#expectations shattered /silly /pos

[unknownarmageddon]

daily hozier!!

YOOOO

[jmscornerlibrary]

Snape's Search History - Part 2

Hello! Slightly shorter, but slowly crawling forward. I'm writing a book of my own which requires quite a lot of time and creative inspiration, so that's taking priority... anyway, enjoy!

Featuring: our favourite grumpy bat-boy and Minerva's I'm too old for this attitude.

Tags are at the bottom - if I've missed anyone, I do apologise.

***

Minerva McGonagall rapped sharply on the Potions classroom door and entered without waiting for a reply. She half expected something short of a calamity - perhaps the desks all scorched into remains beyond recognition, an infestation of some sort, chaos in the form of the furniture being stuck to the ceiling or anything else which would claim “round-way-wrong” - and Severus’ face contorted and twitching as he muttered dark things under his breath, but no. She was most mistaken.

Snape stood in the middle of his classroom, his arms folded, one hand propped beneath his chin as he stared blankly at his chalkboard, his face quite placid, even serene, as he stood deep in thought.

Minerva paused, feeling an odd pang of unrest in her chest at this strange change, for he was hardly in such a state and something must have been certainly very wrong. She followed the line his eyes made to the blackboard, saw nothing which could be the subject of such intense evaluation, so she merely looked back and forth between him and the wall a few times before clearing her throat.

His eyes flicked towards her, but the rest of his position remained stagnant.

Minerva didn’t say anything; neither did he. After a few moments, she looked past him, walked a few steps into the room, then turned around to look at the walls for any sort of unobvious differences that could have brought on this change of facade. Snape let out a dry chuckle. 

“Nothing has changed since you were last here, Minerva.”

She turned to look at him.

“Then I don’t understand.”

Snape nodded thoughtfully. 

“Me neither,” was the reply, before he marched up to his blackboard, turned on his heel, stood still, then began to evaluate the desks in the same position as before. This was enough for her to become slightly unnerved and her eyebrows to climb up to the highest ring on her forehead as she watched him. Still, the silence dragged on long before she formulated a question of any sort and that was only after the Potions Master got down on his knees and began to look under the desks as though he had previously misplaced a cork of a bottle, looking rather silly.

“What are you doing?” she said flatly, tilting her head to peruse him.

“Investigating,” he replied calmly from under the desk, looking up at the underbelly of the furniture.

“Investigating.” Minerva nodded, though she was everything but enlightened. “And what on could you be investigating under the desks, on the floor?”

Snape banged the back of his head on the desk-edge as he emerged from beneath it, cursed viciously, then this alien demeanour he had borrowed for a moment shattered and dissolved into his standard one. The dark scowl looked so normal back on its master’s face that Minerva’s chest loosened a little.

Snape drew out his wand. After a moment, in which more investigation and observance occurred, his scowl deepened and suddenly lunged and struck the front desk with it.

“Revellio.”

Nothing happened. Minerva watched him, po-faced. Snape repeated the gesture.

“Revellio!”

Not a peep. He growled, then pointed his wand at the ceiling.

“Revellio!” The wand was pointed at his blackboard. “Revellio!” The tip was directed at his desk, at the floor, at the back of the classroom, at the door of his store cupboard.

“Revellio! Revellio! REVELLIO-!”

“Severus, please,” McGonagall said, approaching him as he scowled and his eyes darted around the classroom. “This verges on nonsensical. There is nothing here.”

“That’s the problem!” Severus snarled, his knuckles white on the black of his wand. “This makes no sense whatsoever! Confounded brats… This is idiocy!”

“What is?” 

“This innocence… this consideration!” 

The last word was spat out like something vile. Minerva’s eyebrows dropped down and she looked completely exasperated.

“Consideration? Severus, what precisely is going on?”

“I don’t know!”

Minerva’s hands stiffened as she grew impatient. 

“Can you please calm yourself down and tell me what brought on this… this whole examination?” she said. “I would be very grateful. This hysteria is quite past what is expected of both of us. Put your wand away, Severus.”

Snape seemed to regain himself as she spoke. He straightened, breathed out a long sigh through his nostrils, arrested the fire snapping in his eyes, then slowly fed his wand back into his sleeve and drew his cloak tight about him. 

“Your pupils, Minerva,” he began in his low voice, looking much displeased, “have been behaving in a very strange manner today.”

McGonagall watched him, remembering the giggling trio she had passed on the corridor and their strange mood.

 “You mean Potter, Weasley, and Miss Granger?”

“Indeed,” he spat, then grimaced disdainfully at the front desk which had been occupied by the unwelcome trio a few moments before, before looking back up at her. “Well? Are you surprised?”

“No,” she replied immediately, glancing at the desk too, then paused. “Have they been causing trouble?”

Snape’s face stretched into a very dry smile.

“Trouble?” He scoffed, then grew solemn again. “Why, yes. Well, no. In fact… ah, confound and bebother those varmints-!”

