#and then it's worse when the parent continues to hark on you having friends that actually give you a new source for security

[reshirfuse]

god these tags are so based

THIS!!!

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 01

(Masterpost) (Next Episode)

Warning: This is **FULL **of spoilers, not just for this episode but for the entire series. If you haven’t finished all 50 episodes, please don’t read it! 

Intro: 2020 continues to be much much too much while also being incredibly boring, and Im done with Shen Wei’s Lewks, so now I’m doing a deep meta dive into the Untamed. Let’s roll! 

Prologue: The Battle of Mordor

The Demise of our Protagonist

Unlike some other shows I won’t name, The Untamed kills its suicidal queer protagonist immediately, rather than waiting four seasons, so we know what we're in for. 

This is Wei Wuxian, who is about to yeet himself off of a cliff. He is having a bad day. 

Note: if mouth blood bothers you...C-Drama might not be your thing. 

Reasons for mouth blood: a sampler

Anyway...cliff time

Note: if (fictional) suicide bothers you...C-Drama might not be your thing. 

To be fair there are hardly any suicides in The Untamed. No more than ...five? As long as you don’t count the entire population of the Wen Corporate Headquarters in Yiling or those wall bandits in Qinghe or Madame Yu or all those Wens who supposedly threw themselves into the mud puddle or that Mo guy who broke his own neck. Plus watching Wei Wuxian’s cliff drop several more times from multiple angles. So, you know. Hardly Any Suicides. 

This is Lan Wangji, who is about to have his first losing encounter with physics. He is having a bad day.

In fact, if it is possible to have a worse day than the guy who is currently falling to his death, Lan Wangji is having that.

This is Jiang Cheng, who is feeling extra stabby from this camera angle. He is having a bad day.

Camera operator: why you gotta take it out on me? 

(Much, much more after the cut!)

The Amulet Situation

This is the Stygian Tiger Amulet. Yes, by all means, (Netflix) subtitles, let's use a 12-dollar word, “Stygian,” that every English speaker who is not a Shelley/Byron shipper will have to look up. Let’s not use a normal word like "deathly" or "corrupt" or you know... "Yin" which is clearly what they are saying on screen.

Why does this tiger amulet look like a chameleon crossed with a remora? Wei Wuxian can paint photorealistic bunnies on a flimsy lantern while sitting in a field having distracting teenage lust, but two months of meditating with super magic gets him a tiger that looks like a chameleon. And don’t try telling me this is a traditional-Chinese-art vibe because this jade tiger from frickin 1000 BCE is way more tigerish than Wei Wuxian’s attempt. 

Try harder next time, Wei Wuxian.

This is thousands of cultivators having a battle.  What do you mean, it looks like about 40-60 dudes?

 Any time someone in The Untamed refers to a number of people, it is like when you do your high school play and look off into the wings at nothing and say “Hark, A Ship Approaches!” and everyone’s parents nod indulgently.

Jin Clan Mountain Hunt:

*viewership nods indulgently*

This is Captain Blowhard, over on the right, courtesy name Clan Leader Yao. His job is to talk smack about Wei Wuxian and stick up for whoever is the biggest asshole in any given scene.  

He represents mainstream cultivation-world values so here he is shanking one of his allies to take the deadly amulet of evilness.

The Present Day

Spilling All That Yiling Laozu Tea

Down at the Exposition Tea Shop, the Lan juniors are chilling and listening to Tea Dude tell the story of Yiling Laozu. 

How did they get permission to take this field trip? “Principal Qiran, we want to go downtown to hang out with the local rabble and learn about your favorite person, Wei Wuxian.”

Waiting in the wings is the man with a fan and a plan, Nie Huaisan(g), who is paying tall loot to get these stories told.  

...Why? Is Mo Xuanyu having tea here and listening? Or is Wei Wuxian being summoned back by hearing all this smack being talked about him? *Shrug.*

Gank Your Soul

Drunk flag guy out here talking about spirits. Wikipedia tells me that In one school of Daoist thought, a human being has a collection of physical souls (魄 pò) and ethereal souls (魂 hún). Drunk flag guy is saying “hún ” at the moment. 

The many types of souls don’t translate well into English, where spiritual vocabulary has always been shackled connected to Christian beliefs, and is too limited for this context. So when the subtitles have conversations like “Is it a soul eater? No, no, it’s a spirit taker!” just roll with it. (Speaking of hún, if you have any interest in linguistics, do yourself a favor and go read all the wonderful meta @hunxi-guilai​)

The spirit-carrying flag looks a lot like Raava and Vaatu from Korra which...probably doesn’t mean anything.

The Demise of our Trill Host

Suicide #2 happens about 8 minutes in. 

Mo Xuanyu is that hippie roommate with the annoying wind chimes and bead curtains and blood spatter.

He is super mad at his terrible family and also at Jin Guangyao, who sent him home to his terrible family. I wonder if Fan Man Nie Huaisang influenced Jiggy’s decision-making there. Mo Xuanyu’s choice to die for revenge might be excessive, given how easy it actually is to murder the Mo family.

Being Alive Is Fine I Guess As Long As I Get To Fuck WIth People

Wei Wuxian starts his new life by splashing a little water on his face, which instantly makes his hair go from this

to this. 

He looks at his reflection and wishes he was dead, which--mood--but he gets over it as soon as he finds someone whose day he can fuck up.

And he is ALL in on being crazy. 

OP wishes she had the Wei Wuxian kind of crazy instead of the kind she actually has. 

Meanwhile, this is the sane Mo cousin:

This asshole is wearing one of the best fabrics in the whole show, incidentally. Asshole.

My favorite bit of Wei-Mo craziness is when Wei Wuxian does a meaningless 360 all the way around this dude before ducking in the opposite direction, which is like when I make 4 right turns around a whole block to avoid making a single left across traffic.

Perhaps I Do Miss One Thing In This Life

Wei Wuxian has pining thoughts about Lan Wangji, so he plays WangXian on a fucking blade of grass well enough for Sizhui to recognize it from his dad's guqin jams. 

Wei Wuxian is a better flautist than even Inspector Gadget BeatBoxing Flute Guy (Google it).

Our Many Many Spirit Lure Flags have Lured A Spirit, Oh Shit

Lan Clan has a Plan and Wei Wuxian is a Fan

Having one single lure flag stuck in Wen Ning’s torso caused spirits to basically eat him alive, so to catch one evil spirit, 6 disciples holding flags on the roof plus 8 more flags on the ground seems like a good amount. Wei Wuxian is like “yep, a single one of these will lure every spirit for five miles, carry on, younglings.”

Baxia Does the Heavy Lifting

Wei Wuxian is supposed to kill four people because of this curse situation, and in the course of the series they all die, and he kills exactly zero of them. The curse on Wei Wuxian’s arm should be called the scorekeeper curse. 

Baxia’s spirit pinballs around the Mo clan, rapidly killing three people on Mo Xuanyu’s list plus a couple extras for good measure.  Who's a good blade? Baxia is! Yess you are! Yes you are!

