#anyway. this movie was great. it reminded me of sherlock but if it was directed well and actually let you solve the mystery too

[todayisafridaynight]

whatever og text i had in mind for this post about ko shibasaki looking like sayama in this movie is completely cancelled on account of utsumi (this character)'s first name being kaoru and i only found this out cause i was looking up her name just to be sure when making this post

like jesus christ i legally have to make this post now

[opes-magnas]

『 as lonely as time can get. 』

It’s finally here!! I’m a terribly slow writer, and am really thankful to all those who waited for this! Hopefully you enjoy. Thank you so much to @hamjjy, @kaavijournals and Lady L for beta reading this, you guys are the best!

Listen to this playlist here for the best experience!

tw: cursing, body sensitivity, very subtle idea of anxiety and toxic relationships are portrayed.

~calypso <3

I. the moon can't shine on her own.

She looks serene tonight - high up in the night sky, not a single star to accompany her. Does the moon feel lonely like that? Does she ever need a warm hug? Perhaps she gets one from the sun, and he accompanies her all time. Does the sun shine for her? So that the world can see her beauty? Perhaps so. When she can't see him, she turns bloody red; she seems disturbed. Hurt. Lost. Her fury always frightened the humans. It made them shiver inside their homes, praying to see the familiar ball of light rise from the east to calm her down. Perhaps it is better if they could only see her beauty. But does that mean the sun shines, not to show her beauty, but to protect the humans from her true self? Perhaps so.

The sun and the moon are a pair. And they will continue to be.

As long as the moon can't shine on her own.

Let's stop thinking, Luna.

The moon seems lonely.

I look up at the clock. A red, metallic light tells me its 3:48 am, 3rd April. Great, now I can have four shots of espresso for breakfast. Thank you, oh great mind, for deciding that we needed to have that conversation earlier. I sit up on the bed and rub my eyes. The curtain flutters from the soft wind blowing in through the window. Cicadas fill up the silence as I look at the full moon illuminating my room another time. Oh, how I hate the moon. What a hypocrite. I look away, and my eyes find the pile of open textbooks and spark notes I abandoned. A small smile creeps up my face. At least I'll ace that History test tomorrow. I could imagine the Boba Tea reward from Leo in my hands already. Leo. The annoying kid next door who's been stuck with me since I was five. Don't worry, though. I don't like him. Not anymore. He made it extremely clear that I was 'a size too big' for him. Then why do I still hang out with him? Short answer - I beat him up, he apologized. I shall offer no elaboration. Still, a lump forms in my throat. And maybe because he wasn't completely wrong.

I get up to go grab a glass of water. Mochi is lying in her bed in the hallway. This is the first time she didn't stir awake when I thumped across the room. The poor fluffball of a cat is probably very tired from the bath I forced her into in the evening.

You need to lose a few pounds anyways, Luna. Get rid of those love handles. Maybe some fat on your back too. That'll make people find you more approachable.

It isn't toxic if it's true, right?

That night, I decide that my glass is half-empty rather than full, and go back to bed. Suddenly, Mochi wakes up and runs into my room. She snuggles in and throws her paws on my hair like it's her property. I choose to oblige the demon for today.

The last thing I see before sleep lures me is the clock gleaming '3:59 am'.

/////-----

It's too warm in my blanket. I almost want to peel my skin off. I need to get sleep, I have a test soo- I jolt awake. Mochi is no longer next to me. I assume she's back in the comfort of her bed, considering the temperature in the room. I let out a groan as my hand outstretches to the switchboard. After a few terrible attempts, I finally turn on the ceiling fan. As sleep threatens to take me again, I see that it's still dark out and the moon looks just as annoying as it did earlier, its ever luminant light breaking down the walls of my privacy. My eyes turn to the direction of the clock- 3:48 am, 3rd April. Huh, weird. I realize I must have had one of those five-minute, extra strength-giving, amazing nap- Wait why does the clock say it's 3:48 am?

I grab my phone. The sudden light blinds me for a second, and through squinted eyes I see 3:49 am on the screen. Huh, really weird. Wasn't I awake just now  - err, earlier? Wait what? I realize I make no sense, maybe I just read the time wrong the first time. My brain is repeating the features of the Hammurabi Code, my drowsy eyes are drooping, and I meet slumber once more.

I barely feel Mochi slipping back into my blanket.

/////-----

I wake up in wonder why my alarm hasn't rung yet. The room is still dark, the moon stares at me curiously. Give me some privacy, moon. My eyes turn towards the clock for the third time this night- 3:46 am, 3rd April. Bullshit. I've been asleep for hours now; I won't need those four espresso shots for breakfast anymore. My tongue clicks involuntarily. Is this some sort of a stupid prank? Leo is definitely behind this, I'm going to hunt that dipshit down.

Come to your senses, Luna. The universe cannot prank you. That's impossible. And stupid.

I grab my phone again. An attempt in vain, I realize, when I see the screen displaying the same time. I text Leo.

| loser |

you (3:46 am, 03.04.2021): you awake?  (read) 

loser (3:48 am, 03.04.2021): no

A chill goes down my spine. Did the just relive 3:38 am? I decide to call Leo. Two rings in, I hear a familiar voice, 'I said I wasn't awake.' He sounds tired, voice raspy and strained. You'd think he'd just woken up from the but he's the sort of person who thinks sleep is for the weak. 'Yeah no shit, Sherlock. I'm speaking to your alter ego, Thomas.', I reply.

He decides to ignore my bad retaliation, and saves me from the embarrassment. 'Why is my star pupil awake at 3 in the morning? Has she forgotten about the test she will help me cheat tomorrow?', he asks. Ah, this freeloader. I'm gonna kick his ass. My hands move frantically in the air out of annoyance, 'I am not helping you with anything!', I scream-shout into the phone, afraid I'll wake Mochi up in the hallway. She's a bigger annoyance than Leo; no one in the universe has energy to deal with a grumpy Mochi.

'Honey, you love me.'

'You're being delusional.', I deadpan.

'Is my chubby baby irritated?', he says in a fake cooing voice. And that got me.

'Leo, I did not call you at 3 in the fucking morning for you to put me down.'

The other side of the line immediately goes silent. Silence that reminded me of the last time this happened. Silence between the two of us on a Boba Tea study session in the park after an argument, the only sound being the pages of my sociology textbook being turned, and of the sound of baby birds in a nest nearby. Though I know that Leo meant it as a term of endearment, I couldn't believe he wouldn't ever, well, consider me more than just a friend because of it. A few seconds (sometimes minutes) pass before -

'I'm sorry, Lunie, you know I don't mean it,'

Another apology.

I sigh. I'm tired of this conversation again. I'm tired of having to deal with the same problem again. I'm tired of people putting me down. I'm tired of blaming myself. I'm tired of trying to look pretty. I'm tired of Leo. I'm tired of me. I'm tired of another heartbreak. I know his apology is genuine. I know he doesn't mean it. I know he's just being the Leo he always is. But somehow his words still continue to haunt me. Maybe it's because it's coming from someone who means to me the most, coming from someone who brightens me up, like the sun does to the moon.  Then why am I the only one taking it seriously? Why am I trying to fit into someone else's standards? Why am I so painfully aware of everything but still choosing to be blind?

Why am I not able to love myself even though I want to?

'Luna? You there?', his voice breaks me from my train of thought. Weirdly, he sounds quite scared. 'I didn't realize how much it bothers you, I swear I won-'

Mochi jumps onto the bed and snuggles into my head again, paws in a similar place in my hair. A weird sense of Deja vu washes over me again. And then-

『 pop! the world has reset.』

My eyes opened in fear as a gasp escapes my mouth. I'm sitting on my bed, trying to comprehend what just happened. The curtains flutter with the wind blowing by. The moon stares in curiosity. My phone's on the bedside table. The clock gleams with a bright '3:01 am' displayed on it. And the problem is that I wasn't dreaming, and I wasn't mistaking the time either.

I'm in a time loop.

II. a tub fills with water only to spill it.

I fucking hate whoever wrote Groundhog Day.

Like who decided that? Who decided to say 'Hey, let's make a movie based on time loops!'? 'Let's make a dude live the same day all over again till he gets it right! Let's make him really happy, then really sad!'

Son, I'm this close to pulling an Ides of March on you.

I seem to be looping every hour, more specifically from three in the morning to four. Five hours have passed by, but my clock tells me it's precisely 3:18 am. Great. My dearly detested friend, the moon, is my only companion in this war with time (sorry Mochi). In the five hours that should have gone by, I have accomplished the following:

Two and a half hours of sleep - though I wake up when the clock resets.

Half an hour of revision for that History test I need to write after I get out of this shit.

Thirty minutes of planning a workout, Fifteen minutes of Yoga.

Five minutes of trash talking the moon, Ten minutes of dealing with grumpy Mochi who woke up as I exercised.

Thirty minutes of wondering if Leo's looping with me, and

Half an hour of figuring out what went wrong, and how to make the night perfect.

I don't know how much longer I'll be able to remember anymore. I've tried everything - making notes, scribbling on the wall, writing on myself, engraving things on desk - but none of them seem to make it through when the loop resets. I'm too tired to talk to Leo, knowing very well that he would definitely not believe me. And partly because I'm afraid I'll lose my temper and get hurt again. I'm afraid I'll end up being the insecure bad guy, and he doesn't deserve that. He deserves someone better. Someone who's prettier, kinder and happier. Not telling him for the time being also meant that I'll never find out if he was looping with me. But that probably isn't the case, the universe is cruel for a reason. This is perhaps its punishment for me. I must go through this alone.  No one's ever been by my side anyways.

I'm as lonely as the moon.

/////-----

Another few hours pass. The pop between every reset scares me lesser and lesser. But my desperation to return back to normal is growing. I've been trying to figure out what went wrong for the past hour in the neighbourhood park. The cold air  perfectly paired up with the mint chocolate chip ice cream in my hands. Was it me staying awake this long? Should I have just gone to sleep?  There must have been something I did wrong that hour. My heart wishes to call Leo and confide in him. And the more time goes by, the more my mind wishes to oblige to that crazy request.

I pull out my phone, which gleams a bright '3:58 am'. It's almost time for the reset. In two minutes, I'll be magically transported back to my bed. I sigh. I can't take living the same hour again. The hour grips my sanity like it is a play toy. I waste another countless moment wondering where I went wrong.

『 pop! the world has reset.』

Well, I guess there's no place like home. I wonder if Mochi was worried the previous hour when she didn't find me in the bed. Do cats feel worry for their owners? Does Mochi care for me? What kind of a disgusting ship is this? Cringe, cringe, cringe. Shut up, Luna. I bury my nonsensical idea of my cat showing me love for once in the deep pits of my mind, and pretend I never thought of such blasphemy. I shift under my blankets, and decide to sleep through this hour, foolishly hoping that the reset would never take place if I was never awake, though I woke up when the clock reset each time earlier. My eyes look at the clock - 3:05 am.

That's when doorbell suddenly rang. I launch up in surprise. This didn't happen before. My heart begins to pound extremely hard, my head hazed in confusion. I run towards the door as quickly as possible stirring Mochi awake in the process, and fling it open.

It's Leo. And he's in tears.

His eyes are filled with fear, breath unsteady. Beads of sweat line his neck as he tries to get words out. Leo grips my hands tightly, as though he wants me to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay. This hasn't happened in a very long time. He's gotten a much better hold on his anxiety in the past few years. I pull him into a hug and mutter words of comfort. His head is leaning on mine, and his breath slows. I tell him we'd be alright, and hum a calming tune. And we stay like that for the next five minutes.  

'Luna,', Leo whispers into the night. 'Would you believe me if I told you something crazy?'

'Like what?'

'Like a war against the clock.'

And that's when I knew. Tears start brimming in my eyes as I give out a sigh of relief. 'Like a time loop?', I say as I hug Leo a little tighter. This time I needed one to remind me I wasn't alone. He seems to catch on as well, a sob escapes from him as he melts in. We stay in each other's arms, in each other's comfort - a place where walls were deaf to all the shared secrets, a sanctuary with no limits.

Oh, what I'd do to protect it.

Leo pulls away, his eyes disappear and his lips form into a sheepish grin. His face is puffy from all the crying, but it glows in the soft moonlight. My eyes widen in surprise as he grabs my hand and drags me out the door. I manage to see the clock on the kitchen counter gleaming with a bright '3:15 am.' before blood rushed to my face upon meeting the cold air.

'Where are we going? Are yo- ah it's fucking cold out here!', I complain.

'Ice Cream.' Classic hungry Leo. This boy is a demon.

iii. the twilight hour.

'What's wrong with you?!', I huff as I bend down to catch my breath and hide myself under a tree. Leo, on the other hand, is breathing quite easy, a stupid grin plastered on his face (oh, how I want to punch him). His hands hold up a bag with three tubs of mint chocolate Ice Cream like they're the greatest creation of God. 'Did you really have to steal Ice Cream?! Are you five?', I say as I recall the incident that just took place, how Leo basically ran out the convenience store with the sweet goodies without paying and left me, his dear, penniless (and only) friend as the bait to a potential flat-earther of a cashier (long story, don't ask).

And now we're here, the park I was in the previous hour. There's not a single soul around. The only companion being the moon once again. His smile shines through like the sun, however.

'I'm rweally sowwy, delulu,', he retorts.

'My name is Luna, and no one can ever be as delusional as you, you dill hole.', I say, my ears red.

'Good now, I shalt promoteth thee to 'Deluna'. Thee has't been felicitat'd.'

I click my lips in annoyance. I know quite well that when the clock resets, all the stolen Ice Cream would be back in the freezer. But I try my best to maintain a straight face to show my discontent. That's right Luna, assert your fucking dominance. I notice that his hazel eyes shining with the mischief I'm used to once again. He's back to the loud, obnoxious and teasing Leo he's always been. Leo who's carefree, Leo who's horribly reckless, Leo who finds happiness in uncertainty. My Leo. My lips slowly curl into a smile, and I give in. He's happy, and that makes me happy too. Leo suddenly pulls out his phone.

'Look here, Partner in time.', he says cheekily.  I hear a click. My brows wring into discomfort and confusion.

'What? You look pretty in the moonlight.', he states without skipping a beat. There's a million tugs in my stomach, and blood rushes to my bronze skin. Butterflies soon turn into more sinister as I remember our conversation on the phone earlier. My face falls, if only this boy knew what he puts me through. First I'm not good enough, and now I'm pretty? Does he really throw around stuff like that without giving it a second thought? Does he not realize all that he's putting me through?

This is pointless. My feelings for him are pointless. The amount of time I waste on this is pointless. 'Our friendship is pointless.', I say. Regret follows immediately. Leo's face turns grim too; an unreadable expression plastered on his face. I suddenly remember something I jotted down my sociology textbook.

words left unspoken, my hearts screams, my head's in pain, we are in conflict.

Tears well up in my eyes again. This is a conflict, the most peaceful one at that. Terrifying. One that makes you curl into a ball and wish you never existed. One fueled by guilt, by insecurity, by ignorance. I remember the rest of the poem.

one of us was meant to get hurt, almost as though the heavens proclaimed it, on the day of creation. the celestial sky cried tears of gold, for it knew fate was cruel, but humans are crueler.

My hands are getting colder. My breath is hitching as my sobs get louder. Leo rushes towards me and tries to pull me into another hug. As much as I try to resist, he pulls me into his embrace. Fear devours my heart as I realize how I didn't feel at home anymore. I knew this sanctuary was going to break sooner or later. My heart is sick. It pains far too much as it beats in his embrace. Will it stop if I pull away? I try.

It does.

'Luna, what's wrong?!', Leo asks, truly afraid of what was happening.

'Us, Leo. Us.', I reply, voice barely a notch away from a whisper.

'What's wrong with us? We're Leo and Luna! You're the other half of thi-'

'Stop. Please.', I say firmly. My head feels too heavy, my heart too light. The moon shines down on me in its disgusting glory. I can't take it anymore. 'You're the reason I hate the moon, Leo. Because you are the sun. You only shine on me to mock me. To make me feel inferior.'  

'What're you talking abou-'

My tongue clicks loudly. 'You're so hypocritical!  You're an asshole who makes me feel like I'm the only one in the world, before throwing me out yourself. You make me feel insecure, Leo. I don't feel like I'm myself with you anymore.', I say, vitriol burning my throat. 'You disregard what I feel for you, because I'm the moon. You outcast me, because I'm the moon. You tie me down.

'You remind me of why I'll never shine on my own.'

I look at Leo. His hazel eyes turned dark, head down in shock. There's not a single drop of water in his eyes. He stands under the moonlight in silence. I can hear my heart palpitating.

'Why do you think the Sun shines, Luna?', he whispers. 'Is it to light the day, or to light the night?', he asks, a little louder this time. I open my mouth to answer.

'It's to light the night, Luna.', he interrupts. He knew I'd say neither. The sun shines for himself. He is selfish.

