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only-shadows-dwell-where-we-are · 2 years ago

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Vivisection - Operation Valkyrie (Part 5)

MASTERLIST - PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4

MORE INTENSE AND GORY LAB WHUMP LET'S GO

CWs: female whumpee (not sexual), female whumper, dehumanisation, vivisection, human experimentation/lab rat, mild gore, noncon surgery, syringes/needles, sedation, noncon drugging, IV bag, Central Venous Line

Valkyrie was taken to a new cell, after they took various more blood and other samples from her. In this new cell, the wall that faced the hallway was made of a see-through, bullet-proof material. She was told this by the guards, who grinned viciously as they locked the door behind them. She sank down to the floor, and pressed her palms against the glass-like wall. She could see her reflection, and it was not a pretty sight. Her face was pale and gaunt, and her eyes looked sunken, with deep dark circles beneath them. Her once golden hair was dull and greasy, and it hang in limp strands and braids around her face. Bloodstains, cuts and scratches marked her face. She looked like something out of a horror movie. But to her relief, there was a shower in this cell, and a clean white hospital gown. She was about to get to cleaning herself off, when she noticed movement in a cell across the hall.

Another subject, on their knees, with their face pressed against the wall. Their warm undertone face was pale from exhaustion and fear, and they had a shaved head, though a few dark curls were starting to grow back. Their mono-lid eyes were a beautiful dark brown that mesmerised Valkyrie. She waved at them across the hall, and they slowly turned their head, and waved back.

:readmore

“Hi.” She called out.

“Sh..” They murmured, holding a finger to their pale, chapped lips.

“Sorry. My name is Valkyrie. What’s yours?”

“0399.” The other subject replied in an American accent. "I like your accent. British right?"

“Yeah, I was born and raised in England and moved to America wh..." Valkyrie trailed off. "But that’s not a name. That’s a number.” She frowned.

“We are only numbers here. We belong to them now.”

“No, fuck that. I can’t stop them, but that doesn’t mean I have to like how they treat me.”

“What you want doesn’t matter anymore. What you like. How you feel. If you want your suffering to be mininal, you do as they say. Obey them. Or they’ll make you regret it.”

Valkyrie’s stomach twisted. “But we’re human beings.”

“That was no longer true the moment we stepped foot in this place.” Subject 0399 replied.

“I refuse to believe that. This is definitely illegal, and like, in the Constitution or Human Rights Declaration or something. There’s no way they can get away with this.”

“They already have gotten away with it.”

“Fuck this. I’m getting out. If you’ve got any shred of common sense left, you’ll come with me.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Then, the other subject fell silent.

Valkyrie turned her back, shaking her head. She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the small shower cubicle, letting the hot water run over her skin. It stung her cuts, but she didn’t care. It felt like heaven to finally scrub off the layers of dirt. She carefully washed her body and hair, avoiding the device in her neck. She grabbed the tower from the shelf, and then dryed herself off, reluctantly slipping in to the hospital gown.

She was about to flop onto thd bed, when she suddenly heard 0399 speak again.

“You’ll learn soon enough. No one’s coming to help us.”

----------------------------------------------------

Valkyrie was subject to many more experiments as the days went on, and slowly every moment began to blur together. It was just a wash of pain and exhaustion and building frustration. They took increasingly large amounts of her blood through the Central Venous Line: the small implanted device in her neck. She was positive that the blood loss wasn’t helping with the exhaustion. She was beginning to waste away now from the lack of food, blood, and exercise. Each day, as she looked in the mirror, she began to recognise the face that stared back at her less and less. She tried to hold onto hope, memorising each hallway and what lay behind each door. Looking for a new chance to escape at every turn. If she could find that chance, then she might just be able to find a way out. But on the outside, she made it look as though she had given in. She reluctantly allowed them to proke and prod to their hearts’ content. She didn’t fight back any longer. But that determination to act compliant was challenged the next time they came to drag her from her cell.

The door in the glass wall slid open, allowing the two guards to enter the room, wheeling a gurney between them. They placed the gurney in the centre of the room, and the door slid shut. They gestured towards the gurney, and Valkyrie obediently lay on top of it. The magnetic restraints activated, and the remaining strap restraints held the rest of her body down. They wheeled her out of the room and down the hall. She lay still as they rolled her along, her gaze darting furtively from side to side to examine the layout of the building. She suspected they were taking her to another series of blood tests, but she realised she was wrong when they arrived in front of a door that read ‘Operating Theatre 10’.

She swallowed her protests. She could behave. She was wheeled into the bustling theatre, where Doctor Clarke and the other scientists were putting on gowns, gloves and masks. Valkyrie was lifted off the gurney and onto the illuminated operating table, where she was restrained once more. Doctor Clarke seemed particularly frantic. One scientist began attaching Valkyrie’s Central Venous Line to various tubes and bags of fluid. Doctor Clarke watched him like a hawk, harrying him all the while about being quick and precise.

“This has to go perfectly!” She snapped at him when he accidentally elbowed another scientist in his frenzy.

“Y- yes, Doctor Clarke.” He trembled as he spoke.

“We have lots to do today and the Director will be here any minute. Hurry!” Doctor Clarke snapped.

Director? Valkyrie wondered. The Director of the Facility?

A scientist rushed out of the room, then reappeared in a small adjoining room with a window in the wall of the operating theatre that Valkyrie hadn’t even noticed. She could see the scientist go to the door of the small room and hold it open so that a tall woman could enter. She strode in tall red stilettos to the viewing window, clad in a beautiful black and white striped jumpsuit. Her long black hair was pulled into a flawlessly smooth bun which accentuated her sharp cheekbones. Her stunning makeup was finished off with a bright red lip. She looked straight out of a Vogue magazine. Hardly the kind of person you would expect to see in a laboratory.

The scientist in the viewing room pressed a button on the table and spoke into the microphone which allowed them to be heard from the operating theatre. “Doctor Cheronobog would now like you to begin.”

“Alright. Proceed.” Doctor Clarke proclaimed.

The scientists rushed to dim the large lights so that the few sources of light were the surgery-grade lights and from the surgery equipment. Valkyrie watched in increasing anxiety as the scientists began laying out blue surgical drapes across her body. She lay flat, staring at the ceiling, attempting to see past her narrow field of vision that she could thank the restraint around her neck for.

Her heart thump, thump, THUMPed in her chest. Her stomach flipped over and over again.

“Begin the procedure.”

The scientists leaned in close, wearing their large magnififying glasses that made them look like predatory bugs ready to feast on their prey. They hungrily dove into their meal.

She saw the glint of the scalpel, and she panicked. Thrashing against her restraints, she let out a terrified, animalistic scream. “STOP!”

“SHUT IT UP!”

There was a sharp prick in her thigh. She looked up to see Doctor Clarke emptying a syringe into her muscle.

“No…” She gasped.

Her limbs fell slack as the syringe was withdrawn. Everything ached, like she’d just run a marathon. Her body slumped back into the restraints without her permission. There was no chance of escape. As she lay flat on the operating table, unable to move, a single tear rolled down her cheek. Valkyrie, at first, only saw the blood as the scalpel touched her skin, then was dragged across her bare flesh. That was when she felt the pain; as the beads of blood began to bubble to the surface. As the scientists pried open the flaps of flesh and pinned them open to reveal her organs. She wanted to scream. She was able to let out a low grunt of pain, but that was all she could express. Her brain was still processing. It was sensory overload, and not being able to move away made it all the more terrifying.

Excruciating pain. Pure terror. Hopelessness. Hot pain. Cold scalpel. Cold metal table. Tingling alcohol wipes. Sharp needle jabs. Tiny tubes. Her stomach flipped again. There was more blood. It drenched the surgical drapes. Medical tongs holding sponges and bandages dabbed at the blood to soak it up. A second line of fire spread across her body as they made another incision. Headache. Was that her screaming? Or someone else? Doctor Clarke’s mouth was moving under her mask. No sound. Sharp pinch. Blood boiling to the surface. Organs. Naseua. Why was the room fogging up? Oh. Oxygen mask. Flames. Cold flames. Smell of cleaning products. Laughing. Who was laughing? More blood. Then darkness.

----------------------------------------------------

When Valkyrie opened her eyes, all she felt was pain. She propped up with a pillow underneath her. She was pinned in place. She looked down at herself to see bandages soaked with blood, tubes in her arms and neck. She was back in the cell with the large glass wall. Likely not real glass - it would be too easy for her to escape, then. She tried to lift her head, and found herself still frozen in place. She wouldn’t be able to escape in this state, even if she wanted to.

Given the atrocities she had just undergone, she wanted to, all right. She was done obeying commands, done letting them torture her. It was time to fight back.