This here is the exact point in the show where your friend, who has listened to you squee about The Untamed for three months and finally agreed to watch it with you, will say “what the fuck am I watching?” and try to get up off the couch. Tackle them! 

This also the point where we all realize that the prosthetic and practical effects in this show were probably not made by the people who made the clothing, because the quality is...variable. The white eyeballs are pretty good, but the glove of death is ridiculous.

Camera operator: why you gotta take it out on me?

While Baxia goes to town on the Mo clan, the Lan Clan babies...watch? And tie up the various victims after they are already goners. 

Narrator: Her son is dead.

Meanwhile, 

Wei Wuxian, you motherfucker. You’ve been alive for like 7 hours and you’re already building a new zombie army. No wonder you don’t want them to call Lan Wangji.

Hanguang-Jun Cut It Up One Time

Lan Wangji shows up and very slowly kicks zombie ass with his guqin. If you are used to Hong Kong action speeds, you will find The Untamed very peaceful.

 All of the baby Lans fan squee up at Lan Wangji like he's the cultivation world's David Bowie and...they're not wrong. Jesus Fuck, he’s charismatic.

Lan Wangji is soft boi when he discovers this murderous sword full of dead-bastard energy, because it reminds him of his true love.

Like the talk about souls, the conversations about the nature of the murderous entity really don’t survive translation into English.

Servant: it’s a ghost! 

WWX: it’s not a ghost, it’s a spirit

Babies: It’s a spirit

LWJ: it’s not a spirit, it’s a [...] ghost

Our Protagonist gets the FOH

Wei Wuxian is soft boi when he sees Lan Wangji, but not so soft that he considers actually, like, sticking around. 

Wei Wuxian is also clueless boi, noting Lan Wangji’s white clothing and thinking, as in the past, that he looks like he’s dressed in mourning. The term he uses is 戴孝, which google tells me means the type of outfit worn by Jiang Yanli after Wen Ning rips her husband’s heart out someone who is in mourning. 

Actually, Wei Wuxian, you dumbass, he is in actual mourning, actually, for you. Dumbass. He probably packed away all of his blue outer robes 16 years ago and only takes them out occasionally to reminisce about that nice date you had on your mountain of corpses. 

On his way out the door Wei Wuxian manages to find a red ribbon for his beautiful hair, so things are looking up. 

Where to go next...hey I know, how about that one haunted mountain with the killer statue, you know, the one that all my executed friends and child came from? That’ll be fun and a great way to put the past behind me!

Episode 02 Restless Rewatch is here!

[ayankun]

WandaVision episode 6

FIRST OFF

Whenever I go back to pause things for clues, and find exactly what I’m looking for, I don’t feel justified, I feel that much more insane:

It’s really hard to make out, but I had an alright look at it on my folks’ QLED, and it’s definitely a flying saucer doing an alien abduction on what looks to be a person inside an old CRT TV (with some kind of robot head/boombox on top???)  There are secret aliens in this show, you guys, the facts don’t lie.

HmmmMMMM I wonder if Agnes is as innocent as she looks:

Also, I didn’t see that she was wearing the brooch in this ep, and I was majorly disappointed in that.

Two things here:

No, that’s not a twins joke.

Another Moonmen Confirmed

I know green is his color or whatever, but that hat is literally 10 years ahead of its time

Also, I took the playing-DDR-at-home scenario at face value, and only on the first rewatch did I realize it was a very pointed turn-of-the-century reference.  I am an Old.

There’s a good, subtle Rule of Threes in this ep.  The Setup:

The Sokovian Halloween flashback works on so many levels.  It’s so funny:

The fact that they went trick-or-treating at all

The “speaking Sokovian”

The treat being a fish

They have to share the fish

The concept that this event gave them an infectious disease

“You probably suppressed a lot of the trauma” -- it’s a good sitcom joke but.  the trauma is the joke.  The joke IS THE TRAUMA!!!

Elizabeth Olson is a dream with all her wonderful faces she has this ep.

Vision’s unsettling passive-aggression-sitcom-cooperation whiplash is WOW, consider me unsettled!!!!!!  “Be. Good.”  UGH.

(Just noticed one here, but there are a number of continuity errors in this episode, enough to be distracting later on, and is this a deliberate choice?  Please let it be deliberate.  I didn’t watch a whole lot of Malcolm in the Middle, is it known for its continuity errors?

)

“It’s their first Halloween.” LOLOLOL they are TEN YEARS OLD and this is their FIRST halloween I LOVE IT

DOUBLE RED HERRING CONFIRRRRRRRRMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agent Jimmy Woo accidentally identifying himself as the sassy best friend added 20 years to my life.

Found.  FOUND.  Not “created,” “manifested,” “willed into being using my insane witch powers.”  Third Party Confirmed.

I like that it’s the 90s and we can swear on TV now.  “Hell” “kick-ass” “damn it” “fu---dge”

I think the most biting part of Vision finding the whacked out folks is that the soundtrack just kind of ... ignores that anything’s wrong.  Yeah, it’s kinda-spooky Halloween music, but it’s still 100% in-world kinda-spooky-sitcom-Halloween-episode music. 

OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT THE AD:

As a 90s child, let me tell you, this is a blisteringly accurate representation of children’s marketing from the period.  The shark is wearing sunglasses AND he has a surfboard!!!  And he’s selling you yogurt of all things!!!!!  This is the supreme distillation of what being a child in the 90s was like.

How disappointed I am that they went with crab instead of lobster.

Heard it through the grapevine that this is a representative of Wanda’s imprisonment on the Raft.  That happened in Civil War, right?  So the next ad is The Snap?  We’re running out of iconic decades, too. so, hold on, new thought.

90s: Civil War

00s: Infinity War

10s?????: Endgame???? or?????????

??: Whatever happened between Endgame and WandaVision, given that the ads are stepping forward through Wanda’s IRL life events!!

I don’t want to know how many episodes are planned/announced, but I don’t know what to expect from the format after they run out of decades from which to draw.  Maybe there are only one or possibly two “sitcom” episodes left.  Maybe after that it just breaks down and they can pick and choose from the worlds/styles we’ve already established.  That’d be p neat.  A very unique kind of chaos.

god she’s so cute

Okay, somebody explain to me Pietro.  I honestly walked away from last week thinking he was just some townsperson chump, but then I was reminded that this is the Quicksilver actor from all those X-Mans movies I never watched, soooo people are saying Multiverse Confirmed?  But, if this is X-Mans’ Pietro, then why did he die the same as MCU Pietro?  Or is he literally MCU!Pietro’s corpse, given that he looked all dead same as when she saw Vision’s corpse?  If MCU!Pietro, then why different face???

????????????????

Also I found him highly suspicious, what with all the questions he was asking.  But the only sort of person who would truly want to know the answers to those questions would be someone who already had them ... so I think he was just asking on behalf of the audience, and the delivery was all wonked out.

