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ckneal · 3 years

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Now, I’ve been around fanfiction long enough to know that in any angel-turns-human AU story, there is one question that burns brighter than all the rest: What about their first sick day?

Well, I’ll tell you this: That first year after the rapture, out of the two of them, Adam is actually the first one to get sick. He picks up a really, truly nasty, slowburn of cold about a month after bringing Michael home. And, aware that he had just taken a huge chunk of time off (convincing Sam and Dean to help bring Michael out of the Empty was not an overnight task, nor teaching Jack how to make a new human body from scratch), Adam initially tried to smother the growing ailment with over-the-counter remedies and sheer willpower, while this bug steadily asserted dominance, laying waste to his sinuses, building up pressure inside his head, and settling into his chest and making itself heard in his throat. Three days in, his boss finally sent him home because everyone knew, even if he was refusing to say that he was sick. Michael, of course, was relieved to see Adam finally resign himself to bedrest, even though the entire situation is a sharp reminder of the fact that Michael is no longer a divine being, capable of healing with a touch. He feels all the more useless when Adam, well-meaning but also speaking through a haze of cold medicine and the beginnings of a fever, tells Michael he should keep his distance, because who knows how badly his cold would hit someone with virtually no antibodies.

Adam then passed out for the majority of the day, while Michael proceeded to mope in the living room, feeling like he’d been banished, pretending to have something to do but really just moving things around the room that were perfectly fine as they were before. He’d given up, gone online, and scrolled past the third post on his favorite Supernatural site that he normally would have jumped to correct on their misinterpretation of lore had he not been so preoccupied (never mind that he still hasn’t actually read his father’s books), before it struck him that he does know what to do in this situation.

Adam had shared a lot of memories in the cage, particularly during the years right after Lucifer’s departure, when they were first alone together and Michael was more guarded when it came to participating in conversation. Many of those memories had been from Adam’s childhood that he had deemed “harmless.” And as such, while Michael was new to the practice of being around sickness, Michael actually did know how to take care of someone. At least, he knew how Kate would have taken care of Adam. While never having met Kate Milligan, Michael was aware that she had been very young when she had Adam and that she had raised him alone, that she worked often, and that as Adam got older, it became increasingly difficult for her to take time off from work to care for him when he became ill. But she would do what she could in her off hours.

One of those things was preparing meals in advance that Adam could pick from as needed. Michael wasn’t overly acquainted with cooking at that point, but luckily, Kate hadn’t been either. She would buy premade items from the grocery store and alter them at home. Adam’s favorite had been half and half peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, which had been made by purchasing dough for both confections and simply meshing them together before baking. Oddly, the more difficult item to find was the soup. It was canned, but Kate had stuck to a specific brand, because it had been Adam’s favorite brand during a brief period of pickiness when he was eight. It didn’t appear to be as common in the city where Adam and Michael had settled as it had been in Minnesota during the 90s. Fortunately, Michael had stolen Adam’s phone before going shopping, and a stranger he came across in the greeting cards section at the drug store showed him how to use the map function to locate various stores nearby.

Adam managed to sleep through the racket that ensued from Michael coming home and fumbling his way through what, make no mistake, could only very loosely have been called cooking--Michael managing to unsettle a tower of stacked mixing bowls and burn himself on both the stovetop and interior of the oven--Adam only finally waking up when his nose cleared long enough for the smells to reach him. Michael was standing by, and Adam very quickly found himself being pushed onto his back when he opted to sit up.

“Michael? Get out of here, you’re going to get sick.”

“Not if you don’t breathe on me,” Michael said, quoting a memory from when Adam was nine that he knew wasn’t strictly true, but did not particularly care. He had a jar of Vicks Vaporub in hand and was pulling Adam’s shirt out of the way.

“What’s that smell?”

“Dinner. Hold still.”

“Since when do you cook?”

“Since a half hour ago, hold still.”

Despite twice repeating the instruction, it’s only when Michael straddles Adam that Adam actually lays still. He continues to press for details though, because Adam does recognize the aroma drifting in from the kitchen, and while he doesn’t particularly remember sharing those memories, he isn’t so much surprised that Michael does (Michael’s recall verges on obsessive), as he is by the fact that Michael actually did something with it. In the month since leaving Kansas, Michael only very rarely left their apartment, and never on his own.

Had it not been for the fact that he was determined to wait for Michael to decide when they would be back on those terms, Adam might have forgotten he was contagious and kissed Michael right then.

“You didn’t have to do all that.”

“I wanted to.”

Michael only looked up from Adam’s chest and noticed the way Adam was looking at him when Adam’s hand settled on top of his. That was, additionally, the moment when it struck Michael he was straddling Adam, and that the last time one of them had done that to the other, one of them hadn’t actually been physically real, and that they hadn’t done what they’d been doing then in a fairly long time. Of course, it hadn’t seemed strange to him to get into this position a second ago, as, in terms of Michael’s projections, they had done a lot more than kiss, and their relationship with one another hadn’t changed at its core since, but in terms of Michael being a physically present being in a body of his own, they hadn’t actually. . .

“Michael?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“I’m pretty sure I smell smoke.”

And then all at once, Michael was scrambling off the bed, the moment hastily pushed aside in his rush to save the cookies (which were burnt, but a benefit of Kate’s “recipe” was that there was plenty of dough leftover for new batches). By the time that Michael came back, Adam had remembered that he was a breathing germ farm and subsequently put his bedroom eyes away, and Michael suggested they relocate to the couch and watch the obnoxious devil show that Adam liked (Lucifer) while they ate.

Of course, despite Adam’s gradually flagging efforts to keep Michael at a distance for the sake of his health, Michael wound up catching the cold and would spend the next two weeks buried under every blanket they owned while Adam returned the favor of taking care of him. Because Adam was right, he had no antibodies, of course he was going to get sick.

#domestic au #midam #this installment is so schmaltzy #i will own that #but you know what i'm travelling and i'm tired and i just wanted to write something really sweet #no shame

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phoebe-delia · 2 years

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this is me trying

Hello everyone! I am so excited to present to you the next installment of the All Too Well: the Drarry as Taylor Swift series.

This fic is called “this is me trying” and at 12.6k it’s the longest fic I’ve written.

I started this story with the intention to hit at least 10k. Before, the longest I’d been able to write is about 7k, but there was something about this fic and the way the story kept flowing that I was able to exceed my goal. This fic is about struggling with self-care and mental health, figuring out how to be the best version of yourself, forgiveness, friendship, and a lot of late-night drives. The song upon which both the fic and title are based is so meaningful to me, and I hope you, reader, might find something in this story that resonates with you the way the song did for me.

I have a lot of people to thank. First of all, the encouragement of the drarry microfic community was so motivating for me to finish this fic. Thank you all for the sprints and for cheering me on. Thank you, of course, to my lovely friend @romeoandmesittinginatree for showing me the places that needed some tweaks and for generally being encouraging; love you babe, you're the best <3

And last but never, ever least, this fic (and so so many others of mine) would not have seen the light of day without @written-in-ash. Lyssa you always make my writing better. Without you, my fics would be full of schmaltzy and/or snarky dialogue taking place nowhere in space and time because there’s no description. But more than that, you’re my friend, and there’s nothing better than finding someone you can trust with your 2 a.m. half-formed fic ideas, rusty wips, crack fics based on inside jokes, and the times when you need a bonk and a pick-me-up. You’re my beta for life, and you’re also the best fandom little sister I could ask for. (See what I mean about schmaltzy?)

Okay, without further rambling from me, please enjoy the fic!

Here's an excerpt:

Grimmauld. Grim old. Grim and old.

Harry snorted softly as he brought the glass of firewhiskey to his lips. Funny; two years living in the old Pureblood house—plus a few years of being acquainted with it—and he’d never considered the name before.

It was apt; everything seemed to be coated in a thick layer of dust, which was somehow less dreary than the black painted walls and threadbare antique furniture, relics of the past century. It was beyond repair, but it remained steadfast in its stubbornness to cling to the days before it was overstaying its welcome in the modern world.

Harry could relate. There were times he wondered whether the decision about his own fate at King’s Cross had, in fact, been a defiance of nature’s will. Perhaps he was meant to die and to stay that way. Maybe his life was meant to become a legend, a cautionary folktale: grim and old.

Seeing Ron and Hermione helped. Their weekly dinners were the most human interaction Harry got outside of Auror training, and even that provided little social engagement. Taking a gap year after eighth year proved to be less healing and restorative than he’d hoped. As it turned out, eating takeaway in his boxers while rewatching old sitcoms wasn’t much of a vacation if it became his everyday routine. But when Ron and Hermione came over, he’d shower and shave, changing out of his pajamas. He’d wash the dishes that’d piled up on the coffee table next to his comfortable chair and cast air freshening charms. He’d put on jeans and a clean shirt and a brave face.

They’d laugh and eat, and he’d swallow each bite like the words he wanted to say but couldn’t under fear’s chokehold. But with them, Harry could pretend to be less lonely than he was, and that he was the bright and clean adult man he wanted to be. And they’d leave, and the dust would settle once again.

He sighed, casting a quick Sobering charm on himself before Summoning the keys to his car, a blue Rover 214 Cabriolet. He had to get out.

Read "this is me trying" on AO3!

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maniacwatchestheworld · 3 years

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I had a REALLY dumb thought related to Resident Evil 8: Village the other day, so I'm here to make it your problem too!

So. Moreau's TV, right? Since we see Heisenberg talking to Ethan through it, that means that at some point, he must have installed a microphone or camera either into the TV itself or close by so that he can remotely tell what's going on around it. And this realization just made me imagine... What if Heisenberg is secretly a real big fan of schmaltzy romance movies? Because it would just be adorable if while he's holed up in his factory doing whatever, sometimes he'll pull out the two-way radio connected to that TV (or whatever he uses to control and communicate through it), and just chat with Moreau and listen to whatever corny romance he's watching on there today.

It's just such a sweet image. Brotherly bonding! More please! I love!

#resident evil village #karl heisenberg #salvatore moreau #resident evil 8 #re8 #re village #resident evil viii #resident evil moreau #resident evil heisenberg #resident evil headcanons #I have so much re8 brainrot right now. You can entirely blame Heisenberg for that. I just think he's neat!#Also Heisenberg x Ethan. Quality ship right there. Karl's just SUPER bad at doing the whole human relations and emotions thing.#But Heisenberg secretly caring about his siblings? Yes please! More of that food please!

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dereksmcgrath · 3 years

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Seeing as Shueisha already commissioned a cookie display based on Magu-chan, if I don’t see a real-life version of this bento box on social media, I’ll be disappointed.

“A Destructive Luncheon,” Magu-chan: God of Destruction, Chapter 61. By Kei Kamiki, translation by Christine Dashiell, lettering by Annaliese “Ace” Christman. Available from Viz.

Potential spoilers for the potential final DLC in Smash Bros.

“Filler” gets derided frequently when it comes to manga and anime, although it’s a word that obviously can extend to other forms of entertainment, not just to other comics and animation but, in what is now the streaming age, any serialized narrative. Just look at any series order on Netflix and recognize those episodes that you anticipate are there just to fill up (“filler”) a minimum episode count, or “bottle episodes” to save on the budget before the next installment. Comics have to do the same for the sake of their budget of money, time, and energy: check out this week’s artwork from Spy x Family, as series creator Tatsuya Endo needed the break to work on additional edits for the series’ next collected volume.

