#also nothing describes me better than 'mediocre man being desperate'

[venelona]

I got super sick so decided to catch up with Bungo Stray Dogs and oh boi we're really in it now

also i still can't believe Odasakuman is a thing

[kalims]

ㅤamongst other things

premise. kisses w/ them, and random things?

featuring. dan heng, blade, jing yuan.

content. gender neutral.

cw. mentions of blood, murder for blade lol. he's just down bad for reader in a weird, blade way ig

note. this is ironic since my first genshin post was also about kisses (AKA me getting bored so I wondered why not get into star rail)

will add others soon ig.. I didn't compile all of them here cuz I honestly lack the characterization for them so woop

dan heng

short, abrupt kisses that rarely ever come by goes as quickly as it came. you'd assume that he's doing it on purpose, giving you the kiss that you've been waiting for all day. it shouldn't even be considered a kiss at all from how fleeting his apparent 'peck' is.

in short it's torture.

keyword: assume. cause as convinced as you are that this is just some form of twisted amusement dan heng gains, that's exactly the problem that it entails. as a person wholly, he's so serious to the point you doubt there's nothing that would entertain him besides books.

you learn he isn't much of a fan of those really long kisses, once you both bore witness to a couple eating each other's face in broad daylight and you spotted his weekly shift of expression, a quirk of few centimeters. in this case, a grimace and he looks away.

he, does not really give kisses a lot. as upset as you are, you do agree that when he does give you a kiss, albeit short. it makes it all the more.. amazing? such a mediocre word wouldn't be able to describe it.

basically when you're both left trying to fit in his small cushion (he could've atleast gotten a bed in all this space.) you also learn that he's a really private man.

you've only ever shared kisses in his room, embraces, everything else for that matter. when the door is locked he quite literally melts into you. if you happen to be sitting together he just leans on to you.

dan heng in public: 😶

dan heng in private: 😊

just doesn't show any affection in public, especially if march is around. that girl would make fun of him for hours end and even drag the trailblazer in on her antics of poking fun.

dan heng is indeed a private man.

march isn't the only factor as to why there hasn't been a lot of kisses out in public. if anything he probably wants to kiss you more than you would like.

he'd be lying if he said he wanted to just kiss you as long as those weird main characters of the romance shows march watches cause even though you might want that as well, dan heng won't ever do it.

cause it isn't him, what he is. is the type to get kisses done as soon as he can not because he doesn't enjoy them. it's because he can take a good look at you once he leans back, just like he does any other day.

to admire you.

and cause dan heng isn't the romantic type to kiss you senseless, but the one to give you looks you'd die for.

blade

if dan heng only gives you kisses a few times a day and you'd consider it torture, better get ready to lose your sanity cause you're lucky if blade even crumples at your hand to give you one.

it's not that he doesn't love you. he feels as though it's wrong to label whatever emotion in his chest as something as strong as love, he won't go that far. but he won't label you as something worthy of hatred either, you're.. tolerable?

if anything blade doesn't outright seek to give you his affection through the form of a kiss. his love language is in fact, not physical affection but destroying your enemies :). (if you have one, if not. then whoever bothers you will suffice.)

but if he does, when he does it's the most blade thing he can do. just grabbing your face with one hand as he gives you one of those rough, deep kisses. it's not really desperate or out of need, despite such a wordless action you could feel some emotion he's pouring into it.

better pray it's not hate cause.. 💀

funny thing cause as much as he hates being piled in the same sentence as dan heng, in a way they're rather similar. both just preferring to witness, given their life span.. maybe it's some type of response they're used to.

blade doesn't really do the 'oh I love you' or the random hugs. the fact that he'd even stand so close to you instead of isolating himself and looking all mysterious leaning on a pillar already spoke volumes of his fondness (if not admitted.)

he just.. watches you?

silver wolf comments about it when she's caught his eyes on you many times midst a conversation, behind your back, staring. "better watch out." she says, but even with her disturbed gaze never does he tear his eyes away.

well.

kafka does take it in more stride than her. as someone who's spent a hefty time with blade, even someone as analytical as her can't tell which things he likes, and hates. besides all the blood and pain (well usually for his opponents.)

she for one, tells you that he does indeed like you. cause she can control who blade murders 'for her own good'. but if there's even a single glimpse of drop from a wound he's going feral, and not even kafka or her spirit whisper can tame his rage.

AKA... just lots of murder?

'for your own good :)'.

blade wholly believes that he doesn't need to shower you in affection, or kisses at all. but if you're really so insistent on them he'll give into you, which is surprising cause he's a pretty stubborn man.

most affection you'd get in physical means is when he completely collapses into you, perhaps a sign of weakness. but also trust. one of the rare times he's exhausted himself in his mind to the point where he can't even do anything.

#icanfixhim.

jing yuan

a cheeky man, this one.

jing yuan could give you a load, barriage, arrows, whatever describes the endless assault of pecks he attacks your face with. emphasis on 'could', he has the ability, and the freedom but it doesn't mean he's going to :)

in short you have to work for it, he says.

you can't tell if he's trying to give you one of those motivational, slapping you back to reality lessons or messing with you. you're going to go for the latter since someone as bold as he is lazy.. even jing yuan would relate enough to not hit you with the lesson card.

in a way he's always dragging the time you've gone by without a kiss from him as long as he can just for the sole reason he can see your attempts to conceal your bothered face, even better when the expression of content is all but displayed to him once he gives in.

what? he can't resist you, you know?

you have a feeling he's teasing you again when he says that but it's better to not ponder upon it.

for someone who prefers to 'conserve' his energy. he's got a lot to spare when it comes to the repeated kisses pressed upon your lips, cheeks, eyelids, forehead.. whatever his own mouth can reach. (his favorite is the edges of your eyes..)

just for some reason, one he can't exactly name he ends up giving that particular area more love compared to the others. sometimes more lighter, feathery pecks when he's feeling playful. or the occasional longer, deep press of his lips when he's feeling rather sentimental about his feelings.

he doesn't deserve you.. but if not him, who else? ;)

gets mimi to help him into trapping you inside his office, jing yuan 'calls for your presence' but once you're inside rather than the pressing matters he apparently had to discuss with you (present in his message.) you're met with the man practically snuggling into you as he keeps you in his arms.

rather effortlessly if you might add!

and if you somehow managed to wriggle out his grip. you swore you saw him give the... big... cat a look and suddenly mimi is choosing to sleep right in front of the doors..

come back or you will not get kisses for two days (he's scamming u)

note. NOT PR... hi hsr fandom 🕳 posting in a new fandom makes me so nerviosity

[letsperaltiago]

we’ll sweep out the ashes in the morning I CHAPTER 8|

Even in the middle of New York's freezing month of February, a scandalous familiar fire is ignited within Jake and Amy when they run into each other after years apart. Luckily there's nothing wrong with being caught up in a fire that has to die out soon, right?

Read the new chapter here or on AO3

CHAPTER MASTERLIST HERE

In great contrast to the colorful spring’s transition into a warm and lively Brooklyn summer, Jake experienced his days slipping by in an awfully blue and dispirited slow motion. And, much to his regret, the young man knew exactly why this veil of dreariness was waving over him. He knew exactly why: from one second to the other, Amy Santiago had slammed the door on him. Literally and metaphorically. The fault? Completely and utterly his own. Never before had he suffered like this, best described as feeling as if his emotions had been amputated, and he was the sole sinner. 

Even two months, almost three, after the fateful morning where he’d last seen her, he hadn’t been able to get a hold of her. Respecting her boundaries but also wanting to be with her more than anything else, was the hardest balancing act he’d ever experienced. What was the point of kicking down doors if it were to make things worse? He hadn’t dared to go back to her place. If his affair with Amy had taught him anything,  it was that one should never play with fire - no matter how thrilling it might seem. Also, it’d be a tad too ironic if he, a NYPD cop, were to get arrested for stalking or trespassing. Stupidly enough, if he could travel back in time, he’d do it all over again: he would run into her on the street, joked with her, though she looked just as beautiful as she did years back when they were working together at the 99. More importantly, he would do better: no cheating, no lying, no… overlapping of women. They were both of far more worth than that. 

Alas, turning back time was a power beyond anyone but superheroes control, and he couldn’t change his faulty ways. In like manner, he couldn’t force Amy to talk to him. 

Although this was true, Jake Peralta was, well, Jake Peralta and so he hadn’t exactly given up on Amy. Whether this unbeatable persistence was driven by his hyperactive nature or his burning infatuation with Amy Santiago was hard to tell. However, above all, one thing was sure: he couldn’t leave things with his old partner behind like this. On this wise, in an attempt to be equally respectful and desperate, Jake honored his friend’s (for multiple reasons, it felt off to call her that) love for punctuality: every Wednesday and Sunday at 4 PM sharp, he sent her a text. The same one - every single time: 

 I’m so sorry. Please call me when you’re ready. 

-Peralta 

 And Amy sure was taking her sweet time replying. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that she hadn’t replied at all. Jake, on his sinful part, could never assign her culpability of anything at all. Even if she never called him ever again (which he of course didn’t hope would be the case), he could never blame her. However, these almost three months were torture, and one night, over lukewarm beers with Charles and Terry, the young detective had to come to terms with some hard truths presented to him by his very best friends. 

“Jake, I’m not going to lie to you because lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons.”

Jake, perhaps already slightly tipsy on the muggy summer weather and mediocre beer, frowned at his muscular friend’s statement. 

“What is with you and sporty metaphors? Can’t you just tell me I suck like a normal person?” 

Daggers for eyes and slight puffing of his chest quickly shut Jake right back up. Terry, always the very emotional and momma hen-kind of friend, suddenly looked very sincere. Perhaps a protective side of him was stepping up. Not for Jake. Oh no no no, on the contrary: he was stepping up against Jake for Amy. 

“Sorry, Sarge.” 

“Hm, that’s better,” the big man nodded, taking a sip of his beer as if to warm up his throat for whatever he was about to tell Jake. On the sideline, imbibing this month’s special brew, Charles, patient as ever, waited to hear Terry’s take on the entire situation. When he found out about Jake and Amy, he’d been mostly over the moon. But even a Boyle can get mad at his best friend, disappointed in his friend’s lack of respect for monogamy and for the women he’d dragged into this mess.  

“Jake…” a pregnant pause left the two detectives across from him waiting in both fear and anticipation. “... you’re a dick.” 

Whatever it was Jake had expected, it definitely wasn’t this, hence his choking on the beer he’d just barely managed to swallow before Terry dropped the d-bomb. 

“Yeah, you heard me. Using no-no words and all. You’re my friend and I love and care for you, but what you did to both Sophia and Amy qualifies you as a huge dick. Now stop choking so I can talk some sense into you.”

Terry carefully patted the smaller man on his back, genuinely worried he would choke to death before getting the stern talking to he’d been mentally practicing for in the shower for weeks now. Momma-hen Terry loved Amy like all of his other little detective-chicks, even if she wasn’t with the 99 anymore. Even with a gun to his head, Boyle couldn’t keep a secret, so when the wedding was suddenly called off, the little man let it slip that Jake and Amy had run into each other a few weeks ago. Terry wasn’t a sergeant without reason and quickly put two and two together: something had gone down, and he hoped to God the nice, brilliant but also very easily anxious Amy Santiago he knew wasn’t involved. Alas, she was, and he wasn’t just going to stand by and watch - no matter how much he cared for Jake.  

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you everything is going to be alright and that’s how you’ll get the girl because this is not a Taylor Swift song, Jake. This is the real world and you did something bad. Really bad. Sending her the same text over and over again is not going to solve it.”

Having come down from his beer-infused choking, Jake’s shoulders slumped in disappointed realization being, in the very end, he knows that Terry is more than right. In his mind, the repetitive texts were supposed to show Amy his commitment to her but perhaps he’s been acting like a kid, stuck on a repeat of trivial nothingness that won’t actually get him anywhere in a real world with real people with real feelings. 

“Then…” He could sense the disappointing reality presented to him by Terry flooding his already quivering heart. “Then what?”

Small gleams of light and compassion in Terry’s deep, brown eyes reflected the love he felt for his dumb, compulsive surrogate-son, and, suddenly, his shoulders too slumped in a motion of hopelessness. “I can’t tell you what Santiago wants or needs, but enough with the spamming, man. It’s not cute and three months of radio silence should’ve told you that it wasn’t the way to go about things.” 

Silence dawned upon the little group. 

“I don’t know, man… Maybe offer her an ultimatum of sorts.”

Jake frowned. “An ultimatum? Like, either we talk and solve things or…” the opposing option dawned upon him, punching him in the gut and sucking the air out of his lungs. Just thinking it, not even saying it out loud, was enough to shut him up. 

“... Or no more contact. You let her walk away -  for good.” Terry said the words, finishing the sentence, Jake himself couldn’t speak, and as they fell from his friend’s lips, Jake felt a wave of nausea and dizziness come over him, ultimately throwing his heart off beat. A mutual sadness, a fear of this dreadful possibility, was shared between the sergeant and the detective. “And more importantly: you let her.” 

“Let her walk away?”

“Yes, Jake. This is not a child’s game. You hurt her and she, as much as Sophia, has the right to be disappointed and cut you out of her life. You understand that, right?” 

All signs of anger and reprimanding had left Terry’s body language, instead replaced with a compassionate look, hands folded in a calm rest on top of the wooden table. He could be mad at Jake and still show understanding of the hard consequences of his idiotic deeds.

“I-”

Jake’s chest felt on fire, and, in an attempt to put out the spewing flames, he let out a deep exhale. In vain, it turns out. The flames kept eating up his heart, leaving him feeling suffocated by his own feelings. Imagining Amy Santiago never speaking to him ever again felt like a near-death experience stuck on repeat. 

“I understand.” 

He did and he hated it.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Charles chimed in, looking just as sad, if not even more, than Jake. 

“N-no, don’t be sorry for me. I brought this upon myself.” Jake offered his best friend a sad smile before taking another sip of his now actually warm beer. The sadness encapsulated in his body told him he deserved it. He was the human equivalent of a warm beer on a disgustingly hot summer day in hell.

Charles returned the sad smile. “So, what are you going to do?” 

In an ideal world, Jake was the perfect guy and had the perfect answer, but alas this was a messy, confusing world and all he could offer his friends was a sheepish smile and, “Ehm… I don’t know at this point. Toss myself out the nearest window, perhaps.”  

Terry was quick to counter his friend’s deflective form of coping, stopping him with a cocked eyebrow and once again dry, warning voice. “Jake…” 

“I know… Sorry. I think- uhm, I think I’m going to text her but, like, better, as you said, Terry,” he met his friend’s inspecting gaze. “I’ll give her control over the situation. An option to either opt-in or opt-out, yanno?”

“Sounds good, man.” The three friends nodded in agreement even though they were very aware of the overall lack of goodness in this entire situation. 

“Yeah, it’s … great.”

Thereupon, the young man quaffed and tortured himself with the last few gulps of the warm beer. He did very much deserve it, after all. 

 That very same night, Jake found himself on the Boyle-Mirren-Carter family’s couch which he’d been sleeping on ever since the non-existing wedding and Sophia (rightfully so) told him to “pack his things and get the hell out of the apartment”. Mocking him, the clock on his phone displayed 1:54 AM. Charles, Genevieve and Niko had been asleep for hours, leaving the apartment silent enough to hear a pin drop and Jake’s phpne the only source of light in the dark living room. Lying under his duvet, resting against a pillow and one of the armrests, he stared numbly at Amy’s contact in his phone. It had one of his all-time favorite pictures of her and while he hadn’t been counting, he was pretty sure he’d been staring at it for 20 minutes by then. Why? 50% fear of tapping ‘send message’ and 50% admiration of the picture: her sitting in Shaws bar, sending him that famous ‘dude, you’re being annoying but whatever you’re my friend’-look and smile only he could bring out. Man, he’d really screwed up, huh? He finally had the woman in the picture right where he’d pined for her to be, and then he totally blew it by not only hurting her but also hurting Sophia. Two really incredible women who deserve a hell of a lot better. 

But maybe, just maybe, he could get another chance with Amy. He had to write her again, something more, and pray to some higher force that she’d at least offer her a minute of her time. So he did it. Holding his breath, he clicked the ‘send message’ and was presented with their past messages. More precisely, it was just his old messages. 15 blue messages saying  

 I’m so sorry. Please call me when you’re ready. 

-Peralta 

 “Pathetic…” He mumbled to himself as he felt his thumb shaking when redirected to the keyboard. At first, he didn’t type anything at all - simply stared at the letters, hoping they’d somehow get together by themselves to form the right words to send to her. Then suddenly, he typed like a maniac - only to end up deleting it all with a groan of frustration, throwing the device across the couch. There were people who were going to space, working on cures for cancer, going to war, and even people working multiple jobs - yet he couldn’t form a simple text. This cycle of writer’s block, writing, deleting, throwing, and then picking up repeated itself for quite some time. 

The smallest, burning orange glimpse of the sun peeped through the clouds by the time he read through his final product, took a deep breath, even said a little prayer, and hit ‘send’. His eyes were burning from the lack of sleep combined with the light of the screen, yet he couldn’t just go sleep. On the contrary, all he could do was lie on his back and stare at the ceiling as he thought through the message he knew by heart at this point.

 Amy, I can’t seem to find the right words,

so I hoping that these will do. Once again, 

I’m sorry for what I did to you and I know 

you deserve better. This is also why I don’t

wish to keep reaching out like I have if it

causes you more pain than good. 

Meet me on the roof of 397 Barton Street on 

Sunday at 4 PM if you’re willing to give me a 

few minutes of your time and hear me out.

If you don’t show up, then I will completely 

understand and I will stop bothering you.

Like, for good. I know that I hurt you.

I miss you. 

- The hugest dick in the world (not in the cool sense), Peralta

 This was either a new beginning or a tragic ending. 

[tired-college-student-writing]

Here we go Loopty Loo pt 3

Summary: Graduation was supposed to signal the final time they all spent time together at UA, to show they have all grown into the Heros they dreamed of being.

