#honestly really fascinating in a deeply creepy sort of way! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

princeoftheroses · 3 years

Note

Since you want asks, PLSSSE I want your Utena TH0ughts. WHAT is your favourite black rose episode? actually how do you feel about the black rose arc in GENERAL

black rose arc, black rose arc, oh black rose arc!!! by you adding how do i feel about the arc in general you are unleashed me to make a long post giving my very disorganized thoughts about this arc.

a couple of people call it a filler arc? i guess technically it is because it does not directly contribute to the main storyline and it wasn't in the manga and also the ending of the arc sort of makes it so the whole arc kind of didn't happen???

but also i think if a person labeled it as a filler arc they are kind of missing the point?? even if it doesn't contribute to the main plot (which it absolutely DOES but i'll get to that) it adds so much nuance to the characters of utena.

you get to see side characters and how they tick!! some of which like kozue and shiori become very important later as they become miki and ruka's rose brides in the akio arc! (side note : what was up with ruka he just kind of showed up and disappeared lmaooo)

also, it adds to akio! (tw warning for only the next paragraph, i'm talking about akio so you can except me talking about grooming and abuse)

not only is this where akio is introduced, but he is always so omnipresent. it was ... honestly really terrifying to see how chill he acts with utena here. of course the real grooming begins in the akio arc but you can see how he starts here. how he kind of builds himself as anthy's cool older brother that utena can trust and ask for advice for... but we the audience know that he CANNOT be trusted as even know we see him being shady af in the background. i really feel like if we skipped straight from the first arc to akio arc a lot of the creepiness of akio would not have been realized because of ... just how NORMAL he akio acts to utena. he's charming, he's smart, and he overall is somebody utena SHOULD be able to trust bc we should all be able to trust an immediate family member of a best friend , but of course the world doesn't really work that way. anyway akio tangent over because BOOOOOO akio (he honestly terrifies me so much because of how many predators like that exist and you can meet without realizing their intentions)

BACK TO BLACK ROSE ARC

one of the main reasons i feel like this isn't a filler arc, at least not in the traditional sense of the phrase, is because it builds a lot character relationships. something that i didn't like when i first watched revolutionary girl utena but now is one of my FAVORITE things is that for a while we don't really get a straight forward utena/anthy episode. because their relationship doesn't need to build in an episode, it just slowly builds over time. we just see these two causally existing and they just start to trust each other.

in the akio arc we get to see just how close utena/anthy have gotten over the series because of their late night conversations. like how if the black rose arc didn't exist akio wouldn't have been as impactful, if the black rose arc didn't exist it would feel more sudden how close utena/anthy have grown imo.

this arc adds a lot to the world as well. as long as the students stay inside of school they will not grow. dead people wander the halls thinking that they are still alive. these two facts contribute a lot to utena theorizing and analysis (mainly, the ideas that ohtori exists within a plain of frozen time literally because of anthy's magic and metaphorically because the cast is very cozy in their coffin) and i could not thank this arc for that enough. not only are these very cool ideas that may or may not have inspired elements in my own story (i can neither confirm or deny that one of my oc story is heavily inspired by utena) but they just add so many layers!

this arc also felt necessary because of the new duelists??? if we went straight from the first arc to the akio arc then it would've kinda gotten very tiring to see the student council constantly duel and lose to utena (with the exception of touga's sole victory to utena in the first arc before she duels him again and wins) but these new duelists possessed by the black rose are very interesting!

if i did have to make a compliant about this arc, though, i will say that at times the stories felt very disconnected to each other. while it was very funny for utena to not even know who keiko was when she dueled her, it would've been nice if sometimes the arc of the black rose duelist intertwined more with utena. as the arc goes on, the student council is on alert and is trying to figure out where the black rose is coming from, but they never really try to ask utena about it and utena never really tries to get involved? she just is chill until she gets the note to go to the duel arena to fight the black rose duelist. i don't really have a solution on how to fix this? maybe have the student council member that the black rose duelist takes the sword from be more involved? idk.

the villain of this arc mikage also really fascinates me??? i... really like him??? but not even as a villain ... i just really pity him. the realization he has in his duel with utena that everything he has been doing is for nothing because mamiya is already dead .. that always really hit me? the horror in his voice when he starts to recall the truth in his false memories.... for some reason, this is one of the most terrifying parts of the show for me. the realization that something you were doing, something you were doing that might've been awful but you were doing it because of somebody you care about deeply and love, it was all for nought. how much time he has wasted...

even before his duel with utena, there's this moment when after he got punched by utena he says something like "if she hadn't seen my duelist ring and challenged me to a duel, she could've killed me" or something like that, he's just so pathetic and i feel very bad for him but at the same time am too disconnected to him to truly feel empathy for him... that's some TOP TIER shit

overall, this part of the show is one of my favorites. the only part i like more is the last few episodes because it makes me very emotional.

NOW FOR THE SPECIFICS

favorite black rose duelist: honestly? wakaba. the girl deserves it this is stress relief for her. not only is this duel very emotional as i don't think we've ever seen utena refuse to duel somebody (at least not in the way that she does in this episode) but just the SHEER emotion.

i'm a real sucker for fighting the person you care about the most which is why the dark signer arc in yugioh 5ds is the best yugioh arc and this just really takes the cake in this arc. utena always shows concern for the black rose duelist because they are clearly people in pain who were not able to properly duel with their grief which let mikage manipulate them, but it's taken to a new level here.

the way that after the duel is completed, wakaba comes home to her empty dorm where saionji used to be but now isn't always gets me. she's just such a lonely girl and that's never really resolved for her. a lot of the other duelists have a optimist note to end on (kozue asking miki for a milkshake, shiori and juri saying hello to each other as they walk past, keiko being friends with nanami again, etc.) which is why the fact that wakaba is more alone now then she is ever... it is a feeling i can relate to an almost embarrassing amount.

favorite episode: COWBELL OF HAPPINESS, NANAMI TURNS INTO A COW-

ANTHY YOU GLORIOUS TROLL-

favorite episode that isn't cowbell of happiness: i'm very torn between the landscape scaped by kozue and thorns of death. shiori and kozue are both very interesting characters that i like a lot. but i'm going to go with thorns of death for now, as while i really like the landscape scaped by kozue, i think my preferred miki/kozue episode is their episode in the akio arc. meanwhile i like thorns of death way more than i liked whispers in the arc (mostly because i just do not really care that much for ruka, but azure paler than the sky was a banger and he was in that?) i just loved the feeling of seeing shiori the girl juri loves so much and juri's reaction to seeing her. the way my heart was wrenched when black rose shiori mocks juri... it really did hit different. but the hopeful ending did make me feel a lot better. i do like the way that juri out of all the student council members is the one closest to self actualization and this really sets that up even if there is still a bumpy road until then.

honorary mention: the boys of the black rose and kanae as a black rose duelist are both really great. i feel like if this wasn't the arc opener it would've had more room to stretch its legs and show how horrific it could've been. kanae is a girl i feel really bad about and similar to wakaba, i don't really think her episode was a very optimistic ending for her especially since akio probably killed her later in the show?

honestly the minute akip appeared on screen, engaged to a girl who HASN'T EVEN GRADUATED and is also emotionally manipulating her so much and having his little sister manipulate her too... throw the whole man away

tl;dr - the black rose arc is very good and i like it a lot, the ending of the arc really fucks me up, somebody give mikage & all the black rose duelists therapy, throw akio in the garbage, and this show probably exists in some sort of time loop / frozen time space as a metaphor for the whole coffin thing but you can probbaly find people smarter than me talking about that.

oh and go rewatch cowbell of happiness it's great

#this is what i do at 4 am #i started writing this at like 3 45 am and it is now 4 25 am :)#worth it #hope you like my shitty analysis and thoughts !!! i enjoyed writing it thoruugly #revolutionary girl utena #asks

19 notes · View notes

jess-rewatches-prodigalson · 3 years

Text

Exit Strategy (S2, E10)

My time-stamped thoughts for this episode are below. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:40 - Oh it’s Capshaw’s dream. Well. That’s upsetting.

1:10 - .....she was performing surgery on herself?!!? WTF?

1:37 - The fact that Jessica broke into her adult child’s home to steal Martin memorabilia is hilarious to me. Also deeply upsetting. Because - dysfunctional.

1:40 - “In my loft? Where I live?” hahahahahahaha sassy!Malcolm for the win! Also - there is something so so cute about the way Tom delivers this line. <3 It’s precious.

1:46 - “I don’t always wake up screaming.” ....so historically we know this is true. Malcolm didn’t wake up screaming at the beginning of 1x15 when Eve was in his loft....but still... Malcolm’s mental health has been in tatters. I find it highly unlikely that he wouldn’t be waking up screaming. Especially since he was hallucinating last episode!!!!

1:55 - The Never. Ever. Room?!?!?! I’m shook. I’m amused. I’m horrified. I can’t believe that Jessica would let Malcolm keep that stuff in his loft. Why isn’t it locked up in a storage container or something? Jessica let Malcolm - the boy that Martin traumatized - sleep in the same building as all of Martin’s belongings?!?! Nah. Jessica is so overbearing .... I just don’t buy it.

2:21 - “I am ignoring the Surgeon altogether.” Awww look at how proud Malcolm is to tell Jessica about his serial killer cleanse. He’s like, “I finally have news that will make Mom happy!!” <3 <3 Precious.

2:36 - “He’s been calling. Non-stop.” annnnnnnd there’s are sad profiler. He’s putting on a good act for Jessica but he’s still clearly in a lot of emotional pain.

3:15 - Really? The writers have Jessica riding the Brightwell train now? For real? I’m here for it but it feels kind of fast? Forced? Out of left field? I mean Jessica’s totally the type of mom who meddles in her kid’s love life (remember Eve?) but in the middle of the whole Ainsley-Endicott fiasco? Jessica should be more concerned about Malcolm’s mental state and less concerned with his relationship status.

3:17 - Did Malcolm really just admit (sort of abstractly, but still) that he’s interested in Dani romantically? Doesn’t he realize that Jessica will try to interfere?!? He’s basically given her his blessing!!!

3:25 - awwwww....the pic of baby!Malcolm and baby!Ainsley is so cute. <3

3:40 - UGH. I want to know more about that key and what it unlocks so badly!!!

3:46 - “Oh great. Detective Mom.” <3 I love it when he calls Jessica “Mom” instead of “Mother”. <3

4:36 - ......Mr.David and Martin have such an interesting dynamic. Martin listens to Mr. David without showing any signs of anger, resentment, or his usual psychopathic manipulation. Mr. David controls Martin much the way a parent controls their well-behaved child. I just find it so fascinating that Martin treats Mr. David with respect. That’s not Martin’s usual reaction when things don’t go his way.

5:00 - I’m so happy we keep getting more screen time with Hector. <3 This dude’s great.

6:05 - soooo the fact that Jessica stabbed Daryl in the neck is probably going to inhibit Daryl’s ability to speak right? Making Daryl a useless source of information regarding the breakout?

6:24 - I love everything about this scene with Gil’s new car. I love that Malcolm’s “wow, the Coronet’s looking good.” is said with this little smile. As though Malcolm doesn’t really care about the car, but he knows mentioning it will make Gil happy. I love Gil’s rant about “No more Whitly’s around my car.” and Gil’s glare when JT asks about Tarmel’s around the car. I love Dani’s “boys and toys” line. UGh. It was just the little dose of found family that I craved. <3 BUT I do have one small complaint/concern. Gil. He said, “No more Whitly’s around my car.” Whitly’s. Why did he refer to Malcolm as a Whitly?

6:54 - “Some major Japan-y vibes.”.....I’m sorry the word you’re looking for is “Japanese”?!?! Anyone else get super distracted by this line?!?

7:56 - “Old people” HA. OMG. I love this so much. <3 <3

9:11 - As someone with severe social and general anxiety that has at times bordered on a form agoraphobia - Dani’s dismissive tone when she says “he’s afraid to leave the house.” hurts. Especially since it feels really out of character for Dani. She doesn’t usually dismiss people so quickly. Maybe there’s a story there? She had an agoraphobic family member?

10:14 - “NYPD. Adjacent.” Why isn’t Malcolm a member of the NYPD yet? He trained with the FBI. He’s clearly capable of being employed as a detective for the NYPD. Is it because he doesn’t want to carry a gun? Is it because Gil doesn’t want Malcolm to carry a gun? Is it bureaucracy (probably)?

10:44 - Malcolm explaining why the antique pistol won’t fire is adorable.

10:57 - This dude hasn’t left the house since March of 1997. Martin was arrested in 1998. Is this supposed to have some sort of double meaning? Like maybe Malcolm discovered that Martin was killing people in 1997 but the chloroform confused him for a while and he didn’t call the cops until 98′? Is this supposed to be a metaphor for the fact that Malcolm hasn’t been truly alive since 1997? He’s just been in survival mode - he hasn’t been living.

11:22 - “I’m not too good around people.” This dude is Malcolm. Malcolm lives in a state of constant fear and anxiety. Malcolm isn’t so good with relationships or casual human interactions.

11:30 - It makes perfect sense to me that Dani is the detective that Malcolm brings in to talk to Gerald. Forget the Brightwell agenda. Gerald is a scared old man. JT and Gil are authoritative men (they’re teddy bears but they can also be scary). Dani is a woman. Women are typically seen as less of a threat. Though Dani could totally kick just about anyone’s ass. But it makes sense to me that a scared witness would feel more comfortable around the smaller female detective than the large male ones.

12:03 - Ugh. I feel so bad for Gerald. The dude is clearly experiencing some sensory overload on top of his anxiety. :(

12:15 - hahahaha the absolute best part of this little Brightwell moment is Gerald’s reaction. This old man just connected the dots and you can see it ALL over his face. ....but also, it’s a really cute moment. <3

12:38 - “Too late if you ask me.” Is it just me or does Gerald seem protective of Rosalie here? Almost paternal?

13:03 - “You still think like a grand master” Is this supposed to be an illusion to the way that Malcolm thinks about cases? He thinks like the killer in order to solve the case?

13:13 - WHY DOES MALCOLM KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT A CHESS LEGEND FROM THE 70s and 80s?!? Did baby!Malcolm have a chess phase? I want details.

13:22 - I love Gerald. He’s such a cute little old man. He’s scared but you can tell that he has a good heart and that he’s extremely smart. Look at how impressed he is with Malcolm. <3 He’s a lot like Malcolm.

13:27 -”Memory was always my gift.” Memory is Gerald’s gift but it’s been Malcolm’s curse.

15:04 - Malcolm is so close to snapping. Look at this poor boy. He’s at the end of his rope. :(

15:14 - “Looks like you got some sleep.” Awwww proud!Gil <3

15:40 - “Agoraphobia often comes from trauma.” Yep. Malcolm identifies with Gerald. I wonder if Malcolm ever went through a period of agoraphobia? Maybe as a teen?

15:48 - .....is this foreshadowing? When the truth about Endicott comes out is Malcolm going to be deemed an ‘unreliable witness’? Or maybe that’s how Ainsley is going to try and pin the murder on Malcolm?

15:58 - annnnnd we finally got a good shot of concerned!Gil. There’s no way that Gil isn’t reading between the lines here. He knows Malcolm identifies with Gerald and he knows Malcolm is having issues with his mental health, identity, and self-worth. SOMEONE CONFRONT HIM. WHERE IS THE MALCOLM INTERVENTION?!!?

16:20 - “Are you alright? Don’t answer that.”.....because Martin doesn’t actually care about Malcolm’s mental or physical health. Martin is a narcissist who has a story to tell.

16:27 - “No. Me first.” I’m. So. Proud. Of. Malcolm. <3 <3

16:56 - “That felt good.” :) Awwww... <3 I’m proud of Malcolm for this but Martin is totally going to hold it against him in later episodes. It’s going to fuel some sort of anger. Just wait for it.

17:05 - Again. Mr. David acts like Martin’s dad. If Martin were 8 years old.

17:40 - Chrisitan Brole is a treasure. His acting is incredible. Friar Pete is creepy, likeable, funny, and terrifying. Honestly. Give him an Emmy.

20:00 - “*sigh* kid.” This breaks my heart. You can see Gil’s doubt and concern all over his face. He’s doubting Malcolm’s ability to make an accurate profile of Gerald because he knows how much Malcolm identifies and sympathizes with Gerald. He’s concerned about Malcolm because....I mean have you seen him lately? The boy is spiralling and it hurts to watch. But Gil is scared for Malcolm right now. Gil is now worried that the cases aren’t enough to distract Malcolm. That Malcolm can’t work on cases anymore. That Malcolm’s mental health has compromised his ability to work effectively.

