#I just think annie deserves the world and a boyfriend with a nice ass and I'm willing to bend reality to make it happen

[aruanimess]

ping-ponging wildly between Armin has no ass and Armin has some nice tight buns for Annie to squeeze and/or bite

[smallblip]

You asked, I deliver! Part II of Accidental baby acquisition💖 I lost one of the asks 😩 but anon who asked about baby Udo, I named the baby in your honour! Saddle up cowboys! I’m not good with sequels but here we are-

Babygate:

the scandal that implies that a certain boy band member cheated on his partner (another band member) and had a kid even when the mom was never pregnant.

- urban dictionary

—

Reiner thinks things are alright. Life is definitely picking up. Pieck still sends him excerpts of her dirty fanfiction to proofread, Bertholdt is still doing all he can to “retire at 30”, Annie might have eloped with said boyfriend. But he’s seeing Porco on the regular now, he’s really cute, he’s got a nice ass. Reiner can’t complain.

He’s also recently donated his Levi Ackerman standee. Only because it’s getting increasingly hard to reconcile the fact that he has a life sized cutout of his colleague’s boyfriend in his room.

What he can complain about is said colleague (and friend) dropping bombs on him. He’s one of the moderators of one of the bigger No Name servers. Sometimes he wonders if that’s a conflict of interest because, well, he knows the guy on a first name basis. But today he has other concerns. He sees his notifications blowing up and decides to go on the No Name server. And lo and behold. There’s a paparazzi shot of Levi and Hanji with a stroller taking a walk in a new channel called “MYSTERY FAMILY?”.

He cancels his plans with Porco. “Don’t text me for the next few hours, got a fire to fight.” He clicks send, and feels kinda bad, so he sends Porco really dank meme to appease him. (That doesn’t stop Porco from doing exactly what Reiner told him not to do and demanding an explanation every five minutes).

He forces himself to take a deep breath before texting Hanji-

“Hanji… I don’t mean to be rude but���

WHAT THE FUCK?”

—

So here begins babygate. A conspiracy theory that took the Internet by storm.

“Levi Ackerman had a secret marriage! He was keeping this from us from the start!”

“It’s a publicity stunt to keep No Name relevant during their hiatus!”

“It’s an elaborate scheme by the company to punish Levi for announcing the hiatus without their knowledge!”

“Levi’s mystery partner was sent by the lizard people to take control of his mind and produce half-lizard, half-human hybrid babies to take over the world! What a bitch!” (This is Hanji’s favourite).

And the internet’s favourite- this is all an elaborate scheme to cover up the scandalous love affair between Levi and Eren- the band’s guitarist.

“What the fuck?” Levi had said during dinner once, to which Reiner had to swallow his food and pretend he never read or actively looked up ereri content. Yes. Reiner knows the name of their ship.

Levi hadn’t been too worried before, but when pictures of them shopping for baby stuff leaked online, something snaps. Something snaps and Erwin tells him he needs more time to figure out the biggest PR crisis in No Name history.

It’s Levi. Levi is the PR crisis.

So in the meantime, no shock reveals, no more social media, (if possible) no more leaving the house with pregnant girlfriend in tow. “Don’t do ANYTHING.” Erwin had said, “especially not you!” Erwin had directed that at Eren, who suggested he makes an announcement. Erwin shudders. He remembers all the past scandals they got themselves into just because Eren, bless him, didn’t know when to shut up.

“I’m sorry…” Levi says to Hanji when they’re cuddled up on the couch watching a documentary on whale migration.

“Huh?” Hanji says, voice muffled through her incessant sniffling because “whales are delivered tail first, Levi! They wear their mothers like hats!”

He apologises for putting her through the mess that is him and his job. And Hanji smiles at him. He wonders if their kid will look like her. He’s hoping they would.

“Levi…” Hanji sighs, taking his face in her hands, “that night at the bar I thought to myself ‘this man has a face I would risk it all for’… I think this counts within the realms of ‘all’”

Levi scoffs, but a smile is threatening the corners of his lips. Erwin’s nagging over the phone fades a little and he sinks a little lower into the couch. He sighs one more time for good measure before saying-

“So… you wanna know which my favourite babygate theory is?”

—

“And you’re really not bothered by all this?” Reiner asks, in an emergency meeting that he had scheduled into her calendar. He hates that he’s packing things into her already busy schedule when she’s about to pop but, he figures it’s better now than when the baby’s actually out. He had booked a meeting room and everything, figuring if he projected some of the crazy shit they’re saying on the fan boards up on screen, Hanji would start taking this seriously. Because if Reiner knows anything, it’s that the fans will do anything to keep their ship afloat.

He scrolls past another post on the lizard people and Hanji gets him to pause.

“I mean… A little?” Hanji pinches her fingers together.

“Hanji…” Reiner sighs, “you and Levi discuss and rate babygate conspiracy theories you find online I don’t think you’re taking this seriously at all…”

Hanji looks at Reiner- an absolute state of panic. And she considers panicking for a moment. She’s read articles dissecting babygate and although they’re absolutely batshit, Hanji appreciates how well-researched they are. Which is a little scary. To be fair to Levi, he’s been trying to get her to worry. “I can’t keep you safe all the time, you have to be careful” like he’s going off to war somewhere. But it’s not in Hanji nature to worry about things like this. She’s a researcher at a lab who lived an ordinary life up until the point the universe hit her with a-

Sike! Levi Ackerman is your baby daddy! What are you gonna do about it?

And now she knows what headcanons and lemons are, and she really doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge. So Hanji decides, she’ll do nothing. She’ll go on indulgently long walks Levi in tow, she’ll talk his ear off about work. And like a good girlfriend, she’ll listen to his demos (and enjoy them) and tell him “are you sure anger rhymes with danger?”.

“I don’t really know how to worry about anything beyond our samples getting contaminated…” Hanji says, sheepish. Reiner sighs. He doesn’t want to be a wet blanket on Hanji’s life. He wants to be fun Reiner. Cool as a cucumber. Reiner who manages to make it through dinner at Hanji’s without having to excuse himself to hyperventilate in her bathroom because Levi is right there. And he’s so afraid that he might just be able to read his mind and find out he had looked up Levi Ackerman x y/n fanfiction once in his foolish youth (youth being approximately four months back)

Reiner shudders.

“Yeah okay… That’s um… That’s cool… Right?” He says.

Hanji shrugs.

—

So Levi Ackerman is your baby daddy. Now what?

You go into labour of course, with a matter of fact- “oh. Look Levi. The water broke.” All while refusing to leave the house until you demolish that amazing sandwich he made for you. You go into labour and you yell and grunt like a beast as you squeeze the life out of your baby daddy because he kinda deserves it. You both kinda deserve this pain. Take it as heavenly punishment for being horny and stupid if you will.

