#but again quite conceited to think that its worth a read?
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sleepyagent · 9 months ago
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rereading my own autobiography i started for therapists, it really reads like some fiction
maybe im just a character and my genre is dramatic comedy and im the main clown in my own story
i should start selling it as fiction
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charmwasjess · 6 months ago
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Okay, I finally finished The Living Force, and as promised, I have thoughts. These are just my musings as a fan and a reader - if you enjoyed the book more than I did, I'm really glad! If you hated it, good for you too! Let people like things, let people not like things. <3 My feelings with this book were somewhat down the middle. I'm interested in reading it again in a couple months and seeing how I feel.
Overall: a fun, engaging read, genuinely hard to put down once the action starts going. The book isn’t afraid to be funny. SO MUCH GOOD JEDI CONTENT! Miller takes on a huge task trying to write perspectives for all twelve Council member characters and does a pretty good job bringing them to life. Mace and Depa steal the show. I had a hard time with some of the meta plot and overriding messages about the Jedi Order.
Andddddd the long version:
The entire conceit of the book comes about when Qui-Gon goes head to head with the Council, who are bogged down in committee red tape Senate paperwork disconnection, and challenges them to “help one person.” So inspired, the Jedi Council in its entirety goes to the planet Kwenn to help close down a hundreds-year-old Jedi Outpost. 
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan serve as the book’s inciting incident, our quest giver NPCs, who hang around close enough to the action to keep the readers who bought the book only for them engaged. It reminds me a little bit of a spin-off TV show where the fan favorite character from the original series shows up to boost ratings, saying their classic catch phrase while the live studio audience goes crazy. Look, Qui-Gon is Being Kind to Pathetic Lifeforms! Obi-Wan drops a “hello there” in the first scene! Oh, them!
Lest you think I’m being shitty, let me say that it was actually great to see Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan on the eve of TPM working together well and having a blast. Both in Padawan and Master & Apprentice, they are still very much figuring out their relationship, and now it’s clearly evolved to its final magnificent form. They’re utterly corny together - I love that for them. This is the same pair that gave us “the negotiations were short” and the baffling “there’s always a bigger fish!”
I’ll talk a little bit about Sifo-Dyas because of course I will. He appears only in mentions, but so many of them, he's a huge part of the subtext of the book as he's recently left (been fired) from the Council and been killed - he's apparently on everyone's mind. I’ve posted about this before - I love the Seeker Sifo addition, and further, letting him be a rightful problem, a true pain in the Council’s ass and who ultimately got himself fired for not following the rules. Of course I have sympathy for him: this is a person who is beyond desperate to save his world and willing to try anything at this point in his life. And I think it’s worth mentioning that this is well within Cavan Scott’s characterization of him as a natural born troublemaker. I mean, he’s on screen for about two pages in Dooku: Jedi Lost before he just fucking literally steps on Yoda. Apparently, he never stopped. 
The book is oddly complimentary of him in weird places. Canon is inconsistent about Sifo-Dyas and how much his visions were impacting his judgment or even his simple ability to function. The last we heard of him in the Yoda comics, Sifo-Dyas was so routinely incapacitated by them that he was traveling with Lene full time. So it was cool to see that he had apparently gotten in control of them enough to be a super crucial member of the Council. Mace complains about Sifo’s absence and how that has directly impacted their entire ability to perceive the future, an acknowledged blind spot that comes up quite a lot in the prequel films and Clone Wars. Yoda goes on and on about how what a powerful Jedi he was.
...I don’t think the scene where the ENTIRE FUCKING Council round robin style takes potshots at Sifo-Dyas for *checks notes* rescuing some orphans was particularly successful. Of course, accuse me of bias, he’s a favorite character of mine, and it’s rough to see his colleagues - who are also his only friends and family - sitting around talking shit about him (to a bad guy no less!) for a page and a half, when he literally just got violently killed. (And they know he’s dead, at least, if not the circumstances. Killed on Felucia was the official story reported to the Council per wookiepedia.) Just tonally weird.
But really, I think what actually bothers me about that scene is the treatment of the baddie, Zalestra’s motivation as in any way legitimate, credible, or worth an apology by the narrative. Wow, the villain had a good point! To be clear, her issue with Sifo-Dyas taking her friends away to be Jedi is not that it changed her situation in any meaningful way in terms of care provided. It was a crime of omission. And these friends were so dear to her that she goes around indiscriminately killing Jedi of their exact generation? I suspect Miller liked his cool Nautolan Pirate Joker OC and wanted to give her a sympathetic excuse for why she was going around torturing and murdering Jedi (and just random people, including children) for fun, and “I got separated from my friends as a kid because of a Jedi” was the best he could do. Of course, it sets up Depa for a really beautiful line about not using other people as a canvas to paint grief on. 
The question of Attachment is a strong theme. Depa seems to be Going Through It - about attachment in particular, but also generally in the book. She’s shown relying a little too firmly on the no attachment cause in the wake of grief for a lost student. For example, she is quick to volunteer that Zalestra’s friends who were brought into the Temple together would be immediately separated so as to not form attachments - without pointing out the rest of that, that this separation would be specifically into Creche clans so they could bond with other Jedi kids and grow up in a community. Mace’s reaction to Depa’s attitudes make me suspect this is a Depa character growth thing, not something we’re supposed to take as a face value fact about the Jedi Order. Indeed, she ultimately overcomes her fears about this and decides to take a Padawan. And the final lines of the book include Qui-Gon defining for us that it isn’t attachment that’s a problem for Jedi – it’s indifference. 
Mace and Depa are the clear stars of the book. The Shatterpoint lineage vibes are immaculate. I’d read that the Living Force is supposed to set up an upcoming novel about Mace, and I am legitimately thrilled for it after reading this. Anyway, their dynamic is fantastic. Mace treats her 100% like a respected colleague, no cute Padawan infantilization tropes, even when he is put in situations like rescuing her after weeks of prolonged torture. Instead, he gives her his lightsaber to use, since hers has been taken. A really powerful and beautiful moment of support, while still recognizing her strength and agency. 
That said, if you’re looking for a deep dive into more obscure members of the Council or an EU/Legends junkie looking to see your favorite backstory pulled from the fire, this book might not be it.  With his five wives and seven daughters in old EU, Ki-Adi-Mundi might be the least likely Council Member to be the comedic butt of a bit revolving around awkwardness around women, but Miller goes for it, and there’s no mention of his family situation. 
Another odd reference, this time to current canon: the civilians the Council are working to help are mentioned as being the relocated survivors of the Protobranch disaster. It’s an ironic choice to frame the narrative of “the Jedi have been too focused on the big picture/the future at the expense of their duty to ordinary people” and then set the story in a community of people that the Jedi literally saved after getting a vision of the future disaster. The fact that it was our problem child Sifo-Dyas’s vision, and the rescue only happened after he and Lene outright defied the Council to get the gears moving is never mentioned or addressed, despite its seeming supreme relevance to the other themes in the story. 
For a time, I thought the narrative tension there between those two truths - that the Jedi should be concerned about ordinary people and living in the moment, but that this doom future is truly about to be a huge problem for the Jedi Order and the galaxy - was intentional. Having now finished the book, it doesn't seem to have actually been. Maybe someone else has a different perspective.
In truth, I didn’t understand what I kept reacting negatively to about with some of the meta themes of the book until the literal last page, John Jackson Miller’s author’s note where he says it outright. He talked about the other Star Wars books he has written over the last decade - how they all have depicted (Jedi) characters who are off on their own, away from the Order, “loners like Luke Skywalker,” and how his depiction of the Jedi Order from that perspective has been very critical. With this book, he decided that ALL Jedi couldn’t be bad, and that “Qui-Gon Jinn was the greatest symbol (of diversity of thought in the Order)” so he wanted to explore that. 
I closed the book and gently placed it in the trash can.
No, I’m kidding. Kind of. You know that I love Qui-Gon Jinn, he is my first favorite character, but this take exhausts me. That he is the magical exception to all of Jedi’s problems leading up to the prequels, and that if he were somehow not a direct product of that same Jedi Order, which encouraged him in his particular way of thinking almost to a fault, starting with Dooku.
In the final scene, with a magical twinkle in his eyes, Qui-Gon explains his own “defiance”of the Council: “I’m not insubordinate. I’m unorthodox. The insubordinate are ignored. The unorthodox are heard - grudgingly.” So the book finally resolves for us the narrative confusion in the difference between Sifo-Dyas’s bad future-fixated rulebreaking, which is shown to create villains and piss off his colleagues alike, and Qui-Gon’s good Living Force-serving unorthodoxy, which creates friends for the Order and moments of spiritual understanding for the Council. 
...Smashcut to six months later when Qui-Gon himself is outright defying the Council’s decision on Anakin and sidelining Obi-Wan because he’s convinced the Chosen One prophecy is just that important. 
Star Wars: The Living Force by John Jackson Miller, 6.5/10 stars, would have been 7 if I hadn’t read that asinine author’s note and gotten all mad again. 
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sixth-light · 3 years ago
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I know nothing about wheel of time but I’m very intrigued, can you please tell me a bit about it?
The Wheel of Time series is a doorstopper '90s epic fantasy series which comes out of that period when men were "making fantasy cool" after it had very much been seen as a women's genre in the 70s/80s - think GRRM and Terry Goodkind also. It was famously wordy (14 books) and was finished by Brandon Sanderson after the author, Robert Jordan, sadly died after book 11. Cutting for, uh, being unable to describe it in a non-wordy fashion.
Its central plot is a relatively standard epic fantasy one of rising evil returning thousands of years after its defeat and heroes from a remote rural area who must grow to defeat it, but unfortunately: petty (and not-so-petty) politics, inc. religious fanatics, settler-colonialists, and people who just do not want to believe in the coming apocalypse. It takes having a cast of thousands very seriously, and relationships are soap-opera level. Here is a spoilered diagram of a Gordian Knot of relationships. I need to emphasise that 1) this diagram leaves out like three extra people and all relationships like "friends", "mentor/mentee", "platonic life partners against the apocalypse", "former babysitter", and "vow of mortal enmity" because otherwise it would literally be unreadable and 2) all but three of these people are point-of-view characters who undergo major story arcs. Surprisingly, this whole thing is managed with only one of these relationships being same-sex.
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Its most famous conceit is that post-the apocalypse that kicked off the plot three thousand years before the story starts, men who could do magic were cursed to go mad, and women who can do magic have been cleaning up the mess ever since, with follow-on effects on gender roles and who has political power worldwide.
UNfortunately, the author was a white middle-aged Southern American in the 1990s and his gender politics are v much of the Women From Venus, Men From Mars variety. On the flipside, there are a lot - a lot - of PoV female characters, strong female friendships (blurring into queer spaces), and indeed entire complicated political plotlines where men are more or less peripheral to proceedings. Sexual assault/rape of women is something the series has almost no time for, which is one of the big differences from ASOIAF/GOT. (There is however an infamous mid-series scene where a male character is sexually assaulted but the book/author absolutely does not understand that this is what is happening because women don't commit sexual assault. That's the kind of mindset happening here.)
Basically it's trying to do something to discuss gender the author didn't quite have the range for, but the TV show now has a glorious opportunity to capitalise on it and do it better. Plus the books took an, again, very '90s white author mix-and-match approach to culture for worldbuilding and the show's solution appears to be "if you're going to rely so heavily on East Asian culture for this region, then we're going to cast East Asian actors" which is promising.
I can't say the book series is, like, good or required reading or anything, and it can certainly be critiqued every which way on a number of axes, but it has an extremely strong grip on my psyche in only the way something you hit age 13 can. I don't need the show to be perfectly faithful and in fact there are many many places where it would be better if it wasn't.
But there's something in the heart of it that still speaks to me, the way it had room for women to be messy and angry and wrong, heroic and ambitious and political, and choose to put each other first; the way it convinced you of the depth of the history of this world, that it had been broken and remade from the ashes and people were doing the best with what remained; the way it said there might be no final victories but that didn't mean they weren't worth the fight each time. If the show can capture that I think it could be very good indeed.
(Also, approximately 30% of the wordcount of the series is descriptions of dresses, so the show is ahead of the game right there.)
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delicrieux · 4 years ago
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—MAKE YOU SAY “OH” EXTRAS: TINDER
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extra meaning non-canonical occurrence; can be placed anywhere in the “make you say oh” timeline after couple (cha. 14) and before the final “oh”. 
pairing—corpse husband x f!reader warnings—tinder profiles, tw: men, swearing.  word count—2.6k. format— written. ─── ❥ req by nonnie​:  y/n makes a youtube vid/live stream where she's just swiping through her tinder acc and corpse literally blocks her lmao
author’s note—akldsljfs this was such a funny idea i could not not write it lmao
ultimate masterlist. myso masterlist
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You have pulled the biggest brain move by setting up both a facecam and a screen recorder on your phone. All is beautifully displayed and visible during the stream. Your fanbase is particularly intrigued on what exactly are you planning on doing today, seeing as your tweet of “strea” had been a bit vague, if not downright ominous. No emojis. No elaboration. You couldn’t even be bothered to finish the word. Truly, a mystery. Everyone tuned in and are currently waiting with bated breath.
A few of your fans must sense upcoming doom because the overall mood in the chat turns from optimistically intrigued to...evil. It’s an entity all on it’s own now, clawing at you through the screen with various renditions of laughter and devil emojis. A few eggplants thrown in there for good measure, accompanied, naturally, by the scandalous water drops. At first the common consensus is that you’re biting the bullet and going through your camera roll on stream. Definitely an idea worth considering, though you frankly don’t know what lies at the start of the 11k photograph journey, and you are afraid to check in public. Could be a harmless meme, could be a salacious pic you had saved of an OF star. It’s really a gamble. Either way, you would definitely get banned. You might still get banned. Why do you insist on doing shit like this?
Because it’s funny. Because you’re kinda stupid. Because it’s just so absolutely laughably easy to do.
A smile quirks your lips, and while it is not explicitly smug, the look in your eyes sure is, “Greetings,” You utter lowly, dimming the lights--the budget for this stream! Ugh, you went all out, “my children.”
mother i crave violence
sensing evil energy rn!!
i do not claim the energy in this video for myself or anyone else watching this 💖💖
^with peace and love shut the fuck up
“I know y’all lowkey hoes-” Upon your words the chat splits into two: one side eagerly agrees (even shares a few OF accounts! How helpful, supporting small businesses!), whilst the other feverishly insists on innocence. You make a face stuck somewhere between offended and bewildered, “Now c'mon now-I know you. I know you all. We’re the same, don’t-what was that?”
You try to scroll back to the comment but it’s loss in the sea of incoming messages, “I swear to God I just saw-”
Corpse_Husband: i love late night streams it’s not like i have anything better to do.
“COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORPSE!!!!” 
rip headphone users
i cant feel my face when im with you by the weeknd but instead of face its my fucking ears
yall think full vol on pc is better?my parents woke up 😭😭😭😭
To think he’s spending his last waking moments for today with watching you (he probably still would have anyway, because you do not posses an ounce of shame or self-control and pester him relentlessly)! It makes your heart sing, and suddenly, a traitorous, fun hating idea barges it’s way through the crowd of incoherent buzzing and states: don’t do this. For some reason it also has the voice of Rae. As if that would work in guilt-tripping you- Rae never succeed, and her fictitious rendition in mind won’t fare much better either.
Still, you thought about it. That must count for something. Corpse will understand, won’t he? Why don’t you want to upset it in the first place? Men look so funny when they lose their shit, like hello, don’t you have anything better to do? But the image of Corpse just sitting there, hurt, distraught, leaving you on seen because he’s in his sad boy hours leaves a sour taste in your mouth. 
queen rly went from  ���😊 to 😕 u ok bbgirl?
Corpse_Husband: no pouts cutie
akjdjoeijdfse cUTIE??? deadass boutta r.i.p.
Well that succeeded in eliminating everything from mind, doubts included. If this was an anime, the scenery would shift into something roseate, with flowers and bubbles and sparkles all around you along with a halo or two. Alas, not an anime, rather reality. The led-lights, however, seemingly possessing a will of their own, slowly turn from deep violet to pink. You smile brightly, like the absolute dumbass you are, and you are met with a ray of heart and blushing emojis. You are just so cute, a real cutie! Still in your disguise adorable state, you swipe your finger on your phone screen, the grin never leaving your lips.
There, among the plethora of apps, nestled sits a red square with a white fire plastered on it. The delicate calligraphy on the bottom reads: TINDER.
The mood changes once again- you’re giving the roaches emotional instability by how quickly everything flips over- and the chat spams eggplants vigorously; some, of course, bravely fight against the thirst.
nooooooo i thought y/n is gonna stream in a god honoring way!!!
^pack it up girl defined
“So, Charlie and I-” You note a few awfully curious comments and squint, “-yes, we talk a lot. Charlie is a really good friend of mine. We’re best friends. Brothers. Sisters. Cousins. The whole fucking family tree-no, that sounds weird. Delete. Anyway, Charlie, being the absolute fucker he is, said, hey, you know what would be funny? And I was like, nooo, what would be funny, Charlie? And he says to me, he says, says, making fun of men on Tinder. And if y’all need any more proof that Charlie and I are platonic soulmates, then dunno, my children, my roaches, I dunno-I dunno what more to give you.”
You can’t be bothered reading the comments, there’s too damn many. You also need to save your reading comprehension for the actual bios. It has a time limit, that darn thing. 
“Okay, so I made a profile earlier, but I hadn’t swiped on anyone yet-” Despite the fact, Tinder helpfully informs you that already 99+ people have swiped right on you, “So, this is me,” You show the pictures you have of yourself, and damn, not to be a conceited narcissist, but you look really good. Like if you saw yourself on Tinder, you’d super like instantly. “Uhm, so, my bio-my bio says: let’s sauce in the tub together, ya dig? splishy splashy, giggle giggle.” 
i cant believe we are witnessing y/n trying to form a coherent sentence live 
shes trying give her time
ya dig??? y not capeesh
what scene from the godfather is this lol?
“My anthem, is,” You laugh, covering your lips with your hand, “Corpsie, this is form you-” Proudly, you show that indeed, Corpse’s E-GIRLS ARE RUINING MY FUCKING LIFE is listed as your anthem on Spotify, “Hehe.” Yes, you say that aloud.
