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teddystrap · 5 years ago

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Drama CD: [幽幻ロマンチカ・真骨頂] ≁Bakeneko Arahagi・Inugami Toneri≁

No audio track this time sorry! But anyway, I’ve made sizeable progress on the Yuuroma series: Hifumi + Utashiro’s Hatenkou, Zakuro, Toneri, and a bunch of tokuten for everybody (/*^-^)/. I’ll do the 2nd Shinkocchou first, for continuity.

And I haven’t listened to the two individual discs before this, so I had no idea who they are... or that their names are actually Arahagi (cat demon; cv. Kaji Yuuki) and Toneri (dog deity; cv, Hirakawa Daisuke) until about 3/4 into the story, since they kept calling each other ‘Stupid Cat’ and ‘Stupid Dog’. Orz

Obvsly this time there is no bromance like in the 1st disc and they fight like... err... cats and dogs (for lack of a better description XD).

As before, hidden messages from the both of them:

１．壱、都市伝説『二次��カレシ』２．弐、手が<か>りはどこ？３．参、そこは見せか<け>の幸福世界４．四、ここにず<っ>といよう５．伍、意地でも負<け>られない６．六、この世界が壊れ<る>としても７．七、都市伝説『二次元カレシ』看破８．キャストトーク

Arahagi: bold⋆ spells 「どこにでも」 (‘No matter where [you are]...’)

Toneri: <⋆> spells 「かけつける」 (‘...I will rush to your side’)

...うれしいィィ！！ありがとね、二人とも～^^

[The Second Rumour: Urban Legend ‘2D Boyfriend’]

All the girls at your school are addicted to a mobile otome game app. Rumour has it that players can end up getting trapped in the game world, and their bodies are found in sleeping position holding their phones in one hand.

Toilet Guy has again asked Arahagi and Toneri to investigate. This time your team name is: the Pitch-Black Executors ~DARK (K)NIGHT MESSIAH~. Σ_(꒪ཀ꒪」∠)_. And both your animal manservants have the good sense to hate this abomination of a name. But it will come in handy later on...

So. First order of business is to throw *you* into the virtual world. It’s been rumoured that collecting a full set of accessories from one game character can accomplish this, so your animal bfs possess your body and go shopping.

They push a bunch of bling on you (Toneri makes you wear a choker that reminds him of a dog collar XD), and eventually you can’t take it anymore and run out of the store because you don’t wanna turn into the lovechild of Katy Perry and Flavor Flav. And anyway it didn’t work. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ RIP Operation BringTheBling1.

Plan #2: There is another rumour that players get sucked in when they access the app at midnight. So Catboy and Dogman (henceforth ‘CatDog’) camp over in your bed, and sure enough, when the clock strikes 12, you fall into a deep sleep and enter the game world.

The game is set in a high school that’s an *exact* replica of Nanagiri, with two characters who sound (and look) exactly like your Cat and Dog bfs. [Hirarin is the senpai and Kaji is the kouhai, ofc.] You are shocked by this unfolding of events, and the two of them think you have a cold and need to go to the nurse’s office to rest.

You take this as an opportunity to escape, and as you are running you hear Arahagi and Toneri’s voices from the other side. They successfully possess your sleeping body and enter the virtual world as well.

Senpai and Kouhai can see the demons possessing you. They forcibly exorcise the duo and drag you away. As the exorcised duo come to, they find themselves turned into their chibi forms XDD. Meanwhile, Senpai and Kouhai have taken you to the nurse’s office. As they are trying to approach you, you spray the fire extinguisher at them and make your escape. Niceee.

You manage to find Arahagi and Toneri hiding in the courtyard. They repossess your body to regain their powers and apologise for not being able to protect you. But you have come up with a battle plan: Operation LoveLetter1. Dun dun DUNNN.

The plan is to put a love letter in their shoe locker asking Senpai and Kouhai to meet with you next evening. Being in an otome game, they can only do as they are told to unlock the love event. (Also what is with this 3P-harem setting where you can confess and unlock event for two characters at once?? I need to get in on dis yo. ¬‿¬)

You and CatDog stay up all night to discuss the battle plan, and Arahagi thinks this whole game reeks of the work of a human being. He figures out that they can rob the game characters of their powers by stealing their phones. (Why do even the characters have phones inside the game??) And to power-up themselves, CatDog trade hugs and kisses with each other (I WISH!!) you to feed off of your human energy.

Next day, Senpai and Kouhai show up at the arranged meeting time, and CatDog appear to start a riot. They throw out your team name Pitch-Black Executors ~DARK (K)NIGHT MESSIAH~, which confuses their opponents and gives them the perfect opportunity to steal the opponents’ phones.

Toneri ties the two characters up with chains and Arahagi drops a bunch of machinery and shit on top of them, but dis ain’t ovah ya’ll. The two of them go into *dark mode*. They change the backdrop and damage the data of Arahagi and Toneri’s bodies. As they bury CatDog alive and take you away, you tell them that you believe in CatDog, which gives them the power they need to free themselves from entombment and destroy the game characters.

...When the smoke clears, they see a student that was sucked into the game world. Strangely enough, *it’s a boy*, and they figure that he must be the human that the game monster is possessing and feeding off of.

It turns out that the boy offered himself as a human sacrifice to the urban legend and created this game world to shield his younger sister from the harsh reality. The game world begins to disintegrate, and Toneri tells the boy to face his sister properly instead of doing this stupid shit in the name of ‘protection’. To Toneri and Arahagi, who come into this world all alone, every little detail of the familial bonds and ties between humans seems magical and deserves to be treasured.

The three of you wake up in your bed, and CatDog wonder if the boy’s little sister is going to be alright. You devise a plan... for the two of them to appear to her in a dream pretending to be the two game characters. Toneri flubs his lines and gets beaten up by Arahagi XD. They tell the girl they are relieved that she has finally awoken from her slumber, and invite her to play the game again whenever she is feeling down.

Now a new urban legend has arisen: that whenever a girl gets sucked into the game world, her 2D boyfriend tells her to get out or else she won’t make it to her own wedding in the future. (#meirl XDD.) What’s more, CatDog have erased the oniisan’s memories of the whole incident, and both he and his sister have returned to school as usual.

*Meanwhile*, YOU have become addicted to this game app XD. After unsuccessfully trying to snatch your phone out of your hands, CatDog tease you with kisses and promise to make your real life more exciting than any game ever... yes please Hirarin and Kaji the two of you can come and possess me any time I don’t mind fufufufu~~~ (´┓`*)

[Thoughts] ⋆敬称略⋆

Ok so this was my first introduction to both characters (Arahagi/Toneri). I kept thinking as I was listening to it: wouldn’t it be great if Kaji and Hirarin switched roles? Doesn’t it feel like Kaji has more of an excitable puppy-like personality (or quality to his voice, rather), and Hirarin has more of a slow, cat-like temperament??

In fact in the Free Talk when Hirarin said that he is 100% a Cat Person and he thinks Arahagi is really cute, I was all ready to jump out of my chair all like, ‘I KNEW IT!!!’ #notoverreactingatall._(:3」∠)_. ...I guess Rejet wanted to switch it up a little? Or maybe Kimura Ryouhei was busy, because Toneri [yandere + dog ears] sounds like the job for him. Also I can’t help but wonder how perfect Hirarin would be as Utashiro lulling me to sleep with his soothing voice...

(*ฅ́˘ฅ̀*)♡

But all this fantasy casting aside, every time I hear Toneri’s adorable grumpy/growling noises that he makes when he’s dissatisfied, I feel like they made the right casting choice after all. #omgWANT ლ(⁰⊖⁰ლ)

What else, what else... HmMMmMmm, the story and characters/pair dynamics this time round is a bit more childish and less ‘tight’ than before. So idk, I didn’t feel as much of *Deh Romantic Feelz* towards Arahagi/Toneri like I did for Hifumi/Utashiro. Although I still enjoyed it because I am immature.

The doppelganger bit was pretty kewl though. Although the battle scene kind of got resolved in a very #WTF kind of way and left me wanting more. Also the overprotective older brother story would’ve benefited from a better explanation/backstory of why he did what he did, no? Overall just kind of #わけわかんない, and not a very tight story, like I said.

The otome game theme was kind of relevant and interesting, esp the senpai character in the game who kept emphasising the use of this kind of romance fantasies as a form of escapism. ...Which got a bit philosophical/personal in a way, although I’m not sure if Toneri was the best person to expound on this because he’s so... erm... simple-minded XD.

Nonetheless, the overall message was clear: that it’s always better to face things head-on, and you have limitless potential as a human being. +++

But *then again* this series isn’t meant to be analysed very deeply. It’s more just for ya’ll to enjoy the cute huggable chibi things and the powerful demons protecting the fuck out of you. Yeah? Yeahh.

Although!! From the cast commentaries it seems like the seiyuu themselves can’t/won’t actually protect you from anything in the event of an actual urban legend/haunting. It’s funny how they voice all these powerful/scary demon and spirit characters, but when they see an actual horror programme or whatever on TV they quickly look away and change the channel!! (-_-|||) SENSEI I AM DISAPPOINT.

The only exception so far is Sakurai Takahiro, who spouted off a bunch of kaidan-banashi from his old high school enthusiastically when asked. Like, everyone else is a wimp and he is the One True Hero. He even has ‘he[/i]ro’ in his name!!

#otome #drama cd #yuugen romantica #shinkocchou #yuroma #rejet #arahagi #toneri #seiyuu #kaji yuki #hirakawa daisuke #supernatural #youkai #kaidan #mystery #otome game

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florensflos-archived · 5 years ago

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Quicklist of things that my Sally will and will not have and then I’ll add it to my google doc

My version of Sally WAS attacked by a dog. A demon dog to be exact that was sent by the cult. That also killed his mom. Maybe the cult leader was there watching in the shadows with the dog mask and that's why Sally says he saw a dogman. Before the demon dog could finish him off though, his dad had arrived at the scene and so the cult leader wouldn’t get caught he ran off and the demon dog disappeared cause of it, so he didn’t finish off Sally. Hell, it could’ve even been the red eyes demon inside of the dog and because Sally is the ‘chosen one’ he made the dog die with his ability to fight ghosts anyway. Like yeah I know, he used the guitar to fight off bad spirits which Todd made, but he gets powers anyways in the fucking end with giving Ash a magic arm so.

Sally didn’t die. He was replaced as a doppelganger in the electric chair scene. The Cult took him instead. Like yeah, they wanted him DEAD but also like why is he connected to the prophecy, maybe his powers and chosen self can help us figure shit out. To help give Travis a redemption too, he helped Sally escape the temple. Sally then went on to find Ash and Neil and then they began planning their attack on the temple.

While this is all happening, Sally is still having these scenes where he is basically achieving ascension in a way. He’s having conversations with Jim and seeing bits of his past and how things are all connecting and why he’s the chosen one. It’s like a cosmo’s universe thing.

Eventually, Sal still has the ability to shift in and out of realities. He can go to where Jim is and he can go back to the state of the living. That’s why he also gains powers too and also another reason why sally is so tied between both life and death.

In the end, from training to shift between realities and stuff, HE gains the power and takes down the cult and saves Todd too with Neil and Ash’s help. It’s weird because he has this power and for some reason, he's the chosen one, but now he’s like man... I just wanna live a simple life. He moves the fuck outta Nockfell but not before uncovering all the cult activity and stuff, burning or keeping some of it and giving Larry and the treehouse a proper sendoff.

