to any americans who feel "paralyzed" and "dont know what to do" to help with gaza:

reading a fucking book. i beg of you.

in a time of knowledge suppression is it your duty to arm yourself with knowledge.

read about americas occupations in the middle east.

read about 9/11 from outside of america and see how they inflicted senseless harm and violence to countless amounts of people and have been suppressing your rights for the past 2 fucking decades.

read about any of the countless wars from the past 30 years. especially from a civilian's. and the victims and survivors' perspective. listen to the horror stories and do not plug your fucking ears as to what your country is doing.

and read about fucking gaza and palestine and keep up with what is happening no matter how "sad" or "uncountable" you might get.

dont look away from this.

you dont have the right to be comfortable during countless active genocides.

if you're knowledgeable, you're powerful, and our current state doesnt fucking want that.

you have the power to change things if you open your eyes and scream to the world.

wake the fuck up.

Edit: please check the reblogs there are readings and ways to help

Hey FYI, the minor RPF situation is because it's legal in America, and AO3 is based in America. Like, the problem is way higher up than AO3. The LAW needs to change, and then AO3 can change--but with the way their nonprofit functions, they can't ban anything that's legal in America without contradicting their mission statement, which would mean they're not allowed to operate. I agree it's bad, but the problem is the LAW in America is disgusting and evil, and AO3 has to follow it.

I don’t... care?

Seriously this isn’t about me being pissed AO3 is following fucked up american law, it’s me being fucking pissed the defence is, “it’s just fiction” and “it’s just a fantasy”. “It’s legal here so it’s okay.”

I’m fucking mad that the people who worked with or are AO3 positive fucking say that it’s censorship that’ll get rid of gay content if they impose rules to get rid of it.

And it’s pretty fucked that the mission statement of defending transformitive works includes real minors, you realize how fucked up that is, right? AO3 is Fanfiction only. They could have developed a mission statement that excluded real life minors, but didn’t. They didn’t fucking prevent real life minors from being added to begin with.

Everyone defending it calls people against it, “pro-censorship”.

A sixteen year old boy was sent written CSEM of himself and your concern is over a fucking website that allowed the content to begin with.

You act like AO3 doesn’t oppose the idea of this law being a thing, their entire standpoint is the protection of transformative works INCLUDING that.

I’m mad because this isn’t something that you should be coming into the inbox of a CSA survivor, and fucking defending.

“The Law needs to change” or perhaps AO3 needs to take a look at why their policies can’t be defended without the inclusion of CSEM.

Why the fuck would you come here and be like, “well hopefully the law changes and it will be a-okay” as if this shit is fine until then?

Anytime laws like that come up, it’s VIOLENTLY opposed by the people I’m fucking venting about, this wasn’t in any tags, and I’m god damn furious you think I have no idea how this fucking works.

I don’t give a shit what AO3’s mission statement is, Fanfiction doesn’t fucking matter over kids being exploited. Genuinely, I fucking think AO3 should CHANGE or SHUT DOWN. Regardless of your fucked up laws in America.

@/the-resurrection-3d and I discussed this in DMs and I’ve actually had full ass conversations about this, but let me make it fucking clear to you anon.

If the only reason AO3 functions is that it must allow a form of CSEM which is fucking traumatizing, I do not fucking care about it. I want it shut down even if the impact is negative to me because I care about IRL children over Fanfiction. So kindly fuck off my blog and don’t come back with “oh but AO3...” I don’t give any shits.

The post was untagged. It was a vent post about current feelings about a teenager finding shit that genuinely disturbed him, and for the past three years seeing people defend this shit. It was a fucking vent, untagged except to VENT MORE.

Any more asks on this is getting fucking blocked.

Captive Chapter 1 : Blue Death.

Gifs not mine 

_Dean x Reader_

Summary : 

Dean Winchester is an enemy.

Every man of letters and hunters are enemies.

During the Great Purge in Europe, when every european Men of Letters allied to eradicate monsters once and for all, using hunters as their cold-blooded hounds, long before the BMOL took an interest in USA, they killed my mother, and made me go through hell. I killed so many of them I lost count, and lived a life on the run. Until one day I heard about American Men of Letters extinction, and decided to try and find peace there.

That was without counting on the exile of some BMOL, and the existence of the two best hunters of the world.The fisrt time I saw Sam Winchester, I almost killed him, and Dean has me now…

He is going to kill me, right ?

____________________________

Future warnings : Violence and captivity, Swearing, Angst, Fluff, Smut.

Chapter Warnings : Violence, blood, pain. This is pretty dark actually. Character death. Swearing. Dean being the bad guy. Reader being the villain... Everyone being quite bad.

***CAPTIVE MASTERLIST***

___________________________

1. Blue Death

            The knife enters the hunter’s flesh in one flowing movement and the tall man looks so surprised for a second. His large hand comes to my shoulder and he looks at me in the eye. Aware of how dangerous he is, even wounded ; I take a step back, taking the blade with me.

