#poe/and his ex whose name I forget
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I finally watched Star Wars 9 (aka Star Wars 8) and Star Wars 11 (aka Star Wars 9) along with a rewatch of Star Wars 7 (aka Star Wars 7). They're all bad!
The Force Awakens - I feel like this got by because people assumed it would resolve and pay off and you know, be a movie. It didn't and unfortunately the failures of 8 and 9 directly affect 7 because it leaned so heavy on future installments. It basically balled out on a credit card and episode 9 was the bill. But despite that I do think it's the closest to telling a coherent story in its own right. It's a story called Star Wars 1977 aka A New Hope, but whatever. It's also weird in that it like, double dips. It mocks this series adherence to the past while whole heartedly leaning into that earnestly. At it's best it's like Canonized Spaceballs, at it's worst it's reheated leftovers. But yeah, as soon as they drop that cryptic vision and "a story for another time" crap I know this was gonna blow. It's the guy who made fucking LOST. When will people learn!?
The Last Jedi - Guys this is dumb. Dumb as hell. Dumber than most Star Wars. Even the good ideas it flirts with are rudimentary. But they also botch half the story. Like the entire plot about the escape from whatever could have been solved with a single five minute conversation, and there's really no consequences. Like Holdo looks like an idiot for not briefing her crew... Poe Finn n' Rose look like idiots for botching a mutiny and getting thousands killed. It's so dumb.
Luke kills kids now... guess it's genetic. Like I think there's a small seed of a good idea in here. That Luke, once an anomaly amongst the Jedi, who saw good in a man everyone else thought was irredeemable, is now stodgy and conservative, a natural process that often comes when people are in power for a long time. That's a good idea. But for the first story with the character in years (I don't give a fuck about some stupid book) and we immediately jump to, "I tried to kill a kid cuz his rancid vibes" is bad! Bad writing!
Rise of the Skywalker - Everyone basically went in know this was gonna suck right? Like it had to wrap up a bunch of crap that no one had any plans for. Then it also had to deal with the fact that the Last Jedi kind of dismantled all that crap for a bunch of other crap know one had any ideas for. Like I know JJ and Kennedy are portrayed as villains for cutting down Johnson's vision, but I call bullshit on him having any ideas for a third movie either.
And in spite of that, it introduces a bunch of other stupid crap, too. Yeah this is Episode 2 levels of bad. I totally checked out. I had no idea what anyone was trying to do beyond shoot people. Babu Frik and D-0 were delightful though. Give those two a movie. Oh and it seems like each of these leans heavily on one old guy to breath life into the movie. Anthony Daniels, you may have been the best part of this?
Oh yeah the cast, like in general. They're mostly good, but also like. They don't properly hang out together until Rise of Skyguy and I just find it so odd that the filmmakers decide, oh yeah, they all hate each other? Like even Finn/Poe who were all like Buddy-this Buddy-that, now they're total dicks to each other. I also love that they one up Jedi butchering a love triangle, by introducing like six* potential couplings and all of them fizzling out. Like that's bad but it's even more confusing that they introduce more to fumble in the final installment.
Anyway, in summation. It sucked, and anything good about the first entry was a time bomb destined to suck because no one knew what the hell they wanted to do with any of this. Except make money. They knew that and did. Star Wars sucksssss
#*so we have finn/rey#finn/poe#finn/rose#~~~~Reylo~~~~#finn/jannah??#poe/and his ex whose name I forget#am I missing anyone?#I know in an early script treverrow came up with for skyguy poe/rey was a thing#that's dumb too
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Hate You
Characters: Modern/AU Kylo Ren (no particular occupation) x Plus Sized Female Reader
Content: Smut / Makeup Sex / Unprotected Sex / Implied Cheating (but I say the accused didn’t cheat) / Mild Jealousy / Mild Possessiveness
Warning: Kind of a pregnancy/breeding kink? (both characters suddenly consent to the possibility of pregnancy mid-intercourse)
I honestly was just in the mood to write some makeup sex lol. Hope you like it.
“I fucking hate you,” you whimpered.
Your ass was planted on Poe’s desk, thick thighs spread, and knees held up by Kylo as he licked, sucked, and slurped on your juicy pussy. You grabbed his hair and pushed him deeper into your hot center, and he slowly let his tongue roll down your clit and flicked it inside and around your weeping walls.
He was determined to make you remember whose woman you were. Yeah, you were mad. You’d broken up with him last week. But that didn’t mean shit to him. He let you have your tantrum and now he was going to give you your medicine. Something to calm you down.
