#but it's nowhere near the level of Bad that Nemesis or Into Darkness was

[the-oracle-of-the-lost]

spoiler free Section 31 thoughts

i just posted my whole liveblog if you're interested but for anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled or isn't that interested in the movie, my verdict is that it's fine. i really disliked the trailer and was prepared to be a hater but honestly i had a fun time! i had to ignore some of my fundamental problems with Section 31 as it's used in new trek but other than that and some occasionally cringe dialogue, it was a fun action-y heist movie and actually felt fairly unique as a Star Trek movie despite having a pretty predictable plot. there were a few things i really liked and some things i disliked but overall it's decent though not particularly Star Trek-y.

[seyaryminamoto]

Anon-Nemesis - Dunno if I said this before, but just in case, but one of my favorite parts of Gladiator is the chapters of the late 20s where Sokka falls out with Azula, dates Suki and bangs Jun. I like how the way you wrote both sides of S/A's emotional turmoil and misjudgements elicited extreme opposing reviewer opinions like "Sokka is a heartless cheating, ungrateful pig." or "Azula sent him into slavery to suffer for years, he owes her nothing." Nuance, pft, its clearly 100% his/her fault.

... I know there might be other people who feel this way but I’m guessing a lot of them are afraid to speak up due to the constant complaints I still get over this arc (I literally got one like the day after you sent this and I’m honestly so tired that I think I’m not going to answer it at all this time).

What I’m trying to say, though... is thank you :’) I know that arc is really tense and chaotic, but while it’s not my favorite at all, I always felt it had brought the story to a whole other level and pushed the plot forward at full speed by forcing Azula and Sokka to confront their growing feelings for each other, feelings they were absolutely NOT prepared to accept. The amount of bad blood and distrust in there was nowhere near resolved, and I honestly can’t imagine that taking the story in another direction would have worked as well as this did. I needed the bad blood, I needed the clashes, I needed the conflict. I enjoy exploring the darkness in characters, even if the darkness I’ve delved into isn’t really as dark as stuff other people have worked with in other fics. And while I absolutely understand why people, shippers like myself, would feel horrified by watching the dreadful fallout between Azula and Sokka... I think it’s been long enough, and there’s been plenty of development since then, for that particular matter to still have as much bearing on the characters at this point in time as it used to.

But some people just refuse to get over it :’) good thing Sokka and Azula aren’t like them, else the rest of the story would have been worthless.

At any rate, I’m really glad it worked for you, both sides were absolutely a mess in this situation, both had their reasons to behave as they did; they had reservations, misguided impulses and acted out when they shouldn’t have. Sure, not everything is a bed of roses, but why on earth would it have to be? Frankly, stories where right and wrong are simplistic, where heroes and villains are completely static in their roles, where you can’t understand two sides of a conflict... are just boring as hell to me :’) I find much more value in working on characters whose motivations are understandable, even if their behavior is not agreeable, than constantly writing tired and old “good vs. evil” stories that some people seem hellbent on interpreting this arc as. But damn, knowing it worked at least for you is a very big relief for me :) thanks, Anon-Nemesis, my pal. Definitely made my day to read this ask.

[pixelgrotto]

The horrific Resident Evil playthrough, part ten

Resident Evil 6 is the big one that I was anticipating when I started this series playthrough in March. It’s the one that seems to have split the fanbase like no other, the one that some folks love and others abhor, and the one that took Resident Evil so far into the realm of explosions on top of zombies on top of exploding zombies that the franchise had no choice but to dial the entire thing back in Resident Evil 7 in order to give everyone’s minds a break before those exploded too. There is, in fact, a particular sort of enemy in this game that represents it well - called the Whopper, it’s a giant Fat Albert-looking thing that charges at you in a truly grotesque example of fun character design. It’s a bioweapon to be reckoned with, and when you see one coming your way, all you can say is “OH SHIT” as you try to blast its head apart before it barrages you into a wall.