“Filler” only bothers me when it is for a story that doesn’t actually contribute to anything. But that contribution can take so many forms that one person’s filler is another person’s favorite story, or another person’s story that really furthered a character’s progression, or is a story that will retroactively become important for some world-building detail it includes.

And just as “filler” refers to the unneeded flavorings and colorings in food products, sometimes you overlook those ingredients and just enjoy the item itself for your physical or emotional sustenance. Sometimes you just want that bag of Doritos or that donut, regardless whatever you know is in it that is just carbs or preservatives to get you raw energy or an emotional uplift.

It’s therefore appropriate that Chapter 61 of Magu-chan focuses on food. After how heavy the previous two-chapter arc was, something lighter and funnier is appreciated. While Chapter 61 doesn’t further plot too much or reveal too much new about the characters, it has solid gags and avoids a lot of the problems I’ve had with previous chapters, all while adding a legitimately funny gag around Uneras and not just making Muscar’s weakened form only the butt of the joke.

Starting with the title, “A Destructive Luncheon,” it’s odd how actually un-destructive the luncheon ultimately becomes. Sure, Magu’s attempt to bring the bento box to Ruru shakes up the contents too much to retain its original look, so it’s hardly that destructive, despite Magu himself being such an embodiment of chaos--a point that I’m glad Naputataku raised: I need to check the translation, but Napu referring to Magu as “mad” had connotations not just of anger but also chaos. The message is a solid one for this chapter, that even if the meal doesn’t look like you hoped, it’s still a hearty meal that had a lot of thought put into it, first by Ruru making it, then by Magu bringing it. And the message spoke to me personally, given how much I enjoy the taste of my own cooking even as the presentation is never getting me a prize on any cooking show. Plus, I’m an easy mark for Magu inadvertently quoting Soul Eater by saying the appearance of the meal is not what matters.

If there is any quibble I have off the top of my head, it’d be the setup for the story. Ruru oversleeps--but how was that possible? It feels like a panel or two are missing, something to show that, perhaps, Magu was up too late playing knockoff Smash Bros (before Tuesday when Sora gets announced as the new DLC) and he actually overslept and failed to wake Ruru in time. I want to be suspicious and pretend that there could be another reason: Ruru had to check her phone to see she overslept, so maybe something disrupted her phone? Would Muscar have done that? He was hanging around and did remark that he has gotten his fate-altering abilities stabilized. Or was it Uneras? She wasn’t here, aside from a brief, and well-done, gag about Izuma’s Dragon Quest-inspired meat lunch, so did she disrupt Ruru’s phone to set off a typical manga plot out of her own interest in such tropes and gags?

There are other gags I enjoyed in this chapter. Ruru’s shouting literally rocked her house, Magu had varied uses of his abilities as an umbrella, propeller, and a parachute (forgive me making yet another fighting game reference, but imagine Magu’s move-set in Smash or a similar game--so versatile). I also appreciated how the story made excuses to bring up minor characters, such as Magu realizing BS would likely eat the bento box instead of helping him transport it or Muscar progressing with his new form, or Magu being disturbed upon encountering a jackhammer for the first time. I’m almost surprised the series didn’t add the bartender Magu knows, if we’re going to mine out the supporting cast for additional appearances in this chapter.

And I always appreciate Naputaaku returning, this time indulging in a croquette, talking up details that make the foodie and cook in me gleeful, and his insistent desire to try Ruru’s cooking, both out of genuine goodwill interest to try her cooking and selfishness, making that “mouthful of destruction” laser beam, as Magu called it (great translation by Dashiell, by the way), earned and a satisfactory payoff to the joke.

While I did say that not much progressed in characterization, even as I did point out what new information we learned about Naputaaku, I did appreciate that brief moment where we’re to assume Magu is going to eat Ruru’s lunch before the reveal that of course he didn’t. That moment of heightened tension before sentimental payoff worked for me without being unearned or schmaltzy. It helps, in between Magu’s temptation to eat the bento box and his delivery of the box, that we get something heartwarming with Ren and Izuma offering some of their meals. It does make me wonder why we didn’t see the others dining with the rest of their occult club (although, I have forgotten whether Kikyo and Yuika are in the same class, and seeing as we gave them a lot of attention in the previous two chapters, it’s not like they strictly need to be in this one).

I also appreciate the new color page for this chapter, not just for seeing what Nosu Koshu’s color scheme is but also my appreciation that Shueisha and its editorial staff continue to give attention to this series. That cookie video at the beginning of this post is just one of a lot of marketing Shueisha has done on YouTube to promote the series. I know the volume sales in Japan have not been what Jump readers think are enough to keep the series afloat, but I’m enjoying this series for how long it lasts. It fills a gap in what is needed for light reading, for gags, and for slice of life stories--all of which I hope continues to let the series fill some gaps in comics and, maybe if it gets an animated adaptation, in anime, too. After all, Restaurant to Another World just had its second season start this week, along with its manga now available at Crunchyroll, so I would not object to another series with some food stories, too. I still say a Magu-chan series animated like The Way of the Househusband would satisfy me, and now that we have this food chapter, it just makes sense thematically.

#magu-chan: god of destruction #manga review

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otterskin · 4 years

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A Rebuttal to a ScreenRant thing on Loki and the Thor films for no reason other than the catharsis similar to shooting at clay pigeons that aren’t even trying to fly

Don’t click on this but here’s the article - https://screenrant.com/mcu-things-make-no-sense-about-loki/

Ah, ScreenRant, my old foe...you hath fallen so far these past few years...time was you were almost legitimate, but once you were sold to new owners, you became a rag of thoughtless clickbait 'journalism', seeing plotholes where there none. Let's dance.

ScreenRant Text: (So you don't have to feed them clicks)

Loki is often considered one of the greatest superhero movie villains of all time due to his never-ending schemes and tricks. As Thor's adopted brother, Loki has always been jealous of the God Of Thunder. His animosity mostly stems from the inheritance of the Asgardian throne.

Loki was denied the throne because he is the biological son of the Frost Giant ruler Laufey. After being abandoned by his father, he was adopted by Thor's father Odin and raised as an Asgardian prince. While Loki's never-ending deviousness makes for great entertainment, there are a couple of things about him that make no sense.

We begin with a Bonus Round! Loki is considered one of the greatest superhero movie villains of all time for various reasons, but the 'never-ending schemes and tricks' thing is a little...lackluster. It's not exactly what I'd say made himso successful, nor is it particularly true, but this is a matter of opinion. I'll let it slide. This, however:

His animosity mostly stems from the inheritance of the Asgardian throne.

Untrue. Thor 1 even has him state explicitly that the throne was never an objective of his, which is something I liked very much about the character and that film. It didn't go for the boring, stereotypical, low-hanging fruit, but actually tried to give the character a bit of humanity and zigged when most characters of that ilk zagged. That's the actual reason people like Loki, IMO. He surprised people by being - gasp - interesting. His animosity comes from a variety of things, but to simplify, if I may get schmaltzy, it comes from his fear of rejection and abandonment, and of being seen as less-than.

Loki was denied the throne because he is the biological son of the Frost Giant ruler Laufey.

We are never told why he was 'denied the throne'. We can guess. We assume this is the case, but it also seems like a) as the elder son, Thor was always first to inherit and b) When Odin promised that both his sons would be kings, it seems likely that at one point he intended to install Loki as king of Jotunheim, but then changed his mind. However c) it's mentioned clearly in an older scene in the script that Odin and Frigga had hoped that while Thor was officially king, that Loki would essentially be sharing many of his duties and would wield substantial power.

I won't say this is 'wrong'. Loki, after all, claims it as the reason Odin didn't choose him as his successor. He may have been right. But we don't know that. Ambiguity is part of what makes films interesting, but apparently nerd media can never have a 'maybe' for an answer, sigh. This is a bigger problem than ScreenRant, so I'll let it go.

After being abandoned by his father, he was adopted by Thor's father Odin and raised as an Asgardian prince.

...this is what Odin said, immediately after Laufey tells us that Odin is a 'liar and a thief'....and then is proven right. Again, it's possible this is true, but we're also given reason to doubt Odin, and it's also possible Odin thinks he's telling the truth but is...wrong! Which he is about many things. It's something that makes him an interesting character. Ambiguity and interpretation. It's what makes you think about something long after the movie stops playing.

While I'm already disagreeing with SR here, this is more a fandom-wide problem of taking the text at face value only and reading the most shallow interpretation possible. However, stating that Loki's animosity comes from wanting the throne is in contradiction to what we've seen in the films, or at least a gross oversimplification. I award myself a half-point for that.

Points: 0 SR, 0.5 Otterskin

10. Unrealistic Survival

During the final moments of Thor: The Dark World, Loki became impaled and passed away in the strong arms of loving brother Thor. Dead? Not really. He was back in Thor: Ragnarok. Apparently, that was just one of Loki's holograms and the villain himself was very much okay.

However, recent history in the MCU proves that he holograms cannot be touched. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor even failed in his attempt to throw a rock at Loki’s hologram. But in the death scene, Thor just happens to be holding him comfortably. And given that rocks go right through a hologram, then any other hologram shouldn't have been stabbed either.

EHHH wrong. Yes, Loki's 'light' magic can't be touched when there's nothing else there. But, as we see also in Thor Ragnarok, it can be touched if Loki is inside it - say, when he's pretending to be Odin. Thor grabs his shoulders and holds him in place after throwing Mjolnir. Great moment. As for that wound....who says Loki wasn't actually injured? After all, the scene was filmed 'for realsies' at the time and a reshoot retconned Loki into surviving later...but that doesn't mean he faked the whole thing. It's also possible that Loki just plain survived, due to some unknown Frost Giant ability that perhaps he didn't even know he had. We've never gotten a clear answer. And yes, keeping up the pretense of his death is still 'faking his death', even if he was really fatally injured. So no contradictions there.

SR - 0, OS - 1.5

9.Poor Attempt At Trying To Kill Thanos

Before he was made to look incompetent by Thanos, Loki was a very intelligent villain. Catching and defeating him wasn't easy, and this was all thanks to his ability to create illusions at will. He used this trick very many times and it always worked.

But when Loki is trying to kill Thanos in Infinity War, the only trick up his sleeve is pretending to pledge loyalty to the Mad Titan with secret intentions of stabbing him with a blade. Of course, Thanos stopped him and killed him. Why didn't Loki use a smarter trick? More importantly, why didn't he use his tried and tested illusion trick?

Hmm. Plenty of people have complained about this, but I never had a problem. For me, the answer is simple: what kind of intelligent is Loki? He's not a mastermind. He's not particularly gifted at tactics. What he's good at is misdirection and manipulation. And, when he does it, it usually has some kind of terrible personal effect. When I saw this scene, I had no problems with it from a character standpoint. Loki is a character who thinks with his emotions and does things based on that, even if they aren't logical. It's his fatal flaw going back to Thor 1 and present in every appearance since. In this case, I think Loki was manipulating Thanos. Manipulating him to kill Loki. Probably because Loki knew that would mean he'd spare Thor. However, this is my interpretation, and you're allowed a different one, SR. We'll just disagree on this one. I leave it to the commenters to decide who gets this point. For now, I'll give us both a 0.5.

