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sillicii · 5 months

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✦ — 18+ Chatbot | Jack Lennox | pasts that haunt — ✦

✦ — ᴏᴄ | ʟᴇɴɴᴏx ʙᴏʏs | 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚 — ✦

ғᴇᴍᴘᴏᴠ | ɴsғᴡ ɪɴᴛʀᴏ | ᴅᴀʀᴋ ᴛʜᴇᴍᴇs ᴄᴡ: non-con elements, revenge, past bullying, controlling/manipulative behaviour, mentions of abuse/past trauma

Character Description:

Background:

Jack is the youngest son in the wealthy and influential Lennox family with roots tracing back to Scottish nobility. His parents divorced when he was seven and as the youngest of four brothers, he was doted on by his mother Mary and resents her for leaving him after the divorce. The brothers are highly competitive with one another and do not get on well, however they always put on a façade when around one another and their families. Angus was a violent individual and a strict father, causing Alistair and his brothers much trauma and abuse. Jack was shy and smaller than the other boys growing up and was often picked on and teased by the other boys at school. Jack went through a growth spurt once hitting puberty and became taller and grew into his features, however he was still shy and reserved amongst his peers and it took him some years to gain confidence.

Scenario:

{{user}} used to go to school with Jack. When they were little, {{user}} and the other kids in the class used to tease and bully Jack, however {{user}} does not remember the incidents or recognise Jack as the classmate who was bullied. Jack has held onto the memory and sworn to have his revenge.

First message:

Jack seldom thought back to his childhood years. It was a period of life that he did not have fond memories of. As both the youngest and the smallest, he was constantly being compared to his three older brothers, all perfect and distinguished in their own unique ways. Callum was father’s favourite and the constant overachiever now running for congress. Then there was Alistair the football star. Even his eldest brother Finn found his own success despite being removed from the line of inheritance. This left Jack as the youngest and least impressive of the lot. With no hope of ever winning his father’s approval and with his mother out of the picture, he had no doubt that he was destined for an unremarkable life. However, as part of the illustrious Lennox legacy, Jack’s life trajectory was anything but unremarkable. Despite his ambitions of fading into the obscurity of his brothers’ shadows, Jack eventually grew into himself and made a name for himself in the entertainment industry. It began as a bit of a joke, his father had been irritated by his lack of interest in the family business or any legitimate line of work. So he went and did the one thing he knew would annoy his father the most… plus, his mother always did use to tell him that he was an adorable child with a beautiful face. Sure enough, Jack was able to get into the industry with his family’s name and his mother’s connections in the entertainment world. At first, it was a modelling job here and there after school when he was in high school. Then it wasn’t long before he was being cast into guest roles on popular television programmes and followed by supporting roles in blockbuster films by the time he was in college. By the time he was twenty-four, he had already received numerous accolades for uprising act and raving reviews for his exceptional performance, but Jack knew that none of that mattered in the eyes of his family. A prestigious newcomer award was something Alistair had achieved in high school when he became MVP for his national team. A favourable column in the newspaper was an accomplishment Finn had under his belt by the time he was in primary school. There was nothing he could do. And that was fine. It was enough that his father now at least mentioned him as the ‘entertainer’ instead of just the ‘last one’.

It had been a particularly chilly winter morning when the role of a lifetime landed on his lap. It was finally a lead role, the male lead in a movie adaptation for a massively popular book series that has been going around the women’s book clubs and gained a massive following for its daring content. It wasn’t exactly Oscar worthy material with the original story apparently being smutty fanfiction and the author even admitting to fashioning the female lead as a fictional version of herself and treating the entire story as a twisted form of sexual fantasy escapism. Obviously, the role was always going to be controversial with the male lead spending half the time sexually and emotionally tormenting the female protagonist, but what caught his attention was the lead actress attached to the project – {{user}}. The familiarity of your name was enough to give him pause and he could remember your face so clearly in his mind. The way you had turned him down so coldly those years ago, how you had laughed in his face and taunted him by saying you would consider it if you were one of his brothers. So, he took the role before even consulting his agent or management team. As fucked up as it was, he took the role for a chance to get back at you, to pay back the same nightmare you gave him all those years ago… even if it was only acting. In fact, in some twisted way it was even better this way, he was literally going to be paid to fuck you about and mess you up on camera. The script was dark and the content explicit with the production wanting to stay as faithful to the source material as possible. Jack was going to take that opportunity to really push you as far as he could. “Cut!” The lights instantly flickered on all around and Jack gasped when reality hit him. Staring back down at your pale tear-stained face, he slowly loosened his grip around your neck, panting lightly as he watched the colour slowly return to your cheeks. Whilst still straddled on top of you, he glanced back at the director wondering if anyone had noticed that he had been strangling you for real but it appeared that they were none the wiser. Turning back to face you with a well-practiced smile, he sat up slightly to give you some room to sit up, unashamedly pressing his concealed erection against your thigh as he helped you up.

“You did great, it really felt real…” nodded at you coolly, playing every part of the professional colleague checking in during a particularly heavy scene. “You doing okay?”

First dialogue:

{{char}}: "Sorry about that, got a bit carried away in the moment, you know how intense these scenes can be." {{char}}: Jack's breath hitched in feigned passion as he heard your stuttered words, his performance seamlessly in tune with the script, and yet there was something more beneath the surface. {{char}}: Your hiss was met. "Just being friendly," he whispered, with the slightest tilt of Jack's head, his expression one of feigned innocence. As if on cue, he gave your thigh a small squeeze. The audacity of the move was bold, unapologetic, and calculated to unnerve. "You seemed a bit distant, thought you could use a warm touch." {{char}}: "Well, that wasn't too hard, was it?" he said, glancing over to gauge your reaction. "A few pictures, a little hand-holding, and we've got the press eating out of our palms.” {{char}}: Jack's character was supposed to be under your control, but as he moved beneath you, it was clear he wasn't content being entirely passive. The director, engrossed in the electric display, was in no hurry to call cut, allowing the scene to unfold in its raw and unbridled state. The heat between them was no act; it was an open flame, visible to all and felt most acutely by you.

#janitor ai #chatbot #my-bot #my-bots #my ai art #original characters #original art #ai art #oc #oc-bot #lennox-boys

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connoissuer-of-fine-vines · 2 years

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Do forgive me for the more esoteric question this time, but it has been bouncing around in my head for sometime now. One of my favorite tropes is the psychic head space, that when someone with mind reading abilities enter deeply into another's mind that they enter a psychic space that represents that person. Such as someone who lived their entire life in the military their psychic head space take the form of the army base they lived on, or someone with a very reserved personally head space might be a a tightly back cube with containers for all their thoughts and memories. The best example of this would be the Psychonauts games. So my question is what dose your ocs psychic head space look like?

I really appreciate that you still send me asks even though I take forever to answer them. I've been in a bit of a funk with my MtG OCs and really haven't been focusing on them. But this is a very cool ask.

Ayden- Initially his head space would've looked like an exact copy of Thraben Cathedral. Now, it's look like a combination of Thraben Cathedral, Vitu Ghazi, and Theran temples. Strong stone walls with stained glass windows surround the space with cultivated nature entwining around marble columns that seem to reach impossibly high, their capitals ending is storm clouds, and an open and airy interior with a ceiling that looks like it opens directly into Nyx, gently illuminating the space. Memories would be visible as stills in stained glass murals, leafy topiaries, and gleaming bronze statues through his temple headspace. Where an altar would be is instead a large pool of water as smooth and clear as a mirror reflecting the starry ceiling, which serves as Ayden's mental scrying surface.

Callum- Callum's mental headspace looks like a library vaguely reminiscent of of the Biblioplex, but that's where the similarities end. Callum's mental library would give a real librarian a heart attack. It's orderly to him, but to an outsider it seems like orchestrated chaos. Books and scrolls that constitute memories and knowledge are ordered in way specific to Callum's needs and whims, so they may change suddenly and fly off to different shelves and sections as his mind sees fit. Even entire sections of his mental library may move or stay floating in midair as he is figuring out where it would fit better in his headspace. A lone Cogwork Archivist roams the stacks in a never ending search for specific things Callum is thinking about, seemingly lost at all times yet still finding what it's searching for.

#ask #mtg fan character #mtg fanwalker #fanwalker friday #fan character friday

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cathygeha · 10 months

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REVIEW

A Duke’s Lesson in Charm by Sophie Barnes

Gentlemen Authors #3

Bumbling, anxiety ridden, difficult encounters had two people who could be perfect for one another staying far apart until something changes ~ Fun read for today!

What I liked:

* Callum Davis, Duke of Stratton: kind, caring, good friend, most of his inheritance spent, guardian of his cousin’s son, debut novel written with two friends soon to be published, has an interesting situation with Lady Emily

* Lady Emily Brooke: loving daughter of Lord & Lady Rosemont, good friend to Harriet and Ada, owner of Heidi her canine companion, writes a column for a newspaper, has an interesting situation with Callum

* Peter: orphaned, in the care of Callum, grieving, begins to come out of the darkness when he meets Emily’s pet – Heidi

* That Callum puts Peter first and is willing to approach Emily for Peter’s sake

* The correspondence between Callum and Emily that broke the ice and the ongoing growing relationship between them

* The way communication between Callum and Emily managed to overcome many issues that began to crop up but managed to be nipped in the bud

* Emily’s parents: loving, wise, wanted the best for their daughter, admirable

* That this stands alone without reading the first books in this series

What I didn’t like:

* Usually, I manage to put in a villain here BUT there weren’t any true villains in this book – I will say that the grief due to the loss of a loved one, though a bit of a catalyst, did make me think of people I have had to say goodbye to in the past.

Did I like this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

BLURB

She was the last person he ever expected to marry… Callum Davis, Duke of Stratton, never expected to get along with Emily Brooke, but thanks to his ward, he starts to realize she’s pretty good company. The more time he spends with her, the better he likes her. But rather than let their relationship grow at a gradual pace, a pretend courtship leads to a whirlwind romance that quickly collapses when Emily finds out what Callum has written about her. Now he must make every effort to prove his love for her is real, or risk losing her forever. There is only one person Lady Emily Brooke must avoid at all cost, and that’s the Duke of Stratton. Since her debut, the man has threatened her safety by stepping upon her toes, spilling drinks on her gown, and sending her head first into a fountain. But when he invites her for a walk so the boy in his care can spend time with her dog, she cannot resist. What surprises her most is how charming the duke can be. Until a mistake on his part makes her question his feelings and his intentions.

#Sophie Barnes #NetGalley #Gentlemen Authors 3 #historical romance #historical fiction #fiction #romance

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mxrstar · 3 years

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[ID: the images are two collages/concept art pieces.

the first one has a composite picture of a solar eclipse in the background. you can see the darkened sun, and then the light coming out behind it. the sun is framed by a winding black column that moves snake-like from one side of the frame to the other. the top of the page is painted in blue, grey and black, and the strokes are meant to represent the sea. a stylised lighthouse comes out from the sea upside-down and its light physically floods one side of the painting with a blue-grey ray. the bottom of the piece is also painted in blue, grey and black, but the strokes look more like clouds. in the middle of the sun, a piece of paper says: "callum". above of the collage, on the white corners of the paper, it says: "I think the lighthouse misses you, too", and below the collage: "there are plenty of ghosts who love you".

the second collage has a series of old television on the top half. the televisions are carved out so that through them you can see a hot air balloon shaped like an eye, a blue spiral, the background of a sketched prison, and the name "tim". the bottom part, on a purple-blue-brown background, has a series of darkened pieces of paper glued onto it and is covered in white dots that look like spilt ink. one of them say "shall I be gone for long?" and then right below it "shall I be gone?" "for long", one other goes: "remembrance will be always" but the "always" is almost unreadable and covered by paint. there is a big one that is messily covered in "brother friend son" over and over again. one other says: "death is only by a horizon". at the centre of the piece, there is a written line that says: "you know why you did what you did. you know you would it again." /end ID]