RE6 is a whopper of a game. It’s chock full of so many different gameplay styles, so many plot threads, so many bits and pieces barely holding together at the seams in a mad effort to appease all sectors of the fan base - the people who preferred Resident Evil when it was eerie and quiet, the fans who fell in love with the series when Resident Evil 4 introduced an emphasis on action and the shippers who just love the characters and want to see them press the trigger of a Magnum at the same time and let loose with a bullet that will send the remains of a hulking Serbian mutation go stumbling backwards into the flames of a burning wind tunnel. 

The only way to properly assess RE6 in the midst of all this madness is to look at its four campaigns one-by-one, which took me 33 hours in total to complete, a staggering number for this series. 

Leon’s campaign - Everyone’s favorite Resident Evil protagonist who is still rocking Leonardo DiCaprio 90s hair (even though he’s aging in real-time and is apparently in his late 30s now) is BACK in this campaign, which seems to be the one that the game wants you to play first. It’s a rollicking adventure which I personally thought was the best of the bunch, though I wouldn’t blame you if you found Chris’ campaign better. I think I was won over by the fan service, since Leon’s opening chapter immediately channels Resident Evil 2 by forcing you to escape Tall Oaks, an American metropolitan area that’s essentially Raccoon City 2.0. Zombies will be lurching at you from the darkness like the old games, you’ve gotta run through subway cars just like in RE2 and RE3, and the whole vibe actually approaches scary at a few moments, which is something that the rest of this game has absolutely no time for. Partnered with Leon is Helena, a new character who’s also a US government agent but frankly kind of boring, and the pair quickly find themselves wrapped up in a conspiracy engineered by a politician named Derek Simmons. To figure out the extent of his conspiracy, you’ve gotta play Ada’s campaign (all the characters’ stories intersect at various points, which is one of this game’s best ideas), but let’s just say that Leon’s party ends in a wild rush to a made-up Chinese city named Lanshiang - which, from the POV of someone who lived in Hong Kong for six years, is clearly HK under another name. Half of Lanshiang gets blown up, Simmons transforms into what looks like a T-Rex and then a giant insect kaiju, and the general tone is deliciously batshit, though if you don’t like batshit then your mileage will vary. Leon gets music that I like to call "Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeats” for his ending theme, and I feel like this phrase can summarize the tone of the entire Resident Evil franchise perfectly. 

Chris’ campaign - If Leon’s adventure was the cheesy-but-occasionally-spooky “LET’S TAKE THESE ZOMBIES TO SUPLEX CITY, CHUMS” vibe of Resident Evil 4 on acid, then Chris’ campaign is the “MILITARY ESPIONAGE ACTION AGAINST BIOWEAPONS, BRUH” vibe of Resident Evil 5 on acid. It begins with Chris suffering from a bout of PTSD after losing a contingent of his men in a made-up country that’s supposed to be Serbia, then moves to Lanshiang after ace sniper Piers recruits Chris for one last mission. Instead of zombies, you fight mostly J’avo, a breed of terrorists using viruses to give themselves horrific limbs, and everything resembles a Call of Duty or SOCOM game, with Chris hearing instructions from his squad leader through his headpiece, ducking behind cover to shoot J’avos apart and generally being a weathered, grumpy soldier. The main theme of Chris’ campaign is actually removed from the overarching tale involving Simmons, and the focus is instead on the quieter, MANLY subplot about how all these years of fighting monstrosities has worn Mr. Redfield down. He needs to learn how to be a soldier once more, and Piers - a guy who I was initially suspicious of because he’s a pretty boy with nicely groomed hair, and those sorts are usually lame in Japanese video games - comes through as one of the most likable additions to Resident Evil lore in a long time to offer Chris much-needed support. The entire campaign might actually be better if played as Piers instead of Chris, especially due to a touching ending scene which is probably the one moment where the game’s plot transcends crazy horror action and enters the realm of something actually thought-provoking. Chris’ campaign, in general, is also where RE6 seems the most focused and confident, though the cover shooting mechanics are clunky when compared to titles that actually specialize in cover shooting, like Gears of War. Chris also doesn’t have Funky Zombie Porno Breakbeats for his ending music, so Leon gets a tiny point ahead of him in my book, but not by much. 