Corpse_Husband: you’re killing me Corpse_Husband: thanks baby Corpse_Husband: now delete tinder ❤︎
You ignore his last quip, deciding it’s finally time to get this show on the road, “Right, let’s do this shit. I’m not actually going to swipe on any guys that look, uh, decent? Yuck, can’t believe I just said that, uhm, because I-because I feel like some actually deserve a chance with someone? I don’t wanna get anyone’s hopes up, as I am currently in a long distance relationship with Chrollo. So I’m just gonna swipe on, like, frat boy assholes. Because I don’t care if I hurt their feelings. Quite frankly I don’t think they possess them in the first place.”
The chat voices their agreements. With the ground rules set, you, giddy, click on the first profile.
Does Tinder know what you’re doing, your plan? The FBI agent watching you through your phone must be working overtime, bless his heart. They must, because the the first guy to meet you is named Jason, and there he is, blond hair and blue eyes, holding up a fish the size of his torso. Marginally adequate in looks, pretty good muscles. A solid 7 bordering on 8. He’s the same age as you, 15 miles away, and he studies at some college you don’t care enough to look up. Bio reads:
I like to drive fast. Fishing is my passion, but if you can’t catch me by the ocean, you’ll catch me catching waves, bro! Love a good gym date. You do squats, and I’ll keep a close eye to make sure you’re doing it correctly ;) You probably saw me at a party. Leader of the The Phi Kappa Psi. I’m a Gemini, if that matters lol.
You, of course, read it aloud, dramatically; provide some constructive criticism-he seems nice, but he’s a Gemini, so naturally, you can’t trust him at all! Also, that gym date session leaves little to be desired. With your rant done, you swipe right, and shocker! (not), it’s an instant match.
“Okie, I still wanna swipe of some profiles, so I’ll see what he’ll text later-” For a second you wonder the legalities of this stream, but you’re having too much fun to think of it further, “guys, I won't get sued, right?”
NOW she considers it
well....
if you do, we’ll kickstart your lawyer dw <3
Onto the next profile. Kevin, 25, is seen fixing his car- or, you assume he’s mid-fixing it, you don’t really know why else he’d hold a wrench and be covered in oil. He’s shirtless, and the caveman part of your brain echoes something closely resembling AWOOOGA!, but...but!...blonde hair, blue eyes. You pout again, “I don’t...I don’t really like blond boys, ya know? With the blue eyes and all, it’s just not my thing, uhm, unless it’s like-like...Armin from Attack on Titan. Else I don’t care.”
Onto the bio:
You have to treat a car like you treat a woman: go on long rides, take the lead, but most importantly, keep her oiled up 😜 
“What the fuck did I just read?”
The chat is equally confused. You swipe right anyway- another match. Too easy.
The stream continues without incident for a solid thirty minutes- all of your matches, expect a few that genuinely looked like normal dudes that really couldn’t write a decent bio to save their lives, had been blond hair blue eyed gym rats with ranging forms of misogyny. Some opened with asking for nudes out right, some asked about your day first before asking for nudes. You prefer the former. Straight to the point! You admire the gall. 
But then, down the forty-five minute mark a profile popped up that made you still by your phone, your smile dying as your eyes bulged. Dear God. Lord in heaven. Who is this demonspiit lookalike and why is he so fucking hot? The neck tats, the skateboard, the clothes- holy shit, you gotta close your mouth before some drool dribbles out.
No bio, just his name, Tyler, and that he’s 23.
“He boutta be 23 in me.” You mutter, swiping right with lightning speed.
WHAT DID SHE SAYYYYY?????????
tyler is y/ns karma for relentlessly mocking that one guy that had a whole ass list on what his “female” partner should be
^he deserved it and also tyler seems like a typical fuckboi y/n grow a braincell
look at mom 🥺 her eyes are sparkling
It wasn’t a match right away. You somehow expected as much, but it still upset you. Simp behavior, pathetic. The stream continued bravely, and when Tyler messaged you a simple “yo” you totally didn’t sequel. You didn’t manage to text him back on stream: texting all those guys that you didn’t really find all that attractive was easy, but this...You’re a sucker for a man who radiates red flag energy. His whole profile is a red flag. He might just be a red flag himself.
What can you do? Suddenly becoming color blind is not easy. Once the stream ends, you unmatch with everyone expect Tyler. He you chat with for a bit, but a sudden craving for different company makes you abandon him, too. You don’t feel too heartbroken for him- you’re certain there’s already too many girls in his dms. You wish them luck.
Happily, you delete Tinder. You go to Twitter, notice you’re trending again- look at you go! Queen shit- and as you compose a thank you tweet, something strange happens. You go to text Corpse, but when you click on his profile you grow cold.
YOU’RE BLOCKED. You can’t follow or see @/Corpse_Husband ‘s Tweets. 
...Pardon? You hop onto Instragram and-also blocked. Seriously? And you thought you’re one petty bitch. Corpse is seriously prissy about everything. Damn, if he didn’t like your stream, he could’ve just said so. Didn’t need to, like, block you from his internet existence. So not cool.
You try texting him but no text go through. Well how will you let him know you deleted Tinder just like he asked? You relieve your frustrations by punching your pillow a few times. Later, you apologize to her, you didn’t mean to hurt her, it’s not her, it’s you. Fuck, 5 minutes of exile and you’re already loosing your mind.
“Raeeeeeeeeeeee!” You whine loudly. It’s roughly 2am now, but you don’t care. You’re too heartbroken to care. There’s a thump from her room, but nothing else, “Raeeeeeeeee!!!” You wail, wallowing in self-pity on your bed. You hear a very loud, very annoyed sigh from her room, followed by angry marching. Your door is abruptly thrown open, and in the dim, colorful light you see her scowl.
“What?” She grits.
“Can you please tell Corpse to unblock me from everything?”
“What did you do now?”
“I made fun of men on Tinder.”
She pauses, “...That doesn’t sound so bad.” She surmises, voice laced with suspicion, “What else?”
“...There was one really hot guy that I kinda sorta talked to after--”
“Y/n.”
“-But I totally deleted Tinder and honestly he was pretty boring, so, like, uhm, please?”
She sighs, the servery of which implies she is holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, and instantly you know that you won. She taps away at her phone, “You owe me one.” She states, and before you can reply, she exits your room and slams the door behind her.
Grinning, you text his phone again. The message goes through, oh gosh, you’re so relieved you feel like crying. This has been, officially, the worst five minutes of your life.
You Y DID U BLOCK ME LOSER!!! MAJOR LOSER ALERT!! I DELETED EVERYTHING IT WAS A JOKE r u still mad at me? y u always mad at me i never do anything:(
my husband You’re my baby, how do you think I’ll react when I see you publicly simping for some asshole on Tinder?
Oh no, he used the words, he delivered the killing blow. You’re finished. Your heart can’t take such a workout. 
Not that you would ever admit it to him, though!
You hehe ur jellyyyy u always dis jealous hehe?
my husband Not jealous.
Yeah, you might not be the brightest tool in the shed, but even you know that’s a lie. You send him an array of kissy emojis that he doesn’t have the decency to reply to. Then, completely unprompted and dead serious, you send him a simple voice memo, saying: “You really have nothing to worry about, you know? You’re my favorite, Corpsie.”
He responds via text, reiterating that he’s not fucking jealous and that he just doesn’t like when you show such outward interest in anyone but it’s not like he cares or anything. It’s just really, like, weeeeird to see his baby simping for another man like that totally ruins the whole dynamic!!! It was only natural that he should block you on every social media platform, including his personal number (which, like, was completely necessary! Doesn’t matter that his viewers can’t see it, it’s gotta be super believable!), and inform his followers of that, because it’s all a joke, like, for the dynamic, that Youtube grind, you know? Ya dig? No personal feelings were involved at all. He totally wasn’t upset that you found someone else cute, no way!
my husband I’m not jealous. Lol.
You ik u repeated tht like 50 times  u trynna convince me or??? lmao
my husband No comment. ...You don’t actually talk to anyone else like we’re talking, right?
You no one else calls me their baby if thts wat ur wondering at least not to my knowledge lol im all urs
my husband That makes me very happy to hear:)
Yeah, it makes you very happy, too.
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hope you liked it!! xx
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papers4me · 3 years ago
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Fruits Basket Manga Review , ch 112 & 113 (part 2)
I hate that this chapter is cut... mainly cuz it deals with the most “ horribly presented” theme in furuba anime.... grief.
-The shame of grieving: “ Rarely discussed theme in Literature”:
When a love one dies... ppl differ in how they deal with it. Some cry their hearts out, some become depressed & painfully lonely, others get angry or cynical, some might deny it, some move on quickly, others move on but years after the realization crushes them, others stay still... Above all, you feel ashamed of yourself if you didn’t move on or if you DID move on.. “ Sometimes ppl around you judge you for it... for your grief”
The later is the theme of these two chapters. Rarely discussed themes & it saddens me that it is cut. You see, Furuba anime doesn’t get grief  at all. To them, it’s a small part of the generic protagonist after she finishes her job of nurturing the real main protagonist. Mothers are strong, they help us cross the bridge between childhood & adulthood. Tohru, the show’s mom, did it so thoroughly & in slow visual & narrative details for yuki. Afterwards, the anime brushed whatever is left of her character, which the anime viewed as sheer suspenseful drama, & collected it thro 3rd person story-telling techniques in one ep “ se3, ep6″ & excessive monologue for 10 minutes in se3, ep9.
In this chapter, Kakeru, a side character, sheds light into this theme. Kakeru didn’t lose a parent by death, didn’t grieve, has no dependent familial bonds with either dead parents “ kyoko & komaki’s dad”. Yet, kakeru stood & judged tohru on how she “ should” grieve. Harshly tearing her down while she’s standing there lonely, trying to hide her shock at the loss of her only pillar in life, broken & traumatized, dealing with the pushed down traumatic feelings from her past where her mom abandoned her as a child..now her mom did it again, this time thro death.. & kakeru, rightfully not knowing all that, but wrongfully lecturing her on how to behave... kakeru isn’t a monster, but he only saw what he wanted: komaki & how the world should grieve with his lover, how he should be the hero protecting her. So self-centered, insensitive, horribly cruel & unbelievably conceited, but above all... what he did is so sadly common... it hurts.
-Judging Grieving People:
As I said many times.. grief is so personal, so unique to the person & as common as it is, so misunderstood. According to kakeru & many ppl I’ve sopken to lately, tohru should have acknowledged komaki. Komaki, the not-traumatized version of tohru, did the right “ tohru-like” thing. Not only felt sadness at the loss of her own dad, but found it in her heart to visit the other orphan, tohru, & give condolences & respect to the dead mother. Such kindness & purity. Very deserving of applaud: To not only see your pain but others’ as well. Tohru has always done the “ right, kind” thing to other ppl. When she can’t now, the author brought another “ tohru” to do the “ right, kind” thing.
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Kakeru is so many ppl. During my brother’s funeral. I’ve heard so many gossip on how my mom should’ve stood tall & greeted the visitors.” Being silent , emotionless & non-responsive is not how you show visitors you value their kind words”, they said. How his widow should’ve collected herself & acted properly, respected his memory by taking proper care of herself & her kids. “Being a broken mess is not how you “ honor” loved one”, they said. Kakeru is indeed many ppl & that’s how you discuss a theme by creating characters who sin, screw up & be cruel, even if momentarily.
Kakeru is wrong. There is no “ you should have” in grief. There is no ounce of truth in his demeaning lecture to tohru & I respect komaki for her reaction to him so much. Kakeru did learn & grew from it, apologized to tohru even if he didn’t actually sought her to do so & even if she herself started the apology. But you see, these two chapters are 90% focused on kakeru as a character, his growth, thoughts, the mini focus on his relationship with komaki as an example of healthy relationship & all that is another lesson for yuki to observe & learn. He learned abt tohru’s past, kakeru’s personality & growth & got to observe another example of romantic relationship so yuki can grow as a man & approach machi healthily. But then again... nothing at all stops yuki/machi from being healthy, no past issues, no contradicting personalities “ they’re quite similar” & yuki is the only furuba character that doesn’t screw up big. He learns & teaches. He’s the personification of the author.
-Tohru.. stays a “ tohru”:
Tohru’s part is 10% of the this chapter which is fine as I think/hope it will lead into more tohru depth in the following chapters. But It is for this reason I’m glad this chapter was cut in the 13 eps season of furuba anime, cuz tohru doesnt have much depth in the anime due to the quick wrap up & the la~~~~st  thing I want is another 3rd person story-telling flashback abt tohru in the anime. Honestly, one of the most frustrating aspect to me of the anime & I’ll hold judgement abt manga- tohru till I reach its end. So far~~~ Tohru’s depth & character exploration gets better one chapter, then regress the next one, then moves on, the... it’s a fluctuating process. It has nothing to do with tohtu’s feelings.
you’ see ... kyo himself as a character with issues fluctuates a lot, he does sth good, then does sth bad, chooses right words, then makes a horrible mistake & chooses wrong! which is one of the most well-done aspects of character exploration that is rarely attempted by authors! I highly respect Takaya-san for what she’s doing with kyo in the manga so far. Other authors show us a character doing one big mistake & then he/she learns from it in a dramatic way. But Takaya-san, nope! she decided to approach it in a very human way, making us be frustrated with kyo’s repeated mistakes yet understands where he’s coming from! kudos to her!!
But I’m not yet satisfied with how tohru is portrayed in the manga & this has nothing to do with tohru’s character. Takaya-san is discussing rare themes thro tohru’s character. But what I mean is how tohru is approached thro the viewers/readers eyes. I wont judge until the last chapter. but this is the part that is frustrating to me.
Side Notes:
The flow of the 2 chapters is little off. We go back & forth between the past & the present, between yuki-machi & komaki-kakeru. Again, I’m so glad the anime cut it cuz, nope! they can’t handle such narrative. they’ll reorder it in a such heavily monologing way & insert the comedy abruptly to lighten the mood. Just look at how the comedy is inserted in momiji’s se03 ep!
Komaki is such a tohru with a sprinkle of kagura’s very softened outbursts. lol. she’s fun!
I’m liking yuki-machi interactions a lot. no drama, which is why the anime cut it -_-’, but it progresses healthily. Machi is yuki’s third-stage growth after (1) leaving tohru’s nest (baby yuki), (b) making friends with kakeru/someone who gets him (young boy yuki), (3) finding romantic love (being a man). The anime was so interested in the 2 stages above cuz that’s where the drama is & cut the third. Honestly, the anime didn’t have to include everything as there is never a space in 13 eps, but they certainly could’ve squeezed few panels or even made brand new very short yuki-machi scenes. but the anime weirdly decided after yuki “ saved” machi from her trauma by talking with her in her apartment, he should just marry her.... lol.. that’s why next scene is ep 5 momiji’s ep intro montage where yuki was abt to confess!!! making yuki-machi the least developed couple in the anime!
I love all furuba’s characters, but yuki, tohru, kyo & akito carry the big themes, therefore, I not only analyze their characters, but how the themes are presented thro them & how their presentation affects such themes. This might make it sound as I hate them or am harsh on them. not at all. It is the anime director/ manga author that I’m positively or negatively criticizing most times. Most importantly, my criticism is not the law. It’s just my perspective & my consumption of the material. Feel free to differ with me. I dont mind it. It brings interesting discussions!
When it comes to tohru’s issues... his chapter introduced nothing new. We have seen/read in canon repeatedly that tohru hides her pain behind a smile (heck! even kisa knows that & told us), that she cant stand up for herself much, that she smiles for other ppl not for herself. All this was presented thro so many characters already, which is why I understand the anime’s decision to cut it. What’s new? that yuki didn know tohru’s smile is mostly a mask & that kakleru has depth.
I love this chapter for the grieving themes it discussed that are rarely touched upon in literature, but since such themes are rarely presented, the anime’s decision to cut it, ironically proves my point! lol . They don’t get grief & so, they reduced it to se03 content & two eps worth. sad.. but expected. The anime is indeed another form of “past” kakeru: seeing one side of grieving person. The happy side.
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cristalconnors · 4 years ago
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TOP 20 SONGS OF 2020
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20. “BELOW THE CLAVICLE”- EARTHEATER
“The meaning hasn’t come up yet. It’s still under the surface below the clavicle.”
It isn’t just Alexandra Drewchin’s ear splitting soprano when she hits that impossibly high B, practically shrieking out the “cle” syllable of clavicle, though that’s undoubtedly when I first knew that Eartheater’s avant folk was for me- it’s also the cinematic, lush strings, both bowed and plucked (is that acoustic guitar or harp? I genuinely can’t tell), deepening and complicating the sonic texture of Drewchin’s study of parsing through emotions you aren’t ready to make sense of yet. 
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19. “PUSSY TALK”- CITY GIRLS, FT. DOJA CAT
“This pussy so ghetto, this pussy speak ebonics”
“WAP”’s funnier, classless Irish twin, though it’s important to note “Pussy Talk” came first. Yung Miami and JT enlist Doja Cat to expound on everything their pussies deserve and will absolutely settle for nothing less than. And why should they when they’re spitting out verses this inspiredly hilarious with such confidence and flow? 
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18. “LICK IN HEAVEN”- JESSY LANZA
“Once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning...”
Jessy Lanza is talking about losing your cool, letting your emotions get the best of you and lashing out instead of letting cooler heads prevail, but when that earworm of a chorus hits- “once I’m spinning, I can’t stop spinning” - I can’t stop spinning. I’m that woman on the single art, a wine mom lost in the delirium of the dance floor and in Lanza’s hypnotic, fragmented rhythms.  
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17. “GASLIGHTER”- THE CHICKS
“Boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat!”
“Gaslighter” finds Natalie Ames and her Chicks at their most simultaneously ruthless and ebullient, ripping Ames’s ex-husband Adrian Pasdar a new asshole and ratcheting up the righteous anger of “Goodbye Earl” tenfold, channeling it into a glorious wall of sound in what might be their most rousing, emotionally resonant chorus in their storied career. 
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16. “HANNAH SUN”- LOMELDA
“Hannah do no harm...”
