#it's something like 'wwi was normal for me anyway here's a book about how war changes you forever'

[elucubrare]

there's this horrible school of attempted literary criticism on here that holds that 1. everything in any given author's work is autobiographical, especially if it seems "real" and 2. those themes seeped into the work subconsciously, revealing something about the author that they're either trying to hide or unaware of themself. it drives me up a wall, since it seems to deny the fundamental skills that make people good writers: the empathy to imagine and portray experiences that one hasn't had oneself and the ability to take one's personal emotional experiences or worldview and fold them, consciously, into the unworked clay of a narrative.

[oliveroctavius]

I got this ask on main but thought I'd pick it up here, my comics history/fashion ramble blog. I'd been wondering this exact same thing recently, and Google initially wasn't much help—Rocketeer replica jackets describe themselves only as "Rocketeer jackets" and the one Lobster Johnson cosplay thread just suggested ordering one of those.

The most curious part is the double seam and horizonal row of buttons that mark out the entire front as possibly being an unbuttonable "bib", like a plastron front. (Please don't ask how late in the game I worked out that "plastron" is the right word for that.)

The closest genuine Golden Age example of a plastron jacket I found was the military tunic style uniform of Blackhawk, created in 1941.

(Pics from the '52 movie serial (right) really show how awkward it is to combine open lapels + plastron. On a double breasted coat, that chest panel IS the bottom lapel, folded shut.)

Here's the thing: This outfit mirrors that of the Nazi ace pilot he fights in the origin issue, von Tepp (middle). And compare further to the far right: real life WWI flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, AKA the Red Baron, in imperial German Uhlan (lance cavalry) uniform.

"The Germans had designed such great costumes, we decided to use them ourselves," co-creator Cuidera is quoted as saying in Steranko's History of Comics, which (more dubiously, in my opinion) compares the look to the Gestapo or SS. Breeches or jodhpurs weren't strictly a Nazi thing at the time, but they do add to the overall effect.

Compare two other military tunic themed costumes from 1940, on Captain Marvel and Bucky Barnes. These are asymmetrically buttoned, and switch to a more classic circus strongman look below the waist.

But somewhere around 1975, with the Invaders book, Bucky gets a buttoned bib! There's something infectious about it—the symmetry, maybe. (Even re: the characters we started with; Mignola didn't draw Lobster Johnson with buttons down the right side, but every artist after does. And Spider-Noir wore a sweater under his coat until Shattered Dimensions introduced the double-breasted vest.)

If it didn't reach his belt, Barnes' button-on front + shirt collar combo would resemble a bib-front western shirt, like the one that became the Rawhide Kid's signature look in '56. (Or Texas Twister's in '76.)

This shirt entered the old-West-obsessed public imagination in the 1940s/50s largely because John Wayne wore it in several cowboy movies. In reality it was rare among cowboys, more common with firefighters and civil war era militia.

Military tunics, Western shirts, alright, but does anything match the style and material and era, or are these jackets a total anachronism? I tried looking into 1930s leather flight jackets and was surprised when the closest-looking results were marked as Luftwaffe.

It took me a bit to work out why: USAF and RAF issued standard flight jackets with a center closure. The Luftwaffe instead let their pilots buy non-standardized ones. The 'weird' double-breasted black German flight jackets were in fact fairly normal (but repurposed) motorcycle racing jackets.

Far left is an English biker's jacket that dates back to the 1920s. Even without the bib, this may be as close as you'll get to an authentic Rocketeer. The jodhpurs were pretty common to complete the look. (What was an early motorcycle anyways, if not a weird metal horse?) The first biker jacket with the now iconic off-center diagonal zip was designed in America in 1928 and yet as far as I can tell, not a single actual pre-war pulp hero wore one.

The greatest weakness of this post is that I haven't been able to find any of these artists' notes on how, exactly, they arrived at similar versions of this iconic Pulp Front Panel Jacket. I'm sure I've missed some things. But as far as I can tell, this jacket is an odd bit of convergent stylistic evolution from the above influences that's picked up enough momentum to now be self-perpetuating.

The problem with pulp heroes is that for the most part, they just wore clothes. The appeal of this jacket is actually very similar to what the 1940s thought the appeal of the bib-front shirt in westerns was: It's alien enough to feel "old". It looks like something invented before zippers or synthetic fabrics. It looks formal and militant but also renegade, rebellious. It also looks a little mad-sciencey*. It's a costume, but you can nearly fool yourself into thinking the past was weird enough that you could find something this cool on the rack.

