#i know it's ironic for me to post this right after meeting Randall (the most adhd kid ever)

[darklight-owl]

Professor Hershel Layton has ADHD in this essay i will-

(Ok no but fr this is my incredibly biased headcanon and I will stick to it no matter what)

Exhibit A: Puzzle Hyeprfixation. Yeah this guy likes puzzles but it kinda crosses into hyperfixation territorry when he stops in his tracks at inconvenient moments to bring up random puzzles he heard one time. Neurotypical? I think NOT

Exhibit B: Messy office. Every character comments on how messy he is like this mf needs an assistant AND an apprentice just so his office doesn't end up looking like a warzone.

Exhibit C: Journal. Ok yes it's a game mechanic and neurotypical people can have journals too but like i imagine him writing everything down because if not he WILL forget what he was doing

Exhibit D: Hyperfocus. This... this one doesn't have much to do with canon I just see him hyperfocusing on puzzles/when he mcgyvers random bullshit out of spare parts he finds lying around/doing actual archaeology things (i think i remember seeing dialogue that supports this in Last Specter but i don't rember)

In conclusion your honor he just like me fr

[jokerownsmysoul]

one year.

Today is exactly a year since I first saw Joker.

What inspired me to see it, at first, was just the respect and admiration I felt for Joaquin, an actor I already knew and who had totally captured me when I saw Her a few years ago. I was curious to see his interpretation of Joker but I had not seen the trailer nor dedicated to the movie any special attention.

Then, late in October, I came across a promotional photo of Arthur, and something snapped in my heart the second my eyes met his. There was something settled in his expression full of pain, in his silent attempt to ask for help, in his sad but sparkling eyes, in his delicate beauty, that spoke to me. I felt the urgency to see the trailer: I had to meet that man. I had to know Arthur. From there I felt a connection with him that caught me by surprise.

That day, after watching the trailer, Arthur had already decided that he was going to be part of my life in a way I never thought possible. He opened the door to my heart and whispered, "I leave the door ajar for when I come in." And he did, because something about him had already captured me. I watched the trailer over and over, counted the days before I met Arthur, and I waited for him to come. For the first time I wanted to watch Joker not for Joaquin, but for Arthur.

I went to the movie theater thinking I was gonna enjoy a nice night and a beautiful movie with a intriguing character, but then I saw Arthur. I saw him sitting in front of the vanity at Haha's, on the sidelines, forcing a painful smile with his fingers and trying to hold back and fight tears distilled in a blue color, and in that specific moment the sense of belonging that I felt when I saw him in the trailer got bigger and bigger, the door that Arthur had left ajar I could feel slowly and at the same time quickly being opened inside me, and Arthur was already important to me.

At the end of the movie I was totally, completely absorbed by Arthur, who in the meantime had wide opened the door of my heart to inhabit it. I never thought those two hours would mean to me more than I ever imagined, and I knew that something special had just come into my life. I never thought after a year I'd still be here, even more in love than before, remembering the memories Joker gave me throughout the year, remembering how many times he helped me and all of us in this rough period we are living in.

Arthur is a fictional character, and yet my love for him is one of the strongest things I’ve ever felt in my life. I needed this love, it’s what a part of me always longed for my whole life, but I never thought that the person to give me this love would be him, Arthur, and I didn’t know that until he came to me. It took me a while to embrace the feeling I felt for him, going beyond all the people who told me it was wrong, that it wasn’t right, even if I never believe them. I found out this community who helped me to realize better that love is never wrong. Ever. Falling for him came naturally to me, he's the easiest person to love.

Arthur made me rediscover a part of myself that I thought I’d lost forever and I didn’t know I missed her so much. He gave me some of the deepest friendships I have, the adrenaline and the clumsy fear of a love that you don’t know yet but from which you feel drawn as if it were a siren's call. He gave me cries, smiles and emotions that I haven’t felt in a long time. He gave me poetry, he gave me daydreams and old fashioned music. He made me discover parts of myself that I did not know yet and he made me know better those parts of myself that I had never listened as I should have. Arthur is teaching me to love and be the best version of myself.

Arthur gave me my writing back. I've been writing for my whole life, but with him my writing started breathing better again. For the first time in ten years, since the last time I've written fan fiction, I felt the urgency to start doing it again for him. I felt the irrepressible desire to give Arthur the life he deserved through ink and live this love deeper. It took a few months before I was brave enough to post my writings publicly, truth be told I regret not having created this blog before, but I’m glad I eventually managed to overcome my insecurities. Making this blog is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

There are not enough words to describe the life I’m experiencing with this blog. I have never taken part in a fandom, it was a whole new world for me, and I am happy that I'm experiencing it for the first time with the best fandom I could ever find. Joker fandom has the sweetest, most inclusive, empathic, generous and kindest people I know. We took an ironic and mocking expression invented by Randall, Chuckletown, took the best from it, and created something as wonderful as our Chuckletown, and every day you show me that being part of Chuckletown is an honor.

