#god trust is a movie that could go so absurdly wrong

[dalesramblingsblog]

Listen I'm not even normally the kind of guy who gives two shits about fashion, which is why I need you to understand just how much I really do mean it when I say that Maria Coughlin's God-damn letterman jacket/blue plaid shirtdress/librarian glasses combo lives in my mind rent free. Unbelievable Truth more like Unbelievable Fit.

And NGL I do wanna try it, gender identity be damned. What even is that, gender identity? I def never got one of those, Australia Post never sends me the shit I need.

[electricbluebutterflies]

Kabby and 17 ;) xx

This has been in my drafts for like six years but felt like the time to get it done. Obvs modern AU, PG-ish, also on ao3.

meeting at a party whilst drunk au

So the good thing about sorta crashing a friend’s company’sopen-house thing is there’s an open bar.

Abby is in the weird space of not sure if the open-endedinvite actually applied to her, but there are way more people here than sheexpected and she’s not as much of a social creature as she thinks she is. Buton the other hand, there is food. Good food, she will point out, becauseCallie was at least semi involved in planning this thing and that woman knowswhere to spend money, and all buffet-style and spread out in different placesso passers-by (read: Abby) can help themselves without guilt.

And there is an open bar. And Abby is fifteen years too oldto take advantage of it. But she does not want to be here, she’s bored,and she hasn’t managed to find the person she came here to support. And it ismuch easier to have all of those problems if the adorable little bartender isjust happy her drink preferences are simple.

Abby is on her third Black Russian, heavy on the coffeeelement, when she sees a nice little distraction coming towards her. For once, ofthe pretty human variety and not another plate of fancy finger food, althoughif she could get her hands on an entire platter of those pastries that werelike crab Rangoon but not, that would be the best thing ever and-

Distracted, and not exactly in control of her behavior, shetakes half a step forward and the other half of her drink ends up on the prettyperson’s shirt. Well, now she gets to talk to him! Yay!

“Excuse me,” pretty man hisses. His voice is distinctive,and she has a brief memory of him yelling at her someplace else but… now is notthe time to play how likely is it that she tried to fight this guy at somebody’swedding, or ran over his foot with a shopping cart at the supermarket, orpointed out he was an asshole at some town council meeting, or…

Actually it was that last issue, Abby figures out. She can’tremember his name for the life of her right now, but asshole here – that willhave to do, despite the fact that she now wants to screw him in a supply closetwithin the next twenty minutes – had some really questionable opinions aboutnoise ordinances last year and she is still pissed. Ah well. He is scruffierthan she remembered, and way too overdressed for this thing, and she can getover how much of a jerk he is. Maybe.

“You’re in my way,” she counters, even though he isn’t, butit’s a good excuse to put her free hand on her hip and hope that somehowemphasizes her cleavage.

“And you just did… this.” Asshole motions to the front ofhis shirt – Abby is not sure what color that is, it’s gray but it isn’t,sorta a sage green in there too, weird color but somehow it works on this guy –which is now not its original color.

“At least liquor comes out. Could’ve been red wine.” And don’ttempt me, she wants to add. Never mind that she hates red wine – it would be aworthy sacrifice to permanently wreck what looks like an absurdly expensivedress shirt. Now, how to wreck a black suit while she’s at it…

“Are you alright?”

She scans the room. Still no sign of Callie, because ofcourse it’s impossible to find a pocket-sized woman who doesn’t ever wear somuch as a pair of statement earrings in a room this size and this crowded. And nosign of anyone else she can recognize either. Time to have a little fun.

“Does any of this-“ she motions down her body, she wants himto look, this dress fits a little too well and she wants someone to get her outof it- “look like I’m alright?”

“You’re barely upright in heels…”

“You ever tried to walk in heels? Sobriety does not make iteasier.”

“If you’re that determined to self-destruct, I’m sure thereare better venues.”

Oh, so now asshole thinks she’s too trashy for this event. Ifshe knew the potential audience would be on her side, this would be the bit whereshe’d start yelling, but she does not trust herself not to jump all the way fromproper indoor voice to stadium volume right now so…

“And I am sure,” she hisses, “that there are also betterplaces for you to be a jerk. And people here who actually deserve it!”

He rolls his eyes and sighs, honest to god sighs like a manher age and built like he played a sport in college – probably some pretentioussport like rowing, maaaaaybe baseball, honestly she doesn’t have the patiencefor sports so she’s not trying to guess – should not be able to do while alsobecoming more hot at the same time. This is unfair.

“Do you have a ride home?”

Abby hisses. Yes, she has been drinking. But she’s not ahazard to herself yet. Just to other people, apparently.

“I have a friend who is running this thing and who I can’tfucking find because she doesn’t answer her fucking phone even when she is nottrying to coordinate this many things that could go wrong.”

He takes a step back, expression now changing to shock. “Youknow Callie?”

“Yeah. Best friends since sixth grade. I punched somebody todefend her honor and thirty years later…”

And then it clicks, another place she’s seen this guy before– well, seen is a little bit of a stretch, not in person but in a bad-qualitypicture on someone’s phone. This belligerent asshole, if she remembers right,was one of Callie’s more recent flings. And if Abby remembers right, this onedidn’t end well. She can’t remember ever hearing a name there, but-

“You have a lot of nerve,” she mutters.

“Excuse me?” That man does not know how to make those twowords sound like a question.

“You screwed her over.”

“I did what?!”

“I think the exact wording was your breakup involved enoughice to sink the titanic?”

“Not a breakup if it was never a thing.”

“So casual sex doesn’t count as a thing?”

“Not if it’s emotionless.”

“Yeah, she mentioned you didn’t have those.”

“Excuse me?”

“You keep using those words and I do not think you know whatthey mean,” which is totally a line from some movie but Abby can’t be botheredto remember. “The only reason I haven’t tried to hit you is because you did nothave that beard when you ghosted her and I do not think a bruise would showwell enough and-“

“And I’m not sure you could reach,” he mutters. Why are menlike this.

“Do not tempt me.”

“Is there anyone else you know here?”

“Not that I’ve seen yet. And I am perfectly capable of-“

“And I do not care.”

Fine.

So much for her ideas.

As much of a gorgeous bad idea as this one is… he’s notworth it.

(Later, when she gets home – safely, she will point out, shedoes not try to drive in this state – she goes through Callie’s social media profiles,finds the guy through a comment, and spends the remains of her Saturday nightinvestigating the entire online presence of one Marcus Kane, lawyer and aspiringlocal politician and all-around cactus.)

(Later – six weeks later – she tries to attack him during anothertown council meeting, this time with better information, and a new andexhausting phase of both of their lives begins.)

[royalnugget42]

SPN is ending

And here’s my take on how it will go down, based on the limited knowledge we have. Please be aware that these are not foolproof predictions. Title analysis can only get you so far, and some of the titles are vague enough that they could mean just about anything. Still I’d like to try my best to predict the narrative based on how I would go about it and based on the vague references.

I’ll go episode by episode, include as many details as I can reasonably add, and try to keep my Destiel shipping goggles off as much as possible. Buckle up.

