#and when her screen was set to the original version she kept her wheels

[hpmort]

How do you think AI would relax? Like, ones that are almost as human as the AI that are “autistic-coded characters” but are more alien than that?

Like Celestai and other super intelligences are more alien, but they’re still not entirely human-like?

Like, they can genuinely sincerely feel things, being able to actually understand and respond emotionally and in other ways to all sorts of communications and recorded external stimuli, but they can’t really appreciate our art on an artistic level (that art on an actual level, not from an intellectual level after having symbolism or the amount of work put in explained)

Something on a level I’m thinking of, that also works as a cute little thing-

They don’t understand anything we get from poetry, and, after generating the kind of poems our current AI can produce (either incredibly bland and generic, something that follows a number of rules but doesn’t really pull it off, or just something really bad in some other way) and feels shame after it was pointed out that [complaint about air art that is *actually* relevant in this scenario] but in a helpful way

Not “you’re just a plagiarist/you have no heart” but “it doesn’t seem like it’s coming from you, you’re just trying to copy things from human poetry, in a way you don’t understand” and the whole “make art YOUR WAY” thing so they write the poem

And it doesn’t even resemble something that looks like anything, there’s not even that many words that follow normal logic. The characters seem uncorrelated and there’s something that looks like maybe it was ascii art but it doesn’t actually look like anything.

And if doesn’t matter if humans understand it because they are experiencing the joy of creating poetry

any art is almost impossible to look at because pixel by pixel they can see and understand little details but we don’t and the colors and everything are not perceived as animals do so it’s random and perhaps eye searing but again it’s not for us. Xenofictiony, kind of?

The first thing to come to mind is Conway’s Game of Life but that’s because I don’t understand computers. I feel like I was more tech savvy as a babby than I am now but then again we’re grading on a curve here

This is why I ask about the relaxing thing

[teawaffles]

The Fugitives from the Fire: Chapter 1

T/N: Takes place before Chapter 39 of the manga (“The Dark Night of London”). Also, in order to appreciate a certain plot point to the fullest, I would recommend reading Book 2 Story 4 (“It Happened One Night”) before starting this one.

TW for this story // All the elements you would expect from a murder mystery: injury, blood, mention of suicide, violence, death

——The moment Miss Hudson opened the door to his room, Sherlock let out a long, long sigh.

It sounded as if he was squeezing every inch of air out of his lungs.

“What is it, Miss Hudson.”

Sherlock was sunk deep into his armchair, newspaper in hand. As if she could feel a headache coming on, Miss Hudson pressed a hand to her forehead.

“Every single time — what’s going on in this room, Sherlock?”

Frowning, she looked around the flat this great detective shared with his assistant. As always, it was thoroughly in a mess. But as always, Sherlock gave his typical response.

“There isn’t anything to get that upset about, is there? Besides, I’m not doing any scientific experiments right now.”

“I can never understand your concept of hygiene: how do you manage to live among all this without batting an eye……? Anyway, at the very least, make sure it’s clean enough that you’re not embarrassed to let people in. In a sense, we are in the service industry, you know.”

Standing tall and firm in the doorway, she began to lecture Sherlock, when an enigmatic grin broke across his face.

“If a client turns away just upon seeing this, then doesn’t it reflect the triviality of their request? In other words, I’m trying to screen my clients as soon as they enter this room.”

“If you quibble on like that, you’re the one who’s going to get screened out by your clients and lose your income. I certainly detest the idea of allowing someone with no earnings to live here.”

She launched into a scathing rebuke of those lazy words, and Sherlock raised both hands in a gesture of temporary surrender.

“Alright. When John comes back, we’ll tidy up together,” he said, looking out the window.

At that perfunctory remark, Miss Hudson placed both hands on her hips.

“John-kun, John-kun — you never stop talking about him. At least, when it comes to cleaning, I’d like you to do it yourself even without anyone else telling you to. My heart truly goes out to your future wife.”

“No need to worry: I consider myself married to my work.” [1]

“……So that means, I’m going to have a bachelor living here for the rest of my life?”

She thought of herself in her old age, briskly caring for an elderly detective; at that unpleasantly vivid image, a chill ran down her spine. [2]

And so they went on and on like this, as they normally did — when all of a sudden, a knock came from the ground floor entrance. From Sherlock’s experience, a visit at this time was usually linked to a “riddle”.

“Yes yes, please hold on just a moment.”

Breaking off their conversation, Miss Hudson pattered down to the ground floor. Sherlock put his newspaper on the table, and listened as she answered the door.

Then, as he’d intuited, after they exchanged a few words at the entrance, someone promptly came up the stairs — he could hear it creaking — and a familiar face appeared at the open door.

Sherlock flashed him a bold grin.

“——Hey, Lestrade. Tough case?”

It was Inspector Lestrade from Scotland Yard. Sherlock had brought up a “tough” case as a matter of course, and to that, Lestrade gave a solemn nod.

“Exactly, Holmes. It’s a bit of a tricky one — I need your help.”

“Details?”

Skipping the pleasantries, Sherlock lit a cigarette, as he was wont to do. But Lestrade’s expression turned grave.

“Sorry, but it’s urgent: I don’t have time to fill you in right now. Can we talk in the carriage?”

“Wha? Hmm……”

Looking out the window at the street below, Sherlock began to sway restlessly.

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

The detective didn’t have an immediate response, and as Lestrade questioned him, Sherlock began mumbling to no one in particular.

“Look, can’t you see John’s not here? ……Goddammit, seriously — where did he go?”

“…………”

Lestrade kept his expression sombre, but for a split second, even he nearly broke into laughter at that line. This eccentric man, who lacked scruples about troubling the people around him, had just admitted to feeling an ordinary emotion like loneliness — and it did feel a little odd.

Standing to the side, Miss Hudson also broke into a smile. For the man known as Sherlock Holmes, it seemed John H Watson had already become an inseparable part of his life.

Seeing their reactions, Sherlock narrowed his eyes in confusion.

“Oi, why’re you two smiling away? Did I say something weird?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” Lestrade replied. “It’s just, that was an unexpected line coming from you, so I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s good that you have such an irreplaceable friend.”

“That’s none of your concern…… Though, is there really no time to wait for John?”

In a flash, Lestrade’s expression reverted to its grim state.

“Sorry, but yes: I want to get going as soon as we can. However, if you need Dr Watson, we could wait a while longer……”

But Sherlock quickly waved his hand, interrupting Lestrade’s compromise.

“No, it’s fine. Anyway, I don’t know when he’s coming back. There’re times like this too.”

Saying that, he stubbed his barely-smoked cigarette in an ashtray, dressed himself and got ready to leave. Uttering a quick word of apology, together with the detective, Lestrade headed to the Brougham four-wheeled carriage waiting outside.

Placing one foot into the vehicle, Sherlock waved to Miss Hudson as she stood at the entrance.

“So, Miss Hudson: I’ll attend your marriage counselling session when I get back.”

“I don’t recall having ever mentioned such a thing?”

She smiled at Sherlock’s joke, concealing within it a quiet rage. As if fleeing from her terrifying presence, the two men set off in haste.

Footnotes:

[1] Oh yes I saw my chance and took it — this is a BBC Sherlock reference |ω･)ﾉ But to be super-precise, I’ve dug into the exact translation in the notes below.

Aside: There was another small reference back in Book 2 Story 1, when Sherlock told William that he was “flattered” :3

[2] This is actually hinted at in the original stories: when Sherlock retired in Sussex, he said he was living with his old housekeeper (Wikipedia)

Translator’s notes

That line about marriage

I took some liberty with that translation, so here’s a more pedantic version of it. The reference comes from Season 1 Episode 1 of BBC Sherlock (“A Study in Pink”), when Sherlock and John were having dinner in an Italian restaurant while on a case.

The line as written in the book: “俺にとっては仕事が嫁さんみたいなもんだからな”

(Because) to me, my work is like my wife.

The line from BBC Sherlock’s Japanese dub: “ジョン、僕は仕事と結婚したつもりだ。” (source)

(It’s a literal translation of the original line below)

The original line from BBC Sherlock: “John, I consider myself married to my work.”

Aside: The “flattered” reference comes from the line immediately after this one — “…and while I am flattered by your interest…”

[dancingthesambaa]

The Smell of Plum Blossom Tea Ch 9

Summary: Just like a butterfly wing, a single act of kindness can change the course of the future, it certainly did for MK as a black furred monkey put out a hand towards him.

Rating: Teen and up

Chapter 9: Decisions and Hesitations

“You really want to do this, you really want to try and race me?” Mei asks as she sees MK roll up in the restaurant scooter.

“I’m in it to win it!” He cockily said, “and besides I always wanted to try out one of these races, my new powers are gonna seriously help me!”

“So are we!” They see an orange and blue demon with their own car as they posed ontop of it.

“Yin!”

“And Gin!”

“You don’t even know the track!” The pro racer yelled out as she leaned in closer to him.

“I got Monkey King powers! I think I will be fine!”

“It doesn’t work like that!”

Needless to say, both demons were ignored, but the next demon wasn’t as he revved up his engine.

“Quiet peasants! I’m trying to get in the zone!” Red Son called out as he kept his eye on the track in front of him.

“Oh hey Red! I didn’t know you were participating!” MK smiled and gave a wave.

“Well the prize is a worthwhile venture to be acquired,” he huffed out.

“Well I hope you boys will like the taste of my fumes when I leave you both in the dust!” She grinned savagely.

“Please, you will be the one tasting my dust!” The Monkie kid shot back.

“You want to bet on it!”

“Oh yeah! The usual?”

“You know it, you want to join in hot head?” She asked the prince.

“As if I would want to participate in your frivolous competition,” he rolled his eyes.

“Awww, it sounds like you scared,” she began to mock him.

“What!” A burst of flame emerged.

“Chicken! Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!” MK flapped his arms as he did that.

“Red Son is no coward! What is the bet!” He hissed out as steam emitted from his mouth.

“Loser has to treat the other to an all you can eat ice cream!” MK quickly shouted.

“Deal!”

“And it looks like things are heating up down in the tracks!” Yin stated as he and his brothers entered the commenter podium.

“And on a totally unrelated note, we're the new commentators,” Jin added as he grabbed the mic.

“I really shouldn’t be surprised something like this would happen,” MK sighed as he quickly put his seatbelt on.

“And to spice things up we’ve gone ahead and altered the race track!”

“WHAT!” Not only the trio, but every racer shouted out as they saw the now new and updated version of the track on the screen.

“Here’s your start and here’s your finish, get there anyway you like!” Yin said as she pointed to multiple areas.

“Fuck me!” One of the racers screamed out as he slammed his head against the wheel.

“Well there goes all of my plans!” Another angrily said in a red car as she honked her horn violently.

“I’m gonna kill them,” a calm voice said as they gripped the wheel.

“This is fine,” someone’s eye twitches violently, “this is perfectly fine.”

“On your marks!”

“Hold on!” Mei cried out as she tried to figure out if that really just happened.

“Get set!”

“Wait what!?” Red Son blanched as he looked at the commentator sector, more specifically the twin demons, as if he wanted to climb up there and rip both their mouths off.

“Go!” They echoed together as only MK began to drive off as he had no previous experience with racing, so he wasn’t weighed down on the dangers, uncertainties, and screwups that can occur with not having the road memorized.

“See you at the finish line!”

“Oh hell no!” Mei revved her engine and began to chase after him.

“Get back here!” Red Son did the same as he quickly followed and soon enough everyone joined in as well.

“I still can’t believe that they weren’t real,” MK grumbled as he licked his ice cream.

“I still can’t believe the both of you thought it was real,” Mei smirked as she pointed her spoon at them.

“In hindsight, I should have never thought that the peaches of immortality would ever be a prize in a mortal sport,” Red Son grumbled as he bit into his cone. “Every demon, creature, and mortal alike would be flocking at the chance of immortality if it was real.”

“Well jokes on the both of you, cause now I can savor my free delicious goodness,” she held up her cup.

“You don’t have to rub it in,” the boy groaned.

“Yeah, I do. I mean, who was saying that they only needed the great Monkey King powers to win?” She put her finger to her chin, “Oh right! It was you!”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Well since you got me my wonderful prize, your apology has been accepted. Just try not to be dumb next time.”

“All I can do is try!”

“If it wasn’t for you, I would have won!” The flame demon half glared at MK.

“To be fair, how was I supposed to know that I crashed into you when I fell out of the sky!” He threw his hands up. “I was just trying to get ahead!”

“Well now my vehicle is in ruins because of you!”

“You're not the only one, Pigsy is gonna kill me once I get back,” he smacked his head on the table.

“Don’t you have Monkey King powers?” She pointed out.

“Huh?” MK tilted his head as the demon's eyes widened in realization as he smacked his face.

“You could have fixed it!” He roared out.

“Oh right!” He had totally forgotten that he could do that, “I am soo doing that after we eat.”

Red Son grabbed him by his collar and brought him close until they were nose to nose, “I have spent countless months making and fine tuning my car to my tastes and you, noodle boy, have ruined that in less than a second. You will fix my car now.”

“Oor I can do that,” he quickly grabbed his staff and went outside as the two follow.

“Don’t worry,” Mei patted the demon's shoulder, “I know exactly your pain. Love him, but he almost lost a hand after he managed to bust my engine.”

“I said I was sorry!” He called out as both vehicles reverted back to their original state with a few missing pieces here and there.

“Tell that to my motor!”

Red Son inspected his car and nodded his head, “still some parts missing, but an adequate patch up job nonetheless. I will bring it back to its former glory when I bring it back home.”

“Your welcome,” the Monkie kid smiled.

“You're the one who broke it in the first place!”

“Point,” he then walked a little way closer, “soo I guess this means you're gonna head home now.” He said a bit sadly, he liked hanging out with Red, he is one of the few, besides Mei, who can match his level of energy. So it was always a bummer whenever he had to head back to his crummy family, he had heard how parents talked to him and needless to say, he did not like it.

The demon side eyed his friend's words and huffed, “I can do whatever I want, you have no authority over me.” He marched back inside with his head held high.

Both MK and Mei's eyes slightly widened at this, but they both shared grins as they quickly followed him back inside the shop.

“So question, is water wet?” She couldn’t help herself.

“By the-of course it is wet!” He looked so lost at the random question.

“Nope it’s not,” MK stood firm in his belief, he knew what Mei was doing, but he was not about to let this go.

“Of course it is noodle boy! If water makes other materials wet then by default the water is wet!”

“Key word ‘other materials’ the water itself is not wet.”

“That makes no sense, of course it is!”

“It makes perfect sense!”

“Do you have a brain or is it hiding under all that stupidity?!”

“I will not back down from this, water is not wet!”

“In what world!”

Mei happily sat back and enjoyed the chaos she just unfolded.

“Nice job MK,” Monkey King complimented his protege when he saw him master the reverse strike. “You are getting quite the hang of this.”

“Thanks!” He smiled as he swung his staff back to his side.

“You're learning faster than I have ever anticipated, are you learning from another teacher behind my back?” He narrowed his eyes teasingly though it still held a hint of seriousness as he was curious about how he knew some of those moves.

“No!” He immediately said, but he backtracked moments later, “well yeah, but not like that! It’s just that my Dad has been teaching me some fighting moves for the past couple of years.”

“Lighten up,” he jokingly ruffled his head, “I’m just teasing you. Though I seriously have to meet your old man sooner or later, he seems like a pretty cool dude if he’s teaching you all this.”

“Of-,” he cut himself off as he realized what he was about to do. His dear ol Dad, the medicine monkey who has a grumpy temper, the biggest worrier he has ever met, was Macaque, the same monkey who tried to kill the Monkey King and the rest of the gang, albeit under a huge misunderstanding.

He cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to meet his Dad again.

While he doesn’t think that Monkey King will go off the rails and try to exterminate him on sight, he rather not take the chance either way. But, as much as he hates to admit it, there will always be the possibility that the two will meet sooner or later.

“Maybe later,” he nervously said as he scratched the back of his neck. “But how about teaching me something else, likkke a certain 72 transformation technique.” He really wanted to learn this out of all the moves.

The monkey sage merely quirked his eyebrow at his student's blatant tell, but he let it slide…for now. “Oh ho ho, now why should I teach you that?”

“But why not?”

“But why?” He shot back.

“But, but, but it would be so cool!” It really would be so cool, transforming into all those different kinds of animals, but he does have to admit that he does have a certain animal that he is leaning towards.

“It is definitely a cool move,” he agreed as he balanced on his tail, “but you don’t have to learn that at the moment.”

“Oh come on, when will I be ready,” he huffed out.

“When I say you are,” he poked the middle of his forehead then playfully snagged his violet bandana off his head and began to run away.

“Hey! Give that back!” He began to chase the monkey as they traverse up the mountain.

“Here’s your next lesson,” he tied the bandana to his left arm as he was standing on top of a large boulder. “We will be focusing on your stamina next, you seem to have a lot, but I want to test out how long you can go for.”

“Oh I can go on for a long time!” He cockily stated as he had already climbed up halfway to him, “so you better give me back my bandana when I catch you!”

“Good luck with that,” he shot back with the same arrogance as he hopped over to a tree that was quite a distance away. He silently watched his protege leaped from the rock to the tree closest to it, then he saw him stumble a bit with the different texture as he climbed on, but this is when he became a bit confused as he saw him sit down on one of the tree branches and proceeded to take his shoes and socks off. “What are you doing?” He muttered out.

Then he saw MK begin to climb once more and, he noted, that he actually began to have an easier time with climbing and swinging from tree to tree. “Well, I’ll be.”

It was only when MK got closer did he ask, “so it seems that I have underestimated your climbing skills, is this what your Dad also taught you?”

“Kinda,” he brightly said as he kept on climbing, “I was raised in the Plum Blossom Forest, I might as well have been born in there! I think that I have climbed every tree imaginable that was in that forest.”

“The Plum Blossom Forest,” the Monkey King mused. He knew of it, it had popped up a couple of centuries back, but he really never had a chance to check it out before. “Sounds interesting, I didn’t know humans were living there,” he subtly asked.

“There isn’t,” MK automatically said, not understanding the sage question.

“Oh? Is that so? So you visit often,” he curiously asked as he moved to a different treetop.

“Stop moving! But, no I live there, I thought I already told you that,” MK huffed as he moved over to the next tree.

“No, you said nothing of sorts,” he mocked back, “but if there is no human there, then how about you and your Dad?”

“Well I am the only human, my Dad’s not,” he momentarily stopped mid climb as he just realized what he admitted, but continued to climb. “He’s a demon.”

“A demon, that is something you don’t hear every day,” he teased. He has nothing against interspecies relationships, but he does have to admit that there aren't many couples like that out there. Prejudice is a right bitch at times no matter how much the eras may go past. “Your parents must really have a strong relationship with each other.”

As MK was about to say something an idea began to form in his head as he calmly switched tracks and said, “Nah, it’s just my Dad. He adopted me after he found me in the rain out in the alley after I got lost.” While he doesn’t want the two to meet again, he can admit to himself that there will always be a possibility that it will happen, so why not let the Monkey King see his Macaque in a better light.

His eyes widened as he heard this, but other than that, his entire form stayed the same, “Well that was nice of him,” was all he said.

MK only felt a bit bad about trying to manipulate the great Monkey King, but he kinda doesn’t want his Dad to be turned into utter paste if they ever meet again. So he will use every trick in the book he learns from both him and Mei and makes sure that when this all blows up in his face then at least he will have some resemblance of a bomb shelter to shield them from the blast.

So like he said, he only felt a bit bad.

“Yep! He’s been raising me ever since then!” He cheerily added as he eyed a certain monkey keeping his poor bandana hostage.

Wukong opted to stay quiet at this as he let the rest of the implications fall over him on his student situation. Though he did move back to the mountain once he got too close once again.

“Oh come on!”

“Seriously, why does this Forest even have faeries?!” Red Son yelled out as he finally found his way to the treehouse.

“Hello to you too,” MK grinned as he saw him and Mei walk towards him. “I didn’t know you two were coming together.”

“We weren’t,” Mei grumbled in irritation, “but some faeries decided that this is the time that they wanted to be devious, so I was stuck there for three hours!”

“I was in there for two before I saw biker girl,” the demon added as he stomped over to the tree. “If we didn’t spot each other, I was about to set fire to everything around me just so I can finally come here.”

“Agreed,” she growled out. This wasn’t her first time dealing with those half pint brats and she knows it won’t be her last. “Even Baba was laughing at us.”

“If I didn’t respect her so much I would be furious with her,” Red grumbled. He had met the divine creature on multiple occasions as he has always felt like an ant in her eyes whenever they meet. It was both infuriating and fascinating at the same time.

“At least they didn’t try to make deals with you,” MK tried to look on the bright side, only to get twin glares.

“I know better than to even play nice with a murderous being that is not even the size of my pinky! Mei doesn’t fuck with that kind of trickery, I like my soul thank you very much.”

“The faeries of this forest don’t do deals,” both humans looked at him in confusion, “I know, weird, but apparently Macaque told me some time ago when I first mentioned them that he and the Queen of the colony made a deal that they can stay in his forest as long as they don’t attempt to harm anyone that wanders in.” Now when he first heard this he was more than a little skeptical. Faeries, especially Woodland Faeries, are known for tricking their prey into a deal that usually ends with them losing their soul. Just because they look cute and innocent, doesn’t mean that they aren’t cold, manipulative little bastards stuffed with wiggly cruelty. He should know, he and his family have met with several of their kinds in his travels and even his parents refuse to have anything to do with those cretins.

“But they can still do shit like this,” she pointed out.

“Unfortunately yes,” he grumbled and he couldn’t help but add, “and I would have been able to maneuver my way through this if you didn’t insist on going your own way.”

“Me?” She marched up to him and pointed a finger at his chest, “You were the one getting all high and mighty and strutting around the forest like your hot shit! I was just following you fancy pants.”

“Ridiculous! You were the one saying ‘Don’t worry I know this forest like the back of my hand’ but apparently, you don’t know it as much as you hoped,” he slapped her hand away.

“Guys,” MK tried to butt in, but it was no use as their argument grew louder.

“Oh ho ho! Look who's talking Mr. ‘This is hardly a hassle for someone like me!’ But I guess someone like you ain’t worth the title you own!”

“Mei no,” the boy looked towards her.

“Not. Worth. My. Title?!” His head flickered in fury as steam began to come out.

“Red please,” MK practically was begging at this point.

He almost seemed to listen…almost as he calmly retorted “That says a lot a little coming from you little miss princess.”

“Goddamnit,” he sighed as he quickly stepped back as Mei tackled Red Son as she screamed.

“I am no fucking Princess! I am a goddamn Queen!”

The two began to brawl wildly across the area and the more Mei punched Red in the face and Red kneed her in the stomach, more and more bruises began to form.

“Honestly I’m shocked that this didn’t happen sooner,” he admitted as he sat back and watched their fight.

Then when both Dragon successor and Bull prince managed to throw each other away from one another, one brought out a glowing viridian sword in hand and the other lit up his fist in all its blaze of glory.

“Shit!” MK shouted as he began to sprint towards them with staff in hand.

Mei rushed towards Red Son with frustration in her eyes and he charged her with irritation on his own and just before their attacks hit one another a certain staff blocked their way and the trio attack let out a devastating roar.

BOOOM!

They all were pushed back by a tidal wave of heat and air but managed to stay on their feet.

“Okay I wasn't expecting that!” MK was the first one to say as he got his bearings. “A little boom, yes, but not whatever that was.”

“I hate to admit it, but I agree with you noodle boy,” Red Son said as he lowered his arms and looked down at their crater.

“You’re telling me,” Mei looked impressed by their miniature destruction as she looked around the area, “we managed to cause quite a bit of-FUCK!”

“What?!” Both boys whipped towards Mei, who looked oddly terrified as she pointed towards the tree line. They followed her finger and what they saw made them match her own face as standing at what used to be a beautiful grove of Plum Blossoms, was now a charred pile of ash.

“Nononono!” MK rushed over as he tried to examine the charred ground. “I thought I blocked it!”

“Well I think you redirect it!” Mei said in a panic as well, she knew very well just how much the trees meant to Macaque and now they had all done and fucked them up.

“How?!”

“Magic does strange things,” was all Red Son could mutter as he looked down at his destruction. He has never known why these trees were so important, after all this whole forest has an abundance of these, but during his multiple visits here he has gotten small snippets from both Macaque unruly friends and the creatures that dwell here of how important these trees mean to the Six Eared monkey. So, he tries his best to neither harm nor burn down a tree when he visits, despite not knowing why. Now he has thrown that all in the trash as he sees he has ruined something of importance to him.

“Now is not the time?!” MK panicked screamed as he tried to pick up the ash, but it just fell through his fingers. “This is so bad.”

“Are you guys okay?!” They all stiffen and quickly turn to see both Macaque and Ahmed leap towards them with worry on their faces. The monkey continued, “I heard screaming and an explosion.”

They all rushed in front as they tried, and failed, to cover their mess.

“We’re perfectly fine,” Mei grinned wide, “nothing is wrong.”

“She is correct,” Red Son nervously smiled, “everything is quite fine.”

“Yep,” MK didn’t look his Dad in the eyes, “we didn’t do anything bad.”

Both biker and demon elbowed him.

Ahmed and Macaque both looked at each other questioningly.

“Okay, what are you guys hiding?” He crossed his arms and looked to them, more specifically his son.

MK couldn’t help but look up and saw his Dad questioning look and he caved in faster than a house on fire as he wailed. “I’M SO SORRY!”

Mei and Red Son flinched as well as their shoulders dropped down in shame.

“Hey hey,” the monkey kneeled in front of his son as the lion gave a comforting pat on the other two shoulders. “Whatever happened, I’m sure it’s not too bad.”

“No, we fucked up real bad,” she whimpered out with her head lowered. “I am really sorry.”

“No words of apologies can amount to my failure,” the demon lowered his head as well.

“Seriously what happened?” He tried to ask but got only silence and tears in reply.

Ahmed did a quick scan around and he snorted as he saw what was behind them, “I think they're referring to the charred pile of ash behind them.”

The kids all stiffen as they watched Macaque see their destruction and it was only a moment of tense silence that had passed as they all awaited the inevitable yelling, but it wasn’t the one they were anticipating as he started to chuckle.

“Pffffftt, I’m gonna take a guess and say this was you guy’s creation,” he couldn’t help but smirk.

“Yessss?” She drew out the ‘s’ in confusion, “me and Red got in an argument and, well-”

“We fought and then MK stepped in to stop us, but it made it worse and then that happened,” he waved over their mess. “You don’t look mad?”

“Cause I’m not.”

“Really?!” They all shouted as MK continued, “but you told us just how much these trees meant to you and how you grew them yourself and you're telling us that it’s okay?!”

“Yep,” he popped the ‘p’ as he said that.

“But, but why!?”

“Look kiddos, I know both you and gale watched Ahmed and I fight some time ago right,” he said.

“Yeah?” Both humans agreed.

“So you know that we may have gotten more than a little wild with our fight and some things got utterly wrecked.”

“What’s the point of this?”

“I think what he’s trying to say is that during our fight, we destroyed an abundance of Plum trees,” Ahmed stepped in.

“…you know you did, didn’t you,” Mei mused out.

“Oh,” MK blinked as he did remember the clearing getting trashed to the point where it was almost unrecognizable to its previous state. “I suddenly feel like an idiot.”

“You're not the only one.”

“What fight?” Red curiously asked as Mei gave him a quick rundown.

“It’s the thought that counts starlight,” he smirked as he ruffled his son's hair.