If I wanted to end on some grand point, I could try to argue that there's a thematic throughline between fascist fashion, John Wayne movies, and throwback pulp. A manufactured aesthetic valorizing the violence of a fictional golden age... but I think the noir stylings of the post-Rocketeer comics in this lineup mean that, at least on some level, they know the "good guys" didn't dress like this.

*If I had another couple weeks of time to burn, I'd try to trace the visual history of the Howie coat in popular culture and investigate its possible connections to this. Alas, I do actually have a life.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Prompt: Vampire Chris drunk on blood?

CW: Drunkenness, drug addiction, blood drinking, vampirism, creepy abusive comfort, WWI-period-appropriate xenophobia and brief vague possible homophobia reference, dehumanization, war whump

"Now, that'll get you blotto faster'n French liquor," Kirk says, sinking back against the muddy trench wall, careless for the dirt caking itself into the hair at the nape of his neck.

His helmet lay beside him upside down on the ground, and his brown hair was free to explode in its wealth of curls, a kind of halo around his head. He had one arm out, sleeve rolled back. His hands were caked in mud and smeared with drying dirt - above the line of his sleeve, though, the skin was paper-white, almost clammy.

It was this white skin that the vampire's fangs were buried in.

"Shit, Holden, y'gotta have 'im bite you, too." Kirk's grin widens. The shells had gone silent but every man flinches, now and then, hearing a phantom sound or feeling a rumble beneath their feet.

At least it's finally stopped goddamn raining.

The venom rolls through Kirk's veins, soothing his jangled nerves. He can barely feel the trembling in his hands and it feels like his mind, when it's in him. He's a farm kid from western Nebraska, the second son and not needed so much as the first to bring the crops in. So here he is, learning to love the feeling of teeth in his skin.

Maybe when he gets shipped back home he'll stick to the cities. They say the vampires have their dens there, where they can hide. You can buy venom enough to quiet your mind for a day or two, the city boys tell him.

They're in it as deep as he is, now.

Feels like half the American army is itching for venom these days.

"No thank you. I'm not gonna get sent home and start chasing fangs like the rest of you." Holden squints, looking up into the dark sky, the rolling clouds that seem far too close to the ground. "It'll rain again soon."

"When isn't it going to rain again soon? Oh, right, when it's already bloody raining." That's a Brit, they just call him Tommy. No one knows his real name.

He claims to hate them all, but since half his unit was blasted apart two days ago, he's hung with the 'Yanks' close enough. Kirk thinks he's fond of them, even if he won't admit it. Or just scared to be alone. He can understand that. He's terrified of the thought himself. "Shove the little vamp over to me, Kirk, I want some."

The vampire pulls his fangs free, licking over the wounds he's made until they close. He's a skinny little thing, pale as paper with bright red hair they stuff under his helmet when he's running medic checks in No Man's Land, trying to make him less obvious. Sure, he can't die from gas, but he can be blown to bits by a whizz-bang fast as any living soldier can.

"Please," The vampire says, turning big green eyes up to Kirk. "I, I, I'm tired, please, can I sleep?"

He's got heavy dark circles under his eyes. It's kind of cute.

"No," Kirk answers, curt, shoving the vampire away by his head, watching him fall into the mud. His uniform is marked with it, now, a dab of dirt over the 'V' sewn next to his medic's cross. There's a satisfaction, in Kirk, just in seeing the little thing laid low.

He won't die in this war, and Kirk probably will, but before that happens he can at least hurt something he can see. You can't see old Fritz when you fire on him from a distance - but you can see a vampire flinch in the dirt. It's not much.

It's something.

"Must be daytime," Holden speaks up, still staring up at the clouds. "You can't tell, weather like this, but if the fangs're tryin' to sleep, must be day."

"He sleeps when we're done with him, and not a moment before." Kirk's voice is a murmur, eyes half-closed. He's drifting in it, the way the venom dulls and deadens the eternal ache in his back and legs. The Germans could come roaring over the bags right this second and Kirk wouldn't give a damn at all. Let them kill him, at least he can go with venom in his veins, not as a basket case carried off the field. "Not a second before. Go on, bloodsucker. Get over to Tommy and help him get some shut-eye, huh?"

"I've been drinking all night, pulled some rations off someone," Tommy groans, rubbing his fingers at his temples. "It's done no good at all." It's a funny little gesture, so oddly normal and casual. Reminds Kirk of home.

His throat tries to close, homesickness bowling him over. The wish to return to his mother's worn smile, sit down to dinner and have her ask him about his day, when his problems revolved around the harvest and the hard backs of the pews in church-

He takes a breath, forcing it back, and gives the vampire a vicious kick in the ribs, listening to his high-pitched cry and how he curls around himself with a smile of his own.