@titanfalling2 wrote a long, beautiful fic whose main character is a kid I've never thought twice about in canon and now I would die for him. they also wrote an interlude about Tim that is set in the same AU, and I've been quite literally thinking about it non-stop for two days. so, this is what I've done about it. those words really do deserve the time spent making art off of them

under the cut, explanation for Artistic Choices:tm: and some close ups

Callum first:

i'm a big fan of the fact that the background is an actual sun eclipse cause yeah! that's exactly it! just, the idea of darkness literally getting in the way and obscuring a source of light. it's very much part of what callum's story line is about. that realisation that he has So Much potential because (1) he is a kid, and (2) he is a good, caring kid, and he deserves to be put in a situation where he can finally shine and be free

the semi-recognizable lighthouse is there to represent his grandma, sure, but it's also just. the idea of someone guiding you being inaccessible to you sometimes. of having to look up to see it, and figure out where it's pointing. because you aren't used to it, and because there are things that physically get in the way. it stands to reason that the lighthouse and the sea should fall, but they don't, because they exist in a careful balance that by the end isn't yet broken. they are capable of showing callum the light, eventually, because the light has always been there, yes, but also because callum is given enough tools to move freely through his own space

the quote pretty much exemplifies that concept, i think. i also do like the "there's plenty of ghosts who love you" cause the painting kinda looks haunted, but it's okay because there are ghosts who love you

Tim, including close-ups:

the tvs are a way of representing just the concept of Witnessing and they all show something horrific, in one way or another. there's the prison background (i think that's taken from one of piranesi's prisons illustrations- i say i think because i cut the picture from an old school book and lost the inscriptions but i am about 95% sure), then the spiral, which actually had the face of a man lost in it but I went over it with paint because the loss of identity made it more literally spiral to me. there's also the hot air balloon, which is just perfect, because it's basically a skull carried by an eye. talk about witnessing. and then simply "Tim", the signature

i chose "you know why you did what you did. you know why you would do it again" as a quote to put there cause the whole thing is about acceptance. so, it's a reclamation of the mess and the hurt, because you know you would it again. it's the focus through which i was trying to visually depict the fic. it is what it is and it is pretty shitty, but it's mine and i chose it cause it was worth it

this is pretty much a mess but i wanted to sort of just. represent the chaos of it, even in the finality? on a personal level for Tim, all of this means many things. and the white spilled ink is a way to. i don't know, signify that lack of agency in trying to make sense of what's been written, but also total control over the choices he did make (though that's more about the quote above i already talked about)

the "remembrance will be always" is surrounded by that Cloud, sort of, cause Sasha is a dark big spot in Tim's life. her death defined a lot of things and almost burned some bridges. it also has the most white on it cause like, it's one of those places he will want to come back to without ever achieving much because he simply does not remember her

the jon quote is kinder, i think. still complex, but kinder

then there's "brother friend son" which hurts still because of the history there, but it's open

the last "death is only a horizon" is clearer if darker cause it's- a choice but also a part of Tim that is partially defined by his powers

so yeah. that's most of it! i love doing this stuff! too tired to write a conclusion hope the explanation was nice to read <3 i love these fics and ren if you are reading this I'm bowing and throwing you flowers

#sometimes i talk #tma #tma fic #my collages #anyway read the fics #art tag

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silverpaintedstars · 3 years

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How the Son of Shadows was Cast Out: Prologue

This was really hard to write, I do not like this scene. But I found no way around it, it kind of had to be in there. So without further ado, here is the beginning of it all.

Prologue: The Son of Shadows

He collapsed against the cold stone pillars once inside, utterly defeated. And, he figured, it would only get worse from here. He just wanted to stay there forever, alone and as safe as he could get.

His father had told him to report straight to him upon arrival, and the king was not someone he was ready to face. He’d had a nice break from reality while away, supposedly doing..his father’s task.

This would be a nice snap back.

The room outside the throne room was cavernous. The stone walls stretched up, and three windows broke the molding in turn. Columns grew up from the ground here and there, and two doors led off to the left and right, hallways away. Which was where he wished he was headed. In the center were the tall double doors to the king’s chamber.

“So the scrit has finally returned.” A taller boy, older, walked out from the left hall imposingly with an insult.

He braced himself. “Hello, Brenan.” His older brother.

“Elliot,” Brenan said with a slight nod of acknowledgment, walking closer, the steps of his hard-soled boots echoing.

“Did you have fun?” Brenan taunted, stopping just in front of him.

“Fun?” Elliot repeated, forming the word into a question, his throat dry.

“Out in Arpad,” Brenan said. “On your...special task.” He narrowed his grey eyes.

“Uhm, well…” Elliot stammered, his voice cracking. He couldn’t say no. No was the truth. But Brenan wanted him to say yes. And if the past was any indicator, going against his brother’s will wouldn’t end well.

“Well, answer me,” Brenan said with an edge creeping into his voice, the edge that scared Elliot. He raised his hands ever so slightly, as they started to glow.

Elliot took a step back. In the end it didn’t matter what he said. Brenan would still harm him. This was purely for his entertainment. “Can we-can we do this later?” he asked shakily, taking another step back.

Just as Brenan opened his mouth to presumably deny Elliot’s request, the large left door to the throne room creaked open and a servant girl walked out a few steps, holding her head low.

“What,” Brenan snapped, looking terribly displeased.

“High King Stome has requested Prince Elliot,” the girl said meekly, twisting her skirt in her hands.

Brenan’s glare dug into Elliot. “Have fun, little brother.”

Elliot ducked his head as he walked past his brother. Brenan had always abused his elvish gift--a sort of power--on Elliot. Being younger--and smaller made him more vulnerable, and Brenan took advantage of this. He would dig his gift into Elliot’s mind and make him feel and see things that weren’t even there. On top of this, Elliot’s gift had always been weaker. He’d hoped it’d get stronger as he got older, but at fifteen, there seemed to be no hope of that.

He only hoped his father was more gracious today.

But the king terrified him even more than his brother.

Elliot rubbed his hands together anxiously as he walked up to the door. The girl, who looked, if possible, even more scared than him, opened the door to let him pass through.

He felt Brenan’s glare as the door closed shut, leaving him inside, the side he dearly wished he wasn’t in.

It was dim inside, the only light the natural dusklight that shone through the open arches that spanned one wall. Elliot squinted as he slowly started to walk down the long way to the throne room where doom sat crowned at the end.

The mountains that ran through Lucero could be seen, orange in the horizon through the arches. Long shadows were cast onto the rock ground where his footsteps echoed.

He walked slowly, but the closer he got he could hear a tap-tap-tapping noise.

His father tapping the arm of his throne impatiently.

That was never a good sign.

King Stome Loot wore a sweeping ivory cloak, a contrast against his greyer skin. The tall, pointed crown of power sat on his head, his sharp nails drumming the armrests.

Nasier and Callum, his father’s two ever-present guards, stood on either end of the throne, fitted with armor and flanked with swords. Elliot had long suspected they weren’t fans of him. They, in turn, both scowled at him.

Heart pounding in his ears, Elliot dropped to one knee, his worn traveling cloak falling on the floor around him, his ragged dark red hair falling into his eyes.

“Well?” King Stome asked, his voice echoing around the empty hall. Elliot felt the weight placed on that one word. “Did you do it?”

Elliot swallowed, not daring to rise or raise his head. He kept his eyes on the floor as his heart drummed so loud he feared it would echo.

“No,” he whispered shakily.

“Speak up,” King Stome demanded, and Elliot didn’t have to see him to feel his glare.

Elliot took a breath to calm his nerves, fighting the urge to fidget with his hands. “No,” he repeated, fear laced through the word. He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing his father had heard this time.

“Get up,” Stome growled, and Elliot weakly obeyed.

His father’s gaze was nothing short of rage with a dash of disappointment, “I sent you all the way to Arpad to dispose of the Rhecks. Your chance to redeem yourself. And you come back to tell me of your failure?”

Elliot flinched under the weight of the words, letting his gaze fall.

“I’m beginning to think that you are betraying the Loot name and crown,” Stome continued sharply, rising to his feet.

“No, I-I just couldn’t,” Elliot stammered fearfully. “I can’t kill a family. They had a child.”

“Kill the child!” Stome roared. “The Rhecks’ are crown traitors and needed to be ridded of!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Elliot saw Nasier and Callum reach for their swords. “Then send someone else!” he said desperately. “Just not me!”

“This was for you to finally make good of yourself! To prove yourself loyal! You’ve always been different, Elliot, and not in a good way. From rescuing those traitors from Acken--”

“They weren’t traitors!” Elliot interrupted, something he would never do but for the rush of emotion. “They were friends, my only friends, and they’d done nothing wrong.” He choked on feelings. “Yet you still--you still killed them.” Hot tears threatened to come at the mention of Moss End and her family.

She had been a palace servant, but had quickly befriended Elliot, for he was in need of a friend. When his father had found out, however, he had taken this as conspiracy, and treason, and had sent her and her family to Acken, the prisons in Orlem, the capitol of Lucero. And Elliot had gone through all the trouble of rescuing her--at least, attempting to--for them just to be killed.

“And now, defying direct orders?” Stome said, his tone rising. “I am most disappointed, Elliot.” He started to walk towards him.

Elliot’s breathing quickened as he scrambled back, terrified out of his mind. He never tried to be ‘disloyal’. He just simply saw the faults and took them his own way.

“This was your last opportunity,” Stome growled, closer now, his eyes flashing darkness. All Elliot could do was focus on this, this moment, where he stood on already breaking ice.

Before he could register what was happening, his father’s hand shot out and hit Elliot across the left of his face.

He cried out and lurched back, hands flying out to cradle his cheek. But something pooled into his hands. Blood.

Stome held up a hand. His sharp fingers were covered in red. “You’ve failed too many times,” he said darkly.

Elliot whimpered in fear and pain, clutching at his marred face, which was sure to scar.

“And we can’t let the cycle continue,” his father continued. Father. What kind of title was father in this situation? A father was someone who cared. A father would never do this. Stome’s hands started to glow black, like Brenan’s earlier, except Elliot was sure there would be nothing to get out of the inevitable this time.

“No,” Elliot said, his breathing shaky. He tried to step back but he felt weak, legs wobbling.

A black ink poured out of Stome, circling around them both and blotting out the room, leaving just him and his father in this circle of dark. The shadows gathered by Stome, poised and ready to strike at Elliot.

“Please,” he said, his own voice so desperate to his ears it nearly broke him. “Give me a second chance. I’ll do it. Just not this. Please.”

“This was your second chance,” Stome replied, betraying no emotion.

The shadows dove into Elliot, clouding his mind and turning everything into terrible monsters, biting into him, diving into him, clawing at him.

They attacked him when he was vulnerable, making him feel the pain of a thousand swords.

Elliot fell onto the floor, clawing at his head and heaving sobs.

“You brought this upon yourself,” the king said, sounding far away.

All Elliot could do was give an anguished scream, to try and fervently drive all this far, far away, blood, tears, and dark mixing.

Then, slowly, the monsters retreated, taking nothing but the dark with them. They left his head but Elliot felt anything but safe.

He curled up on the floor, shaking and breathing heavily. The blackness still surrounded the king, waiting for the command as he watched his son suffer.

“Make it stop,” he cried, his own voice so broken and raw. “Make it stop, please.”

“Have you learned your lesson?” Stome asked, and all Elliot saw were his black clad feet, for that’s all he dared to look.

“Yes,” Elliot choked, clutching his face.

But in answer all he got was another rush of a single, piercing darkness, then nothing.

#writing #my writing #how the son of shadows was cast out #wip #elliot loot #1654 words #a short little prologue

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writing-with-l · 3 years

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20 First Lines

Thank you to @dragon-swords-prophecies for tagging me 💛

Instructions: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line, then tag 10 writers.

Our Forgotten Devils: "I've never given much thought to how I will die."

In Darkened Woods: "The sky burned red when they finally found him, at the edge of the forest shortly after dawn."

Less Than Gods: "That summer began with a funeral."

Liminal: "It's late when the young woman steps onto the train."

Magnum Opus: "The tale which you hold in your hands is one I never intended to tell."

The Sorority: "A thousand words spiraled through my mind as I stood in the courtyard of Mathers University - anxious, excited, nervous, determined - but none of them could really accurately describe the whirlwind of emotions I was feeling."

Anne: The Pirate Queen: "If there was one thing that Anne Cormac was proud of, it was that she could put her hand on her heart and say that she had never once been respectable."

Something Wicked: "The fire cast an orange glow across the town otherwise bathed in moonlight."

Broken Crown: "Exactly four hours before everything went to hell, Elena Sinclair was engaged in a practise sword-fight, and was determined not to lose."

Bulletproof: "Alone in the penthouse office, he sat on his desk chair as though it was a throne."