Rule of Threes - The Reference:

Ok, real talk, whenever computers/networks/data/encryption/servers/mainframes et al come up in mainstream media, I just look away.  I don’t need the kind of psychic damage that comes with such egregious mishandling of the topic.

That being said, does Hayward having eyes through the barrier mean that he could possibly be involved in getting it set up?  Because look.  If Hayward-after-Hayward’s-Villianous-Ends is one antagonizing force, then is there really room for the Third Party (Confirmed) antagonizing force that’s lurking in the negative space silhouette of the Inciting Incident?  With Wanda as the Red Herring antagonizing force, that’s just.  There’s just too many villains, alright?  We gotta start merging these plotlines.

(then again, when I just said “eyes” I realize probably understanding the true nature of his new secret “CATARACT” project will clear a lot of things up.  I’ll wait for enlightenment)

Agnes’ license plate in this episode is 0A1-B2C, which I think is a reference to the way reality is getting pared down to bare bones at the edge of town.  Note that this is not the same license plate number as seen last ep.

ALSO, I drove home behind a NJ plate just an hour ago, and was staring at it for a long time, trying to fit it into the puzzle before A) realizing that this was Real Life and not part of the show and B) WTF is a NJ plate doing in front of me in California.  In any case, I can confirm that NJ plates do not appear to have this number-letter repeating format.

So let’s talk Agnes.

Demonstrated knowledge of the situation in ways others haven’t (”There’s the star of the show” “kids, you can’t control ‘em”)

Shows up when needed most (explained as being Wanda’s doing, but is it)

When Wanda was having her babies, though, who was trustworthy enough to be summoned?  Was it Agnes?

Wanted to babysit REAL BAD

Was in the opening credits framed possessively with the twins

Doesn’t appear to have an IRL identity according to Jimmy’s crime board

Keeps talking about her husband but we’ve never seen him.  Highly unlikely that he’s real

Was the one to find Sparky “dead” - internet thinks she was lying to Wanda about how or possibly if he was dead (I’m trying not to read the theories, so idk exactly what the angle is there)

In an episode where everyone is wearing their original comic outfits, Agnes is dressed as (and laughs like!) a witch

She name-drops Wanda as the one controlling everyone; Norm (or the guy playing Norm) only said “she” and “her” -- meaning Agnes?

Naughty

So we’re 99% sure Agnes is Agatha Harkness, right?  I never read no comics, so I’m taking the internet’s word for it, but from what I can tell, I think we must be right.  If that’s the case, then I’m thinking it’s not impossible for her to be pulling some strings around here (giving Wanda a justification for her “that wasn’t me” doorbell ring, for example, and pulling a double red herring on the fact that she shows up whenever the narrative Wanda her nefarious scheme calls for it).

To devil’s advocate myself, though, we also have Monica’s word that it was Wanda in her mind, lessening the impact of Agnes falsely confirming what Norm only implied.  Also she’d have to be acting for Vision’s sake (and ours) and, if so, then what did Vision’s brain-touch really do, and how did she know he’d find her there, and what did she intend as the result of that interaction etc etc.

If Wanda’s (or Wanda + Third Party Confirmed (Agnes??)’s) powers aren’t enough to sustain the simulation of life on the edges of town, how much worse is it going to be now that there is even more area to try to control???

I don’t know if this is strictly an intended read, but the idea of Halloween as a fun, scares-for-entertainment’s sake type holiday, the rounding off the edges of concepts like “skeletons and ghosts are what people are after they die, let’s decorate the town with them and have a good time” kind of is a haunting parallel to the nature of Wanda (et al) covering up the horrible truth of the situation with this happy-go-lucky sitcom glamour.

How much does one hate seeing Vision giving his life for the greater good (the greater good) for the second time?  In other news, I think I’m seeing some specifically Mind Stone type energy-colors coming off of him, and very little Wanda type energy-colors.  Third Party Confirmed.

Also, I was thinking from last week that perhaps Hayward’s Villainous Ends included capturing the reanimated Vision to be one of those Sentient Weapons his organization is all about, but I Do Not Think his reaction to seeing that sought-after prize disintegrate in front of his eyes really matches up with that theory.  Again, will be patiently waiting for Jimmy to check his email to see what CATARACT is all about!

Rule of Threes - The Payoff:

Also, anyone ID the movie playing in the background?

Ok, final thought.  I watched this about four times today, and on the big-ass TV at my parents’ house finally paused and got up close to see what that white shape is in the reflection.  Thought it might be a skull, but, it’s worse.

These caps do not contain enough data to verify my claim, but I PROMISE YOU it’s a TV

A square old thing with a round screen and antenna on top. 

I SWEAR to you, when I looked into the TV, into Wanda’s eyes, only to see the reflection of a TV, of her looking at me looking at her I had a visceral fear reaction.  Like.  LEGIT nauseous skin crawl.

(All the other episodes have ended with our POV as the fourth wall, from the general (or exact!!!) position their household TV is known to be.)

This is my favorite show Of All Time.

[enchanted--roses]

PLEASE tell me all about alexandra d'amore!!!

Thanks for asking about her !!!

Alexandra is probably one of my oldest OCs with Isabelle de Valois and Elizabeth Monahan and she the one that change the least. At first she was called Julie Simmons, but I decide to change it couple of years ago for Alexandra and decide to reuse the surname for her mother’s maiden name.

I will give you some of her background story, since i have so many things i have that I need to reshape after deciding when my character is going to make her first appearance in the series I thought of making Alexandra appear during the first season of David Tennant, but after having taken part in the rewatch of Doctor Who during the confinement I decided to make her appear during the season of Christopher.

Alexandra was born July 25, 1983, in Montreal and was raised between Montreal and London, they were living in the school year in Montreal and the summer and Christmas vacation in London.

Her father Antonio D’Amore (Mark Ruffalo) was an ancient civilization teacher at Concordia and her mother Mary Simmons (Miranda Otto) was the proud owner of one of the biggest coffee shops in Montreal. 

When she was four, her mother got pregnant again and deliver a healthy boy they called Marco (Matthew Daddario) to honour the Italian root of the D’Amore family and the more English root of Mary. They were from the beginning really close, doing everything they can together as the years goes by. 

As she grows older Alexandra discover that she not a normal child, she was able to see the past, the present, the future and the road not travelled and what will have been if that road was travelled. She was also able to sense the aura of people and their presence knowing when someone was close. Having those power made her distance herself from her peers and try to find an answer. 

At twelve a man calling himself John Smith came to her house saying that he was here to help her get control of her power. She will be sceptical of him at first having never heard of a Doctor John Smith specializing in supernatural things. She will follow him when her parents tell her it will be better for her to go. 

The moment she will see The Tardis she will call it an old blue box vexing the Tardis that will block her entry, until Alexandra apologizes and explains that for a lot of people she looks like an old box but she was sure she was really pleasant getting a buzzing sound from it and the door finally opening for her.  Inside John Smith will present himself as the Doctor and will explain the name Tardis to the young women who will only nod knowing the answer already after her talk with the Tardis. 