 “Sam !” says the British men of letters and I turn toward him with snake’s speed.

He shoots on my direction and I avoid the bullet at the very last moment, but it lodges itself inside the tall hunter’s stomach.

Looking at my attacker -skeptical because he just risked his partner’s life without a hint of hesitation- I wrap my arms around his neck from behind.

“Ketch…” says the bleeding hunter, falling on the ground like a dying wild beast.

I send his gun flying far from us and climb on his back. The men of letters nails dig into my skin while I choke him with all my strength, screaming my lungs out to focus my energy on him. He tries to bang me on the wall behind us but I’m used to pain and I resist, coiled like a constrictor, even with the muffled sound of my rib breaking.

            The lack of oxygen finally makes him weak and he falls on his knees. I scream even louder, compressing his throat more. His hands let go off my arms and he starts shaking.

            The injured hunter tries to get up but fails, groaning and pressing a hand on the open wound I made on his side. The man under me passes out and I let go off him, knowing he’s not dead. My head is spinning from pain and shock. I look at his lifeless form and take my head in my hands.

“Raaah ! FUCK !” I yell, looking around to think.

I kick the unconscious man’s body and hear something break inside him, a bone maybe. My ribs hurt so much I could faint, my heart is racing with rage and fear.

            How did they fucking found me ? I was so careful. Shit ! I’m going to run again, start from scratch once more.

“Fuck you hunters !” I shout, half panicking.

            I take a deep breath and the long hair man seems surprised again. I spit blood and whine, holding my aching chest. Bending painfully I pick my knife and lift it above the man of letters. When he sees me hesitate, the hurt hunter speaks :

“You don’t have to kill us” he says weekly.

“Of course I do…”

“Still… you don’t seem to want it.”

“Shut up ! Fuck you !” I say before putting my knife away.

            I take a big bag and untidily put a few things inside it. The hunter starts to shake, his hands in his own blood, his shirt drenched in thick vital fluid. A knife-deep cut in his side and a bullet a few inches from it.

When I’m about to go through the door, I hear him try to crawl to God knows where, like he needed to do something, anything, even if he’s already doomed. This man is a survivor and I can’t help but admire his will to fight. He crawls toward his gun and I could just leave before he reaches it, but I go to him and take it before he can touch the cold metal.

            I take the bullets out and throw them far from him, giving him the gun back, and he takes it, like that was all he remembers at the doors of death : how to hold a gun. Given his height and weight -I’d say 210 or 220 pounds- and the speed of the blood loss… I say he will be dead in half an hour. There is absolutely no chance anyone finds him here.

            I look at him and he stares at me, like a formidable noble lion looking in the hunter’s eyes. He struggles to breathe, his large and strong body fighting against exhaustion.

But he gives up suddenly, letting his head fall on the wooden ground. One menacing enemy gone, this should be a good thing… I sigh, and take a bottle of medical alcohol I have in my closet.

I kneel beside him and he looks at me with a great confusion behind the agony in his pupils. I press on the wound and he winces, I pour a large amount of alcohol on the cut then on the gun wound and he almost faints.

“If I slow the bleeding and prevent infection, someone may find you before it’s too late” I mutter, hating myself for taking so much risk. “You can’t go after me.”

Before I can find a bandage, he passes out and the door bursts violently.

Another hunter, also tall and strong, is aiming me with his gun, an extraordinary rage burning in his dark green eyes. An old but robust man with a machete and a blond woman in a cop outfit, also aiming a gun at me, follows him.

This is it. This is the end. I lower my hands and stay on my knees, closing my eyes to wait the sound of the bullet that will end me forever.

Finally.

 Dean’s Pov 

 The doctor says Sammy is in a coma, he lost too much blood and even if he wasn’t stabbed on any vital organ, nor shot in his lungs, this is not good. His body started to shut down for good.

But that is when Cas said he couldn’t do anything that I truly panicked. He put his hands on Sam’s wounds and nothing happened. No bright light or miraculous waking.

So here I am, sitting next to my brother, a heavy pain on my stomach, despair on my throat. He seems so little, covered in hoses and machines, strangled by tubes on his nose and on his mouth, needles stinging his pale skin everywhere.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, that was a simple case, that was a simple stab, a simple bullet. Sam Winchester can’t be gone like this. Ketch said we’d be back by Monday…

“Dean, we got the girl” Donna says entering the room, and something hits me. “We don’t know what she is, so we used every protections and spells we know.”

“What if this is why…” I say getting up, thinking hard. “What if Cas inability to heal him is linked to what this bitch is ?”

             I enter the dungeon, clenching my fists. Here she is, tied up to a chair in the middle of the large pentacle, her head down, hair falling on each side of it. Sam’s blood is still covering her and I have to swallow hard not to put a bullet between her eyes right now.

“What are you ?” I growl.

She doesn’t answer, keeping her glare on the floor.

