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starksinner · 3 years ago

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Love Will Tear Us Apart

Summary: After messing with his meth business, Trevor is desperate to meet you.

Pairing: Trevor Philips x AFAB!Reader

Warnings: Canon-Typical Behaviour, Flirting (?), Implied Sexual Content

Author's Note: Based on the scenes from GTAV Online where the Protagonist gets invited by Ron to Trevor’s trailer after messing with TPI. But I made it cooler and much more sexy.

You’re welcome.

March 8th, 2013.

You’d been expecting the call for a while.

Ron Jakowski’s unsettled demeanour could easily be recognized over the phone, and you especially enjoyed the way his voice wavered as he spoke: “My boss is very angry, and you really would not like him when he’s angry!”

That threat, that promise, that warning sure got your blood pumping as you sped across the Los Santos Freeway.

Alas, it wasn’t every day that you decided to steal an RV of supplies from Sandy Shores' most feared meth dealer. Your job well done seemed to have caused him and his small business a growing shit storm of trouble -- and fuck, you couldn’t help but shine and relish in the light of your impact.

As you strutted across his pisspoor excuse of a yard and up the steps to his blood-stained trailer, fear and trepidation were among the last things you felt.

Cool, calm, collected. That’s who you were.

Excited, giddy, ready to piss people off. That’s who you were, too.

You weren’t here as a courtesy, you were here to be entertained and watch a fucked up methhead lose his absolute shit.

“This is…is that woman!”

Other than the two old men who looked like they’d just escaped a dumpster fire, the first thing you noticed as you stepped into the trailer was the smell.

Rotting pizza and coyote flesh -- that’s what it fucking smelt like.

“I know…who this is, Ronald!”

In all his stained white t-shirt glory stood Trevor Philips: wide-eyed, hyperactive, quick jerky movements and all. His gaze worked over your body so quickly that you wouldn’t have noticed his leering if you weren’t as invested in this as you were.

“You!” He rushed into your space, finger pointed at your chest. “You disgust me! You come here after all the trouble you’ve caused! You come here, after walking around the state like you own it!”

Despite your impassive expression, you were trying your fucking hardest to not let a harrowing heap of laughter slip from your mouth. This was perfect, this was everything you’d hoped for. This guy was fucking insane.

Trevor was consistently inching into your personal space, so much so that you were beginning to feel the heat of his breath against your cheek.

“Mhm, fuck…” His voice was sultry and quiet for a moment. Only for a moment. It would’ve almost been intimate if you weren’t so keenly aware of Ron acting as Trevor’s irritating shadow.

“GAH, SHIT! Oh— hm —I’m getting a semi!”

You eyed him with interest as he jerked away from you and cupped himself over his pants, nearly bumping into Ron as the skittish man watched his boss do what he does best.

“You know why I’m getting a semi, princess? Huh?”

Princess. That was cute. Cute enough that you wouldn’t’ve minded hearing it from him again.

“It’s not cause I wanna fuck you— although I do wanna fuck you —it’s because YOU have been fucking ME!”

God, he was the definition of erratic: yelling, pacing, and waving his hands around like he was. Just to piss him off even more, you simply replied with an expression of placid boredom and a tilt of your pretty little head.

You could tell the silence was killing him.

“Fuck, what kind of a sick harridan are you, huh?”

It was almost flattering, the way he seemed so excited to jump right back into your personal space.

“You’ve never written, you’ve never called! I mean, you’ve been roamin’ around these parts for how long and you don’t even have the courtesy to send a welcome basket…or maybe a nice plate of cookies. Or…not even an inappropriate selfie of your tits!”

At his close proximity, you could really look into his eyes -- they were uncharacteristically beautiful for such a harsh and volatile man: a rich warm brown that was sure to reflect the colour of honey if the sunlight were to hit them just right.

You couldn’t stop the furtive little smile that curled the ends of your lips.

Trevor, in his haze of euphoria and anger and arousal, had one single thought: that smile held the possibility of decimating planets. That smile seemed to be the only match that could light his flame. It made him even more pissed off, and if anything, even more aroused.

“What’s your problem, HUH? Why THE FUCK aren’t you SCARED OF ME?”

The tension that filled the trailer was ridiculously noticeable, yet comfortably thrilling. Trevor’s chest was heaving, Ron was cowering and looking absolutely exasperated behind his god, and you were still wearing that shit-eating grin along with teasing your tongue over your bottom lip in a not-so-subtle demonstration of your indifference and rein.

Silence lingered for a moment before Trevor seemed to jump awake and reanimate like a battery-powered action figure. “GOD, you are so PERFECT!”

His bipolar behaviour was enthralling; hyperactive and jerky one minute, then soft and solemn the next. He was unpredictable and there was something so addicting about that. You’d almost wished you’d met him sooner.

“I love you,” his eyes softened and his breath wavered. “Really, I love you.”

How cute.

“You could be...you’re like the close female friend I’ve always wanted!” That manic grin of his and flailing of libs made a quick reappearance.“You’re like the eager and sexy and strong soldierette that I’ve always NEEDED!”

“So!” He pointed at your chest again and you appreciated the way he took his time to gaze at the exposure of your cleavage. He knew that you knew he was eyeing you with lust, and it just made everything all the more electrifying. “It’s time to start repaying your debt to society. And you can start by dealing with the terrible harm you’ve done to the local businesses, especially MINE!”

You were still and silent for a short second before you laughed, smiled and pulled your phone out of your back pocket. “I’ll be sure to get right on that, boss.”

Trevor’s eyes went wide, his mouth agape like he couldn’t believe you held the power of speech. He was spluttering his words and looking like a lost little puppy dog; it was satisfying and just downright fucking adorable to watch. “And have Jakowski give you my number!”

Ron gasped and began apologizing to his boss hurriedly, seemingly terrified at the notion of being perceived.

“I’ll be sure to send you that inappropriate picture you wanted.” You smiled up from your phone. “Boss.”

Without another glance, you stepped out of the trailer and left the men by their lonesome.

Grinning and satisfied, you made your way out of Trevor’s yard and hopped onto your Western Deathbike, its new red respray shining and striking from the sun’s rays. You immediately revved the engine, relishing in its power as you settled in and felt the desert winds hitting your skin.

Stumbling out of his trailer, his dick hard and eyes lidded, Trevor grunted as you looked over at him, smiled— that goddamn smile —and then drove off into the sunset.

#trevor philips x reader #trevor philips x you #trevor philips #trevor philips gta v #gta v #gta fanfiction #gta fanfic #the protagonist #gta online

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100hearteyes · 4 years ago

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Part 2 of Clarke And Lexa Make a Porno, because why the fuck not.

Part 1.

"No. Absolutely not."

Anya's wolfish grin is no good omen. Lexa feels a sense of dread wash over her and tries in vain to assuage her nerves by holding her friend's gaze. Anya wouldn't look this sure if she didn't have some card up her sleeve.

Lexa throws a furtive glance around, checks that her co-workers are still focused on the German porn telenovela. It's only when she's sure that the action on-screen will keep them rooted for a while that she turns back to Anya, trying but failing to meet her eyes.

She overcompensates with another glance around the room and a low hiss. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but am I not too," she licks her lips, gathering the courage, "'vanilla' to do it?"

Anya shrugs like it's a no-brainer; crosses her arms and props her booted feet on Lexa's desk. "That's exactly the point. You're a lesbian Disney princess. Pretty sure if you started singing the whole fucking fauna of Capitola would follow you around."

Lexa levels Anya with a glare and tries to push her feet off the desk, to no avail.

(Seriously, what's it worth being editor if she can't even have her subjects' respect? She wishes this job was less about the headaches and more about the self-indulgent moments of microscopic tyranny.)

The feet might not budge, but Anya will. Lexa is sure of it. She draws herself taller and tucks on her most authoritative scowl. "I won't do it."

Anya plucks an imaginary cigarette from her mouth and throws it away without a care in the world. She reaches behind her and drags forth a heavy wooden box, filled to the brim with—

"My vinyls."

Lexa is in a daze.

She thought she'd lost all her vinyls to time and moving. She mourned each one of them for at least a year, cried many a night away clutching her record player to dear life, lamenting their shared loss.

They had a real connection.

But it turns out her vinyls weren't lost after all, and her tears were for naught. They were safe all along, albeit in different hands, and she'd known nothing of it, like a mother who lets her children wander about without aim nor authority.

How can she ever have kids if she can't even take care of her prized vinyls?

Lexa feels a prick of self-righteous indignation at the betrayal and puffs out her chest. "Why do you have all my vinyls?"

"I think you mean all my vinyls," Anya corrects with a lazy flurry of one hand towards the box.

"You don't even own a record player."

"How the fuck would you know?"

Lexa raises an eyebrow at her friend. "I come over all the time?"

"I could hide it while you're there."

"And then you'd never find it again, because that's what happens every time you try to hide something from me."

Anya shrugs and watches as Lexa picks one of the vinyls and turns it over in her hands, reading the track list on the back with the reverence one would a millennium-old parchment. Then she looks up at Anya with a stern glare.

"Over half of these were stolen from my house."

Anya shrugs again with infuriating nonchalance and Lexa wishes she had a pencil nearby just so she could snap it in two with one hand. Or stab one of Anya's eyes with it.

"Maybe I just rescued them from the actual malefactor," drawls Anya.

"We both know the real culprit sits across from me and has been wearing the same socks for the past three weeks."

Nailed it.

When she looks at her friend, however, all she sees is that same old resting bitch face that never seems to go away.

"Wow, Lexa," Anya deadpans. "Now you've really hurt my feelings."

Sometimes, Lexa wonders if Anya really has a rock where her heart should be. A supernatural, blood-pumping rock, of course, but a rock nonetheless. Or, maybe, Anya is a psychopath. Maybe the blood money theory wasn't so far-fetched after all. That would explain the brazen lack of empathy for everyone else's feelings, most of all Lexa's. What does it say about Lexa that her one true friend is someone who sneezes literally every time Lexa says 'I love you'?

Not that Lexa says it a lot. Only once or twice every few years.

Just enough to have noticed the pattern.

"Are you really trying to blackmail me with vinyls?"

Anya fakes an affronted gasp, laying a hand on her heart. "Would I ever. Think of it as... an incentive."

Lexa really does love Anya, despite her friend's... unique demeanor. Anya helps her come out of her shell — by taking up all the space and forcing her out of her own metaphorical home — and every once in a while she likes to make sure Anya is aware of her gratitude. Sometimes, though, things get really fucking weird.

Lexa would still do anything for her best friend.

"Let's imagine, hypothetically - very hypothetically," she stresses, although Anya's burgeoning smirk tells Lexa she isn't so easily fooled, "that I agreed. What would happen next?"

Anya takes her feet off Lexa's desk and sits up straighter, perhaps aware of the importance of this moment. This, Lexa decides, will determine her answer.

"Well first, I'd have to get you a costar. Then we'd sign some legally binding shit, find a crew, and make the damn movie. Simple as that."

Anya leans forward, looking into her eyes. In Anya's, she sees honesty and a pressing need to reassure. It takes some of the pressure off her shoulders right away.

"Look, Lexa, you can say no. But your name won't be on anything related to the movie and I promise no one in this shitty town will ever find out you did this."

This is why Anya is Lexa's best friend. And it's why Lexa would do anything for her.

Even star in a porno.

"Okay."

Anya's inner smile must be really, really big, because Lexa knows how hard she tries to tamper its outward expression — and still her lips manage to lift into a grotesque grimace. Coming from Anya, it's the equivalent of a blissful grin.

"Okay?"

Lexa nods and closes her eyes, bracing herself for a bone-crushing hug. It never comes. When she opens her eyes, Anya's resting bitch face is back on.

"What, did you want a fucking hug?"

It's a blessing to have her rude friend back, Lexa guesses, because seeing Anya almost smile is fifty shades of unsettling. So she rolls her eyes and rolls with it.

Her next question demands her full focus, lest she makes an even bigger fool of herself than usual.

Lexa breathes in, makes sure all her co-workers are still otherwise entertained, breathes out. Smooths out a non-existent wrinkle in her pants, wets her lips for courage.

"Anyway," she treads with caution, "do you have someone in mind for the other main role?"

It's fitting that Harper McIntyre's hit song One More Betyreyal (one of her less inspired titles, if Lexa may say so) starts playing in that moment, for the look in Anya's eyes speaks of nothing but danger. Lexa wonders how much planning went into this conversation, so Anya could plan all her gut punches in advance.

"Clarke Griffin."

No. No. Anyone but her.

Clarke Griffin is the new recruit, although Lexa hardly understands how there can be someone new considering the station is broke and they’re already overstaffed — and none of them make nearly enough money for how much they laze around all day.

Clarke came from out of town with a fancy degree and was directly hired as an editor. She voices the early afternoon newscasts and Lexa curses the one-hour period during which she's forced to cohabitate with Clarke every day.

Apparently, Clarke had taken a liking to unnerving her, be it by smirking at her every time she catches Lexa staring or by making all sorts of inappropriate comments — to her ear. Lexa hates how much it affects her, but how can she possibly focus on reporting about Lionel "Real Sight" Foster swallowing his own wooden eye or how Jasper Jordan rescued his own private parts from the jaws of two slats of an unassuming park bench if someone keeps doing everything in their power to distract her?

Lexa has a theory (an iron-clad theory, if she may say so herself), and it's that Clarke is trying to get her fired so she can take her shift. It's the best shift of the day. There is no other possible explanation.

"You know what, I take it back. Now you need to convince two people to star in your porno."

"Oh, there's no need." Anya waves her argument away with staggering nonchalance. "Clarke's already said yes."

Wait, what? "But you told me we'd need to get me a costar."

Anya shrugs and Lexa is now seriously considering revisiting her psychopath theory. "I lied."

"You conniving, lying b—"

"Careful," Anya cuts in with a raised eyebrow. "I am under protection of the Capitola Astrologers Union."

"Of which you are president, treasurer, and the only legal member," Lexa reminds her. "And I think any upstanding judge would love to know how exactly every other name on the list has joined said union posthumously."

"I am an astrologer, Lexa. I can communicate with the dead. It's in my job description."

"It scares me that you're not even aware you're describing an entirely different profession."

Lexa sits back, staring at the ceiling (and the chewing gum Murphy glued there a year ago — he could've been an Olympic jumper if he committed to work the way he does to being an asshole), trying to come to terms with a single, harrowing probability: she's going to star in a porno with Clarke Griffin.

"l don't understand why it has to be Clarke."

Anya leans forward, propping her elbows on her knees, expression serious and ready to talk shop. The last time Lexa saw her like this was— actually, Lexa doesn't think she's ever seen Anya like this.

"Look, I've done some market analysis and most girl on girl pairings are a blonde and a brunette." Anya raises both her hands and starts counting off fingers, "Brittana, Petramos, Holstein, Wayhaught, Supercorp, Joanarty, Choni, the inaptly named Shoni, Deanoru, Dana and Alice, Bette and Tina, Catradora, Villaneve, Clexa—"

"What's Clexa?"

"I don't know, some chicks from this fucking terrible CW show."

"Do you like it?"

"Do I like what?"

"Clexa."

"Dude, I don't even know their fucking names!" Anya exclaims, exasperated. As if she's the victim here. "The only Clexa I ship is you and Blondie. Naked. On my porno. Clarke and Lexa. Clexa. Havin' very hot sexa."

"Smart," Lexa deadpans.

"I know."

"Why can't it be Niylah? She's blonde, too."

Anya's smirk is five hundred shades of gross. "I know you'd love to get up close and personal with Niylah's knick-knacks, but no."

Lexa decides to let the comment fly for the sake of her own sanity.

"Why Clarke, though?"

"Because you two have chemistry, you fucking dimwit."

Lexa snorts. Chemistry. Lexa has never heard of something so absurd. She and Clarke have as much chemistry as Harper McIntyre and any semblance of originality.

Which is to say, none at all.

"She makes very inappropriate comments," she argues instead, knowing full well that pressing on the topic of chemistry will only open way for some trademark crass joke from Anya.

"Yeah," her friend agrees, like it's obvious. "Because she knows you love them."

She most certainly does not.

"I most certainly do not."

"You do. Your freakishly tiny ears go red whenever she flirts with you. Your step falters when she makes one of those comments, for fuck's sake," Anya observes, pointing in Lexa's general direction, before leaving forward and laying a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you, my friend, are a walking lesbian cliché."

Lexa takes Anya's hand off her shoulder. "Can you please stop insulting my tragically conspicuous homosexuality?"

"Oh please," Anya scoffs. "I'm bisexual, I can say whatever I want."

"If my step actually faltered - which they don't - it would be because her comments are annoying, off-putting, unprofessional, inopportune, and... and inappropriate", she finishes lamely.

"And you fucking love them."

"I don't."

Anya leans back on her chair with an evil smirk, propping her feet on the table and crossing them at the ankles. Lexa tries to push them off to no avail.

"Legalities aside, it's very simple. Clarke has already said yes. I just recorded you saying yes."