20:50 - “We’re friends. Partners” Listen to the longing in Malcolm’s voice when he says “partners”. He wants to be romantic partners with Dani - not just work partners. It’s obvious. This boy is an open book when it comes to how he feels about Dani.

21:08 - “And she never will.” there is something about the way Tom delivers this line. How he sort of trips over the words. I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not but it works. It somehow makes it more raw and emotional. Malcolm wants so so badly to tell Dani how he feels but he’s convinced that he’s a monster. That she deserves someone more stable than him. Someone with less trauma. Malcolm is convinced that he’s not safe for anyone to love. Malcolm is convinced he’s going to snap and become Martin.

21:17 - “Sounds lonely.” I love the way Malcolm immediately dismisses this as ‘tactical empathy’. Malcolm has accepted that he will be alone forever. He’s convinced himself he deserves it. I’m willing to bet that Malcolm rarely (if ever) actually feels lonely. Between coping mechanisms, hallucinations, and trauma - I doubt his mind is ever quiet enough for him to notice loneliness.

21:27 - “You’ve spent your life mastering a game. I’ve spent mine mastering how people think.” .....ok but chess is basically about predicting your opponents moves and then Gerald graduated to people watching soooooo they’re really not that different.

22:06 - I love this. I love how Malcolm turns on Gerald only for Gerald to emphatically explain how he lives through that window. Because - isn’t Malcolm the same? How many people have accused Malcolm of being a murderer when really he’s just a man who only feels alive when he’s solving murders and putting away killers?

22:50 - Rosalie helped Gerald much like Dani helps Malcolm. But Gerald couldn’t help Rosalie because he was trapped in his trauma. .....sooooo what’s going to happen to Dani? Or is this just supposed to be a reference to the fact that Dani can’t trust Malcolm because he’s keeping Endicott a secret and she knows something is up?

22:51 - ummmmm 60bpm??!?!? That’s a borderline athletic resting heart rate for a man in his 50s. There’s no way Martin’s in that great of shape. He’s trapped in his cell most of the day.

24:28 - oooookkkkkayyyy so maybe Capshaw isn’t as smart as I thought she was. Martin is playing her like a fiddle. Although that dream sequence from the intro did make it seem like she was only interested in Martin because she craved medical power and respect.

25:22 - Martin didn’t call Jessica his wife to screw with Capshaw. He genuinely still thinks of Jessica as his wife.....this is not good for the future. This tracks with the dreams Martin’s had throughout this season of going back home to his family.

25:44 - Oh yeah. Jessica knows that woman is into Martin.

26:41 - “Isn’t it obvious? It’s the key to my heart.” LMAO holy shit.

26:56 - “I can tell when you’re lying.” “Not historically.”......Martin has a point.

28:27 - This counts as my “someone confronts Malcolm about his mental health” bingo square for the episode right?

28:35 - Look at Gil. He knows Malcolm is lying through his teeth and he’s so so tired of it. He looks so sad and annoyed. Gil loves Malcolm so much and he’s clearly concerned about Malcolm but I honestly think Gil just feels helpless right now. Malcolm is spiralling and Gil can’t help because Malcolm won’t open up.

29:15 - “When she didn’t give up Clayton he killed her. Brave girl.”.....does this mean there’s going to be an attempt on someone’s life this season? Maybe Martin tries to kill Ainsley because she’s going to pin Endicott’s murder on Malcolm? Or Malcolm tries to kill Ainsley because she doesn’t give up Martin’s location? Or Ainsley/Martin try to kill Malcolm because he tries to come clean about everything?

29:26 - “If anyone can get through to this guy it’s you.” THANK YOU. Malcolm really needed that assurance. This dude is so full of negative emotions, self doubt, and pain. Every moment he feels supported, believed in, or loved is immensely treasured.

30:26 - Oh Capshaw. You dumb dumb dumb woman. Look at Martin’s face. Capshaw has freed a monster. That’s Martin’s “I’m a raging serial killer” expression.

30:29 - Holy shit. Look at how quickly Martin put the “I’m a harmless doctor” mask. In the span of about 1 second he went from killer to angel. Michael Sheen is incredible.

31:04 - “You don’t have to be trapped in here.” It breaks my heart to hear Malcolm encourage Gerald to break free from his trauma when Malcolm is still a prisoner to his own.

31:10 - “This is your next move” “No. It’s not”. THIS. This sums up anxiety disorders. Everyone tells you to ‘move on’ or ‘take a deep breath’. They all tell you that ‘everything will be fine’. They ask you ‘what’s the worst thing that could happen.” The problem: most people with anxiety disorders know the majority of their fears (or at least the severity of them) is irrational. Most people with anxiety disorders have tried therapy, drugs, coping mechanisms, breathing techniques, ect. Anxiety doesn’t go away because you want it to. Telling someone to move on - just makes it worse. Especially someone who has lived with severe anxiety so long that it feels like a crucial part of their personality. I’ve had a severe anxiety disorder for as long as I can remember - I don’t want to heal. I don’t know who I’d be without severe anxiety. I’m scared to find out.

32:10 - “Family comes first”........soooo is Martin escaping to groom Ainsley for the family business (murder)? For Malcolm (to save him from Ainsley)? To protect Malcolm from a new Surgeon related skeleton (akin to Endicott)? WHY?

32:33 - ahhhh Papa!Gil. I’ve missed you.

33:25 - I have this headcannon that baby!Malcolm had pet rats at some point (he’d had snakes so I feel like rats would be in his wheelhouse). One day while Malcolm was at school the rats escaped from their cage and scared the crap out of Jessica. Jessica demands that the rats be removed from the home. That’s it. That’s the scene that plays in my head.

33:39 -.....Jessica is wearing a ring on her left ring finger. Why?

34:03 - “Jess it’s good to hear from you but -” They’re dating again now. Right? <3

34:06 - “What?!” Fear and confusion. That’s the look on Gil’s face. We love to see it.

34:25 - “Martin is escaping.” Look at Gil’s face. He’s terrified. He’s staying calm and acting like he’s in control but this dude is terrified that the people he loves most in the world (Jessica and Malcolm) are in serious and immediate danger.

34:50 - .....last I checked Malcolm was claustrophobic with specific closet-related trauma......

35:40 - “There’s only one play for a pawn.”.....does this mean Malcolm considers himself a pawn in Martin’s game? Disposable. Limited options. Replaceable. Of little worth? :(

35:57 - “What would you know about it Judas.” Huh. Pete is pissed at Martin. Is it because Pete views Martin’s nasty relationship with Capshaw as a betrayal akin to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus?

36:36 - Jessica using her heels as a weapon is honestly such a mood. hahaha

36:54 - Poor Jessica. The moment she realizes that she’s trapped with a killer who not only hates Martin but also has an hallucinatory friend is haunting. This woman goes from terrified to petrified. But look at her poker face. She’s brave. She tries to talk her way out of it. She tries to think her way out of it. She’s like Malcolm.

37:42 - Jessica firmly telling Daryl not to take another step right before she stabs him in the neck with a high heel is everything. Listen to her terrified screaming. She can’t believe she just stabbed the man (even if it was self-defence). This woman did the impossible while scared to death. She is a badass. She’s my hero. I love her.

38:12 - “All she had to do was tell me where my brother was. Except they were in love”.....does this mean Ainsley or Martin is going to try and kill Dani?

39:32 - “Don’t you think that’s what Rosalie would’ve wanted for you? This time make the right choice.” Wow. Malcolm is really metaphorically berating himself. What I heard was “Don’t you think Dani would want you to live without fear and guilt? This time - tell her your secret. Come clean. You’ll feel better.”

40:12 - ....so did Dani steal Gil’s keys or did he give them to her? Can we see how mad Gil is about this? Please? .....also the not-so-subtle “Dani is going to be a part of the Whitly family because she hurt Gil’s car” is not lost on me. I’m just more interested in Gil’s reaction to Dani hurting his baby.

40:21 - “I see why you like her.” hahaha Gerald is all of us. Whether or not you ship Brightwell, you can’t deny that Dani is a badass and a good friend to Malcolm. That’s reason enough for Malcolm to like her - not necessarily in a romantic way.

40:30 - Where the hell did Daryl go? If Jessica was trapped where did the man with a high heel in his neck go?!!?!

40:33 - “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.” <3 <3 The whump whore in me is in love. Forget Gillica. I’ll listen to Gil comforting a traumatized member of the team or Jessica any time, any day. <3

40:50 - I have so many questions about this escape. Are the guys sticking together? If not - do they know where the other guys plan to go/do? Where will they be getting the post-escape change of clothes (you know the ones that aren’t property of Claremont)?

40:55 - I’ll be honest, I’m shocked. They’ve been teasing Martin’s escape all season but I really thought he wasn’t going to escape until the finale. Now I’m so excited for the finale. If it’s not a Martin-Ainsley-Malcolm showdown or a Gil-Martin showdown I’m going to be sad.

41:13. - Martin and Gerald both just took their first breath of fresh air as ‘free’ men after 23-24 years. The symmetry of this episode’s two main plot lines is more obvious than usual.

41:44 - Look at Gerald being Malcolm’s wingman. hahaha it’s so cute. He’s self-appointed himself as Malcolm’s grandpa and I’m here for it.

41:51 - REALLY MALCOLM?!!? YOU CHOOSE TO LISTEN TO A VOICEMAIL FROM THE SURGEON NOW?!?! #MORON

42:29 - Martin’s entire message for Malcolm is haunting. Even now, he’s trying to manipulate Malcolm. “I’m not the man I used to be”. I’ll promise you right now - Martin will be killing at least one person in the next 3 episodes. He’s addicted to killing. End of story.

“I’m doing this for you” ....Is Martin going after Ainsley? I’m genuinely concerned that Martin thinks Ainsley is going to try and kill Malcolm or pin the Endicott murder on Malcolm. I think Martin caught wind of it and is planning on ‘taking care of the problem’ (Ainsley).

42:35 - Look at Dani. She’s terrified. For Malcolm. For Gil. For New York. For herself. She knows how bad this is and she’s scared.

42:44 - “You fath-. The Surgeon.” THIS. Dani realized that Malcolm doesn’t need to be reminded that his father is a serial killer. Dani realized that family is more than blood. The Surgeon escaped. Malcolm is in danger. But Malcolm’s father didn’t escape. Malcolm’s father has been dead since 1997/1998 when Malcolm found out he was a serial killer.

42:55 - Malcolm. :( Look at our baby. :( He’s done. Absolute horror and terror. He looks like he’s going into shock. I honestly thought (*cough* hoped *cough*) he was going to pass out. THIS is what’s going to remove Malcolm as a suspect for ‘aiding/knowing that Martin was planning on escaping’. Same with Jessica. Ainsley doesn’t have a terror driven alibi though. At least - not that we’ve seen.

AHHHHHHHH this was such an intense episode. I can’t wait for Tuesday. <3

If Malcolm doesn’t have a full on mental breakdown soon I’m going to have a stress-induced breakdown for him. Seriously.

Thanks for hanging out.

18 notes · View notes

mexicancat-girl · 4 years

Text

Quiet (with you)

Another MarcNath fic written for #MLPrideFest2020 and Pride month in general

AO3: Link, 3600 words

...

Even after making friends, Marc still likes to write under the stairs.

Maybe it was just an ingrained habit at this point.

Marc didn’t do well with crowds, or loud places. It was all too chaotic. Ironic, considering he loved loud music; but dealing with people in real life was different than listening to his favorite albums.

Either way, Marc started his habit of siting and writing under the stairs since the start of the school year, too anxious to deal with both the cafeteria and his crippling loneliness of not having any friends to sit with. He has friends to sit with now, but his anxiety was a fickle thing. Sometimes he just didn’t want to seem like a bother.

The stairs were a place he enjoyed, though. They were quiet. Out of the way. And no one looked under the stairs, so it provided a nice little hidey hole. He could be isolated, while not being wholly alone.

After all, if he stayed under the stairs in the courtyard, he could hear and see when lunch let out and he had to go back to class. He couldn’t do that if he wrote in, say, the Library. The Library was too quiet, too out of the way. Marc would forget altogether about needing to leave, entranced in his writing, making him accidentally skip classes like some sort of delinquent.

And he wasn’t a delinquent! He just got lost in his head when he wrote…

Marc fiddles with his pen. Someone takes that moment to step close to him on his left.

“Hey,” a familiar voice says in a yawn. Marc snaps up his attention to Nathaniel, who hovers over him for a few seconds, before unceremoniously dropping to the ground to sit next to him.

Or, well. It looks more like he collapsed to the ground.

“Are you okay?!” Marc yelps, nearly chucking his pen and notebook aside in his haste.

Nathaniel just blinks back at him blearily, posture horribly slouched. He has dark circles under his uncovered eye, as if stamped on the pale skin there. His vibrant red hair is mussed, like he’d just been sleeping.

“M’fine,” the redhead sighs out, giving another jaw-cracking yawn right after. “Just tired.”

Marc frowns over at the other boy in concern. “Nathaniel…”

“Mmm?” he hums listlessly in reply.

“Did…did you get any sleep at all, last night?” Marc hedges, staring at the exhausted-looking artist.

“…Maybe.”

“How many hours?” he presses carefully, concern welling up even stronger as he watches Nathaniel duck his head and slump down even further.

“…A few.”

“How many exactly?”

“Like…Four?” is the weak response.

“Nathaniel!” Marc gasps, scandalized and concerned.

Nathaniel just groans, burying his face in his hand. “M’fiiiine.”

“You’re sleep deprived! That’s not fine!” he retorts, setting aside his notebook and pen to turn in place and put his full attention to his friend-slash-crush.

“Well, I’m still alive. So I think—” a yawn disrupts Nathaniel’s drawl “—I’m good.”

“You have to sleep,” Marc decides, quite logically. “You’ll pass out any second if you don’t. And you’ll end up missing class.”

“Bold of you to assume I didn’t already,” the redhead laughs dryly.

“You what?!”

Nathaniel just shrugs, looking vaguely sheepish as he says, “I fell asleep in class again. No big deal.”

“Is this a common occurrence?” Marc asks, brows flying up in shock. “Does this happen all the time?”

“Well, not all the time…” Nathaniel hedges, pink dusting his cheeks and uncovered eye darting away. “Just…Every once in a while.”

Marc sighs, shaking his head. His crush doesn’t seem like he’s jumping to elaborate, and Marc knows how stubborn the boy could be.

One more thing the two have in common to add to the pile: they both had a shit time asking others for help.

“Why did you only get four hours of sleep anyways?” Marc can’t help but ask, curious.

“…I forgot to?” the redhead cringes.

“You forgot to sleep?!” Marc yelps, leaning forwards to gawk in horror. All he gets in reply is a sheepish, tired laugh. “Nathaniel! How can you just forget?”

“Marc, when you have ADHD, it’s easy to forget a lot of things,” Nathaniel deadpans, looking a bit more dead inside as he does so.

“That’s not an excuse, and you know it.” Marc chides, giving a pointed look. “You have a phone. Set an alarm to remind yourself to go to bed.”

“…I do that. It doesn’t work.”

“Set multiple alarms, then?”

“If I do that, I just get pissed that my phone keeps interrupting me. And then I keep drawing anyways.”

Marc sighs, tapping a finger against his cheek. “There has to be a solution…”

“Prob’ly,” Nathaniel shrugs, another jaw-cracking yawn spilling from his mouth. “Look, I just… really wanna take a nap right now.”

“Go ahead. I’ll wake you up when we need to go back to class,” Marc tells him automatically, freezing slightly when he realizes what he’d just offered.

Oh God, was that weird? Who the hell would want to take a nap under the stairs? Not only is it creepy, it’s all solid concrete down here, hardly a comfortable place to sleep for any amount of time—

Nathaniel, however, doesn’t seem bothered by the offer. In fact, he smiles back at Marc, bright and genuine even through his apparent exhaustion.

“Really?” the redhead asks, as Marc awkwardly sputters and nods. “Thanks, Marc, you’re the best…!”

With a concerning amount of cheeriness and enthusiasm, Nathaniel flops right onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes, apparently settling in for a nap then and there.

“Y-Y-You’re welcome…?” Marc tells him weakly.

The redhead hums, but doesn’t do anything else in reply. He just shifts to his side, facing Marc, and…completely zones out.

Marc watches in fascination as the other boy instantly falls asleep. Just like that.

For someone that apparently had trouble going to bed, Nathaniel didn’t waste time actually falling asleep, it seems.

Marc slowly and carefully picks his notebook and pen back up, making sure he’s quiet and doesn’t startle the other boy awake.

And then he writes.

-----

Every once in a while, Marc looks up to check up on Nathaniel.

The redhead keeps on sleeping, dead to the world.

