#but the plot is basically that a girl is sold into prostitution when she's a child

[milk-crafting]

sorry for the saga in the tags

please put in the tags the worst book you’ve read in its entirety!!

[introvertguide]

Abuse of Children Portrayed in Film

I like to use movies as an escape from the harshness of the real world and one of the things that I have learned about in my education is the effects on children when they are mistreated. I have a Masters Degree in Developmental Psychology and one of the hardest classes for me to handle was Abnormal Development in Children and Adolescents. We covered everything from dealing with dyslexia and ADHD to surviving severe abuse and loss at a very early age. We had guest speakers that ranged from people who had escaped genocide as children, to individuals who had been sold into prostitution by their parents, to people who had suffered severe abuse from their parents or guardian. I have heard stories that will stick with me forever and that is nightmare fuel that I don't want to share.

Because of my background education, I take note of the treatment and behavior of children and adolescents in the movies that I watch. There have been many great movies over the years that have depicted the suffering of children and it has always been difficult for me to deal with. There are more well known examples of films that focus on suffering but throw in more of a "sometimes we all suffer, even the children" message that demonstrate that kids aren't immune to great travesties (basically any film about The Holocaust). There are also well known films that show children "coming of age" through hardship (Annie 1982, Oliver! 1968) but end perfectly. There is a more current series of films that focuses entirely on a boy discovering a fantasy world that was robbed from him when his parents were murdered by a tyrant (Harry Potter series). But in this list I want to review some lesser known films that show examples of abuse. Even after all that I have seen and heard, the following list of films have affected me personally for one reason or another. Sometimes the children in these films endure and overcome their situation in the end. Sometimes these children do not survive or sadly remain in their misfortunes. To me, this can make the movie all the more powerful because of the incredible amount of pathos that endangering a child character can add. It can also make it a heart wrenching experience that is painful to watch. Here are some powerful films in which children suffer and the struggle is one of the main plot lines of the movie:

SPOILER WARNING AND VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISORY!!! I AM GOING TO GIVE AWAY THE PLOT TO THESE FILMS AND IT SHOULD GO WITHOUT SAYING THAT SOME OF THE PLOTS ARE DISTURBING!!! EITHER WATCH THE FILM IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS OR CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING SUMMARIES IF YOU WOULD RATHER JUST HEAR WHAT HAPPENS SO YOU KNOW IF YOU WANT TO WATCH OR NOT!!!

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Sybil (TV Movie) 1976

I just recently saw this film after I had heard of the story in my abnormal development class almost 10 years ago. It is the story of a woman who developed multiple personalities to deal with a childhood in the care of an undiagnosed schizophrenic mother. The movie stars Sally Fields and is based on a true account of Shirley Ardell Mason and her treatment by psychologist Cornelia Wilbur. The acting in the film is overdramatic at times, but it definitely reminded me of some of the actual old videos of Shirley Mason and her sudden strange switches in personality when she was scared or anxious. Dr. Wilbur used hypnosis to actually introduce Mason to her alternate personalities and she was able to recognize her disassociative identity disorder and overcome it. It still hurts me to think that this person was mentally wounded so deeply by her parents that it basically shattered her into pieces in an effort to make sense of things.

Leon: The Professional 1994

I mention this film a lot because it is a heartwarming story of an assassin teaching a young orphan how to murder. It is the breakout role for Natalie Portman and it is just amazing. Leon is a "cleaner" that lives next door to an abusive and addictive family with a troubled girl named Mathilda. The father gets in trouble with the mob and some enforcers come by and slaughter most of the family while Mathilda is getting groceries. She returns during the massacre and realizes what is happening so continues next door and pleads for shelter. Leon takes her in and teachers her the trade and protects her from the men who want to finish her off. The movie was written and directed by Luc Besson and stars Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and Natalie Portman. The suffering that this girl endures because of her parent's addictions hurts me, yet I have seen and enjoyed this film many times. I recommend watching when in the mood to be deeply affected by the trials of a little girl and the killer who protected her.

Kids 1995

This film came out when I was early in high school and bothered me greatly. It is a story by Harmony Korine, and one of his many attempts to capture the hopeless lives of unmotivated and unsupervised teens. These are young teens having unprotected sex, stealing money to do drugs, and attacking people in the park. I did not really go to these kinds of parties when I was that age (or ever really) and it has bothered me to think that adolescents would partake in this kind of behavior. It is hard for me to believe that these kids had the ability to mentally comprehend the consequences of their actions and some of the characters end up contracting HIV from each other. I would not recommend the film because it is a depressing day in the life that no youth should have.

Gummo 1997

I would not call this a good movie and I wouldn't really recommend it. It is another work by Harmony Korine and really details the depravity that can occur with unsupervised youths living in low socio-economic conditions. This movie is just depressing and motivated me to find something to motivate me into action. I got into both psychology and teaching, which has served me well for the past 20 years. It was this film that showed me how low the bar for quality of life could be, and I guess for that I am thankful. However, I still wouldn't recommend it.

Happiness 1998

This movie I didn't see right away but noticed it at the video store on many occasions. I final watched it when I was about 25 on the recommendation of a friend and one particular storyline greatly disturbed me. It is basically the story of 3 sisters that feel they should be happy and project a face of happiness, yet they are miserable and have horrible lives. One sister in particular is married to a psychiatrist who turns out to be a pedophile that rapes the friends of his young son. At one point rather early on in the movie, this man confesses to his son that he raped the boy's friends and that he would do it again. The son is so confused that he asks his father why he never raped him. It is so disturbing to me because I know the boys that were assaulted will be forever damaged and this boy who was not actually raped will be mentally scarred as well. The fact that there are people in the world that would harm children that way, recognize what they had done, and then know they didn't have the self control to stop themselves from doing it again is horrifying to me.

Lilya 4-Ever 2002

This film is deeply disturbing and I highly recommend never watching it. I will spoil it for you now so you never have to see it if you don't want. A 16-year-old girl named Lilya lives with her mother. The mom gets a boyfriend and the couple move to America and abandons Lilya with a neglectful aunt. The aunt movies into the old apartment of her sister and Lilya is forced to move out and become a prostitute to make money. A boy comes along and convinces her to move to Sweden to escape her life. When they arrive, this boy sells her to a pimp and she becomes a teenage sex slave. She almost escapes, but is then captured and beaten almost to death. She escapes again and this time commits suicide so she won't be recaptured. This movie is awful and changed my mind about giving every film a chance. I wish I could forget this film, but I can't. Perhaps it is just not for me, but this film presentation is definitely an experience that you won't soon forget.

The Kite Runner 2007

I read this book in my twenties and saw the film in my thirties and both affected me greatly. A well-to-do boy and his friend are in a kite battle competition and the friend is beaten and raped when he goes to retrieve a fallen kite. The well-to-do boy denies knowing what happened to his friend (he does know) and basically shames and abandons him. This action haunts the well-to-do boy for the rest of his life. How the boy who was raped is basically falling prey to blaming the victim is heartbreaking, and the lifetime of guilt of the other boy is pitiable. Neither boy was the actual attacker yet they both were the ones that suffered.

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There are many other examples of movies along these lines and could be found if you feel like suffering. I can't say that I would recommend them because they are very difficult to watch. Beyond just dealing with the content, it is rare to find child actors who can actually portray somebody who has truly suffered. The mix of bad acting and a depressing plot can make for a terrible movie going experience. The genre of movie involving suffering does exist, though, and it could be enjoyed (?) by some. Just not generally by me.

[cool-the-binge-eater]

Apothecary Diaries - manga rec

Summary

Before it had an English name I just called it Kusuriya no Hitorigoto. It's about mao mao who was forced by kidnappers to be a court maid. A plain freckled girl who is nonchalant about it but misses working as a doctor assistant for her father.When the high ranking court ladies babies come down with an illness that others deem a curse mao mao figures out the cause. Trying her best not to get stuck in court drama squabbles only leaving a note on the cause. However a eunuch named jinshi figures her out and is forced to solve palace mysteries while also working as poison tester. (it's fine she likes to test poisons on herself)😓 So basically Chinese historical story that deals with harem life that's also a detective and medical story. So their are modern conventions and solutions that we take for granted that are used as solutions in the story. That’s the draw of alot of time traveling stories but since its not we don’t get an outsiders perspective about what we would consider wrong. Maomao has resigned herself to whatever happens to her and dosen’t fight the system directly but she still has a strong sense of justice.

Maomao- the pharmacist

Maomao is the protagonist /pov chara and is the main reason you read the story she's very eccentric when it comes to medicines and poisons but is actually very quick witted and emotionally intelligent. She's a realist and down to earth often thinking little of herself. Maomao has resigned herself to whatever happens to her. She knows she's smart and might be toooo smart. Her only motivation is medcine so political infighting and conspiracies is the opposite of that. Whenever her sense of justice shows up it really bursts and it's great to see💖😊 Even though she pettite skinny and a commoner whenever she decides to do something it really feels like she's risking her life.Also aro/ace representing she really dosent care about much except medicine.💞

Jinshi -Eunuch

He works as a foil to maomao becasue hes a born noble, the boss of her and is one of the most conniving characters. His personality starts off as a sadist/playful tease but eventually really cares for maomao in the story as he gets to know her better. Jinshi is the one who presents the issues to maomao and is the one withe the authority to give her tools to solve the cases.He's obviously hinting at maomao alot but she dosent get it or doesn't care.His job is to work in the harem and to do whatever the emperor requests if him. He's the most beautiful person in the story and alot of woman and men want him. He drinks this a medicine that make him more eunuch like to maintain that appearance. The reason why we don't know and his backstory is one of the big mysteries.

Setting

It's not a specific year which is good Apparently mongels are still a problem and they can keep in contact with the west if they want. Historical Chinese dramas I guess 🤷‍♀️. Politically ppl dislike the last emperor and just over a decade before slavery was abolished. U can technically sell family members tho if ur poor. Maomao was sold as a palace maid and all her earnings go to her "family". In fact most of the maid charachters are the same way.So some cultural things need to be addressed if your new to court drama. Honestly it's a cliche for me cuz I watch alot of Asian dramas but others might not.

In the palace we have the outer court that does real work like paper work and women can join the outer court but they are akin to secretaries. I think they dislike inner court ladies cuz they had to take a test (Also technically maids but they don't do the best job compared to inner court ladies). The inner palace only has women and they are all concubines for the emperor. There have been cases of maids becoming lower ranked concubines if they were pretty. 4 great positions are taken by great noble ladies and their families. These 4 ladies each have their own palace and are the ones most likely to become empress/create heirs.

Hanmachi/red light district is a big part of the story. Mao mao was raised there and is the 2nd location the story takes place. It's both a beautiful gorgeous palace and a dark dangerous alley. Maomao says that the brothels are both a cage and a Wall that protects them from the streets Maomao isn't a courtesan but was raised with her 3 big sisters the 3 princesses of Rokushoukan. All high courtesans need to learn to dance, play instruments, talk, play go or other board games and read. Men don't usually get to sleep with high courtesans and it dosent work on all girls but the more pure you are to get the higher the price.

BTW we never go to them but there are brothels that are lecherous, and there are cases of rape within that district and maomao has almost been in that situation which also hasn't been shown.

Adaptations/art

There are like 3 types of versions of the story for some reason. There are 2 mangas and the og light novel. The mangas not done but maybe the first one went in a different direction of the novel 🤔 idk??? I've read a little bit about the the light novel but honestly not that different. Mao mao is a very introspective charachter she has alot of thoughts and won't say alot of her thoughts or feelings due to fear of nobility or just laziness.

So the manga makes her alot more expressive while keeping her introspective thoughts. She can be very funny and comedic with her expressions. Later on when she gets stitches they keep reopening(she just roles with it and everyone gets freaked out for her)

The 2nd manga makes mao mao her personality more serious and aparently there's less emphasis on romance. Only 1 volume so can't judge on much. (Only read 2 chapters) so I'm gonna talk about the 1st manga.

(Light novel, Kusuriya no Hitorigoto manga and Mao Mao no Kōkyū Nazotoki Techō manga)

The art is really good what happens alot in shoujo series set in harems or inner courts. Is that the women are not hot they can be beautiful, pretty even but they really aren't hot.

But damnnnnnn all the girls are 🔥🔥🔥

Specifically the hanamachi ones and even maomao herself sometimes. Lol 😆 I'm gonna stop now

But seriously I like how they talk about sex, prostitution and harems. Alot of shoujo are so PG about a place that is notorious for sex work.

Last minute thoughts

Check it out there's 2 manga volumes out and more coming. (Or read the scanlations I did both)

I like jinshi when he gets jealous since he's so cool and in control alot seeing him flounder about with mao mao is fun ❤

Maomao has a pretty interesting past too and it's hinted at really early there's this guy she definitely dosent wanna meet in the outer palace (that's my hint for foreshadowing) 🤐

I would read the light novels if ur like dying to know the plot the manga is a monthly series (I won't cuz I'm lazy)

Previous emperor is a pedo current one is a dick. So yea royal family sucks what's new 🙄

[hellreads]

Hi! Can you suggest some good immersive fics that will make me feel all the feels? Even better if they're series! Thank you I love your blog!!

hi there sweetie, thank you for loving this blog, lemme love you too!💕💖✨ hmm this is tricky, to ask me of all people for immersive fic recommendations because I always immerse (to me reading something I enjoy and immersing in it makes me feel like I’m an actress playing the part so whatever genre it is watch me get into it 100%) but I’ll try and make a list of fics one per member, where I immersed myself through and through (shit this is harder than I thought, btw WII stands for why I immersed lol ~ list under the cut) 😅 | 🍒

➴ Kim Namjoon❥ Let the Villain Win by @lemonjoonah​➴ Author/Yandere!AU | Author!Namjoon x Agent!Reader | One-Shot➴ Kim Namjoon, famous author and your childhood friend has been keeping a secret from you. His new book treads on such dark themes that he’s finding it difficult to write. Excited by the prospect of a sinister plot you offer him a piece of advice, “Let the villain win…”➴ WII: I love Misery by Stephen King plus its movie adaption and LTVW gave me reverse Misery vibes, I know most people wouldn’t want to put themselves or immerse into stories like this but the adrenaline rush of being in MC’s shoes? delicious, I felt like as soon as Namjoon’s plan came to fruition my body astral projected to see him in all his yandere glory.

➴ Kim Seokjin❥ In the Bleak Midwinter by @pcyheartgirlx​➴ Idol/Prostitution!AU | Idol!Seokjin x CEO!Reader x Idol!Chanyeol | Series➴ We’re all whores, we just sell different parts of ourselves.You own a multi-billion dollar company, servicing the biggest names in kpop, in more ways than one. Under the name “Starlight Catering”, you, your best friends, Damon and Maya, and your hundreds of workers provide stress relief for idols.You have partially retired, not because you didn’t want to, but because Chanyeol was your muse. He was all that you had time for and all you needed. Until Jin came along.So what happens when you mix fire and ice?You get smoke and all the lines are blurred.➴ WII: tbh starting this fic I never really knew what I was getting into, all I saw was Kim Seokjin and I was sold, I was never a Park Chanyeol stan before reading this but I ended up being one, there’s a lot going on in this series but to immerse and be in a love triangle between the two men and feel the push and pull plus intense passionate emotions they’re willing to shower you with will tear you apart, but don’t worry there are two doors at the end of the story you get to choose between Jin or Chanyeol. 

➴ Min Yoongi❥ Dead Leaves by wrienne➴ Detective/Infidelity!AU | Detective Inspector!Yoongi x Homicide Detective!Reader x Teacher!Jimin | Series➴ In which you (reader) are a homicide detective about to face the biggest hurdle both of your career and life.Married to probably the kindest but most boring man you’ve ever met and living in a town where nothing ever seems to happen means life for you is dull. Dull enough to drive you crazy with boredom and dissatisfaction. However, life changes abruptly when your old boss retires and a new man takes his place - a man you used to love (and sleep very regularly with) more than a decade ago. Especially when your husband comes home smelling of perfume, you’re unable to resist your more carnal urges and dead women start showing up across the city with unnerving frequency.➴ WII: I have always had a thing for working in forensics, profiling people, investigating crime scenes, and basically any investigator/detective/analyst work and this story right here helped me get that feel because there are actual cases they work on here with vivid descriptions to help that wild imagination of yours *wink* + the whole infidelity affair is a mystery you’ll have to use your deduction skills.

