kids need to toughen up? —Soft Parents Equals Soft Kids

Dear Soft Parents Equals Soft Kids,

We have become so sensitive as a society that kids can't poke fun at each other without being labeled bullies! These kids can't handle it and the real world will eat them alive! Your seven-year-old is just doling out the tough love that these soft-ass parents are too afraid to give their children!

You don't need to tell these whiny baby parents anything. You need to ask them this: Why should it fall on your second-grader to be the demeaning drill sergeant these kids need to ensure they don't grow up to be daisy-faced wuss babies? Shouldn't it be any halfway decent parent's job to continuously tease and taunt a child into believing the world is full of pain and the only way to get out alive is to cause as much hurt as possible on the way, treating people as disposable dummies, never caring for the damage our behavior does to anyone under any circumstances? This is a normal and healthy and good way of viewing the world, and it definitely does not have a whiff of desperate, lazy, defeatist default to the worst possible tendencies of humankind!

Besides, your kid is already refraining from pounding the ever-loving shit out of these wimps, and they have the gall to critique his methods? And if your son is these piddle-britches' surrogate meandaddy, does that make you their grandparents? They better hope so, for their own good! Otherwise they'll probably grow up to have thoughtful exchanges with friends and family and treat people kindly and politely! And then how will we get them to buy into paradigmatic patriarchal tropes that valorize people beating the shit out of each other for fun and profit (mostly profit!)?? It's a slippery slope! Too fucking slippery, if you ask me! This slope needs to toughen the fuck up or else it's going to grow up to be a major pussy! Fuck!

When and only when your son pummels the ever-loving shit out of one of these miserable-ass weaklings, then we can have a conversation about who is a "bully." Physical violence is the sole measure of whether a person can inflict harm on another, and your blameless, tough-ass baby is certainly not about to do that as a result of being given unbridled permission and encouragement to cross people's boundaries and tease and taunt them mercilessly like a real man second-grader, because your family has standards.

It's a good thing your son rolled into this cotton candy-ass situation to eat these kids alive — non-violently, because we don't condone violence in this household — and beat them black and blue — figuratively, there's zero-tolerance for violence here — with a good smack in the face — symbolically, of course, laying hands on others is against our most deeply-held values — before the real world gets the chance!

Don't make your mean, shit-talking kid hide his mean, shit-talking light under a mean, shit-talking bushel, or else he may learn appalling habits such as connecting with people deeply on an emotional level, respecting others' boundaries, and finding goodness and satisfaction in joyful, mutually consensual play and appreciation. And what kind of jackass prick wants to live in a world like that?

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

[placebogirl7]

Kinoshita: Ren's assistant and "voice of conscience"

I decided to make an analysis about one of the most underrated character in Nana (also because he doesn't appear that much) but who I appreciate so much. Prepare yourself for a very long post to read because my beloved Kinoshita deserves it! ;) Kinoshita has been introduced as Ren assistant: his role is to drive Ren home when he's too tired, to remind him his schedule, to help him with whatever he needs. Kinoshita is also a big fan of Ren, so he's excited to have the opportunity to work with his idol. When we first see him in the manga, he's driving Ren home after a long day work. He's fashinated about Ren's expensive car and when Ren tells him that it's just a car and he doesn't matter about apprearance unlike Takumi, Kinoshita says to him that he's very talented and rich but he's not ambitious despite this. He also says that he let Takumi have control even his music and that it's when he plays punk music that he gives is best. Kinoshita is firmly convinced that Ren soul belongs to punk and that's the kind of music he should do. Probably in the old days he would have been a huge fan of former Blast! XD He sees the potential of Ren and he's aware that Takumi is "suppressing" it asking him to write songs more suitable for Reira's voice (which is definitely not punk).

At first Ren laughs about Kinoshita's words, because they just seems the words of an excited fan, but later he realized that maybe those words werent' that stupid. In fact, during a talk with Takumi, the latter says something that immediately make Ren remind of Kinoshita. Takumi basically confirmed what Kinoshita himself said before: Ren shows his best when he act like a rebel punk and he plays punk music. Can we just spend one minute looking at Ren's face expression in the last image of the panel below? He's smiling, but there's a sad expression on his face after he realized that Kinoshita's words were right. I think in that moment Ren realized what he had left behind and the fact that he's not free as he was in the past. He has to play the role of Trapnest's guitarist and he can't be anymore just Ren Honjo. Suddenly Takumi's kingdom was not so bright anymore compared to his own one little kingdom he abandoned.

So we can say that Kinoshita is the first one who really realized Ren's real potential and he has no fear to tell him directly.

