#i find this all so borderline ridiculous that it has now become entertaining

[mistressemmedi]

I find it hard to believe the previous anon’s supposed “fight” between Gasly and Ocon. And any gossips that starts with “Don’t ask me how I know” are just unbelievable in my eyes tbh.

Firstly, in terms of conflict, last year there are only 2 crashes between the two of them. Australia being Gasly’s fault in which he apologised for immediately after, then Budapest, which was a racing accident. None serious enough to ignite this supposed “fight”. They also had a side-by-side racing I think in Singapore or one of the Middle East race, which was very fair and had no further accident. So, that brought me to the question: which started the fight?

Secondly, “people are sick of Ocon internally”, based on the engineers’ body languages, the endless encouragement for the team from Ocon during their bottom-team era this year. In fact, I have ever read about Gasly being the one who complained about the car all the time. Ocon, being the better performer, obviously also got prioritised sometimes. Which didn’t really give the vibes of Alpine “being sick of him”.

And lastly, Alpine, I think after the Piastri saga, will always want to make sure everything is accurate before putting out an announcement. Besides, they are not known for coming to their drivers’ defence against any rumours or online abuse (side-eyeing Alonso fans). So it’s actually not unusual that they don’t dispute the rumours.

So, until we have further information, I will keep an open mind and choose not to believe this gossip though for it has some holes. But overall, I think it would be handled internally and Esteban won’t get benched. For even if you read the news many agreed that benching him would be stupid and only created bad headlines.

Finally, Ocon's fans have entered the ring 👊🏻

[ozzgin]

Yandere! CEO Headcanons

Just a little idea I had some time ago of a rather bizarre dynamic: a CEO with no time to spare, introduced to a young student his wife befriended. Perhaps he does have a moment, after all. (I need to dump my preference for a cultured older man somewhere)

Content: female reader, age gap, older yandere, NSFW, dating the wife is optional

[Original works masterlist]

Yandere! CEO who is in his mid 40s and terribly invested in his job. So much, that he and his wife agreed on an open relationship many years ago and barely interact anymore. Not a gloomy business by any means: she gets to meet new people and he can enjoy his work and hobbies in peace and without guilt.

Yandere! CEO who doesn't think much of it when his wife brings home a young student she befriended at a convention. He nods dismissively, returning to his papers and phone calls. At dinner, he just hums in acknowledgement and fiddles with the cutlery while the woman talks about you excitedly. "You know, (Y/N) reminds me a little of you." Nonsense.

Yandere! CEO with whom you scarcely interact: he's a borderline workaholic, and your relationship is cordial at best. That is until you're asked by the wife to retrieve some important documents from their ridiculously luxurious apartment. You quietly tiptoe past the office, but can't help glancing at the imposing library, stacked with books. The man's sudden arrival startles and you begin to mumble apologies, but he seems more interested in your curiosity than anything else.

Yandere! CEO who can't believe you both like the same authors. He discreetly removes the folder from your hands, tasking one of the assistants to deliver it to his wife instead. There are more important matters at hand. Have you had your coffee yet? Oh, you must stay longer. What's the hurry?

Yandere! CEO who has become awfully perceptive whenever your name is mentioned in conversations, innocently probing for more details. Naturally, he wouldn't mind meeting you again, but it's not...a need, per se. He was just pleasantly surprised to find someone he could so easily engage in conversation with. Hell, you're old enough to be his daughter. Don't be ridiculous, he'll scold himself sternly whenever his mind wanders too far.

Yandere! CEO who begins to feel like each encounter is a flirty tease. Is it just wishful thinking, or are you becoming cheekier by day? The way you bat your eyelashes, the way you cast your eyes down whenever he looks at you. The next time you're alone in the apartment, he's too far gone in his delusions to act rationally. How unusual for him to act so nonchalant. Unbuttoning your shirt with haste, trailing your neck with hot kisses, lifting your leg and pressing you against the wall. He never considered himself the type to fuck a much younger woman out of raw lust.

Yandere! CEO who loves taking you on dates despite his busy schedule. Art museums, theatres, the Opera. He is eager to introduce you to his interests and will answer any question or curiosity you have. Who would've thought everything is better in two? Of course, there could be other factors involved. Like the added bonus of watching you squirm in your seat and biting your lips to be quiet while he fingers you at the peak of Act 3. Then smirking to himself when everyone stands up for applause, and you have to rearrange your dress to hide the wet mess underneath.

Yandere! CEO who worries about you when he's on work trips, so he tasks his right-hand man to look after you and keep you company. If you ever get lonely, you can rely on his assistant to take care of all your needs. Now, he's not one to share, despite his marital arrangement. As bizarre as it sounds, he just sees the employee as a mere toy, an idle occupation who can temporarily entertain you in his absence. What he does perceive as a threat is swiftly taken care of. It's enough for you to mention another student flirted with you, and you'll never see that person again. You have to understand that he doesn't play around with his assets. One he has something, he holds onto it with ironclad strength. And he's never been more desperate to keep something in his possession.

Yandere! CEO who makes sure to remind you why dating him is your best (and only) choice. You would've wasted your time with boys your age. He can offer you the world and more, all you need to do is ask for it.

[xerith-42]

I humbly beg for more shadow knight angst for the thousands time my liege.

C'mon guys, this is getting ridiculous there's no way I can write even more angst around this small handful of characters I've already given an unholy amount of attention to...

WHICH IS WHY I'M GIVING IT TO OTHER CHARACTERS NOW

We talk about Shadow Knight angst as it pertains to the knights themselves, who live a horrific cursed existence where they are doomed by the plot before they're even in it, but what about those around them? Those who bare witness to the ugliest parts of being human that being inhuman can reveal. Those who have to lose their loved ones only to find that their loved one isn't truly dead, and that's somehow worse. Lords start becoming paranoid, borderline irrational every time a guard dies, not because they are grieving the death of someone they may have cared about, but because they know what comes next.

Obviously the general public didn't understand Shadow Knights when they first came about, but those who did? Imagine being Aph and trying to sleep at night knowing that one of your closest companions is one bad day away from potentially killing you in your sleep. She's constantly trying to protect Phoenix Drop from oncoming threats, but in the back of her mind she's always paranoid about Zenix. What if he just came back right now and tried to hurt her people again? What if he tried to take Levin again? Would she be able to hold herself in a fight against someone who's literally immortal? But if she fails... She can't entertain the thought. She has to shove down all these worried and put her faith in her guards.

Her guards. Who if they sacrificed themselves for her, like they're so fond of doing, could only create more problems for her. Her guards who would throw their lives away to protect her and her family, and yet could be dooming her in the process. It's a horrible contradiction of values. She values her life and her families lives most. Her and her kids and the small assortment of other caregivers for them are the most important things in the world, what she has to protect. But if any of her guards or worse, herself, were to fall in battle, it would only spell more death and destruction. She wasn't ever even meant to be a lord, never trained to be one like those who were heirs, and now there's an entirely new unpredictable and incredibly dangerous variable thrown in.

It makes her incredibly restless. The bags under her eyes are barely hidden by any markings on her face.

And if you're a guard? Especially one who's prone to self sacrifice like, oh I'm just throwing out ideas here, GARROTH! Hoo boy. Garroth is petrified at the thought that he could become a Shadow Knight. He isn't there for a lot of Laurance's descent, but he spoke to Laurance quite a bit when he came back from the Nether, and spent a lot of season 1 at his side after the fact. He doesn't know the full extent of how bad it is, but he knows how the calling torments Laurance, and he admires Laurance's ability to fight against it.

Because he isn't sure if he'd be able to. Garroth has known for basically his entire life that it is the job of a guard to be ready to throw their life away for their lord. It's a core part of his understanding of his purpose in the world. But now there's a wrench thrown into it. If he does as he has prepared himself to do since he was a teenager, he might do worse. Laurance can fight off the calling, but Garroth doesn't think he would be able to. He can't even dream of hurting his lord, and yet he deeply fears his inability to fight supernatural urges that he doesn't even have. Yet. It only takes one bad fight.

Hey guys, remember when Cadenza was almost killed by her mother figure?? In episode 26 we get this line

And if I'm not mistaken (I just went and watched the episode, I'm not) this woman tries to KILL CADENZA!! Glenda (as she's later named) attempts to drain the magic from Cadenza/use her as a sacrifice to open up a portal to the Nether in episode 86. Even though she once considered Cadenza to be her daughter.

And this is all while Cadenza at least initially thinks her father is dead. So her father is dead and her only remaining family are shadow knights that are prone to killing her. Awesome! So cool! Great and excellent! I hope this won't have any severe psychological impacts on her!! (it does but Jesson didn't ever give it to us so I guess I have to do it now)

Cadenza has had enough talks with Laurance and Vincent to know that the Shadow Knight's existence is a far greater struggle than anyone realizes. She empathizes with them, and yet she is utterly terrified of them. She knows that Laurance and Vincent are good people, but it doesn't matter how good of a person you are. Once the calling is put in your head you can become completely different. Whether you're in control or not. She loves her brother, and she loves her head guard, but she knows that Laurance is far from perfect. She knows that the Shadow Lord could do anything to push him one direction or the other. She knows he's interested in her magic. She fears that another family member will try to take it from her, or worse.

She'll never admit it, but she felt safer during some of those 15 years Laurance was gone. When he and everyone else first disappeared, grief, despair, and panic swirled in her head for nearly a year. She worried about where they had gone, what had happened, and worst of all, she worried when they would come back. What they would be like. She fears that they went to the Nether. That Laurance may have succumb to the calling. That he's just waiting for the right moment to strike. But then years pass. Nothing. Her father dies a peaceful death with a smile on his face. Still nothing.

After a certain point Cadenza knew that they weren't dead, but that whatever adventure they had gotten themselves dragged into was taking a lot longer than usual. Suddenly she's not as worried. She doesn't know where Laurance is, but he isn't here right now, and therefore is one less thing she has to worry about. It's... Nice. Also Cadenza and Laurance totally have that sibling "I would know if you died" esp, despite not being related. That's how you know you're real siblings. She always knew they weren't dead because she remembers how it felt the day Laurance died in the Nether. Even if she was a chicken.

Feels like a better place than any to leave off an angst post. Though I will probably be thinking of more of these, Shadow Knights and how they effect the world and characters is easily the most interesting thing Minecraft Diaries has, it's no wonder we all latched onto it.

[fights4users]

We would’ve made a great team-

Sark’s borderline obsession with Tron is so interesting. He both admires and fears him, understands him perfectly but misunderstands him on a fundamental level. Both stand on opposite sides of the extreme, similar to each other in strength and ferocity but departed on a base level. The idea of them teaming up brings a interesting au to mind and several things to explore, however It would never happen unless Encom! Rinzler would become a thing. Teaming up with Red Elite would never be done willingly on Tron’s end while for Sark it might begrudgingly work with Tron.

There has to be a way to break him-

Sark has a morbid fascination with finding Tron’s breaking point. He keeps upping the stakes and throwing him into games more often, unwittingly making the weapon that would be his doom.

While he enjoys testing him there’s almost a jealousy to it, Tron hasn’t died yet and he hasn’t given in. Surely he must give in , toss aside his ridiculous beliefs and take what’s offered. Why isn’t he taking the obvious path for survival? How dare Tron be better than him. “I broke, why won’t he?” Holding on so tightly to morality when you tossed aside everything for power… how dare he be a better person.

Sark treats Tron as a plaything while acknowledging how powerful he is as an adversary. (The match we saw him in was 4-1) He battles with wanting to kill him outright and wanting to face him himself. It took most of his resources to capture Tron- going against him would be a actual challenge, as we see in the beginning of the movie he’s getting bored.

While they share combat prowess their thought process could not be more different. Everything that he’s put Tron through has only succeeded in strengthening his beliefs. Where Sark thinks he should break down , he sees confirmation of the User’s power. It’s fascinating (I really recommend the novelization- that’s my thing at this point lol but it adds a lot).

Chosen warriors-

It’s easy to forget that Sark too is a gods chosen warrior. The MCP is a god to him and on the path to literally becoming one in their world with the power it accumulates. He has been bolstered up and admired by his side, though his position is one built more on fear than equal admiration. We see again they’re on the opposite sides of the two extremes.

The loyalty, drive and sense of justice etc that’s naturally apart of Tron’s code had to be forced into Sark. He had to build upon what was already there, it’s implied that the only reason he’s a command program is the MCP just like Dillinger without it he is nothing. There’s that jealousy when he sees someone else naturally have this sort of power. His belief in the MCP is not inherent , he believed in the Users once and deep down he still does- the new belief comes from where he can gain that power. Like Dillinger he is desperate to get to the top by any means, and he did that. He’d rather die than return to nothingness- a state of unimportance- where as Edward is much more fretful. He doesn’t want to loose what he has but jail still scares him.

He is also physically dependent on the MCP - getting a high from the power and I think now he has to get a constant stream to survive. The amount put into him on a regular basis is far to much for a regular program to take in and keep online… if he stops getting it I can only imagine. He’s being held captive by his god and I think he can resent Tron for that- for still having the “pure” relationship with his.

Power, fear and relevance-

I talked about it above with how Sark has done everything in his want for power tossing away all morality for the sake of being important. It makes me wonder what his original function was, with the way he is I can imagine it being a good position but not enough for him. He relishes in the destruction of User believers and finds crushing them on the game grid entertaining, again to parallel Dillinger taking others work, crushing and absorbing smaller companies into Encom with glee.

Tron is a direct threat to that importance, that position and acclaim he had destroyed so many for. He was loyal! He did all that he was asked and here struts in a program naturally strong and exacting— he knows if Tron ever chose to join them he is done for yet his pride and curiosity keep him from outright killing him to save his own skin (how unlike him in any other circumstance).

This fear doesn’t extend to Alan as Ed is well aware… good guys rarely win in the real world. He’s cocky, he knows a guy like that is a straight shooter, he follows the rules and wouldn’t dare stoop to his level to stop him. What he didn’t count on was Kevin Flynn.

[depressedbagpipe]

about liam payne

let me preface this by saying i never thought i’d be writing a “statement” at the ripe age of 23. as a disclaimer, i do not condone his abusive actions and find them incredibly disgusting and immoral, but i’d also be lying if i said i don’t have conflicting emotions right now. this is me trying to explore them. 

i don’t think i’ve ever stated this before, but one direction made me the person i am today. those five lads were one of my main pillars during my adolescent life. they became my main motivation to pay attention during my english classes at school, and thanks to that i’m now building my career out of my second language. i got into fanfiction, discovering a safe space for me to destress and interact with other fans –not knowing i’d be 21 one day and writing crappy ben barnes stories that people would seemingly love, yet again motivating me to make my life-long dream of becoming an author another reality–. i logged into twitter for the first time and essentially made it my whole personality, finding a whole new world of entertainment where i could bond with anybody around the globe. but, most importantly, i met my former best friend, whom i have had the most amazing adventures with as we both grew up with the boys. 

one direction was my haven i came back to every day. i had to endure all types of comments from society, calling me crazy, obsessed, and childish. everybody made fun of directioners for being fangirls, and made fun of the guys too, as if they weren’t real musicians. i had to hide my directioner badge more than once because i knew i wouldn’t be taken seriously if i showed my true colors. experiencing those levels of misogyny at such young age would’ve been devastating had i not had them singing about how much they loved us. sure, the relationship was entirely parasocial and borderline problematic at times (remember that time some girls hacked the airport security just to see the guys through their screens?), yet, for a twelve-year-old who had no power in her own life, that was the safest net she could’ve gotten. 

their hiatus hit hard, because we weren’t ready to say goodbye yet. how do you move on from a band that has become one of your safety pins, that held you when nobody else did? deep down, i hoped they’d come back. we never got any closure, after all. one direction first cracked the day zayn left, but now, it has shattered completely. 

learning about liam’s past was tough. how could someone you admired for so long do such terrible things? i wanted to find solace in the fact that he was no longer the person he shared the stage with harry, louis, niall and zayn. i really wanted to separate the art from the artist, but i couldn’t. i even resented being a fan and supporting such a person in the past, but now, he’s officially gone. his victims won’t get any closure, and the culprits of leading such a young person towards his own hell won’t get justice either. it just isn’t fair.

grief is a funny thing, though. we’re all mourning someone he wasn’t for almost a decade. we’re grieving our childhoods and adolescence. we weep, because what once was, won’t be anymore. we lament the man he became, and all the pain he caused. yet all i can think about now is that 11-year-old who listened to ‘what makes you beautiful’ for the first time. that little girl who fought in the trenches to be heard and respected, and was instead ridiculed and shamed. she’s the one grieving. and i don’t know what to do anymore to protect her, and i wish i could.

[jombocostello]

first dates (joskue x reader)

anonymous asked: omg i saw ur new and i already loveeeee your writing!! can i request a Josuke x Reader they both grew up together and never imagined themselves to end up as a couple. but then they start realizing their feelings for each other and they go on a date and at first it’s pretty awkward cuz they’ve been friends their whole life but then they finally let loose and do dorky stuff like going to the arcade or even pranking Rohan as a couple? thank u!! xoxo

hello!! this request is supremely adorable oh man, i hope you like it!! (and requests are open!)

Sometimes you resent the fact that Morioh is such a small town. When you peer outside your window every morning and watch the same several people start their morning commutes, doing the exact same thing every day, you sometimes feel a little sick, honestly. The humdrum of this small town life really isn't meant for you.

But every morning, once you head outside and meet your best friend at the corner of the street, those feelings disappear completely.

You and Josuke have known each other for your entire lives. You live three doors down from each other and your parents have always been friends, so it was pretty much inevitable that you would meet. Luckily, you get along extremely well! He's got a perfect sense of humor that you always appreciate, and you always manage to think up weird things to do to pass the time in your boring little town. Being best friends with Josuke is the easiest thing in the world for you.

That is...until it's not.

You roll out of bed, yawning loudly. It's Saturday, so you have essentially nothing to do today. You stand up and head to the bathroom, and after fifteen minutes you've hustled through your morning routine. As you're fixing your hair, you hear the phone ring. You hop up and grab it, pressing it to your ear. "Hello?"

"(Y/N)! Hey." You grin; it's Josuke!

"Hey, dude, what's up?" you ask, leaning against the wall.

"...Nothing, really." He takes a little while to answer, but you don't really pay any mind to it.

"Oh, okay." You laugh a little, furrowing your eyebrows. "Was there a reason for this call, then? You could've just jogged over and knocked on the door. Or just punched it down, I don't care."

Josuke huffs out a little laugh, rather humorlessly. This you do notice, and you frown a bit. "Are you okay?" you ask.

"What?! I'm fine! No, I'm good." The speed of his response doesn't really assure you, but you just go with it.

You start to speak again, but before you do you hear muffled whispers on the other end that don't belong to Josuke. "Hey, is that Okuyasu?" you ask brightly. "What the hell, you guys are hanging out without me? Assholes." You laugh.

"N-no, we're not. He's just... Uh, Okuyasu, say something!" The phone is passed over to someone else, and before you know it Okuyasu is borderline screaming at you.

"(Y/N), hi! How's it going?" You can hear that he's wearing that ridiculous grin he always has.

"Hey, it's alright!" You twist the phone cord in your hand. "So what's up? Are you and Josuke plotting something without me, then?"

He scoffs. "No, not really." There's a flurry of movement on the other line, and you frown. "Listen, I'm putting Josuke back on. I, uh... I have to piss." He practically throws the phone back into Josuke's hands and you can hear him scramble away.

"Um... Hi again."

"Seriously, dude, what's going on? I feel like you two are hiding some horrible secret from me. We, ah... I feel like we're close enough that you can tell me anything." It's true; the two of you are nearly inseparable. You hope that there's nothing that Josuke ever feels too nervous to come to you about.

"No, don't worry! Nothing's wrong." He pauses for a second. "I... I just wanted to ask if you wanted to go to the cafe today."

Your face lights up. "Dude, I'd love to! What time?"

He sounds a little more normal as he answers. "Uh, noon would be good."

"Great, I'll be there." You turn and glance at the clock; you've got an hour. "Is Okuyasu coming?"

"No." The answer comes way faster than you'd expected.

You laugh a little. "Oh. What, is this a date?" you ask, raising your eyebrows with a grin.

"Yeah."

You freeze. Did he just - did he just say... "Uh... What...?" you say weakly, holding the phone with both hands.

Josuke sounds panicked. "I-I mean yeah. As a date. If that's alright with you."

You really don't know what to say, but you know you have to do something. Your brain hasn't fully processed this yet. "Um... Okay. Yeah, I'll see you then."

A giant sigh startles you. "Awesome! Great. I'll see you then, (Y/N)." And before you can even try to get a word in, he hangs up.

Well, that was... Wow. You set the phone down gently and lean back, staring into space. You had never even considered that Josuke liked you in that way. Your face flushes a deep red and you step into your room, still completely blindsided. Now that Josuke has just essentially admitted to having feelings for you, you really don't know what to do.