➴ Jung Hoseok❥ Bad Guy by @sweetbunnykook​➴ Mob/Infidelity!AU | Mob Boss!Jin x Wife!Reader x Mob!Yoongi x Mob!Hoseok | Series➴ After a brutal attack in Hong Kong, your marriage with Kim Seokjin cracks as secrets begin to surface and a series of betrayals find their way into the veins of the Hidden Tigers. Although Jin’s devotion endures, in his own definition, the reality of being a mob wife may be too much for you to bear.➴ WII: this will put you in a rollercoaster ride of emotions there are actually three members here that will make things quite hard for you, but I have to say BG Hoseok is definitely one of my favorite characterizations of him, though there will be a push and pull of emotions once you get further into the story.. also, you’ll have to go through so much because immersing in this one will hurt a lot to the point where your heart is almost numbed.

➴ Park Jimin❥ Neighbors by @jkeuphoriadreamland​➴ Neighbor/Stalker!AU | Stalker!Jimin x Neighbor!Reader | Series➴ Finally achieving your successes in life you never expected the distraction that came with your new hot neighbor. He, however, had been trying to get your attention for a much different reason.➴ WII: hey it’s ya girl danger lover (my tag line lol), seriously immersing in this one will kinda make you wonder about MC and her choices as if Jimin cast a spell on her, there is this psychological manipulation he uses on her and it will drive you to madness because you will still bend to him and find him irresistible + the kinks here = wildt.

➴ Kim Taehyung❥ Clandestine by @ditzymax​➴ Assassin!AU | Assassin!Taehyung x Assassin!Kinsoo x BF!Jungkook | Series➴ As a professional assassin, Kim Kinsoo has many shrouded secrets in her life. Some of them she shares openly with her loving boyfriend, but there are other things he must never know➴ WII: now I know you’re probably wondering if it’s possible to immerse in fics with named OC? as I said I’m an actress who plays the part when reading and to immerse into the enigma that is Kinsoo is a wonderful experience, this belongs to the list of the intense fics I immersed into and if you’re the type to go all out when immersing no matter what genre or theme (taboo) the story contains you’ll enjoy the intensity of this one because you get everyone’s POV as you go through making you understand each character better and there is actual assassin work here if you enjoy the stealth way, you’ll appreciate Taehyung and Kinsoo’s work and the people that work for them.

➴ Jeon Jungkook (I’ll list five why not? I have read way too many JJK fics lol)❥ Right of Way by fringesofsanity➴ Infidelity!AU | Cheater!Jungkook x Cheater/GF!Reader x BF!Jimin | Series➴ In theory, things were simple: your best friend was Jungkook’s girlfriend while your boyfriend, Jimin, was Jungkook’s best friend. In reality, things weren’t always that simple. And mutually exclusive.➴ WII: if there’s one story I will never shut up about? it’s this one, I always recommend this to friends, this is the perfect depiction of having a taste of your own medicine in fic form, immersing in this one will make you fall for Jungkook and hope for your own ending, but this won’t sugarcoat anything for you and that’s what I love about this story, but tbh I still think of my own ending every single night. sighhhhh.

❥ When You Least Expect It by @johobi​➴ F2L!AU | BFF!Taehyung x BFF/GF!Reader x BF!Jungkook | Series➴ You’re in love with your childhood friend, Taehyung. The problem is, you treasure your friendship with him far too much to ever risk losing it. Oh, and he’s quite the Casanova. At your wits’ end with feelings you can no longer hide as diligently as you once did, you ask him to set you up with someone, anyone, in a last ditch attempt to avoid a heartbreaking conversation.➴ WII: okay, me putting this under the list for Jungkook must expose which side I’m on but that’s not the reason why this is under his name, it’s here because I love his WYLEI characterization so much and if you’ve been reading this series too, you’re probably head over heels in love with the boy too? and immersing in this, feeling all the ways he changed MC’s life and the way he loves her? stop it i’m crying right now. T_T

❥ Only You by @sweetbunnykook​➴ Stalker/Lovers!AU | Stalker/BF!Jungkook x Noona/GF!Reader x Ex-Fiance!Namjoon x BFF!Seokjin | Series➴ Jeon Jungkook, your wedding photographer, helps you escape on your big day upon learning about a secret your groom-to-be kept hidden. You soon fall for this young, passionate photographer. However, you underestimated just how much he was willing to reciprocate that love. Maybe, you think, he’s loving you just a little too much.➴ WII: ahhhh to be Jungkook’s Noona, I love immersing in this because there’s so much intense passion here, and if you allow yourself to fall into the role you will understand the statement that Love is Blind that people will overlook anything their lover is involved in because so what if they did this or that? they only have hearts in their eyes, the manipulation here might get to you irl, like wow, seriously this was so brilliantly written, how can you not love Jungkook and give him everything right?  

❥ DNA by @btssavedmylifeblr​➴ Dystopian/Breeding!AU | Stud!Jungkook x Cow!Reader | Series➴ Jungkook’s career is in jeopardy when he begins falling for a woman he’s supposed to impregnate.➴ WII: the futuristic feels? amazing description and details? unique universe? if you’re up for those things this is one amazing read you should be immersing yourself into, I’m so in love with the way this was written, Bee and her galaxy mind will challenge you into painting all of her words in your head and you’ll have an advanced futuristic universe where babies are manufactured and modified to your liking but if you mix feelings into the process and what do you get? ugh, this is just brilliant!

❥ The Fitting by @noona-la-la-la​➴ Idol!AU | Idol!Jungkook x Stylist/Noona!Reader | Series➴ The younger Jungkook has a workplace crush on you, but you let the flattery get to you and make a proposition you can’t take back.➴ WII: who can ever say no to idol!jungkook? prepare to immerse into this tension-filled romance with Jungkook, laced with complications of keeping a secret “relationship“, so this is what happens when fire meets ice at work, and this being an idol!au will give you a glimpse of how they probably keep their affairs hidden from everyone and it can be stressful, full of jealousy, and fights.

➴ OT7 ❥ Void by @btssavedmylifeblr​➴ Space!AU | Space Crew!OT7 x Space Crew!Reader | Series➴ You are the only female crew member on a 12-year space mission with seven handsome men. The sexual tension is real, y’all.➴ WII: BEST.OT7.FIC.EVER. so why not immerse yourself and be the only girl in their universe right? this has so much sexual tension since they only have you sis, but it’s fun to get all the attention tho there will be stressful and trying times, the boys will compensate *wink*wink* 

❥ A Hundred Percent Human by wrienne➴ Hybrid/Host-Club!AU | Hybrid!OT7 x Human/Owner!Reader | Series➴ In which you (reader) are forced to take care of seven hybrids in a twist of fate.After your estranged mother passes away, you’re left with an unwanted will and the heavy burden of responsibility. Although you’re desperate not to stray from the familiar path you thought was laid out in front of you with a fully human boyfriend who loves you more than anything, your life is thrown upside down once more after another unfortunate incident (that may or may not have to do with said boyfriend) occurs.Drunk and down on life, you finally decide to deal with the house and the unsavory business your mother left behind. However, to your shock, you find that seven very different hybrids are included with both the house - and the business. Seven hybrids you never even met before - even less agreed to take care of.Set in the not too distant future where infertility has become mankind’s greatest issue. Will contain sexual content.➴ WII: what’s an ot7 fic without tension? majority of the boys are dog hybrids with certain classes and MC has no fucking clue how to deal with hybrids let alone seven of them with two of them being special classes/cases, this will be a little slow-paced as the story starts more on their background/history as hybrids and they’re still getting comfy with one another, which I think is a great way to pull readers in and grow attached to the hybrids.

❥ Moth to Flame by @bang-to-the-tan➴ Vampire!AU | Vampire!OT7 x Human!Reader | Series➴ Robbed of your memories and intended as a birthday present for a deadly creature of the night, you unwittingly become the center of a territorial dispute between two covens of vampires. Tensions are rising and the brothers are getting hungry.➴ WII: how can we pass up on vampire!ot7? this is a brilliant story that will have the same haze effect on you as the reader, I immersed hardcore on this one and I’m like who am I? it’s weird when you get affected and get all the phantom feels from reading alone you know? and this will affect you so much I swear to god it’s you literally transported and astral projected into this universe and it’s so pleasing but also frightening to be in the middle of two covens.

❥ Physcom by @teawithkpop➴ Dystopian/Sex Worker!AU | Idol!OT7 x Physical Companion!Reader | Series➴ AU where live-in Physical Companions are provided to k-pop groups so the members can relieve their sexual related stress and tension - around their busy schedules, of course. You are one such “PhysCom”. However, complications arise when the BTS members start harboring romantic feelings for you. Feelings you’re not sure you can reject with any believable amount of conviction. Such a scandal could result in getting both you and them fired and exposed, ruining any future career options for all parties involved… it turns out the “com” in PhysCom might as well stand for complications.➴ WII: this has an interesting take on being Bangtan’s “companion” and to immerse into this one and watching everyone catch feelings and defy the rules for a chance at romance will overwhelm you, you a mere “companion” now the object of their affection and they’re willing to do anything and everything for you even if it means risking it all. 

p.s. I suggest you go through my FICSHELF to view all of the stories I ever read so you get to choose the exact story you want to read, the shelf contains story links (Tumblr and ao3 if any) with summary, warnings, and more info about the fic (character role, genre, au, word count). 

[vixenandviper]

HOLD! WHO GOES THERE? WHY, IS THAT [CATLINA JOHAR] THE [MADAME OF THE HOUSE] OF [ILLASQA]? THEY DO LOOK [ASSERTIVE] FOR A [WOMAN] OF [29] YEARS. DON’T THEY CALL [HER] THE [SAVVY AND PROTECTIVE HARLOT]? I’VE HEARD THEY’RE ALSO [SILVER TONGUED AND VICIOUS] THOUGH. DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT BUT THEY DO LOOK AN AWFUL LOT LIKE [SUMMER BISHIL].

Basic Info

NAME: Catlina Johar

PRONUNCIATION: Cat-Leena Joe-Har

OCCUPATION: Madame of the Nightshade

AGE: 29

PLACE OF ORIGIN: The Red Keep

FAMILY MEMBERS: None known

Physical Description

HEIGHT: 5′2″

HAIIR COLOR: Dark chestnut with some lighter brown highlights

EYE COLOR: Dark brown

GENDER: Female

BUILD: Pete and slim

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES?: None besides a few freckles

ANY HEALTH RELATED ISSUES?: None

Personality

Catlina isn’t a sweet person. She can drip honey from her tongue if that’s what you want but it’ll cost you. Overall, she is someone who isn’t afraid to speak her mind but won’t give you any insight into her past. She does have a bit of an explosive temper but her rage is something she rarely taps into because she knows if she did, the things she’d say would probably land her in prison.

She is, however, extremely loyal to those who have been good to her. Whether that’s a simple favor or someone who has befriended her, you can be sure Catlina Johar will have your back. She is extremely protective of the people who work in her brothel and by extension, the people that work in the tavern. The tavern itself is owned by someone else but they all work together closely.

Additional Info

Catlina runs a tavern and brothel in Illasqa currently, though she was born in the Red Keep. I would love for her to have a few girls and/or guys in her care and business partners. Anything involving the brothel, essentially. As well as rival brothels or establishments too. She’s extremely protective of the girls in her care and wouldn’t let anyone do anything without their consent.

I’d love the Elliot to her Margo. He could be someone who frequents the tavern/brothel or someone who bought it with her. Essentially, he’s her only real friend and the only person other than herself she actually trusts. She would kill for him… and probably has. And he thinks of her as his best friend.

People from her past. She was born on the streets of the Red Keep, her mother was probably a prostitute herself. But an older woman took pity on Cat and took her in, essentially ‘buying’ her from her mother. She was the only person Cat ever saw as a mother but she died when she was a child. Afterwards, Cat lived on the street and probably ran with some bad crowds, fending for herself. She probably made friends enough with some of the prostitutes and convinced them to let her clean up after them or fetch them food and drinks, etc, that they gave her a little closet she could sleep in. She eventually got a job as a serving wench and worked as a prostitute when she was older. But I would love plots from her past, anyone that would have known her back then.

History

She could have ended up in the gutter, in the shit and the muck, in the poorest areas of the Red Keep were it not for her intense desire to not die. Catlina was born without a last name. She was born without a first name until she was given up, just a few days after her birth. Her mother was a prostitute and she was an accident.

Cat was given up to an old woman known around town as Mani who often sold pastries and bread and cakes to the courtesans and clients that visited the Red Door. Her mother had left her in a basket, her only words to the old baker woman were “Please… I can’t. Please take my johar.” The first few years of her life were probably the happiest she could have actually known, given all of the circumstances. The woman was old and growing frail, already into at least her mid-sixties by the time she’d been given Catlina. But she had a heart full of love and a warm home, even if it was really just a room on top of her bakery.

The woman had decided to give Catlina a real name, though she often called her ‘Johar’ as her birth mother did. She taught Catlina how to read and write over the years and some basics that she knew about keeping her business going in the bakery. She often told Cat tales of her own youth and the life she’d led with her husband who had died a few years before. It had been a joyful and full life, even if they’d never had children. And she never told Cat who her mother was, only where she worked. She always said “We’ll talk about this when you’re older.”

But older never came for Cat’s caretaker. She was returning from buying goods from the woman when the bakery was ablaze. The old woman’s body had been burned to an unrecognizable degree and all the magi putting out the fire could tell her was that they hoped she’d died before the inferno took over the home. It seemed the oven had caught the rickety old walls on fire and the rest… was left as cinders. She had once again lost everything and she realized the woman who’d taken care of her was the closest thing she had to a mother.

For weeks, the girl managed to survive on the streets, doing odd chores for various business owners who knew her caretaker. They gave her a few coins, enough for her to buy some bread and fruit and occasionally would let her sleep in their store rooms. It was enough for her, she only ever wanted to survive.

Catlina found herself on the streets during a storm and afterwards, the girl became terribly ill. She remembers falling asleep on the streets and later feeling nothing but warmth. She didn’t know that’s what death would feel like but she was certain she was dying. And perhaps it was Jvala greeting her herself. Welcoming her back into the volcanic earth that she grew.

When she came to, she found it wasn’t Jvala’s warmth welcoming her into the After, but rather someone physical and real and towering and… she was terrified at first. Arvasdarr happened to be the one to find her, broken and sick and cold as she was in the streets. And through whatever hope or goodness or pity he had left in his heart, he took her in and helped her recover. She was with him for a few months at the most, and he’d never quite felt human. She’d asked him very straightforward if he was a dragon. He laughed at her but that was all the answer she needed. Even as a child of just ten years old, she knew he needed his freedom. And he needed to fly free more than anything. And he couldn’t do that looking after a kid. So she went to the place her Mani had mentioned, the Red Door.

No child of ten should have seen the things Catlina saw there. But she begged a few of the girls to give her chores, errands, let her clean, anything, if they’d just let her stay in one of the small store closets. They allowed this little trespass as long as she stayed out of their way. So Catlina went to Arvasdarr and the two parted ways. It was for the best, although he might have been the closest she’d ever find to a father figure.

The years drug on for Catlina, she cleaned, cooked, ran errands, bought groceries, mopped up bodily fluids and even helped the women at the brothel kick drunk men out of their rooms. And she stayed out of sight when she could and out of the way the rest of the time. The women there kicked her a few coins back every time she did them a favor and Catlina began saving more and more of it, buying only as much food as she needed to survive, the rest she stockpiled in order to one day leave the Red Keep.

She had dreams, she wanted a small house somewhere on a beach maybe, and she wanted to live by what she could provide herself. If she found a family along the way, she might be happy to make her own, but all she needed, perhaps, was independence and her own indomitable willpower.

Catlina started servicing the clients too sometime around fifteen or sixteen. She was making more money and paid for a room at the brothel out of her cut. Still, she scrimped and saved, occasionally fighting with one other girl there specifically, but she paid her as little mind as possible. She knew it would solve nothing and get her nowhere near what she wanted.