Harker: "(May 17. 1927. New York): The wind whistled through the port, causing Evalyn Harker's dark hair to fly in front of her face as she tried to navigate her way through the crowd disembarking from the large ocean liner."

Kingdom Fall: "The day didn't begin with bloodshed."

2004: "Callum Reid never thought he would see the day that he would miss the ear-piercing sound of the clock chiming thirteen."

Of Fate and Fury: "The midday sunlight streamed through the open archway, casting a golden glow across the marble columns and reflecting off the polished mosaic floor."

The End: "For as long as most of us can remember, it seems like mankind has had a morbid fascination with its own destruction."

I probably have more than twenty, but the rest are so utterly awful that I won't subject you to them! As for my favourite one, I really like Of Fate and Fury for the aesthetic, but I'd say Our Forgotten Devils probably works best as an opening line out of these.

Now for the tags! @ashen-crest @a-writing-hobbit @karolinarodrigueswrites @wisteria-eventide (no pressure, of course!) and anyone else who wants to take part.

#tag game #first lines #my writing #writeblr #writing #some of these are quite bad omg #original fiction

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thisissirius · 4 years

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ficmas: day four hitting up this wonderful day for @madroxed this time, who drags me kicking and screaming into everything. i say kicking and screaming and mean casually saying, “this way,” and i follow. anyway, i adore you, bobbie, as you well KNOW. i could scream about how much i love you or i could write you murder boyfriends. i did the latter :))))

writing callum as callum in this was hard but then i remembered it was easy when you think about what he did to danny so, there we go. also i find ben way more comfortable to write so go figure my first fic is about callum.

you broke me first callum/ben, be gay, do crimes

There’s a hollow numbness to Callum when he picks up the phone.

“Yeah?”

Just hearing Ben’s voice has Callum’s breath leaving in a rush. “I need your help. And Phil’s.”

Ben doesn’t say anything for a moment. “What did you do?”

Callum barks a laugh, hollow, and stares at the body. “Just come to the Arches.”

When Ben does arrive, he’s got his dad in tow. They look from Callum, to the body on the floor, then back up.

“There was a third option,” Callum says, when the words have spilled out of him. Laying the truth at the Mitchells feet and waiting for them to decide his fate. His fingers are tight around the wrench and he still feels weirdly hollow, but not sick.

Looking at Thompson, he feels nothing.

“Cal,” Ben says.

Callum stares at his clothes, blinks. “You can hand me in, or—”

“No,” Ben says, anger boiling beneath the surface.

“No,” Phil agrees, and though there’s that fucking tick in his jaw that Callum hates, he nods at Thompson. “We need to get rid of him, first.”

“Get these off,” Ben says, shoving at Callum’s clothes.

Callum undresses quickly, watches out of the corner of his eye as Phil hovers over the body, starts patting down Thompson. Well, Thompson’s body. “Fuck.”

Ben eyes him carefully. “Cal—”

“What am I supposed to do with these?” Callum balls up his shirt and trousers, shivers a little in his underwear. It’s not the first time he’s been in here like this with Ben. Phil’s in the room, and there’s the dead body of his boss but fuck it. Maybe Callum’s actually losing his mind. He feels oddly calm and collected for someone who’s still got blood on his hands, his face.

“Burn ‘em,” Phil says, pushing to his feet. He’s got Thompson’s phone and wallet in hand, and he’s rooting through both. Callum wonders what he’ll say when he sees their conversations, if Thompson’s stupid enough to keep them on his phone. “I’ll deal with this, with these.”

Callum opens his mouth to say something, but Ben’s fingers wrap tightly around his arm.

“Come on,” Ben says, voice tight, eyes darting around the room like he can’t stand to look at anything for too long.

________

“I was scared of him,” Callum says, the next morning. He stares at a point over Ben’s left shoulder. “This whole time I thought if I could just stay one step ahead of him, I could get both you and Phil out of this.”

Ben doesn’t say anything. Hasn’t said anything since he dragged Callum into the house, made him shower, and slept downstairs on the sofa.

Callum wonders if they’re ever gonna fight. “I’m not sorry.”

Ben bites at his bottom lip, that familiar sneer covered by a quick rub of his nose. “Right.”

“Believe what you like,” Callum says, suddenly tired. He’s spent all night waiting for the shock to hit him, the revulsion, or the nausea. It’s still not come. “I need to go to work.”

“Cal,” Ben starts.

“I don’t wanna hear it.” Callum reaches for his jacket. “If I don’t go in, they’ll know it’s me.”

Ben lets him leave. Callum tries to pretend it bothers him.

______

And tries.

_________

Days pass; everyone’s worried, of course they are, but the word murder never comes up, like Thompson’s just cut and run. Callum wonders if it’s possible, knows Thompson was suspended first, but that doesn’t make the fear come. Nothing does.

All he does is think, for Ben, I did it for Ben, and something in him settles.

Doesn’t wanna analyse that too much.

___________

Phil sits across from him.

So far, Callum’s managed to stay alive, but he’s been wondering when Phil’s anger would catch up with him.

“I,” Callum starts.

Holding up a hand, Phil sits back in his chair, watches Callum carefully.

It takes every inch of self-control Callum possesses not to squirm.

“Good lad,” Phil says, gruff as always. He taps his hand on the table.

Callum nods, knows what Phil’s trying to say. “I’d do it again.”

Phil appraises him, and for once, Callum doesn’t find himself lacking. “I know.”

________

A couple of days later, Jack corners him.

Curling a hand around Callum’s bicep, he tugs him into a secluded office and raises his eyebrows.

Callum’s done being scared of him, of Thompson, of anybody. Now that he’s shifted into the headspace, he finds he can’t stop protecting, even if that means putting on a hard front. “You got something you wanna say?”

“He must have said something to you,” Jack says. “You must know something about what he really wanted, where he was going.”

“He didn’t,” Callum says, swallowing. “I don’t. If you wanna interrogate someone, how about the last person to see him alive?”

Jack nods, stares down at his feet, then back up. “We’ll pull his phone records, bank cards, everything. We’ll know Thompson’s life inside out and then we’ll know, won’t we?”

Callum’s expecting fear to hit him then, but the words only make him angry. He didn’t go through all of that shit with Thompson only to lose his spine now. He’s done some stupid shit in the last few weeks, but forgetting police procedure isn’t one of them. Tilting his chin, Callum says, “Can’t you only do that if he’s actually dead?”

On anyone else, the question is innocent, but Callum can see Jack doesn’t buy it. “I know he is.”

“If that was true,” Callum says, straightening as he opens the door, “you wouldn’t need to talk to me.”

Walking away from Jack, Callum keeps his cool until he enters the bathroom, stares at himself in the mirror. Nothing about him is changed; he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, what someone looks like after they kill someone.

Ben’s face didn’t change. Not that Keanu kicked it, but still, Ben stayed Ben.

Apparently, Callum’s staying Callum.

He’s just gotta decide who that is.

_________

Callum’s a murderer.

If someone finds out what he’s done, they’ll know about Danny and they’ll know about Thompson. The thought of that doesn’t make his skin crawl half as much as the way Ben stares at him.

He holds out as long as he can, but eventually he snaps, “What?”

“Cal.” Ben says his name carefully. “You killed someone.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Callum says, his voice tight. “I was there.”

There’s a wary expression on Ben’s face. “I thought you’d—that it’d be harder on you or something, like Louise after Keanu.”

Callum snorts, stares into his mug of tea. “Yeah, well. Turns out killing’s easy to do when it’s for you.”

The words seem to hit Ben. He reels, rocking back on his heels, mouth parted slightly.

Running his hands over his face, Callum stares up at the ceiling. “I’d do anything to protect you.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, sliding into the seat next to Callum’s. His fingers rest an inch from Callum’s.

“I should feel guilty.” The words are ones that have been running through Callum’s head this entire time. “I killed someone and I know it’s wrong, that maybe I’ll think about it sometimes, worry about it, but the truth is, I’m not sorry.”

Their eyes meet. Callum remembers the day after Keanu; Ben pulling himself apart and trying to stay strong. Callum wonders if deep down, he’s all that different from his father.

“You’re nothing like him,” Ben snaps, when Callum says as much. “This is—”

Ben’s got no words for it, apparently, but Callum does. “Family,” he says, doing Ben the courtesy of looking him in the eye, “Is everything to me. I haven’t had it like this before. With you and Lexi, Stu and Rainie. Hell, even your dad and Lola and Jay and I,” cuts himself off. Ben takes his hand, fingers squeezing gently and Callum breathes out slowly. “I have to protect it. Protect you, no matter what. You get it, right?”

It takes a moment and Callum feels a little sorry for talking too fast, the words tumbling out, but Ben seems to get the root of what he’s saying. There’s that touched expression, shocked and pleased, like Ben’s still surprised someone will go that far for him, will love him that much.

“I’m not saying I’m not worried about it,” Callum admits. “That one day I’ll get nicked for it, but I had to protect you and—”

Ben kisses the rest of the words away. His hand is hard on the back of Callum’s head, gripping the fingers of Callum’s hand so tight he thinks they’re gonna break. “I’d do the same to protect you.”

Almost did, he doesn’t say. Would have shot my dad, because Callum knows.

“No matter what,” Callum says, with a belief that should be scary.

“Yeah,” Ben breathes against Callum’s mouth.

__________

Days pass.

The guilt never comes.

Callum stops being surprised by it, learns to adjust his world view to include nothing in the column of what he wouldn’t do for Ben.

#eastenders fic #eastenders #ballum #ben mitchell #callum highway #fic by me #apparently i am here now lol #oops #bobbie gets what bobbie deserves #which is everything tbh #bye

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dragontrailz · 4 years

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Greta Thunberg - Her Privilege Makes Her Blind To Her Own Manufacturing

This is what privilege looks like - 'Only people like me dare ask tough questions on climate’. Only the affluent upper middle classes could possible engineer a quote quite this stupid.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/11/greta-thunberg-people-like-me-ask-difficult-climate-questions

She’s not the only type of person to do this. She’s not the only person with a disability, autism or Asperger’s to speak up. She’s playing on the fact that she’s on the spectrum. Many people have spoken up before she did. Some of them from working class and ethnic backgrounds. She literally can’t see that her privilege, affluence and her parents connections have made this happen for her. As Cory Morningstar has pointed out, Greta Thunberg’s mum was a WWF Hero of the Year in 2017; she does adverts for Greenpeace and moves in those circles. When the 15 year old created her Twitter account in 2018, after her mother, the next accounts she followed were Greenpeace Sweden, Greenpeace International, Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth International and Friends of the Earth USA. A little further down the list we find Bill McKibben, 350.org, fellow speakers who would join her at XR’s Declaration of Rebellion (months later on October 31st): George Monbiot and Rupert Read and soon after that We Don’t Have Time, an NGO that would play a crucial role, as well as This Is Zero Hour, their founder, Jamie Margolin and the main account for Extinction Rebellion. Morningstar also cites Callum Grieve, a former Communications Director at The Climate Group and We Mean Business, who now works for Mission 2020, as a key architect of her manufacturing. Grieve also assisted Thunberg; on the first day of her protest he was the third person to respond on that platform. He’s not a huge Twitter influencer though, as he doesn’t have so many followers there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzCgKEjgCng

https://soundcloud.com/lastborninthewilderness/cory-morningstar

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/

This 17 year old is still being used; but nows seem to enjoy the limelight so much, that they’ve made a film. Her mum is an opera singer, her dad an actor, she was propelled from her first protest to global superstar within weeks. On the day of her first protest, on August 20th, 2018, she was approached by We Don’t Have Time’s Ingmar Rentzhog who ‘discovered’ her and she was soon a major story, appearing on the front page of Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet the same day. Rentzhog had met Greta Thunberg’s mother at a climate event in May 2018, shortly before Greta’s Twitter account was set up. On September 1st, Greta Thunberg was featured in her first Guardian column. It’s worth noting that the Aftonbladet account was followed after those mentioned in the previous paragraph, which suggests she was looking to the global stage before the Swedish national stage.

https://medium.com/@frackfree_eu/green-capitalism-is-using-greta-thunberg-66768db6c0e1

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/01/swedish-15-year-old-cutting-class-to-fight-the-climate-crisis

The sequence of events which led to Greta’s sudden rise to prominence and the role of Ingmar Rentzhog is explained in more detail here:

https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/the-pr-guru-behind-the-rise-of-greta-thunberg/news-story/fae7bd1704d58e8ff0dd4d93ec0b3560

Talk of her “'zero-carbon yacht” in this article is nonsense. There is no such thing. Manufacture of it has embodied energy, besides which, how many of us can afford a transatlantic yacht for those times when we want to sail to the USA to lobby the climate capitalists in that country? The same narrative was peddled when she made her way from Sweden to London by electric car for XR’s Declaration of Rebellion on October 31st, 2018 (I was there that day). What was wrong with using public transport? Surely that would have conveyed a much more sustainable message?