Kylo was in the shower last Thursday when his phone buzzed. You knew you shouldn’t have, but you got a quick peek. His ex, Sharon, had texted him, “Thanks for checking on me.” Next thing you knew, you were storming into the bathroom demanding answers that Kylo refused to give to you.
“She’s got something going on, so I texted her,” was all he said. He didn’t want to divulge her personal information. So, you changed into your clothes, grabbed your purse, and left. To make matters worse, he didn’t even chase after you!
Now, it was the next Saturday--Poe’s birthday. You knew he was going to be at the party, and you had every intention of making him jealous. You were a living doll in your short, off-the-shoulders dress and sky-high heels (that you had to practice walking in a few hours before the party). You had a couple of shots--just a couple--and danced with just about everyone--guys and girls. You saw Kylo when he walked in, and saw that he was paying you no attention.
Finally, you got some good sense and asked yourself, “What are you doing? Forget him!”
“Adorn” by Miguel was playing when you were standing around with Rose, just talking about work. Suddenly, a guy came up to you asking to dance. You remembered that Kylo was there, but pushed him out of your head. It was nice to be approached during a slow song, and you took the chance. When the dance was over, you went to the bathroom. Of course, when you came out, Kylo was standing outside, staring you down.
“What, are you trying to make me jealous or something?” he asked.
You laughed at him. “Please. Don’t flatter yourself.” You started to walk away when he gave up the attitude.
“Look, look, look. Let’s talk...”
You’d gone into Poe’s home office, and soon, meaningless chatter turned into a hot kiss, that led to you being hoisted onto Poe’s desk. Kylo pulled your panties down, sat in the office chair on the other side of the desk, and went to town on your pussy.
“I fucking hate you,” you whimpered.
That seemed to egg Kylo on. His performance got sloppier, and louder. You grabbed his hair and humped his face--leaving your scent for any other bitch after you to smell.
“I’m coming...” you whispered.
“Yeah?” he asked, voice muffled by your fat lips.
“Yeah...” you whimpered breathlessly.
Kylo slid three of his fingers inside of you at once, and you grabbed the edge of the desk.
“Fuck!” you squealed.
He reattached his lips as he rubbed that sweet spot at the roof of your sloppy pussy. The coil stretching inside of you finally snapped, and you fell backward on the desk--quietly letting euphoria rush your body like a wave. Kylo gave you very little time to adjust to the spinning room. Suddenly, he was pushing your right leg back. You looked down to see his hard dick in his hands, inching its way to the place that called his name.
His throbbing head eased through and stretched your walls, and you fell backward again. Kylo grabbed you by the fabric of your dress and pulled you up.
“Look at me when I’m fucking you.”
He buried himself deep inside of you--reconnecting your bodies for the first time in, well...days. Just over a week. You gazed in his eyes with a lax jaw as he moved his hips--slow and sensually, making you feel every inch and every pulse of his length.
“You’re coming home with me tonight, alright?”
“Okay...” you whimpered.
He picked up his pace and you squealed. “Don’t you ever fucking leave me again.”
Your eyes rolled back and he slammed into you hard.
“Ah!” you cried--your two front teeth pressing into your bottom lip.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Looking through my phone, thinking you know shit...”
Why’d he have to bring up the phone again? Just when you were about to come to your senses and sneak in a question about the text, he dove into your neck and sucked on it. To your hairline your eyes went again, rolling back in ecstasy. Then, he really sealed the deal.
Kylo wrapped his arms around your chubby waist and picked you up off the desk. You gripped his shoulders, scared he was going to drop you--but he carried you with him to the loveseat against the wall.
“Ride your dick, Princess.”
You maneuvered your body to get more comfortable and did as you were told. Your fingers digging into his shoulders, you bounced up and down on his length. He pulled the bust of your dress down and took your left nipple into his mouth, then the right.
“Fuck,” he whimpered, gripping your ass. He guided you up and down--faster and harder, making you give up your need for secrecy. You moaned and cried to the ceiling as you took him. Then, you looked down at him with lusty eyes.
“Put a baby in me,” you said.
“What?” he asked. But his voice carried a tone that was more so “verifying” your request. He knew he’d heard right, but wanted to make sure you’d heard yourself.
You rested your hands on his shoulders. “I want all of your nut. I want all of it inside of me. Put a fucking baby in me.”