She would just have to wait for the opportunity to arise.

~~~

PART 6 (coming soon)

Taglist:

@whumppsychology @inky-whump @whumpnoire

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darling-in-wonderland · 2 years ago

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Where we last left off in Part 3, the gang now has a magic carpet, a banged up but bandaged octopus, and one (1) angry gamer covered in perfume downstairs. Their current goal? To get a sample of the virus to craft a cure in the laboratories of Pomefiore.

CW: standard horror movie ones (tension, violence, being hunted, etc), swearing, death mention, anxiety/panic attack mention, lots of blood, virus that makes people violent. Viewer discretion is advised.

Kill Your Darlings

(Part 4)

I stand at the door, knife in hand, the school's resident mob boss and everyone's favorite robot standing off my shoulders. It's stabbin' time.

Idia, sweetie, I'm sorry, but it's for science so you'll understand.

I'm ready for anything that could come our way.

"Okay gang, let's go."

I move the chair back to where i found it in the room just as Idia kicks the door off its hinges.

He starts to growl, "There you are, Azul! And Ortho, too. How wonderful.”

“H-hi, Idia,” Azul stutters, eyes wide.

“You don’t appear to be at the club meeting today,” Idia rasps menacingly. “That’s not very poggers of you.”

“You aren’t at the club meeting either,” I speak up without thinking.

He hones in on me, eyes bloodshot and filled with rage.

He bares his fangs and roars, “So that’s where y-”

I shriek and throw the chair at him. He drops like a bag of rocks.

"Sorry, babe!"

"Darling!" Ortho cries.

"He startled me!" I defend myself. "And he was totally going to kill us."

"Darling does have a point here," Azul sides with me. Ortho rolls his eyes and gently collects the blood sample from his temporarily unconscious brother.

"Prepare the carpet!" I playfully order like I'm a pirate captain. While they do that, I rest a pillow under Idia's head and get a blanket to cover him, taking the time to gently move his now blue hair out of his face and place a tender kiss on his bruising temple.

The tension in his face melts away when he’s asleep. Based on what Ortho’s told me before, this is a rare site to see. Oh, what I’d give to lay down by his side!

"Darling!" Ortho calls to me. "We've got to go!"

"I'll be back with a cure, okay?" I whisper to the unconscious gamer as I grip my injured shoulder. "On this blood I swear it."

I open the window and join Ortho and Azul on the flying carpet. And off we go! We zip through the air back to the main building.

"So, what's the game plan looking like?" I ask Ortho as he pilots.

"Isolate the virus from the sample and then engineer something to kill it from there," he responds. "What that is will depend on what I find upon isolation."

"That makes sense."

I turn back to Azul who has been uncharacteristically quiet.

"Hey," I gently take his hand (the one not attached to the arm Floyd bit). "You okay?"

He takes one look at me before dissolving into sobs like Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water.

I give him hug, both for his sake and mine. He hugs back with his good arm.

He manages to spit out “Today sucks!” in between viscous sobs that hit some deep, forgotten part of my brain, like I’m remember the echo of another life I once led. Which reminds me of one of the most comforting things I could do.

I gently lay Azul down with his head on my lap. I guess this would work better if he didn’t have a heavy ass fish tank digging into my thighs, but hey, it’s not as bad and when Idia dug his nails into my shoulder or when Idia accidentally knocked me down a flight of stairs or even when I got hit in the face with a Spelldrive discus so I’d say I’m doing fine.

I let him hold my arm as I absentmindedly stroke the top of his tank with my other hand.

“It’ll all be over soon,” I try to comfort him. I’ve never been good at finding the right thing to say.

He looks up at me with magnified eyes full of tears, like a puppy begging for treats.

"Aw, don't give me that look," I pout playfully. "I'm not the magic one here."

Azul cracks a smile at that.

"All we have to do is wait for Ortho to formulate the cure, and then everything will be back to normal. Do we have a history test coming up?"

"I'm pretty sure," he responds after some time thinking. "We might be able to get Trein to delay it, though."

"Doubtful."

"Yeah," he sighs. "He's not really one to postpone tests."

"Knowing him, he'll blame us for the virus!" I laugh a bit at the thought.

"And the pressure will be on us big time since we weren't infected."

I do my best Trein impression, "While you were running away from all your bloodthirsty classmates you could have been reading over the study guide."

That manages to get a big laugh out of Azul, which makes me feel better. I beam bright enough to act as a beacon in Minecraft.

Ortho takes us through a more forested part of the external campus in an attempt to stealthily get us closer to a window that'll lead us straight to the hall of mirrors.

"Personne n'échappe à mon regard," suddenly wafts through the woods.

I tense up. Why do I suddenly feel so naked and exposed? Why did I immediately think of the color purple?

"Oh SHIT!" I yell as get my head down as low as possible. An arrow wizzes past right where my head once was. A second later and I would have been dead.

"What's going on back there?!" Ortho asks.

"We've got company!" I reply.

"Ya think it's Rook?" Azul asks, getting ready to magically blow him away.

"Oh, no doubt about it!"

We duck behind some cover to formulate a plan.

"We could fly really fast so that he can't hit us," Azul suggests.

"Too risky," I reply. "Too easy to fall off."

"Fly out of the woods?" Ortho pipes up.

"That's probably our smartest option. He's probably in a tree or something," I hypothesize. "Take us up and out, Ortho."

He launches us up above the trees. As he does, I hear, "Je vais faire un carton."

"Duck!" I yell as I hit the metaphorical deck. Ortho does too. Azul, on the other hand, is just a fraction too slow; an arrow lodges in the back of his tank.

"I've been hit!" he cries.

"Where?!"

"The tank! I'm losing water!"

"Ortho! How fast can you get us to Pomefiore?"

"Fast enough, I hope!" Ortho responds. "There should be tape in Pomefiore!"

"There better be!" Azul replies.

After a minute of fast and crazy flying, the tension in my shoulders finally releases.

"I think we lost them," Azul sighs, arrow still in the back of the tank.

I facepalm when he says that, just as our attacker (that we presume is Rook) cries out, "Rien ne peut plus m'arrêter!" as another arrow flies by. Azul ducks fast enough this time around.

I finally look to see our assailant. I was right. It was Rook. However, I wasn't expecting him to also be on a magic carpet piloted by Jamil.

"Hey Ortho! Ya know "Star Wars?'" I ask as panic rises.

"I know 'Star Rouge!'" he replies.

"Close enough! We're gonna need a ton more evasive maneuvers!"

"On it!" he takes tighter control. "Hang on guys! This ride's about to get a whole lot bumpier!"

As Ortho makes the tightest switchback turns I've ever seen flying transportation do (complete with some tactical aileron rolls), I turn to Azul.

"Think you can disrupt their fly patterns?"

"I mean," he gestures to the tourniquet, and his pen that is currently keeping it stable. "I can sure try."

"Bad, don't like those odds," I say as another arrow gets shot and Jamil cackles.

Something clicks for me. "Ortho!"

"Yeah, Darling?"

"Let me fly!"

"Don't let her fucking drive the carpet!" Jamil and Rook cry out in unison. I guess even while infected, they remembered the time I almost crashed the carpet flying it to the school store with them.

"I'm gonna trust you, Darling!" Ortho states as he passes me the reins.

"Bad call!" Azul cries out in fear.

Now it's my turn to cackle. "Now this is pod racing!"

I take messy, dirty twists and turns in the air. It almost feels like on a rollercoaster some madman built in Rollercoaster Tycoon. I don't think I've ever felt this alive.

"I think I'm gonna be airsick," Azul groans.

I hear Ortho blast off spell after spell. It looks like we might make it to the Hall of Mirrors when I suddenly hear the sound of fabric under extreme friction.

I quickly turn my head, horrified to see Jamil's sadistic right in front of me.

I hear Rook say, "Et voilà!" as Jamil cackles again.

"Shit!" I cry as I bank left and metaphorically put the pedal to the metal.

"If anyone's ruling this school, it sure as hell won't be you, Darling!" Jamil growls as I zip off again.

"Darling, I don't this carpet can go much faster!" Ortho informs me.

"It just needs to go faster than those two!" I cry back, eyes watering from the extreme wind.

"Darling?" Azul croaks.

"What is it buddy?"

"Rook grabbed the arrow in the back of my tank."

"Shit. How fast are we losing water?"

"Really fast!" Ortho answers, panicked.

“Well that’s not good!”

“Tell me about it!” Azul butts in, sloshing some water on me.

“Hang on tight, gang!” I warn them, not because the terrain is getting any more rough, but my capacity to care for their safety has now been cut off. They’re smart. They’ll hang on.

I execute flight tricks I’ve never even executed before in a game. Except Prey, sorta. It was zero grav, does it count? I mean, with my evasive maneuvers, I’m almost replicating the feeling of being out in space. And with arrows still zipping past my head, it almost feels like a Typhon’s on my tail.

“Brace for impact!” I yell as I shield my face before ramming straight through a massive fucking window, Rook and Jamil nowhere to be seen.

“Onward, sailors!” I beam, the light shining at the end of this dark day visible and within my reach as we enter the mirror. “To Pomefiore!”

To Be Continued...

#twisted wonderland #twst fanfic #twst oc #twst ortho #twst idia #twst azul #twst jamil #twst rook #horror #blood #kill your darlings

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mrsreinhart · 5 years ago

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Lili Reinhart Grows Up

The Riverdale actress plots her move to the big screen

Lili Reinhart almost didn’t sign on to co-star in Hustlers. The 23-year-old Riverdale star—Generation Z’s Blake Lively—was sent the script by her team, with the note that the director, Lorene Scafaria (The Meddler), wanted to meet with her. But Reinhart blanched when she saw the logline: “‘Strippers in New York drug and rob men on Wall Street.’ And I was immediately like, ‘Oooh, this is probably not the vibe that I want.’”

But after she conveyed that message to her team, they persisted. “They were like, Read the script. So I did, and it was obviously amazing.”

Reinhart feels pretty good about that decision now. Hustlers—which stars Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu, as well as Cardi B and Lizzo in small roles—promises to be the sort of buzzy, commercially successful film that seems almost too well constructed and well timed to be true for a young television star aiming to embark on a movie career.

The actress—who grew up in Cleveland before relocating to Los Angeles—plays a stripper named Annabelle in the film, which is based on a true story about a group of Scores dancers (depicted in a 2015 New York–magazine article by Jessica Pressler). Under the guidance of a de facto den mother (Lopez), the group decides to embark on a scheme to drug affluent men by employing a potion concocted out of MDMA and ketamine. Annabelle’s function is as a sort of bait—she meets the men at a bar and then her “sisters” (Lopez, Wu, Keke Palmer) show up to join them, and, well, things get murky (for the men) from there. Whatever the opposite of nerves of steel is, that’s what Annabelle’s afflicted with, as she—in a running gag—vomits whenever things get dicey or tense, which, as you can imagine, happens quite a bit.

One of the major draws of the film for Reinhart was getting to be a part of the stellar all-female ensemble, and she says she tried her best to see her very famous co-stars as, simply, co-workers. While she says she’s “definitely seen Monster-in-Law multiple times [and] definitely had ‘On the Floor’ on my iPod Nano,” she tried to view J. Lo as the movie-actor equivalent of the person one cubicle over. “I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I really am not star-struck very much unless it’s, like, Lady Gaga … or probably Meryl Streep.… I really try to not have any preconceived notions when I meet anybody. I truly just tried to look at Jennifer as my co-star who has had … an incredible career.”

Life After Graduation

Reinhart—who plays Betty Cooper on Riverdale, one of the CW’s biggest hits of the past five years—seems destined to follow the trajectory of a Michelle Williams or Lively before her, who went from playing the female lead in a very popular television show adored by teenagers to full-fledged movie star. Making that transition in the public eye is not necessarily without its stresses, though. Reinhart is extremely close with her Riverdale co-stars, and is dating Cole Sprouse, who plays her love interest on the show. Ask the nearest 16-year-old in your vicinity and you’ll undoubtedly get a lengthy discourse on the topic. But she sounds very excited for the career phase that will start after the series has ended.

In Hustlers, Lili Reinhart, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, and Constance Wu play strippers who drug and rob wealthy men.

“Oh, God, I think I could get in trouble if I answer that too honestly,” she says, laughing, when asked how she currently feels about working on Riverdale. “I think my heart is really in films. It’s really wonderful to have a steady job and to work with a group of people who are like my family. Truly. I see them all the time. We all live in the same city.”