'The sun sheds it's light, because if it didn't, the moon would never-'

'That's exactly the prob-'

'get to see the world.' I stop midway in confusion. What is he saying?

'The sun shines because he wants the moon to see the world, Luna. He shines because if he didn't, the moon would be lonely. He makes sure to shed the perfect amount of light on her, so that she guides the traveler without scalding them, without making them blind.

'If he never shone, he'd have never have found his other half. The sun would have been just as lonely as the moon would have, Luna. The sun and moon are a pair, not because the moon can't shine on her own, but because they are lonely without each other.', Leo says.

And epiphany struck down like lightning. Leo needs me as much as I need him. He'd be just as lonely as I'd been without him. The moon's identity without the sun hadn't ever been her own. It was due to the sun's light she was herself. The sun made her the moon, and the moon made him the sun. They were inseparable, as destiny willed them to be, for they needed each other. For the sun to shine the brightest, and the moon to give comfort. But all that didn't answer why-

'Why did you say I wasn't enough for you?', I say, reminiscing that day in the park.   I remember picking out a bouquet of purple lilacs after studying a book about plant symbolism in the library. I spent hours trying to make myself look pretty. I spent a lot of time trying to make up my mind. And everything came crashing down.

'Because you deserve more!', Leo says in defeat, fingers brushing into his hair. 'Do you know how much of a loser I am? You deserve a hunk-a-ilicous person, are you really going to settle for a noodle?!', Leo says, gesturing to his lean figure. As sarcastic as his response seemed, he meant every word of what he said. That's just how Leo is.

'Leo, that's exactly how I've been feeling this whole time.' I pull Leo into a hug.  

Leo is no different than I've been my whole life. He's just as insecure and broken as I am, as I've always been. All my life, I'd seen him as a completely different person. We have different hobbies, we have different personalities. But we're still similar in ways that make us, well, us. It's just that our sanctuary needed to break to have it's walls built back stronger. I feel at home again.

'You're more of a sausage though. Alri-ALRIGHT lemme clear up, you're MY sausage okay? The best one in fact, I will use you in all my dishes.', Leo says as I pull out of his embrace and find a stone on the road to attack the disrespectful brat. Leo runs away and makes his way behind the usual Banyan tree at the edge of the park. 'That's literally the worst nickname ever!', I yell as I chase him.

'Mine own dearest sausage I begeth thee to reconsid'r!'

'TRY ME BITCH.'

'Hey, hey wait.', Leo holds down my hands and blocks my attack, and I'm left with no weapon except for the daggers in my eyes I choose to use against him. 'So, what are we now?', he asks.

'We're still Leo and Luna, dumb head.', I say after giving it a thought. Leo opens his mouth to refute, but soon decides against it. I assume he's content with the answer. We were friends, nothing could ever break that. Would we ever be something more? Who knows, maybe we would in the future when we love ourselves a little more, when we're comfortable with who we are, rather than who we're with.

Until then, we are Leo and Luna.

///////------

My eyes flutter open. I am leaning on the trunk of the Banyan tree next to Leo. I find myself in sleepy laughter as I look at his head lodged in between the roots of the tree. And suddenly, I see light in the distance. I immediately wake up from my position near the tree and walk to the edge of its canopy, heart beating in my stomach and look at the sky outside. The dark navy night melts into a light lilac, small streaks of tangerine bordering the the horizon. The birds are beginning to chirp in the trees, though the street lights are still on.

The time loop has stopped.

Meanwhile, Leo had stirred awake. He runs with his eyebrows up in surprise and squeezes the life out of me before his eyes turned dark in fear.

'WE HAVE SCHOOL.', he exclaims. I ignore him, and choose to stare into the sky. I look at the twilight hour. The sun and the moon were side by side, in harmony, like Leo told me. Tears escape my eyes in a sense of accomplishment. I could rest now. I give myself a small hug, and tell myself I'd worked hard. ('LUNA DO YOU REMEMBER THE HAMMURABI CODE.' 'That is not important right now!') The sun rises up, and salvages the few moments he has with the moon. I turn my head to the side and see that the moon looks serene, her light glow slowly fading as she decides to rest too.

But above all, I see that the moon is no longer lonely.

a/n: ahhhh yes if you’ve made it this far, i truly truly appreciate you for reading this, it means a lot to me. the past few days have been a little weird for me, and it took more than just motivation for me to get through writing this. again, thank you to all my beta readers, i really treasure all of you! i’d really love to get an ask about the short story, so if you enjoyed, make sure to send me one! i hope everyone’s staying safe! stay tuned with us because we have another surprise coming soon!

alatcg taglist:  @blue-hairbrush, @kaavijournals, @artbyeloquent, @47crayons, @writing-is-a-martial-art

general writing taglist: @shinesundark, @the-writing-avocado, @raenawrites​

@original-writing​

[marvels-writings]

Hi! Would you write a Cap Marvel x Reader in which Carol struggles with her sexual orientation after she meets r/continues running into r and just feels really nervous but is interested in getting to know r, smiles when something reminds her of r, daydreams on occasion, possible stuttering, scared of what others will think but when she's with r that fear just melts away, truly comfortable/feels at home with r. r is supportive, redirects Carol's attention from rude bystanders when together etc

A/N: This is gonna be long, I’m trying to include word counts

Word Count: 1658

Dreams are often confused with reality, especially vivid dreams. Similar to the one Carol was having, she was dreaming she was sitting on the couch, watching a movie with you. You were sitting in Carol’s lap comfortably, but Carol could tell you were getting bored so she poked you and asked you about it. You turned around with a smirk, moving quickly to straddle her before meeting your lips to hers.

It felt real, Carol could feel the fabric of your leggings under her hands, she could feel your lips moving over hers as you pushed her against the back of the couch, it felt too real to be a dream. 

Carol woke up from the dream with a soft smile on her face, convinced it was a reality until she noticed she was only lying down in her bed wearing sweats with sunlight streaming through the windows. After realizing it was a dream, she sat up quickly, moving short hair out of her face in shock. 

She couldn’t have feelings for you, you were her best friend. Carol had just come out as queer a few weeks back, but this was more confusing than anything. You can’t be attracted to your best friend, right?

Carol pushed the thoughts out of her head and got up and went to the kitchen to find you making eggs. You wore a simple tank top and black sweatpants, you turned around and grinned at her, gesturing for her to sit down on one of the barstools in front of the counter. 

“Good morning.” You greeted casually, flipping the egg over to cook it from both sides, walking to the fridge to take some bread out as Carol stared at you dreamily.

“Earth to Stargirl,” You joked, waving your hand in front of her face, effectively snapping her out of her daze. 

“Hi, uh hey,” Carol stuttered, sliding to sit on one of the barstools, fidgeting with her hands on the counter. 

You frowned at how nervous she was but decided not to ask questions, she looked confused enough as it is. You put the bread in the toaster and lowered the temperature on the stove.

“Are you feeling okay?” You asked, leaning back against the counter. 

The blonde looked up at you and nodded before getting up to make coffee. You shrugged and turned around when the toaster was done. After putting the toast on a plate and almost burning your hands in the process, you put the egg on top of it and handed it to Carol who took it with a bit of surprise. 

“Thanks,” Carol smiled, putting the plate in front of one of the seats before resuming to make the coffee.

“So, do you want to get lunch with me today?” You asked, bumping your hips with Carol’s lightly to hog more space, you didn’t expect her to fluster at the simple action. 

“Sure, where, where are you planning to go?” Carol asked hesitantly, getting her coffee from the pot.

Neither of you noticed Tony come into the kitchen after staying in the lab for over a day and steal the breakfast you’d made for Carol. You noticed first.

“Tony! That was for Carol.” You whined, flipping the egg and turning around to see Tony looking like a guilty child, he smirked and quickly ran off before you could take the toast back.

Carol laughed at the interaction, taking the toast out of the toaster and putting the egg you had been making on the toast, taking it instead. You laughed at her, making yourself another plate of eggs while she headed over to the counter to eat. 

“Oh and I was planning that burger place you like that’s nearby since I have training with Natasha and honestly I could use the calories.” You answered, making yourself a scrambled egg after it broke apart when you tried to flip it. 

“What time?” Carol asked you shrugged, taking the last piece of the toast and putting it on your plate, putting the scrambled eggs on top of it after.

“1ish?” You asked, sitting down next to Carol, your knee brushing hers slightly. You saw the action fluster her and you backed off without needing her to say anything.

“Sounds great, wanna watch a movie?” Carol asked, getting up and putting her empty plate in the dishwasher before resting her elbows on the counter, leaning forwards to face you.

“Sounds great Stargirl.” You grinned, wolfing down the eggs and walking over to the couch, flopping down.

The next half an hour or so passed quickly as you argued with Carol on what to watch. You wanted to watch a Star Wars movie, Carol wanted to watch Sherlock. Eventually, you settled on one episode of Sherlock then a Star Wars movie till lunch. Carol grinned smugly while putting on the movie, she hadn’t bothered telling you the episodes were almost an hour long.

Her dream was still in the back of her head whenever you moved to sit closer to her. You eventually ended up laying your head on her shoulder, bored already. Carol blushed as memories from the dream rushed to her. 

“How long is this?” You whined half-way through the episode, Carol laughed and instantly moved the remote out of your reach. 

You pouted, trying to get your way but Carol only laughed harder. Frustrated, you moved to try to get the remote from Carol’s grasp, eventually moving onto her lap to try to get it out of her reach. Carol still held her arm at full length to keep it from you, grip faltering when she realized you were practically straddling her to try and get the remote. 

You took the opportunity and took the remote, grinning down at Carol with the remote in your hand before you noticed the awkward position you were in. Carol was blushing furiously, her hands rested at her sides awkwardly, your eyes widened and you quickly slid off of her, putting Rogue One once you were comfortably settled on the seat next to Carol.

The rest of the movie went by quietly until both of you were starving, you switched off the movie and went to change to go outside as did Carol. Both of you met outside the compound after changing. You wore a fav/color top with ripped black jeans, black Adidas sneakers and a smoke grey denim jacket slung over your shoulder. Carol had worn acid-washed blue jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and her signature brown leather jacket. 

“Let’s go.” You grinned, slipping on your jacket and leading Carol out, noticing how she was hesitant to follow you.

“Is everything okay? You’ve been acting weird recently.” You asked, walking back to where Carol was, she looked up at you nervously and started walking, you followed her. 

“I just, I don’t know,” Carol muttered, you frowned, it wasn’t like her to be this nervous, especially around you. 

“Chances are, I would try me.” You suggested, smiling when Carol chuckled at your attempt at a joke. 

“C’mon, try me.” You repeated, bumping your shoulder with Carol’s lightly as you walked to the burger joint.

“We’re best friends, and I don’t know but I think I feel more for you than just a friend,” Carol confessed, running a hand through her short hair while avoiding eye contact with you.

“And I don’t know what everyone else would think about it because I don’t know how I feel. You’re beautiful and you could date anyone you want to, so I don’t want you to wait for me.”

Carol felt amazing to get it off her chest, the feeling was quickly replaced with anxiety when she turned to you. She expected you to be furious with her, it didn’t make sense for her to be confused and you didn’t want to wait for someone. But she didn’t see any of that, she saw your eyes soft as you looked at her, heart-melting at your smile.

“I’m flattered,” You stated with a grin before continuing, “I don’t mind waiting, you’re my best friend too, and I’d love to be your girlfriend if you’re ready for that.”

Carol had stolen your heart the second she met you, everyone had told you she was straight so you pushed down your feelings. But after she told you this, you had a hope, even if it was only a little, it was more than what you had before.

“Let’s go eat then,” Carol changed the topic, you laughed at how nervous she still was before walking with her to the restaurant. 

When you were about to cross the road, you weren’t paying attention while telling a story to Carol and making animated hand gestures. Carol saw the car heading right to where you were walking and grabbed your hand, pulling you back. Your eyes widened when you saw what she had saved you from, you thanked her but didn’t let go of her hand the entire time, continuing the story anyway. 

A few people stared at both of you holding hands while walking through the streets, you noticed Carol get more nervous and squeezed her hand reassuringly and directed her into the restaurant. Lunch went as it always did, you joked about random things that happened to you, Carol laughed and told some stories of her own, laughing the entire time. 

Carol could barely pay attention to any of the stories or the animated hand gestures while you talked. She was too busy treasuring the feeling of being truly comfortable around someone. Nobody could make her feel like she was at home, she had been through too much for that, but you made it all go away and made her feel normal. 

When she was around you, she felt more like herself, not Captain Marvel or any other names, she was just Carol Danvers. She was home with you, she wanted the feeling for the rest of her life. 

Tag List: @capcarolsdanver, @versdan, @lesbian-girls-wayhaught, @lovebotlarson, @dhengkt, @5aftermidnight, @hstoria, @natasha-danvers, @veryfunnyal, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx , @ophelias-heart  , @never-didbefore , @justarandomhumanhere, @the-most-unicorn-of-them-all , @thatssocamryn , @lesbian-x-blackwidow , @marvelbbyx , @wlw-imaginesss let me know if you’d like to be in any of my tag lists!

A/N: Thoughts? (feel free to drop something in my inbox)

[agentnico]

A Quiet Place Part II (2021) Review

This film series is starting to remind me of The Walking Dead. Unfortunately, that is not a compliment...

Plot: Following the deadly events at home, the Abbott family must now face the terrors of the outside world as they continue their fight for survival in silence. Forced to venture into the unknown, they quickly realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.

In a nutshell this sequel picks off straight after the events of the first film. The first film being a huge surprise that featured an original idea for the horror genre and the overall cinema viewing experience (yeah, try and slurp on your slushies loud now, ya bastards!!) and featuring a great blend of tone and tension with no release where you’re clinging to your seats real TIGHT. John Krasinski directed the hell out of that movie. He directed it FIRMLY and he directed it HARD!!… Sorry, I’ve recently been rewatching The Office (US) (ironically also featuring Mr Krasinski!) and now I’m all about ‘that’s what she said’ jokes. Anyway, naturally the first film was a huge success and garnered enough revenue for a sequel, and then the COVID pandemic hit which postponed this movie to this year and then it came out and I didn’t watch it because look, your geezer here has a busy life, he ain’t got so much time on his hands like he used to, he can’t just swashbuckle and see every cinema release on the planet, so I don’t apologise for this very very late (by numerous months) review of A Quite Place Part DEUX which is French for learn some French!!

A Quiet Place didn’t need a sequel. Yes you can say the first one ended on a cliff-hanger, but it was the kind of cliff-hanger which didn’t necessarily needed to be answered. The result is now we have a sequel which, though still filled with moments of tension and good performances, comes off as unnecessary. There’s a bit more world building however it is limited, and the plot progression is near to none. Following the discovery of how to kill the monsters in the first film, in this one we go ahead and learn... how to kill the monsters from the first film. Give them tinnitus, get a shotgun and George Ezra them in the face!! Rather than grow the story, they went in a circle and rehashed the same story on a slightly bigger scale. Heck, even the introduction of Cillian Murphy’s character is mainly for the purpose of replacing the father figure that died in the previous film. Even has the beard and all! There’s a reason I referred to The Walking Dead at the start of this review. There doesn’t seem to be an end goal. It’s just the same thing over and over again and honestly it drags, This movie isn’t particularly long and yet it feels long. 

I should also talk about the characters. In the first film they all seemed more intelligent. They were aware of what they could and couldn’t do, so they behaved themselves sensibly and carefully. I mean, yeah, it all went to crap at the end, but that was more due to a load of heavy bad luck. In this sequel however all the characters fall into the horror movie trope of making purposeful stupid decisions. Characters now think it is okay to go around and take unneeded risks every now and then. For example, our central family split up early on in the film due to the deaf girl deciding to go on a solo suicide mission which makes me wonder why James Gunn didn’t cast her in The Suicide Squad. And yes, I’m going to keep referencing that movie in my reviews, I loved it, it was great, all hail The Suicide Squad!! So yes, deaf girl does her thing, the mother decides to take a detour and visit her son’s grave because, you know, who cares if monsters are lurking about and then the son decides to become young Sherlock Holmes and go out and about and investigate whilst everyone else is out cause you know, monsters don’t eat kids apparently. Cillian Murphy’s character to be fair seemed like the more logical thinker this time around and I warmed to him quite quickly, and Murphy delivers the emotional baggage of his character well. We also have Djimon Hounsou pop up in a role which literally reflects how stupid characters are in this movie. 

It’s evident that this sequel was rushed and that John Krasinski originally only had a plan for one movie and a very good one in all honesty, and then business meant business meaning they wanted more dollar dollar bills and hence here we are. I don’t want to say that A Quiet Place Part II is terrible. The sound design is still incredible and as I said, there are real decent moments of tension that will tinker with your nerves, but overall I found myself to be disappointed with this one. I hear talk that they may be planning further sequels, and that’s all well and good, but I hope they take more time on them and maybe consider actually moving the story forward.