I will always be grateful to Arthur for bringing into my life such a rare love that enters the lives of a few people that I didn't know existed, a love so intense that I never thought it would come to my life. For making me meet some of the most important people who fill my days, for giving me wonderful friendships and emotions whose words to be described have not yet been created.

Even if oceans keep us apart, even though we are distant and spread around the world, this has never stopped me from considering you my dear friends. You understand me and show me your affection every day, and I hope I can give you at least half of the affection you show me. I hope I can give that to Arthur, too, somehow.

To you and Arthur, thank you and I love you. 💚💙���️💛

[renlyisright]

Season 8 Episode 1 - A Hearty Welcome, A Hearthy Farewell

I may have done a goofy. The first seasons I DVR’d as they came to the Finnish public TV. Then I upgraded to DVD’s, and now I bought the last season on Blu-ray. The problem being that I have no way of getting screenshots from them, as my computer doesn’t have a Blu-ray-player. And I’m not going to get one just for this, streaming is the future and so on.

But if I take a screenshot from an earlier season and just CGI it to look like this latest season everything should be fine, right?

That’s what I thought. Let’s start.

Oh, a new opening. Super cool. With only three places of importance to show, it can spend its time showing lots of details and fresher events in the sun things. Rings. Whatever they are.

The thing showing the rebirth of the dragons shows also the comet. Back when it showed up in the sky, everyone had different explanations to what it meant. Apparently at the point in history where this model is made, its connection to the dragons has won out. It makes sense, nobody cares about Stannis becoming the Lord’s Champion anymore. If he had won, then maybe, but he didn’t.

The season starts with a kid running in a forest. I have absolutely no idea how much time has passed since the beginning, but this kid must have been a toddler, if not even that, when King Robert came to Winterfell.

Now it’s a different time. A different queen. Daenerys Targaryen, first of her name etc etc, rides North with her armies and dragons.

There’s a lot of allusions back to the first episodes. The elders have fallen and now the young generation have grown into their roles. I have started to rewatch the show from the beginning while I exercise, and some things in those early episodes are just painful to see. Littlefinger did his absolute best to get Ned killed so he could make his moves on Catelyn. Earlier I said that without Littlefinger the war may have been averted, but the cat of Jaime and Cersei was already out of the bag and Jon Arryn would have soon told Robert, and that man would have been furious.

Oh, and Cersei saying “We have another wolf” makes me stop feeling any way sorry about her. Well, there wasn’t much sorry left anyway, she has been busy digging her own hole, but come on.

She is not taking abandonment well. Her entire family (not including unseen cousins and other kin) has either betrayed her or died. Now she plans to add the rest of the first group to the second. After letting Jaime go, she thinks again and now sends an assassin after him.

An assassín, which is Bronn. Out of all possibilities. Of course, she feels like that’s a poetic way to do it, but really. If he feels like the dragon lady is more likely to win, whoops, suddenly a desertion happens. Cersei may have planned this like “If he deserts, then I have found another weak point and can just send another assassin to take care of him too”, but Cersei hasn’t been that good in actual political intrigue. If she can’t just murder her way out or can’t bribe someone to do it for her there’s not much else in her playbook.

Oh, and time to breasts: 20:57. As this is the last season, here’s a fancy graph:

I have no idea if there’s any correlation with anything else that can be seen here and what it can mean. Remove the seventh season and it’s symmetrical, that’s about it. I don’t even remember why I started to mention them. It’s a graph. I have several in my Master’s thesis, too. They seem to be something you have to have.

I really like Daenerys’ white dress with red fabric under it. Looks warm and fancy.

Sansa has called all banners to Winterfell. They are making their stand there, with everyone in one place, leaving as few people to be picked out by the dead as possible so there’s not another Hardhome. The dead get more soldiers with every win, and they don’t need to worry about supplies or logistics. Good thinking, but the people of the Last Hearth, the closest settlement to the Eastwatch, haven’t arrived yet. Oops.

Well, they’ll arrive. Oh, they will. But if the Dead have intel (do they? Once again, how much do the Walkers plan?) what they should do is just siege Winterfell and continue killing everything they find in the North. The dead don’t need food, and they don’t catch illnesses. They can just wait. It’s the living who have a deadline to a battle, or they don’t have enough food to feed their army, as Sansa points out.

The Golden Company arrives at King's Landing, with a new character, Strickland, commanding them. Not Daario, but that was a bit crack theory, as he already commands the Second Sons. Maybe he’ll cross later, with Yara’s fleet, perhaps. There’s so little time left that I doubt we’ll see Essos again outside of a possible ending montage. So if Faabio Naharis wants to be seen (and likely killed), he has to get himself over here.