It was supposed to be, but when has anything ever been easy for class 1-A?

AN: A Yagi central chapter for the big guys big day!

pt1

pt 2 

pt 3 (HERE)

pt 4

___________________________________________

Loop #12

___________________________________________

Looping was… odd to say the least, even after so many years, they had yet to find a point of origin for their travels through time and dimensions.

Shouta and the students were making it through the best they could but the man could help but feel increasingly isolated.

Every single one of his students were partially his children at this point. Though he wasn’t going to admit that to their faces, he was fairly certain from the grins he got when he grouched about them they had guessed how he really felt.

He supported them throughout the trials and hardships of being stuck as high schoolers for nearly forty years now. They had plenty of happy, sad, uncomfortable, and embarrassing moments between them at this point, especially when the dorms ended up being built each first year.

He stocked them with enough candy, soda, and junk food to give them all heart attacks by twenty-five if they ever broke out of these damned loops, but also encouraged healthy eating ad spent more of his own money on keeping fresh produce and food in their kitchen then he was willing to admit.

He trained them passed what he ever had before, knowing that while their skills and abilities reverted each time they returned back to the start, the knowledge and muscle memory stayed and he wasn’t going to allow them to slack no matter how much he wanted to. It didn’t mean he was above treating them enough that Mic and Midnight had accused him of going soft more than a few times.

He allowed them more freedom then he used to because he knew they weren’t as naive as they once were, turning a blind eye if they brought alcohol back to the dorms, or got up to some ‘extra training’, though he took a certain twisted glee in forcing them all to sit through the safe sex talk each time they switched genders. He was not dealing with any of them getting pregnant, even if it meant throwing condoms at the red faces of his children and talking to Recovery Girl about getting the girls on birth control.

Even so, he felt so far separated from the students that were sixteen years younger than him. He was the adult, the only adult in this situation. Sure he was making sure to keep his relationships with his friends and lovers in every timeline they ended in, putting in the effort to be a good friend and allowing a few more of his walls to fall around them then he ever would in the original timeline, but there was only so much that could be helped when he could discuss the strain time traveling was having on him.

Sure he could talk to the children but… what kind of father was he if he put his own problems onto the kids that were just doing their best to stay afloat? He was their support, they didn’t need him breaking down on them to weigh them down further.

That’s how he found himself in bed at 3 am, on the first day of school, trying desperately to go back to sleep before he needed to go see the brats for the ‘first time’ all over again.

Had he slept in his bed the first time? He couldn’t remember, though he would appreciate it if the switch didn’t happen at ungodly hours of the morning.

Finally, at 5:30 he gave up and slowly made his way to the school. If anyone asked he could just claim that he had covered a patrol the night before and curl up into his sleeping bag until he had to be down in class 1-A at 8:45.

He tried to think over the changes to the timeline, as he entered the school, memories of this timeline crowding around his memories of the original and subsequent timelines, though he found himself fidgeting with his capture weapon in a way he hadn’t since high school, seems as if he never kicked the habit after Mic teased him one too many times this go around.

Everything seemed to be similar enough to the first timeline based on his memories with a few minor changes, he and Mic weren’t dating, this go around, but were still good friends. He had almost not made it into the hero course his first year due to taking second in the Sports Festival, but it was found out during the break between semesters the kid that beat him had cheated and was subsequently demoted to Gen Ed while Aizawa has been moved up. He still worked with vigilantes, though he was more friendly with them then he originally was.

Nothing too major for him to keep in mind about himself then, what about recent events?

He recalled watching the entrance exams, seeing the students through an overly critical eye, making snide comments he hadn’t truly believed since the third loop, he can’t think of any major changes from his kids, except… Midoriya…

He hadn’t shattered three limbs this time, had he?

No, if he remembered correctly the boy had actually managed to wrack up a mediocre five points from the robots this time from a lance and throwing knives he seemed to summon out of thin air before the Zero-pointer had appeared. He had still launched himself to impossible heights by a pair of wings that seemed to be made of light and blasted the robot back with a bolt of pale green lightning before passing out. Recovery Girl said there was nothing she could do for him but let him sleep. He hadn’t bothered to check up on the boy after that, not knowing him yet.  

Whatever his power was it was powerful, but was it still One for All?

It didn’t seem like it. That would be new, not seeing the boy cultivate the power bestowed upon him by All Might.

But now that he thought about it he couldn’t remember the meeting introducing All Might to the staff including the truly mind breaking revelation of the man’s true skeletal form… was it possible that he never got injured… Was he still the Yagi that Aizawa had started treasuring as a friend almost as much as he did Hizashi, Nemuri, and Tensei?  

His answer came sooner then he thought when he entered the staff room, blissfully empty at this earlier hour, only to hear a quiet sob from the adjoining bathroom. He slowly worked his way over, mind racing as he tried to figure out which of his coworkers could possibly be having a mental breakdown before the first day when he started making out the mumbling.

“-do this. It’s just a bit different than times before. You just need to… make friends again and find a way to train Young Midoriya to be your successor again… or is his current quirk to different? Damnit can I still give it to him without the other teachers growing suspicious? … I can’t give it to someone else… even if he’s not the same… it’s always been him…”

Yagi was… what did he mean by again? He couldn’t possibly…

“Stupid Stupid Stupid. Why are you even looking for a succeeder? I have a lot of life left in me now, I’m only 49… I really am pathetic, huh. Even now...”

The sobs were becoming too much for Aizawa to listen to without intervening, he had to know…

All Might jumped and whirled around to stare at him with wide eyes as Aizawa stood in the doorway. The tear tracks and red rim eyes worried Aizawa but he couldn’t help but notice the man in front of him wasn’t quite filling out his suit, even if it wasn’t quite as noticeable as it usually was, the shadows around his face receding almost entirely and his iconic bunny ears were gone, framing around his face in crinkled strands instead.

“Aizawa-kun!” He squeaked, scrubbing his face harshly, attempting to paint his famous smile back on, “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here for another hour… I’m sorry that you had to witness me like this, it seems I was more panicked about teaching then I-”

“Toshinori,” He cut in causing a startled gasp to escape the man, who he couldn’t recall ever telling them his true name this timeline, “If I said the names Eri and Overhaul, what would you think of?”

The number one hero stiffened, hands clenching next to his legs as his shoulders shook.

“A very sweet little girl that needs saving and a maniac that harmed Eri-chan because of his quirk. How would you describe them?”

Aizawa couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his cheeks, “My daughter that I never get enough time with, who loves apples, Deku, Mirio, and to braid my hair with purple ribbons, and a sociopath with a god complex that despises quirks.”

All Might’s legs gave out after he started describing his little girl, sinking to the floor with another sob on his lips.

“You’re stuck too,” He whispered, as Shouta came to sit next to him, “You’ve been going through these damn loops just like I have.”

“Number 12,” He agreed, “You’ve been through this alone?”

The man nodded, but a real smile was already pulling his lips upward, “But, we have each other now, right? We don’t have to be alone anymore!”

Aizawa didn’t fight a smile, “Optimistic as always, you damn sunflower.”

He laughed, “How can I be upset? I’ve just received the best news I’ve had since this entire thing has started!”

“I don’t know,” Aizawa huffed, “I think finding out you still have your stomach and lung is pretty good news.”

“It came with the price of Young Midoriya knowing me, however,” He sighed, a sad tinge entering his words, “I prefer the constant pain to not having my boy being with me.”

“Well…” Aizawa drew out, “I don’t know if that’s entirely true.”

When Aizawa marched into class with the number one hero in tow, the students all froze, Kaminari snatching up the eraser to erase the words he and Bakugo were already writing on the whiteboard Momo must have created when she arrived. A glance over the room confirmed that all 20 students were there.

“Hello Class,” He greeted with a slight smirk, “I would like you to meet Yagi Toshinori, or as you know him better, All Might, he’s Looper number 22.”

That’s all it took for Midoriya to launch himself out of his chair and leaping across the room into his mentor’s arms, who caught him on instinct as he looked like he was about to start crying again. Aizawa had done his best to help Izuku through the strain of being so close yet so far from his mentor as he went through the motions of getting to know him over and over again even though he already knew the stories of One for All and All for One down to the finest detail and knew Yagi enough that he had called him dad in almost every timeline they had been in so far. From the tight hold Yagi had on his successor, and the gentle way he cupped the back of his head, it was clear the strain had been mutual.

The others stood back, eyes wide as they kept looking back between the hugging pair and Aizawa.

He merely sighed lightly shoving Yagi’s shoulder, “Get in the room idiots, unless you want to explain why you’re hugging a student you should not know in any fashion.”

“Easy,” Todoroki offered, “Just claim you’re his secret love child.”

Midoriya groaned, pulling his face from his mentor’s neck, “I told you for the last time, Shoto. I’m not biologically related to All Might!”

Yagi just laughed, withheld tears causing his voice to be raspier then anything, “Well…”

Aizawa smirked, “Oh? Do tell Toshi.”

The man moved Izuku to one hip rubbing the back of his neck with his open hand, “Two loops… or maybe three loops ago, Young Midoriya was my biological son, though Inko made me promise to not tell him until he turned 18, even after finding out I was training him to be my protege. I decided it didn't change the bond we were forming so why did it matter?”  

“Oh my god,” Deku whispered, “I can’t believe your conspiracy theories came true.”

“I’m not really surprised by anything anymore when it comes to these damn loops,” Shinsou sighed getting a groan of approval from around the room.

“Enough talking,” Aizawa snapped, “Y’all know the drill by now.”

Yagi raised an amused brow, “Y'all? It looks like I’ve rubbed off on you a bit my friend,”

“Shut your star-spangled mouth, I want to get this over with as soon as possible so I don’t have Midnight and Mic pounding down my door to ask why I’m going so easy on the class.”

Mina snorted, “Like they didn't think you tried to adopt us all by the second month in the original timeline.”

“Detention for slander, Ashino,” He called as he walked to the front of the room, cuffing her lightly on the back of the head as he passed.

He forcibly had to stop himself from rolling his eyes as he sees the whole class grinning up at him as he leaned on his podium. All Might having sat on his desk with Midoriya still fused to his side.

“Okay since Katsuki and Denki are leading this thing this time you get to explain to All Might what’s we do every time we start a loop.”

The kids launch into a quick explanation as Katsuki rewrote all the rules again and copied down the major changes they had noted already.

Midoriya’s new quirk, Astral Weaving, was in the number one spot, but under it was also a few changes about families and old classes. Most interesting was how Shoto was still in contact with Toya but was pretty sure based on his looping memories that his brother was still Dabi.

“I got nothing to add,” Aizawa hummed turning to his coworker, “Yagi?”

The man just smiled before smoke began rising from his form, causing Deku to blink as his seat only shrunk slightly.

“Holy Fuck!” Sero cried, causing the entire room to be up in arms, awe, and happiness rushing through them to see their teacher was okay for the first time since they meet him.

Aizawa didn’t even try to lessen the smile on his face as he saw the first real All Might patented grin, not just a facade, not just the fake plastered on one that never seemed to reach his eyes that he had gotten so used to seeing since the beginning of the loops.

Surrounded by his friend and their kids, Aizawa could finally see the silver lining again. ___________________________________________

Taglist: @i-like-fairytail-and-stuff @plaguedoctorsnake (I’m so sorry for forgetting to tag yall in pt 2) 

[stimmypaw]

stimmypaw reads Thunder & Shadow, another blog post

much like the first time, I am continuing to read A Vision of Shadows for the first time and sharing my thoughts as I go! This post of course has a bunch of spoilers for Thunder and Shadow. It’s all in the read more, have fun!

I'm so glad echosong is okay but what will she do??? Where will she go??? I'm so worried

I don't like it that Briarlight is stuck in the medicine den all day, love to see her playing with kits and showing her strength tho she's so sweet and good she deserves better

Now littlecloud is sick too???? Fuck!!!!

Also seems Needlepaw and Alderpaw haven't managed to get along better yet, maybe Alderpaw can talk to her through Leafpool since she's going to Shadowclan?

Also graystripe is awful as always and I love him 2 bits

I love Rowanstar's character too, he's so stupidly proud. Shadowclan has a fun trend of having a long line of mediocre to awful leaders and I feel bad for Tawnypelt, Shadowclans braincell who should be leader.

Jayfeather is gonna miss his friends

YES, SKYCLAN!!!! SKYCLANNNN

Twigkit lifting her front paws im 💖💖💖💖 AAAAA BABY

Graystripe :] he's silly

Omg feather time

If something bad happens to this feather ill fraud my taxes I will commit many crimes this delivery must happen safely and if anyone takes it from violetkit I will Kill

Omg sleekpaw don't be so mean poor littlecloud :c medicine cats are important!!

I see alderpaw leaving his feather behind alderpaw get it to violetkit Now

Oh God imagine being puddlekit, shadowclan needs to get its shit together real fast

Leafpool is just that picture (i do not see) while trying to process the mess they got her in

OKAY SO I'm glad he's getting along with needlepaw and that he can finally give violetkit her feather but LITTLECLOUD GUYS??? LITTLECLOUD?????????

My heart melted with violetkit, this was so sweet, why are the queens so mean to her??? She's just an autistic icon bro!! Like every cat I like in these books.

Alderpaw: hey I have an idea, why don't we commit crimes?

Needlepaw: FINALLY I THOUGHT YOUD NEVER ASK

VIOLETKIT POINT OF VIEW FINALLY???? FUCK YES YESSSS YES YES SHADOWCLAN TIME IM SO HAPPY THIS IS SO COOL

Last time this happened the character immediately died tho

Hm

I am suffering for violetkit

i wish violetkit would spend more time with leafpool im sure she’d be caring maybe?? maybe im just desperate for violetkit to be loved

no one here knows how to treat a kit

OH YES YESSS

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS SSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATHEYRE TOGETHER AGAIN

im so sad

im 

broooooo

aaaaa i hope needlepaw treats violetkit better from now on, this is hearbreaking.

Fuck I knew it, the rogues are coming for them aren’t they? And where’s Skyclan now????? fuck fuck fuck

ok I have no clue who Fernsong is but he’s funny already why is he like this what is happening why is he blocking them from looking at Honeykit while talking about how worried he is about her?? Absolutely misterious I love him

  Jayfeather 🤝 Yellowfang

 “I don’t want kits around me”

oh the girls are fighting

oh the girls ARE fighting

furzepelt had a cool name im sorry to hear he only existed to die immediately :c

onestar also is very proud, im glad he accepted help this time tho

SPARKPAW MED CAT MOMENT HAHAH

i forgot bumblestripe was a cat and i was wondering if it was just a typo for bramble

also what’s up with dove and tiger??? i forgot everything about their relationship in the previous books because i don’t care about it and the erins tend to write some pretty boring straight couples

the way they’re described makes me feel like needlepaw and sleekpaw are just differently colored versions of each other at times, are they related?? they don’t seem to be.

and here’s the bit that’s previewed, oh boy, it must have been seriously scary being violetkit, but i hope they don’t convince her the clans hate her :c thunderclan likes her shadowclan just sucks

What do these background cats want from Twigkit???? To shoot lasers out of her eyes?? I guess she isn’t magical or anything but also she’s just a kit??? Firepaw was also just a kittypet and he’s a big deal :/// y’all just don’t get it, I hope Twigkit doesn’t get Dovepaw’s protagonist anxiety

I know Twigkit is being scolded but this scene is just so cute like Jayfeather is just tucking her in a moss bed while being mad at her for leaving camp

Thats another one I need to draw i love them

SPARKPELT YESSSSS YESS SYE SYES YES 🎊🎉🎉🎉🎊🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈💖💖💖💖💖💕💖💕💖💕💖💕💕

Mothwing ableist????? That's cringe

Omg poor kestrelflight

Jayfeather misses Leafpool so bad, Puddlepaw must feel awful though

OLD AGE? H HOW OLD IS LEAFPOOL THEN???

?????? OH GOD IM LOVING THIS???

This apprentice rebellion is Nuts its so good oh fuck!!! I'm loving whats happening here its awful and perfect

Violetkit is getting bitter :c she needs 2 be embraced and loved stat

She is also clearly getting some bad dependency and abandonment issues, desperate to do anything to please so she won't be left alone again :c

FUCK NO NO NO AAAA NEEDLEPAW WHAT WWERE YOU THUNKING??????? JESUS POOR VIOLETKIT

Kitnapping, this is bad

Oh, very interesting

These apprentices and rogues are so smart god this is a perfect plan

Twigkit absolutely is the sunshine

I love her interactions with Alderpaw, I wish she had gotten to see her sister

In comparison Violetkit looking around camp desperate for attention is awful

Oh fuck bribing

NEEDLEPAW DONT BE MEAN TO VIOLETKIT :C

Oh fuck ou fuck the 4chan kids are angry

??? BRO WHAT??? DONT KICK OUT VIOLETKIT, THATS WHY YOUR APPRENTICES TURNED INTO ANCAPS DAMN

I'm angy

Oh no

Something bad happened :c

Bramblestar: good day!

Rowanstar: Oh Is it??? You could say that while starving in winter, cringe ass

Mistystar: its not winter tho

Onestar: well you're fat

God rowanstar must be obliterated

Hey where's the rowanstars maps use idk loon on a lake or something this man has angst!!!