Overall score: 5/10

[derpcakes]

So we watched (nay, Experienced) the BBC/Netflix Dracula series

Brought to us by everyone’s favourite team, Steve Moff and Mark Gatiss, promising to be an innovative and exciting new vision of the classic novel

Boy it was definitely something!!!

First I will say: obviously Moff is not my favourite TV writer and my fam and I did go into this with a bias. I’m happy to report, though, that it’s going to be one of these shows that haunts me forever, because if it had just been bad I could have said “bleh” and deleted it from my brain. But because parts of this were genuinely cool, interesting, and fun, and parts of it genuinely had potential, all the bits that were bad stand out as so much worse and the whole thing feels as cursed as a 500 year old undead count. 

Things that were enjoyable and well put-together:

Van Helsing has been gender-swapped into a vampire-hunting nun and her cat-and-mouse game with Dracula is rife with belligerent sexual tension. I was ready to hate this, and ready for like, Sherlock and Irene Adler 2.0, but their dynamic was actually pretty fun to watch! Their power balance is kept even throughout most of the show, and Helsing is never struck down because of ~womanly failings~ or infantilised. She’s consistently really clever and, even if there are some cringey one-liners, I found her and Draccy’s playful quest to murder each other one of the most fun parts of the show. It could’ve been better, but it was enjoyable! (I also like how Helsing isn’t Young and Hot, but is a capable older lady, and her actor and Draccy’s even seem about the same age. Amazing)

The second episode is a spooky murder mystery/horror mini-movie on a ship, with a cast full of interesting characters who all had different things going on and different relationship dynamics that were compelling to watch. There’s even an interracial gay couple! And they’re like, written pretty sympathetically and to be layered and flawed in ways that didn’t feel too stereotypical! And they don’t die first!! Wack! I understand the bar is on the ground, but it’s still worth a mention

Some fun with vampire lore: Draccy absorbs knowledge and traits from people he drinks blood from (which is how he learns languages. Get Duolingo, dude, stop eating people), leading to the intriguing suggestion that myths like “vampires will die in sunlight” and “vampires are afraid of holy symbols” have kinda become real to him even if they don’t literally work, because he’s swallowed so many people to whom these superstitions and beliefs were law. I’m sure this isn’t the first time this has been done, but groundbreaking or no it was kinda neat

Things that were not enjoyable and well put-together:

EVERYTHING ELSE

Episode 1: a weird speedrun of most of the original novel, feat. weaponised nuns and a weird fixation on whether or not Jonathan Harker and Draccy boned. They did not. Dracula pops out of the body of a wolf and he’s Whole Ass Naked. Him and Van Helsing have a power play where she stands just on the threshold of a convent and calls him a little bitch, knowing he can’t come and get her. A knife is licked. 

Episode 2: aforementioned cool ship horror story. Definitely the best ep. It really makes me think about hbomb’s critique that Moff is pretty good at doing standalone stories (and pilots), but when things are tied into a bigger narrative things get zonkers. 

Episode 3: Things Get Zonkers!!

Let me just. Okay. I have the most to say about this one because this is where things really got batshit. And yet, also really boring? How does that figure? Anyway:

Dracula emerges from under the sea and finds that 123 years have passed and he’s now the star of a Modern AU. Upon setting foot on British sand he is immediately accosted by what appears to be an anti-vampire task force. There’s a helicopter. It is later explained how they knew to pounce on him at this exact moment, but holy god it was wild to watch the entire British Secret Service descend on this one wet bastard in a suit

The editing shifts aggressively in the direction of Sherlock. Mark Gattis is there playing an amazingly annoying character. There’s a fuckign.... Underground Secret Society devoted to studying vampires and they put Drac in a Designated Glass Prison for Smug Geniuses (also as seen in Sherlock). Van Helsing is dead but her great-great-grand-niece is played by the same actress and. Okay. Van Helsing, vampire hunting nun, possesses her descendent and rises through the ether to roast Drac one last time, and he’s DELIGHTED TO SEE HER AGAIN. 

And she has cancer, right, so her blood is poisonous when Draccy tries to bite her, but in the end, right, the end of the episode, right, the final shots of the show, he comes to a place where he’s willing to die, and she’s already dying, and so he drinks her blood and they die together on a table while cinematic metaphor vision shows them having sex in the middle of the sun

There was a badly CGI-ed vampire baby. Jonathan Harker falls from a tower and a scene later they flash back to this event by reversing the footage of him falling down, meaning we just see him go VWOOP up through the air, bouncing off the wall on the way. Van Helsing says the words “come boy, suckle” when she’s goading Drac into drinking her blood. The show sits in a weird middle ground where the characters talk about sex a lot (”dID yOu HaVe sExUaL iNterCOURSE with COUNT DRACULA?”) and Drac is clearly meant to be super magnetic and sexy but the characterisation and cinematography is not horny at all. People have these sexy-type dreams of their lover of choice when Drac is drinking their blood but even those are very boring and weirdly chaste, except of course for the final one where, if I  can take the chance to remind you, Van Helsing and Dracula have symbolic Mind Palace sex inside the centre of the solar system

I can’t speak too much on its quality as an adaptation since I actually haven’t read the book, but splitting the story so that some characters (the Harkers, Van Helsing) existed in the time the story is set, and some (Lucy, Dr Seward) exist in The Modern AU felt very strange. Was there any reason to set the third episode in modern times, apart from the fact that I guess they wanted to do their Sherlock thing again? Or, perhaps, because they wanted to do their Jekyll thing again?? Oh my god, that’s what the editing reminds me of - the small clips of Jekyll I’ve seen. The zooming. The slow-mo. The emphasis on The Monster Man’s weird goddamn teeth

(Also, I don’t really feel qualified to dig too deep into it, but I will say there felt something a bit uncomfortable about Lucy being black in this version, while also being written to be very promiscuous and vain. idk. Also, since it happened in an ep of Sherlock as well, “weedy white Nice Boy rescues the Very Cool woman of colour he has a tragically unrequited crush on” is now an official Moffattis trope)

Count Moffatula is an experience. Its pacing is buck wild. The speeding through the original plot and the mish-mashing of elements in the Modern AU section feels like another expression of contempt for the source material on Moff’s part. Someone says “reality is overrated” in a show set in the 1890s. Draccy quotes a Beatles song. He also makes quippy allusions to having eaten various famous figures and basically winks at the camera every time. Granted, this wasn’t as obnoxious as I was maybe expecting, but there are still too many lines of dialogue where you think “oh, the writers high-fived each other after they wrote that one, huh”. The fact that Moff has such vitriol against fan fic writers is more and more grating every day because this is so, so clearly a zany-ass fanfic that he happens to be getting paid for. The costumes are nowhere near as nice as they could have been, and Dracula’s cape looks like his mum made it for him for the school play in which he is playing Dracula. 

This show is So Much. Watch it to share in this fever dream. Or don’t, and save approximately 5 hours of your life. God. 5 hours. Who was I before Count Maffatula. Who am I now. Why was his cape so bloody ugly. Why did they bone in the centre of the sun

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Higurashi New 2 | Wandering Witch 2 | Moriarty 1 | Taiso Samurai 1 | Kamisama 1 | Munou na Nana 2 | Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25) | Yashahime 2

I’m trying a seasonal challenge this time...so that means I have to leave some Crunchyroll anime to the side. That’s why I’m putting in the tags now.

Higurashi New 2

Apparently, now this Higurashi is called “Gou”…I dunno what that means in the context of this series, but *Saitama face* OK.

Is this girl…Rika? Or this Hanyuu girl I heard of on ANN? Update: Wait a bit from that point. You’ll get your answer.

Do they ever examine why the girls in Higurashi are what they are? Rika seems to have something supernatural going on, but Rena…is just a psycho girl right now, so it’s hard to care.

LOL, I was wondering where this “nipah” Rika meme came from, but it is present in the dialogue.

I predicted that Gilligan cu-er, transition far too easily…

Why is that kid’s face so tanned (?) in comparison to the rest of him???

How did these girls get up the building so fast??? (LOL?)

Wow, the cicada noise was pretty loud there, so…props to the sound guys for making that sound stifling.

Can we really trust what Mion is saying about Tomitake…?

I thought we were going to see Watanagashi in ep 3, but…okay.

Satoko speaks rather formally. She says kochira de gozaimasuyo! instead of kocchi! or kochiradesuyo!.

Who’s that blonde lady? Someone from Umineko?

The bright colours really help to sell the ominous nature of this ED and anime. I don’t think I understand everything that’s happening in said ED, though…

Gonna pause it here because I heard you need to watch the OG and Rei to understand this, now that the new Higurashi is operating under its “proper” name.

Wandering Witch 2

…Elaina’s a bit full of herself still…

…what the heck was that instrument playing over the titlecard? Bagpipes…?

LOL, it’s the Attack on Titan world!

Did Elaina lose her hat when she fell? That must be a very stable hat indeed.

Ooh, particle effects! However…there’s CGI here, although it’s only kinda noticeable.

Have you never heard of money…?

Wait, witches get discounts???

It seems Saya comes from Japan.

LOL, this is basically Quidditch without a snitch!

I like mushrooms, so I don’t get why people kick up such a fuss about them.

Saya seems to act like this is yuri bait…*sigh*

Saya’s crying like her sister died…c’mon, it’s not that bad!

I’m hitting pause. If this is actually how the series is, then it’s primed for a drop, but I can’t help but keep it on for the spectacular visuals and the fact it’s basically anime Harry Potter.

Taiso Samurai 1

I keep swearing I’ll finish my old simulcasts…but then new ones pop up like daisies…(I guess it’s better than having no anime to finish, right?)

I just realised how pretty Jotaro’s eyes are…! The fact he just sort of splats and then doesn’t get up shows how weary he is, unlike Sakura from Moon Land, who would’ve probably gotten up and never tried doing gymnastics again if he were in the same position.

Just by glancing over the results when I google for this Montreal gold, it seems it was done by a Kouhei Uchimura, but I might be wrong on that front…oh wait, there are 3 golds, so it’s not necessarily just that one…

You can tell this is 2002 because of that flip phone.

Intai Zamurai��it’s constructed the same way as the anime’s title. Two characters and then “samurai”.

BB (Big Bird) on the side there is so goofy, he’s…kind of distracting. <- Note the official website refers to Big Bird as BB, hence my use of it.

I was wondering if Rei was the daughter or the wife…so it’s the former.

Kinugawa Ropeway…it rings a bell, somehow. Maybe the Boueibu crew went there as DVD/BD extras.

…does everyone know that a ryokan is like a mini hotel with a traditional set-up?

*snorts* LOL, Keanu (Reeves, obviously).

That montage was a bit worrying…maybe the CGI took out part of the budget? I was a bit worried when I could tell there was CGI in that one starting segment.

…LOL, wut. Agent Smith (from the Matrix)?

Yamakasi seems to be a parkour thing which has its own movie.

…I’m sort of wondering: was that ninja a woman? If Jotaro gets another wife…I dunno if I’ll like the anime as much. Things could become far too dramatic if he did. Update: You do find out later in this episode.

I think – from lip reading – the ninja used -de gozaimasu. I remember getting it drilled into me that people don’t use that these days, but in the time of ninja and samurai, they did.

…another anime set in Ikebukuro. I knew from the station, but…’bukuro must be a nice place if people are reppin’ it all of a sudden.

Was Tomoyo an actress…?

“Kinugawa, as in the river where ogres get mad?” – See, that’s the pun I made about Boueibu’s Atsushi years ago…

This Takizawa guy’s so expressive, LOL.

Gotta love a man in a suit, yes…

…they keep building up to this retirement, only for him to not retire??? Which is it?! (LOL) That declaration works better in Japanese because the -shimasen goes at the end of the sentence so the weird sentence structure in the English translation actually makes Jotaro look like he really messed up due to nervousness speaking in front of crowds. Update: He just sounds like he stopped in the middle of a sentence in Japanese, which he obviously did.

There’s no time travel for sure, but there are ninjas! Plus dudes in jumpsuits!...plus, of course, gymnastics! It could still work, but I keep swearing there’s something supernatural coming around the corner for this…Also, this “gymnast trying to retire” thing seems to be drawing me in because of my whole current lack of direction in basically everything, much like Rikuo of Sing Yesterday for Me.

Kamisama 1

Hmm…Kamisama ni Natta Hi…it doesn’t say the subject stating this became a god, so the pronoun could be “she” or “you” rather than “I”, which seems to be the current standard for it. Update: It says on the title card “I”, so it should have an I then…I guess(?)

There’s a fish on the logo.

…this girl, I already know her name is Hina. That’s the 2nd Odin this season (the first is in Sigdrifa…or however it’s spelt)…she’s gonna be annoying, isn’t she…?

What’s this about a date…?

There are two Izanamis this season, too. The second is Hifumi from HypMic.

Looks like there was an accident, according to one of the signs.

…This feels exactly like a visual novel. I’m surprised it’s an original.

I was wondering why “Key Ramen” (Kagi Ramen) sounded weird…then it hit me. Key! You motherf**kers!!! *shakes fist* You were hiding right under my nose all along!

Hey, Potato-kun! (I know his name is Youta, but…eh, aside from having a possible girlfriend candidate and being a Nice Guy, he’s still a Potato-kun.) Stop staring in disbelief and do something!

…Why Potato-kun, anyway? Is it because his name means “become god”???

…This Izanami is so emotionless…it’s hard to imagine her cheering, Youta was right on that front.

…that style in Hina’s background…I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it for Sailor Moon Crystal, but I’ve forgotten what the artist’s name is (the one that inspired that artstyle)…

I almost expected Hina to interrupt the confession, like Leo from Taiso Samurai.

I kinda just shrugged near the end of the episode and finished it just to see if the confession would be interrupted, so…big fat drop there. I must not like much Key beyond Angel Beats (and even then, it’s only okay because it’s the relic of a time gone by).

Moriarty 1

I’ve been picking up Sherlock-related things left and right ever since I was a fan of Detective Conan…not Sherlock, Elementary or that Robert Downey Jr. movie, but the stuff Conan Doyle had his hands in. (I’d also like to keep an eye out for that Miyazaki movie, but I don’t know if I can/should go out of my way for it.) Therefore, I was a pretty easy mark for a bishonen Moriarty.

Who’s this “El” guy anyway?

…That OP is basically Black Butler all over again. I admit I went, “Oh, stuff this” for a second when I saw Rasmus Faber’s name on credits – when I went to entire series for him, they always ended badly for me – but I couldn’t stop watching the episode (since I skipped forward to the actual episode due to background noise), so this might be the anime to change everything.

I’ll be real with you – aside from Japan, America and China (the former two of which I’ve gone to and the latter I’ve technically gone to Hong Kong, which I have stronger ties to anyway), I honestly don’t have anywhere on my bucket list. That said, anime (obviously, the London arc from DC was a big factor) and this one movie called What a Girl Wants have been pretty instrumental in making Great Britain…almost make the list of places I want to go to. Key word: almost.

…I want a dub. With accents like Princess Principal.

Also, I forgot Soma Saito was our Moriarty…LOL.

“…for Man of Standing” (sic).

Turn the other cheek, Mr. Tailor.

The eyes really tell you everything about a person in this anime.

Ooh, this has absolutely no holes in its logic. It’s a strong contender!

Yashahime 2

Holy s***, is that Kagome’s brother?(!) He kinda reminds me of Takagi from Detective Conan for some reason…

Come to think of it…writers like Takahashi don’t normally have androgynous leads like Towa, do they?

That was…not the best fight scene, man.

Ooh, naginata. I’ve read a bit about them, but I’ve never really seen one used in an anime before…not to my memory. Not even the naginata in Touken Ranbu (plural) can help with that.

…this Rainbow Pearl business reminds me of Sailor Moon’s…uh, whatever they’re called…Rainbow Crystals, that’s right.

There’s something oddly comfy about predicting the “it won’t be my crying face, it’s yours you’ll get!” line, as bad as that sign may be for predictability on the whole.

I’ve felt in the years leading up to now, the progressive nations are slowly causing the entire gender binary to unravel. The more I think about my own relationship with my concept of gender – I accept gender-neutral third-person pronouns because initially I wanted to be anonymous on the internet, but now I’m just generally fine with it, for instance – the more I can agree and yet also disagree because of the progress the LGBTIQ+ community has made in recent years.

Munou na Nana 2

Ah-hah! People were calling it that the enemies of humanity were actually the superpowered kids and this proves it.

Ah, I think this Shibusawa is Masuda. I was here for him, so here he is.

Nana just says konnichiwa, which is the most basic of Japanese greetings. I don’t think it was phrased as a question, so…why did the subbers go with that?

Nana keeps breaking her chopsticks by leaving a bit at the end.

Lemme guess…Shibusawa’s talent is actually reversing time, not stopping it.

Is…that Shibusawa Nana’s giving flowers to…?

Golden Kamuy 3 1 (25)

If this is episode 25, was this always planned as a split-cour with season 2? I wonder…

Lingonberries! Oh, lingonberries! They’re those berries Ikea puts into their jam, right? (I’ve never tasted a lingonberry, but…yeah. That’s how I know of them.)