While “Hannah Sun” begins as an exquisitely observed rumination on grappling with long-distance, pining for someone who’s a continent away, it gradually becomes clear that Hannah Read blames herself for putting the distance between her and the subject of her longing, and that the distance isn’t strictly literal. Skittering synths (or is that distorted flute?) complicate and enrich the texture of the song, allowing it to build organically and stunningly towards a heartbreaking plea to herself- “Hannah, do no harm.”
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15. “FIRE”- WAXAHATCHEE
“And when I turn back around will you drain me back out? Will you let me believe that I broke through?”
When I’d drive back and forth between Dallas and Austin over and over again when I was in college, I’d often get off I-35 past Waco and take the back roads through towns I’d never heard of, the sun setting spectacularly behind the titular hills of Hill Country that were beginning to roll out in earnest. I think about that a lot when listening to “Fire,” a song dripping in rural Americana that was, unsurprisingly, inspired by a road trip. We’ve probably all been Katie Crutchfield as she crossed the bridge into West Memphis- alone in the car, awed by the simple beauty of the American countryside, making speeches to ourselves about our past mistakes and figuring out a way forward. 
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14. “3AM”- HAIM
“On the screen and in my jeans, just make me feel good.”
On an album full of genre departures and decidedly darker themes than we’ve typically heard from Haim in their near decade of syncopated bubblegum pop rock, “3AM” stands out not only as their most effective stab at pastiche, slipping into the trappings of contemporary R&B with shocking ease and gusto, but also as their most unabashedly fun track in their entire oeuvre. “I think you can hear the amount of joy and laughs we had making this song” Alana Haim tells Apple Music, and you absolutely can.
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13. “QADIR”- NICK HAKIM
“We’re sinking down a hole without thinking about our loved ones who might be shrinking...”
I often wonder if I’m putting enough effort into maintaining my relationships with friends I don’t see regularly, who live several time zones away, living their own lives while I live mine. When the thought of sustaining simple correspondence becomes overwhelming, it’s easy for months to go by before you realize you haven’t spoken to one of your closest friends. “QADIR” plays less like a eulogy for a friend gone too soon (though of course it is that) than a plea to the listener to put in the work. It’s worth it. You never know when it’ll be too late.
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12. “LEVITATING”- DUA LIPA
“Glitter in the sky, glitter in our eyes shining just the way we are.”
Just a few bars of that delightfully bouncy, extra-terrestrial beat is enough to launch me into space. It’s so refreshing to hear a song that remembers that pop is supposed to be joyful and is best when it’s a bit silly. When discussing this track with Apple Music, Dua Lipa cites Austin Powers as inspiration, elaborating that “if I do a video for this, Mike Meyers has to be in it.” Can’t you just see them together, performing a farcical pas de deux of seduction like the spiritual successor to “Beautiful Stranger?”
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11. “RIQUIQUI”- ARCA
“Love in the face of fear! Fear in the face of God!”
Arca’s made a career of harnessing chaos and somehow making sense of it. On an album that finds her embracing more traditional, accessible song structures, “Riquiqui” is a reminder that even when working within an AB structure, she’s still breaking rules left and right and having a blast doing it. She’s also never sounded so ferociously empowered in either her femininity or in her Venezuelan identity, rattling off local colloquialisms with affection and verve without a second thought as to who’s going to understand it. 
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10. “FANTASY”- AGAINST ALL LOGIC
“I think about you all the time...”
Or, the musical embodiment of this gif:
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When Nicolas Jaar’s tormented synths and crunching beats give way to Beyoncé’s unmistakable alto, it is indeed quite the shock. But should it be? Even if 2017-2019 finds him ditching the dancefloor in favor of more severe, unforgiving soundscapes, his already varied career has shown us nothing’s off limits to him. So why not reinvent Beyoncé’s iconic “Baby Boy” into an industrial, vaguely sinister certified bop that arguably surpasses the original?
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9. “PEOPLE, I’VE BEEN SAD”- CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS
“If you disappear, then I’m disappearing, too.”
“People, I’ve been sad” plays out with the vulnerability and intimacy of a tumblr text post you put out in the middle of the night, only to hastily delete later when it gets no notes. It forgoes flowery language in favor of just getting to the point. “I’ve been sad.” Héloïse Adelaïde Letissier blows up this deceptively simple sentiment with richly layered textures and a big screen gloss not to offer any remedies but instead to offer solidarity. We’re all in this hell together.
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8. “DESCRIBE”- PERFUME GENIUS
“Can you just find him for me?”
Mike Hadreas has never sounded so hopeless. Utilizing harsh, rattling guitar that would make Kevin Shields swoon, he conveys the experience of being so estranged from happiness and joy that you need to rely on others to describe the sensation to you. But how, when exploring darker textures than he ever has before, does he make despondency sound so divine? 
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7. “4 AMERICAN DOLLARS”- U.S. GIRLS
“No matter how much you get to have, you will still die and that’s the only thing.”
Meg Remy picks up where she left off on “4 American Dollars,” reviving the subversive pastiche she mastered on In a Poem Unlimited, this time harnessing the power of funk to dismantle the fallacies we’re taught about the virtues of capitalism. Heavy stuff, but Remy makes it less didactic than joyous, ensuring the listener will be singing “I don’t believe in pennies and nickels and dimes and dollars and pesos and pounds and rupees and yen and rubles” until they start to wonder if maybe they shouldn’t, either. 
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6. “STUPID LOVE”- LADY GAGA
“I freak out, I freak out, I freak out, I freak out!”
Due to a healthy spirit of contrarianism mixed with a touch of internalized homophobia and genuine bafflement at her universal appeal and praise, I was a proud Lady Gaga hater for as long as she’d been a cultural entity. I just didn’t get her at all and loved that about myself. Annoying, I know. 2020 was the year I was finally ready to let that all go. Just before the world fell apart in March, I was out at Flaming Saddles (RIP) with friends the night this song came out and by the sixteenth time it played, I understood why it was inducing such hysteria. This was a cultural shift. After a frustrating near-decade of Gaga subverting expectations so thoroughly that she was actively working against her strengths and sabotaging her cultural ubiquity in the process, coupled with the most frightening era of political upheaval in our lifetimes, she was finally ready to save us and be Lady Gaga again. Booming synth, drag sensibilities, absurd thematic conceits- all was right in the world. For the first time in a long time, people had something to be hopeful about, and as I danced that night, I felt that hope, too. 
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5. “SHELLFISH MADEMOISELLE”- RÓISÍN MURPHY
“How dare you sentence me to a lifetime without dancing?”
As soon as that bass starts (the funkiest bassline in the history of music?) it’s like Róisín Murphy’s snake charming oboe, coaxing even the most stalwart curmudgeon onto the dancefloor and keeping them there, dancing frantically and involuntarily like the citizens of Strasbourg in 1518, trying their best to keep up with Murphy who isn’t even breaking a sweat, commanding the masses with a sultry remove, beckoning you closer, pulling you inexorably deeper into the mass of gyrating bodies and whispering in your ear “come and have a dance with yer mum.”
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4. “PARTY 4 U”- CHARLI XCX
“I only threw this party for you...”
As PC Music / Bubblegum Bass / whatever you want to call it enters its second decade, Charli XCX proves not only that there’s still new textures to explore within it, but also that no one can exploit its artifice to get down to emotional truths like she can. How can she make something this slick sound so vulnerable? “I only threw this party for you” she croons over and over again over glorious syncopated synths that build exquisitely, reaching their climax only to immediately fall away, until it’s just her and her trusty autotune, pleading with the subject of the song to just come to the damn party. But they won’t, of course. They never do, do they?
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3. “WAP”- CARDI B, FT. MEGAN THEE STALLION
“I want you to touch that lil’ dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat!”
Sometimes you just immediately know you’re living through a significant cultural moment. No, not COVID. I’m talking about the experience of hearing Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s instant classic “WAP” for the first time, a titanic meeting of the minds that finds both of them at the apex of their cultural influence and at their most undeniable. Can the argument be made that these two aren’t the two best rappers in the game right now? How could you hear this inspiredly filthy sex positive juggernaut, where Cardi and Megan are trading the sickest verses of their careers, and not think these two deserve the world? 
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2. “KEROSENE!”- YVES TUMOR
“I can be your baby in real life, sugar. I can live in your dreams.”
If the 2010′s were all about the pop-ification of all music, trading in live instrumentation in favor of polished synths, 2020 forcefully announced the return of the electric guitar when Yves Tumor and Diana Gordon’s back and forth lustfully submissive declarations of desire suddenly gave way to that nasty guitar rip lifted from Uriah Heep’s “Weep in Silence” to announce yet another cultural shift in a year chock full of them- rock and roll was, indeed, here to stay. 
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1. “I WANT YOU TO LOVE ME”- FIONA APPLE
“I move with the trees in the breeze, I know that time is elastic.”
We live and we learn. Years spent soul searching and on self-discovery shape us into better, smarter people, progressively knowing and understanding ourselves and the world around us more and more clearly, but Fiona Apple knows that none of that can quell the ferocious desire to be loved by someone. By anyone. By you, whoever that is. We can know that time is elastic and that when we’re gone all our particles will disband and disperse and then we’ll be back in the pulse, and we can know that none of this stuff actually matters, but still- we want, we want, we want. 
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aromantic-romance-writer · 5 years ago
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Tengen Uzui x Fem! Pillar! Reader
[I Value You The Most]
How many times have this gorgeous man made me jealous and straight at the same time, I have no idea-
So I made this to let those emotions all out lmao.
Pretty much self-indlugent though :((( sorry. And Tengen isn't married to his three unbelievably hot wives here too so double sorry-
Hopefully though, you would still be able to enjoy!
Tengen almost can't believe it. There you stood, in a pillar's demon slayer uniform (nothing really changed except the buttons were gold now, but still-), your legs wrapped in bandages. He remembers that day two years ago. He saved a certain girl whose rank was Kanoe from a Lower Moon demon.
"[L/N] [Y/N]. I'll do my very best." you say with a grin. After the Pillar Meeting, Tengen comes up to you.
"Congratulations on being a pillar!" he exclaims with proud eyes. You crane your neck to look up at him, your eyes wide with surprise.
"Y-you remember me?" You ask in disbelief.
He smiles broadly with a wink. "I do."
"Really?! Someone like me?" you ask yourself, feeling giddy. "Wow..."
"You've come a long way. We may be of the same rank, but you're not of the same flamboyant level as I am."
You laugh. "It's nice to see you haven't changed one bit, Uzui-san."
That fateful day, when the Sound Hashira have saved you and finished fighting off that demon, he gave you a proud smile.
"You did a flamboyant job staying alive all this time."
And he let you decapitate the demon's head.
Ever since, you worked harder than ever. He was your inspiration these past 24 months of relentless training and experimenting, until you yourself was able to defeat a demon from the 12 Kizuki.
And here you are now. Called the Blood Pillar.
° ° °
After every Pillar Meeting, Tengen gets more and more disturbed by the sight of you.
Almost after every meeting, you would have new bandages wrapped around your legs. And that was just your legs. He's sure that there could be more under that uniform. While some of the old ones were replaced with scars. At first, he doesn't mind. He thought that you were new to your position as a pillar and have some wounds from your missions, but it's been such a long time now. Why do you always have these new wounds and scars?
Then he remembers. Blood Pillar. Now that he thinks about it, what the hell? Blood Pillar? Exactly from what Breath is that derived from? Does that explain all these new injuires you keep getting?
After the meeting, you see him march up to you, looking all serious. Honestly scared the heck out of you. Did you do something wrong? But you aren't really interacting with him lately, much to your disappointment.
"[L/N]." he crouches to your eye level, giving you an intense stare. "Are you okay?"
You blink. "H-huh? Why wouldn't I be...?"
He frowns. Oh no, is that the wrong response? He straightens up and grabs your wrist, pulling you away. You weren't able to react correctly and even say anything as you stared at his grip on your wrist. You're not sure what to feel about it, but you can feel your cheeks grow hot.
"Where are we going?"
"I just want to have a little chat."
~
"Oh!" you exclaim as you understood what was the deal earlier back at the Ubuyashiki Estate. You were in an empty field, sitting on the fresh grass of spring. Tengen asked all about your breath style and wounds. You were seriously admiring how confident he is to just ask that to you when he knew you weren't really close. You can't even ask Sanemi about his own scars and where he got them.
"Actually, my father was a very skilled doctor." you start as he listened to you intently. "He taught me how to handle medicines and how this certain tool should be used, and the like. After the day you saved me, I wanted to become more useful as a slayer at the same time be an unexpected enemy to the demons."
"You see, I'm a marechi. And I met a demon whose Blood Demon Art makes their own blood explode or burn. And it gave me the idea, and started to experiment on my own blood. It was a painful process, but it was worth it. After I became a pillar, I learned some tricks from Shinobu-san since I spend a lot of my time getting treated at the Butterfly Estate. I learned how to make poisons painful to scabbard but painless to humans and stocked it in the sheath of my sword. But it's really pretty useless unless my blood is mixed with the poison."
You finish. You stare up at the cloudless sky, adoring the pure blue color of it. Tengen just stares at you for a moment.
"So basically, you have to cut yourself for each form you make with your sword covered in poison..." he concludes ismn a mutter. Why would you make such a breath style? And isn't it too dangerous for your wounds to get exposed all the time or for too long? Plus, demons' favorite food is marechi. Then there's also the threat of blood loss.
This was all irritating him for some reason. He never realized how he deeply cares for you. Every time he sees you with yet again a new bandage, he can't help but feela tightness in his chest.
"[L/N]." he says, making you look at him with a hum. You were taken aback at the soft expression he gave you. "Tell me every time you have a mission."
"Why though?" you ask with a curious look.
He averts his gaze, feeling sheepish. It was a first for Tengen to feel like this. He's never shied away before. In frustration, he abrputly stands. "Just because." and he scratches his head. He walks away, leaving you alone on the field.
"U-Uzui-san...?" you wore such a dumbfounded expression. Was that an order?
° ° °
You sigh in relief. You've finally managed to go on a mission without Tengen on your tail.
These past few months, he's been 'accompanying' you on your missions and it's been annoying you lately. You don't even tell him when that you'll go on a mission. You just get surprised that he's already waiting by your house. He's also doing most of the fighting as well. He wouldn't let you draw your sword sometimes. Somehow, you were able to escape from him today.
Although in those times, you enjoy his company. He doesn't really talk much and seems like he'd rather listen to you. From stories to things Shinobu tells you, to even your problems. He was always there, listening. You've noticed that the way he smiles at you have changed. He always had that reassuring smile. A smile that would tell you "I'm here, always". It reminded you of how your father would occasionally treat your wounds after playing outside. But your father have passed, and no one else would be there for you anymore.
Until Tengen came.
Truthfully, you didn't mind being lonely for a while. Your pride as a demon slayer would allow you to sacrifice your own life to save others. You believed that you lived a contented life already. Nothing more is going to make you happy nor sad. It's okay for you to die protecting others.
Again, until Tengen came.
It's always because of him, these beliefs and thoughts keep changing. He changed you to become stronger, to feel secured and reassured around him, and that something was missing in your life. You weren't sure what it was, but you refuse to pass away without it in your life.
You stop walking. The sun was setting, shedding its final rays of light on the surface from the horizon. The wind have become eerily cold. The scent of human blood was strong, but a stronger smell was coating it. You cover your nose in reflex. What a sinister smell. Pompous and confidence was strongly flowing in this demon's blood.
A 12 Kizuki?
But this scent was more disturbing than the last two Kizukis that you faced from the last two years.
You rushed to the scene, following the scent as it grew stronger and stronger. Soon, you find a distorted white figure growing from what it seems like a vase. His back were lined with infant-like arms and was humming to himself until he felt your presence.
He turns to you, widening your eyes in horror. His face was even more distorted.
"My, I think I smell a marechi." He seems to smile, though you really can't tell. "Fufu, and a pillar?"
You unsheathe your sword and took a stance. You read the kanji on his eyes that were placed vertically on his face.
Upper Moon Five.
All you've encoutered so far were Lower Moon demons, so you expect that this battle will be tough.
"Say, would you like me to show you a piece I've recently finished?" he asks, his tone sounding conceited.
You grit your teeth. "I am not interested." you cut your arm with your blade, making sure the edge is fully coated in blood.
The demon bobs his head to the side. "Since you caught my attention, I'll ignore your rudeness just this once." he grins. "What is the point of slicing your own flesh? To provoke me?"
"You'll find out soon enough." You say before charging at him.
° ° °
Tengen was running as fast as he can, and the closer he gets, the louder he can hear your sword clanging. Although he's a shinobi, so his speed is quite enhanced, he fears that he's too late. It took him this much time to figure out where you were.
He may have realized this later than he should, but you were precious to him. You gave him a reason to be stronger - to live. He won't allow himself to be weak and die before you. You were now his top priority, then the people, then himself. If he can, he'll force you out of the demon slayer corps. Oh, but he can, he just won't. Other than your safety, your happiness was also top priority.
After all those times you've talked together, fought together, he starts to cherish every single moment he spends with you. And he can tell that, although undeservedly, it was him who drove you to be who you are today.
The Blood Pillar.
Just a few more hours, the sun will start to rise. He was finally getting close, until he hears silence. The sounds of clanging and clashing stopped. His heart was practically beating out of his chest in suspense. What happened?
~
You were breathing deep and hard from exhaustion. Your body was littered with wounds and blood. You've ripped off your uniform's torso, showing a blood-stained bandage wrapped around your breasts. Gashes made by the demon were slowing you down up to the point where you couldn't swing your sword anymore.
"How foolish." he starts. "Your Breath of Blood will kill you. I can just wait here as you die from blood loss, you know."
You smirk. You shouldn't be underestimated. You spent two years shaping and creating a body immune to such threats like that. You can go for another 10 hours or more, if limitations didn't exist, of course. You were only human. You may be weak for a pillar at the time, but you'll get stronger. You have to. You might lose this battle, but you refuse to die.
Win or lose, you will abstain yourself from passing out. You won't die. Not yet.
"But then the sun will rise soon, and I should have a feast. A feast fit for a fine artist such as myself."
He attacks you, you dodge barely. He was taken aback at the fact that you can still move. He keeos attacking, and you just kept dodging until you were finally worn out.