Josuke is hot. You've always known that. You'd only entertained the idea of dating him a few times; you can recall a couple instances where he'd looked at you with the biggest, goofiest smile on his face and just for a moment, you felt like you were in love. Still, you figured that he just saw you as a friend - well, his best friend - and that he really wasn't interested in pursuing any sort of romance with you. After all, pretty much every girl in your school was chasing after him. Surely he liked one of them...?

Josuke's recent confession has thrown all that out the window. You sit down in front of your mirror and just stare at your face for a minute. Josuke had never dropped hints that he likes you. Maybe he'd just come to that conclusion recently. God, you can't stop agonizing over this. You brush your hair - again - and ponder over what you should wear.

It's odd, feeling this giddy. You're excited and terrified at the same time. As you rifle through your closet, you replay every conversation you've shared with Josuke in the past week over in your head. Now that you think about it, he had been acting a little strange when you hung out with him a couple days ago... Maybe he was already thinking about asking you out? God, this is too crazy.

You get dressed and get ready, and once you're done you scrutinize yourself in the mirror. You put on a little more blush, smiling at the way it looks when you scrunch up your nose. You try to stop worrying about how you look, though; Josuke has seen you at your best (performing at the summer festival, dressed to the nines) and your worst (crying over getting seventh place in Mario Kart in his basement at 3 AM), so he clearly doesn't care too much about appearances.

The cafe's a short walk from your house, about five minutes, so you leave with a few minutes to spare. It's a really nice day outside, and you try to pay more attention to the cloudless sky than the butterflies in your stomach. The thought springs into your mind that this might be a joke and you nearly turn around and head back home - but a moment later, you realize that Josuke would never do that. He's the nicest person you know, and he's cared about you for a long, long time. He'd never be anything but genuine with you.

You get to the cafe right on time. Before you head inside, you catch your reflection in the window outside. After subtly adjusting your hair, you suck in a deep breath and open the door.

It's not too crowded; there's probably ten people inside. You look around for Josuke's big pompadour, and it only takes you a second to find it. He's facing away from the door.

"Hey!" You walk over and put your hand on his arm, smiling. He nearly falls out of his chair before pulling himself together and smiling back.

"Hi, (Y/N). Thanks for coming."

"Of course." You sit down and hang your bag over the back of the chair, leaning back in your seat. Josuke folds his hands and rests them on the table. You feel your nerves come back with a vengeance. "So, uh..."

"So!" He cuts you off without realizing it, and his eyes widen. "Shit, sorry. Go ahead."

"No! I-I really didn't have...anything to say." Good God, this is painful. You can't help but notice that Josuke is blushing horribly, and oh man, does he look adorable. In turn you become equally flustered. You both stare at each other, unsure of what to do, until finally the waitress arrives.

"Hi. What can I get you today?"

You let go of a giant breath and smile, turning to her. "Hi. I'll have a coffee with cream and sugar, please."

She nods and jots the order down, then turns to Josuke. He clears his throat. "I'll have an iced tea." She writes down his order and leaves after setting two little menus down in front of you.

You're alone again. You brush your hair behind your ear just to do something. Josuke just watches you. One of you is going to have to speak first... You decide you'll do it. "So how's it going?"

"It's alright." Josuke also reaches up and fiddles with his hair for a moment. He really doesn't have to; it looks as perfect as it usually does. "It's really beautiful out, huh?"

"Yeah. Good day for the beach." You smile as you glance out the window; it really is gorgeous. You consider asking Josuke if he wants to go to the beach later, but your cursed brain is too flustered to even try.

"I'm sorry I'm being so weird." You blink, glancing up at Josuke. He turns his gaze downward. "I just... I don't really know how to go about this. I really like you, (Y/N). A lot."

Your face goes bright red, and you quickly look back at the window. He's being so forward...and so nice. You don't know how to respond. "If you don't feel the same way, I totally get it. But I just wanted you to know that I've liked you for a while now."

You manage to pull yourself together and you meet his eyes. "I'm sorry too, I'm really not doing a great job at socializing right now." You laugh a little, and so does Josuke. "But I - "

"Here are your drinks." The waitress is back, saving you from awkward conversation yet again. She sets your coffee and Josuke's iced tea down gently. "Let me know if you two want anything else." With a smile, she hurries away to go conveniently interrupt some other couple.

You take a sip of your coffee and wince when it burns your tongue a bit. "Ow!" you yell, setting it down hurriedly. Josuke starts to laugh at your misfortune but quickly stops himself, until you start laughing as well. You giggle together for a while before falling silent.

"I'm the biggest dumbass there is when it comes to hot drinks," you say, letting out one last chuckle before going to take another, safer, sip.

Josuke grins. "Yeah, I know. Remember when my mom made us hot chocolate and you-" he has to hold back a laugh "- you spilled it all over your shirt?"

You burst out laughing, hunching over. "Yeah, oh my God, yeah! I felt so bad cause I got it all over the carpet too." You grin, clasping your hands together. "Oh man, that burned too."

"I imagine it did, yeah." Josuke drinks some of his iced tea and glances down at the little dessert menu. You do the same, but you're not really reading it. You're relieved that you've both been able to loosen up a little bit; you feel so much comfortable with Josuke when you're both laughing. He looks cute as hell when he laughs, too. You've never really thought about it, but now that you are, you have to admit that the way his eyes light up and his eyebrows shoot up is really charming, He's really charming.

"Oh, (Y/N)!" You look up at him, raising your eyebrows. "Have you ever had the cheesecake here?" You shake your head. Josuke grins. "Oh, it's the greatest. Koichi and I tried it last weekend and it's just crazy. We should get some!" The waitress once again flexes her perfect timing by passing by your table. "Could we get two pieces of the cheesecake?" Josuke asks with a smile. She takes the order and leaves.

There's something really cute about the way he smiles. He has such a pretty face and when he grins he looks almost like a kid in a candy store. You just take him in for a moment, smiling faintly. You don't realize you've been staring until Josuke waves a hand in front of your face. "Uh, you there?" he asks, laughing a little.

"Yeah! Yes, sorry." You try not to blush as you drink some more coffee. "But, uh, what I was saying earlier..." Josuke's eyes widen a little and he watches you closely.

You smile. "I really like you, Josuke." He grins widely, almost impossibly so, and practically deflates in his chair. "You're my favorite person in the world and I'd love to spend all my time with you. I mean we practically already do."

He laughs and nods. "Yeah, that's true." His smile softens a bit and he hesitantly reaches out and takes your hand. "I'm glad. I was really nervous about this."

"Yeah, I could tell." You grin. "I guess Okuyasu was in on it?"

Josuke rolls his eyes. "Yeah, the asshole was constantly pressing me and asking if I'd finally told you. But I guess it worked out, huh?"

You nod and smile. "Yeah."

Your cheesecake arrives, and you and Josuke start eating. He was right; it's delicious. Once you two are finished, you pay and head outside.

You both stand on the sidewalk, unsure of what to do next. "So, uh... Are you gonna go home - " you start.

Josuke cuts you off by leaning in and hugging you tightly. You freeze, surprised, but after a moment you hug him back. He rests his chin on your shoulder and you smile. "Wanna head to the beach? You were right, it's the perfect day to go," he murmurs.

You part, and you grin. "Yeah, that would be great. I just have to get my stuff."

"Yeah, same here. Well, let's go, then...?" You both turn and start walking towards your street, and after a minute Josuke reaches out and takes your hand in his. You blush and turn to him, and he's looking off into space with a similarly red face. You just smile and hold his hand tightly as you head back home.

-----

It's been a week of dating Josuke, and frankly, it's been the best week of your life. He's honestly perfect; you spend all your time with him, whether it be studying, playing video games, heading to the arcade, or just walking around town, and he always makes everything so much fun. He's so sweet and loving, and he makes you feel like the most beautiful person in the world.

Okuyasu and Koichi tease the two of you about it (mostly Okuyasu though - Koichi knows that he can't say much, considering his relationship with Yukako), but all you do is punch them in the arm and move on with your life. You're not even a little embarrassed about dating Josuke - why should you be? You're pretty much made for each other.

Saturday eventually rolls around, and you're woken up by a couple loud knocks on your door. Blearily, you roll out of bed and answer it. Unsurprisingly, it's Josuke. "Hey, babe," he says, leaning in and kissing you on the cheek. You laugh and lean back, rubbing your eyes.

"Good morning. What's up?"

He shrugs. "Figured you'd wanna do something today, and I have the perfect plan. Get ready and come outside, okay? I'll lay down my master plot then."

You laugh again and shove him back outside, and he stumbles for a second before righting himself. "Be back in a second." You run back to your room and quickly get dressed, then head back to the door.

"You look stellar as ever," Josuke says sweetly, leaning in and kissing you sweetly. You reach up and run a hand over his impeccable hair, smiling.

"You're looking just as great. God, we're like the power fashion couple of Morioh." Josuke laughs loudly. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, the first step is heading to a very important house." Yeah, but whose house...? You raise an eyebrow, but Josuke refuses to divulge anything else.

After a few minutes, Josuke stops suddenly. You nearly run into him but catch yourself at the last second. "What, is this where we're..." You look up at the home you've stopped in front of, and you're met with the residence of one Rohan Kishibe.

You turn to Josuke and find him wearing the biggest shit-eating grin. "Wait, what... What are we doing outside of Rohan's house?"

Josuke is making a herculean effort to not burst out laughing. "He's in Tokyo right now at a conference with his publishing team or something, and he'll be back tomorrow. We're here to wreck his shit."

Oh, so he wants to pull a prank on him. You're more than happy to hear that. "You are such a genius," you say, grabbing him and spinning him around. You both laugh as you skip up to his front door. "So what do you have in mind?" you ask, peering into his home through a small window.

"I've been thinking for a little while about this, and I think it's gonna be great." Josuke runs his fingers through his hair and stares at you with bright, excited eyes. "I'm gonna-" he snorts "-I'm gonna unslice all his bread."

You pause, frowning. "Wait... What?"

Now Josuke does laugh, making you jump. "Come on, come on. Let's do it." Josuke summons his stand, and you watch it wind up a punch. (You'd been shot by that freaky stand arrow a couple months ago while hanging out downtown with Josuke and Koichi. Josuke had totally freaked out, but thankfully, you were fine in moments and you had a weird new superpower to boot!) Crazy Diamond smashes through the window, and it quickly shields you from any glass before returning to Josuke.

You both climb in the window and you nearly burst out laughing as you topple onto the floor. "This is so dumb," you whisper at Josuke as you try to hold back your laughter. "What are we even doing? How the hell do you unslice bread?"

Josuke takes your hands and pulls you up, chuckling when you bump into him. "The key to unslicing bread, my dear..." He brushes some dust off of your shirt, and you smile. "Is my Crazy Diamond."

Together, through your uncontrollable giggles, the two of you fuse every single loaf of sliced bread Rohan has back into its original unsliced form. You feel like a bit of an asshole when you get to his impeccably cut homemade sourdough, but the way it looks as it floats menacingly through the air and turns back into a single loaf is so damn funny that you really can't feel bad.

Eventually you've cursed Rohan's entire house with unsliced bread. Josuke and you are barely able to stand because you're laughing so hard. You don't snoop around his house, because you're not that mean (though Josuke is tempted for a moment to fuse Rohan's latest manuscript into one giant rectangle of paper). Josuke helps you out of the window and you land shakily on your feet. You help Josuke get out and watch as he puts the window back together.

You're both a little dizzy from stumbling around and giggling, but you manage to walk back down to the sidewalk. "Just wait until he gets back, he's gonna be so confused!" Josuke wheezes, grabbing onto your shoulder and doubling over.

You wipe a tear out of your eye, taking a huge breath in to try and pull yourself together. "He's gonna lose his mind!"

You stand there together, laughing like idiots, for a few more minutes. Eventually you get it together and start walking into town. "You wanna head over to St. Gentleman's before they're sold out?" Josuke asks, checking his watch. His eyes widen almost comically. "Shit, we've got two minutes before they open, come on!"

He grabs your hand and starts sprinting down the street, and you try your best to keep up with him. You manage to reach the shop after a thirty second mad dash. You stand in front of the door to the shop, doubled over. "Jesus, you're fast," you wheeze, taking a deep breath.

"Anything for a St. Gentleman's sandwich," Josuke answers, similarly out of breath. The store opens a moment later and you hurry inside.

As you look over the sandwiches, musing over which one to choose, you feel Josuke gently take your hand. You smile and turn to him, squeezing his hand. Once you've gotten your food you walk over to the park and take a seat on the warm grass. "Thanks," you say, pressing a kiss to Josuke's cheek. "It's been a really great day."

Josuke grins widely as he opens up his sandwich. "It's not over yet," he says. "Do you wanna go to the beach later? It is our one week anniversary..."

You snort and slap him on the arm; he recoils, mockingly grasping at where you'd hit him. "One week anniversary - God, you're so cute."

Josuke sets his food down and leans over, placing his hand under your chin and pressing his lips to yours. You flush, surprised at the suddenness of the motion, but after a second your eyes slide shut. Josuke leans back after a moment and gives you one of his precious, easygoing smiles. "What can I say, it's been a really great week!"

[theliterateape]

I Like to Watch | Zack Snyder’s Justice League

by Don Hall

Mythology is fun.

As a kid I loved reading Edith Hamilton’s book on the Greek gods and the myths. Hercules, Perseus, Apollo, and Hera—this fell completely in line with my love for superhero comics. The strangely petty human traits of envy, greed, and lust combined with the power to level cities make for some great storytelling.

Zeus was basically Harvey Weinstein in the retroactive revision we’re mired in today. If Harvey could’ve changed into a golden animal and boned unsuspecting ladies looking for careers in Hollywood I’m pretty certain he would. The gods and demi-gods of the Greeks dealt with daddy issues, mommy issues, bad relationships, and fighting. Lots of fighting. Sometimes for the good of humanity but more often for the glory of winning.

Zach Snyder is in the business of tackling myths and reframing them with a style all his own. His career has become its own myth.

From Dawn of the Dead (not so much a reboot of Romero's zombie mythology but a philosophical reimagining of the genre that arguably jumpstarted The Hollywood fascination with it), 300 (a borderline homoerotic take on the myth of the Greek underdog), and Watchmen (a ridiculously ambitious attempt to put one of the most iconic takedowns on the potential fascism of the superhero legend machine ever written) to his nearly single-handed hack at answering the Marvel juggernaut with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder is in the artistic business of subverting and re-envisioning the mythologies we embrace without even seeing them as such.

Snyder's style is operatic. It is on a grand scale even in the most mundane moments. The guy loves slow motion like Scorcese loves mobsters and Italian food. When you're tackling big themes with larger than life stories, the epic nature of his vision makes sense and has alienated a good number of audience members. With such excess, there are bound to be missteps but I'd argue that his massive take on these characters he molds from common understanding and popular nomenclature elevates them to god-like stature.

Fans of Moore's Watchmen have much to complain about Snyder's adaptation. The titular graphic novel is almost impossible to put in any other form than the one Moore intended and yet, Snyder jumped in feet-first and created a living, breathing representation of most, if not all, of the source material's intent. Whether you dig on it or not, it's hard to avoid acknowledging that the first five minutes of Watchmen is a mini-masterpiece of style, storytelling, and epic tragedy wrapped up in a music video.

Despite a host of critical backlash for his one fully original take, Sucker Punch is an amazing thing to see. More a commentary on video game enthusiasm with its lust for hot animated chicks and over-the-top violence that a celebration of cleavage and guns, the film is crazily entertaining. For those who hated the ending, he told you in the title what his plan was all along.

The first movie I saw in the theaters that tried to take a superhero mythology and treat it seriously (for the most part) was Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. Never as big a fan of the DC characters as I have been of Marvel, it was still extraordinary to see a character I had only really known in pages to be so fully realized. Then came Burton's Batman movies. The superhero film was still an anomaly but steam was gaining. Things changed with Bryan Singer's X-Men in 2000, then Raimi's Spiderman, and those of us who grew up with our pulpy versions of Athena, Hermes, and Hades were rewarded with Nolan's Batman Begins. A far cry from the tongue-in-cheek camp of the 1966 TV Batman, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne was a serious character and his tale over three films is a tragic commentary filled with the kind of death and betrayal and triumph befitting the grand narrative he deserved.

I loved Singer's Superman Returns in 2006 because it was such a love letter to the 1978 film (down to the opening credits) but by then, the MCU was taking over the world.

Snyder's first of what turns out to be an epic storyline involving perhaps seven or eight movies was Man of Steel. It was fun and, while I had my issues with the broodiness of Kal El, the odd take on Jonathan Kent, and a redheaded Lois Lane, I had no issue with Superman snapping Zod's neck. Darker and more tragic than any other version of the Kryptonian, it was still super entertaining.

Then came Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. By 2016, Marvel had codified their formula of serious characters wrestling with serious issues of power and responsibility peppered with lots of good humor and bright colors. Snyder's desaturated pallete and angst-filled demi-gods was not the obvious road to financial competition.

I'll confess, I hated it. BvS felt half-rendered. Lex Luthor was kind of superficial and played as a kind of Joker. The whole Bruce Wayne wants to kill Superman thing felt undeveloped and the "Martha" moment was just stupid.

When Joss Whedon's version of Snyder's Justice League came out in 2017, I was primed for it to be a turd and I wasn't surprised. So much of it didn't work on any level. I dismissed it as DC trying and failing miserably and was comforted by the coming of Thanos.

Following Thanos and the time heist was COVID. Suddenly, we were internationally sidelined and the movie theater industry caved in. Streaming services started popping up like knock-off smartphones and Hollywood was reeling, doing anything and everything to find a way back. Since Whedon's disastrous helming of Snyder's third act, fans online had been demanding to #ReleasetheSnyderCut but no one was ever really taking them seriously until all movie production was shut down for a year.

The stage was set to remedy a mistake (or at least make some bucks on a do-over of a huge box office failure). Snyder had left the production in part because of the suicide of his daughter and in part due to the constant artistic fights over executives looking for the quippy fun of the MCU but he still had all the original footage. Add to that the broiling accusations that Joss Whedon was "abusive" during the reshoots, the path seemed destined. For an additional $70 million and complete control, Snyder delivered a four hour mega-movie streamed on HBOMax.

Of course, I was going to watch the thing as soon as I could.

The Whedon version opens with an homage to the now dead Superman (including the much maligned digitally erased mustache on Henry Cavill). The SynderCut opens with the death of Superman and the agony of his death scream as it travels across the planet. It's a simple change but exemplifies the very different visions of how this thing is gonna play out.

Snyder doesn't want us to be OK with the power of these beings unleashed. He wants us to feel the damage and pain of death. He wants the results of violence to be as real as he can. When Marvel's Steve Rogers kicks a thug across the room and the thug hits a wall, he crumples and it is effectively over. When Batman does the same thing, we see the broken bones (often in slow motion) and the blood smear on the wall as the thug slides to the ground.

The longer SnyderCut is bloated in some places (like the extended Celtic choir singing Aquaman off to sea or the extended narrations by Wonder Woman which sound slightly like someone trying to explain the plot to Siri). On the other hand, the scene with Barry Allen saving Iris West is both endearing and extraordinary, giving insight to the power of the Flash as well as some essential character-building in contrast to Whedon's comic foil version.

One thing I noticed in this variant is that Zach wants the audience to experience the sequence of every moment as the characters do. An example comes when Diana Prince goes to the crypt to see the very plot she belabors over later. The sequence is simple. She gets a torch and goes down. Most directors which jump cut to the torch. Snyder gives us five beats as she grabs the timber, wraps cloth around the end, soaks it with kerosene, pulls out a box of matches, and lights the torch. Then she goes down the dark passageway.

The gigantic, lush diversity of Snyder’s vision of the DC superhero universe—from the long shots of the sea life in the world of Atlantis to the ancient structures and equipment of Themyscira— is almost painterly. Snyder isn't taking our time; he's taking his time. We are rewarded our patience with a far better backstory for the villain, a beautifully rendered historic battle thwarting Darkseid's initial invasion (including a fucking Green Lantern), and answers to a score of questions set up in both previous films.

Whedon's Bruce Wayne was more Ben Affleck; Snyder's is full-on Frank Miller Batman, the smartest, most brutal fucker in the room. Cyborg, instead of Whedon's sidelined non-character, is now a Frankenstein's monster, grappling with the trade-off between acceptance and enormous power. Wonder Woman is now more in line with the Patty Jenkins version and instead of being told about the loss of Superman, we are forced to live with the anguish of both his mother and Lois Lane in quiet moments of incredible grief.

To be fair to Whedon (something few are willing to do as he is now being castigated not for racism or sexism but for being mean to people) having him come in to throw in some levity and Marvel-esque color to Snyder's Wagnerian pomposity is like hiring Huey Lewis to lighten up Pink Floyd's The Wall or getting Douglas Adams to rewrite Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I loved Snyder's self-indulgent, mythologic DC universe.

So much so that I then re-watched Man of Steel and then watched the director's version of BvS (which Snyder added approximately 32 minutes). The second film is far better at three hours and Eisenberg's Lex Luthor now makes sense. Then I watched Zach Snyder's Justice League a second time.

