@samtheacesheep made ya something

what if he actually got possessed

Comerte Entera

Jay White x Female Reader Rating: NC-17 Word Count: 1155 Warnings: Fluff? Enemies to lovers, sexual innuendos, the beginning of smut. Summary: Jay hates the new backstage event coordinator and she hates him back. Inspired by C-Tangana’s song, “Comerte Entera” A/N: Was listening to this today and the first thing that came to mind was enemies to lovers with Jay. Despite the title being in spanish, the story is written in english! (there will be a bit of spanish and portuguese in the mix because of the lyrics.) Also, maybe y’all should listen to the song while y’all read it.

Entera, comerte entera

Comerte—

He met her when he came back to Japan for his full time run. She was a new addition to the administrative personnel that took care and made sure that the shows ran smoothly. Coordinating the team, she took care of the schedules, making sure the talent cut their promo on time and not extending it so it wouldn’t ruin the slot for the next wrestler. It was also under her wing the maintenance of the media room, where the camera people should be positioned, where the wrestlers should cut their promos, if there’s enough water for them or if the air conditioning was comfortable enough for not to cause a heat shock for those who just got back from their matches. 

 No puedo más que pensar

En tu forma de hablar

Roneando, mmm

She was known for having a strong personality, even thought she was friendly and almost a mother to those who worked under her, she was a completely different person when it came to the wrestlers, specially the gaijins. Jay would be amused watching from afar how she handled Finlay and Juice when they decided to act up, he won’t even get started on how he felt when he saw how done she always was with Ospreay and his girlfriend, the only gaijin she was actually friends with was Zack Sabre Jr. 

She was a mystery to most, a mystery Jay would love to solve.

No puedo más que pensar

En tu culo al pasar

Rebotando

All of that curiosity came to a stop when her feisty personality made its way to him. It began when he started to demand that chairs were laid out for him during his segments and she even went out of her way to explain, calmly, to him that she couldn’t have one in front of the camera. 

He took it to heart, and every single week he would make a show about it, about how he wanted his goddamned chair, and she would always tell him “Jay, we run on a schedule, I can’t put on a chair for you and take it off as you please. You know it’s ‘come, say your piece and go’.”

Things got really bad when he decided to grab one poor camera woman and bring her in front of the cameras to demand the fucking chair. She waited for him to end his show, gave him enough time to leave the room and went after him. She doesn’t know what possessed her, but next thing she knew, she had grabbed Jay by his forearm and slammed him against a wall, got on his face and “If you ever touch another person of my crew again, I will end you. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you are the top guy in this company or that I’m getting fired for this, but I will end you.” all Jay did was give her one of his signature “full of himself” smirk as she left. 

“I told you not to mess with her.” Gedo shook his head and left Jay thinking. 

Y en tu forma de atarte el pelo con una cola, para atrás

Quiero agarrarte, no aguanto más sin

Jay wouldn’t admit, but all he had on his mind that week was the way she grabbed his arm, the way she slammed him against the wall and the way her nose almost touched his lips. 

She wouldn’t admit, but all she had on her mind that week was the way Jay cradled the camera woman’s neck on his hands, the way he squeezed her cheeks and the stupid smirk he gave her after she exploded with him. 

Comerte entera (Ey)

Comerte entera (Ey)

Comerte entera (Ey)

Comerte entera (Ey)

On the following weeks, Jay slowed down a bit, still made his chair demands and would make a snarky comment or two towards her when she was nearby, but nothing that disrupted her peace. 

That was until the fateful day where he thought, for some reason, that Yujiro and the Bullet Club were conspiring against him to take his win on the Jay-1. He did what he did best: started screaming around, grabbing chairs out of one of the crew members hand and threw them around, almost hurting a few passers-by. Gedo had to intervene to calm him down, telling him nothing was happening, that no one was turning against him and that he was going to talk to Yuji.

Once again, she waited for them to leave, giving them a few minutes and went after the two men. She found jay by himself, crouched by the door of his locker room. She walked slowly to him, stopping in front of him before speaking. 

“What is wrong with you?”

He looked up to her and laughed, the same laugh he always gave when he was about to lose it.

Essa mina é um perigo (Ey)

É um perigo (Ey)

Essa mina é um perigo (Ey)

É um perigo (Ey)

“What did I tell you the last time you touched one of my friends? What do you want, Jay?”

He propped himself on his two feet in one quick move, opened his locker room door and pulled her him. He was quicker than she could process, and next thing she knows, she is pressed against the door, its knob pressing tight against her back and Jay’s body pressed even tighter against hers, his beard scratching the skin of her face, his lips furiously pulling hers in. She protested a bit before giving in. 

Soon his lips made their way down her neck, leaving wet trails on their path, biting her, marking her, making her moan. She could feel how hard he was and mixed with how rough his touches were, it was driving her insane. She got back to her sane state of mind when she felt one of his hands getting inside her bra and pinching one of her nipples.

“I can’t do this.” she said, pushing him away. 

“I knew you would back out. Fucking weak.”

She slapped him. “I can’t do this right now, you dumb fuck. I still have four segments to film, and I have to wrap up everything.” Trying to get it together, she tied her hair up and smoothed her clothes down. 

Jay gave her a sheepish smile, his cheeks blushing. “Oh, ok. I’m sorry. I’m at the Hilton too, room 1206. Meet me there?” he asked her, shyly, looking like a completely different person. 

“Yeah, two hours top.” 

She was about to open the door when he grabbed her again, held her by the hair and slammed their lips together once more. This time the kiss was slower, both of them making sure to cherish it. Jay finally let her go, smoothing her hair before she opened the door. 

“Bye.”

“Bye, see ya in a few.” she winked. 

→

Chris Terrio on writing BvS - Excerpts from Interview with Anthony Breznican

ANTHONY BREZNICAN: What was your approach?

Chris Terrio: I came into it thinking the only way that this could work is as a fever dream or as a revenge tragedy. I thought, How do we create a story in which Bruce Wayne is traumatized by the war of Krypton coming to Earth, and in which he enters into this kind of madness? He becomes Captain Ahab, and he won’t listen to saner voices, like Alfred, for example, who are telling him to just see reason. He’s a man possessed.

So the film was dark by its nature. As I worked on the movie, it seemed to me that it was a snapshot of what I was feeling on the ground in the country, which maybe didn’t become apparent until the madness and division that came about from the last presidency. I thought this superhero movie could be about getting into our worst natures, but then coming out of that into a redemption.

AB: What did you want to avoid?

CT: I didn’t want to make it a sitcom joke that Batman and Superman are trying to kill each other. If I’m going to work on this movie, it’s going to be dark and operatic, and it’s going to be uncomfortable. Zack and I come from very different approaches to filmmaking, but I immediately liked him because he isn’t cynical and he wears his heart on his sleeve. I’m cynical enough for any room that I enter into.

AB: Another complaint was that Snyder’s DC films were too grim and heavy. Did you feel blamed for that?

CT: The studio seemed to take this position after BvS that my writing was too dark and that this was their problem. But what they didn’t mention was that, for example, in the draft of the Batman/Superman script that W.B. had developed—[which was] the draft I was handed when I joined the project—Batman was not only branding criminals with a bat brand, he also ended the movie by branding Lex Luthor.

That ending was a point over which I explicitly went to the mat with the studio again and again. I argued that Batman cannot end the movie continuing this behavior, which amounted to torture, because then the movie was endorsing what he did.

AB: What was your argument to them?

CT: It’s one thing if Batman begins the movie as a dark version of himself whom we don’t recognize, but he has to see the error of his ways and remember his better self in the course of the movie. By the end of the movie, he needs to be the Batman we know, and he has to be ready to go and create the Justice League. Otherwise, I said, what was the point?

AB: What else did you push back against?

CT: I’m the one who had been saying that we can’t make a joke out of Superman raining hell upon Black African Muslim characters in the desert, as Lois promises that Superman is not going to go easy on them because they punched her. But somehow I’m the person with the dark sensibility? I wanted to say, “I’ve been saving you from yourselves! I’ve been working with the director to bring a voice of conscience and sanity to the almost perversely dark film you’ve been developing for years, but I’m the problem here?”

AB: Did you feel you were able to significantly change that Africa scene with Superman for the better?

CT: I removed the punch [of Lois], for one thing. Just think about the optics of that. I was able to add material to the film and asked the movie to grapple with what that [battle] meant, so that it didn’t seem like a casual scene of Superman intervening in this way without reckoning with the consequences of intervention. I placed that in context of a moral question. Superman says, “Think of what could have happened,” and Lois says, “Think of what did.”

AB: That sequence takes place in a fictional African country called Nairomi, and there’s manipulation happening with Lex Luthor and his American mercenaries trying to provoke conflict and frame Superman. After Superman rescues Lois, the film shows the people of that region truly suffering in the crossfire.

CT: Without sounding too political, it’s not lost on me that much like a drone, Superman sort of comes from out of nowhere from the sky and vanquishes his enemies and then flies off with no consequences. That may not have been an angle on Superman that people wanted to see and wanted to think about.

AB: Did you also add the scene with the character Kahina Ziri, who was a witness to the battle, testifying about the aftermath in Washington, D.C.? Ultimately, we learn she was coerced by Luthor, but her testimony does make the audience, and Clark Kent himself, reevaluate his actions and how he operates.

CT: Yeah, that was added afterwards. I added that scene. “He came down, and then came fire.” The story that she tells, at least in the script, is that he destabilized the entire region, and then government forces came in and slaughtered the village. Since these were the optics that already were in the movie, I thought that my job was to ask questions and say, “What do we actually mean by this?"

AB: You’re pushing back against some of these scenes, and you’re saying that the studio wanted these things, but you also had to convince Zack, right? So was Zack Snyder open to these kinds of criticisms?

CT: When I would talk to Zack about some of these things, I think he got it. We discovered that we were on the same page and that he loved the idea of a scene in Congress with this African woman describing the consequences in her village. He right away sparked to that and got excited about casting that character [with actor Wunmi Mosaku, now known for Lovecraft Country] and thought she could be a very important character for the movie. So Zack was quite open to all this stuff, and I thought the studio was too.

A R C F O U R

It’s a happy finale, the friends are reunited after a fun night of crashing a ball and dressing up ! It looks like happily ever after <3 (but it’s not I’m sorry there’s more to the story and there’s worse - and better !! - to come)

Context time !

So a few months prior, Audrey ran away to her hometown in the island of Dile to find the source of the substance Aurora stole from her in (aka the amulet Audrey always wears around her neck.) She needs proof that it’s “connected” to her and not something Aurora can willfully take to a lab or whatever she was going to do with it. But while Audrey is gone, a lot happens. Avery and Zack return to the city (after being kidnapped by Trinity, do you think that’ll come back to haunt them ???) and everyone learns that Avery is the secret half sister of Aurora and Samson. So it’s her newfound way of entering the prime circles, what she truly wanted from the beginning. She’s a little distant from Morgan after realizing Morgan didn’t have concerns over her disappearance and Morgan is trying to fix their relationship.

Of course Morgan feels awful, but Avery’s working towards her own internal struggles at the same time while handling this new wave of attention from Aurora and Samson. She’s not committed to Morgan all the way. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not completely broken up either - we still get to have them be together. Avery is just not ready to be Morgan’s girlfriend (insert trademark logo) - that is, until the event I’m gonna get to.

Meanwhile, Kat’s undergoing her alter ego “GLOSS” as a secret attempt to regain her old fame. And it works ! In fact, Gloss is more famous that Kat ever was. Gloss is adored by crowds through her battle games against genetically-engineered creatures.

Zack’s welcomed back into his family while his new friendship with Sean grows, despite that being a conflict since Sean still has tension with Advik. To be fair, Morgan is the only one out of Advik’s friends that knows why Sean and Advik hate each other (the only secret Advik can actually keep). But, that doesn’t stop Morgan from wanting to be friends with Sean. What ?? Maybe he’s nice now ! As for Advik, his situation is relatively the same as it was from the previous arc. He works alongside Echo in attempt to follow his prototype’s footsteps of being a ~scientist~. His tension with Sean and Aurora and his fear of the experiments are what are stopping him.

Anyway, now that I’ve basically summarizaed Arc four (jk more stuff happens it’s not all angsty there’s fun stuff) Everything changes when Audrey returns ! But she’s got a friend with her ! The sole resident on Dile, Lilith. (Lots of Arc four’s story revolves around the events on Dile, but for the sake of this post, I won’t go into it.) Now that Audrey has found the source of her amulet’s power, SOUL, she can find the amulet again so she can publically take it back and show the council it’s not theirs.

She’s hiding under the radar, and the first person she goes to is Kat. She tells Kat everything and apologizes for leaving. Morgan, Advik, and Zack also get the news that Audrey has returned and go to Kat’s place to see her. Avery is purposely left out because she’s super close with Aurora right now and they can’t afford to have Affora find out Audrey’s back in Evelow. Another important note is that Lilith and Advik remember each other !!! They hadn’t seen each other in ten years, who would have thought they’d ever see each other again ? Audrey doesn’t blame Advik for being preoccupied on Lilith’s return more so than hers. After all, her mind is on Kat the most. When she was in Dile, she did a lot of examining on her relationships and she realized that she did love Kat in a way that was different than the way she loved her other friends.

Regardless, the Group of six have to find a way for Audrey to get back her amulet and prove to everyone Aurora can’t possess it. But how ? And when ? Perhaps the grand Evelonian Ball, suggests Advik. It’s conveniently being held at the city hall in the same center that the laboratory the amulet is being stored in. Due to the heavy security of the ball, it’d be easy to sneak into the laboratory due to less attention there, which leaves the difficult part of making the entrance into the ball. None of them are invited to the ball. If anything, Advik and Zack have bad blood with Aurora and are blacklisted. A thought was maybe Morgan would be Avery’s date and she’d be their inside access, but Avery is too close to Aurora (see above) they didn’t want to risk it. Which bums Morgan a bit, but she understands.

Then Kat has the idea of going as GLOSS ! No one knows Kat is Gloss besides her friends, and despite Gloss not being invited, she could make a date to someone that was. Perhaps Crystal ? And who else to pose as Crystal than her brother Zack. They’re not twins or anything, but with makeup and some styling, it could work from afar. As for the real Crystal, Morgan uses that attraction Crystal had for her to her advantage and get Crystal to take her as her date to the ball. Would this hurt Avery ? No, because they wouldn’t make it to the ball ! Morgan would make “accidental delays” to make sure she and her date don’t make it to the ball so that Kat, aka “Gloss”, and Zack, aka “Crystal” could infiltrate the city hall and thus let the rest in after they retrieve the amulet from the lab.

And so it works. Morgan is Crystal’s date, Kat and Zack dress up, hell, Advik, Audrey, and Lilith get a little fancy for the occasion.