Oh, he'll die, probably. The others from his town already have. But he can remind himself he's still alive, for now. One way or another. He can cause pain he can't feel himself, for once.

"I said get over to Tommy and smooth out his sharp bits, bloodfuck."

"Yes, um, y-yes, Kirk," The vampire says, pulling himself onto his hands and knees. His fingers are smashed into the mud deep enough to nearly disappear. If they could only get a few days of sunlight to dry out all this dirt, it wouldn't be such hell.

As it is, his socks've been damp for weeks, his boots feel like they're caging his feet in a swamp. He's worried about trenchfoot and trying not to think about it. He stole these boots off a dead German when his own started to fall apart, anyway.

He could've probably gotten new ones, but... it had felt good, taking something from Fritz after Fritz took so much from him.

Kirk tries not to remember that the German soldiers he fights have never caused him a single moment's harm on purpose. They're only fighting for the same reasons he is - because someone higher up who doesn't give a damn about them said to.

Kirk had been all gung-ho for the war until he'd been sent over here to fight it. All those articles in the newspapers, all the speeches given by men standing in town squares... it had all made it seem so patriotic.

They never tell you, Kirk thinks bitterly, that you'll be sent into a slaughterhouse. They don't tell you you'll spend your day breaking a vampire's fingers one by one just to watch them heal back into place and listen to his little cries.

Just to pass the time.

"Trade me your flask while the fangs takes care of you," Kirk says, and Tommy hands it over easy enough.

He watches Tommy grab the vampire by one arm and yank him over, vicious and violent, making the vampire boy cry out again. The sound is starting to grate on Kirk's nerves. It makes him sound too human. He hates being reminded that every vampire used to be a person.

He drinks whatever's in the Brit's flask, and it burns down his throat just the way he needs it to. Wipes out his worries, relaxes shoulders that seem always to be tensed up nearly to his chin.

His mama's a teetotaler, back in Nebraska. He'd been one, too, until the first bombardment. Now he drinks anything he could get his hands on, and the officers mostly looked the other way.

"Bite," Tommy orders. Kirk raises his eyebrows when Tommy doesn't roll up his sleeve but pushes the vampire's face instead towards his neck, turning his head to the side to bare it.

His eyes meet Kirk's, and he smiles, bitterly. "Works faster this way," He explains. Kirk just watches as the vampire's fangs glint in the eternal dim twilight, hesitating before they bury themselves in Tommy's skin.

The little monster's back arches, pressing them chest-to-chest. A low rumble comes from somewhere deep inside, the animal sound the vampire makes during a good feed. He doesn't do it much with the regular unit any longer, they mocked him for it and one day he stopped.

The vampire's throat works as he drinks, and Tommy's arm slides around the monster's thin shoulders, forcing him closer. He's nearly kissing his forehead, this way.

It's an embrace, and altogether more intimate of one than Kirk thought he'd ever see from the cold, standoffish Brit. He feels a blush creeping up his neck and his cheeks as Tommy lets his head fall back, groaning softly in a kind of contentment as the venom hits. The sound isn't quite like a groan at all, it's more like-

"Fucking hell, Tommy, are you an invert?"

"Invert suggests I give a damn what bites me," Tommy replies, without opening his eyes. His slurred speech deepens, goes slow. His hand curves around the vampire's shoulder, holding him tightly. "I'm after oblivion, lads. I don't care what parts the fangs have that give it to me."

"Fang-chaser," Holden says, good-naturedly. Clearly not bothered the way Kirk is. Maybe that's just his farmboy past talking, that he's even unsettled at all. Maybe Tommy's got a point - who cares what's between a vampire's legs if you're only interested in the damn thing's mouth in the first place? "Fucking fang-chaser, that's what you are. End up in a den getting your hips bit like Oscar Wilde."

"Who's Oscar Wilde?"

Holden laughs. "You should try reading a book or three sometime, Kirk."

"Sure, sure, whenever I get the damn time in-between running over this blasted nothing. In any case, Tommy's definitely a fang-chaser."

"Guilty as charged... just like you two." Tommy's hand slides up into the vampire's hair, gripping tight and gently pulling backwards. The vampire's fangs slide free, and it laps at the wounds, rapidly. Tommy groans again. Kirk finds himself unable to look away at the bob of Tommy's throat. How good does it feel, in the neck? He's never thought to try it. He thinks about it now. "Turn me in to face discipline for unnatural relations with the fangs and I'll do the same to you."

