#like don’t get me wrong Holland is effectively terrifying

[actualhumancryptid]

So yeah I realise that Holland is some kind of megalomaniacal psychopath. A Machiavelli ‘ends justify the means’ dictator. But he better have some other kind of ‘I hope they all die’ motivation, because his logic of ‘we have to restore order!’ by just murdering everyone and doing all he can to sew chaos and start riots makes him look incredibly stupid. Please let him not be an idiot.

[buckyownsmylife]

So I Take What I Want - Jake Gyllenhaal smut (ft. Tom Holland)

The one where Jake finally lets Tom watch him fuck you

Warnings: smut, cuckold!tom, mean!jake, voyeurism, overstimulation, possessiveness, cuck humiliation, name-calling, p in v, dacrophylia, light choking

Word count: under 2k

A/N: thank you to my lovely @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog for reading this over to me. As you might already know, this is part of my do it universe, and although it can be read by itself, I highly recommend you go read the other stories first.

Y/N’s P.O.V.

The first thing I remembered was feeling a gentle kiss pressed to the back of my hand, gently awakening me as two hands softly cradled my face, brushing the hair away from it.

“How are you feeling, beautiful?” Blinking a few times, I was able to focus on the familiar bearded face that was patiently waiting for my answer, prompting me to try to sit up so I could give him one.

“I’m alright,” I assured him, although every single muscle in my body ached. It was a good king of hurt though, the kind that you had after a great workout session… which I supposed was more or less what had happened.

“Good,” Jake smiled, kissing me unexpectedly, and my eyes widened before I closed them to accept his gesture. Sure, this was still a bit surprising - I associated such an intimate act as something to be shared between two persons with actual feelings for each other, but after everything Jake had done to my body, I couldn’t very well feel shy about him pressing his lips against mine. “Because I need to have you again.”

I gasped when I felt his hands yank my ankles so I was on the edge of the bed, my legs dangling from it. “W-Wait,” I asked as his hands kept me spread open for his gaze. I wanted to cover myself in an effort to hide from precisely that, especially since I could feel his spent threatening to fall from me, drip onto the hardwood floors beneath us. “What about Tom?”

Jake snickered, eyes still fixated on the apex of my thighs, before finally raising them to meet mine. “He’s right there,” he informed me, nodding towards the other side of the room, where there were a couple of lounge chairs by the wall.

Craning my neck to look behind, I found my boyfriend sat in one of them, chewing on his bottom lip nervously as he took in the image of me being slowly spread open by his best friend. I took notice of how his cock strained against his pants and how once Jake was fully in, Tom leaned his whole body towards us, like he wanted to be as close as possible to the action.

Jake climbed onto the bed, adjusting me so I’d be underneath his warm body and started moving. My head swirled with the overwhelming emotions and sensations coursing through my body. While the man on top of me - and inside of me - worshiped every inch of my skin with his tongue and beautiful lips, the man I loved - the man staring at us from a distance - seemed to be stuck between pain and pleasure, desperate to keep watching and pause the scene at the same time.

“Tell him,” Jake panted in my ear, calling out for my attention. I already knew he was a sucker for it, already knew he didn’t like me to focus on anything else than him and the way his cock made me feel as it dragged along my walls.

What I didn’t know, however, was what he wanted me to say. I was fucked out and sensitive, yet still taken to the edge of desire. I couldn’t think, only feel. The only thing I truly wanted at that second was to keep climbing higher and higher until I had met bliss once more, and I knew I’d never get there if Jake stopped moving because he was unsatisfied with my answer.

Thankfully, he seemed to be in a giving mood. His nose rubbed against my throat as he kept pounding me, his words pressed against my skin, “Tell him what you tell me when we’re alone.”

I froze. Not even he would be that cruel, would he? But… maybe Tom would like it? I really couldn’t think. And in the silence that followed, I knew Jake’s mean dominant demeanor would grow to fill it, even before his dark chuckle resonated across the room.

“Don’t be shy,” he mocked, gripping my cheeks and shaking me still somewhat gently (for what I was expecting of him). “Tell him how you beg for my cock like a fucking whore.” And still, I remained silent. Well, that wasn’t accurate at all, actually. Moans and whimpers flowed freely out of my lips, taking over the words Jake longed to hear so badly.

“Fine,” he relented. “Perhaps you need to be closer to your beloved.” I didn’t understand what he meant until his cock left me, making me whine like a wounded beast. His chuckle didn’t sound mocking this time, but the entire situation made it seem like that to me.

“C’mon,” he smacked my ass as I finally made my way out of bed, utterly confused about what he meant until he took me by the arm and dragged me all the way across the room, until I was standing just before my boyfriend. “Let me teach him how to really please you.”

A shiver went down my spine as I realized what was his plan all along. I gasped when I felt his hand pushing down on my lower back, making me fall over the arm of the chair where Tom was resting.

Before I could even adjust myself, Jake resumed his thrusts, even more punishing and quick than before. All the while, my boyfriend was just there, staring at me with wide eyes, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing - even though it was something he himself had told me that he wanted.

A hand covered the one with which I held the chair, and I looked up to meet Tom’s soft brown ones. He smiled - it was a small, tentative smile. A smile that seemed to say, ‘this is a bit too much, but I’m okay. Are you okay?’

How could I tell him that I was beyond that? Would that be crossing a line? All I knew was that Jake’s cock was filling my abused pussy perfectly, hitting that spot deep inside of me, making my eyes roll to the back of my head, and that was all I could focus on.

Until my hands were captured and pulled behind my back, forcing me to separate from Tom once more. Tom looked confused, but I knew what this was. I already knew Jake was possessive, he hadn’t even tried to hide it, but I think until that second, I had allowed myself to believe that at least in front of my actual boyfriend he’d relent.

I was wrong. Instead, Jake sat down on the bed once more, spearing me open with his cock, forcing my legs to stay spread for Tom’s view. It was so fucking deep, much deeper than I was used to. The pleasure and sensitivity from my previous orgasms became too much.

Tears started streaming down my face, and upon seeing that, Tom’s voice resonated in our bedroom. “Jake, stop.” He’d never seen me cry for anything other than sadness and pain, but this was something more.

This was bliss. And Jake knew it, so he let Tom’s pleas go unanswered, his big hands forcing my hips to keep riding him as he mocked. “Oh, tell him, sweetheart. Do you want me to stop?”

But I couldn’t speak. All that left me were loud whines - whines that apparently terrified Tom because he insisted, now looking at me, “please tell him to stop, please.” Jake’s fingers found my clit, making me shudder in his arms.

The moment felt too real, too heavy. I didn’t know what Tom was referring to anymore. Did he want Jake to stop fucking me because he thought I was hurting, or was he the one hurting from seeing me getting fucked by his best friend?

He didn’t say, so all I could do was answer the question Jake had made. I managed to spit out a “N-no,” shocking Tom, his wide eyes making his surprise clear. Behind me, Jake just laughed.

“That’s right, tell him how happy you are. Tell him how needy you are for my cock.” I was so fucking sensitive, but I was relishing in it. I was not used to having such long sex sessions. My nights with Tom were always satisfying, but they were short - and I think that was something he was thinking about too, as he watched me fuck myself on Jake.

“She becomes such a whore when I’m near,” Jake informed my boyfriend. “Well, I guess you’re seeing it now.” Just then, he covered my throat with one of his hands, squeezing a bit, not enough to fully choke me, but enough to make it hard to breathe and have my pussy clamping down on him.

Jake’s P.O.V.

“Oh, fuck,” she cursed, making me grin behind her shoulders. “Oh, Jake…” My eyes were focused on Tom’s, making sure he was taking in the entire scene, the way she was the one who was really controlling it, fucking herself on me while I just held her up. The slip of my name from her lips embarrassed her though, so she move her hands over her eyes, much to my displeasure.

“No, don’t cover your face,” I ordered, taking her wrists and pulling them behind her back. “Let him see you. Let him see how well you take me.” Her pussy clenched around me once more, undeniably showing just how aroused she was at her boyfriend watching her giving herself to another man.

It had me moaning, fingers burying deeper in her supple skin, my hunger for her insatiable. “Yeah, you made a mistake letting me into your girlfriend’s pussy, pal.” I didn’t even look at Tom anymore, eyes too transfixed at the way her ass shook each time her hips met mine. “Now that I know what she feels like, I’m never gonna stop fucking her.”

He knew I meant it. I didn’t have to look at him to feel the fear rolling off of him in waves, egging me on. And it was all the more powerful because now that he had seen what she looked like succumbing to my desire, he would forever be scared that she would give in to me.

He could see the effect I had on her just as well as I could feel it. The juices running down her thighs, the gasps of pleasure, the way her fingers scratched on my arm that held her by the throat.

It was very clear that she liked this. And knowing that only left me more insatiable. “I’m done desiring her from a distance, wishing I was buried in this delicious cunt,” I warned my friend, not knowing if he’d believe me or attribute this entire confession as part of the scene. Either way was good enough for me. “I have her now and I’m never letting her go.”

Raising my gaze to meet his, I made sure he was looking at me as I pronounced my final words. “I’m making your girlfriend my fucking bitch. My cum is all she’ll ever know.”

[wizkiddx]

worst case scenario part 5

finally!! so sorry its been an age to anyone still here but lives been interesting atm so....  also this really feels a bit rambley and the ending is deff underdeveloped but I just kind of wanted this done tbh x 

[previous part] [part 1] 

warnings:  hospitals - ICU, ventilation that sort of stuff, just a lot of ANGST post a difficult birth - please don't read if this could be upsetting for you, and my inbox is always open if u wanna chat :) 

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In a complete 360 degree flip from earlier that day, after leaving the hospital Tom had become obsessively attached to Aurora. They’d got back to his parents place in Tom’s car; Aurora in the carseat Y/n and Tom had ready in their car door for her arrival. Clearly his parents had already pre-warned his brothers, who had thankfully already gone over to Tom and Y/n’s - collecting the Moses basket amongst other items Harry had been listed off from his mother. 

Apart from explaining a little behind her name to his parents on the journey back, Tom had spoken very little, choosing to keep himself to himself - physically stationing himself beside the Moses basket the whole time. Of course, there had been a bit of light conversation and almost procedural passing round of Aurora between all her uncles and grandparents, which Tom had kept a wether eye on - but ultimately not engaged. 

He also knew that physically his body was failing him. Although eating a little of the lasagne Sam had made for everyone, he could only stomach a minuscule amount, which did little to boost his energy levels. It felt as though sleeping was the enemy, because he was neither ready to leap into the car if the phone went; or to hear the smallest sound from the wicker basket, suggesting something was wrong. So as much as he tried to fight it, before even nine o’clock he began to dose off on the familiar couch of his parents sitting room - occasionally jerking himself awake before loosing the fight once again.

Nikki had tried to gently push him to take a break in the spare bedroom, which had been Tom’s before he’d moved out, but was unsuccessful - every time he retaliated with a stern shake of his head, while checking his phone just in case he’d missed a notification. Eventually Nikki relented, later in the evening both her and Dom retiring to bed; once Sam had agreed to stick around downstairs till a bit later - as a chef he worked till late in the nights, so even on his days off like today, his sleep schedule was just a little fucked. 

Left alone with his new little niece and now pretty firmly asleep brother, Sam draped a blanket over the latter just in time for Aurora to start fussing in the need of a bottle. His mum had explained how to do everything, how to mix the formula and heat it up, so after scooping up the little wriggling girl in the hope his brother wouldn’t get disturbed, Sam dealt with her. To be honest no matter how clueless and useless he felt, Aurora was just so cute - if a little wrinkly and alien looking, but in a good way. This was the first baby any of them had had, so the first time Sam experienced this instant connection and love for the little being that was his niece or nephew. It was terrifying, lifting the bottle against her lips for the first time, but then it just sort of seemed to work. She was incredibly smart for less than 24 hours old, instantly latching on, like she had done for Haz at the hospital. 

That gave Sam a little confidence in his ability as an uncle, giving himself a satisfied nod while swaying from the kitchen to move back into the living room. It was just a preference to be within reach of Tom… just in case. His poor brother still hadn’t moved, slumped against the corner of the sofa, leaning toward the now empty Moses basket. Normally, Sam seeing his supposed heart throb of a brother looking as rough as he did now - double chin, mouth hanging slightly open, deep sunken eyes - he would’ve taken a photo to blackmail him with. Now though, it was just desperately sad, seeing his brother like this, hand still clutching his phone tightly above the blanket. 

Rather hoping the calm would last for a while, Sam successfully finished off feeding Aurora; winded and then put her down to sleep again just in time. Because, perhaps expectedly, Tom’s phone began to blare off the default iPhone ringtone making Tom jump and throw the device across the room as he awoke with a start. Sam ran to grab it off the floor, mainly with the hope of turning it off before Aurora was awoken too - knowing that it was best tonight to tackle one thing at a time. 

And so he immediately swiped to answer the call, not even registering who the call was from, much rather just wanting the noise to stop. 

“Hello?”

“Sam? It’s Harrison” Tom had jumped up from his seat hovering beside Sam with petrified look. It took barely seconds for Tom to snatch the phone back, launching questions down the receiver. 

“Slow down would you? Y/n is fine I was just phoning to check in.”

“Oh er yeh… um sorry I just… just thought…”

“It’s the other way mate. Nurse says she’s starting to get there cos first she moved her arm a bit when we pinched her shoulder and then I just called because she started to like gag and now the ventilator thing is gone.”

“W-what?”

“I think she’s breathing by herself? Like she’s got an oxygen mask instead of the tubes down her throat.” Clearly Harrison was not, by any means, a medical expert. 

“They said she would have the ventilator for a few days at least.”

“I guess Y/n got bored? To be fair she couldn’t ever sit still.”

“I’m coming to you.”

“Tom it’s nearly midnight, I was supposed to be kicked out at 10. Just come back in the morning, they won’t let you in I’m pretty certain.”

“What if she wakes up!”

“Then they’ll call you! She’s getting better Tom you should be try and relax for like a second.”

“FUCK OFF HAZ! If she wakes up all alone and terrified then-“

“I’m not going to having a screaming match on the phone with you. I think we both know you wanting to come is more for you than for Y/n, because Y/n would want you to be looking after Aurora.”

Again guilt tripping using the newborn. Harsh but effective. Stopping Tom’s anger dead in it’s tracks.

“Look I can put the nurse on for her to tell you they won’t let you in and they’ll call if anything happens - but you already know that.”

“Yeh sorry fine … I know don’t bother.”

“Okay… I’m was gonna head back to my place and I know you’ve probably got your mum begging to fuss over Aurora but if-“

“Can you come?”

“Didn’t need to ask mate.”

And that’s how the night went. Until Harrison arrived at the Holland family home, Tom had spent the time pacing back and forth, blatantly ignoring the pleas of Sam just to sit down. Once he arrived though, going through all the updates in a lot more detail Tom seemed, for the first time, optimistic. By no means could you call him relaxed or happy - but compared to the rollercoaster that had been the last 24 hours, Harrison thought that was more than enough. Aurora had started fussing again at 1 but by the time it had turned into a full blown scream at Tom, Sam already had the bottle ready. It took a little bit of encouragement and promise that Tom would be able to feed her but actually, she instantly latched on, settled in her Dad’s hold while guzzling down the contents of the bottle. 

After a bit of winding she ended up falling asleep on her dads chest, only when he felt himself start to flag did Tom place her back in the basket. Harrison and him ended up crashing on the sofas, Sam retiring to his own room. Phone still tightly clutched in Tom’s grip.

////////////////////

The first thing Y/n became properly aware of was this intense heaviness all over her body. It felt as though her limbs were all composed completely of lead, meaning as much as she was just craving rolling over, it was as though her own body was holding her down. A very alien feeling that unsettled her slightly, trying to shake of the misty feeling in her head to work it all out. It took a while to drag herself out of the depths of sleep, to the point where background noise slowly faded in - an alien beeping as well as distant shuffling making her heart thump with unease. Finally, perhaps most distressingly , her eyes felt glued shut. Not because they were heavy, in the way someone extremely sleep deprived cant keep their eyes open; rather stiff like they hadn’t been used in so long they’d rusted over or something. 

The feeling  was quite horrific and isolating- as though she were locked into her body without an escape in sight. Whilst trying to calm her racing thoughts, Y/n chose to focus completely on the one thing she could do. She could listen. She listened to the beeps, focusing on the type of sound, the way it chimed so regularly; and it’s form. It was familiar, for that she was sure but for now at least she couldn’t place it. 

It felt like an investigation, trying with all her might to try and workout what the fuck was going on. To put it mildly. 

The most useful clue though, a breakthrough if you will, is when a voice sounded - clear and familiar. 

“Excuse me nurse?” It was Nikki. For sure. It was a clue, but didnt seem to make a hell of a lot of sense. Y/n was so focused on why the hell Nikki was apparently watching her sleep unconscious, she completely missed the reference to the nurse. As in hospital. As in Y/n was in hospital. “… I’m just going to swap out for my sons friend.”

“Harrison?” That voice seemed new and unfamiliar.

“Yes, he won’t be a second I’m sure.”

What was Harrison doing here too? 

It was all very confusing and hurt Y/n’s brain to try and unpick. Gradually then, everything sort of melted away, diving back into the darkness.

The next time Y/n woke up things were different. This time she woke up like she would at any time of day. She woke up and her eyes followed suit. Not particularly easily, since as soon as they cracked open she was almost blinded by brilliant white lights, it taking a build up of willpower before she tried it again - bracing for the pain. 

By now she knew something was wrong. She remembered all these patchy and hazy periods. All full of confusion and disorientation but with different voices keeping her at least semi calm. Familiar voices, all too often laced with such emotion. Especially Tom’s. She couldn’t remember what he had said, nor had she probably been able to understand it at the time - what stuck was the tone. The sadness, the hopelessness , the emptiness. 

It was scary. But it made her want to help. Made her want to open her eyes. 

After wincing at the dazzling white surroundings, Y/n blinked her eyes quickly, in an attempt to get them to adjust quicker. She saw an unfamiliar ceiling, one that was tiled in a similar way to her old school canteen. There was a  weird pressure round her mouth, eyes quickly darting down to see edges of a clear mask pressed up against the bridge of her nose. That wasn’t it though, the further she looked the more her eyes panned down this pale blue blanket, following the outline of her legs to the bottom raised edge of the bed. The hospital bed. 

Her hospital bed. 

As much as she wanted to jump up in panic; physically right now that was an impossibility. So instead, Y/n focused on trying to gleam as much information from the situation. It took a hell of a lot of effort, her muscles literally stiff and ridgid with disuse but with a small groan her neck eventually agreed to follow orders. Just a small tilt to the left and suddenly Y/n felt so much more less panicked. Everything was that bit less scary because there was Tom. 

