#anya deserves better both in and out of universe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

comradesummers · 4 years ago

Note

Faith vs Kendra Anya or Oz Buffy + Tara

Hi, thanks for asking. Sorry for taking so long to answer, insert obligatory excuse about college kicking my ass.

Faith vs. Kendra

So this one’s really hard, and my answer got way too long and pretentious, but I hope you’ll bear with me.

In order to understand Kendra’s fighting style, I think it’s important to talk a little about the fight she has with Buffy in What’s My Line (Part 2). That episode illustrates the differences in Buffy and Kendra’s fighting style when Buffy does “the chick fight thing” and Kendra doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Basically, this move is sort of a physical demonstration of their differences. Kendra is the traditionalist, therefore she is highly skilled in technique but less good at improvising and thinking outside the box. Buffy, meanwhile, is less traditional and less technically skilled, but she’s better at improvising and using her emotions to her benefit. These ideas are shown in the initial fight between Buffy and Kendra, and then verbalized by Buffy later in the episode.

Faith is on the other end of the spectrum. She has little to no formal training (she’s called after Kendra’s death in Becoming; in the few months between that episode and her arrival in Faith, Hope & Trick, her watcher is murdered; neither Giles nor Wesley put much effort into her training in season 3; and then she goes to prison for like 3 seasons). However, she’s clearly a skilled fighter, as evidenced by the fact that she can hold her own against a slayer as experienced as Buffy. Though it is never stated outright, it is reasonable to assume that her strengths lie in her ability to improvise and her emotionally driven fighting style. Basically, she’s a person who will use every tool in her arsenal to win, even if that means, for instance, throwing herself off a building so that her opponent doesn’t get what she wants.

By presenting Faith and Kendra as two extremes of this ideological debate, and then also showing that neither one of them is as successful at slayerdom as Buffy is, the show implies that Buffy’s balanced approach to fighting (and to like life in general) is the best. However, the nature of tradition is complicated by the later seasons. For one thing, the Watcher’s Council—the representatives of the traditional approach that Kendra follows—get blown the fuck up before they can do anything useful. This strongly suggests that the Council, and by externsion their tradition, is irrelevant. This idea is further underlined by Buffy’s ultimate decision to reject the Council’s tradition wholesale, and to create a new, Slayer-based tradition. It’s also reflected in her fighting style in the later seasons. Starting in season 5, Buffy begins to explore her slayerness in the context of the slayer line, and her training with Giles builds on that. It could be suggested that the tradition she is drawing upon in these seasons is that of the Slayers that came before her, not the watchers who tried to control them. This also serves as an in-universe explanation for why the fighting style from season 5 onwards looks so different (and so much worse) than what came before it. (Yes, I know there were new stunt doubles, but it works with my convoluted argument, so I’m going to pretend there’s some deeper meaning behind it.)

Anyway, my point in all of this is that while earlier seasons present the thesis that one should find a middle ground between tradition and innovation, later seasons suggest that embracing oppressive traditions is harmful. So while we should still draw upon tradition, we should always be critical of the kinds of traditions we draw upon. And Kendra, having been raised by watchers, relies solely on harmful and oppressive traditions, and is therefore at a serious disadvantage. Faith, meanwhile, isn’t hampered by the Council’s bullshit. While she doesn’t draw power from slayer-line mysticism like Buffy does, she still has the advantage of freedom from the Council and would therefore win in a fight.

However, this is a solely thematic view of things, and maybe proves less who would win in a fight and more who would win in like a philosophical debate. Also, Kendra was killed off before she could be developed further (insert my usual Kendra deserved better comment here). Of the three, she was the most victimized by the Council (because of course those colonizers would fuck over the black girl most of all). If she had been developed, and been allowed to process the fact that a bunch white people stole her from her parents and brainwashed her for the purposes of their personal gain, and that this didn’t happen to any of her white counterparts, I think she could have had a much greater understanding of the insidious nature of the Council than either Buffy of Faith. I also think that her interest in the slayer tradition would have surpassed Buffy’s. She is, after all, the traditionalist of the three, so I think she would be the most interested in finding a way to connect to the traditions of the past while separating that past from the oppression of the Council.

In other words, a Kendra that had been allowed to live past season 2 is quite possibly the most powerful slayer. But if we’re accepting the canonical versions of these characters (and not the headcanon that I just pulled out of my ass) I guess Faith would be the winner.

Anya or Oz

Oz is a great character and I totally get why people like him but Anya is more in line with my personal preferences when it comes to characters who are intially introduced as love interests, which are as follows:

Hot lady (I’m shallow, sue me)

Very funny (Oz is funny but Anya is the funniest character on the show and no one can convince me otherwise)

Is more than just a love interest

Now I feel like people might object to no. 3 in Anya’s case, because there’s no denying that Anya is criminally underdeveloped and is often relegated to the unfortunate position of Xander’s girlfriend. However, Anya has a Selfless and she has that scene in The Body, and she has clearly defined relationships with the other Scoobies (best demonstrated in episodes like Triangle). Oz doesn’t really have any of that. Like, he and Willow break up for like half a second in season 3, and in that time he’s just not on screen. That’s how irrelevant he is to anyone and anything outside of Willow. Also, the werewolf suit looks dumb, which I have to assume is why the writers did almost nothing with him being a werewolf until they had to write him out.

The point is, while both of these characters deserved more development, Anya still got more of it so I like her better. Also she’s a pretty girl, so I was probably going to choose her regardless (I may be shallow, but at least I’m honest about it).

Buffy + Tara

I am the no. 1 Buffy/Tara shipper because I like it when nice people are nice to each other. And yes, I recognize that these are two flawed, complicated characters, but I think that together, they have the potential to be one of the healthiest couples in the Buffyverse. This is mainly because their interactions with each other are always supportive and free of judgement. Buffy defends Tara against her dad and welcomes her into her family even after Tara puts everyone at risk. Meanwhile, Tara is pretty much the only character (except for Dawn, maybe) to immediately react with empathy and understanding to the revelation that Buffy is sleeping with Spike. I’m not saying that either one of these characters is always understanding and non-judgemental (okay, maybe Tara is, but Buffy definitely isn’t), but they’ve proven that with each other, they’re very good at communicating and empathizing, and just being what the other person needs, and I think that’s very sexy of them.

Also, they’d be really hot together, so I’m here for it.

#kendra young #faith lehane #anya jenkins #oz #buffy summers #tara maclay #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #wow this turned out so long and convoluted

31 notes · View notes

positivelyamazonian · 5 years ago

Note

are you watching the witcher on netflix? what did you think of it?

Hi! This is not Tomb Raider related but I don’t mind answering it. I’ve been a fan of The Witcher universe since 2015 when the third videogame by CD Projekt Red (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt) fell into my hands. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of the existence of the books despite being a long term high fantasy reader because these were never at the public library of my town, neither in the bookshops I used to frequent.

The videogame was fantastic and I enjoyed it like not so many videogames before. The story was excellent to my tastes and then it was when I did my research, bought all the book series and read all of them. Then played the second, previous game (The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings) and if I didn’t manage to play the very first one it was because of incompatibilities with my PC. Since then, I consider myself a Witcher fan.

youtube

Now, going to the Netflix series. As everyone, I guess, I was very skeptical about the upcoming show; but it’s something that always happens to me when a beloved story and saga gets a TV/movie adaptation. I wasn’t familiar with Netflix at all - never had a subscription before - and neither with the casting, including Henry Cavill. But after watching the show I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it a lot and I think that in general a nice, good work has been done with the Witcher universe here.

I am aware that right now the fandom is divided between those who think the show was fantastic and the book purists that are disappointed and outraged because everything wasn’t like they expected. You ask some and they say they love it and you ask some others and they say they butchered it. Personally I’ve loved the show. I think the casting was a pleasant surprise, specially with Henry Cavill (Geralt) and Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) who have exceeded all my expectations.

For miracles, I must admit I could have never seen Joey Batey (Jaskier) coming. I mean, Jaskier was never one of my favs, in the books he’s relatively OK (but nothing more) and in the videogames I find him (Dandelion) outright annoying. But for the first time the Netflix show has presented me a version of the character that I can love and admire. Thank you, Joey.

Apart from the casting, I thought that the three timelines arranging was brilliant. Some people have felt uncomfortable or even lost with them but despite being confused at them myself at the beginning, I soon got used to the pace and I loved it. Maybe because having read the books and played the games helps, of course. But my husband that is only familiar with the videogames and has never touched the books got used to it immediately, too. So really it’s a matter of will, in this case.

What else: the music was delightful. I was expecting it to be trash because the videogames’ soundtrack is such a masterpiece that I was sure it could be not beaten. Well, it wasn’t anyway, but the show’s soundtrack was decent enough and even amazing at some tracks. I’m very happy they are releasing it tomorrow, because I’m sure as hell I am getting a playlist for my long hours of correcting projects and exams. Also, Joey Batey, again! What a lovely voice!

The show has done really a good work with the female characters. They were already outstanding, empowered and self-aware in the books, even standing for their agency more than in the videogames, sometimes, so I’m happy the show presented this legion of amazing heroines for the newcomers to love and enjoy. Now, I’m biased because Yennefer has been always my personal favourite, but each one of them are fantastically portrayed: the sorceresses, the queen, the princesses, the swordswomen... Kudos to another unexpected miracle: Jodhi May as Calanthe.

Has the show some flaws or things I didn’t like? Of course. Everything can’t be perfect. Personally I didn’t like all the Brokilon arc, it was depicted awfully in the show. I think the last scene, the reunion between Geralt and Ciri, would have worked much better if being loyal - dialogue wise - to the book instead of that awkward silence with just two random lines. In general, Ciri’s arch is a bit dull and boring, but honestly not much more could’ve been done with the changes they took. And yes, the golden dragon episode and the Blaviken episode feel, somehow, rushed and unclear. On the contrary, the rest of episode 1 and 3 were almost canonically perfect. Finally, the physical removal of the uterus and ovaries as a way to sterilize the Aretuza adepts was a bit shocking and gory for my taste, this detail was never clearly specified in the books and it seems added for shock value. I’ve always assumed this sterilization was magical/chemical, not surgical.

But these are sins of the adapting I can pass. I am grateful for Yennefer’s arch, which is barely explored in the books and deserved some focus, and I’m also glad for the portrayed diversity of the show. I know so many people has hated the diverse cast, but I love it and I think it didn’t feel forced; in fact, it was needed for awareness of the main point of the story: exploration about hatred among races. If an actress or actor delivers a good portrayal, caring about the color of the skin is just utter and plain racism.

I also like the sensuality and mature content in the series because it’s a remarkable aspect of the books and it was handled with tasteful delicacy. Not even the nudity felt forced or out of place, Witcher universe has been always mature and sensual.

Another trait both present in the books and games is the dark humor and the goofy situations. What I loved the most about the Witcher universe was this kind of humor, nonexistent in the classics of high fantasy and scarce in the modern ones, but always generous in The Witcher. This is faithfully depicted in the show and has given us plenty of funny and goofy scenes and dialogues. It’s a shame so many people has understood this as a lack of quality or a Netflix input. It isn’t. It’s true to the source. After all, the whole Witcher universe is a self-parody of fantasy genre itself. Taking too much seriously what you see would be the first mistake. Sapko - the author - was the first one to laugh at his own stories.

I think this is getting too long, I’m sorry. All in all I’ve enjoyed the show and I’m looking forward Season 2. I think they did fantastic things and I hope they will keep delivering, expecting them to correct some minor flaws and move on with better world building and character development. Thanks for asking.

#the witcher #netflix #TV show #geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #cirilla fiona elen riannon #not tr related #my answers #guess this comes because i am liking every witcher gifset in tumblr #what can i do #i loved it :)

16 notes · View notes

fakesurprise · 5 years ago

Text

Christmas: a tale of gifts!

Christmas Day begins almost peacefully after 12 days of jaymas. There is a tree not trying to eat people; the wandering magician and I have gifts for Jay under it – mostly gift certificates so he can get new games on his phone and clothing. I’m dreading the day Jay decides to try and become a whale because he’s heard they’re really good at mobile games.

Jay comes out of his motel room with a grin. He has a gift for the wandering magician a cone shape, wrapped up and possibly not a wizard’s hat. For me, he has a mug for coffee with my name on it. Which glows in several eye-watering colours.