At eighteen, she left the Red Keep. Her first stop was a three year long stint in East Reach before she finally had enough money saved to book passage and move permanently to Illasqa. She found work there at what was then the Shrieking Clam. But she was motivated and she put in more than her fair share of hard work. On top of taking clients, she did what she could around the tavern and inn to make it function and look better.

She also met Avitej Kumara there. If only she’d known how much her life would change just by meeting him.

The first rule for any whore is to never fall in love. And perhaps she’d broken that rule the moment they’d locked eyes. But she would not realize the extent of the hold he had on her for many years. He was wild then, seemingly untamable. But he’d come often to the Shrieking Clam, it was a favorite haunt of his apparently, and when he’d laid eyes on her, there’d been no one else he wanted to claim.

The next few years were a whirlwind for Catlina. She quickly gained the previous owner of the Shrieking Clam’s favor by being hardworking and having the business tact and savvy that he was looking for. He was aging and wanted someone to take over for him. He trained her on everything she needed to properly manage a brothel and as she stepped further into the role of leadership, the place really started to turn around, and she took less and less clients.

When the man finally retired, Catlina was twenty six. By that point, she only ever took one client when he came around, and she had fixed and rebuilt all of the broken parts of the brothel. She renamed it the Nightshade and slowly, but surely, it had become less and less of a den of debauchery, and more and more a palace of pleasure. If it was any other sort of business, it would be respectable outside of Loqoala, even admired and favored.

But that was Calina Johar’s life. Hard work. The fate she was given overcome by sheer will but the fate she wanted still so far out of reach.

[marie-x-beaulieu]

( summer bishil, 30, cisfemale, she / her ) Have you seen MARIE-ANNE BEAULIEU around ? I hear they’re a AVTORITYET / ESCORT AT EDEN who can sometimes be CYNICAL & IMPULSIVE. But I also heard they can be INDEPENDENT & EFFICIENT if you catch them on a good day. They’re usually hanging around JAVA ADDICT in their spare time. I sure hope they’re alright! 

TW: drug mention, prostitution, murder, vague mention of child neglect

- B A S I C -

Name: Marie-Anne Beaulieu Nickname(s): Marie - she usually just goes by this. Age: 30 Occupation:  Avtorityet / Escort at Eden Affiliation: Vasile Birthday: May 28th Zodiac: Gemini Place of Birth: Paris, France Ethnicity: Mexican / Caucasian / Indian Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Languages Spoken: French (fluent - first language), Spanish (fluent) and Russian (the basics only)

- F A M I L Y -

Father: Unknown Mother: Bernadette (deceased) Sibling(s): None  Children: Henry (1 1/2 years old)

- A P P E A R A N C E -

Height: 5′6′’ Weight: 117lbs Hair Color / Type: Light brown, long and slightly wavy Eye Color: Dark brown Piercings / Tattoos: A few small tats here and there; tongue piercing, ears & cartilage piercings Best Features: Her smile. Pinterest Board: x

- P E R S O N A L I T Y -

(+) Independent, Reliable, Efficient, Loyal, Resourceful (-) Cynical, Impulsive, Aloof, Cold-Hearted, Selfish

- L I K E S / D I S L I K E S -

Likes:

Spending time with her son, Henry

Dancing

Drinking (she’s borderline a alcoholic)

Getting high (but only occasionally)

Having sex - m/f...doesn’t matter

Getting paid

Working for the Vasile

Killing

Being frugal, but also spending her hard-earned cash - she’s a bit of a walking contradiction with this one.

Dislikes:

Women & Child Abusers

Openly showing her emotions

Feeling her feelings

People in general, even though she works with them for a living

- B I O G R A P H Y -

Was born in Paris, France, to a single teenaged mother. Bernadette was sixteen when she had Marie.

Her mother was a runaway - she left home at fourteen after a fallout with her parents, and two years later, had Marie. To support herself and her daughter, Bernadette took up sex work - she did everything she could at the time, to earn money. She danced, she stripped and she sold her body. Got really heavy into drugs, and never really stopped.

Although they had a place to live, and she went to school like a normal kid, Marie still pretty much grew up on the streets of Paris. More specifically, in the red light district, as that was where her mother worked. She was exposed to pretty much everything a child shouldn’t be exposed to: neglect, sex, drugs, alcohol, violence...you name it, she very likely saw it go down.

Her mother often snuck her into the back of the clubs that she worked in, and while her mother went off to do her thing, she had the other girls watch Marie, collectively, hiding her in the dressing rooms.

Hands down, Bernadette Beaulieu was a terrible mother. She was selfish, childish and negligent. She never once showed even a little concern for her daughter and how being exposed to such an environment might possibly effect her. She’d already deemed Marie a lost cause, same as her.

Growing up in strip clubs and such places like that, and watching not just her mother but the other ladies, Marie pretty much learned the skills and how to acquire the proper tools of the trade: how to dance, do her makeup, and how to dress in a way that both enticed and intrigued the desired clientele.

Not that she put any of it to use immediately. It wasn’t until she was seventeen and her mother went missing for several weeks before her body was found floating in the Sein River (she’d been strangled to death), that Marie found herself having to make a living on her own. Just barely out of school and she was orphaned, homeless, broke and starving - it was then that she stepped onto a stage for the first time, more naked than she’d ever been in public before. 

First it was exotic dancing and then stripping, but when even that proved to not make her enough money to pay rent and food - as Paris was a notoriously expensive place to live - she started selling her body, and her time, becoming an escort. Started at the bottom, but quickly rose to being one of the highest paid and most sought after escorts in the district. She was young, beautiful, feisty...and the men loved that, apparently.

Marie strangely loved her job, more so than you’d probably expect, but then she grew up in the industry so it was all she knew. 

She loved sex, she truly did. She loved how powerful she felt during the act, even when she wasn’t the one completely in control. And fuck, did she love being the one in control.

She had the heart of a dominatrix, but when she smiled at you, you’d never know it, for she looked like a real softy. That said, she rarely smiled, so that wasn’t really a problem.

She killed for the first time a few months after she started working. It was in self defense, of course; a male client who decided that ‘rough play’ meant something entirely different. It wasn’t as difficult as she she thought it was, taking a life, nor covering up the murder - and she quickly became an expert at both.

She didn’t know it at the time, but her first kill hadn’t gone as unnoticed as she thought, but thankfully it wasn’t by the police, but rather a recruit for the Russian mafia, temporarily stationed in Paris. Impressed by her cleverness and instincts when it came to covering up her tracks, Yakov approached her and offered to mentor her, and train her more extensively in fighting and how to kill, with the full intent of recruiting her into the Vasile gang. It hadn’t taken her long to say yes to the offer.

After accepting Yakov’s offer to train her, they both agreed that continuing her work as a sex worker was not only a great cover but a great training ground. A lot of her targets frequented the red light district, which made it overall rather easy (and more fun) to lure them in.

At twenty-three - after six years of vigorous training with Yakov - she made her way to Chicago, where she went through the initiation, and finally becoming a marked Vasile and one of their assassins. 

Deciding to stay in the city, she once more became an escort as more for a cover than because she needed the money or the work.

Two years passed, before Marie met Malachi Reed, an older gentleman who worked at Forty-Three as a bartender. It wasn’t love at first sight, not by any means - Marie wasn’t the type of girl to fall in love so easily, or really show those kinds of feelings. To her, love was very foreign concept. 

In fact, up until she and Malachi started seeing each other, she had never actually been in a relationship. She’d gone on dates, sure, but nothing other than sex ever came of them. After all, not many men wanted to date a woman who slept with other people for a living - either that, or they offered to take her away and ‘give her a better life’, as if real life was some fucking fairytale that could be escaped so easily.

With Malachi, things were different, which was the only reason she even consented to the idea of dating him in the end. He had been very open-minded, and hadn’t been fazed by her being an escort, accepting that she was a woman simply trying to make a living just like everyone else.

She didn’t inform him about her main job, however. The fact that she worked for one of the main gangs in the city never so much as left her lips, in the two years that they were together.

A year into their relationship, Marie fell pregnant with her son, Henry. He’d been a awful surprise, in the best and worst possible way. She had never wanted a child, so the thought of motherhood had never appealed to her in the slightest. In her line of work, she’d always been careful, taken precautions, but for some reason being with Malachi had completely short-circuited her brain. 

She’d been downright furious when she had discovered she was pregnant, and she had stayed that way for pretty much the entirety of her pregnancy. It wasn’t until Henry was actually born and she was looking at her newborn son’s face for the first time, that the resentment finally melted away, only to be replaced by fear - knowing that she was now responsible for this little person that she’d stupidly and selfishly brought into the world. 

In the end, being a mother was hard work, but it was definitely rewarding and she couldn’t have asked for a more perfect little boy. That said, she would be the first to admit that there were days when she still had doubt and selfish thoughts of fleeing from the responsibility - because being a parent was hard as fuck and she didn’t always have the patience.

Of course, the new found joy of motherhood was quickly overshadowed by the disappearance of Malachi, not five months later. She had no idea where he was, or why he disappeared. Did he leave on his own? Was he killed? Caught in the gang war that was going on within the city? There was literally no clues. 

The only thing she could think of was that he’d willingly left...despite all of his stuff still being at their apartment. It beat thinking his body was possibly laying in a ditch somewhere, and it allowed her to feel something towards the situation that wasn’t overwhelming grief over the death of a beloved one (although she was still in denial that she’d loved him). She felt anger, and resentment. Towards Malachi, specifically, because he was the only one she could blame.

After his disappearance, Marie moved into the Vasile manor with Henry, and they’ve been there ever since.

- W A N T E D   C O N N E C T I O N S -

Her missing boyfriend, Malachi Reed. Name can be changed, obviously. Anyways, this would be such a great connection that is open to so many plot possibilities. (Suggested FCs: Chris Hemsworth, Joseph Morgan, Ryan Guzman, UTP). He’d definitely be 32+

Vasile Connections - ALWAYS!

Co-Workers

Clients

Love Interest (someone to finally melt this little ice queen’s heart)

Friends

Enemies

Any other sort of connections, tbh - I’m literally open to everything!

[pricechecktranslations]

TTDS: The Ring of Evil; Chapter 5

Torture Tower Doesn’t Sleep: The Ring of Evil infomine under the cut

Scene 1

Magion explains, as Gibbet listens (feeling as though this is not the first time she’s heard this), that he was born in Pharma, with his parents and his older sister. His dad ran a small company, and while they weren’t rich they didn’t want for much.

He learned a secret about his family two years ago, when he was fifteen years old. Their mother died (she’d been sick for a while so it wasn’t a surprise even though it hurt), and a week after her funeral he and his sister were called to their father’s room.

It turned out, they had different fathers. His sister’s father was from a previous marriage (their mother never gave the details on it to Magion’s father, though). Magion says that it wasn’t a huge deal to them—they were still siblings even if they had different fathers, and his sister apparently had suspected as much already.

Six months later, his sister suddenly vanished. The police couldn’t find her. One day, about six months later than that, Magion goes to find his sister, thinking perhaps she ran off to find her real father. And that is what he’s doing here—he’s in the middle of his journey. And he actually is not the leader of a company after all.

He then presents Gibbet with his bracelet—it’s the one from Gibbet’s dream. This triggers her memory, the one that she dreams about. The boy and the girl in the field of flowers with the bracelet. Magion often gave his sister presents when he was young. They were in that field of flowers when she got attacked by a large owl. The boy cried. There was a flash of light, and the owl was suddenly gone.

Gibbet is freaking out in an identity crisis over what she is and what she’s done (and why she hates humanity). She remembers.

She hated everything. She hated the town, she hated the filthy men who lived there, and her greedy father who sold her to them (This is vague but I suppose that means Magion’s father pushed her into prostitution for money). She hated Magion, who had no idea that’s what was happening. She hated all men, wishing she had a sister instead. And her name was Christabel.

She freaks out and catches Magion in a “witch spider”. Unlike the others though, instead of grabbing his arms and legs it grabs his head, plunging into his eyes and hoisting him into the air (basically, he’s dead). For the first time, Gibbet has killed someone directly.

Scene 2

Maiden doesn’t really want to fight Garnes. She feels he’s like her and her sisters, despite being human. Still, if it’s a fight he wants, it’s a fight he’ll get. He’s very good at fighting, incidentally, though it doesn’t last long (he’s still only human, after all, and he’s old).

He’s not afraid to die at all (he even chides her for thinking he might expect her to spare him). She then turns herself into her iron maiden form to execute him, sucking him inside. Strangely, though, it doesn’t kill him. Garnes communicates with her (as an inverse of when he was working on her earlier, he is projecting his thoughts to her rather than speaking out loud) and reveals that the mistake he wished to fix when making her was that she kills people immediately (thus not a torture device so much as an execution one). So he changed the spikes so that they won’t make fatal injuries (though you can obviously still die of blood loss).

He makes a utopia reference (“I suppose that Torcia Tower is a final utopia for you torture devices”), while also revealing that he didn’t care about stopping them or Beritoad—he just wanted to have a grand finale here, as the world is becoming one where torturers are unnecessary. Being killed by his own Iron Maiden is perfect for him (and Maiden doesn’t get it). They talk a bit more (him bringing up the idea that Hank is her adoptive father, and Garnes is her birth father), and then after suffering a bit longer he dies. It’s also worth noting that while the image depicts her holding Garnes, the text says that she stays in her Iron Maiden form to hold him inside her for a while (I know that’s worded badly but it’s better in context).

Scene 3

An unnamed “he” is in darkness (Benji). He thinks he’s dead. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he can sense that it is a large black box. There is someone else in there—a boy that he recognizes (Amostia).

Benji asks Amostia what “he” (Romalius) is plotting, and he says that he is the weakest of the 72. He steals from those stronger than him. He stole pheromones that let him control snakes. He stole charisma that let him control an army. And other things besides, as he built up a good reputation for himself (the people he stole from—strong wraiths--are viewed as a threat by those that currently run the world). He also calls Romalius a cat? (from the viewpoint of the people who live in this world, I guess).

He says that the “cat” is currently trying to eat the “servant” and the “frog”. And also the “crow” that is between them. Then he will be the only “strong” person left in the world. At which point the “cat” will become a “lion” and eat the whole world.

Amostia is vague on how to stop Romalius, but suggests that Benji needs to open the iron trapdoor to release him.

Scene 4

When Benji wakes, he’s in a place he doesn’t recognize with a huge headache. Somewhere in Reverse Tower, at least. He’d been terribly injured on his head when Romalius struck him (he gets some of his blood on his hand), but it wasn’t fatal. He doesn’t remember it, but he must have escaped. There’s an awful rumbling above.

It’s the sound of battle above him. He finds a section of the ceiling that’s black, with a man-made hole inside it. Inside the hole is an iron panel, with a wooden platform right underneath it. He tries pushing on it, and the panel eventually opens when he pushes on it with the hand that has his blood on it. It slides to the side in reaction to his blood, leading up (this is the floor panel that leads up to the dining room in Torcia).

Before he can climb up, he’s startled by Johanson (the white wraith horse) poking its head in the hole. Rack is there too, and she’s amazed that the panel is open (humorously, she doesn’t remember Benji well).

Rack is distracted and pulls away from the hole. A light flashes, and then Raymond pokes his head down there. At Benji’s urging, Raymond and Tsukumo hop down after him. He reveals Romalius’ treachery and bids them follow him further down into Reverse Tower.

They can hear Rack screaming at them to wait as she chases them.

Scene 5

Romalius knows that as the weakest, it’s his fate to be weeded out. So, using his only natural power, he continued to steal from those stronger than him.

Wraiths can live a long time, but they can still die. Romalius realizes this when he becomes ill (this is blowback for continuing to steal power from his fellows). He has now become obsessed with averting his death.

He wants to take Amostia’s power. The armor before him has changed, taking on body heat and a pulse despite being inanimate (sort of like the torture devices). Amostia’s outer shell was revitalized by the blood of one of the architect’s descendants (Luna) being spilt on it. Amostia is just glaring at Romalius from behind.

He realizes that he needs the “body”, not just the outer shell and the spirit, to revive Amostia (to steal his power from him). Amostia says that it’s not here—it was taken elsewhere when this place was built. He says it was taken by “Clockworker”, who was apparently a torture device creator, but he doesn’t know where.