14

First one is pretty easy. Episode 14, “Last Holiday” promises to be kind of literal, with a mysterious figure appearing and giving Jack, Sam, and Dean the holidays they missed out on. However, I was curious, since Supernatural has a habit of including obscure or not so obscure references in their titles, if there was any other thing we could correlate this to.

There is actually a movie called “Last Holiday” starting Queen Latifah, whose character is diagnosed with a terminal illness, which results in her making the decision to abandon her boring life and live like a millionaire in Europe.

The idea of the fight with Chuck being a “terminal illness” on the horizon could be why now is the best time for these guys to live it up.

This possible reference coupled with the ‘last’ seems to say that this episode will be a sort of final moment of levity before the endgame. Past this episode there be monsters, lads. I’d also like to point out that since it will be just Jack and the brothers if the promo photos are anything to go by, this will be a good time to get in some forgiveness and family bonding for our characters before things go downhill again.

Looking at promo photos for this episode again, I’m not sure where, but the episode may also carry some development for the plot. I’m not sure whether the photos of Cas, Amara, and Charlie were for this episode or another one (since they are not listed as cast members for the episode on IMDb), but we’ll be seeing all of them again soon it looks like, and I can’t wait for Cas and Jack to go on a hunt together again.

15

This episode will be the beginning of the descent. We’re standing on the edge and staring into the void, and we’re about to take the plunge. How do I know this?

“Gimme Shelter”, the title for this new episode, seems to have a literal meaning of the characters continuing to try to hide from God. However, as usual, the title is also a reference, this time to a song by The Rolling Stones. The lyrics to said song are nice and foreboding.

Oh, a storm is threat'ning

My very life today

If I don't get some shelter

Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away

It's just a shot away

War, children, it's just a shot away

It's just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'

Our very street today

Burns like a red coal carpet

Mad bull lost its way

War, children, it's just a shot away

It's just a shot away

War, children, it's just a shot away

It's just a shot away

Rape, murder!

It's just a shot away

It's just a shot away (3X)

The floods is threat'ning

My very life today

Gimme, gimme shelter

Or I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away

It's just a shot away (4X)

I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away

It's just a kiss away (5X)

Kiss away, kiss away

Cue nervous anticipation

This is definitely where things are going to really pick up plot wise. Most likely, more will be revealed about Billie’s Plan to Kill God TM. Although, the idea of Death herself leading the Winchesters to victory feels sketchy to me still. She is deliberately withholding all the details, and she’s doing it for a reason.

Something down the line is going to make the Winchesters angry with her, and she’s not going to tell them about it unless it’s absolutely necessary. I have a feeling what it is will get revealed in the next episode.

16

“Drag Me Away (From You)” has some very clear negative connotations, and on top of everything has a weird format. It could be based on the lyric from Africa by Toto, ‘it’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you’, or a reference to the song “Drag Me Away” by Melissa Etheridge, whose lyrics mention angels, and are about resistance and perseverance, two defining characteristics of the Winchesters. However, I’d like to point out another correlation.

Like I said before, the title has a weird format. The only other episode of Supernatural with a similar title to this one is season 12 episode 12 “Stuck in the Middle (With You)”. That episode was about what seemed like a normal hunt, but was actually a mission for Mary by the British Men of Letters to get the Colt. In that episode, Cas came ridiculously close to dying a painful and slow death, which does not bode well for this episode if it’s correlated in any way.

If what I’m predicting for Billie’s plan is true, this episode will be where the viewers are clued in on the thing she won’t tell the Winchesters about. The brothers might not necessarily get clued in (like how they still hadn’t realized Mary’s involvement with the BMOL at the end of 12x12), but whatever Billie is withholding will have serious consequences.

For this episode, I predict that Cas will come absurdly close to death again, because I believe Billie’s plan involves him dying. Billie doesn’t consider Cas a member of TFW. Multiple times in the most recent episodes, she talks about how important Jack is, how important the Winchesters are, but never Cas, and it feels like a weird oversight.

“Ever since I got this new job, I stand witness to a much larger picture. You know what I see? You. And your brother. You’re important.” 13x05 “Advanced Thanatology”

“I told you Dean, you and your brother have work to do.” 15x12 “Galaxy Brain”

Surely Cas has a part to play, since he’s one of the main characters right? But Billie doesn’t trust Cas, as well she shouldn’t. Cas is a wildcard, an angel who doesn’t do as he’s told. He straight up stabbed her in the back, something that she was completely caught off guard by.

I could make an entire post about how Cas hasn’t played by the rules of the universe since season 4 episode 18 “The Monster at the End of This Book”, but I digress. The point is that this episode is probably going to shed some light on the true threat the team is facing. Which leads us into...

17-18

Here’s where things start to get muddy. The titles from this point on get vague, and without any solid information about the previous episodes, these could be headed anywhere.

“Unity” is the next episode, number 17, and that could mean a lot of things. In my proposed timeline it is after a supposed revelation about Billie’s plan, so maybe they feel more unified after learning it.

In Supernatural‘s usual story structure, though, it feels like this episode will probably be the buildup to what seems like the end of the villain, but will actually be the darkest hour.

The episode following right after this is titled “Despair” and I think that’s telling. Supernatural writers do this often, where the boys make a plan, and inevitably when they follow it something goes wrong. “Unity” is the plan being made and carried out, and “Despair” is either the episode where everything goes wrong, or the aftermath.

[EDIT: The title of episode 18 is actually “The Truth”, which I believe may still narratively serve the same purpose, but now I’m more convinced that this is where the Winchesters learn about Castiel’s deal and/or something that Billie has been keeping from them about the plan to kill God. Thank you to @kingofthecrossroads for the updated information.]

Before I go into detail about this two-episode arc, an obligatory

Warning: Shipping Ahead

To my eyes, “Unity” seems like the perfect place for Castiel’s arc to reach a breaking point. If I’m right, and this is the episode where everything seems to succeed, then what better time for The Empty to snatch Cas away from his happiness.

If I was a writer, and I was in fact planning on making Destiel canon, this is where I’d do it. It makes the most sense to have Dean and Cas finally realizing their love for each other be the catalyst for Cas “finally giving himself permission to be happy” especially if this episode also contains a false climax regarding the Chuck storyline. Cas has said multiple times that he’s “far from happy”, so there has to be something huge happen for Cas to get there. Not to mention, Cas would be a sort of vessel for the audience, simultaneously happier than we’ve ever been because we were finally right, and sadder than ever because Cas is gone.

“Despair” won’t just be despair that the plan failed. It could also be Dean’s despair at losing Cas, our despair at seeing our hopes for them dashed.

[EDIT: Again, the title will NOT be “Despair” it will be “The Truth”, but I still think it’s telling that Despair was a working title for long enough that it’s on the IMDb page, and if “The Truth” contains the truth about how Dean and Cas feel about each other, then this will still be a dark episode.]

Shipping over, let’s continue.

19

Now we come to another referential episode, “Inherit the Earth”. There’s really not enough information to have anything solid regarding the nitty gritty details, but we can take a look at what this title is most likely referencing. “Inherit the Earth” is just a tiny part of a common phrase. It’s used in media all the time, but we’re interested in the original source.