Lexa sputters, "You what--"

"You're both legally bound now." Anya shrugs. "Look at it this way: it will be very educational. You'll finally learn how to make a girl come, and get paid for it. Sort of."

A beat of silence.

"Anya, are you aware that you say something at least vaguely criminal every five sentences? Something that could actually put you in prison?"

Anya clicks her tongue, sinking farther into her chair, and lowers her sunglasses to her eyes.

"I've got friends everywhere, Lex. Let's just say I've dipped more than my fingers in my fair share of pies, if you catch my drift." A second later, she lowers her sunglasses just enough to reveal her eyes. "That means my tongue. My tongue's been in a lot of pies, too."

Lexa doesn't doubt that for a second.

"What I need to know is," Anya adds, taking off her sunglasses and throwing them across the room, "will you dip your fingers in the porn pie?"

Like this conversation hasn't caused enough trauma for thirty lifetimes.

"If I say no, will you still give me back my vinyls?"

"Absolutely fucking not."

Lexa swallows, clenches her jaw, and thinks of all those lonely nights spent in the couch clutching her record player and sharing cookie dough ice cream with it, longing for long-gone times when she'd dance to the mellow voices of the likes Billy Ocean and Ella Fitzgerald.

"My answer is yes."

#that moodboard is way too serious for this lol #clexa #clexa au #clexa fic #clexa fanfiction #clexa fanfic #calmap #my fics #mine

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jaskiersvalley · 5 years ago

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OKAY, OKAY, OKAY, I JUST READ THE LAST POST AND LIKE, I C A N N O T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE FCKN P R E S S THAT THAT SORT OF DISPLAY WOULD GET. Like, obvi it's soft and adorable between Jaskier and Geralt as a trust thing but Flouncy Fluffy Fancy Jaskier CROSSING SWORDS and ORDERING AROUND A WITCHER and it like, that shit WORKS?????? What kind of STORIES would get told about that??? That's a feeding ground for New Epic Rumors about the Terrifying Bard and HIS Witcher. Like, ekfjjdjfjdk i love

Rumours absolutely fly! Far and wide, whispers spread about how a witcher will bend to the will of a bard, even when enchanted. It gives bards a whole new status in society. And witchers find themselves in increasingly absurd situations.

The first to encounter the knock-on effect of Geralt and Jaskier’s little tiff was Lambert. He had just completed a contract and the idiot villagers were trying to swindle him out of coin. Usually, he just had to growl and look menacing and he got his due. This time though, a boy was thrown his way.

“Do you take me for a dragon, pushing a virgin at me?” he snarled.

The boy looked uncomfortable and downright terrified. He had a lute in hand and, after a bit of prodding he mumbled, “I’m not a virgin. Well. I am. But I’m a bard.”

Lambert fixed him with an unimpressed stare before bursting out laughing.

Even the smallest village now had a bard. Some poor sod had been cursed with a lute or some other instrument and sent to deal with the witcher responding to the call of a contract. It was something Eskel learned to enjoy. He offered every single bard the opportunity to go travelling with him. Some even took him up on it.

Thanks to a slew of contracts near Oxenfurt, travelling with a witcher became an elective for their bard course and Eskel loved it. He got company, excited and wide eyed. Sometimes they stuck around for a while, other times they went off on their own travels - his favourite was when he lost two at a time as a happy couple, ready to settle down.

He also used his bard luring status for good. At times, he encountered villagers where the bard was some pompous ass. But Eskel spied those in need of a helping hand. A beaten youngster or a harrowed looking villager. At those times, Eskel nobly ignored the ‘bard’ and approached the one in need of help, declaring them the true bard and refusing to accept any orders from anyone but that person. If they wanted to leave with him, Eskel would facilitate their escape. But if they stayed, they at least had an elevated status because a witcher obeyed them.

Then there was the matter of Geralt and Jaskier. Their journeys took them to Cidaris of all place. It had Jaskier spitting ire and ill wishes all the way but a contract was a contract.

“At least do me the honour of ignoring that talentless banshee that goes by the name of Valdo Marx.”

Geralt would have found it all too entertaining if he wasn’t busy trying to sort through his own things.So he gave a vague reassurance that he would treat this Valdo with the appropriate amount of contemt and disrespect and left it at that. He and Jaskier were to go their separate ways in Cidaris and Geralt approached the court.

“Ah, witcher!” A flashy dressed man approached, lute carried behind him by a servant. “I am Valdo Marx, the bard of this court. While you are here, you are mine to command, my White Wolf.”

He was even more insufferable than Jaskier. Gaudy and pompous without the skill to back up his attitude. How vulgar.

“You will bow before your superior,” Valdo demanded and Geralt’s eyebrows shot up. He what now? “Witcher, I told you to bow.”

Steadfastly, Geralt refused. Movement in the shadows of the door way caught his attention and he smiled, he’d recognise that form anywhere.

“Perhaps you ought to play me a song first,” he replied, looking Valdo up and down. “Though what is that, an Isbrea lute? Cost a pretty penny but the sound is too twangy thanks to poor workmanship.”

He watched as Valdo spluttered, offended and going bright red in outrage. From behind him, Jaskier stepped out from the doorway, the Earl on his arm.

“Geralt, my darling,” Jaskier cooed, “be a dear and come meet the earl. He had just the most exciting contract for you.”

Stepping around Vlado, Geralt patted him on the shoulder with a “nice try, maybe next time” before standing in front of Jaskier and the earl. He even offered them a small smile.

“Your bard has been most helpful,” the earl began, leading back into the halls as he began outlining the contract and the benefits of taking it. Behind his back, Jaskier winked at Geralt.

#geraskier #geralt of rivia #geralt #jaskier #the witcher #lambert #eskel #valdo marx #tldr: witchers make use of the news bards have power of them

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ruoyeming · 5 years ago

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My Top Ten Anime, a chaotic list

This was so hecking difficult, I’m gonna have to do some ‘honourable mentions’ for ones I can’t bring myself to leave out. This list is based entirely on my personal feelings, not an objective assessment of what are logically the best anime. There also may be mild spoilers at points because I can’t control myself. Doing this in quarantine cause I looove ranting about things I like.

10) Attack On Titan

This was the first anime I ever watched, and it blew my mind a bit tbh. The music is iconic, and the animation is great as well. It might have been a bit harrowing for my first experience with anime, but I absolutely loved the story. It’s set in a world where titans (man eating giants) have driven the dregs of humanity to live within giant stone walls. There’s a group of humans trying to research titans, kill them, and protect humanity, and the main character decides to join them after a titan breaks through one of the walls and his mother is eaten. It’s one of those where you think you know everything and suddenly the world gets turned upside down by a new discovery. All the puzzle pieces start fitting together the longer you watch, and you find out that everything going on is much bigger than what it originally seemed (government conspiracy time lads). The plot twists are unpredictable (for me at least) and devastating, and the emotion this series evokes is awesome - you can FEEL the sheer desperation of the characters, their rage and despair as they fight again and again against a seemingly unending enemy. Despite almost every battle being a suicide mission and despite too many losses, the characters keep going out of the human need to survive and protect.

10/10 for brutality and gore, but also theme of hope.

9) Naruto

A founding father of anime. Surprisingly not one of the first I watched, in fact it took me a few years to start. It’s set in a feudal Japan where ninjas are the defenders and servers of the people, and different villages have different ninja styles. Naruto is a young boy with a dangerous spirit sealed inside him which has caused him to be shunned by society (even though it’s not his fault??), and he wants to become a ninja. First off I’m a sucker for the Naruto archetype: dumbass, cocky, obnoxious, but kind and loyal too. Years of solitude and ostracisation as a child mean that Naruto desperately wants people to acknowledge him, and he intends to become the Hokage to prove himself. There’s a huge range of characters and villains, all with cool ninjutsus and different philosophies. Friendship, power, and determination are some of the main themes and it makes me so proud to see my son *COUGH* Naruto progressing and learning from his mistakes. It IS a long boi though and I haven’t even finished Shippuden yet, but I think Naruto captures the essence of shounen anime and is a great underdog story. Manga is lit too.

10/10 for cool battles and great characters.

8) Psycho Pass

One of the earlier anime I watched, and it became an instant favourite for the way it makes you question morality. It’s set in a kinda dystopian future Japan, where a technology called the Sibyl System checks people’s mental state and determines their ‘crime coefficient’ - how likely they are to commit a crime. The main character is a young woman who joins the police and begins to realise that blindly following this system is perhaps not the best way to go about things. For example, they have special guns that automatically kill people whose crime coefficients are over a certain level, but she soon proves that you can easily lower someone’s coefficient by talking them down and negotiating instead of killing them off immediately. It’s got great drama, great government conspiracy, compelling villains, and some really badass characters. It pushes the question of what is right or wrong, and how far technology should go when it comes to justice.

10/10 for sociological debate and horror elements.

7) One Punch Man

OPM is an anime that stands out for me, partially for mocking the tropes of battle anime, and partially for the uniqueness of the main character’s predicament. It’s set in Japan where heroes and villains exist, and the protagonist is a man called Saitama who gained superstrength after doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10K run every day. However he’s become so strong that he can defeat every enemy with a single punch. Nothing is a challenge for him anymore so he becomes depressed and unfulfilled; he’s still a good man who helps people, but he feels he’s missing something from his life. A cyborg called Genos makes Saitama his master, determined to learn his ways and they become friends. It’s one of the first anime that made me laugh out loud; it’s funny and entertaining, but also shows us that power is not equal to happiness.

10/10 for moral lessons and good jokes.

6) Tanaka-kun is Always Listless

The only slice of life anime on this list and not very well known, however it has a special place in my heart. The main character Tanaka is a boy who dozes off constantly and acts exhausted when awake; he loves expending as little energy as possible. His best friend Ohta looks out for him and essentially makes sure he doesn’t get lost/ be late/die on a daily basis, including carrying him when he just falls asleep sometimes. Although Tanaka seems uncaring, it’s shown that friendship isn’t a bother to him, and he realises that he actually relies on his friends despite saying he likes being left in peace. His friends all have great personalities, my personal faves are a tough gangster girl who’s rude to everyone EXCEPT her adorable loli girlfriend, and a popular girl who’s trying too hard to fit in and starts to become more herself after befriending Tanaka. All the characters share one brain cell, and it’s genuinely a funny anime - I’ve burst out laughing watching it a few times. Also Tanaka and Ohta are extremely shippable if you want to go down that route; it’s said several times in the series that they’re like an old married couple.

10/10 for wholesomeness and comedy.

5) Ouran High School Host Club

Another lighthearted show, probably the anime that’s made me laugh the most out of any. It’s set at an academy for rich-as-heck kids, and there’s a ‘Host Club’ where all the girls go to drink tea with a group of handsome boys. There’s the cunning Kyouka, prankster identical twins Hikaru and Kaoru, stoic Mori, adorable Honey, and princely but obnoxious Tamaki. Haruhi, a working-class scholarship student who is mistaken for a boy, accidentally breaks a precious vase and is forced by the host club to join them to pay off her debt. The group of boys realise fairly quickly that haruhi is a girl, but she becomes a popular host amongst the girls (LOVE the secret lesbian vibes) so they keep up the charade. I think I have a weakness for groups that share one brain cell because aside from Kyouka, they’re all idiots. I also love how flexible the show is with ideas of gender and sexuality despite being a slightly older anime. The daily antics of the host club combined with their personalities is a recipe for comedy, and they’re all lovable in their own ways.

10/10 for characters, drama, and comedy; it’s well-paced too.

4) Bungou Stray Dogs

Set in an alternate modern Japan where some people have secret abilities that can be activated, this anime became an obsession when I first watched it. The cast of characters is amazing and the villains are awesome too. Atsushi is an orphan who discovers he can turn into a powerful tiger, and is hired by the Armed Detective Agency, a small organisation of powerful individuals who fight crime. NEED I SAY ANY MORE?? Many of the main characters share names with famous Japanese authors such as Osamu Dazai and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa which is really cool and something that might add to the story more if I had an understanding of Japanese literature. Anyways the main character Atsushi is kind of a wimp at first (understandably because the world of ability-users is actually terrifying), but he learns to stand up for himself and use his ability to save people. The show’s mixing of dark and comedic tones is perfect to me; one moment a character is off his head on mushrooms and the next Atsushi’s leg is brutally sliced off in a back alley fight (it regenerates later no worries). The plot is really cool and full of intrigue, and eventually you get the whole ‘Usually we’re sworn enemies but we’re forced to become allies in the face of a greater evil’ thing and it’s great! Turns out our main guy and our main bad guy are actually a pretty powerful and efficient team, hoho??

10/10 for supernatural detectives being super cool.

3) Yuri!!! on Ice

Y’all already know what’s going on. Ice skating, emotional breakthroughs, gay shit, HIT ME WITH IT. The story follows Yuri Katsuki, an insecure figure skater trying to regain his confidence, and his self-appointed coach Viktor Nikiforov. Viktor is enthusiastic in helping Yuri train, and Yuri has been a big fan of Viktor since his childhood *throws pillow across the room*. Yuri becomes determined to, quote, “surpass Viktor’s wildest imagination”, and they end up agreeing - through a series of convoluted events - to get married if Yuri wins gold at the olympics (I think it’s the olympics??). Either fuckin way this series has angst, humour, cuteness, and god DAMN did I get invested. When Yuri was doing his free skate my own heart was beating harder than it did when I finished a 10K. Love the vibes and also it’s the closest to full healthy gay representation that I’ve seen in anime for a while. Not much more I can say, but do I really need to say more???

10/10 for GAY and MY HEART

2) Kimetsu No Yaiba (Demon Slayer)

Ok this one’s kind of a cheat cause I’ve read the manga as well which is way ahead of the anime, but FUCC. It takes place in the Taisho Era in Japan (begins 1912), where Demons exist who eat people. Tanjiro Kamado’s family is killed by a demon one night and his sister Nezuko is turned into a demon - but it is soon discovered she’s different to other demons, and can restrain herself. Tanjiro joins the Demon Slayer Corps to try and track down a cure for his sister, while proving that demons are not inherently evil. I LOVE Tanjiro as a main character because he values kindness over everything else, not forgiving demons for their sins but recognising they are tormented creatures, trying to give them peace before they die. All demons were once human - a fact that only Tanjiro seems to remember when fighting them. He’s patient, gentle, and determined - hotheaded and brash sometimes, but he has this vibe that just makes people become his friend/respect him even if they don’t intend to. He befriends two other slayers - Inosuke, an absolutely feral Best Boy who was raised by wild boars, and Zenitsu, a cowardly but ultimately loyal guy. This trio works really well together and Tanjiro is a great protagonist. Don’t even get me STARTED on the music and animation. Impeccable. Kamado Tanjiro No Uta makes me cry every time I hear it, and the water/fire effects used to show the metaphorical way the swords move like the elements takes my breath away.

10/10 for morals, music and animation.

1) Mob Psycho 100

Where the fuck do I start here. This anime is so unique in its style, story, and characters that I think it will always be my favourite. It follows Shigeo Kageyama (nicknamed Mob cause that’s what they call extras and background characters in Japan), a plain boy with incredible psychic powers that explode when his emotions are too high. Over time he’s learned to suppress his emotions, causing him to become socially inept and emotionally withdrawn. His (fake) psychic ‘master’, Reigen, uses him to make money exorcising spirits, making Mob believe that it’s for ‘training’. Mob appears naive at times, but he is so simply kind to people that it makes my heart hurt. Unlike many of the egomaniac psychics that Mob comes across, he recognises that without powers, he is just an ordinary boy. Mob’s greatest power isn’t his OP psychic abilities, but his power to show people they can change, that he can change. He forgives (and eventually befriends) people who have tried to kill him. Redemption and empathy are big themes here and they’re done really well.

The other characters are so well rounded and are also given time to grow, including Reigen - at first he’s a seemingly manipulative sleazebag, but later you see that he is a genuinely good man who has taught Mob many lessons and helped him grow up. This is a core message - Mob’s ability to change is due to support from his friends, not purely his own desire - people need other people!

This is also one of the true rarities in anime where the second season is absolutely just as good (if not better!) than the first one. The music is unique to the show, the ops for both seasons get me litty, the animation is incredible, the jokes are great and although it’s not all about big-ass fights, when we do get a big-ass fight it’s so fucking cool. The fight sequences are beautifully animated and visually stunning. MP100 makes me laugh, cry like an actual baby, and want to become a better person. Idk I could literally write pages on it like the big nerd I am but that’s all I’ll do for now.

10/10 for literally everything.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Given : about a boy who joins a band which helps him work through his trauma. Lovely healthy gay representation and themes of healing.

Samurai Champloo : ragtag trio consisting of two samurai - one lowkey feral and does breakdancing, the other lofty and withdrawn - and a bold young girl. Themes of friendship and journeys. I simp for the lofty samurai.

Cowboy Bebop: jazzy music, bounty hunters in space, 90s anime WHAT MORE COULD U WANT. Yet another group of characters that share a single brain cell. Love it.