#★ // from yours truly ; ooc #spoilers #tw death

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onepunchmiss · 6 years ago

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OPM s2e7 Live blog

“The S Class Heroes”

IM SCREAMING ALREADY I ONLY READ THE EPISODE TITLE ALRIGHT OK SO IT BEGINS TODAY, MY DEATH guys I am so pumped for the S Class focus thats about to begin with this episode like from here on out they become main players in the series and asfdbfhirksvfjkevfsnjkvfnjek how is it legal for ONE SERIES to contain SO MANY FAVES. Anywayyy Before I get started I’m actually wondering- this is the 7th episode of the second season… do we know how many episodes the season is supposed to run for? S1 only had 12 i think. I’m… I’m not even close to ready for it ending. Now that they’ve introduced Orochi, I’m not even sure where a good break in the plot would be?? Random concerns aside, lets get to the episode. As always, I’m watching this as someone who has read the manga and web comic to date

OROCHI IS PINK HE IS HOT PINK THATS ALL I HAVE TO SAY BEFORE THE TITLE SEQUENCE HITS ME LIKE A GUT PUNCH EVERY SINGLE TIME AND I STILL PAUSE IT AT ZOMBIEMAN OK off to a great start woo

Oh thank god we’re starting with the tournament I can stop quite literally holding my breath. Alright its Choze time. I’m actually excited for him to do things, his face has been nothing but terrifying thus far and hes one of those characters that are just fun to hate unapologetically. I love over-the-top Nazi stand-ins for that reason tbh

OH FUCK OH GOD I LOVE HIM also GAROU hiya welcome back I know it’s only been 2 weeks but i missed you so much thank you for gracing my screen for 5 seconds OH HECK the dramatic music and beginning of the internal monologue just being blatantly REJECTED caught me off guard I cackled AH WAIT WAIT

EYESIGHT DOGMAN ASDFGHK MY BABY IS COMING IM DEAD IM FUKKIN DEAD ALREADY I MISSED HIS CUTE VOICE hey no wait that was very quick?? I must withhold my bias, we’re at the point now where I have SCRUTINIZED every single panel of the manga over and over because of all of my faves, so even the smallest differences will be glaring to me. As much as I want all the action to be drawn out as it is in the manga, I know that’s never been how the anime has rolled. I must bite my tongue.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THE ONLY TIME WE’LL EVER SEE HIM AND YET!!! oof i had to pause for 2 minutes to chill out and actually type. I. I just. juST. BOI ARE YOU OK WHERE ARE YOU ARE YOU WELL AND WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE G4 tell me your secrets

WAIT COME BACK i dont give 2 SHITS about sweet mast HECKK

speaking of whom get off my screen u creep I have a personal bone to pick with u disrespecting the bae as you will

[SCREAMING]

Oh god this whole scene is so EXCITING and TERRIFYING child emperor’s face as Pig God just eats her, speaking of which -QUIT CUTTING BACK TO THAT TERRIFYING IMAGERY ASDFGHJ

YES THEY KEPT IT YES YES YES YESYEYSYEYS YOU DONT UNDERSTAND how much Ive been looking FORWARD to that little scene??? im crying how is it possible to work myself up so much of this please help

ok ok back to the tournament give my heart a break phew Hey Choze if you’re genes are so superior then where are your eyebrows????? You dont pull it off HALF as well as Z does. Jeez everything about this guy is so absurd I can’t help but laugh irl the damn DNA helix rolling across the screen dude just stop you’re embarrassing yourself

although you DO know how to strike a pose. change ur name to Poze. Wait no. Your name is now GMO Corn I lied.

AGAIN GETTIN ME WITH THE WEIRD COLORS Hundred Eyes Octopuss is red and blue OK SURE

DEATH GATLING DEATH GATLING ASDFGHJKL guys I cant look at Narcisstoic oh no “no you’ll do no good”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I WASNT EXPECTING THIS THIS EPISODE BUT I SHOULD HAVE I WASNT PREPARED I paused it I’m afraid to push play he’s not on the screen yet i can still turn back and make it out alive -

Behold. the moment I died

I actually have this thing with eye gore and seeing it in motion fucked me up I had to skip 10 seconds but anyway FUCK he’s so SPARKLY and PRETTY

Noting also the music there totally gave me flashbacks to the Darkmatter Thieves invasion for a split second and that sequence in general was really well done I like how they emphasized the suckers sticking to the concrete and everything- it have the monster a lot of weight imo. Of course the studio would be fools to not give Tatsumaki the the utmost respect like that sooo

SPARKLY and PRETTY and TEMPTING FATE YOU FOOL yo I was so excited to this scene but I feel like they didn’t make his response angry enough it’s funnier when it so uncharacteristically mad I might do a redraw with the face he makes in the manga………….. FUKKIN was smiley face man just yelling noises to cover flashy’s voice???? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

OH MY FUCK WE’RE GETTING MONSTER CELLS THIS EPISODE. OH MY HECK WE’RE COVERING MUCH MORE GROUND THAN I THOUGHT WE’RE ONLY HALF WAY THROUGH THE EP

plot progression plot progression plo t p r ogr e ss i on hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Kamikaze being the badass that he is i lov

SPEAKING OF LOVES LOOKY LOOK God i love those three Okamaitachi is a WIFE and IAI is a BAE HEY WAIT let them speak come back they said words i want voices!!!!!!! this is going so fast??? Oh my god I was absolutely not expecting to get the Suiryu fight this episode holy crap holy crap?? Ok but I’m getting pumped the music is hype “trying to hide his nervousness by looking like a doofus” “this is how I always look” Oh saitama why do they do this to you. Jeez as much as I love everyone else I forget how much I miss him.

Oh and he’s getting his hopes up again sweetheart no

This is so good I’m hardly pausing to type my thoughts I’m too invested AND NOW ALSO IM DIGGING THIS MUSIC this is good v good yes and there goes Saitama being a genuinely good person offended by this jackass Saitama is too good for this world

His voice… I love him sm. aaaaaaaaaaaaaand its over. hmmmmmmmmmmmm so I have a guess as to what the post credits scene will be but let’s just see

YUP I KNEW IT cause we skipped it last week and now that we’ve introduced the monster cells it was only logical Genos no bby stop getting completely obliterated mannnnnnnnn

In all, no real complaints??? My children?? Have began to appear finally??? I just wish they literally went word for word shot for d\shot with Drive Knight if only because I’m STARVED for DK content in general. But based on the pacing of this week’s episode, will definitely cover a lot of ground and be pretty intense. I should be less, uh, screaming? Next week too. I’m exhausted from spazzing every 10 seconds hah. Well, I just skimmed the manga again and there might be some but yeah I think I can calm down for maybe 2 weeks. maybe. take a wild guess who should show up right around that time. ANYWAY Thanks for reading see yall next weeeeekkkkk

#opmiss mumbling #live blogging #gouketsu #child emperor #saitama #suiryu #flashy flash #tatsumaki #drive knight #pig god #watchdog man #im exhausted #uhg #one punch man #season 2 #opm

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literaticat · 5 years ago

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Writing advice says a character must change by story's end, but how? I mean, does Dogman change in each book? He's still half dog, half policeman.

the entire premise of dogman makes me laugh SO HARD. half dog! half policeman! ALL JUSTICE. anyway -- yeah, I mean some books have more of a character arc than others. In the realm of episodic chapter books in particular, it’s more like Cartoon Laws. Think “scooby-doo” or “the simpsons” -- each character has their character traits and likes and dislikes and quirks, and each book/episode is its own thing, the story IN THAT BOOK has an arc but there isn’t really change/growth in a long-term kind of way. Like actually the characters usually don’t even age much or at all, even if ostensibly years have passed. Usually there’s a lesson learned or a mystery solved or SOMEthing in each book/ep -- and that’s fine. Everything that was disturbed this time will be re-set in the next episode. Cartoon Laws!

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lustingtc · 5 years ago

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19th July 2019

...

The day has come.

Death day.

Last day 😔😔😔✌🏻 kms idk how I’ll survive😰

It started with an uwu

I first saw T before break

He was holding a big reusable plastic bag.

Then I saw my Spanish teacher...

He was helping her move out 😭😭😭😭💝💞💓💗💖💘💕 hes such a fucking sweetie

He looked sad, but was chatting to her

AND HE WAS IN HIS RAINCOAT 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💝💞💓💗💖💘💕💝💞💓💗💖💘💕

I’m soft for this man. He genuinely kills me 🥺

BUT IT GETS BETTER!!! 😩😩

I was watching him at break on the pitch

T’s standing with two other teachers and their all talking like usual

T STARTS FUCKING DANCING AND DOING ALL THESE FUCKING DAD MOVES 💗😵💖💕💘

He...

He is my everything.

THEN HE GOES TO FAKE PUNCH ONE OF THE TEACHERS 💀💀💀

WE ARE THE SAME

WE ARE THE SAME MFING PERSON 😳😳😳

Literally.

We are the ultimate crackhead power couple.

Like I’m not fucking drake and joshing 😔😔😔

That moment cured everything

My depression? Gone

My anxiety? Gone

My spotty skin? GONE

HE FUCKIMG CURED 🥴🥴🥴💝💞💓💗💖💘💕💝💞💓💗💖💘💕

I ksjskwnsoswwnskwnssn

HEE!!!!!!!

The raincoat. He looked so emo bc it started raining n he was like “Hmp :T” 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Baby baby angel baby boy precious angel joy💘

We made eye contact as well 😳😳😳

He quickly looked away tho 😔😔😔😔😔

But 😚✌🏻

He also grinned at the PE teacher and patted him on the back 🥴🥴🥴💝💞💓💗💖💘💕

I wanna be hit like that 😩😩😩🥺🥺🥺

OMG ALSO 😳😳😳😳

I saw his underwear 😳😳😳😳

He went down to get a ball n I looked over and 😳😳😳😳😳😳 oogs girls 😰😰😰😰😰😰

I then didn’t see him again until tutor party😔

We made eye contact as I put smthing in the bin 😳✌🏻 he was with M

It was rly quick tho, n it looked like he had sideburns???? Like 🤮🤮🤮 but also 🤨🤨🤨

So lmao

But I went to Dogmans tutor 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

To see my girl S but also my favourite 😋😋

My hopes where high when it came to his fit 🥵🥵🥵 I was promised blue jean 80s green windbreaker realness 🤩🤩🤩

Nah luv, his jeans where some of the baggiest things I’ve seen 🤢🤢🤢

He was serving big gothic rave realness 🤮🤮🤮🤮

GRL U UGLY AS FYCK 😭😭😭😭👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻

But we still in luv 😚✌🏻

LITERALLY

As soon as I came in (I was w/ L btw)

He went “Hi K!”

💆‍♀️💝💞💓💗💖💘💕 so easy getting these dumb young white men luv 😴😴💅🏻

Anyways 🤩🤩🤩

Got sum lush piccies 🤪🤪🤪🤙🏻

Of him and his trousers 😷😷😷

But.

Oh my

G O D!!!!

Everyone was leaving and he was like “Bye guys” 😴😴😴👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻

And I was one of the last to leave

He goes to me 🥺🥺🥺 “Bye K!!!”

😔😔😔 y’all I ain’t never been loved this much by one man 😳😳

Literally. No one else he said bye to.

BUT ME. HE SAID BYE TO ME?????

Was that bc of my men toe breakdown or LyK??????? 😰😰😰😰😰😰

Still 😚😚😚😚😚✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻

Our love is real 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

AND TO MAKE IT EVEN BETTER!!!!

I saw P...

Not just anywhere...

But in her car

With the nerd loser science teacher

POPPING TF OFFFFFF

🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴

💝💞💓💗💖💘💕she so cute,,,,

We love MLM n WLW solidarity 🤝

But like she was flapping her hands everywhere as she was driving and she was clearly very angry about something????

I think she saw me as well??

Idk but uwuwuwuwu

We love her!!!!!

But yeah 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

That’s all I’ll see until I come back... in 6 weeks... 😔😔😔😔

Get ready for me to be #emo in like a week bc I miss them all sm :((((

Hopefully I’ll see them around 😥😥😥 but I don’t go outside much 😰😰😰😰

So 😔✌🏻

Ttyl ladies 😳👋🏻

Jk gals i always be here hee hee 😜

#teacher crush #tc #teacher crush community #tc community #Z #Dogman #P

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nei-ning · 3 years ago

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Dreams 17.7.2021

1. I put dogman encounters video play from YouTube when I went to bed. This made me have a dream which I've seen first, and last, time 20-25 years ago until now. Back in those days I didn't even know anything about dogmen, witches, spirit world etc.