I’m not sure if the episode will contain references to all the pieces of this passage from the Bible, but “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” seems to build off of the last episode, “Despair”. Another translation for the word meek in this instance may have been “powerless”, and after the negative moments in the previous episode TFW would probably feel pretty powerless. Maybe, in the previous episodes, Jack failed and lost his powers again, and that’s what caused Despair, but now he will inherit the powers that God had, or inherit control of earth.

If the rest of the passage is to be taken into account here, there’s also the “poor in spirit” who will ascend to the “kingdom of heaven”, possibly a reference to Cas being depressed and fighting for Heaven to be maintained. “Those who mourn will be comforted”, and that may actually bode well for Sam and Dean, who constantly mourn for the friends they’ve lost. Maybe in this episode they’ll get some closure on that front, maybe with their friends trapped in Hell going to Heaven (Kevin). The next line after “inherit the earth” refers to “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”, and if that isn’t Michael/Adam to a T...maybe this will be the episode we see him team up to fight God. I’m not sure who the last line might refer to other than Sam, if you have any ideas feel free to tell me.

And after all this, we have the big one.

20

“Carry On” is referring to “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas, and I don’t have a clue what it will entail. If the previous episode goes well, then this will be a sort of epilogue, with a (hopefully) happy ending for TFW, maybe we see Eileen and Sam get together, some kind of family dinner with Jody and the girls to resolve that plot line, or potentially, if the writers plan on doing it, a scene confirming Destiel.

It’d be interesting if they showed the brothers going on a normal, run-of-the-mill hunting trip, like a simple salt-and-burn, or even a (different) woman in white. It would be a nice way to bookend the story, to end on a hunt, but instead of the brothers on their own, it’s the brothers with the help of everyone they’ve come to know and care about in their journey, all the lives they’ve touched.

If, however, the conflict is not resolved by the end of the previous episode, this could be the resolution and epilogue all rolled into one, though if it were me I would want as much time as possible to resolve any lingering character questions because, at the end of the day, Supernatural has survived because of the characters. They are what people stay for, what they watch for.

Reminder that all of this is speculation. I do not know what will happen, this is just how I think the story could progress based on what we know so far.

For better or for worse, at this point Supernatural will be over. Will they do a perfect job? Probably not. This is Supernatural, it’s not the most perfect show. However, I’m excited to see where the writers will go with it. They have their work cut out for them.

[EDITED]

[storyplease]

So I finally watched “Rise of the Guardians” and I have some thoughts about the major themes in the film...

Anyway, so I know this is a kid’s film or whatever, and I know that this probably WAYYY too in the weeds as far as thoughts are concerned, but what is Tumblr even good for if you can’t rant about fictional characters in peace?

Potential spoilers below cut...

Anyway, so the movie centers around mythical character such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, etc, who can be argued are literally and figuratively “unbelievable” beings that require the faith of children (not necessarily the actual knowledge of their existence) to exist.  In many ways, they play by the same rules as the American Gods in Neil Gaiman’s story of the same name. But I digress (a theme in my writing, yes?).  One of the biggest themes in the movie is the idea of a “center”- each mythical entity has a an unusual “spark” of something that makes them worthy (from what appears to be upon their death) of becoming more than human. 

So for example:

Santa Claus: Miracles/Wonder

Easter Bunny: Rebirth/Hope

Tooth Fairy: Remembrance/Connection

Sandy: Joy/Peace

It is established that all of the characters used to be mortal at some point or other, so the universe appears to have a deus ex machina (the Man in the Moon, who appears to run everything, but more on that later) who “decides” when someone is to be bestowed with powers...but who is also rendered intangible to the human beings they depend on for their power to grow until they prove themselves (mostly to children, because children tend to easily trust and believe in all manner of thing without a shred of evidence, and would therefore be much easier to convince to pledge their loyalty to)...somehow.

One of the big parts of Jack Frost’s story arc is that he doesn’t have any memories of who he was before he awoke with his abilities.  He doesn’t remember his family or have the ability to have connections with mortals directly, and yet some people do mention his name without seeing him, so it appears that he is able to scrape power here and there.  It is also worth mentioning that all of the Guardians appear to be aware of and can interact with Jack, but that they have chosen not to for over 400 years other than a few times where Jack has tried to playfully interact only to be shut down or retaliated against.

When he finally finds his memories, everyone acts really surprised, but it seems odd that this would never have come up before, especially since the Tooth Fairy appears to swoon/love his teeth and might have brought it up (but we shall forgive her a bit as she appears to be absurdly busy running the tooth empire to end all tooth empires). 

But the most important part of this revelation is that a lot of Jack Frost’s negative character traits are specifically because he is lonely and has nobody else.  He spends his life interacting with a world that cannot see or touch him.  Therefore, his center (fun/mischief) becomes twisted and he causes trouble.

When he realizes his past and is able to connect with both mortal children and the other Guardians, his character blossoms! He becomes confident, protective, fun and wisecracking but without malice or bitterness. 

He comes into his own, and his power increases.

Which brings me to...you guessed it...the main antagonist of the film.

The character of Pitch is obviously the bad guy.  He’s dark, scary, looks kinda like he’s never brushed his teeth unless the toothpaste was made of coal, and is in general menacing and terrifying.  He harms the characters, terrifies the children and generally drives the plot for his own selfish ends.  After all, he’s known as the “boogeyman.”

His main traits appear to be a penchant for darkness (creating it and hiding in shadow) and causing fear.  His lair appears to be in a hole underground that is situated under an old and rotting bed frame.  Now there’s a lot of this that could just be taken on the nose.  After all, there’s a reason that “there’s a monster under your bed” is a semi-universal kid’s fear.

There’s even a terrible pun about Pitch having a great time in the “Dark Ages.”

The thing is, darkness can mean a lot of things.  And so can fear.

Let me back up a bit so I can explain what I’m getting at:

Awhile back, I read an amazingly insightful book called The Gift Of Fear.  It has a lot of very good advice on recognizing and using the fear response to protect your safety and your life.  Fear is often overlooked as a silly, primal thing, especially when we talk about children and things that go bump in the night, but there is a very good reasons why humans feel a variety of kinds of fear, and many of them are actively useful in preserving your life.

Darkness is essential to life.  The day ends, and night falls.  Shadows follow our moves and do as we do.  Even the human eye cannot bear blue light at night, and artificial lighting has been touted as all kinds of unhealthy by experts and doctors alike. 

None of these things are actively evil or wrong, to be sure.

But Pitch has something in common with Jack Frost.  And what is that?  Why, he is ignored. Nobody believes in him (which I find silly to be honest because I know plenty of kids afraid of the dark or who have nightmares and such).

The whole thing- the theatrical posing, the big scary Villain speech...in the end, Pitch was doing just the same thing that Jack did when he antagonized the Easter Bunny by ruining the egg hunt with frost.  He wanted people to pay attention to him, to like him.  And because nobody would do so, he decided that negative attention was still attention.