“A mug?” I ask.

“Uh-huh!” Jay pours some coffee into it and the smell that hits my nose is closer to espresso. “I made hug-infused coffee,” he says proudly.

I pause. The odds of it not being radioactive just went down. “And it’s safe? It is glowing, Jay.”

“Oh, it’s just active. I took all the radio out of it just for you,” he says, entirely serious.

The wandering magician has exhausted himself to the bone trying to deal with gifts from Jay during jaymas, but even in his weary state my expression pulls off a real grin.

“Thank you,” I say.

He grins even wider, entirely proud with his gift. When you’re friends with an eleven year old boy from Outside the universe, you take gifts in stride. Most of the time.

The wandering magician opens up his gift carefully Unwraps paper. And more paper, And more paper, being left with nothing at all.

“I got you some wrapping paper wrapped inside wrapping paper!” Jay then does a pounce-hug. “And this plus plus plus you get to rest from doing magic today cuz you’re too tired to do it! Which is totally a gifting.”

“It is?” the magician asks, and there is something odd in his voice.

“Yup! Oh! and I have a gift for you later but it’s not a gift for you!”

Jay vanishes.

“He gave you a trick?” I ask.

“He’s been doing tricks more often lately. Sometimes consciously.”

I offer him my coffee if he needs to wake up some more.

Oddly, he declines it.

Being the only ghost magician in the world is an impossibility at Christmas. The sheer amount of ghosts who find me wanting a Scrooge is insane; last year I survived it by getting blinding drunk. This year I’m travelling with Anya and Noah again; Noah can use his talent to push things even on the dead, and Anya her talent to cause harm even to the dead.

(I may have been teaching them to do this.) The wards I’ve put up around our hotel room keep out the uglier ghosts. Nothing I can do could stop Jay from visiting.

Anya and Noah ran from travelling with Jay and Charlie, for reasons mostly Jay. Jay doesn’t grasp they did that, even now. It’s better, being a bit away from him. Jaysome has a weight, and adventures a pull to them. Too much of anything is too much, not that Jay can grasp the concept of too much jaysome.

The gifts he has include a giant basket of food held in both hands.

“This if for you, Wilbur,” he says, and being Jay it’s not even remotely a comment on my weight.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Ghost food for hungry ghosts,” he says.

I thank him, not asking how he made it or where he found it. Mostly because I want to sleep tonight.

Anya and Noah are both looking wary. Jay produces from the air a punching bag. With his face on it.

“So you can hit things and not hurt them and that’s totally jaysome,” he tells Anya.

Anya is not me. “Why does it have your face on it?”

“It does?” Jay blinks. “Nope! It had a face you’d want to hit, so for me it’s no one at all and I bet it’s the same for you!”

“Oh. Right.”

“And me?” Noah asks softly, trying to stop things from getting worse. He looks pale, but that’s more his voice than the skin under his multitude of freckles and fae glamour.

Jay hands Noah a small bottle. “Some confidence, in case you need some cuz you’re pretty shy-face you know!”

Noah... nods. And puts it away without any expression crossing his face at all.

Jay accepts hug from us and vanishes. I look at Noah. “Going to open it?”

He shakes his head, but does offer a faint grin.

He appears in the middle of the bar. Never mind that the bar I am at isn’t really a bar as much as a waypoint attached to the universe. Not inside, not Outside. Mostly neutral ground, not that anyone would bother me. Being a Walker from outside the Universe has perks, but mostly has the kind of power no one else messes with.

Jay isn’t anyone else at all. He grins, and walks over, ignoring every confused stare that goes his way.

“Hi,” he says to everyone, because strangers are just friends he hasn’t made yet.

“Jay,” I say, to draw his attention. My power can’t work on him; neither what is innate nor what I’ve been given. “I trust you are her for a reason?” “Uh-huh! Oh! I could be here for more than one reason and –.”

“Just one will suffice.”

“I’ve totally got a gifting for you,” he says proudly, and – holds up a piece of folded paper.

I take it, read it thrice. “A date with the wandering magician.”

“He hasn’t had a date in ages and ages and it would be really jaysome for him, Moshi, and you’re cute-face and –.”

“Does he know?”

Jay scratches his head. “It wouldn’t be a gift if he knew but I bet he does cuz he’s Honcho!”

And there is nothing save absolute trust in his words.

I thank him and get another drink as Jay departs.

I have no idea if this is a gift or not.

I am very certain I should not use it.

(I don’t throw it away.)

I make myself an evening coffee when he appears, walking quietly out of shadows that did not exist a moment earlier.

“Jay.” “Magician.” He does not quite look at me, this Jay who is fifteen. He is Jay, though with the weight of centuries behind his eyes and a smile that is not quite jaysome any longer. “You called me here.”

I hand him a coffee. “I thought you could use a Christmas drink.”

He sips it. “Likely. Time is – complicated, at the best of times, for me. But we – I felt what happened recently.” “I never wanted this.”

“I know. I wanted to stop it. I could. I still can.” His smile reminds me too much of me. “That much I can do, if you ask it.”

“Will Jay understand if you are no longer his future?”

“Likely not. It is hard to be certain, but you did not call me here for that across time and space, magician.” “Jay has been – doing tricks, such as the ending of his twelve days of jaymas. Wearing me out so I would have a day off, but doing it via methods that are not strictly jaysome.”

“I cannot be eleven forever,” Jay says, and even hardened as I am there are notes in his voice that hurt.

“I know. But i think Jay is veering closer to twelve than he should be. For his sake?” Jay reaches out a hand, as if pulling something from the air. Nods. “I have done what I can.”

We finish our drinks in silence, and he looks at me finally.

“It is worth it, you know,” he says. And he vanishes before I can ask for details.

I head back inside slowly.

I am tired, but some weight has lifted from me. And perhaps that is all I expect, and far more than I deserve.

#writing #prose #magician series

14 notes · View notes

footballthebeautifulgame · 4 years ago

Text

Beautiful Moments from The Beautiful Game

Did you know that during the first world war English and German soldiers called for a truce and played a friendly game of football? Don’t believe me? Click here. In the article it says, “this confirms the universal appeal of football and its ability to transcend bitter rivalries and even war.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Welcome to The Beautiful Game Blog where we will discuss all things football.

In my first written post I will share 3 moments that showcase why so many call football the beautiful game.

1. "Here's Hogg.. DEENEY!" | Watford vs Leicester City | 12 May 2013

Alright, let me set the scene. This is the second match between the two and whoever wins this goes on to the Championship playoff final for a chance to play in the Premier League (top level of English football). Watford are leading 2-1 but are tied 2-2 on aggregate meaning Leicester will go through due to the away goals rule.

youtube

WOW... When Leicester get the penalty, you think they will cement their place in the final. But it just takes a few seconds for all that to go out the window. It took 22 seconds from the penalty to the goal in the other end. Just 22 seconds..

In my opinion, Knockaert went down easily, he didn’t deserve that penalty, but the football Gods did their thing. Credit to Watford, they reacted quick, pushed numbers forward and got their reward.

Credit will usually go to the goal scorer but let’s give credit to Anya (number 21). After the goalkeeper makes a double save and the defender clears the ball high up in the air, watch how Anya keeps his eyes on the ball and brilliantly brings it down (I’m a sucker for brilliant first touches). Anya also does well to drive forward and pick out a pass to the far right of the pitch. Watch the video again from 2:00 - 2:15.

I also love how the Watford head coach goes from angry to ecstatic.

2. AGUERROOOOO | Manchester City vs QPR | 13 May 2012

Okay this one hurts, as a Manchester United fan it really hurts. This was the last game of the season, the premier league title would be decided on the last day. Man City played QPR and Man United played Sunderland. The title was in Man City’s hands, All they had to do was win. I had no hopes going into this match cause they’ll easily win right? It was against one of the weaker teams of that season and City had a good campaign (I mean they were challenging for the title). But, they gave us hope. City were 1-2 down in the 90th minute…

youtube

Skip to 17:08 for Dzeko’s goal 19:08 for Aguero’s goal

When Dzeko headed it in to make it 2-2 you still have some hope left but Aguero rises to break the hearts of Manchester United fans. What a player Aguero is, the composure to take a touch to get away from the defender and finish under immense pressure.

No denying that this was a beautiful moment, look at those celebrations. Man City went on to win the premier league for the first time ever and what a way to win it!

3. “SOLSKJÆR HAS WON IT” | Manchester United vs Bayern Munich | 26 May 1999

No I’m not jealous of City’s last minute winner that won them the title. Manchester United are known to be the kings of comebacks. It is in their DNA to never give up. In 1999 Manchester United faced Bayern Munich in the Champions League final. Okay maybe I’m a little jealous that City’s comeback was more recent, I was only 2 when this game was being played however just watching replays gives me goosebumps.

The Champions League is battled amongst Europe’s best teams, it is the most prestigious trophy a club in Europe could win. Manchester United had already secured 2 trophies from their domestic competitions (Premier League and FA Cup). Winning this final would make it a treble of trophies that season. This is a very rare feat achieved only by 7 teams since 1967.

United went 1-0 down early on and failed to make a real impact on the game. Bayern were the dominant team and had two attempts that hit the crossbar and post. 90 minutes in, still trailing, United get a corner, up steps David Beckham. “Can Manchester United score?”

youtube

“They always score”. They went onto score both goals in 90 minutes to win the game in normal time. What a moment. I hope to experience a football game like that one day. The commentary is also legendary, “BECKHAM INTO SHERINGHAM AND SOLSKJÆR HAS WON IT!!!” I’ll never get tired of hearing that.

Side story: Solskjær, the player who scored the winner is the current head coach of Manchester United. What a story it would be if he goes on to be a successful manager for the club.

Three beautiful moments. Share your top moments that have happened in this beautiful game.

Thanks for reading, see you next time.

#football #manchesterunited #manchestercity #watford #thebeautifulgame

2 notes · View notes

grigori77 · 5 years ago

Text

2019 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30. GLASS – back in 2000, I went from liking the work of The Sixth Sense’s writer-director M. Night Shyamalan to becoming a genuine FAN thanks to his sneakily revisionist deconstruction of superhero tropes, Unbreakable. It’s STILL my favourite film of his to date, and one of my Top Ten superhero movies EVER, not just a fascinating examination of the mechanics of the genre but also a very satisfying screen origin story – needless to say I’m one of MANY fans who’ve spent nearly two decades holding out hope for a sequel. Flash forward to 2016 and Shyamalan’s long-overdue return-to-form sleeper hit, Split, which not only finally put his career back on course but also dropped a particularly killer end twist by actually being that very sequel. Needless to say 2019 was the year we FINALLY got our PROPER reward for all our patience – Glass is the TRUE continuation of the Unbreakable universe and the closer of a long-intended trilogy. Turns out, though, that it’s also his most CONTROVERSIAL film for YEARS, dividing audiences and critics alike with its unapologetically polarizing plot and execution – I guess that, after a decade of MCU and a powerhouse trilogy of Batman movies from Chris Nolan, we were expecting an epic, explosive action-fest to close things out, but that means we forgot exactly what it is about Shyamalan we got to love so much, namely his unerring ability to subvert and deconstruct whatever genre he’s playing around in. And he really doesn’t DO spectacle, does he? That said, this film is still a surprisingly BIG, sprawling piece of work, even if it the action is, for the most part, MUCH more internalised than most superhero movies. Not wanting to drop any major spoilers on the few who still haven’t seen it, I won’t give away any major plot points, suffice to say that ALL the major players from both Unbreakable and Split have returned – former security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has spent the past nineteen years exploring his super-strength and near-invulnerability while keeping Philadelphia marginally safer as hooded vigilante the Overseer, and the latest target of his crime-fighting crusade is Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), the vessel of 24 split personalities collectively known as the Horde, who’s continuing his cannibalistic serial-murder spree through the streets. Both are being hunted by the police, as well as Dr. Ellie Staple (series newcomer Sarah Paulson), a clinical psychiatrist specialising in treating individuals who suffer the delusional belief that they’re superheroes, her project also encompassing David’s former mentor-turned-nemesis Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), the eponymous Mr. Glass, whose life-long suffering from a crippling bone disease that makes his body dangerously fragile has done nothing to blunt the genius-level intellect that’s made him a ruthlessly accomplished criminal mastermind. How these remarkable individuals are brought together makes for fascinating viewing, and while it may be a good deal slower and talkier than some might have preferred, this is still VERY MUCH the Shyamalan we first came to admire – fiendishly inventive, slow-burn suspenseful and absolutely DRIPPING with cool earworm dialogue, his characteristically mischievous sense of humour still present and correct, and he’s retained that unswerving ability to wrong-foot us at every turn, right up to one of his most surprising twist endings to date. The cast are, as ever, on fire, the returning hands all superb while those new to the universe easily measure up to the quality of talent on display – Willis and Jackson are, as you’d expect, PERFECT throughout, brilliantly building on the incredibly solid groundwork laid in Unbreakable, while it’s a huge pleasure to see Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark (a fine actor we don’t see NEARLY enough of, in my opinion) and Charlayne Woodard get MUCH bigger, more prominent roles this time out, while Paulson delivers an understated but frequently mesmerising turn as the ultimate unshakable sceptic. As with Split, however, the film is comprehensively stolen by McAvoy, whose truly chameleonic performance actually manages to eclipse its predecessor in its levels of sheer genius. Altogether this is another sure-footed step in the right direction for a director who’s finally regained his singular auteur prowess – say what you will about that ending, but it certainly is a game-changer, as boldly revisionist as anything that’s preceded it and therefore, in my opinion, exactly how it SHOULD have gone. If nothing else, this is a film that should be applauded for its BALLS …

29. THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON – quite possibly the year’s most adorable indie, this dramatic feature debut from documentarian writer-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz largely snuck in under the radar on release, but has gone on to garner some well-deserved critical appreciation and sleeper hit success. The lion’s share of the film’s success must surely go to the inspired casting, particularly in the central trio who drive the action – Nilson and Schwartz devised the film with Zack Gotsagen, an exceptionally talented young actor with Down’s Syndrome, specifically in mind for the role of Zak, a wrestling obsessive languishing in a North Carolina retirement home who dreams of escaping his stifling confines and going to the training camp of his hero, the Saltwater Redneck (Thomas Haden Church), where he can learn to become a pro wrestler; after slipping free, Zak enlists the initially wary help of down-at-heel criminal fisherman Tyler (Shia LaBaouf) in reaching his intended destination, while the pair are pursued by Zak’s primary caregiver, Eleanor (Dakota Johnson). Needless to say the unlikely pair bond on the road, and when Eleanor is reluctantly forced to tag along with them, a surrogate family is formed … yeah, the plot is so predictable you can see every twist signposted from miles back, but that familiarity is never a problem because these characters are so lovingly written and beautifully played that you’ve fallen for them within five minutes of meeting them, so you’re effortlessly swept along for the ride. The three leads are pure gold – this is the most laid back and cuddly Shia’s been for years, but his lackadaisical charm is pleasingly tempered with affecting pathos driven by a tragic loss in Tyler’s recent past, while Johnson is sensible, sweet and likeably grounded, even when Eleanor’s at her most exasperated, but Gotsagen is the real surprise, delivering an endearingly unpredictable, livewire performance that blazes with true, honest purity and total defiance in the face of any potential difficulties society may try to throw at Zak – while there’s excellent support from Church in a charmingly awkward late-film turn that goes a long way to reminding us just what an acting treasure he is, as well as John Hawkes and rapper Yelawolf as a pair of lowlife crab-fishermen hunting for Tyler, intending to wreak (not entirely undeserved) revenge on him for an ill-judged professional slight. Enjoying a gentle sense of humour and absolutely CRAMMED with heartfelt emotional heft, this really was one of the most downright LOVEABLE films of 2019.

28. PET SEMATARY – first off, let me say that I never saw the 1989 feature adaptation of Stephen King’s story, so I have no comparative frame of reference there – I WILL say, however, that the original novel is, in my opinion, one of the strongest offerings from America’s undisputed master of literary horror, so any attempt made to bring it to the big screen had better be a good one. Thankfully, this version more than delivers in that capacity, proving to be one of the more impressive of his cinematic outings in recent years (not quite up to the standard of The Mist or It Chapter 1, perhaps, but certainly on a par with the criminally overlooked 1408), as well as one of the year’s top horror offerings. This may be the feature debut of directing double-act Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, but they both display a wealth of natural talent here, wrangling bone-chilling scares and a pervading atmosphere of oppressive dread to deliver a top-notch screen fright-fest that works its way under your skin and stays put for days after. Jason Clarke is a classic King everyman hero as Boston doctor Louis Creed, displaced to the small Maine town of Ludlow as he trades the ER for a quiet clinic practice so he can spent more time with his family – Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color, Stranger Things), excellent throughout as his haunted, emotionally fragile wife Rachel, toddler son Gage (twins Hugo and Lucas Lavole), and daughter Ellie (newcomer Jeté Laurence, BY FAR the film’s biggest revelation, delivering to the highest degree even when her role becomes particularly intense). Their new home seems idyllic, the only blots being the main road at the end of their drive which experiences heavy traffic from speeding trucks, and the children’s pet cemetery in the woods at the back of their garden, which has become something of a local landmark. But there’s something far darker in the deeper places beyond, an ancient place of terrible power Louis is introduced to by their well-meaning but ultimately fallible elderly neighbour Jud (one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from screen legend John Lithgow) when his daughter’s beloved cat Church is run over. The cat genuinely comes back, but he’s irrevocably changed, the once gentle and lovable furball now transformed into a menacingly mangy little psychopath, and his resurrection sets off a chain of horrific events destined to devour the entire family … this is supernatural horror at its most inherently unnerving, mercilessly twisting the screws throughout its slow-burn build to the inevitable third act bloodbath and reaching a bleak, soul-crushing climax that comes close to rivalling the still unparalleled sucker-punch of The Mist – the adaptation skews significantly from King’s original at the mid-point, but even purists will be hard-pressed to deny that this is still VERY MUCH in keeping with the spirit of the book right up to its harrowing closing shot. The King of Horror has been well served once again – fans can rest assured that his dark imagination continues to inspire some truly great cinematic scares …

27. THE REPORT – the CIA’s notorious use of torture to acquire information from detainees in Guantanamo Bay and various other sites around the world in the wake of September 11, 2001, has been a particularly spiky political subject for years now, one which has gained particular traction with cinema-goers over the years thanks to films like Rendition and, of course, controversial Oscar-troubler Zero Dark Thirty. It’s also a particular bugbear of screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum, Contagion, Side Effects) – his parents are both psychologists, and he found it particularly offensive that a profession he knows was created to help people could have been turned into such a damaging weapon against the human psyche, inexorably leading him to taking up this passion project, championed by its producer, and Burns’ long-time friend and collaborator, Steven Soderbergh. It tells the true story of Senate staffer Daniel Jones’ five-year battle to bring his damning 6,300-page study of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program, commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, into the light of day in the face of increasingly intense and frequently underhanded resistance from the Agency and various high-ranking officials within the US Government whose careers could be harmed should their own collusion be revealed. In lesser hands this could have been a clunky, unappetisingly dense excuse for a slow-burn political thriller that drowned in its own exposition, but Burns handles the admittedly heavyweight material with deft skill and makes each increasingly alarming revelation breathlessly compelling while he ratchets up the tension by showing just what a seemingly impossible task Jones and his small but driven team faced. The film would have been nought, however, without a strong cast, and this one has a killer – taking a break from maintaining his muscle-mass for Star Wars, Adam Driver provides a suitably robust narrative focus as Jones, an initially understated workman who slowly transforms into an incensed moral crusader as he grows increasingly filled with righteous indignation by the vile subject matter he’s repeatedly faced with, and he’s provided with sterling support from the likes of Annette Bening, delivering her best performance in years as Senator Dianne Feinstein, Jones’ staunchest supporter, the ever-wonderful Ted Levine as oily CIA director John O. Brennan, Tim Blake Nelson as a physician contracted by the CIA to assist with interrogations who became genuinely disgusted by the horrors he witnessed, and Matthew Rhys as an unnamed New York Times reporter Jones considers leaking the report to when it looks like it might never be released. This is powerful stuff, and while it may only mark Burns’ second directorial feature (after his obscure debut Pu-239), he handles the gig like a seasoned pro, milking the material for every drop of dramatic tension while keeping the narrative as honest, forthright and straightforward as possible, and the end result makes for sobering, distressing and thoroughly engrossing viewing. Definitely one of the most important films not only of 2019, but of the decade itself, and one that NEEDS to be seen.

26. DARK PHOENIX – wow, this really has been a year for mistreated sequels, hasn’t it? There’s a seriously stinky cloud of controversy surrounding what is now, in light of recent developments between Disney and Twentieth Century Fox, the last true Singer-era X-Men movie, a film which saw two mooted release dates (first November 2018 then the following February, before finally limping onto screens with very little fanfare in June 2019, almost as if Fox wanted to bury it. Certainly rumours of its compromise were rife, particularly regarding supposed rushed reshoots because of clashing similarities with Marvel’s major tent-pole release Captain Marvel (and given the all-conquering nature of the MCU there was no way they were having that, was there?), so like many I was expecting a clunky mess, maybe even a true stinker to rival X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In truth, while it’s not perfect, the end result is nothing like the turd we all feared – the final film is, in fact, largely a success, worthy of favourable comparison with its stronger predecessors. It certainly makes much needed amends for the disappointing mismanagement of the source comics’ legendary Dark Phoenix saga in 2006’s decidedly compromised original X-Men trilogy capper The Last Stand, this time treating the story with the due reverence and respect it deserves as well as serving as a suitably powerful send-off for more than one beloved key character. Following the “rebooted” path of the post-Days of Future Past timeline, it’s now 1992, and after the world-changing events of Apocalypse the X-Men have become a respected superhero team with legions of fans and their own personal line to the White House, while mutants at large have mostly become accepted by the regular humans around them. Then a hastily planned mission into space takes a turn for the worst and Jean Grey (Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner) winds up absorbing an immensely powerful, thoroughly inexplicable cosmic force that makes her powers go haywire while also knocking loose repressed childhood traumas Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) would rather had stayed buried, sending her on a dangerous spiral out of control which leads to a destructive confrontation and the inadvertent death of a teammate. Needless to say, the situation soon becomes desperate as Jean goes on the run and the world starts to turn against them all once again … all in all, then, it’s business as usual for the cast and crew of one of Fox’s flagship franchises, and it SHOULD have gone off without a hitch. When Bryan Singer opted not to return this time around (instead setting his sights on Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody), key series writer Simon Kinberg stepped into the breach for his directorial debut, and it turns out he’s got a real talent for it, giving us just the kind of robust, pacy, thrilling action-packed epic his compatriot would have delivered, filled with the same thumping great set-pieces (the final act’s stirring, protracted train battle is the unequivocal highlight here), well-observed character beats and emotional resonance we’ve come to expect from the series as a whole (then again, he does know these movies back to frond having at least co-written his fair share). The cast, similarly, are all on top form – McAvoy and Michael Fassbender (as fan favourite Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto) know their roles so well now they can do this stuff in their sleep, but we still get to see them explore interesting new facets of their characters (particularly McAvoy, who gets to reveal an intriguing dark side to the Professor we’ve only ever seen hinted at before now), while Turner finally gets to really breathe in a role which felt a little stiff and underexplored in her series debut in Apocalypse (she EASILY forges the requisite connective tissue to Famke Janssen’s more mature and assured take in the earlier films); conversely Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) get somewhat short shrift but nonetheless do A LOT with what little they have, and at least Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult still get to do plenty of dramatic heavy lifting as the last of Xavier’s original class, Raven (Mystique) and Hank McCoy (Beast); the only real weak link in the cast is the villain, Vuk, a shape-shifting alien whose quest to seize the power Jean’s appropriated is murkily defined at best, but at least Jessica Chastain manages to invest her with enough icy menace to keep things from getting boring. All in all, then, this is very much a case of business as usual, Kinberg and co keeping the action thundering along at a suitably cracking pace throughout (powered by a typically epic score from Hans Zimmer), and the film only really comes off the rails in its final moments, when that aforementioned train finally comes off its tracks and the reported reshoots must surely kick in – as a result this is, to me, most reminiscent of previous X-flick The Wolverine, which was a rousing success for the majority of its runtime, only coming apart in its finale thanks to that bloody ridiculous robot samurai. The climax is, therefore, a disappointment, too clunky and sudden and overly neat in its denouement (we really could have done with a proper examination of the larger social impact of these events), but it’s little enough that it doesn’t spoil what came before … which just makes the film’s mismanagement and resulting failure, as well as its subsequent treatment from critics and fans alike, all the more frustrating. This film deserved much better, but ultimately looks set to be disowned and glossed over by most of the fanbase as the property as a whole goes through the inevitable overhaul now that Disney/Marvel owns Fox and plans to bring the X-Men and their fellow mutants into the MCU fold. I feel genuinely sorry for the one remaining X-film, The New Mutants, which is surely destined for spectacular failure after its similarly shoddy round of reschedules finally comes to an end this summer …

