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dragonrajafanfiction · 3 years ago

Text

The Wedding (Part 1) The Trap is Laid

Oh yeah... It’s all coming together... @rurifangirl

Thanks to an entire bottle of vodka you slept soundly. The sun was well up on the horizon when you crawled out of bed and took your time in the Jacuzzi. Your heart was beating fast both with excitement and nervousness. But you had to stay in character. You loved Chime. He was wonderful, sweet, shy and beautiful, so beautiful. You dressed in a comfortable robe and reminded yourself of Z’s advice on the night of Chance’s death. Ignore everyone and speak to no one unless absolutely necessary.

You open the shades to the windows over Tokyo and gasp.

Hydra’s minions had all left last night. The owner of the Takamagahara had a 75% stake in Hydra assets. If she sold it all, she could bankrupt the entire organization in an instant. So she had forced them to hold off on their assault for 24 hours.

But the Hydra were still the owners of Tokyo itself. Hydra still blockaded the area and controlled the subway station from the outskirts a few kilometers from here. The vast majority of merchants cooperated with them and the streets were desolate. This is called ‘clearing the area’, clearing out all the irrelevant people before the important people meet. After the clearing is done, Takamagahara will become the lone store on the street. If the negotiations failed, Hydra could go on a killing spree. The police department won't care about it, and there won't be anyone on the street to bail you out.

The streets were deserted, businesses were closed. There were signs on the doors saying "Sorry for the suspension of business". The police have set up barricades at both ends of the road so that cars without special permits cannot enter.

Taking advantage of the empty streets, the staff had lined both sides with garlands of roses, lilies, poppies and baby’s breath. Ribbons were tied to every tree. Ice sculptures of famous romantic scenes from classic literature were on the way. They were setting up stations with booths for food and souvenirs. Huge banners announcing the marriage between the “Dragon Lord Chime Gen and his Dragon Lady MC” hung over every major intersection. It looked more like a fairy tale royal wedding than a meeting between the Yakuza leaders of Japan.

Your heart beats faster and you hurry out of your executive level bedroom and head to the first floor where redecorating was in full swing! With the help of the construction team they had dressed it up as a night scene of the Shinjuku district, with neon signs of all sizes and an elevated bridge spanning from above.

“I hope everything is to your liking?” Su Enxi, the owner of the Takamagahara smiles smugly behind you.

“This is amazing! It’s like Tokyo Nightlife has come inside!”

“We chose the theme of a Yakuza wedding! So everyone here will be dressed as gangsters.” She held out one of the fancy invitations. The art was in the style of a Yakuza Tattoo with dragons, koi fish and tigers crawling in that traditional Ukiyo-E style that the Hydra Executive Board were famous for. On the inside was a lot of Japanese text you couldn’t read, but the art depicted shadow figures standing in a desolate alley.

“I love it!” You hand it back to her.

“Good. Here’s the guest list.” She hands it to you.

You blinked a bit. You didn’t recognize any of these names.

“We didn’t know who you would like so we invited pretty much every major powerplayer and celebrity in Japan. Only women of course.”

“These are all celebrities?” You stare at the list trying to find at least one name you knew.

Enxi frowned slightly and you flinched. How should you know? You were born nearly 40 years ago and you didn’t know any of these people from Adam. She expected you to be impressed. “Oh, right! Yes, I … yes I”m happy they’re coming!” You say, trying to recover.

It didn’t work and she takes back the list with an annoyed huff. “Don’t worry about learning their names. They’re only here to serve as shields and bargaining chips. The Hydra won’t be able to clear the area quickly if these celebrities are having a great time. If they try, it will be too much of a propaganda scandal.”

“I see.” You nod sagely. “Thank you.”

“Now go upstairs, eat, and get to the salon at 4 pm.” She checks her watch. “Guests will start to arrive at 8 pm tonight.”

“Where’s Chime?”

“The groom? Hiding. It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.” She doesn’t even look at you as she walks away and claps her hands. “Chop! Chop! Let’s get moving!”

You return to your room with breakfast and hear a soft knock on the door. You open to Caesar who steps inside. “Ready for your big day?”

He was dressed casually again, just jeans and a muscle shirt. After all, he was going to work soon and probably wanted to relax. He looks over at the bottles of vodka and the bit of cigar you’d left on the table and raises an eyebrow. It looked like you had guests last night. “Did you party without me?”

“You can say that. Just some old friends.” You walk over to the massive floor to ceiling liquor cabinet and open the door. “Can I get you something?”

“I’m good.” He pauses again. He didn’t follow you. He’s staring at you.

“What?” You stare right back.

“Aren’t you going to ask about Zero?” Caesar asks.

You frown and close the cabinet. “Oh, that girl? Is she recovering alright?”

“She is. Lu Mingfei is looking over her for now. I’m surprised you didn’t come down to visit?”

You bat your eyes innocently. “Did she ask for me?”

Caesar turned away and walked over to the dining table, dropping the subject. The man was sharp. No doubt he saw the photo of Renata and immediately recognized Zero. When you met Zero, he likely noticed your reaction. He didn’t understand but he would drop it for now since it was clear that despite your obvious past affection you weren’t going to talk about her. “I want to say you came through again with this sudden wedding. I did not think you would go this far. How did you convince that Gen brother?”

“I just framed it as a way to convince Chisei. Is it extreme? Yes, but he’s that desperate.” You deliberately avoided mentioning anything about King General and moved away from the liquor cabinet to make tea instead. “Have you talked with Chime?”

“He’s still asleep.” Caesar picked another cigar from the box and lit it. “I trust you’ve thought through all the implications for going through with this?”

“Yes.” You say, putting the tea kettle on and waiting for it to boil. “I’ll start with the implications if things go badly. Let’s say that Chisei is a bigger idiot than we thought and he does kill Chime. As his wife, I won’t be spared. This marriage puts me not only in the Devil Clan officially but also in the upper rankings. At best, I’ll be imprisoned forever. But more likely I’ll be killed as a Devil.”

“Should our special guest arrive and I can’t use my love effectively, hundreds of people could die, all of them top celebrities. More importantly, I’ll lose my entire world even if I do manage to survive.” Everyone you ever knew was here. Z, Renata, Caesar, Chu Zihang, Lu Mingfei and Fingel. If they all died tonight, you would be desolate with nothing left.

You return with the tea and sit down across from him. “If things go right, then a lot of things will be in your hands, not mine. You’ll be negotiating my place in Japan with Chisei. Once all the things are completed, I’ll be in a position to help run the Devil Clan just by my position alone as his wife and I'll be easily installed as Japan Branch lead should Chisei and Chime follow through on their desires to vacate those positions.”

Caesar nodded slowly but then he shuddered. “So cold.”

“What?” You look up.

“If you marry that guy I won’t see you for quite some time. You won’t be coming back with us.”

You smile over your cup. “Oh don’t give me that. An old friend is better than two new ones. As the saying goes.” You quip, slyly referencing Chime’s split persona. “I still have your wedding to attend. And I consider you my best man at this wedding.”

“Brides can have a Best Man?” Caesar asked.

“It’s my wedding. I do what I want.” You rest your chin on the heel of your hand.

Caesar took a deep breath and took the cigar with him as he stood. “Well, I gotta do what I gotta do. There’s going to be shows before your appearance and I'm in one of them.”

“Break a leg.” You say as he leaves.

You still feel uneasy. You want to talk to Z. You stand up and leave that room and go to the bathroom, a spot Fingel had described as a blind spot. The bathroom was empty when you got there but when you turned to the mirror, Z was standing behind you.

You whirl, with a ferocious look. “Stop doing that!”

“Why? It’s fun!” He’s dressed in a tuxedo with golden cufflinks in the shape of dragons. “Why are you the only one who gets to have a good time? Enjoying the festivities?” He asked coyly.

“Yes I am. You’ve really outdone yourself. Thank you.”

Z suddenly frowned. And then he smiled again. “Hahaha… you almost had me there.”

“Yep! I hate you. You didn’t tell me Renata was alive. Go find a city bus to lay under.” You wink, but your words are serious.

“I’ve got my finger in so many pies right now. It’s not even funny. Show some respect. I just stopped by because I’m just so excited for this!” He held up a poster.

“I can’t read that.” The poster was of an evil man with a white rose in his mouth and a blood-stained sword across his chest, his eyes fierce, yet irresistibly sultry.

“It’s a wanted notice for the dangerous Ruri the Midnight Ripper!” He breathed excitedly, reading the poster. “The dangerous killer Midnight Ruri is active in the nights of Tokyo. He has killed countless young women, and the yakuza clan has offered a reward of 10 million yen for his head. Every woman going home tonight should be careful. It is said that he only attacks the most beautiful women, so the most conservative dress is the safest.” Z licked his lips and chuckled.

“Ugh. That’s insulting to the groom! Why would you do that?”

“It is the groom! You marry one, you marry the other!” Z laughed incredulously, slapping at the poster with his hand. “Did you forget? Or do you think it doesn’t matter who he kills so long as you’re alive?” He gives you a long glaring smile.

You gaze at him silently while he rolls up the poster. “It’s a beauty contest! All the ladies will read this and get excited. They’ll say ‘I’m the most beautiful. I hope to get targeted by Ruri!’ They will dress provocatively in hopes of attracting the attention of Ruri the Ripper. The venue will be loaded to the brim with delicious tempting targets!” He lets out another bird-like ‘ke-ke-ke’.

You can only scowl because you can’t argue.

“I didn’t tell you his true nature when you fell in love with him, I just told you not to do it. So… you can be forgiven for that. But this? Oh no, sweetheart. This is on you.” He points the poster at you. “But, don’t back out now!”

“I won’t. A lot is riding on this. I feel like there’s a dagger at my back if I don’t go through with it…” You trail off, eyes lowering to the dagger that Z always kept at his side.

“It’s a hot, sexy dagger right?” Z swayed his hips and then turned around. “You kids have fun playing dress up. I’m going to get back to work.”

He took one step and vanished.

You would spend the rest of the day in the beauty salon. Your dress was pure white, embroidered with pearls and diamonds that gave off the impression of scales, as though you were dressing up as the White King Izanami herself. Your hands were covered with elbow length princess gloves to hide the black veins on your skin, but then they stuck jewels in a mask like pattern on your face, trading your real scales for artificial ones. Your hair was piled high on your head in a traditional Japanese bun with silver sticks resembling horns.

The night fell and the desolate streets flooded with hundreds of Tokyo society elites as well as Hydra elite warriors. It turned out that Enxi used her financial clout to grant traffic passes to all the guests. Traffic was bumper to bumper. Every guest invited showed up to this wedding that shut down a major part of the city for an entire day. No one wanted to miss such an exclusive event.

The Takamagahara was filled to the brim with sleeveless and backless dresses, fishnet stockings in high heels, dangerously short skirts and perilously low cleavage.

The waiters wear black uniforms. They roll up their sleeves to reveal dragon and tiger tattoos. To light a customer’s cigarette they will draw out a waist pistol. The muzzle of the gun produced bright flames. It was impossible to tell who was armed with the real thing or with these toys. Because everyone was dressed as a Hydra Yakuza, it was hard to tell the Hydra members from the guests!

The men and women shouted and played craps. The wine flowed endlessly. Occasionally the Whale came on stage to say two silly and majestic words, followed by a performance. Diamond was here to do his sexy rodeo strip show. There were popular shows such as BasaraKing's "Cleopatra" and Ukyou's "Sakura Falling on Itsuru Island". Armani was here to entertain guests with card tricks. Calypso dazzled a few of the younger guests.

The sound of a powerful engine drowned out the music. A Harley Davidson motorcycle pulled into the middle of the dance floor. Caesar was dressed in a tight leather jacket, all covered in silver chains, with a shiny Desert Eagle stuck in his belt. He took off his sunglasses and threw them at the guests, "My engine is burning hot, are you ready?"

“BasaraKing! BasaraKing!" Hundreds of roses were thrown onto the stage.

White rose petals fell from the sky, and Chu Zihang, wearing a red leather trench coat with a skull mask, crashed from the sky to the center of the stage. Caesar drove his motorcycle towards Chu Zihang, and the two faked a fight, as if they were performing some kind of gangster stage show.

You watch from a hidden spot near the stage. You still have not seen Chime and Chime hasn't seen you. But it was almost time for the main event. Your wedding. All of this celebration was a luxurious trap for the King General and you searched the crowd looking for him. But if he was here, he wouldn’t be in the crowd. He’d be somewhere where he could see you. You were his target. You were his prey.

After a few rounds of fighting, Chu Zihang had picked up Caesar's dropped Desert Eagle and shot him through the chest, but then he suddenly swooped in and hugged Caesar, who was about to fall down.

The scene is about a pair of mob brothers, Caesar as the unruly brother and Chu Zihang as the lonely and sensitive brother. They grew up alone, but determined to be the best of the best. The brothers heard that politicians and gangsters must cooperate with each other in order to go higher and higher. So the two brothers drew lots, one to grow up as a gangster to defeat various gangs as the king of the gangsters; one to go to the University of Tokyo as a famous lawyer, and then enter the political world as a great politician. The result of the lottery is that the unruly brother Caesar is going to be a politician. While the sensitive brother Chu Zihang is going to break into the difficult underworld.

But they obeyed their destiny, and the two agreed not to contact each other again. But they always helped each other in critical moments. No one knew that the brother of the mob boss was a rising star in politics, and no one understood why the brother's gang always survived in the anti-gang operations.

Twenty years later Caesar’s politician character became a member of parliament and became even more headstrong, wanting to be the overlord of all Japan. So he set off a storm of anti-gang raids, and all the gangs were badly hit. Chu Zihang’s character had to intervene to stop the brother, saying that the yakuza had a long history in Japan and many people depended on them for their livelihood. If the yakuza were destroyed, it would be impossible for the brother-led government to support so many of the underprivileged in society, which would be tantamount to destroying the underprivileged in society. But Caesar’s character said that there is no such thing as the yakuza in his future plans, and it doesn't matter if he sacrifices some people's interests. Everything has to make way for his political future.

Finally, the brothers meet under the Over-Sea bridge in Tokyo Bay and duel in the same way they did at the place where they first drew lots and parted ways. In the end, it is the Gangster who shoots through the Politician brother's heart.

Chu and Caesar are acting out the ending of this ski. Caesar is dying when he finally tells the truth. Because he has a terminal illness and can no longer protect Chu Zihang secretly. He fears that after his death his introverted brother will not be able to control so many yakuza gangs, so he sweeps the yakuza with his own iron fist.

"Remember our original agreement to be the number one yakuza emperor of Japan!" The brother's last words, "My brother will be number one in Japan!"

The applause was deafening and the guests were in tears. The play actually was acted very silly. Chu Zihang's mouthful of second-hand Japanese looked like he learned it off Duo Lingo, but the women who came here either loved BasaraKing and Ukyo or both, and those flaws were overlooked.

A sad song started playing as the cherry blossoms fell over the two brothers. It was a popular song, only marginally appropriate, and the gist of it was two people who declare to each other how much they truly mean to each other, only after it was too late.

You didn’t know they were going to put something on like this. It was clearly directed at Chisei. Even though you were the main act, Caesar and Chu Zihang were supporting you and Chime in their own way.

Once the stage was cleared. The lights went up. Caesar hurried backstage. “Hey!” He whispers. “Knock ‘em dead!”

You give him a grin and a thumbs up.

#Dragon Raja

6 notes · View notes

aelaer · 4 years ago

Note

Uhh can I ask for BBC Sherlock fic recs? (Preferably friendship and/or familial fics, but romance is okay too)

Ooohh boy are you in for a list. I know you asked this like, at the start of quarantine or at sometime where I decided that I was no longer interested in communicating with the wider world, but hopefully this will still be of interest to you?

Throughout 2018 I did very little writing because I was busy consuming everything offered by the Sherlock fandom produced over 7-8 years. I definitely read well into the millions of words. A lot of them were from specific collections on both ff.net and AO3. I recommend looking in “collections” on ff.net in particular (as I still can’t really figure out how collections work on AO3 and how to find them easily... it’s really easy to find them on ff.net).

To my knowledge, these are all complete.

If there is any romance tagged here, it’s because it’s really, really fucking good as romance is my least favorite genre. I cannot remember all of them, but there’s a lot of angst, definitely humour, and definitely some great canonical bits. Also whumpy ones that are either really really good or a bit ridiculous but there you go.

It’s long, so under a cut. If the cut doesn’t work, I have tagged it as well.

From ff.net (alphabetical order) - NOTE: I did NOT include anything from the authors I recommended because the list was already too freaking long! But be sure to check out the authors, you can sort by “category” on ff.net on their author page and then go down to “Sherlock” to find their works:

Anything by A Wandering Minstrel (sooooo many genres)

Most anything by chappysmom (tons of genres, some are excellent, some I could take or leave, overall good stuff)

Most anything by Dayja (she writes in a ton of genres, so some I *adore* while others aren’t my cup of tea, but overall good stuff)

Anything by Gwen's Blue Box if you want angst up the wazoo.

Anything by ivywatcher for fantastic character studies.

Most anything by Jennistar1 (another multi-genre writer, both friendship and slashfic)

Anything by Radon65 - a mix of stuff. Canon IIRC.

Anything by Richefic for good, canon-friendly gap-fillers

Anything by StillWaters1 for good, canon-friendly gap-fillers

A Brief Account Of Life With Zombies by Silver Pard Sherlock thinks it's all a bit of a nuisance, John is having the time of his life, and Mycroft is Not Impressed. With anything, but mostly his minions' inability to provide a good cup of tea. Rated: T - English - Humor - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,384 - Complete

A House is not a Home by selenityshiroi This is a prompt fill from the LJ Fic Meme. John and Sherlock got a flat share because they needed to split the rent. But when John comes into money, people wonder 'why hasn't he found a place of his own' The actual prompt is inside the story Rated: T - English - Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 8,190 - John W., Sherlock H. - Complete

Annie's Song by Berouge She has a second engagement with a man and his violin, in the park, at night. Sherlock's not going for it! ONESHOT! Rated: K - English - Romance - Chapters: 1 - Words: 8,869 - Sherlock H., Molly Hooper - Complete

Basic Training by chai4anne Summary: A death at a boys' school leads to conflict and revelations among Lestrade's team, Sherlock, and John. Set between "The Hounds of Baskerville" and "The Reichenbach Fall." No slash. Rated: T - English - Mystery/Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 10,851 - Sherlock H., John W., DI Lestrade, Sgt. S. Donavan - Complete

Breaking Point by Haelia When Sherlock and Donovan are abducted and Sherlock is grievously wounded, it is up to Donovan to get them both out. "First things first, Freak. You do not give me orders. You are going to do everything I tell you to," Sally said sharply, "because we are getting out of here." Can they both escape with their lives from the most dangerous gang in London? Rated: T - English - Mystery/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 3 - Words: 14,401 - Sgt. S. Donavan, Sherlock H. - Complete

Firestorm by Dustbunny13 Sherlock returns, but his friendship with John is damaged. Nevertheless, they embark on their final hunt to finish off Moriarty's net, but it ends in a catastrophe: Sherlock is shot and lapses into a coma. As John keeps vigil, he reads Sherlock's diary written during the hiatus. Slowly, he begins to understand and finds himself wishing for another miracle. Completed. Rated: T - English - Hurt/Comfort/Adventure - Chapters: 53 - Words: 133,754 - Complete NOTE: Probably my favorite novel-length multi-chapter you find only on ff.net for this fandom.

How To Accidentally Summon a Demon by patster223 Sherlock is possessed by a demon. A damned, wicked soul that uses the kitchen table for blood rituals and experiments. John doesn't even notice the difference. Rated: K+ - English - Supernatural/Humor - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,411 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

Kidnapped! A Comedy by scuttlesworth Poor kidnappers. Kidnapping John Watson is like pulling on a thread tied to all sorts of crazy. It's enough to make a bloke get a job and go straight. Rated: T - English - Humor/Friendship - Chapters: 2 - Words: 10,758 - John W. - Complete

Mobile Phones, Rubble and Shock by prettybirdy979 In the aftermath of the explosion, Lestrade must work to keep Sherlock Holmes alive and make sense of his communications... with only a mobile phone and Sherlock buried under the rubble of the pool. Rated: T - English - Hurt/Comfort/Angst - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,679 - Sherlock H., DI Lestrade - Complete

Mouth of Babes by Morgan Stuart Several weeks after the explosion at the pool following "The Great Game" episode, Lestrade visits the recuperating Sherlock and John at 221B Baker Street. He brings case files and food... and a visitor in tow. Rated: K - English - Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 2,495 - Sherlock H., DI Lestrade - Complete NOTE: This is a whole series. If you like it, look up the rest under the author. It’s super cute.

Of Surgeons and Soldiers by EmRose92 Being a doctor has its advantages. He knows how to put people back together, and he knows how to take them apart. 221B is forced into a hostage situation, and John seems to be the only one who has the power to get them out of it. Includes BAMF John, protective Sherlock, and several unfortunate criminals who mess with the wrong army doctor. No slash. Rated: K+ - English - Adventure/Family - Chapters: 2 - Words: 9,695 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The Empty Home by chai4anne Sherlock would always be haunted by memories of one particular case. The first body, its once-so-familiar features blurred by the passing of time and death, moved him more than he would ever have expected. But the worst was the skeleton he uncovered later, bits of hair and clothes still clinging to it—which had no effect on him whatever, until he looked up and saw John's face. Rated: T - English - Mystery/Suspense - Chapters: 28 - Words: 150,773 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The frigid trench by Nova-chan Sherlock is badly hurt. And alone. And incapacitated. Rated: T - English - Drama/Hurt/Comfort - Chapters: 15 - Words: 13,118 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The Hand You're Dealt by Lady Sam Mallory Sherlock, John and several others are trapped in a building when an explosion disrupts the crime scene they are working. COMPLETE. Rated: T - English - Hurt/Comfort/Angst - Chapters: 1 - Words: 12,092 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

The Secret Identity of John Watson by scifigrl47 Taken out of context, John Watson leads a terrifying life. You have to wonder what those poor women he dates thinks of it, especially if John decides to try keeping one away from Sherlock, and Sherlock decides that it'd be best if he could get rid of her Rated: T - English - Humor - Chapters: 3 - Words: 29,251 - John W., Sherlock H. - Complete

This Is What He Does For Fun by nyssa123 Sherlock and John go to the pub after a long day and Sherlock realizes that the man sitting next to them is a serial killer. He then proceeds to tell everyone how he knows. Written for a prompt on the LJ kinkmeme.