The Lab Heist is a success. The trio sneak in, aren’t caught, and find the amulet. It’s back to Audrey ! But something’s off with Lilith. This is the lab she grew up in, and while Advik and Audrey initially assume this is the reason for her discomfort, she says there’s something else.. SOMEONE else.. and Advik knows. It’s Adam, who was taken in after a deteriorating condition, who is being held in a lower level in the laboratory. So Advik tells to go get him and that’s where they part ways with Lilith. Don’t worry, they’ll meet again, and soon, but Lilith has parted ways in this night.

Meanwhile, the infiltration into the ball is a success. Kat and Zack, ahem, Gloss and Crystal, are in the grand Evelonian Ball ! But oh no ! Turns out the real Crystal was a little more persistent in going to the event so now she and Morgan are there too ! Aurora makes some side comment like “Of course Crystal would have two different outfits and two different dates” and that’s when it catches Avery’s attention. Something is up, and she confronts Kat and Zack.

(Kat has her mask removed in this picture ? This was drawn before I had the alter ego totally laid out so that’s why) and they tell Avery that Audrey has returned and their plan to come to the ball with the amulet. Avery is in, but they have to get off the dance floor, they need to find a way for the others to sneak in without Aurora’s attention. But they have been caught by Crystal, who gets ultimately gets Zack kicked out. But security couldn’t recall which was the imposter date so Crystal lies and says Gloss is her date, getting Morgan kicked out. After all, she wants to find out who’s behind the mask >:-)

Anyhow Morgan and Zack have been kicked out, and Kat is stuck inside. Avery sneaks out to help Morgan and Zack back in, but Zack already contacted Sean to get him a change of clothes and was out of sight, so Morgan and Avery use this moment alone to reconcile. Blah Blah sappy stuff, they love each other and want to be together <3

When Avery and Morgan are out there, Advik and Audrey run into them. Avery lets them the three of them in with her, and soon all eyes are on them ! Audrey proclaims to the crowd that she is a host, Aurora would never be one and stole the amulet from her. Aurora is McFreaking pissed. Doesn’t help that Avery and Advik stand up for Audrey (Aurora ? Betrayed by her sister ??) and the grand reveal comes when Gloss comes, tells everyone that she is Katsumi, the woman they all once shunned for spying on behalf of Aurora. And Kat finally gets to have her telling off. Aurora gets them all kicked out, but the damage is done. The ball continues, but Aurora makes a silent departure, and a promise to herself that she’ll get back at them. It may take some time and some manipulating, but she’ll do it.

And then they go to the diner ! Yay ! It’s happy ! They’re eating fries and sodas, with Aurora plotting her revenge behind the scenes. Thanks for joining me on this incohesive tale I had fun telling in, I promise it’s so much funnier in my head with a lot more detail and dialogue lol

OUAT AND ME: IN WONDERLAND

Story - Because this spin-off series only lasted for one season's worth of 13 episodes, its story is simply the Wonderland Saga and nothing else beyond that, which is for the best given that the story reaches far too complete an ending for anything beyond it to make any sense. The story is about Alice and what transpired after she returned from her original journey through Wonderland as a little girl, leading up to her romance with a young genie named Cyrus as a teenager, their tragic separation, her commitment to a mental institution, and her return to Wonderland in order to reunite with her lost love alongside her friend the Knave of Hearts, all while facing threats from the Red Queen and Jafar who seek to use Cyrus’ genie powers to break the laws of magic in order to accomplish their own secret goals.

The Wonderland Saga is as tight as tight can be, with one chief setting (Wonderland), a relatively small cast of characters, and a 4-episode beginning, 4-episode middle, and 5-episode end. Of course, this wouldn't matter if it wasn't an engaging story with enjoyable characters, but thankfully it very much is. This series is the brainchild of not just Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, but also of Jane Espenson and Zack Estrin, and because of this fact combined with its limited length, it actually surpasses the original Once Upon a Time when you stack the two completed shows up against each other. Sometimes, less is more.

As I said, the story is divided into a clear-cut beginning, middle, and end. The beginning focuses on the early part of Alice and the Knave's journey and establishing who they are and what their deal is, while Jafar and the Red Queen's goals and motivations are kept enigmatic and Cyrus is trapped in a cage for the whole duration of the time. The middle lets Cyrus escape, sheds light on Jafar and the Red Queen's goals and motivations, and explores the darker sides of Alice and the Knave as we see just how badly their past traumas have affected them. And the end is all about the alliance of Alice, Cyrus, the Knave and the Red Queen as they fight Jafar and his new ally the Jabberwocky to decide the fate of Wonderland. It's here that all lingering questions are answered and all character arcs are fully completed.

As far as stories go, this is top tier OUAT. I think I like the Dark Curse and Neverland Sagas slightly more, but the Wonderland Saga comes in at an incredibly close third place.

Characters - There are less of them than in the main show, so this will be easy.

* We start with Alice, played by Sophie Lowe as a teenager and by pre-Stranger Things Millie Bobby Brown as a child. She is a wonderfully multi-faceted heroine, capable of great love and great hate, great kindness and great cruelty, great ingenuity and great gullibility, and always treading the line between holding to hope and giving into despair. While her romance with Cyrus is the focal point of the story, I love that it's not the only important aspect to her character. We also delve into her fractured relationship with her father; her initially unsteady but eventually rock solid friendship with Will; her hate, fear and distrust of Anastasia up until she finally sees the girl behind the queenly mask and how very much alike they truly are; and even her internal mental and emotional conflicts with herself on various matters that sometimes go external due to how Wonderland works. And no offense to Emma Swan, who is great in her prime, but I feel like Alice is ultimately the stronger and more likable lead.

* Cyrus really impresses me, because being the romantic male object of the heroine's attention and a guy who spends the entire first third of the story stuck in a cage, he could have very easily been a boring character. But very quickly, he shows that good looks and magic powers aren't all there is to him - this guy is smart. His cleverness and ingenuity that allows him to affect the plot even when inside his cage is something to behold, and he only gets better once he's free from his prison and gets to play off other characters with more frequency. Add to this a backstory where we see he used to be a selfish con artist, and it being his love for Alice that changed the selfish part while repurposing the con artist part for the cause of good, and you have a character you can enjoy and a couple you can root for.

* The show's breakout character, for better or for worse (no, it's definitely for worse, as we'll see in the next post) is the Knave of Hearts / Will Scarlet. Played excellently by Michael Socha, Will was formerly one of Robin Hood's Merry Men but is now an outlaw all to himself in Wonderland. He's sardonic and quippy, selfish and yet reliable at the same time, eerily muted in his emotions due to having his heart removed from his chest and yet clearly possessing deep feelings within his soul that occasionally bubble to the surface. We watch him go from an untrustworthy, cowardly cad who refuses to accept responsibility for anything to a brave and loyal friend who will sacrifice his own well-being for those he cares about. And his love story with Anastasia honestly steals the show from Alice and Cyrus', as it's full of betrayal and heartbreak and fights and truces and reconciliations before its happy ending, and that honestly feels more human than Alice and Cyrus' entirely plot-based separation.

* Speaking of the Red Queen / Anastasia, she is the female villain with a redemption arc that Regina (and Zelena, to a lesser extent) wishes she was. When she first appears, the Red Queen seems to be a chillingly calm and poised sociopath without moral scruples, but she quickly starts displaying vulnerability, and kudos must be given to Emma Rigby for conveying this through her amazing performance. Her cool, haughty face is like a mask, with more and more cracks beginning to show until we see who she really is - Anastasia, a peasant girl who was misled into a life that was full of power and privilege but that was also lonely and way over her capability to endure in the long run, and who desperately wants to take it all back and return to who she used to be. Once she realizes that she won't be getting the magic shortcut she seeks and that in the process of seeking it she'd wrought even more damage to Wonderland, Anastasia fully commits herself to doing better by everyone that she'd hurt. Even horrific torture, temporary death and mind control doesn't stop her from aiding in the cause to save Wonderland! She's amazing and more than earns her happy ending with Will.

* I could gush about Jafar, the Big Bad of the story, all day long. Jafar has always been my favorite Disney Villain, but he's the villain of an animated musical comedy, so I guess I've always had the question in the back of my mind as to what he'd be like if applied to something with a more serious tone? Well, this version of the character, played to chilling perfection by Naveen Andrews, answers that question. Stripped of most of his caricatured and humorous elements, Jafar is a psychotic, power-hungry madman who will stop at nothing to get what he desires. There is no-one he won't manipulate or torture or murder in his quest to become all-powerful. And the show also gives him a feasible, compelling and incredibly dark backstory (he's the bastard child of an Agrabahn sultan who rejected him to the point of trying to murder him) that explains why he is the way he is but is never used to excuse him or entertain the slightest notion that he might be redeemable.  This version of Jafar perfectly embodies what Roy Disney and Jeffrey Katzenberg said about the original: “Jafar is just pure evil. He wants to take over the kingdom and kill everybody in sight or enslave them, or whatever suits his fancy." "This is the guy that wants it all. You know right from the start that he is a desperate character, capable of doing anything and everything to get what he wants".

* The White Rabbit / Percy is a purely CGI character, and you'd fear that this wouldn't work, but the show embraces how cartoony he is and so it actually works perfectly. He's a very appealing character as well: very neurotic and cowardly, but also a family man whose heart is in the right place and who can be very brave when push comes to shove. A lot of his likability also comes from the fact that John Lithgow (yes, I'm surprised they were able to get him too!) does his voice, and I can't think of anyone else who could voice such a character better.

* In terms of side characters, we have many Wonderland staples reimagined for this show, such as the Cheshire Cat who is now a feral beast voiced by Keith David, the Caterpillar who is now a Jabba the Hutt-esque crime boss voiced by Iggy Pop (who sounds nothing like the voice from the main show, but I digress), Tweedledee and Tweedledum who are the Red Queen's manservants (one being undyingly loyal while the other is a spy for Jafar), the sleazy Red King who tempts Anastasia into becoming his bride, the Carpenter who is trapped in a drug-like haze in the Boro Grove, the White Knight who stands guard over an important pair of doorways, and the Jabberwocky, a monster in the form of a humanoid woman whose power is being able to see a person's greatest fear and use it to psychologically torture them.

There is also mention of Alice having met Jefferson the Mad Hatter when she was a child, and Cora the Queen of Hearts herself appears in the flashback that shows how she manipulated events so that Will became the Knave of Hearts and ensure that Anastasia remained the Red Queen, whom she taught magic and villainy to and treated like a daughter. Regina, Zelena, Anastasia...is there no young woman that Cora won’t attempt to ruin?

Other side characters from other realms include Alice's highly flawed yet ultimately repentant father Edwin, his bitch of a new wife Sarah and her precocious young daughter Millie, and the cold-hearted Dr. Lydgate all from Alice's Victorian world; Robin Hood, Maleficent (voice-over only) and Anastasia's mother Lady Tremaine all from the Enchanted Forest; Nyx the guardian of a sacred well, Cyrus' mother and Jafar's teacher Amara, Cyrus' brothers Taj and Rafi, and Jafar's father the Sultan and half-brother Mirza all from Agrabah. The Sultan, by the way, is a particularly interesting character, as he's introduced as Cyrus' kindly old cellmate and you really get to thinking of him as a good guy, only to then learn who he really is and just what an utterly horrible person he was in the past. His tale is a tragic one, as while he sincerely commits to repenting, it’s not good enough and thus he cannot escape fatal poetic justice.

And then there's one side character that just really gets my goat: Elizabeth aka the Lizard, a cute young thief who has a crush on Will. She appears in the 4th episode and doesn't really do much of anything, then disappears for a while. I thought maybe she was going to end up paired with that "Mr. Darcy" suitor of Alice's from her world and it was going to be a big Pride and Prejudice reference...but instead, she reappears in the 9th episode, becomes the now genified Will's master, and makes a wish that accidentally kills her in order to give Will man-pain. And then she isn't really spoken of again afterward. What was even the point of her!? You could cut all of her scenes and actions from this story and miss absolutely nothing!

Atmosphere - I would describe this show's atmosphere as light and dark, back to back. When it's light, it is much lighter than Once Upon a Time, being very whimsical and romantic and fluffy and hopeful to an even higher degree than its parent show at its best. However, this kind of lightness helps to make the dark elements come off as that much darker as a result. And while there's certainly some dark stuff where Alice in concerned, from an intended lobotomy in the premiere episode to the intense clashing she has with her father, and in the troubled pasts of Will and Anastasia, nothing comes close to the darkness of everything Jafar-related. It's a guarantee that he will do something horrible to someone at least once per episode, although it's usually more than once. The nature of his backstory as a bastard child whose father attempts to drown him plus the intensity of his depraved power-lust also make him a particularly dark character, as is his eventual partner, the terrifying Jabberwocky. Personally, I have always appreciated stories that can balance light and dark in this way and am able to handle both of them, so this show's atmosphere is very appealing to me.

Episode Quality - All I can say here is that there is only one dud in this series, and it's not hard to spot which episode it is. Like I said, while the beginning and middle portions of the show are 4 episodes each, the end is 5 episodes...and the first of those 5, "Nothing to Fear", is incredibly awkward and poorly executed. On top of being where the aforementioned death of the Lizard occurs, the plotline with Alice, Cyrus and Anastasia is also botched. Alice clinginess to Cyrus out of worry that he might become separated from her again and she wants to savor the time she has with him now doesn't really work in the context of needing to find where the freshly genified Will went ASAP, and it makes Alice look bad - Will went through "Bloody Hell" to help her reunite with Cyrus, and now that she's been reunited with him at the direct expense of Will, she doesn't give a fuck? She feels no urgent desire to pay her friend back and be as dedicated to helping him as he was to helping her? Also, the way she verbalizes her issues sounds too ripped off of Emma Swan from the similarly clumsy episode "The New Neverland", and what works for Emma doesn't really work for Alice.

Alice's distrust of Anastasia and dislike of working with her is also badly written, in literally every other episode the tense dynamic between these two has been handled with more care and nuance, but here Alice just comes off as a bratty child. Again, Will is missing and you need to find him quickly, so being able to put aside your differences with Anastasia maturely would go a long way in helping make that happen, Alice! Also, there's a sequence with angry peasants tying Anastasia, Alice and Cyrus to stakes to be eaten by nocturnal wolf-like creatures, and it's so thoroughly mishandled to the point of coming across as comical (Anastasia really can't fight back or escape her binding despite the skills we've seen her have before? Cyrus really thought an eloquent speech was going to instantly convince the peasants to do what he wants of them? The peasants act like they're righteous people who are getting justice against their oppressor and yet then tie two completely innocent people up for daring to go against the grain on the matter? And oh my God, those wolves look awful!)

The only good parts of the episode are the very last scene between Alice, Cyrus, Anastasia and (finally!) Will, plus all of the scenes with Jafar which lead up to the Jabberwocky's debut. Otherwise, this was a transitional episode that needed a lot of fine-tuning from its makers.

