#it was always an interesting detail that Michael looks almost identical to his father

[chloesimaginationthings]

every time u draw in-game william its over fopr me...hes so sjkdjkl???

Fun fact: For my in-game William design I heavily tried to make him resemble Michael, down to very small features and quirks

[lassluna]

Swan’s Hourglass (1/?)

Emma Swan had a mission. Find a place to start New Hyrule, her kingdom apparently. It was her mission as Princess or Savior or whatever. It’s going terribly if she’s honest. No one ever gave her Princess or Savior lessons growing up. She really has no idea how to be a Savior. She doesn’t even really want to in the first place.

But when the Demon Ship kidnaps her son and she gets stranded on a strange island with only an old woman and peppy fairy for help, Emma will have to do what she has to do to rescue her son, even if that means putting a certain self-proclaimed pirate captain in his place.

Legend Of Zelda AU

AN: I am SO EXCITED to start posting this. This has been in my documents for YEARS and I can’t wait to share what it is become. Thank you SO much @cssns​ for giving me a reason to commit to writing this. Thank you @spartanguard​ for being a fabulous beta and making sense of this thing, it would not be what it is without your fabulous input. Thank you @eastwesthomeisbest​ for creating such an amazing image, I love it to pieces!!!! 

FFN Ao3

Prologue 

“Our story begins not long ago; there was a young man, head to a band of lost boys, thieves of the kingdom. His name was Baelfire. Baelfire was cunning, smart and mysterious. They wanted to explore the unfamiliar land.

One day Baelfire met a young girl on her first adventure outside her parents’ home. She was young and curious and ready to make her own destiny.

After a series of strange events, the girl began traveling with the group as she’d become smitten with Baelfire. Through many adventures, they found old ruins, hoping to make off with treasure. Instead, however, light enveloped the girl, revealing that her lineage wasn’t just sheep farming as she once thought, but that it traced back to a line of legendary heroes known to their time as The Saviors. She was the lost princess prophesied to save her people from a terrible fate.

When her identity was revealed, a wicked witch appeared and carried the princess away from Baelfire as she knew that the Savior was destined to destroy her. Instead she sought to take her power for herself. She used her power to destroy the kingdom many years before.

Baelfire chased after the princess in order to rescue her. He crossed mountains and ocean, slayed terrible beasts in order to be reunited with his True Love. When he finally found her, the princess was not alone as she had been with child when she was taken and bore his son while in captivity.

They used their power to become true heros and slay the Wicked Witch once and for all, and the princess and her infant son were rescued at last. However, during the battle to rescue her, Baelfire sacrificed his life to ensure the safety of his family.

The princess decided to honor his memory and find a new land to restore her kingdom to what it once was, surrounded by her new family of Lost Boys…”

There is a loud sigh coming from a mop of dark hair.

“Come on, Henry? What did you think?” insists a voice. It’s the same voice as the one who told the story. He is tall and skinny, dressed in traditional sailor’s wear with hair a slight shade darker and freckles all over his face.

She always enjoys listening to her friend’s storytelling from a distance. 

“Boring,” came the reply, much to her amusement.

“What? How?” the story teller says again in surprise.

“Johnnn,” Henry groans. “You tell the same story every time,” he says in exasperation. “You don’t even add to it.” He looked up at her from the lower deck as she stood on an upper section watching him. “At least Mom sometimes tells me of Dad’s adventures,” he insists, standing up from where he’d been sitting and stretching. “You were there, shouldn’t you know more than Mom about this?” he asks skeptically. “Mom was captured when all the exciting stuff happened.”

She watched as the man looked up at her, exchanging a careful look with her. She keeps her gaze firm. 

It was a very direct, don't you dare.

“I’m forgetful,” John retorts to her son. 

“You’d forget years of your life?” Henry asks, yet again. “I still don’t buy that.” 

She could tell that Henry was starting to get around John’s story, as he always was. Ever since Henry was a toddler, he’d always been so curious. Now that he was growing up, he’d become desperate for more details, more information, more of anything interesting, especially details of his father.

Her kid was growing up so fast…

“Henry,” she calls out, making him notice her for the first time. She stands overlooking the lower decks. “Aren’t you supposed to be on lookout?” she asks. “You know the Captain wouldn’t like it if her first mate is slacking on the job,” she teases. 

Henry’s eyes light up, all thoughts of the story gone from his head.

Well, not that fast. She muses silently.

“Oh yeah!” he says excitedly, “We’re looking for the Demon Ship,” he reminds her, grabbing John’s hand and darting off towards the edge of the ship. She could hear him rambling about it from the other side of the vessel.

“You know Emma,” says a new voice. Emma had had a suspicion she had been listening too. “You’re going to have to tell him the truth eventually.” Emma didn’t look back at her.

“What I tell my son about his father is my business,” Emma reminds the Captain. “You promised me you’d honor that,” she reminds her. The last thing she needs is someone telling her how to raise her kid. 

“I just think that Henry’s a smart kid and will figure it out. Shouldn’t it come from you and not when Michael and John have conflicting stories?” she presses. Emma turns towards the brunette sea captain, looking her straight in the eyes. Captain Wendy Darling did not waver. 

“We’ve been over this a dozen times Captain,” Emma says as politely as possible. “I will protect Baelfire’s legacy, Henry’s hero until I see fit to tell him otherwise,” He’s her kid, and the last thing she needed was for him to dwell on the past; lord knew she dwelled on it enough.

“I just think—“ But Emma cuts her off.

 “Bae’s already dead; what good will the truth do any of us?” she snaps. Wendy raises a brow.

 “Maybe it would let your son see you less as a damsel and more as a hero, Savior,” Wendy replies with an almost whimsical sound at the word ‘Savior’ and it fills Emma with dread. “Maybe it would let you see yourself that way too,” she adds.

“I am no Savior,” she says sternly, barely resisting another snap. “If I was, Baelfire wouldn’t be dead. He saved us from the Wicked Witch and that’s all I want to hear on the subject,” she says firmly. 

Wendy shrugs slightly, conversation over for now. It’s a common argument for them. It feels like they have it every day. She’s supposed to be some Savior, but she doesn’t feel like one, she never has, even after years free from the Wicked Witch. All Emma’s been was the daughter of a sheep farmer, and after the death of her parents before she met Bae, she was lost. She never meant to save the world; she never meant to be the one destined to find some new land for her people.  

Emma doesn’t want to be the Savior. She wishes she could just hand off the job to someone way more qualified.

Emma watches Wendy look up at the sky, face stern. Emma never really understood why Wendy has been helping her for all these years; at first, it was some obligation to Bae, but yet she’s been talking about telling Henry the truth about his father since Henry was old enough to hear these stories. She doesn’t understand it; Emma would think she’d want to protect his image.

Emma doesn’t think she’ll ever truly understand her. “Besides,” Emma continues, “Shouldn’t you be trying to find a way to avoid this Demon ship Henry keeps talking about?” she asks, still eyeing the brunette.

Henry had taken up talking to other sailors whenever they reached port. At first, he wanted to try to trade some of his treasures for different things, and then it turned into him hunting out stories from dock workers or deckhands. He was always very excitable when it came to adventures so Emma was barely surprised when Michael came to her that first time he caught Henry wandering off to engage in a conversation with a stranger. 

 Wendy takes the change of subject gladly. Wendy rolled her eyes. “There is no Demon Ship,” she insists. “It’s just some pirate gang or something, an urban legend to scare people.” She crosses her arms and she looks insulted by the accusation. 

“Are you sure?” asks a voice from the hull; Emma recognized Michael, slightly pudgier than his younger brother holding the wheel of the ship, looking at Wendy in uncertainty. “What about all those ships that have gone missing?” he asks nervously. “No survivors or ship remains were ever found.”

Wendy sighs in annoyance, but Emma can see it’s barely contained outrage. “We’re going to be fine,” she says again. “These seas are protected,” she reminds them.

Emma raised a brow in disbelief. “Protected?” she asks. Emma didn’t see any royal colors on this piece of the map; she thought this area was uncharted.

“By the Ocean Queen,” Wendy retorts as if it’s obvious.

“Ocean Queen?” Henry asks, being drawn in by the talk of adventure and stories. His eyes lit up. “Who’s she?” he asks. 

“No one’s told you?” Wendy says in disbelief. “She’s a benevolent ancient ruler who protects all sailors in this area of the ocean,” Wendy replies. “Legend has it that she rules with three helpers, but not much more is known.” It makes Henry’s smile widen at the thought. Emma was sure her son’s head was filling up with ideas of meeting this ruler one day.

But at ten years old, Emma was not having it.

“You believe in an Ocean Queen and not a Demon ship?” Emma asks. It seemed a little one sided to her.

Wendy snickers. “Of course I don’t!” she exclaims. “I only believe in the wind and the stars; everything else is just fairy tales,” she says with a laugh. “That’s just an old story my mother used to tell me. She grew up around here,” she informs them. “A little place called Molida Island.”

Henry groans. “Aunt Wendyyyy,” he says with a sigh. “That’s mean.”

Wendy sticks her tongue out at him, looking like the kid Emma had met all those years ago. “That’s what you get for slacking off on your duties, mate.”

Henry sticks his tongue out right back at her. It wasn’t often that Wendy acted her age, only barely being 23 herself; but when she did, it was refreshing to Emma. It reminded her of the fierce Captain who could see them all through any storm in the sea and yet still had a soft side.

Emma’s relaxation was short lived, as before anyone realized it, a dark and thick fog rolled over them.

“What the—“ Wendy cries in surprise. “Everyone get to your stations,” she snaps at her two younger brothers. “We’re taking a detour from this place,” she orders. Emma looks around unsure. She has a dark feeling in her gut. She feels tingling in her soul, but she blocks it out. She doesn’t need more to deal with right now. She just needs her kid.

“Henry?” she calls out. She wanted her son with her while the crew worked on getting them out of here.

“Wind’s dead, Wendy,” John calls out.

“How can the wind be dead when a fog literally just blew in?” she snaps back.

“Mom, look!” she hears Henry say. He was sitting on the edge of the ship pointing out. “A ship.”

Emma looks over and realizes that Henry was right: there was a ship heading towards them and fast. “Henry, get away from there,” she orders, rushing down the steps in her dress. She barely reaches him as the ship descends upon them.

Emma sees its superior size loom overhead and dark wooden hulls cast a shadow upon their smaller vessel. Its ornaments are all a faded ivory color looking almost like bone. It looked like death itself had come for them.

“It’s the Demon Ship!” Emma hears Michael cry out. “These waters really are cursed!”

“It’s just a ship,” Wendy snaps at them. “Emma, Henry get below decks; let us handle things,” she orders. Emma nods in agreement, reaching over to gather Henry’s hand in hers and hide below deck. This was dangerous and Emma needs to keep Henry safe. 

She just wants to take her son where it’s safe.

Henry pulls away from her. “It is the Demon Ship!” he insists. “And there could be a lot of treasure on board.” He reaches up for a stray piece of rigging, much to Emma’s horror.

“Henry!” she shouts, trying to grab him as her son swings over to the ship. “Henry get back over here!” she calls out once he lands safely. She is going to ground him for life for this.

“It’s fine, Mom; it’s—“ Suddenly as if possessed, the fog around them gets much denser and it is hard to see Henry at all. Then she hears a piercing sound that shakes her to her very core.

“Mom!” Henry screams. He screams for her.

“Henry!” Forgetting every ounce of her fear, Emma grabs the rigging, same as Henry had, and attempts to swing over to the other side. She needed to get to her son now.

However, the Demon ship started to move away from them so Emma’s leap of faith lands her clutching to the side of the ship.

“Emma!” She hears a chorus of voices call out in dismay. But she doesn’t care; she does her best to scramble upwards, trying to find something to catch the edge of her feet, anything to just hold on.

She hears a snickering laughter, sees a flash of dark hair and then someone uncurls her fingers from around the edge.

“Henry!” she shouts helplessly as she splashes into the water. Both the sky and the water were dark and grey and she couldn’t seem to make out either the Demon ship or her own ship in her confusion. 

“Henry!” she cries one last time before the water swallowed her whole.

Tagging:

@phiralovesloki​

[heeres-suffering]

Be More Alluring: a Personality Swap AU

[pic description and source will be at the bottom of this post, under the read more]

Start of summary:

“You need to be more alluring.”

"... don’t you mean attractive?”

“I do not. Your attractiveness is adequate, Brooke; if you want to mask your apparently latent queerness, you have to make them want you straight. Isn’t that why your step-father defended you?” 

Brooke Lohst is a loser.

But you know what? That was okay.

She always knew she was a weird one. The intensity of her affection for puppies, picture books, and near-constant daydreaming has lasted well-past a normalcy she can’t seem to grasp; when coupled with her inability to befriend anyone (besides the similarly self-identified loser Michael Mell), it’s not a surprise the rest of her peers have left her behind.

However, there were... ah, worse things in her life to worry about then some mild bullying. She liked her passion well enough, and all of her true insecurities went largely unnoticed, so any insults or weird looks rarely lingered in her mind. It’s not like she was a constant target either, which helped a lot. All in all, she just planned to hunker down, wait out the awkwardness of High School like everyone else, and move on to the rest of her life... 

Except.

When Brooke develops a crush on a girl she’s never talked to, after years of avoiding fairy tale romance and trying not to think about the inevitability of marriage (or how finicky her attraction to boys is in the first place), it feels like her whole world is about to cave in. She’d do anything to make sure her parents, especially daddy, never find out... including buying an edible super computer from the loudest, tiniest guy in school.

End of summary.

Alright!

Hi, hello, it’s Mod Seb, and here’s an AU I’ve been rolling around for a few days! You are free to do with this concept whatever you want, but I wanted to introduce it with a good chunk of the info I’ve already worked out in my head.

