#just referring to charles' side of things and general hints towards it

[impidimp]

I keep seeing people say they want Edwin and Charles to stay just friends and like I would have been fine with that if they hadn't queercoded the hell out of Charles and their relationship

[heart-of-gold-outlaw]

Welcome Home | Chapter Ten: Still Breathing

Finally—finally—, the day comes to rescue Sean. You honestly don’t know what to expect. Most of the others in camp aren’t much help, referring to Sean with a roll of their eyes and something along the lines of: “half a mind to let the bounty hunters keep him.”

They should be saying that about Micah, you think to yourself as you watch Charles and Arthur saddle their horses. Maybe then Dutch’ll kick him out.

Still, Sean is a bit of a wildcard to you. You won’t figure out what he’s really like until you meet him, and until then, you decide to keep an open mind. Worst case scenario? He’s Micah’s long-lost brother. Best case scenario? He’s… well. Maybe it’s best not to think about all the things he could be. Keep yourself on your toes.

You sit on a tree stump while the boys get ready. Taima is an absolute beauty of a horse, and you can tell by the way Charles dotes on her that she’s got a good life. Briefly, thoughts of having a horse of your own cross your mind. That appaloosa gelding is probably still for sale in Valentine. Maybe if you can get enough money, you can buy him.

Arthur and Charles take their sweet time packing more than enough ammo, which means you quickly get bored. Every scratchy detail on the tree stump bothers you, too. Hopping to your feet, you decide to get some chores done. Everyone’s been so preoccupied with the big upcoming rescue, they’ve neglected some of the finer details in camp.

The ax is in its usual spot, surrounded by whole logs that need to be chopped. You grab ahold of the handle. It feels lighter than it used to, and you realize you’re getting stronger.

Goodbye noodle arms, you think as you bring the ax down on to the first log. You don’t quite split it, but it’s getting closer than ever. And hello Jack Lumber.

A few chops in, you feel the muscles in the back of your neck tense. Someone’s behind you, and you’re not quite sure who. But soon enough, a low, sinister chuckle reaches your ears. Micah.

“Well,” he says. “Looks like the camp nuisance is finally doing some work.”

You slowly count to three before turning around. Micah stands by you, a little too close for your liking, and he’s got a smirk on his face that twists your gut something awful. You’ve started wearing a gun belt, and the hand that isn’t holding the ax inadvertently twitches toward your revolver.

“You know something, Y/N?” He takes a step toward you. “I think you’re starting to wear out your welcome.”

Fire ignites in your chest. No. No. Micah doesn’t get to do this, try and make you second-guess yourself and your place in the gang—especially not after you’ve just started feeling comfortable.

“Back off, you useless mineral,” you hiss.

Micah’s lips curl into a snarl as he takes another step toward you. This one feels infinitely more threatening, and you barely keep yourself from taking a step back. You’ll be damned if Micah wins this fight.

“Take another step,” you warn, “and I’ll jump rope with your intestines.”

Honestly, you don’t really expect him to feel threatened, but the odd choice in words is enough to throw him off. You can see him trying to process everything you said, which gives you enough time to throw the ax down and skedaddle.

Your heart thuds frantically in your chest as you hurry to Arthur and Charles. Micah won’t try anything if you’re with them; that much, you know for sure.

“We ready to go?” You ask as nonchalantly as you can. “If I chop one more piece of wood, I’ll have to start wearing flannel.”

Charles looks confused at “flannel,” but Arthur frowns as he glances over at the chopping block. His expression hardens when he sees Micah storming away.

“Micah giving you trouble?” He asks, a hint of something dangerous in his voice.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” You go to lean against the hitching post, miss, and almost topple over. Face burning, you settle for folding your arms over your chest.

Arthur and Charles exchange looks.

“If he tries anything,” Charles tells you, calm and steady, “let us know. We’ll take care of it.”

We’ll take care of it. How a statement so simple and so general can sound that dangerous, you’ll never know. You wordlessly nod, not knowing how to respond.

Charles leaves, then, to go saddle Taima. You look to Arthur, ready to follow him to Florence, who’s already tacked up and ready. But he doesn’t move.

“Micah been buggin’ you a lot?”

You shake your head. “Not really. I mean, he gave me a hard time when I was cleaning up Pearson’s wagon a while ago, but Hosea scared him off.”

Arthur turns to look at you. “And today?”

“Oh.” You think back to the confrontation. “Well, he called me the ‘camp nuisance’ and said I was starting to wear out my welcome.”

A glint of fury flashes through Arthur’s eyes as he throws a glare in Micah’s general direction. You shiver involuntarily. Thank goodness you’re not on a certain cowboy’s bad side.

“I’ve been called worse, to be honest,” you say with a shrug, and smile slightly when Arthur looks at you again. “I’m kinda used to it.”

He gives you a troubled frown instead of sharing your nonchalance. Confused, you feel your smile waver a little.

“What?” You ask.

“You…” Arthur begins, trails off, then continues: “You know it ain’t true, right?”

“What isn’t?”

“The part about being a nuisance. You ain’t wearing out your welcome, either.”

Something pulls at your heart, something strong, and you’re suddenly at a loss for words. You’ve had so many doors slammed in your face, so many people come and go, never staying, never even wanting to stay… And you couldn’t do anything but watch them leave.

“Oh,” is all you manage around a tight throat.

Arthur looks at you some more. His eyes are soft now, soft and full of what you think is understanding. He reaches out, maybe to put a hand on your shoulder, but apparently thinks better of it and instead motions for you to follow him. You trail a little behind as he walks toward Florence. You ain’t wearing out your welcome, either. Did… did Arthur really mean that? Does that mean the rest of the gang, minus Micah, feels the same way? You can’t help but shake your head in wonder. You don’t think you’ll ever understand these people.

Once you catch up, Arthur easily swings himself on top of Florence, then hauls you into the saddle behind him. You’re starting to get used to horseback. Florence may be absolutely massive, but you don’t feel so unsteady anymore. In fact, you might actually like riding.

“We’re meeting up with Javier just outside of Blackwater,” Charles says as he brings Taima over. “Trelawney thinks the bounty hunters will bring Sean upriver.”

Arthur nods and sets a steady trot out of camp. “Good. We can probably cut ‘em off when they reach the border. I think there’s a canyon that’ll give us some decent cover.”

“Any luck, we’ll take them by surprise.” Charles urges Taima into a canter, which Florence matches. “How many do you think there’ll be?”

“For Sean?” Arthur laughs, and you try not to look too enamored. “Any pair of fools could handle him. But there’ll be a lot of ‘em, no doubt.”

Charles hums in thought, but doesn’t say anything else. Much of the ride passes in comfortable silence. Although you want to focus on admiring the scenery and marvel at the lack of, well, everything, you find yourself thinking about the upcoming fight. You may not know a lot about the past, but you’ve seen enough Westerns to know bounty hunters always put up a hell of a fight. That, and they always keep coming right when you think you’ve killed them all.

Your revolver suddenly feels heavy in its holster. You bite your lip, a little unsure. Yes, you’ve used it once at Six Point Cabin, and yes, you’ve managed to hit a few bottles, but those were honestly lucky shots. And neither of them were shooting back.

Bounty hunters, though? Different story. For as much bravado as you showed Dutch during his little tirade, you have to admit that you’re a little nervous. It’ll be your first real gunfight. You’ll have Arthur and Charles looking out for you, but you can’t help the anxiety knotting deep in your gut.

If I die, I die, you think. No going back now.

///

Conversation lags for the remainder of the ride. Eventually, after crossing a small river, you’re in what Arthur tells you is West Elizabeth. It looks… well, it looks like a perfect snapshot of a history textbook. Rolling hills and open land, bison… it’s absolutely stunning.

Off in the distance, you see two people looking over the edge of a cliff. You recognize Javier, but you don’t recognize the other man, with his mustache and mischievous eyes. He smiles when he sees Arthur and Charles, then peers at you curiously.

“And who might this be?” He asks as Arthur dismounts, leaving you alone atop Florence.

Your brain goes into a blue screen of death, and before you know what you’re doing, you say: “My name is an enigma and holds all the secrets of the universe.”

“That would be Y/N,” Arthur says, exasperated. He helps you down and grabs his rifle from the saddle. “Y/N, this is Josiah Trelawney.”

Trelawney bows with a flourish. “At your service, my dear.”

You instantly decide you like him. Waving hello to Javier, you approach the edge of the cliff, crouching low like everyone else.

“Sean?” Arthur asks as he looks down the scope of his rifle.

“I think he’s in that boat over there.” Javier gestures to a small vessel upriver. “Think they’re docking to take him further inland.”

Arthur turns the scope, then gives a hum of confirmation. “That’s him alright. Giving those bounty hunters hell.”

Trelawney nods and rises before mounting his horse. Setting a slow walk, he motions for everyone to follow him. Arthur helps you on to Florence, and then you’re off once more.

“If we do this right,” Trelawney says, “we can cut them off. Remember: we’re just innocent folk out for a ride on the trail. Let’s not draw their attention just yet.”

The five of you ride toward a canyon. Ahead, you can see the boat docked at the shore, along with several well-armed, intimidating bounty hunters standing guard. They don’t look like they’re in much of a mood to negotiate. In fact, they look ready to shoot on sight.

Everyone takes cover around the bend. Trelawney, odd man that he is, seems more preoccupied with his coat than the problem at hand.

“Now ain’t the time for a fashion statement,” Arthur drawls.

“Au contraire, my dear fellow,” Trelawney says with a smile. “Bounty hunters are even more gullible than hillbillies. I have to look the part if I’m going to make the proper distraction.”

Then, before any of you can say a word otherwise, Trelawney strides confidently toward the bounty hunters. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you just know he’s spinning a tale bigger than the Grizzlies. He waves his arms in a grandiose gesture. In another situation, you would have mistaken it for part of the act. But now, along with Arthur, Charles, and Javier, you recognize it for what it is: a signal.

Arthur fires a quick shot, striking one of the bounty hunters between the eyes. From there, it’s chaos. All you can hear is the sound of gunfire and shouting. You take cover behind a rock, firing your revolver without really trying to hit anything. You don’t know if any of your bullets find their marks. Honestly? Probably not.

“Let’s push up on ‘em,” Arthur commands.

You stick close by him as you make your way up the canyon. The bounty hunters have regrouped by now, which lets them put up more of a fight. A bullet whizzes by your ear—too close for you to ignore—and you yelp and duck further into cover.

Arthur quickly lays down some cover fire, then hauls you up and pulls you behind a larger rock. You don’t even have time to tell him thank you. The firefight picks up again, bullets flying, ricocheting, sometimes hitting their targets, sometimes hitting the canyon walls. It takes nearly all your self-control to keep a level head.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Javier reloading his guns, but also just barely peeking out of cover. You look up the canyon trail. There, off in the distance, half-hidden by gun smoke and dust, you can just barely make out the silhouette of a bounty hunter—and he’s aiming right at Javier.

You steel yourself. You’re not some useless coward who needs to be protected. You’re a member of the Van Der Linde Gang—an outlaw. And one of your own is in danger.

Your anxiety flees, replaced by determination. Edging ever-so-slightly out of cover, you fire off a shot toward the bounty hunter, then duck back behind the boulder. A pained yell tells you that you hit your mark, and it’s followed by silence.

Javier looks at the fallen bounty hunter, then at you. He nods his head in thanks. Smiling, you tip your fingers in a mock-salute, then follow Arthur as he pushes further up the canyon.

It doesn’t take long for your little group to reach a clearing. Right away, you see someone dangling upside down from a tree. He’s also surrounded by vicious-looking men who you would honestly rather avoid.

Well,you think to yourself. That must be Sean.

The bounty hunters have been expecting you, and they fire several warning shots into the tree line. You duck behind the trunk of a massive pine. To your right, you see Arthur considering the situation, trying to figure out the best approach. On your left, Javier and Charles wait on a signal. You don’t know what happened to Trelawney, but you think he’s alright.

“If we can get around them,” Arthur eventually says, “we can come at them from all sides.”

Javier grins. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Charles gives him a look. “Only the fish can shoot back.”

Arthur nods, then looks back toward the clearing. “Someone’s gotta get to Sean quick as they can. I got a feeling he’s gonna be bait.”

“I’ll do it,” you tell him. “There’s enough cover behind that tree he’s tied up in. I’ll be fine.”

For a long, long moment, Arthur looks uncertain. But when you give him a pleading look, silently begging him to let you prove yourself, he sighs and folds the cards.

“Alright,” he agrees. “Wait until you got a clear opening, then go for it.”

Everyone heads off in opposite directions, leaving you to prepare yourself for the sprint of the century. One by one, the boys shoot the bounty hunters, hitting each with impeccable aim. Then, almost before you’re ready, you spy the perfect opportunity.

Making a beeline for Sean, you dive behind the tree just as the bullets start flying again. You sit there for a few seconds, catching your breath. You can’t believe you’re still alive. All that time in open space, and not a single scratch on you.

“It’s over!” You hear one of the bounty hunters shout.

He sounds dangerously close to you. Peeking around the tree, you see him standing not a foot away, pointing his rifle at Sean.

Shit.

You duck back into hiding before you’re spotted. This is exactly what you didn’twant to happen, and it happened anyway. Wracking your brain for ideas, you look around for anything that could be of use.

Think think think think think think—

There’s a corpse not too far from you, and you spy a knife on its belt. Moving purely on instinct and adrenaline, you snatch it from its sheath, turn back to the bounty hunter, and shove it through his throat right in the middle of his next sentence. He stays on his feet for maybe a second longer, then collapses.

You slowly back away from him. Dimly, you realize that the fire fight is over, that everyone else is okay, but you can’t bring yourself to focus on that. All you can do is stare at the body on the ground… the man you just killed.

“You alright there, friend?” Sean asks, still upside down.

“Uh,” your voice sounds far away to your own ears, “yeah. I’m fine.”

After that, you have maybe five seconds before your stomach lurches. Doubling over, you heave violently for a while before coughing, spitting out the taste in your mouth, and wiping your lips with the back of your hand.

“Hiya Sean. I’m Y/N.”

//

Accompanying Music: Still Breathing | Green Day

Ko-Fi

[formeandmyfics]

Jugenea Fan Fic

WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT

When the power goes out while filming a scene for Summer Stock, Judy and Gene use the extra time to get back into their old ways...

January 1950

MGM

“Oh, what the hell?!”

Charles Walters yelled as the entire soundstage went pitch black.  

“Cut!”

“What happened,” Judy’s distinctive voice asked surprised as she sat in a chair, opposite of a kneeling Gene, in the dressing room set of their current production Summer Stock.

“Blown fuse, I think,” Gene replied standing up.  

Visible sunlight light was scene from the cracks of the large steel doors of the soundstage, but that was it.

“Somebody get some damn flashlights, come on!”

“Charlie’s sounding more like Buzz B,” Joe Pasternak said as he walked near the couple, as Charles walked away.

“We have some lanterns and flash lights in the closet over there,” a lighting tech shouted.

“Where the fuck is the generator?!”

Again, Charles’ yell echoed from further away now. His cursing made Judy giggle. She’d known the man for years, and only counting on one hand, had she heard him say the F-word.

“Ooo, he is angry,” Joe replied.

“He was already having a bad day, this just twisted his last nut,” Gene said to his producer buddy.

“Excuse me,” Judy interrupted casually.

“Hey,” Gene said quickly grabbing her hand, “Where you going?”

“To my dressing room.”

“In the dark?”

“Yeeees, Gene,” she said sighing.

“Why?”

“Because I want to. We’re obviously not finishing the scene right now.”

“Well, do you want me to...”

She immediately cut him off, “I have an emergency lantern in there. I’m a big girl, I’ll be alright,” she simply said and walked off.  

“I think that’s a tell-tale sign of a lady who wants to be left alone, huh,” Joe said teasingly.  

“Yeah, but that’s not like her, not with me.”

Pasternak heard the serious tone in Gene’s voice and he placed a hand on his back, “You know how it’s been for her doing this. She’s just tired.”  

“Hey, Joe, come give me a hand with this,” a man said and he immediately walked over.

The woman was practically living with him at his apartment, now publicly and officially separated from Vince, so he watched her closely, as in a type of protection knowing how vulnerable she was doing this film after her mental and physical progress in Boston.  

She was getting a lot of rest, a full night’s sleep even, which made her late to work most of the time. Of course they all didn’t mind. And the times she didn’t show up, she was resting from anxiety. He knew what was what where she was concerned. And she was perfectly fine today. This was something else, and he had a feeling it had something to do with him.  

“Well, damn,” Kay Thompson said in her usual brass voice as she came through Judy’s on-set dressing room door, “When I came to say ‘hi’, I didn’t know I’d be walking into a game of Marco Polo.”  

Judy dimly smiled at her friend as she pounded a carton of cigarettes against her palm.

“Oh, good, they’re opening the stage door,” Kay said as she turned to shut the door, “Now I won’t have to worry about tripping over some damn wires on my way out.”

As Judy lit a cigarette, her small dressing room filled with the lanterns light, Kay sat down on the twin-sized day bed next to Judy’s make up vanity where she sat.

“When did the lights go out in Georgia?”

“Oh, not ten minutes ago.”

“It’s after 3. Have you not filmed anything yet?”

“Yes, finished the first part of our scene with Marge.”

“Then what are you wearing?”

“This is my costume,” Judy said with a giggle as she tugged on her blue robe.

“Oh,” Kay let out a chuckle, “Too bad that’s not all the time.”

“I know. It’s quite a bit more comfy this way.”

“And easy access.”

“For what,” Judy asked absent-minded as she offered Kay a cigarette which she shook her head at.

“For what,” Kay asked a bit shocked, “For a little in-between takes romp. It’s much easier to do than with all those layers and poofs and such from the other film’s costumes.”

Judy licked her lips as she pounded out her fresh cigarette which got Kay’s attention immediately, “Hey, if you’ve told me you were going to waste a perfectly good Marlboro, I would have taken it.”

“Then have one already,” Judy said offering her one which this time she took.

Kay lit it and crossed her legs, “You know, I’m surprised Gene isn’t in here right now, especially with the lights out and such. Might be fun,” she said wiggling her eyebrows.

Judy ignored her and checked the desk-clock on the corner of the table, “Gee, I hope they get things going, or at least dismiss us. I don’t want to sit here for the rest of the God-damn day.”

“You said it’s only been ten minutes, Judy,” the blonde stated calmly, exhaling the smoke. She knew the signs of when the star was getting irritated.

“Well, how long does it take to flip the breaker or turn on a generator?”

“What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean,” Judy said, looking at her almost offended and self-conscious at the same time.

Kay’s red lips turned upwards in a calming, but amusing smile, “What’s bothering you, and don’t say the freaking lights.”

When Judy gave her a sly glance before turning back to the mirror, Kay spoke up in true girl-friend fashion, “Fine, if you don’t want to tell me, I can take a hint. I’ll leave you be for now, but I’m sure this has something to do with Gene..”

She started to get up, but Judy quickly grabbed her arm sitting her back down with a plop.

“Jesus, why do you have to come in here and start talking about him like he’s still a secret lover. Everyone’s known about us since I came back from Boston.”

“Why is it bothering you so much?”

“Because he’s my boyfriend. We’re not how we used to be.”  

“So?”