Overall - Once Upon a Time in Wonderland is now on Disney+, so if you have that streaming service and haven't watched it, please do so. It's a very well-made limited series that features a great story and great characters played by great actors, and is a definite part of OUAT in its prime. And again, when both completed shows are compared, this one wins hands-down.

Power Struggle preview

Tetsuya Naito vs. EVIL - Naito is defending both the IWGP heavyweight title and IWGP intercontinental title.  He won both titles in January, then lost them to Evil in July, and regained them in August.  During the G1 Climax, Evil defeated Naito in a tournament match where neither title was at stake, so Naito needs to even the score.  The winner of this match will most likely go on to defend the titles at Wrestle Kingdom in January.

The key to this Evil-Naito series has been whether you really buy Evil as a headliner, a credible rival to Naito, and a top champion.  To that end, New Japan was probably smart to have him win the first match.  But switching the title back so quickly undermined that effort.  I think western fans, who are used to half-hearted star-making in WWE, see Evil’s short title reign as evidence that New Japan is already giving up on him.  For them, this match will likely feel like a pointless rehash unless there’s a big angle or Evil delivers a five-star performance.  In contrast, the Japanese fans at the shows appear to be taking Evil at face value--they hate him when he gets cheap heat, but they don’t resent him as a failed experiment--so they’ll probably won’t be as demanding here.

I suppose a title change is possible, but I’m pretty sure the plan for Wrestle Kingdom is Naito vs. Kota Ibushi for the double gold, and Evil vs. Jay White in the upper midcard.  Evil and Jay were needling each other throughout the G1 Climax, and that’s got to be leading to something.  Both of them are in Bullet Club, though, and it’s hard to imagine them turning on one another right now without more buildup.  It feels like something should happen on this show to lead to a bigger angle in December, but I can’t imagine what that would be.

Kota Ibushi vs. Jay White - This is for the “right to challenge” contract that was awarded to Ibushi for winning the G1 Climax.  The bearer of the contract is expected to defend it like a championship, typically against the wrestlers that beat them during the G1.  Ibsuhi only lost two matches in this year’s tournament, to White and Shingo Takagi, and White beat Takagi, so I guess that means Jay’s got dibs.  Whoever ends up with the contract will challenge for the IWGP heavyweight and IWGP intercontinental championships at Wrestle Kingdom.

This will be the fourth singles match between these two, and White currently leads the series 2-1.  But that only hints at the real story here.  Both guys were in the four-man “Double Gold Dash” mini-tournament at Wrestle Kingdom 14, and Jay beat Ibushi in the consolation match, leaving Kota with the worst record of the group.  Ibushi has been trying to recover from that loss ever since, and winning the G1 was a key part of his road to redemption.  Beating White on his way to another shot at the double title is a very fitting next step.

As for Jay, his confidence in his corner man, Gedo, appears to have been shaken following his failure to win the G1.  That probably plays into whatever is going on with Jay and Evil, but it’s still too fuzzy to forecast what’s going to happen with that.  Could Gedo betray White leading to Evil kicking Jay out of Bullet Club?  Or is Jay letting paranoia push his allies away from him?  I’m not certain we’ll get any answers at this show.

In all the time that G1 Climax winners have defended their title shot contracts, none of them have ever lost their briefcase.  It’ll probably happen someday.  But I definitely don’t think this is going to be the year.  Ibushi retains.

KENTA vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi - This is for Kenta’s “right to challenge” contract, awarded to him for winning the New Japan Cup USA tournament.  The bearer is entitled to challenge for the IWGP United States championship, although it’s not clear when (if) that will happen.  Since winning the contract, Kenta has lost four singles matches--all during the G1.  But Tanahashi is the one whose head cracked the red briefcase Kenta uses to store the contract, so I guess that puts Tana first in line.

The current US champion is Jon Moxley, but he hasn’t been able to schedule a title defense since February.  Mox’s AEW contract doesn’t prevent him from flying to Japan to face Kenta, but current travel restrictions would make such a trip difficult to schedule, given the demands on his time as AEW world champion.  (Ironically, Moxley cannot defend the US title on US soil, because his AEW contract only lets him work for New Japan in Japan.)  In light of that situation, I think there’s a strong possibility the title could be vacated, which makes possession of Kenta’s contract even more crucial.  The winner of this match could end up becoming the next US champion by forfeit.

The outcome of this match probably depends on what the plans are for the US title going forward.  I’ve been assuming that New Japan will reposition the belt as the top championship for the weekly shows taped in Los Angeles; in that event, Kenta as the strong heel champion would make a lot of sense.  But as we get closer to Wrestle Kingdom, and the possibility that the company will keep the title on Moxley until that show, I have to admit that Moxley vs. Tanahashi would be a bigger match at the Tokyo Dome.  Of course, there’s no guarantee the winner of this match will wrestle Moxley at Wrestle Kingdom or at all.  But until we know for certain, I’ve got a hunch that Tana ends up with the briefcase.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Great-O-Khan - Okada is looking for payback from October 16, when Will Ospreay turned on him to start a new faction alongside O-Khan.  Sooner or later Okada and Ospreay will have to meet one-on-one, but first Okada has to get through Ospreay’s heavy.  This is easily the biggest match of O-Khan’s career, coming so soon after his “graduation” from the developmental system.  We’ve seen Master Wato in a similar position earlier this year, against Yoshinobu Kanemaru, and he came up short.  Let’s just say Okada is a substantially bigger challenge than Kanemaru.  I like O-Khan’s look and the style of his gimmick, so I sure hope he gets a win here.  But as a general rule, I don’t bet against Okada.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Shingo Takagi - Suzuki won the NEVER championship from Takagi in August, but Takagi defeated Suzuki during the G1, so he’s earned a chance to regain the title.  This should be a hard-hitting war, but I’m not sure it matters who wins because I don’t think it matters who has the title.  Regardless of which guy has the belt in the end, the bigger question will be the next challenger.  I’ll be rooting for Shingo because he’s cool, but then again I’m not wild about playing hot potato with the championship.

Toru Yano vs. Zack Sabre Jr. - Yano is defending the KOPW 2020 trophy; whoever holds it at the end of the year will be declared the KOPW champion, or something like that.  The original concept was that each participant in these matches would choose a stipulation and the fans would vote on it, but in this case Yano just demanded a match without turnbuckle pads and I guess Sabre didn’t object. 

The turnbuckles are the metal hooks that secure the ring ropes to the posts; the turnbuckle pads are big cushions that are used to cover the metal so nobody gets a body part caught in the hooks or something.  It’s pretty standard in wrestling to remove the pads and throw your opponent into the exposed buckle, but Yano has honed it into an artform.  So for Sabre this is sort of like facing Kane in an inferno match, or Jeff Hardy in a ladder match.

Yano gets a bad rap, because people watch New Japan more for good wrestling than comedy shenanigans.  But man cannot live by bread alone, and I like me some good Yano shenanigans in the middle of a stacked card.  I really dug the match these guys had in the G1, because it was a perfect clash of styles.  Yano has a strong amateur wrestling background and can go to the mat with Sabre, but it’s easier to just cheat.  Sabre is an absolute bastard who can use every dirty trick in the book, but it’s easier for him to just grab a hold.  So they drive each other nuts, and it’s awesome.  I expect this to be a really fun opener.

I can’t begin to guess where they’re headed with the KOPW title, but on paper I’d assume Sabre has to beat this clown.  But Yano’s really great at defying on-paper expectations....

I’m a die hard Clerith shipper since 1997, you can’t change my mind but the one thing I won’t tolerate in FFVII aside from shipping wars, is anyone shitting on Tifa.

Don’t. You can like Clerith without hating Tifa. You can find other reasons to not to like Tifa as character, that isn’t “I don’t like her because she gets in the way of my ship”

Personally, Tifa isn’t one of my top tier FF characters, but I am not going to ignore how much of a badass and important person Tifa is to Cloud’s story.

People cite Aerith’s death and burial as the most important moment of FFVII, and yes it’s heartbreaking and an iconic scene. But you know what’s also an important scene?

Tifa in the lifestream with Cloud setting his memories straight. Tifa who up until this moment unbeknownst to the player, is aware that Cloud as he’s presented himself thus far *isnt* the Cloud he thinks he is. She’s been patiently going along with Cloud’s story trying to figure out *what happened* to him/ how he appeared in Midgar boasting of being a SOLDIER while clearly suffering from Mako poisoning/how will she ultimately break this story to him.

Think how hard it was for her to watch Cloud have ptsd episodes and not know how to ground him other than to say “it’s okay. Pull yourself together, let’s keep moving”, because she doesn’t know how or why Cloud is suffering.

But then they fall into the Lifestream together and Tifa helps Cloud sift through the memories warped and altered by the poisoning and Cloud’s severe PTSD.

Only Tifa could help Cloud here- she’s the only one on the Team who has known Cloud since they were young/understands Cloud’s motivations for wanting to become stronger in joining SOLDIER.

This part of the game is beautiful and emotional, and very ahead of it’s time in its portrayal and meta-discussion of PTSD; Cloud isn’t magically healed and back to normal, he never will be, be he’s reclaimed his identity enough that he can begin to heal. I’m replaying the original atm and the moment still holds and I’m hoping that the remake nails this moment. It’s as important and impactful to Cloud as a character as Aerith’s death.

Speaking of Aerith.  Aerith and Tifa become friends from the jump.  Aerith is so respectful of Tifa that twice she makes sure that she isn’t encroaching on Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. She asks Cloud if Tifa is his girlfriend, she reassures Tifa in Don Cornero’s Mansion that she’s not there to steal Cloud from her.  

And yeah, Aerith isn’t trying to steal Cloud or anything - she helped a cute buff guy recover from a fall, asked him for an escort because this time the Turks brought backup to capture her, and got swept up in the ensuing events.  

Hell, Aerith is ride or die for Tifa BEFORE THEY EVEN FORMALLY MEET EACH OTHER. Aerith sees Tifa being carted off to Wall Market and her “some bad shit’s about to happen to this woman if we don’t move NOW” senses go off.  

Cloud’s like “oh let me take you home first and I’ll get my teammates...” and Aerith’s like “YOU NAIVE FOOL? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO CUTE GIRLS IN WALL MARKET? (tbh, considering how naive Cloud can be, I am going with ‘nope’.) WE GOTTA GO! QUICK GET INTO THIS SEXY DRESS BECAUSE MR. SOLDIER YOU’RE NOT COMING UP WITH A BETTER PLAN WE CAN WORK WITH!!” Aerith drives the entire plan to get into the Don’s mansion. She negotiates the dress, the wig, the makeup, EVERYTHING, to make sure that Cloud can pass as a women to come into the Mansion with her.  

Heck, Aerith was going to go into the mansion HERSELF to get Tifa when the guard was like “No dudes allowed.” The only reason they went looking for dresses in Cloud’s size, was because Cloud got all “No, I can’t let you go in there a lone if it’s as bad as you think it is”, (as if he hadn’t just spent the last day with this woman watching her completely kick ass in battle). So Aerith was like, “Fine, you wanna come with me? Get in the Silk Dress, Cloud” with the same energy as Shinji’s Dad.

And when Aerith gets captured, Tifa was like “WE GOTTA GO AND SAVE HER FROM SHINRA!” as well as protecting Aerith through the whole ShinRa office building mission when the groups had to split up.  So yeah, these two queens love and respect each other from the get-go, they put Cloud in his place, tease the shit out of him and Barret, probably had hair-braiding trains at camp, and support the hell out of each other . 

Also, as we see from the rest of FFVII and in AC, Tifa is devastated by her friend’s death and continues to grieve with Cloud.  Tifa is emotionally intelligent enough to see that Cloud’s grief and guilt over Aerith’s death is killing him, but also respects his need for space.  However, when she finds that he has Geostigma and has staying away from everyone so he can just waste away and die as some sort of penance for not being able to save Aerith and zack, she get’s PISSED at him. Tifa is instrumental in bringing Cloud back (again) to his senses.  Making him see, that he doesn’t only belong to himself, he belongs to their family, just as much as they belong to him. The love and fierce protection Cloud has for his family?  They have that for him and believe he’s more than worthy of that love. Tifa takes none of Cloud’s mopey and self-loathing bs, and sets him straight.

So if you think Tifa is only there for fan-service, an annoying bitch who is there to be jealous of Aerith, is there just to make a love triangle so SE can pander to fans on both sides, you clearly

a) didn’t play the games b) missed one of the best female relationships and examples of women supporting women in gaming c) missed how equally important both Aerith and Tifa are to Cloud in their own ways

IMO I see her and Cloud as platonic soulmates- kinda like Black Widow and Hawkeye- they have history, they have shared trauma from their childhoods and in the destruction of Nibelheim, they know what it’s like to grow up in a poor country town that’s been exploited by Shinra on so many levels from the natural resources to it’s culture of military indoctrination and idealization.

Yes, there was an innocent first love, but after certain events, to me- it’s moved beyond romantic attraction between them. They’re always going to be important to each other and in each other's lives.  

Their innocent first love to me, mirrors Zack and Aerith’s, but Aerith moved on and fell in love with Cloud. Yes, Cloud reminded her of Zack, she probably wanted to remain close to Cloud to get closure on what exactly happened to him. 

People often forget, Aerith *knows* Zack’s died and returned to the Lifestream in the way that she knew her adoptive mother’s husband had died before word reached them. When she has her awkward moment in Gongaga it’s not because she’s now realizing that he’s dead, she’s now realizing that these are Zack’s parents and they still don’t know what became of their son. Zack was scrambled into Cloud’s memories due to trauma and because Zack was someone Cloud looked up and was his ideal, combined with the fact that Zack was the only person talking to Cloud for 9 months as Zack carried his catatonic self back to Midgar. But Cloud didn’t *become* Zack, only Zack’s plans of becoming a mercenary and being a former SOLDIER were impressed upon him. If Cloud actually became Zack he would have been chipper, this energetic “I’m a hero!” all around good-guy hero Zack made himself out to be. The Cloud we first meet...isn’t- yes he thinks he’s a former SOLDIER turned merc, but he’s sardonic, arrogant, and too much of “tough guy/lone wolf”...he’s more like his child-like self who was made to feel like an outsider and wants to showoff how much cooler and stronger he’s become.  He didn’t find Aerith because Zack was some how possessing him.  Aerith and Cloud meeting was destiny, and their subsequent relationship is independent of their past histories with Zack. And if Aerith is interested in Cloud because she reminds him of Zack - well...the woman is allowed to have a type.

I digress.