"Yeah, yeah, we got it. Fucking Limey bastard." There's no real animosity in Kirk's voice. He's too distracted, drunkenly considering the vampire boy's mouth. Wondering if he knows how to kiss. "You shared your liquor, I shared our bloodsucker, we're both of us in it to our necks."

"Not me," Holden says, innocent and pure as the driven snow. As if he weren't the one to give Kirk the idea to use the venom in the first place.

Kirk throws a clot of mud at him, which he dodges, laughing. They're all laughing, soon enough, except for the fangs.

The vampire lays there, his head pressed to Tommy's chest and forcibly held in place by his arm. His eyes are slightly wide, unfocused, and Kirk leans forward.

"What's this, then? What'd you do to the fangs, Tommy?"

"Hm? Nothing. Oh, I'm pissed as can be, do they feel the liquor in your blood?"

"I'm guessing they sure do. You drunk, fangs?"

The vampire's eyes drift over to Kirk, move too far to one side, come back again. He swallows, thickly. "I... I think I, I, I am," He says, and tries to push back against Tommy's chest, to free himself.

The Brit's arm crushes him back into place, his other hand moving up to run through the vampire boy's dirt red hair, petting him like one of the ambulance dogs. Kirk and Holden laugh at the vampire's weakness. "Stay right where you are," Tommy murmurs. "Or I'll run you through with my bayonet and let you squirm all day."

"Christ," Kirk says, blinking. "That's a bit rough, isn't it?"

"He's not alive, what does it matter?" Tommy lets out a bitter little laugh. "Might as well get a preview of our own ends, shouldn't we?"

"You two, maybe." Holden crawls into the dugout, the little bed-space, a kind of cave dug in underneath the upper layers of the trench. He lays down on his back, closing his eyes, hands behind his head. "I'm going to go back home and never think of you lot ever again."

"I pray every night to make it home," Kirk says, nodding along. "Not sure anyone's listening, but I got to try, don't I?"

"What happens to the fangs, anyway?" The Brit looks up, rocking a little back and forth. As if the bloodsucker were a baby needing soothing. The vampire boy has relaxed against him, the liquor-laced blood he drank lulling him into a complacent bonelessness. Kirk watches the vampire boy's fingers start to tap over the Brit's chest, a strange movement he's seen the boy do before in his few relaxed moments between the scream of the shells. He hums, low in his throat, tuneless.

"Huh?" Kirk blinks. "What d'you mean, what happens to him?"

"After the war's done. What are they gonna do with the bloodsuckers? Can't exactly pin a bloody ribbon for valor on them and send them on their way, now can they?"

"Nope. I don't know what happens. Maybe they'll just stake them all and have done with them."

The vampire shudders, giving a little whimper. Tommy leans down, lips moving against the vampire's hair. "Ssssshhhh. Not to worry, little fangs. War's not over just yet, now is it?"

"N-... no. Not, not, not, not yet." The vampire's eyes close, pink-tinged tears creating pale tracks in his dirty face. He's a sad drunk, then, Kirk figures.

Aren't they all, these days.

"Maybe you'll outlive us all, and make fools of us for keeping you." Tommy speaks with a patronizing affection, as mocking as it is tender, petting through the creature's hair still. It's... unsettling to watch. Kirk had figured the Brits and French probably killed all their vamps, since they were all disturbed by the sight of the vampire medics when the doughboys first arrived in Europe.

This, though... this makes it seem like Tommy's known a vampire or two himself, in his life. And he's sure as fuck not unfamiliar to what venom is good for outside of giving relief from agony to the injured.

Kirk frowns, thoughtful.

He's turned into a thoughtful drunk, too, thanks to this goddamn war. Sad and thoughtful. What a fucking waste.

"Sleep," Tommy says, almost gently, to the drunk little vampire. "I've got you. Sleep, little one."

The vampire's eyes slip closed. He doesn't breathe - there's no sense of his chest rising and falling. Kirk has to look away before the sense of wrongness, watching Tommy cuddle a corpse, makes him sick.

He takes a long, long draught from the flask, and relishes the burn that reminds him he's human, and alive.

His own eyes slip shut, and he prays for an hour or two of sleep before the next screaming shell bursts overhead.

-

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @pretty-face-breaker @endless-whump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump

[wigwurq]

WIG REVIEW: WONDER WOMAN 1984

You guys! Now that the holidaze are over, I finally got around to watching the #1 most hated movie of the holiday season: Wonder Woman 1984! People have so many opinions about this movie AND NOW I DO TOO! I even have some thoughts on the wigs! Let’s discuss.