It’s probably creepy to do, but after more and more time passes, Marc’s gaze is drawn to watching Nathaniel’s sleeping form. Like a magnet. And eventually, he just sort of. Watches him sleep.

After all, there’s not exactly many opportunities for him to stare unabashedly at his crush without possibly getting caught by said crush. There’s also the factor in play that sleeping is a private and intimate thing, and Nathaniel had no problems just…hunkering down and taking a nap by Marc’s side.

Either Nathaniel really trusts him and isn’t bothered by the possibility of Marc judging him, or he’s so exhausted he genuinely doesn’t give a fuck about anyone’s opinion.

Both options make Marc’s stupid gay heart flutter, just a bit, in his chest.

Nathaniel looks so… peaceful while he sleeps. His face is slack, lips parted slightly as he breathes slowly and deeply. The exhaustion and stress melts from his features. His lashes are delicate as they fan out across his cheekbones, kissing the small smattering of freckles there. His bangs are mussed and out of his face completely for once, hair feathered out, fire spilling against the concrete.

The other boy doesn’t snore, either. But he does drool, just a bit.

The sight makes Marc smile. It’s probably achingly lovestruck and fond. He doesn’t fight it.

Marc shifts—slowly, carefully—until he’s sitting level with the sleeping redhead. He pauses, heart in his throat, when Nathaniel mumbles and shifts a bit. And then tenses when the boy butts his head against Marc’s thigh.

Marc watches with bated breath as Nathaniel snuggles against his leg like a cat, apparently drawn to Marc’s body heat. He even curls up a bit and throws his leg over Marc’s extended one, knee hiked up, the weight trapping Marc’s right leg in place.

Marc’s face feels like it’s on fire. He tries very, very hard not to squeal. And also tries to ignore the fact that if Nathaniel migrates further, he’ll end up in Marc’s lap.

Though Marc honestly can’t complain about that, even if the prospect makes him want to go into cardiac arrest from mingled embarrassment and joy.

Fumblingly, Marc brings up his unoccupied leg, balancing his notebook precariously onto his raised knee. He doesn’t even know what he writes—if its cohesive at all, or just the ramblings of a madman desperately in love—but he has to at least occupy himself. If he doesn’t, he’ll die on the spot, or his mind will overthink everything.

If he doodles a few too many hearts on the page than is considered normal, well. No one’s around to see him.

-----

“Damn it, Nath…! Where are you?!” Alix seethes under her breath, stomping across the cafeteria.

She was a woman on a mission.

Somehow, in the five seconds Alix took her eyes off Nathiel in Miss Bustier’s class, he managed to slip past her. He was a slippery one, and too quiet for his own good.

Alix was pissed. Mostly concerned for Nath’s health and continued wellbeing, but pissed all the same.

That dumb tomato-boy was probably off somewhere, passed out in a corner of the school like a homeless person. Vulnerable and ready for any old bully to waltz by him. All because he was avoiding Alix, since she tended to strongarm him to stay awake and eat a proper lunch and wallow in his mistakes of staying up til nearly four in the fucking morning. Again.

Either way, Alix was going to find his stupid ass, and drag him to eat lunch so he could have enough energy to not pass right the fuck out and end up in the nurse’s office.

She’s checked his favorite hidey-holes in the Art Club Room and the Library. With those options eliminated, she has no reason to really stay on the top floors. So she ends up stomping all the way back down to the main floor.

And then realizes that she may have forgotten one last spot.

Quietly, she moves away from the stairs. And when she’s got enough distance, carefully hiding behind a column, she crouches and looks under the stairs.

Marc is there, as she expected. His bright-red hoodie and messy hair are fairly recognizable.

Passed out next to Marc is a very familiar form that Alix instantly recognizes as her dumbass best friend, one Nathaniel Kurtzberg.

Alix would normally stomp on over and wake Nath up. But the actual sight before her makes her pause, and consider.

Marc is sitting down, one knee propped up and seemingly trying to write in his notebook, and looking to be struggling at it. Probably because Nathaniel is half-using him as a pillow, his head all but in Marc’s lap, a leg thrown over Marc’s extended one.

Marc’s sort of trapped under Nathaniel. Though he looks so enraptured and awed at the fact that he’s being used as a pillow, he probably wouldn’t move from his spot in a thousand years.

It’s…an incredibly cute sight.

And it’s also a bit surprising, too.

Not the fact that Marc’s looking down at Nathaniel with a look so gooey and lovestruck, he pretty much has hearts for eyes. Alix’s picked up near-instantly that Marc has a bit of a hopeless crush on her best friend.

No, the more surprising part is Nathaniel taking a nap on Marc.

Nathaniel never feels bothered about taking naps at school, just plonking his head on his desk and diving straight into dreamland. But sleeping around other people is a bit different.

Nath likes to cuddle when he sleeps. But he only does it to people he really, truly trusts. He won’t just sleep on any person.

So far, the phenomena only extends to family. Which includes Alix and Jalil, because Nath all but considers them his siblings. But he doesn’t sleep on any of his other friends.

The fact that he’s sleeping on Marc shows that he trusts him. A lot, at that.

It shows that he even considers Marc family.

“Interesting…” Alix mutters quietly under her breath, her mouth breaking into a shit-eating grin.

Feeling devious, she carefully fishes her phone from her pocket, and clicks it on. A few swipes later, and she’s zooming in on her camera to take a dozen photos of Marc and Nathaniel in their current position.

She’s so going to tease the shit out of Nath later over this.

Hell, she might as well start a new album for them, at the rate that this is going. She hadn’t even realized Nath was crushing back on Marc.

Hell, Nath might not even know he has a crush on Marc.

This is ironically hilarious.

And hey! They’ll all make great photos for the wedding, she’s sure. She should know; she’s going to be Nath’s best man. They pretty much made a blood pact on it when they were younger. She’d be his best man, and he’d be hers, if they ever got married.

With a smirk and a cheery hum under her breath, Alix carefully and quietly backs away, so she won’t be seen and ruin their cute little moment.

She could let it slide. She’ll let Nath sleep, this time.

-----

It feels both like an eternity, and no time at all, before the sounds of students migrating out of the lunchroom get louder and louder.

With a pang of regret and longing, Marc realizes he has to wake Nathaniel back up.

Well. It’d been good while it lasted.

At the very least, Marc can make some corrections about his daydreams of a blissful domestic life with his crush. Including the newly revealed fact that Nathaniel’s a cuddler.

“Nathaniel…Wake up,” Marc says, ducking down and gently shaking his shoulder. “We have to get back to class.”

“Five more minutes,” the redhead half-groans half-whines, raising his head slightly just to plop it straight on Marc’s thigh, burying his face there.

Marc all but jumps out of his skin. He’s so startled, he yanks his leg away, watching in horrified mortification as Nathaniel smacks his face slightly on the concrete.

“I’m up, I’m up!” the redhead yelps, jolting up, blue eyes wide and staring around himself wildly as he shifts himself into a sitting position.

“I-I-I’m so sorry,” Marc gasps, instantly hovering over his friend. “OhmyGodNath—”

“S’fine! S’fine,” Nathaniel says, shaking his head wildly, before bringing a hand up to carefully rub at his face. “My fault for smacking myself anyways.”

“A-Are y-you okay?” Marc worries, hands fluttering to and fro.

“I think so…?” the redhead blinks, cheeks dusted pink. “Ummm…Sorry, c-can you see if I have a bruise, or—”

“Y-Yes, of course.” Marc quickly leans his face in, scrutinizing the other for injuries. Other than the growing blush (no doubt of embarrassment) on Nathaniel’s face, there’s no major change in color that’s a warning sign for an injury. “N-No, you’re fine. Your nose looks a little red, but that’s it.”

“Thanks, man,” Nathaniel sighs, leaning back and rubbing at his nose, eyes averted. “I mean, I’ve had worse on my face after waking up, but still. It’s nice to have someone to check.”

“I’ve fallen asleep on my notebooks before…” Marc offers, wincing sympathetically. This earns him a small smile in return, which is worth the slight embarrassment of his admission.

“Oh, same. I’ve conked out right on my notebooks and sketchbooks before. Woken up with writing from my notes or smeared marker on my face,” the other says, laughing awkwardly, obviously self-conscious even if he jokes about it.

“I-If you need to, you probably have enough time to double-check in the bathroom…But I think your face looks great,” Marc starts, before his too-authentic words catch up to him. “Um! I-I mean, fine. Your face. Is fine. You’re fine.” Marc nearly closes his eyes and drops into a prayer for God to smite him where he sits. “S’fine.”

“Uhhh…Right,” Nathaniel coughs, smiling, blue eye glimmering with mirth. “Anyways. Sorry for making things, like…awkward? But I appreciate you letting me nap with you. Really. I felt like dying.”

“N-No problem! It’s no problem at all!” Marc is quick to wave his hands in front of himself to wave away the other’s concern. “I’m glad I could help.”

“Yeah, Alix doesn’t let me get away with sleeping during lunch anymore,” Nathaniel sighs, smile turning crooked and abashed. “She says I’m scrawny enough that I can’t afford to be skipping meals.”

“I don’t think you’re scrawny,” Marc answers automatically and loyally. Apparently, his brain-to-mouth filter has gone and died on him in the past hour. He would blame Nathaniel for being so cute, but honestly, this is more of a him problem than anything. He’s too big of a gay disaster for his own good.

Nathaniel just smiles and laughs. Not in a mocking way, but in a way like he’s thought Marc made a funny joke.

“Alix would say otherwise, but thanks,” he says warmly, tugging his bangs behind his ear. Marc is hit with both of Nathaniel’s blue eyes crinkled in fondness. It all but punches the breath straight out of him. “Did I bother you at all, by the way?”

“N-Not at all!” Marc is quick to assure, even as he averts his gaze in a way that’s no doubt guilty. “I-I still got a b-bit of writing done…”

“Good. I didn’t want to mess up your flow or anything…Y’know, since this is your spot to write and all,” the redhead says, self-deprecating, averting his gaze. “And…Thanks again for letting me chill here. It’s actually really peaceful.”

“W-well, this isn’t my spot, per se…I-It’s not like I own it?” Marc starts, a bit mystified, but backpedals a bit so he doesn’t seem rude. “B-But you’re welcome! You can come by anytime. It’s not like I’d ever turn you away.”

Wait. Why did he say that?

Marc freezes, trying not to panic. Did he just admit he’d never turn Nathaniel away? What if that blows his cover? What if Nathaniel realizes he means it genuinely, but like, in a very non-platonic and incredibly gay way?

“Ooh, permission to sit here in your secret spot…? I’m honored,” Nathaniel grins back at him toothily, before finally moving to stand. “I’ll come by more often if you come sit with me at lunch more. Deal?”

Nathaniel holds his hand out to Marc, smiling expectantly back at him. Face warm and heart aflutter, Marc reaches out. Nathaniel clasps his hand and heaves him up off the ground, nearly over-balancing in the process.

“Woah! You’re heavier than you look,” the redhead laughs, obviously teasing as he makes a show of wiping his forehead.

Marc huffs, bending down to snag his pen and notebook. “Or maybe I have a solid three inches on you, so I have more body mass.”

“Well gee, thanks for reminding me that I’m short,” Nathaniel drawls back.

The two eye each other with mock annoyance, before they burst into laughter.

Marc feels a potent mix of fondness and joy settle in his chest, nestled with the swarm of butterflies there.

It’s always…freeing…to laugh with Nathaniel. It reminds Marc that they really are friends. That Nathaniel doesn’t just tolerate him. That he maybe even enjoys Marc’s company.

“Get back to class, sleepyhead,” Marc teases, using his unoccupied hand to wave as he starts to step back.

“You get back to class!” Nathaniel retorts, grinning wide, raising a hand in goodbye.

Marc’s already a few meters away, when a thought strikes and a surge of confidence fills him. He has one more thing to say.

He turns around and walks backwards to look at Nathaniel, who’s still standing in the same place as before, yawning and rubbing at his eye. Marc makes an exaggerated and over-the-top pantomime of smoothing his hair down, as he calls, “You should probably fix your hair, while you’re at it!”

Nathaniel startles, staring back at him. Marc can’t help but smirk back, amusement growing as the other boy blushes and instantly starts to comb his fingers through his hair, flattening it back in place and re-arranging it so he doesn’t look like he’d just tripped out of bed.

Even with his efforts, his red hair looks tousled, full of flyaway strands that just won’t sit still.

And coupled with his blushing face, well. Nathaniel looks like he’s done more than just take a cat nap.

Marc turns right around and speed-walks away before Nathaniel can say anything else, or his own mind can fall deeper into the gutter.

-----

As Marc makes his way to class, he clutches his notebook to his chest and bites his lip, but the smile spreads wide and crooked in his mouth anyways.

He just…He just made Nathaniel blush.

He giggles a bit under his breath, pressing his knuckles against his lips, no doubt smearing his lip gloss. But he can’t even bring himself to care. He’s too giddy. The butterflies buzz and flutter in his chest, alongside his heart.

He can’t wait for Nathaniel to join him under the stairs again.

Marc may like the quiet and solitude, but…He thinks he likes being quiet with Nathaniel even more.

#MLPrideFest2020 #Nathaniel Kurtzberg #Marc Anciel #Alix Kubdel #MarcNath #NathMarc #Miraculous Ladybug #fanfic #pride month #mexicat writes

53 notes · View notes

shibalen · 4 years

Note

Hi! I’d like a match up for Kuro please!~ I’m bisexual, non-binary (leaning a little more towards the masculine side most of the time), and my height is 5’9. My zodiac sign is leo and I’m INTP if I remember correctly. I love to write, draw, and read more than anything, though I’m also trying to make my own video game in my spare time, and I absolutely love anything horror related or really dark/gothic. Outside of that, my interests and tastes tend to vary so I’m pretty flexible. (1/2)

My fashion sense is sort of all over the place too, but I usually dress really edgy, mostly just in black or other dark colors. I’m not bilingual (yet~) but I’m trying to learn languages like French, Latin, and German. I have no self control when it comes to desserts or any sort of candy. I also own five dogs! I’d prefer a romantic match, but platonic is okay too if that’s easier. ^^ (2/2)

♡︎ matchup for @blank-envy

hello! i assume you meant Kuroshitsuji? if not, please correct me. thank you for waiting so long, i've finished your match!

and five dOgS?! god i wish that were me

|| kuroshitsuji: i match you with . . .

joker

• Joker is an aries (one of the best matches for leo) and an entp (one of the best e's for intp, imo)

• you two are a quite a pair! you're both easy-going but have a flame of passion in your hearts that strives to make a change. this dynamic immediately makes you click with each other.

• your views on the world are quite similar too, and your conversations can take a lot of interesting turns, seeing as both of you prefer meaningful discussions over small-talk.

• Joker is more extroverted than you though, but no need to worry about that. he cares for you deeply and respects your boundaries. at the same time, he's an effective communicator and knows how to minimise any misunderstandings you two might have.

• you guys met a high-class costume party (let's say for Halloween, it's spooky season). the moment you spotted Joker in the crowd you were amazed by his skeleton arm (oﾟ▽ﾟ)o

• of course, you first assumed it as a part of his outfit, and it was a bit embarrassing when you went to compliment him on it and he just laughed . . .

• after giving you a quick explanation, Joker expected you to be weirded out, but knowing he actually had a prosthetic arm made it all the more facinating in your eyes. it was creepy but in a cool way!

• not only was Joker thrilled and amused but also entranced. he knew right there and then he wanted to learn more about you.

• he was drawn to your creative side from the very beginning. he too is an artist, and an entertainer, so it was thrilling to meet someone who understood him so well.

• soon he came to trust you enough to introduce you to his family. everyone was so happy for you! Beast was kinda jelly at first but even she saw how well you fit together, like two puzzle pieces.

• your fashion senses are on the opposite side of the scale, but that's what makes it exciting! he jokes that you could use some colour in your wardrobe.

• shopping with you two is a real rollercoaster. you search for clothes representing your tastes but have a blast having the other try out the clothes of your choice.

• pssst Joker is slowly converting you into the same style as him so you can wear matching items🤡

• thankfully your interests are flexible because Joker will want to try out new hobbies with you. anything that looks mildly fascinating draws his attention. you'll have a fun learning about so many new things.

• he's especially into anything he can make a show out of in the circus, so next time you're meeting up with friends you'll have a few party tricks up your sleeve. Joker proudly grinning in the background

• but honestly? he loves the feeling of you braiding his hair before a show. he insists you do it for him because it's his good luck charm ♡︎

• after another successful performance he treats everybody to a big dinner. for you there will be a row of desserts. the twinkle in your eye when you see all thise sweets is irreplaceable to him.