This is backed up by the fact that none of the children are harmed by his nightmare horses when faced with him (they turn into golden sand when touched).  They even say, even with thousands of scary black nightmares bearing down on them, that they aren’t scared of him and will protect the Guardians.

I feel like Pitch is overlooking a couple of things when he is trying his ridiculous plan to rule the world in darkness. 

First off, he’s backed himself into a corner- he plays the bad guy, of course he isn’t going to win against the heroes.  And to some extent, it’s pretty obvious that he knows it.  For all his posturing, he often pulls his punches, and even when he destroys Jack’s staff, he still throws it down on the ground and does not take it with him because he is trying to get Jack to see beyond his limitations just as he himself has learned to harness the sand with his darkness.

Secondly, just because kids love Santa and Easter and gifts from tooth fairies, not all kids have perfect upper-middle-class lives like the children in this movie.  There is a reason why there are a surprisingly large number of hand-drawn comics that deal with a child making friends with the monster under the bed or even being protected by said monster against an abusive parent or family member.

My feeling here is that Pitch hasn’t truly realized what his purpose is, and that he is actually being held back because....

Pitch’s center is fear.

There’s a reason he’s portrayed as having a lair under a shabby, rotting bed, in darkness.  When he was human, his life must have been hellish.  I can imagine him hiding in the shadows of his room, crouched under the bed in darkness because the fear of what his father or mother might do to him was eating him alive.  In fact, he may have died in that manner, terrified out of his mind and knowing only the darkness to hide him.  If this is what the Man in the Moon deemed worthy to change him into his post-mortal form, then is any of this truly his fault?

I might say...no.  Being awoken from a hellish world where you are in constant fear to a world in which fear and darkness are the only thing that strengthen you would be its own sort of hell.

We don’t get to see Pitch’s past, but ostensibly the Tooth Fairy has it and knows of it.  A tooth is knocked out at the end, so ostensibly it will go in Pitch’s box, or the box of whoever he was when he was mortal.

But furthermore, what if Pitch were able to change the way he thinks about his power and his strength?  What if he uses his darkness to conceal children who are in danger, or helps those who are imprisoned to escape? What if he guides children away from danger by using their fear to guide them?  What I am saying is that “playing the villain” seems to be the most obvious thing when you’ve only ever known an existence in which you are hated and told you are wrong and bad.

However, if we really sit down and think about it, colored eggs and toys are no more “good” than shielding the weak and vulnerable with your shadows and putting the fear of...something that bumps in the night in the hearts of predators while guiding the fear of the young from forks in outlets and jumps from high places.

In the end, locking a being like Pitch away is a foolish idea because in his loneliness in the darkness, his fear and terror will only grow, driving him into madness in his isolation.  Pitch not only has to learn to conquer his own fears (fear or being rejected, fear of being hated) but to also realize that he can be more than a flat villainous character if he wishes to thrive.

He just has to get past the fear.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 160: Grand Theft Auto

Previously on BnHA: Deku knocked Overhaul THE FUCK OUT. Tamaki saved Aizawa and captured Chronostasis. Eri wasn’t able to deactivate her quirk, and for a few moments things didn’t look good for Deku. But the cavalry brought Aizawa to the surface just in time, and he erased Eri’s quirk and she passed out. The heroes called like a dozen fucking ambulances to evacuate all of the wounded. Nighteye was strangely peaceful for someone who just lost an arm and got impaled through the fucking stomach, and he was grateful to Deku for bringing about a future different from the one he had seen. I feel like Deku sensed something was going to happen, because he suddenly started encouraging Nighteye to hang on, and that he had to talk to All Might and make up with him. But Nighteye closed his eye really dramatically, and I’M FEARING THE WORST HERE YOU GUYS. We then cut to the ambulance containing the wounded villains (and their confiscated goods, including the quirk-be-gone bullets and the quirks-come-back serum), and watched as it was intercepted by a trucking carrying none other than SHIGARAKI FUCKING TOMURA. This is easily the most badass villain thing he’s ever done tbh.

Today on BnHA: We learn that Jin and Toga called the rest of the squad to let them know where the villain ambulance was headed. What ensues is probably the most badass action sequence this series has ever had. Dabi takes out the ambulance’s police escort with his quirk, but it turns out the car is protected by a pro hero named Snatch. He can manipulate sand and he is fucking awesome. So Tomura fucking leaps at him from the back of a moving truck, and the two of them start to duke it out, but Snatch keeps him at a distance, knowing better than to let Tomura touch him with his bare hands. Enter Compress, who rolls an innocent little marble under the car they’re battling on, and then snaps his fingers and turns the marble back into A GIANT FUCKING BOULDER. The car flips over and crashes into the ambulance; Spinner whips the truck around while shrieking nonsense; Dabi and Compress take care of Snatch; and Tomura goes to confront Overhaul in the crashed ambulance. He takes the bullets and the serum. And then he disintegrates Overhaul’s fucking hands and chops them off at the wrists. And he and the rest of the League just casually walk away. Holy. Fucking. Shit.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 187 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.) 

so basically they figured out that the police would have to transport the villains to the nearest villain hospital, so they went on Google Maps and found the fastest route, and from there it was simply a matter of intercepting them

so Toga’s on the phone with Compress. and she says Jin is the one who told her to contact the others. I like that she gives him credit where due

(ETA: I can’t believe this joke went right over my head earlier, but at the time I had somehow forgotten Compress’s arm status. now that I remember, I can’t fucking get over this bit:

this son of a bitch kidnapped Bakugou. how dare he be so absurdly charming now. praising Toga for her quick thinking and making jokes about his own missing limb. I can’t believe the entire League of Villains are now collectively my favorite character.)

Jin is cradling his head in his hands and trembling :(

oh my god I love how she just gently takes his hand and leads him along. lord help me, why do I ship this so fucking hard, goddamn

also she’s so fucking smart. she watched and waited for a while before she contacted the others. to make sure that’s where the “finished product” was headed, since she knows that’s what Tomura was after, and they weren’t able to get ahold of Eri

and now we’re cutting back to the highway

this poor driver is having himself a hell of a morning

boy, you about to earn that paycheck today

(ETA: yeah I’m pretty sure this guy is dead now. this joke didn’t age so well ffffff rest in peace??)

and he instantly recognizes Tomura and knows him by name. but I suppose he’s just about the most recognizable villain in the business when he’s all done up in full hand gear

(ETA: it’s cute that he feels the need to clarify, as though there was more than one Shigaraki Tomura running around and we needed to know which particular league this one hails from.)

I have to imagine it’s not actually that easy to maintain one’s balance on top of a moving truck. you sure are full of surprises aren’t you Tomura

oh shit Spinner’s here too!