We begin in Themyscira, land of Amazons, fishtail braidology, Robin Wright, NO EFFING MEN, and also this weird Amazon gladiator gauntlet that is mainly brought to you by lots of computers. Baby Gal Gadot (nee Wonder Woman) is allowed to compete in this CGI decathalon despite being 1/3 the size and age of the other competitors and almost wins the damn thing but Auntie Robin Wright disqualifies her for trying to cheat to win. About 4 hours later, toward the end of this movie, Wonder Woman also tries to “cheat” at something so this is kinda sorta foreshadowing if you believe that the writers of this screenplay even had that forethought! 

Moving ahead to 1984, this movie just gets SO 1984. Or really “1984″ in the Stranger Things sense, in that they even used the damn mall that that show takes place in and some dumb criminals steal some jewelry and Wonder Woman saves the day and also comically saves some kids who could have been hurt. I am still bitterly injured by Gal Gadot’s wig, which is not so bent and tangled as the first Wonder Woman movie. Still, the general texture and quality leave something to be desired AS DOES THIS WHOLE MOVIE BUT I AM GETTING AHEAD OF MYSELF!! Anyway, other than foiling crimes at malls, Gal Gadot mainly lives a sad single life in DC where she pines away for Chris Pine in her fabulous apartment, surrounded by an astonishing amount of photographs of her late boyfriend, given the fact that the pictures she has of him are from the 1910s when not everyone had a damn photo printer. Absent of course, is the photograph of her and her ragtag WWI buddies which is delivered to her at the end of the first Wonder Woman movie in the present day and therefore hasn’t happened yet and here begins and ends all logic in this movie. 

Anyway! Gal Gadot works with Kristen Wiig, who does her fabulously awkward Kirsten Wiig thing as a nerdy scientist who is largely overlooked by all of society and who wears upsetting culottes and oversized sweatshirts and drinks Bartles and Jaymes (THIS MOVIE MISSES NO OPPORTUNITIES TO #80s). Her wig, as all wigs worn by Kristen Wiig in movies, is a horrible mess of bad texture and general bentness. Also, together she and Gal Gadot are sifting through the jewelry stolen by those thieves at the mall and there is one particular giant crystal or whatever that seems to possess magical properties. Yes, like the Infinity Stones that came (and then kept coming!)  AND YES I REALIZE THAT THAT IS MCU AND THIS IS DC BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER: EVERY GODDAMNED SUPERHERO MOVIE IS SOMEHOW ABOUT HAUNTED JEWELRY.

Enter Pedro Pascal in the most outrageous 80s wig in honestly the most outrageous 80s role. He essentially plays Donald Trump - a start-up conning people out of money who is also a terrible dad and has terrible hair. I really wondered for much of this movie if this wig was supposed to be a wig, because it looks as fake and wig-like as Trump’s hair, but no - I think this is supposed to be real hair! Truly truly truly outrageous. Anyway, dude basically doesn’t want to work hard to get rich (again, much like Trump!) and instead wants to just wish his way into success via this dream crystal that Gal Gadot and Kristen Wiig have.

OH AND THEY ALREADY WISHED ON THE CRYSTAL! Kristen Wiig wishes to be like Gal Gadot (not realizing that she’s actually wishing to be Wonder Woman) and gets the most outrageous makeover into this bleached blonde nightmare. AND EVERYONE IS JUST LIKE WOW YOU’RE NOT WEARING CULOTTES ANYMORE I GUESS THIS IS NORMAL FOR YOU TO SUDDENLY LOOK THIS WAY AND FOR YOUR HAIR TO INEXPLICABLY BE INCHES LONGER IN THE COURSE OF AN AFTERNOON. Also! Although this bleached blonde wig is maybe an upgrade from her mousy wig from before, that really means nothing as both wigs are garbage.

Gal Gadot’s wish, of course, was for her ain’ true love, Chris Pine, to come back. AND THEN HE DOES! SORTA! Despite being definitely exploded in a plane in 1918 (in the first movie - spoiler?), he just kinda walks into this fancy party like “hey what’s up?” OH EXCEPT FOR ONE SMALL THING.