Admittedly he didn’t look amazing, or even not bad. Tom was sat with his back pressed against the side of chair, so his body faced her. Had he not looked so ruined, Y/n would’ve laughed at the side of his face squashed into the back of the seat. But he did look horrific, for lack of a better word. His brown eyes were locked shut, but also looked puffy and red, while dark at the same time - as though he’d been attempting to gouge his own eyes out prior. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, hence why he had appeared to have collapsed in the arm chair. At least though , he wasn’t in a hospital bed himself.

That was Y/n’s pleasure. 

Her next job was to get her neck muscles to pull her head to the other side. It was a slow wincing gesture, yet she was so aware of another presence that needed to be addressed too. But actually it was 3 people.

Right at the back, a nurse sat on a little spinny chair, scribbling something down in a file of papers but to be quite honest that wasn’t were Y/n’s focus zeroed in on. Instead on Harrison who was sat in chair mirroring Tom, except instead of being passed out asleep he was cradling a baby. Her baby. 

Y/n literally felt her heart in her throat at that point, eye widening almost comically. That was her baby - it must be? The monitors all started to loose their regularity as Y/n threw an uncoordinated limb to that side of the bed- already having realised her throat was way too scratchy to try to say anything comprehensible. 

Immediately that got the attention of both the nurse, who immediately leapt up and called for support, as well as Harrison - who looked like he was seeing a ghost. 

“Oh my-Y/n-?” Luckily he kept the baby safe in his arms rather than dropping her in shock, whilst Y/n kept her eyes locked onto the bundle in his arms. Nodding down, she tried to remove the mask (actually just very slightly knocking it to one side) and attempted to ask of the baby. Her throat, being inhumanly dry and scratchy, didn’t really work but Haz still got the message, scoffing in amazement. 

“Aurora… here’s your mummy.” Harrisons voice was quiet and wavering as he delicately held Aurora against Y/n’s collar bone, the babies little tuft of har tickingling her chin. Now Y/n was crying with happiness, looking up at Haz’s icy blue eyes and questioning her name. Harrison confirmed with another disbelieving whisper, whilst the arm that wasn’t still holding Aurora clasped Y/n’s hand with a death grip. “Tom’s choice.”

The mention of him had both of them shift their gaze across the room to Tom’s chair. Even with all the developments, Tom still seemed completely unaware, fast asleep with the side of his face squished against the back of the chair making his lips slightly askew. Y/n were acutely aware of the small congregation of doctors that had accumulated in the corner of the bay but they seemed to be respectfully waiting before they would prod and poke. Haz went to call Tom’s name, before he could though, Y/n squeezed his arm and minutely shook her head. That wasn’t what the blue eyes boy had been expecting, causing Haz to unfold and bring Aurora back up to his chest as he quirked his eyebrows at her.  

She didnt need to be filled in on the situation to know exactly what was happening. She had no idea why she was in the hospital bed; how long it had been since she’d given birth - but she knew all she needed to. From Harrisons unbelievably shocked face; and from the state of Tom - it hadn’t been good. Her fiancé looked almost ghostly, it seemed evident that he needed her. First then, she gestured to Haz for some water, which after a panicked look to the nurse; then from the nurse to various doctors; she was eventually given permission. 

After somewhat alleviating the sandpaper feeling in her throat, Y/n then croakily asked for a bit of privacy. Right now the doctors all were gawking, Harrison assumed it to be because they’d all led him and Tom to believe she wouldn’t wake up for a while- and even then she was supposed to barely be awake, not able to talk and drink or anything of the sort. With an ecstatic nod Harrison, shuffled out - while doing so prompting the medical people to draw the curtains completely shut round the bay.  

Already Y/n had tears welling up in her eyes, purely because she hated seeing him like this. He just looked so broken and shattered which honestly felt worlds worse than the labour she’d gone through. Her whole body still hurt, stiff and achy for reasons yet to be explained to Y/n. None of that mattered though, as she strained her arm out to the side in order to gently reach his knee that was folded up and sticking out awkwardly at an angle. After swallowing one again, Y/n squeezed round the joint and tried to shake it slightly. Instantly the man jumped up in his seat, heavy eyes blinking quickly and repeatedly as he tried to adjust to the room. 

Being so sleep deprived and stressed out, Tom’s brain was not working normally, instead with a delayed haze as he apparently skipped over Y/n in the bed, rather surveying the the closed curtains and Harrison’s now empty chair. As he was lifting himself to sit more normally up, uncurling from the armchair, was when he noticed the hand on his knee. Breath caught in his chest, Tom instinctively bit his lip as his eyes gradually traced up the hand, to the forearm, up to the shoulder. It felt like a fever dream, as though all it would take is for him to move and she’d slip away again. But there were her green eyes, gleaming in a way that literally lifted a weight from his shoulders. Her smile was tired and a little confused, but so her - after spending days of just seeing all her features lax, Tom swore that it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Only when Y/n finally croaked out a small ‘hi’ did Tom gain awareness of his body, or rather control of it, enough to leap up and leave over the bed - cradling her face in both his palms. Like a psycho he stared intently, swapping his focus from her left to her right eye like a madman. 

“Your-I-I” He was trying to speak, trying to communicate all the thoughts and regrets of things he wished he’d said to her all at once. Weakly she reached up to fully remove the oxygen mask, dragging It down to below her chin, before squeezing his wrists in comfort. Only then did Tom notice the small puddle that had collected on her cheek, which made him realise he was absolutely bawling. 

“You ‘kay?” Her voice was like sandpaper but everything about her was so completely Y/n and it was just giving Tom this unreal wave of euphoria. Physically incapable of replying, the brunette just scoffed, leaning over the bed even more so he could press his forehead on hers. He was laughing too, the fact she was asking him that seemed so preposterous, given all the tubes and wires attached to her at the moment. It took Y/n squeezing his wrist harder again to make him lean back a little, searching her eyes with his. She seemed so worried; seemed so full of concern - only then did Tom consider quite how much he’d ‘let himself go’ the past couple of days. 

It had been two days since Aurora was born, only 48 hours. But the transformation was mad, none more so than mentally. 48 hours had quite literally changed everything for Tom; changed life forever and himself too. It was showing in his unshaven face, with unwashed  greasy hair, everything just looking ‘tired’.

“‘m just really glad your awake.” It was so honest and sincere it did have Y/n wondering what had happened and for how long. What had she put her fiancé through?

“How long?”

“The worst two and a half days of my life… I got you now though, yeh?” Tom whispered wetly, while stroking the side of her cheek - wiping both his and her tears away.

“Always.”

The doctors and nurses then came in, podding and poking Y/n like no tomorrow while Harrison and Tom stood back a little - excitedly grinning at each other and the sleepy girl Haz was cradling, before Tom stole her off him. There was a momentary sick-to-his-stomach feeling after some of the professionals had cleared, seeing her eyes shut again felt like everything was crashing around him. Thankfully though, one of doctors noticed the look of despair on his face, explaining to the two men that she was just asleep normally. That although sh’ed spent along time unconscious, waking from a medical coma is in itself exhausting. 

After the initial excitement of Y/n waking the next couple of days were pretty samey. She’d been moved down to a normal ward, no longer needed all the incessant bleeping machines but still had to stay in hospital. Tom found it tricky too, he just always felt he needed to be by her side ‘just in case’. In fact, it had been a source of a bit of tension between him and his fiancé - she could see how exhausted he was from looking after Aurora, plus the stress of being in the hospital for hours a day with her. As Y/n got better and more switched on to the state of him, she realised it was inevitable he’d crash at some point.

But after a week and a half in hospital - comprising of a baby, emergency surgery, 3 days on intensive care, followed by 8 on the ward - Y/n was discharged. Nikki and Dom moved in to Y/n and Tom’s place, to provide care support both for Aurora; and Y/n for the rest of her recovery; and secretly Tom for everything he’d been through. 

She was still order on bed rest due to her surgical scars, so Tom and Nikki helped to set her up in the master bedroom as soon as they got in. Of course, everyone was aware of Toms odd mood that day. Until then the only thing he wanted was to get his fiancé back at home with him but now she was over the threshold his excitement and joy appeared to have been zapped out of him. In fact, he’d barely uttered more than a couple sentences. So once Y/n was properly comfortable and Dom had brought Aurora and the cot into the room, Tom’s parents quickly made themselves scarce. 

Tom hadn’t stopped, finding some reason to rummage around in the chest of drawers m while Y/n chewed at her bottom lip, watching him. 

“Tom?” All she got in response was a light hum. “Tom please will you come and sit down for a minute?”

“I just need to-“

“Tom!” Her exclamation finally properly got Tom to listen, jumping round to face her. “Please... please will you just stop for a second?” Y/n’s eyes felt as though they were boring holes in his skull. Really, Tom knew he’d be forced into this at some point because he couldn’t avoid Y/n. She had some power of mind reading over him. So with a defeated nod and sagging shoulders Tom rounded the bed, weaving between his side and Auroras cot - where she was sleeping soundly. 

A silence overcame the room as he heavily planted himself on his side of the bed, mirroring Y/n’s posture leant against the headboard. 

“I think we need to have an honest conversation T.”

“If you want.” Nothing about his reply was the picture of enthusiasm, causing Y/n to hesitate a little. 

“Look I am so beyond grateful for everything you’ve done while I was in hospital... and it doesn’t take a genius to tell you’ve worked yourself half to death-“

“I’m fine-“

“Don’t lie to me. I know you’re trying to protect me but please... will you just talk to me? Honestly?” 

His reply this time wasn’t completely unforeseeable but it still shocked Y/n quite how quickly it happened, especially almost unprovoked. Because that’s all it took for Tom to break, for the past 2 weeks to get their vengance, for all the repressed emotion to escape. 

He was crying- well more accurately sobbing- into his hands, his back quaking. Naturally Y/n reached out to pull him into her side, suppressing the groan of pain as she moved a little too much for her abdomen to handle. “I’m here T. I got you and I’m not going anywhere m‘kay?” 

And that’s how they stayed, for at least 10 minutes, with Tom crying into her shoulder as Y/n rubbed up and down his back. Eventually though, everything did calm down and Tom repositioned himself to lean his head on her shoulder just facing forward and focusing on playing with her fingers, lacing them fingers with his. 

In all the time since she’d woken up, Y/n was yet to broach the subject of their babies name yet. She sensed it was a sensitive topic to say the least, so had thought it best to wait till they were properly alone - not in a ward of 6 strangers where the only privacy came in flimsy blue curtains. 

“So…. Aurora huh? Thought it was too airy-fairy, head-in-the-clouds for you?”  Smiling lightly, both of them were transported back to the pregnancy when they spent hours and hours bickering over names. Aurora had always been Y/n’s favourite but to Tom thought it was more a name for a hippy kid who went around clad in tie dye and bandanas. 

“Still is a bit...but I needed a bit of a miracle and Iceland was in my head. Plus I sort of accidentally word vomited while shouting at Haz, for being nice to me.” Iceland as in when Tom had proposed under the aurora borealis in the freezing sky - when Y/n had agreed, promised even, to be with him forever.

“But you like it?”

“Of course... mother always knows best after all.”

“I think it suits her too. One of your best choices to date, listening to me.” Y/n mused, earning herself a very delicate but still playful elbow in the side before the room drifted back to a much more comfortable silence. 

“We’re gonna get through this you know? Me, you and her, we’re together in this... I’m sorry I wasn’t in the beginning and I’m sorry I hurt you but now? I promise you got me and I’m not going anywhere…” Y/n needed to say it and needed Tom to properly listen. “ ...literally, I still cant walk properly.” Tom chuckled wetly at that, which made Y/n feel a lot better too. 

To be completely honest, Tom was still hurt and he knew it’d take some mending to move past everything. By no means did he blame Y/n in anyway but just the fact he was left alone and abandoned - well, it was the worst time in his life. The way Y/n understood that and had apologised to him - if completely unnecessarily- meant everything. Meant she would help him to heal... whilst he helped her too. 

“Can we just go to sleep? I need to wake up beside you in our bed not at tiny hospital one.” It was only 3 in the afternoon but because of Y/n’s medicine she was constantly drowsy and Tom? Tom was still in this permanent state of exhaustion. So it wasn’t so much of a weird request as it was on the face of it. With a nod, Y/n shuffled down on the bed a bit more resting her head against the top of Tom’s. It was exactly what they both needed, just a bit of peace with each other. 

That lasted all of 5 minutes before Aurora woke and started to scream. 