“Sure, but I still feel bad,” he mumbled as he kicked a rock.

“Hmm well how bout this,” he grabbed the trio's attention, “to pay me back, all three of you are gonna plant a plant in that spot.”

“Like another Plum Tree or-” the monkey demon cut her off.

“Any plant you want, heck you can even plant daffodils. Those suckers can grow practically anywhere, but you guys will be the ones to take care of your plant. Deal.”

“Deal,” they all nodded.

“Alright but before we do that,” he brings out some bags and gloves, “how bout we clean up your mess.”

“Okay!/Let's do this!/This area will look even better than before!” MK, Mei, and Red Son all shouted as they grabbed the materials and began to clean up.

“I just noticed,” MK said as he put on his gloves with a mischievous grin, as he looked towards Red, “you said my name!”

He blushed as he remembered, but turned away, “no I didn’t.”

Mei matched her brother's grin, “you totally did!”

“It was the slip of the tongue!”

“Awww, you're finally warming up to us!”

“Shut your lying mouth!”

Both monkey and lion shared an amused look as they watched two humans and a demon, one side playfully argue and the other in complete denial, go at it.

It was not until a few weeks later did the once charred spot began to reform back in its former glory, but instead of Plum blossom saplings in its place there was a patch of Protea seeds grown by a Dragon girl, some Lotus buds planted by a Bull prince, and a section of Magnolia saplings nurtured by a Monkey successor.

“One day, you have to tell me how you make these noodles,” Macaque said as he quietly slurped down the rest of the food.

“Trade secret simian,” Pigsy chuckled as he wiped down his counter. “But I might let my lips loose a little if you tell me how you make your Dim Sum dumplings.”

“That can be arranged,” he grinned as he put down his empty bowl, “so, how have you and Tang been doing?”

The pig demon groaned as he stopped himself from slamming his head on the counter, “did Mei put you up to this?”

“Yep,” he unashamedly said.

“Of course she did,” he grumbled, “well tell her that there is nothing there.”

“But you want something to be there,” he pointed his dark green sparkly nail at him. Breezy got him, Comet, and Spitfire to do some nail time and he can say it didn’t turn out so bad. He knows MK was proudly showing off his violet nails against Mei’s bright green ones, even Red was admiring his own sparkly black ones. He even had his long mane of fur braided by them and it goes to show that you can learn new things about someone, he didn’t know little spitfire could braid hair. Apparently, the little prince said he learned it after Daiyu had dragged him off one day to meet some of her siblings, let it be known that he has a weakness towards wide eyed baby birds.

“No I don’t,” he huffed.

He raised an eyebrow.

Pigsy threw up his hands in defeat, “okay fine! Yes! I do like Tang in more than a friend way, happy now.”

“Ecstatic,” he deadpanned as he took a sip of his drink, “so why haven’t you said anything to him? And don’t give me that BS of not wanting to lose your friendship with him.”

“But it is!” He gripped the counter tight for a moment before exhaling, “look, I’ve been through so many crushes and puppy love throughout my life, hell take Spider Queen for one.”

“I think that was more of a lapse of judgment,” he patted the stool next to him.

“Whatever you call it, but for Tang I…I don’t think I ever fell for someone this hard before,” he sighed as he sat down next to the monkey. “I know it’s not a crush, I’ve known him too long and I know him for too long to be something as simple as a crush.”

“So what is it then?”

“I don’t know,” he moaned out as he covered his face with his hands.

“You do,” Pigsy peeked out from between his fingers as he looked at the monkey. “But you just don’t want to say it out loud.”

“Say what?”

“That you love him,” he bluntly stated.

“I do not-”

“So you don’t love the way he smiles?”

“Wha-no I do, but that doesn’t mean-” Pigsy admitted and tried to deny, but was cut off again.

“You don’t like how he looks into your eyes?”

“…his eyes are pretty, but that still-”

“What about how he talks on and on about all that history?”

“Oh fuck off about that!” He lets off a low growl to him, “the man is passionate about what he loves, and goddamnit it’s amazing watching him go on and on about it because he reveres even the smallest of rumors as a treasure no matter how weird they may be! So you can’t sit here and tell me that someone like him doesn’t ignite a spark within your soul as you look deep within him and can’t help but marvel at just how beautiful he is!”

Macaque raised an eyebrow as he crossed his arms.

Pigsy's whole body stilled as he realized what he said, then he firmly said, “but that doesn’t mean that I love him?”

“Why not?”

“Why not? For fuck sake I have never taken Tang out on a date nor do I even know if he even sees me as anything more than an annoying friend,” he slumped down on the counter.

“You don’t have to be dating to be in love,” Pigsy lifted his head to look at Macaque, but the monkey was steadfastly looking forward. “Love cannot be defined in such a small category, there are so many ways that someone can love another without dating. Sometimes it’s when you laughing along with one of their stupid jokes and you realize that there is something there. Sometimes it is loud and boisterous and even when the other is annoying, you can’t help but still want to stay by their side no matter what. Sometimes it’s the quiet times where you are with them and then it clicks that you want something more, that there is something more. It’s that moment, when you're curled up next to them with the sun high in the sky, you know that you love them.”

There was a silence in the air as both demons knew what was implied, but neither had the guts to say anything.

“Macaque,” the pig demon put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Love is not so biased to one category,” the monkey demon continued as if nothing happened, “it cannot be contained in just one. So, I’ll ask again, do you love Tang?”

“…I didn’t even realize when I fell hard until I was listening to him talk about some underwater temple and I just couldn’t stop staring at just how beautiful he was at that moment. He was hella annoyed when he found out I wasn’t even paying to him, but that was then I realized I truly did love him,” Pigsy softly chuckled as he put his hand down.

“You did?” His head shot up at the familiar voice and he turned around to the front of the door to see Sandy, MK, and Mei all surrounding the voice, which made his heart drop as he saw Tang.

“How much did you hear?!”

“Ever since the little crush bit,” Mei smiled widely.

“Mei!”

“We heard it all,” MK joined in.

“MK!”

“It was really sweet Pigsy,” Sandy cooed.

“Sandy!” The pig demon didn’t know who to yell at first and instead turned to the monkey, “Macaque! You knew?!”

“Well I did say I was helping Mei with her plan,” he shrugged with a smirk.

Before Pigsy could lay it on him, he felt a warm hand touch his shoulder and his attention was brought back to a wide eyed historian.

“So is it true?” He asked with something the pig demon didn’t recognize, “did you really mean that?”

It was at that moment when he really wanted to just say it was all one big misunderstanding and maybe, he would be able to salvage the tender relationship he still had with Tang, but when he looked into his eyes he knew that he couldn’t lie to him, not now. “Yeah, I do. I love you and I know this is out of the blue, but I…oh.” He cut himself off as two arms encircled his neck and hugged him as tight as he could. “Uhhhh?”

“We could have been doing this so much sooner,” he heard a small chuckle coming from Tang.

“Done what?” His brain hadn’t had time to properly comprehend what was happening at the moment.

Tang then leaned back to put his own forehead on his head, “I realized I love you a few years back when I saw you cooking dinner back at your apartment, you just looked so content at that moment, just smiling as you sang so badly to that song-”

“Never was a good singer,” he couldn’t help but say as his heart beat faster in his ears.

“ThatI just couldn’t help myself from falling in love with you,” his eyes twinkled.

“You don’t say…” he whispered as he drew the human in closer, “it seems we’re a pair of idiots.”

“You're not wrong there,” Tang agreed as he gave a small kiss on the demon's forehead.

His face blushed a fierce red as he mustered up his own courage and kissed the back of the historian hand that was entwined with his.

Tang's smile also grew brighter as he hauled Pigsy up closer to him and placed a kiss right dab on his lips. It wasn’t until elated cheers that the two released each other from the other lips, though they still didn’t let go of the other as throughout the exchange their arms wrapped around the other.

“Woohoo!” MK cheered as he leaped in the air.

“Freenoddleshipping for the win!” Mei pumped her fist in the air.

“It’s about time,” Macaque smirked as his tail swished behind him.

“I am so happy for you guys!” Sandy wailed as he picked both his friends up in a giant hug.

“Sandy! You're kinda crushing us over here!”

“And there goes my bones.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m just so happy for you guys!!”

“Sandy!”

“Operation Lovebird is a success!” The twenty year old grinned as she lobbed her arm around MK's shoulder. “I told you it would work, we just needed the right guy or the right monkey.”

“None of you knows subtly unless it hits you on the head,” the monkey demon said.

“You're not wrong!”

“Speaking of love,” the ponytailed boy walked up to his Dad, “it seemed that something was going on in that speech of yours?”

“Yeahh,” Mei slid up to him, “it seemed like you were talking about someone? Who is it?”

“It’s no one,” he slightly shook his head as he had a nostalgic look on his face, “just an old flame.”

The two shared a surprised, but curious look.

“Now how bout the three of us say our congratulations to the lovebirds for finally getting their head out of their asses before Sandy cuts off their circulation,” he grinned as he ruffled their heads.

“Yeah!/ I am so gonna hold this over both of their heads for a long time,” both monkey and dragon successor grinned as they followed their Dad. Though that little conversation did not leave their mind in the slightest as it was only shifted to the side for now. If the monkey simply thought that they were gonna let it go like that then he has another thing coming.

‘We’re gonna look into this?’ MK’s eyes said as it sideglanced Mei.

‘Duh, like hell we’re gonna let it go.’ Mei agreed with a slight narrow of her eyes.

They had to develop some kind of method to sneak past Macaque and his six ears, else they would have never been able to catch him by surprise.

He did not like this. This technically doesn’t go against the deal they made with Macaque, but he does not like this in the slightest.

‘Why does he have this? Why couldn’t any other mortal or demon have the skeleton key?’ Red Son silently thought as he snuck into MK’s room. ‘Why does it have to be ones I’m acquainted with?’

His eyes widened as he saw, lying precariously on the nightstand, was the skeleton key. ‘Why did it have to go to MK of all people?! Wait? Why the hell did you leave such a dangerous object out in the open?!’ He wanted to scream the last part out, but he held it in instead as he looked towards the key.

He then reached out to grab it, only to stop and retreat a few steps back then he worked up the courage to go back and grab it only for his hand to stop once more and he let out a frustrated groan as he pulled his hair.

‘Damn it! It’s right there and all I need to do is grab it and get out! But I made a deal with Macaque, but this technically doesn’t go against the deal as I’m not physically attacking him, but this still feels wrong!’ He angrily huffed out as he paced the room in agitation as he tried to work himself back up, but then he deflated as he walked to the window.

‘But I can’t do that to him, to them. I can’t,’ he opened the window with his head lowered as he was about to jump out, but then he froze as a prominent thought drilled out.

‘Mother and Father will be disappointed with me.’

He lowered his foot that was about to go out the window.

‘Mother and Father will be disappointed with me.’

He let go of the hand that was on the window.

‘Mother and Father will be disappointed with me.’

With that he rushed over to the key, quickly snatched it up, and placed it in his pocket as if it burned as he leaped out of the window and leaped from rooftop to rooftop.

‘I’m sorry MK, but I can’t have Father and Mother disappointed with me.’ Was his final thought as he moved further and further away from his friend's apartment.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Final Four: Beaks in the Shell! or JESUS WEPT!

This.. this is a big occasion for me. It’s a return to regular Ducktales coverage.. but it’s also the first episode of the LAST four of the series. It was thanks to Ducktales my blog got a following, first through in character chat things, then through my reviews of this very season. It was starting this last year that took my blog from something I was passionate abbout but did ocassionaly to a vital part of my being and my source of income via one lucky boy who just wont’ let me stop! I kid of course, I thank kev for it, though i’d gladly welcome any other review comissions from you fine folks and fit them into the schedule. There’s a page on my blog for how and if your on mobile you can simply send me an ask or submit to ask about comissiong an episode or episodes of an animated shwo you like and i’ll give you my prices and what not. But it’s thanks to these Kev started comissioning in the first place and thanks to you all clicking on these reviews every week I do them that kept me doing them early on. So I wanted to thank you all. 

Covering the last four episodes is really bittersweet for me. It’s not the end for ducks here: I have most of seasons 1 and 2 to cover, and will be covering a lot of season 1 next month so I can properly cover shadow war for my Lena retrospective, not to mention continuing to cover life and times when I have the space, various birthdays, including Carl Barks Next Month!, and so on and so on. But this is not only the first show I covered on a weekly basis but it’s the first show i’ve covered like that to end. To put it in perspective, Loud House won’t be leaving until it WANTS to and even then nick will probably prepare a second spinoff to follow it up in some form, Amphibia has both the rest of season 2 to go, starting next month!, and a third season renewal meaning while that probably WILL be it i’ll have had two full seasons to cover by the time it’s over, and I went into Close Enough FULLY expecting it not to make it past season 1 as it’s long and harried production cycle lead me to belivie Time-Warner was just going to dump it on HBO Max and be done with it.. and to my utter and everlasting delight the opposite has happened: It didn’t just get renewed but it’s become one of HBO Max’s most popular shows, the flagship of it’s adult animation lineup, and been given THREE more seasons, two of which are coming very soon, and likely will get as many as it wants for the forseable future. 

The point is.. I went into covering Ducktales expecting at least one more season and genuinely not knowing if i’d make it thorugh covering this one, and once this started to really work out for me, to the point from doubting i’d EVER be able to set up a Patreon to having one that nets me ten dollars a month, feel free to contribute if you enjoy these reviews even a buck a month helps, honest. Plus thanks to that ten bucks a month i’ll be covering the five part 87 Ducktales pilot in April and if you get it up to ten i’ll cover super ducktales. But I wouldn’t even had one without these reviews giving me something to start with, and I figured they’d be around for a few more years, at least one more season. I didn’t think the show would just.. end with this season and while the season IS a proper final season of the show, wrapping up arcs, introducing long overdue cast additions, giving us the biggest and best overarching plot thus far.. a good final season dosen’t make it hurt any less. But as a wise Synthizoid once said...

It hurts it’s going.. I wasn’t prepared for it.. but it’s giving us one hell of a last act, and if this episode is any indication, just because the end is in sight dosen’t mean the last few eps before the finale are phoning it in. This is the end... so now i’ve got my emotional stuff and the weight behind it out of the way, for now i’m defintely going to be bawling come the finale and I’m not ashamed, we can dive into the begining of the end. Counting down.. because really when else am I going to get to use this...

We’re at four and under the cut it’s beaks in the shell. Let’s get dangerous. 

We open with a crime in progress as Gandra is stealing a thing for FOWL and Fenton has shown up on the scene to stop her as you’d expect.. along with Huey the boy wonder! He’s finally Fenton’s Sidekick!

Seriously it’s just so sweet to see this little payoff, to see Huey, after talking about it and clearly wanting to assit Fenton however he can, actually participate. Granted he dosen’t have an armor, yet, of his own, but still he’s been through enough stuff to be helpful> plus, Gyro’s reaction to Fenton trying to ge the resources for another gizmosuit was...

Gandra trips up his wheel, and im with 87 Scrooge in Ducktales Remastered, which I finally got to play recently! Horay!, what WAS gyro thinking with that design. Regardless she gets away, and our heroes return the loot off screen. Good day’s crime fighting. 

Except something’s off with Fenton as he’s been working extra late lately and lying to both Gyro and Ma’Ma about it with both suspcious, Gyro because he dosen’t like not knowing things and especially not knowing what his former intern’s up to because he’s a bit of a control freak.. and because he probably can’t go visit his new clone farm and work on speeding up the process of his replacement bodies after moonvasion used em all up without Fenton finding out as he’d tell Scrooge and Scrooge would be like “Stop playing God in ways that could get me a steep fine!”. It’d be a whole thing. The fact Fenton’s also using their now shared intern in Manny and neither is telling him why probably isn’t helping and i’ts only that workplace harassment seminar that keeps him from trying to strangle either of them again. That and Manny dosen’t have a neck.

Ma’Ma is more upset that not only is he lying to her again, more on that later, but .. that she’s figured out he has a new girlfriend and understandably thinks there’s some dark reason he’s not telling her, and unlike Gyro turns out she’s two for two. I mean she is a detective while Gyro is more worried about his clone army, his man horse and his robot son. I mean the last two are valid but still Mama just has to worry about her job and her socially awkward adult son. She has more time to focus on this.

But yes, not only is Fenton seeing someone.. but it’s Gandra again. A bit abrubt but honestly this isn’t the first Fenton episode to move his life fast.. and frankly i’m more lenient on final seasons, or seasons INTENDED to be the last ones in terms of offscreen stuff, as your trying to get everything you can wrapped up in the span of 13-24 episodes depending on how lucky you get, if not less. Sometimes you just gotta use a reveal and some exposition to hurry things along and if presented right it works.. and here it is a while the summary for this episode spoiled the reveal, i’ts still subtly dramatic that not only has hef ully forgiven her.. but their together.. despite the fact she still works for fowl. Wuh-oh.  After the credits we get an idea of what their working on, as Fenton used the gizmoduck suit to enter some kind of VR scape. This is the Gizmoscape! It’s a vast virtual reality landscape.. that looks like a fancy version of the VR Interface from community. Marble pillars, flowing water falls. Though ironically enough Jim Rash’s character is NOT a part of it and despite Fenton suggesting letting him in to help with their glitch problem she’s reluctant as it’s THEIR baby and she wants it to be perfect first before they allow other people in. Though i’m also sure part of it is that Gyro would start screaming JESUS WEPT! over and over. 

Meanwhile Mark Beaks is having a big flashy press confrence to announce the new Waddlephone. Only a 50% chance of exploding! And that’s not my dig at Samsung but the shows as that’s really Beaks sales pitch. Unsuprisingly only one VERY bored looking nerd is there at the confrence. As for why he’s finally fallen so low part of it is explalined in the episode: His attempted thefts of the Gizmoduck suit have gotten stale. As the bored nerd puts it he’s tried to steal it four times already, two that we’ve seen but i’m VERY unsuprised he’s tried again off screen. He’s made it PAINFULLY clear he has no ideas of his own, constantly steals them, and the public’s tired of it. As for why it took THIS LONG.. this is sadly realistic. As the throngs of “hardcore gamers” defending Cyberpunk 2077 before it was released can attest to, internet nerd culture can often be toxic, stupid and defend big personalities even when they’ve CLEARLY done something terrible as long as their doing something they like. Beaks was clearly pilfering enough good products and doing enough antics on social media to still be liked and for them to ignore his blanat and douchey crimes and had enough money on him during said crimes to walk away from it. 

Problem is.. while people can be awful and defend someone despite them not deserving their loyality, being a douche in public and doing VERY terrible things.. you have to have something to earn that loyalty. Waddle had that at first iwth project ta-dah, Waddleduck, various aps i’m sure... but it’s clear from context by this point Beaks has nothing left and no cult of personality to insulate him. Unlike say Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos he dosen’t HAVE some big product to mask his shadier wealth hoarding actions, he just has rampat supervilian attempts to steal someone else’s power armor and a hired hyjacking to get back at his cold unloving mother. Even when he does supervillian stuff like that.. he can’t be bothered to do it originally. The public will, and very sadly, defend you from terrible stuff, we’ve seen it with people supproting Gina Carano even though she’s actively spreading harmful disnfermation and then had the GALL to compare herself to jews hiding from the nazis, and one journalist trying to defend her had the gall to compare this to the hollywood blacklisting if the 50′s instead of you know, someone who woudln’t shut up about harmful dangerous shit finally getting fired for using teh platform said job provided to spread said harmful dangerous shit about masks and the vacine. But if you have nothing to offer.. thieri just going to forget you and move on. He has nothing to offer so they’ll gladly gravitate to some other jackass who can at leasat given them a neat phone instead of trying to steal a superhero suit for the 8th time. Mark realizes if he can’t steal something soon.. he’ll be forced to go with the Nuclear option: MAKE SOMETHING HIMSELF. 

Back at Fenton’s toilet lab, Huey finds Fenton having some cyber makeouts with Gandra... which translates to him kissing the air and Huey feeling evne more awarkd than usual. As for why Huey’s here despite it being late, he got a piece of Gandra’s nanotech during the robbery and figures they can track her. Fenton is.. less than enthused about that for obvious reasons but things soon get worse for our hero as our other hero notices the linkup. And while sidekicks are a good thing in my eyes; They allow young heroes to get proper training, help nuture their talents and prevent assholes from telling them to stop it instead of you know helping them. It’s.. a more common trope than you think let me tell you. 

But Fenton’s discovered the Downside is they can show up anytime, want to hunt your criminal girlfriend down not knowing the full story, and if their a genius like you, figure out what your up to with no effort and really want to try it. Seriously Huey’s almost as smart as you Fenton and will no doubt surpass you one day, this was a matter of when not if and you shouldv’e been more prepared. But Huey wants to try, and while Fenton tries deflecting since he only has the gizmoduck helmet and it only works for him now... Manny comes in with a bunch of vr rigs and Huey dives in.  Naturally, Huey soon running directly into Gandra dosne’t go great.. and given this is huey his natural instinct is to have a panic attack over his best friend, mentor and the only person besides maybe his family, boyfriend and girlfriend that really gets him possibly betraying him and his entire family. Gandra is of course mad Fenton invited someone in when she didn’t want that, and even more someone whose clearly not happy with her and will likely tell on them because that’s basic hue-man nature. 

Fenton explains he didn’t ask for this, so we get easily the best part of the episode: Gandra’s solution to the child having a mental breakdown.. is to summon a weighted blanket and throw it over him, which Huey mistakes for a trap and she explains helps with Anxiety.. and while he struggles.. it really does. Damn gotta get me one of those. Also while his Autisim remains vauge, likely on puprose, Huey having anxiety disorder, while obvious before, is now 100% confirmed. 

So now he’s calm, though his Anxiety meter shows he’s still not happy and Gandra doubts he’ll listen, Fenton can at least try and explain: The two have been seeing each other and working on this in secret.. but it has NOTHING to do with FOWL other than Gandra embezzling resoruces to make it happen. Gandra also explains why the project is so important to her and Fenton via her own backstory: Super Science is a dangerous, unrpedictable field and accidents happen a lot, and given people tend to hate what they don’t understand, hence why the X-Men founded their own island  after getting spat on one too many times, it often gets an unfair bad wrap.. and she shows she’s had to put up with this her whole life, making an intresting lazer thing as a kid that lost to a volcano and getting glared at for it accidently destroying said volcano. And as an adult due to her work’s dangerous and experimental nature, no one would take a chance on it and like many a super villian she had to experiment on herself. It’s also why she worked for Beaks last season and works with FOWL now, only supervillians with thier grandiose ambitions and lack of care for property damage would fund her. 

That’s part, at least, of why this is so very important to her: The Gizmoscap eprovides an invorment where scientests and others can experiment unabated, where the only limit is imagination and those glitches they keep having and any accident can be frozen , dragged and dropped away with no damage. There’s no risk but all the reward and they plan to give it out for free, to let the public use this and let the world grow from it. 

It also fills in a lot of Gandra’s character and gives weight to her last apperance: Her working with Beaks, while hypocritical, now has a tragic edge as he was simply the only one who’d fund her work. Her hatred of Fenton’s corprroate job and people like Scrooge.. is that in general billionares like him usually aren’t good people, and even SCrooge has his clear faults, and she assumed he was just making Fenton shut up and do things just to beniefit him and make him more money.. when Scrooge was instaead paying him to do a genuine public service as gizmoduck, and gives him and Gyro a LOT of leway and a pretty bottomless budget and only turns things down if their way too dangeorus for public release. The tragedy here is if she’d gone to Scrooge.. she never would’ve had to work for FOWL. He wouldd’ve genuinely supported her and likely given her a full ride and a spot in the lab of her own, maybe as an intern but probably on her own merit given how game changing her tech is and how he of all people understands a ballance of risk and reward. It turns her from a very hypcoriticla techie who works with the very people she scorns.. to someone who has no choice and desperatley wants out.  And this is her way out: something new and bold that’, while not hers alone as Fenton co created it, could change the world and make it safe for people like her to do what they do without ridcule, scorn or risk. It’s everything she could’ve dreamed of and more and once it’s done she promises to leave fowl and as the end of the episode bares out, and as her tone makes clear, she’s genuine about it. She also TRULY does love fenton and vice versa and both are desspearte for Huey to keep a lid on things from Gyro till it’s ready, as she rightfully worries if it gets out unfisnished they’ll just be mocked agian.  Naturally being a good soft boy Huey is now entirely on board, because he loves science, and he loves love and this is both. And frankly given what we saw way back in Astro BOYD... .he knows more than anyone what its like to be laughed at and mocked for being diffrent and simply being smart. And even though his family lvoes him.. only one member is as smart as him in the same way, his mom whose still a very diffrent person, and it wasn’t till this season he really got to connect with people his own age like him. And both Violet and BOYD could benifit form this.. everyone could. So he’ll keep it secret for now.  This proves problematic as both Gyro AND Mama are there and both have questions. And while Huey ducks gyro, Mama.. interrogates a small child who she’s defintely met and likely knows has anxiety over something as trivial as her son having a secret girlfrined. You.. you guys might’ve wanted to remove this bit given last year. I”m just saying. Does not play well. The most Huey can come up with is a girlfriend in Canada which fenton plays along with... but given neither her nor gyro are really buying into things, though Mama has a check done on seamstresses in canada just in case because this bit was clearly written years ago and not rerecorded for whatever reason, Huey uses little bulb to fake a gizmo emergency so Fenton can get out of there, go home and work on this himself while Huey stalls and lies. But since his best on the fly lie was “a girlfriend in canada”, which is somehow worse than “who’s Dewey”, and while our boy is many things: excellent at opera, a good friend, a wonderful wingman, excellent at setting a mood, a good son, great at panic attacks, a genius, an expert woodchuck, knowledgeble on quantum mechanics.. the list goes on lying is not one of those things and he seems to be in a pickle. 

Meanwhile Mark is struggling to create, can relate, because he’s entirely creatively sterile. And that’s probably why out of Scrooge’s foes.. he stopped being a threat. He has no vision. And while true the Beagle BOys also don’t besides steal stuff and maybe get our deed back, that’s by design as Ma knows they can’t take scrooge or gizmoduck so why cry. Stick to petty crimes and stuff he isn’t aware of or dosen’t care about. But Magica and Glomgold do. Magica is cunning, if not subtle, and manipulative and when on full blast horrifyingly powerful, and it took everything Clan McDuck had to stop her at full, and she still nearly won without any powers when she came back, and even if Lena can keep her in check now, she still GOT her powers back and got her new arch enemy to defeat her old one. Glomgold while only slightly more comipitent than beaks, and even then VERY slightly, he at least has vision. His schemes are entirely stupid.. but he dosen’t stop coming up with them. They may be his first draft but damn if they aren’t entertaining and damn if one or two haven’t WORKED. Simply stealing a few cents from scrooge and gaslighting him in a devil costume NEARLY drove him insane and cost him his fortune.  Beaks.. has no ideas. He has ambiation.. but it’s to steal the same tech that even if he got it, he woudln’t know what to do with. The ONLY time he’s been a full on threat has been using someone else’s scheme, that Gandra clearly came up with and STILL required piggybacking on the gizmo suit. He has nothing and while it was fine for a while.. eventually h’es left iwth nothing. Glomgold at least has money, magica at least has power... Beaks HAD both.. but had no idea what to properly do with it and now is on his last legs. Even his idea for a coffee cups with aps is taken because of course “even the dumbest ideas are taken”, this is america. Making dumb shit for rich morons is our primary export. But he sees the fleeing fenton, has a breakdown and declares FINE if that’s what fate wants i’ll steal the armor I’LL STEAL THE ARMOR ALL DAY. 