#anime review #anime recommendation

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softshawnrambles · 5 years ago

Text

When Shawn Met Willow

We’ve worked on this beginning piece for a while now, and we are SO excited to introduce you to the family we’ve been dreaming up for months! Because we wanted to give you the whole picture in terms of how these two started, this one is extra long - we plan on writing shorter blurbs to continue this Family!Shawn theme, and will probably go back and elaborate on other parts of their life together… stay tuned, but for now: enjoy!

WORD COUNT: 6.1K

“Large Americano, ready at the bar!”

The coffee shop was as busy as could be expected of a rainy Monday morning. Willow hated the pushing and shoving that was absolutely unavoidable, as every person in the building waited for their drink. The artisan coffee house hadn’t caught onto the mobile ordering system, and she hated them for it.

She managed to make her way to the counter, but just as her hand reached for the paper cup, someone else beat her to it. Turning her head to face the person obstructing her saviour, she let out an “excuse me, sorry...” and withdrew, slightly in embarrassment.

“No, no, you’re good. It might be yours anyway… why aren’t they calling these out by name?” the man joked. She looked up, noticing the kind smile on his face (clearly not local, you’ve not known anyone to smile in this part of the city, especially not on Wall Street) and mustered a chuckle.

For a moment neither of them said anything, as if time froze - just a second - allowing their eyes to meet. As the barista impatiently called out the next drink, the man cleared his throat. His eyes wandered for a moment, then widened at something behind her - “fuck, it’s eight already? Uh - here, you can take this…” he said, ushering the cup toward her.

And with that, he was off.

Her eyes followed his rushing figure before rolling her eyes and taking the drink, nodding her thanks at the barista. Willow maneuvered her way out of the overly crowded place and took a long awaited drink, not yet ready to face another tedious day at her internship. As she lowered her cup, she noticed a scribble on the sleeve: “Sean,” next to a single “A” for Americano.

“Damn it,” she muttered with her shoulders slumping, wishing she had checked before he’d vanished into the crowd. For a tall guy, he blended in quickly.

Back upstairs in her little cubicle of hell, Willow was met with another day’s supply of merger and acquisition paperwork.

She let out an exasperated sigh.

“Dude, it’s not even nine yet. Lighten up!” Claudia pulled a pencil out of her hair, throwing it in Willow’s direction.

“Ow! Jesus, Claud.” she said, turning around to reach for the pencil. As she did, she glanced out the window and caught sight of a small crowd forming under the building.

“Huh. Do you know what that’s about?” Willow asked, motioning towards the group.

“If it’s not one of the Obamas, I’m not interested.” Typical Claudia, Willow thought and rolling her eyes at her colleague.

As the hour went by, the crowd continued to grow into a pretty substantial mob of mostly teenage girls. Maybe Harry Styles was in the building.

Willow refocused for a few hours, paying little attention to the happenings outside of her field of vision. At around noon, she got up to fetch her egg salad from the fridge when she noticed something - or rather, someone - downstairs with the mob. Was it that guy from this morning? He was leaning in every few seconds with each girl, taking… selfies? He definitely wasn't so lost in the crowd now.

-- one year later

A failed relationship with the top investment firm in New York City drove Willow as far away from the industry as she could go. Something about the harrowing reality of corporate America sent her running to the West Coast: she was not cut out to be a tycoon, no matter what her Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration & Economics said about her.

Sitting in her favourite coffee shop in Los Angeles, Willow intently studied her laptop with her camera sitting on one side of the table, and her freshly delivered Americano steaming on the other. The screen receiving her whole attention as she edits her photos from last nights Panic! At the Disco show at the Forum. She’d chosen a quieter area this time, wanting a little privacy and quiet as she worked, a change she’d needed from previous endeavors that hadn’t worked out the way she had planned.

“Panic! At the Disco? Is that from yesterday?” Willow turned around as someone clearly took notice of her work.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I was there!” Fuck. Why did he look so familiar?

“Amazing, wasn’t it?!” Willow tried not to stare, but tried to place him in her head. She swore she’d seen him before.

“Yeah, they always put on a good show! That’s an awesome picture! You work for the venue?” Leaning forward to observe her screen, in a slight awe.

“I do, I’m practically a part of the furniture at this point.” The man laughs, and with a small smile on his face comments “I know the feeling.”

“You work there too? I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere.” Her curiosity getting the better of her.

The man leaned back again as his smile widened a little, humbled by her question. “Mhm, I guess you could say that,” he replied.

The flash from a camera nearby interrupted the moment; it was coming from outside of the shop, the glare intensifying through the window.

“Shawn, we gotta go!” a desperate voice called out, and her new acquaintance turned to respond.

Then it clicked.

Shawn.

“I remember now! New York City last year. I owe you an Americano!” Willow was reminded of that day, and the pieces of the puzzle starting to fall together.

Shawn looks surprised, that was the last response he was expecting, when his eyes flash with a newfound recognition.

“Oh! That was you? Wow, that’s, wow. I did not expect that at all.” Shaking his head and pointing to the screen, “what brings you to-” Another flash through the window and the imposing man calls Shawn’s name again.

“You better go before he drags you out of here, he looks like he’s seriously contemplating that option,” she suggested, hyper-aware now of the men with large cameras relentlessly snapping pics of… Shawn?

“Wait, can I get your Insta? I'd love to see other things you've posted. You're clearly talented at this, and I live for live shows!”

“Uumm, ok, yeah, but I don’t always follow back though… it’s @actuallywillow, pretty simple really!”

“Thank you! I gotta go, if you're working the show at the forum on Friday, I might see you there!” And with that, Shawn turns and makes his way out the door and out into the hoard of men with intruding cameras.

“Um, okay?” Willow spoke in the direction of where Shawn once stood, slowly turning back to her laptop and shaking her head. This was not how she had expected today to turn out.

Iwishiplayedbass started following actuallywillow

Iwishiplayedbass liked your post

Iwishiplayedbass sent you a message

Hey! Its Shawn, you have some serious talent in photography! I hope I see you again soon!

Hi! Thank you. There seems to be a trend growing with us, so I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.

Actuallywillow started following iwishiplayedbass

Anticipation for the show had Willow in quite a state. She was usually a calm young woman, but she had really worked herself into a fit of nerves over this. What were the chances of her even seeing Shawn anyway? In an arena that holds 17,500 people, ha! She checked over her equipment one last time before entering the familiar building through the side.

Once inside, she was greeted by posters and cardboard cut-outs of Shawn Mendes everywhere, complete with a fanbase of mostly 13 to 18 year old girls.

Willow’s contract with the Forum was unlike her past experiences on Wall Street; they let her do pretty much whatever she wanted as long as she consistently got great content during events. Not a problem, since she was a natural behind the camera. She roamed around for a while before the opening acts took their place, silently observing the crowd.

Was she really this out of touch with pop culture? How had she so gravely misunderstood this guy’s stardom? Probably because he seemed so down to earth during both of their coffee shop interactions - hell, she was surprised that a man this famous still bought his own coffee himself!

A few quick Google searches confirmed that Willow was not a dinosaur - Shawn’s career seemed to have exploded overnight. These Google searches also absolutely confirmed her growing interest in this handsome young man; there was just something about his smile. And his eyes, those eyes look special.

The house lights dimmed and the hollow sound of an electric guitar filled the indoor venue, tearing through her mental haze. Shit, she had a job to do.

Camera held against her body with one hand and her Forum Employee ID in the other, she flashed the security guards as she weaved her way to the front. Pure joy and excitement was pulsing through the walls of the arena, and the audience nearly went insane when a tall, unmistakable shadow appeared behind a layer of fog. While her heart was undoubtedly racing at the sight of him, Willow quickly aimed her Nikon at him, determined to snap some good shots.

Aside from the fact that Shawn was a total heartthrob, the concert ran smoothly. She noted that he was a great performer, high energy and clearly loving every bit of it. As the show was winding down, she felt the temperature of her body spike up as he bounded down the metal stairs leading down to the level of the crowd.

Fuck. He was right there. And coming closer. Fuck. Get your camera! Don’t mess this up! C’mon Willow! GET IT TOGETHER!

He was feet away from her, so close that she could see the sweat glistening off his dark curls in a beautiful, messy, well-entertained heap. She took the opportunity to click away at her camera, capturing his interactions with fans in the front rows as he hugged, smiled, and thanked each person individually. Willow watched and realized he had the it factor. He had the power to make every girl feel special. The sincerity that radiated off him was like a sharp blow to the fantasies that she had subconsciously been entertaining all night - the ones where she magically ends up with this rockstar, too much like a fanfiction written online. While a little voice in her head wanted to believe he was flirting with her yesterday, asking about her photography… she realized that was just the nature of his personality. It had to be.

Suddenly numb from the thoughts, the pictures became easier to take; the fire that was building in her chest a few minutes ago had been put out. He was inches away when she lowered the camera from her face. Another great image for the books. Wait, is he talking to her?

Willow leaned in - the deafening noise of the cheering and instruments was drowning everything out, even her own thoughts.

“WHAT???”

“Can you send me that picture?”

She smiled and nodded: he recognized her. Did he know she was there this entire time?

Shawn smiled back at her, eyes alight with excitement before turning back to the deafening crown. Willow needed a moment to breathe, how had this even happened? How had she not even known? Someone brushed past her, bringing her back to reality. She would have time to analyze later, and bought her camera up before he got too far away. She knew she was just given the photograph of a lifetime, how many other venue photographers got that close to someone like that, someone who she hadn’t even recognised!

With the show coming to a rapid close, Willow planned for a quick escape. She wasn’t sure she would be able to face him again, not in her slightly overwhelmed state. She snapped some final shots, his final moments on stage with his hands in the air and beaming smile on his face, the perfect set up for the perfect shot.

The house lights come up and Willow feels like she can breathe again. The air is stuffy and the energy is still electric, alive with adrenaline mixed with raw emotion that you just can’t find anywhere else. She takes her time heading back to her area, praying he had done the usual ‘leg it to the bus before the band was finished so they could leave the arena without having to maneuver through thousands of people’ thing the majority of stars do following a show and safely make it back to her area. What she didn’t expect was to find a message on her phone from the rockstar himself.

Iwishiplayedbass sent you a message

Hey! I’m really glad i saw you! That sounds creepier than it is, i’m sorry. But, what are you doing now? I’d love to see those photos, and I’d really love to see you. Please say yes? We could have some In n Out???? And just get to know each other?

-- 2 years later

Willow could tell Shawn was nervous. She could tell in the way his palm was sweating in hers, and the way he continuously muttered under his breath. It was also in the way he deflect everytime she asked ‘what’s wrong’ and ‘are you ok?’ with a tight smile that doesn't reach his eyes smile and a “yeah, I’m just ready to be home” before lifting the hand that is holding yours to kiss the back of it and dropping it to swing back and forth between the two of you.

Leaving the airport in Toronto was a hassle, Willow still couldn’t wrap her head around particular fans obsessive need to see Shawn for the few moments between the arrivals gate and the black car ready to pick him up right out front. Shawn’s on edge attitude was not helping the situation at all. The two were maneuvered through to the car with the help of some airport security and Shawn ushers Willow in first before sliding in next to her and taking her hand again. Shawn seemed less tense now, the only sign was his leg bouncing occasionally as he was chatting about random things he loved about tour but how happy he was to have some time off with her.

Pulling up to their condo, Shawn gets out of the car and pauses, pulling out his phone and fires off a quick text before helping Willow out of the car. Making it to the condo was a feat within itself, and Willow kind of hates just how much Shawn takes on tour when it time to bring it all home. Its mid-afternoon when they finally haul it all into their condo and all Willow wants is some food, a nap and cuddles with her favourite man on the couch and absolutely zero contact with the outside world for at least 3 solid days.

“Shall we order something? I’m starving and craving a pizza!” Willow called out from the bedroom, having changed into her Harry Potter PJ’s, only to not receive a response from Shawn at all. She makes her way to the living room calling out for Shawn again, confused.

“Shawn? Shawn! Are you ok? Please tell me you have not fallen asleep on the couch, you know what that does to your neck-”

Willow stopped suddenly and gasped at the sight before her. Many candles and fairy lights softly illuminated the open living room and an easel propped up against in front of the window overlooking the Toronto skyline with a large canvas filled with many photographs and memories leaning delicately against it. Looking around, Shawn was nowhere to be found as she stepped closer to the easel. Upon closer inspection, she found the page filled with an array of pictures and lyrics Shawn had written about you scrawled across various parts of the page. Willow raised her hand to touch her favourite lyrics with a soft smile on her face, before turning to find the man behind all of this. As she turned, she’s met with the sight of Shawn on one knee with a nervous smile gracing his face and a ring box resting closed in his hands.

Willow stepped forward to stand in front of him, tears gathering in her eyes and she raises her hand to cover her mouth.

“Hi, honey" Shawn says and inhales deeply and lets out a deep breath, letting his shoulders relax a little before continuing.

"I uh, I've been thinking about doing this for a while, and I know we've talked about it a few times, but I couldn't wait anymore and I've had the ring for a while - I'm rambling, sorry-” Shawn cut himself off, closing his eyes and taking another deep breath.

“I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I want everything with you, absolutely everything. Please, will you spend the rest of your life with me? Willow, will you marry me?"

And Willow, with a wide smile and teary eyes, reaches to take his head in her hands and smoothing her thumbs over his cheeks.

"Yes. Yes of course I will. I would love nothing more. Oh my lord Shawn." And she kneels to his level, and kisses him deeply, putting as much love and happiness she could possibly muster into it.

Shawn pulls back first and opened his eyes, looking at her in utter adoration, almost unable to fathom the fact she had said yes. His right hand finding her left one that was still resting on his cheek and turning his face slightly to kiss her palm, before pulling it away to place the ring he'd bought her months ago on her finger, where it would sit for as long as they both shall live.

-- 1 year later

The warm summer air swept between the concrete pillars that lined the breezeway. Any moment now, Shawn and Willow would emerge from either side of the outdoor hall for their ‘First Look’ and exchange a few moments with each other alone, before the day’s ceremony. The rented estate stood still on the cliff of a La Jolla suburb, away from the hustle and bustle of the main beaches.

Shawn was standing exactly halfway down the stairs that lead to the building, facing the cliffs and awaiting his bride-to-be, hands folding and unfolding as the reality of the day set in. Connor and Josiah were there with him, all set up and ready to go for the photo-op.

“How are you feeling, Shawn?” Connor asks and focuses the camera on Shawn.

Shawn takes a deep breath and smiles, looking up from his feet and his hands pausing their nervous motions. “I’m nervous, but so happy. I’m getting emotional already. I can’t wait to see her though, she’s going to look so beautiful and I know I’m gonna cry. It’s funny, I go away for months at a time, yet I can barely stand to be away from her for 24 hours. Makes it easier though, knowing what we were apart for. Makes it that much more exciting.”

The white double doors on the south end slowly opened, and Willow stepped out adorning a pure white gown. The floral-embroidered bodice canopied over her chest, its leaf detailing working up to her collar bones as if they were straps. She picked up the vintage dress a few months earlier, while vacationing in Italy - err, while visiting Shawn during his last Europe tour.

Willow timidly walked out to a set of stairs facing the eastern courtyard, where her husband-to-be awaited, his broad shoulders facing her. He was acutely aware of her existence; he could feel Willow’s energy in the gravity of the atmosphere at any given moment - maybe this was a good indicator that they were meant to be. The gentle graze of her small hands cupping his eyes from behind eased his nerves instantly. The second her hands were on him, Shawn let out a sigh, and he felt as if he could breathe again. He knew he was being completely irrational, but all the thoughts of ‘she’s gonna leave’ and ‘what if she changed her mind’ were replaced with feeling her, right there behind him.

This part they had talked about a lot. The pair were almost more excited for this intimate briefing than the actual wedding. They knew exactly how they wanted it to play out, knowing everything was in safe hands with Connor and Josiah around to capture every special moment. Willow wanted to keep Shawn in suspense for a short amount of time while she posed behind him. After a few moments, she gave him the cue by gently tapping his shoulders.

“Okay lovely, you can turn around now.”

His heart rate spiked as he felt the well-anticipated tap, a feeling halfway between anxiety and euphoria coming over him as he dipped his head to turn behind him, shifting his body to match. All the air in his lungs escaped as he laid his eyes on the woman he was convinced was a goddess.

“Oh honey…” he let out under his breath as he bought his hands to his face after gazing lovingly at her, rubbing his eyes as if to make sure he was seeing correctly and to wipe the already welling tears in his eyes before he reached for Willow’s hands, carefully pulling her closer. “You are so beautiful” he finished, as if that wasn’t obvious enough already. He never wanted to look away from her; he was convinced that there was nothing else in the galaxy that he would rather look at. Ever. This was it. He wanted to continue standing there for all of eternity, taking in the sight of his bride - the most striking person on the planet. He took a few moments to study the soft curls tucked behind her ear, the beaming smile he fell in love with lighting her whole face up. Shawn closed the small gap between them and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, pulling her into a hug, and kissing her square on the lips.