Life had most definitely changed. Especially for Tom. Because even though he was he was mentally and physically exhausted,  he only appreciated his daughters screams whole heartedly... because Y/n was there groaning with a tired smile too. They were in this together. 

~~~~

 I really hope the ending didnt disappoint too much, im aware its rushed as hell, but thank you for getting this far! And I hope maybe this series has done a teeny tiny bit to normalise not everything in pregnancy and child birth being perfect - that there is morbidity and mortality associated. Obviously this is all fictional (esp the amazingly quick recovery and lack of neurological/other impairments) and not medically accurate in the slightest !!

my inbox is always open :) t x

Tagging : @whitewolf51 

[naturallytom]

Little Things (Tom Holland x reader)

a/n: this is for @rosyparkers​ writing challenge!! italics are flashbacks, bold is the prompt!! again i hope u enjoy this im sorry it’s been like 10 years since i’ve posted something lmao also big thank u to @sunshinehollandd​ for reading this over!!

warnings: a lil angst, scared of opening up/being vulnerable, other than that it’s fluffy fluff 

prompt: “Do you want to know the hardest thing about having a soulmate? It’s not the separation in the beginning, not the endless nights lying awake, hoping and praying that someone was made for you. It’s…it’s the love. It’s too strong, and you can’t fight it. I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried…but I’m always going to love you. And I need you to know that.”

“You ready, my love?” Tom held his hand out to you as the dj announced it was time for your first dance, his brown eyes radiating a type of warmth that brought you comfort when you needed it most. You placed your hand in his and allowed him to guide the two of you to the dance floor, his hands going to your waist while you wrapped your arms around his neck. 

“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?” He asked, his voice so soft only you could hear it. 

“Only a million times.” You smiled, hiding your face in his neck. It amazed you that even after years of dating he still had that effect on you. 

“I’ll tell you a million more times, then.” He smiled, pressing a soft kiss to your head. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

“Not so bad yourself.” You replied, a small smile on your lips as your mind wandered to when you first met Tom and how far you came with him. 

“What are you thinking about?” Tom chuckled. 

“How do you know I’m thinking about something?” 

“You have that look on your face. The one you make when you’re deep in thought.” He told you, pressing another kiss to your head. “Everything okay?” 

“Mhmm. Just thinking about how far we’ve come.” You told him honestly. 

“We have come a long way, huh?” He smiled. “Remember when we first met?” 

“How could I forget?” You chuckled, your mind replaying the day you met him as if it was yesterday. 

The first snowfall of the season and you were in your room studying for an exam. Not ideal at all but you had this big exam coming up that you just couldn’t fail so you had to study as much as you could-

“y/n?” Your roommate poked her head into your room, a hopeful smile on her face. “How much studying do you have to do?”

“Ermm a lot, why?” You asked, flipping through your study guide so far. 

“Was thinking we could go out in the snow, at least for a little bit?” She grinned. 

“I don’t know, I still have a lot of studying to do-” 

“You’ve been studying all day! Come on, you need a break.” She argued, making you sigh. 

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick break. But only for a little bit!” You gave in, making your roommate cheer as the two of you got ready to brace the cold winter air. 

“It’s so pretty.” Your roommate said, her voice almost a whisper as the two of you took in the scene while you walked to the nearby park. 

Light, fluffy snow fell from the sky, landing softly on the ground around you as well as on your faces. For a moment when you looked up at the night sky, seeing glimpses of the stars and the snow falling, all your worries and obligations washed away, bringing on a sense of peace. 

The two of you arrived at the park, seeing other people there, all enjoying the snow. People were making snow angels and snow men, while others were having a snowball fight. 

“Hey check this out!” You roommate called, laying down in the snow and making a snow angel, sitting up when she was done. “How’s it look?”

“Not bad.” You laughed, bending down and molding some snow into a ball. “But unfortunately this snowball is too good not to be thrown and you’re the target so..”

Your roommate stood up and fortunately for her but unfortunately for you, she moved out of your way right as you let go of the snowball, allowing it to crash into the man right behind her. 

“Oh shit!” You gasped as he turned around, a look of confusion and slight amusement on his face while your roommate was hysterically laughing off to the side. “I’m so sorry!”

“That meant to be for her?” He chuckled, making you nod. 

“I’m so sorry, I tried to throw it at her but she moved at the last minute and-”

“Hey don’t worry about it.” He assured you. “I’m Tom.” 

“y/n.” You replied. “Really is there any way I could make it up to you?”

“Really it’s fine.” He laughed. “But I am getting cold so I was gonna go across the street and get a tea, if you’d like to join.”

“Sure, but I’m paying for yours.” You insisted, making Tom smile. 

“Pretty sure I’m supposed to pay for yours.” He tried, but you shook your head.

“No, no. It’s my treat. I’m the one who hit you with a snowball, after all.” 

“You looked so cute that night. The snow was falling and sticking to your eyelashes and the moonlight was hitting you just right. God, you looked like an angel. Still look like an angel.” He sighed. 

“Yeah an angel who didn’t let you in for a long ass time.” You chuckled. “‘M not sure what you did but you made me open up to the idea of being vulnerable and open to someone else. I hadn’t really done that before you.”

It had been almost eight months since the snowball incident and to your surprise, Tom was your (very caring) boyfriend. It sort of came as a shock to you when he asked you to be his girlfriend. You definitely had strong feelings for him, no doubt about it. But you weren’t good about expressing them. Tom liked to talk about his and open up his heart to you while you liked to keep your heart guarded and show you cared with smaller actions. 

Tom was patient, though. He was patient and caring and understanding and it made your heart swell within your chest to the point that you weren’t even sure if you could keep it to yourself. He didn’t rush you into opening up or being vulnerable, but he noticed the small smile that formed on your lips whenever you showed him a song or meme that reminded you of him. He noticed the way your eyes sparkled with pride when you successfully made his favorite meal to surprise him after a long day. 

You noticed the little things Tom did too. Like how he always took off his jacket and wrapped it around your shoulders if you were out on a date and you got cold. Or how he always offered to walk or drive you home before you moved in and if he couldn’t or if you drove yourself, he would tell you to drive safe and to text him when you got home. 

“All those little things you did just made me fall even more in love with you.” He laughed softly. “Maybe I rubbed off on you a little bit.” 

“Maybe.” You sighed, your head resting gently on his shoulder. “You told me you loved me all the time, it probably rubbed off on me little by little until I said it.” 

A year and a half after a snowball resulted in you meeting the man of your dreams, you and Tom were still going strong, but you were scared. Tom had told you he loved you so many times yet you couldn’t find yourself to say those three little words back. 

“I love you.” He would say. “You’re my soulmate.” 

You loved him, you know you did. But despite Tom telling you all the time how much he loves you and that you were his soulmate, you were still scared. What if you said it and he rejected you? What if the two of you broke up and you were open and vulnerable for no reason? 

It happened one night when you were laying in bed, your head resting on Tom’s chest, playing with hands, lost in thought. 

“What’s on your pretty little mind, hm?” He murmured, pressing his lips to your forehead softly. 

“Nothing.” Lie. You were actually thinking about how much you loved him and how lucky you were to have him in your life, but the thought of opening up like that terrified you. You fell in love the way you fall asleep, slowly and then all at once. 

“Do you want to know the hardest thing about having a soulmate? It’s not the separation in the beginning, not the endless nights lying awake, hoping and praying that someone was made for you. It’s…it’s the love. It’s too strong, and you can’t fight it. I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried…but I’m always going to love you. And I need you to know that.” He said softly, as if he could read your mind. 

“How do you know you’ll always love me, though?” You asked. “That’s a long time.”

“Darling I fall more in love with you every day.” He chuckled. 

“It’s just,” you started, not thinking about the words that left your mouth next. “I do love you but I’m scared. I don’t like being vulnerable like that, you know this.” 

Tom paused before he let out a soft laugh, a sense of ‘I knew it’ mixed with confusion taking over your body. 

“What?” You asked, starting to get mildly defensive. 

“Baby you just said you loved me.” He smiled, making your eyes widen. 

“I did?”

“Mhmm. Also said you were scared and didn’t like being vulnerable.” He mumbled against your head, his thumb rubbing over your knuckles softly. “Being vulnerable is what makes us human, lovey. ‘S okay to open yourself up, especially to me.” 

“What if you didn’t feel the same way?” You glanced up at him, a small smile on his lips. “What if we broke up?”

“Neither of those are even possibilities.” He assured you. “I love you too much.” 

You paused before responding. “I love you too.”

As the song came to an end, you found yourself overwhelmed with love and felt tears involuntarily fill your eyes. Tom frowned lightly when he saw the tears, pausing to hold your face in his hands gently, concern in his eyes.

“What’s wrong, hm? Regret marrying me already?” He teased, making you laugh softly. 

“No. ‘M just really happy. I really love you. Don’t think I’ll ever stop.” You murmured, the concern and frown on Tom’s face being replaced with pure love and adoration. 

“Good, darling, because you’re stuck with me forever now.” He replied.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

_______________________________________________________________________

please rb/leave feedback!!

tagging some mutuals: @daydreamparker​ @angelic-holland​ @moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown​

[kayrogers]

to all the girls i've loved before ][ p.  parker

a tatbilb au

Paring(s): LJ!tom holland x PK!reader

Inspo: TATBILB cause Peter is a total soft boi and also I'm a slut for rom-coms

Word Count: 1700+

Warning(s): cursing and awkward kissing

Part: prologue | part ??

A/N: this has literally been a draft in my notes for like over a year, but college has been creatively hitting me in the stomach with a baseball bat so I only wanted to start it when I got a semi-break. Obvs updates will not be regular just like everything else I write because I am the worst, but I mean thanks in advance if ya read it!

‘ Dear [Y/n] [Y/l/n],

First of all, I refuse to call you [Y/l/n]. You think you’re so cool, going by your last name all the sudden. Just so you know, that only makes you one of the guys. That’s it.

Did you know that I didn’t stop thinking about our kiss every time I saw you in school for at least the rest of seventh grade? Sometimes I think you do. Because you always seem to know everything. And you always smile when you see me blushing like you know you’re the reason why. That’s what I hate about you. Because you do just know, or at least you act like it. You’re too cool to be bothered by anything, or be wrong EVER.

Well here are some things you don’t know that I think:

You swear all the time and say the grossest things. I’ve heard every dirty joke Flash has ever made, and you beat him without trying! And you just assume everyone will think it’s cute cause you’re a pretty girl and you curse. And if they don’t, who cares, right? Wrong! You care. You care a lot about what people think of you.

You always show us bugs you think are cool and it’s gross. That’s terrifying and I hate when you stick them in my face cause I’m grossed out. It’s rude.

You’re so good at everything. Too good. I have to try harder around the guys to be half as cool as you.

You kissed me for no reason! You knew Flash wanted to kiss you. Everyone knew that Flash wanted to kiss you. He made all of us spit-shake on not kissing you if we ended up in the closet for 7 minutes in heaven because he liked you. But you still did it. Why? I wanted my first kiss to be special, and with my future girlfriend. All romantic, you know? That’s what it was supposed to be. And it wasn’t any of that. Thanks to you it was the most un-special kiss it could be AND I got my ass kicked by Flash!

The stupidest part is, that kiss made me like you. I never did before. Didn’t think of you as anything but one of the guys. Flash has always said you’re the prettiest girl we know. And yeah, that’s true. But I still didn’t LIKE you. Missed the hook that every other guy was on in middle school. A lot of people are beautiful. Doesn’t make them interesting or intriguing or cool.

Is that why you kissed me? Cause I was the only one who wasn’t wrapped around your finger? Well it worked! Ever since then, I saw you. I mean really looked at you. Behind every scratch, bump, and bruise from whatever sport you were playing, I saw you. How you weren’t just beautiful, that word isn’t good enough. You just exist effortlessly.

And yes, I did go through the thesaurus for that adjective. You’re hard to describe, [Y/n].

After you kissed me, I liked you for the rest of seventh grade and almost all of eighth. It’s not easy watching you with Flash. It’s also not easy when he shoves it in my face all the time cause he doesn’t like me anymore. So thanks for that! But I get it, if I had you I wouldn’t be able to shut up about you either. You make him feel special. Because that’s what you do, right? You’re good at making people feel special.

But not me anymore. I haven’t really seen you over the past year. And any time I do, you’re with Flash. Your spell has worn off [Y/n] [Y/l/n]. I am proud to say that I am once again the only boy in school to not be hooked into you. All because I got too much of you at once and now I don’t think I’ll want to be under that spell ever again.

What a relief!

Peter Benjamin Parker ’

You felt your brows furrow, cheeks equally red from a shyness you hadn’t felt in years and slight anger. Clearly he wrote this years ago, but why send it now? Right after Flash cheated on you?!

Did he like you? Did he hate you? Why did you care? It was just Peter-fucking-Parker.

You purse your lip, placing the letter back on the desk. Your blood boiled, heart skipping a beat. Every single reaction in your body was opposing and you hated how much it affected you.

So what would be the best course of action? To act like it didn’t effect you at all. At least, that’s what you saw as the right decision. It’d be easy, just let Parker down and tell him you didn’t feel the same. Because maybe that’s what this was? Maybe Peter did fall back “under your spell” and now that you were finally single he had to tell you? That was the only idea which came to your mind anyways.

You looked over at your closet, eyes focusing on your favorite shirt. It was a white crew neck sweater decorated in the entomology of beetles, and you decided you would be wearing that to turn him down.

“Don’t like my bugs? Yeah okay, Dickhead.” You muttered and pulled the item out before forming the rest of the outfit which consisted of running shorts and sneakers. Classy, right?

You took a picture of the letter before folding it back up and placing it into the envelope. Why? Well not that you’d admit it, but you were never complimented like that before. And that part of the letter made you feel kinda nice actually. He paid attention to you back then, which could have been sweet once upon a time. Now? Now you didn’t know how to feel about it and that bothered you immensely. 

Later, in school, You mulled over how you would confront the boy. It was weird, really weird. You and Peter hadn’t really talked since middle school and the most the two of you interacted in high school was you apologizing for Flash being a dick to him about 24/7. And now he was apparently infatuated with you once and you had to tell him that you didn’t feel the same. But as the clock ticked on, you knew you had at least one class with him and that was gym.

 You anxiously gripped the letter in your hand, jogging along the track and looking for a familiar set of brown curls. It didn’t take long for you to catch up with him, spotting Peter and Ned half-walking the whole thing while the gym teacher wasn’t looking.

“Yo Parker! Wait up a second.” You called and his head whipped around, his eyes instantly going to your sweater.

‘Do bugs really bother him that much?’ You thought and held back a frown before shrugging it off. There were more important matters.

“Nice shirt! Is it accurate?” Ned instantly chirped up and you let yourself smirk, he always had such an excited demeanor in a way that could light up a room if anyone bothered to notice him.

“You think you’d catch me wearing pseudoscience? What the hell do you take me for?” That smirk grew into a smile as you spoke to Ned, not noticing the pale color staining Peter’s face. Because while you were focused on Ned, Peter was focused on you. 

Specifically, the letter in your hand.

“You’re right, I apologize. What brings you over here anyways? You usually lap us twice by now.” You looked over to Peter while Ned talked, watching how he was unable to even look up from your hand.

“I wanted to talk to Peter, actually…  alone?” You scratched the back of your neck while Ned let out a big ‘ohh’ and quickly made himself scarce.

The boy looked more nervous than you had ever seen him, running his hands through his hair so much that every knot could have been plucked out by now. 

“What um- what’s up, [Y/n]?”

 “Listen, I’m gonna make this quick to save both of us the awkwardness. I think it’s really nice that you think I’m one of the prettiest girls in our grade and stuff… but me and Flash just broke up and I really don’t see you that way-”

The only thing you heard from him was an exasperated ‘what?’ before practically watching the boy fall in slow motion. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and you gasped out loud when his head hit the ground.

“Oh my god, Peter!” Dropping to the ground after him, you immediately move his hair from his eyes and wave your hand in front of his face.

“Are you okay? Parker? Do you know your name? What day is it?” You gave a choppy version of the concussion questions your coaches asked after a particularly bad hit to the head, panic evident in your eyes.

‘Did I just concuss this kid?!’ you thought wildly.

Slowly, he sat up, taking a couple breaths while you kept your hand on his shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said exasperated and you watched his eyes grow twice their size as he glanced to his left.

Storming towards the two of you was a recognizable scowl, an envelope in her hand. Michelle Jones. She was MJ to you, once upon a time, but you couldn’t think of the last time the two of you said a word to each other.

“Oh god!” Peter rolled his eyes, grabbing your attention yet again.

In a blink, the boy had managed to grab your waist and pin you underneath him, one hand was gently caressing your head while the other wrapped underneath you. You couldn’t even take a breath before his lips were on yours, surprise flooding your system. His lips were soft and you hadn’t even realized how your body instantly reacted to him as if you had done this a thousand times before, kissing him in a quick but simple rhythm. But once your brain did register it? You grabbed his face, separating the two of you.

“Parker, the fuck?!-”

“Bye!” He blurted out before letting go of you and running off at a speed you didn’t even think was possible for him.

So this left you, alone, confused, and strangely breathless on the ground.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

taglist(s):

tatgilb -

permanent - 

@ultrunning​ @jesseswartzwelder​

[imaginesmai]

Peter Parker-Tried (not enough)

Angst is back ladies 

Plot: Tony had developed a cronic anxiety every time Peter calls in the middle of the night. He knows it gets bad; just not so much.

Warnings: ANGST

“Mr Stark”

Tony didn’t like that name. One, it made him feel old. Peter was a young and healthy boy, while he could hear his knees cracking when he got up too quickly, and lately his bed time was sooner and sooner. Two, it brought him bad memories. His kid dying in Titan, turning to dust into his arms, and five years later begging him not to go. Tony had survived miraculously, and since then had forbidden Peter from calling him Mr Stark.

Then again, when Peter was nervous he couldn’t help but go back to his old manners. And Tony could feel the anxiety from over the phone.

He stopped what he was doing, eyes widening as he brought the phone closer to his ear, a shiver running down his spine.

“Kid? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Are you there? Is Cho? I need – I need help”

Tony froze. He had never heard him asking for him. More than one time, he had discovered Peter with a hidden broken rib or some unexpected stab that he, sassy, described as an extra pocket. It had been a dance between the two of them, one that Tony wondered if it would end with Karen calling him, telling him his worst nightmare had come true.

It was something that terrified Tony, something he worried about more and more each day. Knowing that the older Peter got, the terror that gripped him anytime he got the alert that the avengers were heading out to face a number of battles – that there would be a time when Tony wouldn’t be able to save him.

For Peter to call him, begging, almost pleading, made the panic in Tony’s stomach twist into knots

“Cho can be here in fifteen minutes, what’s wrong?” Tony sent a message through the Stark Pad to her, the words urgent in capital letters.

“I’m… almost there”

Tony heard how pained Peter’s voice was, his mind whirring at the possibilities. He was clearly okay enough to swing his way back to the tower, through the memory of the last time he had done it, delirious and passing out on the edge of the balcony, was not a good one.