She says she does appreciate that the show gives her new angles of Betty to play week to week. “Riverdale has so many twists and turns and offers us, unlike I think a lot of other shows, opportunities to do so many things.... One episode it feels like I’m in a horror movie and the next episode I’m in a drama, and the next episode I’m doing a period piece. It feels like you get a piece of everything and I think that’s really what helps keep it interesting.… I’m very lucky in that regard.”

With a starring role on a breakout CW show comes a massive social-media fan base, and Reinhart now has a cool 19.8 million Instagram followers to her name. Somewhat unusual among her contemporaries, she blends the requisite magazine-photo-shoot and promotional posts with quirkier slice-of-life samplings, including memes, shots of flowers and scenery, and poems. She explains, “I don’t want someone to look at my social media and just see photos of me on a red carpet or my magazine shoots.... I don’t want to follow people who just post beautiful photos of themselves. I think that’s quite boring, so I try not to be that person.”

And she speaks with conviction about trying to present a more realistic portrayal of who she is on social media: “I’m literally laying in bed right now in a T-shirt with no makeup on because I go to work in a couple of hours, and I’m going to go to the gym after I take a nap,” she says on the phone. “My life is not always glamorous. It hardly ever is. I want people to see that.” She goes on, “I think there’s nothing more un-relatable than people who have incredibly perfect bodies and who are on yachts all the time. I’m like, ‘That’s great, but that’s not.... You’re like the 1 percent of the 1 percent, you know?’” I comment that it does feel like half of my Instagram feed was on Capri all summer, and she laughs. “I wish I had time to sail around Italy, but I’m hustling, and I’m working my ass off.”

Reinhart has also become a tabloid mainstay, due in large part to her relationship with Sprouse, which she keeps mostly private—and she does not feel an obligation to speak about or share that aspect of her life. “It’s never an intention of mine to, like, hide facts about my relationship, but it also isn’t for the world to know.”

She seems to understand that other actresses might handle the position she is in differently, and she is self-aware, and wise, about her image. “I have a little bit of a cold exterior sometimes,” she admits. “You kind of have to crack me open a little bit. I think that’s just who I am. Some people are very much an open book, and they’re warm and friendly the second you meet them. I just don’t really think that’s me. I’m a little bit more closed off, and that’s O.K. I think I don’t have to try to pretend to be something that I’m not just because I’m on a CW show and I have young fans. I don’t really need to be sharing everything about my love life and my friendships just because that’s what teens are doing right now. I feel like I cherish being more reserved.”

It’s hard, after talking to Reinhart for any period of time, to not come away with a sense that this is a woman—particularly for someone only 22—who really knows who she is and what she wants to be spending her time on. She has drive and gravitas, but also a sense of humor, not taking the Hollywood of it all too seriously. She already wrapped the coming-of-age, drama-romance film Chemical Hearts, which she stars in and for which she also serves as an executive producer. And she cites the words of Jeff Bridges when asked about the next stages of her career. “He said once that every project he does he tries to make a one-eighty from the last project that he did.”

She continues, “I’m still in this very experimental phase of my career, which is exciting because it allows for a lot of firsts.… I have the opportunity to try a lot of things and not be typecast and sort of lay the foundation, hopefully, for the rest of my career where people can be like, Oh yeah, she can play whatever role she wants to play.”

#lili reinhart

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 4 years ago

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THURSDAY OCTOBER 8, one of the longest running television shows of our time begins airing the final episodes of it’s final season. Guys, Supernatural is 15. FIFTEEN. It can practically drive a car now. As one friend put it, “that show had a Quinceañera.” And if you don’t know how significant that is, think of the last show you know of that made it to season 10. Take your time, I’ll wait.

Whoever I stole this birthday invite from, they are probably older than this show.

I started watching Supernatural in 2008. I was 19, I had just begun my journey towards Over-Worked, Under-Slept Millennial, and my best friend recommended it. I can’t really remember how the conversation went, but I’m sure at some point it was “It’s scary, and it’s got these two brothers, I’ll send you a link!” cuz we were trash and we were broke and Netflix...existed? Hulu existed, but not in the way that either of those sites work now, so we watched by...ahem...other means. It is probably why my first laptop stopped working after 3 semesters of college.

And damn, I was hooked. I don’t do scary movies and honestly, I was legit creeped out by a lot of these episodes, but it had two hot dudes who took down a monster every week and then (the real kicker) had a bigger, season-long mystery they were trying to solve. And occasionally, they got punched in their big dumb beautiful faces. If I had known what a kink was at the time, I would have said that someone was reading my dream diary.

Over the next 12 years - Let me say that again for those of you in the back - TWELVE YEARS - I had an on-again-off-again relationship with the Winchesters. It was pretty hot and heavy in the beginning. I was jumping on the back of this 67 Chevy Impala 3 years in, so I had three seasons that I bought on DVD that I binged and was caught up with season 4 by the time the midseason started to air in late January of 2009. I was introducing all my friends to Supernatural, I made several people watch the entire first disc of season 1 with me, irregardless of whether they’d asked or not. Things started to cool down towards the end of season 4 as life started picking up and I know...I caught...the tail end of season 5? I think? I distinctly remember the final scene of the final episode, but honestly, I can’t remember how much of that season I actually watched.

At that point, I considered Supernatural to be a weird pseudoaddiction. I’d be clean for a while, years even, and then Netflix caught up with consumers and I could binge whole seasons in a weekend. It’d be, oh, I could just watch an episode. Just one episode. Maybe two. And then the weekend is gone in a blaze of classic rock and rock salt and I’m left with something like but not necessarily a hangover where my feelings live. I think I did this for seasons 6 through, like, 8? Eventually, Netflix stopped putting it at the top of my dashboard and it was easier to avoid. And I said to myself, well, when they finally get to the last season, THEN I’ll go on one last run, one last big score, and watch the whole series again in one go.

But the seasons kept coming?? And they?? Didn’t stop?? Guys, I don’t know how many of you care about this but, Friends, one of the most popular sitcoms of all time that defined an entire generation had ten seasons. TEN. Supernatural is ending with fifteen! For an industry where most shows don’t make it past a pilot, let alone a season 1, this is INSANE.

But now it’s ending. Even though a pandemic halted production just two episodes away from the finale, Supernatural is finally outta cassette tapes. The Wayward Sons may finally (??) be laying their wearied heads to rest (?? lol, I know).

And frankly, 2020’s been a real sh*tshow so I thought “Why not?”

And if I’m doing this and I’m not interacting with anyone on a human level, I might as well chronicle this epic dive into a time capsule of television because frankly, what the hell else am I doing?

Cuz that’s what this is guys. 15 years in TV time is multiple lifespans. Shows are born, grow into something Emmy-worthy, and die in less time than Supernatural has been on the air. You know what else aired their pilot episode in 2005? The American version of The Office. You know when The Office ended? 2013.

So let’s talk about pilots because that in and of itself may be a thing of the past not too far from now.

Guys, I love pilots. I will probably say this a lot over the next, uhhhh...many months, but I love pilots and I love season ones, especially for a sci-fi and fantasy shows because that’s where your characters are at their most vulnerable, their most unsure. The writers and producers are really digging around, trying to figure out what the groundwork for this world is and there’s something so exciting about exploring it with them, as an audience.

Pilot’s are great, pilots on spec are even better, and that’s a lot of what the Supernatural Pilot feels like. It’s got a real indie/guerilla-style horror movie vibe, like the crew scraped together just enough cash for that one special effect scene but had to skimp out on a lot of the other production stuff, and still managed to turn something around that is totally, 100% watchable and somehow more charming than if they’d had the budget to make something really polished? Go watch Night of the Living Dead (1968) and tell me that movie would have been better if they’d had a bigger budget. You could, but I won’t agree.

Ok so a quick break down of technical terms. A television pilot is basically the first episode of a TV show. Well, that’s not exactly true. A pilot is kind of like making a sample or a blueprint of your show that you hand over to the television networks and say, here! This is what my TV show will look like. Will you pay me money to continue making it? And the networks (think ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and The CW - remember, this is Network, not cable) will spend January through April of every year reviewing pilots and deciding if they want to pay you money to make more episodes. Well, every year except 2020. See: sh*tshow. Sometimes the network comes to you with an idea, or maybe, you’ve pitched your script/show to some executives and they buy in for that first pilot episode to see where things will go. Neither of these scenarios are a sure thing, and pilot season is always rife with will-they-won’t-they tension. In fact, if you’re working on the show, there’s a real possibility that pilot will get re-shot after studio notes, you’ll lose your job to someone the studio liked better, and then the show still may not get picked up. A pilot shot on spec is in even more of a limbo scenario because nobody asked for this! And just to follow through on Pilot Season - after the networks decide to buy your pilot, they then air the pilot at Upfronts (usually in May) where their many ad companies decide if they will pay money to air their ads during those shows. This is where we get things like prime time and key demographics - if you thought TV was all about the art, you are very wrong. TV, like most other industries, is still a business that’s about making money.

Back to the Supernatural pilot. Now, from my research, series creator Eric Kripke had been working on the concept for 10 years. He was big into classic rock, big into urban legends and big into cowboys and all those things get married ever so neatly in this show. A lot of his initial ideas remain unchanged, at least for the first season - he wants two brothers, traveling across the country, facing off with America’s Spookiest Myths and legends. A lot of it did change. I honestly feel like I remember reading an early draft of the pilot where Sam and Dean are cowboys? But I’m also pretty sure I’m imaging that. What I’m not imagining is this ridiculous early draft where John’s been locked in an insane asylum, dies before the first episode starts, and Sam’s been living with an aunt and uncle his whole life and knows nothing. They still use something close enough to the La Llorona legend as the catalyst for the episode, but a lot of other things are changed. This is not the Sam and Dean we come to know and love. This is also a good example of when you SHOULD listen to notes, because this draft was rewritten after executive producer McG and his Wonderland Sound and Vision production company signed on, but before they actually shot the script.

Now from what I’ve read, the WB picked the show up for (4) episodes initially, and ultimately picked it up for a full season of (22) episodes. This was, at the time, a pretty standard season and a pretty standard way to get it. They had a better deal than The Office, anyway, which only got picked up for (6) episodes in their first season, then got picked up four episodes at a time for season 2.

Now let’s go over that paragraph one more time and talk about what a hecking DINOSAUR this show is -

FIRST off - Supernatural premiered on THE WB. It PREDATES The CW!!

Man guys, you remember they had a frog as a mascot? Oof, that would not work today.

Secondly, it got 22 EPISODES. We’ll get into this some more when we talk about that evil bugs filler ep, but think about how many episodes were in the last show that you binged on Netflix? 8? Maybe 10?

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OH! And SPEAKING of Netflix and streaming services like them, they’re kind of killing pilot season AND upfronts. They pick up shows when they want to. They “air” them when they feel like. There are no ads because you pay for that content on a monthly basis and also they don’t even have commercial breaks. I am slowly seeing the passage of time in one (1) episode of television and I think I’ve aged 100 years.