He takes notice as a sinister smile becomes visible on his features. Just when his attack was about to land a blow on you, you felt broad arms wrap around you as you were taken away.
"Didn't I tell you to always inform me of your missions?" You start to tear up. You see Tengen's irked and perturbed expression. He was able to snatch your haori and covers you with the clothing. As he was about to stand, you clutch unto him. He just smiles that reassuring smile. "I'll be back with the same flamboyance." he winks.
As he starts fighting in your stead, you watch him with anxiety bubbling in your chest. As you watch him, you found out what was missing. Even if it was just for a day, just for a few hours, what was missing in your life was Tengen. Now that he's come into your life, he can't come out. You need him. You can't die yet. You still want to spend your life with him. He doesn't have to feel the same way, as long as he's alive and well.
~
The demon cussed under his breath in frustration and was able to escape just before the sun's rays hit him. Tengen quickly ran to you to see if you're still breathing. Fortunately, you were alive as you gave him a smile.
"[Y/N]..." he whispers as he carries you. He starts walking. "...don't scare me like that."
All you could do was hum in response, your eyes closed and just fully giving in to his warmth.
"Don't be stubborn next time and tell me when you'll go on a mission. I can't breathe easy knowing that my girl is out there cutting herself to kill a demon."
You open your eyes in surprise. "'My girl'...?"
He smiles slightly. "Mhm. Whether you feel the same or not, you're my girl and no one else's right now. You're the most valuable to me in my life. And if someone steals you from me..."
He gives it a thought. "...he has to be way better than me in every way so I have to approve, 'kay?"
You giggle lightly and snuggled against him. You didn't need to say anything to tell him that you also feel the same way, as he can hear your heart beating solely for him.
Tengen watches your sleeping face. He felt truly blessed as something as precious as your heart was beating for him. His heart was beating for you as well.
As if blessing your new-found love, the sun's blinding rays followed both of you walking home, feeling safe and secured and valued with each other.
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st-just · 4 years ago
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Semi-coherent thoughts on Oathbringer
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So, overall probably the most even of the series so far, I’d say? Not to say I didn’t like it – I really, really loved the finale, and there were plenty of great lines, but my god were there a lot of pages spent on nothing happening (honestly it kind of reminded me of the latter volumes of ASOIF, in that sense) – then again, I suppose that is kind of just the nature of these 1000+ page fantasy epics. There were some setting reveals that really were fascinating, and legitimately a bit surprising. Going to have to take a break from the series until the friend I got Rhythm of War for is done so I can borrow it, though I suppose that’s no huge loss compared to the however many years everyone else had to wait in between them.
So in terms of pacing it’s...bad. Or, well, that’s probably a bit unfair. There’s absolutely plenty of fat to cute, but again I do think that might just come with the territory of committing to like a dozen POVs across a tree’s worth of paper (though there were absolutely like 100+ page stretches where I’m not actually sure the plot meaningfully progressed). That said, honestly the main pacing issue isn’t so much the bloat as, like – okay, Dalinar’s arc was a pretty consistent throughline, but for Kalidan and Shallan it kind of felt like there was one whole story in Urithiru, and then from the mission to Kholinar and the journey through the Cognitive Realm felt like its own separate novel? I mean, not sure if that makes any sense, but it really did kind of feel like there was a whole additional first act of table and stakes setting once they arrived in the city.
Though, to argue in favor of bloat for a moment – I was chatting with  @lifeattomsdiner​ bit back about The City We Became, and they mentioned that the size of the cast meant that you don’t actually really get to know any of the protagonists that well on their own. And I suppose that is the advantage of the 1200-page-per-volume epic cycle – even with characters you only really meet in interludes like Szeth, Vargo and Venli (incidentally three of my favorites), you spend enough pages inside of their head that you do really get to see what makes them tick and learn to love/hate them. Speaking of – props to Sanderson as an author, really – it’s vaguely astounding that he manages to keep track of that many internal monologues and actually make them seem distinct from each other.
Breaking things down by character a bit more – this book really did actually enjoy/get invested in Dalinar way more than either of the previous two, which again I’m told is more or less the expected reaction. Given the amount of tumblr brain poison I’m voluntarily exposed myself to, it’s honestly more than a bit of a nice change to see a character on a redemption arc who is actually unambiguously in need of redemption. Because holy shit, pulled, like, exactly two punches in terms of making the guy as genuinely loathsome as possible before he starts breaking. And, well, obviously he was on a redemption arc, but there was a bit near the end there where I really did think that the book was going to cut to black on an ‘end of Act 2, maximum darkness before dawn’ moment with, like, all the Skybreakers and him kneeling before Odium as the city fell. But I suppose that would be a bit much of a cliffhanger for a series with installments this weighty.
This was pretty clearly Shallan’s ‘getting over my personal bullshit’ book, like WoR was for Kaladin and WoK was for Dalinar, though spicing things up with increasingly severe DID as the book went on did make things more interesting at least. Also, I have no idea if this is actually true, but according to the friend who pestered me into reading these when someone asked Sanderson if he’d intentionally written her as bi he just kind of shrugged and said ‘sure, why not,’ which is fun. It was more than a bit, I don’t know, forced?, to have Wit just wander in from stage left and give her a desperately needed therapy session while she was in the middle of a breakdown and propel her development for most of the rest of the book, but on the other hand she’s pretty easily the main POV I’m most invested in by now, and the live triangle the text repeatedly threatened me with never actually became a thing, so I can’t really complain too much. Honestly super curious about the Ghostbloods and what they want out of her given, well, for a shadowy murderous conspiracy, everything they’ve wanted out of her so far has been pretty much entirely benign. Like, of the three major shadowy murderous conspiracies they’re easily the least problematic for the future of humanity at the moment. She should just commit and join for real imo.
As always, Kaladin’s POV is mostly good because it means we get more Syl, who is the single best character in the entire story I’ve decided. But also, I really quite liked his whole sojourn with the newly freed Parshmen and dawning realization that ‘wait these people are basically entirely right’. Also, the delicious delicious angst of spending however many dozens of pages getting to know them and then the wall guard and then the two groups killing each other in a confused melee while he has a mental breakdown. Easily best moment in the book (but then I’m a miserable person).
Adolin is honestly significantly more entertaining to follow than I really expected, though I’m still not like especially invested in him as a character. His relationship with his tailor was quite charming, though, as was the fact that he cares enough about fashion that he learned to sew. Honestly I was rather expecting/slightly dreading his main arc this book to be, like, inadequacy or insecurity over being almost literally the only member of his family that’s not a Radiant, so it’s kind of a pleasant surprise that he seems to have just accepted that (too well-adjust, I guess?). It is however extremely funny that the fact he just straight-up murdered one of the kingdom’s most important aristocrats and the major antagonist of the first two books seems to have resulted in absolutely zero consequences of any kind for him.
In terms of minor characters, the one I’m most invested in by a pretty substantial margin at this point is Venli, as she’s getting a front row seat to all the most interesting bits of the setting, ‘cultist growing increasingly disillusioned about return of ancient and terrible eldritch god’ is a really entertaining character arc just in principle, and because as of the end of the book she represents the morally objectively correct perspective and political line I’ve decided and will fight people about. Curious what sort of superpowers she’ll get. (Vargo and Szeth are still both great though, too).
The Unmade are really fun as a worldbuilding conceit/excuse for weird fucked up monsters. And it really is kind of funny that at least a third of the God of Evil’s nine generals/children/favoured beasts are, like, at conflicted or ambivalent about the whole ‘exterminate humanity and remake the world as a monument to my glory’ thing.  
Really, on an extremely shallow and entirely aesthetic level, between the evil red crystal/lightning aesthetic, the remote mountain fortress as a stronghold of the heroes in the face of the coming apocalypse, tears into the realm of spirits, the quirky evil minibosses each handling corrupting/conquering a given center of civilization, etc, the whole thing kind of reminded me of Dragon Age Inquisition. Which reminded me of how disappointing the story to that game was, which made me like the book more by comparison, but anyway. Yeah, good book.
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davidmann95 · 4 years ago
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Comics this week (12/1/2020)?
calvatronlordofall said: Today’s comics?
Far Sector #9: Another comic I won’t understand until it’s done and I can reread the whole thing but that I’m enjoying anyway. Really, really hope Jemisin continues contributing to the medium in some form after this, because she absolutely has a gift for it.
Strange Adventures #7: He doesn’t care for tyranny, folks. And JEEESSSUUUUS, Doc
DCeased: Dead Planet #6: Some quality DC Comics nonsense problem-solving, but not sure at all whether the chips are gonna fall in favor of the stuff about this I’ve been really liking or the aspects I simply don’t care about at all.
Tales From The Dark Multiverse: Wonder Woman: War Of The Gods: While I’ve seen plenty of them around the periphery in anthologies and so forth I think this is Vita Ayala’s first full work I’ve been exposed to, and tbh I can’t say I’m taken, even given the pretty threadbare-seeming material for them to work with. I’ll still give Children of the Atom a try, but my expectations have been lowered. Nice seeing Trish Mulviihill’s colors though, thought they looked familiar and it turns out she worked on my beloved Superman & Bugs Bunny.
Batman: The Adventures Continue #7: Yeah, now that it’s all said and done, definitely the best take on the death and return of Jason Todd.
Batman #104: Art’s taken a hit, but Ghostmaker’s getting more and more fun as a character the more that comes out about him. And surprising seeing Dick in his real Robin suit in flashback, Dark Designs had him still rocking that New 52 abomination. It really seems like the policy RE: costumes in flashbacks with him remains up in the air at any given time?
Anonymous said: Thoughts on the long-awaited BatCat?
Anonymous said: Bat/Cat the objectively best comic of the week. Thots.
Batman/Catwoman #1: I imagine disappointingly, quite few - both the best and worst part of this book is that King’s entire spiel on “This is gonna be such a different animal from my regular run, this is my DKR, this is my ultimate prestige statement on the characters” was pure hype, this is just the next issue of his Batman run with Clay Mann as the new main artist. And it’s good! I like it! I think it’d take awhile for anybody to tumble onto the ‘three timelines’ aspect of it if they didn’t go in knowing about it since the color of Catwoman’s suit is the only obvious tipoff for a chunk of it, but it’s still a well-constructed piece of comics in line with the story up to this point, even if it’s so in line with it that it pretty much puts the lie to the notion that this was originally conceived of as a special prestige project in the same way as Strange Adventures or Rorschach. Mostly I’m just struck now that it’s out by the guts of doing a straight sequel to Mask of the Phantasm, given that’s maybe the singularly least divisive major Batman story: everybody on every side of the Batman-loving aisle recognizes it as hallowed ground, so nobody’s gonna not be let down if you fuck it up. I really need to rewatch it, it’s been well over a decade and unlike Return of the Joker my memories of it have almost entirely faded.
Black Widow #4: The further in I get the more I’m struck by the cleverness of the central conceit. How do you construct a drama around a century-old woman whose business has her have to mostly forsake most normal human connection? Make the literal supervillain plot that she’s been forced to have incredibly intimate human connections, and now she’s just gotta deal with that on top of what would otherwise be fairly routine Black Widow stuff.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #21: Hate to say it folks, but even discounting the severity of the delays this arc’s been a dud. Really hoping it finds its feet again soon.
King In Black #1: Holy cow, this was ass. I went in thinking “well, I’ve resigned myself to having to get this to understand the crossovers into books I’m already getting and tie-in minis I do care about, but Cates still has a baseline level of competency so it should still be perfectly readable”, but this is just...nothing. This is that modern Dan Jurgens tier where it’s so bland and perfunctory and inoffensively executed it loops back around to infuriating, except Dan Jurgens’s writing if nothing else at least doesn’t strut around in tangible self-regard as the next great sales-shattering triumph of the Punk Rock God Of Comixxx like Cates’. And when was the last Marvel event on this scale with such little hype behind it? Even Empyre seemed like it had more weight on arrival, and much as I enjoyed it I’m pretty sure that book mainly existed to fill space until we got this. Maybe it’s just the circle I run in. I swear I remember Thanos Wins being pretty fun, and I just reread Atomahawk and that was still a hoot, so it’s a shame Cates has turned out this way, and worse he’s ended up Marvel’s new golden boy. Unless my dad likes it (and if so hey, he’s not alone, I imagine this is selling gangbusters) I’m sure not grabbing another issue, so I guess I’ll have to do my best with context clues in figuring out what’s going on for...Guardians of the Galaxy, S.W.O.R.D., Daredevil, Namor, Return of the Valkyries, the Joe Fixit Immortal Hulk one-shot, Iron Man/Doctor Doom, and the next book below. Fuck.
The Union #1: I’ve only read Everything Used To Be Black And White for Jack Staff but I was definitely curious what Grist would do here, and it didn’t disappoint! Fun little story, bunch of neat character ideas I’m looking forward to seeing developed further, very lived-in feeling slice of its corner of a superhero world.
Marvels Snapshots: Civil War: An excellent little parable that I’m surprised we didn’t actually see the likes of in ‘06, and frankly worth getting a mediocre Miles Morales arc for (even if it was disappointing that that one had to be where the ball was dropped) if this is where Ahmed’s attention was going instead.
Daredevil #25: So I turned two pages at once and accidentally spoiled myself at the last possible moment for the big reveal of the issue, so that sucks. Still a great issue though - one that manages to function as a logical extension of an incredibly street-level story even though it can only possibly exist as an extrapolation of the wildest excesses of the Marvel universe - but I cannot imagine how the hell the next is gonna cleanly pivot into King in Black shenanigans.
Kill A Man: A new OGN by Steve Orlando, cowritten with Phillip Kennedy Johnson and with art by Al Morgan and letters by Jim Campbell, the reductive though not inaccurate pitch is ‘queer Creed’. But since this is likely to sail under the radar I need to emphasize this is one of Orlando’s absolute best works, a real triumph of the form that’s among the best comics of the year (good GOD does this put to shame 99% of superhero comics fight scenes by the end), and a must-buy for any fans of his work. I’m just gonna let how hard the title and solicit text go speak for themselves:
“As a child, James Bellyi watched his father die in the ring as payback for slurs thrown at the other fighter. Today, he's a Mixed Martial Arts star at the top of his game, and one of the most popular fighters in the world...until he's outed as gay in his title shot press conference. Abandoned overnight by his training camp, his endorsements, his fans and his sport, to regain his title shot Bellyi is forced to turn to the last person he ever wants to see again: Xavier Mayne, a gay, once-great fighter in his own right...and the man James once watched kill his father.”
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lady-divine-writes · 5 years ago
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More than Words ... but They're Nice Anyway (Rated PG)
Summary: Aziraphale is distressed when Crowley won't admit to saying 'I love you' ... even though he's been saying it for weeks. (1559 words)
Read on AO3.
“I love you.”
“What?” Aziraphale looks up from his plate of crepes and across the table at Crowley busy buttering his slice of toast and, by all outward appearances, paying Aziraphale absolutely no mind.
“Hmm?” Crowley mutters, setting his first slice aside and starting on his second.
“Wh---what did you say?”
“When?”
“Just now?” Aziraphale glances around the dining room on the off chance someone else is about, maybe hiding in the shadows.
Someone who … loves him?
“Would you please pass the marmalade?” Crowley asks, extending a hand.
Aziraphale’s brow crinkles, curious how in the world he heard I love you if Crowley asked for the marmalade. None of those words sound even remotely alike!
“Yes,” Aziraphale says, handing the marmalade jar across the table. “Of course.”
“Thanks.”
“Is … is that what you said?”
“When?”
Aziraphale sighs in exasperation. “Just now?”
“Yeah. Why?” Crowley’s eyes meet Aziraphale’s. “Did you hear something else?”
Aziraphale holds Crowley’s gaze several long minutes before he decides he’s being ridiculous. Crowley has never exactly been shy about any of his feelings. If he loved Aziraphale, he’d simply come out and say it.
Obviously, that’s not the case here.
“No,” Aziraphale lies, returning to his crepes, his appetite gone. “No, I … I heard nothing.”
***
“I love you.”
“Wh-what!?” Aziraphale yelps, fighting to be heard over pedestrians screaming in terror as Crowley squeals around a corner and jettisons straight into traffic.
“What?” Crowley returns. “What was that?”
Aziraphale white knuckles the dash harder than required for him to keep his seat, frustrated that this volley of words above the screeching of rubber must continue since Crowley refuses to slow down and drive safely enough to engage in normal conversation.
“What … did … you … say?” Aziraphale asks through gritted teeth.
“Oh.” Crowley’s brow furrows, his eyes glued to the road as he maneuvers between cars, nearly clipping the curb when he passes a rather large lorry on the wrong side. “I said hold onto your seat. The ride’s about to get bumpy.”
Aziraphale shoots Crowley a side-long look. ‘That’s not what he said!’ he thinks. ‘That’s nowhere near what he said!’ Even if he didn’t say what Aziraphale thinks he said, he only spoke three words. Not that Aziraphale was facing him directly. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road for a second when Crowley drives in case he needs to miracle some poor innocent out of the road. Aziraphale caught Crowley’s lips move in the reflection of the rearview.
But his sleuthing gets knocked clear of his thoughts when Crowley veers to the left, throwing Aziraphale across the seat and into the door. Aziraphale swallows hard, pushing down the heart that’s lodged in his throat ready to propel itself out his mouth and escape this demonic death trap.
“I’m sorry but … it’s a bit … too late … for that … my dear.”
***
“I love …”
“What?” Aziraphale rounds in front of Crowley, stopping him in his tracks. “What is it you’re going to say? And be honest now! Because if you’re not saying what I think you’re saying, I might just be going insane!”
Crowley blinks behind dark lenses at the white fire glowing in the angel’s blue eyes despite them being outdoors in the afternoon and surrounded by humans. “I … I was about to say …”
“Yes?” Aziraphale leans in aggressively, forcing Crowley back a step.
“… that I love walking through the park with you. Reminds me of old times. The good old times, anyway.” Crowley pauses, waits for a response. He grows uncomfortable in the silence under the scrutiny of Aziraphale’s piercing glare. “You know, before we knew that feeding ducks bread was bad for them?”
Aziraphale huffs at Crowley’s attempt at humor, but only slightly. “Are you certain,” he says, enunciating each word carefully, “that that’s what you were going to say?”
“Yes?” Crowley replies unconvincingly, and with the addition of an emphatic nod. “That’s exactly what I was going to say. Why? Is there something the matter?”
His answer infuriates Aziraphale, deep down to his core.
A joke!
He’s treating this like a joke!
How can he be so cruel?
He’s a demon, yes, but this isn’t just run-of-the-mill evil.
It’s Evil.
There’s a great many things Aziraphale can stand Crowley joking about, but not this. He’s about to tell him that, too, in no uncertain terms; give him a lecture he won’t likely soon forget. But when Crowley offers the angel his arm in a gentlemanly fashion and knocks him a little bow, it topples Aziraphale’s defenses.
Aziraphale can’t fault Crowley for his feelings … or lack thereof.
He can’t be angry at him because his pride is bruised.
He takes the offered arm and winds his through.
“No, my dear,” Aziraphale says, returning to his place at Crowley’s side, matching his steps when they start strolling again. “Nothing at all.”
Aziraphale breathes in deep and exhales slow. He’s not being fair. He doesn’t know that Crowley doesn’t love him. If he didn’t love him, would he have begged him to go off to the stars as often as he did? And if that’s the case, Aziraphale doesn’t need the words if they’re what Crowley means to say. He and Crowley are supernatural entities. Their thoughts and emotions can’t be measured on the scale of common, human words. Why, he’d heard a passage in a charming older movie Tracy made him watch that explains it perfectly.
“Words, words, they're all used up, they're hard to say. They've all been wasted on the shampoo commercials, and the ads, and the flavorings. All the beautiful words. I mean, how can you love a floor wax? How can you love a diaper? How can I use the same word about you that someone else uses about a stuffing? I'm exploding with love for you and I can't use the word!”
And he was right. The distinguished older man with the unfortunately large nose who recited those words was right. What he and Crowley have goes beyond words – especially mortal words. No need for those overused and abused words!
I love you? Who needs them!? Not him! Not at all!
But once, he thinks with a heavy heart as he squeezes Crowley closer, just once … it would be so nice to hear them.
***
“Explain to me again – what are you taking me to see? Because I don’t think I understand.”
“It’s called Sixty Second Hamlet,” Crowley explains for the fifth time but with the same giddy chuckle as the first.
“So, we’re driving to a theater over two hours away to watch a performance of Hamlet that’s only a minute long?”
“Yup! And it’s worth every mile, I’ll tell you that! Someone finally figured out a way to make that damned play a helluva lot less dreary. Just wait till you see it! You’re gonna love it!”
And there’s that word, hanging in the air, directed at something other than him. And as much as he swore to himself that he wouldn’t let it bother him … it bothers him.
“Crowley?”
“Yes, angel?”
Aziraphale hangs back a step as Crowley leads him to his car, giving himself enough time and space to say what he needs to say before they go any further. Not just for now and not just for today, but for every day forward. “Before we do anything, I … I wanted to say something.”
Crowley stops with his hand on the door handle and turns around. “Yes?”
“I …” Aziraphale looks at the demon in front of him – six-plus-feet of conceit and ego and swagger that, despite himself, Aziraphale can’t see ever getting over if he lost him. Sure, they don’t need the words. But he wants the words. And if he’s the only one willing to say them then … so be it. “I love you.”
The blank expression that answers that declaration downright terrifies Aziraphale. If Crowley were human, Aziraphale swears he’d expect him to turn tail and run, leave his Bentley behind in favor of a swifter, more expedient exit on foot. Being the insufferable demon he is, he doesn’t react - not for a while. But then he grins ever so slowly, clapping his hands together in delight. “Finally!”
Aziraphale’s head jerks, taken aback by that response. “What? What do you mean finally?”
“I’ve been saying I love you for weeks, but I couldn’t get you to say it back!”
Aziraphale’s lower jaw drops of its own accord. “But … but I … I thought I was imagining it! When I asked you to repeat it, you’d say something else!”
“Because you looked so confused. A few times, you looked angry. I thought that maybe you … you know … didn’t want to hear me say …”
“Hear you say … what?” Aziraphale fishes.
Crowley’s triumphant grin becomes softer, fonder. “I love you.”
Aziraphale nods. He’s fighting not to smile. After everything Crowley has put him through, he doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
But he’s losing.
“You’re quite the idiot,” he says, his lips twitching uncontrollably at the corners. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” Crowley steps away from his car and wraps his arms around Aziraphale’s waist. “But I’m your idiot. And there’s no getting rid of me now.”
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rosyk · 4 years ago
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Devil’s Waltz
pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader
genre: romance, enemies to lovers, royalty setting
warnings: very uncomfortable moments, mentions of dagger and idea of r*pe or untolerable behaviors
word count: 2.4k
a/n: This was meant to be posted on valentines day but it took longer than I thought because this royal set up was new to me. Have fun reading! (I’d also like to thank you for the 42 likes I’ve gotten on my previous story, ily<3)
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“Now’s the time,” I thought as I looked at the sparkly red wine placed on my right hand. I raised an eyebrow and half-smiled at the red ruby jewel on my finger, given by marquis Augustus as a sign of my royalty.
I was wearing a sheer lace flutter sleeve evening gown in shades and tints of plain red. The design only appears at the bottom of its sleeve as the rest goes plain. Unnoticeably, the dark portion of red is found at the bottom line of the dress. The high heels were plain black and I wore little earrings so it wouldn’t stand out as much. This might not be the best dress I could find but I do know it matches me like heaven. My curly messy bun with wavy strands of dark chestnut hair on each side complements the overall outfit.
As soon as I stepped into the grand palace, it was indeed remarkably exquisite. As expected of the Prince who holds precedence above all mankind and even other dukes. How marvelous for an irksome sophomaniac.
I started walking away from people but made sure I was meters near my target. My current target was an overly authoritative noble. This was the very first time I loathed a target. He acted so manly and fine during the day but he was nowhere near there. A hypocrite, to hit girls and threaten them until they agree. A man of immoral character.
I’ve heard rumors of his contradictory personality, but not a single thought had crossed my mind for him to be like that. After all, he was this charming tall guy who’d make you blush as soon as your eyes managed to fall on his. His gentle but respectful touches would make you feel so safe, wrapped in his arms. Sincere words that pique your interest and eyes, as described by innocent maidens, were unique and shimmers even in your darkest hours. It does match his name duke Pisén which is derived from Pissenlit, a french term for dandelions. He was known for having eyes, that show dandelions dancing in the night sky.
However, his worshippers were too incautious to leave with a man-too-good despite no one being around. In fact, dandelions never open at night.
I wore a sweet smile as I walked his way. The other nobles he’s been talking to had noticed me as they signaled him. He turned around, eyes slightly widened, and looked at me in awe.
“The Marchioness of Auclair, here you are!” he chuckled lowly and smiled as he opened his arms as a sign of welcome. He was indeed a duke but treated me so highly as if he won a jackpot. What a dullard.
“Your grace” I showed a smile exact to his liking, innocent and delicate. Now, do I look exactly just like your victims, Pisén? Don’t get too ahead of yourself.
“Great timing, I was just talking to the dukes about you” I felt his lewd eyes staring at me from top to bottom and I swore I saw him pressing his lips. I was taken aback by how he went steps closer to me and held my upper arm, caressing it gently. I wasn’t able to move for a second. Usually, he would give girls the space to show his sincerity but his patience ran out this time. I coughed to clear out my thoughts and continued the plan.
“You look lovely and nice” He spoke out as if it was the best pick-up line he gave. I pressed my lips together to hold out my laughter. Seriously? Was that all he got?
“You too, your grace” I complimented for the sake of respect and that’s just it.
We talked after a few minutes until he let his guard down and drank the wine I held. It was poison, as usual. It wasn’t thrilling but he wasn’t even worth holding my blade. He walked out as he was starting to get dizzy. Oh, how boring. I thought of leaving but a man called out to me with a voice unexpectedly attractive. I turned around and saw a heavenly duke in front of me. Now, he was the real deal.
“What a dainty figure for a dauntless marchioness” the sophomaniac spoke
Arriving at the palace of the duc (duke) is something I have to look out for. He was my target a year ago but I wasn’t able to draw out my blade in his room for he was called out. I still believe he has some suspicions after I had disappeared that night. Though, I had no grudges against him.
My job is simply to kill every noble who has a position greater than mines. My goal? It is to be the duchess of all and the only obstacle I would face would obviously be this guy in front of me. After all, he got the highest position. My mother would say the easiest thing to kill a man is to marry him, either break his heart or legally assassinate him. Honestly, I’ve thought of it as well. But why marry someone I hate? He was born with a silver spoon and had no problems as deeply comparable as mine. He is an egoistic, conceited, and enchanting god, Samuel Hwang.
As I bowed for respect, the music played. It was time for the dance and this was what I was trying to avoid. I looked around people who picked up their partners but most were staring at the figure in front of me.
Although I understand why. No words could describe the ethereal beauty of this blonde duke in a suit.
“A lot of your admirers are staring, so could you please get out of my way and ask-“I cut my sentence off as I was trying to process his doing. He showed his hand in front of me and looked at me in the eye. Oh dear, please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.
“Don’t you think the music played at such a good timing?” He raised an eyebrow and wore a smile. Yes, it was the perfect timing, I rolled my eyes mentally.
“Oh, you do know I’d hate to take this dance” He tilted his chin sideways, silently signaling me a lot of people are watching. I sighed and wore a sarcastic smile. “I feel honored you always love to embarrass me in front of people” I added and took his hand as he led me in the middle.
I know how to dance. In fact, that was a necessity before having a royal title. I also have manners, but he doesn’t deserve to be shown some.
I hate how he was genuinely enjoying it as he loved seeing me look so angry. Ah, how annoying. If it weren’t for the audience, I’d gladly draw my dagger out of my dress and murder this man. We were doing a few waltz steps and turns until I stepped on his shoes.
“You did that with pure will, didn’t you?” His eyes slightly widened and narrowed soon after as he slightly tightened the grip on my back, causing both of us to get a step closer.
“If you gave me enough space and didn’t go beyond the boundaries, I wouldn’t have done that, your grace” I mimicked his smile minutes ago and he was clearly ticked off.
“As they all say, keep your friends close, but enemies closer” The crowd starts to fall out and away from us two dancing, after seeing how close we were. Great, was he trying to make me have more girls holding grudges and death wills on me?
“You’re hurting me” I simply stated to let him know I was desperately wishing to blow this palace up and never see him again.
He acted as if he was thinking and sarcastically remarked “Did I complain when you were trying to kill me in my room for the past year?” He smiled as he knew he made a point. How I wish I could wipe it out and never see it in my life once again. If that happened, that could’ve been the best blessing.
“So you knew?” I questioned as he turned me gracefully around the center while the people watching were in awe. They loved the view, unfortunately not knowing the words spoken with nothing but contrasting emotions.
“How couldn’t I, darling?” the duke replied with a smug look. ”you were as transparent as an open book. Even right now, I could say you’re enjoying this dance with me.” He looked at me, acting so all-knowing as if he had known me for years.
“How flattering for a duke to assume that fast. Just because a girl smiles at you doesn’t mean she’s not planning to visit your grave”
“My, my, how unfortunate for a magnificent lady to have quite an indecent mouth” He lowered his head and chuckled in slightly deep and seductive voice girls would swoon over.
“So you do think I’m magnificent?” I backfired and went closer to him, wearing a smug look.
“Oh, I’ve always told you how much I find you beautiful, darling” He went closer until our faces were inches apart. I froze for a few seconds and stared at his eyes, a pity for him to be such a beauty. I found a smirk in his face and that like-what-you-see look which made me go back to earth seconds later.
“Your cocky smirk makes me want to pass away and never see you again, your grace” I smiled sarcastically for only god knows how many times in this day, as I sighed, trying to calm myself down.
“Be my guest then” I rolled my eyes and purposely stepped on his foot once again. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to dancing with someone who’s self-centered and conceited” I emphasized the last 3 words and told him in a low volume, whispering.
“How offensive,” he was simply entertained seeing me so irritated.
“Pardon me once again, I wasn’t aware you were offended by facts. Who wouldn’t want to jump off a cliff after seeing you?”
“But what’s the hold up for, darling? Why wouldn’t you jump off? Do you want me to be the one who will have to push you? I would be pleased to do so”
“If only you knew your grace Hwang, before you could even manage to push me off a high building, I would be the first who’ll come at you”
“Oh really? Because as what I knew, you weren’t able to kill a target last year”
“Someone called you out so you were really lucky” I gripped his hand to calm myself down and to know how much he had pissed me off. In return, he just shot an amusing smile as he looked at both of our hands.
“Just admit that you enjoy dancing with me. In fact, you love the view you’re seeing right now.” I rolled my eyes with a smile after his statement.
“Who would love dancing with the devil? I don’t but I do love having your throat slit and body 6 feet below the ground”
“Brutally fierce, I like that” he winked at me as I stared at him in confusion. Is he mentally unstable? What the hell do I do if I was actually dancing with a lunatic duke?
“But we both know you couldn’t seriously do that” he replied as he held my hand and twirled me around “because why so didn’t you kill me beforehand when we spent several hours in the room? My servant arrived very late in fact. You could’ve had lots of time with no worries. ”he held my back, causing our bodies to press together after the turn. The audience’s eyes had widened and most of them clapped.
My sarcastic smile faded and shifted into a frown. He was surprised by how serious I was with just a statement that he assumed I would take as a joke. I was about to leave the ball but he held my wrist with a startled look. It just took seconds but staring into his eyes made it feel like forever. I stared at him with pure anger and hatred. Something in what he said triggered me.
The facts he spoke infuriated me. Why didn’t I kill him right after the moment? Was it pity? Guilt? I was raised to kill people higher than me so why should I feel guilty? Or was I indeed pity of him when he trusted me? Trust doesn’t belong between enemies.
He got the hint and smiled like he knew everything. “With the way you’re behaving, I would assume you’re madly in love with me” He held his grip on my hand tighter but in a way that it doesn’t hurt.
I tried to clear out my expressions and anything I’m thinking about because he knew me so well even after just little late-night talks. “With the way you’re talking I could assume it was you, with me. But I do know that you’re not, aren’t you, your grace?” I raised my eyebrow and smiled. Though the way I spoke came out as if I was trying to defend myself from the way he’s making me feel and reassured myself nothing’s going to happen.
I recognized the music playing and it was near the last part of Old Russian waltz Sorrow, the last song. It means I had unknowingly been dancing with him for already more than 30 minutes. To think I wasn’t fond of dancing around people, why did I lose track of time?
He led and twirled me around as he smiled “who says I’m not, darling?” I stopped breathing for a second and instinctively held the dagger attached to my leg near the slit. Except, the dagger wasn’t there anymore.
He took me before I could even comprehend the situation. Have I lost it while I was busy talking to Pisén? Or was I waltzing? But I remembered I brought it. Panic arose me and my mind stopped working. Or what if-
We danced a few steps of the fast waltz and he turned me around. He lifted my leg slightly aligned below his hip, making me hold onto his neck and lay on his large hands supporting my back as soon as the last music stopped. He showed me the dagger, making sure others didn’t see him.
“Looking for this?” I was left shocked and as I was about to explain myself, he grinned like a cute kid to make people unsuspicious of all that’s happening. As soon as he leaned and whispered in my ear, his aura changed and I felt the goosebumps. I could feel how cold yet playful he was. He smirked mischievously as he spoke with a deep voice,
“I’m not letting you off this time, milady”
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knifeonmars · 4 years ago
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Capsule Reviews, February 2021
Here's some things I've been reading.
The Curse of Brimstone 
DC's New Age of Heroes books, emerging from the beginning of Scott Snyder's creative-flameout-as-crossover-event Metal, mostly constituted riffs on Marvel heroes like the Fantastic Four (in The Terrifics) or the Hulk (in Damage). The Curse of Brimstone is a riff on Ghost Rider. It's... uneven. The first volume is generally pretty good, and when Phillip Tan is drawing it, as he does the first three and a half issues, it's gorgeous and unique, when he departs though, the quality takes a nose dive. None of the replacement artists, including the great Denis Cowan, can quite fill his shoes, and the story gets old fast. Guy makes a deal with the devil (or rather, a devil-like inhabitant of the "Dark Multiverse" as a not horribly handled tie-in to the conceits of Metal), realizes it's a raw deal, and rebels. The characters are flat, lots of time is spent with the main character's sister haranguing him to not use his powers (it is, in my humble opinion, something of a cardinal sin to have a character whose primary role is telling other characters to stop doing interesting things), too many potboiler "I know you're still in there!/I can feel this power consuming me!" exchanges, a couple of underwhelming guest spots (including a genuinely pointless appearance by the old, white, boring Doctor Fate) too many flashbacks, and not enough of the action. There's potential in the classic demonic hero rebelling plotline and its link to the liminal spaces of the DC universe, forgotten towns and economic depression, but the wheels come off this series pretty much as soon as Tan leaves. The really disappointing this is that the series is clearly built as an artistic showcase, so after Tan's shockingly early departure, the main appeal of the series is gone and there's nothing left but the playing out of an obviously threadbare story.
Star Wars - Boba Fett: Death, Lies, and Treachery
I don't care much about Star Wars these days, and I think that most of the old Expanded Universe was, as evidenced by Crimson Empire, pretty bad. Death, Lies, and Treachery, is that rare Star Wars EU comic which is actually good. John Wagner writes and he's in full-on 2000 AD mode, writing Boba Fett as a slightly more unpleasant Johnny Alpha (who is like a mercenary Judge Dredd, for those unfamiliar) right on down to the appearance of a funny alien sidekick for one of the characters. The main attraction is Cam Kennedy's art though, along with his inimitable colors: this might be the best looking Star Wars comic ever. The designs are all weird and chunky, with an almost kitbashed feeling that captures the lived in aesthetic of classic Star Wars, and the colors are one of a kind. Natural, neutral white light does not exist in this comic, everything is always bathed at all times in lurid greens or yellows, occasionally reds, and it looks incredible. In terms of "Expanded Universe" material for Star Wars, this hits the sweet spot of looking and feeling of a piece, but exploring the edges of the concept with a unique voice. It's great. I read this digitally, but I'd consider it a must-buy in print if I ever get the chance at a deal.
Zaroff
Zaroff is a French comic (novel? novella?). It's like 90 pages and it delivers exactly on its premise of "Die Hard starring the bad guy from The Most Dangerous Game." It's pretty good. Count Zaroff, he of the habitual hunting of humans, turns out to have killed a mafia don at some point, and after miraculously escaping his own seeming death at the end of the original story, finds himself hunted by the irate associates of this gangster, who have brought along Zaroff's sister and her kids to spice things up. Zaroff not only finds himself the hunt, but he also has to protect his estranged family as they struggle to survive. Nothing about this book or its twists and turns is likely to surprise you, but I don't think being surprised is always necessary for quality. Zaroff delivers on pulpy, early-20th century jungle action, is gorgeously rendered, and the fact that Zaroff himself is an unrepentant villain adds just enough of an unexpected element to the proceedings and character dynamics that it doesn't feel rote. There's a couple of points, ones typical of Eurocomics, which spark a slight sour note, such as some "period appropriate" racism and flashes of the male gaze, but for the most part these are relatively contained. It's good.
Batman: Gothic
Long before Grant Morrison did their Bat-epic, they wrote Batman: Gothic, an entirely different, but then again maybe not so different, kind of thing. It starts off with what must be called a riff on Fritz Lang's film, M, only where that story ends with a crew of gangsters deciding they cannot pass moral judgment on a deranged child-murderer, in Morrison's story they go ahead and kill him, only for the killer to return years later to rather horribly murder all of them as a warmup for a grandiose scheme involving unleashing a weaponized form of the bubonic plague on Gotham City as an offering to Satan. Along the way it turns out that said villain, one Mr. Whisper, is a former schoolmaster of Bruce Wayne's, who terrified the young Batman in the days before his parent's deaths. It's an earlier Morrison story and it shows. Certain elements presage their later Batman work; Mr. Whisper as a satanic enemy recalls the later Doctor Hurt, and the cathedral Mr. Whisper built to harvest souls recalls what writers like Morrison, Milligan, and Snyder would do concerning Gotham as a whole years later.The art, by Klaus Janson, is spectacular. If you're familiar at all with his work collaborating with Frank Miller you'll see him continuing in a similar vein and it's all quite good, even when he stretches beyond the street milieu which most readers might know him from. There's one particular sequence where Janson renders a needlessly complicated Rube Goldberg machine in motion that manages to work despite being static images. The writing by Morrison though, is not their finest. The M riff doesn't last as long as it could, and Mr. Whisper's turn in the latter half of the story from delicious creepy wraith to a cackling mass murderer who puts Batman in an easily escaped death trap feels like something of a letdown from the promise of the first half of the book. Gothic is good, but not, in my opinion, great. It's certainly worth checking out for Morrison fans however, and I imagine that someone well-versed in his latter Batman stuff might be able to find some real resonance between the two.
Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters
For a long, long time, Longbow Hunters was THE Green Arrow story. It is to Green Arrow as TDKR is to Batman, deliberately so. Mike Grell wrote and drew the reinvention of the character from his role as the Justice League's resident limousine liberal to a gritty urban vigilante operating in Seattle over the course of these three issues, which he'd follow up with a subsequent ongoing. Going back to it, it certainly merits its reputation, but its far from timeless. Grell's art is unimpeachable absolutely incredible, with great splashes and spreads, subtle colors, and really great figure work. The narrative is almost so 80's it hurts though, revolving around West Coast serial killers, cocaine, the CIA and the Iran-Contra scandal, and the Yakuza, and it's hard to look back at some of this stuff without smirking. The story begins with a teenager strung out on tainted coke sprinting through a window in a scene that's right out of Reefer Madness. In the cold light of a day 30+ years later, parts of it look more than a little silly. The 80's-ness of it all doesn't stop with that stuff though, even the superhero elements smack of it. Green Arrow realizes that he's lost a step and has be to be shown a way forward by an Asian woman skilled in the martial arts (recalling Vic Sage's reinvention in the pages of The Question), and Black Canary gets captured and torture off-panel for the sake of showing that this is real crime now, not the superhero silliness they've dealt with before. The treatment of Black Canary here is pretty markedly heinous, it's a classic fridging and Grell's claims that he didn't intentionally imply sexual assault in his depiction of her torture is probably true, but still feels more than a little weak considering how he chose to render it.The final analysis is that this book is good, but it exists strictly in the frame of the 1980's. If you're a fan of Green Arrow, there are worse books to pick up, or if you're interested in that era of DC Comics it's more than worth it, but as a matter of general interest I wouldn't recommend it very highly.
SHIELD by Steranko
Jim Steranko is sort of the prodigy of the early Marvel years, a young guy who came up through the system, blossomed into an incredible talent, and then left the company, and by and large the industry, behind. He would go on to dabble in publishing, work in other mediums, and generally kick around as the prodigal son of Marvel Comics. This collection, of both his Nick Fury shorts in the pages of Strange Tales and the four issues he drew of the original Nick Fury solo series, charts Steranko's growth as an artist. The book starts off with Steranko working from Jack Kirby's layouts with Stan Lee's dialogue and writing, and Steranko might be the one guy in history for whom working off of Kirby's blueprints is clearly holding him back. The first third or so of this collection really isn't much to write home about, as Steranko is obviously constrained by someone else's style, and at the end of the day those early stories still read as somewhat uninspired pulp compared to the highlights of early Marvel. There are flashes though, of techniques and ideas, which foreshadow what Steranko is capable of, and when he finally takes over as solo writer/artist it's like he's been unleashed. He immediately has Nick Fury tear off his shirt and start throwing guys around over psychedelic effects. He writes out most of Kirby and Lee's frankly uninspired boys' club supporting cast, he makes Fury visibly older, wearier, but also so much cooler. It's the birth of Nick Fury as a distinctly comic book super spy.By the time he finishes wrapping up the previous writers' plotline with Hydra and Baron von Strucker, Steranko is firing on all cylinders. By the time it gets to Steranko's Fury solo series, he's somehow surpassed himself, turning in effects, panel structures, and weird stories which make the earlier installment about a suit-wearing Man from UNCLE knockoff and its strict six-panel layouts look absolutely fossilized.I can't recommend this collection highly enough for any fan of the artform, even if the stories themselves might not be everyone's cup of tear. It's truly incredible to watch Steranko emerge as an artist over the course of this single collection. The book itself has a few problems, it's not the most elegantly designed in its supporting materials and index, but the content of it more than outweighs that. It's great stuff.
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lesbianmarth · 4 years ago
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it’s been a while since i posted about aa but i just finished soj in its entirety tonight. here’s my new list so far
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i still have to give thoughts on cases 4 5 and dlc so that’ll be under a cut. spoilers!
6-4: this was such a filler case, almost shamefully so. i don’t know why they thought they could manage to do this in the 4th case when every game with 5 cases has been pretty consistent about making the 4th case plot relevant, sometimes literally just a preamble to case 5. so yeah i think this one was kinda ass
the two things it had going for it: one, athena. in 6-2 i actually got confused about why i ever liked her, because in that case she felt like she was just acting the part of the Peppy Teen Girl With a Rowdy Streak that makes up almost every assistant character. But then as SOON as she started bantering with Simon in 6-4 i was like “oh, THAT’S why i liked her!” was nice to take control of her again.
two, uendo toneido. while i don’t think you can say the DID was portrayed with quite the necessary respect or kindness, it was handled better than i’ve seen other media handle it-- at least it’s not completely demonized. other people have written more on that in better detail so i’m not really the judge, but the basic point is that this witness was mad fun to read, and even the dumb jokes like the changing number of floor cushions were entertaining. thus why this case is in the “hard carried by one side character” tier.
especially since there was like nothing else going on. no connection to the main plot, only two other characters besides uendo, and for some reason the clown tits girl was here instead of the magic show case (and to be honest, she wasn’t enjoyable for me even BEFORE she did the standard aa female villain thing and changed her speech pattern as soon as she fell under suspicion). just a weird, nothing case stuck right around the point aa games usually enter endgame. And especially weird because...
6-5 part 1: inexplicably there are two separate cases in the final chapter and each gets one day of investigation and trial. such a weird setup, and it really shouldn’t work... but i think it kinda barely does. barely. it would still have been better to split it into case 4 and case 5 though.
i have a hard time articulating much on the first case bc it sort of blends together for me. the main thing is that the concept of it being a civil case where apollo and phoenix face off is really good. it was a good change of pace, even though you knew it was gonna be a murder somehow anyway. sarge was reasonably nice, i guess, paul atishon had some good animations and quirks (my favorite being when he tries to just walk away from the stand to avoid answering a question), and the logic of the actual murder was good enough.
but i especially got those strong “oh this is a FINAL case!” vibes during the segment in the cave, and that added so much to it even if not much of it was relevant in the first half of the case. the adventure feel reminded me of some of the (out of context bc i still havent played it) scenes i know from 3-5, which is a good association to invoke imo. and it did a lot to give apollo and dhurke time to bond.
speaking of which, dhurke, holy shit. what a KING. i don’t think i’ve ever liked a dad character in ace attorney this much. he’s so genuine and like down to earth that it’s impossible not to start liking him and believe how much he cares for his sons. the bit where he rescued apollo from the cave flood... i felt it in my heart
6-5 part 2: let me just get this out of the way: ga’ran sucks. her design after she goes full evil is so bad, she’s so malicious that it’s immediately obvious she’s going to be the culprit, her breakdown is ridiculous and just embarrassing to watch, and inga had already established way more charisma as a villain when he did the “those were orders of execution actually” bit in 6-3. with that said,
i actually liked it for the most part. the spirit channeling stuff was excellent imo-- they probably use it to similar or greater effect in 3-5 but as someone who again has not played that, i was surprised and almost impressed by how well it was applied. maya was relevant for something! it feels like it’s been ages!
rayfa was a little underutilized, i think-- her moment of determination where she stops letting ga’ran have control over her was alright but it fell flat bc it didn’t have any weight during the moment. i kept hoping she would like, wordlessly take of her shawl and do the little verbal preamble to the divination seance while ga’ran kept yelling at her to stop, but no, the script can’t be good like that, i guess. and since she didn’t get to be the investigation assistant for long, none of her charm in that role carried through.
but DHURKE!! oh my god! in a game almost devoid of emotional impact, his involvement in this case really hit. the way they painstakingly animated his death, the scene where he makes a promise with maya, and then the weight of knowing in hindsight that everything he did in the first part of the case was after he’d already died and just wanted to see his son again before passing on for real....... it hurt. i felt something during that section. this case would also be hard carried by him if not for the fact that i really liked the murder bits.
amara was good too--liked how they made her suspiciously serene and accentuated it with the lightning strikes to make her look like a hidden murderer character about to reveal herself, only to walk it back and confirm she was being forced to act that way. i thought it worked. nahyuta was boring though, i’m sorry-- i get the motivation with having to be a bastard bc his sister and mom were basically held hostage, but the only time i found him compelling in that mess was the bit where he removed his one fingerless glove and revealed he still has the dragon tattoo. that was it. athena was also completely unused the whole case (not even a single mood matrix? really?) and trucy one again went without any role of importance.
the ending also... yknow, a friend said they had to end it this way bc they never figured out what they were going to do with apollo (since following up on what they started in aa4 clearly wasn’t an option???) and just threw him on a bus to get rid of him. i agree with that-- he really feels thrown to the side, and with that i think trucy’s officially stranded with no hope of any character advancement. and the way they ended the game with phoenix and lamiroir deciding “yeah, maybe NOW we should finally tell those two they’re related” honestly felt insulting lol
but maybe the dlc case will let things go out on a high note...?!
6-6: it was okay.
it would’ve worked pretty well as a filler case in an older aa-- honestly i think it’d be one of the better filler cases, certainly worth replacing the shitty ones like 2-3 or 3-3 or, hey, 6-4. but whether i’d say it was worth paying for... eh.
the time travel conceit was done well enough, i think. the way they tied it back to sorin and pierce’s backstories was nice, and the twist about having two receptions was good, although they needed to treat that as a real twist with much more gravity. when the truth comes out it just feels like “oh of course that’s what happened” rather than a big surprise worthy of the Confessing the Truth theme. it’s sort of important because the case becomes a lot less interesting when you take out the time travel element.
far as characters are concerned, i think they needed more side characters to sell the whole thing-- another sprocket family member or another servant of the household. it felt a little limited-- sorin and pierce are pretty good witnesses and i like their quirks and their secrets, but the only alive woman (ellen) has very few traits and no connection to the deeper story of the case, so she falls really flat. the old aa characters didn’t add much- maya and edgeworth were just there for fanservice, ema didn’t get to do much other than acknowledge for the first time in years that she’s a big edgeworth fan, and larry is annoying as hell like he always is.
and oh my god i actually forgot while i was writing that, how they put in athena and trucy but only used them for brief slapstick where trucy would try to set athena on fire and shit. again-- no mood matrix? couldn’t even try once to fit those two characters into something?
i did like pierce’s transformation into his surgeon form though-- that was really cool. loved him doing surgery on a robot, taking xrays of the lawyers, and his breakdown was fantastic-- he would make a really good culprit if they didn’t whiff the last bit of pathos at the end. i don’t think he should’ve been aiming for revenge on sorin; it would have hurt much more if he was still loyal to the guy and never intended for him to be in danger, but the final “why’d you do it?” talk in the trial just felt flat and one-note, much like the one in 6-4.
... so that’s spirit of justice! not a super positive experience but i’m happy to say it’s done. as much as i want to go and replay dgs, i think when i do go back to ace attorney i’ll be replaying the trilogy for the first time since high school
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gascon-en-exil · 5 years ago
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Mercilessly Judging the Men of Fòdlan: The Kingdom
It’s been a long time coming, over eight months in fact, but now that it may be assumed that the last of the DLC has been released and the fandom as a whole has settled comfortably into its various camps I think there’s no better time than now to answer that burning question: how raunchily, outrageously gay can the male cast of Three Houses possibly be? For those unfamiliar with this fun little series of mine, I’ve been applying my extensive knowledge and experience of gay male sex and hookup culture to the men of Fire Emblem, originally as a way of reckoning with the refusal of the games themselves to provide me with any worthwhile self-insert M/M content. I stand by that premise for FE16 - you all know how absolutely nothing appeals to me about m!Byleth or his prospects on that score - but in the years since my first outing of merciless judgment with Awakening that idea has expanded into something broader, an imaginative modern AU of sorts where all these guys are into men (if not always exclusively) and willing to put themselves out there in the lewd and semi-anonymous world of hookup apps in search of their preferred carnal delights.
A note on organization before we begin, as this material is too long to cram into one post. Excluding Byleth (as Avatars and their spawn always are for this project) there are twenty-one playable male characters in Three Houses. This makes for an even threeway division to preserve the eponymous conceit of the game, but not a particularly neat one. Aligned with the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus I therefore have below the male Lions, Kingdom knight and Azure Moon-exclusive Gilbert, and Faerghus-based underworld kingpin Yuri. As with all things concerning M/M outside of Byleth and his awkward S rank monologues, the Lions have it the most clear-cut.
The Empire
The Alliance
Dimitri
It’s rare that you can get a feeling for someone’s whole life story entirely from watching their presence in hookup spaces over time, but he’s an exception. Once a sweet, wide-eyed collegiate who looked eager to get dicked down by any reasonably polite and attractive top/vers, hard years have turned him grim and sad and just barely put together enough to be presentable for a clothed face pic, much less anything more revealing...and still eager to get dicked down. He’s been dealing with a lot lately, and even though he’s still game for a quickie from time to time (especially with muscle guys, a shallow weakness of his he’d blush to admit to out loud) a single roll in the sheets isn’t going to make him emotionally available. Apparently he’s already well-covered on that front as it is; with his charisma and open-minded way of looking at the world he’s made many friends and fuck buddies and companions who seem half like boyfriends and half like something indescribably beyond that, and a new trick would be hard-pressed to compete with that and likely wouldn’t want to if it means engaging with his demons. Still an enviable hookup partner though, with a full pert ass and a whole assortment of friends who love to play with him and anyone else who lands an invitation to his bed. His cock has left many a bottom drooling, but unfortunately he’s haunted by the memory of the time when he went too hard and nearly caused a medical emergency. Now he just takes it and doesn’t even let anyone ride him, but there are just as many men who aren’t complaining about that in the slightest. Has a very high chance of winding up in a tender and fulfilling poly marriage that’s still open on all sides - he’s got a lot of hot, sweaty love to give.
Favored erotic tea time subjects: body worship, muscle bears, group sex
Favored gift: a body pillow, on the infrequent occasions where he has to sleep alone with no one to cuddle
Dedue
One of those shy larger men who will never initiate conversation, because he’s been blown off one too many times for shallow reasons and isn’t expecting that to ever change. It doesn’t bother him greatly though, because as his profile states he’s in a relationship and he and his partner only play together so unless you’re only looking for friends - not impossible, as he’s got quite the array of engaging hobbies on display in his pics - you’ll have to accept that this bear has a cub...or something like that anyway. Bad at small talk and even a little embarrassed to talk about his expertise in the kitchen or the garden, it’s a completely different story when the lights are off where he’ll give cocky power bottoms and scoffing total tops exactly what they deserve. Sub bottoms on the other hand bring out his softer, cuddly side, and he’s more likely to be using his considerable weight to lovingly press them into the mattress as he opens them up with his tongue and eventually his dick. Is utterly devoted to his partner but enjoys watching him playing around with third parties, even if he’s almost never allowed to sit on the sidelines for the entire night. To the shock of everyone he’s actually a total vers, even if he leaves most tops stammering excuses and bending over for him anyway. He’s usually polite enough to stick to oral in those cases. He’ll never be the most sociable man, but he’s a real catch regardless in every other aspect and is no doubt looking forward to his inevitable wedding and only sometimes X-rated married life. Still fondly recalls the first time someone introduced him to the idea of sex while cooking, and now he takes it as a challenge (only when he’s cooking just for himself and his sexual partners, of course; he doesn’t want to be unsanitary).
Favored erotic tea time subjects: twunks, voyeurism, cum swapping
Favored gift: a chef’s apron short enough to let his junk hang free
Felix
Has a biting retort for every unsolicited nude and “looking?” ever sent to him, and he gets a lot of both when his pic is just enticing enough and his profile is full of enough acerbic wit to provoke the kinds of guys who actually read those things. Claims he’s vers, gets pissed whenever anyone tells him that’s just code for bottom, gets even more pissed after hookups when his partner points out that that’s totally true in his case. Prefers oral to conversation, both giving and getting, and he’s got a remarkable talent for handjobs that surprisingly doesn’t seem to be born from excessive masturbation. Not so great with fetishes - he punched the first guy to pull his hair while he was giving head, and passes made at him during his workouts leave him more annoyed at the interruption than aroused. Disarmed by anything too soft and cutesy so he’s not great with fems, but it’s unclear if this has anything to do with his lingering daddy issues that he’s not working out in the bedroom because they’re (probably) not like that. Not sentimental at all, but he’s probably got that one longtime slow burn affair he doesn’t bring up with his tricks. If anything ever comes of that he’ll vanish immediately from the app space, but until then he’s up for a 69 followed by a good long pounding - much longer than you’d expect from someone of his frame. Good thing too, because he loves making his partners cut loose and give it to him raw and hard.
Favored erotic tea time subjects: “straight” guys, dildos, pig sluts 
Favored gift: high-quality lube. and lots of it
Ashe
Everyone’s BFF, sweet and affable and able to bounce from friend group to friend group even without always having to take his clothes off. Usually finds himself as the token twink surrounded by men who are very much not that, because they value his friendship and reliability (and also his ass, as expected). Did not have the best home life and has probably had to do a few shady things to get by, but with all that mostly behind him anyone would be happy to date him or even just to take a walk with him, as he’s quite outdoorsy when he’s not taking care of relatives or less responsible friends. A bottom by expectation because there’s not much else one can infer when he shows up to bars and house parties alike in the company of guys twice his size who aren’t shy about being casually handsy with him. Still, has learned to be quite deft when the need arises and knows how to stimulate on multiple fronts, whether for one partner or several. His weakness for muscles is genuine too, and he loves a firm chest as much as taking some guy’s thick meat. Paradoxically doesn’t have a lot of patience for dumb jocks, but since he knows just about everyone worth knowing (and sleeping with) in his area and works the freckled fresh-faced young cutie angle with an artlessness that surprises some of his less gifted peers he’s bound to wind up in a comfortable relationship of some kind or another. Prefers to have sex with the lights on, and if given the option will cuddle for a long time afterward to avoid turning them off. His ass has freckles too, but he rolls his eyes when he gets asked that.
Favored erotic tea time subjects: gym sex, spit roasting, breaking in new bottoms
Favored gift: a sensible jockstrap, for workouts and for dates
Sylvain
Everyone you know has slept with him, but almost never more than once. You might have even met him in person long before you encounter his minimalist profile with its headless abs pic hitting you up with a shot of his erection measured against a beer can followed by an address. Gets a lot of action on that pic alone, but repeats are few and far between when he pulls out his phone right after pulling out of his guy of the hour and starts browsing through what’s on offer again and slow jerking. Not a big fan of FWBs met through hookups since he always feels like they’re being too clingy even if they just happened to get horny for him again a few weeks later. Does not like to talk, especially about his family, and he almost never extends an invitation to spend the night. Still, as callous as he is that cock is impressive and he knows how to put it to work. Good with his mouth too, and true to his cultivated total top persona he’d sooner rim than blow. He’s also successful and likeable enough in his personal life to have buddies who’ll play around with him, and he might even have some kind of nebulous long term thing going with one or two of them that they strictly don’t discuss. Bottoms only as a challenge, but he’s not great at it and doesn’t have the stamina to last very long while riding. Is on PreP and uses condoms religiously so he’s got that going for him, but testing after sex with him is still recommended because there’s really no telling how many other holes he’s filled that week. Likes twinks and twunks, but loudly refuses to ever be a sugar daddy no matter how desperate he might get in his later years assuming he doesn’t die of untreated syphilis or something equally appropriate and ridiculous.
Favored erotic tea time subjects: marathon fucking, double penetration, open relationships
Favored gift: a fleshlight molded into the shape of his favorite fuck buddy’s hole, for sentimentality
Gilbert
His pics are neither very current nor very flattering, and he doesn’t excel at small talk although he’s evidently been around long enough to know how to get an open-minded hookup over to his place from time to time. Encounters are fast and fumbling and drawn out more by his waning libido than anything else, and half the time he’ll settle for watching a guy play with himself in front of him while he makes an effort to get into it. It would be inaccurate to say that he’s not a romantic man; rather, it’s as though all his passion has been left behind in a difficult former life that he only reveals some of in long wistful moments over multiple encounters. Doesn’t get many repeats however on account of the lackluster performances, and also because his stubbornness bordering on self-righteousness about certain topics becomes very grating very quickly. Based on the stories he tells and the few pictures he has to show he was quite a catch in his earlier days, but circumstances and being closeted until much later in life kept him from exploring as much as he wanted. Has the potential to end up in a loving if not particularly sexual relationship with someone provided they’re extremely patient as he works through and/or learns to set aside his numerous hangups. There are worse fates...but never, ever call him daddy. It brings up a lot of bad memories, plus he just thinks it’s weird. Kink is something he left behind decades ago when he resigned himself to the knowledge that he wasn’t going to be getting much vanilla action, much less anything more exotic.
Favored erotic tea time subjects: mutual masturbation, actual straight guys, spooning
Favored gift: the balls to get some closure
Yuri
A consummate professional, albeit one whose marketing strategy carefully conceals that fact and also leaves no room for the kind of casual bigotry that flourishes on hookup apps - having a problem with “no fems” is expected from the build and the guyliner, but he’s all for equal opportunity sex even on top of that. Accustomed to the usual array of lonely and horny men who hit him up for pics and dirty chat and the occasional good time, and skilled enough in a variety of roles to perform whatever’s being asked of him. It’s not entirely clear where his own tastes lie; even the muscled closet cases who show up in his messages on the DL don’t seem to do all that much for him if they’re not paying. A former career in the arts has left him with an entertainer’s flair for pleasuring his clients both in and out of the bedroom along with an eclectic skill set that always finds a way to get put to work during sex. He can grind his hips, swirl his tongue, arch his back, and moan in the just the right ways to drive his partners wild, and all that experience also lends itself to his ability to patiently tutor even the clumsiest of lovers into something resembling competence, enough for them to get off if not himself. Bottoms more often than he tops, but he’s vers enough in skill and in preference to pivot when necessary and will probably have little trouble keeping this gig of his going later in life as well. He may not ever end in a proper relationship, but he’ll still do well for himself in an unorthodox way in keeping with the curiously world-weary optimism he sometimes espouses during pillow talk with guys who actually interest him enough for conversation.
Favored erotic tea time subjects: flip fucking, big top/small bottom, religious kink
Favored gift: creative restraints, for when he’s feeling acrobatic
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bladekindeyewear · 5 years ago
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Bloggin’ bout HS^2 Commentary from start to Mid-Jan-2020
Sigh.  Time to pay the piper.  Someone’s gotta extract whatever plot-important and plothole mentions get mentioned in this commentary, even though reading behind-the-scenes stuff about Homestuck makes me even more nervous than reading frontend stuff ever could so I don’t really want to.  FYI, that’s what you’re going to get out of my posts on these -- anything regarding plot stuff and plotholes, things we would’ve misinterpreted or missed otherwise, not any of the other paid content such as sketches or full quotes from them about things.
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TWENTY FUCKING DOLLARS A MONTH!???!??  Is Andrew even seeing any of this cash?  --no, not much of it I guess, he would want to make sure the WP folks get paid enough after the--
Yeah I’m not gonna even think about that.
Fuck it.  I’m ponying up.
Alright, first commentary post on the Patreon, commentary and bonus sketches for Ghostflusters... whoa, this is long and extensive.  Is it going panel by panel??
I guess I’ll give you a small quote just for a taste of how this starts...
Page 33:  Not sure what any of this shit means. It’s pretty deep though. We were going for an echo of the beginning of the epilogue when John is dreaming in anime. Except here it’s Jake, and nobody is dreaming, at least not yet. Also an anime dream wouldn’t be a nightmare for Jake, since Jake likes anime. Or he used to. Now anime probably just reminds him of Dirk.
Good thing we’re never gonna hear from that guy ever again.
...because this commentary is sort of stylized.  They’re kind of riffing on what they’re doing, and I get that -- when you have to write commentary you’re asking people to PAY for you can easily feel like you have to be entertaining.  But they are describing the rationale for the shot choices they made and such.  They’re also going for a sort of Andrew-recap sort of attitude, and I don’t blame them for that choice, either.
[Candy] Jade is...well, you’ll see.
GOD DAMNIT.  Don’t remind me that Dave vanished on her forever while they were doing pro-revolutionary work and she’s probably going to be in a bit of a state!  Stupid knowing author future allusions...
Then again, that’s exactly why I’m here blogging about the commentary for you guys -- for me to relay Authorial Intent on Stuff That Happened That Seemed Plotholey and Hints About What’s Going To Be Relevant.
I just, uh... didn’t expect there to be that MUCH of it.  And that casual phrasing for that Candy Jade Is Going To Be Seen And Or Relevant hint is... kinda indicating to me that there’s gonna be a LOT more of that here than I wanted.  :|
Continuing... there’s talk of why they started with Jake here, being unused to writing for middle-aged characters in Homestuck terms, et cetera, but again, I’m only here to relay anything with plot impact or SERIOUS perspective on how we should / the authors are viewing this.  The rest stays behind the paywall for whichever of you all think it’s worth $20, I don’t really have a choice.  At least now I know why there was no one to tell me what details were actually BEHIND the paywall.  Seriously, that’s steep.
Speaking of how stylized the commentary is here, I can get why some might read it and view the authors as slightly callous -- I’m giving them PLENTY of benefit of the doubt, though.  Andrew was FAR from callous and he hurt us worse out of love of artistic intent with the Epilogues than the HS^2 folks could EVER hurt us.  Real Dirk-like, actually.  Dirk is practically half of a self-insert, as we well know.  No wonder Andrew thought the right thing to do was to take his hands off the story, what with Dirk’s villainous action being putting his own hands ON the story.
We like to make fun of Jake English as much as the next guy, but he probably is actually pretty good at “doing things” if the need arises. 
Mhmm; there are some jibes at how screwed up Jake has made his life, but I don’t believe these authors actually disrespect Jake at all.  He was dealt a bad hand by the story leading up to this point (quite INTENTIONALLY by Dirk’s narrative control in the Epilogues, too) and HS^2 and its bonuses so far have been exploring the heap of merits and potential he’s still got in him.
It’s kind of sweet how he wants to clean out his ecto-son’s house, even if most of that is to prevent the slow creep of mounting existential dread and narrative relevance. 
Huh.  So they think Jake can sort of feel that narrative relevance is seeping in around him, to him?  That’s not out of the question at all.
Continuing... they’re going on a bit about the same sort of things I mentioned about their choices in detail or detail-less-ness when depicting people in this new format, considering ages and the paired text descriptions and such.  That’s the sort of thing you’d traditionally want to pony up for commentary for, so rest assured that all that IS in their commentary posts if you want to do that.  I’m kind of extracting the plot stuff out of the paywall just on principle.
A lot of making this comic--and every other comic ever--is trying to convey as much information with as little space as possible.
Quite so.
From this conversation we find out a couple things. 1) that Brain Ghost Dirk knows about Ultimate Dirk, and he thinks he’s a dickhead. 2) Brain Ghost Dirk knows who Jeff Bezos is, and Jake doesn’t. This could be a sign of a couple things, all of which are probably stupid. 
This is ALSO what I came here for:  Legitimate “don’t worry about it” handwaves about stuff that shouldn’t matter to us.  I never ascribed the slightest bit of relevance or inference to BGDirk making a Jeff Bezos reference, and I’m glad I was completely justified in ignoring it.  So far I agree with this probably-plural-but-acting-like-a-singular author’s train of thought.
Come to think of it, it’s maybe strange that in this Cool Future Earth where all of our characters are rich as hell, none of them have bothered to have any sort of corrective eye surgery. Jane, Jake, John, and Jade all still wear glasses. I guess they do have “signature looks” to maintain in regards to their brand. 
I had to include this, I was legitimately curious.  Understood it was probably an artistic decision to stay on-brand a fair bit -- and losing glasses even temporarily has a lot of thematic significance whenever it happens in Homestuck Proper -- but it’s nice to have some confirmation that this was the understandable rationale behind the choice.
Here we find out what Dirk thinks about Jake’s behavior of the last few years. In other words, we find out what Jake thinks about Jake’s behavior over the last few years. [...]
[Brain Ghost] Dirk is manipulating Jake here, but he isn’t actually saying anything demonstrably untrue. 
Again, most of this was obvious at the time, but it’s nice to have authorial confirmation on what was being brought across as per the strange divide between Brain Ghost Dirk’s independent will and his mostly-part-of-Jake status.
Seriously though, shoutout to the conceit that god tiers can just fly endlessly, with no visible effort. It’s a really excellent form of narrative shortcut that fits perfectly into the bonkers vibe of earth c as a whole. Oh there goes one of the Creators, just flying over the Wal-Mart like an asshole. 
You know... who IS doing the commentary here?  One of the authors, all of them?  One of the artists??  This really is a COLLABORATIVE effort between the authors and artists involved here, I think, and it shows in their clear surprise and appreciation for each others’ work that only settles into a full understanding instead of just knowing what one intended off the bat.
It calls into question exactly how much of the Condesce’s mind control was actually mind control at all, and how much was just a lowering of inhibitions. 
Right, right.
We see Jane greeting Jake here with open arms, which makes you wonder exactly what is going on here. If you’ll remember from Candy, Jane has already served Jake divorce papers. A mystery in need of solving, for sure. 
HERE we go!  This is the potential plothole we were concerned about that got me alerted that the commentary had something to add in the first place.  John mentioned toward the trail-end of the Candy epilogues that divorce papers had shown up for Jake.  (And we also saw an HS^2 update ago or so that Jane hadn’t actually KNOWN Tavros was “awol” at all until he was literally a part of this whole clowncorpse logistics business.)  So in light of what this post continues to say:
It could be that Jane has put aside the nasty business of their divorce in order to have a strong chest to cry on. Can’t really say I blame her. Jake English has many flaws but he does seem like a good person to drape yourself across and really let loose on. And without Gamzee there, Jane needs another punching bag. 
...it all finally fits as pretty logically consistent, although the author is being deliberately coy in a way that leaves it open for more to be revealed later about exactly how this is happening.  Good!  No obvious plotholes in HS^2 (yet).  That’s an honest relief.  The more often they have something in mind where I’d previously worried they’d screwed up, the more often I can give them credit and speculate properly on those gaps in story-logic expecting something there, like we so often got to with Andrew before the retconsplit made even THAT kinda fucky.
If you’ve ever had a friend or family member go evil, you’ll know that one of the hardest parts is there’s always still elements of them that you like.
I can definitely say that from nearly personal experience.
Also, at this point in the story there is no lingering doubt that Jake and Dirk have had a sexual relationship. There’s a familiarity there that wasn’t around when they were teens. 
I assumed so, but I guess I never thought ABOUT how I assumed so.  Huh.
Do any of the creators have a moral leg to stand on if all they’re doing is curling up into a ball and hoping the world gets better without them? Actually, does anyone have a moral leg to stand on if they do that? 
Almost Riddley, there.
These posts are certainly interesting!  Steeply priced for what they are, but interesting.  Moving on to the second of four so far... this one’s about Catnapped Part 1.
Taking over Earth C's business world certainly would have required rubbing shoulders with the already-powerful on the planet.
--yep, which I never doubted even when brought up in the Epilogues is a large part of her supply-side government views.
Ah, looks like the bonus commentary is a good deal shorter!  But that bonus section was a good deal shorter than the story section covered earlier too, so.
On to the next one, for Clown Logistics.
Page 58: If you love Vriskas, i hope you enjoy more Vriska content. If you hate Vriskas, well. Here is another one that is kind of different. Feel free to contemplate nature vs nurture and how best to apply this dichotomy toward emoting about the vriskas of your choice how you see fit.
I’m starting to really enjoy this author commentary.
Tavros being named Tavros sure was a decision. Go back and reread the commentary for panel 58 but stop before the nature/nurture thing, since they are not clones, or even the same species. They just have the same name, which, in this universe, means you at least type kind of the same.
Hmhmm.
Page 65:  Sometimes you try and come up with something to say about a page, and you cannot, and so you wait 8 hours, and go see Knives Out, and then you have 2 white russians, and then you still can’t come up with anything to say, but oh well! Commentary needs writing. Tavros is experiencing an emotion here.
Now THAT’s a mood.  I gotta go see Knives Out sometime soon.
...Alright, I can see why some people think MAAAAYBE this author might be being a little disrespectful to the audience, but if they’re going based on THIS, I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.  This comment could have come from Andrew’s fingertips any day of the week!!!  I honestly wouldn’t WANT replacement authors who couldn’ comment like this in there for a page in paid commentary, especially in a lighter section of the story that doesn't need too much said about it.
And I paid $20 for this shit.
...Continuing, I’m loving all this commentary on Harry Anderson.  Representative excerpt:
Again, direct your eyes toward the boy. What a fucking asshole. 
...these commentaries are honestly improving my mood!  I didn’t expect that, really.
Ah, I didn’t even notice that the flying cars appear to be self-driving.  I think maybe the back of my mind MIGHT have noticed but only a bit.
Referring to the corpse-carry crew:
Page 82: Pokedex entry for Magneton in Pokemon Sun: When three Magnemite link together, their brains also become one. They do not become three times more intelligent.
Ain’t THAT a mood.
(...I just had an internal “Wait, am I using that right, it being a “mood”?  Isn’t that the hip new term, how do I have any right to latch onto that however much I feel it?  Ohhh gosh I’m so fucking old” moment.)