“Shawn! You can’t kiss me yet!” Willow exclaims with a laugh, indicating she wasn’t really mad at him.

“I can’t help it! You just look so gorgeous,” he defended himself, not ashamed in the slightest. He carefully steps back, wanting to take all of her in.

The delicate bouquet rested in Willow’s hands, small with pretty pink and white flowers and vibrant green leaves tied with a white ribbon and finished with a neat bow. A matching boutonniere adorned Shawn’s suit jacket, right above his heart.

“Shawn, you look…” and Willow paused, contemplating for a moment as she took all of him and raised her hand to his cheek “... perfect.” She sucked in a small breath before letting go into a lighthearted chuckle. “Hubba-hubba, handsome. How did I get so lucky?”

She let go of his face for a moment to dramatically fan herself with her free hand, not once breaking eye contact. “Seriously, you are a freaking stud. I’m so nervous Shawn, can you tell? Phew. I’m freaking smitten with you though.” She laughed, feeling her body tingle with buzz as she internalized the moment. Her candor and humor in the most serious of moments reminded him why he wanted her to be his partner for life. For better or for worse, they would get through it together in high spirits.

Willow was absolutely correct: what a stud he was. Dressed in a sleek black suit that fitted him just right, a nicely pressed white shirt, black vest, a pale pink bowtie and finished off with a silver handkerchief tucked neatly into his top pocket. His hair was longer, curlier than ever having soaked up plenty of vitamin D from the summer sun. Willow fought the childish urge to run her hands through it. His cheeks were shaded pink, a lovely contrast to the sleek black and white look he had going on and his eyes were wide and bright, looking directly at her, not wanting to miss a single moment.

“Do you love it?” Willow asked, gesturing to her dress.

“I love it, I love it, I love it. You look so beautiful, you’re gorgeous. I’m so glad you said yes, I’m so glad I met you. You mean the world to me. And I never want you to take this dress off. It highlights everything I love about you.” Shawn nearly choked, his throat closing up and tears pooling in his eyes and he pulled Willow to him again, head nuzzled into her neck, placing light kisses and whispering softly to each other as Willow’s arms make their way over his shoulders, sharing a moment of solitude as the overwhelming feeling of love washed over them. Neither of them could truly believe this was happening.

“This is our wedding day! We’re getting married!”

“I’m so excited!”

“So am I!” Willow giggled, her hands running up and down his arms, completely unable to resist touching him.

“Do you wanna go get married?” Willow asked her husband-to-be.

“Yeah, let’s marry the heck out of each other.”

-- 1 year later

There’s something special about Saturday morning. Nothing exquisite, nothing especially extraordinary - yet every Saturday morning with Shawn and Willow was still special. Late breakfast, usually involving the two of them in the kitchen fixing up a new dish they scrolled past on a nutritional instagram account during the week. Granted, their attempts usually took three times the amount of time as suggested by the minute long clips, and never turned out quite as colorful or delicious. Nevertheless, the routine was comfortable; Saturday mornings felt like the embodiment of home.

This particular Saturday morning in early spring was special-special… Willow had left out a stack of insurance pamphlets that she had been looking into. The pair had gone over this sort of thing before, earthquake and flood insurance for their abode in California, top-tier health and dental insurance overall.

“Honey, what is this about? Life insurance? I know I’m not like, the greatest… adult ever, but aren’t we a little young to be thinking about this? I mean really, who is going to benefit from life insurance if we die in some freak accident? Buddy?” Shawn questioned, motioning toward the cocker spaniel sitting on the floor under him.

“Well, our family is growing, Shawn. We’ve gotta be prepared! Plus, why not do it now? Saves us doing it in the future, don’t you think?” Willow throws out casually, knowing exactly what she implied. She looks up at him from her position across from him at the kitchen island to see him sitting rigid and staring straight at her, mouth slightly agape, mid-bite of his cereal. He looked comical, and Willow couldn’t help but laugh.

“Are you, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“What do you think I’m saying, Shawn?”

“That- that you’re…” Shawn pauses, and Willow raises her eyebrow and smiles, examining his face “...pregnant?” Shawn mumbles the word, his mind still not fully comprehending the concept.

Willow nods her head and brings one shaking hand up to her mouth, and the other squeezed her abdomen a little. She’d know for a little over a week now and had this moment planned. Now she was here, finally telling him and watching his reaction. It was real now. So, so real.

Shawn moved suddenly, dropping his spoon on the marble. He raced over to her, picking her up and swinging her around, tears falling from his eyes, his face twisted up in happiness.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, ARE YOU SERIOUS? Honey are you serious? We’re having a baby?”

“Well, I’m having a baby, but yeah, you’re gonna be a daddy.”

The looks of pure joy were all over their faces, Shawn still holding her at his eye level and Willows hands found his cheeks, her thumbs moving to wipe the tears away. The overwhelming emotions shared between them needed no more words, their eyes saying more than could possibly be said out loud. Shawn slowly moved to the couch in the conjoining living room and gently placed her down, using more caution than ever before. He knelt in front of her, moving his hands to her belly and resting his head against her thighs, shoulders shaking as he let out a few more tears as Willow’s hands find his hair, softly massaging his scalp and laughing. A beautiful moment between the parents-to-be.

-- 8 months later

‘Baaaaby! Come stretch me out!” Willow was laying on the floor of the new nursery, her belly so big she couldn’t see her feet. Shawn appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, walking over to pick her swollen feet up like clockwork. Especially in the last 10 weeks or so, Shawn’s main role in Willow’s life was as none other than her resident massage therapist and yoga partner - she was already amassing a list of pregnancy superstitions and quirks to ensure that her pregnancy would be as easy as possible. Shawn tried to point out that most of the things on her list were not rooted in any kind of science, but he knew not to do that again. He learned that it was best to just go with it.

With both her legs now in the air, as high as her body would allow her to go, Shawn stood in between them, pulling and pushing them in different directions. Willow was sure that flexibility was the key to a flawless natural birth. She tried to convince her husband to entertain the idea of a home birth, complete with a doula and everything… but Shawn was visibly uncomfortable with the idea. She wanted to be able to say she’d done it the old-fashioned way, but this was her first go around. She finally agreed that an epidural would probably be nice.

Suddenly, Willow could see a crinkle appear between Shawn’s eyebrows, as if he was squinting at something. Panic came over her as he continued to knead at the bottom of her feet, still in the air. “Wait, what is it? What’s the matter?” She questioned.

His intention was not to cause her any undue anxiety, but Shawn had noticed a growing darker spot in Willow’s lavender maternity leggings. It looked… damp. Did her water break? But… if that was the case, surely she would’ve noticed by now, right?

“Um… I’m sure it’s nothing. Are you feeling… different at all, love?” Then it hit. The first contraction.

Just as he asked the question, Willow rolled her head up and back into the carpeting, squeezing her eyes as tightly as she could. “Oh my god. I think that was a contraction!” she squealed, enduring what almost felt like a reverse-period cramp for a few seconds.

As she steadied her breathing, Shawn’s eyes widened and he set Willow’s legs down. “ACTIVE LABOR. CONTRACTIONS MEAN WE’RE IN ACTIVE LABOR!” He had studied four books on the whole birthing situation alone, and Willow couldn’t help but giggle to herself as she was sure that his last sentence came directly from the text. Shawn was so calculating, so methodical about the whole thing.

“Okay, not to alarm you or anything sweetie, but I think your water just broke - STAY THERE. I’m going to call the hospital and get your overnight bag. DON’T GO ANYWHERE, PLEASE.” He was rambling on at 100 words a minute, scrambling to find hospital records, the checklists he had prepared for this moment, and his phone. Willow laid out on the floor, surprisingly calm. Did he just tell me not to go anywhere? Where the hell would I even go? How the hell am I supposed to even get up and off the floor by myself? Willow rolled her eyes, deciding to move when Shawn was ready to leave. She had a feeling it would be a long day.

The drive to the hospital was short, Shawn having mapped out the shortest and most effective route months ago. At the time, Willow had thought it was slightly overdoing it, but she was suddenly very appreciative that he’d put the effort into it. Willow was hunched over her belly, rubbing circles with her hands in an attempt to soothe the pain. Shawn had both hands on the wheel, focusing on getting there as safely as possible while instructing her to breathe.

“Breathe, honey, we’re nearly there, I promise we’re nearly there.”

“Shawn, please, I am breathing, I need you to breathe, ok? Breathe.”

“Ok ok. Honey?”

“Yes, Shawn?”

“I’m kinda freaking out.” Shawn mumbles, brain going crazy over the fact that their little baby would be here soon.

“I know, I can tell. I am too. UGH-” Willow exclaims, hunching over again.

“We’re here, we’re here, we made it, its ok honey.” Shawn pulls into the hospital car park, pulling into the closest available spot.

Shawn legs it to the passenger side, unbuckling her seatbelt and helping her stand, one arm around her middle, the other shutting the door and grabbing her hand, cautiously guiding her forward.

Willow rests sleepily on the hospital bed, sweaty and exhausted after 10 long hours of labour the first Mendes child had arrived. The new parents had been given a brief chance to see their newborn, Willow holding their lil bug for just a minute, before the nurses insist they clean the newborn up.

Willow looks tiredly up at Shawn, who had held her hand and talked to her the entire time, letting out a quiet “We have a baby.”

“We do. We have a baby. Oh, you were so amazing, I swear, you just, you had a baby. I love you, I’m so proud of you. You only nearly broke my hand like, 7 times!” Shawn giggles lightly, and leans down to kiss her nose, then her lips, resting there and squeezing her hand.

“Oh, could you ever forgive me?” Willow asks dramatically with a grin, when her expression becomes wistful. “... so small, I miss my bug already.”

“I know honey, they’ll be back in a minute. I love you.”

“I love you too Shawn. We’ll have to call our parents soon. Surprise them with the news their first grandchild is finally here.”

“My mum is gonna yell at me for not calling sooner.” A mischievous smile crosses his face at the thought, so grateful they hadn’t been spotted entering the hospital, allowing for a complete surprise on their behalf.

“They’re all going to be so mad, but we’ll show them a picture and they’ll forget all about it. They’ll be so distracted and excited that we’ll be the last thing on their minds!”

At that moment, the nurse walked back into the room holding their little bundle.

“Here you go, all clean and healthy. Who wants the first hold?” the nurse spoke, looking expectantly between the pair. Shawn and Willow shared a look, before Willow gestured to Shawn.

“You’re up first, daddy.”

Shawns eyes glass over, squeezing Willows hand once more quietly asking “are you sure?”

“Yeah handsome, go”

And with that, Shawn stepped forward to take their baby in his arms. The nurse carefully guiding him, positioning the baby into his arms, and letting their bug nestle into his arms. Shawn stared, absolutely enchanted and unable to look anywhere else. He needed to sit down. Beginning to walk slowly to the bedside chair, Willow softly stopped him, and gestured to the gap on the bed beside her. Taking a seat beside her as delicately as possible to not disturb the resting baby.

“So pure, we made that. I can't believe we made this… life." Shawn was smitten already, he knew he'd do literally anything for his baby. Their baby.

"I- I know. We were talking about how big my belly was, but look how small bubs is. I'm in love all over again." Willow was just as enamored as Shawn, resting her head on his shoulder, giving her a perfect view. "I'm so happy. I love you."

Shawn kissed her forehead, murmuring "I love you too, you're so strong. Do you, do you wanna hold?"

Willow hummed in response, shuffling slightly so she could lie back comfortably before carefully taking the bubs in her arms, resting her on her chest, then, with Shawn's help, slowly lowering to the bed. Willow had one hand resting on the bubs' back, her other holding the small hand, gently soothing her thumb backwards and forwards across the soft skin as Shawn's hand comes up to cup his baby girls face.

"Welcome to the world, Harlow Mendes."

#Shawn Mendes #Shawn Mendes Blurb #Shawn Mendes Fanfiction #Shawn Mendes Dad #Shawn Mendes Fluff #Shawn Mendes Soft #Shawn Mendes Fic #Shawn Mendes FanFic #Shawn Mendes Imagine #Shawn Mendes OneShot #Dad!Shawn #Family!Shawn #Husband!Shawn

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youngerdaniel · 5 years ago

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Youngo’s 2019 at the Movies (with Baby Yoda)

IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN, FOLKS...

Wherein this blog crawls out of the woodwork with fresh aspirations for a more consistent content strategy in the year to come. Like a Baby Yoda emerging from his floating iron egg to great the sun. So let’s dust off some cobwebs and talk about the great movies that came out in 2019.

BRIEF UPDATES FROM THE WAFFLER This year marked a turning point. No, not that fucking decade that everybody’s making a big deal about. Not even that I hit 30 but thankfully have most of my (still not totally gray) hair... Nope, I went into business for myself. I leapt off the stable lily pad of 9-5 etc. and went freelance! Life’s been full of stories since then -- both the kind I write, and the kind I get to look under the hood on. I’m happy to report I’ve written more than ever before... Just not blogs, and mostly stuff I’m not at liberty to discuss.

*Clears throat. Pulls up the collar on his trench coat.* And I may have had more hair turn gray. Turns out, running your own ship is quite a bit of work, especially when you’re teaching yourself how the hell you do it. Nevertheless, I loved the shit out of every minute of it, and I still use phrases like nevertheless. It could easily be a blog (or several) for a different time, but the short and easy explanation of the absence is I was busy, it was fun, get over it.

Besides, we don’t actually care about whatever lame excuse I have for why I haven’t been posting. We’re here because it’s 2020 and time for a listicle, dammit! This one is neither definitive nor ranked. But dang if 2019′s fodder didn’t come sauntering into theaters like the big chuckling cherub of Christmas Present, with a cornucopia of awesomeness.

THINGS I LOVED, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

UNDER THE SILVER LAKE David Robert Mitchell’s neo noir takes a fittingly existential approach to detective fiction. An enigmatic case, hidden clues and coded pop culture, Andrew Garfield’s charmingly hapless sleuth... There’s a lot to love in this weird soup of a movie. At times nightmarish, often trippy, and an excellent performance from a parrot. Late night fodder.

CLIMAX Gaspar Noe does not make sane movies. With Climax, there’s a hypnotic quality that sucks you in and drags you along on its nightmarish journey as a group of dancers drink from a punchbowl laced with drugs. The result is absolute bedlam, and everything from the lighting to the camerawork pulls its weight to put you into the action. This is the kind of thing you watch and marvel that, “Wow, they went there.” to varying degrees of satisfaction. Like a freight train barreling toward the side of a mountain, it’s hard to look away even though you know you probably should.

JOJO RABBIT And then there’s a different kind of madness. The movie that billed itself as “The movie that shouldn’t work.” Jojo Rabbit is so full of heart. This is Taika Waititi in full force, and hilarity meets real pathos. Love is better than Nazis. It’s a simple message, and I think it doesn’t need to be much more. The relevance of such a narrative in our time is pretty disappointing, but the truth seems to be that we need ones like this to come along and remind the collective. The mashup of humor with genuine drama is balanced in a way that will feel familiar to fans of THE HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE or BOY. The performances are superb, and it’s a beautiful looking film. If you missed it last year, start the new one off right and amend this problem.

US The thing I dug the most about US was how unique it felt. Original premises in horror are on the rise, and there’s no denying the man leading the wave is Jordan Peele. The social commentary elements of this followup to GET OUT play with a little more subtlety, and in some ways it almost felt like a stronger move... But I refuse to compare the two of them. US stands out in its own right, and carries some of the most memorable performances of the year. A twisting narrative that crackles with tension, and a concept that haunts the imagination. What if your every action had an equal an opposite effect on a mirrored version of yourself? A study on the impact of the class system, and a nightmarish what-if to explain the real life series of underground tunnels that span the United States. Also, that costume design! That Alexa gag! The way this one opens up at the midpoint was such a delight in the theater. I’d apologize for spoilers, but let’s be real... You’ve seen this movie.

AD ASTRA Best summed up as “Daddy Issues in Space,” AD ASTRA feels like the kind of sci-fi mysteries that were made in the late 70s and 80s. A spellbinding journey to the far edges of the galaxy to save the world, and maybe prove that aliens exist. Oh, and to stop your possibly insane father from destroying the human race on the way. Brad Pitt is on fire, and everything about this potent emotional journey remains focused on his character’s dilemma of deciding whether or not his father was a good man, what it means to him and his own isolated existence, and whether he can overcome that shit and live a life instead of taking risks. From its opening scene to its closing one, this one blends gripping life-or-death set-pieces exploring the dangers of space travel and the cyclical nature of humanity’s progress with small moments. The journey, the heart-wrenching climax, and the harrowing trip home is well worth the rental fee. Check it out.