“Soo,” Judy emphasized, “He doesn’t come in here and start tackling me in between scenes like you so candidly suggested.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, Kay,” Judy said in a dark tone, “Why don’t you go ask him?”

“Ooo,” Kay smiled, “Alright, so *that’s* what’s bothering you,” when she saw Judy give her a look that did not deny her statement, she leaned forward, “Alright, spill.”

Gene stood off the side of the breaker, holding his elbow as he bit impatiently on his thumb nail, softly swaying side-to-side, as the men failed in fixing the problem. After a second try, and another failed attempt, Gene held up his watch toward the light coming from the open sound stage door and checked his watch. He didn’t want to be there all day. He and Judy had dinner plans at the Derby with some friends.

“Hi there, legs,” Gene heard as Kay walked up behind him, a nickname she gave since seeing him do his Pirate ballet dance.

“Oh, hi there yourself,” he chuckled and gave her a peck on the lips, “What are you doing here, doll?”

“Came to play hide-and-go-seek in the dark, apparently.”

“Yeah, our power went out in the middle of a scene. Still no luck.”

“I see that.”  

“Judy’s in her dressing room, if you’re looking for her.”

“One step ahead of you, babe.”

Gene looked at her curious, “How’s she doing?”

“That’s a funny question.”

“Why?”

“Because you were just filming scene together. Not to mention, you two nearly live together. I should be asking you the same question.”

Gene shrugged, “I only asked because she’s been a little preoccupied from me lately. You know what I mean? I can’t put my finger on it, but I think it’s just what she’s going through with working her ass through this picture.”

When he saw the almost naughty expression on Kay’s face, her lips pressed together, looking down amused, he furrowed his eyebrows.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Kay...what do you know?”

“Come here,” she chuckled and they walked away from earshot.  

Gene crossed his arms and leaned his body forward a bit, all ears and she lowered her voice, “Let me ask you this. Are you still excited with Judy?”

“What do you mean,” off her knowing look he realized what she was referring to with ‘excited’ and he stepped back with an appalled expression, “Oh, Jesus, of course I am. Why the hell are you asking me that?”  

She put her hands up, and was about to speak, when he stopped, “What did she say to you? And if she said otherwise, then she’s a damn liar or a damn good actress in the sac.”  

“Gene, calm down,” she laughed.

“I’ve been with that girl since she was nineteen. I know her and her body, and let me tell you, she enjoys herself. So, whatever she said, she’s looking for damn attention.”

“Wow. Our manhood’s pride is a little sensitive right now.”

“I don’t even know why we’re discussing this. I’m done...”  

He went to walk but she stepped in front of him and put her hand up to his chest, “Would you just shut up and listen? My God, the lights go out and you and Judy’s overacting hits it’s the roof. Save it for the cameras.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Judy didn’t complain to me about that. She just is a little disappointed.”

“Disappointed? In me,” he asked nearly in shock.

She shrugged, “Not in that way at all, darling. She just feels like ever since you two came out to everyone with your relationship, and especially her living with you half the time, that it’s not...” she tried to find the right word as to not set Gene off again, or hurt him, “...as exciting as it used to be before this.”  

“But what do you mean by exciting? We’re officially an item now. We can go out together, we can be together at my place freely, we don’t have to sneak around...”

“And she loves that you’re both official now. She specifically told me that. She loves that you two can come home together multiple times in the week and you can go out together with the kids like a family. But I think she misses the secret stuff.”

Gene paused a moment, realizing, and spoke up curiously, “Did she say that?”

“Not in that way. She said she misses the spontaneity. She’s a little confused with herself because she’s wanted to be with you out in the open for so long, but now that she has it, she misses the excitement of sneaking around. I think she might be afraid that the relationship might turn dull, like it did with Vince. She wants to keep things alive, her words.”

“Oh,” Gene chuckled and covered his face with his hand, “That silly, silly girl,” he sighed and looked up shaking his head at another one of Judy’s ideocracies that never failed to amaze him, “God, I love her so much.”

“We both know it’s not true, that you’ll...”

“Fizzle out,” he interrupted with a chuckle.

She nodded, “But you know how she is with her insecurity.”

“Well,” he stated thinking before biting his lower lip, “Then I better do something about it.

Judy walked slowly around the soundstage, feeling antsy. She didn’t speak to anyone as she did so. Her mind was elsewhere. Others stood around talking as crew continued on trying the generator. With her hand grasping her opposite wrist behind her, she had glanced around for Gene as she mindlessly walked but didn’t see him.  

When the generator made a loud sound from one side of the room and then a group of crew members suddenly erupted into laughter, sounding rowdy, at the other side, Judy felt a little sensitive to all the noise. She made her way to the back of the set, still minding her own business. Back there, it was darker, not pitch black, but more quiet. Leaning on the back of the wooden wall, she sighed, as if relishing in the sudden escape of it all.  

Just then the entire studio made a loud sound as the power went back on, enveloping the set in very bright lights. Judy was behind the set, but the head lights were very bright above her, she had to squint.  

She pushed herself off the wall and took a few steps to head back around when the power failed again. She could hear everyone’s groans, and some colorful language again from Charlie.  

Before Judy could react, Gene rounded the corner, but he stopped short when they made eye contact. She smiled a bit, to acknowledge him, but her smile faded when she saw the expression on his face.  

He was looking at her with intensity, almost...primal...and sexy. She was taken back by it and a little alarmed. She didn’t know what she had done, but he didn’t look happy.  

Then he headed towards her, slowing his steps the closer he got. His chest was heaving. Judy didn’t feel like backing away, didn’t need to, she knew who she was dealing with, even if he was about to yell at her for something.  

In one fast movement, he took her wrists, took a step forward, and pinned them above her head onto the wall as she was backed up into it.  

Judy slightly gasped, no control over her reaction. As his face hovered over hers, she swallowed and looked down at his lips. Was he upset? She didn’t feel scared by any means. Was he going to kiss her? He just stood there not moving.  

“Gene,” she whispered stunned.

“Shhh,” he whispered back. She could smell the menthol from his cigarette on her lips.  

Judy’s eyes became bigger, asking him silently what he was doing, but he ignored it. Coming in close to her lips, Gene saw her eyes close, awaiting his kiss, but he ignored that, too.  

He left a kiss on her chin then moved to her cheek, and with his free hand, he placed it on her jaw, moving her head back so he could kiss down her throat.  

Judy couldn’t help the tiny whimper escape her lips as he left some delicious open-mouth kisses on her neck. Oh, he felt heavenly. He stopped at the ‘v’ of her robe and brought his face back up to hers. He felt a rush of adrenaline as she still had her eyes closed and her lips parted. Opening them, she was staring straight into his. He felt her move her arms, but then his hold got stronger.  

“Don’t move,” he whispered against her lips, which were dangerously close.

He traced his finger down her cheek, down her neck and down the lining of her robe costume. Resting his forehead against hers, his fingertip traced the curve of her breast through the material. He knew she had a slip on underneath the robe, but the robe wasn’t very thick material, and neither were her camisoles.  

After tracing her breast around her nipple, teasing her, he finally went over it. Then again. And again. Her nipple getting more firmer under his touch made his cock harden.  

The more his finger went back and forth over her, made her arousal even stronger between her legs. When he did the same to the other one, she felt herself suddenly get wet and she unsteadily gasped in some air, a little sound with it. She was instantly aroused, and by such little touch, that it excited and surprised her. She could feel Gene’s hard on getting more profound himself, which also excited her.  

Judy bit her bottom lip suggestively, trying to make eye contact with him. When Gene’s head lifted off her forehead, her eyes quickly darted to the corner where they both had walked around, making sure no one saw them. She knew what he wanted, and my goodness she wanted it, too.

His hand slid to her lower back and he pressed his nose against hers at the same time pushed his lower body into her as well. When she instinctively moved her wrists again, Gene let them go. His other hand reached up and their fingers connected on each side of her head. She leaned her face forward to finally kiss him, but he pulled back. She tried again, he pulled back again. Judy moved her hands to grab at him, but he pinned them back against the wall again, with a slight bang, his fingers still connected in hers.

Judy found his roughness sexy amusing, and she couldn’t help but let out a surprised giggle. It made him smile. He was having fun, too.  

Oh, God, that mouth, he thought. Sure, he even got a passionate kiss from her that morning, but in arousal, her lips and mouth were like a new exploration each time...as were the sounds she made before and during sex.  

Gene leaned forward to her mouth again and she closed her eyes, instantly opening her mouth. He hovered there a moment, his mouth parted slightly, ready to take her.

“WE GOT IT!”

Judy and Gene both jumped apart a bit startled when the soundstage lights went back on.

“Generator is up and running,” they heard a lighting tech yell.

“Let’s get this scene done before the damn generator goes out, too,” Charle’s voice was heard getting closer to the set.

Judy and Gene both looked at each other. They didn’t look amused, or disappointed. They shared an understanding look: they were aroused but had to get back to work. It hadn’t been the first time they’d been interrupted in this regard.

“Where the hell did Judy and Gene go? Can someone go find ‘em?!”

Judy glanced up at Gene, as she smoothed out her robe, but Gene turned his back to her and took a few steps away. She knew he needed a minute to ‘de-escalate’ , so she quickly darted out from the corner before people came searching.

“Oh, there you are, sweetheart,” Joe said standing next to Charles.

“Here I am,” she returned in a chipper voice.

“We’re gonna try to get this scene done before the damn generator fails again. Are you ok with that?”

“Of course.”

“Where’s Gene,” Joe asked.

“Uh, he’ll be here shortly. He’s finishing a cigarette.”

“He can finish the cigarette after. We’re way behind. GENE! WE’RE WAY BEHIND!”

Judy wrapped her arms around Charle’s arm, giving him her best Dorothy voice, “He’s been under a lot of strain too, let him finish his cigarette, hm?”

“Ya, alright,” Charlie said melting under her spell, “Go check yourself so we’re ready when he’s done.”

“Yes, Sir,” she teased saluting him.

As Judy got her hair and makeup retouched, Gene reappeared. The two didn’t even exchange looks until they entered the scene.

Neither knew how they got through it, but they did. And they did it in only two takes, with no mess ups on their lines. In character, the scene was sweet, genuine and full of love. Inside, they were both burning.

When Joe leans in to kiss Jane’s cheek, Judy took an intake of breath, holding her breath as she did so. She didn’t intend to. She could see the sparkle in Gene’s eyes as he leaned back, but as much a sparkle, there was also such adoration. And that turned her on even more.

“Good luck,” he said softly.

Judy took a second to respond, her heart bursting, “Good luck.”

“ANDDD CUT! PERFECT! PRINT!”

Everyone applauded.

“That’s it for today everyone. Great job and thank you for all your help,” Charles said before turning to his stars.

“Judy, baby, that was amazing,” he said giving her kiss on the cheek. “Gene, my man, great job,” he continued and shook his hand.

Judy smiled, looking anxious, as she glanced at Gene.  

“Remember, no filming tomorrow, but you have a pre-record of ‘All For You’. That's at noon.”

“Is that all you need from me?”

“That’s it, baby.”

Without another word, Judy left their side. Gene knew where she was headed.

“See you Monday, Charlie,” Gene said with a slap on his back before following Judy.  

Without knocking, Gene opened the door with Judy Garland monogrammed in cursive on it, before slamming it shut and locking it behind him.

The early evening sky had a hue of orange above MGM as Judy and Gene walked out of the large stage door.  The air was crisp and cool and the lot was clearing of players and crew as dinnertime approached.  

The two didn’t speak as they left the soundstage, they didn’t rush either. Their steps were lazily, as was Gene’s arm that hung over her shoulder. She even rest her head back on it, as they comfortably walked together.  

Judy could feel her cheeks still flushed from their rendezvous', but she didn’t care.  She felt absolutely satisfied, though her back thighs were a little sore where Gene’s hands had grabbed at her skin there, his fingertips digging into her flesh, keeping her in place, as he ground into her against her dressing room wall. She didn’t feel it at the time, all she felt was him fucking her to orgasm, and all those other feelings of being with him that went with it.  

Gene smiled slightly when he felt Judy rest her head against his arm. He knew she was as spent as he was. It still amazed him that after all these years different encounters with her affected different reactions in him. They had made love two days ago yet his sexual feelings towards, and the sex, felt like he had gone weeks without it. He had to admit, he hadn’t realized how much he missed those spontaneous, and secret, encounters with her, ones that their relationship had been built on. He didn’t know how they managed to stay as quiet as they did as they were both equally turned on and had such a strong release.  

Gene couldn’t help but chuckle recalling how his legs gave out and he fell back onto her makeup chair, with her straddling him. She didn’t stop either, grinding back and forth, whispered whimpers coming out of her mouth over and over until she came. Oh, God, she felt so fucking good. Holding her, he stood her up and placed her on the makeup vanity, almost topping the bulb mirror over, pumping into her until he came himself.  There was a perfectly fine twin-sized daybed next to them, but instead they picked every other object to fuck on.

“What’s gotten you so giddy,” Judy teased hearing him chuckle.

“Guess,” he said looking at her mischievously.

Judy’s giggle vibrated against his lips as he leaned down to kiss her a few times. As they kept walking, Judy noticed a few people staring their way. Though they were still both legally married to other people, everyone knew they were an item by now. But, it still never failed to get them some wide-eyed stares, whispers or naughty smiles from mutual friends.  

“You know something?”

“What?”

“I think that’s the first time we’ve kissed out in the open like this.”

“Is it? Here, let’s do it again,” he said and leaned down to kiss her again.  

“You’re crazy,” she giggled.

“You’re crazy, too, which makes us a good match.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“I’m not complaining at all, but what brought that on back there?”

Gene opened his mouth but then just nudged his shoulders and made an ‘I don’t know’ sound.

“What do you mean...” she then made the same sound he did.

“I felt like it.”

Judy kneaded her eyebrows looking at him skeptically, “We were filming a scene then you just decide you want to seduce me like you did?”

Gene couldn’t help the guilty laugh and embarrassed he rubbed the side of his face trying to hide it. But she knew when he was lying.

“What,” she laughed.

“Did you like it?”

“Well, of course I did.”

“Well, then, that’s all that matters.”

All of a sudden they heard a honk before Kay drove by waving. They waved back but Judy quickly opened her mouth looking at Gene. He saw it, and urged her to keep walking.

“Kay told you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, then, remind me to thank her later.”

“Honey,” he asked getting a little more serious now, “I gotta be honest with ya. You know, spending all the time together that we have since I got the apartment, it hadn’t even occurred to me to put some spontaneity in there. I mean, we’re definitely not routine, but I was just enjoying being able to be with you whenever I want now, without having to sneak around.”

“Gene, I...”

“No, listen, after what just happened, I didn’t realize how much I missed it. It does put the excitement in there, to keep up what we had for all those years. I know that sneaking around and being secret is what we’re built on, and it’s only natural to want to keep up some form of that. I will promise you though, nothing will ever get boring, not between us.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it. I was a little embarrassed because I never want to take for granted what we have now. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long.”

“Me, too.”

“And I felt guilty for missing encounters with you.”

“Never feel guilty for what you feel. But you have to talk to me about it so I know. And I mean this with everything. And vice versa. That way, any problem we do have, we can work out together.”

“Deal. And just so you know, it doesn’t always have to be that way. Even just sneaking into the shower once and a while is exciting enough.”

“You got a deal back,” he smiled, “Or in a car, that was always fun back in the day.”

“Not sure our backs could handle that now.”

“Well, I’m definitely going to make it and effort to keep having encounters like that, ‘cause, wooo boy...” he blew out a breath making his point how it made him feel and she cracked up.

Her cheeks turned even more red.

[aion-rsa]

Avengers: Endgame - The History of Captain America's Climactic Moment

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Remember in Avengers: Endgame when Captain America picked up Thor's hammer? We sure do! Here are other times he did that!

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This article consists of nothing but massive Avengers: Endgame spoilers. You’ve been warned. We have a completely spoiler free review right here.

Ever since Thanos showed up in the mid-credits of the first Avengers movie, there was one scenario that most comic book fans knew was going to one day happen: Captain America was going to at one point lift Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and bash Thanos’ stupid face with it. Until Hela broke Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok. Then we all went, “Oh, never mind, I guess,” and thought about what could have been.

Well, time travel is funny like that. It gives you a mulligan. Avengers: Endgame gives us one of the most triumphant moments in superhero movie history, when Captain America is able to lift Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, and use it to beat the ever-lovin' crap out of Thanos for a few minutes. Not only can Captain America lift Thor's hammer, he's able to call down the lightning just as Thor would. It's a huge, cathartic, and historic moment in the history of the MCU, but it's something long familiar to Marvel Comics fans.

How Can Captain America Lift Thor's Hammer?

Simple: Steve Rogers is worthy. The inscription on Mjolnir reads "Whosoever holds this hammer, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." It doesn't matter how strong you are, if you aren't worthy, you can't lift Thor's hammer, no matter how hard you try. It's why Thor, at a low point in his life, is so relieved to find that he can still call and hold Mjolnir when he travels back to the events of Thor: The Dark World.

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, we got the slightest hint of what was to come when Cap was able to slightly budge the hammer when trying to pick it up. Thor's reaction shot there was priceless, and teases the moment in Endgame when Steve finally gets to call down the lightning. Of course, the big payoff in Age of Ultron was that Vision (not Cap) was able to wield it near the end of the movie as a way of proving his fidelity, but many of us knew that there was more to it, including Thor, who exclaims "I knew it!" when Cap gets his big moment with the hammer.

read more - Which Avengers: Endgame Deaths are Permanent?

There is comic book precedent to Cap picking up Mjolnir. While not the first non-Thor character to pull that off in Marvel canon (that would be the delightful Beta Ray Bill), he’s had a couple moments where he’s been able to prove his worthy worth and cracked some heads with the uru metal.

Here’s some American history with a mix of Asgardian shop class.

THE ORIGINAL

The Mighty Thor #390 (1988)

Around this time, Steve Rogers had lost the right to be Captain America and just fought crime as "The Captain." This meant dressing exactly as Captain America, but in a black costume with red and white stripes on the front. Thor stopped by Avengers HQ, saw this guy with head wings and a shield and went, “I never saw you before in my life! Who are you?!” Then he threw Mjolnir at him in mid-sentence before realizing that it had to be Steve Rogers because of how fast he could dodge the attack.

I swear, Thor must scream, “STRANGER DANGER!” whenever Jane Foster gets a haircut.

Cap later explained his whole status quo, as well as his current feud with Iron Man (that happens a lot). So the government considered him an enemy and he was at odds with Iron Man for ideological reasons. Same as it ever was. While Thor mused over all this, one of his villains, the god Seth, sent an army after him. Cap, of course, helped out his stupid, stupid friend.

read more: Avengers: Endgame - Complete Marvel Universe Easter Eggs and MCU Reference Guide

Thor dropped his hammer after being tackled by generic grunt Grog. Grog tried to lift Mjolnir, but couldn’t budge it. Instead, he started torturing Thor with a laser. Cap didn’t quite understand the whole “worthy” gimmick at the time and figured it was just really heavy. Even though Grog, a brick shithouse of a miniboss, couldn’t do it, Cap decided it was worth trying.

Wouldn’t you know it, The Captain picked it up and wiped the floor with the dogpiling goon squad. He tossed it back to Thor, who proceeded to finish off the bad guys.