It’s clear from the commentator’s complaints that the crew never viewed this commentary ALONE as worth upping the pledge to $20, but that’s... not quite a bad thing?  I think it’d have been more disrespectful to think that they COULD make the commentary worth that.  I doubt there’s a single person on their team who feels quite right about the business model (besides the artists they have plenty of context to know how deserving they are of a living goddamn wage), but it’s what they have to live with and go with, here.  I feel weird for honestly understanding ‘em, and more than slightly pitying for how many people will look at all this and read “these assholes don’t care about us”.  I really can’t think that’s anywhere CLOSE to true from this without more context.  (And I really DON’T want more context, don’t send me any.  I’ve got to read HS^2 and I’m enjoying reading it so far so let me keep enjoying it please.  Background drama details make me nauseous, DON’T give me any if there is any (which I wouldn’t know about in the first place beyond an opinionated friend or two dropping hints in a bad mood).)
Did you know there are people who I’ve seen honestly believing “Undertale is pretty good but the creator is an arrogant asshole”?????
Because they saw his tweet about the game score passing Kojima’s MGSV on metacritic briefly and misinterpreted his wide-eyed disbelief, disbelief honed to nervous laughter to maintain sanity by Toby’s insecurity about his unprofessional work and work product???  They thought he was SERIOUS without any of the context of the usual insincere little dog persona they should’ve read into the game of his they played??
Awh man.  That just ticks me off.
Anyway where were we.
Page 91: This is a flashback so I didn’t write this one, which means I thankfully don’t have to say anything about it. 
Wait.  What?
Are they trading off writers between chapters, or...?  Hm.
Whatever they’re doing, it fits together pretty darn well SO far.
Alright, that finishes that off, time for the last commentary post on the second bonus update.
I don't know if you noticed, but everything is terrible right now. And I don't mean just in Homestuck's dumb fake earth. I mean in our dumb real earth.
Now that’s a mood.
I've been playing a lot of Death Stranding recently. Basically any media that you're making in 2019 has to either address what's going on around us or come off sanitized, sterilized, with its head in the sand. Kojima offers a simple power fantasy: Through Norman Reedus's sweaty, urine-filled labor, the things that divide us can be banished. America can be unified again.
Now THAT is a god damned MOOD.
The author(?) goes in about why this is happening, why Jane is being confronted this way, why she IS this way, et cetera.
Privilege, safety, and inherited wealth do funny things to the brain. People justify to themselves why they have what they have. If you have enough for long enough, you start to convince yourself you deserve it.
That’s one of the biggest goddamn reasons for the inequality and political landscape we have today IRL, yeah.
She saw a new world and chose, simply, to replicate the power structures of the 21st-century America she was raised in. Boardrooms, power pantsuits, formality and professionalism.
Jane's favorite comic, a noir-detective drama steeped in the pop-cultural trappings of pulp Americana, reflects this mindset.
So, our catgirl Seer of Light takes us through the looking glass, and we get to see an old friend.
Hm!
Nothing really to say, I just had to share this fitting context the author is giving.  How things fit together even better than they seemed to, and this was all far from random.
I feel warmly ensconced in the womb of nostalgia, gently cradled on Norman Reedus's chest.
Pffffffff
Yep, more of what we already surmised and appreciated, how Swifer and Cliper were giving us some much needed perspective... the commentary post even has little traditional-Homestuck sprites for ‘em.
And... that’s it for the commentary so far!  Again, I enjoyed all that more than I expected.  $20 doesn’t sting for me as much as it does for others in general, but it stung a lot less after I was through reading all that honestly somewhat-entertaining stuff confirming a lot of the insights I’d thought the plot was having.
I’ll probably wait to check for further commentary posts until like... after bonus updates come out, in the future, and then just blog about whatever I’m not caught up on.  Sound fair?  I’m going to blog as often as a real or bonus upd8 comes out, but I’m not going to pop in more often than that for my own sanity’s sake.  Have a good MLK weekend, y’all.  :)
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thedeaditeslayer · 5 years ago
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Running Time Restored Interview: 1997 Josh Becker and Bruce Campbell Indie Gets a New Life in 2K.
You can read the full interview on the upcoming release With Josh Becker, Bruce Campbell, and Don May Jr. from Diabolik Magazine below. 
In 1995 on New Year’s Eve, Josh Becker had an idea. Born out of a session pondering Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary, true crime classic, Rope, he decided that he was going to improve upon the master of suspense’s legendary concept of shooting a film in real time. A daunting task but Becker was up to the challenge.
What resulted was perhaps one of the most ambitious efforts to ever grace the silver screen, Running Time. This neo-noir thriller about a heist gone wrong and a small-time criminal who rekindles his love affair with his high-school sweetheart was a hidden gem that didn’t get the recognition that it deserved. Written expressly for Becker’s childhood friend and Super 8 cohort, Bruce Campbell, the pair were once again, doing gonzo-style filmmaking just like when they were growing up in Michigan with the likes of Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert.
Josh Becker was and is an adventurous soul who does things his way, just like the director gods of old. When I think of his work, the names of John Ford, William Wyler and John Huston readily spring to mind. There is something admirable about his driven determination that was the heart and soul of this black and white throwback to another era which is ultimately endearing. Yes, I have a special place in my heart for Running Time because it is honest and not filled with “tentpole” tendencies. At the core of it is the written word. The end result is one of the most overlooked masterpieces of both Becker’s and Campbell’s careers.
What is truly amazing is that this flick was shot in two weeks and that everyone went home early. It was like having a 9 to 5 job. No 18-hour-days, just fast, efficient, run and gun style filmmaking that resulted in a production that could stand toe to toe with noir classics from a bygone era like The Petrified Forest and Desperate Hours.
Prior to Running Time, Bruce was known predominantly for his work in the horror and science fiction genres which can sometimes be limiting for an actor. Becker gave him an incredible script to work with that really showcased his range as a thespian. Behind the smart-ass quips and bravado lies a talented individual who takes his craft seriously. He is capable of creating complex characters and he is most assuredly fit to be a romantic lead.
I had the chance to sit down with the major players in the restoration of Running Time (Josh Becker, Bruce Campbell, Don May, Jr. and Gerry Kissell) to reminisce about the journey of this film from its humble beginnings to preserving this indie classic for future generations.
The Director and His Muse
Diabolique: Bruce, I have to start off by telling you that Running Time is my favorite out of all of your films.  
Bruce Campbell: It’s a cool, little flick. Too bad it sort of escaped, it wasn’t released as the old joke goes.
Diabolique: What I like so much about it is the neo-noir aspect. It’s a throwback to the 40’s and 50’s. In Josh’s book, Rushes, he talks about how he convinced you to be in the film. You weren’t getting paid and you invested in it. What was his pitch, how did he sell the concept to you?
BC: The pitch was that it was NOT McHale’s Navy. I just spent 11 weeks in Mexico just sort of bullshitting our way through that film where we would make up our lines of dialogue because there was nothing written for us. In the script it would say things like, “McHale and his guys get off the boat,” “McHale and his men go to Cuba.” Which means they hadn’t thought anything up for you. I did it because I liked the show as a kid. It was a very popular thing; it was from Universal. It made sense at the time. It was just a case of when something is underwritten, the problem that it causes actors. I had just come off of that, and Running Time was very ambitious, low budget it was meant to be this conceit of being done in one shot so it was cinematic. So, I was like, okay, yeah. It was like the anti-studio movie, small crew, fast moving and yet no money. Basically, I invested the money that I was paid back into the movie in order for them to make it. It was definitely for a love of the movie type deal.
Josh Becker: I’ve known Bruce since we were twelve and I’d seen him in a number of plays. I knew that he had a much bigger range as an actor than he’d had a chance to show at that point. Plus, he’s a pleasure to work with. Once I pitched him the idea, he was all for it, partially because the long takes are a way for an actor to really show their ability.
Diabolique: Thinking about your filmography, Bruce, you haven’t played a traditional romantic lead. Do you see Running Time as a love story of sorts?
BC: What’s funny is Josh had Carl come back. In a proper film noir, he would have gone, you would have heard the tires squeal and she would be sitting there crying and the credits would roll and that would be it. It would be bleak, but Josh deep down is a sentimentalist and I think I am too. We had no issue with the happy ending. We wanted to make the audiences think for quite a long period of time that it’s going to be a sad ending. She packs her bag and then she unpacks it. The whole thing is quite an extended piece but I thought it was well worth playing just to kind of throw a little wrinkle in it. Maybe even in a criminal story you can have a happy ending.
Diabolique: In terms of the storyline, Josh, we all know that Rope was the blueprint for Running Time. You hadn’t made a film in 7 years. What was it about that production that captured your imagination besides the challenge of the “long take”?
JB: Part of my inspiration was simply getting another feature film made after seven years of working in television, which was never my goal.  But as I thought about Rope, I wondered why the continuous, real-time concept didn’t really have any impact on the story. Then it occurred to me that there was no time element involved.  Two young men—ostensibly Leopold and Loeb—have killed another young man for the fun of it, put the body in a chest, then invited people over for a party, including a cop. Well, if the chest was spring loaded and had a timer on it so that at some point it would pop open and reveal the corpse, that would be a time element. So, I thought, how do you use the real time technique and add a ticking clock? The first story that came to mind was a heist which generally has a time element—we’ve got to get the money and get out of here before we’re caught.
Diabolique: Running Time was shot in sequence like a play. Did it pose any challenges for you as an actor?
BC: I liked what Josh was trying to do. These long uninterrupted takes from an actor’s point of view, you know stuff can get really choppy these days. My complaint from Burn Notice is they wouldn’t let a full sentence stay on camera; they would have to cut away to somebody else. It felt like they had to keep cutting, cutting and cutting. This movie was no cutting for like ten minutes at a time. It’s great from an actor’s perspective because you can feel the juices flowing. It’s like a play. You can work on the pacing; you can have something build over a period of time and minutes to play out in literally real time. It’s a real time crime drama. I liked it conceptually and it was challenging. There was a fair amount of dialogue because my guy, Carl is calling the shots. I thought it was a good premise. Guy gets out of prison turns right around and robs the prison because he knows how the prison laundry system works. I thought that was pretty sound. I am always sympathetic for the low budget independent movie. I always will be.
Diabolique: Were there any other films that influenced you and your writing partner, Peter Choi? The entire concept is very noir and the desperate situation that Carl finds himself in is reminiscent of any number of films from the 1940s.
JB: My main inspiration was Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, an overlooked movie from 1978. And though I didn’t think of it at the time, several folks brought up Joseph Lewis’s Gun Crazy after it came out, and I do see that. The film has one long take in it during a bank robbery, and even though the camera stays in the backseat of a car, it has that same feeling of a real time event.
Diabolique: I know you are a fan of classic movies, Bruce and in a sense Running Time reminds me of Desperate Hours or The Petrified Forest especially when the robbery is botched and the situation is escalating in the enclosed office. Did you find any inspiration from the noir genre for your portrayal of Carl?
BC: No, but the classic tough guys were always awesome. We loved them all, Bogart and Robert Mitchum…the fact that Josh shot the film in black and white was perfect. Because it really helped lend itself to a look of that time period when Jack Palance was a leading man.
Diabolique: In your book Rushes, you talked about your decision to shoot in 16 mm Kodak ASA 64 black and white stock. You get sharper images due to the finer grain of the film, but did that pose any problems in terms of showcasing your work at that time since most people weren’t shooting in black and white?
JB:  I didn’t think of it regarding showcasing my work. I thought it was appropriate for the subject matter and that it would be visually striking.  Also, moving the camera from inside to outside in color posed the problem of adding or removing filters which would not be an issue with black and white.
Diabolique: You shot over a period of 10 days which was unheard of even back in the 90’s. How were you able to keep things moving along?
JB: It was based on pre-planning. I knew exactly what I wanted. We rehearsed the film and the actors were all very comfortable with the dialogue. Then it was just an issue of getting the complicated camera moves in regard to the actor’s blocking to work right, and that didn’t turn out to be all that difficult.
Diabolique: As an actor, did you enjoy working on an accelerated timetable?
BC: It was exciting to do and so different. The toughest thing was the technical demands. It wasn’t like there were explosions and stuff like that. But in order to do blocking inside of an apartment, the camera is moving in circles, well, the crew had to move every object behind the camera before it got there and then had to put it back before the camera saw it again. So, there was a lot of voodoo, a lot of magic. We would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and we could never get it right. Finally, we were like fuck it. Let’s just start shooting because everyone gets a little more alert when you shoot. That did it. That allowed us to conquer the impossible. After 3 or 4 takes if we got it, we were done even if it was 10:30 in the morning. I don’t think we spent more than two thirds of a day getting that particular shot. The end result is cool. I’ve seen the cleaned-up version without all the scratches and the dust marks. You can’t even tell what year it is. It almost seems like its videotape transferred like those teledramas of the 60’s that were done on TV. There were moments in the film that weren’t perfect, and that’s okay.
Diabolique: When I revisited Running Time recently, I was impressed with how well it holds up because some efforts don’t. With the 2K restoration, Bruce, this will give your fans a chance to see it. For some, it might be their first time. Do you have a scene that you are particularly fond of?
BC: There’s some scenes that are fun to do. After I get shot, I am in Janie’s apartment and she’s trying to put me together, that fainting on the toilet while she’s trying to patch me together it felt kind of real, playing shot and being delirious. Stuff like that. Just fun to be able to take the moment to do it.
Diabolique: Josh, do you feel shooting in black and white made the 2K restoration more challenging?
JB:  Slow speed black and white film stock has a lot of silver in it which creates an inordinate amount of static electricity. When I did the initial film transfer back in 1997, the negative kept getting covered with dust, causing us to have to stop and clean the film every 30-60 minutes. Since the transfer was $375 an hour—in 1997 dollars—I could only stop so many times before it became financially prohibitive.  Dust on a black and white negative shows up as white dots. Using the newest technology, Don May was able to remove all of the dust digitally. Therefore, the film has never looked as good as it does now.
Diabolique: What excites you the most about Running Time getting restored, Bruce?
BC: I am always happy when something gets re-released which means in this case, it gets preserved. It will look fantastic in 2K. That’s why with all these reissues fans are like, “Why should we care?” Like well, if you care about preservation, this means it will be the latest version of a movie that is fairly obscure. Sometimes a movie can die on the vine because no one will pay the money to keep it current. Now, we can show the sucker, hopefully, anywhere.
Diabolique: Josh, do you have any plans to showcase Running Time once the restoration is completed? This is a great film that fans should definitely see.
JB: We have no plans at the moment, but then the film isn’t out yet. When it’s done, we’ll see what happens.
Breathing New Life into Running Time: The Art of Restoration
Don May, Jr. along with Jerry Chandler and Charles Fiedler created Synapse Films in 1997. Known for their work in preserving unique genre classics, May had previously collaborated with Josh Becker when his company restored the director’s 1985 production, Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except.
Gerry Kissell was the official artist on Running Time and will be reprising his role for the 2K restoration. He has been friends with Josh since the Freaky Film Festival where he and Bruce premiered the film on the University of Illinois campus.
Both gentlemen were kind enough to take time out of their busy schedules to talk to us.
Diabolique: Were you able to obtain the original negative for Running Time?
Don May, Jr: Yes, thankfully. Josh Becker is a true movie fan and loves the filmmaking process, so we were fortunate to work with him. He kept everything stored properly in a climate-controlled vault, as a man who cares about his movies should.
Diabolique: Can you talk about the scanning process for 2K?
DMJ: The 16mm negative was separated into A/B rolls, so we had to scan a lot of reels separately at Prasad in Burbank, CA. Luckily, because of the actual nature of the “one-take” aesthetic Josh utilized, there were only a total of about 30 cuts in the entire film… hidden in editing, of course. So, we basically scanned the 30 separate shots, and then assembled them digitally using DaVinci Resolve. We had to be VERY careful the way we put the 30 cuts back together, making sure the shots were frame accurate and of the proper length. Unlike a film that has a conformed negative separated into 10- or 20-minute reels, Running Time was all in separate pieces, with each shot edited on separate reels. It was a challenge, but we were able to use a previous master as a reference and most of it went together without a hitch. Being shot in B&W also helped in color correction to hide the edits properly to make the real-time aspect as seamless as possible. Once the film was properly assembled, we were able to ship everything off to India for restoration. Because Josh had everything stored properly for decades, the negative itself was fairly free of a lot of dirt and scratches, but we did carefully sonically clean all the pieces before scanning commenced.
Diabolique: How long does it take the digital artists to fix debris or scratches on the original negatives?
DMJ: There’s a lot of data wrangling involved. Copying data for safety. Making backups, etc. But we have a great working relationship with Prasad. They have worked on such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, How the West Was Won, A Fistful of Dollars, Gandhi, The Red Shoes, etc. They do the lion’s share of my output, and I put a lot of trust in them. They’ve never failed me. We do ship the film scans to India and that takes time. I think Running Time took about 4-5 months. I let them take their time, though, because I don’t want to have to keep sending things back for fixes. With Running Time, they did an excellent job, right from my first restoration test reels. But, again, Josh had taken very good care of his materials, so it wasn’t much of a challenge.
Diabolique: Gerry, what artwork did you originally provide for Running Time and what can we expect from you for the 2K restoration?
Gerry Kissell: I did promotional art that ended up on tee-shirts. It included the shot of the three main characters, which I called Tres Hombres, on one, Jeremy Roberts aiming the pistol at the camera on another, and the last, which you’ve seen of Bruce’s mug all heroic and chinny. All of the art was done on Bristol cold press illustration board. The new painting for the Synapse release is me, 20+ years later, a tad bit better at drawing and painting, lol.
Diabolique: Besides the idea of preserving Running Time, Don, what attracted you to the project?
DMJ: We had worked previously with Josh on Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except, and we had a lot of fun with that one. I like working with Josh. He’s a great guy, and I love that he’s so passionate about film. He loves movies, and he loves MAKING movies. It’s so great to see people like Josh doing things like Running Time, back when using computers to do a “one take” approach was non-existent. You see things today like the film 1917, which is a fine film in its own right, but they cheated a lot of its “one take” aspect using computers. Josh did Running Time, but used his brain, and actual organic film splicing and editing to achieve the same result. He’s smart, funny, talented and I love working with people like him. It also doesn’t hurt that Running Time stars Bruce Campbell, so… yeah… of course, we jumped at the chance to do it.
Diabolique: When can fans expect to see the Running Time 2K restoration?
DMJ: I would imagine late summer/early fall 2020. We’re wrapping up extras and artwork now.
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