THE GIRL ON THE THIRD FLOOR

Some horror movies exist to make you think, some exist to cover their protagonists in black goo, subject them to grueling physical and psychological lament, and chuck ‘em through a woodchipper for good measure. The Girl on the Third Floor takes your average premise of “Stubborn and troubled guy picks a fixer-upper house to flip, only to discover horrors beyond his imagining” and leans hard into the gross-outs and festering boils of body horror. Reminiscent of Evil Dead, Amityville, and Dead Alive, there’s so much insanity to love, and the movie makes some big turns -- some surprising, some daring, some a little out there. It is by no means perfect, but it’s got a charm about its rough edges. You will never look at a marble the same way again.

I LOST MY BODY

I know. “A life-affirming work” left me a little skeptical too. But from its very first frame, I LOST MY BODY is arresting. Its hypnotic narrative follows the story of a severed hand in search of its owner, and has great fun carrying you along with its troubled protagonist’s journey from a crush to obsession. The sheer amount of visual storytelling and striking imagery is worth the runtime, but for any arthouse lovers feeling a little too chilled to hop down to the nearest indie theatre can open a new tab and have at it. Didn’t expect to be as moved by this one as I was, and for that I must recommend it.

AVENGERS: ENDGAME The fact that a movie like this can even exist is pretty amazing, and I have to say, as the culmination to the Avengers saga as we know it, ENDGAME delivered something with way more heart and character than I expected. Funny, sad, bittersweet, and massively satisfying. This is the Thanksgiving Turkey dinner of movies. It’s got everything. But the best part for me was how little fighting the big superhero finale of the decade had to it. Firmly rooted in character, taking ambitious and surprising turns in their trajectories, and balancing the fanwanks with a genuinely exciting story. I mean, c’mon. Time heist? A Greatest Hits play that also recontextualizes a few of the lesser films of the sweeping franchise? The third act battle felt a little tacked-on, but the conclusion felt like exactly what we needed.

READY OR NOT I love this movie. Love it like an adorable, scrappy friend who always manages to make their social commentary entertaining. Hide and Seek turns deadly for a bride to be when she meets her future in-laws, the proprietors of a board game company that takes their product very seriously. A darkly funny survive-the-gauntlet-till-morning ride. Great characters. Awesome kills. A few really unexpected and delightfully devilish turns. Oh, and it takes a stab at privilege and how far some people are willing to go to preserve theirs. It’s got teeth, a mean bite, and it’s fun to walk around the neighborhood. If you liked YOU’RE NEXT, you will probably love this movie. I still can’t get its final few moments out of my head. And I mean that in the best way.

PARASITE Speaking of social criticism and privilege, there’s no denying the brute fucking force of PARASITE. Following a struggling family who imbed themselves into a rich family by posing as the help, this madcap game of suspense takes so many surprising turns that even describing the full plot spoils the fun. Go into this one having read as little as possible. It will take you for a spin. Part con movie, part social critique, part comedy and part tragedy, it’s a lot to digest, but it’s a damned tasty treat.

KNIVES OUT In a word, it’s fun. Rian Johnson’s locked room murder mystery packs some wonderful barbs in the side of affluence, armchair activism, and the corruptive nature of wealth. A wealthy novelist is found dead, and all of his family members have motive... But don’t let the familiar set-up fool you, KNIVES OUT plays fair with its audience, but it is a fast runner. The story jumps ahead of you almost every time you think you’ve got it figured out. Daniel Craig’s genius sleuth is full of likable energy, protagonist Marta is full of layers, and the family are all such a pleasure to watch. Several times along the trip, I had no idea where the story would turn next, or how much further the envelope could be pushed, but by the end, I came out marveling at its construction. The production design is unreal. The direction and vibe are so unique, and by the closing image, it’s nearly impossible not to enjoy the shift in values. There’s also a speech involving donuts that I will be reciting at parties for the foreseeable future.

DANIEL ISN’T REAL

I closed off the year with this wildly inventive take on the possession trope. This. Movie. Is. Nuts. Which, considering it was produced by the same folks who did MANDY, shouldn’t come as a surprise. A mind-bending tale that riffs on Jekyll and Hyde, with a great modernization tackling the concept from a mental health perspective... It’s not the first time it’s been done, but the execution is just excellent. We follow a disturbed young man whose imaginary friend hatched from a childhood trauma makes a devilish return to play hell with his adult life. It’s a psychological horror that’s FIGHT CLUB meets THE DOUBLE. Great look. Excellent creature design and visuals for a cosmic horror that makes great use of low budget devices. If you’re looking for the answer to the age old question of “Should my third act involve my protagonist battling his inner demons literally with a rooftop sword fight?” You’ve found your contender.

I’ll tell you this, reader friend. The hardest part about 2019′s slate at the box office was deciding what to see. There were so many interesting movies that came out, brimming with big ideas and social commentary. Sad as the state of the world is, there’s no denying times of unrest have a knack for yielding great art. The Trump era has made its stamp on Hollywood for better or for worse. But the rising tide of voices pushing back give me a bit of hope, and a lot of salve for the whole existential dread thing. I think that, however small it is, is good.

For what it’s worth, none of these films are reinventing the wheel or burning flags... But they are asking questions. Okay, CLIMAX, really isn’t asking anything, but it is fun as hell. There’s just as much merit in the salve as there is in the flame that caused the burn. So may your 2020 be full of entertainment. I’ll try to get some useful content up here at least every couple of months in smaller digestible forms. Now go forth and brunch, you hungover, resolution-breaking slob.

#journal #yearinmovies #2019 #year in review #baby yoda #movies #writing

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wahbegan · 5 years ago

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Red’s Retro Reviews - Condemned Criminal Origins

Hello and welcome to the tag where I use my otherwise useless and time-consuming habit of taking very old classic games that I’ve wrung all the enjoyment out of like a troubled child with an injured bird and turn it into entertainment! Maybe one day the editor of some chic magazine will hire me to talk about how much I know about Batman: Arkham Asylum and how much I hate myself for it.

Anyway, this week I thought I’d start off with an overlooked little gem that had a bit of cult notoriety and good critical reception, but which otherwise nobody gave an ounce of rat shit about: the Condemned series. More specifically, the original game.

Now, when I ask you who started the extremely lucrative habit of live-streaming themselves hilariously over-reacting to horror games, you might be tempted to say the Game Grumps, or Markiplier if you’re younger, or Pewdiepie if you’re the kind of person who unironically uses the phrase anti-white racism. But you’d all be wrong and stupid. Also possibly nazi sympathizers, but I digress.

NO! The first college-age white boys who decided it would be a good idea to beam them fucking up a video game to thousands and thousands of people online are..........lost to history because archiving of the exact history of internet trends is such an enormous clusterfuck that for years people were convinced, and some still are, that Slenderman was a real urban legend and not something some dickhead made up for a photoshop competition circa 2009

But ONE of the first was the 4 Players Network, or 4 Players Podcast, or 4PP. I know very little about these guys, so if they all turned out to be nonces and serial killers please don’t @ me, but what i DO know, is that they uploaded a video that changed my life forever. This video was “Holy Crap That’s a Bear !” Certainly not a name that would stand out in today’s massively oversaturated Let’s Play market, but this delightful video documented these two dumb assholes losing their shit over a game. The game of course, being Condemned 2: Bloodshot. Specifically, the level in which you are chased through a hunting lodge by a rabid bear. As an aside, I looked it up, having never heard of the phenomenon, and apparently it’s very rare, but yes bears can and do get rabies, usually with just about as fatal results as you would expect. So sweet dreams!

Anyway, watching this couple of dipshits get jumpscared and mauled to death by a poorly rendered bear again and again as they were repeatedly outwitted at every turn by an entity with a few lines of programming instead of a brain was, in y’know the year 2008, the absolute most fun a 14-year-old boy could have. Clearly it still is, but you always remember your first time, particularly when the only LPs i have watched since were a handful of markiplier videos with a girl in college who liked to get me very stoned and then put them on because she thought that counted as courtship.

A n y w a y, apart from the unfortunate and definitely a mistake innovation of streaming video games, the sequence of being chased through a claustrophobic environment by a bear which can rip down doors, break through walls, run faster than you, shrug off 15 shotgun blasts to the face without so much as sneezing, etc. seemed incredibly tense and original, an amazing concept for a game. Once again, this was circa 2008 before “Run for your fucking life” had become the norm for horror games.

So then why the fuck are you not reviewing that game?? You might be thinking if you’re still reading this which someone clearly is or my narrative voice would have ceased to exist by now in that tree falling in the woods kind of way. Well, dear reader, while Condemned 2 was better than the first game in a LOT of ways, it’s always worth taking a gander at the one that started it all. Also, Condemned 1 is, if only slightly, probably better known. Also, Bloodshot commits the cardinal sin of over-explaining the first game’s mystery and a result making it kind of goofy and ridiculous see also the entire history of the Halloween franchise, and as a result the ending is....well, a bit shit, to be honest. Finally, and most importantly, it’s not on Steam for 3 dollars, so shut up

The thing about Condemned is that while Let’s Plays and seemingly inanimate objects moving only when you’re not looking at them and unstoppable juggernauts of wanton death have now become the norm for video game horror (and thanks a fucking bunch, Doctor fucking Who, for always being what people say started the inanimate object fuckery even though Stephen King did it in The Shining in the FUCKING 70s and let’s be honest it’s just a primal universal fear and i’ll be in the cold fucking ground before that bloody show sees one ounce of credit where it isn’t due), Condemned as a whole has remained remarkably unique. Not wholly unique, the developers have heavily borrowed from genre-straddling crime horror movies like Silence of the Lambs and Se7en and in fact almost beat-for-beat stole the most infamous jump scare from the latter, but if it still ends with shit in my pants, and it does, I can’t really call it a failure.

Most of the creativity the game DOES have is in the gameplay itself, or rather one aspect of the two aspects of the gameplay. It’s the combat I’m talking about the combat, seeing as that’s basically all there is. Let’s just get this out of the way first, the forensic investigation shit is........well, it’s a bit shit. Oh yes, there’s a couple crime scenes you have to “solve” in a cursory almost a cutscene sort of way, where you have helpful premonitions about where you’re supposed to look and, as your lab tech helpfully informs you, “the system will choose which tool you need for you, so don’t worry about that!” Well, Christ kill me, thank God YOU know between the three fucking tools I have, one of which is an everything sensor and one of which is just a fucking camera which I’m supposed to use, God knows I wouldn’t have liked to have solved that mystery myself. It’s a shame because some of the crime scenes are quite intricate and yes, I would have liked to have put together myself that “wait a minute there’s a handprint in the paint here that matches the killer but the UV light shows an old blood spatter on the wall right above where he’d be sitting to make it, THAT MUST MEAN-” but nope. No you just have a premonition of the guy getting clobbered over the back of the head because the game is so terrified you won’t be able to put two and two together that it points out both the twos and hands you a multiplication table and nudges you and looks meaningfully at four every few minutes if you hesitate.

Anyway, that’s all the whingeing about the gameplay out of the way, because the rest of it is just delightful. Condemned is the rare first person game that focuses almost solely on melee combat and the almost unheard of one that does it well. In fact, it is the only example I can think of that’s not shit. Weapons all have individual stats to do with their heft and how far they can reach and how much of a man’s skull you can cave in at once with it and you have to choose between the plank with nails sticking out of it you can swing three times a second but you have to beat a man so badly with it it’s tiring just to watch and the sledgehammer, which demands a two weeks’ notice in writing if you’re planning on hitting someone with it, but will basically render every living thing in its considerable swing arc sent to the fucking Shadow Realm upon impact.

Something about the sound effects and the way the weapons in this game control really gets under my skin, I was killed by a 300-pound Subway-dwelling crazy survivalist wielding the aforementioned sledgehammer, and when I went down, I was sure I was familiar with the sound effect that played when it struck my skull, a sort of distant, muffled ringing of bone hitting metal. Wait a minute, I thought, I know I’ve experienced this in real life, how did they get this sound effect? Did they kill a man with a hammer to get this sound effect? Was I killed with a hammer in a past life? Killing people is equally fucking unpleasant as even the most vicious and inhuman looking ones don’t go down easily, and you can see them spit gobs of broken teeth and blood and god knows what, hear the lovingly researched impact noises, and almost feel the impact as you necessitate years of reconstructive facial surgery with one swing of your mighty chunk of concrete attached to a rebar. Then some of them have the gall to shakily get to their knees, not quite dead, trying to mumble something and you’re required to hit them AGAIN, which is always harrowing. To quote another underappreciated piece of media about the joys of gruesome murder: Why won’t you just die?! This is hard enough for me!!

The guns you do get are absolute balls, generally having about three bullets in them, you can’t reload them even if you find the exact same type of gun later, you can’t hold them in your inventory, and if you want an aiming reticle you have to actively turn it on in the options menu, and you can almost hear the game laughing at you for being such a shameless pussy.

Well, you now might be thinking to yourself, cheers for making the effort, but I’m not an insane person and therefore do not think the idea of a brutally beating people to death simulator sounds very enticing, but that’s the thing, it’s not really supposed to be. It does have a strangely addictive quality after a while, but for the most part it’s panicky and harrowing and grotesque and you really don’t want to do it but you have no choice, which is absolutely the best kind of survival horror. See, the combat in survival horror is always a bit of a sticking point, isn’t it? Because if you give the player too much firepower it just becomes an action game with spooky set pieces, but if you give them none at all, as is chic today, you better have loads of other surprises in store buddy boy, because the sheen on that trend has died and now you’re just likely to get slapped with the dreaded WALKING SIMULATOR sticker.

No, the best kind of combat for a horror feel is exactly the kind Condemned delivers, so of course they never FUCKING did it again. You leave every fight low on supplies, exhausted, badly wounded, and a bit sick at what you just reduced a human being’s skull to. Too often, the combat in games is, even that word “combat” it’s clean, it’s cold, it’s detached, it’s a very unique euphemism for butchering God knows how many people. I play this little game in my head when I go through games sometimes trying to keep track of how many unique, thinking, feeling entities I’ve just reduced to a mess for the janitor to mop up, and I always lose track around the third level. Condemned isn’t like that. Its violence is violence: horrible, awful, terrifying violence, and it doesn’t let you forget it.

The graphics also add a lot to the horror if you can get past the dated polygonal weird-ass xbox 360 at launch faces and cutscenes, which is actually pretty easy once you get used to it. The level and character design is fantastic, and really adds a lot to the whole feel of the game. Everywhere you look is dark and labyrinthine, crumbling with rebars jutting out and exposed paneling and plumbing beneath holes rotted in the walls and grime and blood and god knows what just staining everything. This game is really nihilistic in tone, and you get the sense just from the graphics that you’re somewhere nobody gives a shit about, in a part of a city that’s just been left to die and rot. One almost gets the feeling moving around the fourth or fifth condemned (ohhhhh I see what they did there) building that the whole city is just a ghost town full of nobody but violent lunatics, and also that if you keep playing for too long you might get hepatitis just from exposure.

Plot-wise, I could fill another twenty paragraphs with petty gripes. It’s a bit Kill List which i’m sure is a reference you all understand in that it starts as a crime thriller about catching a serial murderer and ends in some bizarre insane bullshit halfway between Hereditary and Hellraiser, and leads you into it gently enough that you never really notice a sudden lurch.

You play as Ethan Thomas, a very boring and generic FBI Agent called in to investigate a serial killer case by two cops who are REMARKABLY blithe about murdering people, and it’s a bit jarring in today’s political climate. Though distrust, fear, and hatred of the police isn’t exactly new, and violence amongst police officers is brought up at one point, albeit in a loading screen, so honestly I can’t be arsed to speculate on what level of self-awareness we’re operating on here. Regardless, it’s bothersome.

“Oh yeah, this place is full of addicts, hopped up on something, I think, just shoot ‘em. What? Lost your gun, eh? That’s fine here’s a fire axe go nuts, kid, we’ll deal with the paperwork later”

Anyway, you are ambushed by a man you believe to be the killer for.......no real reason, really. He was spying on you checking out the crime scene, but we just established this place is full of squatters, what if one of the 8 people I murdered on the way into this ambush was the killer??? Case solved!

Anyway, needless to say, without wishing to spoil, the dude IS the main antagonist the yellow eyes are a helpful giveaway, and he takes your gun and swiftly shoots Generic Beat Cop and Generic Dick with it, then throws you out a window, whereupon some other asshole whose main role in the game is to be enigmatic and plot-convenient, you know, one of THOSE characters, spirits you away from the scene, making it look like you just killed two cops and fled.

Now, in real life, as we all know, a cop can’t be indicted for murder even if 50 people saw him do it, but in this world, it means you have to go on the run from the FBI (not your lab tech, though, who is somehow assisting you from the lab and sending confidential data to your phone unnoticed??) while trying to solve the murder.

Meanwhile, in the background, in an “I’m sure this isn’t important and will in no way inform the last level of the game going batshit bonkers” kind of way, all of the people, including the cops, in certain dilapidated and neglected areas of the unnamed City City appear to be going what is medically known as balls-to-the-wall kill crazy, and birds are dropping dead from the sky by the thousands. Even you, protagonist, are prone to horrible screaming nightmare visions coming right the blazing blue fuck out of nowhere and that you never feel the need to comment on or go take a lie-down. I’m sure it’s nothing.