“Oh so you’re not going to answer…”

I lift my arm and punch her face with full force, surprised by the lack of resistance her body opposes me. It’s like she doesn’t have any of that supernatural strength evil creatures usually have.

            She spits blood and clenches her fists. For a second, her weakness surprises me enough to make me waver. But then I see her dark eyes turn blue, an unnatural light blue that remembers me of the monster she is ; so I punch her again, this time in her stomach and she almost faints, coughing and spitting a lot of blood.

             When Ketch talked to us about the return of The Blue Death, I never imagined it had the form of a girl, nor I asked why “Blue” was in her nickname. And I know now. A fucking urban Legend among hunters, the death sentence itself, the monster that only tracks down hunters.

            We tracked her for four months, following a trail of bodies, hunter bodies. Now I wonder how she could have killed so many of them without super strength, because she killed all of them hand-to-hand, with knifes mostly, or just strangling them like she did with Ketch, before shooting and stabbing my brother.

When Ketch woke up, he explained us that she shot Sammy before stabbing him, like a coward, and that she straggled him. They are lucky to be alive. She never left survivors before.

            When he came to us for help to get rid of The Blue Death for good, he said she was hunter greater danger, and I remember smiling, thinking it was probably exaggerated. I believe him now…

            French, German and Italian Men of Letters tried to stop her years ago but she slaughtered most of them, now she’s here to decimate American hunters. I should have listened to him more carefully, Sam and I were reckless and I’m paying the heaviest price for it.

            I’m not doing the same mistake twice, I won’t underestimate her.

            I’m going to break her.

 Reader Pov 

             The pain is unbearable but I’ve known worse, worse than unbearable. If my body wasn’t able to heal a little better and faster than human’s one do, I would have died a hundred times already.

            I think my jaw just cracked, every inch of my face is hurting like crazy, and my broken ribs are now displaced. I can’t breathe properly.

            I should have ran, let this tall long-hair hunter die, run for my life as always… left the country.

           I thought America would be a fresh start, since Men of Letters disappeared here, but it is always the same : BMOL convinces or pays hunters to track me down and my life became Hell again after only six months of my exile.

           I’m used to run, I’m used to loneliness and anonymity. They sentenced me to eternal misery when I was still a child. When they killed my mother, my human mother, to take me. When they tested me, trained me like a slave soldier, when they made me kill so-called monsters.

            The monsters are not always the one you think, and most hunters are dumb, ruthless, fanatical, alcoholic, violent morons. The one beating me right now is no exception, I can smell the booze on him and I can tell by the way he hits me that he is used to violence…

            I just wish he would kill me already.

            The dark is relaxing and I try to concentrate on my broken ribs to fasten their healing, but one of the countless warnings around me seems to have an effect on me, unexpectedly. I’m exhausted and at some point I think I pass out.

            When my eyes open they meet incredibly green ones, highlighted by the red around them. The hunter is squatting in front of me with a stern face.

“What are you ?” he asks again.

Even if I knew, I probably wouldn’t tell him.

I stare back at him and study his face : This motherfucker is beautiful, probably full of himself too, conceited, convinced to be some kind of hero. His jaw is clenched by hate and I wonder what bullshit BMOL brainwashed into this empty suggestible charming head.

“You think you can keep silent, huh ?” he says with a dangerous smile. “You’re messing with the wrong guy, honey.”

With that he stabs my thigh, making me cry out in pain.

“So you have a voice…” he says.

“Fuck you hunter” I whisper as loud as my aching lungs allow, an unintentional smile on my lips.

“You are going to tell me what you are…”

“Or what ? You kill me ?” I laugh sarcastically, coughing blood.

“You don’t fear death” he says. “But you run for months… I say you fear captivity” he rubs his neck. “I won’t kill you, I’ll let you rot in here forever if I have to.”

“I need to pee” I just say, hoping he will finally hit me too much, maybe kill me by accident, put me out of my misery.

He takes my face in his big hand, hurting my already broken face, squeezing so hard my heart races almost to the point of heart attack.

“You still think this is funny, bitch.”

 Dean’s Pov

             It’s been three days and she barely flinched.

Exorcism didn’t work, iron and silver neither. Salt just burned one of her wound, like it would have on any human. She opened her mouth to drink holy water, and no spell worked.

I arranged the dungeon into a cell, to be sure she understands she’s here for good, I need her to break. An iron collar keeps her on a chain-leach, she can reach a chamber pot and lay on the ground, that’s all.

           When I enter the room, she’s sitting on a corner, shaking and holding her ribs ; she hasn’t seen me this time. I stare silently at her : she almost looks like a normal girl, dealing with the most extreme pain and despair. She winces lightly, trying to cover the cut on her leg with a piece of fabric, obviously coming from her shirt. She’s different when she knows I’m here, : no cocky expression on her face now, only exhaustion and a hint of sadness.

“What are you ?” I ask, like everyday, making her jump this time.

“Hungry” she says with that smirk that makes me punch her.