By talking together she will found out about the civilization that was living all around her in other planet and galaxy and even on earth. The Doctor even tell her she probably got her power from one of them, probably from the Time Lord but he didn’t know why. Making her realised he is a Time Lord and ask him to tell her story of his planet and his people, wanting to understand who he was and the reason that was pushing him to help her. 

He will explain to her the Time Lord and talk about Gallifrey, the other Time Lord and the beauty of travelling through Time and Space without a care in the world. As he was talking she see in his eyes what he cannot say that by helping her he trying to find himself again. He will invite her to travel for a time with him, she will accept while they will be five month together before coming back the same day they left. 

She made him promise they will see each other again, before leaving to go back to her family. Coming back they will see that the Alexandra that came back was different better in her skin. Traveling with him even for a small time helped her and all of her teenage years she will think about him and hoped that he had managed to find what he had lost, hope. 

After high school she will leave her family and study at Princeton in Visual Art specialising in photography and production, coming back during the summer before her birthday. At she is alone waiting for her brother to come back from a friends, she heard a distinct whooshing. Turning around she see the Doctor looking worse that the day she met him years ago, and wearing a new styles worrying her.   

Asking him what he was doing here, he will only say sorry as she ask him why the phone rings, she answers it and receives the news that her parents died in a car accident while en route to the airport. She then collapses angry at the Doctor, who should have warned her, and save them, that she hated him before he took her in his arms and comforted her. He lifts her up from the ground when he feels she is asleep as he leaves her on her bed, she wakes up and kisses him before falling asleep again, he will leave her, and leave a note apologizing for everything. 

After the burial of her parents, she returns to Princeton to finish her final year before receiving her master's degree, when she could have stayed and continued to obtain a bigger certificate, she decides to change continent and find her maternal grand- parents in London, leaving her brother with her uncle Luca (Peter Facinelli), knowing that the latter would be happier with him. 

She started working in a production office wanting to put into practice what she had learned in the past three years. While in Cardiff to shoot a commercial, she meets Jack Harkness, who rescues her from a group of Weevil. Seeing her as usual Jack begins to flirt with her, Alexandra seeing who he is will only thanks him and walks away, Jack will shouts her name. Making her turns quickly; he will admits that he has been following her for a while, because he felt she was special. He tells her about Torchwood and the fact that he is the boss, but that he is understaffed and that he thinks she might a great addition to the team. She will just leaves and says no that she got a better option. 

When she is 21 years old, and she finds herself alone again for her birthday, because Luca cannot come being on honeymoon and Marco is at school, she discovers in front of the door of her room the TARDIS. She opens the door and discovers a man with a black leather coat, short hair almost completely shaved and big ears before her. Looking into his eyes she will recognise him and tell him she was happy to see him and that she was sorry for the last time they saw each other. He will only smile at her and invite her to travel with him. 

She will accept and will leave with him for his first adventure battling against the Nestene, where they will meet Rose Tyler and begin traveling with them. She will become really close with Rose thinking of her as a younger sister, she will also love Mickey with whom she will have a great friendship until him leaving in the parallel universe. 

Sorry for the long post but once i start writing it was hard to stop 🤣 I will have more coming soon, since i decided to binged rewatch the entire new series to decide what I’m going to do with Alexandra for every season, and when her relationship with the Doctor will change for more than friendship.

[tardisadventuresminisodes]

Emma and D.O. TARDIS Adventures Minisode 5-The Newcomer

Roger and little Eleven set a trap for a genius in an unstable home. They had bought all his stuff. The agenda was to bring it to Emma as soon as they caught him. Emma even talked to the social worker to let her give him a stable home in the TARDIS. Luckily, thanks to Emma’s friendship with Adam Schiff at that point, it was cleared.

So when 13-year-old James Bennett snuck into the Brother Jerome thrift store to get a electroplating set back from there, the trap was then dropped on him and Roger and little Eleven grabbed him.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! GET OFF OF ME!” James roared out as Roger then turned into his Vespiform side and flew James out of the thrift store and into the TARDIS.

“Don’t be afraid, James.” little Eleven said as he un-netted James from the trap and Roger changed back. “We’re here to help you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What is this place, where are we?” James asked confused.

“Mom says your portrayor may be a Whovian. He likes science fiction and fantasy, but that’s not why she wanted to get you away from your mother.” little Eleven said. “I’m Eleven Theta, by the way. This is my partner, Roger Goodlightly. Don’t listen to him if he hits on you.” little Eleven said.

“Hey, that’s a bit harsh. I’m not Jack Harkness, I don’t hit on just anybody.” Roger corrected.

“Sorry, Rog.” little Eleven said.

“You guys are crazy.” James said in response. But then, James was sent into Emma’s TARDIS as Emma and a social worker were waiting for him, the same social worker who signed off on Emma becoming a guardian for James.

“What’s this? What’s going on?” James asked.

“Ah, you must be James. I’ve heard and seen what genius you possess. I’m Emma.” Emma responded.

“I’m Miss Belcher, I work with NY CPS, I have signed off on Mrs. Theta having guardianship of you until you’re 18.” Miss Belcher said.

“I don’t understand.” James said confused.

“I’m friends with people in the NYPD. I promised I’d get you out of your situation if they let me go back to when you were about to steal back your electroplating kit. Which was unnecessary, by the way because everything has been bought back. Your bike, your radio, your electroplating kit, your family’s TV. Everything was bought back and put into a special room for you in the TARDIS.” Emma explained.

“For me?” James asked as Emma nodded, then showed him the room she put together for him. When they got there, James was amazed by how his room looked. A desk for studying and doing homework, a chemistry set to do experiments, his bike to ride when he got bored from doing homework, his TV to watch all his favorite programs on or even to keep up with the news. A warm bed to rest on, a wardrobe full of all his old clothes his mother donated, his radio next to his cup of pens to write with so he can listen to music while he wrote poems, he was in awe and was beginning to choke on tears. “I don’t know what to say, this is beautiful.” James said as he looked around in his new room in his new home. “But why me?”