(ETA: is Dabi just being cute here or do you suppose he really does get carsick. are you gonna puke on everyone, Dabi. do you need some dramamine)

haven’t seen you in ages, Spinner. we still don’t know what your quirk is if I recall

(ETA: oh my god, and we still don’t. Horikoshi you are playing a dangerous game, dragging it out for this long. if it doesn’t turn out to be some incredibly badass, plot-twisty thing when it’s finally revealed, you and I are gonna have words. I swear to god if we finally get that dialogue box and all it is is something like “quirk: lizard. does whatever a lizard can!”... I didn’t wait around this whole time for you to be all “LOL HE CAN SMELL STUFF WITH HIS TONGUE”, okay.)

this guy really learned how to drive from video games and Tomura still trusted him to drive this fucking truck while he stands ON TOP OF IT. wow

Spinner is disgruntledly muttering about not being sure whether this is really following Stain’s will

and Tomura can somehow hear him from on top of the truck, and he says this is “a necessary sacrifice”

he’s gotten so good at management. he really has matured a lot

I really want to see this in the anime. mainly because I feel like Tomura’s jacket is going to be whipping around in the wind and it’s going to look cool as fuck

like, if this scene plays out anywhere near like I’m expecting it’s about to, this is basically going to be our confirmation that Tomura has finally graduated from the ranks of “baby villain” to “main villain at large”

(ETA: yeah I think it’s safe to say our boy has got his bachelor of villainy)

ohhhhhhh shit

THIS IS GOING TO LOOK SO FUCKING AMAZING IN THE ANIME YOU GUYS

(ETA: it stands a good chance of surpassing the one in Black Panther to become my new favorite car chase tbh)

jesus christ

that cop car that was in between the villain truck and the ambulance was completely engulfed

oh! or maybe not, because it looks like the car is FIGHTING BACK

I LIKE THIS GUY. WHAT A BADASS. WHY HAVE WE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE, THAT’S A DAMN GOOD QUIRK

(ETA: maybe a little too good. that’s probably why this is his one and only appearance)

Tomura’s just annoyed, though, and he’s telling Spinner to slow down

so now Snatch is pumping the truck full of sand, but at the same time Tomura is leaping right at him

Snatch are you about to be disintegrated my dude

oh!!

HE’S NOT GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT

lol what

lmao just because someone is capable of holding you back for more than two seconds doesn’t mean they’re your “natural opposite” Tomura. I’m not quite sure you understand how that works. is he restoring a pile of dust back into its original form like what we all hope will happen in Avengers: Endgame? no? then he’s not your opposite, he’s just a guy with an awesome quirk that you’re having a bit of trouble with

he is fucking amazing, though

he’s absolutely right. Tomura he got your number dude

Dabi and Compress are still in the truck watching this play out

and Compress realizes that Tomura is trying to distract the guy

oh snap

you know, I’m starting to realize Compress’s quirk is quite a bit more badass than I previously thought

ohhhhhhhh shit

(((╹д╹;)))

aaaaaaand the ambulance is crashing

do you see how they did that? making it clear beyond a doubt what happened without actually showing it in horrific excruciating detail? I could have used more of this during the Overhaul arc

(ETA: also this answers a question I had as to whether Tomura had ever actually killed one of the good guys (as opposed to a fellow villain) onscreen. I couldn’t recall for sure. but that’s a definite yep.)

also this is a super epic car crash. this is crazy cinematic, it’s straight out of a movie

LMAO

I LOVE IT

and oh my god it looks like Snatch actually saved the driver just in time. so no one was disintegrated after all!

(ETA: I actually think that’s the driver of the police car that he saved. not the ambulance driver. he ded. correct me if I’m wrong!)

but now Dabi is there >_>

preemptive RIP, Snatch. you were the GOAT for one whole half of a chapter

I’ll take that as a “no I haven’t”

oh snap is he still alive though?

but we can all agree the other guy definitely died. that driver cop guy. rest in peace, friend

(ETA: yeah both drivers are super dead from what I can see)

so now back to the ambulance, where Tomura has retrieved and is talking to Overhaul who is strapped to a bed

TAKE HIS QUIRK!!!

Tomura says he hates Overhaul because he’s arrogant

something is clearly about to go down, so before that happens I’ll just say, I thought Overhaul could disassemble anything he touches. so how come he can’t just do that to the handcuffs. plothoooooooles

anyway

well LOOK WHO GOT HIMSELF A SHINY NEW ROBOT ARM MOTHERFUCKER

THIS MAN DESERVES HIS REVENGE. AND... YOU DESERVE TO DIE

(ETA: any idea what he just compressed, btw? I can’t for the life of me figure it out. this chapter is so cool but there are a handful of little details that I can’t quite get straight)

(ETA 2: many thanks to @baezetsu who pointed out that COMPRESS MOTHERFUCKING STOLE ONE OF OVERHAUL’S ARMS. straight up. you’re absolutely right. Tomura only disintegrates the right hand, and the left arm is already gone in the panel below. so either this is some good old-fashioned “eye for an eye” revenge (but with arms), or Compress is looking to replace that robot arm with something even better. god this chapter gets better and better with every subsequent readthrough holy shiiiiiiiiiit.)

so now Tomura is opening the box of bullets, and thoughtfully saying that he’s not sure which of the two boxes they recovered actually holds the finished product

“ahh well, guess it doesn’t really matter”

oHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

oH MY GOD!!!!

MOTHERFUCKER!!!! MY JAW DROPPED TO LIKE HERE. HOLY SHIT, THAT WAS THE MOST HARDCORE SHIT I’VE EVER SEEN??!?

HERE I WAS SURE HE WAS GONNA DELETE HIS QUIRK, AND INSTEAD HE JUST DISINTEGRATES AND THEN CHOPS OFF HIS MOTHERFUCKING HANDS

SHIGARAKI TOMURA HAS GAINED +10,000 VILLAIN POINTS!! SHIGARAKI TOMURA IS MAKING A SUDDEN POWER RISE THROUGH MAKESTE’S FAVORITE CHARACTERS LIST

SHIGARAKI TOMURA IS ONE CRAZY BITCH AND I KIND OF FUCKING LOVE IT

THIS IS SO FUCKED UP AND I’M LIVING FOR IT?????

“GOOD LUCK WITH THAT”!!!!!

yo, when Deku and the others hear about this attack later what will their reactions even be. cuz if it was me I’d be like, “oh no... that’s terrible... you know. in principle”

hahaha!!!!

(ETA: gotta love Overhaul screaming in the background. this chapter is so fucked up lmao)

THIS HAD BETTER BE A FUCKING PROMISE TO US LOYAL READERS YOU SON OF A BITCH. NO MORE SIDE VILLAINS. I’VE GOT FIFTY-ODD CHAPTERS LEFT BEFORE I’M ALL CAUGHT UP, AND THOSE FIFTY CHAPTERS HAD BETTER NOT FEATURE ANY OTHER BAD GUYS BUT YOU SONS OF BITCHES

(ETA: he just ignores everything I ever say to him)

oh man. well, that was a grand five chapter binge and I feel satisfied and very exhausted. I’m gonna turn in, and then tomorrow I can hopefully finally read a chapter with my explosive and hot and cold sons at long last

BONUS:

likes: barbeque. is this Horikoshi’s idea of a joke. holy shit

and I guess that confirms whether or not he died, huh. these motherfuckers didn’t leave any survivors apart from the captured villains. that’s so messed up. why do I love them so much. Tomura you are a terrible man. please keep getting more terrible

[killprettymagazine]