• the only condition is that you have to feed him some as well, tehe

• now, when it comes to romance, Joker is a natural, hands down.

• acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation—he has so many love languages you'll feel loved 24/7

• he's a huge tease though. can and will pull the cheesiest of lines and actions in public and still wear that innocent grin. personally, he sees them as fun more than anything. if you get embarrassed, that's just more in it for him.

• his favourite tricks are making flowers pop out from his hand and gifting them to you, as well as the "coin behind your ear" trick because he loves leaning in close to you and making you flushed.

• "oh, what's this? the coin was here all along!"

• "you know, you've done this same trick a hundred times already."

• "and i'll do a hundred more for you, my sugar cube."

• he's so smooth it should be illegal, but as i said, he lives for your reactions.

• coming up with all those sickly sweet petnames for you is also right up his alley. he takes inspiration from desserts and languages because those are some things that remind him of you.

• a few of his personal favorites to call you by: honeybee, sugar plum, ma fraise (my strawberry), and honigkusse, (honey kiss) + a classic when all else fails: my love

• compliments, compliments, compliments! expect them from Joker every other sentence. he never runs out of them, as he always sees the good in you ♡︎

• you two are seriously such a fun couple! the type to appear chaotic at first but also the one that share the deepest bonds. Joker loves you (and your five dogs) very much.

runner up: Grell Sutcliff

i had fun with this one since he's one of my faves! i hope you enjoyed it too, have a great day (◍>ᴗ<)ﾉｼ

if anyone hasn't noticed i make the matchup a bit longer if you only request one fandom ♡︎

#matchups #anime matchups #len's matches #kuroshitsuji #joker kuroshitsuji

11 notes · View notes

desert-dyke · 4 years

Text

the things I’ve read in 2020 and some thoughts...

hey blacklist this now because it’s gonna get long from here. I spent NYE home alone and reading and it has really set the tone for this year. Fortunately, I’ve been reading way more for the first time in...I literally don’t even know? Maybe forever? Which is really dope! Books are fucking fantastic and I hope this trend continues for the rest of the year. So I’m gonna use this post (and continue to add to it as I finish books) to talk about the things I’ve read. It could be annoying. I could give up on it really soon. People might not read this at all. It’s okay! It’s my blog I’ll use it how I want and I want to talk about books I otherwise don’t really have a place to talk about them.

The Shape of Water - Guillermo Del Toro & Daniel Kraus

If you know me irl you’ll know that I love this movie. Like, it’s probably my favorite movie as an adult. I love watching a movie and then going back and reading the book to compare and vice versa, but knowing that the book came out after the movie did discourage me at first, making me think it was nothing more than a cash grab. Though I was talking to (my boss) who also loves this movie and is a huge bibliophile and she highly recommended the book, so I figured I’d give it a stab.

The writing style is beautiful and enticing and overall I was impressed with the quality of it. It’s fast paced and switches perspective between characters frequently, though remains easy to follow. The book focuses a little less on Elisa and more on the other characters and stories around her, including, surprisingly, Elaine Strickland, who despite never wondering much about during the movie, I enjoyed being included in the book. There’s a deeper exploration into pretty much everyone’s backstories, and more prominent character development. It’s excellent as a standalone piece, and supplementary to readers who have seen the movie. There’s also some alternative takes on certain scenes, which I don’t necessarily like better or worse than the choices made in the movie, but it makes for an interesting read.

The book explores themes of alienation and being othered, with a main cast that breaks the stereotype of straight white fully-abled male. Elisa is a mute woman, Zelda, a black woman, and Giles a gay man. With the political climate of the 1950′s, all of them are outsiders and all of them find solidarity in each other, despite their unique struggles, and also with the creature.

The only thing I didn’t quite like was the portrayal of the creature. I think greater efforts were put into making him more godlike and otherworldly, but also, simultaneously, he comes off as much more like a wild animal in the book, and the latter came off as strange to me, and not in the way I like it. Overall, even if the movie didn’t exist and I only read this, I’d still think it was a really good story.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate - Becky Chambers

If I depended on the synopsis on the back of the book to decide whether or not I wanted to read this, I don’t know if I would have bothered. To be honest, I only wanted to read this because Becky Chambers is my current favorite author and all other of her works I’ve read I’ve absolutely adored, so naturally, I wanted to give this one a chance, even if the concept wasn’t as riveting as I would have hoped.

She didn’t disappoint.

Whereas her other books take place in a vast space civilization where humanity is integrated with aliens and there’s technology beyond our dreams, this book took place in a different creative universe, a little more closer to our timeline. The book is about space exploration for the sake of learning and taking care to be as least intrusive on the explored worlds as possible. It’s a nice break from what I usually see in sci fi, with colonization and owning space and wanting to use knowledge in order to hurt others. It follows a research crew of four, sent to research four planets in a far solar system. There’s a lag in travel time, since FTL travel had not been discovered yet, so a common device is communication with Earth is off by years. Eventually, the crew realizes they have lost contact with Earth and Earth had likely suffered some sort of devastation. It wonders if Earth has forgotten them or if it’s even worth it to return since they might be the last astronauts of their time.

The worlds they visit and research are unique and vivid and fill me with wonder. They’re realistic to the point where I found myself questioning if the book was prophetic. Chambers makes effort to incorporate science into her novels, but in a way that does not estrange a reader like me who only has a basic knowledge in science. It’s one of the things I find most attractive about her work, because it has this added realism and this feeling of “wow, this really could happen” and yet remains easy to follow.

I found the crew to be likeable and diverse. Three of them are in a relationship with each other, and while polyamory isn’t usually an interest of mine, it’s in the background as well as it’s never used as a point to cause drama. It’s a healthy functional relationship. Also, one of the crew is a trans man and another is asexual, both details that exist within a single line, but yet important to be included to flesh out the characters.

What I didn’t like was the almost rush to the end of the book. It’s a short book, roughly 100 pages, but it seems to me as if it reaches it’s climax and then the book just ends and it kind of feels like it’s still in the middle of things. I’ve had time to think about it, though, and I’ve considered that maybe anything else written would have been redundant or just filler and therefore not needed. So in that case, that’s fair. It still felt a little abrupt to me, but that’s what fic is for.

Overall, if you haven’t read anything by Becky Chambers you need to change that immediately. Please don’t leave me alone and fanning over this incredible author!!

All Systems Red - Martha Wells

This was another short one, and in fact, I read it entirely in one sitting. The concept of the book was really intriguing, and actually I selected it because I liked the opening line so much. I have a lot of feelings about AI and robots, so this was a naturally alluring story to me. Mixed with the fact that the beefed out security robot, who calls themselves “Murderbot”, was absolutely obsessed with soap opera tv just absolutely gets me!

The story is told through Murderbot’s perspective, who is assigned to guard a research team. They had recently hacked their government module, which now allows them full autonomy and no longer having to obey orders from their assigned humans. It’s interesting to see Murderbot actively choose to help the humans. Also, needing to maintain an illusion that they aren’t unshackled, since what they did was forbidden.

The research team is full of interesting characters, who I find tragically under explored. The only couple in the story is wlw, which I vastly appreciated, along with they obviously cared and loved each other and their relationship was not used for drama purposes. In favor of the lack of development with the cast of characters, since the narrator is Murderbot and part of Murderbot’s personality is they are actively trying not to care about these humans, it does make sense. Still, I would have loved to see more of the crew and more development between Murderbot and them.

I like the dark lore that is hinted behind Murderbot’s existence. There’s organic counterparts to their machine made from cloned humans. It’s creepy and morbid, but a lot is with the lore of the universe that the story takes place in. There’s hints towards a heavy capitalist society in space where the humans and Murderbot came from, where the right price will get you anything, regardless of morals. The overall tone of the story is very quirky, but it needs to be to offset just how dark everything that happens actually is. The book explores the concept of corporate greed, from the existence of Murderbot to the deaths that come to humans on the planet the crew is studying.

This book was deeply fascinating, but I didn’t love the way it was written. I love every concept and choice made, but I didn’t love the execution. It left me wanting without satisfaction. It’s not a bad book and I still over all enjoyed it. It is part of a series, which I did not realize at the time of reading it, but the ending leaves room for more to be written, so maybe in the following books there will be the development I desired. However, the ending of the book leaves it apparent that Murderbot will not be interacting with the same characters of the first, but that is just an assumption and I could be wrong. I’m not sure yet if I will read more in the series but I’m not entirely opposed to it.

All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders

This is another one that I definitely would not have read if I had to choose based on the synopsis alone. The synopsis made it sound so run-of-the-mill star-crossed-lovers, which, hey, maybe that actually helps sell the book because its a pretty well loved trope, but for me it was off-putting, as well as isn’t fair to what the book actually turned out to be. But that’s what reviews are for, and I found this book from some sort of list, I think it was best sci-fi books written by women.

The general idea of the book is a witch and a techie fall in love while the world is falling apart due to a conflict between magic and technology. The book is lauded for bending genre and honestly, it fucking has. It’s as equally a sci-fi novel as it is a fantasy novel. There’s advanced technology, such as robots, two second time machines, rocket ships, and ultimately, a portal leading to a different universe in hopes of escaping the destruction of earth. On the magic side, there’s a connection to nature, rules that have to be abided, quirky witches and magicians and mystique. Both Laurence and Patricia are outsiders that have seemingly found these secret niches in the world that becomes their own.

Both plots are interesting in their own, and could possibly exist as two separate books, but what ties the entire story together is the connection Laurence and Patricia have, and their ultimate romance.

The romance is a wonderful slow burn, from childhood friends, to adult friends to lovers. By the time Patricia and Laurence finally get together, you really fucking want them to. They weave in and out of each other’s lives throughout their own personal plots. There’s tensions and there’s release. And most importantly, they have lives outside of each other. Their romance compliments the story, rather than the story being entirely about romance.

Similar to the former review, there’s a lot of quirkiness in the story, that ultimately offsets how dark the story can be. The story doesn’t shy away from complicated relationships with parents and siblings and friends and other people, people of mixed ages and backgrounds. It explores abuse, bullying, natural disaster and loss. The story would have been miserable and a drag to read without the whimsical qualities of it. Plus it’s a fantasy/sci-fi, so it should have some quirkiness to it! And it made for a very enjoyable read!

My criticism for this one is, yet again, the ending. The conflict resolves and the story comes to an end. In favor of how it was written, the way things resolve, I believe the world is about to go through a grand change. While the story is quirky, I think it would have been too corny to have had a glittery magical wave drag across the land, altering the world as it went. So, it’s fair, I guess, that the author chose to end it where she did. Still, it left me craving more. Maybe because the story was so good and I wasn’t yet ready to let it go.

Also, as a side note, the author is a trans woman. So if you’re looking for books written by trans authors to support, put this at the top of your list.

#book review 2020 #the shape of water #to be taught if fortunate #All systems red #all the birds in the sky #idk how to write about books and these are only partial reviews/reccomendations so sorry if it sucks #also I plan on adding to this post so better blacklist it now #feel free to recommend things

51 notes · View notes

quarterfromcanon · 4 years

Note

1-4. For the asks

Thank you so much for sending these! <3

Once I started to answer them, I realized there were comparatively few recent television shows appearing on the list. I seemed to keep gravitating toward older ones I remembered from years ago. I took a handful of days to mull it over in case I was forgetting something, but nothing else comes to mind. Maybe my ongoing list of Shows to Watch During Quarantine will turn up some fresh results but, for now, it looks like I’ll be taking a little trip down memory lane. :)

This turned out to be a pretty long and rambly post, so I’ll stow it under the cut!

Top 5 TV Shows

1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - I can’t imagine this surprises anyone who has been following this blog for the past two years or so. It brought fellow fans into my life, got me back into writing fic, and prompted countless tags of meta. It’s the show my mind drifts to on a weekly basis (if not daily) even a full year after the finale. Just when it seemed I’d reached an age where that level of intense fandom involvement and character attachment might be fading, it proved that quite the opposite was true. I’m very thankful to the series for that, and for the people whose paths have crossed mine as a result.

2. Schitt’s Creek - This is my #1 Feel Good show and, though I’ve been dodging spoilers for the final season until it gets uploaded to Netflix, I get the impression that it will remain in that top spot. The world feels softer and more hopeful there. It’s healing for my soul. I’m going to have a dreadfully difficult time saying goodbye, but I’m glad there are six season to revisit whenever I want.

3. Stranger Things - The theme song alone sends such a rush of excitement through me. I love the aesthetic and the atmosphere. I sometimes have mixed feelings about the romances but the FRIENDSHIPS sure do have a direct line to my heartstrings. I think the way they’ve combined media influences into their own story is really neat. You get something that’s new and engaging, but you can also go back and enjoy the sources of inspiration with fresh appreciation.

4. Joan of Arcadia - I can’t help it. The snark, the jackets, the early 2000s songs, the performances -- the nostalgia for this show is so strong. It’s not without its problems, but it did have some really good things to offer as well. I remember an episode that was one of my earliest introductions to the concept of a trigger, and the effect it could have on a person if exposed to one of theirs. The series dealt a lot with grief and the many forms it can take (I STILL can’t hear Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe” without getting misty-eyed). I’m also surprised, looking back, at the somewhat positive way I recall them discussing homosexuality on the several occasions that it came up in the show. Not to give too much credit since I don’t think there were recurring canonically LGBTQIA+ characters but, for a kid who spent most days around closed-minded people of a certain religious leaning, it was meaningful along my individual journey. I’d like to provide the several examples that are most vivid in my memory:

A. A girl with short hair, short nails, little to no makeup, and a bulky leather jacket is generally assumed to be a lesbian by the bullies at school. The show directly confronts the fact that “gay” should not be used an insult, that identity should not be assumed without the person telling you so, AND makes sure that the character in question never pushes back by saying harmful things about lesbians despite not actually being one herself.

B. A boy who is questioning is able to confide in his big brother and have a fairly calm conversation about it; the awkwardness mostly comes from neither of them being accustomed to openly discussing emotions, not from the possibility of a negative response regarding the subject matter.

C. Another character is accidentally discovered to be gay (he only appears in the one episode, if my memory serves), and some of the leads have the opportunity to share that for personal gain. However, even though he is a popular jock who is a bit of a jerk in the hallways, the show makes it clear that the right choice is still to leave the telling of that information up to him and him alone.

Like I mentioned, it can’t be said that representation was in abundance here - for instance, I don’t believe anything other than straight or gay was presented as a possibility - but any accepting acknowledgement in a faith-centric series was something for me to hold on to in my still-deeply-closeted days. As a final Very Important personal side note, this show brought Judith Montgomery into my life (pictured below on the left), and that feels like it merits a shoutout for being what I consider a rather significant marker in my awakening.

THE OVERWHELMING CRUSH I HAD - and still have - is one for the books.

5. Pushing Daisies - This is another show with an aesthetic I adore. The series has such a fun, whimsical energy. The crime-solving! The clothes! The cast! There's a lot to love. It’s the kind of world I wish I could visit... well, minus the evidently rampant murder rate.

Top 5 Overrated TV Shows

1. Once Upon A Time - *deep sigh* I tried to stick with it for so long. I think I’ve seen five out of the seven seasons in their entirety. It just felt like everything got mired down by excessive (and increasingly convoluted) subplots, often for the purpose of tossing in as many fairytale and/or Disney characters as possible. Plus, quite honestly, there was too much emphasis on romantic love. For a show whose first season involved a curse being broken by [potential spoiler, I suppose] a mother kissing her son’s forehead, I ultimately found myself up to my ears in romantic ships. It reached such a stifling extent that, if you were not particularly attached to those pairings, there wasn’t a whole lot else to entice further viewing.

2. Under the Dome - I don’t know for certain what the general public opinion of this series was, but it felt like the commercials always featured alleged rave reviews, so I figured I could include it here. I was vaguely interested in Season 1, mainly as a fan of Rachelle Lefevre’s work. Season 2 pulled me in with the introduction of a new townsperson and I threw WAY too much of my heart into that attachment, which backfired when that character was killed. I made quite the spectacle of my heartbreak, so much so that my family doesn’t let me mention this show around them anymore. :P Season 3 was, to phrase it delicately, not a great time. The series did introduce me to a few new-to-me actors, though, so that was cool.

3. Bates Motel - Even the incentive of learning that the two characters I liked most share a lot of screen time later in the series hasn’t been enough to call me back to this one. I don’t know if it was the pacing that put me off or what, but the prospect of finishing the remaining seasons feels so daunting. There are evidently five seasons in total and I believe I’ve only seen two of them thus far. I will probably muddle through it someday just to see how it goes, but the fact that I am so disinclined to prioritize it made this feel like a fair addition to the list.