“My mom was a latent alcoholic when I was in my early to mid 20′s. She died in 2018 my time, but two years prior, the alcohol didn’t become a problem until she had taken a nasty fall down the stairs of my parents’ old basement of our family home in Vinton where I used to live. That was May 4th, 2016, a month after I had broken my ankle. A little over two months after that, my mom goes into the hospital. Her liver’s stopped absorbing enzymes found in alcohol. She has to stop, but the pain was too much and they refused to give her regular painkillers due to the Opioid epidemic. She was in pain most of her life as a result and then they tried to give her a new pain medication but apparently, it wasn’t enough. So she kept fixing herself drinks. My dad just yelled at her to stop drinking, but she thought he was too mean. So I tried being softer, even begging her to stop. She broke her promise to stop drinking after 24 hours.” Emma paused to take a deep breath and a lump in her throat began to form. “It got so bad that on her 58th birthday, she stopped being able to get up by herself. The next day, she had to be carried off to the hospital. She was there until Halloween, where she was essentially sent home because she kept wanting to come back home. My dad bitched at me, I tried to do my best to help out but he was really making it harder on me than the whole fact that my mom was home when she needed to recover somewhere else. Then the next day, my mom made me help her cut her hair off and then she asked for one more drink. She emotionally blackmailed me into making me get her the whiskey. She said if I didn’t, she’d have to crawl all the way back out to the kitchen.” Emma started to tear up as she continued. “She continued to deteriorate until February 2018, when she died of Liver Cirrhosis.” She took a minute to compose herself before looking back at James. “I’ve seen your struggle before, and your mother is just about as bad if not worse than my mother. She refuses to seek help, she won’t stop doing something she shouldn’t be doing for the sake of her family. You don’t deserve that, James.” Emma said as James nodded understandingly.

“So I get to stay here for as long as I want?” James asked.

“For as long as you want or until Miss Belcher says she has a better place on hand.” Emma said as she gave James a tour of the rest of the TARDIS.

“This is Lucky and Frankie. I adopted Frankie and her two sisters after I felt I needed to help her sister Amelia and her boyfriend, now husband, Rory stay together.” Emma said.

“Charmed to meet you.” James said as he shook their hands. Just then, Sophie came in with Jessica.

“This is Jessica and my second youngest daughter Sophie. She’s one of the adopted girls.” Emma said.

“Jessica Dalswaldek, you must be the newcomer to the TARDIS. Pleasure.” Jessica said.

“James Bennett. Enchanted.” James said. Soon, Emma reached the kitchen with James, who was intrigued by the gadgets in the kitchen.

“We had this craving processor installed when we had a kid named Gray grow up in the TARDIS. His brother was a friend of the Doctor’s named Jack Harkness. We’ll introduce you to the Doctor at a later date. In the meantime, go ahead and test out the machine.” Emma said as James did and requested steak and ice cream like Pollyanna described.

“I just wanted to have that Pollyanna kind of childhood after Mom started giving stuff away to Brother Jerome. All they’re interested is canonizing Brother Jerome as a Saint. Well, one isn’t interested. One day after school, Mr. Sullivan’s son tried to give some of the money back. When I tried to cash it, Mr. Sullivan had the assets frozen.” James started getting mad and cut rather furiously into the steak. Then he took a deep breath. “No one should be living like this. No KID should be living like this. Not in constant poverty because it’s better to give than to receive.” Emma rubbed James’s back as he started huffing in emotional turmoil and he began to cling to Emma crying. “The worst part is I can’t hate her. I know she’s sick, but I can’t help her either. I don’t know how to help her or stop her.” James finally broke down and Emma held him. Then they sank to the floor and she held him like she would comfort Ben or little Eleven when they were young boys.

“Shh, it’s okay. It’s alright, baby. Let it all out. You’re safe now, I know how you feel. Shhhhhhhh, you’re okay now.” Emma said as she began to tear up herself and began to let go of her own emotional turmoil and the two just sat there on the kitchen floor crying their eyes out as the ice cream began to melt and the steak got cold.

After the embrace and the comfort received, James knew he was in a safe, stable environment that he could get used to.

[junec-c-blog]

♡ HARK —— ! yet another has risen in Purgatory ! the curve of [ her ] face likens them to SOPHIE SKELTON, but don’t be fooled — there is only one JUNE CARTER. upon arrival, they settled in as a freelance musician, and have since aligned to the VIRTUES. it’s written that they’re personable & energetic & independent, but whispered that they’re headstrong & blunt & bossy, so tread lightly. may their heart remain whole. [ jo, she/her, 22, est ]

Hello, friends! My name is Jo and I’m super excited to be here and equally excited to get into June’s character, so I’ve got quite a few pertinent points listed below. As her past is well-known already, I’m mostly going to be doing an abridged version for now, but I might do a more detailed biography on her past later because I just love her that much!

June was born the middle daughter of Maybelle and Ezra Carter in 1929. The family became known for their musical talent, and as a result, she spent most of her adolescence performing Appalachian-style country in multiple groups comprised solely of her sisters and parents.

While she was a decent singer, she was much more well-known for her skills in playing music - namely the guitar and autoharp - and her propensity for comedy. With a sharp wit and smart mouth, the youngest Carter was most definitely the liveliest out of the bunch and became well-known as the heart and soul of the Carter Sisters.

She made it to the Grand Ole Opry by the time she was 21, and this was the environment that she rubbed elbows with the likes of Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and the one and only Johnny Cash. These friendships proved useful for her, and she toured several times with these artists and more through connections made at the Opry and beyond.

June married once at 21, and while she did get a daughter and multiple popular country songs out of her union with acclaimed singer Carl Smith, the marriage crashed and burned. Considering a good portion of those who listened to her music were devout Christians, the divorce sullied her reputation and left some to label her as a ‘sinner’ for allowing such a thing to happen. She married again, this time to a police officer by the name of Edwin Nix, but she faced the same fate yet again. Understandably, this left her somewhat more cynical and hesitant to put her heart on the ringer again when it came to romantic love.

Try as she did to deny it and keep him at an arm’s length, June developed quite an affection for Johnny through their work together that eventually turned to love. Thanks in part to her failed marriages, his issues with addiction, and her generally stubborn nature, it took years for the two of them to get together and even more past that for her to accept a marriage proposal from him. Their love, as she characterized in Ring of Fire, was just as exciting as it was painful for her, and despite their occasionally tumultuous relationship with each other, he was (and still is) her best friend and the only one who truly held her heart.

Once she finally agreed to marry Johnny in Ontario at nearly 40, she never looked back. The two married, had a child, and continued to make music together until she died in 2003 from complications following surgery.

Now that she’s in Purgatory, things have been simultaneously far easier and much harder for June. Here’s what I’ve got for her as far as that is concerned:

Overall, what you see with June is what you get. While she may be far wiser than she was as a young woman trying to make her name as a star, her love of life, goofy nature, and general humility hasn’t wavered.  Granted, she’s just as fiercely independent as ever, determined to do things on her own as she wants to and often unwilling to sway when she’s set her mind on something. She takes no shit, and while she’s by no means crass or rude, she’s also not one to allow people to walk all over her.

June closed her eyes being pushed back to an operating room and opened them young, rejuvenated, and dead. The fact that she’d passed without getting to say goodbye to her beloved husband was devastating and the four months between her death and his own were excruciatingly lonely. As guilty as she feels to admit it, she was almost glad to know that he’d died if only because it meant that she got to have him with her again.