Never Again - An Edible Marijuana Horror Story

“Never again” is a phrase that you should utter with decreasing frequency as you mature: You should learn from your mistakes.  When you’re a kid, the world is full of sparkly phenomena, and you have not yet accrued enough disappointments to employ skepticism in investigating the seemingly endless sources of sparkle.  When you’re nine-years-old, for instance, you may not have yet learned that candied apples are detestable pieces of shit.  Imagine a giant apple that you can hold on a stick, like a king with a goddamned scepter, encapsulated by a reflective deep red coating.  Just the sound it must make when you bite into it, that crunch – you’re left with no choice but to force your parent or legal guardian to buy you one.  Then you try one.  It turns out that you can’t eat this magical apple like you would a regular apple, expecting each bite to be covered by a proportionate coating of candy, because hard candy doesn’t break like that; it shatters into many hostile shards of candy that annihilate your teeth.  It turns out, shards.  It turns out that if you wanted to, you could theoretically break the apple and use it as a fucking weapon.  And all that work and torture went into unearthing the most flavorless, soul-crushing apple variety: A Granny Smith.  Is it any wonder that so many of us develop trust issues as adults?

Sometimes, after experiencing a never again situation, you’re struck by a wave of amnesia and get pushed back into a neutral pre-trauma state.  Unfortunately, when this happens, the universe is burdened with the task of correcting you in a more memorable manner.

A few months ago, I suffered a bout of this type of amnesia during an ill-fated trip to a pot dispensary.  While there, I was brazen enough to pose the question, “Why don’t I ever get edibles when I shop here?” 

(As a side note, yes, I used the word “shop” in this context: While I am an avid believer in the medicinal benefits of pot, whose properties are vastly complex, visiting a dispensary sure doesn’t feel very medically official. You’d be hard-pressed to find a medication called “Alaskan Thunderfuck” at a conventional pharmacy). 

After interacting with the budtender at the dispensary - whose white lab coat, long Zen master’s beard and cosmic presence made me feel like I was talking to God - I got home and prepared for an epic night.  I purchased a ribeye that was so beautiful that I felt like I should apologize to it for the mess in my kitchen.  I was going to cook it sous vide at 130 degrees and then sear it to perfection in clarified butter.  Coltrane’s Giant Steps.  16-year-old single malt Macallan.  Porn, probably.  I ate half of one of the grown-up lozenges that I procured and risky-business’ed my way into the shower.

As I dried off with a towel, I felt the first signs of tingling in my toes; a very welcome sensation. About 20 minutes later, as I was tinkering with the immersion circulator, I still only felt the tingling.  ���Shouldn’t I be giggling by now?” I wondered, “I’m preparing a bath for a steak while wearing a robe and I have a mustache.  I look like I’m about to fuck this steak.”  But my high seemed to be reaching stasis and I was not about to settle for the smooth jazz of evenings after dropping $25 on a single piece of meat.  I popped the other half of the lozenge in my mouth and proceeded with my grooming routine as the steak-bath reached temperature.

By the time the immersion circulator reached 130 degrees, a smile appeared on my face.  “That’s more like it,” I thought, “now I can honor the bull that was sacrificed for this evening appropriately.”  I would have never guessed that the next five hours of my life would consist of scrotum-gripping dread.

The first signs of trouble appeared as I removed the steak from the butcher paper in preparation for its bath.  I unwrapped the packet and stared in horror at the practically pulsating piece of flesh that I was about to consume.  I must have stared at the thing for the better part of five minutes.  “Oh, Christ,” I thought, “Not again.  I’ve already been through this – I’m not going to become a vegetarian.”  But I could not tolerate the idea of eating this steak so I wrapped it back up and returned it to the fridge, where I hoped it would be safe from whatever awful force was possessing me.  I opted for a couple of potatoes that I “baked” in the microwave.

As the potatoes cooked, which could have occupied anywhere from a few minutes to several weeks, I noticed that I could feel my heart beating in my chest without touching it.  “Does it always do that?” I wondered.  Suddenly concerned, I elected to take my own pulse; I placed my index and middle fingers on my wrist and started counting.  I kept losing my place and had to start over, again and again, which it turned out did not help my anxiety.  But I’m not a quitter; I would take my own pulse come hell or high water.  As I counted, it occurred to me that I had no clue about what constituted a normal or an abnormal pulse.  “Who do I think I am,” I thought, “a fucking doctor?”  But I continued to count for some reason.  My efforts were then interrupted by a heinously loud siren, which catapulted me out of my kitchen chair.  “JESUS CHRIST!” I exclaimed.  I no longer had to check my pulse; I knew that it was off the charts at this point.  I was on the verge of weeping from fear – then I realized that my potatoes were done.

I opened the microwave door to retrieve my potatoes, which now resembled the wrinkly testicles of a 90-year-old, and realized that I did not have enough saliva in my mouth to move my tongue, let alone to eat potatoes – the driest of root vegetables.  I shut the door, imprisoning the potatoes in the microwave.  It was time to lie down.  

“This lozenge is very, very mellow,” the budtender at the dispensary said.  “You’ll hardly notice that you’re high,” he said.  “One might not even be enough for you,” he said.  As the second half of the lozenge high-fived the first that was already reclining in a La-Z-Boy somewhere in my amygdala, I fantasized about finding that budtender, yanking him by his wizard’s beard and screaming, “IS THIS WHAT YOU MEANT BY ‘VERY, VERY MELLOW,’ YOU FECKLESS TURD?”  I wanted to strap him into a “good vibe” equivalent of an electric chair and pump him with the strongest possible current of good vibes until he exploded into a supernova of ineffectuality.  Because I wasn’t mellow, I was going to die.  I’m not using the phrase “going to die” to indicate that I was in any actual danger, nor in a histrionic Morrissey sense (…and you go home and you cry and you want to die).  No, as far as I knew, I was dying. 

I’ve danced around the rainbow of anxiety experiences in my life, including several shades located in the “bad pot trip” wavelength.  Most pot anxiety I’ve experienced, while often terrible, is usually short-lived: You smoke, the effects come on and intensify rapidly, you panic, you take a benzodiazepine (at least if you’re me) and 15 minutes later you’re back to watching cat videos on YouTube and eating pretzels.  Easy as pie.  This, on the other hand, was like some archaic form of corporal punishment – like being chained to a giant rock and then pushed off a cliff into the sea.

I was now curled up in the fetal position on my bed, my whole body trembling violently; I was a six-foot vibrator.  “W-w-when will it stop?” I might have said out loud.  The Ativan wasn’t working.  It occurred to me that I had no idea how much time had elapsed since I had placed the tiny pill under my tongue so I grabbed a small alarm clock that was on my nightstand and placed it right in front of my face on the opposite pillow.  It looked like the clock and I had just finished making love.  Then I realized that tracking time might not be such a great idea so I buried the clock under the covers and proceeded with my trembling regimen.   

At this point, my anxiety was so severe that my perception of reality started to waver; I felt like I was in a movie or a dream.  I was so scared that nothing around me seemed real and, every time I thought my fear could not become any more severe, I was proven wrong.  “Aren’t I supposed to be enlightened by now?” I wondered.  I was hitherto under the impression that if I would experience a state of fear that was adequately extreme, I would ultimately be led into a state of oceanic tranquility and be one with the cosmos.  “That Alan Watts didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about!” I thought. 