The Company didn’t bring elephants. Not suitable for long sea voyages, they say. That’s a disappointment, but I understand them not wanting to risk it. Cersei, being Cersei, doesn’t. She wants those elephants. Well, I want them too, so for once me and Cersei are on the same side.

Euron gets to share a bed with a queen. That achievement done, is he more likely now to just skip it if the situation gets bad for Cersei? I’d say not. He’s always been ready to skip it, and he seems like a person who wants more when he gets some.

Yara is rescued by Theon, very quickly. Euron is still in the Red Keep and so can’t confront them. So their eventual confrontation is delayed. I’m as sure about it happening as I’m of anything in this show (which, let’s be fair, is not much). But if there’s a fleet battle before the end, who else could there be but the only ones who still own fleets? Salladhor Saan?

Yara leaves for the Iron Islands, she plans to retake them while Euron is busy. And Theon wants to go to the North to try to pay back for his crimes. Commendable, let’s hope that the dead wait until he gets there.

This episode is full of scenes telling of how much characters have grown during their years of adventuring. Theon now respects the upbringing he had with the Starks and seeks redemption, nobody underestimates Sansa anymore, and Arya respects and protects her. Jon has the loyalty of the North and the Free folk. The dragons, having grown the most during the story, are full grown and can be ridden by people other than Daenerys. (And then we have Cersei, who has learnt nothing, except perhaps how to be a mini version of Tywin, and that playbook doesn’t work anymore).

Flying a dragon bareheaded in winter seems like a great way to freeze your ears off.

“Lord Glover wishes us good fortune, but he’s staying in Deepwood Motte with his men”. I’m not at all surprised. Not at all. As being wrong runs in that family, this was expected. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lord Glover still comes to Winterfell, but he’ll likely walk.

Sam didn’t hear about his family yet, but now he does, and from the executioner herself. It’s a one-two-blow, and really upsets Sam. There’s this super cool new queen who Jon loves and who has come to rescue everyone, and whose followers say they follow her out of love, and also she has executed your brother and father. Sure they walked into it themselves, especially Randall who decided that he can betray Olenna, but he will put a line to Cersei. Grrr. Still, it’s not any easier to Sam. Hopefully Daenerys learns something about this.

And then there’s Bran, who has spent the episode watching everyone. That’s why he’s also in this post at several points looking at you. He knows what you did.

Now he talks Sam into telling Jon about his mother. Sam does it right near Ned Stark’s tomb. “The next time we meet, we’ll talk of your mother.” 

At this point Sam thinks that Jon should be the king, because he would be much better at it than Daenerys. But, once again, they have the Night King to worry about, can they allow themselves to worry about this now? Jon just had a talk with Sansa that any of this doesn’t matter as long as the Dead are marching.

Speaking of the Dead, Tormund and Beric did survive the break of the Wall, and have arrived to the Last Hearth with the other survivors of the Eastwatch. And it’s dark. Super dark. Welcome to the winter. It’s summer on this side of the screen and so I can’t see a thing.

They find trails of fighting, but no bodies, which tells immediately which side won. Beric finally flames his sword so I can see, and they find Edd. Is it Lord Commander Edd now? And does it matter at all? They find the Umber boy, dead, in the middle of an art installation. So the Walkers a) can figure out who is the leader, and b) are sadistic enough to leave messages like this. It’s not a trap, as one dead who is stuck to the Wall isn’t much of a trap. It’s for morale, so the Walkers do understand things like that.

Edd is confident that they can get to Winterfell before the Dead. Something this optimistic coming from Mr. “We are all going to die”, I take as a certainty.

The whole world comes to Winterfell. It’s the place to be now. One hooded character arrives among refugees. It’s Jaime, here to seek redemption in the apocalypse as well. He can start with the familiar-looking person looking at him from a wheelchair.

Good luck. But this person is able to watch your whole life, to see if you deserve a chance or not. Hope for the best.

[proseofpresence]

Mountain Pose: I’m Practicing Alone

I’m practicing aloneness.  If the physicians ahead of me in the Starbucks line, with their buff arms and tight bums, merely practice medicine after 20 years of grueling training, I can practice changing 20 years of dating preoccupation: I love myself.  I am happy with my company.  As I wait for my tall almond milk latte, I imagine being surrounded in white light and focus on beauty: the pungency of oily beans, the hiss of frothing milk, the gratitude for monks who first pressed beans with water.  I try not to look to see if the tall, dark haired doctor- whom I imagine is as bold as his Sumatra roast- is married. Though he’s the embodiment of beauty and checks out my legs as I stride by, I love myself.  I am happy with my company.