After nineteen hours of Snyder's re-imagining of these DC heroes and villains, I saw details that, upon first viewing, are ignored or dismissed, but after seeing them in order and complete, are suddenly consistent and relevant. Like Nolan or Fincher, Snyder defies anyone to eliminate even one piece of his narrative no matter how long. With all the pieces, this is an epic story and the pieces left at the extended epilogue play into a grander narrative we will never see.

Or maybe we will. Who knows these days?

[scientistowengottlieb-newtkelly]

Thoughts and feelings about Pacific Rim 2?

you sure you wanna open up that particular can of worms?

movie review time! be warned i'm not in a good mood as i am shaking in pain, however this review would have been scathing regardless. and none of this is to say pacific rim is perfect, it's not, but... aye, i have no words for the world of difference there. oh wait! i do:

so. first and foremost, i hate it. as both a movie and a sequel. did i find it entertaining? yes, mildly, so i suppose it did its job, however the only thing that keeps me watching it is because, simply, it's part of the pacific rim franchise whether we like it or not. therefore, i squeeze as much salvageable content from it as i can, such as how one might analyze the precursors, how we are to view hermann and newt as characters pre-, during, and post-uprising, what we are to expect from drifting (though this one i take with a grain of salt, there is a whole other rant preserved for the joke of an attempt to develop that shit within the movie)

one of my biggest issues with pacific rim is really simple: it plays out like DeKnight did not watch the first fucking movie or was scrolling through twitter while doing it and decided he'd make a cash grab since the first one was relatively popular. "haha the kaiju were going for mount fuji the whole time!!" bitch no they weren't!!! why the fuck did they end up anywhere near sydney, australia, then!!! why did they turn tail on places like manila and san fran instead of heading straight for japan!!! WHY DID THE ONE THAT WAS IN JAPAN NOT SUCCEED, THERE'S NO WAY WITH THOSE MARK 1 JAEGERS THEY'D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REASONABLY FIGURE OUT THEIR PLAN AND WHERE THEY WERE GOING IN TIME TO STOP THEM!!! newt literally lays out what they are doing in the first movie and they completely ignored that!!! not to mention, if the destruction from elements found in mount fuji would have been enough to terraform the earth, WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST FUCKING DO THAT WHEN THEY WERE SUPPOSEDLY ON EARTH AGES AGO??? THERE WERE VOLCANOES WITH THOSE SAME ELEMENTS BEFORE RIGHT NOW, VOLCANOES ARE NOT A RELATIVELY NEW THING EARTH CREATED SUDDENLY AND I WOULD IMAGINE NEITHER ARE THOSE ELEMENTS!!! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! and.... okay the fucking drones. how did those bitches make breaches??? we know the breach is some result of precursor/kaiju technology, apparently they know the breach's atomic structure as hermann said in the first movie, but how tf some kaiju organs and tech from earth only is ALL it takes to open a breach... illudes and confuses me... why were no more breaches made by the precursors once they realized how long and how many resources it was taking to kill the humans off??? if it's??? shit they could do with simple earth materials + their own biology??? they could have ended things much faster??? shit just doesn't add up, idk, that was Vague and Annoyed Me

and the jaegers.... were....... strange? the fight scenes were so underwhelming, i could count on one hand the number of maneuvers—NOT SCENES, MANEUVERS—i thought were badass and moved well. their fighting was confusing and paced really weird and some of the moves they pulled... don't... work like that... like some of those scenes were just hand-to-hand combat but in big robot form and they didn't sit right with me at all.

and the characters......... oh my word, the characters. look: i love jake pentecost with all of my heart and soul and john boyega's beautiful acting just barely saves the movie from its poor writing. i do love him as a character. but can someone explain to me why in the world they thought it was a good idea to make the only black guy a black market thief/runner, deep-record criminal with daddy and authority issues, and who they dare try to play off as some kind of lazy??? they made him every stereotype they could and said "yeah let's go with that". i'm- aaaaaaaaaaaaaa and what was with the child soldiers??? ROBOCOPS?????? mako....... character assassination at its worst........ my baby......... but the movie was paced so GOD DAMN POORLY I GOT BORED AND LITERALLY MISSED HER DYING THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED IT. and i couldn't tell you the names of half of those poor damn kids, i really couldn't. and can i also say they killed off one of the only two darker skinned kids?? like y'all???? the other darker skinned kids (one of the children i can't remember the names of because it was uttered ONCE in the entire movie or some shit) didn't even GET characterization. my whole heart goes out to her and those other underdeveloped fucks. speaking of...... i am ashamed about jules. from the movie that brought us the mako mori test, they threw in a girl simply for the sake of some shitty, awkward, and unexplained love triangle between jake and White Angst without much else to put to her name. she deserved better. amara was... a decent shot, but very hit or miss because of the writing. i, personally, am very neutral about her leaning towards liking her, but i know people who swing love and who swing hate. liwen was like,,,, they tried really hard to make her unlikable at the beginning because "oh no, she must be the villain! GOTTEM plot twist!!!" and then suddenly she's no longer. threatening everyone except newt. idk i feel like they leaned to heavily one way and i got whiplash when she's actually another but there was nothing to... portray that. at all. i do like her character, and that says a lot because they got me to sympathize with a capitalist without actually regretting it later, but there could/should have been More there. she was powerful, though, in multiple different aspects, and we saw that from her CONSISTENTLY and i 😳🥵👀💕 mako mori test pass for her

now, let's talk about hermann (and by extention, newton, however he'll be getting a section all his own the rat bastard). that man is one of the single instances of decent cross-movie characterization i saw in the whole god damn film. the idea that he takes on newton's roles, that he is more outspoken for himself, that he is just slightly more unhinged after his drift with newton: THAT is on point. he's himself, you can see it, you still know that he's hermann with ever step, but there's something that has shifted in him in those 10 years and it's good without being too much. the "i still get nightmares" scene, the way he presents himself, that scene gives me chills because god bless burn gorman and his acting ability. every face and intonation of his voice is just wonderful and i think his performance was great for what he was given. king shit.

the biggest disappointment of my life came in the form of a kaiju vest wearing bitch at work. at his corporate job. as a boss. for a tech company that undermines all of his and, frankly, hermann's work over their lifetimes. 10 years older and exaggerated to the teeth. newton "move you fascist" geiszler. let me preface this by stating for all to see that i do not hate the idea of newton being the villain. story wise it was a bold move and there was something possible there. BUT THE IMPLICATION THAT ONE OF THE MOST OBVIOUSLY NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS IN THE WHOLE FUCKING FRANCHISE, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THAT HE HAS BEEN CHARACTERIZED AS HAVING A "BORDERLINE MANIC PERSONALITY" AKA HAVING ONE OF THE MOST DEMONIZED MENTAL ILLNESSES OUT THERE, ENDS UP ACTING AS THE GOD DAMN VILLAIN OF THE STORY IS A HOT GARBAGE TAKE WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THINGS LIKE POOR WRITING NOT MAKING IT CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT NEWTON IS EVEN IN CONTROL OF HIS OWN FACULTIES AND THE VAGUENESS OF "WILL HE BE 'REDEEMED' OR NOT" BEING UP IN THE AIR LIKELY NEVER TO BE CANONICALLY FUCKING ANSWERED BECAUSE BECKHAM AND DEKNIGHT SHAT OUT A MOVIE THAT BOMBED IN THE BOX OFFICE. we aren't even gonna TALK about the fact that this bitch got AWAY with it despite not even acting in a remotely stable way comparable to himself in the first movie in the 10 years he supposedly dropped off the map from all of his friends because, clearly, hermann hadn't seen him or he wouldn't be so excited with a picture of the two of them on his desk, nor would he have to tell newton about his idea for rocket thrusters with kaiju blood fuel because he would have simply written to him about it. for some strange reason people see his ass show up decked out in a suit he wouldn't even wear for Stacker Fucking Pentecost and a behavior of "Haha Gotta Listen To The Boss" and think "ah, yes, well, time changes a person. THIS BITCH HAS APPARENTLY BEEN LIKE THIS THE WHOLE TIME, YOU THINK HE GOT A JOB WITH LIWEN LOOKING AND ACTING LIKE HE DID BEFORE AND THERE WAS A SHIFT OVER TIME? NO, HE HAD TO HAVE CHANGED IN A SPLIT DECISION AND LIED ABOUT HIMSELF THROUGH HIS TEETH AND NO ONE CONTACTED HIM, OR WAS WORRIED ABOUT HIM, OR DECIDEDLY THOUGHT "YOU KNOW, HE MAY BE EMBOLDENED THAT HE SAVED THE WORLD, BUT I THINK SOMETHING LIKE THAT WOULD HAVE THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT ON HIM AND HE WOULD DO HIS BEST TO AMPLIFY HIS CURRENT STANDING TRAITS. LISTENING TO AND KISSING THE BOOT OF AUTHORITY FIGURES? DIVORCING HIMSELF FROM HIS WORK WITH KAIJU XENOBIOLOGY THAT EVEN HERMANN PICKED UP? TO BECOME THE THING HE HATES? AND FOR WHAT? MONEY? FAME? BITCH WHO ARE YOU?" unreasonable. ridiculous attempt to do this just for a plot twist that was underwhelming at best. i've decided to stick to the fan theory that he was not in control 99% of the time but literally that movie causes such a hellfire path to appear in my wake as i think about it because i know people who don't take it like that and think newt wants what's happening because "haha horny kaiju man" and i wish to scream at the top of my lungs because this is exactly WHY you CANNOT spare ANY EXPENSE to the GOOD, PROPER, INTRICATE directing and writing of a character who is neurodivergent and also ONE OF THE CENTERS OF NOT JUST THE MOVIE YOU'RE WRITING, BUT THE FUCKING MOVIE AFTER THAT. i could go on but i sincerely don't fucking want to, despite how long i've been waiting for someone to willingly hear me out on all of this. all i'll say is if by some miracle they are greenlit for a third film and deknight's working on it and i see ANY sign of a bury your gays end for newt, i'm going to commit the first hate crime against a cishet white male.

to end, the only valid kaiju in that movie was the mega-kaiju, i don't remember the appearance or the names of the three that got through the breaches but the mega-kaiju could kill me and i'd die happy 🥰 beautiful design, that scale comparison when it came face to face with newt? amazing, chills, *chef's kiss* there are exactly two things i liked about uprising and that bitch is one of them.

sorry if this isn't what you wanted, but as i said i am in a bit of a bad mood and have been curled up in bed trying not to think that i'm dying and i've repressed all of this for a couple months now and very few people have actually heard PORTIONS of my frustration so. here it is.

[vampirrediaries]

Enemies Of The State : Dark!Klaroline {13}

summary:

This fiction follows the events of just how Klaus Mikaelson and Caroline Forbes lost everything that tied them to their humanity, leading them into something neither of them can come back from.

—————

{10 years ago}

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Caroline stood perplexed in front of the worn down house, which now had a name thanks to Katherine. The Gemini Coven. It sounded familiar, probably something Bonnie had mentioned once, but she was too uninterested in witch business that she forgot about the entire thing. Until now, that was.

“The Gemini Coven,” Katherine mused as she stood in front of the bolted door “Is one of the most powerful witch coven’s in the world. Having a witch by your side? It’s essential.”

“Essential for what exactly?”

The doppelgänger suddenly used her inhumane strength to knock down the bolted door with only but a graceful push with her high heels. Surely enough, the chipped door swung effortlessly, as if it had never been bolted down in the first place.

“Essential for our plans, Caroline. I want something, and i intend to get it no matter what.”

The blonde didn’t question Katherine’s intentions behind this mystery thing. She didn’t care, as long as she was in for an exhilarating ride. She stubbornly followed her into the house, floorboards creaking with each step they took.

It was as normal as a ordinary suburban home inside, the furniture covered with white cloth and dust collected on the countertops. It was evidence that whomever lived here, coven or not, were long gone for a very long time.

“I don’t think the people you’re lookimg for are coming back anytime soon,” Caroline drags a finger through the collected dust. “Are you sure an all powerful witch coven lives here? Must’ve gotten your facts wrong.”

Katherine scoffs, stepping through the house with pristine high heeled boots. “My facts are never wrong. I knew they were long gone, but something resides here that i desperately need.”

“What could you possibly want-”

The doppelgänger rolls her eyes, an annoyed expression on her features as she begins examining the house.

“It’s just something i want. Now shut up, i’m trying to concentrate.”

—————

“Is it working?”

Anticipation was the only emotion evident within the group, gathered outside Caroline’s lawn with Bonnie lighting her white candles in preparation. She rolled her eyes, flame lighting the last candle with a motion of her hand.

“I haven’t started yet, Rebekah.”

The Mikaelson sister huffs, crossing her arms over her chest impatiently. “Get on with it then, Witch, we haven’t got all day. And where the hell is that stuffed animal?”

Stefan solemnly brought out one of Caroline’s personal possessions. A work down teddy bear, with a button where the eye was supposed to be hanging on by a thread.

It was something you’d expect someone like her to own. She was good, and innocent. Now, he wasn’t so sure. The girl that she’d become would want this once loved belonging to burn in Hell. Along with the rest of her old life. It’d devastated Stefan beyond words.

“Here,” He handed Bonnie the bear quickly. “I hope it works.”

“Let’s hope so,” Elena worriedly cut in. “The sooner we find Caroline, the sooner we put and end to this bloodshed.”

Klaus Mikaelson stood behind, leaning against the fence of her home as he quietly observed the scene. It was tense, of course, with Caroline's ex-friends worries about the tracking spell and its efficiency. He scoffed to himself. More like traitors. It was partially their fault that Caroline was on a blood binge. He held responsibility, sure, but this incessant group of people pushed her to do the one thing he had never done to himself.

It made him angry, looking upon them with a venomous glare. How dare they pretend to care about her? They didn't see what he saw in Caroline. Her beauty, her light, the joy she could bring with a single smile. She lit his cold, dead heart deep inside. Her Humanity was beautiful.

And now it was gone.

"You look like if someone murdered your cat."

Klaus scoffed, crossing his arms tensely. "Don't be ridiculous, Kol. I hate cats."

Kol Mikaelson hid his smirk as he joined his brother at the back, gazing into the scene with a raised eyebrow. Bonnie was beginning to create the alter, drawing lines made with a white powder.

"It's funny isn't it?" He mused. "A few weeks ago you were obsessed with killing that Deveraux witch, and now you are back to this sad excuse of a town once again."

"I shouldn't have left it in the first place."

"Because of her?"

Klaus didn't reply to that, only looking straight ahead with a stern glare. He was not the type to open up, letting his walls down for everyone to see was mortifying. Humanity was a vampire's greatest weakness. It was better to show the people surrounding you that you had nothing left to lose. Even if it wasn't the case.

Strength was the best protection he could have, really. Strength and power went together perfectly in his favour.

Kol knew exactly what his brother wasn't letting on.

"I know what it's like," He urged on "Pining over someone that you could never have without repercussion."

"Pray tell me what exactly you would you know about it?"

“More than you do."

Elena Gilbert stood anxiously by Damon, her arms tightly crossed in anticipation. Obviously feeling Kol's weary eyes on her, she looked straight towards him. To Klaus' surprise, however, her eyes were quickly diverted as she turned her back in the flash of a second. It was as if he hurt to look at.

"So you to have fallen for the magnetic lure of the Petrova doppelgänger," The Original hybrid scoffed. "She would never leave everything behind for you. Not after what you did."

"That is also amusing, dear brother," The younger Original shot back. "I would have said the same thing about our darling Caroline."

"I didn't stake her in the stomach."

"You'd done something much worse," He replied venomously. "You made her abandon her humanity."

Klaus felt a surge of anger coursing through him, whipping around to face his little brother with words that would surely hurt him, when Bonnie called out in a frantic voice.

"It worked!"

—————

"Has your concentration led to something yet?"

Katherine was peering into the empty bookshelf's that resided, groaning when it led her to nothing. They had been at this game for over an hour, and Caroline was getting bored, keeping herself entertained by playing with the rays of light that'd escaped through the broken down roof.

"It's here, I know it is." She muttered under her breath, sternly walking towards the last empty bedroom of the home. The only place she hadn't looked. Katherine's instincts were borderline supernatural. This meant, much to Caroline's dismay, that she was right most of the time about things like this.

The blonde vampire jumped to her feet, following the Petrova into the eerie room. It was much smaller compared to the rest, with its furniture still intact. Whomever packed up the house, didn't touch this one. She also noticed the faded red stains on the wooden floor, expanding as she walked in.

Blood. Someone's blood was spilled in this room.

"Did someone die in here? Jesus," She exhaled out in an emotionless tone. "At least be a little less messy about committing murder?"

Katherine simply ignored her, going at her search. Caroline walked towards the desk. Faint lines were carved into the dusty mahogany wood. She barely made it out.

'I don't belong'

She furrowed her brows, but thought nothing of it. Probably one of the coven members who died. she'd figured, and turned around to move onto the single window overlooking the empty field when Katherine started laughing out of nowhere.

“I knew it was here!”

In her perfectly manicured hand, held a device. It had looked like something out of a clock, purely fashioned out of old metal. Katherine blew on it, dust flying everywhere.

"Oooh, a pile of metal!" Caroline scoffed sarcastically as she examined it with narrowed eyes. "How interesting."

The doppelgänger would've shot back with a snarky comment, but was obviously too caught up in her happiness to care.

"This is our ticket to freedom, cupcake."

Caroline only narrowed her eyes, now intrigued about what the hell she meant.

"What even is that thing."

Katherine had her infamous smirk painted on her features, delicately tracing along the layers of metal.

"Ever heard of a little someone named Kai Parker?"

——————

masterlist

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: Initial impressions

Titles can be deceiving.

CW: child abuse, childhood trauma, mental illness, depression, anxiety

I think I can recall hearing about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality at some point in the fairly distant past, though I can’t be sure. What I can say with relative certainty is that if I did encounter it, I probably wasn’t very likely to read it. I probably assumed that HPMOR was one of those obnoxiously misguided and pedantic critiques of fiction by scientists who neither know how to utilize suspension of disbelief, nor understand the basic nature of symbolism. At best, I might have imagined it to be a piece attempting to discover or construct a coherent logic from the magic within the Harry Potter universe, just for the pure amusement value, the absurdity of attempting to apply logic to that which defies it. I could see the appeal of that, but probably not 122 chapters worth of it.

After actually reading the first ten chapters of HPMOR, however, I can say that my first guess was incorrect, and my second guess was insufficient. HPMOR does capitalize on that humorous absurdity, but that’s hardly the core of the story.

One major reason for my misperceptions was a lack of familiarity with the difference between science and rationality. In layspeak, we often use these terms near interchangeably, and while they do go hand-in-hand to some extent, they’re not the same. Science is a method of obtaining knowledge. Rationality is an approach to living life, which dictates utilizing philosophy and science to obtain desired outcomes. You can be a scientist and be completely irrational, which actually reflects back on my initial concern; there are some scientists who will attempt to use the theory and language of science to denigrate works of art, completely ignoring the point of art.

HPMOR itself deals with this problem, not only the conflation of science with rationality, but the conflation of science and rationality and aptitude and general intelligence. The very first chapter highlights how AU Harry’s (Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, HJPEV for short) father is a professor, knowledgeable about science, presumably quite intelligent, and yet behaves incredibly irrationally. Rather than attempting to settle the dispute about the existence of magic objectively, he refuses to entertain the idea on principle, saying, “Magic is just about the most unscientific thing there is!”

And here’s where the real story begins to unfold. What makes HPMOR hit hard, at least for me, is not the discussion of science and rationality in the abstract, or even the very useful, illustrative scenarios, but the emotional struggle of trying to be a rational person in an irrational world, especially when you’re a child. In so many ways, HPMOR is a story about the trauma of growing up as a so-called “gifted” child. Almost every chapter that I read was painfully reminiscent of my own childhood:

Seeing my parents speculate and argue endlessly over things that could be proven;

Attempting to reason with them only to be shut down;

Having my value in their eyes dependent on their perception of my intelligence and academic performance, being praised for when I was perceived to have succeeded in these matters, while at the same time having my perspective completely ignored when it came to anything that mattered;

Being mocked relentlessly for things I did when I was younger, ignoring the incredibly rapid growth that defines childhood;

Constantly feeling as though, as HJPEV puts it, I was being treated as “subhuman,” my feelings, thoughts, and opinions all invalid because of my age;

Feeling so, so frustrated that the people who were supposed to protect me were so absurdly, ridiculously, unfairly, woefully, tragically ill-equipped to do so.

I became hopelessly isolated from my parents, and my self-esteem became self-degrading. Being told over and over again how what I felt or thought didn’t matter because I was only a child made me doubt and disrespect my own emotions and doubt my very sanity. I don’t think that my parents meant to gaslight me, but that’s exactly what they did. For years, and years, and years, and it hurts. so. much. It...I cannot express how much it hurts.

And I am left with all of this damage, these lines of irrationality programmed into my brain, this obsessive need to to be perceived as intelligent in order to believe that I could be loved, in order to merely function, this irrationality that I hate so much because it hurt me so much is now encoded into my very being and it fills me with existential horror to this day.