The voice acting is what you’d expect from this era of video games i.e. not good and the writing has an absolutely DESPICABLE habit of having characters tell Ethan things he should already god damned well know for the sake of gameplay or exposition, leading to my current theory that Agent Ethan Thomas has some kind of horrible head injury and can’t remember anything from over 2 minutes ago like Guy Pearce in that pretentious movie where he accidentally kills his wife and then runs around for two hours terrorizing random-ass people about it.

The game never full-on plays the AND THE MAN YOU’VE BEEN PLAYING AS WAS CRAZY THE WHOLE TIME card and leaves things a bit ambiguous, but after caving in the 15th vagrant’s head and the 7th vision you’ve had of being murdered by some Cenobite-looking motherfucker while conducting an unsanctioned investigation during a suspension prompted by you presumably murdering the shit out of two guys, you start to think this may not be standard FBI protocol.

It’s all a bit hard to swallow is me point, a bit hard to sympathize, and a bit muddy if we’re supposed to or not. But you know what? It certainly isn’t boring, and I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t effective. This game is now one of only two to have genuinely given me nightmares, and I think it’s rather telling that after I played the hallucination part I had the nightmare about, I was having genuine trouble remembering if something happened in my nightmare of it or in the actual version.

Condemned is batshit crazy, hilariously easy to write off as “that game about killing hobos”, and very, very dated. But it is genuinely harrowing and unpleasant, and was clearly genuinely made by artists with the intent of saying.....errr i’m not exactly sure what, but SOMETHING! It’s about as far a cry as you can get from the Triple A crawling with microtransactions like your MCM is with crabs milk-you-for-money-until-your-udders-bleed look-at-how-shiny-we-are games, and even a lot of indie horror games who think it’s a measure of a masterpiece being able just to constantly trigger your fight-or-flight response again and again and again so you can make a hilarious Let’s Play out of it not to name any names Five Night’s at Freddy’s. It’s a relic of a different and i think a better time in gaming history, where big-name publishers were still taking chances and hadn’t quite yet worked out the formula for how to distill games into their most skeletal, malnourished, corporate, addictive, glorified gambling form.

Also it’s 3 dollars on Steam and you can finish it in like ffffffffucking...two days? So really why the fuck not. I have no idea how to assign numbers to things i’d probably give ir a 7 or 8 or 4 out of 5 stars but i’m bad at systems like that, just play it if you give a shit. If nothing else, a bunch of people snapping it up out of nowhere will really fuck with marketing, which is always a noble pursuit

#game reviews #Condemned Criminal Origins

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mdwatchestv · 6 years ago

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Best Television (Of the Things I Watched) 2018

IndieWire's Liz Miller put together a staggering list of all the television shows that aired this year, excluding most reality and children's programming, to help narrow down top ten lists. If you would like to view it and despair, you may do so by clicking here.

Per her list there were o/a 554 shows on television this annum. Stare into the gaping void of that number, and let it, in turn, stare back into you. Of the television shows on this list, I have seen, at least one episode, of 136 of them. Although I am not a "professional" television "critic" who "gets paid" to give opinions, I am a "television professional" who also writes about it as an "amateur" "hobby". What I'm really trying to say here is that I have never seen an episode of The Americans.

But what I'm REALLY trying to say is that I watch a lot of TV, and work in TV, and love TV and have only seen 25% of the shows currently on television (and yes, I had to Google how to do that math). 25%! That's a quarter! That's an F- -, that is a paltry drip in this vast ocean of content. How is anyone supposed to keep up with that! The only thing I keep up with are the Kardashians, and that show isn't even included on the list of 554 shows!

And so with the disclaimer that any true distillation and subsequent ranking of the current landscape of television is, for all intents and purposes, impossible- I present to you my picks for the best shows of 2018. Or perhaps more accurately ~*~my~*~ favorite shows, or the shows that brought me the most joy, or who managed to rise above the froth of the seething hoard of content, or shows I’d like you all to watch so we may talk about them.

Killing Eve - BBC America

Okay so forget everything I just said about the insurmountable tv landscape and the inability to make an accurate judgement of quality, because Killing Eve was the BEST show this year. Watching this show, the latest outing from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, felt like suddenly finding out you've been holding your breath your entire life and finally filling your lungs. Killing Eve is the show I have always wanted to watch, and yet could never have previously imagined being possible. It is a spy thriller that maintains a heady tension, it's a pitch black comedy, it's a love story, it's violent, it's stylish, it's sexy, and it's unapologetically female. I could write an entire blog about this show in regards to women's spaces, sexuality, violence, and the female gaze but there WAS other television this year that I GUESS you want to read about. Real quick: the music was amazing, the clothes were amazing, Jodie Comer has shamed all other psychopath performances, and Sandra Oh held this whole jumble together with a deeply grounded yet intimately vulnerable performance and that shit AIN'T EASY Y'ALL. Also this is on Hulu now....so....

The Terror - AMC

I can say without question that The Terror is the most enjoyable show I've ever seen about men rotting to death on a boat. AMC did a terrible (lol) job of advertising this gem of a series based on an 800 page novel, which itself is based on a real (doomed) expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Yes, the The Terror is about all the ways men can die (many!), but it was also easily the most aesthetically beautiful series I watched this year. Sure, it was scary and there were zombie polar bears, but it also created a subtle unease as delicate as it was unsettling. The natural world is unforgiving and unknowable, but is it more dangerous than what lies in the hearts of men? (Free tagline for you AMC) Everyone slept on this show like they were dying of hypothermia.

Queer Eye - Netflix

Imagine you're you, and you've had a really rough couple of years. I mean, the news is terrible, the planet is dying, and you're never going to be a homeowner. The only thing that brings you joy is lying listlessly on your couch playing cooking games on your phone and trying to pretend that you don't have to haul your corporeal form to work tomorrow. Suddenly, there is a knock on your (over-priced apartment's) door. Who could be visiting you here, at such an hour? Who is there left in the world that cares? You pull on a bathrobe and shuffle over, opening the door and blinking owlishly into outside world. Before you are five beautifully appointed men, they have gifts, salsa, bomber jackets, soft-silken hair, their energy is non-threatening. They join you on the couch and you cry in their toned arms for hours, for days, for weeks. For the first time in a long time you think maybe humanity is worth saving after all.

Sharp Objects - HBO

I have never fully boarded the Gillian Flynn train, my reaction to watching Gone Girl and reading Dark Places was "Oh...that's it?" So despite the creative heavy hitters (Marti Noxon, Marc-Jean Vallee, Amy Adams) attached, I had reservations about this HBO miniseries. On its surface Sharp Objects is another one of Flynn's lurid mysteries, but its on-screen adaptation created a fully realized world for this particular mystery to inhabit. A world that at turns felt stifling and magical, that oozed resentment, and pain, and fear. A world filled with women who had anger simmering under the skin, caught in their hands, trapped in their mouths. For once this wasn't a story where the twist was the final destination, but rather an inevitability of cruelty wrought on women by their world and by each other.

The Good Place - NBC

Everything on this list so far has been new series. Maybe that's because newness is more interesting, or maybe it's because goodness is hard to sustain. However everyone's favorite philosophy comedy just seems to be getting better and better the longer it goes on, continuing to invent itself from season to season, and even episode to episode. The Good Place is the only show that can make you a fan of Blake Bortles and also a genuinely better person.

Okay those were my five best shows of the year and now I'm tired. Here are some rapid fire honorable mentions!!!!

Honorable Mentions:

Barry (HBO)- The season finale didn't stick the landing for me, but I can assure you Barry’s actor struggle was documentary-level. Cannot speak for hitman authenticity.....publicly...

GLOW S2 (Netflix) - Improving on the promise of its first season, GLOW can sometimes be a bit messy in delivery but I admire their go big or go home attitude. This season dealt with workplace sexual harassment, parenthood, the AIDs crisis, race, and even had time for a lesbian dream ballet and an anti-kidnapping PSA. Betty Gilpin forever.

Doctor Who (BBC America) - Jodie Whittaker is a sheer delight as the Doctor, and a breath of fresh air for the series. This new season has also taken the back-in-time episodes (always my fav) to a new level- I LEARNED STUFF.

Aggretsuko (Netflix) - Aggretsuko is a Sanrio anime about a red panda named Retsuko. She is 25, she works in an office for a sexist pig boss, she hates her life, and at night she sings death metal karaoke. She is....extremely relatable. Sam please watch this.

The Magicians S3 (SyFy)- I may be biased, but at the same time, I have always loved The Magicians. This is another rare show that gets better the longer it goes on, having carved out a strange little genre space with a tone all of its own. Within the forest of snappy quips and surly fantasy characters, is a beating heart and an ability to achieve real emotional catharsis.

The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix) - I said earlier this year that I had never found a television show truly scary, but this was before I had seen Haunting of Hill House. I have not yet finished this show because it started giving me nightmares and I can only watch it in the light of day. That being said, the Bent-Neck Lady episode alone is such a tight, terrifying, piece of storytelling it deserves a shout out on this list. Also A+ kid casting, that shit is HARD.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (NBC) Probably the time I felt most alive this year were the harrowing hours between Brooklyn 99's cancellation by Fox and subsequent saving by NBC. During that wretched purgatory it was decided by the internet that B99 was the Last Good and Pure Thing Left and its salvation would mark some sort of victory in the losing battle against the darkness that will one day overtake us all. Luckily, the day was saved (no thanks to Fox), but the abyss still looms.

That's it! This is everything I thought was good on TV this year! If you thought something else was good, or you would like to shame me for something I did not watch, feel free to do so in the comments or on Twitter. There are over 550 after all and I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT watch them all.

The television wheel begins inexorably turning again in a few scant weeks, so buckle up buttercups!!! If you read the blog this year, or are reading right now - thank you for your time! If you thought the writing was poor, at least I gave you some entertaining gifs.

XO MD

#other tv #martha writes #tv lists #best of 2018 #best tv of 2018 #queer eye #the terror #killing eve #the good place #sharp obects #tv gifs #tv writing

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love-little-lotte · 6 years ago

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My Top 11 Favorite Outlander Episodes (Seasons 1-3)

Hello! I’m back again with another Outlander post haha. What did you guys think of the latest episode? Wasn’t much of a fan of it (what the hell, Roger?) but I’m kind of looking forward for the next episodes now.

But that’s not what this post is going to be about. I mentioned from my Outlander Obsession post that I would like to discuss about the cast and characters of Outlander, much like I did with The Handmaid’s Tale before. But then I realized that there are so, so, so many Outlander characters that made an impression and it would be impossible to fit them in one post. So, I decided to make a Top 11 Favorite Outlander episodes.

These episodes are entirely my favorites. So I don’t care if you agree with me. I’m just sharing to you my fave episodes. You can definitely share your own as well. I also chose episodes from the first three seasons because Season 4 is just starting. Maybe I’ll make another one when Season 4 is done.

So, shall we begin?

#11: Season 1, Episode 15 - Wentworth Prison

This episode was such a roller coaster, I swear. Since I don’t know anything about Outlander (I just recently started reading the first book, thanks to a suggestion), I was caught off guard when this episode happened. I don’t really have the stomach for torture scenes, so this one almost made me cry. The next episode is more, um, detailed for sure and is more harrowing than this one, but I couldn’t bring myself to rewatch that episode just yet.

The Wentworth Prison episode, however, is more bearable to watch. I especially love Claire in this episode, since she portrayed a strong modern woman. Jamie rescues her a lot - when she was almost assaulted by Black Jack Randall and the one with the witch trial - and now, we get to see her rescue him. Despite the dangers ahead, she didn’t stay put and she was ready to risk everything.

This also highlighted the acting chops of Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan, and Tobias Menzies. They were definitely convincing as their characters, especially Sam and Tobias. I bet this was not an easy episode to shoot (as well as the next one), but hats off to them!

#10: Season 2, Episode 11 - Vengeance is Mine

Ah, this was such an entertaining episode. I watched this in a public place on my phone while I was eating lunch, and I had to stop myself from screaming when the Duke died. The Duke of Sandringham is one of those characters that you love to hate! And it was such a pleasure to watch him die (most fittingly) in Murtagh’s hands. Mary also got her revenge to the man who raped her, which really ruined her prospects with the love of her life, Alex Randall.

Claire, also once again, became the heroine of the day when she sacrificed herself so that the Redcoats would leave them alone. Thanks to her quick thinking, she was able to save Jamie and the others, and crossed paths once again with Mary, saving her as well.

#09: Season 3, Episode 1 - The Battle Joined

Finally! All of the events in the first two seasons led up to the historic Battle of Culloden, and it was a delight to see it. Though they only had snippets of it, it was so satisfying to see Jamie finally end Randall’s life. He finally got his revenge! But this triumph is temporary, when Jamie wakes to realize that most of his friends lost their lives in the battle, and that Claire is not there with him.

Claire, on the other hand, is adjusting to her new life in Boston with Frank. It wasn’t easy, of course, but she was able to make life bearable. She learned to have a new relationship with Frank, even though it was not what they had before. Not only has she to overcome her new relationship with Frank, but also her status as a woman in the 40s, especially since she was regarded as one of the bravest women back in the 18th century Scotland.

#08: Season 1, Episode 1 - Sassenach

The episode that started it all. I started watching Outlander because I was bored one Sunday afternoon, but when I watched the first episode, I knew that I came across something special.

The episode showed a small backstory of Claire in the war and her relationship with Frank, which made us sympathize her character when she time travelled to the 18th century. It also showed us Claire and Jamie’s first meeting with the dislocated shoulder scene! Sparks were definitely flying when they first met, I swear. The title of the episode is also one of my favorite term of endearments Jamie uses for Claire.

#07: Season 2, Episode 4 - La Dame Blanche

I have a soft spot for period dramas and dinner episodes haha. Maybe it’s an after-effect of Downton Abbey.

Other than that scene though, this also introduced us to another villain in the Frasers’ life - Comte St. Germain. That piece of shit tried to poison our favorite feminist icon but being the baddest bitch that she is, she survived. This was also the episode when Claire finally reveals to Jamie that Black Jack Randall is actually alive, and that he will get his revenge. Jamie also got over (more or less) his traumatic experience, and finally has sex with Claire after months.

#06: Season 2, Episode 13 - Dragonfly in Amber

This episode reduced me to tears! So many goodbyes. So many heartache. My poor heart can’t take it. Though there was a small piece of happiness (Claire is pregnant, again!), it was also the reason why Claire has to go back to her own time for the safety of her unborn child.

Claire and Jamie’s tearful goodbye were so heartfelt and real, and both Cait and Sam acted so perfectly in that episode. I especially love Jamie’s lines: “Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God, I loved her well” before making love to Claire one last time. In the end, though, we find out that Jamie never really died in the Battle of Culloden and Claire makes up her mind to go back to see him again.

Oh, and we also get to see Brianna, Claire and Jamie’s daughter. She’s an interesting character, for sure, and I can’t wait to see more of her.

#05: Season 3, Episode 6 - A. Malcolm

Yes! The most awaited reunion! After 20 years of being separated from each other, they finally reunite. Even though they’re much, much older than they last met, the passion is still burning and the love they feel for each other is still there.

Aside from the most-awaited love scenes, my favorite scene in this episode is Jamie finally seeing photographs of Brianna. It was such a wonderful moment, that after 20 years of not knowing what happened to his wife and daughter, he is finally aware that the sacrifice he made 20 years ago was worth it. The couple also had a lot to talk about after not seeing for so many years. I watched the whole season 3 in, like, a day so I cannot imagine the agony the fans had to endure while waiting for this episode haha.

#04: Season 1, Episode 7 - The Wedding

Ah, of course. You can’t have a Top Favorite Outlander Episodes without including this episode. This episode showed Claire and Jamie’s first kiss (which was weirdly during their wedding lmao) and their first love scene/s (they had sex, like, three times in this episode).

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t think Claire was in love with Jamie when she married him, but she was obviously drawn to him, and she felt a strong attachment. This was the beginning of an understanding Claire and Jamie shares - may it be physically, or romantically.

Plus, the costumes and setting were breathtaking. Claire’s wedding gown was absolutely charming, as well as the wedding place. It really gave me the 18th century feels. The flashbacks were also nicely put, as it gave more personality to other characters.

#03: Season 1, Episode 9 - The Reckoning

Correct me if I’m mistaken, but this was the first episode that Jamie was narrating, instead of Claire. We finally get to hear what he was thinking about the entire time. It was also in this episode where he truly admitted that he was indeed falling in love with Claire.

Claire and Jamie also get their first major fight as a married couple. The whole screaming match they shared was so... entertaining to watch haha. I could watch the two of them bantering the whole day, I swear. And when they forgave each other? Gah, tears me up all the time.