“Kid-“

“I’m here” Peter sounded out of breath, something that just set Tony off even further, knowing that he had super strength made his endurance something of an anomaly.

If Peter was short of breath, something was terribly wrong. And the mechanic got to know what as soon as he put a foot on the balcony.

Peter, mask off with an agonized expression on his face, looked relatively unharmed. But it was who Peter was holding in his arms, slumped over and lifeless that took Tony’s breath away.

Because there, in front of him was Peter, kneeling on the balcony floor, holding you.

Tony could see from where he was standing, without even having to ask FRIDAY, that you were no longer with them, had long faded into oblivion from the waxy sheen of your skin and the stillness of your limbs, your only movements coming from how visibly Peter was shaking.

It hit Tony like a sledgehammer, the realization almost doubling him over for what he was walking towards. Peter hadn’t reached the same conclusion as him, though, as he was still muttering soft words in your bloodied hair.

Something had happened, Tony could only guess what it was; only knowing that whatever happened, whatever had led them to that moment, Tony was going to have the do the hardest thing he thought he would ever have to.

His worst fears, his nightmares had revolved around Peter dying in his arms. But then, Tony realized, even as Peter’s hands continued to shake, Peter had just survived worst. He had lived his own nightmares.

“Mr. Stark, I need – I need help, Cho. S-she’s here, right? She gotta – gotta come up! She gotta – Y/N n-needs help.”

Tony quietly walked up to him, kneeling down in front of Peter, heart breaking as the boy cradled you closer to his chest.

“Peter-“

“I-I tried to – to stop it, Mr-Mr Stark. He, he grabbed her and I-I was there, b-but” Peter interrupted himself with a broken sob. “H-he let her go, go, and I had – could stop it, Mr Stark. I-I jum-jumped, the…the web! I promise – promise I sent a web! B-b-bu-t-t”

It hit Tony, the horrifying realization coming to him suddenly and then in waves. He could see it, without Peter having to continue. He had lived through that with Pepper, had felt his heart stop; some villain holding her, flinging her off some distance, him not knowing if he could life after that. But, she was alive, and you weren’t.

Tony saw, the odd angle of your neck, the lack of blood dripping down, the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach at what Peter was saying.

Peter kept rambling, shaking so violently Tony thought he could hear his teeth rattling. Still in denial that you were gone.

“S-she hit, the head. The head Tony. I don’t – don’t know! Y/N j-just won’t… She needs Cho, Mr Stark. W-Where is Cho?”

Ton felt completely out of his depth, his heart aching at the way Peter held you close. He kept trying to explain how you were fine, how you needed help. His cries kept growing louder and sharper, until his words were nothing more than loud sobs.

Tony braced himself, knowing that was he was about to say was not only going to stay with Peter for years to come, but would possibly break him.

He hadn’t even known you so much; bright, passionate, sparking that always made Peter ramble about you. He had always liked you, from the minutes Peter told him about you and he knew he had met his match. Some days, he would see you in Peter’s apartment, laying face down on the sofa and talking to May. You were a part of that family, who had just suffered another unfair loss.

But was broke Tony was the loss of Peter’s innocence, the knowledge that while it wasn’t the first death in Peter’s life, it would be the one he wouldn’t be able to recover.

“Peter, I need you to listen to me”

“You – you called for Cho, right? Y/N, s-she’s been, unconscious. She, Mr Stark, she-e was f-falling and – and, she need h-help”

“Peter” Tony’s voice was soft, staving down his own grief as he looked past you, his eyes boring into Peter’s, seeing the unimaginable and overwhelming grief in his.

“Tony, please, Mr. Stark. H-help me. Sh – she won’t, wake up. Y/N fell. I think, I think I – I saw her-“

“Peter, listen to me. Listen to me, okay?” Tony willed his voice to be stable, soothing. Willed for his hands to be steady as he rested them on his shoulders, Peter shuddering as he did.

“Mr. Stark, please” Peter cried, his voice barely above a whisper. There was a pit of desperation where Tony could drown.

“She’s gone, Peter. Y/N is gone”  

The tortured cry that came out of Peter’s mouth caused a chill to run down his spine, Tony’s composure threatening to break. But he had to continue, no matter how much it horrified him, no matter how much the idea of a world without you and the effect it would have on Peter threatened to overwhelm him.

Tony had to be present, while Peter tried to push him away while denying it over and over again, begging for help and sobbing that you, possibly, hit your head. He leaned his head against you, holding you tighter.

“Peter…”

“I tried to save her” Peter whispered, voice rough. “I tried – I tried, I thought I saved her”

He looked back to Tony, and the older man swallowed a sob, because there was a sheer horror at knowing that the desolation might never leave him.

“Mr Stark, please. Please, please, please.”

“I’m sorry, Peter” Tony’s voice wavered, tightening his grip on Peter’s shoulders as they shook.

“She’s… she’s-“

“I know, Peter”

“I tried. I had, I had saved her” Peter chocked out.

Tony heard behind him the steps of the unnecessary medical team, swallowing down his own agony to focus on Peter. Peter, still holding you tight. Peter, pressing kisses against your forehead. Peter, crying his lungs out.

“You did good kid” he moved one hand to his face. “You did good, okay? You brought her here, but now it’s – it’s time to let us take care of here, okay?”

Peter stilled, eyes red-rimmed as his lip trembled, searching Tony’s face.

“I can’t – Mr Stark, I-I tried, but I c-can’t-“

“You can, Peter. You did good” Tony felt Cho’s hand on his own shoulder, registering that she was then bending down beside him.

“Hi Peter, it’s Cho. Let’s take Y/N down to the medical bay, alright? Can you let me do that?”

Peter breath hitched, his eyes dancing between them.

“You’ll – help her? She’s, she’s fine. I – I think she hit her-“

Cho and Tony shared a look, only to look back at Peter who sobbed harder. The doctor kept talking to Peter, trying to take your body away from him. Peter said nothing, and Tony wondered how much of a monster he would have to be, to take your body out of Peter’s hands. But then Peter relented, loosening his grip on your body even as he began to howl convulsively, wheezing and gripping at his chest. The night sky made echo to his screams, and Tony swore the stars hid shamefully. 

The suit fell to the ground, leaving him in just underwear in the cold weather.

In one swift motion, Cho took Y/N, and Peter fell in Tony’s arms. Haunting, guttural sobs came out of Peter as Tony held him, gently rocking back and forth. Tony closed his eyes, running one hand across his back, another softly threading through his hair.

Ironically, Tony, a mechanic who had fixed everything, even his own heart, couldn’t fix that. No one ever would.

But he could hold his kid, bring Peter close to his chest and embrace him, willing with everything within him that he could take away the devastating pain of his loss.

As Peter’s horrifying screams rang out, Tony did what he could. While Peter repeated the same words.

“I tried”

Just not enough.

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Peter Parker/Tom Holland tags:

@delicately-important-trash​ @lexxxistrips​

[bondsmagii]

Okay now I’m curious what kind of modern magic practitioners the SOM characters would be - Pinkcupboardwitch

my own magic is very off grid but I can hazard a guess at the various aesthetics using things I’ve actually done, because this is the shit I think about.

Shades of Magic As Modern Magic I’ve Actually Done

Kell: I had a phone where the on button was constantly depressed so if it shut off I wouldn’t be able to turn it on again. one day it ran out of battery and after spending ages trying to coax the button up via a pin I accidentally stabbed my finger and started bleeding. was so frustrated by that point that I said “fuck it” and used a blood magic command to fix the phone. it worked.

Holland: whenever I don’t want to be Perceived I have a certain ritual that I do that somehow allows me to walk right past people without being seen, or with the person in question looking at me and seeing a totally different person. I mostly use this to sneak past people I don’t want to talk to or skip long bathroom lines.

Rhy: I can do this thing where if I look into a person’s eyes (real life or photograph) I can get flashes of things that mean a lot to them, prominent memories, etc. it gives me a headache if I do it too much but when I used to go out clubbing I was known to do it in order to have an opportunity to chat someone up. I had moderate success.

Alucard: I took on a really fucking terrifying demon that haunted the house I lived in in Ireland because it fucked with my cat. I’d been trying to avoid it up until that point but then it trapped my cat in the front room and terrified her and I was so mad that I cursed it out and then trapped it on the stairs for a few months.

Lila: every time I’m on the road and I need to go to a new place I’m not sure of I just vibe with the road and visualise where I want to go and then I just seem to Know all the turns to take.

Athos: this one I’m going to be vague about re: the details because I will admit it was very Nasty Magic but it was wholly deserved. I had someone who terrorised me when I was younger and let’s just say I tailored the punishment to fit. the effects of this curse still ruin her life to this day and no I shall not be lifting it.

Astrid: put a curse on a girl I hated in school. she was really mean to me in my defence but it was also Baby’s First Curse and I may have gone too far. she did not, however, fuck with me again.

Beloc: when recipes start to go wrong or look like they’re doing something unusual/going to take too long, I stand with my face close to the pot and sing to it. for some reason this helps.

Osaron: the only time I summoned something. got bored while in uni dorms and summoned a spirit using a cobbled together ritual involving a doll, a knife, and various other things that you shouldn’t be using in a spell. house was horribly haunted for the rest of the semester. I pretended like I didn’t know what could have possibly happened.

[pinkcupboardwitch]

Mind control, "always holding a torch for you"-type love, long-term captivity, brainwashing, andddd heroic sacrifice.

Of all the possible tropes, I’m flattered you chose to interrogate me about these

Mind control

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

I gravitate to these characters so much it’s not even funny. It’s the best kind of power fantasy, not to mention the most sensible: why wouldn’t you end a fight before it’s even started? The fact that it’s so often keyed as solely the provenance of the villains makes it even better. Did the mind control kink come first or the villain kink? is the new chicken and egg question.

I especially like it when associated with underdog characters: either those of less social clout and/or people who are physically weaker, to turn them from a complete nonentity into the most terrifying piece on the board. A way to not only even the playing field, but demolish it altogether.

“always holding a torch for you"-type love

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

Romance is pretty uninteresting to me as a topic, so there isn’t really much a canon ship can pull out to make me ooh and aah. I don’t hate it though.

The idea of it anyway. So often in media it’s portrayed as this consuming, yearning thing that dominates the whole character and that’s like. Come on now. You’ve got a whole world to meddle with and you’re worried about pining.

Edited: the implied bit in ACOL where Holland holds a torch for Talya is both interesting about him as a character and makes me crack up. It’s very telling that a thirty-seven-year-old man counts a flame he had at eighteen as his one true love and suggests a lot (he’s a romantic, he’s sentimental, he’s deeply lonely and starved for love), but also, A THIRTY-SEVEN-YEAR-OLD COUNTS A FLAME AT EIGHTEEN HIS ONE TRUE LOVE. It’s ludicrous. Especially when she is literally never mentioned once in the seven (?) hundred odd pages that came before. Gotta try harder than that Schwab.

This also suggests Holland does not consider drawing a knife on him while he sleeps a dealbreaker. Which. I like. For reasons.

Long-term captivity

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

If it’s done well, yes. Which rules out 90% of mainstream media: their way of handling captivity on the page/screen is either gross (meh) or boring (indefensible). One example I do like is Elektra King and Renard in The World Is Not Enough, and it’s probably not a coincidence that it deals entirely with the aftermath of their time together. The scene where she takes off her earring? Delightful.

In fic though, where you can dig into the emotions and the complexity and the gutwrenching horror of it? Fuck yes. There’s an astounding Bane/John Blake fic for this, Stiffen the Sinews, that I’m still not over. I didn’t even watch the movie but damn.

Brainwashing

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

Rather not if the character is being brainwashed, Yes/Fuck yes if the character is doing the brainwashing.

Rather not: it’s either glossed over if done wrong or else profoundly unnerving to me if the narrative doesn’t flinch. I prefer stories where the character knows they’re doing something wrong and does it anyway, out of love or weariness or whatever, fully aware of the wrongness all the time. Espionage fiction is a huge thing for me as a result of this.

Yes/fuck-yes: it’s mind control, but in the real world. That level of control and delicacy is very alluring.

Heroic sacrifice

No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know |

In theory yes. In practice so much of mainstream media uses it as a gotcha for instant emotions that I’m wary now.

Media: heroic sacrifice! Look! Bittersweet! Turn on the waterworks!

Me: bold of you to assume I have emotions

(I was not a fan of the Kylo Ren ending, even though he was my favorite character and I fully expected him to die)

I don’t know. Heroic sacrifice when done well can be catharsis in the purest sense, but it’s so rarely done well.

And you of course know my thoughts on Holland’s alleged sacrifice, but to sum up again: IT WAS NOT A SACRIFICE because 1) he had no way of knowing his death would have that effect or any kind of effect on the world and 2) the narrative spent three books establishing he wanted to die. Getting exactly what your exhausted, traumatized, despairing psyche wants at the end of the series is not a sacrifice. It’s a lot of things, most of them shitty, but not a sacrifice.

(I would argue losing his magic isn’t a sacrifice either for him)

[momentofmemory]

fictober - day six

Prompt #6: “Yes, I’m aware. Your point?”

Fandom: Spider-Man (All Media Types/Tom Holland Films)

Warnings: Discussion of Parental Death, Bullying

Rating: G

Characters: Peter Parker & May Parker

Words: 2867

Author’s Note: part iv of a may & peter series, but works on its own. i made a terrible mistake the second i set a 2K precedent on these things, but i’m honestly really happy with how this turned out, so. enjoy. :)

>>Pros and Cons

Peter is ten years old, and whenever May watches him finish his math homework, his mind is so far beyond hers it feels like he should be the one helping her.

She knows he’s brilliant—with parents like his, how could he not be—and his teachers start suggesting they look into science magnets before he even enters middle school. She and Ben try to support his passions as much as they can, but the endowment Mary and Richard left has long since run out, and they can only afford so many expenses at once.

Which is why, when Peter comes home from school with sparkling eyes and a crinkled permission slip clutched in his hand, May feels a familiar sense of guilt creep up her spine.

“Hi May!” Peter chirps, slinging his backpack and the piece of paper down on the dining room table.

“Hi yourself,” she says, picking the bag back up and hanging it on the hook by the door. “Snack’s in the kitchen.”

Peter makes a beeline for the peanut butter sandwich in question—one of the few things Ben allows May to make, mostly because it involves zero actual kitchen appliances—and shoves half of it in his mouth. “You won’t believe what happened at school today.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” May says, picking up the note from where it had fallen.

Peter swallows down white bread and store-brand peanut butter while May flips the permission slip over and reads the summary. Apparently there’s some kind of open lab session at the Museum of Science this Friday, and anyone from Peter’s school who wants to go is allowed to count it as one of their field trips for the year. It also includes an overnight lock-in for all kids ten and over, a cut off that Peter just barely meets.

“Isn’t it so cool?” Peter gushes, his sandwich properly consumed. “Mr. Abrams said there might even be an arc reactor replica in the special exhibit section!”

“I think we agreed to avoid all forms of Stark tech after the last expo you went to.” May hears Peter pour a glass of milk as she continues reading.

“This is totally different, May! No bad guys whatsoever.” He pauses. “Unless Flash shows up.”

“Who’s—”

“Anyway we get to go for like the entire day and do our own experiments and everything, it’s going to be awesome!” Peter skids back into the dining room and sits in one of the chairs, planting his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. He stares up at her. “Soooo. I can go, right? Ned said he was going!”

May’s eyes find the dollar signs in the fine print and she winces: all expenses not paid. “I don’t know, Peter… didn’t you have another field trip just last month?”

“Yeah, but that was for the Museum of Math. Totally different.”

May frowns and rubs at her temples.

Peter, sensing her reluctance, launches himself to his feet. “I’ll get the board!”

“Peter—” May warns, but he’s scrambling off to the closet before she can stop him.

The board had been Ben’s idea: when Peter was seven, he’d bought an eleven by seventeen inch whiteboard and drawn a line in permanent ink down the middle, with “Peter” written on one side, and “The Adult” written on the other. The concept had been to help Peter learn how to balance pros and cons, and Peter had taken to it so well that he quickly learned to follow along without the visual. They still brought it out on occasion for added effect—like right now, apparently.

Peter returns from his quest and places the board on the table. He pops the cap off of the dry erase marker, and drawing a tally mark in the section labeled Peter, says, “One: it would be totally awesome. Point for me.”

He holds the marker out to May expectantly. After a moment, she sighs and takes it from him. “You’ve already gone on the required number of field trips for this semester.”

Peter frowns as May draws a line on her side. “I can qualify for extra credit if I go on more, though.”

“You’re at the top of your class, Peter, you don’t need any credit.” May draws a line on both her side and his side. “And aren’t you supposed to be saving money for the end of the year school project?”

Another line.

Peter scrunches up his face in thought, then grins. “Yeah, but I got a whole ten dollars from Mr. Delmar yesterday for helping look after his cat!”

…Line.

They continue swapping points for the next few minutes, and May has to admit that Peter does have a fair number of valid arguments. The board quickly fills up and by the time they’ve both run out of steam, there are ten careful lines drawn on both of their sides.

Peter stares miserably at the score: Parker rules state that all ties go to the adult. “…Ned will be there?”

May taps the marker against her thigh. “Yes, I’m aware.”

Peter’s eyes shoot back and forth between May and the whiteboard.

She sighs. “…Your point.”

Peter whoops in triumph as May draws the winning line in his side of the board, and she rolls her eyes and makes a mental note to ask for an extra shift tomorrow to make up for her lapse in judgement.

She doesn’t really mind, though. The electricity in Peter’s smile could generate enough energy to light up their entire apartment.

Peter talks about almost nothing but the trip for the next four days, and his enthusiasm is so infectious May finds she’s pretty excited about it, too.

Still, she has to remind him three times to pack his toothbrush and other necessities, and when he starts debating whether he should bring a change of clothes or the circuit board he’s been building out of parts fished from the dumpster, May wonders if he’s ready for an entire night on his own after all. She mentions this to Ben, who gets hung up on the fact that Peter has built an entire circuit board out of parts fished from the dumpster.

May concedes to this argument without having to get the whiteboard out.

Finally, Friday morning comes, and May bullies Ben into letting her drive so she can take Peter to school without risking being late for work herself. Peter clutches his backpack and chatters nonstop about all the things he’s hoping to build, but as they approach the parking lot his eagerness starts to dampen.

May flicks her blinker on and glances at him in the rearview mirror. “Drop off or walk you in?”

Peter runs his finger across the zipper on his backpack. “Walk in?”

“Sure thing, Tiger.”

May parks the car and takes Peter’s hand into hers, and together they walk up the marble steps of the school. His class is meeting outside, waiting for the Activities Bus to arrive, and May can see that several of the kids are already in the drop off area. She stops at the top of the steps and squeezes Peter’s shoulder.

“Got your toothbrush?”

“Yes.”

“Toothpaste?”

“Yes.”

“And that circuit board?”

Peter crinkles his nose and shrugs. “…Maybe.”

May shakes her head, and then gives him a little push towards his class. Peter stumbles a bit, caught off guard—poor guy’s always been a little clumsy—and then suddenly he’s spinning around and May has a ten year old wrapped around her waist.

“Bye, May,” he says, voice muffled by her coat. A warmth that has nothing to do with body heat steals into her chest, and she hugs him back.

“Bye, Peter.” She ruffles his hair. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Peter nods, and then he’s scampering off, his reticence all but forgotten as he sees Ned waiting for him.

May watches a moment longer, just enjoying seeing him laugh, and then shoves her hands in her pockets and hurries back to her car.