25. IT CHAPTER 2 – back in 2017, Mama director Andy Muschietti delivered the first half of his ambitious two-film adaptation of one of Stephen King’s most popular and personal novels, which had long been considered un-filmable (the 90s miniseries had a stab, but while it deserves its cult favourite status it certainly fell short in several places) until Muschietti and screenwriters Cary Joji Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman seemingly did the impossible, and the end result was the top horror hit of the year. Ultimately, then, it was gonna be a tough act to follow, and there was MAJOR conjecture whether they could repeat that success with this second half. Would lightning strike twice? Well, the simple answer is … mostly. 2017’s Chapter 1 was a stone-cold masterpiece, and one of the strongest elements in its favour was the extremely game young cast of newcomers and relative unknown child actors who brought the already much beloved Loser’s Club to perfectly-cast life, a seven-strong gang of gawky pre-teen underdogs you couldn’t help loving, which made it oh-so-easy to root for them as they faced off against that nightmarish shape-shifting child-eating monster, Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It was primal, it was terrifying, and it was BURSTING with childhood nostalgia that thoroughly resonated with an audience hungry for more 80s-set coming-of-age genre fare after the runaway success of Stranger Things. Bringing the story into the present day with the Losers now returning to their childhood home of Derry, Maine as forty-something adults, Chapter 2 was NEVER going to achieve the same pulse-quickening electric charge the first film pulled off, was it? Thankfully, with the same director and (mostly) the same writing crew on hand (Fukunaga jumped ship but Dauberman was there to finish up with the help of Jason Fuchs and an uncredited Jeffrey Jurgensen) there’s still plenty of that old magic left over, so while it’s not quite the same second time round, this still feels very much like the same adventure, just older, wiser and a bit more cynical. Here’s a more relevant reality check, mind – those who didn’t approve of the first film’s major changes from the book are going to be even more incensed by this, but the differences here are at least organic and in keeping with the groundwork laid in Chapter 1, and indeed this film in particular is a VERY different beast from the source material, but these differences are actually kind of a strength here, Muschietti and co. delivering something that works MUCH better cinematically than a more faithful take would have. Anyway, the Loser’s Club are back, all grown up and (for the most part) wildly successful living FAR AWAY from Derry with dream careers and seemingly perfect lives. Only Mike Hanlon has remained behind to hold vigil over the town and its monstrous secret, and when a new spree of disappearances and grisly murders begins he calls his old friends back home to fulfil the pact they all swore to uphold years ago – stop Pennywise once and for all. The new cast are just as excellent as their youthful counterparts – Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy are, of course, the big leads here as grown up Beverley Marsh and Bill Denbrough, bringing every watt of star power they can muster, but the others hold more interest, with Bill Hader perfectly cast (both director and child actor’s personal first choice) as smart-mouth Richie Tozier, Isaiah Mustafah (best known as the Old Spice guy from those hilarious commercials) playing VERY MUCH against type as Mike, Jay Ryan (successful on the small screen in Top of the Lake and Beauty & the Beast, but very much getting his cinematic big break here) as a slimmed-down and seriously buffed-out Ben Hanscom, James Ransone (Sinister) as neurotic hypochondriac Eddie Kaspbrak, and Andy Bean (Power, the recent Swamp Thing series) as ever-rational Stan Uris – but we still get to hang out with the original kids too in new flashbacks that (understandably) make for some of the film’s best scenes, while Bill Skarsgard is as terrifying as ever as he brings new ferocity, insidious creepiness and even a touch of curious back-story to Pennywise. I am happy to report this new one IS just as scary as its predecessor, a skin-crawling, spine-tingling, pants-wetting cold sweat of a horror-fest that works its way in throughout its substantial running time and, as before, sticks with you LONG after the credits have rolled, but it’s also got the same amount of heart, emotional heft and pathos, nostalgic charm (albeit more grown-up and sullied) and playful, sometimes decidedly mischievous geeky humour, so that as soon as you’re settled in it really does feel like you’ve come home. It’s also fiendishly inventive, the final act in particular skewing in some VERY surprising new directions that there’s NO WAY you’ll see coming, and the climax also, interestingly, redresses one particularly frustrating imbalance that always bugged me about the book, making for an especially moving, heartbreaking denouement. Interestingly, there’s a running joke in the film that pokes fun at a perceived view from some quarters that Stephen King’s endings often disappoint – there’s no such fault with THIS particular adaptation. For me, this was altogether JUST the concluding half I was hoping for, so while it’s not as good as the first, it should leave you satisfied all the same.

24. MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN – it’s taken Edward Norton twenty years to get his passion project adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s novel to the big screen, but the final film was certainly worth the wait, a cool-as-ice noir thriller in which its writer-director also, of course, stars as one of the most unusual ‘tecs around. Lionel Essrog suffers from Tourette syndrome, prone to uncontrollable ticks and vocal outbursts as well as obsessive-compulsive spirals that can really ruin his day, but he’s also got a genius-level intellect and a photographic memory, which means he’s the perfect fit for the detective agency of accomplished, highly successful New York gumshoe Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). But when their latest case goes horribly wrong and Frank dies in a back-alley gunfight, the remaining members of the agency are left to pick up the pieces and try to find out what went wrong, Lionel battling his own personal, mental and physical demons as he tries to unravel an increasingly labyrinthine tangle of lies, deceit, corporate corruption and criminal enterprise that reaches to the highest levels of the city’s government. Those familiar with the original novel will know that it’s set in roughly the present day, but Norton felt many aspects of the story lent themselves much better to the early 1950s, and it really was a good choice – Lionel is a man very much out his time, a very odd fit in an age of stuffy morals and repression, while the themes of racial upheaval, rampant urban renewal and massive, unchecked corporate greed feel very much of the period. Besides, there’s few things as seductive than a good noir thriller, and Norton has crafted a real GEM right here. The pace can be a little glacial at times, but this simply gives the unfolding plot and extremely rich collection of characters plenty of room to grow, while the jazzy score (from up-and-comer Daniel Pemberton, composer on Steve Jobs, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) provides a surprising complimentary accompaniment to the rather free-form narrative style and Lionel’s own scattershot, bebop style. Norton is exceptional in the lead, landing his best role in years with an exquisitely un-self-conscious ease that makes for thoroughly compelling viewing (surely more than one nod will be due come awards-season), but he doesn’t hog ALL the limelight, letting his uniformly stellar supporting cast shine bright as well – Willis doesn’t get a huge amount of screen time, but delivers a typically strong, nuanced performance that makes his absence throughout the rest of the film keenly felt, Gugu Mbatha-Raw continues to build an impressive run of work as Laura, the seemingly unimportant woman Lionel befriends, who could actually be the key to the whole case, Alec Baldwin is coolly menacing as power-hungry property magnate and heavyweight city official Moses Randolph, the film’s nominal big-bad, Willem Dafoe is absolutely electrifying as his down-at-heel, insignificant genius brother Lou, and Boardwalk Empire’s Michael K. Williams is quietly outstanding as mysterious jazz musician Trumpet Man, while Bobby Canavale, Ethan Suplee and Dallas Roberts are all excellent as the other hands in Minna’s detective agency. It’s a chilled-out affair, happy to hang back and let its slow-burn plot simmer while Lionel tries to navigate his job and life in general while battling his many personal difficulties, but due to the incredible calibre of the talent on offer, the incredibly rich dialogue and obligatory hardboiled gumshoe voiceover, compelling story and frequently achingly beautiful visuals, this is about as compulsively rewarding as cinema gets. Norton’s crafted a film noir worthy of comparison with the likes of L.A. Confidential and Chinatown, proving that he’s a triple-threat cinematic talent to be reckoned with.

23. PROSPECT – I love a good cinematic underdog, there’s always some dynamite indies and sleepers that just about slip through the cracks that I end up championing every year, and one of 2019’s favourites was a minor sensation at 2018’s South By Southwest film festival, a singularly original ultra-low-budget sci-fi adventure that made a genuine virtue of its miniscule budget. Riffing on classic eco-minded space flicks like Silent Running, it introduces a father-and-daughter prospecting team who land a potentially DEEPLY lucrative contract mining for an incredibly rare element on a toxic jungle moon – widower Damon (Transparent’s Jay Duplass), who’s downtrodden and world-weary but still a dreamer, and teenager Cee (relative newcomer Sophie Thatcher), an introverted bookworm with hidden reserves of ingenuity and fortitude. The job starts well, Damon setting his sights on a rumoured “queen’s layer” that could make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, but when they meet smooth-talking scavenger Ezra (Narcos’ Pedro Pascal), things take a turn for the worse – Damon is killed and Cee is forced to team up with Ezra to have any hope for survival on this hostile, unforgiving moon. Thatcher is an understated joy throughout, her seemingly detached manner belying hidden depths of intense feeling, while Pascal, far from playing a straight villain, turns Ezra into something of a tragic, charismatic antihero we eventually start to sympathise with, and the complex relationship that develops between them is a powerful, mercurial thing, the constantly shifting dynamic providing a powerful driving force for the film. Debuting writer-directors Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell have crafted a wonderfully introspective, multi-layered tone poem of aching beauty, using subtle visual effects and a steamy, glow-heavy colour palette to make the lush forest environs into something nonetheless eerie and inhospitable, while the various weird and colourful denizens of this deadly little world prove that Ezra may be the LEAST of the dangers Cee faces in her quest for escape. Inventive, intriguing and a veritable feast for the eyes and intellect, this is top-notch indie sci-fi and a sign of great things to come from its creators, thoroughly deserving of major cult recognition in the future.

22. DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE – S. Craig Zahler is a writer-director who’s become a major fixture on my ones-to-watch list in recent years, instantly winning me over with his dynamite debut feature Bone Tomahawk before cementing that status with awesome follow-up Brawl On Cell Block 99. His latest is another undeniable hit that starts deceptively simply before snowballing into a sprawling urban crime epic as it follows its main protagonists – disgraced Bulwark City cops Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Tony Lurasetti (BOCB99’s Vince Vaughn), on unpaid suspension after their latest bust leads to a PR nightmare – on a descent into a hellish criminal underworld as they set out to “seek compensation” for their situation by ripping off the score from a bank robbery spearheaded by ruthlessly efficient professional thief Lorentz Vogelmann (Thomas Kretschmann). In lesser hands, this two-hour-forty-minute feature might have felt like a painfully padded effort that would have passed far better chopped down to a breezy 90-minutes, but Zahler is such a compellingly rich and resourceful writer that every scene is essential viewing, overflowing with exquisitely drawn characters spouting endlessly quotable, gold-plated dialogue, and the constantly shifting narrative focus brings such consistent freshness that the increasingly complex plot remains rewarding right to the end. The two leads are both typically excellent – Vaughn gets to let loose with a far more showy, garrulous turn here than his more reserved character in his first collaboration with Zahler, while this is EASILY the best performance I’ve seen Gibson deliver in YEARS, the grizzled veteran clearly having a fine old time getting his teeth into a particularly meaty role that very much plays to his strengths – and they’re brilliantly bolstered by an excellent supporting cast – Get Rich Or Die Tryin’s Tory Kittles easily matches them in his equally weighty scenes as Henry Johns, a newly-released ex-con also out to improve his family’s situation with a major score, while Kretschmann is at his most chilling as the brutal killer who executes his plans with cold-blooded precision, and there are wonderful scene-stealing offerings from Jennifer Carpenter, Udo Kier, Don Johnson (three more Zahler regulars, each featured with Vaughn on BOCB99), Michael Jai White, Laurie Holden and newcomer Miles Truitt. This is a proper meaty film, dark, intense, gritty and unflinching in its portrayal of honest, unglamorous violence and its messy aftermath, but fans of grown-up filmmaking will find PLENTY to enjoy here, Zahler crafting a crime epic comparable to the heady best of Scorsese and Tarantino. Another sure-fire winner from one of the best new filmmakers around.