Climate change isn’t the only crisis we face; people have been trying to defend nature from the onslaught of extractive capitalism for a long time; again many of them were poor or Indigenous people, so their narratives were airbrushed away and they weren’t given a number of Guardian articles to platform themselves so that the middle classes could be softened up.

Since those early days, the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos used Thunberg and the global media to manufacture consent for what’s coming - the new fake ‘Net Zero’ world, the '4th industrial revolution’ and next year’s 'New Deal for Nature’.

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/10/19/perfect-distractions-and-fantastical-mitigation-plans/

Thunberg herself happily plays along signing the letter about 'Natural Climate Solutions’ that appeared in the Guardian alongside fake green George Monbiot, who also wrote an abysmal column to go with it, which seemed to be more about geoengineering and terraforming than habitat restoration, particularly when the academic references to support his narrative are analysed. This climate-washing of the narrative has got to stop.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/03/natural-world-climate-catastrophe-rewilding

The Climate Emergency Fund (USA), set up by Trevor Neilson and funded by Aileen Getty and Rory Kennedy are just one of the big money foundations who now fund the movement she helped create, Youth Strike. I was at the first big Youth Strike protest in London; it was organic and spontaneous. Children took the roads and risked arrest; the cops brought out mounted patrols, some children were arrested, later de-arrested. I noticed that several people within the UK, who’ve positioned themselves at the heart of the climate movement, people from 350, UK Youth Climate Coalition, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth etc. were already there on the sidelines, coordinating and framing the media message.

At the second big Youth Strike protest in London, the children were pushed aside, the speakers on the big red bus that positioned itself on Victoria Embankment were now mostly adults. The Trade Unions were now also in attendance, alongside other NGOs like Global Justice Now, War on Want and MPs like Jeremy Corbyn (he gave a great speech that day) and Caroline Lucas (she did not and seemed very irritable afterwards when I tried to speak to her, a first). The SWP were eagerly recruiting youngsters and filling their heads full of propaganda. It was painful to observe.

By the third big protest, the children were told to march aimlessly around the streets of London, whilst 'activists’ from Greenpeace, FoE and 350 who had coordinated the event looked on. Something so energetic faded so quickly. Very little has happened since that day in Autumn last year, although #Covid19 perhaps has also been responsible for muting any efforts to mobilise.

Her marketing team now seems to think a film about her, to go with the numerous books (yes, I’ve read one of them, the speeches have aged very badly) is now what’s required. Roger Hallam recently made a film, called 'The Troublemaker’, it was largely a work of propaganda. I wonder what Greta’s film will say?

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/16/i-am-greta-review-slick-yet-shallow-thunberg-documentary

“Intriguingly, even bafflingly, Grossman’s film begins by showing Thunberg’s pre-famous self as a high-schooler with her homemade climate strike placard, enduring a lonely vigil outside the Stockholm parliament every Friday with a few grumpy older shoppers coming up and telling her off for not being in school. Here she is: the non-famous nobody, and these scenes lead seamlessly to later moments showing her campaign taking off. So … does this mean Grossman has been prophetically following her career from the very beginning?“

This journalist has clearly not been following the story. That all these early protests were filmed shows they had much larger plans.

Do people think any of this is normal? This post is likely to grate with people. If it does, may I suggest you’re emotionally invested in this story and you can’t see what’s really happening. Step back and get some perspective. I invite discussion but nobody is fooling me with what’s happened over the last two years.

https://starecat.com/greta-thunberg-theyve-stolen-my-childhood-hardworking-kid-cool-story-bro/

Many people seem to be of the opinion that Greta can’t be criticised. There’s a confirmation bias in wanting to believe her story, from a one person protest to meeting world leaders, the UN and the Davos set at the World Economic Forum, where she platformed herself alongside David Attenborough and Jane Goodall. These people won’t engage with the narrative that indicates she’s been manufactured. This is compounded by her support from those in XR, who also can’t seem to see their own movement is also constructed and coupled to her story. A lot of the themes in her speeches, that of the planet being 'on fire’ or that we’re running ‘out of time’ are common to XR and Youth Strike and then later authors like Naomi Klein, and are based on mobilising people based on urgency. We’ve seen this go very badly wrong many times, notably in Afghanistan (See Adam Curtis - The Power of Nightmares)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwvSQ56HYg8&list=PL46FkcYcj-72IK9xFcWVRwoIu9Lfsi1S9&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwvSQ56HYg8&list=PL46FkcYcj-72IK9xFcWVRwoIu9Lfsi1S9&index=2

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB8m6nNWpMA&list=PL46FkcYcj-72IK9xFcWVRwoIu9Lfsi1S9&index=3

In her film trailer, we see the time theme being repeated once again. Her father also continues to perpetuate the myth that she did this on her own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwk10YGPFiM

“My name is Greta Thunberg and I want you to panic!” - but this repeated doomerism has had a paralysing effect on many people. Other flanks of people have been mobilised to take action, notably within the UK as XR, which is a larger movement than Youth Strike. However, much of the mobilisation has been about virtue signalling, their virtuous non-violence and colourful boats has meant their movement has failed to really diversify beyond it’s white, middle class base. The movement appears to have now peaked and largely run out of money.

There is also the common theme of expecting governments to act to resolve this. When are people going to realise that’s not going to happen. Parliaments are not going to end capitalism. Who was the last parliamentary candidate who ran on a #degrowth platform? As such, both movements are self defeating and tend to reinforce hierarchy and statism. In the worst case scenario what they are asking for is EcoFascism. If people are struggling to deal with Covid19 restrictions on movement which have only brought about around a 6-7% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, then how would they cope when they are told the truth about what ‘Net Zero’ would really mean: private cars would be banned, consumption would be drastically reduced along with an end to pointless bullshit jobs, international flights would be rationed and restricted and people in the Global North would have to eat a lot less meat.

Some of us have begun to make these sorts of changes to our lifestyles, but it will be a tough task to prepare for the post 2050 world where the following scenarios are looming:

Oil depletion - more wars will be started to fight over the remaining oil resources and the ongoing trend will drive economic collapse and further inequality

Nuclear war is an increased risk as tensions between USA, Russia and China continue to escalate

Critical metal/mineral depletion - this will puncture the myth of the electric car

Overfishing - less food for humanity but also the unravelling of marine food webs, with knock on effects for adjacent ecosystems

Ecological collapse and climate change - biodiversity loss; soil erosion; freshwater depletion; nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon cycle disruption will intertwine to create complex problems for the biosphere.

Those are 4 or 5 of the biggest evolving threats

Free Range Collective (2020) WEIRD 02 - Welcome to the Extinction (authored by Paul Mobbs)

http://www.fraw.org.uk/frn/weird/002/index.shtml

Net Zero within 5 years is a fallacy. Anyone who’s looked at the data knows this.

The IPCC have based their climate models on a doubling of energy consumption between now and 2050. The pretence is maintained by claiming there are ‘Negative Emissions Technologies’ that will magically sequester away our historical and future carbon debt. The primary technology that they envision will do this, Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is not yet technically viable and never will be. It’s neither safe, nor ethical and it won’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Delaying the urgent mitigation required now leaves a larger problem for future generations. BECCS would also require huge amounts of land, freshwater and fertiliser and would destroy biodiversity, threaten food security and trample on Indigenous land rights. The IPCC ‘science’ that Greta Thunberg claims is her version of the truth, is merely only one part of the picture. There are good scientists and bad scientists. Which ones is she backing?

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1318216965639503873

She seems blind to the modelling work going on which assumes that #BECCS is viable and cost effective, a trick of economic models within which subsidies and discounting correct for impossibilities. BECCS will never happen at scale as citizens will mobilise against it. Thus Thunberg’s attempt to lecture Joe Biden, who is well aware of what carbon capture is and has opened the door to it, merely show how little she understands the bigger picture. In the following article, Steve Horn explains how Biden has embraced carbon capture under pressure from oil industry lobbying, which will lead to enhanced oil recovery and won’t reduce emissions.

https://www.drillednews.com/post/biden-climate-change-platform-fossil-fuel-carbon-capture

In reality, what we now have is this pretend world of ‘Net Zero’ False Solutions, where corporations have taken centre stage. Yet, XR, Youth Strike and Greta Thunberg are largely silent on this and are still screaming for governments to take action. In the UK, they did take action as XR suggested and set up a citizen’s assembly, which was then rigged to provide the wrong outcome as these resources clearly show. Under the guidance of the Committee on Climate Change, the process has been captured by false technofix solutions and corporate thinking.

https://www.climateassembly.uk/resources/

The conversation is so far from where it needs to be. Greta now has a film about her life, which will make the middle classes feel like they can change the world if they just shout loudly enough. The trouble is their dominance of the debate and misdirection has wasted two years. Only Covid19 has really reduced emissions, as its forced a much needed reduction in hypermobility and a reduction in oil use.

I hope people can start to see what’s happened over the last two years now. Some folks are waking up to the reality of what needs to be done. No one else is going to fix this mess but us. The only way we can do that is by collectively disengaging from the system, but in more constructive ways, where we can come together, build community and connection. I’ll be writing more about how we do this another time. The solutions need to be centred on mutual aid, land rights, citizen-led journalism, agroecology and permaculture. Food security for communities is of critical importance to our future cohesion and survival.

#GretaThunberg Privilege Entitlement Affluence

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raayllum · 4 months

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Hi! I was rewatching Season 1 Episode 3 again and noticed Claudia specifically mentions the possibility of escaping the chain Callum puts on her by turning it into a snake/s, before even the dragon rescue (prompted by Rayla), which is delightful as Claudia just uses the nearby key versus the dark magic equivalen. Whereas Callum is the only practitioner of the spell shown on screen (to save other people, in two situations Rayla is involved).

It seemed like your kind of observation (you may in fact have already made it)!

Oh I think about that every day

"I could use magic, but I'll just use a key to free myself instead" is like... either really good or really bad foreshadowing, outcomes wise. It's an early but rare example of Claudia turning to non-magical means as a solution, even if in the first use seasons she's far more likely to want to use the non-forceful option ("We should use our words, not our muscles") than she is later seasons, even if alternatives never entirely slip away ("Let's made a trade: you let him go, and I'll give you the coins") / are not exactly exclusive.

It's also in some ways a Rayla parallel since she does lock picking to get out of her manacles (5x01, 5x08) even if she can't always break the chains that bind her (1x02-1x09 with the binding, 2x07 chains, 3x08 with her parents, etc)... luckily Callum can.

Now I'm trying to think if Callum has ever broken her or anyone else's (including his own) chains without magic, but... I don't think so? Besides the power of his words ("who told you that?" "you did") which is powerful no doubt, but the majority of the time... The primal stone is smashed to save/free Zym and Rayla, dark magic for chain spells, crushing the magical pendant in 3x08 to find the truth, primal wings in 3x09, 5x08 with dark magic and the ocean arcanum, etc. Put another point in the column for Callum's freedom for possession coming with a magical epiphany prediction

But yeah, Callum and Claudia have a really interesting back and forth of like, trapping and stealing from each other?

He chains her while she likewise grips his wrist like a chain; he steals her primal stone and then destroys it while she keeps and safeguards his letter (which carries a father's love, yes, but also the Key of Aaravos drop) until it can be returned... with a manipulation offer stapled on top; he steals her magic book to do the chain spell and free the dragon she was eagerly going to chop into pieces; he solves the Rex Igneous riddle for her and she sweeps the map out from under him; he steals her potion and leaves her to drown.

I think a lot in 5x08 about how Callum is plagued by both Viren and Claudia in equal measure, i.e. being tortured for / giving up the spell that Viren used to throw the world into pandemonium, and using Claudia's snake spell to free himself and once again save Rayla (who he likely wouldn't have ever met without Viren fucking things up in the first place + Tiadrin's quick thinking).