“What do you think this is ? A luxury hotel ?”

“Well if you want to keep me alive, food is not optional” she smiles despite the cuts on her lips.

            I throw her a piece of bread and she looks at it, then at me.

“Not hungry” she says with scorn.

Rage makes me clench my fists. She’s manipulating me, confirming I don’t want her dead, that I need her alive, showing me how strong and determined she is by not eating what I brought her after three days of fast.

           I crouch down and take her hair in my fist, making her look at me.

“Listen to me, whatever you did to my brother, I’m gonna undo it, and you’re gonna die…” I start but a poorly hidden surprised expression on her face forces a pause.

“The tall guy is your brother ?” she asks.

“You already know that” I spit. “You aimed at us directly.”

“No” she simply says.

I search her eyes and something makes me wonder, something about her eyes.

“Yes you did.”

“I don’t even know who you are” she says.

She’s manipulating me again. I bash her head on the wall forgetting to restrain as the image of my dying little brother hits me in the guts, and I yell :

“YOU TRACKED MY BROTHER !”

She lifts her hand on her head and looks at her fingers, they’re soaked with blood. When she sighs, I wonder. That woman is so different from what I thought The Blue Death would be.

“Are you the Winchesters ?” she asks like it just hit her.

“You already know that…”

“Shit… Obviously” she says with a sour smile.

“What does that mean ?” I say, confused by her reaction.

“That I’m so fucking unlucky… Listen, I’m sorry for your brother” she says and I get up to hold back my fists because I know I could kill her right now.

I hate hearing her talking about him.

“He needs my blood” she whispers.

“What ?”

“Give him a few drops of my blood, it usually helps…” she murmurs, her head falling slowly against the wall as exhaustion hits her, her eyes slightly rolling inside her skull.

“Is it a trap ?” I ask with something childish in my hoarse voice.

“No…” she grumbles, letting her whole body coil on itself on the floor.

            Her head doesn’t stop bleeding. I’m afraid that punch was one too many. But I don’t have time to worry about her. I take a needle and jab her arm. Maybe she lied, I can’t take the risk to poison my brother. So I touch her bleeding forehead and carefully lift my finger to my lips, letting my tongue taste the metallic taste of her blood.

It’s the first time I touch her for anything else than hitting her, she flinches slightly and passes out. She’s actually pretty and I wonder what kind of monster can look so vulnerable when she stops acting so tough.

Her blood tastes so much like human blood, except something warm suddenly roams my body : Like a hug from a friend or a shot of the best whiskey. I suddenly feel like I had slept better last night and I’m less hungry and tense. My wounds don’t really heal, they just hurt a little less.

            I look at her now unconscious form in disbelief. Who is she ?

  Reader’s Pov

              I’m so cold my skin hurts, and I’m so thirsty my lips bleed.

            Fever.

            I knew this would happen, my wounds are infected and this is really bad. I haven’t ate for four days. I know I can survive a little longer than other people can.

Eight days without food and water, according to The Men of Letters. Fifteen days with only water, 140 degrees for a whole day, -31 for a whole night. Six days without sleeping, twice more volts than a human… I remember all their measurements. How could I forget ?

            But this is too much, and one of those warnings is still holding my body down. I shiver and try to get up to see if I can stand. I can’t. I fall heavily on the floor and swear under my breath, on the verge of tears. This is fucking unfair. Sometimes I just wish I would meet my father, know who he is, why he did that to my mother, to me…

             I lost track of time, but what I know is Dean Winchester never left me so long. Maybe he is never coming back. My blood must have helped his brother and now he’ll let me here to rot.

I start to panic, breathing quickly, I feel pure, painful fear hit my guts. I don’t even know where I am and I’m going to die slowly and alone in the middle of nowhere : my own worst nightmare, just because I couldn’t bear Sam Winchester to go through it. Shit.

            Please please please, come back. Hit me all you want, torture me, kill me. Just don’t forsake me like everyone did.

            The bread is rotting on the floor and I watch it with held back tears in my eyes. Cramps are tearing my muscles up, but I stopped reacting to them because there is no strength left to this kind of thing, I’m focused on breathing.

            The door opens suddenly. A young boy enters, a phone on his hand.

“She’s alive, Dean” he says looking at you with a sudden deeply pained expression.

“Good” says the voice in the phone. “Give her a glass of water, and something to eat. Don’t let her reach you, you hear me Jack ? Never.”

“Dean, something’s wrong, she’s shaking and sweating… I think she’s ill.”

“What ?”

“Dean… Are you sure she’s a monster ? She looks… I think she’s dying.”

“I’m coming back. Don’t get near her, Jack. You hear me ? Stay away, she’s dangerous. I’ll be there before noon.”

           The young man hangs up and sits on the floor. I can’t move, I can’t lift my head or talk to him.

“You shouldn’t have hurt Sam” he says.

I sigh.

“Are you ill ? How do you feel ?”

“Fever” I just whisper.