Cloud was in love with Tifa in that - “hey! notice me! If I go off an become this awesome guy, I’ll be worthy of your attention” sort of way, that teens get.  He was a lonely kid, often bullied by the other children in the village (Tifa included), and probably didn’t know *why* he wanted Tifa’s attention- it was most likely Tifa had the most social capital among the kids. And despite her hot/cold treatment of him,Cloud who was desperate to prove himself, figured that if he somehow “won” Tifa’s attention, it would “show them”.  I am not saying that Cloud was using Tifa or didn’t care about her- he does love her. He blamed himself for not being strong enough to save her when she tried climb Mt. Nibel.  But you can’t ignore that his thirst to prove himself wasn’t wrapped up in his crush.  It’s your typical “become a hero, get the girl” idealization.  Cloud was 14 when he left Nibelheim for Shinra’s military. He was a child, just like Tifa, with a naive idea about how the world worked- and the world slapped them both in the face, HARD.  Relationships mature and change over time. Outside forces can and will shift your dynamics in how your relate to the people you love.  Sometimes your first crush, becomes one of your very best friends (happened to me personally so maybe this informs my take on Cloud and Tifa) because when you’re young you don’t understand that loving someone, outside of your nuclear family, isn’t only constrained to romance. This is what I believe happened to them. Cloud and Tifa had the quintessential school yard crush, and when they were reunited years later in Midgar, they still care deeply for each other in a different way than they did when they were 14 and 13.

But those are MY feelings, it’s how I play the game’s attraction mechanics; I am afforded to shape Cloud’s relationships as I, the gamer, see fit. I understand why Cloti shippers ship Cloud and Tifa, and they’re just as valid as Clerith, Zarith, Clack, etc.. but I’m a sucker for M/F platonic soulmates because there needs to be MORE of that in media. I rather Cloud and Tifa be platonic soul mates, co-parenting Marlene and Denzel with Barret, than Cloud “settling for Tifa because Aerith died”. which that explanation for Cloud x Tifa, often used by Clerith shippers, just undermines who Tifa is as a character and her’s and Cloud’s relationship.

But anyway, even though I don’t ship them and Tifa is not my #1 girl for VII, she is a vital character. She’s not there for fan-service.  She’s not there exclusively for a love triangle and to cause tension between Aerith and Cloud.  Tifa is VITAL to Cloud’s story, to the story of VII, to the planet of Gaia. You wouldn’t have VII’s core story without Tifa. And I will go to the mat for her just as hard as Aerith did when she saw Tifa in the cart bound for Wall Market.

So again: you may not ship her with Cloud, or she may not be your fave in VII, but in this house we forever respect the badass queen whose name is Tifa Lockhart

My Multiverse Ask Event! #3

“UT sans why do you refuse to fight the human until they are level 19 in genocide route?”

“Because it is the only time it matters. Any other time I don’t have to worry about the world ending. If you were trapped in a world where nothing, almost nothing, you do matters, why do something that doesn’t matter? And I must say, the look on their face when I launched my first attack, and their faces afterwards, were worth it.” Sans said, smiling at the memory of their shocked face.

“Flowey if the human genocides you are aware they won't hesitate to kill you right? ps why not just pop up from the ground in the room with the human souls and take them?”

“I know. But I like watching everyone die, it’s funny as they try to stop an unstoppable threat, how they sacrifice themselves and whatnot. And if the human can beat Sans, Undyne, and slaughter almost every monster of all, why would the souls be able to do anything? Sure I could flee, but I am the Prince of the Underground, I’m going down with my ship.” Flowey said, his face appearing to be a mix of Asriel and his own before morphing back as he chuckled a sinister giggle.

“Frisk so your saying that your next reset will be a genocide if so is it because your possesses by chara or because your a bad person. ps if your possesed by chara during genocide why kill flowey knowing he is asriel? pps do you even make it to the surface after genocide?” “Chara is only there to make me remember my crimes, kill Asgore, and Flowey. And I’m not really a bad person per say, I’m just a kid having fun! And why would I return to the surface? The Underground is more fun. Asriel is dead, Flowey is someone new, and Flowey is pathetic.” Frisk said, smiling. “To all skeletons when you eat food where does it go? do you even have a stomach?” “We only eat magic-based foods so it is instantly absorbed. It just disperses and helps heal and stuff.” Papyrus said, making hand gestures to help explain it. “Error, when are you guys going to start looking for who Error once was? We can help! We know multiple versions of Error and many versions of his backstory to draw reference from. I'd start with G̵͈͇̙͖̰͇̠̥̱͍̅̿͌̀̋̄͛̇̽̒̄̿̄̑̈́̾͊̔̉̄͒̕ȩ̸̛̠̗͓̗̃̈́̏́͆̓̃̅̎͊̾̃̐͐̍̍͘͜n̸̢̢̛̲̬͎̱̘͍͎̗̯̘̭͉̦̓͗̓̓͂̀̈́̀͜͠͝͝ơ̵̢̗̼̳̥̞̱̺̭̠̅̐̐̾̽͋̋͐́̍͊̈́̈́͘͠. Trust me.” “What? We didn’t hear what you said.” Error stated, sipping some hot chocolate. Mini marshmallows danced on the surface. “Well, since you apparently can’t say who to start with, I guess we have no where to start from.” “How about we look at the timelines? Talk to the voices and see how long Error was there and what timelines had separated before and after then.” Horror said and Nightmare shrugged. “Sure.” In the Creator Realm, Maxie, Zack, Beatrice, Jana, and Jack were listening. “We all know it’s Geno right?” Maxie said and they nodded. “How about we drag this out? Make them suffer!” Jack said, and for once, Zack agreed. “It would be funny, just as long as they learn the truth eventually.” Zack said, earning a sadistic grin from Maxie. “Yay! I wonder if we can get some help in leading them astray?” Maxie said, calling over to the group asking the questions. “Wanna help us drag this out?” She asked. “UT sans when are you going to tell papyrus about resets?” “I already know. Though I have asked Sans the same question many many times.” Papyrus said, giving Sans a dirty look. Sans had come back from his sentry station for lunch. “You’d forget! Just because you know doesn’t mean you’ll remember. I’d figured out it was possible while looking through scans and other old work I look through every day. Plus knowledge of the multiverse helps.” Sans said, “I actually did tell you once, but it crushed your spirit. I didn’t want you to lose what made you, you. and I had a support group so I wasn’t handling it alone like I used to.” Sans said, Papyrus sighed in response. “UT sans how do you manage to put 29 hot dogs on a person's head and why not 30 hot dogs?” “Why not 28?” Sans said, and Papyrus groaned. “Ok ok I think we have embarrassed the boys enough, for now.... Dream any stories from your brothers past he would rather his boys not know about?” “YES!” Dream cried out and Nightmare tried to silence his brother, but he was tackled, bound, and gagged on the ground before he could make a sound. Everyone listened to Dream intently. “Nightmare, in the early days of our village’s founding, had a girlfriend.” Dream said, Nightmare thrashed on the ground as everyone gasped “Who?” Cross asked, eyes wide as he heard Chara snicker and make faces at Nightmare. “I don’t remember her, we didn’t really talk all that much, but what I do know is that,” Dream donned the smuggest and most evil smirk as he gave his brother a wicked glance, a twisted smile on his face. “Nightmare, lost his virginity to her.” Dream said and everyone went nuts. “Did he top?” Horror asked, and Killer laughed. “Was she a virgin too?” Dust cried out, looking at his struggling father. “She wasn’t, and I think he bottomed based on what he told me.” Dream said, genuinely puzzled. “So, how old were you?” Error asked, Dream thought about it. “We didn’t know at the time, as far as we’re aware, right now, we’re about 1200 years old, and the village was around for about 1,000 years, but she was about a young adult, maybe 20 or so.” Dream said, looking at his brother for confirmation. Tears were streaming down Nightmare’s face and Dream took pity on his sibling. “There, there, I only have one more to tell.” Dream said, picking up Nightmare and placing him on his lap as he cuddled him. “What’s the story?” Fresh asked, he was mostly silent but he was curious. “Nightmare’s first time drunk.” Dream said, and Nightmare froze as he tried to run away. “Nope.” Dream said, keeping Nightmare in place easily. “One day, I was given a present by someone, I don’t remember who they were. Nightmare girlfriend, Lily was her name, had long passed away by this point. They broke up but remained friends. It was a bottle of whisky, hardcore whisky.” Dream said, “Like Blue’s signature drink spiker.” Dream said and Blue gasped. “I do not spike drinks!” Blue said, huffing. “Sure.” Dream said, rolling his eyes as he continued. “Anyway, I wanted to share the gift with Nightmare, as I always did. I even broke apart, remade and regifted presents I recieved to Nightmare to make him feel better. So we drank the entire thing, Nightmare having most of it.” Dream said, clearly embarrassed. “If we had known, that night would have ended differently.” Dream told them. “Nightmare ended up singing a random song at the top of his lungs at the top of the tree. I was about to pass out most of the time. We never got drunk again, the hangover was bad.” “Ok back to embarrassing the boys, on a scale of 1 to 10 how cute is Error? this is for anyone that wants to weigh in on the Error cuteness scale. Also does he have glasses in this multi-verse and do they up his cuteness? Sorry Error you are my favorite!” “10.” Everyone said they had by this point released Nightmare. “I do have glasses, Nightmare gave them to me soon after they learned how bad my eyesight was, but I began to wear contacts when I started fighting with them.” Error said. “They were bigger and red versions of Harry Potter’s glasses, and they increase his cuteness to a solid twenty-six out of ten.” Cross said, smiling as Error blushed. “Oh I saw someone else mention how we know of many different Errors. I gotta say most of the Errors I have seen have been tortured horribly and are left in a pretty bad state. Are you sure you want to know where you came from? You can't ever go back to what you were before, and I don't want you to get hurt Error.” “I know. But, I want to know my story, I know I can’t go back, I know I have a Papyrus, Toriel, Alphys, Undyne, and all. But I never thought about it, and with the revelation that I’m an alternate timeline, I can dive a bit deeper. I know these people, and Killer, Horror, and Dust can help me. They know what it’s like.” Error said, “And I’m not asking to know about what you have put other me’s through, I can infer what you’ve done to them.” Error said, glaring. “Frisk, what do you think about the humans from other AU?s” “AUs? Do you mean, alternate universes? I was involved with many fandoms, so I know the term. Papyrus broke script last time, and Sans was acting odd a few years ago. Interesting. I must thank you, if I’m right, then I might be able to see my own handiwork again.” Frisk said. “Frisk, have you encountered Gaster yet? ps do you even know who Gaster is?” “I know who he is. Though he always disappears before I can say a word to him.” “Stretch, my tall orange jerk. How did you take the news that not only did Ink lie when he said the dark sanses took blue, but Ink was actually the one to take him and do some pretty bad things to our sweet little blueberry? What about when Ink had Dream hurt blue to keep him crashing? And how are taking Blue being more like Error now?” “I was mad, I wanted to kill him with my own hands. I let myself be fooled, and I can’t even blame myself half the time! I was just so powerless. I’m glad he’s dead.” Stretch said, grumbling as he blew out a puff of smoke. “I was ready to dust Dream right then and there, but Blue held me back. And the yellow squirt’s apology was overwhelming. I could barely go a day without a text or in-person apology, and when he finally earned my lack of distrust, we haven’t talked since aside from the occasional ‘hello’. And Blue had it worse.” “It took awhile for me to get used to Blue’s glitching. Sometimes he crashed and rebooted, those were scary and they still are. Error helped Blue and I adjust, helping us figure out Blue’s glitching triggers. Stress being a big one. I’m grateful for his help, though I may not like him.” Stretch said, lighting another cigarette. “And now the most important question ever asked... Who wants to join the Error protection squad? I'll make badges!” “ME!” Blue cried out, eyes glowing big and blue as he smiled. “Don’t forget about us!” Cross said and Error sighed as he buried himself in his outfit as everyone announced how they would join. “It’s ok Error. I’d defend you, but I don’t need a badge.” Dream said and Error smiled, he was glad his family would defend him. He felt safe, and he felt loved. “What is the worst timeline or version of this universe any of you have ever experienced? I mean, this is a multiverse. What are the darkest reaches of it?” “Aside from our own personal trauma, I think it was one of those torture AUs.” Nightmare said, and Cross snapped his fingers, realizing what Nightmare meant. “Yeah, where the people exist only to be beaten and broken, no hope, no dreams, no reason and will to live. There’s also HorrorLustFell.” Cross said and everyone shuddered. “‘Nough said.” Dust announced and everyone nodded. “Frisk you know a genocide is technically impossible because you never kill annoying dog ps what do you think of annoying dog?” “The annoying dog doesn’t count, and I never get to Alphys or the people she evacuated either. And the dog is cute, I want to cuddle them.” Frisk said, their face looking like an innocent child’s instead of a mass murderer.

Formatting is off because of glitching in my word processor. I have it fixed.

Next

Previous

Let Us Embrace Whatever It May Bring

@boomchickfanfiction this was inspired largely because I randomly remembered your 30-day challenge, went back to reread them, and rediscover your D&D au. And then got seriously inspired by the remake because I’ve got this colossal D&D universe that I’ve never written or posted anything for. Which is a shame.

So, thanks for reinspiring me!

(Potential spoilers for FFVIIR)

(Link to headcanon post on this; here!)

. . . . .

“They’re going to be so confused.”

“Of course they are, that’s what makes it fun!”

“Cloud is going to hate us.”

“Oh, he is not. Admit it, he’s going to be so excited to bring back the goofy try-hard jackass from the original story. He’s been irritated at what Strife’s slowly turned into across the multiverse, all because he actually payed attention in Intro to Psychology and accidentally took the “play to reality” character type a bit too literally. A hard reset is exactly what he needs, bonus points when he realizes where we’re going with this.”

“Which, hopefully, won’t be until the end of the first part of the campaign.” Sephiroth sent Aerith a pointed look. “We’ll have to be careful not to give them too much to work with too soon.”

“Tell that to the DMs,” she shot back, nudging her cousin with a grin. “Who’s heading it this time? Angeal was the main one last time, even with your parents helping him out, but are we going back to that?”

“Time travel isn’t Angeal’s usual forte,” Sephiroth conceded, “but that adventure was very much his. I’m not willing to take that from him unless he’s an actual player this time. Which, considering where we’re starting the timeline, he can’t be. Not with his own character, at least.”

“That is true,” she sighed, leaning back in her chair to stretch. “I definitely agree; it was his and he really owned it. I know Auntie was super impressed.”

“Yes, yes, mother is very supportive of dragging people into nerdom. It’s why she and Gen get along so well.”

“And that they share a nickname?” she grinned.

He rolled his eyes with a sigh. “That too. So, how are we going to pitch this without arousing suspicion?”

“‘Hey, why don’t we see if we can keep Aerith alive this time?’”

He sent her a deeply unimpressed look.

“I know it may come as a shock, but the world doesn’t actually revolve around you, y’know.”

“This one does!” she shot back with a brilliant grin. “Now help me figure out how to set this up so no one realises that we’re literally resetting the timeline.”