I appreciate Ivypool is her mentor, at least Someone is honest about whats going on and hey they can both relate on the fear of not being special! Ivypool can be very good to Twigpaw im counting on her

Oh fuck

Violetpaw sounds like she's in trouble with the rogues :c aa

AAAA TWIGPAWWWW AAAA

Violetpaw don't be mean about your sister :C she misses you so bad

Sleekwhisker is like that dad that let his kid starve until she learned to open a bean can she didn't want

Holy fuck

Aaaa violetpaw D:

Jesus christ that was awful

That was so intense I was so nervous for Violetpaw, I'm really happy for her now aaaa

Another gathering already? Wowie

I hope Shadowclan gets those herbs soon :c

I see he appeal in FernIvy and I appreciate it

Violetpaw and Twigpaw sharing a den my heart......this is IT

Jayfeather: I want to steal

I'm listening to Burn Pygmalion! and "viscious kin" is very fitting for this series ehhehe

I love violetpaw and twigpaw btw

IM CRYING

I cant believe Alderpaw is an all lives matter kinda guy

Yesss rebel get those herbs alreadyyy

Starclan has agreed to let kestrelflight kill onestar, goodbye onestar /j

Epic I love you harespring

Alderpaw being confused at Jayfeather saying he is proud is the Best

What an ending! Terrifying and hopeful at the same time, I am very excited to see the hijinks Bramblestar and Rowanstar will get into and how they will go searching for Skyclan, it was PAINFUL to have that prologue talking about them with 0 hope of them showing up again Nothing Nada Zilch, feels like that and the ending were just 2 remind us that that was still the major plot point hahaha, I appreciate it I guess. I'm glad Violetpaw and Twigpaw are on uh good terms despite it all, not very ideal and they're both upset but they still consider each other siblings and know they care about each other :'0 Alderheart getting his name is epic too!!! I was hoping he would soon. I loved everything about his interactions with Jayfeather here, loved all the characterizations really it was just top notch, Onestar being a bastard, Needletail, OH AND SHADOWCLAN JOINING THE ROGUES, top notch!!!! The ancap apprentices were a riot.

This was a good book!!! Flowed very nicely and smoothly, reading in shadowclan's point of view for more than around 3 chapters was great. I can barely wait for the rest!!! Will Violetpaw find belonging in this new era of Shadowclan??? Or will she leave again??? Will Alderheart somehow figure out where Skyclan is and get them together at the lake??? Will Twigpaw get all the spicy details of Dovewing's secret romance with Tigerheart??? Who knows!! But I am very excited to find out what happens next :D

[migleefulmoments]

Abb/y has something to s/ay

Let me premise this by reminding everyone that Abby -like Trump-doesn’t “get” comedy. They literally do not understand jokes, punchlines, or humor. So a satirical show about the Hollywood song writers falls flat. Her time away did nothing to sway her conspiratorial aspirations or her misogynistic hatred of Mia. She watched Royalties not once, but twice... not to enjoy Darren’s creativity and performance, not to support the celebrity she stans, and not even to crack up at the humor, no she watched twice because she was looking for confirmation bias. She wanted to document all of the ways Darren wrote his CrissColfer truth into Pierce’s life and she obsessively listened to all of the diss-tracks he wrote to attack his wife.  

Let me also premise this by saying I loved the show. I thought it was funny and the songs are so damn catchy.  The lyrics are quintessential Darren- funny, very clever, and raunchy.  

******************************************

R/oyalties, the Tale of Two Shows with a Heaping Side of Meta

ajw720. So I just finished watching R/oyalties for the second time, this time solely focused on the meta.  Look, we all know, the show is not good, it was not well written and the short format didn’t help as there was no option to develop character or plot.  But D knew it would not be good, he apologized for it back in January 2019.  And I think the effort he put into acting was the effort it deserved. Ok.

But his songs were genius.  As were the videos, hence why i call it the tale of two shows.  It truly was like watching content made by completely different people. I concur with MH, D is “intensely talented.”  And the part of this show he poured his blood, sweat, and tears into, the songs, are evident of this.

But this is a post about that Heaping Side of Meta. I think D, knowing that that show would not be made in the manner he envisioned, instead used it as a vehicle to make some bold statements and parallels with his career and public life.  Shall we begin?  And please, unlike the perfect song, this is not a perfect post and after the second round of watching i canceled my Quibi subscription and never plan to look back, so please feel free to add. I know some of these have been pointed out but I thought it was valuable to have one post.

One idea to inpsire the song?  A tiny FROG on a dime.

D’s shirt 1st seen in Episode 2: “It is hard to soar like an Eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys”

And of course “Call me Goldilocks bitch”  Remind you of something?

How about the entirety of Episode 3 when we are told that an artist is completely the product of the team.  That no matter what the artists expresses they want, it doesn’t matter because the Label/manager/publicist/on camera agent/legal will always have a say. And how it will play in America or the Foreign market are key metrics of how the product is produced and presented.  I love the line of the songwriter that tells P/ierce and S/ara to “get out while they are young.”  Or the line by one of her team “we don’t want something different, we want something the same that is different.”  And in the end P&S simply took one of KK old songs and reworked it, making something different that is not different and her team loved it.  

And of course, the line that was an utter slap in the face to the most over praised “director” of an indie band video ever when D reminds her of the real director in his life, the man set to direct major motion pictures, “you know who would be perfect to direct? C/hris.  C/hris would shatter this.”

Not much in Episode 4, but the gorilla suit in my opinion was mocking of a certain MMR video where we watched Swiller and a banana in a song about a gorilla.  Images I never need to see in my head again.

Episode 5, a gem, I am still so fucking proud of D and how he mocked her throughout the entirety of the episode.  New lines I love of that amazing song he wrote about her (in addition to those i posted previously here) “Some people say I’m a  genius, which comes from the greek word for Latin, and other people will say, alright in fact i’m a fuckin’s genius” “I’m not saying I’m a god, but I’m not saying I’m not a god.”  Mocking at its finest made all that much better by the band’s name “Switchback Jacket” that D describes as “butt rock emo” that is performed by a band that doesn’t actually sing, they are just the public image.  He literally told us that what we see is an image created for the public and that it is completely fake.  And he used his beard to make this statement. Just brilliant.  I cannot praise him enough for this, stealing her moment in the sun and making her look like an utter fool, telling us just how narcissistic she is.

Also some wonderful lines from that episode that are beyond telling:

“Power, it felt good to remind Kevin that I hold power over him. You always want to be the one with power”

“p/ierce wouldn’t know where to take a shit if I didn’t tell him.”

“she is like my wife except we don’t have sex and we are friends.”

“alright boss, I am ready to record that song, but where should i take a shit?”

“You will do anything to succeed.”

Episode 8 starring “Poly Amorous and the Unicorn Guild” an episode used to shine a light on how absurd it is that people believe D&PBB lived with platonic roomie B/enny for something like 4 years.  3 grown ass adults, all of whom have money to spare lived together in a relatively small house for four years.  It is pure comedy that anyone would believe that this is normal.  But hey these are the same people that explained away the infamous arm around her while at an awards show with D looking on:

And the cherry on top of this episode, the inclusion of C/huck (for some background, see my post here).

I really like the one bit of dialogue between P&S, where D pretty much tells us once again that M will use anyone to get what she wants:

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe just maybe, I don’t like where we are now? There were a lot of really great things about the way things were.  Things that are worth preserving.  Not that you just take and use and through out.”

Episode 9 had some really impactful lines:

“you think i wouldn’t steal for my career? You think I wouldn’t lie?  I would do anything.”

The Neils being the nameless individuals, nothing more than a number, who are the ones who actually create the product.  And then the song, some of the translations are D telling you how he feels, because sometimes i think in terms of his public image he is just a Neil trying to escape the cage that has been built around him:

“I dream about getting away, I have been locked up in this cage wishing i could make my escape. I hate that I need you.”

And finally Episode 10, where we learn the Neils get no credit and no royalties. This reminds me of a script C wrote that never saw the light of day but suddenly the next season of AHS had the same theme as his script.

And that is all i got, if you have more please add. I think the fact that D took what he knew would be a mediocre project and projected his voice and story throughout it was pretty genius and a smart way to utilize this vehicle, that was clearly payout for so many that have used him for years and to shine a bright light on the truth.

elicc  The “perfect song”’s performer is called Bailey Rouge, a clear link to TLOS.

He is a genius.

ajw720   @elicc damn, that was on my list and I forgot. And we all know who Red is inspired by, so seems fitting Bailey Rouge would get the perfect song.

ajw720. Just adding one more I thought about putting in my original post but admittedly think it’s a stretch. But maybe not? Just adding here for fun.

When Theo tells P to bottle up all his romantic feelings I couldn’t help but think of a certain chapter in a book

*******************************************

Oy Vei! Abby didn’t use her time away getting any therapy or perspective.  She hasn’t learned any lessons. I have no doubt she’s been reading just as much as she did before and she’s speaking to Cassie, Flowers et al all day. It’s really sad. It’s sad that she can’t see how silly she sounds, what an asshole her version of Darren is. If she could restrain herself even a little bit it might come off less unhinged because turning every single moment of Royalties into some crisscolfer wet dream reeks of desperation. 

Abby hates Royalties. In last week’s “Dear D” she had the audacity to say 

....Fans that are beyond devoted and mainly because of the way you have treated fans with respect and a level of caring that far surpasses the majority of public figures.  And while I am not enjoying the show itself, the music shows how diverse you are as a writer and how you can virtually write for anyone or any genre. The songs are fantastic.  Memorable.  And really fun.  

She knows the the Langs wrote the show and Darren wrote the songs but what she can’t seem to comprehend is that Darren IS Royalties. Everything in the show is Darren’s.  

Staying in the closet would be less painful than trying to express oneself through a short-form satirical comedy.  Can you imagine trying to express your devastation and pain through Kick Your Shoes off or Break It In? 

“I’m the king of the hard fuck....pile drive the bed like a young buck...if you like feathery shit thats pretty cool but I don’t need that...people say I fuck too soft, saying that I can’t please a woman” 

BTW Abby- “call me goldilocks bitch” isn’t a reference to TLOS it’s a reference to Goldilocks and Three Bears because because he fucks perfect, not too soft, not too hard. It’s much more believable that he is referring to a random nursery rhyme than it is to believe he is referring to a children’s book his lover/husband/boyfriend wrote 8 years ago. You might love the book but Chris has moved on and written new things. 

Darren wrote funny lyrics. I loved Kick Your Shoes Off because it’s written by a man whose watched his wife and female friends wear painful shoes for the same of fashion even though its painful as fuck.   

“Yeah, I’m a bad bitch so don’t be mad bitch. I turned the room into a catwalk like a sad bitch. I can’t feel my toes in these stilettos. when I walk out my roomate says you’ll regret those....Beauty is pain but oh I look amazing.  You won’t hear me complaining but oh my instep (inside?) is screaming...kick your shoes off (kick em off) ooooooo I do what I want..(Kick em off) ooooo Hey I can’t walk in these, blisters start to bleed now both my feet are swollen. Kick your shoes off (Kick em off).....It’s like i feel so good when my shoes are on, but like i also feel sooooo good when they are off” 

Abby’s convinced I am So Much Better Than You is straight up about Mia because Mia is in the video. She listened to it on repeat the day after it came out. In her “Letter to D” last week she said 

Especially after you made an effort to mock her for the entirety of Tuesday when her episode aired (and for the record I am still really, really proud of what you did with that episode and how you handled the roll out, that is the fighter I admire and that inspires me.  I listened to I am so much better than you on repeat on my drive home from work yesterday).   

Good Lord  The lyrics are as silly as all the other songs: “My mirror wants to bone me (but it can’t because it’s a mirror)” How did Abby miss the obvious TLOS mirror/ Halloween costume reference here?  

“You keep doing push ups while I get buff eating mac and cheese (with overpriced lobster and truffles because I’m worth it)”  

“Some people say I’m a genius (which comes from the greek work for latin) Some other people will say yeah I’m right I’m a fucking genius (I’m not saying I’m a god but I’m not saying I’m not a god). 

“And even when you sneeze, God blesses me, he blesses me. And even when you sneeze, god blesses me, he blesses me, he blesses me”

“I’m am so much better than you at everything”. 

She believes Darren would be- and stay- married to a women that he publicly ridicules and attacks. I don’t get why she thinks that is something admirable . 

She thinks Also You is referring to Ben living with them.  Where to start with this one? She says

“Episode 8 starring “Poly Amorous and the Unicorn Guild” an episode used to shine a light on how absurd it is that people believe D&PBB lived with platonic roomie B/enny for something like 4 years.  3 grown ass adults, all of whom have money to spare lived together in a relatively small house for four years.  It is pure comedy that anyone would believe that this is normal.  But hey these are the same people that explained away the infamous arm around her while at an awards show with D looking on”

I’m gobsmacked.  Also You is about Polyamory. She doesn’t even understand her own theories if she thinks that is the message Darren wants to share about Mia and Ben.  In no world would someone try to proclaim their wife was cheating on them with a live-in houseguest by writing an episode called Poly Amorous and the Unicorn Guild.  Also, someone needs to explain cuckholding to her because her theories about Ben and Mia make Darren a cuck.  

OMG I just realized that Darren is a cuck and Royalties proves it.  He hired Kether to be his costar in Royalties,...Kether is in You’re the Worst as Lindsay.  Lindsay cuckholds her husband. Bam! mic drop.   

Why isn’t Perfect Song about Mia, you know, if we are playing confirmation bias “No one is as good as you because you're my perfect song” 

[philippmichelreichold]

 on Ross R. Olney's Tales of Time and Space   on Ross R. Olney's Tales of Time and Space   on Ross R. Olney's Tales of Time and Space   Home   Tales of Time and Space, edited by  Ross R. Olney consists of a number of  simply plotted little stories by some of science fiction's best. They are simply plotted yet enthralling. Don't know what passes for young adult fiction these days, but these stories fit the bill  for me in days gone buy. 10 • Yesterday's Fantasy, Today's Fact-an Introduction • essay by Ross R. Olney No one has read much science fiction without having been told how imaginative/speculative/science fiction/fantasy foretold most common place advances long before they were made. This may have been  the first book in which I read the idea. 15 • All the Time in the World • (1952) • shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke Sir Author C. Clarke is best known for "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Childhood's End", and "Rendevous with Rama".   Any offer that sounds too good probably has a catch, and so it is in this story. Say you're a thief by trade and someone  offers a million pounds to hire you to clean out a national museum. They offer to lend you a bracelet that accelerates time around you so that you can be in and out in a flash. or a blink of an eye. You'd be a fool not to, right?  A tight little story about the thief's moral qualms. The ending was not surprising. Would have made a good Twilight Zone.  It was an episode in the TV series Tales of  Tomorrow.   It was Clarke's first story adapted to TV. 34 • Puppet Show • (1962) • shortstory by Fredric Brown Fredric Brown also wrote "Arena", the story the Star Trek (TOS) episode of the same name was/wasn't based on. First contacts can be dicey. Say you're assigned by a vast Galactic Federation to evaluate Earth in general and the United States in particular. What questions would you ask and what assurances would you make? And what sort of tests would you perform? And what is a "master race" anyway? A pointy little story about ethnocentrism. It's one of Brown's last stories and one of several First Contact stories.  Brown does a wonderful job of setting up the reader for the ending. 50 • Birds of a Feather  is a1958  novelette by Robert Silverberg Robert Silverberg sold his first stories in 1953 and 1954. He still writes a column for Asimov's Science Fiction. The first story of his I remember reading is Nightwings in The Hugo Winners. Birds are ruthless competitors. They are the surviving dinosaurs, and their survival instincts are hard-wired into their old reptile cortices. How fitting an analogy to describe the protagonist and antagonist in this story.  Say you run a special sort of show. Non-humans line up to get in. You have to turn away most. But what if a con artist puts one over you and horns in under false pretenses? Now you've got an employee sharp enough to squeeze you out of a sweet deal. But he can't out-con a con, when you've got the goods on him. This is a fun and imaginative read. The variety of xenophonts reminds me of Poul Anderson's stories. 82 • Clutch of Morpheus is a 1946 a short story by William Campbell Gault [as by Larry Sternig ] Say you were born with a mutation. Not an obvious-to-the-eye mutation, but you don't sleep, haven't slept, can't sleep. Say you've been poked and prodded and examined by scientists and physicians and the public to the point of taking an assumed name to avoid further publicity.  But you're curious-- what's it like? you wonder. What's it like to sleep? So you look up the leading anesthesiologist in the country and discuss it with him over dinner. Meanwhile, there's a comet in the sky, and Earth is situated in its tale, and will be for some time. Long story short, it has a soporific effect on everyone else. You get to figure out the solution to their problem, which happens to be the solution to your own, through an incredible string of co-incidences.   The story  stretches the ability to suspend disbelief, which wasn't a problem when I first read the story, and which does not seem an insurmountable problem in most readers of science fiction. Mumblety-mumble years of reading this stuff means seldom  being surprised by an ending, but I enjoyed it just the same.  105 • The Last Command is a Bolo 1967  short story by Keith Laumer Dave Drake  tells in his preface to Hammer's Slammers that he was heavily influenced by Laumer's Bolo's. The professionalism and dedication to duty that Drake describes in his own unit, the Viet Nam era Blackhorse , is seen also in Laumer's , "Unit LNE of the Dinochrome Brigade!"  a Mark XXVIII Bolo and his former commander, Lieutenant Sanders.  Unit LNE of the Dinochrome Brigade." Say you awaken buried and crippled, the blasting at a construction site 70 years after  your burial  has jarred  you awake and triggered your Battle Mode Reflex. On escaping  your tomb and finding yourself  not only crippled but alone, you conclude that your unit has been annihilated by a counter attack. You do not realize 70 years have past and that the city ahead of  you is a civilian city and not the enemy's stronghold. Your duty is clear. Whatever the cost, duty demands that you charge the ramparts and inflict as much harm on the enemy as you can before you succumb. Nothing now on planet can stop a BOLO  Mark XXVIII.  (The artillery  and air strikes they lay on you just knock some of the debris off.) Your old commander, Lieutenant Sanders, is 90 years old and still has his old uniform. He sees your return on TV and knows that he will need to talk to you to stop this rampage. Communication from a distance proves not to be efficacious, and Sanders must climb aboard  your hull to make contact. The problem with this is you are still incredibly radioactive from the hits taken during the late battle. (You  don't know you and the others  had been buried under 200 yards of rock because clean-up would have been too costly.) Sanders receives a far greater than lethal dose in making contact, but you recognize him despite time's ravages; you break-off and retire ten miles to the desert. Together you roll into the past of a world that no longer needs nor can appreciate your service. 136 • Fog  is a  1951 a short story by William Campbell Gault This is  a somber tale that is hard to grip. Perhaps it would fit in today's idiom in which understanding of the goals and motives of the antagonist isn't important. It isn't important to understand how the protagonist got into this mess. The important thing is the courage and self abnegation of the protagonist. More subtly and appalling is the extremes to which the U.S. is willing to go to win. Russia lies a desolate, radioactive wasteland. So the means used to end the Veneran threat is a logical extension of a successful solution. I thought the story a little cheesy and the emotion rending (or not) ending reminded me of the ending of "A Question of Courage" by J. F. Bone. Say you're an orphan. The only father you've known is the head of the Science Department, your boss, The Old Man.  So The Old Man calls you to his office to send you to investigate a killer fog in San Francisco. Fog in San Francisco is not troubling. The dramatic increase in suicides associated with this fog is troubling, and it is accelerating. Unbeknownst to The Old Man is that you are secretly working for the Venereans, the inhabitants of the planet Venus.  Of course, the Venereans are behind the fog. After allowing sufficient time for the significance of the escalating suicide rate to sink in, the Venereans issue an ultimatum-- surrender or else. Your job becomes to carry the response to Venus. 161 • The Martian Crown Jewels  is a 1958 a short story by Poul Anderson Poul Anderson is best known for his Technic Civilization and Time Patrol stories. Say you're a Martian private detective who admires Sherlock Holmes. Say the Crown Jewels have been loaned to Earth and stolen during the journey home.  The diplomatic situation that would result from knowledge of the loss of the jewels becoming public would be unfortunate.  Through application of some physics, clear thinking, and deduction, you solve the mystery and expose the culprits. 189 • Of Missing Persons is a  short story by Jack Finney Say you work at a mediocre little job and live a desperate little life. The meanness of your existence eats away at you a little more each and every day. Each and every day you yearn for something better. At last, the way out, the way home, the way to a better life is there for you to take. If you don't funk at the crucial moment. Jack Finney's best known work is "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers". This poignant tale touches the reader because the protagonist's  feelings of quiet desperation in this story written sixty years ago are the feelings many of us have today. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

FIVE QUESTIONS ABOUT LANGUAGE DESIGN AND BAD ECONOMY

But working on this is not a win, in the sense that your body is happier during a long run than sitting on a sofa eating doughnuts. And they have leverage in that their decisions set the whole company moving in one direction or another. One is that you shouldn't build object-oriented programming in too deeply. What good will more code do you when you're out of business. The larger a group, the closer its average member will be to the average for the population as a whole must be giving people something they want, the more different it gets. A physicist friend recently told me half his department was on Prozac.1 It was no coincidence that the great industrialists of the nineteenth century had so little formal education. Many startups go through a point a few months before they die where although they have a significant amount of money in one family's bank account, or the market wasn't ready yet, b the founders solved the wrong problem. Programming languages are how people talk to computers.