Minerva had pursed her lips. “Severus-”

“Yes!” He clenched his fists and stormed towards his desk. “Yes, they have been causing trouble! They have undoubtedly been causing trouble, otherwise Potter wouldn’t have had an accursed aureole shining around his head for the entire lesson!”

At this, McGonagall frowned, but Snape wasn’t done.

“Weasley, too!” He fell into his chair then sat up, rigid with passion, his fingers digging into the wooden armrests. “Not a single word out of his mouth during the entire lesson! He usually doesn’t shut up, his mouth works like a watermill! And this time, silence!”

“One moment.” McGonagall was close to pinching the bridge of her nose. “You mean to say-”

“And Granger,” Snape cut her off, snapping, his fingernails making scratch-marks in the wooden armrests as his fists clenched. “I’ve never seen her so pleasant in the entire time she’s been here. Didn’t put her hand up once! Her head was down, she did the work without a word and not a bullet of the usual know-it-all piffle left her mouth!”

His form loosened and he fell backwards against the back-rest, his hand dangling over his face as he worked rest into his face muscles and the creases around his eyes with his fingers. McGonagall watched him with pursed lips, feeling it wouldn’t be wise to interject until he finished with his mental breakdown.

“And that’s not all,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “The homework they handed in today is twice the length I asked for. And I mean twice the length. The spaces between words and the size of their handwriting wasn’t different from their standard lettering.”

“I fail to understand why that calls to get so worked up,” Minerva said carefully. “Surely, you don’t find this irritating?”

“And it’s top standard,” the wrecked Potions Master continued, his voice almost breaking. “It was concise and intelligently written. Into the bargain, all three pieces of work were different. The pair of idiots clearly didn’t copy off Granger this time. It seems they have put effort into those rolls of parchment like never before. I dread to think what it is they have done to act in this manner.”

Minerva shook her head as she watched the black bat sprawled out on his wooden chair. He saw her scrutiny and growled.

“You weren’t here, Minerva - I have very good reason for suspecting nothing but trouble. Potter didn’t talk back to me once. He claimed blame, even if it was unjustified.”

At this, Minerva frowned. “Harry Potter?”

“What other Potter is there?”

Minerva, this time, did pinch the bridge of her nose and both adults stood there feeling quite shaken. The former regained herself first.

“Let me sum this up,” she said. “You are completely and utterly indisposed because Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger were well-behaved for the entirety of your lesson.”

“I am completely and utterly indisposed,” Snape repeated with disdain and through clenched teeth, “because they have clearly done something, or are about to do something, which must have stirred enough remorse within their hollow little souls to not place a toe out of line for the entirety of my lesson. Not to mention this.”

He leaned forward and grasped something, then offered it to Minerva. She stepped forward and squinted at the object; it was an empty glass vial, with a square label which read: headache draught.

She glanced up at him as she took it in her fingers. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“This appeared upon my desk when my back was turned.”

“And you think they placed this on your desk?”

“No,” Snape said after some thought. “This is something far darker than both of us think.”

Minerva looked at him over the rim of her spectacles.

“This empty vial?” she said flatly.

“It was full when I first beheld it.”

“And what happened to its contents?”

“I poured it down the sink.”

Minerva paused.

“Why?”

Snape rubbed his face and stood up, looking fixated. “It was very cleverly disguised. It smelled exactly like what it claims to be.”

He began to pace. Minerva placed the sinister, empty vial back on his desk and folded her arms, looking down her nose at him as though he was an adolescent hissing about overblown drama which had happened upon the corridors and had tarnished his reputation into disrepair. Not that she hadn’t seen that before. 

“There can only be one explanation for this,” he finished, standing still. “It has to be.”

“Which is?”

He turned and met her eyes with his obstinate, dark gaze.

“Someone is trying to exact their vengeance upon me.”

Minerva said nothing, her face betrayed nothing.

“It wouldn’t be the first time it happened,” he muttered. “I’m not taking any risk. I don’t have a very tolerant stomach…”

Minerva began to shake her head. “Severus.”

“...headache draught indeed.” He scoffed. “The only question is: who? And why? I am beginning to doubt that Potter wasn’t involved in it, though perhaps he wasn’t acting of his own accord. Our favourite trio wouldn’t even know that they were under the Imperius curse-”

“Severus.”

He turned to her impatiently, then shut his mouth under the impact of her gaze.

“Has it not occurred to you,” Minerva began patiently, “that instead of poisoning or attempting to murder you, someone could be simply trying to help you out?”

Snape looked at her incredulously, then burst out laughing. It was his usual harsh, grating laugh, which was emitted more to mock than to express amusement. It bounced off the classroom walls like hailstone.

“Of course,” he chortled. “That would make sense. Let’s be nice to the irritable wretch of a teacher who resides solely in the dungeons of the castle.”

“I’m sorry you struggle to understand the concept of compassion,” Minerva said, rolling her eyes and moving towards the exit. “Perhaps you ought to take this as a sign, Severus, and with it this concept into consideration.”