“What are you ?” he asks with an innocent voice.

And, in my fever disarray, I finally answer.

“I don’t know.”

             When I open my eyes, the light hurts me bad. A hand is on my head.

“She’s dying of infection, Dean” a familiar voice says.

“A bullet between her eyes and we put her out of her misery. End of the story” I hear the almost comforting voice of Dean answer.

Honestly I don’t have enough energy to care what they decide.

“She didn’t finish me off Dean, she even tried to heal me…”

“What ? Are you crazy ? Sam ! I just spent a week watching you slowly die after she stabbed and shot you ! Now what ? You want me to feel sorry for that thing ?”

“She didn’t shoot me…” Sam says pushing my hair to see the wound on my forehead.

“YES SHE DID !” Dean yells.

“Ketch shot me… How could you be so cruel Dean !” he changes subject. “Look at her ! This is torture and pure cruelty, we are not this kind of person Dean !”

“What ! I can’t…” his brother answers with so much anger in his voice I almost can see his pissed face in my head.

            Then there is only flashes.

Water in my mouth.

Water on my wounds.

The smell of alcohol.

Jack’s voice asking Sam if I’m a monster.

Sam answering he’s not so sure about that.

The cold easing.

The pain easing.

Dark then light.

Then dark.

Sam’s voice trying to catch my attention.

Dean yelling.

The smell of soup.

And Dean yelling again.

  Dean’s Pov

             Sam is still barely talking to me and I just can’t get over how pissed I am.

            With Sam taking care of the monster that almost killed him for good, Jack asking how she’s doing, Cas too, Donna calling Sam to talk about her… It’s like I was the monster. And If Bobby wasn’t there to suggest cutting her throat for good, I would feel like I was the one loosing my damn mind.

            My phone rings and I sigh, putting my glass on the table. I look at the name on the screen : Ketch.

Until now, I never answered his calls, because I was too busy trying to save my brother, but now I have questions to ask him.

“Ketch”

“Dean. I was starting to think she got you too. How is Sam ?”

“Better. He’ll need time to fully heal, but he woke up” I say looking at my glass.

“Oh… I see. And the girl ? Did you burn the body already ? I’m going to need a proof of her death” he says with a hint of badly hidden anxiety.

“She’s not dead. Sam insists in keeping…”

“WHAT !” he cuts me, making me jump and widen my eyes. “Dean you have to kill her right now. Listen carefully : You’re in danger, your brother is in danger…”

“I don’t know Ketch, maybe I have more questions to ask her, like did she really shoot Sam ? Because he says you did…” I grunt.

“Don’t be a fool. This creature is the most clever, dangerous thing I’ve seen. She’s messing with your heads. You have to kill her before she makes you lay into each other.”

I lower my eyes, thinking. At this moment Sam comes out of the donjon and looks in my direction. He has a tray in his hands and I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right” I say. “I’ll have to convince Sam.”

“Screw convincing, you have to defend your family” he states.

I frown. Ketch doesn’t care about family at all, or about us for that matters. Why is he so impatient to see her dead. I mean, he lost a lot of colleagues from her hands but…

I just can’t think straight lately.

            A muffled sound catches my attention. Sitting on my bed, I listen carefully. What if she escaped ? Another sound. The clock says 4am.

            I get up and take the gun under my pillow, walking silently toward the dungeon. The door’s not perfectly closed, I push it with precaution and prepare to shoot her.

            She’s lying on the floor, bloody.

Ketch is sitting on her, beating her with full force. Her dirty clothes are ripped open, he carved something, an enochian symbol, on her chest. For a second I can’t move.

           Her head turns toward me and she sees me but doesn’t react, obediently waiting for death. Her eyes trigger something in me, and it’s like time was in slow motion. I lift my gun and her hands open on the side of her body as Ketch hits her again. He lifts his knife above her heart and mutters “I win. We win, Y/n.”

            I shoot him in the back. Twice. Thrice.

           His body falls on hers, shaking an instant and freezing completely. She closes her eyes, a tear rolling on her bruised face.

           Sam comes running, alerted by gunshots, followed by Jack. I just don’t move, not knowing what to do.

           My brother runs to her, kneels, and pushes Ketch’s corps aside. Looking at him I squeeze my gun and hear his voice saying she’ll rise us up against one another. Then I look at her bloody bruised form in Sam’s arm and I wonder how a girl so pretty and cute can attract so much violent hate.

           Sam takes his t-shirt off to cover her naked chest and the fabric becomes bloody. He looks at me.

“What happened ?” he asks, holding her.

“He was about to kill her” I just say muddled, looking at her pained face.

She clings to Sam, crying silently and, all of a sudden, that leash I tied around her neck seems so tight, I can almost feel it harm my own flesh.

***FEEDBACK IS EVERYTHING <3***

@tftumblin @deans-baby-momma @roonyxx

(Tags are open)

Plan B. Let's Just Kill Each Other.