The sign says “Hurep Honpo” (backwards, as some older Japanese/Chinese things do), so it really just says “hurep” (since “honpo” = main shop). Update: Hurep actually means “lingonberry” and not the berry wine like I thought it did here, so it says “hurep wine” after all.

Thank goodness for 2D bears! (LOL)

Ratel?...uh, honey badger! That’s what they’re called in English!

…uh, and then it turns out to be a wolverine. I don’t know my Mustelidae, it seems.

There’s nothing like someone throwing a wolverine to know this is Golden Kamuy…(as weird as that sounds.)

…what was that random line about boobs about…? (Maybe it was just said to be random…?)

…ohhhhhhhh. These yellow eyes work much better than the standard red eyes you see in Munou na Nana or Moriarty. They’re so sinister.

Why did it suddenly change to an interview style…? Weren’t we waiting for a fight? Update: Seems the answer is “padding”. Not that I mind, I think it was interesting actually. Do more of that if you can.

[peter-parkers-underoos]

Last Name Beck pt.1

Peter Parker x Beck!reader

ENDGAME SPOILERS!!! SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME SPOILERS!!!

seriously... SPOILERS

also this is only MY interpretation since the movie isn’t even out yet. i did all my research so leave me be!!

Synopsis: You and your father were transported to a separate earth in result of Iron Mans “snap.” Nick Fury explained this all- and he said you would need help from a brilliant man to get back home. What he didn’t explain was that the man who seemingly would be taking over Iron Mans legacy was a boy your age. You know how your father can be and you can see something off with this Peter Parker character- like he’s mentally sore from recent events. What better reason to ward off your father's illusions with the promise of keeping a young Spider-Boy safe?

Warnings: cussing, mentions of endgame, angst (in future chapters >:))

Words: 1601

A/N: HAHAHHAAHHA i hope it’s obvious who the reader's father lol. also pulled that synopsis outta my ass- as always. anyways enjoy. this is only part one.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Your father isn’t who they think he is. He’s not some monster who’s only wish is to be famous. He’s not a bad guy. But he’s also not a good guy. You know, more than anyone, what he’s capable of. What illusions he’s got up his sleeve and just how far he’ll go to get the eyes on him.

That’s why you’re with him now. Not to help him- but to stop him. You don’t know who he’ll hurt on this earth. And the last thing you want is more casualties under his belt. He is your father after all.

You had a great deal of respect for him. You thought of him as ambitious and confident. But you’ve learned he’s more than that- you just can’t tell if what’s under the surface shows that he has a good heart or a speck of something greedy and more dirt ridden.

“This is Mr Beck.” You directed your attention the man you met earlier, Nick Fury. He was talking to a younger boy who was now talking to your father, Quentin Beck. They were giving him the rundown. The whole ‘Iron Mans snap tore a hole in this very delicate metaphysical object that divides our worlds and created a multiverse’ thing. And if your father was lying about this “snap” tearing a hole in the dimension, you weren't aware.

Thinking about whether this was all an illusion painted in a fucked up picture by your father made you shift uncomfortably in your seat. You brought one knee up to place under your chin and hugged your leg for comfort.

The younger boy looked around the room and you followed his gaze. He didn’t seem to want to be here. Something you two had in common. When his eyes landed on you, the tips of your fingers felt a slight electric shock.

“Uh- Hi I’m Peter… Barker- Parker. Beter Parker. Peter- Spider-Man.” You couldn’t help but grin. His uncoordinated and gawky demeanour held a soft spot in your heart. He reminded you… of a dog of some sorts. A puppy. One very nervous cute puppy.

“This is my daughter-” Quentin began.

“Y/N Beck.” You finished. The corners of Peters' mouth curled up into a small smile. His floppy brown hair framed his face well, and his deep-set eyes were relaxed. In a way he made you feel like you were home again. “Spider-Man huh?” You picked up your head and dropped your leg so you could fully stand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to- um- meet you... too.” A few moments of silence went by before he let out a soft ‘oh’ and held his hand out for you to shake. You gladly shook his hand and chuckled while doing so.

“No need to be nervous, kid,” Nick said as you let go of Peters' hand. Fury smacked the inept boys shoulder and walked over beside you. “In a way, she’s just like you.” Parker tilted his head somewhat and squinted. The way his eyes creased made you assume that he doesn’t meet a lot of kids his age who have powers.

“I’m guessing you’ve got superpowers or whatever right?” You asked as you crossed your arms. You grazed your eyes down his chest to see the crimson suit holding a nice spider symbol in between his chest bone. “You turn into a spider or something?” His mouth opened and then shut and he let out a breathy laugh.

“Uh no actually. I mean kinda- No not kinda. I sort of am a spider. Well, it’s hard to explain-” Nick grabbed Peters wrist and pointed it at the ceiling, pressing something on his palm. A thin line of web shot from his wrist and attached itself to the cement above us.

“Holy shit- That isn’t coming out of you is it?” Peter shook off Nicks' hand and twisted his wrist so he could easily grab the string. He smirked and pushed himself off the ground with his feet so that he could flip and land on the ceiling.

“Nope.” He said from his place upside down. You walked forward as he detached himself from the roof and turned right side up just in time to land on his heels.

“Brilliant! It’s like you’ve made yourself some kind of- of synthetic web fluid-”

“With their own corresponding web-shooters.” You reached out for his hand and turned it over so you could inspect the gadget fastened to his suit. “What can you do?” You looked up and felt yourself blush.

“Um, n-nothing too special.”

“Yeah right.” Your father spoke up. “Her mind works over two-thousand percent faster than any normal human beings- which gives her the ability to process battle strategies quicker-”

“Not always about battle strategies, dad.” You let go of Peters' hand and looked to your father.

“Still extremely intelligent.” He combated back.

“But I often get wicked headaches.” You looked to him and then to Nick as he began to speak too.

“I think they’re forgetting to mention the fact that she can manipulate the space-time continuum.” Fury butted in. You looked to Peter who had a shocked look plastered on his face.

“My mind works so fast that the atoms around me make the most sense when aligned in the form of an-… well like an Einstein-Rosen bridge.” You tried to explain.

“I bet she could even open a wormhole with no end to it.” Nick looked to the computers as a small beeping noise occurred.

“It’s hypothetically possible, but as I just said… hypothetical.” Peter licked his bottom lip and nodded. He looked at you like a deer caught in headlights as Nick made his way to the computers where there was another woman working. You didn’t quite catch her name, but she obviously knew what she was doing.

“That’s… so… badass.” Peter quickly wiped his mouth, in case he was drooling, and turned his head straight. “Uh so does your mind thingy make you- like- Sherlock Holmes or something?” You laughed loudly and covered your mouth to try and stop yourself from being too loud.

“You know what? Maybe.” Peter beamed as your laughing fit slowly subsided.

“Looks like we’ve got trouble.” Fury gritted his teeth. “Been here less than a week, Parker, and you’ve managed to get the attention of every goddamn villain in the multiverse.” You walked over to Nick to look at the monitors scattered across the table. Red dots blinked around the city and you sighed. “Good news though.”

“What good news could you possibly have- unless you tell me that I can go back to my hotel and enjoy the rest of my trip.” Peter walked up beside you and crossed his arms. You looked at him and took in his figure. You couldn’t imagine doing this kind of work on your own- you always had your father. You wondered if maybe he had someone like that in his life.

“Well, you got part of that right. The bastard closest to us is right outside your hotel.”

“Shit.” Parker groaned and threw his head down. “Then I better get going.” He uncrossed his arms and turned to leave.

“Wait a minute Spider-Kid- but the good news was that I’m sure if you ask nicely, Beck and his daughter just might help you get rid of these dimension travelling assholes.” Peter fidgeted with his mask in his hands and looked to you and your father.

“You wouldn’t mind would you?” He asked shyly and your father cleared his throat.

“Why not? You need all the help you can get.” You teased and grabbed your armoured gloves from the table.

“Hey-”

“No offence kid but the evil on our world is more complicated than the evil on yours.” Your father patted Peter on the shoulder and walked towards the exit.

“Be careful.” Nick said, directing his attention to the monitor again.

“When am I not careful.” Peter jogged himself over next to your dad.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Nick looked up from his computer and locked eyes with you. “Was I?” You swallowed thickly and glanced at the floor. When you turned you were met with the confused features of Peter.

“I’m just… clumsy.” You joked with a smile and formed your hands into fists. He stared at you- seemingly not believing you. He had every right to. You were this mysterious random girl from a different earth and you both haven’t even worked with one another.

Peter still stared and you bit your lip. He’s suspicious. He should be. So are you.

“Keep staring. I might do a trick.” You quipped. You took your fists and pulled them up in front of you. Peter, once again, turned his head to the side like a curious puppy as you hit the bottom of your right hand with the top of your left. You broke your hands away from each other and spread out your fingers, which made a medium sized searing hole in front of you. The edges of the hole on the ground were sparkly like firecrackers and you made a ‘tik tik’ sound with your tongue and the roof of your mouth.

To make sure you knew where you were going you took one last two-second glance at the monitor.

“See you on the other side, boys.” You lifted your dominant hand next to your face and gave the two boys by the exit a small wave, still continuing to wave and smile as you walked calmly over the edge- descending into the dark depths of the wormhole you had just created.

[elizadoolittlethings]

“He’s not prudish. But seeing your dad naked is a lot for a lad to take.”

RG to The Guardian {x}

Rupert Graves’s eldest son got a nasty shock recently when he went on a school trip to see the 1987 Merchant Ivory adaptation of EM Forster’s gay love story Maurice. “He didn’t know I was in it,” the actor says over a morning cappuccino in a north London brasserie. “He went, ‘Argh! No way!’ and ran out.” He actually fled the cinema? “Yeah. ‘I can’t watch my dad naked on screen in front of all my mates. Can’t do it.’” He might also wish to steer clear of A Room with a View, which his father made with the same team two years earlier — his film debut, in fact — and in which he is seen throwing off his clothes to cavort in the lake and scamper through the undergrowth. “He’s not prudish. But seeing your dad naked is a lot for a lad to take.”

Some people would be positively thrilled at the prospect of a naked Rupert Graves: his devoted fans, the GravesDiggers, for example, or Mark Gatiss, screenwriter and star of Sherlock, in which Graves plays Inspector Lestrade. “I’ve had a crush on Rupert Graves since I was 14,” Gatiss admitted in 2014, then added: “Who hasn’t?” Graves, 56, who is today wearing round-framed glasses and a bedhead of salt-and-pepper hair, keeps his kit on in his new film, Horrible Histories the Movie: Rotten Romans, a big-screen version of the popular CBBC franchise which comes on like Monty Python Jr. He plays a centurion whose unexpected pauses keep wrong-footing his underlings. Thinking he is telling them to attack, they gather up their weapons in preparation, when what he has really said, if they’d only waited, is: “‘We attack!’ … would be the words of a rash man.” There’s nothing here to embarrass any of Graves’s five children, give or take the rap he delivers on horseback (sample line: “I’ve got 99 problems but a bridge ain’t one”).

He shrugs when I ask what the secret is to playing comedy. “I haven’t really done any. It’s stylised reality, isn’t it? Picking out bits and exaggerating them. But it’s got to be true.” Of course, he’s been funny in films before. He was superb as the lodger romantically involved with his landlady and her daughter in Intimate Relations. There was that bit, I remind him, where he wanted to accuse Julie Walters’s character of being a hypocrite but he couldn’t think of the word so he ended up shouting: “You’re a hippo!” He smiles back at me blankly. He doesn’t remember it. And last year he was in Swimming With Men, a kind of underwater Full Monty. “Yeah but I wasn’t playing an insane centurion doing a rap,” he laughs. “OK, I was an insane guy with a nose-clip on doing synchronised swimming, but it’s not quite the same.”

If there has been any pigeonholing, it came at the start of his career, when his performances in those Merchant Ivory films, as well as in two by Charles Sturridge, Where Angels Fear to Tread (Forster again) and A Handful of Dust(Waugh), encouraged misconceptions about his background. His name only sealed the deal. “Do you know what? Genuinely, it helps in this business being called Rupert. I’ve sniffed that attitude in acting: the Oxbridge thing. Making movies isn’t a cheap exercise. You need money and the knock-on from that is the industry is populated by a lot of posh people. It’s very hard to break into if you’re not middle class and privately educated.” Or if you don’t have a name that suggests you are. But if being called Rupert boosted his chances, it was a blight on his early years. “I hated it as a kid. I really wished I was called Pete.” Were there any significant Petes in his life? “Only Peter Purves on Blue Peter. Rupert is a ridiculous name in 1970s Weston-super-Mare. Ridiculous! It’s like being called Basil.”

Graves speaks in short bursts and clipped sentences as though he’s slightly out of breath, but he is at his most fluid when conjuring up the landscape of his youth. “It was one of these strange and dying seaside towns where the package holiday had killed off most of the trade, so the hotels had to lower their prices. It was the end of a line. A decaying, Thatcherite, druggy sort of place with no investment and no hope. I was always being chased by skinheads. It had some peculiar qualities, being by the sea and near Cheddar, some beautiful land. And it was blasted by the weather, which comes up the Bristol Channel and thumps Weston first. As a kid, it was great to hide behind the buildings as waves would smack them. The weather was physical and exciting. It gave the town character.”

At school, he was dreadfully shy and suffered from a stammer, but was also an incorrigible show-off. “I was hyper. My shyness meant I overcompensated, just to get anything out of my mouth at all. I had to summon up so much courage to even speak and then I got carried away because I’d mustered all that energy.” He went to a speech therapist to overcome the stammer and it was she who spotted his acting potential. Turns with the local operatic society followed; he also performed at the end of the pier, miming to songs and delivering Victorian comic monologues. What did he get out of it? “The warmth of the approval.” He found himself an agent from the back of the Stage (“I don’t even think we met”) and took on bits and bobs of TV work while still at school, including his turn as a prefect — his first toff — in the spy series Return of the Saint.

He adored working with James Ivory. “He would say things like, ‘Put your pipe in upside down.’ ��Why?’ ‘Because it’s funny.’ He was right. It was funny. In a Magritte sort of way.” But people started cooling on the costume-drama craze at the end of the 1980s. “There was a backlash. I thought, ‘This is really unfair!’ I didn’t go to any fucking posh schools and I was getting lumped in with that.” The director Alan Parkerfamously derided the Merchant Ivory output as “the Laura Ashley school of film-making.” Graves scoffs. “That was horrible. Really stupid. Forster was actually trying to say something.”

But he was looking for a new direction around that time anyway. “The whole industry thought I was Posh Rupert and I wasn’t. I didn’t know people who lived in Fulham and Chelsea, I didn’t know what they thought or what they ate for breakfast.” He reacted by taking on parts which were worlds away from parasols and linen trousers. The most notable was Open Fire, a 1994 TV film written and directed by Paul Greengrass, in which Graves was ferocious and banshee-like, all nails and hair and heels, as the real-life cross-dressing criminal David Martin. He also played a laddish motorcycle courier reunited with a transgender school pal in Different for Girls. It was theatre that really excited him, though, and still does. “You don’t tend to get typecast in theatre.” He was in Torch Song Trilogy with Anthony Sher, the Broadway run of Patrick Marber’s Closer, Pinter’s The Caretaker with Michael Gambon. When I ask whether there is any screen work that he would like people to catch up with, he says: “I can think of plays.” But they’re gone. “Argh! I know. That’s the beauty of it. And the pain.”

He thinks he could have been a bigger star if he’d worked at that side of things. “I’m just not ambitious in a career-building way. I’m not good at being polite to the right people. I’m not strategically engaged.” He can’t think when he last did something that would count as networking. “People do it. But I never did. I find it a bit grubby. I can see the benefits. I’ve been lucky that I can keep afloat and not be either too hassled on the street or have to do any of the business side of things, which I’m shit at.” Afloat is an understatement: he has excelled in some of Sally Wainwright’s best work (as a dodgy barrister in the first series of Scott & Bailey and as Derek Jacobi’s long-lost son in the third Last Tango in Halifax), and appeared on stage in the acclaimed season of Pinter’s short plays at the start of this year. He will soon be seen as Mr Weston in a starry new film of Jane Austen’s Emma, alongside Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy and Miranda Hart.

Throughout our conversation, he has been charming company while also giving the impression of a runner on the starting blocks, poised to scarper the second he hears the pistol. Once we’ve wrapped up, he rises to his feet quickly and knocks a knife off the table, catching it before it hits the floor. “That’s the thing about getting old,” he says, returning the cutlery to its place. “I’ve become a dropper. I’m always dropping things.” Is he a forgetter yet? “Oh yeah. But I’ve always been a forgetter. Never remember names. Not even in scripts.” And there I was expecting you to recall a line of dialogue from nearly 25 years ago, I say. He laughs and makes a noise I’ve never heard before — “Nyyyyyyr! Nyyyyyyr!” — and then — on your marks, get set — he’s gone.