“Nonsense,” he replied, then placed the base of his palms to his temples and moved to sit in his chair as he grimaced. “There is no such thing as compassion. If there is, it is very hard to find, and simply non-existent in these particular corridors, between these particular individuals.”

Minerva didn’t see the sense in trying to convince him otherwise. Instead, she simply looked at him pointedly as he grasped his head and shut his eyes to try and contain his headache. 

“Stop spearing me,” he muttered, sighing. “I’ve not forgotten what brats are capable of. I was one too. It’s certainly nothing but chaos and infidelity. I’m not stupid.”

“No. You are stubborn,” she replied, shaking her head, “and prone to jumping to very unfavourable conclusions. Now that you poured that draught down the drain, why don’t you make yourself another? Lessons resume in fifteen minutes.”

Snape groaned and muttered some dark words, followed by a very low: “I will manage.”

“As you like,” McGonagall replied in a tone which seemed to highlight her claim about how stubborn Snape was. “I will see you at lunch, Severus. Don’t get yourself too worked up, now.”

He didn’t answer; Minerva shut the door behind her, taking the rest of the noise and warmth of presence with her. 

Five minutes of silence and dwelling later, Severus Snape rubbed his eyes, opened them, then fixed them onto the glass vial with the ‘headache draught’ lettering arranged upon the label, apparently nothing but innocent.

“Help me,” he repeated absentmindedly, then snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Of course the intention was to help me. Because that is what we do when we have a spare moment. We all come together, sit down at a round table and discuss how to make somebody’s life less of a damned hellscape over a light cup of coffee.”

Snape’s rigid posture broke as the sneer ebbed off his face. His eyes flicked around at the walls of his empty classroom, then to the pale skin of his hands which hadn’t held another for over two decades. He thought of the bleak and empty days the future promised him, feeling something horrible, hard and gooey congealing in his chest. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

“Silence!” Snape commanded nobody in particular, feeling his voice begin to crack as it echoed around the classroom.

He put his face in his hands, pressing them to his facial features to keep them in stone, but they creased into something embarrassing and despairing anyway.

“Silence…” he repeated, but with his voice hoarse and thick. “Very well. Fine. Let it be so.”

He regained himself, then fixed his face into the window, making a sharp move to smear any stray tears away, then folded his hands tight and pressed them to his lips. Still, the red rimming his eyes, cheeks and nose gave him away, though his face was cold and disinterested as marble.

His voice was a mere whisper, though the boggart hiding under the sink heard it and obeyed:

“Let it be silent.”

***

Tags! I do appreciate all of your reviews and ops, I enjoy reading your excitement!

@overlord-of-fantasy @severus-snaps @slytherinmagic38 @enderdeservesbetter @acupnoodle @ace-aussie-asshole @halfbloodprince137 @seleneprince @memelovescaps @clingingtoskeletons @lilithofpenandbook @tumblingghosts @jade-eclipse-li @fluffyneondinosaur @lessdepressy @praline-elegy @captainsky-photori @likelightinglass @flyingflosser09

[mr-laveau]

20 Questions for Fic Writers Game

Tagged by a darling, @autisticempathydaemon! Thanks for the tag!

Tagging @agentplutonium because I wanna pull some SH style interrogative shenanigans/lh

1 - How many works do you have on AO3?

Seventeen, not a lot but it's to be expected somewhat I suppose since I'm busy writing NeXus.

2 - What's your total AO3 word count?

64,509-Oh look I beat Lexi/j/pos

3 - What fandoms do you write for?

Redacted mostly, I have some unreleased Castle Audios fics, an unfinished JJBA SDC fic to finish and a Scott Pilgrim fic to start.

4 - What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

#1 is an Ironpanther Marvel Fic of Avenger's Academy I have not touched in forever called "How Tony Stark landed a king and how T'Challa landed a genius". It was fun tho cuz my hc of T'Challa being demisexual was really well received to my knowledge. #2 is "Spitfire", which admittedly is a good FL/Damien fic and people should read it. #3 is "Ghost of the Past", my Sam/SH fic where they both used to be roommates in DUMP. #4 is "Friends...Am I right?" which was a really fun Darlin/Sam & BE+Fred fic. Finally, #5 is "Moments That Flash By" which is a really good Darlin/David fic for my soul.

5 - Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do respond when I remember...ADHD makes me do silly silly things like forget that stuff exists. I like comments and they let me know I'm doing s good job.

6 - What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Easy! "Shattered Glass Makes a Good Weapon" Gods, I love that fic so much. It was really fun for me to reach deep down and write Darlin and Quinn like that.

7 -What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

uhhhhhhh I dunno, probably a Marvel fic called "Crossing Buckies and Dotting Hawkeyes", I am a winterhawk girlie and I had fun writing that, others might think it's "Spitfire" or "Break time, Gorgeous" but subjectively, it's that fic.

8 - Do you get hate on fics?