In the dream the wide open place was definitely underground, everything all around being red. I will call this Hell, even that it wasn't really a Hell, but still. I stood on a small black cliff, seeing round open area beneath me. There was few black walls and behind them were one dogman / werewolf. It looked like very simple labyrinth which I had to go through in order to climb on the cliff across me behind the labyrinth. On top of the cliff, however, laid huge but very sad and depressed looking female lion with ugly face. It looked at me and said something before I entered the labyrinth. I knew were the werewolf / dogman was but I still couldn't avoid them since I could use this one path only.

First "encounter" went fine. There should had been white, either werewolf or just gigantic wolf (I remember it having a tail) but it either wasn't there or just let me pass. So I headed to the second wall. If I could get through that, I would reach the exit and could climb up to the lion. I didn't make it to the exit :'D All of the sudden I was on my back on the ground, this huge black dogman being on top of me. I got the feeling he wanted to mate, but he didn't do anything like that. Amazingly he was being... Respectful? Anyway, he kept half-laying on me, keeping his upper body in the air above mine.

Over his right furry shoulder I saw part of the cliff, seeing black figure / being sliding there into my vision. I have no idea who he was since I hadn't seen him before. He saw me and the dogman on me, saying something. I didn't hear his words, but I heard the tone. It was nasty, full of some sort of sick pleasure. I got the feeling he ordered this dogman to snap my head off before sliding out of the cliff. When that thing was gone, and the dogman was sure of it too, he got off of me. He had no any intention to harm me in the end.

I got up, but then I suddenly ended up on some small looking field. Everything here was red too. Behind the field was small volcano and towards me was floating this... Small human kind of thing which was wearing dirty looking light brown rug or something, with a hood. It spread its arms, looking and acting like a "typical ghost" as it came slightly towards me. Now I heard witch's voice, seeing her in brown cape + hood slightly in front of me on my right as this... Ghost thing was going past my left. She had echoing creepy voice (I wasn't afraid) and she told me to use fire. Now, the witch nor the ghost weren't all bad, but they weren't good either. They gave me weird, slightly uneasy feeling.

Next I was back in my old home's first hallway / entrance / mudroom - whatever you call it. In front of me on the floor, which was red and on fire instead of being blue, was huge metallic circle - a dragon. It was some sort of weapon which created and spread fire from every part of it. It didn't burn me as I picked it up (it was as big as I am!) and I slipped in our small bathroom which was on my left. I should had go and use the fire to kill someone from Hell, but.... I have no idea who or what! So I woke up :'D No need to go kill anyone without a reason.

Dream 2.

Long dream short. Dad had lied he can't work anymore but mom and I spotted him on snowy, small, open and round area surrounded by trees and some machines. Mom told me I now could ask money from him. I tried, but dad escaped to my grandma's place (mom's mom) but we followed him there. He locked himself in a bathroom while grandma, with mom, tried to talk him to come out and go for the wedding. It was not his wedding but still he didn't want to go. Dad hates parties and fancy clothes like suits etc. It had been total pain for him to be at his own wedding when he married mom in real life.

As grandma still talked to him, I noticed this set hanging on her wall. It had small light blue map in frames, beautiful light white hollow horn (decorated with gold) filled with small rocks or needles or something else since the horn made beautiful and calming "rain" sound when moved. This set also had small blade in beautiful brown leather "scabbard", decorated with gold too. Lastly there was small skull which looked like bull's skull. I loved that set and I was smiling from ear to ear like and idiot while showing it to my grandma. I wanted that so BAD but I don't know did she ever give it to me since I woke up on dog barking.

But yeah, both dreams I've had before, decades ago. I need to dig deeper in them.

#Text #Dream #Neis dream #Dogmen #Werewolf #Witch #Nightmare #Kind of #Dream from decades ago

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artzom-b · 7 years ago

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Damn tomorrow is new years eve remember when I started this blog

good times

ANYWAYS I might be busy on new years/eve I want to make this post now and will probably reblog on new years/eve

So first off THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT! Didnt reach my youtube goal but I almost hit my tumblr goal! I got 352 followers! My original goal was 500 but hey thats pretty close I was half way there! SO thanks for all the support cheers to next year and what ever hell is next =w=

Second! This is just sorta a run down of what tp expect in 2018 so like its completely your choice to read this part or not. So starting next year I will be even slower with content then now. I still got school so that will take most of my time but what else is the many projects I’m prepping! All those who read the Deadbeat pilot comic welp I’m writing more of them, they will still be black and white till further notice tho! And on top of that I’m working on a new youtube seires I’ve already showed concept art earlier of the characters but thats all the detail I’m putting out there because its easier to finish something without the pressure of people anticipating it. What I will tell you is the episodes are short like 2-5 minutes so don’t expect too much. Deadbeats first comic book will be released sometime in 2018, while my youtube series will launch in 2019 hopefully on my birthday, I’ve already been working reaaallly hard on it!

Third Pages and Spaceplanet has been on the back burner for a while. If you dont know what these series are, Pages are a few of the first OC’s on this blog that turned into their own story and Spaceplanet is a “Blind comic” Meaning its made up as I go it started off as a challenge but now I want to finish. These series arnt really canceled but they are gonna be kept secret until completing meaning no sneak peaks or a random comic page or screenshot from the series until they are finished and they will have less focus put on them so they will take alot more time to finish, in other words there is no way they will be out by the end of 2018. EDIT: Almost forgot to mention DOGMAN which is coming back and will be released randomly since they are short strips, so yeah.

Finally (?), I hope I can get enough support to open up a patreon next year and when I get out of college I can just continue to work on these projects as a job while I save to go back to college for comic art and up my comic book skills and bring you guys quality comics! Plus I’m making sure to make more youtube videos and hopefully I can by a mic so I can start doing my “Day with zom-b” series again.”

I think thats it...hopefully I’m not forgetting anything! Anyways thanks for those who read through this! I hope that the followers I do have stick around since things are about to slow down next year. Once again thank you all for the support, I will talk to you all later!

Oh and dont worry about Smith he’s not going anywhere none of this effects him.

#art talks

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beeblackburn · 4 years ago

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Pretender Reads A Little Hatred, Part I, Chapter Six

I feel weighed enough by the chains of procrastination that I wish I got a couple of breakers to smash it all down! Goes without saying spoilers ahead for the entirety of The First Law works beyond the keep reading. Read at your own risk.

Chapter Title: The Breakers Point-of-View: Vick dan Teufel

“What sort of a name is Vick, anyway?”

“Short for Victarine.”

“Very fucking fancy,” sneered Grise. Vick hadn’t known her long, but she was already getting tired of her. “Daresay you’ve got a fucking ‘dan’ in your name, too, eh, your ladyship?”

It’s okay, Vick, I’ve just known Grise two sentences and I’m already tired of her.

That being said, Vick doesn’t beat around the bush in her voice, does she. And this short exchange already suggests, along with the chapter title, that the Breakers aren’t as monolithic in character as the first trilogy’s peasant rebellion was, an evolution of the old of the peasantry through the ones of nobility to the new status of giving voice to the commonfolk.

Also, hell’s yeah. More working-class voices! After fantasy’s gout of prioritizing noble or royalty voices (or commonfolk who turn out to be royalty by royal blood), this is super welcome. I’m all for more eyes into the anger and wrath of the common men!

She held Grise’s eye. “I did have a ‘dan’ in my name, once. My father was Master of the Royal Mints. Had a great big apartment in the Agriont.” And Vick nodded towards her best idea of where the fortress was, though the points of the compass were hard to tell apart in a mouldy cellar. “Right next to the palace. Big enough for a statue of Harod the Great in the hall. Life fucking size.”

Grise had quite the frown on her round face now, light flickering across it as boots, and hoofs, and cartwheels clattered past the little windows high up near the ceiling. “You grew up in the Agriont?”

“You weren’t listening. My father had an apartment there. But when I was eight years old, he trod on the wrong toes and the Inquisition took him. I hear it was Old Sticks himself who asked the questions.”

Master of the Royal Mints... who... wait... Sepp dan Teufel? The guy whose finger joints Glokta chopped off near The Blade Itself’s start? Damn, that’s one hell of a deep dive! He’s not exactly a character of importance, being only in one chapter, and all we knew of him is that he was kind of a blowhard using his position and connections to try and get out of Glokta’s tender care.

Why bring the Teufel connection into this then...?

“My father was innocent. Of what they accused him of, anyway. But once Old Sticks got started…” Vick slapped the table with a bang, Tallow jumping so high he nearly hit the ceiling. “He leaked confessions like a broken drain. High Treason. They sent him to Angland. To the camps right up North.” Vick didn’t feel much like it, but she grinned. “And no one likes to split up a happy family. So they sent my ma with him. My ma, and my brother, and my sisters, and me. The camps, Grise. That’s where I grew up. So don’t question my commitment to the cause. Not ever.”

Oh damn. That’s why. For every man Glokta ruined and forced into confession, there were others connected to each body. Sepp dan Teufel himself doesn’t matter, it’s what Glokta did to Vick’s entire family is what matters. She's the consequences of the first trilogy’s actions writ small, the collateral bodies that ended up in misery and suffering because of what Glokta’s done, regardless of guilt or innocence, but sheer political expediency.

Sepp dan Teufel being a relative no-name actually works better than if it was a bigger name Glokta tortured, because he was swept aside rather quick in the greater narrative of the first trilogy... but Vick’s here, reminding us that most actions Glokta undertook had a terrible cost attached, damaging more than the men he chopped flesh off of. It’s just an extension of how monstrous Glokta’s actions really were, detached of his more wry, humorous, self-pitying narrative.

And, on a character note, that forced smile makes me think of Savine’s performance, except with greater bitterness. Whereas Savine performs to gain leverage and points over people, Vick... there’s just this feeling of negative space. This feeling that there’s nothing inside her, no joy or mirth or humor, because the camps hollowed those things out of her and all she can express is what she forces herself. It’s a greater effort, emotionally, for Vick.

You could hear the ill squelch as Tallow swallowed. “What are the camps like?”

“You get by.”

Oh, the filth, pain, hunger, death, injustice and betrayal that she buried in that phrase. The black chill of the mines, the searing glow of the furnaces, the gnashing rage and sobbing desperation, the bodies in the snow. Vick forced her face to stay blank, pressed down the past like you might press down the lid on a box full of maggots.

“You get by,” she said, firmer. When you tell a lie, you have to sound like you believe it. Goes double for the ones you tell yourself.

Oh, Vick. The fact that you can consciously recall all that misery, yet you still have to lie to yourself that “you get by” in that hellscape? It reads off as an trauma reaction, a victim rationally recalling what was done to her, but has to emotionally suppress the horrors of what was done, lest it overwhelm her all over.

My heart.

And, you know what strikes me about Vick’s general character? She feels like a refinement of Cathil, way back in Before They Are Hanged. Now, Cathil herself was a blatant device to give more insight into West and the Dogman, thanks to Abercrombie’s mishandling of his female characters, but when you think about it, she’s another survivor of the camps, even right down to the camps being from Angland. Someone who had to surrender her pride and shame, in order to get by, just like Vick.

Someone hollowed out by the camps, just like Vick...

She grabbed hold of West’s arm as he turned away. “It’s no easy ride here.” Her voice was a surprise. Soft, smooth, educated. “Cathil is my name. I can work.” West looked down at her, ready to shake his arm free, but her expression reminded him of something. Painless. Fearless. Empty eyes, flat, like a corpse.