And in the middle of it Hanji thinks huh, this feels like a mix of a reality TV show from MTV and a badly written fanfiction. Except Hanji isn’t a teen mom and she’s too old for self-insert fiction that involves a lead singer of a popular band.

But Levi is here, and he doesn’t complain one bit even though he looks like he’s about to pass out. So as far as drunken one night stands go- this is pretty damn aspirational.

The baby enters the world with a huge cry.

“Kid’s got a huge set of lungs…” Levi says, but his own voice is quivering.

“Just like her dad…” Hanji smiles.

As he watches Hanji fall asleep with their baby on her chest, Levi thinks fuck it. Fuck keeping this under wraps. Fuck the fans and them enjoying how Eren gets on his nerves. Fuck Erwin and his “Levi. You’re giving me a headache. You are the cause of this headache.” Because the baby has Hanji’s nose and his eyes and he loves them more than anything in the world.

He snaps a picture of them and tags bigdaddyzoë-

“Welcome to the world, my love.”

—

Reiner can’t help the tears that well in his eyes after seeing the picture Hanji had sent him of the baby-

“He says hi to his favourite uncle!” Was the caption, and Reiner could only reply with a crying cat meme and an incoherent text that Hanji favourites.

He’s on the bus on the way to the hospital when his phone buzzes incessantly. It’s Porco.

“REINER WHAT THE FUCK.”

“LEVI ACKERMAN IS HANJI ZOË’S BABY DADDY?”

“HANJI ZOË MY PHD SUPERVISOR?”

“LEVI ACKERMAN OF NO NAME?”

“REINER WHAT THE FUCK?”

He sends a reply at the entrance of the hospital-

“Welcome to my world”

—

Reiner thinks things are alright. He’s one of the moderator of one of the bigger No Name servers, so he can block and remove people at his discretion. Some days he lets it get to his head. It makes him feel like a king. But today, he’s putting out fires.

Erwin decided their PR strategy was absolutely no strategy, because “they’re zooming in on the pixels Levi. Once they doubt the pixels, they won’t believe anything we’re saying”. With that. Babygate has officially taken on a life of its own. Eren still sends Levi babygate articles to annoy him, and to Hanji because she asked very nicely. Hanji thinks Erwin’s strategy makes sense, Levi thinks it’s just lazy. But Erwin framed a certificate that says “survived a PR crisis (sort of)” that Hanji had insisted be hung up on their wall, so that closes one chapter. Besides, Eren has been spotted going out on dates with a mystery girl. Which has the double effect of diverting attention away from Levi and exacerbating babygate because “see? Told you the company’s doing all they can to prove they’re not together!”

“Can’t you keep it in your pants?” Levi had thrown at Eren, to which he had responded cleverly with a-

“Could’ve said the same for you!”

Touché…

“See? That can’t be Levi! Look at how he’s smiling!”

“That can’t be a baby! Looks like an animatronic to me!”

“Do they even make animatronics that realistic?”

Reiner pins his “no slander” rule- one day they’ll get it. Or at least he would’ve gotten rid of all the people that don’t.

“Who’s this bigdaddyzoë anyway?”

“Maybe she isn’t real? Company probably invented her…”

“Heard she’s a crazy groupie who got knocked up…”

“Heard she’s hot…”

… several people are typing

—

“So… I heard from Reiner you were defending my honour in the server?” Hanji quirks an eyebrow.

Levi shrugs. Whatever goes down in the server stays between Leviackerman173810 (leviackerman and all 173809 permutations of said username had already been taken) and the hundreds of people who haven’t quite figured out he’s the real deal. Besides, Erwin has issued him three warnings so it’s best to lay low for now.

“My hero…” Hanji chuckles, pressing a kiss on Levi’s head. Below them, baby Udo wriggles and yawns against the fabric of Levi’s shirt. Cute.

So Levi Ackerman is your baby daddy. Now what? You look at your son and know he’s going to break hearts like his father of course. And if you’re Levi, you pray to god he never asks about babygate because Hanji has read up enough about it to be considered a connoisseur.

One day the internet will break when they find out the identity of bigdaddyzöe. But for now baby Udo has his parents wrapped around his tiny fingers and he doesn’t quite understand the concept of him being the spawn of every typical band member x y/n fanfiction. Or the centre of a very popular, very absurd, yet strangely believable internet conspiracy theory. Or the canon plot that has sunk one of the biggest No Name ships. And that’s okay.

[sincerelyreidburke]

Taddy drabble!!!!!

Okay, remember this post from yesterday about how @hockeysometimes and I accidentally created 3 OC tadpoles for the frogs’ senior year? I accidentally ficced. And it got sort of long.

May I present, tadpole number one: Sebastián “Nando” Hernandez!!!! This started because I said, you know what, there should be a baby gay tadpole when Nursey and Dex are seniors and then they love and cherish him like their adopted child. Thus Nando was born. As promised, I’ll make a post telling you more about Nando and his fellow two tadpoles soon. For now, have this sickeningly soft random fluff, in which Nando comes across some gay shit going down at Annie’s between his captain and said captain’s assistant-captain-slash-best-friend.

Nando loves his classes.

He picked his schedule last spring, at the Samwell admitted students day, and, like, okay, he was a little nervous about it, because how are you supposed to pick classes for a major that determines your job for the rest of your life when you haven’t even graduated high school yet?— But. He did a good job. Because his freshman fall semester schedule is the shit.

Tuesdays are the best, and today is Tuesday, so his spirits are high. He gets out of Soc 101 at 10:30, and he has an entire, like, six hours before he even needs to start thinking about hockey practice. Hockey practice is one of the best parts of any day, by the way, because he gets to see his friends.

He can’t believe it. It’s the middle of October, and he still can’t believe it. Walking across Samwell’s main quad after class, he takes it all in. He’s really here. He’s really in college. He’s almost two thousand miles away from home, and he misses Mama and his sisters a whole boatload, but he’s here. He’s in college, and he’s studying sociology, and he’s playing D1 hockey, and he’s not sure he’s ever been happier.

He’s in such a good mood today, actually, that he thinks it necessitates Annie’s. He’s only been at Samwell for two months, but already he’s perfected his order. They make a mocha frappe with cinnamon that’s honestly the drink of the gods.

Okay, he reasons with himself. Annie’s it is. And then homework. Later. But first, Annie’s. He deserves this.

He’s going to gain his freshman fifteen solely because of Annie’s.

And then Dex will kick his ass. Nando isn’t scared of his captain, exactly; he’s been in enough settings with him to know that Dex is a really nice guy, and he’s been instrumental in welcoming Nando to Samwell. But he’s also seen him on the ice, fiercely debating linesmen on bad calls and getting in scuffles and doling out checks to the members of opposing teams with particularly hateful chirps. He’s a great leader. Nando just isn’t so sure he’d want to get on his bad side.