If I have then I haven't seen it. I don't really engage much with fandom to care about hate comments because "haha, look at you getting mad over words about fictional characters kissing", like shut your goofy ass and move on.

9 - Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I have but I'm not releasing it. I don't feel compelled to do it-mostly cuz it's for me and I like toying with the idea in my head and the people of my current fandom are not ready for the depravity I could unleash.

10 - Do you write crossovers?

No? I have ideated one but I'm still not sure if I want to do it.

11 - Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope.

12 - Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nuh uh.

13 - Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Uhhhh no but I have ideated with Lexi about one and I have been too busy to finish the first chapter.

14 - What's your all time favorite ship?

My redactedsona/redacted men What? who said that? It's Darlin/Sam/David/Angel/Damien/Asher/Baaabe/SH/Milo. It's my ship and yes, they're all poly, yes, they're a network and yes, I am happy with myself.

15 - What's a WIP that you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

"Platinum Portrait", It was an old JJBA fic with my OC/Jotaro and I really liked how it was going. Dunno, we'll see how it goes.

16 - What are your writing strengths?

I'm good at dialogue and characterization as well as pacing(?).

17 - What are your writing weaknesses?

Gore, writing long fics, Dead Dove Do Not Eats (I wanna do those at some point with Quinn or Hush OR Porter OR OR OR Imperium Vincent) I like dark shit, idk what to tell y'all and I wanna get better at exploring darker topics properly in my writing.

18 - Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Gods, I love doing it. If you've read "Break Time, Gorgeous" then I want you to know, I love you and it was fun as hell to write.

19 - First fandom you wrote for?

Marvel. Specifically it was my Ironpanther fic.

20 - Favorite fic you've written?

An unreleased Sam/Darlin smut fic where they fuck in an alleyway. I think it's fun.

[valentinaonthemoon]

I've finally found the time to watch all the trailers from GMMTV 2024 part 2, so here you go, like last year:

A New Liveblog Reaction:

The Heart Killers: okay so we're starting very strong with a crime drama romance where First investigates Khaotung and Joong, who are brothers (?) and kill people. Then I got distracted because the song they used is the same they covered in MSP and I have still brainrot from that one. Also their names are Style, Fidel, Bison and Kant??? I cannot take anyone named Kant seriously, the guy almost made me fail philosophy in high school, I have personal beef with him. NEXT!

Revamp the Undead Story: ah yes, a classic horror drama. We have abandoned houses and pale vampires; people who cut their fingers on shattered glass; we have it all! I love how there is another vampire show to look forward to at this point. I was already waiting for Golden Blood with Gawin, but I guess I'll add this one to the list as well.

Perfect10 Liners: I genuinely have no idea about this. I feel like I've seen this story before. The only couple's story I find more interesting than the others is Mark Junior: they've had lovely storylines so far as a duo and I'm curious about their future projects too.

Ossan's Love Thailand: I am crying watching Earth making puppy noises!!! This definitely looks like a total change from his previous roles, where he was old, grumpy and mean, lmao. I guess everyone in the office seems to have a crush on him in this one, (which makes me think about Cherry Magic and how much of a green flag Achi and Karan were) (but the standards are too high on that one) and it's HILARIOUS hearing him complain to be too hot. I have never seen EarthMix in a comedy role so I am looking forward to this one: it seems ridiculous, can't wait.

The Ex-Morning: Aw, I'm glad KristSingto are back with something that isn't SOTUS, because I still haven't finished the second season of that one, but I liked them working together. This series looks like a riot and I will be seated. (Although they've shown one or two frames full of angst that I will most probably cry about so) (yikes) (they've decided Krist nails angst and put his characters in the most horrible situations, like) (give the guy a break)

Thame - Po: Heart That Skips A Beat: this story seems quite interesting, especially the life of idols and production companies. I might keep an eye out for that too.

The Dark Dice: this started as a school drama full of fights and blood, but suddenly turned into Jumanji/Saw and I am. Here. For. It.

Sweet Tooth, Good Dentist: I genuinely do not care about this, but every time I think about dentistry, James Acaster's voice comes up in my head and says: "Do the tooth teeth have teeth too?" and I think that's beautiful.

Break Up Service: this looks fun, not going to lie.

Hide & Sis: the title sounds so silly, but the show seems pretty fun to follow. Can't wait for it to be some Saltburn / Home School / Little Women (Korea) type of thing. I want the ladies to destroy stuff and kill people, I don't care.

Us: why does this look so angstyyyy??? where are my funny silly GLs???? where are my disaster wlws??? anyway, we'll watch, obviously

Friendshit Forever: another absolutely out of nowhere title, lmao. But this is Do Revenge with a sprinkle of A Simple Favor??? I will unfortunately eat this up when it'll come out. Also I love Mook and New, so this'll be fun.

Scarlet Heart Thailand: very fast, and I don't know the original story, so I have no idea what to expect. I love period dramas and the costumes look nice. I've read that the original doesn't end well, but yeah, the teaser is in itself very angsty, we'll see I guess!