It was difficult for me to get through as much of HPMOR as I did, and I genuinely wonder if it would be detrimental to my mental health to go on. It triggers both the suffering that comes with remembering past trauma as well as the compulsions that have resulted from that trauma. Hearing HJPEV list all the books he’s read sends a bolt of anxiety down my spine, knowing that I will never measure up to people like him, I will never have read enough, I will never be smart enough, I will never...be...enough—

Enough. I know when to stop torturing myself.

I was shocked to see how quickly HPMOR itself comes to the conclusion that what HJPEV has endured is a form of child abuse. It took me years to become comfortable using the words “abuse” and “trauma” to describe my experiences, and HPMOR introduces the word “abuse” in Chapter 6! I give HPMOR’s McGonagall much less credit than HJPEV does, but even so, it’s kind of astonishing to me to see an adult pick up on the existence of abuse in a so-called gifted child, even in fiction. I find myself wondering how I might have turned out differently if I had had someone like McGonagall in my life, or someone better than McGonagall in my life, who had told me in no uncertain terms, “What is happening to you is abuse, it is not okay, it is not your fault, and while I’m unable to legally extricate you from your unfortunate circumstances, I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

Because that didn’t happen. No one told me that I was abused or damaged. They told me that I was “smart,” “gifted,” “advanced,” or “mature”; and if they noticed anything odd about my behavior, it was because I was just “quiet,” “shy,” “introverted,” or “diligent.”

I also find myself wondering if I might have been a little different if I had read HPMOR when I first had the chance. But then again, I don’t know if I would have understood it as I do now, after years of studying psychology and working to heal myself.

God, seeing it all laid out so starkly, things I worked years to understand, in a few short chapters of someone’s fucking fanfiction*...I sure do feel like an idiot.

But then, this whole conversation has primed me to feel those feelings.

I must not undervalue myself. I am not playing that game. That game is the problem.

One thing does irritate me, though. Putting aside my misconceptions about HMPOR specifically, there’s this huge barrier to entry to the rationalist community in general. I think people perceive (correctly, as far as I can tell) that it is a community of highly intelligent people, who are highly skilled in STEM disciplines, particularly math. The one friend who could have introduced me to all this was someone who I saw as hopelessly more intelligent than I, and that perceived disparity made it incredibly difficult to approach him even as I admired him, envied him, and desperately needed the things that he could teach me. (I don’t know what things were like on his end. I still don’t.)

We’ve already seen that someone can be highly intelligent and completely irrational. I wish we could take that logic a step further and really make clear that rationality is not something that requires high intelligence. As with learning anything, intelligence helps, but intelligence can’t be a prerequisite for this skillset, because literally everyone should have it. I guess this might be controversial, but so far as I can tell, rationality is just the best way to go through life. And of course, knowing the best way to move forward is especially critical for those of us leaving behind dark pasts.

For fuck’s sake, this doesn’t have anything to do with quarks or discrete math or machine learning. It has everything to do with reducing human suffering.

And I wish...I really wish that there was a way to share this world with my friends. The only reason that I made it here is that I’ve constantly existed on the borderline, wavering around the threshold of what is broadly considered intelligent, attempting mastery of both STEM and humanities, science and art. As much as I doubt and denigrate myself, I am able, if I really want to, under certain favorable circumstances, to convince myself that I belong here. Not all of my friends have the same privilege. I have friends who have lived their whole lives believing that they just aren’t that smart, or that they aren’t any good at math or science. Maybe they decided early on that that stuff wasn’t for them, or maybe they tried and felt like they failed. I know that, for many people, academic language is frustrating, triggering, or otherwise completely inaccessible. I know that many people will find HJPEV absolutely insufferable and most of what he says incomprehensible.

And I’m really not sure what to do about that. I’ve not sure how to convince people that striving for rationality is both possible and worthwhile for everyone, and if I do convince them, I’m not sure what to actually show them that will make any sense to them.

I don’t know. Maybe it does have a bit to do with math. Because a lot of what I get from rationality, I can get from other places, be that art or psychology or witchcraft, but the stuff that is unique does tend to be the mathematical and statistical thinking. And philosophical thinking, academic thinking. Talking about things with precision...That’s always been my problem with trying to translate the academic into ordinary speech, it feels like all the precision is being lost. To be precise, you need unique words, and unique words tend to be obscure, and people find obscure words upsetting.

Obviously, this isn’t a problem I’m going to solve in this blog post. But it’s something to think about.

So, I guess that’s my review of the first ten chapters of HPMOR, if you can call it that. If one of the purposes of fiction is to unlock a bizarrely intense cocktail of existential horror and unadulterated wrath deriving from the wrongs of one’s childhood—and I certainly believe it is—then HPMOR succeeds spectacularly.

*Edited to add: In my unfortunate compulsion to drag myself down, I often drag down other things or people too. I shouldn’t trivialize the value of fanfiction. And, quite honestly, I really shouldn’t be surprised that it could be a source of profound insight. After all, writing fanfiction has been one of my own ways to cope with and sort through my emotions and illnesses for a long, long time.

[twistedwonderlandimagines]

Experimental Dorms

Okay, so when I was in middle school, they did this experiment where they grouped the male and female students into different classes (NOT what I’m going for here, but it gave me an idea. Also, don’t worry. It wasn’t for reasons related to sexism or gender roles. The girls and guys just hated each other at my school). So I had this idea that probably wouldn’t fit with the canon of TW, but it was a fun idea.

What if Crowley decided to do a little experiment to see if he could make the students happier...? He noticed the feud going on between Savanaclaw and Pomefiore, and he’s noticed that some of the dorms are allied. So he sends the student body on somewhat of a field trip for a day. When they all return, there are only three dorms. One for first years, second years, and third years.

Crowley announces that the school will be like this for two weeks as an experiment to see if the students can learn to get along a little better. Then he posts the new room numbers where everyone will be living for the next two weeks and lets them figure things out.

All their stuff is already in their new rooms, but the new roommates will take some getting used to.

In the first year dorm, things are relatively peaceful. 

Jack isn’t picking fights with the other first years nearly as much as he did with the second and third year Savanaclaw members. Epel doesn’t feel pressured to look his best all the time, so he can finally just walk around in pajamas in his dorm (someone save this boy). Ortho is an angel as always, even if he does miss rooming with his big brother. Sebek is perfectly respectful, even if he’s internally a bit anxious over not being able to be in the same dorm as Malleus for two weeks. Ace and Deuce are glad to have a break from Riddle for a while.

The only possible problems arise when Ace and Deuce have arguments, but that’s totally normal for them. With the exception of them, everyone is respectful and gets along really well.

Jack gets put in a room with Epel (Crowley clearly wants their dorms to get along better), and Jack doesn’t feel any desire to pick a fight or argue with Epel. The little guy is nothing but kind and respectful to his new roomie.

Ace and Ortho are rooming together, and so are Deuce and Sebek. Ortho is like... The one person Ace would never say anything bad about (how could he when Ortho is so darn precious?!) and Sebek and Deuce get along famously.

Sebek and Jack could actually spar without getting into a real fight. Ortho would want to make friends with everyone. Ace and Deuce could forget about each other and just enjoy Epel and Ortho’s company.

In the second year dorm things are chaos, but it’s not totally bad chaos.

The only big problem in the second year dorm is Riddle, who’s having a hard time adjusting to not following the Queen of Heart’s rules. People kinda just want him to stop insisting they have a tea party.

Jamil is having the time of his life, because now Floyd and Jade have an even harder time escaping his dad jokes. Azul isn’t helping them because watching them suffer the dad jokes is far too amusing.

Silver is still just Silver. Although he’s a little anxious about not being able to protect Malleus when they’re in different dorms.

Ruggie and Kalim are becoming fast friends, and they’re rooming together (Kalim isn’t used to being separated from Jamil at night, but Ruggie tries to be a good roommate to make up for it.) Ruggie just enjoys rooming with someone who helps him out with the chores.

Crowley clearly has a sense of humor, because he put Floyd and Jamil in the same room. Run Floyd- 

Well... At least they can bond over their mutual disdain for Riddle’s shouting and the ridiculous orders he barks out constantly. Seriously, Jamil is ready to use that hypnosis of his just to make Riddle stop shouting. Floyd is almost ready to go insane from the dad jokes and Riddle’s odd rules combining to form the ultimate torture.

Riddle is rooming with Jade, who may be the only second year able to put up with his tirades. If anything, Jade only finds it amusing when Riddle goes off.

Azul and Silver are getting along very well in their room. These next two weeks should be a piece of cake as far as roommates go for them. Azul even whips up a little sleeping potion for Silver for a price.

Jamil and Kalim now have a new friend to hang out with in the form of Ruggie, so Crowley’s little experiment was a success for them (Ruggie helping out means Jamil can take a break from taking care of Kalim). Heck, I could even see Jamil getting along well with Azul.

The twins desperately try to avoid Jamil, but they kind of enjoy playing tricks on Riddle and Silver. And Ruggie gets along well with them as well.

Ruggie is usually friendly, but he’s getting sick of Riddle’s rules. (Except the tea party rule. Free food is always welcome!)

The third year dorm is absolute anarchy.

Leona went to find his new room only to run into Vil and realize they’re roommates now. You know this is off to a great start.

Leona tries to sabotage Vil’s beauty regime, Vil always interrupts Leona’s afternoon naps, they’re trying to out-sass each other (again), and everyone is worried one of them is going to get seriously hurt.

Zahir and Rook are rooming together, which is possibly even worse than Leona and Vil rooming together. They’re both terrifying and borderline psychotic, so we can only imagine what it would be like for them to be rooming together (especially with the dorm feud showing prominently between these two).

Zahir locks up all the food so Rook can’t poison it. Rook has his arrows hidden. They both sleep with one eye open in case the other tries anything at night. And that’s just the beginning.

Idia and Malleus were good choices to be roommates at least. Malleus is respectful of Idia’s privacy, and Idia never says much to Malleus. Idia is mainly just missing Ortho.

Lilia is rooming with Cater and Trey and he hates it. Sure, they’re great people... But he can’t seem to play tricks on them! They’re always just so chipper, and they laugh off the tricks instead of getting angry! What does he have to do to get some amusement out of these two?!

Even outside of their rooms, Leona and Vil are at each other’s throats. The rest of the temporary dorm can feel the tension throughout the entire building.

Zahir and Rook both look like death. They haven’t gotten a full night of sleep since they were assigned to the same room. But they have to be vigilant!

Lilia would have hated this experiment were it not for the fact that it forced the Savanaclaw and Pomefiore third years into close proximity. Watching them drive each other insane was excellent entertainment!

Malleus is just about ready to use every ability in his arsenal to make Vil, Leona, Zahir, and Rook stop fighting for even five minutes.

Idia is holed up in his room as always. He wants nothing to do with any dumb feud.

Every day for all fourteen days consists of verbal smack downs between Vil and Leona and ACTUAL smack downs between Zahir and Rook. Rook’s rib is broken and Zahir has a hole in his arm from an arrow.

In the end...

The first years had some mixed feelings about going back to their old dorms. It was really peaceful in this new dorm, and it was way easier to focus on studying without the chaos of the old dorms.

The second years were a mixed bag. Jamil had a lot of fun harassing the twins, and having Ruggie around was a blessing when he needed rest. Kalim was glad to go back to rooming with Jamil, and he got a new friend out of this! Floyd and Jade were so fucking happy to finally get away from the dad jokes. Ruggie was going to miss having a roommate who actually helped him out. Riddle was glad to go back to being in charge. Azul and Silver didn’t really mind either way.

The third years were just glad to have gotten out alive.

[amillionsmiles]

checking (you) out (Pidge/Lance)

Summary: Katie works the tech desk at the university library. Lance never remembers to wipe his memory card before returning the camera equipment, which is how she becomes intimately familiar with his life via, of all things, his vlogs. A/N: finally get to post this in full!  Written for @plance-zine ; it was wonderful to be part of such a project, and shoutout to the mods for keeping everything running smoothly! :)

[Read and review here] or continue under the cut.

People, Katie has decided, are predictable.  Watch them for long enough, and their everyday motions start to read like clockwork.  At 9 AM on Thursdays, she shows up for her shift behind the library’s tech desk. At 9:20, the girl with space buns and an artfully distressed jean jacket strides in, heading straight for one of the study pods.  At 9:25, somebody blows through the doors in a last-minute effort to print materials for their 9:30 class. And at 10:50, ten minutes before Katie’s shift ends, Lance McClain shows up, laboring under the weight of a camera bag, backpack, and tripod.

Katie reaches for the scanner as Lance puffs his way toward her, depositing the tripod on the table with a heavy clunk.   It takes him another minute to locate his student ID card: he checks the pocket of his cargo jacket first (not there—it never is) before wriggling his fingers into his jean pocket instead.  When he hands the plastic over, it’s warm from being pressed against his thigh.  

Katie spares it a passing glance as she pulls up the ‘Equipment Return’ form, filling in the requisite information.

“You’re good to go.”  She gives him a thumbs-up, careful not to look him straight in the eye.

“Cool, thanks.” Flashing a bright grin, Lance backpedals toward the doors, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.  

Once he’s disappeared completely from view, Katie unzips the camera bag. She flicks the dial to on and goes straight to display mode.  Sure enough, the schmuck hasn’t bothered wiping the memory card.  

Smirking, Katie kicks her feet up on the table and leans back in her chair.  

Let the entertainment begin.

o.O.o

Lance McClain does not know her name, and Katie is completely content with this.  She applied for her gig at the tech desk specifically because it required minimal human interaction.  Nobody expects her to make conversation; they just want to check out equipment and leave.  Occasionally she has to troubleshoot a printer jam or direct tourists to the bathrooms; most of the time, though, she just does her homework and gets paid.

Still, when someone visits at least twice a week, it’s hard not to notice.  The first time Lance left recording footage behind on the camera had sparked her interest, and from there it wasn’t too hard to find his YouTube channel, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Which was how she knew that he was a second-year bio major with a side-job at the Starbucks in the Garrison, the student union, and in his free time he liked to record himself attempting to do stunts with his skateboard, if not narrating a funny story about his day or answering the call of things like the Cinnamon Challenge.  

Katie and Keith had gotten halfway through that video before Keith closed her laptop.

“I can’t watch you do this to yourself,” Keith said, shaking his head.  “Katie, you’re too good for him.”

“I’m hate-watching!” Katie justified, attempting to wrestle her Chromebook from Keith’s grip.  

“You know way too much about him to just be ‘hate-watching,’” said Keith, making air quotes with his left hand.  “You have his student ID number memorized.”

Katie glared.  She regretted letting that piece of information slip.  Memorizing Lance’s ID hadn’t even been intentional—it’d only happened because of how many times she’d typed his information into the system during checkout.  

“You go to office hours just so you can breathe the same air as your TA for an extra 120 minutes,” she retorted.  “You don’t get to lecture me on sad.”

Anyways.  All of this is to say that despite what Keith thinks, she does not have a weird, borderline crush-fascination with Lance.  And when she stumbles into Green Library’s 24-hr study room at 3 AM to work on a CS project, he’s the last person she’s expecting to see.

Lance is slouched in a swivel chair, earbuds plugged into the desktop in front of him.  One dangles loosely around his neck, the other shoved in his ear. Upon hearing someone else enter, he lurches to attention.  Katie pretends not to notice—she fully intends to sit on the other side of the room—but Lance doesn’t give her the chance.

“Hey!  You’re tech-desk girl!”

It’s a dumb nickname.  Definitely not something to get excited about, and Katie schools her features to reflect that.  She’s above all… this. Unaffected. “I have a name.”

A quirk of the lips.  Lance somehow manages to hook an ankle around the chair closest to him and spins it so the seat faces toward her, an offering.  “Wanna tell it to me?”

It’s uncannily close to the Pick-up Line Challenge video he posted to his account a month ago.  Katie tries not to think too hard about that.

“What’s in the thermos?” she asks instead, setting her backpack down and warily accepting the chair.  

“Redbull and coffee.”  Lance’s leg bounces under the table, fingers tapping a jittery rhythm on the keyboard.  “Wanna try some?”

“No thanks.  It sounds unholy.”

“Oh, it is.  Definitely a personal low, but sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”  As he gulps his strange concoction, Lance’s face wrinkles, throat flexing as if he’s swallowed a frog.  “God, this is like… sacrilege for me.” His voice lowers, confiding. “I’m a barista.”

“I know,” blurts Katie.  Immediately after, she freezes, hoping that the comment will drop unnoticed.

No such luck.  Lance raises an eyebrow, questioning.  A strange light has entered his eyes; by admitting that she’s paid attention to him, Katie has suddenly become the sole focus of his attention.  

How much to admit?  Best to be blunt—rip it off like a bandaid.  The best defense is offense, and all that.

“You never delete your videos off the camera before you return it,” she says.

Whatever explanation Lance had been anticipating, this one catches him off guard.  His face contorts as he tries to process the information. “I—my videos?”

It’s almost too easy, slipping into the impersonation.  “Hey guys, it’s ya boi Lance, and today I’ll be—”

“Okay, okay.”  Lance waves his hands, cutting her off.  “Please do not continue.”

“I thought you’d be flattered hearing your own lines back at you.”

“Not like that, it’s weird!  You make me sound like a tool.”  He sighs. “Well, now I’m disappointed.”  

Katie frowns.  “Why?”

“I don’t know! I thought it’d be cool if you knew stuff about me because I was like, your secret Starbucks crush or something.”  At this, he shoots her a hopeful look.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“We sell other stuff.  Also, you still haven’t told me your name.”

“It’s Katie,” she finally relents, breaking eye contact to pull her laptop out of her bag.  When she looks over again, Lance is resting his chin on his hand, staring at her thoughtfully.

“What.”

“So does this mean you subscribe to my YouTube channel?”

“No.”

Lance pouts.  “Why not?”

“I like the raw footage better.  It’s funnier. Like the first take of the spicy noodle challenge, where you spewed milk out of your nose?  Classic.” She cranes her neck to look over his shoulder. “What are you working on, anyways?”

“Nothing!” Lance pushes his body between her and the screen, the broad line of his back blocking her view.  

“Doesn’t sound like nothing if you’re being like that.”

“Hey, haven’t you heard about this thing called privacy?  4th Amendment! Search and seizure! Gimme back the mou— ow!”

Years of wrestling with Matt has made Katie adept at underhanded maneuvers; with Lance still rubbing his side from where she pinched him, she takes control of the mouse and opens up the window he’d minimized earlier.  Onscreen, several scenes are being recolored and spliced together; she recognizes the footage from earlier today.

“Do you always make your videos on the school computers?”

“I have my own laptop. It’s just shitty and will only run like, 2 programs at a time, and all that’s being directed towards a stats project right now.”  Lance eyes her sideways. “Hey, what major are you? Or, wait—are you a freshman? Have you even declared yet—”

“I’m a sophomore.  Computer science and math.”

“Ah, the double major.”  Lance nods, then puffs out his chest.  “Guess what I am.”

Common sense tells Katie that she should play dumb.  Let him have the satisfaction of correcting her. But her overwhelming need to prove she knows things wins out.

“Pre-med bio.”

Lance blinks.  “Wow, first guess.”  His surprise turns sly.  “You do have a crush on me.”

Katie rolls her eyes.  “Don’t flatter yourself.  All it takes is a quick LinkedIn search.”

“Yeah, but you only fully read through someone’s LinkedIn when you’re a) hiring or b) evaluating their bae potential.  It’s okay—” he holds up a hand, cutting off her protest, “—I’m honored, truly.”

“You’re ridiculous.”  This entire interaction has gone so far off the rails, she doesn’t know how to begin redirecting it.  Lance, meanwhile, shifts focus easily, pulling a camera out of his backpack and popping the lens cap off with practiced ease.  The next thing Katie knows, it’s pointed at her, Lance narrating: “You’ve heard of Sleepless in Seattle, but we’re here with Sleepless in the Study Room, guest-starring my new friend Katie!”

“What—who said we were friends?” says Katie, trying to duck out of the frame.  Lance is an unerring videographer, though; he follows every motion.  Backed into a corner, Katie swats at the lens before remembering that it’s from the tech desk and, therefore, her responsibility.  She stays her hand.

“We’ve been talking for over half-an-hour,” Lance says, flashing his phone at her, where 3:30 AM makes itself known in thin white strokes.  “I’d say that counts for something.”

His smile is bright and close.  It’s probably the lack of sleep that’s making her loopy, but the feeling underneath her skin is not unlike a sugar rush.  

“I guess,” she says.

o.O.o

She regrets everything the next morning.  The minute she gets behind the tech desk, Katie thumps her head down and starts calculating. If she naps in ten minute increments, maybe she’ll recuperate some of her lost sleep and still manage to do her job.

The hours crawl by slowly.  At 10:50, the characteristic whoosh of the automatic doors awakens her from her latest sleep cycle, and from somewhere above, an entirely too chipper voice says: “You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

“This is your fault,” Katie groans, raising her chin to glower at Lance.  “Because of you, I got distracted, and then I had to stay up even later to finish coding.”

“I know, I was there.  You are a very aggressive programmer, by the way.”