Jake’s campaign - I’ve read a few reviews that call this campaign the “experimental” one, and...yeaaaaah, it is. Jake, who’s the son of former Resident Evil baddie Albert Wesker, was presumably designed to serve as a bold new protagonist for future games, but he’s kind of an emo douchebag, so I played through the entirety of his missions as his partner Sherry Birkin. Sherry’s the little girl from Resident Evil 2 all grown up, which I think is genius, because she serves as a tangible example of this franchise’s progression over the years. You could probably show her picture to anyone unfamiliar with Resident Evil and be like, “That’s a formerly 10-year-old side character from the second game grown up into a secret agent” and get a response of "Woah, cool,” so yeah, I like Sherry a lot. In fact, her presence made this whole campaign tolerable, because Jake is an edgelord and his missions run the confused gamut from shoot ‘em up sections to weird exploration bits that seem to want to channel the spirit of the old games but don’t succeed. Then there are the stealth and chase sequences against Ustanak, the “hulking Serbian mutation” that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. This fellow was clearly created to remind Resident Evil veterans of Mr. X and Nemesis from RE2 and RE3, but while those guys would break down walls and pop outta nowhere to put a lump in your throat, Ustanak’s every impending arrival is advertised from a mile away, to the point where he’s not really frightening - just redundant. And the stealth bits against him seem like B-tier ripoffs of sequences in Metal Gear Solid, because RE6′s engine is really not engineered for sneakiness. At one point, Sherry and Jake have to hide in garbage dumpsters as Ustanak sniffs around, and that serves as an accurate representation of what large portions of their campaign are. These two kiddies do get a cheesy love ballad for their ending song, though, because the game really wants you to ship ‘em. Sherry, ya deserve better. 

Ada’s campaign - As messy as Jake’s campaign is, however, it’s nothing compared to Ada’s, which was originally an unlockable extra in the original release of RE6 and designed to tie up loose story threads. It does do that, though the resulting plot - where Simmons got so obsessed with Ada Wong that he whipped up an entirely new virus to re-create her and then lost track of it - is pretty meh, though it could perhaps be an intriguing exploration of the depths of male entitlement in the hands of a better writer. Aside from these pieces of so-so story, Ada’s adventure offers aggravation in the form of bad level design and a truly horrid slew of Quicktime Events and wretched stealth sections, which, once again, this game just doesn’t do well. It opens with her investigating a sub filled with guards that she’s encouraged to sneak past, except you can’t really sneak in RE6 and eventually they all notice and decide to gangbang you, and then the sub floods and there’s dizzying shaky cam everywhere that made me feel sick. You’re given a minimal amount of seconds to succeed on the Quicktime Events to escape the rising floodwaters, and I felt like I was playing a game of Dragon’s Lair, where you need to press right or left immediately or risk seeing yourself die over and over again. That sums up the frustration of Ada’s campaign, which also made me realize one important thing - I really don’t find Ada Wong to be much of an interesting character. She’s little more than a walking femme fatale trope, and even people who insist on shipping her with Leon will probably have to admit that those two’s “relationship,” if you can even call it that, is little more than quick winks and five minute interactions that have amounted to nothing over the span of nearly twenty years. The pair of them get ONE good scene on a bridge in this game, but that’s it, and honestly, their cornball kiss near the end of RE2 is still a more genuine character interaction. Oh yeah, and on the topic of ending music, since I seem to be coming back to that a lot in this post, Ada gets generic filler tunes for her credit roll. How appropriate. 

As you can see in the impressions above, in its own special way, Resident Evil 6 has something for everyone, ranging from a quality tale about battle-hardened men shooting biomutations to terrible levels that feel like they came out of a 2005 PS2 game that was quickly relegated to the bargain bin at Gamestop. Reviews were all over the place when this sucker came out, and still are today, with just as many people insisting that this game is the shit as there are people emphasizing that it is shit. My verdict? It’s BOTH, with some truly excellent parts and some truly abhorrent ones. It could have done with some trimming, for sure, and at the end of the day, Leon’s and Chris’ campaigns feel like the only real important ones here. A streamlined and likely better-received version of Resident Evil 6 would’ve only focused on those two guys - since one pivotal scene where the pair meet for a few minutes, briefly scuffle and POINT THEIR GUNS AT EACH OTHER YEAAA FAN SERVICE - seems to have been written first. That would’ve given Resident Evil 6 a better balance, with Leon’s missions possibly focusing on old school survival horror and pulp while Chris’ missions would lean hard on the military action stuff. 

But we didn’t get that. Instead, what we got is a shambling whopper of a game - at times as unwieldy and ridiculous as the enemy bearing the same name, at other times just as satisfying as a real-life beef whopper. Resident Evil 6 is both good and bad, the video game equivalent of an excessive and expensive comic book crossover, and shit, I think I’ve just written the most about it than any of its predecessors.

That, at the very least, has to count for something.

All screenshots taken by me. For more, check out this Twitter thread showing my step-by-step progress through the game.

[randomrichards]

Interesting Movies Coming in January 2019

So, begins another year showcasing movies that may fly over the radar.

January 11:

ASHES IN THE SNOW

Inspired by true events, Ashes in the Snow tells the story of a teenage girl used art to break the silence on an atrocity committed by the Soviet Union.

Set in 1941, the film examines Stalin’s brutal dismantling of the Baltic Region which deported many Lithuanians to Siberia. Many of them were convicted of treason and sentenced to a lifetime of labour. Among them is a 16-year-old girl named Lina (Bel Powley) and her family. But as she fights for survival, she finds her voice through art. In time she’s will use her art to expose what happened to her and her family.

I imagine this film will fall out of many people’s radar, shown only in art house theatres and film festivals. It’s a shame because this film shows a lot of potential in the trailer with an interesting real-life story. It sounds like a compelling David and Goliath story sure to gain acclaim. Thankfully, I have this blog to attract attention to films like this.

THE UPSIDE

Based on the French film The Intouchables, (which was inspired by a real-life story), The Upside tells the story of a bond between a rich quadriplegic man and an ex-con who assists him.

For the sake of his son, Dell (Kevin Hart) wants to get his life back together. To do that, he needs to get a job, or at least 3 signatures proving he’s interviewed for jobs or his parole is kaput. Meanwhile, billionaire Phillip (Bryan Cranston) needs assistance since he’s paralyzed from the neck down and he can’t stand the patronizing attitudes of home care applicants (much to his wife’s (Nicole Kidman) chagrin). Then Dell barges in to the interview and impresses Philip with his abrasive demeanor. So, Dell’s hired.

Now Dell gets to bask in the high life living in the Penthouse with Philip. Of course, there is the problem of Phillip having no experience taking care of a person with disabilities. Hell, he crosses his legs at the sight of a catheter. But what Philip likes about him is the fact Dell doesn’t pity him. As they work, they form a bond through their no-BS attitudes.

It’s common for Hollywood to remake foreign language films. What’s weird about this one is that the original is based on a true story and they change the location from France to America. It feels like a disservice toward the people who inspired these films. One could argue this is a way to garner an audience who don’t watch movies with subtitles, but that feels incredibly unfair to the original movie. Those people missed a fantastic performance by Omar Sy. But I digress.

You got some great actors in this film. You can’t go wrong with Cranston, who has delivered on Nicole Kidman, who is seeing a reemergence of her career with an Oscar Nomination (Lion), Emmy Win (Big Little Lies) and that badass fight scene in the recent box office hit Aquaman. But the one that stands out the most was Kevin Hart. He has sparked a major fanbase with an over the top, self-deprecating comedy style. He’s applied the same style in his movies, resulting in few hits (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) and many misses (Think Like a Man). Though there is a hint of his exaggerated acting, it will be interesting to see him give a more grounded performance. Unfortunately, he’s got big shoes to fill with Omar Sy’s award winning performance in the previous film.

There is a danger of this being sappy and there is a hint of that. But I like to give films like this a chance.

January 18:

GIRL

All the way from Belgium comes this coming of age tale of a transgender teenage girl struggling to achieve her dream of becoming a ballet dancer.

We follow Lara (Victor Polster) through an 8-week trial period at a prestigious Ballet Academy. She’s got a bit of a ways to go before her skills are up to par with the Academy’s standards. At the same time, she’s counting the day before her hormone treatment. But can she handle the stress of the Academy?