Rated: K+ - English - Humor/Mystery - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,147 - John W., Sherlock H. - Complete

Totem by IshkabibbleScribble Rescuing Sherlock from the clutches of a violent terrorist cell forces John to rely on a long-unused, lethal skill. Rated: T - English - Friendship/Drama - Chapters: 2 - Words: 8,752 - Sherlock H., John W. - Complete

War Wound by SoulfireInc Set sometime after Sherlock's return, before John's wedding to Mary Mortsan. An old comrade of John's arrives at 221B Baker St, scared and desperate for the consulting detective's help. Perhaps, had Sherlock known the consequences he and John would suffer as a result of this surprise encounter, he never would have accepted the case ... [Written before season three aired.] Rated: K+ - English - Drama/Friendship - Chapters: 1 - Words: 21,319 - Sherlock H., John W., DI Lestrade, OC - Complete

From AO3 (alphabetical order) - NOTE: Just like the ff.net list, I did NOT include anything from the authors I recommended because these lists are just ginormous.

NOTE: I did *not* include warnings, pairings, etc in these summaries (too many tags to try and organize in the messy copy/pastes). Read the tags if you have any sensitivities/squicks/etc for all links!

Most anything by CaffieneKitty (over 100 shorts, so some I really love, others I can pass. Well worth checking out)

Anything by dragonnan if you want a huge wallop of angst. Also illustrations. Also writes in the MCU.

Anything by Jolie_Black (You thought stories written in script could only be bad? You thought WRONG. Very very canon-compliant goodness).

Anything by sgam76 (another multi-genre writer)

A Freak Adventure by dioscureantwins Words: 13,719 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes Sally Donovan John Watson Mrs. Hudson Oh Christ, the Freak will be like a dog with two tails if she turns to him for assistance. Sally can feel her hands curling into fists ready to punch the condescending smirk off his face as she glares at the lift panel, willing the lift to go faster. But this is about Susy, Sally tells herself, not about him or Sally’s abhorrence of the atrocious git. She’s still convinced he gets off on it but he can wank himself into a stupor over Susy’s disappearance for all she cares as long as he finds her.

A Smelly Affair by dioscureantwins Words: 13,756 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mrs Hudson Greg Lestrade Molly Hooper Anthea Mycroft Holmes Sherlock had published an interesting thesis on the splintering of various woods on his website. As well as an equally fascinating treatise on different types of ropes and knots and the best techniques for securing someone. Obviously, his captors had followed those instructions to the letter; thereby disproving John’s theory nobody took notice of Sherlock’s website. A victory, perhaps, but one Sherlock felt he could have done without. Trust his readership to turn the tables on the author. Morons.

Constantly by thesignsofserbia Words: 4,530 Chapters: 1/1 Mature Sherlock Holmes Mycroft Holmes Mycroft and Sherlock have a tenuous relationship at best, but with Sherlock taking down Moriarty's web, they might need each other more than they'd care to admit.

Croatia-Water-Blue by hollyesque Words: 12,117 Chapters: 1/1 Not Rated Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes “I…” John licks his lips, twitches his fingers as though he wants to reach out, “I’m here, Sherlock,” he says; “I know I haven’t been, but…but I am now.” Sherlock wrinkles his nose. Haven’t been—? “What on earth do you mean, you haven’t been here?” he asks, “You’ve been living here.”

Getting to Know You by Dimity Blue (Arnie) Words: 4,605 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes John picked up the kettle. "Nothing from Lestrade?"Sherlock flipped himself over on the sofa and presented John with his back; John sometimes felt he was living with a cat.Clicking the switch on the kettle, John grinned to himself and, keeping his tone casual, said, "Maybe you could send him an owl."There was silence for a few seconds, then Sherlock asked, "Why would I send him an owl?"

Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus by CaitlinFairchild Words: 4,572 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes Mycroft Holmes John Watson Closing his eyes, Sherlock allows himself a brief swell of feeling--let’s not put a name on it, just call it a feeling--for his big brother. He knows that when Mycroft opens that steel door again, every man now inside will be a fresh corpse.The East Wind will take them all, Sherlock thinks fuzzily, before the curtain of sleep descends.

London Orbital by merripestin Words: 13,642 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Greg Lestrade Sally Donovan Sherlock Holmes John Watson "I'm driving first," Sally said. "Guv can take over after me. If we're all still mad enough to be at this after that, John can drive third shift. Then the freak, if we decide we can risk it.""John doesn't drive," said Sherlock."Then what's John along for?" Sally protested. Which Greg reckoned had to be just Sally trying to wind Sherlock up. She knew better. All night in a car with Sherlock was bad enough. All night driving round and round the M25 looking for a killer, with Sherlock deprived of John Watson, sounded like a new circle of hell.

Official Recruiter by Captain_Author Words: 49,469 Chapters: 21/21 General Audiences Clint Barton Phil Coulson Sherlock Holmes John Watson Stephen Strange Crimes were so simple before aliens, gods, and supernatural abilities made themselves known. But Sherlock Holmes never enjoyed simple and these inhumans and mutants provided quite a challenge. SHIELD needed someone to find the superpowered. Funny how both their needs can be met.

Rigging screws, size 1 3/8 inch, galvanised by AJHall Words: 15,250 Chapters: 6/6 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson "How's a woman supposed to prove her husband's a murderer, dammit?" On the eve of a planned voyage to Brittany, Marjorie Jameson starts her day with no problems more pressing than forcing a boatyard to do an emergency repair to the family yacht. A chance encounter at the Cowes hi-speed ferry terminal begins to unravel a web of conspiracy and murder, with her charming, untrustworthy husband Julian right at the centre and Marjorie as the next intended victim.But no-one's going to trust the word of an aging housewife whose complaints of abuse the police have previously dismissed as delusions.

Somewhere in the Dinaric Alps by drpepperdiva91 Words: 1,735 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Sherlock is caught off-guard by a flashback to his time in Serbia, just before John arrives home from work. Sweet, but still semi-realistic, hurt/comfort.

The Case of the Missing Bus Ticket by Unsentimentalf Words: 10,543 Chapters: 1/1 General Audiences Dirk Gently Sherlock Holmes Richard MacDuff John Watson Mycroft Holmes When Dirk and Richard's new client inexplicably fails to stay alive long enough to pay them, their ailing finances mean that a certain amount of subterfuge is required to get them back to London. The sudden death of their client has, however, attracted the attention of another rather more famous (if less holistic) detective and the stage is set for a long distance bus ride of suspense…

The Green Blade by verityburns Words: 72,929 Chapters: 15/15 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Lestrade (Inspector) Mycroft Holmes Sally Donovan Anderson (Sherlock) Mrs. Hudson As a serial killer hits the headlines, the police are out of their depth and the next victim is out of time. With faith in Sherlock Holmes at an all time low, this is a case which will push loyalties to the limit... WARNING: COMMENTS CONTAIN SPOILERS!

The Holiday by Scriblit Words: 18,962 Chapters: 9/9 Mature Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes Mrs. Hudson Greg Lestrade Molly Hooper Mary Morstan ACD Canon Characters A month following an horrific, sadistic attack during a case, Sherlock is still physically incapacitated and emotionally damaged. A holiday is suggested, but even stuck out in the middle of nowhere, he and John happen upon a case that could make Sherlock begin to feel like his old self again - or could kill him.BBC Sherlock Reworking of ACD's Devil's Foot, with Illustrious Client in flashbacks. Scenes of violence and implied "off screen" sexual violence/sexual assault.

The Shallow End by hollyesque Words: 6,923 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mycroft Holmes "I told you once that I don't have friends," he says to John's back, "Now you know why."

The Silence of the Bees by trappedinathoughtbubble Words: 14,169 Chapters: 7/? Mature Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mary Morstan Mary Watson Greg Lestrade Mycroft Holmes A kidnapped teenage girl. A political conspiracy. Bees. And somehow in the midst of it all, John learns a few things Sherlock forgot to mention about those two years. Note: Not completed, but the author's around and one of the sweetest people ever if you want to give encouragement to take a look again at this story!

The Triple Bluff by SarahKnight Words: 28,331 Chapters: 8/8 Mature Sherlock Holmes Greg Lestrade Mycroft Holmes Sally Donovan Philip Anderson Sherlock annoys his landlord at Montague street, grows to hate Donovan and gets into trouble a lot on a kidnapping case involving a woman who bullied him as a child.The events leading up to A Study In Pink. A case fic that answers questions from the first episode such as why Sherlock had to leave Montague Street and find a new flatmate, why he and Lestrade both quit smoking but didn't know the other had, why there's so much animosity between Sherlock and Donovan, and why Sherlock hates traveling in a police car.

Welcome Home by thesignsofserbia Words: 3,435 Chapters: 1/1 Teen And Up Audiences Sherlock Holmes John Watson Mrs. Hudson Mycroft Holmes "All my nightmares escaped my head. Bar the door, please don’t let them in. You were never supposed to leave. Now my head's splitting at the seams."

And of course I have my own Sherlock/Doctor Strange crossover up on AO3 if that tickles your fancy, illustrations and all. :D

But if you haven’t delved deep into the fandom, this should tide you over for some time.

This list is by no means an exhaustive list of recs. I didn’t really include anything that concentrated on a romantic pairing, for instance. I left off anything explicit as well. But yeah, here’s a small amount of the overall goodness produced by the BBC Sherlock fandom over the last 10 years.

#neutronstardust13 #long post #bbc sherlock #fic rec #sherlock holmes #john watson #gen fic #genre: humor #genre: angst #genre: fluff #crossover #greg lestrade #mycroft holmes #martha hudson #ask #answered

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cornholio4 · 5 years ago

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Left Behind

Note: Based on a prompt left on the Tumblr of Miraculous-Of-Salt but not Daminette. Sorry but personal opinion and you are free to like the ship if you do but I don't left Marinette X Damien. My fave crossover ship of Marinette is with the Peter Parker Spider-Man. It's mostly due to not liking Damian from the comics and media I have seen with him as a murderous brat. I don't see Marinette actually tolerating him. That's just my view and I have liked Daminette fics I have read (though for the salt) and they are fine.

Ms Caline Bustier had gotten her class back from the long flight home; she had the class on a weeklong field trip to check out Gotham Academy, all the way in Gotham City in the US! It was also funded by none other than Wayne Enterprises as well.

It had taken a lot of work to do and set up along with the permission slips and not everyone was allowed to go, especially not Adrien Agreste due to his strict overprotective father. She never thought she was allowed to directly criticise parenting but Gabriel Agreste was too strict a parent to Adrien, it had only been recently that he even allowed him to go to school like a normal child.

Most of the School Board needed to be convinced and she along with Principal Damocles was sternly warned that anything that goes wrong will be on their heads.

It was mostly due to the infamous status that Gotham had; corrupt politicians and police officers that were replaced by dangerous Villains and insane criminals. She swore she had everything under control.

She was happy to report that everything went off without a hitch; nothing happened. The only disappointment was that Marinette seemed to be distant from her classmates and especially when Lila was nearby. She seemed to go out of her way to talk to the Gotham Academy students instead of joining any conversations that Lila was involved in.

She frowned at this and decided when they got back she needed to have a small little talk with Marinette; she noticed she was becoming more distant from her classmates and it couldn’t be good for her. She had been hoping she could reconnect with her friends which was why she insisted to her parents that she go.

It didn’t work so she would have to do more.

She made sure to check all the names on the list before leaving but there was one that was crossed out weirdly with a pen but she guessed it was a name that cancelled at the last minute.

She made sure everyone was sent home that Friday afternoon when they got back. However on Monday morning she got an urgent email from Principal Damocles that she was to report to his office immediately after arriving. She was stunned but rationalised that he must just want a report on what happened.

However she was met with a unhappy Principal Damocles; several people she did not recognise, Marinette’s parents who looked uncharacteristically furious and several representatives of the School Board. The representative’s fury was only overridden by the Dupain-Cheng couple’.

She could not even begin to ask what wrong before Sabine Cheng went on a tirade about how she left her daughter alone in one of the most dangerous cities on the planet when she assured them she would be totally safe.

She was in the middle of asking what they meant before her brain frozen when she realised something: she did not remember seeing Marinette on the line to come back at the airport or on the plane.

Marinette had phoned them home saying no one had told her when they were leaving so she was waiting at the meeting place at the hotel having been unable to find any of them. She had been found by Bruce Wayne who had to contact her parents arrange for her to be flown back in a private plane.

Ms Bustier was relieved that Marinette had gotten back safely then but one of the representatives passed her a tablet and saw it was the Gotham Gazette website. Ms Bustier was asking why she was being shown it and was about to get back on the topic of Marinette but she was harshly told to read it.

She saw it was about something that happened on the Friday Night after their flight left, the hotel they were staying at was attacked by criminals after a VIP guest who was in a luxury suite. The photo showed several criminals being handcuffed by GCPD police officers, she could make out the dark vigilante of Gotham ‘the Batman’ (a pretty bleak figure if you asked her) and next to her were the superheroine Starfire and the Bludhaven vigilante Nightwing. The two were comforting a teenage girl.

A teenage girl who looked a lot like Marinette....

Oh no..........

The backlash had been enormous and school was cancelled indefinitely for the students; the School Board and Marinette’s parents were furious that not only was Marinette left behind in a different country but it was in one of the most dangerous cities ever with her life at risk by an attack by criminals.

It was a miracle it was not someone like the Joker, the Batman Who Laughs, Killer Croc, the Scarecrow, King Tut or even the Bookworm who was involved. The criminals were being personally led by someone called the Ventriloquist and what had happened was that they were not willing to harm a teenage girl so they let her get to saftey just before the Superheroes had come.

Of course that was the official story; the one Batman had told the GCPD who related it to the Gotham reporters. The criminals were not contradicting the story due to their embarrassment of what had actually happened:

Batman, Nightwing and Starfire had arrived to see the criminals all tied up to a pole with a Yoyo, there was Ladybug there. Tied up was Arnold Wesker a middle aged grey haired balding man with glasses and was tie up along with Scarface his mobster ventriloquist dummy who he still had his hand in.

Ladybug was actually tickling his cheek asking who was a cute mob boss and Scarface was shouting to his men that anyone who lets this go out will be a dead man walking.

The story became everywhere in Paris; Nadja Chamack made sure to get it out through the news media. She was angry that the daughter of her friends had her life endanger by being left behind in a different country.

Marinette was interviewed about it in the investigation and was asked about the record of her having been bullied by the mayor’s daughter for years at the school. She related what had happened and asked about what Ms Bustier had done about it. She had to say that she didn’t do a whole lot and had taken her aside to encourage just be a good example for Chloe after she had ruined a birthday present she had made for the teacher.

That did not look good at all.

It turned out that when the classmates were asked they said that Lila Rossi promised she would tell Marinette when they were going and didn’t. There were apparently some beef between them and looking into their file they found claims of disabilities, diseases and absences that didn’t have notes.

Her mother was called in for a talk.......

Ms Bustier was on indefinitely suspension but knew she could not count on keeping a teaching profession and didn’t know if Principal Damocles would survive the ordeal. Ms Bustier came to the bakery and gave a well deserved apology Marinette and their parents even knowing it would not do much. Marinette looked apologetic but her parents just said they didn’t have anything to say to her.

She felt that even the look Marinette had given her was more than she deserved.

Marinette had gotten home and despite what happened did enjoy her time in Gotham. She had a few souvenirs including a communication device with a T on it, it seemed like Ladybug was now an honorary Titan.

Her classmates had come to the bakery and given her apologies for what happened along with her parents. She accepted them but was upset about what happened.

She was more than happy with the other classmates (the ones who didn’t go) who wanted to make sure she was okay along with other students. Juleka and Rose had come to make sure she was alright along with Luka.

When she next saw Alya she was enveloped her into a hug that seemed to last forever and tearfully told her that she was glad she was okay. She hugged back. Alya was vehemently refused permission to go by her parents; they knew what she was like in wanting to get Superhero footage in the Ladyblog and the lengths she went.

They did not trust her to do the same in a city like Gotham.

On social media and TV interviews Bruce Wayne talked about making sure the visiting Marinette had gotten home safely and criticised the French school officials who allowed it to happen. Former GCPD commissioner and current Gotham City Mayor James Gordon shared the sentiment.

There were tweets and interviews from Bruce Wayne’s foster son Dick Grayson and his fiancé Kory Anders (a beautiful young woman who most people swore that she did not come from this world) who talked of making sure the poor girl was consoled until they were able to send her home.

Marinette was asked what it was like meeting Bruce Wayne by her friends but she was being humble about it and didn’t like saying anything. It was not like her classmate Lila.

Said girl was angry about the attention her hated rival was getting and the enormous trouble she was in. If she came back to school she knew she would have to face tougher and sharper personnel.

Why did she decide to make sure Marinette was left behind again?

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qm-vox · 6 years ago

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So You Want To Run An Autumn Court

(Check out So You Want To Run A Winter Court if you missed it.)

Winter may be the most misunderstood Court, but Autumn may have the strongest claim to being the odd man out. In a society built on recovering from horror and trauma, the Autumn Court (the Ashen Court, the Leaden Mirror, the Court of Fear) seems purpose-built to churn out monsters, murderers, and slasher villains. If that was all this is, if Autumn was only part of the system because pacts and Pledges made it so, the Court would have been killed to the last man hundreds of years ago. So why do the other three Seasons tolerate Autumn? What purpose does it serve in the Freehold, and what does its defining passion - Fear - offer to the other Courts?

The following article offers advice on designing and running your own Autumn Court and Autumn Courtiers, either as a player or storyteller. It draws primarily from Changeling: the Lost, Lords of Summer, Rites of Spring, Dancers in the Dusk, and Swords at Dawn; further books, if referenced, will be cited.

God Damn It White Wolf, Not Again

Make no mistake: this article is meant to be rooted in the canon of Changeling: the Lost and help present and expand on the Autumn presented in that canon. Unfortunately, more than any of the other three Seasonal Courts, Autumn is both inconsistently characterized, and constantly mischaracterized. For every two great ideas presented about it there’s some shit that’s definitely a flashback to when oWoD was still being designed and the entire staff of White Wolf was doing hard acid. Where necessary, I will be bringing up those parts, explaining why I have chosen to refute them, and offering alternatives rooted in the canon and/or how actual human people behave. Consider yourselves advised.

Witch-Queens - An Overview

The third of the Seasonal Courts and the first of the Declining Seasons, Autumn is associated with Fear in all of its forms: fright, terror, panic, dread, anticipation, doubt, horror, and suspense, among others. Autumn cultivates fear in themselves and others; to have an Autumn Mantle is not just to be an object of fear (though yes, it very much is that), but to know your own fears, to understand them, even to nurture them. Just like the other Seasonal Courts, Autumn rules its Freeholds for one-fourth of the year, generally from the equinox to the solstice, though local custom may vary.

Magic is Autumn’s claim to fame and specialty as a Court, but their MO goes beyond it; in part this is because Autumn is a big believer in efficiency, cunning, secrecy, and prudence, but this is also in part because Autumn is keenly aware of how much they just do not know. “Magic” is an incredibly diverse field, especially when one considers that Autumn takes it upon itself to investigate rumors or knowledge of non-Wyrd magic. Much like medicine, occult knowledge is a field in which you could be a lifelong expert, outstanding in your field, whose knowledge is consulted by Lost the world over, and still both not know shit and be aware that you don’t know shit. Thus one of the first questions Autumn tends to ask when solving problems is, “is there a non-magical solution to this problem?” Often the magical solution ends up being safer and more efficient, but the question is still worth asking, if only to arrive at that answer with confidence.

Talk Shit, Get Hit - Politics in Autumn

Brace yourself, this section is long as fuck.

While Autumn has traces of cooperation between Freeholds (notably, Autumn publishes magazines shared between Autumn Courts, and sometimes funds lectures by members of other Autumn Courts courageous enough to travel to strange lands), it is ultimately a local creature, with much more in common with how Spring governs itself than Summer or Winter. Where Winter’s understanding of internal rank and politics is informed by the knowledge that Pledges get broken and thus are insufficient to enforce trust, Autumn’s various forms of governance are informed by a certain cynical acceptance that violence and authority are related.

There is an unspoken understanding in Autumn that crossing certain lines will get violence enacted upon you. The vast majority of Freeholds - even failing Freeholds - do prohibit members just killing one another without at least prior approval from the current Crown, but as a genie in a Disney sequel once said: you’d be surprised what you can live through. Despite this, the act of violence is much more rare in Autumn politics than the threat of it. Occasionally hot-headed Autumn youngbloods figure their elders can’t be as scary as all that and end up learning a cruel lesson, or a bid to remove a rival or a hated enemy goes badly (or, depending on the Courtier, very well), but more often Autumn’s political maneuvers are undergone with a certain understanding that everyone involved is a killer, will be a killer again in the future, and is quite capable of making even your victory over them cost a pound of flesh.