Afterwards, Thor admitted that while he had no idea what was really going on with Steve and Tony’s current argument, he sided with Steve due to his ability to pick up the hammer. Cap nodded, rushed into a Quinjet, and flew off to go break Tony Stark's nose several times over.

2099 PROBLEMS

2099: Manifest Destiny (1998)

Even though it's been brought back a few times since, 2099 was one of Marvel's big fixtures in the 90s. It was how 90s comics felt the future would be like. The story was that the heroes had long gone missing and there were no surviving records of what happened. Either way, Thor was worshipped as a religious figure and many awaited his return.

When serial-pointer Miguel O'Hara got powers and became the new Spider-Man of the era, someone pointed out that he was the first of many who would take up the mantle of a long-forgotten hero. This would continue until the coming of Thor 2099, who would deliver them all. Sure enough, we got Ghost Rider 2099, Hulk 2099, Punisher 2099, X-Men 2099, etc. After a few years, the line of comics lost its luster and they wrote it off with this one-shot where they found Captain America's frozen body.

read more - Avengers: Endgame Sidelines the Captain America/Bucky Relationship

As Steve got accustomed to this new world, Miguel gave him Donald Blake's walking stick. With a little reluctance, Steve accepted the gift and struck it to the ground, transforming it into Mjolnir and transforming himself into a gaudy Cap/Thor hybrid. He and Miguel started a new Avengers team, but on a space mission, things went haywire and it looked like Captain America was going to be knocked into deep space. His last act was to throw Mjolnir to Miguel, who caught the weapon and turned out to be just as worthy.

Yes, in a wonderful twist, Spider-Man 2099 wasn't just the herald of Thor 2099. He WAS Thor 2099!

With this power and the slow aging that came with it, Miguel turned the galaxy into a utopia. By the time he was done with his duty in 3099, they discovered Captain America's frozen body yet again. The poor guy just couldn't catch a break, but at least he got the hammer back.

THE HELLSCAPE OF APOCALYPSE

What If? Featuring X-Men: Age of Apocalypse (2007)

Age of Apocalypse was a pretty big deal in the '90s and the world it depicted was a nasty one. At least it had Magneto’s X-Men to make some kind of difference to offset Apocalypse’s evil. Naturally, Marvel’s What If series had a couple of takes on the big event. One had its continuity move forward and show how that Earth would have handled the coming of Galactus. One had Legion succeed in killing Magneto in the past, showing a world where Charles Xavier could better fight for a world where mutants were accepted.

Then there was this ridiculous one-shot where Rick Remender came up with the idea of Legion accidentally killing both Magneto and Xavier. The event had terrible repercussions, leading to governments to discover the existence of mutants earlier and going straight for the persecution. Apocalypse made his big appearance and the world got weirder than in normal Age of Apocalypse continuity. For one, Apocalypse’s army included a nest of Peter Parker clones connected by a big Venom symbiote blob.

read more - Avengers: Endgame Ending Explained

The resistance team included the likes of Nate Grey, Molecule Man, Wolverine, Colossus, Thing (with robot arm), Doctor Voodoo (introduced a year or so before Brother Voodoo was the Sorcerer Supreme in canon), Captain Britain in Mach I Iron Man armor, and the leader Captain America. With no real context given, he wielded Mjolnir throughout the story and constantly fought maskless.

The whole issue was mainly these Defenders jumping from one spot to another, facing different threats and gradually losing members. Towards the end, Nate Grey killed Apocalypse, stole his armor, killed Molecule Man, and opened up a portal to the past so they could prevent the deaths of Xavier and Magneto. Fearing that Grey would become a tyrant as bad as Apocalypse himself, Cap killed him via Mjolnir and allowed the portal to close.

He and Wolverine were the only survivors of the adventure.

WAR OF THE WORTHY

Fear Itself (2011)

Fear Itself was a Captain America/Thor crossover idea that Marvel decided to turn into a full-on event. It was...there. The tie-ins were better than the main plot, honestly.

Watch everything Marvel and more with a FREE Disney+ TRIAL, right here!

The Red Skull’s daughter Sin came across a mystical hammer that transformed her into the deity Skadi. She helped unleash forgotten Asgardian god The Serpent, who in turn created seven hammers that would possess and empower those worthy of unleashing fear. They were Hulk, Juggernaut, Thing, Titania, Absorbing Man, Grey Gargoyle, and Attuma. Then Nazis in mechs started swarming Washington DC and the whole thing was a big mess.

read more: What's Next for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in MCU Phase 4?

Around this time, Bucky Barnes was Captain America and the story partly existed to have Bucky fake his death and move the Cap identity back to Steve Rogers (and you thought Endgame treated the Bucky/Steve relationship poorly?). A lot of good it did for him, as The Serpent was able to shatter the shield with his bare hands.

To turn the tide, Tony Stark and Odin made some special weapons for the superheroes to wield. As for Cap, he simply found Mjolnir lying around on the battlefield and used it to go to town on Skadi. They hyped all this magic weapon stuff up like crazy in the adverts, but the whole thing was really background noise. The fight just kind of ended after Odin pulled away all the hammers and Skadi went back to being Sin.

THE MIRROR MATCH

Secret Empire (2017)

And then there’s this load. Nick Spencer did a lengthy story about Steve Rogers revealing he was really an agent of Hydra all along. Marvel was really adamant that it was really Steve Rogers and that he wasn’t being mind-controlled. Also, the company insisted that Captain America wasn’t a Nazi because Hydra weren’t Nazis. TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING. Because, you see...look over there!

Hydra Cap then turned out to be a version of Steve Rogers created by a little girl with reality-warping powers (sure), who was manipulated by Red Skull. Cap ended up taking over the US and shockingly beat up opposing superheroes via wielding Mjolnir. That too seemed to be a product of the reality-warping as the inscription/rules of the hammer were different and you had to be a bulky Hydra asshole to pick it up.

read more: Full MCU Marvel Movie Release Calendar

By the end of the event, the little girl conjured the original version of Captain America to beat up his please-don’t-call-the-Nazi-a-Nazi doppelganger. When Hydra Cap went for the hammer out of desperation, it had already reverted back to normal and he wasn’t worthy enough to pick it up. Regular Cap picked it up and walloped his douchebag counterpart.

"Your ass will never be America's ass." (not actual dialogue)

Yeah, everyone knew that the status quo would return in the end, but the whole Hydra Cap business was as well-timed and tactful as showing off your chainsaw and hockey mask to your son, in the middle of the night, when Sideshow Bob is trying to kill him. It also killed the end of Gerry Duggan’s otherwise legendary Deadpool run, which I can never forgive.

HONORABLE MENTION

There’s only been five comic scenarios where we’ve seen Captain America wielding Mjolnir, so let’s just move those goalposts a little and talk about times when superheroes have kicked ass with the shield AND the hammer at the same time.

First up is Crusader from an issue of What If based on the original Secret Wars that showed what would have happened had all the heroes and villains been stranded on Battleworld for 25 years. While some died in that time, others got busy and we got a new generation of heroes and villains. One of which was Sarah Rogers, daughter of Cap and Rogue.

read more: Marvel Movies Watch Order - An MCU Timeline Guide

No, the comic doesn’t answer the question of how that conception worked.

Even though her boyfriend Bravado was the son of Thor and Enchantress, it was Crusader who ended up being able to pick up the hammer and turn the tide against Vincent Von Doom. She also had stolen her dad’s shield from his closet when he wasn't looking, but that’s less impressive.

Then there’s Superman. The miniseries JLA/Avengers was the final crossover between Marvel and DC and it finished with a bang. Leading both hero teams into battle, Superman was entrusted with Captain America’s shield. During a pivotal moment, in order to break into the villain Krona’s stronghold, Thor threw Mjolnir to Superman. Superman caught it and smashed his way in.

read more: Does Steve Rogers Still Have a Place in the MCU?

Later on, after the dust had cleared, Superman found himself no longer able to lift it. As Thor put it, Odin may be strict, but he knows when to cut you slack when times are desperate.

I have to imagine we’ll be seeing more Cap/Mjolnir moments going forward. Marvel really seems to enjoy having comics imitate movies that imitate comics. God, remember when Spider-Man 3 came out and comic Spider-Man just happened to start wearing black again?

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and when Captain America throws his mighty hammer, all those who attempt to...stammer that hammer must clamor...? Read his other articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

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Feature

Books

Gavin Jasper

Nov 25, 2019

Marvel

Avengers: Endgame

Captain America

Disney+

from Books https://ift.tt/2Dbqjxl

[thesinglesjukebox]

LIL NAS X - OLD TOWN ROAD

[6.73]

We're gonna bluuuurb til we can't no more...

Katie Gill: The problem with "Old Town Road" is that it's more interesting as a thinkpiece than an actual song. The song charting, then being excluded, from the Billboard Country Music charts opens so many questions that can't be answered in one sitting. Is this a further example of the well-documented racism in country music? Or is this just a freak accident hick-hop song that vaulted it's way out of the depths of subgenre hell? Is a twangy voice and references to horses enough to make a song "country"? Does the presence of Billy Ray Cyrus in a remix that dropped on Friday legitimize the song's credentials or just make them worse? Where was all this controversy when "Meant To Be," an honest-to-god pop song, was holding steady on the charts? There are so many questions and so many points of conversation that spring out from this song, that it's a pity "Old Town Road" itself is just okay. Everything about it screams "filler track for the SoundCloud page," from the length to the trap beats to the aggressively mediocre lyrics. The song didn't even chart on it's own merits: it charted because it's used in a TikTok meme! This is like if "We Are Number One" or "No Mercy" made their way to the top of the iTunes charts and people decided to have a conversation about the limits of genre based on those charting. I'm a little annoyed, because the conversation around "Old Town Road" is something that country music should be having... but just not around "Old Town Road." [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: There are essays upon essays to be written about "Old Town Road" as a prism for the racial divides that have served as undergirding for the modern American genre system since the 1930s division between "hillbilly" and "race" records. It's the perfect hunk of think-piece fodder: a simple core question -- is it country? -- that can spiral out to all corners of culture until the song itself is obscured. So let's focus on the song, instead. Because beyond all world-historical significance, "Old Town Road" fucking bangs. It's all in the bait and switch of that intro -- banjos and horns plunking away until Lil Nas X's triumphant "YEAAAH" (second this decade only to Fetty Wap) drops and the beat comes in. It's a joke until it's not -- maybe you came in from the Red Dead Redemption 2 video, or from a friend of yours talking about the hilarious country trap song, or from the artist's own Twitter, which is more Meech On Mars than Meek Mill, but no matter the source, you'll find that "Old Town Road" has its way of looping into your brain, all drawls and boasts and banjos. It's meme rap, but much like prior iterations of this joke ("Like a Farmer"), Lil Nas X fully and deeply commits -- he doesn't drop the pretense for a single line, keeping the track short enough to not outlive its welcome while still exploring its weird conceit to its fullest. Yet even in its jokey vibe there's some actual pathos -- no matter how put on, the lonesome cowboy sorrow of Lil Nas X's declaration that he'll "ride till [he] can't no more" feels genuine. "Old Town Road" is everything at once, the implosion of late teens culture into one undeniable moment. [10]

David Moore: So here's a true gem of a novelty song -- a phrase I use with both intention and respect; I grew up in a Dementoid household -- that could launch a thousand thinkpieces about hip-hop, country, class, the object and subject of jokes, whether to call something a joke at all, you name it. But what I keep returning to is the economy of it, its simplicity, how there is so much in so little, the way that someone on the outside can grok things inaccessible to the insiders, maybe by accident or by studious observation and a fresh perspective, the way music can be a multiverse, characters from one world complicating or clarifying or confusing the limits of another in a mutually provocative way. I'm not a backstory guy, which is to say I'm not a research guy, which is to say I'm either intuitive or lazy or both, so I don't have any clue where this came from, but I know magic when I hear it, I know what it sounds like when you discover, or simply stumble into by accident, the path beyond the bounds of territory you presumed exhausted, territory that can always get bigger, always invite whole new parties to the party. It's a real party party; you can get in. [10]

Katherine St Asaph: "Old Town Road" is the "Starships" of 2019: a song that objectively is not great, but will be called great for the understandable reason that liking or disliking it now unavoidably entails choosing the right or wrong side. This tends to lead to hand-waving freakoutery about critics not talking about the music, man, but once The Discourse is out in the world, it becomes a real and critical part of the song's existence; not talking about Billboard punting "Old Town Road" would be like talking about "Not Ready to Make Nice" as an workaday country song. The problem is not quite as simple as "the Billboard charts don't want black artists," an argument with historical precedent but now doomed to fail: clearly, people like Kane Brown and Darius Rucker and Mickey Guyton (who's left off lists like this, somehow) have hits. It's more about respectability politics. Traditionalists hate the idea of memes, social media, and perceived line-cutting, all of which means they'll hate a song born not of the Nashville and former-fraternity-bro scene, but via TikTok and stan Twitter. But what they really, really hate is rap and anything that sounds like a gateway to rap; like if they tolerate this Cardi B will be next. Country radio, for the past decade or two, has been pop radio with all the blatant rap signifiers removed; its songs aren't about cowboys or horses but suburban WASP life. Of course, double standards abound. Talking about lean is out; talking about bingeing beer is fine. "Bull riding and boobies" isn't OK because it's from a guy called Lil Nas X -- I honestly think people would whine less if this exact song was credited to "Montero Hill" -- but "I got a girl, her name's Sheila, she goes batshit on tequila" is OK because it's from a guy called Jake Owen, and "Look What God Gave Her" is OK because it hides its ogling of boobies behind plausibly deniable God talk. Fortunately "Old Town Road" is better than "Starships" -- the NIN sample is inspired, and the hook is evocative and sticky. (It fucks with authenticity politics, too -- Lil Nas X wrote his own song, but the big corporate country artists often don't.) Its main problem is that it's slight: a meme that doesn't overstay past the punchline, a song that never quite gets to song size. [5]

Thomas Inskeep: Sampling Nine Inch Nails' "34 Ghosts IV" to (help) create a western motif is hands-down brilliant, so huge thumbs-up for that. Lyrically, this is pretty empty, a bunch of western clichés strung together -- but then again, the same can be said of plenty of Big & Rich songs. Split the score down the middle, accordingly. [5]

Scott Mildenhall: But surely this is how country music should sound? Lil Nas X has performed alchemy in combining two generic styles into something inspiring, flipping the meaning of "pony and trap" on its head. The mechanical sound of trap is rusted into the mechanical sound of fixing a combine, or at least pretending that is something you might do, and such performance is fun for all the family. Well, unless you're an American farming family tired of stereotypes anyway. [7]

Stephen Eisermann: Non country (trap) beat with subtle country instrumentation? Sounds like much of country radio, only way better! [7]

Nortey Dowuona: A burning, humming bass girds under sticklike banjos as Lil Nas X rides into town to water his horse and head back out onto the open road. [5]

Alex Clifton: I spent the weekend re-enacting this scene from Easy A with this song, so it's safe to say I like it. I especially love the "horse"/"Porsche" line, which is unexpected and amazing. [7]

Alfred Soto: The usual genre conversations threaten to smother analysis. If Lil Nas X can use trap drums, then why can't Sam Hunt use loops? Silly. (Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes: "The Constitution is what the judges say it is"). The Kanye allusion ("Y'all can't tell me nuthin'") works extra-diagetically. An assemblage of modest, discrete charms held together by a solid performance at its center -- nothing more. I await the Future-Frank Liddell collab. [5]

Edward Okulicz: It's affectionate and actually quite deferential in its treatment of its parent genres. Crossovers like this have been hinted at, and gestured towards in the other direction quite a bit of late (country artists affecting hip-hop, less so the latter), and the two genres have more in common than the caricatures of the sorts of people who are supposed to listen to them do. Of course, I mean those genres as they exist today, and not in the warped imaginations of purists. You can see why kids have latched on, and it's easy to snarl at Big Chart for sticking their oar in. The kids are right; artists control the means of production and radio and chart compilers can accept that they aren't the tastemakers, and attempts to force their tastes down other people's throats will lead to a backlash. This is not a brilliant song but it's a picture of one of many potential musical futures and, at two minutes, the perfect length too. The right response is to smile, and "Old Town Road" makes it easy to smile -- it's an earworm. Sure, it doesn't give me the same immediate feeling of fuck!!! this is the best that I got when I first heard that version of Bubba Sparxxx's "Comin' Round" but country music survived "Honey, I'm Good" and it will survive this. It might well thrive. [6]

Joshua Copperman: I recently found out that I have a moderate Vitamin D deficiency, but looking up the song everyone was talking about and hearing this basically confirmed that I should go outside more often. There are definitely things to talk about: it's the logical conclusion to "I listen to everything except country and rap" jokes when the inverse has taken over the Hot 100, and it's a song that's set to hit number one because everyone is incredulous that it exists at all -- with a Billy Ray Cyrus remix to boot. The conversations about what makes a song "country" are all fascinating, but it's hard to fully enjoy pieces about something that, as an actual song, is so fundamentally empty. The Nine Inch Nails sample is interesting, but like everything else, more intriguing in theory than execution. This will wind up on every site's "best of 2019" lists, and then in ten years people will snark on how a song with "My life is a movie/Bullridin' and boobies" was so critically acclaimed. As a meme/discourse lightning rod, it's an [8], as a how-to guide for late-2010s fame, it's a [10], but there's little appeal in a vacuum. Adding a bonus point, because music has never existed in a vacuum anyway. [5]

Taylor Alatorre: Remember when the internet was still described as a realm of lawless and limitless potential, when open source could be touted as revolutionary praxis and "free flow of information" was a sacred utterance? Now one of the key political questions is whether private companies should be doing more to banish online rulebreakers or whether the federal government should step in to delimit what those rules are. Whichever side ends up winning, it's clear that the wide open spaces of the Frontier Internet are rapidly facing enclosure. Montero Hill learned this the hard way when his @nasmaraj account was suspended by Twitter as part of its crackdown against spam-based virality. While Tweetdeckers are nobody's martyrs, it's a minor tragedy every time an account with that many followers and that much influence gets shunted off to the broken-link stacks of the Wayback Machine. Rules must be laid down, but their enforcement always entails loss -- the bittersweet triumph of civilization over nature that forms the backbone of every classic Western. Maybe Hill/nasmaraj/Lil Nas X had this loss in mind when writing the jauntily defiant lyrics of "Old Town Road." Maybe he was just riding the microtrends of the moment like he was before. Still, this particular microtrend -- the reappropriation of cowboy imagery by non-white Americans -- feels too weighty to be reduced to mere aesthetics. Turner's Frontier Thesis may have been racially blinkered to the extreme, but the myths and yearnings it spawned can never die; they just get democratized. So it makes sense that young Americans, even those who don't know who John Wayne is, would subconsciously reach out for the rural, the rustic, the rugged and free, just as we feel the global frontiers closing all around us. Our foreign policy elites hold endless panel talks about "maintaining power projection" and "winning the AI race," but most normal people don't care about that stuff. We're all secretly waiting for China to take over like in our cyberpunk stories, so we can drop all the pressures of being the Indispensable Nation and just feast off our legacy like post-imperial Britain. And what is that legacy? It's rock, it's country, it's hip hop, it's "Wrangler on my booty," it's all the vulgar mongrelisms that force our post-ironic white nationalists to adopt Old Europe as their lodestar. In short, it's "Old Town Road." We're gonna ride this horse 'til we can't no more, we're gonna reify these myths 'til we can't no more, because when the empire is gone, the myths are all we have. (Oh, and the Billy Ray remix is a [10]. Obviously.) [9]