“Just pass over your card so I can check this equipment back in,” she grumbles, wiggling her fingers in demand.  Instead, though, Lance curls her fingers around a warm paper cup.

Katie stares at it blankly.  “I told you I didn’t drink coffee.”

“It’s my special blend,” Lance insists.  “You’ll like it, promise.”

“Yeah, well, it’s going to have to wait ten minutes,” sighs Katie, pushing it to the side and heaving the camera and tripod over the desk. “I’m not allowed to have drinks back here.  On-duty policy.”

“Then I’ll keep it safe in the meantime,” says Lance, snatching it back.  “I’ll just be over here.”

Katie watches him stake out a table.  Blinks a few times, to confirm that he’s still there.  This isn’t part of their usual routine. It feels strange but not entirely unwelcome.  

When she flicks to the camera’s memory card, it’s clean.  That’s weird, too—that they actually had a fully fledged conversation, and he took something she said to heart.  In fact, the other night, she’s pretty sure she made him laugh. And there’d been a moment, where Lance had tipped his head back, eyes crinkling, and Katie had thought: shit, maybe Keith had been onto something after all.

When her shift ends, she heads over to the table that Lance has staked out.  In characteristic Lance fashion, he’s already found a way to unfold himself over all the available space: backpack slung over the back of an empty chair, feet kicked up on the seat opposite him.  Katie nudges them aside as she sits down, reaching over to grab her coffee, and Lance’s face brightens.

“By the way, your earbuds aren’t plugged in completely,” she says, sipping her drink.  Lance, despite only knowing her from their interactions the night before, has somehow guessed at her sweet tooth, and the foamy latte goes down easily.  “Nice music.”

Lance rips the buds from his ears, gaping down at his phone in horror. Onscreen, a disturbingly animated baby waves its arms, singing, Yes papa, as a banjo strums in the background.  Katie marks that down as another piece of information on Lance: listens to educational children’s music in his free time.

“In my defense, it’s for a project.”

“Sure it is,” she says, slapping Lance’s hand away when he tries to grab the coffee back in retaliation, and it’s so natural to mess with him like this, to laugh and call him noodle arms and have everybody else glare at them for being disruptive.

I think it counts for something, Lance had said the other night.

Something, indeed.  

[wordsablaze]

(6) At Least The Fatigue Is Real

Stubbornly In Love Magnus and Alec are two beautiful souls that both happen to be in love, heartbroken, and painfully stubborn. An angsty malec fic prompted by this lovely soul, chapter 6-10 done as part of the Malec Big Bang! Enjoy!

A/N: Help out? Posting week is here so I’m back! Mostly thanks to my astonishingly wonderful beta @zeejade88 as she went above and beyond with tolerating me and making everything better <333 Check out the incredible art that @dmsilvisart made, I am honoured to have worked with her for this fic and to have received such magical artwork! <3

It’s a good thing Alec’s tears aren’t the source of rain because otherwise the entire world would be flooding at an alarming rate.

He can’t think past Magnus and how he’d left. Of course, he knows Magnus had only left because Alec had asked, but that doesn’t make it any easier for his heart. There’s a part of him that wishes he could just go back, back to when he didn’t know Magnus and when becoming the head of the Institute was his biggest concern, but he knows that’s impossible no matter how much he wants it not to be.

But, on the other hand, he doesn’t want to think about Magnus right now because he’s having dinner with Maryse in less than a quarter of an hour and the last thing he wants is for her to find out they’ve broken up, which is why he finds himself standing in front of the bathroom mirror and breathing heavily, trying to persuade himself that he’s okay.

“You can do this. No big deal. All you have to do is pretend everything’s fine. You’ve done it before and you can do it again. You can do this.”

His reflection seems unconvinced; he’s tempted to punch the helplessly truthful mirror.

Glaring at himself doesn’t seem to have the same effect as when he glares at others so he gives up on it after another minute, just sighing and running a hand through his hair instead. Almost immediately, he groans, opens the tap, wets his hands, and tries to make himself look like he hadn’t only changed clothes because of this family dinner. Somehow, the whole thing takes ten minutes so he’s only just satisfied with his appearance when Izzy bursts in, radiating concern.

“What if I’d been naked, Izzy?” Alec asks, rolling his eyes at her fearless behaviour.

Izzy scoffs. “I’ve seen much worse than you, get over yourself. Now, if you’re done preening, we have a mother to entertain.”

“I was not preening!” Alec argues as she tugs on his arm, then all but drags him to the front entrance.

Oh no.

Maryse is armed with a bottle of wine and a giddy smile, which can’t be good. The last time she’d turned up in this kind of state, Magnus had been the only one who could keep up with her and coax her away from drinks and towards mindless chatter and rest instead.

“Izzy…” Alec murmurs, his tone saying everything he’d rather not. That and the fact that Izzy seems to have an inbuilt Alec-translator means she perfectly understands what he’s thinking in a heartbeat.

Izzy swallows but blinks away her frown. “We can do this. Come on, where’s that stupid determination of yours? I bet you Clary’s next brownie batch that she’ll hug you first.”

Alec makes a face but then they’re too close to Maryse for him to say anything without being overheard so he plasters a smile onto his face and takes the bottle from her hands. “Hey, Mom.”

“My children!” Maryse smiles brightly before hugging them both in turn, Alec first just as Izzy had predicted, the scent of coconut flooding through the door as she walks through.

“We made stew!” Izzy tells Maryse as they walk towards the room they’d turned into a dining room a couple of weeks back since nobody ever used it for anything else and family time had suddenly become much more common, to everyone’s pleasant surprise.

Not wanting Maryse to reply with something borderline insulting and spark yet another nostalgic debate, Alec adds: “Don’t worry, it’s the new and upgraded version.”

“Oh, thank the angel,” Maryse breathes in relief.

Izzy makes an indignant sound. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad!”

She gets only a hum in reply but, thankfully, they reach the dining room before they can start another argument over the quality of their childhood attempts at cooking. Alec opens the door and lets the other two in before following them, shutting the door behind him to keep away prying eyes or nosy ears.

The first round of stew is accompanied by flickering conversation topics that Alec mostly tunes out. It’s only when they refill their ridiculously small bowls – the size of which is the only reason that they’re having more than one serving in the first place – that things go slightly south.

“So, Alec, how’s Magnus? Busy with a client, I presume?” Maryse asks, a smile on her face that Alec really doesn’t want to sabotage.

Naturally, he does one of the things he’s best at: he keeps pretending. “Yeah, it was an urgent request. In fact, I forgot to tell you, he sends his apologies for not being able to make it.”

Izzy gives him an odd look but doesn’t contradict him, going with it. “Good thing too, he’d probably have stolen bigger bowls with the excuse of being fabulous and gotten us in trouble again.”

“Again?” Maryse echoes, raising an eyebrow and sipping her drink.

It’s not a secret that Alec himself occasionally indulges in and appreciates alcohol but, right now, he couldn’t hate it more. He just really wants to stop talking about Magnus and pretend that this is just another casual dinner rather than the only reason Alec is talking to anybody else in the first place.

“Well, there was that time we had a stray cat problem and, instead of helping relocate them, all Magnus did was magic us some bowls and cat litters,” Izzy says, rolling her eyes and effectively covering for Alec’s internal distress.

Maryse just laughs, throwing her head back as she imagines the scene. Alec offers a small chuckle as Izzy takes the lead in their conversation, the two siblings fully shocked when Maryse starts to tell them her own stories about Magnus. Alec listens with a troubled interest, not sure whether he should listen to the tales of his boyfriend- no, his ex-boyfriend’s adventures after jeopardising their relationship’s ability to fix itself.

Regardless of his ever-growing guilt, he listens and finds himself smiling at the crazy things Magnus has done. It makes him want to go and see Magnus’ mannerisms for himself, to go and build his own stories with Magnus, but, mostly, to just go, go away from this situation and cry in his room again.

“Alec, are you alright?” Maryse asks, apparently finally seeing through his pretence.

He smiles as brightly as he can, not wanting to worry her. “I’m fine, Mom. Just a little tired, it was a long day.” And he’s not exactly lying. It was a long day and he is utterly tired, just not for the reasons Maryse is probably thinking.

“You can say that again,” Izzy says under her breath, smirking a little.

Maryse smiles at him, then waves a hand. “You can go and rest if you need to. It’s been a while since Isabelle and I have had some quality girl talk anyway…”

Izzy genuinely snorts, then covers it up with a cough, but nobody could miss the shine in her eyes at those words. It’s been halfway to forever since they’ve had anything close to girl talk and Alec really wants to be happy for her, he does, but he can’t pull his mind out of the time he’s spent with Magnus. He still smiles, though, yawning to authenticate his fatigue and just about managing a decent wave before he leaves, walking faster than he’d thought he could.

By the time he gets to his room, he’s too tired to change his clothes so he just pulls his socks off – a habit he’d picked up from seeing Magnus remove his socks before bed so many times – and flicks the light he’d left on earlier, off. His happiness, patience, and concentration might have been fabricated but his lack of energy is genuine and even he knows he can’t fake his way out of that one.

“Nnnggghhhhh,” he groans after taking two more steps, promptly flopping onto the mattress face-down; pretending is way more tiring than people can ever know. And if he falls asleep cuddling his pillow as if it’s a certain warlock, well, nobody will ever know that either.

like/reblog but don’t respot, thanks!

[a-curious-wednesday]

Today! On Unpopular Opinions: Destiny 2, Warmind

Destiny 2′s newest DLC, Warmind is borderline trash.  Now, when I pre-ordered it, I, initially, went through the usual rigmarole.  Foolishly placing my hopes and expectations that this $20 DLC would right all the wrongs that have plagued D2 since its outset, and then coming to the cold realization that by the time Bungie was willing to entertain listening to its Destiny fanbase, Warmind was likely all-but completed.  Meaning that it would either be the same as DLC1, Fall of Osiris or negligibly better.

I realize there’s a lot of reasons for this.  Bungie agreed to a ridiculous content schedule with Activision, where they were forced to pump out new content and games on a schedule that disallows for proper development and growth.  That, the new direction of Destiny is Call of Duty w/Space Losers.  That, because, for the second time, Bungie changed D2′s game direction in the eleventh hour; brought in new people who did not understand the lore or what the game was supposed to be, etc, etc, etc.

And yet, here we are.

The campaign Warmind is alright.  And I mean that in the loosest of senses of the term ‘alright.’  I have many problems with its story direction. Some of them, a lot of you have previously heard before: silent protagonist, uptight, kiss-ass ghost, stiff character development.  There are other issues I take up, however. Issues that just left me scratching my fucking head in a general mystified and annoyed manner. (Note: there be spoilers)

1)  Once again your Guardian follows along with some half-assed plan to save the universe. (Which, if I’m being honest, the Universe never felt threatened during Warmind.  It’s more of a, “hey, can you help me get rid of these guys who’re crashing my place? They smell bad, eat all my food, don’t clean up after themselves and are generally ungrateful jerks.”)  This plan, borders the epitome of asinine, mind you. It amounts to:

Zavala: “Hey, let's take a piece of the Traveller and bait this giant-ass snake-god thing.”

Ghost/Guardian: “...”

Ana: “Then, what?” (Ana, who is suddenly an expert in the Hive asks curiously.  Meanwhile, your ghost, who should have wised up and remembered that you fought ORYX, the Black Garden, Skolas, SIVA (which, were, generally betterish plans) should have had concerns.)

Zavala: “We wing it.”

Ghost/Guardian: “...”  (Both of you should have protested, citing how we winged it with the Almighty and Ghaul and that didn’t really work out.  The Almighty is still slowly destroying Mercury, but NOBODY mentions that.  The next time you’re on Mercury, stop what you’re doing and look around.  The planet is still being ripped to chunks and pulled into the Almighty.)

Ana: “What?  We could use Rasputin--”

Zavala: “No! Absolutely not.”

We use Rasputin.  

How?  His “relic weapon” a super-heated/conductive spear that we literally chuck at a god.  I mean, why not, right?  We took down Oryx who was (pre-”established D1 canon is hearsay and folklore and not fact”) literally the strongest God we’ve fought since the quasi-para-casual tentacle thing that was supposed to represent the Darkness embodied.  At least, in the Black Garden, they had the good sense to have us beat the damn god by proxy.  Defeating Xol was just lazy writing. He’s a fucking Worm God!  You know, the thing, Auresh/Oryx took/consumed to become the taken King and literally lead the Hive out of the Fundament/Deep.

But, hey, it’s cool in the end. After all, Xol was the weakest, puniest Worm God of the bunch.  It's not like it/he had power only rivaled by the OTHER WORM GODS. Let’s chuck a nuclear spear at it.  That’ll kill it. Because science!!

2)  Your Guardian is sent to the Deep/Fundament by a fucking God.  Xol literally transports you to another plane of existence, cutting you off from the Traveller’s Light (because your plan is so asinine) in order to kill you slowly.  Mind you, this place is a horror show of horror shows. The Deep makes Hell look like a vacation to Mazatlan. There are things there that preyed on the Krill/Hive, things that we, humans and guardians could not comprehend without the Books of Sorrow/Toland.

Do you understand the wasted potential for story this was? It was monumental.  Monumental! Me, an Exo, was transported to the Hell of Hells by a literal God, because I wasn’t worth its time.  I’m there, floating around for, I don’t know, minutes? My annoying ghost is freaking out. Meanwhile, Xol has had enough of our shit.  He’s gone to destroy Rasputin (which, he might have done anyway, but hey, nothing like 3rd party intervention to up the timetable). With the Warmind removed from the gameboard, Xol has a clearer line to solar conquest.  Why? Dunno, it's never mentioned why a God would wish to conquer Sol. It never really seemed to care that the Traveller slept above Earth before it awoke.

It didn’t seem to care that the Traveller had.

Meanwhile, my Exo titan is floating in something that vaguely looks like blood.  There’s some weird stills of probably torture? Good thing, I’m an Exo. Don’t feel pain, because robot.  Don’t need to breathe or eat, because robot. Don’t get tired, because robot. And, then, miraculously, my guardian climbs up from a crevasse, obviously drained and near death.  My ghost is quick with the first aid and I’m good to go.

...Seriously?  Okay.  Okay. I can kind of see how that works if your guardian is an Exo.  Because robot.  But, human?  Awoken?  How?  Just how?  You were in literal mortal danger *again*.  Presumably, you needed to figure out what the Hellscape the Deep was and how to navigate it. You would need a way back to your native dimension, which would require you to seek aid from the natives.  Except, the natives have never seen your kind and they all want to kill you. And this would take time. Somehow, against all odds, you find someone who’ll help you escape and you make the journey together, because let's be realistic: there’s always that one person who knows the way, but was too chickenshit to go it alone.  That person dies getting you to the “portal” which’ll take you back to your dimension. By the way, you’ve got no Ghost. No Light. Limited ammo. No food. Nothing to repair your weapons and armor. No oxygen to breathe.

Somehow, you climb your way out, just like the Kratos climbed out of Hades.  Or, from an actual literary standpoint how Orpheus and Eurydice.  Dante and Virgil.

Except, not, because you get treated to a 30 second cut-scene of flashing images and your guardian clawing their way up a crevasse.

Kudos, Bungie.  Good job.  If the fanbase of Mass Effect could flip shit over the ending of ME3 to such a degree that they had the game’s actual ending redone (via post-production patch that was FREE) to better please them and work with the meta of the MEU, what do you think the fanbase of Destiny will do?  Don’t answer.  I know its buy shit from Eververse.

3)  Rasputin.  The titular reason we’re even on Mars.  The whole reason Anastasia Bray (Clever, Bungie.  Clever.  Rasputin and Anastasia.) has gone to the Hellas Basin.  She didn’t go there to go home. Not really. She went there to connect to a thing that she built that transcended all known laws and bounds.  It was alive, but alive in a Godly sense. Not bound by the constructs of Human morality.  Oh no.   Ana might not initially know for sure why she was drawn to Clovis Bray.  Sure, she awoke to her second life with her name badge on her person. And then was summarily told not to investigate her past. As if she were an Exo or concerned about DER.  She might not have consciously known she was seeking Rasputin, but she always was.

Meanwhile, Rasputin is a God, created by man to protect Us All.  Given sovereign to do so as he saw fit. Think about that. Think about Humanity as a whole currently.  In what universe would all of Humanity greenlight the creation of something like this? Never mind that, think about Humanity collectively since the dawn of science fiction writing.  When has it ever benefited Humanity to place their safety in the hands of others? My Skynet senses are tingling. But, wait, it's okay guys. Moon X/the Traveller is here! None of us understand what it is, but let’s go meet it.  While they’re doing that, let’s sanction a civilian company to build a guardian that thinks for itself, learns independently, is prudent, wise and plays the long game. Let’s make it so its not bound by Human morality so it can make the hard choices, us Humans would flinch at.  Nobody knows how a Moon is moving on its own or terraforming whole planets!  But, we’ll put our faith in a machine.

By the way, none of us truly understands or can comprehend this thing that we’ve built.  Oh, and there’s no way for is to. All of which, happened during the Golden Age, before the Collapse.  Interestingly GA mankind already knew of the Vex, so most likely reverse engineered Vex tech went into the creation of Rasputin.

Oh, and it's just Rasputin.  Whose always been on Mars. Sure, they retcon/bungiesplain it away well enough, but still.  Where the hell is Charlemagne, Jys or Virgil? It was established that Charlemagne was the Warmind of Mars, but now its a submind.  They’re all Submind. In other words, the children of Rasputin.  Story potential!

...Never mind, that’s not D2’s development team’s prerogative.

Fast forward to the present and Rasputin has become active because the Traveller has awoken.  His old foe, his biggest threat. The one thing Rasputin still doesn’t comprehend. Its awake/alive again.  Its parasites (guardians) have been doing a terrible job of policing Sol and protecting Humanity. Not their fault, their still human.  Rasputin was fine with letting the parasites struggle. It could focus on (presumably) the triangle ships, holding back the Red Legion, Eliksni colony convoys, Tomb convoys and other nightmares.  It was smart, cunning. Playing a very real and deadly game of chess. He couldn’t reveal too much of his might or himself, that would draw unwanted attention. Then the Traveller awoke and the rules changed.  So, he throws off his disguise and swings into full production/activity. Warsats activate that have been dormant for centuries. Orbital strikes occur all throughout Sol, hammering the Legion, Hive, Vex, Fallen, Taken.  And Xol thaws.

Yet, still, Rasputin is incomprehensible to us.  And we, “the” guardian, aid a shortsighted, single-minded Doctor in unshackling it. Yup, we did that.  Nearly killed him in the process, but we did the damn thing.  Doesn’t matter, though, in the end, right?  Because Rasputin is a machine, built for us.  Except, not.  No.  He’s more than that now.  Now, Rasputin is completely Free and he proclaims that he’s going to protect his ants.  Yeah. Good job, Ana.  Oh, and Zavala still has complete faith and trust in us.  Despite!  Despite having solid reservations in utilizing Rasputin.  Despite the fact that we ignored our Commander and leader.  It’s cool, though, right?  We’re celebrity status.  We’ve taken down 2, count ‘em, 2 Gods.  Crota was a Demigod at best.  (But, he got his own Raid... Nokris.)

Does Anastasia know this?  Nope.  She never mentions it. Never mentions Oryx or Crota or the Black Garden or how we did what no one else could.  And we did it with no plan and 3 to six other insane guardians with annoying, uptight ghosts.  To her, we’re just a guardian with a ghost that has a stick up its USB port.  Weird, right?  We’re Iron Lords for crying out loud!  Young Wolves. Bounty Hunters for the Reef Queen.  Prison of Elder gaolers.  Emissaries of the Cult of Osiris and now the Nine.  Oh, and some of us are Faction Heralds.  Standard Bearers for Dead Orbit, Future War Cult or New Monarchy.  If you got the exotic class item from DO, FWC or NM in D1, youse a Herald and Standard Bearer.

Is there ever mention of this?  Nope.

4)  The Hive finally gets snipers/sharpshooters and shield-wielding swordsman.  Both of which seem like obvious no-brainers to have always been incorporated.  Except!   That goes against the Sword Logic. So, sincerely, you get a plus for adding them to the heretical, “cowardly” faction of the Hive. 

Question for you, though. Why would you knowingly (God, I hope it was knowingly) honor previous canon in this instance, but not with others? Like, where Xol is concerned?  Or the Deep/Fundament? Or Rasputin? Why the cherry picking?

5)  Why even bother naming yellow-bar area and mission bosses or units if you won’t bother explaining who they are, what they do and what they want?   Because, I honestly, lost interest in reading the named enemies once I realized there was no information about them in or out of the game.

From a Gameplay standpoint, it's what you’d expect from Destiny 2.  Up-tempoed action with moments of intensity and hopeful triumph.  If you play smartly, it rewards you. If you overextend yourself, prepare to get ganked.  Horribly. Progression is more inline with its predecessor, which might make the casuals pause.  Thankfully, it isn’t like Day 1, Vanilla Destiny, where it was impossible to reach Light Level Cap solo and without completing Raid/Nightfalls.  Except, no one would take you if you didn’t have G-horn or Icebreaker. Ah, the Good ol’ days of the Grind and the Loot Caves.  My point? The action is more reminiscent to that feel, just with all the current bells and whistles, which is a good thing.