I practice on my mat in a yoga class of married, ectomorphic women in designer stretch pants. Just as a I begin to count my breaths from here to nirvana, chatter rambles between my ears about the petite blond next to me wearing a traceable two karat, breathing heavily during Downward Dog: Does she make those sounds during sex? How did she get a man to commit?   I forgive myself by polishing judgment from the diamond in my mind.  I love myself.  I am happy with my company.

Over organic salads, craft drinks, and beach outings, my married girlfriends dish trite, collective advice, which annoys me enough to induce listening.

“Stop looking.  Joe and I met when I was just happy being by myself.  Just love yourself.  When the time’s right, he’ll show up.  Get off online dating.  Let him find you.  Let go.”

Easy to say when you’re spooned nightly by a slightly rotund, balding, legal devotee.  

Ironically, none of my friends know how to love themselves, as evidenced by their addictive habits, childhood anecdotes rife with trauma, and palpable grief for Netflix characters.  

“If we truly loved ourselves, we wouldn’t desire partnership at all,” I tell them.  

Yet, like the time my college dormmates challenged me to down an entire bottle of Boone’s malt liquor and take photos in my padded pushup with strangers (what happened to that disposable camera?), I give in to peer pressure: this non-doing is another form of doing I have yet to try, so I give it a go.  Desiring to not desire is still desire, my superconscious says, while I consciously roll my eyes at myself, only to hug and rock my singledom from side to side in Knees-To-Chest.  I love myself.  I am happy with my company.    

The only people who don’t give me advice are my parents who, after 43 years of marriage, attest to the power of sensuality.  They met at a high school dance in the late 60s.  As he places Abbey Road on the turntable and sips on chianti, Dad insists, “Mom got fresh and tried to hold my hand on the dance floor.”  

Mom vehemently denies this and rolls her eyes, as she makes him a plate of cheese, olives, and Italian bread, assuring me that, “Your father pursued and wooed and never let me put my hand in my pocket for anything.”  

I smile duteously for the thirtieth time, secretly wondering how I was conceived from such a fairytale, and why I’m relegated to swiping left on Randall, who posts self-aggrandizing shirtless photos in bed and trophies an illegally caught grouper above his head.  Perhaps it’s college karma fifteen years late.  

Staring out the glass sliders to see Dad hosing Mom’s orchids and birds of paradise, I realize no one’s touched my hand in five months. No one’s asked me to dance since last year, when I went out with the red bearded foreman (what was his name again?) who swiped right on me and, subsequently, on my left breast on the dance floor.  A few dances and drinks in, our make out session was unexpectedly interrupted by his ex, a high barfly.  

“You’re so pretty,” she slurred and close talked as her jaw pounded in fast rhythms, “why are you with him?”  

Something in the way she moves attracts me like no other lover, something in the way she woos me...  

Sadness upsurges unexpectedly in my chest.  To avoid crying, I hold a pitted olive between my fingers, stare at its roundness, pop it in my mouth, and revel in its firmness.    I love myself.  I am happy with my company.

At 38, attending a six-week English graduate program on a remote Vermont mountain requires a balance between downsizing and realism.  I’m too old to capsize my mid-maintenance lifestyle into one suitcase, and I’m too lazy to drive from Florida.  Hence, the purchase of an auto train ticket.  I only allow myself two variations of the essentials to fit into three plastic crates and a large garment bag.  I’m sure 19th Century waggoneers seeking squatters’ rights set similar parameters, considering they never knew when a barn dance would occur. This reasonable rule, of course, does not pertain to t-shirts, jewelry, vitamin supplements, or coffee pods.  These items are a form of self-care and facilitate self-love, I tell myself, while trying to puzzle together high heels with a NutriBullet and facial steamer. I love myself.  I am happy with my company.

We introduce ourselves- the “singletons” as the smiling attendant calls us- while the dinner car speeds past hidden inlets and mobile homes of the southern Carolinas.  The two Baby Boomers, about ten years apart in age, are pulled backward by the train, a reversal that would cause me to lose my braised chicken dinner.  John, the older, smaller statured gentleman, sits across from me; and Kent, whose left eye bulges with blood post ocular surgery, sits across from Lin, a disheveled, yawning anesthesiology resident who mumbles as she speaks.  I worry, as she talks the most excitedly and clearly all meal about “having a person’s autonomic functions in [her] hands,” that she might pass out in the middle of the procedure or our dinner.  After Kent starts talking about his drug experimentation in the 60s, which interests Lin because she “aced pharmacology,” I engage John in the hopes that Kent stops obsequiously staring at my breasts.  