[intothestarkerverse]

Highway to Hell

The Best Laid Plans of Spider-Men

Summary:

To respect Endgame, I can tell you nothing but that this will take place post-Endgame and deal with my own cathartic way of working through it. For a more detailed and spoilery description, click to read the first chapter.

Read on AO3

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Spoilery Summary ~~~  Consumed by guilt over Tony's death, Peter devises a very ill conceived plan to bring Tony back to life...but he isn't prepared for his plan to work, or for the repercussions that follow.

My fault.

My fault.

My fault.

The words echo. I can’t escape them. When I close my eyes. When I try to sleep. Everywhere I look. Everything I see. Everything I hear. Every color. Every taste. Every smell. Everything reminds me.

My fault.

My fault.

My fault.

He did it for me. That’s what they said afterwords. Did they think it would make me feel better? Probably. They don’t understand, but I don’t expect them to. So many things I never said out loud to anybody. Things I felt. Things I wanted to do. Wanted to say. I should have. Secrets don’t do me any good now. Even rejection is better than never knowing.

You always think you have more time.

I should have stayed on the bus.

But I would have still been snapped. I would have still died. And Tony would have still come home to find me gone and done the same thing he did before. The same stupid, brave, beautiful, terrible, wonderful, awful thing he did.

My heart hurts.

Everything hurts.

Until one day, it stopped hurting because I realized it wasn’t over. Didn’t have to be, anyway.

I woke up from an uneasy sleep filled with the same guilty thoughts…but with a plan. Admittedly, it’s a stupid plan. If Tony was here he would probably do everything he could possibly think of to keep me from doing it. But…he isn’t there. There is no one to stop me, and I’m not gonna stop myself. So…guess it’s now or never, right?

There’s this really old Greek myth about a poet whose wife dies. He goes to hell to get her back, basically. It doesn’t end that well for him…but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad plan. I’m not a poet. I’m a scientist. STEM and the arts. Very different. We tackle problems differently. I’m not going to fall for the things that Orpheus fell for…and I’m going to get Tony back.

As soon as I figure out how you make a deal with the devil…

~ ~ ~

“There’s no such thing as the devil, Peter.”

He’s frustrated with me. I can tell by the tone of his voice and the way Cloaky is fluttering. Doctor Strange is pacing in front of my chair in the Sanctum. The Sanctum was my first stop after breakfast. I’m skipping school. I shouldn’t be, but some things are more important than education.

The doctor didn’t like my plan. I mean, I didn’t really expect him to? I told you, I know it’s a terrible plan. But still, I thought he might understand why I’m doing this and help me anyway. Take pity on the kid who loses everything and everyone he loves. Really, I kind of want to hang onto May’s legs like a toddler because I’m so afraid she’ll go next. Then I really WOULD be alone.

He stops pacing and turns on me.

Boy does he look worried. He scrubs a hand over his goatee. He presses his fingers to his closed eye lids. He sighs and and mutters a curse he doesn’t think I heard. But I did. He’s going to tell me to see a therapist. They always do. As if soft science is the answer to my problems. No offense to Sam, even though he’s kind of a jerk and the only cool thing about him are those wings, but I don’t really think therapy is going to help me at all. Only thing that can help me has cloven feet and horns. Well, assuming the devil looks like Tim Curry in that really old movie Legend. I sure hope not, cause that thing gave me nightmares when I saw it.

Last year.

“Peter…” He squats down in front of the chair, hands braced on the arm rests at my left and right. Pinning me down. Making me listen to him. Maybe halfway resembling a hug?

C’mon, Doc, we’re not there yet.

I can feel something soft brush my fingers in my lap and I look down to see the scarlet cloth of Cloaky petting me reassuringly. Yeah, that’s not a good sign either. “I know what it’s like to lose someone close to you.” No shit Sherlock. Everybody’s lost somebody by the time they get to your age. But did your someone die saving the universe, and did he get himself into that position by trying to save you?

“I lost my sister when I was your age.”

That’s a no. I try really hard not to roll my eyes because that would be insensitive. I mean his sister did die, and that sucks, but hasn’t the doc ever heard of not comparing tragedies. Mine’s bigger anyway, dude.

“She was the person I cared about most in the world, and losing her was terrible. If someone had told me I could make a deal with the devil to get her back, I probably would have…but you can’t do that, Peter. No one can. Those are cautionary tales about making deals with people without understanding the terms. They’re not real. Heaven and hell are not real.”

“H..How do you know?” I hate how whiny my voice sounds. Strained like I’m holding back tears, and I’m totally not…because I can feel the wetness on my cheeks and I 100% know I’m already crying. So there. “Wizards aren’t supposed to be real either, but you’re real and you’re here. You have lots of magic books, right? So…so go look at them and find out what I have to do to get Tony back.”

“You can’t get him back, Peter.”

I stand up abruptly, knocking Doctor Strange backwards and away from me. Only Cloaky keeps him from falling to the floor. As it is, he’s kind of hovering in a weird seated position for a moment before Cloaky helps him to stand again. “You’re going to feel really dumb when I do, Doctor Strange. Really,really dumb.”

“Peter…”

I don’t care what he has to say. I really don’t. I don’t even care if he calls May. I know he doesn’t have her number, but he has Tony’s old number and Pepper definitely does…but I don’t care. I don’t care what any of them say or how stupid this idea may sound to any of them. I’m going to do it.

Trouble is…I don’t know who else to turn to.

Doctor Strange is the only wizard I know. Thor’s not really around. Not that I think he knows the devil either. Since he’s not REALLY a god. There are a few occult stores in Queens. I could go there, look at some books, buy some magic thinga-ma-jigs like they use in the movies, but…I don’t know. If things like that really work, you’d think there’d be a lot more deals with the devil going down, huh?

I end up walking. Hands in my pockets, head down, lost in thought. I need a plan B, but plan A wasn’t even really much of a plan so it’s not looking good.

I don’t know how long I’ve been walking. It’s pretty dark. There aren’t any people around. I think I walked most of the day? I don’t even recognize this part of the city, so that’s probably a bad sign. I’ve gotten really good at navigating the city since I started as Spider-Man, but I guess the city looks different from up there.

There’s a sound behind me, the rhythmic thud of footsteps.

Great.

Someone’s going to try to mug me.

I have web shooters on under my shirt. I can probably even activate that Ironspider suit before the guy gets any closer…but I doubt I even need a suit to stop a mugger.

And then it hits me.

I’ve never felt anything like it.

Spidey Sense always feels uncomfortable. Like static shock after you slid your socks on carpet or like the beginnings of a stress headache or like the burn of a sneeze before you sneeze all wrapped up into one. This time, it’s like all of those things have been multiplied by a hundred. I feel like my head is literally about to explode and everything in me is telling to run as fast and as far as I can away from those footsteps.

But I don’t.

I don’t because I’ve turned around to look in their direction and I’ve seen what’s coming.

Human sized. Not big. But still really fucking scary. Tim Curry in Legend. Bright red. Curved horns. Cloven hooves. His black eyes are staring straight at me and I’m frozen.

My last thought before he closes the last few yards that separate us is that Doctor Strange probably shouldn’t have quit his day job.

[johnnymundano]

Sorority Row (2009)

Directed by Stewart Hendler

Written by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger

Based on The House on Sorority Row by Mark Rosman

Music by Lucian Piane

Country: United States

Language: English

Running Time: 101 minutes

CAST

Briana Evigan as Cassidy Tappan

Leah Pipes as Jessica Pierson

Rumer Willis as Ellie Morris

Jamie Chung as Claire Wen

Margo Harshman as Charlene "Chugs" Bradley

Julian Morris as Andy Richards

Audrina Patridge as Megan Blaire

Caroline D'Amore as Maggie Blaire

Carrie Fisher as Mrs. Crenshaw

Matt O'Leary as Garrett Bradley

Matt Lanter as Kyle Tyson

Maxx Hennard as Mickey

Rick Applegate as Senator Tyson

Ken Bolden as Dr. Rosenburg

Nicole Moore as Joanna

Deja Kreutzberg as Riley

Natalia Dove as Bucky

Debra Gordon as Mrs. Tappan

Sorority Row is a decently entertaining 2009 re-imagining of the 1983 non-classic slasher flick The House on Sorority Row. My suspicion is there must have been some kind of creative drought in Hollywood prior to 2009, as that year also saw the re-imagining of the 1981 non-classic slasher flick My Bloody Valentine, with both following hot on the heels of the 2008 re-imagining of the 1980 non-classic slasher flick Prom Night. Maybe it was just a knock-on effect of the 2007 writers’ strike over digital content compensation; a dearth of original scripts leading to money and talent being chucked at cobwebby, low risk properties. I don’t know, maybe it just affected TV, but it’s always fun to remind people that strikes can work, and you don’t just have to put up with shit. Whatever, in Sorority Row we have an old-school slasher movie reunion.

Sorority Row is fine as a glossy polish job on an old-school slasher flick, maybe a little better than fine, since it is well acted by a capable cast and has some vivid kills. I don’t really set the bar too high for slasher flicks and Sorority Row clears it easily; I laughed, I winced, I rolled my eyes, I did all three at once and scared the cat; job done. Not being American though, Sorority Row works as both an old-school slasher flick and an alternate reality movie. For overseas viewers Sorority Row is set in a strangely clean world where everyone is rich and their children are all gorgeous sociopaths. Someone like Paul Verhoeven could push this stuff into a dark satire, no problem. But, alas, Paul Verhoeven never graced a slasher flick with his presence, so here we get Stewart Hendler. Mr Hendler's main interest in Sorority Row is not social commentary but having his camera sway boozily about like a creepy middle aged guy leering his way through sexy teen parties of unbridled animalistic hedonism. These (very long) party scenes of boorish keg chugging and hot tub rutting to the blaring beat of unmemorable toons, are not really my idea of a good time, basically, but the horrible inhabitants of Sorority Row sure like ‘em.

In fact so much into partying are the girls of the Theta Pi sorority that I’m not sure what any of them are studying; maybe Advanced Bitchery and Post-Modern Vajazzling? Anyway, whatever they were studying (Applied Self-Involvement?) tonight’s the night our eye-catching yet soulless ghouls graduate so it’s pa-art-ay tah-haym! Woop! Woop! That’s the sound of your self-respect throwing up in a rosebush. But (dun-dun-DUNNNN!) tonight might also be the last night of their lives. No, not because they might choke on their own vomit or fall coked-up-face-first through a glass table, but because a maniac wants them dead! Actually I imagine a lot of people want this bunch of plasticised horrors dead, but someone is actually acting on this desire, with a “pimped up” tire iron no less. Can they find out who, before the next class reunion has to be held in an urn?

Sorority Row is an old-school slasher movie so, no, no, they can’t. What happens, because it is an old-school  slasher movie, is most of the high maintenance cast run about purposelessly, squabbling and doing stupid things until they die in inventive ways and the killer basically just reveals themselves because, well,  it’s that time in the old-school slasher movie when the killer reveals themselves. Good luck to anyone who still thinks there are going to be fogeyish things like “clues”. It is possible to  guess the killer in an old-school slasher flick because it’s usually the person the movie can’t stop telling you it isn’t. Even so, it’s still only a guess. When it comes to old-school slasher movies even Sherlock Holmes might as well just fire a harpoon gun at a list of character names.

Luckily, although the who is in doubt, they don’t have to find out why they are being killed since that’s obvious even to this bunch of ambulatory moral vacuums. Sorority Row is a retread of an old-school slasher movie so obviously it all starts with a prank. In the normal world a prank is writing “wanker” on someone’s forehead while they are asleep, or putting cellophane over the hole in the toilet seat. In the old-school slasher movie universe a prank involves giving your mate roofies and having her boyfriend snog her until she brings up fake puke and pretends to pass out. Then you bundle her, your mates and the scared boyfriend into your car that cost more than my house, and drive off pretending to look for a hospital, but instead going to a disused mine out of range of a mobile signal, where you declare your friend dead. This isn’t convoluted or hilariously prank-tastic enough for the unlovely ladies of Theta Pi, so they push it a bit further and it all goes horribly, fatally wrong. When the dust settles the girls are bound by a terrible secret and estranged from one of their number, who is slightly less awful than the others (you are supposed to root for this one). Now the past has come back to kill them and it’s only a matter of time before someone gets a flare gun in the face.

I’m guessing the characters (except Carrie Fisher’s pretty great, pretty funny, House Mother) are so godawful only so that we can get off on their sadistic deaths. This strikes me as being less than healthy. But then the Surgeon General has yet to endorse any old-school slasher flick for its beneficial medicinal properties. Let’s just call it cathartic, that usually works. As nasty as Sorority Row is, luckily for it there is a strong undercurrent of humour; so we can pretend it’s all just good clean fun.  And so like many old-school slasher flicks it is indeed nasty unclean fun; it’s just not very scary. In fact the scariest part is provided by Rumer Willis, who is in it as the mousy one, but it doesn’t occur in the movie; when you look at Sorority Row’s “trivia” section on the streaming service, it tells you Rumer had a poster of her future father-in-law, Ashton Kutcher, on her wall before he married her mum. Ugh! You don’t have to have been to college to think even Freud might throw up at that.

[bizarre-dollhouse]

My Top 10 Favourite Anime (And Why You Should Watch Them)

This is normally something I would put on my main blog, but I wanted to celebrate a follower milestone and also I know this will reach a significantly wider audience on this blog.

Consider this both a list of recommendations and a *get to know me* thing, I guess.

Honourable Mentions:

Bakemonogatari: A really stylized show about a semi vampire helping people with their supernatural afflictions born from emotional issues. The subsequent seasons get a little questionable, but this is definitely a standalone story with great dialogue and visuals. (15 eps)

Shiki: Creepy story about a small town infested with vampires. Really brutal and sick, but it has fascinating themes. The pacing is a bit slow and it has a kind of bad scene towards the end, but the show is 100% worth it. (24 eps)

Cardcaptor Sakura: Because this is mostly aimed at younger viewers, I would only really recommend this show for either magical girl fans, or people who watched the extremely altered dub as a kid. That being said, its a cute, fun show about magic with a likeable cast and surprisingly creative and original ideas, especially towards the latter half. (70 eps)

Jojos Bizarre Adventure 4: Diamond is Unbreakable: Full disclosure, I have not seen the first 3 jojo series, but its not necessary to enjoy this show. This is a super creative and really fun series about superpowered badasses in a strange city fighting each other and trying to solve a murder mystery in the background. Weird, but in the best way. (39 eps)

Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus: This should be higher on the list, but in truth I would recommend the manga way over the show. But, if you want to watch a supernatural horror/comedy without reading a 138+ chapter manga, OR you were a fan of the original Black Butler seasons and want to see something way better, give this a watch. (10 eps)

*drumroll*

10. Trigun

So Trigun takes place is this old west, yet mysterious science fiction-y world where, through a bunch of complicated scenarios, a pacifist is the most wanted criminal known to man. Due to his status as a “natural disaster,” two insurance workers are tasked with reining him in to save their business. It’s an incredibly charming series, and the protagonist is really likeable. It’s extremely creative, funny, and emotional near the end. I do have some problems with the ending because it almost seems like the final conflict just...solves itself, but that’s a nitpick. The first episode is basically a short film, so give that a watch and see how you feel. (26 eps)

9. Paranoia Agent

This was directed by the late and great Satoshi Kon and has his usual themes about the blurring between fiction, dreams, and reality. It’s about a string of mysterious assaults committed by a kid with a baseball bat, and how these assaults seem to solve the problems of the victims. It’s very arthouse and has a twist that makes me ball my eyes out even though it’s not sad it’s just...odd and overwhelming. It drags a bit near the middle, but if you like kind of surreal stuff that’s also just really good, you have to watch this show. (13 eps)

8. Baby Steps

The amazing thing about this show is that its premise is specifically designed to make me hate it. It’s about a nerdy teenager who starts to play a sport for the sole sake of getting fit and having a more well rounded life style, and also he has a crush on this really popular girl. That sounds fucking awful, but the main character is actually really likeable (he reminds me a lot of Deku from BNHA) and I swear to fucking god every time I thought this show was going to do something awful and cliched with its romantic comedy plot, it doesn’t. The beauty and the geek trope is still there, but all of the bullshit that comes with it is omitted in a way I feel was kind of self-aware. The sports aspect is really good too: it’s well paced and there’s lots of tension even though the show as a whole is really upbeat and pleasant. I had a blast watching it, and if you can make it past the fact that is has god awful animation, give it a watch.