With server-based apps get released as a series of small changes. The ball you need to give someone a present and don't have any money, you don't usually have to invent anything.2 Life in a zoo is easier, but it could not have grown so big so fast. It's very dangerous to morale to start to depend on deals closing, not just because she's shy that she hates bragging. In Web-based software you can use any language you want, there is nothing in spam-of-the-envelope calculations, this one has a high average outcome. A company big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to acquire startups will be big enough to be fairly conservative, and within the company the people in the mailroom or the personnel department work at one remove from the actual making of stuff. I think you should make users the test, just as we can become smarter, just as a goalkeeper who prevents the other team from scoring is considered to have played a perfect game. Her immense data set and x-ray vision for character.3 And historically the number of new startups being founded in 2003.

For individuals the upshot is the same: aim small. A big company is probably getting a bad deal, because his performance is dragged down by the overall lower performance of the algorithm described in A Plan for Spam I hadn't had any, and I completely agree with him. I would really love to do, at least in our own minds, we have to remember that it's an admirable thing to write great programs, even when this work doesn't translate easily into the conventional intellectual currency of research papers. It could only spread to places that already had a vigorous middle class. A big company is like high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated vegetable oil.4 Though the immediate cause of death in a startup tends to be one. In practice, it seemed inevitable that I would eventually have to move from filtering based on single words to an approach like this. But it could be that a lot of new startups being founded in 2003. Near the top is the company run by techno-weenies who are obsessed with solving interesting technical problems, instead of making users happy.

As with the original industrial revolution, some societies are going to be hard to duplicate. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs are constituent characters. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs are constituent characters, and everything else is collapsing around you, having just ten users who love you will keep you going. Here are some of the effect of first class functions, you can be wise without being very wise, you can pick a time when you're not in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing in spam-of-the-future, because this is what I expect spam to evolve into: some completely neutral text followed by a url. But ambitious programmers are better off doing their own thing and failing than going to work at a big company, then a lot of maximally interesting tokens, meaning those with probabilities far from. It will always suck to work for some existing company. Ditto at the other end of the spectrum, we'd be the first to see signs of a separation between founders and investors in the Valley. In the earliest stages of a startup, of course.

Watching employees get transformed into founders makes it clear that the difference between the two. Jessica was so important to YC, why don't more people do it? Maybe it's because you haven't made what they want.5 75%. 88, just under the threshold of. That way we can avoid applying rules and standards to intelligence that are really meant for wisdom. Except instead of being at the mercy of investors. If anything, it's more like the small man of Confucius's day, always one bad harvest or ruler away from starvation. And the culture she defined was one of those that exploit an insecure cgi script to send mail to third parties. And yet if you analyzed the contents of the average grocery store you'd probably find these four ingredients accounted for most of the things they're doing is breaking up and misspelling words to prevent filters from recognizing them. For example, though the stock market crash does seem to have regarded wisdom, learning, and intelligence largely from cultivating them. We are all richer for knowing about penicillin, because we're less likely to die from infections.

With server-based. That last sentence is the fatal one.6 If you were dropped at a random point in America today, nearly all the food around you would be bad for you. I think the single biggest problem afflicting large companies is the difficulty of assigning a value to each person's work. If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them. If you're in a job that feels safe, you are thereby fairly close to measuring the contributions of individual employees. But large organizations will probably never again play the leading role they did up till the last quarter of the twentieth century.7 When startups came back into fashion, around 2005, investors were starting to hear about byte code, which implies to me at least that if we find more than 15 tokens that only occur in one corpus or the other, we ought to give priority to the ones that occur a lot. Two of the four spams I missed got through because they happened to use words that occur often in my legitimate email. Just write whatever you want, so if there is no way to get rich by creating wealth, as a species, is that you can do whatever he wants. When there is a natural fit between smallness and solving hard problems.

These techniques are mostly orthogonal to Bill's; an optimal solution might incorporate both. Salesmen work alone.8 Partly because I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention.9 But working on this is not an irrational fear: it really is hard to bear. And in this economy I bet they got a good deal on it.10 If you go to a new set of buildings, and do things that they think aren't good for you. Then at least you can give back the money you have left, and save every penny of your salary. So let me tell you a little about Jessica.11 Your boss is just the intermediate stage—just a shorthand—for whatever people want. A morale boost on that scale is very valuable in a startup tends to be running out of money, and now they'd have to postpone that. Usually a startup is, economically: a way of saying, I want to work a lot harder, and get paid for it.

Notes

That was a kid who had died decades ago. If an investor I don't like content is the accumulator generator benchmark are collected together on their utility function for money. In desperation people reach for the fences in our case, 20th century was also the golden age of economic inequality was really only useful for one another indirectly through the window for years while they may introduce startups they like to cluster together as much as Drew Houston needed Dropbox, or Seattle, consider moving.

When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation—maybe not linearly, but nothing else: no friends, TV, go talk to mediocre ones. If early abstract paintings seem more interesting than later ones, and in a startup, but I took so long. And while we might think it was the least VC-like. SpamCop—A Spam Classification Organization Program.

But people like numbers. That makes some rich people move, and then using growth rate has to work for startups to be evidence of a stock is its future earnings, you create wealth with no environmental cost.

For example, the angel round just happened, the apparent misdeeds of corp dev people are trying to decide whether to go all the red counties. It's a lot heavier. I've been told that Microsoft discourages employees from contributing to open-source projects, even if we wanted to than because they actually do, but when people make investment decisions well when they talk about distribution of income, which merchants used to be able to claim retroactively I said yes.

I had a killed portraiture as a constituency. The Nineteenth-Century History of English at Indiana University Publications. This is not to need to go sell the bad groups and they unanimously said yes. Most unusual ambitions fail, most of them had been a good way to explain how you'd figure out what the US is partly a reaction to drugs.

Which is probably 99% cooperation. I said yes. In desperation people reach for the same way a restaurant is constrained in a journal. An accountant might say that YC's most successful ones.

Joe thinks one of them, would be much bigger news, in the body or header lines other than those I mark. For example, the same investor to invest at any valuation the founders don't have to talk about aspects of the next stage tend to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting you write has a word meaning how one feels when things are going well, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them. Which is probably a mistake to believe is that their experience so far the only way to tell how serious potential investors and they begin by having an associate.

Globally the trend has been rewritten to suit present fashions.

See Greenspun's Tenth Rule.

Bill Yerazunis. This was made a million dollars out of a social network for x. If you wanted to invest at any valuation the founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, and it has about the smaller investments you raise them.

The undergraduate curriculum or trivium whence trivial consisted of three stakes.

[fuckmewithyourtoespj]

tagged by @inkwillstain ayyyyyyyyyyyy

Would you rather have your favourite character all to yourself or as much money as you want?

as much money as i want bc i’m a greedy bitch. also, i’d wager chloe price is much better off with max and i wouldn’t want to ruin that for her

Do you want the ability to eat anything without the food affecting your body or not getting hungry ever/not needing food?

eating is a big inconvenience, and since my boy size pretty much stays the same no matter what i do i’ll go with the second one.

If you could speak any of the fictional languages, what would it be?

dothraki or high valyrian (which i can apparently learn according to duolingo???)

You favourite outfit ideas.

ah man, i love clothes and putting together bomb ass outfits so much, but have 0% creativity when it comes to making them up. i’d loooove to have like an assassin’s creed outfit, or soldier 76′s jacket, either one is gr8

Do you have any pets?

ahhh yes, two pieces of shit. antoś and neftys (who just came to me complaining about being called a piece of shit) two black cats. one is an arrogant spoiled brat, the other is very fragile, desperate for attention and pisses on all our shit when he’s nervous or whatever

Do you like makeup?

yeah, but boy do i not have the patience for it, even though most days it only takes me 20 minutes. the make up i use is limited to brows, concealer and mascara, bc if i tried to take onany more than that i’d pass out

What’s the last movie you watched?

uhhhhh dr. strange? or still carol? idk i don’t watch movies that much

Describe your current hairstyle.

as in in general or right now? my hair’s brown and medium length, if i’m out being a human i’ll wash and dry it so it’s straight-ish and just generally doesn’t look like shit, otherwise i usually tie it up

What makes you go crazy and into full-blown fangirl mode?

uuuuh hm, nothing really, not anymore? the last thing that made me go into full-blown fangirl mode was hamilton i think

What do you love about yourself the most?

my looks it think? idk i don’t really have an opinion on myself, i just am the way i am and i’m ok with that

Do you believe in luck/fate?

nah mate

What are you currently reading?

Odin’s Child by Siri Pettersen, i’m reading it in polish, which is yikes but i don’t want to be this mediocre in my own tongue

What is your favourite way to spend the weekend?

uhhhh i like going out and doing shit, but in sweden i’m apparently not allowed to exist during the weekends if i don’t live in what they call a ‘city’ lmao

One book you can read over and over again?

i guess the hp books bc i keep going back to them? but also aftg and asoiaf, i would read it rn if i hadn’t lost agot

Favourite poem?

i don’t really like poetry?

What was the best thing that happened to you today? 

nothing, today has been yikes, i’ve been on an emotional rollecoaster and irrationally angry for no damn reason lately

When is your birthday? 

23rd march

Which country do you live in?

sweden

Do you like listening to music? What’s your favourite song?

oh bloody yes, ‘Electric Feel’ by MGMT, but rn i’m really obsessed with the entirety of high as hope

Best memory of you as a child?

idk lmao, all of my best memories are really only after i started secondary

How would you describe yourself in 5 words?

‘i will never be satisfied’

Top 5 favourite characters (need not be from the same fandom)?

chloe price

sirius black and draco malfoy (they’re at the same level)

steve rogers

eren jaeger

natsu dragneel

idk i just know i’ve forgotten someone who i literally cry at the sight of 

uuuuuuuuh i tag @siriusly-mckinnon and anyone and everyone idk

[madamekyberpunk]

Film Diary (July 12, 2020 - Dec 28, 2020)

JULY

July 12, 2020: KNIVES OUT (Dir. Rian Johnson)

We get to see Rian Johnson finely tune his craft in real time, and I find it exciting. I’ve been on a binge of his work as-of-late and a recurring theme of most of his movies is them being a commentary on themselves or the genres they’re working within. I think this movie nails that trick on the head without patting itself on the back too much. The ensemble cast is expertly chosen and works together really well, and you can tell just by watching it that they were having fun on set. The cast is grounded by Ana de Armas’ quietly brilliant performance. My favorite Rian Johnson movie is still reserved for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but I do think this is his best work so far.

July 13, 2020: MERMAIDS (Dir. Richard Benjamin)

A slightly more absurd version of Lady Bird, if Lady Bird was made in the nineties. A good addition to the strained-but-loving mother-daughter relationship cinematic universe.

July 15, 2020: THE UNTOUCHABLES (Dir. Brian De Palma)

This is actually the first mafia movie I’ve ever seen, and honestly...it was probably a bad one to start with. Although it was entertaining and tense at all the right moments, the whole thing just felt empty. Every character seemed half-baked and none of them really had any development. De Palma could’ve gone grittier for an R-rating and made his interpretation of Al Capone a little less cartoonish; Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness was doing the absolute least, and Robert De Niro’s Al Capone was doing the absolute most.

July 31, 2020: (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (Dir. Marc Webb)

For some reason I have unintentionally seen almost all of Marc Webb’s filmography, and I have to say that I’m underwhelmed by all of it. While watching I found myself reflexively comparing this to Webb’s The Amazing Spiderman and maybe it ruined my viewing experience a little bit. Both of them have lots of super mumbly, drawn-out conversations and an interpretation of an “indie” style that just seems...bland to me. (Also, both of them have pale women with bangs and men with undiagnosed depression.) I don’t know, I just feel like if you want a rom-com with a realistic depiction of romantic relationships, you should just go watch The Big Sick.

AUGUST

August 14, 2020: LATE NIGHT (Dir. Nisha Ganatra)

Emma Thompson was great in this, and I think Mindy Kaling is very underrated as a writer (in some ways, I think she is the modern Nora Ephron). I’ve seen quite a few reviews claiming that this movie plays along with conventions, but I don’t necessarily think that conventions are inherently bad as long as they’re executed well. In this case, they were.

August 22, 2020: THE FAREWELL (Dir. Lulu Wang)

I’d classify this as a really good movie that just didn’t click with me. It was a complete, “it’s not them, it’s me,” situation. It was smartly directed with a focused, sharp script and an excellent leading performance from Awkwafina - I can see why people were upset that it got snubbed at the Oscars - but it just wasn’t my thing. The only time I really connected with it emotionally was the ending.

August 22, 2020: KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE (Dir. Rachel Lears)

The only piece of media currently in existence that somehow makes me feel a sense of patriotism for this hellscape of a country.

SEPTEMBER

September 5, 2020: BARRY (Dir. Vikram Gandhi)

Speaking of living in a hellscape of a country, I have mixed feelings about the Obama presidency - but this movie isn’t about his presidency. It isn’t indicative that he’ll be president at any point. It’s essentially a piece of historical fiction about race and American identity that happens to use Barack Obama as its protagonist. You could replace him with any other dude with a background similar to his and it still would’ve been interesting.

September 8, 2020: UNICORN STORE (Dir. Brie Larson)

If there’s one word to describe this movie, I’d say, it’s cute. Not in a patronizing type of way, but in a this-movie-feels-like-a-warm-hug type of way. I like this Brie Larson vehicle much more than Captain Marvel, mainly because I feel like she’s having more fun in this and she gets to wear more colors and Samuel L. Jackson has tinsel in his hair and also there’s a unicorn in it. I’m a simple girl with simple needs. I also think Samuel L. Jackson should be adorned in tinsel in every film he’s in without explanation (I might actually watch Pulp Fiction if Jackson’s character had a sparkly afro in it). This movie also made me stan Mamoudou Athie - I think he plays a good straight man and I hope that they don’t waste him in Jurassic World: Dominion, although I’m not getting my hopes up.

September 11, 2020: LADY BIRD (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

I waited a criminally long amount of time to finally watch this. I can’t really say anything about this movie that hasn’t already been said. It’s good! It’s genuine and sweet and I liked seeing Timothée Chalamet play a pretentious asshole.

September 12, 2020: THE BROTHERS BLOOM (Dir. Rian Johnson)

Upon a rewatch, I’m taking my original score of 3.5 out of 5 and bumping it up to a 4 out of 5.  Adrian Brody and Rachel Weisz’s performances pretty much make this movie with their earnestness and chemistry. I think you could qualify this film as a romantic dramedy that just happens to be about an international con job. It doesn’t do the greatest job of explaining itself plot-wise, but it makes up for it with stylish direction and a charming cast.

September 18, 2020: EVER AFTER (Dir. Andy Tennant)

The best Cinderella adaptation currently in existence (next to Nickelodeon’s Rags starring Keke Palmer, of course). It’s so good that I’m willing to forgive Drew Barrymore’s attempt at a British accent. I also think this is one of the few movies that could be a decent remake if you gave it to the right director.

September 19, 2020: BRICK (Dir. Rian Johnson)

I love Rian Johnson, I think we’ve established that already, but I kind of sort of hated his film debut. It seemed so caught up in its own concept that it ended up seeming like a shell of a movie with no theme to ground it. Sometimes I don’t care if movie has no theme if it’s entertaining, but this movie was not entertaining, so...