Another thing that I appreciate about Kinoshita is exactly that he doesn't have fear to tell what he thinks and he has the courage to do it even about Takumi. Despite his evident bad attitude, nobody in Cookie staff has the courage to rebel against Takumi: they just wait for hsi orders and obey to them even if they don't agree. But one day, while talking to Ren, Kinoshita finally expresses what in my opinion is the thought of everyone: they are just little soldiers at the service of Takumi. He respects him and he recognize that he's an excellent business man, but he's not good when it comes to treat people in a decent way. He lacks of empathy and of other things on a human level. Even if Ren doesn't seem to appreciate this, I think Kinoshita was totally right and also I love how he feels at ease to confess to Ren his thoughts and opinion: he doesn't seem to simply consider Ren as an idol or a person he has to take care of but as a sort of friend to whom he can feel free to talk.

Later in the story, Kinoshita starts to re-evaluate Takumi after he found a solution to stop the scandal between Ren and Reira. He understands that Takumi actually cares about the band and its members and he carefully thinks about everything to avoid bad situations or loss that may bring damages to Cookie Music. Also, he doesn't see himself anymore only as Ren's assistant (like he has done until that moment) but he starts to see himself as a "vassal" of Trapnest, embracing Takumi's vision that he had criticized before. Ren is very happy to know that, look at his smile.

And now let's talk about Ren's drug addiction and how Kinoshita reacts to that. Of course Kinoshita knows about Ren's problem but he also knows he can't do a lot to be helpful. When Ren tries to get rid of all the cocaine he has but then starts to suffer from withdrawal, while they are driving to Cookie Music, Kinoshita notices that Ren doesn't feel good at all and tries to convince him to go to the hospital instead of going to work. Ren won't listen to reasons and yell at him to bring him at Cookie Music (knowing that Narita will give him drug). In the end Kinoshita obey to his order, but since he's really worried and not satisfied he later decided to call Takumi and inform him about Ren's conditions. Despite he doesn't like Takumi, he knows that he's the only one he can ask for help because Takumi has something he lack of: the power to find a solution even to the most complicated things. The binomial hate-admiration that Kinoshita has for Takumi is evident from the beginning to the end of the serie. I won't put images of the above mentioned scenes because Tumblr allows you to put only 10 images per post and I need to reserve the space for other images of more important scenes, but I'm sure you all remeber both the scenes I mentioned.

Another thing I want to point out is Kinoshita's vision about Nana and Ren's relationship. We can say that he has always been very considerate about their relationship and he never doubted even for a second that Nana wasn't sincere about Ren. He had understood from Ren that they truly loves each other and he sincerely wanted them to stay together. The little panel below is an example of this: Nana and Ren were having hard times and they rarely met each other. They had just found a new house but they couldn't spend time together in it and Kinoshita seemed to be very sorry because he saw how much Ren needed to stay with her.

Another scene were he demonstrates he cares for Nana and Ren's relationship is when Search publish that scandalous article and all the media start to talk about this, inventing fake things. Ren doesn't say a word and Kinoshita encourages him to do what he want, telling him that if he wants to spend good words about his girlfriend in front of the reporters, he won't prevent him from doing it. He says to Ren "follow what your heart tells you to do", which is the same thing that Yasu himself had told him in the bathroom during the Trapnest Vs. Blast show, when they spoke about Ren's drug addiction and Nana's hyperventilation attacks. Again, Kinoshita is acting like a supportive friend to Ren and not only as a mere assistant. When Ren refuses to do it and defines his old band members and friends (including his girlfriend) "old thrown away partner", Kinoshita seems shocked by that reaction. I personally was shocked too when I read it, because Ren really acted like a jerk in that moment. He put his career and Trapnest above his love and realtionship and friends, acting like Takumi would have acted, and so for Kinoshita (who in that moment still didn't appreciate Takumi for this) it must have been disappointing to see him acting in that cold way towards his lover and friends who were being accused.

Later, while Trapnest are in London, Ren realises that he acted like he didn't care and he reminds of Kinoshita's words (exactly like it happened when he told him he gave his best when he played punk music).

When Ren and Nana separate and Ren refuses to go fetch her because he feels ashamed to meet her and tell her about his drug addiction, Kinoshita takes the initiative and decide that if Ren needs to be encouraged to go to Nana, then he will be the person who will encourage him. He knows that Ren needs Nana and he hopes that reuniting with her could help him to feel better and convince him to stop taking drugs. While they are in Ren's car driving towards Cookie Music and Ren is talking about this with Hachi on the phone, Kinoshita asks him where Nana is in that moment and when he answers "Osaka", Kinoshita immediately change direction and starts to drive towards Osaka.