7. Higurashi: When They Cry

Yet another great show with absolute garbage animation. Anyways, this show is about a group of teenagers in a small town who are unknowingly trapped in a time loop. In each loop there’s a bunch of new mysteries, as well as some extremely brutal murders and tortures experienced my the main cast. I’ve seen a number of Western shows (Orphan Black, BBC Sherlock, Lost, Supernatural, etc.) fall apart because the writers want a really clever and intricate mystery to play out, but they don’t want to actually put the time into crafting one, so it’s just a bunch of cliffhangers with no answers or pay off. THIS SHOW SUCCEEDS AT WHAT ALL OF THOSE OTHER SHOWS FAIL AT. While not all of the answers are great (the second season isn’t as good) the original author somehow made the world’s most ludicrously complicated mystery story work, with a lot of it relying on the audience to put all of the pieces together even when the characters can’t. Its very clever in doing that: it makes its audience feel smart. It also has themes that don’t really show up in other horror stories, even though they’re incredibly relevant to fear and violence. Great show, go watch it. (50 eps)

6. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Everyone knows about this show, everyone says it’s great, and everyone’s right. If you’ve been living under a rock for ten years: the show is about two brothers who break an alchemy taboo, which destroys their bodies, They’re on the hunt for something to restore them to normal and along the way they meet like 8990354578579 characters with interesting stories. It’s tightly written and really gripping. It’s fun, but also really dramatic and emotional when it needs to be. My only problems with it are that the ending is reaaaallllly convoluted, and there’s a minor plot point earlier on that gets weirdly dropped, but everyone kinda forgets about those things because the show’s so good. Also the brotherly bond makes me cry. (64 eps)

5. FLCL

I honestly don’t even know where to start with this show because it has the unique property of being the only show I have ever seen that I have literally no problems with. Not even nitpicks. There is nothing wrong with this show; it’s perfect. The only reason it’s not number 1 is because some other shows have more ideas or more fleshed out characters. So this arthouse spastic comedy is about a boy who is disappointed with all of the adults in his life, then some chick hits him in the face with a guitar and giant robots from a secret facility start coming out of his head. It’s fucking wild and has like 30 different aesthetics and I love all of them. It’s the best looking show I’ve ever seen and one of the best directed. It feels like someone read a really weird poem and turned it into a 6 episode show. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s cartoony, it’s beautiful, it’s raunchy, it’s poetic, it’s silly, it’s creative, and it’s got strong themes. The wtf visuals, the nonsensical plot, and the amazing soundtrack make an aesthetic experience more than anything. (6 eps)

4. Princess Tutu

I already made a post about this show and why it’s good, which you can check out here, but the gist is it’s a meta fairytale about a duck that turns into a girl to help a storybook prince find his emotions. I used to love stories that were “twists on fairytales” or whatever, but after watching this show I realized that the genre is pretty derivative. This show is so amazing it honestly made me reevaluate an entire genre and come to the conclusion that this is the only member of that genre worth watching. It’s truly creative and well crafted with fantastic characters. (26 eps)

3. Hunter x Hunter (2011)

This show is basically a bunch of creative ideas, unique set pieces, and interesting characters stacked on top of each other in a trench coat disguised as a narrative. It’s about a perky shonen protagonist and a child assassin becoming friends while also trying to become hunters (a position involving vast wealth and adventure). It’s in a modern fantasy setting so literally anything can happen. In one arc they have to play life-or-death dodgeball against robots, and another is an insanely epic tale about the intense evil that people are capable of (feat. a 25 episode climax). I can’t even talk about all of the themes or ideas because there are just too many. Because of it’s wild, sprawling story, it has a lot of ass pulls and retcons, but in the grand scheme of things they don’t really matter. It’s long, but super easy to watch in huge chunks. (148 eps)

2. Neon Genesis Evangelion and The End of Evangelion

The most efficient way to describe this show is to say that it’s the most interesting show ever made. It’s about an apocalyptic future in which emotionally disturbed teenagers must pilot giant bio-machines to fight monsters which are referred to as angels. It’s got deep characters, a creative story, and is probably the most well directed show I’ve ever seen. The ending infamously fell apart due to production problems, so there’s a movie called The End of Evangelion to conclude the story. It’s a very disturbing arthouse movie, so watch out for that, but the show as a whole is moooosssstly more straightforward and fascinating, This is an absolute must watch. (26 eps and 1 movie)

1. Baccano!

Baccano! takes place in 1930s New York, and is about thieves, gangsters, criminals, terrorists, alchemists, and immortals interacting in this nonlinear comedy/action thrill ride. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster while watching this show. It’s the perfect blend of action, comedy, romance, drama, horror, and creative storytelling. It’s fantastic to rewatch since the first episodes barely make any sense without context (but are still an absolute joy to watch). It’s got great characters and it’s a great story. Go watch it. And then watch it again. (13 eps and 3 OVAs)

That’s it for this list! Check out my MAL page for more recommendations if you’re interested and have a great night! 

[scary-pixie]

THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI: A Non-Review

Friday Night, June the 1st, 2018: Viewing of the Feature Film

I sat down to watch this movie with a great sadness in my heart, as minutes earlier I had discovered that I was all out of extra-buttery popcorn. Only the butterless diet flavor remained to satisfy my appetite, the first two bags of which I burnt quite thoroughly. Alas! I watched the Special Edition DVD with a gold banner across the top, and was dismayed to discover that it did not feature English subtitles. This was a problem, as I generally would not even be able to hear seven wildebeests farting aggressively over the sound of the fan and my popcorn chewing. I often had to stop to rewind and replay some of the scenes where the characters spoke in a quieter tone.

AND NOW, AN ANNOUNCEMENT. It was at this point in my original written document that I started a proper review of the first half of the movie (I generally watch movies over two nights). I decided that my review would follow traditional guidelines (ie-making mention of the plot, characters, setting, etc), and be as deep and analytical as I could make it. Unfortunately, I was unhappy with my writing and in a fit of rage I deleted everything. Furthermore, I have a terrible confession to make: when I had my diet popcorn earlier, I melted a chunk of butter onto it, and once I was done eating the popcorn I licked the rest of the butter out from the bottom of the bag. Suffice to say, I felt like elephant shit at night and was unable to sleep. In my sleepless state at 2:38 am I began to think about why I struggle with writing movie reviews. Generally when I watch movies, my brain is turned way, way off. I don’t often spend much time critically analyzing things such as character motivation, potential plotholes, directing, and so on. Rather, my responses are generally along the line of “How did this movie make me feel? How can I relate to the characters? What other media or aspects of my own life did it remind me of?” and most importantly, “Were any of my men in this movie?”. That being said, I do wish to improve my film critiquing skills, so the next morning I decided to message my associate Drew B.S. Reynard aka B.S. Pegasus and invite him on a quest to find a proper text on film criticism at the local book-hole (spoiler: I was unsuccessful). Saturday, the 2nd of June, 2018: An Important Discussion Drew is a far better Analyzer and Critic of Films than I will likely ever be; a nitpicker of Grandmaster rank. We sat down at Sunset Grill to have some BF (breakfast, not “butt…something”) before hitting the book emporium, and our conversation turned to the topic of Buckaroo Banzai.

T (this is me): So was the main character supposed to be half-Japanese?

Drew: Yes, that’s what we’re led to believe.

T: Do you think it’s an issue that he was played by a white actor?

Drew: Not at the time the movie was made.

T: Who would you pick to play Buckaroo Banzai today?

Drew: Well, Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) isn’t Japanese but I think he’d make a strong candidate. I have to think about this more.

T: What about the beautiful man in my facebook profile picture, Bob Morley (The 100)? He’s half Filipino.

Drew: You could go that way. The character should definitely be played by someone of Asian descent, or half-Asian, if there ever was a remake. Though it’s important to analyze films according to the time they were made, otherwise you’ll notice a lot of things that were alright then but are politically incorrect now. Buckaroo Banzai wouldn’t be the easiest film to remake anyway; it’s very much a pulp story along the lines of Doc Savage. The Blue Blaze Irregulars from the movie are another example of a very pulp-like characteristic specific to the time. 

T: I’m confused. What is pulp-specific about the Blue Blaze group?

Drew: Well, a lot of pulp characters had big supporting groups. Doc Savage and The Shadow each had their own team of dudes. Sherlock Holmes, though pre-pulp, is another example.

T: On a similar note, I thought the tone of Buckaroo Banzai reminded me a bit of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…humorous sci-fi, though not nearly as British.

Drew: Yeah, it’s a silly movie, and not meant to be taken seriously. Pulp stories and comics were often directed towards a younger audience. Pacific Rim is good modern example.

My wonderful meal arrives at this point. Enough conversation for a while…it is time for an O.M.E.L.E.T.T.E.  B.R.E.A.K.

And afterwards, continuing on to the topic of the supporting actors….

T: So John Lithgow. I didn’t recognize him at first.

Drew: You don’t recognize John Lithgow? He was in Harry and the Hendersons, Third Rock from the Sun…

T: Oh shit yeah! No I know who he is, just didn’t recognize him in Buckaroo Banzai.

Drew: We also got Vincent Schiavelli, Clancy Brown…

….many names I don’t recognize!

T: And my husband Jeff Goldblum.

Drew: Yes. They were all very young, before they started to hit big. This was before Peter Weller became Robocop. The actor that played Professor Hikita, Robert Ito, he’s another long-time character actor.

T: I don’t think there was nearly enough of Jeff Goldblum in the first half of the movie.

Drew: Did you realize that was him in the operating room?

T: Yup! Will he show up more in the 2nd half?

Drew: Yes, yes he will. His role will increase.

I emit a silent squeeeeeeeee…!

T: Ok. I’m gonna shut up now with the questions and watch the second part tonight.

We get into some sort of discussion about the difficulty of properly critiquing film reviews, causing me to announce:

T: Maybe I should write fiction instead of movie reviews.

Drew smiles, in that particular way he smiles when he’s thinking “Ah Christ. Tina’s gonna start some bullshit again”.

Drew: An effective review shows both sides…who’s gonna like the movie, who’s not. Everything in a movie involves compromise between what the director thinks will sell, and what the audience wants to see.

T: I know you’re a master nitpicker. You never enjoy movies, cause you’re always ripping them apart. How did you learn to analyze movies?

Drew: I didn’t. I picked up this skill listening to George Carlin. I call him my guru: his humor came from analyzing things, breaking them down. Because of him, critical thinking in general bled into every part of my life. He’s not with us anymore, but we really need him. Like Jon Stewart said, the world’s gotta stop taking people from us that we really need.

T: I think I’m going to write erotic fiction.

Drew’s face slowly descends into his open palm.

[myoozi]

I am honestly baffled that anyone thinks the Jungle Movie is good...

Everyone is saying that it stays really true to the series... I watch Hey Arnold every single night of my life on TeenNick, and the Jungle Movie is nothing like it at all. The original series was smart and funny, this movie is just... dumb so far. I haven’t finished it, I’m halfway through because I fell asleep in the middle, so I will update this about what i think of the ending. 

So far, The only decent parts have been Arnold’s dream in the very beginning and the part where they try to build a habitat for monkey man. Whoever is doing Arnold’s voice kind of sucks, but its a kid so whatever I’ll let it slide. Grandpa seems like he’s on sedatives. ARNOLD FED ABNER FUCKING BACON. WHY IS NO ONE ELSE ALARMED BY THIS. I was hoping Abner would get mad-pig disease and become rabid and have to be put down, but it seems like thats not gonna happen. Helga has tits. this freaks me out. Also, Helga’s character is SO GARBAGE. Yeah, she has always been mean, but she’s just a fucking bitch in this movie. She used to be funny and endearing, now she’s just a poorly written cringey tsundere. She’s just.... OOF. All the fucking video tapes... Oof. Also, since when is she so direct that she just straight up tells Arnold that she likes him and shit?? That was supposed to be her deepest secret and now she doesn’t give a fuck she just asks him how he feels about her. Oh, and FUCK all the other kids. They are literally just there because they have to be. You could take them all out of the movie and it would stay the same. But wait! we have to quickly remind everyone of their single personality trait! Curly is craaaazzyyyy lol so fuunnyyy! Rhonda is a prissssss oh no her hairrrr!!! so funny!!!! Harold is a fucking dumbass watch him shit his pants! sooooo fuuunnnyyyy. Sid has Beatle boots! remember that one joke? well its back folks and ooohhhh its so funny. Nadine likes bugs! woooooow! etc etc etc its so useless. Oh and Olga is randomly there. Like why? Mr Simmons looks like absolute hell. I’ve been trying not to shit on the new art style but boy oh boy did they just fuck Mt. Simmons up. He looks like he’s having an allergic reaction. Arnold and Gerald’s relationship seems so stilted. They’re really boring and unnatural with each other. They used to be cool bros, but now they’re like “oh friend I will help you! You are my friend I wish the best for you friend of mine my best friend let us just smile at each other like friends do!” But this doesnt stop Gerald from just saying fuck you to Arnold when he has a “secret” with the evil dude all of a sudden. Gerald and Helga are being bitches to Arnold because he’s more concerned about his parents than them, well no fucking dip sherlock damn have some sympathy you selfish fucks. 

Anyway, I’m not done with it yet but yeah. Thats my rant. Brainy is the best character in the whole movie, which is crazy cause I usually hate his ass. I seriously had high-ass hopes for this movie, but seeing all the clips from teenNick for the past few months got me worried that it could be shit, and lo and behold, its shit. This is my opinion by the way so plz no bully, Hey Arnold is my favorite cartoon of all time. 

Edit: mmkay I finished it. sooooooooo uhhhhh.... wow. I think I’m just gonna pretend that I didn’t see this movie. So, if you told me just the short synopsis of this movie, like about Arnold going to meet the green eyed people and have a jungle adventure to find his parents, I would be like Wow! Great! Awesome! but WOW this execution was fucked. So the second half started off much more entertaining than the first. Meeting the green eyed people and all that shit was cool. The parts with all the other kids and the parents were meeehhhh but just Arnold, Helga, and Gerald going out on their own was pretty good, even though Gerald was 100 percent unnecessary. So all this shit happened blah blah blah it was rushed but the concept was pretty okay, BUT THEN.... as soon as Arnold’s parents wake up.... they say.... HEY ARNOLD. I bashed my fucking head in. it was so.... dumb.... oh my God... Like his parent’s aren’t the least bit phased that they’ve been asleep for 9 years and that their infant son is suddenly grown. Holy hell. This shit was so rushed and awful. Then Arnold and Helga kissed and it was obviously done just to pander, like I knew they would have to do it but when it happened I was so fed up with everything I just groaned. And then they live happily ever after and it feels so.... nothing. Arnold’s parents just don’t fucking care about what just happened. THIS IS A BAD FANFIC I SWEAR. People CRIED at this?? really??? please tell me this did not actually move anyone to tears. If the people who wrote this would have just used their fucking heads they could have found a better way to do EVERYTHING. Did Craig Bartlett really have anything to do with this movie besides concept??? Did he actually write this shit or was it the 4 other random people who did this? 2/10 would never watch again. I don’t care if I’m overreacting I can say whatever I want.... wow.... geez.... this is shit... Right now theres an actual episode of Arnold on and I can’t even enjoy it because I am scarred by that horrible movie. I refuse to accept that movie as cannon. I CANNOT be the only one who thinks it was horrible. Okay, thats all. Wow. Wow. Once again, Hey Arnold is my favorite cartoon of all time. I will just have to wait until this movie just naturally fades from my memory and I can enjoy the series normally again. Rant over

[grumpyandgorgeous]

Today’s the day: it’s Emmy longlist day.

If you have followed me for awhile, you know I always do this; this year I thought I’d link back to my previous write-ups and realized there were eight previous posts for me to link back to. Eight! This is my ninth time doing this. I am just as surprised as you are. Here they all are, if you are interested. And here we go!

We start this year with Voice-Over Performance in animation, and Bojack Horseman breaks in with its first ever nomination, for Kristen Schaal as Sarah Lynn. I would be pleased if she took this--I just like Kristen Schaal--but honestly, this category is an enigma. Some years it seems to be about a celebrity guesting on the Simpsons, sometimes its about a nuanced performance in a long-running animated series, and sometimes it about the breadth instead of the depth by nominating a performance who just does a lot of characters on one show. There's some of all of that this year (if we're counting Kevin Kline's nomination for Bob's Burgers, which we so are). I don't know who will win this.

Likewise, I am not sure of what to root for in Animated Program, as the episode of Archer is just the premiere (which is fine, but not great) and the Bob's Burgers and Simpsons episodes are pretty week. Kind of nice to see Elena of Avalor get a nomination though, right?

I tend to not focus heavily on the casting categories when I haven't seen a majority of the nominees, but the Casting for Limited Series has to go to Big Little Lies, right? Even the children are excellent, just amazing. I'll be offended if this doesn't win. I understand how Fargo could win it... but it shouldn't.

A nice surprise in Choreography--Mandy Moore (not that Mandy Moore) gets nominated twice, but once for Dancing With the Stars, and once for So You Think You Can Dance. I don't think I've seen that before!

Heading back to Big Little Lies, I don't know how much of a chance it has in a lot of the technical categories, but I would be pleased if it saw wins for Cinematography, Contemporary Costumes, Single-Camera Picture Editing... the list goes on. (I think Handmaid's Tale probably has Period/Fantasy Costumes sewn up, ha.) I forget how much I liked the show until I think back on these aspects of it and remember, Oh wait, it was really very good. I would love for this to carry over to Directing too, but I am surprised as how strong The Night Of has come on in the technical categories, not because I doubt its merit, but because it wasn't really the buzziest thing on HBO this year. There must have been some heavy HBO campaigning, because I saw it turn up on a number of critics' lists to expect nominations, but I am still a little surprised.