A few weeks ago, someone wrote this article acknowledging the 20th anniversary of the 1997 John Woo action film Face/Off, everyone's favorite face swapping movie starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. Which is fine. But then the author offers up that this might be one of the best action films of all time, which it abso-goddamn-lutely ain't. First off, MIGHT BE? The author isn't even committed to their own feeble premise here. And that makes them a FUCKING COWARD.

My name is Dustin Meadows, and I fucking love action movies. I can confidently tell you that Face/Off is nowhere near in the running for best action movie of all time. It's not even the best action movie of 1997, a year that gave us fun action films like The Fifth Element, Starship Troopers, and Con Air. Face/Off isn't even the best action film directed by John Woo that stars John Travolta, because that goes to the mercifully shorter Broken Arrow. Face/Off is an overly long 140 minutes, and with very few exceptions, no movie (action or otherwise) should ever clock in that far north of the two hour mark. And if you're an action movie running that long, you better be goddamn Die Hard or Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The article pontificates on the differences between the action movies of then and now, by lamenting a simpler time when action movies were non-stop explosions, shootouts and choreographed fight scenes without any kind of nuance or artistic leanings thrown in the mix, incorrectly labeling Face/Off as a pure breed of the former in that comparison. That's also complete horseshit, because this movie is lousy with dramatic interludes and pointless scenes that attempt to build tension, but rarely in a meaningful way.

This movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes long. There are five total action set pieces throughout the film-the opening airport/hangar chase and shootout, the prison escape, the warehouse raid, the funeral/Mexican stand-off, and the boat chase finale. That's roughly one action sequence every half hour, which, all told, maybe makes up for 40 of the 140 minutes of the film. That's about 28% of the movie that's action sequences, which seems pretty damn light to me. I can handle action sequences being spread out if the in-between moments are really well done or bring something amazing to the table, but that's not the case with Face/Off. Everything in between those scenes is a lot of introspection and occasional quipping. Die Hard is basically the bar that I measure all action movies against, and there are more action sequences in that movie, which largely takes place in a single location and still has a shorter run time than Face/Off.

In addition to these problems, the finale is a boat chase. With the lone exception of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, I don't think I've ever given a fuck about a boat chase in an action/adventure movie. Need proof of my point? A little movie called Speed II: Cruise Control, which takes place entirely on a fucking boat and also is terrible and slow and boring as shit. Almost the entire movie is a boat chase. Striking Distance, a largely ignored thriller starring Bruce Willis from the early 90s, tanked financially and critically. It's a movie about boat cops solving murders on a river? Were boats to blame for the film's lack of success? Well, I just can't say. But I'm sure it didn't help.

This final boat chase in Face/Off is the most underwhelming and unimpressive of the film's action sequences. You've gotta find something really special to make a boat chase interesting and fun to watch, and most movies fail to do it. That's why I typically don't give a shit about boat chases in films, aside from the previously mentioned Indiana Jones movie.

(You can hear a lot more of my dumb opinions on this episode of my old podcast, How Have You Not Seen This?)

Going back to the previous point about the underwhelming finale of Face/Off, this is a common problem in action films, particularly contemporary ones, in which the final action sequence can't even hold a candle to the more impressive action set pieces that came before. The airport sequence in Captain America: Civil War is so grand in scale and fun to watch, that even though the dramatic beats of the film's final handicap match between Captain America and Winter Soldier against Iron Man are more important to the story, the action in the final battle doesn't come as close to the airport fight. Wonder Woman's CGI clusterfuck fight against Ares from the film of the same name is nowhere near as impressive as the sequence in which Wonder Woman storms across enemy lines to take out an entire battalion of German soldiers. Kingsman: The Secret Service culminates in an extended gunfight/chase sequence/hand-to-hand combat between parkour James Bond type Eggsy and the knife-legged Gazelle, which is a great string of action, but again, comes nowhere near to the sheer brutality and coolness of the second act's church sequence where Colin Firth turns in an against-type performance as a badass who completely beats the shit out of a church full of Westboro Baptist types. While John Wick: Chapter 2  learned from its predecessor and stepped everything up, the finale of the first entry, John Wick, isn't as good as the bath house shootout or the botched home assassination attempt that occur earlier in the film.

The Expendables trilogy, on paper, is a brilliant idea, assembling an exciting ensemble of action stars from various eras in R-rated violent fun. While the series has its share of missteps, the trilogy at least understands that you always save your best for last when it comes to the action sequences.

The third act of Face/Off phones it in harder than any action movie has ever phoned in a third act, and is one of the many contributing factors that takes this film out of the running as a serious contender for best action film of all time. We get an amazing shootout during the warehouse raid, a heated and dramatic personal exchange between John Travolta's Castor Troy and Nicolas Cage's Sean Archer, and the emotional ending when Castor sees brother Pollux Troy knocked to his death by his nemesis, the man wearing his (Castor's) own face. Naturally Castor/Archer doubles down, abusing his power as a senior agent of the FBI to increase the manhunt for Archer/Castor, resulting in a climactic and explosive final battle between good and evil and giving us, without a doubt, the best action set piece of the entire film.