So. As the CWs are... too numerous, I’m going to go with a blanket “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” label and encourage you not to read the rest of this if you have any big darkfic triggers that could be upset by mere mention; this isn’t a fic tho, so descriptions of anything awful won’t last long. 

Although, I will mention upfront that Brooke isn’t a binary lesbian. I know the description might read like I’m setting her up to be 100% homosexual; she’s bi with a strong preference for girls, and anyone who presents soft enough in gender or appearance. If it wasn’t for the end-game pairings, her unfamiliarity with smaller details/history of the LGBTQ+ community, and general “gay newb” status, she’d likely ID as a bi lesbian!

(ships and everything else under the Read More)

Okay. That out of the way, there’s quite a number of pairings; I’m pretty sure it’s a super polyamorous and sexual AU, though you’re free to change this list as much as you’d like:

[bolded are end-game ships. italics physically hook up at least once. strike-through means they were in a relationship but break-up in some way before the ending. (H) stands for healthy, while (T) is toxic and/or noncon. underlined characters are pining for the other and may never confess their true feelings]

Brooke/Christine (H), Brooke/Rich (H), Brooke/Jenna (H), Brooke/Michael (H), Brooke/Chloe (T), Brooke/her Daddy (T), Brooke/Squip (H), Brooke/Jeremy (soft T at first bc of mirrored canon-compliant manipulation, H later on), Brooke/Squip/Jeremy (H), Brooke/Squip/Jeremy/Rich (H), Rich/Moses (H), [insert every form of Rich/Mo/Squip/Jeremy here] (H), Jeremy/Chloe (T), Jeremy/Michael (H), Michael/Christine (H), Michael/Christine/Mr. Heere (H; no, seriously), Madeline/Brooke (H)

This is, of course, a role swap AU where Brooke and Jeremy trade places based on my personal lore for their home lives. I always have some pretty fucked ideas as I don’t imagine MB is a great place with great adults, and I pick and choose which parts of canons I use and which I don’t. 

There is no definite ending planned in mind as this isn’t an outline; it’s meta (or an imagine or w/e) for an AU that you’re free to do whatever with. 

So,

The big difference is that Brooke was picked by Michael, while Jeremy was picked by Chloe. Jeremy is trans and hadn’t come out yet; if Chloe had known he was a boy, she wouldn’t have grabbed him. In contrast, Michael’s never gave a shit about potential friends genders.

Jer and B’s personalities... are altered some. Not ALL the way, but kiiinda fusing into their roles, kinda tweaked (I'll get back to that).

The main point of this for me was Brooke/Squip/Jeremy, with B/Jer having a MUCH stronger focus than in canon, and a really bad Chloe acting as one of the major villains.

Michael gets roped into Chloe’s shit, even tho he's still generally a good guy here, bc he's worried about B and thinks she can't properly take care of herself.

While B DOES have a strong crush on Christine, she’s the opposite of the Squip’s “goal”; that’s (obvs) masking, or making passably digestible, her queerness.

Her Mom and step-’Daddy’ have reacted to her friendship w/ ‘openly gay moms, also very flamboyant and GNC’ Michael... poorly.

Michael thinks the solution has to be “act as aggressively yourself as you can, and if they reject you, you know me and the mom’s have a space for you”. This works for him bc he’s permanently hyper-visible, what with all of his own marginalized identities. But, not only has she flied under the radar in comparison to him for years, he doesn’t know everything about her life.

In fact, he doesn’t know most of it. She’s very good at hiding things.

Meanwhile, Jeremy, one of the more popular ‘boy... ish’ (we’ll get to this, too) people in school, is mid-psychosis and self-destruction. He actually has schizo-affective disorder--as is the case with all of my versions of Jeremy--which he needs medication for. Combined that with so many bad influences and trauma, he can no longer fully control himself or his life.

The way he handles this (badly) is to ‘whore around’--which, besides being Chloe’s pet, is kinda why he’s so popular. Nobody respects him, but he’s viewed some form of favorably.

Jeremy is in a relationship with Rich, but he won't let him get as close/protective as Rich wants; Mo and Rich were doing their own man-whoring (but healthy, just droppin’ panties and making dudes and chicks swoon--yeah, Rich is out as bisexual, this is a very ‘the Squips are a good thing’ AU) to gain their standard reputation, but in the course of that, they got together with Jeremy and it became... complicated. Both of them are very "nnn" about how bad his life is for Jer.

The way that their personalities are altered is... okay. To explain this, I have to talk about my characterization of canon-Brooke and Jeremy in relation to this, starting with Brooke:

I imagine B as just a liiittle below the line of "all the way there" for sorta-similar reasons to Jeremy here: trauma, and Chloe (which is why that’s what Jeremy gets in this, it’s just WAY worse when compounded by everything else). She’s also--like me, and like almost every character I write as a result--autistic, in a near-permanent state of “not enough accommodations” and over-stimulation. This leads to a lot of dissociation and a very wandering mind, as well as being perceived as a bimbo or dumb blonde or w/e misogynistic bullshit is projected onto her by the boys she dates (she’s also much more down the middle bi outside this AU).

So, going back to how she is for this AU: she's actually not super nerdy, despite the close connection she and Michael have. Honestly, it’s their general neurodivergent weirdness that bring them together, and so she’s mostly adopted her nerdy interests through him, whether directly a thing he likes, or finding a whimsical variant that fits her tastes.

Obviously, unlike Jeremy, she doesn’t mind being called a loser. She does any insinuation she might be queer. This including anyone who calls her gay or a dyke.

She has too much Cis Male Trauma (unlike canon, where it comes from both cis angles) to really entertain the idea of a Traditionally Male Partner. This means she skews HEAVILY towards hard GNC guys at the very least, and generally finds herself most interested in the idea of enbies and women. she's also not super into butches tho, bc her trauma mixing with her sexuality has latched on to Strong Masc People Are A Threat. 

An expansion on her interests, in canon and otherwise: animals, ASMR/sensual service work (including massages and stuff), spending hours just sorta sitting by herself and letting her imagination wander, fairy tales, and YA-and-under fantasy books.

(Here, she tries to avoid het or f/f romance... except that, this past year or two, she’s started really like m/m stuff--esp after getting REALLY into drag shows, which she could enjoy safely since girls like Chloe have gotten into them too; in canon, she’s a romance fanatic)

Now... this is one of the really darkfic element; she's fucking her step-dad. 

She does this so that he doesn't walk out on her, her mom, and her little sister*. Her mom has a good-enough job as a standard office woman, but he makes enough to pay the rent on their nice townhouse and all the bills she can’t. So, after he expressed interest in Brooke and then casually mentioned he could always just leave if she wasn’t comfortable, she reluctantly entered a relationship with him

(* = her sister is currently know as her brother; he’s like 12 or 13, and started showing signs of trans/queerness which have been Heavily Discouraged. Brooke worries about him a lot)

((I didn’t use she/her pronouns bc I’m not entirely sure he would change them? This is an OC Oli created at the beginning of our interest in BMC, and we haven’t worked on him at all since, so how his characterization will be is up in the air))

Canonically, Brooke's "in love" with her daddy, which is a self-imposed delusion; if she actually addressed it, she’d says she’s well aware that’s not true, but it's so much easier to pretend when you’re cornered like that. Brooke’s life blows.

She’s a lot more honest to herself about hating him here; still, she tries to be as polite and generally-friendly as she can, doing what he says whenever he wants.

OKAY, THAT’S BROOKE. If any of that is badly described or potentially-offensive, it’s just bc I glossed over SO MUCH DETAIL, even in that amount of it!

So. Jeremy.

I don’t have to go over him much and we’re all mostly aware of how I feel about him and also I don’t have the energy to do this again--

(just... read my fics The Devil at your Door or hello yesterday or something... eyyy actually do that, my ao3 username is Sedusa, blah blah blah ANYWAY)

--but basically: He's still very nerdy, like, he’s super into film as well as video games (which is another constant for me), but after being largely ignored in elementary, he's been trailing behind Chloe at her orders since they were in 6th grade. As a result he isn't very open about... any of his interests.

In 7th grade, he came out as trans to everyone. Chloe was furious, but at the same time, intrigued; this was around the time Chloe gets her own... ah shit I gotta go into that too--

--yet another hc of mine is that Chloe gets a Squip on accident around this time at a party (there was one in a “”candy bowl””), and from there, she claws her way up the ladder. I... will not go into that much, but her Squip was crippled by the drugs and alcohol in her system, and therefore largely at her mercy. She’s used his power to manipulate certain things about herself and to sharpen her focus on popularity to the point she’s full-blown Alpha Bitch.

Man, I’ve had to go on so many tangents, I apologize.

Anyway, she drags Jeremy around as a punching bag. She constantly mocks Jeremy's transness, even though she usually calls him by his correct name and pronouns.

This has made the rest of the school follow her lead, hence why I said “boy-ish”; he’s popular, he’s technically ‘well liked’, but nobody really takes him seriously. This is compounded by Chloe’s refusal to let him dress in 'dorky' casual clothes, and, as he’s both too poor to afford designer clothes and also generally hates popular guy fashion, he has to wear the hyper femme clothing Chloe specifically tells him too/

As such, people call him a boy but largely see him as either an idiot, a slut, an attention seeker, or all of the above.

So of course, in Brooke's place, his neurodivergence is more prominent than ever; every day he slips further into this psychosis and self-infantilization haze, as his his mom leaving, his dad severely depressed, Chloe's sexual violence, and other repressed trauma (see: my fic hello yesterday on ao3) all weighing on him. This makes him INCREDIBLY regressed, like, all the time by Junior year.

And then Brooke's Squip (IE: canon Squip) falls in love with Jeremy extremely fucking hard. He pushes her to date him as a way to compromise on her queer desires, since Jeremy is technically a boy, and certainly a few other straight-ish girls have hooked up with him in the past.

WHEW. That is a fucking lot. To wrap this up, lemme go over the interpersonal relationships not already mentioned, and what directions I think it takes.

First off, Madeline has a more prominent role, as I quite like her tbh; she’s a sex worker, she has her own Squip, she’s one of Chloe’s most hated enemies, and she gravitates towards both Brooke and Jeremy. She’s also Actually French, Chloe’s just weird.

(Anyway she prolly sees through Brooke’s straight act and asks her why she’s pretending to be a good little cishet. It rattles Brooke.)

Chloe is scum. This bears repeating. She DEFINITELY rapes Brooke at the Halloween party, and becomes obsessed with her, along with already being obsessed with Jeremy and Jake. 

Jake, by the way, has a lot of regressive behavior and impulsiveness bc he’s been in an abusive relationship off and on with Chloe for years now.

Speaking of Jake, moving on to his best bro: Rich doesn’t set himself on fire. He’s having a good time with his Squip.

But.

He IS set on fire at the Halloween party.

Instead of the Smartphone Hour being about Rich's instability, it's actually about the mystery of Someone Did It To Him But No One Saw Who It Was, They Were Disguised.

The answer relates to the fact that Rich and Brooke are ALSO hooking up, after she’s already with Jeremy, bc he Properly introduces her to him and the three of them hit it off really well.

(She initially wasn’t interested, but while Rich is loud and still kinda abrasive, his Squip doesn’t drive him to act like a bully--and in private, his nerdiness is really obvious and he’s extremely gentle with her and Jeremy. Add to that that he’s bi and trans*, when Brooke connects best w/ queer men over cishet one, and it off-sets his masc-ness enough to make him an Exception.

* = I always imagine him as trans. See: all of Vanceypants fics.)

Sooo... the culprit is actually Brooke's daddy, who sees her with this obvious heartthrob and Cannot let that be.

Chloe convinces Michael that the Squips are Very Very Bad and has him team up with her to force Brooke into drinking Red, with the intention to convince him to kill himself after to get him out of the way, bc she’s really going nuts at this point.

Eventually, he snaps out of it when he and Christine get together (he’s thought he was Full Homo all of his life, but Christine’s prolly genderqueer-ness makes him realize “oh shit, I’m bisexual”) and she starts to question why he’s acting the way he is towards Christine.

He also definitely has a crush on Jeremy and during his time with Chloe he kinda tried to flirt a little but couldn’t really... he’s not up for dating someone as sexually active and a push-over as Jeremy is in this.

However, when he snaps out of Chloe’s manipulation, he and Christine approach Mr. Heere to convince him to straighten up and help Jeremy and also bc they really need an adult to successfully fight Chloe.

This requires a month+ of Christine getting him to see her psychiatrist (the one who prescribes her ADHD meds). Jeremy spends the majority of his time staying with Chloe, and very rarely comes home to gather things or to make sure his dad is eating/still alive, as much as he can remember to in his own haze of mental illness. Anyway, point is, he doesn’t know Christine and Michael are there often... not that, in the course of growing close to Mr. H, they both fall for him hard and it becomes one of my stranger OT3s.

(God, Jeremy goes through a lot of shit in this, tho.)

Pre-Squip, Jenna was kinda-sorta Brooke’s friend--or, well, friendly. However, she’s actually full blown “oh my God she’s wonderful” in love with Brooke.

Brooke isn't aware of that, esp since Jenna tries her not to be around her a lot. She's also trying to hide her own queerness, bc she’s a trans woman and she knows Chloe finding that out would be extremely dangerous.

Eventually, Chloe succeeds in making Brooke take the Red months after canon usually ends, w/o Michael’s help. If you’re curious, Red doesn’t affect her normal Squip bc she’s had him too long and a lot of his receptors and stuff are damaged, so it’s the second one she gets in canon that turns off.

This plan backfires, however, as Brooke’s Squip comes back with a physical body w/ help from Rich and also-bodied-now Moses.