It was now 1:23 AM according to the clock that I hid under the covers.  My anxiety was not letting up and I was hallucinating.  I needed to talk to someone, preferably a human.  I needed to hear something other than my auditory hallucinations or the sound of my absurdly dry “NPR” mouth, the latter of which was really starting to grate on my nerves.  I didn’t want to call any relatives because I was worried about being chided for my weed blunder.  I called one of my friends but he was busy.  Then I suddenly remembered a recent conversation with another friend who, upon learning that I was going through a bad breakup, made the mistake of telling me that I could call him whenever I wanted if I needed to talk. 

“Did I wake you?” I asked.  “Umm, no,” he groaned in response.  “Yes, I did.”  Silence.  “I’m having the worst anxiety attack I’ve ever had.  I’m gonna die.”  “You’re not going to die.  Just breathe.”  The conversation consisted mainly of me proclaiming that I was going to die and my friend telling me that I was not dying.  He eventually tried to distract me by transitioning to other subjects but I could not focus on what he was saying.  At one point, it occurred to me that he was talking about Jeff Goldblum for a reason that was beyond my comprehension to such an extent that I considered taking another Ativan.  If I was going to die, I really hoped that my last conversation would not be about Jeff Goldblum.

After about 40 minutes on the phone, multiple references to Jeff Goldblum and several hundred “I’m gonna die’s,” I felt an internal release.  Finally, after about five hours of swimming through the rectum of the psychedelic spectrum, I was free.  I suddenly realized that my friend was still talking.  Eventually, noting my silence he asked, “You doing better?”  “I think so,” I said, “I’m starving now.”  I remembered that I still had those delicious wrinkled potatoes.  While cradling the phone on my shoulder, I walked over to the kitchen and opened the microwave door.  The potatoes looked like Guantanamo Bay detainees.  I suddenly remembered Obama’s quote, “…under my administration the United States does not torture” and started laughing maniacally.  I couldn’t breathe.  I tried to share this thought with my friend.  “I’m going to sleep,” he responded.  I continued laughing when I got off the phone.  I ate the potatoes and went to sleep, occasionally bursting into laughter in the dark. 

The next day I woke up and treated myself to a ribeye breakfast.  As I chewed the steak, I reflected on the events of the previous evening and wondered, “Was that a valuable experience?”  I concluded that it might have been but only in the crudest sense.  It would be like saying that the experience of intentionally hitting yourself in the balls was a valuable experience because it taught you not to do that.  Would you really have to be doubled in pain to figure that one out?  Still, I can say with gusto that I would sooner wipe my ass with a cactus than ever ingest another edible.  Never, ever again.

[swipestream]

SUPERVERSIVE Goes Warpig: Why the Netflix Death Note Movie SUCKED

NO

Our good friend Daddy Warpig isn’t the only one who can be passionately but rationally and analytically disgusted by steaming piles of crap. We at the Superversive team are capable of the same thing, and on that note, I’d like to tell you why the Netflix American Death Note film is an insult to the franchise name, and a black mark on its legacy forever. It’s worse than bad. It’s insulting.

In the big picture, it’s sort of hard to see, or at least explain. But none of the small details add up. Everything felt wrong. It was kind of like somebody made Abrams-verse Death Note but not as mindlessly entertaining…since Death Note has no appeal as mindless entertainment. Star Trek is theoretically brainier entertainment but at least it has spaceships and phasers and cool stuff; the Abrams movies were solid popcorn filler and I enjoy watching the first one especially. It just wasn’t good at the cerebral half of Trek.

“Death Note” is entirely about the mind game. The notebooks and the death gods are the only supernatural elements in the story, and they’re a plot device. If you lose the mind game, there’s nothing worth watching – and the Netflix film lost the mind game.

The premise of the movie is the same as the premise of every other adaptation: A Death Note drops out of the sky and is picked up by Light, an exceptionally intelligent but otherwise average high school student. The Death Note gives the holder the power to kill anyone simply by writing their name down. They also get to be followed around by a death god (shinigami, for you purists), the original owner of the note. This one’s name is Ryuk, and he appears in every adaptation, ’cause he’s just that cool (William Defoe as Ryuk in the Netflix movie is one of the few bright spots).

The first place the movie goes wrong is with Light. In the original anime (this is going to be my shorthand for both the anime and manga, since the former is just a direct adaptation of the latter) Light isn’t just smart, he’s a super-genius, more brilliant than every other character in the story except, arguably, L. And this is a story with no dumb characters. His intelligence is god-like.

And Light is also an excellent athlete. And handsome. And great with the ladies. And charming. He’s the classic sociopath – perfect on the outside with the heart of a monster underneath.

In the Netflix movie, Light is smart…for a high school student. He does other people’s homework and has them pay him. That’s smart, I guess. He also stands up to a bully by prissily yelling about how it’s child abuse if he hits them. That’s…not smart. He ends up in detention. Not very Light-like. He has no friends and is a nerd. VERY not Light-like.

Ryuk’s character design is basically the same in every adaptation, because it is perfect and awesome

In the anime, when Light sees Ryuk for the first time, he’s cool as a cucumber. Oh, a death god? Well, I suppose I do have a notebook with the power to kill people by writing their name down. He doesn’t seem to bother me. Why should I care? Light is stone cold. He assesses threats with the cold-blooded rationality of a predator and reacts to them accordingly. Ryuk might have been scary looking, but when Light deduces he’s not a threat…why freak out over it, right?

This version of Light sees Ryuk for the first time and screams like a little girl crying for his mama. It’s ridiculous and pathetic and very much NOT Light.

Anime Light trusts nobody. Nobody is a “friend”…and nobody is off limits. Light may eventually decide to “trust” you in the sense that he uses you as a pawn because he is convinced you won’t betray him, but this only happens after long and careful planning and deliberation, in the absolute assurance that letting you in on privileged information will directly benefit him in some way.

Movie Light, after using the Death Note to settle a couple of personal vendettas, shows it to a girl (Mia) and tells her what it does.

Was he friends with this girl? Nope.

Does he have any reason to believe she’ll do anything but freak out, and possibly get the Death Note taken away? Nope.

Does he have any reason to believe she won’t try to steal it herself? Nope.

So why does he show it to her?

He has a crush on her. That’s it. That’s the reason. Light reveals that he stone cold murdered two people with an untraceable and unstoppable weapon, because he had a crush on a pretty girl. Movie Light SUCKS.

Where does Light keep the Death Note? Surely in some untraceable spot, somewhere nobody would ever think to look or could stumble onto accidentally?

Anime Light creates an elaborate death trap, ensuring that anybody who doesn’t do the exact set of steps required to retrieve the Death Note from its hiding spot will literally set the entire house on fire and burn everything to the ground. In public he is never stupid enough to carry the Death Note around with him, instead smuggling pieces of paper that he hides in places like secret compartments on his watch.