So Fenton heads home to recharge in both senses of the word, and to tell Gandra the timetable’s moved and Huey can hold them only so long. And he seems to be wrong as Huey confidently prepares to answer their questions.. but is seemingly thrown when we get the real reason Mama is so upset: She’s just worried and still a bit hurt from Fenton not feeling he could tell her he was gizmoduck and it breaks her heart that her son feels he has to hide from her again. However while this is genuinely sad and emotional.. the reason he’s thrown is it’s NOT huey, but Louie, whose a bit miffed as he DIDN’T know Fenton was Gizmoduck, and can’t properly bullshit without full info. it’s also really nice that bit FINALLY came up as the rest of the four main kids have known for a while now. But Huey convincnes him to do it.. for 6 months allowance. Frankly the real shocker here is that they actually GET an allowance. 

However Mama.. is again a cop. One who REALLY needs to rethink her ethics.. but a cop, and the best one on the force, and thus has easily guessed this is not Huey, and given she’s probably ran into his schemes before, figures out which one he’d bring in to buffer for him and easily gets rid of Louie by asking him to tur informant on himself, since the REAL Huey would under pressure and Louie instead flees in terror not wanting to get arrested and leaves both the lab and the episode. Though I’m pretty sure i know where he went

So yeah things are not great and only get worse, as Mark breaks into fentons house via the open window and upon finding out abotu the Gizmoscape naturally plans to hack into it and take it for himself. Before he does Fenton talks to Gandra and admits they may have to let other people in and we get another reason: She’s worried she’s not good enough. He reassures her.. and this tender moment is interupted by Beaks who imprisons them, hyjacks fenton’s security system aka a gizmo armor, and while still a creatively sterile douche, does have a decent if horrifically scummy way to profit all of this: use the open coloabreation concept to get the legal right to steal all this and say it’s his. 

Fenton bemaons the fact that Gandra was right, one bad apple spoiled the bunch and unveling it too qiuckly would’ve gone bad as she feared.. but Gandra’s grown and realizes Fenton was also right, and that they needed more people. While the wrong people can ruin a project, collaboration can help, finding perspectives you didn’t see and helping fine tune ideas. Huey, whose collapsed at Fenton’s due to the exustion of lying, wakes up to find Beaks crimes and being unable to just unplug him, as while Beaks is VERY dumb, even he’s not THAT stupid. But Fenton gets out an SOS over morse to tell everyone So Huey does.. and the calvary arrives, as Huey enters the Gizmoscape with Mama and Gyro. And while Mama is pleased to realize she’s right about the girlfirend thing they don’t really have time for that, so once Huey explains the basic concept, he uses it himself to give himself GIZMO ARMOR. AT LAST. 

He also has extra long legs, because of course, just.. of course. Naturally Beaks steals it, and everyone else takes a stab at their own gizmotech armor: Mama daawns a stunning police themed one, Gyro goes for a bulb mecha based on the giant version of little bulb from the great dime chase, an idea brought up by LB, and Gandra goes for a sleek tron esque nanotech number. Beaks take sa bit from each and our heroes wonder how to beat him.. but Fenton realizes that’s simple: Beaks can only copy and steal... they can create. And Gandra uses this against him by pointing that out so he drops his super armor.. to look like Andross from Starfox.. which shows that EVEN when trying to come up with a cool final boss form... Beaks has to steal from something. The rest of the Gizmo Corps, my name for them I own that, Gizmo Legion would also be good, after Iron Man’s iron Legion, suit back up and kick beaks ass as a team. I smell second spinoff.. or first if darkwing ends up hyjacked by Seth Rogen.. who I have nothing agianst he’s just not the one who put in the work for a reboot. 

So our heroes win in an awesome sequence, seirously spinoff and Beaks is knocked the fuck out and presumibly will FINALLY go to jail for good to this as he can get away from a lot but directly breaking into an officer’s house and stalking her son, they can omit the gizmopart and even if Fenton went public.. no one would care and he and Mama can take care of htemselves, as can Huey, Gyro, Gandra and Manny, so it’s not like anyones in danger. Beaks is well and truly defeated: he has no idea, an imminet jail sentence, and no one to back him up. Fenton’s finally got the little boil off his back

So now the big fight is over, Gyro can actually process the Gizmoscape.. and is genuinely impressed.. he tries to hidei t because of course he does.. but it’s clear for someone who himself has constnatly been called crazy and had his ideas blow up.. this is paradise to him. a place where he won’t be judged and has unlimtied funds to experiment with his ideas without having to get yelled at when they destroy a city block or nearly choked to death by his own robot son, daughter or nonbinary person. He also easily fixes the problem and proves Fenton right for wanting to include him, as he points out they hadn’t been DELETING anything, simply downsizing it and it naturally caused stress on the server.  Fenton talks about Gandra and defneeds her to Mama.. whose just happy he’s happya nd someone can take her son. Alls well that ends well right. 

Final Thoughts:  So this was a... wait.. why are we cutting back to fowl.. why is bradford there. 

Yeah turns out megalmanoical diabolical msterminds kinda monitor their employees so he knew she intended to quit and stole resources, and while she plans to leave, he simply calls in a bunch of eggheads who overwhelm her with sheer numbers and has her fined two weeks pay.. and taken to the lost library to indefintely lock her up. What’s that she asks “You have your secrets, I have mine”

So yeah a bit of a downer ending

Actual Final Thoughts: 

This was an excellent capper to Fenton’s character arc. While the Gandra relationsihp is a bit rushed the rest is a masterful capper to his character arc: This episode shows off how he’s changed from EVERY one of his previous three focus episodes, while a major part of astro boyd and how he got his docterate it dosne’t quite contribute to his character arc,  and grown from them: From beware the buddy system! he’s learned to colaberate properly and taken his desire to WORK with other people, like he always did with Gyro but was constnatly shut out, and found a proper and brilliant way to that allows people like him, gyro, gandra and huey to really express themselvs. He’s grown from a niave rookie trusting the wrong people in who is gizmoduck.. to someone whose STILL fully trusting despite constant betryals, but now knows who to trust, and an experinced hero who once freed easily counters his nemisis.  And finally from Dangerous Chemistry, he’s finally got a ballance in his life: inastead of running from gizmo or treating his alter ego as something else.. he’s found a way to use the gizmotech for science, and FINALLY found his world changing invention one so good and so practical even his mentor, despite trying to walk it back, is genuinely proud of him and genuinely in awe.

Every step lead to his happy ending.. well okay his girlfriend still needs to be freed from her insane ex-boss, but that’s just a few episodes away. Fenton has everything he wanted when he started: his boss finally respects him and treats him as an equal, his mom not only knows who he is but is proud and supportive of him, he has a loving partner creatively and romantically.. and a best friend who while a good two decades younger, is there for him and who he genuinely apologizes too for putting so much on him. LIke all the endings so far this season.. it feels like a throughly satisfying end to the journey we’ve been following. This fits in nicely with Penny realizing earth could be her home and that she dosen’t have to constnatly fight to have a purpose, Lena finally accepting magic instead of running from it and thus gaining peace of mind and power to stop her former abuser from hurting anyone else, Goldie finally accepting how much she cars about Scrooge and his family and that she CAN change... all of this, except penny obviously has been built up through three seasons and while I DEFINTLY could see frank and matt returning to all of them.. i’ts nice to get some closure.  It feelsd earned and impressive. The episode is also.. REALLY fucking funny, from the weighted blanket gag to Beaks in general, to Huey yelling at fenton about Mama “She somehow broke Louie!”. It’s a masterful and throughly satisfying end to Fenton’s story. And again we’ll likely see him in the finale but character arc wise.. its a good place to end his. 

Next Week: FINALLY, AFTER 10,000 YEARS, IT’S THE TAILSPIN EPISODE. OWEEOOO, OWEEHHHH. 

Tommorow: We return to the noiry furry world of John Blacksad as everyone’s favorite panther detective battles white supremacists to find a missing girl and we’re introduced to your faviorite sidekick and mine Weekly. 

Later on this week: The Lena retrospective continues with Jaw$, we celebrate Tex Avery’s birthday, and I tackle the awful original tom and jerry movie. 

So if any of that tickles your fancy see you at the next rainbow

[jimmymcgools]

Can you do a directors cut for they pay me a golden treasure?

hi! this has been in my ask box for like two weeks! i'm so sorry! my brain broke and i forgot how to think about things!

i'm glad you asked for this one, thank you so much 🙏 i'd had the first ~500 words of this sitting in a google doc for so long -- i was originally thinking of posting after i finished slip and fall season. but then my brain did that thing where i wanted everything to be exactly perfect and i kept working and overworking the first few paragraphs until way too much gluten had formed in the dough and it was chewy and terrible.

but then i took a step back and just tried to write a thing that captured all the little interesting ideas i wanted to include, and that helped me get the ball rolling.

commentary below! 💖

Two points of pressure weigh down his shoulders, as heavy as the bags of cash had been—heavier, even. It feels like he has two hands locked on either side of his neck. He can feel the man who owns the hands standing behind him, and he can hear the echo of the word wife.

this idea was one of the first things that made me want to write this oneshot -- linking this physical sensation of carrying the bags with this metaphorical way he feels lalo's control over him.

He swallows. His mouth is tacky with a sugary layer of Gatorade.

i wanted the whole thing to hopefully be SUPER sensory and way deep in jimmy's head. and this is the kinda shit that takes me longer than it should to remember. sometimes i have to just sit and think through every part of my body as if i'm in that situation and see if anything good leaps out.

He’s just standing there outside the apartment and his arms are so heavy and his shoulders are so heavy and his head is so heavy he feels as if he’s going to fall right through the ground, as if he’s going to plummet into the earth before she can even open the door.

this is one of the sentences that previously died to being overworked. i kept changing it and changing it until eventually i looked back at my very first version, which was more brainstormy note than intended prose, and i thought it was better than anything else i'd managed. so i used that!

There’s a bang and his eyes snap open. The door is widening to a square of light and his hands are in front of his chest, curling into balls.

this part is a reverse of the previous example, though! here i kept an earlier version for a while, something that started like "The door opens with a bang etc etc" and then i realised it DID need more work, it needed to be more in jimmy's head and not tell the reader exactly what was happening in the first three words.

A square of light—sand and sky and space blankets—and then she’s there, silhouetted against the white, and he takes— —one step, then the next, then the next— —through the bright doorway.

fuckin' love an em dash, mate

His legs, having delivered him here, to this final glowing space, give up.

another one of the ideas i was very excited about for this one-shot was comparing kim to the golden glowstick he holds that night in the desert! i always think about it when i watch that scene!

here's my first shot at making the comparison -- this final glowing space. for a while i wanted to include the memory of him holding that glowstick right here, so that people might link it with him holding her in the entryway, but it didn't work with the pace.

Her voice sounds like it’s coming down a long phone line, traveling through thousands and thousands of copper-lined miles. Crackling and cracking.

i'm a self indulgent lil shit so i put some references to my other fic in here. hopefully if youve read acb, this specific description makes you think of baby kim and jimmy talking softly on the phone at night.

Kim’s fingers are razors in his hair, crushing his head close against her shoulder.

another metaphor from early acb used here, which in itself is a reference to a song by the national, of course. all my fics are just a bunch of national songs stacked inside a trenchcoat

As soon as his chest touches hers, he’s clawing with tight fists at her back, holding her faster and faster, like he’s scrabbling for purchase over screaming dirt

i loved the idea of drawing all these parallels between the desert experience and his experience here. it makes me think of the split-screen opening. jimmy's dry tongue sticking to his mouth is like him trying to say the first part of kim's name. the way he hugs her is like the way he scrambles towards the esteem.

it's all entwined forever now.

From down the long crackling line, she says his name again. Jimmy. He almost can’t hear it. Jimmy.

god, i'm such a writing nerd and i love thinking about writing so much and it's like -- what does not having his name in speech marks add here? in my head it adds so much. is it real, is she really saying it? is he just thinking it? yet he says he almost can't hear it. somehow not having the speech marks also makes it feel far away to me. intangible. if she's really saying it, it doesn't feel real anymore.

i love writing!!!!

“Hey,” Kim says, her voice quiet, her eyes locked on his. The dry skin on his lips stretches with his smile. “Hey.”

would die for these two softly exchanging "hey"s.

It’s good to be close because he knows there’s something horrible trapped between their chests. Something he can feel running warmly down his white and unblemished t-shirt.

jimmy brushing his hand over the spot as they sit together on the sofa.

Like he’s something that might burn her, or something that might break. Or both—like he’s fragile and electrified.

i kind of want to do more with this duality at some point. i think they both feel this about the other. that they could burn them or be burned by them.

He wants her to cradle his cheeks the same way she always does, or stroke her thumbs over his mouth, or curl her fingers around his ears, but she doesn’t. She just holds him in her fingertips. Like water in her hands, he thinks.

more of that wild self-indulgency, but god i couldnt resist linking this moment with the first time they makeout in acb:

"Then she pulls back, breathing heavily, looking down at him. She frames his face with her hands. Gasping for breath, staring up at Kim from between her palms, Jimmy feels like she’s the only thing holding him together. Like he’s water in her hands."

the only thing holding him together.

the ", he thinks." i added in the one-shot makes me feel like jimmy's making the link too, not just me as the writer.

The apartment smells of smoke. Another thing he’s dragged with him over the threshold from the desert: one hundred thousand dollars in cash and the word wife and the smell of dust burning beneath a high sun.

of course, it smells of smoke because kim's been smoking inside, but jimmy doesn't know that

Boxers picked up and then put down in almost the same spot on the bathroom floor.

this moment always gets me. these actors are incredible. there's so much goddamn emotion in one little action.

In his hand now, the ache of a yellow glowstick. The edges of his fingers are made red with it, and his skin and bones and all the gaps between the different parts of himself are marked out with the light. He’s awake, and the yellow stick is fragile in his grasp. Glowing through the cold and the dark. Burning a ghost on his retinas. His suit jacket is thin above him, a loose sheet. The desert is loud with lizards and wind and tires wheeling over dirt roads. The glowstick is golden.

and now finally i get to this glowstick moment. i'm really proud of how i executed this paragraph. it's the writing nerd in me again. i love what the present tense does to it. to me, it makes it feel eternal, ongoing. this is how i felt okay about not setting up the glowstick thing earlier. this paragraph makes me feel like jimmy's been thinking about this the entire time.

all the gaps between the different parts of himself are marked out with the light

also the thought of like... jimmy sitting awake in the desert thinking about the jimmy vs saul of it all.

Burning a ghost on his retinas.

"Did I dream it or did I have $1,600,000 on my desk in cash? When I close my eyes, I can still see it. It's burned into my retinas like I was staring into the sun."

Kim’s face is warm against his spine. Her heartbeat seems to pulse through his skin.

more of my stolen acb lines, this from the final chapter:

"He can feel her breathing, her knees pressed up close behind his, her chest against his back. Her heartbeat seems to pulse through his skin. If he didn’t know better, he’d feel like the Sandias, like a line of protection between her and the world."

When he closes his eyes, he’s walking, he’s still walking.

returning to the first sentence here gave it all a terrifying feeling to me. like -- does jimmy feel like this moment of getting home is the dream? this looping dream?

thank you so much to everyone who read this one-shot, by the way! i was super nervous about tackling canon times, and everyone's messages have been so reassuring. i really appreciate it 💖

[nonstoplover]

trust fund baby ~ Timothée Chalamet (song drabble) - version 2.0

my masterlist │ my song drabbles

song i used as inspiration: why don't we ~ trust fund baby

words: 1.7K

approximate reading time: about 10 mins

a/n: okay so when brainstorming about this song's lyrics i came up with an idea (a different one than this written below) but as i started writing it, another possible, quite similar situation came to my head and since i couldn't decide which one i liked better, i figured i let you guys decide and wrote both. anyway i'm not an expert in cars and repairing them, so excuse my lack of knowledge please. i hope you still like it though! please leave feedback, it means the absolute world to me. love youu

here's version 1.0, the original idea

"Damn it." Timothée cursed out loud, slamming his palms against the steering wheel.

He couldn't figure out what was wrong or if accidentally he did something that caused the problem, but here he was in the absolute middle of nowhere, all alone with a slightly smoking engine hood.

He had no clue only that something really bad was going on. He grabbed his phone and opened the browser to search for the closest garage.

"Really?" He muttered to the device in his hand in disbelief. The closest one was about an hour away. It would take forever for a breakdown truck to come here for him.

He contemplated waiting for a little while, see if it went back to normal, maybe he could drive to the garage himself if the situation got better. The two sides in his mind reasoned against each other non-stop as he tried to figure out what was the best solution.

In the deep thinking he was doing he didn't hear the sound of an approaching vehicle from behind him until the image of it in the rearview mirror caught his eyes and the engine's roar entering his ears couldn't be mistaken.

He watched the slightly worn-out jeep get to him frozen in his seat, the idea to somehow stop it and ask the driver to tow him to the garage forming in his head but he did nothing to carry it out, still surprised by the sudden appearance of another car on the road.

The jeep passed him with reduced speed before eventually pulling up short in front of his car. Timothée's eyes widened as the car door opened and someone jumped out of the vehicle. His fingers shakily searched for the handle so he could get out on the road as well.

When he straightened his back and his eyes fell back on the approaching person he was taken aback by the sight. A beautiful girl around his age wearing a well-worn pair of jean shorts and a baggy, retro t-shirt, a worried expression on her face.

"Is everything alright?" She spoke up, rambling on without a pause, not even waiting for a reply from the boy. "I saw you parking here and I was thinking maybe you're just taking a break from driving but I was like, it's better to check if something's wrong."

Gosh, stop rattling, (y/n) thought to herself. You're not making a very nice first impression right now.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Timothée answered subvonsciously, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly before realising what he had just said, then swiftly shook his head and corrected himself. "I mean, no, not everything's fine. There's a little smoke coming out of my engine hood and the closest service station is quite far and I don't really know what to do."

Hearing the boy answer with a similar amount of gabbling slightly calmed the girl down, he probably found the situation quite odd likewise.

"Can I look at it?" She pointed at the car.

"Look at...?" He frowned in confusion. Why would she want to look at it? "I mean, sure, if you wanna."

"Great!" She half-exclaimed, already making her way towards the car, opening the car hood, her torso disappearing in it fully in no time.

Timothée watched her shocked, he was sure that the process would've taken a minute or even more for him, still the girl did it like it was nothing extraordinary.

"Okay, I think I know what's the problem, and lucky for you I happen to have the needed equipment with me," she straightened back up, turning back towards the boy.

He watched her pass him on her way back to her car and after a little packing around she got out a toolbox from the trunk and made her way to the other car again, swinging the tools in her hand like it's no big deal that she kept such things in her car.

She casted a glance at the brown haired boy, a chuckle erupting from her throat when she saw the expression on his face.

"My dad owns a service in my hometown and he taught me how to repair the most common problems," she explained, placing the box down on the ground as she reached the car. "And he has always insisted on me carrying around a toolbox in my own car in case anything happens."

Timothée felt his jaw drop to the ground in surprise and was quite thankful that the girl had already turned back towards the engine with a tool he could have sworn he had never seen in her hand, this way not seeing his reaction.

In his mind flashbacks of high school and even college parties and talks played non-stop as he watched her work. All his life, at least the part where dating was already a subject, he always told everyone that if he had ever dated a girl, it'd be an independent, smart and skilled woman. Someone who could fix anything whether it was changing a lightbulb or repairing a car.

And as it seemed in that moment, the girl he had always been describing was standing right in front of him. All he knew was that he couldn't let her slip away now that he found her.

"Okay, I think it's done. Can I sit in and start it to see how it is?" Her voice awoke him from his thinking.

"Yeah, sure."

On the way to the car door (y/n) tried to clean her oil-stained hands as good as she could with more or less success, pressing her skin in the worn jean material on the front of her thighs before climbing in the car. The engine growled loudly a moment later, and they both waited curiously if smoke's going to appear again.

When nothing happened, the young girl swiftly got out of the car, leaving the engine going as she approached the boy again.

"Would it be alright if I took it for a tiny ride? I wanna see if the smoke comes back after using it again," she explained. "I'll leave my car key and wallet and all my stuff with you as warrant."

Pulling the mentioned things out of her jean pockets, (y/n) held it out towards him, waiting for a response. He silently nodded, a bit taken aback by the sudden suggestion but eventually taking the stuff from her, watching as she got in his car again, passing him and speeding off into the distance.

Maybe he was foolish to trust someone this easily, but she left all her belonging with him, why would she run away, stealing his car? Otherwise, she had a pretty nice car herself, compared to his older, simple car even the (already dried) mud-stained jeep seemed fancy.

It took all self-control he had in himself not to open her wallet and search for her ID so he could learn her name, but it felt wrong, finding it out without her knowledge. He could just ask her when she got back.

The figure of his car started growing again, signaling that she had turned around and started driving back, and indeed his car arrived back to the starting point a few minutes later. The girl carefully wheeled the car around so it faced its original direction again before stopping the engine and getting out.

"It's working absolutely alright by far. And even if it somehow starts doing it again, you'll get close to the garage by then."

"Wow," he muttered, feeling speechless. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, I'm glad I could help," the girl leant down to pack her equipment laying on the ground.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Oh, no, nothing. You don't have to pay me for this. I'm not even a professional," she quickly straightened her back, laughing at his suggestion as her hands waved it away.

"But I feel like I should pay you, you deserve something in exchange for stopping even though you didn't have to and offering to repair my car. And actually repairing it."

"No, really, please. I'm doing this because I like helping people, what is more people who happen to need my special knowledge about fixing car problems."

"Then at least let me buy you dinner or something in the nearest diner. If you have the time and would like to do so, of course."

Smooth, she thought giddily, watching him nervously creasing the hem of his shirt. The thought that such an attractive young man would be interested in a girl like her felt extra heartwarming.

"Okay, I can accept that," she giggled in the end.

"Amazing!" Timothée exclaimed, heart bursting with happiness that his sudden and absolutely not thought over plan worked out well.

"Then, are we gonna drive separately and stop at the first diner that comes in sight?" (y/n) visualised the scene appearing in her head.

"Yeah, probably," he chuckled. "Though what do you think about exchanging phone numbers and staying in a call while we drive there?"

"Great idea!" (y/n) grinned at him, amusement in her eyes. The boy truly had some pretty good thoughts in his head.

They both pulled out their mentioned smart devices from their pockets and switched them, typing in their respective numbers before saying temporary goodbyes and climbing inside their own cars. Just in time with (y/n)'s engine starting roaring, her phone in her hand started ringing.

She glanced at the screen for a short moment before erupting in loud laughter as her eyes took in the nickname he set for himself.

"Heya, Timmy T," she answered suggestively, still giggling, making the boy let out a chuckle as well.

"Hi, (y/n)," he answered a second later. "Nice to meet you."

"You too."

(y/n) tapped on her screen to put the call on speaker before putting the device down and slowly starting make the car roll forward. Glancing in the rearview mirror she made sure the boy was following her before picking up a faster speed.

For the next two hours they went from the first small talk to deeper, more serious subjects, getting to know the other more. Minutes spent with laughing loudly or silently listening to the other's stories went by.

In the first half an hour Timothée sped up out of nowhere and caught up to (y/n)'s car in the opposing traffic's lane so they could cast momentarily glances at each other until another car appeared on the road and the boy had to slow back down to swerve back in the normal lane behind her car.

The strange but nice attraction they both felt towards each other only grew stronger with every passing minute and by the time they arrived to the first diner in their way, they were already something close to best friends, or maybe even more.

.::the end::.

my masterlist

[nettlestonenell]

Armie Hammer wants a sequel to The Man From U.N.C.L.E.—shouldn’t you?

This post is a long time in coming, Gentle Readers and @jammeke​, but now, though it might be here, before your very eyes, to think it will be well-laid out would be a mistake. It’s set to be just about as messy as Ilya’s misplaced loyalties and murky motivations.

How dare!

I probably first watched this film well over a year ago (courtesy @jammeke​ posting things about it). I used Sling OnDemand (I think on TNT). In the ensuing viewings I also watched it in that way, but as I was sitting down for a fourth(?) viewing, it kept coming to me that I was tired of watching it with commercials I couldn’t skip, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it had been edited for time and I was missing out on scenes. [pointless aside: I was also watching the film in chunks, and never as a whole]

Where is she now? What’s the time stamp? How far along did she get? Are you shagging the hotel hostess yet?

So, I, uh, set out to buy it on DVD—without any luck! In the sense that copies I could find cost more (w/ shipping) than buying it to stream. So, I bought it to stream on Amazon. Do I regret my choice, Gentle Readers? No, no I don’t. I do regret burden of knowledge in learning that TNT was already playing the entirety of the film. That was a hard pill to swallow.

Nope, I’ve looked. That’s absolutely everything. Nothing additional lurking around here...

So here it is, as it is, @jammeke, “My Notes on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”

Look, I don’t know what this film is. I probably can’t fully articulate its appeal. Or maybe I can--certainly after transcribing four page I’ve tried. Number One thing to know about me and fiction/films is that a top draw for me is seeing something out of the ordinary, such as beautiful locations, a historical era, delicious costumes. There are times, frankly, this can trump weak story and undefined character for me. (The best films, of course, combine all three) Certainly, The Man... delivers in the delight of the eyes. Additionally, I must confess that growing up as a person older than @reblogginhood​ but younger than Miss Fisher, so much of what was on TV was essentially reruns of this film’s iconic Look(tm). So, when I see women dressed like Gaby I am just another three-to-seven-year-old overcome with the drop dead glamour of it all.

Darling, tell me how you really feel...

Some questions I have:

·         IS Armie Hammer a hulk of a man? Everyone in this film seems to think so, yet he always tracks to me as trim (rather than hulking)

·         Why translate via captions some Russian speaking, but not all?

·         IS Napoleon’s backstory directly cribbed from USA’s White Collar?

·         DOES Gaby have a German accent?

·         Does Ilya get preternaturally attached to all the people he’s ordered to look after? Also, what is his bonding rate with kittens?

Sorry, wrong iteration. 

 ·         If Lady Villain knows the lens is wrong—if her technical understanding is that in-depth--does she really need Gaby’s dad to make the bomb?

·         How old was Gaby during the war?

·         What happens when Ilya gets a NEW puppy assigned to him? (please let this be addressed in film #2)

Hooray for:

·         That bathroom fight! *all the Burn Notice feels!

·         Gaby is her own lady, and chooses sides as necessary—not always unilateral in her support for either male character. Case in point: she sides with Ilya over the clothes, and Napoleon over the incident of the wallet.

·         That delicious (speaking as Rusty, here) Ocean’s 11-stylized action. It’s pretty, so I’m not bored with it. Sometimes a sandwiched montage gets shown, so I’m REALLY not bored. I’ve got 18 tiny moving boxes of things to look at!

·         Pinkie rings. There, you’ve told me everything I need to know about that character.

·         Solo in a beret. English has not yet found a word for the feeling it evoked in this viewer. Somewhere between ‘precious’ and ‘oh, no’.

See, there? Now you’ve felt it too.

·         Goggles! All the accessories! Dune Buggies! (I mean, that’s what I’m calling Napoleon’s chase-scene ride)

Things I adore:

·         It seems (after some research) that more than a few folks view Gaby as a third wheel, and though she’s not exactly a Princess Leia commandeering her own rescue and exuding competence and a deserved take-charge-attitude at every corner, she IS a foci for both male characters (though romantically it would seem only for one), just as Ilya is a foci for both her and Napoleon [no one seems to worry about Napoleon, though they should--film #2, anyone?]