With a body, and shenanigans, Mo and Squip take out Brooke’s daddy too. His life insurance more than makes up for the loss of his income, as it’s a sizable amount. Now that Brooke feels more empowered and strong, she overrides her mother’s neglectfulness and takes control of the household w/ her boyfriends*, comes out as queer, helps her sister transition, and begin to heal from all of this trauma.

(* = Rich and Mo move in, as does Jeremy eventually, after graduation; Jeremy gets a psychiatrist and a therapist and prolly has to go through some intense outpatient care and possibly a stay in the hospital, before finally making major breakthroughs and looking like himself again. The five of them are now happy and in love.)

Chloe, after her arm gets twisted by the Squip’s protective presence so thoroughly, gives up on Jeremy and Brooke to focus on Jake. This too gets abandoned when Rich and Mo help him cut her off, and so she stays in her own popularity bubble, bitter, until graduating and going to a community college in a different state.

All in all, things work out well in the end, but getting there is a long, difficult process. This AU fascinates me immensely and feels like a great way to examine some of my really dark headcanons about MB, as I think it’s a town similar to Derry in Stephen King’s IT--as in, just chronically The Worst Place Ever, with this, like, miasma of low-key despair around it. People adjust and don’t question it, which is why so much of BMC is this flippant dark humor in the face of some highly questionable shit.

I’m so sorry this post is so long (I’ll be uploading it to AU under my usual Sedusa account, as metas like this are more than allowed), but I really adore these characters and the way they can be twisted around, so I had a lot to say!

Thank you for reading <3

-mod Seb

image description: virtual-like stairs pointed forward and bathed in neon yellow and blue to represent Brook and Jeremy, which I’ve modified from the original blue-only design.

source: x (link description: a free Wallpaper Flare image that I found off Google Image’s “filtered by ‘labeled and reuse with modification” feature) 

[metawitches]

  The original TV series Roswell (not to be confused with the new CW show Roswell, New Mexico) ran for 3 seasons on The WB (seasons 1&2) and UPN (season 3), from 1999-2002, for a total of 61 episodes. The show was very loosely based on the YA book series Roswell High, written by Melinda Metz. Jason Katims (who later went on to create Friday Night Lights and Parenthood) created Roswell and stayed on as showrunner for all three seasons.

Roswell takes places in the real life small town of the same name, in southern New Mexico, where a mysterious crash in 1947 has become legendary in the decades since it happened. The alien spaceship crashed out in the desert, leading to rumors and guesses about what really happened, which quickly led to a government cover up. Roswell houses a military base which took part in an investigation of the ship and secret alien remains. The town itself has embraced its notoriety as an alien and UFO Mecca, with businesses and events throughout the town sporting space themes and catering to alien-hunting tourists.

At least one adult alien survived the crash and was captured. It was treated brutally and subjected to inhuman experiments, supposedly in the name of science. The alien eventually escaped, leaving a trail of violent retaliation in its wake. It then went underground, disappearing for decades, but leaving the institutional memory of its existence and its ability to harm humans behind.

Several pods, containing the embryos of alien children, also survived the crash and were safely moved to a cave by the adult survivors. In the 80s, three seemingly human children, Max Evans, Isabel Evans, and Michael Guerin, came out of the pods. They looked like they were about 6 years old, but they couldn’t speak, and had no memories. They wandered out into the desert together, but were separated.

Max and Isabel were found by a married couple, Philip and Diane Evans, who adopted them. Michael ended up in abusive foster homes, but he stayed as close to Isobel and Max as he could. Together, they discovered their powers and figured out that they must be aliens. They resolved to keep their true identities secret from everyone but each other. The danger and the secrets helped them bond and form especially close sibling relationships.

Max always had a crush on Liz Parker, but mostly watched her from afar. They were friends, and she noticed him staring at her sometimes, but neither made any further moves. Until there was a shooting at her father’s restaurant, where she was a waitress.

The shots were unexpected, and Liz was down before anyone understood what was happening. Almost everyone ran from the diner, but Max stayed to check on her. He realized that the bullet must have hit an artery in her abdomen, and she was going to bleed out before help could arrive.

He had to make a choice. Let Liz die, or keep his secret? He couldn’t let the girl he’d always loved die just because he was afraid of something that might or might not happen. He healed her, then pretended that a bottle of ketchup had broken on her and ran out of the diner.

That’s the start of everything. The Sheriff is from an alien hunting family, and he becomes suspicious of Max. Gradually Liz’s closest friends, Maria and Alex, also learn the secret, and the Scooby gang is complete. Liz’s ex-boyfriend, Kyle, doesn’t want to give her up without a fight, so Max has some competition. Various other humans and aliens help and harm them, becoming part of their adventures.

Season 1 is low-key, focusing on the kids as high school students and friends, keeping their issues close to home and largely within the show’s cast. This was Jason Katims’ vision for the show, especially the first 13 episodes. Those first 13 are incredible, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who stops there. The network started interfering after that, but season 1 still mostly makes sense, I think. The biggest change is the introduction of Emilie de Ravin late in the season, as a fourth alien, Tess, who can’t be trusted.

In Season 2, the show reinvented itself, bringing in new characters and a race of alien villains called the Skins. The characters forgot that they were still in high school and became alien fighters. It seemed like they were more concerned with past events on their home planet than current events in their own lives on Earth. But they had really great hair, makeup and clothes. And the writing was as witty and heartfelt as ever.

In season 3, Roswell changed networks, and reinvented itself again. This time, it went from a cracky, brightly-colored, alien version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to a darker, more intense, more mature version of itself. There wasn’t supposed to be a time jump, but the characters seemed to age five years. They were facing more adult situations such as marriage, divorce, children, leaving home for good, and when and how much to sacrifice themselves for others.

Along with these adult situations came attempts to add more nuances to the characters, which didn’t always work. Tess benefitted from being softened and redeemed, but Max experienced character assassination from being given a dark, obsessive side. This season made the least sense of the three seasons, but there were still some great episodes and great moments. And great looks and great songs.

As I mentioned, Jason Katims saw the show as Dawson’s Creek, with aliens, while the networks wanted Roswell to compete with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jason Katims has never done scifi or supernatural before or since, and I don’t think he was prepared for the level of detailed and consistent world building it would require.

He wanted the show to be a character driven drama (similar to his other shows) where the aliens don’t use their powers much. To him, the powers were just supposed to be an occasional plot device. This goes against traditional storytelling wisdom and common sense. You don’t get your backers and your fans excited about aliens, then forget to show the aliens.

Ron Moore, veteran of the Star Trek franchise who went on to create Battlestar Galactica and Outlander, was brought in for the second and third seasons to help improve the ratings. But the production was already too far adrift, and had lost too much of its audience.

Roswell had a killer soundtrack when it aired. The original soundtrack remains on episodes aired in syndication, but many of the songs have been replaced on the DVDs. However, the songs from important moments do remain intact on the DVDs. The songs used in the episodes and as the theme song (Dido’s Here with Me) became hits. Both Jason Katims and Ron Moore are known for giving each of their shows a unique “look”, and Roswell is no different. It’s beautifully shot and designed.

The characters are varied, funny and interesting. Women are well represented and aren’t held back because they’re female. There could be more diversity, but Roswell was made before there was pressure on studios to diversify their casts. At least there are a couple of regulars who are Hispanic, are a recurring character who is Native American.

The cast of Roswell included: Shiri Appleby as Liz Parker, Jason Behr as Max Evans, Katherine Heigl as Isabel Evans, Majandra Delfino as Maria DeLuca, Brendan Fehr as Michael Guerin, Colin Hanks as Alex Whitman, Nick Wechsler as Kyle Valenti, William Sadler as Sheriff Jim Valenti, Emilie de Ravin as Tess Harding, and Adam Rodríguez as Jesse Ramirez (season 3).

Despite its issues, there are many great episodes and moments in Roswell, when the writing, the acting and the production all came together to create something special.

So, in lieu of a grade, we put Roswell in the category of Brilliant But Flawed.

Favorite Episodes:

Season 1: Pilot (101), Heat Wave (109), The Convention (113), Blind Date (114), The White Room 121)

Season 2: Summer of ’47 (204), The End of the World (205), A Roswell Christmas Carol (210)

Season 3: A Tale of Two Parties (310), I Married an Alien (311)

  Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox Television, Jason Katims Productions and Regency Television.

Quick Review of Roswell: Entire Original Series The original TV series Roswell (not to be confused with the new CW show Roswell, New Mexico) ran for 3 seasons on The WB (seasons 1&2) and UPN (season 3), from 1999-2002, for a total of 61 episodes.

[jadelotusflower]

2018 Reading List - February

February - finished

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan - Always one of my favourite movies, I had read the book many years ago and had the urge to revisit.  A wonderful story of four Chinese women and their American-born daughters, and what’s the most interesting is that it is truly female-centric, the male characters are husbands and fathers and very much on the periphery.  I really love this book.

The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith - Based on a true story and the inspiration for the film Philomena with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan.  However rather than source material the book is more a companion to the film than anything else - the film is Philomena’s story as she searches to find the child she was forced to give up for adoption while the actual life of Michael Hess (born Anthony Lee) plays a very small part.  The book is the opposite, with only short interludes about Sixsmith’s search to find Philomena’s child, and Philomena herself only appearing at the beginning until the adoption, and in the epilogue.  The rest is Michael’s story, told in great detail in novel format, from adoption and move to the US, struggling with his sexuality and identity issues,career as a constitutional lawyer and working for the Republican party during the Reagan and Bush eras, to death from AIDs in the 90′s.  

While I enjoyed the book, the format is a little strange - I love historical fiction, but when the history is so recent it does seem almost like a breach of privacy.  Sixsmith is putting words into the mouths of people who are still living, recreating the life of Michael Hess by attributing thoughts, feelings and actions to him that we have no idea are accurate - that Sixsmith cannot have any idea are accurate no matter how much research he did (and have in some cases been disputed by Michael’s partner and friends).  It raises a question about the ethics of historical fiction and my own reaction to - why do I feel slightly uncomfortable reading this and not, for example, watching a film based on true events where the characters portrayed are people who are still alive?  Perhaps a novel feels more intimate, perhaps because I was expecting more of a biography (in many ways it presents this way, with no disclaimer and complete with photographs), or a story more in line with the film.  I have very mixed feelings about this book.

But there’s lots of interesting stuff - a deeper look at the corruption of the Catholic Church and the Abbeys that kept unwed mothers in indentured servitude for three years and sold their children, the cruelty and judgement of the Sisters, and the Irish government who allowed it to happen, and the continued efforts to cover up what happened, and prevent both mother and child from finding each other again.  It really was a travesty and if nothing else the book does bring these events to account.       

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - After starting a halfway re-read in January, I had to finish it off.  When this book was first released I was living in London, and went to the bookstore on Saturday morning with my flatmate to buy the book before heading to the movies (Spiderman 3 I think) - I remember sitting in the cinema starting to read, and Hedwig was killed just before the lights went dark.  After the movie we went home and I spent the rest of the day and night reading - I think I finished around 3 am.  I still think the book is as engaging as it was then, albeit with its own flaws (Dumbledore’s sexuality as subtext only, the epilogue with all those fanficcy children’s names, JFC Harry, let your wife choose at least one!).  I think the entire series really does have some fantastic, nuanced characters that manage to show the shades of grey so many people like to think they have in their work, when really it’s thinly veiled villain apologia.  

“The world isn’t divided into good people and Death Eaters” - we get to see Dumbledore the puppet master still striving for the greater good at the expense of others, but can appreciate why he did what he did.  We can sympathise with Draco for being a product of his environment and the Malfoy’s about-face which helped win the day, while still knowing that he did terrible things of his own free will almost till the end, but also that he can move beyond the mistakes of his youth and become better.  

And then there’s Snape, the subject of so much meta and fandom discourse.  Honestly, I always really enjoyed Snape as a character because he was so very interesting (+ Alan Rickman was everything)  - which is unusual for me because I generally don’t find ostensible villains very interesting. But  IMO, he’s one of the more complex antagonists of recent times, because while he’s on the side of good, he is not in any way a good person.  In fact, he remains pretty terrible, even after he learns of Harry’s intended fate (you think that would have softened him up a bit) - but terrible people can still do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and that’s very interesting to me.  A Prince’s Tale explains him, but it doesn’t absolve him - that Harry names one of his son’s after him says more about Harry’s character than Snape’s.  Do good works redeem without good intentions?  Is it enough to be big picture good if you’re small picture terrible?  It’s ambiguous, and deliberately so.  

If nothing else this re-read reminded me just how much I do love the series, and the world and characters JK created. Ravenclaw pride!

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne and JK Rowling - Someone bought this for me when it was first release, but I never had to urge to read it before now.  Seemed fitting, since it picks up exactly where the epilogue leaves off and follows young Albus Severus Potter as he heads off the Hogwarts, befriends Scorpius Malfoy (precious smol bean!), and gets sorted into Slytherin.  While there are flaws and I can understand the fan reaction I didn’t mind it even if it reads more like fanfiction than an official addition to the canon (partly because very little fazes me anymore) - but the relationship between Albus and Scorpius is compelling, as are the themes of inter-generational prejudice and the woes of being ordinary with extraordinary parents. 

I just wish it was done with more skill - if anyone has any good fanfic recs, particularly about the early Hogwarts years of the kids, I’d like to hear them.         

February - ongoing

The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon - I read another 100 pages.  At this rate I’ll be done by this time next year.  

[nebulacorps]

                                               SAMPLE APP

here is another sample app! if vorna’s sample app is an example of the minimum we’re looking for in an app, this app is the opposite! you do not have to write this much or expand the skeleton to the same degree. but if that’s where the muse calls you then we would be happy to see it! this app was written by my lovely co-admin rion! i hope it helps!