Leap Day: this thriller looks quite interesting, but I don't know if I'll be able to watch it without being stressed for the entire run of it.

Yay! Let me know if there's more new trailers I haven't seen, I have been offline for a couple of days and I might have skipped something else.

[offworldcolony]

Tenet, 2020 - ★★★

Top Spot of cinema this film aint. But how do I review you Tenet? How did I feel about you? Did I like you as much as I did simply because I hadn't been to the cinema in 9 months? Is it because, in the cinema, I was able to streth my legs and be two full seats away from the public whilst also having amazing seats? My dream-cinema-going experience?

Let's find out.

First off this film is Prime Nolan, it is a quintessential, distillation of Nolan. If you squeezed him, Tenet would fall out. It certainly has one hand firmly gripping the origins of Nolan's love of the cinema format; one which moves inexorably, like time, forwards, and can change speed and be moved around or edited, like memory. This forged, early in his career something like Memento. But Tenet also has its foot firmly stamped on the expensive and loud and thrilling big-budget blockbuster, where 200 million dollars can be used to tackle complex (if a little arid and cerebral) subjects not unlike his more recent endeavours such as Inception.

Inaccurate comparisons to Bond (although this is much more like a Mission Impossible film) and to Inception aren't unwarranted, they're just slightly off. Tenet is a counterpoint, a reflection and an anti-Inception, which may, in some way, have been Nolan's intention, knowing that he calculates and enjoys building a fourth-wall shattering element to all of his movies.

What does that mean? Well, whereas Inception was a very simple puzzle told awkwardly and in a convoluted way, Tenet is an awkward and convoluted puzzle told very simply, if at all. Where Inception prided itself on the over-explanation and exposition dumps inherent in genres such as the heist-film, Tenet tells you almost nothing, (in fact when it does, I'm looking at you Shipping Container scene, it's incredibly out of place and unwanted) it wants you to play catch up, and the Hitchcockian lines between what a protagonist (cheekily called The Protagonist here) and what the audience knows are blurred, which does actually feed directly into the plot of the film. So he's using the medium here to enhance or back up the story he is telling, as usual, and that is certainly clever and welcome.

The first two-thirds (despite Nolan's usual confounding and blisteringly loud opening sequences he favours) is a genuine riot, I loved being taken on a ride without ever knowing where it was going to end up. I enjoyed pieces of the puzzle slotting into place slowly, I enjoyed Robert Pattinson very much and John David Washington who was simply exquisite.

John David Washington was a charming, steely, human actor with the poise of knowing something well, but being slightly out of his depth, which I imagine was him channelling his part on the film with Nolan as the architect from "the future" mirrored in the film, and he, the Protagonist. A bit too clever for its own good this one? yeah, maybe. But Washington cements himself as one of my favourite actors by doing very little here but doing it exceedingly well. He the most is watchable of all Nolan's protagonists so far, and I'm sure the enjoyment I had in the film hung at every turn on his ability to act like a smart, fun, deep character, completely out of his depth (or out of his time??!!??!!) Hah.

The standout fight of the movie (incidentally I would love to see if it takes place both times at the same point of the movie's runtime mirrored, just a thought) is a really cleverly conceived and executed one, it's half-Matrix, half-Jedi powered and it's a much more exciting idea than a rotating hallway. It has the potential to really start a kind of genre of it's own; it may even be the bullet-time of this generation except the scope of it is limited to films that actually have time travel as a conceit which is a shame, but Nolan could really utilise this technique many more times in a myriad of exciting ways, if he wanted to make a sequel.

Which leads me to one of my gripes I suppose, and, like this film, it's a strange fourth-wall kind of one. Because Nolan has such a singular (and wearing thin?) vision and style, doubled-down instead of evolved, over his filmography, his films have been cutting-edge and completely of their time. Unlike another artist-filmmaker like Wes Anderson who, with Grand Budapest, let himself become immersed in his own style and went full-Anderson, he was ahead of his time, and so his style has settled into be likeable and welcome now. Nolan, on the absolute precipice of now, means his style, revolutionary in the mid-late 00's, is still stuck there. His imitators have been and gone and even they have changed their styles and their films. But Nolan's style is still stuck in 2010.

Because so much of his IP is controlled by him, there's little hope for a Tenet sequel, and even less-so, one handled by a different auteur. Whereas something like The Matrix should be handled by the underground, sub-culture Wachowskis to bring a vision to it that we can't expect, nor should we, a 'franchise' like Tenet would be amazing to see handled by a different director; the conceits of a future war, inverted entropy etc. (not wanting to give too much away!) have so much scope, and yet this one and done, half-baked film will be all we ever have. Nolan needs a protege; not unlike Peter Berg to Michael Mann, DJ Caruso to Spielberg (yes both of those filmmakers aren't exactly stellar) but some young buck with ideas of their one to be taken under Nolan's wing to be able to play around within his framework. Whether we ever see Incenet or Tenception, I'd still like to see a Ryan Coogler, or a Benh Zeitlin, or a J. C. Chandor or Ava Duvernay or Damien Chazelle or even Shane Carruth take on board this franchise with the same kind of budget. With John David Washington in the Lead again, of course.