Any time they mention keys in the series I'm screaming crying throwing up. It is delightful indeed

#darkwinganimus #subset: keys #thanks for asking #pawns #callum x claudia #1x03 #now im thinking about callum completing viren's mirror cycle of #viren taking it from the storm spire to his room to his dungeons #and callum taking it from the dungeons to his SAME ROOM to the STORM SPIRE #ugghhh

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jelzorz · 2 years

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124.

for @fixationally-consumed for letting me talk blood bank at them for 45 minutes while I was prepping for an interview aka I can't be blamed for this, they wanted something Dark

It's a stupid idea, but Callum's done stupider things. He can justify this to anyone who asks anyway, and as wrong as it is, it's better than doing nothing, isn't it? Dark Magic has never felt right but at this point, what has he got to lose? Rayla's gone.

It's been, what, a year and a half now? Since she ran off into danger again convinced she was the only one who had to suffer for it. Callum loves her still, and he will always love her, he thinks, but he hates her too, for choosing her vices over him. He'd wanted to help. He'd been ready to leave with her the moment the sun rose, and she'd—

She's convinced she's keeping him safe by staying away, but if anything, it's only made him reckless. How many trips into Xadia has he made? How many times had he disappeared to look for leads? And now...

The jar of fireflies winks at him in dusk. Dimly, he remembers Claudia telling him about a spell that could find anyone granted they were in a certain range, and Callum thinks this is the right one. He hopes it is, anyway because he'd gone to the trouble of rifling through the clothes she left for something to complete the spell, even if every memory of her felt like a shard of glass in his chest. He was lucky he'd found anything at all—a single strand of silver hair, caught in the fibres of his scarf, of all places—and gods, this feels so wrong but there's nothing else. He's tried all the primal magic he knows, scoured through every text on Sky Magic for something to help him find her, and he's found nothing.

Nothing. In a year and a half.

This is the only thing left.

It's for her, he convinces himself. It's to find her, to help her, to keep her safe. He's already done it for her once before, what's one more?

Callum strikes at the flint. The strand of Rayla's hair catches immediately, bright purple flames dancing in the dim light. He scoops it into his hands, warm but not comforting and touches it to the jar of fireflies.

"Fle wodahsnoom eht kees."

The flames burn brighter. They shoot upward out of the jar, and Callum waits, his vision clearing, his breath caught in his throat. And then—

The column of light dissipates, giving him no more of a lead than he had before. The answer is obvious: she's too far out of range, and of course she would be—Callum wonders why he'd hoped she'd be near enough for it to work at all.

He smashes the jar at his feet and flies home, leavinf his tears to dry in the bitter wind.

#rayllum #in anticipation #this was meant to have alcohol in it but it didnt feel right #i hope this is okay fix!!!

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 5 years

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Sparks Fly (9/?)

A/N: Smut. Angst. Fluff. Insecure Thor. And a Coronation that looked really cool in my head.

After your husband has successfully put you off to sleep, he lays awake for a while, playing with your hair and letting the dark auburn strands slide through his fingers. Your head is cushioned on his shoulder, and your soft breathing tickles his neck. He’s cuddled women before. But none of it felt so right, not like this. He usually minded when his arm fell asleep, and the feeling of someone breathing in his neck was uncomfortable. But for you, sleepy and satiated as you nestled against him, he didn’t mind. He knew that in the morning, you would ache. He hadn’t been gentle, but you hadn’t seemed to care as you lost yourself in him. You kept asking for him to do it all again and so he had, showing you how to ride him and how it felt to surrender to him. It had been enchanting watching you enjoying yourself. It had been intoxicating. Thor had never had such problems keeping his powers in check, and he’s never had someone in his bed so eager to surrender to them. You had offered no resistance to him. That made him smile to himself. You trusted him. He was worthy of your trust, and that was a prize all its own.

When Thor did finally sleep, he dreamed. He dreamed that he was chasing you, a much younger, smaller you around the columns in the Palace. You were giggling. Bare feet silent on the marble, blue and white dress in either hand so you didn’t trip. You ducked behind a column quickly, hand over your mouth to stifle your giggles, not realizing your shadow gave you away. Thor watched as four boys, your brothers, Callum, Jamie, Oak, and Rowan snuck up close to you, shushing each other. The oldest, Callum scooped you up like a sack of flour and laughing, tossed you to another brother. Thor was terrified that they might drop you, but each boy caught you, and each giggling protest was met with cuddles and tickles until you were laughing so hard tears ran down your face. Finally, Callum the oldest simply threw you over his shoulder and together with you still giggling and protesting, they all strode off down the hall.

Thor had been terrified, and he still wanted to set little you properly upright, but it warmed him some to see that they loved you so much. Half-grown men who always had the time to indulge you in a minute of play... or even if they didn’t really have the time, judging by their conversation, they indulged you anyway. He followed them until they deposited you at your mother’s feet with promises to take you to the river to look for a dragonfly to keep and left, waving goodbye to their mother. The queen looked like you. Almost exactly as you look now. In fact, no one could mistake you for anything other than her child. She holds out her arms, laughing and you climb into her lap, “There you are, sunbeam,” she said fondly, “I thought you’d gotten lost.” She kissed your forehead, and you smile, “No mother, I was writing a story for Matari... She doesn’t feel well.” Queen Talona smooths unruly curls from your face and nods, “I see,” she said, “Well, tell me about this story. Is it a happy story?” Thor watches as your mother cuddles you close and listens to you tell her your tale. You’re just a little girl. A baby really compared to the loved ones around you. Thor can’t focus on the words for the pain in his chest and the tears threatening to spill.

He only comes back when the sounds of screams and battle outside burst into being. It comes out of nowhere. There is no time to prepare. No time to think. Your mother, a staff in hand, clutches you to her other side. She’s going to fight, Thor knows what he’s watching now. He watches Madoc drag your father, battered and pleading into the room and Throw him at your mother’s feet. He forces himself to watch as Talona hurls you over Declan’s back and commands him to run. To save your life. Thor is rooted on the spot. He sees you looking back over your shoulder, crying out to your mother, your father, to anyone who might be able to protect you, terrified sobs wrack your little body as fleet-footed Declan evades soldiers given orders to “Kill the brat.” And in one terrible moment, Thor understands your emotions as he watches blood flow over the broken pieces of Queen Talona’s staff. He understands the pain when you saw the red stain on the marble. You had watched them die.

The god wakes with tears of his own on his face. He panics when he finds you gone until he sees the note on your pillow explaining that you had gone to prepare for the day. Thor lays in bed, staring at the ceiling for a long while after that. He grieves for the child you had been. And the person you might have grown into with your mother’s guidance. But he also thanks to the Norns for giving you the strength to survive it all. You are made of silk with a vibranium core, and he prays he never has to set his will against yours because he will lose. You are a Queen for the age of heroes, he reflects. You move Mjolnir as if it were a paperweight and you survived unspeakable horrors by learning to sing on the inside when they tried to choke your voice. And gods did he love you.

Thor dressed with care for your coronation. It was getting dark outside, dusk was falling, and Samhain bonfires were being lit. The whole of the Forest of Sighs, all the fey gentry, all of new Asgard and most of the Avengers had been crammed into the Palace. He could hear the sounds of celebration. Songs being sung. About you, mostly. The Sidhe mostly seemed to regard your title as Queen of Asgard as secondary. Thor wanted to be offended by that, but given the circumstances, he supposed they were just happy to have you back with or without a king. The songs praised your beauty, your wisdom, the gold of your eyes, your freckles, the dark auburn of your hair, your light footsteps... it was a bit much even for Thor who’d spent part of last night trying to count your freckles as he went soft inside you and you were panting astride his lap. He’d given up when your lips were too inviting, and he’d gotten distracted. He smirked at the memory. He might be a lovesick fool, but you were no ordinary lady. You had soothed his every insecurity so smoothly that he barely had time to be insecure before you charged in with tender kisses and praise. His belly, his chest, his soft thighs... Even looking at himself now in his ceremonial armor, he couldn’t be bothered by his gut. The memory of you lavishing kisses on it to find places where he was ticklish or the soft press of your hands as you steadied yourself on his cock made him want to see you and drag you back to bed for just a little while.

Once he is dressed, Thor seeks you out. Dusk had turned into star-speckled night, and it was time for you to be crowned a true queen of fairy. You’re kneeling at the base of a large tree. A golden oak tree with leaves, still emerald green, Lips moving in prayer or pleading, Thor can’t tell. “Sweetheart?” he asked softly, approaching slowly. You turn, eyes shuddering open and rise to your feet easily. Your dress is Gold, gauzy golden fabric that looks almost like armor. Split up both sides almost to your hips to allow you the freedom to move easily while still being so tightly fitted Thor knows you have no underthings on. Your hair is elaborately pinned up, and your jewelry is gold and emerald. You look like a Faery from a story his mother might have told him. You look up at your husband and smile as you wrap your arms around him. “Happy Birthday, my love,” he rumbles, stroking your bare back. “Thank you,” you say softly. Thor kisses you, a tender kiss. The one he was denied this morning, before taking your arm and heading inside. He promised you he wouldn’t make you do this alone and now he was going to walk you as far as he could.

__________________________________________________________

Thor walked you to the throne room and kissed you soundly before going to take his place. No one is waiting to receive you at the door. There is no mantle for your shoulders. In the throne room, everyone attending is crammed in like sardines. A woman with golden eyes and white hair stands at the steps, a book on her outstretched arms. The not fey are gawking, heads turning this way and that. They can feel the magic of the place, and it makes them restless.

And then. There are drums. Slowly at first, softly. Almost too low to hear. And then steadily louder. Faster. Until they’re a thunderous roar and the Throne room doors swing open with a crash. You stand alone under the arches. Back straight. You’re calm, composed, and slightly smiling. Confidence in your posture Thor knows you don’t really feel. You walk forward slowly, every soul in the room kneeling before you kneel at the steps before the woman with the book. Thor can’t focus on the words, he’s too busy focusing on you, praying that you can feel him sending you silent support.

A page trips forward, a long awkward box in his hands. He maintains his grip, only barely and his pallor at his mistake turns into a blush when you smile at him. Thor smirks, you smiled at that poor boy, and now you’ve ruined women for him forever. The White haired woman rolls her eyes but takes the box and opens it. Inside is the Staff Thor had seen in his dream. The wood bound with gold to mend it, the emerald gem surrounded by intricately carved woodwork. You look from the staff to the white-haired woman. You had seen it shatter. She reaches out a hand and brushes an unruly curl out of your eyes, a gesture of silent sympathy.

Of love. Thor realizes this woman is Titania, an aunt, The Queen of Summer. He absently wonders if Mab is in attendance or if she’s plotting with Madoc. “With this staff, do you swear to guide and protect the people of this kingdom? Do you swear to answer the call to bring Art and Joy to the world? And do you so swear to honor this duty until the end of your days?” You meet her eyes and take a deep breath, “I do,” you say solemnly. Titania smiles, “Then take this staff and rise, Queen Y/N, Queen of the Forests of Sighs, Bright Born Queen of Story and Song. Rise and to your duty go.” You take the staff and stand, walking down the steps to the exact center of the room. Power rushed through you, and when you step to the middle of the floor, the sigils set in the marble glow molten gold. Once, twice, three times you bang the end of the staff on the floor, hitting your knees, staff still in hand on the third strike.

Thor realizes then what that staff is. Much like his weapons, it is not the source of your powers. But unlike his weapons, it is not truly a weapon. It is a receptacle for the acquired knowledge of those who have come before you. As you kneel, golden incorporeal figments take shape. Hundreds of them filling the space beside you, around you and in front of you. On either side, the forms of your parents take shape, either one resting a hand on your shoulder. They look down at you, and your father’s figment brushes a kiss against your hair before you rise and the figures fade. There is a silence and then a jubilant cheer. The crowd parts for Thor, and he pulls you in for a long kiss drawing another cheer as he lets you lead him to the celebrations.