How Autumn selects the bearer of its Crown varies from Freehold to Freehold, and how that bearer organizes their Court will likewise vary, but some trends and consistent titles do appear in addition to the local ones. You can broadly classify the Autumn Crown as follows:

Rule by Fear - It’s an obvious leap, really. Autumn is the Court of Fear, so from a certain perspective the scariest person there is Winning At Autumn. The Court’s casual attitude about violence definitely helps foster this style of rule, as does the fact that life under a master of Fear is likely to keep the Court flush with fearful Glamour that can be invested in further power. Now at this point you may be asking, quite reasonably, what the Court does about the usual attendant issues of attempting to rule through violence and fear, and the answer is: absolutely fucking nothing. An Autumn monarch that seeks to rule by fear needs to balance their ruling style with a certain amount of consent from the people they are ruling, because everyone they’re reigning over is playing the same game they are. Callous brutes who try to run roughshod over a Court of killers and witches find themselves nailed to a door and left to die alone.

Witch-Queens - The other obvious candidate for the Autumn Crown is a talented sorcerer of some kind. This approach tends to be somewhat more nuanced than rule by fear; a powerful witch granted the Autumn Crown has also likely been selected for a reputation for wisdom, cunning, and leadership acumen, even if another person might be acknowledged as a more powerful witch. It’s easy to think of such Courts as more stable, considering the track record of autocrats that rule through terror, but that’s not necessarily the case. As much as Plato and people who still think it’s okay to wear fedoras in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eighteen would like to think otherwise, ‘intellectual’ and ‘good ruler’ are not synonyms; such figures can be and often are vulnerable to manipulation by more savvy Courtiers, and sometimes to straight-up being murdered by those who would prefer to rule through fear. A wise or at least self-aware Autumn Court takes steps to protect a good witch-queen from those events, and to quietly replace a bad one, but unfortunately ‘self-aware’ and ‘powerful’ are also not synonyms when it comes to Autumn.

An Actual Politician

(Zoe “Zippo” Morris, the Queen of Bonfires. Credit to @lidijadraws)

Finding someone who runs their local Autumn Court because they’re a legitimately competent politician with a functional understanding of human and/or post-human society is like finding an albino raven: it’s rare in the first place, they probably die before they reach adulthood, and if they didn’t it’s because someone else helped to shelter and nurture them. Despite the prevalence of Lost in Autumn quite willing to kill these fledglings in their nests and the seeming non-obviousness of them taking power, wise Autumn rulers of the other two types - generally those who have lived long enough to come to some kind of terms with their own abuse and trauma - will put in the work to raise these politicians so that they can be succeeded by someone who will keep the Court stable and prosperous in the long term. Managing Autumn through a mix of careful alliances, threats, and support from the other three Courts helps such rulers get away with not having the personal power to fight off all comers, and more importantly ties Autumn into the rest of its local society so that it gets a reality check more than “sometimes, when people can screw up the courage to actually show up”. In that way it’s better for the ruler too; without the might to trample over those who disagree with her, she must instead keep the members of her own and other Courts in mind, and be aware of her own bullshit lest she leap up on it and get herself killed.

Lords of Summer details a method of ruling Autumn that it labels as the Palace of Dust, in which Autumn is a wholly secret society hidden even from the rest of the Freehold, who acts to cause Fear and protect its fellows in secret. This is naked fucking stupidity. Even if Autumn could do such a thing without shredding its Clarity all to hell (which it can’t) or get a crack at recruiting new members without the other three Courts mistaking them for privateers or loyalists (which, again, it can’t), Autumn still has to run the god damn Freehold for 1/4th of the year, which among other things means having a person with a big obvious crown on her head, to say nothing of all of her Courtiers and their Mantles, or needing to be physically present to accept tithes of Glamour and oaths of vassalage. I encourage you to discard this idea entirely; it has no relation to how any society functions, and is riddled with logistical, psychological, and thematic problems. Autumn jockeys with Spring for the title of “most dramatic and theatrical Court”; don’t waste that opportunity trying to be the edgiest version of what is already the edgiest Court.

Not even the mightiest Witch-Queen rules alone. Lords of Summer presents some potential titles denoting status and responsibility in the Autumn Court. Not all of them will be present in every Court, and they aren’t necessarily called by these titles (in New Avalon, for instance, the Witch of the Bitter Wind has been called ‘Baba’ for many years, an allusion to Baba Yaga). Each has a role in Autumn’s society that is expanded on below:

Twilit Page - Broadly, the Twilit Page is in charge of neophyte Autumn Courtiers, but this is a more difficult prospect than you might expect. Where Winter is perfectly willing to leave its Flowing Pages out in the wind to die if they can’t form a relationship with a more senior Courtier willing to save them, Autumn is somewhat more likely to attempt to come to the rescue. Some of this is simply because Autumn is more likely to form personal attachments, and some of it is that you don’t bother gathering immense personal power if you aren’t going to use it. The Twilit Page has to keep tabs on aspiring and young members of Autumn, try to teach them the local culture of the Court, and hopefully palm them off into a more formal apprenticeship as soon as possible. Bad Autumn Courts emulate Winter’s example and give this job to a more junior Courtier to keep them busy with paperwork; wiser ones promote more powerful Courtiers to this position so that aspiring members of the Court know what they might become and can be certain that if they call for rescue, rescue will actually arrive.

Paladin of Shadows - Frightful warriors who for some reason don’t want to be in Summer end up in Autumn under this name. Paladins drive Winter mad, given that they’re a role specifically for Autumn Courtiers who are, seemingly, bad at being members of Autumn. Paladins embody the threat of physical violence and death, and are often a natural role for battle-sorcerers in Autumn; Ogres and Elementals especially fall naturally into this method of serving Fear.

Hedge Ranger - Hedge Rangers represent a sort of practical occult knowledge that few people immediately associate with Autumn. Rare is the person who hears the words “Court of Fear” and immediately thinks of a survivalist with a crossbow, but such is the nature of the Thorns: a land of magic that demands practice to go with your theory. Hedge Rangers rarely lack for work; the Hedge is a source of fear and doubt to almost all of the Lost, and those who must brave it will pay dearly for an expert’s guidance. More importantly, Hedge Rangers may be the Freehold’s first line of intelligence against an imminent invasion of the True Fae, privateers, or hostile hobgoblins.

Legate of Mists - Oddly enough, this is one of the positions potentially unlikely to be filled in a healthy Freehold. It sounds counter-intuitive; surely a diplomat is a valuable role in keeping friendly relationships between Courts? But when things are going well, members of the other three Courts generally go directly to the Autumn Courtiers they need for various services. Why cut a finder’s fee to some random asshole to direct you to Jack the Ranger when you can just find Jack or a member of his Motley yourself? But in an Autumn that is less trusted by its fellows, or a Freehold with sharp conflicts between the Courts in general, having someone more outwardly collected and socially savvy as a point of contact can be essential in not escalating conflict to a place people are going to regret. In a Freehold that doesn’t necessarily need a Legate, someone with a related skill set (such as a Baron of the Lesser Ones, or a member of the Legacy of the Black Apple) might have the title bestowed upon them in recognition of their skills, or to formalize their role in negotiating with those other beings.

Fool of First Frost - Any idiot can put on a clown suit and chase people with knives. The role of the Fool is not to spread fear directly, but rather to spread Autumn’s self-awareness of its own deliberate evil to the other Courts. When Spring, Summer, and Winter begin to grow toxic or to cause social issues in the Freehold, it is the Fool and their comedy that first holds them to account through dark parody, scathing rebukes, and the occasional terrifying mystery. Fools also hold Autumn to similar account. A good Fool is socially adept, cunning, and politically aware; a bad Fool is generally killed in their sleep by a slighted noble.

Lord/Lady Scrivener - Perhaps one of the most inconsistently filled positions in Autumn, the Scrivener writes things down. The Lost have an uneven relationship with the idea of writing things down, in part because writing things down has a bad habit of getting people killed, and in part because of a strong oral tradition and the presence of the Eternal Echoes (Lords of Summer). Some Freeholds never learn the grim stories of When It Goes Wrong and install a Scrivener to keep records of the Freehold or the Court; others follow Winter’s example and record their histories in code. An Autumn Court involved in the aforementioned magazine-publishing and lectures keep a Scrivener in charge of their creation and distribution, but beyond that this title is often quite empty, and infrequent attempts to install it are generally shut down hard.

Ghul - In a Court whose role in the Freehold is often ‘odd jobs, but especially the horrible ones we don’t want to do’, the Ghul is the person who does the most horrible things. In theory, the Ghul’s role is that of assassin to the Court of Fear, but a Freehold that maintains and tolerates one likely also employs them as an executioner and a Jack Ketch. In many Freeholds, the Ghul may be a secret position, kept quiet so that the other Courts don’t know Autumn is willing to retain a paid murderer.

Witch of the Bitter Wind - Quite possibly the only title as ubiquitous to Autumn as the Crown itself, the Witch is the Court’s most prominent sorcerer. It isn’t enough to have raw power (represented with high Wyrd and Mantle); the Witch of the Bitter Wind needs to have broad and deep knowledge of magic, including things no one really wants to know but sometimes has to. The nature of their work means that Witches often shed Clarity to an alarming degree, but replacing a Witch of the Bitter Wind is no simple thing; Lost who can do what they do are not a dime a dozen. Keeping a leash on their Witch is often one of the Autumn Crown’s most important ongoing duties.

Magister of Nightmares - You know what would be nice? If White Wolf could write one god damn thing about this Court consistently for five minutes straight. In Lords of Summer, the Magister is purported to capture and maintain the target of the Ashen Hunt...a ritual in which the entire Freehold goes riding out to kill any of its enemies that it can find. One of these things has to be wrong, and on the balance considering that the Lost have severe problems with imprisoning anything or anyone for any reason, I am inclined to advise you to throw this title out, shake your first at the sky and scream White Wolf’s name at the top of your lungs.

Ashen Notary - One of Autumn’s more surprising roles, the Ashen Notary is an expert in Pledgecraft and is charged with maintaining and, if need be, recording knowledge of powerful Pledges sworn in the Freehold. In a society that sometimes has to establish trust between people who have understandable trust issues, an expert in Pledges is a powerful asset and a vital cog in the smooth running of said society. The Ashen Notary’s knowledge empowers them to check in on Lost who have sworn powerful Pledges, advise them on keeping said Pledges, and to offer their services to broker Pledges between parties who might not otherwise be inclined to do so. The Notary serves another purpose in Autumn itself: they force loners of the Ashen Court to actually participate in society, even if only on the pretext of checking up on their oath of service to the Freehold itself. Autumn Courtiers more inclined to counsel rather than terrify, with a talent for putting people at their ease, thrive in this role.

Aside from these largely internal roles, Autumn Courtiers thrive in the Freehold itself as advisors, viziers, and hatchet men. Though Autumn trends towards skill in violence and magic, its lack of an overall required skill set (in sharp contrast with Summer and Winter) means it often makes its bones doing odd jobs. Need a family of Fetches murdered? Autumn is looking for work. Need a guide through a dangerous Trod? Autumn has a man. Looking to learn Contracts that might help you in your day job? Autumn knows them. While Autumn joins Summer as one of the Courts that spends money rather than makes it, it funds its internal expenses by tithing from these services and otherwise making itself available to its peers.

The Promise of Autumn

What does Autumn offer to potential members, and to those that keep faith with it? UNLIMITED POWER is the answer that springs to most people’s minds immediately, and this is true to an extent, just as it is also true that Autumn provides a haven for those who have fallen in love with magic and struggle with the awkward feelings of shame and self-doubt that said love engenders. But neither captures the entire story. Alone among the Seasonal Courts, Autumn is not offering recruits the chance to heal, not as such. Where Spring holds faith in its renewal, where Summer promises to create something good and noble of the evil done to you, and Winter quietly sells a new life built on your own terms, the children of Fear seem, so often, to leap screaming into an abyss from which there is no return.

So why join Autumn?

Just as every Lost is scarred by Sorrow, so too is each and every living Changeling a child of Fear; Fear of the Others who may come calling to drag them back, Fear of what they have or might become, Fear of rejection by mortal society or mortal loved ones, Fear of betrayal, of privateers and loyalists, of the Thorns, of the things that live in their dreams, and this doesn’t even get into more mundane or personal Fears that may stalk them. Autumn’s offer is simple but compelling: join with the Ashen Court, and you can come to understand your Fear, and to master it. Autumn does not promise to make you unafraid; such a promise would be a lie, and counter to the Court’s ideals in any event. To join with Autumn is instead to develop a relationship with Fear, to confront your abuse directly and thus to lift some of its terrible power over your life. For many drawn to the Court of Fear it can be a relief to be told that it’s okay to be afraid, that even the grim demons that sit the high seats of Autumn are afraid, and that life can go on in the face of that Fear. This quieter, more intimate side of Autumn doesn’t get a lot of press, in part because Autumn prefers it that way, and in part because it can be genuinely hard to talk about. Fear is an intimate emotion, and for those of Spring, Summer, and Winter who go to Autumn for help with their Fears the idea of gossiping about those who guided them, aided them, even befriended them, can be unthinkable.

Other Lost join Autumn because they are in love with magic and they want more of it. The reasons can vary, but Autumn generally puts in quite a bit of effort to recruit such Changelings. Many assume this is because Autumn wants to retain its status as the foremost practitioners of magic, and this is to an extent true, but the Ashen Court also considers this a service to the Freehold. Unwise use of magic is dangerous; just as Autumn takes in the fearful and teaches them sorcery, so too does Autumn take in reckless sorcerers and teach them fear. Magic for magic’s sake is like the pursuit of any form of power for its own sake: foolish and likely to get someone killed. Autumn puts leashes on such Lost until they learn better.

Both sorts of recruits are ultimately made the same offer by Autumn, often unspoken but powerfully present: Autumn can give them the power to no longer be victims. Many Lost were helpless in the face of the evil which claimed them, abused them, and ultimately transformed them. The Court of Fear provides not just the personal power to fight back, but the knowledge and presence of mind to act, not without Fear, but with courage. For many, whose lives are defined by the Fear of going back to the Fairest of Lands, Autumn represents the ability to live with themselves again, in a way the other Courts can’t.

There is a certain ironic selflessness in remaining in Autumn. The Court of Fear purposefully takes on the evils needed to keep the Freehold running and safe, and as a result its active members are often, not to put too fine a point on it, evil. Autumn doesn’t just employ killers, thieves, and abusers, it cultivates them. For Lost whose skill sets fall into these shady categories, Autumn can be a place to belong; for others, remaining in the Season and deepening their relationship to it means asking hard questions about what they’re willing to become, and how hard they’re willing to work to avoid becoming something worse. Autumn’s peers are vital in keeping some semblance of an even keel on its Courtiers, to remind them both not to get lost in the vicious madness of power for the sake of power, and of the joys, pleasures, and sorrows of life that exist outside of the context of Fear. Autumn, in turn, helps hold its peers to account and provides both a spoken warning and a living example of what it means to slide into darkness.

Fear Itself

Autumn’s relationship to Fear is more complex than the other Courts often think it is, and definitely more complex than Autumn itself advertises it as. Just as someone who spreads Sorrow but does not feel Sorrow is a bad Winter Courtier, so too is the ideal Autumn Courtier someone who feels Fear in addition to spreading it. The dance between an Autumn Courtier’s public persona (something at least partly artificial and theatrical) and their private one is a complex affair that can be harsh on Clarity if not managed correctly, but it is absolutely vital to maintaining some semblance of sanity and perspective.

Outwardly, Autumn practices Fear of all kinds. They learn to cultivate and project images that fit their personal brands of Fear (in New Avalon, the local Autumn Court puts its apprentices through drama and theater classes specifically for this reason) and to sow Fear upon others. Only rarely is this visceral, violent terror, for a host of reasons. While the Court could create a glut of Fear by, say, killing an entire fraternity in its frat house on campus and leaving the excessively gory scene to be found by their friends and loved ones, such an event has repercussions beyond the emotion created: mortal police will investigate, bereaved loved ones seek closure or revenge, the school itself might be shut down, and such a vicious assault is certain to take a toll on whatever unlucky Courtiers are expected to carry it out. Much more common are activities such as spreading rumors and urban legends, telling terrifying stories, stalking mortals out alone on lonely nights, blackmail, and acts of violation such as breaking the locks on someone’s house or leaving unsettling ‘gifts’ in their personal possessions. Autumn’s own need to exercise a light hand in cultivating their passion in the mortal populace. Fear, while an effective emotion for manipulating others, can be difficult to predict and control; those Lost who don’t understand that spreading Fear can have unforeseen consequences soon learn better when they bite off more than they can chew and get someone hurt or killed. This is one of Autumn’s harshest and most necessary lessons: you, ultimately, are responsible for the desperate actions of those upon whom you spread your Fear.

Inwardly, Autumn Courtiers seek to relate to their own Fears, to understand them, and to take action about them. Fear can be a healthy response, and the Lost live dangerous lives in which vigilance and caution are quite reasonable daily activities, and the Fears that inform these behaviors are among the more universal to Changelings, but all things Fear more than just the Others. To be Autumn is to ask yourself questions like, “why am I afraid?”, “can I live my life with this Fear?”, “do I also love or Desire the object of my Fear? Does it make me angry?” and, “am I okay with the power this Fear has over me?”. There are many answers to these questions; Autumn encourages its Courtiers to make their own decisions about their Fears, to excuse themselves from projects or tasks where their Fears would cripple them and to seek out those professions where their Fears can be helpful to them. Many a Hedge-Ranger starts their career by acknowledging that they are afraid of the Thorns and seeking to overcome the darkness of that Fear with the light of knowledge, and Autumn knows well the power of desperate terror to turn a cornered rat into a vicious killer. Just as mortals seek out horror movies to experience a visceral thrill, so too does Autumn put themselves in a position to be afraid so that they can teach themselves to live with Fear, to act in spite of or even aided by Fear, and to prove to themselves that they are stronger than their own Fear.

While they are rarer than those Autumn Courtiers who also spread Fear upon others, some Autumn Courtiers relate to their Season only in terms of their personal fear, and their journey into Autumn is founded on understanding and choosing to nurture or overcome their individual Fears. The Ashen Court puts a lot of value in these more gentle, introspective Courtiers, in part because someone has to be around to tell the supervillains when they’re up on their bullshit (again), and in part because these are often those Autumn Courtiers who most openly serve as counselors and healers to their fellow Lost. Many of the Court of Fear’s most talented oneiromancers fall easily into this image of a kinder Autumn.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice - Organizing Autumn

The basic unit of Autumn is the Courtier, but the basic plural unit of the Court of Fear is the Master-Apprentice bond. While individual Courts do likely organize by appointing nobles and people to assist those nobles (such as, say, a Mistress of the Harvest in charge of the Court’s stores of Goblin Fruits and Harvestmen to assist her), Autumn’s basically selfish organization naturally breaks it up into those who do not yet have power - personal, social, magical, political - and those that do. The most basic function of a Twilit Page is to help connect potential apprentices to potential masters, who take over the role of educating those apprentices, attending to their personal safety, and ensuring that they don’t starve to death on the streets. These apprentices in turn assist their masters with various projects, enabling them to focus on purely occult matters rather than attending to inconveniences like laundry, cooking meals, or replacing the sinister cobwebs that just won’t stay up in the corners properly. It is during this stage in their life that youngblood Autumn Courtiers learn about the divide between their work face and their friend face, the ideals of Fear and magic, and - hopefully - learn to Fear themselves as well as others. The results can be a bit disorganized, but it keeps Autumn in possession of broad skill sets that appeal to many potential new members who are looking for a place to belong in their new society.

Early adopters of Autumn are often somewhat lonesome by nature and don’t necessarily join Motleys straight away, but as they calm down and start to grow into their own the Court subtly or not-so-subtly encourages them to do so. While Autumn doesn’t have a formal commandment to join diverse Motleys the way Winter does, a sane and stable Autumn Court usually encourages it; Autumn needs the perspectives of its peers if it intends on surviving the journey to power with some semblance of its sanity intact. A Motley also represents a power group that a budding Autumn Courtier can use to further their interests within their own Court, both because a Motley is capable of defending itself from (and committing) greater violence than one Courtier, and because the interconnection of the Courts means pissing off an entire Motley is a much different political prospect. As the Autumn Courtier rises in power and ambition they find themselves with descriptive titles bestowed upon them in honor of their expertise, and with nervous members of the Freehold coming to them for their unique services (prophecy, assassination, occult knowledge, guidance through the Hedge, etc).

What happens from here depends on the Court and the Courtier. The higher echelons of Autumn are staffed by survivors and killers who have seen and done things they would rather not have seen and done. Lost can live for a long time if they’re not killed, but in a Court that respects these elders those lusting for a high office may have no choice but to hone their own skills and wait for the incumbent to finally die. For some positions - especially the Crown or the Witch of the Bitter Wind - there’s a certain “you kill it, you bought it” understanding, in which some degree of personal and magical violence is a permissible method of advancement. You can bet your ass that the Court keeps a careful eye on such usurpers, however; it doesn’t do to encourage random murder with leniency.

Mark Me Down As Scared And Horny

Autumn Courtiers are still (post) human people, and passionate people at that; Autumn’s self-awareness and caution don’t come even close to Winter’s deliberate culture of stoicism and self-denial. Just as much as any of the Lost, Autumn’s own crave personal bonds with others; they want friends, family, lovers, and the respect of their peers. To split the difference between the figures of dread their Court expects them to be, and the more vulnerable and human person such bonds require, Autumn is of necessity somewhat two-faced.

Ultimately, to be friends with a member of Autumn is to accept that you can’t talk about the person you know that others don’t. It’s more than just a PR problem, though that definitely factors into it. Fundamentally, it’s about trust. Just as you sharing your intimate Fears with your friend in Autumn means trusting a known monster and professional abuser with knowledge they can use to hurt you, so too does that Autumn Courtier trust you with their own feelings in a way that could hurt them. A friendship built on mutually assured destruction is no friendship at all, not even in Autumn, and if the children of Fear have to think of their close friends and family in that way then they’re already on the fast way down to staging slasher flicks in real life. For those who can respect their friend’s public persona in public (which does not necessarily entail pretending not to be their friend), Autumn can be among their staunchest allies and most protective supporters. It can be hard to have friends in the lands of Fear, and Fear’s children guard the ones they have with a ferocious will.