This would lead to a slightly altered tone. For example, does Nolan know how silly some of these things appear when delivered po-faced? The almost child-like gesture for Tenet, the embarrassing spy-code-phrases, the bulldozer clunkiness of a handful of the very end sequences' dialogue, these things threaten to undermine the movie in ways that for some viewers, it may never recover from. Does he know that talking about time-travel in a movie has been done the same way for 30 years? He did that in Interstellar, if an explanation of something has been done in 1990, try and find a better way to explain it in your movie! He makes reference a few times to the awkwardness of the movie's premise and plotlines, but it's not enough and Branagh's villain is a key piece to that also, he's almost an unnecessary component to the movie and one that a better writer and another draft might have even excised.

But Nolan has to hang is emotional hat and stakes on something. So, in his typical way, instead of making it, you know, actually emotional, and using the vehicle of cinema, celluloid, editing, photography etc. to bolster and energise the emotionality, he just puts in a child and some blindingly stupid lines about Motherhood and another abused and erratic Female 'Lead'. In many ways I feel like the plot (and runtime) of his movies would do better to excise the emotionality completely, either make something genuinely resonant and impactful to me, or just make something epic and clever and spend the runtime exploring and wringing out of that concept, as much as you can. Especially if you're unlikely to ever make a sequel to it.

If you're talking Nolan, you have to talk about sound. His mixes have been getting progressively unusual; exposition delivered through masks or by non-native speakers, I get it when he says it's to get you to lean in and listen, I even defended it when Bane was next to unintelligible because I liked the concept of it, it was bold and creative. But now I'm exhausted. Does he have bad hearing? Does he enjoy bombarding people with a wall of sound? Michael Mann is another filmmaker with a terrible mix but at least his can be attributed to his new avant-garde, voyeuristic style. At least Zimmer is off this one as composer, the music, while still satisfying that Nolan blast of noise, was pumping and electronic, sometimes simpering in the background with backwards-sounding instruments, but I felt like it sat there nicely most of the while instead of overpowering or overbearing like Zimmer's past collabs with Nolan.

The budget of Tenet is silly for what it is, I'd love to see where it all actually went; when a movie's climax isn't as blistering and creative as the Fifth Transformers movie and on a bigger budget, some questions about accounting or at least on creative veracity in big set-pieces may be needed. The balance of explaining, found not lacking in Inception, but lacking here, is no-more emblematic than in its final battle; Blue-Team backwards, Red-Team forwards, is not enough to get invested in the mechanics and allow either for the turning off of one's brain or the engagement in the puzzle of it all. It's just a mess that doesn’t just seem hard to follow on first watch, but also seems unlikely to be something interesting to dissect or enjoy on subsequent watches, unlike some of the puzzles of Inception that were.

But it's not all bad, like I said, I really enjoyed the experience of watching it in the cinema, which is essentially Nolan's primary goal. Like his previous films, I acknowledge, accept and subsume its flaws into the overall experience of what I'm getting. I found the notion of the abused party having to actually keep the abuser alive rather than kill them a tremendously clever twist on the idea (although completely underbaked in execution) and a time travel movie using entropy and inversion is a monumentally cinematic twist on it. Some of the moments and scenes I do completely want to watch again, there's so much detail and life and character in some of the sets and some of the time and palindrome related easter eggs are intriguing, (the less obvious stuff and not the fact that a character is called Arepo and for the entire movie I was expecting that to have some kind of significance beyond just being Opera backwards!) and the moments of the film shown as the very early teasers were really cool when they actually surfaced in the film proper.

I found, much more than many movies I've seen, the videogame influences in this one; from the lead character simply being A Protagonist, to the Call of Duty multiplayer locations (warehouse, yacht, airport, destroyed crater), to the sterile and industrial hallways, to the way the action was shot, to the set-pieces and even the time-reversed mechanic felt like it could have been instigated by a button press. It reminded me of a Max Payne game or another PlayStation 2-era third-person shooter. I was reminded of the more recent game Control also; shadowy agencies and conspiracies, the fusion of brutalism and science-fiction, the villain.

So I guess this is why I liked it; It was an experience. And therefore it did it’s job. I want to watch it again, soon. Which is not always the case. It lives inside its own constructed world, tenet, I enjoy when these films come along with a narrow focus and it's own set of rules, I find that appealing, but alienating at the same time. I wanted to make a review that had some kind of mirrored structure to it, but the best you're gonna get is a palindrome for the start and the end. The most interesting thing about Tenet is, I'm still thinking about it, and the world it so finely crafted, which is separate and parallel to our own, is a world I'd happily step back into given the chance.