4. Lost - My interest in this series unfortunately waned right before fervent fandom spiked. I don’t have any specific complaints that come to mind about what I saw; I just sort of drifted and then stayed away. Teachers I liked and peers I spent time with were starting to latch on to the show and I couldn’t find even the slightest inclination to give it a second try. However, did I still dutifully read all the latest installments in my friend’s Sawyer Ford and Kate Austen fanfiction when she passed me handwritten copies at lunch? Sure. I was glad it made her happy, even if I was no longer a viewer.

5. Hemlock Grove - I say this as someone who still mourns the fates of some characters in this show, so I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that the series stopped being able to make me feel anything. I’m just of the opinion that, in some ways, it might’ve been better off stopping at one season. That’s where the book it was based on ends, and things just didn’t feel as cohesive after that. Season 3 especially was - borrowing from my above review of Under the Dome - not a great time. That being said, there are also certain elements from the book that I could’ve done without in the Season 1 adaptation but... well... here we are.

Top 5 Underrated TV Shows

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Another one that won’t surprise followers of this blog. I have rhapsodized about it quite frequently since I found it a little over a month ago. It’s a period piece mystery miniseries with LGBTQIA+ representation, gorgeous costumes, and Samara Weaving. This felt specifically designed to wedge its way into my heart, and I’m quite content with the space it now occupies.

2. Dark - I’m so intrigued by the overlapping timelines with all of the morally gray characters. It’s possible to like one of these people in the timeline where they’re young but dislike them as adults, or vice versa. It also makes me think of Rant by Chuck Palahniuk a little tiny bit with the idea that time travel, specifically tampering with your own timeline, might make you physically and behaviorally unrecognizable to yourself. And the SONG CHOICES! I have gotten some solid new music selections from this series.

3. Sense8 - I still need to watch the finale. I really do. But I knew it would make me sad so I’ve avoided it for... two years now? Pretty close, I think. The concept is fascinating and the cast is so strong. Plus the cinematography! They came up with some of the coolest ways to depict the link these characters share and what it’s like when they connect over distance. The planning and careful editing it all must’ve taken... I remain in awe.

4. Penny Dreadful - There were definitely some story/writing choices I didn’t particularly like along the way, but I did get engrossed in the creepy goodness and the performances -- Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives most of all. It left me wishing for more period piece “monster mash” stories, because having all those classic characters in one place was a blast. It also helped me understand why Helen McCrory was once slated to play Bellatrix Lestrange because she can be terrifying. Oh and Sarah Greene in her Wild West outfits? Perdita Weeks with short red hair in fencing garb, and later in all leather with boots and a long jacket? I WAS NOT PREPARED AND I HAVE STILL NOT RECOVERED. I NEVER WILL.

5. Wonderfalls - There’s some cringe-inducing handling of certain representation in the series, but I have such a weak spot for quippy outcasts who become reluctant chosen ones (Joan Girardi in Joan of Arcadia, Wynonna Earp, Jaye Tyler in this series, et cetera). I also really love the sibling dynamics here. They bicker, tease one another, help each other out of trouble, and have rare but genuine heart-to-hearts. Caroline, Lee, and Katie all did such a great job blending their characters’ adult personalities with certain childhood attributes that rise to the surface in the presence of family.

Top 5 Movies

1. Addams Family Values - I’ve rewatched this movie at least once annually since I found it in Media Play at age 13. Usually, I’ll play it around Halloween or, at the latest, Thanksgiving. It’s mouth-along-with-every-line level ingrained in my memory. I find myself leaning forward in my seat before favorite parts because I’m still that excited to relive them. Why this movie, and why this devotion to such a degree? It’s hard to explain, even to myself. I can tell you, however, that I hold up every other portrayal of the Addams characters to the versions found in this. Everybody in the cast just feels that perfect for their part.

2. Clue - I was already pretty fond of this movie to begin with, but then my sister got older and claimed it as a favorite of her own, so now she just supplies me with further excuses to watch it repeatedly. It’s also been a bonding piece of media with a couple of close friends and such through the years. It’s incredible to think not everyone in it was the first choice for their roles; what everybody brings to the table is so top-notch that I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also LOVE knowing that it originally went to theaters with different endings depending on which showing you attended. I gather people weren’t terribly thrilled with the stunt back then, but I kinda think some moviegoers would be into that approach these days? Then again, one hit that tried something different tends to start a fad, so maybe I’d end up regretting the suggestion after a while. :P

3. The Craft - This. Movie. Yes, Act III is a major bummer even though I know it’s coming, and I’ll always wish it ended differently. Even so. This. Movie. I tend to headcanon mostly for shows and sometimes books, but The Craft is a beloved exception. I love so much about it: the magic, the music, the clothes, the settings, the dynamics within the friend group, the performances. I had no idea when I first got the DVD at 17 that it would become such a part of my life, but I’m so glad it found its way to me.

4. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion - The soundtrack is a glorious ’80s and ’90s treat for my ears. The colorful costumes are perfectly suited to the main characters’ version of the world. There are so many great lines and it feels like everyone is having a lot of fun in their roles. I LOVE HEATHER MOONEY SO MUCH. She’s my awful, scathingly sarcastic, little grungy grump and she fills my heart with joy.

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - I was pretty sure at least one of the three had to appear on here. I think, if I were to tally them all up, The Return of the King features most of my favorite moments, so it wins the spot. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”, ‘Edge of Night,’ Éowyn in battle, The Army of the Dead, ‘Into the West’... I end up crying during the end credits every time. So, yeah, ultimately, I would choose the third part of the trilogy if I could only watch one.

Phew, that’s it! All the questions answered, all the shows and movies listed! Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read it all, and thanks again to @monaiargancoconutsoy for sending in the prompts! <3

#About Me #Answered Asks

4 notes · View notes

cherry-valentine · 5 years

Text

Summer 2019 Anime Season

Here’s what I’m watching:

To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts is an action series that’s basically about the Civil War (but in a fantasy country! So no one gets offended! I guess) being won on the strength of a military unit made up of people who can transform into mythological beasts (think werewolves, sirens, centaurs, etc.). And then those people begin to go mad and start killing for no reason after the war is over, so it’s up to their captain, Hank, to track them all down and put them out of their misery. It’s a pretty cool idea that results in some fun battles (wanna see a werewolf fight a minotaur? Now you can!). There’s also a hefty dose of tragedy, as pretty much all of these “beasts” were once kind and heroic human beings whom Hank viewed as family. I don’t know if the show is trying to make a point about PTSD suffered by former soldiers (I honestly don’t know if the show is that deep), but it can definitely be interpreted that way. The “beasts” still seem very human, even when they look like complete monsters. The art is nice, with some cool creature designs. I was initially annoyed by a certain female character’s design, as she has hilariously enormous boobs (they literally look like two giant beach balls glued to her chest) and she likes to wear low cut tops and mini-skirts as her “military uniform”. It was just so completely absurd. But she turned out to be an interesting character with a fun personality, not at all the “seductive temptress” type I was expecting. Also, right when I was thinking how annoyed I was with the fanservice surrounding this character, I realized that sexy, buff Hank was standing there in the same shot, shirtless. And he comes out of his shirt very often. So yeah, I can forgive the giant boobs chick as long as we have hot shirtless Hank.

Given is a beautiful, emotionally powerful yet subtle series about boys in a band. Most of the main characters are gay, bi (maybe pan?) or otherwise queer, but I hesitate to lump it into the yaoi category and leave it at that. To me, for a series to be called yaoi, I’ve always felt that it had to focus on the male/male relationships, which is why I consider Yuri on Ice a sports anime, not yaoi, and No. 6 a sci-fi drama, not yaoi, and so on. But Given really does focus on those relationships, yet it still feels very far removed from other anime in the genre, like World’s Greatest First Love and Love Stage. For one thing, the relationships feel totally natural and realistic, not at all like the stylized, often rapey relationships that so often plague the genre. Given is subtle, as I mentioned before. For the first several episodes, you’d have no idea any of the characters are queer if you hadn’t heard about it beforehand. Because Given builds a complicated story with real emotional intensity and complex relationships rather than beating us over the head with fanservice. The art is top notch, with varied, interesting character designs and a soft,warm color palette. As expected of a series about a rock band, the music is excellent, with my favorite opening theme of the season. Given can be a bit quiet, a bit slow-paced, but the painfully honest portrayals of love, infatuation, and loss are so universal and so well written that you can’t possibly be bored.

Dr. Stone is my favorite anime of the season, simply because it’s a fresh concept that I haven’t already seen a hundred times in anime. The basic premise is that one day, out of nowhere, a bright light fills the sky and every human being is immediately turned to stone, with most of them remaining conscious (at least for a while). It sounds horrific, actually. Nearly four thousand years later, our protagonists break free from their stone shells and find the earth reclaimed by nature, taking on a prehistoric look. One of those protagonists is Senku, a scientific genius who decides he’s going to restart civilization and bring technology back to the world. What makes Senku interesting is that, instead of being a cold, stoic sort of genius (the usual kind we get in anime), he’s actually a kind and funny guy (if a bit sarcastic and snarky) who cares deeply about his friends and genuinely wants to save the human race. This makes him a character you want to root for. The villain Tsukasa, a cunning and intelligent man who nevertheless relies on his physical strength to dominate his enemies (he killed a lion with his bare hands minutes after being revived from stone), is also compelling. The show also has interesting and varied lady characters, like the crafty and sweet Yuzuriha and the agile “lioness” Kohaku. The art isn’t a style I’m generally crazy about, but it does the job well, capturing a wild and fascinating world. The music is also great, with amazing opening and ending themes. Dr. Stone doesn’t shy away from things like murder and violence, but overall it’s a celebration of the accomplishments of mankind and the curiosity that drives all innovation.

The list is very short this season, and that’s mainly because I’ve had little patience for shows that just don’t keep me hooked. I’ve dropped three shows this season that I was pretty far into. One was “If It’s For my Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord”, about an adventurer in a fantasy world finding, and then adopting, a small orphan girl. I was very much enjoying this sweet, adorable series about their father/daughter bond. But since it’s based on a light novel series (light novels are often a cesspool of creepy male wish-fulfillment fantasy), you can probably guess what the “plot twist” I heard about was that made me drop the show like a hot potato, seven episodes in. There was also “Fire Force”, which had one of the most engaging and badass opening sequences in a first episode I’ve seen in years. I was all pumped up to love this series. Until I realized that literally every single named female character is there exclusively to be sexy and provide fanservice. How do you know an author has no idea how to write female characters? They rely on fanservice, because that’s the only way they can think of to make those characters likable to the young male audience the story is aimed at. Honestly, the protagonist can only accidentally stumble into so many “sexy situations” before it gets very, very tiresome for any viewer that’s not a twelve year old boy.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons: Black Clover Diamond no Ace Kimetsu no Yaiba

Best of Season: Best New Show: Dr. Stone Best Opening Theme: Given Best Ending Theme: Black Clover Best New Male Character: Senku (Dr. Stone) Best New Female Character: Kohaku (Dr. Stone)

#Anime #Anime Reviews #Seasonal Anime #Summer 2019 Anime #Anime Recommendations #Given #Dr. Stone #Text

7 notes · View notes

douxreviews · 5 years

Text

Cloak & Dagger - ‘Rabbit Hold’ Review

Ty: "How do you know how to do that?" Adina: "Some things you never forget."

Ty finally begins exploring his coolest power, thanks to Tandy's decision to enter him and have a look around.

Look, it's not as creepy as it sounds.

I know I mention this almost every week, but wow, this show really pulls off some beautiful visuals. The image of Tandy standing in front of the five mirrors, each one reflecting a different aspect of who she is, contrasted with the sharp darkness of the location, was a particularly striking shot. Honestly, just lovely.

Since the first announcement that they were going to be doing a Cloak and Dagger show, I've been waiting for the developments we got this week. Apologies in advance for this, as you really shouldn't have to be familiar with the source material in order to watch the show, but I think in this case it helps to have a little background.

In the comics, Cloak is basically a gateway to something that they refer to as 'The Dark Dimension.' In that dimension there's nothing but darkness, as you might have guessed from the name. Within that darkness is something they used to only refer to as 'the predator,' who is basically some sort of demon that feeds on the light that Dagger generates, but is also happy to chow down on the terror that people experience when they're absorbed into Cloak's cloak and are forced to relive all their fears. Dagger, meanwhile, generates that delicious light that the predator eats, but if she doesn't release it regularly enough she basically burns up from the excess energy.

That's the symbiosis that ties the two of them together, and the fact that their powers are completely dependent on one another if they aren't going to run out of control is one of the fundamental planks of their relationship.

It was nice, then, that even while the show was finally exploring Ty's big portal they were also underscoring the symbiotic nature of their powers. Tandy had to give up her light powers in order to 'proceed on the journey' through the dark dimension and find Brigid, and tangentially Connors. That, unfortunately, comes at an inconvenient time for Ty, since he's spending some quality time with his Mom attempting to not be killed by gang members.

The character development we get here as we explore Ty's relationship with his mother is fascinating. Adina is a timely depiction of the constant worry implicit in raising a child of color in today's America. Her worry and the actions it leads her to take all feel very real.

The two parallel journeys that Ty and Tandy take this week, him running from the gang and her finding her way through the dark dimension's shopping mall, bounce off each other well, culminating in what I suspect was the point of exercise, the deliberate contrasting of Ty telling his mother the story of human trafficking hundreds of years ago intercut with Mayhem relating to Tandy some harsh facts about human trafficking today.

The point that they're making is clear and well presented. Human trafficking is not a thing of the past. It's not a story from history. It's never gone away. The showrunners deserve a lot of praise for the way they approached the issue.

Meanwhile, in the dark dimension, we finally get an explanation for something that's been bothering me a lot so far this season. Namely, why Tandy has been so incredibly prone to victim blaming in her domestic abuse support group. It made sense that finding out that her idolized father was really an abuser would cause an emotional crisis for her, but that didn't really track with how angry she was at Mikayla for not leaving her abuser.

Now of course it makes sense. She didn't just find out that her father was an abuser. We see very clearly here that she knew all along. She chose to 'not see it,' as we see by her literally choosing to walk out the door to avoid hearing her mother being abused. Of course she's projecting anger toward victims who allow the abuse to continue. The visual metaphor of the memories as records still in their shrink wrap was an inspired choice. Well done.

Lastly, and again I know I say this a lot here, but they continue their proud tradition of making changes from the source material that make everything better and stronger. I mentioned above the predator that lives inside Cloak in the comics. Here they've updated that, and very wisely used the move to New Orleans to justify replacing the predator with Papa Legba, who apparently greets all those who enter the dark dimension and guides them on their business. That just works, on every level. Instead of 'scary thing in the dark' we have 'mysterious guide' and there's a lot more story to be mined out of 'mysterious guide.'

Papa Legba is one of the Loa in Vodoun, and is one of those crossroads deities who's heavy into guiding destinies. That's a perfect fit for this context.

Bits and Pieces:

-- Ty's parents have separated, which explains why we haven't seen much of Otis. That's sad, but not at all unrealistic for a couple that loses a child. Two children, in their case. I wonder if the actor was busy, or if they just wanted to focus the story on Adina.

-- Speaking of Adina, she's startlingly adept at hotwiring cars and avoiding the police. I suddenly have a million questions about Ty's mom.

-- Starting with, what has she been investigating exactly. and does it tie into why she was apparently pressured into preventing an investigation into the girls' disappearances last week?

-- Both American Gods and Cloak and Dagger heavily featured empty shopping malls this week. 14-year-old me in 1986 sighed deeply, inside.

-- The special effect of Ty opening up his portal to the dark dimension was done better than I ever dared hope it would be in live action. Now please throw a cloak into the mix and I'll be happy forever.

-- Ty and Tandy said that Ty was able to open his portal because he was scared, but I bet it was more to do with the presence of Tandy's light.

-- Connors is out of the dark dimension now and ready to cause more trouble. We didn't see Mayhem in the last scene, but it feels safe to assume that she's out too, right?

-- Sadly, most places in the US do still treat victims of human trafficking as criminals and prosecute them for prostitution.

-- I've been meaning to ask this the last couple of weeks – so, does Brigid only have half a soul now? Is Mayhem like a horcrux? If you killed one, I assume the other wouldn't die, based on what happened to the mice.

-- Tandy threw light knives! That makes me geek out every time.

-- I really want one of those Cloak and Dagger icon coins.

-- I don't buy that the gang would just turn around and leave without killing Ty and his mom first. I do however believe that the police would come in shooting for an unarmed black teenager in Ty's position.

Quotes:

Tandy: "You saw what they were doing to those girls." Ty: "Yeah, and I also saw what she did to everything in her path."