HE LOOKS LIKE THIS DUDE TO EVERYONE ELSE EXCEPT GAL GADOT. Ok? I guess because Chris Pine’s actual physical body was destroyed in 1918, he has to inhabit the body of this random man credited only as ‘Handsome Man’ in 1984 which really begs the question - what then happens to this handsome dude while Chris Pine shapeshifts into him and does anyone care? ALSO! Plot-wise, this is just the tip of the iceberg in crystal wishes - basically everyone on earth gets a wish before film’s end and all are fulfilled no matter how ludicrous - and yet no other wish seem to have these sort of strings attached EXCEPT FOR WONDER WOMAN! WHY DOES ONLY WONDER WOMAN GET THE PET SEMATARY OF WISHES?!?!?!

Anyway! Lucky for us all, ‘Handsome Man’ has the most 80s closet ever! As we all know, movies set in the 80s are contractually obligated to provide us with a very 80s fashion montage and this one is ALL ABOUT CHRIS PINE. Somehow, ‘Handsome Man’ owns like 10 different fanny packs?!?! Every single 80s menswear disaster is covered here at least three times you guys.

About 3 hours later, he settles on this outfit! Mazel!  I’d like to pause this review to now give my definitive breakdown of CHRIS rankings (limited only to the 4 young-ish, blonde-ish Chris actors who appear in superhero movies) so that I might now abbreviate Chris Pine to #2 Chris WHICH HE IS. Ahem:

- BEST CHRIS is obviously CHRIS EVANS. This is because he gets into Twitter wars with racists, he offered his arm of support to Regina King when she stumbled getting her Oscar, and he wears the shit out of a sweater. There are many other reasons also but no other Chris can compare - HE IS BEST CHRIS.

- WORST CHRIS is obviously CHRIS PRATT. This is because he is super Jesusy evangelical and also anti-LGBTQ and married a Schwarzenegger (tho Arnold wishes he was Evans too!). There are many other reasons why but those are the most important reasons. WORST CHRIS.

- #2 CHRIS is a constant battle between CHRIS HEMSWORTH AND CHRIS PINE. Hemsworth is very funny in the lady Ghostbusters, was once on Dancing With The Stars in Australia, and can really commit to a fatsuit. Pine is great at singing on a Wet Hot American Summer roof OR a river, loves caftans, and is loved by the one and only Wonder Woman. It’s an infinity tie between these two and therefore #2 Chris is in the eye of the beholder during whatever you are beholding, and currently we’re beholding Pine. #2 CHRIS! 

Yes, this lengthy roundup was definitely worth it so that I can abbreviate Chris Pine to #2 Chris now. Moving on!

So Gal Gadot and #2 Chris walk through a very 80s DC while #2 Chris’s mind gets blown by all the stuff that is different in the 70s years he’s been dead. No 80s movie would be complete without of course covering PUNKS!!! This is where this movie definitely lost my husband because one of these punks is wearing a Cro-Mags shirt from an album THAT CAME OUT IN 1986. This offends me, also, not because I care about that band but because this is lazy costuming! Apparently, my husband was not the only one to notice this and become deeply offended - and Cro-Mags cofounder even chimed in to say that this is all ok because they released a demo for the ‘86 album in 1984 (AND WE ALL KNOW EVERYONE DEFINITELY MAKES SHIRTS BASED ON DEMO ALBUMS?) I still find this lazy and stupid costuming and remain annoyed! ANYWAY!

Back to the “plot”...Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal’s confederacy of bad wigs kinda sorta hook up at this dumb party so that Pedro Pascal can steal that very important wishing crystal! AND THEN HE WISHES ON THE CRYSTAL THAT HE CAN BE THE CRYSTAL. Haunted jewelry plots have never been so dumb as this you guys! AND ALL OF THE INFINITY STONES MOVIES WERE INFINITELY STUPID SO THIS IS REALLY SAYING SOMETHING.

So basically, after 70 years apart, Gal Gadot and #2 Chris have no more time to waste on fanny pack fashion shows or questionable metro punks and have to follow Pedro Pascal to Egypt, where he has gone to demand some oil from Egypt now that he is the physical manifestation of a wishing crystal. In order to get to Egypt themselves, Gal and #2 Chris steal a plane from the Smithsonian (which apparently just has some jets laying around some random tarmac) and then Gal WISHES THE JET INTO BEING INVISIBLE! This is obviously to fuel Wonder Woman invisible jet nostalgia and also to waste about 45 minutes on shots of them invisibly flying through fireworks. BECAUSE IT’S THE 4TH OF JULY WAIT HOW DID THEY VISIT ANY MUSEUMS OR DO ANYTHING ON A NATIONAL HOLIDAY EARLIER THAT DAY OH RIGHT THERE IS NO LOGIC IN THIS MOVIE. Over in Egypt, the wishing crystal Pedro Pascal hisself somehow creates a water shortage and refugee crisis in Egypt and Gal has to Wonder Woman some kids to safety, but mainly she wears this amazing jumpsuit and is able to find a working payphone to call Kristen Wiig and ask if she has any intel on that damn wishing crystal.