Jonathan Bradley: People suppose that genre exists to delineate a set of sounds, and while it does do that, it depends even more on its ability to build, define, and speak for communities. The question of whether "Old Town Road" is a country song or not is in some ways easily resolved: country music showed no interest in Lil Nas X -- or at least not until Billy Ray Cyrus noticed an opportune moment to complicate expectations and grab headlines -- and so Lil Nas X's song was not country. Even taking into account its sound and subject matter, his hit is best understood as a burlesque on country music, one that parodies and exaggerates the genre's motifs and themes for heightened effect. The kids on TikTok, who turned the long-gone lonesome blues of the song's tumbleweed hook into viral content, understand this intuitively: they use the incongruity that clarifies at the beat drop as an opportunity to engage in caricature and costume. And while Lil Nas X, a huckster and a trendspotter before he was a pop star, has been happy to embrace the yee-haw mantle that has been bestowed upon him, his song is a familiar rap exercise in play and extended metaphor. The Shop Boyz did much the same thing with "Party Like a Rock Star" and it would be obtuse to suppose that was a rock song. And yet, as the country historian Bill C. Malone has written, country since its inception has attracted fans "because of its presumed Southern traits, whether romantically or negatively expressed"; there has always been a bit of schtick to this sound. I wondered when we reviewed Trixie Mattel whether country is, on some level, intrinsically camp, and it's tough to declare definitively that Lil Nas X's bold hick strokes are that much more stylized than Jake Owen's performance of small town ordinariness. And just as a country music based on cohesive community rather than sound has found itself broad enough to encompass northern hair metal, Auto-Tuned club stomps, and Ludacris, the gate-keeping involved in keeping Lil Nas X out begins to look suspicious. After all, the first song to debut on Billboard's Most Played Juke Box Folk Records chart, the predecessor to today's Hot Country Songs, was "Pistol Packin' Mama," a hillbilly goof by the decidedly uncountry combination of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. As Malone has written, "While the commercial fraternity thought mainly of profits, the recording men, radio executives, publicists, promoters, ad men, sponsors, and booking agents who dealt with folk music also readily manipulated public perceptions in order to sell their products." One of the ways they did that was to tap into already mythological figures of American individualism like the cowboy, who is, after all, a creature of the west and not the South. "The respective visions of cowboy and western life drew far more from popular culture and myth ... than they did from reality," Malone writes of the early country singers who embraced cowboy personae; in some ways Lil Nas X's purloining of meme interest in that same culture places him within a rich country heritage. After all, when in popular entertainment has shameless self-promotion not been part of the aspirant's trade? It does matter how cultural communities react to the music made in their name, but when certain people are adjudicated not fit for club membership, it is worth asking why. Country's culture, I said recently, is "one that's implicitly but not definitely Southern, implicitly but not definitely rural, and implicitly but not definitely white," and it's easy to see how Lil Nas X doesn't fit into that. Country music's racism isn't unique to the genre -- the historical hegemonies of punk and indie rock are at least as determinedly white -- but it is particularly visible. Country is racist like the South is racist like America is racist. Lil Nas X disrupts that settlement, helping us imagine a country music that genuinely encompasses the music of the American South -- a genre that has space for "This is How We Roll" and Miranda Lambert, Lil Boosie and Young Thug, "Formation" and Juvenile, and perhaps even Norteño and banda sounds. That would be, however, not only a far different country music to what we know today, but the music of a far different America. [7]

Iris Xie: Yeet haw! Aside from the great pleasure I've had in showing this to my friends, (Me, two weeks ago: "Have you heard this country trap song???" My friends, this week: "Iris, that song you're talking about now has Billy Ray Cyrus on it??") and either slinging back and forth memey references, engaging in discussions on the state of white supremacy in the music industry while also debating about the song's merit, or hearing my friends start singing "can't nobody tell me nothing..." very quietly at any moment and I can't help but join in -- it's all been very fun. Aside from making plans to play "Old Town Road" on my next country road drive to Costco, something that's occurred to me is that this is a song boosted by the status and calamity of its metanarrative. We could always use more discussions of the double standards that Black and POC artists face in the industry when it comes to genres and participating in it, and I'm honestly glad Lil Nas X just made something that was fun and made sense to him, even if "Old Town Road" doesn't stray too much from the conventions of both trap and country, resulting in a well-balanced mashup that sounds more safe than surprising to me, but is serene in its confidence nevertheless. On the flipside of that genre-mashing, Miley wishes and is probably very jealous of her father now for hopping onto this train, lest we forget about all of her cultural appropriation attempts. But for the song itself, those long, relaxed drawls and the imagery of riding a horse to the trap beat -- why not? We live in weird times now, Black people's contributions to country music were erased, and it's kind of a relaxing song. Also, I'm a fan of the "Can't nobody tell me nothing" lyric, which has become an unintentionally defiant line in the face of all the backlash, resulting in a message to rally around. Now excuse me, as I text my friends that "I'm gonna take my horse down to the old town road." [8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[sunlitroom]

Gotham s4e14 - The Sinking Ship, The Grand Applause

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham:

Oswald faked Martin’s death to keep him safe.  Jim arrested Oswald for his murder.  Victor is a lying traitor.  Sofia played Jim for a dupe.  I screwed up, Harve.  Oh – Jesus – no, not the bit with Lee’s hand again.  Ivy’s brief reign of terror.  Oswald uses Riddler to plan an escape

As always, long post will be long.  There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot might appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)).  There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism.  Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

An abandoned-looking house in the city.  Martin sits with his back against the fireplace, guarded by hulking men, at whom he stares balefully while sketching them hanged in his little pad.  As he turns the page to start a fresh sketch, he finds the next page has a message.

Do you want to escape?

He looks round quickly before reading and following the rest of the instructions. Going into an equally abandoned looking kitchen on the pretence of using the bathroom, he turns the gas on, and returns to the living room.  

The men quickly smell gas. Martin smiles.  They pull their guns before going to check more.  The next message in Martin’s pad tells him to plug his ears.  As he does, we see a missile glide through the kitchen window.  There’s a huge explosion in the kitchen.  Martin sees a figure emerging from the smoke in the hall who turns out to be Ed.  ‘Uncle Penguin’ sent him, and now they’re going to get ice cream.

Cherry’s is under new management.  In the ring in the centre of the club, we see Samson brutally beating a man.  There’s not much in the way of cheering.  Lee approaches cautiously, a hood covering her face.

Samson is boasting about how he’s in charge and he collects protection.  We see the man’s terrified family watching from the crowd.  He begs Samson,

Please, my family…..

Samson replies

Do I look like an animal?

He tells the man he won’t hurt his family, and promptly shoots him in the head. His family scream and surge towards the ring, horrified.

In the crowd – Lee is aghast.  She leaves quietly.

GCPD.  Harvey and Jim are in what is now Jim’s office.  I wonder if Jim considers how much it might gall Harvey to sit in that office on the other side of the desk, given the circumstances?

Jim tells Harvey that before Don Falcone died, he warned him that he had no idea what he had brought to the city.  Jim says he knows now that he was talking about Pyg.  Jim says someone must have told him about Pyg, and that person also has evidence linking Sofia to Pyg.

Harvey asks Jim why he doesn’t just come forward with what he has.  Jim wriggles, and says that it would just be his word against Sofia’s. Harvey’s visibly impatient with him, and says he’s just afraid that it will bring him down too.  Jim says Harvey can be pissed at him, but that this is bigger than both of them.  

He puts Harvey’s badge on the table and says he needs to know he can count on him.  I dunno, Jim, I think you were still wearing your badge when you screwed Harvey over, so I don’t really think it’s a magical talisman, or anything.

Harvey takes the badge and says he hopes they take down Sofia – but he still wants Jim to pay. He adds that he knows a former Falcone assassin, the Scandinavian Skinner, and he wants to go find them. Jim makes to rise from his chair to join him, but Harvey brushes him off.

(An aside.  This is the set-up for the later revelation that Mr Penn was apparently a crucial mole that the narrative never for a moment hinted at back in the first half of the season.  It’s several kinds of lazy.  It also ruins that lovely line of Carmine’s

You have no idea what you’ve brought to this city

At the time, that line sounded like it was about Sofia (I suspect it was, tbh, and this is a retcon to fill a plot hole).  Carmine was finally acknowledging how dangerous his daughter was – out of her earshot, and right before she killed him.  It carried a lot of weight.  Now – it’s some stupid reference to Pyg, who Carmine apparently knew about all along. There, too, goes Jim and Harvey’s (and the show’s) weird notion that Carmine Falcone had some better code of honour than the other criminals.  If he knew about Pyg and did nothing, then he was complicit.)

 At Wayne Manor, there is a ruckus in the kitchen.  Cans of food are rolling across the floor.  Bruce approaches warily to find Selina rifling through cupboards, looking for something to eat.  She said she needs help.  Bruce clarifies that she needs money.  She wants to get back something she fenced.  Bruce asks why she doesn’t ask Barbara Kean, but Selina says she doesn’t want Barbara involved.

She promises him she’ll pay him back, and tells him that it’s the stuff she took from Roland Charles. Bruce realises she feels bad and tells her he’ll get the money.  He also tells her there’s oatmeal cookies in the blue tin.  He leaves, and Selina smiles – but still seems troubled.

 At Arkham, a yelling Oswald is being dragged to some kind of guard’s station, where he’s told he has a message.  We can see what looks like lots of Victorian maids in the background.  Maybe that will be relevant later in Jerome and Jervis’ breakout.

The guard delivers a riddle, the answer to which is ‘knuckle sandwich’.  Oswald receives a whopping punch in the face.

Harvey enters a delicatessen.  We hear children laughing and playing, looking at sweets

Hello Agnes

The Skinner, it turns out, is an old lady – who tells Bullock she’s now retired.  She looks away from him briefly to tell the children not to ruin their dinner.  They promise her – apparently their grandma – that they won’t

Harvey says they’re looking for someone who might have acted as Falcone's eyes and ears when he was down south.  She asks why she should tell him.  He says they have a history, but she remarks that ‘history’ got her four years in a gulag.

Harvey threatens to tell her grandchildren about her past, and goes so far as to call to the children. She caves fast.  She says Falcone only ever trusted the book-keeper who smelled of fish – but she heard he vanished.  Harvey leaves.

(An aside.  It’s debatable whether he would have gone through with it, but having Harvey use the woman’s grandchildren as a threat seemed ooc unsympathetic for him.

Was ‘Agnes Skinner’  a Simpsons reference?)

At the Falcone mansion, Sofia is throwing a tantrum about Martin’s disappearance.  She sends Victor to Arkham to kill Oswald – knowing that this is the only leverage she has over him.  Victor asks if he can take HeadHunter. Sofia doesn’t care, as long as Oswald dies choking on his own blood.

Harvey is also at Arkham, asking for Oswald.  He finds him in the infirmary. Oswald sits up when he approaches – not clear whether this is somehow part of the escape plan.  Harvey tells him (sarcastically?  Not sure. Sometimes there’s an odd amiability in cop/criminal encounters in this show – but Harvey is generally angry in this episode) that it’s good to see him.

There’s a scream outside. Harvey runs out to investigate. It’s Victor and HH, looking for Oswald. Victor remarks that he though Bullock stopped being a cop, but it clearly didn’t take.  He reintroduces HH to Harvey as Wendell.

Harvey tells them to walk away – but Victor says they can't.  They draw their guns.  I’m still generally cross at Victor – but good god those shoulder holsters do things to me.

Victor tells Harvey to step aside and he can live to get drunk another day. (this is the weird kind of amiability and sense of an actual relationship I was referring to earlier).

Suddenly, alarms start to go off.  Harvey looks back.  Victor and Wendell decide to try again later.  An announcement comes over the tannoy system that Oswald has escaped. Harvey runs back into the infirmary. Patients there are yelling and hitting their own heads at the sound of the alarm, because this show’s depiction of Arkham just continues to plumb new depths every damn time.

Harvey looks out the window. He sees Oswald heading for a van, and Ed, leaping about like a giant grasshopper, shooting his gun into the air

Nygma

(An aside – we never actually hear how Ed broke Oswald out, because it doesn’t really make any sense that Oswald couldn’t manage it alone.  He survived on his wits alone in season one – Oswald managed to negotiate his way out of a car that was seconds away from being crushed.  He bested Ed last season.  He managed to wrangle success from the Tetch virus mess.  But to shove the plot along, he’s handed the idiot ball here.)

My wrists hurt and this bit was not wildly interesting.  Bruce and Selina go back to the shop where she fenced the stolen goods, get into a big fight, make up, flirt a little, and then leave.

A street on the Narrows. Ed says he knew that Sofia would send hitmen when she learned Martin was gone.  Oswald anxiously asks how he is.  Ed says he’s snug as a bug in a rug.  Oswald’s face lights up to hear that Martin is safe.

Ed hands Oswald his hat, and wants to boast about how he found Martin, which somehow involved Victor loving disco and Ed dressing up as an old Polish woman.  Oswald, however, is not interested – and says they need a powerbase to fight Sofia.  Ed smiles and says he knows – loosening his tie.

A makeshift office somewhere in the Narrows, where Lee is sitting at a desk. The door opens, and she pulls a gun – understandably wary. It’s Ed – posing as whatever iteration of himself he was before, I’ve virtually given up at this point. Lee smiles – genuinely happy to see him.

You're back. How are you doing?

Worlds better

He spots her hand, and asks what happened to it.  There’s an interesting little break here.  His voice when he asks the question is feigned – because he’s still pretending to be old Ed, but that only serves to underline the contrast with him quickly noticing that something had happened to her hand, and the look of concern, which seem genuine in comparison.

Lee said that Sofia smashed her hand with a hammer.

Together we can get that bitch back. She can't take everything we built.

Ed straightens his tie and calls to Oswald, saying that Lee can’t help them.  A confused Lee asks what’s happening.  Oswald tells her about their deal.

I let him out of his cage, he let me out of mine

Lee stares at Ed.

You're him.  The Riddler

Ed stares back at her as he puts his hat on.  Lee looks him up and down.

He says was hoping she was still running The Narrows and could help – but he guesses not.  He’s still staring at her saying this and straightening his tie, even as Oswald tugs on his sleeve, and impatiently asks what they’re going to do now.  

Walking away from the desk, Ed says he has a backup plan.  He wants Victor Fries to put Oswald in a block of ice, and to offer him as a gift to Sofia – like a trojan horse.  Oswald laughs incredulously and tells him to try again.

Lee walks over to them, and tells them to let her help.  They continue to bicker and ignore her.  She looks indignantly at Ed.  Lee was infuriated to be overlooked during the Tetch debacle, too – so her annoyance here is consistent with her character.

You think I can't handle it

I know you can't

Lee holds up her hand. Ed’s eyes are again conflicted when confronted with her injury.

Look what she did to me. I will pull the trigger on that bitch myself

Ed says that’s tough talk, but only talk.

An impatient Oswald stops their squabbling, and says that they need muscle. Lee smiles and agrees with him

I can tell you where to look.

They both start paying attention to her.  Ed and Lee decide to lock eyes again.

Don't you think he misses you?

As she says this, she smiles at Ed, who catches on and smiles back.  Oswald asks who she’s talking about.  Neither acknowledges his question.

(An aside.  There’s quite a lot in that scene.  Ed superficially discounts Lee’s usefulness in the scheme to oust Sofia, since she’s lost The Narrows – but there was an awful lot of conflicted glancing at her hand.  In fact, there was an awful lot of staring at each other in general.  The smiles they shared at the end were also private – reminding us that they now have a close relationship and shared history.)  

Ed is in the sewer, yelling for Grundy – saying he’s his best friend and pal, and smart again, and generally prancing about, enjoying the fact that there’s an echo.  Ed is such an ass.

Butch approaches him. Ed condescendingly tells him he’s corralling allies to kill Sofia, and they need

A galoot like you for cannon fodder

He frowns, realising Butch looks different, and asks why he’s looking at him like that.  Butch growls

Oh dear.

Butch says he’s not the only one who got smart.  Ed fumbles saying that he helped him

Ed put out fire.  Ed help Grundy

Butch says he’s not Ed anymore, and he’s not Grundy.

Back at Lee's.  She’s relaxed, feet on the desk, waiting for Ed to come back to move on to the next stage of the plan.  Oswald, meantime, is pacing, convinced that Ed has betrayed him already.

Lee tells him to calm down. Oswald snaps not to tell him to calm down, she has no idea what he’s been through.  Lee calmly tells him that Ed will be here, and they will make Sofia pay. Interestingly, Lee doesn’t seem wary of the Riddler persona at all.  The trust she has for Ed carries over – which raises the question of whether Lee now simply sees him as an integrated persona.

An agitated Oswald says he can't wait, and storms out.  Lee rolls her eyes.

Jim and Harvey walking down a street in the Narrows.  Harvey is wondering aloud how Ed got in touch with Oswald anyway.  It’s called a plot contrivance, Harvey.  

Jim looks annoyingly crisp and smart in his suit when I'm still mad at him.  He’s told Harvey that the best way to find Oswald and Ed is to find Lee.  As they head down the street, Oswald approaches.  Jim and Harvey draws their guns

Or we could talk to Oswald right now

Oswald smashes a bottle and points it at them in warning.  He asks what they’re doing there.

Harvey says they’re looking for an Arkham escapee, about so tall, limp, and a mommy complex.

Oswald manages to look so livid that he’s tearful

(An aside - Go take a fuck to yourself, Harvey.  What on earth was that nastiness about?  Aside from being mean and unnecessary – it’s not really in-character for Harvey.  His first comment on encountering Oswald at the big showdown with Theo – in the midst of all the mayhem – was to tell Oswald he was ‘sorry about his mom’.   So what’s this?)

Oswald tells Jim that the trumped up charges he used to put him away have lost their teeth – Martin is safe and well.  Jim says if that’s the case, then produce him.

(An aside – Wow, Jim is capable of some mental contortions.  So, he probably didn’t think Oswald actually  killed Martin, but decided that the accusation was enough to justify arresting him, and even though he likely didn’t really believe the accusation himself, fell back on needing evidence to exonerate him)

Oswald quickly retorts no – Martin’s not safe until Sofia has been dealt with

Jim looks wide-eyed at Oswald’s statement.  Why would he be surprised that Oswald wants revenge on Sofia?  Anyway.

I think you and I both want the same thing, Oswald.  We both want Sofia to go away.

(An aside – he’s falling back on the same line he used with Harvey: ‘yes I fucked up, but hey, we both have bigger fish to fry, so please forgive me and let’s not dwell on my fuck up’

Oswald says if that’s the case

Then turn around and walk away - let me do what I do

Jim can’t have that, though – he wants her in jail

Harvey and Jim mention Penn, and Oswald's eyes bulge with rage.  He screams incoherently

That little weasel was working for her

Harvey tells him Penn worked for Carmine for years, and tells Oswald he needs to address his management style.  Oswald isn’t listening, on another level of rage now, chanting to himself.

I’m gonna kill him

Jim approaches him, lowering his gun.

Oswald, Oswald - calm down.