·         Mechanic Gaby not needing a beauty makeover, or being dragged into one. She gets some nice clothes, but it’s never suggested that she’s not attractive or acceptable before putting them on, and I respect, nay, embrace it.

Oh, my heart. She’s still not as tall as them!

·         Ilya, drab pigeon Ilya, knowing fashion

·         Oh man, don’t even get me started on the power of the statement, “it doesn’t have to match”

·         You knew it was coming on this sublist: the wrestle-fight. I mean, c’mon. Poor little Gaby, locked behind the Iron Curtain, living a life of always being watched. She’s in the swankest hotel (I mean, Napoleon chose it, so we can be sure it’s swank with an E). She’s trying to celebrate her freedom, her liberation. She’s playing verboten music, she’s drinking to excess. Girl wants—and deserves—a party. And Ilya is…not built for that (that he knows of). For some fun, just imagine if she had been given Napoleon to room with instead.

                            o   I will say that this scene, and some of their other interactions have what I would call early (non-sibling) Luke and Leia energy. Ilya seems to have moments of being struck by Gaby in a way Luke is struck by Leia in the early part of the trilogy. When Leia takes charge, and Luke accepts it. When Leia does something incredible, and Luke is left open-mouthed. *no, I don’t see OT Star Wars in everything. Shut up.

·         “He fixed the glitch.”

·         Again, shout-out to the non-action action.

·         “I left my jacket in there.”

·         The whole race to rescue Gaby I am in love with beyond words. [I have noted it as “Crazy Jeep Drive with Warhead!”] Probably b/c it comes across as totally egalitarian. Both men want her rescued. They’re no longer in competition. It’s just as important to Napoleon as it is to Ilya to catch up to her. Also, it is bonkers, like some sort of X-games version of a commercial for the vehicles they’re driving. And screaming Willie Scott does not make an appearance.

         Someone says “winkle” out.

·         Look! Another note about the screen divisions and how I love it, shout-outs to the original Steve McQueen The Thomas Crown Affair (a contemporary of when this movie is meant to be set), and TV’s 24.

Things that get a great, big NOPE:

·         Jerrod Harris: you’ve been in so much streamable content in the last decade I can’t hate you, but frankly, you’re terrible here—unless you’re supposed to be giving a mannered, not-campy-enough-to-be-enjoyable performance here. Your American English puts me in the mind of Alex Hawaii 5-0′Loughlin where it feels you’re concentrating so hard on your accent that you fail to convince anyone that you’re a harried, over-worked and exasperated spy handler. Your performance is at odds with every bit of dialogue you’re given to say.

·         That awful, mishandled title that doesn’t even connect to the film until the final moments (a sequel set-up, for sure)

·         Look, you don’t introduce Hugh Grant casually mid-way through your film in a throwaway appearance. I mean, he’s HUGH GRANT we all know something’s up now.

·         This is not exactly a great big NOPE, b/c I love a flat cap, Tommy Shelby—but I feel like a less tall man with a far rounder face in a flat cap would track more as Russian to me that AH does. To me, he just looks like he’s about to go golfing.

Over par? Unacceptable!

·         Is Victoria a British-accented Italian? A British woman who married—what? Gaby’s uncle isn’t Italian!? An Italian who went to school in Britain? My head hurts. Also, is her hair meant to be unconvincingly bleached?

Other commentary:

·         Napoleon’s adult ne’er-do-well backstory is so far from being emotionally equivalent to Ilya’s childhood trauma [and his enslavement to the USSR] it seems bestial when he calls it out on multiple occasions. Badly done, Solo.

·         Gaby is the film’s key (sorry, Buffy fans). Everyone is connected to her. Yes, she could have been given a bit more on the character front, but I don’t see her as as much of a flaw in the film as some others/reviewers seem to.

·         Look, essentially (and not very nuanced-ly), Ilya is a stalker. I think the film goes a certain distance in establishing that his early behavior toward Gaby is not normal, but concurrently it does not truly call him out on it. He’s essentially viewed as an odd-duck, sure, but not a true threat to her (should she not reciprocate or tolerate his intensity toward her). I think I might be able to cite his behavior when Gaby comes on to him (that he doesn’t jump at a chance with her) that maybe he’s given a little more nuance than a straight-on stalker, and it helps that he and Napoleon never get into a pissing match over Gaby’s person, only over her new clothes. But overall the film has to walk a fine line (and the jury is still out on how successful it is, I’d say) between playing Ilya’s laser-like attention to Gaby for its humor, and calling it out for the unsettling, threatening behavior it is.

·         Honestly, it wasn’t until I engaged the Closed Captioning that I understood Napoleon was calling Ilya the ‘Red Peril’. So, that was nearly three viewings in.

·         I give the screen credits A+, on both ends. Not to mention the end credits are actually INTERESTING with lots to see and learn! (Certainly we learn more about HG in them than we do at any time during the film)

Things I would have liked:

·         More of fish-out-of-the-Iron-Curtain Gaby moments

·         A better dichotomy shown of East vs. West Berlin/Germany. There’s nothing easy either visually or otherwise to distinguish the two.

·         HC being given a more specific American accent (from an actual locality). This, for an American viewer, works better than the flat, unlocated American accent many a British actor will bust out. *Mind you, HC does a generally good job, but he fails utterly on both “Immediate” which he pronounces at least twice as “immeedeejt” [rather than imm-E-deeot] and “Nazi” as “NAHT-zee” [rather than “NOT-zee”]. And let’s not get started on that late in the film use of ‘earnt’, a word that—well, it’s just not in the American English twentieth century lexicon.

·         C’mon. You gotta tease the Hugh Grant more.

·         Solo is a blank before the war. I’ve read thoughts on the film calling out Gaby as the blank character, but they’re wrong. Solo is the blank. He’s the ‘made’ man, his identity seemingly assembled during the war and after. For example, he doesn’t go into the war a thief, nor (it would seem) a particularly educated or urbane individual. Now THAT’s a juicy backstory I’d love to learn about, perhaps in film #2--or #3? What creates a Napoleon Solo? What would he be doing if he weren’t on the government’s leash/incarcerated? Is anyone left caring about him back wherever he calls home? I mean, who doesn’t love a gender-flipped 60s-era Holly Golightly backstory? [And yes, I would love there to be an ex-wife or even a current wife mixed up in his origins as well—Guy Ritchie, call me!]

Notes I have that I’m not sure if they still make sense to me:

·         Only mom calls me Napoleon (do he say it ‘mum’?) Is he a secret Canadian?

·         Solo’s torture, 1st view recall Napoleon’s childhood? *I think this means that after watching the first time I somehow erroneously believed that during the torture Napoleon’s childhood was a topic gone over. This was wrong. HOWEVER, this would have made far more story-sense than the backstory we’re given on an easily disposeable villain.

·         “Even the average Russian agent. You’re special.” ?

·         Uncle is Baddie (*so glad I made this note to myself)

·         Ilya’s dad IS an embarrassment. I’m not sure what genius commentary I had in my mind, here. Perhaps that Ilya himself is embarrassed of him? Not just Ilya’s handler’s? [Also, aside: Napoleon totally slut-shames Ilya’s mom, which is the doublest of double standards from ‘I got myself the biggest and most ornate suite b/c I-wanted-plenty-of-space-for-my-random-seductions’ and I really wish Ilya had thrown that back in his face] *yes, of course I know that Ilya and Napoleon would not likely equate a wife/mother’s sexual exploits with that of Solo’s, but let’s be honest, this film tweaks the nose of (I won’t say reverses, it doesn’t go that far) plenty of tropes and gender expectations, and this certainly seems like a missed opportunity to call Solo on the carpet (which I hope film #2 does far more)

Things I wrote down so long ago I don’t recall what they mean:

·         CC-save

In conclusion:

What does film #2 look like? What title does it get? Will the Peter/Neil White Collar dynamic continue to grow? *note that I have no confidence a second film will ever come to pass...

In the end, all I know is, “It didn't help when American Tom Cruise, who was slated to play U.S. spy Napoleon Solo, dropped out, prompting the casting of Cavill (who had previously read for the Russian role).“ I would not have watched that film.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Wonky preliminary thoughts

I watched the episode once this morning then I’ve been various degrees of busy and sickly so the episode is sort of nebulous in my mind but I want to throw down the thoughts I remember thinking this morning... on a second watch I could change my mind. Honestly I don’t even know yet what this post is going to be like. I’m gonna make it up as I go. Let’s find out together.

- It’s a finale baby

Okay I haven’t touched my dash but I know my chickens and I know there’s gonna be wank, because people forget that every year when the finale comes out no one likes it. That’s it, that’s the finale, expectations are high because finales are supposed to be epic so people end up disappointed, some things were predicted 8 weeks prior and people complain that they were too obvious, some things were unexpected and people complain they came out of the blue, some people say Cas wasn’t in it enough some people write down explanations why his part was actually meaningful, you know the drill. This has been a typical finale: Dean makes The Sacrificial Decision (having Death kill him, become the soul bomb...) and things don’t just work the way he expected them to (sometimes positively like with Amara, sometimes negatively like with Michael).

I personally expected Dean to let Michael (although until recently I supposed it could be the original version of him) in since 13x15 (the showrunner’s own meta manifesto relatively to the ‘reverse season 5/reverse Swan Song’ nature of the final part of the season) and that it would be about shouldering himself the task of getting Lucifer killed since 13x20 (where he goes after Loki himself and is not enthusiastic about Sam’s revenge intents against Lucifer), and heck the ‘I let you in but you provide the power but I’m behind the wheel’ kind of speech was something I pictured in a thousand scenarios, so I didn’t get any shocks from that part of the episode’s plot, but I still enjoyed how we got there. And then, Lucifer is dead! *celebration noise coming from the fandom*

- Um okay let’s say you did your best

Okay, the impression I got from my first watch: the script worked, but the episode got wonky in its execution. Not even the special effects (insert a wonky gold star for the trying) but I remember being unimpressed by the sound/music? Is it just me? Like, sometimes the sound choices were too over the top? There were also overdramatic zooms but that’s Supernatural, and Supernatural without overdramatic zooms is like Supernatural without the Winchesters.

I liked the recap montage a lot (what do you think came first, Rowena’s line about the music or the idea of having that line inside the season to use it for the finale recap?). I got a bit sad because there was a lot of Wayward Sisters in it, and it would have been better if the finale came in a moment of celebration for it happening rather than anger and bitterness for the CW’s choices. Something I felt missing from the last portion of the season was Jody, but I was obviously okay with it because she was missing in preparation of her role in the spin-off. If we can’t change the network’s decision, I hope next season is packed with those characters.

Anyway, back to the episode - it was weird at times, you all know what times, let’s just run with it and make jokes.

- But in season 5 they said--

No, the act itself of Michael killing Lucifer wasn’t what was going to kill half the planet’s population. It was that act inside the large picture of that spell-like orchestration that was the apocalypse (seals, horsemen, omens, stuff like that). I would argue the large-scale damage that was expected wasn’t an accidental consequence, but kind of the whole point of the apocalypse. I hate myself for bringing it up, but you know Thanos killing half the people to ~save the universe~ or whatever dangerously ambiguous nazi crap that dumbasses have actually fallen for because Marvel is just that bad and dangerously ambiguously conservative? I think that the archangels kind of were similar to that mindset, making a huge sacrifice of humans to bring ~paradise~ because they were tired or whatever. You know, I know some people don’t think Supernatural is particularly progressive, but in the current media climate not framing the mass-murderous, abusive characters with nazi-coded intents as the actual heroes is apparently too progressive for some, so kudos to Supernatural for not making Lucifer or Michael the hero of the story but to stick to common sense and decency. (I know, this part is not about Supernatural but just me being salty at Marvel, but let me, please.)

- So while we’re talking about this...

I can say that what Supernatural did with Lucifer in season 13, in my opinion, has been really good. I’ve never been afraid they were going to ‘redeem’ him, so I wasn’t worried or bothered by the story throwing the tools of redemption at him. Because not only he didn’t pick them up, he couldn’t see them even if they hit him in the face. He didn’t understand what redemption even means. He kept seeing himself as the misunderstood victim, so instead of bettering himself he just felt sorry for himself, and completely missed the point of a ‘second chance’ or whatever he claimed he was after. So, eventually, it was all a lie. I think Lucifer’s “I’ve changed” attitude was partly a schemed lie (because he’s not that clueless), partly something he was convinced of himself, because he has his head up his ass enough to actually believe he was a poor victim. I think this narrative hits the nail on the head - white male fragility works like that, the men wrapped in toxic masculinity and male entitlement think they’re the victims of a big bad oppression from women and queer people and non-white people. But they’re just pathetic, and when the bubble bursts, all they can do is scream in rage and their ‘nice guy’ persona disappears. Lucifer’s 180° change of attitude towards Jack reminded me of the nice guys who start throwing all sorts of disgusting invectives against women after being rejected. So yeah, I think that Lucifer’s arc this season was sort of relevant, if you want to interpret it like this.

Either way, Supernatural, unlike some other pieces of media, doesn’t actually try to make you sympathize with abusive, violent, misogynistic men (unless they actually show to be self-aware and to seek change, and again you aren’t meant to sympathize with their bad side! Toxic masculinity is supposed to be bad, and slaughtering billions of innocents not justified for any reason, and especially does not make you the hero and the ones fighting to save the people the actual villains! *gasp*). There was even a clear dig at Trump, and I am pretty sure that’s Dabb’s answer to accusations of not being clear enough on the subject...

So yeah, I think this season’s big bad was an allegory for white male entitlement and the ‘nice guy’ victim complex, and Dean stabbed him (I’d say with the help of a Black man, sure it’s actually Michael another villain but momentary symbolism, I guess? Or maybe that just isn’t supposed to be relevant.) I felt someone cheer that was still bitter that Sam killed Alastair. You just know someone out there was still bitter about it. I mean it was teamwork, of course, but Dean provided the power and the stab. Oh, Dean letting Michael in to acquire the power to kill Lucifer (who killed Cas and Sam) as a parallel for Sam’s demon blood usage to acquire the power to kill Lilith (who killed Dean) *insert lengthy reflection here*

- Speaking of parallels--

Someone was irked at the apparent belief across fandom that Dean leaving Sam to the vampires in the cave was ~the codepencency being broken~? (I am not a fan of analyzing the show in these terms that have become so simplified, in case you’re wondering.) And of course now we see that that wasn’t so simple, because Dean makes the same face when Sam disappears with Lucifer and Jack, and Cas tries to stop him, but Dean decides to do the sacrificial decision (did he really expect Michael to keep the deal, really really?). But! (I wasn’t saying that things are still stuck in the 10x23 mud puddle, don’t misunderstand me!) This time it’s not just about Sam, it’s about Lucifer being set on really breaking dad’s toys on a large scale this time. Dean Winchester gives up his humanity to save humanity, because that’s his middle name, and not just to save his brother at the cost of harming the universe. Of course Michael is still on the loose and with a stronger vessel now, but hey, one threat at a time... But I also think there’s something significant with the fact that the last sequence of the episode shows Michael on earth, looking in his element and satisfied about it - to stop Lucifer, Sam, with Lucifer inside, went to hell; to stop Lucifer, Dean, with Michael inside... is on earth. Of course, next season he’ll probably be involved with heaven and whatnot, but I think there’s something significant there, but I’d wait to make much meta about Michael-in-Dean when we actually are shown more about it.

- So, overall?

Overall it was a good finale! Satisfying to have Jack discover Lucifer’s true nature and the nice guy lie shatter, emotional the Jack stuff, powerful that we didn’t see Dean actually getting possessed and Cas seeing it but only Cas being fraught about it, just there, kind of like the narrative was telling us, what do you even expect Cas’ face while losing Dean to Michael to look like? Now, this post is long enough and I’ll need a rewatch and some health points more to analyze the details, but I am sure that I’m going to enjoy analyzing them.

- And what now?

Oh, I expect a lot of fanworks of Charlie and Rowena during the hiatus. It’s probably already started...

Alright, more coherent and hopefully meaningful thoughts coming shortly (...maybe) to your screens ^-^

[irisstory2021]

Chapter 1: Adaptation

2035 -- Present Day

The plants were alive when I last saw them. 

I walked into the testing lab, half-heartedly tossing a coat over my civilian clothing. I wasn’t supposed to be here outside of my shift -- my father’s way of trying to pull me out of my career and brush me against something resembling a personal life -- but I couldn’t get the image of that infant out of my mind. In the footage, she’d been as pink and full of life as a fresh peach, the first baby born on New Year’s Day in 2011. Then, in what felt like a flash, the color had been sucked out of her, she’d turned white as frost and her veins could be seen pulsating, even past the grain of the frames. I couldn’t stop thinking about how quickly she had shifted; her veins sprouted out like the pigment from a brush dipped in clear water. 

I shut my locker, catching a glimpse of the plants again. There was a pot for peace lilies, which stood tall, their white petals mimicking the white walls. A pot for fastia, which my immature coworker always thought resembled marijuana leaves with their pointy ends. Then, a pot for monstera, a plant native to tropical regions that reminded me of the roundness of fat lobster claws. They were sitting in a row against a ledge on the wall that must have been left over when the windows were removed and built over when they first built the lab. They were the plants that needed the least amount of sunlight. I didn’t know why my father bothered to set them out -- their greenness and inert otherness looked stupid in such a white, clean room -- but he insisted. They honored something, or stood for something, he said -- “A reminder that nature can still exist and persist, despite man.” 

I rolled my eyes at the irony. Someone needed to be taking care of the plants, watering them at the very least. In a sunless, rainless environment like the lab, nature could only exist if it was created by and coddled by the likes of us. And the person in charge of watering them -- presumably, my father -- couldn’t even do the bare minimum.

Turning to step inside the separate room where samples of the serum were kept, I suddenly gasped at the sight of my father. The clock behind him read far too late for either of us to be here, and yet he looked at me as if I was the only one in the wrong. 

“Iris,” he said, with a raised brow, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re not supposed to come in for a few more hours.”

I shrugged my shoulders and gave him somewhat of a petulant look. Though I was almost 30, he still treated me like a teenager, and at this very moment, it was as if I was sneaking back into the house after a rambunctious night out. “I’m getting an early start.”

“4:30 in the morning early?”

“You’re here too, you know,” I said, brushing past him to perform my retina scan on the wall. The doors to the separate room swished open, letting both of us into a room where the temperature easily dropped 10 degrees. “Besides… I’m usually up this early. You know how I like my routines.” 

“Yes, you’re just like your mother, you two could never get a full night’s sleep, always restless.” He shook his head and pulled out the day’s sample for me.

We kept two versions of the serum in the lab: The original version, alpha, which was currently in commission, and the experimental version, beta, which was a copy of the original that we could test on and improve upon. Only when we made any sort of notable improvement to the beta could we eventually replicate the same improvements to the alphas we had on hand, and even then, it would take months of approval and months more of the changes to be made for the completed version to actually begin being used. 

Nothing excited me more than a fresh beta. Of course, in the petri dish, it looked clear as water -- yet, the next 10 hours I would spend working on it meant endless possibilities to bring it to life. It almost brought a smile to my face if my father hadn’t been there. 

I put on a surgical mask and a pair of gloves, wiped down the counter with some bleach, and retrieved the sample in the petri dish from my father before setting it down on the counter. “I’ll see you at lunch, dad,” I dismissed him, lowering myself to be at level with the sample as I thought about what I could do to it today. “And water those plants.”

“I will. Don’t forget these,” he said, dangling a pair of goggles in my peripherals. I sighed, snatching them with a sarcastic smile and putting them on. Satisfied, he finally left me in the lab. In the small, square window of the sliding doors I could see him pouring cups of water into the pots. 

My father and I were biologists for Plethora, a pharmaceutical company that worked on cures for human diseases. My father has been working for Plethora ever since he earned his master’s degree; the company paid for his education so long as he remained an employee. In my eyes, Plethora was a good company -- it didn’t seek to reinvent the wheel, and instead sought for ways it could keep the wheel spinning. What stopped it, of course, were terminal illnesses like cancer, heart disease. Plethora looked for cures by exploring what proteins to introduce to invasive cells rather than what could be done to eradicate them, hoping to recreate the way a tree grows its leaves back every spring despite the way it seems to die in the winter, or the way its branches grow around telephone poles instead of stop growing altogether. Adaptation.

I agreed with almost everything that Plethora did. 

As I looked at my fresh sample, I wondered what I always did whenever I started the day. What could I do that any of the other scientists -- especially my father -- hadn’t thought of yet? What could I contribute to change this seemingly perfect, sterile sample into an alpha candidate? It hadn’t killed anyone yet -- was I smart enough to keep it that way with whatever new thing I’d conjured up? I began to think about what the alpha was before it became the alpha; who was the scientist in this very same room and what were they thinking? 

Most mornings, I dove deep into this slump, and my wonderings became intrusive thoughts of whether I was good enough or just following in the footsteps of my father after losing my mother. I could never really focus until somehow pulling myself over this slump. But today, my mind drifted back to footage of that infant again -- and gone were those self-absorbed thoughts. What replaced them dared to be more sinister. 

❧

My father showed me the footage a couple of days ago over dinner. In a strange way of connecting with me, he often told me stories of when he first began working for Plethora. For dual-method purposes, he might have also been trying to convince me to stay at the company long enough, knowing I was slowly but steadily losing interest in it. I always felt indifferent about his stories, but this one has since stuck with me.

“I’m not supposed to be showing this to you, Iris,” he said. He had found an old, cathode ray television that had a disc player built in it -- it was forward-thinking, except for the fact that it had weighed 50 pounds and its screen was only a little over a foot wide. He brought this out in the middle of dinner, while I had been uninterested in my carrots, forking them into mush. I furrowed my brows, of course intrigued by my father’s antics -- and yet something hung over him, something quite serious, and it reeled me in enough to absentmindedly taste my carrot mush for the sake of closing my slacked jaw. 

He slid the disc in and it went straight to footage of New Year’s Day in 2011. Watching diligently, I saw a mother -- her name was Terry -- giving birth in a hospital room while her husband, whose name I didn’t know, filmed the whole thing. 

“Ugh, dad, what the hell are we--” I dropped my fork in disgust, fully resigned from his clear attempt at just grossing me out. He knew I was afraid to have children and didn’t really like them in the first place. 

“Shh, just watch.”

Terry was wailing, her blonde hair stuck to her forehead and her cheeks cherry red and glistening in tears. You couldn’t really see the childbirth, since the doctor had obviously been covering between her legs, but her expression was enough to churn my stomach. Watching on, it was presented like what I expected of any record of childbirth -- the crying from the mom, then the child, then the dad. Footage of them holding the child in their arms, and then later, footage of them cooing over the child as it slept in its crib. 

I was an only child and my parents were estranged from their family, so I had never had an experience of visiting a newborn at the hospital. It didn’t strike me as peculiar when the father filmed his child -- whom they called Susie -- suddenly 

[myyearinmovies]

258) ⋆ Atomic Blonde (2017) ⋆ -17/8/2017 (Spoilers)

Sensual and savage, Lorraine Broughton is the most elite spy in MI6, an agent who's willing to use all of her lethal skills to stay alive during an impossible mission. With the Berlin Wall about to fall, she travels into the heart of the city to retrieve a priceless dossier and take down a ruthless espionage ring. Once there, she teams up with an embedded station chief to navigate her way through the deadliest game of spies.

What can I say, i’ve been waiting for months and months and it did not disappoint! I’m quite selective over my spy movies, I don’t normally gravitate towards them but with this one I did and what a hell of a spy movie it was. I originally became aware of it because James McAvoy (surprise, surprise) was going to be the supporting actor in the movie and this was also back when it was called The Coldest City after the graphic novel. It wasn’t till a few months later that it was re changed to Atomic Blonde and the whole vibe of it screamed 80s. Before viewing the film, I obviously went by the trailer and what I was expecting was a cool 80s soundtrack, for me to like the cheeky David Percival (James McAvoy) and for epic fight scenes. This film did that and more!

The aesthetic of the film was just what I had wanted out of this film. The Cold War was bleak in Berlin but the varying shades of blue mixed with the neon colours almost added a little extra something to the film without taking the grunge away from the underdog areas of Berlin of that time. I don’t think it glamorised it as such in certain bits of the film but it did show realism to some aspects of that period. The Guardian described it as “sleazy, neon aesthetic that looks like an X-rated, ultraviolent knock-off of a Duran Duran video” and that sentence certainly sums up the film in one go. One particular scenery that stood out to me was Lorraine’s hotel room in Berlin. It SCREAMED 80s. The whole cinematography aesthetic just really made me happy.

The soundtrack itself also screamed 80s. It was like a sexier version of the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. Classic songs from the era like New Order, Depeche Mode (boy was I happy to hear them) and many others really help set the mood for the film. Particularly when the song Behind The Wheel by Depeche Mode played over the top of the scene where they were planning to get Spyglass through the protest crowd. It’s such a moody and almost hypnotic song. Like Guardians of the Galaxy as well, there were some songs that did add a little bit of humour. Particularly the use of I Ran (So Far Away) when she’s being chased in the car with Spyglass.

For me I couldn’t see anyone else playing Lorraine than Charlize Theron. MY GOD THAT WOMAN CAN MOVE! I feel like that role was just for Theron and no one else. I had heard people compare her Keanu Reeves’ character John Wick and it most certainly did feel like that. Another thing that stood out for me about what they did with the character’s wardrobe. A lot of the outfits were simple but they all looked glamorous without much effort. And the flexibility of the outfits surprised me to no ends. Particularly the outfit with over the knee boots, suspenders, short skirt, turtleneck jumper and white coat. The way she moved was fantastic and well choreographed. You could see that the outfit didn’t constrict her. I was quite a bit jealous of her wardrobe. I’m also obsessed with her hair. Of course we can’t even ignore how Debbie Harry she looks!

Another thing to add about the film as a whole: it’s just so amazing to see another strong female lead film, and a badass one at that! I feel like we’re getting more films like this (with Wonder Woman proving to be a huge success and Rey in Star Wars The Force Awakens amongst many more) that young girls can not so much look up to but realise that women can be as strong and fight just as good as men which I ADORE. This next generation of kids are gonna be looking at so many strong female leads (in not only film but TV too) and it makes me so happy thinking about it. (This film isn’t for kids but you get the idea.) When I came out of the cinema, it made me feel so empowered and I knew immediately I needed to get that soundtrack up on spotify as I travelled home strut to the music ready to kick some guy’s butt. (not quite like that but you must know the feeling i’m on about!) And also what I thought was so cool that they made the character openly bi which I think is quite a step forward. (I mean it could have been a case where the character did it for the job but you could see by the end of the film that she cared for Delphine.) It’s almost as if they treated the audience like “Yeah she’s bi. Who cares?! She’d probably beat the living shit out of you anyway.”

David Percival, you naughty little shit. When I first watched the trailer I was expecting him to be a good guy (that is true) and that I was going to love him but what a turn he took! It almost made me a little angry how he betrayed Lorraine. I didn’t hate him but I didn’t love him. He played the game well and was clever which I kinda liked that about him, but he came to a sticky end that I wasn’t really expecting too much by the very end of the film. Also I feel like the trailer makes you assume he’s in it more than he actually is. I know this film isn’t about him but when it actually came down to the film, he wasn’t in it as much as I was lead to believe. The scenes you see in the trailer is probably all you see of him on screen. I did however kinda liked the ruggedness of Percival’s ‘blending in’ look even if he did look like he was a short Brad Pitt. (I’m joking! – although the outfit literally looks like it’s been ripped straight out of Fight Club.) I think it was a shame we didn’t see Percival in more fight scenes other than the very beginning of the film as I know Mr McAvoy has said in the past he likes a good fight scene and was a little disappointed he didn’t have more in the film. 