Romance, for those Autumn Courtiers inclined to practice it, is similar. Unlike Winter, which is more likely to seek out its own members to love, Autumn relationships with other Autumn Courtiers generally end in a certain amount of blood; each feeds the toxic traits of the other, generally creating a downward spiral of Fear. Summer and Autumn end up together quite a bit, bonding over a common interest in direct action and the similar problems of those who have made a career in violence, but Spring/Autumn relationships can be some of the strongest and most surprising. The renewal Spring believes in and offers to others can give Autumn something to live for besides power, and Autumn in turn provides support and love through the times of Fear and doubt that can sometimes cripple a Spring Courtier. Either way, loving someone in Autumn means to some extent accepting that they have chosen evil when they did not have to. Relationships that last involve both the non-Autumn partner making peace with that choice, and the Autumn one remembering that evil is the tool with which they do their job and not a toy that they play with for fun. If either side can’t swing their role, the relationship often fails.

If you go leafing through the published books you might notice a trend of Autumn Courtiers getting written as femme fatales that betray their lovers and/or murder them. Throw this in the garbage where it belongs. While a certain amount of backstabbing is endemic to Freehold society in general, Autumn being “the people who betray you all the time” leads us back to that idea in the introduction where if this was a thing that happens Autumn would have been killed to the last man a long time ago. This trend in the writing seems to be the meeting point between ‘Autumn is a social Court’ (true), ‘Autumn is often deliberately evil’ (still true), and ‘White Wolf didn’t bother reading their own books’, without stopping to ask about the psychological toll, how Autumn fits into a society, or even the fact that this stereotype fits Spring and Winter’s MO insofar as it fits anyone’s. Even if you were inclined to go here, White Wolf has done it to death. Please don’t.

Lords of Dust - Making Autumn Courtiers

When making your own Autumn Courtier, think about the events in their life that drove them to make this decision. Did their mind bend and then break beneath a particularly cruel Durance? Do they see Autumn as a way of bringing wonder into a world that can so often feel thin and grey? How do they respond to the fundamental questions at the heart of their Court? Autumn deliberately does not command answers to those questions. After all, it doesn’t do to sell yourself as the Court of scholars and wisdom only to discourage questions. Some other helpful considerations to keep in mind include:

What Do You Want? - Autumn encourages ambition in its Courtiers, and offers power as a method of fulfilling it. What is the throne of your character’s ambition? Why do they seek it, and what will they do or what do they think they’ll do to achieve it? How does their ambition relate to their Fears, and to their own Court? “Keep my family safe” is a perfectly valid ambition, after all - especially given how dangerous it can be to love the Lost, as is joining a prestigious Entitlement, or even using the power of Autumn to reform an aspect of Freehold society.

What Do You Fear? - The Ashen Court is defined by its relationship to Fear. What things and ideas inspire Fear in your character? How do they react to and relate to those Fears? Which Fears are they trying to shed, and which are they trying to cultivate? How does your character spread their Fear on others, and why? Do they treat the Fears of their friends and loved ones the same way they treat their own?

What’s Your Specialty? - As alluded to earlier, “magic” is an incredibly broad field of study. What sorts of lore attracts your character? Why did they become interested in the sort of magic they practice? What risks are they willing to take for the sake of knowledge, or to use their knowledge? Do they see magic as something mysterious? Spiritual? Scientific? Does your character prefer to keep their lore secretive, or do they perhaps like to foster a more general interest in magic?

What Are Your Sins? - Plenty of the Lost emerge from Arcadia scarred by the things they did to survive. To join Autumn means accepting that further acts, made more questionable by your newfound freedom, will be added to this tally. How does your character feel about Autumn’s deliberate, self-aware evil? Have they been asked to do morally questionable things? What lines do they draw, and how do those lines affect their relationship to their Court? Do they nurse doubts about the morality of spreading Fear?

Chaos Reigns - Autumn In Your Freehold

While Autumn boasts a diverse skill set, ultimately their dual role is to know things, and to do unpleasant things. Other Courts will come to Autumn for these needs, especially where they intersect, which gives you a place to start; figures such as Paladins of Shadow should be the exception, not the rule, unless you have a highly unusual Autumn (perhaps one that exists in relation to a relatively weak Summer). Likewise, Autumn is the Court where the line between a healthy Autumn and a toxic one is most heavily blurred, and where each vision of the Court will have elements of the other. Is your Autumn counterbalanced by a strong Spring and/or Winter that can help keep it on the straight and narrow? How does it relate to the mortal society around it, and what do the other Courts think of that relationship?

Though Autumn is not among the Courts that generates most of the Freehold’s money (as mentioned before, they join Summer in the caste of ‘retained killers’ that costs money), think about the social venues or businesses that your Autumn Court maintains anyway. An Autumn Court that operates a movie theater has access to a steady supply of Fear that also gives them an excuse to hang around normal people and reality check themselves; contrast this with an Autumn that has its claws sunk into a local university, or a Court entwined with a criminal family. Autumn joins Spring in being a Court whose members likely own and operate their own businesses as some kind of front, from book shops to stores catering to the modern witch; these locations can provide a pop of flavor to your Autumn and its Courtiers, as well as fronts through which the Freehold might launder money or stash sensitive objects or knowledge.

I welcome all questions, comments, feedback, and criticisms on this article - send ‘em my way! Next up: Summer

#Changeling: The Lost #autumn court #rpg #worldbuilding #abuse #violence

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nitrateglow · 6 years ago

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Halloween 2018 marathon 22-26

22. Son of Dracula (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1943)

Talk about underrated! This movie gets such a bad rap, but I think it’s one of the better 1940s Universal horror movies. With Siodmak directing, the film has a distinct noir quality, from the story to the visuals.

A lot of viewers take issue with Chaney Jr. as Dracula’s son. He isn’t as seductive as, say, Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, or even John Carradine in House of Dracula. However, I don’t think Chaney is that bad. He’s menacing. He’s entitled. He’s smug about his social status and supernatural abilities, giving him the much-needed aristocratic flair. And as @majora-the-trekking-hobbit has often observed, he is more hot-blooded than we tend to see vampires in 1930s and 1940s films. So overall, I think he gives an interesting performance, one that doesn’t hurt the film.

At any rate, for me the femme fatale Kay is the highlight of the movie. She’s a southern belle craving power. She’s passionate and cold-blooded at the same time. She’s the chess master here and she is a joy to watch. I would love to see her tangle with Countess Zaleska, but alas.

And I was thrown by the ending, which left me horribly depressed. This movie is basically vampire southern gothic noir. I enjoyed it and might even say I like it best of all the 1940s Universal horror movies.

23. Son of Frankenstein (dir. Rowland V. Lee, 1939)

While I don’t think this movie is as good as the first two in the classic Frankenstein trilogy, it’s still an entertaining entry in the franchise. The expressionist camp aesthetic reaches an apotheosis here with the design of Frankenstein Castle. Bela Lugosi is hammy fun as the malicious Ygor. Basil Rathbone is a likable scientist. Lionel Atwill gives a memorable supporting performance as the wooden-armed inspector most will recognize as the object of parody in Young Frankenstein.

Overall, the movie goes by swiftly and is enjoyable. However, I never found any of the scenes to be as memorable as anything in James Whale’s take on Mary Shelley’s themes and characters.

I think what makes this film the weakest in the trilogy is the presentation of the Monster. In the first two, he is a more nuanced, human character, a lonely figure craving love who is only monstrous due to how he is treated by society. However, in Son he rarely shows such humanity and is basically the Muscle for Ygor.

24. Halloween (dir. John Carpenter, 1978)

LOVED IT SO MUCH. I was terrified watching this. While you might think a pivotal film in the slasher genre would be a bloody gore-fest, Halloween has extremely little blood. Though Michael Meyers is an almost supernatural figure in his resilience and physical strength, his killings are just so savage in concept and cold-blooded that you might trick yourself into believing there is more graphic content than there is.

I like how the film is a slow-burn. The first half has few killings. Instead, we see Michael select his victims in the most arbitrary manner possible. He stalks them as they go about their normal lives and we get to know these kids before they’re brutally cut down.

Jamie Leigh-Curtis is quite relateable and likable as Laurie Stroder. The scenes where she’s trapped in the house in the killer made my entire body clench up. The suspense and dread were so strong.

I would love to see this one again. It played on the big screen in my town last week and I am so mad I didn’t take the chance to see it that way.

25. The Howling (dir. Joe Dante, 1981)

A friend brought this one over. I’d never heard of it before. It was a fun, tense take on werewolves. The transformations are AWESOME, the kind of practical effects wizardry that makes you wonder HOW they did that without the aid of computers.

My favorite part of the movie is Karen White, the heroine played by Dee Wallace. She’s attacked by a werewolf at the beginning of the movie and spends the rest of the film dealing with the trauma as she tries to recall what happened. The film treats PTSD in a realistic manner and several scenes are disturbing. I squirmed through quite a few of them.

26. A Quiet Place (dir. John Krasinski, 2018)

I’m definitely in the minority on A Quiet Place. It is a movie I wish I liked more than I do.

While the acting was good and the production values classy, it seemed more like a parade of set-pieces than a coherent story. For me, the characters seem more like types than individuals and the emotional stakes were never as compelling as the physical threat of the aliens. I imagine this is more impactful in a theater, but a theater would only enhance the scares, not the characters or themes.

And even as far as scares go, I was never especially frightened, not because the family’s situation isn’t awful or the filmmakers aren’t clever with how they use the absence of sound, but because I wasn’t really attached to any of the characters. As I said, they never rise above being types for me and the inter-family conflict felt so underdeveloped (ex. the daughter’s belief that her father hates her, which I don’t get why she thinks that when he’s always warm and protective with her; maybe if he was portrayed as more distant or frustrated, I could buy that).

When I think of the horror movies and thrillers which truly terrified me, they have one thing in common: memorable protagonists or at least people you don’t want to see killed horribly. I like and connect with Clarisse Starling, Susy Hendrix, and Laurie Stroder, so the thought of grievous harm or death coming their way terrifies me. I feel sorry for Wendy and Danny Torrance, both victims of abuse, and don’t want to see them cut into little pieces. All these characters are distinctive personalities outside of the excellent performances used to bring them to life.

I’m not saying I hated the characters in A Quiet Place or that I was cheering for them to become alien dinner, but I was never engaged with them, maybe because the conflict within the family wasn’t interesting nor did ti really inform the conflict with the monsters the way, say, Clarisse Starling’s private demons have a connection with her desire to bring Buffalo Bill to justice in The Silence of the Lambs.

I just wasn’t satisfied. I can forgive plot-holes to a degree (and this film does have those) so long as there’s something else going for it. Outside of an interesting premise and good craftsmanship on a technical level, I didn’t find much I liked here or anything that entices me to revisit it. It’s a solid 6 or 7 out of 10 from me.

#halloween 2018 #thoughts #horror #thriller

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sagaofstardustmkg · 2 years ago

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Ghost Story | CH2 Trial Verdict 2/3

“...Hmm, well, that seems pretty unanimous!” Having taken much longer than necessary to count up the votes, Sasha eventually drops the last book onto the pile. “Well, I suppose they did confess as much, didn’t they? Couldn’t bear the suspense any longer, hmm? You prospective killers really ought to start being a little more stubborn, or this is going to get too easy!”

“In any case! Nevros is the one you’ve voted for, so let’s take a look at all the gruesome details for ourselves!”

The books fly back down to your table, opening up in front of you to present the animated tale of Karma’s tragic end, as well as Sirius’ grievous injuries…

The scene coalesces into solid form: the form of Nevros, cast against the evening light as they follow Karma unseen to the Sylph Palace. Unbeknownst to their prey, she’s been stalked by Nevros the whole day- and she’s just made the mistake of going somewhere secluded. Once assured Karma is alone, Nevros makes their move. They approach and ask her to show them more funny little card tricks. Karma obliges and asks them to pick a card, any card… but instead of choosing a card, they attack her. The cards are spilled on the floor along with Karma’s blood.

Caught by surprise, Karma manages to use her magic to cause a part of the crumbling Sylph Palace ceiling to drop on Nevros. It doesn’t knock them out as she would have hoped, instead just wounding them on their ear and shoulder. Karma runs up the bell tower steps in a blind panic, followed by a now-bleeding Nevros.

She doesn’t realize she’s in a dead end before it’s too late and Nevros has cornered her. They attack Karma in cold blood and magically exsanguinate her, biting her all over until there’s no magic- or life- left in her body. Once they’re done they simply leave the corpse in the tower, seeing that it’s almost night and chances of anyone finding it are low.

After killing Karma they head downstairs and speed away on their heelys, intent on continuing their main goal: killing the unkillable Victoria Bitter. First Nevros goes to get supplies for their wild Bugs Bunny-esque plan from the cricket shed. They grab the contents of the Looney Tunes ruleset box and a ladder from the Snakes and Ladders ruleset box. Next is the kitchens, where they ransack the place in order to find ice and bananas- one of which they eat then and there. Gotta have a snack! :)

As they leave the kitchens, they spot someone vaguely resembling VB walking up the stairs. They eventually recognize the stupid hat that VB has been wearing and assume it’s her; after all, why would anyone else wear something that stupid? When the figure disappears up the Astronomy Tower, Nevros decides to set their trap. They spread marbles all over the lower stairs and tie a rope at the bottom of the stairs at about shin level. The rope ties to a ladder, on top of which is a bucket full of ice and banana peels. Then there’s a field of mice traps on the landing, and finally a conveniently placed skateboard near the window.

As soon as Nevros hears coming down the stairs they activate the magic they stole from Karma. As their magic is corrupted, it also causes a small kickback, causing a golden circlet to crack and fall off their wrist. More of their blood drips on the floor, but at this point, they don’t really care about that; they’ve got much bigger things to worry about.

Soon Sirius comes tumbling down the stairs as a result of Nevro’s absurd, luck magic fuelled murder scheme. He slips on the marbles, then triggers the rope, has the bucket fall on his head to blind him, and then slips on all the ice and banana peels. He stumbles through the field of mouse traps, lands on the skateboard, and is promptly wheeled right through the window. Wheeeeee! Sirius falls several stories down but- miraculously survives, despite breaking every bone a human can possibly break! Yes, even THAT bone. And THAT bone. Wow!

The hat falls off his head as he lies crumpled in the grass, the skateboard a similarly broken wreck nearby. Nevros goes down to check in on their kill and finish who they assume is Victoria off with a knife they took from the kitchen. However, as soon as Nevros realizes they’ve got the wrong person, they drop the knife and flee the scene; they’ve made a terrible mistake, and they bear no ill-will at all towards Sirius.

At this point they head back to the dorm, hoping to be there in time for morning so as to not be weird and suspicious. They go and wash the blood off themselves in the emergency downstairs bathroom, cleaning the room bottom to top to try and wash off the stains… which would have been a success, were it not for their blood’s incredibly strong sulfur smell. Once the bathroom is clean they simply head upstairs for their beauty sleep and the vision fades.

#ch2 #ic #trial

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officialotakudome · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on Otaku Dome | The Latest News In Anime, Manga, Gaming, Tech, and Geek Culture

New Post has been published on https://otakudome.com/sentai-announces-upcoming-titles/

Sentai Announces Upcoming Titles

Sentai Filmworks have unveiled upcoming releases for April as well as new acquisitions:

HOUSTON, TX — February 11, 2021 — Sentai announced today that it acquired rights to the suspense-filled thriller Babylon, the anime series based on Mado Nozaki’s popular light novels. Sentai plans to release the series on Blu-ray as well as digital sell-through via select outlets.

Zen Seizaki, dedicated prosecutor with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, is assigned a seemly cut-and-dry case of false advertisement on part of a pharmaceutical company. But what starts as a routine investigation soon turns into something much darker, the strange details of the case painting a portrait of corruption and deceit that permeates the mayoral election being run in the newly formed Shiniki District. Soon Seizaki discovers depravity that puts at risk the very fabric of the Japanese justice system — not to mention Seizaki’s own sense of right and wrong.

The anime is a production of studio Revoroot (FLCL Alternative) and directed by Kiyotaka Suzuki (Psycho-Pass 2); Yutaka Yamada (Vinland Saga) provided the series’ musical composition. Babylon features the vocal talents of Takahiro Sakurai (Psycho-Pass) as Shinobu Kujin, Satsuki Yukino (When They Cry) as Ai Magase and Yuichi Nakamura (Jujutsu Kaisen) as Zen Seizaki. The series will be released on home video, including Blu-ray and digital sell-through, in Spring 2021.

Sentai announced today that it acquired NANA, the 47-episode anime series produced by Madhouse and based on the manga by Ai Yazawa (NEIGHBORHOOD STORY, TENSHI NANKA JA NAI) with 40+ million copies sold. The series has been upconverted from its original format to vivid high definition.

Two twenty-somethings seemingly share nothing in common apart from their first name, but a chance meeting on a train bound for Tokyo sets Nana Komatsu and Nana Osaki on a collision course with destiny. Nana Komatsu, a love-at-first-sight dreamer, aims to find enduring happiness in the big city. Nana Osaki, neo punk rock vocalist, pursues her burning ambitions of musical stardom and worldwide fame. As their fates increasingly intertwine, they each chase their dreams — until the harsh realities of life in big city Tokyo threaten to tear everything apart.

A production of studio Madhouse (No Game, No Life, Parasyte -the maxim-, DEATH NOTE), NANA is directed by Morio Asaka (Chihayafuru, MY Love STORY!!, Cardcaptor Sakura) with series composition by Tomoko Konparu (Blue Spring Ride, Sunday Without God, Glass Mask) and music by Tomoki Hasegawa (Mysterious Girlfriend X, D.N.Angel, Zan Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei). The series stars Romi Park (Land of the Lustrous, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Shaman King) as punk-rocker Nana Osaki and KAORI (Kaleido Star, Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Pokémon: Advanced Generation) as the cheerful Nana Komatsu.

Sentai is planning an HD version for release on digital outlets with an HD home video release to follow.

Sentai announced today that it acquired home video rights to the action thriller series HERO MASK, a Studio Pierrot (Tokyo Ghoul, Bleach) production, through a worldwide licensing arrangement (excluding Asia).

Detective James Blood, member of an elite police unit, pushes the edges of law enforcement to bring down the criminal threats and terrorist organizations plaguing a beautiful metropolitan city. When the murder of Crown Prosecutor Monica Campbell crosses his desk, Blood finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy involving LIVE, a two-faced corporate conglomerate with ties to the sordid underworld of human experimentation. With Sarah Sinclair — the only witness to Campbell’s death — at his side, Blood will have to face an army of mask-wearing superhumans to uncover the truth and stop LIVE before its plans can come to dark fruition…

HERO MASK stars Yasuyuki Kase (The Perfect Insider, 91 Days) as James Blood, Yuuko Kaida (The Promised Neverland, A Certain Scientific Railgun) as Sarah Sinclair, Kouki Uchiyama (Amagi Brilliant Park, Haikyuu!!) as Harry Creighton and Junpei Morita (Eureka Seven, Naruto: Shippuden) as Lennox Gallagher. Director Hiroyasu Aoki (assistant director Hunter x Hunter Movie 2: The Last Mission) provides series composition and the script.

For Sentai’s latest announcements regarding this and other great titles, be sure to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

About Sentai

A Cool Japan Fund portfolio company, Sentai is a leading global supplier of anime and official anime merchandise, distributing and curating one of the industry’s most diverse libraries of top trending and classic titles. Sentai offers thousands of hours of content across both traditional and digital platforms and is dedicated to bringing captivating stories and iconic characters directly from Japan. With hit series that include MADE IN ABYSS, Food Wars!, Princess Tutu and Parasyte -the maxim-, Sentai’s catalog continues to grow with new favorites like Bloom Into You, Revue Starlight and O Maidens in Your Savage Season, as well as classic anime series such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes and The Big O. For more information, visit www.sentaifilmworks.com.

Coming April 2021

Title: ELFEN LIED

Published by: Sentai Filmworks

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 350 min.

Street Date: 4/6/2021

Format: BD

Language: English & Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $49.98

SYNOPSIS: Critics have described Elfen Lied as “weird,” (Anime Planet), “surprisingly sadistic,” (Gamers Edge), and “addictive”(Animesou). No wonder, when you consider what makes this series hum! Lucy, a beautiful young mutant, is bred by the military to be the ultimate weapon. Now, with government killers on her trail, the disposition of a five year old, and a hair trigger for ultraviolence, Lucy and her young friends must unravel the dark secret of her legacy before it’s too late.

Title: IRON GIRL: FINAL WARS

Published by: Switchblade Pictures

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 90 min.

Street Date: 4/6/2021

Format: BD

Language: Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $19.98

SYNOPSIS: Chris may have survived the Apocalypse, but there are still plenty of threats from the past lurking in the ruins of civilization… and now one of them is actively looking for her! At least, that’s how it seems when she encounters Joe, a member of the resistance who is trying to discover why the artificial intelligence known as JUDA has been sending out murderous cyborgs with a certain heroine as their target! Even more unnerving is the fact that a mysterious young girl Sara has been having dreams calling to Chris for help… even though the two of them have never met! And if killer cyborgs alone aren’t terrifying enough, JUDA has doubled their lethality by equipping their resurrected warriors with the latest in sword technology in IRON GIRL: FINAL WARS!

Title: SUNDAY WITHOUT GOD

Published by: Sentai Filmworks

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 325 min.

Street Date: 4/6/2021

Format: BD

Language: English & Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $59.98

SYNOPSIS: In a world abandoned by God, the bodies of the dead will continue to walk unless they are buried by one of the mysterious Gravekeepers. Ai, one of the last children in a world where no more can be born, becomes her small village’s Gravekeeper when her mother, the previous Gravekeeper, passes on… but the arrival of a pale gun-wielding stranger destroys her village and what little remained of Ai’s old existence. Is this seemingly immortal man possibly an important figure from Ai’s past? Uncertain of what else to do, Ai finds herself compelled to set forth on a mission to learn the secrets of this strange world without proper death, unravel the mysteries of her own past, and, hopefully, find a way to put the dead permanently to rest in SUNDAY WITHOUT GOD!