Again Kinoshita brings out his rebel side and affirms that he can't do what the staff expect him to do or follow Takumi's orders: he's convinced that he's doing the right thing (and he was definitely doing it in my opinion). He blames again Takumi and his way of handling the situation, knowing that what Ren needs is professional help and a break to recover, but Ren suddenly brings out the reality of the fact: he's not disappointed by Takumi or the staff, he's disappointed by him, his own hero, the idol he estimates so much. Kinoshita doesn't know what to answer, he doesn't want to hurt Ren and probably he doesn't want to admit to himself that Ren is right. In the last scene of the panel below, Kinoshita's expression is very sad because he realized that there's nothing he can do anymore to help Ren. He did his best but he failed. I think it must have been hard for him to realize that.

I think we can make a comparison here: Kinoshita has always idealized Ren exactly as Nobu did. They both saw Ren has an invincible hero, a perfect creature to admire and they wish to be like him, but then they realized that not all that glitters is gold and that Ren wasn't as perfect as they saw him. He was actually more fragile then them and they feel powerless because they knew they couldn't do anything to help him. When you idealize a person so much and then you discover that person isn't as you saw him/her, then you feel disappointed and that's what happened to both Kinoshita and Nobu.

Last but not least, after Ren's death Kinoshita tries his best to complete what Ren has left incomplete. His thoughts aren't for Trapnest's future or Cookie Music or for his work: his thoughts are for Nana, just like the last thoughts of Ren were. Kinoshita's mission is to be a sort of "emissary" who has to bring to Nana the feelings Ren was going to express her, his last words, his thoughts for her. The scene below is so sad but I love it, it's one of my favorite in the manga. Looking at Kinoshita crying while saying that "Please, accept it" breaks my heart evry time. He's literally begging Nana to take that present which Ren wanted to give her but didn't manage to, he wants Ren to be happy wherever he is in that moment, knowing that his wish has been fulfilled.

So, after all this recap of Kinoshita's moments, I think we can say that he's not only a mere assistant for Ren, but he's also a friend. His feelings for Ren are sincere, he doesn't praise him because he wants to keep his work, he praise him because he sincerely admire him. Kinoshita knows Ren needs and try to help him as much as he can, not only with his work but even more with his personal life. And if we consider all the times he has said something and Ren hasn't taken him seriously, but later realized how much he was right, we can say that Kinoshita's role in the story is to be Ren's "voice of conscience", that voice we all have inside us that says to us what is the right thing to do (but we often ignore it like Ren did). Kinoshita is a sort of mixture between Yasu and Nobu: he gives Ren the same advices as Yasu would have given him and he admire him like Nobu did. I think this is a good thing for Ren, because now that he's not a member of Blast anymore he doesn't have much time to see his old and true friends (not that Naoki and Reira aren't his friends but...well, in my opinion they can't be compared to Yasu and Nobu), so having Kinoshita near is like having a part of his friends with him all the time.

I hope this super long post hasn't annoyed you and I hope now we can all love Kinoshita together because he deserves a lot of love for what he did ♥.

Nana Week 2021 Day 1 Prompt: side character

[giorno-plays-piano]

Money, Money, Money Part 1

Pairing: mob!Bucky Barnes x Reader, slight Peter Parker x Reader

Warnings: lots of swearing, silly drunk mobs, mentions of alcoholism, parody, Peter is adult, is this a crack fic??

Words: 2578.

Summary: When Steve finds out somebody has stolen their money, Bucky realizes he has to take his ass off the leather couch in his office, finally.

P.S. This is my first attempt to write humor and I’m sorry in advance for everything I’ve written here 😅

_________________

“BITCH, DID I STUTTER WHEN I SAID TO KEEP THAT SAFE CLOSED AT ALL TIMES?”

Allyson massaged her temples softly and let out a groan: if Mr. Rogers continued to yell like that, he would definitely choke soon. This morning he had been pretending to be the death, vengeance and fury, ready to kick the ass of her immediate superior, James Barnes, who acted like he was deaf, unable to pull himself from the couch where he slept after getting drunk as a fish last night. Oh, poor Bucky. Apparently, he fucked things up again if Mr. Rogers stormed into his office like he was getting chased by a 200-pound dog.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you son of a...” glancing at a pouting man-child with a three-day beard, Steve covered his face with his palm and let out an exasperated sigh, “... respectable woman who would die of shame if she saw you now!”

“Come on, Stevie,” the man yawned, finally moving his huge, muscular body up to sit instead of just laying on the couch since he felt a little guilty Steve was getting all riled up while he just chilled, “why so serious? Yeah, somebody took a bit of cash from the safe, it’s not a big deal.”

Allyson heard everything as if they were speaking right in front of her - Bucky was a real Mr. Cheapo who didn’t want to rent an office with decent walls - and quickly closed her ears, wishing she had taken her earplugs today. Her boss just made a grave mistake, and now both of them were going to pay for it with their eardrums.