Bizarrely, after everything that’s gone on between them– and there is a lot of everything – Jim’s voice manages to break through Oswald’s rage, and Oswald makes eye contact.  Jim says they can make a deal.  If Oswald tells them where to find Penn, then he’ll let him walk away.

There’s a long pained look, before Oswald says.

I don't believe you

(I ship this - so you can take it or leave it - but imo, part of Oswald looking pained in that moment was because he wants so much to trust Jim, and hates that he now can’t immediately do that)

Harvey interrupts and says that Sofia sent Victor to Arkham to kill him.  She runs the Narrows now, and she’ll find him.

Jim and Oswald look at each other.  Oswald drops his bottle and they face each other without weapons.  Apparently  there’s a specialist spa that Penn visits, and he’s probably hiding there.

Oswald walks past them. As he does, Jim says his name.  He turns to face him. Oswald’s face looks raw and vulnerable.  Jim actually manages a sincere thank-you, and extends his hand.

Oswald’s face softens, and he looks down at Jim’s hand, and - taking it – smiles.

Unfortunately Harvey Interruptus chooses this time to start going by the book, and cuffs him

Oswald yells they had a deal.  Jim asks Harvey what he's doing, and Harvey says he didn’t agree to anything.  Oswald yells as they walk away.

Lee watches from the shadows

As they get to the car, Oswald is still furious, but Jim tells him to relax, and that if the Penn info is good then he’ll still be rid of Sofia.

Victor and Wendell appear across the street.  Jim quickly shoves Oswald into the car, which was technically protective, and so I’m taking it as a shippy moment and you can’t stop me.

Victor apparently has the sharpest hearing in the world, since he heard them mention Penn’s name from across the road.  There’s a bit of back and forth, where they realise Penn is important.  

A big shoot out happens, during which Lee swoops in and steals Oswald and the car.  Victor and Wendell shoot after her before giving up. Jim tells Harvey they need to find Penn, and also need to find a car.

(An aside - Oh, Oswald. Your easy forgiveness here makes my fic writing life much much easier, but…sweetie, really.  You have a very big Jim Gordon shaped blind spot.   Between this, and calming down when Jim spoke to him, and making a beeline for him when he was infected with the fear serum, it seems that Oswald still sees Jim as a ‘safe’ person.)

At Sirens, Barbara has a terrible, terrible headache.  She throws back a pill as Tabitha approaches, asking if it’s another migraine.  Barbara nods, before asking what that stink is.

It’s Butch approaching, dragging Ed.  There’s some back and forth nastiness, where Barbara realises that Butch is himself again. Which, interestingly, means that Tabitha didn’t share that information.  Out of a sense of shame at her response to him?  Wanting to protect him?  Not having as close a relationship with Barbara anymore?

Butch tells them that Ed tried to recruit him to fight Sofia, so he brought him to Tabitha as a gift, after the whole hand amputation business.  Why does this show hate hands so much?  Oswald got a brooch pin through his, Butch got his cut off with a machete, Ed guillotined Tabitha’s, and Lee got hers mangled.

Anyway, Butch turns to leave.  Tabitha calls after him

Don't just walk away again

What?  Why wouldn’t he?  Tabitha’s response to his reaffirming his feelings for her made pretty clear that she wasn’t interested anymore – and she didn’t complain when he left last time.  Are we supposed to have forgotten that?   I start to share Barbara’s headache.

Butch promises Tabitha that he’ll find a way to get back to what he was.  Like – seriously, aside from the hair and skin, what’s the big problem here?  Why is Butch living in the sewer, anyway?  Some foundation and hair dye and he’s good to go.  Butch, 99% of your trouble here is that your sleeves are too short and give you that weird ‘monster suit’ look.  Just go see a tailor.  

Butch leaves, kicking Ed as he does so.  Tabitha watches him.  Tabitha is wearing a seriously terrible satin shirt with weird, weird sleeves.  If anyone should be living in the sewer, far from society’s gaze, it’s her in that shirt.

Barbara, meantime, grabs her head again – almost collapsing against the bar. Tabitha asks if she’s OK. Well – clearly not, Tabitha.  Barbara says they should send him back to Sofia. She’ll torture him, Lee’s allies are gone, the rebellion is quelled.  Once Sofia doesn’t need Ed, she’ll kill him.  Same end result, less work.

(An aside – sorry, not remotely believable that Tabitha would pass up the chance to torture Ed herself. She’s generally sadistic, and enjoys torture – and she loathes Ed for what he did to her and Butch.  But now she’ll hand him over? Nope.)

Back at the Falcone mansion, Sofia is pissed to hear that Oswald isn’t dead yet. She’s dialling the phone when Victor mentions Penn’s name, and goes very still. She says they have to find Penn before Gordon does.  Victor asks which to prioritise, and she tells them to do both.

(An aside.  Sofia’s temper and demands in this episode are another nice parallel with Oswald.  It’s a reminder that the relationship was worth exploring and keeping a little more grey in terms of their similarities and understanding.)

Back at some location in The Narrows, Oswald thanks Lee for coming to his rescue.  Lee tells him not to bother, she needs him to get to Sofia. Well, at least she's honest with him. Oswald sarcastically replies

Touching

Oswald can't believe they’re doing this without Ed and Butch – this plan will likely get him killed. Ah – so they’re at Victor Fries’ lair. Lee says she doesn't care, as long as it puts Sofia in the ground, and Oswald's jaw drops.

Victor F enters the room. Now my jaw drops, because good God, is Victor F in fine shape. He’s also cross at Oswald because he didn't follow through with funding him.  We see him from another angle.  I’m so happy.

Oswald smiles, and says that the failure to fund him was an omission he regrets and will rectify if given the chance

Victor opens a tap on a gas canister and sprays himself with something to cool himself down.  

Oswald moves to investigate something in the makeshift lab.  Victor grabs his arm to stop him

Don't touch that

Lee tells him he needs money for research, and Sofia wants Oswald.  If he delivers her, then he can name his price.  Victor hands him something.  He says it’s short notice – but the best he can do.  Oswald turns to Lee and starts to say if this affects his brain the way it did Nygma’s then it’ll be a disaster.  He can’t afford….

We don’t know what he can’t afford, because Victor cuts in

Ready?

Oswald splutters. Victor doesn’t listen.

I don't care

Victor freezes him in a block, like he did Ed.

(An aside - I know, by this point, that I’m essentially on a hiding to nothing if I wonder about logic and reasoning – but why didn’t Oswald fund Victor?  He knows what he’s capable of.  He’s greedy for allies.  Did he just not have the funds required?  Did he never really intend to do it all (again, confusing, given how useful Victor could be to him).  Did he forget?  It’s not a big detail but – again – it fleshes things out to know.)

(Another aside – I think I need some of that cooling gas canister stuff.  Wow.)

 At Wayne Manor, Selina roots through the jewellery while Bruce ices his knuckles.  She wants him to return it and he twigs that’s why she came. It wasn’t about the money.  He clearly and carefully tells her that she didn’t kill Roland Charles, Ivy did.  But Selina is guilty and ashamed.  She asks what she’s supposed to say, ‘sorry’?  Bruce says sometimes that’s enough, and they look at each other.

At the Falcone mansion, we hear drill sounds.  The dentist we met before is torturing Ed.  He comments that his strength of mind is impressive.  Sofia pats Ed’s shoulder, and tells him he will tell her what she wants to know, or this will look like a pleasant dream

Ed laughs, and says OK

I can be done with the teeth, the eyes or the mind - what am I?

I can be humorous, but I’m never funny - what am I?

Sofia stabs him in the thigh with a scalpel, and demands to know where Oswald is.

Ed laughs and tells her he already did – but she’s too stupid to figure it out

Sofia jiggles the scapel in his leg.  Ow ow ow. Ed screams in earnest.  They’re interrupted – they have a visitor.

It’s Victor F – with a frozen Oswald.  Ed turns and laughs – amused that they’ve gone through with his plan after all, and no doubt somewhat tickled to see Oswald in a block of ice.

Sofia asks if Oswald is alive.  Victor F responds that he might be, and asks for a hundred grand.  She agrees quickly.  Should have asked for more, Victor.

The other hot Victor enters as he leaves, eyeballs frozen Oswald, and says he’s not even going to ask – but tells her they found Penn.  A delighted Sofia kisses his forehead.  She tells the other thugs present to take Ed to the docks, shoot him, and throw him in the river.  Why does anyone bother doing this in this town?  It’s the least successful murder spot in the city.

She smiles brightly and bounces out of the room

Let’s go get Mr Penn

Victor follows, grinning like the cat who got the cream.  Wendell knocks warily at Oswald’s ice cube.

Jim and Harvey arrive at the Sumka spa.  They walk into a main hall.  Harvey speaks

What fresh level of hell is this?

Oh dear.  Not to judge – but this is a lot of no.

Jim says they’re looking for Arthur Penn.  The nurse says they try to guarantee anonymity.  They spot Penn trying to escape.  I’d rather exit this scene quickly without the need for description – so Harvey and Jim escort him out.  The end.

 At the Falcone Mansion, Oswald defrosts.  Once out, he screams incoherently at the dentist about he must have been working for Sofia too.  He asks where she is, before walloping him hard on the head and screaming in rage.

Lee is in the car. She answers her phone and asks excitedly if it’s done. Oswald tells her that Sofia left the mansion and is on her way to stop Jim.  He tells her to meet him at the spa and they’ll kill Sofia together.  That’s a bonding experience right there.

Ending the call – he spots Ed’s bowler on the table.  The dentist tells him Ed wouldn't turn on him (but did he actually reveal his location through his compulsive riddling?   Did anyone solve the riddles?   I’m terrible at it).  Oswald asks where he is now.  The dentist tells him they’re at the docks, and Oswald has a visible internal back and forth on whether to go immediately to kill Sofia, or go to the docks to prevent Ed from being murdered.

Back at the spa with Jim and Harvey.  Apparently, Penn worked for Falcone.  He asked him to keep eye on Sofia.  She found out, and made a deal – he had to report on Oswald.  Harvey expresses distaste at his triple-dealing, and Penn indignantly tells him it’s how you stay alive.  Sofia would let him live as long as her kept her one step ahead.  She also asked him to put her in touch with Pyg - so he did, and then told Falcone right away.

Jim tells him they need a statement, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of Victor and Sofia. There’s lots of shooting.  Sofia is wearing a terrible outfit – that soft pink trench-coat again, and high waisted white trousers.  

There’s general mayhem, and Jim gets shot.  He tells Harvey to get Penn out of there – he can make it until backup arrives.

Sofia advances, calling for him

James Gordon.  We could have had a good thing, you and I -  but you had to go and ruin it

Jim reiterates that Harvey should go, and makes it an order.  Sofia tells her men to find Penn and get Gordon.

Jim stumble/runs into the kitchen.  He takes another shot, from Sofia this time. He turns to shoot her, but he’s out of bullets, and staggers away, as Sofia follows.

Outside, Harvey passes Lee as he’s taking Penn away.  Lee calmly strides past him, asking where Sofia is.  Harvey says she’s in there with Jim.  Lee doesn’t deviate pace or fluster, just tells him to take the car as she walks on.  Harvey calls after her that Jim’s hurt bad.

Nearby, Victor and Wendell decide that the day’s more or less over at this point, and they should go get a milkshake.

Jim is stumbling, bleeding heavily.  Sofia is ranting.  She tells him he’s such a disappointment, and shoots again.  She asks if it would have been so bad, being in the palm of her hand, letting her chip away at his soul little by little.  Did he really have to rob her of her revenge?

Jim is on the floor. He tells her it wasn’t about him – he wasn’t going to give her GCPD. Jim – you’re bleeding pretty heavily and all, but she had GCPD.  You were a puppet.

Sofia doesn’t buy this. She tells him of course it was about him – his pride and arrogance.  What she wanted was no different than what her father had for thirty years.  Jim states.

Your father - who you killed

Sofia doesn’t wobble for a moment.

Yes - he disappointed me, just like you

(An aside – Sofia’s murder of Carmine was probably her scariest moment in how he justified it to herself.  A lot of her behaviour and beliefs are probably learned – her childhood sounds messed up.  But we heard her use the old ‘he made me do it’ before with conviction, and hear it again here).

Sofia crouches by him. She tells Jim she still cares for him. If he begs for his life and asks forgiveness, then they can start over.

(An aside - ugh – Sofia has feelings for Jim, apparently.  What did it for her? How easily he was duped by appealing to his ego?  How judgily he looked at her before any of their sexual encounters?  His eye-watering knack for hypocrisy? The way he immediately tried to drop her when she wasn’t useful anymore?)

Jim sits up slightly.

Sofia.  Go to hell

Her face pinches, and she rises

James Gordon - this is where our story ends

Before she can shoot, though – she is shot in the back.  She turns, face shocked.

You!

It’s a calm and smiling Lee

She pulls the trigger again – and puts a bullet through Sofia’s forehead

Yeah - me

Jim falls back to the floor, his head lolls to the side, and stares into Sofia’s open eyes.  We get flashes of Lee trying to keep him conscious as he eventually blacks out.

(An aside – it’s notable here how purposeful and calm Lee was, and how little Jim factored into her actions.  I’m sure saving him was likely pleasing – they have a history – but hearing he was in there didn’t produce a visible reaction, nor did her face change to see him on the floor.  She was entirely focused on revenge.

There’s a narrative logic to Lee killing Sofia, in terms of Gotham’s rules.  She was for a long time, and still is – in a sense – the closest thing the story has to a ‘good’ woman.  She’s nurturing and protective.  Her profession involves caring.  Even before her current stint trying to revive the Narrows, she existed as a symbol in Jim’s story: the motivation for moral redemption, something to protect, something to long for - the ‘love of a good woman’ trope.  For a long time, she hid her knowledge of Jim’s misdeeds – something she was only willing to use recently to protect people who had become more important to her.

In contrast, Sofia is set up as the wicked woman.  She founds an orphanage as a front, and then uses one of the children to manipulate Oswald’s finer feelings.  She uses the memory of his dead mother to do the same – serving up the goulash.  She also preyed on his vulnerability about his physical disability.  She uses sex to manipulate Jim, and uses his misdeeds to exert power over him. She endangers Martin.  She murders her father.  In just about any way a traditional narrative would function (and Gotham employs a lot of fairly traditional tropes) – she ‘fails’ at being a good woman.  She’s cold where Lee is passionate, destructive where she’s nurturing, uncaring where she is protective.

In terms of narrative, then – Lee taking Sofia out is the kind of moral judgment you’d probably expect. That Lee does it herself, and later seems to enjoy using violence, I suppose raises questions of whether the story now sees Lee as ‘tainted’ by her actions.)

 At the pier, Ed is being led, chuckling to the water’s edge.  One of the thugs offers a bad riddle.  Ed rolls his eyes, and tells them just to do it.  Before they can they’re shot.  Ed turns, and sees that it’s Oswald

He asks if he already killed Sofia, but he tells him no – she left the mansion to pursue Jim, and if he’d gone there he wouldn’t have made it to the pier in time. Ed is confused – Oswald gave up his revenge to save Ed?

Oswald looks out at the city.  He tells Ed that trust is so very hard to find in Gotham, but he trusts Ed. Really?   He thought he betrayed him, like, half an hour ago.  Whatever, though.  They both put their guns away and stare out over the water.  Ed says he has a strong desire never to see this pier again.  Oswald rolls his eyes, and heartily agrees.

(An aside - Oswald trusts Ed?  This makes no sense either.  Unless Oswald has essentially decided that Ed is ‘lawful evil’, and that digging up his father’s remains, humiliating in front of the public whose affection and respect he craved, and then attempting to murder him was a fair response to Isabella’s murder – and that therefore Ed can be trusted because he’ll only ever strike in retaliation. Play by the rules, and you’re fine.  

To be honest, I’d find it more believable if he did it to fulfil a sense of duty to the Ed whom he essentially buried alive when he enabled the Riddler personality to come to the fore, and who is – in a sense – an unwilling passenger in all this. But hey – why bother grounding actions in personality and motivation?)

Jim wakes up in a hospital room, with quite a good colour about him for someone who was shot so much. Harvey is there.  He tells him Lee saved him – even one-handed, she’s a damn good doctor.  Sofia is apparently in a coma. Wow – really? Right through the forehead?  OK

Jim frowns.  He tells Harvey when he gets out he’ll confess everything.  He has to come clean.  Harvey tells him no.  That would only benefit Jim’s martyr complex and make him feel better.   He tells him if he wants to pay his debt he has to live with it, like he does.  Oh Harvey. That would only work if Jim had a properly developed sense of guilt.  You’ve made the same mistake as Sofia.

Jim says that Sofia wins after all.  Harvey says it’s what the city needs.  

Jim asks after Lee. Harvey says she went back to the Narrow – unfinished business.

Cherry's – where Samson is being beaten.  Lee walks down the stairs, making an entrance, a hammer hanging at her belt.  Samson yells that he’ll go.  Lee smiles

Oh, I know - just not yet

She tells the men to hold his hand out.  Samson yells no – but to no avail.  Lee’s eyes light up, and she seriously goes to town on his hand – enjoying it quite a lot.

 At Sirens, Barbara is in pain.  Tabitha is going on about how they need to grab power, but Barbara snaps at her – in too much pain to listen.  Tabitha strops off sulkily.

Barbara looks down at her hand -which is glowing white, like the thing Ra’s gave her.  As she looks up, she sees him walk through the crowd.  She stares in shock, the air around her blurring and jolting.

General Observations

Forgiveness is the name of the game today.  It’s offered and accepted just about everywhere.  Jim and Harvey seem to have worked towards a tentative truce, even though things are still delicate.  Jim and Oswald have a meaningful handshake – forgiveness requested and granted hidden beneath the surface.  Ed and Oswald eventually seem to have reached a truce that will enable them to cooperate when necessary and maybe even sustain friendship.  Lee’s keeping Jim alive after he’s shot is mostly down to her personality and their history – but there’s also some tacit forgiveness in there, maybe, for his actions around Mario.  There’s a lot of pain and history to go round – but as Bruce tells Selina, sometimes sorry is enough.

Except for Sofia. Forgiveness has to be offered, but she demands Jim beg her for it.  In turn, she’s punished by Lee – who has no intention of offering forgiveness.

The practical result of all that is resetting the chessboard before the next big plot.  

Harvey is back at GCPD, and Jim is still Captain.  I’m not sure to what extent they’re completely OK with each other – but they’re working together now.

Oswald is out of Arkham. He’s established a truce with Ed which will enable them to cooperate. He seems to have forgiven Jim.  Sofia is temporarily gone, and Martin is temporarily safe.  He was willing to joint-kill Sofia with Lee.

Lee has embraced the darker side of herself.  She’s back to running the Narrows, and is now a formidable power as well as on the side of her people. Her focus on getting revenge on Sofia was impressive, as was her calmness throughout.

Ed is currently in his Riddler persona.  He’s mended fences with Oswald, but regained an enemy in Butch.

Ed and Lee warrant their own paragraph, I think.  I’d be surprised if we don’t see things develop further there.  We’ve already got the foundation of the Ed/Lee friendship, then we were shown Ed falling for her, then we got the little flickers of romantic expectation we saw from Lee in the previous episode.  In this episode, they couldn’t keep their eyes off each other, and there was tension crackling all over the place.  