—Before They Are Hanged, Small Crimes

... Except the Cathil figure here gets to have the POV to herself, instead of being the prop to a guy’s storyline, only to be discarded later after her use is run out. Vick, here, gets to deal with her own turmoils and tragedies and struggles, being our lens into the Breakers as a woman actively part of the rough-and-tumble of it. I could be wrong, and Abercrombie could horribly disappoint me by killing off Vick early, but she absolutely feels like a deliberate second chance with Cathil. And, you know what? I’m all for it. Vick’s hardened in a way that the earlier POVs just aren’t and that’s equal parts intriguing and tragic.

Grise spun around as the door squealed open, but it was only Sibalt come at last, Moor big and dour at his shoulder. He planted his fists on the table and took a heavy breath, that noble face of his sadly sagging.

“What is it?” asked Tallow, in a tiny voice.

“They hanged Reed,” said Sibalt. “They hanged Cudber. They hanged his daughter.”

Grise stared at him. “She was fifteen.”

The Breakers from Orso’s chapter. You know how I said that this Breakers plotline feels different from the Tanner plotline back then? This is why. Abercrombie doesn’t let us forget that the commonfolk victims have personhood and names. They were people and not checklists to note off a coming-of-age heroic quest list. This is what happens when you give vent and voice to the working class people such royalty-homogenized stories use to prop up a king-in-the-making.

What happens when you take off the royalty lens and put a commonfolk lens onto a fantasy story. You’re pressed against all the injustices the royalty’s tools have perpetuated, committed, all for the status quo to stay.

Also, dang, even Grise is horrified that they hung a child. Not as hard as she thinks she is, huh.

“What for?” asked Tallow.

“Just for talking.” Sibalt put his hand on the boy’s thin shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Just for organising. Just for trying to get workers to stand together and speak with one voice. That’s treason now.”

D’awww, Sibalt.

Part of why I don’t particularly like privileged royal twats is that when you compare the hardships of them to the very real threat of death, just for wanting social advancement and a bit more rights that the royalty and nobility enjoy effortlessly, that commonfolk face, my sympathy generally runs drier for those twats when common children are getting hanged for wanting better. Hence, why I loved that moment in The Blade Itself where Ardee tears into Jezal for being a giant baby about having to work hard for once.

But yes, let too much dissent like that thrive, and you allow such rebellious thoughts build up. You don’t put out the fires of revolution swift enough, and it spreads too fast and much for you to smother down the road. So, you stomp it out as soon as possible. You make examples out of the dissidents, so you put the fear into the rest of the common people.

“Then the time for talk’s fucking past!” snarled Grise.

But, at some point, you don’t engender fear so much as deep anger.

Vick was angry as anyone. But she’d learned in the camps that every feeling is a weakness. You have to lock your hurt away, and think about what comes next. “Who did they know about?” she asked.

There’s a very workmanlike quality to how Vick operates. There’s a no-frills attitude that pervades her entire POV, few details on the environment she’s in, just the important details of people’s actions and what’s said between the Breakers there. She’s very no-nonsense, allowing for her anger, but refusing to have it define her actions. Not if it overrides her thinking and plotting capabilities. In that sense, she very much reminds me of the practicality of Logen and Glokta from the first trilogy.

You have to be realistic.

Vick looked from her fist to her eye. “Whatever names they knew, they’ll have given up.”

“Not Cudber. He wouldn’t.”

“Not even when they put the irons to his daughter?” Grise had nothing to say to that, shock gradually wiping the anger off her face. “Whatever names they knew, they’ll have given up. Lots of other names, too, ’cause once you run out of truth, you start spilling lies.”

Moor shook his big lump of a head. “Not Reed.”

“Yes, Reed, Cudber, his daughter, yes, you or me or anyone. The Inquisition’ll come for whoever they knew about, and soon. So who did they know about?”

There’s a lot to be said about how much torture doesn’t work as a method of gaining information. And Abercrombie’s pretty clear-eyed about it as a tool that Glokta mainly uses it as a method of gaining confessions, rather than truth. Not to mention how much Glokta spoke of his own experiences in truth and how much, after he ran out of truth, he lied out of his ass and got nowhere. And, for most Inquisitors, the amount of bodies they make without substantial gain makes a greater point that Abercrombie really doesn’t believe torture necessarily works.

... There can be a point of criticism that Abercrombie still has Glokta capable of extracting truth out of his victims for plot reasons, thus still validating a sense of torture working, and I can see that as a problem. Which is partly why I love this acknowledgement that torture will not work and you can easily get a mixture of lies along with the truth, depending on what the victims think the captors want to hear. It’s a very stripped-down, sober look at torture as an institutional tool of the government from the side of those who might be next under the knife.

And no amount of willpower can prepare you for the very real and visceral reality of systematic disfigurement. The slow and sure breakdown of one’s body and spirit and mental strength. Anyone can break.

“Who the fuck are you to give orders?” Grise leaned down over her with a stabbing finger. “You’re newest here!”

“So maybe I’m thinking most clearly.” Vick let her hand lie on her belt buckle where her brass knuckles were hidden. She didn’t rate Grise much of a threat, for all her bulk. People who shout a lot tend to take a while working up to more. But Vick was ready to put her down if she had to. And when Vick put someone down, she made sure they went down hard.

And that’s what makes Vick so dangerous in this world, just like Logen:

Logen shrugged. Hard words are for fools and cowards. Calder might have been both, but Logen was neither. If you mean to kill, you’re better getting right to it than talking about it. Talk only makes the other man ready, and that’s the last thing you want. So Logen said nothing. Calder could take that for weakness if he pleased, and so much the better. Fights might find Logen depressingly often, but he was long, long past looking for them.

—The Blade Itself, First of the Magi

Both hardened and knowing not to give away their weaknesses, knowing when to put someone down for good. Just a fascinating contrast to the more naive and young charges of past chapters, Vick is.

Lucky for Grise, Sibalt laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and eased her back. “Vick’s right. I have to get out of Adua. Just as soon as we strike our blow.” And Moor slid out a dirty paper and unrolled it across the table. A map of the city. Sibalt tapped a spot in the Three Farms. Not far from where they’d started building that new canal. “The Hill Street Foundry.”

“Though Hill Street’s gone,” said Moor, in that plodding way he had, “since they pulled it down to build the Foundry.”

“They’re fitting new engines there,” said Sibalt.

Tallow nodded. “I passed ’em on the way. Engines that’ll put two hundred men and women out of work, I hear.”

I’ve read about how new technologies are going to replace some workers, leaving them out of a job. Now, of course, it makes perfect sense for companies to seek out new improvements that net them more profits, but without the social conscience and the consideration that you can train those old employees to work the new tools, you’re just left with money as the only bottom line, leaving countless souls helpless and scrambling without the job security that held up their families, their mental health, their very survival.

Industrial or contemporary age, human nature and greed really doesn’t change.

“We’re going to blow the lot to hell,” said Grise. “With Gurkish Fire.”

More signs of technological progression, what with Gurkish Fire being more commonplace nowadays since the ol’ days of the last Union-Gurkish War. Coming off The Heroes’ death tubes, this isn’t a surprise, but it’s definitely a nice continuity of Bayaz’s experiments with gunpowder.

I wonder if those death tubes got better... you’d think they’d be a leg-up, technologically, against Monza’s army, yet Terez said that didn’t go well...

“Well, you can stop worrying, ’cause it comes straight from Valbeck,” said Grise, smug as a king’s tailor. “Straight from the Weaver himself—”

“Shush,” hissed Sibalt. “Best if no one knows more than they have to. Don’t worry, the powder’s good.”

Grise slapped her fist into her palm. “A blow for the common man, eh, brothers?”

“Aye,” said Moor, slowly nodding his big head. “We’ll strike a spark.”

“And the spark’ll start a fire,” said Sibalt.

Vick sat forward. “If we do this, people get hurt. People get killed.”

“Only those that deserve it,” said Grise.

“Once the killing starts, it rarely sticks to those who deserve it.”

(arches an eyebrow) The Weaver? Aw, shit, is this like the Tanner all over again? Is Bayaz pulling the strings of another peasant rebellion, just to give a decisive victory to the royals? I like Jezal, and I don’t even hate Orso that much, but this will right piss me off if that happens.

I hope Yoru Sulfur, if he’s doing the Tanner bit under a different title, gets blown up by Gurkish Fire instead.

... And that last exchange is ultimately the sticking point. Revolutions are messy, messy business, and, as much as you want to keep the deaths solely on those who’ll deserve it, collateral damage is inevitable. Everyone who participates in one can die, and die ignobly.

Ultimately, I believe that revolutions are necessary, it’s what happens when you push around oppressed people so much their corpses pile up high as mountains and they cannot bear to be silent, and I refuse to wag my finger at them. Just because there’ll be blood to be had in revolutions doesn’t mean the status quo isn’t supported by gears and cogs, rusty with blood. Sometimes, inaction is a greater crime than wanting blood against those who operate the great machines.

That being said, I am all for everyone in a revolution being aware of the potential costs and trying not spill more blood than needed. But, well... easier said than done, right?

“You scared?”

“If you’re not scared, you’re mad or stupid, and there’s no place for either on a task like this. We need to plan every detail.”

As Logen would tell you:

The Northman chuckled. “Fearlessness is a fool’s boast, to my mind. The only men with no fear in them are the dead, or the soon to be dead, maybe. Fear teaches you caution, and respect for your enemy, and to avoid sharp edges used in anger. All good things in their place, believe me. Fear can bring you out alive, and that’s the very best anyone can hope for from any fight. Every man who’s worth a damn feels fear. It’s the use you make of it that counts.”

—Before They Are Hanged, Fear

Courage or strength isn’t defined by the absence of fear, it’s acting in spite of it. It’s using fear to work for you, carrying you to survive through sharpening your mind, your senses, and using it to your advantage.

Grise sneered her disgust. “All you ever fucking talk about is the risks!”

“Someone needs to. This has to be something we choose, not something we blunder into ’cause we’re sore and can’t think of anything better to do with ourselves.” She looked around those four faces, strange in the flickering light of the cellar. “This is what you all want, is it?”

Honestly, she’s right. Vick’s the one there pointing out that you can’t be a bunch of angry children playing with matches. She’s the only one right now speaking how to be mindful of starting a revolution, blessings and curses. If the Breakers are meant to be the spark to a great fire, to be a movement that’s meant to endure, they have to intend this and plan accordingly.

And they have to commit to it. All of it. No backing down.

“It’s what I fucking want,” said Grise.

“It’s what I want,” said Sibalt.

“Aye,” rumbled Moor.

Heh. I love how economic to their characters these responses are. Grise’s the heated, angry one who wants to fight back, no caution, Sibalt’s more measured and calm about how the cause needs to move and operate, and Moor’s just the big, slower musclehead. In fact, I generally like how this chapter gets across the different attitudes of the respective Breakers there. They all have skin in the game, but they’re different people with separate thoughts and input in going about breaking things.

She looked at Tallow last. He couldn’t be older than fifteen himself, and might only have had three good meals in that whole stretch. Reminded her of her brother, a little. Those skinny wrists sticking from frayed sleeves just a touch too short. Trying to put a hard face on but beaming fears and doubts out like a lighthouse through those big damp eyes.

“There’s a Great Change coming,” he said, finally. “That’s what I want.”

Is that a crack in the armor, Vick? Harder to suppress your feelings when reminders are right before your eyes. And, man, Tallow’s a brave little boy who shouldn’t have to commit to a fight that might kill him without remorse, given he found out about Cudber’s daughter’s hanging just a short while ago.

I hope he survives, but Abercrombie isn’t so gentle. So it goes, with hopes.

Vick smiled a grim smile. “Well, if I learned one thing in the camps, it’s that talking isn’t enough.” She realised she’d closed her fingers to make a fist. “You want a thing, you have to fight for it.”

Not as hard as you make yourself out to be, huh, Vick. Not as empty as you make yourself out to be, if even you’re getting carried away by the spirit of revolution. Other than that, damn straight. There’s a time for talk, and there’s a time for a fight.