You didn’t need to repeat yourself. Kylo gritted his teeth and slowed your movement--working you slow and sweetly. Then, he started moving is own hips until he found that sweet, little zone of yours again. You moaned and whimpered as he probed the spot over and over again--and worked you into your second orgasm.
You squeezed him and covered his dick with your juices, and he held you down--sheathing himself balls deep.
“You ready for it?”
“Yes...” you moaned, still riding out your wave.
Kylo grabbed your hips again, and motioned for you to keep moving--sensitive walls and all--and soon, you felt your velvety, pink interior being painted with his warm, sweet seed. His shoulders slumped and you fell forward on his chest. The two of you caught your breath--oblivious to the music and the movement just yards away.
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neither the angels nor the demons (a joe x nicky one-shot)
Rated: T
Warnings: Major character death
Summary: Joe and Nicky face the worst thing yet.
A/n: So I was on my way to a meeting when I was suddenly struck by the terrible thought of either Nicky or Joe dying, leaving the other alone in this world. And because I'm a massive masochist, I decided to write it. I am so sorry.
The title is (loosely) from "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe
also on: ao3
Joe had always known the day was coming. Of course he'd known, he's not an idiot. But knowing it and being prepared to face it were two vastly different things. Something he was going to find out very soon.
Joe and Nicky had been mourning the death of Booker, whose wounds, after nearly a millennium of fighting, finally stopped healing. Sebastian Le Livre went peacefully and calmly into the next world, and they were happy that he had finally found peace…it still hurt. They had also taken another immortal into their little family, a small spitfire of a person named Kati, with whom Nile had formed a bond not unlike Joe and Nicky’s own.
Even though Joe wasn’t aging, he was starting to feel old. Slowly, he was starting to understand the haunted look he had been seeing on Andy’s face, in the year before the Merrick incident. Increasingly, he noticed he was forgetting things. Names, places, times. History blurs together when you see so much of it. He knew his Nicky felt the exact same way. They fought for what was good and what was just, they knew this world still needed them, but sometimes Joe wished he would go to sleep and never wake up.
A feeling that would intensify a thousand-fold very soon, though Joe was unaware of it. At this very moment, he was trying to keep a group of deadly assassins from assassinating a group of children.
“Joe!” Nile’s scream was of an intensity that Joe seldom heard, and his heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t often the ex-marine was so overcome with fear that her throat rasped when she screamed. Ending the last assassin’s life, Joe turned on his heels and ran towards the sound of Nile, who was still yelling his name frantically.
It took him a second to register what he was seeing. Then he dropped to his knees, feeling like he’d been shot in the chest point-blank. Nile’s hands were slick with blood, her entire body was trembling, and tears were streaming freely down her face as Kati looked on helplessly. Between them lay Nicky, a gaping wound in his side. “He’s not healing, why isn’t he healing, oh my god!” Nile yelled frantically. “Joe, I’m so sorry, I tried to stop them, I did, I’m so – ”
Joe could only stare at the still body of the love of his life, feeling as though he himself were dying. After over 1500 years of never spending more than a few decades apart, Joe realized that he was now going to have to face the rest of his life alone.
A soft voice rasped, “It’s okay, Nile,” and Joe’s heart leapt. Nicky was still alive! They could heal him!
Scrambling over to sit next to Nicky’s head, Joe looked down at his lover, his husband, his everything, who was looking very peaceful, for a man about to bleed out. “Nicky,” Joe muttered, “Nicky, what do we need to do, how can we heal you?” Andy lived to the ripe old age of god damn 80 because they protected her vigorously. They could do the same for Nicky.
Nicky coughed, a smile appearing on his face as he lifted his trembling hand to touch Joe’s face. “You cannot, amore mio. It is my time. I will have peace. Non disperare, Yusuf,” he said, when Joe gasped and grasped Nicky’s hand tighter. “It is destiny. We knew it would come.”
Joe shook his head, even though he knew what Nicky was saying was absolutely true. “No, Nicolò, I cannot live without you, what will I do?”
Nicky smiled at him, looking for all the world as if he were not dying, but merely about to fall asleep. “You will live. You will love. You will fight for what is right. And when your time comes, we will see each other again. Tu ed io per sempre, Yusuf. Death does not change it.”
“I love you, Nicky, ti amo, I do not know how to go on.” Joe was fully crying, feeling like his heart was going with Nicky, leaving him living but not alive.
“Ti amo, my love.” Nicky used what little strength he had to pull Joe down to put their foreheads together. “We had our time. Thank you for loving me. You saved me. I am forever grateful for you, my Joe, my love, my heart.”