September 25, 2020: ABOUT LAST NIGHT... (Dir. Edward Zwick)

Alternate title: Toxic Man is Horrible to a Woman Who Literally Does Nothing Wrong Ever and Also is Gorgeous, They Break Up, Toxic Man Gets a Different Job and Toxicity is Gone Now, Like His Personality was Sifted Through a Brita Water Filter, then the Toxic Man Gets an Unearned Happy Ending with Gorgeous Woman. It might be a little bit long, but at least people would know what they were in for. Still better than (500) Days of Summer, although every male character in About Last Night... deserves to be in jail. All of Demi Moore’s sweaters get five stars.

OCTOBER

October 3, 2020: ENOLA HOLMES (Dir. Harry Bradbeer)

During the first draft of this post, I gave this movie a pretty good review. Then I rewatched it, and...huh. It’s not exactly a bad movie, it’s just an aggressively average movie. Enola Holmes would have benefited from a) a shorter runtime, b) a better mystery, and c) a weirder style. I think that if the character is going to repeatedly talk into the camera, which is kinda weird, you should just make everything else weird too. Give it a Birds of Prey-esque unreliable narrator and non-linear storyline. It’s still a fun movie, and the inevitable sequels have potential, but it just felt like they could’ve - I don’t know - made more of an effort?

October 10, 2020: HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE (Dir. Taika Waititi)

This is the first Taika Waititi movie I’ve seen besides Thor: Ragnarok. I liked seeing how his style transferred into Ragnarok, and it probably has the funniest funeral scene ever written (do yourself a favor and look it up on YouTube). Hunt for the Wilderpeople knows when to make a joke without getting too goofy, and it knows when to be sentimental without getting too sappy. It also has dozens of glorious one-liners.

October 11, 2020: LITTLE WOMEN (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

The best Little Women adaptation. (I haven’t seen the one with Katharine Hepburn but I’m just going to assume that this one’s better.) This movie was clearly made for people who know and love the story, which can be a good thing and a bad thing - it means that it took some creative liberties that enhanced the story and added subversions that made it feel meta in a satisfying way. But it also meant that it could be potentially confusing for people who aren’t familiar with the story. Personally I wasn’t lost, but I think Gerwig could’ve used some more visual cues to let you know when they were in the present or when they were diving into the past. I wouldn’t want her to eliminate the jumping back and forth, though, because I think it allowed the characters to be explored a lot more than a linear story would’ve allowed. Gerwig also did a great job of letting you understand the motivations of the supporting characters - specifically Amy - in a way that prior adaptations never really did. Every character felt like their own person instead of accessories to Jo’s life.

October 16, 2020: THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (Dir. Aaron Sorkin)

Siegel, a very good Letterboxd reviewer that I follow, said it better than I can: “Aaron Sorkin is way too good a writer to be forced to work with such a mediocre director as Aaron Sorkin”. I didn’t mind the beginning - I thought the quick editing, upbeat music, and cuts back and forth between historical footage and fictionalized scenes were engaging, but the ending was clunky and didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the film. The Trial of the Chicago 7 was a little confused politically and wanted to desperately cling onto a centrism that didn’t let the film fully embrace the anger that it could’ve ended on. Despite all of these things, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. The performances were all excellent, and if any of them get nominated for an Oscar it’s well-deserved. I’m also a sucker for Aaron Sorkin’s speechy, tangential dialogue. It makes me feel smart whenever I listen to it.

October 20, 2020: HALLOWEENTOWN (Dir. Duwayne Dunham)

This movie does it for the girls and the gays, that’s it.

October 26, 2020: BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN) (Dir. Cathy Yan)

This movie also does it for the girls and the gays, that’s it. Seriously, I honestly don’t know why people don’t love this movie. Margot Robbie’s performance as Harley Quinn is Oscar-worthy. That’s not a joke. I actually think that if the Oscars knew how to have fun, she would get a nomination. She is this character. It feels so lived-in and she never does too much - and with a role like Harley Quinn, it would be very easy to do too much. I also have to give props to the type of feminism that director Cathy Yan inserted into this film. I really enjoyed Wonder Woman and didn’t mind Captain Marvel, but there was something so formulaic and studio-approved about the female empowerment in both of those films. Birds of Prey, however, didn’t really give a single fuck. It was a nuanced, violent, funny as hell story about flawed women forming alliances and finding meaningful relationships in a world that actively abuses them and ugh, I love this movie. It’s probably my personal favorite of the year.

October 27, 2020: DOLLY PARTON: HERE I AM (Dir. Francis Whately)

This documentary was strangely edited and offered pretty surface-level information presented in an uninteresting way. I enjoyed myself while I was watching it, but I just wish it would’ve gone deeper. Dolly Parton is one of the most interesting figures in music history, and there was a lot more they could’ve explored.

NOVEMBER

November 1, 2020: ATTACK THE BLOCK (Dir. Joe Cornish)

This 82-minute movie gave John Boyega a more satisfactory arc than the almost seven hour long Star Wars sequel trilogy. Seriously, this movie fucking slaps! It hit all the right notes at all the right moments. I honestly think that a lot of sci-fi movies would be better if they worked with smaller budgets and shorter runtimes. Something about working within limitations makes a film feel more authentic and cuts out a lot of the excess fat. This movie is funny and earnest and surprisingly has a lot to say about the world we live in, with a budget that’s 200 million dollars less and a runtime that's 45 minutes less than a lot of sci-fi movies out there.

November 18, 2020: A PRINCESS FOR CHRISTMAS (Dir. Michael Damian)

*Lady Gaga voice* Amazing, show-stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely-not-ever-been-done-before... My go-to shitty Hallmark Christmas movie every year :)

November 19, 2020: THE LEGO STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL (Dir. Ken Cunningham)

I’m giving this a five-star rating completely unironically. This movie uses the mechanism of time travel better than Avengers: Endgame.

November 20, 2020: THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES (Dir. Clay Kaytis)

There’s a scene where Kurt Russel does a musical number in a jail cell and then Winston from “New Girl” quits his job as a cop. What more could you want from a Christmas movie?

November 21, 2020: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

What was originally intended to be an Oscar Isaac thirst watch turned into what might end up being one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s one of those movies where it’s hard to articulate why it was so good, it was just good, but for the sake of this post I’ll try my best. Oscar Isaac was phenomenal in this - and I’m not just saying that because I’m a simp. His performance, combined with the script, made you root for his character even if he was a douchebag a lot of the time. The movie did a great job of blurring the line between what Llewyn Davis brought on himself and what was the result of just really, really bad luck. The use of sound in Llewyn Davis is excellent, too. Instead of using an instrumental score to emphasize emotion, they used sounds from the character’s environment, which really let the occasional musical moments pop - whenever anyone started singing, it almost felt cathartic. The Coen Brothers also provided moments of levity with perfectly-timed comedic moments throughout. It’s one of those movies where at the end of it, you’re kind of jealous that someone could make something that good. The fact that Oscar Isaac didn’t even get an Oscar nomination for this is - not to be dramatic - a fucking war crime.

November 22, 2020: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (Dir. Rian Johnson)

Listen, I know The Last Jedi is such a hotly debated movie that it’s almost political, but it happens to be my favorite movie of all time. Like, number one. It even beats A Princess for Christmas. I’ve had my fair share of slander for loving this movie so damn much, but I will defend it until the day I die, and then I will have my tombstone engraved with “Luke Skywalker’s portrayal in this movie makes sense, you guys are just poisoned by nostalgia.” I’ve seen this movie several times, but I actually haven’t given it a rewatch since The Rise of Skywalker came out last December, and it still holds up. There’s a couple of things that I really appreciated a bit more this time around: every shot in this movie seems so intentional and emotionally charged. Pause it at any point and you’re going to have something interesting and aesthetically pleasing to look at. I really enjoyed the dialogue, too. In most of his movies, Rian Johnson makes his characters talk in a slightly heightened (or in Brick's case, very heightened) way, and it lends well to the Star Wars universe. I'm never going to to not gush about this film. The Last Jedi is the movie that made me love movies, and for that I will always be grateful.

November 25, 2020: HAPPIEST SEASON (Dir. Clea DuVall)

I have similar feelings toward this movie as I did toward Crazy Rich Asians; it follows most of the conventions that populate the rom-com genre, but for the marginalized people the movie is representing, it’s actually pretty fresh. Hot take, but I don’t think that Kristen Stewart’s character should’ve ended up with Aubrey Plaza’s character - I just think the film could’ve done a better job of empathizing with Mackenzie Davis’s character. If we focused on her perspective a bit more, maybe she would’ve seemed less...shitty and distant. I’d also appreciate it if we just stop doing the Gay Best Friend Trope after this movie because - let’s be honest with ourselves - no one’s going to be able to top Daniel Levy’s rendition of it.

November 29, 2020: MANGROVE (Dir. Steve McQueen)

See my Mangrove review here.

DECEMBER

December 5, 2020: RED, WHITE AND BLUE (Dir. Steve McQueen)

I may need to give this a rewatch at some point, mainly because it seems like I didn’t fully grasp the themes it was conveying due to my own skepticisms going into it. Here’s my original review.

December 13, 2020: THE PROM (Dir. Ryan Murphy)

I really can’t critically engage with this movie because my brain just turns off the minute the first song starts. Most of the criticisms you’ve heard are valid - though perhaps a little bit blown out of proportion - but it’s so much damn fun. I’ve watched it twice now.

December 19, 2020: MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM (Dir. George C. Wolfe)

Chadwick Boseman’s last performance is haunting, transformative, and magnetic. The same can be said about Viola Davis’ performance, which is a surprise to no one, but this is really Chadwick’s vehicle. I just wish the directing was as interesting as the acting. This film was adapted from an August Wilson play, and directorially it was treated like a play, which doesn’t necessarily translate that well to film. The space around the actors wasn’t really utilized, and the way it was shot was pretty lackluster and static; oftentimes, the only interesting thing to look at in a scene was an actor’s performance. Maybe I’ve just been a little obsessed with Steve McQueen’s directing style lately, but this movie probably would’ve been five stars for me (instead of the four-and-a-half I gave it) if it was directed by him.

December 19, 2020: LONG TOAST (Dir. Karsten Runquist)

Fuck yeah, Karsten Runquist! Shout out to his monthly “what I watched in [insert month]” videos for giving me the inspiration to write this. 

December 23, 2020: LET IT SNOW (Dir. Luke Snellin)

Weirdly enough, this may be one of my favorite Christmas movies. There’s nothing all that remarkable about it, but it has a sweet, simple holiday vibe with innocent performances and low stakes. I don’t really ask a lot for Christmas movies, and this pretty much delivers.

December 25, 2020: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ANALYSIS (Dir. Rian Johnson)

This short film from Rian Johnson is the earliest thing I could find of his filmography on Letterboxd, and it was a pretty engaging watch. It was essentially all of Johnson’s quirks as a director condensed into ten minutes. It reminded me of those trippy short stories you had to read in middle school.

December 26, 2020: PLUS ONE (Dir. Jeff Chan & Andrew Rhymer)

I’ve seen a lot of rom-coms - like, an ungodly amount - and my love-hate affair with this genre has made me realize that predictability isn’t the issue with rom-coms (a lot of genres are very, very predictable). The issue is a lack of authenticity. Yes, this film is predictable, but it’s authentic. The humor in this movie actually feels like something that would happen in real life, not something heavily contrived or exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. I don’t have anything against the contrived and exaggerated, but it’s refreshing to see comedy being delivered so naturally in this genre. Plus One also has a more realistic (but still sweet) perspective on love and relationships which you don’t normally see in any genre.

December 27, 2020: THE HALF OF IT (Dir. Alice Wu)

I watched this at the beginning of the year and didn’t enjoy it all that much - partly because I was in the closet and aaaah girls kissing aaaaaah - and partly because I just thought it was boring. On a second viewing, I really appreciated it more. I think it’s the smartest and most well-shot movie directed toward teens that I’ve seen on Netflix. Although the script can be a bit pretentious, it’s directed in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s either trying to be too indie or like an hour and fourty-five minute long single-camera sitcom episode. The character of Ellie is also a really interesting and nuanced character, and a good example of how to write and portray queerness on screen.

December 27, 2020: TAYLOR SWIFT - FOLKLORE: THE LONG POND STUDIO SESSIONS (Dir. Taylor Swift)

I would die for Taylor Swift and/or Jack Antonoff.

December 28, 2020: MANK (Dir. David Fincher)

I went into this movie as a) someone who has never seen a David Fincher film, and b) someone who has never seen Citizen Kane. Unsurprisingly, Mank was definitely not my thing. That doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it. It’s a fucking good-looking movie. But it’s kind of like the himbo of movies - it’s nice to look at, but there’s not much going on underneath. I’m hearing this complaint from a lot of people: it’s a technical masterpiece, but it feels pretty damn hollow. Personally, it’s not enough for me to recognize that a film looks and sounds good - I have to care about and know the human beings within it in order for me to think that it’s a good movie. To me, a film is only as good as the emotional relevance of its story, but sadly emotional relevance is where Mank falls short.

What movies kept you sane during 2020? Let me know!

[resplendentgoldenwings]

The Stars Are Exploding Lights

So this is my sort of late fic for @mattelektrasecretsanta for @darkphoenixgoddess10 happy holidays I hope you have a good new year. I hope you like it. 

The Stars Are Exploding Lights, Daredevil AU where Elektra survives, takes place in the days before Matt and Elektra go on the run.

Matthew can't stop touching her. All through the drive to his apartment, he's stroking his finger along her arms, her thigh, pushing her hair back behind her ear, smiling. When she takes her eyes off the road for just a glance she can see it beaming out of him, happiness, all of his senses are trained on her, and the thrill of it sends a shiver down her spine.

"We'll travel, see the world."

"Mhmm," her Matty isn't stupid. He doesn't name places or time,  their plans are general.

"You'll like this Stick, no possessions. I'll have to give up my silk sheets."

"Mhmm," Elektra pouts. "I like your silk sheets we'll have to test drive them at least once before we leave."

Matthew chuckles and the hand on her thigh grips her more tightly the gentle stroke shifting to a massage belying his intent the moment they are alone. Elektra bites her lower lip and drives faster.

It's been so long since they've been together and they work out their adrenaline on one another. Still covered in blood and battle wounds, Matthew's hands and mouth are everywhere, and it's been years since she's been with him, too long since she's been with anybody, so she's ready for him the moment his bedroom door shuts.

Not caring about Stick in the other she urges him on in ecstatic cries: deeper, faster, savoring the weight and heat of his body atop hers. They fit together as perfectly as they did years ago. Later she'll worry about the fact that they forgot the condoms, that she isn't on the pill.

But at that moment she needs him, needs to be reminded of what is good and right in her life, Matthew, her Matthew. It doesn't matter what Stick said about who and what she is, what the Chaste raised her to be or what the Hand wants her to be. What matters is Matthew and how she loves him, how their bodies come together, the way his whole person focuses on her, and that he is still good in spite of everything, in spite of her.

That together they are good.

When they stir to bathe, to eat they both have a text message from Stick

"You've got about two weeks before the Hand reorganizes itself to look for you use 'em well, kids."

They both have things they want to take care of before leaving. He needs to see Foggy and Karen, and he'd like to see Claire tell her that he wasn't isolating himself any longer, that he was taking care of the people most important to him, connecting to them, but she's left the hospital, and her apartment has an air of disuse about it.

Instead, all he can do is dictate a letter telling her these things and assure her that The Hand will follow him out of the city and ask her not worry too much. He'll be in touch through Foggy. It's easier sending an email.

It's harder with Karen, harder still with Foggy, the best friend he was supposed to be running a law firm with, the best friend he'd disappointed so much.

"So you're just leaving with Elektra, your crazy 'X?"

"She's not crazy, and she's not my X'."

"Right, she's this Black Sky Thing and a warrior for  Chaste, which you also are, but the Chaste are also sworn to destroy the Black Sky?"

Matthew isn't sure what to say. His tone makes Foggy's feeling on the whole thing very clear.

Instead, he stands, waiting, tense, trying to think about what to say to convince Foggy to relent, to still be his best friend when he leaves, because he doesn't know when or if he'll see Foggy again and he'd like Foggy to be a part of this.

"And you didn't tell me about any of this all these years?"

"Well, I didn't know about the Black Sky thing or Elektra being apart of the Chaste."

"Ahhh so you know how it feels."

"Yeah," Matthew says resting his hands on his hips, trying not to be annoyed, Foggy has a right to be angry.

"But you love her?"

"Yeah."

"And she's worth throwing away everything else you ever planned for your life?"

"Foggy I don't want to leave New York or give up being a lawyer, and I want to find a solution to the Hand, but Elektra, Elektra is my heart, and I need her to be safe. I can't go another ten years without seeing her."

For a very long time Foggy is quiet, and Matthew can feel the weight of it all sitting on him and that scent of overwhelming feeling growing his friend hanging in the air, like the smell of water in the air before rainfall. But Foggy doesn't quite make it that far.

"Alright man, you gotta protect your lady and only someone as extra as you would have a lady as extra as that, but I get it."

Matthew relaxes and Foggy lets out a laugh.

"Good because there is one thing I want you to do."

"One I'm already giving this letter to Claire."

"Fine two. We're getting married before we leave, just quick justice of the peace courthouse wedding. Will you be my best man?"

He can see Foggy of course, but its one of those moments when he wishes he could see clearly, see his full expression, the subtleties of the face he's making,  see all the things he's read in books, the things he barely remembers. The wash of ochres and ambers in which he sees world doesn't allow for small things like arched brows, widened eyes

"Of course Matt."

The elevator clicks open then and his ears detect the sound of Elektra's steady heartbeat thumping with the strength and steadiness of an ancient California redwood, the strongest heartbeat he's ever heard.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. You know what we need?"

"A drink?"

"Right to drink to you and Elektra."

Matthew made his way to the door, pulling it open before Elektra can knock.

She kisses him for a greeting and arm-in-arm they walk into his apartment.

"I have good news. Foggy has agreed to be my best man."

"That's excellent Matthew. Thank you, Foggy."

"You're welcome."

"Did you get your errands done?"

"Mhmm."