21. FAST COLOR – intriguingly, the most INTERESTING superhero movie of the year was NOT a major franchise property, or even a comic book adapted to the screen at all, but a wholly original indie which snuck in very much under the radar on its release but is surely destined for cult greatness in the future, not least due to some much-deserved critical acclaim. Set in an unspecified future where it hasn’t rained for years, a homeless vagabond named Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is making her aimless way across a desolate American Midwest, tormented by violent seizures which cause strange localised earthquakes, and hunted by Bill (Argo’s Christopher Denham), a rogue scientist who wants to capture her so he can study her abilities. Ultimately she’s left with no other recourse than to run home, sheltering with her mother Bo (Middle of Nowhere and Orange is the New Black’s Lorraine Toussaint), and her young daughter Lila (The Passage’s Saniyya Sidney), both of whom also have weird and wondrous powers of their own. As the estranged family reconnect, Ruth finally learns to control her powers as she’s forced to confront her own troubled past, but as Bill closes in it looks like their idyll might be short-lived … this might only be the second feature of writer-director Julie Hart (who cut her teeth penning well-regarded indie western The Keeping Room before making her own debut helming South By Southwest Film Festival hit Miss Stevens), but it’s a blinding statement of intent for the future, a deceptively understated thing of beauty that eschews classic superhero cinema conventions of big spectacle and rousing action in favour of a quiet, introspective character-driven story where the unveiling and exploration of Ruth and her kin’s abilities are secondary to the examination of how their familial dynamics work (or often DON’T), while Hart and cinematographer Michael Fimognari (probably best known for his frequent work for Mike Flanagan) bring a ruined but bleakly beautiful future to life through inventively understated production design and sweeping, dramatic vistas largely devoid of visual effects. Subtlety is the watchword, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t fireworks here, it’s just that they’re generally performance-based – awards-darling Mbatha-Raw (Belle) gives a raw, heartfelt performance, painting Ruth in vivid shades of grey, while Toussaint is restrained but powerfully memorable and Sidney builds on her already memorable work to deliver what might be her best turn to date, and there are strong supporting turns from Denham (who makes his nominal villain surprisingly sympathetic) and Hollywood great David Strathairn as gentle small town sheriff Ellis. Leisurely paced and understated it may be, but this is still an incendiary piece of work, sure to become a breakout sleeper hit for a filmmaking talent from whom I expect GREAT THINGS in the future, and since the story’s been picked up for expansion into a TV series with Hart in charge that looks like a no-brainer. And it most assuredly IS a bona fide superhero movie, despite appearances to the contrary …

#glass #glass movie #the peanut butter falcon #pet sematary #the report #dark phoenix #it chapter 2 #motherless brooklyn #prospect #prospect movie #dragged across concrete #fast color #2019 in movies

11 notes · View notes

iskragill · 5 years ago

Text

𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐒𝐊𝐑𝐀 𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐋 ( 𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐑𝐀 )

kissed by the sea and dappled in gold. champagne overflowing onto marble floors, dappling the deep royal of a silk sheath. fingers dripped in gold & stained at the black tips with feather-light ink. popping a bottle in the school courtyard. silence at the dinner table. laughing too loudly, too coldly, too haughtily in a warm museum hallway. the hiss of a snake, the sound of the ocean. somewhere a third eye is watching. wrap too many ball-and-chains around your little finger, and it may just snap. to be the sun and the disparaging moon. the wish to be immortal in multitudes, multitudes, multitudes. a girl is a legion. the scent of heady adoration thick upon your skin.

Skeleton: Cleopatra

Name: Iskra Gill

Age: twenty-two

Faceclaim: Anya Chalotra

Major: Political Science & History double major, Philosophy minor

intro.

- Who Iskra’s birth family really was has always been a bit of an open secret. She was born in a town by the sea, on cobbled rocks outside of a sterile hospital room, washed clean by the sea-salt and left on the hospital’s doorstep by a mother that couldn’t afford her, that didn’t want her, that had never told anyone that she was with child. Iskra would never know the name of the town, the name of her mother, the name she was meant to have been given – but a perilously rich family, a vapid black hole of circumstance, adopted her with the best of intentions, for they were unable to have children of their own. Later in life, Iskra might think it appropriate; one parent wanted a boy, and the other just wanted a child.

- The Gill family was… sketchy, at best. They dealt in art and property, and seemed all too cagey about their work. Even when Iskra was but a girl, curiosity was snuffed like a smoking candle set to blare fire alarms; the gallery was closed to everyone but Mother, Father, and their associates, who came and went from the house with packages bound and hidden away. It wasn’t until later that Iskra would learn that her adoptive parents dealt in stolen art, pilfered jewels, and counterfeit artifacts. They so often were guests of honor at museum galas, gallery openings, and the like – but they were thieves, liars, con artists who cared little for the sanctity of what it was they pilfered like meaningless trading cards.

- It was lucky – and a testament to her own big head – that she turned out more curious than conniving… though she was plenty cunning and political on her own, given her natural-born proclivity for survival. A keen eye for every detail was given to her by osmosis; were she not so headstrong and self-sufficient, she might have bought into the family trade of criminal activity and blood money. Although she never saw it, she was sure that one of her father’s associates may have killed a man. How else would they stay so secure, so rich, so easy?

- It was into the books in her father’s study that she delved, that made her feel at home, in control. At dance class, in vocal lessons, when her hands should have been busy with violin practice, she was reading. She knew more about history and politics than her own family, who were all too concerned with their business to know what was going on in the world around them. And yet they still wanted her to be their pretty, prim, perfect porcelain daughter, who would get a useless degree and marry rich, and not put up any kind of stink that might put their family business into light.

- Then they adopted a brother. They loved him more. This is known. This is all that matters.

- As she was cast to the shadows, at the back of the stage, the black swan was able to indulge in her own ambitions. The dancer with whip-sharp wit at the pinnacle of every turn turned scholar, quitting all of her dance, art, and violin classes to throw herself into political clubs, study groups – everything that would make her so much more fucking POWERFUL than any man they might adopt into their fold. She hated her brother; she never speaks his name. Because she knows she’s better. Even he knows she’s better.

- And then they gave all of her inheritance to her brother. Fuck funerals, fuck family. She didn’t even attend it, even though it was both of them that died in the gallery fire. They died, and all of the money went to her brother, who had been adopted into the family when she was a teenager. She hates them. She hates her brother. Success is the best revenge.

Iskra threw herself into her studies as she came of age, falling to the care of their aunt, knowing full well that no one would give a fuck until she was so goddamn successful that no one could discount her anymore.

- But her brother had gotten all of the money, all of the family fortune. She worked odd jobs where she could, finishing her high school education; the only thing she was given willingly was her father’s collection of books. History, philosophy, war books, tomes in classic languages; they had been all Iskra had been afforded early on – as it was now clear that her father had wanted a boy, and her mother in all her quiet obedience had just wanted a child – and it was what propelled her to a number of publications in her early undergraduate years.

- History papers, philosophy papers, political accounts, all cited from her father’s books; these made Iskra notable. She shirked her family ties, wanting nothing to do with the shady business that her brother had inherited. Her brother damned her for it, for he was truly an idiot who could not handle a business built on blood-money foundations and criminal intention. Iskra could have handled it; Iskra could have taken over; Iskra could have kept the thief-money, the blood-dynasty of the Gill trade family alive and lucrative. But her brother was a fucking idiot – and he deserved to crash and burn with the Gill family name.

- She avoided the crash and burn – and the death threats and damnations that came from her brother as he dropped out of college to deal with the mess that their parents had left behind. Perhaps she’s cruel for not caring about her brother; perhaps she’s cold for not caring about the legacy of her adoptive family. But she never felt love from them. The only love she felt was from herself.

- And so, after a number of published papers in the Harvard Review, and journals like it, caught the attention of the Dean of Ashcroft University, she moved from the coast to the hills of Edinburgh and never looked back. She was tapped to join the university because of her scholarly writings and scholastic presence; they saw only the scholarly side of her, and not that which made her so jaded, so ambitious, and so bitter. She was too smart for her own good; a lifetime of being taken advantage of, and discounted entirely by her family and her peers, was just enough to make her bitterly jaded, spurned on by both her ambition and her spite. She had been a consolation, a holdover for something better – but she was smarter, better, more well-known than a brother bought into a legacy of blood money and stolen artistry. She wanted nothing to do with crime, with subterfuge, with lies – she wanted to be good enough on her own, and so she was. She was published, she was showered with accolades, and for the first time she was noticed for her own mind, and not for the heft of her family’s reputation.

- Octavia was the first to know. She was the first at Ashcroft to read Iskra’s papers. She was the first to tell Iskra that she was wonderful, that she could rule the world, that it was a woman’s mind who’d conquer them all, and not a man’s. She had been so used to stepping aside for men, that it took her by surprise. Octavia was also her first kiss. Octavia always thought that it was a girlish, fun, harmless, drunk thing. But it was Iskra’s first kiss. And God, she’ll never forget it.

- She and Octavia were two sides of the same coin. Both were different shades of the same color of ambitious, and they built upon each other like empires. Iskra had very little money of her own when starting Ashcroft, since the entirety of the Gill fortune had been left to her brother, and so she took to selling the hallucinogens that she had acquired – through a long-term contact from a conference she had attended in Amsterdam after publishing a paper on Egyptian history – for both money and status. She did her best writing when she was high beyond her own mind, she figured. She was intellectual – Octavia was cerebral. Both women knew to use their bodies and their minds in equal measure to get what they needed, but Iskra was the brains, and Octavia was the heart. Iskra was always the cold logic, the calculating philosophy; Octavia gave them passion. And perhaps it was passion for Octavia that Iskra felt so strongly.

- They were best friends, of course. Inseparable. But she was Iskra’s first kiss. It was at a party – meaningless, full of laughter, easy, quick. Meaningless, however, only to Octavia. Not to Iskra.

- She and Octavia were two sides of the same coin, but they were made from similar mettle. Octavia was the only one who ever knew that Iskra was and is intensely bisexual, although since she has only been with men. Octavia is the only girl that she has ever felt anything for – and now she’s gone.

- Ok, but here’s the thing – all of this might make one think that Iskra is some desperate, small, weak little woman. But her well-deserved hubris is monumental, and she knows good and well that she can do whatever the hell she damn well pleases. She’s a self-made woman with loyalty to herself above all (Octavia is a different story), and she if it came down to it, she could just well and good not need anybody. She doesn’t need anyone’s validation because she’s earned her own reputation, knowledge, power – everything – on her own. Octavia is her best friend, and they ruled the place, but damn if there ever was a woman who could run the place with an iron fist.

- Iskra is majoring in Political Science and History and has a minor in Philosophy because of her proclivity for politics. She’s a Democrat from a Republican family, and wants nothing more than to burn old money to the ground. She could be a queen, if she wished. Or a goddess, perhaps. Theocracy has always been a fun historical convention.

She wants more than anything to see and speak to Octavia again. Iskra doesn’t belive in ghosts – who does ( apparently everyone, Iskra. everyone. ). She would give everything to see her best friend again, and would do anything to ensure that whoever killed her gets what they deserve. Lysander – whoever the fuck. She doesn’t care. All she cares about is that they pay, that they suffer, that they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re damned for it. But like… ghosts? Come on. She hasn’t seen a single ghost, nor does she think she ever will. She’s too pragmatic for that. But… to see Octavia again? There’s enough of a hopeful girl in her, somewhere, to think that maybe they could laugh together once more.