Joe let out a pained sob as he pressed his lips to Nicky’s. Nicky’s mouth was already cold, the blood loss beginning to show in everything. Next to them, Nile was sobbing quietly in Kati’s shoulder, but Joe barely registered them. His whole universe had shrunken to his dying Nicky in his arms. “You saved me, too, Nicolò. I was drowning when you found me. You taught me how to swim. I love you so much, your kindness, your selflessness, your heart, you are everything and more. I give you my heart to guard until I find you again.”
Nicky closed his eyes and laughed painfully. “You are an incurable romantic,” he said and pulled Joe down for a kiss. Joe kissed Nicky like he was an ocean and Joe wanted to drown. In the back of his head, Joe knew this would be his last kiss with Nicky. His last kiss of his life. After a while Joe realised Nicky had stopped moving, and, heart beating, he raised his head to see Nicky lying slack in Joe’s arms.
“Nicky?” Joe said, his voice breaking. “Nicolò? Per favore, Nicolò. Nicky!” He started frantically shaking Nicky’s shoulder, but there was no response. “Nicolò!” Joe kissed Nicky’s cold lips, but there was no response. He pounded on his chest, hoping to restart his heart, but nothing happened. Joe stared in horror as the colour drained from his Nicky’s face, even as the love of his life looked like he was just sleeping peacefully. Joe knew better, however.
His Nicky was dead.
“No,” Joe muttered, looking frantically around for something to cling on to. Nile was crying, her hand covering her mouth to force back the noise of her grief, Kati wrapping their arms around her. Joe’s heart was hammering in his chest, like it was trying to join Nicky in the afterlife. “No, Nicky…no, I can’t live without him, please!” He looked up at the sky, praying to his God and Nicky’s, and any other that might be out there. “Please, bring him back!” Nothing happened. “Bring him back to me!”
“Joe…” Kati said, their hand landing on his shoulder, and in reflex, he slapped it away. They didn’t back down however, putting it back without so much as blinking. “I’m so sorry, Joe. I can’t imagine the pain…”
“No, you can’t!” Joe said, his voice breaking as his heart did, looking down at his Nicky, lying in the dirt like he hadn’t been the man by Joe’s side for nearly two millennia, like he hadn’t been alive at all. “This man was next to me for most of my life, he was my person, he held me when I was afraid, protected me when I was weak, and he kept me sane. Now I have to face the world alone!” he snarled, but at the last word he broke down again and crumbled, his forehead resting on Nicky’s cold one. The sobs that were wrenched from his chest was something entirely new, it hurt in a way that he knew would never truly fade away, and Joe allowed it to hurt, even as it felt like he wanted to tear out his heart and fling it into the ocean to join Nicky.
“You’re not alone, Joe,” Nile said, moving to sit next to him. “We got you. We’re with you. We’ll get you through this.”
“No,” Joe moaned, his fingers burying in Nicky’s blood-soaked shirt, his eyes clenched shut, the pain in his heart overwhelming him. “No, no, no. No.” He continued to mutter, in all the languages he knew, to pray for someone to bring his love back to me, but deep down he knew it was no use. He knew the truth even as he tried to deny it.
Nicolò di Genova was gone from this world.
Yusuf Al-Kaysani was alone.
#the old guard#joe x nicky#immortal husbands#yusuf al-kaysani#nicolo di genova#joe x nicky fanfics#my joe x nicky fics#i am so terribly sorry but i had to write it#it would've been stuck in my brain forever#listen#what if i wrote one where joe is the one who goes first#ugh my heart
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𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐒
use tv tropes to associate 10 tropes with your muse that you think are important (tip: your character is likely to have some tropes already listed if they are part of a recognized canon!) feel free to copy-paste the definitions of the tropes, or explain their relevance by identifying them on your own. repost, don’t reblog. (and tw for possible imagery / triggers on some tv tropes pages.)