“NOT A BIG DEAL? NOT A BIG DEAL, YOU MASSIVE BAG OF DOUCHE?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY WAS THERE, HUH?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THOSE MONEY WERE FOR?!”

Seriously, she considered getting a new job, but these free daily standup shows were both tiring and so fucking funny she was afraid she might wet her seat.

“Oh my fucking God, Bucky, I swear I’ll kill you, I’ll... no, I have a better idea!” Steve gave his best friend a dirty look. “I’ll call your uncle. Yeah, you know which one. He’ll be sooo happy to take you drunk ass to jail and then give your mama a call. I bet she has a cure for both your attitude and alcoholism.”

“You wouldn’t do that!”

Suddenly realizing the danger he was in, Bucky quickly got up, almost falling to the floor but holding on the leather chair in the very last second. When Steve talked about calling his uncle, a chief of police of the neighboring town where his whole family lived, it meant things were going bad. Real bad.

“Bucky, it was the part we were going to invest into Pierce’s casino. I have to take it to him tomorrow morning. TOMORROW FUCKING MORNING, DO YOU HEAR ME, YOU STINKING DRUNK?”

“I’m drunk but not deaf, Steve!”

“Oh my God, I’m driving you to a rehab, go gather your stuff right now!”

Allyson sighed, getting up and proceeding to choose the most beautiful cup to fill it with fresh coffee: when their conflicts escalated to threats, it meant her boss would soon start to sweet-talk, apologizing to his best friend and promising to sober up and get things right. Every time she felt like Mr. Rogers would really do something to Bucky, the guy used his natural charisma and charm and got away with anything by just reminding Steve how he fought for his best friend in the dark alleys when Rogers was a sick, skinny kid. It worked every damn time.

There they were again, talking about same things with Bucky swearing on his mother’s life that he will find the money and bring it back to Steve. Usually it meant the threats were coming to an end, and soon Mr. Rogers would open the door and come out red as a lobster, breathing heavily as if he just ran a marathon. There he would see her with a cup of nice coffee with cream and two spoons of sugar just like he preferred, gladly accepting it and saying nobody understand him but her. Then Allyson would smile compassionately, listen to his small talk before he went out the office, and wait until her grumpy boss would fall out the room, reeking alcohol, and ask her what the fuck had happened yesterday.

After that in a couple of minutes things would finally settle down, and Allyson would have a chance to give a call to her best friend.

_______________________________

Your day couldn’t start better: you had finally received your Amazon order - hooray to the stupid makeup tools you would use, like, once a year - and even watched your favorite Netflix series with a cup of a fragrant coffee with marshmallows because it was Sunday and you were finally free from both work and cleaning the apartment. It felt so nice to just do absolutely nothing, laying on your couch with a piece of pizza in your hand. Seriously, even a workaholic like you had to do it more often.

Your lazy morning was interrupted by Peter, a sweet college student who was getting into troubles more often than a drunk in a local bar: you seriously considered calling him Harry Potter after you found him half-naked with a scratch on his forehead standing in the corridor of your building and holding a broom. To protect himself from bullies, he said, by the look on his face you could tell it was as good as a magic wand against 6"4 ft tall guys, seriously.

Since he rented an apartment with other unlucky nerds who had zero skills how to survive in this cruel world, you ended up nearly baby-sitting Peter, patching him up after he was getting in a fight and lending him some money time after time when he struggled to pay rent or buy food. His parents were elderly people with income below average, but they still did whatever they could to give him an education, so you decided to give the guy a hand.

Now that baby was standing in front of you, lit up like a Christmas tree, with a bouquet of wonderful pink roses, big box of hand-crafted chocolates and a whole bag of what looked like some very fine food, even a bottle of champagne clinking inside.

"Good morning, Fairy Godmother! I came to bring back what I owe you!" His smile was a mile wide when he looked at your face, happy to the point he couldn't stand still, dancing like those Duracell rabbits in the tv ad.

"You're up early, Cinderella."

You yawned, laughing when you saw the guy pouting at the nickname you gave him - tf he expected for calling you Fairy Godmother?

"Don't stand there, come in."

When he actually handed you the flowers and chocolates, giving you a quick peck on the cheek shyly, you froze, finally realizing he brought all this for you. Wait, what? Where the heck did he get so much money to buy that expensive stuff? You thought he was helping his other neighbor who was planning to finally propose to his girlfriend. Perplexed to the point you nearly missed that peck, you blinked at tomato red Peter.

"Please don't tell me you robbed your 90-year-old paralytic professor."

"Why don't you ask if I robbed a bank?" He pouted again, putting the bag on the floor and getting a hundred dollar banknote out of his old leather wallet. "I actually came to thank you for everything you've done for me. And I didn't rob anyone! I got a real job!"