. . .

“Hot damn we actually got everyone here,” Barret looked around, impressed, at the barely-contained chaos of people reuniting, getting food and drinks, and discussing storylines.

“I didn’t actually expect everyone to show up when I sent out that message,” Aerith admitted. “I mean, I did send out the call for Avalanche specifically, even if everyone was invited.”

“What, ya’ thought we wouldn’t show up to a new campaign for this story?” Reno asked with a grin, slinging an arm over her shoulders. “Everyone shows up for the first and final sessions, even if they don’t participate. C’mon Aer, this is our baby. We all wanna know what new adventure awaits us on the distant land of Gaia.”

“Yeah, who’s getting possessed this time?!” Zack called across the room with a grin. “Do I finally get to come back to life for good? Does Cloud finally die for good? Do he and Seph finally bone in-game?!”

“No, that was Dissidia,” Cloud corrected with a grin, and laughter rang through the rooms.

“Oh boy, that campaign,” Genesis grinned, elbowing Sephiroth.

“You weren’t even there,” Sephiroth protested, elbowing him back with a smile.

Angeal shook his head from where he and Jenova were setting up the table. “That’s what you get for live-streaming it.”

“It was a fantastic campaign,” Jenova assured them. “Full kudos to your DMs, they did a fantastic job juggling everything and showing how young their gods were last time, especially in comparison to Cosmos and Chaos from the first two campaigns. And all from behind the anonymity of a computer and avatar.”

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes at her, and she winked at him. She preferred to stay anonymous in the wider campaigns like that; it preserved her character’s image.

“It was fun,” Cloud admitted, “even if it was chaotic. And speaking of fun and chaotic, is everyone here?”

“Role call!” Jenova shouted through the house. “DM’s to the floor prompto! Avalanche and evil people, to the table! Everyone else, spread out and stay out from underfoot!”

There were chuckles and laughter as people called out jibes and protests toward their treatment, but everyone gathered just the same. With some subtle prompting from the DMs and two schemers, the people from the Midgar section of the Meteor campaign were settled closest to the DMs, Shinra (Rufus, the Turks, and Reeve) on one side and Avalanche on the other, and Aerith managed to snag Zack into sitting next to her. At his raised eyebrow she winked.

Angeal cleared his throat, and it fell quiet.

“You all have your intro Meteor sheets, right?” He glanced around, and everyone nodded. “Right, get those out and let's get some stat comparing for this campaign.”

That raised a few brows and murmurs, but the rustling of bags and binders and papers soon filled the room.

Sephiroth was careful to hide his endgame Advent Children campaign sheet behind his intro Meteor one. No reason to give anyone ideas at this stage. The anticipation and confusion would be so much more fun if they were all kept in the dark.

His eyes met Aerith’s, and she looked just as excited as he felt.

They took a few minutes to minorly rework the sheets to better suit their play style now, but the changes wouldn’t be major enough to impede the story. Good.

Jenova clapped twice, Lucrecia and Vincent finished tidying up the papers, Hojo spread out the stat sheets, and Angeal once again cleared his throat.

“Imagine, if you will, a sky. Filled with clouds, oversetting a dusty plain with rocky hills. A bird flies overhead, feathers dark and scraggly. It soars through the sky, over the plains, toward a large mass of metal plunging into the sky.”

Angeal had the perfect voice for narration, everyone was hooked from the first sentence, and there were shifts of excitement at the mention of the ruins of Midgar.

“Carried up by the wind, if flies into a cloudbank, navigating through large metal beams and poles. With a burst of sunlight, it emerges on the other side- overtop of a thriving metropolis.”

There was a burst of noise at that. Gasps and shouts of surprise at the realization that these weren’t ruins, and it probably wasn’t Edge.

Jenova called for quiet, and all the DMs looked amused.

“So what, we doin’ a time-skip?” Cid raised a brow.

“No, that doesn’t make sense.” Elena dug through her notes. “In the AC campaign it opened with a five hundred year time-skip and Midgar was a jungle, remember?”

“Yep, Nanaki and his cubs were overlooking it,” Kunsel confirmed, pulling out the concept sheet he’d sketched out at the time, as well as the character sheet he hadn’t yet gotten to use. Apparently he wouldn’t get to use it this campaign either. Darn. He had tons of cool stuff Nanaki had learned over those five hundred years.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that we didn’t time skip,” Rufus pointed out. “It just means that we’re before it was reclaimed by the Planet. It could be a two or three hundred year time skip, and we’re descendents. A city could easily be totally reclaimed in a hundred years or less.

“Or,” Cloud cut in, “we could just wait and see what nefarious plot our DMs have in store.”

“I just got done with the Number 3 campaign with the KH crew, so I know what my theory is,” Reno drawled, drawing snickers from everyone who followed that particular convolution.

Aerith giggled, and tried not to do it too hard. Reno would be the first to figure it out, solely due to the central part he played as Axel in that particular campaign with that group. He’d keep quiet though, just to see how long it took everyone else.

Angeal smiled at them, but continued. “It flies over the train tracks, the cars on freeways, and down between buildings in what appears to be an entertainment district. Children on bikes ride down the street, past construction crews and people loading fuel cells into cars, shoppers entering and exiting shops along the street, and cars making their way along the road. The children ride down a hill, across a road, and reach a playground with a few toys… and a strangely shaped slide.”

Cloud stilled, suspicion arising in his eyes, and Aerith and Sephiroth bit back smiles.

“Day fades to evening, to night, and as the young girl slides down, something catches her eye in the distance. She turns to looks, and watches as a large burst of green erupts from a distant building along the giant outer wall.”

More and more people were beginning to realize, and Reeve looked breathless at the description of something he’d labored at for weeks alongside Jenova, Lucrecia, Hojo, and Vincent to make somewhat realistically believable for his first campaign with them. He was blindly groping in his bag for the sketches and blueprints he’d rendered out on his own.

“Imagine, the sparks of green float up and up, into the cloudy sky, until they resemble stars- and now imagine drifting through them, through the emptiness of space-”

Oh, Cloud knew this. He remembered this from their first Meteor session. Their introduction to the fully realized Midgar, at the introduction of Reeve to their group. And, judging by other people’s reactions, he wasn’t the only one.

“Holy shit,” Barret breathed from beside him, and an incredulous grin was slowly spreading across Zack’s face, while Tifa looked torn between excitement and horror.

“Imagine floating down, down, until buildings take shape. An alleyway, and in the alleyway is a girl. Long, flowing brown hair, with a pink dress, red jacket, and pink ribbon in her braid. Her green eyes are focused on an opening from which the sparks are floating out of; as though she is receiving answers to questions only she would know to ask.”

There was silence for a moment, and Aerith counted down the moments in her head. Three, two, one-

The room exploded into chaos. People were shouting, throwing out questions and theories, laughter and horror in equal bounds on people’s faces.

“Yes!!! Oh yeah, Wedge is back baby!” Zack’s gleeful shout was the most obvious, drawing laughter and groans of protest in equal measure at the reminder of Barret’s Avalanche cell.

“Are we reworking Meteor?!” Elena looked ecstatic. “Because there is so much I want to rework with my fighting style! I have some nifty new spells that I want to try against a bigger level gap!”

“Oh noooo,” Reno groaned, dropping his head back. “I’m gonna go back to bein’ the guy who dropped the plate. Not cool, yo! I finally made everyone forget about that by bein’ a quirky idiot in AC!”

“Ha!” Yuffie grinned. “We’re never gonna let it die!”

Sephiroth focused on Cloud. “You seem conflicted.”

Cloud started, then grinned ruefully at him. “I am, a bit. I’m ecstatic to come back of course, to get Strife back before I put too much realism into his reactions, to completely rework him from the ground up. I mean, this was my first campaign as a major player the whole way through. I’m thrilled. I just also happen to remember all the horrible things that happened to turn Strife into sir angst-fest that he was.”

“Perhaps,” Sephiroth acknowledged, “but if we’re reworking it… then doesn’t that mean that you can change things this time around?”

Cloud sent him a flat look, though his eyes were warm. “I’m not naive enough to think it’s that simple. Between you and the DMs, this won’t go smoothly at all.”

Sephiroth smirked at him, that damn smirk that got to him every time. “Perhaps,” he repeated in a purr, “but isn’t that the fun of it all?”

“Alright children, settle down!” Jenova shouted, but her wild grin showed her true feelings on the matter. “Yes, to answer the question… we are, in fact, reworking Meteor. For a couple of reasons, but mostly… yeah, character development was a large part of it. A couple of people backed themselves into a corner with their characterizations, and needed a sort of… reset.”

Cloud winced, his own feelings being the most well known on the matter. “Oops,” he said weakly.

“It’s not just you,” Lucrecia assured him. “Vincent and I need to rework ours too, because Dirge wasn’t… hmm.”

“I need a character alteration,” Vincent said flatly. “I didn’t like how I played some of that, and would like to have come to some of those conclusions earlier, because some of my lack of action felt a bit too forced and I would like to see if I can smooth it out.”

Yuffie frowned. “What was wrong with it?”

“Essentially the same problem as Cloud, I took the after effects too seriously and made my character more depressed and stagnant than necessary. I’ll see if I can tone it down a bit, or at least form it into a slightly more active shape earlier.”

“And my entire character needs to just be completely reworked,” Lucrecia sighed. “Granted I use character very loosely, because she’s basically just an NPC, and since we based this whole thing on one of our high school campaigns, I am very annoyed with what I turned her into.”

“You turned her into that because she annoyed you and you didn’t like her anymore,” Hojo pointed out dryly.

“I know, but I’m hoping I might be able to fix it.”

“Hashtag-doubt,” Jenova murmured. “I, for one, am perfectly happy with my character.”

“You would be,” Sephiroth said dryly.

“And you aren’t, darling?”

“No, I am,” he assured her. “Just reminding you of your own nature.”

Murmured conversations broke out as people reevaluated their character sheets, considering possible changes. Cloud noticed Rufus, digging out a familiar pet-sheet and quickly scratching out the name up top, and snorted. A glance around revealed Zack gleefully revising Wedge’s sheet, While Jenova and Angeal already had Jessie and Bigg’s revised sheets out in front of them.

Reeve was considering his own three sheets, clearly calculating stats, as was Kunsel. He caught sight of Reno’s sheet just as Angeal called- “This isn’t Kingdom Hearts, Reno, you cannot pull Axel’s stats over to your Turk, he isn’t Lea.”

“Lameee,” Reno groaned, but put the sheet up well naturedly.

“They don’t even use the same element,” Tifa pointed out with amusement, her own sheet done with few revisions.

“Meh,” he shrugged, glancing over. “Not gonna revise stats, Tseng, Rude?”

“A few a bit later, perhaps,” Tseng responded distractedly as he flipped through his later sheets. “As of right now, however, no. I’m content until I can unlock a few higher-tier spell combinations.”

Rude nodded. “Same here. I know what I want to change, but I need higher levels first.”

Barret was grumbling along with Cid about potential mechanics later on, and Cloud turned his attention back to Genesis and Angeal bickering lightly about Scarlet’s potential and materia abilities. He shook his head with a smile, and waited for everyone to finish up.

Angeal cleared his throat once again, calling for silence, and continued.

“Long, flowing brown hair, with a pink dress, red jacket, and pink ribbon in her braid. Her green eyes are focused on an opening from which the sparks are floating out of; as though she is receiving answers to questions only she would know to ask. She starts, suddenly, as though breaking out of a daze, and straightens with a nervous glance around, as though looking for something. Nothing appears, but she quickly stands and hurries out of the alley, glancing over her shoulder as she does. She stumbles into someone, and drops some of her flowers, in her distraction. Quickly kneeling to pick them up, she collects all but one before a man carrying a box and thus can’t see it, steps on it. She slowly picks it up, cradling it in her hands, before her gaze is inexplicably drawn to the sky.”

Angeal to a breath, and continued.

“Pulling away from her, up and into the very sky she’s observing, see the building, lit brightly against the dark, theaters and shops and restaurants; further up and see the city take shape, enormous metal plates with large gaps between them, and at the center… at the center is a tower. Looming over the entire city with an ominous presence, it oversees all that goes on in the city.

Now we go down, down past the other side of the tower, down to Sector 1. A train flies along the rail, a delivery for Mako Reactor Zero. And atop that train is a young man. Blond flyaway hair and a modified SOLDIER uniform, a large sword attached to his back. As the train slows, he looks up, glowing blue-green eyes steely with determination. The train pulls to a stop in the station, and two guards separate to do an inspection.”

Angeal smiled.

“Roll for initiative.”

. . . . .

THE AARONS 2019 - Best Film

Once again setting a personal record and winning a friendly competition, I watched 105 films from the year 2019. That’s more films than there are seconds of screen-time for Rose Tico in The Rise of Skywalker! That one won’t be found here, but after ranking all 105 movies, here are the ones that did rise to the top of my list. Here are the Aarons for Best Film:

#10. Marriage Story

Marriage Story twists a knife we never even saw go in; its tragedy is a fully formed snowball of once seemingly-insignificant bad decisions that the viewer is powerless to reverse, only observe. Director Noah Baumbach, however, makes only great decisions in his tale of the difficulties and distractions of divorce (in the context of the film, that is. The infusion of Baumbach’s informed personal experiences is unmissable here). The film splits its focus between the perspectives of the two former spouses, but not evenly. Through both, we understand the effects of unintentional harm of other being; in the unbalance, we empathize with people reaching that realization at different times. Marriage is a story about learning that, no matter the effort to relate to another, there will always be unknowns, but in trust, there is peace.

#9. Little Women

The best adaptations play to the strengths of the screen. The kinetic timeline shifting of director Greta Gerwig’s new version of Little Women is a feat only manageable in cinematic form. The shake-up to the traditional script enlivens the familiar story; the bits of happiness and heartbreak all feel a little bit bigger. Backed by an exceptional cast, Gerwig illustrates that the importance of retelling stories is the same as the importance in telling them to begin with. The movie is undoubtedly the superior cinematic version of the story; if it’s not too blasphemous to say, it’s the best version on the big-screen or off. 

#8. The Farewell

Secret secrets are no fun, but can shared secrets spare someone? It’s the question at the heart of director Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, in which a family decides not to tell their grandmother she only has a short while to live, and stage a wedding as an excuse to gather the family together before she dies. Such a heavy burden seems unbearable alone; the cycle of shame and fear when trying to find the best way to love someone is inexorable. Sharing has never been a strong suit of the Western world; the culture clash of the understated film ends up a surprising source of comfort. Yet there will always come a point where one must face such uncertainty alone, and choose whether to say goodbye to the guilt or not. The Farewell is a comfort there as well.