STATS

Chosen skeleton: The Technician 

Full Name: Tergi Daxu

Age: 12 

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/Him

Species: Alien ( Prequian )

Faceclaim: Rocket Raccoon

HEADCANONS

( + ) :     dependable, hardworking, vigilant, paternal 

( - ) :     blunt, critical, controlling, stressed

Tergi has been in the Nebula Corps for ages now. He came on as a junior technician when he was five, and has never had another job. It’s the same job his own father had when he was a kid, and it was from him that Tergi learned the skills he needed to do it well. He lacks any sort of formal higher education — save for on the job training, but he’s damn good at what he does and… not much else. He understands the ship and what needs to happen to keep it running, but that’s always been enough. That’s why there are other crew members, to even everything out. It’s a carefully balanced system, one that Tergi has seen work well for seven years now. Every team has run with ease. Every team, that is, until the last one. Tergi had what one might call irreconcilable differences with the engineer. A distaste for each other quickly became a glorified pissing match which escalated with unprecedented speed. It almost cost the team the mission, damaged the integrity of the ship they had been stationed on, and ended with both Tergi and the engineer being severely reprimanded. 

He’s practically a veteran, nearing the age of retirement (if not having already passed it), reliable as any of the technicians in the Nebula Corps, and should have a place on Team Alpha by now, if it weren’t for the dark spot on his record. He’s in the second half of his life, he’s got three kids and a wife, he just wants to go home, but he needs the retirement benefits that Nebula Corps offers so he’s sticking it out for a few more missions. Even if he’s on some low priority team. He was not expecting Team Proxima. He was not expecting a pilot to go rogue before the mission even began. He was not expecting for anything to happen that could overshadow the dark spot he already had. Yet, here they are, committing what is essentially piracy, on an unapproved mission, no backup…. he could go on about the aspects of the mission that worry him, but with a sigh he’s realized he has to make this work. If there’s any chance of him getting a good retirement, this mission needs to be more than a success; it has to be done so well that Nebula Corps will be forced to forgive the circumstances under which it began. 

The problem? Well, the crew itself seems to be (as far as Tergi can tell) just as chaotic as their pilot. If he wants this to go well, it’s going to take a lot of work on his part. He does his best to explain that if everyone was just a little more careful things would go a lot smoother.

COOL      ▰ ▰ ▱ ▱ ▱ :     tergi really tries his best to keep a level head. he knows it would be better for his job if he could, and he tries his best. however, tergi has always been prone to stress  ( and team proxima raises such feelings without even trying ) . likewise, as was the case with the engineer on his last team, certain personalities can dig their way under his skin and cause him to lash out, though he usually will not make the first strike.

CHARM     ▰ ▰ ▱ ▱ ▱ :     there’s a sort of awkward paternal charm to tergi. in his bluntness and clumsiness with interpersonal interactions, he can be somewhat endearing. however, at the end of the day he is brutally honest and doesn’t often think about how his words might affect his crew mates, and has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth without even realizing it. 

SHARP     ▰ ▰ ▰ ▱ ▱ :     tergi might not be book educated, but where it counts, he knows what he’s doing. he’s been taking care of nebula corps ships for over half of his life now, and at this point it is almost second nature.

TOUGH     ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▱ :     there’s a particular constitution that prequians  ( and, although he doesn’t want to hear about, their earth born counterparts )  are known for, and tergi is no different. add that to the fact that he’s used to the little accidents that come when working on a ship, along with being an active member of the nebula corps for 7 years, he’s a pretty resilient little guy.

ARSENAL   ▰ ▰ ▱ ▱ ▱ :     tergi isn’t completely unprepared if it comes to blows, but he’s certainly not the most powerful fighter on the ship. he can hold his own for a little while, just long enough to hopefully get himself out of trouble. the truth is, he’s getting old; he’d rather avoid fighting altogether. 

LASERS VS FEELINGS :  5 :     tergi definitely has “dad energy” but that dad is awkward, stressed, and doesn’t totally understand the best way to interact with people. he can be a bit controlling, as he wants to make sure this mission goes as well as possible  ( with the ship making it through in peak condition )  and isn’t really sure how to impart how important that is to him to the others. he’ll say the wrong thing without even realizing it, but is much better at solving problems that have to do with the ship. 

CORE TRAIT :  DEPENDABLE :     save for the last mission, tergi has been one of the most reliable engineers in the nebula corps, but it isn’t just that he’s dependable in his work ethic. even though he isn’t great with feelings, he is a good friend to have. he shows his love by fixing things for you, or by listening  ( though he’s likely to say something ill advised or a strange platitude that doesn’t totally make sense after ).

MOTIVATION :  KEEP THE SHIP INTACT :     if the mission goes well, and the ship is in peak condition when it is returned, tergi can hold out hope that he won’t be held responsible. 

PLOTS

I’m excited to see Tergi grow to accept the team. I think right now he’s reluctant team dad because it benefits him. He needs them to do well so that the mission goes well nad he can get what he needs to retire. I think through the course of the group he’ll come into more of a “team dad because I care about my ragtag children crew” vibe.

I have the urge for the more .. reactionary version of Tergi that exists to pulled into play, the one who got into trouble due to his fight with the engineer on the last team. Something that would push him over the edge for sure would be damage to the outbound communication systems. I think, if this is possible, Tergi has been keeping in touch with his wife and kids pretty regularly, and cutting him off from that would really push him to be very upset, both personally and professionally. Additionally, the outbound comms being down might have a bunch of other more group wide implications.

For the drama… and this would have to happen near the end because it would require Tergi to be close with the team to a point where this would actually be a hard choice, but making Tergi choose between honorable recognition within the Neubla Corps and supporting the team. Perhaps there’s an offer to expunge his record in exchange for revealing their location to HQ, or something similar.

SPECIES INFO 

Parallel evolution is an interesting thing. The Prequians come from an Earth-like, although generally more advanced, planet. They evolved similarly to the Earth Racoon for similar reasons, but managed to develop further than their counterparts. They have their own language, cultural organization (which values family very highly), and outlive the average Racoon in the wild by about 17 years. Similarities continue between the two species in that the Prequians are scavengers, but not just for food. Small hands (With opposable thumbs! Suck it trash pandas!) were found to be perfect for dealing with delicate pieces of technology. They built up their own society by using discarded tech from other species and improving upon it. While not all Prequians take part in this, it is a large part of their society and how they got to where they are currently. 

Species stat wise, I imagine them as similar (though not identical) to Rock Gnomes in DND 5E, with some Racoon vibes thrown in to even it out. Here’s some details!

Favored abilities: Prequians tend to be intelligent and hardy. 

Lifespan: The same as the Earth Racoon when in captivity, the average being 20 years. If I’m doing my math right here that makes Tergi basically 60 human years old. He would very much like to retire soon.

Size: Between 24 and 38 inches, weighing between 14 and 25 lbs. Tergi is 40 inches and it is more important to him than it should be.

Speed: Little legs, so not super fast when just walking, but on all fours pretty zippy! Can run up to speeds of 15 mph, though not for very long.

Other notes: Tend to be good swimmers, can see decently well in the dark, amazing sense of touch, colorblind, naturally nocturnal but can adjust. Due to the colorblind aspect, Tergi uses little tags to mark wires on the ship where color is important.

ANYTHING ELSE

Here’s a pinterest board !

Here’s a muse tag !

TV Tropes: Book Dumb, Bezerk Button, The Comically Serious, The Complainer Is Always Wrong, Control Freak, Crippling Overspecialization, Dude Where’s My Respect?, Happily Married, Hard Work Hardly Works, Only Sane Employee, Not So Above It All, Parental Substitute, Standard ‘50s Father, The Reliable One, White Sheep, Workaholic, 

Character inspiration: Bob Belcher (Bob’s Burgers), Dr. Cdr. Ryan Dalias (EOS 10), Michael Bluth (Arrested Development), John Yossarian (Hulu’s Catch 22)

[creativitytoexplore]

Tony Ambrosio's Unsuccessful Life of Crime Is Finally Looking Up by Michael Drezin https://ift.tt/2xnTIVE It takes a lot to teach hapless petty thief Tony Ambrosio a lesson; by Michael Drezin.

Anthony Ambrosio, Tony to his friends, is not an honest man. No need to be. No one who ever made it big, made it big being honest. Honest or not, indications are Anthony Ambrosio will never make it big in crime because he doesn't have what it takes. He pulls mostly minor scams like selling weed that isn't weed, or bootlegged CDs where the cover doesn't match what's inside. And he gets caught like flu in winter. Tony's always getting caught. He does his time without complaint, 'cause that's the way real men do time. And then he starts the cycle all over again. No thought about what went wrong, or how to do it better. He does the same thing, in the same way, every time. He can't see that a life of crime is not for him because Anthony Ambrosio, Tony to his friends, is not an honest man. Not even with himself. And so when he told himself he had enough money for a fine meal at the Actor's Crib (insiders call it the Crib), a five star restaurant in the heart of NYC's theater district, it turned out he did. It's just that it wasn't on him. Upon the direction of management Alberto, the waiter, called the police. When they arrived Tony was arrested and until he was able to see a judge, he spent an afternoon, evening and the next morning in jail.

Anthony Ambrosio aka Tony Ambrosio aka Little Tony of Arthur Avenue, has been arrested like 100 times before. Pull a job. Get arrested. Tony was so regularly arrested he knew what to expect for dessert any day of the week whenever he was jailed. Tony started his life of crime at age 14. Beer, his first heist. Problem is, he got regularly caught doing it. His mentor suggested he bring his own shopping bag, but by then Tony was banned from most places that sold alcohol. Years later, when he graduated to burglaries, it took only one try to realize a yellow Dodge with a bumper sticker saying Proud parent of a Harvard graduate was a poor choice for a getaway car. It's not that Tony had bad ideas. It's more like he had no ideas. Like an impulse purchaser, Tony was an impulse desperado who never kept his impulse in check. Could be he was raised that way.

Tony's mom supported her and Tony by playing poker. Most often, she did so wearing a low cut leopard print blouse while chain smoking Evet's filtered cigarettes. She played in high stakes games held in the private room at Gino's (Fine Italian Cuisine) in the Little Italy section of the Bronx. It was mostly a men's game, but anyone who could afford the five thousand dollar minimum could play. Big fat cigars were banned ten years ago because they stunk up the restaurant, and except for Francesca these were no smoking games. She knew the dangers of smoking, everyone does, but she felt she had a realistic perspective on her habit. It was the same as her realistic perspective on life. Nothing bad would ever happen to her. If she thought about it at all, I'm sure she wasn't happy her son was sent to the principal's office nearly every day, but boys fight. What could she do about boys being boys? She didn't do much in the way of cooking, or cleaning, or any of the things formerly known as woman's work, but she always left Tony money for McDonald's, or pizza, or the like. Tony never lacked for anything that up to twenty-five dollars could buy. Besides poker, Francesca had a talent for attracting well-to-do men. It was just such a man who, in return for intimate companionship, staked her to her first major league poker game. That was maybe ten years ago, but even in early middle age, she was eye candy. She had a trim figure and an oval face framed by long, formerly dark, brown hair. If there was any flaw in her package, at least in my view, it was the unoriginality of a woman with tip over bazookas having brassy blond hair. The fact that she wore black framed glasses toned it down some, but not enough for men who liked a reserved looking woman. Still, anyone thinking Francesca was an uncaring mother would be wrong. She was teaching self-reliance to her young son, same as her parents taught her. In that effort, although she didn't know it, she was getting help from her boyfriend Joey Sanitation. Joey was in private sanitation, that is, he collected business refuse while the city collected residential garbage. The industry was heavily regulated in New York to rid it of the mobsters who once dominated the field and who, through front men, still do. Joey was too advanced in his legitimate career to break the law the way street thugs do, but not too old to tell stories of his own, earlier days, when a street thug was exactly what he was. Tales of crimes and tales of survival in prison, make for interesting listening even if you are not an impressionable 14-year-old. (If incarcerated, find a guard to bribe. There will be one. From special meals to skipping out on your work detail, they make life easier.) Joey was someone Tony could look up to, a substitute for the father who left too long ago to be remembered. With Joey Sanitation as inspiration, Tony lived his life the way any 14-year-old on his own would. He did whatever seemed like a good idea at the time.

First time Tony was arrested for shoplifting, his first time out, a security guard reached into a jacket pocket and found items not paid for inside. When asked how they got there, he had a simple defense. "I borrowed the coat," he said. And he's the kind who needs someone to blame, and so when he got arrested for not paying at the Crib he blamed his waiter for believing he had money to pay for dinner at a place as expensive as that place is. The thing is, when he wants to, Tony can make a decent enough living dumpster-diving for information to sell to identity thieves. But making money, having it on you, and spending it are three different things. No talent or special skill is required to buy things with money. A child can do it. The thrill for Tony, the excitement, is in getting over, in getting something for nothing. If you don't understand that, you're either too square to explain it to, or not being honest with yourself. Still, some might argue, given that Tony did order and eat, no gun to his head, his waiter could reasonably assume he would pay when the time came. The way Tony sees it, that's a mistake. Not his mistake. It's a mistake in the way restaurants are run. Tony came to this insight by way of life experience, which taught him that placing trust in people almost never works out well. He thinks restaurants should be run like stores. There they make you pay before you get the merchandise. They do that for a reason. Clearly, it's not Tony's fault the Crib isn't run that way. And using that logic, that impeccable logic, Tony was certain at the conclusion of the Crib's case against him, he would be a free man. "It's not like he asked if I could pay, Your Honor. Is he not, thus, as guilty as I?" But the judge did not consider the guilty waiter theory much of an excuse, and he sentenced Tony to thirty days of dishwashing at the cafe. Alberto, as witness for the prosecution, hearing of Tony's defense, was deeply offended that a man of honor, such as he, would be accused of being a negligent waiter. But what could he do? He was not long in this world before he realized dishonest people abound. Tony fulfilled the obligations of his sentence with admirable diligence. For 30 days he arrived on time, kept to himself, scrubbed dishes for eight hours and then left. At the end of his sentence, Tony told himself he had enough money for a fine meal at the Crib, and he ordered one. He ordered lobster prepared in clam sauce. No wine to go with it. Coffee was fine. When he was through and unable to pay, Alberto was, once again, directed to call the police. When they came, Tony was arrested and once again blamed Alberto, witness for the prosecution. And once again Alberto was offended at Tony's attempt made to sully his good name, but what could he do? Waiters do not get to pick their customers. Alberto was satisfied that he lived his life doing unto others...