Exotic weapons finally feel fucking worthwhile.  I played the whole Warmind Campaign with the combination of Sweet Business and Actium War Rig and I absolutely love it!  Add the Galliard-42 or the Kibou AR3 for some added fun and thrills. Pairing the Tractor Cannon with Sentinel is immensely satisfying.  That punk, Nokris didn’t stand a chance. And neither did his minions. Melts the opposition. Plus, its just really satisfying to watch 5 charging Knights (with sword and/or shield) get punted halfway across the room or into a wall or over a ledge.  I finally feel like how those damned Taken Phalanxes must feel. The Borealis is a fun choice, too. Although, I haven’t spent much time with it. The payoff for matching damage types and busting shields is well worth it.

The added cosmetic gear is neat.  My new favorite jumpship, hands down, is Currus Gloriae XLII.  As a Titan, having a spaceship that looks like it can go to war and do some damage is a welcomed plus.  The sparrow, Azure Azazyel looks really awesome. Even though it doesn’t have an interesting contrail effect, it still is fun to ride.  It feel like it belongs in Akira or Bladerunner and I dig it.  What I’ve seen from the new emblems, they’re decent.  

The updated effects of the new guns is much needed. Dragonfly on an autorifle?  Yes, please. Rampage on a Handcannon that you don’t have to grind for? I’ll take it.  The new Ghost shells are blase at best. The emote wheel is a nice touch, but seems a bit late.

Hoo boy, Override Frequencies and Memory Fragments.  Gotta hand it to you there, Bungie. I could not figure out how to get those until you unlocked them.  And those Fragments? I didn’t even figure out how to unlock them. Or I did, but it didn’t work?  Don’t try shooting them until after you unlock Hellas Basin.  Found that out by accident.  Thank you, random Guardian who was just shooting at a ledge!

So, like I said on the outset: Warmind, as an expansion is alright bordering on trash.  It is entirely redeemed in its Gameplay, but woefully drops the ball where the story is concerned.  Is it worth the $20? Eh. You’d probably still be better off waiting for the comet expansion to drop and for Bungie/Activision to repackage and re-release Destiny 2 this fall/winter.  There will be some that will find it a $20 well spent and others who won’t, who’ll swear off the franchise completely.  As for me? Its an investment. Like investing in Roseart and hoping they turn into Crayola. One day, they just might.

[jezfletcher]

Oscars 2018

Can you believe that this year I managed to see every single Oscar-nominated film? I'm actually kind of impressed with myself. It's no small undertaking, especially because due to schedules of a toddler-related nature, in 2017 I had much less opportunity to watch films regularly. I did get out every now and again, and I took time off work to attend the Sydney Film Festival, which was a helpful event, in the end, with regards to my Oscars viewing. But mostly, these 44 feature films and 15 shorts were watched in the past month or so. Anyway, for the first time ever, here's my writeup of all the Oscar-nominated films of the past year, in order from my favourite to least favourite:

1. On Body & Soul (A Teströl és Lélekröl)

Directed by Ildikó Enyedi

Leading the pack this Oscars year is perhaps something of an unexpected entry. This is Hungary's submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, which I happened to see at the Sydney Film Festival earlier in the year. At that festival, it both took out my own personal Film Of The Festival, and was awarded the top competition award, the Sydney Film Prize. And there's a strong reason for that, because this is a wonderful, haunting film. It tells the story of two emotionally lost, and perhaps incomplete individuals, who connect when they discover that they've been sharing dreams at night. It's an odd premise, made odder by the unconventional nature of the characters, but it's utterly endearing and compelling at the same time. A lot of this is to do with director Ildikó Enyedi's style. She manages to make the film seem both ephemeral and engaging—I was drawn into the world with a kind of unforgiving compulsion, and yet when I was there it was alien, pushing me away. And so I revelled in it. The cinematography helps here too, with DP Máté Herbai finding beauty in both the dreamscape of the snowy forests where the two protagonists meet, and in the industrial brutalism of the slaughterhouse where they work. Overall, I found it a truly quite brilliant film, and it holds a very worth place at the top of this list. It might be a bit outside the tastes of the Academy voters, but for me I think it would be an excellent winner of the Foreign Language Oscar.

2. Lady Bird

Directed by Greta Gerwig

This had so many promising elements to me, and it was with something of a sigh of relief that I finally saw it and enjoyed it as much as I did. This is indeed a great film made of great parts, and there's much to be said about how good it is in its depth. The eponymous Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan, an actress I always love on screen), is a high school senior, looking to escape from Sacramento when she goes to college next year. But she faces the fact that this is a less financially viable option than going to nearby UC Davis, and incredible pressure from her borderline abusive mother (Laurie Metcalf). There's so much to unpack in what could easily be a mediocre coming-of-age story. The layers in the family dynamics are rich, as is the development of the school world around Lady Bird. Her on-screen relationships, with first Danny (Lucas Hedges) and then Kyle (Timothée Chalamet) are achingly real, and touched with nostalgic regret. It feels like Greta Gerwig has put something really personal up on screen. Whether or not that's true is beside the point—she has managed to craft something that feels so real anyway. Nothing is out of place, and the characterisation is so believable that you feel following any one of these people would result in a fine film. That's honestly such a sign of quality for me. So yeah: I loved it. I'm aware it's the kind of film (black comic family drama, anyone?) that I'm kind of destined to love. But the fact that it ended up so good is wonderful—it really beat my expectations.

3. Get Out

Directed by Jordan Peele

I was so pleased when this got a nod for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It's the kind of cult hit that could very easily be overlooked. Perhaps not without some consternation from fans; but it's the kind of thing that could happen and it would fit neatly into the Academy's narrative. If you don't know the story, I won't say much except that it starts off with a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) travelling to meet his girlfriend's parents for the first time (played brilliantly by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener). It's a satire of race relations in a really quite astoundingly way, unpredictable to some extent because, oh yes, it's a horror movie too. This is the kind of film that you feel breaks down some kind of invisible barrier in filmmaking—something that's been there and has stopped films like this being made before, just because you didn't realise there could be a film like this. Now to be fair, what I probably call an "invisible" barrier is probably very apparent to someone with a different cultural background. Which is why we need films from diverse directors, and Jordan Peele's first effort here is genuinely, genuinely brilliant. (Just as an aside, I notice that my top three films this year are from two women and a person of colour—so it's not just that I feel like diversity should be improved for its own sake, although it should, it's just that I really, really like films like these. What else are we missing out on for the sake of another reboot of King Kong?) Anyway, long story short: this is a fabulous film, and one that you really just need to see to experience. It was probably one of the most clever things I've seen on screen this year, or in several years, and it's well worth your time.

4. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Directed by Martin McDonagh

I feel like the top four films have each been brilliant in their own inimitable way—like they're very much the top contender each in a different category. The way that they've ended up sorted is more about the intrinsic value in each category than comparing like-for-like films. Three Billboards probably falls into something like the "fun" category, which to anyone who's seen the film might consider an odd choice, since it deals with the aftermath of a murder, and explores themes of racism, grief and anger. But there's so much to enjoy here in Martin McDonagh's brilliant screenplay, which I feel is easily the equal to his previous hit In Bruges, a film that was one of my very favourite films the year it came out. It not only establishes a complex interaction of characters in this small town, but it provides a brilliant vessel for his stars to shine. Frances McDormand is rightly considered the frontrunner for Best Actress this year, and she gives an uncompromising performance as a woman driven by grief-fuelled vengeance. Sam Rockwell is also extremely good, oozing into his character with a charm that's compelling and disturbing. It feels like he's having a really good time with this character, which is equally enjoyable and worrying. This is not to mention amusing digressions from the likes of Peter Dinklage, John Hawkes and Caleb Landry Jones. Most importantly though, there's an arc to the tale here which manages to swing around the attitudes and motivations of these characters, while never letting them be anything other than anti-heroes. The character development is undeniable, but even as you empathise with them onscreen, you're constantly aware that they are still at heart horrible people. Compelling, undoubtedly, which is what makes the film so enjoyable, but morally corrupt in some way or another. This is true almost up until the very end of the film, when just a sliver of something human is tantalised. Yeah, I really, loved this film. Apparently, it's seen a fair bit of backlash since its release—I've read some of the critiques of it, and I just have to say I disagree. But that's the good thing about movies right? I'm going to love some, you're going to love others. For me, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a treat.

5. The Insult (L'insulte)

Directed by Ziad Doueiri

It was a good year for the Foreign Language oscar this year, and in another iteration, a film like this could well be on top. It tells the tale of two men, one a Lebanese Christian, deeply into fundamentalist and nationalistic politics, and the other a Palestinian refugee living in Beirut. After a minor incident involving one of them splashing water on the other, a series of escalating encounters pushes them into the courts, and finally onto the national stage. It's almost a comic film. It's certainly some kind of dark satire at least, which allows you to forgive the almost ridiculous ways in which it progresses, eventually becoming a lightning rod for simmering racial tensions in Lebanon. It's almost requisite of films coming out of the Middle East that they deal with tensions such as these, but often they are not done nearly as well as in Doueiri's work here. Moreover, for a film that's mostly set in a courtroom, it manages to plumb great emotional and narrative depths. It launches into politics, history and racism. It feels like an educational as well as an entertaining experience. This is only possible because it's always grounded in a kind of empathetic portrayal. While one of our players is clearly the Good Guy, and the other the Bad Guy—there's always enough light let in to the performances such that you can at least see the Bad Guy's point of view, which makes the redemption of sorts towards the end seem like a possibility. Overall, this was a really well crafted and very engaging film. As I said, it's up against some stiff competition this year, but overall, it was a thoroughly worthwhile experience, even if it's not going to get my nod in its category.

6. The Big Sick

Directed by Michael Showalter

A fine film, with a really sparkling script taken right out of the lives of the two screenwriters, Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani (who stars, effectively, as himself in the film). Kumail is a stand-up comedian who meets Emily (Zoe Kazan) after a set, and the two embark on a torrid relationship. But when Emily is forced into a medically-induced coma, Kumail has to deal with his emotions regarding what could have just been a fling. Add to the mix Kumail's efforts in avoiding his traditional Pakistani family's attempt to find him an arranged bride, and his wavering relationship with Emily's parents and you have a fine film. Emily's parents, by the way, who he meets for the first time at Emily's hospital bedside while she's comatose, are genuinely wonderfully portrayed on screen by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. It's an unusual kind of romantic comedy, which is stronger for the fact that it's based in such a true and fertile emotional place. They can layer on the comedy as much as they like, because there's such a perfect tragic core at its heart. It's never going to be seen as flippant. And this allows for those wonderful moments where scenes turn on a dime—one minute you're laughing uproariously, the next you're wincing in pain. It's a fine film to be able to do all of this, and I very much appreciate the skill with which this is executed. This is one of the films that I'd be very happy to get a surprise nod for screenplay, notwithstanding I probably have other films above it that I liked more overall.

7. Blade Runner 2049

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

I was extremely impressed with this film. It's a fine film in its own right, but more impressively, it was a film that managed to survive the weight of expectations from being the sequel to a science fiction classic. This is undoubtedly due, at least in part, to the work of the always fine Denis Villeneuve, who is a director I will follow into battle nowadays. He's doing such interesting work, and conducting an ensemble like this is no mean feat. He has excellent assistance, of course, and there's a reason why this is nominated in categories like Production Design and Cinematography. It manages to be both a coherent part of the original film's ethos, but also a bolkd new step. In many ways, I actually found this to be a more enjoyable film than the original. And this is despite the fact that close to three hours in length, this film is undoubtedly slow in places. But you forgive it. You wallow in this world. You wallow in the characters and the andante-paced story. This is a better filmn for its world-building than for its plot (much, I might add, like the Phillip K. Dick source material). I enjoyed it a great deal in any case, and I was perhaps a little awed at how they managed to so pull off something like this. I feel like I'm deeply skeptical of the recent Hollywood tradition of launching remakes, reboots, sequels and spin-offs. But a film like this shows that occasionally, maybe it works. I just hope that they see that as a testament to the crew involved in this film, and not the intrinsic quality of just reheating the old.

8. Coco

Directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina

I think this is the best Pixar film in some time, and as always when a Pixar film is good, it's due to its emotional depth. This tells the story of a young boy who wants to be a musician, and is accidentally sent to the land of the dead right before Diá de los Muertos. He has to find a way to return to the land of the living before the celebration. It's a fine film, and one that feels like it respects and embraces the Mexican traditions of the festival. Indeed, it has a depth that, to me as an outsider, felt like it was honouring these traditions, in a way that allowed me to understand them better. It manages to do this with a family-friendly story, and plenty of style, drawing on the skeletal folk traditions of the festival. It's also an emotional film, and by the end, you feel as though it's been building up everything for the emotional sucker punch. This is something that Pixar can do extremely well when the elements are right. A fine return to form after a few films that I don't think I even saw, and by all accounts were not very good. Pixar is a long way from the time when everything they produced was a hit, but with films like Coco, they show that they've still got it in them when they want it.

9. I, Tonya

Directed by Craig Gillespie

The story of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan is one that I vaguely remember from my childhood. It was a big news story at the time, but one that just got morphed and twisted over time. I, Tonya is the film that plays very much on the mythology of the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, providing a fractured but painfully sympathetic portrayal of its title character. I honestly found this film quite distressing in a bunch of ways. This is the second film on this list with an abusive mother-daughter relationship, but this is significantly more challenging, especially thanks to the powerhouse performance of Allison Janney as Harding's mother. This relationship is brutal, but so is Harding's co-dependent relationship on her violent husband Jeff (played by an unrecognisable Sebastian Stan). Margot Robbie too is extremely good in the lead role, although she makes the (perfectly valid) choice to make Harding less than ideally sympathetic. It's the right choice for the film, but it does add more of a grind to watching it. But it's a better portrayal, you feel, for who Harding was. When I first came out of this film, I wasn't actually sure if I'd liked it or hated it. But it's stuck with me to such a degree that I can't help but elevate it to a position like this in the list. I think, in the end, it's a very clever film, and manages to portray Tonya Harding in a way that might be very difficult to do in a more traditional milieu.

10. A Fantastic Woman

Directed by Sebastián Lelio

A really quite wonderful film, A Fantastic Woman tells the story of an aspiring singer (Daniela Vega), who struggles with the death of her partner, 30 years her senior, and the suspicion with which she is viewed by her partner's family after his death. In many ways, it's a fairly straight down the line drama. It uses the conflict between Marina and her partner's family as the backdrop to explore some issues, especially around transgender identity, but it's not shoving messages down your throat. Instead, it takes Vega's performance as Daniela in a very staid and understated way. This is all very intentional of course. It emphasises the fact that all Marina wants to do is to live her life. To be able to grieve over the death of her partner. To be not treated with suspicion, or subjected to brutality and degradation. She's just normal, but that makes her fantastic. Overall, I very much enjoyed this film. It was extremely well made, and fills out the field in an already packed and genuinely very good Foreign Language category this year. Again, this could have done well in another year.

11. The Florida Project

Directed by Sean Baker

I quite enjoyed Sean Baker's debut film Tangerine, but this film is a broadening of his artistic style, and ends up being a much better film for it. It once again focuses on a group on the edges of society, this time a community of people who live in gaudy motels on a highway strip just outside of Disneyworld in Florida. It's largely told through the eyes of the children who live here, in particular Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), who are left to explore their surroundings without much in the way of supervision—providing a surprisingly raw look at where a child's imagination will take them without boundaries. Supporting are the characters of Moonee's mother (Bria Vinai) and the manager of the motel in which they live (Willem Dafoe, who rightly earned his Oscar nomination for this film). It's in turns depressing and uplifting, as we see the struggle of the parents (who are by no means the sugar-coated ideal of noble poverty), and the ways in which the children learn to survive and to flourish. It does have the same kind of jerky cinematography that characterised Tangerine, although that was filmed on iPhones, but here there's still a sense of weird, garish beauty to the uber-kitsch motels and strip-malls of Florida. Somehow it works. It's a really interesting film, and certainly one that I feel as though I can recommend wholeheartedly—something I couldn't necessarily do with Tangerine. Sean Baker has certainly shown with this film at least that he's a director to watch in the future, and I'll certainly be doing that.

12. Loveless

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

This was the very last film I saw for the Oscars this year, so had the honour if wrapping up all the feature films. Like Zvyagintsev's other films, it's a chilly, minimalist affair, but like all of his previous ones it has an emotional impact that you'd not expect from its spare production. In this film, a family is undergoing a divorce. Both husband and wife have new partners waiting for them—one pregnant, one rich, aloof and used to their life as it is right now. Custody of their son would be a burden on either of them, and neither of them wants to accept him. Then, the son disappears. What follows is a typically emotionally bare and brutal undertaking from the director. It's almost merciless in its depiction of characters without warmth of spirit, and the consequences this eventually brings upon them. It's eerily beautiful too, set in the starkness of Moscow highrises and long snowy banks. Like the emotions it conjures, there's a bleakness to it, ably assisted by a minimalist soundtrack. I think this is maybe not as good as Zvyagintsev's pervious film Leviathan, because I enjoyed the more overt political overtones there. This is still a political film, without a doubt, but its politics are more cached in the environment that creates characters like this. That is, it's one level removed from an explicit exploration of societal corruption. But it's still an excellent film, and a film which shows the Foreign Language award this year as an extremely strong category. Whichever film ends up winning, it's had to take on some impressive competition.

13. The Post

Directed by Steven Spielberg

I won't spend a lot of time on this film, but suffice it to say that I found it an enjoyable, by-the-numbers outing from Spielberg, helped by the always competent performances from Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. I feel like Meryl Streep has a common thread running through her performances, and yet in every one I've seen she seems unlike all the others. Here, her performance as the insecure publisher of a major newspaper manages to tap into that sense of inner strength she always has, but layers it with a timorous quality which is surprisingly engaging on screen. It helps as well that there's a good story to tell here—it's not the story of the breaking news of the Pentagon papers, but more how it was specifically dealt with within the Washington Post. This is more entertaining than it would have been to see how the story was originally broken open (the Post was not the paper to originally get the story). But yeah, it's a fine film, very enjoyable and very by the numbers. With a cast of such established actors, and an old-hand director like Spielberg at the reins, it was unlikely to be anything else.

14. Call Me By Your Name

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

This was a fine, very stylistic film, which used its setting to great effect, and tells a tentative love story in an oblique way. Timothée Chalamet is Elio, the son of a classics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg). Over the summer, a student of his (Armie Hammer) comes to work at their Italian villa, and a romance ensues between Elio and the much older student. It's set as a love story, and it mostly manages to avoid the questionable nature of the relationship by showing it in a very sympathetic and delicate light. Elio pursues Oliver, not the other way around. Oliver and Elio embrace consent at every step of the way. And they have the tacit approval of Elio's parents. Indeed, the absolute highlight of the film is Stuhlbarg's speech to his son towards the end of the film, where he shows wisdom and compassion that made me hope that I could one day be as good a father as he is. The fact that Stuhlbarg is not nominated for an Oscar for supporting actor, for that speech alone, is a travesty. Overall, it's a fine film, if not one that rocketed to the top of my list, which I feel a very similar film in style, tone and content could have. But a very worthy film nonetheless.

15. Mudbound

Directed by Dee Rees

This was a quite beautiful film, surrounding two families, one white, one black, in rural Mississippi after World War II. It's a well-crafted portrayal of racial segragation, but also of surprising friendship in the younger generation. This is, of course, contrasted with the older tensions, especially the savage portrayal of the elderly patriarch of the McAllan family from Jonathan Banks. The film doesn't shy away from the harsh truths of this world. It's also exquisitely shot, with broad vistas of the rural landscape, and claustrophobic interiors, used to great thematic purpose. It's no wonder that this managed a nomination for Best Cinematography. Overall, I enjoyed it a great deal. It was a very skillfully crafted piece of cinema that is very much worth your time.

16. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Directed by Rian Johnson

Undoubtedly more divisive that the film that came before it, The Last Jedi is also a film that I found myself embracing less wholeheartedly than I did The Force Awakens. But it's one of those films that you most likely have to let percolate. A film that you should probably watch a second time and appreciate more than the first. Like its predecessor, it does follow a lot of the same storyline as the original trilogy. Rey, separated from her friends, and seeking the ways of the Jedi with an old master. But also like The Empire Strikes Back, this seeks to break new ground, and it certainly manages to do that. Much has been said about the humour in this film, especially about whether it detracts from the mood of the franchise. But this is just one of the ways in which this film succeeds. More than anything, it needed to break from The Force Awakens. TFA was the film it needed to be. It needed to soothe nerves after the prequels. It needed to get back to the traditional lore. And it did this in a very safe way—too safe in some ways, in that it almost copied the exact storyline of A New Hope. The Last Jedi manages to avoid that. It is at least the first steps into doing something different, and that is what was needed from this film. Rian Johnson may be facing some backlash now, but I think in the course of history, this will be seen as a necessary and pivotal film in the franchise.