At least that's what should've happened. Instead we're treated to a third act that just kind of stumbles its way into a confrontation that feels empty and cheap, ultimately giving way to an uninteresting boat chase and finally fumbling the ball into the end zone as Archer/Castor harpoons the man he's spent his entire life chasing, avenging the murder of his son and then getting a brand new son in the process from Gina Gershon, because sure, why the fuck not?

Remember, I say all of this as someone who owns and enjoys the movie Face/Off. It's okay to be critical of shit you like, because frankly, sometimes we deserve better than what we get. Anyway, if you need me, I'll be busy working on my Face/Off reboot starring Wesley Snipes as Sean Archer and Terry Crews as Castor Troy.

I just saw Wonder Woman and I want to ramble about it! Tagging @captaindicks because I was gonna message you and ask if I could ramble to you about it since you’ve seen it but there ended up being so much I like that I decided to just write a post. Spoilers under the cut!

- Kickass women. This is pretty self-evident and I don't even feel the need to discuss it. Which tells you how good the rest is, if this isn't even what really got me excited. Like, I expected this to be the main thing for me, and while I loved it, there's actually OTHER STUFF THAT I LOVED EVEN MORE - I loved the moral and messages. I really did. The message of there being good and evil in everyone and it being up to us to choose isn't new, but it's good, and I really liked it being entangled with the message that there's no single bad guy or source of evil that you can just eliminate and solve everything, that people are complex, situations are complex, wars are complex. Admittedly, if I had to criticize, the movie doesn't actually do a great job of SHOWING that complexity---the British are all good (except for the dude who is really Aries but he's not actually British) and the Germans all bad, and the motives of the Germans are never explored nor is there anyone on their side shown as equally human to the good guys...but I'll be honest, that's really more something I only thought of towards the very end of the movie. The pacing and action was such that there really wasn't room for additional development on the enemy side, with that all kind of being made up for at the end with the surprising motives of Ares, but I feel like the moment Diana kills Ludendorf and things don't just suddenly change works pretty well for the “people actually are making their own choices and it's a lot more complicated than just getting rid of the Big Bad” revelation (which is also shown in how she still has to be Wonder Woman even after killing Ares, because getting rid of Ares doesn't fix everything either) - Honestly, she reminded me a lot in the beginning of how I write Anne Marie? The super simplistic view of good/evil, not understanding the two co-exist in every person, and sincerely believing that everything will be good if we just do this very simple (and violent) solution against the Bad Guy (or Bad Guys, as Anne Marie sees it) And then when something challenges that view, she initially twists things around in her head to fit it (“This guy is super bad? He must really be the Big Bad!” “You're one of the good guys, and yet did something I disagree with or don't understand? Ares has corrupted you!”) which is something Anne Marie does (and something all people do to a degree, I think) The difference, of course, is that Wonder Woman actually LEARNS. She accepts the hard truth of how complex things are and that there's no easy answer, whereas Anne Marie can't handle that and just digs her heels in deeper so that she can hold on top hope---which Wonder Woman continues to do anyway without such a crutch (is than ableist phrase?) - I loved what they did with Ares. I loved his motivation. It was an utterly unique departure from ANY portrayal that I have ever seen in ANY media of Ares, and worked REALLY WELL and actually fit PERFECTLY with the theme of people having far more complex motives than just good or bad. I also really, really loved that he never actually “corrupted” or “infected” or “controlled” mankind in any way. Like, at the beginning of the movie, when Hippolyta told her story about how Ares twisted the hearts of man, I didn't like it because I don't like setups that essentially exonerate people from their choices, so I truly fucking LOVED how it ended up being subverted in the end. It reminds of Neil Gaiman's Lucifer, how he said “I never made any of them do anything. Not even once.” - As I said, one failing in the message about the complexities of people is that the Germans were all Totes Evil, but I still loved the small moments of humanity that got worked in for Dr. Poison and Ludendorf. Not goodness, just humanity, like you can see they were people with personalities and not just evil caricatures. The simple shot of Dr. Poison staring into the fireplace at the gala was enough for my heart to twinge for her. There's no words, no unpleasant imagery, no one is mean to her, yet I felt such sympathy for her because it's just...she's so clearly uncomfortable and out of place there? And it's easy to extrapolate why, she's the nerdy science person with a messed-up face. And she's here among all these socialites, and these beautiful civilian women. I think every nerd in the audience, especially nerd girls, can emphasize with that. And that's BEFORE a good-looking man walks up and starts seemingly showing interest in her, something that probably NEVER happens---you can tell she has really no idea how to react---and then she realizes he's looking at the far more beautiful lady across the room. And what I love is...none of this asks us to excuse her for her actions or make it seem like it's not her fault, it's not even related to her villainy in any way, it's just this one little scene that takes her out of her lab and out of her role as Dr. Poison and lets us see that, while also not forgetting it for a second. I also really liked that it