- In the meantime, Iskra has no issue sinking into what is expected of someone like her – the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, the parties. She’s on top of her shit enough to let it go a little. What else are you supposed to do when your best friend has been killed. To find a warm body – that warm body in particular; she feels guilty, but shared misery is shared warmth – and a little mindless emotion is to find safety, healing. It is the one warm crevice in her icy, pragmatic exterior. She is all diamonds and steel – save the warm vein of heart-pounding viscera that runs down her spine.

- And she’s still gonna rule the world. Don’t get that twisted.

- But fuck if she’s gotta get past Octavia first. Which is hard. Anyone would have trouble getting past Octavia. She knows all of Iskra’s secrets. But even if she didn’t… two queens, now one. What’s a single ruler to do? Mind over matter, she thinks. She’s never let her feelings ruin her before. If she had, she might have given more thought to how obviously her family just doesn’t care about her. What matters is that she’s continuing to build an empire on her own shoulders, that her own strength and proficiency is propelling her to the top, where she belongs.

- But fuck, justice might be nice. Revenge might be nice. Does vengeance taste like her favorite honey tarts?

- She just doesn’t want to be defined by anyone – living or dead. She is beautiful, and untouchable, and cold inside.

- So then why does Octavia make sadness feel like melting?

letter to octavia.

My Tavia,

Really rude of you to leave me hanging like this. You know I can keep these people in line on my own, but I’d sure as hell like for you to be here with me. I don’t know how to write these fucking things. I’m setting this shit on fire, right? You’ll never see it. Kind of fucked that the last thing we ever talked about is Bachelor In Paradise. I hate that fucking show. Surprise!

Thank you for never telling. Remember that first semester when I had to sell to the locals to make tuition? My stuff was the best. I still have some of it. But they took it for way more than it was worth. I still have the shoes I bought with the extra cash. Remember those boots? I’m wearing them now. You always said they made me look like a dominatrix, but I kind of like it. Where else do men belong, if not beneath our heel?

Fuck, that’s dramatic.

I’m going to figure out who did this. I know they say it’s Lydander, but something feels wrong. Why didn’t you let me come with you? I could have come with you. I could have protected you. We could have fought together. We always fight together – even if it’s bullshit like Professor Kvinsky’s finals. We fight. We conquer. That’s us, that’s what we do.

Why am I still writing this? You’re not going to read it. I almost want to cite this shit, like it’s one of my bullshit papers. Did you know that you’re the first person to ever read that bullshit of their own accord? I didn’t even show my mother. I submitted all of them behind her back. She wanted me to be a stupid little housewife, but we both know that we could have been more than that.

We. We were supposed to move to Prague, remember? You would be a dancer in the ballet, and I’d be your austere, scholarly benefactor. What an aesthetic that was. We would have ruled the goddamn world.

But I still am going to rule the goddamn world. I’m going to do it for you, but I’m also going to do it for me. I’m going to find out who did this to you, and then I’m going to fucking crush them.

I fucking love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had in my whole life, and the only person who’s ever seen me, really seen me. I love you. Remember when I kissed you? It was at Dominique’s party. Goddammit.

You’ll never see this. Fuck grammar. Fuck MLA.

I’ve never been a vengeful bitch, but I might just become one. I’m sorry, Tavia. Sorry I couldn’t save you. But I’ll make it right.

Iskra

PS - Your brother’s still tacky. Hate to see it. ;)

TOO SEE THE TEN OTHER DRAFTS SHE WROTE OF THIS LETTER, CLICK HERE

misc headcanons + musings

SECRETS

so in my letter ( because i was drunk writing the whole app ok i’m sorry ) i didn’t really make it clear what iskra’s big secret is. this is primarily because i assumed that octavia would never use her ghostly powers for evil instead of harmless shenanigans only when it came to iskra. but a lady like iskra’s bound to have a lot of secrets. she’s manipulative, cagey, and seems above the rules and laws of everybody else – if only because it’s a means to further an end. so heck yes, she’s got a lot of secrets. let’s name ‘em, in no particular order.

1. so we know that she sold drugs. hallucinogenics, in particular, because those are fun, and people are more susceptible to ’persuasion’ when under their effects. she’s been doing drugs ( of all kinds ) since she was young; it all really started when her brother got all the family inheritance ( and the house… and the stuff… and the etc etc etc ), and she took what money she did have, stole the family car ( well… one of them anyway ). and travelled the world in it. france, spain, italy, portugal, amsterdam, prague, milan, greece, croatia, istanbul – and then to egypt, morocco, and then on a chartered flight to st. petersburg, with a collection of businessmen and businesswomen who she met in marrakesh. ➔ but here’s the rub. in the third booth from the left, at the st. petersburg ballet, someone had a little too much. they were rushed to the hospital, and by the time they were lucid enough to know and say who it was that had given them the drugs, iskra had already ghosted away into the snow. and does she feel guilty? nah.

2. in that same vein, iskra sure as hell acted rich when she arrived. but she sure wasn’t. every bit of cash, every jewel, every designer shoe – she earned it on her own. with or without drugs. octavia is the only one who knows that she used to string along potential ‘sugar daddies’ to get money… but she’d never do anything with them, of course!

3. she told octavia in her letter that she hates bachelor in paradise, but that’s a dirty dirty lie. put a glass of pinot grigio in her hand, and there is nothing that she likes better than judging those hoes and rating those abs.

4. she has four tattoos, all of which she doesn’t really flaunt. it’s kind of the equivalent of a victorian lady showing her ankles. she has a snake on her left hip and thigh, an eye of horus at the base of her neck, her favorite section from the illiad on her ribs, and an egyptian water lily on her inner bicep.

LAST TEXT SENT TO OCTAVIA

iMessage ➤ Octavia: okay, but would adding a second minor be too much? i'm thinking communications.

iMessage ➤ Octavia: galaxy brain play. second minor in communications. get into politics. become a PR maestro. leak my OWN nudes

iMessage ➤ Octavia: scratch the nudes. but yes to the comm minor. you know how i like pulling strings.

SECRET NERD (THE REAL VICTORIA’S SECRET)

listen!!!! she’s That Bitch, but she’s also an embarrassingly large encyclopedic knowledge of literally everything. she’s a nerd. she’s a geek. she knows way too much about way too many things. iskra is an intellectual, and knows that while her sexuality is fun, her mind is her greatest weapon. she’s incredibly adaptable, and has a sharp memory. if you need anyone at all on your trivia team… pick iskra. she knows everything.

assuming she’ll join your trivia team. she’s choosy.

POWER > BOYS

Power is always better than love. In fact, Iskra has never really seen the point in romantic love, and has done an excellent job at separating romantic feelings from what is useful. Attraction, lust, longing – all are excellent tools to keep people in check, and to ensure that they do just what it is you need and want them to do. Iskra has never been in love, nor can she really see herself ever falling in love. But, hell, if people love her, they’ll do what she wants them to do. She likes to keep lovers wrapped around her little finger, using sex, flirtation, the promise of something to keep them at heel. She knows that she’s beautiful, she knows that she’s smart, and she’s got hubris that would make a king covetous. And she knows good and well that people love her, and will love her, for it. After all, her desire for power, and her desire to be the best at everything, and to know everything, is what has pushed her to pursue the degree and career path that she is undertaking now.

It doesn’t hurt to have a little practice with her classmates. She gets what she wants. And what she wants is power – not love.

* personality types

Gemini Sun / Scorpio Moon

ENTJ

Choleric

Ravenclaw

Type 3 - The Achiever

House Lannister

#this is so long but i'm excited !!!!!!!!!!!#spectreintro #ABOUT .#HEADCANON .

8 notes · View notes

incorrectly-quoted-queers · 5 years ago

Text

Drunk Punch Love: Chapter 6

Pairing: FemShep and Garrus Vakarian (Shakarian)

Rating: PG-13 (with some tossed F-bombs)

Summary: Their awkward, badass journey through saving the galaxy and accidentally falling in love

Chapter 6: Savior of The Citadel

Anya Shepard doomed the council. And worse, she knew that others would call it a bid for human interests. But sacrificing the Destiny Ascension meant that more people could live, and those still trapped in the Citadel could be protected.

At least, that's what she kept telling herself as she stood next to Saren's bloody husk corpse and watched everything explode outside the window, hoping what she just did was worth it.

She didn't know if she could live with herself if her choices didn't mean something. There were already way too many graves tied to the decisions she'd made.

Like hell she knew this would be her fate when they were coming up the turbolift to fight Saren. It would have been harder to know she had something damning in common with the turian she was about to face, but she doubted he felt as much compassion and guilt as she did.

In all honesty, all she thought about on the way up was how much she wanted to watch the fucker burn.

Then those turbolift doors opened and she, Wrex, and Garrus darted up those council steps that she had a Pavlovian association with disappointment and frustration. Anya could feel it building up in her as they got closer and closer.

Taking that last step to the council's podium, there he had been. And that time, after all the damnable near misses, she didn't give him a shot. Much like he did to Nihlus, Shepard put on her Infiltrator cloak, stood right behind him, and fired her pistol.

Anticlimactic, but so damn satisfying to see him drop like a rock. He didn't deserve a grand fight. He deserved to fall down without the luxury of final words.

Well, then Anya turned around and everything outside was burning and they were asking her to make the call. Thousands of Alliance soldiers and Citadel civilians, or the hundreds of people protecting the council. All she saw were the numbers and the innocence and she made it.

But it was over. It had to be over.

Of course it wasn't fucking over, but she wanted it to be. Something grabbed her leg, though, and crashed her down into a lower decks area. The creature before her had Saren's face, but it was dripping blue blood and was now three times her size. It looked like a goddamn demon with the skin texture of as husk. Wrex and Garrus dropped down to help her and that's when a real bastard of a fight began.

Sovereign just had to go and play god with Saren, didn't he?

Shepard's mind started running on full adrenaline, dodging Saren's husk and protecting her team. Wrex got a wicked face slash and Garrus got thrown into a wall, but the asshole wasn't going to take anyone else from her.

She collapsed him under some pillars and hoped she'd make it out alive. Part of her wondered at the time if i'd be easier if she didn't; after all, her job was only going to get harder now.

But she pulled herself out of the rubble, even though her ears were ringing, and Garrus carried her back to them. Anya was struggling to keep her memory on track just walking back into the safer parts of the Citadel. She was pretty sure her ears were bleeding and everything was kinda blurry. It just was nice to have a trusted arm around her shoulder keeping her safe.

And now she was stuck in a very loud, very overwhelming meeting with Udina and Anderson and it felt like she was just floating above it all. The destroyed Presidium couldn't be real, right?

Hell, everything the past couples days felt so wrong.

"Shepard? Are you listening? What do you think?"

Anya's body jolted and she looked straight into Udina's very pissed off face. She ran a hand through her hair; during the Saren fight her normally immaculate bun ripped open and her hair was all over the place and probably matted with blue blood. Whoever the hell thought she was the most capable to answer anything must've lost their damn mind.

Still pressing a wet cloth to her split lip, Anya tried to salvage things. "No. Sorry. What did you ask?"

Udina rolled his eyes and made a disgusted noise like she was a petulant child, but repeated himself, "With the council gone, new leaders need to be put in place, ASAP. And with humanity at its best, we're going to be at the forefront."

"Okay? And how am I involved in this?"

Anderson looked pretty uncomfortable, but he kept his hands behind his back and looked at her seriously. It was at least nice someone treated her like an adult who deserved a spot at the table. She always appreciated that about Anderson; he looked at everyone that way. "With your new fame as the savior of the Citadel, people will look to your for guidance. So Udina wanted your vote on who should lead the council."

She didn't mean to, but Anya laughed so hard that her definitely bruised ribs hurt like hell. She even had to put her wet rag down on the railing to hold her sides so they didn't literally split. "Me? The closest thing I know to council level seniority are you two." Udina gave her a pointed look and her stomach fell through the glass floor. What made either of these men capable of the job? She adored Anderson, he was a mentor and a friend, but he was no politician. And Udina knew his politics, but he quickly fell into "humanity first" mindsets. And that shit wasn't going to be helpful for a galactic war.

And yet here they fucking were.

Running a hand through her hair again, and trying not to grimace when she definitely caught something in her fingertips, she tried her best to answer them, "While just picking between you two is the dumbest shit I ever heard, my vote would be Anderson. We're heading into a war, and we need people who can get our asses out of it at the helm." But with a deep, slightly beleaguered sigh, she added, "But don't go too far, Udina. I still think you should advise him and kick diplomatic ass. I'm sure Anderson will need a lot of help not clocking anyone."