17. Marshall

Directed by Reginald Hudlin

This was just good old-fashioned filmmaking, and I genuinely enjoyed it a good deal. A courtroom drama, set in the civil rights era, it focuses on one of the early cases of Thurgood Marshall, who goes on to become the first African-American Supreme Court Judge. It's a serviceable but predictable kind of plot, but it's told with style and charm, and pulled off with good performances from Chadwick Boseman and Josh Gad. The production design is also quite lush—it pulls together a sense of period in a kind of effortless way, more like the films released in the 90s and 00s than the fussier style of today. I enjoyed it a good deal. It's not a truly great film, but it's certainly one which entertained me for its length. And honestly, there are a great number of films, like many of these below, which fail to do that.

18. The Shape Of Water

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

This is a very odd film to be getting the kind of reception it has. Let me say straight off the bad that it's an exceptionally well-crafted film. It has an amazing ensemble cast. del Toro has an excellent sense of style, and an undeniable eye for the unusual. But I did find myself equivocal about the film overall. To some extent, this comes down to the plot, which is a little like a cross between a 50's sci-fi B-movie and Oh No, Willy Didn't Make It And He Crushed Our Boy. But this is hidden behind layers and layers of production design, and of del Toro's sense of fantastical whimsy. Disappointingly, I like all of the actors who are up for Oscar nominations for this film, but I didn't particularly like them all that much in this particular film. Sally Hawkins is perhaps more of the exception, as she manages to put together a remarkable performance without speaking a word. Still, I think that if this film does take out Best Picture, I'll be scratching my head a bit. It's not only that it's not the pick that I would have chosen, I feel as though it's really not the pick that the Academy would have chosen. So, who knows, maybe that's a good thing.

19. Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Directed by Dan Gilroy

OK, speaking of odd films, here's a corker. Directed by Dan Gilroy as a follow to his excellent debut Nightcrawler, this is something of a vessel for Denzel Washington to show his range. He plays the titular Israel, a socially awkward man, but a brilliant lawyer, who struggles to find a place for himself after the death of his legal partner. It's a weird film, but one that I found myself enjoying in spite of myself. Partially, this is due to watching Denzel Washington. He's a fine actor in any role, but in one with such neuroses to play with, it's something of a master class. But the film surrounding this performance is in some senses not worthy of it. You get the feeling that without Denzel Washington, this film would have just been a stinker. Plot-wise it's somewhat pedestrian, and it kind of meanders only as much as it needs to to create new situations for this character to react to. It's nowhere near as plot driven or engaging as Gilroy's previous outing. But that's what it's here at the Oscars for, right? For Denzel Washington, as always. And here, at least, I'm very happy to see him. This is indeed a fine performance from him—indeed, despite everything, it might be one of his better performances. And he does carry this film enough to get it this high in my list. Despite its flaws, I did like it.

20. Strong Island

Directed by Yance Ford

So here, finally, we have the first documentary feature. And it's a fine film, and a deeply personal one, surrounding the investigation of the murder of a young black man, who, it turns out, was the filmmaker's brother. Usually, I'm less likely to enjoy documentaries that don't have a sense of journalistic detachment to them. But here, the pain and the intimacy with which we are told this story through Ford's eyes, and the eyes of his family, more than makes up for the lack of perspective. This is an emotional journey, but it's one that's told with a firm hand on the tiller. Ford never relinquishes that sense of objective filmmaking in order to editorialise. He's well aware that the story itself is evocative enough. In the end, it's a good documentary. It's not one of the best documentaries I've seen in recent years, but it's certainly the best of this year's bunch.

21. Victoria & Abdul

Directed by Stephen Frears

I enjoyed this film a great deal. It's a surprisingly charming film about the relationship between an elderly Queen Victoria and a young Indian Muslim whom she takes on to teach her Urdu and about Islam. It's a sweet film in many ways, and lavishly produced, with good performances from Judi Dench and Ali Fazal in the title roles. It paints a rather sympathetic portrayal of Victoria as well—as someone who is fascinated by the Indian subcontinent, which she is Empress of, but of which she is largely ignorant. In this, there's a touch of cultural imperialism though. We see the favour with which Victoria treats her Indian friend without seeing the implications of the British Raj on the people of India. It's very much a film for a white audience, that chooses not to engage very much with the more difficult topic. But as a piece of fluff disconnected with these things, it's quite enjoyable. It was a film I saw on a plane, and it's just the right kind of film for me in that situation. It doesn't require a lot of attention, and it's somewhere between light-hearted and truly emotional. In the end, it is what it is, and that was fine.

22. Dunkirk

Directed by Christopher Nolan

It's undeniable that this was a fairly impressive outing from Nolan. But to me this was a technical achievement more than it was a great film. Telling a sequence of only peripherally related tales surrounding the British evacuation of Dunkirk, it very much manages to illustrate the epic scope of the operation. But that's pretty much all it is. I really didn't much at all get the sense of compelling narrative in this. I mean, it's there, in each of the individual threads, and to some extent you do care about these characters. But it's all done with such an eye for the broader scope that none of the individual stories seem to matter all that much. To some extent, that's probably the idea, or at least the inevitable end result of such a film. It is about the larger picture much more than it is about the individual stories, even though the tapestry is woven from those stories. Sadly, it failed a little as an engaging picture for me, even though the visuals and the technical expertise required to put a film like this on the screen is quite extraordinary. So I'll continue to respect Nolan as a director. He definitely has the skills to pull off difficult things. But I'm kind of hopeful that this trend of his to the wider and wider epic won't mean that he's given up on the more engaging, intimate and plot-driven films of his early career. We'll wait and see.

23. The Square

Directed by Ruben Östlund

An interesting but ultimately overly precious film, about the curator of a major Swedish art museum as he prepares for a new installation, while also trying to track down his stolen wallet and phone. It has a number of different threads, and there's a bunch of rather bombastic pretention thrown into the mix, including an extended scene at an art fundraiser where a man acting like a Bonobo ape is let loose on the crowd as a piece of performance art. These are all stylistic choices that Östland makes which imbue the film with a sense of added pretense. All of this makes the film less immediately engaging than it might be. It deliberately obfuscates at times, becoming more like the art you feel it's satirising than it does a coherent picture itself. But there's still things to enjoy in it. Overall, I found it relatively engaging. I feel some of the choices were made for the wrong reasons though, and it ended up being a worse film than it might have been.

24. Loving Vincent (animated)

Directed by Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman

Another impressive technical achievement, this is a gorgeous film, with every frame of animation a separate oil painting, painted by one of a massive team of artists. It tells the aftermath of Vincent Van Gogh's death, as investigated by the son of one of Van Gogh's friends. The narrative is pretty much not the point of the film—they do manage to craft something that is enough to keep things plodding along, but really you can enjoy this film just by looking at it. Interestingly, the film had to be produced pretty much twice, because the action is performed first by live actors (the likes of Douglas Booth, Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner and Chris O'Dowd), was then printed on canvas, and overpainted with oils, all in the style of Van Gogh. It's a mind-boggling effort. In some respects it's not a film that should ever have been made—the fact that it has been, no matter what the half-baked plot was, is the really interesting story here.

25. The Breadwinner

Directed by Nora Twomey

This was another quite beautiful film, traditionally animated in beautiful form from the same studio that did The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, both of which were also nominated in the Best Animated Feature category. This film is set in Afghanistan, between the war with Russia and the US invasion, when the country is under Taliban control. Parvana is a young girl who has a gift for telling stories, one of which runs through the film in pieces. When her father is arrested by the Taliban, she disguises herself as a boy so as to be able to perform work and support her family. It's a sad film in many ways, but it shows a great deal of what's good in life as well, even in pretty dark circumstances. Parvana's gift of story is an illustration of the way such tales can invigorate, and sooth. The animation is good, as it has been in all this studios films, traditionally animated, or at least animated in a 2D style. And the story here is both more mature and engaging than in their previous efforts that I've seen. Overall a good film. My limited engagement with animated films drops this as low as it is, but honestly, there are many animated films that would not do nearly as well as this has.

26. Phantom Thread

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

I was quite disappointed with how low this has ended up, but it's a position that it warrants, despite the fact that it has much of Paul Thomas Anderson's charm and craft all over it. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a prominent but eccentric fashion designer who lives in a difficult co-dependent relationship with his sister (Lesley Manville). When he begins a relationship with a waitress, Alma (Vicky Krieps), she has to adapt to his eccentricies, the rancour of his sister, and life in the tortured world of fashion. It's an elaborately crafted film, and to some extent feels like an academic exercise that PTA has given himself. It's fussy in its production, in a way that matches well the personality of its leading man. The music is a highlight from Johnny Greenwood, and stands apart as one of the films greatest strengths. The other strength of course is the presence of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a chameleonic actor, to the extent that I honestly don't at all know what a base-level Daniel Day-Lewis performance is like. He completely reinvents himself for every role, and this one—a difficult one, no doubt—is performed with that same complexity and grace. It's disappointing in some ways that it so failed to connect with me. There were lots of good elements, but they did not combine into something holistically interesting. It was, altogether, too particular, too pleased with itself, or too exacting of its audience for me to embrace.

27. Wonder

Directed by Stephen Chbosky

Wonder tells the tale of a young boy with facial deformities (Jacob Tremblay) as he makes the transition from home schooling to being integrated into a traditional middle school. It looked like absolute shchmaltz. But in fact, there was a surprising amount of depth and heart to the film, and a sophistication of thought that made it rise above its shonky premise. There's something surprisingly human about the whole thing, not due to the pathos, but due to the combination of pathos and humour. It is rather optimistic throughout, but it steers away from melodrama and sentimentality. In some senses it rides above its premise, to provide more of a straight family drama. This is accentuated by good performances from Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, and in particular from Jacob Tremblay and Izabela Vidovic as his sister. The focus on other members of the family, and the wider ensemble helps to promote this. Indeed, the film ends up bearing some resemblance to Chbosky's previous film, the excellent The Perks of Being A Wallflower. It doesn't have the same depth, or the same fluency of character, but Chbosky obviously knows what he's doing in this domain. So it's a surprising effort for a film I expected to dislike a great deal. It's a better outing than it sounds, and ends up, while still not an excellent film, quite good at delivering on its premise.

28. Icarus

Directed by Bryan Fogel

This is a very, very odd film. It's a documentary that starts out with the filmmaker, Bryan Fogel, trying a social experiment to see if he can get away with using performance enhancing drugs for an amateur road cycling race. In pursuit of this, he meets Grigory Rodchenkov, a Russian scientist in charge of his country's anti-doping agency, and the two devise a doping schedule for the director. But the director doesn't know what he's found, because in the middle of filming, Russia's anti-doping scheme is revealed, and Rodchenkov is unveiled as the mastermind behind it. From that point, the documentary pivots and becomes the first-hand story of Rodchenkov turning whistle-blower against his former colleagues, and the revelations of the conspiracy which seem to go to the very top of the Russian government. Fogel is thrown in the deep end to this one. This is not the documentary he was going to make, and neither is he the right director for it—he's hanging on for dear life as the story unravels in front of him. To his credit, he manages to ride it out, and we get a credible and quite engaging story out of it. But there are places where it's quite dicey. He does have the unfortunate habit of trying to put himself too squarely into the middle of the action, a fault that seems common in mediocre documentarians, but given the initial premise of the film, we can at least see why he does it. In the end, there's a really very compelling story in this documentary. The fact that it's told the way it is is the result of luck more than skill on the part of the filmmakers. But it's also luck for us—we get to see the story unfold in a way that we would have missed otherwise. And that's worth something.

29. The Disaster Artist

Directed by James Franco

I'd seen The Room several years ago, and if you haven't it's worth the hype. It is truly a masterpiece of appallingly bad cinema. So I was quite intrigued to see the story behind it, however it was filtered by James Franco. And it is a rather interesting, if quite silly story. The main event here is the characterisation of the star of The Room, Tommy Wiseau. He's a man steeped in mystery—somehow exceptionally wealthy, destined to be an actor, but with very little talent, and zero sense of self-awareness. Somehow though, Franco manages to make him a sympathetic character—the central figure in a tragedy perhaps. It's a soft touch, and easily the best thing about the film. The rest, however, is serviceable but never inspired. The script is only mediocre as far as I'm concerned, despite its nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and only manages to provide the main beats of the plot without a great deal of humour or panache. In the end, it's an okay film. I certainly had some fun with it, but it's hard to recognise it as much of a sterling piece of cinematic history. That honour remains solely with The Room.

30. The Boss Baby

Directed by Tom McGrath

By any account, this should have been the worst film of the Oscars. This is surely one of the most awful premises for a movie ever, right? Secretly, our protagonist Tim's new baby brother is a business executive, sent on a secret mission to infiltrate his family, and steal secret plans on a new kind of puppy. Can you hear me gagging already? So how does this manages to twist itself into a heartwarming parable about family, and in particular brotherly love? I suspect this is because it draws on the source material, a picture book by Marla Frazee, a medium not suited to convoluted backstory of the kind that sickened me in this film. But the emotions it evokes are relatable. A new child is brought into the family, which disrupts the status quo in a way that the existing child resists and resents. But over time, almost without realising it, they grow to love one another. The way this tale is framed within the film is almost inconsequential. Yeah, there's some silly plot involving stealing secret plans from PuppyCo. And there are a number of set pieces surrounding the chase and execution of this plot. But that's certainly not what got me. In the end, admittedly, this is still something of a silly film, and its position here isn't great. But for a film that should have been a Giant Novelty Shoe-in for worst film of the Oscars, it endeared itself to me in a way I really wasn't prepared for.

31. Faces Places (Visages, Villages)

Directed by Agnès Varda & JR

A fairly interesting but also perplexing documentary about the surprising friendship that arises between veteran French director Agnès Varda and young photographer JR, whose shtick is pasting massive versions of his photography on forgotten architecture. Together, the two of them travel around France, finding unusual places to exhibit JRs next piece of artwork, which Varda muses on her life, and reflects on her many triumphs and regrets. Largely the film revolves around the friendship that blooms between the two co-directors. But it's a very understated piece, with little in the way of conflict, or even much that's revelatory. The only real human emotion which sneaks in is saved until near the end of the piece, when Varda takes JR to meet her old friend Jean-Luc Godard. The rest is staid, and a little perplexing, but never unbeautiful. It's more a pictorial of JR's art though than anything really resembling a story. And that makes it a harder film to swallow than it really should be. As a result, this is languishing towards the back end of the list, and honestly, that's a bit of a shame.

32. Logan

Directed by James Mangold

People kind of raved about this film, calling it an impressive departure from the regular superhero storyline. While it's true that it is a departure from the regular superhero fare, it doesn't necessarily follow that it hence deserves a rave. The world has changed from the X-Men universe we know. The mutations which caused superhero powers have seemingly stopped, Professor Xavier is now crippled by his mental powers, and is cared for in a bunker by a bitter, resentful Wolverine. But of course, their life is not destined to just peter out without a sound, and they get dragged into a conspiracy that requires their intervention once again. Don't get me wrong: this is significantly more interesting than most of the superhero films that are trotted out year after year. But after the unusual set-up, and some bleaker than normal cinematography, this really does become a lot like another superhero film. At its core, it can't escape that, and when it devolves into long tracts of choreographed fight sequences, I'm much less interested. So yeah, I can perhaps see why this was regarded with critical interest. But at the same time, it didn't do much for me.

33. Beauty and the Beast

Directed by

Not a great film, admittedly, and to some extent warranted some of the criticism thrown at it. It is, after all, not far from a shot-for-shot live-action remake of Disney's classic animated version—a version which is rightfully regarded as a triumph. But because it's based on such solid material, there is a good deal of charm to it. Emma Watson's Belle is engaging in her role, although as people have said, she's not an incredible singer, meaning that her songs are only so good. The rest of the cast (which is surprisingly good), do a serviceable job, but at every moment you're comparing them to the animated versions of themselves, and the comparison is rarely favorable. Perhaps the exception is Luke Evans as Gaston, who manages to be suitably and consistently smarmy, and Josh Gad as LeFou, who manages to elicit some sympathy from the audience. In the end, it was better than it might have been. And it's not as good as the original. While you might look at it and say "it didn't fail in its attempt", you might equally ask "why was the attempt made in the first place?".

34. Darkest Hour

Directed by Joe Wright

I had a bunch of problems with this film. Telling the days of the early turbulent reign of Winston Churchill's prime-ministership, it focuses on the difficult future facing Britain in WWII, when victory was so far from assured that a Nazi invasion seemed inevitable. Notwithstanding Gary Oldman's believable mimickry of Churchill, the film concerned me in a bunch of different ways. It sought to give insight into the difficult decisions of government—which in this case involved outright lying to the people of the country, and nationalist propaganda designed to help the war effort at the cost of transparency. But in so doing, the film seemed to canonise such efforts. This is the cost of winning a war, it stated, and the ends justify the means. Worse is the fact that the seeming pivotal moment when Churchill seeks the approval of the common man (a sappy sequence set on the London Underground) is played off as the moral basis of the film. Everyone, it seems, approves of the job Churchill is doing. They support the war effort. They support the need for austerity. They are optimistic about Britain's chances, because Britons have the backbone to win a fight, jolly what. The film portrays Churchill as buoyed by this, despite the fact that in the narrative of the film these people only think this due to the propaganda Churchil himself is spouting. The whole sequence made me very cynical, and it underlined all of the thematic issues with the film elsewhere. If it were a better made film overall, I'd perhaps even consider it dangerous to some extent. But I think that it might only be remembered as a vessel for Gary Oldman, who's apparently one of the favourites to take out the Best Actor nod. And maybe that's fine as its legacy.

35. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

Directed by Steve James

This wasn't a terrible documentary, but it was one that was drawn out for too long. It tells the story of the Abacus bank, a small American operation set up to appeal to the Chinese community in that country. Unlike any of the other banks which were caught up in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, Abacus was the only bank whose directors and management were charged with crimes. The documentary follows the trials, and tells the story of the how they ended up in the situation they did. It focuses less on the impact of the GFC on all the other banks, and I think misses an opportunity to take more of a swing at the big players. Instead, it focuses on how unfair it is that Abacus was targeted, rather than how unfair it is that Abacus was the only bank targeted. The other issue I have with the film is that the middle section is severely over-extended. To be fair, if it were not, the film itself would be much shorter—and it's not an overly long film as it is, so it may have not even been classified as a feature film if it were not extended in this way. But there's a great deal of time spent focusing on the family's and directors musing on what's going to happen in the trial, without much in the way of narrative thrust. In the end, it's only so good. I liked the concept behind it, but the delivery and execution meant that this fell a long way down the list.

36. Baby Driver

Directed by Edgar Wright

A rather silly film, directed with panache and a sense of style, but ultimately one which really just had me giving a bunch of sideeye. Let's talk about the good bits. The music, which provides almost the rhythmic thrust of the film, is universally excellent. It's an eclectic mix of any number of pieces, usually drawn from the lesser-known back catalogues. And there's a kind of anti-establishment style to the film, especially the driving sequences, which are, in turn aided by the pumping soundtrack. But the story is weak, and the characterisation is even more so. These folks are comic-book cutouts—which, you feel, would fit the style of the movie—but instead it just creates a sense of detachment which means that I personally never felt involved in the world. I just didn't care about anyone. It's also not aided by the performances of the leads. Kevin Spacey phones in a "look, I'm Kevin Spacey" doddle, and Ansel Elgort is just numbingly bland in the title role. Some pleasingly uncharacteristic menace comes from John Hamm and Jamie Foxx, but they're not the main focus of the film, so their presence is only sporadically helpful. I ended up just feeling alienated from the film. It didn't do anything to really draw me in at all, and as a result, I ended up not caring. Worse, the stylistic embellishments ended up feeling a bit like an ego trip for Edgar Wright—the film hadn't earnt them, and given it had fundamental problems, it came across as wank.

37. Last Men in Aleppo (doc)

Directed by Feras Fayyad

This film suffered a lot from the fact that I'd seen The White Helmets the year before, which covered the same group of Syrian volunteers whose job is to rescue survivors from bombed buildings. The two films were produced by different people, so there's not necessarily the sense that one is just a richer adaptation of the other. This one, however, does have the advantage of being able to delve more deeply into the lives of the people around the White Helmets. In particular, there's a fair amount of time spent looking at the children who are rescued, often finding themselves orphaned, and their ongoing relationship with the people who rescued them. But I'll admit my attention was wavering at points through the film, largely because I felt like I'd heard about this before. This probably means that I was missing out on a deeper experience than I got from The White Helmets. That's probably a shame.

38. War for the Planet of the Apes

Directed by Matt Reeves

I've really enjoyed this film series. I particularly liked the original, which had a really wonderful exploration of the worldbuilding in the first Planet of the Apes film. And I was then very pleasantly surprised by the follow up Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, for adding an interesting moral ambiguity into the inevitable conflict between the apes and the humans. But this film I found to be easily the weakest of the lot. In some ways, that's not unsurprising. The trilogy needed a cap at the end of it, and it was trying to wrap things up in a way that was meaningful. But that, to some extent, came at the expense of this particular film—it may have helped the series as a whole, but not this specific episode in it. It's also much less a film that's interested in exploring the ethos of the world, or even necessarily the development of the relationship between the humans and the apes. It's a war film, by necessity, and that has a limited appeal to me. There are good parts, as there have been throughout the series, including the visual effects, and Serkis's performance as Caesar. But there's only so much that can help. This is not one of the big picks for me.