They’re interrupting by Raymond and the others. Raymond charges forward and points the tip of his sword at Romalius’ throat.

They talk a minute, and Romalius suggests that Raymond has no actual reason to defend humanity from wraiths as he does, given all he has suffered from them—really, he attacks wraiths due to instinct and fate.

He says that those who created this “era” have determined that wraiths should not exist in this new era (I don’t know if he means “era” as in period), and those who live in this “new era” can’t go against the instincts programmed into them by the creators—hence why humanity has sought to eradicate wraiths. Beritoad, Romalius, and Amostia are different—they’re remnants of the “old era”, and so don’t obey the will of the current era’s creators. As such the creators wish to eradicate them.

Raymond of course has no way to tell if he’s lying or not. But he doesn’t believe he’s been manipulated. He wants to save the world from Romalius. Romalius insists he’s just trying to survive. Even if he’s been accepted by humans, it’s by betraying and killing his own kind. He figures they’ll turn on him eventually. After they discuss it a bit more, Raymond disavows his connections to Romalius, and insists on battling him one on one.

Romalius wonders how Beritoad would react to his death—when Raymond says he’ll probably stay calm, Romalius comments that he doesn’t know anything. Then they begin their sword fight.

Scene 6

At some point Gibbet has run out of the tower. She can see that the lake beside it is almost empty of water (and gets all melodramatic and thinks that it’s similar to her own heart being empty like that). She’s not sad. Her memories just annoy her.

She sees Rabiah flying towards her—he takes one look and realizes what happened, lamenting that Beritoad’s lost a pawn (though it doesn’t really matter at this stage). The fighting in the tower is dying down, and all the suffering lives are being taken in by Beritoad.

He asks Gibbet what she wants to do, and she asks him to tell her everything he knows about her. He produces an octahedron amethyst, something he had stolen from Stolasphia. It was through this that he learned what life Gibbet had led and everything about her—it has her memories in it. He returns it to her—it floats into the air and scatters, and then Gibbet regains her memories.

Stolasphia was a middle-power wraith among the original 72, but she had the power to gather many familiars and also bind her opponents’ power. She built her own country using that power, enslaving humans and living in luxury. She lost everything when the humans revolted, though. Romalius joined the humans’ side, and took her power to gather so many familiars. She managed to escape by changing into an owl, and wandered the country that had once been hers for a very long time.

She wanted to regain her country, but needed a new power to do so. No one would help her (even her brother Rabiah), as all the other wraiths had scattered to their own ambitions. As they did, though, they were disappearing. Some were killed in battles with other wraiths, some were sealed by humans, and some killed themselves (? cursing their fates? idk). Eventually, you could count the remaining original wraiths on both hands.

Only two wraiths really had any influence with humanity anymore—Romalius, who allied with them, and Beritoad, who fought against them (and Rabiah was on Beritoad’s side). They fought, and Romalius’ side won. Beritoad fled to Torcia tower with most of his power gone. Stolasphia decides to take this opportunity to steal Beritoad’s power, while he’s weak—in particular, his ability to make gold from nothing, something that she would use to rebuild her power base again.

At this point, Beritoad already has torture devices in human forms protecting him, as a note.

She fought with Raymond before the tower. The battle was going in her favor—despite not being particularly strong, she still had experience over a young half-wraith. But her cockiness betrayed her, and she was blinded by his lightning strike (particularly devastating on her bird eyes). Raymond then stabbed her with his estoc.

Marshalling the last of her power, Stolasphia broke herself up into three owls. One of them flew to Torcia tower and sealed the entrance so that no one could leave or enter. The other one flew at Raymond, and using a similar magic it imprisoned him inside a gemstone. The last one was the one that carried Stolasphia’s consciousness. It needed to find a new being to reside in before it dissipated. And that person had to be a hereditary evil raiser (exact same concept as in Evillious).

She would have picked Hank, except he’d died a short time before. She flew south, and right before her time was up she found Christabel Blanken and possessed her.  However, weak as she was she was partially subsumed by her own consciousness, which resulted in them fusing. And a new consciousness was born from both of them.

She had both her memories as Christabel and Stolasphia. On the surface, her life in Pharma was fortunate—but it was hell itself. Her stepfather and the men in town were vile, and the only reason she was able to withstand it for fifteen years was because half of her spirit was Stolasphia’s.

She’d known Magion’s father wasn’t hers much earlier, as her mother told her. Her real father was Hank Fieron. She resolved to go to Torcia Tower upon her mother’s death, to learn more about her real father, and Stolasphia, who had not given up on reviving herself, agreed. So she snuck away from home.

When she arrived at Torcia, she met Rabiah by the lake. He had evaded the seal on the tower Stolasphia had placed fifteen years ago. He told her to unseal the tower, promising to help steal Beritoad’s power when she did. She agreed and did so. When she unleashed the seal on the tower, it also released the seal on Raymond (which she didn’t see coming). Her weakness of spirit after having her power stolen kept her from remembering that Rabiah was on Beritoad’s side.

She was captured and tortured by Maiden and Rack the moment she entered. Not in body, but in mind. Drugs, electricity, sound waves, etc. After one month, they brought her before Beritoad, an empty shell. And Beritoad planted in her the memories/consciousness of the torture device “Gibbet”.

Back to Rabiah and Gibbet, they talk a little about what she’ll do now that she’s got her memories back (which all depends on which identity she’ll choose to be). She isn’t sure.

Scene 7

Beritoad and Isaac are at the top of the tower, Isaac approaching him with a knife in hand. Basically, Isaac is there because Pere Noel feels that Beritoad betrayed the organization (even though he wasn’t born then, he was brainwashed into carrying out their purpose). Isaac then cuts off his head.

Beritoad’s head is still alive. He says that Isaac took too long to get up here. Isaac stomps on his head until it’s just a mess of gross meat, but it’s too late. The frog isn’t Beritoad anymore. The tower is struck by lightning, which chars everything inside (and blows Isaac out) except for what was once the frog, now standing on two legs in human form with long red hair.

Beritoad has recovered his power.

Scene 8

Rack is going through Reverse Tower, having gotten lost inside. She can hear a ruckus going on beneath. When she finally reaches the fifth floor down, she sees Raymond with his estoc, having felled Romalius.

She’d fought with Raymond earlier using Josephine R (pulled along by Johanson and Robinson), and it was in the middle of the battle when the trap door had opened.

She goes to hide and watch what’s going on, and sees Amo there. He rushes over to meet her. She demands that he tell her her true identity as promised, and he points her to the armor. He says it was something that protected the both of them once, long ago. He says that she is the princess in the story he told her, and he is the servant. And that armor is their castle. Like in the story, they were once one.

Rack can hear a bell ringing, despite there being no bells in either tower. Amo tells her to become one with him again—to become their true form of Amostia.

Scene 9

Raymond’s not really celebrating his victory—he had no idea that Romalius was so weak, and wonders why he accepted the duel. He’s stabbed him through the chest already. But things aren’t over.

Benji and Tsukumo run to him, and they hear a sound that sounds like the tower itself is being destroyed above them. Benji points out that the armor that had been in the center of the floor is now gone, as well as the spirit boy. They decide to head upstairs and see what’s going on.

First though, Benji goes to Luna’s headless corpse. He wants to find the head, but they don’t have time. He picks up her body and goes to take her with them upstairs.

At the third floor they leave Reverse Tower the way Benji and Luna and Romalius originally came in. They’re quickly greeted by Luna’s two subordinates. Benji hands one Luna’s body and gives a brief explanation. The other one points out that Torcia Tower is a flaming pile of rubble.

Scene 10

Raymond climbs up the lake wall. The flaming pile of rubble has spread to the nearby forest and some of the nearby buildings of the town. According to one of Luna’s underlings, the tower was felled in a lightning strike, and a winged figure flew out of it. Raymond realizes that this means Beritoad has revived his power.

However, he wasn’t the only one who destroyed it—there was also an enormous wolf-like monster that came out, flattening the whole thing with its tail. The wolf can also breathe fire. Raymond figures this is Rack.

He suddenly sees Amo (to be clear—from now on when I say Amo I mean the spirit, and by “Amostia” I mean Rack’s transformed self—the narrative from Raymond’s perspective calls her Rack, but otherwise it calls her Amostia) before him, and demands to know what’s going on. He says it isn’t Rack, but Amostia, and explains the deal with him being the soul, them having a shell, and then Rack being the body. He says that Amostia’s body was transformed into the torture device Rack by a human magician (not sorcerer but more like sleight of hand magician). He’d thought that he could merge with her again, but she merged with the shell and started rampaging before he could join in the fusion.

He points out that Beritoad and Amostia are fighting right now, out of instinct (the instinct that beings of the new era must kill the original wraiths). Normally this wouldn’t affect Amostia, but Rack is now a being of the new era, as a result of her time as a torture device.

They banter a little about religion (the concept of a creator and god and whatnot as it relates to this instinct thing), and Amostia disappears suddenly. Raymond decides whatever’s going on he can’t just leave two wraiths to wreak havoc over everything. He dashes towards Lion City, using his special eyes that he inherited from Beritoad to help him see through the smoke of the fire.

Rack’s wolf form is roughly the same shape as it was a year ago, but now it has large wings, and its skin has durable scales on it. Beritoad also has wings. He and Amostia (who is talking with Rack’s voice) banter a little as they fight.

Raymond debates with himself over whether or not to join the fight or who he should target when he does (both of them are bad news). He then hears Tsukumo call to him from behind, and when he goes to her he sees Maiden in tow. Tsukumo brought her along, as Maiden wants Raymond’s help (and with her poor memory she doesn’t remember Maiden as a wraith). Maiden wants Raymond to help Rack (more specifically, to stop her rampage).

Scene 11

Amostia is winning the fight with Beritoad. Despite him striking her (or him—narrative openly questions which pronoun would be better considering Rack’s current state) multiple times with the lightning, it doesn’t seem to be dong much damage through the scales (the scales which represent the armor that was Amostia’s shell). Beritoad is also slowly accumulating burn damage.

Also, Maiden is able to stay in her current form because Beritoad’s power has returned, and thus just being near him is enough to keep her animate. Raymond briefly considers the notion that killing Beritoad will make Rack inanimate, but figures now that Rack is Amostia that wouldn’t work.

Beritoad’s wings burn, and he falls. He runs to where Raymond and the others are (apparently his all-seeing eyes are burned too, so he knows it’s Raymond through sensing it’s him rather than sight). He bids Raymond help him, pointing out that he doesn’t want the world destroyed (given that he needs humans to feed on them), whereas Amostia will burn everything in the world.

Maiden urges him to help. Not out of loyalty to Beritoad, but out of love and concern for her big sister. Tsukumo presses him to help, saying that she’ll assist too (which is particularly significant given that Hargain ingrained her with the mission to destroy wraiths). After a little bit of a crisis, Raymond decides to first stop the giant wolf burning the town down.

Scene 12

Raymond explains the whole thing about having Tsukumo enhance one’s powers to Beritoad, and hands him a bracelet. Beritoad makes it a gold chain and connects all three of them with it. Beritoad says that they can’t pierce the scales, so they need to shoot for the inside of Amostia’s mouth when it opens to spit fire.

Raymond figures he’ll defeat Beritoad after they handle Amostia.

Raymond and Beritoad both pour lightning power into Tsukumo through the chain. They time the attack just as Beritoad suggested, and then Tsukumo—despite struggling with the power output level a little—fires an enormous lightning sword. It strikes and seems to make Amostia stagger, but it isn’t enough. They try again (Tsukumo struggling but hanging in there), but Amostia’s jaw snaps shut so it can’t strike properly.

Then Gibbet uses her wires to pull Amostia’s jaw open. Maiden calls this “The Thread Gleipnir” (Or “Gleipnir’s Thread”? note—Gleipnir is the name of the bindings that hold down the wolf Fenrir in Norse mythology). Tsukumo aims the lightning sword again, but right before it can fire Maiden suddenly takes the blast into herself.

It fires Maiden (in iron maiden form, emitting light) clean into Amostia’s throat region (even through the scales). Amostia collapses. Beritoad figures out that Garnes must have made Maiden able to absorb and repurpose lightning energy specifically in preparation for Beritoad getting his power back.

Meanwhile, Tsukumo faints from the energy surge. There’s no way they’re gonna get another shot off, so all they can do is hope that the wound took care of Amostia.

[douxreviews]

Cloak & Dagger - ‘Rabbit Hold’ Review

Ty: "How do you know how to do that?" Adina: "Some things you never forget."

Ty finally begins exploring his coolest power, thanks to Tandy's decision to enter him and have a look around.

Look, it's not as creepy as it sounds.

I know I mention this almost every week, but wow, this show really pulls off some beautiful visuals. The image of Tandy standing in front of the five mirrors, each one reflecting a different aspect of who she is, contrasted with the sharp darkness of the location, was a particularly striking shot. Honestly, just lovely.

Since the first announcement that they were going to be doing a Cloak and Dagger show, I've been waiting for the developments we got this week. Apologies in advance for this, as you really shouldn't have to be familiar with the source material in order to watch the show, but I think in this case it helps to have a little background.

In the comics, Cloak is basically a gateway to something that they refer to as 'The Dark Dimension.' In that dimension there's nothing but darkness, as you might have guessed from the name. Within that darkness is something they used to only refer to as 'the predator,' who is basically some sort of demon that feeds on the light that Dagger generates, but is also happy to chow down on the terror that people experience when they're absorbed into Cloak's cloak and are forced to relive all their fears. Dagger, meanwhile, generates that delicious light that the predator eats, but if she doesn't release it regularly enough she basically burns up from the excess energy.

That's the symbiosis that ties the two of them together, and the fact that their powers are completely dependent on one another if they aren't going to run out of control is one of the fundamental planks of their relationship.

It was nice, then, that even while the show was finally exploring Ty's big portal they were also underscoring the symbiotic nature of their powers. Tandy had to give up her light powers in order to 'proceed on the journey' through the dark dimension and find Brigid, and tangentially Connors. That, unfortunately, comes at an inconvenient time for Ty, since he's spending some quality time with his Mom attempting to not be killed by gang members.

The character development we get here as we explore Ty's relationship with his mother is fascinating. Adina is a timely depiction of the constant worry implicit in raising a child of color in today's America. Her worry and the actions it leads her to take all feel very real.

The two parallel journeys that Ty and Tandy take this week, him running from the gang and her finding her way through the dark dimension's shopping mall, bounce off each other well, culminating in what I suspect was the point of exercise, the deliberate contrasting of Ty telling his mother the story of human trafficking hundreds of years ago intercut with Mayhem relating to Tandy some harsh facts about human trafficking today.

The point that they're making is clear and well presented. Human trafficking is not a thing of the past. It's not a story from history. It's never gone away. The showrunners deserve a lot of praise for the way they approached the issue.

Meanwhile, in the dark dimension, we finally get an explanation for something that's been bothering me a lot so far this season. Namely, why Tandy has been so incredibly prone to victim blaming in her domestic abuse support group. It made sense that finding out that her idolized father was really an abuser would cause an emotional crisis for her, but that didn't really track with how angry she was at Mikayla for not leaving her abuser.

Now of course it makes sense. She didn't just find out that her father was an abuser. We see very clearly here that she knew all along. She chose to 'not see it,' as we see by her literally choosing to walk out the door to avoid hearing her mother being abused. Of course she's projecting anger toward victims who allow the abuse to continue. The visual metaphor of the memories as records still in their shrink wrap was an inspired choice. Well done.

Lastly, and again I know I say this a lot here, but they continue their proud tradition of making changes from the source material that make everything better and stronger. I mentioned above the predator that lives inside Cloak in the comics. Here they've updated that, and very wisely used the move to New Orleans to justify replacing the predator with Papa Legba, who apparently greets all those who enter the dark dimension and guides them on their business. That just works, on every level. Instead of 'scary thing in the dark' we have 'mysterious guide' and there's a lot more story to be mined out of 'mysterious guide.'

Papa Legba is one of the Loa in Vodoun, and is one of those crossroads deities who's heavy into guiding destinies. That's a perfect fit for this context.

Bits and Pieces:

-- Ty's parents have separated, which explains why we haven't seen much of Otis. That's sad, but not at all unrealistic for a couple that loses a child. Two children, in their case. I wonder if the actor was busy, or if they just wanted to focus the story on Adina.