With a slight smile, John tells me he’s a Snow Bird returning to upstate New York for the summer until his upcoming trip to Norway, Sweden, and Finland.   Grateful that he’s well-traveled- to divert me from making eye contact with Kent, who’s tried to get my attention a few times- we chat about our favorite places.

“Bora Bora is all it’s cracked up to be,” he says staring out the window in a moment of fond reminiscence.  “I took a cruise to islands in the area with an elite line: only fifty people on the ship.   I got to know everyone.  Good for a single guy.  The food was fabulous.  Not anything like this menu, which hasn’t changed in the eight years I’ve been taking the train.  Pharmaceutical sales- though I was technically a drug dealer- was good to me.”  

I like that he speaks in complete thoughts with a bit of oversharing: he doesn’t make this a working dinner for me. By the time melting ice cream and surprisingly decent coffee rattle in front of us, we’ve effortlessly shared stories about South Africa, southern Italy, and Bavaria.  

“I used to travel with someone,” he admits in growing comfort, “but, it’s actually better being on my own.  I like golfing and history, two subjects most women don’t prefer.  The older I get, the more set in my ways I become.  There are certain things I need to travel with.   Sometimes I like it to just be quiet.   I like my company. I never really hit it off with someone for more than two weeks.  Marriage, it seems, just wasn’t in the cards.”  

For a second, I wish the train was moving us into another timeline, one where we meet in the middle of our loveless histories, two singletons of a similar age looking out windows in search of the other.  Just before the silence goes on for too long, grief wells in my eyes as I think of a man I miss, of a similar name somewhere in Africa, who tinkered around my house for two weeks fixing things and me, who wasn’t in my cards.   I love myself.  I am happy with my company.

“You are just like the shrink on Billions.  I just love her.  So smart and sexy,” Kent interjects, pulling me into the present, as the attendant clangs dirty plates away, and he slurps his remaining chardonnay. “If you want to chat later, I have one of those privacy cots in car 5325.”

“No thank you,” I assert as an unexpected confidence rises in my throat.   “I am happy with my company.”  

All I can think about is his bulging eye and how Paul Giamatti would likely never drink chardonnay.  All I can do is imagine him surrounded in white light and thank him, by touching my heart, for focusing on my beauty.  

I’m living aloneness in my single dorm room, while taking black and whites of deserted churches and barns, in writing at the lone coffee shop, while searching for a meal that isn’t pub grub, in suffering no cell service, while spending $50 on two bags of groceries, in doing laundry from a coin operated machine, while profusely sweating no air conditioning, in missing Dad play dress-up with my nieces, while seeing photos of Mom cradling her new puppy, in lamenting the closest yoga studio is an hour away, while listening to low-maintenance strangers during communal dinners, in reading Titus Andronicus’ bloody demise, while running past Robert Frost’s diverging wood, in letting go of the fantasy of meeting my husband amid fireflies, while breathing out the fear that this is all there is and will ever be.  I love myself.  I am happy with my company.

#modernlove #30sdating #vermont #yoga #selflove #proseofpresence #poetryofpresence

[wbwest]

New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/07/14/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-71417/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 7/14/17

So, I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming. Unlike most of you, I didn’t love it. I really liked it, but didn’t love it. Part of the issue stems from the legacy of Spider-Man films. I kinda hate how every star has delivered a great performance as Spider-Man, yet the minute the roll is recast, fans with short memories start saying the last guy was “shit”. People love ragging on Tobey Maguire, especially after Spider-Man 3, but he was really good in those first two movies. There’s a Spider-Man for every generation, and he was the Spider-Man we needed in 2002. Sure, he wouldn’t work so well now, but to compare his movies to Homecoming is basically apples to oranges. I also kinda hate when people say “They finally got Spider-Man right!” Um, Tobey already got him right. Andrew Garfield, in his own way, got him right. And Holland is getting him right. For now. They’ve all brought something special and unique to the table, and I think it’s unfair to discount that because there’s some new, shiny thing to take your attention.

All that’s to say that I liked Homecoming, but it didn’t really offer anything new to me. I felt the same wide-eyed wonder seeing Holland do the ferry rescue as I did when Maguire did the same thing with the train in Spider-Man 2. Some might call that an homage, but it just felt…familiar.

What did I love? I loved Tony being there. I felt like there was just enough Tony Stark without the film becoming Iron Man 3.5. It’s always good to see Happy, and this movie did more with him than most of the Iron Man films ever did. I especially love movie Happy since comic Happy is no longer with us (sad trombone). I loved sexy, younger Aunt May, but I’ve loved Marisa Tomei ever since she filled out her college application wrong and ended up at that Black college. I loved the running joke of all the guys commenting on how hot she was. It’s a new concept for May, but it works. I loved the Miles Morales Easter egg (I won’t spoil it here if you didn’t catch it). I loved Not-Ganke (For those not in the know, Ganke is the name of Miles Morales Spider-Man’s best friend, who looks EXACTLY like actor Jacob Batalon), even if I don’t know why they insisted on calling him “Ned Leeds”. I loved that Damage Control was officially revealed. Keaton was great, even if he’s not an Adrian Toomes that I recognize. The Liz Allen swerve was cool, ’cause I really didn’t see that coming.