"Real job?" You eyed him curiously. "But don't you already have a job in delivery?"

"Pfft, you can't call it a job. It was getting one nasty smelling pizza from one place to the other while looking miserable."

You barely held your laugh, leaving the bouquet and chocolates on the side table and rubbing guy's back. Poor Peter, nobody was giving him a hand - while you couldn't question people's decision since the guy wasn't the most reliable one, it was still a shame he wasn't treated decently as if all of them weren't young and careless once.

Wait, but who on Earth gave him such a well-paid job all of a sudden? He must have spent hundreds of dollars on the bouquet, chocolates, food and champagne, not even counting those 100 dollars he owed.

Oh God.

"Please don't tell me you're working for some shady business." You looked at him in horror, your hand flying to your mouth. "Peter, is it Tony's band?!"

"Jesus woman, why would I work for some stupid mob." The guy rolled his eyes, and you sighed in relief, not knowing what to except from this trouble on two skinny legs. “I’m telling you, it’s nothing bad! I just have to keep it a secret before I get a contract. Once I figure it out, I’ll explain everything, I swear!”

“Alright, alright, don’t stress over it, I’m not your Ma.” Smirking, you went to take a square glass vase you hadn’t use in ages, filling it with water to drop the bouquet inside. “Let’s celebrate it, then! Woah, careful there, give me that bottle until you drop it on my clean floor, I’ve been scrubbing it for hours yesterday!”

_______________________

Bucky still felt like Steve was making too much of a big deal out of it: obviously, it was Tony who went to him at night when Bucky was already drunk like a monkey, celebrating the birth of Clint’s daughter. Nobody else had the courage to steal from him, Steve’s right hand, an ex-soldier who had a reputation of a man killing with the first punch. Not that Bucky ever killed anybody, actually being a ex-trumpet in an army band...

Anyway, the man was heading over to Stark’s Tower, a motel where he and all his guys lived when his wife Pepper was out of town. Pepper had definitely been out of town lately since Tony didn’t call: when she was coming back, Steve and Tony were having a two-day truce with nobody getting in a fight because it was making Mrs. Stark upset, and when she was upset, both Steve and Tony didn’t risk getting out of their holes to face this enraged blonde woman who could make anyone wet themselves with one her glance. If there were anyone killing with just one punch in the town, it got to be Pepper.

As he got closer in his Cadillac that looked like it went through fire and water before being sold to Bucky, Barnes stared at the motel suspiciously: it was strangely quiet with everyone hiding inside, not a man guarding the motel’s entrance. What the hell happened? Tony loved showing off, pretending he ruled over the town, and he would definitely act like a king after stealing Steve’s and his money. It was unbelievable Bucky so nobody welcoming him with a smirk.

Hoping he didn’t use all that money for emptying a liquor store, Bucky parked the car and went to the motel, dying to have some beer: one heartless blonde boss of his emptied his fridge.

“Oh, more drinking partners returning to continue the fun, huh?”

Bucky froze immediately, staring at Pepper who stood in the doorway with a face of an iron maiden. Jesus fucking Christ. She returned to the city way before Tony told him, and it was clear she found him not in the condition she expected to. While Bucky considered whether it was better to run, Tony’s head appeared somewhere behind his wife, and Barnes saw Tony was as drunk as him, if not even more. He could see a huge blue mark from Pepper’s heavy hand on Stark’s cheek.

“Who’s that, honey?” The man asked innocently, earning an enraged glance from his wife, and Bucky thought he should have run. “Hi, Buck! Come on in, it’s ok if you didn’t bring beer even if I asked twice.”

Oh. Something was going on. Of course, Bucky could rat the man out immediately, telling Pepper he wasn’t drinking with Tony yesterday’s night, but he wasn’t such a heartless bastard - by the look on Stark’s face Barnes could see his sweet blonde wifey would beat poor Tony to death with her Dior handbag.

“Sorry, I blacked out for a couple of hours in my car.” He mumbled, bowing his head in respect. “Pepper, such a pleasure to see you.”

“Come on in, alcoholic.” Her gaze was heavy, and Bucky shivered a little, carefully leaving his shoes near the door and scurrying away to the coach where Tony sat, nervously biting his fingers. “Well, do you wanna tell me something, huh? How many hookers have you brought here yesterday?”

Glancing to Tony and back to Pepper, Barnes suddenly realized his frenemy had been so drunk he had no hecking idea whether somebody really brought hookers to the motel - it was a total taboo, but once they got drunk they could barely control themselves. Once they literally woke up to a Santa Claus singing Jingle Bells in the tub in the middle of June because Tony missed Christmas.