-- Speaking of Adina, she's startlingly adept at hotwiring cars and avoiding the police. I suddenly have a million questions about Ty's mom.

-- Starting with, what has she been investigating exactly. and does it tie into why she was apparently pressured into preventing an investigation into the girls' disappearances last week?

-- Both American Gods and Cloak and Dagger heavily featured empty shopping malls this week. 14-year-old me in 1986 sighed deeply, inside.

-- The special effect of Ty opening up his portal to the dark dimension was done better than I ever dared hope it would be in live action. Now please throw a cloak into the mix and I'll be happy forever.

-- Ty and Tandy said that Ty was able to open his portal because he was scared, but I bet it was more to do with the presence of Tandy's light.

-- Connors is out of the dark dimension now and ready to cause more trouble. We didn't see Mayhem in the last scene, but it feels safe to assume that she's out too, right?

-- Sadly, most places in the US do still treat victims of human trafficking as criminals and prosecute them for prostitution.

-- I've been meaning to ask this the last couple of weeks – so, does Brigid only have half a soul now? Is Mayhem like a horcrux? If you killed one, I assume the other wouldn't die, based on what happened to the mice.

-- Tandy threw light knives! That makes me geek out every time.

-- I really want one of those Cloak and Dagger icon coins.

-- I don't buy that the gang would just turn around and leave without killing Ty and his mom first. I do however believe that the police would come in shooting for an unarmed black teenager in Ty's position.

Quotes:

Tandy: "You saw what they were doing to those girls." Ty: "Yeah, and I also saw what she did to everything in her path."

Tandy: "Why didn’t you tell me about Connors?" Ty: "We were in the middle of saving the world at the time."

Papa Legba: "I’ve seen blood. And a green jacket. It was worn by half a woman."

Tandy: "You look exactly like her." Mayhem: "Why not ‘she looks exactly like you’?"

Tandy: "Sometimes the status quo is OK." Mayhem: "And sometimes girls are stolen and sold into slavery. Oh wait, that’s all the time."

Ty: "Nobody’s gonna come in here." Mom: "Why not?" Ty: "Because it’s haunted by 300 year old vampire nuns."

Adina: "Son." Gang Scout: "I’m not your son." Adina: "You’re somebody’s son."

A solid episode that pushed a lot of my fannish buttons and turned up the heat on the season-long plot.

Three and a half out of four voodoo tours.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[ivyxmi-blog]

hello there !! ya girl is back @ it with a 2nd muse. sorry to those plotting with taeeun / who had a plot with her!! i’ll probably make a post on her still as her last post about what happened and why, etc. instead, i bring u the beautiful lee mijoo!! check out her profile and bio if u’d like 

some facts about her are:

( tw: human / sex trafficking ) she was technically “sold” at a young age and managed to escape her captors at 15 

continued as a prostitute / call girl to support herself 

was nearly connected to the murder of a mpd detective but was saved from the situation by valkyrie who found out about her through ~connections~ woo

is mpd to the public eye but is actually undercover for corvus, is an extortionist and kind of acts as clean-up crew in terms of mpd issues

v charming and outgoing if you meet her in a public setting / related to mpd somehow 

is much more blunt and more herself when with corvus

basically, read the last two points as she’s queen of maintaining her cover when necessary and letting go when she can 

your muse likely recognizes her if they watch the news / keep up with certain crime stories. BUT anything extremely high profile / lucrative is typically handled by a higher-up

was top of her graduating class in the academy, well-known for turning people instead of arresting, occasionally and v secretly outed those confidants to the original gang they’re a part of / to their boss to help corvus 

compared to eunmi, i’ll be coming up with a plots page for her since i’m ahead of my usual game by already having a bio and profile page for her ( pats self on shoulder for a good job tbh ) but we can use anything from the above for a plot idea too!! 

                                       please like this if you’d like to plot and i’ll show up in ur dms !!

[purple-moonlights-blog]

STRAY KIDS 10th MEMBER AU

INTRODUCTION

This AU is heavily inspired by @k-llama-llama ! If you don’t know her I highly suggest checking out her blog, she and her writings are really sweet (also some good drama just started in her AU). 🌸

I’m not 100% sure where I’m going with this AU, so please feel free to request and suggest what could happen. I really want to take in ideas from people who are interested in the story. Don’t be shy loves! ♥︎ 

☾☼ 

Btw. I didn’t use her name until the very end because my dumb ass forgot to give her a name.

Also, in this scenario, Stray Kids themselves aren’t very present since it didn’t really fit. However, I promise that next time will be a lot of Stray Kids content! 

▸ Check out the Profile HERE

▸ Request for the AU HERE

▸ MASTERLIST

Words: 2342

Warnings: Swearing?⎮ And weird grammar and spelling mistakes, English is not my native language⎮

I. NEW 〈NOVA〉

(gif not mine)

With her eyebrows knitted together and her upper-lip slightly twisted up, an expression her friend David stated to be her “trying to be polite but can’t help but judge“ look - or in other words, her being a twat visage - she stared at the man, probably in his mid-thirties, in front of her. 

For the past five minutes he spoke very fast and in a very strong Satoori accent, she had difficulties to understand, and thereby wildly gesticulate with his arms. The longer he talked the more he began to sweat and looked noticeably more nervous. She wasn’t intentionally trying to be rude by not saying a word the whole time, even though she was more than once encouraged to respond to his rambling. However, due to her having a hard time progressing what he was saying - her Korean might be quite good, thanks to her mum compelling her and her brothers too Korean lesson since the early beginnings of their childhood, yet she only learned standard Korean - and immediately doubting what he was saying to be true, she kept her mouth shut until she had a clear picture of what was going on. From what she could grasp, the man was responsible to recruit trainees for entertainment companies, which in the end should turn them in successful idols, that bring big profits and put the companies into positive spotlights. 

He explained that he was from JYP and that Park Jinyoung personally placed in order, after allegedly seeing a video of a street performance of her dancing and singing, to track her down and convince her to audition for his company. He further explained that JYP - the company - planned to form an idol group in the upcoming month of October through a survival show and JYP - the person - wanted her in it because she would in his opinion fit perfectly into the concept. 

Bullocks, she instantly thought when he told her that. 

She didn’t believe a word coming from his mouth. Yes, it was true that she appeared in multiple videos of street performances that are posted on YouTube, however, she was neither an outstanding dancer nor a Whitney Huston, at least in her opinion. The more he talked the more it sounded like the plot of a Wattpad fanfiction and as the result of her distinct sense of reality, which often came across as her being pessimistic, she knew stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life. It’s called Fan Fiction after all.  

The whole story sounded like a lie somebody, who kidnaps young girls and boys for human trafficking by exploiting their naivety and their dreams to make it big once, would tell. By that, she suddenly remembered her 14 years old cousin Junsuh conspiracy theory rant about the Korean entertainment industries. Two weeks ago she visited her relatives in Ilsan, where her Junshu, as usually, didn’t stop talking. According to Junsuh, the industry is through and through corrupt - a single stronghold of prostitution rings, human trafficking, child exploitation and even religious cults and a secret origination that controls the whole south of Korea. 

Even though Junsuh tends to get carried away with his theories - she strongly doubted, that one of the big three companies (he refused to tell which one) pays a religious cult to use black magic on the public, so they will only buy the albums of their artists - however, that it wasn’t only glamorous and that pressure and hard work take big role in the idols life, wasn’t a secret. 

Earning her livelihood through music has always been a dream for her. From small on she loved to sing - back then extremely out of tune - and dance around. When in 2008 her cousin Jia (Junsuh’s older sister), while she and her family visited their relatives in Korea, showed her Shinee’s debut MV Replay, she fell in love. Immediately she learned the dances and lyrics to the songs and dreamed of being an idol herself. The combination of vocal, rap and dance fascinated her. 

Yet, after time passes and she got older, her initial spirit disappeared almost completely. More and more she realized that she didn’t fit into the standard female idol category. Beginning with her appearance ending with her personality. She wouldn’t call herself a tomboy since she despite her boyish tendency still liked typical girly stuff. In end, she always thought of separating certain things in a boy and girl category as stupid. 

One day, her aunt took her to the toy store when she was made 5 years old. She asked her aunt if she could have Hot Wheels for her birthday present. The saleswoman, however, who should help her to find something, asked if doesn’t want something that is more fitting for a girl. Her five-year-old self suddenly feeling insecure choose a creepy doll, which the sale woman suggested - she ended up giving the creepy doll to the family dog to play with. 

„Look, you don’t need to say yes right now. But please just come to JYP building tomorrow for the audition. Well, it’s not really an audition, you are basically already in. You just need to say yes.“ The sudden change to a clean Seoul accent made her startle up from her thoughts. The man in front of her got now her full attention. He almost looked desperate. 

It is probably favorable for his career if he gets me to come to the “audition“. South Korea is highly competitive after all, she guessed

„Okay.“

„It doesn’t take long either you….wait, what?“

„I said, okay. When should I be there?“ He looked at her seemingly being genuinely surprised to hear her agree. Sure, she only accepted because she felt bad for him. Also, her class started in 5 minutes and she simply didn’t want to be rude and refuse after his effort. Nonetheless, the fact that he knew her name and where she went to University, still creeped her out. 

„Umm, well 10 a.m. Wait in front of the building, I will escort you in.“

„Good, I will be there.“ She said and then added quickly before she went ahead to run to the other side of the campus to still be on time for her class. „Have a good day.“

————

 At 09:30 a.m. sharp she was in front of the JYP building. She always tended to come over punctual, mainly because she included the time she will need in case anything goes wrong by her taking the bus - a short 25-minute ride - from Seongdong District on the north bank of the Han River to Gangnam District, which lies on the south side of the Han River. 

Traffic jam, traffic collision, plane crashes, nuclear attacks, apocalypse and what so ever. Her constant nagging anxiety back in her head made her throw her common sense out of the window more than once. 

Certainly, she didn’t expect anything, she highly doubted that the apparent JYP staff member was being legit. Either somebody was playing a prank on her or one of Junsuh’s theories will be confirmed and she is going to be sold. 

In a girl group, she would stand out and not in a good way like a pretty flower would. No, she would stand out like a purulent pimple in the middle of one’s forehead. Not like she was particularly ugly or different looking. The fact that she was not special looking was the issue. In general, she was glad about that. She was never big on being the center of attention. However, in the entertainment industry, like it or not, talent is not everything. And her being as interesting as an empty sheet of paper, surley didn’t take a chance. 

After awkwardly standing around for good 25 minutes, somebody came out of the building. She immediately recognized him as the man from yesterday. 

He wasn’t lying about working for JYP then, she thought. 

As he looked to his left and saw her standing there, he sighed with relief and beckoned her over to him. By his reaction, she assumed that he obviously didn’t believe that she will come. But she was not the type to do tell somebody she would be there and then shamelessly not come without giving the other person a notice.    

„You won’t regret this, believe me.“ He said as they walked through the lobby to the elevator. „They really want you in this group.“ Who he meant with they, she wasn’t sure. He chuckled awkwardly since she didn’t respond to anything he said but rather she just nodded and gave him a forced smile. Again, she wasn’t trying to be rude, for sure not, after all in her family having good manners was an essential part. Her very English grandmother would personally fly to Korea and beat her ass if she was being rude. 

In the elevator were already three guys, she guessed them around her age, absorbed in a discussion about, from what she could understand, song lyrics. 

„Listen, I swear it’s good.“ Said the guy, with the darkest hair of the three of them. „You can be Fiona today, I’ll be Shrek. Ugly kind immature swag.“

She snorted and quietly chuckled to herself. The guy closest to her with silver, curly hair her, who heard her laugh, looked over to her. He raised his brow’s at first and then gave her a shy smile, which she returned.

On the fifth floor, they left the elevator and male staff knocked two times on the first door in the hallway, before he opened it and showed with a quick hand gesture that she should follow him. In the room was big glass table where three men already sat. She immediately recognized the man seated in the middle. 

 It’s JYP, It really was not a joke after all.

„Ah, there she is. Please take a seat.“ JYP said and gestured on the chair opposite of him. She bowed and sat down. 

After he asked the staff member to leave he continued: „I’m really glad you are here. When I saw your performance I know you will fit perfectly.“ 

„I was told, if I would accept the offer, I will participate in survival show, right?“ She asked, slowing starting to feel excited. Even though, she gave up on her dream of being an idol a long time ago - better said, she never really tried in the first place. Deep down she still wanted to achieve that and such an opportunity she couldn’t refuse. Even if that meant she had to change herself to fit in. 

„Yes, exactly. I really hope you take this chance. Even though you don’t have a training period as the other trainees participating, I believe you have potential.“

„Okay, I’m in. Where do I have to sign“ she said, full of newly found elan. The three men chuckled surprised about her sudden enthusiasm.

„The formalities we will sort out later.“ JYP answered, „Stray Kids, the name of the group you might debut in, has currently nine male trainees, which your leader Bang Chan handpicked himself.“

„Boys?“ She questioned confused.

„Yes, the management and I decided by making Stray Kids a co-ed group it will be more favorable in the future.“ He continued undeterred. She had to stop herself from making a snarky comment and asking them if they are trying to be edgy be doing that. 

There is no need to act like a twat right now!

„But none of our female trainees fit in Stray Kids. So, I was obviously pleased when I found you. I hope I’m not going to regret this.“ The last part sounded bitter and her previous enthusiasm was slowly suppressed by the anxiety creeping up her throat, making her feel sick.  

She didn’t want to back away now. 

Maybe it’s better to be in a male-dominated group. It’s not like I fit in a girl group either, she tried to calm herself down mentally. 

However, the fact that all other trainees were chosen by Stray Kids leader personally and that she basically was being forced onto them, made her feel like she was going to vomit. 

„They are already informed about your addition to the group. In fact, I want them to get to know you right now. Teamwork is important and the faster you warm up to each the better!“ With that, he stood up, bowed to his colleges and told her to follow him. She bowed to the older men too and left after JYP.

„The kids are probably in the practice room right now. Since they got the chance to debut, they have been prating twice as hard.“ He said, obviously proud about the trainee’s dedication. „I heard they are very excited to meet you.“

Bollocks! I will be extremely out of place. No way any of them are excited for a possible female member. 

Despite, her anxiety she didn’t wanna give up this time. She can’t just run away every time there was a construction put in her way. At last, trying wasn’t going to kill. 

They went down to the second floor. At the end of the hallway, JYP opened the wooden door to the practice room and stepped in. As JYP and she entered, four guys who sat on the floor rushed to stand up and joined five other guys to bow to their CEO. Some looked very young to her. She would have guessed at least two of them fifteen years old at most.

„Please introduce yourself to them,“ JYP told her and encouraged her with a quick hand gesture to step in front. 

All eyes were on her now. Some of them seemed curious, others just stared at her expressionless. And then, there was the guy with the silver hair from the elevator. He looked at her like he wanted to burn her down with his gaze. She honestly couldn’t take offense at that. Like, she understood his seeming dislike of her. 

„My Name is Seol Nova and I hope we can work well together.