He just. He really wants to impress the seniors, okay? They’re, like, the coolest guys ever.

Nando reaches into his pocket for his phone, but there are no new messages. He checks his thread with his boyfriend, but Nate left him on read at 9:21 this morning and hasn’t gotten back to him yet— which he never used to do, really, not before Nando left for Samwell. He’s trying not to read into it too much. Nate is busy, after all. He’s at U of Arizona, much closer to home, doing big things. He doesn’t have as much time to text, and that’s okay.

Or— at least that’s what he’s been telling himself.

It’s okay. He tucks his phone away. Nate will get back to him eventually. Even though the gaps between his replies have been getting larger… and larger… and larger.

He knew coming to college with a long-distance boyfriend would be hard, but. Jeez.

His team doesn’t know about Nate. Not really. He would be lying if he said that his decision to come play for Samwell wasn’t influenced at least a little by Eric Bittle and the 2016-17 team, being in the news so much for the first openly gay NCAA captaincy. He was reading the stories before he even got his acceptance letter. He’s not sure he’s ever felt more inspired by another hockey player.

And besides, this is Samwell. It’s one of the queerest colleges in the country, on top of the hockey team’s reputation for acceptance. So really, he shouldn’t be afraid to tell his new teammates he’s gay.

It’s just. Hockey is hockey. And Eric Bittle graduated.

He has some surviving memories from, well, an entire childhood of being a queer, Latino hockey player, and it wasn’t a fun time.

He’ll get there. Eventually.

And besides, he tells himself, he isn’t worrying about that today. Today he’s going to Annie’s, and getting a frappe. The sun shines on his face, and the trees are turning every color.

It’s a good day.

*

Nursey loves his boyfriend.

For a number of reasons, but especially right now. He’s about three sweet-talking sentences away from getting Dex to share a bite of his French toast. They’re tucked into the corner booth at Annie’s— their booth, really; they’ve staked a claim to it every time they come here ever since they got back to campus for senior fall. It’s tiny, and barely spacious enough for two 6’2 hockey players to squeeze themselves into, but Nursey sits across from him and their knees press together under the table, and all is right in the world.

“Look, babe,” Nursey says, spreading his hands out on the table. “All I’m saying is, that little crust right there with the powdered sugar—” He points to the bite of toast in question on Dex’s plate. “I’ve got my eye on it.”

Dex rolls his eyes at him. There’s a smile on his freckly face, and in the warm light of the dining room, he’s every autumn color imaginable, fiery red hair to plaid, maroon button-down to amber eyes like pools of sunlight. For the past three years, Nursey spent his entire friendship with Dex trying to train himself not to stare, to rid himself of the wants for a boy he never thought he could have. This summer, that changed. Now he can have him, does have him— so he can look. Why not look?

Dex is a fucking catch.

He’s pointing with his fork toward Nursey’s own plate. All that remains of what once was there are a few whole-grain breadcrumbs. “I don’t know if you’d noticed,” Dex says, “but you had your own food.”

“Will,” Nursey groans. “I’m still hungry. I just want to taste it.”

Dex cuts into his last stack of toasts, and Nursey glues his eyes to them. Annie’s does French toast right— brioche bread with just the right amount of egg wash, pan-fried and then dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with syrup. Nursey is pretty sure his mouth is watering.

And Dex is right. He did have his own food. But—

“It’s not my fault,” Dex continues, between bites of toast, “that you insist on getting hipster toast every time we come in here.”

Nursey puts a hand on his heart, like he’s been shot. “Dexy, avocado toast is part of my aesthetic.”

“Jesus Christ.” Dex sighs. “Why am I dating you?”

Nursey grins, rubbing his foot against Dex’s sneaker under the table. “Because you love me.”

Dex rests his cheek in one hand, and Nursey is suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to lean across the table and kiss each of his freckles, one by one. He watches Dex pass judgement over him, eyes lingering on him bemusedly, mouth curving up to the dimple on the left side of his face. For a few seconds, he’s quiet, and Nursey doesn’t break eye contact. He’s in love with that look in Dex’s eyes.

Then, finally, Dex stabs the crust Nursey has been eyeing with his fork, holds it across the table, and announces, “I hate you.”

“I know.” Nursey beams. Through the power of his charm, he’s getting exactly what he wanted. He knew it’d come to this, all along.

Dex feeds him the little nugged of powdered, syrupy crust, and it tastes just as overly sweet as the gesture is, and Nursey has never loved anything more. “Mmmm,” he groans as he swallows. “That shit is delightful. Thanks, baby.”

“You’re a sweet-talker,” Dex mutters, still grinning, as he returns to his plate to finish it off.

“But you fall for it,” Nursey points out. “Every time. So who’s whipped in this arrangement?”

“Both of us,” Dex replies. His cheeks are flushed pink, but his smile remains.

“I tend to agree,” Nursey says, then reaches for his free hand and takes it in his own. He pulls it across the table, then plants a kiss on each knuckle, plus one, two, three of his favorite freckles. Dex’s hand, like the rest of him, is covered in them. Nursey has written enough poems about them to fill a book.

In fact, he maybe feels one coming on right now. He tucks the idea into storage in his brain for later, when he’ll inevitably wind up scribbling all over a notebook in a pile of leaves outside the Haus for two hours before practice.

God, he fucking loves this place.

He presses Dex’s palm to his own face; Dex’s fingers curl into the touch and caress his cheek. “Ah, my Will,” he hums. “Where would I be without my stolen bites of your French toast.”

Dex points his fork at him menacingly. “Don’t even think about it,” he says. “That was your ration for the day. This is my breakfast.”

“Hey!” Nursey beams, still holding his hand to his stubbly cheek. There are callouses all over Dex’s fingers. Before this, before Dex, he didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with a pair of hands. “Did I say anything about asking for another piece?”

“No.” Dex mops up the last of his syrup with the very last piece of his toast. His eyes twinkle like the sunrise as he looks up at Nursey. “But I know you were thinking it.”

Nursey kisses the inside of his palm. “Rude.”

Dex laughs into his hand, smiling from ear to giant ear, and Nursey really fucking loves his boyfriend.

*

Annie’s is crowded.

It always is. Or at least that’s what Nando has inferred from his two months on campus. The line stretches almost, but not quite, to the door. He weighs the merits of long line versus mocha frappe— is it worth it?— but then watches two girls go by him holding their drinks, each with tall stacks of whipped cream atop them, and he decides, yeah. Definitely worth it.

So he waits in line. He should have texted Rhodey to ask if he wanted to come with him, but then again, Rhodey is still probably asleep. He’s pretty sure his roommate-slash-teammate is nocturnal.

The coffee shop is buzzing with students, a sea of maroon Samwell merchandise, groups of friends clustered around tables or piled into booths.