Of course, Stark would never slip up the night before Pepper was coming back to town, but, apparently, she didn’t stay with her mom for as long as she planned, and Tony was royally fucked.

“I’ve asked you a question.”

And now Bucky was, too, if he didn’t think of something quick. Of course, he could tell her the truth, but it meant losing Tony completely, and Barnes didn’t want that. A real mafioso should have at least one strong enemy, right?

“I’m sorry, Pepper, but I don’t think there were any hookers here last night.” He said, carefully choosing words. “You see, first, Tony never allows us to. Second, we’re good Christians. We would never invite some hookers when we celebrated the birth of Clint’s daughter!”

As he got silent, enjoying the effect his words were having on Pepper, Bucky looked at the man sitting to his right, watching Tony’s eyes watering: it was definitely God himself who sent Barnes his way that morning, saving his from near death. Nothing would work better than this excuse. Clint and all Bucky’s guys were so drunk to the point they barely remembered what had happened, and it would be easy to convince them Tony and his gang came to see Barnes for something and ended up staying with all of them.

Besides, there was a nice bonus Bucky could add to make it work even better.

“By the way, Clint named her Natasha. That’s also the name of your mom, right?”

By the look on Tony’s face the man realized he was ready to sing.

“How did he know my mom’s name?” Pepper eyed Steve’s right hand distrustfully, but he could tell she was less irritated.

“Oh, you know, he and his wife couldn’t choose the name, so we started saying whatever names we knew, and Tony mentioned Natasha.”

For a second Bucky thought Stark was going to kiss him through excess of joy.

When he finally left the motel, getting his pack of beer given him by lovely Pepper who changed the anger to mercy, Tony ran out of the house after him, giving him a pat on the shoulder and whispering quietly, “I own you one, brother.”

Bucky sighed. Stark didn’t take the money.

______________

Tags: @finleyjayne​​ @alexakeyloveloki​​ @helenaeisenhower​​ @villanellevi​​ @hurricanerin​​ @inlovewiththefictionalcharacters @chris-evans-indian-fanfic​ @navegandoaciegas​ @rosalynshields​ @brattycherubwrites​ @sllooney​ @angrythingstarlight​ @lookiamtrying​ @buckysbunny​ @soleil-dor​ @stargazingfangirl18​ @dillybuggg​ @literate-lamb​ @cosicas-cuquis​ @sarge-barnes-sir​ @buckybarnesplumwhore​ @jaysayey​ @megzdoodle​ @gotnofucks​ @lux-ravenwolf​ @iheartsebandchris​ @ximebebx​ @jeremyrennerfanxxxx123​ @sourpatchspinster​

[scripttorture]

Not sure if this would really be relevant, but you're the best resource I can think of for prison systems. In a secluded supermax prison with all male staff & all male prisoners, they suddenly get a single (like 19 or 20 y/o) female prisoner who "can't go anywhere else & needs to be kept heavily restrained." What's the warden's best option for making sure she's safe & treated with respect for the first few days/weeks till they can get female guards? Modern setting, mostly American style prison.

I feel like I know enough about this to be helpful but I’ve never claimed to be an expert on prisons and I think you should try to double check what I say. Partly because I think that the ‘best option’ in a case like this would be heavily biased by opinion and what you consider the best outcome to be. I don’t want you to mistake my opinion for fact or discount the idea that you might think differently presented with the same evidence.

 I also think this is the kind of case where there’s a big difference between what should happen and what would likely happen.

 It’s also worth stating at the outset that, in my opinion, the American prison system is set up in a way which inherently makes abuse more likely. And that makes a difference. When the system itself is already set up in a way which makes torture more likely the efforts of individuals within those systems are… less likely to be effective.

 We’re talking about a system where solitary confinement is the first rather then the last resort. Use of solitary confinement over the safe period (1 week) is routine, with prisoners in maximum security facilities often being kept in isolation for months or years.

 Which causes mental health problems to a disabling degree and drastically increases the chances of suicide or self mutilation.

 Rape is still common and while it’s often discussed in terms of attacks by fellow prisoners, a lot of attacks are by guards. Especially when you’re talking about women prisoners and juvenile prisoners. Incidentally it was only in 2012 that the US started recommending against cross-gender searches of women prisoners.

 And a lot of guards in American women’s prisons are men. I found figures of 40% based on data from 2007 and up to 70% for federal facilities from 2011. Both of these were cited figures from books I don’t have full access to. I can’t confidently say how accurate these figures are or how the authors came by them. I can confidently say that there are male guards in female prisons and that this has been linked to abuse (based on the testimony of rape survivors in American prisons).

 While we’re on the subject the kind of restraint use I think you’re referring to is torture. You can find descriptions of its use in Chinese prisons over here.