Having the apartment just to Ben and herself when she gets off work does, May will admit, have its perks—namely, having Ben to herself. She can’t help but feel a little anxious about Peter, but her cell phone never rings and there’s nothing in her inbox, so she relaxes and allows herself to enjoy a quiet evening with her husband.

That sense of peace continues until she picks Peter up the next morning, and he refuses to look at her.

She’d thought he’d be bubbling over with stories from the evening, but all of his answers are perfunctory at best and snappish at worst, so May gives up trying to prompt him and just reminds him they need to pick some things up before going home.

Peter says nothing in response, and May knows something is very, very wrong.

It’s late on a Saturday morning, which means the tourists are out in full force when May and a very sullen Peter arrive at the market. May starts weaving her way through the crowd, and when a burly man bumps into her and separates her from Peter, for a heart-stopping second she thinks she’s lost him. The crowd parts and she catches sight of his blue backpack, and she snatches up his hand before he can disappear again.

May is shocked when he jerks away.

“Peter?”

He balls his fists and looks away, and another person barges between them because it’s New York.

“Peter,” May repeats, dodging around them. “Give me your hand before you get lost.”

“I won’t get lost,” Peter says, and juts his lower lip out.

“What—? Come on, I don’t have time for this, you need to—”

“I don’t need you.”

May looks at Peter in shock. “Excuse me?”

His cheeks flush and his head turns sharply away, but he doesn’t take it back. And then, so quiet May almost misses it, he whispers, “You’re not my mother.”

 May swallows dry air, and even though the crowd has forced them together, she’s never felt so far away from him.

“Fine,” she says. “You follow me, then.”

May spins on her heel and makes her way to the vegetable vender, and while she’d like to say she doesn’t look back, she does, because she’s terrified he won’t be there.

She and Peter finish the rest of the errands in a similar fashion, responses clipped and Peter avoiding any kind of contact, no matter how incidental—even when she hands him the grocery bag to carry, he goes out of his way to keep their hands from brushing. When they get home, Peter goes straight to his room without even saying hi to Ben. He looks at her in bewilderment, about to head out the door himself.

May shrugs helplessly, and texts Ned’s mom before kissing her husband goodbye.

Fifteen minutes later, May’s staring at a blurry photo from yesterday of Peter hugging May on the steps, with the caption ‘MOMMA’S BOY—OH WAIT, HE DOESN’T HAVE ONE’ written on it. 

After an intense interrogation, Ned admits Flash had texted the photo to the entire class, and had tormented Peter with it until one of the teachers stepped in (conveniently just before the parents arrived). He also swears Flash didn’t get ahold of it until that morning, so Peter really did have a good time for most of the trip.

…Just not the end.

May thanks Ned for his honesty and hangs up the phone. She drops her head into her hands and her hair curtains her face.

Couldn’t Parker luck have given him a break just once?

She sits in silence and wonders how on earth she’s going to fix this. Then she stands, pulls back her hair, and puts the kettle on the stove—Ben isn’t here to stop her—and fixes two slightly scalded mugs of hot chocolate.

She taps on Peter’s door, mugs balanced precariously in one hand. There’s no response, but Peter doesn’t tell her to go away, either. She takes it as the closest to an invitation as she’s going to get.

The lights are off, and Peter’s backpack has been abandoned on the floor, and the circuit board he’d been so proud of looks a lot more warped than May remembered it being. Peter himself is curled up on his bed, facing the wall. He rolls over onto his back when May walks in, though his gaze remains fixed on the ceiling. The tear tracks on his face glisten in the light from the door.

“Ned told you?”

“He’s a good friend.” May sets the mugs down on his bedside table. “I’m going to have a long talk with your teachers about this.”

Peter lets out a long breath. “I should quit school.”

“I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves.”

“Nope.” Peter rubs his arm across his face. “Actually I don’t think I can go out in public again. Ever.”

May looks at him thoughtfully, then walks out of the room. She comes back a few moments later carrying the whiteboard, and Peter groans.

“No, May, come on.”

“Too late,” May says, marking the board. “Point one: never having to face Flash again.”

Peter peeks out from under his arm and frowns. “You put that on the Adult side.”

“Correct. We’re playing Devil’s advocate today: I argue for your side, you argue for mine. Your turn.”

“This seems unfair,” Peter says, but he pulls himself into a seated position and takes one of the mugs. “I… would never graduate or get a job?”

May places two marks under Peter, and then one under Adult. “Counterpoint: lots of people work from home. You could do everything online for the rest of your life.”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t be able to make like, friends and stuff. Or go see movies.”

May draws another two marks and Peter scowls. “I feel like it’s unfair that you’re marking down two for me and only one for you every time.”

“Stop making so many points, then,” May replies. “How about this: no friends means no one can make fun of you for having them.”

“I think not having things was the problem, actually.”

May freezes midway through drawing the line. Shit.

Peter offers her a watery smile. “Maybe put that on the other side?”

He seems sad, but sincere enough, so May wipes her finger over the unfinished line and places one on Peter’s. She sets the board down. “Peter, I—”

“I’m sorry.” Tears swim into Peter’s eyes and drop into his cocoa. “I didn’t mean it when I said—I said—” He holds the mug tighter to his chest. “…I just really miss her.”

May closes her eyes, and then sits down on the bed next to Peter and pulls him to her. “Me too, Peter. Me too.”

She runs her hand through his hair. “Did I ever tell you how much you remind me of her?”

Peter looks up. “…Really?”

“Really.”

May picks up the second mug for herself, and as they drink their cocoa May tells Peter about how much she loved the sound of Mary’s laugh. The way she always tossed her hair back and how her entire body would shake, holding nothing back, and the sheer exuberance she had for life—similar to Peter’s, in many ways. About all the trouble they used to get into together, and how happy Mary’d been when Peter was born. How she thought he hung the moon, and how she wanted to give him the stars in return. How much she loved him.

“May?”

She takes a sip of cocoa and hums.

Peter plays with his thumbs. “…I really didn’t mean it.”

Chocolate coats May’s tongue before gliding down her throat, but it doesn’t feel nearly as warm as Peter’s words. “I know, buddy. I need you, too.”

Peter glows, and May takes the last sip of her drink.

“Now. Since you’ve decided hanging out with me is cool again,” May says, wiping down the board, “wanna go dumpster diving for some tech while I tell you some more stories?”

“Really?” Peter’s thousand-watt smile lights up his face.

May plucks the empty cocoa cup out of his hand. “Really. We might even hit up some of the fancier ones in Manhattan, if you’re really lucky.”

“Whoa, cool!”

Peter races off to get his jacket and shoes, and May smiles. She doesn’t have the foggiest idea what kinds of things to help Peter look for, but she’d spent a night or two playing lookout for one Mary Parker during her wilder years. She was more than willing to watch over Mary’s son, too.

She stands and puts the whiteboard back in the closet, closing the door just as Peter finishes putting on his boots.

“Ready?”

Peter nods vigorously, and May grabs her keys as they walk out, locking the door behind them. May starts to walk down the stairs, and then a small hand slips into hers.

May looks down in surprise, and Peter flushes, but doesn’t let go. May squeezes his hand and doesn’t say anything as they walk out onto the streets, because she’s not his mom, and that’s okay.

She’s still his, and he’s still hers, and that’s all they need.

[chiseler]

Little Devils: 50 Years of Killer Kid Movies

Face it, children are just plain creepy—especially the really cute ones.

Historically—and I’m talking about going back thousands of years—we’ve always been scared to death of the children we’ve spawned. Before they’re born we worry they might be physically deformed or just a little off in the head somehow. And after they’re born and as they start to grow and think and talk, hoo boy, that’s when things really start getting scary, as you start to glean a little something about what’s going on behind those cold, staring eyes. I’m not a parent myself, but having been a kid once I fully understand the panic and fear that can grip parents as they come to better understand their kids. What if they’re no good at sports? What if they start hanging out with a bad crowd and using drugs? What if they get bullied by the other kids and take revenge by shooting up the school? Worse still, what if they decide to bludgeon us to death with a crowbar in our sleep one night? What if they turn out to be the bona fide offspring of Satan himself? What the hell do we do then? Sure, we all pretend to be shocked and dismayed when we hear news stories about some eight-year-old in Kansas or Oregon stabbing the little neighbor girl twenty times for no apparent reason, but let’s be honest—we all know what these pint-sized miscreants are capable of doing, and have simply come to expect it.

As with a few of those other fundamental adult fears, like asteroids, nuclear war, clowns and deadly plagues, over the years our fear of children has led to its own unheralded cinematic subgenre of Killer Kid movies.

While countless slasher films from Halloween onwards feature tykes with butcher knives who grow up to become adults with butcher knives, I’m focusing here on those films in which the snot-nosed killers remain snot-nosed throughout. While I could have included those rambunctious hobo youths from William Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road (1933), those little back-to-nature wastrels from Lord of the Flies (1963) and the matricidal zombie girl with the trowel from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), I, um, didn’t. So sue me.

Here’s a quick chronological list of a double handful of notable features about murderous children. It’s interesting to note that as the years pass, the films themselves seem to grow less clever, endearing, original and interesting. Just like kids!

The Bad Seed (1956)

I’ve long been a big fan of that Mervyn LeRoy. As a director, he always understood the darker side of human nature, and had a sly sense of humor about it. In 1931 he directed my two favorite (and two of the bleakest) Edward G. Robinson pictures, Five-Star Final and Two Seconds. Then eight years later he directed The Wizard of Oz. I always like to think (though I’m undoubtedly wrong about this) he intended his 1956 creeper The Bad Seed as a kind of bonk on the head to those audience members who hadn’t recognized the darkness that lay at the heart of The Wizard of Oz.

Okay, Nancy Kelly plays Christine, the nightmare-plagued mother of the world’s most perfect little girl. Not only is blonde, pigtailed and always immaculately dressed Rhoda (Patty McCormack) perfect, the ten-year old knows she’s perfect. As a perfect child, she also knows what she deserves out of life and those around her, and lord help anyone who doesn’t cough it up. As time goes on, Christine  begins to suspect Rhoda may somehow be responsible for the tragic drowning of a classmate who’d recently won an award Rhoda felt she rightly deserved. And if she was responsible for that, maybe she was responsible for all those other weird deaths that have been happening all over town, too. And what the hell’s the deal with that recurring nightmare, anyway?

Although based on a stage play that was itself based on a novel, it was LeRoy’s film that would become the standard reference point and template for so many of the Killer Kid movies down the line, though few would come close to matching it.

Village of the Damned 1960

John Wyndham was a reasonably popular pulp writer in the 1930s. While his crime stories gained him the most attention at the time, these days he’s best remembered for his occasional forays into sci-fi and horror. Day of the Triffids, his end-of-the-world masterpiece about killer plants (a personal phobia) was a major hit when adapted for the big screen, but his cautionary evil kid tale Village of the Damned had a much longer reach after director Wolf Rilla got ahold of it.

Yes, we all know the story: one day everyone living in a small English village falls asleep at the same time for some unknown reason. When they awaken several hours later, all the women of child-bearing age (even the virgins!) find they’re pregnant. Weirder still, they all go into labor at exactly the same time.

Ten years later, all the kids born that day have turned out to be extremely intelligent, blond, beautiful, and emotionless. Snappy dressers though they may be, they’re also arrogant little snots who have no time for adults or other kids, and only hang out with one another all the time. They also seem to share a psychic connection, and there are hints they have some larger purpose in mind. Anyone who tries to interfere with them gets the creepy glowing eyes treatment shortly before unexpectedly committing suicide. George Sanders at the top of his game plays a rational sort who tries to get to the Bottom of what all the hell,

It remains a starkly eerie and atmospheric picture that to this day can still make you want to punch blond British pre-teens right in the face.

The film went on to spawn one lesser sequel (1964’s Children of the Damned), one superior sort-of sequel (Joseph Losey’s 1962 These Are the Damned), a 1995 remake directed by Jon Carpenter, and a Simpsons parody. My favorite bit of cultural impact, however, is that some of your more out-there paranoids have worked Village of the Damned into the Montauk Project conspiracy, claiming beautiful, blond alien/human hybrids were created in the secret government labs in the caves beneath Montauk, Long Island. These Montauk Children, as they’re called, were set out into the world as sleeper agents (though most settled in Denver for some reason), and to this day are awaiting their secret orders from above.

The Twilight Zone: “It’s a Good Life” (1961)

It was included as one of the segments in Twilight Zone: The Movie, but good as that was, there’s just no topping the original. And there’s no topping the original because back in the early Sixties Billy Mumy was the creepiest kid on the planet. Rod Serling clearly recognized this, which is why he kept casting him.

Little Anthony Freemont (Mumy) lives in a pleasant small town where everyone knows him and everyone’s really nice to him. I mean really, really, REALLY nice to him,. And they’re really nice because over time they’ve come to realize that even if he doesn’t opt to simply blink them out of existence if they don’t do what he says, he has the power to make incredibly awful things happen to them. Even thinking bad things about Anthony isn’t such a hot idea. Things aren’t any better in the Freemont household, where his terrified parents (John Larch and Cloris Leachman) have to walk on eggshells out of fear he might do something else to his siblings, or them. )“It’s a…very GOOD thing that you did that…”)

It remains one of the most delightfully wicked and true portraits of just how terrified adults are of kids, and just how sinister kids can be.

Interestingly, Mumy apparently also had this power in real life, later going on to have a big hit with the novelty song, “Fish Heads.”

The Other (1972)

Kids alone are creepy enough, but you get twins to boot, you know you’re in for some bad news. And you get twin boys in a rural town in the 1930s? Holy mackerel, you might as well just pack it in right there and go home. Nothing good is going to come of it.

I don’t know how many times I watched Robert Mulligan’s film (based on the Thomas Tryon novel) on TV in the early Seventies, but it was a lot. Enough that to this day I still remember every shot and every line of dialog., but it still gets under my skin as one of the most effective of the lot.

Real twins Martin and Chris Udvarnoky play Holland and Niles Perry. As with most twins, one is mostly nice and sweet and innocent, while the other, Holland in this case, is the dominant, wickedly mischievous one.. Also like most twins, Niles and Holland share a weird psychic link. But in their case, and under the guidance of their Russian grandmother Eda (Uta Hagen), they can use a special ring to take things one step further. They call it The Game. As in Being John Malkovich, they can actually enter the consciousness of anyone they choose, from a magician in a traveling carnival, to a passing crow, to a corpse.

It’s a Northern Gothic tale complete with dark family secrets, farm accidents, dead babies, emotionally shattered mothers and real freaks. And an evil twin. It unfolds very slowly and quietly, and even though we get the Big Revelation at the halfway point, it doesn’t matter because the story rolls on with a few more twists and surprises left. It’s not shocking or terribly bloody, but extremely unnerving. Featuring an early turn by John Ritter and a Jerry Goldsmith score.

Don’t Look Now (1973)

Nicholas Roeg’s brilliantly shattered, hallucinatory narrative with the shock ending might be a loose fit here, but it had such an influence on other sort of Killer Kid movies (like David Cronenberg’s The Brood) it deserves mention.

The great Donald Sutherland was rarely better than he was here as John, an architect whose young daughter recently drowned near the family  home in England. He takes a job in Venice, thinking a few months away from home might be just the thing to help him and his wife cope. Shortly after they arrive, however, they encounter a blind psychic in a restaurant who tells them their daughter’s spirit is around, and seems happy. Being the slide Rule sort, John is less willing than his wife to accept this at face value. At least until he starts having recurring visions of what seems to be his daughter all over Venice. Dresses like her, anyway. He becomes a little obsessed with that little girl in the red cloak who may or may not be his daughter. Who cares if she might have something to do with that whole nasty string of brutal stabbings around the city?

The less said about it at this point, the better (and easier, to be honest). Almost 45 years on now, it still works, that ending still gets me, and there’s nothing else like it.    

It’s Alive! (1974)

People might cite Rosemary’s Baby as the be-all and end-all of films about pre-natal anxiety, but think about it. Sure, she gave birth to the Antichrist, but she has a good support network right there in the building, and if she treats him right, she’s set for life. No, for my money Larry Cohen’s breakthrough monstrous infant hint trumps them all, beginning with one of the most unsettling ad campaigns of the Seventies.

Funny thing is, though it’s remembered as a film about a baby with fangs and claws who slaughters all the doctors in the delivery room before escaping to go on a killing spree around town, if you go look at it again now you realize that’s only a minor subplot. It’s also a conspiracy film about government scientists using unwitting citizens as guinea pigs. Above all else, though, it’s an indictment of the mass media, which has the power to destroy the lives and reputations of innocent people on a whim, in this case the Davis family. And damn but that John P. Ryan is great as the horrified and disbelieving father who finds himself and his wife being publicly blamed (as is So often the case) for giving birth to a kid who isn’t quite right.

Much smarter and more subtle than most would give it credit for, It’s Alive ! Is loaded with Frankenstein references, and went on to spawn two equally good (and very different) sequels. To this day I will not put my face or fingers anywhere near a baby’s mouth.

Devil Times Five (1974)

The early to mid Seventies were mighty good years for Leif Garret. Not only was his picture plastered all over every teeny-bopper magazine in the country month after month, he was also scoring supporting roles in huge drive-in hits like Macon County Line and Walking Tall. Let’s just say considering his squeaky-clean image, Devil Times Five (aka Peopletoys) was a departure.

Garret plays one of five kids traveling on a bus which crashes in the mountains during a snowstorm. With the driver dead and not knowing what else to do, the five youngsters take refuge in a nearby resort.

It eventually comes out the bus was actually delivering the kids to an institution for the criminally insane, as they’re all kookoo bananas and extremely violent. There were hints of this beforehand, as per the standard asylum movie cliche, each nutty kid has a telltale tic—this one thinks she’s a nun, the black kid thinks he’s in the military. etc. But it’s all just mild comic relief until they pick up the knives.

Well, before you can say “Mr. Green Jeans,” they begin slaughtering everyone at the resort in a variety of hilarious ways, and occasionally in slow motion.

Unlike other Killer Kid movies which try to explain away antisocial behavior by blaming it on assorted external forces (government scientists, radiation, aliens, Satan, or an eclipse), these kids are just plain old evil by nature, and that’s all there is to it.

It wasn’t a big hit, it didn’t do much to propel Garret into leading roles, but today it’s earned itself solid cult status as a pre-slasher grind house number. And what’s not to love about the ol’ “piranhas in the bathtub” gag?

The Omen (1976)

In the Seventies and Eighties, a number of once-huge stars—Ray Milland, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Rory Calhoun, Ida Lupino, George C. Scott and, in this case Gregory Peck—found themselves making genre pictures simply because that was all that was available to them. Granted, The Omen was a few cuts above The Devil’s Rain and Tentacles, but still.

Okay, regardless what the producers and screenwriter David Seltzer may claim about the franchise’s origins, the original trilogy of Omen films was lifted wholesale from “The Devil’s Platform” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Be that as it may, when you get a cast like this, a smart director like Richard Donner, a simply astonishing score by Jerry Goldsmith, some diabolical camera trickery and editing, wonderful practical effects (Lee Remick’s fall from the balcony kept me going for years), and a story about a smiling, (mostly cheerful 3-year-old Son of Satan wandering around England leaving a trail of beheadings, impaled priests, seriously pissed off baboons and hanged nannies  in his wake, how can you go wrong? Even if the script itself is absurdly silly.