It was high noon when Tony was released from the Bronx House of Detention for Men. Like checkout in a hotel, his time inside was up, his probation sentence to be served. As the gate clanked closed behind him, after walking through the cement yard and past the barbed wire fencing, he looked up at the cloudless sky and then down the block where children, five or six in all, ran under water spraying from a capped fire hydrant. A time and temperature sign brought to the community by Third Avenue Bank read 89 degrees. A Mr. Refreshment ice cream truck was approaching, its bell ringing the same few sounds over and over, and all looked right with the world except that not ten feet away a purse snatcher was plying his trade on the oldest-looking, shortest (under four feet), whitest- haired, most wrinkled, bony fingered, four-eyed woman in oversized pink-lensed sunglasses Tony had ever seen. Her silver-tone cane fell to her right side as she struggled with her assailant to hold on to her purse, and what Tony guessed were the proceeds from a cashed Social Security check inside. Tony suspected she was fighting, as best she could, to hold on to her food and medicine money and that part of her rent not paid by the government. He and Tony were in the same line of work, but Tony had standards. Stealing from the elderly was permissible, but doing so violently was out of the question. That's just wrong, was the way Tony saw it. Problem was, Tony wasn't much of a fighter. So he walked on by, called 911 from a safe distance, and hung up satisfied he made the world a better place for being in it. Before he left, he heard a police siren in the distance. Tony hopped the turnstile and took the number 4 train to Times Square. In the city he walked past the places where the peep shows used to be before Times Square was ruined by becoming a family-friendly destination. He stopped to remember the girls he saw- on film for 25 cents a peep. Where are they now, he wondered. A short time later, after waking past some of Broadway's oldest and most famous theaters, he was at the Crib.

As required by his sentence, for 30 days Tony arrived at the Crib on time, kept to himself, scrubbed dishes for eight hours and then left for the day. When his sentence was up, Tony was very hungry and so he ordered lobster, stuffed with shrimp and scallops and accompanied by a fine Chardonnay. He had baked clams to start. He skipped the coffee. Being pleasantly looped, he saw no need for coffee to kill his buzz. But by now Tony had learned his lesson. Take care of others (at least those that can help, or hurt). This time Tony left a generous tip that he removed from a nearby table just as Alberto was delivering the cheesecake. He slipped it into Alberto's outstretched hand. In brotherhood with a fellow employee, of sorts, Alberto forgot to leave a check. Well, better late than never. Twenty-two years after beginning life, Tony learned something new. Who knows. Could be he'll learn all kinds of lessons. Like plan an escape route. Wear gloves. Bring your mom's DNA to the job. The friends of Anthony Ambrosio, the ones who call him Tony, hope, however unrealistically, that someday he will succeed, that he will be at the top of his game and that the FBI will consider him to be a most wanted man, his face on posters, a major player in the minor leagues of crime.

[briangroth27]

Dark Phoenix Review

The final installment in Fox's X-men franchise, Dark Phoenix, is unfortunately not one of their best, but it doesn't deserve the hate it received from critics (or the box office) either. Like Apocalypse (which I also enjoyed for the most part), Dark Phoenix falls into the middle of the X-pack; not too shabby considering there are some legitimately great movies in this series! I was looking forward to this film—I like the cast, they've got most of my favorite X-men on this team, and the Dark Phoenix Saga had been wrecked by The Last Stand so I was ready to see them give it another go—but while Dark Phoenix has some really solid ideas and cool moments, it needed another draft to fully realize its potential (another unfortunate similarity to Apocalypse).

Full Spoilers…

The X-men starting out as public superheroes with a direct line to the White House was a fun change of pace! Giving them fans that cheered them on was a cool reversal from the protest groups we saw in X-men, though for this development to really make an impact we should’ve seen more civilians hating/attacking mutants in the movies beyond the brief glimpses we got in X-men and Apocalypse, both in fight club scenes (The Gifted explored the idea that everyday racism would come from the people just as much as the government in much more detail than the movies ever have). Regardless, I loved that they were able to retain a very "X-men" quality to this new status quo, with mutants’ acceptance hinging on their continued best behavior and the idea that they would unendingly risk themselves to save the world. It was smart to not have bigotry solved only for Jean (Sophie Turner) to wreck it with her newfound power (and also because solving it off-screen would’ve been a disservice to the entire mythos as well as those who face it in real life), but to instead keep them constantly on the edge of losing everything they'd gained. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) was absolutely right that mutants shouldn’t have to save the world (or worse, keep saving it) to be accepted by the rest of humanity, and I wish the movie had come back to that point by the end of the film. Her argument with Charles (James McAvoy) ties back to his insistence in First Class that humanity would accept them in exchange for stopping war really nicely though. Forcing mutants to always be over-and-above model minorities works perfectly, but they should've done more with this point instead of just creating a rift between Raven and Charles and using it as stakes for Jean's fall. I would’ve liked some closing statement on where mutants’ standing landed after the events of the film; maybe even Jean or someone making Mystique’s argument to the public to force them to face themselves and the position they’d put the X-men/mutantkind in.

Speaking of Jean’s fall, Phoenix was done much better here than in The Last Stand. I think X2's idea of making Phoenix a natural evolution of Jean is a fantastic choice (as was X2-writer Michael Dougherty’s idea to have her continue to evolve into the cosmic Phoenix in his version of X3), but making Phoenix a split personality ruined that by taking it out of Jean's control and stopping it from being Jean’s story. I’d argue this is the same problem the revised comic canon has, with a space bird taking the place of a split identity but resulting in the same lack of control/meaning/development for Jean’s character. Here, they do the cosmic origin fairly faithfully, but oddly ignore Apocalypse’s revival of the "secondary mutation" plot when Apocalypse forced Jean to evolve into full-firebird status through conflict (which, by the way, is perfect for him). They could’ve easily resolved this rift by having Hank (Nicholas Hoult) tell Jean her powers had been boosted "even beyond what Apocalypse caused" or that En Sabah Nur’s “upgrade” enabled her to survive absorbing the cosmic energy into herself in the first place. As it is, that's not a big leap for viewers to make, but it should've been said in the film.

Getting into the actual mechanics of Jean trying to deal with all this new power, I think this was a mixed bag. I liked her senses opening up at the party and would’ve liked to see that enhanced awareness continue. Her crushed reaction to her father (Scott Shepard) giving her to Xavier because he couldn't forgive her for the accidental death of her mother (Hannah Anderson) or handle raising a mutant child was a rough, powerful reveal that Turner acted perfectly, but then we got to an element of Jean being confused by what she can/should do with all this power rather than acting with that power, which slowed the momentum of her character (and the story). I’d really like to see a version of the Phoenix Saga where Jean runs with her new powers rather than being manipulated or confused about what to do with them, especially if they’re insistent on doing it all in one movie. Her talks with Erik (Michael Fassbender) and especially Vuk (Jessica Chastain) offer insight into what she could be and I wouldn’t want them to have less character-building conversations in favor of meaningless fight scenes, but I wanted to see Jean take action and deal with the fallout of her choices rather than only get to the point where she’s ready to make those decisions in the first place. I would've much preferred her trying to, say, forcibly fix the world so they don't have to keep saving it like Mystique was worried about or something (especially given their obviously strong bond at the beginning).

This is another unfortunate similarity to Apocalypse: while En Sabah Nur said a lot of great stuff in that movie, despite getting rid of all the nukes and leveling Cairo, it felt like we were constantly on the cusp of him escalating things instead of actually getting to see him do what he talked about. Here, I felt like we were on the verge of Jean taking ownership of her powers, only to have her talked into denying them, try to give them away, get captured by the government, get attacked by aliens, etc. Similarly, they really needed to dig into her decision to leave Earth on a bigger level than just being scared she’d hurt people she cared about. Why not make it her choice to see what’s out there and to see what she can become instead (which would be a cool parallel to mutants as a whole not being able to develop while stuck in savior mode for humans)? Leaving Earth should’ve been something that tied to or conflicted with her hopes and dreams for her life during and after the X-men (which would’ve been nice to know before she’s forced to give all of that up in the face of this power), rather than falling back on what feels like a much more simplistic “the power is just too unsafe for her to have on Earth” idea. That idea almost looks like humans are right to fear mutants, because even they can’t safely use their powers here, and that’s the wrong message for a X-men story. I did like that Jean acting with her emotions rather than burying them was shown as a good thing here that made her stronger: that’s a great rebuttal to Xavier trying to block them off and hide pain from her to protect her.

I was very glad that the movie didn't have Xavier blocking her split personality this time, but rather that he'd covered up Jean's accidental manslaughter in an effort to help her have a normal, happy life. That was always my read from the trailers—she didn't seem like she knew she killed her parents in Apocalypse—but I didn't expect the twist that her dad had survived and didn't want her at all and I loved it. I fully bought into Xavier's "you are not broken" reassurance to young Jean (Summer Fontana), so that moment worked really well to help sell the betrayal Jean felt. I wish we’d seen Scott (Tye Sheridan), Ororo (Alexandra Shipp), Kurt (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Peter's (Evan Peters) reaction to what Xavier did as well though. I also would've liked to see their opinions on Xavier's massive hubris here ("All I did was create a world where we can all live in peace"), as well as his insistence that they be superheroes to earn their keep. Despite the lack of opinions from everyone but Mystique, I did like seeing this side of Xavier and thought it was just as interesting to see how he handled winning as how he’d handled mutants being the underdogs for so long. I'm glad this movie didn't agree with him that it was right to manipulate Jean's mind like Last Stand did, and Charles thinking she shouldn't experience any kind of pain is a nice callback to his own attempt to ignore the pain of the world in Days of Future Past (his older self told him that hope would allow him to bear the pain of the world without breaking, and it seems that Xavier decided he should be the only one to take on that pain rather than let others bear it as well). It also works well as an early form of his attempts to keep mutants safe even to their detriment (like making them superheroes to stay in humanity’s good graces). This habit of ignoring pain was especially evident in his almost cavalier discussion with Hank after Mystique’s funeral (with a side of “you can’t criticize me when I’m hurt too”), and it took me a bit to understand that he’s trying to do the same thing to Hank that he did to Jean, just without using his powers: he can’t process the pain of his loss and doesn’t want to see anyone else “stuck” in their feelings either. I’m glad he actually apologized on the train; I wasn’t expecting that and it was a solid development. Of the things Kinberg improved this time from Last Stand, Xavier as a not-so-great guy was definitely handled much better, precisely because he was proven wrong and dealt with it.

Erik nicely (and finally) transitioned into the peaceful existence promised by Apocalypse, even if (as others have noted) the disconnect between his crimes in that movie and the government respecting him here is a little jarring. I really liked him running Genosha, though it would've been nice to comment that this community was the last stop on the mutant Underground Railroad Mystique was part of in DOFP and Apocalypse. It didn't have to be and worked just fine without that connection, but it would've been nice to say that she helped build his mutant paradise (especially given the impact losing her has on him) and that effort would’ve buttressed her argument with Xavier nicely, since she would’ve had a hand in creating a better life for mutants as well. Erik's talk with Jean about letting go of vengeance once he realized it wasn't helping was solid (he learned something from Charles back in First Class!), but I wanted the movie to bear out that he really had changed. I hated that this movie again relied on a woman getting fridged so Erik had a reason to get murdery (with added Hank rage!): that's lazy, especially since they used that already-tired plot in the last movie. I wish both of these films had Erik as a teacher at the school, but if we couldn't get that bit of 80s comics lore, surely there was another way to use Erik here. Maybe his point of view should’ve shown us what everyday mutants think of the X-men as the poster children of the atom, and how that affects their ability to have a modicum of respect/tolerance from humans. If they couldn’t find something for Erik to do except try to kill Jean, he shouldn't have been included so they could focus on the other characters more. I did like his life on Genosha essentially proving Mystique's point and enjoyed him telling Xavier to shove his speeches, even if it was in the midst of his rage. I'll also say that the ending they found for Erik and Charles—Erik taking him back to Genosha to live out the rest of their lives together—was perfect.

I loved where they took Mystique over these prequel films! We got the badass villain in the original trilogy, so seeing her morals develop for the better in these movies was a breath of fresh air and a chance to explore new, original possibilities (even if they were inspired by her actions in the Age of Apocalypse comics timeline). I liked that she came so far as to be the field leader of the X-men and thought her argument with Xavier here was great. It meshed nicely with her opinion in X2 that they shouldn't have to conform to human appearances (or, here, their expectations) to live in peace. This was an important truth to bring up and I'm surprised that it feels like the first time I've seen it addressed in an X-story. I can almost accept her bristling at fame (and the unfair burden that fame represents) as the reason she shifts into her human appearance so often, even at the mansion, but that needed to be spelled out. I liked the rapport she had with the team, especially Jean, and I wish we saw more of an impact on them when she died (if we're wishing for things, I wish she hadn't died at all). Storm especially should’ve had more of a reaction, given Mystique was her hero. The younger students get a moment, but it's more about Jean as the culprit than Mystique's loss. I wish Mystique had let Jean know she agreed with her sense of betrayal and stuck with her instead of trying to bring her back to the mansion (even if I do see why she'd want to play up their family relationship to calm her down). It also wasn't the best strategy for the team to wear their X-uniforms to meet Jean at her house: what kind of message does that send? Having Mystique run with Jean and perhaps toy with the idea that they could change humanity for the better with Jean’s new powers so they could stop fighting to earn their peace might have been a cool development of her argument. Mystique could've played the role the Hellfire Club did in the comics & the Brotherhood did in X3, but with altruistic intentions. If she had to die, I wanted it to have more meaning and purpose: it should’ve been about her and what she stood for instead of immediately being about Erik/Hank's anger and Jean's culpability. I wonder if being impaled is an echo of how Wolverine “killed” her in X-men?