In lieu of any Queen Sugar nominations, I would be pleased to see Ava DuVernay win a directing award for 13th.

Main Title Design! I was so excited for this and to be honest, the nominees are a little disappointing. The opening for Feud: Bette and Joan was in my mind the frontrunner heading in, and that hasn't changed in the slightest. The problem here is that three of these are the exact same set of titles. I actually quite liked the American Gods theme when I first started watching it, but then I saw the Crown... they're the same title design. So is Stranger Things, but at least it has the benefit of the image that it it focuses on in very tiny amounts on a black background being typography. Honestly, go watch them. These are all the same titles. It's amazing. Westworld's theme is nice, but Bette and Joan's is something special. I hope it wins. (This is possibly the one place I want it to win.)

Did you know Lifetime had mad a movie version of Suite Francaise? I did not either, but it got a nomination for Original Dramatic Score for a limited series or movie.

Original Music and Lyrics is weird. I don't really get the Mickey Mouse short nomination (although you should totally go watch it because there's a real Ren and Stimpy vibe to it which I never would have expected), and I'm not into the Lemonade homage from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so that leaves us with the songs from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, SNL, and 13th, all of which I think have a reasonable shot. The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend song grows on you as it goes along, but "Last Christmas" and "Letter to the Free" both feel a lot more relevant and political. I could see this one going either way. SNL might win on a wave of SNL wins, but there are a surprising number of technical nominations for 13th that lead me to believe there's some real industry support for the doc and this could win from that. It's an interesting category.

I'm not so good at discussing the intracacies of music, so the Original Main Title Theme Music is a difficult category for me to assess. However, in my opinion anyway, I would rule out the themes to Victoria and The Good Fight right off the bat, and i would through Genius in there too were it not composed by Hans Zimmer, and so for that reason we can't rule it out. Stranger Things I think is the leader here, because it manages to be iconic and retro all at once. The Feud music is also nice, but I am actually very fond of the Westworld music, even if in the key changes it kind of reminds me of the Carnivale theme. (Miss you always, Carnivale.) Still, I think Stranger Things is almost a lock on this one.

Finally, the acting categories.

Lead Actor in a Comedy is basically all the same faces, plus Donald Glover.  It's the only one of these shows I watch, and he is wonderful in it, but I  feel its more likely he'll be taking awards for his work behind the camera. Jeffrey Tambor could take this again, but with Transparent not taking a series nom for the first time, it might be on its way out. Anthony Anderson then? I thought he would have won this already, to be perfectly honest. Who knows how this will go.

Lead Actor in a Drama is equally mystifying. Several of the actors in this category are overdue--Matthew Rhys, Bob Odenkirk--and some shouldn't be here at all--Liev Schreiber, Kevin Spacey, Milo Ventimiglia--and then we have Anthony Hopkins, who is legendary but maybe not for Westworld, and Sterling K. Brown. This Is Us broke a lot of ground this year, so I would not be shocked by Sterling K. Brown winning, but network dramas are always going to have a hard time going up against the prestige nominees on cable. This is one to watch.

Every time I think Sherlock is the worst its ever been, it wins awards in America, so I think Benedict Cumberbatch is a solid choice to win Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. Should this go to Ewan McGregor for going all Tatiana Maslany? Probably. But honestly i have no stakes in this race. Just not Cumberbatch.

So both the leads of Grace and Frankie got nominations for Lead Actress in a Comedy, which I think means they will cancel each other out. There are a couple familiar names here (I keep waiting for Tracee Ellis Ross' moment but I fear it's not coming), and a new face in Pamela Adlon, which between that and her TCA achievement lead me to think she's a frontrunner here. But... Allison Janney has moved herself up to Lead from Supporting, and it is very hard to place bets against a prior winner, even if it wasn't for this specifically. So who knows? Here's a fun fact though: if Janney wins this category, she will have Emmys for Supporting Actress in a Drama, Lead Actress in a Drama, Guest Actress in a Drama, Supporting Actress in a Comedy, and Lead Actress in a Comedy. All she'll have left is a Guest Comedy Actress and the Limited Series awards! I don't know if this will be some kind of a record for sheer breadth of acting categories, but it would be fun for someone to find out.

But hey, can we talk about how for yet another year, there's nothing for Catherine O'Hara killing it on Schitt's Creek? Seriously, she is just straight-up nailing it on a weekly basis. David and Alexis are the heart of the show--and a good amount of the humor, yes--but Moira is just an eccentric actress delight. Robbed yet again. And if not Catherine O'Hara, why not her SCTV co-star Andrea Martin, so much fun all decked out in Chico's looks on Great News? She's the best part of the show, and I'd much rather see them here than Grace and Frankie.

Lead Actress in a Drama--I've heard zero buzz for How to Get Away With Murder this year, but she was a previous winner, and there is some recenty history of repeat winners in this category. I thought the Americans was going to win some acting trophies last year, but nothing came of it... and I wouldn't put it past the Television Academy to give an award to a show just as the critics have said it had a weaker season. So who knows, if the episode really sells Keri Russell, or Matthew Rhys back in Lead Actor, I could see it. The same goes for the perennially-nominated Robin Wright. My heart wants to give this to Elisabeth Moss though. This is Hulu's breakthrough year so this could be the winner.

Ooooooooooooof, the category that has been the heaviest now for two straight years. I have seen a LOT of awards prognosticators say this is Jessica Lange's, which shocked me, because I would have absolutely said it is Nicole Kidman's, because she was breathtaking, and Feud was only OK. But the problem here is that Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon could split the Feud vote, and Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon could split the Big Little Lies vote, and then where are we? Felicity Huffman for American Crime, or Carrie Coon for Fargo. I wouldn't mind either of these, necessarily--all the women nominated here are very talented--but this is a Big Little Lies award if there is any justice in this world. And Nicole Kidman, unlike Julia Roberts when she got that Normal Heart nom a few years ago, is not so snobby as to talk down about the Emmys while she's at the damn Emmys, so she's definitely a winner that TV could get behind even though she's primarily a film actress. I mean god, she went to the Stanley Cup playoffs and wore a jersey and everything. SHE'S OF THE PEOPLE NOW. Give this to Nicole, please.

Also, many apologies to Lauren Graham, totally shut out for the Gilmore Girls revival. One day you'll get something, Lorelei.

Supporting Actor in a Comedy is so many repeat nominees and winners, but if Alec Baldwin doesn't win this, it will be an actual honest to goodness upset. Who else has a chance? It doesn't matter if you don't like the Trump impression (which I don't, for the record). It was the buzziest comedy performance of the year. The president got angry about all of it. He's gonna win.

I don't know anything about Supporting Actor in a Drama except that I have been rooting for Jonathan Banks for like, many years now, on two different shows, so I would be very happy to see him win.

Supporting Actor in a Limited Series... I haven't seen The Night Of. I kind of figure it's going to go to The Night Of. But Alexander Skarsgard is very good at being very awful and having two faces? It feels almost cruel to reward him for being a good abusive husband but he's a very good abusive husband. I also enjoyed Alfred Molina's performance in Feud, so who knows where this is going.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think Anna Chlumsky has fallen out of her possible winning window for Veep, so I don't think it is ever going to happen at this point. But there rest of the faces for Supporting Actress in a Comedy are good ones. I think you have to give it to Kate McKinnon for just wearing so many hats this year, but I love Kathryn Hahn in absolutely everything she does, and Leslie Jones feels just as deserving as any cast member of SNL. And while I am not a huge Vanessa Bayer fan, I'd be happy for her to win just for that damn Totino's ad. No bad wins here.

Uzo Aduba hasn't won for Supporting Actress since Orange is the New Black switched to drama, right? I don't know if any women of the Handmaid's Tale are going to break through this one when they don't have quite the role recognition here as the other nominees. Millie Bobby Brown could win, as crazy as that sounds, considering that the cast won the SAG. Chrissy Metz is the name I am seeing from a lot of prognosticators. And Thandie Newton--well, how can you root against Thandie Newton. I'm going to give this to Millie Bobby Brown for now, but I am keeping my eyes on Chrissy Metz.

Regina King has now won the Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Limited Series for two years running, and I am not about to root against her for a third trophy, even if this year was the least buzzed about season of American Crime, and it was subsequently canceled. She's going to have strong competition--watch out for Laura Dern, I think--but she's had strong competition before. I liked Jackie Hoffman a lot in Feud, but i don't really think either of the Feud roles really hold a candle to the rest of the nominees here. Could be interesting on Emmy night but, once again, I am rooting for Regina King.

There is something a little insulting about the only nominees for a show called Girls being random male guest stars, right? A little bit? No offense to Riz Ahmed or anything. I don't love Girls by any measure, but it's a little weird. I would give this one to Tom Hanks because of David S Pumpkins but hey, who knows how these things work anymore. I certainly don't. Guest Actor in a Comedy--some host of SNL, a guy on Girls, or Hugh Laurie on Veep. I think Dave Chappelle killed his chances when he said to give Trump a chance, but it was a big deal for him to be on SNL, so I wouldn't necessarily discount that. If I had to nominate an SNL host here though, it really should have been Chris Pine. Boy was totally ignored.

I think Carrie Fisher has the sentimental vote for Guest Actress in a Comedy, but Melissa McCarthy honestly was much better as Sean Spicer than Alec Baldwin ever was as Trump. The thing working against her is she submitted her own episode, and it was arguably her weakest appearance.

Honestly, the best thing for the guest categories is Nightcap, the underseen heir to 30 Rock on Pop!, the channel that replaced the TV Guide Channel. Ali Wentworth knows a lot of people and they all seem game to come on and skewer their image in the most embarrassing way possible. There were a number of standouts in season one, but Gwyneth Paltrow as a kleptomaniac who doesn't eat "that goop shit" and who apparently goes around negotiating guys down to handjobs from blowjobs was my personal favorite, but really so many celebs were great. Debra Messing also should be really gunning for a nomination for this for next year with the episode that just aired this week. idk, I'm a fan.

I'm all in for Alexis Bledel for Handmaid's Tale as I frequently hear that she's a person's favorite part, but I don't know if that's likely. Ann Dowd is here after being a nominee in supporting actressi in a limited series, so maybe she has a real shot at one of them. And you can't rule out Barb, because the academy is just as dumb as the rest of America for nominating an extremely minor character who barely appears for an Emmy.

I know Ben Schwartz already has an Emmy that he shares with Dan Harmon for writing that "Recession Oscars" opening theme where Hugh Jackman said he hadn't seen the Reader , but if he can win outright for the Earliest Show, I am fine with that. Same for Lauren Lapkus, easily the highlight of Pete Holmes' Crashing, which is pretty weak overall.

I can't be the only one rooting for Martha and Snoop for reality hosts for their dinner party show, right?

Outstanding Comedy Series: the same old names, plus Atlanta. I'll root for Atlanta or black-ish. Veep had a very weak year and Silicon Valley was dreadful. This category needs some refreshment.

Outstanding Drama Series went the opposite direction: two repeat nominees in Better Call Saul and House of Cards, but five new faces in first season shows The Crown, Handmaid's Tale, Stranger Things, This is Us, and Westworld. Again, the SAG for best cast went to Stranger Things, so I would not be surprised at it coming through here too, even though it is not at all the type of drama the Emmys typically go for. I would think it comes down to Stranger Things or This Is Us, both of which got heavily nominated all over, but especially in acting.

Fargo did better in nominations than I think anyone expected it to, so it can't be entirely ruled out for Outstanding Limited Series. I want this to be for Big Little Lies, but female-centric domestic series don't have a good history here--I think this show was excellent in all facets, but its recognition really came down to the fact it has movie stars in it and a high-profile team behind it. I don't know if that's going to carry over to a win here, even if it absolutely should. The Night Of has done very well in nominations, and the subject matter is far more up the Television Academy's alley. Also, this category tends to be a good one for Ryan Murphy, so a Feud win isn't out of the quetion either. I am hoping level-headedness prevails and we get a Big Little Lies win. But I also know exactly why that won't happen.

Outstanding Television Movie will probably go to Sherlock because it wins at its worst, but I think it's very promising that Black Mirror got nominated here for San Junipero, the one episode everyone loved this year. The lack of nominations overall for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, despite the attachment to Oprah's name, does not bode well for it. The Wizard of Lies has a healthy little group of nominations and this is Weighty Serious Stuff which the voters tend to go for, so that's my dark horse here.

A number of the nominees in Variety Talk had kind of breakthrough moments in the era of Trump. John Oliver won this last year and were it not for all these Trump-reactions, I'd give him an easy repeat. And that could still happen! He could be the new Daily Show. The voters are notoriously lazy--after all, we saw Modern Family get nominated again this year for Best Comedy and it is 2017. If I had to tip it away from him though, I would say this is Stephen Colbert's or Jimmy Kimmel's to lose. Jimmy got nominated elsewhere and made headlines for the stuff with his son; Colbert really turned it around and put Jimmy Fallon out of contention in both nominations and the ratings and that could be rewarded. I'll be interested to see where this goes.

Best Friends Whenever, also known as My Beloved Show About the Gay Teens, was never going to get a kid's programming nomination, but why did Girl Meets World get one for its worst season? Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.

I said several years ago we need a teen category for the MTV shows and Degrassi, and I still believe that. Several years ago they consolidated the informational children's into the scripted kid's stuff and that was a mistake--we should have like three or four kids categories, not one. If I ever get to be on the board, I will be address this, you better believe me. There are children who can vote, I am sure, and I want their opinions.

Very happy Leah Remini's Scientology show got a nomination for Outstanding Informational Series or Special. Good for Leah Remini.

BIG DEAL ALERT: in this year of Chip and Joanna Gaines being EVERYWHERE, will Fixer Upper win the Emmy for Structured Reality? I think they might. This would be huge for HGTV. And yet another puzzle piece in the Gaines world domination plan. I wouldn't necessarily mind that, but I don't want to live in Texas, and I don't want my furniture to have chipped paint on it, so maybe I do mind actually.

I think Born This Way is likely the lock for Unstructured Reality, but I wasn't even aware Gaycation had aired a second season to make it eligible and... I should give it another chance, probably. But why is this getting nominated when States of Undress is also on Viceland and it is fantastic? I know, I should shut up about States of Undress, but it's just so goddamn thoughtful. Even if Hailey Gates doesn't always get it quite right in her ending narration, I think there is something about her that makes the show so much more compelling than Gaycation. I think it goes to more interesting places--not on the map, but just with what it chooses to explore. I'm always enchanted by it, I always learn something. I just want it to have a million seasons forever.

oh my god am I almost finished please

Writing in a Comedy! This is a definite toss-up between "B.A.N." and "Streets on Lock" from Atlanta. I could see "B.A.N." winning just because of the sheer variety of what composes the episode, and because Donald Glover wrote it and the Emmys like to reward the mastermind of the series here. But I think "Streets on Lock" is actually the stronger episode, so Stephen Glover could get a win here. I don't think Silicon Valley or Veep have a shot, and Aziz won last year, and this category (unless you're a 30 Rock who stays around forever) likes to inject fresh blood. So this is an Atlanta win, but the episode has yet to be determined.

(Though if Veep DOES win the comedy writing, it'll have to be for Georgia, which is the most heartbreakingly painful episode of the season, and also the best one.)

I genuinely don't know where Drama Writing is headed. Stranger Things? Let's guess Strangers Things.

I can't believe I'm rooting for David E Kelley but--Big Little Lies for Limited Series writing, please! Please. Charlie Brooker has a nom here for San Junipero again, and that would be a pleasing result as well. And I even like the Oscars episode of Feud, but I think that would be a better win for direction than writing (was it even nominated for direction? I'm not going back to look now). Fargo, again. The Night Of, again. This could be a really good night for The Night Of, I'm thinking.

Seth Meyers gets his first Emmy nomination for Late Night in Variety Series Writing. (Sidenote: Vox wrote a thing about snubs and said he got no noms, which I tweeted them about, and then got a "we'll make it more clear." Which they then changed from "Seth Meyers--HOW DID IT GET ZERO, it needs to be recognized, it's so good, blah blah blah, why hasn't it made a breakthrough" to "SETH MEYERS--ONLY ONE?" which is not making it clearer, it's re-writing it, it changes your original point even when you don't change the text. I know people make mistakes but if you are a tv critic, and it's Emmy nominations day... read the longlist! Please! This is like when, oof what was it, Vanity Fair? I forget. But I think Vanity Fair--no, it was Harpers Bazaar--did an Emmys write-up and totally made up history by saying "oh, remember when Fargo controversially beat True Detective for best miniseries a few years ago" when THEY WEREN'T EVEN IN THE SAME CATEGORY. OK, these aren't the same, but I just get annoyed by things that can be very easily cleared up.) I think this is going to Colbert, Oliver, or SNL though. Probably SNL unless we're just staying in the John Oliver lane, or rewarding Colbert for overcoming Jimmy Fallon. (I realize I talk about Jimmy Fallon like he's a dragon, but I really don't like him.)