Nando grins at the scene. It’s such a postcard of college. Some are hunched over homework; others scroll through their phones or laptops, and still others are just talking, laughing, enjoying each other’s company. There are art kids, and jocks, and fierce academic types, and— oh, wait— is that Nursey?

Nando squints. Yes, it is! There’s no mistaking that green hat. It sits atop his teammate’s familiar head of undercut curls; Nursey is in the back booth, and he’s— oh! He’s sitting across from Dex.

Nando almost waves at his teammates, but a.) they’re not looking at him, and b.)... something he’s never seen before, he realizes, is happening.

Because the thing is, they’re not looking at him, but they’re not looking at anything else, either. In fact, their eyes are all each other’s, as they sit mere feet apart across the small booth. Dex is resting his cheek in one hand, looking across the table at him, and Nursey is beaming at him, eyes crinkled and face soft, like— like—

— like he’s looking at the love of his life.

Nando widens his eyes. All of a sudden, he feels like he’s seeing something he isn’t supposed to be seeing. Nursey says something to Dex, who rolls his eyes but smiles at the same time. He proceeds to fork something off of his plate and hand the fork across the table to Nursey, who eats the bite of whatever Dex is offering clean off without hesitation.

Nando blinks.

This looks gay.

Really gay.

His theories are confirmed when, a few seconds later, Nursey picks up Dex’s hand and kisses it several times. Nando looks away, lest he catch one of their eyes, but then again, it’s not like either of them seem to be planning to look anywhere but at each other anytime soon. His awkward aversion of his gaze only lasts a second, because when he sneaks a glance back at them, he has to marvel at how soft Dex looks— his cheeks are freckled and pink, and he looks so at ease with Nursey, like he has no other care in the world. It’s an extension of the dynamic Nando has already observed between them— they’re best friends, and he knows this. He just had no idea that they were more than best friends.

Nando pauses in line. Logically, he knew that Nursey was queer. He’s open about it, proud of it, and he gave Nando and the other tadpoles the no homophobic bullshit, this is Samwell, have your teammates’ backs speech on day one of preseason. It was a breath of fresh air for Nando, and he’s sort of been looking up to him ever since.

But Dex?

At the table, Dex has his hand pressed to Nursey’s face, like it’s a prized possession. Nando has never seen that soft smile on his captain before.

“Hey.” Someone nudges him, very lightly, in the backpack from behind. “Dude, you can move up.”

“Oh.” Nando snaps out of it— the line has moved on without him, and he’s left a gaping, empty space in the middle of it. “Sorry,” he says to the person behind him, and then steps forward.

He can still see Nursey and Dex from his new spot in line.

His stomach turns. He misses Nate, watching them together.

His phone still has no new messages, just Read 9:21 AM.

But here are Nursey and Dex, in plain sight at Annie’s, canoodling— there is no better word for it— with each other, being a couple, despite all the odds, all the stereotypes, everything everyone thinks hockey players are supposed to be. Here are his captains, the team leaders, seniors, sharing something that even in this brief glance Nando knows is precious beyond words.

He wonders, for a split second, if he should say something, the next time he sees them. Tell him he looks up to them. That he’s grateful to feel so safe here.

But watching them with their breakfast, he decides against it. He’s seeing this before they’ve chosen to reveal it to him, and that should happen on their own terms.

Nursey throws his head back in a laugh. Dex grins like he’s just won the Stanley Cup.

No, Nando won’t say anything. This is something too precious to intrude on.

For now, he smiles, and he waits in line for his frappe.

[sunnygaybitch]

Ok the ask got deleted so @thelxckblog asked me:

I WANT TO KNOW MORE. How is Abed with the rest of the losers??? How does the study group respond to Abed suddenly dating Richie TrashMouth- HOW DOES TROY RESPOND??? Does Troy think Richie is hilarious and is like Abed it's so cool you have this guy as a friend and Abed is like it is cool, but he's my boyfriend. And Troy is instantly /Cool! I hate him./

Here’s my response:

I feel like all the Losers would like Abed. They recognize him as one of their own. Like that meme: “self recognition through the other.” They were losers back in the day and proudly reclaimed the title, Abed was a loser in his school days and ended up with “self esteem falling out of [his] butt.” And I think Abed would feel the same way about them. I said before that when Richie, Bill, and Abed are simply coworkers, they’re friendly with each other, but aren’t exactly friends, because Richie and Bill (and all the Losers tbh) have a hard time forming connections outside of their little group, and because Abed has a pretty aloof manner. But when he and Richie start fake dating, Richie and Bill bring him right into the friend group. He’s going to have to spend a lot of time with Richie after all, and spending a lot of time with Richie means spending a lot of time with his friends. So in this particular scenario, with Richie and Bill greasing the wheels, the other Losers have a much easier time calling Abed an actual friend. Even Eddie, who is insanely jealous because he could have totally done this fake relationship thing, what do you mean he has his own shit to deal with that shouldn’t be thrown into a potential media circus, can’t help but like Abed. Honestly I might make a separate post detailing his friendships with each and every Loser. What am I saying, of course I will, or at least - I will if I remember to jskds.

Honestly, Shirley has no idea who Richie is when Abed first starts talking about working with him. All she knows is what Abed has told her, and she’s content to leave it at that until Abed invites the Study Group to his apartment to tell them that he has a fake boyfriend now, because while I think Abed would love the fake relationship trope and would want to carry it out to the fullest, I think he’d also want to share the adventure with his friends. Maybe Abed in the early seasons would have been happy to completely fool everyone, but 2017 Abed? Who’s gone out into the world and made his way and yet still thinks of his friends all the time and is still hoping Troy will one day come back? Yeah, I think that Abed would want them in on the scheme. Anyway, Shirley doesn’t know shit about Richie Tozier, but after Abed tells them of the Plan, she looks him up and tells Abed to be careful. Because while Richie Tozier has had a hard time of it, what with staying in the closet for 40 years and never being able to be true to himself, and he seems nice enough in person, if a little loud, well - her first priority is Abed, and if this comedian drags him down in any way due to his issues or the way paparazzi sometimes follow him around, then Shirley is going to beat his pale ass to kingdom come. She tells Richie so too, and he’s a little in awe of Shirley after that slkdfhls.