#7. Parasite

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know; survival depends on sticking together. Like The Farewell, Parasite’s premise unearths questions of solidarity; unlike The Farewell, its execution is not understated. Director Bong Joon-ho’s lampooning of late-stage capitalism is as unmissable as a big dumb rock, and he lampshades it as such. Parasite is the most unexpected of heist films, but one that cuts to the heart of the genre: the world as-is is a mad scrabble for a good job, and morality need not apply. The insidious ploy of the film is an insightful exploration of class conflict. The two families at its center may not have a single person between them who’s not hungry for more, but only one is deciding how many seats are at the table. It’s not our world, we’re just living in it. 

#6. Knives Out

After the dregs of the internet came for him with knives out, director Rian Johnson decided to kill them with kindness… and gift everyone with another masterful work of cinema. There’s no foul play made in Johnson’s new murder mystery; the cast is stacked with talent and the screenplay stacked with twists. The story subverts genre expectations in revolutionary ways, keeping viewers guessing and engrossed. The additional emotional undercurrent is similarly revelatory; even when killers are caught and loose ends are tied up, questions of justice remain. Pointed, poignant, and uproarious, Johnson has carved up an excellent mystery. Considering his debut feature Brick, it’s no surprise the director’s dunnit again. 

#5. Shazam!

After shifting its focus from an overambitious shared universe to its lesser known characters, DC Comics has captured lightning in a bottle once again. The selling-point of Shazam! is, in a word, magical: a young boy given the power to transform into a full-grown superhero (play with infectious charm by Zachary Levi) boils down the appeal of the genre to its base wish-fulfillment elements. With superpowers dominating the cinemas right now, Shazam!’s recentering of their collective narrative is more powerful than Zeus. Zack Snyder sought to bring maturity to the Superman story by questioning the burden of possessing power. Made for kids but holding the wisdom of Solomon, Shazam! combats Snyder’s misguided notions: with great power comes great responsibility, but responsibility is sharing power. 

#4. One Cut of the Dead

While there are many films shot in one-take, including one vying for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, One Cut of the Dead’s pure commitment to its craft makes it a cut above the rest. In the film, things go haywire for a small filmmaking crew on the set of a zombie movie when real zombies attack; what happens next is best left unspoken (to preserve its wonderful surprises). The tightly-crafted horror-comedy is a bloody beast; its multi-limbed nature reaches every mark its aiming for, tearing at one’s heart, brain, and stomach in equal measure. It deconstructs its own movie magic only to build up an even more fantastic monument to cinema and the cooperation demanded by its creation. Within One Cut of the Dead’s endless inventiveness, the art-form’s rarely felt so alive.

#3. Midsommar

Midsommar is an honoring of tradition, but it quickly evolves into something all its own. Its most obvious influence is The Wicker Man, yet while that film’s pagan horror turned a twist of fate and a twist of faith into its punchline, Midsommar lets viewers in on the joke. Director Ari Aster lets events unfold at a meticulous pace in the closed-off community, but dread never sets in. The film is perhaps entirely miscategorized as horror; any screams crescendo into a potent catharsis. Midsommar is a banquet of visual treats that leaves viewers to chew on a shocking ending. With both, Midsommar is nothing but fulfilling.

#2. Us

Many directors can’t escape the shadow of such a successful debut, but luckily for us and for Us, Jordan Peele was no less effective at holding up a mirror to society’s sins in his sophomore feature. Like Get Out, Us rips the ineffectual bandage off this country’s festering wounds, demanding they be properly addressed lest they be allowed to kill us. The effect is once again deeply uncomfortable, gnawing at the viewer long after it’s over, as all proper horror films should. Peele, however, is entirely comfortable, further solidifying himself as an unmissable auteur through an assured handling of tone. The movie is both a crowd-pleaser and entirely uncompromising; we have met both friend and enemy, and it is Us.

AND THE BEST FILM OF 2019 IS...

#1. It: Chapter Two

It is inexplicable. The first half of the new adaption of Stephen King’s monstrous book was #8 on this same list back in 2017, yet while Chapter Two is much more uneven and unwieldly, it floated all the way to the top as my favorite film of 2019. It’s victory certainly owes a debt to its origins; the second part is a reflection on the first, as the adult version of the Loser’s Club must remember their past to battle the child-eating clown one last time. With this intent in mind, the film’s ungainly composition shifts into a new form. Chapter Two is an eerie and eerily-accurate encapsulation of the sensation of unpacking past trauma. It’s confusing, frustrating, disheartening, scary, and often unexpectedly funny trying to control such a narrative. Sometimes, all one can do is scream at the cyclical cruelty. In those moments, the greatest thing is to have someone screaming with you. Perhaps the It sequel suggests that there is no such thing as good movies or bad movies - maybe there are just movies that you need. Chapter Two is a cinematic barbaric yalp, indulgent in its runtime and its special effects because that is how it can and chooses to be heard. I needed it.

NEXT UP: THE 2019 AARONS FOR WORST FILM!

did

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. In response to trauma, my core personality separated and eventually I came along. I’m not what people would call the core, I just happen to be the current host. I have 10 alters currently, alters are the different personalities. There are Persephone and Jasper, a married couple. Up until last month, Persephone went by Percy. There are Marc and Lily, brother and sister. There are Jake and Nero, a couple, both dormant, however. There’s Alistair, a fictive from my own writings. There’s also James a member of the vulture culture community who loves bees. Then there’s Mars who’s also dormant, and finally, there’s Salem. 

“It’ll take some time, but somewhere down the line, we won’t be alone.”

I watched my fingers type as if it were a film, words popped up on the screen. “I feel like we're dying out here sometimes, it’s like no matter where we go we're dying.” Persephone was right. We were dying up here. Here I was, trapped in my own body once more. Watching someone else take control. I was fine with it, I had become used to it. 

“The ocean washed over your grave.”

When I was little, I was very tall. I was 4’7” by the time I was 5. I was also ahead of my time. Adults loved me, my peers, not so much. Up until 3rd grade, I was very talkative, even through the abuse I had suffered. I was fine. I won’t divulge that trauma, at least. But the Summer of ‘08 changed me. It must’ve been the year the stock market crashed because my family moved from a nice home in Romeo to a trailer. A trailer that had a leaky roof, a trailer that had smoke leaking from a socket one night, a trailer that doesn’t have electricity in parts of it. It was home. It was also the year my mother attempted suicide. 

“I want a cutscene, I want a cut from your face to my face, I want a cut, I want the next related video.”

After that, I began to have “imaginary friends.” The only thing was weird about them was that they could sometimes “possess” me. That’s not exactly how it works but honestly, that’s how my child-brain worked. This is called dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder. I had only 4 alters then, now I have 10. I also coped by lying, I tried to make myself more interesting than I was. I grew out of it by the time I hit high school, I had lost and regained friends. My closest being Peter. I loved my friends dearly more than anything, but soon things turned sour. 

“I didn’t like you anyways. You always spoke so quiet.”

It was by 10th grade when I started hearing voices again. It was by 10th grade when Peter and I began dating. It was by 10th grade when everything began crumbling. In 10th grade I had started going to therapy, I wanted to figure out what these voices were but I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. So instead I developed a relationship with my therapist and focused on my ADHD. I started taking a plethora of drugs, against my fears of becoming like my parents. They made me very tired, every day after school I began sleeping. During the week I would see myself fighting with Peter. It was all an out of body experience. I found out his name was Marc, he left notes for me. While on a date with Peter I discovered Lily, Peter thought I had age regressed. It was in the shower when I discovered V, he changed me that day. V was a bad person at the time. He’d terrorize Lily, who was only 9. He’d terrorize me in disgusting ways that I dare not tell anyone about. But when he changed we welcomed him. V no longer took the form of a demon but a man with long white hair and big blue beautiful eyes and an even bigger nose. He changed his name to Klaus. My friends soon found out about my alters. Thanks to a then stranger, now good friend Jaden. Jaden found out first, he knew from my Vent profile. Then Peter and Jason found out, but I was most scared to tell my friend Stevie. I felt I had betrayed her in the past and didn’t want to do it again. 

“I was up late last night!!” Klaus said talking to Stevie as we walked to our math class. 

“Yeah I know,” she replied then paused, realizing her mistake. Klaus smiled to himself, so she knew? He thought.

"I saw you again last night you were hiding in a poor man's body. But I saw your soul slip out of his fingers”

Things turned sour fast. I remember being in my history class when everything started. Stevie had posted on Vent that I was abusive. Panic had flooded my chest, my cheeks burned, and tears welled up in my eyes. To think that I was abusive. She then later posted that she would pretend to be uncomfortable if Peter and I had any public displays of affection. I went to the bathroom and sobbed that hour. Then the rest of the day, I don’t remember. Lily had fronted to save me from having to deal with it all. Peter and Stevie began spending more time, I turned nasty from all the stress. From walking on eggshells out of fear of being called abusive to dealing with constant voices who occasionally “possessed” me. I even had to deal with homework and abuse at home. I was stressed back then, and I took it out on him. I accused him of sleeping with Stevie even. By the time we reached 11th grade Stevie started avoiding me, Jason grew apart and Peter broke up with me. By 12th grade I had finally turned things around with Jaden, we stopped being strangers and became friends. We bonded over memes about our deteriorating mental health and the passion we had for the stories we worked on. This was the year I met Ms. Bourlinghaus, who became a mother to me. At the start of the year, seeing Peter gave me panic attacks and made me want to rip my flesh off. 

“Don’t worry! You and me won’t be alone no more.”

I fell in love, twice that year. I don’t remember who I dated first. DID does that to your memory, in fact, I don’t remember anything really before 9th or 10th grade except for my mother’s suicide attempt. But I digress. I fell in love twice that year. I fell in love with a boy named Elliot and a girl named Eve. Both were amazing even though both lasted what I estimate to be a week. Mars even made a pizza with green peppers that were made into a heart for Elliot. We went to see End Game together. Eve and I only talked about kissing, planning to do it where nobody saw us. We joked about kissing by the Chuck E Cheese car ride. We were weird teenagers, well, normal teenagers actually.

Elliot broke up with me because of my age, we’re only a year apart, however, it made him uncomfortable. That’s okay. We still talk to this day. Eve realized that she was a lesbian part way through our relationship, or at least that’s my theory. We also still talk to this day. I consider both of them to be two of my closest friends. 

“You never stopped smoking, but I forgive you. My words and my heart were not enough to give you”

I was 17 when I started vaping. My friends Luke and Zack were doing it so why not me too? I started at 50 nic, which is about 3 and a half cigarettes. Or at least I think, I don’t know anything about cigarettes. Or vaping for that matter. When I turned 18 I became more firm in who I was. I came out to my parents as transgender, my mom had always shrugged it off as me pretending to be someone I’m not, my stepdad has always accepted me but didn’t see why I cared about the surgeries. 

"I wish I was sober, I can’t get off the ground."

A revelation, I am killing myself. With all the weed and smoking. We aren’t dying up here of loneliness but of ourselves. Night after night I’ve induced manic episodes from getting too high. Each night I think of myself as a god. Mostly I’m a fire god, able to feel fire without burning myself. These manic episodes started a few weeks after I was diagnosed with bipolar. My life goes up and down it seems. Caffeine doesn’t help, sugar doesn’t help. Nothing I ate really helped with the mood swings. I feel broken. I want my story to end with hope, not despair. 

“Apologies to future mes and yous.”

I sometimes wonder if I can be better than I am now. If I’m destined to smoke forever. If I’ll always have manic episodes on the weekends. If my life is a constant back and forth between depressed and manic with no balance between both of them. It’s been raining all week, but just now as I type this there’s the sun shining through my window. Everything exists in cycles after the rain comes the sun. Maybe this is just my rain, maybe this storm will last for a few more days or even a few more years. I know now that someday the storm will end and I will see the sun. Then again, I’ve always loved getting caught in a storm. 

“This is a version of me and you that can exist outside of everything else, and if it is just a fantasy, then anything can happen from here.”

A final note: 

All quotes separating text are lyrics from Car Seat Headrest. I’ll include a playlist of songs that I’ve sampled these quotes from. Thank you for reading. http://bit.ly/2WAlYMW 

Change of plans, during writing

When writing a story, most writers plan their story beforehand. That means, giving it a structure and taking notes regarding characters and their development. There is no way around it: If you want to write a good story, then you need to plan it properly.

But, what if you get a different idea for certain aspects of your story, after you’ve done all the planning?

And what if you’re already writing your story, with your old plans in mind?

What if that idea just can’t leave your head, no matter how hard you try?

What should you do? Rewrite the entire story? Continue writing? Throwing a huge tantrum, for not being able to decide for either option?

All those questions will be answered in this post. (Except the last one, since that was meant to be a joke).

As always, the following points are just suggestions, based on my own personal experiences, when writing a story. You’re not forced to apply them, remember that.

In either case, let’s get going.

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First off, you need to ask yourself what aspect you want to change in the story. Depending on its nature, you can choose several outcomes.

Aspect 1: Main Villain

For some reason, you don’t like the idea of Character J being the villain anymore and would now like to use, Character H as the main villain.

If you are at the beginning of writing your story then such a change can be implemented. Just make sure, to adjust the plan of your story to your new main villain, such as foreshadowing, overall goal (which you may need to change depending on the character’s nature), relationship with other characters and so on and so forth.

Such a big change can only be applied, if you’re not far into the story. If you’re on the last part of the story though, do not apply this change. You’d need to rewrite the entire story and would lose a lot of time. Now of course, this is not as fatal if the story is very short, but for longer projects, it’s definitely not a good idea, unless you really want to make Character H the main villain.

In this case, feel free to rewrite everything.

Aspect 2: Additional Scenes

So, you want another scene? Before you do that, ask yourself those questions.

Why is the scene needed?

What is its purpose?

How does it impact the plot?

What does it contain? A chat between two characters, foreshadowing or a flashback scene?

Ask yourself those questions, before adding the new scene. After all, your story still needs to possess a natural flow, so an additional scene may hurt more than it could help. Not only that, but you also need to know in which part of the story, this new scene plays?

If it’s at the beginning, feel free to build it in, because at this point you still have lots of room to write. Just make sure that it has a meaningful connection to the main plot. In later parts of the story though, it may be a bit difficult, but only if it's long. Short scenes should still work, as the natural flow of the story won’t change too much, in that regard. Longer scenes on the other hand, may disrupt the structure, so either expand the story or leave it out entirely.

Your choice, really.

Aspect 3: Entire Plot

Ok, if you really want to change the entire plot, then you either a) try to see how the new plot would connect to the current part of the story or b) rewrite the story from scratch. The last point would probably the most efficient, yet at the same time the most risky decision. After all, who would want to willingly throw away their entire work? Not many, that’s for sure.

But if it must be done, then go ahead. If the written part of the story, doesn’t fit with your new plot idea, then this is the best approach.

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And that’s it for today, folks!

I hope this post was somewhat helpful for your writing. If so, please leave a like and a follow, for more writing advice.