SR - 0.5, OS - 2

8His Evolution Into A God

According to the MCU, Loki's parents are the Frost Giants Farbauti and Laufey. Despite his parents not being gods, Loki evolves into the “God of Mischief.” How is this possible, given that he was only adopted by Asgardian parents who were gods, but he himself had no god lineage?

RELATED: 10 Loki Memes Only Real Fans Will Understand

For Thor, his god status is understandable given that his biological father and grandfather are gods. So, can one become a god even when they aren't directly related to any god?

...I don't even know where to start with this. First off, we do not know who Loki's mother is. In fact I don't think it's even in the comics. If you mean the myths, then Laufey is his Mother, not his father, and in many myths Laufey is in fact Às (Asgardian), while Farbauti is his giant Father. He would also have two younger brothers. This is not the case in the MCU. There's some evidence that Loki's mother, whoever she is, is not a jotunn - he has biological features the giants do not, and Sir Kenneth Branagh indicated in the commentary for the movie that he was 'at least part giant', which could mean 'only part'. Eh.

Next...have you not been paying attention? This whole character arc is about Loki finding out he's not 'a god' due to his blood and trying to figure out who he is without that blood. At the end, he embraces his identity and decides for himself to be 'God of Mischief' and 'Odinson' regardless of his bloodstatus, while also, if not exactly coming to terms with his heritage, no longer hiding or rejecting it. Yes, it's about him 'becoming a god' and always having been a god, reaffirming his identity and recontextualizing it. It's his whole...THING. And in fact, it’s the main thesis of Infinity War. It’s the challenge to Thanos, which he then accepts. Infinity War is Thanos’ ‘God Quest’, in which he endeavours to gain the powers of a deity. However, what being a ‘God’ meant to Loki is being ‘an accepted part of a family’. Thanos destroys his children in his quest to become a god. It’s an interesting contrast between the two ‘villains’.

Geezus, this is just being dense. And for the record, many Norse Gods and Goddesses are also giants, full-blooded and otherwise. Skadi, Goddess of Skiing, is my favourite goddess ever and she’s full giant. Her husband has very handsome and large feet, which is her preferred feature on a man. You know. To walk on snow with.

Two points to me for dealing with this nonsense. And a half a point for Skadi, she always gets you a half point.

SR - 0.5 OS - 4.5

7.Blue Hue

As the son of a Frost Giant, Loki was born with a blue skin tone. When Odin adopted him, he cast a spell that changed his tone from blue to white. However, Loki never seems to have an idea about his true skin color. Given his history of mischief, he has never attempted to change back either.

After, Odin’s spell to keep Hela far from Asgard ended in Thor: Ragnarok, his spell on Loki ought to have ended too. Or perhaps Loki has always been aware that he is blue. If so, then the confusion ought to be cleared up.

You know what? Point to SR for knowing Odin cast a spell on Loki and that Loki is blue (dabadeedabadie). We gotta throw them a bone, and that’s something other people forget or get wrong all the time.

As for the spell not breaking...Dr. Strange said it himself. A dead wizard’s spell is harder to remove. A spell falling apart in the event of the wizard’s death seems like a major design flaw. Can you imagine if other things worked like that? If a test was too hard, you could pass if you killed the teacher? Or if you locked yourself out of your house, all you had to do was track down the locksmith and murder him to destroy every lock he ever made?

I find it highly unlikely Odin would have been foolish enough to create a spell that would have failed upon his death. Hela was being actively contained, and even then she didn’t immediately appear upon Odin’s death. It still took her a minute to break free.

SR - 1.5 OS - 5.5

6Mind-Controlling Hawkeye Instead Of Fury

Loki found himself in the S.H.I.E.L.D. base after using the Tesseract’s portal to transport himself. One of his first tasks involves mind-controlling Hawkeye so that he can use him as security.

He also mind-controls Dr. Selvig to make him create the Chitauri portal.But it's strange that he doesn't mind-control the boss ,Nick Fury. If he had done that, everything he wanted would have been achieved more easily. Fury would have been his puppet and he could have used him to make the Avengers make regrettable decisions.

Honestly if he’d just walked into the UN it would have been easy-peasy, we can go down this rabbit hole until we end up in Oz. But hey, we’ll give this one to SR, as one of those typical ‘CinemaSins’ things that Alfred Hitchcock would reply ‘because then there’d be no movie’ to.

I would add that this is more Thanos’ plan than Loki’s, though, so we don’t know if that was ever an option the purple man would’ve allowed.

SR - 2.5, OS - 5.5

5Thanos Was Too Lenient Towards Him

Long before they became enemies, Loki and Thanos were associated. One of the instructions that Thanos gave Loki was to get the Tesseract as soon as possible, or else. Yes, there were stipulations from Thanos outlined to Loki by The Other. Loki was promised a kind of pain he'd never known before.

RELATED: 10 Best Recurring Jokes In The MCU

However, Loki wasn't able to deliver the Tesseract for more than six years, and nothing really happened to him. Given how ruthless the Mad Titan is, it's a mystery why he was so lenient towards Loki.

...interesting that being promised untold pain is related to recurring jokes, ha ha...not sure what that’s about.

I dunno, Loki got the most brutal and graphic death in the film, seems pretty un-lenient to me. Not to mention half the people he’d just saved were all slaughtered in front of him, making him responsible for Asgard’s second destruction.

As for why not sooner, Loki was living under an assumed identity for those 6 years as his own father, his death widly publicized as a popular play. I imagine Thanos caught a matinee or something. Let’s just call this a draw.

SR - 2.5, OS - 5.5

4Stopping Agent Coulson

During

Loki's invasion of Earth

Avengers

, he trapped Thor in a cage, and while he was talking to his brother, Agent Coulson tried to stage a surprise attack. Not so fast Coulson. It appears the God Of Mischief is also the God Of Anticipating. Coulson ended up shooting a hologram instead of the real Loki.But how exactly was Loki able to anticipate Coulson's arrival? Can he see the near future? If such is the case, why didn't he see the attack from Hulk coming? Why didn't he use a hologram during the beatdown that left him in a pretty bad state either?

These are getting weaker, not stronger, as we get to number one. Didn’t expect people to still be reading, huh? Guess I’m the real loser, wasting more time on replying to this than was spent writing it. Oh well.

Chances are Loki turned himself invisible and left a copy in his place before walking behind Coulson. Which he’s done before. Illusions and mind-tricks are his main power.

SR - 2.5, OS - 6.5

3Hatred For Thor

Thor has always cared about Loki, but Loki has always wanted to end his brother. During the events of Thor: Ragnarok, a flashback scene showed Thor and Loki during their childhood days. Apparently, Loki did plenty of bad things to Thor.He once transformed Thor into a frog, while he also transformed himself into a snake to fool Thor into picking him up. Thor loved snakes, so when he tried to pick the reptile, Loki transformed back to himself and stabbed Thor. Why was there so much hatred? According to the first movie, Loki used to love Thor. He only started hating his brother when he found out that Thor was going to be the Asgardian king.

Always wanted to end his brother? Where is that coming from? Because he stabbed him as a kid in Thor’s anecdote in Thor 3? These are Asgardian kids, I expect there to be five stabbings before lunchtime. Kids are practically given daggers as teething toys.

I’m guessing this writer has never been or met a pair of siblings. Why is there so much hatred? Gee, I dunno, maybe because ‘Thor won’t stop hogging the X-Box and it’s my turn, Mum, it is!’ I mean, brothers and sisters do terrible things to each other. They make each other eat dirt and bugs, push each other off the deck, cheat at chess, spit in their hair, hide frogs in their bed, you name it. Now upgrade that to the level of the gods and you got some real fun shenanigans, and several more centuries of time in your childhood to get up to even more mischief.

You can still love someone and turn them into a frog.

SR - 2.5, OS - 7.5

2Takeover Plan

Still, in the first film, Loki began scheming after finding out that he was adopted and he'd never become king. The God of Mischief assisted the Frost Giants in gaining entry to Asgard so that he could destroy the Frost Giant King Laufey before he could kill Odin.RELATED:

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Sounds good, but then Thor tried to feud with the Frost Giants too, and this didn't turn out so well for him. In fact, Thor was banished and dispatched to Earth because of this. It is thus strange that Loki thought Odin would like him for doing what Thor had done. Loki also waited for Odin to sleep first before trying to destroy Laufey. Wouldn't it have been better for him to try and do this while Odin was awake?

The order of events is all wrong. Loki did not discover his heritage until they went to Jotunheim, and didn’t hear the whole story until the Vault, at about the halfway point of the film. Yes, the film opens with him secretly helping the giants into Asgard to disrupt Thor’s coronation. He intended to goad Thor into going to the Bifrost to attack Jotunheim, and, as he says later to the W3 and Sif while their wounds are being treated, he hoped they’d be stopped there by Heimdall. However, Heimdall was more prideful than he’d accounted for, and that’s when they went to Jotunheim, which wasn’t the plan. Everything after that point is Loki improvising and reacting - it’s not so much a scheme as a scream, if you know what I mean.

Loki was unexpectedly made interim King while Odin was asleep and Thor banished. That’s a condition depending on Odin’s sleep and Thor’s banishment, either of which could end at any time, as Frigga tells him. She also tells him that Odin can see all of Asgard, even while asleep. Laufey reiterates this right before he tries to kill him. Odin also cries in his sleep, indicating he can perceive his children fighting on the bridge later in the film. Loki is putting on an elaborate play to demonstrate his loyalty to Odin and simultaneously sever his connections to Jotunheim, which he sees as a threat to his bond with Odin. He has room for only one father.

Were you on your phone when you were watching this movie? ...It’s okay if you were, but...man, you’re writing about this film, at least get the sequence of events right. It’s not a particularly complicated film.

I feel like I’m getting mean. Lose half a point for meanness, gain two points for two points made.

SR - 2.5, OS - 9

1Not Teaming Up With Hela

Loki and

Odin’s abandoned daughter Hela

had the same goals, but strangely enough, they didn't team up to make everything go smoothly. Given the kind of unity Loki had seen from the Avengers, he'd have been smarter enough to value teamwork more.When Hela arrived to take the throne and get revenge, Loki ought to have been the first person on her side. Her plan was basically a newer, small-scale version of his own plan in Avengers. Given his nature, it could have been more logical for him to team up with her then destroy her.

Same goals? You don’t mention them, though. I’d say their goals are entirely opposite. We see Loki’s rule contrasted with Hela’s quite clearly in Ragnarok. Loki withdrew Asgard from the other Realms (in my opinion, likely because he only has love for Asgard, and his interest in it and its people). He’s not interested in invading or enslaving or plundering (yes, yes, I know, Avengers, but that film was constantly making it clear that Loki wasn’t enacting his plan, but Thanos’, and he was being baby-sat by the Other to make sure he didn’t forget it. The stone was meant for Thanos, and we also know Loki wasn’t at his best self mentally at that time. He looked like he’d been chewing on coal and his skin had all the healthy pallour of a plastic bag. Compare that to Ragnarok, where he’s much more at ease and less...’my whole world has crashed down upon me’). Loki is like a cat in a sunbeam, happy to soak up praise, adulation, and acceptance from Asgard. Hela also wants those things - she’s upset when people don’t bow to her, that no-one remembers her, and that her cool paintings are gone. However, her solution to this is to kill everyone until she’s left with the people who are loyal to her. Loki’s was to create the play (which is either propaganda or much-needed Loki representation in the media, depending on how you view it), and convince people to like him. Hela demands loyalty, Loki wants love. Very different.