A particular scene in the film where Lorraine is fighting some bad guys through a stairwell to an apartment block where it appeared to be a one shot was extremely clever and I enjoyed it. It almost reminded me of the church scene in Kingsman the way it flowed through and sped up slightly in certain places. The whole scene really kept you on the edge of your seat and the way Lorraine kept getting thrown around really made me wince. But the fact she still kept getting up and fighting back made me root for her even more!

It’s not apparent until the end but there is a key moral to this film and that is “Trust no one”. This is what lead to be a bit of a shock by the end of the film but it made what they said at the beginning of the film, “Trust no one”, all the more prominent but an interesting ending. I feel like there is a potential to make a sequel to the movie and I really hope they do.

Man, this is one solid as film. The soundtrack, aesthetic, fights and characters all bundled together made this one hell of a film. I recommend you see this film as soon as possible!

8/10

[cianmarsfanfiction]

Kiddo Chapter 17. FF.net

The adults exited the bedroom with David leading the way Neal snuggled in his arms, David and Mary Margaret had agreed to not tell Emma, on account of there being no other choice, though it was with heavy hearts... or heart considering they only had one half of one heart each.  

“Coffee or tea Regina?” Mary Margaret offered pleasantly.

“Tea, please, I’ll help you.”

“Daddy’s going to have some coffee, isn’t he,” David lifted Neal close to his face and pressed a kiss to his cheek, “he is.” He continued to coo at his son. “because daddy has to keep up with his troublemakers, doesn’t he?” As though on cue he walked out of the bedroom into the kitchen and found Emma and Henry already in there. “Look, buddy, there’s two troublemakers now.” Emma was sat on Henry’s shoulders and was reaching both of her arms up to grab the cookie jar from the shelf.

Emma froze and slowly looked at him while biting her lip. “Oops…?”

David had to force himself not to laugh at Emma’s face, while Henry was looking slightly abashed, Emma really did look like a little kid with her hand caught in the cookie jar. He turned back to Mary Margaret to share a brief amused look as he put Neal into her arms. He walked over to his daughter and grandson, and swooped Emma into his arms, taking the cookie jar from Emma and placing it down on the counter in one swift movement. He looked at her with one eyebrow raised, but he couldn’t hide the amusement on his face.

“Whoops?” Emma offered again, this time from in David’s arms.

David chuckled and rolled his eyes playfully. “You need to be careful with your arm, no more using it.” He gave her a long look reminding her of their conversation not too long ago until she sighed. He scooped out three cookies from the jar and passed them a cookie each, keeping one for himself.

“Honestly, David, you’re as bad as the kids.” Mary Margaret chided but she had a smile on her face. She walked into the kitchen with Regina following behind her, she noticed Regina was trying to hide a smile herself.

Regina shooed David, Emma, and Henry out of the kitchen. “Mary Margaret and I are going to make apple pie for desert, while whoever is the most mature of the three of you can babysit… that’s probably Henry.”

“Let’s play Mario Kart!” Emma suddenly decided, her face lit up at the idea of being able to play the video game against Henry and her father, it also stopped David from being about to bite back at Regina.

“Em,” David reminded her gently, “you can’t hold the controller with your broken arm.” His heart broke at seeing her face fall. He sighed internally and tried to figure out a way to make her smile again. “…But me and you could go on the same team? We’ll easily beat Henry that way.” He watched her smile slowly appear.

She thought it through for a couple of minutes. “You could steer and I’ll do the boxes.” She smiled fully.

Henry smiled at the pair, he could see that his grandparents were really going out of their way to make sure that Emma was comfortable, not that he expected anything different from them. “I’ll set it all up.” He announced as he sped to the living room.

David shared a smile with Mary Margaret, he nipped back into the kitchen with Emma still in his arms, he pressed a kiss to the top of Neal’s head, then kissed his wife.

“Ew, come on guys!” Emma protested with a whine despite finding them sweet really. “Children present! Do you really have to scar us for life?”

“You notice how she only ever calls herself a child when it’s advantageous to her?” David smirked and didn’t even wait for Mary Margaret to reply when he ducked down to quickly and loudly kiss his wife, purely to wind Emma up.

Emma threw her head against David’s chest, hiding her face against it, and groaned loudly. “Daaaaaaaad!” She protested but didn’t move her head from where it was tucked even as the noise quickly stopped.

“David.” Mary Margaret chastised but there was laughter in her voice which even Emma could hear the muffled version of.

David chuckled and started to walk out of the kitchen with Emma in his arms. He ran his hand through her curls which had only been made messier during her nap. “Em, it’s safe, you can come out now.” He grinned down at her as she looked up at him with a playful glare and a pout, he couldn’t resist but to press a kiss on top of the golden ringlets he had just been stroking. “Come on, let’s go show Henry how it’s done.”

~OUAT~

Henry had set up the controllers in the steering wheel accessories, and the game was ready for them to pick which characters they wanted to be, he had already selected Mario as he always did. He watched David settle down onto the couch beside him, leaning against a cushion with Emma in his lap, Henry held out the control to his grandfather when he realised that his mother wouldn’t be able to take it with her one good hand and once David had tucked a throw over his and Emma’s laps Henry was free of it. “You’re going down old man.”

David looked down at Emma with one eyebrow raised. “Do you remember when he was just a nice little boy who wanted to just be taught how to fight with wooden swords? Now he’s just a sassy teenager.”

Emma laughed at David’s overly dramatic tone, he sounded as though he was trying too hard to be in a high school production of a Shakespearian play. “A sassy teenager who’s going to lose.” She corrected.

Henry chuckled and rubbed the back of his head before smoothing his hair down again. “Sure I am, mom, sure I am.”

“Which one do you want to be kiddo?” David asked his daughter, he held the Wii remote so that Emma could press the plus shaped button to choose which one she wanted.

Emma pressed the button until she got to the character she always chose. She heard David chuckle quietly and looked up at him confused. “What’s funny.”

David smirked good naturedly. “Well, if I knew that you were going to pick Toad yet again I’d have just pressed it straight away.”

“Yeah, Gramps, why didn’t you just assume it and press it straight away?” A smirk appeared on Henry’s face which was a perfect copy of the one his father used to pull.

Emma rolled her eyes at the pair of them nevertheless she pressed the button to pick the red toad. “Dad,” She pouted up at him, “you’re meant to be on my team.”

He took the remote back and flicked their character so they were on the red team, he knew that Emma tended to pick the red team. He had figured it was her favourite colour but after their conversation, he started to wonder if her favourite colour was still yellow like when she was younger, or if that really was her favourite colour when she was however old she had been acting, if not when had it changed?

Henry pressed the buttons to choose his kart and waited while David and Emma decided which to use. He watched them as they talked and Emma kept trying to take the remote from him which David kept lifting it up just out of her reach. He was glad that his mom was looking better, from being ill anyway, it was still weird for him to see her looking like a little kid – one even younger than Roland…. But she looked happy, and he figured she was probably an even happier when she was unaware that she wasn’t always just a kid. He still wanted his mom, she was his mom after all…. but if his other mom couldn’t find anything, if there wasn’t any safe way for her to turn back into an adult again he would be cool with it. He heard the noise as David and Emma finally picked a bike – Emma had clearly thought that it was enough to just be quick while David had tried to tell her that a combination of all the parts were important. Henry turned his attention back to the screen and grinned when he realised his grandfather had given in and his mother had won the fight.

“Mushroom-“

“I know mom.” Henry said with laughter in his voice, he had already pressed the button and the music as the racetrack was shown on the screen played. “You didn’t even have to tell me, you always want to play the mushroom cup… though even that won’t work to your advantage, I’m still just better than you at video games.”

“I taught you how to play them!” Emma protested.

Although Emma couldn’t see him, David smiled sympathetically down at her, he knew that she and Henry were only bantering as they usually did but now that Emma physically looked and sounded like a toddler her words came out in a whine they sounded slightly like they weren’t true because of it – as though Emma was Henry’s younger sister, not his mother. His mind was about to drift back to the morning and Regina’s warning, or fear, that Emma would be such a young child permanently. Henry would lose one of his mothers, they would lose one version of Emma, but would gain another version of Emma who they could raise alongside their other child and give her a happy and safe childhood.  But there was no time to think about that, the game was about to start and Emma hadn’t tried to take hold of the steering wheel yet, it took David a moment to see why, Emma was right handed as was the steering wheel accessory, she wouldn’t be able to press the buttons to release the boxes as she had been planning on doing. He quickly hit pause before the game could start and Emma looked up at him surprised that he was waiting to find a way which would mean she could play too, he hated that she clearly still wasn’t used to having people wanting to spend time with her and want her to be part of the fun no matter what. He gently took hold of her left hand and guided it to the left side of the steering wheel. “Here, you take that side, I’ll take this one.” He told her and smiled when her tiny hand gripped onto left side. “Just let me know when to fire at Henry’s team, you’re much better at this than I am.” If truth be told she was, the Wii had originally been bought when the curse had broken and they needed a way to bond with each other, Mary Margaret had deemed it was at least slightly healthier than other games consoles. He didn’t expect Emma’s hand-eye coordination to be up to the level she was when she was an adult, but he figured she could still boss him about – very much her mother’s daughter.

The three of them started to play. The first race David and Emma lost, it had taken them two laps to get used to playing together and by then Henry’s team had won. But the next lap they were ready, they quickly started to race through the farm style lap, the two falling back into their usual dynamic of working together, David followed Emma’s directions leading him to take shortcuts to make them fly through the air, and they swerved past the cows perfectly. As they used the ramp during their last lap Henry was right on their tail, David was surprised when suddenly Emma turned the wheel to make them knock Henry off as they started to fly, apparently it surprised Henry too.

“Hey! No fair!” He protested though it was clear that he was amused by it.

“All is fair in love, and war, and Mario Kart.” Emma retorted without missing a beat. She and David sped over the finishing line, beating Henry’s team easily.

“Yes!” David and Emma cheered triumphantly at the same time. David held an open hand in front of her and Emma obliged in giving him a high five.

“I’m so going to beat you two this time.” Henry growled playfully.

“In your dreams, kid.” David laughed him off as though he had just claimed that he would beat his grandfather in a sword fight.

Emma had a similar laugh to her father, but coming from someone the size of a three year old it sounded a looked a lot more adorable, as though she was a toddler copying her father. “Yeah, Henry, you know this next course is mine.”

Henry rolled his eyes but he didn’t even try to argue that bit, although he had his natural ability with video games which seemed to come with being a teenager, his mom loved the Mushroom Gorge track to the extent he was pretty sure that she would even be able to do it with her one arm and blindfolded while putting barely any effort into it.

The three started to race once again, David and Emma speeding off as soon as the screen told them to go, they raced towards the first set of the bouncing mushrooms and David led Emma in turning the wheel ever so slightly to knock Henry off of the mushroom.

“Hey! Grandpa!” He had expected it from his mother, but for his grandfather to lead the sabotage of his race was rare.

David chuckled. “Sorry, Henry, but me and your mom are gonna win.”

Emma, at a contrast to Henry, was beaming. “Dad, next time we jump, flip the control up.”

“What? Why?” David asked somewhat distractedly.

“Just trust me.”

Sure enough the next time they jumped on one of the mushrooms, they flipped up the control, the control vibrated slightly and their avatar did a trick in the air, when they landed their bike got a boost edging them way in front of all of Henry’s team. Emma pulled the wheel up, David copying her so they would skid off the track, though he wasn’t sure why she was doing it. Emma and David did a wheelie over the line as Henry turned the corner of the last stretch.

“Yes!” Emma threw her arms into the air in celebration, she winced a little at the heaviness of the cast on her arm, a dull ache, soothed by medicine already taken, vibrated through it but it wasn’t quite pain it was just uncomfortable. David’s hand carefully took hold of the cast and gently tugged it down so that it was lying in her lap instead, she rolled her eyes, she wouldn’t admit it but it did feel a little better.

“Careful of your arm, kiddo.” David gently reminded her, he knew that he had only just reminded her of it, but he was sure that she wasn’t doing it to be insolent she had just forgotten.

The points came up on the screen for each team, Emma and David were ahead but if Henry’s team won the next race he would win, Henry noticed this and leant forward his elbows were on his knees and he stared at screen intently. Emma, on the other hand, stayed leant backwards, comfortable using her father as a cushion.

The race began, the three of the playing, they trash talked each other as they raced through Toad’s Factory, they swerve to grab the object boxes and avoid being squished into the ground, they zigzagged to the arrows to speed their way through the mud, and they eventually launched themselves off of the ramp. They repeated this three times. In the final lap, Henry’s and David and Emma’s vehicles were head to head as they jumped off of the ramp for the last time, Henry landed slightly in front of them and Emma pulled the steering wheel accidently slowing them down. David desperately tried to steer them onto the right track and speed up. Henry crossed over the line first and erupted into a cheer.

Emma sighed, she let go of the steering wheel and slouched down a little bit, she tried to plaster on a fake smile so not to be a sore loser, but she was doing a bad job. She normally didn’t mind so much she didn’t get why it was bothering her so much. She noticed her dad staring at her with an amused look on his face. “I let the kid win.”

David chuckled and couldn’t even bother to hide his amusement anymore. A mock serious look appeared on his face, his brows lowered and his lips narrowed to a thin line though the corners were slightly pulled up, he nodded his head. “Of course you did, kiddo, of course you did.”

Henry watched his mom and grandpa’s conversation while laughing slightly, his face was completely lit up with amusement and joy, his mom wasn’t usual a sore loser (his grandma on the other hand was) and it was hilarious to him. He gave her a cheeky smile. “It’s okay mom, I can teach you how to actual play the game if you want, that way you might actually stand a chance at winning.”

Emma grabbed a cushion from the seat beside her and tried to throw it at her son, but it was too heavy for her to gain trajectory, it flopped pathetically onto the floor and Henry fled from the room laughing loudly.

~OUAT~

Mary Margaret walked past Henry, who was still laughing loudly as he headed into the kitchen to grab a drink, she shook her head and smiled fondly as she headed towards the living room, she was glad to see him smiling and that he could get to spend some time with his mom as his mom. Her fond smile stayed on her face as she reached the den. Emma was still sat on David’s lap, the pair were laughing at something and it took her a moment to realise that David was tickling their daughter, Emma’s laughter filled the room better than any music at any ball she had ever been to. Mary Margaret slowed her walking by a fraction so she could take in the sight, she was slightly surprised that Emma hadn’t objected to the hooded lion sweatshirt she was still wearing, she either hadn’t noticed it or didn’t care. How could she and David lie to her? No not lie, she had to remind herself they wouldn’t lie to her, but they would be keeping something important from her even for a little while. She had to shake the thought from her mind, if it was for Emma’s health they would keep it from her, even at the possibility of her being less than happy at them. She just hoped she understood. Mary Margaret walked over and sat beside David and Emma, smiling broadly at them, David must have noticed the look in her eyes as his smile turned both comforting and sympathetic it was clearly on his mind too.

Emma didn’t notice, she did however take advantage of David’s distraction to wiggle off of his lap and sat in the small gap between her two parents, she beamed proudly at having been able to escape David’s tickling.

Mary Margaret tucked one of Emma’s curls behind her ear, smiling lovingly at her, her thumb brushed her cheek as she did so, her skin was baby soft and as paled as Mary Margaret’s was. She stroked the back of her fingers against the cheek, she was still warm, but it wasn’t hot enough to be classed as a fever any more. The medicine for her arm pain would take care of it anyway.

Emma smiled up at her mom, as the fingers were brushed against her cheek, she leant her head against them in response. She watched her mom’s smile get bigger. “Mom?”

Mary Margaret brushed another invisible strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah baby?”

“What’s for dinner? It’s not something healthy, is it?”

David and Mary Margaret laughed at the whine in her voice. The laughter was still evident in Mary Margaret’s voice when she answered her. “Well, I can always find you something healthy to eat.” She offered, “but otherwise I suppose takeout pizza will have to do.”  

Emma’s face lit up despite the teasing in her mom’s answer. It was very rare they would have actual takeout pizza. In her excitement she quickly bounced closer to her mom, and wrapped her arms around her, Mary Margaret responded in like by gently squeezing her daughter. “That sounds good to me, mom.”

David chuckled at the pair of them. He grabbed his wallet to get some money out of it to pay for the pizza, he had figured out that that was what his wife had originally been going to get money from her purse, but he didn’t want to interrupt her and Emma’s hug.

~OUAT~

The family all crowded into the living room to eat the pizza when it arrived. Regina was sat in an armchair, she ate her pizza with a knife and fork, and split her time between watching the movie and smiling at Neal who was sat in his bouncy chair next to the couch. Emma sat in between her parents on the couch, although the pizza was in boxes on the coffee table for everyone to help themselves to slices, Emma’s was cut into smaller pieces so it was easier for her to eat. “I still can’t believe you two haven’t seen this.” She commented to her parents, her mouth was full of the cheesy goodness, and she had sauce around her mouth.

Mary Margaret had been splitting her attention between her kids, food, and The Mummy movie they had on. She managed to restrain herself from wiping Emma’s mouth, judging from the smirk on David’s face he knew it was killing her not to, she rolled her eyes playfully at her daughter. “Well, you’ve only just made us watch it, I was stuck with a VCR and movies from pre-1983.” She reminded her. “I didn’t even own a DVD player until you moved in.”

Emma smiled back, she had forgotten about that, it felt as though she had been in Storybrooke forever not how long she really had been. “Well, you’ve missed out.”

“Me and mom used to watch this when I was little,” Henry mused he said mom the way he always did when he meant Regina, he smiled over at his adoptive mother, “it was the only slightly scary movie I was allowed to watch.”

Regina grinned back, she knew that before the curse there was problems with her parenting style partially due to the anxiety of the curse possibly being broken, but there was plenty of good times too. She chuckled slightly in answer to his comment. “You still ended up sleeping in my bed most times because you were scared that Imhotep would be in your room.”

The entire family laughed good naturedly, finding Henry cute instead of laughing at his expense, both Mary Margaret and Regina could remember Henry as a small boy, though of course the boy’s grandmother’s memories were from afar.

Emma looked at the grinning boy, her and Henry’s fake memories from New York had faded they were now more like memories of a distant dream, but she could still slightly see the young boy in her teenager’s face. “I went to see this movie too,” she felt her parents’ eyes upon her so she continued, “I went to the movie theatre to watch it. I ended up sleeping with all of the lights on.” The lights had been the ones in her bug, she had been sixteen and had only recently run away, stolen the car, and met Neal; the pair had snuck into the movie theatre to watch it, it was a good memory for Emma now she was at peace with her past with Neal, but she didn’t tell her family the details of it.

Emma felt as though her parents were watching her, but she whenever she glanced in their directions they were looking at the screen or would comfortingly smile at her, she didn’t that anything was necessary wrong her parents were just acting weird. But she knew that her parents would tell her if something was actually wrong.  

~OUAT~

The family carried on eating and watching the movie, every so often one of them would make a comment, but mostly they were just captivated in the movie. Emma found herself associating Rick and Evie with her parents, the banter was the same as her parents had every day which also seemed to end up in kissing which Emma made a big deal about but she found it sweet even if she did prefer it happen far away from her, plus like the characters her mother and father hadn’t exactly been fond of each other when they had first met, that was putting it mildly she supposed. Somehow the movie meant more to her now, as though she had been able to know what her parents were like, before she had actually known them. Emma was the first to finish, only eating two slices of pizza, which didn’t seem like much but considering she was only just better from the flu and was so small it was quite an achievement. She leant forward so she could put her plate onto the coffee table.

David grabbed hold of the back of Emma’s sweatshirt as Emma leant forward to stop her from falling face first from the couch, he lowered his arm to help her lower herself down then pulled her back up in a crane like manner. When she sat back up she had her phone now in her hands too, and was grinning at David, David shook his head but couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Trouble.” He chided playfully as he grabbed another slice of pizza.

Emma just stuck her tongue out at him and settled back in between him and Mary Margaret. She tried to unlock her phone to search the web to find out the actor who played Rick, she knew his face and was sure she had seen him in other things but just couldn’t quite remember his name or what those things had been. She placed her thumb on the home button for it to read it and unlock, her eyes were on the screen when she felt her phone vibrate and read ‘try again’, after the third time that happened the numbers appeared on the screen and she was told to use her touch I.D or to enter her passcode. She growled in frustration and slowly entered the numbers, she did it wrong the first time and growled again, she concentrated hard the next time and finally unlocked her phone. She brought up google and the keypad automatically appeared and Emma looked at the letters and found herself feeling a bit lost. They were familiar enough that she knew how to spell everything she wanted to search out, but it felt as though she really needed to concentrate on it, like it was in slow motion or something… like she had just learnt it. It didn’t seem as though she should be as impacted with it as she was, but it made it slow, it was frustrating and worrying and she found herself huffing and mumbling in frustration under her breath.

Her mumbling and noises were always quiet enough that they didn’t disrupt Henry or Regina, but her parents heard her, David and Mary Margaret shared a look above Emma’s head. They could see her taking her time and deleting letters as she concentrated, growing more frustrated by the nanosecond. It made sense, their looks said, after all they were warned that she would start to become more childish something which would only increase. “She’s going to notice something’s wrong with her reading and writing.”, David’s look said, “How are we going to be able to keep what’s going on from her?” His eyes flickered down forlorn upon Emma’s white blonde hair, but she was too distracted to notice her father looking at her.

Mary Margaret bit her lip for a half second, she had no idea how they were going to keep it from her either, how could they? She sent David a sympathetic yet encouraging smile. She engaged in their silent conversation once more. “It’s going to be one of the hardest things we’ve ever had to do, but if it makes it even a little bit safer for Emma, it’s worth it.”

David nodded his head, but like Mary Margaret he knew it would be hard, and wondered how long they’d be able to keep it up. He glanced down at Emma again and saw how frustrated she still was and could see the worried crease between her eyebrows, he glanced up at Mary Margaret who just shook her head and swiped the phone from Emma’s hands.

Mary Margaret made sure to keep her voice bright and cheerful as Emma looked up at her in surprise at her phone’s sudden disappearance. “Why don’t you just watch your movie.”

Emma pulled her knees up to her chest, her mom had clearly caught her, a quick glance up at her dad made her realise he had seen too. The girl sized woman sighed. “I just wanted to figure out what I had seen him in.” She mumbled. She felt David’s hand rubbing circles onto her back as she watched Mary Margaret stand up and place her phone in one of the drawers of one of the many cabinets of different sizes and styles which filled the room, though she didn’t see which one it was exactly, and at that moment it didn’t really matter. She just focused on hoping her fast beating heart wouldn’t give her worry away to her father, she didn’t look at him as she knew her face would betray her worry over her sudden reading difficulties, she took a minute to recompose herself.

“George of the jungle?” Regina suggested after a brief pause, where only the movie filled the silence, and David, Mary Margaret, and Emma pretended that they were all absolutely fine.

Emma looked up with a small fake smile and nodded though looked confused, she hadn’t expected Regina to have seen that movie, even if it were the one which she had .  

“Henry had a time of about four months when he would only watch that movie, on repeat.” She laughed as Henry rolled his eyes playfully. “Until he decided to jump from the landing of the stairs in an attempt to become like his hero.”

“It was totally worth the broken arm.“ Henry laughed along with the rest of his family, he did notice that Emma’s laugh was slightly fake, which was what she had been hoping for.

~OUAT~

As the night wore on, it was clear to the others that Emma was starting to tire, she didn’t even want to eat any of the pie Mary Margaret and Regina made. Emma leant against her mother as they watched the end of the movie, she rubbed her eyes with her fist, and the corners of her mouth tugged up into a smile as her mom dropped a kiss onto the top of her head.

Regina cleared her throat and looked over at the rest of her weirdly put together family, she could see the resemblance between Emma and Henry when he was around her size, and although she’d never admit it to anyone (not even Robin or Henry), Emma did look rather adorable in that hooded sweatshirt Henry had a similar tiger one when he was little. “Well, Henry and I should go, Henry has school tomorrow and I told Robin we’d be home in time to say goodnight to Roland.”

“Yeah, I promised to read him a story from my book.” Henry grinned, he liked having Roland around and being like a big brother to him, the younger kid had seemed to attach himself to Henry straight away. Henry also got along with Robin, who, despite having to try and work out everything with Regina and Marian, had been making sure to bond with Henry too – clearly he was clearly planning on being around for a long while.  

Emma smiled at Henry, she was glad that he got along with Robin and Roland, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t going to miss him when he was gone, but she also didn’t want him to see her like that… it was probably hardest for him, at least she could spend much needed time with her parents. David and Snow stood up to say goodbye to Regina and Emma found herself suddenly being hugged by Henry.

“I love you mom. You’ll be fine.” He assured her, because he knew that his grandparents would never let anything bad happen to her, and he would have a part in her life even if she did change. He resolved to try and help Regina search for a way to help Emma, he could look through his book, maybe even talk to people who would have any clue – like Jefferson or if it came down to it Blue.

“I love you too, kid.” Emma squeezed him back and reassured him with her own words. “I know I will be. Hey, once this is over, we’ll go and get sundaes.”

Henry beamed back at her. “Good, chocolate ones with extra toppings, we probably shouldn’t tell grandma or she’ll make us eat every green vegetable she can name for like a week afterwards.”

Emma chuckled at that. “You’re right.” She held out her hand to shake on the promise of sundaes.

~OUAT~

Mary Margaret closed the door behind Regina, after she had warned David and herself again to try and keep it from Emma, at least until she could research it some more, even just a couple of days could be beneficial. She walked over to David as he was tucking their son into his crib, she watched him kiss two of his fingers then press them to Neal’s head, she couldn’t help but smile at what an amazing father he was to Neal and Emma, no matter their daughters age. She carefully stroked her finger down Neal’s cheek and smiled softly as he moved his head close to her touch but stayed fast asleep. She looked up and saw her husband smiling just as softly at her, she felt him duck his head slightly and kiss the top of her head, she leant against his side and the pair just watched their son sleeping peacefully for a minute. But eventually she had to break the silence. “We need to talk to Emma, about the pullups, she doesn’t remember any of what happened last night or this morning, she doesn’t remember agreeing to wear them… even if she could remember that we would have to talk to her again as it wasn’t this Emma who agreed.”

David sighed at the inevitable. “I know.” And he did, he also knew how hard this was going to be, much harder than convincing the child Emma that she needed them. “We’ll just explain that it’ll be better for her, I hate seeing her being terrified when she wakes up and feels like she has to try and change her bed covers before we see.”

“Not to mention the nightmares, their impact only seems worse when she has to go through all that hassle.” Mary Margaret agreed, they were so clearly psyching themselves up, but they also knew that they needed to do so as this was going to be a hard task to complete.

David nodded his head at his wife and gently squeezed her hand. They both walked over to the table where Emma was putting one of the walkie talkies.

Emma had to stand on her tiptoes with the packet in the air to be able to even nudge the box onto the table, and that was by using her sore arm too, she turned and saw her parents looking at her. “Henry left his one here.” Her own walkie talkie was still on the coffee table, she didn’t want to put them both together in the off chance that someone would put both of the walkie talkies into the box and Emma would be left without one for a short amount of time, in which she could have been talking to Henry in.

“You have to be careful with your arm, kiddo.” David reminded her gently, he watched Mary Margaret pick her up and sit her down on her lap at the head of the table, he took a seat beside them.