Title: KIDS ON THE SLOPE

Published by: Sentai Filmworks

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 300 min.

Street Date: 4/13/2021

Format: BD

Language: English & Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $59.98

SYNOPSIS: Kaoru Nishimi has spent his life on the move, always struggling to fit in to new schools and having to push on just when he’d started to set down roots. But when he comes to stay with his extended family in seaside Kyushu, things will be different. Kaoru wanders through high school, meeting friends who change his life forever, and discovers a new kind of music that affects him like nothing ever has before.Ritsuko, the girl whose family owns the music store, and Sentaro, the high school delinquent, both set in motion Kaoru’s fascination with this amazing thing called Jazz. Fashions may change and fads come and go, but when you put a couple of musically obsessed teens together and let them follow their muse, magic is sure to happen in THE KIDS ON THE SLOPE!

Title: LAIDBACKERS

Published by: Sentai Filmworks

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 60 min.

Street Date: 4/13/2021

Format: BD

Language: Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $29.98

SYNOPSIS: A funny thing happened to Kumi when she moved to Kyoto to take over her grandmother’s sweet shop. While she does find a store that sells cheap snacks, the supposedly empty adjoining residence is instead inhabited by three other girls: Harami, Mai, and K, plus a dog, who claim to be legendary heroes reincarnated into our world! However, that’s not as exciting as it sounds, as the Demon Lord they were seeking never showed up, so they’ve just been hanging out, waiting for something interesting to happen. That’s when ANOTHER cute young girl, Ran, shows up, and it seems that she WAS the Demon Lord, but botched up her own resurrection and now wants to make amends for the things that she did in the past. But in order to do that, she’s going to need a little demon-hunting help from the LAIDBACKERS!

Title: KAIJI

Published by: Sentai Filmworks

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 1250 min.

Street Date: 4/20/2021

Format: BD

Language: Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $99.98

SYNOPSIS: Unemployed degenerate Kaiji Ito spent his time drinking, gambling, and racking up bills, and was sure that his life had hit rock bottom. Then that bottom fell out when Endo the Loan Shark arrived to inform him of a friend’s default on a loan that Kaiji foolishly co-signed, making Kaiji responsible for a soul crushing 3,000,000 yen! But there is one possible way out; if Kaiji goes to a secret gambling ship and plays successfully for one night, his debt could be absolved. It’s a trick, of course, but what choice does Kaiji have? Trapped into playing a series of increasingly ruthless contests that are hopelessly rigged against the players, Kaiji finds himself a pawn in a competition where the game pieces aren’t expected to survive… and the real players are all actively betting against KAIJI!

Title: ASSASSINS PRIDE STEELBOOK

Published by: Sentai Filmworks

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 300 min.

Street Date: 4/27/2021

Format: BD

Language: English & Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $99.98

SYNOPSIS: Against the savage monsters that lurk outside the glass walls of Flandore, the last remnants of humanity have only one defense: the mana magic wielded only by members of the Noble class. When Melida, heiress to House of Angel, fails to manifest her magic upon reaching majority, the half-vampire Kufa is sent with orders from her own Grandfather to resolve the issue… and if Melida cannot manifest mana, Kufa is to execute her for the crime of impure blood. But when Melida fails the test, Kufa can’t bring himself to kill the spirited young woman whose only fault was to have an adulterous mother. And so, instead, he commits the crime of giving Melida some of his own mana. Now, bound by magic and a deadly secret, the two must work together in order to stay alive in ASSASSINS PRIDE!

Title: HERO MASK

Published by: Sentai Filmworks

Distributed by: Section23 Films

Run Time: 600 min.

Street Date: 4/27/2021

Format: BD

Language: English & Japanese with English Subtitles

SRP: $89.98

SYNOPSIS: Are a series of bombings and the murder of a high-ranking government official linked to the actions of the huge international pharmaceutical company LIVE? Ordered to investigate, Detective James Blood of the Special Service of Crime quickly discovers far more than just a conspiracy. There’s a new technology on the street: masks as thin as paper that completely alter the appearance of the wearer’s face while also granting amazing strength and agility… at the cost of years off their users’ lives! Together with assistant attorney/murder witness Sarah Sinclair, Blood must unearth the secrets behind the masks and their connection to LIVE’s mysterious founder. But the clock is ticking down and James and Sarah may already be living on borrowed time. Because when the ultimate disguise powers the ultimate human killing machines, death can be lurking anywhere in HERO=MASK!

About Section23 Films:

Section23 Films provides home video marketing and distribution services for a variety of companies, including Sentai Filmworks, Switchblade Pictures, Maiden Japan, Kraken Releasing and AEsir Holdings. With its special focus on genre entertainment, Section23 Films distributes some of the very best anime, martial arts, and horror titles on the market today.

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cathygeha · 5 years ago

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REVIEW

The Third to Die by Allison Brennan

Mobile Response Team #1

Detective Kara Quinn has worked undercover most of her twelve years with the LAPD. She is good at her job but as a result of her last assignment is “on leave” for two weeks and has gone “home” to spend time with her grandmother. Not a woman to sit and relax she is soon assisting the FBI’s Moblie Response Team in finding the Triple Killer. This story has a great deal of police procedural information included as they look for the killer. As this is a new series each of the team of the new MRT has to be introduced and a bit said about them, too. Will they catch their man? Will they be able to save any of the people the killer is out to take the lives of? Will they figure out why the killer kills and why he chooses those he does to murder? Quite an interesting tale but not a happy ever after for everyone.

What I liked:

* The concept for the team and that it is not quite complete yet

* Matt: seems wise and mature enough to be in charge of the team

* Kara: dedicated police woman that is a bit of a chameleon. I want to know more about her

* The dynamics between the various people working the case

* The side story of Catherine the profiler and her situation (though I wonder if she has been in a previous book)

* The potential for a relationship between Matt & Kara

* The groundwork put in place for the series

What I did not like:

* The bad guy...what a creep. Toward the end he did sound mentally “younger” than his years...more teenager than adult at times

* That some very good people ended up dead at the hands of the serial killer

* Having to wait for the second book to find out what the next case will be.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mira for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

BLURB

An edgy female police detective…An ambitious FBI special agent. Together they are at the heart of the ticking-clock investigation for a psychopathic serial killer. The bond they forge in this crucible sets the stage for high-stakes suspense. Detective Kara Quinn, on leave from the LAPD, is on an early morning jog in her hometown of Liberty Lake when she comes upon the body of a young nurse. The manner of death shows a pattern of highly controlled rage. Meanwhile in DC, FBI special agent Mathias Costa is staffing his newly minted Mobile Response Team. Word reaches Matt that the Liberty Lake murder fits the profile of the compulsive Triple Killer. It will be the first case for the MRT. This time they have a chance to stop this zealous if elusive killer before he strikes again. But only if they can figure out who he is and where he is hiding before he disappears for another three years. The stakes are higher than ever before, because if they fail, one of their own will be next…

EXCERPT

Wednesday, March 3

Liberty Lake, Washington

12:09 a.m.

Warm blood covered him.

His arms, up to his elbows, were slick with it. His clothing splattered with it. The knife—the blade that had taken his retribution—hung in his gloved hand by his side.

It was good. Very good.

He was almost done.

The killer stared at the blackness in front of him, his mind as silent and dark as the night. The water lapped gently at the banks of the lake. A faint swish swish swish as it rolled up and back, up and back, in the lightest of breezes.

He breathed in cold air; he exhaled steam.

Calm. Focused.

As the sounds and chill penetrated his subconscious, he moved into action. Staying here with the body would be foolish, even in the middle of the night.

He placed the knife carefully on a waist-high boulder, then removed his clothes. Jacket. Sweater. Undershirt. He stuffed them into a plastic bag. Took off his shoes. Socks. Pants. Boxers. Added them to the bag. He stood naked except for his gloves.

He tied the top of the plastic, then picked up the knife again and stabbed the bag multiple times. With strength that belied his lean frame, he threw the knife into the water. He couldn’t see where it fell; he barely heard the plunk.

Then he placed the bag in the lake and pushed it under, holding it beneath the surface to let the frigid water seep in. When the bag was saturated, he pulled it out and spun himself around as if he were throwing a shot put. He let go and the bag flew, hitting the water with a loud splash.

Even if the police found it—which he doubted they would— the water would destroy any evidence. He’d bought the clothes and shoes, even his underwear, at a discount store in another city, at another time. He’d never worn them before tonight.

Though he didn’t want DNA evidence in the system, it didn’t scare him if the police found something. He didn’t have a record. He’d killed before, many times, and not one person had spoken to him. He was smart—smarter than the cops, and certainly smarter than the victims he’d carefully selected.

Still, he must be cautious. Meticulous. Being smart meant that he couldn’t assume anything. What did his old man use to say?

Assume makes an ass out of you and me…

The killer scowled. He wasn’t doing any of this for his old man, though his father would get the retribution he deserved. He was doing this for himself. His own retribution. He was this close to finishing the elaborate plan he’d conceived years ago.

He could scarcely wait until six days from now, March 9, when his revenge would be complete.

He was saving the guiltiest of them for last.

Still, he hoped his old man would be pleased. Hadn’t he done what his father was too weak to do? Righted the many wrongs that had been done to them. How many times had the old man said these people should suffer? How many times had his father told him these people were fools?

Yet his father just let it happen and did nothing about it! Nothing! Because he was weak. He was weak and pathetic and cruel.

Breathe. Focus. All in good time.

All in good time.

The killer took another, smaller plastic bag from his backpack. He removed his wet gloves, put them inside, added a good-sized rock, tied the bag, then threw it into the lake.

Still naked, he shivered in the cold, still air. He wasn’t done.

Do it quick.

He walked into the lake, the water colder than ice. Still, he took several steps forward, his feet sinking into the rough muck at the bottom. When his knees were submersed, he did a shallow dive. His chest scraped a rock, but he was too numb to feel pain. He broke through the surface with a loud scream. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t think. His heart pounded in his chest, aching from the icy water.

But he was alive. He was fucking alive!

He went under once more, rubbed his hands briskly over his arms and face in case any blood remained. He would take a hot shower when he returned home, use soap and a towel to remove anything the lake left behind. But for now, this would do.

Twenty seconds in the water was almost too long. He bolted out, coughed, his body shaking so hard he could scarcely think. But he had planned everything well and operated on autopilot.

He pulled a towel from his backpack and dried off as best he could. Stepped into new sweatpants, sweatshirt, and shoes. Pulled on a new pair of gloves. There might be blood on the ATV, but it wasn’t his blood, so he wasn’t concerned.

He took a moment to stare back at the dark, still lake. Then he took one final look at the body splayed faceup. He felt nothing, because she was nothing. Unimportant. Simply a small pawn in a much bigger game. A pawn easily sacrificed.

He hoped his old man would be proud of his work, but he would probably just criticize his son’s process. He’d complain about how he did the job, then open another bottle of booze.

He hoped his father was burning in hell.

He jumped on the ATV and rode into the night.

Q&A with Allison Brennan

Q: Tell us a little about your new release, The Third to Die. What character in the book really spoke to you?

A: THE THIRD TO DIE is the first book in a new series, which is always exciting. I think what I like the most about THE THIRD TO DIE -- and the series concept of a mobile FBI task force tackling complex cases in rural and remote areas -- is that I can explore some areas that aren’t often written about. With the vast numbers of crime fiction set in New York City, Los Angeles, and the like, I wanted to do something different. (This isn’t to say other authors haven’t -- J.A. Jance has a small-town Arizona series and of course Craig Johnson’s Longmire series in Wyoming are two I enjoy.) I like moving the setting from book to book and keeping the core characters -- it’s one reason I had Maxine Revere investigate cold cases in places other than where she lived. Because of the nature of the task force, they will be outsiders wherever they go, and need to learn to work together and trust each other.

In THE THIRD TO DIE, a serial killer hits a small community outside Spokane, Washington. The Triple Killer surfaces on March 3rd to take three victims before he disappears for three years. But this time, the FBI is on the case early, and they have the best chance of finding him. If they don’t, a cop will end up dead. The best thing about this story is being able to create an ensemble cast of characters. I love shows like BONES and SVU where you have a lead character or two, but the writers spend a lot of time developing everyone else, so you feel like you’re part of a team. That’s what I’m trying to create with the MRT series.

Matt Costa heads the group, and what I love most about Matt is his ability to be a leader. He’s a workaholic, but he trusts his team to do their job. He’ll listen to everyone, but when he makes a decision he stands by it. Detective Kara Quinn thinks, “He’s an alpha male trying very hard, and failing, to be a beta.”

Dr. Catherine Jones surprised me. I pictured her (somewhat) as a female version of Will Graham from THE RED DRAGON (the book, not the movies!), torn apart by what she’s seen, but unable to leave the job behind even if it destroys her family. Knowing she’s a secondary character in this book, I was surprised that her few scenes had such an impact.

But it was Detective Kara Quinn who really spoke to me. Kara was never supposed to practically take over the book. When I first conceived of the opening, where Kara finds the body, I thought Kara would simply be a witness and that she might investigate on her own and possible even end up a victim herself. But getting into her head, learning about her childhood, watching how she interacts with Matt as well as his team … she intrigued me so much that I hoped she survived (it was iffy there for awhile!) because I wanted to keep writing about her.

Q: You write about some interesting and complex characters in your books. From Investigative reporter Maxine Revere to the Rogan/Kincaid families. What is your favorite type of character to write about?

A: This is a hard question! I like exploring a wide variety of characters, both heroes and villains. I love complex and conflicted characters, like Detective Kara Quinn, who has many strengths and a few weaknesses. I love writing villains and trying to figure out why they do what they do. To me, every great hero has a fatal flaw and every evil villain has a redeeming quality.

Q: How long did it take you to get your rough draft finished on your latest release?

A: Generally, a rough draft -- which is usually pretty clean because I edit as I go -- takes me 10-12 weeks to write. Because I wrote THE THIRD TO DIE “on spec” -- meaning, it wasn’t contracted by a publisher -- I had to write between other projects that had deadlines. I wrote three complete books while also writing this book, so it took me a little over a year to finish the rough draft. But it wasn’t really “rough” -- because I had to step away for weeks at a time, in order to get back into the story, I re-read and edited what I’d written, then wrote the next few chapters.

Q: For readers who haven't tried your books yet, how do you think your editor or loyal readers would describe your books?

A: My editor usually tells me that my characters are compelling and I know how to increase the tension through to the climax. My long-time readers usually tell me that they feel like they know my characters and that they can’t put the book down because they have to find out what happens. Most readers say my books are suspenseful. I also hear that my books are “intricately plotted” which makes me chuckle because I don’t plot.

Q: When writing, how do you keep track of timelines, ideas, inspiration and such? By notes on the computer, a notebook perhaps?

A: I’ve tried every method of note-keeping, but little works for me. When I’m writing, I write notes directly into the manuscript either using the comment function or just typing in the text *** NOTE *** so I can easily search the asterisks. During revisions I have a notepad next to me with the key points my editor commented on, so I can keep those in mind while fixing problem scenes. For ideas I have a computer file called IDEAS (original, I know!) that I add to from time to time, but I rarely have used any of the thoughts I’ve jotted here.

Q: In The Third to Die, were there any characters that started off as supporting characters, but then developed into a more prominent character?

A: Detective Kara Quinn, who ended up being my favorite character once I was done writing, I’d intended to be a supporting character but as I got into her head, I liked her so much I kept wanting to go back to her. She became much more important to the story -- and, ultimately, the series. Detective Andy Knolls, who was a strong supporting character throughout, was originally supposed to be a much more minor character -- just the local cop my FBI agents could tap into for whatever they needed. But once he walked out of the autopsy because he thought he would puke, I realized he was a terrific character and I wanted to explore the character of a small-town cop facing a violent crime he was ill-prepared for.

Q: What advantages or challenges does a writer in your genre face in today’s fiction market?

A: I think all writers, regardless of genre, face an overwhelming marketplace for stories. There are so many books being published today--both traditionally and independently--that standing out can be a challenge. But there are clear advantages to writing mysteries and thrillers -- I’ve talked to several bookstore owners and they tell me the genre has been selling much better over the last couple of years. Recently, one bookseller told me, “We used to sell tons of romances. Now, everyone wants mysteries.” There is always a market for good stories well told, and genre fiction is always in demand.

Q: The Third to Die is the first in a new series from you, called the Mobile Response Team. What made you decide to branch out into another series set in the world of the FBI?

A: I had this idea more than a decade ago. When I participated in the FBI Citizens Academy in 2008, I learned about the Evidence Response Team and how they work within the FBI -- basically, they are agents from different squads in one jurisdiction who come together because they have specialized training in order to process and investigate specific types of crimes. One example locally was the Yosemite murders that terrified northern California in 1999, investigated by the Sacramento FBI with crime scenes investigated by the Sacramento ERT. But ERT agents also have their own cases, they’re only pulled together in extraordinary circumstances. So I mentioned an idea to the public information officer about having an ERT unit that worked around the country (rather than in one limited jurisdiction) and he said he didn’t see how it would practically work. I shelved it, but it nagged at me from time to time. Fast forward ten years and the PIO had since retired. He and I were chatting about another book of mine (I call him regularly for research!) and I talked to him again about my idea, but I had tweaked it. I had the concept of a Mobile Response Team to focus on rural and underserved communities, based on reading about some FBI offices that had huge territories and more limited resources (because of size, location, etc.) He thought about it, and said, yeah, he could buy into it, especially since the FBI is working hard on improving its image. So while it’s not an actual FBI task force, it was plausible. So I ran with it.

I love writing crime thrillers. I’m very comfortable writing in the FBI world, maybe because of all the research I’ve done and maybe because I’m interested in the cases they investigate. Because the MRT team moves around, I can explore a multitude of crimes that interest me. With an ensemble cast of characters, I can focus on different characters in each book, hopefully to make them more real to my readers. Matt and Kara will likely lead each book, but like Catherine was a pivotal character in this book, and Michael Harris will be a pivotal character in the second book, I hope to also go deeper into Ryder, Jim, and the rest of the team.

Q: I really enjoy the complex story lines and cases you have in your Lucy Kincaid and Max Revere Books. How much research goes into your stories and is there a particular 'right from the news headlines' that catches your interest for a possible storyline?

A: I love research! I read widely and have more than 50 research books on my shelf -- forensics, true crime, military, criminal profiling, psychology, police procedures, and more. I have contacts in many professions who I can ask questions. Before I start writing, I have to make sure the set-up works. After that, I research as I write. I participate in “generic” research whenever I have the opportunity--talking to people in interesting professions or going on “field trips” (such as to the morgue to view an autopsy or a ride along with the sheriff’s department)--just to keep my general knowledge about law enforcement up-to-date.

Because I read widely, and keep up-to-date on crime related news, many ‘right from the headlines’ stories catch my eye, but I rarely write about them. It’s usually a couple stories that I see together that give me an idea. Such as reading about a storm that unearths bones might interest me, but then I’ll read an article about a missing person or a mortgage fraud scheme and twist all the articles into one idea that’s completely different from the original stories. I’ve read a lot about human trafficking, and my second MRT book touches on that based very loosely on an article I read about how coyotes go back and forth across the border and the cost to their victims (financial, emotional, physical) coupled with another article I read about an abandoned camp that may or may not have been used for criminal activity, on top of a conversation I had with my brother-in-law, a wildlife biologist, about birds.

Q: What do readers have to look forward to in the future from you?

A: After THE THIRD TO DIE, the next Lucy Kincaid book will be out on March 31, where Maxine Revere gets to join Lucy in San Antonio -- but with a twist. In CUT AND RUN, Lucy is investigating the cold case and Max is investigating the recent murder. I’m almost done writing the Lucy book that follows -- COLD AS ICE (10.27.20) as well as finishing the revisions of the second MRT book (currently untitled) coming out in the spring of 2021. I also have an idea for a trilogy about a female private investigator that I’m super excited about, and I’ll be starting the first draft of the third MRT book this spring. Oh -- and there will be two Lucy Kincaid novellas coming this summer!

Q: What advice do you have for someone working on their first book?

A: Create good habits. Write regularly--create a schedule that fits into your life and stick to it, whether it’s an hour every morning before the kids get up, two hours at night when you used to watch television, or every Sunday afternoon. You need to make sacrifices to find the time to write, but if it’s important, you’ll do it. (For example, when I was working full-time out of the house AND had three young kids, I gave up television for three years and wrote every night from 9 to midnight.) Also, learn how to discern constructive criticism--some advice is good, some isn’t. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to take and what to leave, but it’s important. Generally, advice that is constructive will help you see your flaws while also motivating you to keep writing; advice that is destructive will make you feel like a failure. Don’t listen to the destructive advice.

Q: What is the hardest part about writing for you?

A: Procrastinating. I get easily distracted, especially when I’m just starting a book. So I guess that means the beginning is hard, hahaha. Once I am deep into the story -- somewhere between 100-150 pages -- something clicks and then I can’t write fast enough. In fact, I’ve often said that it takes me twice as long to write the first 100 pages than it does to write the last 300 pages!

Q: Do you have a set schedule for writing or do you work writing into your existing schedule?

A: Before my first book came out in 2006, I worked full-time and I only had nights to write. I wrote every night when the kids went to bed, from 9 to midnight. Now I write full time, and I treat it as a full-time job -- I start after the kids go to school (about 8 am) and generally wrap up before dinner (about 6 pm). Not all those hours are spent writing -- I’ll research, read, spend time on social media -- and sometimes I’ll write at night, especially if I have to take a day off for errands or I have an imminent deadline or if I’m super excited about the scene I’m writing. Because my time is flexible, I can go watch my daughter’s softball games or take a day to research on-site (like a ride-along.) I also write on the weekends, but only if we don’t have family things planned (or a softball tournament!)