In an interesting postscript, like so many other child actors deeply associated with high-profile horror films of the era—think Danny Lloyd from The Shining—Harvey Stephens (who as Damien spoke, what, five words onscreen?) would not appear in another film for the next four decades. And even then he hasn’t been in much, though he did have a cameo as a reporter in the remake of, yes, The Omen a few years back.

Alice Sweet Alice (1976)

I dare you to show me one worthwhile horror film about Presbyterians. No, as far as religious sects go, Catholics have it all over everyone when it comes to horror. You got your robes, your chanting, your weird rituals, your transmutation, your Inquisition, your fetishism, your magic relics, your ghostly visions, oh, it just goes on and on. The Catholic Church is just one big horror show, top to bottom. As a result, Catholicism lay at the heart of countless horror films, and Alice, Sweet Alice is among the best.

The tagline read, “If you survive this night, nothing will ever scare you again,” which may or may not have been a reference to the fact this was Brooke Shields’ film debut. Shields plays 10-year—old Karen, the cute, quiet, polite and well-dressed younger sister of that moody, smart-mouthed and generally ornery Alice (Paula Sheppard), who likes to pull nasty pranks and doesn’t dress nearly as well as her sister. Everyone from  the neighbors to their own parents to the local priest adores Karen and showers her with gifts, while they just wish Alice would go away. She clearly needs to see a shrink or something. So when Karen is brutally stabbed to death outside the church on the morning of her first communion and Alice is found with Karen’s veil in her pocket, well, there you go. And then when a whole bunch of other people around town somehow connected with Alice end up all stabbed to death as well, well, there you go again. I mean, she just looks like someone who could do something like that, right?

Alice, Sweet Alice is an American Giallo, so the less said about the story the better. For having such a tiny budget, the visuals are rich and gorgeous, filled with Catholic imagery and ritual throughout, featuring a cast of wholly unlikable characters you honestly don’t mind seeing stabbed to death (especially that Little Miss Perfect Karen). The one standout is Alphonso DeNoble as the crass, sleazy, filthy and morbidly obese landlord Mr. Alphonso. DeNoble has a terrifying charisma, which may have come from being a bouncer at a gay nightclub in Jersey in real life.

Yes, the film owes quite a bit, and blatantly so, to Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, but aimed at a more lowbrow mainstream audience. It’s a bloody, nasty little shocker still held dear by thousands of disaffected girls who survived Catholic school.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

1976 was not only a busy year for Killer Kid films, it was also  the busiest year of Jodie Foster’s career, during which she appeared in half a dozen films ranging from Taxi Driver to, well, this, a film she and other cast and crew members would bad mouth down the line. In retrospect, it’s not really as bad as all that.

A 13-year-old Foster plays 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs, a precocious girl who may or may not be living alone in a rented house in a secluded section of a small, affluent seaside town. Her rich, nosy and suspicious landlady keeps barging in uninvited to ask too many questions, the landlady’s perv of a son (Martin Sheen) keeps putting the moves on her, a local cop is endlessly curious but nice enough, and a gimpy teenage magician from the area knows the score. But Rynn is self-sufficient and smart beyond her years. Enough so anyway to dispatch with all those nosy yokels who’d try and pry into her business.

It’s less a horror film than an atmospheric mystery that ties up all the loose ends by the three-quarters mark. Based on a 1974 novel, the claustrophobic stagebound film is mostly forgotten today, but back in ’76 the poster creeped the hell out of me. Certainly more than the film did.

The Children (1980)

Although “creepy bloodthirsty children” seems to be a simple, straightforward notion just bursting with possible storylines, 1980 marked the point at which screenwriters and filmmakers everywhere seemed to run out of ideas, so simply began rehashing those earlier, better films. Case in point is this slight variation on Village of the Damned.

This time around, instead of mysterious alien impregnation, a school bus full of perfectly normal kids drives through a cloud of yellow radioactive fog released from a nearby nuclear power plant. The radiation, it seems, turns all the tykes into shambling, emotionless and murderous zombies. Instead of glowing eyes, the infected kids have black fingernails (which was easier on the fx budget), and instead of psychically driving adults to kill themselves, the mere touch of these evil zombie children can fry any adult to a crisp. With little else to do, the radioactive zombie kids lay siege to their small town as the adults try to figure out just how to handle this. I mean, it was already hard enough trying to get them to go to bed on time.

Oh, derivative as it is, the film does have it’s moments. In fact it includes one scene I must admit I’ve never seen repeated in any other Killer Kid film, in which a group of well-armed adults barricaded inside a house open fire on the army of evil radioactive curtain climbers massing in the front yard. And when the adults finally do figure out how to dispatch the little monsters, well, let’s just say it was unexpectedly gruesome.

The Godsend (1980)

Given the year had already provided a Village of the Damned knockoff, it was apparently time for a Bad Seed knockoff, and an obvious one at that.

A pleasant and kindly British couple, the Marlowes (Malcolm Stoddard and Cyd Hayman) decide to take in a young unmarried pregnant woman even though they already have six kids of their own, telling her she can stay with them until she has the baby.  What nice people those Marlowes are! But wouldn’t you know it? As soon as the ungrateful wench spits out the baby she vanishes without a word, leaving them with a seventh mouth to feed.

Being pleasant people they don’t complain too much, and over time the child grows into a polite and lovely little girl named Bonnie (Wilhelmina Green).

Well, sure enough before you know it all the other Marlowe kids start dropping like flies, and the parents take their own sweet time connecting the dots. I mean, come now people! We all know what happens to the youngest kid in a large family.

Itself based on a less-than-original novel, director Gabrielle Beaumont’s low-budget film plays like a TV movie, and lacks pretty much everything that made The Bad Seed so effective.

Bloody Birthday (1981)

On June 9th, 1970, three women in a small California town give birth during a total solar eclipse (uh-oh!). The resulting three kids—Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy), Curtis (Billy Jacoby) and Steven (Andy Freeman)—understandably share a tight bond, and as their tenth birthday approaches in 1980, plans are underway for a big bash pretty much everyone in town is expected to attend.

In the week before the party, maybe just to trim that guest list down a bit, the trio of little scamps undertakes a killing spree. They bludgeon and strangle a couple of stereotypical slasher film teens making out in a graveyard, beat Debbie’s dad (the local sheriff) to death with a baseball bat, shoot a teacher, and attempt to lock a classmate in a refrigerator in a junkyard. No one suspects them, of course, because they’re freaking nine years old. Nowadays we know better. While you’d expect the big party to be the film’s climactic scene, it just comes and goes without much happening, and those darn kids keep killing.

Around the halfway point, a teenaged amateur astrologer offers up the closest thing we get to an explanation for such naughty behavior. During that eclipse, see, both the sun and moon were blocking Saturn. Since Saturn controls the emotions, these kids were born with no conscience. Okay, so you come to accept a lot on faith in these things. Ultimately, though there are hits of both Village of the Damned and Bad Seed here, the picture owes much more to Devil Times Five.

Director Ed Hunt had made a handful of genre cheapies prior to this, but today Bloody Birthday remains his most memorable film. The dialogue is often painful, the soundtrack is comprised of library music from TV movies, and it’s not nearly as gory as would become standard for slasher films, but his three little killers all exude a believable David Berkowitz vibe, and the film contains enough boobs to earn an R rating. In an irrelevant sidenote, it remains one of the very few entries here in which the kids use guns, and, I think, the only one in which they use a bow and arrow.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Writer/director Robert Hiltzik’s weirdie is a delightfully oddball number not only within the Killer Kid subgenre, but also among slasher films, which is doubly surprising considering when it was released.

Although the film at the outset has all the standard earmarks of a cookie-cutter post-friday the 13th slasher film (a bunch of youngsters at summer camp, and endless supply of sharp implements, a fast-rising body count), careful viewers will note a few unsettling details. First, apart from the counselors, most of the campers (and victims) are pre-adolescent, and all the males, young and old alike, wear shorts that are just a little too short and a little too snug. Hmm.

Anyway, Angela (Felissa Rose), has been sent to summer camp against her will with her older brother. She’s pretty and nice and shy, but has clearly been damaged in some way. She adamantly refuses to go swimming or play games ore shower wit the other kids, despite repeated (and usually understanding) pleas  from the counselors. She prefers to be alone, and isn’t much interested in making new friends. I know the feeling. I was sent to summer camp once, and after a lummox named Trent got to go home because he got a fish hook in the eye, I considered bribing those kids with the fishing poles to do the same to me.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, the less said the better. Let’s just say it fits the category, but with a notorious twist, and remains near the top of the lists of many slasher film fanatics I know. I do wonder, though, given the age we’re living in, how this one would go over today. It also leaves me wondering what the deal is with that Robert Hiltzik.

Children of the Corn (1984)

Yes, it’s a stinker, but remains a memorable touchstone within the then exploding subgenre of Stephen King stinkers. I always find it funny that King continues to bitch about Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, but never has a word to say about this, or The Mangler, or Silver Bullet, or Maximum Overdrive or…

But that’s beside the point. Given the subject at hand, both the original short story and Fritz Kiersch’s film adaptation are interesting in that they represent a genre-blending crossover between Killer Kid movies and Religious Zealot horror.

AS much as there is to chuckle at here—my goodness what an awful bit of filmmaking, from the script to the performances to the camera set-ups and fx—dammit I keep going back to it. I do enjoy that flashback in the diner, as well as the fact the initial slaughter of the adults is never clearly explained. Not really, anyway. And I do dig the amateurish overacting on the part of John Franklin as the crazy young preacher Isaac and Courtney Gains as his True Believer henchman Malachai. And I’ll watch that R.G. Armstrong in anything. Mostly, though, I think I keep going back time and again just to hear the line “He wants you, too…Malachai!,” which has been a catchphrase of mine for years now.

Firestarter (1984)

Amid the mid-‘80s flood of Stephen King quickies, at least director Mark L. Lester had a few more chops than most. He also had a much larger budget, which allowed him to sign a cast that included George C. Scott, Art Carney, Louise Fletcher, Martin Sheen and Heather Locklear (!).

So a young couple who met in college while volunteering as research guinea pigs in a secret government drug test later get married and have a daughter. As these things happen (see Blue Sunshine or Jacob’s Ladder), those secret government drug tests have a way of hanging around awhile, with some mighty unexpected side effects. In this case, their new daughter Charlie (Drew Barrymore, who was in a few King adaptations) was born with pyrokinetic powers, meaning she can set anyone or anything she doesn’t like ablaze, the lucky brat.

Well, a few years later when the secret government agency that ran the secret government drug test catches wind of what little Charlie can do, they decide they’d like to have a little chat with her, and maybe her dad too (the briefly popular David Keith), who himself might have psychic powers. Or maybe they’d like to have something more than a chat.

Less a horror movie than conspiracy thriller and chase picture, Firestarter remains an oddity here, as it’s one of the few Killer Kid films in which we’re asked to root for the Killer Kid, actually hoping the wee pyro in question, even though she’s cute and blond, will set a few of those icky, mean adults on fire.

It’s hardly on a par with The Shining, Carrie, or The Dead Zone, but at least it’s better than Night Shift, Sometimes They Come Back, Children of the Corn IV, Cat’s Eye, Maximum Overdrive…

The Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

As would become standard for plenty of other franchises that had seemingly run their course, some bright TV executives thought there was still some money to be made with that whole Omen thing. A decade after the last and supposedly final entry came out, why not give it the TV movie treatment? And while we’re at it, why not give it a fresh twist by doing a little gender switcheroo, right? So this time around, why not make Damien a girl? That’d throw viewers for a loop, wouldn’t it?

(An Omen IV novel had actually been released shortly after The Final Conflict came out, but it had nothing to do with this.)

The events of the previous three films have long been forgotten by the time we get underway here, I mean, don’t we see the Second Coming of Christ at the end of Final Conflict? Okay, so I guess Jesus had gone on vacation or something by the time two young smug and wealthy lawyers (Michael Woods and Faye Grant) adopt a new daughter without asking too many questions.

Their daughter Delia (Asia Vieira) grows into a pretty, dark-haired young girl who is extremely unpleasant. Oooon, but she’s a bratty little smartass who could use a spanking.  I always thought the Antichrist was supposed to be charming and charismatic, but I’ll let it slide. In any case her New Age hippie nanny starts to suspect something far more sinister than smug parents might be at the heart of Delia’s bad attitude. When all her magic crystals turn black in the little girl’s presence, she starts making frantic calls to her other New Agey friends.

I’m going to stop there. Hilariously awful film, save for one scene, And that one scene alone is reason enough to forgive the film’s countless other unforgivable flaws.  

The nanny drags Delia to a New Age fair in a park in hopes of getting a snapshot of her aura, and let’s just say things don’t go well for much of anyone. In simple slapstick terms, it’s on a par with Final Conflict’s montage of baby murders.  

The Good Son (1993)

As he transitioned from the “dorky, buggy-eyed but still weirdly cute” kid in the Home Alone pictures into a “dorky, buggy-eyed and much less cute” adolescent, Macaulay Culkin decided to prove his range as an actor by playing against type in still another take on The Bad Seed.

Instead of telling the story through the mother’s eyes, in Joseph Ruben’s film we see things through the eyes of a nice, wholesome kid named Mark (a young Elijah Wood). After his mother dies, he’s sent to live with an aunt and uncle and two cousins. Not yet knowing he should avoid anyone named “Henry,” Mark and his cousin Henry (Culkin) become good friends. But after Henry is clearly delighted when one of his silly boyhood pranks triggers a deadly multi-car pileup, and after he shows off his homemade gun to Mark, and furthermore hints he once tried to kill his own brother, Mark starts to get the idea Henry might well be a psychopath with bigger diabolical schemes in mind.

Ruben’s picture is a slight cut above the likes of, say, The Godsend thanks to that change in perspective. Although Culkin makes for a believable psycho kid, it didn’t really do much to revamp his career and set him on that road to an Oscar. Thinking about it, though, Henry’s use of improvised and homemade weaponry wasn’t that big a step away from his Home Alone character, but with more fatalities and fewer cartoon sound effects..

Home Movie (2008)

The found footage/hand held video/POV horror film was pretty well dead and buried as a style by 2008, but that sure didn’t stop anyone. It was a cheap way to make a movie, after all. In this case, though, the story would have worked much better as a straight narrative, as the POV gimmick just gets in the way, leaving viewers (or maybe just me) repeatedly asking, “Why would anyone be filming this?”

Why, for instance, would an alcoholic Lutheran minister (Adrian Pasdar) choose to film an intimate argument with his psychiatrist wife (Cady McClain)? And why would a psychiatrist use the family video camera to record private patient notes, leaving them mixed in there with the Christmas and Easter home movies? Maybe writer/director Christopher Denham was trying to make a point about people so obsessed with living through screens that they can easily ignore the obvious and increasing threat posed by their clearly disturbed twin children, who mostly just lurk in the background as the parents focus on themselves. I doubt it though.

The creepy ten-year-olds Jack (Austin Williams) and Emily (Amber Joy Williams) were born on Halloween. While their parents try to desperately prove just how fun and cool and hip they are by setting up haunted houses in the basement and teaching their kids how to pick locks, Jack and Emily spend the first half of the film staring sullenly at the floor. Soon enough though, they begin killing goldfish, crushing toads in vices, crucifying the family cat, and attacking schoolmates, working their way up the evolutionary chain toward You Know Who.

Oh, I’m not giving a goddamn thing away here—the goddamn tagline gave it away! And even without the tagline if you couldn’t see exactly where this was headed with the first scene, maybe you need a nap or something.

To it’s credit, like Devil Times Five, Home Movie offers no explanation for why the kids are funny in the head. If you wanted to push it you could make something out of that Halloween birthday or the fact the family name is “Poe.” Myself, I just tend to accept that any kid unlucky enough to have a preacher or a shrink as a parent is fucked from the start.

Case 39 (2009)

Renee Zelwegger stars as a young sincere and overworked case worker at Children and Family Services. After the seemingly unbalanced parents of a shy, sweet and neglected girl on her case list try to cram the pre-adolescent into the oven (repeatedly!) one night, the parents are institutionalized and the social worker adopts the girl.

Okay, same as with Home Movie, if you can’t see where this one was headed ten minutes in, theres something wrong with you. Funny twist is, while I initially took it to be simply yet another Bad Seed knockoff (which it is) before deciding it was simply another Omen knockoff (which it is), by the half way point it finally  became clear: what I was watching was in fact a knockoff of Omen IV: The Awakening. And that’s pretty bad. To make it all even sadder and more pointless, Case 39 is capped by a climax that makes absolutely no sense, if you think about it even  for a little bit. Even the Omen IV had a better ending, and that’s saying something.

Considering all the above, the ultimate lesson to take away here is that, talk as we might about The Terrible Twos, it’s when the little monsters turn ten that you really need to watch out.

by Jim Knipfel

[rycbrar97]

Consequences [part two]

Pairing: Tom Holland x Female!OC

Warnings: Minor swearing, mentions of menstruation, brief mentions of sex, sickness, mentions of pregnancy, character feeling anxiety/shock

Word count: 3745

Summary: One too many drinks leads to a night both Tom and Alessia will definitely forget and a morning they will always remember.

A/N: I am so excited to write this series, hopefully I didn’t rush this chapter too much. I was just real eager to get this out there to everyone! Let me know if you enjoy it 😉  

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Part one 

By the time she made it back to her hotel Alessia had already decided that there was no point in telling her sister who she ended up staying the night with and losing her virginity to. She would never believe it. It was hard enough convincing her that she actually had lost her virginity in the first place, nevertheless with Spider-Man himself. 

“What?! You? Had sex? As in done the dirty? Miss ‘I can hardly say the word penis without blushing’,” Sophie had let out incredulously, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Oh my goodness, yes, Soph. Do you have to make it so goddamn embarrassing? Why would I lie to you about this?” Alessia groaned, hands digging into her eyes and legs pacing her back and forth.

“I don’t know! I guess I just didn’t expect my saint of a sister telling me that she lost her virginity on a one night stand whilst completely pissed up the gutter-”

“God, do you have to say it like that?” she interrupted, stopping her pacing mid-stride and staring at her sister dead on, the mortification screaming off her face.

“Hey, that’s what you told me! Just because you don’t want to admit you’re a whore now doesn’t mean that you aren’t one. Somebody has to say it-”

“God, just shut up! Shut up, okay?!” Alessia’s hands shook up and down at each word, her pacing returning with increased intensity.

“Jeez, stop freaking out! This is a normal thing, okay? This is what normal people do. They get drunk, have sex and do the walk of shame the next morning. There’s nothing wrong with that—” Soph explained bluntly, trying to calm her sister back down, despite it having the complete opposite effect. But when a sudden thought crosses her mind, her blabber mouth just couldn’t help but voice it,“—oh my god though, mum is going to freak...”