i. the ingenue : “ The Ingenue is a young virginal woman with the purity of a child. she is kind, sweet-natured, polite, and optimistic, and on the sliding scale of idealism vs. cynicism, she falls very much on the idealistic side. her innocence will often inspire protective feelings in heroic characters, and she is frequently one of the more beautiful characters because of the convention that beauty = goodness. unfortunately, her innocence also often makes her woefully naive, making her a prime target for a villain seeking to take advantage of her, often in an I Have You Now, My Pretty fashion. ”
ii. who wants to live forever ( averted ) : “ the worst fate possible might well be immortality. sure, you might like the idea that you get to live forever and see what the world's like hundreds of years from now, but what's eternal life compared to the pain of life in general? from eventual boredom to eternal entrapment and torture to the emotional anguish of seeing your loved ones die, one by one, as you stay fixed in time. then let's not forget that the earth might be destroyed by the expanding sun in a few billion years, so if you haven't a way to leave by then you can look forward to spending eternity in space, orbiting the dying core of the sun. this attitude toward immortality is older than feudalism, going back at least as far as the greek myths. ”
evelyn has the opposite attitude ; she enjoys her immortality for all it’s worth. at least, she definitely doesn’t see it as a curse. though she has no idea how it happened, she also doesn’t know how to reverse it, so she figures she may as well enjoy the benefits.
iii. older than they look : “ sometimes characters don't look their age. whether it was a deliberate artistic choice on the behalf of the creator (usually to make the character more attractive or to legally fulfill a fetish) or something much deeper and linked to their characterization and the plot, this character will be older than they look. although usually still within the normal range of the human lifespan (for that setting, anyway), this character will look noticeably younger than their age. sometimes even improbably younger; it's not unheard of for a seeming teenager to be over the hill chronologically. ”
iv. cope by pretending : “ a character is currently (or has been ) in a very stressful situation. it might be that they're dealing with the loss of someone dear to them, an event that traumatized them. as a means of coping, they quite literally pretend that things are not as bad as they are. perhaps by making up imaginary people, or pretending that, in-between scavenging for food and running from monsters, the morning paper is still running. it could go as far as to pretend that the event that hurt them so never happened at all. someone who is aware that they are Coping by Pretending knows how bad their situation truly is, and knows that the pretending is just that. but it just makes things easier, so they keep doing it. ”
v. healing factor : “ a character is hard to kill, not because he doesn't get hurt, but because he has the ability to rapidly recover from serious damage. although it depends on how fast he can heal and how much of a beating his body can take, a character with healing factor will bounce back from severe injuries that other beings can't, often with no scars or medical treatment rarely will a character need to worry about infection, as a super immune system is most often packaged in, but they may need to worry about setting broken bones. ”
vi. the lost lenore ( inverted ) : “ The Lost Lenore, aka the dead love interest — not parent, not sibling, not offspring, love interest. one of the oldest ones in the book, named for the famous deceased in edgar allan poe's "the raven". in order to qualify for this trope, it must be clear that the characters who lose their Lost Lenore grieve strongly for her, and that overcoming their grief and learning to love again is a significant part of character/plot development. sometimes subsequent love interests never entirely replace Lenore. if she left children behind, the children often have considerable emotional baggage to deal with, including a father (or father-figure equivalent) whose grief can render him overprotective, neglectful, abusive, or absent. the children may feel, or even be told explicitly, that they are either too much like the Lost Lenore, or else not enough like her. angst ensues. ”
evelyn is the lost lenore to her husband, who presumes her dead. after a search of the woods could reveal no sign of his wife beyond the place where her footprints ended, mr. ferriday was driven to distraction by grief. he took the entire household and fled to london, where he established himself permanently ; he could never bear to return to the place where his wife died. though he was not deeply in love with evelyn, her loss haunted him nonetheless, and he sank into brooding despair for many years.
vii. mad dreamer : “ if the reason that humans don't deal with creative sterility is that humanity is insane, then this character is just that extra bit more insane than the rest of humanity. they not only make up fantastic art and stories, they then live them. expect them to be the odd ones out in any kind of group, since they're the only ones talking about the adventures they had last night hunting dragons. however, rather than be held in lower esteem for being unable to take reality (or cope with the way that society creates it), they are held in higher esteem within the work for the imagination and vivacity (for these characters are almost always very energetic and emotional) with which they live life. ”
viii. nature lover : " this is about those who love the great outdoors and all that dwell therein. they may be a forest dweller themselves, or live in the countryside where they commune with nature. it's also a safe bet that they'll either have a close bond with the local fauna, or at least have extensive knowledge of them. In their view, the world is just awesome so they want to spend as much time with it as possible and share it with others. whereas ones who live in the city may often spend time at the park, or just watching the sunset. usually a sign of goodness, indicating a wholesome character uncorrupted by secularism. ”
ix. back from the dead : “ a major character has been killed, pronounced dead and buried. however, the established laws of the universe allow for functional magic, a sufficiently advanced alien, applied phlebotinum, deus ex machina or similar agency to intervene and subvert what naturally follows dying. namely, staying dead. (In some cases, an explanation isn't even bothered with.) ”
x. spirited young lady : “ a certain kind of character commonly found in historical fiction set in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. she is the girl who bends the rules just a little. oh, she can dance a country dance or pour tea with the best of them, but she may also be a good walker or horseback rider.... the Spirited Young Lady has the same grace and style as the proper ladies, plus an added spark of attitude or rebellion... she may not speak out for women's rights generally (a few examples do), but she will speak out for her rights pretty clearly. Her willingness to say what she wants is part of what makes her stand out. In unskillful hands, such a character may seem anachronistic, though there are many examples that are both believable and well-rounded. ”
tagged by : borrowed from @westenyra
tagging : anyone who wants it!!