Though the whole “disciplining the wife” scene was cringey, I guess it was still necessary especially because this was set in the 18th century, and husbands really do that to their wives. Jamie apologized in the end, though, and promised never to do that again and they had the most mind-blowing sex scene in the whole series lmao.

#02: Season 2, Episode 7 - Faith

This was one of the saddest episodes, ever. Or probably the saddest one. Claire losing her baby was such a punch to the gut. The whole scene with Claire singing to the baby was also such a heartbreaking moment. Claire is not a stranger to losing family members, since her own parents died when she was really young, but losing a child is something she never even imagined, also probably because she thought she could never conceive.

The whole scene with the Comte and Raymond was also a nail-biter. The whole thing was directed perfectly and without flaw, and I love seeing the Comte receive his bitter end. Claire is someone you would not like to mess with.

Caitriona Balfe in this episode was such a force to be reckoned with. Her acting chops were truly highlighted in this episode, and I could definitely feel her pain and anguish. I couldn’t imagine how she handled those feels, because ah, she was so amazing in this one.

#01: Season 1, Episode 11 - The Devil’s Mark

This episode is the best, really. The directing, the acting of everyone, the whole thing leading up to the witch trial... ah! Geilles is actually one of my favorite characters, even though she’s a villain. She’s tough and clever, and I have a weakness for female villains because it’s such a breather. Geilles is a very interesting character, for sure.

I’ve already suspected that Geilles was something else, when Claire saw her dance in the woods before, so I wasn’t really surprised when she was also from the future. Lotte Verbeek’s acting was so good, and I couldn’t imagine a better Geilles than her.

Also, I always believed that this was the episode Claire finally realized that she’s really in love with Jamie. She finally trusts him enough to tell him the truth. And despite all of that, Jamie accepts her and even took her to Craigh na Dun so that she can be together with Frank again. He was ready to give up his happiness, his love for her, so that she could be happy.

But Claire didn’t go through the stones. She decided to stay with Jamie because yes, she’s in love with her. She also told him to bring her home to Lallybroch. It was actually in the next episode where they say “I love you” to each other, but her staying is also a sure sign that she was indeed has serious feelings for him.

So, there you have it - my Top 11 Favorite Outlander episodes. Most of them are from the first two seasons, because those two are my favorites are more memorable to me.

This is probably going to be the last lengthy Outlander post I’m going to make, unless there’s something exciting that will happen in the future episodes and I’ll have to rant about it haha.

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glitchinthesystemspiderbyte · 7 years ago

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[37] Glitch in the System - Lost & Found

By K.

Tentacles happen. _ Despite its reputation as the world’s foremost authority on unpredictable acts of insurrection, day-to-day life for even the most elite of Talon’s operatives was shockingly mundane given its organizational ethos. While the events which bookended individual deployments were suitably chaotic, the days between them were less so. Barring any exceptional circumstance or need for debriefing, the inner council left its constituency well enough alone, their expectation that each agent perform their due diligence regarding physical and tactical training providing structure to their days.

As such, routine was the ironic norm. In addition to establishing considerable predictability, it meant that when something was out of place, it was almost immediately apparent to everyone. What “something” was could be anything: an employee, a case report or dossier, weapons, tech. For those working and living in closer quarters, it was often the most inconsequential of everyday objects.

“What’s this?”

One such object appeared without fanfare, unheralded and unremarkable in absolutely every way but for its location. Left anywhere else, its presence would be anything but suspect; in fact, many would welcome it with curiosity, if not excitement.

Children and adults the world over adored Pachimari, after all. Its image was practically ubiquitous, right alongside those of Rikimaru’s various mascots and even Hana Song. But what a palm-sized, stuffed version of the famous tentacled onion was doing on the kitchen table of Talon’s Venetian headquarters was as much a mystery as it was a thematic non-sequitur.

Gabriel stood before the toy, his midnight excursion for junk food interrupted by its baffling existence. Though it was fundamentally harmless, he couldn’t help but entertain the instinctual suspicion it aroused

“Strange,” he muttered, tugging idly at his goatee as he racked his brain in search of the operative who’d be so childish as to purchase the thing, nonetheless leave it in a communal space. His mental rolodex proving fruitless, he considered a different, more harrowing reason for the toy’s placement.

Picking it up in scarred hands, Reaper turned the plaything over and over, appraising it with pointed scrutiny better reserved for fresh recruits. As he ran his fingers along its surface, he searched for any signs of tampering: sewn patches inconsistent with the rest of its craftsmanship; unnecessary seams; strange scents or, worse, ticking. Toys, after all, were a common plant for both explosives and illicit substances, and Gabriel was renowned for being a man disinclined toward easily-earned trust.

His review lasted less than two minutes. Finding nothing, he returned the plush to its original spot on the tabletop, its pristine off-white and kelly green a marked contrast to the dark oak and the looming void of night filling the estate’s corridors.

“Fucking stupid,” he growled at last, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt more tightly about his neck before turning his attention to the refrigerator.

Widowmaker found it the next morning, pausing in the kitchen doorway beside Sombra to level a critical eye on the stuffed toy. Sombra, hardly awake and far from functional, only acknowledged the sniper’s questioning glance with a yawn.

“Is this yours?” the taller woman asked, padding lightly across the room toward the item in question. When no answer came, she scooped it off the table and turned back to her colleague, head canted in silent reiteration. It certainly seemed like something the hacker would own, and of the agents stationed in Venice with on-site living quarters, Widowmaker couldn’t think of anyone else who might.

Blinking against the heavy cling of sleep, Sombra shook her head. “Nah. S’cute, though.”

“It still has a tag,” the assassin observed as her partner began to drowsily rifle through cabinets in search of the requisite ingredients for breakfast.

“He gonna’ help you make these pancakes?” Sombra asked over one shoulder.

Widowmaker sighed in a shadow of annoyance. “Still with the pancakes?” she asked. Setting the plush aside, she joined the shorter woman at the counter to assist with the procurement of certain ingredients placed further overhead: flour, baking powder, and vanilla extract.

“Jeez, spider. Why all the pancake-hate?”

Turning the bottle of extract over to check its use-by date, the sniper shrugged. “They’re just so terribly American.”

Sombra chuckled at Widowmaker’s nigh-tangible derision, laughing even as she shooed her away from her workspace. She grabbed the little Pachimari en route, tracing the embroidered lines of its smiling face with her thumbs as the sniper set to washing her hands. “You gonna’ keep this thing?” she asked after a spell.

Widowmaker’s sole response was a sideways glance that declined the suggestion more loudly than words ever could, one eyebrow cocked in the most vociferous incredulity she could muster. As she reached for the hand towel hanging off the oven door railing, however, a single flicker of thought crossed her mind: an idea as asinine as it was uncomfortably amusing and, either way, bound to bear interesting fruit. “Actually.”

Sombra blinked. “Actually?”

“I have a better idea.”

The hacker inclined her chin expectantly. “Go on.”

“I am bringing it with me to see Moira.”

Sombra’s delighted peal of laughter was interrupted only briefly by the cheery, artificial squeak the stuffed onion produced when she squeezed it incidentally. Its chirp lit up the kitchen anew — a small, innocent blip on the radar of the world’s most feared terrorist organization The contrast wasn’t lost on either of them, and even Widowmaker couldn’t help the bemused chuckle that slipped past her lips.

“She’s gonna’ shit,” Sombra grinned. “You have to tell me about it.”

Nodding her agreement, Widowmaker tossed the towel across the counter to her partner and set to work. “I will deliver a full report.”

Though it didn’t alter the cold war of their rapport, Widowmaker acknowledged that Moira’s begrudging directive she return to a modified training regimen was offered with the implicit understanding the sniper’s initial weeks of recovery had been miserable. The geneticist offered no outward indication the alternating routines of intense physical therapy and endurance training were anything but standard, yet the fact their work often ran well over the scheduled handful of hours indicated something like consideration, if not a shadow of sympathy.

That said, there was nothing easy about the work given her. Despite Widowmaker’s commitment to reclaiming mastery over her own body and Moira’s willingness to facilitate it, the increments by which the doctor increased the difficulty for her patient were broad. This was the norm, and had always been the norm: Moira, pushing each agent to the extremes of their ability while they, in turn, pushed to meet that expectation out of some combination of spite and muted professional detestation.

It was Hell, but it worked. The nanotechnology that expedited healing was of remarkable benefit, reducing what would in decades past have been months of recovery to fewer than one. But the actual work - the hours of alternating sprints and distance runs, of acrobatics and weight training and aerial silks and climbing - was entirely Widowmaker’s responsibility.

“Excellent,” Moira murmured, waving the sniper down from below as she, one leg crooked around a length of silk, hung suspended from the ceiling above. With a few, deft adjustments, Widowmaker followed the scientist’s cue, tumbling with controlled grace to a few feet above the ground. “If only everyone we kept on retainer were quite so determined.”

“‘Retainer’ is not entirely honest,” the assassin sniffed.

“Regardless,” Moira continued, waving off her commentary as if it were some irritating gnat, “you are cleared for active duty. I would recommend you spend some time with your rifle, but I doubt you need my encouragement. I will apprise Akande of your progress.”

“Merci,” Widowmaker replied, watching coolly as the taller woman terminated their conversation by stalking wordlessly toward the console against the far wall of the room. Assuming her departure as dismissal, the sniper stooped to pick up the small collection of belongings she brought: water bottle, towel, and, beneath it, the Pachimari plush she and Sombra discovered earlier that morning. Draping the towel over her shoulders, she glanced about the facility in search of a drop point. The whole thing was excessively silly, but placement was absolutely crucial.

“Amélie. One more thing,” Moira rejoined, turning on her heel suddenly. “The recoil on your rif— what the bloody hell is that?”

Glancing between the toy in her hand and the doctor before her, Widowmaker froze for precisely one second, and, thinking as quickly as possible, hung her head in mock mourning of a surprise well-thwarted. “A thank you,” she said, perfectly straight-faced as she approached the other woman. “I am an abysmal patient.”

Without so much as another word, she leveraged Moira’s flabbergasted silence as an opportunity to deposit the wayward toy in her free hand, turn on her heel, and move with mechanical precision toward the exit. As the doors whispered open, she heard Moira’s voice, weighted with uncertainty, behind her:

“…the recoil on your rifle may aggravate your shoulder…”

Then:

“These idiots.”

True to Moira’s prediction, Widowmaker spent the rest of the day outside, reacquainting herself with the Widow’s Kiss while Sombra logged hit/miss percentiles at the sniper’s request. Doubly true was the doctor’s warning that the rifle’s recoil, normally so innocuous - comforting, even - grew irritating with time as the butt stock hit the still-tender shoulder that only a few weeks ago had been firmly dislocated.

“Damn,” the she hissed, pressing ungloved fingertips against the nexus of joint and socket as she switched the gun to her off-hand.

Waving her holoscreen out of existence, Sombra sidled up beside the other woman, looping an arm about her waist. “Call it a day. There’ll be more angry holographic men for you to murder tomorrow.”

“Probably for the best,” Widowmaker admitted, allowing the hacker to lead her up the graduating stairs toward one of the estate’s many entrances. Warmth greeted them beyond the threshold, immediately easing the hacker’s shaky grip as they traversed the network of halls toward the westernmost wing serving as their living quarters.

“You give Moira that thing?” Sombra asked, glancing up to meet the taller woman’s eye from the corner of her own.

“I did,” she replied. “It was sufficiently uncomfortable.”

“For you?”

“For everyone,” Widowmaker said, trying and failing to suppress the smile threatening the corner of her mouth. As Sombra’s chuckle began to give way to some further inquiry, they turned the corner toward the hacker’s room and ran, almost bodily, into Gabriel. The man’s expression was unreadable - somehow removed from his usual, passive scrutiny and irritation. On anyone else, it may have read as muted delight; on him, it seemed like discomfort. Widowmaker recognized it well and immediately as his default expression of lukewarm amusement.

“What?” she asked suspiciously, eyes narrowed.

Shrugging broad shoulders, Reaper merely cast a long glance over his shoulder, as if expecting some shadow other than his own to follow. “Nothing.”

“You are making that face.”

“What face?”

“The face you make when something is funny.”

Sombra glanced between the two of them, brows raised. “Jefe?”

Shaking his head, Gabriel only shouldered past them with a grunt.

“Everyone here is fucking weird,” Sombra murmured at the exact second Akande turned the far corner, hands curled around a small, white and green object.

“How convenient,” he said, stopping before them. “Just who I needed to see.”

The silence that attempted residency between the three of them never had a chance against Sombra’s gleeful cackle. Akande, stifling his own smirk, averted his gaze to the object in his hands.

“Lacroix,” he began, voice broken by the faint lilt of laughter trying to break through. “Is this yours?” He unfolded his hands with the question, revealing the smiling face of the mysterious Pachimari.

“No,” Widowmaker replied tonelessly. “It is Moira’s.”

Snickering, Doomfist shook his head. “Moira, it seems, finds its presence particularly distracting” he said. “Which, frankly, I think is her way of saying she liked it but doesn’t have a place for it.”

“Like everything she likes,” Sombra murmured beneath her breath - a statement both Akande and Widowmaker seemed perfectly capable of acknowledging without actually acknowledging it via an exchange of glances.

“I think it’s prudent I return this to you for the time being,” he continued, proffering the stuffed creature with a degree of delicacy that seemed infinitely at odds with the strength he both possessed and embodied “In the future, I recommend scotch if you’re in need of a gift for Doctor O’Deorain.”

Before Widowmaker could even think of accepting the toy, Sombra scooped it deftly into her arms. “Gosh, araña. How thoughtful,” she grinned. “Just what I always wanted.”

Shaking his head, Akande simply stepped aside and allowed them to continue on their way. “Thoughtful, isn’t she?” he smirked.

“Shut up.” Widowmaker replied, waving him a lazy goodbye.

*Read from the beginning or check out our intro post! All stories tagged under #glitchfic. Table of contents located here.

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recsnrecaps · 7 years ago

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Black Mirror Recap Closing Comments: S01E01 The National Anthem

That was an absolutely harrowing and disturbing experience. I can safely swear that I won’t be watching this episode of my own accord ever again.

Watching this the second time has allowed me to better appreciate the pacing of the episode, as well as how they allowed the dread to unfold. We start off in the dark (literally too), not knowing anything about Michael Callow or his job. Then we get pulled into his perspective and sympathize with him at his predicament. Gradually we realize how self centered he is. The public sentiment is fickle, and as a viewer, I feel like I relate to the general public the most - after all, we’re just watching it all for entertainment.

It’s unfortunate that we never actually find out the motive why. But I respect the choice made by the producers. After all, this entire series is about the effects of technology. Here we see how social media and public perception influence the government’s actions. The government is obviously unable to control the spread of information, also they lack the understanding of social media to do any damage control, and they are pitifully ill-equipped to even consider manipulating anything online.

Granted that it was in 2011 that this episode was released - it’s 2017 now, people have wised up to social media shenanigans and some of that shit would not fly.

There is no excuse for Alex’s team. They should have destroyed the photo of Rob Senseless and ensured that the dude who took that photo keeps his mouth shut

The PM’s office needs a PR team for social media. In this age, it’s common sense to check out trending hashtags and use shills to promote your agenda. (I’m not saying I endorse this, but it’s happening)

Sending nudes. Sigh. Malaika. As a person whose job is to spread information, don’t you see the risks in sexting your potential sources? Snapchat was founded in 2011 with the self-destruct photo feature precisely because sexting was so risky. Even now, there are ways to circumvent the anti-screenshot feature on Snapchat. I’m betting that in Black Mirror World, there’s a board on 4chan or Reddit with all her nudes.

Also, I’m not trying to bash investigative journalism, but rushing headlong into a SWAT Team operation with just an iPhone? Malaika, I marvel at your poor judgement. Make some preparations, wear some protective gear, call for back up etc. Maybe I’ve watched too many horror movies, but you won’t ever catch me going into an abandoned warehouse alone and defenceless. My 2017 advice would be to just use a drone so that you don’t need to be physically there.

That wraps up my rewatch of Black Mirror The National Anthem. I hear that this episode is one-off weird episode. Things get more technological and dystopian it seems. Next up we’ll have Fifteen Million Merits.