Johnny’s obviously still the love of her life. She simply doesn’t have eyes for anyone else - due in part to years of  and adores him just as much now as she did in her youth

That doesn’t mean, however, that they don’t have their issues. She gets as frustrated and angry with him as ever, thanks in large part to her take-no-shit attitude and constant worry over the fact that he may be slipping back into bad habits. She bickers often when she feels slighted and shuts him out when she’s at her worse, a classic defense mechanism considering the years of hurt she carries on her shoulders to prevent showing vulnerability.  

Considering her propensity for humanitarian pursuits and generally good nature in life, it’s obvious why she’s aligned with the Virtues. All she wants out of this second chance is the opportunity to live a peaceful, idyllic life and make up for lost time, but that doesn’t seem as easy as she originally thought it’d be.

She tried to find a ‘regular’ job. Really, she did. But music had been her entire life from the tender age of ten to her deathbed, and there’s nothing that really sets her soul aflame like carrying a tune and strumming at that autoharp did. She carries odd jobs, performing at little holes in the wall and offering the occasional lesson or two when the moment strikes, and that’s perfectly okay with her.

Her greatest fear is losing her Johnny, whether that be to the alcohol or drugs or even to the arms of another woman. Early on, she’d hoped for a relatively peaceful second life, but nowadays she’s spent a good amount of her time fretting and fussing at him that she almost feels more like a mother than a wife at times. Considering the time and devotion she spent in life to getting him clean and sticking by him despite his misdeeds, she’s willing to do it all over again if it’s for him even if that means being overbearing at times.

I think that’s it for now, but knowing me, I’ve probably missed something that I’ll have to double-back on later when it comes to mind. That being said, feel free to throw anything my way in terms of plots, as I’m all about interacting with as many people as possible! Again, I’m so excited to be here and even more excited to get started, so bless you all!

[valeriebielbooks]

13 Witchy Books for a Magical Month

They say you write what you want to read, and I’m no exception. I love some goodold-fashioned (and newly imagined) witchy magic at any time of year but particularly as we enjoy the days leading up to Halloween. No matter your age, here are some fabulous witchy tales to enjoy this month. (I didn’t include the Harry Potter series because it’s a given that these books should lead any list in the witching/wizarding world.)

Picture Books

Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Sheffler

The witch and her cat are happily flying through the sky on a broomstick when the wind picks up and blows away the witch's hat, then her bow, and then her wand!  Luckily, three helpful animals find the missing items, and all they want in return is a ride on the broom. But is there room on the broom for so many friends? Copy And when disaster strikes, will they be able to save the witch from a hungry dragon?

To purchase:  PAPERBACK     HARDCOVER

Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini and Howard Fine

Gritch the Witch is grouchy, grumpy, and very hungry. The only thing that could make her happy is something extra special for lunch, and that is: Piggie Pie! Gritch zooms off on her broomstick to find eight plump piggies -- where else? -- on Old MacDonald's Farm. Cleverly disguised pigs impersonate ducks, chickens, a cow, and Old MacDonald himself, as this uproarious, quick-paced story builds to an ironically surprising conclusion. Wacky, hip, and illustrated with bold, bright paintings, "Piggie Pie" adds a new twist to an old fairy-tale scene.

To purchase:  PAPERBACK       HARDCOVER

Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman and S.D. Schindler

Once there was a witch who longed for pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, the pumpkin she had grown from a seed became so big she simply couldn't get it off the vine. Although "she pulled and she tugged and she pulled...that pumpkin just sat." Along came a ghost. "I am bigger than you and stronger, too," said he. "Let me try." Well, the witch wanted that whole pumpkin for herself. But she needed help -- Halloween was just hours away... With the rhythm and repetition that children love, Erica Silverman tells a rollicking story about a witch who, through her encounter with a ghost and other spooky creatures, discovers both the value of cooperating and the joy of sharing. S.D. Schindler brings this captivating crew to life in spirited paintings that are as warm as they are funny.

To purchase:   PAPERBACK       HARDCOVER

Middle Grade

The Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett

In print for the first time in thirty years is Anna Elizabeth’s Bennett classic tale of a little witch who dreams of becoming normal girl.  

To purchase:   PAPERBACK       eBOOK    

The Witches by Roald Dahl

This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches. Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the most dangerous of all living creatures on earth. There's nothing they hate so much as children, and they work all kinds of terrifying spells to get rid of them. Her grandson listens closely to Grandmamma's stories—but nothing can prepare him for the day he comes face-to-face with The Grand High Witch herself!

To Purchase:   PAPERBACK    HARDCOVER     eBOOK

The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy

Mildred Hubble is starting her first year at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches — and making a mess of it! She can’t ride her broomstick without crashing, she’s always getting her spells mixed up, and worst of all, the teacher’s pet, Ethel, has just become her sworn enemy.

To Purchase:   PAPERBACK     HARDCOVER     eBOOK

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Sixteen-year-old Kit Tyler is marked by suspicion and disapproval from the moment she arrives on the unfamiliar shores of colonial Connecticut in 1687. Alone and desperate, she has been forced to leave her beloved home on the island of Barbados and join a family she has never met. Torn between her quest for belonging and her desire to be true to herself, Kit struggles to survive in a hostile place. Just when it seems she must give up, she finds a kindred spirit. But Kit’s friendship with Hannah Tupper, believed by the colonists to be a witch, proves more taboo than she could have imagined and ultimately forces Kit to choose between her heart and her duty.

To Purchase:   PAPERBACK   HARDCOVER   eBOOK

Young Adult

Hex Hall series by Rachel Hawkins

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she is a witch. Her non-gifted mother has been supportive, consulting Sophie’s estranged father—a warlock—only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it’s her dad who exiles her to “Hex Hall”, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, fairies, and shape-shifters. By the end of her first day, Sophie has three new enemies, a futile crush on a warlock, a tagalong ghost, and a vampire roommate. Worse, Sophie soon learns that an unknown predator has been attacking students. As a series of blood-curdling mysteries converges, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

To Purchase:   HARDCOVER   eBOOK

Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of  Gatlin  has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When  Lena  moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them. In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

To Purchase:   PAPERBACK     eBOOK

Sweep series by Cate Tiernan

Morgan Rowlands never thought she was anything other than a typical sixteen-year-old girl. But when she meets Cal, a captivatingly handsome coven leader, she makes a discovery that turns her whole world upside down: she is a witch, descended from an ancient and powerful line. And so is Cal. Their connection is immediate and unbreakable; Cal teases out Morgan's power, her love, her magick. But Morgan discovers too soon that her powers are strong, almost too powerful to control. And she begins to suspect that Cal may be keeping secrets from her . . . secrets that could destroy them both.

To Purchase:   PAPERBACK   eBOOK

Adult Fiction

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic...

To Purchase:     PAPERBACK     eBOOK

The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness

In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar's depth to this riveting tale of magic and suspense. The story continues in book two, Shadow of Night, and concludes with The Book of Life.