While Udina didn't look happy, he at least looked slightly amused. "If you're sure. Now on the matter of the Destiny Ascension-"

"If the extranet's going to burn me alive, let them. I let them die out there. They should hold me accountable, even if the law never will."

Anderson furrowed his brow and reached for her hand. Anya didn't mean to wince away so quickly. Instead, he just gave her these sad, soulful eyes. They didn't make her feel any better. "Somebody had to make the call."

"Of course somebody did. And today, it was me. Doesn't make up for the people dead, though." Rolling her shoulders, Anya stood up straight, removed herself from leaning against the railing. It was time to soldier up. "Don't worry about me, Anderson. I can take it. Just make sure there's a damn good statue or something for Willaims, will you? Without her, no one would've made it."

They both looked like they had more to say, and even Udina looked concerned. Maybe they should be. She was now the first human Spectre who now had the galactic authority to name or kill councilmembers. That was fucking scary. But Udina just said, after getting serious frown face from looking at something from his wrist, "We will. Now, Admiral Shepard is on the extranet. Threatened to "sick her bear" on me."

The universe was damn bleak, but of course her mother could make it better with one sentence. Looking Udina, she let him in on the secret, "She means me. She calls me her baby bear. But a warning, if she'd told me to rough you up, I would."

Anderson chuckled, but Udina only did that awkward laugh thing where he really means that he hates soldiers and wishes he didn't have to interact with them as much. Anya couldn't really blame him. Picking up her helmet and holding it on her hip, she nodded and them both. "I'll be in your office using the screen to deal with mother bear."

After she got into Udina's office and left the men to, probably, argue, she let the neutral look on her face fall. She let her face go heavy; as heavy as it felt. Hell, it probably should be heavier. Today had been a long fucking day.

But she had one more thing to deal with: Oksana Shepard.

Anya inhaled deeply and then sat down at Udina's desk. One or two clicks and she was calling the infamous Admiral Shepard. Within seconds of starting the call, her mother's short, bright blonde hair, gray eyes, and scarred cheek. And somehow, on this dark fucking day, she was smiling. Trying to give her own best grin, Anya said, "Hello, Mama."

"Detenysh! My little one! Today was a good victory. You did good. How does it feel to have that rogue Spectre eating metal?"

Shaking her head, she always found it hard to talk straight in front of her mother. She was a warrior through and through. Sure, Anya was a warrior, too, but if there never was another war again and she was out of a job, she could probably live with that. Oksana couldn't. She answered as honestly as she could without starting a fight, "Good to protect people. Less good to know how many dead it took to take him down."

"They died honorably, Anya. That's all anyone can wish for." While she nodded, Anya couldn't help but wonder: is it? But then her mother continued, "I am so proud that my daughter is the savior of the Citadel. Your father would have been proud, too."

Anya didn't really know what to say to that. She'd never met her father. "I hope so. I made a lot of hard calls today."

"They are all preparing you for the great Admiral or General you will one day be."

A million old conversations swirled around in her head. "Mama-"

"I know, I know. You'll find your own path. It's just pure coincidence I was right about all of it so far."

The smug way her mom said it kinda pissed Anya off, especially with that smirk on her face, but she was going to let it slide today. "I'm just happy to see you."

"And I you, Detenysh. You're the reason all my men are okay and so many people made it out alive today. When they chose you for a Spectre, they chose right."

Feeling herself get a tad bit emotional, Anya rubbed her face and tried to shake the feeling away. "Shh. Enough of that." With a crash from outside and a loud yell, Shepard could tell Udina and Anderson were arguing again. She flashed her mother another smile before ending the call, even though she knew this might be the last she saw of her for awhile.

Happens when your mother's specialty always was undercover missions. "I have to go be a hero a little longer. I love you, Mama."

"I love you too, little one."

And then she was gone. Anya could get more emotional about it, probably even have a year's worth of therapy about how her mother often popped in to give her praise but never was a consistent parental force in her life. But she really didn't have the time for counseling right now, and at least her mother was okay. Honestly, Anya would take any good news from today that she could get.

Logging off, she stood back up and put back on her stronger face. It was time to play babysitter to the two men she just appointed to run the Council together.

Why did anyone let her make big decisions?

///

Author’s note:

So happy a bunch of people enjoyed the last few chapters on here! I’m posting often to catch up to the story on other sites.

Thanks so much for reading, and double thanks to my lovely patrons:

Danyell Jones

Amy Connolly

If you'd like to support my stories, fandom communing, or Twitch aspirations, please go check out my patreon: patreon.com/gracejordan

I also tweet sometimes too: @Steph_Marceau

#Shakarian #Drunk Punch Love #femshep x garrus #Garrus Vakarian #Anya Shepard #Mass effect fanficton #fanfiction #fanfic #bioware romances #Citadel #Oksana Shepard #The Council

5 notes · View notes

heraclitizer · 5 years ago

Text

i don’t want to reply to that long post b/c stigmatization of mental illness is not a problem that deserves to be actually-tho’d for the sake of film crit, but: the thing about the contortion of DID in m. night shyamalan’s split is that it’s a construction removed from reality that both readily acknowledges the distance that using others’ conditions, & what using your own, entails, and is also used to investigate what realism as a receptive mode entails w/o further work, & what distances are contained w/in it. like, the sentence “james mcavoy’s body breaks a knife after a few attempts at stabbing it” should be amusing enough to make clear that the film is not supporting the actual idea of physical changes correlating w/ separate identities. the in-film “truth” is framed as such in order to show the decentralization of individually personal truths as they are accepted & even promulgated by sympathizing onlookers, who flippantly gesture towards the universal through the unstoppable advancement of a pre-conceived sphere of knowledge at best, & the unstoppable advancement of capital at worst (both of which commodified art is meant to partake in). it’s not personal-- everyone is shown to be trying their best to move forward from their positions inside institutional or architectural or traumatically informed structures, including those staked contrapositionally inside one body-- but appropriation never is

the mentally split body is not the only one that is shown to change, in the mode of exploitation where composure & composition blur. and when it does change, it is after repeated instances of deception-- the 9y/o side's defenses against manipulation running up against his prisoner’s learned defenses against restraint, trauma rubbing up against trauma, necessity up against necessity, use up against use. it is after being used for years on end by a caring therapist who both agrees w/ her patient and does so w/o recourse to the individual at the core, by a caring therapist who as it turns out knows how to reach that core but does not reach for it, b/c she does not think that will get her & her patient, or knowledge, anywhere new. which is what she & her professional context considers necessary. the progress of knowledge is something we place our faith in as a catalyst for people better understanding and treating each other, but what shyamalan is pleading is that w/o examination (& ultimately reconfiguration) of our positions and where we position others while we push on towards this sharpened truth, the blind bludgeoning will merely become unseen stabbing. what happens when the knife meets a hardened surface?

split culminates in a reflection upon grounds that are clearly distorted-- the beast for all his violence is defensive, of course he will make claims about the superiority of people hurt like him; superior, special, chosen is what you have to be in movies in order to survive. for all that he is a construction of genre, built & used as a narrative engine, nothing changes that he is as wrongheaded as the external claim that he is a model for the superiority of everyone, a figure in which to invest empathy for personal enlightenment. nor does anya taylor-joy’s character, centered as she is, ever have any claims to some sort of superiority, as her shrewd ideas, what initially seem like possible breakthroughs, cede more and more to off-the-cuff grasps. the scene, framed by half-bent bars neither one passes through, then or afterwards (and so never ending up in one predestined space), is constructed to preempt easy empathy between “likeminded” individuals, let alone between them and the audience. there are only two people: once, b/c of where they happened to be, they were chosen, & taken advantage of; here, briefly, shyamalan allows them to just happen to be where they are, again. after the narrative suspension loosens and everything falls into suffocating place once more, the hope remains not of coexisting w/in moments of synchronic understanding but through moments of diachronic recognition

#tired sounds

4 notes · View notes

hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years ago

Text

With Into the Spider-Verse discussions over the role and relevancy of Peter Parker to Spider-Man have been inevitably raised. He idea being that Spider-Man is now and icon, a mantle, a symbol and an ideal applicable to anyone rather than a particular person.

I felt I should throw my two cents in on this.

Basically...yes and no.

Spider-Man is iconic, but he’s iconic because of certain specifics pertaining to Peter Parker.

In essence there isn’t so much a question of if Spider-Man is a person or a mantle now. Spider-Man is both things.

Mayday, Miles, Gwen, Ben Reilly, Kaine, Miguel, etc, all those characters are worthy characters and heroes in their own right who live up to the example and values set by Peter.

But Peter is not an interchangeable part of the mythos.

I think with the advent of characters like Miles people very much felt he was, as though he was akin to Wally West, Barry Allan, Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner. In that you can if not mix and match elements from him, Miles and whoever else you want then you can swap them in and out of the role of Spider-Man.

Except that’s just not true.

Spider-Man didn’t become popular off the back of a costume and powerset and it wasn’t even just the idea of someone with relatively down to Earth problems. After all Spider-Man himself has remained perennially popular and relevant with mostly just tweaks to update him across 55 years in a sea of characters who also were fantasy protagonists with relatable problems.

So evidently there is something specific to Peter which renders him unique beyond a broad concept, the nuances of his character and story speak to people on a deeper level than just the broad idea.

This makes sense because almost all the silver age Marvel characters were designed from the inside out pretty much, the emphasis upon their personalities and personal lives first and their powers second.

In fact all the Spider-Heroes actively prove my point because it isn’t just that they exist because they are Spider-Themed in their powers or their costumes resemble Spider-Man’s or they look at being relatable people from a different angle.

Almost all of them actively presuppose the audience know about the Peter Parker Spider-Man and to some extent his mythology. As in they are in the text, subtext or in the meta text defined through a comparison and contrast to Peter.

Let’s go down the list.

Spider-Ham: Spider-Man but as a cartoon pig played for Looney Tunes style humour.

The Venom symbiote: Peter’s evil black costume that has better versions of his powers and hates him for rejecting it.

Brock Venom: A villain/anti-hero who’s origin is all about blaming Peter for ruining his career by catching a criminal

Flash Venom: Peter’s scool rival turned friend and Spider-Man’s biggest fan, looking to him as inspiration

Spidey 2099: His origin is all about trying to recreate Peter’s powers because Peter as Spidey was a legendary hero. He is also a scientist like Peter with his family life and personality placed in deliberate subversion of Peter’s. Later he takes greater inspiration from Peter’s legend and one of his biggest foes was literally a villain who looked MORE like classic Spider-Man and another one was literally Spider-Man’s evil costume

Ben Reilly: Literally a clone of Peter Parker, his whole deal is defining himself as an individual against his memories of being Peter

Kaine: Also literally a clone of Peter, his whole deal is being at first what Peter might’ve been if he suffered to the nth degree and later trying to live up to Peter and Peter’s clone’s heroic example, whilst also being a subversion of what you’d expect out of Spider-Man. the tagline for his solo seires was literally a subversion of Spider-Man’s famous motto.

Spider-Girl/Mayday: Her entire character revolves around being the daughter of Peter Parker. And her costume is the one worn by Peter Parker’s clone!

Spider Woman/Mattie Franklin: A Spider-Man fangirl who got powers through an encounter with Spider-Man’s most infamous villain and who began her hero career impersonating Spider-Man before adopting a costume clearly modelled after his. Need I say more?

Spider-Man Noir: Peter Parker if he lived in the 1930s

Miles Morales: Not only is comic book Miles himself quite derivative of Peter anyway, really his concept revolves around being the inheritor of a dead Peter Parker’s legacy and could arguably be described as ‘Spider-Man but if he was a teenage poc in the modern day and also he had 2 living parents’

Silk: A woman who has almost identical powers to Peter Parker because she was bitten by the same spider he was seconds after him, was taken in by one of his old mentors/enemies and debuted as part of a subplot revolving around her inherent magical connection to him.

Spider-Gwen: Whether you go by her comic book self, her TV self or her movie self, her character is again innately linked in with Peter’s. She’s either Peter’s school peer and teammate, his best friend inspired to heroism by his death, or both. And all of those come with some level of expectation that you know Gwen Stacy was Spider-Man’s dead girlfriend. Her origin story and debut in fact hinges upon that role reversal and the presumption the audience are aware of that reversal.