Barbara’s having creepy headaches, Selina is pretty much awol, and Tabitha is trying to figure out how to grab power after they fundamentally backed the wrong horse.  Sirens is pretty much in disarray. 

Victor Fries has funding now.  I think we definitely need to see more of him for important narrative reasons.  Much more

Thoughts?

[inhumansforever]

The Royals #1 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The Royal Inhumans adventure into the cosmos starts here from the creative team of Al Ewing, Jonboy Meyers, and Ryan Kinnaird.  Full recap and review following the jump.

It’s a desperate a somber time for The Inhumans of New Attilan.  The threat that the Terrigen Cloud would end all Mutant life on Earth forced Queen Medusa to destroy the cloud, essentially ending The Inhumans’ way of life.  No new Inhuman will again be able to go through Terrigenesis and their people must look toward to an uncertain future and the inevitable demise of their culture and heritage.  Feeling responsible for the events that brought this about, Medusa has decided that her people need a new leader to guide them on this new path.  She has abdicated her position as queen and dissolved the monarchy; handing leadership of New Attilan to the young Inhuman, Iso.  

Now the Kree adventurer known as Marvel Boy has come to seek an audience with Iso and the formal royal Inhumans.  Marvel Boy hails from an alternate reality, a reality in which The Kree Empire had ended its unyielding wars and dedicated itself to peace and scientific discovery.  To this end, Marvel Boy possesses knowledge of Terrigen that could revitalize the Inhuman peoples and enable them to re-obtain the rite of Terrigenesis for subsequent generations.  

Marvel Boy warns that the mission to gain the secrets of Terrigen is likely to be a perilous one, that were they to embark on this quest all might not make it home.  This ominous warning does little to sway the Royals.  The prospect of possibly saving the future of their race is worth any risk.  Furthermore, Medusa feels it her duty, her penitence to take this journey as redemption for past failures.  And her family is not going to let her go alone.  

Iso, the new leader of the Inhumans, objects.  Having the Royals, the strongest among the Inhumans, leave New Attilan in this precarious time of change feels far too risky, but Medusa and the others will not be swayed in their determination.  The former queen had named Iso her successor, but it doesn’t seem she is actually willing to follow this lead herself.  

Joining Medusa is her sister, Crystal, and their cousin, Gorgon.  Black Bolt, Medusa’s one-time husband and the former king of The Inhumans will also accompany the team; as will the young new Inhuman, Swain, whose one-time position as captain of the Royal Inhuman Vessel makes her the ideal candidate to pilot their star-faring craft.  Rounding out the team is Swain’s fellow new Inhuman, Flint.  

The remaining Royals, Karnak, Triton and Lockjaw will remain behind.  They will be there if Iso were to need their assistance, yet this does little to quell Iso’s unease.  Making matters more difficult for Iso is the revelation that Iso and Flint have rekindled their romance; and she appears a touch heartbroken that Flint is so insistent on accompanying the Royals in this dangerous mission.  

Prior to their departure, each member of the team makes their preparations and says their goodbyes.  Crystal sits with her young daughter, Luna, expressing the great import behind her leaving and promising that she will return in short time.  Crystal makes Luna promise to stay out of trouble.  If trouble is to find her, however, she is to use Lockjaw to seek out her uncle Karnak (a foreshadowing that I so hopes come to pass in that it enhances the likelihood of Luna meeting Karnak’s soon-to-be teammate, Moon Girl in the pages of the up-coming Secret Warriors series).  

Elsewhere, Swain is a bit saddened that her girlfriend, Panacea, is less upset over her leaving.  Terrigenesis has significantly altered Panacea’s emotional process.  She doesn’t feel things in a typical fashion.  She cares for Swain, but the closest she can get to a declaration of tenderness is to state that she finds her fascinating and prefers that she stay alive.  

We also see Gorgon beside the bed of his son, Petras, still convalescing in a coma-like state from his adverse reaction to Terrigenesis.  Gorgon had hoped that he would be at his son’s side when he finally awakens, but duty has called.  Panacea has been using her healing powers to treat Petras, as she had treated  Gorgon; yet it appears there are limitations to what she can do.  Gorgon is no longer paralyzed, but remains in a state of chronic pain, pain that substantially worsens whenever he uses his powers (not that he has allowed it to slow him down).  

There is additionally a scene between Flint and Iso where we learn that the two have become an item once again.  Flint has a difficult time expressing exactly what it is that has so compelled him to volunteer for this mission.  Flint lost his adoptive family and discovered his biological family to be less than the idealized fantasy that he had hoped for.  The Inhumans themselves are the family he has left and aiding them feels like something he simply has to do.  

Next we see Medusa and Black Bolt.  The relationship between the two has warmed as of late, but they remain a great deal distant compared to the intimate closeness they once enjoyed.  Medusa has something she needs to speak with Black Bolt about, but he refuses to discuss it.  Something is preoccupying Black Bolt, something likely having to do with the secret told to him by his brother in the pages of last week’s Inhumans Prime.  

Finally, we see Noh-Varr, the mysterious Kree known as Marvel Boy.  It turns out that there is more than simple altruism and the thirst for adventure that has led him to bring this quest to The Royals.  Noh has motives of his own and whether or not they are sinister or benevolent remains to be seen.  I assume that is Noh’s old buddy, the living computer known as, Plex, that he’s talking with (but I suppose we’ll have to wait to find out for sure).  

The seven adventurers depart at dawn aboard the starcraft, Astarion, named after an Inhuman hero of ancient lore.  Their destination the former Kree throne-world of Hala.  

The issue begins with two prologues.  The first prologue shows the distant future of a mysterious realm known as Arctilan.  Giant armor-clad beings ride atop enormous pterodactyls above an alien city of glass and steel.  Yet is it an alien world?  Various hints suggest that this strange realm may be the earth of five thousand years in the future.  

One of the riders descends down to a tower baring the flags of the House of Boltigon.  There he is met by ‘the ghost who ever sleeps,’ a frail and ancient being who bears a passing resemblance to an aged Black Bolt.  The rider refers to the older, much smaller man as ‘Inhu-Man.’  Solemnly, the old man trades salutations with the rider before returning inside to his lonely layer.  He looks up to a large stone carving in which mysterious words are inscribed in the Inhuman language of Tilan.    

The man seems to be recalling back to an adventure from his distant past… a mission in which seven ventured forth and only six returned.   

Who exactly this ancient Inhuman is and the dire nature of his statement is set to be revealed in subsequent installments of the story.

A second prologue shows Medusa, Gorgon, Iso and Flint battling to contain a new Inhuman who has awaken from Terrigenesis to find herself transformed into a giant monster.  Frightened and confused, this new Inhuman has lashed out and the others have come contain her and help her contend with what has happened to her.  

Her name is Mrs. Bellhauer.  She was a recluse and her time in her Terrigenic cocoon was longer than most.  In all likelihood, she will be the last of the new Inhumans created on earth and the mere thought of it is enough to bring a tear to Medusa’s eye.  

Iso and Flint make short work of subduing the rampaging Mrs. Bellhauer.  Though she is proud over just how far her pupils have come, Medusa is also given pause by how weak and tired she has been feeling as of late.  Something is wrong and it is getting worse quickly.  She had tried to confide in Black Bolt about this matter, but he hadn’t the time to discuss it.  

At the end of the issue we see Medusa sitting in the command chair aboard The Astarion.  She notices that a sizable lock of her hair has broken free from her mane, brittle and sick.  She can push it to the back of her thinking no more.  Something is very wrong and she announces to the rest of the crew her grave prediction... 

 seven ventured forth and only six returned...

Wow!  What a great first issue.  This is the Inhumans that I have been so looking forward to seeing.  I’m one of those fans who greatly enjoyed Charles Soule run on The Inhumans, yet I understood that he was asked to follow a guideline to make the franchise more accessible to a broader audience, to make them more akin to traditional super heroics.  Al Ewing has clearly been given no such constraints and he delves right into all of the weird, cosmic, sci-fi coolness that has made The Inhumans so special to me.  

Referring to the earlier scene, Medusa looks up at this poor woman who has been transformed into a giant slimy monster and sheds a tear that the majesty of this may never happen again.  There is not even the consideration that this Mrs. Bellhauer likely doesn’t feel the same; indeed she’s probably quite distraught over having been transformed into a monster.  Yet that’s not how Medusa sees it…  why?  Because she’s a weird alien queen from a bizarre and outré culture.  No apologies are given.  The Inhumans are all about sci-fi weirdness and Ewing is allowing it to go their full steam ahead.  It makes me almost giddy with excitement.  

Though I’m certainly less excited and not giddy at all over this prospect that Medusa may be dying.  We all know that one member of the team is destined to perish on this mission, it has hung like an ominous cloud over the title since Ewing’s initial interviews regarding the project in which he stated a cast member wasn’t going to make it back.  Medusa was among the Inhumans I felt least likely to die.  There is of course no certainty that she will die, but it’s made clear from the onset that none of the Inhumans are safe.  It’s a matter that makes me equal parts excited and frightened to read the nest installment.  

The dialogue captures the characters quite well and it is made abundantly clear that Ewing has boned up on his Inhuman reading in preparing for this run.  I’m especially happy to see so many of the plot threads from James Asmus’ all-too-short run on All New Inhumans being brought back into the foreground (such as Swain and Panacea’s relationship and the status of Gorgon’s son, Petras).  It’s impressive that the issue packs so much plot yet the characterizations doesn’t at all feel pushed to the back burner.  

Lots of intriguing questions are asked not just about The Royals’ mission, but also over what is going on for each of the cast members.  What is Marvel Boy’s ulterior motives?  Why is Gorgon pushing himself so hard?  What secret is Black Bolt harboring?  Why is Crystal leaving so soon after reuniting with her daughter?  What so compels Flint to join the team?  Why is Swain so reluctant over her powers?  And most importantly, is Medusa going to be okay???

I’m happy to report that I very much enjoyed the art by Jonboy Meyers and Ryan Kinnaird.  The initial preview had me a bit worried that Meyers’ kinetic, manga style would not be to my liking… that it would look too similar to those 1990’s-era books from Image Comics that so turned me off.  There’s a lot of flash to Meyer’s illustration.  The poses are exaggerated and the action jumps off the page with dynamic energy.  Yet he also does quite well in using facial expressions to relay emotion.  Medusa’s sorrow, Noh-Varr’s smirky arrogance, Flint’s anxious determination and Black Bolt’s stoic unease are all extremely evident in the way Meyers’ details their faces and expressions.  Top marks.

Furthermore Meyers’ page composition and backgrounds are very nicely executed.  In short, I’m relived and excited that my reservations over Meyers’ art were completely unfounded.  

A brand new chapter of The Inhumans mythos starts here and it is a truly fantastic (albeit frightening) beginning.

I’ll be very interested to hear what others thought about this debut issue.  As an Inhuman super-fan, I feel like I’m not very suited to write an unbiased review.  Nevertheless, with this issue, I’m feeling rather confident that others are going to share in my enthusiasm.

Of course recommended; Five out of Five Lockjaws.  

[nicoleignn]

INMOOV|ROBOT LOVE - digging deeper

INTRODUCTION

In 2012, French sculptor and designer Gael Langevin started his project called ‘InMoove’. It started as a hand prothesis and, over time, developed into a human-size 3D-printed robot that is able to talk, see,  move and hold onto something. It is now even possible to build your own version of this robot, since there is an open access to all information. The network shares the knowledge and innovation about the robot and its technology. Langevin believes that a huge benefit of this project being open-source is that it is enabled to have a wide reach and thereby goes through a larger development.

In 2015, a photographer Yethy proposed to do a photo session in Gael’s workshop with whatever moods and feelings the author of the artwork had.  The photograph they made is the piece I want to apply digging deeper to and express my feelings towards it.  

Unfortunately, I can't post the photograph because of Tumblr restrictions, however, it can be found here : http://inmoov.fr/gallery-v2/ (robot holding a baby)

What I find particularly appealing about this artwork is the contrast and the controversial meaning behind it. Baby skin in the photograph looks very soft, warm and sensitive, while robot ‘skin’ looks rather cold and harsh. Moreover, baby is sitting in a very natural way comparing to the robot, whose moves look dramatically artificial and have absolutely nothing to do with love and happiness that comes from a real person holding a baby. Also, the high contrast dissimulates the face of the baby, just like InMoov seem to come out from the darkness. Robot is not even looking at the baby, its face looks emotionless, and the baby himself/herself is turned away from robots’s face.

All these aspects that I have noticed might be pointing out the down-side of technological revolution. I strongly believe that soul and emotions are the things that separate us, human beings from animals, plants and machines. However, as can be seen through this artwork, there is no way robots can replace humans in these manifestations of humanity, because they are lacking the most important ingredients that I have aforementioned.

Even though the robot holding a baby might have been an attempt to convince that the future of technological revolution is alright and we can absolutely trust robots (since babies are really fragile and the one who’s holding it must be extremely trustful), I wouldn't agree with such statement. This photograph is giving me scary thoughts about our future: are humans going to be replaced with robots? Are robots going to raise children? If this robot is holding a baby, might he/she be baby’s parent? If yes, how does it feel like to be in a relationship with a machine? I do hope that we will never know.

Even though this piece gives me goosebumps, I find it very meaningful and successful, since it has literally brought my ideas about the frightening future to life and gave me some thoughts about the power of lighting, arrangement and photography itself. I feel that a strong quote added to this photograph would make the message even stronger, although, making a poster out of this work rather than a photograph.

3:1 KEY THEMES OF THE ARTWORK

Robot

Technology

Photography

Contrast

Relationship

3:2 WORD ASSOCIATION

Robot: artificial, emotionless, soulless, artificial intelligence, individuality, uniqueness, character, habits, attitude, person, human being, humanity, humanism.

Technology: progress, future, computer, robotic, mechanism, remote-controlled, programmed.

Photography: art, white balance, ISO, arrangement, lighting, background, model, message, hidden message, meaning.

Contrast: black and white, comparison, difference.

Relationship: love, trust, human, real, natural, fake, artificial, unreal, sci-fi, future, disaster, apocalypse.

3:3 RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Hi, Robot’ by Frieze

An article focusing on the second-wave effects of the ‘digital revolution’, or the capacities for automation, AI, and robotics to fundamentally shift the ways we work, speak, relate, love, criminalize and, yes, perhaps obliterate one another. It insists on asking yourself: so will the robots kill us all or will we do it ourselves? In an age of automation and robotics, how will we relate to one another? Do we need a new code of ethics? It also includes a review of the exhibition ‘Hello, Robot”, focused on ‘design’ as an interface between human and the machine. There is a small extract from the article that summaries my thoughts and gives a hope for a better future: ‘If our robots have developed, then our feelings for and against them largely haven’t: they still serve as playthings for us humans to live out our dreams, hatred and perhaps love.’

‘Artificial Amsterdam: The City As An Artwork’ by e-flux

An article about the exhibition, that depicts how the dynamic of cities is causing dramatic changes in society and culture worldwide. Cities are experiencing vast damage, economic, social and cultural shocks that they are not prepared to assume. Amsterdam is the opposite example of a city from disappearing into the waters. The term ‘artificial’ pops frequently when referring to Amsterdam. It does not only allude to the physical character of a city ‘stolen’ to the sea, but to a general feeling about the city’s life, culture, its submission to tourism, its paradoxical ruled liberality… a place where everything is under control, impost card city.

‘All Too Human Dinner” by TATE

This article does not aim to review any artworks, it is rather an announcement, informing that visitors go the ‘All Too Human’ exhibition will be able to have a dinner provided by Tate Britain afterwards. The relationship between the name of the exhibition and picture of food made me think of humanity and our natural habits regarding consuming food, which has become a ritual, even a cult nowadays. Is this food religion going to disappear along with the digital revolution?

3:4 WHAT I THINK ARTIST HAS RESEARCHED WHILE MAKING THIS WORK

Ironically, human body and its functions, in order to build a proper, human-looking robot. As for the photograph, I think he must have researched old renaissance paintings illustrating bright emotions and feelings, human relationship, in order to compare it to relationship between human and a machine. I feel that the famous icon of Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus was taken as an example for the arrangement and composition of the photograph. Comparing Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ to a robot holding a baby is extremely brave and provoking; a throwback to history of humanity and sneak-peak to the future where it might disappear. Obviously, an important aspect of the research must have been human feelings from the psychological point of view; how people are going to view the artwork and what kid of feelings towards it are going to appear, what this piece reminds of and how it can provoke the debate insight viewers’ mind.

HOW THE ARTWORK RELATES TO CURRENT NEWS

One of the most considerable and questionable inventions of our century is, undoubtedly, crypto currency, which arises questions similar to those that appear while thinking of digital revolution and robots: why was it created? How is it going to change our lives? Is it going to replace or destroy the existing system? Cryptocurrency, although being decentralised, is not gaining trust from the major percentage of population, just like artificial intelligence and robots. Nobody knows the true aim of making those aforementioned and how cryptocurrency and robots are going to change our lives. Even though crypto currency, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, is made for human-use, it seems like someone is giving us a hint that soon we will only have digital currency for digital beings.

Since technological revolution is taking our world by storm, this artwork can relate to many current events in this field: the strikingly expressive android child’s face, developed on November 15, 2018 in Osaka University, flexible electronic skin for human-machine interactions, presented on November 28, 2018 by American Chemical society and many more. All these inventions are super promising and high-brow, yet so frightening and warning.

HOW THE ARTWORK RELATES TO HISTORY

The first historical event that pops in my head while looking at this artwork is the invention of the first computer. The first mechanical computer, created by Charles Babbage in 1822, doesn't really resemble what most would consider a computer today. Therefore, this document has been created with a listing of each of the computer firsts, starting with the Difference Engine and leading up to the computers we use today. The word "computer" was first recorded as being used in 1613 and originally was used to describe a human who performed calculations or computations. The definition of a computer remained the same until the end of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution gave rise to machines whose primary purpose was calculating.

I feel that this life-changing invention has started the thing we now call ‘digital revolution' in its worst sense, exposing peoples’ personal space into social media and replacing spiritual values with those non-existing digital ones.

RELATED ARTICLES

‘Hi, Robot’ by Frieze

An article focusing on the second-wave effects of the ‘digital revolution’, or the capacities for automation, AI, and robotics to fundamentally shift the ways we work, speak, relate, love, criminalize and, yes, perhaps obliterate one another. It insists on asking yourself: so will the robots kill us all or will we do it ourselves? In an age of automation and robotics, how will we relate to one another? Do we need a new code of ethics? It also includes a review of the exhibition ‘Hello, Robot”, focused on ‘design’ as an interface between human and the machine. There is a small extract from the article that summaries my thoughts and gives a hope for a better future: ‘If our robots have developed, then our feelings for and against them largely haven’t: they still serve as playthings for us humans to live out our dreams, hatred and perhaps love.’

‘Artificial Amsterdam: The City As An Artwork’ by e-flux

An article about the exhibition, that depicts how the dynamic of cities is causing dramatic changes in society and culture worldwide. Cities are experiencing vast damage, economic, social and cultural shocks that they are not prepared to assume. Amsterdam is the opposite example of a city from disappearing into the waters. The term ‘artificial’ pops frequently when referring to Amsterdam. It does not only allude to the physical character of a city ‘stolen’ to the sea, but to a general feeling about the city’s life, culture, its submission to tourism, its paradoxical ruled liberality… a place where everything is under control, impost card city.