#black mirror #black mirror s01e01 #black mirror the national anthem #show recap #liveblog #rewatch #closing comments

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thelifeoftuan · 6 years ago

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Take

Give and take. As some people may have gleaned, there has been something “off” about me, and it has gotten pretty noticeable. Yeah. News flash, y’all, something about me has always been “off.” People sadly don’t notice it until it becomes something of the sort of a physical manifestation... like a now-visible tumor. I’ve been feeling extremely down lately. It’s like most of my days are filled with this vague, grey feeling. Apart from work, I spend most of my days just laying in bed. A lot of times, I’m sleeping (trying to sleep). Naturally because I’m tired. ...but ironically, unnaturally, so. If that makes any sense. I know enough, just from my own personal history and my training thus far, that my symptoms have been consistently pushing towards a more severe spectrum of depression. I’ve dealt with this before. Actually, to say “dealt” means that I effectively handled it, which, again, as we all know, is the furthest thing from the truth. I know this goes in the opposite direction of any sort of recommendation, but I have been trying my absolute hardest to rack my brain around this problem I’ve been having. I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been feeling this way. I know when people look at me or read between the lines, they can tell. Even from just looking at my face and my demeanor, if they catch it at the right moment, they can tell. Something about me has changed. And that something has worsened. But be it taboo or discomfort or simply lack of caring, they never really want to say what that “something” is. But let’s be honest, we all know what’s happening to me. It’s always like this. I always feel like I’ve fallen into this glass box filled with water and I’m drowning, and everyone can see that I’m drowning, but no one does anything. Some people watch. Even worse, others simply pass on by. “You shouldn’t feel like this. You don’t have any reason to. You’re almost done with residency. You kicked ass. You have a job in your dream city. You’re a success story. Why do you feel this way?” Whether I think these thoughts to myself or I conjure them up as what others would say if I ever talked to anyone about how I have been feeling, that has really been one of the main factors of why I feel like I can’t talk to anyone about this... because I’m afraid they won’t understand. Or worse. They won’t listen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am well aware all of this is some sordid irrationalization. But can you blame me? I’ve gotten burned multiple times... and I’d rather not go through that again. So I isolate myself. ...but isn’t isolation what got me in trouble in the first place? ... ... ...so you see the predicament I’m in? If there’s one word I can use to describe as accurately as I can how I’ve been feeling, it would have to be empty. I feel empty. Like there is nothing there. Nothing left. And it’s a harrowing feeling. I know that it’s not true to feel that I am worth nothing and that I mean nothing. ...but I just can shake this feeling. At first, I could not understand for the life of me why in the world I have slumped into this phase. But now I think I’ve begun to see where things went wrong which, as this should come to no surprise to anyone, I have reached this conclusion many times before. It’s not like this is new to me. ...but regardless, it is still distressing. I think the trickiest thing with residency, and being a doctor in general, is to not lose yourself in your work. I think that’s why there are so many “wellness” initiatives out there these days and why it’s an ACGME requirement to have a wellness curriculum built in for residents (and attendings, for that matter), because burnout is a real thing. It’s a real and dangerous thing. A physician who is unwell cannot take care of patients. It’s been scientifically studied and proven. And physicians are some of the worst groups of people to fall trap to losing themselves in their work and neglecting their wellness. Even before I started my medical career, even before I started medical school, I kinda fell trap into these slumps. And each time, you can trace the root of the problem to the same conclusion that I have gathered this time around. I spent too much of my time and energy caring about everyone else instead of myself. Yeah. Surprise, surprise. What a shocker. ...This isn’t a new concept. Part of me gets real riled up and pretty pissed, mostly with myself, because I, for some godforsaken reason, have found myself in this horrible slump so many times over, you would think I would learn by now. It really irks me just how much I have not learned my lesson after so many times. ...I do want to take a brief discourse though and try and defend myself and entertain the idea that I am not completely guilty for what exactly happened to me (although we all know that that is wishful thinking). A lot of the things I did as a resident, and as chief resident for that matter, I did for the betterment of my program. Often times, my execution of tasks may have been a little skewed--skewed in the way where I would put a lot of the workload on myself so that I can spare that same or often even a fraction of the workload from my colleagues. I didn’t do it for any praise or thanks or merit. I did it out of the kindness of my heart. That is the honest truth. There were a lot of instances where I could have been completely apathetic, put myself and my health and well-being first, and had others--especially those of my colleagues infamous for bitching and whining about how hard they have to work and how tough/unfair their schedules were--to suck it up and “do your job” and “do as you’re told.” But literally every time, I opted to choose the path that would cause the least amount of damage... for others. I would take the tough shifts and the tough months. I signed myself up for an extra month of wards so that my colleagues would not have to do more than what they believed was expected of them (because trust me, what is actually expected of them is completely different). But regardless, though it’s an assumptive statement, it can be said with accuracy that if other said candidates were put in my shoes, they would not have done the same thing. I can just hear it now, just how much other people would have complained and whined and thrown a fit if they even did a fraction of the work I did, even just this past year. Hell, EVEN JUST THIS PAST WINTER! I don’t want to revisit the whole Winter Jamboree business, nor do I want to sound excruciatingly petty or whiny. But honestly, one of the things that frustrates me is that working adults my age and older could not get their shit together or even put their selfish motives aside for just one goddamn second to recognize that they have a bigger responsibility and it’s not always about them. And it frustrated me even more that I let that affect me so much, not just with how I ended up feeling about these people and about residency, but my decisions, especially as chief resident! It was like these mofos took advantage of me. And I let them. And I don’t even know why I did it. Because honestly, if it were the other way around, these select characters would never have shown me the same courtesy. To stack on top of all this, the even more important matters were my responsibilities as a physician and to my patients and to my work. A lot of people are under some variation of the misconception that senior residents have it easy or that pediatrics is one of the easier specialties. It honestly is not. My training was exhausting as a first year resident. And it only got worse with the subsequent years. But despite that, I persevered. I wouldn’t say that I carried the roles 100% correctly, but I feel like throughout these past three years, I did my training justice and made the most out of it like I was supposed to in order to become the best pediatrician I could possibly be. Other people might not have the same mindset and they’re comfortable with skating through, not following the rules (or even blatantly and openly breaking the rules), and choosing the easiest path with the least amount of work. But that’s just not me. And maybe that’s a big fault of mine. Who the hell knows? Maybe I should be as selfish as these ingrates who think their shit don’t stink because they’re a fucking doctor. ...I don’t know, is that the attitude we’re supposed to have as physicians? I don’t think so. I see my role as the devoted servant who is so fortunate to be granted these opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives, save and heal, empower and protect, prevent disease, and nurture these precious young lives I’ve been charged with caring for. That’s my job. That’s my role. That’s my duty. I don’t see why anyone in medicine would think any differently. That’s not to say that I am the epitome of the definition or that I am some sort of saint for what I did, because I know that there have been numerous, numerous occasions where I took the wrong step and have made mistakes and faltered. But through it all, I felt that it was my responsibility, my obligation, to provide to the best of my ability the care that I think my patients deserve and the work and effort that I think my program deserves. But I think in doing so, in doing all of that, in my failed endeavors of pursuing fellowship, in completing the four toughest rotations of residency during the busiest and toughest winter I’ve ever experienced followed by an absolutely horrendous rotation the month after, in the stress of trying to find a job, in the frustration of dealing with other people who are selfish and inconsiderate, in the strain of being chief resident... I lost myself. Again. I had put my life on hold for so long, and after all of the fatigue and abuse (sometimes self-inflicted, sometimes not) I endured... I honestly feel like there was nothing left of me. I was empty. I am empty. I finished my adolescent rotation, the absolute worst rotation of my entire career, Friday, March 29, jumped straight into a 24-hour shift on Saturday, March 30 into Sunday, March 31... and when I got home that morning and after I awoke from my stupor, I sat there all day with the realization that I had trouble feeling anything. I truly felt and feel empty. I know that I “shouldn’t” be feeling this way. I have secured a good job following residency in a city that I am excited to live in. I have light rotations for the remainder of my residency training. I am almost done with 24-hour shifts and mommy calls. My vacation and road trip is finally coming up. I really have no business feeling this way. ...but I still do. Maybe when I finally go on my vacation and road trip, I’ll rediscover myself again and breathe some life back into my soul. I feel like for so long, I have given so much, so much of myself, to other people and to my job and to my patients and to my future and calling, that I forgot to save a little bit for myself. That’s the thing not only about being a physician or a resident but about life in general is that it’s a give and take. People who take all the time don’t succeed. And honestly, people who give all the time don’t do so hot, either (exhibit A). I love my job. I truly do. It has been the one true aspiration of mine to become a pediatrician. And I am so, so effing proud of myself that I have made it this far and that the dream I have worked so hard to achieve is finally coming true. It was an effing difficult journey getting there, with so, so many setbacks and failures and perils. But damn it, I made it. And I feel that what I am doing is the most meaningful and impactful thing I can ever do, and I cannot imagine myself ever being anything else except a pediatrician. ...but lately, I’m just not sure if it was worth everything that it took from me. It’s just the most depressing thing... to feel like this, to feel empty. To have made it this far and to come up, well, empty. I feel like a big part of me is wrought with this sense of guilt and failure that I let things slip this far. I am not a martyr. I am not a saint. I am just some poor sap who really cannot regulate his emotions or find that balance between his sense of duty and sense of self. I am that hapless fool who continually runs into the wall, putting other people’s well-being and happiness far before my own and suffering because of it. And I should really stop that. Maybe those select and irritating colleagues of mine have the right idea. ...actually, no. I’d never advocate for anyone, nevertheless a physician, to act and behave the way those mofos did. But my advice would be this. Don’t just give. Don’t forget to take. There is a part of life, an important and essential part too, somewhere tucked within the deadlines and long work hours and sleepless nights and stress where you are supposed to take something for yourself. There is a balance. And that’s what life is all about. Balance. Things fall out of balance and you end up suffering the consequences like me. I work myself down to the bone and end up shattered into a billion pieces. And now I have to put myself back together again. And that is always a more harrowing task than we would like to think. I feel like I have given so much to this life. It’s time I take some of it for myself as well. I deserve it. Anyway, I just needed to get these thoughts out into words. You know me. These days, I feel like I’m really all I have to depend on. Some days, it’s comforting to know that I have made it this far and can handle things on my own now. And then there are times like this where I feel like it would nice to sit down and talk this out with someone who would be willing to listen.

#empty #give #take #residency

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pan0ramy · 7 years ago

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alright, i know i've said it a million times now, but i don't think i'll ever be able to fully express how much i loved rick and morty. i am literally. fucking. OBSESSED. with this show after watching it for the first time. it's cleverly written, always interesting, and there's also the tiny fact that it's fucking hilarious. but there's been one big thing that's been basically niggling at me, and i wanted to get my thoughts out on it in a post.

i've said it at least twice now that rick is, by far, my favourite character - but there's a serious reason behind that. a couple, actually.

for those of you who haven't seen the show, THIS WILL CONTAIN MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR RICK AND MORTY.

i'll be putting the rest of this post below the cut so you don't see anything by accident, and i'll be marking which episodes you can expect to see spoilers for. if you HAVE seen the show, hopefully you can agree with some of these. but trust me, if you haven't watched this show yet, don't spoil yourself. it'll be worth it. ;)

overall, though, this was just a random post i wanted to make to get my thoughts out about this character, since there's been very few characters that have stood out to me as much as rick has.

there are probably dozens of moments in rick and morty that sum up why i like rick, but i'm gonna cover the ones that stood out to me the most. (fun fact: while making this post i actually realised nearly all of these are from season 2. yeah. go figure. :3)

* SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2, EPISODE 10 - "THE WEDDING SQUANCHERS" *

this is the one episode that i'm pretty sure made some of us - if not everyone - cry by the end (whether out of genuine sadness or just frustration, like i did), and it showed a lot of different sides to rick's character. the first thing we really see that stood out to me was when tammy shoots birdperson. first of all, let me get the obvious thing out of the way.

how fucking DARE SHE WHAT AN ABSOLUTE BITCH

...ahem. anyway.

that's not what i want to talk about - it's more rick's reaction to birdperson's death. we very rarely hear rick get so goddamn emotional at anything, but seriously. go back and watch this scene again, and pay attention to rick's reaction.

fuckin' hell, justin roiland. you nailed it.

then there's the big point of rick's sacrifice - and the one goddamn reason i can't listen to nine inch nails' "hurt" anymore without crying.

i've seen a lot of people say that rick flat out doesn't care, but i feel like these people are missing something. like. how the fuck can you say that after watching this episode. rick, without (much) hesitation, turns himself in once he realises he'll be nothing but a detriment to the smiths' freedom, as well as their ability to live a normal life again. rick just says he's going to get ice cream and never comes back, and morty's the only person who initially understands what rick is actually doing (which kinda makes sense - morty's the person who spends the most time with rick, so i'd assume he has a better insight into what rick is really like).

finally, rick's voice acting comes into play once again when he's asked what he got put into prison for. the only reply we get is one word - "everything". again, justin roiland's voice acting just shows how defeated rick really is at this point. i mean, who wouldn't be? what's he got left?

* SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2, EPISODE 1 - "A RICKLE IN TIME" *

the first episode we see in season 2, and one of the most entertaining episodes for me! the multiple timelines give us a lot of different options and possibilites, with one of them giving rick a good deal of character development. when one of the 64 possibilities we see ends up with morty's collar breaking and morty falling through the floor into space, rick straight up dives out after him. when he eventually catches up, he gives his collar to morty, and tells him to "be better than me".

of course, he does eventually lose his shit when he finds the collar and manages to fix it, and even starts praying to a god he doesn't believe exists.

that's a pretty big series of events for an alcoholic sociopath - sacrificing himself to save his grandson and relying on a religion he openly mocks not long afterward. all within a minute and a half. when rick's backed into a corner like he was here, we get to see how he really reacts to dire situations. there's no sarcastic filter.

* SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2, EPISODE 2 - "AUTO EROTIC ASSIMILATION" *

we all know by now that the title of this episode is nothing to be fooled by. for anyone that's already watched this, you know i'm talking about the ending.

admit it. you cried.

I KNOW I FUCKIN DID.

i can honestly really sum up this ending in one word - human. it's very, VERY hard to portray mental illness - particularly depression and suicide - well in any fictional character, since you have to keep in mind that not everyone understands what it feels like to want to end your own life. it's a harrowing situation that many people (unfortunately) find themselves in, and rick ends up being one of them.

it's not just a bad breakup with unity that's behind rick's suicide attempt, though; to me, this is a culmination of everything that's happened to him so far. losing his wife, disconnecting from his family for 20 years, constantly being told by a certain someone (lookin at you jerry with your fuckin weed whacker) that he's out of place and doesn't belong where he is, just when he's finally trying to reconnect with his own daughter... it all builds up, whether he shows it or not. and this is the manifestation of that.

and on a more personal note: referring back to what i said on the whole "not knowing what it feels like to be suicidal", i've been there. whether i like to admit it or not. and i can honestly say that this is the best portrayal (that i've seen) of what that feels like. you don't give a shit about anything anymore, and you're pretty sure no one gives a shit about you, so you may as well just end it all and get it over and done with.

(as a little bonus, dan harmon said in this episode's commentary that he believes that orange liquid rick drank "synchronises all of your possible versions". this means that when rick drank that liquid, there are no other possibilities of him surviving. if rick kills himself here, that's it. he's gone.

........yeah.)

* SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1, EPISODE 5 - "MEESEEKS AND DESTROY" *

the last moment that came to mind for me when making this was the whole situation with mr. jellybean. poor morty, though - that kid's gotta be scarred for life. D:

this moment was probably the one where i realised how good of a character rick really is. when morty comes out of that bathroom, the kid sounds depressed. all he wants to do is go home, and he even grabs rick's portal gun out of his lab coat before rick really has a chance to react. it all ends up with poor morty basically crying and begging to go home, but THIS is when mr. jellybean walks out of the bathroom.

the look on rick's face says it all. you don't even have to have him say anything to figure out what's going through his head. regardless of the show’s art style- which is pretty crude - the emotions say all that needs to be said. even though morty didn't give him any details on the situation, rick is MORE than smart enough to put two and two together. rick's admitted it before that if you mess with his family, you pay for it.

mr. jellybean has fucked up. big time.

(also can we talk about how rick does his absolute best to cheer morty up immediately afterward? like?? grandfather of the year award anyone????)

the best part about all of this though? when rick and morty arrive back in the little fantasy village, it turns out mr jellybean's now the king of said village, and one of the villagers wants rick and morty to meet them and receive his thanks. when morty raises a white flag, rick doesn't question it - they open a portal and leave immediately.

...and then mr jellybean gets blown up by one of rick's guns when he reopens the portal.

revenge is always sweet. :D

(now if we can just put tammy in the same situation I THINK WE'D ALL BE HAPPY)

to summarize my ramblings here, rick is a very deep, multilayered character. even though he comes across as sociopathic, possibly a little bit insane and a huge dick to the people around him, there's a hell of a lot more to him than that. whether it seems like it or not, rick does care about his family. and the guy's been through a lot of shit to say the least - like any normal human being, he doesn't get out of that unscathed, and that leads to his depression and alcoholism.

not gonna lie, i don't normally like catchphrases for characters, but rick's is a stellar example of a catchphrase done right. in the final episode of season one, we learn from birdperson (rip in spaghettis D,:) that rick's catchphrase, "wubba lubba dub dub", actually means "i am in great pain, please help me" in birdperson's language. that catchphrase sums up rick as a whole - it appears wacky and entirely nonsensical on the surface, but there's a lot more going on than meets the eye.

#man i enjoyed doing this #even if it is midnight and i have school tomorrow #IT WAS WORTH IT #rick and morty #rick sanchez

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