Tandy: "Why didn’t you tell me about Connors?" Ty: "We were in the middle of saving the world at the time."

Papa Legba: "I’ve seen blood. And a green jacket. It was worn by half a woman."

Tandy: "You look exactly like her." Mayhem: "Why not ‘she looks exactly like you’?"

Tandy: "Sometimes the status quo is OK." Mayhem: "And sometimes girls are stolen and sold into slavery. Oh wait, that’s all the time."

Ty: "Nobody’s gonna come in here." Mom: "Why not?" Ty: "Because it’s haunted by 300 year old vampire nuns."

Adina: "Son." Gang Scout: "I’m not your son." Adina: "You’re somebody’s son."

A solid episode that pushed a lot of my fannish buttons and turned up the heat on the season-long plot.

Three and a half out of four voodoo tours.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

#Cloak and Dagger #Tandy Bowen #Tyrone Johnson #Brigid O'Reilly #Mayhem #Marvel #MCU #Cloak and Dagger Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

20 notes · View notes

aiiizawa · 5 years

Text

Dropped Like a Rock (2)

[previous]

Summary: now that the situation is a bit calmer, they attempt to clear their name and assert that they are who they say they are, and hopefully not get sent to jail. warnings for possible s3 spoilers.

Now that they’ve calmed down and Aizawa has finally decided that they don’t need to be stared at every single second, Cecilia turns their head to take in their surroundings. Aizawa had since turned on the nearby desk lamp, so the entire room is illuminated. Unfortunately, it makes the dark eye circles and pink mark on his head more prevalent, but they choose to ignore that in favor of scanning the room. It’s bare, just as they had thought it would be. There’s a TV at the edge of the room, but they can’t see a cable box or a blu ray player beneath it. As for the living room itself, there’s the couch Aizawa is sitting on, a dull steel blue color that’s faded with age, and the wooden end table they’re leaning on that they nearly killed themselves on earlier. Peeking a bit, they see a small kitchenette just barely visible, but there doesn’t seem to be anything on the stove. That checks out. There’s a darkened hallway just out of view, so they assume that’s probably where the bathroom and his bedroom are. Even the walls are bare, one picture frame on one side of the room of some generic scenery-- Most likely a housewarming gift of some sort.

Cecilia shifts in their seat, cracking their back as best they can while bound, and look at Aizawa again. He’s been leaning his head on his other hand, so his hair falls back a little bit. The realization hits them as he raises an eyebrow wordlessly at their expression.

“Oh god, I’m sorry. I landed on you and hit your head and I didn’t even say sorry.” They mutter with wide eyes. “So. I’m sorry I dropped into your house. And hit your head. And landed on you. I really didn’t mean to.” Cecilia apologizes hastily. They bow their head in an attempt at a remorseful gesture, though it’s marred by the fact that they’re still tied up.

“Mm.” His expression doesn’t change, but it seems like he’s at least accepted it-- even if he probably hasn’t forgiven them for it. He does lessen the wrapping around them though, a little bit. They flash him a grateful smile even if he doesn’t return or even acknowledge it. Silence overtakes them again, the only sounds being the occasional shifting of their positions and the tapping of his index finger against his forearm.

Nezu is the first one to arrive, riding high on Present Mic’s shoulders. He’s a cute as ever— perhaps even more so in comparison to how tall and lanky Mic is. The three of them speak in hushed whispers near the entranceway, and try as they might, they can’t make heads or tails of what the three of them are saying. Every so often, they turn their heads to glance in their direction as if to check that they’re still there.

Cecilia forces a wonky smile and a rather pathetic wiggling of their fingers as a wave. Mic waves back, at least until the principal and Aizawa hit him and pull him back into the conversation. Nailed it. There’s no clock in the room, so they don’t know how long they speak for, just that it feels like forever and they’re getting tired of changing the way they cross their legs. Eventually, other members of the staff file in that they recognize, and unsurprisingly, the cop Tsukauchi and Gran Torino. Aizawa speaks to them all, again, and then all eyes are back on them.

“Uhhhh. Hi.”

They’re off to an absolutely wonderful start.

Tsukauchi is the one who starts off the investigation first, removing his hat and smiling genially. “Hello, my name is Detective Tsukauchi. I see you’ve got yourself in quite the predicament here. Would you mind telling me a little bit about yourself?” He asks, kneeling down so that he’s at eye level with them. Of course, they figure, that he would be the one to interrogate them. Tsukauchi is playing the good cop, but his quirk is something not to be trifled with. They have to be careful about how they answer him, since they don’t honestly know what effect the truth (as they know it) will have on them.

“I’m Cecilia Stellerd. I’m twenty-four years old, and I work as a grocery stock boy at a chain department store.” They answer clearly. Despite not liking cops, they trust him enough because All Might is so fond of him. He writes down their answers in a small notepad taken from the pocket of his long, tan jacket. Tsukauchi nods. Cecilia cracks their neck and adjusts their posture and he continues on with a few more questions. Normal things like if they’re native to Japan, living in Japan, and so on and so forth. They answer honestly, and he replies good-naturedly with some commentary of his own.

“I see, I see. Thank you.” He smiles, and then, satisfied that he’s established a good repertoire between the two of them, gets down to the real matter at hand. “You say you have knowledge about the League of Villains. Is that true?”

They square back their shoulders. It’s time to sell this for all their worth. “Yep. And about most of you as well...Mister Naomasa Tsukauchi. Quirk: Human Lie Detector.” His eyes widen and jaw threatens to drop, but he regains his composure at the last second with a hasty smile.

“That’s not bad. However, that kind of information could be gleaned rather easily. What else do you have?” Tsukauchi probes. His tone is deceptively calm, but they’re sure that the air of the room has changed. Cecilia shrugs.

“Depends on what you want to know. But first, I want your word that nothing is going to happen to me.” They insist. Despite thinking the best of these people, they need to secure their safety and freedom. “I know how things get done, and I don’t want to have to pay for things that I had no control of-- Namely, my unintentional breaking and entering here. Once again, my bad.”

Tsukauchi looks up at Aizawa, who exhales irritably. “Fine. I won’t press charges.” He mutters with a wave of his hand. “Now get on with it.” He receives a meek smile and hand wave from him in return, and he once again puts his attention to Cecilia.

“See? Aizawa-san has agreed not to press any charges against your accident. Now, you were saying that you have knowledge not only on the League...but also about everyone here. Is that true?”

They nod. “If you want, I could look around the room and say it-- And if Mister Aizawa is agreeable to it, he can look at me with his quirk so he knows I’m not reading minds or something.” Cecilia gestures to him, since they’re not very keen on meeting his gaze right now. He huffs again, out of their line of sight, but apparently he agrees since Tsukauchi nods behind their head. A moment later, he gingerly attempts to help them turn themselves around, but they recoil at his touch. “Sorry, I don’t like it when unfamiliar men touch me and I’ve already been frisked once today.” Also, he’s a cop. Icky. He lifts his hands up in a show of surrender, and they wiggle a bit until they’re looking at the line up. For right now, it’s the main staff: Midnight, Present Mic, Nezu, Gran Torino, and, of course, Aizawa. Taking a deep breath, they start from the ones they’re most familiar with.

“Shota Aizawa, 31. Quirk: Erasure. You’re the pro hero Eraserhead.” They speak quickly to get it over with. “You teach at U.A. where you graduated with your longtime friend and classmate, Present Mic. As for something I probably shouldn’t know...he’s the one who gave you your hero name.” He makes no indication of the veracity of the claims other than a single eyebrow twitch.

“Hizashi Yamada, also 31. You DJ, as well as teach English along with hero work. Your quirk is ‘voice’, and when you were born, you cried so loud it made your parents and doctor’s ears bleed.” Now this got some more reaction. His sunglasses lower to look them in the eyes, and they struggle to shrug before turning to the next one.

“Midnight. Nemuri Kayama. Your age is--” She immediately cracks her whip. “Nnnnone of my business, but your quirk is...somnabulist? Somnambulist? I can’t remember the word but your quirk makes people, mostly men, fall asleep. I honestly don’t know much about you.” Other than that she’s a sex pervert with a creepy fascination about youth, but since they’ve already got enough injuries today, they’ll let that slide for another day. “I don’t know much about you, Principal Nezu, other than that you’re super smart and that you used to be a lab animal.” The small and incredibly cute creature in a dapper suit merely nods.

Lastly, they turn their eyes on Gran Torino, who raises a scraggly old brow. “I also...don’t know too much about you.” Cecilia admits with a difficult angle of their head. “But I do know...pertinent information to you...and All Might.” Who definitely isn’t there right now and they’re not comfortable discussing the specifics. The old man cranes his neck over at them suspiciously.

“Huh? What’s he got to do with this?” He asks. He points at them rudel with his cane. The pointy edge is just a little bit away from their face, so they lean away to avoid it.

“A lot.” They answer evasively. “My information about the League..is connected to him. It’s nothing you don’t know already, but it’s pretty important that it be with just you and him.” Cecilia looks at all of them now, eyes and tone pleading. “I’m really not any of your enemy. I don’t-- know why I’m here at all, but I want to help if I can, or at least...not be a possible detriment.”

Gran Torino isn’t convinced, and he puts his cane back on the ground to walk towards them, now right next to Tsukauchi as he stares them down. “I wasn’t born yesterday, kid.” His voice, hoarse with age, echoes in their ear. “Why should we let you near All Might when we don’t know what your intentions are now that he’s retired?”

Cecilia inhales deeply, mouth tightening into a thin line as they weigh their options. It doesn’t seem like they have much choice, and though they didn’t want it to happen like this.

“Nana Shimura.”

His entire body language changes with those two words. He leans in even more and asks them to repeat what they just said. “Nana…Shimura.” Cecilia does their best to keep his intense gaze, despite the fact that they’re very, very scared right now with the way the old man is looking at them. A needle could be heard dropping with the tension in the room. Mic whispers to Aizawa asking about who it is they’re talking about, but Aizawa gives no answer either. His bloodshot eyes remain fixed on how the scene in front of him is playing out.

“Tsukauchi.” Gran Torino finally breaks the tension.

“Yes?” He asks, previously being forgotten about.

“Get that dullard Toshinori on the phone.”

Perhaps, maybe, they’re getting somewhere now. Hopefully he gets there before Cecilia loses all feeling in both their arms and legs.

#writing stuff #self insert #self ship #selfinsert #selfship #self ship stuff #(anyways my depression gave me the incentive to distract myself to finish the second chapter of this)

7 notes · View notes

antialiasis · 6 years

Text

Just a few days too late for Halloween, I had a nicely unsettling subtle horror dream that was very coherent.

I dreamt that there'd been some kind of mission in Undertale involving canvassing door to door. (This was all supposed to be part of Undertale, but of course, none of it actually looked or felt like a video game; I seemed to just be walking around in real life.) At one point, while doing this, I'd rung the doorbell at a house where a family lived, a couple with three children, I think. The mother answered the door. It turned out very quickly in our conversation that she was a member of a small religious sect I'd vaguely heard of, called something like Valthorians (that sounds very pagan, but I remember mentally having thought of it as in the same category as Jehova's Witnesses). They were known for going door to door to preach, and I think the woman sort of assumed I was there to hear about her religion, and was very flattered.

I sort of thought okay, sure, why not, could be interesting. So she invited me in to talk. Their house was... normal, but in a just slightly off way somehow. I remember some bizarre decorative statue of an eye with bulging veins or something like that. I kind of figured they were in this isolated sect so it didn't seem that odd for them to be a bit eccentric. Either way, we went into the kitchen, and I think she offered me some food that was also kind of weird but I politely ate it, and in the meantime we discussed her religion. I asked her some questions about her beliefs, and although I was polite and honestly curious and didn't feel like I was trying to challenge her or anything, I could sense her becoming defensive, that she kind of thought of this as a debate. Internally I shrugged; I wasn't really there to challenge her at all, but I found the discussion fascinating. Eventually, the discussion came to a close and I said goodbye and left and continued going door to door. (I actually really feel like this part was a dream I had a while ago, but dreams make you falsely feel that way all the time, so not banking on it.)

Later, there was some other mission in the game that involved the Valthorians. I immediately thought back to that family and just had a hunch that at this point it'd be a good idea to learn more. So, in the company of Shadey and some family members, I returned to their house and rang the doorbell. The couple both came to the door this time; the woman recognized me immediately and acted happy to see me but I could tell she was kind of tense, and I figured it was because she'd felt like I was challenging her last time. While the previous time everything had been very clean and orderly, now their home was chaos, with boxes and large plastic bags strewn randomly around the floor as the children ran around; for a moment I thought it was them being weird, but then I realized that oh, no, they're just getting ready to move.

I told them I was writing this essay about Valthorianism and I'd figured having another chat with the only Valthorians I knew would be prudent. The woman acted delighted that I wanted to hear more about her religion, though again, it didn't seem completely genuine; she actually said things like "It was lovely having such a vigorous debate!" and so on, still sounding friendly and welcoming but in a way that made it clear she actually thought I was toeing the line last time. Again, I came with her to the kitchen and we started talking, though now her husband sat with us, and again they gave us some food, this time a funny kind of noodle soup. Shadey sat with me but eventually went off to the bathroom or something. While I was talking to the woman, I noticed out of the corner of my eye the husband leaning down over Shadey's bowl and a dark liquid resembling soy sauce dripping from his glasses into the bowl. Needless to say, this was a little creepy. One way or another I managed to warn Shadey off the soup when he came back without the couple noticing.

As we stayed there, I noticed more little creepy things, including the husband making more discreet attempts to spike the food, and became slowly a bit more unsettled, but maintained a polite, friendly demeanor. Eventually the discussion came to a close, and we stood up. I told them good luck with their move, that I'd recently moved and it'd been hectic. They looked oddly confused for a moment, then the husband said oh, sorry, it was actually that they'd only just moved in. I nodded and exited; somehow, as I left, one of the children fell down on the floor by the door (I think they just slipped or something), and I considered helping, but since I was already out the door, I came down on the side of no, I'm not sure I want to spend any more time here than necessary. As we were leaving, though, I realized I'd forgotten something (a scarf or something like that?) and opened the door again. As I opened it, the door hit the limp body of the child, who was still lying there; I saw the husband and wife looking towards me from the kitchen, clearly not having lifted a finger to help them and in no hurry to do so. I grabbed the scarf and told them I'd just forgotten this and closed the door again.

I let out the breath I'd been holding when we were well and truly out of earshot and told my traveling companions about the neglected child and the soup. And also, I added, they said they'd just moved - but the only reason I knew where they lived was that they were still in the same house I'd accidentally stumbled upon months earlier.

All in all, I was deeply creeped out, and the rest of the mission turned out to involve the Valthorians actually being some kind of apocalyptic cult trying to bring about the end of the world, and the family turned out to be actively and overtly demonic and murderous, which actually sort of softened the impact of that slowly creeping offness. At some point here I stumbled upon the TV Tropes page for them (apparently this couple from this one game had their own page), where it was explained that they were actually insectoid aliens, but I closed it before reading much because I didn't want spoilers for the rest of the mission.

#dreams #horror #religion

3 notes · View notes

centaurianthropology · 6 years

Text

The Magnus Archives ‘We All Ignore the Pit’ (S03E17) Analysis

Hoooo … for those of you who listen to these on public transit, fair warning: this one was, for me, the scariest episode in a long damn time. The statement is phenomenal, and got a real gut reaction out of me at one point. And there’s a character who … you know what? Just listen to it. Because this? This is the good stuff. Come on in to hear what I have to say about ‘We All Ignore the Pit.’

It’s nice to get a proper statement read from Sims after so many either shortened ones or ones that are directly related to the larger story. Sometimes it’s great to get something just a little more distant from the action, make everything feel less driven toward a single point. And acting as a departure from the primary action, I couldn’t have asked for better. It’s classic horror fare of a guy moving into a small town with a dark secret, but with a very TMA twist. Plus it ended up bulking out the feel of the horror landscape of America in this universe, which was a lot of fun.

Honestly, my only minor quibble with the episode was how obviously British the narrator was. Trying to write in another cultural dialect is seriously hard, and usually requires a dedicated editor to go through the script and make phrasing suggestions, so I get why that might not have been feasible. And honestly, as a native American, nothing was ever bad enough to drag me out of the flow of the story.

And what a story it was. The feel of Bucoda was perfect, and really managed to capture the sense of a small town when you’re from the outside. I also really appreciated how often the narrator mentioned that he might be blowing details out of proportion after the fact. It lends the whole story a nice sense of the concrete. This is a guy who had a weird thing happen to him, but he couldn’t say how much of it was weird and how much he invented to correlate with the weirdness.