She stayed straddling him for a while afterwards, his chest pressed against hers with each snatched breath. Kissing at his lip. Biting at it. Then with a grunt, she slid off him, rolled onto her side next to him on the narrow bed, dragging the blankets up over her bare shoulder. It felt chill now they were done, frost showing in the smudges of lamplight at the corners of the little window.

Wow, this book is just way more hornier than The Blade Itself. I mean, I don’t really mind, especially since this reads as more wholesome and sex for wanting it, rather than more abusive, like the first trilogy’s sex scenes, but wow.

Finally, he turned towards her. “Sorry I couldn’t step in with Grise—”

“I can look after myself.”

Sibalt snorted. “No one better. I’m not sorry ’cause I think you need my help. I’m sorry I can’t give it. Better if they don’t know we’re…” He slipped his hand up onto her ribs, rubbing at that old burn on her side with his thumb, trying to dig up the right word for what they were. “Together.”

“In here, we’re together.” She jerked her head towards the warped door in the warped frame. “Out there…” Out there, everyone stood on their own.

Whole swathes of Vick’s mindset just leaches so much warmth out of me. It’s such a cold, and dispassionate “everyone out for themselves” mindset that the camps instilled into her, but this? I’m glad Vick has some measure of happiness in her life, having someone by her side, at least.

He frowned at the little gap of coarse sheet between them as if it was a great divide that could never be crossed. “Sorry I can’t tell you where the Gurkish Fire comes from.”

“Best if no one knows more than they have to.”

“It’ll work.”

“I believe you,” she said. “I trust you.” Vick trusted no one. She’d learned that in the camps, along with how to lie. Learned to lie so well, she could take one tiny sliver of truth and beat it out, like the goldsmiths beating a nugget of gold into leaf, till it could cover a whole field of lies. Sibalt didn’t doubt her for a moment.

(arches an eyebrow) I’m reminded of Ferro’s belief of the word trust here:

“Stay with us. Give it a few days. If you don’t change your mind, well, I’ll help you pack. You can trust me.” Trust was a word for fools. It was a word people used when they meant to betray you. If he moved forward a finger’s width she would sweep the sword out and take his head off. She was ready.

—Before They Are Hanged, The Thing About Trust

But why would Vick betray Sibalt? Isn’t she just as committed to the Breakers cause as he is? Who would she betray him to? Is Sibalt a Breaker rogue element that someone asked Vick to watch after? If so, who? She can’t go to the Inquisition, considering her history with the camps, so maybe a Breaker higher-up Sibalt doesn’t answer to?

In any case, so much for happiness, Vick. And poor Sibalt, if Vick's going to betray him. He’s so sweet to her and respects her so...

“I wish I’d met you sooner,” he said. “Things might be different.”

“You didn’t and they’re not. So let’s take what we can get, eh?”

“By the Fates, you’re a hard case, Vick.”

“We’re none of us hard as we seem.” She slipped her hand around the back of his head, through the dark hair scattered with grey, held it firm, looked him in the eye and asked one more time. “You’re sure, Collem? You’re sure this is what you want?”

(jaw drops) Oh my god. Yeah, this puts the nail on the idea that Vick = Improved Cathil wasn’t intentional. Another Collem and another victim of the Angland camps. Except this Collem doesn’t treat her like a vessel for his own issues, unlike West did. Oh, Collem, you already met Vick once sooner, in the pages of Before They Are Hanged instead. Except, now, it’s flipped, with Vick as the POV, and Collem as the love interest as a reflection of her character.

I LOVE HOW MUCH ABERCROMBIE REMIXES HIS OLD SHIT BETTER, YES!

“Don’t really matter what we want, does it? Bigger things than our future to consider. We can strike a spark that’ll set a fire burning. One day, there’ll be a Great Change, Vick. And folk like you and me will get our say.”

“A Great Change,” she said, trying to sound like she believed it.

Sibalt’s a true believer to the core, but Vick? She’s been beaten too badly by the camps to necessarily buy into the shiny ideals of that wholesale. She’s endured Inquisition care too long to think this will be as glorious as what Sibalt thinks. She believes in the cause, but she’s got a more cynical head about it, wearier and sadder for it.

“You should come with me.”

She should’ve kept silent on that, too. Instead, she found she’d asked, “Where would we go?”

A grin spread across his face. Seeing it made her smile. Her first in a while. Hardly felt like her mouth should bend that way.

There’s so much of Vick that feels so... hollow or restrained that glimpses and cracks in her voice like this really stuck out. And I think she actually loves Sibalt beyond the confines of taking him along, only to betray him. Just that made her smile bit. Like she didn’t intend to, but couldn’t help herself. She has so few opportunities for happiness, I sense.

Few of the characters in this series do.

The frame groaned as he reached down beside the bed and came back up with a battered old book. The Life of Dab Sweet by Marin Glanhorm.

“This again?” asked Vick.

“Aye, this.” It fell open at an etching across both pages. As though it was often opened there. A rider alone, staring out across a sweep of endless grass and endless sky. Sibalt held that drawing at arm’s length as if it was a view spread out in front of them, whispered the words like a magic spell. “The Far Country, Vick.”

“I know,” she grunted. “It says under the picture.”

“Grass for ever.” He was half-joking. But that made him half-serious. “A place where you can go as far as your dreams can take you. A place where you can make yourself anew. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Hah! The biography Sworbreck derided!

On a more somber note, there’s something to be said about how even a fantasy, a falsehood, can inspire us. Dab Sweet himself pointed out that his exploits were blown up beyond his capacity and he ended up having to live with the weight of all that he never did, but just because we know things to be false doesn’t mean we can’t want for better and more, right? It’s part of why we dream and yearn beyond our reaches. Abercrombie once talked about how you have to hit upon truth to impact your readers, well, the truth is, a fantasy can propel us to action, to want for better for ourselves and others.

“Aye, I guess.” She realised she’d reached towards that drawing with one hand, as if she might touch anything there but paper, and snatched it back. “But it’s a made-up drawing in a book full o’ lies, Collem.”

“I know,” he said, with a sad smile, like thinking about it was a fun game to play, but just a game. He flipped the book shut and tossed it back down on the boards. “Guess there comes a time you have to give up on what you want and make the best of what you’re given.”

Wanting that life too, Vick, no matter how much you consciously shut it down? But they have to make the best out of reality, no matter how tempting the fantasy is.

You two are going to make me cry, damn it.

“When we strike that spark,” he murmured, voice loud in her ear, “it’ll change everything.”

“No doubt,” said Vick.

Another silence. “It’ll change everything between us.”

“No doubt,” said Vick, and she slipped her fingers through his and pressed his hand tight to her chest. “So let’s take what we can get. If I learned one thing in the camps, it’s that you shouldn’t look too far ahead.”

Chances are you’ll see nothing good there.

Ouch. Full-blown pessimism from a childhood in the camps. No hope enters, no conscious dreams, because all they do is invite misery and broken optimism.

Just. Damn.

As a chapter, The Breakers is a set-up one. Going into the details of future events and dropping intriguing seeds like what the deal with the Weaver and the Vick/Sibalt. But, at the same time, it’s a first lens into the common people, and how much they’re varied in character and thoughts and are thinking through (or not) the consequences of revolution. In short, it’s putting faces and a name to the Breakers, extending to even the victims of those hangings in Orso’s chapter, which is why it makes sense to put this right after that one. It’s definitely a chapter that isn’t self-contained, but it’s interesting and a refreshing glimpse into the working class folk.

As a character, Vick is... depressing. In an intended way, of course, but there’s a hardness to her that the younger POVs thus far just don’t possess, a weariness that the younger generation will gain once they’ve been through enough hardship like she had. In a way, I come back to this idea of Vick being negative space. Whereas the other POVs so far have had the coddled and pampered upbringings to whine and laugh, and take joys in comforts, both small and large, and have parents who care about them... Vick got stripped of all that in the camps long ago, and this is the kind of person that comes out of those circumstances. Hollowed out. She makes for an intriguing contrast to the other characters, and while I can’t say she’s more interesting than Savine and, maybe, Orso, she’s a necessary lens into the revolutionary end of the Breakers, while possessing a practicality that calls back to the first trilogy’s adults and a vulnerability in the cracks of her POV, that makes her rather refreshing to read about.

And, as a re-do of a first trilogy female vessel character? Yeah, it’s very appreciated. Thanks, Abercrombie!

PART I

Chapter One: Blessings and Curses Chapter Two: Where the Fight’s Hottest Chapter Three: Guilt Is a Luxury Chapter Four: Keeping Score Chapter Five: A Little Public Hanging Chapter Six: The Breakers Chapter Seven: The Answer to Your Tears Chapter Eight: Young Heroes Chapter Nine: The Moment

#a little hatred #a little hatred spoilers #the age of madness #the first law #joe abercrombie #vick dan teufel #a little hatred part I

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imjustanauthor · 9 months ago

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"Yeah," Jeremiah agreed, because old habits did die hard. New habits, he found, were impossible to pick up unless, of course, you happened to slip into them. That's what had happened to him. One moment everything was normal, and then he'd blinked and suddenly the world seemed upside down.

"That's the one," he then confirmed, watching carefully. The last thing he wanted was a fire starting on his own patch, and he certainly wasn't going to let himself be seen allowing somebody - a stranger to him in the mins of others - break the smoking rules. As much as Jeremiah liked to keep to himself, he still had a park to protect.

Once the cigarette was gone, he seemed to relax just a little, almost imperceptibly. Wordlessly, Jeremiah began to lead the way down a path to the side of the building. He only looked back once to check that Killian was following. There was no need to; Jeremiah could hear him. After so many years in the woods, most of them spent alone, he'd grown to recognise the sounds of the world around him.

It was only once they'd passed by a gate marked 'staff only' that Jeremiah spoke again. "It's quieter down here than it is in the parking lot or by the side of the road," he stated. They were unlikely to bump into anybody else if they kept walking; most of the staff would either be working, sleeping, or spending time off on one of the park's many trails.

The road was more akin to a dusty path than anything else, but Jeremiah figured it was close enough to a sidewalk that he couldn't complain if Killian lit up another cigarette. He stopped them on a long straight, where they'd have a view of people approaching in either direction. It seemed like a good spot - isolated, but they could easily rush back to a populated area if the situation called for it.

"So, what's this about?" Jeremiah finally asked. "Is it about, you know" - He leant in so he could whisper - "Dogman? Because I'm pretty sure that he's still about, but I haven't seen him recently. Not properly, anyway. Glimpses in the moonlight, the sound of something following me in the bush - that can't of thing. And, you know, I read that in Michigan, there's one up there, but he only comes out during years that end in a seven. That wasn't the case for the one I saw, of course, but you never know, do you?"

He was rambling now, his uneasy twitchiness slowly working its way onto display now they were away from public eyes and his professional facade could be allowed to fall away. This probably wasn't about Dogman, was it? The Program had never seemed to care much about his reports on the matter. If they hadn't sent anyone the night he'd been hunted down by the beast, why would they send someone now.

So, if not Dogman, then what? There were plenty of options, though Jeremiah wasn't away of anything immediately pressing such as missing children or the discovery of a body.

"Is it about the deer? The not-deer. You know about those, right?"

Killian obliged, getting up to follow the instructions. He did expect that Jeremiah would join him so was a little relieved when he did. He found a rock in the carpark and stubbed out his cigarette, a little regretfully as he saw just how much of it he had to waste and hoped he had not triggered some sort of power trip somehow in smoking indoors. He really should try to get that under some control, but he had bigger issues for the time being.

"I forget it's a law now," he commented as he made sure the ash was cooling. "I know that doesn't bode well for my job but," he shrugged almost apologetically, "old habits die real hard, you know?" He shot a look back to Jeremiah and stood again, still holding the extinguished cigarette between his fingers, part of him tempted to pocket it as if he would ever smoke the rest of it later but it was a terrible idea, more so in front of the Park Ranger he was supposed to be meeting with.