Here is just one of MANY articles about the death of Pilot Season

Finally, and most importantly, this show got a better deal than The Office. And that show was an NBC primetime show.

This show was nominated for 193 awards and won 50. And it ended when my nephew was still in kindergarten. He’s gonna be in high school next year.

So what about this Supernatural Pilot? Was it any good? Honestly, I’m gonna say yeah. This is some very solid Hero’s Journey here. I think the only weird thing about it is that Sam is our Hero, our point of contact character that gets us into this world. And I only say that because I’ll be real up front and say that I’m a Dean girl through and through. I don’t hate Sam, but because we live in a world where we have to choose, it’s Dean 4Eva.

From that early script draft, we learn the plan was for Sam to be in the dark and essentially be our audience stand in so that Dean can explain all the backstory. I think the decision to make John Winchester raise his kids as a weird fringe paramilitary outfit and establish Sam as the brother that tried to get away is a good one. It’s a very “Arrive Late” (or if you’re fancy, in media res,) sort of attitude and it works and you’ve already started building in the Atonement with the Father. There’s still some pretty excellent exposition dialogue, but what are ya gonna do. Sam, did you really need to explain to Dean that your collective father “raised you like warriors”? Or that you “kill everything we CAN find?” It’s fine. You’re beautiful and I love you. But also, he knows all that.

You have the Call to Adventure - Dean showing up and saying “Dad hasn’t been home in a few days.” You have the refusal of the call (“He’ll sleep it off”). You have your supernatural aid (hah!) giving Sam a push out the door - that’s Dean. You have your famous line that I quoted along with the TV - Dad’s on a hunting trip. And he hasn’t been home in a few days.

The dead mom backstory seems pretty on the nose, but the “burned on the ceiling” concept was new and unique enough that I was intrigued to find out more. Listen, I’ve already admitted I don’t watch a lot of horror so if this has been done before, don’t @ me.

La Llorona or Woman in White or Weeping Woman was a new trope to me at the time, so it too seemed fresh. I see that myth show up in a lot more Supernatural-type shows now, but in 2008, at 19, I was like, oh this is different. Not to mention - this definitely leaned in to the horror aspect. I know I’m a baby, but it aired at 9pm, which is the more adult side of Prime Time, so the WB thought it was too spooky for kids who had early bedtimes. So there.

I HATE when they do this cuz it freaks me out EVERY TIME and THAT’S NOT EVEN HOW THESE MIRRORS WORK??? SHE’S NOT EVEN IN THE BACK SEAT IN THIS SHOT!

And then at the END, when Sam STILL refuses the call to adventure, you have the real Crossing of the Threshold - Jess is ALSO stuck on the ceiling, dead, and on fire. Spoiler alert, but they had to fridge her early to make the rest of the season work and so it shouldn’t be a big surprise. Sam’s all in and we get 21 more episodes of him and Dean and that car.

Is it technically fridging if she’s lit on fire?

And let’s talk about Jess for a second cuz actress Adrianne Palicki is giving a LOT more in this performance than a fridged girlfriend should be required to. She’s likeable, she’s down to earth, she’s crushing it and and all this with only, like, two scenes of dialogue. I say this even though we meet her in a slutty nurse costume - COME on WB.

WB what the hell is this wardrobe. What the HELL is THIS.

In fact, all of the extras in this show are crushing it? Louis is instantly likeable and he disappears after his first scene, never to grace our TV’s again. And these extras in the town in Jericho, California - I kind of love them. As CW (or I guess, WB) as Jessica is, these extras look like they found them at the local highschool and I LOVE THEM FOR IT. They probably came to set already in makeup and wardrobe! They POSSIBLY brought their own jewelry! They’re weirdos and they are GREAT. I’m pretty sure this will NEVER happen again on this show because once the $$ came in, so did the more polished-looking one-off characters.

Lookit these magnificent goth weirdos! And great news, both these actresses have very full, non-goth careers after this.

Also, heckin’ Joseph Welch is just crushing it. This man has NOTHING CW about him and that’s maybe why I like him so much? Everything about the scene with him and Sam is pretty heartbreaking, from his rundown car graveyard to his rundown physique with his rundown accent to the fact that we never actually see his face. Seriously, really LOOK at this scene - WHAT is going on with this cinematography? Is this a reference to something? It’s SO bleached out and SO stark and WHAT is going on???

WHAT is this lighting? And also this guy was played by Steve Railsback was on X-Files!

You can’t talk about Supernatural without talking about the chemistry between Sam and Dean and that’s probably the real hook here? I mean a) very beautiful. I will probably talk about this a lot. Let’s call it what it is here, they’re beefcakes and they’re made for me and people like me. It is weird that this show is so macho but their primary audience was mostly there for the babes. And by babes I mean Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. And b) they REALLY sell the whole brothers thing. They’re both from Austin, TX which feels like a weird coincidence. They were both already on WB shows before this one, also a weird coincidence. And they just click. They just do. It’s impressive, and occasionally creepy when we start to get into the Wincest of it all, but lets not talk about that.

Oh, and the MUSIC! The music just makes it. If you don’t believe me, watch the Netflix version of the first season and then find yourself a DVD version. See, TV shows need to acquire a license to play popular music during the show. Nowadays, the CW actually tags their songs in the episode so you can find and presumably buy it later, but they still have to pay royalties for using those pop songs. When Netflix acquired Supernatural, they did NOT acquire the licensing to use the classic rock songs from ACDC, Metallica, etc. and so you’re left with some pretty bland and generic production music that’s something like but not necessarily Back in Black. More like, Back in...Grey? This pun didn't work how I wanted it to.

And the show just...doesn’t work? Like, who knew BACKINBLAAAAACK! Was so instrumental to whether I thought this was quality programming or not. Side note - it ruins my favorite piece of dialogue of maybe the entire series -

Sam: I swear, man, you gotta update your cassette tape collection.

Dean: Why?

Sam: Well, for one, they're cassette tapes.

Do the young people even know what a cassette tape is? I AM the CRYPTKEEPER.

So yeah, you got a lot of ingredients to make something pretty great. Did we know then that it would launch a juggernaut of a television program that would still be on the air in the Year of Our Reckoning, 2020? I was a big fan of Firefly, so I was 99.99% sure this show was gonna get canceled at any second. In fact, I was thrilled, in 2008, to find there were two more seasons after the one I was currently watching. Of course, season 3 aired around the time of the great Writer’s Strike of ‘07, where nothing looked good and few programs survived, but we’ll get there.

In a final, kind of spooky, almost premonition-type decision the WB actually decided to air this pilot episode a whole week early on Yahoo!. Yeah, you remember Yahoo!, right? The search engine that briefly tried to have its own original streaming content and then we all abandoned it in favor of the monster that is Google? Yeah. This episode premiered online. I haven’t done enough research, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say this was probably one of the first ever TV shows to start on the internet? Weird to think that was a novel and innovative concept at one time.

So this is it. This is the end of the era. Are we gonna get any more shows that last as long as this one did? Who knows. Are we as a culture gonna care at that point? I don’t know. Our TV habits have changed so much in the last few years that it’s hard to say how we’ll watch TV in the future. But credit where it’s due, boys. Nice huntin’.

#Supernatural #season 1 #pilot #season 15 #Sam #Dean #Winchester #Television #Quarantine Binging #CW #WB

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix

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So you want to be terrifed. Well, you’ve come to the right place, my friend. Everybody already knows that Netflix is a splendid place for viewers coming in search of all their bingeworthy content. But less appreciated is how satisfyingly scary some of their horror offerings are.

From originals like The Haunting of Hill House to foreign classics like The Returned, Netflix can be a go-to spot for the scariest horror TV shows available to stream. Here is a sampling of the kinds of series that horror thrill-seekers may appreciate.

Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page to see what the best horror shows on Netflix are at your convenience.

The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House is considered one of the most important texts in the horror literature canon. It’s only fitting then that it’s Hill House that Netflix turned to when the time came to make its first big original horror series. It’s also fitting that they turned to Hush director Mike Flanagan to make it happen.

Flanagan’s version of The Haunting of Hill House is quite different from the novel from which it takes its name. This Haunting is a modern story that follows the Crain family as they try to recover from the trauma they sustained as kids living in the terrifying Hill House. Of course, Hill House is still out there just dying to call them all back home. Netflix is going to keep “The Haunting” going with The Haunting of Bly Manor and presumably more to come after that.

The Haunting of Bly Manor

The consensus is that The Haunting of Bly Manor is significantly less scary than Mike Flanagan’s original Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House…and that consensus is correct. But there are still plenty of scares to be had in this worthy followup.

The Haunting of Bly Manor Timeline Explained

By Louisa Mellor

Why The Haunting of Bly Manor Needed a British Script Editor

By Louisa Mellor

Bly Manor borrows elements from the works of Henry James, including The Turn of the Screw, to craft another affecting ghost story. Hill House‘s Victoria Pedretti returns as Dani, a young American woman who takes on a job as a governess to two young children at the titular Bly Manor. Soon Dani and all involved will come to find that Bly Manor holds some serious (weirdly romantic) secrets.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

After the Archie comic universe got a gritty reboot in The CW’s Riverdale, it was only a matter of time before Archie cousin comic Sabrina the Teenage Witch got her turn. Thankfully Netflix stepped up to the plate with the Kiernan Shipka starring Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and even more thankfully…it’s gritty as all hell.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season 3: Ending Explained

By Chris Cummins

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Season 3: Archie-Verse Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

By Chris Cummins

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina brings witchcraft back to its absolutely metal satanic origins. Sabrina Spellman (Shipka) is like any teenager at Baxter High. She’s concerned about her grades, her social status, and her impending 16th birthday in which she must undergo a dark ritual in which she’ll have to grant her loyalty to the Dark Lord Satan. Such is life for a half-mortal/half-witch.

Ash vs Evil Dead

Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series (consisting of Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness) are some of the most deliriously bloody and fun slasher films ever committed to celluloid. Surely, however, a TV series made decades later couldn’t possibly bring the same level of thrill, could it?

Wrong! Starz’s Ash vs Evil Dead is another installment of fantastic comedy horror. Bruce Campbell returns as Evil Dead hero Ash Williams, who has done seemingly little with his life since battling the forces of evil (and dead) 30 years ago. That all changes when the dead walk once again and Ash, and some new friends must pick up the chainsaw once again.

Black Summer

In a zombie television landscape largely dominated by AMC’s The Walking Dead, Syfy’s Z Nation found a nice with a more playful, tongue-in-cheek presentation of the zombie apocalypse. In this spinoff, Black Summer, things get a touch darker.

Jamie King stars as Rose, a mother who is separated from her daughter during the height of a zombie apocalypse. Rose sets out on a mission to recover her and in the process builds a group of like-minded individuals looking for something they’ve lost.

Stranger Things

It seems so obvious now but in hindsight there was little buzz about this nostalgic tweenage horror project on Netflix from the relatively unknown Duffer Brothers. Little did we know that the Stev(ph)ens Spielberg and King inspired Stranger Things would be one of Netflix’s biggest hits.