Cheers! Zack Hura

DEATH BATTLE Review: Carnage vs. Lucy

WARNING: The following review contains descriptions and screenshots of extreme blood and gore. Viewer discretion is advised.

So, according to commentary, this matchup was decided by the crew, and not by fan votes. They supposedly had a hard time determining a good Carnage opponent, and this was the best one with the most connections.

This is the Third (technically fourth) Comic Book vs. Manga/Anime fight since Captain Marvel vs. Android 18, and both Goku vs. Superman episodes.

Carnage′s Preview.

Carnage’s Origin Story is gone over, and the hosts comment about it. We know how this works by now. Cletus was a bad kid, and he really needed to be put into a higher-security prison to make his actual imprisonment effective.

(What’s with murderous psychopaths and having teddy bears?- First Bane, now Cletus. It’s getting weird).

So, Cletus’ Symbiote is given their own stat sheet, and is given a quick rundown.

(I’m going to guess that the 360 perception doesn’t really count if the thing he’s trying to attack is invisible to his own eyes).

(Sorry about the poor quality of the screenshot. I was in a bit of a rush to get this done since… Uh, blood. This episode features a lot of blood).

And apparently, Carnage traded his sound weakness to a weakness to that Chthonic Magic, so sound isn’t much of a thing that can hurt him anymore. I guess Songbird and Black Bolt ought to watch out for this guy if Carnage ever shows up at their front door.

Kinda of a meek end line, considering that this is Carnage we’re talking about.

Lucy′s Preview.

Seriously. Turn back now. Lucy’s rundown contains a lot of blood and gore. I did my best to not include any gratuitous blood, but it’s still there. If you’re reading this while watching the episode, turn back now if you don’t want to be grossed out.

Only warning indeed.

So, Lucy’s origin includes the stuff on the Dicloni, and how she was captured and why she needed to be captured, and it’s really dark. As an aside, who here thinks that Lucy would be welcomed by the X-Men, on account that she’s got a superpower, and all that?- Well, her less murder-y side, anyways.

(I doubt that healing factor would make a difference).

So, Kaede seems like a nice girl and all, until she was pushed to a breaking point. Yeesh, what is up with these psychopaths and being pushed to a breaking point?

Lucy’s Vectors, much like the Symbiote Cletus wears, is given its own rundown. And it seems like my initial claim that Lucy wouldn’t have any access to fire is incorrect. I am willing to admit my mistake, and acknowledge that I was underinformed for Lucy’s powerset. So with this, I have a feeling that Lucy has an immediate edge.

And given the multiple personalities that she has, it’s likely that she’s… messed up. Poor girl, she’s been through a lot.

(Note to self: Try to see if I can’t get Nyu’s personality out more).

Boomstick’s voice telling her to kill them before they hurt puppies is both adorable and hilarious. Boomstick’s clearly a dog fan. Makes me dread if they ever bring in Iggy from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, considering the little guy uh… dies.

So Lucy’s Vector movement is faster than Venom’s top recorded speed, and since it’s reasonable to scale Carnage to Venom, it’s likely that Carnage isn’t going to move fast enough to dodge all of those Vectors at once. Speaking of Vectors, why not Medusa from Soul Eater?

And Lucy’s feats… Yeah, they blow Carnage’s out of the Klyntar-infested water.

(Blocking SLAM missiles?- That’s badass).

They thankfully go over some weaknesses, so it’s clear that she’s not invincible. Blows to the head, or cutting off one of her horns will nullify her vectors, and she can apparently melt.

Yeah, warning, I’m about to show you guys the screenshot. Because if I have to suffer in seeing it, then so do you!

(I said blood, not gore).

And they even go over her redemption, and how it wasn’t so hopeless after all……… Before cutting away to her just flat-out murdering a bunch of other people in lieu of an end line. The music just makes it really creepy and hilarious at the same time.

The Battle Itself.

Zack, Kervin, Luis, and Jerky are tackling this animation project. Danielle McRae is voicing Lucy, while Christopher Guerreo is voicing Carnage. Brandon Yates is doing the music on this. Kokkinos has sound.

So the story for this one is basically just Nyu waiting for a train, and Carnage killing everyone aboard because he’s Carnage. I guess Lucy took over to protect Nyu.

The music does a really great job at setting the mood, it’s called Chorus of Carnage, and it’s really good and has such a poetic title. I know what I’m listening to on Halloween.

Props to the animators for making Carnage’s sprite work well with Lucy’s invisible Vectors. It feels reminiscent of Jotaro’s fight with Kenshiro before Kenshiro used Toki to sense SP.

And Lucy’s initial and go-to attack don’t really do much against Carnage’s healing factor. So, the battle rages on with Carnage struggling to land a hit on the Diclonius Queen. It takes a while, and a lot of effort, but he lands some cuts on the girl.

So, after Lucy manages to slam Carnage into the train, he starts a taunt. It’s… Pretty dark.

Finishing Blow in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Lucy’s Vectors are just starting to get to the higher frequencies, and, she delivers a pretty damn good one-liner.

“Does it hurt yet?- Don’t worry. I’ll put you out of your misery.”

And props to Carnage for not going out like a bitch. He just says “I hate you.” and then he blows up.

Even the clouds clear as sunlight comes in to brighten the day. One less serial killer to worry about… Until I revive him for story purposes.

Verdict + Explanation.

So, apparently that explosion was certainly enough to kill Carnage. And Boomstick rejoices at the fact that there’s one less dog-killer out there.

And while Carnage could land some cuts, it was primarily through projectiles, as Lucy’s Vectors would just be too much for a melee attack. So, possession was off the table.

But that’s not to say that Carnage was helpless. His healing abilities gave him the durability, but Lucy fighting as a puddle meant that Carnage’s punishment wouldn’t be enough to incapacitate her unless he landed a blow to her horns. Which, given that Lucy is likely aware of this weakness, she would be careful to not let it happen.

In terms of strength, Carnage overpowered several opponents that had massive advantages in that category, but Lucy’s own demonstrated feats of strength overwhelm Carnage’s scaled and demonstrated strength.

Really though, the battle did come down to who could land a fatal blow first. Similar to another Marvel character who fought a non-DC opponent. The overall question is muddled a bit thanks to Carnage’s healing, but it gets less muddled thanks to Lucy’s explosive Vectors that got compared to Nuclear Fusion. And since there’s no evidence to suggest that Carnage could survive such a massive amount of heat, it’s entirely possible that Lucy could totally incinerate Carnage if given the chance.

And given that Carnage isn’t likely to power through Lucy’s Vectors anytime soon (Thanks to the latter’s speed and strength), Lucy had more opportune moments to kill Carnage. It’s even pointed out in a notecard.

Really though, Boomstick’s end line didn’t really have a good Lied-in.

Overall impression.

Really though, I know that October is slated for Battle 100, but I feel that this would have worked better then. Two Psychopathic murderers going at each other with deadly force, and the chilling music makes it all the more eerie. It feels like a slight missed opportunity, and there’s no notecard explaining why Carnage tagging Nova wasn’t mentioned. Perhaps during the podcast, but it would have been nice to have heard or read why it didn’t count in the actual episode.

Aside from that, the music and animation is really good, but it feels like there could have been a tad more effort put into Lucy’s sprite. It felt odd seeing a minimalist looking sprite interacting with a detailed sprite like the one Carnage got. I get that Elfin Lied is a bit obscure, and that there wouldn’t be many good sprites to use, but Lucy looks her best when we get a close-up of her hand-drawn face.

That being said, the explanation is really good, but once Lucy’s explosive Vectors are mentioned, it becomes a foregone conclusion. Lucy just needs to land that once to finish the fight, and we just saw her move her Vector hands into space. She could fight at a distance, and keep Carnge away from her.

7.0/10 The fight’s good, and the music is really awesome, but it’s not exactly an “up in the air” fight. Overall, the moment the Nuclear Fusion hands get mentioned, you know it’s leaning towards Lucy, and that sort of lack of suspense makes it hard to enjoy. It’s not even something like Flash vs. Quicksilver, in which you know who’s going to win, but the setting and reasoning for the fight is unique and interesting. Maybe if Lucy had gotten on the train, and they had fought there, it would have been more unique, but it doesn’t really have a unique edge. And the lighting is weird, which makes it harder to track Carnage. While this might have been the intent, it’s odd that both Symbiote fights involve a lot of dark lighting.

But the result is well-justified, and the parts that can be seen are really great. So, I’d say that the score is fair.

Next Time…

It’s been a while since we last had a Transformer, and it’s about time that we did get one. Though, I won’t really cry if Prime loses. It’s a running gag that he dies a lot at this point.

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

The second giant robot fight we’ve had.

Let’s Try That Again; The 10 Best Horror Movie Remakes

The horror movie remake is a polarizing topic that drives the horror community crazy. You either love remakes, or hate them. Few horror movie re-imaginings have been able to rise above their “remake” branding. Too many fans chalking their existence up to exploiting a film or franchise’s existing fandom, being made purely for profit, being rushed, or re-envisioning iconic characters to a lesser extent.

Despite not being received with open arms, there are a select few remakes that stand above the pack – converting their audiences of naysayers into rabid fans, re-invigorating the franchise they birthed from. Here are our picks for the 10 best horror movie remakes!

  10. Friday the 13th (2009)

Against the advice of locals and police, Clay (Jared Padalecki) scours the eerie woods surrounding Crystal Lake for his missing sister. But the rotting cabins of an abandoned summer camp are not the only things he finds. Hockey-masked killer Jason Voorhees lies in wait for a chance to use his razor-sharp machete on Clay and the group of college students who have come to the forest to party.

  Alright, I may get a lot of flack for putting this one on the list. But I really do love the Friday the 13th remake. It’s over the top, it’s got everything you want in a slasher, and there’s exactly 13 kills. While it doesn’t hold a torch to the original from 1980, this 2009 remake directed by Marcus Nispel ain’t half bad. There’s some really fun kills and a bit of back story about Jason.

  9. Piranha 3D (2010)

Spring break turns gory when an underground tremor releases hundreds of prehistoric, carnivorous fish into Lake Victoria, a popular waterside resort. Local cop Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue) must join forces with a band of unlikely strangers — though they are badly outnumbered — to destroy the ravenous creatures before everyone becomes fish food.

  Piranha 3D is the perfect summer film! The original was released in 1978 and was titled simply Piranha. In 2010 we got a 3D remake that took the thriller element from the original and added way more boobs. And humor. And blood. Piranha 3D is a cheesy gore-fest. Directed by Alexandre Aja, it has an all-star cast including Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd and Jerry O’Connell. A great flick to watch in a group while vacationing at a lake. Just make sure to maybe check there’s not another lake under that lake.. filled with ancient piranhas.

  8. Quarantine (2008)

Reporter Angela (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott (Steve Harris) are doing a story on night-shift firefighters for a reality-TV program. A late-night distress call takes them to a Los Angeles apartment building, where the police are investigating a report of horrific screams. The TV team and emergency workers find an old woman, who suddenly attacks with teeth bared. What’s more, Angela and company find that the building has been sealed by CDC workers. Then the attacks really begin.

  [REC] (2007) is a Spanish found footage film directed by Jaume Balagueró. The film is absolutely terrifying and exactly how found footage should be done. One year later came the American remake Quarantine, directed by John Erick Dowdle. Both films follow the exact same story, so there’s not a lot of surprises watching the American remake. Both films also set up for a bunch of sequels, some of which are really great. The American version stars Jennifer Carpenter in the lead role, who does a great job carrying the story. I won’t say much more because both of these films should be watched with no prior knowledge of the story. The first time I saw the ending was one of the few times I’ve screamed out loud while watching a horror film. I apologized profusely to my neighbors.

  7. Evil Dead (2013)

Mia (Jane Levy), a drug addict, is determined to kick the habit. To that end, she asks her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez), his girlfriend, Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and their friends Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) to accompany her to their family’s remote forest cabin to help her through withdrawal. Eric finds a mysterious Book of the Dead at the cabin and reads aloud from it, awakening an ancient demon. All hell breaks loose when the malevolent entity possesses Mia.

  Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead was originally released in 1981. A campy, low-budget film that became an instant cult classic. In 2013, Fede Alverez’s re-imagined the beloved story of Ash and his deadites, creating a darker, more sinister interpretation. One of the biggest changes, was opting for an incredible female lead played by Jan Levy.  The film is deliciously dark, and only embellishes the silly, zany palate of the Evil Dead Franchise.  There’s been a lot of chatter about a sequel being in the works, but nothing concrete.

  6. Willard (2003)

Desperate for companionship, the repressed Willard (Crispin Glover) befriends a group of rats that inhabit his late father’s deteriorating mansion. In these furry creatures, Willard finds temporary refuge from daily abuse at the hands of his bedridden mother (Jackie Burroughs) and his father’s old partner, Frank (R. Lee Ermey). Soon it becomes clear that the brood of rodents is ready and willing to exact a vicious, deadly revenge on anyone who dares to bully their sensitive new master.

  Willard was released in 1973 and the remake came years later to screens in 2003. It stars Crispin Glover in one of his best roles, and a crap tone of rats. Glen Morgan directed this awesome remake and fills it with everything you’d want in a terrifying situation about killer rats. Glover shines on-screen as a total weirdo and carries the film with perfection. If you weren’t scared of rats before, you will be after this flick ends.

  5. The Grudge (2004)

Matthew Williams (William Mapother), his wife, Jennifer (Clea DuVall), and mother, Emma (Grace Zabriskie), are Americans making a new life in Tokyo. Together they move into a house that has been the site of supernatural occurrences in the past, and it isn’t long before their new home begins terrorizing the Williams family as well. The house, as it turns out, is the site of a curse that lingers in a specific place and claims the lives of anyone that comes near.

  An American remake from the Japanese original Ju-On: The Grudge released in 2002. The remake, directed by Takashi Shimizu, the same person who directed the original, is terrifying. Back in the early 2000’s it was harder for North Americans to access J-horror and horror audiences were grateful for an accessible remake. Starring Sarah Michelle Geller in the lead role, she carries the story with grace. There’s so many memorable moments and jump scares. While I do recommend The Grudge, I say go crazy and watch both the original and remake one after the other. Have the pants scared off of you!

  4. The Fly (1986)

  When scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly’s cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle’s girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.

  Originally released in 1958, it was a long time before The Fly remake came around in 1986. The original movie was adapted from a short story written by George Langelaan. The remake was directed by the always impressive David Cronenberg and starred Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. Both brought insane performances to this movie which makes it such a great remake. Of course, it is Cronenberg, so…you know…don’t eat while you’re watching it.

  3. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

When her husband is attacked by a zombified neighbor, Ana (Sarah Polley) manages to escape, only to realize her entire Milwaukee neighborhood has been overrun by the walking dead. After being questioned by cautious policeman Kenneth (Ving Rhames), Ana joins him and a small group that gravitates to the local shopping mall as a bastion of safety. Once they convince suspicious security guards that they are not contaminated, the group bands together to fight the undead hordes.