"This trash can, right?" he checked, pointing towards the one Jeremiah had indicated but he was already walking towards it, knowing it was the same one. He was sure to show Jeremiah that the cigarette was indeed out before he put it, respectfully in the bin. He adjusted his coat and checked on his hat to make sure it was still in position before nodding to Jeremiah politely. "How about you show me one of those smoking areas then, so I don't break the same law again?"

That was what seemed to have been the plan, right? He would go along with it, knowing the jurisdiction in the parks. He would give way to Jeremiah unless something turned federal but he doubted it would. Waiting to follow Jeremiah this time and hoping not everything would have to be in some covert dance. He approved of course for the public space but they would surely be alone and secure soon enough. It was a vast park after all. Killian at least had some sensible shoes on for a potentially longer hike, anticipating that his charges would expect his personal help as the last group had and coming somewhat prepared.

#multipleoccupancy #jeremiahposts;#queued;

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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND April 12, 2019 - HELLBOY, LITTLE, MISSING LINK, AFTER

We’re almost midway through April (already?) but that also means that we’re one week closer to Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, which is probably the only movie everyone is really waiting for anyway, going by advance ticket sales.

For those who can’t wait for more super-heroics, Mike Mignola’s HELLBOY (Lionsgate) gets another go in theaters, this time played by David Harbour (Stranger Things) and directed by Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones). I wish I could say I was looking forward to seeing this, but frankly, I loved Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy: The Golden Army, and I have secretly wished for the last ten years that he would be able to continue that story with Ron Perlman, Doug Jones and the rest. This one has some interesting casting including Ian McShane, Milla Jovovich as the main baddie, Sasha Lane and Daniel Dae Kim. I guess with that cast, maybe it won’t be so bad? I expect the movie will be more geared towards the fanboys and girls rather than the mainstream audiences that have been flocking to other comic movies. (My review is now over at The Beat… and I hated it!)

Universal and Will Packer Productions are offering some interesting counter-programming to Hellboy in the comedy remake (of sorts) LITTLE, written and directed by Tina Gordon and starring Regina Hall, Issa Rae and Marsai Martin (from ABC’s Black-ish). This is the type of body-swapping comedy that’s delivered some great laughs in movies like both Freaky Friday, Tom Hanks’ Bigand others like Jennifer Garner’s 13 Going on 30. I mean, there’s still so much that can be done with this sort of thing as seen by Shazam!, and this sort of high-concept premise is also fairly easy to sell audiences. I missed the press screening of this, but if I have a few moments in April (it might happen!) I’d go check it out.

The other movie I saw that’s opening this weekend is LAIKA’s new stop-motion animated film MISSING LINK (Annapurna/UA Releasing), featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana and Zach Galifianakis. I’m not going to review the movie even though I generally liked it, mainly since it’s been a minute since I watched it, but if you like some of LAIKA’s other films (particularly director Chris Butler’s earlier film ParaNorman) then you should enjoy this one, and like with all of LAIKA’s movies, I

Lastly, there’s Aviron’s AFTER, another teen romance drama, this one based on Anna Todd’s fan fiction that pairs Hero Fiennes Tiffin (Ralph’s nephew) and Josephine Langford in the type of Y.A. romantic drama that has had mixed results in recent years. Sure, the recent Five Feet Apartdid fine but others, like last year’s Midnight Sun, released by the defunct Global Road, barely made $10 million. Since I haven’t seen the movie – honestly, I haven’t even watched a trailer -- I’m not really sure what the appeal of this is going to be except that some younger women may not have much interest on other options this weekend.

LIMITED RELEASES

Well, I totally screwed up last week… including one movie that was delayed until this week and neglecting a movie which I thought opened this week. (This is why you need to keep me apprised on date changes, publicists!)

Actor Max Minghella makes his directorial debut with TEEN SPIRIT (Bleecker Street), starring Elle Fanning as Violet, a young woman from the Isle of Wight who hopes to get out of her smalltown blues by performing on a popular talent television show called “Teen Spirit.” Helping her out is the scraggly Vlad (Croatian actor Zlatko Burik, who starred in Nicolas Refn’s Pusher trilogy) who was an opera singer in Croatia and offers to manage Violet and help her get to the finals of the show. While Elle is no Aretha Franklin, I was truly impressed with her singing voice as well as Minghella’s screenplay and direction of the film which has a distinctive look and tone but is also a movie with quite a lot of mainstream appeal. If you like television shows like The Voice and American Idol, you might be interested in seeing one contestant’s (fictional) journey to get onto one of those shows.

You can read my interview with writer/director Max Minghella over at the Beat.

The movie I left out of last week’s column is HIGH LIFE (A24), the new movie and first in English from French auteur Claire Denis, which stars Robert Pattinson, André Benjamin, Juliette Binoche and Mia Goth. I saw the movie at the New York Film Festival last year, but I guess I never got around to writing about it, but I wish I did. Not that I particularly liked the movie, but if I wrote about it, at least I could remember what it was about. I know it takes place on a spaceship with a bunch of astronauts including Pattinson and his young daughter, all of them trying to survive.

But my absolutely favorite new movie of the weekend is Alex Ross Perry’s HER SMELL (Gunpowder and Sky), starring Elisabeth Moss as Becky Something, the lead singer of an all-girl punk band who have hit the big time but are about to implode due to Becky’s addictions and eccentricities. Becky also has a baby daughter who she is constantly neglecting and her bandmates (Agyness Deyn, Gayle Rankin) and everyone is worried about her. I’ve liked some of Perry’s past work, but something about this one really connected, maybe because I spent a couple decades working in the music business, so I can relate to the frustrated engineer in the recording studio section of the film. Moss, obviously, is amazing as Becky, a role that puts her through all the highs and lows of success and fame, but I also liked the cast around her, actors like Cara Delevigne and Amber Heard who I barely could recognize in their respective wigs. I actually saw this at the New York Film Festival, and I liked it even more when I watched it again recently. It opens in New York on Friday and in L.A. and other cities next Friday, and I hope to have an interview with Perry, probably over at NextBigPicture by next week some time.

A movie that I hoped would play the Toronto Film Festival in 2017, but instead got up in the Harvey Weinstein scandal was Garth Davis’ MARY MAGDALENE (IFC Films), the follow-up to his Oscar-nominated film Lion. It stars Rooney Mara as the title character and her real-life boyfriend Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus… and just hat last part gets me worried just because I remember Rodrigo Garcia’s Last Days in the Desert a few years back, starring Ewan McGregor as Jesus. This is being released this weekend into about 50 theaters in select cities after playing in just about every other country in the world last year as it sought out a new U.S. distributor.

Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone of Gamorrah fame returns with DOGMAN (Magnolia), a crime thriller set in a small seaside village where a dog groomer named Marcello (Marcello Fonte) is being coerced into committing petty crimes by an ex-boxer bully named Simoncino. Apparently, this is based on true events, and I generally liked it, particularly the performance of Fonte. It opens at the Film Forum and at the Film Society of Lincoln Center Friday, as well as the Landmark Nuart in L.A. It will expand to more California theaters on April 19.

Martial arts fans will want to check out master fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping’s latest The Ip Man Legacy: Master Z (Well GO USA), starring Max Zhang as Cheung Tin Chi, who is trying to make a life in Hong Kong with his young son after being defeated by Master Ip. The movie also stars the legendary Michelle Yeoh (in a great sequence with Zhang), Tony Jaa (ditto) and Dave Bautista… yeah, well I guess two out of three isn’t bad, but Bautista is pretty terrible, and the movie is disjointed in its storytelling. But the action is cool, so there’s that! It opens in select theaters this weekend.

Eva Husson’s Girls of the Sun (Cohen Media Group) stars Golshifteh Farahan (Pasterson) as Bahar, commander of the “Girls of the Sun” battalion, who are set to free their hometown from extremists, while also freeing her son. Emmanuelle Bercot (My King) plays a French journalist who is embedded with the warriors during the mission. Husson’s film opens at the Quad,Landmark 57and the FIAF Florence Gould Hall (now showing first-run films) on Friday, as well as the Laemmle Monica Film Center in L.A.

A movie I sadly had to miss at this year’s Oxford Film Festival is V. Scott Balcerek’s doc Satan & Adam (Cargo), a movie that took twenty years to make, as Balcerek pulls together two decades of documentary footage of the blues duo that were a fixture in Harlem in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. “Satan” is Sterling Magee, who played with so many greats but felt exploited so he walked away from the music scene, before being joined by Adam Gussow, an Ivy league scholar…but then Magee vanished, and the film follows what happened after that.

I had heard great things about Kaili Blues director BiGan’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (Kino Lorber), when it played a number of film festivals last year. It follows a man, played by Huang Jue, who is haunted by a woman from his post who he goes looking for her. And it includes a substantial single shot in 3D… for no particular reason that I could ascertain. To call the movie a “slog” would be an insult to actual slogs, and I barely could stay awake while watching it. It’s playing at the Metrograph and Film Society of Lincoln Center starting Friday.

Also now playing at Film Forum is Camille Vidal-Naquet’s debut feature drama Sauvage/Wild (Strand Releasing) following a gay sex worker, played by Felix Maritaud from BPM (Beats Per Minute).

Tim Disney’s William, opening at New York’s Cinema Village and L.A.’s Laemmle Monica Film Center, is a love story between two scientists who fall in love while trying to clone a Neanderthal from ancient DNA creating William, the first Neanderthal to walk the earth in 35,000 years. The film stars Will Brittain, Waleed Zuaiter, Maria Dizzia and Beth Grant.

Gilles de Maistre’s Mia and the White Lion (Ledafilms Entertainment Group) is an ambitious film about a ten-year-old named Mia whose family moves to Africa to manage a lion farm, bonding with a white lion she names Charlie. The film was shot over three years, so that the film’s young starsDaniah De Villiers and Ryan Mac Lennan could bond with their lion co-stars. The film also stars Melanie Laurent and Langley Kirkood, and it opens in select cities.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

I’m finally shifting my gaze over to Chicago where the 21stAnnual EBERTFEST kicked off yesterday with Alan Elliot’s Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace, as well as a special showing of the Wachowski’s Bound with special guests Jennifer Tilly and Gena Gershon. It continues through the weekend with showings of recent and older movies, including Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married and more.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Late Nites at Metrographwill screen Werner Herzog’s Bad Liuetenant: Port of Call New Orleans, starring the inimitable Nicolas Cage, while the Playtime: Family Matineesthis weekend is Danny Kaye as Hans Christian Anderson. Although I forgot to include it last week, Michael Blackwood’s 1968 docs Monk and Monk in Europe(as in Thelonious Monk) will continue for the next week, as does King Hu’s The Fate of Lee Khan from 1973. This Saturday night, the Metrograph is presenting a cast and crew reunion for Sidney Lumet’s 1988 movie Running on Emptywith Christine Lahti, screenwriter Naomi Foner and producers Amy Robinson and Griffin Dunne

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

L.A.’s hottest newish rep theater will show Michael Ritchie’s 1975 film Smile as well as his 1992 film Diggstownon Weds and Thursday (and apparently, Bruce Dern appeared in person on Weds!), Friday and Saturday are Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry (1971) and Escape from Alcatraz (1978), while Sunday and Monday screens David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). This weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, while the midnight offerings are The Hateful Eight on Friday and The Blues Brothers (1980) on Saturday. On Monday afternoon, there’s a screening Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

On Saturday, Film Forum will screen Jaime Chávarri’s 1976 documentary El Desecanto, introduced by author Aaron Shulman, who wrote a book about the Spanish literary family, the Paneros, on which the movie is based. (FYI, Chávarri’s film was never released in the States, and there is only one screening on Saturday.) Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) will screen Saturday and Sunday as part of Film Forum Jr, and Francesco Rossi’s 1973 film Lucky Lucianowill screen a 4k restoration for a single screening on Sunday afternoon.