Foggy passes out the beer, and they drink a toast to new beginnings.

People would describe her as fearless, but the truth is Elektra Natchios gets scared. Her closest friends and loved ones, even Matthew who knows her better than anybody else, except maybe Stick seems to struggle imagining that she can be scared, but they're wrong.The common platitudes about fear: that you shouldn't let it hold you back, that you have nothing to fear, but fear itself or that a little fear is good are all wrong at least in her opinion.

Well maybe not the last one, there's a very good reason to fear things like jumping off 100 story building or being eaten by a shark, but otherwise the way people tend to think about fear, to run from it, persevere through it or ignore it is all wrong, at least from her perspective. The best approach to fear is to seek it out.

Fear is the emotion sitting on the edge of a new horizon, the thing you must step over or wade through to cross into a better life.

So for Elektra Natchios when she is afraid of something she always runs right toward it and having lived the last eighteen years of her life just like that doesn't make the next five seconds any easier.

"Do you Matthew Murdock take this woman Elektra Natchios to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold for richer and for poorer, in sickness and health, forsaking all others as long as you both shall live."

It's just a pause, barely an eye blink, but ever since they escaped that roof a week ago, every day that they'd been planning to leave, every moment of thoughtful repose that she caught Matthew in she wondered, wondered if he was regretting the promise he'd made in those few desperate moments before they'd gone to confront certain death, if in the light of day with an entire world of possibilities before him if Matthew didn't want to stay in the city that he loved doing the things that he loved.

Her life philosophy dictated that she confront him about it, or offer him relief from his promise after all since they both knew he'd made it believing that he was going to die. It was a fear and confronting it would only lead to good things, yet she'd backed away from it every time.

Now she watched him, trembling with it, five seconds and they were just so long.

"I do." He said those words and she basked in the brightness of the smile stretched over his face, and there were a million things she could have said to him at that moment, but then Matthew was kissing her, and she let herself melt into his arms.

The judge chuckled good-naturedly at their eagerness and pronounced them man and wife. Foggy threw rice at them, and Matthew suggest they go out, but Foggy insisted they go back to Matthew's apartment.

Where they walked into an apartment full of people shouting surprise.

When you were a human lie detector, it made life annoying sometimes. Most people could tell little white lies without a problem, but when someone wanted to cover their nerves they couldn't, and he could help, but respond even if it wasn't convenient or easy. For example once when he was in college before he'd met Elektra this incredibly hot girl had picked him up, her intentions were obvious, but underneath it, he'd sensed nerves, nerves he couldn't ignore.

He'd finally done the right thing when they were alone and asked her if she wanted to do this while listening for her real answer and it had mostly been a lie when she said yes.

He got her to talking, and it turned out she'd had a boyfriend that cheated on her, and she went out to pick up a guy, revenge cheating in hopes that if she did it would let her forgive the boyfriend and they could move on.

If he'd been able to just listen to her words, he could have gone on ahead and slept with her, because like most men to Matthew,  bad or mediocre sex was still good sex. But listening to everything else she said from the smell of fear around her, the lack of arousal in the air, her voice starting high in her throat and that rapid heartbeat, it became very clear to Matthew that she needed a friend that night to help her sort out her feelings.

He didn't have to be her friend of course, but once he knew that he couldn't sleep with her knowing her heart wasn't in it.

He told himself that if Elektra had any doubts, that she didn't want to share if she had any conflict, any hesitation about marrying him that it would be private. If she said "I do" that was enough. Yet when the time came he couldn't resist, a little peek at first and when he heard nothing but a steady heartbeat a voice lifting excitement he felt ever so slightly confused. She should have some doubt, right? A little uncertainty was normal.

The little peak turned to him training every sense on her 100%, and there was nothing that would indicate nerves. There was no smell of sweat in the air or hint of a stomach soured by nerves. He never thought of Elektra as a woman in love, it wasn't a way to think of her, but his sense told him that she wanted to marry him with every fiber of her being.

Her calm and steady heartbeat, her voice even and unwavering, they washed over Matthew as he listened to recite her vows stirring his love for her in a way he hadn't felt since they were in college. He wanted to step across the foot of space separating them and sweep her into his arms, press every inch of her small, lithe body against his, kiss her breathless and vow to love and protect her forever.

It took a prickle of fear from her as he stood letting Elektra fill up his senses, to remind Matthew that that was what he was there to do and standing there feeling it, mesmerized by her wasn't enough.

And as he spoke his voice heavy and hoarse with all he was feeling Matthew found himself wishing he could see clearly just how bright she smiled when he said I do.

He keeps expecting to feel something doubt, regret, fear, but he feels none of these. The only thing he can feel is excitement. Elektra has told him about all the places they can go, places she will show to him. London first later Greece and Cambodia. Then Belize, Thailand, and the wonderful cities of Africa that no one ever talks about like Algiers, Cairo, and Nairobi. They'll have to be careful of course, hiding at times, living rough sometimes and he's looking forward to disappearing into a quiet little cabin in the woods. He'd often thought the woods might be good for him, less agitation, less stimulation.

All the way to JFK he is just fine.

"What are you thinking Matthew?" She asks him that as they settle into their seats having passed security without a single hassle for their new identities.

"That whatever happens, as long as we're together I know we're going to be happy."

[junker-town]

These NFL teams are ready for the season to be over. BIG MOOD

Joe Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports

Zero judgment for starting your vacation early, teams.

It’s Week 15 in the NFL and it felt like some teams couldn’t even. Not that I necessarily blame players for phoning it in when there’s no hope of a postseason, 10 days removed from Christmas and with almost nothing left to play for it outside of draft placing, which rewards mediocrity.

I get it. But this week there was some organizational-level incompetency that was utterly mind-blowing.

Of the 14 games played on Sunday, there were a solid seven teams that just couldn’t handle being on the field in any capacity. Today we will celebrate this septuplet of mediocrity for heading to vacation early.

Cincinnati Bengals.

Hate to start it off with a showstopper, but man this was great. The Bengals got off to a hot start thanks to what I can only describe delicately as ... LOL THE PATRIOTS SPOTTED THE BENGALS 13 POINTS TO TRY AND BE ALL LIKE, “SEEEEEEEEE FILMING THEM DID NOOOOTHING!”

Sorry, got away from myself there. Anyway, yeah — I loved this so much. It was just enough of a tantalizing taste that you’d check the score now and then and say, “the Bengals might really do this!” Then halftime happened, Andy Dalton threw a whole bunch of interceptions, and the Patriots cruised to another easy win.

Perhaps the best part of all this was that the Bengals’ collapse started as soon as a few children got steamrolled by mascots at halftime.

pic.twitter.com/UVbpGbMCw9

— Zack Cox (@ZackCoxNESN) December 15, 2019

Carolina Panthers.

I almost respect the fact there’s zero pretense behind “we have no special interest in winning.” If that’s not the point, then why Kyle Allen is still the quarterback in Carolina is beyond me.

Quarterback purists might say, “well, it’s unfair to throw Will Grier to the wolves in games that don’t matter,” to which I remind them that Grier was selected WITH A THIRD-ROUND PICK and at this point nobody in Carolina is going to hold some bad garbage-time starts against Grier, should his games go poorly.

I mean, you can’t expect Panthers fans to overreact to a few bad games, just as they couldn’t possibly anoint a new franchise QB after three good starts ... right?

Miami Dolphins.

Entering Sunday, Eli Manning was 4-18 in games where he threw three interceptions or more. The Dolphins became No. 5.

Checking out the box score is like one of those Magic Eye paintings of suck. At a quick glance, everything looks relatively fine. Then you stare at it more and you see the horror.

The Dolphins, like a lot of teams this week, decided to just take the second half off. They allowed 29 second-half points and for Manning to likely finish his Giants career at a perfect .500 record. I mean not perfect, but that’s perfectly Eli.

Denver Broncos.

I refuse to believe there’s a logical through line where the Broncos can obliterate the Texans, then only score three points against the Chiefs. Therefore we must believe they simply took the afternoon off.

I feel really badly for Drew Lock. I don’t know what it is about this season but the second you say something good about a quarterback, everything comes tumbling down. It happened to Ryan Tannehill, it happened to Kyle Allen, it happened to Daniel Jones. Now it’s Lock’s turn as the rookie played, well, like a rookie. Still though, 40 attempts for 208 yards is history worthy.

Lock’s performance was one of 14 this season when a quarterback attempted 40+ passes and finish with a yards per attempt of below 5.5. He joins such luminaries as Kyler Murray, Tom Brady, and Mitchell Trubisky (three times).

Los Angeles Chargers.

Anthony Lynn at the start of his press conference. “Seven turnovers. We got our asses kicked in all three phases. Any questions?” pic.twitter.com/VgIkARzkAp

— Eric Williams (@eric_d_williams) December 16, 2019

Any questions?

Los Angeles Rams.

It’s profoundly sad to see the Rams’ season end up here. There was so much hope after the Super Bow. Now the realization they are THIRD best in the NFC West has to be absolutely soul-crushing.

Todd Gurley ran the ball 11 times for 20 yards against the Cowboys, lol.

Detroit Lions.

David Bloughs.

Now, let’s go around the league.

This is the funniest video of the year.

FOX SPORTS EXCLUSIVE: @JayGlazer reveals footage of Patriots filming Bengals. pic.twitter.com/C7U7mopaEm

— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) December 15, 2019

I am so far past being angry at the Patriots for cheating, because it’s an expected quantity at this point. Instead, what I really appreciate is that they’ve just decided to be brazen about it. It suits them much better than trying to be sneaky.

Listen to this videographer try and talk his way out of being caught. It’s so bad his name might as well be Shifty McCrimesman. Every single answer he has is met with more questions, and each time he keeps digging deeper and deeper. Then he has the audacity to say, “I’m being honest with you” about claiming there’s no conceivable way the footage could be be retrieved — as if any decent cameraperson worth their salt isn’t backing everything up to an external drive on the regular.

I’m here for the desperate-ass Patriots trying to cheat each week. I want this to be a recurring theme for the rest of the season while we all hunt for them, Carmen Sandiego-style.

And this is the funniest scenario of the year.

Wow. Dak Prescott didn’t say “defer” so Rams will get ball to start game AND to start 2nd half. First time in NFL history. pic.twitter.com/R1lXB8x3MH

— Rudy Gersten (@DCBarno) December 15, 2019

OK, so let me break this one down so it makes sense. According to the NFL rulebook on coin tosses, a winning team must select one of two “privileges” when it wins:

The opportunity to receive the kickoff, or to kick off.

The choice of goal his team will defend.

But the team also have a third option, which is to defer its choice until the start of the second half. According to the rules, it merely requires the coin toss winner to inform referees of the decisions PRIOR to the second half commencing, and the rules say this is binding.

Here’s how this played out:

Dak Prescott wins the coin toss.

He fumbles through some words, but tells officials he wants the Cowboys to kick, but also that he defers.

The official doesn’t hear Dak defer, so he takes is as the Cowboys are kicking off to start the first half.

This means the Rams would get their pick at the start of the second half, which would have been receiving a second kickoff.

This would have been the first time in NFL history a team received the kickoff to start the game and after halftime. After some deliberation, officials decided at halftime that Prescott did indicate well enough that he intended to defer the pick, so the Rams were forced to kick.

Still one of the weirdest moments of the weekend.

PLEASE STOP SHOOTING LASERS!

“Please stop shooting lasers!” pic.twitter.com/naxoIGoF2A

— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) December 15, 2019

It’s just common decency, Oakland. Leave the lasers at home.

But that wasn’t all ...

Oakland descended into anarchy at the close of the final home game. A loss to the Jaguars put the Raiders’ playoff chances on life support, and fans, already upset they’re losing their team to Las Vegas, had enough.

Black hole tosses garbage onto the field as Raiders lose their last game in Oakland in the final minute. pic.twitter.com/mhv4gRr1LG

— Torrey Hart (@torreyhart) December 16, 2019

Things are descending into chaos in Oakland. Media has been asked to leave the field as security engaged in full-on brawl with a fan. Another woman gushed blood from her forehead, appearing as if she had been hit by trash heading for the field. pic.twitter.com/zOlImU7hEh

— Torrey Hart (@torreyhart) December 16, 2019

Oakland fans took one last opportunity to boo Derek Carr as he left the field. (via @StanfordVoice) pic.twitter.com/RrcO4lFDnq

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) December 16, 2019

I’m sorry Oakland, but at least this was an on-brand ending to your final game in the Bay Area.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #169 - X-Men: The Last Stand

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Not really.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

0) Forewarning, I get a little more frank about my distaste for this film than I expected. So if you like this film and are tired of the criticisms about it, feel free to scroll past.

1) So this film had a troubled start. Fox took a while to pull the trigger and when they did Bryan Singer had signed on to direct Superman Returns which he now claims to regret. They hired Matthew Vaughn to direct - and he even made some casting and conceptual progress - but he had to bow out after a family issue. Then they brought in Brett Ratner because the film was rushed into production and he had made a successful film in a rush for the studio with Rush Hour. This - in my opinion - leads to a lot of the issues the film has.

2) This film does not open with the monologue which has opened both previous X-Men films, instead getting straight into a prologue involving Erik and Charles in 1986 visiting a young Jean Grey.

This is probably one of the earliest in depth uses of the CGI facelift technology which Hollywood seems to be all the rage about these days. It’s weird, I’m glad it doesn’t last long.

3) So in 1986 Charles can walk...but in X-Men: First Class he couldn’t walk because of Erik. Then in X-Men: Days of Future Past (before Wolverine altered the timeline) it was established he CAN walk at the expense of his powers. I can head canon a remedy for why Charles and Erik are working together despite being strained, but this is a great example of how continuity in the X-Men films kinda goes to crap after a while. 

4) Not only do we get a Stan Lee cameo, but also a Chris Claremont cameo (Chris Claremont being one of the most quintessential X-Men comics writers).

(Claremont is the guy with the lawnmower, Stan Lee with the water hose.)

5) The intro scene with young Warren Worthington/Angel tearing off his wings is very much inline with the dark tone that the previous films had. Too bad nothing really comes of it.

6) The Danger Room.

Honestly this is one of the strongest elements of the film right here. We actually get to see the team sorta work together (as well as the one time Rogue actually uses her powers in this film), Logan in teaching mode is fun, Colossus has his one line in the whole film, and it’s a fun two minutes (I’m guessing at the time) of screen time.

7) I started discussing this in my X2 recap, but Cyclops in this film literally does nothing.

There were a lot of “casualties” born from the rushed production, and James Marsden was one of them. Cyclops was the badass leader of the X-Men in the comics, with great relationships with Jean and Professor X. In this film? He mopes about Jean’s death, goes shoots up a lake with his eye beams, then dies off screen within the first twenty minutes. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad if he’d had more to do in X2 but you can remedy his lack of screen time in X2 with the promise that he’ll get to do something in this film. But no. No he doesn’t.

8) Similarly, Rogue in this film gets to do absolutely nothing.

All she does is feel bad about her powers, get shoved into an awkward and underdeveloped love triangle between her, Iceman and Kitty Pryde, stand in line at a pharmacy, and have her powers removed. She doesn’t even get a fight scene! This is the end of the trilogy. This is what Rogue was supposed to be growing into all along, the badass heroine we know from the comics. And while the continued conflict with her powers and total frustration with them is a good concept, it does not stand well on its own. It needs more. ROGUE needs more.

9) Kelsey Grammer as Beast.

According to IMDb, Grammer was cast when Matthew Vaughn was still directing. Which makes sense, because he is an absolutely fucking perfect fit for the character. In every way. Easily the best part of this film is Grammer as Beast. Like Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler in X2, you don’t feel like you’re watching an actor here. He perfectly represents not only the X-Man’s intellect but also his when needed ferocity. Unfortunately Beast gets a little lost in the mess of the film, but damn if Kelsey Grammer is not just totally phenomenal in the part (which makes the rest of the film’s mediocrity all the more disappointing).

10) The idea of a mutant ethics class taught by Professor Xavier is wonderful, and if explored a little more illustrates an inherent hypocrisy in the character. Professor X has not always been the stalwart in the comics that many believe him to be. He is flawed, often times superior and filled with hypocrisy. Saying one thing then doing another. This film gives us our best peak into that, teaching a class on mutant ethics before it being revealed that he - without consent - went into Jean’s mind and set up barricades. Making her afraid of her powers instead of teaching her to use them. Unfortunately this isn’t explored as in depth throughout the film as it could be.

11) One thing I really REALLY do not like about this film is Storm.

According to IMDb:

Halle Berry had initially decided not to reprise her role as Storm for this film, citing lack of character development in the previous two installments, and a tense relationship with Bryan Singer. However, after Singer's departure, and suffering a major box-office flop with Catwoman (2004), Berry agreed to return, on the condition that her role be expanded. Consequently, in this film, Storm replaces Cyclops and Professor Xavier as team leader of the X-Men (which is keeping with the comics, where for a time Storm served as team leader in Xavier's absence).

In the film’s attempt to make Storm stronger, the filmmakers instead make her impatient, judgmental, superior, angry, and rash. None of these are traits I would use to describe Storm in the previous two installments nor in the comics or any other medium. It is a total disservice to the wise, patient, empathetic character we were introduced to in X-Men. The one who stood by the bedside of a man who hated her just so he wouldn’t be alone when he died. Trust me, there are plenty of moments in this recap where I am going to be calling out Storm’s characterization.

12) I believe when Bryan Singer was slated to come up, the film was going to exclusively concern itself with the Dark Phoenix Saga. Instead with his departure, Jean Grey’s return as the Dark Phoenix is reduced to a subplot to the mutant cure plot. And honestly? The mutant cure is wildly interesting. Taking inspiration from the first arc of the Joss Whedon penned Astonishing X-Men, I am consistently more interested in the plot with the cure than the Dark Phoenix plot in this film. I think both (especially Dark Phoenix) are put to a disservice by being paired together, and instead they should have been their own thing.

13) Did I mention how much I dislike Storm’s characterization in this film?

Storm [after Beast tells them about the cure]: “Who would want this cure? I mean what kind of coward would take it just to fit in?”