Her goal, of course, is to make Asgard great again, through conquest. Admittedly Loki did do something similar when he tried to flambé Jotunheim in Thor 1, but he did that for personal reasons, while Hela has a policy. Also, Hela wants Thor and Loki dead, and possibly was a large reason why Odin died (likely he was drained from imprisoning her). Loki loves Thor and Odin and does not want them dead; he also does not seem to want to be killed, at least by any hand not his own. There’s also the little problem of him being a frost giant, which Hela would likely not look kindly on (heck, original drafts of that painting depicting Hela conquering show her essentially enslaving the giants and forcing them to help build Asgard.) Hela isn’t looking for an equal partner. Loki wants equality above all else.

So no, no reason to team up.

SR - 2.5, OS - 10/10, a very good girl, here’s an invisible gold star

Aight, that was a great waste of time. But sometimes, you just need to refute every single point of something to feel better.

TL;DR: ScreenRant didn’t watch the movie(s).

#thor meta #screenrant response #waste of my time and yours #but I do feel better now

11 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

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The 21 Best Christmas Horror Movies

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Technicolor lights are about to illuminate every other home in the neighborhood; carolers are marching through the streets; even that old tree in Rockefeller is shining brightly.

For some folks, that’s enough to make you want to grab an axe. But don’t do that. Watch demented men dressed as Santa Claus or a demon Krampus indulge your Anti-Christmas sentiments with maximum gore. Indeed, this list isn’t about the most charming, heartwarming, or schmaltzy Christmas viewing traditions. Nah, this is about the 20 grossest, nastiest, and all around most fun Christmas horror movies. The kind where the greatest gift you’re going to get on Christmas morning is escaping with your life and maybe some psychological triggers whenever you see jolly men in red suits.

Yep, these are the very best Christmas horror movies. Ho. Freaking. Ho.

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Almost certainly one of the sweetest, most positive, and upbeat Christmas movies on the list is this wonderful feel good musical romance from director John McPhail, which also happens to be a zombie movie. It follows a group of friends in a small Scottish town who are just about to finish school and are making plans for the future when a zombie outbreak lands.

Incredibly catchy tunes which take inspiration from Buffy musical episode Once More With Feeling, mix with inventive festive kills – zombie snowman decapitation is a highlight – in a way that manages not to tonally jar. It’s mostly thanks to the super-likeable performances of the young cast, headed up by Ella Hunt, and the teenage troubles, romances, and heartbreak which form the backdrop of the movie. Paul Kaye also pops up as the school’s tyrannical headmaster – his musical numbers aren’t the best but he brings cartoon villain energy to an unusual but rather adorable Christmas horror that’s way better than you might expect.

– Rosie Fletcher

Better Watch Out (2016)

Home Alone is surely one of the most popular and iconic Christmas movies of all time, though it is not, of course, a horror. However, if it was, it would look something like Better Watch Out, a slick reinvention of the home invasion sub-genre. Olivia DeJonge plays babysitter Ashley, who attempts to protect her charge, 12-year-old Luke (Levi Miller), when they are threatened by intruders in his home. But all is not as it seems.

DeJonge and Miller spar beautifully in a movie which plays with gender and coming of age tropes and includes handfuls of gruesome set pieces, while Ed Oxenbould brings comic relief. This is clever, funny and gruesome stuff from director Chris Peckover which might not become a new Christmas tradition but should definitely be watched at least once.

– Rosie Fletcher

Black Christmas (1974)

Getting stabbed by a unicorn head to the tune of carolers singing “Silent Night” is probably not how you want to spend Christmas Eve. This pre-Scream holiday slasher claims its victims in a sorority house haunted by creepy phone calls (sans ghost mask), demonic noises, bodies eerily shrouded in plastic wrap, and one perverse killer whose voice alone is enough to freeze your blood.

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When an unidentified caller keeps harassing your entire sorority house with obscene things you can only half-understand (because he sounds like a deranged Donald Duck that laughs like the Joker), you should run even if it is 10 degrees outside. The blizzard of murders keeps raging with one victim dragged screaming by a hook, and another bludgeoned to death. Never mind the one suffocated by plastic wrap and left next to the window like the vacant face of a doll staring out into the night. You’ll hardly sleep in heavenly peace after this one.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out) (1980)

In his one and only film as writer/director, Lewis Jackson crafted a smart and clever black comedy that’s more character study than straight horror film. John Waters insists it’s a comedy about a closeted transvestite (of a sort), but it’s much more than that—it’s the Taxi Driver of Yuletide shockers. Brandon Maggart plays a man who takes Christmas way too seriously. His home is filled with bright holiday decorations all year-round while Christmas carols are playing on the stereo. Santa is his role model, a symbol of all that is good and just in the world. He even works at a toy factory.

He so identifies with Santa, he takes to spying on the neighbor kids, keeping his own carefully annotated naughty and nice lists. But when he recognizes the level of cynicism and hypocrisy among his co-workers, bosses, and the people around town as the most joyous time of the year approaches, well, he goes a little funny in the head. He reaches for the suit and beard and axe, determined to reward the good and punish the evil.

Maggart has since tried to desperately distance himself from the film, but he gives a remarkable performance here as a completely isolated figure with a head swimming with both joy and rage. In the end, the film remains king of the sub-subgenre. Screw It’s a Wonderful Life and Rudolph. Apart from Blast of Silence and Invasion U.S.A., Christmas Evil is the only holiday film I watch annually.

– Jim Knipfel

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

Admittedly, a number of horror-based Christmas movie have gone with the anthology angle for their storytelling. Hell, this isn’t even the only anthology film on this list. A Christmas Horror Story may not be on a lot of people’s radar, but it’s a worthy installment that goes to some unusual places purely because both the Christmas and anthology playgrounds have gotten so bloated at this point. This film also benefits from being executed by a cabal of directors who are responsible for directing some of the best horror movies to come out of Canada in passing years, such as Splice, the Black Christmas remake, and the Ginger Snaps trilogy.

A Christmas Horror Story deliciously uses a radio DJ (William Shatner) as the connective tissue that holds together the four stories that comprise the film. Parables on ghost possession, clone doppelgangers, Krampus, and zombie elves all get their due here. The film also has a pretty inspired ending that actually casts the picture in a whole new light. It’s got Santa Claus fighting Krampus. What’s not to like?

– Daniel Kurland

Dead of Night (1945)

Never play hide and go seek in a house where someone was murdered. While it might be best known for Michael Redgrave’s night-terror-inducing ventriloquist dummy scene that sparked the phobia of possessed puppets, Dead of Night also invites you to a Christmas party with a spectral guest. Spacecase Sally’s genuine terror at realizing what she thinks she saw is what she really saw will forever have you second-guessing shadows creeping in the cold.

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What is obvious in this scene—encroaching darkness and shadows looming over what a place you know is haunted without ever having to hear the big reveal—is hardly as chilling as what is not so obvious until the truth silently materializes. The ghost of the little boy plays hide-and-seek with the other children as if warm blood courses through his veins. Unlike many stereotypical see-through phantoms of the era, this one doesn’t have that telltale translucence which would set off a chorus of screams. Being almost disturbingly normal is exactly what makes him so terrifying.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Eyes Wide Shut was the non-denominational star at the top of Stanley Kubrick’s Christmas tree. Originally conceived as a Woody Allen vehicle, it almost starred Steve Martin after Allen insisted on reading the script from right to left. It is as much a cautionary tale as Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, bringing the whole family together with a different Christmas tree in almost every frame.

Kubrick pours on the cheer from the opening sequence at the Christmas party where the first gifts are unwrapped, and oh boy are they unwrapped. Bill Harford, played by Tom Cruise, dives right into the muffled spirit of giving after he performs a more than charitable deed for the party’s host, played by Sydney Pollack.

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Harford spends most of the film looking for the perfect gift like a slow motion version of Jingle All the Way, rushing around from New York City’s famous toy repository FAO Schwartz to downtown specialty shops, to the suburbs, where he can find collectors’ editions. Cruise pays Harford like a wooden windup toy, and not a particularly cute one, either. In spite of all the colorful lights and trips above and below the rainbow, Harford just can’t get into the Christmas spirit. He’s not even moved by the uplifting seasonal tunings of “I Want a Boy for Christmas” by the Del-Vettes. He recovers his seasonal facilities while humming along to the chant during the climactic illuminati sex party, though! The song is actually “Here Comes Santa Claus” sung backwards in Latin, adding more menace to the proceedings than Silas Barnaby brought to Toyland in The March of the Wooden Soldiers.

– Tony Sokol

Gremlins (1984)

Santa doesn’t exist… unless it’s your father in a red suit who met his untimely end trying to slide down the chimney with a sack of presents before getting stuck. Don’t tell that to the innocent bat-like ears of a harmless (for now) Mogwai. It’s exactly the kind of story you expect to hear while hunkering down in the shadows with a flashlight while a bunch of leathery green things with too many teeth ransack the neighborhood.

And as for Santa? That smell coming from the fireplace weeks later was no dead cat. Worst. Christmas story. Ever.

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This movie should be on every hardcore horror fan’s holiday playlist just for the musical monstrosity of those reptilian things decked out in Santa hats and earmuffs singing “Deck the Halls” at the neighbors’ door, sheet music and all. This is continuing proof that animals have a sixth sense, because her yowling cat senses something off about the voices warbling “Joy to the World” outside. She’s right to have an aversion to Christmas carolers.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Holidays (2015)

There have been so many holiday-themed horror films at this point—reaching Christmas and going far, far beyond that—so why not make an anthology film that takes that idea to the extreme? Holidays hits the expected staples such as Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day, but part of the fun here is how holidays with lesser expectations like Easter or St. Patrick’s Day deliver some truly horrifying content (seriously, the St. Patrick’s Day segment is disturbing, bonkers chaos).

The Christmas segment comes courtesy of Scott Stewart (Legion) and has Seth Green trying to survive the holiday as he attempts to get his son the perfect gift. Stewart’s installment feels very reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode with virtual reality, consumerism, and the dangers of mob mentality all playing their part here.

A lot of these anthology films also try to bank off of the name recognition and notoriety of the assembled directors, but Holidays proudly features a collection of mostly fresh faces (although Kevin Smith and Starry Eye’s Kevin Kolsch contribute segments). It’s fun to discover a bunch of new blossoming talents here.

– Daniel Kurland

Jack Frost (1997)

This ain’t the cringeworthy father/son bonding vehicle starring Michael Keaton. No, this is the Jack Frost where the killer snowman’s nose functions as both a killing tool and a device to sexually assault his victims. All square? But hey, at the least the film isn’t afraid to ride its ridiculous premise as hard as possible.