[davidjjohnston3]

I ask again that you not share the Tumblr with MVJ as he uses all knowledge of me against me or to imitate / try to be me rather than MVJ. I ask the same w/r/t MJ / Michael, as he resents me for various reasons to do with manipulation-leadership (such as telling him in '09 that I felt that I was going to be a doctor someday in order to hearten / give him morale when he was anguished over job-searching in the Great Recession).   I do things like this because of a film called "Late Spring" a masterpiece by the Japanese director who inspired the Taiwanese auteur about whom I wrote my RU senior thesis and met Rebecca Hu who inspired me to work hard, get that Singapore job, meet Kate again in '07 in NYC, promise her in '08 I would struggle / fight / work for 3 years to become someone deserving of her (hand in marriage if not just friendship), which is also part of why I made that '08-09 deal with Dad that culminated in me going to MTTP in Madison, meeting Chi Hye, falling in love with this gold light in her eyes, believing in angels and mountains and "They shall mount up as eagles and not stub their toe" (Isaiah), meeting Josephine Park at 7-Step and everyone else, getting promoted to Head Developer in 6 months, then quitting b/c of a falling out I had on that night I called you after 6 months' radio silence. IDK if you want to hear this but I wanted to marry Josephine / "LitGirl."  I thanked her for helping me.  IDK if you care about this she flirted with me partly by showing armpit-stubble in the summer of 2010 and I understood this because I understand "Korean American literature." She might be the most beautiful perfect ideal "jeongdakhan" (kind of 'suitable,,' or, 'spec') woman I ever met.  She went to Seoul National U. which is Korea's no.1 university and worked for an elite newspaper before taking some time off to write - she loves Emily Dickinson and, I believe, Park Wanseo, who wrote my favorite Korean short story "That Girl's House" about a promised couple in Japanese-occupied Korea who are separated by the girl's father's paranoia about Gop Dan's becoming a comfort woman and sold to be a farmer's bride in what becomes North Korea rather than marrying the "village prince" or aspiring scholar, who wants her to come away with him to Seoul... Josephine or "Jeongeun" (which kind of means perhaps "emotion-grace" or arguably "central grace" - Josephine means "love will increase" BTW and is the name of Jo from Little Women; the name she chose for herself) looks a bit like Lee Yowon the aspiring girl who gets plastic surgery in "Take Care of My Cat" and a bit like Seo Juhyun / Catherine Seo / Seohyun the youngest member of Girls Generation who was known for her probity, "Holy Seohyun" who was no. 2 in her HS before becoming the "maknae" or "final inner" / youngest and most beloved member of the nation's best-ever girl-group.  FWIW, I used to write to Seohyun on Twitter as well but she never replied.  On around the time of the sinking of the MV Sewol she wrote "we cried till our eyes dried" or so and used the word "huisaeng" to describe the victims which actually can mean "sacrifice."  I wrote to Seohyun using a quote from Dante Alighieri about beauty and pure thoughts or pure minds since I read "New Life / Vita Nuova" and "Heaven / Paradiso" in KR.  "Catherine" incidentally means "purity" as well. 2. On that night I first called you in 2011 I was out at a place with JEP and when I got back from our long phonecall she proceeded to get really drunk with foreigners I disliked from a hagwon I dislike throwing back soju and ultimately writing on the ladies' room floor throwing up.  Danny Shin asked me to go in to the BR to comfort / talk with her so I did.  I told her we should leave even before she got really drunk but she wouldn't obey me.  KJ Park arrived and said "ireona" (get up bitch) and she did.  I cursed in front of KJ Park since I felt I was being used as her crying-blankie and exploited to help her cope but never extricate from the situation.  I later had a slight heart-attack when I found out they were having an affair even as JE flirted with other men and used them I see now as "honey-trap" and to spy on all the employees.   I feel like this is the last time I will try to communicate open with you about why I am the way I am why I do what I do.  Back in 2008 you told me to use more kindness but where does that go?  It's good for little kids. Anyway before my heart-attack on that night - which impelled me to stop participating for a while in good faith with 7-Step's accelerated curriculum program working on Saturdays (which I had done happily before that) - I had been incredibly optimistic and at the same time "wise" in the "soi sage" sense reading Flaubert's last completed novel, which you might like one day, "L'Education Sentimentale" (accurately translated as "Emotional Education" since "Sentiment" sounds Victorian and sentimentality is an Anglo or Anglo-Korean category, saccharine in a way which French love and emotion are not).   I also later visited Cheonan her hometown which means "Heaven's Peace."  I walked around and years later wanted to write a novel called "Cheonan Sky" which is about the sinking of a ROKN frigate / destroyer / corvette called the ROKS Cheonan in 2010 but a North Korean suicide micro-submarine. The captain of the ROKS Cheonan never retired basically but became a military analyst for I believe either KJAD or 38North out of entailments or legacy-obligations to his men. The theme of "Cheonan Sky" is family killing family (the Korean War / civil war in general within a nation), terrorism, capital punishment by electrocution.  The ending is that the hero committed acts of 1st degree murder and terrorism and is dressed by his wife for execution after donating semen / sperm so she can have a child after his death. You might or might not be interested to know but "Cheonan" in Chinese characters is I believe "Tian'an'" like Tiananmen Square.   When I asked Josephine to teach me some Korean she said "Miryang" which means "secret sunshine" that is actually the name of a city as well a movie but known for the gang-rape of an elementary school girl.   3. This is kind of why I'm interested in terrorism, assassination, North Korean Studies, and also why I didn't know how to read people's sign about "covering love," concealing or forgiving crimes et cetera; covering sins.   I associate JEP for some reason with Russian blues and mother-of-pearl since I looked at a wedding ring which was mother-of-pearl and diamond in 2011.  In retrospect I have no idea whether she was interested in me or not or how willing she would have been to partner with me as opposed to KJ or Danny Shin or anyone else.  I won't say anything more because I don't oppose women being that way 100% although the Book of Proverbs does say not to prostitute your daughter and a British Victorian Evangelical PM used to walk the streets of London pleading with hookers to get honest if low-paying jobs (WE Gladstone who also said politics succeeds ultimately through "not love of power but power of love" a saying I associate these days with Mike Pompeo) I have come close to imprisonment and/or death lately from trying to be open w/ people in America so this is literally I ardently wish my last freebie w/r/t "teaching" people but the existence of people like Josephine also seems to bind me to SK or KR.  There is simply no way I can not go back someday.  When that ferry sank I saw an article about a foreigner graveyard in Incheon and felt what Shakespeare felt near the end of his life which was a desire beyond or parallel to after life to donate his bones to a certain plot of land.  I foolishly or heedlessly confessed this reality to Mi who became depressed and my words started to go over his head. IDK if you want to know this but I worked for a long time on a novel about the MV Sewol called "Flowers on Water" or "Flowers 1881" which is about the sovereignty of God in the deaths or waste of children as well as "It Is Well with My Soul," Chancellor / Pastor John Piper, the drowning of paedophiles in prison or others who abuse or exploit young people, and my own responsibility for failing as an HS teacher. IDK if you remember but the guy who owned the MV Sewol which sank due to unlawful loading of the hull with equipment was found decapitated with a backpack full of money in a field of maize, I believe.   There are those who believe including me that KR is not really a democracy but run by the KCIA or and/or through an organization called "One Company" or so that includes numerous military dictators, officers, many of whom used to be teachers though some were also associated with the terrorist-student radical organization (the ShiShi) that produced the Meiji Restoration and the Empire of Japan -> WW2 Pacific since the Japanese were determined not to let American "gunboat diplomacy" lead to cultural genocide or everlasting hegemony of the West over either JP or the total Far East. My last thing to you is just that there are those who believe the imperial family of JP who were restored to supremacy in gov't by the ShiShi after centuries of formalistic ritualitsic formalistic ceremonial "Chinese" rule are partly Korean in blood and Koreans themselves believe in "Minjung Theology" saying Koreans have a holy destiny worldwide which is something I believe as well. You can be 10,000% honest with me about your intentions from now on BTW.  IDK if I can get back to KR now, a year from now, or in a coffin.   It depends on money I guess.   As I reflected in my previous e-mail after my born again prayer in 2004 when I wished for unity (in the field across the street from Marshall School) I eventually got that unity around 2012 when Dad said he would work sacrificially to fix me up following my suicide-attempt and in 2013 when I told Jaeyoung that I wanted to be a principal I precipitated or incubated a process leading up to the Lead Teacher position I was offered a few months back as well as Concordia's interest in my application for their Educational Leadership doctorate.   If you want to read one more book by a Korean I urge "The Fourth Dimension" by Rev. Dr. David YongGi Cho, the pastor of a church called Yoido or Yeouido Full Gospel which claims some 500,000 members though Dr. Cho has been indicted for embezzlement and there are those who would doubt his belief in miracle faith-healing or in God's defending people from things like head-first suicide-attempts. As my student once said to me, "Thank you for everything" DJJ PS again if you like music I rec. "Marvel Not That Christ in Glory" - "Christ in p/POWER Resurrection / calling many sons to glory" - as well as a pop-song called "Please Remember Me" by a girl-group known as Year 7 Class 1 or 7-1. It is a slow ballad but the central refrain is "yaksokhae uri... kkok mannayo..." (Let us promise to meet again rapidly / immediately)...

[mredlich21]

Bit of a controversial one, sorry if you like it, but I just don’t! And if you also don’t like it and have a hard time articulating why, maybe this review will help you.

Okay, I’ve talked about all the important Devdases, all the good ones that are closely related to the novel and deal with the ideas of hidden tragedies and casual disasters and all those cool things.  Time to deal with the one that is just really really really pretty!

This might end up being my shortest Devdas post of them all, partly because there is less to discuss and partly because I already said so much in my previous posts about the novel and the other interpretations and how this one relates to them.  But on the other hand, it may end up being the post that is most read, since the Bhansali Devdas is the one people are most familiar with.  At least, English reading people who might find my blog.

Here’s the problem with Bhansali’s Devdas in a nutshell: it’s too pretty!  And here’s the best part of Bhansali’s Devdas: it’s so pretty!  So, there’s a conflict there.

Or not.  It can be pretty and still a bad film, because a film should be more than prettiness.  Really, the problem with Bhansali’s film, and this is true for most of his movies, is that if you removed the prettiness, there would be nothing else there.  Get rid of the costumes, the songs, the make-up and jewelry.  Get rid of the elegant dialogue and gorgeous stars.  And, what’s left?  Is there anything at the core of the movie, any soul to the story or the characters that can support this whole pretty pretty infrastructure?  Generally, no.

I love Khamoshi, and I love Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.  I think they had really interesting things to say, and the characters made me believe in real pain, not just poetic romantic pain.  When (SPOILERS) Manisha’s little brother dies in Khamoshi, or when (SPOILERS) Salman loses Aishwarya at the end of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, (SPOILERS OVER) that felt like it was more about these characters and how they felt, than about Bhansali standing back and saying “Now, if I make this happen next, I can paint this pretty picture about it.”

(Also, this song is better than anything in Devdas.  Especially the opening and closing. An old woman trying to cheer up her grandchildren and hide her own feelings while the piano she loves is sold to raise money for the household, that makes me feel something)

I can understand Bhansali’s temptation to make movies that are just about the pictures, because his pictures are really really pretty.  But I wish he would stop trying to hang them on top of characters and story, because the story and characters always ends up getting short shrift.  If he just went full MF Hussain and did movies that were abstract loosely connected concepts just in service of the images, I wouldn’t mind as much.

(pretty!  And ultimately meaningless!  Besides providing us with a moment of beauty.  Also, a more realistic vision of the life of a prostitute than anything in Devdas)

Devdas is where Bhansali first switched over for me to feeling like he started with the images and dialogue he wanted, and filled in the plot later.  And, unfortunately, when he filled in the plot, he decided to use the same names for his characters as in the novel Devdas, and lift a few images from Bimal Roy and Barua’s earlier versions.

Or maybe he started with Devdas, with the loose outline of a boy and girl who had a push-pull relationship since they were neighbors as children, almost got engaged as adults but it fell apart, and then he went on to be an alcoholic who hung out with a Tawaif who fell in love for him, while she went on to marry a rich widower.  And then the boy died lying in front of the gate of his childhood friend.  He kept that outline, but then built and built and built on it, until it was basically hidden.  Feel free to ask in the comments, “was this bit in the novel?  Or this?  Or this?”  But really, you can safely assume NONE OF IT was in the novel.  Or any previous version.  90% of the plot is a complete invention of Bhansali.

That wouldn’t be such a problem, I mean Kashyap also invented all kinds of things and made a bunch of crazy changes, but Bhansali’s changes show that he missed the point of the story entirely.  The point of the story is too look past the surface, that the disgusting alcoholic may be hiding a kind nature that makes him too weak to fight for his own rights, whether it is his inheritance or his true love.  That the boring matron, beloved by her children and her charities, might be hiding a passionate nature that once would have done anything for love.  That the glamorous Tawaif may be hiding a practical sense of money and tender nursing skills.  And, most of all, that the most boring everyday story can hide a certain beauty.  The beauty isn’t supposed to be right there on the surface wopping us in the face all the time!

(Wop! Wop!  Wop!  THEY ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND DRAMATIC AND PERFECT LOVERS OF ALL TIME!!!  BOW DOWN IN ENVY OF THEM!!!)

Devdas is supposed to be a drama-less tale.  A poetry-less tale.  No one besides Dev and Paro even knows their hearts were broken.  That is their tragedy, that they are awkward and unable to convey their emotions.  That they don’t want to make any issues or cause concerns for their family, so they never tell anyone how they feel and keep it all inside.

(Bhansali’s Paro.  Not exactly keeping her feelings to herself.)

Now, if you only saw the Bhansali version, did you get any of that?  Here’s some other things that were important in the novel and the previous versions: Paro is so beloved by her new family and children, that her son is even willing to break with his new wife over a perceived slight to her; Chandramukhi is good at her job, but is a somewhat average Tawaif, a little over the hill and small time without much in savings, forced to economize when she gives up her career because of her love for Dev; Dev by halfway through is such an unpleasant addict, begging his brother for money, dangerously thin, and full of nervous energy that his old friends find him kind of gross and only Chandra can put up with him.  Did you get any of that either?

Back in my first post, I broke down the 5 important points, as I saw them, from Devdas the novel that were carried through into the most important Hindi Devdas adaptations, Barua in 1936, Bimal Roy in 1955, and Dev D in 2009.  Here they are again:

Childhood as a time of innocence and happiness and promise, although already over-shadowed by personality flaws that will ultimately destroy them.

A failed romance that never even really starts in adulthood, truly over before it began, before they can fully grasp what they have lost.

Chandramukhi as a figure who starts as a one dimensional fantasy, and slowly becomes more solid and practical and “real” than anyone else, the only character to talk about rent and groceries and money.

Dev as a figure who becomes not just tragic, but kind of gross.  He is described in the novel, and somewhat played in the ’36 and ’55 and Dev D films, as being ill, unpleasant to look at, with sunken eyes and cheeks and an odd demeanor.  In the novel, after death, his body is half-burned, then pecked by vultures and then fought over by dogs.  It’s not exactly a lovely “dying with his hand outstretched!” image.

Paro as a character who becomes kind of sapped of life.  She is good and generous and charitable, but she also retires to become the sort of dowager of her home, on her wedding night she tells her husband not to worry about their age difference because “Women age quickly”, which is exactly what happens to her.

(Chandra, having given up her career now that love for Dev makes it feel empty, is living on 20 rupees a month and struggling to get by with the bare minimum, while Paro has grown old before her time, is the respected dowager of the house, beloved by her grown children and only interested in her charitable works.  Two women who would never make you think of romance or tragedy are hiding their secret in their hearts, never to be spoken or even hinted at, while society overlooks them.  That’s what this song makes you think of, right?)

So, basically every point there is missed by Bhansali.  I think it’s that point 1 where he lost his way.  The novel, and the Roy adaptation have this bright shining beautiful view of childhood, and their passionate connection, and long days spent together.  It is the loss of that, the loss of their beauty and passion and faith and love, that is like 70% of the novel, and the films.  The romance happens so fast, it is over before the realize what they have lost, and then the rest of their life is spent slowly discovering how their lives were forever changed.

But Bhansali just really liked the idea of the beauty and passion and love and kind of got stuck in that mode and couldn’t let it go.  It would be like if someone made an adaptation of A Christmas Carol and just made it about Scrooge going around being cheap and miserly for two hours, and then ended.

But, okay, I’m going to try to set aside what this adaptation could/should have been, and deal with it on its own, as though it were an original story.

And you know, I still don’t really like it!  Ram-Leela is more or less an original story, and I don’t like that.  Same for Bajirao.  I just don’t like Bhansali!  Well, latter-day Bhansali.

Here’s my problem with Devdas, setting aside the missing the point of the source.  I never get a sense of these people as characters who, like, go to the bathroom.  Or get hungry.  Or sometimes just don’t feel like talking.  They are all perfect all the time, like it is their life’s goal to be beautiful and charming and clever.  Isn’t that just kind of shallow?  To have no purpose in life besides beauty and “loooooooooooooooove”?

I know this sounds like a silly complaint, since isn’t that what all romance characters are like?  But, no!  They aren’t!  Especially not in Indian romances.  Romance isn’t just about “looooooooove”, it’s about what that love means for society, how it can break up society or make it stronger, how it can shake people up and give them greater goals, how it can make you a better deeper person in ways unrelated to your love story.