Now Variety Special Writing--here's where Samantha Bee has a very good chance with her Not the White House Correspondents Dinner.

And that's it! I did it! Like four hours... but I did it. And we'll be back next year, guys! My tenth edition then! But before that, we'll have Emmy night. :) Thanks for reading!

[agentnico]

The Gentlemen (2020) Review

“There’s only one rule in this jungle! When the lion is hungry, he eats.”

Plot: Mickey Pearson is an American expatriate who became rich by building a marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he's looking to cash out of the business, it soon triggers an array of plots and schemes from those who want his fortune.

Director Guy Ritchie is a very hit-and-miss director. He’s got a whole bunch of goodies (my personal favourite of his is The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) however he does have his fair share of stinkers. The recent King Arthur: Legend of the Sword comes to mind as a film that tried to act overly Shakespearean, but one simple look at Mr Ritchie gives you a blatant idea that he is no Bard. His Sherlock Holmes sequel isn’t particularly eye-opening either. However, with The Gentlemen he returns to his roots of British gangster movies, having begun his career with films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and we could not be better for it, as The Gentlemen is an absolute treat.

The movie’s shining star is Ritchie’s superbly written screenplay. The guy (get it?) has such a knack for writing that his dialogue, though filled to the brim with foul-mouthed slurs I must add, sounds poetically musical. Each line flows into another with a special pace and beat to it. Thus the actors get to have so much fun playing along to these lines of dialogue that then causes each scene to be so engaging and entertaining. I guess that is why Disney approached Ritchie to direct their Aladdin remake. His screenplays roll off the tongue like a musical anyway, so give him Aladdin with a rule of not swearing, and you have yourself a fun movie. And Aladdin is overall entertaining for what it is, yet not without flaws. The Gentlemen, however, has Guy Ritchie doing what he does best, by putting a bunch of criminals in stylish outfits in one room and have them measure up their genital sizes, but in such a suave way. Suave is the keyword here. Suave and slick.

The cast ensemble is perfectly picked, whether it’s McConaughey, well, being McConaughey, or Charlie Hunnam charming us with his sophisticated soft-spoken tongue, or Michelle Dockery proclaiming “there’s fuckery afoot”, or Colin Farrell throwing out energy left and right...everyone fits their role perfectly, but the stand-out is the unrecognizable Hugh Grant, who gives both a slimy as well as overly flamboyant campy performance, with many of the movie’s best jokes coming courtesy of him. That too, by the way, this movie is really funny! This is very much a case of a sit-down, switch off your brain, and enjoy 2 hours of a British crime comedy-drama, which does not take itself too seriously and also, unlike Snatch (though that movie is great in its own right), is very easy to follow. The narrative does jump a little between past, present and future, however, due to the movie’s format having Grant’s character narrate the whole ordeal, the movie is not complicated and easy to understand. This movie is simply a fun time at the movies, and I did not expect it to be as good as it was, but now it has reminded me what Guy Ritchie is truly good at and it is a joy to watch. Seek this one out for sure! As Henry Cavill says in Ritchie’s other film Man from U.N.C.L.E.: “Now that’s entertainment!”

Overall score: 8/10

[teaandforeshadowing]

a story for which the world is not yet prepared; estranged and desperately unspoken

[This went from a 500-word idea to a 3k-word final product. Oops.

Let's just pretend that Mary is either dead or the real Moriarty, and she or Moriarty's minions are coming after John and Sherlock and they have to do some crazy secret spy shit in order to take them down again. John and Sherlock secretly come to Baker Street to reminisce and feel sad and gay and neither of them actually happen to be there at the same time and its fucking miracle that Moriwhoever hasn't caught on and killed them yet.

My first actual Johnlock fic, please be gentle. On AO3]

No one lives at Baker Street these days, but Sherlock visits anyway. He shouldn't be here, too suspicious, but he can't help himself, and the desire to remember those days before everything went to shit is more powerful than his willpower to stop his legs from climbing the stairs.

He sits in his chair, and a red plaid blanket sits gathering dust on the one opposite him. Eloquent, his brain supplies, and he is painfully reminded of the last time John's chair sat empty. His eyes threaten to water, so he takes a deep breath and closes them, focusing instead on the smells that linger just below the dust. The remnants of Thai takeout, formaldehyde in the fridge, John's pea dish. He smacks his lips as that thought leads him to think about John making him tea on the weekends.

He hears the end of John's favorite violin piece, and the smiling praise that greets it. He absently runs a finger along his violin case. More dust, his heart aches. He wishes he'd gotten to play it for John one last time. John's chuckles ring out over the crap telly, and his heart swells at how charming it is. Familiar footfalls sound on the stairs, and deductions flood him with old memories.

Slower than normal, and lopsided, his brain supplies. It's been a long day at the clinic, and he'll be in the mood for a nice murderer to chase around London to take the edge off. Breathless laughter in the stairwell, a few fingers of whiskey, and a maybe Bond movie to end the night.  Sherlock smiles sadly that his brain would fill in the silence with only his fondest memories, he realizes those exact nights when he fell just a little bit deeper.

And then the door to 221B opens.

Sherlock is snapped out of his fantasy when he hears the surprised but soft "Oh!". 

"John," he breathes, and suddenly he is standing, his legs carrying him closer to the door in a few short steps. John meets him half way. 

Months without any kind of direct contact has him starving to make up for it with some kind of physical connection. But what's appropriate for the moment that faces them now? A handshake? A hug? Full-on sex?

"I--ahem--wasn't expecting you to be here." Johns voice is so soft and cautious, like speaking any louder could shatter the fragile opportunity that fate has handed to them. It suddenly occurs to Sherlock how stupid he is for thinking the John in his mind palace could do the real thing any justice, and Sherlock's ears are suddenly so full, and he's suddenly desperate to say anything in order to hear John speak again. 

He nods. "I was..." he starts, but finds himself at a loss. John has seen him sitting in his chair, eyes closed. What could possibly be said as a plausible excuse to be somewhere he shouldn't?

But John merely nods accompanied by a smooth hum, and Sherlock's attention is drawn downwards when he nervously shuffles a bag from his left to his right hand. Lopsided. John's eyes subconsciously follow his.

"Ah." He clears his throat. "Just some of Mary's things." It comes out halted like the words are being painfully forced up. Sherlock wants to run his hands down his neck to soothe it for him. He restrains himself until John drops the bag with a shake of his head and reaches for him.

Sherlock releases a breath he didn't know he was holding in when Johns arms finally take hold of him. He's had many hugs in his lifetime, and some of them were even enjoyable, but he never imagined that a hug could make him feel...complete. It was the kind of Complete that would make you wonder how on earth you managed to convince yourself you weren't living such an empty life, and how you managed to ever survive it until now.  As if slotting against another person was like finding the last piece of a puzzle he thought he'd already finished. 

"It's good to see you again," John sighs into his collarbone. It sends a jolt of electricity straight to his heart which pounds ferociously next to John's. The simple contact has his mind reeling with everything he's wanted to say but never had - And you. I'm so glad you're okay. I'm sorry it had to be this way. I miss you. I need you.

He settles for "and you" before anything else leaves his mouth that he might regret. After all, nothing good had ever come from trying to protect John. If he'd just told John he wasn't dead, he never would have needed therapy or met Mary. If he'd just told John about Mary's true nature, he never would have married her and had a daughter. If he'd just backed off and let John live his married life, he never would have found out the truth. If he had just left well enough alone, Mary's past wouldn't have caught up to her, and John wouldn't have to be a single father. 

Pain strikes him hard in the stomach at the thought of Rosie growing up without a mother. Of course John wouldn't be the only one to suffer, how could he have forgotten?

A hand brushes softly up Sherlock's spine, and it grounds him in the present again. "I'm glad you're okay. It's hard to tell in the messages you send." Heavily coded, for their protection, but it warms Sherlock's heart to hear he's able to work them out. My clever Watson.

"A necessary precaution," he explains. The nature of their mission demands that what little contact they have with each other in cryptic messages through drop points and the homeless network contains only the most vital information. If their system allowed it, Sherlock would gladly send John a ten-page essay every day detailing how wonderful John is for putting up with him, and how he doesn't deserve such a man as a best friend and confidant, and how much Sherlock regrets their arrangement. Regrets the past that led them to this present, but alas fate was not so kind.

"I know," John concedes, bunching up the back of Sherlock's shirt as his hands close into fists. He knows, but he doesn't agree, and Sherlock feels a lump form in his throat at the sentiment of it all.

"Speaking of, we shouldn't be here." Together. At the same time. At all, really. But John still has his arms curled around Sherlock, and his fists wrapped up in his shirt, and Sherlock is starting to lose track of time. "Suspicious." is all he can manage to spit out as explanation.

"Yeah," John agrees, and he slowly withdraws from their embrace, leaving Sherlock's chest feeling empty and cold. "But," he continues, shedding his coat, "there's no harm in a quick cuppa, is there?" He moves to the kitchen to put the kettle on and grab the mugs, and Sherlock opens his mouth to object. The longer they sit around, the more likely it is they'll be found out. It was risky enough for Sherlock to come here alone, but the two of them together will surely draw too much attention. The sooner they leave Baker Street, the better. "Since we're here, we might as well get each other up to speed. Go over everything we can't fit into secret notes? Who knows when we'll have an opportunity like this again." 

The thought of not seeing John again for months makes his stomach sink and his mouth snap shut, and suddenly he understands why John is delaying the inevitable. Neither of them are eager to let this moment go. It's dangerous, what they're doing, but their life together has always been dangerous. "Dangerous" is what brought John to him on their first case. 

"Indeed," he relents. 

They sit quietly in their chairs, sipping their tea and relishing the calm silence of 221B. The usual afternoon traffic is nothing more than a dull hum outside, as if the flat itself is willing time to go just a little slower in order for them to have this day to themselves. 

"I'm starting to get the hang of the vigenere," John says into his mug. "It was a tricky one at first, but Steve helped me work it out." 

"That's good," Sherlock says into his. The steam warms his face and it smells just like it tastes - perfectly blended the way John knows he likes it.  "How is Lestrade faring?"

"Good, great. He's still a bit out of his depth with all this secrecy business, but he gets me what I need."

Sherlock nods. "Probably better he doesn't get too involved."

"He's still seeing D.I. Hopkins." Sherlock lets out a disbelieving huff. "No, no, they're getting on really well. They've both been on the top of their game lately. They make each other better."

Sherlock's hand stops its journey to his lips at the phrase, which was uttered with the kind of wistful sadness that one would use in remembering a childhood home, before it was torn down and replaced by a strip mall. He glances up over the top of his mug to find John staring morosely into his. 

"John," he breathes. "I'm sorry for putting you through all of this." John looks up at him and hums quizically through a mouthful of tea. "You should be home enjoying your life with your daughter, not running covert errands for me. It's not fair."

He's already shaking his head before Sherlock can finish speaking. "No, Sherlock, that's not-- Nothing is ever fair. Not for us. I'm perfectly happy to do this with you. It's just what we do. And I'm the one who married her, it's at least partly my responsibility to clean up this mess. She told me she loved me, and I believed it because it's what I needed to hear. It's my fault for dismissing my own feelings and letting it get as far as it did." He takes another sip of his tea and lets the statement hang in the air between them. Sherlock can sense that there are other words there as well, words that have been there between their chairs for years, sitting silently, waiting to be acknowledged. The thing is, Sherlock can't tell anymore which ones are his. 

"I understand what needs to be done," John begins again, but quieter this time, "and I'd follow you anywhere to do it. I just want this over with so we can get on with our lives."

A rush of affection swarms Sherlock's chest, and the room brightens as if those unspoken words were blocking the sunlight instead of the curtains. "Thank you, John," he smiles.

His mug is too light, but he brings it his lips anyway, willing it to magically fill again. He hears the dull ringing of John's mug landing on the side table, and Sherlock knows their meeting has come to an end. Their tea is finished, their time is up. 

He stands and takes a deep breath to prepare himself for what he has to say, and he hopes John will understand how much he doesn't want to say it. "We should get going. If we linger any longer, people may start to talk."

A smile creeps onto John's face as he gets up to meet him by the door, and Sherlock is glad for the rare glimpse of happiness one last time. "People do little else." 

Sherlock smiles back at him, but it fades too quickly. He wishes they had more tea. He wishes they had more time. He wishes the circumstances were different. 

John takes his coat off the rack and shrugs into it again, and it's like watching him become a different man. His John, the blogger and constant companion and best friend who'll follow him to the ends of the earth becomes Dr. Watson, the widower and single father and general practitioner, who sees a therapist on Wednesday afternoons. Sherlock wants to strip him of the jacket again, along with his shirt and tie and his trousers so that he can run his hands over the bare skin and scars and show John how much he prefers the former.

"I'll head out the back precisely 23 minutes after you and check for anyone who may be watching. Send word as soon as you can," Sherlock asks, almost pleading. He hasn't even left yet and he's already desperate to hear from John again. 

"Right." John picks up the bag of Mary's things from where he dropped it hours (days? years?) ago and shuffles his feet, fixes his coat collar, and stares regrettably down the stairs ahead of him. 

Sherlock wants to walk him down the door, to see him off and not leave him until the last possible second. The front step of 221 Baker Street is where their privacy begins and ends. It’s the last defense against the prying eyes of the public, but even they are able to catch a glimpse into their secret life when the door is opened. As much as he hates it, it's safer to remain upstairs. 

"This will all be over soon, John," he reassures him. We'll be together again soon, he means.

"That doesn't mean I have to like it," John complains to the stairs.

Sherlock smiles painfully. "No, I don't like it either. But it's all necessary, at least until the danger has passed. Someday it'll be safe for us to go back to the way things were, but not now." He turns and speaks to the stairs and the door and the millions of ears waiting just outside, and he stands up a little straighter when he realizes he's reassuring himself as well.  "The world's just not ready for us to come out yet." 

His subconscious counters with a rogue thought, And what if I don't want us to go back to the way things were? It's almost painful for him to consider as John futzes with the bag in his hands, and Sherlock grips the mug he forgot he was still holding just a little tighter.

"Well," he sighs, and John looks up at him for what he's sure to be the last time in a long time. He's already cataloged the roughness of John's fingers along his forearm as they search for incriminating pinpricks, and the nuances of color in John's hair when the sunlight hits at every angle, but nothing matters more to him now than the depth of emotion that sits behind John's eyes. He has to remember this look forever, for it's all he will have until they can meet again. 

They stare at each other for a long time in complete silence, but words still pass between them, desperately unsure and unspoken. Words not yet permitted to be said aloud, communicated with a single look. Sherlock's just about had enough - any longer and he may just start to cry. 

"Well," he says again, louder, and gesturing behind him with his mug. "Goodbye, John." He steps away towards the kitchen to busy himself at the sink in an effort to distract himself from the fact that John is leaving him and Baker Street again, but a warm hand catches the sleeve of his shirt.

"Wait."

Sherlock turns and meets a steady gaze--John has decided something. He takes a step forward and they're closer than they were before. Sherlock feels a tug on his sleeve and the angle of John's chin changes slightly enough for him to understand. He lowers his face, ear cocked to hear John's soft parting message. They are in each other's breathing space, and Sherlock can smell this morning's coffee, and last night's Indian take out, and a lingering hint of alcohol and baby formula. It's a smell he imagines falling asleep and waking up to everyday. 

They pause. They linger in each other's spaces for a fraction of a second, and then Sherlock realizes he's miscalculated. When solid fingers ghost over his cheekbones and guide him facing forward again, his heartbeat stops. 

Eyes glide softly closed, and lips part. The connection is warm and deep, but soft and fragile. Fleeting. John takes Sherlock's hand and puts it to his heart, covering it with his own like a promise, a gift. It's yours. I'll be back. 

Before he has time to react, John breaks away.

"John," Sherlock breathes again. His eyes are still closed, dreading that the joy and relief he feels that very moment will be scared away by the fear and longing that's been looming over him since they first left Baker Street, since he first came back from the dead, since their first case together.

"Be safe," he hears John mutter, and those steady fingers leave a trail of what must be scalding burns to that magical spot at the nape of Sherlock's neck. 

Chills shudder through him when they're gone. 

There is a six-second pause between his last (slower than normal, lopsided) step down the stairs and the sound of the door opening. A pause that starts a 23-minute countdown. 

@joyfulblazestarlightlove @englishghosts @honey-bees-and-ginger-nuts @writinginsuperwholockhell @whereisjawn @misanthropic-acedia @squirrelwithoutparentingskills @lesyaholmes @sumeragisakura @carlgrimeschildsoldier @snakeinthesnow @ladylizaelliott

I don’t know why it’s not letting me tag half of you I’m so sorry ._.