OK, now for the things I didn’t like. They introduced a good swath of Spidey’s rogue (Mac Gargan, Shocker), all at once as Vulture’s gang, only to be relegated to ancillary characters and henchmen. I know the MCU has a “Villain Problem” of wasting their villains, but this just takes the cake.

Now, this is gonna sound stupid, but I spent a good amount of time trying to reconcile the MCU timeline in my head. The movie starts immediately after Avengers, jumps 8 years to Captain America: Civil War, and then to the present day, which is shortly after the airport battle where Spidey debuted. Now, a big part of Act 3 is the fact that Vulture wants to steal a bunch of Avengers/Stark Tech on Moving Day – when everything was being moved from Avengers Tower to the upstate facility. Now, Tony’s rich, so it’s not like he can’t own multiple properties, but why is Moving Day happening NOW? I mean, the upstate facility debuted at the end of Age of Ultron, we saw it again in Ant-Man, and everyone seemed to be pretty moved in by Civil War. So, why the delay in moving everything up there? Does Homecoming maybe not take place when we think it does? Well, we know it’s post-Civil War because Cap’s hilariously referred to as a war criminal by gym teacher Hannibal Buress. If it were just a thrown away reference, I wouldn’t care, but the whole final action piece is based on this Moving Day concept. Anyway, I think it’s fair to say I probably wasn’t in the right headspace for this movie if that’s where my brain was going.

Oh, and the thing I hated most: that effing MJ reveal! First of all, it accomplished nothing. It was corny, and it was executed just as poorly as when The Dark Knight Rises did it. Secondly, at the end of the day, her name is MICHELLE, not MARY. You can call her “MJ”, but that does not make her Mary Jane. And to be honest, the movie would’ve been fine without her character. While she was funny, it seems like she was woven into the movie solely to make that hamfisted name reveal at the end.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll watch this movie a bunch more once it hits the premium channels, but I just didn’t fall in love with it as much as a lot of you did. I’m really sorry about that, too, ’cause I really wanted to love it. Something just didn’t work for me entirely, and I can’t put my finger on it exactly.

Things were heating up in the news world this week. Back when NBC announced they had hired Megyn Kelly from Fox News, Today co-anchor Tamron Hall abruptly quit, reportedly because her contract was about to expire. Industry insiders, however, believe it was because it was rumored that Kelly would be given the third hour of Today – where Hall was currently the co-anchor of Today’s Take. Well, that’s somewhat true, as this week it was revealed that Kelly’s show will premiere September 25th, and will feature a live studio audience, like a traditional talk show. It will, in fact, occupy the third hour of Today, sandwiched between the regular Today and the Kathie Lee & Hoda hour of Today. Not to be outdone, it was also announced that Tamron Hall is developing a daytime talk show with Weinstein Television. It’s also believed that, in several major markets, this talk show will go head to head with Kelly’s daytime show. Now the race is on to see which one of them earns the coveted “Fake News” label first!

In other television news, CBS announced an upcoming animated special called Michael Jackson’s Halloween, which sounds kinda sketchy. Apparently, it’s about two Millennials (there’s THAT buzzword), which is basically to say “two shits too young to appreciate the King of Pop’s music”. Anyway, they meet at a party, end up at a weird hotel, and crazy stuff happens – all capped off by a dance number by an animated Michael. If you ask me, he already contributed his greatest gift to the Halloween industry: “Thriller”! Unless this is just a one-hour animated version of “Thriller”, I don’t think the world needs this. Somebody tell his mama to stop letting his estate make crap like this.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

John Cho joins Fox’s The Exorcist next season. While some are all, “Yay, representation!”, I’m like “Why the F is Sulu doing television?!” Well, I guess since Kumar’s already doing television…

In a move that’s somewhat baffling to me, Lucy Liu will direct the season 2 premiere of Netflix’s Luke Cage

Speaking of Netflix, Bojack Horseman season 4 will premiere on September 8th.

Fresh of the Boat dad Randall Park has been cast as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jimmy Woo in Ant-Man & The Wasp

Netflix has also renewed the Castlevania animated series for a second season

Jeremy Renner essentially broke both arms while filming the movie Tag, though it’s not expected to affect production on Avengers: Infinity War.

Smallville‘s Lois Lane, Erica Durance, is taking over the role of Alura from Laura Benanti on Supergirl.