Movie Light brings it to gym class and reads it on the bleachers, and is promptly spotted. He also carries it around with him, stuffs it inside of a Calculus book (when he doesn’t take Calculus, making it an especially dumb hiding spot), and leaves it lying around. Later in the movie Mia is able to steal several pages of the Death Note. How? Because he left it sitting there. In the next scene a group of FBI agents investigating them commit suicide. Light is too dumb to realize that Mia stole the Death Note, and accuses Ryuk of acting on his own. Light is an idiot. The movie frames the revelation that Mia stole the Death Note as a “twist” instead of an absurdly obvious plot device.

Anime Light will kill anyone, do anything, to avoid being caught – and he will not lose a second of sleep at night over it. He openly talks of killing his own family several times, and while he never has to do so directly he is certainly very much open to the possibility.

Movie Light is essentially challenged on TV by his father: Kill me if you can. Light doesn’t do it, because this version of Light will kill hundreds of people in cold blood but is willing to get caught if it means not killing his father. Movie version of L (more on him soon) immediately and correctly figures out that Light must be Kira (the Death Note killer) for this reason.

Let’s talk about L. In both adaptations L is the detective in charge of the Kira investigation. I’m going to be fair here and say that Keith Stanfield did a very good job here and was easily the best part of the movie; it’s not his fault the writing betrayed him in the end.

The Lind L. Tailor scene is one of the most iconic moments in the Death Note franchise and the moment it became clear how brilliant the plotting really was. It was a ploy by L designed to pinpoint Kira’s powers and location by sacrificing a death row inmate and announcing on live TV that he was in charge of the Kira investigation. It established L’s brilliance, his ballsiness, and the stakes and rules of the game in one awesome game-changing moment.

More like LAME L. Tailor scene, amirite? Huh? Huh?

The Lind L. Tailor scene is not in the Netflix movie. Instead we get a pale imitation where L simply holds a press conference and asks Kira to kill him; when Kira doesn’t kill him, he deduces that this means Kira needs a name and face.

Here again the stupidity of the Netflix movie is contrasted sharply with the brilliance of the anime. In the anime the Lind L. Tailor scene works because L is repeating the broadcast over and over throughout the day – as he says, though apparently he gets lucky and Tailor is caught the first go around. The key here is that it’s not just that he’s looping it, it’s being repeated live, so he can show Kira that he knows exactly when he made the kill. He also DOES NOT USE HIMSELF – that’s the big twist in the scene, that he’s using a proxy.

In the Netflix movie, L goes up and invites Kira to kill him himself, and at a live press conference. When it’s over, he leaves. This defeats the whole point of the scene – he proved nothing! All he knows is that for some reason, Kira did not kill him – he does not have any proof that Kira CAN kill someone with just a name and face. And he risks his own very much NOT expendable life on a hunch with no proof. And doing this would prove nothing about Kira’s location, since he’s already pinpointed him to Seattle. Non-action is not evidence. It’s just not proof against his theory – a very different thing.

Later Netflix L deduces that Light is Kira by having Light’s father – the police chief – give a press conference, live. When he does not immediately die afterwards – as of course he would if Kira had no relation and thus no reason to keep him alive – he uses this as his evidence that Light is L.

…Except L would never be this sloppy. Anime L would NEVER use this scenario to come to a conclusion like that. He would do something rather like he actually did – suspect Light, hide cameras in his house, set a tail on him, and track his movements. What he would NOT do is decide that his investigation is over based on such a flimy deduction. Again – one of the best parts of the anime is that it doesn’t contain moments like that. If Anime L doesn’t have proof Light is Kira, he doesn’t go gunning half-cocked on hunches, which is exactly what Netflix L is doing. And the thing is, if Netflix L HAD set up Light’s room with cameras, Light would almost certainly have been caught, considering how much stupider he is than anime Light.

Later in the movie, L introduces himself to Light and tells him he knows he’s Kira but has no evidence yet. He even takes off his half-mask thing and shows him his face.

Why would L risk his life like this? It’s not explained. There is no reason. L gains nothing from this. When Anime L reveals himself to Light the scene is shocking and dramatic, because up to that point it was understood that L’s big advantage is that Light had no idea what he looked like or what his name was. As the episode goes on it becomes increasingly clear that not only has L not made a mistake or gone off the rails, he has executed a masterstroke, one of the most brilliant moves of the game to that point, effectively evening the playing field against a seemingly unstoppable enemy. Anime L NEVER took unnecessary risks unless he knew the potential gains were massive. Netflix L is careless in comparison.

This, by the way, is the only face to face interaction between L and Light in the whole film. The back and forth battle of wits underpinned with Machiavellian maneuvering that characterized their relationship in the anime? Completely gone.

Later, after Netflix L’s assistant, Watari, is killed, he loses it, grabs a gun, and goes after Light vigilante style…with no evidence, when earlier in the movie he makes a point of saying he doesn’t use a gun to kill people.

Anime L would never do this. First off, L HATES to lose. If Kira somehow managed to get to somebody close enough to L to affect him, it wouldn’t prompt L to give up his values and go running off half-cocked against a suspect. It would be another reason for L to up his game, to further solidify his dedication to the cause and willingness to take even more dangerous risks. But stop trying for answers and instead steal a car and start gunning for somebody? Unthinkable.

And second off…what, exactly, is L hoping to accomplish? I mean revenge, I guess, but then when he first sees Light he tells him to freeze and puts him under arrest…why? With what evidence? He had nothing. No matter how upset L was he’d never do something that rash – in fact, if L was upset he would ESPECIALLY not do something that rash. He would simply double down on his efforts, work twice as hard. Like Netflix Light, if less dramatically, Netflix L is just a lamer version of the anime L. He’s not a “different” interpretation, he’s a worse one.

Light, by the way, is willing to leave Watari alive. When his girlfriend yells something to the effect of “Stop acting all high and mighty because you don’t have the balls to do what’s necessary”, she is absolutely right, and it’s hard not to be on her side. Come on, Light, you’re a predator. You’ve killed over 400 people! Embrace it!

This is accurate.

The ending is just a mess. So the Death Note doesn’t just allow you to control people’s actions before their death, it allows you to place yourself into a medically induced coma and fall in specific spots at specific times. Apparently the Death Note can do anything so long as you write “And also, this person dies” at the end of the sentence. L, by the way, finds a page from the Death Note stuffed inside Light’s calculus book. You might recall that Light doesn’t take Calculus. This is how obvious his hiding place is.

The Netflix Death Note is like a Russian doll of bad decisions. It’s just mistake after mistake, one on top of the other, and beneath all of that is the biggest mistake of all: Focusing on the edgy themes and black comedy in lieu of the incredibly deliberate and careful plotting and mental machinations that make up the heart of the original story.

Because beneath all of its death gods and magical notebooks, “Death Note” is a thriller. And when you take that aspect away, as the Netflix movie did, you’re doing more than making a bad Death Note movie. You’re not making a Death Note movie at all. You’re just adding another chapter into the book of generic grimdark fantasies so beloved in this, the dung age.

And you should be ashamed.

SUPERVERSIVE Goes Warpig: Why the Netflix Death Note Movie SUCKED published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi