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pointnumbersixteen · 4 years ago

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How do you see The Captain's coming out, and growth in confidence and self acceptance thereafter taking place?

I like this question! …and I’m probably going to elaborate on it a bit more than many people will want to read (I noticed back when I was regularly writing essay length posts that they did not get a lot of love) and it’s probably going to get even more ramble-y than usual (brain has not been braining as cooperatively as it should recently and the decision to drink half a bottle of wine right before answering this- sorry- probably does not help), but here we are.

About coming out scenarios, none of mine are particularly elaborate. While I do think he needs to come out for his story line to progress, I can’t imagine him making a big thing out of it (long or elaborate announcements, heart-to-hearts, emotional displays of bearing his authentic self or any of the like), either with the group, or person-by-person, for several reasons:

First off, that sort of a coming-out to-do is a more modern notion, and I doubt he was a particularly modern person even when he was alive, seventy-five years ago. His notions of privacy and propriety are probably much more conservative than ours, and I feel like that makes it unlikely that he’d go into any sort of detail, at least at early in this process, about his feelings/emotions or the specificities of his attractions. We’re talking about a man who doesn’t even use his own name. It’s difficult to picture him going into depth about his desires and love life.

Secondly, he’s a bit of a social coward. (He’s not a physical coward, of course, he jumped on that bomb in the garden without hesitation, and acknowledged after the fact that he gotten caught up in the moment, and therefore hadn’t really thought about how a bomb couldn’t hurt him.) And I get it, I’m a bit of a social coward, too, so no judgement. He probably faced a lot of ridicule in his life. Being a social coward is totally fair. But he doesn’t put himself into situations that might involve awkward interpersonal interactions if he can help it, and legs it whenever interactions he’s already in become to awkward for him. I feel like he’s probably quite desperate (although he’d never admit to it) to save face and protect what bits of his ego remain unscathed.

Think about it: he could have spoken to Fanny on his own about her nightly screaming disturbing him in s1e1, they have a clear association established at the outset of the show, they leave Heather’s room together at the end of the very first scene, but he doesn’t do so until he has the weight of the whole group to back him up about the screaming at their meeting. He had to buck up his courage and give himself his little ‘over the top we go’ pep talk before going to speak to Alison in Gorilla War. Also, if there was actually something wrong with his soldiers’ horseplay after hours in Reddy Weddy- if it was breaking regulations or even his own orders for quiet hours- and he heard it, he could have gone down directly when he heard it, confronted whoever was involved and order them to stop or put them on report. But no, instead he addressed the entire group of soldiers in a sixteen point morning brief. He even dispatched Pat to confront Alison about the party in s2e2, instead doing it himself… and spit out his apology/reconciliation with Pat at the end as fast as possible. And as for legging it when things get awkward, see his retreats following the group confronting him in Getting Out and after Alison telling him he wasn’t needed in the Grey Lady- and on a more figurative than literal level, but most relevantly, his quick turn from ‘I’ll miss you’ to ‘we’ll miss you’ with Havers in Reddy Weddy.

This is not a man who wants to be in awkward or embarrassing situations. And I think that coming out, at least at first, will probably be a bit embarrassing for him- it was scandalous in his time, and I think it will take him longer to get over that feeling and come to terms with himself than it will to finally acknowledge that he’s gay. So I doubt he’d make more of it than he utterly feels he has to, at least at first. And of course, he’d have to be a bit afraid that people would judge him or stop associating with him over it, as sadly, in his own time many people would have done, and most of the ghosts are from even earlier times than he was. So that might add more hesitation…

And thirdly, he doesn’t like and/or respect many of his house mates. The other twentieth century ghosts are the only ones he spends much time with. I doubt he’d go out of his way to communicate much of anything to the rest if it wasn’t “mission related” much less discuss his sexuality with them. He mostly disregards Humphrey. See his, “Oh, it’s you.” Mary obviously doesn’t like him and he only associates with her when it might be useful for his ‘missions.’ He clearly doesn’t think much of Thomas and doesn’t really even bother including him in his plans. These aren’t people he’s going to have heart-to-hearts with.

With those constraints in place, here’s a non-exhaustive list of possibilities by which I might see his coming out finally happening. They’re really just scenarios I made for myself on how I might see him coming out and I like to keep my options open (the first three are strategies he might go for, the last is an alternate scenario, presented in decreasing levels of directness on his part):

1) The ‘pull the bandage off quickly and hope it doesn’t sting too much’ strategy.

The Captain waits for the end of one of their various group activities or meetings, where all announcements seem to be made, gets up, clears his throat, stammers a bit, announces it tersely, using the most proper popular word for homosexuality that existed in his time (think: “Heh-hem. Er. Um. Well. It has recently come to my attention that I am- er- well- as it happens- gay. I, uh, thought it should be noted. That is all.”), and then beats a hasty retreat, so he doesn’t have to try to cope with the potentially negative aftermath. Of course, there isn’t a negative aftermath, because many of the ghosts already have guessed and the rest don’t really care. Someone, probably Pat, because he does the bulk of the emotional labor in the group, and more importantly, he’s Cap’s closest friend, would have to go after him. He would of course be initially defensive, and Pat would have to sooth his feathers a bit- or maybe just spit it out over his defensiveness- that he guessed a long time ago and so had plenty of other people, and they were just waiting for him to be ready, and really, it’s fine, and no one’s going to disown him for it.

2) The ‘well maybe I should tell my friends with the hope they support me’ strategy.

He gets together with a small group, the people whose company he actually values, definitely Fanny and Pat, maybe Julian, probably Alison either at the same time or after he finishes with his ghosts pals, and says it in much the same way as the previous scenario, but waiting for their reactions rather than retreating straight away. Pat and Alison, I expect, would answer with something like ‘yeah, we figured that one out a long time ago, actually, and it’s completely fine’ and Julian’s reaction would probably be something like, ‘well, obviously.’ Fanny’s had a lot of character growth since season one, when I expect her reaction would have been very shrill and judgmental, probably still would be a touch less warm and/or nonchalant, but I picture it as something like a sigh, followed by a pat on the arm and something like, ‘well, I still like you better than everyone else here, anyway.’ Word would eventually trickle to everyone else by way of social osmosis. Or not. No one seems to care if Humphrey or the plague ghosts are well informed.

3) The ‘I’m not brave enough to actually go through the process of actually telling anyone anything about me so let’s just drop hints and hope everyone figures it out without making a big deal about it’ strategy.

The indirect approach (I’m rather fond of this one, but mostly because it was my own primary coming out approach)… he first sends out feelers to certain people on the topic of homosexuality, probably Alison, since she’s modern, hosted a lesbian wedding, and very much implied that she’d be ready to keep scandalous secrets for him in Reddy Weddy, and possibly maybe also Julian, as he’s the most sexually experienced/knowledgeable, and after Alison spent a while inundating him with ‘it’s okay to be gay’ messages (along with a sudden and entirely unexplained influx of LGBT media) as she’s socially clever enough to see that’s what he’s looking for and after Julian spent a while telling him probably far more than he ever actually wanted to know about the potentialities of gay sex, that might boost the Captain’s confidence enough to let him start dropping hints to people, instead of telling them outright (consciously commenting on the attractiveness of men they see rather than occasionally accidentally blurting it out- see ‘the handsome one’- occasionally putting forth an opinion or stance on the LGBT world ‘it would have been nice if gay marriage was acceptable when I was alive,’ maybe occasionally mentioning how certain men would make cute couple), expecting them to meet him in the middle and figure out the point on their own… of course, many of them have already realized, so this isn’t a problem. It’s entirely possible, though, that Mary (world view not terribly grounded in reality) and Kitty (lack of life experience and/or instruction about life, see the how are babies made subplot) never pick up the hints on their own and someone else eventually has to tell them.

4) The ‘someone puts him out of his misery’ scenario.

Cap acknowledges to himself that he’s gay first and then, wishing to avoid embarrassment or lack of acceptance, obviously, awkwardly, painfully tries to disguise it and in doing so draws attention to it, until a third party decides to put him out of his misery and tell him that many of them figured it out ages ago and that everyone is fine with it. Maybe Pat. Maybe Alison. I kind of like the idea of it being Fanny (with her lovely character growth and her couple of suspicious glances his way in the Perfect Day), actually, by way of something like ‘You know, I was entirely prepared to continue on living with my husband, George, keeping his secrets, about the, uh, sort of person he was, and you’re at least one better than him, given that you at least never murdered me- or, for that matter, never married some poor woman you had no interest in to shield yourself from scrutiny… and so, what I’m saying is, I wouldn’t turn my back on you for being the, uh, sort of person you are, either, and maybe things have progressed enough that you don’t actually have to keep secrets at all.’ Cap would take all of this in with a mixture of mortification and relief. I’m rather fond of this scenario, too.

As for the second bit of the question, once his sexuality is out there, though, and no one judges him or hates him for it- and some are quite supportive- I do see him becoming more self-accepting. If no one’s judging him, does he need to judge himself so harshly? And also more confident. Because some of those things that he’s always felt different about and in the past has probably been ridiculed about in the past (even if he’s in denial about being gay, he and quite a few other people had to at the very least note that he’s not particularly interested in women), are, apparently just fine now. So he’s a bit more just fine now himself. And that weight of always trying to be someone else, someone who’s just right, can lift and he can relax a bit more. And that would probably help him a lot, too. I see it as a slow sort of thawing process. No matter what way he comes out, I still see Alison as very helpfully providing a variety of LGBT media to help this process along. And maybe he’d eventually get to the point where he processed enough and warmed up enough to be able to talk more in depth, at least with his friends, about what it was like being him in repressed pre-war Britain, and what sort of men he’s attracted to (I enjoy the idea of him and Fanny- gradually overcoming her own repression- scoping out hot men together). Maybe he’ll even luck out one of his male housemates will decide (or has already decided) that bisexuality is a valid option and he’ll get a date (insert whichever ghost y’all ship him with here). I bet Alison would totally help him set up a nice date, too, with her convenient still-functional-in-the-mortal-realm hands. And it would be nice to maybe see him get a taste of actual happiness.

#bbc ghosts #the captain #coming out #sorry for the giant block of text friends #i find it difficult to help myself

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ishouldreallybeelsewhere · 3 years ago

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okay so that loki video essay thing was going well, and then like a day into writing it i lost the hyperfixation so it's never gonna be finished. i still think it's alright, completely unedited, entirely a train of thought, i hope you like commas and pacific rim, it's only 2.8k

btw if something doesn't make sense, i was writing this while watching some video essays, and also haven't read it

Introduction

Loki is a show, well you know that, but a show that does everything right, until it doesn’t (crazy, I know). If you’re here, I assume you’ll already know a fair bit about it, but if you don’t, here’s a quick refresher. Spoilers for everything MCU.

Loki begins in 2012, technically, just after the Avengers go back through time from Endgame to meet themselves and grab the infinity stones. Unfortunately, the plan goes awri, and Loki ends up in possession of the Tesseract, the mind stone. With this, he teleports to a desert in [a place] and is quickly arrested and apprehended by the Time Keepers for ‘Crimes Against the Sacred Timeline.’ Sounds a bit cult-y if you ask me, and given that you’re stuck here, you will ask me. Essentially, his actions (taking the tesseract) were not supposed to happen. They created a branch, a new timeline, and, according to the TVA, if left unchecked, the timeline could cause a multiversal war that would result in the end of time. This is, to put it simply, a very interesting premise, and the first two episodes do a wonderful job of exploring the TVA and searching for the mysterious Loki variant who causes chaos and mischief, all while evading the time cops.

What is the TVA? Well, it’s the Time Variance Authority, which clears up nothing to those who haven’t seen the show. I would let a clip explaining it play, but I think I’d get a copyright strike, even though I’m fairly sure it’s within fair use. Regardless, the TVA is an organisation supposedly created by the Time Keepers, space lizards who brought together all of time into a singular sacred timeline. Had they not done this, time itself would have ended, how they did this is unexplained, and likely either impossible, or they are greater than gods in their power. Loki is immediately doubtful, but can’t deny that they must hold some power, because not only does his magic not work in the TVA, but infinity stones are useless too. Time is also stranger there too, more an idea as opposed to a set part of their reality. Many theorise that they reside within the quantum realm, which makes sense, as that is how one travels through time, at least in the marvel universe, but we can’t be sure until we get an explanation. Of course, I’m writing this long before I’ll see the finale, so who knows, perhaps I’ll have to rewrite it.

Now I’ve said all that without explaining what the TVA actually does. It’s pretty simple, similar to Stephen Hawking’s (???) ideas of the multiverse, every decision you make has the ability to make another timeline, one that is not part of the sacred way of time, and therefore must be pruned by the TVA before it grows enough to cause another multiversal war, despite multiverses being well-established in the MCU, but I know that’s different. Or perhaps the Time Keepers are lying (spoiler, they are, just not exactly in that way). Anyway, when someone makes a decision or takes an action that creates a new timeline, the TVA arrives. Minutemen arrest the ‘Variant’ responsible, despite their lack of intentional crime, and prune the new timeline, which we are told destroys it. Then Variants must stand trial for their crimes, in which they can either plead guilty or not, but really, that doesn’t make much difference, as they’re unable to make a case, let alone get away as innocent. Before they reach the court, however, Variants are dressed in TVA jumpsuits, have to sign off every word they’ve ever said, and a snapshot of their temporal aura is taken, for some reason. Yeah, it’s not really ever explained why they have to go through all that, like, why don’t they just prune them all, or just send them straight to court. It seems like they’re putting on a big show for nothing. Of course, if you have to go through all that, you probably won’t have time to think about the whys of your situation, which I’m sure the TVA uses to their advantage.

Now, we’re heading into real spoiler-y stuff, just in case anyone here hasn't watched episode three. If you haven’t, why are you here? Go, finish the whole series, and then come back. Alrighty. Now that everyone’s seen it all (apart from me at this point) we can continue.

Everyone working at the TVA is a Variant, and they don’t know it. The Time Keepers are said to have created everything within the TVA, every analyst, Minuteman, and whatever the other roles are. But that’s not true. They’re all variants who’ve been taken from their own timelines and had their memories wiped. This gives an explanation for the courtrooms, and the process to get into them. Robots will be melted from the inside out if they go through the temporal aura machine thingy, and I have a feeling it’s harder to reset a robot’s memories. Living beings are let through, and their actions in the courtroom could give a good overview of their strengths and intelligence, so it can be decided whether they’ll be pruned or ‘reset’ which we are told is killed, but with the information of them all being variants now available, is more likely having all their memories hidden, replaced with the idea that they’ve been at the TVA their whole lives, and that they were created by the timekeepers. Though why would space lizards create workers in the image of humans instead of like their own lizard-y selves. The TVA as a whole, as we are introduced to it, feels very cult-y. Things such as the videos Variants are shown upon being arrested, the whole ‘Sacred Timeline’ thing, the Time Keepers being viewed as almost gods, and that when one of the TVA’s own minutemen is told the truth (C-20) she is, well, removed. The TVA views Variants as criminals of the highest order. How dare they violate the sacred timeline?!!? Only, no variant knew that what they were doing was wrong, or that it even mattered, but if you’re late to work on a day where you weren’t supposed to be, then you’re removed from your timeline and charged. The sentence? Essentially death, or removal of all your memories and being lied to about everything, which might be worse depending on your stance on that kind of thing.

Anyway, the minutemen themselves are another issue that the TVA has. They respond with violence at every available opportunity, like when a young french child from the 1500s walks into a church, the first thing a minuteman does is reach for his weapon. This is also the scene where we’re introduced to my favourite character, Mobius, but more on him later. For now, I need to stay on track and keep in mind this part of the view has to remain consistent. All I can think of are the nerds I split. It seems I have an inability to stay on topic, however, I’m gonna try so you have fun keeping up with that.

Loki stood trial for crimes against the Sacred Timeline and, like any logical person may in that situation, relentlessly questions the validity of his conviction. The answers he’s provided with he just,, kind of,, disagrees with, which is fair. The concept of the TVA and the sacred timeline as a whole is absurd to him, as who would a god serve?

Part one: Glorious Purpose

Loki, in his own words, it ‘Burdened With Glorious Purpose.’ I’m so glad no one but me is gonna read this draft cuz I managed to spell many of those words wrong. His glorious purpose, in his eyes, is becoming the ruler of all, removing free will and choice from those beneath him, in a twisted attempt to make it easy for all living things. He believes in free will, at least, the free will of himself, and also believes that, out of everyone in the universe, he is the one who is right, the one who can make the world better, that is his burden. Now, you may look at that and think, ‘hey, for a god of mischief, that doesn’t seem very mischievous,’ and you’d be right. It isn’t. He’s evil, like, without a doubt, an evil person in his ideals and views of the universe, however, the change from mischief to villainy was rapid, as it’s shown that he was D.B. Cooper, and, when asked, said it was because he was ‘young and lost a bet to Thor’, which, like, okay, but that was the 60s or something. 50 years aren’t a lot in the face of 1,500, but a lot can happen then

Part something: ethics

So, as you’ve probably gathered by now, I’m a pretentious asshole, and with that comes three years of philosophy classes and a superiority complex, though perhaps that comes from the whole leftist thing. Anyway, as per usual, I got sidetracked. I’m watching a really good video atm, so lots of things are happening in my head right now. Back to being pretentious, I’m going to be talking about ethics, fun, and how that relates to the TVA, the sacred timeline, Kang, sorry, he who remains. Regarding the whole Kang thing, I haven’t read a single Marvel comic since I was a member of the comic book club 4(???) years ago. Gods, I’m so old. Yup Percy Jackson took up too much of my childhood. Sidetracked again! I apologise, anyway, everything I know about Kang the Conqueror comes from Tumblr, so I’m not going to spend any time talking about any parts of the character that aren’t shown in the show. I really want to be writing about Doctor Who right now but I have my notes up so I’m gonna do this. Okay, right. Ethics. I hope I don’t go into free will right now because I will never stop going on about that. Anyway, let's look at the TVA, ignoring Kang, not for simplicity, but to see if the ends do in fact justify the means as Mobius said. And by that I mean, if what employees of the TVA think is true, are their actions justified? Finally got to the point, after how many words? Too many, anyway, let’s start from the start (kinda).

In an actual, proper, organised essay, I think that whole last paragraph was supposed to be 1 (one) sentence long, maybe. I have been writing year nine level essays for many years, despite not being in year nine for many, many years, so, be glad you’re reading something I’m interested in. Back to the topic at hand, please. Sorry I just got distracted again. I shouldn’t have Tumblr open atm. Anyway, what are the TVA’s means? So, I’ve already explained what the TVA is, and what it does, but let’s use a fun example to show what they really do. Imagine you’re a kid (or maybe you are a kid, so imagine you’re a younger one) and you just got home from school. You just made an awesome new friend who believes in you and loves your art. This sparks your interest in art, leading to countless pieces, days and days spent drawing and painting and having a great time. Your art begins to take hold on the world, speaking to people, letting them believe in themselves, thousands upon thousands of people inspired to start their own art, to rebel against the system of capitalism and teach people that there’s more to life than a job. This begins the global radicalisation of the working class, and with that, rebellion and the downfall of capitalism. I’m in a good mood rn, feeling optimistic, so don’t worry about what’s happening. Anyway, with the downfall of human exploitation and eradication of poverty comes a branch in the Sacred Timeline, and as the root of it is you as a child making a friend, your 5-year-old self just committed a crime that, according to the TVA, is worthy of what they believe to be actual death, like, being pruned.

Now, this was a very umm, off-the-top-of-my-head example, and entirely makes no sense, but give me two seconds and I’ll remember my original point. Right. The risk of allowing the downfall of capitalism is the end of all time. Always. Maybe? But, in the eyes of the TVA, kidnapping a 5-year-old, putting them through a dehumanising process to be shoved in a courtroom and being accused of crimes against the sacred timeline, and what was the crime? Making a goddamn friend. As a child. Being supported in art. Doing what you enjoy, destroying oppressive systems that will eventually be the downfall of us all and so entwined with all the problems in the world that any chance of saving it revolves around its deconstruction. I’ve been hunched over too long and my back is really starting to hurt, but the essay must go on. And remember, the domino effect of that friendship never actually happened. The timeline was pruned before it could happen, so the crime is literally making a friend. Very extreme example sorry, but shock makes your point go across faster, and also sparks outrage, which I don’t want to happen, but with doing literally anything comes backlash, like stepping on the wrong leaf, or a butterfly. I hope you guys know that this is unplanned and probably unedited. Okay I need to watch Pacific Rim again. Okay imagine now they kill the child. Right. That’s likely what would happen. Children are weak (usually, Sylvie is just on another level of awesome) [author’s note, Crimson Peak is a horror movie and I’m very upset by that cuz now I won’t be able to watch it]. Alright, so, kill a child, or destroy all of time. Always. Maybe. The way we see the TVA in the first two episodes is through Loki’s eyes, as a cult-like lie with a cool retro/futuristic aesthetic (like Doctor Who, but more on that later). I have been sitting here for 4 hours and I can confidently say my cat is an asshole whose sole purpose in life is to want to come in right when I’m in the middle of a point only to not want to come in but allow me to lose exactly what I was about to say, meaning I’ve gotten next to nothing done. Hi, I'm back. I got distracted by My Little Pony and Pacific Rim. And checkers. Issues with pacing? I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Okay, so, I’m going to say something possibly controversial. When the stakes are the endings of the entirety of time, it’s okay to let a child die, and technically they might not die they’d just be sent to be either devoured the void or saved by a ragtag team of loki variants. Which is not great. That might sound like I agree with the TVA, but trust me, I do not. Not in the slightest. I hate the slimy bastards. (I do love every single character though, like all of them are awesome) The prickly pricks will bury us all!!! I don’t agree with them because I think there is a better way to handle the multiversal problem and the issue that arises regarding the particular cause of the multiversal war. That made no sense. You’re really just gonna have to guess at this point, however, for the solution, we must look into the finale and the reasoning behind He Who Remains’ plan. I said I wasn’t going to talk about him, but I lied (rule number one). Basically, from what I understood of his plan (which wasn’t much, I’m pretty stupid) was that there were two options; option number one was to leave him there, looking over all of time, preventing free will, so that the infinite variants of him that would come from timelines wouldn’t once again attempt to conquer all of the timelines (though if there are infinite ones, how would that work? Just kidding, you’re not allowed to question this). He dictates all. There’s no such thing as free will, and if you dare veer off the path, you will be pruned, and your timeline destroyed. His plan is to hand that power over to Loki and Sylvie, because he’s getting old and has lived long enough. The other option (and the one that’s taken in the show) is to allow Sylvie to kill He Who Remains and let the multiverse unfold, allow free will and chaos to reign, with the possibility and established likelihood of the destruction of time itself. Now, just putting this out here, what if there was a third option? My proposition is based of knowing next to nothing and not having seen Loki in a while, and that is,

#loki #loki show #loki series #loki tv show #i don't even know what this is #uhhh i don't think i agree with all the points i made and i also used some very crap example #this is not a good peice of writing and it's from several months ago #if you talk to me about it i won't get back to you.

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ahouseoflies · 4 years ago

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The Best Films of 2020

I can’t tell you anything novel or insightful about this year that has been stolen from our lives. I watched zero of these films in a theater, and I watched most of them half-asleep in moments that I stole from my children. Don’t worry, there are some jokes below.

GARBAGE

93. Capone (Josh Trank)- What is the point of this dinner theater trash? It takes place in the last year of Capone's life, when he was released from prison due to failing health and suffered a stroke in his Florida home. So it covers...none of the things that make Al Capone interesting? It's not historically accurate, which I have no problem with, but if you steer away from accuracy, then do something daring and exciting. Don't give me endless scenes of "Phonse"--as if the movie is running from the very person it's about--drawing bags of money that promise intrigue, then deliver nothing in return.

That being said, best "titular character shits himself" scene since The Judge.

92. Ammonite (Francis Lee)- I would say that this is the Antz to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's A Bug's Life, but it's actually more like the Cars 3 to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Toy Story 1.

91. Ava (Tate Taylor)- Despite the mystery and inscrutability that usually surround assassins, what if we made a hitman movie but cared a lot about her personal life? Except neither the assassin stuff nor the family stuff is interesting?

90. Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins)- What a miscalculation of what audiences loved about the first and wanted from the sequel. WW84 is silly and weightless in all of the ways that the first was elegant and confident. If the return of Pine is just a sort of phantom representation of Diana's desires, then why can he fly a real plane? If he is taking over another man's soul, then, uh, what ends up happening to that guy? For that matter, why is it not 1984 enough for Ronald Reagan to be president, but it is 1984 enough for the president to have so many Ronald Reagan signifiers that it's confusing? Why not just make a decision?

On paper, the me-first values of the '80s lend themselves to the monkey's paw wish logic of this plot. You could actually do something with the Star Wars program or the oil crisis. But not if the setting is played for only laughs and the screenplay explains only what it feels like.

89. Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy)- In this type of movie, there has to be a period of the Ben Mendelsohn character looking around befuddled about the new arrangement and going, "What's this now--he's going to be...living with us? The guy who tried to steal our medication? This is crazy!" But that's usually ten minutes, and in this movie it's an hour. I was so worn out by the end.

88. You Should Have Left (David Koepp)- David Koepp wrote Jurassic Park, so he's never going to hell, but how dare he start caring about his own mystery at the hour mark. There's a forty-five minute version of this movie that could get an extra star from me, and there's a three-hour version of Amanda Seyfried walking around in athleisure that would get four stars from me. What we actually get? No thanks.

87. Black Is King (Beyonce, et al.)- End your association with The Lion King, Bey. It has resulted in zero bops.

ADMIRABLE FAILURES

86. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Cathy Yan)- There's nothing too dysfunctional in the storytelling or performances, but Birds of Prey also doesn't do a single thing well. I would prefer something alive and wild, even if it were flawed, to whatever tame belt-level formula this is.

85. The Turning (Floria Sigismondi)- This update of The Turn of the Screw pumps the age of Miles up to high school, which creates some horny creepiness that I liked. But the age of the character also prevents the ending of the novel from happening in favor of a truly terrible shrug. I began to think that all of the patience that the film showed earlier was just hesitance for its own awful ending.

I watched The Turning as a Mackenzie Davis Movie Star heat check, and while I'm not sure she has the magnetism I was looking for, she does have a great teacher voice, chastening but maternal.

84. Bloodshot (David Wilson)- A whole lot of Vin Diesel saying he's going to get revenge and kill a bunch of dudes; not a whole lot of Vin Diesel actually getting revenge and killing a bunch of dudes.

83. Downhill (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)- I was an English major in college, which means I ended up locking myself into literary theories that, halfway through the writing of an essay, I realized were flawed. But rather than throw out the work that I had already proposed, I would just keep going and see if I could will the idea to success.

So let's say you have a theory that you can take Force Majeure by Ruben Ostlund, one of the best films of its year, and remake it so that its statement about familial anxiety could apply to Americans of the same age and class too...if it hadn't already. And maybe in the first paragraph you mess up by casting Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, people we are conditioned to laugh at, when maybe this isn't that kind of comedy at all. Well, don't throw it away. You can quote more--fill up the pages that way--take an exact shot or scene from the original. Does that help? Maybe you can make the writing more vigorous and distinctive by adding a character. Is that going to make this baby stand out? Maybe you could make it more personal by adding a conclusion that is slightly more clever than the rest of the paper?

Or perhaps this is one you're just not going to get an A on.

82. Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard)- I watched this melodrama at my mother's encouragement, and, though I have been trying to pin down her taste for decades, I think her idea of a successful film just boils down to "a lot of stuff happens." So in that way, Ron Howard's loss is my gain, I guess.

There is no such thing as a "neutral Terminator."

81. Relic (Natalie Erika James)- The star of the film is Vanessa Cerne's set decoration, but the inert music and slow pace cancel out a house that seems neglected slowly over decades.

80. Buffaloed (Tanya Wexler)- Despite a breathless pace, Buffaloed can't quite congeal. In trying to split the difference between local color hijinks and Moneyballed treatise on debt collection, it doesn't commit enough to either one.

Especially since Zoey Deutch produced this one in addition to starring, I'm getting kind of worried about boo's taste. Lot of Two If by Seas; not enough While You Were Sleepings.

79. Like a Boss (Miguel Arteta)- I chuckled a few times at a game supporting cast that is doing heavy lifting. But Like a Boss is contrived from the premise itself--Yeah, what if people in their thirties fell out of friendship? Do y'all need a creative consultant?--to the escalation of most scenes--Why did they have to hide on the roof? Why do they have to jump into the pool?

The movie is lean, but that brevity hurts just as much as it helps. The screenplay knows which scenes are crucial to the development of the friendship, but all of those feel perfunctory, in a different gear from the setpieces.

To pile on a bit: Studio comedies are so bare bones now that they look like Lifetime movies. Arteta brought Chuck & Buck to Sundance twenty years ago, and, shot on Mini-DV for $250,000, it was seen as a DIY call-to-bootstraps. I guarantee that has more setups and locations and shooting days than this.

78. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin)- Add Dan Stevens to the list of supporting players who have bodied Will Ferrell in his own movie--one that he cared enough to write himself.

Like Downhill, Ferrell's other 2020 release, this isn't exactly bad. It's just workmanlike and, aside from the joke about Demi Lovato's "uninformed" ghost, frustratingly conventional.

77. The Traitor (Marco Bellochio)- Played with weary commitment by Pierfrancesco Favino, Tomasso Buscetta is "credited" as the first informant of La Cosa Nostra. And that sounds like an interesting subject for a "based on a true story" crime epic, right? Especially when you find out that Buscetta became a rat out of principle: He believed that the mafia to which he had pledged his life had lost its code to the point that it was a different organization altogether.

At no point does Buscetta waver or even seem to struggle with his decision though, so what we get is less conflicted than that description might suggest. None of these Italian mob movies glorify the lifestyle, so I wasn't expecting that. But if the crime doesn't seem enticing, and snitching on the crime seems like forlorn duty, and everything is pitched with such underhanded matter-of-factness that you can't even be sure when Buscetta has flipped, then what are we left with? It was interesting seeing how Italian courts work, I guess?

76. Kajillionaire (Miranda July)- This is another movie so intent on building atmosphere and lore that it takes too long to declare what it is. When the protagonist hits a breaking point and has to act, she has only a third of a film to grow. So whispery too.

Gina Rodriguez is the one to inject life into it. As soon as her motormouth winds up, the film slips into a different gear. The atmosphere and lore that I mentioned reeks of artifice, but her character is believably specific. Beneath a basic exterior is someone who is authentically caring but still morally compromised, beholden to the world that the other characters are suspicious of.

75. Scoob! (Tony Cervone)- The first half is sometimes clever, but it hammers home the importance of friendship while separating the friends.

The second half has some positive messaging, but your kids' movie might have a problem with scale if it involves Alexander the Great unlocking the gates of the Underworld.

My daughter loved it.

74. The Lovebirds (Michael Showalter)- If I start talking too much about this perfectly fine movie, I end up in that unfair stance of reviewing the movie I wanted, not what is actually there.* As a fan of hang-out comedies, I kind of resent that any comedy being made now has to be rolled into something more "exciting," whether it's a wrongfully accused or mistaken identity thriller or some other genre. Such is the post-Game Night world. There's a purposefully anti-climactic note that I wish The Lovebirds had ended on, but of course we have another stretch of hiding behind boats and shooting guns. Nanjiani and Rae are really charming leads though.

*- As a New Orleanian, I was totally distracted by the fake aspects of the setting too. "Oh, they walked to Jefferson from downtown? Really?" You probably won't be bothered by the locations.

73. Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler)- In some ways the storytelling is ambitious. (I'm speaking for only myself, but I'm fine with "He's a hedgehog, and he's really fast" instead of the owl mother, teleportation backstory. Not everything has to be Tolkien.) But that ambition doesn't match the lack of ambition in the comedy, which depends upon really hackneyed setups and structures. Guiding Jim Carrey to full alrighty-then mode was the best choice anyone made.

72. Malcolm & Marie (Sam Levinson)- The stars move through these long scenes with agility and charisma, but the degree of difficulty is just too high for this movie to reach what it's going for.

Levinson is trying to capture an epic fight between a couple, and he can harness the theatrical intensity of such a thing, but he sacrifices almost all of the nuance. In real life, these knock-down-drag-outs can be circular and indirect and sad in a way that this couple's manipulation rarely is. If that emotional truth is all this movie is trying to achieve, I feel okay about being harsh in my judgment of how well it does that.

71. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)- Elusive in how it refuses to declare itself, forthright in how punishing it is. The whole thing might be worth it for a late dinner scene, but I'm getting a bit old to put myself through this kind of misery.

70. The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi)- Silly in good ways until it's silly in bad ways. Elizabeth Debicki remains 6'3".

69. Everybody’s Everything (Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan)- As a person who listened to Lil Peep's music, I can confidently say that this documentary is overstating his greatness. His death was a significant loss, as the interview subjects will all acknowledge, but the documentary is more useful as a portrait of a certain unfocused, rapacious segment of a generation that is high and online at all times.

68. The Witches (Robert Zemeckis)- Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo Del Toro are the credited screenwriters, and in a fascinating way, you can see the imprint of each figure on the final product. Adapting a very European story to the old wives' tales of the American South is an interesting choice. Like the Nicolas Roeg try at this material, Zemeckis is not afraid to veer into the terrifying, and Octavia Spencer's pseudo witch doctor character only sells the supernatural. From a storytelling standpoint though, it seems as if the obstacles are overcome too easily, as if there's a whole leg of the film that has been excised. The framing device and the careful myth-making of the flashback make promises that the hotel half of the film, including the abrupt ending, can't live up to.

If nothing else, Anne Hathaway is a real contender for Most On-One Performance of the year.

67. Irresistible (Jon Stewart)- Despite a sort of imaginative ending, Jon Stewart's screenplay feels more like the declarative screenplay that would get you hired for a good movie, not a good screenplay itself. It's provocative enough, but it's clumsy in some basic ways and never evades the easy joke.

For example, the Topher Grace character is introduced as a sort of assistant, then is re-introduced an hour later as a polling expert, then is shown coaching the candidate on presentation a few scenes later. At some point, Stewart combined characters into one role, but nothing got smoothed out.

ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

66. Yes, God, Yes (Karen Maine)- Most people who are Catholic, including me, are conflicted about it. Most people who make movies about being Catholic hate it and have an axe to grind. This film is capable of such knowing wit and nuance when it comes to the lived-in details of attending a high school retreat, but it's more concerned with taking aim at hypocrisy in the broad way that we've seen a million times. By the end, the film is surprisingly all-or-nothing when Christian teenagers actually contain multitudes.

Part of the problem is that Karen Maine's screenplay doesn't know how naive to make the Alice character. Sometimes she's reasonably naive for a high school senior in 2001; sometimes she's comically naive so that the plot can work; and sometimes she's stupid, which isn't the same as naive.

65. Bad Boys for Life (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah)- This might be the first buddy cop movie in which the vets make peace with the tech-comm youngs who use new techniques. If that's the only novelty on display here--and it is--then maybe that's enough. I laughed maybe once. Not that the mistaken identity subplot of Bad Boys 1 is genius or anything, but this entry felt like it needed just one more layer to keep it from feeling as basic as it does. Speaking of layers though, it's almost impossible to watch any Will Smith movie now without viewing it through the meta-narrative of "What is Will Smith actually saying about his own status at this point in his career?" He's serving it up to us.

I derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing the old school Simpson/Bruckheimer logo.

64. The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie)- Look, I'm not going to be too negative on a movie whose crime slang is so byzantine that it has to be explained with subtitles. That's just me. I'm a simple man. But I can tell you that I tuned out pretty hard after seven or eight double-crosses.

The bloom is off the rose a bit for Ritchie, but he can still nail a music cue. I've been waiting for someone to hit "That's Entertainment" the way he does on the end credits.

63. Bad Hair (Justin Simien)- In Bad Hair, an African-American woman is told by her boss at a music video channel in 1989 that straightening her hair is the way to get ahead; however, her weave ends up having a murderous mind of its own. Compared to that charged, witty logline, the execution of the plot itself feels like a laborious, foregone conclusion. I'm glad that Simien, a genuinely talented writer, is making movies again though. Drop the skin-care routine, Van Der Beek!

62. Greyhound (Aaron Schneider)- "If this is the type of role that Tom Hanks writes for himself, then he understands his status as America's dad--'wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove'--even better than I thought." "America's Dad! Aye aye, sir!" "At least half of the dialogue is there for texture and authenticity, not there to be understood by the audience." "Fifty percent, Captain!" "The environment looks as fake as possible, but I eventually came around to the idea that the movie is completely devoid of subtext." "No subtext to be found, sir!"

61. Mank (David Fincher)- About ten years ago, the Creative Screenwriting podcast spent an hour or so with James Vanderbilt, the writer of Zodiac and nothing else that comes close, as he relayed the creative paces that David Fincher pushed him through. Hundreds of drafts and years of collaborative work eventuated in the blueprint for Fincher's most exacting, personal film, which he didn't get a writing credit on only because he didn't seek one.

Something tells me that Fincher didn't ask for rewrites from his dead father. No matter what visuals and performances the director can coax from the script--and, to be clear, these are the worst visuals and performances of his career--they are limited by the muddy lightweight pages. There are plenty of pleasures, like the slippery election night montage or the shakily platonic relationship between Mank and Marion. But Fincher hadn't made a film in six years, and he came back serving someone else's master.

60. Tesla (Michael Almereyda)- "You live inside your head." "Doesn't everybody?"

As usual, Almereyda's deconstructions are invigorating. (No other moment can match the first time Eve Hewson's Anne fact-checks something with her anachronistic laptop.) But they don't add up to anything satisfying because Tesla himself is such an opaque figure. Driven by the whims of his curiosity without a clear finish line, the character gives Hawke something enigmatic to play as he reaches deep into a baritone. But he's too inward to lend himself to drama. Tesla feels of a piece with Almereyda's The Experimenter, and that's the one I would recommend.

59. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)- I can't oversell how delicately beautiful this film is visually. There's a scene in which Vitalina lugs a lantern into a church, but we get several seconds of total darkness before that one light source carves through it and takes over part of the frame. Each composition is as intricate as it is overpowering, achieving a balance between stark and mannered.

That being said, most of the film is people entering or exiting doors. I felt very little of the haunting loss that I think I was supposed to.

58. The Rhythm Section (Reed Morano)- Call it the Timothy Hutton in The General's Daughter Corollary: If a name-actor isn't in the movie much but gets third billing, then, despite whom he sends the protagonist to kill, he is the Actual Bad Guy.

Even if the movie serves up a lot of cliche, the action and sound design are visceral. I would like to see more from Morano.

57. Red, White and Blue (Steve McQueen)- Well-made and heartfelt even if it goes step-for-step where you think it will.

Here's what I want to know though: In the academy training sequence, the police cadets have to subdue a "berserker"; that is, a wildman who swings at their riot gear with a sledgehammer. Then they get him under control, and he shakes their hands, like, "Good angle you took on me there, mate." Who is that guy and where is his movie? Is this full-time work? Is he a police officer or an independent contractor? What would happen if this exercise didn't go exactly as planned?

56. Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart)- The visuals have an unfinished quality that reminded me of The Tale of Princess Kaguya--the center of a flame is undrawn white, and fog is just negative space. There's an underlying symmetry to the film, and its color palette changes with mood.

Narratively, it's pro forma and drawn-out. Was Riley in Inside Out the last animated protagonist to get two parents? My daughter stuck with it, but she needed a lot of context for the religious atmosphere of 17th century Ireland.

55. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (Rob Garver)- The film does little more than one might expect; it's limited in the way that any visual medium is when trying to sum up a woman of letters. But as far as education for Kael's partnership with Warren Beatty or the idea of The New Yorker paying her for only six months out of the year, it was useful for me.

Although Garver isn't afraid to point to the work that made Kael divisive, it would have been nice to have one or two interview subjects who questioned her greatness, rather than the crew of Paulettes who, even when they do say something like, "Sometimes I radically disagreed with her," do it without being able to point to any specifics.

54. Beastie Boys Story (Spike Jonze)- As far as this Spike Jonze completist is concerned, this is more of a Powerpoint presentation than a movie, Beastie Boys Story still warmed my heart, making me want to fire up Paul's Boutique again and take more pictures of my buddies.

53. Tenet (Christopher Nolan)- Cool and cold, tantalizing and frustrating, loud and indistinct, Tenet comes close to Nolan self-parody, right down to the brutalist architecture and multiple characters styled like him. The setpieces grabbed me, I'll admit.

Nolan's previous film, which is maybe his best, was "about" a lot and just happened to play with time; Tenet is only about playing with time.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES

52. Shithouse (Cooper Raiff)- "Death is ass."

There's such a thing as too naturalistic. If I wanted to hear how college freshmen really talked, I would hang out with college freshmen. But you have to take the good verisimilitude with the bad, and good verisimilitude is the mother's Pod Save America t-shirt.

There are some poignant moments (and a gonzo performance from Logan Miller) in this auspicious debut from Cooper Raiff, the writer/director/editor/star. But the second party sequence kills some of the momentum, and at a crucial point, the characters spell out some motivation that should have stayed implied.

51. Totally Under Control (Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger)- As dense and informative as any other Gibney documentary with the added flex of making it during the pandemic it is investigating.

But yeah, why am I watching this right now? I don't need more reasons to be angry with Trump, whom this film calmly eviscerates. The directors analyze Trump's narcissism first through his contradictions of medical expertise in order to protect the economy that could win him re-election. Then it takes aim at his hiring based on loyalty instead of experience. But you already knew that, which is the problem with the film, at least for now.

50. Happiest Season (Clea Duvall)- I was in the perfect mood to watch something this frothy and bouncy. Every secondary character receives a moment in the sun, and Daniel Levy gets a speech that kind of saves the film at a tipping point.

I must say though: I wanted to punch Harper in her stupid face. She is a terrible romantic partner, abandoning or betraying Abby throughout the film and dissembling her entire identity to everyone else in a way that seems absurd for a grown woman in 2020. Run away, Kristen. Perhaps with Aubrey Plaza, whom you have more chemistry with. But there I go shipping and aligning myself with characters, which only proves that this is an effective romantic comedy.

49. The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor)- Patient but misshapen, The Way Back does just enough to overcome the cliches that are sort of unavoidable considering the genre. (I can't get enough of the parent character who, for no good reason, doesn't take his son's success seriously. "Scholarship? What he's gotta do is put his nose in them books! That's why I don't go to his games. [continues moving boxes while not looking at the other character] Now if you'll excuse me while I wait four scenes before showing up at a game to prove that I'm proud of him after all...")

What the movie gets really right or really wrong in the details about coaching and addiction is a total crap-shoot. But maybe I've said too much already.

48. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)- Porumboiu is a real artist who seems to be interpreting how much surveillance we're willing to acknowledge and accept, but I won't pretend to have understood much of the plot, the chapters or which are told out of order. Sometimes the structure works--the beguiling, contextless "high-class hooker" sequence--but I often wondered if the film was impenetrable in the way that Porumboiu wanted it to be or impenetrable in the way he didn't.

To tell you the truth, the experience kind of depressed me because I know that, in my younger days, this film is the type of thing that I would re-watch, possibly with the chronology righted, knowing that it is worth understanding fully. But I have two small children, and I'm exhausted all the time, and I kind of thought I should get some credit for still trying to catch up with Romanian crime movies in the first place.

47. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner)- I laughed too much to get overly critical, but the film is so episodic and contrived that it's kind of exhausting by the end--even though it's achieving most of its goals. Maybe Borat hasn't changed, but the way our citizens own their ugliness has.

46. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)- Despite how little happens in the first forty minutes, First Cow is a thoughtful capitalism parable. Even though it takes about forty minutes to get going, the friendship between Cookie and King-Lu is natural and incisive. Like Reichardt's other work, the film's modest premise unfolds quite gracefully, except for in the first forty minutes, which are uneventful.

45. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)- I loved parts of the film--the disorienting, claustrophobic opening or the quick look at the police officers' home lives, for example. But I'm not sure that it does anything very well. The needle the film tries to thread between realism and theater didn't gel for me. The ending, which is ambiguous in all of the wrong ways, chooses the theatrical. (If I'm being honest, my expectations were built up by Les Miserables' Jury Prize at Cannes, and it's a bit superficial to be in that company.)

If nothing else, it's always helpful to see how another country's worst case scenario in law enforcement would look pretty good over here.

44. Bad Education (Cory Finley)- The film feels too locked-down and small at the beginning, so intent on developing the protagonist neutrally that even the audience isn't aware of his secrets. So when he faces consequences for those secrets, there's a disconnect. Part of tragedy is seeing the doom coming, right?

When it opens up, however, it's empathetic and subtle, full of a dry irony that Finley is already specializing in after only one other feature. Geraldine Viswanathan and Allison Janney get across a lot of interiority that is not on the page.

43. The Trip to Greece (Michael Winterbottom)- By the fourth installment, you know whether you're on board with the franchise. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" to Coogan and Brydon's bickering and impressions as they're served exotic food in picturesque settings, then this one won't sway you. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" about life, like they are, then I don't need to convince you.

I will say that The Trip to Spain seemed like an enervated inflection point, at which the squad could have packed it in. The Trip to Greece proves that they probably need to keep doing this until one of them dies, which has been the subtext all along.

42. Feels Good Man (Arthur Jones)- This documentary centers on innocent artist Matt Furie's helplessness as his Pepe the Frog character gets hijacked by the alt-right. It gets the hard things right. It's able to, quite comprehensively, trace a connection from 4Chan's use of Pepe the Frog to Donald Trump's near-assuming of Pepe's ironic deniability. Director Arthur Jones seems to understand the machinations of the alt-right, and he articulates them chillingly.

The easy thing, making us connect to Furie, is less successful. The film spends way too much time setting up his story, and it makes him look naive as it pits him against Alex Jones in the final third. Still, the film is a quick ninety-two minutes, and the highs are pretty high.

41. The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood)- Some of the world-building and backstory are handled quite elegantly. The relationships actually do feel centuries old through specific details, and the immortal conceit comes together for an innovative final action sequence.

Visually and musically though, the film feels flat in a way that Prince-Bythewood's other films do not. I blame Netflix specs. KiKi Layne, who tanked If Beale Street Could Talk for me, nearly ruins this too with the child-actory way that she stresses one word per line. Especially in relief with one of our more effortless actresses, Layne is distracting.

40. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)- Whenever Sacha Baron Cohen's Abbie Hoffman opens his mouth, the other defendants brace themselves for his dismissive vulgarity. Even when it's going to hurt him, he can't help but shoot off at the mouth. Of course, he reveals his passionate and intelligent depths as the trial goes on. The character is the one that Sorkin's screenplay seems the most endeared to: In the same way that Hoffman can't help but be Hoffman, Sorkin can't help but be Sorkin. Maybe we don't need a speech there; maybe we don't have to stretch past two hours; maybe a bon mot diffuses the tension. But we know exactly what to expect by now. The film is relevant, astute, witty, benevolent, and, of course, in love with itself. There are a handful of scenes here that are perfect, so I feel bad for qualifying so much.

A smaller point: Daniel Pemberton has done great work in the past (Motherless Brooklyn, King Arthur, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), but the first sequence is especially marred by his sterile soft-rock approach.

GOOD MOVIES

39. Time (Garrett Bradley)- The key to Time is that it provides very little context. Why the patriarch of this family is serving sixty years in prison is sort of besides the point philosophically. His wife and sons have to move on without him, and the tragedy baked into that fact eclipses any notion of what he "deserved." Feeling the weight of time as we switch back and forth between a kid talking about his first day of kindergarten and that same kid graduating from dentistry school is all the context we need. Time's presentation can be quite sumptuous: The drone shot of Angola makes its buildings look like crosses. Or is it X's?

At the same time, I need some context. When director Garrett Bradley withholds the reason Robert's in prison, and when she really withholds that Fox took a plea and served twelve years, you start to see the strings a bit. You could argue that knowing so little about why, all of a sudden, Robert can be on parole puts you into the same confused shoes as the family, but it feels manipulative to me. The film is preaching to the choir as far as criminal justice goes, which is fine, but I want it to have the confidence to tell its story above board.

38. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Turner Ross and Bill Ross IV)- I have a barfly friend whom I see maybe once a year. When we first set up a time to meet, I kind of dread it and wonder what we'll have to talk about. Once we do get together, we trip on each other's words a bit, fumbling around with the rhythm of conversation that we mastered decades ago. He makes some kind of joke that could have been appropriate then but isn't now.

By the end of the day, hours later, we're hugging and maybe crying as we promise each other that we won't wait as long next time.

That's the exact same journey that I went on with this film.

37. Underwater (William Eubank)- Underwater is a story that you've seen before, but it's told with great confidence and economy. I looked up at twelve minutes and couldn't believe the whole table had been set. Kristen plays Ripley and projects a smart, benevolent poise.

36. The Lodge (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala)- I prefer the grounded, manicured first half to the more fantastic second half. The craziness of the latter is only possible through the hard work of the former though. As with Fiala and Franz's previous feature, the visual rhymes and motifs get incorporated into the soup so carefully that you don't realize it until they overwhelm you in their bleak glory.

Small note: Alicia Silverstone, the male lead's first wife, and Riley Keough, his new partner, look sort of similar. I always think that's a nice note: "I could see how he would go for her."

35. Miss Americana (Lana Wilson)- I liked it when I saw it as a portrait of a person whose life is largely decided for her but is trying to carve out personal spaces within that hamster wheel. I loved it when I realized that describes most successful people in their twenties.

34. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)- Riz Ahmed is showing up on all of the best performances of the year lists, but Sound of Metal isn't in anyone's top ten films of the year. That's about right. Ahmed's is a quiet, stubborn performance that I wish was in service of more than the straight line that we've seen before.

In two big scenes, there's this trick that Ahmed does, a piecing together of consequences with his eyes, as if he's moving through a flow chart in real time. In both cases, the character seems locked out and a little slower than he should be, which is, of course, why he's facing the consequences in the first place. To be charitable to a film that was a bit of a grind, it did make me notice a thing a guy did with his eyes.

33. Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)- Usually when I leave acting showcases like this, I imagine the film without the Oscar-baiting speeches, but this is a movie that specializes in speeches. Pieces of a Woman is being judged, deservedly so, by the harrowing twenty-minute take that opens the film, which is as indulgent as it is necessary. But if the unbroken take provides the "what," then the speeches provide the "why."

This is a film about reclaiming one's body when it rebels against you and when other people seek ownership of it. Without the Ellen Burstyn "lift your head" speech or the Vanessa Kirby show-stopper in the courtroom, I'm not sure any of that comes across.

I do think the film lets us off the hook a bit with the LaBoeuf character, in the sense that it gives us reasons to dislike him when it would be more compelling if he had done nothing wrong. Does his half-remembering of the White Stripes count as a speech?

32. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe)- This is such a play, not only in the locked-down location but also through nearly every storytelling convention: "Where are the two most interesting characters? Oh, running late? They'll enter separately in animated fashion?" But, to use the type of phrase that the characters might, "Don't hate the player; hate the game."

Perhaps the most theatrical note in this treatise on the commodification of expression is the way that, two or three times, the proceedings stop in their tracks for the piece to declare loudly what it's about. In one of those clear-outs, Boseman, who looks distractingly sick, delivers an unforgettable monologue that transports the audience into his character's fragile, haunted mind. He and Viola Davis are so good that the film sort of buckles under their weight, unsure of how to transition out of those spotlight moments and pretend that the story can start back up. Whatever they're doing is more interesting than what's being achieved overall.

31. Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)- It's definitely the film that Vinterberg wanted to make, but despite what I think is a quietly shattering performance from Mikkelsen, Another Round moves in a bit too much of a straight line to grab me fully. The joyous final minutes hint at where it could have gone, as do pockets of Vinterberg's filmography, which seems newly tethered to realism in a way that I don't like. The best sequences are the wildest ones, like the uproarious trip to the grocery store for fresh cod, so I don't know why so much of it takes place in tiny hallways at magic hour. I give the inevitable American remake* permission to use these notes.

*- Just spitballing here. Martin: Will Ferrell, Nikolaj (Nick): Ben Stiller, Tommy: Owen Wilson, Peter: Craig Robinson

30. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell)- Exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I needed.

I think a less conclusive finale would have been better, but what a model of high-concept escalation. This is the movie people convinced me Whannell's Upgrade was.

29. On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)- Slight until the Mexican sojourn, which expands the scope and makes the film even more psychosexual than before. At times it feels as if Coppola is actively simplifying, rather than diving into the race and privilege questions that the Murray character all but demands.

As for Murray, is the film 50% worse without him? 70%? I don't know if you can run in supporting categories if you're the whole reason the film exists.

28. Mangrove (Steve McQueen)- The first part of the film seemed repetitive and broad to me. But once it settled in as a courtroom drama, the characterization became more shaded, and the filmmaking itself seemed more fluid. I ended up being quite outraged and inspired.

27. Shirley (Josephine Decker)- Josephine Decker emerges as a real stylist here, changing her foggy, impressionistic approach not one bit with a little more budget. Period piece and established actors be damned--this is still as much of a reeling fever dream as Madeline's Madeline. Both pieces are a bit too repetitive and nasty for my taste, but I respect the technique.

Here's my mandatory "Elisabeth Moss is the best" paragraph. While watching her performance as Shirley Jackson, I thought about her most famous role as Peggy on Mad Men, whose inertia and need to prove herself tied her into confidence knots. Shirley is almost the opposite: paralyzed by her worldview, certain of her talent, rejecting any empathy. If Moss can inhabit both characters so convincingly, she can do anything.

26. An American Pickle (Brandon Trost)- An American Pickle is the rare comedy that could actually use five or ten extra minutes, but it's a surprisingly heartfelt and wholesome stretch for Rogen, who is earnest in the lead roles.

25. The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow)- At two hours and fifteen minutes, The King of Staten Island is probably the first Judd Apatow film that feels like the exact right length. For example, the baggy date scene between a gracious Bill Burr and a faux-dowdy Marisa Tomei is essential, the sort of widening of perspective that something like Trainwreck was missing.

It's Pete Davidson's movie, however, and though he has never been my cup of tea, I think he's actually quite powerful in his quiet moments. The movie probes some rare territory--a mentally ill man's suspicion that he is unlovable, a family's strategic myth-making out of respect for the dead. And when Davidson shows up at the firehouse an hour and fifteen minutes in, it feels as if we've built to a last resort.

24. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis)- The tricky part of this film is communicating Hunter's despair, letting her isolation mount, but still keeping her opaque. It takes a lot of visual discipline to do that, and Claudio Mirabella-Davis is up to the task. This ends up being a much more sympathetic, expressive movie than the plot description might suggest.

(In the tie dispute, Hunter and Richie are both wrong. That type of silk--I couldn't tell how pebbled it was, but it's probably a barathea weave-- shouldn't be ironed directly, but it doesn't have to be steamed. On a low setting, you could iron the back of the tie and be fine.)

23. The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson)- I wanted a bit more "there" there; The film goes exactly where I thought it would, and there isn't enough humor for my taste. (The predictability might be a feature, not a bug, since the film is positioned as an episode of a well-worn Twilight Zone-esque show.)

But from a directorial standpoint, this is quite a promising debut. Patterson knows when to lock down or use silence--he even cuts to black to force us to listen more closely to a monologue. But he also knows when to fill the silence. There's a minute or so when Everett is spooling tape, and he and Fay make small talk about their hopes for the future, developing the characters' personalities in what could have been just mechanics. It's also a refreshingly earnest film. No one is winking at the '50s setting.

I'm tempted to write, "If Andrew Patterson can make this with $1 million, just imagine what he can do with $30 million." But maybe people like Shane Carruth have taught us that Patterson is better off pinching pennies in Texas and following his own muse.

22. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)- At first this film, adapted from a picaresque novel by Jack London, seemed as if it was hitting the marks of the genre. "He's going from job to job and meeting dudes who are shaping his worldview now." But the film, shot in lustrous Super 16, won me over as it owned the trappings of this type of story, forming a character who is a product of his environment even as he transcends it. By the end, I really felt the weight of time.

You want to talk about something that works better in novels than films though? When a passionate, independent protagonist insists that a woman is the love of his life, despite the fact that she's whatever Italians call a wet blanket. She's rich, but Martin doesn't care about her money. He hates her family and friends, and she refuses to accept him or his life pursuits. She's pretty but not even as pretty as the waitress they discuss. Tell me what I'm missing here. There's archetype, and there's incoherence.

21. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles)- Certain images from this adventurous film will stick with me, but I got worn out after the hard reset halfway through. As entranced as I was by the mystery of the first half, I think this blood-soaked ensemble is better at asking questions than it is at answering them.

20. Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh)- The initial appeal of this movie might be "Look at these wonderful actresses in their seventies getting a movie all to themselves." And the film is an interesting portrait of ladies taking stock of relationships that have spanned decades. But Soderbergh and Eisenberg handle the twentysomething Lucas Hedges character with the same openness and empathy. His early reasoning for going on the trip is that he wants to learn from older women, and Hedges nails the puppy-dog quality of a young man who would believe that. Especially in the scenes of aspirational romance, he's sweet and earnest as he brushes his hair out of his face.

Streep plays Alice Hughes, a serious author of literary fiction, and she crosses paths with Kelvin Kranz, a grinder of airport thrillers. In all of the right ways, Let Them All Talk toes the line between those two stances as an entertaining, jaunty experiment that also shoulders subtextual weight. If nothing else, it's easy to see why a cruise ship's counterfeit opulence, its straight lines at a lean, would be visually engaging to Soderbergh. You can't have a return to form if your form is constantly evolving.

19. Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson)- Understandably, I don't find the subject as interesting as his own daughter does, and large swaths of this film are unsure of what they're trying to say. But that's sort of the point, and the active wrestling that the film engages in with death ultimately pays off in a transcendent moment. The jaw-dropping ending is something that only non-fiction film can achieve, and Johnson's whole career is about the search for that sort of serendipity.

18. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)- Delroy Lindo is a live-wire, but his character is the only one of the principals who is examined with the psychological depth I was hoping for. The first half, with all of its present-tense flourishes, promises more than the gunfights of the second half can deliver. When the film is cooking though, it's chock full of surprises, provocations, and pride.

17. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittmann)- Very quickly, Eliza Hittmann has established herself as an astute, empathetic director with an eye for discovering new talent. I hope that she gets to make fifty more movies in which she objectively follows laconic young people. But I wanted to like this one more than I did. The approach is so neutral that it's almost flat to me, lacking the arc and catharsis of her previous film, Beach Rats. I still appreciate her restraint though.

GREAT MOVIES

16. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)- I don't think the Dardennes have made a bad movie yet, and I'm glad they turned away from the slight genre dipping of The Unknown Girl, the closest to bad that they got. Young Ahmed is a lean, daring return to form.

Instead of following an average person, as they normally do, the Dardenne Brothers follow an extremist, and the objectivity that usually generates pathos now serves to present ambiguity. Ahmed says that he is changing, that he regrets his actions, but we never know how much of his stance is a put-on. I found myself wanting him to reform, more involved than I usually am in these slices of life. Part of it is that Idir Ben Addi looks like such a normal, young kid, and the Ahmed character has most of the qualities that we say we want in young people: principles, commitment, self-worth, reflection. So it's that much more destructive when those qualities are used against him and against his fellow man.

15. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (Don Hertzfeldt)- My dad, a man whom I love but will never understand, has dismissed modern music before by claiming that there are only so many combinations of chords. To him, it's almost impossible to do something new. Of course, this is the type of thing that an uncreative person would say--a person not only incapable of hearing the chords that combine notes but also unwilling to hear the space between the notes. (And obviously, that's the take of a person who doesn't understand that, originality be damned, some people just have to create.)

Anyway, that attitude creeps into my own thinking more than I would like, but then I watch something as wholly original as World of Tomorrow Episode Three. The series has always been a way to pile sci-fi ideas on top of each other to prove the essential truths of being and loving. And this one, even though it achieves less of a sense of yearning than its predecessor, offers even more devices to chew on. Take, for example, the idea that Emily sends her message from the future, so David's primitive technology can barely handle it. In order to move forward with its sophistication, he has to delete any extraneous skills for the sake of computer memory. So out of trust for this person who loves him, he has to weigh whether his own breathing or walking can be uninstalled as a sacrifice for her. I thought that we might have been done describing love, but there it is, a new metaphor. Mixing futurism with stick figures to get at the most pure drive possible gave us something new. It's called art, Dad.

14. On the Record (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering)- We don't call subjects of documentaries "stars" for obvious reasons, but Drew Dixon kind of is one. Her honesty and wisdom tell a complete story of the #MeToo movement. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering take their time developing her background at first, not because we need to "gain sympathy" or "establish credibility" for a victim of sexual abuse, but because showing her talent and enthusiasm for hip-hop A&R makes it that much more tragic when her passion is extinguished. Hell, I just like the woman, so spending a half-hour on her rise was pleasurable in and of itself.

This is a gut-wrenching, fearless entry in what is becoming Dick and Ziering's raison d'etre, but its greatest quality is Dixon's composed reflection. She helped to establish a pattern of Russell Simmons's behavior, but she explains what happened to her in ways I had never heard before.

13. David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee)- I'm often impressed by the achievements that puzzle me: How did they pull that off? But I know exactly how David Byrne pulled off the impish but direct precision of American Utopia: a lot of hard work.

I can't blame Spike Lee for stealing a page from Demme's Stop Making Sense: He denies us a close-up of any audience members until two-thirds of the way through, when we get someone in absolute rapture.

12. One Night in Miami... (Regina King)- We've all cringed when a person of color is put into the position of speaking on behalf of his or her entire race. But the characters in One Night in Miami... live in that condition all the time and are constantly negotiating it. As Black public figures in 1964, they know that the consequences of their actions are different, bigger, than everyone else's. The charged conversations between Malcolm X and Sam Cooke are not about whether they can live normal lives. They're way past that. The stakes are closer to Sam Cooke arguing that his life's purpose aligns with the protection and elevation of African-Americans while Malcolm X argues that those pursuits should be the same thing. Late in the movie, Cassius Clay leaves the other men, a private conversation, to talk to reporters, a public conversation. But the film argues that everything these men do is always already public. They're the most powerful African-Americans in the country, but their lives are not their own. Or not only their own.

It's true that the first act has the clunkiness and artifice of a TV movie, but once the film settles into the motel room location and lets the characters feed off one another, it's gripping. It's kind of unfair for a movie to get this many scenes of Leslie Odom Jr. singing, but I'll take it.

11. Saint Frances (Alex Thompson)- Rilke wrote, "Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." The characters' behavior in Saint Frances--all of these fully formed characters' behavior--made me think of that quotation. When they lash out at one another, even at their nastiest, the viewer has a window into how they're expressing pain they can't verbalize. The film is uneven in its subtlety, but it's a real showcase for screenwriter and star Kelly O'Sullivan, who is unflinching and dynamic in one of the best performances of the year. Somebody give her some of the attention we gave to Zach Braff for God's sake.

10. Boys State (Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine)- This documentary is kind of a miracle from a logistical standpoint. From casting interviews beforehand, lots of editing afterwards, or sly note-taking once the conference began, McBaine and Moss happened to select the four principals who mattered the most at the convention, then found them in rooms full of dudes wearing the same tucked-in t-shirt. By the way, all of the action took place over the course of one week, and by definition, the important events are carved in half.

To call Boys State a microcosm of American politics is incorrect. These guys are forming platforms and voting in elections. What they're doing is American politics, so when they make the same compromises and mistakes that active politicians do, it produces dread and disappointment. So many of the boys are mimicking the political theater that they see on TV, and that sweaty sort of performance is going to make a Billy Mitchell out of this kid Ben Feinstein, and we'll be forced to reckon with how much we allow him to evolve as a person. This film is so precise, but what it proves is undeniably messy. Luckily, some of these seventeen-year-olds usher in hope for us all.

If nothing else, the film reveals the level to which we're all speaking in code.

9. The Nest (Sean Durkin)- In the first ten minutes or so of The Nest, the only real happy minutes, father and son are playing soccer in their quaint backyard, and the father cheats to score on a children's net before sliding on the grass to rub in his victory. An hour later, the son kicks the ball around by himself near a regulation goal on the family's massive property. The contrast is stark and obvious, as is the symbolism of the dead horse, but that doesn't mean it's not visually powerful or resonant.

Like Sean Durkin's earlier film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, the whole of The Nest is told with detail of novelistic scope and an elevation of the moment. A snippet of radio that mentions Ronald Reagan sets the time period, rather than a dateline. One kid saying "Thanks, Dad" and another kid saying, "Thanks, Rory" establishes a stepchild more elegantly than any other exposition might.

But this is also a movie that does not hide what it means. Characters usually say exactly what is on their minds, and motivations are always clear. For example, Allison smokes like a chimney, so her daughter's way of acting out is leaving butts on the window sill for her mother to find. (And mother and daughter both definitely "act out" their feelings.) On the other hand, Ben, Rory's biological son, is the character least like him, so these relationships aren't too directly parallel. Regardless, Durkin uses these trajectories to cast a pall of familial doom.

8. Sorry We Missed You (Sean Durkin)- Another precisely calibrated empathy machine from Ken Loach. The overwhelmed matriarch, Abby, is a caretaker, and she has to break up a Saturday dinner to rescue one of her clients, who wet herself because no one came to help her to the bathroom. The lady is embarrassed, and Abby calms her down by saying, "You mean more to me than you know." We know enough about Abby's circumstances to realize that it's sort of a lie, but it's a beautiful lie, told by a person who cares deeply but is not cared for.

Loach's central point is that the health of a family, something we think of as immutable and timeless, is directly dependent upon the modern industry that we use to destroy ourselves. He doesn't have to be "proven" relevant, and he didn't plan for Covid-19 to point to the fragility of the gig economy, but when you're right, you're right.

7. Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)- swear to you I thought: "This is an impeccable depiction of a great house party. The only thing it's missing is the volatile dude who scares away all the girls." And then the volatile dude who scares away all the girls shows up.

In a year short on magic, there are two or three transcendent moments, but none of them can equal the whole crowd singing along to "Silly Games" way after the song has ended. Nothing else crystallizes the film's note of celebration: of music, of community, of safe spaces, of Black skin. I remember moments like that at house parties, and like all celebrations, they eventually make me sad.

6. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht)- I held off on this movie because I thought that I knew what it was. The setup was what I expected: A summer camp for the disabled in the late '60s takes on the spirit of the time and becomes a haven for people who have not felt agency, self-worth, or community anywhere else. But that's the right-place-right-time start of a story that takes these figures into the '80s as they fight for their rights.

If you're anything like my dumb ass, you know about 504 accommodations from the line on a college syllabus that promises equal treatment. If 2020 has taught us anything though, it's that rights are seized, not given, and this is the inspiring story of people who unified to demand what they deserved. Judy Heumann is a civil rights giant, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't know who she was before this film. If it were just a history lesson that wasn't taught in school, Crip Camp would still be valuable, but it's way more than that.

5. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow)- When explaining what is happening to them, Andy Samberg's Nyles twirls his hand at Cristin Milioti's Sara and says, "It's one of those infinite time-loop scenarios." Yeah, one of those. Armed with only a handful of fictional examples, she and the audience know exactly what he means, and the continually inventive screenplay by Andy Siara doesn't have to do any more explaining. In record time, the film accelerates into its premise, involves her, and sets up the conflict while avoiding the claustrophobia of even Groundhog Day. That economy is the strength that allows it to be as funny as it is. By being thrifty with the setup, the savings can go to, say, the couple crashing a plane into a fiery heap with no consequences.

In some accidental ways, this is, of course, a quarantine romance as well. Nyles and Sara frustratingly navigate the tedious wedding as if they are play-acting--which they sort of are--then they push through that sameness to grow for each other, realizing that dependency is not weakness. The best relationships are doing the same thing right now.

Although pointedly superficial--part of the point of why the couple is such a match--and secular--I think the notion of an afterlife would come up at least once--Palm Springs earns the sincerity that it gets around to. And for a movie ironic enough to have a character beg to be impaled so that he doesn't have to sit in traffic, that's no small feat.

4. The Assistant (Kitty Green)- A wonder of Bressonian objectivity and rich observation, The Assistant is the rare film that deals exclusively with emotional depth while not once explaining any emotions. One at a time, the scrape of the Kleenex box might not be so grating, the long hallway trek to the delivery guy might not be so tiring, but this movie gets at the details of how a job can destroy you in ways that add up until you can't even explain them.

3. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)- In her most incendiary and modern role, Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, which is short for Cassandra, that figure doomed to tell truths that no one else believes. The web-belted boogeyman who ruined her life is Al, short for Alexander, another Greek who is known for his conquests. The revenge story being told here--funny in its darkest moments, dark in its funniest moments--is tight on its surface levels, but it feels as if it's telling a story more archetypal and expansive than that too.

An exciting feature debut for its writer-director Emerald Fennell, the film goes wherever it dares. Its hero has a clear purpose, and it's not surprising that the script is willing to extinguish her anger halfway through. What is surprising is the way it renews and muddies her purpose as she comes into contact with half-a-dozen brilliant one- or two-scene performances. (Do you think Alfred Molina can pull off a lawyer who hates himself so much that he can't sleep? You would be right.)

Promising Young Woman delivers as an interrogation of double standards and rape culture, but in quiet ways it's also about our outsized trust in professionals and the notion that some trauma cannot be overcome.

INSTANT CLASSICS

2. Soul (Pete Docter)- When Pete Docter's Up came out, it represented a sort of coronation for Pixar: This was the one that adults could like unabashedly. The one with wordless sequences and dead children and Ed Asner in the lead. But watching it again this week with my daughter, I was surprised by how high-concept and cloying it could be. We choose not to remember the middle part with the goofy dog stuff.

Soul is what Up was supposed to be: honest, mature, stirring. And I don't mean to imply that a family film shouldn't make any concessions to children. But Soul, down to the title, never compromises its own ambition. Besides Coco, it's probably the most credible character study that Pixar has ever made, with all of Joe's growth earned the hard way. Besides Inside Out, it's probably the wittiest comedy that Pixar has ever made, bursting with unforced energy.

There's a twitter fascination going around about Dez, the pigeon-figured barber character whose scene has people gushing, "Crush my windpipe, king" or whatever. Maybe that's what twitter does now, but no one fantasized about any characters in Up. And I count that as progress.

1. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)- After hearing that our name-shifting protagonist moonlights as an artist, a no-nonsense David Thewlis offers, "I hope you're not an abstract artist." He prefers "paintings that look like photographs" over non-representational mumbo-jumbo. And as Jessie Buckley squirms to try to think of a polite way to talk back, you can tell that Charlie Kaufman has been in the crosshairs of this same conversation. This morose, scary, inscrutable, expressionist rumination is not what the Netflix description says it is at all, and it's going to bother nice people looking for a fun night in. Thank God.

The story goes that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, when constructing Raiders of the Lost Ark, sought to craft a movie that was "only the good parts" with little of the clunky setup that distracted from action. What we have here is a Charlie Kaufman movie with only the Charlie Kaufman moments, less interested than ever before at holding one's hand. The biting humor is here, sometimes aimed at philistines like the David Thewlis character above, sometimes at the niceties that we insist upon. The lonely horror of everyday life is here, in the form of missed calls from oneself or the interruption of an inner monologue. Of course, communicating the overwhelming crush of time, both unknowable and familiar, is the raison d'etre.

A new pet motif seems to be the way that we don't even own our own knowledge. The Young Woman recites "Bonedog" by Eva H.D., which she claims/thinks she wrote, only to find Jake's book open to that page, next to a Pauline Kael book that contains a Woman Under the Influence review that she seems to have internalized later. When Jake muses about Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems," it starts as a way to pass the time, then it becomes a way to lord his education over her, then it becomes a compliment because the subject resembles her, then it becomes a way to let her know that, in the grand scheme of things, she isn't that special at all. This film jerks the viewer through a similar wintry cycle and leaves him with his own thoughts. It's not a pretty picture, but it doesn't look like anything else.

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optimistic-dinosaur-nacho · 5 years ago

Text

Electric Love

(Playing It Cool) Me x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Language Summary: Your fellow writer is not telling this summary. I am. Me. The girl I love works along with my friends and I can’t get her out of my damn head. My friends told so many stories about love and I call bullshit on everything. That weird photo above is my heart. Can be a pain in the ass sometimes but I’ll get to the story of how I met Her.

This is all in his head as he tells you the story.

~~~

I’m hoping this is just my conscience. If not then...

You’re hearing one of the most embarrassing or great things I’ve done that got me to say this. I’m Me. And this is a story when I met Her. This could go back a while because she’s been in my friend group for a while. Talented script writer, she had been writing since she was a kid.

Her first book was a comic book. Never read it but she claimed it was about a soldier on steroids who saves the world from Nazis. I’m certain that’s what she said.

But this is where it takes a turn.

She’s my friend’s sister, Scott.

Hopefully you know the backstory.

Do you? If not let me rephrase it in a small dialogue. The day we met, he left a package and I chased him around. That sound good? Good. Anyway, I don’t feel love like anyone should do.

I’m not even sure I’m capable of it. Those three words, I just repeat the same thing I always say before I get a cupcake to the face.

“I just don’t see myself ever to feel the same way about you.”

Yeah. Messed up in your opinion. You see a girl, she falls in love and then it’s like a truck rams you into a pile of needles. I never get rejected. I’m the one to reject others.

But not her.

“Hey!” I flinched in my chair as she waved her hand, snapping her fingers. “You have to get this script done. You know how Bryan is,” She says. Shit. Got lost in thought about her.

Oh, crap. I forgot to mention her name.

“Hey, Y/N!”

There it is.

Scott comes over and spun the chair around to sit, “So, what’s going on?” He sighs. Y/N looks up to me like I was the one to tell. She was working with me on this like it was some essay for me. But her damn gaze just shuts me up.

“Um... So, the guy character has multiple personalities, he meets the girl character who has multiple personalities and one of his personalities falls in love with one of her personalities,” I said, Scott looks over to Y/N before chuckling softly.

“That sounds pretty good.”

Pretty good?

“It’s terrible,” I say. “It does not sound terrible,” Y/N says. I look over, “But it’s full of cliches. It had a gay best friend personality, it has a bitch girlfriend personality. It has a feisty Hispanic personality,” I rip of my glasses as the two laughed.

God, I loved how I make her smile. “She has a Black detective personality.” Y/N grins up at me, “You also have a scene where the actor runs through an airport,” She adds. I nod, “Yes, I forgot about that.”

Scott raises his brows, amazed, “I love running through the airport scenes.”

“I can’t do this. It’s not a good rom-com. I just want to write something as it is. I don’t want anything that’s comedy or romance. Just you know, play it out.” Y/N and Scott both sat there silently.

Great. I broke both of them.

Y/N looks over to her brother, “If I gave you 20 dollars, could you buy us lattes across the street?” She asked. God, she always knew how to cheer people up with a simple coffee.

Scott nods, “Yeah. Sure.” I looked over my shoulder and spotted my heart chilling in the corner. His lighter flicking in under his thumb as he watched me. I’m starting to think I’m going crazy.

“Hey,” Y/N spoke softly, I turned to look at her, “Let’s go over it. Okay? This is a rom-com correct?” I sighed softly and nodded. She reached across and grabbed my journal.

A journal filled luckily with no personal thoughts. Not a diary. Even if I did have one, it wouldn’t have anything to do with women or her. Maybe. She took a pencil from my book and held it in her hand.

“Have you heard about ‘10 things I hate about you’?” She asked. My brows furrow. Yeah, that Shakespeare movie about a boy who takes on a bet to take a girl out to prom just for someone else to take out the girl’s sister?

“Yeah?”

“Well, in my thoughts. If these characters have multiple personalities there will be some conflict between their personalities,” She spoke. The way she speaks when she tries to collaborate. It’s soothing. Tantalizing.

“It can be similar to Step Brothers-Which is not a rom-com film but it’s something to put down as a thought. Some of these personalities can fight for hours, but it some times...that one personality from each of them, they build some sense and they try to work their ways through love but they know it’s not gonna be easy.”

“So... What’s the ending?” I ask. The pencil reaches up to her lips. Right now? She had to do it now in a library? Her thinking pose has me shifting my seat. She noticed.

Crap.

“I’m sorry,” She pulled the pencil away from her lips, “I’m probably ruining your ideas, I shouldn’t have spoken about it. It’s your thing not mine-”

“No, no,” I cut her off, “It’s fine. I’ll think about it.” Y/N slips the journal back and she grins up at me. “If you need anything else, I’m open for some ideas.” I nod at her, “You might expect calls in the middle of the night, probably.”

She laughs lightly at that. A few seconds later, Scott walks with three cups of coffee. “All right. Here you go,” Scott hands us our drinks, returning him with a thanks.

Y/N reaches for her phone and she gasps slightly. “Shit, I got to go. I have a meet up with a friend, Derek. I’ll see you guys.” I watch her shoot up from her chair and grabbed her bag, rushing out of the library.

I turn to Scott, “Who’s Derek?” Great. That’s one way to sound like a jealous guy. Scott looks over and laughs, “You crushing on my sister?” I shake me head immediately, “No. No, I was just asking ‘cause...” I cut myself off. Why did I?

“Look, I don’t care that you like my sister. But if you’re boning her at this moment, you got to tell me now.” I close my eyes, “I’m not boning your sister, Scott. This is all some... stupid-”

“You’re falling in love with her? Why don’t you tell her? Do you want me to?” Scott asks. I shake my head, “No! Don’t tell her! Don’t tell her anything, I’m not capable of doing that... sort of thing...”

Scott raises a brow, “You mean not capable of accepting your feelings towards her? That’s the problem. If you keep this up, you’re gonna shut her out because of it. You set boundaries and then you start to push them.”

I close my book and slipped it in my bag. “I’m going.” Scott furrows his brows, “What? So, you’re just gonna ignore this whole thing? Not even gonna tell her?”

“I’ll see you at the bar,” Was all I said before leaving him there. Not knowing that my heart in that corner had lit the romance category sign on fire.

Fuck Romance.

“You really fallen for her?” Mallory asks, the boys around smiled. “Well, one day he’s gonna be moving into Scott’s house and he’ll have to listen to them screaming,” Samson says.

I dropped my head on the counter. Fifth drink in hand, I felt a bit tipsy. “I thought Y/N was coming, what going on?” Lyle asks. Scott sighed, “Well, I heard her and Derek were really working on a screenplay at her apartment so we’re going on without her.”

That Derek might get a punch to the face. The thought of her and him in bed. It rotted into my mind and I caved. Lifting up my head, I downed my drink. “Another, please,” I demanded.

After that, I took many more. I was on the edge of throwing up. My friends offered to take me home due to my tipsy stance and slurred words. I just walked away and I had to tell Y/N.

Stumbling up the stairs to her complex, I ended up at the gate. I’ve been to her apartment many times. Not what you think, though. Not yet. I reached for the rocks in the plant box and shouted, “Y/N!”

I then threw the rock. It missed her window but it met it with a loud bang. The lights were on and a shadow appears behind the curtains before Y/N opens her window and spotted me.

God, she was beautiful.

“What are you doing? It’s late?” She asked, I grabbed the bar and leaned in between the two bars. “Where’s that Derek douche? Huh?” Y/N furrows her brows, “What? Are you drunk?” She asked.

Leaning back, holding the bar with one hand, I pointed up at her, “I love you, Y/N.” I swung to the side and slammed into the wall. “Who is that, Y/N? Who are you talking to?” A man asks.

“A friend, he’s drunk and-” I peered up at the man I assumed was Derek and pointed at him. “You! You don’t deserve her! You don’t love her! Sex is better with me!”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Derek asks. Y/N sighs, turning back to me, “It’s not what you think, he’s just-”

“Oh, no!” I cut her off, I began to climb the fence, “I love you! You’re amazing! One of the best people I could ever have,” I belched, “Derek doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t love you.”

My feet shake and slipped. Y/N gasps as I slam to the ground with a thud. “He’s just a friend! He’s gay, see?” She calls. I stumble onto my feet and panted, “He’s crazy? I’ll beat his ass for whatever he’s done.”

“I’m calling the cops,” Derek says, Y/N grabs his arm, “Don’t. He’s my friend,” She looks down, “I’m coming down! Wait there!” I swiped my hands down my chest as I peered up at Derek.

“Cops... fuck the cops... I...” I felt my head spin and I began to sway. Stumbling at the slightest I felt someone grab my shoulders. My hands instantly grab their forearms and I slowly opened my eyes.

There she stood.

“Hey...” I slurred, she cracks a grin, “Hey.” My hand cups her cheek in an instant, having her to look in my eyes. “I love you... too much...” I slurred. She smiles and placed her hand over mine. “You’re not in the right state,” She says.

I shook my head, “But I’m in the right place... and that’s with you...” Y/N uses her other hand and cups my cheek. This was a sign to give her a kiss. Leaning in, I was intoxicated. Though in my mind, I needed this.

The butterflies were going off in my stomach.

Wait. Shit. Not the right ones. I gagged. Y/N pulls away and takes a step back but her hand goes for my back as I leaned over to the side and got rid of those contents I took down at the bar.

Y/N cringed but she rubbed my back softly. After I finished and spat, she lifts me up gently. “Let me get you cleaned up and you can sleep in my bed.” I didn’t have the chance to say anything, I felt like I couldn’t.

I blew it once I gagged.

Derek was nicely removed from her apartment and she gave me the chance to take a shower. Use a toothbrush under the sink to get the alcohol taste in my mouth that’s been burning inside.

After that, I nodded off.

The next morning, I woke up to the light shining through the window. I noticed the familiar place and realized I was in Y/N’s apartment. I sat up from her bed and stood up.

Walking through her place, I found her in the kitchen. Her head turns to me and she grins, “Morning. I have a pill for you there. I was thinking you should lay off the coffee today so...”

I walked over and reached for the pill and water. “Thank you. And good morning to you.” She looks over and leans on the counter to face me. “You okay?” She asked. I peered up at her, furrowing my brows. For some reason, I just realized how sore my body was.

Oh, yeah. Fell down the fence. “I’m fine... just...” Shit. I zoned out again. Her grin never left her face as she gazed at me. It’s like I lost my hearing to everything around me.

Everything was gone except her. I look over her head to see my heart. Full on suit with a cigarette in his mouth. Smoke emitting from him, he nodded at me. What was he nodding at me for?

Something warm and gentle lands on my side and I look down to see Y/N. Her arm out, touching my waist as she steps closer to me. I felt frozen in time with her. This wasn’t no story or dream I was being told. This was happening.

I placed the glass down and watched her as she raised her other hand to cup my cheek. This is the opportunity. Don’t blow it up with another gag. My hands go to her waist and cheek.

Cupping them gently, her lips part to collide with mine. Fuck, it’s happening. Her lips crash onto mine and I froze. This was something different. It wasn’t wrong. It didn’t feel like the other girls I’ve called and asked for sex.

This gave me the good butterflies. As if we were perfect, our lips just seem to be a perfect fit. It felt so right. I felt love.

The loss of her lips pull away from mine so I opened my eyes. She grinned as she looks up at me. She lightly laughs, “You look sad.” I felt like I needed to hear that again because I didn’t catch it when I got lost in her eyes. But then it came back to me.

“Maybe because you pulled away,” I said.

She laughs, “Well, you almost could’ve thrown up in my face last night if I hadn’t.” I mentally felt embarrassed with that but when she smiled I guess it wasn’t bad. “I’m sorry,” I said.

Y/N shakes her head, “No. I’m glad you came up to say that. But you could’ve said it when you were sober. Would make you less of an idiot,” She says. My eyebrows perk up, “Well, either way I’d make a fool out of myself. I guess I fallen hard for you and got to upset I couldn’t tell you so I did that.”

She smiled, still chest-to-chest with her as she rubbed my side. “I’ve fallen for you, too.” I smiled at her and cupped her cheeks again, pulling her up for a kiss once again.

And that’s how I met the woman. You probably know this story already because...

You were the woman.

~~~

Woah... It’s so weird to break the fourth wall

TAGS: @jtargaryen18 @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @chrisevans-imagines @princess-evans-addict @ifuseekamyevans @bucksgoat @axen-gers @donutloverxo @rororo06 @sweater-daddiesdumbdork @elliee1497 @patzammit @stop-obsessing-over-those-actors @iguessweallcrazyithinktho

Want a tag? Just ask!

#playing it cool #me x reader #chris evans #chris evans x reader #narrator #best movie #rom-com #cevans #steve rogers #2014 #sex is better with me #steve rogers x reader #captain america #evansedit #evans

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jswdmb1 · 5 years ago

Text

Jesus Just Left Chicago

“You might not see him in person

But he'll see you just the same...

You don't have to worry

cause takin' care of business is his name”

- ZZ Top

Like most people, I avoid the topic of religion. Not because I am uncomfortable discussing it, but because most everyone else is. I also don’t do it because getting into a conversation about religion has virtually no payoff. Most folks are set in their beliefs, and that’s fine by me so why waste the time and aggravation going through my beliefs when the other person doesn’t care. The only problem with this approach is that not everyone feels the same. Some like to share their beliefs and I have been provoked into discussions when I don’t agree. What my stance is on the topic, I’ll share in a minute, but I want to first share why I am bringing it up in the first place. It has to do with another taboo topic, death, which I have been grappling with a bit lately and the events of the weekend caused even deeper reflection on the subject.

Even though it has been a couple of years, I think my subconscious is still processing the deaths of my dad and mother-in-law. Before I go any further, if my essay to this point has made you uncomfortable, my ramblings on death aren’t going to make it any better, so you may want to stop here. Anyway, while I have accepted the loss of them both in many ways, the part I have not been able to get over is their actual act of dying. I think that aspect hit me particularly hard because I was present for the removal of their bodies after they died. I wasn’t actually with either when they expired, which I think made it worse. I think at least in that instance you can witness their passing and gain closure to the extent it can be achieved. Simply seeing a dead body does not provide such closure. If you have never been in this position (and I hope you never are), it’s hard to explain what it feels like, but it’s not like an open casket wake because you just see the person in their natural state and it’s harder to take that way. Worse, is that the image sears into your brain and becomes your everlasting memory of that person.This is pretty deep stuff, and I chose to often make the thoughts go away with a stiff drink (or two, or three) and defer the wrangling with my emotions. Once I went sober, I began to work on the issue, but it is too big to handle and I would still push it away. Problem is that it keeps creeping back and the last couple weeks have been a particularly bad stretch.

Within one month the birthdays of both will have passed along with my parents’ 50th anniversary sandwiched in between. It got me back to thinking about them both more and more, but unfortunately it kept coming back to those last images I had of each. Finally, last week, I really started letting my mind go where it needed to go. Without going into details, I spent a lot time reflecting on their deaths and the aftermath I witnessed and did it by reading how others I am familiar with have died. There is a particularly macabre and wickedly fascinating website called findadeath.com that goes into the details of the deaths of celebrities. While I agree that this is a weird and creepy way to spend some time, seeing that famous people end the same way as the rest of us made me somehow feel a little better about what I saw with those close to me. As a matter fact, compared to the horrible deaths of many celebrities (side note: if I ever get famous I won’t go near a bathtub ever again), we were fortunate that our loved ones died peacefully. This really hit home with the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton this weekend. I can only imagine how difficult those scenes had to be for those that were there on the scene and in the aftermath.

How this all connects, I promise I will do soon, but I should probably mention at this point that I do not believe in organized religion of any kind. I was raised Catholic, but nothing about that religion is congruent with my actual views on life, so I spent most of my adult years drifting away until I just quit all together. When people hear that, they automatically assume that I am an atheist. Nothing could be further from the truth. I most certainly believe that a spirit guides this vast universe. I just don’t agree that we are necessarily that important in the grand scheme of things. The universe was here a long time before we came along and it will be here long after we are gone. To assume that the human race is key to the whole thing seems foolish to me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe the spirit intervenes once in a while. At a minimum, I believe that certain individuals have been inspired to make a difference. People like Buddha, Mohammad, and Gandhi in the east, or Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King in the west. Obviously, Jesus fits the bill better than anyone.

Clearly, Jesus was a man of compassion and did his best to show others the way, but I think it’s fair to say his message wasn’t too popular at the time. Often, I think (as many do) about how he would react to the issues of modern day man. Specifically, I wonder how he would feel about the subject of guns and how they are used by us to kill one another. I think it would be an interesting sermon, don’t you think? If he were here, right now, and saw what happened this weekend, is there any way he wouldn’t immediately condemn the main vehicle for this death and destruction which are guns? And as bad as those two events are, it is nothing compared to the senseless gun violence that happens in cities like Chicago every day. I just cannot imagine any other reaction by him than utter disgust that we would not just allow such weapons to exist, but encourage their production and use.

And what would he think of those who lead us that neither condemn the use of such weapons to inflict mass suffering or even seem terribly bothered by it? And don’t you think he would have a bit of a problem with the organized religions that fully endorse these same candidates turning a blind eye to their support of guns (along with a host of other mean-spirited planks on their platform). My guess is that he would go back to the temple and throw those money-changing tables over again because the whole thing is sick. It certainly made me sick to hear the news of this weekend’s events when I have been doing everything I can to understand death in the first place. Now we have people willingly seeking death out in the most violent way possible and basically getting a free pass to do it by supporters of guns. It’s disturbing on every level.

I promised that I would connect all of this, and I think I may have failed. These are massively deep subjects and tying them all together is an impossible task. Worse, I am not entirely sure that finally confronting my experiences and feelings about death has done any good. Maybe it is something we simply are not supposed to understand. For now, I’ll try to put it back on the shelf and take it down another time when maybe I am readier for it. What I can’t ignore is the senselessness of guns in this country and the callous support of them by the Republican party (let’s just call them out here, don’t know why I am avoiding it) and the religious organizations that endorse their candidates (I’m looking at you Catholic Church). I guess for now we will have to rely on grass-roots support of parties/candidates that agree that guns are a problem and want to something about it. I will also continue to show my disgust with organized religion, specifically the Catholic Church, by actively renouncing any association I have with them. It may not make me popular with my family and friends that are still strongly Catholic, but I don’t feel as if I have any other choice.

I’m guessing nothing in this post will make me very popular. Certainly, it is not the feel-good stuff you typically see in social media, but I never promised any of that in this forum. At a certain point, after seeing such horrors like continued mass shootings, it needs to be acknowledged and I can’t stay quiet anymore. Politics and religion may be the third rails of our society, but they shouldn’t be off-limits when certain factions are directly responsible for the not just the allowance of death machines but the active promotion that enables their proliferation. You may not agree with everything I write, but hope we can at least agree that needless deaths should be avoided at all costs. If so, please at least consider the topic of gun violence and where the candidates and organizations you support stand on the topic. If you think they are part of the disease and not the cure, then speak up, especially if you are a Republican. Ask why they feel a need to allow these weapons to legally exist and how that position is in any way supporting the public good they have been entrusted with. Also ask your church leaders why they would openly support politicians that facilitate the breaking of the 5th commandment in the worse way possible. Until that pressure is applied, nothing is going to change, and I don’t think we can live with that. And if you are not sure if you should get involved, ask yourself a popular question that has become a cliche: What would Jesus do?

Peace, Jim

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segadores-y-soldados · 7 years ago

Text

A Fate Worse Than Death

Moira: The name Moira is a given name of Greek origin, deriving from μοῖρα, meaning "destiny, share, fate".

I’ve already seen people asking me when my essay is going to happen and I need to be completely honest with you guys: This has been one of the most stressful weeks of my life in a very long time. I do not have the energy - physical or emotional - to write a full essay at this moment. I have, however, already seen people making mistakes on where Moira stands in the lore, and I want to clarify some of those: Timeline: Moira was only a part of Blackwatch for less than a full year - its final year (aka, the final year of Overwatch).

The proof is Genji.

Genji did not join Blackwatch until AFTER his fight with Hanzo. This occurs sometime during February or March of the last year of Overwatch (indicated by the cherry blossoms present during the Dragon short, which is when Hanzo revisits the Shimada castle every year). Uprising occurs in April of the last year of Overwatch. And Genji is still in training/recovery during the Uprising comic.

This likely puts Moira joining Blackwatch AFTER Uprising.

Decades: We all know the controversial statement by Michael Chu that Reaper’s profile on Play Overwatch is “deliberate.” Here’s the paragraph it referenced:

“The Reaper is an extremely volatile mercenary, a ruthless and remorseless killer responsible for terrorist attacks across the world. He has fought in many armed conflicts in the last decades, showing no loyalty to any cause or organization.” For comparison, Moira’s research seemingly has only occurred in the last ten-fifteen years:

“Over a decade ago, O'Deorain made waves when she published a controversial paper detailing a methodology for creating custom genetic programs that could alter DNA at a cellular level. It seemed like a promising step toward overcoming diseases and disorders and maximizing human potential.”

Something else that’s important to consider is Moira’s age. She’s the same age as Roadhog/Mako Rutledge, three years older than Doomfist/Akande Ogundimu, and ten years older than Hanzo Shimada.

This means that Moira was an older teenager/young adult during the Crisis.

She is described as “brilliant,” so in theory, she could’ve been producing genetic discoveries at the time of the Crisis, but I wouldn’t bank on that, especially when we’re told her biggest controversial breakthrough was a paper that she wrote five to ten years AFTER the Crisis ended.

Point A. The Undercover Hypothesis

“Reaper” was Gabriel’s codename/undercover Blackwatch name well before it was ever associated with his current condition.

By technicality, the paragraph describing how “Reaper” has existed for “decades” does not actually describe his condition - it describes how “Reaper” has fought in armed conflicts “in the last decades.”

We know that at least one organization used call signs during the Crisis - the Egyptian Army. Ana’s call sign was “Horus.” It is not implausible that Gabriel’s post-Crisis call sign was “Reaper,” or that he took the name to infiltrate various illegal groups in the Post-Crisis Era, such as Deadlock.

Since we also know that Blackwatch was a black ops, clandestine ops, and covert ops division, it’s also entirely plausible that “Reaper’s” seemingly random “appearances” on different battlefields were actually due to clandestine and covert operations on part of Blackwatch and Overwatch. The whole point of clandestine and covert operations is the ability to cover up the original organization or group supporting the action. From Wikipedia:

The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Publication JP1-02, dated 5 January 2007) defines "clandestine operation" as "An operation sponsored or conducted by governmental departments or agencies in such a way as to assure secrecy or concealment. A clandestine operation differs from a covert operation in that emphasis is placed on concealment of the operation rather than on concealment of the identity of the sponsor. In special operations, an activity may be both covert and clandestine and may focus equally on operational considerations and intelligence-related activities." (JP 3-05.1).

Perspective:

What this means is that we need to put Moira’s new stuff into perspective. She was only involved in Blackwatch in the final year of the organization, likely AFTER Uprising. Moira’s involvement can fall in a few different places:

February/March: Genji joins Blackwatch

April: Uprising occurs

Month unknown: Reinhardt retires

Month unknown: Doomfist is arrested (before Genji leaves)

Month unknown: Ana “dies”

Month unknown: the explosion at the Swiss Base occurs

It is incredibly likely that Moira “created” the some aspect of Reaper either BETWEEN the final two events, or AFTER the last one.

I’ve highlighted Ana because Ana provides a “constraint” on Reaper’s current state of appearance/existence - she did not know this transformation occurred to him.

More importantly -

Gabriel blames Jack and Overwatch for his “current existence.”

Not Moira.

The dialogue of the Old Soldiers panel continues to support the idea that Soldier:76/Jack and/or Overwatch left Gabriel behind at the explosion. A second possible situation is “The Venice Incident” described in Moira’s biography, in which some sort of strange accident occurred.

Regardless, the combination of the timeline and Reaper’s lines to Ana makes it apparent that Gabriel felt abandoned in some way.

Hypotheses:

Stemming from this, we can hypothesize a few possible scenarios.

1. Gabriel requested to be transformed after Ana’s “death” for fear of his own death and/or because he specifically wanted to destroy Overwatch.

The problem with this is that this action would mean that Gabriel was not really “left behind.” As the comic panel shows, Gabriel uses the past tense to indicate that he WAS left behind, this DID happen to him - not that he was afraid “he would be left behind.”

2. Moira started conducting tests on Gabriel (at his request) but it was the explosion itself which made him completely transform.

In my opinion, this is the most likely one (and I’ll explain more in a second).

3. Gabriel was only tested on AFTER the explosion, without his awareness of the hows and whys.

Given that we know Gabriel requested Moira join Blackwatch, this is unlikely. According to a quote by Michael Chu at the Moira panel, Gabriel “wanted someone who could advise him on the matters of genetics,” which implies that he was aware of SOMETHING, and therefore willingly requested her assistance in some way.

Let’s go back to Hypothesis 2.

No Luck:

Something or someone was preventing Gabriel from getting some sort of information - possibly information on his own genetics.

If we look closely at contexts, there are multiple instances where Soldier: 76/Jack implies that his own genetics or biology has been altered - in a canon interaction with Ana, Ana notes that, despite his age, Jack “looks pretty good.” Soldier: 76/Jack replies:

“Well, all that stuff they pumped into me has to be good for something.”

Both Jack and Gabriel went through the same “Soldier Enhancement Program” during the Crisis. The details are unknown, but in theory, they were pumped full of chemicals and somehow “enhanced,” meaning they could physically do more than the average soldier. Combined with the “Commando” nature of their backgrounds (Commando: 76, the Commando sprays), they were likely also Special Operations.

This brings us back to Point A - both Gabriel and Jack were trained in clandestine and covert operations, at least during the Crisis, which again means that “Reaper” may have been Gabriel’s undercover mercenary alias or call sign for decades.

It’s very likely that the person Jack is referring to in this panel - “his old boss” - is Gabriel. Considering that this panel comes right after the Old Soldiers fight scene, it certainly sounds like Soldier: 76 and Ana are alluding to Reaper.

Gabriel also appears to age significantly less than either Jack OR Ana by the time of Uprising.

The art style makes it difficult, but Gabriel’s hair is noticably more pigmented than either Jack’s or Ana’s, both of which have faded significantly compared to art of their younger days.

The new Moira video seemingly confirms that Gabriel has aged significantly less than Jack.

It is possible that Gabriel was interested in trying to have tests conducted on himself, or find information about the old SEP...but ran into roadblocks when he was searching. It is also possible that, given her stance on medical ethics, Mercy/Angela was either unwilling or unable to assist him.

So he turned to someone who would help him.

Moria:

“My methods were too radical...too controversial...and [Overwatch] tried to silence me. But there were others in the shadows, searching for ways to circumvent their rules.”

Back to Hypothesis 2.

We have a few major pieces we must account for in our hypothesis-building:

Moira does not join Blackwatch until after Genji.

Moira must be involved in conducting experiments on Gabriel - without Overwatch knowing.

Gabriel must be put in a situation where he blames Jack/Overwatch for “what happened to him.”

Ana has not seen Gabriel since her “death” and does not know what has happened to him.

Given these constraints, the most likely answer is a variation on Hypothesis 2:

The genetic mutations that made Gabriel into the current “form” of Reaper were caused - in some part - by Moira’s experiments on him in the final year of Overwatch, but he likely did not “transform” until the explosion at the Swiss Base - a situation during which he blames Jack Morrison and Overwatch for “leaving him to suffer.” However, “Reaper” the persona existed “for decades” beforehand - just without the powers.

Reaper’s current abilities and state of existence is likely an extreme form of what is occuring in “half” of Moira (her right half) - mutated skin, mutated eyes, a life-drain ability, a “breakdown and teleport” ability, etc.

However, we only see Moira start this procces with Gabriel -

We do not see her end it.

But wait -

What about the “Gabriel is infiltrating Talon” hypothesis?

Personally, I think it still holds up in some way. There’s the possibility that Gabriel “lost touch” with Moira after the explosion, or that he did not fully consent to “being transformed,” which would give him cause to be angry with BOTH Jack/Overwatch AND Talon.

We also haven’t really discussed motivations here. Did Gabriel simply want answers that the US military and/or Overwatch would not let him find? Did he actually want to do genetic testing on himself? Did he consent to fuller experiments? Was this a willful act of defiance against Overwatch? Did he deliberately ally himself with Talon? If he did, was it to infiltrate, or was it to gain more power to bring down Overwatch?

Remember -

“One of the things that we really like doing with Overwatch is playing with perspective. We utilize perspective when we tell stories about what characters are thinking, what their goals are - and we have a lot of unreliable narrators. We want people to pay careful attention to what characters think about in particular situations. When [Sombra] is telling you something, she’s serving her own ends too.” Soldier: 76 - “You can take a character like Soldier: 76 - like obviously, he has this mission that he’s on, that he believes is good (Chu’s emphasis), he seems to be willing to sometimes do things which are…maybe not super heroic, and so it makes him complicated.” - Michael Chu’s GDC 2017 talk

You are hearing the Origins story of Moira from Moira. And she clearly has a bias to sell. So you also have to question her motivations: is she telling the truth? Is she telling half-truths? She claims Overwatch tried to stop her research, so SHE clearly has a vendetta - but did Gabriel? We know Genji at least assisted in bringing down Doomfist...which seems to go AGAINST the idea that Gabriel was “already” his ally.

Moreover, since we know Moira only joined in the final year of Overwatch, we have to now ask questions about this:

“After Overwatch was disbanded, O'Deorain was forced to turn to unconventional sources of funding. This time, she was invited to join the scientific collective that had founded the city of Oasis. Yet some have whispered that the shadowy Talon organization had already been supporting her for years, aiding her experiments in exchange for utilizing the results for their own purposes.”

And now more questions about her:

So that brings up another series of questions:

Was Moira already involved in Talon when Gabriel asked her to join Blackwatch? Did Gabriel know? If he did not, did he put himself in a trap? If he did, did he ask her to join hoping to ally himself with Talon...or hoping to infiltrate it? In either situation, did he know what he could become if he let Moira experiment on him?

I am too tired to have more speculation.

“Aren’t you reaching?”

I probably am. I’m tired. About 10,000 things happened to me in the last five weeks. I want to sleep for three days. I am also not terribly pleased with the current version of the story that Blizzard appears to be pushing. Moira as a new character in the gameplay was much-needed -

Her backstory, however, appears to be a massive mess.

Does it throw a wrench into a lot of fan hypotheses? Sure, yes, absolutely.

Is it more interesting than any of theirs?

...Debatable.

Blizzard made a very interesting move here. They’re pigeonholing themselves into a very strict timeline of the events of the final year of Overwatch. They are limiting their own “choices” on where to put Gabriel’s “transformation,” and they seemingly have stuck with the idea that Gabriel “became” Reaper sometime around the Swiss Base explosion, whether that’s before, during, or very shortly after. They’re also limiting themselves on how they can handle Genji, Widowmaker, McCree, Ana, and Soldier: 76′s backstories as a result.

Blizzard is also limiting themselves on how they can write their story, and several of their characters’ motivations. Constricting their already massive plot is not a bad move in and of itself, but the way it is being done - releasing new characters, new lore, and new maps, without fleshing out more of the old ones - is proving to be a blessing-mixed-with-curses process. It’s a year and a half into the game’s release and we STILL do not know many of the details behind Reaper, his intentions, his life, his motivations, his problems, etc. Similarly, we know next to nothing about the fall and collapse of Overwatch, the other members involved in “the larger conspiracy,” how much of it was Talon’s influence, etc.

Several old characters have yet to have a comic or a short - Lúcio, D.Va, Zenyatta, Mercy, and Orisa.

And

Oh yeah

Reaper.

“But Reaper was in Recall! And Infiltration! And several comics!”

And how many of those were from his perspective?

Quite bluntly, I’m getting kinda tired of fans having to “solve the mystery” of each comic, each short, each new hero, each Origins video, each new map, etc. The beauty of writing a good “mystery/conspiracy” story is that you have to give your audience the tools and clues to solve it for themselves -

And you can’t do that when each new “lore drop” is just...another mess of mysteries.

Or when you seemingly contradict your own, earlier clues.

I don’t know - maybe this is all just the Blizzard writers playing a massive game of D’n’D set in Overwatch’s universe and changing everything as they role 20s and 1s. Twenty-six major playable characters and many of them only have 10 pages of “comic” time to their name.

...I wrote way more than I intended to.

Now I’m going to sleep for six days.

#moira #overwatch lore #reaper #gabriel reyes #moira o'deorain #my essays #my writing #overwatch #please let me sleep #today was not good

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dangertronic · 7 years ago

Text

Not A Monster Chapter 8

This chapter was a literal request from @deamontesnothere so I apologise for the super bad fight scene.

This whole thing is literally his fault

Ao3 Link

Tag list: @sten-bros @agrimny @creamy-brown-eyes @areyareddie @soomar-wine @jakethezombiehunter

“That’s it, I’ve had enough of this shit!” Jessica complained, breaking the silence of the library as she threw her pen down on her notebook.

Startled, Stan looked up from his literature work to the clearly frustrated girl who was sitting across from him between Mike and Eddie. “It’s been five minutes since we started. You’ve done one sentence!”

“And then you drew a frowny face on your work.” Eddie said, looking over at her work with a shake of his head.

“It’s a poem about someone planning to commit murder!” Jessica snapped, waving her hand at the text book she was sharing with Mike. “How the fuck am I supposed to make two pages out of that shit?”

Stan sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes. “You’re supposed to analyse each line, Jess.”

Mike chuckled, pulling the text book closer to them. “See this? Here it says: Today I am going to kill something. Anything.”

“It’s a dramatic hook to draw the reader into the poem.” Stan said, twiddling his pen between his fingers. “We’re not told anything about the speaker so it’s difficult to judge if they’re making a statement just to shock or if it’s serious – take notes Jess we’re not gonna repeat this – and the unsophisticated, childish and monosyllabic language indicates that it doesn’t need to be taken serious.”

“The ‘anything’ part shows us that the person in the poem isn’t bothered about what he or she is going to kill, and just wants to do it for pleasure.” Eddie said, waiting for Jessica to make a note on what he was saying. “I’ve had enough of being ignored and today I am going to play god. This line shows a god complex which makes us see that the person is discontented, isolated, neglected, even a failure in society.”

“It is an ordinary day, a sort of grey with a boredom stirring in the streets.” Mike picked up, pointing to the line in the book. “This is using the elements to reflect the mood or actions of the person. The person feels bored, so the environment reflects that in its greyness. It’s an ominous phrase and makes us wonder if the person really does have a complex of some kind.”

“And now you have the first verse analysed and should be able to do the rest.” Stan said, writing something down in his notebook before shooting her a smirk. “Or do we have to do the whole thing for you?”

Jessica stuck her tongue out at him. “I think I got it from here, thanks though guys. I really hate poems.”

Mike paused in writing something, glancing up from his work. “I feel like I’m reading a poem about Bowers.”

Stan snorted, but didn’t look up from his work as he scribbled something down, already four verses ahead of them with his work. “I was thinking that myself.”

Jessica placed her pen down onto her notebook again, leaning back to stretch. “Alright, I need a bathroom break, I’ll be back and I’m gonna kick this poem’s ass.”

“That’s the spirit Jess!” Eddie praised as Jessica stood. “We’ll make sure you don’t fail the class, don’t worry!”

“This is one of those times I actually envy Richie.” Stan groaned, folding his arms onto the table and dropping his head onto them once Jessica was out of the room. “You don’t see him in here after school trying to catch up on work.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Eddie complained, throwing his pen down and leaning back in his chair, opting to take a break while Jessica was gone. “How he gets good grades and manages to actually stay ahead, I don’t know.”

“I should have taken him up on his offer to do the work for me.” Stan mumbled into his arms. “I just didn’t want to know what the ‘payment’ was.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t too bad.” Eddie said, unconvinced by his own words.

“Where is Richie anyway? Did he just bail on us the second the bell went?” Mike asked.

“Nah.” Eddie placed his elbow onto the table, resting his chin in his hand. “January marks the start of track season. He’s getting some training in with Ben.”

Stan snorted. “Yeah, stamina training for when you two decide to fu –”

“Shut the fuck up Stanley!”

Mike let out a breathy chuckle, still carefully writing down his essay on the poem they were supposed to be studying. It didn’t take long for Eddie and Stan to follow his lead, the latter scribbling away vigorously to try and get the work finished sooner so he could go home.

“This where we part ways, Haystack!” Richie said cheerfully as they reached the juncture where the hallway split into three. “I’m gonna go see if Eddie and the others are done or need help finishing their work.”

“Alright.” Ben said, hand poised on the bar of the door. “Hey Rich?”

Richie, who started to veer off to the left, turned to face Ben. “Yeah?”

“I’m really happy for you guys. I just want you to know that.”

“Aw, look at you getting all sappy on me!” Richie called, walking backwards down the hallway. “Save it for your girlfriend, Ben!”

“Shut up, Trashmouth!”

Richie grinned, playfully extending his middle fingers towards Ben before he turned, heading for the stairwell to the second floor. As he reached the landing, the sound of voices reached him and Richie came to a halt, furrowing his brow as he listened, one hand poised on the railing.

“Come on, it’s just one date!”

That was definitely one of Troy’s friends; Brad, was it? The last thing he needed was to run into a rejected Brad who would take his mood out on the first person he saw roaming the school. Slowly releasing the railing, Richie took a step back, debating on the using the other stairwell to get to the library.

“I told you, no, just stop bothering me.”

At the sound of Jessica’s voice, Richie found himself pushing forward, starting to creep up the steps as quietly as possible. He didn’t hear whatever Brad said next, but the next words from Jessica’s mouth had him running up the steps and turning the corner sharply.

“Let go of me.”

Jessica was standing outside the bathrooms having a glaring match with Brad who had one hand curled tightly around her wrist, but Richie could by her stance that he was making her extremely uncomfortable despite the defiance.

“It’s just one fucking date, Jess.”

Richie took a step forward, purposely bumping a nearby locker as he dropped his backpack to the ground, alerting them of his presence. Brad released Jessica’s wrist instantly as he looked for the source of the noise; fearing that it might be a teacher.

“I believe she told you to let fucking go.”

“The fuck are you doing here Tozier? This isn’t your business.” Brad snapped.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re making my friend uncomfortable, and I’m thinking that’s gotta stop.”

Eddie glanced at his watch, taking in the time of four-thirty before glancing to Jessica’s still empty seat next to him. She’d been gone for a whole thirty minutes, and he doubted that Jessica had just bailed on them since her backpack and jacket were still hanging neatly on the back of her chair waiting for her to return.

“I noticed too.” Stan said, closing his notebook and gathering his things. “I doubt she got lost.”

“She could have bailed.” Mike said, packing his own things away.

“She left all her things here.” Eddie pointed out.

“We’ll get her on the way out.” Stan said, pulling his jacket on and slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

Gathering Jessica’s things, Stan shoved them into her backpack and grabbed her jacket, the three of them leaving the library.

“Do you think she just decided to hide out in the bathroom until it was time to leave?” Mike asked as they made their way down the hallway. “She didn’t really seem to want to do the work today.”

“Jessica doesn’t bail on people for anything.” Eddie defended.

“Eddie’s right, and she’s been here too long now to get lost.”

Brad fisted his hands into Richie’s shirt and pulled him up from the ground, hoisting him up and slamming him back first into a set of lockers. Richie, who was now sporting a bloodied nose from a well-aimed kick to the face, visibly winced, but didn’t give up as he raised a leg to kick at Brad’s hip in an attempt to get him off, though it did little to make him budge.

“Brad, come on, let him go!” Jessica said, grabbing one of his arms to try and pry it away from Richie.

“I told you to get the fuck out of here, Tozier.” Brad said, ignoring Jessica as he pulled Richie forward, only to slam him back into the locker with a loud clang. “I told you this was none of your damn business.”

“And I told you that you were wrong and you’re making my friend uncomfortable.” Richie snapped, shoving his foot against Brad’s stomach this time.

Brad took a step back from the lockers, yanking Richie with him as he tossed him to the ground where he delivered a kick to his stomach that had Richie sliding back into the lockers the other side of the hallway.

“Oh fuck no.”

Jessica jumped at the sudden new and angry voice, turning in time to see Eddie throwing his backpack roughly into a set of lockers as he sprinted down the hallway, Stan and Mike lingering back.

Brad was so busy with Richie that he had hadn’t heard or seen Eddie coming until he’d leapt onto his back, grabbing a fist full of his hair as his legs wrapped around Brad’s waist. Eddie jerked his body to side with a yank on Brad’s hair, forcing Brad to stumble until he was close enough that Eddie could slam his head into a locker.

Sliding from Brad’s back, Eddie delivered a swift kick to the back of his knee, buckling the taller boy’s legs from under him. As Brad went down, Eddie’s knee suddenly went up, colliding with Brad’s chin before he nudged his knee against his nose roughly, sending him sprawling onto his back.

“Who. The. Fuck. Do. You. Think. You. Are?” Eddie punctuated each word with a strong and swift kick to Brad’s side. “I. Asked. You. A. Fucking. Question.”

“Holy fucking shit.” Stan breathed, dropping Jessica’s things onto the ground beside him. “He might actually kill him.”

“Eddie –” Richie hissed, wrapping an arm around his stomach as Jessica helped him stumble to his feet. “Eds.” Using his free arm, he propped himself up on Jessica. “Oi! Eddie Spaghetti!”

Eddie wheeled around so fast that Richie could have sworn that right in that moment, he was possessed. “Don’t you fucking call me that right now!”

Richie unwrapped the arm from his stomach, holding up a single hand in defence. “Come on now, Eds. I’m okay, see?”

“Look at the fucking state of you!” Eddie snapped, turning to deliver another kick to Brad’s side. “Get the fuck out of here before I finish what I started, and don’t you ever touch him again!”

Brad didn’t need to be told twice. Though no one else had made a move, Brad was aware that he was heavily outnumbered now and scrambled to his feet, taking off around the nearest corner and leaving the small group behind.

“Holy shit, that was hot.” Richie said, leaning against Jessica who stumbled from the sudden weight on her shoulder. “Look at you, defending my honour. Ah do think I’m falling in love with you all over again!”

“Shut the fuck up.” Eddie huffed, crossing the hallway and looking up at him. “No one gets to beat you up but me. Why the fuck were you picking a fight with Brad?”

“Ah, well, ya’see Eds –”

“He’s an idiot, that’s why.” Jessica said, shaking her head. “Thanks though.”

“Hey, anytime.” Richie grinned, bumping his fist gently against the side of her head with a hiss. “Okay, me and moving too much is not a good idea right now, but holy shit Eds, what the fuck was that?”

“That was what happens when someone hurts my boyfriend.” Eddie growled.

“That’s kind of sweet and terrifying at the same time.” Jessica said, carefully removing Richie’s arm from her shoulder and dropping it onto Eddie’s. “Sorry Eddie, I think your boyfriend broke a little in my care.”

Eddie huffed again, though he seemed calmer now that Brad was nowhere nearby. “What actually happened?”

“He was touching her, and she didn’t like it.” Richie said, pushing himself upright from Eddie. “So I did something about it.”

Richie wobbled for a moment before looking around the hallway for something, and it was only now that Eddie noticed he wasn’t wearing his glasses. As he started to help Richie look for them, Mike approached the group, a pair of glasses in hand which he unfolded and then slid onto Richie’s face.

“They were by the lockers.” Mike said.

“Ah, thanks, Hanlon, my saviour!” Richie said, shooting him a grin. “I was wondering what state they were in.”

“How are those things not fucking broken after that fight?” Eddie demanded, leaning up to look at them closer.

There were a few scratches on the frame and the edges of the lenses, and the smallest of cracks on one of the arms, but they otherwise looked fine. Jessica crossed the hallway and grabbed Richie’s bag before making her way back over to where Richie stood.

“I can’t believe you just tried to fight the biggest guy in school, Rich.” Jessica said, holding the backpack out to him.

Richie reached out for the backpack, only for Eddie to smack his hand away with a stern look. “Jess, I wasn’t going to just turn around and walk off. Is that what has Lucille so annoyed lately?”

Jessica heaved a sigh as Eddie took Richie’s bag from her. “Yeah. He’s been like that for a couple of weeks now.”

Stan picked up the things he’d discarded on the ground, holding the jacket out to Jessica. “I think after Eddie’s little chaotic feral moment just now, he’s not gonna be bothering you again for a long time.”

Jessica couldn’t hold back her laugh, taking the jacket and pulling it on before taking her bag. “Yeah, I think Eddie beat the message into him more than Richie did.”

“Hey!” Richie protested, wincing and wrapping his arm back around himself. “I’ll have you know I got a few kicks and punches in before he fucking tripped me and slammed into a locker.”

Jessica nodded. “Yeah, you did. Let me give you and Eddie a ride home. You can’t drive like that. I’ll pick you up in the morning too.”

Richie tsked at her, wagging a finger. “I’m supposed to be the saviour here, not you.”

Eddie scoffed, retrieving his bag from where he’d thrown it. “You were getting your ass beat until I stepped in, Tozier. Don’t forget that.”

“Yeah, if anyone is the saviour here, it’s Eddie.” Mike said, clapping Eddie on the shoulder. “Like damn kid where did you learn that?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “I’m small, I had to learn.”

Richie let out a chuckle, wincing again. “Ow – hold on before we leave. I need to get this blood off my face or mom’s gonna freak out.”

Eddie nodded, waiting outside the bathroom with Jessica while Stan and Mike took their leave, ordering Eddie to let them know how Richie was later.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asked, breaking the silence that stretched over the hallway.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Richie that?” Jessica asked, arching a brow at him.

Eddie snorted. “Richie’s durable. He once bounced back from a rock to the face. He’s gonna be fine. You’re the one I’m worried about.”

Jessica grinned. “I’m fine, really. I was more worried about what he was going to do to Richie.”

“He’ll be back to his old self tomorrow.” Eddie assured her. “Brad’s lucky I don’t snap his fucking neck.”

Jessica giggled, attempting to stifle it with her hand. “You sound just like Lucille.”

“Yeah, well sometimes you sound just like Richie.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Eddie thought it over for a moment, a smile coming to his face. “Nope – not at all. It just means you’re loyal as fuck and you’re gonna take a beating for a friend.”

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #leighwritesathing #I BLAME D FOR THIS WHOLE CHAPTER

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