Despite flopping in North America, the Baywatch film is on track to make $100 million overseas

Showtime is planning a sequel to the hit lesbian series The L Word. If it were up to me, it’d be called The K Word, and it would be about non-binary gender Millennials as they make their way through NYC, but nobody pays me for these ideas, so…

After 27 years of voicing Kermit the Frog, it was revealed that Steve Whitmire was fired back in October, and it currently lobbying to get his job back. Apparently, it’s not east being Steve.

In probably the biggest TV news this week (at least for the geek set), it was announced that AT&T Lily herself, Milana Vayntrub, has been cast as Squirrel Girl in Marvel’s New Warriors on Freeform. I cared NOTHING about this show until that announcement. It still doesn’t really inspire any confidence for me, as I don’t know if the superhero comedy genre works on television (see Powerless), but I’m definitely more inclined to check it out than I had been prior to the announcement. I mean, who doesn’t love that chick?! I love her in the commercials, I loved her in Other Space, and I even loved her as a bitchy ex-girlfriend in Love. Here’s hoping this leads to the big break she deserves. It was a slow entertainment news week so, ya know what, Milana Vayntrub had the Breas…I mean West Week Ever.

[worldbestlawyers]

New Post has been published on World Best Lawyers

New Post has been published on http://www.worldbestlawyers.com/crime-fiction-ten-cliches-to-avoid/

Crime Fiction - Ten Cliches to Avoid

Crime fiction is big business at the moment, but there are certain situations that have been overplayed so much that they have become genre cliches and everybody knows what to expect next. Here are ten cliches you should try to avoid and thoughts on how to subvert the cliches if you do decide to use them.

Cops and Doctors

You can find this perennial favourite in both crime and historical fiction. You’ll see it in ER, NYPD Blue and in cross -genre shows like the X Files. The doctor says “OK but only for a minute” or “It’s touch and go. The next few hours will be crucial” or “It could be minutes, it could be days… you never know with coma cases” The policemen usually say nothing. They just stand around and chew the scenery in frustration.

Mulder and Scully actually spend a lot of their time hanging around in hospitals but you don’t notice so much because the patients aren’t your run of the mill criminals or witnesses.

And that’s the way to get around this one. Get a new twist and add some tension. Maybe the patient is related to either the cop or the doctor. Or maybe the doctor is an amateur detective and knows better than the cop? But beware of the “Dick Van Dyke” syndrome… that leads you into a whole new area of cliche

The New Partner

In this scenario a veteran cop has to get a new partner after the death of his old one. The rookie is either keen as mustard and eager to please, or burned out from personal problems. It’s probably best known in modern times from the Lethal Weapon movies. Screenwriters tried to add some tension early in the series by having Mel Gibson as a borderline suicide case, and that gave the first film an edge; but it was lost in later instalments. By the time the fourth movie came came along they had fallen so deeply into a buddy movie relationship that all drama was lost in favour of light comedy.

You need to do some serious subverting if you want to use this situation. People have tried having a dog as the buddy in K9, having their Mom as the buddy in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, and having foreigners as the buddy in big Arnie’s Red Heat.

Outside the strictly police procedural we’ve also had the robot buddy in Robocop, the ghost buddy in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), the alien buddy in Alien Nation, the magician buddy in Jonathan Creek, the ex-serviceman buddy in both Sherlock Holmes and Poirot. The list just goes on and on.

However you do it, filling in the blanks is easy in this scenario. What you need is something new. How about having the cop being given a politician doing a meet-the-people stint. Or, on a completely tasteless but might be funny level, how about the schizophrenic cop who is his own buddy?

The Rookie in the Morgue

Once only the province of young students in Quincy, this one now turns up on TV in the CSI franchise or Crossing Jordan and in print in the Kay Scarpetta books. There are usually two ways this one can proceed. Either the young cop rushes out, hand at mouth, or he stands still, icily cold and detached, as the autopsy proceeds.

Inspector Morse tried to subvert this situation by having the old timer as the squeamish one, but how about having the rookie as the pathologist?

Whatever you do, try not to give the pathologist a chance to be smug and patronizing while explaining large chunks of the plot. In the UK, this is overdone in Silent Witness and Waking the Dead, and is just a lazy way to advance the story.

The Cantankerous Lieutenant Chews Out The Cop

In films and television shows this happens to every protagonist, and Clint Eastwood for one must be tired of it. In the Dirty Harry series he was rarely out of his boss’s office.

It usually ends up with the lieutenant and the cop snarling at each other, so how about having one of them being completely calm and laid back? Or how about having one of them being deaf?