This film was a hit at the Cannes film festival and it has recently been nominated at the Golden Globe Awards. While the film has received critical praise, there is still controversy over the casting of a ci-gender boy to play a transgender girl. Yes, it’s great to see transgender girls getting representation and Polster disappears into the character, but it still doesn’t change the fact that transgender actors can’t seem to get role playing transgender character. Writer/Director Lukas Dhont clearly means well, but this matter’s much more complicated. It’s a shame because this seems like a compelling movie.

Can you still enjoy this movie despite this controversy? It’s going to be complicated.

GLASS

Never in my life would I have ever imagined a Shyamalan Cinematic universe. Of course, it didn’t help that his films have been more flops than hit. But he took us by surprise when that Bruce Willis cameo revealed Split to be an indirect sequel to his underrated hit Unbreakable. And now both films collide in Glass.

After 19 years, we finally find out what’s happened to the literally unbreakable David Dunn (Bruce Willis). After years using his super strength, invincibility and psychic visions for the greater good, he finds himself confined to a mental institution. He finds himself face to face with Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), his comic book obsessed arch nemesis who goes by the name Mr. Glass. Also, there is Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a disturbed man with 23 personality who imprisons and kills teenage girls. With them altogether, Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) hopes to cure them of their “delusions.” Mr. Glass seizes this opportunity for a Supervillain team up with Kevin Wendell Crumb. So, he unleashes The Beast, Kevin’s animalistic personality with super strength and an aggressive thirst for blood. With these two out of the hospital and reigning terror on the world, it’s up to David to stop them.

This film also sees Anya Taylor-Joy reprise her role as Casey, the teenage girl who brought down Kevin in Split.

M. Night Shyamalan is quite a fascinating figure. He came out of nowhere and took everyone by surprise with The Sixth Sense. The fact he was able to stick himself into a zeitgeist in his first movie alone is a near miracle. But with the praise came high expectations. Though Unbreakable and Signs earned acclaim, none of Shyamalan’s films were of the same level. And then there were the flops. Oooh the flops. He released so many bad movies that he became a self-parody.

There were a few factors contributing to Shyamalan’s fall from grace. I mentioned the expectations, which puts a lot of pressure on any new director. Eventually, the fame went to Shyamalan’s head, giving him a misplaced sense of self-importance.  That self-importance seeped into his films, building a pretensions tone. He also relied a bit too much on quirkiness, resulting in unintentionally hilarious moments. It didn’t help that pop culture only associated him with plot twists, which kind of stuck him in a corner.

But then two factors turned his career around. First was Wayward Pines, a Twin Peaks-like series where Shyamalan’s emphasis on quirks became an advantage. In that same year, he stepped out of his comfort zone with The Visit, a found footage horror movie that got Shyamalan his groove back. And the deal was sealed with Split. Through these films, Shyamalan seemed to have let go of his pretentiousness and had fun with them. I hope he keeps this up for his sake.

January 25

SERENITY

In this thriller, Matthew McConaughey plays fishing boat captain Baker Dill. He was enjoying a quiet, simple life hosting tours off the tropical Plymouth Island, when along comes his ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway). She’s married to a violent man (Jason Clarke) and she wants him gone. So, she wants Dill to take him on a fishing excursion where Dill can leave him swimming with the fishes. The question is, will he go through with it.

This premise plays a lot like a film noir, from the rugged protagonist facing the past he’s trying to forget to the femme fatale leading him down a dark path. I imagine Baker Dill will confront many dilemmas that will reveal his true self.  

There’s a notable growth of publicity for this movie. But publicity doesn’t equal quality. It could turn out to be a surprise sleeper hit like Hell or High Water or forgettable flop. Writer/director Steven Knight has gone either way, having written critical darlings like Dirty Pretty Things and hits like the series Peaky Blinders. He’s also wrote the flop The Girl in the Spider’s Web and the forgettable series Taboo. So, this film could go either way.

January 30

THE WILD PEAR TREE

From the man behind the Palme D’or winning Winter Sleep comes another tale of an artist secluding himself in a remote location.

Young writer Sinan (Dogu Demirkol) returns to his home after graduating from college. He has a bit of trouble fitting in to the rural living of this small village while he writes. But he has bigger problems with his father Idris (Murat Cemcir) debts growing out of control. Now the collectors are targeting Idris through his son. This also leaves him with little money to publish his stories.