Kristen Wiig is somehow EVEN MORE BLONDE AND WEARING THIS DAMN COAT. I mean...you guys. WHAT. Like any good 80s thriller, Kristen Wiig researched the wishing crystal on microfiche which leads her to a random record store where she meets up with Gal and #2 Chris who I guess flew the invisijet back to DC from Egypt in a few minutes or something. Anyway, rando dude at the record store takes out some musty old book that has all the wishing crystal information everyone needed and basically warns that it can destroy society AND ALSO it can take things away from the wisher like a damn monkey’s paw. SPEAKING OF MONKEYS THAT COAT THE END.

But Kristen Wiig’s makeover is far from over! She finally appears as Cheetah herself at the damn White House, where the wishing crystal Pedro Pascal is asking a fake Ronald Reagan (?) if he can please satellite everyone on the earth so he can grow stronger as a crystal person OR SOMETHING? Anyway, Kristen’s lewk is very ���punk” but not in a Cro-Mag way, but more in a Meryl Streep in Ricki and the Flash way? It’s a battle of not great wigs, at any rate. Kristen doesn’t want anyone harming her wishing crystal Pedro since that’s what made her Cheetah so there is this huge dumb fight where Pedro and Kristen just kinda glide away (not unlike actual Trump and his idiots last week and omg did this movie foretell that) and then Gal realizes that she has to denounce her wish because the monkey paw’s clause of it all is making her not powerful enough to fight anymore. So #2 Chris is like: I should just be dead anyway and my whole existence is very Pet Sematary and everyone kind of cries in an alley and #2 Chris dies again (?) Also! I think this is supposed to have been foretold by that earlier scene with baby Gal Gadot trying to cheat at that decathalon or whatever because you can’t cheat....death??? Regardless, Gal jumps into the sky and somehow is ABLE TO FLY BASED ON AERODYNAMIC FACTS #2 CHRIS GAVE HER WHILE FLYING AN INVISIJET? SURE!

Over in another plane, Pedro and Kristen are on their way to some satellite island to broadcast to the world about crystal wishes and dude is not looking so great because wishing that you are a crystal is a terrible idea. This is the point at which I realized that this wig was supposed to be real hair because it looks so sweaty and shitty but has consistently looked like a shitty wig through this entire “plot.” Anyway! He asks Kristen Wiig if she wants another wish which....huh? Somehow Gal Gadot’s wish ended up a Pet Sematary nightmare of possessed handsome man bodies that she had to renounce but Kristen Wiig gets two wishes? SURE! AND KRISTEN WIIG WISHES THAT SHE BECOME THE “ULTIMATE PREDATOR” WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS MOVIE Y’ALL.

APPARENTLY THIS IS WHAT AN ULTIMATE PREDATOR LOOKS LIKE?!?!?! YOU GUYS. In order to literally become a Cheetah, they gave Kristen Wiig a CGI body and....kabuki makeup? This lewk absolutely looks like a mashup between two dueling community theater productions of Cats and Pacific Overtures and I can’t stop laughing. 

Meanwhile, Gal finally gets to rock this lewk which was earlier described as the battle armor of the goddess, Asteria, who was the one chick NOT invited to  Themyscira for Amazonian fishtail braidology times, and had to stay behind to FIGHT EVERY MAN ON EARTH but did get this sweet armor out of it?!?! Regardless, despite withstanding all men ever, Cheetah somehow effs up this armor in a matter of seconds, but Gal is still able to defeat her through underwater electrocution (which somehow avoids Gal herself even though SHE’S WEARING AN ENTIRE SUIT OF METAL). 

Anyway, in the end, the entire world is on the brink of collapse and eveyone is looking at old dumb 80s tv screens because of all the dumb wishes everyone made and I guess I appreciate the fact that this entire movie is about dumb 80s wish fulfillment but also there are so many plotholes that I can’t even, you guys. Gal somehow lassoes Pedro Pascal into remembering his shitty dad and realizes that he is now a shitty dad and everyone somehow renounces their wishes and Pedor Pascal just kind of WALKS OFF AN ISLAND INTO THE DEBRIS OF DC AND FINDS HIS CHILD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD?!?!?!?! It’s really annoying that this movie somehow rewards this shitty dad but also doesn’t let a woman (specifically WONDER WOMAN) have both a love life and her own damn job and I’m not alone in being annoyed by that. ANYWAY, days or weeks after the entire world almost ended, there is somehow a cute Christmas carnival that was definitely a stolen set from Dolly Parton’s Christmas in the Square where Gal Gadot is reunited with ‘Handsome Man’ who has no knowledge of previously being possessed by #2 Chris and is still rocking ALL THIS 80s FASHION and then a star shaped balloon is released into the sky and I wonder if this entire movie has been a Macy’s ad. 