Jeff is aware of who Richie is in that way that you can’t help but be aware of some celebrities simply because they seem to pop up all the time. He doesn’t really care about him though - for real doesn’t care, not that “i don’t care but really i do” thing he always does - and when Abed starts working with him, he simply thinks it’s cool that Abed works with actual famous people (though he’d never say that in so many words). When Abed tells their group that he and Richie are fake dating, he’s highly amused and vaguely concerned, because this could go wrong in several ways. Maybe Abed will get too into the scheme and start to think he’s developing feelings, or maybe this comedian guy who’s never dated a guy, much less one as admittedly charismatic as Abed, will end up falling for him for real. Or maybe they’ll both end up falling for each other, only to have it blow up in their faces later, because isn’t that just how most relationships go? But in the end, Jeff does trust that Abed can handle himself, so he just claps him on the back and discreetly (but not really that discreetly) keeps a wary eye on Richie and Abed. Just to be safe. Richie just kind of takes this in stride and resolves to poke fun at Jeff every so often because it’s Jeff. He deserves to be taken down a few pegs at all times.

Britta is very aware of who the Trashmouth is. She was definitely part of a Facebook group that was just people dunking on him for his sexist and borderline homophobic jokes, and then when he came out, was briefly one of the people who thought it was fake before joining the increasingly loud crowd who said, “Good for him for coming out, but that doesn’t mean we should excuse everything he’s said before.” After he issues a public apology and announces that he’s turning over a new leaf, she decides to follow his official account on Twitter so as to keep up to date with all the Richie “potential bi icon” Tozier news. When Abed starts working with him, she manages to stop herself from constantly asking about him, though a few questions slip through here and there. She also finds out that Richie and Abed are dating before anyone else, because the first thing Richie was ordered to do after gaining a fake boyfriend was to post a coupley pic of them with an equally coupley caption. She calls Abed right away to confirm if it’s true, but he ignores her call(s) in favor of sending her a text telling her when to come over to his apartment, because he has some big news. When Abed says that it’s simply a PR stunt, Britta is very briefly disappointed before deciding that actually, the mature, good-friend thing to do would be to wholeheartedly support Abed’s decision, which you know, it technically is. But it’s Britta. She veers into overenthusiastic territory a lot, though everyone can tell that her heart is in the right place, so they just poke their usual fun at her and don’t give her too much shit for it. Richie, ever the Trashmouth, makes it a point to see how often he can get a rise out of her, much to Jeff’s delight.

Annie, much like Jeff, knows who Richie is mostly because she’s a person with an internet connection. She was never a fan of his former comedy, and when he comes out, she internally wishes him the best of luck and moves on with her day. She congratulates Abed on working with such famous personalities, but again, it’s not that big a deal to her. It’s when the fake dating starts that she really starts to keep a keen eye on Richie. Because Richie is 40 years old. Richie probably has several midlife crises under his belt, not including the one that made him decide to come out. Richie has nearly ten years on Abed, and yes, she knows Abed can handle himself, but she’s still protective of him, because he can fake his way through most social interactions but that doesn’t mean he’s really processing them in the moment. It doesn’t mean that he’s not going to end up hurt by an older man (kind of like Jeff managed to hurt her, and ok, she has long moved past that, and maybe Abed isn’t a fresh faced eighteen year old, but Troy was right when he said Abed’s eyes were gentle and mysterious. They make her want to keep him close and make sure that the only people that come near him are the right people, and those can only be determined with a complicated vetting process). But Abed still doesn’t like being told what to do, and honestly, neither does she, so she can respect that and she can respect his choices and be nice to Richie Tozier. But she’s always watching. Richie, who is more observant than he lets on, notices, but figures that as Abed’s friend, she’s earned the right to be cautious on his behalf. He’d do the same for any of the Losers, after all.

And Troy. Troy gets his own post dkfhs.

[flowerfan2]

Bound To Be Together - Chapter 14 (9.14)

McDanno, M, A03 A continuous story of Season 9 codas exploring the bond between Steve and Danny as they grow even closer.

Chapter 14 - 9.14

Danny’s standing in front of the open refrigerator, debating whether he has the energy to make something or if he should just eat store-bought rotisserie chicken for the third night in a row, when he hears his front door open.

He turns to see Steve bounding towards him, a big smile on his face as he looks around the house.

“Grace isn’t here,” Danny informs him.  “She’s at Rachel’s tonight, remember?”

Steve comes to a stop in front of Danny, still smiling.  “I know, you told me like three times.”  He holds up a bag.  “I brought dinner.”

Danny’s a little taken aback.  Not upset, of course, just a little thrown off by all the enthusiasm directed his way. Although of course it’s true that Steve doesn’t reserve his affection only for Grace, he definitely has been showering her with love lately.  Danny shouldn’t be jealous of his daughter – she deserves all the love in the world, no question.  Anyway, whatever else is going on, Steve is clearly eager to see Danny right now, so he needs to get with the program and enjoy it.  

“Okay, thanks.”

“Steak burritos, medium salsa, extra sour cream and guac, just like you like ‘em.”  Steve says proudly.  He grabs Danny by the arm and drags him towards the table.  “Come on, I’m starved.  It’s not as if you have any other food in the house.”

“This is all too true.” Danny detours to get them each a beer, and they settle down to eat.  “What’s the occasion?”  He almost kicks himself for asking.  Danny’s never been good at just accepting happy moments when they come along.

Steve isn’t deterred, however.  He cheekily wipes a bit of sour cream off the side of Danny’s mouth with the tip of his finger and grins.  “Don’t act so surprised.  Can’t I do something nice for my, uh, friend?”

Steve’s cheeks pink as he stutters on the last word, and Danny relaxes.  This, he can deal with.  Giving Steve shit is familiar territory, even if this topic is new to them.

 “Your friend, huh?”

 Steve pokes around in the bag the food came in, apparently very curious now about whether there are any paper napkins left in there.  “Yeah, my friend.”

 Danny sits calmly as Steve fully explores the bag, finding two plastic forks but no napkins, and then another long minute goes by as Steve realizes that Danny is still waiting for Steve to give him a better answer.

 “What, you want me to call you something else?”  Steve asks, defiance battling with a hint of shyness.

 “I dunno, what do you think you should call me?”

 Steve smirks.  “How about a pain in my ass?”

 “That can be arranged.”

 Steve’s mouth drops open, and he’s momentarily at a loss for words.  Danny grins, and turns back to his burrito.  But before he can take a bite, Steve’s in his space, pushing him back in his chair for a hard kiss.

 “You’re feisty tonight.” Danny breathes hard when Steve lets him go, one hand still holding his burrito.  “Not that I’m complaining.”

 Steve shrugs and sits back down, as if nothing had happened.  “Just felt like kissing you.”

 “Because I’m your friend.”  Danny drags the word out.  Steve looks annoyed now, though, apparently disappointed that his actions can’t actually substitute for words.  “Honestly, Steve, what are we doing?”

 Danny hadn’t meant to turn the conversation in such a serious direction, but it’s what he’s been thinking for weeks now, and at some point he’d appreciate actually knowing the answer.  He isn’t particularly proud of the fact that he got drunk and threw himself at Steve last week, and would like to assume that Steve’s response means that they’re back together, but drunken orgasms do not a relationship make.

 Steve turns in his chair to face Danny head on.  “Do you think I’m screwing around with you, Danny, is that what is it?”

 It actually hadn’t occurred to him that there could be any malice in Steve’s cluelessness.  “No, are you?”

 “No, of course not,” Steve says, affronted.  “Do we need to put a label on it?  You really want me to call you my boyfriend?”

 Danny is about to give in, to say it doesn’t matter, that labels are dumb and unnecessary and he doesn’t care, when he realizes that he does.  He does care.

 “Yeah, actually, I do.”

 Steve tilts his head, his eyes locked with Danny’s.  “Okay.” He nods.  “Okay.”

 “That’s it?”

 Steve leans close and brushes his lips across Danny’s mouth.  “Yup, boyfriend, that’s it.”  He sits back. “I didn’t know it was important to you. You should’ve said.”  All defensiveness drops from his expression, and he looks soft.  “I want us to be together, Danno.  You make me happy, and I want to make you happy.  That’s how I feel.  I know I haven’t been good about saying it, and I’m sorry.”

 Before Danny can absorb the impact of Steve’s unusual sincerity, Steve drops to one knee, a mischievous expression on his face, and Danny spares a fleeting though that maybe Steve still has the ring Harry made him use on the op in Laos.  “Danny Williams, will you be my boyfriend?”

 It’s cheesy as hell, but Danny kind of asked for it.  Steve’s words send a little tingle through his entire body.  “I will, you goof.”  Danny tugs at Steve’s shoulders and kisses him properly, letting Steve wrap his arms around his waist and hold them close.  Danny’s rather pleased at their progress.  

 As the night wears on, Steve shows no sign of heading home, and before long they’re half-asleep in front of the television, a cooking show droning on in the background.  Steve starts to rouse himself, looking at the time.

 “So what is Grace up to tonight?”  Steve is trying for casual, but his parental-like worry clearly shows through. Danny understands – ever since her accident, it’s hard to be nonchalant about his daughter’s whereabouts on a Friday night.

 “She’s home with Rachel, a few of her friends are staying over with her.  No driving, no parties.”

 “Good, good.”  Steve sits up, stretching.  “That girl, Annie, from our case this week?  Kinda reminded me of her.”

 Danny has heard all about what he missed, including the very interesting fact that Flippa’s friend Luka was a counselor for LGBTQ kids, and no one on their team had blinked an eye. More than that, Five-0 had unanimously supported Annie’s need to get away from her intolerant parents, clearly understanding that who you love can’t be “treated” out of you.  It gives him hope for how the team might react to learning about him and Steve.

 But that’s not a conversation for right now.  Danny’s pushed enough for tonight.  “She reminds you of Gracie?” he prompts.

 “Yeah.  Sure of herself.  Not afraid to stand up for what she knows is right.”  Steve turns to Danny.  “You raised a good kid, Danno.”

 “You might have had something to do with that,” Danny says.  

 Steve shrugs, a little embarrassed.  Danny knows he’s proud of how Grace looks up to him, and what an important part of her life he is.  He should be. Grace is a better person for it.

 He stifles a yawn, and glances at the clock.  It’s late. “You gonna stay over?”  Danny asks.

 “Is that a boyfriend thing?”

 Danny groans.  Steve is going to milk this as much as he can. “Sure, whatever.”

 Steve is nodding, but then he rubs his face and grimaces.  “I need to feed Eddie.  Want to come to mine instead?”

 Now, that really is a boyfriend thing, right there.  Because it’s already almost midnight, and their date, such as it was, is truly over. In fact, it might be past boyfriend stage, and well into old marrieds.  But curling up with Steve in his big comfortable bed sounds amazing.  Danny doesn’t even mind the sound of the waves anymore; it just means he’s home with Steve.

 As Danny predicted, they pass out almost as soon as they get under the covers, and he doesn’t mind a bit.

 In the morning, Steve gets out of bed with the dawn, off to do his usual imitation of an overachieving fish.  Danny rolls around in bed for a while, but can’t really fall back asleep.  He finally gives up and gets out of bed, pulling on shorts and a t-shirt.  He puts the coffee on and dozes at the table while it brews, then fills two mugs and heads outside.  Sitting down by the beach while Steve does laps has become something of a morning ritual for them.  It’s soothing.

 The sun is just starting to warm the air, and Danny is wishing he was wearing something warmer, when he realizes that Steve isn’t actually swimming.  Instead, he’s conked out in the hammock.

 Danny leaves the mugs on the lanai table and walks slowly towards Steve, not wanting to wake him. He’s got on an old sweatshirt and his swim trunks, his feet bare, and he’s curled up on his side, one hand tucked under his head.

 “Steve?”  Danny whispers, and there’s no response. Danny’s chest aches with concern. He’s noticed how tired Steve has been lately, even though Steve tries to hide it.  It shows around his eyes, and on his face.  He’s pretty sure it took Steve days to recover from that crazy free dive, although of course Steve wouldn’t tell anyone.    It’s too important to Steve to be everyone’s protector, the superhero Seal they can all count on to swoop in and come to the rescue, no matter the personal cost.

 Danny doesn’t like to think about whether it’s just a natural consequence of getting older combined with Steve’s general penchant for extreme physical activity, or something more serious (don’t think about radiation poisoning, he chants to himself). Either way, in contrast to all that exhaustion and stress, Steve looks downright peaceful there on the hammock, a gentle breeze ruffling his hair.  Danny wants to wrap his arms around him and never let go.

 So he does.  Or, more accurately, he tries.  Steve mumbles at him when Danny climbs into the hammock, and there’s a moment when Danny worries that he’s going to tip them both over, but after a minute they get their balance back and Steve shifts so Danny can curl up against his chest.

 Steve’s warmth chases the chill away, as do the sleepy kisses Steve plants all over Danny’s face. “Love you, Danno,” Steve breathes out.

 “Love you too, babe.”

 It’s a damn good start to the day.

[its-just-like-the-movies]

XX (17, B)

There’s something about XX, the four-part horror anthology that just popped up on Netflix, that feels hard to talk about. It’s not as though the material is unapproachable, or poorly made, or even mostly enjoyable. Hell, it was one of the titles I was most excited about coming out of Sundance, not just for the premise but for the directorial debut of musical fave St. Vincent aka Annie Clark, her leading lady Melanie Lynskey, and the follow-up feature of Karyn Kusama after 2016’s The Invitation, easily the best American horror film that year. As much as most great horror films have female leads, rarely are they made by women, and the idea of four interconnected stories coming from an exclusively female point of view was so enticing I watched it as soon as I realized it was streaming online. Yes, it’s uneven, as all interesting horror anthologies are, but the connective tissue is missing, and at some level all four seem underserved by their time constraints. This doesn’t stop the best features from being entertaining - incidentally, the best ones are by Clark and Kusama, with strong leading performances from Lynskey and Christina Kirk - but even their potency feels primed for more time to explore their protagonist’s dilemmas and flesh out the narrative. Consequently, the weaker first and third features feel even more stifled and underdeveloped than another five minutes would’ve allowed. Like the film, I’ll be dividing the review up into four segments, for the sake of being cute about it, with small intermissions to mention cool yet pretty unrelated stuff that, nevertheless, is still in the film. And now, without further ado, let’s begin.

Maybe it’s unavoidable at this point in time and media history to not think just the teeniest bit about American Horror Story when thinking about horror anthologies, but what gave me the strongest - perhaps the only - reminder of anything AHS has attempted was the stop-motion vignettes that separate each short film with the goings on of several monstrous doll houses with ports for porcelain doll faces. Other living toys flit about, along with teeth, an apple, other random objects, all existing in some sunlit, white-paint attic. Crafted by Sofia Carillo, it might be stretch to say that any one segment comments on the upcoming story so much as setting a tone or suggesting a narrative trajectory, but they’re all fun to watch and fairly inventive.

Doing us the kind grace of opening with its weakest story, Jovanka Vuckovic’s The Box doesn’t seem to have a strong enough hand on its own story. A young mother is helpless to watch as her son, then her daughter, then her husband all fall victim to some mysterious spell that makes each one happily unwilling to eat anything, even as it kills them. Her inactivity, evolving from an unconcerned assumption everything will work out to a state of resigned acceptance that everyone around her is doomed, is never given a proper explanation from the script or actress Natalie Brown. I’ve read reviews suggesting this is inspired from some Stepfordian symptom to act as though everything is fine when it clearly isn’t, but Brown doesn’t seem to be playing denial so much as she is the flippancy of someone who thinks their problems will work out even if an immediate solution isn’t in front of them. Her husband’s accusation that she doesn’t care that their children aren’t eating should ring falser than it does - hell, make her blatantly happy her family is practically finishing themselves off of you want - but instead it feels off because we have no idea what this woman is thinking. A dream sequence where her family finally eats a horrific meal feels cheap not because of any unearned shock value, it just feels like wasted potential. Even the closing narration suggests a slightly more interesting film waiting in the wings, as the woman tries to track down the man with the box in the hopes of being like them, of being with them. A mother’s exclusion from a bond the rest of her family share, as terrible as that bond is, for the sake of maintaining a semblance of normalcy, feels like it should pay off richer dividends than it does. I’ll give it credit for the combination of makeup and VFX that make the characters so emaciated, and how well it captures their gradual thinning out of existence, but this story has less meat on its bones than most of its characters. As is, The Box is easily the most weightless pick of the bunch, practically floating away next to the stronger styles and stories of the subsequent segments. Not just because those segments have something more to offer, but this has so little.

One question that feels obvious looking at this list of directors, and one that entered my mind pretty soon into The Box, was “Where is Jennifer Kent?”. The answer to that, according to her Wikipedia page, is that she is currently filming her next project, The Nightingale, about a young convict trekking to find the soldier who murdered her family in 1820’s colonial Tasmania. Kent herself said she received floods of offers from the United States after The Babadook premiered, instead focusing on doing more of her own work. I admire her resilience, and that XX chose to stick primarily with newer writers-directors (Kusama being far and away the exception, this being her sixth film and having about a dozen TV directing jobs to her credit), Still, her absence her feels like a lost opportunity, if only for us.

From its weakest story XX hops to easily my favorite of the segments, Annie Clark’s The Birthday Party. Set in the tone of high farce, we immediately learn the tone of the story as Clark’s opening close-up of some blue fabric turns out to be the wrinkles and folds of the nightgown covering Melanie Lynskey’s ass. Lynskey, game and hilariously neurotic from the word go, wakes up to find out that her husband arrived home early in the middle of the night, died at his desk, and, worst of all, did so the day of their adopted daughter’s seventh birthday party. It is this want to give their child the perfect party that inspires Lynskey to desperately try and hide the body rather than calling the police and harshing everyone’s vibe by telling her daughter than her father is dead. I still can’t exactly figure why Lynskey’s Mary didn’t try and prop him in the closet of his office, though it did seem like a cramped fit. Clark’s debut outing synthesizes everything so idiosyncratically delightful about her music and her persona into the presentation of the film. Mary looks out of place in her own home, with her torn robe sleeve and messy hair surrounded by hopeless gauche grasps at sophistication that seem to work for her friends. Even her severely styled maid looks more appropriate in the place than Mary does. Clark’s score also keeps the proceedings on edge, and she knows how to wield sound (of course she does) to tremendous effect, turning a child’s excited “Boo!” into a genuine jump scare by dialing up the single loudest sound bite in the whole film, and somehow making this as funny as a satisfied wink effect to commemorate the deal between Mary and a panda bear. Lynskey herself is instrumental to Clark’s success, dialing up the character’s anxiety and being able to play the whole thing for laughs without mugging in the slightest, and still finding room for emotionally beats with her daughter and her dead husband. By the end of it all she’s too tired to carry the damn corpse, hoping to hide it in plain sight, unable to stop what’s coming and finding the perfect face of exhaustion and resignation. I suppose the tone makes The Birthday Party more morbidly absurd than an outright horror movie the way that the other three segments are, but Clark and Lynskey by far craft the most singular and innovative segment of the bunch, standing out not just for its lightness but because, moment to moment, I couldn’t guess what happens next the way I could for better (in Kusama’s segment) or worse (in the other two) throughout the rest of the quartet. Clark also displays a real sense of humor in her art direction, the hilarious costumes of the children and some of the equally odd outfits and hairstyles of the parents. Two of the best props are objects Mary fusses with at the beginning, one that’s vaguely crescent moonish, the other horrifically familiar. “All she wanted was for her daughter to have a nice birthday and her jackass of a husband had to go and die.” my boyfriend said after watching it, and I agree with him wholeheartedly. It’s amazing that this is Lynskey’s second lovely performance of 2017, in another morbid comedy on Netflix that showcases her talent to great effect (the wonderful I Don’t Know How To Feel In This World Anymore). It’s just as amazing that this is only Annie Clark’s first directorial outing, so assured and confident within such an offbeat tone to operate in, let alone for this project. I’m excited to see more from them as soon as possible, and if it could possibly be together again, well, that’d be great too.

Here’s where I admit that, apart from Jennifer Kent, I really need to expand my knowledge of female voices in horror. Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and The Bad Batch, Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, and Mary Harron’s American Psycho feels like the most obvious place to start, but I really don’t know who to look out for in terms of established or up-and-coming talents. I’ll be right in line with everyone else for Dee Rees’ recently announced black lesbian horror film, and will happily look for whatever projects that are recommended to me. All filmmaking markets deserve to give more room to women filmmakers, but horror is almost as reliant as the rom-com or other stereotypically “female” genres on having compelling women in front of the camera, and by god is it time to have more compelling women behind the camera too. Especially if this genre is going to keep packaging itself using stories that are mainly exclusive to cis women’s experiences. 

Don’t Fall, written and directed by Roxanne Benjamin (who also helped write The Birthday Party), feels like an outlier among the four films. Gone is any idea about female horror rooted in motherhood, as is any idea rooted in a specifically female experience. It’s the most conventional of the stories, the one that feels the most like the opening to a film we aren’t allowed to see the rest of. I don’t mean conventional in any bad way, but as scary as Don’t Fall is, its style feels the most generic, its ideas vague. Look, the creature makeup was great and I enjoyed the camaraderie between the four friends. As little as she had to do, it’s always nice to see The Final Girls’ Angela Timbur, playing the lesbian girlfriend of the lead, no less. But there’s not much here to separate it from the opening of a pretty solid Syfy Original Movie, and I don’t have as great a sense of what’s unique about Benjamin’s directorial style as I do of Clark’s, Kusama’s, and maybe even Vuckovic’s stifled and slightly dread-filled atmosphere. That being said, there’s not a thing that’s bad about Don’t Fall. You feel the anxiety of Breeda Wool’s Gretchen, her unease not just with camping but with camping at this specific location, the way she does and doesn’t get along with the friends she’s traveling with. Benjamin finds a solid tone that works in a more naturalistic style that still accommodates a lot of hand-tipping. The depiction of the beast that possesses her is creepy, her rampage is terrifying, and the ending is genuinely scary. It’s the most straightforward of the segments to watch, Benjamin building it too sturdily to dissipate like The Box does without any of the singularities that make The Birthday Party or Her Only Living Son so fascinating. You won’t have a bad time, but the ways it doesn’t click with the other three segments makes me wish it had conformed with the others more, or that one of them (perhaps The Box) had shifted away from a specifically maternal point of view. Other reviews seem to put Don’t Fall as the most widely approved of the segments, usually not anyone’s favorite but one everyone seems fond of. And as much as I agree with these takes, I wish it had some kind of oomph to it to make it as specific as the others.

While we’re on the subject of female voices in horror, since so many horror films specifically revolved around female neuroses already, what’s to stop us from getting Lynn Ramsay’s Rosemary’s Baby? Or Karyn Kusama’s Stepford Wives? Or a female interpretation of any other paranoid, profound auteur project that use women as vessels for their ideas? Sophia Takal’s Always Shine has already been compared to a modern-day kind of Persona, and Emily Yoshida’s recent article about the male terror and fascination of women alone together brings up the very good point that, as wonderful as many of those films have been, there’s a remarkable lack of persona-swap films starring and made by women. It’s one thing to have an actress’s voice for your words, rewriting dialogue and contributing character details, it’s another to have a director’s voice making the material authentically female from the start. Perhaps this is the same thing I was talking about in the previous intermediary paragraph in a different key, but films about women’s pain and women’s terror are so often the subject of male auteurs. In this day of the remake, even if many of these films are classics (albeit classics already possessing shitty sequels or remakes), why not let a female director take a stab at a woman’s story? Men have plenty of thoughts about what it means to be a woman, the performativeness of “being” a woman in many contexts, yet actual female voices on the subject of being a woman feel sparse. Let them do it. Come on guys. Just let women tell their own stories. 

Karyn Kusama’s Her Only Living Son stands out among XX’s segments, not just for having the most interesting of the titles, but for grafting itself connective tissue to an already existing classic. Putting us in the headspace of Rosemary’s Baby isn’t Kusama tipping her hand so much as letting her cards bleed all over us, allowing her segment to accumulate narrative dread through the friction between Christina Kirk’s Cora and her son Andy, played by Heath Ledger look-alike Kyle Allen, as the film barrels towards an inevitable confrontation. Tension accrues between Cora and the other increasingly odd adults in her life, so reverent of Andy, and her knowledge of his own violent outbursts and shifting physiology. Kusama overwhelms the film with dread, perhaps overbearingly so, and I wonder how much power it gains through associating itself with one of the best horror films of all time. It’s not as though the film doesn’t stumble a little, mainly in a suspicion-confirming conversation with mailman Mike Doyle that escalates into a personal reverie towards an unseen but increasingly felt presence. Thankfully, Kusama finds textures in Cora’s seeming overprotectiveness and Andy’s vicious isolation from his mother, making both more interesting than they might have been. Their final conversation is poignant and heartbreaking, as Cora reveals the circumstances of Andy’s birth and their nomadic lifestyle. She stakes as powerful a claim on Andy as his father, and their last acts are as visceral a bond of mother-son love and codependence as some of the most interesting scenes in The Babadook. And yet, for all the power of the segment, Her Only Living Son feels the most cramped into its running time. Unsettling encounters with the mailman and the principal of Andy’s school seem to tip their hand too much for the degree of uncertainty (denial?) that hovers over the film. It’s the only film crying out for a longer middle than a longer ending, and one I would happily sit through. As is, even if it’s flawed, Kusama’s power is as palpable in Her Only Living Son as it is in The Invitation, and I’m more than ready to see what the next unsettling spectacle is she’s going to put us through.

I don’t quite know what to make of the final stop-motion segment, where the demonic dollhouse that’s been the star of these vignettes brings a human girl to life. It feels even less connected to any of the stories than the previous one, though its power in mood and craft still hold. When thinking about XX, they’re a delightful diversion but not really worth discussion. Their delightful diversionary status is undeniable, but I wished they had narrative cohesion even between the other animated segments.

 As a collective, I like a lot that XX has to offer even as I find plenty to quibble with on individual levels. The Box is too insubstantial, Don’t Fall too generic, Her Only Living Son too compressed, but each one boasts significant virtues - a strong sense of mood, a compelling story, sheer filmmaking and emotional force. The Birthday Party feels like the only segment that finds the right amount of story for its time limit, boasting a unique tone and texture, with a strong central performance to boot. All the disparities between the segments only make it more interesting to talk about and read about, and I’ve enjoyed seeing what resonates with reviewers for them to pick it as their favorite. Tommy’s favorites are the second and third segments, and mine are the second and fourth. I’ve seen commenters and articles praising all four films across various publications, and that makes the whole only more fascinating to me. The variance of opinion is almost as interesting in the variance of approaches XX gives us, and if I’ve singled out particular enthusiasm for Clark and Kusama’s segments, I’d be delighted to see a feature film from any of these gals. Each segment more than lays the foundation for longer, equally interesting films, headlined by imaginative directors working with committed actresses. That’s a solid hook for me in any genre, but when that imagination is let loose in such a strange, fascinating genre, I’m ready for anything they want to throw at me.