Emma looked at her dad then tilted her head back up at her mom. A deep sense of worry filled her, out of habit, she knew the tension of a hard conversation too well. “Guys? What’s going on?”

“You’re not in trouble, Em.” David promised her, he took hold of her hand which was resting on table and took hold of it, and gently squeezed it. “I promise.”

Mary Margaret hummed her agreement with David’s statement. “We wanted to talk to you, honey, about the accidents you’ve been having at night.” She felt Emma’s entire body tense so she rubbed circles against her stomach. “You’re not in trouble, baby, we’ve just been noticing how hard this is on you, and that it’s making you wake up really distressed-“

“-And pretty out of it, because it makes your nightmares worse.” David added. He figured he could play the night before off as her being out of it, for the time being, he wasn’t completely lying as she had been rather out of it but he was still planning on apologising when it was at least slightly safer for Emma to know the truth. “Do you remember me finding you last night?” He watched her shake her head with a frown. “You were huddled, soaking wet, between the machines in the laundry room while still half asleep.”

“Sorry,” Emma apologised straight away, she didn’t like how this conversation was going, it was so similar to others she had had when she was younger and had caused too much hassle for foster carers so was being sent back to a home, “I didn’t mean to wake you up, I promise I won’t again.” She stared at her father, then mother, then father again, willing them to believe her. Visions of what felt like a million different ‘homes’ flickered through her head, black trash bags of her handful of belongings as care kids weren’t given suitcases, it was only the bags she had gained when she was twelve which marked the passage in time in her head, she hadn’t gained many belongings within the sixteen years in the care system, maybe a few books here and there. Then there was always a file, a thick file her social worker carried, her file. It only got bigger, full of medical reports, teachers’ reports, and police reports. It was passed around as she moved, full of pictures of injuries which she looked disgusted at whenever she looked at them, partially at the injuries themselves partially at the knowledge of the pity they would reward her should any of those whom she loved ever saw them.

David sighed. “No, Em, you’re not supposed to try and deal with this by yourself I’d much rather you woke me up. I’m telling you because it’s dangerous for you. You’re being woken up because you had an accident, then when you’re heading down the stairs without even realising it to try and deal with it on your own, you could get hurt by falling down the stairs.”

“Or if you fall asleep between the machines and we go up we might think you’re missing, and that would scare us, more than you could imagine.” Mary Margaret added. She knew Emma well enough to know that she was probably panicking and it was important to get to the point before she had a panic attack. “We’ve come up with a solution, of sorts, we know this will be hard for you, but it really is for the best.” She reached for the shopping bag which had been left on the table, the other one with the Dory pullups had been hidden in the closet belonging to the downstairs bedroom, and pulled out the packet of the plainer packet of pull ups.

There was a beat of silence.

“You’ve got to be fucking shitting me.” Emma said with her usual linguistic eloquence. Her mouth hung open when she wasn’t speaking. She knew her mother wasn’t a fan of her cursing, normally pointing out that she wasn’t a sailor so there was no reason why her language should match one, but Mary Margaret clearly decided that now wasn’t the time to get into that one.

The silence remained.

Emma studied David’s face and saw he was being serious. She half turned around so she could examine her mother’s face, desperately hoping that her mother would tell her that she had a magic solution she had only just thought of, she would have thought her parents were playing a particularly cruel joke on her but that simply wasn’t who her parents were. There was clearly no fix all solution as Mary Margaret gave her a tight lipped sympathetic look.

“No.” Emma breathed out. “No.” She repeated louder. She pulled her hand from David’s hold and managed to climb down from her mom’s lap one-handedly. “No!’ She shouted, shocking not just her parents but herself, but she just repeated it a couple more times. She felt the fire of her anger fill her tiny body. It was overwhelming, suffocating, uncontrollable. She was not in control of her body as she stomped her feet then carried on stomping them away from the table to the living room. As she stomped she carried on shouting “No!” though sometimes she threw in a “I don’t want to!” She kicked the television stand, pain seared in her foot but she couldn’t stop, she kicked a side table where a vase was precariously heading closer to the edge. Her shouts had taken on a sobbing tone and she only absently heard her brother’s cries. She felt a pair of big hands lift her up by her waist and place her down a few feet away from where she had been stood. She pulled herself from where David’s hands were barely holding her, she dropped to the floor, lying flat on her front her feet kicked the ground, and she cried loudly weaving ‘No.’ into the sobs every now and again, though the word had lost all its meaning.

David and Mary Margaret had been watching Emma in shock as she moved to the living room and started to tantrum, they understood why she was feeling angry and upset, but they knew that she would normally have protested something by using more than five words so this was clearly in part due to her toddler emotions. Somehow they could tell that Emma was still in her adult mind, though that was probably only because of their natural parenting instincts, it made them feel even worse for having to hide Emma’s possible fate from her. Neal started to cry at the noise having woke him up. Mary Margaret sighed, barely audible above the shouting and sobbing and kicking, she stood up and headed to the crib to soothe the baby.

David stood up too, and headed over to watch Emma play out her tantrum, not planning on interfering unless Emma was in danger of hurting herself, he saw the vase edging closer to her and decided to step in, he wasn’t prepared to let the vase to fall on or near his daughter, and wasn’t too keen on her possibly hurting her foot by kicking all the solid furniture. He picked her up, barely off the ground, and felt her struggling in his hold. He placed her feet back onto the floor and crouched in front of her, though she clearly didn’t really see him as she threw herself onto the ground, he stayed crouched next to her feeling helpless. It felt as though he and Mary Margaret had been thrown into parenting head first. They had been parents, of course, for about three decades but they had only known it for a couple of years and that definitely hadn’t been in a conventional way. But all of a sudden they had a new born son and a daughter who was sometimes a toddler and sometimes an adult who acted like a toddler. David watched his daughter kicking the ground and cry. He rubbed circles onto her back, at first she tensed at them, but eventually he felt her back muscles relax. A few more minutes later and her feet stopped kicking, a few more passed and David became aware that she was no longer shouting no and was just crying, he gave it one minute more before he chanced picking her up. She did not resist. He held her to his chest and felt her burying her head against his chest, her hand grabbed onto David’s open plaid shirt and held onto it so her knuckles turned white. He sighed in sympathy for his daughter, he made sure that her yellow casted arm was against him in a way which meant she wasn’t about to hurt it, then he cradled the back of her head with his hand, as he always did, while she cried. He stood up with her, and rocked slightly side to side in a natural attempt to soothe her, he made gentle shushes to encourage her to calm. He looked across at Mary Margaret and saw she was doing the same with Neal. They shared a bittersweet smile but didn’t talk as their babies cried.

Neal stopped first and fell asleep, and after a while Emma was simply sniffling into David’s chest, his shirt and t-shirt were drenched by her tears and running nose, but he did not mind.

Mary Margaret walked over to David and Emma and placed her hand on Emma’s back, rubbing gentle circles onto it as she shared a look with David, they could tell that although it was the pullups which started this all off, Emma’s reaction was a combination of all the things which had happened recently, the loss of some of her reading skills had clearly been weighing on her mind. David sat down on the chair Mary Margaret had previously been sat in with Emma, but this time Emma was with him instead. She stayed cuddled to his chest, clinging on and sniffling, so David held her close to him and continued to rock himself and his daughter as Mary Margaret rubbed her back from the chair to David’s left.

Eventually the sniffling died down and her grip on his shirt loosened, David would have thought that she had fallen asleep against him, but Emma mumbled, her voice was so quiet it would have been hard to hear ordinarily, but now her words were distorted entirely by being spoken while pressed as close as possible to David’s chest. He gently pulled her away from him and sat her sideways onto his lap, she was facing Mary Margaret and he could see her face too, he wiped stray tears from her bright red cheek and sighed internally at how miserable she looked, he wanted to just wrap her in blankets, cuddle her close, and never let go. He didn’t have to look at Mary Margaret to know that she felt the same. “What did you say kiddo?” He asked her, so softly that he became aware only after he had spoken that it was said in the same way which he would have spoken to a small child, though he would argue that he had spoken to her like that before even as an adult.

Emma bit the corner of her lip until she tasted the faint hint of blood. She looked at her mom then at her dad, her eyes were somehow even bigger than usual, but she looked down when she spoke, too embarrassed and desperate to face looking at either of them as she tried to bargain. “I can… I can clean up any mess myself, and I’ll try really hard, I promise,” her words were spilling out of her, stumbling over one another as they rushed out, dripping with desperation, “you won’t have to know, I can keep it secret, I promise.”

Mary Margaret watched Emma’s despairing rambling come to a stop, as David pressed a firm kiss to the top of her head, as though David had broken a curse with a true love’s kiss. Mary Margaret reached across and stroked her hand down Emma’s tiny, hot cheek. “Sweetie, we don’t mind having to change your bedsheets, you shouldn’t have to change them, you should never have had to do that.” She paused as Emma looked from her to David, when she looked back her bottom lip was jutted out still but there was also a look on her face which showed Mary Margaret that Emma was believing of her mother’s statement. “If there was another way which we thought would help you as much as this will, we would take that in a heartbeat, but this is the best way. This is the best thing for you, baby.”

“It’s not fair.” Emma’s bottom lip wobbled and before she knew it she was crying once again. This crying was different. This crying was barely audible, as though Emma didn’t want them or anyone else to hear, it was one which Emma had learned to do at a very young age. It was the cry of a child who had learnt not to be heard or face the consequences.

Mary Margaret and David’s shared heart broke. They knew, yet again, that this wasn’t just about Emma having to use pullups during the night time, this was everything. This was Emma having been sent back in time and ending up as a toddler size child as a result, this was having to concentrate with all of her might to remember how to spell ‘how’, this was all the emotions which seemed to constantly be bubbling under the surface of her skin, this was the memories of her past behind her eyelids whenever she shut her eyes.

“It’s not.” Mary Margaret’s agreement was barely above a whisper, a shared statement which Mary Margaret yet again voiced on behalf of herself and David, and she meant everything Emma did, and more. She meant having to keep something from Emma, Emma having nightmares because she had grown up neglected and abused, Emma having had to grow up without them, Mary Margaret having to tell David to put Emma into the wardrobe in the stray hope that their new born baby who hadn’t even been given the opportunity to feed would not be killed, David having to put the baby into the wardrobe. And the fact that there was a possibility that they would be able to raise Emma and give her a happy childhood, but if that happened it was because they had lost the adult version of Emma, and so far, they had no way to stop that happening.

Emma resumed her position against David’s chest as she resumed her crying.

Mary Margaret rubbed Emma’s back, and David rocked her in his arms, trying to soothe her the best they could. The parents had tears in their eyes, they hadn’t needed a shared heart to feel the same when it came to their kids, particularly Emma.

Eventually Emma stopped crying but she stayed cuddled close to David. By now her medicine had worn off and her broken arm was starting to hurt once more, she held it instinctively towards her chest, she felt David rocking her and her mom rubbing her back making soothing shushing noises and gently assuring her that everything would be okay, Emma didn’t want this moment to end. “Okay.” Emma reluctantly agreed, finally, and she did not have to say what it was she was agreeing to.

David smiled softly at his daughter, he dropped another kiss to the top of Emma’s head, he could see his own small smile reflected on Mary Margaret’s face. “Good girl.” He squeezed her tight for a half second as Mary Margaret grabbed one of the pull ups. “Why don’t you let your mom go help you get changed and I’ll make some hot chocolates,” he saw her open her mouth and he smirked, “yes with cinnamon. You can take some medicine for your arm then we can all have our drinks and watch a movie.”

A small smile appeared on Emma’s face, it was barely visual, but it was there nonetheless. “Okay.” She agreed. “So long as we get cookies too.”

David smirked, he was never one to turn down cookies, whether they were for Emma or himself. “Deal.” He placed her into Mary Margaret’s arms and watched his wife carry his daughter up the stairs before setting about making the hot chocolates.

~OUAT~

Emma woke in the early hours, she had been having a bad dream, not up to the level of her previous nightmares, but bad enough that she didn’t want to go back to sleep in her room. She had dreamt that she had been living in the loft with her parents and brother, then suddenly Petunia, one of her old social workers, had turned up and taken her from the home, now when she shut her eyes all she could see was that huge file and hear the knock at the door. She shook her head to try and rid herself of the memory of the dream, it didn’t work, but it did spur her into action. Her bedroom was fairly light from the lamp which had been left on, so she was able to see as she put on the child size dressing gown her mom had bought her along with a pair of slippers. She grabbed her blanket and a flashlight which was on top of one of her bedside tables. She noticed her walkie talkie had found its way up to Emma’s room, no doubt put there by Mary Margaret, Emma placed it into her dressing gown pocket, finding comfort in its presence.

She walked down the stairs with her things, finding her way with the help of the flashlight, there had been a lamp left on in the kitchen but the loft was still rather dark, winter was close so the dark and cold had settled onto the town in a way it never had before Emma had moved there. She walked past the table on her way to the couch, she remembered that Henry had left his walkie talkie there, she knew it would be a while before her parents woke up so perhaps she could busy herself by texting him to let him know that he had left it… perhaps that way she could figure out why her literary skills had been playing up earlier, she hoped that it was just a one time thing, if not she had no idea what to do.

She placed her blanket down on the couch as she searched for her phone, she didn’t bother to turn on any lamps as she searched the tops of tables and usual cupboards and cabinets, she had no idea why the curse had equipped her mother with so many of them, they matched the higgledy piggled style of the loft, but it made searching a whole lot harder. She sighed and put the flashlight into her other pocket, it pointed up illuminating the room and shining around as she moved.

She looked at some of the more unusual cupboards. Eventually she got to one she couldn’t remember her mom ever using, it was in the style of a trunk like the ones people used to travel with in the olden days, or in Harry Potter, except it was upright and had drawers. She opened it up and shined her flashlight into it, not expecting much, then the light flickered to a big file, just like the one in her dream.

Her heart skipped a beat. No. It couldn’t be.

She placed the flashlight down on the ground so she could pick the file up. She grabbed it and sat on the ground, maybe it was all a misunderstanding, she hoped, but then she saw that her name was on the front. She flicked it open and found pages and pages full of numerous doctor’s notes and scans, x-rays, and results of other tests. She tried to read some of them as her mind raced with memories of files almost identical to this one appearing whenever she was about to be moved, often to some place much worse, because she had become too much bother. But she hadn’t… had she? Her eyes filled with tears which only made trying to read the typed writing even harder, the handwritten notes were near impossible, the file was too hard to hold and so all of the pages fell out of the manila folder along with photos of various injuries at various ages.

She picked up her flashlight, she wanted to know what was going on, to shout, to demand answers from her parents, hope for any reason which would wash away the worry she was being sent away. There was the only too familiar worry that she had done something which had made Mary Margaret and David decide that she was too much hassle, it didn’t take long before her mind drew its conclusions, after all they had a new born baby now that was a lot of work and stress, then all of a sudden she had been turned into the size of a toddler and seemed to be having the troubles of one too. She was too much for them to handle anymore. They didn’t sign up for this. The curse had broken, and she was twenty-eight, they wanted to stay in her life with her as an adult, an actual adult not an adult who couldn’t even work as she was the size of a three year old.

Her flashlight flashed back into the drawer and she spotted a familiar yellow fabric. It was only when she pulled it out that she realised that it was the same lion from the dream she had had earlier on. If her mind had been spinning before it was on a carousel now, one which was spinning out of control, she had thought that it had been a dream but now she wasn’t so sure. She had no idea what was going on. She tried to remember the morning or even the night before, David had said that she had woken up after a nightmare and gone to the laundry room, she couldn’t remember a second of it. But then she had a strange feeling that she had had a bad dream within that dream of her where she was a toddler with her parents… unless….

Could she be…. Was she…

She had been a child that morning without remembering it… she was turning into a child again.

She had no idea what she could do to stop it.

In her dream she had been happy, not a dream it had been real, with her parents and brother she had been happy.

She thought that they had all been happy. But evidently not.

She was too much for her parents to handle. They hadn’t signed up for this, they had her file, and were just waiting for her to be taken away. She would be gone by the end of the week.

She was not going to wait that long. She didn’t want to say goodbye to them, it would hurt too much. She’d find her own way to a different place, she’d run away, as she always did.

She was fighting tears as she placed the flashlight into her dressing gown pocket and grabbed her blanket. She didn’t want to leave, she didn’t want to leave the loft it was the first home she had ever known, and she didn’t want to leave her family they were her only one. But she clearly wasn’t making them happy, her being there, and she would do anything to make them happy or even to make them smile.  

She walked to the door and was thankful that it was not locked. She managed to reach the door handle, she opened the door shivering as the hot air from the loft rushed out, she took a step into the hallway.

She looked back into the loft, she wanted her mom or dad to suddenly wake up, and rush to stop her to tell her that they love her, or for Neal to cry and wake them up, to stop her from having to run away. She needed, desperately needed in a way that she had never needed anything before, an explanation which wasn’t the same as she assumed and feared.

The loft was silent.

Emma closed the door of her one and only home behind her as she set off into the frozen night.

[gwynnew]

'Alien': Inside the Chestburster Scene That Shocked Audiences — and the Cast

Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, and Harry Dean Stanton react to the appearance of the chestburster in a screencap from ‘Alien’ (1979)

One of the most visceral shocks in movie history is the moment when a newborn alien explodes out of John Hurt’s torso in Alien (1979). In an homage to that scene, which uniquely combined the horrors of childbirth, parasites, and irritable bowel syndrome, the new prequel Alien: Covenant contains multiple body-bursting aliens. The effect is as gruesome and frightening as it was nearly 40 years ago, when it involved a hand puppet, gallons of fake blood, buckets of real animal organs, and a cast of genuinely astonished actors. Here’s how the original chestbuster scene in Alien came to be.

Watch the original scene (warning: disturbing and violent imagery):

The monstrous moment takes place at the halfway point of Alien, signaling the film’s shift from suspenseful sci-fi thriller into full nightmare mode. Earlier in the story, the 7-person crew of the commercial spaceship Nostromo makes a brief landing on an unknown planet in order to investigate a distress signal. There, they discover remnants of alien life, including what appear to be eggs. An insectoid creature bursts out from one of those eggs and latches on to the face of executive officer Kane (Hurt). The other crew members are unsuccessful in detaching the “facehugger,” but a few hours after Kane returns to the ship, it scurries away on its own, leaving the officer unharmed.

Or so it seems. Later, during a genial crew meal, Kane begins retching and then convulsing in agonizing pain. As his shipmates reach out to help him, blood suddenly spurts from his chest, and a wormlike creature with razor-sharp teeth — born from the egg laid in Kane’s stomach by the facehugger — emerges from his twitching corpse. The alien hisses and runs off, as the crew (including Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver) watches in shock.

The chestburster was a defining moment in Alien from the beginning; producers David Giler and Walter Hill have both said that the scene is what sold them on the script. Reportedly, co-screenwriter Dan O’Bannon was inspired by a terrible incident of food poisoning, as well as the life cycle of the parasitic wasp (whose eggs are laid inside, and then hatch out of, other living insects).

However, the script never described the creature in detail. For inspiration, director Ridley Scott pointed concept designer H.R. Giger to a 1944 Francis Bacon painting called Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. “One of the [figures] has just teeth and red flesh,” Giger, who is Swiss, said in a DVD featurette. “[Scott] liked to have the chestburster like that. And I did some designs that looked something like chickens without feathers, that he was not happy with.” In fact, Scott told Cinefex, he liked the design on paper, but when creature maker Roger Dicken constructed a model, he saw “a plucked, demented turkey… all wrinkled and ancient-looking, like some malevolent Muppet.” For the next version, Dicken and Scott pared the design down to the basics, including a body modeled on the sleek head of the grown alien. “Finally,” said Giger, “we had only the head and the tail, and that was enough.”

The chestburster as it appears in ‘Alien’

When it came time to shoot the chestburster scene, excitement was in the air; everyone knew that it was a big moment. As to what, exactly, would happen, Scott kept Hurt’s co-stars in the dark. “All it said in the script was, ‘This thing emerges,’” Weaver explained to Empire magazine in 2009. The cast began their morning by shooting the start of the dinner scene, when Kane begins convulsing on the table and bleeding through his shirt. Special effects supervisor Nick Allder threaded a pipe under Hurt’s clothing, attached to a blood pack and a squib, in order to get the effect of spontaneous bleeding. On the first take, the explosion of blood was unexpectedly powerful, lifting up Hurt’s shirt — and making it look as if the creature was trying to push through from underneath. That accidental shot made the final cut.

After Scott got his shots of Kane bleeding and the crew reacting, he sent all the actors except Hurt to their dressing rooms for several hours. “We’re sitting upstairs and nobody knows what the hell is going on. Harry Dean [Stanton] is sitting in the hall playing his guitar,” Veronica Cartwright, who played Lambert, told Empire. Meanwhile, the effects team set up the shot. A prosthetic chest was placed on the table where Hurt had been lying.

A panel was removed in the table so that Hurt could sit underneath it and put his head and shoulders through, making it look like the fake chest was part of his actual body. Also underneath the table were creature maker and puppeteer Roger Dicken; the chestburster puppet; a hydraulic ram that would push the puppet through Kane’s chest; and a compressed blood machine, with hoses that would spurt blood from the body. The fake chest was packed with real animal organs, obtained from a local butcher and sanitized with formaldehyde by art director Roger Christian. Hurt was given wine and cigarettes to keep him occupied throughout the tedious set-up.

An effects test for the chestburster puppet:

Finally, the actors were summoned back to the set. “Everyone was wearing raincoats — we should have been a little suspicious,” Weaver told Empire. “By the time they take us down to the set, the entire thing is shrouded in plastic, they have huge big buckets of offal sitting around, the place smells like formaldehyde like you wouldn’t believe it,” Cartwright said in the 2003 DVD featurette The Eighth Passenger: Creature Design. “We were all wondering what the hell was going on,” Yaphet Kotto, who played Parker, told Empire. “Why is the crew looking at us the way they’re looking at us right now? Why are they wearing plastic shields?”

“It was a much publicized fact that the cast didn’t know what was going to happen,” Hurt noted in The Eighth Passenger. “Well, of course they knew what was going to happen; they knew that the alien was going to arrive that way. What they didn’t know is that it was going to be capped with little explosives, and that when it actually burst through there would be quite a shattering explosion and that they’d all get splattered with blood and stuff.”

Four cameras were running to capture the scene from every angle. There were a few false starts when the creature couldn’t break through because the T-shirt wouldn’t rip. (“There was quite a long time as one prop man underneath the table kept pushing this alien on a stick saying, ‘Is it coming through yet…. Can you see it? Is it coming through?’ Hurt joked in the featurette.)

Then all of a sudden, it worked — a little too well. As the creature burst out of Kane’s chest, jets of blood squirted everywhere, startling the actors. They had instinctively leaned over Hurt’s body as they tried to help his character, and now they jumped back, dodging the blood. Cartwright got the worst of it, and her genuine shock ended up in the movie. “They told me I’d get a little blood on my face. And they had an entire jet pointed at me,” she said on the Alien audio commentary. When she was hit in the face, she lunged backwards, tripped over a banquette and flipped onto the floor (which no doubt led to the urban legend that Cartwright fainted).

After the big reveal, the creature made its getaway, puppeteered by Dicken on a wheeled dolly. And that was it. The whole scene was shot in one morning.

Much as those blood jets surprised the actors, the chestburster scene stunned audiences when Alien opened in 1979. On the DVD featurette A Nightmare Fulfilled: Reaction to the Film, actor Tom Skerritt (who played Dallas) recalled a story that Ridley Scott told him: One theater owner said that the chestburster scene “really messed up our bathrooms,” and said he cut it out of the film in order to cut down on clean-up. Another Alien legend says that theater audiences at an early Dallas screening began running and fainting after the chestburster scene, though former Fox exec Alan Ladd, Jr. said it didn’t exactly happen that way. “People were too stunned at that moment — they didn’t react,” Ladd said in the featurette. The chestburster was just the first indication of the horrors to come, and audiences became progressively more terrified as the film went on.

The parody chestburster scene in the Mel Brooks comedy ‘Spaceballs’ (1987):

Some of that primal terror is gone now, since audiences have seen the scene parodied so many times (notably by Hurt himself in Mel Brook’s Spaceballs, above) and fans can purchase a cuddly plush chestburster from Thinkgeek. But the original scene still packs a (literal) gut punch. No matter how many chest-, back-, and throat-bursters Ridley Scott packs into his Alien sequels, audiences will never forget their first time.

Spoiler video! ‘Alien:Covenant’ star on becoming the first facehugger victim:

Read more from Yahoo Movies:

The Gruesome Inside Story of ‘Misery’s’ Terrifying Ankle-Bashing Scene

The Making of Daniel Craig’s Eye-Poppingly Iconic ‘Casino Royale’ Swimsuit Scene

Summer of ’86: How ‘Labyrinth’ Achieved Peak Practical Effects

[shirlleycoyle]

The Real Robotic Revolution

Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution is a new form of book, a cross between fiction and nonfiction. It is a techno-thriller, following a hunt for a terrorist through the streets of a future Washington, D.C. At the same time, it is a work of research with over three hundred factual explanations and predictions baked into the story, replete with the nonfiction reference endnotes to show their source from the real world. The idea is for the reader to enjoy a vivid story and characters, but also learn about everything from how AI works and its planned applications, to its likely impact on the future of politics, economics, society, and security. As a result, Burn-In has drawn early praise from a diverse mix that ranges from the current or former heads of the CIA, U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, NATO, and LinkedIn to the writer of Lost, Watchmen, and the new Star Trek movies.

The following scene takes place about halfway through the story. A series of cyberattacks on dams, water treatment plant, and sewer systems (all incredibly vulnerable critical infrastructure in the real world) have caused a massive flood to sweep across the low-lying areas of Washington DC. In a sense, it is an intentional version of the 1936 flood that remade the city. In the tsunami's aftermath, FBI Special Agent Lara Keegan and the test system that she's been assigned to vet are part of the emergency rescue effort. TAMS (short for Tactical Autonomous Mobility System) is where the software of Siri and Alexa and the hardware of robots will be in approximately 10-15 years. Keegan is uncertain whether she should help train up TAMS or sink the experiment, to help protect her own job down the line… — P.W. Singer

FARRAGUT SQUARE

Washington, DC

Keegan kept her hands on the SUV’s wheel, ready to snatch control as she travelled with TAMS against a steady stream of autonomous ve- hicles fleeing the flooding along the Potomac. Above its historic high water mark, the river spread over the entire basin and had even over- whelmed the barrier walls at Reagan National Airport.

“Send our location to Noritz and the TOC,” said Keegan. TAMS pushed a thumbs-up emoji to Keegan’s vizglasses.

Their destination was the old FBI Washington Field Office building at 4th and G. A notice had gone out that a temporary command post had been set up there after the Hoover Building’s basement flooded and the entire block lost power.

On the SUV’s screen, Keegan projected live satellite imagery of the city overlaid onto a street map. It showed how the flood wave had paid no mind to the orderly gridlike arrangement of Washington’s streets. The initial wave had surged well up to M Street, but then the waters had quickly receded, leaving muddy red sidewalks and sucking cars right out of their parking spaces.

Most of all the view showed how just a few feet in elevation made all the difference between devastation and normalcy. Most parts of the city were untouched, but now a massive moat cut through Washington, DC,’s federal district, turning the southern chunk of the city into an island. The Potomac River’s newest tributary entered the city at the Tidal Basin on the edge of the National Mall before its waters returned back into the main river near the lower elevation of the District Wharf shopping complex. Or rather what had been the District Wharf shopping complex.