Nolan's worst film? Maybe not, despite being far from the Nolan oeuvre Top Spot.

source https://letterboxd.com/offworldcolony/film/tenet/

[dubredofanfics]

Hit n Run [BONGLENI]

XX. Coffee Coffee

Daphne came to Bongbong's office to hand in some papers. He wondered what is was about, he started to read it.

It was a request form from Leni. It states that she is requesting for his approval for her to be able to transfer another department.

Bongbong flared up and crumpled the paper startling Daphne. "Ano pang hinihintay mo?" He asked her. She was astonished with his response to the request. "Hindi ko pipirmahan yan! Get out!" He slammed the table and yelled at her making her panic to leave right away. He trembled in anger, his eyes glared. He walked towards the small room in his office and punched the wall slightly throwing a tantrum.

He was so mad that everyday, the chance that he'll win Leni back decreases. He hated it. He loathed how much it affects him. He couldn't even focus well on his work because of the pain he was facing due to their issue.

—

Later in the afternoon, Daphne informed Leni about how Bongbong responded to the request form. Leni felt irritated to hear that he crumpled and disregarded it when she was sure that he knew what's going on. She went to his office to hand him another request by herself.

She laid the paper on his table. "Pirmahan mo na, please." She pleaded with demand. His jaw hardened as he glared at her. "Bakit ko pipirmahan yan?" He asked.

"Dahil gusto kong lumipat ng department-"

"Para saan? Para makatransfer kay kay Rodrigo? Para ano? Para landiin siya? Hindi mo talaga mapakalma yang kalandian mo noh?" He yelled.

She scowled at him. "Ano bang sinasabi mo?!" She felt so offended. "Bullshít." He snorted. "Wag mo akong gagühin, Leni!"

She couldn't cope with where his bitterness was coming from as she was sure that in the issue they were facing, it was her who got hurt the most, not him.

"Gusto kong lumipat ng department dahil gusto kong lumayo sa'yo!" She confessed angrily. "Ayoko kitang makita araw araw at kung magste-stay ako dito sa department mo, hindi ko maiiwasan yon!" She continued. He kept his jaw locked and hardened as a sign of his anger.

"Bong! Hindi ako yung babaeng iniisip mo, alam mo yan. Alam mong gusto ko lumipat dahil gusto ko magpakalayo layo sa'yo kase alam mo kung bakit? Kase sa tuwing nakikita kita, hindi ko mapigilan masaktan. Kaso wala ka namang pakielam sa nararamdaman ko 'di ba? Kaya please lang, pakawalan mo na ako dahil ayoko na." She bursted out her emotions.

It somehow made him feel bad and guilty for causing all her pain and he wanted to stop. But then, he grabbed the request paper and ripped it next to her eyes. Her jaw dropped slightly in shock.

"Hindi ko pipirmahan yan." He said coldly. She closed her eyes and held back her tears as she sighed heavily.

She bursted out all her sincere struggles in front of him but she didn't feel any trace of guilt and concern from him. He was like a stone, he was so cold. She was at least hoping he'd apologize or maybe hold her tight but no.

Inexplain ko na't lahat pero di parin niya pinirmahan... I already said I was hurting but he doesn't care. It only proves that I really don't mean anything to him — kahit konti. Why am I still surprised?

She felt so shattered. She just couldn't help but cry over the fact that she is crying over someone who never cared. Someone who never even loved her back no matter how much he meant to her.

Who am I even to make a Bongbong Marcos change or fall in love? It's silly for me to think that I am some kind of, special, to be like a life changing girl character in a movie. I'm not special. I'm just a nobody and I should stop expecting that I could make someone as big as Bongbong change his perspectives and make him settle because it's never gonna happen.

NEVER.

—

It was a typical Tuesday morning. Rody introduced his client to Bongbong and Gina before the meeting began.

Leni entered the conference room and handed Bongbong the necessary papers from Christina.

He looked at her twice. He was fascinated by her the moment she stepped inside the room. He stared at her while she was talking to Bongbong. She was like a magnet and he was a solid steel.

"I'm sorry, what's your name?" He asked. Leni was a bit startled with his sudden talking to her. "Ah... Leni Robredo, sir. Mr. Marcos' assistant po." She introduced.

"I'm sorry. I'm Antonio Trillianes of Pangaea group of companies." He introduced and shook her hand and kissed it making Bongbong, Gina and Rody surprised. Leni felt a bit awkward. She chuckled softly.

"Nice to meet you, Leni." He uttered. Leni nodded and smiled. Bongbong was somehow bothered to see it next to his eyes.

"Ah... Thank you, sir. Nice to meet you too po. Uhm... mauna na po ako." She informed him and left.

Rody smirked at Antonio as soon as she left. "Type mo noh?" He teased as they are that comfortable with each other since they were friends at the first place. Antonio chuckled. "Maganda siya." He replied. "I know. I fell for her charm too." Rody chuckled. "Talaga? I'm not surprised." Antonio retorted and they chuckled.