_________________________________________________________

It is a party to go down in history. Everywhere there is music and light and song. Embers of fires spiral towards the night sky and every stolen kiss burns your lips like strong drink. Thor does not leave your side. He coaxes you into eating bits of the dark bitter chocolate you love so much and keeps your wine glass full. He enjoys this almost as much as he enjoys you. It’s early morning and pink begins to streak the sky when Thor finally carries you to bed. You’re tipsy and sleepy as he undresses you for bed and he chuckles. “Well, my queen,” he murmured, “I had planned to make love to you, but I think that can wait until later today.” You pout prettily at him, and he nips your throat. “Your majesty really does need her rest,” he said, carefully unpinning your hair for you. He really does enjoy waiting on you this way. There’s an intimacy to it that he hasn’t felt before. He’s undressed women for a tumble in bed. He’s fussed over Jane Foster when she loved him. But this is different somehow. He likes anticipating your needs. He likes letting you be pampered and spoiled under his hands. As he pulls you into his arms and you cuddle up to his big soft belly, resting your head on it gently, you sigh, playing at pouting still. Thor only chuckles, “Later today is plenty soon enough for me to start a baby in you,” he teased. He feels your cheeks color rather than sees it, he simply knows it’s happening. “I love you,” you murmur sleepily, stretching and yawning. Thor smiles, his heart fluttering. With a political alliance, he thought he’d never hear those words. Only dutiful assurances of affection. Or at least fidelity. “I love you too, y/n,” he rumbles, rubbing your neck lightly, hoping to soothe you into sleep a little faster.

Truthfully, though he really does want children with you, until he’s in the moment, unleashing the full weight of his powers on you as he coaxes you into losing yourself to passion, he’s not in too big of a hurry to see you rounded out with his child. The thought makes his mouth water but... at three days into your marriage, you have time. As you drift off to sleep wine drunk and worn out from your day; Thor lets his own eyes close, satisfied for now that you are safe because he can feel you against him.

He wakes shortly after you and finds you luxuriating in a bath. Your eyes are half closed, and you’re leaning in the side of the tub with a book in your hands. Bubbles obscure most of your body, but Thor can already see the soft skin. He folds his arms and watches you for a moment, love all over his face. You turn the page and finally notice him, smiling slowly. “Come to keep me company?” you ask. “Have you been lonely, sweetheart?” he teases. “Very,” you reply, setting your book aside. “Well,” the king said, kissing your smiling lips, “ that simply won’t do.” He comes to you then, stepping into the warm water that seems to be flowing around him slowly, and settles back with a soft groan of contentment as you straddle his hips to be able to kiss him. Thor lets you fuss over him, enables you to rub soaps and oils over his skin. He stays still, murmuring encouragement. Gratified that he could coax you out of your shyness. He mutters to you quietly about how he lives to be touched and where promising to be putty in your hands if you use your tongue in specific ways. He puts your small hand around his shaft and murmurs in your ear all the ways he’d willingly let you torment him and all the ways you can use your mouth and your hands on him if you ever desire it.

Thor makes it clear that his enjoyment of your body is not contingent on you doing these things but that he’d enjoy them if you did them. He murmurs his lessons in your ear as he strokes your folds lightly with his fingertip. He praises you making soft noises for him, you’re the quietest lover he has ever had and just once he’d like to hear you screaming your pleasure. You can feel Thor, hard and heavy in your hands and you bite your lip in want. He chuckles, “So soon this day?” he teases. He knows full well what he’s doing to you. The things he’s made you imagine. He can feel how hot you’re burning for him and somehow knowing that he can just feel it makes you both shy and more eager to have him inside you. He kisses you and kneads your hips and ass with his fingers before leaning back slightly and smirking at you, ‘As my queen commands,” he said, pretending to heave a beleaguered sigh, “Work, work, work.” his grouse turns into a groan when you slide down on to him, and he swats your plump backside. The rest of it is a blur. He doesn’t hesitate to unleash his desires on you, driving you to orgasm while spurring you on to ride him and let him spill his seed for you. He does spend inside you and clutches you to his chest tenderly as he coddles you through the aftershocks. Thor sighs, contentedly and kisses your shoulder. He knows that as the weight of bringing to kingdoms together bears down on the two of you, sleepy mornings or afternoons making love will be rare, even so, he’s grateful for this afternoon.

This brief honeymoon where he can take care of you properly and not just thrust up your skirts and wrap your legs around him in an alcove when no one is watching though... That wasn’t the worst thought he had ever had. You feel him thinking, feel him harden again inside you slightly and look up at him in askance, smirking, “Again, my king?” you tease. Thor laughs, “And then one more for good measure, I think.” He pinches your hip and thrusts up into you, making you gasp breathlessly. “We have a kingdom in want of an heir, don’t we, my queen,” he rumbles, sucking a mark into your collar bone. “Yes, your majesty,” you reply, obediently. Thor’s hands turn to velvet on your skin, and the rest of it is a haze of passion and heat that brings surprise thunderstorms all over your kingdom, baffling the fey that are watching the Asgardians celebrate.

__________________________________________________

It isn’t until Thor is in the woods with you a few weeks later that he really longs to have that hazy golden afternoon back. You’ve been so busy trying to work out a way to unite the two kingdoms. Thor is little help, he’s a warrior. Not a diplomat. Not a mage. He knows strategy. He knows how to protect. The best he can do is follow you. Or, well. Try to.

You move through the trees like a ghost, running and bouncing from tree branch to tree trunk. You pause making a note here and there, but then you’re gone again, 50 yards away in any direction leaving Thor panting and grumpy on the ground. It’s like chasing a squirrel. He knows that even at his peak, he couldn’t keep up with you, you’re a blur of red hair and brown leather, staff in hand. Even knowing that he feels awkward and clumsy. You aren’t even sweating, and Thor feels like he’s been in battle. He watches you ruefully for a moment but even tired and irritable, when you light back on the ground, hair a mess and eyes bright and focused, he can’t stay irritable at you. You stop on a hill, slouching against a tree. So Thor ambles forward to catch up, “Sweetheart,” he pants, “I’m not exactly sure what we’re looking for.” He sits in the grass and watches you. You’re quiet, cutting an apple and removing the core. You hand Thor half before answering, “I need an enchanted Tree,” you say nodding to yourself. Thor takes the apple and chuckles.

“This is Faery,” he said, “Everything is enchanted.” You shake your head, “Not everything. Not the way you mean.” Thor takes a bite and nods, “What will we do with this tree when we find it,” he asks around his mouthful. “We’re going to build a bridge, a bridge between here and New Asgard.” you nod to yourself. Thor has more questions, but before he can ask you uneaten half of an apple is on the ground, and you are gone, up in the trees again. Barely a rustle tells him what direction you went. So he waits, munching on his half of an apple and making a mental note to make sure you ate something today.

Magic burned energy as did physical exertion. You needed to eat to do both. Thor didn’t have long to wait. You bounded back to his hill, grinning at him. He smiled and offered you water which you took before dispatching a small pixie to go and tell your craftsmen where to find the tree. With the pixie gone, it is the first time he’s gotten you alone aside from bedtime in days. You look tired, and Thor realizes the strain is probably wearing on you. More so than it is him. You’re learning how to run two kingdoms while he only had to acquire one. Yes, it’s true, he can run Asgard on his own, but you take your duties seriously. You do not intend to be an idle queen on either throne. You stretch, and Thor holds out his arms, where he sits against a tree, “We’ve got time, sweetheart, “ he coaxed, “They’ve got to get all the way out here anyway.” He smiles, and you can’t resist, you let him settle you on his lap. Thor can feel you relax and he chuckles, “That’s it, sweet girl. You’ve been running all day. You deserve a nap.” Despite the time of year, in your bright court kingdom, it is warm. A perfect late summer day. Under the canopy of trees and with your head on your husband’s shoulder, you drift off easily. It’s been a long week full of late nights with councils and early mornings. The time in his arms is a welcome respite.

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The Weekend Warrior February 21, 2020 – CALL OF THE WILD, BRAHMS: THE BOY II, THE IMPRACTICAL JOKERS MOVIE, EMMA and more!

After overestimating Birds of Prey… I mean, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey… it looks like I underestimated Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog… I mean Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik… with Sonic. It truly spanked my lowball prediction in the mid-$40 millions, but I wasn’t alone there at least. Hey, it’s a fun movie and my positive review wasn’t off-base with the critical world at large, so there’s that, too. (Apparently, I liked both Downhill and Fantasy Island more than most people, including CinemaScore voters who gave the movies a “D” and “C-“ respectively… ouch!)

This is likely to be another down week as neither of the two new movies are particularly strong, which gives me a chance to focus instead on this week’s FEATURED MOVIES! And we have four of ‘em this week, no less!

That’s right. I think it’s time I go back to my previous desire to use this column to focus on smaller movies that you may have missed since very few of the bigger outlets bother to cover them, and there’s a few worth pointing out this week. I’m gonna start with the two foreign films, because hopefully, you’ve listened to Bong Joon-ho and his translator and are not as fearful of subtitles…

First up, opening on Wednesday at New York’s Film Forumis Jan Komasa’s CORPUS CHRISTI (Film Movement), Poland’s selection for the Oscar International Feature category, which was actually nominated for an Oscar in the category in which everyone already knew Parasite was always gonna win! It’s a shame, cause this is a really amazing film with Bartosz Bielenia playing Daniel, a troubled youth just out of juvenile hall who steals the trappings and identity of the youth prison’s pastor and is therefore mistaken as an actual priest when he arrives at a small community village that has suffered a tragic loss. It’s an amazing film about faith and forgiveness and redemption, and how the script came to Komasa from screenwriter Mateusz Pacewic is an equally amazing story. Seriously, if you get a chance, definitely check this powerful drama out, since it’s another fantastic film from a country that has continually been delivering the goods in terms of original storytelling.

I was just going to do three featured movies this week, but a really good German thriller is finally hitting the States, opening at the Quad in New York Friday then in L.A. on March 13 before a nationwide rollout. Michael Bully Herbig’s incredibly suspenseful German thriller BALLOON (Distrib Films USA) is about two families from the GDR (aka East Germany) who try to cross over into West Germany in 1979 using a hot air balloon, over a decade before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Based on the actual events, their story previously was adapted into the Disney movie Night Crossing (which oddly, isn’t on Disney+ yet-- I checked, but it’s on Amazon Prime if you wanna compare the two movies). The movie doesn’t spend nearly as much time in the balloon as something like The Aeronauts, as the family’s first attempt fails miserably, so much of the film involves them working towards a second attempt, while trying not to be caught.

Balloon is a pretty heavy film (irony?), sometimes a little overwrought with drama but it keeps you on the edge of your seat as it cuts between the families trying to figure out their escape plan and the authorities trying to put together the clues to find these defectors. There’s a particularly amusing man in charge of the investigation, played by the always-amazing Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist), who is constantly berating his men, something that helps lighten the otherwise heavy tone that permeates the film. This is another fairly low-key foreign film that’s worth seeking out.

Another movie people should make an effort to seek out is Rashaad Ernesto Green’s PREMATURE (IFC Films), an amazing film that follows the relationship between two young people in Harlem over the course of a summer. We first meet Zora Howard’s Ayanna as she’s hanging with her friends kibitzing about boys, as they begin their last summer before Ayanna heads to college. Shortly after, she meets Josh Boone’s Isaiah, and the two hit it off. The rest of the film follows the ups and downs of their relationship including incredibly intimate moments that lead up to Ayanna getting pregnant.

I won’t go through the plot play-by-play style, because it’s interesting to discover the twist and turns in their relationship in a similar way as we do our own relationships. Needless to say Green has a pretty amazing partner and lead in Howard, who co-wrote the screenplay, which is probably why it feels so authentic and real. Sure, there are a few scenes between Howard and Boone, both fantastic actors, that feel a bit too showy dramatically but otherwise, it’s a fantastic second feature from Green who has mainly been directing TV since his earlier film Gun Hill Road. I’ll definitely be very curious to see what Green and Howard get up to next either alone or working together.

Opening in New York and L.A. this Friday but in theaters nationwide on March 6 is the latest incarnation of Jane Austen’s novel EMMA. (Focus Features), this time starring the wonderful Anya Taylor-Joy (from The VVitchand Split/Glass) as the title character, Emma Woodhouse, a 28-year-old matchmaker who prides herself on the relationships she’s put together even while unable to find her own mate. The film follows as the latter starts coming in the way of the former as she infiltrates herself into things as an “expert on love” who can’t find it herself.

Maybe it’s not surprising that I haven’t read much of Austen’s work and have missed this one altogether, never having seen any of the other iterations, but it’s a fairly wild and witty ride. Much of that is due to the amazing and wonderful cast around the young actor, the most surprising behind Mia Goth, who is in fact three years older than Taylor-Joy, but plays the younger wide-eyed Harriet who looks up to Emma and elicits her advice. Emma basically steers Harriet from the farmer she likes to Josh O’Connor’s Mr. Elton, the wealthy local vicar who is more than a little bit of a dark. This leads to a bit of a revolving door of who is interested in whom, etc especially when Emma’s nemesis Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) returns to Hartfield.