39. The Greatest Showman

Directed by Michael Gracey

This is this year's La La Land, the high concept musical (with songs from the La La Land team, no less), that ends up being very silly at times. And while it would be very easy to eviscerate this for all that's wrong with it, there were enough good parts to it that I'm infiriatingly feeling the need to defend it. Really, in broad strokes, this is not good. The concept and script are very poor, and so obvious in places that I thought I was going to do damage to my optic nerve by rolling my eyes so much. Hugh Jackman is predictable, and Michelle Williams is actively bad in this. But whereas La La Land rode or fell (it definitely fell) on the performances of its two leads, this is much more of an ensemble piece, and parts of the ensemble save it. In particular in this film, the subplot surrounding the romance between Zac Efron and Zendaya is told with an emotion and subtlety that has no place in a film like this. These two actors are easily the best thing about the film, and they really provide some heart to a film that's otherwise lacking it. It's also true that the set pieces and the musical numbers are put on the screen with a style that other recent musicals have severely lacked. That's not to say it survives its overall crumminess, but there are a lot of people (not including the leads) who are working very hard to make this film a success. And apparently, it is indeed a success. This has been a surprising hit at the box office, despite the panning it's got critically. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's definitely a place for films like this, and musicals in general. And who knows, perhaps if they keep making them, eventually we'll get one that's actually good.

40. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Directed by James Gunn

I really don't much see the appeal of this film franchise. I think partially it's due to missing the appeal of the now blandly handsome Chris Pratt. He used to have a kind of schlubby charm in the days of Parks & Recreation and Her. But now he's just conformed to the mould of vague action-hero leading man. This is particularly true in this volume of Guardians of the Galaxy, which I found much more lacking in the humour that at least set the first episode apart. It's possible that this is just due to the fact that the first episode was different from the other standard comic-book films being churned out, and this is not significantly different from Vol. 1. But still, it matters because our expectations were somewhere for this film, and the end result is something that's just not that innovative any more. I still think that the best part of both of these films is Dave Bautista's Drax, who this time has an amusing relationship with an empathic alien. The dynamics between the rest of the group is less interesting this time—there's manufactured tension, but very little of the natural friction you got when this rag tag bunch were thrown together. And the story? Was there much of a story? Yes and no. Yes, there was a story. No, I didn't care about it, and to be honest, the story is not what this film franchise's strength is. The fact that they tried to ratchet up the plot to impossible levels with excessively high stakes is testament to the fact that they kind of know it too. So yeah, I didn't much like this, and to be honest, I'm actually going to groan if I have to watch the third instalment. There's definitely going to be a third instalment, but if possible, I'm going to give it a miss.

41. Ferdinand

Directed by Carlos Saldanha

You know what was bad? Ferdinand was bad. It's also the kind of film that I'm really skeptical about. Despite the fact that it's built on an apparently beloved children's book, it has all the hallmarks of a film that was designed by a committee. It tells the tale of a bull who decides he doesn't want to fight in the arena, despite the fact that that's what he's been bred to do. Yeah. And it kind of does that. I guess. But it's really quite bad in everything perhaps that kind of idea. There are just so many parts that stand out as the handiwork of some producer who said "we haven't had anything funny in a while, could we maybe add a dance competition for no reason at all?". The animation is also halfway between the beautiful and the comic, but it's neither one nor the other. As a result, it feels as though it's just half-baked. I understand the desire to have a slightly less realistic vibe to a cartoon, but it gels poorly with the backgrounds, for instance. The best part of the film is the characterisation and performance from Kate McKinnon's neurotic goat Lupe, who is genuinely quite amusing and endearing in equal measures. But having a bright spot like this just kind of makes things like the trio of stereotyped Swedish horses stick out as awkward all the more. Yeah, not a big film. This is the kind of animated film that for quite a while made the entire category my least anticipated section to sit through. But films like Coco, Loving Vincent and even god-forbid The Boss Baby have shown that the kind of film like Ferdinand really shouldn't cut it any more.

42. All the Money in the World

Directed by Ridley Scott

What a disappointing film. It's a disappointing film because it's so unconscionably dull. Telling the story of the kidnapping of the grandson of J.P. Getty (Christopher Plummer, taking over the role that had been completed by Kevin Spacey), and Getty's refusal to pay the ransom, I'm kind of bored just thinking back on it, to be honest. Once again, we have Michelle Williams in a role that's just yawningly pedestrian. She fails to breathe any life into it at all aside from doing her vague stony-faced monologuing. And across from her is Mark Wahlberg who at least inhabits his role—but it's a role he's done so many times before that we don't really care about seeing him do it again. But mostly, I just found this film chilly, cold and overly boring. It's unpleasant in other ways too—it has that feeling of ennui that envelops me when watching the excessively wealthy. I just don't care. Moreover, it's the kind of indulgent thing that people like Ridley Scott probably thinks people like me want to watch. Which I think just means the producers of films like this are out of touch. Mostly, this feels like it only even got a nod for an Oscar as a giant Fuck You to Kevin Spacy. Plummer is fine in the role that earns him his Best Supporting Actor nomination, but not better than a bunch of other people that could have taken his place (Michael Stuhlbarg in Call Me By Your Name should be kicking some walls watching this performance). And had it not been for that I probably never would have watched this. I suspect I would have been the better for it.

43. Kong: Skull Island

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Now we're into the serious garbage. Second bottom film of this year's Oscars is this mess from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. You know him, right? He's exhibit 12 on Hollywood's parade of let's give a major Hollywood franchise to some white male director who's had one successful indie film, while women with illustrious careers are still seen as too much of a risk. He's the next version of Colin Trevorrow in other words, which should strike fear into your heart. Also stacked against this is the fact that it's a(nother) reboot of King Kong, just focusing on the attempts to investigate his home of Skull Island. Like many reboots of classic action films, it misses all of the moral questions of the original, and instead puts on screen a story which is a loosely connected selection of Things Blowing Up Sampler Pack, Vol. 12. The plot? It almost doesn't matter. A bunch of shit happens on Skull Island. Kong is an enemy, but then not an enemy. John C. Reilly pulls out an inappropriate Dewey Cox impersonation, while the story devolves into worse than B-movie territory. OK, to be fair, this is only nominated for visual effects. And these are indeed good. But that's like saying that this is a beautifully decorated cake made of dogshit. All of the pretty piping work in the world doesn't make you want to consume it. Worst is that this was apparently both a commercial and critical success, and is feted to launch yet another shared-universe franchise. That's kind of awful, because I don't want to have to watch another film like Kong: Skull Island.

44. Molly's Game

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Bottom of the pile this year is a film that's probably not technically the worst film I've seen (Kong: Skull Island owns that), but the one that just pissed me off the most. And it was Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut Molly's Game. It was awful. In fact, it got more awful the more I thought about it. It is almost completely, 100%, unrelatable in any way shape or form. Telling the true story of a young woman (Molly Bloom, played by a lacklustre Jessica Chastain), who starts a high-stakes poker game for the rich and famous, and is subsequently indicted for it. I mean, are we meant to have sympathy for this character? Are we meant to identify with the group of soulless people she surrounds herself with, in particular the callous movie star played by Michael Cera, who's supposedly based on Tobey Maguire. They're all completely unpleasant in one way or another. But the worst part of this train wreck of a film is the fact that you can sense Sorkin's fawning admiration for Molly Bloom. Sorkin has shown himself to be kind of a nasty character in real life, and the fact that he picked this as his directorial debut is telling. And the way he puts in on screen just emphasises all of the ways in which I found the story deeply unpleasant. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if in real life, a slimed-up Sorkin found himself a regular at Molly's table. It would then make this whole films something of an ego-trip (or moreso than it is already), and that very much fits in with my impression of Sorkin nowadays. Yeah: I hated this film. It's the kind of hatred that can only really mature and develop over time. It's a rich and full-bodied kind of hatred, that has had the benefit of reflection and deep thought. It's the kind of hatred that easily beats out the kind of knee-jerk hate I have for films like Kong: Skull Island. It's kind of beautiful in a way. Well, there you have it. A full rundown of all the feature films at the Oscars. But we're not done yet. We also have the truly wonderful short films to look at. I'm not going to write these up individually, but here they are in order from my favourite to least favourite:

DeKalb Elementary (live action)

The Silent Child (live action)

Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (documentary)

Watu Wote (live action)

The 11 O'Clock (live action)

Garden Party (animated)

Traffic Stop (documentary)

Revolting Rhymes (animated)

Lou (animated)

Heroin(e) (documentary)

My Nephew Emmett (live action)

Negative Space (animated)

Knife Skills (documentary)

Edith & Eddie (documentary)

Dear Basketball (animated)

As always, these were excellent, and a set of films which are honestly worthy of as much time as the Best Picture nominees. I highly recommend watching the Short Film categories at the Oscars every year, but this year's were particularly good. The top film, DeKalb Elementary, is honestly the most affecting piece of cinema I've seen at this year's Oscars, in either the short or long form. And of course, it wouldn't be my write-up without me giving my hot tips for the winners. I say hot tips, but don't rely on these for predictions. These are how I would vote if the Academy would answer my damn phonecalls and give me a ballot for the awards. As always, I've limited my votes to just the nominees in each category, so while I would like to vote for Ferdinand for Best Foreign Language Film, I can't. Best Picture: Lady Bird Best Director: Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards) Best Actor: Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney (I, Tonya) Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards) Best Original Screenplay: Lady Bird Best Adapted Screenplay: Mudbound Best Animated Feature: Coco Best Foreign Language Film: On Body and Soul Best Documentary Feature: Strong Island Best Documentary Short: Heaven Is A Traffic Jam on the 405 Best Live Action Short: Best Animated Short: Garden Party Best Original Score: Phantom Thread Best Original Song: "Mystery of Love" (Call Me By Your Name) Best Sound Editing: Blade Runner 2049 Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk Best Production Design: The Shape of Water Best Cinematography: Blade Runner 2049 Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Wonder Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread Best Film Editing: Dunkirk Best Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049

[super-zero-time-blog]

Super Light Warrior Changéríon: Episodes 1-3 Review

The year is 1996. Toei Co. Ltd., the penny pinching and merchandise driven imaginative studio that graced the world with anime adaptations of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball and tokusatsu hero franchises like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, have found themselves paired up with massive entertainment force Sega (yes, the Sonic the Hedgehog guys) to release a brand new superhero show on the world.  The first idea, a planned follow up to the 1995 Keita Amemiya film Mechanical Violator Hakaider (itself a reimagining of the villain from the 70′s Shotaro Ishinomori classic Android Kikaider) falls through.  A new idea suddenly comes about from Toei producet Yoshikawa Susumu and suit manufacturer Rainbow Co. Ltd: Create a hero suit made primarily out of transparent parts. With that in mind, a cast and crew are soon brought on to create one of the weirdest tokusatsu series of the 1990′s.

So here we are and here I am and it’s Changéríon (yes the accents are how it’s officially written, it’s meant to be French, I don’t know why) time. Sorry for that long build up! Just figured it’d be what all the cool kids do. Super Light Warrior Changéríon is a doozy of a series, one that has held a cult following in Japan for 20 years after its abrupt end in December of 1996. The show featured a staff of producers (such as Shinichiro Shirakura), directors (such as Takao Nagaishi)  and writers (namely head writer Toshiki Inoue) who would go on 4 years later to help revive Kamen Rider for the Heisei era, and in general went on to be remembered for its quirky and surreal nature. Even the show’s star, Takashi Hagino, would go on to be in Kamen Rider (in a very different role as infamous serial killer Takeshi Asakura, a.k.a. Kamen Rider Ouja, in 2002′s Kamen Rider Ryuki) I decided to plunge into this series finally now that English fansubs were out, and I’ve been contemplating how to go about this. For the first installment I figure I’m just going to write up my thoughts briefly on the first three episodes of this 39 episodes series, and I may then expand upon that later and switch the format around a bit at any given time, so here goes!! 

A few things to note ahead of time

1. The head writer of this series (and, to my knowledge, the writer of the first four episodes here) is Toshiki Inoue. Inoue is a man known for his love of drama, strange humor, and plots heavily focused on miscommunication. His best known shows include Chojin Sentai Jetman (1991), Kamen Rider Agito (2001), Kamen Rider 555 (2003) some mess called Kamen Rider Kiva (2008) and oh yeah he’s written for anime, included the Death Note anime in 2005. You have likely seen something he has written if you’ve touched an anime. Or maybe not, I don’t know.

2. The suits in this. They are absolutely gorgeous, but they were infamously dangerous. 

The Changéríon suit alone had two versions, a 100 kg (~ 200 lb) version for close up shots and a 40kg (~ 80 lb) suit for action scenes. Both were terrifying to those in it. Veteran suit actor Jiro Okamoto commented on the suit being absurdly heavy and fearing he would break it, not to mention that it was so heavy that it hurt his neck. This thing supposedly nearly sent suit actors to the hospital! And yet the action is generally decent despite the struggle in these beasts of a set of suits.

3. The opening, “OVER THE TIMES ~ Beyond The Present~” by MISA. It’s just awesome. It’s really awesome. I mean listen to it. It’s super awesome. 

Aww yeah....

SO! Now that I’ve gotten all of that out of the way, on to the reviews! The format is simple. A summary of the plot first, then my thoughts on it. I’ll see how this works and just go from there.

EPISODE 1: “A Hero!! Me?”

Air Date: April 3, 1996

Bumbling detective Akira Suzumura is hired to investigate a series of missing student reports from a local elementary school. After a night of staking the grounds out, he soon finds himself on a new path after a freak accident and an attack by a monster from the inter-dimensional invaders known as the Darkzeid lead him to unwittingly become the warrior of light: Changéríon! But as he struggles to master his new powers and deal with the mysterious SAIDOC organization, the full threat of Darkzeid begins to awaken.

Changéríon starts out about as weird as you can expect a show like this to with a massive hoop spiralling down a flight of stairs to a narrow Tokyo tunnel and having a creepy 90′s CG entity force its soulless face out towards the camera. It only escalates by going to a dramatic sequence of Akira and his assistant Akemi seemingly armed and ready for a shootout....only for the sequence to be a harmless rescue of a local puppy. This is Inoue at his peak weirdness, something which can really be hit or miss, but it’s strangely all a bunch of baffling moments which click oddly well. Akira isn’t much of a hero in many ways: He’s clumsy, he’s a bit lecherous, selfish and lazy. He doesn’t have much cash and doesn’t even pay part-timers like Akemi well. And yet despite all of this he has his heart in the right place and it’s fun to watch him fumble around in the suit at the episode’s end. It even made me chuckle seeing him “free up” time on a completely empty schedule to help the school find their students. While some scenes do feel disjointed and a bit uncomfortable (including a very uncomfortable joke about pedophilia which struck me as more than a little uncalled for in a show aimed at children), everything is really bonkers and pretty exciting here! It all ends with the main villains being awakened and a budding rivalry between Akira and the former, intended Changéríon candidate, Hayami, as the good folks at SAIDOC quietly wonder “What on earth have we gotten ourselves into with this nut?” 

It’s also worth mentioning that this show is a definite turning point for Toei’s production, having been one of their first shows recorded on digital video rather than film, and it’s chock full of now dated CGI and strange, minimalist dark rooms for otherworldy realms. It’s kinda creepy and very uncanny, but I’d say it oddly works in the show’s favor at this point. It’s got an unintentional charm to it. There’s a borderline David Lynch feel to the Darkzeid realm bits, in all honesty. Considering how big of a hit Twin Peaks was during the mid 90′s in Japan, it wouldn’t surprise me if the set designers took at least a smidge of inspiration from the Black Lodge sequences during seasons 1 and 2 of the series. It’s not as traumatic as something you’d see Lynch do, but there’s a similarly sinister atmosphere to it all here with countless bodies wrapped in plastic...like...bags, much like Laura Palmer was.

 The combat itself is a bit strangely edited too. Lots of sped up footage and Changéríon seldom kicks (more often getting kicked around instead), which I will assume is due to that hulking suit. But it also gives us one of the most ridiculou(sly satisfying) attacks ever with the Shining Attack. Which...uh...well...

....okay it’s pretty rad, I won’t lie. That’s pretty great. It is. It’ll get used to death in future episodes, but it’s still cool here.

First impression is a good one. It’s like this episode sets the tone for what is to come quite well.

Episode 2: “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Brain”

Air Date: April 10, 1996

The three generals of Darkzeid awaken and enter the human world, with plans to consume humans to satisfy their ravenous appetites. Meanwhile, SAIDOC Chief Munakata explains to Akira about the threat of Darkzeid and their need for his help, only for him to swiftly turn them down and celebrate his newfound superpowers with an unlimited shopping spree. But in the process he not only angers operatives Hayami and Eri, but finds himself in yet another Darkzeid plot as Akemi and Eri are kidnapped by an otherworld monster using posessed shoes. It’s up to Changéríon to save the missing women before they end up on Darkzeid’s lunch menu!

It’s here that we see Inoue throw in another one of his big tropes with character writing: The reluctant hero. This isn’t the first time he’d written that character archetype (another great example of this is Gai Yuki/Black Condor in Jetman) but it’s something he loves to write quite often. In this case, Akira decides to just go hog wild with loans he can’t afford, and it’s actually pretty funny. Buying out restaurants for the day, loading up on shoes for Akemi, and just being a total snot and a cocky jerk until he’s forced to realize that he put his own employee in danger and team up with Hayami....after a bizarre sequence of both of them sneaking into the same Darkzeid shoe store. In drag. And not recognizing each other. In drag. Before fighting it out in front of onlookers. In drag. This is after a scene with the store owner, the monster of the week (with a literal face full of shoes in his monster form, no less) attempts to feed his kidnapped victims with mysterious goop in high heel shoes. There’s no shortage of surreal visuals here and it does get disjointed at points, yet I feel like the story comes to a more coherent point from here. 

Despite the goofier antics, there’s still that underlying sinister aura to the Darkzeid generals. Their designs are legitimately creepy and their hushed meetings in dimly lit rooms, murmuring about their need to consume humans and how darkness will consume their own world could easily give a kid nightmares. Even I was amazed at how well the monster suits were pulled off in this show. The villains look like villains, and they’re fittingly mysterious.

In terms of action, Changéríon gets his aptly named Gun Laser, a really nifty weapon with a gimmick I love! Y’see, it runs on disks that he summons from his chest. And the discs spin. Go figure that Sega would manufacture all these toys with a disc gimmick. Not only was it the peak of the CD boom, it also made me chuckle thinking about how they had moved into CDs with the Sega Saturn at around the same time. (Plus the Gun Laser just looks really dang cool!)

 We’re getting places now that the initial stage has been set! Slowly but surely, we’re getting places! 

Episode 3: “A Bunch of Brides”

Air Date: April 17, 1996

Brides are mysterious disappearing at the altar! Darkzeid is behind this! Akira plans to counter these objections to holy matrimony with the help of Hayami and Akemi...but time and again things keep going south! Can he save the day and stop these foul occurrences? Meanwhile, in a basement lab, Chief Munakata struggles to develop the sidekicks Akira needs in his battle...

If you haven’t figured out that this series is meant to be goofy at this point, I don’t know what to tell you. This is a pretty fluffy and light episode with some good gags strewn throughout. Perhaps the funniest is Akira’s futile attempt at teaching Hayami how to flirt with women. It’s done with the most 90′s montage imaginable and it killed me with how good it was. The follow up is the sequence in the above shot, which I won’t spoil the full context for, but it also got a laugh out of me. There’s slapstick, there’s snark, there’s a simple but weird vibe to this whole episode and it’s totally fine. We’ve gotten into the groove of the show at this point it feels like, and I look forward to where it goes from here. The most interesting element plotwise is seeing Munakata’s struggle to get a set of mysterious robots up and working for Akira to use. It’s made clear that he and his research are mocked by his superiors, who don’t even think that Darkzeid is real, let alone a threat. Poor guy needs more respect! But we’ll see where things go with these machines in the next episode.

With 36 episodes left to go, Super Light Warrior Changéríon is certainly an odd, yet familiar show to me. I can see the early elements of Heisei Kamen Rider at play here with how it’s shot, the eerier villain designs, the quick cuts and kinetic feel to the action and the quirky humor and characters. It’s like seeing a mix of Metal Hero aesthetics with Super Sentai pacing making something of a hybrid that will have a lingering impact. Next time I’ll cover episodes 4-7, or perhaps change up the pace a bit. Expect some cool new robot buddies next time, but other than that I’m as in the dark as everyone else!

Hopefully my rambling didn’t scare you away by now, and we’ll be ready for more adventures to come, soon!

And remember! SOMEBODY LOVES you. And SOMEBODY NEEDS you.