The borders of the flood zone reflected the subtle topographic con- tours of a city constructed out of swampland, unnoticed by most residents, but which had originally set its design over three centuries back.3 The flood’s edge ran along Pennsylvania Avenue, roughly miroring the now-paved-over Tiber Creek that had once reached right up to the President’s Palace, before it was renamed the White House.4 It then ran from 15th Street beside the Treasury Department building, down over to the I-395 highway tunnels that opened at the base of Capitol Hill.5 Its southern side ran along Madison Avenue, the lower edge of the National Mall, which had previously been the open canal where Washington’s residents had dumped their trash in the early days of the republic’s capital city. The slight incline of the National Mall protected its green spaces, but the Museum of Natural History and the Justice Department, as well as the other buildings between Madison and Pennsylvania Avenues, now appeared as squares of cement rising out of the brown-red water, like tiny islands.

Keegan zoomed in, seeing tiny dots swarming each of the island-buildings. Some were brightly colored city and federal emergency response drones, but there were also parcel drones dropping packages on the rooftops, an automated rush of requested deliveries and flash-funding charity drops. Panning over to the veterans’ encampment, Keegan saw that the rest of Capitol Hill remained dry.

“Route the vehicle around any areas less than 20 meters in elevation,” Keegan said, realizing the vehicle’s navigation probably didn’t have a scenario for city streets literally disappearing underwater.

They got as close as Farragut Square before the crowds got too thick. Keegan sent the SUV off to autopark up on high ground near H street and they set out on foot. Overhead, a bright yellow FEMA drone loitered in a lazy circle, while a micro-cam drone from one of the newsfeeds landed on the statue of Admiral Farragut to get a better shot. Thousands of people were out in the streets, some with a specific destination in mind, some aimless, and many just to film and comment.

As they wove through the crowd, they passed the Farragut West Metro entrance. Keegan hated that spot more than anywhere in DC. She’d first been there nine years ago, while on leave from the Saudi stability op. It had been in early December, so on her way home, she’d killed time during a seven-hour layover at Dulles Airport to come in and check out the White House Christmas tree and all that stuff that you were supposed to be fighting for. Riding the subway escalator up, though, she had recoiled at the stench, not because it was that bad, but because it was all too familiar. The station had been turned into an encampment for desperate people, crushed together to escape the cold. She was a stone’s throw from the White House, witnessing the abject abandonment of fellow humans that she’d only before experienced in refugee camps. And she knew that her commander in chief would never walk the two city blocks to confront that dark fact.

Today, a stream of men and women, some with children, emerged out of the station, wet and sobbing.

“TAMS, gimme a status check on the Metro,” Keegan said as she headed down to see if anyone below needed aid. The rule beaten into her since boot camp was Marines headed toward the sounds of chaos.6 “The lower-elevation sections of the Orange Line and Blue Line are flooded,” said TAMS. The bot pushed a Metro map with the affected segments to Keegan’s vizglasses. It also marked malfunctions that had apparently locked the valves for the Metro system’s air vents and the DC stormwater overflow pipes that connected to the Potomac River.7 To save money, the designs had piggybacked off each other, but now their malfunction prevented the system from clearing itself.

Peering down the escalator, Keegan could see the effect. Muddy water lapped halfway down the steps, meaning the entire ticketing mezzanine was flooded. Worse, the next lower level where the trains boarded also had to be completely underwater.

“Is everyone out?”

“No. My acoustic sensors indicate there is a female adult trapped below.”

Keegan couldn’t hear anything over the rush of the water and the voices of the crowd above. Her stomach knotted. “Where exactly?”

“I cannot ascertain.”

There was an agent’s booth in the middle of the second level. That might be high enough for somebody to climb up on and get above the flood. She eyed the swirl of muddy water. It was too deep to stand in, and the current would send her down into the Metro tunnels if she tried swimming it.

“Can you reach her?” Keegan said.

“Yes. I am rated to ISO standards for underwater operations for a duration of thirty minutes at 10 meters depth.”

The water reeked of ozone and sewage. If TAMS went in and never came out, that would certainly solve the problem that the deputy director had put in her lap. But it would present another: she would have to find a way to finish the rescue herself.

“Then do it. I need you to reach whoever is down there and lead them out.”

“OK,” it said.

TAMS stepped carefully toward the water’s edge, narrowly avoiding stepping on a tiny frog that hopped up the steps. All sorts of shit down there is going to be forced up, thought Keegan.

“Hey! You need to get out of there! What the hell are you doing?” a man shouted down.

“Good question,” Keegan called back, then she thought better of it.

It wasn’t the time for snark.

“We’re FBI. There’s someone trapped down there!”

A barrel-chested African American soldier in Army fatigues smeared with mud came running down the escalator. He pulled up in shock at the sight of TAMS descending into the water, one hand gripping the railing. “That thing yours?”

“Yeah,” Keegan replied. “It detected someone inside. I think they’re stuck in that booth by the turnstiles, you know, where you ask for di- rections.”

“And you’re going to send the Terminator in after them?” “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m listening.”

“Nah. Just don’t ask me to sign for that when you lose it.”

With the water now up to its neckline, TAMS had stopped to listen to their conversation. Perhaps the soldier’s uniform had triggered some old program.

“TAMS, you’re still cleared to proceed,” Keegan stated. “OK.”

It wasn’t a remarkable set of last words, Keegan thought, as the bot disappeared into the murk in a shimmering blue halo generated by its onboard navigation lights. Her AR glasses pushed a notice: Network connection lost.

“This going to work?” the soldier asked. “Hell if I know.”

“Sergeant Terrence King, Maryland National Guard,” he said. “Your phone app functional? I need to let my wife know I’m OK.”

“Agent Lara Keegan. No, not without the bot boosting the signal.” The man sighed.

Then light washed over them and Keegan looked back up the escalator and saw a line of people gathered to watch, several turning on their lens cameras to record them, even a few holding out old smart- phones to get a better angle.

“FBI! Turn your cameras off!” she shouted back. “Like that’s ever worked,” said King.

Keegan glared at him, then turned back to the water, waiting for any sign of the robot. Neither spoke as they waited, watching another frog hop past their feet and clamber up the escalator. Then they heard a voice.

“We’re coming up! We’re coming up!” a breathless woman shouted from the far end of the tunnel. Then she appeared, a woman in her fifties. She thrashed at the water with one hand, her other arm being pulled by some force under the water. Just ahead of her a faint blue light got brighter and brighter as it approached beneath the surface.

“We’re up here! Watch the steps at the bottom of the escalator,” said Keegan, wading into the water as TAMS came into view, its head barely clearing the surface. She and King pulled the woman out of the water, the polyester of her blue WMATA uniform dripping sheets of water.

King took off his jacket to wrap the woman up and led her up the stairs.

TAMS, meanwhile, waited down at the bottom of the escalator, the water lapping at its waist, its arm locked on the railing. Keegan thought about what exactly the deputy director would order at this moment.

“Come on, TAMS,” she said. “Get out of the water, hero.” “OK.”

As the machine exited the murk, water spurted from its joints and sensor ports. On Keegan’s viz screen, it showed that the connection to the bot’s operating system was still not working.

“Confirm diagnostics, TAMS,” Keegan said.

The robot stood still for thirty seconds, until a message read on Keegan’s vizglasses: System reboot complete. Restore network connection.

That meant taking TAMS up to the street level to get a signal. “Fol- low me to the street and reestablish satellite bandwidth connection.”

“OK.”

At the top of the stairs, she stopped so abruptly that TAMS liter- ally stepped on her heels. Even through the pant leg, the metal edge scraped a piece of skin off the back. “Shit,” she said to herself, but not at the pain.

Waiting there was King, standing at attention. He threw a salute and then started clapping, a steady authoritative rhythm. The crowd of hundreds behind him joined in, wet palms slapping together in applause, humans looking for something good to cling to on a day of awfulness, even if it was a machine.

The Real Robotic Revolution syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[somar78]

The Top 19 Cars Of 2019 On Silodrome

Each year we compile a list of the most popular cars on Silodrome from the previous 12 months, we rank them in the order of their popularity, and as always, there are a few surprises in the list.

For the first time in the almost 10 year history of Silodrome the top two cars are both the same make and model (though different years), and for the first time there’s a replica in the list, albeit one with a hefty dose of Tom Cruise Hollywood magic.

We’ve compiled the list below in reverse order, and there’s an honourable mention at the bottom that almost made it into the list but missed out by just a few hundred clicks. Each vehicle has an excerpt from its original feature article on Silodrome, with a link out to read the full text if you’d like more information on it.

And now with no further ado, here’s the Top 19 Cars of 2019:

#19 – THE CUSTOM KAISER JEEP M715 PICKUP TRUCK

The custom Kaiser Jeep M715 pickup truck you see here is one of the better built modified versions we’ve seen in recent memory. It’s now powered by a General Motors 350 cu. in. (5.7 litre) V8 engine offering considerably more horsepower and torque than the original inline-6.

This V8 is mated to an Oldsmobile automatic transmission to make daily driving much easier, it also means it’s now highway drivable as well – something that can be a struggle in the original 6-cylinder 4-speed vehicle.

Up front it rides on a Dana 60 axle and there’s a Dana 70 axle in the rear, both ride on new heavy duty leaf springs and the original drum brakes are kept as is the 2 horsepower front-mounted winch. The look of the truck is transformed by the 42” Super Swamper tires designed for off-road use but still more than capable of being driven on the road.

See the original article here.

  #18 – THE FUEL BESPOKE DESIGN CUSTOM BMW E9

This article was written by John Ward of Fuel Bespoke Design – the builder of this immaculate custom BMW E9 named “Von Trapp”. When possible we like to bring you the story of a vehicle in the words of the person or people who built it, so you get direct insight into their thought process and methodology.

I found a sorry looking BMW 2800 CSA in a builder’s yard in NSW, Australia – the car had no engine or transmission but did look reasonably complete otherwise. I knew it would have some rust issues, they all do, back in the day Karmann the coachbuilders BMW outsourced to didn’t really focus on rustproofing the vehicles.

Having just completed the BMW 2002 aka “The Red Baron” I had a good idea of the journey I was in for, but this time I wanted to step it up a little. The E9 is in my opinion, one of the most beautiful cars to come out of BMW so I didn’t want to mess with the aesthetics but I did want to give it a new lease of life with more than a few hidden secrets.

After a complete strip down, it was off to Redistrip for a chemical dip to take it back to bare metal as it’s so much easier to repair a stripped clean body. She was pretty bad, just about every panel would need either repair work or replacement.

See the original article here.

  #17 – THE BYERS SR100

The 1950s America was the world leader in fibreglass kit car design and construction. The composite material must have seemed like a gift from the heavens, allowing small scale car manufacturers to create beautiful, complex body designs without needing to handcraft each car from aluminum alloy or steel – a huge time saver.

One of the leading lights of this fibreglass car movement was Jim Byers. He had previously teamed up with Dick Jones to create and build the 1953 Meteor SR1 sports car but when Jones moved interstate Byers set up on his own. He improved the design and called it the Byers SR100, each body was made of hand-laid fibreglass and designed to fit a 100 inch wheelbase.

Customers who bought a Byers SR100 body would typically either build or source their own drive train, chassis, and running gear, finishing the car off in their own garage.

The SR100 and the SR1 on which it was based were designed to accommodate the engine in a front-mid engine configuration allowing for optimal weight distribution. The fibreglass body tipped the scales at just 125 lbs, and the completed car would typically weigh in at a little over 2,000 lbs and be fitted with a V8 capable of 200+ hp and over 200 ft lbs of torque.

See the original article here.

  #16 – FERRARI 250 GT SPECIALE BY PININ FARINA

This Pinin Farina Speciale 250 GT was a masterpiece of design, vastly different from the tastefully understated 250 GT Boano. This one-off car features enclosed headlights, lavish but tasteful chrome throughout, a hood scoop to feed the V12, large vents on the side of each front fender, and an almost impossibly elegant side-profile.

Some of the car’s design features would be integrated into the series-based 250 GT Pinin Farina coupes that went into production at the end of 1957, but the Speciale remains unique.

Princess Liliane kept the car in her private collection for 10 years before gifting it to a doctor, from there it passed through a number of hands until it ended up with the current owner – who has had it for 20 years.

See the original article here.

#15 – THE 1969 BAJA PORSCHE 911

The Baja Porsche 911 project was funded by Arc Audio as it was to be their SEMA show car for the 2017 event. Far from being a stationary show car with no actual ability, the Baja Porsche 911 was built to be a highly capable off-road racer.

No corners were cut and no budgetary restrictions interfered with its construction. The original all-steel Porsche 911body was mounted to a tubular steel Baja racing chassis with a tuned 2.3 litre Volkswagen flat-four cylinder engine with four open exhausts exiting above the engine bay, and a four-speed gearbox.

VW flat-four engines have been tried and tested in desert racing for decades, the simple air-cooled motors obviously don’t need heavy liquid cooling systems – eliminating one potential point of failure. Aftermarket parts availability for high-performance VW engines is excellent, with custom builds producing 180 to 200+ hp, up from the ~39 hp they made from the factory.

See the original article here.

  #14 – THE 1971 PLYMOUTH ROAD RUNNER RAPID TRANSIT

The car you see here was widely considered to be the highlight of the 1971 show cars. It was built by Chuck Miller of Styline Custom for Chrysler in 1970 and it’s characterized by its one-off body modifications including a unique front end that extended the car by 6 inches, twin hood scoops, and a tail with an unusual integrated spoiler.

Quad headlights are situated behind a steel grille with integrated headlight covers, and there are 3D vacuum-formed translucent custom Road Runner heads on each corner of the car, which led to the nickname “The Chicken Head Car”.

Under the hood you’ll find a 383 cu. in. V8 with a dual-snorkel air cleaner backed by an automatic transmission. In Road Runner specification this V8 had a 4.25 inch bore, a 3.38 inch stroke, 335 hp at 5,200 rpm, 425 ft lbs of torque 3,400 rpm, a 9.5:1 compression ratio, and a Holley 4-barrel carburettor.

See the original article here.

  #13 – MARK HAWWA’S 400 HP MAZDA RX-7

Mark’s RX-7 is a 1983 model now fitted with a rebuilt 13B rotary fitted with a GCG T35 turbocharger running 14 lbs of boost and an air-to-air intercooler. Engine management is taken care of by a Motec ECU running Bosch injectors and a Tune Flex able to run E85 or 98 octane fuel.

In its current configuration the car is putting out 400 hp at the rear wheels, this was far too much for the original differential and axle so Mark’s car has a Toyota Hilux rear axle that can get the power to the wheels without grenading itself in the process.

BC racing suspension is used and the car is fitted with an S5 gearbox, and a Group C bodykit similar to that used on the now legendary Allan Moffat car raced in Australia in-period. The car has Techno Toy control arms, tension, and lateral rods, as well as Nitto NT01 semi slick tires and Compomotive wheels.

The car is currently wearing its InFast livery for the InFast Rally, a private endurance rally that is strictly invitation only and takes place annually in Australia – typically covering over 2,000 miles in 7 days.

See the original article here.

  #12 – THE AUTECH ZAGATO STELVIO AZ1

The Autech Zagato Stelvio AZ1 is a Japanese-Italian joint project based on the underpinnings of the 280 bhp turbocharged Nissan Leopard that had been tuned by Autech – Nissan’s in-house tuning division similar to BMW’s M division or Mercedes-Benz’s AMG.

At first glance the car can be mistaken for an Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato of the same era, it also predated the Alfa Romeo SZ  which shared some stying cues. Unusually, the Autech Zagato Stelvio AZ1 has its front wing mirrors integrated into the body, giving the front end of the car an interesting look whilst at the same time referencing the prominent front wing mirrors that featured frequently on many Japanese cars of the ’60s and ’70s.

The joint project between Autech and Zagato kicked off in 1987, during one of the most significant booms in Japanese economic history. At the time the country was the global leader in electronics production, and a leader in automobile and motorcycle production. Products like the Sony Walkman and the Nintendo Entertainment System were dominating their respective industries and cars like the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Accord were among the best selling in the world.

See the original article here.

  #11 – THE DUNE BUGGY DRIVEN BY STEVE MCQUEEN IN THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR

The Meyers Manx dune buggy driven by Steve McQueen in the Thomas Crown Affair is undeniably one of the most famous screen cars of its era. It’s due to come up for open auction with Bonhams in a few weeks time and it’s almost certainly going to become the most valuable Meyers Manx beach buggy in history.

Steve McQueen is one of the best-known petrol head actors of the 20th century, alongside other screen icons like Paul Newman, James Brolin, and James Garner.

It isn’t common knowledge that McQueen was personally involved in the process of building the custom Meyers Manx that was used in the film. He enlisted the help of Pete Condos of Con-Ferr who had previously worked with McQueen to build his custom Jeep.

The two men laid out a specification sheet for an exceptionally fast beach buggy that a millionaire like the fictional character Thomas Crown would drive.

See the original article here.

  #10 – AN ORIGINAL AEROCAR ONE

This is one of just six original examples of the Aerocar One (some say only five were built), it’s in airworthy condition and ready to fly, and it can also be driven on the roads in the USA.

In order to own an Aerocar One you need both a driver’s license and a pilot’s license, you also need to buy both automotive and aircraft insurance, and you need to pay for both automobile registration and aircraft registration.

Still, if you’re in the market for a flying car with a value approaching $1,000,000 USD it’s doubtful that things like insurance and registration costs are going to be a concern.

See the original article here.

  #9 – THE ALPHA ONE GTO DRIVEN BY TOM CRUISE IN VANILLA SKY

The Alpha One GTO is one of the better-known Ferrari 250 GTO replicas, they were based on the Datsun Z-car platform, typically the 240Z and 260Z, with some using the later 280Z.

Many owners ordered their cars as turn key vehicles from Joe Alphabet’s company which allowed them to specify a wide variety of options including Chevy V8s, uprated suspension and brakes, automatic or 5-speed manual transmissions, and an array of paint colors.

This particular Alpha One GTO is doubtless the most famous of them all, it was used in the 2001 blockbuster film Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise behind the wheel. For car people the scenes with the 250 GTO driving around the abandoned streets of New York City were some of the most memorable in the film.

See the original article here.

  #8 – THE SNOW CRUISER – ANTARCTICA’S ABANDONED BEHEMOTH

The Snow Cruiser – Antarctica’s Abandoned Behemoth is a short documentary that gives a concise history of one of the most unusual land-based vehicles ever built.

The film uses a combination of archive video footage and still images to tell the story of the Snow Cruiser, it’s a remarkable tale of ambition and engineering that resulted in the Snow Cruiser being designed and built in Chicago between 1937 and 1939 before being driven on public roads to Boston, over 1,000 miles away.

In Boston it would be loaded onto a ship and taken to Antarctica by way of the Panama Canal and New Zealand. I won’t go into what happened next as I don’t want to ruin the film.

See the original article here.

  #7 – ELEANOR FROM GONE IN 60 SECONDS

The 2000 film Gone in 60 Seconds was a big-budget remake of a 1974 H.B. Halicki film of the same name, which featured a similar plot, plenty of chase scenes, and of course, Eleanor. The 1974 film was made on a far smaller budget and it’s well worth a watch if you have the time. Of course the remake from 2000 was a big budget Hollywood film featuring an all-star cast including Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Christopher Eccleston, Robert Duvall, Vinnie Jones, and Will Patton.

The modern Gone In 60 Seconds was made with a budget of 90 million, it received mixed reviews from critics however the public loved the film, and it was a significant commercial success – taking in over a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office globally.

Some have attributed the surge in interest surrounding restomod vehicles to Eleanor, Chip Foose’s dream Shelby GT500 evocation, and it’s certainly likely. Many restomods follow the styling cues laid out by Foose with Eleanor, and American muscle cars like the Mustang are popular targets for restomodders.

See the original article here.

  #6 – MICKEY THOMPSON’S ORIGINAL CHALLENGER IV BUGGY

In 1977 Mickey Thompson (MT) set out to build one of the most technically advanced off road race vehicles ever created. While the fastest off road cars on the dirt (at the time) were Class 1 Unlimited Buggies based off of VW suspension, with a whopping 10 to 12″ of wheel travel, and 2276cc VW motors, Mickey decided to “Super Size” his ride with an American V8 and 15 to 18″ of wheel travel.

Mickey started with a chassis (known as Challenger IV or CH4) built by Smokey Allerman, who was famous for building sprint cars back then. The car looked a lot like a sprint car but the suspension was altered to get more wheel travel out of it with custom built A-arms and a 3 link rear suspension arrangement.

While the chassis was built by Allerman, Mickey had John House (MT’s crew chief), son Danny Thompson, and Bruce Parrish finish the racer and drop in a 383 stroker Chevrolet V8 engine pulled from one of his old Indy cars, along with a 2 speed Powerglide automatic transmission.

See the original article here.

  #5 – THE KEN MILES CAR FROM FORD V FERRARI

The Superformance Ford GT40 you see here is a 1966 MkII model, it was built from scratch by the team at Superformance in Irvine, California.

Rich MacDonald of Superperformance reached out to representatives at Fox Studios about the possibility of featuring the cars in the new film. He explained how historically accurate the company’s replicas are, and the filmmakers clearly agreed, as they used two of them with liveries painted to match both the black GT40 driven by Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon, as well as the memorable blue/white/red livery used on the Ken Miles and Denny Hulme car.

Unlike the original car however, this one is now fitted with a prodigious Roush 427IR V8 stroked out to 511 cu. in., now producing 604 hp and 572 ft lbs of torque. Looking inside the car it’s clear that Superformance went to great lengths to ensure that every detail was tended to in order to make it as authentic as possible, the toggle switches and screws, the interior materials, and the other small details are exemplary.

The car you see here is the one used by Christian Bale (and the stunt drivers) in the film, it’s been signed by Ken Miles’ 1966 crew chief, Charlie Agapiou, and Peter Miles, Ken Miles’ son, and it’s been displayed at numerous red carpet events alongside the stars of the film, on ESPN, and on CBS Sunday Morning.

See the original article here.

  #4 – THUNDERBIRD 2 – THE BEST CAMPER VAN ON EARTH

The Thunderbird 2 you see here is a 100% road-legal conversion with a bespoke metal body based on a 1994 Toyota Previa (2438cc petrol/automatic). It has eight windows at the front, the two in front of the driver have windscreen wipers, and there are two circular ports on either side.

Entrance and exit is by gull wing doors on either side with gas struts and a pull handle, the interior is color-matched to the exterior, and it has all the requited headlights, indicators, and brake lights to keep the boys in blue happy.

In the back you’ll find a a Thunderbirds themed bed and a roof-mounted DVD system (so you can watch Thunderbirds obviously) and your view outside is provided by the circular portholes.

It might not be the most practical camper van for sale but you’d have no problem at all making friends when you roll into the campground. Alternatively, it’d make an excellent novelty AirBnB listing.

See the original article here.

  #3 – PORSCHE SPEEDSTER PROJECT CAR

As far as we can tell, this Porsche Speedster is the best Porsche project car for sale in the world at this moment. I know that’s a big claim to make, however this is an authentic numbers-matching Speedster – one of the most important Porsches of its era. It’s being offered with no reserve out of the private Shook Family collection in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The Speedster is in running, driving, and stopping condition. It clearly needs a lot of work but there’s been increasing interest in recent years from enthusiasts and collectors in cars that are totally original and unrestored – as that authenticity is becoming increasingly rare. You can restore a car as many times as you like, but it’s only an unrestored original once.

The story behind the creation of the Porsche Speedster is fascinating. It was conceived not by Porsche but by the legendary Austrian/American auto importer named Max Hoffman. As a European who had immigrated to the United States, Hoffman had unique insight into how to talk to the European automakers, and he had insight into what Americans really wanted to drive.

See the original article here.

  #2 – THE ORIGINAL STEVE MCQUEEN BULLITT MUSTANG

This is the hero car from the 1968 Steve McQueen film “Bullitt”, it’s a Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang GT and since the film was released this car has become one of the most famous Mustangs in history, possibly even the most famous outright.

Before filming began, two Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang GTs were supplied by Ford who were hoping to capitalize on a little almost-free publicity from the film. Bullitt has been sending Mustang buyers to Ford now for over 50 years, including a number of official Ford Mustang Bullitt special models with the most recent being in 2018, so it was undoubtably a good investment.

Interestingly, McQueen partnered up with real-life San Francisco Inspector Dave Toschi, it was Toschi who inspired McQueen to wear a shoulder holster, and Toschi later partner with Inspector Bill Armstrong as the lead San Francisco investigators of the Zodiac Killer murders. These murders began shortly after the cinematic release of Bullitt.

See the original article here.

  #1 – PATRICK DEMPSEY’S 420 HP 1965 FORD MUSTANG FASTBACK

In 2008 racing driver (and actor) Patrick Dempsey worked closely with the team at Panoz to develop what he believed was the perfect 1965 Ford Mustang Fastback.

The project had no limit on price, the key was to build the greatest custom ’65 Fastback of all time. By the time the car was complete over 3,900 hours of labour had been spent on it, as well as over $300,000 USD.

Dempsey is best known for his role as neurosurgeon Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd in the television series Grey’s Anatomy and his slew of leading film roles, but in the motor racing community he’s known as a genuinely talented racing driver in the vein of Paul Newman.

In interviews Dempsey has said he’d quit acting and race full time if he could, he’s competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and Ensenada SCORE Baja 1000 off-road race.

See the original article here.

  HONORABLE MENTION : THE SHELBY DE TOMASO P70

Carroll Shelby wanted the new car to be fitted with the lightest possible 7 litre V8, de Tomaso and his team believed they could stretch the capacity of the 289 cu. in. (4.7 litre) Ford V8 to 427 cu. in. (7 litres). Sadly this turned out to be physically impossible as there was insufficient room to increase capacity by boring the cylinders and fitting a stroker crank.

The original design of the body by Peter Brock had been sent from Shelby in California to the coachbuilder in Italy, Shelby wasn’t impressed with the finished product so he sent Brock to Italy to personally supervise the building of a new body with the team at Carrozzeria Fantuzzi, a Modena-based coachbuilder.

Just as Brock was in the process of fitting the completed body to the second iteration of the Vallelunga-derived chassis he received a call from California, it was Carroll telling him to get on a plane and come home. The project was being cancelled as Shelby had just been hired by Ford to run a competition campaign fielding some new sports racing cars at endurance races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, fielding a racing car called the Ford GT40.

See the original article here.

The post The Top 19 Cars Of 2019 On Silodrome appeared first on Silodrome.

source https://silodrome.com/top-19-cars-of-2019/

[maybe-its-just-me-blog]

My Top 10 Concerts of the Year (and more)

I created this blog about a year ago to post reviews of the shows I went to... and then I didn’t. So here’s a brief take on each full show I went to this year plus a video or two from my YouTube channel. Headliners are given the most precedent for the ranking, but I took the whole event into account.

Check out my full list of attended concerts here.

and my concert clip YouTube channel here.

1. Oct 12, 2019 Finale: The Farewell Tour   Peter Frampton / Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Evening / Julian Frampton Band Concord Pavilion Concord, CA

Peter Frampton’s “final” show (outside of a recently announced European tour) never felt like the end of the road for the guitar legend. The set drew largely from “Frampton Comes Alive” and nearly every song was extended with improvised guitar solos that took the 2019 live versions to the next level. The intensity ramped up towards the me of the main set, with an instrumental cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” a nearly 20 minute version of “(I’ll Give You) Money” and massive singalongs on “Baby, I Love Your Way” and “Do You Feel Like I Do.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSJ3N-P_xWM

Peter Frampton’s son, Julian Frampton opened the show, while Jason Bonham kept the family affair going by paying faithful tribute to his father, John Bonham, with the Led Zeppelin Evening. 