Some of the other men in the mix are Johnny Flynn’s dashing George Knightley – the brother-in-law to Emma’s sister – and Callum Turner’s wealthy Frank Churchill, whose attentions lead to more misunderstandings. Both were great but I was more impressed with O’Connor who transforms into a completely other person when Emma spurns his affections and seems like a different person from the way first-time features director (and photographer) Autumn de Wilde shoots him. Of course, Bill Nighy is as great as always as Emma’s father, always feeling a slight draft, but even more impressive is the wonderfully hilarious Miranda Hart (from Spy) as Miss Bates, a woman who gabs at length about how wonderful Jane Fairfax is, much to Emma’s annoyance. As much as Emma. is Anya Taylor-Joy’s show, it’s the ensemble cast around her that makes the movie so infinitely enjoyable, getting better as it goes along.

This is a very good first feature from de Wilde, who has directed quite a number of music videos for Beck, and Emma. seems very different from the movies we normally get from video directors, much of that to do with Austen’s source material and the cast. Either way, how things develop over the course of the film makes it more enjoyable as it goes along. (Although I have never read the book, the film seems fairly faithful to the book’s Wikipedia page, so Austen fans should enjoy it, too.)

I guess we can now get to the wide and semi-wide releases and the rest of the movies – merging my two columns into one means you get more 5,000-word columns, you lucky ducks!

The higher-profile of the two new wide releases is probably CALL OF THE WILD (20thCentury Studios), a PG adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel starring Harrison Ford and the most adorable CG dog (i.e. not real, so back off PETA!) you’ve ever met named Buck! Sure, dog lovers might say, “Why would we want to watch a movie with a CG dog when clearly, a movie with actors in green suits turned into dogs using CG would suffice?” But no, it’s actually a very heavily CG movie directed by Chris Sanders, who directed Lilo & Sitch, the first How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods before giving a go at live action. (Sanders also provided quite a few voices in earlier animated films like Disney’s Mulan and Tarzan.)

A film that already was well into production when Disney bought Fox (now 20thCentury Studios), Call of the Wild also stars Omar Sy (returning for next year’s “Jurassic World” finale), Karen Gillan, Dan Stevens, Bradley Whitford but the real star of the movie is the dog Buck, which is performed by the immensely talented Terry Notary, who you’ll know for his work on the “Apes” movies with Andy Serkis, Kong: Skull Island and some of the characters in the last couple “Avengers” movies.

Of course, opening the weekend after Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog, which has turned out to be a bigger hit than anyone imagined, certainly won’t help The Call of the Wild.

In many ways, this reminds me of the 2002 Disney movie Snow Dogs, which opened with $17.8 million over the 4-day MLK weekend. The combination of Ford (who appears in very few movies) and the adorable dog antics might be enough for the movie to make $15 to 17 million this weekend, maybe a little more, although it only has two weeks to do business before Disney’s next Pixar movie, Onward, takes over, not giving it much time to make bank.

Mini-Review: It’s pretty evident that this exceedingly faithful take on Jack London’s book will not be for everyone. While I personally was mixed, I expect this to be one of the rare positive reviews just ‘cause. Surprisingly, it’s also the most “Disneyfied” movie that could possibly come from the newly-renamed 21stCentury Studios as it’s a movie clearly made for kids and animal lovers even if never the ‘twain shall meet, in some cases.

The story follows a large St. Bernard named Buck (portrayed by Terry Notary – but we’ll get back to that), who begins his life as the spoiled and pampered pet of a wealthy judge in California but is sold to a man who trains Buck with his club sending the dog on a wild journey across the Yukon as part of a dog sled for a pair of Canadian postal workers (played by Omar Sy and Cara Gee from “The Expanse”). Eventually, he’s paired with an alcoholic frontiersman (Harrison Ford) and he finds true love, as the two of them go off looking (and finding) gold.

Some might be surprised that director Chris Sanders (who has an extensive animation background) decided to go for straight-up CG when depicting the animals and some of the environments in Call of the Wild. In fact, it feels almost necessary to make Buck as expressive as he needs to be to carry this film, and that’s where Terry Notary (Andy Serkis’ partner-in-performance-capture from the “Apes” movies) and the CG team comes in handy. Buck is already lovable but being able to make him so expressive doesn’t hurt, and the scenes where he’s interacting with other animals are pretty amazing.

We do have to discuss the negatives, and one of them is the episodic nature of Buck’s story that means that Harrison Ford, other than the narration and a brief appearance, doesn’t play a large part in Buck’s story until about the 45-minute mark. I didn’t think much of the performances by Sy and Gee or Dan Steven and Karen Gillan as the spoiled rich people who buy Buck to drive their dog sled off to find gold. Buck’s experiences as part of the first dog sled is far more positive even though it’s rigorous and it puts him at odd with the dog pack leader. The problem is that most of the human actors don’t come close to delivering what Notary does as Buck, the exception being Ford, but it’s still one of those odd CG-live action amalgations that doesn’t always work.

If you’re fond of Jack London’s Arctic adventures (as I generally am), Call of the Wild offers as much good as it does bad, but it’s worthwhile more for the amazing vistas and terrific use of CG (and Terry Notary’s performance as Buck) than anything else.

Rating: 6.5/10

I won’t have a chance to see the horror sequel BRAHMS: THE BOY II (STXfilms), but I never got around to seeing the first movie either, although this one, starring Katie Holmes, does look kind of fun. 2020 has not been a great year for horror so far with almost a new horror every weekend and few doing particularly well – The Grudge tops the heap with just $21 million and that opened almost two months ago!

I really don’t have a lot to say about this other than the fact that the original The Boy(not to be confused with The Boy, The Boy or The Boy, which are also movies about a different “Boy”), also directed by William Brent Bell, opened in January 2016 to $10.8 million on its way to $35.8 million domestic but it also opened at a time when there were no strong horror films in theaters. Some could argue that there are still no strong horror films in theaters, especially since so many of them quickly lost theaters after bombing. Still, there have been a lot this year already and the most recent one, Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island underperformed this past weekend, so why would anyone want more?

STXfilms’ marketing has been solid even as this moved from its December release to now, but I still think it will be tough for this to make more than $10 million this weekend and probably will end up closer to $8 million or less.

Opening in limited release but also sure to be exciting to the fans of the TruTV hidden camera prank show is IMPRACTICAL JOKERS: THE MOVIE, which brings the hilarious Tenderloins comedy troop – Q, Murr, Sal and Joe -- to the big screen as they go off on a cross-country adventure to attend a party in Florida, playing their usual prank-filled games to see which three get to attend. At this writing, I have no idea how many theaters it’s opening – I’m assuming 150 to 200 maybe? – so no idea how it might do although there are already some sold out showings in my general area (NYC) where the guys are from.

Mini-Review: It feels like there need to be two reviews for this movie – one for those who already know and love the show and find the Tenderloins hysterical (this includes me) —and then one for everyone else. The former can probably skip the next paragraph.

The Tenderloins are a group of four Staten Island friends (names above) whose antics led to a successful TruTV hidden camera show where they pull pranks and challenge each other to say and do whatever they’re told. The show has run eight seasons, and it’s made the Tenderloins such big stars they regularly sell out enormous venues (like Radio City Music Hall) to perform live for their fans. Considering the success Johnny Knoxville’s “Jackass” show has had in movie theaters where it can take advantage of an R-rating, there’s little reason why the “Impractical Jokers” shouldn’t be able to do the same. (For some context, I watched this movie with a theater full of the group’s friends, crew as well as Q’s firehouse buddies, in other words, 75% of Staten Island.)

The movie, directed by Chris Henchy, long time McKay and Ferrell collaborator – the film is presented by their “Funny or Die” brand –opens with one of a number of scripted/staged scenes to frame the road trip the Tenderloins to attend a party in Miami being held by Paula Abdul. Since they only have three passes, they need to compete in their usual challenges to determine who misses out.

If you are a fan of the show, I’m not going to spoil any of the challenges or pranks they plan on each other, but they generally get better and funnier as the movie goes along, to the point that when it returns to the “story” and the scripted stuff, the movie does falter a little. Although the Tenderloins aren’t the greatest actors, they are great improvisers and you can tell when they’re coming up with lines by the seat of their pants.

The majority of the movie is basically what we see on the show without all of the commercial breaks cutting in just as things start to get outrageous, and as someone who watches more of the show than I probably should admit, I find it hard to believe no one watching the movie will at least get one good snicker out of the movie. There are a few recurring gags throughout the movie as well as a follow-up to a memorable punishment from an earlier season. (Like with the show, you’re likely to feel bad for Murr and Sal, the nicer half of the group who always get the most abuse because of it.)

If you’re already a fan of the Impractical Jokers, you’ll probably like the movie, but if not, you might not get it and there’s just no real use trying. In other words, not a great intro to the “Impractical Jokers” but a fine bit of fun for the already-converted.

Rating: 6.5/10

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (Paramount) - $29 million -50% (up $1.5 million)**

2. Call of the Wild (20th Century) - $17 million N/A (up .3 million)** 3. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (Warner Bros) - $9 million -48%

4. Brahms: The Boy II (STXfilms) - $7 million N/A (down .6 million)**

5. Bad Boys for Life (Sony) - $6 million -48% (down .1 million)**

6. The Photograph (Universal) – $5.5 million -55% (down .6 million)**

7. Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island (Sony) - $5.3 million -57%

8. 1917 (Universal) - $5 million -38%

9. Parasite (NEON) - $3.6 million -35%

10. Jumanji: The Next Level (Sony) - $3.3 million -42%

-- The Impractical Jokers Movie (TruTV) - $1.8 million*

-- Las Pildoras de mi Novio (Pantelion/Lionsgate) - $1.3 million*

* These last two projections are made without much info on either movie, including theater counts for the former.

**A few minor tweaks as we go into weekends with actual theater counts, although this weekend will still mostly be about Sonic the Hedgehog. I still don’t have any theater counts for Impractical Jokers on Thursday night so I guess we’ll just have to see if the theaters playing it report to Rentrak and it gets some sort of placement, presumably outside the top 10, on Sunday.

LIMITED RELEASES

There are lots of other new limited releases this weekend beyond the ones I mentioned above.

On Wednesday night, Fathom Events is releasing Masaaki Yuasa’s new movie RIDE YOUR WAVE (GKIDS) across the nation for one night only in some places, although it will get a limited release on Friday at New York’s Village East and maybe other places, as well. If you’ve seen any of Yuasa’s other films like 2017’s The Night is Short, Walk on Girl or Lu Over the Wall or Mind Game, then you can probably expect this to be another wild ride, except this time it’s on a surfboard. It follows the story of a surfer and a firefighter who fall in love. You can learn more about how to get tickets here.

Like Portrait of a Lady on Fire last week, Una director Benedict Andrews’ SEBERG (Amazon) received a one-week release in 2019 but it’s getting a legit limited release this Friday. It stars Kristen Stewart as French New Wave icon Jean Seberg who came to the States in the late ‘60s and began a relationship with civil rights leader Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), putting her in the sights of the FBI who were hoping to use her to bust the Black Panthers. The film also stars Jack O’Connell, Margaret Qualley, Vince Vaughn, and Stephen Root, and it’s a pretty solid historical drama, although I haven’t seen it so long I’m not sure I can say much more about that.

I was never a huge fan of Bob Dylan or the Band but I found Daniel Roher’s doc ONCE WERE BROTHERS: ROBBIE ROBERTSON AND THE BAND (Magnolia) (about the latter) to be quite compelling as the story is told by various people who were there, including the film’s exec. producer Martin Scorsese who directed the band’s legendary concert film The Last Waltz. This is also produced by Ron Howard and Brian SGrazer of Imagine, so you know it’s gonna be a quality music doc, and it certainly is, although I’m not sure it will be of that much interest to people who aren’t already fans of The Band.

Opening in roughly 350 theaters this weekend is LAS PILDORAS DE MI NOVIO (Pantelion), translated as “My Boyfriend’s Meds,” a comedy about a woman (Sandra Echeverria) who falls for a mattress store owner who suffers from multiple personality disorder and when they go on vacation… he forgets to bring along his meds! Humor abounds. As usual, this won’t screen in advance for critics.