It’s going to be a huge challenge to get butts in seats for this movie. Not only is this film entirely in Turkish, but it’s also three hours long. Theatres usually prefer the movies to be under two hours so they can be shown more and sell more tickets. Still, Nuri Bilge Ceylan had already gained huge acclaim for the aforementioned Winter Sleep, a tale of a former actor who runs a remote hotel while dealing with his family. This film seems to be garnering similar acclaim.

It’s in moments like these that I wished I had taken the time to watch his previous movies. I would have had a better opportunity to discuss what makes Ceylan’s films so special to its audiences. But I didn’t and that ship has sailed. 

[prowlpetrex]

P4

underestimated the danger the prank represented after they’d watched stuntmen on tv walk away from the trap without breaking a sweat when the original prank idea was deemed boring by the group. In short, the entire lot of them were all children who had acted without truly thinking about the repercussions of what they had signed up for before they’d acted. In their favor, they had at least substituted fire ants for carpenter ants who were less likely to intentionally sting someone if they could get away from them first. Still, if it were possible to die from mortification, he would have surely been in danger of passing at that moment. Shere Khan had stared down at them, dark eyes imperious, he had opened his mouth, but whatever he had been about to say was interrupted by the Doctor’s arrival, and he’d diverted his attention to the medical professional. Donald had been administered a series of drugs to help him with his body’s response to the stings, and while they’d prefer to keep him overnight for observation, they were confident he would be well enough to go home the next day. He’d heaved an internal sigh of relief then, glad to see one problem resolved safely. Shere Khan had nodded and thanked the man. then those eyes had settled back on him, he was close enough for Scrooge to see how very red the man’s eyes were, the kind of deep red it would be impossible to remove from a man’s feathers, bold and overpowering, the stain would remain long after the attempts to scrub them clean had been surrendered. He’d asked then if he could be content to rely on him to ensure proper punishment was meted out, as he would rather not go to court over the issue if it could just as easily be settled out of it. He’d stared at the man for a moment, realizing he had been waiting for an official medical report to be issued before deciding how seriously he would be taking the prank gone horribly wrong. He’d decided, likely because Donald was set to make a clean recovery, it was best to leave the punishments to the family. It was a logical way of assessing the situation, and for a moment he’d envied him for his ability to keep rational in an emergency. He’d wondered for a moment, what would have happened had Donald’s recovery taken a turn for the worse. He’d cut off that line of thinking at the root, not at all comfortable where it lead. He’d nodded to the tiger, and assured him he would be taking the matter very seriously indeed. The man had caught his eyes for a moment, quietly judging his words, before he’d nodded, accepting what he’d said at his word. He’d departed then, removing himself from the chair with what he could now admit in the privacy of his own mind, was a grace owned by few. They’d snuck in to visit Donald for a moment, none of them content to leave without visiting the patient, and then they’d headed home in silence, the children wondering what he planned to do to them, and he exhausted beyond words by the entire mess the evening had been. He had left the actual punishment to Beakley as he’d never been good at that end of guardianship. Part of him always felt it was either too lenient or harsher than the situation required, but he fully embraced the “it takes a village” approach his family took to child rearing and felt her to be the better judge of what should be done. It had been her to suggest going on outings away from home (weeks before the incident, but he’d ignored her, not wanting to be anywhere near Khan in an environment where he did not have the home field advantage), and they had begun finding places for their child to visit. Paradoxically he’d felt more comfortable around the man after his nephews had made their misguided attempt to remove him from their lives. Maybe it was the fact that he had kept his head after learning what the children had attempted to do to him, but he no longer seemed quite as threatening as he had before the event. It had caused him to do a reassessment and what he’d found had made him feel uncomfortable. The man had unnerved him, and on an instinctual level, this made sense. His ancestors had been hunted by animals very like the cat himself, and, typically speaking, even in more modern times the individual peoples, Avians, Felids, Canids, lapins, Ursi, and the many many many others that coexisted in the beautiful world they lived, tended to stick to their own. Truth be told Donald had been the only one he had known who had actively sought the company of a Dog and a Mouse with any degree of frequency. Even that had seemed to drop off after the boys had hatched as he’d yet to hear the slightest mention of either Mickey or George in his presence since Donald had arrived. He had, without meaning to, approached the man as one would a dangerous predator, and the children in all likelihood taken note of his behavior and decided he should be treated accordingly. Which in all honesty was not fair to the man in question. Shere Khan was by no means a “people” person, but he had been making more attempts at cordiality since the second meeting. He’d certainly never threatened him or his family physical harm, unlike Flintheart, who was still planning out his demise, even after being made Godfather(he would always regret the decision to cave to his nemesis’ demands. Glomgold’s attempt at an Italian-American accent was absolutely atrocious). So, with that in mind, he’d set out to be…nice. To his surprise, after the inevitable awkwardness that came from tearing off the plastic of a new idea, meeting with Shere Khan, actually enjoying himself rather than being content to remain stonily civil, had become surprisingly easy to do. And, most surprising of all, he had begun to look forward to the play dates the two men scheduled for their child. There was something about being with someone who remembered historical events you’d lived through who was neither related to you nor has pledged their life to ending yours that he would found somehow freeing in a way he’d only found before with Goldie. Even better was that it had none of the heavy emotional complexities that would always exist between himself and the woman who was, he admitted to himself, the great love of his life. Instead, he’d found an intelligent conversationalist and occasional debate partner to discuss current events and frequently laugh over what the modern Americans felt were “traditional values” that had in no way been present when either of them had been children. Khan was close-mouthed about the events of his childhood, but he suspected from the way the man carried himself, calm and poised, never too angry or too pleased, never allowing himself to seem too emotionally vested in things he cared about lest they were potentially used against him, that it had not been a good one. These were all signs of emotional abuse, of that he knew. What little Scrooge did know was that the man was an Indian Immigrant who had been born during the time of the English occupation of India, but after the revolution that had ended the control of the East Indian Trade Company. It was not an easy time for anyone to have grown up in and he did not press his… friend to share information he did not wish to give. Instead, he did what he usually did when faced with a person of interest with a complicated and potentially traumatic backstory he knew nothing about and suspected asking outright could cause more trouble than it was worth, he had paid an aide to look into the subject’s history behind his back. He was bad enough at handling interactions between himself and people he knew had sensitive sides best not prodded. A clear example of this could be seen in the relationship he shared with Donald. (though he suspected there might have been something psychological in that. his nephew reminded him far too strongly of people he had also shared a problematic relationship with and at times it had unintentionally bled through without his notice), he did not want to accidentally fumble over some old hurt and set Khan off, especially now that things were surprisingly pleasant between them. Irritatingly the search had given him absolutely nothing to work with. The name “Shere Khan” had been present in the birth records recording the birth of Indian tiger cubs but none had matched his description. This had left him to conclude that either the status of Khan’s parents had been so low his birth would not have been recorded, or the name everyone knew him by was a pseudonym. It would certainly explain why the name “Shere Khan” hadn’t appeared till a certain entrepreneur had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Either option, he knew would not be welcomed as a topic for casual conversation, so he had resigned himself to doing what he had initially pretended to do and “let things be.” Moreover, no what he had done after making that decision was not in fact pouting, no matter how many people had rudely asked him why he was supposedly doing it. This meant they had needed to find out for themselves what they considered to be “safe” topics to argue over. Furthermore, neither of them had been willing to let social etiquette dictate what they discussed, so everything short of Khan’s childhood seemed fair game. And so, it was politics had been the first topic they had ever argued over since he’d unofficially called a truce. Specifically FDR, Khan was surprisingly enamored with what he remembered of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Scrooge had nearly spat out his drink at that revelation. Yes, he’d managed to make a successful political comeback in the face of a debilitating illness(whether it was poliomyelitis or Guillain–Barré syndrome) that had left him paralyzed from the waist down, but his memories of the man were not as positive, and the faults he had found in his personality only began with his infuriating ego. This had been the same ego that had Roosevelt confident enough to order then vice president Truman to use the servant’s door simply because he had not liked him. They had eventually agreed to differ, realizing each was very set in