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Penultimate Peril pt 1 liveblog
note: includes spoilers from books and/or promotional details that go past TPP part 1
really good opening shot
well Kit, you know, it could very well be both
okay again WHAT ABOUT JACQUELYN. can’t they have the Baudelaires ask and Kit tell them that Jacquelyn isn’t there? it’s just... a really glaring omission.
“children make the best flaneurs” okay kit
“of course we will” PLEASE DON’T.... DON’T FORGET NOT TO TAKE ORDERS BEFORE YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION... DON’T DO THIS, VIOLET
“my husband, what’s-his-name” oh my god
“He’s kidnapped those Snow Scouts we kidnapped!”
“I like her” VIOLET... please... that doesn’t mean you should trust her...
“How can we tell them apart?” “(complete bullshit non-answer)”
I’m glad they’re keeping the “distraught and pregnant” but choked up for two seconds and a fading smile as they leave ain’t a desperate crying jag about how they’ll fail
I like the “send my regards to Frank” fakeout with Dewey
oh huh, Lemony and Kit.
"Some parents! They wouldn’t even pay the ransom” HOLY SHIT
“Something red. A sauvignon blank.” alkjfaksldfj
“Frank or Ernest?” “exactly” alkfdjaslkdfjakjd
“Are you Frank or Ernest?” “That’s an interesting question.” This seems to be the Netflix version confirming (in a pleasingly subtle and ambiguous way) what was just a theory about the book version: that the third time a manager appears in the lobby it’s an early Dewey appearance. I like that, I’ve always liked that theory.
rip lettuce bikini
THE CLANG ON THE BEACH BALL... SO THAT’S WHERE IT IS...
BIRD-WATCHING IS ALWAYS IN
Violet is... not very good at eavesdropping. bless her heart.
“You of all people should know who JS is!” ooooooh I love this, they’re gonna drop hints for the different JS’s
so you’re just gonna have the manager flat out tell Violet that he wants her to give Carmelita the harpoon gun... Netflix really isn’t a fan of ambiguity.
“have you considered being a doctor” aldskfjasdkfjasdkf great line
“we met at a support group for people who were terrorized by Esmé Squalor” wtf “it’s definitely not a cover story” uh... huh. okay I think I like this.
holy shit they just made Jerome/Charles and Babs/Remora canon
“I despise you” aldksfjalsdkfj thanks, thanks Sunny
it’s really, really too bad about the actors they couldn’t get for these episodes but so far I like what they’re doing with shuffling the reappearances around
Olaf’s line about really liking kids is incredibly fucking disturbing, Jesus Christ
ahahaha Olaf dragging Jacques in disguise
oh god this is like what he did to Violet in book Reptile Room, fuck off I hate this
huh, they had Poe have written this book instead of Jerome. I... don’t know about that.
“like orphans or cats” alksdfjalskdjfalskdfjaskldfjasdf
huh, so Ernest is flat-out a murderer in Netflix canon.
FINALLY they mention Jacquelyn, jeez
the elephant poem ;_; bertrand ;_;
Violet’s little diagram is really cute
HERE SHE IS!!!!!!!!!!!! JUSTICE STRAUSS!!!!!!!!! JS JS JS JS
Despite everything, despite how she’s failed them before and will again, it’s really nice to see her again. She may be a failure, but she does love them.