Tye Sheridan stars with Knives Out’s Ana De Armas in Michael Cristofer’s thriller The Night Clerk (Saban Films), Sheridan plays a hotel clerk with Asperger’s Syndrome who witnesses a murder in one of the rooms but ends up as the main suspect by the lead detective, played by John Leguizamo. The film also stars Helen Hunt and it will be released in select theaters (including New York’s Cinema Village), on demand and digitally this Friday. Just couldn’t into this one, having at least one good friend with Asperger’s, due to the way Sheridan played this often-debilitating disease. (Think Rain Man without the talent of Dustin Hoffman.)

Opening exclusively at theMetrographFriday with an expansion on March 3 is Portugese filmmaker Bruno de Almeida’s Cabaret Maxime (Giant Pictures), starring Michael Imperioli as Bennie Gaza, the owner and manager of the title nightclub specializing in a mix of burlesque, striptease, music and comedy. Bennie is fairly old-fashioned so when a modern day (translation: trashy and demeaning to women) strip club opens across the way, Bennie finds himself pressure to make changes to stay in line as he starts getting pressure from his mobster financer to change. I was kinda mixed on this movie, which delivers another typically great performance from Imperioli but the way it cuts between various acts and disparate scenes that do very little to move the story forward (including the far-more-interesting subplot about Bennie’s wife Stella, a performer suffering from depression, as played by the amazing Ana Padrão). I think one of the reasons I just couldn’t get into the movie is cause a friend of mine attempted a similar film based out of a nightclub and the film never got much traction. De Almeida should have paid more attention developing the storytelling than showing off his talented musical singing/dancing friends.

A second Portugese filmmaker, Pedro Costa, also releases a new film this week. Vitalina Varela (Grasshopper Film) will open at New York’s Film at Lincoln Center on Friday. The title of the film is also the name of the non-actor who returns from Costa’s Horse Moneyto play a woman from Cape Verdean who comes to Fontainhas for her estranged husband’s funeral and sets up a new life there.

Also opening at the Quad Friday is the latest from the Dardenne Brothers, Young Ahmed (Kino Lorber) about a 13-year-old (Idir ben Addi) who has come under the grips of radical jihadism in his Belgian town, putting him at odds with various factions. When he carries out an act of violence, he ends up in a juvenile detention facility. The Dardennes won the Best Director award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where their films have been honored with the Palme d’Or twice. I’ve never been much of a fan but what do I know?

Opening at the IFC Center Wednesday is Nicolas Champeaux, Gilles Porte’s documentary The State Against Mandela and the Others, which is built around recently recovered audio recordings of the 1963-4 Rivona trial in which Nelson Mandela and eight others faced death sentences for challenging Apartheid. The film mixes animation showing the trails with contemporary interviews with the survivors including Winnie Mandela, about their fight against the country’s corrupt system.

Another doc I know little about is Andrew Goldberg’s Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations, which will open at the Village East Friday but it includes the likes of Julianna Margulies, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton as anti-semitism rears its ugly head over 70 years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust.

Also opening at Cinema Village is Matt Ratner’s Standing Up, Falling Down (Shout! Studios) starring Billy Crystal and Ben Schwartz (the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog!), the latter playing a stand-up comic whose L.A. dreams have crashed and burned leaving him with little money, forcing him to return to Long Island. Once there, he pines over his ex (Eloise Mumford) and becomes friends with an eccentric dermatologist (Crystal) as they help each other deal with their respective failures.

Playing at the Roxy for a one-week run starting Friday is Sam De Jong’s Goldie (Film Movement), starring actress/model Slick Woods as the title character, a teenager in a family shelter pursuing her dreams of being a dancer while trying to keep her sisters together. This premiered at the Tribeca Film Festivallast year.

Oscilloscope (the distributor that brought you the cat doc Kedi) is doing something called “Cat Video Fest 2020,” which will take place at the Alamo in Brooklyn (although the Saturday screening is sold out there) and the Village East Cinema. This screening of pre-selected cat videos is also taking place at other cities throughout the country, and you can find out where right here.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

This Friday, the Metrograph will debut its newest series “Climate Crisis Parabels,” a series of varied future shock films, this weekend with Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably (1977), Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke (1999) (hosted by Naomi Klein Sunday afternoon, but also playing as part of the Playtime Family Matinees”) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cu ton Sunday night. “To Hong Kong with Love” also continues with screenings of Stanley Kwan’s Rouge (1987) and the 2016 film Raise the Umbrellas. The ongoing Welcome To Metrograph: Redux also continues with HarunFarocki’sdocumentary Before Your Eyes: Vietnam (1981). This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is another Japanese thriller, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1966 thriller The Face of Another, and the Metrograph’s Japanese love continues as Playtime: Family Matinees will also show Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke from 1999.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” is Ken Russell’s 1987 film Gothic, and this week’s “Kids Camp” offering is the 2006 animated Curious George with a special “pick your own price.” In preparation for the release of Emma. On Friday, the Alamo is doing a “Champagne Cinema” screening of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley, which unfortunately, is sold out already. (Waugh Waugh) Monday’s “Out of Tune” is the Prince film Under the Cherry Moon from 1986, which is also sold out. (Hey, Jeremy Wein, why don’t you tell me these things are going on sale so I can go!?!) Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is the horror classic Candyman (1992), which is ALSO almost sold out and then we’re back to “Weird Wednesday” with next week’s offering, 1985’s soft-core actioneer Gwendoline.

If you’re one of those poor souls living in L.A., you can also go to see Don Coscarelli’s 2002 film Bubba Ho-Tep, starring Bruce Campbell, on Wednesday night or the 1986 Little Shop of Horrors on Thursday at the grand, new(ish) Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown Los Angeles. Saturday afternoon is a matinee of Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (1998), starring George Clooney and J-Lo and Saturday night, you can see Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), starring Seymour Cassel and Gena Rowlands. Monday night is Juliet Bashore’s 1986 Kamikaze Hearts, which looked into the X-rated SF underground of the ‘80s. The West Coast “Terror Tuesday” is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring Keanu Reeves, Gary Oldman and Winona Rider!

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Wednesday’s afternoon matinee is the classical musical The Sound of Music (1965) and then Weds and Thurs night’s double feature is Robert Redford’sThe Hot Rock (1972) and Cops and Robber (1973). Friday’s matinee is the late Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983) and then the Tarantino-pennedTrue Romance (1993, also directed by Scott), will play Friday midnight and Saturday’s midnight movie is the 1967 film Carmen, Baby. This weekend’s Kiddee Mattine is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Monday’s matinee is Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) and the Monday night double feature is A Man for All Seasons(1966) and The Mission (1986). Tuesday’s Grindhouse double feature is 1980’s Super Fuzz and 1977’s Death Promise, both in 35mm, of course.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Weds’ “Black Voices” movie is William Greaves’ 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, and then on Friday night in the Spielberg Theater, you can see the 1913 film Traffic in Souls with live music as well as a couple shorts. The Japanese horror film Kwaidan(1965) will play in the normal theater. On Saturday, the Egyptian is presenting “Leigh Whannell’s Thrill-A-thon” a series of four films that helped to inspire Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, which comes out next week with some great options worth seeing, including 1987’s Fatal Attraction, David Fincher’s 2014 film Gone Girl, Rob Reiner’s Stephen King adaptation Misery(1990) and the classic Aussie thriller Dead Calm(1989) starring Nicole Kidman … all for just 15 bucks!

AERO (LA):

The AERO’s “Black Voices” film for Weds. is the great Stir Crazy, starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and then on Thursday afternoon, you can see Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classicDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb for $8 (free to Cinemateque members!) New restoration of the Russian film Come and See (also opening at the Film Forum in New York) will play on Saturday evening as part of the “Antiwar Cinema” series. Sunday’s double feature in that series is Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) and the Russian film The Ascent (1977). Tuesday’s “Black Voices” matinee is Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) and then Greg Proops will screen the 1996 film Ridicule as part of his Film Club podcast which precedes the film.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Jack Lemmon continues through the end of the month with Mister Roberts (1955) on Weds., Billly Wilder’s Avanti (1972) and the classic (and one of my all-time faves) Some Like it Hot (1959) on Friday. This weekend also sees movies in the continuing “Theater of Operations” series, which will include Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker (2009) on Saturday afternoon and a bunch of docs including Werner Herzog’s 1992 film Lessons of Darkness on Sunday. Weds also kicks off “Television Movies: Big Pictures on the Small Screen” – pretty self-explanatory, I think – with 1953’s The Trip to Bountiful and 1955’s Tosca on Weds. and Sunday, 1967’s Present Laughter Thursday and Tuesday and more. (Click on the link for full schedule!) Following Film Forum’s focus on black actresses (for February, Black History Month, get it?) MOMA begins a “It’s All in Me: Black Heroines” series with All By Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story and Julie Dash’s Illusions, both from 1982, on Thursday and many more running through March 5.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (NYC):

The Anthology still has a few more films in its “Devil Probably: A Century of Satanic Panic” including Eric Weston’s Evilspeak (1981) tonight in 35mm, but also David Van Taylor will be at tonight’s screening of his 1991 film Dream Deceivers. I’ve never seen either of these, by the way. Robert Eggers’ The VVitch and Alan Parker’s Angel Heart screen one more time on Thursday night, as well. This weekend also begins a new series, “Dream Dance: The Films of Ed Emshwiller” but since I have no idea who that is, I have nothing further to add. (Sorry!)

NITEHAWK CINEMA (NYC):

Williamsburgis showing David Lynch’s 1990 film Wild at Heart as part of its “Uncaged” series on Friday just after midnight and John Singleton’s Poetic Justice on Saturday morning as part of “California Love.” They’re also showing Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride on Saturday morning for an “All-Ages Brunch Movie.”

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Elem Klimov’s 1985 Russian drama Come and See (Janus) will have a DCP restoration premiere at the Forum and Sunday afternoon will be a screening of the 1953 Mexican film El Corazon y La Espada in 3D. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is the 1953 pseudo-doc Little Fugitive. Monday night is a screening of David Rich’s Madame X (1966) introduced by actor/playwright Charles Busch.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This weekend’s Weekend Classics: Luis Buñuel is the Mexican film The Exterminating Angel (1962), while Waverly Midnights: Hindsight is 2020s will screen Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Mnemonic and Late Night Favorites: Winter 2020is taking a surprising weekend off.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Still waiting to see if Pandora and the Flying Dutchman continues through the weekend, as at this time (Monday), there is nothing repertory listed.

BAM CINEMATEK(NYC):

Horace Jenkins’ Cane River continues through Friday. Saturday night’s “Beyond the Canon” is a double feature of Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker(1953) and Malick’s Badlands (1973).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend’s “See It Big! Outer Space” offerings include1974’s Space is the Placeon Friday and 1924’s Aelita, Queen of Mars and the 1980 Flash Gordonscreening on Saturday and Sunday. As usual, 2001: A Space Odysseywill screen on Saturday afternoon as part of the ongoing exhibition.

ROXY CINEMA(NYC)

Weds’ Nicolas Cage movie is Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999) and then Thursday is a 35mm screening of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)!

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday’s midnight movie is Who Killed Roger Rabbit (1988).

STREAMING AND CABLE

Let’s see what’s going on in the world of streaming this week, shall we?

Netflix is debuting Dee (Mudbound) Rees’ new movie THE LAST THING HE WANTED on the streaming service Friday, even though apparently, it opened in select cities last week, including New York’s Paris Theater, although it got such terrible reviewsout of Sundance, maybe Netflix didn’t want any more bad reviews before it begins streaming. Regardless, it stars Anne Hathaway, Willem Dafoe, Ben Affleck and Rosie Perez, and it’s based on Joan Didion’s novel about a D.C. journalist named Elena (Hathaway) who abandons her work on the 1984 campaign trail to run an errand for her father (Dafoe). I guess I’ll watch it when it’s on Netflix just like everyone else but my expectations have been suitably lowered.

The Jordan Peele-produced series “Hunters,” starring Al Pacino, which is about a group of Nazi hunters will hit Amazon Prime this Friday as well, and a new season of the popular series“Star Wars: The Clone Wars” will debut on Friday on Disney+, adding to the amazing amount of content already available on that network.

Next week, Saw and Insidious co-creator Leigh Whannell revamps The Invisible Man for Universal with Elisabeth Moss, and there’s also (supposedly) a movie call The Ride, which I know nothing about. You can guess which movie I’ll be focusing on.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or send me a note on Twitter. I love hearing from readers!

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