To Purchase Book One "A Discovery of Witches":   PAPERBACK      eBOOK

Cousins O’Dwyer Series by Nora Roberts (Dark Witch, Shadow Spell, Blood Magick)

From Book 1: With indifferent parents, Iona Sheehan grew up craving devotion and acceptance. From her maternal grandmother, she learned where to find both: a land of lush forests, dazzling lakes, and centuries-old legends. Ireland. County Mayo, to be exact. Where her ancestors’ blood and magic have flowed through generations—and where her destiny awaits.

Iona arrives in Ireland with nothing but her Nan’s directions, an unfailingly optimistic attitude, and an innate talent with horses. Not far from the luxurious castle where she is spending a week, she finds her cousins, Branna and Connor O’Dwyer. And since family is family, they invite her into their home and their lives.

When Iona lands a job at the local stables, she meets the owner, Boyle McGrath. Cowboy, pirate, wild tribal horseman, he’s three of her biggest fantasy weaknesses all in one big, bold package.

Iona realizes that here she can make a home for herself—and live her life as she wants, even if that means falling head over heels for Boyle. But nothing is as it seems. An ancient evil has wound its way around Iona’s family tree and must be defeated. Family and friends will fight with each other and for each other to keep the promise of hope—and love—alive…

To Purchase Book One "Dark Witch":         PAPERBACK   eBOOK

To Purchase Book Two "Shadow Spell":     PAPERBACK    eBOOK

To Purchase Book Three "Blood Magick":   PAPERBACK    eBOOK

What are your favorite witchy reads?? Please share!

Happy Reading, Valerie

[dannifielding]

Maybe a Prologue

So, I’ve had a bit of a brain bug. I blame this on anon, you know who you are :P

Should I continue? I may already have enough, I dunno.

This bar was absolutely disgusting. Freya scrunched her nose up the moment she stepped inside, looking around and wondering if this was really the best idea after all. She held the folded piece of paper tight in her hand as a comfort, and a reminder of why she was there in the first place. The front page of the newspaper was all she needed.

In the corner, in the shadows, was the person who had asked to meet her in such a seedy part of the space port. She was sure it was just for effect more than convenience or subterfuge, but she had agreed to it none the less. Trying to ignore the regulars and the drunks that were dotted around, hiding from their miserable lives, she made her way over.

The man who was meeting her definitely didn’t look like he had been there before. He was wearing an expensive suit, his hair styled and overall he looked immaculate. However, Freya thought as she sat down across from him, he looked like he was quite at home amongst the lower end of the city’s inhabitants.

“Thank you for meeting me at such short notice,” he greeted genially.

“You could have picked somewhere less, you know, movie villain,” Freya replied, taking another glance around them. “There’s a Hampton hotel up the road, you know?”

The man chuckled. “Yes, well, call me a sucker for the ambience,” he said. “What have you got for me, Freya? Did you find the earliest point in her life where they meet?”

She nodded. “You’re not going to like it,” she warned him as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She laid it flat on the table, pressed the touch screen a couple of times, and the data appeared in a projection in front of them.

“Just tell me,” he said impatiently. “I don’t have time for presentations.”

“You’re going to need this information,” she replied. “He met her when she was born.”

His brows furrowed. Freya had known that this wasn’t the information that he’d been expecting. “I’m sorry?”

“Just what I said,” she replied. “She was born on the TARDIS, according to what I could find. She’s literally known him her entire life, probably beforehand as well from what I’ve found out.”

She pressed the touch screen and the information displayed gathered together, forming the picture of a woman. “You know who this is, I gather?” she asked and was unsurprised when he nodded.

“River Song. The woman who killed the Doctor. Or, at the very least, the woman who got the closest. And then became friends with his wife.”

Freya nodded. “That’s her,” she agreed. “She’s also her mother.”

She felt a bit a smug satisfaction when the man looked positively taken aback by the news. “There’s more,” Freya continued. Another press of the screen and the image transformed into a picture of a man. “This is Captain Jack Harkness, also known as the Face of Boe. Or he will be when he loses the body.”

The man nodded to himself. “Yes, even without a body the man won’t die,” he replied. “We’ve known about him for a long time.”

“He’s her father,” Freya told him. “Not only is she born on the TARDIS, but two of his closest friends are her parents. He’s interweaved into her very existence.”

The man sighed heavily. This was probably the worse news she could have brought him, she knew that. When she’d first been approached to look into Danielle Fielding, she hadn’t been in the best state of her life. Drunk and falling over in the street had been commonplace for her, but she’d been given a purpose and she’d completely turned her life around. Still, she had no idea what they wanted the information for. “I’m guessing that’s not as helpful as you thought it would be?” she pressed gently.

He didn’t reply straight away, staring at the picture of the Jack Harkness without much expression on his face. “Why did you want to help us, Freya?”

Her hand instinctively closed around the piece of paper she hadn’t let go of. “The Doctor rampaged through my home town,” she explained quietly. “His mess caused chaos. There were gangs, my family got caught up in it. I had a career, I was a detective. I had a husband. Now they’re all gone. All because his wife was missing. The man is a menace.”

He nodded slowly before reaching forward to turn off the screen on her phone. “My masters want to put a stop to all of that,” he told her. “He’s an asset to the universe, but he needs to be calmed.”

He stood up, picking up a coat that Freya hadn’t noticed. “Thank you for your help, Freya,” he told her. “We’ll take it from here.”

Those were the last words she ever heard. The gunshot that rang out in the bar didn’t even cause the regulars to flinch. Once she had dropped to the floor, all life completely gone from her body, he bent down and tugged the newspaper from her fingers.

He pocketed it, put on his coat, and went on his way.

[daleisgreat]

The War

Today’s film has been sitting unwatched in my backlog longer than most of the other films I have covered so far. I recall buying it around 2001/2002 when visiting Best Buy was a regular payday occurrence to see what was on sale. One of those DVDs I impulse bought is today’s entry which I first viewed shortly after its original release in 1994, The War (trailer). The Simmons family is barely surviving trying to make ends meet in a typical hot and humid Mississippi summer in 1970. Siblings Stu (Elijah Wood) and Lidia (Lexi Randall) are toiling away their summer building their dream tree fort while engaged in an intense feud with rival rural neighbor siblings, the Lipnickis. Meanwhile their father, Stephen (Kevin Costner) struggles to find stable work while suffering the effects of PTSD coming back from the Vietnam War. When I originally saw The War when it hit theaters I was 11, which is right around the same age as Elijah Woods’ character here so suffice it to say Stu easily resonated with me. A big part of this movie is about Stu and Lidia making their local quarries and woods the ultimate summer hang out spot and engaging in their own brand of rural warfare with the Lipnickis kids and the film makes some extreme correlations relating it to flashbacks from Stephen’s drama he experienced in ‘Nam. That is no hyperbole either, because in the film’s big final act the Simmons and Lipnickis are beating the tar out of each other in a sick/awesome slow-motion montage of preteen kids pounding each other with their own unique weaponry while Stu pauses and takes it in and has visions of his father’s Vietnam stories. It is a bizarre scene you just have to see to believe.