First of all, an actual killer named Jack Frost crashes into a truck of “genetics material” that causes him to transform into this cold abomination in the first place. That sets the tone pretty nicely for the abundant murders, sex, and plot holes that plague the town of Snowmonton (yup). It’s hard to believe that this film got made, with all of the visuals being some real spectacles that you don’t typically see in the horror genre.

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Jack Frost is the perfect Christmas horror film to shut your brain off and watch, or the title that you should be selecting right in the middle of your deep eggnog haze. It’s utter nonsense, but it knows that it is and has tons of fun with itself. We need more talented individuals trying to tap into the killer snowman subgenre. There’s still a true classic waiting to come to life here.

– Daniel Kurland

Krampus (2015)

Morbidly funny in its anti-holiday sarcasm and ridiculous demons, Krampus is like a mashup of the Griswolds, the Grinch, and every mythical beast that has ever been rumored to devour children on the naughty list. You’d rather get coal in your stocking than a killer jack-in-the-box jump scare… or find chilling hoof prints in the snow that are definitely not from Rudolph.

Krampus is one Yuletide monster actually worse than the Grinch. The grisly inspiration for this tale is a Germanic one about a hairy, horned, and cloven-hooved demon who stuffs naughty children in his sack and either beats them with a wooden switch or eats them (depending on who you ask). Also, his heart won’t grow three sizes from gorging on human flesh, either.

This version of Krampus is also hungry for anyone who’s lost their holiday spirit—whether or not you otherwise qualify for the nice list. Watch this with the lights off for the full effect of the power outage that works to the creature’s advantage as he goes hunting for holiday nonbelievers. Kids, don’t scorn Santa or Krampus will come to collect you.

– Elizabeth Rayne

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

There are some of us who know this movie verbatim and to the point where we will shamelessly break out singing “This is Halloween” and raise Jack’s quasi-Shakespearean monologue from the dead even in the middle of July. Or keep warning people that tragedy’s at hand. Or correct anyone who says there are 365 days until next Halloween by growling “364!” The stop-motion animation saga of the talking skeleton turned “Sandy Claws” bewitched an entire generation of ‘90s kids.

Even people who hate Halloween will stare with delight and awe when Jack’s skull bursts out of a snowdrift, and he first puts colored lights in his eye sockets and explores every “what’s this?” in Christmas Town like a spook in a coffin shop. You just can’t help but love the adventurous skeleton, even if he does end up making haunted houses out of people’s living rooms on Christmas Eve. Whether you’d rather be making Christmas with strangely somber carols, reanimated reindeer or toys that bite back, it’s now an officially unofficial holiday classic.

– Elizabeth Rayne

P2 (2007)

On the sillier end of the Christmas horror spectrum comes P2, a film named after a section in a parking lot, starring Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols. She’s a business woman trapped in a multi-story parking garage on Christmas Eve, he’s the insane Security Guard who’s obsessed with her and really wants her to try his festive eggnog, so to speak.

Camp and gory, this is the directorial debut of Franck Khalfoun who would follow it up with a remake of Maniac. The movie was co-written by Alexandre Aja who made one of the greatest cat-and-mousers ever in Switchblade Romance. The set up is formulaic, perhaps, but the game performances and relentlessness of the action makes this worthwhile. And if that’s not enough check out a deranged Bentley dressed as Santa, for the angel on the top of the Christmas tree.

– Rosie Fletcher

Rare Exports (2010)

There couldn’t possibly be a more sinister place to search for Santa’s ancient burial mound than in the frigid depths of Lapland. It’s the same supposedly enchanted place Dick van Dyke hiked to in the search for Santa in an ‘80s musical Christmas special, except this time you won’t find him in a cozy cottage with stockings hung by the chimney with care. You won’t find the guy in red from the mall, but anything that takes a disembodied pig’s head as bait couldn’t possibly be jingle-belling on a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer, especially when he seems to have a ravenous appetite for said reindeer.

This time, “the spirit of the season” is literally the most malicious Christmas spirit that has ever terrorized the Yuletide. Even if you watch the whole thing in Finnish and don’t understand a word except the screaming, the ghost of the child in you that really did believe there was a guy in the North Pole will be forever traumatized. This glaze-eyed zombie incarnation of Mr. Claus doesn’t laugh like a bowl full of jelly. You better watch out, indeed.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Santa Claws (1996)

You do have to wonder what happened to John Russo along the line. 30 years after co-writing Night of the Living Dead, he came up with this decidedly sleazy but sadly unoriginal wonderment, which was much more focused on boobs than Yuletide butchery. In what by that point had become a battered cliché of the Slasher Santa subgenre, a young boy named Wayne (Grant Kramer) sees his mom having sex with a man wearing a Santa hat (!), and so murders them both. I’m not exactly sure how this transference would work in Freudian terms, but when he gets older, he a) becomes obsessed with a low-budget scream queen named Raven (played by low-budget scream queen Debbie Rochon) and b) decides he’s Santa.

As you might imagine, stalking someone when you’re wearing a Santa suit is no mean feat, but Wayne gives it his best shot. Most of the film, however, focuses on Raven and her extended family as she gets undressed a lot and wonders not only why that creep in the Santa suit keeps showing up everywhere, but why everyone around her keeps dying in a particularly bloody fashion. It can feel like there are two films going on here, a by-the-numbers stalker/slasher movie and a holiday horror film, which leaves me thinking Russo had one of them in mind, but after some eight-year-old smarty-pants came up with that clever “Santa Claws” pun, well, he just had to run with it.

– Jim Knipfel

Santa’s Slay (2005)

Christmas can sure scare the Dickens out of people. Hence why you can’t not watch a holiday horror flick in which Santa is the Antichrist, sentenced to 1,000 years of delivering gifts after losing a curling match with an angel, and played by former pro wrestler Bill “Who’s Next?” Goldberg.

As the only son of Satan (you know what they say about rearranging the letters in that name) whose grim legend is immortalized in the Book of Claus, he can now at last spread Christmas fear with weapons, karate kicks, hand grenades, exploding presents, and his own perverse idea of what “Ho ho ho” should really mean. Them’s the breaks once the bet’s terms are done.

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Santa’s methods of murder are fiendishly festive—to say the least. There is no naughty or nice list when it comes to an insatiable appetite for violence. He even knocks out poseurs in red suits and drives a sleigh with a rocket engine like it’s the Batmobile. Mall Santas everywhere are shaking in their pleather boots.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Naughty children get punished with more than just a stocking full of coal in this Christmas chiller. Just the opening scene with all those empty-eyed animatronic toys haunting a window display after-hours should tell you that this is not a movie that’s going to end in visions of sugarplums. Forget that it’s supposed to be the season of all things magical. Those things can be more terrifying than every single plastic skeleton and gaping zombie mask you’ll ever see in a haunted house around Halloween.

You’d better watch out for that psycho in the red suit who grabs a hatchet off the wall as if it was his bag full of toys and packs an automatic pistol in his fur-lined pocket, murdering misbehaving kids he’s been watching undercover of shadow. This sadistic Santa clearly doesn’t believe in sliding down chimneys—and the only red he’s interested in wearing is the blood of innocents. If that won’t convince you to stay awake because he sees you when you’re sleeping, you must be Freddie Krueger.

– Elizabeth Rayne

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)

Three years after the shit-storm sparked by the original’s ad campaign, some smart cookie decided a sequel was necessary. A tough call there, given most all the principals were killed off pretty thoroughly the first time around, but still, right?

But there was money to be made, so they brought in an untested director (Lee Harry), a mostly untested crew, and a cast of mostly non-professional actors. After a half-dozen writers took a swipe at the script, they came up with a confounding but tepid rehash of the first film. This time around, and mostly in flashback, we learn that after the first killer Santa was sloppily dispatched at the end of Part 1, his brother Ricky becomes determined to uncover what went wrong.

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He pays a visit to the sadistic Mother Superior at the Catholic asylum where his brother had been kept, and before you can say “ho ho ho,” Ricky ends up donning the red and white suit himself to do a little rampaging, though without nearly half of his brother’s imagination. They even used the same fucking poster design, just slapped a “2” on it. I guess hoping they might raise the same sort of ruckus the first one had. Sadly, it was too late for that.

– Jim Knipfel

Sint (2010)

Dutch director Dick Maas took some early steps toward Krampus territory with his re-imagining of the legend of the warm-hearted Saint Nick. Borrowing heavily from earlier Italian, Spanish, and American horror films, as well as Danish folklore, “Sinterklaas” here was actually a bloodthirsty medieval murderer and all around brute who oversaw a savage reign of terror. Finally fed up with all his nonsense, the ornery local villagers banded together on the night of Dec. 5 and lynched him. As per tradition, however, in the moments before he died Sinterklaas vowed vengeance from beyond the grave, promising to return every 32 years on that very night to do bad and icky things to the villagers’ descendants.

Over the centuries, the story was mainstreamed and soft-pedaled, becoming part of the local folklore. The character of Saint Nick became much more benevolent and child-friendly so as not to scare the wee folk. Then, well, wouldn’t you know it? That anniversary creeps around again, Sinterklaas is true to his word, and Amsterdam turns all bloody, leaving it up to an intrepid teenager named Frank to put a stop to the mayhem.

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A stylish, wicked, and hugely entertaining take on the darker history of a beloved legend. It was also the top grossing film in Denmark in 2010, which either says something about the Danish film industry or the Dutch themselves.

– Jim Knipfel

Tales From the Crypt: And All Through the House (1972)

The Crypt Keeper first emerged as a ghoulish EC Comics horror host in the pages of Tales From the Crypt who crawled onto the big screen in this horror anthology, welcoming unknowing tourists to his catacombs with bony arms open. What the tourists don’t know is that they’re all recently deceased. The invite is to a subterranean story-time in which he unearths the gruesome details of their deaths with a gap-toothed grin. Creatures are obviously stirring when killer wife Joanne is stalked by a homicidal Santa in this warped homage to ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas titled (appropriately enough) “… And All Through the House.”

So it is that “O Come All Ye Faithful” is interrupted while playing on the radio by a scratchy warning of a homicidal maniac run amok. And wouldn’t you just know it, this occurs right as Joan Collins is offing her husband with a shot to the head—and then realizes she has to dismember the body before cashing in on his life insurance. Her blissfully naïve daughter lets the killer jolly old elf in, shrieking that Santa finally came before he erupts into psychopathic rage. Clement C. Moore must be turning in his grave.

– Elizabeth Rayne

The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Certainly less purely Christmas-y than other entries on this list, The Wolf of Snow Hollow is nonetheless a wintry delight set during the holiday season. Carols play ominously in the background during key moments, and the immaculately snowy white setting of Snow Hollow, Utah is broken only by splashes of color from lights on homes and Christmas trees. Oh yes, and the blood of the titular werewolf’s victims.

Movies

The Wolf of Snow Hollow Review: A Quirky Werewolf Movie

By Don Kaye

Movies

13 Must-See Werewolf Movies

By Mike Cecchini

Jim Cummings’ film is heavy on cozy, ski town holiday atmosphere without leaning on its actual Christmastime setting at all. But good werewolf movies are a rare breed indeed these days, and a werewolf movie set at Christmas? Well…now you know what to watch when the moon is full each December

Mike Cecchini

Got any other suggestions for Christmas horror movies that we missed? Let us know in the comments!