Alessia’s back snapped rim rod straight and she spun herself right round to her sister, “You will not tell her about this,” she whispered lowly, “don’t you even dare,” her hazel eyes pierced sharply into Soph’s wide round ones, finger pointed menacingly at her face.

The sister put her hands up defensively, “Okay, okay. No need to be so dramatic,” she squeaked, briefly terrified at her older sister’s stone cold gaze.

“Promise me,” she demanded, her eyes struggling to keep out the desperation in them,“ promise me she will never know of this,” she repeated. She knew how her younger sister could be. She couldn’t keep a secret to save her own life. God knows the amount of gossip that girl has revealed to all her friends and family. All the nitty and gritty. She not only loved a bit of drama but she also revelled in it. Alessia just hoped and prayed that she would instil enough fear into the girl to keep this personal info locked away permanently. Most importantly, away from their mother. 

“I promise,” she vowed, the sincerest that Alessia had ever seen her be. But yet, she still couldn’t completely trust her.

She just had too big of a mouth.

Two months gone, and so far Sophie had kept to her promise, but Alessia was still hedging her bets. Life returned relatively back to normal; the girls returned home from their Europe trip three days after that fateful morning. And despite feeling like a completely changed woman after her sexual milestone, the world continued to spin around Alessia as it always did. She returned to her comfortable one bedroom flat with the yellow tea stains still imprinted on her carpet, books and coffee cups scattered across the living area from where she first left them because she couldn’t be bothered to tidy them up before her trip. Her bed was made at least, for which she was eternally thankful for as she felt like she needed at least ten years worth of sleep. Jet lag was an absolute bitch she came to saw.

She was back at work two days later, her body clock still out of whack. While it was nice to catch up with all her colleagues and get back into her routine, she found it quite hard to concentrate when she was yawning almost every two seconds. Luckily, her boss was an absolute gem and completely understood how she felt.

“Oo. Jet lag got you good, huh?” Linda inquired sympathetically, her soft wrinkled eyes observing her knowingly.

“Yeah,” Alessia yawned, rubbing briefly at her eyes before returning to snipping the stems of the daffodils laid in front of her, “I was hoping to be adjusted by now, but I guess my body has other ideas.”

Linda nodded understandingly, “I know what that’s like. It took me almost two weeks to start getting back into my normal sleep routine after coming back from Egypt. You just gotta try and push through the urge to fall asleep during the day and wait until night comes. It’s hard, but worth it in the end,” the older lady advised, continuing with her rose arrangements.

“Thanks, I’ll see how I go. Hopefully I’ll stop feeling tired soon. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve pricked myself today because I couldn’t focus. I almost grabbed one of our cactus succulents by mistake instead of the ferns. Now that would’ve been an interesting endeavour,” she joked, her smile sluggish and eyes dragged down by the dark circles underneath them.

Her boss shook her head at the mention of her clumsiness, “You’re a workers comp nightmare, you are,” she teased lightly, pausing slightly to eye her in concern, “just take it easy today, kiddo. Maybe stay away from all the prickly plants, okay?”

Alessia nodded her head silently, gladly taking on her boss’s advice.

It was a trying few weeks going back to work. Although she had started to get a bit more sleep each night, Alessia just couldn’t seem to shake the lingering fatigue that dragged her down every day. It was like all the energy she should’ve gotten from sleep each night was zapped right out of her as soon as she got up on her two legs in the morning.

“You sleeping alright, kiddo?” Linda had asked on one particular sluggish morning.

“Yeah, actually I’ve been sleeping fine now. But for some reason I’ve still been feeling so exhausted,” she expressed glumly whilst checking over orders.

“Oh no, that’s no good,” the silver haired lady tsked, “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”

Alessia paused thoughtfully at her words, “Maybe I am,” she considered, her head tilting slightly to the side, “I have been feeling a bit nauseous lately...”

“Hmm, might be the flu. Nothing a nip of apple cider vinegar can’t fix.”

She rolled her eyes at the older woman, “You and your apple cider vinegar,” she shook her head, “last time you told me it would cure my acne if I rubbed it on my face,” she remarked drily.

“You never know if you don’t try,” Linda sung as she finished tying a bow around a box of natives.

“I think I’ll just check in with my doctor first if it persists. Leave the vinegar as the last resort.”

Her boss clicked her tongue at her, shaking her head disapprovingly, “Stubborn one you are, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of home remedy from time to time,” she defended in a light tone.

“Yeah, well, I might not even need it anyway. This could just blow over any day now,” she pointed out, crossing her fingers in hope.

Unfortunately for Alessia, the nausea and fatigue did not ease up anytime soon. If anything, she felt like she was getting worse. The vomiting started about a week after her chat with Linda, prompting her to take time some time off work, much to the concern of her boss.

“Make sure to take some apple cider vinegar. It’ll help. Trust me.”

Alessia rolled eyes while on the phone with her. She sure was one persistent lady.

She lounged at home for the week, feeling absolutely miserable for herself. The urge to throw up always came at the most inconvenient times, whether it was three in the morning or one in the afternoon after just finishing her lunch. She always ended up right at the toilet bowl dispelling what was left in her stomach. It almost reminded her of that morning in London and she would relive the embarrassment moment all over again puking in Tom Holland’s toilet. She groaned as she rested her head on the porcelain seat. She did not need those memories to come back to her right now; being sick was enough torture.

For a couple days she finally felt like she was on the mend. She hadn’t had a spell of nausea for thirty-six hours. Her appetite returned full throttle with the craving of raspberry jam crumpets, for which she devoured a total of four in one sitting. She couldn’t be more relieved and satisfied that the worse was finally over and she called up work saying she would be back the next day. Her fatigue still hadn’t let up and she would get a few dizzy spells every now and then, but for the most part, Alessia felt fine enough to go back to her to work routine. She missed the flower shop too much; the colourful, cheerful atmosphere never failed to bring joy to her and the wonderful smell of lavender and roses would always lift her spirits. It was like a second home to her.

A couple weeks passed and aside from a few bouts of queasiness and persisting lethargy, Alessia was back in action and arranging bouquets like no other. She was considering going to her doctor to try and tackle this fatigue that never seemed to let up, but hadn’t found the time yet to arrange an appointment. She was keeping herself too busy. Well at least, that’s what her mother said.

“I worry about you, Lessie. You look tired. You never give enough time for yourself,” she remarked out of blue on their monthly lunch date, her eyebrows frowning down at her in concern.

Alessia sighed warily, not wanting to deal with her mother’s fussiness right now.

“I’m fine, Mum. I just think the combination of jet lag and getting sick must’ve overwhelmed my body for a bit,” she reassured as she bit into her chicken salad, “I’m fine,” she repeated. She hoped it would be enough to appease her. It was not.

Her mum observed her for moment, eyes running all over her face then coming back to peer into her soul. They squinted at her sceptically.

“I think you should see a doctor,” she said finally, prompting Alessia’s fork to clank down on her plate.

“Mum,” she whined, picking her fork back up and placing her other hand on her forehead to rub away the headache that was beginning to form.

“What? Don’t ‘Mum’ me. It’s been two months since you’ve come back from Europe, three weeks since you were sick with that bug, and you still aren’t well. That’s not normal, honey.”

“Fine. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll book an appointment with Doctor Cox,” Alessia grumbled petulantly, stabbing at her salad mindlessly. She was already planning on going to the doctors anyway, but for whatever reason, her mum bringing it up just suddenly made her not want to go now. It was that old ingrained trait of hers in always wanting to disobey everything her mother said. Alessia knew more than anyone that it was hard to shake that annoyance of being told what to do, even when reaching adulthood.

“You’ll book it for tomorrow,” her mother ordered with no room for question. Alessia groaned in frustration, flinging her hands up in the air at her bossiness.

“But I’ve got to clean my bathroom and kitchen tomorrow. Plus I was hoping to find some time to focus on my music, I haven’t played my keyboard since I got back from Europe and I finally have some inspiration to write something. Do you know how hard it is to get motivated to write?” she rambled on, trying to make up as many excuses as she could.

“Alessia,” her mum called out warningly, not taking any of her daughter’s bullshit. Her gaze was strong and deadly, and Alessia shivered knowing the potential wrath behind those eyes.

“Okay, I’ll make the appointment,” the daughter relented, shoulders slumping heavily and eyes closing as she let out a long drawn breath. Man, her mother could be trying at times.

She scheduled the appointment for the next morning, feeling oddly nervous for no apparent reason whilst driving to the clinic. Doctor Cox was a lovely dark woman in her mid forties, quick as a whip and as kind as the sun’s warmth on a spring morning. If anyone knew what was wrong her, it’d be Doctor Cox. As always, her raven hair was woven into a beautifully made braid and her eyes sported a pair of smart spectacles. She greeted Alessia with a warm smile, directing her patient to sit in the chair facing her desk.

“What can I do to help you today, Alessia?”

The girl in question scooted back into her chair, hands folded into each other, thumbs fiddling in her lap.

“Um, I’ve been feeling a bit tired lately, more so than usual. You see, I just came back from a trip in Europe a couple of months ago and had to adjust to the jet lag. So I thought the fatigue was just due to that...but the thing is, I’ve been getting plenty of sleep at night now, at least eight to nine hours worth, and I still I feel sluggish every single day,” she confessed. The doctor hummed thoughtfully, typing out notes on her computer, giving no indication of her thoughts.

“Are there any other symptoms present?”

“Uh, I did get sick about three weeks ago with a vomiting bug, and still get the occasional bouts of nausea and dizziness.”

The doctor nodded, her face still as blank as a canvas. Alessia could get no read on her whatsoever.

“How long did the vomiting occur?” she questioned whilst tapping the buttons on her keyboard like a speedster.

Alessia paused thoughtfully, trying to recall that horrid week,“About five to six days give or take, it was kinda off and on.”

The typing stopped suddenly.

“Off and on how so?” Doctor Cox clarified curiously, an eyebrow raised.

“Well one day I would be good, completely normal, and then the next morning I’d be puking my guts out. The vomiting kept on coming and going.”

“Uh huh,” she nodded, returning back to the computer to type some more, “and you said you were getting dizzy as well?”

Alessia nodded her head in confirmation, her right hand pinching her middle finger. She forgot how much she hated all the questions being thrown at her when being examined by a doctor. They just seemed to throw them nonstop.

“How often does the dizziness occur?”

“Um every now and then. Sometimes daily.”

“Have you ever fainted, or felt close to fainting?”

“I have felt faint yes, but haven’t actually blacked out.”

“Are you a vegetarian or vegan?”

“No, neither. I love meat too much. What would life be without bacon?”

“Yes what would life be,” she chuckled, “do you usually have a heavy blood flow when menstruating?”

She paused awkwardly at that one, squirming in her seat,“Um, yes. Usually for the first two or three days.”

“Hmm, okay...” she finished typing on her computer, “and are you sexually active?”

That nearly made Alessia fall out of her goddamn chair.

“Uh...come again?” she squeaked, her eyes wide and hand gripping tightly to the armrest beside her. Memories of London flashed by quickly in her mind; hungover, naked, lying next to a movie star.

“Have you been sexually active, as in recently had sexual intercourse?” the woman repeated calmly.

“Um...” her face flushed in embarrassment, her heart racing in panic, “I- I-” why did she have to ask that? How could that question possibly connect to her being sic- oh god. Oh fricken god. How could she be so stupid? Two months. It had been two fricken months.

“It’s okay, take your time. This is a private place, nothing gets outside of these walls, I promise,” the doctor reached over and placed a hand on her knee comfortingly, waiting patiently for her reply.

“I...” she gulped, her chest heaving as all the pieces started coming together. The tiredness, the nausea, the constant craving of crumpets, “I...um...I...” she was peeing more frequently. She had thought that it was just all the water she’d been drinking lately but...and her breasts! God her breasts had started to ache. She just figured it was a hormonal thing and that she was finally getting her period- god it couldn’t be- she couldn’t be-“...I lost my virginity recently,” she breathed.

Doctor Cox blinked in brief surprise and then adjusted glasses, her calm facade returning back promptly

“Oh. How recently exactly?” she asked cautiously.

Alessia breathed in deeply, closing her eyes, “Two months ago,” she murmured, her entire body slumping as she rubbed away the tension in between her eyes. She could already feel the tears burning beneath her eyelids.

“I see. And when did your last menstruating cycle end?” 

“A bit over two months,” she mumbled into her hands, her fingers dragging down her face whilst wiping away her sniffles. Her eyes became red with tears and chest heaved up and down, desperate for air, “am I...?” she croaked miserably, looking at her doctor for any answer that wasn’t what she was thinking.

“There’s no point in jumping to any conclusions just yet,” Doctor Cox interrupted, “I’d like to run some tests before we determine anything. There could be multiple diagnoses for the symptoms you possess and I don’t want to rush into things and make you panic about something that might not even be applicable to you in the first place,” she explained logically, spinning back to her computer, clicking on her mouse and typing a few keys, “I’m gonna write you up for a full blood count, a glucose level check and a hCG test. Basically these tests will tell us if there is any sign of a virus in your system, check how blood sugar level is going and test how high your hCG level is. Your iron count will also be measured which is what I’m most concerned about. A lot of woman, especially at your age, suffer from iron deficiency and your symptoms hint heavily at this diagnosis. However, with the information of your sexual activity and your last menstruation it does lead to the possible conclusion that you are...” the printer screeched back and forth, signalling the deliverance of the test referral, “...pregnant, Miss Carter,” the doctor sighed sympathetically, handing her over the form.

Alessia stared at it with watery eyes, her body unmoving as her doctor voiced the conclusion she had already come to in her own mind. It was finally out there. Pregnant. She could be pregnant. The girl now understood why she was so nervous about coming in today. It’s like subconsciously she already knew what would happen.

“Of course, we won’t know for sure until the test results come back. It should only take a couple days at the most. I’ll let you know as soon as they come in and we can arrange an appointment to discuss the results. All you have to do now is head down to pathology and they’ll run all the tests for you.”

She made no move to get out of her seat, still frozen on the chair and staring at the referral form in her hand. She stared at it but wasn’t actually seeing it, the words and boxes a complete blur to her. How did it get to this? How did she even let herself get into this situation? What the hell will she do? Pregnant. Pregnant. She was-

“As I said, Miss Carter, there’s no need to panic about something that isn’t confirmed yet. My best advice for you is get some rest, clear your mind and focus on the now’s, not the what if’s,” she spoke softly, standing up and placing her hand on her shoulder, “and if it’s any consolation, if the pregnancy test turns out to be positive, just know I’ll be there to help you every step of the way. I’ll answer any questions you have and help you arrange any appointments that you’ll need if it comes to the situation. You won’t be alone,” she reassured firmly, squeezing her shoulder.

Alessia nodded shakily, thankful for the doctor’s kind words and for helping her snap her out of her daze.

“Thank you,” she whispered, slowly standing up and making her way out of the room.

“I’ll speak to you soon,” Doctor Cox farewelled, her warm honey eyes conveying total calm.

Alessia nodded and waved at her awkwardly before making her way quickly out of the office and downstairs to pathology. The tests went by in a distorted haze. Normally she was absolutely terrified of needles, but today Alessia could barely feel the prick going into the crook of her elbow. She couldn’t even hear the voice of the chatty redheaded nurse taking her blood. Everything was submerged underwater. Cold. Quiet. Unnerving.

The drive home was a quick and direct route though she barely made it out alive, having several close calls with multiple cars and unexpected trees that she swear on her life came out of nowhere. Her keys rattled and clanked as she frantically searched for the right one to open her apartment. It took multiple attempts to finally get into the lock but eventually she got there and accidentally slammed the door a bit hard behind her. She couldn’t find it within herself to care in that moment.

She flopped immediately down on her couch, feet resting on one of the armrests and head tilted up towards the white ceiling. Snippets of waking up to a similar ceiling fluttered into her mind, all dazed and disoriented, the memories of the night before nonexistent, blacked out, erased. Her body aching and the warmth of an arm wrapped around her stomach...

That was where it all began. 

And now she was left in an agonising state of reliving that memory over and over again, nervously awaiting its consequences.

[peachybeancinema]

Week 1

Exercise

1 film that’s stayed with me and remembered. The Secret Garden, 1993, dir. Agnieszka Holland.

Cinematography wide shots and beautiful establishing shots, opening shot is a lone girl that can’t clothe herself, left in dead centre with lots of space around her, the closeups of hands feels very innocent and intricate- they feel like a soft, innocent female gaze.

Lighting contrast between the stale dark inside and the light garden

Editing not noticed so much

The script, partly cheesy cause it’s about children trying/forced to grow up too fast, and a period like flick

Production design, old timey and frilly, but oh boy their green set designer went OFF 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Tone, lonely and hollow to a slow burn hope

Theme….

theme? Did it speak to me? Yes, the absence of parents- chosen to or not, running around finding wonder, kindness and strength in a garden

How did I feel? Loved and seen- a lost and lonely child that internally begs for love but has an inability to regulate her emotions- Collin too!

What kind of film would I like to be a part of HORROR or like something that can incite hope and make all types of children feel seen

EXERCISE 2

Director that inspires me: Gia Coppola

Resource on their process: ‘everything was trying to reach out to as many people as I could.’ Many of them stayed at Coppola’s mother’s house during filming. “I would drive them home after work and we’d all have dinner,” Coppola says, “It was like camp. I loved it.”

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/05/09/gia-coppola-talks-directing-james-francos-palo-alto-and-the-pressures-of-her-last-name-qa/%3foutputType=amp

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.vogue.com/article/gia-coppola-palo-alto-personal-style-and-james-franco/amp

Notes on script:

Does the camera show that she’s dead?

When do we learn that she’s dead- same time as him or before?

Rewrite in program with proper formatting

Week 3…

I was able to get together with a crew member and get the new draft of the script done. I have a bit of trouble understanding sometimes how to properly structure a script after coming from a book writing background, so I was really thankful that she was able to help me understand even better. The feedback from previous classes has centred around its general ‘look’ as a script and whether the viewer is in on knowing that Alexis is dead, and from the strat I’ve wanted the audience to know to further their distaste towards Ross, otherwise the audience could say ‘well hey I missed it, I get why he did’. Her choking will take place on camera, close up, so we can watch her leave us.

Week 4…

Getting ready for the pitch has been a huge mental struggle for me, but I keep holding onto the idea of actually making this film and that definitely gets me into our team meetings on the days it feels impossible. I’m already so happy with the crew and their thoughts and contributions, but it doesn’t kill my anxiety of presenting. I feel like the script is at a good point based on feedback, so when we presented and the main concern was finding a production designer, I felt immediate relief… okay we can tackle that. There is a pressure I’ve found quite uncomfortable so far in my journey in this class, and it’s even after filling the crew roles, a certain student not even in this class has become quite intense in getting involved as camera operator despite that role being VERY explicitly filled. I plan on keeping polite but firm, but god why should I have to?

Week 5…