Stranger Things takes place in the fictional Hawkins, Indiana in the mid-’80s. Hawkins is your typical smal ltown American city. The kids like to ride bikes, play Dungeons and Dragons, and tease one another. Little does everyone know that the mysterious government building on the outskirts of town may have opened a portal to another world – a portal that will usher in multiple seasons worth of monster fighting mayhem.

Castlevania

Netflix has beefed up its anime offerings in recent years and one of the first IPs they mined to do so was atmospheric Konami videogame series Castlevania. Originally planned as a film, Castlevania makes good use of its serialized format to pick up the horror story from where it begins with 1989 game Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse

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And what a story it is. Wallachian lord (and vampire, obvs.) Vlad Dracula Tepes (Graham McTavish) falls into a mighty rage after his wife is wrongly accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Vlad summons an army of the dead to declare war on the living of Wallachia. The only people who stand in his path are a ragged band of heroes led by Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage).

Haunted

Haunted is a bit of an odd duck among Netflix’s horror offerings. It was introduced for the 2018 Halloween season, just a week before the juggernaut Haunting of Hill House. As such, it got lost in the spooky shuffle. Still, this is a surprisingly effective take on your classic “tell a scary story” style TV series.

In Haunted, people tell their real life scary stories. That’s it. This is well-trodden ground on long running cable series like Ghost Stories and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Where Haunted differentiates itself is in its shockingly high production values, as witnessed in the ethereal screengrab above. Also, these stories are like…really scary.

Chambers

Chambers only survived one season at Netflix, proving once again that it’s tough out there for horror television shows. But the one season legacy the show leaves behind is a decently spooky one.

Chambers tells a story that contains a pretty familiar, yet effective horror trope. Sasha Yazzie (Sivan Alyra Rose) receives a much-needed heart transplant from a girl named Becky Lafevre. Soon, Sasha begins to experience troubling visions and begins to unravel a conspiracy that brings her into contact with Becky’s parents (Uma Thurman and Tony Goldwyn).

Devilman Crybaby

Anime has always been ahead of the game when it comes to horror and there’s no better evidence of this than Devilman Crybaby. This Netflix anime is based on a manga Devilman and creates a lushly realized gothic world.

In Devilman Crybaby, an ancient race of demons has returned to take back the world from humanity. Akira Fudo, a sensitive young lad, decides to save the world the only way he knows how: by fusing with a demon. The resulting freakshow, called Devilman, possesses the powers of a demon but the soul of a human. Now hopefully that’s enough to defeat the forces of evil.

American Horror Story

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story is revolutionary in quite a few ways. Not only did it help usher in a renewed era of anthology storytelling on television, it also was arguably the first successful network television horror show since The X-Files.

Movies

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By Alec Bojalad and 1 other

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Best Horror Movies Streaming on HBO Max

By David Crow and 2 others

Like all anthologies, American Horror Story has its better seasons (season 1 a.k.a. Murder House, season 2 a.k.a. Asylum, season 6 a.k.a. Roanoke) and its worse (season 3 a.k.a. Coven and season 8 a.k.a. Apocalypse). Still, for nine years and counting, American Horror Story has been one of the go-to options for TV horror fans.

Scare Tactics

Scare Tactics is what happens when someone looks at the prank camera show format and thinks “What if this but also dangerous and terrifying?” The concept of Scare Tactics is simple: take normal people, put them in elaborate horror movie situations, and film what happens. Awful? Yes. Entertaining? Absolutley!

Shannen Doherty hosted the first incarnation of the show that premiered on Syfy in 2003. Stephen Baldwin took her place in the middle of the show’s second season. Then after a three-year hiatus, Scare Tactics returned with Tracy Morgan at the helm and lasted three more seasons of hilariously cruel pranking.

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Unsolved Mysteries

Any reboot of continuation of the classic ’80s/’90s true crime series Unsolved Mysteries just needs one element to be considered authentic: that music. Thankfully, this modern iteration on Netflix maintains a version of the original’s haunting theme. Beyond that crucial aspect, Unsolved Mysteries honors the original by continuing the formula to great success.

Unsolved Mysteries Review (Spoiler-Free): True Crime With More Questions Than Answers

By Tony Sokol

Unsolved Mysteries Volume 2 Review: Reboot Fits a Flatfoot More Than a Bigfoot

By Tony Sokol

Unsolved Mysteries remains largely a true crime enterprise. The show covers unexplained disappearances, murders, and crimes. But it also spends plenty of time with the truly unexplained: the paranormal. This reboot has covered UFOs and some tsunami ghosts. That, combined with the atmospheric music, makes this a suitably spooky watch.

The post Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix appeared first on Den of Geek.

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noelmu · 7 years ago

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MONTH IN REVIEW 11/5/17-12/2/17

I photographed the berries above while out walking with my family last Sunday, using the fancy portrait setting on my new iPhone 8+ camera. (Hence the mix of blurriness and sharpness.) I did nothing to enhance the color, though. The red was really that red. Never seen anything quite like it in nature.

Anyway, if you’re wondering why it’s been a month since I last posted here... well, it’s not because I’ve been out photographing berries. But it’s not not because of that either. As I mentioned in this space not so long ago, I’ve been rededicating myself to exercising and eating right lately, which means I’m outside walking for about two hours every day, spread across three or four excursions. Between that, and working, and cooking meals, I haven’t had a lot of spare time. Anything even remotely extraneous has been postponed.

As for the work, as I mentioned last time I posted, I’ve spent much of November (and part of October) working on two big projects. One is a slate of contributions to an upcoming Entertainment Weekly special issue about The X-Files, which should be hitting newsstands soon. (This is my second EW assignment; I wrote a couple of short articles for the Justice League special issue that published recently, but can’t link to them because they’re not online. You can see my byline here, though!)

The other big project is linked below: a guide to getting rid of cable TV, written for The New York Times. That one involved a ton of research, fact-checking, and revising. My biggest fear during the whole process has been getting huffy emails from media relations departments, quibbling over my characterizations of what their companies do and don’t offer. But all my detail-sweating seems to have paid off. So far I’ve only gotten two not-that-insistent requests for changes, both of which I’ve been able to shoot down, with no further complaint. (However I am just now starting to get what I expect will be a steady flow of emails from smaller streaming services, inviting me to sample and possibly cover their wares. Every time I’ve written a comprehensive consumer-focused round-up piece like this, I end up on the press lists for businesses who assume this must be my “beat.”)

There are a number of other pieces below I’m proud of, including essays for The Week, The Verge, and Uproxx, and the final installment of my long-running A.V. Club “A Very Special Episode” series. Please click! More readers means more assignments. And since the tax bill moving too-rapidly through congress is probably going to directly and indirectly diminish my household’s earning power, I’m going to need all the work I can get.

I doubt I’ll be posting here next week. The best-of-the-year lists start rolling out soon, so I think I’ll wait until all the ones I’m contributing to have run before compiling the lot. Talk to you again ‘round Christmas. Peace and love to you all.

The A.V. Club A Very Special Episode: In one of HBO’s finest hours, Tom Hanks recalled the last time we went to the moon TV Review: A 30 For 30 about Ric Flair breezes too quickly through pro wrestling’s most important era

The Los Angeles Times Movie Review: Bloody Steven Yeun-starring horror-comedy Mayhem not to all tastes Movie Review: Twisty Korean courtroom thriller Heart Blackened effectively pairs glitz and crime Movie Review: Horror-comedy Attack Of The Killer Donuts lacks imagination Movie Review: Jena Malone shines in Victorian sexual repression thriller Angelica Movie Review: Icelandic supernatural noir I Remember You mines setting for moody malevolence Movie Review: Lili Fini Zanuck's Eric Clapton: Life In 12 Bars documents musician's darkest days Movie Review: Jon Bernthal, Christopher Abbott and Imogen Poots elevate slow-cooked Alaskan noir Sweet Virginia Movie Review: Routine thriller Slumber boasts Maggie Q, but little else Movie Review: Gangster Land goes soft on crime (and authenticity) Movie Review: Genre auteur Mickey Keating slips with ponderous Psychopaths Movie Review: More genial Canadian vulgarity on tap in horror-comedy Another WolfCop New In Home Entertainment: Wind River is a finely crafted crime thriller and a heartening hit New In Home Entertainment: Detroit is a hard to watch, raw expose of racism

The New York Times How to Cut the Cord on Cable Remember Jim Nabors by Streaming These 5 Andy Griffith Show Episodes

Rolling Stone TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 3: Damaged Goods TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 4: The King and I TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 5: Father Figures TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 8 Episode 6: Odd Couples

Uproxx Movie Review: Gary Oldman’s Darkest Hour Performance Is A Stunt — But It’s An Impressive One

The Verge TV Review: This is the exact wrong time for Future Man’s brand of dude comedy

The Week Three Billboards and The Meyerowitz Stories prove that great casting makes great movies Why Lady Bird is an instant-classic high school movie The real Justice League is on The CW

#Week In Review

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kinetic-elaboration · 7 years ago

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October 28: Halloween Saturday

Really a pretty good day today! Finally some lovely fall weather, still warm t-shirt weather but pleasant, like September, but I’ll take it. I meant to get up early (Saturday-early, like...9) but that didn’t work out. I’m not upset about it, though. I got a straight 10 hours of sleep and I think I needed it.

I had a leisurely morning, washing dishes and clearing out space on my camera, and having breakfast, then left at around 12:30. I took a long walk through cw, looked at the Halloween decorations. Not as extensive as last year’s but they painted the horses again and there were a lot of pumpkins waiting to be jack-o-lanterns sitting around. Then I sat by the governor’s house and read, which was pretty enjoyable, but reading outside is always a tricky business, especially around here. The sun was kind of hot when I was just sitting in it and there were a lot of distractions. But I was reading IT and I didn’t lug that huge tome around for nothing so I read for about half an hour anyway.

Then I went to the coffee shop and got a drink called Dracula’s Delight because I gosh-darn love Halloween okay (it was mocha, cherry, and almond--pretty good though I had to get used to it a little), and I sat outside to drink it and write down some more thoughts on my Improbable Ark AU and listen to the conversations going on around me. There was a group of alums from my law school (alums of the undergrad though I’m pretty sure) who were sharing cw gossip and talking about former classmates. (Sample conversation: “What happened to that guy who pretended to fall out of the window?” / “He got a PhD in psychology and is a professor in California.” @all psych students in CA, your professor might be a guy who egged his girlfriend’s window and then when she told him to clean it up, pretended to fall from the window and hurt himself, except that instead of running to him and allowing him to enjoy her panic, she called an ambulance so yeah in other words, a prize.) Later some Poles came to sit next to me and I understand a total of two words (chodź! and nie! both to a pies) of what they were saying.

I stopped by the bakery and got some macarons and then walked out to a far bus stop because it was a nice day and I wanted to.Anyway, I’m obviously a boring person but this was basically an ideal day for me. Being around people without interacting with them, seeing and feeling and drinking and reading and writing nice things, in good weather, not worrying about anything.It’s supposed to thunder and rain all day tomorrow, which sounds like a perfect time to have a horror movie marathon...

#the year 2017 #2017: rl

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nanyoky · 7 years ago

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ALL of the numbers for Wanda and for Pietro