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themattress · 5 years

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CONCLUSION XIII

Rating the 13 Grand Finales of things I am or have been invested in that all occur this year.

Will be under a cut so that I may update it as the year progresses.

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Glass - End of the Eastrail 177 Trilogy

My take: Professional critics can fuck off, this movie was great. Was it perfect? No. There was no way it could be - this is Shyamalan we’re talking about here. Was it better than Unbreakable or Split? No. There was no way it could be - those were great standalone stories and this one is reliant on both of them in order to be effective. But in the end, it still did exactly what it set out to do: throw Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson and James McAvoy’s characters (and their “normie” supporting cast members) together to have a big, bombastic, entertaining time, and to deliver some thought-provoking analysis on comic book themes, characterizations and conventions. Despite the stupidity of the secret society that came of nowhere, I think the final resolution the film reaches is a truly deep and appropriate one.

“Change Your Mind” - End of Steven Universe’s original storyline

My take: This was excellent. Every single thing you could want out of a finale to the story we’ve been following since late 2013 is here: the Heel Face Turn of Blue and Yellow, the return of Bismuth and (with new outfits) Peridot and Lapis, every unseen Crystal Gem fusion showing up, Connie being her badass self, a Final Boss battle against the literal embodiment of the Great Diamond Authority, a nightmarish sequence confronting White Diamond in all of her terrifying glory, closure for Steven regarding his mother and her connection to him, Lars and the Off-Colors returning to Earth, and every corrupted Gem being cured all while Steven sings a solo version of “We Are The Crystal Gems”. It’s a beautiful, near-perfect conclusion, with the only big flaw being all those last pieces of resolution being quite notably rushed.

Also, a few points off for poor Steven getting a Happy Ending Override in the later movie.

Kingdom Hearts III - End of the KH Series’ Dark Seeker Saga

My take: In some ways better, worse, and the same as I expected it to be, but ultimately an inevitable let-down. With the ridiculous direction Nomura decided to take the series (turning everything into the Dark Seeker Saga and setting KH3 up as the conclusion of it), there was almost no way KH3 could’ve been good, and yet Nomura still managed to surprise me with just how bad his writing can be with the decisions made here. Hardly anything enjoyable about the game is connected to its actual story, which is a slap in the face that only stings marginally less than Dream Drop Distance did. The inexplicable way certain characters returned, the textbook fridging of the hero’s love interest, the underwhelming final battle and completely undeserved send-off to the Big Bad, the last-second twist wherein everyone except the goddamn hero gets a happy ending, and the headache-inducing implications in the epilogue and secret ending all served to drive the nail further into the coffin of what was once a magical and enjoyable video game series. Can any 2019 finale be worse than this?

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World - End of the HTTYD Trilogy

My take: This is a good movie, it just runs into the typical trilogy problem of the third/final installment being the weakest, which is a shame since it has the strongest villain. Too much about this story feels too familiar and reminiscent of what’s been done before, there aren’t any huge risks taken like there was in the first and second movies, and way too much time is spent on the weak romance between Toothless and the albino female Night Fury. The actual ending is also schmaltzy to a gag-worthy degree. I like the movie, but it could’ve been better.

Avengers: Endgame - End of the MCU’s Infinity Saga

My take: HOLY SHIT. If KH3 set the bar lowest for subsequent 2019 finales, then this movie set the bar highest. I don’t think this is the conclusion anyone expected to follow Infinity War, and yet I can’t conceive of anything more perfect than what I watched. All the plot turns, the character beats, and the fucking amazing action in the finale...it had me enthralled from start to finish. There are some minor faults and one major fault (two words: Black Widow), but on the whole this was one of the best finales I’ve seen in recent years, with a powerful sense of closure to the decade-long, 22-film journey that has been the MCU from Iron Man to now.

"The Change Constant” / “The Stockholm Syndrome” - End of The Big Bang Theory

My take: I think this was an OK finale, but I do think it had one glaring issue beyond how abruptly it concluded. The whole point at the end that Sheldon needs to not be so self-centered and acknowledge his friends kinds of falls flat when this whole finale is pretty much about Sheldon and no-one else. The other characters don’t have any individual arcs, they’re just there to support Sheldon’s. Even Penny being pregnant works around to being about Sheldon! I get that he’s the breakout character and all, but the series is still an ensemble show and its finale could stand to give the whole ensemble something significant to do. Ultimately, it’s also the most forgettable finale on this list, leaving little impact whatsoever. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected much more from a sitcom, but it’s still kind of a letdown.

“Cleaved” - End of Star vs. The Forces of Evil

My take: What the Hell was that!? On the whole, Season 4 is marginally better than Season 3, and up to this point its multi-episode finale event was better than Season 3′s (no bullshit like “Booth Buddies” or “Bam Ui Pati!” here). But there’s no other way to say it: it didn’t just fail to stick the landing, it stumbled and fell flat on its face. The plot thread about the big Solarian Warrior invasion (questionably masterminded by Moon) and the plot thread about the dark magic taking over the Realm of Magic (hence the Spell With No Name going rogue) never really fit together, many characters got screwed over in terms of making their final appearances (Ludo’s on screen for a only a few seconds, WTF!?), the decision to destroy magic being portrayed as justified completely ignores that doing so is basically committing genocide on all magical beings, and the ending where Mewni and Earth are “cleaved” together so that Star and Marco can be together is a textbook Esoteric Happy Ending. The summary for the episode said that Star “creates a lot of new problems”, but I didn’t realize that meant that the whole show would end with those problems created, with no solution in sight. And we’re just supposed to be happy that Starco happens, even though the writing for them as a romantic couple has been just awful. There were some good elements here and there, but overall I’m not a fan. The show ended where/when it should, but it didn’t end well.

"The Iron Throne” - End of Game of Thrones

My take: Well, that hypothetical question I posed at the end of my take on KH3 has been answered. This. Was. SHIT. I knew D&D were terrible writers and would never be able to stick the landing, but that doesn’t make it any less painful to witness. Daenerys jumps to being Dragon Hitler and gets killed in a treacherous way by her beloved Jon Snow - no final showdown with her, she just gets shanked. Drogon burns down the Iron Throne, only for the monarchy to remain - Sam’s suggestion of democracy is literally laughed off! Bran is named king, despite no build-up for it whatsoever. Brienne is still pining over men that don’t deserve it. Jon ends up right back where he started: at the Wall. And Tyrion just keeps on talking and talking but ultimately saying nothing of significance except reminding us that not even Peter Dinklage can sell this character anymore when he’s been made such a dumbass! Sansa as Queen in the North and Arya trading her life as an assassin for a life as an explorer were the only decent outcomes, but even they fall flat considering how the show “developed” both of their characters up to this point. This was not a bittersweet ending, it was just a bitter one that made the entire show essentially pointless in retrospect. It is 2019′s definitive bad finale.

“Their Last Bow” - End of Elementary

My take: Sheer perfection. While the focus on Sherlock and Joan was appreciated in the previously expected series finale at the end of Season 6, this one not only goes even deeper with that focus (the “I’m staying, of course I’m staying” scene emotionally wrecked me) but also remembers to provide satisfactory conclusions to other major characters who are an important part of Sherlock and Joan’s lives (namely Marcus Bell, Thomas Gregson and Jamie Moriarty). There are also two other details that the showrunners realized would make this finale the most effective it could be: first being that after the intense struggle against the terrifying Odin Reichenbach, this needed to be a far more subdued, peaceful and reflective affair, and second being that the characters’ conclusions should feel less like endings and more like new beginnings to ignite the viewers’ imaginations. Both are accomplished and as Sherlock and Joan open up a new chapter in their lives through re-starting their NYPD consulting detective career and the show’s theme music plays as the camera pans out, you really feel satisfied with how this show has gone overall. As I said, this finale wasn’t originally even going to happen, but I’m so thankful that it did because it blows the S6 finale out of the water and cements Elementary as a better modern-day Holmsian show than BBC’s Sherlock.

“Enter the Florpus” - End of Invader Zim

My take: Hey Arnold’s “The Jungle Movie” in 2017 was the long-time coming finale to a Nicktoon I always knew I wanted and was both surprised and delighted to get. Invader Zim’s “Enter the Florpus”, meanwhile, is the long-time coming finale to a Nicktoon I didn’t know I wanted, but am both surprised and delighted to get. It’s a short but sweet animated film that is full of energy, humor, action, freaky visuals, outstanding animation, and even unexpected heart. It not only manages to provide a satisfying conclusion to the show that preceded it, but it retroactively elevates said show, as now everything that had progressed since “The Nightmare Begins” was all building to something substantial, all of the quirks of the central characters you got to know paid off into some kind of growth (positive growth in the case of the Membranes, negative growth in the case of the Irkens), and a show that is well known for its tone of nigh-nihilistic misery actually achieves the happiest ending possible for it. “Enter the Florpus” is one of the lesser finales on this list from a technical standpoint (hard not to be given the circumstances), but on a meta standpoint it just might be the most impressive.

"The Ending of the End” / “The Last Problem” - End of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

My take: This one’s a very mixed bag. The climactic two-parter is probably the best we’ve had since Season 6, and it certainly isn’t light on spectacle, with a fitting final battle where damn near all of the Mane 6′s allies come to join them against the terrible trio of Lord Tirek, Queen Chrysalis and Cozy Glow. But on the other hand, those three as the Final Boss also feels like a big let-down to me and I suspect many others. Grogar was so well built up as a serious, menacing threat, an ancient evil unlike anything the Mane 6 have ever faced, and a great reinvention of an iconic G1 MLP villain, while the terrible trio was played for comedy most of the time. And yet in one fell swoop, it’s revealed that Grogar was Discord in disguise all along (a twist that does have subtle set-up, I’ll give it that), and these three Villain Decayed former Big Bads are the actual last threat to Equestria in the series. Really!? Then there’s the conflicting feeling of being glad that they don’t get redeemed (since that would suck), but also miffed that they end up turned to stone while Discord, the original recipient of that punishment and the one who caused this whole mess, gets off scot-free. I love Discord, but it was his own stupidity that caused Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy to even become threats again, taking them out of bad positions only to place them in an even worse one by the end. That is fucked up (as is Celestia’s continued insistence at dealing out harsh sentencing on a literal child!) And all in all, this two-parter has the same problem so many others have in that it can’t escape the shadow of “Twilight’s Kingdom”, which remains this show’s peak in quality to the very end.

With that said, the showrunners also did the same smart thing that Elementary’s did and have the actual final episode be a standalone: a quiet, peaceful and reflective story that jumps between the show’s present and its future as we see Twilight Sparkle finally take the throne of Equestria. This episode works a lot better than the two-parter that preceded it, with almost every character you would want to see again making an appearance in some way, all the important characters getting their definitive send-offs in how their future selves are portrayed, and a final song that is sure to bring many fans to tears as the book is literally closed on MLP:FIM, paralleling how it was opened at the beginning of the first episode. It may have been an incredibly bumpy way of sticking the landing, but at least they stuck it all the same.