AERO (LA):

The late Luke Perry gets a tribute with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) shown on Thursday, and then the Aero is doing its own Claire Denis tribute (cause everyone else is doing i!) with Salt, Sweat and Sunshine: The Cinema of Claire Denis with a double feature of her debut Chocolat (1988) and White Material (2009) on Friday, a screening of Beau Travail (1999) on Saturday, Nenette and Boni (1996) and 35 Shots of Rum (2008) on Saturday, and then Trouble Every Day (2001)and Let the Sunshine In (2017) on Sunday. Most of those will be showing on 35mm and Denis will be there, at least for the first two nights.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: B is for Bacall continues with 1948’s Key Largo on Thursday and Jonathan Glazer’s Birth (2004) on Friday. The What Price Hollywood series will screen George Cukor’s Sylvia Scarlett (1935) and John Waters’ Female Trouble (1974) on Thursday, Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950) and Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess (1973) on Friday, Mitchell Leisen’s Midnight (1939), Clarence Brown’s 1931 film A Free Soul and George Cukor’s What Price Hollywood (1932) on Saturday and Fritz Lang’s Clash By Night (1952) and Joseph Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950) on Sunday.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad begins its new series Wild Things: The Ferocious Films of Nelly Kaplan, a tribute retrospective to a pivotal filmmaker in the French New Wave, which I know next to nothing about, so I won’t even try. Just click on the title to see the movies playing.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

This week’s series is The Anarchic Cinema of Věra Chytilová, a celebration of the filmmaker who emerged during the Czech New Wave, which I know even less about than the French New Wave. Just click on the link if you know who she is.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This Friday’s midnight screening is the ‘70s classic Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), starring Peter Fonda and Susan George. I’m not sure when was the last time I had a chance to see this movie but if I were in L.A., this is where I would be on Friday night.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Streaming on Netflix starting Wednesday is THE SILENCE, the new apocalyptic thriller from director John R. Leonetti (Annabelle), starring Stanley Tucci, Kiernan Shipka and Miranda Otto. In this twist on Netflix’s hit Bird Box (and rip-off of A Quiet Place?), this one involves a world being terrorized by primeval beings with acute hearing and a family trying to survive. Also streaming Friday is the high concept teen rom-com The Perfect Date, starring Noah Centineo as a guy who is payed to take a friend’s cousin to the prom.

Next week, another horror movie in New Line’s The Curse of La Llorona, plus the faith-based drama Breakthrough from Fox and DisneyNature’s Penguins.

#Hellboy Little MissingLink Movies HerSmell TeenSpirit Reviews

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nh935 · 5 years ago

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Creepy America Episode 6: Myths & Legends

Creepy America Episode 6 Myths & Legends Clifton, Virginia

I had a roommate in college, Jonas something-or-other, who tried to get me interested in Dungeons and Dragons. The idea was that you’d make up a character with all these different abilities and stats and whatnot and someone running the game would tell you what was happening and you were supposed to tell them what you wanted to do. Then you’d use some dice and the numbers on paper to figure out if you were successful.

I never really got into it, it was just too strange, but one of the things that was interesting to me was the stats. They were numbers to determine your characteristics, things like Strength, Dexterity, and so on, and there was one for Intelligence and one for Wisdom. Intelligence was supposed to be your regular smarts, like math and history, but Wisdom was your street-smarts, your gut, and it let you do things like notice things in the background and tell if someone was lying.

I liked that, and I feel like it describes the difference between me and Zoey. Zoey wasn’t the smartest; whenever she didn’t understand something, she came to me, and that happened often. But she was wise. It was Zoey who could tell when someone was lying, when something was out of place, and when things weren’t right. If there was something spooky going on, she picked up on it way faster than I did, and to this day I believe that’s why some people can walk through haunted locations and feel nothing while others see shadows and hear screams. Some people are just better attuned. If that truly is the mechanism behind sensitivity to the supernatural, then Zoey was certainly much wiser than I. Virginia alone proved that.

***

We entered Clifton sometime in the afternoon. The town was small, smaller than Hurricane, even. The actual downtown area had less than fifteen buildings in it, and as I pulled off to the side of the road, Zoey stretched in her seat.

“Goodie, lunch time. I could use a break.” she said.

I shook my head. “Nope. This is the next place we’re setting up.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at the small cluster that was Main street. “This place barely has anyone in it.”

“No idea. But it’s on the itinerary.”

She frowned and opened the glove box to retrieve the stack of papers we had our roadmap notes on. After flipping through them, she withdrew a paper and read “Clifton, WV, Creepy America location. Home to the ‘bunny man’ bridge.” She put it back in the stack. “Well, that explains that.”

I groaned. “So you’re telling me that we just spent all that time just to drive somewhere that we know has nothing?”

“I think I’m telling you it’s time for a lunch break.” She opened her car door and climbed out.

Part of me wanted to get back on the road and keep going, but I exited the car with her and crossed the street to a pub-style restaurant. Halfway across the road, though, she stopped.

I paused and looked at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just… weird cold spot.” She shivered.

I raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing and continued into the pub, a large place made out of dark wood. Despite my desire to get back on the road, I couldn’t help but feel my mouth water as the scent of deep fryers and seared meats hit my nose. A sign said “Seat Yourself”, so we took a table near the bar.

At the bar was a man, disheveled and distraught, with red eyes and the shiny trail marks of tears running from the corners of his eyes. He brought the bottle in his hand up to his mouth, swayed and then barked “Anofer!”

A different man behind the bar shook his head. “You’ve had enough Tom.”

“You can’t tell me wha’s enough, not wif’ my daughter in the ground and nobody worryin’ ‘bout the killer.”

“You know that’s not true. The police…”

“The police are blind fools!” he yelled. “I told ‘em who it was. I told ‘em it was the Bunny Man! I saw ‘im, axe an’ all, an’ now Janice is dead an’ everyone thinks I’m crazy, or did it, an’... an’...” he broke down sobbing and the man behind the bar took him by the shoulder and escorted him out.

Zoey and I exchanged looks.

“So…” she began.

I shook my head. “No. We are not staying here.”

“C’mon Liam, why not?”

“Because it’s just going to be a waste of our time. Like the dogman was.”

“The dogman was different.”

“How?”

“There’s just… I don’t know. Call it a hunch.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A hunch?”

“Yeah.” She waited for me to respond, then sighed. “Alright, alright, I know it’s not a lot to go on. But we’re already here, and we already budgeted the time and money to stay here for a bit. So why not?”

I thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. “Alright, I suppose we can stay a bit longer than just lunch.”

***

We couldn’t talk to Tom; when we tracked his house down and asked to interview him, a woman I presumed to be his wife cussed us out then slammed the door in our face. But after asking some of the locals, we learned that Janice was in high school, and, well… you know how high schoolers are.

I’m going to skip most of the interviews, because they simply weren’t very helpful. Too few of the details were corroborated, and too many people spent time talking about irrelevant issues and potential theories. The more kids we talked to, the more obvious it was that we were hearing rumors and not facts.

We did hear some things repeated often enough to seem true. Janice’s body was found out in the woods. The murder weapon was an axe. Janice’s father, Tom, had gone looking for her after she hadn’t come home for several hours after school, and it was him who found the body. He also saw a figure nearby, a tall, bearded man in a bunny suit, standing a ways away with a bloody axe, who disappeared when he looked away for a split second.

And everyone knew who that was: the bunny man.

Which is where things disintegrated into speculation again. The bunny man was a lunatic, he was a prisoner, he was a ghost and he was a hobo who lived out in the woods. It was the typical contradictions you would find among any local legend. Even more problematic, there were some people who thought the bunny man wasn’t real, or at least, Tom’s story wasn’t, and there was a more sinister motive behind it.

There was also a smattering of stuff online. Apparently, there was a weirdo who had threatened some people with an axe while wearing a bunny suit, but that was about it. The main version of the legend, that he escaped an insane asylum into the woods and was never caught, had been thoroughly disproven by a local historian. Beyond that, there was only hear-say.

“Well,” I said as the high-schooler who had been eager to share in his theory that Janice’s former boyfriend was somehow involved scurried off to parts unknown, “that was a bust.”

She frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s nothing here. Just a children’s campfire tale and an unfortunate dead girl stuck to it.” I started to pack up the camera we had been using back into its carrying case.

“And that means what, exactly? That Tom just made up the story about the axe man in a bunny suit? There’s a lot saner ways to deflect guilt.”

“Well I never said he was sane.”

I started to lift the bag off the ground, but Zoey grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at her.

“Can’t we stay here for a bit longer?” she pleaded. “Please, Liam?”

I sighed. “You still have a hunch, don’t you?”

“...yeah.”

“Alright, but just until tomorrow morning. Once nothing happens, we pack up and leave.”

***

When we made it back to where the R.V. was still parked, there was a small crowd of people gathered at one end of Main Street, blocking the road, backs turned to us to stare at whatever it was that held their attention. Zoey and I traded glances at each other, then moved to join them.

“Alright everyone, I’m going to need you to back up a bit” a man in a brown sherrif’s uniform said, waving his arms in front of the crowd.

“It’s Tom, isn’t it?” someone called.

“Now we don’t know that” the sheriff replied. The unknown voices continued to gossip.

“Well, it’s either him or the bunny man.”

“You can’t believe that nonsense, can you?”

“Well just look at it!”

We were close enough to see now. There, in the middle of the road, was a body. At least, I assume it was a body. By the time we got there, it was covered in a white sheet, edges and corners turning red from soaking in blood.

That was hardly the most interesting part, though.

Surrounding the body on the far side were several stakes in the ground, no higher than three feet in the air. Pinned to them, like some bizarre diorama of Roman crucifixion, were rabbits, nailed into the wood stomach up so that their paws were outstretched in a position of defensive fear. The wounds from these nails all leaked blood into the dirt.

“Look!” the sheriff shouted, face visibly turning red, “you’ve all had a nice oogle. Now I need you to scurry off so we can wall off this scene!”

Begrudgingly, the people left in twos and threes. A breeze passed by and Zoey shivered again.

“Creepy, huh?” I asked as we meandered to one side of the street.

“It’s not that,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just so damn cold.”

I moved my hand through the air. It didn’t feel too bad; it certainly wasn’t warm, but it was by no means cold. “It feels fine to me.”

“Really? You can’t feel that?”

I shrugged.

“Anyway, that’s not important” she declared with a wave of her hand. “What is important is that there’s something here.”

“Yeah, I can’t argue with you there.” I scratched my head. “But why now? I mean, the bunny man urban legend has been around for decades but this seems to be the first time it’s gotten a verified body count.”

She smirked. “Well, that’s our job, right? Finding out. Question is, where do we start?”

“Well, there was that bridge…” I remarked.

***

Bunny man bridge was… anticlimactic, all things considered. The supposed hot-spot for the maybe maybe-not ghost of the serial killer was little more than a short white brick tunnel than ran under a railroad. It wasn’t even long enough to get properly dark in there. Supposedly he had hung himself here, but I didn’t see how because there was nothing nearby to hang a rope to. But with the whole rabbit-pole thing, I supposed all bets were off.

Originally, we were going to stake the location out in our car, but after only a half hour there, the same sheriff from before rode up and told us that we couldn’t park our car in the middle of a roadway, so we were forced to park it about three miles away at a general store and walk back. He also told us that we couldn’t hang around the bridge, but we ignored that part.

We stayed as the sun went down and continued to stay as the night dragged on. Once the sun had disappeared, the trees lengthened into long shadows, tall and slender entities whose silhouettes hid the inside of the forest from us. What we could see was what was illuminated by the moon and stars, as well as the occasional house light from deep in the woods, shining like will-o-wisps; a floor of leaves, small ridges and hills, and the dark shapes of man-made signs and fences were all painted in a sheen of gray that is night light.

As ten dragged to eleven and eleven to midnight, the air got oppressively cold. My breath was visible and I was shivering now. I turned to Zoey and cleared my throat. “Ready to…”

“Shh!” She grabbed ahold of my shirt and dragged me into a shadow under the bridge. Her camera was pointed into the woods, so I followed its end and pointed mine at the same spot.