And if you must write this scene, please don’t use lines like “I’ll have your badge for that”, or “I’m not covering for you this time”

The Slimy Defence Lawyer

This one was a hot favourite on NYPD Blue and was guaranteed to get right up Sipowitz’s nose. Once you’ve introduced the sharp suit, the slick hairstyle and the briefcase, this guy will inevitably say, “My client has no further comment,” or “You had no right to talk to him without me there.” Everybody knows the rest.

Again, serious though is needed to bring a new twist to this situation. Your lawyer could be an ex-cop who knows all the moves, or a relative or lover of one of the cops? How about a lawyer defending himself? Or a counter-culture lawyer covered with tattoos and piercings?

Whatever you do try to come up with some creative invective. Slimeball, sleazeball, reptile and shyster have all been overused.

The Car Chase

Bullit and The French Connection set the standard, and Gone in 60 Seconds brought it into the 21st Century, but this situation has mostly become tired. There are only so many little old ladies to avoid, so many road signs to hit, and so many police cars to trash before your audience becomes jaded.

Over the years the Bond movies have used up just about all the possible permutations, so you’ll struggle to come up with something new. It would be better to add tension in another way.

In a bid to appear fresh, the chase element has sometimes been dropped altogether in favour of the race against time as in Speed or Die Hard With a Vengeance. To succeed you’ll need a good reason for the journey to take place, a disastrous outcome if it’s not successful, and some good near misses on the way.

But beware. Too much carnage and your readers will start thinking of The Blues Brothers. And please, don’t have your protagonist drive the wrong way down a one-way street.. it’s been done far too often.

The Shoot Out

Raymond Chandler’s advice to crime writers still holds. “If your plot is flagging, have a man come in with a gun.” You’ve got to be careful though. Too many people still transfer scenes from old cowboy movies almost verbatim into modern cop scenes.

Probably the best recent shoot out was in Michael Mann’s Heat. You cared who lived or died, and there was excitement and tension. Therein lies the trick. Make your readers have an opinion, not just about your hero, but about the other characters as well. At the end of LA Confidential, we knew all of the people involved in the climax, and it made it more satisfying to watch who lived or died. Lining one-dimensional people up just as cannon fodder might work in a Saturday night popcorn movie, but we should be aiming higher than that.

Shoot outs work well on film, but they can be a drag in print. Some writers tend to slow things down, especially to have a close look at the wounds. Unless you’re careful it can read like a medical textbook.

And, please, don’t have heads “exploding like ripe watermelons.”

The Cop in The Cafe

This was used in Chips in every episode, giving them an excuse to show a motorbike speeding from a car park with loose gravel flying.

It’s also a favourite in most of the aforementioned buddy movies, and especially in Starsky and Hutch. They’ll be in a cafe, musing over the chewing out they’ve had from their boss, when a call comes through. The radio buzzes, giving them a chance to attach a flashing light to the roof of their car and head off to a car chase, closely followed by a shoot out. See how it’s possible to run one cliche into another? Pretty soon you’d have a whole plot, but would anybody buy it?

One way of changing this scene might be to have an alternative means of the cops getting the message. You could have them hearing something on the Television? Or how about on a cell-phone or laptop… there are multiple opportunities for foul ups, misunderstandings or criminal actions there, and they haven’t been overdone… yet.

Good Cop / Bad Cop

The good cop / bad cop interview became a cliche almost as soon as crime fiction began. A fine example, nearly seventy years old, can be seen in The Maltese Falcon. By now everybody knows the moves, and your readers will be bored long before the interview is over. Unless you’re being self-referential and ironic, as in LA Confidential you’ll never pull it off.

Cracker tried to subvert the interview situation altogether by having it performed by a psychiatrist who played both cops in one. In The Rock, Sean Connery as the prisoner told Nicholas Cage which questions he should be asking. You’ll need to find something similarly innovative if you’re going to make it work.

How about having two good cops? Or two bad cops? Or maybe there is a new computer system designed by psychologists to ask the right questions in the right order? How would your cops and your prisoner handle that?

The Estranged Wife

Why do all fictional cops have relationship problems? This scene always goes the same way. The wife says, “You never see the children anymore.” The cop doesn’t say anything, because his mobile phone interrupts. You know the rest.

Cracker is again a good case in point as he went through this scene in almost every episode. Pacino played a variation of it with his girlfriend in Heat.

Not only does Cracker have a failed marriage, but he’s also a gambler and a drinker. In recent years people have been giving cops more and more problems to overcome, culminating in Denzel Washington’s paraplegic investigator in The Bone Collector. I wouldn’t even try to top that.

Why not be original. Make your cop a healthy, stable, happily married man. Now there’s a challenge.

Conclusion

The next time you read or watch a police drama, notice how many of the above are still in use. All of them can occur in any one story, and frequently do… just shuffle the paragraphs, add a murder or two and you have an instant plot.

But unless you can subvert some of the cliches, don’t expect anybody to buy it.