Q: What is your favorite line from your book?

A: I don’t have a favorite line, per se. I have a couple favorite scenes. When Matt first comes to town and he and Kara walk through the crime scene. Matt’s conversations with Ryder Kim, his jack-of-all-trades analyst. Kara’s scenes with her grandmother. The climax was hugely fun to write, and needed a lot of choreographing on my part to make sure it made sense! There’s a scene from a child’s POV that was very emotional to write and stuck with me for a long time. I think Kara has most of the best lines, to be honest, and one of the best exchanges between her and Matt was after a press conference Matt gave with the Spokane PD, when Kara was in the audience trying to figure out if the killer was watching the speech. Matt was irritated because he hadn’t seen her, and Kara decided to have fun with him. At the end, as she’s about to leave the room:

Kara smiled and handed Matt his wallet. “You were too easy.”

Matt took his wallet, looking both surprised and angry, but also impressed. “You stole my wallet?”

“You gave me shit because you thought I’d bailed on you--I was just having fun. Don’t take it personally. I’ve been picking pockets since I was a little kid.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of three dozen thrillers and numerous short stories. She was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers, has had multiple nominations and two Daphne du Maurier Awards, and is a five-time RITA finalist for Best Romantic Suspense. Allison believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids. Allison and her family live in Arizona. Visit her at allisonbrennan.com

Social Links:

Author website: https://www.allisonbrennan.com/

Facebook: @AllisonBrennan

Twitter: @Allison_Brennan

Instagram: @abwrites

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/52527.Allison_Brennan

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0778309444/httpwwwalli0f-20

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-third-to-die-allison-brennan/1131669020;jsessionid=C1F1BD4B1DE6C665460E505FA5022816.prodny_store02-atgap03?ean=9780778309444

IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780778309444

Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/product/9780778309444

AppleBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-third-to-die/id1464894471

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Allison_Brennan_The_Third_to_Die?id=0sWZDwAAQBAJ

#Allison Brennan #Mobile Response Team 1 #Mira #NetGalley #Murder Mystery #FBI Mystery #Serial Killer #Suspense #Thriller

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sweetcerac · 5 years ago

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Finding Free Kindle Books That Rock

There are so many free books on Amazon! And I’m hoping I can help you find your next great read from one of these frugal finds.

When I stumbled upon Introductions (The Ghost Bird #1) by C.L. Stone free for Kindle, the plot sounded so interesting. Set in this world of the The Academy, Sang Sorenson meets this amazing group of Academy guys that help her see she is worth so much more than how her family is making her feel with their abuses. Gorgeous wonderful guys and this really strong caring girl who seems to weave into their group so seamlessly as they try to solve the problems at their high school. It completely sucked me in!

Here I am, after reading all 12 Ghost Bird books and all of her second Academy series, Scarab Beetle series (the first book is also free) as well, I can't help but BEG for more from the author on Twitter. But it makes me realize what awesome nuggets of story telling these free Kindle finds can lead me to.

So here I have listed the Top 15 Free Kindle Books that I have found on Amazon that sound like they will lead to some more amazing series! Give them a shot along with me!

1) Awaken by Skye Malone

"Running away from home was never Chloe Kowalski's plan. Neither was ending up the target of killers, or having her body change in unusual ways. She only wanted a vacation, someplace far from her crazy parents and their irrational fear of water. She only wanted to do something normal for once, and maybe get to know her best friend's hot stepbrother a bit better at the same time.

But the first day she goes out on the ocean, strange things start to happen. Dangerous things that should be impossible. Things to which 'normal' doesn't even begin to apply.

Now madmen are hunting her. A mysterious guy with glowing blue eyes is following her. And her best friend's stepbrother seems to be hiding secrets all his own.

It was supposed to be a vacation. It's turning out to be a whole lot more."

2) The Mind Reader by Lori Brighton

"Cameron Winters is a freak. Fortunately, no one but her family knows the truth... that Cameron can read minds. For years Cameron has hidden behind a facade of normalcy, warned that there are those who would do her harm. When gorgeous and mysterious Lewis Douglas arrives he destroys everything Cameron has ever believed and tempts her with possibilities of freedom. Determined to embrace her hidden talents, Cameron heads to a secret haven with Lewis; a place where she meets others like her, Mind Readers.

But as Cameron soon finds out some things are too good to be true. When the Mind Readers realize the extent of Cameron’s abilities, they want to use her powers for their own needs. Cameron suddenly finds herself involved in a war in which her idea of what is right and wrong is greatly tested. In the end she’ll be forced to make a choice that will not only threaten her relationship with Lewis, but her very life."

3) The Fallen Star by Jessica Sorensen

"For eighteen year-old Gemma, life has never been normal. Up until recently, she has been incapable of feeling emotion. And when she's around Alex, the gorgeous new guy at school, she can feel electricity that makes her skin buzz. Not to mention the monsters that haunt her nightmares have crossed over into real-life. But with Alex seeming to hate her and secrets popping up everywhere, Gemma's life is turning into a chaotic mess. Things that shouldn't be real suddenly seem to exist. And as her world falls apart, figuring out the secrets of her past becomes a matter of life and death."

4) Bound, An Arelia LaRue Novel #1: by Kira Saito

"Sixteen year old Arelia LaRue lives in New Orleans where the music is loud, voodoo queens inhabit every street corner, and the ghosts are alive and well. Despite her surroundings, all she wants is to help her Grand-mere Bea pay the rent and save up for college.When her best friend Sabrina convinces her to take a well-paying summer job at the infamous Darkwood plantation, owned by the wealthy LaPlante family, Arelia agrees.However, at Darkwood nothing is what is seems. Arelia enters a world full of tricky spirits, strange characters and forbidden love.In the intoxicating world of New Orleans Hoodoo/Voodoo expect the unexpected! Come along for the ride..."

5) Starfire Angels by Melanie Nilles

"They've been coming here for thousands of years, using Earth as a sanctuary to escape threats from their own kind. Mankind knows them as angels, and one of them left a child upon her death to be raised as a human.

Raea is now a high school senior, and her life as a human is about to end. The crystal shard she bears is not a pretty pendant; it's a collective of powerful entities who chose her as their Keeper, a protector of one of the four shards that power a machine capable of destroying whole worlds. Those who desire the Starfire's power have sent an agent to find her, but she's too busy evading a nosy reporter ready to exploit her secret and dating a hot new foreign student to notice. Nevermind learning what she really is.

Only one person on Earth can help her, the last person she ever expected. But he's not from Earth. Life as a human would be so much easier."

6) Deep Blue Secret (The Water Keepers Book 1) by Christie Anderson

"California teen, Sadie James, thinks her life couldn't get any better. She has great friends, an energetic mother she adores, and the beach practically in her own backyard. But her carefree life is turned upside down when she's rescued by a mysterious and strangely familiar boy who won't even tell her his name.

Each time the boy appears, Sadie's unexplainable attraction to him deepens along with her need to unravel his secrets. The boy is there to protect her. But as wonderful and exciting as it might be to have an irresistible boy with crystal green eyes protecting her every move, every minute of the day . . . why does Sadie need one?

As Sadie finds answers, she realizes her life isn't as perfect as she thought. Not only is she caught in a world of dangerous secret agents she never knew existed, but it turns out her true identity may be the greatest secret of all."

7) The Deepest Cut (The MacKinnon Curse Book 1) by J.A. Templeton

"Sixteen-year-old Riley Williams has been able to see ghosts since the car crash that took her mother’s life and shattered her family. Guilt-ridden over the belief that she’s somehow responsible for her mom’s death, Riley is desperate to see her mother’s elusive spirit to gain her forgiveness.

When her father moves the family to Scotland so they can all start over, Riley believes her life couldn’t get worse––that is until the ghost of nineteen-year-old Ian MacKinnon catches her purposely cutting herself. An uneasy truce quickly turns into friendship, and soon Riley’s falling hard for Ian.

Riley believes her gift could help Ian end the curse that has kept him tied to the land for centuries, but that would mean letting him go forever and she’s not sure she is strong enough to do that. As if her life wasn’t complicated enough, the spirit of the woman who killed Ian returns and she’ll stop at nothing to keep Riley from helping Ian find eternal peace."

8) Initiate - The Unfinished Song Book 1 by Tara Maya

"The initiation ceremony is the gateway to ultimate power...or death. A DETERMINED GIRL Dindi can't do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi's clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan... AN EXILED WARRIOR Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn't commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don't kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father's wars and his mother's curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her... assuming she would even accept the help of an exile."

9) Rippler (Ripple Series Book 1) by Cidney Swanson

"Discovering she can turn invisible terrifies Samantha, especially when she learns a geneticist who murdered her mom wants her too. Handsome Will Baker offers help and secrecy, but soon Sam will have to choose between keeping her secrets and keeping Will in her life. Suspenseful and romantic, Rippler and its sequels capture the collision of the beautiful with the dark. Discovering she can turn invisible terrifies Samantha, especially when she learns a geneticist who murdered her mom wants her too. Handsome Will Baker offers help and secrecy, but soon Sam will have to choose between keeping her secrets and keeping Will in her life. Suspenseful and romantic, Rippler and its sequels capture the collision of the beautiful with the dark."

10) Sora's Quest (The Cat's Eye Chronicles Book 1) by T. L. Shreffler

"A noblewoman, an assassin, and a soul-stealing necklace....

Sora planned on running away from her wedding, but she never expected to be kidnapped! Dumped into a world of magical races, arcane jewelry and forgotten lore, she finds herself at the mercy of a dangerous assassin, haunted by an even darker past. She yearns for freedom, but he won’t let her go—not when her Cat’s Eye necklace is the only thing that can save his life.

But the necklace itself presents a problem. It is an ancient device from the long forgotten War of the Races, and its magic has the ability to steal souls. Can Sora learn to wield its power—or will the power wield her?"

11) Six Moon Summer by SM Reine

"Rylie's been bitten.

She's changing.

And now she has three months to find a cure before becoming a werewolf... forever.

Rylie Gresham hates everything about summer camp: the food, the fresh air, the dumb activities, and the other girls in her cabin. But the worst part is probably being bitten by a werewolf. Being a teenager is hard enough, but now she's craving raw flesh and struggles with uncontrollable anger. If she doesn't figure out a way to stop the transformation, then at the end of summer, her life is worse than over. She'll be a monster."

12) Into the Shadows by Karly Kirkpatrick

"Paivi Anderson has it all - friends, a spot on the varsity basketball team, wonderful parents, and quite possibly, her first boyfriend. It was everything a freshman in high school could ask for. Her perfect life begins to crumble when she discovers her name on a list distributed by a power-hungry presidential candidate. How could anyone think of Paivi as an Enemy of the State? Could it be because of her special powers? No one was supposed to know about them, but the mysterious messages in her tater tots say otherwise. In INTO THE SHADOWS, Paivi quickly learns who her friends are and is forced into a reality she didn’t see coming."

13) Fire in Frost by Alicia Rades

"CRYSTAL FROST tells herself she isn't crazy, but sane people don't see ghosts. As her psychic abilities manifest, Crystal discovers she can see into the future, witness the past, and speak with the dead. Add blackmail to the list of things she never thought would happen to her, and you basically have her sophomore year covered. After spotting her first ghost, secrets from her family, friends, and classmates begin to surface. Uncovering secrets can be dangerous, but giving up means someone will get hurt. Again."

14) The Ghost Files by Apryl Baker

"Cherry blossom lipstick: check Smokey eyes: check Skinny jeans: check Dead kid in the mirror: check

For sixteen year old Mattie Hathaway, this is her normal everyday routine. She’s been able to see ghosts since her mother tried to murder her when she was five years old. No way does she want anyone to know she can talk to spooks. Being a foster kid is hard enough without being labeled a freak too.

Normally, she just ignores the ghosts and they go away. That is until she see’s the ghost of her foster sister… Sally.

Everyone thinks Sally’s just another runaway, but Mattie knows the truth—she’s dead. Murdered. Mattie feels like she has to help Sally, but she can’t do it alone. Against her better judgment, she teams up with a young policeman, Officer Dan, and together they set out to discover the real truth behind Sally’s disappearance.

Only to find out she’s dealing with a much bigger problem, a serial killer, and she may be the next victim…

Will Mattie be able to find out the truth before the killer finds her?"

15) A Job From Hell (Ancient Legends #1) by Jayde Scott

"The moment Amber starts her summer job in Scotland and sets eyes upon Aidan, her fate is sealed. Summoned by an ancient bond, she can never love another. Lost in the woods one night Amber enters Aidan's deadly world when she unknowingly participates in a paranormal race and promptly wins the first prize...a prize worth killing for.

In a world of forbidden love, ancient enemies, legends and rituals, nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. Life will never be the same again, unless she enters the Otherworld. But to do so, Amber must die..."

#goodreads #books #kindle #freebooks

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johnnymundano · 6 years ago

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The Theatre Bizarre (2011)

Directed by Douglas Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Jeremy Kasten, Tom Savini and Richard Stanley

Written by Scarlett Amaris, Douglas Buck, John Esposito, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Emiliano Ranzani and Richard Stanley

Music by Simon Boswell, Susan DiBona and Marquis Howell of Hobo Jazz

Country: United States

Language: English

Running Time: 114 minutes

CAST

Udo Kier as Peg Poett

Virginia Newcomb as Enola Penny

Kaniehtiio Horn as The Writer (segment 'Vision Stains')

Victoria Maurette as Karina (segment 'The Mother Of Toads')

Shane Woodward as Martin (segment 'The Mother Of Toads')

André Hennicke as Axel (segment 'I Love You')

Suzan Anbeh as Mo (segment 'I Love You')

James Gill as Donnie (segment 'Wet Dreams')

Tom Savini as Dr. Maurey (segment 'Wet Dreams')

Debbie Rochon as Carla (segment 'Wet Dreams')

Lena Kleine as The Mother (segment 'The Accident')

Mélodie Simard as The Daughter (segment 'The Accident')

Lindsay Goranson as Estelle (segment 'Sweets')

Guilford Adams as Greg (segment 'Sweets')

Framing Segments

Directed by Jeremy Kasten

Written by Zach Chassler

Cast:

Udo Kier as Peg Poett

Virginia Newcomb as Enola Penny

The Theatre Bizarre is a series of six shorts largely in hock to the grand-guignol tradition of naturalistic horror (i.e. proper ketchup, matey). I know this not because of any keen interest in French theatre but because the framing sequence is called ‘Theatre Guignol’, and it is into this terribly mysterious theatre that Enola Penny (Virginia Newcomb) dreamily wanders one decisive night. Each of the following sections is introduced by the indefatigable Udo Kier playing a big puppet (literally “grand guignol”) who becomes less puppet-like as the movie wears on and (cue wobbly theremin) Enola become less human. Which might be an artistic statement about desensitisation, but is definitely an excuse to watch Udo Kier popping robot-moves, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

The Mother of Toads

Directed by Richard Stanley

Written by Richard Stanley, Scarlett Amaris and Emiliano Ranzani

Cast:

Catriona MacColl as Mere Antoinette

Shane Woodward as Martin

Victoria Maurette as Karina

Lisa Belle as The Naked Witch (as Lisa Crawford)

Amelie Salomon as The Monster

The Mother of Toads is apparently based on a Clark Ashton Smith story of the same name which I haven’t read, with a bit of HP Lovecraft chucked in. It features a pair of unpleasant young Americans holidaying in France, and I’m not dissing Americans there, this pair really are unlikable; Karina moans that everything is in French in France (quelle surprise!), while Martin is so anaesthetised by his own acumen he can barely push his smug words past the thicket of his trendy beard. They come unstuck when bargain hunting in a French market where a handsome older lady with a mesmerising accent saucily offers Martin a peek at her Necronomicon. Bundling Karina off to a spa Martin spends the day with the accommodating and increasingly ardent crone, drinking suspicious brews and fingering her dusty leaves. Things end badly. This was an agreeably silly creature feature with plenty of the old ugh! quotient, an endearing lack of logic and a pervading sense of encroaching doom. The humour leavening proceedings is clearly no accident; there’s an excellent joke when Martin attempts to extricate himself from a post-coital bed without waking his sleeping and somewhat slimy partner. Probably rings a few bells in the audience that bit. It’s just enjoyably daft, tongue-in-cheek stuff and a welcome reminder that Richard (Hardware (1990), Dust Devil (1992)) Stanley is still rocking his smart-trash groove.

I Love You

Directed by Buddy Giovinazzo

Written by Buddy Giovinazzo

Cast:

André Hennicke as Axel

Suzan Anbeh as Mo

I Love You is a pretty tough watch and unusually it’s not because of the climactic gore. Axel wakes up in his bathroom disorientated and bloody; turns out he’s an insecure, self-destructive mess who has driven his lady Mo away. Mo returns to sever all ties and leave for good. What follows is an emotionally harrowing battle between two damaged people where words are weapons and the hurt is internal. As blood spattered as the despairing denouement may be the real horror is the extended verbal flensing Mo delivers to Martin, in which she destroys not only his present but also his past. And is she telling the truth? Or is it a desperate attempt to extricate herself from his unquenchable neediness? Like a fox gnawing its paw off to escape the trap? Sometimes uncertainty can be another level of horror. Buddy Giovinazzo delivers a classily acted, tautly suspenseful two-hander which leaves an emotional stain which persists for days.

Wet Dreams

Directed by Tom Savini

Written by John Esposito

Cast:

Debbie Rochon as Carla

Tom Savini as Dr. Maurey

James Gill as Donnie

Jodii Christianson as Maxine

Wet Dreams is directed by Tom Savini, who is legendary in horror for his SFX work and slightly less legendary for his acting, so there’s no excuse for doing an Elvis double take at the fact he’s given himself a role and that his segment is luridly gory. He’s no slouch at directing either, which is nice. The esteemed Mr. Savini plays a psychiatrist, the kind who drinks on the job and talks about raping his mum (i.e. a movie psychiatrist), treating Donnie, a preening jackass who likes smacking his wife, Carla, about and cheating on her. See, Donnie’s having recurring nightmares wherein his sexy dream fun times climax with him being tortured and castrated by his long-suffering wife, in a series of gruesomely humorous and visually explicit ways. Gentlemen viewers may never again think of a fry-up without skittishly crossing their legs. Serves Donnie right you might think, but by the end of the dream-within-a-dream misdirection and its gruesomely pre-code EC Comics twist finale you might think again. Ugh. I mean….ugh. I...Jesus. What could have just been a gratuitous mess of general dismemberment is deftly directed by the savant Savini, resulting in an amoral immorality tale. And need it be said that his skills in the SFX dept remain second to none? No, it need not. So pretend I didn’t say it.

The Accident

Directed by Douglas Buck

Written by Douglas Buck

Cast:

Lena Kleine as Mother

Mélodie Simard as Daughter

Jean-Paul Rivière as Old Biker

Bruno Décary as Young Biker

The Accident provides a brief respite from the onslaught of sensationalistic gore, a pit stop if you will. Even if you won’t, it definitely centres around a cute child asking her blasé mother questions about mortality, said questions raised in the tiny, inquiring mind after the witnessing of an accident earlier in the day involving a deer and a cocky motorcyclist. It’s a very restrained piece, very accomplished, and softer in tone than anything before or after it. There’s a touch of grue when the deer is finished off, but mostly the horror here is the complete horseshit parents come out with to calm their offspring with regards to the ultimately absurd nature of life and death, a subject which everyone spends a lot of time avoiding thinking about on a day to day basis and about which they would rather not be cross-examined about by a child at bedtime. As upsetting as the sight of the deer’s tongue lolling out of its bug eyed head was (very), it wasn’t as upsetting as realising all the lies you have to fill your kid with just so they can function in what we’ve all decided to call reality. Compared to all that, lying about Santa Claus is a minor misdemeanour.

Vision Stains

Directed by Karim Hussain

Written by Karim Hussain

Cast:

Kaniehtiio Horn as The Writer

Cynthia Wu-Maheux as Junkie Girl

Imogen Haworth as Pregnant Woman

Rachelle Glait as Older Homeless Woman

Alex Ivanovici as Junkie Man

I have a thing about eye trauma. Not a sexual thing, a “flinch and wave your hands about like you’re warding off invisible birds” thing. It’s a running joke in the Mundano family unit; if there’s some serious eye trauma afoot in the viewing choice, all eyes fall on the father figure as he tenses for impact. Those similarly (dis)inclined should be warned that there is a seriously impressive amount of eye trauma in Vision Stains. It’s built in as the whole episode rests on the Horror Movie Science concept of people’s past lives flashing before their eyes at the point of death. So if you extract their eye juice as they die and inject it into your own eye you will get to live the edited highlights of another life. Obviously. That sounds about as appealing as it sounds scientifically feasible, but our serial killer heroine is well into it. She basically harvests the lives of the homeless to make up for her personal shortfall in dreams. Judging by the massive pile of notebooks in which she has written the details of all the lives she has nicked, its worked out quite well for her. But people, even dreamless serial killers who prey on the homeless, are never satisfied, so she decides to take the next step and find out what happens before people have a life to flash in front of their eyes. The results are mixed. Ultimately you can’t help thinking it would have been a lot quicker and far easier on the homeless population if she’d just read Tbomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy Against the Human race. It’s all very silly but the po-faced approach suggests it is straining for some grandiose meaning; it fails. But it does feature a fantastic amount of eye trauma. Each to their own.