I also liked how well this story set up, in a thousand subtle ways, that the horror landscape, the powers in control, and the feel of the terror in America is decidedly different to that in Britain in this universe. Having the Vast and the Below (which is what I’ll be calling it until I get a more official name) be the main focus of American horror works well, particularly given the sense that a lot of this horror plays out in the more rural portions of America (the majority of the North American landmass is rural), and calls to mind miners and clear and empty plains. If Britain of the TMA universe feels like Robert Chambers and MR James got together and had a horror baby, America is unapologetically the purview of Ambrose Bierce. And I really like the sense of contrast hinted at in these two horror landscapes.

I also have to say that, of all the entities, the Below is starting to scare me the most. Maybe it’s the creeping sort of scary it exudes. Maybe it’s because we know so little about it or what it does or what its motivations might be. It’s the most unknown of the major entities, at least to Sims and to the audience, and that makes it worrisome. It also helps that the Below has had consistently fantastic stories. Building on the strong foundations of ‘Dig’ and the absolute bedrock of this series that was ‘Lost Johns’ Cave’, this episode approaches the latter in terms of horror and narrative tightness. The story told here is a classic horror tale, yes, but no less strong because of it. Hell, the dream with the teeth and the tongue? I actually started grinning like an idiot because it was so perfectly creepy. I haven’t felt creeped out like this by one of TMA’s statements since some of the best episodes of season 1. I know I don’t often dig into the statements during these analyses, since I focus on meta, but I just had to take the time to sing this statement’s praises. Strong doesn’t begin to cover it. It cracked my top 5 statements from this show easily, and has lingered with me for days.

And really, topping what was an utterly glorious horror story off with the introduction of Nikola Orsinov (and even explaining why she has a male patronymic!), played to eerie, horrific perfection by Jessica Law? Oh, it was good. She’s an utterly delicious villain, and deeply frightening on a fundamental level. I’ve always found that cheery monsters were by far creepier than ones that seemed entirely serious. The decision to make her as alien as Michael, but far more threatening was brilliant, and her entire approach to coming after Jon was a breath of fresh air.

I love that, instead of killing one of his assistants or menacing him, she basically pops by to ask him if he wouldn’t be so kind as to find that skin for her. Sure, there are threats, but the line ‘that would be lovely!’ when he asked her if she expected him to just hand the skin over was fantastic. And I also love the notion that she needs the skin to wear. It’s so simple, but makes perfect sense for a plastic being that requires the skin of others to perform basic tasks.

And of course, we find out in this episode what exactly happened to Gregor Orsinov. Apparently, having created a monstrous daughter, she got bored one day and repurposed all his bits. Nikola not only accepts that she’s a monster, she embraces it. She has a fantastic sense of self-confidence and cheer which makes her horrific actions all the more powerful. I loved her instantly.

Another note that I think is relevant on a meta level is her use of darkness to hide herself from Jon. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was more than a little convinced that when Jon stepped into that darkness, he was no longer in Georgie’s place, but in the same strange stone cathedral described in ‘Growing Dark’, a location that only seems to exist when you can’t see it. Likewise, I think that this is yet more evidence that the darkness and the People’s Church are different extensions of the Stranger

Oh, and it wouldn’t be an episode of TMA in season 3 without Jon being a complete moron, apparently. Who was still at Georgie’s place despite insisting that he should leave before she was endangered? Jon. Whose home is now known to the Stranger, and has been invaded by Nikola? Georgie. I swear to god, if Jon gets Georgie’s skin stolen because he was too stupid to move back into his own place once he got his job back, I’m going to smack him one. And a flayed and undead Georgie, now fully claimed by the End, might well smack him too.

Seriously, Jon, get the hell back to your own damn apartment, and keep your problems safely in your wheelhouse.

The final interesting tidbit that I found myself thinking about during this exchange was Nikola’s statement that she wanted to wear the skin when she ‘danced the world anew’. What I realized was how much creation and art seem to be a focus of the Stranger. Nikola wants to wear a taxidermy skin, the definition of turning death into art. She plans to dance, creating a story with her body and a world with her movements. Even Nikola herself is a deliberately crafted plastic being who creates other plastic beings like her.

I think that the Desolation might actually stand as opposed to the Stranger as the Beholding does. As the Desolation destroys all, consumes all, the Stranger creates. It remakes. Nothing, from the victims of the Anglerfish to the bits remaining of Gregor Orsinov, are wasted.

Everything can be reworked. The world won’t end with the Unknowing; it will be made. Hell, it might have already been made several times. For all Jon knows, the world he’s living in could be the result of previous Unknowings. With a soft apocalypse in which everything changes but very few die, how would you know hundreds of years after the fact that it had happened at all? The change has become reality. The vagueness of the concept of the Unknowing, the delicacy and the art of it, is fascinating. I love the notion that everything about the Unknowing is actually cloaked in creation.

The Stranger is beautiful, and active, and alive. And that makes Nikola all the more terrifying as a villain.

Conclusions

I’m thrilled that, after last week’s disappointment, this show is very much back on top in my eyes. This is a cracking statement and a hell of an introduction for Nikola, very nearly as chilling as the introduction to Michael last season. Nikola feels infinitely strange and infinitely threatening in the most genial way possible. Jessica Law completely nailed the delivery (I also love that TMA is quietly drawing on all the Mechanisms one by one). She’s uncanny and terrifying, but also has a beauty and a joy to her voice. Nikola, I think, believes herself to be the heroine to this story. She’s taking a boring world and creating something far more beautiful out of it. She’s wresting control of it from the staid hands of the Beholding, and she’s actually DOING something with it.

And I love her. I’m thrilled that season 3 (and possibly more) has a villain this rivetingly unhinged. Jon’s now stuck having to either acquiesce to her request, knowing he’s letting her get closer to the Unknowing, or to try and stop her. I’m interested, honestly, to see if Elias can see in her darkness (I would bet he can’t, and that keeping out his prying eye was a big reason why Nikola wouldn’t let Jon turn on the light). If he can, I want to know how he’ll react to all this. If he can’t, how insistent is he going to be that Jon fill him in?

I’m interested in Elias’ reaction mostly because we can basically be guaranteed that Jon is going to do whatever seems stupidest at the time. I love him, but the man is a complete and total disaster. I despair that he’ll do something sensible like get away from Georgie before her skin gets repurposed, or talk to his assistants about anything of substance. Could I at least suggest that he start small and try bringing them tea? Maybe give them all spa days or something. God knows they’ll deserve it after all this shit hits the fan.

#The Magnus Archives #analysis #I haven't been this creeped out by a statement in a while #it was lovely

32 notes · View notes

elizabethrobertajones · 6 years

Text

@teamfreewillbettertogether replied to your post “Man, my dash is really slow… Anyone have any things they wanna talk...”

Does Jack have grace or a soul?

Oooh, he definitely has both. 12x10 confirmed that nephilim have a human soul and angel grace, which is WHY they're so powerful - combining what's basically a flare gun with an eternal indestructible battery, when it comes to power levels

(angels burn out hot and fast but souls are forever B))

I think the real argument that fandom's going around in circles on is how much of each is affecting him/how much he's relying on one or the other. Like the early suggestion he DID sleep and then the "I don't sleep a lot" contradiction as he's in different stages of understanding and growing into his powers. (And 12x10 suggested he WOULD grow into his powers)... I think it's fascinating because it means they get to explore the nature of both souls and angels through him and I've been really interested in his characterisation. Especially comments like that the angel grace is muting his feelings about some things, but in other ways he's acting deeply emotionally and human.

And what his powers are exactly - they're all his and coming from him. They're a nephilim's powers and not just a human USING angel grace, because 12x10 showed us that too, with what Lily could do. He's working on a whole cosmic level. But there's some interesting suggestions about how in control he is of it, to go with his understanding and grasp of his powers, AND his emotions, which are like two sides of the scales, balancing one way or the other.

I am curious about how much more they explore Jack's nature because it would involve a lot of exposition on souls and angels to go much deeper than what they can just show on screen and leave us to deduce for ourselves though. The exposition in 12x10 about what nephilim are is honestly the worst dialogue Yockey has ever written because why the heck would angels recap to each other what nephilim are. The only way I can make that work is that Ishim really did act like a sort of teacher to them and made them parrot back lessons to him about whatever they were facing as like, some sort of creepy obedience thing. There were such creepy undertones in him having the only male vessel, despite there being 3 male-identifying angels in that group. (I know a couple more joined them later, but first impressions - the Benjamin, Mirabel, Castiel, Ishim group seemed like the main clique :P)

... I'm so off topic. Sorry... I'm going to be thinking about that episode for years :D

#replies #12x10 #nougat winchester #season 13 speculation

31 notes · View notes

allmytwistedshadows · 7 years

Text

Picture Perfect

Pairing: Jughead Jones x Reader

Requested: No

Summary: (Y/N) is a photographer for the yearbook. It’s come to the point in the year where she has to start getting pictures of the different clubs and extracurriculars. Next on her list: The Blue and Gold. But when the Cooper women are running late and she’s left alone with one Jughead Jones, what will happen?

Word Count: 1,786

Warnings: None

AN: Gif is not mine. Requests are open

Being at school at 7:30 on a Saturday morning was not something (Y/N) wanted to do; but what else could she do when she needed this picture. (Y/N), while only a sophomore, was in charge of taking pictures of all of the clubs, extracurriculars, and sports teams for the yearbook. The last extracurricular on her list: The Blue and Gold.

She had been scheduled to take the picture this past Thursday. Living in Riverdale, however, there always seemed to be some new drama going on that put a big roadblock in her path. When it came to rescheduling, the professional advisor for the paper, Alice Cooper, wasn’t available for Friday and the issue couldn’t be put off into the next week--(Y/N) had to have these pictures in my second period Monday.

So here she was, walking down the halls of Riverdale High School with her camera bag slung over her shoulder and a coffee in her left hand. The only thing on her mind was snapping the picture as soon as possible so she could get back to her warm bed and fall asleep pretending she didn’t have any homework to take care of.

(Y/N) turned down the familiar hallway and stopped just outside the Blue and Gold offices. She was both surprised and relieved to see the door wide open. Surprised because she couldn’t believe any student had actually gotten up early enough to be there. Relieved because that meant they could be done faster--she had anticipated having to wait thirty minutes past the slotted time in order for all of the sleepy teens to wander in. Then again, with a Cooper running the show how rag tag could this place be?

She stepped into the doorway and looked around the room. (Y/N) couldn’t spot Mrs. Cooper or her daughter Betty anywhere. Instead she saw none other than Jughead Jones sitting at one of the desks typing away at his computer.

She watched him with fascination for a moment, honestly intrigued by what she saw. He sat there with the upmost concentration. His blue eyes were squinted in concentration, looking past the strand of dark hair that fell in front of them. As she stood there and watched him type away on the keyboard.

“Take a picture--it will last longer,” he said suddenly, catching her off guard for a moment.

She could feel her cheeks heat up from the embarrassment of being caught staring at him. “That’s, uh, it’s kinda my job,” she stuttered out, wanting to smack herself for seeming like a stuttering fool.

“So you’re the infamous school photographer,” Jughead says as he turns away from the computer and towards her.

“(Y/N) (L/N),” she informed him with a nod of her head.

“I’m a fan of your work,” he told her. “I especially liked the one of me and Archie Andrews at Pops in last year’s yearbook. I didn’t realize there are usually pictures in the yearbook that don’t have anything to do to school.”

It didn’t take her long to realize what Jughead was talking about. It had been early October when she had gone into Pops to get pictures for her photography class assignment. She had decided to look for inspiration in Pop’s and saw the two boys in their booth. There was something about the two boys that stuck with her until she finally snapped a picture of the two.

“That wasn’t actually supposed to be in there,” she told him. “I had taken it for an assignment earlier in the year. They must have seen it once I turned in the memory card and decided to use it.” It was the honest truth--she hadn’t thought anything of the picture on the card when she turned it in for the editors to sort through the cards. It had been just as much of a surprise to her when she found the picture in the book. “So, do you know when the others are gonna be here?”

“Who ever knows where freshmen are?” Jughead asks with a bit of a smirk. “I got a text from Betty about ten minutes ago. Turns out the Cooper women are uncharacteristically late today.”

“How scandalous,” (Y/N) joked back as she moved to sit in one of the open swivel chairs.

“Tell me about it,” he returned, a playfulness finding its way into his smirk. “So, got any hilariously awful candids in that camera of yours?”

(Y/N) raised an eyebrow to the dark haired boy across from her. “Is that even a question?” she wondered. “I have to say, Betty is like a walking, talking meme in most of the pictures I take of her.”

She grins at the little smile she’s able to get from the boy as he nods his head. “Yup, sounds like Bets. So, any cringeworthy ones of me?”

“Hate to say it Jughead, but almost every single one of you is the same,” she admitted to him.

“Oh?” he asked with an arch to his eyebrow. “What am I doing?”

“You are either staring at your computer with a frown and some kind of lip bite, listening to your friends, glaring at some kid in the halls, or even glaring at my camera,” (Y/N) clarified.

“Ah yes,” Jughead started as he leaned back, a satisfied grin on his lips, “I do try to do that every time I spot you pointing the camera at me or my friends.”

“Well, there goes the Peter Parker-esque photographer in the shadows vibe I was going for,” I joke with a little slap of the knee to try and get across my ‘disappointment’. “So tell me, Jughead Jones, how often do you notice me from my spot on the wall?”

“Show me the pictures first and I will.”

I grin slightly at his ‘dire’ ultimatum and you my legs to push myself across the floor so my chair is next to his. “Anything specific?” I ask as I switch on the camera.

“Something that will make me feel like I have a soul.”

(Y/N) couldn’t help but start laughing a bit. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a fan of the same sardonic humor as Jughead. There would be sometimes where she would walk past his table at lunch and had to hold back her laughter at one of his jokes because, hello, stalker much?

The two of them sat there, laughing at some of the truly cringeworthy candids she was told to snap for the yearbook. The best part about her photos is that they didn’t abide by the Riverdale social caste system. There were jocks and Vixens and anime lovers and everyone alike in these pictures, equal and meme worthy. Hell, she’d even gotten one of the Cheryl Blossom in the middle of a hair flip where her lips were weirdly puckered. She’d never let it be put in the yearbook, though--Cheryl scared her too much.

“Hey,” Jughead said suddenly after they’d been looking and laughing for a good ten minutes. “Why aren’t there any pictures of you in here.”

“Kinda hard to do that when you’re the one behind the camera,” she pointed out to him.

A mischievous look found its way into his eyes. “Well, we’ve have to fix that,” Jughead told her before taking the camera from her and pointed at her.

A blush found its way to her cheeks as she began to block her face. “What are you doing?” she cried, a small bit of laughter finding its way into her voice.

“Shhh,” Jughead told her, laughing a bit himself. “Just smile for the camera (Y/N).”

“Do you even realize how creepy that sounds?”

“Not until after I’d said it.”

He continued to snap pictures of her as she tried to hide, trying to figure out an excuse. “You’re gonna waste the memory card!”

“I will stop if you give me a nice smile for the camera.” (Y/N) peaked at him through her hands and slowly moved her hands away. She gave a little grin to the camera and he snapped the picture. She watched as he looked at the photo and there was a small twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Picture perfect,” he told her as he turned the camera to her.

She looked at the picture and found that, miraculously, she didn’t hate it. The grin on her lips wasn’t awkward like every single photo her parents tried to take of her. The morning light seemed to hit her just right, illuminating her (e/c) eyes. “Not bad Jones,” she complimented. “Maybe you should come join me taking photos for the yearbook.”

“Or maybe you should take pictures for the Blue and Gold,” he returned.

“We’re here,” you heard Mrs Cooper say as she and Betty entered the room. “But those freshman interns aren’t. What are the chances we can take the picture without them?”

“Kind of against the rules, Mrs Cooper,” you told her as you stood up.

“A shame,” she said, sounding genuinely disappointed. “Would have been the perfect teaching opportunity: the importance of deadlines.”

“Give them the lecture when they get here, Mom,” Betty told her mom.

And boy she did. It was another twenty minutes before the last of the freshmen interns came in. (Y/N) waited until Mrs Cooper’s lecture was done before getting them all into a formation and snapping multiple pictures. Gotta have choices, y’know.

“Alright, this should be good,” she told the group as she looked over the pictures. “Thanks, everyone.”

She began to pack up her camera equipment, focusing on properly cleaning the lense.

“I never told you how often.”

She jumped slightly upon Jughead appearing next to her. “What do you mean?” (Y/N) asked as she turned to him.

“You asked me earlier how often I noticed you. The answer is all the time.” (Y/N) was taken aback with surprise. “I don’t know what it is about you but every time you enter a room my eyes are drawn to you.”