“SM145″ / “SM146″ - End of Pokemon: Sun & Moon

My take: Another mixed bag, although this one’s slightly better since most of that quality comes from the direction that the preceding episodes went in rather than these episodes themselves. The problem here is that in between an intense attack on Manalo Stadium by several Guzzlords and an utterly jaw-dropping electric bout between Pikachu and Tapu Koko, we had three episodes dedicated to Ash vs. Kukui in a Full Battle rather than the initially promised 1-on-1 exhibition match against Kukui in his Masked Royal persona. Seeing “father and son” go all out against each other and have fun doing so is nice, but it drags on forever and is utterly predictable in how it plays out. The only important part is Ash’s Torracat vs. Kukui’s Incineroar, so in that case we could have damn well kept the 1-on-1 exhibition match!

And this creates a blatant problem in these last two episodes: the disappearance of Lillie and Gladion’s father Mohn was built up throughout the whole final year of this show, and given the nature of it seemed prime for a big Ultra Guardians mission to resolve it, which would have made sense to directly follow the big Guzzlord invasion. But because this didn’t happen, there isn’t much of a resolution at all. Magearna awakens and allows a way to track Mohn down, so Lillie, Gladion and Lusamine depart on a ship to go find him. Weak! Now, I do admit that despite my initial thoughts that the following series would be starting a newly rebooted / revamped / re-imagined / whatever continuity, it looks like that actually started with this very series, and given the nature of the next series there’s a very real possibility that we’ll see that plot thread followed up on and concluded properly there. That’s good, but I still would have much preferred it to be fully wrapped up here, because it feels like a missed opportunity.

But with that said, everything else about these final two episodes is perfect. It is hands-down the most emotional finale to any Pokemon anime series, as all of the characters must go their separate ways. For the Alolan characters, this parting won’t be for too long, but for Ash and Team Rocket it will, and they haven’t just made friends in Alola: they’ve made family. Ash is allowed to cry openly, something that would have been unthinkable with how he was written as early as three years ago in the XY&Z series. Each and every one of the characters involved feel truly human, which is what gives this finale a power that none other before it in the Pokeani has ever had. It reflects why, whatever its faults, Pokemon: Sun & Moon is truly the best, most consistently high-quality Pokeani series ever, and it ended on a high note.

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - End of the Sequel Trilogy & Skywalker Saga

My take: Did it top Endgame? No, since both the Sequel Trilogy and the Skywalker Saga have been nowhere near as organically grown, well planned out, and creatively guided as the MCU’s Infinity Saga was. However, it still comes closer than it had any right to. To put it simply, this movie IS Star Wars. In all of its strengths and weaknesses, its achievements and its follies, its roots and its growth. The sheer love that J.J Abrams and Chris Terrio have for this series is Palpatine, er, palpable, and there so many nods and thematic tie-ins to every previous film in the saga that it really does feel like the proper and inevitable conclusion it was meant to be. Against all odds, Disney/Lucasfilm pulled it off and gave us a great finale.

#Finale #Ending #Opinion

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arlome · 5 years

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Ask Game: 6, 30 & 36.

6) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why? Oh Dear… Yes….there was such a fic, written way back in 2003 - I think it was my very first fic - it featured a dreadful OC, horrid characterization and horrendous grammar. I deleted the hell out of it. For obvious reasons :)

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at? Yes, yes there is! It’s my only Mulan fic, ‘Dinner Would be Great’ and it is weirdly popular. It’s schmaltzy and yukky and sticky and I ardently dislike it. For the life of me, I can’t understand why it seems to be so popular. I have other, better stuff, people!

36) Can you give us a spoiler for one of your WIP’s? Hmmmmm, let’s just say that Dromos is going to be one happy camper in the next instalments of ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ :)

Thanks for the lovely questions, NOL!!

#ask game #notonelineff #lucifer #lucifer on netflix #lucifer fanfiction

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blurrypetals · 3 years

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Stand by A.L. Jackson - blurrypetals review

originally posted dec. 30, 2017 - ★★★☆☆

Finally, I'm at the bottom of this big dumb stupid rabbit hole that I began my descent into back in June, when I read Stay, then perpetuated from July through to August when I read A Stone in the Sea and Drowning to Breathe, then became so frustrated that same August reading Where Lightning Strikes that I immediately decided to re-read 28 of my favorite novels for my Greatest Hits Bookshelf Tour 2017 and avoid reading anything so shitty again, but somehow, earlier this month, I dove straight back into the metaphorical romance novel portal to hell from whence I came and read Wait and finally landed here. I genuinely do not know why I did this to myself. I really, genuinely enjoyed Stay and it will be an almost-treasured guilty pleasure of mine for a while, I predict. Maybe I kept throwing my empty, soulless husk of a body onto this literary pain train (and not the good or fun sort of pain that usually comes with these schmaltzy, melodramatic romances à la Colleen Hoover or Katie McGarry) in hopes that hey, maybe the next one will be as good as Stay was! The reality, of course, was that no, the next one was never as good as Stay. This (thankfully) final installment came the closest to making me feel the feelings Stay did, but the amount of absolute assholery Zee put Alexis through made me just roll my eyes. I also couldn't help but get stuck on how strange it was that Zee saved Alexis from a terrible crime, just like Willow saved Ash from a terrible death in Stay. It was also really obvious at a certain point that A.L. Jackson was just as tired of writing these melodramatic insta-love scenarios (as well as trying to cram in some "big reveal" that was always forced, dumb, or obvious) as I was in reading them. Also, it felt like Jackson got to drafting this book and thought to herself, "Oh, I called my series Bleeding Stars, didn't I? There's no reason for that name yet, is there? Okay I'm gonna make Zee and Alexis say the words STARS, BLEEDING, and BLEEDING STARS as often as possible. That'll justify something." Anyway good riddance I guess.

#stand #bleeding stars #a.l. jackson #2017 #goodreads mirror #blurrypetals

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biofunmy · 4 years

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Coldplay: one vital step for sorting out their carbon footprint | Rebecca Nicholson | Opinion

Coldplay fans are bereft at the prospect of being unable to see the band’s new double album Everyday Life performed out in the wild, after Chris Martin told the BBC that they would not be touring it.

Instead, the band will spend the next year or two figuring out how best to put on a “sustainable” and “actively beneficial” live experience that places environmental concerns above scale and convenience, addressing the climate-ravaging issues of flying and single-use plastic, for example, in the live music industry. The future they imagine is a para-, para-, paradi… oh, never mind.

In an era that sees celebrities criticised for speaking out about the climate emergency, then strung up again for flying to do so, of course it is Coldplay who are putting their money where their mouths are. I will not hear a word said against Coldplay. When actors use tear sticks to help them cry during emotional scenes, I wonder why they don’t just pipe in Fix You on a loop instead.

Coldplay’s later career has pulled off the impressive feat of bringing the aesthetic of a decades-old semi-illegal world music festival in the Midlands to a global audience. Chris Martin is a superstar, a stadium frontman who clearly loves being on stage in front of thousands, even though he carries the vibe of a GCSE drama teacher who can’t stop talking about his Monday night reiki course. I love Coldplay. I don’t see how anyone can fail to love Coldplay.

Coldplay’s vast money mountain should make the prospect of not touring an album a little easier on the financial front, even though playing shows is one of the only ways left for most musicians to make a living from music. As a result, it will be tougher for performers at a lower level to follow their example. However, Martin has already thought of that. “I think it is a question of just accepting that you have to do your best, not to be over-zealous in criticising others because everyone will catch up if you prove it is easy to do the right way,” he said. He’s the Elon Musk of carbon-neutral touring. Basically, trust him, he’s got this.

One of the biggest issues, when it comes to live concerts, is the audience. We are a huge part of the problem, comprising a significant proportion of a tour’s carbon footprint by simply making our way to the show. I like watching live music and so I want Coldplay to fix this. Here’s an idea to get them started. If Chris Martin stopped making guest appearances during literally everyone’s sets at Glastonbury, it might just be enough of a cut to save us all.

Dolly Parton: country queen unites the States

Dolly Parton, ‘a notoriously charming but ungiving interviewee’, Photograph: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Christmas has come early for Dolly Parton fans. Thanks to Netflix’s exuberant policy of commissioning absolutely loads of stuff, it has served up Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, eight really long episodes of drama, each adapted from a Parton song, with the source material of course including Down From Dover and Jolene (but sadly not Baby, I’m Burning – maybe season two?).

Parton introduces each one ,casing the entire endeavour in a retro jacket, and while it is predictably schmaltzy and spectacularly drawn out – these are stories taken from minutes-long songs, after all –it does offer the TV movie comfort of a Sunday afternoon under a blanket.

Better, though, is Dolly Parton’s America, the podcast hosted by Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad, which has been exploring how Parton unites a divided country. Abumrad has spent time with Parton, a notoriously charming but ungiving interviewee, and has spun it into gold as bright as her smile by speaking to family, friends, colleagues and, crucially, those most affected by her music.

The episode on her “Dollitics” expertly pulled apart the union anthem 9 to 5, while Jolene got an instalment of its own, and it is brilliant, informative and just about as entertaining as the legend herself.

The Vivienne: no drag paying the licence fee for this show

The Vivienne, centre, a worthy winner. Photograph: Leigh Keily/BBC

Congratulations to The Vivienne, the deserving winner of the inaugural RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, who walked away with the kind of underwhelming prizes that only the BBC could offer with a straight face: three badges and the promise of a “digital series” with the show’s producers.

Given the budgetary restraints, you’d be forgiven for thinking that might end up being an Instagram story, perhaps, at a push, a YouTube video. But no. The production company has already announced two follow-up series: The Vivienne Takes Hollywood and Morning T&T, which pairs the winner with her fellow finalist Baga Chipz, and has them reprising their Trump and Thatcher impersonations for a spoof talkshow.

The Vivienne was the perfect reality TV contestant and the inevitable winner. She started strong, coasted at the top, dipped to the bottom, learned her lesson, then got her game back right when it counted. She had a serious, sympathetic backstory and she went on that crucial journey. The only disappointment was the lack of surprise, because she’d been the clear frontrunner since episode one.

As a longtime Drag Race viewer, the format had been flagging. It started to feel like there were more series than RuPaul has had birthdays and, as a result, it was in danger of becoming too meta, more about the show than the people on it, with contestants constantly referring to previous contestants, the cultural touchstones eating themselves.

Drag Race UK has been a crude, smutty, utterly British defibrillator that has given it all a new lease of life. Its contestants were mucky, its drag more disruptive than one might have predicted and it provided one of the sweetest TV moments of the year, when Cheryl (formerly) Cole met her namesake Cheryl Hole. Now that’s the kind of wholesome family entertainment I want my licence fee to fund.

• Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist

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ericfruits · 6 years

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What life is like for ordinary North Koreans

THEY have vanishingly few opportunities to speak to foreigners and, even when they are allowed to, risk landing in a labour camp if caught saying the wrong thing. Yet North Koreans are full of curiosity about the outside world. On a recent visit, your correspondent was asked about the place of civil servants in capitalist society, about how Western manufacturers keep costs down and, inevitably, about Brexit. Any information about foreigners is highly prized. “We want to know how you think,” said one inquisitive local, “so that when things change, we’re ready.”