Sweets

Directed by David Gregory

Written by David Gregory

Cast:

Lindsay Goranson as Estelle

Guilford Adams as Greg

Lynn Lowry as Mikela Da Vinci

Jessica Remmers as Antonia

With Sweets, things close on a hilariously disgusting note. A deadpan Estelle and a semi-hysterical Greg talk about their dying relationship in the most banal clichés imaginable as they sit in what was once an apartment, but is now a kind of edible sty plastered with smushed up confectionery. As trite nonsense falls from her lips Estelle slowly sucks a melting ice cream into her deadpan face. Greg flailing to rescue the dead relationship counters with the expected whiny responses, while spasmodically picking filthy sweets off the floor and ingesting them with all the automotive panache of the true addict. Their stale interactions are punctuated by a series of flashbacks which parody cinema’s rote scenes of romance, with the pair swilling sweet shit like swilling sweet shit is going out of fashion. Luckily for Greg, Estelle hasn’t quite finished with him, unluckily for Greg he’s about to find out what that means. Sweets is pretty funny in its lip-smacking attack on love and addiction (and love as addiction), and is delightfully cartoonish in style; Estelle is often colour coordinated from hair to shoes with whatever sickly delicacy she is proffering. Of course all the comedy and caricature serve only to distract you while Sweets prepares a delightful gut punch of horror, before the management politely ask you to leave.

TL;DR: The Theatre Bizarre: it’s worth a watch, but not if you’re squeamish.

#The Theatre Bizarre #Movies #Horror #Anthology #2011 #The 2010s #Douglas Buck #Buddy Giovinazzo #David Gregory #Karim Hussain #Jeremy Kasten #Tom Savini #Richard Stanley #Udo Kier #Catriona Maccol #United States

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mitchbeck · 6 years ago

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CANTLON: GILMOUR GOAL GIVES HARTFORD WIN IN OT

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - John Gilmour’s breakaway goal in overtime, his second of the game, gave the Hartford Wolf Pack a 6-5 victory over the Springfield Thunderbirds. The win snapped a two-game losing streak on Sunday afternoon at the XL Center before 3,519 fans. The game-winner came when Springfield’s Matt Mangene fell down off an attempted spinarama. The puck came right to Ville Meskanen (three points) and the swift-skating Gilmour took the lead pass and skated in off the left wing, went from the forehand to the backhand and slipped it past Samuel Montembeault just 32 seconds into the extra session. “I had speed coming in," a grinning Gilmour said. "I didn’t want to overthink it too much and just went with my move and lucky it worked,” Gilmour had an assist in his three-point effort. Peter Holland couldn’t resist a friendly jab at Gilmour. “It figures Gilly scores the winner, though he lost the shootout in practice the other day.” Gilmour expressed the general sentiment. They survived and persevered while the personal stat portion of the ledger was filled. “It was a battle out there tonight. We're not happy that we gave up that many goals, but we're happy with the win.” It was a game of emotions with 11 lead changes, so maintaining poise and composure was not easy to come by. “We didn’t want to drop too far below .500. We have to start chipping away at this. Springfield is a team ahead of us. We were a desperate team in the third period and it showed. We did have that resiliency and that’s a good team over there in Springfield. We showed we can play with them,” Gilmour said. The Pack is back to .500 with a 15-15-2-2 (34 points). That places them in sixth place in the Atlantic. Springfield retains fourth place with a record of 15-11-4-3 (37 points). Pack head coach, Keith McCambridge, was thoroughly pleased with the hair-raising Helter Skelter level of the game. “In a game like this, when they go back and forth, you have to make sure you’re on the right side of momentum swings. For a majority of the game, we did a good job of that." The Wolf Pack took the lead back at 5-4 when Gabriel Fontaine scored his second of the night. The play started after an off-balance shot from the left point by Brandon Crawley that got to the net. Bobby Butler played the rebound and put a shot on net, but it was stopped. The puck went to the right wing side where Fontaine retrieved it and put a sharp angle backhander past Montembeault. “I think I got a little lucky on that one,” Fontaine said with a laugh. “Tonight was a game of emotion, and whoever was gonna score last would get those two points and we needed them.” Fontaine played with Montemebault in youth hockey in Quebec and again in the QMJHL when the two were in Sherbrooke. After a Mangene shot hit a post, the Thunderbirds knotted the game at five at 7:19. Mangene spotted Joel Lowry on the right wing and sent a diagonal pass to Matt Marcinew, playing in his seventh game on a PTO deal, came off the left wing and put the puck in the back of the net for his first AHL goal. Just as they had in the first period, in the second, the Thunderbirds scored first. On the powerplay as a result of a late first-period scrum that saw the Wolf Pack’s Rob O’Gara get an extra two minutes for roughing with Riley Stillman. Ryan Lindgren and JT Brown each earned 10-minute misconducts. At 1:32, Mangene, an ex-Sound Tiger, was at the right point. He feathered a pass to Dryden Hunt, who then took a slap-shot from the left wing side. That shot was stopped by the Pack's Marek Mazanec’s pad, but the rebound went right to Blaine Byron's stick and he quickly buried his ninth goal and tied the game at three. Springfield was then able to take advantage of a poor goaltender interference call to Fontaine to reestablish the lead. Sebastian Repo was in front of Mazanec and took Hunt’s pass and turned put a shot on net. Mazanec made the stop, but had no control of it. The second whack got the puck to dribble over the goal line and regain the lead at 4-3. It was Repo’s fifth of the season. The Pack answered back as Holland, who had three points on the night, gained positioned down low on the Thunderbirds defense and he slipped in his tenth of the season. Defenseman Ian McCoshen and Montembeault were on the ice at 16:23 and the game was then tied at four for each side. Meskanen's play impressed the veteran. “It was such a skill play of him to get the puck to me at the top of the crease with all that traffic in front. To be honest on a shot like that you close your eyes and shoot," Holland said. “Ville is really coming along. I had no idea how good of a player and sniper he is at the start of the year.” Matt Beleskey nearly gave the Pack the lead back on a late five-on-three power play chance. Beleskey sent a blistering slap shot at Montembeault. At 6’5, Montembeault was able to see the puck despite traffic in front and made a dandy glove save. Despite a four-game losing streak and a playing in Syracuse the previous night, it was the Thunderbirds who grabbed the lead first. Lowry was thirty feet out on the left wing and took a pass from McCoshen. He then snapped his seventh of the season past a screened Mazanec at 6:12. The Pack have been responding quickly when surrendering goals and did so on their first power play just 1:44 later. Fresh off a two-game suspension, Holland dished the puck to Gilmour who took advantage of a rolling screen in front of then et. He fired his eighth of the season past Montembeault, who was making his fifth straight start for the Thunderbirds. The power play goal came at 7:52 that has had it struggles lately. “We have so many good pieces here. Gilly has a good shot. Mesk has a good shot in the middle, so sooner or later they’ll start going in for you. It’s just a matter of time before it starts to click,” said Holland. McCambridge was happy to be able to write Holland's name on his lineup sheet. “We really missed him those two games because he was playing such good hockey before the suspension. You can’t replace players like Peter, who's one of the top centers in the American Hockey League, if not the top. It was very nice to have number 22 on the bench again.” Springfield went up 2-1 as the direct result of Lias Andersson holding onto the puck too long. Andersson dangled with the puck coming from the right wing to center and tried to get a perfect shot dead center, but the puck hit a skate and went wide. Springfield raced out of transition with it and Jason MacDonald fed Ryan Horvat and he spotted an open Anthony Greco. At 16:08. a top Pack killer the last several years, Greco with Crawley, on his tail was able to fire his 15th past Mazanec before Crawley sent him to the ice and took Mazanec and the net out at 16:08. The next shift, the Pack put strong pressure in the Springfield zone to even the score at two. Fontaine started and finished the play. Fontaine retrieved a loose puck and got it to Rob O’Gara at the left point. O'Gara and his rangy stick kept the puck in at the left point zipped. They then got it over to Chris Bigras at the right point. He released a quick wrist shot, and Fontaine was in the slot about 30 feet out, made a gorgeous redirect for his fourth goal. Montembeault had no chance on it. The goal came at 18:34. “He has a very good release on his shot and is a good player. He's such a good skater and can pull away from players. Gabby is playing the right way and he is being rewarded (with ice time) and has made the most of his opportunity,” McCambridge said of the second year centerman. The Wolf Pack got a power play and made quick use of it. They scored in 23 seconds to gain their first lead of the game. Holland and Meskanen played a little give-and-go. Holland was on the left wing half wall and sent the puck back to Meskanen who was open, dead center to the net. His first shot was stopped with the left pad by Montembeault, but the puck came right back to him and he launched his eighth goal past Montembeault for his second in two nights, and into the back of the net at 19:15. “Great read (by Ville) on where the puck was going and finding a little bit of open ice. Mesk is one of those players. He is smart with his anticipation and awareness on where the puck is going and (knowing) what the next play is,” remarked McCambridge. WOLF PACK LINES: Fontaine-Butler-Leedahl Andersson-Gropp-Lettieri Holland-Mekanen-Beleskey Wallin-St. Amant-Melanson Bigras-O’ Gara Crawley-Hajak Gilmour-Lindgren WOLF PACK SCRATCHES: Cole Schneider (Concussion) Steven Fogarty (Suspension) Tim Gettinger (Concussion) Shawn O’Donnell (Upper Body) Sean Day (Healthy) Vince Pedrie (Healthy)* Following the game, Pedrie was reassigned to Maine. NOTES: It's been a tough stretch lately for Vinni Lettieri. A puck hit in the nose with a puck in Rochester and then cut him under the eye in Bridgeport and then in this game, with 2:07 left, he was accidentally hit with a skate in the face. This latest incident occurred in the offensive zone in the right-wing corner. Lettieri quickly dropped his gloves and stick and raced to the bench. He took off his helmet and immediately went to the locker room. According to McCambridge, he's okay but required some post-game stitching. Lias Andersson’s, first two games back on the stat sheet shows no shots on goal and a combined minus-4 in the two games. Andersson is struggling, perhaps even trying too hard, but that is the reason he's in Hartford, to reclaim his game. It was not a big surprise, but the Vancouver Canucks announced a new deal of up to a six-year extension of their affiliation agreement with Utica which was expiring. The Vancouver Province reports that in the deal there is an out clause after two years, which fits perfectly. With Seattle's entry into the NHL being delayed a year, it also hinders the arrival of their AHL team by several years as well. The yet unnamed NHL expansion team is still in the process of selecting a city that will be home to their future prospects. Once that city is chosen and a lease agreement is signed, then Vancouver will most likely move their AHL team out to the west coast to the AHL Pacific Division. The city is likely to Abbotsford which is 40 minutes from downtown Vancouver. This will begin a long desired NHL and AHL rivalry for the two Western cities in the US and Canada. College and junior hockey have their trade deadlines and movement periods respectively. Adam Samuelsson of Boston College (HE) is the youngest of Ulf Samuelsson's clan. As we reported a few weeks ago, he was heading to juniors where he will play the rest of the season with the Sioux City (IA) Musketeers (USHL) that allows him to preserve his NCAA eligibility. In seven games with the Eagles, the 6’6, 240lb. 18-year-old, rearguard was scoreless and had no penalties. Samuelsson’s Canadian major junior rights are held by the Sudbury Wolves (OHL). Had he played at the XL Center for UConn he would have been the last Samuelsson boy to play in Hartford where his father made a name for himself with the Whalers. Joining him in Sioux City and coming from Hockey East and Beantown rival, Boston University, is Dominic Vidoli. He was scoreless in six games with the Terriers. The other newcomer for Sioux City is Matt Steinburg, the son of former New Haven Nighthawk, Trevor Steinburg, is currently in his 17th season as the head coach at St. Mary’s University (AUAA) in Halifax. The younger Steinburg is a Colgate (ECACHL) commit. He will play for a short period in Sioux City. Steinburg is currently at St. Andrews College, a Canadian prep school in Aurora, Ontario. In six games, he has two goals and eight points. Lastly, defenseman Braeden Virtue, the son of ex-Pack, Terry Virtue, was traded from the Quebec Remparts (QMJHL) to the Gatineau Olympiques (QMJHL) for a 2019 4th round QMJHL draft pick. He played just seven games this season under the team's new coach—Patrick Roy. Wolf Pack fan jerseys of the night: #6 Ryan Malone, #17 P.A. Parenteau, and # 28 Lauri Korpikoski. Read the full article

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doomsteady · 8 years ago

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Look Again - ch1

WIP! bi!John/ace!Sherlock, Friends to Lovers. Explicit. Will be posted on AO3 when it’s done.

This is what I’ve been writing to get over my writer’s block. Sort of a different take on my old Spotlights series. Less blatantly smutty (but still: there is smut). A more mature, developed look at the sexual/asexual relationship dynamic.

I am enjoying this one SO much right now! :D Not sure how long it’ll be in the end, but I’m at about 5k words currently and I think I’ve got about another 5k left to go.

Enjoy!

Ch 1

A heavy boot smeared a muddy print on the back of John’s shirt as the brute jerked the rope back. The coils tightened at once, his and Sherlock’s bodies squeezing even closer and forcing a rough grunt out of John’s lungs.

Typical, John thought, his nose squashed against the front of Sherlock’s pristine shirt. Bloody typical, this.

The boot on his back shoved them away, sending their bound feet scuffing a clumsy tango against the tarmac. Grit scattering underfoot. Dark suited goons jeered at them from all sides, drunk on power and victory.

They’d been caught out. An unexpected patrol had stumbled upon their hiding spot out of blind, dumb luck. On all other counts, they had been meticulously careful; John’s army training being just as useful in situations like these as Sherlock’s route-finding and planning often was, but the result of their discovery was the same either way: They’d been captured. Their plan to eavesdrop on the clandestine money exchange was scuppered. Sherlock had been so furious with himself as to curse aloud.

The ringleader of the group stepped forward, an older man in a bespoke suit. Bald, gruff in both voice and appearance, his expensive attire did little to pretty up his image; John couldn’t help but think he looked like a dressed-up boar, for all the good it did him.

The man — Salvatore, because of course he’d be Italian — leaned in close to Sherlock’s ear. His breath stank of cigar ash, bitter and rotten. He was so close to John’s face that John had to fight the urge to headbutt the smarmy wanker, but one warning glance from Sherlock’s sharp, oceanic eyes put paid to the idea. They would get him eventually, but not now. Right now, survival and escape were paramount.

“Nearly had us all figured out, didn’t you?” The man’s thin lips pulled into a mocking grin. “So close,” he crooned. “The great Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Pain-in-the-Arse. Got cocky, eh? It’s just as well. We can’t have you ballsing our whole operation up, now can we?”

Sherlock’s face, mere inches from John’s own, remained passive and unimpressed by the man’s taunts. To look at him, one might assume the whole affair was a minor inconvenience. He looked bored, only mildly irritated to have been stripped of his coat, his hands bound behind his back and the rest of him tied to his friend, ankles to sternum.

His was a look that gave no applause to their captors, no acknowledgement of their having outwitted their opponent. It was an air of arrogant confidence, as if their eventual escape was a foregone conclusion. Child’s play.

Knowing him as well as John did, that was very likely the truth of it.

But pressed together as they were, chest-to-chest, John could clearly feel the thrum of Sherlock’s elevated heartbeat against his own. The man wasn’t impervious to the effects of adrenaline. It matched John’s own heavy pulse, the noise of which hissed in his ears and throbbed in his wrists where the thin rope dug painfully into his skin.

“I had rather hoped to put a damper on your day, yes. Nevermind, though. You’re a slippery fish, Salvatore, but even you can’t hope to slip the net every time.”

Salvatore’s grin widened until he broke into a rattling, sickly laugh. His goons joined in, right on cue. “Oh, Mr Holmes! You forget your current predicament. What nets should I need to slip, now that the fisherman himself has been hooked?”

The clunk of a car boot unlocking echoed through the underground level. Two things kept circling in John’s mind: One, that these thugs probably intended to kill them and dump their bodies somewhere they were unlikely to be discovered. And two, how much he wished it didn’t require the excuse of a hostage situation to be this physically close to his flatmate.

Because God, he’d been an idiot, hadn’t he? How many months had it been since that night at Angelo’s? Their first case together; chasing a serial killer through the streets of London. And John, already so infatuated by Sherlock’s strange charms, unable to contain himself any longer.

He just had to ask. Could they? Was he…?

He’d surprised even himself with his forwardness, but poor Sherlock had looked downright panicked by the advance. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that Sherlock had been forced to let him down in no uncertain terms.

While I’m flattered by your interest…

John Watson: Blogger, Flatmate, Monumental Idiot. And now this was it: This was the last time he would experience the two of them sharing each other’s body heat, and not once had it ever been under more pleasant circumstances. Was it possible to mourn the loss of something he’d never had? Because he was pretty sure this is how it feels.

In hindsight, it was even more of a shock that Sherlock had managed to reject him in a manner that was surprisingly gentle for the ‘high-functioning sociopath’. But, well, they both knew that label didn’t entirely apply. Though Sherlock preferred to maintain the myth for his public image, given their living arrangements, it was impossible to hide his true nature from John for long.

Everyone they knew now considered John the foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes, and not without good reason: They had grown thick as thieves in no time at all. And one thing he knew for sure about his strange, brilliant flatmate? He was no sociopath. His major problem seemed to be his difficulty to connect with and express his emotions. But hell, even John himself struggled with that, and most people considered him a perfectly normal bloke.

After Angelo’s, John hadn’t asked again. He respected his friend’s feelings and didn’t question their status in each other’s lives. But part of him always wondered if things might have developed differently, if only he hadn’t jumped the gun like a giddy teenager.

Trying to get into the man’s pants after only a day of knowing him? God, he must have seemed a right prat.

Breaking through John’s thoughts, two goons stepped forward, grabbing their arms and shoving them towards the car. John felt Sherlock’s body stiffen the moment his calves touched the bumper, and a moment later they were toppling awkwardly over and down into the cramped space.

“Shall we go for a swim, Mr Holmes?” he heard behind them, amidst the heckling of the thugs. Someone picked up their bound legs and swung them inside, hauling their dead-weight bodies into a position that could allow the boot to close over their heads. With a slam, the light was shut out. External sounds dulled to a muffled whisper of voices and the soft tread of boots. Inside, only their breaths were loud and clear.

“You alright?” John asked against Sherlock’s head, tasting for a moment the thick curls brushing the corner of his mouth. He winced at how the combined weight of himself and Sherlock lying over him was crushing his hands against the upholstery. “Felt you knock your head a bit on the way in. Does it hurt?”

John felt Sherlock’s low reply rumble like nightclub bass through both of their chests. “Mm,” he said. “It’ll bruise. It’s fine. What about you, can you breathe well enough? I’d get off if I could, but…”

“I’m fine,” John said, his eyes blindly seeking detail in the pitch black of the boot. He thanked his lucky stars neither of them were claustrophobic.

Outside, he could hear people approaching the car. A door opened, then another, and the suspension bounced and sank as their captors boarded. He dropped his voice to a strained whisper. “So, what’s the plan?”

Sherlock’s words were a tickling heat against John’s neck. “We have to loosen the ropes first. Can’t do anything with my hands tied like this.”

The engine roared to life, sending its vibrations through the chassis. It sunk into John’s bones and rattled his teeth. It was louder here than in the cabin, and a moment later, Sherlock began shifting his shoulders and hips in a serpentine movement. It forced John’s body to rock right along with him.

His breath caught in his throat as his brain momentarily whited-out.

“Move, John,” Sherlock ordered. “It’ll loosen quicker if we’re both working at it. They won’t hear over the engine.”

In the dark, John nodded and started mimicking Sherlock’s movements. Stopped a moment later. Actually, that wasn’t such a good idea.

“Um, Sherlock…” he began. Sherlock, still moving, didn’t reply. His whole weight was on top of John as he rhythmically worked his limbs against the ropes. He shifted them up and down, up and down, flexing and relaxing his muscles. His breath started coming in shallow pants that made John’s skin raise in goosebumps. Worse still, the motion was causing their hips to rub together in a way that simply couldn’t be ignored.

“Sherlock,” John hissed, barely able to prevent his body from twitching at every bolt of pleasure that was skittering up his spine. “Could you… Stop. Sherlock, stop, please.”

“Why?” Sherlock paused over him, their chests constricting with every laboured breath. The air had turned humid, a little stifling. John could feel the sweat beading on his forehead.

“Because it’s killing my wrists,” John said, because that was true, technically. He wasn’t about to admit that what was really concerning him was the reaction happening between his legs. Mercifully, it seemed Sherlock hadn’t yet caught on.

“A lot more than your wrists will end up dead if we don’t get out of here, John.” He strained his arms outward, tested the limits of the rope again. “I think it’s working, but it needs more. Look, just hold still, alright? I’ll try to make this quick.”

“Alright…”

As Sherlock began shifting again, John tried to think of anything other than the myriad fantasies he’d had over the years about the man currently writhing like a lover on top of him.

He thought of cold showers.

Of mutilated corpses.

Of Mycroft in women’s lingerie.

That last one, unexpected but horrifically detailed in his mind, caused him to break into a giggle.

“Glad you’re in such a giddy mood,” Sherlock’s voice came out rough from the exertion, his breath hitching between the words. “You could help, you know.”

“Sorry,” John shook his head, still grinning at the mental image. At this entire situation. This was ridiculous; here they were, trapped in a car boot, tied together with Sherlock frotting against him as if his life depended on it, because it actually did. John’s mind stuck picturing Mycroft in a brassier and lacy panties. Ripples of laughter ran through him, made unsteady by Sherlock’s movements.

This couldn’t really be happening, could it? John felt a little hysterical. “It’s nothing, just— Ohhh.”

A bump in the road shifted their position by a degree, causing Sherlock’s hips to grind directly along John’s half-hard cock, and a helpless moan escaped John’s throat before he could prevent it.

Sherlock went still at that. John’s erection throbbed between them, as obvious as the nose on his face.

Oh, indeed.

“S-Sorry,” John stammered. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“It’s um. It’s fine.” Sherlock cleared his throat. “Perfectly natural response.”

“Yeah, it’s just… The friction, it’s…”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Right.”

“But I have to…”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Just… Ignore.”