(Y/N) looked at him, deeply analyzing the information he’d just given her. She combed through her feelings quickly, remembering all of the times she would get this weird...fluttering feeling whenever she was around him. (Y/N) had never known what the feeling was. She was unexperienced with anything regarding love. Could that possibly have been even an inkling of it?

“I...don’t really know how I feel about you. There’s definitely something there but I’m not quite sure what,” she admitted to him just then.

Jughead smirked at her slightly. “Why don’t you join me at Pop’s later tonight and we’ll explore that together.”

(Y/N) smiled at him softly as she looked him in the eyes. “It’s a date.”

#jughead jones x reader #jughead jones #riverdale

90 notes · View notes

miloswanders · 7 years

Text

When I was a kid -- say, between the ages of 4 and 10 -- my mother would spend her Saturday afternoons ironing in the living room. Since she has always found this particular task to be extraordinarily tedious, she would pick a movie out of her rather large collection of VHS cassettes and keep it as background entertainment while she went about her chores.

After a while, out of sheer curiosity, I would splay out on the sofa and watch whatever movie she had selected for the day, regardless of the rating. Since I was the one who, at 7 years old, had forced my mother to sit through Critters (carnivorous aliens terrorizing a rural American town... don’t even ask), she wasn’t too concerned about my young mind suffering any irreparable trauma at this point.

Which brings me to the following: I’ve been feeling nostalgic, as of late, and have to find new ways to procrastinate doing all the things that I should be doing right now; thus, I’ve decided to present you with a List of Films That Were Meaningful During My Childhood, in no particular order.

Enjoy!

The Fly (1986). Of course, the first one has to be a horror film, and a great classic at that! The ambitious scientist, the tragic love story, the terrifying metamorphosis... I’m pretty sure I couldn’t shut up about it for the next week or so.

Beetlejuice (1988). Another classic, which I am proud to say I personally selected from my mother’s collection. It’s been years since I last watched it, so I only remember bits and pieces of it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even remotely appropriate for a six-year-old. But! there were ghosts involved, and at the time that was the magic word to spark my interest.

In & Out (1997). This one was my introduction to LGBT media and themes. Being mostly satirical in its intent, it has to be taken with a grain of salt; but I’d laugh my head off every time we watched it, as my mother explained all the stereotypes they were making fun of. After the first viewing, I distinctly remember asking: “What does “lesbian” mean?”, and her answering: “Same as “gay”, but for women”. I thought it was a really cool word.

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). This one... this one is special. I already knew Robin Williams from Jumanji, but, of all the roles he has played, this is the one that really stole my heart. My family was sort of falling apart when I first watched it, so it did a lot more than strike a chord -- it made me consider that maybe, just maybe, even if things were going to change drastically in my life, everything would work out all the same. A divorce didn’t have to be such a terrible ordeal, because there were a lot of different ways to remain committed to one another, and “family” didn’t mean the same thing to everyone. So, yeah... Thanks, Robin <3

American Beauty (1999). Picture this: it’s almost midnight, I’m bored out of my mind and should be going to sleep, but I’ve decided to stay up and see what’s on TV at this hour. I come across the first sequence of this film: girl speaking into the camera, creepy conversation with unseen interlocutor, then cut to the voiceover and the aerial view of the gloomy suburbs. My mother found me glued to the screen just as the “rose petals” scene was playing. She asked what I was watching, and I was like: “Uhm... American Beauty, I think it’s called”; she stared at the TV, verified her suspicion and went: “It’s late. I have the VHS, you can watch it tomorrow”. And I did. If anyone ever wonders how I got into the suburban-gothic genre, blame Kevin Spacey.

The Color Purple (1985). The film that introduced me to Whoopi Goldberg. I had never heard of her before, and I remember repeating her name over and over to make sure I was saying it correctly. I doubt I’d even bothered to ask, let alone memorize the name of any actor before, but with her it was love at first sight. A few months later, I found a radio programme where the host would read “literary classics”, one or two chapters per episode; sure enough, Alice Walker’s novel was on their list. I listened to the whole thing. And, as I did, I guess I thought a lot about the word “lesbian”.

The Miracle Worker (1962). The autobiography of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. To this day, I cry at the end. Anne Bancroft was amazing. Also, possibly the first black-and-white movie I ever watched all the way through... and wanted to rewatch.

The Elephant Man (1980). David Lynch’s debut film; it completely changed how I thought of “monsters”. It was a milestone in my growth as both human being and horror fan, precisely because there was nothing “scary” about Joseph Merrick, at all. It filled me with a sadness the depth of which I still find difficult to convey. Also... Anne Bancroft. Again.

Divorzio all’italiana (1961). A film about infidelity, social hypocrisy and honor killings in Southern Italy. Not exactly kids material, but it’s not like anyone gave a damn. It’s the main reason why I laugh so hard and hysterically when people claim that misogyny concerns almost exclusively non-Western cultures. And by “laugh” I mean “scream into the void”.

The House of the Spirits (1993). Saw the movie before I read the book. Five minutes in and I was enraptured. It may or may not have been the source of my fascination with magical realism and historical novels in general. I was missing out on a great deal of context, in order to fully understand the more “political” parts of the story, but over the years I did learn a thing or two thanks to Clara, Blanca and Alba. And yes, Clara was played by Meryl Streep, but I did not care to learn the actress’ name back then.

Stephen King’s IT (1990). Since I’ve started the list with the horror genre, why not have another one? The TV film that exacerbated my fear of clowns to near-pathological levels. It (both the film and the character) scared me so much that I could never bring myself to re-watch it. Instead, by the time I reached the 9th grade I’d gathered the courage to read the novel. “IT” and “Stand by Me” were my gateway into Stephen King’s fictional universe, although the former was branded so deeply into my subconscious that the mere mention of that damned clown used to give me chills. Surprisingly, I have recently convinced myself to watch short clips from the film, only to discover that I now like Pennywise as a character. I mean, that’s still Tim Curry beneath the makeup!

The Exorcist (1973). Another classic. 9-year-old me was obsessed! I honestly don’t know how many times I re-watched it, but I can assure you they amounted to A LOT. I also tried to convince a dear friend of mine to watch it with me, once, but she freaked out halfway through, leaving me rather disappointed.

So, there you have them: the highlights of my youth.

And yes, before you ask, I did also watch cartoons like a normal kid.

#films #cinema #personal #horror fiction #magical realism #film recs

10 notes · View notes

aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

Text

Life Story Part 11

I don't think I've ever been happy for more than six months in my entire life since I was four or so. Is that normal? I don't know how to gauge that sort of thing because I really have nothing to compare it to. It seems normal to me, but that might just be because I am kind of fucked up in a way.

So back to the story. Everything that I had mentioned with my dad occasionally knocking me down to nothing was still happening. I was still getting picked on in Kendrick. I was still unpopular. I couldn't seem to manage to have a crush on any of the boys. I still drew on my papers, got sent to the offices. I remember the school lighting very well, and the creak of the boards under the school rugging.

My mother forgot my 11th birthday party three weekends in a row. Roxanne had chilled out about being mean to me at this time. She had decorated with a cake and streamers. After the third time we stopped expecting her to arrive. And when she did, she had just bought some stuff from the good will, some socks and a music box. We had moved out of the new place that we had rented, and we had taken up residence in this old house with a basement. It was a bit bigger in this place. I made the mistake one day of shaving my arms there. For some reason this memory sticks out to me. I was always told not to, that if I started I could never stop, but I wanted to see what would happen so I took that jump. The soft baby hairs were replaced by a forest of dark upright hairs. And now to this day I shave my arms.

It was disappointing and hurtful for my mother to forget my birthday so many times in a row, but it's also in a strange way relieving to know where you stand. I think my mom's absence made me more resilient when I got older and gave me a wider appreciation for nature to a degree which would be hard to explain at this juncture. Some kids with inactive parents pine and wonder if their parents care. I pretty much knew where my mother stood. Everyone was always hungover during the day, so we all had to tiptoe until four pm or so. David could wake her up sometimes. James eyes were always bloodshot and he was so high he couldn't tell what people were even saying to him half the time. He had smelled up this disgusting downstairs room up, and he him and my mom would watch a lot of 70's kung foo. I cannot imagine how gross it must have been to be them. To be drunk all the time, wasting what was left of their semi-middle age youth in that gross smelly room going nowhere being nothing and watching those dollar store movies. Spending the last of the divorce money.

Outside, there were two female cats that kept having baby kittens. I spent all my waking hours outside with those cats, until I felt like I was a cat myself. I remember growing to really understand that mother cats have a lot of depth, and they do each other solids a lot. Eventually, this one mother cat, when she was hungry or needed a break, trusted me so much with her kittens that she would do this communicative thing where she would give me this prolonged eye contact and I could read on her face that she was having me watch her kittens till she got back. I have met people who told me that cats cannot really communicate like this, but I know for a fact they do.

I also learned that male cats rape. It's one of those unfortunate elements in nature I guess. I really don't like it, and I think it might be in situations like this that give me a strong sense that there really is no god. Forget war. Why would any sensible god give male cats a barbwired dick? It seems like many animals do a somewhat voluntary exchange. But cats, an otherwise wonderful complex and naturally beautiful creature of elegance and grace, also have this fowl rape culture thing going on that is ingrained in their nature. What sense does this make? I mean, I might see it with insects or something, but why cats? I never liked it one bit. It bothered me so much that eventually I tried my best to stand guard and prevent the male cat from getting the female cats, who were already sickly from having had so many batches. And then one day, I went outside and he had one of the baby kittens bitten to the ground and he was raping this little baby. I know he probably could not help what was making him do this, but I was so infuriated. I ran up to him and I kicked him as hard as I could. I kind of considered the female cats like a family.

I eventually took one of the little female kittens home to father's with me, and I named her Pixie. I had her for a few years after that. Eventually, while my dad was on vacation when I was in 8th grade, she scratched one of my nephews. This made Roxanne's boyfriend at the time creepy angry, and he took her and dragged her to death in the back of his truck. I didn't know it had happened for a long time after that, but eventually Roxanne admitted this to me. She wasn't apart of it, and had only heard it after the fact. She had been afraid to tell me for some time. It makes me deeply sick in the stomach just thinking of that.

For a short time we had a dog as well. She was on the side of the road. Someone had dumped her because she was obviously a handful. She loved to get loose and roll in dead animal. We named her Angel. Eventually she ran away and never returned. I can only hope she found a good home.

I started going to Sunday school, since the church was a two minute walk from my house. I was never religious, but the mythology of Christianity was very interesting to me. I liked talking about the symbolic significance of every detail in the bible, and going over it in class. I also liked the fact that it was brutal, unfair, and rigid. I suppose I was supposed to like the main characters, including God, but I didn't, which made the entire thing all the more fascinating. I always felt frustrated after reading the bible texts. I don't know why people think that stuff is comforting. At best, it's profound enough to where you really have to think about what it means for modern society, and at worst, it really makes you question why anyone in their right mind is buying this stuff. I was also fascinated with the genealogical order of genesis. I used to be able to name off all the prophets from Adam down to King Solomon. I often times knew their wives, and even their handmaids.

Honestly, I was a little jealous of the bible. Here I was drawing these squeaky clean Alien girls in their late teens, dressed in pure fashion and having names like Paprika and Daffodil, and there were these gritty ugly characters who were always struggling with and and under the psychosis of a sky god lunatic who were much better. And yet it addressed human greed, order, jealousy, betrayal, forgiveness, and all those things that my alien girls completely failed to.

My mom decided to start sewing for awhile. She sewed me a decent Halloween hippie costume, perhaps to make up for missing my birthday so many times in a row. It was one of the few times in that many years time that I really spent any time with her. She taught me how to sew – kind of. I remember her telling me that she was tired of telling her I hated myself. I said I hated myself a loud every day just about. But she really could not say anything really. Everyone in the house confirmed I was annoying, weird, funny looking, and obviously forgettable enough to forget my birthday. My mom also decided that she and James were going to get married. The dresses she had in mind would be green she told me. That might have been why she got her sewing stuff out. My Halloween costume was good though, and it made a splash at school. She made things into patches, and she added flare to all my sleevings of my pants and shirt.

Overall though, I was increasingly frustrated with rage and self hatred. She made me mad one day. I don't remember the reason, but I think it was because David was spoiled, or I had been overlooked or mistreated in some way. I wish I knew why, but I don't really remember. I lost complete and total control. We had about 40 board games in the closet. I found myself screaming and crying in a way I didn't ordinarily. It felt like no matter what I did I failed and I wanted to destroy myself, but I didn't have the means or the bravery to go through with it, and I wanted to tear something apart. I took every single board game, and all their parts and I poured them all over the floor. The entire room was covered in board game pieces. It was complete madness. Naturally, this didn't make anyone happy with me in the least. Everyone was told to ignore everything I said and did to make me feel like a fool. They told me to clean it up, but I wouldn't. I didn't feel good about what I had done either. The monopoly man and the Plum dude from Candy land looked up at me accusingly. Eventually James came in and had his one little speech of things that he ever said to me for the four years I knew him. He said in this stoned hippie voice 'God man. How could you do this to your mother man?... after all your dad did to her, and now you wanna be just like him... it makes me sick... it just makes me so sick you would be so uncool. Your mother does so much for you and this is how you treat her? What's wrong with you?' and a tangent of other rhetorical nonsense.

David had grown so spoiled that I also was having troubles keeping calm in his presence. He started being very defiant and aggressive towards me and Allison and my mother. He was mean. I would find myself getting so angry, I would turn around and smack him in the face. Now, to be clear, I would not do this now. I was eleven, and this was kind of how I understood things were to be done. I was trying very hard to discipline David since he wasn't getting disciplined from my mother or father. I was so angry back then, and I didn't even have a clue on how to handle my own feelings. My mother would scream and cry and I remember she had a fight in front of the house, telling my dad over and over 'SHE'S GOING TO KILL SOMEONE DAVE!! SHE'S EVENTUALLY GOING TO KILL OUR SON!' My father didn't see me as the murdering type, and he seemed pleased that she was displeased in a postdivorce sort of way.

The most pivotal moment in this cat-house – as I have grown up calling it, though it isn't what someone might think it is by that name, was one night when I stayed up very late to watch Kiki's Delivery Service with Allison, who was four at the time. Allison had never stayed up past midnight before, and I wanted to keep her up to see what she was like. She seemed very loopy. She was babbling and talking about something or other about kitties or the movie, something a small child might talk about, and I was listening to her for fun. Suddenly, I started hearing this weird crashing noise in the other room. There was no door to that room. The windows did not open. Nobody was in that room. It was David's room theoretically, though he actually slept with my mom most of the time. I tried to ignore it, but I heard it again. It sounded like someone had picked up one of David's toys and threw it. It might have been my fear and paranoia at that point, but I felt like something in the house had gotten really wrong somehow. I didn't want to scare Allison though. If she was scared, that would make me even more frightened. She heard the noises too, but I was trying to pretend that they were not worthy of consideration so she didn't start to scream

As I sat there, what I suddenly saw blew me away and I could barely believe I was seeing it. This man figure walked through the hallway. Everything looked mostly normal, and then he just kind of moved through that part of the house, past the doorway where I could see him wandering past. He seemed to be made out of light, and I could not see his features. And then he was gone. I was beyond panicked. I was ready to start screaming and crying, but I was too afraid to even do that. I was too afraid to move. Allison seemed to have missed it. I was paralyzed for a few minutes, afraid to do anything. Nothing else strange happened, and the house seemed to return to a normal feeling, though I was still at this point so scared I was crying. Eventually I got my mother up, sure that she would see the significance. But she didn't seem to care. She was mostly annoyed that I woke her. I forced her to sleep upstairs on the couch anyway.

As an adult, and a skeptic, I can not be 100% certain what I saw was accurate. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me? Allison confirmed for a fact that she heard the noises that I had heard, but she didn't see anything. It's possible, and not at all out of the realm of possibility that I might have been so scared by the initial noises that my brain made up something that wasn't there. I can never really know anything anyway now though, because the memory is a flexible unstructured thing. I generally don't go over this memory much anymore because every time you go over a memory, you change that memory. I haven't thought about a lot of these situations in years actually. I trust my memory a little better than some though. Part of the reason for this is that I have generally always written everything down, even when I was a kid. So I would memorize the words, or the story itself apart from my direct memory of it, but associated as well. Which definitely creates memory discrepancies of it's own, but at the same time it solidifies the story somewhat. All I can really do is try to be honest. And honestly, I felt with the entire fiber of my being that I had seen a ghost.

Anyway, until another sleepless night occurs.

If you want to read my life story so far, here are the previous parts.

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

#text

10 notes · View notes