 Essentially humans are not designed to withstand long periods with little to no movement, or holding the same position for a long time. It is unhealthy. It causes a significant amount of damage to the body. Sometimes it’s lethal.

 Now if you didn’t know this that is OK.

 I’m here because I know a lot of this kind of information isn’t common knowledge and that it’s hard to find. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing something, we all learn sometime.

 We’ll circle back to restraint tortures and alternatives in a moment. For now let’s focus on prisons

 I think that the most likely thing to happen in an American prison is that this character would be thrown in solitary confinement and kept there.

 You can read about how harmful that would be here.

 I also think that it’s unlikely an American prison, having decided to house a woman in a male prison, would hire female guards specifically to accommodate one prisoner. And I think a woman in this environment would be especially vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.

 You can read about that here.

 There’s an in-depth Reuters investigation on the deaths of women in American jails that you can find here. It contains a graphic description of a dead baby, born in a jail, as well as descriptions of systemic racism towards black women and abuse of the mentally ill. (Seriously if you’re a black woman and pregnant or a mother of a young child don’t read it.)

 If you want to write a female character being put into an institution designed for men in America… that’s what it looks like. Higher rates of preventable deaths.

 Here’s the thing though: You do not have to make the situations in your story as bad as they are in real life.

 There is nothing wrong with deciding that the characters in your fiction get treated with more care and respect then is the norm in real life. It might not be realistic but we are writing fiction.

 And there is a difference between a story which is unrealistic in favour of the torturer and one which is unrealistic in favour of the victim.

 Having said that: If you want to create a fictional, less abusive prison system for this story it will not look anything like an American prison.

 I have… some rather complicated feelings about the idea of setting the story in America and then presenting the prison system as better then it is. Remember that I am a pacifist and I was raised in Saudi Arabia. I say this because I feel as though the abuses in the American prison system are whitewashed in the media America exports.

 If I was writing a story set in Saudi which involved imagining a better, less abusive prison system I’d feel confident my readers would know this didn’t reflect the reality. I feel like they would understand without being told that I was trying to imagine a better version of my home rather then trying to accurately show the prisons there.

 I do not think that would be the case if you did the same thing in an American setting.

 I’ve talked enough about the negatives. Let’s move on to how we can make this idea work.

 The way I see it the big choice here is whether you want to keep the setting and the abusive use of restraints or whether you want the character to be safe and treated with respect while incarcerated.

 If you’re picturing the character being held in a way that renders her more or less completely immobile (like a restraint chair or a bed) then there’s a pretty decent chance she’d die within the first couple of weeks regardless of any other abuse. There’s a reason restraints aren’t commonly used in hospitals and mental health facilities any more: they increase the chances of sudden death. Even in young healthy people.

 There’s a case you can read about here that’s a decent example. Young, 27 year old man, partially restrained for ten days after a mental health episode. Dead from a heart attack in ten days.

 Obviously not everyone who is completely restrained for weeks dies of a heart attack. But bed sores exist. So do bladder infections caused by catheters and muscle wastage and a host of other ailments that are cured by simply letting someone move around.

 Honestly combined with solitary and the high chance of sexual abuse I think that full body restraint is probably throwing too many tortures into the story. Because all of these individually are complex issues and the harm each of them does is routinely downplayed. Handling all of them in the same narrative would be really tough and the restraints are the easiest one to get rid of.

 If you’re picturing something more like the restraint torture (constantly wearing hand and leg cuffs) described in the Chinese case I linked to above, survival is a lot more likely. That’s to do with the degree of movement victims are capable of.

 A person who is immobile with their muscles under strain is in a stress position. The death rates for those rise sharply after 48 hours. A person who is immobile when their muscles aren’t under strain (eg restrained to a bed with six point restraints) is not in a stress position. But they’re at greater risk of a heart attack or stroke and after weeks they’ll start to develop bed sores (assuming they’re not lying in a pool of their own waste.)

 A person who’s restrained in a way that lets them walk, but slowly, lets them stand, but not straight, is experiencing a restraint torture. They probably won’t get kidney failure (the cause of death in stress positions) and they’re less likely to get a heart attack or a stroke.

 There are still serious health effects. Muscle wastage and weakness afterwards is very common. Survivors of this particular torture tend to report chronic pain and joint problems. I’m not entirely sure what causes this but since it’s very consistent I’d guess it’s a physical effect of long term restraint use.

 Survivors also tend to report some mobility problems afterwards. There’s a loss of fine motor control and often some difficulty performing day to day tasks that require raising and lowering the arms. Like putting on a jacket unaided or hanging washing on a line or taking things down from a cupboard above the head. This could be due to nerve damage, damage to muscles or ligaments at the joints or both.