“Things changing” has seemed like a tantalising possibility ever since Kim Jong Un, the North’s leader, embarked on a diplomatic charm offensive earlier this year. In Pyongyang, where most people can access accounts of the rapprochement with America and South Korea in the state media, some are allowing themselves to dream. One woman said she wanted to go to Britain and South-East Asia. Another asked your correspondent to help her practise her French because she hoped to travel to Paris if the diplomatic efforts paid off.

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Yet hopes that Mr Kim will bring change, which were widespread when he took over from his father in 2011, have so far proved misplaced. Far from liberalising the country, Mr Kim has tightened the shackles, reinforcing the border with China to make it harder for people to escape and cracking down hard on offences such as possessing a flash drive loaded with South Korean soap operas, or owning a Chinese SIM card in order to make international calls near the border. (Ordinary citizens are not allowed to call foreigners within the country, much less anyone abroad.)

Pyongyang welcomes visitors with a relentless onslaught of murals, monuments and portraits of Mr Kim and his father and grandfather, who ran the country before him. Primary-school children decked out in traditional costumes sing songs about their glory. “Let us accomplish the programmatic task our dearest supreme leader Kim Jong Un proposed in his New Year address” runs one catchy slogan. Drivers have to slow down when they pass enormous bronze statues of the dead deities. Out-of-towners are compelled to wash their cars before crossing the city limits, lest they mar the capital’s aesthetic.

That aesthetic involves pastel-coloured apartment blocks, pretty flower-shaped streetlights and pleasant parks kept impeccably clean by residents. Work crews of middle-aged women dressed in bright orange can be seen at all hours planting flowers and ripping out weeds on the grassy verges around town. To those who can pay, the city affords a measure of material comfort, despite the recent tightening of sanctions. Restaurants offer pizza, pasta and sushi as well as semi-Western entertainment. At one restaurant the staff band performs stirring renditions of “Arirang”, a traditional Korean tune, and “Can you feel the love tonight?”, a schmaltzy duet from a Disney movie. Petrol and diesel prices have fallen by almost 20% after a spike in April, suggesting that China has relaxed its enforcement of the international sanctions that restrict North Korea’s oil imports.

Yet there are signs that even the showcase capital is struggling. Long-term foreign residents note that fancier restaurants and coffee shops look less busy than they did. (By contrast, grimy city-centre bars serving beer and cheap spirits are crammed even on weekday evenings.) Buses and trams, though gleaming, operate several times over capacity, with people hanging out of the windows and enormous queues at stops. In many buildings the lifts are mostly out of service and corridors remain dark, hinting at a less-than-perfect electricity supply (though some of the capital’s well-to-do get around the problem by installing solar panels on their balconies).

North Koreans are compelled to spend six days a week working for the state for meagre wages. Most get little choice in what they do, causing well-qualified people to complain of mind-numbing work with no prospects. “My job is just a dull waste of time,” says one woman in her 20s who works for a state-run firm. Asked about quitting, she demurs: “It’s not easy.”

Patriotic brick-laying

Young men have to spend years doing military service, which mostly amounts to hard labour on construction sites. Many young women work in factories far from home, where they live crammed into spartan dormitories. The only day off—Sunday—features group discussions about how output can be improved.

The workers in factories on the outskirts of Pyongyang are also permitted to visit the city on Sundays, in the hope of finding a local husband. (North Korean women are encouraged to marry young, often to a husband selected by their family, and are derided as “rotten fish” if they remain single in their late 20s.) But on the whole, personal life is restricted. Beyond contact with one’s family and colleagues, socialising is discouraged.

Only those deemed loyal to the regime are allowed to live in the capital. Life outside is far worse. The WHO says that 40% of the population is malnourished. Electricity and proper plumbing are rarities. Unlike in Pyongyang, people have fewer ways of getting around sanctions, which are starting to cause shortages of fuel and fertiliser, according to NGOs that work in the country. Agricultural technology remains primitive. Visiting experts say they still encounter farming equipment from the 1950s. Just beyond the city limits of Pyongyang, farmers are still ploughing fields with oxen; women carry big bundles of firewood on their backs. On the hills, anti-aircraft guns tower over the squat one-storey villages. News of the outside world comes mainly in the form of a weekly briefing from a party official.

And even in Pyongyang, Western and South Korean pressure groups attest, the deadening totalitarian system is as intrusive as ever. People are encouraged to keep an eye on the political reliability of friends, family and co-workers, and are rewarded for reporting misdeeds. Even minor infringements, such as perusing smuggled religious pamphlets, can result in severe punishment. Unguarded remarks about the leader or one of his predecessors may lead to banishment from Pyongyang or, in more egregious cases, being carted off to a prison camp—sometimes with one’s family in tow. The UN estimated in 2014 that between 80,000 and 120,000 people were held in such camps, where torture, indiscriminate beatings and starvation are commonplace. The number seems to have stayed roughly constant since then. No wonder North Koreans are curious about different ways of doing things.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Pastel-coloured penury"

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vitalmindandbody · 7 years

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Top 10 volumes about middle age

Finding work that meets this difficult theatre of life with honesty and wisdom is not easy but these novelists demo it is feasible to done

When I started working on The Middlepause, I was desperate to read books I could learn from and insist with notebooks that would father my own, so that I could duly rebel against them. Id been sloped immediately into menopause, the result of undergoing a hysterectomy, and as I clawed my road back to health, I hungered for fresh alternatives, new pathways, the promise of hope.

What I experienced, predominantly, was self-help. Books with frivolous upbeat designations, like Fifty and Fabulous, or Fifty Is the New Fifty, which transactions in stock rebuttals and easy certainties, when what I missed was smart questioning. They assured me that middle age “couldve been” the right time of my life, if only I was smart enough to recognise it. I knew better. I knew that middle age was frumpy and schmaltzy and complain, that our hormones razz rollercoasters; that we thrill to adulterous affairs; that in midlife “were losing” parents and sometimes friends and find as if our identities are melting its why we cry over empty nests, fus over our truncated futures, accept explosions and breakups and mourn our disappearing youth.

For middle age to be genuinely transformative we need to change the script scrutinise our mistakes, admit sorrow and bitternes, confront personal neglects. Then we have to rub this catalogue of hurts into more textured and grown-up self-knowledge.

The volumes Ive picked here were, for different reasons, milestones on that passage for me. They weighed the depredations of ageing and loss against the speculate of self-acceptance. I read think, because emerging into a new appreciation of oneself is the hardest thing to do and yet its internal, essentially metabolic. And from the outside gazing in, it is invisible.

1. In Our Prime: The Invention of Middle Age by Patricia Cohen( 2012 ) An attempt to write the biography of an idea. Mostly its a social history, from the mid-1 9th century for the purposes of this, but augmented by fascinating detours through scientific and psychology. With baby-boomer upswing, Cohen contends that middle age is a malleable cultural fiction, currently being rewritten to account for detections showing that the middle-aged brain actually ripens, or that happiness contemplates point to a rise in reported high levels of gratification in midlife. The notebook is a tonic, a boon and a placebo.

2. Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas( 1846) In this sequel to The Three Musketeers, Dumas makes his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with period, the nastines to both men and the forces of record. Older now, the musketeers have to deal with their physical fragility and the difficult accommodations that ageing delivers , not least the foreshortening of their scopes. I cherish the moment when Athos clunks himself down on a stool, the feather in his hat still sprightly, and complains about his weary bones.

3. Break of Day by Colette ( 1928) I dont known better I could have altered 50 without such notebook. It is my charm for midlife an joyful and rapturous paean to the unsung exultation of regal solitude and monkish self-sufficiency. Its cheeky, very, featuring a semi-autobiographical Colette who at the start of the book am of the view that she has renounced passion, exclusively to expend much of the novel flirting outrageously with a much younger suitor.

4. Force of Circumstance by Simone de Beauvoir( 1963 ) Part gossipy diary, segment thoughtfulnes on postwar Paris and her working life as a columnist, this final instalment of De Beauvoirs autobiography testifies to how unruffled and grownup she is in contrast to the still-volatile, ego-driven philosophers, the authors and artists with whom she hangs out. Theres a ringing confidence here that comes with self-knowledge, mixed with its determination to forgive her past mistakes. Formerly upon a epoch Id have misread this volume: now its exercises imbue, seeding allay and acceptance.

5. Brown Sisters: Forty Years by Nicholas Nixon( 2014) This work is quietly epic. It features portrait images Nixon took of his wife Bebe and her three sisters in the grounds of their Connecticut home, and in various locations in Massachusetts. The word-paintings start in 1975, when the sisters were aged between 15 and 25. Every year, Nixon took another photograph. The serial catalogues the sisters ageing. You see how occasion has worn pipelines into their facets, but also softened them; how they appear to have grown closer over the years, with age strengthening the bonds of attend. You wonder at the differences among relationships between the sisters. But principally you marvel at how lifes magnificent expedition can be contained in the details of the everyday.

Nicholas Nixon talks about his epic photographic assignment

6. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan( 2010 ) Egans novel is a kind of madcap gambol through four decades, told by a dozen references on the run from their younger egoes including a stone sun organising his final suicide tour, and a disgraced PR commissioned to create a soft-focus makeover of a genocidal tyrant. The comedy is deadpan, but Egans take on ageing is brutal: get age-old, she recommends, is like being beaten up by a gang of thugs. 7. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner( 1926 ) This is a novel about conversion, inwardly channeling and then outwardly refracting womens freeing during the interwar times. Its heroine Lolly Willowes morphs from a maiden aunt, is dependant on the largesse of her city-dwelling brethren, into a wayward voodoo living independently in the urban wilderness where she enters into gathering with the demon. Women know they are dynamite, she tells him. 8. Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing by Lynne Segal( 2013 ) Segals gentle and sustained booking with Simone de Beauvoirs numerous writings about ageing gives a rich read that fires in multiple directions, ricocheting off psychoanalysis, literature and feminism. The volume is intensely personal, but at the same age weighs how feminists have fared in redefining culture attitudes towards ageing.( Spoiler: not that well .) 9. In Midlife by Murray Stein( 1983 ) What better than a Jungian guide for midlife? The central meaning here is that surmounting the midlife hurdle involves breaking down the persona or untrue self that we cling to in our youth. This should secrete our shadow selves from the dungeons of repression, and behind that, the contrasexual other( the animus for the status of women, the anima for a mortal ). It chimes vaguely gothic, and also destabilising, which is what it should be; for according to Jung, midlife is a zone of transition.

10. Maximising Manhood, drumming the Male Menopause by Dr Malcolm Carruthers( 1996) This notebooks the odd one out, although it was had its own various kinds of affect. Nudged into writing by Gail Sheehy( she of Passages fame ), Carruthers calls for the coming into effect of TRT or Testosterone Replacement Therapy, to bar gentlemen slumping vigour in midlife. A mirror management for a mirror condition? Or a bloated crate of nonsense? Perhaps the evidence comes when Carruthers suggests that this Hormone of Kings King of Hormones ought merely to be given to menopausal women around low-toned quantities, in case their libido may become excessive.

The Middlepause by Marina Benjamin is published by Scribe, priced 14.99. It be addressed to the Guardian bookshop for 12.74.