OMG THIS IS SO LONG I TOOK FOREVER. I did a mix of canon and au, especially where canon limits the answers.

1. What does their bedroom look like? Shared one until the bombings, very sparse - parents didn’t have much money. Then homeless until post - ultron.

Wanda: We see wanda’s avengers compound room In cw but I… don’t…. like… many things about that movie so - let’s say more cramped and closed off. Even if given a larger, open space I feel Wanda would fill it in an eclectic way. She nests like no other. When you’re not used to a set space being your own, it’s exciting and novel to surround yourself with things and images of your choosing. She goes to thrift stores and garage sales and collects just dumb things that she likes just because she CAN.

Pietro: Canon: hasn’t ever had his own. Nice happy everybody lives au: pretty plain, but nice. More stylish than people might expect. Some spillover of wanda’s possessions. Entire half of the walk in closet is devoted to sneakers. 2. Do they have any daily rituals?

Wanda: Definitely a tea drinker, at LEAST in the morning and before bed.

Pietro: Not quite compulsive, but he actually falls into routine very fast. In the city, he had a circuit he would travel with things to do along the way- taking food, talking to people from the tent city, taking necessities, scoping out new places to sleep so they did not use one single place too often, checking in on the occupying soldiers’ movements, harassing police officers on duty, etc. 3. Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do? How often?

Wanda: Not before the Avengers. Now she does, but grudgingly. It helps when the others point out the more varied her skills are, the more people she can help.

Pietro: He always ran, even before they got their powers. Somewhere in their teens, he started doing simple exercises like pushups and situps when they were bored because he thought people wouldn’t hassle them as much if he looked tougher. With the Avengers, he gets bored with all the training- routine that he doesn’t define himself. But he appreciates being able to to something he’s good at. 4. What would they do if they needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy?

Wanda: She checks with her mind before going into any shared living space. If she doesn’t mind company, she’ll still come in and cook alongside whoever is there or share their food. If she’s not feeling up to it, she will wait.

Pietro: Uses his speed to work around anyone in there, which is annoying exactly 100% of the time 5. Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.)

Wanda: Organized chaos, for sure. Long bath goblin. We’re talking multiple hours here. Candles and music and a book and maybe even snacks in there.

Pietro: Neat and contained out of necessity for a long time. But the more comfortable he is, the more likely he is to be cluttered and messy. The team starts getting annoyed when he begins to leave his shoes and hoodies everywhere, but those of them good at reading human behavior (natasha, sam, clint) notice the pattern and guess why. 6. Eating habits and sample daily menu

Wanda: Long time not knowing where their next meal was coming from means she eats when and whatever she can. Living in the compound is an adjustment, but she starts getting more discerning and learns what she actually likes an doesn’t like. Sam introduced her to lemon bars and she ate a whole pan and then threw up one time she knew it was coming but they were just SO GOOD.

Pietro: Everything. So much. People know his powers include increased metabolism, but they don’t really GET IT. Steve will go to order pizza like “so you think 20 is good for all of us I know you eat a lot” and he’s just like “20 for me” “haha- right” “No. you don’t understand. You will all starve.” But he also has the terrible habit of eating too fast (surprise surprise) and makes himself sick. 7. Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time

Wanda: Definitely a “no time you enjoyed spending is wasted” type person. She loves to read and do her nails and listen to music.

Pietro: wasting time makes him anxious- unless it’s quiet time with Wanda. But even that is up for criticism if it lasts too long. He won’t complain to her, but he gets restless and fidgety until she tells him to go do something to get him to calm down.

8. Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging

They used to smoke sometimes in Sokovia- mostly when it was cold and they had to sleep outside. They don’t anymore, but sometimes get a craving they have to try to replace with something else.

Wanda: Collecting things like jewelry and decorations for her room. And sweets. Fancy looseleaf tea.

Pietro: Doesn’t really think of things as indulgences. He does what he wants or needs and then moves on. 9. Makeup?

Wanda: Loves it. Feels stupid and underprepared for her day without it.

Pietro: Doesn’t like it on himself, but helps Wanda with hers. 10. Neuroses? Do they recognize them as such?

Woah boy. Can you say holy codependency batman? I don’t think either of the twins could ever get over this. Canon universe, I think grieving Pietro is going to be a lifelong process for Wanda. There’s just no way she can ever “move on” from the loss of him. Au- I think they could both work on some of their other issues and relax enough to form relationships outside of one another, but the codependency would never go away. They would still bounce back to “no one matters but us” the moment they are threatened. Neither of them will likely ever see this as a problem. They recognize that others do though, which only feeds into their “no one understands” complex.

They both have phobias and ptsd from their chidlhood traumas. Mostly these show as little things, but on a bad day, can be an issue. Claustrophobia and being tethered or incapacitated during crisis are always issues. Typical stuff like night terrors crop up regularly.

11. Intellectual pursuits?

Their formal education ended at 10- as they skipped out on the foster system out of fear they would be separated. They would often spend time in the city’s library, as it was one of the few places that wouldn’t kick them out for not buying anything.

Wanda insisted they learn English. She thought it would come in useful on their mission to kill Stark. She also likes reading, though mostly fiction.

Pietro struggled with learning English because he’s easily frustrated and hates feeling stupid. He reads well when he finds something that interests him, but very rarely has the patience to sit and read for long periods of time. 12. Favorite book genre?

Wanda: Gothic romance and horror. Bronte, Shelley, Morrison, Jackson, some O’Connor.

Pietro: Would rather ask Wanda to read aloud whatever she’s reading than pick his own. He likes them though- particularly things with dry shows of humor and scathing judgements of social norms. He keeps his love of Vonnegut quiet, as Wanda can’t stand him. 13. Sexual Orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?

((we already talked about this a bit))

Wanda: I waffle on this depending on the story I’m telling. My two favorite Wanda sexualities are Bi!Wanda and Ace!Wanda. Like hard ace. Zero interest. Not repulsed, just uncomfortable with the idea of sex in relation to herself and her own body. Not particularly educated about different sexualites. Probably didn’t know there was a word for being asexual until much later in life.

Pietro: I love my dead bi son. Ditto above on education. But definitely observant enough to know differing preferences aren’t all that unusual.

Both of them don’t talk about sexuality much- not in a private or “i don’t like labels” kind of way, just in a “if i want to have sex with you, you will know. and if I don’t, then it’s not likely to come up” kind of way. 14. Physical abnormalities? (Both visible and not, including injuries/disabilities, long-term illnesses, food-intolerances, etc.)

They both have faded, but still note-worthy scars from the bombing rubble. Wanda low key never has bare legs and Pietro never goes sleeveless.

15. Biggest and smallest short term goal?

Wanda: Depending on what part of canon or au we’re talking about, could be variations on “get through the week” and “make pietro smile”

Pietro: Always “get through the week” and “Make wanda smile.”

16. Biggest and smallest long term goal?

Before AoU, both of them had the goal of living long enough to kill Tony. Smallest would have been “find out what to do after.”

17. Preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress

I wrote a big long rant about the twins’ costuming/character design once this is MY JAM.

Wanda: Woah boy does she love her clothes. She loves collecting new pieces that she can layer. Jewelry is a must. She feels naked and vulnerable without it. Loves the aesthetic of fashion but doesn’t think much about how her body looks in it. Feels weirdly self conscious in light colors.

Pietro: comfort is #1, but it is not his lone concern. Almost opposite of Wanda- pretty bland aesthetic tastes, but likes how he looks in some things over others. Low key very aware that warm colors wash him out. Used to wear charms from their mother around his wrists or neck but they’ve all since been lost or broken or stolen. Wanda pierced one of his ears when he helped her do hers, but he rarely wears anything in it. (There was a shot in aou where pietro turns his head and you can see Aaron Taylor Johnson has a pierced ear and it just struck me as a very accurate twin scene like *smol Wanda holds up a needle and a handful of snow* “come pietro - were pierce our ears now” “nice.”)

18. Favorite beverage?

Wanda: Teateatea always tea.

Pietro: Constantly hydrating. Metabolism thing.

19. What do they think about before falling asleep at night?

Wanda: Long term plans. Starts with what she has to do the next day, the next week, the next month, etc. Doesn’t always help her sleep though.

Pietro: Short term plans. All the things he wants to get done the next day/should be getting done instead of sleeping. Almost never helps him sleep.

20. Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them?

Occasional illnesses as children. After the bombings they both got sick on the street a lot. Pietro would always try to steal a wallet and get a hotel room whenever they were ill. Or at least befriend someone enough to stay with them.

21. Turn-ons? Turn-offs?

Wanda: Ons: Tall men, women with curly hair, good tattoos, slow hands on her thighs, neck kisses, leaving marks with her teeth and nails, wall/counter sex, drunk/buzzed sex, the low-key voyeurism of whispering dirty things in public, slow, passionate makeouts that slowly and steadily build into faster and rougher sex. Offs: fetishizing innocence/inexperience (certain guys think her stockings are a sign of being into a schoolgirl vibe but any type of age roleplay is a hard stop for her), her partner setting the pace without give and take, being called “cute” or “sweet,” having her hair pulled, anyone who dislikes pietro.

Pietro: Ons: men’s forearms, curvy women, and…. a… few fetishes… biting, hair pulling/playing, drunk/buzzed sex, basic restraints, oral fixation but most of all PRAISE KINK and he doesn’t want to talk about it not at all don’t bring it up please for the love of god don’t make it A Thing. Sam wants to talk about it Sam Wilson wants to talk about it a lot. Offs: people who think sexual intimacy means affection is now acceptable, being laughed at, people who think they’ve “figured him out,” anyone who dislikes wanda.

22. Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?

Wanda: vague doodles. Patterns and motifs. Sometimes lists and plans, but most of that is mental.

Pietro: little mini comics that will make wanda laugh. (during team meetings he draws little stick!steve and stick!tony arguing and the scene gets more and more elaborate until stick!stony makeouts happen and wanda just fucking loses it in the middle of tony discussing new tech.)

23. How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life?

Wanda: Organized to herself. Clutter that only she understands. No one can find anything in her room if they need to, but she knows exactly where everything is.

Pietro: Very simple and organized, but he is That Guy who has The Chair or The Drawer where things kind of build up until he doesn’t remember what’s all on/in there.

24. Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?

Wanda: loves literature and language.

Pietro: is a better storyteller than a writer. Wanda says there’s no difference but he disagrees.

After his death she tries writing down some of his stories but he was right.

25.How do they see themselves 5 years from today?

pre ultron: dead. Both of them.

Post: Wanda just keeps trying to find more things she can do to help others and make amends. Pietro would join her if he were alive.

26. Do they have any plans for the future? Any contingency plans if things don’t workout?

Kinda the same as above. No real back up - they will either succeed or die.

27. What is their biggest regret?

pre ultron: not being able to help their parents and not realizing what the true nature of the SHIELD facility was until it was too late.

Wanda in post aou: every single thing about that day.

28. Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?

Friend - each other.

Enemy: Tony until post ultron, then they wouldn’t really know. Part of the experience of it all is learning things aren’t as simple as friends and enemies.

29. Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster (eg The house is on fire! What do they do?)

Of course, as children, their instinct was to stick together and hide. As adults, pietro handles any immediate danger, and looks to Wanda for the plan once there is a moment.