Like, Sultan!  That film laid it out very clearly.  He cared what Anushka thought about him, which made him look at himself and care about how he was seen in the world, which made him into a better person.  It started with caring about her, making a connection outside of his regular circle, but it lead him on a journey to making a better world.

Devdas, not so much!  Dev himself just drinks and drinks and drinks and never really gets any better (or worse) than he was in the beginning.  Paro is beautiful and faithful, and that’s kind of it, start to finish.  Chandra is lovely and elegant and “fun”, and that’s all she is, start to finish.

(She’s wearing slightly plainer clothes, and doing it with a different purpose, but she is still dancing and singing for men just like before.  She isn’t struggling for money and only dancing when she has to, in order to survive.  And saving Dev through careful nursing, and paying for his expenses and financial support)

Okay, I have to do another novel/other versions comparison.  Not because it “should” have been like the novel, but just to give you another example on how this could have worked for the characters, how their broken hearts could have made them better people.  In this, Chandra saves Dev’s life by “distracting” him, the doctor tells her never to let him be bored.  So she is even more constantly fun and amusing than she was in the beginning.  In the other versions, she comes back to the city after living in a village just to find him, and then nurses him back to health through, you know, nursing!  Messy, unpleasant, unpretty nursing.  In the end, Dev goes from seeing her as just a distracting, a fake woman, to seeing her as noble and generous and enduring, and with a depth at the heart of her that no other man has been allowed to see.

Paro goes from a flighty flirty passionate woman who is always getting into fights, to one with great compassion and generosity.  Once she loses Dev, she doesn’t want anything for herself, which makes her incredibly generous both to strangers (through charities and so on) and to her family, being wise and compassionate and giving to her new daughter and sons and daughter-in-law.  Her broken heart turns her into a better person.

(She dresses plainly and gives all her jewelry to her daughter and daughter-in-law.  She tells her daughter to think of her as “just another servant” in the house.  She gives so many clothes to charity, her daughter-in-law is forced to take control of the household accounts.  Yeah, that’s what I think when I see this picture)

And then there’s Dev.  He slowly loses all the fight in him.  In Bhansali’s version, he walks out of his house after a huge knock down drag out fight with his family over money.  In all the other versions, there is no fight.  That’s the point.  He signs away his inheritance without a second thought, because he doesn’t want to cause a bother, to demand anything from anyone.  It is the same reason he never calls for help from Chandramukhi or Paro at the end of his life.

(A man who lets his inheritance go through just not caring enough to ask for it, slowly fading from the lives of all who knew him.  Or, not)

But in Bhansali’s version, “love” makes no real change in any of these people.  They suffer for it, sure, in the most cinematic and dramatic fashion possible.  But this suffering never teaches them anything, and they never seem to really fight against it, instead they glory in it.  It’s selfish, really.  Enjoying their misery with no thought as to how it affects others or why they should try to be better.

And boring!  Who wants to spend time with people who are all “Dev Dev Dev” “Paro Paro Paro” “Dev Dev Dev” all the time?  Get some other interests, for goodness sake!

There is one thing that Bhansali really nails, the song sequences.  Because song sequences are all about evoking one solitary emotion to the nth degree.  His songs convey what he is too unimaginative to evoke in the rest of the film.  Well, some of them.  He also falls into the trap of conveying the same thing over and over and over again until I have had surfiet of it.

(Right there for the first 2/3rds of this song.  And then by the end Paro is holding the lamp out of the paliquin and Shahrukh is helping to carry it, and I am thinking “Oh just GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!”)

Oh!  That’s what I am thinking of!  Twelfth Night!  Now, in case you don’t remember the original play, Viola is in disguise working for Orsino, who thinks he is in love with Olivia.  But the point is, he isn’t!  He is always swanning around, asking for the musicians to play on “if music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.”

Orsino thinks love means being miserable, playing music, reciting poetry.  But Viola knows it is something different, it is about actually doing something, making an effort.  This is her suggestion for how to court Olivia: “Make me a willow cabin at your gate, and call upon my soul within the house; write loyal cantons of contemned love, and sing them loud even in the dead of night; halloo your name to the reverberate hills, and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out ‘Olivia’ O, you should not rest between the elements of air and earth.”

By the end of Twelfth Night, the lovers have been sorted into fools and fakes, and real loves with successful stories versus fake loves that ended in a laugh at how silly it all was.  Orsino ends up with Viola, not Olivia.  Olivia ends up with Sebastian, not Viola who she thought she loved, mistaking Viola’s love for Orsino for love for her.  It is that second half which is missing in Bhansali’s Devdas.  These are all fools!  Terrible shallow fake fools who would rather play music and wait for their love to die away, than make an effort to be happy.  But Bhansali’s film never seems to recognize or acknowledge their shallowness, or invite us to laugh at them.

I have some other problems with this film, like the fetishization of Indian history in an almost “Look!  It’s Colonial Calcutta Disneyland!” way.

(Bhansali’s idea of prostitutes/courtesans in colonial Calcutta, versus PC Barua’s version as someone who actually, you know, hung out with high class prostitutes in colonial Calcutta)

Or the way it was packaged and sold to the west as “the” Indian film, as though this pretty people having pretty problems in olden times is all there is to the entire history of Indian film.  And this is in a year when Company came out!

(The “other” break out hero of India in 2002.  Less dreamy romance, more gangster struggling for survival and afraid to let any weakness show, even love. And also the “other” break out director of 2002, less about big dreamy expensive scenes than brilliantly filmed dirt cheap and dead simple)

Or the way it minimizes the female characters even more than the male, making Chandramukhi into yet another prostitute who just does it for, I don’t know, fun?-instead of economic necessity.  And Paro into yet another rich socialite who only cares about her broken heart and never considers using all her wealthy to do any good in the world.  And that’s not even talking about how all the older woman in the film are shown to be short-sighted, petty, and status-focused.

(Meanwhile, that same year, Jaya Bachchan in Koi Mere Dil Se Pooche is encouraging her daughter-in-law to remarry even if it means she has to kill her own son.)

But, as I said, very pretty!  A very pretty film.  I could watch the songs over and over again.  And have.  I only hope I still can, now that I know the movie that surrounds them.

(Thank goodness, Madhuri is still wonderful)

  Shahrukh Day Once More! My Least Favorite Shahrukh Film Bit of a controversial one, sorry if you like it, but I just don't! And if you also don't like it and have a hard time articulating why, maybe this review will help you.

[ayorkheir-blog]

WANTED PLOTS

Arranged Marriage AU: George & Muse B are forced to be married both being *royalty or just upper class*. If Muse B is female either they eventually become friends or perhaps she is into girls so they’re both simply each others cover. If male then George’s father has agreed to him marrying a male but selects him. Either they don’t like each other and come to or Muse B is in love with someone else, then they become something.

Prince & Prostitute AU: George meets Muse B on the corner, when Muse B solicites him for sex, being a prostitute. George happens to notice that the male has a bruise on his face and tries to help. While Muse B rejects this George gets him to come home with him by agreeing to pay for sex, asking for a whole night. Upon getting him home George simply lets him sleep there much to Muse B’s annoyance. Muse B tries to avoid George but George constantly seeks him out. Muse B can’t help but fall for George, and George feels the same for Muse B. But Muse B is more distant knowing it’ll never work with his way of life, and the fact that he is below George. They simply become friends who flirt at first with George patching up Muse B from previous customers. But eventually they end up having sex, when George is sure Muse B wants it because of him and not for money or any other reason.

The Prince & the Bodyguard/Handler: After an incident at a club in which George has embarrassed his family George is given a handler/bodyguard to watch over him and make sure he doesn’t get into trouble. George flirts with him continually and while the bodyguard/handler tries to avoid being emotionally involved he can’t seem to get George off his mind.

Last Summer: George spend his summer break before senior year in America where he meets Muse B and falls for him only to leave him just before the summer ends despite Muse B pleading with him to stay. Only a month into the school year Muse turns up intent on getting George back.  When George thinks he’s finally gotten rid of Muse B he sees him at the homecoming dance. After confronting him Muse B is still set on getting the kiss he asked for before leaving. George gives him the kiss and more. Muse B refuses to leave only reassured that George wants him. George however is starting to think that Muse B is more set on proving that he’s right than he is about getting him back.

High School AU: George as a Prince is the most popular boy in school as well as the star player on the football ‘soccer team’. Muse B is the new kid in school and a social outcast. The jocks are constantly playing pranks on him and relentlessly bully him but they decide they want to go to a new level of bullying and convince George into tricking Muse B into thinking he likes him. George agrees but things become difficult when George begins to like the other for real. When the homecoming game comes George asks Muse B to wear his jersey something that the people on the team usually have their girlfriends do before a big game. Muse doesn’t understand and George asks him to just think about it. Muse thinks about it a bit more but finally agrees to wear George’s jersey. They eventually go on a date which leads to a nigh of lust between them. Muse B eventually finds out about the prank from one of George’s friends talking about in while he was near by and he talks to George about it but doesn’t let him explain. 

Parent/Teacher AU: George is married to the woman his father has chosen for him and has a child with her. George loves his child and wants to be in involved and is attending parent teach conferences and meets his son/daughters teacher who his son/daughter quite likes and George really likes him too.

Farm Hand AU: Muse B has been a farm hand for George’s father since the day he turned 18. George has a crush on him but Muse B doesn’t see it since he’s not royalty and doesn’t think George likes him.

Finding My Prince (The Bachelor AU):: George comes out as gay and his father accepts it but eventually he wants George to settle down. He forces George into going on television and being a part of a new series called, ‘Finding my Prince’ much like the Bachelor. Muse B’s father forces him into taking part of the show in order to become apart of the royal family. George immediately becomes attracted Muse B both for his looks as well as the fact that he can be totally honest with him. When it comes to picking who stays and which three go George gives Muse B a rose allowing him to stay. Muse B then wonders why George gave him a rose, having been rude to him and George tells him that he’s going to keep him around because Muse B is the only one he’s remotely interested in and tells Muse B that he thinks he’ll eventually fall for him but Muse B doesn’t think so.

Guardian Angel AU: When George is born Muse B is assigned to be his guardian angel. For the couple years of George’s life he acts as nothing but a voice in his head guiding him in the right direction but as George grow older Muse B notices that he resists listening to the voice inside his head as he struggles with his role of a Prince. He allows George to see him and tells him about being his guardian angel. At first George doesn’t believe him and tells his parents who pass Muse B off as just George’s imaginary friend. George eventually finds comfort in Muse B’s presence and considers him his friend. George goes on his first date in high school and has his first kiss. The strong bond between Muse B as an angel and George as his mortal allow Muse B to be able to tell what’s going on during the date which doesn’t help with Muse b getting over the fact that he can’t have George to himself. When George comes back though he tells Muse B that he isn’t sure he liked the kiss and that it didn’t feel right. The pair practice kissing George actually likes kissing Muse B.

The Novelist and the Muse:  George & Muse B went to college together and dated for awhile but eventually it ended in disaster. Years later Muse B has published a book about a young gay prince and aspiring writer and George is asked to present the award for best novel which Muse B is nominated for.

Kidnapped AU: George is kidnapped by Muse B who is working for a company that wants to know about his father. However being that George and his father aren’t that close he doesn’t have much to tell him. George gets close to Muse B as he is lonely, and Muse B who has been raised by the company his whole life is lacking affection and begins to fall for George.

Prince of Hell AU: Muse B is the prince of hell and demon and is search of a new husband so he can take the throne. He spots George at a bar and is infatuated with him and kidnaps him. George rejects staying in hell but Muse B forces him and is somewhat abusive towards George, never hitting him unless George hits him first though. George is lonely and Muse B loves George the best way he understands how. George eventually comes to love Muse B.

Political Animals AU: George has always grown up in the lime light and met TJ Hammond when he was fourteen. The soon became best friends and then more. However when George’s father caught them together he was quick to make it clear to his son that not only would he not be with TJ but that he’d never see him again. Years later George has finally been allowed back to DC and sees his old best friend and lover and while TJ is no longer the sweet innocent boy he was and George isn’t as optimistic, they come back together even though they know they’re just setting themselves up for heartbreak again. They both think the other is the same person they used to be underneath whatever troubles they have, while think they themselves have changed too much for the other to still like them.

The Hunger Games AU:

A: George is Finnick Odair’s younger brother and after Finnick initially refuses to be sold by the capitol, Snow makes sure that George is chosen for the next hunger games. Finnick agrees to be sold but it’s too late, but he does it keep his brother alive in his games with the help of Muse B who won his games and is also being sold. Muse B initially does it to help his friend Finnick, but eventually he falls for George who knows he awaits the same fate as Finnick and Muse B.

B: Basically the same as Katniss and Peeta’s storyline but possibly from different districts.

Medieval AUs:

A: George is a Prince and has an affair with the knight slated to protect him.

B: TWQ - George is the son of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV

C: Tudors - George is Henry VIII’s male heir

[asecretsummer-rpgpromo]

WANTED! FC can be changed!

♠ Hadley Wakefield is 17 years old and is often confused with Elle Fanning. She is Open.

“It’s….terrifying. I didn’t think something like that could happen here.”

→ Background

Sweet, innocent, and angelic are words that you would probably hear people use to describe Hadley Wakefield. Though she has not lived in Baberton her entire life, the way some people treat her, she may as well have. In fact, some people tend to forget that she hasn’t been there forever, speaking to her about events that happened long before she ever moved to the suburbs and then laughing when she reminds them in her sweet, polite way that she’s only  been living there for just over three years now. This would be because Hadley just fit in so well right from the start. There is just something about her that makes people around her like her. Amongst Baberton’s younger crowd, the polite and friendly young girl is really quite popular. At school, she is always surrounded by a group of friends and she works very hard to keep her grades up as well as being involved in as many extracurricular activities as she can be. To pretty well the entire town, she seems like a very happy and well adjusted girl who is really going places in life. And really, that’s how she wants to be seen. Hadley is perfectly content with living as much of a normal, peaceful life as she can muster.

Born in Stafford, Hadley always thought that she had grown up in a very beautiful and interesting town. Though she knew that not everyone saw it the way that she did, Hadley couldn’t help but have some hometown pride in her. She always loved waking up in the morning and being able to see Stafford Castle out her bedroom window and enjoyed many pleasant days spent wandering around Victoria Park. Though moving was hard for her in some ways, Hadley actually took it pretty well. There were still days that she missed her hometown a little bit, but she settled into Baberton almost immediately and now has the same amount of love and pride for her new town that she did for her old one.

With everything that Hadley does in her life, between her school work, extra curriculars, and friends, Hadley doesn’t really have time for boys and dating. Though of course, she has had plenty of offers. The pretty young girl would make a great prize for just about any of Baberton’s young gentlemen. She always politely turns them down though. However, there is one boy that Hadley can’t help but have some feelings for. Ashton Sherwood lives down the street from her and she sees him at school a lot though he skipped a few grades so they didn’t have any classes together or anything. But, she does hire him to tutor her in math which is by far her worst subject. She always enjoys these sessions and tries to get him to talk to her a bit more during them, but Ashton always seems a bit awkward with her. Like he thinks he’d never have a chance with her and it’s not his place to be friends with her. Hadley wishes he didn’t seem to think like this as she likes him a lot and really never thinks of anyone as being beneath her.

→ Back to Baberton

Hadley wasn’t all that found of Annie Pierce in the year that she knew her. Annie was cruel, and manipulative, and nothing but a bully. Many people often compared Hadley to her as they were both very enchanting and popular girls, but Hadley always saw this as an insult. She was nothing like that girl. They were basically polar opposites, like light and dark. Thankfully, the girls were two years apart so they never really had to interact much, something Hadley was always glad for especially since she sometimes felt a bit afraid of Annie. That girl clung to her popularity and power and seemed to hate anyone who could be a threat to that, which definitely included Hadley.

Though they never did like each other, Hadley was still shocked and dismayed over Annie’s death. She’d thought that Baberton was so peaceful and safe. She had never even imagine that something like that could happen here. After the discovery of Annie’s body, Hadley’s parents briefly discussed moving again, but Hadley vehemently told them she would not be uprooted again and if they thought they could just run until they found a peaceful town, they were going to be running for a long time. Having settled quite nicely into their lives here, the Wakefield’s quickly decided that their daughter was right and the subject was dropped.