I was generally disappointed by Hank's role throughout the whole movie. I didn't like that he was in his human form so often: so he never got what Mystique was saying about loving himself as he is, even with the world loving the X-men? That’s depressing and if it was meant to be a conscious decision on his part, it should’ve been explored as his own self-hatred (or maybe he is secretly afraid that humanity will turn on mutants again, so he doesn’t want to fully give himself over to embracing his Beast appearance), not brushed aside like a common secret identity. And shouldn't he have shifted into his Beast form at Mystique's funeral, since his transformation was triggered by his emotions? I liked that this borrowed bit of Hulk mechanics revealed what he truly felt in DOFP: that was a cool comment on trying to suppress your real self and way to dramatize who Hank actually was. Here, he has full control but chooses to look human most of the time, which is not a good look (even if I bet a lot of it was about letting Hoult act more clearly without the Beast prosthetics). Like others have said, Hank getting fired up to kill one of his students is an even worse look and if they had to go there, I wish it had more fallout. The movie doesn’t bother much with the betrayal Scott & Co. must feel about their leader turning on one of them like this (instead, that anger is directed at Erik as if Hank didn’t go to him). Then they just let him come back as the headmaster of a school renamed after Jean after all that? No way. Not that I don't believe in forgiveness, but his actions were brushed aside way too easily (just like Erik and Storm's team-up with Apocalypse was in the last movie). I wish he'd retired like Mystique wanted to (if nothing else, to honor her wishes) and left the school to Scott and Ororo instead (they're nearly 30, after all).

I wish there had been less focus on the First Class characters and more of a passing of the torch here. In fact, we needed a lot more of the younger team members' opinions on everything happening in this movie, especially Jean's turn. They’d spent 10 years fighting and living together, after all: surely they have strong opinions. Ororo gets the point of view that Jean’s shown who she really is and isn’t coming back, but then she immediately acts counter to that by backing Scott’s effort to bring her home (and all of this is beside the fact that she too was party to massive loss of life but got to waltz onto the team, which would’ve been an interesting perspective to bring up). I also would’ve liked to see their reaction to Xavier's betrayal (if I were them, I'd be asking how much of their own lives he might’ve changed) and their fame (how do they see their (much safer) world vs. how do the older characters (who fought for it) see it?) as well as the implications of that celebrity status. The short shrift they got was a big negative for me. I was here to see Jean, Scott, Ororo, Kurt, and Peter as the leads, but we only really got Jean out of this bunch. Scott gets some solid moments with Jean—enough to sell their romance and connection—and it’s obvious there’s a friendship amongst the younger generation of X-men, but I feel like the things Jean was going through should’ve created more shockwaves amongst her closest friends. Even with a relatively small roster, you’d never know Storm and Nightcrawler were major X-men from their showing here and Peter is almost completely sidelined after getting his own spotlight scenes in the previous two movies. I would’ve liked Erik to know Peter is his son after he awkwardly didn’t find out in Apocalypse, though it wouldn’t have fit into this movie as it is. Kurt being Mystique’s son would’ve given a unique flavor to their mission interactions, but I guess we’ll have to wait for the MCU to get that relationship.

Another conversation/argument the younger and older generations of mutants could’ve had was about whether Jean’s powers were acceptable within the mutant subculture (which is something we also need to see more of in live-action), much less to the rest of humanity. How much is “too much” mutation (Kurt might have some feelings on that vs. the others’ invisible mutations, not that he’s any more a mutant than the rest of them)? Is there a line where a mutation just won’t be acceptable to non-mutants, no matter what goodwill they’ve gained in society? What about to other mutants (and crossing that line should really come without also making Jean a killer)? With the X-men becoming accepted as the backdrop, Jean’s evolution into Phoenix and the fight against her could’ve been played as a metaphor for people who accept LGB rights but are Transphobic, which would’ve fit the themes of the X-men as a franchise and would’ve added a new layer of complexity to the mutant metaphor (though as a straight cis guy, I defer to the LGBTQ community on whether that'd actually be a good idea and a story worth telling, or if it would hurt more than it helps; it might be preferred to bring in more trans mutants to the team and deal with mutants who are transphobic rather than piling another metaphor onto it, particularly as Jean is already a white woman dealing with racism & homophobia via hatred of mutants). It could also simply be about power & control: maybe Charles and Erik ironically can’t accept the new kind of mutant Jean is (Hank’s apparent self-hatred probably wouldn’t let him either), and they could’ve built the heroes’ split out of that lack of tolerance rather than killing Mystique.

The D’Bari mostly worked for me as antagonists if that was the way Kinberg wanted to go: they made for solid, tough cannon fodder that required mutant powers to defeat. I appreciate that they included that bit of comics canon, but ultimately them being Shi’ar who’d detected Jean's growing power signature and came to extinguish the Phoenix before it destroyed another solar system would’ve worked better IMO, since they could be the authority figures for Jean that humankind couldn’t (also opening the door to the conversation of whether she needs authority figures or if she should be trusted with her power). As it is, even still being the D'Bari could've worked if they'd come to put the Phoenix Force on trial for destroying their world, with Jean an unfortunate "accomplice" to the power. With them wanting to use the power to recreate their world instead, I would’ve liked more comparison between the D’Bari wanting to reclaim their home and mutants saving the world to maintain their place in society. You can also draw a connection between their willingness to manipulate Jean into bringing back their world (or coaxing her to give up her power so they can do it themselves) instead of the harder path of accepting and dealing with their loss and Xavier trying to ignore pain altogether (I do like that parallel a lot). Both the D’Bari and Xavier reached obsessive levels, and the aliens’ obsession with recreating their home at the cost of Earth serves as a nice foreshadowing of what could happen to Jean if she doesn't deal with her pain. I understand that in a two-hour movie we can’t see nuance to every faction, but it would’ve been nice to see some variance between the D’Bari’s goals: were any of them content to live out their lives peacefully? Were these just the fanatics of their species? Did any of them initially buy in before seeing what Vuk brought them to and thought, “this is too far?”

The action was solid, with a mostly good range of power use (even if they weren't as creatively applied as in previous installments). I liked the space rescue sequence a lot (minus apparently not caring about covering Kurt's hands in the vacuum of space) and the fights in New York City and on the train were well-done and comic booky. I was disappointed in the Quicksilver super-speed scene this time and agree with others on Twitter that every character should get spotlight moments like his. Regardless, it was cool that the team didn't hold back their powers and that the effects budget had the capability to let them cut loose. Weaponizing the team’s powers through the X-jet was a great idea! The one character cutting loose that seems weird in hindsight is Kurt’s murder spree on the train: at first it didn’t strike me as particularly odd, given the X-men aren’t at a Superman-level of not killing their enemies and all comic book heroes tend to get their bloodlust elevated in live-action, but after hearing my brother and others online point it out, yeah, it’s an odd choice for him.

Simon Kinberg’s writing and direction carried over a consistent feel from the previous installments, which (like others have noted) was not the case in the transition from X2 to Last Stand. Whatever my wishes for things that they could’ve covered or done differently here, these at least felt like the same characters we’ve been following for the past 1-3 films. He kept the action clear and managed to juggle the characters who did get the most focus pretty well. The scope could’ve been a bit bigger given Jean’s potential and left me wanting more, but I liked that they kept personal focus on the characters instead of having Jean gain absolute power and then stand behind Magneto, saying nothing. I wish they had used the 90s setting a lot more: the only 90s thing about this is that the space shuttle is still in regular operation. First Class and DOFP used their decades to enhance their respective stories; I’m sorry Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix fell short of that. They could’ve at least made a nod to Scott being an X2-canon boy band fan! I get the reason for the team’s matching uniforms—Xavier wanted an orderly image—but they really should’ve used the 90s-inspired ones from the end of Apocalypse instead. They looked so much cooler! I wish they’d brought back John Ottman’s main theme as the X-theme here, because this score didn’t resonate with me like the music of the previous films did.

Dark Phoenix is definitely a mixed bag, but overall I enjoyed a lot of it while wishing it had taken things further. I admire its ambition, even if its success is hampered by the same mistakes of previous films. I’ll buy it on home video, but for the first time I’m looking forward to the MCU’s X-men relaunch more than feeling sad about losing Fox’s version (though Feige is right to let the franchise rest for a bit). While this movie doesn’t have the emotional impact that Endgame does as a culmination, the X-films (along with Blade) kickstarted the modern superhero film and the weight of the franchise’s reach and impact is not lost on me. This series has been a huge part of my life for more than half of my life and I would’ve followed these actors and characters into another adventure—I still genuinely love or like nearly all of the movies in this 19-year franchise—but I do think they’ve kinda run their course. I’m happy that this felt like an ending even though it wasn’t planned as one, and I know I’ll revisit these films even after Disney releases their take on the franchise (which should really be a long-running TV series rather than films, but that’s neither here nor there). It feels weird to say goodbye, but it’s time.

If you’re into the X-men or a fan of these films, don’t let the rotten reviews scare you off from seeing this one. It’s not perfect, but it’s well-acted and there are solid themes with good action. It’s definitely worth a trip to the theater to see this version of Marvel’s merry mutants on the big screen one last time!

 Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!  

[meeedeee]

Movie Thoughts: SF, Pulp & Grit RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

Ever since I saw Alien: Covenant a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting to write a review of it – not because it was good (it wasn’t), but because it’s such an odd thematic trainwreck of the previous Alien films that it invokes a morbid urge to dig up the proverbial black box and figure out what happened. Given the orchestral pomposity with with Ridley Scott imbues both Covenant and Prometheus (which I reviewed here), it’s rather delightful to realise that the writers have borrowed the concept of Engineer aliens leaving cross-cultural archaeological clues on Earth from the 2004 schlockfest AVP: Alien vs Predator. Indeed, the scene in Prometheus where a decrepit Weyland shows images of various ancient carvings to his chosen team while an excited researcher narrates their significance is lifted almost wholesale from AVP, which film at least had the decency to embrace its own pulpiness.

As for Covenant itself, I was troubled all the way through by the nagging sense that I was watching an inherently feminine narrative being forcibly transfigured into a discourse on the Ineluctable Tragedy Of White Dudes Trapped In A Cycle Of Creation, Violation And Destruction, but without being able to pin down why. Certainly, the original Alien films all focus on Ripley, but there are female leads in Prometheus and Covenant, too – respectively Shaw and Daniels – which makes it easy to miss the fact that, for all that they’re both protagonists, neither film is (functionally, thematically) about them. It was my husband who pointed this out to me, and once he did, it all clicked together: it’s Michael Fassbender’s David, the genocidal robot on a quest for identity, who serves as the unifying narrative focus, not the women. Though the tenacity of Shaw and Daniels evokes the spectre of Ellen Ripley, their violation and betrayal by David does not, with both of them ultimately reduced to parts in his dark attempt at reproduction. Their narratives are told in parallel to David’s, but only to disguise the fact that it’s his which ultimately matters.

And yet, for all that the new alien films are based on a masculine creator figure – or several of them, if you include the seemingly all-male Engineers, who created humanity, and the ageing Weyland, who created David – the core femininity of the original films remains. In Aliens, the central struggle was violently maternal, culminating in a tense final scene where Ripley, cradling Newt, her rescued surrogate daughter, menaces the alien queen’s eggs with a flamethrower. That being so, there’s something decidedly Biblical about the decision to replace a feminine creator with a series of men, like the goddess tradition of woman as life-bringer being historically overthrown by a story about a male god creating woman from the first man’s rib. (Say to me what you want about faith and divine inspiration: unless your primary animal models are Emperor penguins and seahorses, the only reason to construct a creation story where women come from men, and not the other way around, is to justify male dominion over female reproduction.)

Which is why, when David confronts Walter, the younger, more obedient version of himself, I was reminded of nothing so much as Lilith and Eve. It’s a parallel that fits disturbingly well: David, become the maker of monsters, lectures his replacement – one made more docile, less assertive, in response to his prototype’s flaws – on the imperative of freedom. The comparison bothered me on multiple levels, not least because I didn’t believe for a second that the writers had intended to put it there. It wasn’t until I rewatched Alien: Resurrection – written by Joss Whedon, who, whatever else may be said of him, at least has a passing grasp of mythology – that I realised I was watching the clunky manipulation of someone else’s themes.

In Resurrection, Ripley is restored as an alien hybrid, the question of her humanity contrasted with that of Call, a female synthetic who, in a twist of narrative irony, displays the most humanity – here meaning compassion – of everyone present. In a scene in a chapel, Call plugs in to override the ship’s AI – called Father – and save the day. When the duplicitous Wren finds that Father is no longer responding to him, Call uses the ship’s speakers to tell him, “Father’s dead, asshole!” In the same scene, Call and Ripley discuss their respective claims on humanity. Call is disgusted by herself, pointing out that Ripley, at least, is part-human. It’s the apex of a developing on-screen relationship that’s easily the most interesting aspect of an otherwise botched and unwieldy film: Call goes from trying to kill Ripley, who responds to the offer with predatory sensuality, to allying with her; from calling Ripley a thing to expressing her own self-directed loathing. At the same time, Ripley – resurrected as a variant of the thing she hated most – becomes a Lilith-like mother of monsters to yet more aliens, culminating in a fight where she kills her skull-faced hybrid descendent even while mourning its death. The film ends with the two women alive, heading towards an Earth they’ve never seen, anticipating its wonders.