30. Reaction to sudden intrapersonal disaster (eg close family member suddenly dies)

They didn’t have time to grieve their parents. Wanda screamed for days after sokovia, then was basically catatonic for weeks. In a nice au… I don’t know. If they started getting close to others, then lost someone, I think pietro would get anxious and want to do something, while Wanda would close off and try to keep him close to her.

31. Most prized possession?

Wanda has the jewelry and clothes that Pietro stole from her. She likes mixing up her wardrobe, but those ones are special.

Pietro doesn’t keep much long enough for it to be “prized.” He keeps track of things very well, but once its outlived its use its gone. He still feels guilty about the charms though, and if any had survived, he would take special care of them.

32. Thoughts on material possessions in general?

They both feel they should not get too attached because they have lived so long only keeping what they can carry, but that has also meant they are very protective of the things they have.

33. Concept of home and family?

Each other. Always. They did feel a sense of home and loyalty to their city, which is part of the reason they never tried to leave.

34. Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?)

Wanda: Wanda is very private. Part of the reason is that she realizes how much of oneself is constructed deliberately due to her powers and natural knack for perception. So she likes giving people as little to work with as possible. It gives her a sense of control. However, she is more likely to feel close enough to someone to tell them things that she wouldn’t tell strangers. Whereas....

Pietro: Private about some things, VERY blunt about others. Sort of the opposite of how most people might be. He’s the one to tell the story of their parents’ deaths, every time. And ah- certain subjects don’t make him uncomfortable. Ex: one time, bruce and helen set the whole team of enhanced avengers down to talk about different aspects of their abilities for their records and when it was Pietro’s turn- “I eat a lot, I’m fast, I don’t need to piss as much as you’d think from how much i hydrate? so that’s nice. I heal fast, don’t seem to bruise from blunt impact, oh- and my refractory period is like- 30 seconds.” and everyone just “.....kay”

And of course, they have no secrets from each other. Zero sense of privacy between the two of them- like how they share a personal bubble.

35. What activities do they enjoy, but consider to be a waste of time?

Wanda: Like I said, doesn’t see things she likes as a waste of time- that is, unless there is currently something she can actively do to meet a goal. But she values planning time and that can be done while doing the things she enjoys.

Pietro: Flirting. He is a hopeless flirt (see deleted scenes from aou) and enjoys it, but honeslty he thinks it’s kind of silly. Either someone is into you or they’re not. Flirting is like the “how are you? say hi to your mom” of sex.

36. What makes them feel guilty?

Before Ultron: Nothing but their parents.

After: everything.

37. Are they more analytical or more emotional in their decision-making?

Wanda: both. Her emotions fuel her, but she’s too practical to go with the first plan that pops into her head. she feels she owes it to the validity of her anger and guilt to take the best course of action.

Pietro: definitely emotional. He analyzes just enough not to make things immediately worse, then acts.

38. Would they consider themselves a Type A or Type B personality?

Wouldn’t know what that is.

Post AoU, Wanda reads more about psychology to help understand how her powers work. Once she comes across this, she’s educated enough to know how simplistic and meaningless it is.

39. What recharges them when they’re feeling drained?

Time together.

Post AoU Wanda: Time alone. Doing something that makes her feel like herself like drinking tea or painting her nails.

40. Would you say that they have a superiority-complex? Inferiority-complex? Neither?

Wanda: Bit of both, but leaning more towards superiority. But it’s less superiority, more utter confidence and faith in herself- even when misplaced.

Pietro: Bit of both, leaning towards inferiority. Scared he’s not enough to protect wanda or get them what they want.

41. How misanthropic are they?

Can be a weird mix. They hate what people are capable of doing to one another, which comes from the empathy of seeing themselves and others hurt.

42. Hobbies?

Wanda: the reading, fashion pursuits, etc. With the team, she’s gotten to try more things like cooking and music.

Pietro: He feels good when he’s running. Not even to speed. Just running is something he’s good at and he likes doing things he’s good at.

43. How far did they get in formal education? What are their views on formal education vs self-education?

(am i going crazy i feel like i answered some of these like four times)

Their formal education ended at age 10. Skipped out on the foster system and the attached public ed.

44. Religion?

Their father was jewish, but somewhere about halfway between “observant” and “christmas tree jewish.” After the bombings, they have almost no residual faith and a pretty antagonistic attitude toward organized religion.

45. Superstitions or views on the occult?

Their mother was Romni and used to give them charms and things to carry for luck and protection. She herself took the customs only vaguely seriously and just followed most out of cultural tradition more than anything. Wanda thought it was all very serious and magical when they were young, but after the bombings refuses to talk about it. As previously stated, Pietro used to carry the charms very carefully, but they didn’t have any on them when they were pulled out of the rubble and he tries to act like it doesn’t bother him that they don’t continue on with the traditions, but it does. He hasn’t told Wanda (she knows anyway), but he found a holed stone a year after their parents’ deaths, but lost it immediately. He still thinks it was a sign he’s meant for bad luck.

46. Do they express their thoughts through words or deeds?

Wanda: speaks for the two of them, most often. Except when it comes to sharing stories. That’s where Pietro steps in.

Pietro: Makes Wanda’s will into action. Usually leaves the talking to her.

47. If they were to fall in love, who (or what) is their ideal?

Wanda: Someone who doesn’t necessarily understand her, but does not seek to unravel or change her. She might have a tendency to desire partners who are possibly too passive when it comes to her. This prevents her from healthy relationships a lot. She has no patience for criticism, no matter if it is about somethign superficial, or about something genuinely concerning, like her self-destructive tendencies.

Pietro: Tends to confuse what he wants, which ends messily every time. He doesn’t consciously want a serious commitment, but unconsciously sort of... expects it? This goes one of two ways- his partner takes the relationship seriously and he doesn’t, which means he is callous and flippant with them OR his partner doesn’t take things seriously and he’s frustrated and hurt that he is such a minor event in someone else’s life.

The twins are... not good at dating.

HOWEVER, given the opportunity post aou, I think they would both try to improve their empathy and interpersonal skills a little better. Wanda would do well with someone who actively encourages her to express herself and step outside of her own head, but doesn’t get pushy. Pietro would do well with someone conscientious, but who would also coax him not to take himself so seriously.

48. How do they express love?

With one another: Protectiveness. The way Pietro always has his back, but Wanda is always standing between him and known danger. Physical affection/their shared personal bubble.

With befriending the rest of the team, they would struggle for a time. But eventually Wanda starts making two cups of tea when someone else is in the kitchen with her and Pietro starts smiling, just a little, at their jokes instead of rolling his eyes.

49. If this person were to get into a fist fight, what is their fighting style like?

Wanda: It’s not exactly speed that’s her strong point, she’s just ABRUPT. even before the experiments, she was very good at reading people and situations. She can tell when a fight is inevitable, and once diffusion is no longer an option, she will strike first and not fast, not stopping to let anyone get their footing. Dirty fighting. Knees and nails and big jagged rings.

Pietro: Big surprise- fast. But also very- full bodied. I love the way that with his speed, Pietro’s attacks in aou are mostly just “run into robot so fast it just falls apart.” I feel like that’s not just the powers, but also how he does things. Just kind of throws himself at/on people and hits with anything he’s got. Fast and dirty. No kidney or testicle is safe.

50. Is this person afraid of dying? Why or why not?

Wanda: Pre aou: not if it’s together. Post: no. Would be somewhat of a relief. Finally going home after a long day. Wherever she’s going, it’s the same place as Pietro.

Pietro: Yes yes oh god yes.

#maximoff twins #codependent supertwins #long post #such a fucking long post #i'd say i'm sorry but if this surprises you in any way you probably should have unfollowed a long time ago #character meme #do it for the meme #asks #@essayofthoughts

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usnewsaggregator-blog · 7 years ago

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It's binge time: What to stream during Thanksgiving weekend

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/its-binge-time-what-to-stream-during-thanksgiving-weekend/

It's binge time: What to stream during Thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving is upon us. That means it’s time to gorge on carbs, nestle in on the couch, and treat yourself to dozens of hours in front of your screens. Here are some old favorites and new releases that landed on streaming services in November, hand-picked for your holiday enjoyment.

For classic slapstick: Airplane!

This endlessly quotable parody of disaster flicks is catnip for comedy nerds, a blend of Borscht Belt puns (“I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley”) and stoner absurdity. The threadbare plot is really an excuse for nonstop sight gags, flashbacks, movie references and fast-paced one-liners. The ensemble cast includes deadpan genius Leslie Nielsen, who went on to star in “The Naked Gun” franchise, and NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who plays a doomed co-pilot.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime, Hulu

For transfixing true crime: Alias Grace

Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood is having a moment. “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the Hulu series based on her dystopian fable, captured the post-2016 zeitgeist and swept the Emmys. “Alias Grace,” adapted from her eponymous 1996 novel, could become a sociopolitical touchstone, too. Sarah Gadon stars as Grace Marks, a real-life servant imprisoned for a double murder in 19th-century Canada. The six-part miniseries is directed by Mary Harron (“American Psycho”) and written by actress/filmmaker Sarah Polley.

Where to watch: Netlix

Sarah Gadon in Netflix’s “Alias Grace.” Jan Thijs / Netflix

For brilliant filmmaking: Get Out

The recent debate over whether this box-office phenomenon should be considered a comedy or drama at the upcoming Golden Globes was telling. “Get Out,” the directorial debut of comedian Jordan Peele, is a horror film that samples and remixes genres with nervy aplomb, zigzagging from social satire and dark comedy to bone-chilling frights. Daniel Kaluuya stars as a black photographer whose weekend visit with the family of his white girlfriend quickly turns nightmarish. Peele may have the last word on how to think of his breakout project. He says it’s a documentary.

Where to watch: HBO Go, HBO Now

For soulful surrealism: Lady Dynamite

Don’t be fooled by the candy-colored production design: “Lady Dynamite,” now in its second season, will surprise you with its dark edges and strange rhythms. The series stars stand-up comic Maria Bamford as stand-up comic Maria Bamford, who struggles with bipolar disorder. The exuberant, gleefully weird humor is shaded by real pain, making “Lady Dynamite” a close cousin to “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” the beloved musical-comedy sitcom on the CW. “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Ana Gasteyer has a recurring role as Bamford’s agent.

Where to watch: Netflix

For intelligent thrills: Michael Clayton

“Michael Clayton” turned 10 this year, but the critically acclaimed film hasn’t lost any of its edge or urgency. The film stars George Clooney as a “fixer” at a powerful New York law firm who discovers a conspiracy involving an agribusiness conglomerate. Tilda Swinton won an Oscar for her unforgettable turn as a high-strung corporate lawyer on the verge of a breakdown. The literate screenplay and sleek visual style helped make this thriller a modern classic.

Where to watch: Netflix

George Clooney in “Michael Clayton.” Warner Bros

For powerful period drama: Mudbound

Director Dee Rees invests this wrenching historical melodrama with piercing moral clarity. The film focuses on a pair of World War II veterans who return to rural Mississippi at the height of the Jim Crow era. They deal with racism and post-traumatic stress disorder — two charged issues that Rees and her co-writer, Virgil Williams, depict with sensitivity. “Mudbound” could be a contender at the Oscars. R&B star Mary J. Blige, in particular, has earned awards buzz for her memorable performance.