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! In a mid-credits scene which is also maybe the only watchable part of this movie, the goddess Asteria (and OG owner of that gold body armor) is revealed to be alive and well and played by OG Wonder Woman, LYNDA EFFING CARTER!! She is definitely an actual goddess who never ages and whose hair is way better than any wigs on display at any point in this movie and is also the only part of the movie you should watch. THE END.

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

[calleo-bricriu]

A couple of months ago, one of my aunts replied to a text where I mentioned tarot and runes by telling me of course I was innately good at it because everyone on that side of the family is.

I mostly dismissed it as she’s a little...off to begin with, and then vaguely started to recall a particular relative of mine who died when I was about 5, that some people might know the name of if they’ve ever read or watched anything around the topic of Hitler & the Occult.

So this guy right here is a relative of mine on my dad’s side.

https://www.astro.com/astrowiki/de/Wilhelm_Wulff That particular site is in German but the auto-translation in Chrome is decent.

He’s best known for a combination of being the author of Zodiac & the Swastika ( http://www.skyscript.co.uk/wulff1.html ), which you should definitely read because it’s both interesting and the guy’s train of thought derails as often as mine does, but always circles back to why the rambling side quest he took you on was, in fact, entirely related to the thing he’d started saying.

Even in the first chapter, after a brief intro, he launches into, “This is why Astrologers in the past were wrong, because they couldn’t manage to extrapolate data correctly, so I’m going to thoroughly correct their mistakes 300 years later.” for awhile before getting back on track.

The guy took his dad’s offer of, “Get into business :)” and went with, “No thanks, I’d rather be an Astrologer and do art.” and did exactly that. One of the first things he predicted accurately was when and how his brother would be severely injured in WWI (did that in 1912) and was pretty spot on on everything throughout his career.

He wrote other books, mostly in the 1920s, but that one is the one he’s most known for.

He also did not enjoy the job he was forced into after a purge in 1941 in which his condition of release from a concentration camp for doing Astrology things (as that was illegal) was, “You work for us now and you get to go live at one of Himmler’s places.” He did most of his readings for Himmler and occasionally Hitler, but was required to do them just in general for high ranking SS officers largely because he was always alarmingly right about everything.

I think my favorite prediction he did, though, was one that was more, “So, I’m phrasing this like a rambling, mystical sounding ‘I saw the future’ and you’re stupid enough to believe it and what little joy I get out of this job is right here where I’m telling you a bunch of us are very literally going to try and kill the lot of you on or around this particular date in 1944.”

Toward the end of WWII he used to get badgered constantly for readings on how the war was going to continue going and if it was something that could be turned around and every time it was a variant of, “Nope. Catastrophic failure. :)” worded in less of a way that was likely to get him shot. The guy had Hitler’s death written down in a forecast just about to the correct exact time of day as well.

That book though, THAT BOOK...the thing he hated most after the war was that everyone just assumed he’d totally joined up willingly and that absolutely was not the case. He hated those people,and so much of the book is just either passive-aggressively or straight up aggressively throwing all of them under the bus about how dense they all were and how none of them, despite rumors to the contrary because that’s how propaganda works, actually believed in Astrology or Divination it was legitimately just a propaganda tool to make it seem like not only were they geniuses in general but they were also geniuses with ‘magic’ as well.

Seriously, look at this guy, he just looks like the exact sort of absolute nerd who would, in fact, decide he doesn’t want a normal job and have a successful 80+ long year career just doing divination and art. The pic on that wiki is so much nicer to see than what you see in any of the history books that include him as, in those, he’s always stuffed into an SS uniform and hanging around next to Himmler or Hitler.

Anyway, I ramble more about it here, and this one goes into the thing I got the ability to do apart from standard card and rune readings: http://occlumens.net/wtf If you don’t want to sit through my rambling train of thought, here’s the spoiler: I can accurately predict the day and time of death of family members within a couple of hours to the point that my parents have long since asked me to call them immediately if a relative ever shows up in my head to tell me a variant of, “Hey, I have to take off now, bye!” My dad and brother just have what they stubbornly insist is “good intuition” because they both think it’s weird af.