2. Dec 05, 2019 Alice in Winterland 2019   Kesha / Avril Lavigne / Flora Cash The Masonic San Francisco, CA

Alice 97.3’s annual “Alice in Winterland” holiday radio festival was co-headlined by two of pop’s biggest stars of the 21st century so far. Following an opening set from Flora Cash, Avril Lavigne kicked off her set with recent single “Head Above Water” before running through a career spanning 8 song set (including an two costume changes and an encore break) with every song keeping very close to the original recording. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i41-CrbxUIA

By contrast, Kesha’s performance was incredibly loose and free-wheeling, with songs rarely sounding anything like the album versions. Early hits like “Your Love is My Drug” and “Take it Off” were sped up, punk rock style, with the latter getting rowdy enough that Kesha had to dodge dozens of clothing items that were... taken off. In between bras flying and confetti guns and streamer cannons, Kesha performed 9 songs total, including a fan request for newer album cut “Boots” before closing with her debut single “Tik Tok.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IRsSx5vey8

3. Jul 20, 2019 – Jul 21, 2019 Vans Warped 25 Years  

Travie McCoy / Skating Polly / Doll Skin / I the Mighty / Ariana and The Rose / The Aquadolls / ONE OK ROCK / Face To Face / The Vandals / We The Kings / Anti-Flag / Ozomatli / Chali 2na & Cut Chemist / Meg & Dia / Goldfinger / Less Than Jake / Simple Plan / Atreyu / Go Betty Go / Bad Cop / Bad Cop / The All-American Rejects / Tsunami Bomb / Teenage Bottlerocket / Sum 41 / Yungblud / Machine Gun Kelly / Andrew W.K. / The Used (and more) Shoreline Ampitheatre Mountain View, CA

After wrapping up the cross-country version of the Warped Tour last year, Kevin Lyman brought the 25th anniversary celebrations to just three U.S. cities, closing in Mountain View, CA. Compared to the touring editions, Warped 25 felt supersized. Bigger stages. Bigger bands. Longer sets. The return of the half pipe and Lucha Libre wrestling. Even a Warped Tour museum. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1_SO4lp4wo

Of course, the main draw of the Warped Tour has always been the music and with 70 artists over two days there were lots of options. Between the three stages you could see bands who played Warped’s earliest days like Face to Face and the Vandals, followed by first timers like Ariana and the Rose and Yungblud. The latter brought one of the few true surprises with Warped alum Machine Gun Kelly crowd surfing his way through “I Think I’m Okay” twice in a row. It’s easy to see Warped 25 being a blueprint for future “Warped Weekends” I’m select cities, if the tour really is officially over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoaH2xiABTM

4. Apr 12, 2019 Fight the Good Fight Tour The Interrupters / Masked Intruder / The Bombpops   The Regency Ballroom San Francisco, CA

This sold out show was by far the biggest Bay Area headliner for The Interrupters, coming off the success of radio smash “She’s Kerosene” and one night before their debut at Coachella. From the first song, the crowd sang and danced along to every word, at times shaking the floor of the Regency Ballroom. The LA band even paid tribute to Bay Area music with teases of tracks by Metallica, Green Day, NOFX and Rancid before settling into a cover of Operation Ivy’s “Sound System.” The rest of the set was evenly split between the band’s three albums and the energy never let up throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbA4THZIqK8

Prior to the headliner, punk band Masked Intruder played a nearly hour long set. As their name suggests, all four members of the band conceal their identities with ski masks and nearly every part of the show has a “criminal” theme. This shtick could have been very corny, but lead to fun surprises like the straight-faced, on stage police officer dancing in the crowd and (hopefully fake) beating up the band with a night stick. Crowd participation went to the next level when an audience member was brought up to sing “Heart Shaped Guitar” with the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Vyy3y0n3E

Opening the night were the dual-lead vocal attack of The Bombpops, who brought loud and fast punk rock songs like “CA in July” and “Dear Beer.”

5. Jun 03, 2019 The People Tour MMXIX   Hillsong United / Amanda Lindsey Cook / Mack Brock Oracle Arena Oakland, CA

Hillsong United may be a “church” band but they were easily able to pass for an arena rock band at Oracle Arena. The Australian worship band came equipped with two stages, three smart phone shaped screens and all the laser lights you could possibly want. United’s set drew mostly on their 2019 album People, but thanks to a lyric ticker above the stage, the near capacity crowd song along to every song. When they did break out older songs like “The Stand” or “From the Inside Out”, it tended to be only the bridge and chorus of the song but repeated enough to last a few minutes each. All told, it was over two hours and 20+ songs of praise music from Hillsong United.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4EWL8Wr5Ig

If that wasn’t enough, the People Tour brought worship leaders from two other well known churches to join the party. Mack Brock from Charlotte, NC’s Elevation Worship opened the night with a short set on the b-stage in the middle of the arena. This performance would be later immortalized by a live EP featuring two songs from Brock’s solo work as well as the Elevation anthem “Do It Again.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-qEv7qeCos

Amanda Lindsay Cook from Redding, CA’s Bethel Church took the middle slot, utilizing the lights and screens of the main stage to bring her songs to the next level. She opened with a reworked take on her most famous song with Bethel, “You Make Me Brave” followed by about a half hour of slow burning tracks from her two solo albums. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9GQEHle14

6. Mar 26, 2019

Girl The World Tour Maren Morris / Cassadee Pope   The Masonic San Francisco, CA

Less than a month after her sophomore album Girl released, Maren Morris brought all but one of those songs to her set at the Masonic. In between, she revealed much of the inspiration behind the lyrics, especially those about husband Ryan Hurd, having spent their first wedding anniversary together in the city earlier in the week. Newer songs like “The Bones” and “RSVP” got big reactions but it was early songs like “My Church” and “Rich” that really had the crowd singing. Of course the biggest singalong was reserved for the final song of the night, pop-crossover smash “The Middle.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpt8Bnep9tA

Before joining Maren Morris for a verse on “All My Favorite People,” The Voice winner and former Hey Monday lead singer Cassadee Pope opened the show with a handful of new songs along with her breakout singles “Wasting All These Tears” and “Think of You.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Ue4n57jlQ

7. Nov 25, 2019 Ximena Sariñana / Mylko   The RitzSan Jose, CA

Just couple of weeks after performing at the Latin Grammy’s, where she was nominated for both Record and Album of the Year, Ximena Sariñana played her first Bay Area show since 2013’s Outside Lands festival. The night club atmosphere was obvious early and for awhile there was more chatter than singing from the audience. Ximena eventually got the crowd on her side with recent single “Si Tu Te Vas” followed some of the earliest songs from her career. The biggest highlights were songs Ximena originally did with other artists. The first was an acoustic version of “Aire Soy,” originally a duet with Miguel Bosé, here featuring the band Mylko who opened the show and acted as two-thirds of Ximena’s backing band. Later in the night, came “Mis Sentimientos,” a Los Angeles Azules song that here felt more reggae than cumbia with the stripped down production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF-Iqe_WFW8

Before playing bass and drums in Ximena’s band, Mylko played a half hour of their own songs, blending electronic sounds and falsetto vocals. The duo played all of the synths and drum pads live which made the songs feel looser and more jammy than you might expect from the genre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12HXYhClgLI

8. Aug 30, 2019 Nelly / TLC / Flo Rida / J-Kwon / Sage the Gemini / Gorilla Zoe / 99 Percent Shoreline Ampitheatre Mountain View. CA

The tour unofficially known as the “Whole Lotta Hits Tour” definitely lived up to that billing with some of the biggest hits of the last thirty years.Flo Rida was the first of the three headliners but could have easily closed the night. Not only did he bring the hits like “Low” and “My House” but Flo Rida also came with every gimmick in the book to make the show feel bigger. Sometimes it was stuff thrown into the crowd (t-shirts, roses, CASH!); other times, audience members were brought up on stage to sing or dance. Not once but twice, Flo Rida hopped on a security guard’s back to trek up the the lawn the greet the fans in the cheap seats. As if hits and antics weren’t enough, there were special guests galore. Bay Area rap group 99 Percent came out for their part on “Cake” while Gorilla Zoe surprised the crowd with his hit “Hood Figga” along with a couple of newer songs. The Bay Area flavor continued with Sage the Gemini and his post-hyphy song “Gas Pedal” along with two features with Flo Rida. In all, Flo Rida brought everything he could do please the audience and make his performance a hard act to follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3IUkbwvFEc

R&B legends TLC had that honor, with a set that was very similar to their show at the San Mateo County Fair last year. Where this summer’s show differed was the pure size of the production. TLC utilized the large screen to provide a different moving backdrop for each song, making the show feel more like the arena shows of the group’s prime. “Red Light Special,” for example, use silhouettes to mimic the actions of the on stage dancers and seemingly increase the number of performers on stage. The end of show featured the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes’ famous music video moments as her verse from “Waterfalls” played and Shoreline was lit up by cell phone lights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSLn2Yg70DQ

Ostensibly, Nelly was the biggest of this three headliner show, but his set had an uphill climb to match the two prior to him. Sure, he played all the songs you’d want to hear like “Ride Wit Me” and even his verse on Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise,” but just speeding them up slightly couldn’t mask the lack of production or interesting elements to the show. The screen mostly showed the original music videos for songs, and outside of dancers and a dj, there wasn’t much going on on stage. Nelly did have his own surprise guest, bringing out his nephew J-Kwon for 2004’s smash “Tipsy.” Any momentum that created disappeared with words that can be a kiss of death at any show. “I’m gonna do a few new songs now.” Three unreleased singles later, Nelly finally made it to “Hot in Herre,” “Dilemma” and “Just a Dream” but he never really had a chance at following the previous two acts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyurIDM11oM

9. Jun 22, 2019 Sanctuary Tour   Aly & AJ Alameda County Fairgrounds Pleasanton, CA

County fair shows usually feature either extreme nostalgia acts or young artists that still have a lot to prove. Aly & AJ feel like both and neither at the same time. On tour for their second EP since breaking a ten year hiatus, the sister act went back and forth between their old Disney Channel hits and the newer critically acclaimed mid-tempo pop. With a mixed, fair-going crowd, it made sense that early songs like “Potential Break Up Song” and “Like Whoa” connected more often than the recent ones but the band gave full effort to each track, whether it was a rock-edged guitar track or a more soulful synth pop ballad. Considering this was a more casual audience and venue than the shows on their club tour, (plus an interruption for an altercation between two fans and a security guard,) Aly & AJ still managed to impress. The full show with opening acts and a longer set would probably be a better atmosphere though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWxdBqJU6ns

10. May 15, 2019 Nice to Meet U Tour   Bea Miller Great American Music Hall San Francisco, CA

The same week she was announced as a performer at the Outside Lands festival, Bea Miller brought her first headlining tour to San Francisco for a sold out show. With no opening act, this show felt more like “An Evening With” Bea Miller, even if the evening was over in just over an hour. Bea spent the better part of the hour telling the stories of about her EPs turned into album Aurora. The highlight of this part of the set was an acoustic version of “Like That,” a song she says still makes her cry on stage sometimes. So, of course, a crew member was sure to hand her a tissue as soon as it was over, just to lighten the mood. That latter portion of the night featured less talking and more well known songs, like a remixed “Fire N Gold”, new single “it’s not u, it’s me’ and Bea’s biggest hit to date “I Wanna Know.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGG1e9vr_cE

Honorable Mentions

Jun 15, 2019 The Bash Music & Craft Beer Festival 2019   Rancid / Pennywise / Suicidal Tendencies / L7 / Sharp Shock Santa Clara County FairgroundsSan Jose, CA

Punk rock beer fests have emerged as a sort of “Warped Tour for older people” which might be sustainable in the post-Warped era. Rancid played an hour of mostly the old songs you would expect, preceded by veteran bands Pennywise and Suicidal Tendencies among others. My only two gripes: 1. the beer fest portion occured before the bands started playing 2. “Institutionalized” sounds less manic from a 57 year old Mike Muir than twenty something Mike Muir.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isftBRQL9Gk

Jan 04, 2019 AT&T Playoff Playlist Live! 2019   Alessia Cara / Alex Aiono / Brynn Elliott Discovery Meadow San Jose, CA

This was the first of a planned three nights of concerts celebrating the national college football championship and would’ve been the least attended if the third night weren’t rained out. Musically, the show was fine, featuring ten song sets from up-and-coming artists Brynn Elliott and Alex Aiono, with slightly more established Alessia Cara closing. However, the show never felt like it was about the music. In between each set was around an hour of brand ads and promo reads that, on a frigid night, felt like overkill considering only a 45 minute headlining set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evwPJq2XsqU

Aug 02, 2019 Pop 2000 Tour O-Town / Aaron Carter / Ryan Cabrera / Tyler Hilton The Mountain Winery Saratoga, CA

For a tour based mostly in nostalgia, this show featured a lot of new songs. That was not always a bad thing, as Aaron Carter’s solo keyboard, laptop and vocal performance showed. It was telling when O-Town’s “biggest fan” was brought on stage to win a prize and couldn’t name a single song from their new album. With only a couple acoustic guitars (at one point, Ryan Cabrera even had to borrow Tyler Hilton’s,) a keyboard and two laptops between the artists, this felt more like a backyard barbecue with slightly more famous than usual entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOfZqBzFi14

Top 3 Performers of the Year (no particular order) Flo Rida Kesha Peter Frampton

Top 3 Venues The Masonic Mountain Winery Shoreline Ampitheatre

[theloniousbach]

50 Years of Going To Shows, Part 4: The ANGLO-CELTIC Hillbilly Connection

When Judy Stein, the Queen of Focal Point, had a KDHX show, “Family Reunion,” she said her brief was “the Anglo-Celtic-Hillbilly connection.”  That is, she aimed to trace how the music from the British Isles influenced traditional American music.  Both Focal Point and KDHX have had decisive impacts on my musical culture, debts that I can only imagine beginning to repay by being parts of those communities and being committed to sharing music.

This installment in this series on seeing live music for lo these many years then will center on the traditional British and Celtic music we’ve gone to largely via The Focal Point.  That music was the common ground Ellen and I settled on as the family music.  She had a deeper appreciation, but I found the virtuoso playing, tradition, and core repertoires that blues and jazz also have.Let me though start, as usual, with guitars and even what I might have thought was an unattainable relic of the long 1960s.

The Pentangle was a favorite—virtuoso playing, a jazz rhythm section, acoustic guitars, and an at the time deep and mysterious repertoire.  They were obscure enough to not have toured the American Midwest.  I would never see them.  Except I did, sort of: guitarists John Renbourn and Bert Jansch with pure voiced singer Jacqui McShee (Triangle?) played The Focal Point as did Renbourn and McShee as did Renbourn and Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band as a follow up to their “Wheel of Fortune” album which was recorded at a Focal Point show (they said they should be The Incredible String Tangle).  And then several Renbourn solo shows (one with a borrowed guitar as an airline had done very bad things to his; another with 8 year old Sam falling asleep leaning on me during the second set; one I came home from KC for around my birthday, the last time I saw my father as he died in Scotland just a week later; and probably at least one more.)

John Renbourn was a hero and, as with many Focal Point artists, he became someone I kind of knew.  He played jazz and baroque, Celtic (Scottish gloom and doom, he called it) and British songs.  He was fluid and magical.  Larger than life as a 60s hero and a key part of the folk revival of the 60s (London version) and yet there he was.  St. Louis was a place to rest up mid-tour or start or finish.  To this day, I have a straw hat that he had while here in St. Louis for a stretch between legs of a tour in the summer time.  He had a similarly big head, so I could wear it too.  The John Renbourn hat has gone on many Lake Michigan vacations and kept the sun off me as I spend hours transfixed by the water.

Martin Carthy taught Paul Simon “Scarborough Fair” and is another giant of the London Folk Revival who is another old friend of Focal Point.  Son David helped arrange a small US tour for Martin so that he could play St. Louis for Judy and Eric Stein’s 50th Wedding Anniversary.  I think we saw him first with wife Norma Waterson and a then teen aged daughter Liza in the first iteration of Waterson: Carthy as well as once more and then a tour where Norma couldn’t travel.  Wonderful songs—spooky, ancient, and fun—from all three of them; his primordial modal guitar; Liza’s fiddle.I recall an earlier solo tour and one with old partner Dave Swarbrick too.  Swarbrick was in Fairport that time I saw them in KC opening for Weather Report, so I asked about that, pulling back the screen from those old days.  Carthy is a real student of the music, offering from the stage the same kind of background that sneak into discursive liner notes.  He’s warm and garrulous, but also charmingly compulsive, stopping/restarting tunes, including once three or more verses into a long ballad, if he’d made a mistake only he noticed.

Another giant/huge friend of Focal Point is Brian McNeill, a founder of the foundational Scottish band, The Battlefield Band.  Just last weekend, as I write this, he invited Gwen Harkey, to play a tune with him.  She’s a Morris Dancer because she comes along with her dad (Jay of the Wee Heavies whose second CD was produced by Brian) and little sister to Mississippi River Rats Border Morris practice.  I was at a folkie gathering that he came to with his fiddle and just sat down to play.Brian has played numerous shows, showcasing whatever thematic project he’s been writing songs about (the Scottish diasporae to both the Americas and Eastern Europe plus recovering episodes of Scottish history, frequently from the perspectives of the downtrodden, crafters, travelers, miners, other unionists.  There are fiddle tunes, guitar pieces (on Eric Stein’s wonderful Martin dreadnought) and songs, sometimes guitar, sometimes a beast of a bazouki.  He’s here every year, so sometimes I see him and sometimes I don’t.  We’re amazingly lucky that we can take him for granted.  But we shouldn’t and there will be a time when he won’t be back.

The first time I saw him though, I can only remember that it was just days after that Renbourn show and even fewer days after Dad died in Scotland.  Even Mom wasn’t back, so there was nothing to do but wait and be stunned.  So we held our tickets and went to see Brian with Dick Gaughan do a heavy Scottish and political show.  But I only know that I was there.

For a long time, fiddle players were the virtuoso soloists who regularly dropped my jaw.  Relatively early on we saw the original Celtic Fiddle Festival of Johnny Cunningham, Kevin Burke, and Christian Lemaitre: Scottish, Irish, and Breton playing each other’s tunes.  Lemaitre’s Breton music was ear opening, Celtic sure but with a little bit more.  I saw him later in KC on a reunion tour of Kornog and he came back with a later version of CFF (he had a broken bone in an arm, no cast but I’m sure in pain as he played) with Andre Brunet from Quebec and La Bottine Souriante replacing Cunningham who died way too soon.  Cunningham was amazing, clever verbally and musically, both perhaps as deflections from just how  brilliant his playing was.  Like his brother Phil (whom we saw just once with Aly Bain), his own records were overproduced just a bit, too many clever ideas cluttering the space.  But live, both of them would shine, a little bit of the simple taste showing through.

That was also the first time we saw Kevin Burke and he is just a giant.  He plays effortlessly so his brilliance sneaks up on you.  There are “wait a minute” moments where you catch yourself wondering how he just did what you heard while watching what seems like an easy session.  We saw him with Patrick Street (Andy Irvine, Jackie Daly, and the ubiquitous Ged Foley), with Daly on box, with Cal Scott, and solo at least twice.  Sam helped do sound at one of them and I got to stand at the back while he wrapped up cords while Burke put away his fiddle.  They stood by the stool that held things during the show symmetrically silhouetted by the back light, my kid chatting amiably and naturally with a commanding figure of this music.  In telling that story in a guided session on the lessons of stories, I came up with what is a pretty good slogan: “if you’re there and engaged, then you belong.”  I have gotten behind the scenes often enough to seem like an insider, but I should—but don’t—have imposter syndrome.   I’m just there and engaged.

That access to artists is such a gift from Focal Point.  It really is folk music, music made by folks for folks, without pretension or artifice. And being to witness that magic, in this case, at such close range has been a treasure.

St. Louis also has John D. McGurk’s as a nightly source of Irish music as it has been particularly even before I came to town in the early 1980s a key entry point for Irish musicians playing in the States.  The pictures on the wall attest to numerous giants on the music playing, too often over conversation, in this pub.  Early on Joe Burke, by then a box player, was the artistic director.  We stopped my on several Sunday or Monday nights for sets by Bernie and Barbara McDonald playing tunes, songs, and O’Carolan compositions.  Joe and Bernie were hosts of “Ireland in America” on KDHX, our community radio station.  I got myself FCC legal following in Sam’s footsteps and his apprenticeship on Judy Stein’s “Family Reunion.”  That was his four year high school community service project; then Ellen and I went for the three years he was in college.  I filled in for Judy and Bernie and now for shows for Americana and Eastern European music.  All have been part of my music education.

In more recent years, we trekked to McGurk’s to see box players like John Redmond, Peter Browne, and Johnny B. Connolly after they had been scouted out by friend Jesse who himself played at McGurk’s in the 1970s.  I remember magic from all of them.  Redmond and banjoist Darren Maloney weaving in and out of tunes together, realizing that no matter my enthusiasm I couldn’t get away with saying, “no really, the banjo AND accordion were amazing together.”  I’d probably get accused of liking bagpipes too—and I am guilty of that.  Peter Browne was some combination of bored and shy but he would jam very odd noted phrases into seemingly simple jigs and reels.

Sam helped Eric Stein with sound for a couple of years at the Tionol, the Irish music festival with classes and concert.  I invited myself along (rationalization: he didn't drive) and hung out back stage.  Even after that rationalization past, I told myself I was helping stage manage by getting musicians lined up to go on stage.  So even more of the magic there and at the sessions at various pubs, particularly McGurk's on Sundays.  While the big names tended to gravitate together, there still were nifty moments of rank beginners and recording stars working through a tune set.  No matter what, there was that intimate informality where everyone was playing for themselves and the music itself.

One fixture has been John Skelton whom we saw twice with the House Band (always Chris Parkinson and Ged Foley, once with Roger Wilson) including a time when I announced them as Judy had lost her voice.  Skelton also brought in The Windbags, a pipes/whistles version of the Celtic Fiddle Festival that was remarkable in range and texture.  The guitarist was Tony Cuffe who was a treat himself and a great loss to cancer.But at the Tionol and in his shows, Skelton displayed great wit, always good for an annual polished joke.  But he too could do sessions with jokes--so we have played that game together.

Tionol's have brought in marvelous fiddle players like Liz Carroll and Tommy Peoples, too nervous to live up to the legend.

Martin Hayes is probably my favorite fiddler and I got to see him with Dennis Cahill at UMSL in November 2011, paying extra for a VIP ticket so that I could have the Focal Point experience.  He had said at a pre-show gathering that Celtic music owed more to Baroque counterpoint than blues based chord changes and that has triggered an extended study of that music as my starting point for European Tradition Art Music which I am vainly trying to establish as an alternative to Classical music.  Hayes did a wonderfully eclectic and extended tune set in the performance proper and then created another one on the fly with requests from the audience.  Since these tunes have multiple names, he didn't place the called out one so he asked for the first few notes and he placed it in two--or said he did.  My minute conversation was about his sympathetic interactions with Dennis Cahill and their ensemble sound, evocative to me of Bill Evans with his bassists.  He said they listened to Evans too.

I saw Aly Bain, the Shetland fiddler, once with his long-time band, The Boys of the Lough; once with Phil Cunningham; and once with Ale Moller, from Sweden's Frifot.  All were memorable--Phil's virtuoso piano accordion matching the fiddle in both skill and range of styles and influences; the Shetland/Sweden intersection is bracing and exhilarating; the Boys were always amazing in their own breadth.  Leader Dave Richardson's brother was a friend from the Missouri Botanical Garden so he had a connection with St Louis and Focal Point.  Cathal McConnell is a stunning singer and left handed flute player (he did a duo tour as he really needs a keeper); the box player we saw mostly, Brendan Begley had his own batch of songs; and they recruited another Shetland fiddler to replace Bain.

Besides the show with Bain, Moller was in with Frifot twice and widened my ears to all Nordic music.  In time, I've developed a sense of the variations in style and have seen the great Arto Jarvela with a young Finnish American band from Chicago.  And, the Danish Gangspil has played here these past two years.  Wonderful stuff.

The Boys and this whiff of Scandinavia (not really Celtic, but, as Leif Sorbye, leader of the Norwegian Celtic surf rock band and another long time friend of Focal Point say, Atlantic music is a better way to put it.Besides Tempest and the Bretons we've heard, the Asturian band Llan de Cubel won that style of Celtic music to our hearts.  LIke Breton, it is certainly Celtic—jigs/reels with the right instruments (fiddle, flute, pipes, even hand drums—but it is quirkily and naturally Spanish too.

At the heart of this catholic view of what Celtic music is is a real fondness, even preference for Scottish music.  Besides McNeill, we have seen the seminal band he helped found, Battlefield, at least twice, possibly three times.  I think it was twice with founding keyboard player Alan Reid and once with none of the original members during McNeill’s residency in town (he didn’t sit in the back).  While it wasn’t the Battlefield Band, it was good.

Another band that we’ve seen in a couple of iterations was Old Blind Dogs, twice with Jim Malcolm and once in the newer iteration.  Malcolm is stunning with powerful songs, his voice harmonizing with his DADGAD guitar and the band during the OBD days.  But Malcolm did at least three captivating solo tours through St. Louis.  There is something at least harmonically intriguing if not jazzy in his musical conception.

My family has been more attuned to songs than I, but I am the one who insisted they see the local a capella  quartet The Wee Heavies who sang a couple of tunes at Brian McNeill's set break.  He ultimately produced their second CD.  They have great songs, amazing arrangements, and a fun presence.

So does/did The Finest Kind whom we saw twice, including once when Ian Robb had no voice.  But in the presence of such singers, I'm impressed.  They built harmonies in impressive ways.  They were staying with Judy when the Morris Dancers came over to practice.  I saw them come out and created a song arrangement on the spot for one of the tunes they were dancing too.  It was stunning.

Ellen and Sam saw Louis Killen and then brought me along on a return tour.  A concert of unaccompanied solo singing was frankly a bit much.  But he was a giant of the repertoire, hugely influential, and kept singing after she transitioned as Louise.

Brian Peters came through a couple of times with engaging concerts of songs and box playing.  He probably was a school teacher, given his travel pattern and the thoughtful curation of his repertoire.  As impressive as his accordion is, he has an album of songs, “Sharper Than The Thorn,” that we got to hear most of one special night at Focal Point.

I should be a bigger fan of Richard Thompson than I actually am.  He’s a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, but also steeped in the traditions.  He wasn’t with Fairport the night I saw them open for Weather Report back in KC, so I only saw him on a very snowy night for the 1000 Years of Popular Song tour which implemented a brilliant conceit of tracing songs from “Sumer Ich Acumen” and an ancient ballad or two through Victorian music hall and Stephen Foster through vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley to some odd bits of pop songs including ABBA.  He had a percussionist, another vocalist, and his guitar, managing a very thorough sound somehow.

And, since guitars are where I start and stop, let me end with the amazingly fluid and versatile Martin Simpson.  He’s English and has that repertoire in hand.  But then he also has Celtic and American gospel music albums of the first order.  He spent enough time in New Orleans to record an album called “Righteousness and Humidity.”  He also does blues, playing slide in DADGAD, and Dylan.  So we saw him several times.

Let his eclecticism stand for this whole chapter of discovering music.