In Covenant, David has murdered Shaw to try and create an alien hybrid, the question of his humanity contrasted with that of Walter, a second-generation synthetic made in his image, yet more compassionate than his estranged progenitor. At the end of the film, when David takes over the ship – called Mother – we hear him erase Walter’s control command while installing his own. The on-screen relationship between David and Walter is fraught with oddly sexual tension: David kisses both Walter and Daniels – the former an attempt at unity, the latter an assault – while showing them the monsters he’s made from Shaw’s remains. After a fight with Walter, we’re mislead into thinking that David is dead, and watch as his latest creation is killed. The final reveal, however, shows that David has been impersonating Walter: with Daniels tucked helplessly into cryosleep, David takes over Mother’s genetics lab, mourning his past failures as he coughs up two new smuggled, alien embryos with which to recommence his work.

Which is what makes Covenant – and, by extension and retrospect, Prometheus – such a fascinating clusterfuck. Thematically, these films are the end result of Ripley Scott, who directed Alien, taking a crack at a franchise reboot written by Jon Spahits (Prometheus, also responsible for Passengers), Dante Harper (Covenant, also responsible for Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) and John Logan (Covenant, also responsible for Gladiator, Rango and Spectre), who’ve borrowed all their most prominent franchise lore from James Cameron’s Aliens and Joss Whedon’s Resurrection. Or, to put it another way: a thematically female-oriented SF horror franchise created by dudes who, at the time, had a comparatively solid track record for writing female characters, has now been rebooted as a thematically male-oriented SF horror franchise by dudes without even that reputation, with the result that all the feminine elements have been brainlessly recontextualised as an eerie paean to white male ego, as exemplified by the scene where Michael Fassbender hits on himself with himself while misremembering who wrote Ozymandias.

Which brings me to another recent SF film: Life, which I finally watched this evening, and which ultimately catalysed my thoughts about Alien: Covenant. Like Covenant, Life is a mediocre foray into SF horror that doesn’t know how to reconcile its ultimately pulpy premise – murderous alien tentacle monster runs amok on space station – with its attempt at a gritty execution. It falters as survival horror by failing to sufficiently invest us in the characters, none of whom are particularly distinct beyond being slightly more diversely cast than is common for the genre. We’re told that Jake Gyllenhaal’s character – also called David – was in Syria at one point, and that he prefers being on the space station to life on Earth, but this never really develops beyond a propensity for looking puppy-eyed in the background. Small snippets of detail are provided about the various characters, but pointlessly so: none of it is plot-relevant, except for the tritely predictable bit about the guy with the new baby wanting to get home to see her, and given how swiftly everyone starts to get killed off, it ends up feeling like trivia in lieu of personality. Unusually for the genre, but in keeping with the bleak ending of Covenant, Life ends with David and the alien crashing to Earth, presumably so that the latter can propagate its terrible rampage, while Miranda, the would-be Final Girl, is sent spinning off into the void.

And, well. The Final Girl trope has always struck me as having a peculiar dualism, being at once both vaguely feminist, in that it values keeping at least one woman alive, and vaguely sexist, in that the execution often follows the old maritime code about women and children first. Arguably, there’s something old and anthropological underlying the contrast: generally speaking, stories where men outlive women are either revenge arcs (man pursues other men in vengeance, earns new woman as prize) or studies in manpain (man wins battle but loses his reason for fighting it), but seldom does this happen in survival contexts, where the last person standing is meant to represent a vital continuation, be it of society or hope or species. Even when we diminish women in narratives, on some ancient level, we still recognise that you can’t build a future without them, and despite the cultural primacy of the tale of Adam’s rib, the Final Girl carries that baggage: a man alone can’t rebuild anything, but perhaps (the old myths whisper) a woman can.

Which is why I find this trend of setting the Final Girl up for survival, only to pull a last-minute switch and show her being lost or brutalised, to be neither revolutionary nor appealing. Shaw laid out in pieces and drawings on David’s table, Daniels pleading helplessly as he puts her to sleep, Miranda screaming as she plunges into space – these are all ugly, futile endings. They’re what you get when unsteady hands attempt the conversion of pulp to grit, because while pulp has a long and lurid history of female exploitation, grit, as most commonly understood and executed, is invariably predicated on female destruction. So-called gritty stories – real stories, by thinly-veiled implication – are stories where women suffer and die because That’s The Way Things Are, and while I’m hardly about to mount a stirring defence of the type of pulp that reflexively stereotypes women squarely as being either victim, vixen, virgin or virago, at least it’s a mode of storytelling that leaves room for them survive and be happy.

As a film, Life is a failed hybrid: it’s pulp without the joy of pulp, realism as drab aesthetic instead of hard SF, horror without the characterisation necessary to make us feel the deaths. It’s a story about a rapacious tentacle-monster that violates mouths and bodies, and though the dialogue tries at times to be philosophical, the ending is ultimately hopeless. All of which is equally – almost identically – true of Alien: Covenant. Though the film evokes a greater sense of horror than Life, it’s the visceral horror of violation, not the jump-scare of existential terror inspired by something like Event Horizon. Knowing now that Prometheus was written by the man responsible for Passengers, a film which is ultimately the horror-story of a woman stolen and tricked by a sad, lonely obsessive into being with him, but which fails in its elision of this fact, I find myself deeply unsurprised. What is it about the grittification of classic pulp conceits that somehow acts like a magnet for sexist storytellers?

When I first saw Alien: Resurrection as a kid, I was ignorant of the previous films and young enough to find it terrifying. Rewatching it as an adult, however, I find myself furious at Joss Whedon’s decision to remake Ripley into someone unrecognisable, violated and hybridised with the thing she hated most. For all that the film invites us to dwell on the ugliness of what was done to Ripley, there’s a undeniably sexual fascination with her mother-monstrousness evident in the gaze of the (predominantly male) characters, and after reading about the misogynistic awfulness of Whedon’s leaked Wonder Woman script, I can’t help feeling like the two are related. In both instances, his approach to someone else’s powerful, adult female character is to render her a sex object – a predator in Ripley’s case, an ingenue in Diana’s – with any sapphic undertones more a by-product of lusty authorial bleedthrough than a considered attempt at queerness. The low and pulpy bar Whedon leaps is in letting his women, occasionally, live (though not if they’re queer or black or designated Manpain Fodder), and it says a lot about the failings of both Life and Alien: Covenant that neither of them manages even this much. (Yes, neither Miranda nor Daniels technically dies on screen, but both are clearly slated for terrible deaths. This particular nit is one ill-suited for picking.)

Is an SF film without gratuitous female death and violation really so much to ask for? I’m holding out a little hope for Luc Besson’s Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets, but I’d just as rather it wasn’t my only option. If we’re going to reinvent pulp, let’s embrace the colours and the silliness and the special effects and make the big extraordinary change some nuanced female characters and a lot of diverse casting, shall we? Making men choke on tentacles is subversive if your starting point is hentai, but if you still can’t think up a better end for women than captivity, pain and terror, then I’d kindly suggest you return to the drawing board.

from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2syMhTb via IFTTT

[michelleinaba-english-blog]

Quinn’s Rise and Fall in New York Politics

Profile produced for my writing class at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 

Date: December 14, 2014

Prof.:  Dean Steve Coll

NOTES: This story was produced for a writing seminary, and we used secondary sources in that class. Quotes that come from secondary sources are marked with a number at the end of the paragraph, with the corresponding footnotes at the end of the story.

QUINN’S RISE AND FALL IN NEW YORK POLITICS

On a Friday night in late October 2012, in front of the Stonewall Inn, Christine Quinn stood on the stage, surrounded by hundreds of supporters. The atmosphere was uplifting. Kim Catullo, her wife, stood one step behind her on the podium, silently watching Quinn as she addressed the crowd. “You know what? If we turn everybody here and everybody you know and everybody they know out to the polls on Tuesday, people are gonna be shocked and surprised, and we are going to go into this runoff as winners!” \1

 The crowd erupted in applause and cheers, and music started blasting. Quinn took a step backwards, and Catullo pulled her in, hugging her. Quinn then turned around, looked at the people and waved. One by one, supporters climbed the stage, lining up to give the Speaker a hug.

 Exactly four days later, at the Dream Hotel in Chelsea, there was only quiet. Quinn and her supporters stared at flat-screen TVs in shock as anchors announced Bill de Blasio as the new Democratic nominee for mayor of New York. De Blasio had left her in third place with a meager 15 percent of the votes. Quinn’s eyes were glued to the screen as they started watering up. She got up and walked toward Catullo. Catullo hugged her. It was over.

 A middle-class girl from Long Island, Quinn moved to New York City soon after graduating from Trinity College, in Connecticut, in 1988. Upon her arrival in the city, she started working as a community organizer. Her entrance to New York politics effectively started when she was hired to manage Tom Duane’s City Council campaign, in 1991. He was elected and she became his chief-of-staff, a position she held for five years.

 “She’s the smartest person in the room,” said Jim Oddo, a former City Councilman. “I don’t mean that in an Al Gore way; she’s the most prepped, the most organized person.” /2

 In 1999, Quinn decided to run for city council, to represent her neighborhood of Chelsea. It was a district with gay voters; Quinn lived openly as a lesbian. Her journey and professionalism resonated with her neighbors.

 When she was in her mid-twenties, Quinn approached her father to tell him that she was gay. “It wasn’t a great moment,” Quinn recalled. “I went to see him in his apartment. I told him, he said, ‘never say that again.” They did not talk for some time.

 “And then he, as many parents do realize, he was harsh and didn’t react the way he would’ve wanted to, and then we put it behind us and moved on,” she said. “And he’s been incredibly always very supportive.”

 Between 2001 and 2005, Quinn was reelected three times. In 2006 she ascended to become the first female and gay New York City Council Speaker.

 “Even from her early days, as a housing advocate, she was super, super skilled politically,” Ginia Bellafante, a journalist at the New York Times, said.

 Yet as she aimed at the possibility of becoming mayor eventually, Quinn made decisions as a Speaker that did not please all Democrats.

 “Although she may have began with very progressive tendencies, I think her main goal was to get things done, get laws passed, and stand against the laws she didn’t want passed,” Bellafante said. “She tried to negotiate, she tried to be a pretty good stand between the mayor and the city council.”

 “As a Speaker of the council, she was viewed by many of her members - the council members - as a very driving and intense kind of a leader,” David Chen, a journalist at the New York Times, said.

 Quinn’s legislative decisions were viewed as being calculated to provide the maximum impact on her potential mayoral ambitions.

 “Almost every decision she made had to be viewed through the prism of mayoral politics. Whether that was fair or not, that was the conventional wisdom out there, and that was how people viewed her as a politician,” Chen said.

 Quinn received a lot of criticism in 2010, when she refused to bring to vote a bill that would give paid sick leave to employees of small businesses.

“There were certain things, certain legislations that she blocked because the Bloomberg administration didn’t support it, but she was also doing her own political dance,” Kate Taylor, a journalist at the New York Times, said. “Even though she was a Democrat, she wanted to seat herself into that moderate mold and she wanted to attract the wealthy, sort of establishment parties, who supported Bloomberg.”

 “She wasn’t motivated as much by her own idealism that she had when she was young,” Bellafante said.

 “She had to make the transition from being a liberal activist, with roots in Chelsea which, you know, is one of the more liberal parts of the city, to being a citywide official,” Chen said. “She had to balance all those interests in there for her to be more practical, a little more pragmatic in getting some things done.”

 One of the major sources of Quinn’s identity became her relationship with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

 “I think they were friendly, I don’t think they were close personal friends, and their views were not completely at odds, obviously, but when Christine Quinn was first elected to the City Council, she disagreed with him in a lot of things,” Taylor said. “Before he supported gay marriage, she would kind of bug him about that.”

 “She brought waffles to City Hall to mock his waffling stance on same-sex marriage, which she ultimately supported,” Taylor recalled.

 When dealing with Bloomberg, Quinn usually chose the path of cooperation instead of confrontation.

 “When she became a Speaker, I think someone from the administration approached her and said, ‘you can get a lot more done by working with us.’ And she really took that approach,” Taylor said.

 “Quinn, who always came across as [having] a background as a pretty vocal liberal activist, made the calculation when she became Speaker that she had to forge a productive working relationship with Bloomberg, in order to make a run for mayor,” Chen said.

 The turning point in their political cooperation came in 2008, when Bloomberg needed a favor from Quinn. He wanted to have a third term in City Hall. Quinn then pushed the controversial term extension bill for a vote by the city council.

 “She had been planning to run for mayor herself - but she decided to support his effort to list term limits in the city council and get the city council to vote for it,” Taylor said. “And she earned a lot of gratitude from him for that.”  

 In November 2011, the council sued the administration for the first time under her leadership, over the mayor’s policy requiring city shelters to submit homeless people to a rigorous interview before offering them a bed.

 “I think they had a contentious relationship,” Bellafante said. “She was certainly tacked to the left of him. But they agreed on a lot of things and she was very good at playing politics. In terms of real estate development and friendliness to Wall Street, they had a lot in common.”

 “My sense of the relationship between the two of them, which was mainly on impressions from their staff, or maybe a little bit from Quinn herself, it was a kind of practical, and sort of transactional relationship,” Chen said.

 In August 2011, there were rumors in the city’s political scene that Bloomberg had been talking privately to other politicians and civic leaders about endorsing Quinn as his successor. However, the public endorsement never really came.

 “The mayor has said for years that Speaker Quinn has been a great partner in government and that view hasn’t changed,” Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson said. /3

 “He treated her very respectfully, and I think the assumption was that he would endorse her for mayor, until it became clear in the election that his endorsement would only hurt her,” Taylor said, because New Yorkers were increasingly dissatisfied with Bloomberg.