‘All Too Human Dinner” by TATE

This article does not aim to review any artworks, it is rather an announcement, informing that visitors go the ‘All Too Human’ exhibition will be able to have a dinner provided by Tate Britain afterwards. The relationship between the name of the exhibition and picture of food made me think of humanity and our natural habits regarding consuming food, which has become a ritual, even a cult nowadays. Is this food religion going to disappear along with the digital revolution?

BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY

‘Is man a robot?’ by G.L.Simons, 1939

‘Becoming a robot’ by Narn June Paik, 2014

‘A guide to digital revolution’ by PACS, 2006

‘How machines think: a general introduction to artificial intelligence’ by Nigel Ford, 1987

‘Artificial Intelligence’ by Patrick Henry Winston, 1992

3:5 SUMMARY

In conclusion, referring to the expanded research and applying it to the original artwork, it becomes obvious that digital revolution is both a great invention and a huge issue of our age. As anything else, it has both benefits and drawbacks, however, looking back at the original artwork, it seems that those down-sides outweigh the pluses of robots and digitalising process. The more digital creations are being developed, the more humanity is dying. InMoove is a very successful piece that illustrates frustrating and frightening future, a future without kindness, love, individuality and, unfortunately, humanity.

This expanded research gave me an astonishing abundance of thoughts regarding digital revolution and my own artworks. I might relate my art to my apocalyptic view of the future, expanded and developed by this research.

I would like end by summarising the moral of this research through Erich Fromm’s quote: ‘he danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.’

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Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers

Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers https://ift.tt/2Dx9PTa

Business ImageSenator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, is a potential swing vote in the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.CreditCreditErin Schaff for The New York TimesWASHINGTON — President Trump assailed the latest woman to accuse Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying on Tuesday that she “has nothing” because she was “messed up” at the time, even as a key Republican senator urged colleagues to take the accusations seriously.With pressure rising in advance of a make-or-break hearing on Thursday, Mr. Trump lashed out in a more vociferous way than he has since his nominee came under fire for allegations of sexual assault, blaming Democrats for orchestrating a “con game” and targeting one of Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers in scathing, personal terms.“The second accuser has nothing,” Mr. Trump said. “She thinks maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses. There were time lapses. This is a person, and this is a series of statements, that’s going to take one of the most talented and one of the greatest intellects from a judicial standpoint in our country, going to keep him off the United States Supreme Court?”The president was referring to Deborah Ramirez, who said in an interview with The New Yorker published this week that Judge Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking party while they were students at Yale. She was initially reluctant to characterize the judge’s role, but said that after six days of assessing memories, she was confident that he was the one who took down his pants.As Mr. Trump and Republican leaders insisted that they will install Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court despite the accusations, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a crucial Republican swing vote, offered a blunt warning of her own: Do not prejudge sexual assault allegations against the nominee.“We are now in a place where it’s not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified,” Ms. Murkowski said in an extended interview on Monday night in the Capitol. “It is about whether or not a woman who has been a victim at some point in her life is to be believed.”With a 51-to-49 majority, Senate Republicans can afford to lose only one vote. If Ms. Murkowski votes no, she could swing Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the other abortion-rights Republican in the Senate. But Republican leaders were confident enough on Tuesday that they scheduled a committee vote for Friday, just a day after the hearing, a move that drew rebukes from Democrats who said the majority was not taking the allegations seriously.Senate Judiciary Committee staff members interviewed Judge Kavanaugh by telephone on Tuesday about Ms. Ramirez and he denied her account, according to people familiar with the interview. The committee plans a hearing for Thursday to hear another woman, Christine Blasey Ford, who has said that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, but it was not clear whether Ms. Ramirez would be called as well.The committee’s Republican leadership said on Tuesday that it had retained an outside counsel — Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, called her a “female assistant” — to aid in Thursday’s hearing, but declined to identify the lawyer, citing safety concerns. Dr. Blasey, who also goes by her married name, Ford, had sought to have senators question her rather than a lawyer.VideoSenator Mitch McConnell said that being male didn’t preclude making a fair decision but that “a female assistant” was hired to question Christine Blasey Ford before the Senate Judiciary Committee.Published OnSept. 25, 2018CreditCreditImage by Erin Schaff for The New York TimesBut mindful of the backlash after sharp questioning of Anita F. Hill during confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991, the all-male group of Republicans on the committee preferred to pass off the task to a professional and a woman.Mr. Trump’s aggressive comments on Tuesday came after privately expressing concern that Judge Kavanaugh had been too weak during an interview on Monday night on Fox News. The judge denied the allegations against him in a calm way, growing a little emotional at the end, but the president and some of his advisers worried that he was not forceful or indignant enough. Judge Kavanaugh repeated some of the same scripted lines repeatedly, to the point that some of his allies believed it came across as robotic.Image“I had not made a decision, and obviously the hearing Thursday is an important one,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters on Tuesday.CreditErin Schaff for The New York TimesThe president hinted at his private disappointment in his public comments to reporters on Tuesday. “He was so truthful,” he said of the judge. “You’re also not seeing him on his footing. This isn’t his footing. He’s never been here before. He’s never had any charges like this, I mean charges come up from 36 years ago that are totally unsubstantiated.”But Ms. Murkowski’s expressions of concern undercut Republican efforts to paint the accusations as a grand Democratic plot. She was always expected to be a critical vote in Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. But she is making clear that, beyond matters of abortion, she is deeply troubled by Dr. Blasey’s story.In the interview, Ms. Murkowski emphasized how invested she was in assessing Dr. Blasey’s story. Her view that an “arbitrary timeline” should not scuttle a potential hearing helped nudge Republicans toward reaching an agreement with the accuser’s lawyers last weekend. She canceled a meeting of the Senate committee she leads on Thursday to ensure her schedule was clear. And although she is not on the Senate Judiciary Committee, she will be watching.“All you can try to do is be as fair as possible to ensure that at the end of the day justice is delivered,” Ms. Murkowski said.As senators prepare to face contradictory testimony from Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Blasey, with little hope of independent corroboration, Ms. Murkowski is emerging as an important voice, along with Ms. Collins, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and, possibly, Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, the only Republican up for re-election in November in a state won by Hillary Clinton.As new accusations surface, their ultimate decisions are looking ever more difficult. Late Monday night, a freshman roommate of Judge Kavanaugh’s at Yale, James Roche, released a statement in support of Ms. Ramirez.“Although Brett was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time,” he wrote, adding, “he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk.”Another Yale schoolmate, Steve Kantrowitz, took to Twitter on Tuesday to contradict the assertion Judge Kavanaugh made on Fox News on Monday night that he was a virgin in high school and “for many years thereafter.”“Perhaps Brett Kavanaugh was a virgin for many years after high school,” he wrote. “But he claimed otherwise in a conversation with me during our freshman year in Lawrence Hall at Yale, in the living room of my suite.”In lashing out on Tuesday, Mr. Trump dispensed with the restraint that advisers have urged him to exercise and adopted the attack mode he prefers. He portrayed the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh as character assassination, and he went further than before in directly challenging the credibility of Ms. Ramirez.“She said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up and she doesn’t know it was him but it might have been him,” Mr. Trump said while in New York for the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. Then, speaking sarcastically, he added, “Oh, gee, let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that.”As the president of Colombia looked on, Mr. Trump accused the Democrats of smearing Judge Kavanaugh. “I think it’s horrible what the Democrats have done. It’s a con game they’re playing; they’re really con artists,” he said. “They’re playing a con game,” he continued, “and they play it very well. They play it actually much better than the Republicans.”ImageThe chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles E. Grassley, hired an outside lawyer to question Christine Blasey Ford on behalf of Republicans.CreditErin Schaff for The New York TimesHe went on to call it a con game several more times, even at one point spelling it out, “C-O-N.”Democrats argued that Mr. Trump and other Republicans were casting a verdict without actually hearing from any accusers. “Senate Republicans promised that ‘anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard,’” Senate Democrats said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it appears that Republican leaders have prejudged the outcome of Thursday’s hearing.”For many Republicans, the charges and countercharges have only cemented their view that Judge Kavanaugh is being smeared by a coordinated campaign of Democrats and liberal activists.Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said he was not persuaded by Ms. Ramirez’s story. “I read The New Yorker article. It’s pretty thin. No one else remembered any of it,” he said. “This is really getting kind of carried away, it’s feeling more like a circus. But again, I did feel like this first accuser should be heard.”Projecting optimism, Mr. McConnell signaled that Republicans would be ready to move forward quickly after Thursday’s hearing.“We’re going to be moving forward; I’m confident we’re going to win,” he told reporters.In the interview, Ms. Murkowski was not so dismissive of the accusations. “We are at just a difficult place because the conversation is not rational on either side,” she said. She added: “Just look at some of the hateful things that are being said out there. How do you dial that back?”“We need to be able to listen,” she said, pledging to take Dr. Blasey seriously. “We have to listen to what she will say on the record, under oath, and what Judge Kavanaugh will say on the record, under oath.”When Dr. Blasey, a research psychologist in Northern California, came forward in an interview this month with The Washington Post, Ms. Murkowski and Ms. Collins had largely completed exhaustive reviews of Judge Kavanaugh’s career and legal writing, including follow-up calls with the nominee just two days before. Both senators were particularly interested in Judge Kavanaugh’s views on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, but privately, fellow Republicans believed the judge had probably won their support — and with it a ticket onto the court.Those views will still influence their decisions, both senators have said. Ms. Murkowski said on Monday that Judge Kavanaugh had laid out for her a powerful case about the importance of precedent and the “reliance of interest” it creates.“How he articulated how it had been reinforced in so many different steps, I certainly have greater confidence with the way that he portrayed to me how he views Roe,” she said.Ms. Collins, an institutional-minded centrist who carefully reviews judicial nominees, has expressed similar views on Judge Kavanaugh and Roe and indicated that she will watch on Thursday with equal vigor.“I had not made a decision, and obviously the hearing Thursday is an important one,” Ms. Collins told reporters on Tuesday. She expressed concern about Ms. Ramirez’s accusation and suggested that the Judiciary Committee question her under oath as well as Dr. Blasey.Given the explosive nature of the allegations, the decision by Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to hire an outside lawyer to question Dr. Blasey was cast by some as a way to preserve some sense of decorum. “We have done it because we want to depoliticize the whole process, like the Democrats politicized the Anita Hill thing,” said Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and the chairman of the committee.A version of this article appears in print on of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Takes Aim At New Accuser: She ‘Has Nothing’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe Read More | https://ift.tt/2NDmKaB |

Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers, in 2018-09-26 01:45:38

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Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers

Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers http://www.nature-business.com/business-trump-unleashes-on-kavanaugh-accuser-as-key-republican-wavers/

Business ImageSenator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, is a potential swing vote in the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.CreditCreditErin Schaff for The New York TimesWASHINGTON — President Trump assailed the latest woman to accuse Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying on Tuesday that she “has nothing” because she was “messed up” at the time, even as a key Republican senator urged colleagues to take the accusations seriously.With pressure rising in advance of a make-or-break hearing on Thursday, Mr. Trump lashed out in a more vociferous way than he has since his nominee came under fire for allegations of sexual assault, blaming Democrats for orchestrating a “con game” and targeting one of Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers in scathing, personal terms.“The second accuser has nothing,” Mr. Trump said. “She thinks maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses. There were time lapses. This is a person, and this is a series of statements, that’s going to take one of the most talented and one of the greatest intellects from a judicial standpoint in our country, going to keep him off the United States Supreme Court?”The president was referring to Deborah Ramirez, who said in an interview with The New Yorker published this week that Judge Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking party while they were students at Yale. She was initially reluctant to characterize the judge’s role, but said that after six days of assessing memories, she was confident that he was the one who took down his pants.As Mr. Trump and Republican leaders insisted that they will install Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court despite the accusations, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a crucial Republican swing vote, offered a blunt warning of her own: Do not prejudge sexual assault allegations against the nominee.“We are now in a place where it’s not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified,” Ms. Murkowski said in an extended interview on Monday night in the Capitol. “It is about whether or not a woman who has been a victim at some point in her life is to be believed.”With a 51-to-49 majority, Senate Republicans can afford to lose only one vote. If Ms. Murkowski votes no, she could swing Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the other abortion-rights Republican in the Senate. But Republican leaders were confident enough on Tuesday that they scheduled a committee vote for Friday, just a day after the hearing, a move that drew rebukes from Democrats who said the majority was not taking the allegations seriously.Senate Judiciary Committee staff members interviewed Judge Kavanaugh by telephone on Tuesday about Ms. Ramirez and he denied her account, according to people familiar with the interview. The committee plans a hearing for Thursday to hear another woman, Christine Blasey Ford, who has said that Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, but it was not clear whether Ms. Ramirez would be called as well.The committee’s Republican leadership said on Tuesday that it had retained an outside counsel — Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, called her a “female assistant” — to aid in Thursday’s hearing, but declined to identify the lawyer, citing safety concerns. Dr. Blasey, who also goes by her married name, Ford, had sought to have senators question her rather than a lawyer.VideoSenator Mitch McConnell said that being male didn’t preclude making a fair decision but that “a female assistant” was hired to question Christine Blasey Ford before the Senate Judiciary Committee.Published OnSept. 25, 2018CreditCreditImage by Erin Schaff for The New York TimesBut mindful of the backlash after sharp questioning of Anita F. Hill during confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991, the all-male group of Republicans on the committee preferred to pass off the task to a professional and a woman.Mr. Trump’s aggressive comments on Tuesday came after privately expressing concern that Judge Kavanaugh had been too weak during an interview on Monday night on Fox News. The judge denied the allegations against him in a calm way, growing a little emotional at the end, but the president and some of his advisers worried that he was not forceful or indignant enough. Judge Kavanaugh repeated some of the same scripted lines repeatedly, to the point that some of his allies believed it came across as robotic.Image“I had not made a decision, and obviously the hearing Thursday is an important one,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine told reporters on Tuesday.CreditErin Schaff for The New York TimesThe president hinted at his private disappointment in his public comments to reporters on Tuesday. “He was so truthful,” he said of the judge. “You’re also not seeing him on his footing. This isn’t his footing. He’s never been here before. He’s never had any charges like this, I mean charges come up from 36 years ago that are totally unsubstantiated.”But Ms. Murkowski’s expressions of concern undercut Republican efforts to paint the accusations as a grand Democratic plot. She was always expected to be a critical vote in Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. But she is making clear that, beyond matters of abortion, she is deeply troubled by Dr. Blasey’s story.In the interview, Ms. Murkowski emphasized how invested she was in assessing Dr. Blasey’s story. Her view that an “arbitrary timeline” should not scuttle a potential hearing helped nudge Republicans toward reaching an agreement with the accuser’s lawyers last weekend. She canceled a meeting of the Senate committee she leads on Thursday to ensure her schedule was clear. And although she is not on the Senate Judiciary Committee, she will be watching.“All you can try to do is be as fair as possible to ensure that at the end of the day justice is delivered,” Ms. Murkowski said.As senators prepare to face contradictory testimony from Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Blasey, with little hope of independent corroboration, Ms. Murkowski is emerging as an important voice, along with Ms. Collins, Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and, possibly, Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, the only Republican up for re-election in November in a state won by Hillary Clinton.As new accusations surface, their ultimate decisions are looking ever more difficult. Late Monday night, a freshman roommate of Judge Kavanaugh’s at Yale, James Roche, released a statement in support of Ms. Ramirez.“Although Brett was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time,” he wrote, adding, “he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk.”Another Yale schoolmate, Steve Kantrowitz, took to Twitter on Tuesday to contradict the assertion Judge Kavanaugh made on Fox News on Monday night that he was a virgin in high school and “for many years thereafter.”“Perhaps Brett Kavanaugh was a virgin for many years after high school,” he wrote. “But he claimed otherwise in a conversation with me during our freshman year in Lawrence Hall at Yale, in the living room of my suite.”In lashing out on Tuesday, Mr. Trump dispensed with the restraint that advisers have urged him to exercise and adopted the attack mode he prefers. He portrayed the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh as character assassination, and he went further than before in directly challenging the credibility of Ms. Ramirez.“She said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up and she doesn’t know it was him but it might have been him,” Mr. Trump said while in New York for the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. Then, speaking sarcastically, he added, “Oh, gee, let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that.”As the president of Colombia looked on, Mr. Trump accused the Democrats of smearing Judge Kavanaugh. “I think it’s horrible what the Democrats have done. It’s a con game they’re playing; they’re really con artists,” he said. “They’re playing a con game,” he continued, “and they play it very well. They play it actually much better than the Republicans.”ImageThe chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles E. Grassley, hired an outside lawyer to question Christine Blasey Ford on behalf of Republicans.CreditErin Schaff for The New York TimesHe went on to call it a con game several more times, even at one point spelling it out, “C-O-N.”Democrats argued that Mr. Trump and other Republicans were casting a verdict without actually hearing from any accusers. “Senate Republicans promised that ‘anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard,’” Senate Democrats said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it appears that Republican leaders have prejudged the outcome of Thursday’s hearing.”For many Republicans, the charges and countercharges have only cemented their view that Judge Kavanaugh is being smeared by a coordinated campaign of Democrats and liberal activists.Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said he was not persuaded by Ms. Ramirez’s story. “I read The New Yorker article. It’s pretty thin. No one else remembered any of it,” he said. “This is really getting kind of carried away, it’s feeling more like a circus. But again, I did feel like this first accuser should be heard.”Projecting optimism, Mr. McConnell signaled that Republicans would be ready to move forward quickly after Thursday’s hearing.“We’re going to be moving forward; I’m confident we’re going to win,” he told reporters.In the interview, Ms. Murkowski was not so dismissive of the accusations. “We are at just a difficult place because the conversation is not rational on either side,” she said. She added: “Just look at some of the hateful things that are being said out there. How do you dial that back?”“We need to be able to listen,” she said, pledging to take Dr. Blasey seriously. “We have to listen to what she will say on the record, under oath, and what Judge Kavanaugh will say on the record, under oath.”When Dr. Blasey, a research psychologist in Northern California, came forward in an interview this month with The Washington Post, Ms. Murkowski and Ms. Collins had largely completed exhaustive reviews of Judge Kavanaugh’s career and legal writing, including follow-up calls with the nominee just two days before. Both senators were particularly interested in Judge Kavanaugh’s views on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, but privately, fellow Republicans believed the judge had probably won their support — and with it a ticket onto the court.Those views will still influence their decisions, both senators have said. Ms. Murkowski said on Monday that Judge Kavanaugh had laid out for her a powerful case about the importance of precedent and the “reliance of interest” it creates.“How he articulated how it had been reinforced in so many different steps, I certainly have greater confidence with the way that he portrayed to me how he views Roe,” she said.Ms. Collins, an institutional-minded centrist who carefully reviews judicial nominees, has expressed similar views on Judge Kavanaugh and Roe and indicated that she will watch on Thursday with equal vigor.“I had not made a decision, and obviously the hearing Thursday is an important one,” Ms. Collins told reporters on Tuesday. She expressed concern about Ms. Ramirez’s accusation and suggested that the Judiciary Committee question her under oath as well as Dr. Blasey.Given the explosive nature of the allegations, the decision by Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to hire an outside lawyer to question Dr. Blasey was cast by some as a way to preserve some sense of decorum. “We have done it because we want to depoliticize the whole process, like the Democrats politicized the Anita Hill thing,” said Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and the chairman of the committee.A version of this article appears in print on of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Takes Aim At New Accuser: She ‘Has Nothing’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/us/politics/lisa-murkowski-brett-kavanaugh.html |

Business Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers, in 2018-09-26 01:45:38

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Avengers: Endgame - The History of Captain America's Climactic Moment

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Remember in Avengers: Endgame when Captain America did the thing with the thing? We sure do! Here are other times he did that!