Where to watch: Netflix; also in theaters in select cities

For good times in Brooklyn: She’s Gotta Have It

Spike Lee broke into the independent film world with “She’s Gotta Have It,” a frank and freewheeling 1986 comedy about a young woman juggling the affections of three men. More than three decades later, Lee has returned to that premise in a ten-episode streaming series that premieres on Thursday. DeWanda Wise stars as a vivacious Brooklynite named Nola Darling. “Hamilton” fan favorite Anthony Ramos plays one of her suitors.

Where to watch: Netflix

For vintage J-Law: Winter’s Bone

It may be hard to imagine a time when Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t a global superstar and household name. But that time was only seven years ago, when she landed a breakout role in this low-budget drama. Lawrence plays a teen girl in the Ozarks who has to track down her father, a narrative throughline that the film uses to explore rural poverty and drug addiction. That may not sound like comforting holiday viewing, but “Winter’s Bone” tells a compelling tale with family ties at its core.

Where to watch: Epix, Hulu

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darling-in-wonderland · 2 years ago

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Where we last left off in Part 4, our ragtag gang has finally made it to Pomefiore, but after their encounter with Rook and Jamil are rushing to get some tape for Azul’s leaking tank before making the cure. Unbeknownst to them, there’s a new threat lurking in the aubergine colored halls…

CW: standard horror movie ones (tension, violence, being hunted, etc), swearing, death mention, anxiety/panic attack mention, lots of blood, virus that makes people violent, torture mention, choke slam. Viewer discretion is advised.

Kill Your Darlings

(Part 5)

The halls of Pomefiore are deathly quiet, only disturbed by the soft drips of the water from Azul’s tank hitting the carpeted floor.

This is the first time I’ve been in Pomefiore without any sort of music playing in the background, yet I’m too scared to start it back up. You never know if Vil’s listening.

We do make it to the labs without anyone noticing us, which is strange but not unwelcome. While Ortho starts to process the sample, I help Azul find some tape for his tank. While there is a chance that the virus has already dissipated and there’s none left from him to catch, neither of us want to take that risk.

As I walk by one of the tables, my clumsy ass knocks one of the empty flasks onto the marble floor, breaking in a loud shatter.

We freeze, hoping that Vil didn’t hear us. After an eternity of panic, I breathe a silent sigh of relief.

And then I hear a familiar sound, a sound I normally associate with creation and furniture.

I hear the whir of a power drill.

“Fraulein…” I hear Vil rasp in time from the other room. “You fell for the bait and switch.”

Shit. I know this song. I introduced him to that song, the bastard!

“Death is priceless…” Vil continues.

“Hey Azul,” I turn to him, still whispering. “How attached are you to your ankles?”

“Pretty damn attached, Darling!”

“And that makes you my bitch!” a second person concludes the pre chorus.

“Ortho, hide. Azul and I will distract them so you can make the cure.”

“Them? Who’s them?!” Azul starts to panic.

“Hiya, Darling!” I hear Cater’s voice as two Cater clones wrap their fingers tightly around my wrists before I can even react. “Awww, and Azul too! Looks like both of you will be prepped for Villy!”

“Okay I was concerned about whatever he’s gonna do to us, now I’m more concerned about the fact that you called him Villy.”

“Is now really the time?” Azul bearates me.

“We it’s either that or cry cause it looks like both of us are losing our ankles.”

“Awww, you already know the surprise?” one of the Caters pouts.

“That’s very rude,” another one replies.

“#SpoilerAlert,” a third quips.

“Don’t worry!” Number Four chirps. “Villy’ll sort that out!”

Down, down, down into the depths of Pomefiore we go. Azul had been crying, the water almost entirely out of his tank. He might actually manage to refill it with tears alone, poor guy.

“Villy’s been talking about how that fog this morning has completely disappeared from campus,” one of my Cater’s exposits while digging his nails into my forearm. I whimper in pain, but he doesn’t notice as he swaps hands to lick the blood off his fingers. “There’s not even a trace of it. You have great tasting blood, by the way.”

The other Cater dragging me to doom squeezes my wrist to make me drop the knife like I did to Kalim earlier. I bid that poor knife a silent goodbye. Hopefully it makes it back to a kitchen after all this ends.

Eventually, we’re led to a dark door. I hope with all my heart that Ortho finds that cure.

Vil stands in the center of the dimly lit room, holding a power drill. On either side of him are converted stripped beds, featuring some terrifying cuffs on the corners. Now it’s my turn to start crying. I fall to my knees, the Cater’s holding me up by my wrists like I’m a dying martyr.

“Now now, fraulein,” Vil walks over and forces my head up with his thumb and forefinger, baring his teeth like a cat contemplating a kill, “you have no reason to cry yet.”

“Yet?!”

“We haven’t even begun,” he squeezes the trigger on the drill a few times before walking back over to his instrument table. He snaps his fingers, “Caters! Ready these potatoes!”

“Yes sir!” The Cater’s dramatically click their heels together before dragging us to the beds. We do our best to struggle, but we’re both at the bottom of gym class. The gashes in my shoulder start to ache again. I can hear Azul cry out as the Caters remove his now empty tank.

“Interesting,” Vil muses to himself as he polishes a scalpel, “Azul never got infected. How strange. I guess he never breathed in the fog. Darling didn’t either…”

I watch him soak a towel in a small basin of water. I can feel my heart rate pick up.

“Oh Seven,” I mutter as a horrible realization dawns on me. “He’s gonna waterboard me.”

I feel my breath shallowing again and I struggle against the restrains.

“Cater, could you give us some privacy?”

The Cater clones disappear as Cater Classic pouts. “Aww, you said I could watch.”

“You’ll be next if you keep it up,” Vil threatens.

As they get distracted by an argument that quickly turns into a scratch fight, I hear Azul whisper, “Darling, I have a plan, but you have to close your eyes.”

I comply, hoping that the next time I open them there won’t be a moist towel covering my face.

I hear the sound of a couple of seams popping and numerous suckers quietly unsticking themselves.

I feel some tentacles wrap around my shackles and pick them open.

“Blech,” Azul mutters with disgust, “does Vil ever wash the shit down here?”

The final shackle on my wrist clicks open. Thankfully, Vil and Cater don’t seem to notice. I take my arms down and gingerly rub my sore wrists.

“I’m going to carry you out of here,” Azul gently whispers to me as I feel a tentacle wrap around my waist. “If we crawl along the ceiling, they’re less likely to notice us. Are you ready?”

I nod, thankful to not have to be the leader for once. I practice some quiet breathing exercises to get myself under control while Azul (presumably) takes us back to Ortho.

Before long, Azul sets me back on the ground. With my eyes still respectfully closed, I give him a tight hug, mostly to ground myself. What surprises me is how tightly he hugs me back, wrapping as many tentacles as he can around me. I feel my shirt dampen as he cries into my shoulder. I barely notice, as I’m too busy crying into his.

“Today sucks,” I whimper through sobs.

He nods into my shoulder rapidly. It’s clear neither of us want the hug to end, as if we’d die the second we let go. But we have to push onward.

I take my time to compose myself, taking deep breaths while enveloped in Azul’s soft hug, gently running my fingers through his hair (mainly because I find the texture of hair to be comforting).

“We can do this, Azul,” I whisper to him. “We’re almost at the end. I’m gonna go check on Ortho.”

With my eyes still shut tight, I stand on my tiptoes and gently give him a platonic forehead kiss.

I don’t open my eyes until I’ve turned around. Say what you will, but I’m at least polite.

“Ortho?” I tenetively whisper to the quiet lab. “Are you there?”

I see a flicker of blue light from the other end of the room before a shiny, small hand in the form of a thumbs up pops up from behind the counter. I gently walk over there.

“It’s done, Darling!” Ortho chirps quietly as he holds up a canister. I can tell he’s beaming under his mask. “All we need to do is find a place to deploy it.”

“Any ideas?”

“We could pump it through the central AC unit, or from the highest point in the school.”

“Would the fairies let us pump through the AC unit?” Azul asks, having finally come in from the hallway. He’s wearing one of Vil’s shirts, so probably his pants too. Eh, he was gonna waterboard me. I’d steal a shirt of his if I had the time to too.

“Probably,” Ortho replies. “As long as we bring them an offering, we should be fine.”

“It’s better than going up to a high roof,” I think out loud. “With my luck today, someone would push me off it just to see me go splat.”

“Let’s hope for the best!” Ortho proclaims brightly as he hops on the carpet with the canister. Azul and I follow suit, ready to get out of Pomefiore before Cater and Vil stop arguing.

We pass through the mirror that leads back to the main building, imbued with new hope that this will all be over soon.

“How’s your arm, Azul?”

“Numb, but what can ya do?”

“Crowley can fix it up when this is all over!” Ortho informs us.

“I would hope so!” I respond.

We make it to the basement of the main building without anyone finding us. I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t know how many more events I can go through.

Sadly, we have to make to the actual AC unit on foot. This wouldn’t be bad if I didn’t start hearing a familiar drip, drip, drip on the cobblestones.

“I swear to the Sea Witch,” I grit my teeth, “if we have to recreate the Amnesia water level…”

“I smell a shrimpy again,” Floyd’s voice confirms part of my hunch.

“For real this time?” Jade asks.

“Yeah! She’s with the boss, too.”

“Wonderful.”

Their terrible laughter fills the halls.

“Darling, Ortho, I’ll keep them distracted,” Azul prepares to fight his eels. “Just turn around and don’t look.”

“We’ll see you on the other side,” I solemnly bid him goodbye as I take Ortho by the hand as we venture deeper into the basement of the main building.

“Any idea how far we are from the AC?” I ask Ortho, as the sounds of Azul’s fight echo in the distance.

“It should be right around the corner,” Ortho replies.

As he says that, we round a corner and reach the large room with the AC unit. As we survey this new room, another noise enters the soundscape. The sound of slow, methodical boot falls and the crackles of fire. I feel my heart plummet.

“Ortho, run.”

“Darling, you can’t beat him!”

“I can at least distract him!” Tears start to well up in my eyes. “Go end this nightmare! I trust you!”

Ortho nods and hurries to the AC as I stare down the doorway that’s flickering red.

The flickering gets brighter, brighter, brighter. Before long, Idia creeps around the doorway, looming above me.

“Found you,” he growls, a devilish smile painted across his face.

I’m frozen in fear once more. My chest is starting to hurt again as tears stream down my face. I can already tell. I’m going to die.

“Aw what’s the matter?” he mocks. “The great Darling Adventures can’t even speak? To me? RUDE.”

I have an idea, a way to stall for time. I latch onto it like a leech.

“You know my name?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” he scoffs.

Oh, please say it’s because you’re secretly in love with me! Please say that’s true!

He continues, “You’re the one who gives herself the spotlight the moment things go to shit! That’s all you care about isn’t it? All those times you led fake suitors to my kidnapper and not once did you decide to help me. Only standing there singing fucking songs while everyone else fought the ghosts.”

I can feel my heart shatter. “Is that what you think of me?”

“What else would I think? I hate you.”

One of my terrible traits takes over as my sadness turns to anger. “Well, I’m sorry I’m not your perfect little robot!”

He locks eyes with me when I say that. My eyes widen in terror. My hands fly up and cover my mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” I say through the gaps between my fingers as my tears start anew.

“Well, Darling,” a new rage alight in his bright yellow eyes, “looks like it’s time for you to show the audience your flashback sequence.”

“Wait please I’m sorry I-!”

I was too busy groveling that I didn’t realize he had wrapped his pale hand around my thin neck.

“Now now, kitten,” he growls as his fingers begin to cut off my air supply, “time to get off the Discord call.”

“Idia please-” I choke out as he starts to lift me off my feet. I try to jam my thumb into his wrist, but my vision is already getting spotty. “This- isn’t you-”

His claws dig into the back of my neck. I start crying when I feel them pierce the skin. I can feel the blood trickle down my back.

He pulls me back away from the wall. My eyes go wide. He bares his sharp teeth at me, “Game over, Darling.”

With more force than I thought he could ever muster, he slams my head against the stone wall.

To Be Continued...

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst oc #twst fanfic #twst vil #twst azul #twst cater #twst ortho #twst idia #horror #blood #kill your darlings

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