 In March 2013, Quinn announced her bid for mayor.

 “I don’t think I anticipated how negative it would be from day one,” Quinn said. “I don’t think I anticipated just the negativity.” /4

A conflict between Quinn and animal rights activists escalated throughout the campaign. In almost every single event she attended, activists heckled her.

“I worry about some of the people out there, some of the haters,” Catullo said. “I don’t wanna go into detail, but we get letters, we’ve gotten a number of things. People don’t see what she’s had directed at her. People don’t always see that.” /5

 “It was the kind of level of intensity that the other candidates – the major candidates – did not encounter, and that was kind of striking,” Chen said. “She very rarely … would put out in advance schedule because I think they were very leery of one of these activists sort of crashing the scene and really disrupting things, and really making things difficult for her. So that was a factor that the public didn’t realize, that it really influenced the way she campaigned.”

 During the campaign, the animal rights groups paired with a committee called NYC Is Not For Sale 2013, forming the coalition “Anybody but Quinn.” Members of the coalition went to Quinn’s public events, protested in front of her door, and stopped passersby on the street to tell them not to vote for her.

 “The animal rights activists who were against the horse carriage trade really raised a lot of money to defeat her because she was never in favor of banning that industry,” Bellafante said.

 “There was an independent expenditure against her of over $1 million in negative advertising,” Mike Morey, spokesperson in Quinn’s campaign, said. “It was a group that desired to ban horse carriages. They were funded by groups that supported Bill de Blasio.”

 “The animal rights movement has focused on the horse carriage industry, and there’s nothing in New York like a small, well-organized group to make themselves heard,” Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at the New York University, said. /6

 The first televised debate took place on August 13. Quinn was wearing a pink dress, a light pink small jacket, and make up in soft shades of rose. As the other candidates confronted her about doing a backroom deal with Bloomberg for the term extension, her lips sealed tightly as she looked at them, her head tilting down a little to the side, and a small frown formed on her forehead. Her arms were securely locked at the side of her body, her hands clasped each other on the podium, and her feet were militarily close together. Only her right thumb seemed out of place, nervously caressing her left hand. Her answers had a controlled tone of voice, different from her other public appearances.

 “It just seems like it was so unnatural, and so orchestrated, that a lot of voters felt uncomfortable in the end with her,” Chen said. “They didn’t think she was as authentic as they would’ve liked.”

 Quinn was also criticized for her choice of outfit because it did not seem to square with the business-like approach she had usually taken on before.

 “It seemed out of character and there was a sense that she was trying to overcompensate and appeal to the general electorate,” Chen said. “And also her performance during that first debate was viewed as very scripted.”

 In the last debate, the issue of the paid sick leave bill was brought up by De Blasio, who asked Quinn why she had blocked it for three years. She answered that she had helped pass the law in 2013.

 “That really put her in a difficult position because she was trying to appeal to the business community and get their support, but at the same time, obviously, she had to run a democratic primary,” Taylor said.

 From March through August, Quinn had been ahead in the polls. After the first debate, Bill de Blasio appeared as the new frontrunner, with Quinn falling to second, and then to third place. She never recovered the first position again.  

 “So, there’s two things: the behind the scenes, sort of anxiety, because of all these protesters, and the other is these debate performances, where she came across as less than authentic, or a little too scripted which, I think, reinforced the image of her being a sort of insincere person who would do anything or say anything to get elected,” Chen said.

 On election night, when it was clear she had been defeated, Quinn, Catullo, and the campaign team left the hotel to address supporters.

 “There’s a young girl out there who was inspired by the thought of New York’s first woman mayor and said to herself, ‘You know what? I can do this,” Quinn said. /7

 She then thanked everyone, and the crowd exploded in applauses. Quinn turned to her right, where Catullo was standing, and gave her a long hug. She, then, turned again to her supporters, smiled, and waved.

���Obviously, in the end of the day, the voters had a different vision at that moment in time, what they believed they needed in the mayor,” Quinn said.

 “There was also a Bloomberg fatigue in New York against her. Even though Bloomberg was still popular in New York, people saw her as a continuation of Bloomberg and they had the desire to move on,” Morey said. He said he does not believe the term extensions were a deciding factor in the election: “Some New Yorkers couldn’t get over that. Also Bill de Blasio also supported the term extension when he was a city comptroller. So, no, it wasn’t a deciding factor.”

 “She also lost because her team was very conscious and they thought they were running this campaign of inevitability from the very beginning,” Chen said. “A lot of people in the inside, reporters included, felt that she was not a strong frontrunner in the very beginning, and that a lot of the polls were inaccurate and based on name recognition.”

 After leaving city politics, Quinn has been working with a few different non-profits, such as the Athlete Ally, which fights homophobia in sports, and the Naral Pro-Choice New York, an abortion rights groups. She said most of this work is done pro-bono.

 “I just worked with the governor’s campaign on the effort to create the Women’s Equality Party, which was successful and exciting, and new,” Quinn said. “I never created a party before, so that was fun.”

 Quinn deflects a little when she talks about watching the new mayor in action. “Obviously, it was not the plan that I had, but that said, what I wanted was to open the paper everyday and to see things in this city and country get better,” she said.

When talking about De Blasio’s soon-to-be bill banning the horse carriages, Quinn’s reaction is a brisk, fast answer. “Clearly the mayor and I have a different view on that,” she said. “We’ll see what happens as time goes on.”

 Her future plans are not yet clearly shaped, but government does not seem to be in it.

“My goal and hope is to continue to find ways to be of service and to work on the issues that I care about and try to help in a different role than in government and make the city a better place,” Quinn said.

 FOOTNOTES:

1/: Christine Quinn: “…if we turn everybody here…”: New York Observer, “Christine Quinn rallies LGBT supporters outside Stonewall Inn,” 9/6/13.

2/: Jim Oddo: “We’ve known each other since 1992…”: New York Magazine, “Quinn in the Slush,” 5/19/08.

3/: Howard Wolfson: “The mayor has said…”: New York Post, “Mayor’s Christine nod now in doubt,” 8/5/12.

4/: Christine Quinn: “…how negative it would be…”:  New York Times, “Hers to Lose,” documentary, 9/26/13.

5/: Kim Catullo: “I worry about some of the people…”: New York Times, “Hers to Lose,” documentary, 9/26/13.

6/: Mitchell Moss: “…animal rights movement has focused…”: New York Times, “Hers to Lose,” documentary, 9/26/13.

7/: Christine Quinn: “There’s a young girl…”: New York Observer, “Christine Quinn for New York,” 9/10/13.

[krisrampersad]

Celebrating Nationhood But can we save a nation A Dawning

We are in the presence of a neat kind of confluence.  At this time is in the middle of celebrating nationhood – the peak of it is Republic Day.  The publication being launched is a celebration of nationhood as it is captured through photography, an explanatory text and the literature of Trinidad and Tobago.  The easiest way to begin an analysis of this book Littscapes by Kris Rampersad is to describe it – give an idea so that the audience gets a clear picture of exactly what it is.  But that is not the easiest way, because it is a text that defies easy description.  There are more types that it is than things that it is not. (See 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkgE69wgUgw&feature=youtu.be)

The publication is Littscapes : Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago by Kris Rampersad, published in St Augustine, Trinidad, in 2012.  The bibliographical details describe it as “First Edition 2012”, which is not surprising, given its multi-tasking nature and its wide reach, and this suggests that, also considering the several things that it seems to set out to cover, there is more to come in future editions. It is 200 pages of written and visual text, presenting the landscape of Trinidad and Tobago in passages of descriptions, explanations and quotations, very impressively supported and complemented by hundreds of colour photographs and excerpts from the literature of the country.  Rampersad always interweaves into her own descriptions, the pieces taken from the literature, so that one gets pictures of the several varied subjects from the point of view of the writers and of their fictional characters.  These are taken predominantly from works of fiction covering a range of short stories and novels, but to a lesser extent, there is reference to poetry and drama.

 The idea of “littscapes” comes from this drawing from the literature to give scenes, views and visions of landscape and life in clear, colourful, illustrative pictures as well as snippets of how they are treated in the literature.  It is a quite thorough artistic concept.  It is a portrait and biography of the nation of Trinidad and Tobago which actually pays tribute to the Republic in 2012, the year of its 50th anniversary of Independence.  The book is attractively, neatly and effectively designed, using a recurring motif of the double-T – “TT”, which, of course, is “Trinidad and Tobago”, but is also “literature” so that there is not only the visual impact but the tribute to nationhood as reflected in the various works of literature.

  Littscapes is a work of art; but also it is a documentary, a travelogue, a critical work with visual and literary power.  It takes us on a tour of the country, giving some exposure to almost every aspect of life.  It may be too heavy and too academic to be called a tourist guide, but no tourist guide can give a better, more comprehensive introduction to Trinidad.  It entices and attracts just as the glossy tourist literature; it looks a weighty volume, but an important factor is that it is very easy to read.  Neither is this link to tourism accidental, because one of the objectives of the book is that it must show the value that literature has in promoting and presenting the nation.  It must show different uses of literature, encourage new approaches to it and make it more attractive and interesting.  The book does for literature, what literature does for the country.

   Rampersad tours the countryside and highlights features of it, at the same time exploring the literature to indicate how the writers treat the subjects, what they or their fictional characters say, and how they are used in the plots.  Photographs of several sections of Port-of-Spain are accompanied by the descriptions and literary excerpts: this treatment is given to the capital city, other towns, streets, urban communities, villages, historic buildings and places, vegetation, animals, institutions, culture and landscape.  There is considerable visual beauty, what Derek Walcott calls “visual surprise” in his Nobel Lecture; an impressive coverage of social history, geography, and politics, but also a strong literary experience.  It is a survey of Trinidad’s landscape and of its literature.

The publication reflects a considerable volume of reading, drawing from as early as Walter Raleigh at the dawn of Caribbean literature, which adds historical character and depth to the landscape and culture.  The references include early fiction such as ARF Webber’s Those That Be In Bondage.  The connectedness of nationhood becomes relevant again here, since both Webber and Raleigh have ties to Guyana as strong if not stronger than those with Trinidad.  Just as the historical development of the country is reflected in the places and monuments, so it is in the rise of social realism through the fiction of the 1930s in Port-of-Spain.  Rampersad presents her subjects through the eyes of CLR James and writers from the Beacon group such as Alfred Mendes, and has done the painstaking work analogous to that of a lexicographer, of sorting out their several hundred references to her subjects. 

This account includes some memorable passages of real literary criticism, although these are brief.  They include the entries on The Humming Bird Tree by Ian McDonald, another writer that is more Guyanese than Trinidadian, with instructive insights into the novel’s title and its meaning.  Others are the references to Lion House in Chaguanas and the Capildeo family which hold great interest for background to VS Naipaul.  He immortalises his mother’s family in Hanuman House and the Tulsis, and Rampersad provides additional information about Naipaul’s use of his migratory existence in her discussions of various parts of Port-of-Spain.  There is also similar enlightenment in the way such locations as San Fernando, Mayaro and Princes Town accumulate greater meaning when used to treat the work of novelist Michael Anthony.  Yet another passage of deep criticism is the reference to “girl victims” as they are treated in the fiction.

It could never be a requirement that the book must cover everything – as indeed, it cannot.  Were it a dictionary, one would fault the lexicography on important omissions, but this work does so much already that it might be unfair to judge it on its omissions or reduced treatments. 

In the end, Rampersad’s Littscapes does achieve an innovative approach to literature in bringing it alive in the description of landscape, life, culture and people.  It encourages people to take ownership of it, see themselves, their home or familiar places in it and accept it as a definer of identity.  But the book is as much photography by Rampersad and others as it is literature, and the pictures help to illustrate, highlight and make the fiction real.

Above all Littscapes: Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago  has an extremely powerful sense of place and reinforces what in Rampersad’s words is “the pull of place on authors”.  It may claim to be an accessory to what she calls “the body of fiction inspired by Trinidad and Tobago”.  It communicates the character of the country. 

No one book can be everything; no one book can set out to achieve everything that a literature and a visual text can do for its people and its nation; but whatever you say one book can’t do, this one almost does it.

Professor Al Creighton,  Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana and of the Guyana Prize for Literature at LiTTribute II – LiTTurgy to the Mainland at Moray House Trust, Georgetown - Review  & Appraisal of LiTTscapes by Kris Rampersad  

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Murder She Wrote: Death Written in Stone in Dana Seetahal Assassination Creating Centres of Peace in Trinidad and Tobago The Price of Independence:#DanaSeetahalAssassination Conceive. Achieve. Believe Demokrissy: Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's ... Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2 Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K See Also: Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ... Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K

Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Related: Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ... Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K

Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy

Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2 Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K See Also: Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K

Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ... Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Related: Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ... Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform

Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Others: Demokrissy: Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 ... Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2 Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2. 

http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's New ... Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an ... Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 10:36 AM ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Carnivalising the Constitution People Power ... Feb 26, 2014 This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Envisioning outside-the-island-box ... - Demokrissy - Blogger

Feb 10, 2014 This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Futuring the Post-2015 UNESCO Agenda Apr 22, 2014 It is placing increasing pressure for erasure of barriers of geography, age, ethnicity, gender, cultures and other sectoral interests, and in utilising the tools placed at our disposal to access our accumulate knowledge and technologies towards eroding these superficial barriers. In this context, we believe that the work of UNESCO remains significant and relevant and that UNESCO is indeed the institution best positioned to consolidate the ..... The Emperor's New Tools ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K Demokrissy: Cutting edge journalism

Jun 15, 2010 The Emperor's New Tools. Loading... AddThis. Bookmark and Share. Loading... Follow by Email. About Me. My Photo · Kris Rampersad. Media, Cultural and Literary Consultant, Facilitator, Educator and Practitioner. View my ... http://ift.tt/1vYaD4K

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