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Books

Gavin Jasper

Marvel

Apr 28, 2019

Avengers: Endgame

Captain America

This article consists of nothing but massive Avengers: Endgame spoilers. You’ve been warned. We have a completely spoiler free review right here.

Ever since Thanos showed up in the mid-credits of the first Avengers movie, there was one scenario that most comic book fans knew was going to one day happen: Captain America was going to at one point lift Thor’s hammer Mjolnir and bash Thanos’ stupid face with it. Until Hela broke Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok. Then we all went, “Oh, never mind, I guess,” and thought about what could have been.

Well, time travel is funny like that. It gives you a mulligan. Avengers: Endgame gives us one of the most triumphant moments in superhero movie history, when Captain America is able to lift Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, and use it to beat the ever-lovin' crap out of Thanos for a few minutes. Not only can Captain America lift Thor's hammer, he's able to call down the lightning just as Thor would. It's a huge, cathartic, and historic moment in the history of the MCU, but it's something long familiar to Marvel Comics fans.

How Can Captain America Lift Thor's Hammer?

Simple: Steve Rogers is worthy. The inscription on Mjolnir reads "Whosoever holds this hammer, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." It doesn't matter how strong you are, if you aren't worthy, you can't lift Thor's hammer, no matter how hard you try. It's why Thor, at a low point in his life, is so relieved to find that he can still call and hold Mjolnir when he travels back to the events of Thor: The Dark World.

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, we got the slightest hint of what was to come when Cap was able to slightly budge the hammer when trying to pick it up. Thor's reaction shot there was priceless, and teases the moment in Endgame when Steve finally gets to call down the lightning. Of course, the big payoff in Age of Ultron was that Vision (not Cap) was able to wield it near the end of the movie as a way of proving his fidelity, but many of us knew that there was more to it, including Thor, who exclaims "I knew it!" when Cap gets his big moment with the hammer.

There is comic book precedent to Cap picking up Mjolnir. While not the first non-Thor character to pull that off in Marvel canon (that would be the delightful Beta Ray Bill), he’s had a couple moments where he’s been able to prove his worthy worth and cracked some heads with the uru metal.

Here’s some American history with a mix of Asgardian shop class.

THE ORIGINAL

The Mighty Thor #390 (1988)

Tom Defalco and Ron Frenz

Around this time, Steve Rogers had lost the right to be Captain America and just fought crime as "The Captain." This meant dressing exactly as Captain America, but in a black costume with red and white stripes on the front. Thor stopped by Avengers HQ, saw this guy with head wings and a shield and went, “I never saw you before in my life! Who are you?!” Then he threw Mjolnir at him in mid-sentence before realizing that it had to be Steve Rogers because of how fast he could dodge the attack.

I swear, Thor must scream, “STRANGER DANGER!” whenever Jane Foster gets a haircut.

Cap later explained his whole status quo, as well as his current feud with Iron Man (that happens a lot). So the government considered him an enemy and he was at odds with Iron Man for ideological reasons. Same as it ever was. While Thor mused over all this, one of his villains, the god Seth, sent an army after him. Cap, of course, helped out his stupid, stupid friend.

read more: Avengers: Endgame - Complete Marvel Universe Easter Eggs and MCU Reference Guide

Thor dropped his hammer after being tackled by generic grunt Grog. Grog tried to lift Mjolnir, but couldn’t budge it. Instead, he started torturing Thor with a laser. Cap didn’t quite understand the whole “worthy” gimmick at the time and figured it was just really heavy. Even though Grog, a brick shithouse of a miniboss, couldn’t do it, Cap decided it was worth trying.

Wouldn’t you know it, The Captain picked it up and wiped the floor with the dogpiling goon squad. He tossed it back to Thor, who proceeded to finish off the bad guys.

Afterwards, Thor admitted that while he had no idea what was really going on with Steve and Tony’s current argument, he sided with Steve due to his ability to pick up the hammer. Cap nodded, rushed into a Quinjet, and flew off to go break Tony Stark's nose several times over.

THE HELLSCAPE OF APOCALYPSE

What If? Featuring X-Men: Age of Apocalypse (2007)

Rick Remender and Dave Wilkins

Age of Apocalypse was a pretty big deal in the '90s and the world it depicted was a nasty one. At least it had Magneto’s X-Men to make some kind of difference to offset Apocalypse’s evil. Naturally, Marvel’s What If series had a couple of takes on the big event. One had its continuity move forward and show how that Earth would have handled the coming of Galactus. One had Legion succeed in killing Magneto in the past, showing a world where Charles Xavier could better fight for a world where mutants were accepted.

Then there was this ridiculous one-shot where Rick Remender came up with the idea of Legion accidentally killing both Magneto and Xavier. The event had terrible repercussions, leading to governments to discover the existence of mutants earlier and going straight for the persecution. Apocalypse made his big appearance and the world got weirder than in normal Age of Apocalypse continuity. For one, Apocalypse’s army included a nest of Peter Parker clones connected by a big Venom symbiote blob.

read more - Avengers: Endgame Ending Explained

The resistance team included the likes of Nate Grey, Molecule Man, Wolverine, Colossus, Thing (with robot arm), Doctor Voodoo (introduced a year or so before Brother Voodoo was the Sorcerer Supreme in canon), Captain Britain in Mach I Iron Man armor, and the leader Captain America. With no real context given, he wielded Mjolnir throughout the story and constantly fought maskless.

The whole issue was mainly these Defenders jumping from one spot to another, facing different threats and gradually losing members. Towards the end, Nate Grey killed Apocalypse, stole his armor, killed Molecule Man, and opened up a portal to the past so they could prevent the deaths of Xavier and Magneto. Fearing that Grey would become a tyrant as bad as Apocalypse himself, Cap killed him via Mjolnir and allowed the portal to close.

He and Wolverine were the only survivors of the adventure.

WAR OF THE WORTHY

Fear Itself (2011)

Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen

Fear Itself was a Captain America/Thor crossover idea that Marvel decided to turn into a full-on event. It was...there. The tie-ins were better than the main plot, honestly.

The Red Skull’s daughter Sin came across a mystical hammer that transformed her into the deity Skadi. She helped unleash forgotten Asgardian god The Serpent, who in turn created seven hammers that would possess and empower those worthy of unleashing fear. They were Hulk, Juggernaut, Thing, Titania, Absorbing Man, Grey Gargoyle, and Attuma. Then Nazis in mechs started swarming Washington DC and the whole thing was a big mess.

read more: What's Next for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in MCU Phase 4?

Around this time, Bucky Barnes was Captain America and the story partly existed to have Bucky fake his death and move the Cap identity back to Steve Rogers (and you thought Endgame treated the Bucky/Steve relationship poorly?). A lot of good it did for him, as The Serpent was able to shatter the shield with his bare hands.

To turn the tide, Tony Stark and Odin made some special weapons for the superheroes to wield. As for Cap, he simply found Mjolnir lying around on the battlefield and used it to go to town on Skadi. They hyped all this magic weapon stuff up like crazy in the adverts, but the whole thing was really background noise. The fight just kind of ended after Odin pulled away all the hammers and Skadi went back to being Sin.

THE MIRROR MATCH

Secret Empire (2017)

Nick Spencer and Steve McNiven

And then there’s this load. Nick Spencer did a lengthy story about Steve Rogers revealing he was really an agent of Hydra all along. Marvel was really adamant that it was really Steve Rogers and that he wasn’t being mind-controlled. Also, the company insisted that Captain America wasn’t a Nazi because Hydra weren’t Nazis. TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING. Because, you see...look over there!

Hydra Cap then turned out to be a version of Steve Rogers created by a little girl with reality-warping powers (sure), who was manipulated by Red Skull. Cap ended up taking over the US and shockingly beat up opposing superheroes via wielding Mjolnir. That too seemed to be a product of the reality-warping as the inscription/rules of the hammer were different and you had to be a bulky Hydra asshole to pick it up.

read more: Full MCU Marvel Movie Release Calendar

By the end of the event, the little girl conjured the original version of Captain America to beat up his please-don’t-call-the-Nazi-a-Nazi doppelganger. When Hydra Cap went for the hammer out of desperation, it had already reverted back to normal and he wasn’t worthy enough to pick it up. Regular Cap picked it up and walloped his douchebag counterpart.

"Your ass will never be America's ass." (not actual dialogue)

Yeah, everyone knew that the status quo would return in the end, but the whole Hydra Cap business was as well-timed and tactful as showing off your chainsaw and hockey mask to your son, in the middle of the night, when Sideshow Bob is trying to kill him. It also killed the end of Gerry Duggan’s otherwise legendary Deadpool run, which I can never forgive.

HONORABLE MENTION

There’s only been four comic scenarios where we’ve seen Captain America wielding Mjolnir, so let’s just move those goalposts a little and talk about times when superheroes have kicked ass with the shield AND the hammer at the same time.

First up is Crusader from an issue of What If based on the original Secret Wars that showed what would have happened had all the heroes and villains been stranded on Battleworld for 25 years. While some died in that time, others got busy and we got a new generation of heroes and villains. One of which was Sarah Rogers, daughter of Cap and Rogue.

read more: Marvel Movies Watch Order - An MCU Timeline Guide

No, the comic doesn’t answer the question of how that conception worked.

Even though her boyfriend Bravado was the son of Thor and Enchantress, it was Crusader who ended up being able to pick up the hammer and turn the tide against Vincent Von Doom. She also had stolen her dad’s shield from his closet when he wasn't looking, but that’s less impressive.

Then there’s Superman. The miniseries JLA/Avengers was the final crossover between Marvel and DC and it finished with a bang. Leading both hero teams into battle, Superman was entrusted with Captain America’s shield. During a pivotal moment, in order to break into the villain Krona’s stronghold, Thor threw Mjolnir to Superman. Superman caught it and smashed his way in.

read more: Does Steve Rogers Still Have a Place in the MCU?

Later on, after the dust had cleared, Superman found himself no longer able to lift it. As Thor put it, Odin may be strict, but he knows when to cut you slack when times are desperate.

I have to imagine we’ll be seeing more Cap/Mjolnir moments going forward. Marvel really seems to enjoy having comics imitate movies that imitate comics. God, remember when Spider-Man 3 came out and comic Spider-Man just happened to start wearing black again?

Gavin Jasper writes for Den of Geek and when Captain America throws his mighty hammer, all those who attempt to...stammer that hammer must clamor...? Read his other articles here and follow him on Twitter @Gavin4L

from Books http://bit.ly/2GES7LH

[exploring-vastness-blog]

No Sleep Guide: Prague Edition

Prague, Czech Republic. In the three nights you will spend there, you will stay up to watch the sun rise at a minimum of once. I am now herby renaming it the central European ‘city of no sleep’. If you love dancing all night, trying new kinds of liquor, and exploring new places, keep reading – this guide is for you.

Night 1: Thursday:

You arrive in Prague by train Thursday night around 9:30 p.m., and immediately take a taxi to your Airbnb. The apartment is crisp white and spacious, with a beautiful view of the Charles Bridge and Vltava, the longest river in the Czech Republic. The hunger for a meal heightens, as well as the thirst to explore, so you waste no time at the apartment, and begin walking along the river in search of an ATM. You find one just a couple of minutes down the street, and withdraw 4,000 Czech korunas, also referred to as Czech crowns or Kč.  Don’t be fooled by this seemingly high number, because Prague is a relatively cheap city. To put things into perspective, $1 is equivalent to 22.74 Kč, and most half liter draft beers cost less than 50 Kč; so if you are charged 50 Kč or more, you’re getting ripped off.  Many locations also accept Euros and credit cards, although smaller cafe’s and most clubs only accept crowns as a form of payment.  A sit down dinner is not a priority compared to your hunger, so you buy a bratwurst from a street vendor nearby, and the “hanger” quickly dissipates.  

Now that you have food in your system, its time to pregame. You make your way to U Sudu, an authentic underground cave bar. From the street, it appears as a small unassuming pub. Step inside, however, and you will find a seemingly endless maze of dark underground bars. You and your crew pick one, order half a liter of beer, and within no time befriend half of the people in the bar. Once the first beer has been consumed, everyone begins dancing to the early 2000’s throwback music that includes Britney Spear’s “Hit Me Baby One More Time”. Clearly this is not Czech music, but you don’t mind.

When the clock strikes midnight, you are ready to change locations. You head towards Club Roxy, prepared to get a better taste of what Prague’s nightlife has to offer.  Roxy has a great drink selection at the bar and a fun atmosphere.  When you walk in, go down the stairs to find a bar and many lounge areas. Descend one more floor, however, and you will find another bar wrapped around a dance floor. All of the light fixtures in Roxy contain vibrant neon pink light bulbs to set the club atmosphere. The base of this dancefloor pit is constructed of clear Plexiglas that shows video images plaing a never ending game of tag under your dancing feet. Make sure you try an authentic Absinth shot, as in the Czech Republic it contains a special chemical called thujone that is illegal in the U.S. No, it will not make you hallucinate, but you will be able to claim that you tried it in its authentic setting. The music here caters to the general public – only playing remixes of the top 100 songs. So hold off on this club if that’s not your thing. For the rest of you – you will love it.

Once your feet feel as if they might fall off and your ears begin ringing from the blasting music it is time to make your way back. Walking home is entirely feasible, but if you can’t make it back (for whatever reason), Uber home instead of taking a taxi. It will probably end up being less than $5. If you pass a Burrito Loco on the way home, do yourself a favor by grabbing a late night bite there, as it boasts some of the best Mexican street food you will find in central Europe.  

Day 2: Friday:

Waking up might be considered some form of torture after the little amount of sleep you got last night, but head over to Old Town Square and grab a cappuccino from a local café. This should at least begin to revive you. Add Bailey’s to your caffeine if you are one of those people who believe the hair of the dog is a hangover’s only medicine. Once  your zombie-like state has somewhat subsided, check out the astronomical clock in the square. This clock is the third oldest in the world, dating back to 1380, and is the oldest working astronomical clock in the world.  

Next, head towards the Charles Bridge to take a few shots of the most picturesque views the city has to offer, and be sure to purchase some handmade jewelry from the local artisans stationed there.  Charles Bridge was built during the reign of King Charles IV and was originally called Stone Bridge. The bridge connects Old Town and Prague Castle, and is decorated with a series of baroque style statues, a unique part of this historical hotspot.  

If you are a Beatles fan, this next part will have you hard core fangirling. Continue dragging your exhausted feet along the Charles Bridge and you will find a series of steps that will lead you along your way to the John Lennon Wall.  This wall is a study in grattifi overdrive-- Beatles lyrics, peace signs, and quotes. Bring a can of spray paint if you wish to leave your mark on it, or simply snap an  picture in front of this tribute. Once you feel as if you have spent enough time admiring the wall, head over to the John Lennon Pub nearby. The inside of the pub is decorated as such to resemble a yellow submarine, and Beatles memorabilia appears everywhere from the stained glass windows to the posters mounted on the walls.  

You are now exhausted from walking around all day, and should head back to your Airbnb to rest up a bit before dinner. On your way back; however, grab a Trdelnik from a Czech Bakery. Trdelniks are rolled pastries that are covered in sugar and stuffed with your choice of topping: Ice Cream, Nutella, jam, white chocolate, or whipped cream. Share it with a friend or two, or your dinner in a few hours will be out of the question.  

After you rest, make your way to Národní Kavárna. Order the handmade aglio olio pepperoncino pasta, and finish off your meal with a shot of Becherovka.  Becherovka is a high quality herbal digestive aid liquor produced in the Czech Republic that is served chilled after a meal.  It has a slightly spicy taste, but is also quite refreshing.  

Next up: Boat party. Immediately after your meal, walk over to Zephyr Bar for the boat party pregame, where you will be provided with an ‘all you can drink’ bar until 10:30 PM for just 25 Euro (this also includes the price of the boat tour).  Be prepared to be stared at for the next part, because the boat party crew will attempt to herd 150 boat partiers throughout the city to the port. Sit on the top level of the boat if you wish to enjoy the night time view of Prague, or go downstairs if you prefer to dance or drink by the boat bar.  Once the boat tour is over, the guides will lead you back to where you were last night, Roxy, but stray away from the group and make your way towards Karlovy Lazne – better known as the 5 story club. Although this is a touristy club, it is the largest one in central Europe, and is worth at the minimum stopping by. The first floor of the club is the ice pub, the second is mainstream music, the third is dance music, the fourth is hip hop, and the last is “chill out” music. Karlovy Lazne closes at 5 a.m., so if you are enjoying yourself you might unknowingly stay until closing time and once again watch the sun rise.  

Day 3: Saturday:

Prague has done it once again. You wake up too late to eat breakfast, and immediately head to lunch after getting ready for the day. Your first stop today is The P.U.B., which stands for Pilsner Unique Bar.  Each table has a draft beer tap built into it, and you compete against other tables to see who can drink the most beer. Order one of the large variety of specialty burgers to get your American food fix, then walk over to one of the most amazing sights in Prague: The Prague Castle. This castle is the largest ancient caste in the world, and is made of beautiful baroque style architecture. Its construction began in 870 and it was finally completed in 1929. Make sure you make your way all around its stunning grounds, and find the castle gardens. They offer a magnificent view of Prague from above, and are a peaceful place to rest your tired feet after days of walking and a night’s worth of dancing.  

For more above-city views, head to Letná Park, a biergarten on the same side of the river as Prague Castle just about 15 minutes away walking distance. Sit at one of the long bench tables and enjoy the overlook Staré Město with your friends.  After a few hours of relaxing brews and views, it is almost time for dinner. Tonight you will be dining at Charles Bridge Restaurant. As the name gives it away, this dinner locale is right next to the Charles Bridge, and the terrace seating puts you eye-to-eye with the river.  Order the salmon steak with mashed potatoes and spinach, the Frankovka Rosé, and the crème brulee for a complete meal of delightfulness.  Prepare to spend at least two hours at this restaurant, as it is slow placed and slightly understaffed.  

For your final night in Prague, take an Uber 15 minutes away to one of the most peculiar places you have ever set foot in: Cross Club. Outside of the club the first thing you see is a square clock rotating at 10 times the standard speed. This is open to interpretation, as it could be possibly hinting that time is relative, or that you are about to enter into the future. The latter makes sense once you step inside the club, as it has a futuristic, eccentric, almost post-apocalyptic design that follows a cyberpunk theme. The metal pipes and scraps compose the entirety of the club, and very much resembles the scenery of Tim Burton’s film 9. Sit in the outside terrace and people watch as you are most likely one of the only people that does not have dreadlocks, a septum piercing, and speak a European language. Order some shots at the bar inside and receive them in small, prescription like containers with a sealed top. Explore the two DJs stages at the bottom and main floor, and find an array of music being produced on the spot until 7 a.m. Once you are finally tired of clubbing, eating, drinking and exploring, make your way back once more for a one or two-hour night’s sleep before you have to check out of the apartment and catch the train back home.