ALKSDFJALSKDFJASKFJ QUIGLEY SITTING NEXT TO HER
Hm. So this is Strauss’s plan in this canon. Oh, okay, it’s her book. yeah, I’m okay with that. I mean... hm. To a certain extent The Penultimate Peril shouldn’t be streamlined, but I can get behind making parts of it more neatly centered around Strauss instead of Strauss and Jerome Squalor. But making the entire thing Strauss’s plan absolves VFD of responsibility for the plan’s failure and erases the implications that the trial was about re-securing VFD’s position and clearing the names of prominent volunteers, and erases the implications that VFD had exploited people who wanted to help the Baudelaires by setting them to digging up secrets VFD wanted instead of doing something actually material helpful for the kiddos, implications that I believe with all my heart very much were present in the book and had provided moral ambiguity to VFD buffaloing ignorant children into putting themselves at risk to help secure the trial and bla bla bla I’m still banging this drum, bla bla bla VFD sucks bla bla bla.
“THEN THIS NIGHT IS DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS” FUCK FUCK FUCK I AM CRY “WE’LL BE A FAMILY SOON” I’M DYING
“The world’s troubles aren’t the fault of any one person, but it is your fault if you do nothing” - that’s not a bad moral. I can get behind that.
ooh I like the change with the Baudelaires finding the sub-basement
“Kit and I are leaving V.F.D. to raise our child” it’s cute that you think that, Dewey
"hey what if I go enjoy my own family while you take care of my responsibilities instead of finding a home and family of your own” holy shit Dewey what the fuck is wrong with you. though I do like the fakeout of the “sub-library or Justice Strauss?” dilemma existing for all of two seconds before of course we realize they would never even get that choice.
“it’s not poorly organized, it’s arranged like a library catalog” Klaus... it can be both
Esmé that’s... that’s not a good hairstyle
“a man whose pant leg doesn’t even cover his ankle” OH SHIT
holy shit the way the tendons on her neck stand out when she hisses “EX TREME LY OUT” oh my god
Esmé being devastated that Olaf is breaking up with her seconds before she could break up with him aldskfjalskdfjasdkfj that feels so right
“It’s all I know how to do” ;_;
oh the lights coming on, and the voices, and the crows... I like that
#asoue#asoue spoilers#asoue s3 spoilers#asoue s3#asoue liveblog#the penultimate peril#asoue netflix critical#negativity#(a bit more present in this one#not wild about some changes they made)
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Unlisted in the credits for the visceral production of Hamlet which opened tonight at New York’s Public Theater are the custodians who, after every performance, must clean up the sodden and muddy Anspacher stage after the movie star—and Public Theater alum—Oscar Isaac and his fellow actors have left the stage.
This is not a large space, it is not a large cast, and the most significant props are flowers, a table, and—later—all that soil and muck. The characters are dressed in modern garb, and there is even a very modern restroom where the characters periodically retreat to. Yes, that’s Polonius sitting on the toilet.
It’s not every production of Hamlet where you will see Ophelia make short work of a meal of lasagna, but here Gayle Rankin, a restless and stroppy Ophelia rather than a wispy and tragic one, ravenously piles in mouthfuls of the dish.
The production’s spartan-ness and its modernity makes this very much a Sam Gold production—and give the poor man a cold compress; in the last year he has directed distinctive productions of Othello at the New York Theatre Workshop, The Glass Menagerie and A Doll’s House, Part 2, on Broadway and now this.
It was Gold, as Oskar Eustis, the Public’s artistic director, points out in the Hamlet program, who shepherded the magnificent adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home from the Public to Broadway and then on to touring success.
Some did not like The Glass Menagerie, of course (this critic did), and elements of the aesthetic of that production, and of Gold’s Othello and A Doll’s House, Part 2, recur here. All that you may not like about starkly reimagined plays that Gold has done before may rankle here. The red carpet and office chairs are the quintessence of drab.
For Gold, the text is the thing. Décor should startle but not overwhelm. A bare stage gives all the more room for movement. Gold is more keen to find new angles for the characters to face the audience, to shock us with a visual, to produce innovative, mischievous beats in a play, than he is to overgild and over-design.
As in those other productions, lighting is key. If theater-goers recall the mysterious cloak of near-darkness of Othello and Menagerie—and which Gold has employed in his productions of Annie Baker plays like The Flick and John—then they won’t be surprised when it descends again in Hamlet, with the words of the actors emanating from the gloam.
This production is distinguished by a bracing tour de force performance of Isaac, whose movies include 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davies, criminally robbed at the Oscars, Ex Machina, and playing Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the forthcoming The Last Jedi. He revealed recently in The New York Times that he had read Hamlet to his mother Eugenia as she lay gravely ill; she died in February. “It’s for my mom that I’m doing it,” he said of this production of Hamlet. “It’s to honor her life, but also her death, which was so awful.” He named his son Eugene, born in April, after her.