 These sorts of restraints don’t leave victims in a stress position; which is why they can survive for months or more rarely years while restrained (stress positions are only consistently survivable up to 48 hours.) But nonetheless they do leave victims in a constant state of pain. The restraints dig in. The position and inability to straighten is painful, especially for the joints. A lot of victims report being unable to sleep because of the restraints.

 And sleep deprivation causes it’s own problems which you can read about here.

 I might be on the wrong track here but generally no one has to be restrained. So the inclusion of that in the ask made me think this story might have elements of fantasy, sci fi or super hero genres: a character with a special ability that can only be used under certain circumstances.

 I had a problem with something like that in one of my stories recently. The character in question can manipulate how people think and feel using her voice. And I racked my brains trying to think of a way the police in the story could keep her imprisoned once they caught her. I looked up all sorts of sedatives, thought about solitary and all kinds of over the top abusive stuff that fiction teaches us is a go-to practical solution.

 I didn’t want to use them. I didn’t want her to be tortured.

 And then it hit me: her guards could just wear noise cancelling headphones.

 Sometimes the answer really is that simple.

 Think about this character’s power set, if that’s part of the problem here. Really consider what she can do and how she does it. Have you got an underlying chemical process going on? If it’s magic what’s the cause and effect for it? What are her limits? What is her range?

 Use that to think about when the power breaks down and why. And if you’re writing fanfiction based on a canon with poorly defined magical abilities…. Make something up to define how she does what she does.

 Focus and concentration is a commonly used way of doing this. I saw a brilliant program a while back where the main character actually had no idea how his powers worked and was as surprised and elated as everyone else when they did. I try to come up with strict, simple definitions of a character’s powers/abilities. Then I work to try and find inventive ways of applying that. Find a method that works for you and don’t be afraid to try a few different approaches.

 Unless you’ve written yourself into a corner, chances are this character (like mine) doesn’t need to be restrained or isolated.

 And if you have written yourself into a corner, you can write yourself out of it again. Either with the choices you make now or by going back and editing what you already have.

 On a similar note if you want this character to be in a better, less abusive system does she have to be in a male prison and does she really, absolutely have to be in America?

 Because if you want the lowest possible rates of violence and abuse today that means the Scandinavian prison system. You can find out more about it here and here for Norway.

 You can read more about global prison systems here.

 The gist of it is that there are huge systematic differences. Prison guards in Norway are trained for 2-3 years on specially designed course and the ratio of staff to prisoners is almost 1:1. (For contrast in the UK, which is closer to the US system training takes 12 weeks and the ratio is 1:4.) Prison guards in Norway are well paid, facilities are well staffed and guards are allowed generous breaks and holidays.

 This creates a system where staff are not overly stressed, sleep deprived or pressured to achieve unreasonable ‘results’. Training focuses on conflict resolution, this along with a less pressurised working environment this creates a better overall environment for staff and prisoners. Force is really considered a last resort and staff are provided with the tools, training and support necessary to make that a reality.

 There’s also effort put into the physical construction of these facilities: cells aren’t cramped, overcrowded or unsuitable for human habitation.

 I’m not trying to claim these prisons are perfect. There is still a big trend of prolonged solitary confinement use in Norway and other Scandinavian countries. There is still abuse in prisons.

 But- Well I can’t compare directly with US prisons because I didn’t find statistics using similar measures for violent attacks. However I can compare with the UK. With a prison population of about 3,200 Norway had 181 attacks on staff. The UK, with a prison population of 83,300, had a little over 10,000 attacks.

 I think if you really want to write something with the least potential for abuse then you’re better off imagining an international (or explicitly Scandinavian) institution built more along the lines of the Norwegian system.

 If you’ve got your heart set on an American, male prison being the only place this character can be then I think the ‘best’ thing a well intentioned warden in that position could do is throw her in solitary and have her kept on suicide watch.

 The safe period for solitary confinement is about a week.

 After that she’d start to show signs of mental health problems which would get worse the longer she was held. By about the 1-2 month point these problems are probably going to be permanent. Beyond that the chances of self harm and suicide attempts starts to rise. So does the chance she’ll have a psychotic break and start hallucinating. After a year you’re looking at multiple suicide attempts and chances of self mutilation. By which I mean things like trying to destroy your own hands, legs, face etc.

 The decision about what’s right for your story is always yours. You know these characters, the setting and the kind of narrative you’re telling best.

 Pick the options that best fit with what you want from the story and the characters. Because that’s the best decision for the story.

 But if you’re writing about an abusive system don’t gloss over the abuse. If you’re writing about a torturous practice in prisons (like solitary confinement) don’t ignore the life long damage it causes.

 I hope that helps. :)

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