  The original Dawn of the Dead was a fantastic, beautiful, groundbreaking film from Romero, released in 1978. The remake came in 2004, helmed by James Gunn and Zack Snyder. What stands out about this remake is how far they veer from the source material. But it works! The film boasts a strong cast featuring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber, to name a few. There’s also some heart-breaking moments and genuine scares. Oh, and zombies. Lots of those.

  2. The Ring (2002)

It sounds like just another urban legend — a videotape filled with nightmarish images leads to a phone call foretelling the viewer’s death in exactly seven days. Newspaper reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is skeptical of the story until four teenagers all die mysteriously exactly one week after watching just such a tape. Allowing her investigative curiosity to get the better of her, Rachel tracks down the video and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery.

  Another J-horror American remake. Ringu was first released in 1998 based on the book Ring by Koji Suzuki. In 2002, along came The Ring directed by Gore Verbinski. This was a huge deal for us teenagers in the early 2000’s and made us all terrified of our landlines. The Ring is beautifully shot and colored mystery. It’s a wonderfully done film. It stars Naomi Watts as the mother fighting to save herself and her child, played by David Dorfman.

  1. The Thing (1982)

In remote Antarctica, a group of American research scientists are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot (Kurt Russell) and the camp doctor (Richard Dysart) lead the camp crew in a desperate, gory battle against the vicious creature before it picks them all off, one by one.

  You didn’t think I’d make this list without The Thing did you? Come on! Originally titled The Thing from Another World and released in 1951, the remake was done by John Carpenter in 1982. The Thing is probably the one film everyone will agree on. It’s perfection on-screen. Giant, snowy, cold landscapes filled with unbearable tension and fear. An outstanding performance from all involved – but Kurt Russell stands out on top. Amazing practical effects and a terrifying premise, The Thing is the penultimate remake. They actually remade this again in 2011, but let’s not talk about that..

  Those are our picks for the 10 Best Horror Movie Remakes! Are any of your favorites on this list? If not, let us know what your favorite horror remakes are in the comments below, or over in our Facebook Group!

The post Let’s Try That Again; The 10 Best Horror Movie Remakes appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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Hercules

Here’s a story for the magnificent @mrcavanaughtf​ who had this particular request.

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O.M.G. That hunk on Grindr FINALLY reacted!!! He’s hot like a model, smart like a scientist and such a smooth talker! And listen to his reaction to my messages! “Hi, I think you look pretty great” OMG!!! “But I’m sorry to tell you that you’re not my type” oh… Shit. Well that sucks. I’m trying to keep my cool but fuck it. I’m alone in the house, i can cry whenever I feel like it! Soon the tears have completely soaked the pillows on my bed, but after what feels like days of non-stop crying I finally muster the strength to get up and walk to the kitchen to eat. I throw some stuff in the microwave and see that I actually only cried for around 20 minutes. I throw myself on the couch while I wait for the food to be done, I turn on the television and watch some WWE. It’s my secret escape from all the heartbreak Grindr has brought me, seeing all of those hot men try to be the alpha and dominate the other really turns me on. I’m already edging when I hear the announcer say the name of my favourite one, Zack Ryder. Oh Zack, if I were even close to your perfection I’d have no problems picking anybody up on Grindr. I give my cock one last tug before cum shoots out over Zack and someone else, but I’m too spent from my orgasm to actually pay attention, let alone clean up. “If only I were nearly as hot as you, Zack” I mutter before I drift to sleep.

That’s it!

My eyes blast open and I run to the attic, stumbling up the stairs as I rush towards the suitcase my grandma left to me in her will. She told me there was some sort of magic potion inside which would allow me to get the man of my dreams. Grandma was the only one I told about my sexuality and she was super proud of me for trusting her. Soon after she passed away though and I went off to college, where I live in a small condo with attic, rented just outside the campus.

I open the suitcase and there’s a note with the wavy handwriting of grandma, ensuring me of how much she loves me and that I need to drink the potion, say what I wanted to happen and just let the magic do what it’s supposed to do. Luckily she left a little chart of rules, and for possession the rule was that I needed to actually touch the person I wanted to become. Well that made matters a lot worse for my plan, didn’t it.

It’s surprising how easy it is to meet a celeb. I contacted his manager, told them how much of a fan I was (even threw in some random facts that only the big fans would know because luckily, I’m quite the fan) and a few days later here I am, walking down the hallway of his house towards the gym where I could hear the sounds of lots of cushioned blows originating from. I opened the heavy door and saw a wresting ring, a moving punching bag and a LOT of mirrors. I cough and the punching bag stopped moving and seconds after the handsome head I have cum on loads of times pops up behind it, his confused gaze quickly becoming the confident smirk suiting his persona. “Hi! My manager told me about this super fan that would be visiting? I guess that’s you hahaha, otherwise I should have a good chat with my security” Zack bellows a laugh and I awkwardly mimicked, quite concerned to make sure Zack wouldn’t notice my boner. “So, I usually don’t really do this, would you like to train a bit with me?” Zack suggested, and I of course eagerly accept.

He went really easy on me of course, more focused on blocking my attacks and countering them by slapping my open spots than actually trying to win. I got tired after a bit and I went back into the corner, making a gesture meaning that I have to quickly drink something and Zack nods, turning around to rest and drink too. I take advantage of the fact that I’m not being watched and I quickly drink the potion, wiping the little residue that’s left on my chin away with the towel. I quickly move over Zack, but when I’m in the middle Zack hears my steps and stands up resume the fight. I have no choice but to fight, hoping that I get a chance to grip his arm or something before the potion works off.

After 10 minutes of intense trying, I finally find an open spot in his defence, and grab his ankle. Zack falls back and laughs, but his smile quickly becomes a grossed out grimace when he hears me say “I want to possess Zack Ryder.” “The fuck?! What kind of gay shit is that!” Zack screams, trying to kick my hand away but realising it has merged. I quickly go in for a kiss because I know that he won’t be able to get me off and our lips start merging while we make out, him screaming during it until my tongue hits his and our lips finally fully merge. The rest of my body quickly slips in his and after a few seconds all that’s left of me is the clothes that I was wearing, laying on top of a very aroused Zack. I stand up in my new body and decide to fully test my strength.

“Now this display of raw masculinity sure will make that model think twice about rejecting me.” I flex in the mirror a few times and hear Zack in the back of my mind struggle with adjusting to his new life. I grab my phone, open Grindr and send a few pics to the model with the text “What about now eh?”

This time it only takes him seconds to react, immediately asking to meet asap and showing immense needs to get my cock up his ass. Suddenly I feel a bit dizzy and I reach out to the mirror. I look back up into it and as sudden as it came, the dizziness went away. I look back at my phone and get grossed out by this fag that is sending me lewd pics of himself, trying to get me to fuck him. He’s a model or something, judging by the quality of most of the pics, but I’m FAR from interested. I tell him to fuck off and delete the app. Why the fuck did I have a dating app in the first place? I can get all the pussy I want!

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Hey dudes, just as a side note here, I’m not 100% sure if I’ll be able to write this Fridays and next Tuesdays stories, but I’ll try my hardest! Also about the anon requests, I prefer requests off anon so I can discuss my ideas further to optimise pleasure for you and perhaps talk about other stuff as well. If you don’t see these as necessary, I’ve turned anon on for a reason so you do you. Peace! ✌️

Assorted Ailments – Observations from Sixers 116, Pistons 102

That was a pretty straightforward win.

There was a weird portion of the game where Detroit pulled within three, and I was sitting there thinking to myself, “surely they’re not going to blow this while playing at home with Joel Embiid while Blake Griffin sits.” That would be absurd considering that they went out and beat the Pistons on the road three days prior without Joel Embiid while Blake Griffin played. It would have been like entering the “upside down” from Stranger Things, or Seinfeld’s “bizarro world” or just the Twilight Zone in general.

But it didn’t happen, and even after Jimmy Butler left the game with a groin strain, the Sixers found a way to blow it open in the fourth for a comfortable, 14-point win.

Brett Brown did not have an update on Butler, but I imagine we’ll get one after practice this afternoon around 1:15 p.m.

Holding yourself to a high standard

Most of my focus last night was watching Joel Embiid’s offensive positioning and body language, to see where his starting points were and if he seemed to be annoyed with his role. This was, after all, the first game he played since the Keith Pompey article came out last week, featuring some quotes that suggested that he was unhappy with his play and the way he was being deployed on the floor.

I didn’t see much to suggest that anything was truly different, and of course Butler’s injury departure cut short the amount of time they played together, so there weren’t a ton of great examples to look at last night. Ben Simmons was also ultra-aggressive in the first quarter, so he did a lot of early-shot clock driving and didn’t flow into the base offense on too many occasions.

This was one example, and while it was kind of sloppy, it works for this exercise:

They sort of botch that, but you see how they swing it into a DHO with Redick, and then Joel peels down to the post with 10 seconds on the shot clock.

That’s how they get him most of his post touches, running that two-man game with JJ and then sliding down on the ball side. In this sequence he passes out of the double team for Butler, who gets a clean three-point look, so they actually turn a wonky possession into a decent shot.

This is how the base motion offense really is supposed to look:

Embiid is the trailing big, so they run that “A to B” motion with him and T.J. McConnell before swinging into a DHO with Redick. JJ kicks the ball back out, Joel takes it to the post, throws it out, and gets it back.

The whole point is that Joel starts most of the Sixers’ possessions on the perimeter, no matter if it’s the base offense or various horns and clear-out sets. He still gets post touches though because he inevitably winds up down there off the DHO with Redick in the two-man game.

I’m not entirely sure what his frustration is with the Butler thing, but certainly if you dial up specific looks for Jimmy or just call a simple pick and roll or iso or something like that, of course you’re not going to be involved. And in the Toronto game, when Joel was being run ragged, I honestly would blame that on Simmons to continuing to push a ridiculous and frenetic pace into the fourth quarter. When you are inbounding the ball as the trailing big, you’re just going to be exhausted hauling ass up and down the floor.

Speaking of ass, Joel opened his media availability by explaining that he had recently experienced a migraine and diarrhea. Brett Brown also confirmed that he wasn’t sure he would have Jo available to play until “late,” which I assume would be a short time before the game.

Embiid then elaborated on the quotes he gave in the Pompey story:

That was just me frustrated with the way I was playing. I know everybody took it out of context. But I love everybody and I love my teammates and I love the coaching staff and I think everybody that knows me knows that. (It’s) me being frustrated because I hold myself to a really high standard. I played a role in whatever was said, but I had a conversation with coach. It starts with me but there’s a lot of adjustments that we can all make. It’s just the frustration of playing… I’ve never really been in that situation; usually if I’m in a slump it’s two or three days but it’s been going on for like ten games. Also it’s because I hold myself to a certain standard. But it’s the past, we moved on and everything is great.

Joel had 24 points and 8 rebounds with 3 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks last night. He only shot 6 for 16 but hit 11 of 14 free throws and finished with the world’s quietest +30, so go figure. If Butler is out for a few games, this issue won’t be much of anything moving forward, but we’ll see what happens once the starting five is back together.

Ring that bell brotha

Furkan Korkmaz rang it.

He finished with a career-high 18 points last night on 7-12 shooting off the bench. He also grabbed seven rebounds and played some decent defense on the other side of the floor.

I asked Furkan how he felt and what was working for him last night:

Of course the feeling is really good you know? Sometimes you are playing good – really good – but the team (is losing). I feel like I played good and then we won the game. Things are changing really quickly here. After the trade I started to find more opportunities here, so I’m talking to the coaching staff and some of the players on the team about how I can be ready every time. I was ready today. I think every time I just go out there and play.

That was sort of a softball question to set up the next one, because I don’t like asking the asshole question right off the bat when a player has a good game. It’s usually more fair to throw something generic at a guy and let him answer it how he wants to, then if you have something that’s a little more “pointed,” you do that next. In this case, I wanted to ask him how he felt about his contract option not being picked up and whether or not he feels like he has something to prove when he hits the floor:

I mean, like I said, things are changing really quickly here in the NBA. Right now that’s the decision from the organization and from the coaching staff and the front office. I can’t make any comment about it. I just need to keep working and keep being professional. When the opportunity comes, when the time comes, I just need to show the people that yes, I can play.

A diplomatic answer. Not sure what else he can really say there.

To his credit, he’s taken the opportunity and really rolled with it. Furkan has been given double-digit minutes in four of his last six games, and he’s reached double-digit points in three of those four outings.

There’s never been a doubt that he can shoot the ball, but defensively he’s improving and he looks more comfortable playing the NBA game.

Brown on Furk:

He’s not intimidated by NBA basketball. He’s not intimidated by the moment. I don’t know how much you paid attention to Turkey in the qualification series, but, I have said this a lot, he was one of the better guards in that tournament. He’s got a bounce, he has an inner belief, there is a swagger that he has when he is going to make a play. He may miss a lot of shots, he may make a lot of shots, but there really isn’t any sort of trepidation, there is not a back down in Furkan. I thought he played the game well and he played it with a lot of confidence.

Looks like the decision not to pick up his contract option was slightly premature. We’ll have to see how that plays out.

Other notes:

Zack Steffen was the Sixers’ bell ringer. He’s the American goalkeeper who is headed to Manchester City this winter. I don’t think many people in the arena knew who he was.

The free throw shooting was pretty poor on both ends of the floor last night. Ben Simmons finished 2-9.

Ben was aggressive early and also when he came back in at the 8 minute mark of the fourth quarter. Detroit just didn’t have an answer for him on some of those bulldozer drives to the rack.

I swear that Ben is using that snatch dribble more this year. He threw it again on that pass to JJ Redick towards the end of the game, but when I asked Simmons about it, he didn’t have much to say, just explaining that it’s something that comes naturally to him and he really doesn’t think about using it. It’s hard to get much of anything out of Ben when it comes to quotes. He’s better I think after practice because before and after games he’s just bashed over the head with a million questions about the same topics.

The Sixers’ bench scored 52 points last night, or 54 if you want to add Amir Johnson’s late dunk. But the four-man rotation of Korkmaz, McConnell, Landry Shamet, and Mike Muscala really did a nice job covering for Butler’s injury and a quiet night from Redick, who was 3-12 on the evening.

Somebody once told me that I look like Furkan Korkmaz. Do I look like him?

Shake Milton has assumed Robert Covington’s role of the hype man during the Wendy’s “Frosty Freeze Out.” It was “next man up,” according to T.J. McConnell. 

Finally, I need everyone to participate in this:

Last night Joel Embiid said he had been dealing with a migraine and diarrhea. If you were forced to deal with one of those ailments, which one would you choose?

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) December 11, 2018

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