These days, Hadley has just been continuing to go about her life. She works hard at school still and is constantly surrounded by her group of friends, rushing to meetings, doing homework, or trying to get Ashton to speak to her. With Annie gone, it still seems possible that Hadley could take her place as one of the most popular girls in Baberton, but she’d never let that go to her head nor would she ever become anything like Annie Pierce. Hadley isn’t naive and is aware that Baberton seems to have become a bit of a strange and very on edge place, but she prefers not to to think about it if she can manage it. She’d rather try to just ignore all the horror of the world and keep out of it as much as possible.

→ What’s Her Secret?

Hadley was abducted from Victoria Park back in Stafford one day while she was walking home from school. She was held for about a week with a group of other girls who were all being groomed and sold into prostitution. Luckily for Hadley, the police found her, drugged and in rough shape, but before she could be sold and her trail permanently lost. Hadley spent a little while in the hospital and then returned home, but she found she could not possibly return to her normal life. Not when everyone in town knew what had happened. This prompted the families move to Baberton as they were hoping the they could get a fresh start in a town where no one knew what had happened.

Main | Plot | Most Wanted | Characters | Ask

[analogscum]

PRIME EVIL (1988, d. Roberta Findlay)

Recently, my dear Scumbags, I watched a horror movie that I simply must tell you about. It deals with a woman who is haunted by dark secrets in her family history. It keeps her from enjoying everyday life, and she only begins to unravel more and more when a tragic death rocks her world. In her time of need, she brusquely pushes away those around her who would provide the help she really needs, and instead turns to spiritualism, only to realize once it’s far too late, and she’s burned all her bridges, that she has been an unwitting pawn in the machinations of a bloodthirsty demonic cult for her entire life, a sacrificial lamb destined for the abbatoir since birth. That movie, of course, is 1988’s Prime Evil. Wait, what movie did YOU think I was talking about?

Prime Evil was the final film to be directed by exploitation auteur Roberta Findlay. Her story is a fascinating one: alongside her husband Michael, she wrote and directed a number of sadomasochistic sexploitation films in the 1960s. Under the tutelage of George Weiss, who produced Ed Wood’s cross-dressing classic Glen or Glenda, the Findlays began spicing up their skin flicks with touches of seedy violence, essentially creating the “roughies” genre, alongside fellow New York City filmmakers Joe Sarno, Joseph P. Mawra, and Lou Campa. By the 1970s, the couple transitioned into making straight up slashers, including the super controversial 1976 feature Snuff, arguably an early example of found footage horror. The next year, Michael Findlay was tragically killed in a horrific helicopter crash on the roof of the Pan Am building. Roberta soldiered on, directing a number of genre classics on her own, including two in 1985 alone: Tenement and The Oracle. Prime Evil, unfortunately, is not a classic. In some regards, it is barely even a movie. Miss Findlay clearly had some lofty ambitions with this film, but attempted to execute them on a grindhouse, run and gun, down and dirty production. Because of this, Prime Evil is a fascinating failure, the type of film that works best when watched with like-minded friends, and preferably at some level of inebriation.

We open in a church in the 1300s, where some good ol’ terrible narration explains that the plague is in full effect, and the priests believe that it is God punishing those who aren’t holy enough, so a few priests were like, fuck this noise, we’re taking our talents to Hades. There’s a meeting with a bunch of priests, and the head priest is like, yo, Father Thomas, what’s with you, man? And Father Thomas is like, didn’t you hear the narration? I’m on Satan’s team now, God is wack. They converse about this, but Roberta Findlay must’ve not liked the dialogue, so the narrator comes back in to drown them out. Then the head priest is like, I’m gonna excommunicate you, Father Thomas, but Father Thomas is like, lol nope, and decapitates this head priest with a giant sword, and it’s awesome. Father Thomas is like, news flash bitches, I’m running this show, and I’m Satan Squad all day, so don’t get in my way. Some dork-ass priest is like oh noooooo! So Father Thomas awkwardly slashes him across the stomach with his sword, and the guy awkwardly falls down some stairs, and even the movie can’t stand to look at this, because it fades to black, mid-fall, like it’s embarrassed.

Cut to: present day Boston, though the film was obviously shot in New York City, to the point where nearly every synopsis I’ve read incorrectly says that the film takes place there. Anyway, an old priest dies while holding a weird amulet. A nun, Sister Angela, goes to the bishop and is like, hey bishop, I think Satanists killed that old priest, and I have a story about my mom being murdered by Satanists in Egypt or something, it’s kinda boring, Liam probably zoned out during this part. And shockingly enough, the bishop is like, yup, we know, it was totally a satanic cult, we just don’t know how to handle this pesky problem. So Sister Angela is like, hey, let me go undercover and infiltrate the cult and do nothing else until the final scene of the movie. The bishop is apprehensive for like five seconds, but then agrees, under the stipulation that Sister Angela must renounce her vows so she can do all sorts of evil cult stuff, which in this movie means smash a plaster crucifix with a hammer and burn her nun uniform. Umm, hail Satan?

Honestly, nothing about this cult makes much sense. They’re still lead by Father Thomas (whose last name, we find out, is Seton. GET IT?!?!) Members of the cult have to sacrifice a family member who is a virgin, and in exchange they get “13 years of immortality,” which is an oxymoron. That is not how immortality works! Why would you agree to some cockamamie plan where you have to renew your immortality clause or whatever every 13 years or start to age again? Is worshiping Satan like going to the DMV? Actually, that kinda makes sense.

So all of a sudden, this blonde lady is making out in a hallway with some dude who looks like Kevin Nealon. But wait, what? I thought Sister Angela was our main character? Is it now this lady? Anyway, she goes in and sees Alex, who is her job recruiter of some kind? Apparently blondie used to be a prostitute before she joined this like, temp agency? So Alex is like, hey, I got you a job interview at 2:30 tomorrow, it’s for a paralegal job…on Wall Street! To which blondie animatedly replies, “Wall Street?!?!” And I died a thousand tiny deaths.

Now we get to see blondie and Kevin Nealon hitchin’ a ride into the bone zone, Findlay style. But oh gosh, they’re interrupted by a homicidal maniac in a handyman’s uniform! Wait, what?! But fortunately, Kevin Nealon knows karate! WAIT, WHAT?!?! So he awkwardly does karate at this schlubby murderer for a minute, but then whoops, he still gets stabbed in the back, contorting his body like a Merce Cunningham dancer. Which is weird. So blondie runs down the stairs, before our killer catches up via a convenient jump cut, and knocks blondie out with some sort of tranquilizer. As he’s carrying her out of the building, some guy passes them and goes, “She have too much to drink?” To which our schlubby murderer replies, in a lifeless monotone, “Yes.” And the guy responds, “Have fun, man!” EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW.

Since every cut to a new scene in this movie feels like violent whiplash, all of a sudden we’re at a gym, and Alex is working out with her friend. This friend is the most obnoxious character I’ve seen in a movie in awhile. She yells all of her lines in an exaggerated Valley Girl accent like a Siobhan Fallon SNL character for no reason, grunts loudly while using the machines, is constantly shoving chips and other junk food down her throat, and only wants to talk about sexytimes. She asks Alex if her boyfriend, Bill, is any good in bed, which really upsets Alex for some reason, and they get into a fight, which ends with the friend yelling the amazing line, “WHY DON’T YA WANNA GET POKED?!?!”

Suddenly, Alex and Bill are in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, riding through the part of Boston that looks just like Central Park. Without being prompted, Alex begins to go into excruciating detail as to why she don’t wanna get poked. Turns out, when she was 6 years old, her father sold her to a ring of child pornographers before mysteriously disappearing, yup, the movie really goes THERE. Clearly and understandably, she’s still deeply traumatized by all of this, which is why she and Bill still haven’t had sex despite the fact that they’re ENGAGED. But then, in basically the next scene, she’s hanging out with her rich lush of a mother, and she’s like, hey, come with me to Grandpa’s Christmas party, and the mom is rightfully like, you mean the father of the man who sold my daughter into sexual slavery as a child? Yeah, no thanks, I never wanna see anyone in that family ever again. GOOD IDEA, LUSH MOM! But Alex is like, oh c’mon, Grandpa is nice.

Plot twist: Grandpa ISN’T nice! In fact, Grandpa is a Satanist, and he’s going to sacrifice Alex at their next ceremony in order to renew that bullshit immortality contract. Apparently last time he offered up his son, Alex’s father, and that’s why he ain’t around no more. But, didn’t it have to be a virgin who was sacrificed? Umm, don’t worry about it. Father Thomas has the amazing line, “You’re being very flippant for a man about to sacrifice his granddaughter.” But Grandpa doesn’t just want to do that, he wants to overthrow Father Thomas and rule the world, or something, basically it’s all talk and nothing ever comes of it.

OK, this is taking forever, because something batshit insane happens every two minutes in this movie, so I’m gonna ramp it up a bit: Alex meets Father Thomas and begins to fall under his Satanic influence, thanks to his handsome eyes and Shatneresque line delivery. This rightfully upsets Bill, but Alex screams in his face every time he brings up how inappropriate this PRIEST acts around her. Dude, Bill, my guy, between the crazy family and the lustful priest and the no sex, why would you marry this woman?! The Satanists basically waterboard Alex’s lush mom with alcohol, which somehow Alex doesn’t hear despite being right next door to it happening. She moves in with Grandpa. Father Thomas makes out with her after the funeral, which, holy shit! Schlubby murderer abducts more ladies, including a hooker whom he basically reverse psychologies into roofying herself (in a scene set to Seinfeld style slap bass, no less!), a wise-cracking teen prostitute character they introduce solely to be abducted, and Alex’s slutty gym rat snack friend. Turns out schlubby murderer is doing all this because he wants to be a part of the Satanic cult, but Father Thomas is like, lol bro you may hang with us, but you’ll never be ONE of us, because you’re a creep and no one likes you. Somehow Bill starts to figure out that Father Thomas is behind all this murdering and Satanic chicanery, and goes to confront him, but whoops, schlubby murderer throws him off a roof. At least we get a pretty good bad dummy shot out of it!

At this point, you may be asking yourself, is there a bumbling police detective in this movie? Well of course there is! I think his name is Dan and he’s got a mustache! He’s investigating the disappearance of blondie from the beginning, and gets wrapped up in all this drama with Alex’s family because of it. Based on one phone conversation with Bill shortly before he’s murderized, he somehow puts together the entire satanic plot, including knowing that it’s going to happen during the winter solstice on December 21st, which, whatever, the movie has to end somehow, right? So Mustache Dan and his partner go to arrest Father Thomas, and during their confrontation, Mustache Dan utters what is actually the best line in the entire movie, a line that puts even “WHY DON’T YA WANNA GET POKED?!” to shame. Get ready for it...

“Cut the crap, fart breath!”

Slow clap for that. Slow clap. Brilliant.

Finally, the sacrificial ceremony can begin! Alex is all loopy under Father Thomas’s sexy spell, everyone has gathered in their finest Sunn O))) robes. Even Satan himself is there, and you guys, Satan in this movie is played by a tiny adorable puppet. It looks like if the baby from Eraserhead had bat wings and was made of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. It is terrible and charming. Father Thomas begins the proceedings by introducing everyone to blondie, slutty gym rat snack friend, and wise-cracking teen prostitute. He’s like, these ladies are the brides of Satan now, so go ahead and show the audience dem titties! Naturally, they oblige. Suddenly, we see Sister Angela standing in the corner, and remember that she’s in the movie. Grandpa is ready to sacrifice Alex, and all the satanists begin to awkwardly grind on each other. Schlubby murderer wants in on some of them libations of the flesh, and grabs Sister Angela. Sister Angela is like nope, I didn’t sign up for THIS shit, and slashes his throat. Then she stabs Grandpa to death, before he can sacrifice Alex. Then, oh my gosh, she stabs the tiny adorable Satan puppet to death! RIP Satan puppet! All of the occultists begin to age rapidly and turn into corpses, like a less impressive version of the climax of The Devil’s Rain. Father Thomas runs up some stairs, yelling “You’ve won this time!” as if he’s a goddamn Scooby-Doo villain. All of the women are safe, and Sister Angela has some dumb line that includes the phrase “prime evil” but who cares.

The movie ends with a real estate agent lady showing a church to some guy, which is not how churches work I don’t think, and we’re supposed to not know who this guy is even though it’s glaringly obvious, and of course it’s Father Thomas, and he’s like, why don’t we check out the basement, mwahahahaha! And then the camera zooms in on him twice, just to really make sure we all get it. But wait, how can you restart the cult if Satan has been stabbed to death? How are you not a rotting pile of bones now that Satan has been stabbed to death? Get outta here with this ending!

Now, I wanna give this movie a fair shake. Yes, it is bonkers. Yes, the dialogue and the acting are both laughable. Yes, the camerawork and the editing are shoddy. Yes, the kills are mostly dull. But as I was making my way through the movie, trying desperately to make heads or tails of the madness unfolding onscreen, I suddenly began to think to myself…did Roberta Findlay secretly make a film about abuse?

Alex, the main character, is defined by the trauma of her childhood. It rules her everyday life, it keeps her from enjoying meaningful friendships and an intimate relationship with her boyfriend. However, despite all of this, she still lets herself be groomed for further abuse by Father Thomas, and remains oblivious to the fact that she is being groomed until it is nearly too late. That really struck me. Was this intentional on Roberta Findlay’s part? Was she trying to make a statement about how women can become complicit in the machinations of their abusers? Would I have thought of this if the film wasn’t directed by a woman? Am I giving Prime Evil too much credit, seeing a feminist message in a blood n’ boobs cheapie? Either way, there’s no denying that, whether it’s amassing an impressive oeuvre of sleazy underground classics, or infiltrating a weirdly bureaucratic Satanic cult, sisters are doing it for themselves.

[austindailyglobe-blog]

Father Sentenced 30 Years Of Imprisonment For Forcing Daughter Into Prostitution As Punishment

A judge sentenced a Texas dad, who was convicted of forcing his 16-year-old daughter to become a prostitute as a way to punish her for being sexually active, to 30 years in prison on March 13.

A jury convicted Scott Rodney Robinson, a 46-year-old resident of Baytown, Texas, on a first-degree felony charge of aggravated compelling of prostitution after he plead guilty to forcing his daughter into sex work, reports Chron.

When the teen’s father learned she was having sex with boys, he wanted to punish her for it, KRTK notes. The teen says her father forced her to service multiple truck drivers per night at area truck stops and took the money she earned.

“He basically told her, ‘If you’re gonna be a whore, we’re gonna treat ya like one,'” said JoAnne Musick, chief of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office Sex Crimes Division.

Robinson has a lengthy criminal record and has faced charges related to drug possession, burglary, criminal trespass auto theft and unauthorized use of a vehicle in the past.

The girl’s father allegedly posted advertisements with suggestive photos of the teenager, whom he described as a “super clean” “perfect girl” who was “sexy and sweet” and looking “to party.”

The father also listed her as “clean kept and always shaved” and posted the ads on sites like Backpage.com, a website similar to Craiglist where people post listings for goods and services, notes the Daily Mail. He reportedly sold her as a prostitute for four months.

After an anonymous tip in 2015 revealed a man was pimping out his 16-year-old daughter, police arranged a hotel room tryst between an undercover police officer and the teenager, who offered oral sex for $280, to catch and arrest Robinson.

Police also arrested the teenager’s stepbrother for driving her to the hotel to unknowingly meet the undercover officer.

Her stepmother and stepbrother reportedly knew of the situation at the time and were initially charged for knowing about Robinson’s plot. They admitted to their roles in the scheme and testified against Robinson in court. Prosecutors said they cooperated throughout the duration of the case.

“The facts showed that Scott Robinson forced his own daughter into the depths of the illegal sex industry,” Musick said. “His depravity earned him decades in state prison.”

Law enforcement told the Daily Mail on March 14 that the teen “been through a lot,” but is now in safe hands.

(Source)

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Father Sentenced 30 Years Of Imprisonment For Forcing Daughter Into Prostitution As Punishment was originally published on Austin Daily Globe