There, in the dim light, was a figure. Tall, how so was impossible to tell, but it was obvious even from this distance. The darkness blocked most of his features, but there was no hiding the most obvious one: the dirty pale purple of a full-body suit with two ragged rabbit ears at the top of it.

Its route took him closer to us and we both stopped breathing, stopped moving as he passed. Now we could see a dark black beard pouring out of the mouth area, dark eyes where the suit was cut out to allow for vision, and a large dull and chipped red axe hanging from his side. His footsteps were shuffling plods that kicked up the leaves. His other hand was dragging something large and brown and with relief I realized it was a deer carcass. Its eyes were stuck in glassy panic and its throat was slit so deep that the dragging almost threatened to tear the head off. He didn’t so much as look at us as he moved deeper into the woods.

Without a word, we followed behind.

It was nerve-wracking. There’s no way to move silently in a forest and every leaf crunch and twig snap sounded like the boom of a cannon. Most of them he ignored but when the noise was particularly loud, he’d stop and look up. We’d have to duck behind a tree or rock and wait until we heard those plodding shuffles again, then quietly resume trailing him. It continued in this way for what must have been hours, but with every moment spent hiding, he got just a bit farther ahead until he crested over a ridge quite a ways away. When we caught up, he was gone.

After waiting five minutes to confirm he was no longer near, Zoey whispered “I think we lost him.”

I nodded. “Time to head back, then.” I turned around and stopped. “Um, where exactly is back?”

She squinted into the night. “I can’t tell, none of this looks familiar to me.”

“Same here.”

She cursed. “Alright, follow me.” Zoey climbed down the ridge and started walking in the direction we came. I walked behind her.

Suddenly, Zoey tensed up and held her hand up to me to stop.

“What?” I asked.

“Movement, up ahead.” She pointed to some trees.

“Maybe it was just a deer?” I couldn’t even convince myself with that tone of voice.

She twirled and stared at a spot behind me. “It’s… circling.”

I swallowed and moved with her, back to back to cover blind spots.

“Do you hear that?” she murmured to me.

“Hear what?” I replied.

“Silence. The animals have gone quiet.”

There was a sudden explosion of leaves and dirt to my left. I spun to face it. It was the bunny man, and up close, he was even more terrifying. Now I could see the wild and mad look in his eye as he swung the axe, blunt-end first, towards me. I yelped and tried to bring my arm in front of it but it was too late. The metal end hit my head with the force of a truck. My ears rang. I saw stars of white in my vision. I tried to blink them away and backpedal, but my foot caught on a branch and I fell. All sounds morphed into weird echoes, like I put my head in a fishbowl, and there was a tunnel of black crawling around the ends of my eyes. I saw the strange bearded rabbit man bend over and grin at me and I just couldn’t take any more.

My eyes forced their way closed.

***

I felt the sensation of warm air licking my face. I twitched my cheek in response and the motion awakened all of my nerve ends, bridging back all my pains and aches in full force. Groaning, I opened my eyes.

I was still in the woods. Around my hands was a rough and scratchy rope tied to the tree at my back, holding me up in an uncomfortable half-sit. In front of me was the orange glow of a campfire, the source of the warmth. Outside of that was just shadow.

I saw movement to my left and I turned to it. The bunny man. He was walking back, axe hanging from one hand, pieces of wood in the other. He threw one into the flames and sat across the fire from me. As he did, he picked up a small object, my camcorder, I realized, and opened it up.

“What is this?” he asked, pointing it at me.

“I-i-it’s a camera."

He stared at me with a total lack of recognition for the words."

"It records things," I clarified.

He pressed a few buttons. I saw the little red recording light come on just as he grunted and threw it away into a pile of leaves, taking a seat across from me at the fire and staring at me.

I did the same. Now, in proper light and with no distractions, I could see the smaller details. He was a white guy, hard to tell in the full-body rabbit suit. The only places his skin showed through were in the various rips and tears in the suit that lived alongside stains of all different colors, as well as his hands, which were large and gnarled. His beard was scraggly and unkempt; chunks of dirt resided in it. And the smell… it was the scent of an outdoor outhouse, only worse.

I got my feet from under me and stood, slipping one or two times from the fatigue as I did so. He watched this awkward display while remaining immobile, following me only with his eyes.

“Wh..who are you?” I asked.

“I’m surprised at you. Can’t you tell?” His voice was deep and rough. It reminded me of the sound of tires on gravel.

“You… you look like the bunny man…”

“There you go then.” He rose and lifted the axe up.

My heart leapt into my chest. “Wait wait! Y-you didn’t answer my question!”

He stopped, towering over me and staring down at my crouched form. He didn’t say anything.

“I mean...” I licked my lips, “you act like you’re him, but the legend looks fake. Mismatched details, and things. A-and this is the first time there’s ever been bodies. So are you him or are you pretending?”

He continued to stare.

“You know,” he said at last, “I wish more of your kind just stopped to think, like you just did. You really have gotten dumber over the years.”

“So you’re not then?” I wanted to keep him talking, mostly to buy time until I could think of a way to escape… but part of me was truly curious.

He turned to his axe, then to me. After making what looked like a shrug, he sat the axe down near the tree and turned away from me. “No, I wasn’t. This flimsy… shell is a matter of necessity. I used to be great, a god, even. Leshy, man of the forest. They worshiped me. They feared and loved me all at the same time. Some even gave their lives in my name with a smile on their face.”

“So what happened?” I twisted my hands around the ropes, looking for weak points.

“The god of light.” He spat on the ground and turned back to me, making me stop my escape attempt. “He and his ilk entered my land, turned my people away from their own religion. There was not enough to sustain my form. I had to hop from one shell to the next, trying to find enough to sustain me.”

“Enough what? Faith?”

He nodded, dark eyes twinkling in the fire light.

“That… that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe not to you.” He jabbed his finger hard into my chest and his tone turned angry. “You were made with a spirit, a life force, so much so that you feel free to waste it on whatever grabs your attention. I am only soul, a personality alone, forced to feed on your scraps like some kind of dog.”

I winced. The area he poked me at was sore; I was sure it was bruised. “So... you’re taking the faith people use on this urban legend? And stirring up more with the murders?”

He nodded once again and grabbed the axe at his feet, beginning to raise it. “It’s a shame I have to kill you. You possess a rare intelligence.”

“Wait! Wait, just please one second, I can help you!”

He lowered the axe to his feet and waited.

I gestured to the camera on the ground with my head. “I m-make stories. I-if you let me go, I can tell people about you. Show you to the world. Get people to believe in you.”

He shook his head and chuckled. Then he laughed, loud and hard. “So that’s your game. You had me going for quite a bit with the clueless act. Very well done. But I won’t let you bind me to a form, not so close to the time of ascension. Though,” he said as he raised the axe above his head, “thank you for removing my guilt for this act, you piece of warlock scum.”

“No, please, I-I-I didn’t…”

A sudden flare of orange filled the forest as a towering pillar of flame suddenly erupted deep into the forest. The bunny man turned around to watch it rise, then glared at me. “Friends of yours? No matter. I’ll be back for you.” He trekked into the woods in the direction of the fire, leaving me alone in the small camp.

I strained against the ropes at my wrist. No use. They were too tightly tied and too thick. Panicked, I scanned the camp for something, anything to help me out. It wouldn’t be too long before he came back.

“Psst!” Zoey’s voice hissed from behind me. I looked back to see her standing behind my tree.

“Zoey?” I whispered. “Was that you?”

“Yeah. If camping with my family has taught me anything, its how to build an irresponsibly large fire.” She withdrew a pocket knife and sawed through the rope. “C’mon, lets go.”

“Wait.” I ran back over to the camera on the ground, picked it up, and then began to follow her. We did an awkward crouch walk through the trees, trying to move fast and stealthy.

“Did you figure out who the hell that is?” Zoey murmured to me.

“Not who, what.” I gripped the camera tightly as I went. “I think he’s an old pagan god of some kind. Needs faith to live. Nobody believes in him any more, which is why he’s squatting out in the bunny man’s skin. He’s stealing that faith.”

Just as I finished, I heard a roar from behind us. No mere growl, this was a roar you would hear on something primal and ancient, like the battle cry of a T-Rex. Hazarding a glance behind me, I saw his silhouette. Except it couldn’t be. No silhouette could reach that tall like that, and you can’t see shadows in the dark.

Or against the night sky.

There was a tug on my shirt as Zoey grabbed me out of my trance and yanked me onto the road, bunny man bridge directly in front of us. “C’mon!” she yelled. “There’s a safe spot two miles up the road!”

“We’re not going to the car?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“Trust me.”

There was another ear-splitting howl behind us and I nodded.

We took off as fast as our legs could carry us. Neither one of us were in particularly good shape but adrenaline made up for the slack and turned us into Olympic sprinters. Around us, the wind started up, whipping the trees around like a hurricane. The shadow continued to chase us, darkening the forest into a void, swallowing any lights from the houses or ambient light from the sky.

Zoey kept going, past the bridge, past the intersection we had our car parked away from, and further north. I pushed myself to follow, but it was getting harder. My lungs burned. My sides felt like stitching threatening to burst and spill my insides out. My legs were burning too, and the protest they gave was making it hard to keep the rhythm up. Zoey was feeling it as well. At one point, she started to stumble and I had to grab her and stand her upright.

And still the shadow continued to advance. It was no more than five feet away now.

“How much further?” I barely managed to pant.

“There!” She pointed to a building about fifty feet away. “We just need to get to the parking lot.” I could barely make it out in the fading light, but I couldn’t see anything special to it. Certainly no reason to believe it could protect us. But I was far beyond questions at this point.

I gave one last push. This wasn’t adrenaline, this was pure willpower at this point. My body was threatening to break, I could feel it. Just to the parking lot, I told myself. Almost. Just to the parking lot…

I bounded over one last hurdle, a small patch of grass, and I was there. I turned around to see Zoey three feet behind, still struggling to make it. The darkness, practically a pure void now, was right on her heels. Some of it had gathered into a hand and was reaching out to grab her, mere inches away from her head.

I reached out my hand and she grabbed it. I pulled with all my might, toppling us both over onto the pavement just as the hand tried to snatch at her. It instead collided with the empty air in a shower of white sparks. Golden-colored crackles of lightning burst from the spot as the sound of sizzling and the smell of fresh ozone ripped through the air, causing the shadows to rush back and retreat inwards until all that was left of the advancing threat was the bunny man,

“You…” His voice quivered with rage. “This is who aids you?”

I couldn’t say anything. The only thing I could do was lay on the pavement and force air into my aching lungs.

He brought his fists up and pounded on the invisible barrier, causing another shower of sparks and lightning. When he lowered his arms, I could see the smoking burns on them.

“I’ll remember your faces” he vowed. “I’ll remember and I’ll tell the Parthenon, old and new. There will be no mercy for warlocks who ally themselves with the god of light.” He turned his back to us and walked into the forest just as the sky began to brighten into the twilight before dawn.

For the longest time, neither of us did anything. We just sprawled on the pavement, gasping for air, feeling the burn of our unhappy muscles. Once my breathing became more controlled and burning sensation faded into a less intense ache, I looked around at my surroundings.

The building was large and white structure, with a spire reaching into the air. I couldn’t read the blue korean letters written above the doors, but the large cross on the steeple let me know where we were.

“A… church?” I gasped.

“Yeah.” Zoey panted for a minute before continuing. “I remember when my old church did this whole ceremony to turn the ground holy before building a new wing. Did the parking lot too.”

“How did you know it would work?”

“I had a hunch” she replied.

I stared at her. Then I laughed. Zoey joined in too, and we filled the morning air with the sound, celebrating the bizarre victory.

I’ve gotten some flak from trusting Zoey’s hunches and her “spooky sense”, as the fans liked to call it. Most people chalked it up to lazy script writing. But those people never got to see it in action, and I did. And it wouldn’t be the last time it saved our lives.

#creepy_america #horror #weird fiction #short story #seires

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