Bongbong felt irritated to overhear their conversation while Gina felt intrigued with how Bongbong will respond.

"Well, she has a boyfriend." Bongbong cuts in. "Talaga? I don't think so." Rody replied sounding so sure. "Oh? Sayang naman." Antonio chuckled. "Oo, meron siyang boyfriend." Bongbong insisted.

"Talaga lang ha? Hindi ko alam yan ha." Gina joined in while she glued her eyes on the documents.

"Hindi narin nakakagulat, maganda talaga siya e. Malamang sa malamang maraming naghahabol sakanya." Antonio replied. "Exactly." Bongbong stated.

Suddenly, Antonio's phone rang. He went out to pick up the call.

Rody and Gina stared at Bongbong. "Kelan pa nagkaboyfriend si Leni?" Rody asked. "Hindi niyo alam?" Bongbong answered safely. "At sinong boyfriend niya? Ikaw?" Gina snorted.

Bongbong glared at her but didn't reply. That is when Rody and Gina knew that he was preventing Antonio from going after Leni. "Aminin mo na lang kase na nagseselos ka." Rody brought up. "Well." Gina uttered.

"Ang dami niyong sinasabi." Bongbong countered and walked out.

"Okay, sige. Thank you. Bye." Antonio ended the conversation over the phone. He brought down the line and saw Leni from across the place. He couldn't help but be fascinated by her. He smiled at her and the moment she saw him looking, she smiled back softly at him.

—

"Ay!!" Leni mishandled the pile of documents causing it to scatter all over the floor. She immediately kneeled down to pick it up when someone helped her out.

She was stunned for a moment. "Sir Antonio." She uttered surprised. He smiled at her and continued picking up the papers. "Mag-iingat ka" He reminded her and handed her all the papers.

They stood up. "Thank you, nako, ano ba yan. Nakakahiya." She turned red. He chuckled and looked at her. "Okay lang, nagmamadali ka ba?" He asked. "Ah, di naman po sir." She forced a smile.

"May date kayo ng boyfriend mo noh?" He teased making her silenced. "Just kidding." He chuckled.

"Ah... Wala naman po akong boyfriend, sir..." She corrected him.

Antonio was bewildered. "Talaga? Sabi ni Bongbong meron daw." He laughed at the vexation. "Sabi niya po?" She asked. "Oo pero baka hindi siya aware na wala." He replied. "Ah.. Baka nga po... Pero wala po talaga akong boyfriend.." She clarified.

"Actually nakakagulat kase you are really beautiful." He complimented making her blush and shy. "Ah, thank you po..." She uttered sweetly as she stroked her hair towards the back of her ear.

"Well, I hope you don't mind if I ask you out for a coffee?" He asked.

She didn't see it coming. "Uhm... Coffee as in... Coffee coffee po or..." She sounded unsure. He chuckled and found her adorable. "I would be lying if I would ask you out and say it's just a coffee coffee. So... coffee date." He smiled confidently.

"Uh- mm.. Mhmm- hmm uhm..." She made unnecessary sounds in amusement. "Uhm... Osige po." She giggled.

"Really?! That's... great. Okay lang bang makuha ko yung number mo?" He asked. "Ah, osige po.. uhm 0926....." She willingly gave him her number leading them to eventually know each other a little more through some exchange of text messages and calls.

Antonio and Leni's closeness grew upon having the chance to know each other more through constant communication. Eventually, they started going out for a couple of dates, allowing them to explore their romantic and non-platonic sides.

Despite that Leni's heart is still with Bongbong, she didn't close her doors for Antonio. She gave him the chance to go after her and she tried her best to forget Bongbong along with his great company.

—

It was the usual working day, Antonio stopped by to Leni's work area and greeted her a good morning to brighten up her day.

She smiled sweetly and greeted him back. "Good morning." He smiled back at her before he kissed her hand and continued walking to the conference room.

She watched him walk away with a smile on her lips appreciating his little efforts to make her happy.

"You know what..." Gina uttered randomly behind her back. "...Naisip ko lang. Bongbong... Rodrigo... Tapos ngayon si Antonio. Hindi ko alam kugn fetish mo yung mga boss mo pero ang galing ha." She continued trying to make a point.

The smile on Leni's lips faded away upon hearing her. She never wanted people to think she's just using them or they are being dumb over her and it was just a coincidence that they are all Rocos's directors.

"Hindi naman po sa ganon, Ms. Gina..." She countered politely. She snorted and crossed her arms. "Talaga lang ha? So are you saying that these are all coincidence? Enlighten me." She dared.

She looked at her like she was a puppy being pushed away. She, herself, cannot think of a way to defend her pure intentions to her accusations. She just remained silent while feeling bad about the fact that she thinks she is just using the three men to advance in life.

Bakit ako na nga yung nagigive way, ako na nga yung nasasaktan, ako yung naiiwan sa ere pero ako parin yung mali sa mata ng mga tao...