Peni Parker: Peter Parker if he was a teenage girl protagonist of a mech anime story.

See what I mean, Peter Parker and his status as Spider-Man, and your knowledge of him being Spider-Man, is inherent to every single one of those characters.

The only characters for whom that isn’t the case are Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter and Anya Corazon. MAYBE if you tweaked Mattie’s backstory you could remove Peter’s presence from it but even if you did that’s still just 4 characters who don’t have a built in storytelling reliance upon Peter Parker as a major element to their backstories and/or reliance upon audience familiarity with the Peter Parker Spider-Man.

And noticeably...they were less successful than most of the above mentioned characters. Further proving my point that is is very specifically Peter Parker and his story that defines who and what Spider-Man is.

So...no Peter isn’t interchangeable, or one of many.

Peter IS Spider-Man.

Peter is THE Spider-Man in the grander scheme of things.

But just because Miles, or Mayday, or Gwen or Ben or Miguel or whoever aren’t that, doesn’t make them bad characters, unworthy characters or characters who deserve to stick around and have stories told of them.

They’re still worthy of the mantle of Spider-Man in-universe and worthy of being inspiring to readers unto themselves.

It’s just that their existence doesn’t evolve being Spider-Man into just this broad concept wherein Peter is merely one of many.

251 notes · View notes

dcarhcarts · 6 years ago

Text

This.....is the 1000th post on this blog, and I definitely waited until that could be true to post it, and that’s honestly? Very fitting. Seriously, you guys are a m a z i n g and I have literally never done a milestone before so I can’t tell you what it’s supposed to look like?? But we’ve somehow Miraculously (tm) managed to reach 100 followers and - anyway, this is going to be me very unprofessionally gushing about everyone because....I love you all and you’re all amazing aaaaaa. I’m??? Literally so blessed to have made friends and write with all of you. Y’all with multiple blogs, I’m only tagging once so I don’t spam your feed ok? And - as usual, this is going to get Long, because everything I do gets Long apparently. I tried to do it chronologically but IDK how well it worked oops.

THE LOVES OF MY LIFE, THE SUN IN MY EYES, MY MOON AND STARS

@ccrrupticn / D!!!! you are?? literally the reason I made this blog?? Without you, this thing would n o t mcfreaking exist omg!! You’re such an amazing writer (seriously, you manage so many muses and you give them all such distinct voices??? witchcraft???) and also so ???ridiculously kind! I love gushing to you about our Kids and you’re honestly A Saint (tm) for dealing with all of my blog construction/life related breakdowns, my crazy crossover headcanons and crashing into your inbox rambling about musicals <3 I miss talking to you so hmu whenever you come back if you want!!

@personnages / Lynna!! You’re like an Actual Angel. I think you were the first person!! who talked to me?? And You were So Nice and Welcoming that you literally soothed half of my fears coming into rpc like immediately?? You basically helped me figure out how diminutives work and you’re responsible for me adding at least 3 of my muses and I cannot tell you how much I love you and every time you pop onto my dash/feed/discord/etc, it just makes me happy inside <3 Definitely 100000% will follow you to every blog (if you’ll have me lmao) regardless of fandom!! i’m super excited about all of our ship/friendship roulettes and you’re just an absolute joy to talk to.

@nikolacvnas / LYDIA goodness you are a W O N D E R. Probably the best? Historically based blog I’ve ever encountered, and definitely one of my favorite parts of the Anastasia rpc!! The care and research and attention to detail that goes into your portrayals are a s t o n i s h i n g? Your Tatya is divine, your Maria is So Lovely and I Cry For Joy that you write Dima honestly. I’d been eyeing your blog for a little bit before I made my own - and I was honestly a little scared of you when we started cause you are a GODDESS and I am a potato, but then we talked??? and you’re hilarious and a ridiculously kind person and I love you? And of course, I love your dog (the cutest in the universe).

@mythostold / LESLIE~ Different blog, same story~ Man, I’ve been following you since maybe day two of this blog being active? No matter which fandom you end up in and which muse you write, you have such!! good!!! takes!!! For one, I love reading your meta posts??? Like you’re just so incredibly passionate about your muses?? And your writing style is so good aaaaaaa it’s so atmospheric. And on top of all of that - you’re??? such a sweet and incredible??? person??? And I love talking to you boo <3

@lifeawoke / NAT BBYSWEET <3 <3 <3 I have told the story of how I did a victory dance when you followed me to d e a t h probably but it’s t r u e your writing is amazing and your blog is amazing and y o u are amazing! You are the Natasha to my Sonya, and literally every time you send me a musing I’m like immediate-goofy-grin-heart-eyes???? It’s honestly a crime we don’t have more threads but like you’re an absolute joy to talk to and meme with and I adore you/your portrayal of beautiful bratty Natasha even if she drives my Sonya up the wall <3 You are Definitely the Funny Mutual lololol I crack up so much talking to you <3

@valianceearned / CARP you’re an amazing person/writer and holy h e c k am I impressed by your OCs!! They’re all so well thought out and developed? Your bios are so detailed and so much love and care is put into all of your characters. And your writing is so Lovely and it’s also very aesthetically lovely like holy heck the amount of work you put into both the content and the formatting? I am agog, I am aghast!!

@gearsandlevers / Callie!!!!! YOU ROUND ALL THE CORNERS I STRAIGHTEN THE CURVES!! love your kids so much. Your Violet is a delightfully clever and likeable kid, your Evan might have literally walked off the stage two seconds ago, and you’ve put so much thought into your cinnabon stoner Henry. Your dialogue is amazing and I love our headcanon sessions lobbing ideas back and forth with you!!

@spareisms / HEY MAGGIE GUESS WHAT YOU’RE WORTH MELTING FOR!! You’re like the sweetest person alive??? How are you an Actual Real Life Disney Princess?? Your Anna is so well characterized and multi layered and I love how she an be so flawed but so brave and just how human she is. I’m very excited for your Anne Shirley too!! You’re a great writer (and a super sweet person aaaa) and I love you!!

@gcneralvaganov / Deanna, I have just one question: How? Have we only known each other for like 2 months???? It feels like my dash would literally be incomplete without you?? You play such deeply complex and incredibly flawed muses with such a great depth of respect and humanity. I love all of our AUs (we.....probably have a dozen by now), our long fix-canon tangents, and....look the inevitable conclusion to this whole thing is that we should....basically just write Anastasia tbh??? You’re incredibly funny and kind and talented and I’m so glad I yeeted myself into your IMs that first time 2 months ago! I love you, I love your muses, (Dima and Anya love their Dumb Boyfriend), and I love writing with you!

@ncvaflows / ALEXA YOU ABSOLUTE LEGEND YOU. You??? Unlocked Ultimate AU Mode Ro and it’s like I c a n ‘ t stop?? First off, I cannot believe we literally own the same books and like the same barbie movies. How are we not literally the same person?? (Maybe w e ’ r e Anneliese and Erika lmao). Honestly from day 1 you’ve been so welcoming and lovely and I’m so glad we crashed into each other’s IMs yelling at top volume about random ya lit/movies/aus!! I adore literally all of your OCs (is everyone a b s o l u t e l y sure they’re not canon??? hmmmmm a Mystery)???? In the words of Li Shang, “You WRITE GOOD????” Anyway you’re amazing and I love you <3

WHILE IT’S DEFINITELY MY FAULT FOR BEING AN ANXIOUS BEAN WE REALLY NEED TO TALK MORE OFTEN CAUSE I LOVE YOU

@curtainrisen / Rebekah, dude, you’re a wonder. Your muses??? So diverse, and your voices for them? Super on the nose and amazing. I love your Helene and how human she is, and I really gotta toss more of my kids at you (Super excited for Duke!!). You’re real chill to meme with and I love talking/writing with you!!

@heartlosttravelers / Tor!! I love that you stan Raoul de Chagny So Hard ( the pure cinnamon roll boy deserves it honestly) and you’re super cool and great to talk to! All your muses are a m a z i n g and I always love the read when you pop up on my dash!

@damerusse / Marie!! You’re hella chill. Your memes???? 10000000% actually legendary. Meming with you cracks me The Heck Up. Lily is forever the puppy dealer, that is all, thank you, gnight. Ok for real though - your Lily is pretty Legendary too and you really got all that Spark and Fire right down. You’re amazing, and I love stalking your threads on my dash!

@lionhvrted / Fortune, my buddy my pal, we really be Out Here making Jane Austen plots even m o r e rom-com. Like. How did we manage that??? We might be literally magical lmao. We don’t have a ton of stuff going on at the moment but I love our dumb pining kids and I love the justice and humanity you give to your Caroline, and Fitzy loves his (future) wife.

@guvernantka / P R U E I already love our Exasperated Big Sis / Annoying Lil Sis / LITERALLY WHO EVEN ARE YOU YOU SMELLY DUMBASS LIL BRO IN LAW dynamic. You have the Best Sense of Humor (tm) and I’m always catching you when it’s like 12 in the morning here so I’m always cracking up silently in bed trying not to wake my roommies up.

@anastcsie / I LOVE OUR ANGRY SMOL AND DIRTY TOL YOUNG-BUT-OLD MARRIED COUPLE AND THEIR OLDEST DAUGHTER NAMED MARIA ALREADY. I love your Anya and how feisty and fiery she is (Dima, needless to say, loves his wife) and I love how chill (and hilarious!!) you are as a person. We do have a tendency to turn into angst monsters 24/7 but honestly that’s half the fun!!

@asundrop / Polly!!!! ok so I know we haven’t really done anything w/ Raps (yet muahaha) BUT b o y was I hella excited when I found someone willing to yell about CDrama with me??? Thank you for being the Eternally Stoic/Always Annoyed Ancient God to my Tiny Dumb Fox Princess?? I love them and I love you (you’re hella cool) so there!

@moretreasurewithin / KAAAATE goodness it’s only been a couple of days but I’m So Comfortable talking to you already? You’re just honestly really amazingly kind and I love screaming about Anastasia with you. We gotta get more going but I love your Dima and Maria Already (tm) and I love your sense of humor (here’s to torturing Dima with ties!!) and I can’t wait to get to know you better!

@annastrxng / AAAA somehow I managed to chat with you and then?? We never got anything going and it’s definitely mostly my fault cause of that High Anxiety (and also the fact that I got Immediately Busy) but you are literally So Nice and The Most Understanding and super great to talk to!! I hope we get something going in the future!!

@soulcrossed / ROSE we have the same name I keep forgetting this lmao BUT ANYWAY. All your muses?? Amazing. You gotta throw more of them at me. Your Sophie?? Are you Actually Diana Wynn Jones in disguise?? I love our crazy au/headcanon sessions and I love/hate that you’re The Worst Enabler and I’m inevitably going to end up with the other two Hatter sisters on this blog lmao.

I HAVEN’T TALKED TO YOU TON YET BUT HI!!! YOU SEEM CHILL!!

@alonecour / @steeledstark / @professor-of-predators / @sclskinn / @dulcettc / @volaticoux / @frxncaise / @argelfrasterr / @i-wrote-myway / @zharptiitsa / @villainsfall / @anyaromanovarp / @agoodandloyalrussian / @aliquisinter

AND EVERY ONE OF Y’ALL AMAZING PEOPLE OUT THERE I’M ADMIRING SILENTLY FROM AFAR EVEN NOW BECAUSE I CHICKENED OUT OF TAGGING YOU LAST MINUTE CAUSE WHAT IF YOU’RE LIKE “LMAO WHO IS THIS WEIRDO TAGGING ME??” (p.s. this is 100000% permission to slide into my IMs/like a plotting call/etc. I honestly think y’all are hella cool and probably love you already)

#follow forever #( milestone )#( ooc ) ✵ ~ CHANDELIERS AND CAVIAR ~ /#((................you know i made more friends than i thought i would coming into rpc as an anxious smol))#((I LOVE YOU ALL YOU'RE ALL AMAZING))#((thanks for putting up w/ me & my Super Anxious Self))#((ok i'm just gonna post this before i forget and reblog something and miss the 1000th post))

33 notes · View notes