I tried to hunt down that iconic scene on YouTube, but was met with failure. I will link instead to another big moment from the film where Lidia’s friend Elvadine (LaToya Crisholm) stands up for herself in summer school class when the teach attempts to segregate the classroom. Again, like the tree fort fight, the scene is amped up, but that is a good thing as the filmmakers here just go for it and hold nothing back like they do with other scenes, for better or worse. Stephen finally finds work at a high-risk mining job, and the film instantly foreshadows doom and gloom, but instead of dragging out a few scenes with routine days on the job, The War wastes no time and has Stephen experience hard times no less than 30 seconds into his first mining scene. I want to give props to director Jon Avnet for nailing so many little things that went a long way with me like the way the actors sulk in those dreadful, humid summer weather and how everyone’s southern accent is spot on throughout. There are a few scenes where Stu gets up to no good and winds up in impromptu fights with random Lipnickis siblings and Stephen intervenes and preaches to him to rise up above violence and not to think with his fists. It is a big life lesson moment, which I could not help but crack up at as Stu continues to ignore it and winds up in more fights and skirmishes throughout the movie.

A lot of people will rightly first associate Elijah Wood for voicing the iconic videogame character Spyro the Dragon….just kidding we all know what he is primarily known for, but The War was one of his first films and he won a handful of young actor awards from it that recognized him with some serious acting chops. It was a breakout two year span of films for Wood in 1993-94 that put him on the map along with his performances in Adventures of Huck Finn and North that have only lead to bigger and better roles for him to this day. The War also was the debut film for another actor I covered recently here, where Lucas Black made his big screen debut with his performance of Ebb Lipnicki. Black is just as cocky and gung-ho here as an obnoxious eight year old as he was about 12 years later in his leading performance in Tokyo Drift. Seeing how this is an ancient DVD originally printed in 1999, there is little on here in the way of extras. It has a trailer, production notes and film-ographies. Not many DVDs have production notes and film-ographies any more and I kind of miss them a tisch. The IMDB app has made film-ographies irrelevant for many years now, but I always scour through production notes whenever I see them on a DVD. Do not let the lack of extras sway you from checking out The War however. If you have older parents this would likely be up their alley. I recommended it to my 76-year-old dad after watching it again as I constantly hear him harking back to stories from his childhood years running wild on a farm, so The War should easily be in his wheelhouse. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Creed Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Guardians of the Galaxy Hercules: Reborn Hitman Ink Interstellar Jobs Man of Steel Marine 3 & 4 Mortal Kombat The Replacements Rocky I-VII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Wild The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Days of Future Past

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

'Arrow's Season 5 Finale Brings Oliver's Journey Full Circle and Ends on a Jaw-Dropping Cliffhanger

Warning: Spoiler alert! Do not proceed if you haven’t watched Arrow’s epic season five finale!

Did Arrow just kill, um, everyone?!

The CW’s OG superhero drama came full circle on Wednesday's season finale, returning Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) -- and literally every other person in his life -- back to Lian Yu, the deadly island in the South China Sea where, five years ago, a shipwrecked playboy emerged as the vigilante that would become the Green Arrow.

Oliver and his motley crew of enemies-turned-allies -- Nyssa al Ghul (Katrina Law), Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman), Digger Harkness (Nick E. Tarabay) and Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) -- traveled to the island in pursuit of the Green Arrow’s actual friends and loved ones, all of whom were being held as pawns in Adrian Chase’s twisted game of vengeance. After a double cross or two, an unexpected sacrifice (Merlyn, in his one and only act as a selfless father) and a few epic fight scenes -- including a face-off between Black Canaries past and present, Earth-2 Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy) and Dinah Drake (Juliana Harkavy), and a good old-fashioned family throwdown between the al Ghul girls -- everyone is free, save for Oliver’s son, William (Jack Moore).

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Oh yeah, except for the fact that the entire island is wired with explosives.

Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) and Curtis (Echo Kellum) don’t have the equipment to disarm all the bombs, so the team, joined by William’s mother, Samantha (Anna Hopkins), ends up in a race against the clock to try and salvage a sabotaged plane before getting word about an ARGUS ship on the other side of the island.

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Oliver, William and Chase (Josh Segarra) end up on a boat off the coast of Lian Yu at episode’s end, just as the series’ flashbacks finally catch up with the Oliver Queen that fans met way back in the Arrow pilot -- a mangled, matted man in a green hood, finally saved from his island purgatory by what we now know was a not-so-random fishing boat. (In a truly delightful and heartbreaking surprise, Susanna Thompson reprises her role as Moira Queen, so fans can watch the tearjerking scene when a rescued Oliver first calls his mother after five long years.)

After revealing that he’s been wired to a kill switch that’s linked with every bomb on the island, Chase offers up the paramount ultimatum: Oliver can save his son by killing Chase, which will not only prove that he’s the murderer Chase has always accused him of being, but doom everyone on the island, or he can let Chase kill his son, proving something much worse.

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In true superhero fashion. Oliver maneuvers his way around the offer, injuring Chase enough to free William from his clutches. But the deranged villain has a failsafe ready for every option, and, just as Oliver’s father did while floating in the same murky water a decade earlier, he puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger. (As Slade astutely points out earlier in the episode, “Kid, when it comes to you, everything has to do with your father.”)

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“We really did want to, this season, build a villain that would be a dark mirror for Oliver, in the tradition of the comic books,” Arrow EP Wendy Mericle explained of Chase, aka Prometheus, on a conference call with reporters earlier this year. “Really honoring that and also honoring Oliver’s path on the show, and specifically, the first season. They’ve both suffered losses and they both answer those losses in very different ways.”

By season’s end, it appears that Oliver’s losses may only continue to grow. The bombs go off all over Lian Yu, setting the island ablaze, and we’ve no way of knowing what that means for those presumably left behind.

So what happens next? Everyone’s not dead, right? What happens to Felicity and the “no regrets” kiss she shared with Oliver before they parted ways? What about poor Thea (Willa Holland), who just lost her third parental figure in a decade? What about Digg (David Ramsey), who’s got a wife and kid back home who have both been through enough already? What about Quentin (Paul Blackthorne) and Rene (Rick Gonzalez) and Curtis and Samantha and Dinah and Nyssa and Slade and even Laurel and Evelyn (Madison McLaughlin)?

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Could anyone have possibly survived those blasts? Did they figure out how to fix the plane or make it to the boat? What the heck happened?!

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Back in January, Mericle told ET that Arrow’s creative team was looking at their upcoming sixth season as a “fresh, clean slate,” now that the flashbacks have caught up with the first season of the show.

“We’ve closed this chapter on the first five seasons, and it’s going to be time to start looking at new ways of writing the show and exploring different structures as well,” she explained. “We’re a little bit freed up by not having to do the flashbacks, as well, which is actually really refreshing and exciting.”

Arrow will return this fall on The CW, Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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