Sherlock hesitated for a moment before he started tentatively moving again. John could tell he was trying to avoid it, but there was no room to manoeuvre. Plus, if anything, it was having an even greater effect on him now that they had acknowledged it. That he knew Sherlock was aware that his shimmying was arousing him only made John’s cock twitch in perverted glee.

God, what the hell was wrong with him?!

And Sherlock kept going, because he had to, delivering an inexorable rhythm of frottage against John’s crotch that soon had him breathing hard through his nose. Every brush sent heavy drags of pleasure up his spine and down into his bollocks, bringing him rock-solid and building into a serious threat of something more, something with a very definite climax.

“Sherlock, for real…” John bit his lip. This had to stop soon, or else he was going to lose it entirely, but he couldn’t think of a way to say ‘I’m about to come in my pants’ that wouldn’t leave him mortally humiliated for the rest of his life. He eventually settled on a breathless, “Surely they’re loose enough by now?”

“Not quite. Just a few more minutes.”

“Sherlock—” His voice rasped, more a rush of air than sound. This couldn’t be happening to him. This wasn’t fair.

“Grit your teeth, man!”

John clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, but nothing could block out the sensation of Sherlock rubbing against him, dragging over his cock, increasing in speed and pressure as the binds around them gradually loosened. John was losing himself to the pleasure, the world narrowing down to the tightening of his muscles and the bubbling fire preparing to erupt in his groin. The urge to rut up and finish it was becoming an almost unbearable temptation.

The sounds Sherlock was making in his ear— grunting, panting with effort, certainly weren’t helping. His lips were brushing against him occasionally, accidentally, just beneath his earlobe. It was all so painfully intimate. Almost indistinguishable from the real thing. And combined with the see-saw swaying of his slender hips as they ground against John in just the right way…

John was fast approaching his limit.

“Sherlock,” he tried again, desperation keening in his voice even as he tried to stay quiet, lest their captors overhear. “Sherlock, please…”

“Hold on, John.”

“Fuck… I don’t… Don’t think I…” John’s mind clouded over. The smell of Sherlock’s skin, the press of his body, the heat of it. The hammering rhythm of his heart. The sound of his voice in his ear, deep, thick as dark chocolate and smooth as velvet. Luxurious. John’s every sense: Sherlock. Sherlock. Everywhere, inside his mind and out of it. Every thrust dragging him ever closer, closer, closer. Behind closed eyelids, John gazed into Sherlock’s eyes and saw those pupils blown wide with pleasure, and it was enough. It all was too much.

“Please, please… Oh, please… Sher… Please, please, please—!”

Once it began, he couldn’t stop it. The air was forced out of his lungs as he came, groaning helplessly into Sherlock’s shirt collar. His hips jerked up, hard, meeting the solid resistance of Sherlock’s thigh as his whole body tried to curl against Sherlock’s pinning weight. His fists clenched tight behind his back and his toes curled in the confines of their shoes. A litany of ‘pleases’ and ‘Sherlocks’ spilled from his lips as his cock pulsed between them, thick and hot.

It seemed to go on for an embarrassingly long time.

The waves gradually abated, and his muscles unwound themselves, relaxing enough to allow him to lay down flat again, mortified and gasping for air. For a moment, neither of them moved or spoke. The moment was frozen between them, undefined and fuzzy at the edges. But there was no need to spell it out. If his moaning hadn’t given it away, his frenzied rutting certainly had.

John’s heart was still pounding in his chest when Sherlock pulled at the ropes again. John could feel the difference in the tension, but it still amazed him when Sherlock’s right arm slipped up and out of the coils, followed by his left. Then, having created enough extra slack in the rope by freeing his limbs, Sherlock slid his torso down through the coils around their chests. Honestly, the man was like a god damned contortionist.

Panic momentarily gripped him when Sherlock was forced to rub his face along John’s crotch, because God knows what it smelled like down there. He froze, not daring to move an inch, until at last Sherlock’s upper-half was freed of its binds. John shuffled over to allow Sherlock to settle on the floor of the boot beside him, and together they made short work of the rope tying their legs.

“What now?” John asked, shoving aside his shame and anxiety and focusing on the problem at hand. There would be time to examine the fallout from this later. Pale light flooded the cramped space when Sherlock switched on his phone, and both of them squinted while their eyes got used to the glare.

Sherlock was already reaching for something hidden in his sock when the car rolled to a halt.

“Shit. Are we too late?” John whispered, his body tensing despite the post-orgasmic lethargy weighing heavy in his limbs.

“Traffic light,” Sherlock replied, leaning forward to mess with the boot lid. He had something slim in his hand; its smooth edge reflected the icy blue of the phone screen as he swivelled it into the lock’s mechanism. A few quick jiggles and the lid popped open, allowing a rush of cold London air into the space and revealing a sliver of damp road beyond.

John moved to clamber his way out, but Sherlock gripped his arm. “Not yet,” he said. “Wait until the car starts moving. They’ll notice the weight let up if we get out now.” They sat poised like stone statues, waiting for the moment. Then, the lurch of the engine. “Now!”

John rolled out of the boot first, gripping the lid to stop it raising too far. Sherlock slipped out behind him almost immediately. The car was away from them before he had a chance to shut the lid and hide the evidence of their escape. It would only be seconds before someone would notice it.

“Forget it, John. Run!”

#sherlock #asexual #bisexual #friends to lovers #fanfic #ao3 #look again #johnlock #doom's projects #ch1

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thisismyblogforclassspring2020 · 5 years ago

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Stoker: A Movie of Wrong Opinions

There are many aspects of Stoker that make it a great film. The cinematography is stunning, where many shots feel like they could have been pulled from a photography book. The acting is harrowing, with Mathew Goode playing the human equivalent of a dark alleyway. The soundtrack is knowingly paced, accenting scenes without overpowering them. The editing of the film enhances all of these qualities, mixing around the timeline to keep the viewer guessing. And yet I found it incredibly boring.

Everything about the movie is a technical success, but I was never sitting on the edge of my seat. The movie aims for suspense, but often reveals its’ hand when it shouldn’t. One scene stands out for this. India has lured a boy into the woods, but he begins to get violent. Charlie shows up in the nick of time, and ties the boy up. Charlie says to India that he is all hers. She kicks the boy a few times, while he begs her to stop. The shot is then cut away from to show India and Charlie in the car, India clearly in distress. This is a brilliant piece, leaving the audience guessing as to what happened. They know enough that they know the boy most likely didn’t get away, but the circumstances as to how are unknown. This sequence has the audience feeling uneasy, and excels.

However:

The sequence loses this momentum, as the events that were cut are then shown to the audience in full. We see the boy get his neck snapped by Charlie. The mystery that was built is no more. To justify revealing this information, the movie shows that that India finds the violence erotic and attractive. Sadly, this is information that had already been known, and didn’t need to be spelled out.

Stoker is littered with this, handfeeding the audience information when it is more effective to let the audience figure events out for themselves. Seeing the aunt die, the flashback to the housekeeper’s death, the flashback to Robert’s death, and the exposition scene with the letters all kill the suspense in this way.

I title this review the Movie of Wrong Opinions because out of all the work I’ve read on this film, I seem to be alone in my lack of enjoyment. While some reviews discuss the India and Charlie relationship as ‘telepathic killers’ and magnetic in a way, I saw a girl who lost her father struggle with seeing her mother fall for his brother. I saw a confused kid unwillingly navigate violence that has emerged around her. India strikes me as a terribly tragic character, despite how much the movie tries to make me think otherwise.

These attempts come in the form of trying to make India appear ‘psychotic’. A spider crawls up her leg, and she doesn’t flinch. She is good at hunting and her dad displays her kills as taxidermy. With both of these, the movie is ignoring the fact that if a person lives in or near the wilderness, they deal with that sort of thing all the type. It doesn’t make them a sociopath. This takes the power out of the ending for me, as I didn’t see it as the natural progression of her character.

To summarize, the movie is amazing in all of the technical aspects. Stunning cinematography, great performances, nice soundtrack, and a playfulness with the editing. However, for me personally, the movie’s oversharing nature and seemingly wrong characterization of India kept me from enjoying it as deeply as I feel I should have.

But I digress.

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casuallynoisystudenttt-blog · 6 years ago

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Movie Review! 🎥

Movie Title: Seven

Genre: Mystery

The story of the film Seven is about two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, who are on a desperate pursuit for a killer who based his murders on the Seven Deadly Sins. The two detectives, David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), work on a case trying to figure out who is behind the killings. Somerset, the older detective, is retiring and lost his belief in the good of humanity. While Mills, the younger detective, believes that people are still genuinely good. In an unnamed city in the United States, where it rains most of the time, a serial killer exists murdering his victims gruesomely according to the Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Wrath, and Envy. Each victim murdered accordingly and uniquely to their own sin: An obese man forced to eat until his stomach ruptured (gluttony), a defense lawyer forced to cut off his own flesh (greed), a man named Victor whose hands had been cut off, and the skin stitched back together, tied to his bed and left with an IV to provide enough nutrients to keep him barely alive (sloth), a prostitute who was raped and killed by a man that was held gunpoint and forced to put a deadly strap-on by the killer (lust), a model who was found on her bed with a bottle of sleeping pills glued into her hand and a phone on the other, and her nose had been cut off from her face, she had a choice to call for help and live her entire life disfigured or choose the sleeping pills to put her life out of misery, she chose the latter (pride). The killer, who is known by the name of John Doe, wants to make a world a better place. He plans seven gruesome, horrifying, uniquely murders for each sin. He knows that he is wrong for killing, but he is using himself as an example to shine light on the seven deadly sins.

I would like to mention the acting that was done by the main cast. They did a really great job of portraying their roles and they played their part very well. It was beautifully done in my opinion. First, Brad Pitt, he was so perfect for the role of David Mills, a young, amateur, first day on the job kind of detective who wants to prove that he’s capable of doing anything to excel at his job. But at the same time, an arrogant, hot-headed, and an impatient detective who always get carried away by his emotions. Brad Pitt is an excellent actor and I think that portraying David Mills was a piece of cake for him and he did a wonderful job at it. The second actor that I would like to talk about is Morgan Freeman. Freeman, who played the role of Detective Lt. William Somerset, looked like it was natural for him to portray the character. Detective Somerset is the opposite of David Mills. Somerset is a retiring police, patient man, and understanding unlike Mills. Third is Kevin Spacey. Spacey played the role of the main antagonist who is known by the name of John Doe. John Doe is a serial killer who targets people who he thinks represents one of the seven deadly sins. Spacey really has the charisma of a killer because of his acting skills. He looks creepy and insane and I think that he is perfect for the role of the main antagonist. And lastly, Gwyneth Paltrow, she has the least screen time out of all the main characters. She played the role of Tracy Mills, the wife of David Mills. At first I thought “what does she have to do with the story?” But at the climax part of the movie she played an important role to David Mills and her being the wife of David Mills, added drama to the movie. Every main cast did a great job but in my opinion there are flaws like there’s not enough character development for John Doe. I didn’t even get to know his real name. There’s less screen time for a main character like Tracy Mills. They should give her more screen time so the viewers would develop an attachment to her so that killing her right at the end of the movie would have left more impact for the viewers.

The story of the movie is something. It’s not like every murder-mystery movie when the killer will show up at the end of the movie and it turns out that the killer is someone close to the main protagonist, no it’s not like that. It’s different. The film started slow and it continued to build up until the end of the movie. The ending, in my humble opinion, is really the most memorable and iconic part of the movie up to this date. We did not get any big twists until the ending. We only learned that the killer kills someone who represents the seven deadly sins, and that Tracy is pregnant during the whole span of the movie. I don’t think we have other twists until the ending. Like I said the movie started slow. It was like the first few minutes of the movie is like a generic mystery movie. Investigating the first crime scene, Introducing characters, letting the characters each other know who they are, eating at a house, eating at the diner, investigating again and many more. Then it continued to build up. There were chasing scenes, shooting at each other scenes, and disturbing scenes like the “sloth scene” and “pride scene”. We also learned who the killer is, what the killer looks like halfway through the movie. John Doe surrendered himself to the police and it was a bold move I must say, but why? Why would a serial killer surrender if he only killed five victims of the seven deadly sins? Where are the other two, Envy and Wrath? It turns out it was all part of the plan. This is where the real plot twist came. After he turned himself in, he offered to take the two detectives to the final two victims and confess to the murders. The detectives followed Doe and it turned out that the last two victims were Mills, and Doe, himself. Doe taunted Mills that he was envious of his life with Tracy, and Tracy died because of this. Doe killed the pregnant Tracy and made a man deliver a box with her head in it. Mills shot Doe because of this making them the last two victims. Envy for Doe and wrath for Mills. I think that the twist was very emotional especially when Mills said the line “What’s in the box? What’s in the fucking box?” It showed that he truly loved Tracy and learning that she’s pregnant made him more wrathful towards Doe. Seeing Doe and Mills being the last victim of the seven deadly sins were unexpected until the end of the movie in my opinion. This just shows how beautifully the movie is paced and done.

Seven is undoubtedly one of the darkest movies of all time. The scenes are dark, figuratively and literally. Most of the time it is raining until the last scene where they went to an isolated place, the crime scenes are disturbing for some people like when they found the “sloth victim” who looked lifeless but turned out to be alive despite looking like a corpse, the “pride victim” whose face has been mutilated by Doe and the “gluttony victim” who was forced to eat until his stomach burst. The effects were beautifully done for a 1995 film. The prosthetics looks real up to this date. The gun fights sounded like a real gunfight. Overall I think the effects were perfect and it aged well.

Overall, the film Seven is definitely a superb film. It’s a must watch film with your family, friends or a loved one. It’s a cult classic, it aged well and it has a great atmosphere for a mystery movie. The suspense of them finding who the real killer is was well done. The movie was beautifully paced. The story is very unique. The tying of the Seven Deadly Sins to the murders was well thought-out. The actors were great, the setting is wonderfully placed, and the effects were beautiful for a 1995 film. And of course, the twist at the end of the movie will leave everyone emotional and disturbed at the same time. I would recommend everyone to watch it if you want a film that is classic, story-driven, and at the same time unique for its genre. 5 out of 5 stars overall for the movie.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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robertkstone · 6 years ago

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2019 Volkswagen Jetta SE First Test: A Worthy Civic Competitor?

Have you seen the deals? Consumers who aren’t too particular can snag a $20,000–$25,000 compact sedan with staggeringly high incentives of up to $4,000. That’s the market the 2019 Volkswagen Jetta enters; the redesigned car competes against cars pretending they belong in a lower price class. But after testing a $23,005 2019 Jetta SE sedan, VW shouldn’t need to adopt similarly aggressive tactics, at least at first. We drove Volkswagen’s most affordable and best-selling sedan on the track and in the real world to determine what the German car can offer against the segment leader, the Civic, as well as the rest of the class.

Not every car with a down-payment-sized discount is worth driving. Every buyer’s situation is different, but sometimes it’s worth paying a little more for a better day-in, day-out experience. Those willing to give VW a chance will find the 2019 Jetta a decently well-rounded and very quick package. Yes, quick. The 2019 Jetta SE would have smoked all seven cars in our comprehensive 2016 Big Test of compact sedans, a comparison a base-engine Civic won over the last-gen Jetta and five others. Although the outgoing Jetta offered 20 hp more on more expensive models, every 2019 Jetta with the 1.4-liter turbo-four is rated at 147 hp at 5,000 rpm and 184 lb-ft of torque at just 1,400 rpm.

With a quick-shifting eight-speed automatic, the new Jetta hits 60 mph in just 7.6 seconds. That’s ahead of a 2.0-liter 2016 Civic sedan (8.6 seconds), 2016 Chevrolet Cruze sedan (8.2 seconds), 2.0-liter 2017 Hyundai Elantra sedan (8.9 seconds), and a slow-poke 2018 Toyota Corolla (9.9 seconds). The Civic’s turbocharged engine option hits 60 in a quicker 6.8 seconds. The Jetta’s response to full throttle from a stop is a slight hesitation followed by more oomph than you might expect from a 147-hp car. For a compact car with EPA ratings of 30/40 mpg city/highway—good but a tiny bit below the Civic sedan—passing acceleration is responsive, too.

Where the 2019 Jetta didn’t excel was its 127-foot braking distance from 60 to 0 mph. That ties the base-engine Civic and is a few feet shorter than the Corolla, but the Civic 1.5T, Elantra, and Cruze all stop shorter. Road test editor Chris Walton liked the Jetta’s firm pedal and good initial bite but said, “It feels like these tires have no grip for the rest of the trip to 0 mph.” Our SE-trimmed tester wore 205/60R16 all-season Bridgestone Ecopia tires; the higher R-Line and SEL Premium trims come with larger 17-inch alloy wheels wrapped in 205/55R17 all-season rubber. Around town, the tires keep quiet unless you’re moving quickly around curves. The Jetta can hold its own on a winding road, though the upcoming Jetta GLI model—with more power and a greater focus on sportiness—will likely be a better back-road companion.

If your absolute top priority is getting a good deal with a warranty almost as long as the VW’s, consider the Hyundai Elantra, which placed third in our 2016 Big Test of compact sedans.

Even if you’re seeking an A-to-B type commuter, you’ll want a car that can handle the unexpected and quickly maneuver around obstacles. Through our figure-eight test, which tracks driving characteristics such as acceleration, braking, cornering, and the transitions between them, the Jetta finished in 27.5 seconds at 0.62 g (average). That performance falls in the middle of the compacts mentioned above; outliers include the 2016 Cruze Premier with 27.1 seconds at 0.65 g (average) and the 2018 Corolla XSE with 28.4 seconds at 0.59 g (average). On the track, testing director Kim Reynolds said the Jetta had “really nice turn-in” and felt “flat and stable.”

On a highway road trip, I found the suspension—which provides a comfortable ride most of the time—to be a little stiff over rough freeway expansion joints. The Jetta also provides an acceptable amount of interior quietness for an inexpensive four-door, but the car won’t surprise you with “class-above” quietness. In traffic, the car’s eight-speed automatic is responsive. In fact, those with a more relaxed driving style might consider pressing the car’s Eco button for a smoother driving experience (the transmission also has a Sport mode). When it comes to smoothness, though, the eight-speed automatic is no CVT. Pull away from a stop sign with minimal to moderate throttle, and your head will bob as the car shifts—it’s subtle, but still something CVTs avoid.

The 2019 Jetta gains back ground with its interior layout. Not so much the materials—which are a mix of hard- and soft-touch surfaces (the soft front center armrest is appreciated)—but the layout. The touchscreen and controls are all tilted toward the driver for better visibility and access. It’s an incredibly useful design touch that makes the most of the 6.5-inch touchscreen standard on the Jetta S, SE, and R-Line models; SEL variants get an 8.0-inch touchscreen. Below that screen and the central air vents are the HVAC controls that don’t feel particularly rich but are perfectly functional—again, the materials are class-appropriate but won’t give anyone the illusion the controls were ripped from an Audi. Below those HVAC controls, on the right side of the shift stalk for all Jetta 1.4Ts is a row of blank button placeholders; VW tells us they’ll remain empty until the GLI model arrives. Our Jetta SE tester lacked rear-seat air vents, but it’s roomy and comfortable back there for outboard passengers.

Almost every Jetta includes automatic emergency braking as standard (it’s part of a $450 package on the base S trim). Visibility is good all around, but we wish the outboard headrests weren’t hard-mounted into the back rests, and could fold down out of the way.

At the SE’s $23,005 price, Volkswagen throws in a bunch of content. That trim includes automatic emergency braking, LED headlights, a large sunroof, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay on a 6.5-inch touchscreen, a proximity key that doesn’t require pushing a button to unlock the car (the most convenient version of this tech), heated front seats, and a peppy powertrain. To assuage the skepticism of folks not convinced of Volkswagen reliability or reluctant to give the automaker a chance after its diesel scandal, the Jetta is covered by a class-leading 6-year/72,000-mile basic warranty. It’s an impressive security blanket of a warranty, outdoing the also-laudable 5-year/60,000-mile basic warranty from Hyundai and Kia.

VW’s long basic warranty is exactly twice as long as what you’ll get from a Honda Civic. But the class-leading Civic is great. And at this price range, the spacious and also efficient Honda includes features not found on the Jetta SE, including a second USB outlet, rear-seat air vents, an eight-speaker sound system (the Jetta SE gets four speakers), and the helpful auto brake-hold feature. The Civic’s auto brake-hold systems holds the brakes for you when you’re stopped, automatically releasing the brake when you touch the accelerator pedal.

If you’ve already crossed off your list heavily discounted compacts, consider the 2019 Jetta in the SEL non-Premium trim. The Jetta SEL trim adds a 10.3-inch digital instrument cluster like nothing in its class—I spent a year in an Audi A4 with a similar system and miss the cool tech. The extra $2,270 from SE to SEL also gets you 10-color ambient lighting, a larger touchscreen with a second USB, a CD player (Spotify and Apple Music don’t have everything), adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, and a 400-watt eight-speaker sound system. In SEL form, the Jetta is a quick and spacious compact with a killer warranty, neat cabin tech, and a touchscreen that smartly faces the driver. The cabin doesn’t have universally high-quality materials, but that’s why you’re considering Volkswagens and Hondas instead of Audis and Mercedes. If driving a good car is still a priority to you in a compact-sedan class full of discounted options, add the Jetta to your list beside the Civic.

2019 Volkswagen Jetta (SE) BASE PRICE $23,005 PRICE AS TESTED $23,005 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, FWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan ENGINE 1.4L/147-hp/184-lb-ft turbo DOHC 16-valve I-4 TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 3,031 lb (59/41%) WHEELBASE 105.7 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 185.1 x 70.8 x 57.4 in 0-60 MPH 7.6 sec QUARTER MILE 16.0 sec @ 85.8 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 127 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.80 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 27.5 sec @ 0.62 g (avg) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 30/40/34 mpg ENERGY CONS, CITY/HWY 112/84 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 0.57 lb/mile

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