Beast: “Not all of us can fit in so easily. You don't shed on the furniture.”

First: this is remarkably judgmental of Storm, especially considering in X2 she offered Nightcrawler a safe place from the outside world. It just doesn’t make sense.

Second: GOOD ON YOU BEAST! Storm is being sort of ignorant in that statement. Her powers are practically invisible. But does she actually hear what Beast says? No. Because not two minutes later... 

(Screenshot taken of a GIF set who’s source is unknown [if this screenshot is of your GIFs, please let me know].)

There are so many things I want to say about this, but I think it’s said perfectly in these comments from @marxisforbros, @helioscentrifuge, and @kawaiite-mage:

This - more than anything else - perfectly represents my issues with storm in the film.

14) Even in what is by far the weakest of the first three X-Men films, Ian McKellen as Magneto is still wonderfully strong.

Magneto [after a mutant asks why he has no tattoos]: “I had a mark once my dear and let me assure you no needle shall touch my skin again.”

15) Added to the seemingly infinite list of things which are underdeveloped because this film is trying to do too much, Pyro’s return brings nothing to the film. He’s not developed, he’s not peeled back, his rivalry with Iceman is never fully explored, he’s just there out of obligation to the ending of X2. Which is - like a lot of this film - unfortunate.

16) Another item to add to the above mentioned list: Ben Foster as Angel.

Angel is one of the founding members of the X-Men in the comics along with Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, and Iceman. And in this film he just serves no purpose. At all. I think he’s here largely for fan service but I think we only get three distinct scenes with him which are: he runs away from his father for trying to cure him, he is seen at Xavier mansion looking for a safe place, and he goes to save his father. He never really interacts with anyone, we never really get to see him fight, or develop. He just is present in the film.

17) Okay, for the sake of time, here is everything that this film is trying to do: the cure storyline, the Dark Phoenix saga, introduce and develop Angel, continue Rogue’s struggle with her powers, introduce Kitty Pryde, continue Pyro and Iceman’s rivalry, continue Logan’s feelings for Jean, while also introducing iconic characters like the Juggernaut. And none of these things are done well. They are all desperately fighting for time and development and end up being underserved and under baked.

Vinnie Jones as the Juggernaut is particularly disappointing because he could’ve been a great Juggernaut but ends up being stupid comic relief instead.

18) Mystique deserved a better end to her story than get cured, get ditched by Magneto, and feed the feds dirt on Magneto. Again, this is a result of the rushed production as Rebecca Romijn had other scheduling conflicts.

19) Jean Grey’s Dark Phoenix is also not really developed well. We don’t really get a peek into what it felt like to be held back for all these years with invasive and nonconsensual psychic barriers. Instead she’s really fucking horny, does a lot of weird standing around, occasionally has a moment of clarity where she begs for death, and then goes back into being someone who just stares in the distance and doesn’t really talk. And she also aligns herself with Magneto for some reason.

20)

Xavier [after Jean wakes up and escapes]: “What have you done?...I warned you.”

Logan...literally did nothing. He didn’t wake her up, he didn’t let her lose. She woke up, talked to him, and escaped on her own. And you’re fucking giving him crap? What the hell did you do buddy? You created this. You taught her to be afraid of her powers! Don’t give me this Jedi Council mentality that you were doing the right thing all along by teaching her to be afraid of herself. Okay I’m done.

21) When you agree with “death to all humans” Magneto you know there’s a problem.

Xavier [about Jean]: “She needs help, she’s not well.”

Magneto: “Funny, you sound just like her parents.”

Magneto: “You’ve always held her back.”

Xavier: “For her own good!”

22) This film also suffers from just boring fight choreography. Like the fight at the house is sorta dumb and lazily choreographed in my opinion. Storm flying in the air at the beginning is cool but then everyone else is just kinda...hitting each other.

23) Xavier’s death is remarkably sudden. Like, too sudden. We are left in shock, not in tears. We don’t really have the time to process it. Although seeing the school in morning over his death is done well, the actual effect it has on the audience is miniscule.

24) You know what else this film totally drops the ball on? Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde.

You know what hurts most? Ellen Page could be a freaking amazing Kitty Pryde and the fact the character is so lackluster in the film is not through any fault of her own. Kitty is one of the most badass fan favorite characters in the X-Men comics, but instead of using that to their advantage the filmmakers decide to thrust her into a half baked love triangle with Iceman and Rogue and only have her use her powers for a few minutes in an overstuffed fight scene at the very end. We never really get to know her as a character or analyze her relationships with the other teammates. But it’s Academy Award nominated actress Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde! That should be way more awesome than the filmmakers ended up making it.

25) Hey, remember how the relationship between Logan and Rogue was so freaking amazing in the first film? Yeah, this is all we get of it in this film.

Rogue [when Logan catches her leaving X Mansion]: “I want to be able to touch people, Logan. A hug. A handshake. A kiss.”

Logan: “I hope you’re not doing this for some boy. If wanna go, then go. Just be sure it’s what you want.”

[Rogue asks Logan if he shouldn’t be telling her to stay.]

Logan [warmly]: “I’m not your father, I’m your friend.”

Man, I really need to watch the Rogue Cut of Days of Future Past.

26) The most frustrating part of this film is that there are great moments and aspects to it. Jackman is still great as Wolverine, Kelsey Grammer as Beast, the idea of the cure. This line in particular has always stood out to me.

Magento [after Pyro he says he could’ve killed Xavier if he’d been asked]: “Charles Xavier did more for mutants than you’ll ever know. My single greatest regret is that he head to die for our dream to live.”

That line is remarkably powerful, for even though the pair are at incredible odds with each other they’re friends. They have respect, they both want a similar goal (for mutants to be free form oppression) they just are going about it differently. I love that line.

27) Hey, remember how I said I really dislike Storm in this film?

Storm [after Jean killed the professor]: “She’s gone Logan, she’s not coming back.”

Storm: “She made her choice, now it’s time we make ours.”

(GIF originally posted by @kulo-ren)

Okay, first of all: isn’t Jean supposed to be like one of your best friends in the world? Weren’t you Xavier’s first students together? You wash your hands of her pretty freaking quickly and get REAL comfortable with that REAL fast. And then second: the hell do you mean she made her choice? SHE MADE NO CHOICE! This is the result of Professor X screwing around with her mind to the point where she can’t control her own damn powers! Like hell this is a choice! God, I hate what they did to Storm in this film.

28) Wait, is that...that’s R. Lee Ermey. The voice of a sergeant as the military prepares to go fight the brotherhood, that’s R. Lee Ermey!

Huh.

29)

Kitty: “There’s only six of us, Logan.”

Yeah, because Rogue doesn’t get to do anything, you killed off Cyclops, Angel is also barely there, you don’t really get developed as a character, and Colossus already had his one line for the film.

30) I think this is the last time I’ll say this, but I really hate what they did to Storm in this film.

Storm [to Logan, about Jean]: “But are you ready to do what you need to do when the time comes?”

Except for that weird line about what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning in X-Men, when has Storm ever gone into battle expecting to murder someone? What part of Xavier’s teachings or his memory would make her think that being EAGER to kill Jean is fucking okay? I just...ugh. Moving on.

31) One of the best parts of this film is the scene where Magneto moves the Golden Gate Bridge so it drops them all off on Alcatraz. It is an incredibly powerful and memorable visual and one of the standout aspects of the film.

32) So Magneto moves the Golden Gate Bridge, gets to Alcatraz (where the cure is being held), and sets his army of mutants lose before saying...

Magneto: “In chess the pawns go first.”

For one thing, Magneto is all into mutant brotherhood and everything. He has never once shown to think that one mutant’s right to live free was more important than the others, so why are these guys suddenly pawns. Secondly, and I don’t know how clear I can make this...

You have the freaking Dark Phoenix on your side, the most powerful mutant ever with no limits to her powers. AND SHE’S JUST GOING TO STAND THERE UNTIL THE BATTLE IS OVER!?!?

33) In the climactic battle, the X-Men don’t really fight like a team. At all. They’re sorta each doing their own thing while standing next to each other. It’s...boring.

34) Okay, this line is probably very stupid but I love it.

According to IMDb:

Cain Marko's line "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" was inspired by a popular web parody film that made use of scenes from X-Men (1992). Throughout the parody , the Juggernaut character repeatedly says, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" According to the Wikipedia, Brett Ratner even has a link to this parody on his own website.

35) I will say, even though this film has its problems, the way they defeat Magneto at the end (by distracting him with Wolverine) is very smart I think.

36) I have nothing to say about Phoenix’s demise that I haven’t said before. Underdeveloped, sorta doesn’t make sense, all that jazz.

37) So Rogue decided to get the mutant “cure” after all. And when she talks to Bobby about it...

Bobby: “This isn’t what I wanted.”

Rogue: “I know, it’s what I wanted.”

While I admire the idea for Rogue to take this decision in her own hands, I get the feeling the filmmakers were very noncommittal on this idea. They shot an alternate scene where Rogue tells Bobby she DIDN’T get the cure, meaning they didn’t really know which one fit the story better so they don’t invest in either idea. Also - and I said this earlier - Rogue didn’t do anything during the entire film.

38) The final glimpse of Magneto playing chess is actually a pretty nice way to end the film. It drives home how he has no one - not even Charles - while also setting up things to come. But...wouldn’t he still be under arrest? He’s still a terrorist, powers or not.

This film is an underdeveloped mess in my opinion. While there are still strong performances and worthwhile additions (notable Kelsey Grammer and the Golden Gate Bridge scene), there are characters who are just pretty much forgotten and the fact it’s trying to do too much means nothing is done particularly well. If you liked X2 you should watch it just to get some sort of closure after that film, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll enjoy it. It’s just...eh, in my opinion. I do not enjoy it.

[marginalgloss]

summons to the self

Against Everything is a collection of essays by Mark Greif, most of which were originally published in the journal n+1. I suppose you could describe them as essays in the old sense of the world: they are general in the grand way, non-specific and apparently all-encompassing; the momentary focus on a particular subject is only ever a springboard towards a wider point about the nature of music, or food, or even the Meaning of Life (and that one’s a four-parter). 

For Against Everything one might as well read About Everything. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; though I had the sense here, as I often get with broadsheet columnists, that the author is only building a case to support an outcome determined in advance; that they risk nothing in perpetual dialogue with themselves. Which is not to say that this kind of dialectic is without interest: the only risk comes in mistaking one’s own bon mots for profundities.

Greif is an exemplary generalist: you always have the sense that he’s read everything worth reading on any given subject, and that he earnestly wants to tell you something about it without resorting to trickery. He is expressive and emotive without being manipulative. His tone is authoritative without being shocking, so you don’t always notice when his aphorisms take a turn towards the bizarre. His take on exercise, for example, is fairly scathing:

‘Exercise means something other than health to a young person who conceives sexual desirability as the truth about herself most worth defending. And youth is becoming permanent, in the demand that adults keep up an outward show of juvenescence. The body itself becomes the location of sexiness, rather than clothes or wit or charisma. Yet this is probably less true for society — which values personality still — than for the exerciser herself, who imagines an audience that doesn’t exist. Saddest of all is the belief that an improved body will bestow bliss on the unloved.’

There’s a lot to unpack here. The overall argument of this piece is that exercise culture is an unwelcome aberration; gyms are a bizarre ritualised arena in which one of the last private bodily functions is rendered public; keeping fit this way is ‘like a punishment for our liberation…a set of forms of bodily self-regulation that drag the last vestiges of biological life into the light as a social attraction.’ Like all his stuff, it’s well written, and quite funny. And you couldn’t exactly say it’s not true any more than you could say a Seinfeld routine is untrue. The observations are quality.

And yet I read the paragraph above again and my patience begins to slip. The invocation of an imaginary ‘young person’, then ‘society’, then an ‘audience’ — the reader is supposed to know what he’s talking about, I suppose. But who are they? The jibe about ‘the truth…most worth defending’ is contemptuous in that special way that suggests the author is privy to the real order of truth in her world. 

It’s arch, this writing, and it deals in generalisations and simplifications, if only because those things are essential to the generalist. Is he right? I don’t know. Not always, perhaps: was there ever a time when ‘the body’ (whatever that is) wasn’t the location of sexiness (whatever that is); is it really the case that society ‘values personality’? And if that audience for the anxious young woman doesn’t exist, who is it that the author is talking about when he refers to ‘society’?

Perhaps I am being pedantic. But I don’t want to be unfair because I think his point about the ‘outward show of juvenescence’ is well made here, as it is in another essay about the way in which popular culture exemplifies the bodies of young children as the ultimate ideal. He’s perceptive; again, he’s difficult to disagree with, like a poet, or a very good advertising copywriter. But it may be that he is difficult to disagree with because his observations don’t amount to much in particular. And for every well-turned paragraph in this collection, there are two or three which leave me tripping over myself.

Sometimes the author seems to have had the same response to his own work, and there are several addenda here which clarify or even modify conclusions reached years ago. It’s perhaps for the best, for example, that he quietly revises his opinion that it was somehow important for him to start learning to rap since Obama came to the Presidency (‘…it doesn’t sound good to ask what practicing Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di” had to do with the first American president of African descent…’). 

Actually his essay on rap music is pretty good; despite the author’s puzzlingly literal approach to reading lyrics, there’s some memorable stuff here about the contrasts between gangster rap and white indie music trends in the 90s as being also about a vision of unashamedly aspirational capitalism versus conspicuous ethical consumption; the former built out of necessity, the latter only surviving through the nourishment of a century of accumulated middle-class capital.

Would it be a better essay if it were only about that stuff? Perhaps: though I can’t say I didn’t get a kick out of the story of Greif’s own attempts to rap along with his favourite records on the bus, while covering his mouth to avoid embarrassment and skipping the parts a white man shouldn’t really be caught singing. But how strange that all this should be wrapped up together with the stuff that is actually about the music.

Perhaps that is what writing is now; perhaps readers won’t accept writing about rap music (or anything else) if it isn’t accompanied by the sideshow of a little author living his own little life amongst the text. And that’s fine, I think. It’s probably even good. But combining this with an approach that attempts to wholly encompass a subject that is inherently complex, varied and contradictory as rap music — that seems somewhat over-ambitious.

The best and worst of the writing here comes in the essays which deal with the problem of how to live. The author is adept at pinpointing the causes of contemporary dissatisfaction: we fall into the gap between early promised happiness and total freedom of opportunity towards the disappointing reality of specialisation, mediocrity, and a general deficiency of all the worldly pleasures we’re told we ought to be enjoying. 

His suggested remedy is a combination of aestheticism (seeing everything in life as if it were a work of art) and perfectionism (not as the word is commonly misused, but in terms of weighing everything one might encounter as if it were an ‘example’ of how one should or should not live). ‘Perfectionism thus makes experience total, not by viewing outside people and things as art, but by feeling how each directs its summons to your self, and letting it enter and the self respond,’ he writes. I am not sure this entirely helps, but there you go.

It seems to have taken a year between the writing of that essay and the next instalment on The Meaning of Life for the author to realise that perhaps not everyone might not be able to observe the machinations of their own feelings in this way. Or rather: what if the ‘summons to the self’ is rendered as ‘piercing, grating, intrusive…it is a scourge. All you wish for is some means to reduce the feeling.’ 

The subsequent reflections on the ‘anaesthetic’ solutions to this problem of the scourge of existence are described as if they were literally anti-aesthetic: a reaction against the excess of stimuli that daily life brings. Greif’s catalogue of solutions is broad, wandering, digressive: it ranges from Epictetus and the Stoic philosophers, to campus stoners, to the difference between tragic representation in ancient times and the omnipresent tragedies of our current era. I like this very precise distillation of what it is like to watch a human being actually beheaded on video:

‘…The first showing of the video is bad. The second, fifth, tenth, hundredth, are — like one’s own experiences — retained, recountable, real, and yet dreamlike. Some describe the repetition as “numbing”. “Numbing” is very imprecise. I think the feeling, finally, is something like envelopment and even satisfaction at having endured the worst without quite caring or being tormented. It is the paradoxically calm satisfaction of having been enveloped in a weak or placid “real” that another person endured as the worst experience imaginable, in his personal frenzy, fear, and desperation, which we view from outside as the simple occurrence of death.’

All of this is very true, I think. But as ever with these essays, I’m left with little idea of what the author thinks the reader ought to do with this information. Is the general surfeit of this kind of media what’s making us depressed? Why can we not aestheticise the murder video? Why can’t it be another ‘summons to the self’ that is turned away, as not being a model on which to live? 

No modification to the earlier argument can be suggested because already the author is off tilting at the next windmill. These essays are trapped in the same mindset that considers the person watching the video as if they were only interesting as an example of their type. The essay holds that person — that example of a person — at a distance. It uses them for whatever point that needs to be made; and then it leaves them behind. Fine: it isn’t really about the example of what that one person felt, watching the horrid video, any more than it is about the woman who had to exercise. But what is it about?

[philippmichelreichold]

#review #scifi Tales of Time and Space, edited by Ross R. Olney

Tales of Time and Space, edited by Ross R. Olney consists of a number of simply plotted little stories by some of science fiction's best. They are simply plotted yet enthralling. Don't know what passes for young adult fiction these days, but these stories fit the bill for me in days gone buy.

10 • Yesterday's Fantasy, Today's Fact-an Introduction • essay by Ross R. Olney

No one has read much science fiction without having been told how imaginative/speculative/science fiction/fantasy foretold most common place advances long before they were made. This may have been the first book I read the idea.

15 • All the Time in the World • (1952) • shortstory by Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Author C. Clarke is best known for "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Childhood's End", and "Rendevous with Rama".

Any offer that sounds too good probably has a catch, and so it is in this story. Say you're a thief by trade and someone offers a million pounds to hire you to clean out a national museum. They offer to lend you a bracelet that accelerates time around you so that you can be in and out in a flash. or a blink of an eye. You'd be a fool not to, right?

A tight little story about the thief's moral qualms. The ending was not surprising. Would have made a good Twilight Zone. It was an episode in the TV series Tales of Tomorrow. It was Clarke's first story adapted to TV.