didn't become some plot with her being jealous of Diana over Steve either, which I was kinda worried about when it happened, but it's obviously not ABOUT Steve at all, I don't think she was at all interested in him herself, but she can still be hurt when his interest in her is false and fleeting for a conventionally beautiful woman, because that is hurtful. On Ludendorf's end, I loved his encouraging relationship with Dr. Poison. I love how instead of acting like a stereotypical bad guy who goes “make the poison or you'll die!!!” he instead tells her that he has faith in her and reassures her of her talents---and I should point out, she's a woman in science during the 1910s, she probably has gone through a lot of people doubting her and telling her she shouldn't be doing this at all. I mean, she shouldn't be doing THIS, the horrible murder parts, but I mean doing science. And it's not romantic at all either, which I also super like. He just knows she's talented and is supportive of her. And this isn't used to make him seem sympathetic or less bad either, he's unquestionably evil as fuck. He's just an evil as fuck guy who is supportive to his evil as fuck colleague. And I really, really like that. - It seems to me that the real villain was the gas? Dr. Poison and Ludendorf are really just accessories to it, and Ares doesn't actually make an appearance or even truly do anything til the end, whereas the gas is a constant and present threat. I find that interesting, but can't totally articulate why. - I don't really get the use of the super-strength gas though, that ended up really not going anywhere and I don't think the movie would have been any different without it. Maybe it was meant to be a red herring or something. - I am nearly always disinterested in romance plots. This one was no exception. However, I also did not hate it. There was nothing that made groan or get critical or want to slap either party. I'll be honest, I was literally bracing myself for lots of shitty tropes that usually come when a romance involves a super-powerful woman, and I was especially worried that Steve would be shitty (in one of the animated Wonder Woman movies, he deliberately tries to get her drunk ffs) but I actually had no issues with Steve nor with their romance (and I really appreciate that it was secondary, nay, tertiary to everything else going on, rather than everything taking a backseat for the love story) and I did have Feels when he died. It was also unexpected when he died. This movie surprised me more than once with its choices and I really, really love being surprised. - I absolutely adored this version of Etta Candy, but her original 1940s comics version is still the best. Look her up, she's WONDERFUL. - This didn't hit me til just now, but was Diana posing as Steve's secretary a reference to how she was the secretary for the Justice League of America in the 1970s Super Friends cartoon? Yes, they made Wonder Woman the team secretary FOR REAL in the 1070s, I'm serious. My mom is STILL salty about that and I don't blame her. - I really loved how Diana's character was written. It was exactly what I was hoping for. When she's written at her best in the comics, she's an incredibly fierce and powerful warrior who is simultaneously the epitome of compassion. It's a really hard note to hit, and I notice in film especially, writers seem to have a hard time with women are meant to be tough and strong---they simply can't find balance with these traits, and that balance is ESSENTIAL for Wonder Woman. And this film did that. I also like how her primary weapons were her lassos and bracelets, and the sword ended up being useless. Because her lasso and her bracelets are perfect for her personality and what she stands for. The bracelets are deflectors, they're defensive, they're not actually weapons at all, yet they destroy weapons. And the lasso is a versatile, non-lethal tool. It can trip, bind, and subdue, but it does not injure or kill. Okay, you can wrap a person up and slam them into something and THAT hurts, but you know what I mean? - I also appreciated that there was no gratuitous sexualization or fan service, which I was also worried about. - I really like that it was directed by a woman. I know a woman will not AUTOMATICALLY do a better job on a movie just because it stars a woman, but it seems...fitting, for this specific case. - While I appreciate that the story got right to the action, I do wish we'd seen a LITTLE more of the Amazons, because what I liked about the original 1940s comics Amazons was that they weren't just a society of superior warriors, but also super scientists, super philosophers, etc. Later writers, such as Azzarello, have made them much more like the Amazons of myth (complete with gratuitous man-hating and throwing out male babies -eyeroll- They also seem to like having horrible things happen to the Amazon population en masse, to the point I really sideye it, but that's besides the point) but I think that these Amazons were probably like how they started in the original Paradise Island envision by the creator, given how they are shown to have a healer/nurse and how everyone studies multiple languages. It's clearly not just All Fighting All The Time. - I like the quick but significant acknowledgments of racism, with Samir having wanted to be an actor “but I am the wrong color” and the implication (to me) that this is why he's a con man (and getting to use those skills for good), and Chief saying how Steve's people took everything from his in the last war. These weren't things that the movie had to put in at all, but it did, and it's a small thing but I thought it was really great. Also cool fact about Chief, I forget which tribe his actor is, but all his jewelry is his ACTUAL stuff, it's not Hollywood props, so it's not a Hollywood stereotype of what a Native American would wear, it's actually accurate. - I'm sure there's other things I'll think of later but like, this was a really good movie, it was very well-written AND very visually awesome, go see it!