The play begins and is studded, though not heavily, with comedy, which is not something you might associate with Hamlet. However, Gold is also respectful of the play and its characters.
Keegan-Michael Key, who plays Horatio, addresses us as himself as the actors gather on stage, to ask us to turn off our cellphones, and to not—as one audience member has already attempted—to plug their cellphone into the socket on stage. He also reminds us, regarding the duration of the play, that it is really, really long.
He’s right. Three and a half hours. You have to commit to this Hamlet.
Key doesn’t mug, but his scenes, whether through his looks to audience or incomprehension, bring fun with them. And it is not just him: Other characters revel for moments in their absurd or overheated plights, and we laugh with them too.
Of the more traditional light relief of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Roberta Colindrez, also playing Reynaldo, and Matthew Saldívar), it is Colindrez’s deadpan and waspish monotone that is winning.
The story is familiar, but Gold and his cast’s interpretive breadth is wide. Isaac’s Hamlet is tortured, crazy, witty, and vengeful. Sometimes he is all of those things together: a bran-tub of moods, all utterly believable, as he deduces that his father was murdered by his scheming brother Claudius (Ritchie Coster, also the play’s fight captain).
Coster also plays the sporadically appearing spirit of the dead king, which makes for a very effective on-stage duality in his dealings with Isaac, who one moment will be wishing his dead father back, and the next minute spitting venom at his suspected murderer; and somehow Coster deftly segues from noble to reptilian in a flash.
Gold too doubles up Ophelia and her father Polonius (the excellent Peter Friedman, who you want to listen to for hours; his cadence and timing are meticulous) as their own gravediggers, and this after a stunning scene in which Ophelia’s drowning is staged using two planters requisitioned from outside the theater, soil from those planters, a hosepipe, and flowers. Stand by for mess.
The energy when Isaac is not on stage dips, and if this play has a flaw it is that it follows all of Hamlet the play’s highways and byways: You feel that three and a half hours by the end. Depending on where you’re sitting in the oddly partitioned and leveled Anspacher, you may not see characters very clearly if at all when they’re in that bathroom, or in another room, or loitering behind pillars. Claudius’ death looked particularly odd when viewed from where I was.
Yet this long, ranging adaptation with its many moods and paces never sinks. Gold doesn’t let it, even when Hamlet is absent from the stage. Isaac’s tones, and his running and cavorting on stage, eventually stripped down to a pair of black briefs and in a T-shirt and babbling lunatically, is a performance made all the more forceful by being realized in such a small space.
What strikes you, because the performers and their director have clearly studied and immersed themselves in the play, is the beauty of Shakespeare’s language (and who could want more than that?), and how much there is in Hamlet: family, power, madness, the creation of art, love, grief, betrayal, and revenge. And all the great-hit lines are here too: “Alas, Poor Yorick…” and “To be or not to be,” which here occurs as it occurs in the play, rather than at its beginning (which the Benedict Cumberbatch adaptation toyed with in 2015). As for Yorick’s skull, well that becomes a mock-foetus at some point. Only Ophelia’s brother Laertes (Anatol Yusuf) is played traditionally straight; stout and outraged by the calumnies around him, he seems to have been beamed in from a more conventional production. (At least he gets to wrestle Hamlet in the dirt near the end.)
How challenging it is to find something new and resonant in these well-known lines for both actors and director, yet this Hamlet does it. It also finds a moving heart to the tortured relationship of Hamlet and his mother Gertrude (Charlayne Woodard); he furiously accusing her of betraying her husband, his father’s, memory in marrying his brother; and she—for much of the time at a regal remove to her son’s madness—recognizing far too late what that means and the truth about her new husband.
Through Isaac’s performance, you really do come to see Hamlet himself as a one-man study in the human condition.
There are some odd gaps in the production; most notably, Hamlet and Ophelia function so separately in the play and seem so independent as characters, they seem more like kindred spirits than lovers when on stage; Hamlet’s later agonized declarations of love for her seem odd, and Ophelia’s ultimate tragedy seems squarely hers.
The body count at the end is well-known. But Isaac’s arresting performance means that we stay rapt until Hamlet’s very last breath, and Shakespeare’s very last word. It is a long evening for sure, but also a beguilingly off-kilter, rewardingly rich one.
Hamlet is at the Anspacher Theater at the Public Theater, until Sept. 3.
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@poe-also-bucky Another interesting review.
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