34 • Puppet Show • (1962) • shortstory by Fredric Brown Fredric Brown also wrote "Arena", the story the Star Trek (TOS) episode of the same name was/wasn't based on. First contacts can be dicey. Say you're assigned by a vast Galactic Federation to evaluate Earth in general and the United States in particular. What questions would you ask and what assurances would you make? And what sort of tests would you perform? And what is a "master race" anyway? A pointy little story about ethnocentrism. It's one of Brown's last stories and one of several First Contact stories. Brown does a wonderful job of setting up the reader for the ending.

50 • Birds of a Feather is a1958 novelette by Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg sold his first stories in 1953 and 1954. He still writes a column for Asimov's Science Fiction. The first story of his I remember reading is Nightwings in The Hugo Winners.

Birds are ruthless competitors. They are the surviving dinosaurs, and their survival instincts are hard-wired into their old reptile cortices. How fitting an analogy to describe the protagonist and antagonist in this story. Say you run a special sort of show. Non-humans line up to get in. You have to turn away most. But what if a con artist puts one over you and horns in under false pretenses? Now you've got an employee sharp enough to squeeze you out of a sweet deal. But he can't out-con a con, when you've got the goods on him.

This is a fun and imaginative read. The variety of xenophonts reminds me of Poul Anderson's stories.

82 • Clutch of Morpheus is a 1946 a short story by William Campbell Gault [as by Larry Sternig ]

Say you were born with a mutation. Not an obvious-to-the-eye mutation, but you don't sleep, haven't slept, can't sleep. Say you've been poked and prodded and examined by scientists and physicians and the public to the point of taking an assumed name to avoid further publicity. But you're curious-- what's it like? you wonder. What's it like to sleep? So you look up the leading anesthesiologist in the country and discuss it with him over dinner. Meanwhile, there's a comet in the sky, and Earth is situated in its tale, and will be for some time. Long story short, it has a soporific effect on everyone else. You get to figure out the solution to their problem, which happens to be the solution to your own, through an incredible string of co-incidences.

The story stretches the ability to suspend disbelief, which wasn't a problem when I first read the story, and which does not seem an insurmountable problem in most readers of science fiction. Mumblety-mumble years of reading this stuff means seldom being surprised by an ending, but I enjoyed it just the same.

105 • The Last Command is a Bolo 1967 short story by Keith Laumer Dave Drake tells in his preface to Hammer's Slammers that he was heavily influenced by Laumer's Bolo's. The professionalism and dedication to duty that Drake describes in his own unit, the Viet Nam era Blackhorse , is seen also in Laumer's , "Unit LNE of the Dinochrome Brigade!" a Mark XXVIII Bolo and his former commander, Lieutenant Sanders. Unit LNE of the Dinochrome Brigade."

Say you awaken buried and crippled, the blasting at a construction site 70 years after your burial has jarred you awake and triggered your Battle Mode Reflex. On escaping your tomb and finding yourself not only crippled but alone, you conclude that your unit has been annihilated by a counter attack. You do not realize 70 years have past and that the city ahead of you is a civilian city and not the enemy's stronghold. Your duty is clear. Whatever the cost, duty demands that you charge the ramparts and inflict as much harm on the enemy as you can before you succumb. Nothing now on planet can stop a BOLO Mark XXVIII. (The artillery and air strikes they lay on you just knock some of the debris off.) Your old commander, Lieutenant Sanders, is 90 years old and still has his old uniform. He sees your return on TV and knows that he will need to talk to you to stop this rampage. Communication from a distance proves not to be efficacious, and Sanders must climb aboard your hull to make contact. The problem with this is you are still incredibly radioactive from the hits taken during the late battle. (You don't know you and the others had been buried under 200 yards of rock because clean-up would have been too costly.) Sanders receives a far greater than lethal dose in making contact, but you recognize him despite time's ravages; you break-off and retire ten miles to the desert. Together you roll into the past of a world that no longer needs nor can appreciate your service.

136 • Fog is a 1951 a short story by William Campbell Gault

This is a somber tale that is hard to grip. Perhaps it would fit in today's idiom in which understanding of the goals and motives of the antagonist isn't important. It isn't important to understand how the protagonist got into this mess. The important thing is the courage and self abnegation of the protagonist. More subtly and appalling is the extremes to which the U.S. is willing to go to win. Russia lies a desolate, radioactive wasteland. So the means used to end the Veneran threat is a logical extension of a successful solution. I thought the story a little cheesy and the emotion rending (or not) ending reminded me of the ending of "A Question of Courage" by J. F. Bone.

Say you're an orphan. The only father you've known is the head of the Science Department, your boss, The Old Man. So The Old Man calls you to his office to send you to investigate a killer fog in San Francisco. Fog in San Francisco is not troubling. The dramatic increase in suicides associated with this fog is troubling, and it is accelerating. Unbeknownst to The Old Man is that you are secretly working for the Venereans, the inhabitants of the planet Venus. Of course, the Venereans are behind the fog. After allowing sufficient time for the significance of the escalating suicide rate to sink in, the Venereans issue an ultimatum-- surrender or else. Your job becomes to carry the response to Venus.

161 • The Martian Crown Jewels is a 1958 a short story by Poul Anderson Poul Anderson is best known for his Technic Civilization and Time Patrol stories.

Say you're a Martian private detective who admires Sherlock Holmes. Say the Crown Jewels have been loaned to Earth and stolen during the journey home. The diplomatic situation that would result from knowledge of the loss of the jewels becoming public would be unfortunate. Through application of some physics, clear thinking, and deduction, you solve the mystery and expose the culprits.

189 • Of Missing Persons is a short story by Jack Finney

Say you work at a mediocre little job and live a desperate little life. The meanness of your existence eats away at you a little more each and every day. Each and every day you yearn for something better. At last, the way out, the way home, the way to a better life is there for you to take. If you don't funk at the crucial moment.

Jack Finney's best known work is "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers". This poignant tale touches the reader because the protagonist's feelings of quiet desperation in this story written sixty years ago are the feelings many of us have today.

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[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 30th September 2018

I said last episode was going to be short (it ended up not being all too short at all) but, honestly, this episode is even more rushed, even more slap-dash and probably even shorter, despite how many new arrivals there are to talk about. The UK Top 40 is feeling really uninteresting for me right now and I think focusing on other projects like my own music, BLAST TO THE PAST and my upcoming year-end lists is what I’ll be doing until January rolls around, or at least something interesting happens. Anyways, that’s enough of me rambling, here’s the top 10.

Top 10

How to describe the top 3 songs in a nutshell? “How?” How is it still here? How is it still being successful? First of all, we have “Promises” by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith not moving at number-one despite a clear lack of any real hook.

At number-two, the runner-up spot, we have “Eastside” by benny blanco, Khalid and Halsey, also not moving despite a clear lack of any real... anything, really.

And at number-three, we have a meme overstaying its welcome, as “I Love It” by Kanye West and Lil Pump featuring Adele Givens is still at number-three in its third week, due to insane streaming.

“Happier” by Marshmello and Bastille unfortunately moves up one space to number-four, which means...

“Body” by Loud Luxury and brando is kicked down a spot to number-five.

“Taste” by Tyga and Offset is hanging in there, not moving at number-six.

“Electricity” by Silk City and Dua Lipa, however, has moved up three whole spaces to number-seven.

In case that was too much excitement, glorified mash-up “In My Mind” by Dynoro and Gigi D’Agostino is staying still at number-eight.

We have a new entry into the top 10 at number-nine, with “All I Am” by Jess Glynne, making way for the album release.

Whilst all this is happening, however, “Falling Down” by Lil Peep and XXXTENTACION debuts at number-ten, and man, I don’t want to talk about this, so let’s just skip straight to the Climbers first.

Climbers

There’s one of them, and it’s only a five-space increase for “Lost Without You” by Freya Ridings, entering the top 20. Good song and all, but geez, those are all the notable climbers? That’s kinda sad, and telling of the charts right now.

Fallers

Now this is where it gets slightly more interesting. First of all, Eminem: “Lucky You” featuring Joyner Lucas is down five spaces to #13, whilst “Fall” lives up to its name, plummeting 12 spaces to #25. Just to be fair to Em, however, I might as well mention “RAP DEVIL” by Machine Gun Kelly leaping off a cliff down 15 positions to #30. Hip-hop and R&B didn’t have a great week overall, actually, with “FEFE” by 6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj featuring Murda Beatz down six spaces to #34 and “God is a woman” by Ariana Grande falling nine spots to #39, while EDM suffered as well, as “Don’t Leave Me Alone” by David Guetta and Anne-Marie jumping down nine spots to #27, and “Rise” by Jonas Blue and Jack & Jack NOT living up to its name as it slips down six spaces to #38. Oh, and “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer is making its way down the charts, eight spaces down to #37. It had a good run.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Adding to Eminem’s losses is “The Ringer”, dropping out from #17, joining “Ay Caramba” by Stay Free Get Lizzy featuring Fredo and Young T & Bugsey out from #40, “This is Me” by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman Ensemble out from #35, “One Kiss” by Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa out from #39, “Solo” by Clean Bandit featuring Demi Lovato out from #38, and very sadly, “Panic Room” by Au/Ra and CamelPhat out from #34, as one of the many, many drop-outs this week, making way for our SIX new arrivals. Let’s get into them, starting with a name I haven’t heard in years.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Guiding Light” – Mumford & Sons

So, you remember Mumford & Sons, right? The somewhat insufferable folk-rock band that had a major mainstream burst in the early 2010s because they were... actually a pretty weird time for pop music, but great for indie pop, which I guess Mumford & Sons can creep under. I’ve never necessarily been a fan of Mumford and his sons, but I’ve never listened to a full-length project either, so I can only form opinions off of the hit singles and, yeah, they don’t do much for me. So, has this new single given me any hope for your next record or at least any desire to listen to it?

Yeah, no. Hell, no. This really sucks. The dude’s voice is more nasal than ever, and there’s no rhythm in the constant guitar strumming and poppier piano melodies. It just feels all too still for what it is; I appreciate the electric guitars in the mix after the second verse, and the chorus isn’t necessarily a bad hook, it’s just that the song is monotonous and unfinished. The transitions are choppy, the songwriting skills are simply not there, some synths are pushed into the bridge for no reason, and more importantly, it’s almost cluttered, especially in the final chorus. This could have used some polishing but that’d probably be even worse – then it’d also be boring, and, yeah, I’d rather have it subtly infuriating.

#31 – “Better” – Khalid

Oh, Khalid, how I love your mellow voice and how I hate your hit-and-miss production. I hated “Love Lies” and “Eastside” for just feeling like bland, dull re-hashes, but “Young Dumb & Broke”, “Location” and “OTW” really hit the mark for me, so, with this new single, I’m curious to what he brings with the table... and unlike “Love Lies”, Khalid wins the battle of similarly-titled hit songs against Post Malone, as under that bouncy trap percussion, simple piano melody, female spoken word vocal samples and the seductive murmuring from Khalid is a real groove in that bassline, which I really like. That hook is catchy and fun too, with the added finger-snapping in the bridge just being the cherry on top. It’s not a masterpiece by any means, and I really would like some more natural percussion or some more intelligible vocals from Khalid (although I do like how they’re treated in the vocoder during the final chorus), but it’s a pretty great R&B track, with some subtle throwbacks to classic 90s music of the same genre (the talkbox) that I appreciate, that I simply do not have much to say about. Khalid will go down as a legend for making some of the most blandly fantastic music, I’m telling you. I recommend it, but don’t expect to exactly remember how it goes.

#21 – “No Stylist” – French Montana featuring Drake

So French Montana really does have a surprisingly large fanbase here in the UK, or at least sizeable enough for him to pretty frequently debut at similar positions. This track in particular, however, had the help of a Drake boost, meaning it could have potentially debuted in the top 20, and probably will rise to the top 20 next week or so. Does it deserve that? No, of course it bloody doesn’t, it’s a French Montana song. Sure, the Latin trap-inspired beat is okay and I do like the guitar loop, but the repetitive autotuned chorus with falsetto Montana is pretty freaking awful, the vocals (and to an extent, the instrumental) is mixed horribly, and Drake’s contributions are basically nonexistent – his verse is as short and cookie-cutter as a Drake verse could potentially be. This would be a waste of anyone’s time to listen to. You can get better Latin-influenced trap, you can get better Drake and you can get better music, full stop. Skip this.

#14 – “Let You Love Me” – Rita Ora

Rita Ora has never exactly impressed me as much as I think she should. I hated “Girls”, but a lot of her work is just mediocre and plain, which is typical of a UK pop girl with consistent success, but also pretty exhausting as a critic having to talk about her every few weeks, and this new single from her upcoming album isn’t really any different. It reminds me way too much of benny blanco’s “Eastside” for its own good, mostly because similarly to that song, it follows that recent washed-out, minimalistic tropical sound without adding any twist or great execution to give it any point in really existing... Rita Ora’s vocals are really not great on this, and no matter how much the finger-snapping and synth explosions in the chorus and drop (as well as that weird reverse instrumental moment) try and desperately add anything new to the song, it doesn’t succeed and this is just another disappointment from Rita Ora. Sorry, but this isn’t it.

Wow, four songs in a row, all of which, of varying quality, are not worth talking in-depth about, incredibly forgettable and most importantly of all, not interesting, on either side of the spectrum. I have nothing to talk about when it comes to Rita Ora, Khalid of French freaking Montana, however I do have a lot more to say about this next artist (and I’ve already said a lot).

#13 – “KILLSHOT” – Eminem

Weeks ago, we reviewed “RAP DEVIL” by Machine Gun Kelly, a great instrumental ruined by sloppy flows, a garbage hook and some really pathetic disses. It didn’t even seem worth Marshall’s time to return and hit back at Kelly, and I don’t think he even did that here – his bars aren’t consistently top-notch, the beat is just a pretty typical trap-rap beat that I heard on Kamikaze about 13 times, and he could have of dug even harder into MGK (especially with that shovel he had in the “RAP DEVIL” music video), but Eminem, even when he has a couple blunders, rarely ever fails with diss tracks, as he knows right where to hit them. He starts the song mocking some of MGK’s stranger disses, like how his beard is weird, before going straight into the verse, where somehow he sounds pretty awesome whilst blatantly lying about having relations with Rihanna, because, of course he does, it’s Eminem. On top of interpolating his hit song “Stan” to reference Kelly’s constant complementing of Em on “RAP DEVIL” and older Tweets, he brings up how Eminem’s age, although being referenced in “RAP DEVIL” frequently, was completely irrelevant, as at 45, Em still outsells Kelly... by a freaking landslide. His flow switching up throughout is pretty fantastic, and I love how the song works outside of the diss for the most part. He also lands some essential Eminem diss-track lines, such as, uh, asking the victim what he’s eating?

Are you eating cereal, or oatmeal? / What the f***’s in the bowl, milk? Wheaties and Cheerios? – Eminem, “KILLSHOT”

Your mouth is open, you’re disgusting, what the f*** you eat for lunch? What, you munch a bunch of Crunch and Munch? – Eminem, “Big Weenie”

Although it’s best we just don’t mention “Big Weenie” at all...

Pippity-ka-ka-poo-poo! – Eminem, “Big Weenie£

Some of the highlights of “KILLSHOT” include lines about how Em made his career just to destroy it a week later (which seems currently to be entirely true seeing as how Kelly has been doing since), and him going as far as to just briefly develop old rumours into borderline conspiracy theories about how Diddy shot 2Pac (although he IS just playing, as he clarifies later on), although not all lines hit. Kelly’s not exactly a “mumble-rapper”, Eminem criticising Auto-Tune is hypocritical and the “dictionary” hashtag rap line is just bloody stupid. He ends off pretty effectively, though, saying that Kelly should “leave Em’s d*** in his mouth and keep his daughter out of it”, referring to a few tweets Kelly made about a 16-year-old Hailie a few years back. Oh, and I can’t forget my personal favourite line:

How you gonna name yourself after a damn gun / And have a man-bun?

#10 – “Falling Down” – Lil Peep and XXXTENTACION

Okay, yes, as much as it sickens me to see two tragic deaths being milked by the label so blatantly without any care for the fans or the original artists’ wishes and how we’re replacing an openly gay rapper’s verse with someone who nearly beat a gay man to death in prison for looking at him, as well as putting him on the same track as Lil Peep, who stated several times before he died that he didn’t like X, just to add insult to injury, and as much as it sickens me to see the scripts flipped after the release, as ILoveMakonnen and each rappers’ families covering up the fact that it is graverobbery due to label pressure and their fear of bad publicity is frankly disgusting on the label’s part, I’m trying not to care because I feel like too much attention on that will cloud my judgement on the music, and, well, like most of X’s music, it’s hard to separate the art from the artist. Listen, I love this beat to death, the synths and guitars are so cutesy and fun, but Peep’s vocals perfectly contrast them in their rough emo angst (no, X adds nothing at all worthwhile to the track until the interlude, but we’ll get to that). It’s a fun emo-pop bop that although I feel guilty doing so, will probably be listening to... or at least I would, if he didn’t have an annoying spoken word interlude with X talking about Lil Peep’s death, and how it intrigued him to watch interviews and collaborate, which parallels a certain situation with X, who will soon be featured on hit singles by Lil Wayne and Kanye. Oh, and the fact that I’m pretty sure Peep says “Ko’” in referral to ILoveMakonnen on the chorus, which does kind of put me off considering Ko’s no longer there, but that’s not an issue and I could be easily mishearing “come” as Genius lists the lyrics as currently.

Conclusion

Okay, so, six new arrivals, four titles. Eminem would get the Honourable Mention for “KILLSHOT” if not for the implications of “Falling Down”, but with them, he gets Best of the Week. A tied Honourable Mentions between Lil Peep, XXXTENTACION and Khalid for both “Falling Down” and “Better” sounds like a nice compromise. French Montana and Drake clearly earn Worst of the Week here, for “No Stylist”, but the Dishonourable Mention for Mumford & Sons with “Guiding Light” is giving them close competition. See ya next time!