So… despite the previous week's tiny rant of someone trying to vulture a filled role, our original DOP is now the 1st AD and someone else within our crew has taken on DOP, a choice we were actually all really content with. A search for a production designer continues, but we have to focus on scouting our potential Ross and Alexis. Unfortunately none from the team- including myself, could make it to crewing night, however, another student pitched on our behalf. The main goal is to obviously fill the production designer role, so fingers are crossed in the meantime. There was no class this week so I definitely spent the week taking care of myself and finishing off my slides for the pitch for next week, and I’m pretty happy with my slides and that most in the crew have stuck to the same aesthetic through the slides (minus points for memes).

Week 6…

Pitch week, so I’m ill with anxiety for it, but nonetheless, meds taken, train caught and standing before the panel. After the comments from the panel on how it very obviously pulls away from the serious nature of content, I was pretty bummed I didn’t just quickly delete people’s memes before the pitch. Overall I felt pretty good about how it went, but that’s only because that’s how my crew told me to feel about it. My anxiety was so bad while presenting, that I blacked out. In moments of intense anxiety I will disassociate entirely, I know I spoke, but I know nothing that I said or that was said to me. This is an incredibly frustrating process for me, especially because I have had to rely on my crews memories on the pitch, which definitely doesn’t feel fair. They assure me we are on the right path, and just that we should get a move on with casting. Still no production designer.

Week 7…

Mental health and substance abuse are taking a bad turn this week and it is affecting how easily it is for me to communicate effectively with my crew. I won’t be able to open messages or even show I’m online out of fear of disappointing and giving wrong/no answers. I feel entirely overwhelmed and I can feel myself falling behind. There’s still no production designer and at this point I’m willing to do it because I fear it’ll turn into a shit show anyway. I have been experiencing the worst internet from home and it’s been making getting anything done when I’m finally mentally available, impossible. I’m tired and as much as I love this script, I just want this trimester over.

Week 8…

This week for The Silent Treatment, we’ve been taking a look at Producer Sina’s Starnow casting calls for both roles, as well as looking at AirBnB’s for possible locations, which has lead to playful but extenuating bickering on the dop and producers part over ‘apartment or house’, which honestly, it’s quite easy reigning them in when they get a little too passionate. But I’ve actually found their bickering and passionate opinions on options for the film and helping restore my own fight for this film too. We have a few meetings coming up over our discord and we’ve been polishing up our previous presentation slowly.

Week 9…

We’re cutting down through our pickings for actors as well as getting excited over the possibility of taking James Lewis on as production designer. He actually appears to listen and understand quite well and he’s always writing notes in his book for props and decor. I’ve shared my ideas and I’m hoping he can fulfil my needs. This week was a really difficult one for me mentally (big shock and huge surprise) so I’ve actually been trying to make a plan to stay well and that’s by putting together a rehab stay, a huge and terrifying step I’m still not sure I’m going to actually take.

Week 10…

I’ve lost all of myself and my motivation this week. A rehab stay is officially scheduled and I’m afraid and trying so hard to reignite my passion for film and my own words and stories, but I don’t think it is worth it. I know I’ll look back in a week to a few weeks and struggle to understand why I hated my work so much, but I think when you hate you, everything you touch looks disgusting. I’ve been incredibly fortunate for my friends- some on my crew- and I’m INCREDIBLY fortunate for the crew members that don’t really know me from a bar of soap being exceptionally soft and kind with me during my low period. Knowing my team are such lovely people is actually a much better reason to get off my ass and do this- for them- not for me and my silly story…

Week 11…

We finally have short listed actors AND location and now we have those last auditions to wade through. Internally I definitely have decided on my location and actress, but for the male actor I’m not so sure yet. One guy auditioned and while he played it quite well, it was his in between chats that had me slightly off, as he kept feeling the need to drill in that he isn’t ‘this guy’, which of you arent, you don’t feel the need to tell everyone, which is why I’m keen to give another actor a whirl and see where to go from there. My fashion designer friend is still keen to make the scrubs and we’ve all worked out a decent pay for her services- I love bringing friends from other art disciplines into my films, eg placing crazy art from my painter friend, decorating the sets with my friends published books and even my nursing friend belinda wants to give me a bunch of medical supplies to set dress!

Week 12...

Big pitch next week and I’m terrified- how can I actually feel so prepared but terrified. The last male actor to audition BLEW me away and I felt a real chemistry when talking to him between the breaks which means I’m really looking forward to directions BOTH actors, as they’re super lovely and open and very relaxed to speak with! Location is LOCKED and I couldn’t be happier with the pick made! We just keep polishing away at the presentation, and yes, the memes are still coming out of the woodworks...

Week 13…

I'm not angry over the pitch, but I wouldn’t say I left happy… some of the ‘criticisms’ felt so empty and UTTERLY devoid of actual meaning. I mean, and I’m sorry, but this script was the same script written 1 year ago. No changes were made because I didn’t receive criticism through these weeks to do so- sure structure of the actual script itself changed but the scene where he imposes himself in her space was ALWAYS there, and I know the lecturers can have a lot to remember, but DO NOT ever say ‘this part wasn’t always here’ and ‘no I think we would’ve noticed’ had me boiling. It’s important to not talk with so much confidence in these kinds of times, as we all can forget things, but to stand and tell someone what they wrote and didn’t write in front of a crowd of people in higher positions than them, that’s insulting. I’m happy to take the criticisms about that ‘rape implication’ exert VERY easily, but it could have been addressed in week 1. I also do believe that younger lecturers NEED to be in these pitches, as it is a crowd of older people and senses of humour and film are changing and that should be fairly judged by a RANGE of ages.

APA REFERENCING

Gia Coppola talks directing James Franco’s “Palo Alto” and the pressures of her last name (Q&A). (n.d.). Washington Post. Retrieved June 25, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/05/09/gia-coppola-talks-directing-james-francos-palo-alto-and-the-pressures-of-her-last-name-qa/

Nast, C. (2014, April 4). Gia Coppola On Palo Alto, Personal Style, and James Franco. Vogue. https://www.vogue.com/article/gia-coppola-palo-alto-personal-style-and-james-franco--

[eyanril]

Movie Round-Up 2017

My opinions only, of course! :)

Best of 2017:

Logan - This movie is magnificent from the opening to the end credits, and if you haven’t seen it, go out and rectify that RIGHT NOW.  Hugh Jackman brings an utterly heartbreaking vulnerability to an aging Wolverine. Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier and newcomer Dafne Keen as X-23 keep pace easily with Jackman’s fantastic performance.  The story is amazing, the acting is phenomenal, the special effects and fight choreography are stunning.  Seriously, just sit down and watch it already, even you are not a fan of the X-Men franchise.  You won’t regret it. 

Thor: Ragnarok - A delightful romp that, although it doesn’t hold up particularly well on its own, lightens up the Marvel Cinematic Universe almost as easily as a Guardians film. And despite its overall silly tone, it does a good job wrapping up the Asgardian story line and delivers some actual consequences that will reverberate in later films.

Wind River - Stunning cinematography and superb writing elevate this fairly by-the-book murder mystery above its brethren.  Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olson (as well as the supporting cast) are fantastic, and their performances alone make it worth watching.

Get Out - As much biting social commentary as it is thrilling horror movie, this was by far the biggest surprise of 2017 for me.  Everything about Get Out was meticulously crafted, and it deserves every bit of praise it got.  I can’t wait to see what else Jordan Peele has up his sleeve.  

Tie: Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Spider-Man:Homecoming - Both manage to balance the humor and the gravity of their plots fairly well, giving us plenty of funny interspersed with character growth.  I have to give a slight edge to Spider-Man because of Tom Holland’s adorkable performance as Peter Parker, but I enjoyed them both a lot. 

Most Disappointing of 2017:

Ghost in the Shell - Damn, I wanted to love this, but even Scarlett Johansson wasn’t enough to make this live action adaptation of the beloved anime work. (In fact a lot of people seemed to think she was part of the problem.  I disagree).  It’s gorgeous, and it’s well acted, but at the end of the day it just felt flat and forgettable.

Alien: Covenant - Not sure what I expected, considering the let down that was 2012’s Prometheus.  A far cry from the quality of the original Alien and Aliens, it has all the shine but none of the substance that would be a good modern addition to the franchise. It goes in a direction that makes little sense, and made less of an impression on me than even the much derided Alien:Resurrection.

The Dark Tower - Ugh.  It took me months to read Stephen King’s epic fantasy/horror series in its entirety, and all my hopes and dreams for a good adaptation of the source material were dashed very quickly during The Dark Tower. Not only was it a bad adaptation, it was a bad movie in general.  I only hope that someday down the road someone can do the saga justice, even if it’s as a TV show or miniseries, because at this point anything would be better than this movie.  

Kong: Skull Island - Another one I had high hopes for, another one that let me down.  Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson were given nothing interesting to do in a movie with a bloated run-time and little plot, which is a shame because they are both fantastic actors.  Utterly forgettable.

Beauty & the Beast - Why, Disney? Why do you have to keep making these mediocre live action adaptations of your already excellent animated films?  I don’t know exactly what I expected with this one, other than more of what made the original good.  Instead we got a charmless scene for scene rehash, with lukewarm chemistry and tepid song and dance numbers that don’t hold a candle to that of the original.

Surprises of 2017:

The Lego: Batman Movie - Having enjoyed 2014’s The Lego Movie on a very basic level, I wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did.  Genuinely funny and heartwarming, it was a better Batman movie than Batman V. Superman and a better DCU movie than Justice League.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Hear me out on this one.  Going into The Force Awakens in 2015, I had seen only A New Hope and The Phantom Menace in their entirety, so I had no idea what to expect of this new iteration.  As it turned out, I was largely indifferent to The Force Awakens.  Color me shocked when I walked out of The Last Jedi very excited for Episode IX.  Was The Last Jedi flawed? Absolutely - and yet, due to a few very crucial elements (mainly any part involving Rey or Kylo Ren), I wouldn’t call it unsalvageable.  In fact, it’s one of the few movies I’d ever consider going to see in the theaters twice, just so I can have more of the good stuff.    

IT - I may have spent half the movie covering my eyes, but as far as horror movies go, that’s high praise coming from me.  While IT has a few issues, overall I found this modern adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel to be thrilling, terrifying, and terribly beautiful.

Power Rangers - Having grown up with a cousin who spent a good chunk of time obsessed with the original Mighty Morphin version, I watched this mostly for nostalgia.  While it takes itself way too seriously for the most part, Elizabeth Banks’ campy turn as Rita Repulsa elevates the quality whenever she’s hamming it up onscreen.  Overall I enjoyed it, which was not something I expected for a movie rebooting a very bad 90s kids’ show.

Colossal - Based on the trailer, you’d think Colossal was a comedy - and you’d be completely wrong.  Hiding a slightly disturbing redemption story behind a funny facade, this one came out of left field, but managed to leave a good impression.  

Movies of 2017 that I wish I had seen:

Lady Bird - From all accounts, it’s brilliant, and I’m just upset that no theater within a reasonable driving distance is playing it. Saoirse Ronan is an amazing young actress and I’ve always enjoyed anything I’ve seen her in.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - See above, ha.  As we both consider In Bruges to be one of the best movies ever made, my husband and I are eager to see it.

Baby Driver - For some reason my husband and I completely missed this in the theaters and we’re now regretting it, considering the amount of praise it has gotten.  Edgar Wright’s movies are always fantastically shot, and I’m sure this is no different.

[autumn-in-phandom]

Dan&Phil (with no space)

SOLVE THIS CRIME- Dan and Phil play: ‘Layton's Mystery Journey!’ 

Which I think is very cute, has great banter, cooperation, a sassy Dan, a flirty Phil, with no space between them and is definitely worth a re-watch.

Timestamps below the cut because they are lonnng.

0:01 “Hello Dan and Phil Games ‘detectives’"- Phil 0:03 Magnifying glass hand thing, Tomb Raider sound effect and Phil humming Sherlock theme combined 0:11 "Professor Layton, what what"- Dan with hand motions 0:13 Phil holds his composed angelic face while Dan gives the background info. 0:20 Dan sitting by a rainy window pretending to be intellectual. What an image. 0:27 "Lady Layton"- high pitched Dan (find a guy who can do it all) 0:30 "So today I think I'm going to be Sherlock Holmes and you're going to be Watson" -Phil 0:34 "Whatya sayin?"- Dan with that look.

I don't know how they actually feel about Johnlock. They've both referenced it before but have been kind of vague on their stance. Personally I love the show but don't ship them. But the implication of shipping definitely seems to be present and Dan is at the very least feigning disapproval. That or he just wants to be Sherlock. See below.

0:35 "Well I mean, I'm like the Benedict Cumberbatch, I look like Benedict Cumberbatch, I'm more superior at mystery solving."- Nice try Phil. 

Watching Dan's face here is funny, his feigned grumpiness, transitions to a comical frown with a shrug of agreement when Phil says he looks like BC, then a funny scoff to smile at Phil suggesting he's superior.

0:45 Dan bursts Phil's bubble shooting down Scooby Doo 0:49 Woah what a jump cut between happy open mouth Phil to, what do even call that? Is that Phil's resting bitch face? 0:50 Zoom into Dan talking to give Phil a moment to recover. 0:55 "A sneky prev"- Dan 1:00 Playing in Nederlands would add to the mystery or we could test Dan's French.

1:05 "’Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy’. Dang."- very dramatic Dan 1:09 "I'm already hooked cause there's a little dog outline."- Phil 1:13 "That's all I need to sign up for an app."- Dan 1:19 "Dan&Phil with no space" (what this video should actually be called) 1:24 "Dan question mark Phil?"- strike a pose

(The iPad also assumed it was a typo as it offers Dan&Phil as a suggestion. Earlier suggestions were "Dance" and "Danisnotonfire")

1:33 Phil's monocle/magnifying glass returns with an "aha". Dan claims Phil is "repeating a joke I made at the beginning of the video", not likely Dan. Phil is all joyous laughter. 1:45 "Stop getting paranoid. Not everyone hating another person is about you, Shirley"- Dan (watching Phil's reaction to Dan's rant is hilarious) 1:50 "Are you ready for a video?"- Phil (aka "are you done?") 1:53 "Yeah."- Dan

2:00 "A misty town, in yesteryear." Dan high voice. "I'll stop ruining this." 2:05 They are both delighted by the anime style art 2:12 ‘Daddy!’ "Daddy"- Dan "Daddy. Is the first word you hear."- Phil "Daddy Layton"- Dan nods knowingly. 2:18 "No, this is not Dream Daddy."- Dan  2:29 Sad, guilt, "just a dream." 2:31 "She's got a house plant, which is a lot more alive than all of ours" 2:37 "She opens the curtains, that's why her house plants are alive."- Dan 2:40 "Ohh, that would make sense."- Phil (see Dan's ls) 2:44 Dan supports unpractical fashion choices 2:46 Phil knows a thing or too about diseased English pigeons. 2:53 "I'm going to see some corpses!"- Dan 3:00 London is not a wholesome town 3:05 "Phily's detective world. Mysteries solved for free."- Phil 3:10 "Please I just want company."- Dan after cracking up.

3:13 "Lady and a Tramp." "Nice." 3:15 "Is she gonna eat some sensual spaghetti?"- Phil 3:16 "She's gonna kiss a dog."- Dan 3:19 "The dog's here!"- Phil 3:20 "ADOPT HIM!"- Dan 3:21 "Pet the dog!"- Phil 3:22 "ADOPT HIM RIGHT NOW!"- Dan (okay boys) 3:24 "The dog has a very strange tail."- Dan 3:26 "It's defying gravity." (Wicked on the mind Phil?) 3:30 "I mean okay, I'm sorry, sign me up for talking dog."- Dan 3:45  "Please help, I'm hallucinating talking dogs."- Dan 3:55 "Is it just gonna secrete a cake through the iPad? Cause I'm down for that."- Phil 4:10 "Presuming that we actually ever *mumble mumble*."- Dan 

4:19 "Spoilers abound."- Phil 4:20 "Protection."- Dan 4:27 "Give me a cake!"- Dan 4:29 "Use more of a baker voice."- Phil 4:37 "The Power of Triangles!"- Dan (nice self reference there) 5:01 "What is wrong with you?"- Dan says with fondness 5:10 "That looks less like a K than miine did."- Phil teasing and so close  5:14 "Delet this."- Dan 5:24 "You need to stop saying 'floppy ding dong'."- Phil (um. truth.) 5:35 Phil thinking outside of the box, inside the box, very literally. 5:40 Dan gets really excited by Phil's idea of negative space. Phil gets excited by Dan moving the shapes around. 5:55 The best iPad sharing here. 6:05 Dan starts to get discouraged just as Phil figures it out. 6:10 Dan’s face 6:15 "Mmm (high five) boom."- Dan 6:26 "Well done Phil."- danisasupportivepartner 6:35 "Don't pay me in money, pay me in cakes, that would be a Dan and Phil's detective agency."- Dan 6:40 "How do you like that doggo?"- Phil 6:41 "Up to scratch. Haha ha ha hm."- Dan 6:45 "A bit of a sexy scratch there wasn't it?"- Phil 6:47 "That was a bit weird there, the dog doesn't support that."- Dan 6:48 "Sorry."- Phil (quick, soft, low, subtle banter)

6:55 "I love her voice it's like Hermione Granger meets Beatrix Potter."- Dan 6:59 "What can I do for you?"- Phil imitates her voice, because not only does he look like Voldemort, but he *is* Hermione. 7:15 "I love his ankles rolls because of his floppy skin."- Dan (talking about the dog of course) 7:18 "Aw it's so anime, I love it."- Phil 7:25 "I wanna solve that mystery. That's an ancient civilization?! That looks like a terrifying dystopian future where mantid lizards exist."- Dan 7:36 "Hello. Is that the Watson in this? That looks like you. I'm Lady Layton, you're that guy."- Dan who apparently is fine with the Johnlock dynamic so long as Phil is the Watson character and Dan gets to be a sassy femme Sherlock. (See below) 

7:44 "Ernest."- P 7:45 "Ernest Greeves."- D 7:46 "That's a strong name."- P 7:46 "Amazing."- D 7:47 "I wish I was called Ernest."- P (I think that's what he says) 7:48 "I ship it!"- Dan says all intense and growly 7:55 "Pugsworth." 8:05 "Sherlock exists in the same cannon as Layton."- Dan 8:07 "What"- Phil 8:10 Phil gives the role of Katrelle to Dan. Phil takes Ernest. Dan takes the dog of course and Phil voices Inspector Hastings. 9:30 "In the 'ole of Britain!"- Both in sync, shaking their faces, having fun 9:51 "Frickin slapped. Ernest and Sherl in the corner of Lady Layton's priorities."- Sassy Dan 

10:07 "The Hand That Feeds" (weird fist motion from Phil) 10:12 "Someone's stolen a hand!"- high pitched Dan 10:17 "That's a whole diddly operation."- Dan 10:19 "It was Spider-Man. Tom Holland wants more attention."- Phil 10:21 "Honestly what a fiend(?)"- very quiet Dan 10:34 "Do the lamppost."- Phil (not innuendo just what Dan should be investigating, Phil is trying to get him back on track but is very amused.) 10:39 "Come on, Kat, what are you dawdlin' there for, eh? The case, woman! The case!"- Phil saying dawdlin' and woman in a northern accent is great.  10:40 "Woman."- Dan echos with attitude. 10:49 "Hmph, teachin' Grandma to suck eggs, are ya?" (more things I didn't know I needed to hear Phil say)

10:55 "What bag?"- danisexcited 10:59 Oh my god both their faces right before they say: 11:00 "Wardrobe!"- Both "Yes!"- Phil 11:02 "We found the content!"- Dan Some simple puzzle solving 11:47 "Wait! I want to go in the bag. This is very important."- Dan 11:50 "Wardrobe!" (Sing it Dan!) "Yes!"- Phil 11:54 "Coatless!"- in sync 11:57 "Dating dress"- Dan "Oohh"- both "Oh hel-lo!"- Dan 12:03 "Tomboy. Equestrian ensemble!"- Dan's over the top gestures and Phil's excited face. 12:05 "I want my ensemble to be that."- Phil (of course you do) mirrors Dan's hand to chest movement. 12:07 "Slay me. Jesus."- Dan 12:12 "Sky blue, statement."- Dan 12:14 Phil with the game info. 12:19 "That's me."- Phil 12:20 "Daddy's girl."- Dan 12:21 "Okay that's not me."- Phil laughs

12:30 "He's shady AF"- Phil 12:35 "'Top o' the mornin' to ha!' Its jacksepticeye"- Phil  12:37 What the hell Dan? Calm down. 12:46 "Investigatink"- Dan 12:47 "I can't do an Irish accent."- Phil, belly laugh  12:48 "This is regional dialect reading test the game."- Dan 13:03 "aforementionedly"- both 13:25 "Stachenscarfen"- Dan 13:26 "That's you."- Phil 13:29 "Auf Deutsch"- Dan 13:38 "In a vay, yes. In a vay, no."- Dan (sounds more Austrian) 13:55 Dan yells into the iPad "Out after midnight are you Stachenscarfen? We're onto you!" (simmer down son)

(I love Phil's hands. They are big yet elegant.)

14:53 "You like twiz the..."- Phil doing circle motions 15:14 "Waiting until its midnight."- Dan says somewhere between cocky and uncertain 15:41 "Yeah. I don't- I mean, sure. Why not? It's like you have lives. Do you have lives?"- Dan 15:46 "Yes!"- Phil "YES!"- Dan 15:49 "But was it for the reason that I said?"- still unsure Dan 16:11 "Oh you want to see a dead body do you Earnest, you want to get real, you want to see crime up in your face? I don't think you can handle it Earnest!"- Dan being extra again 16:38 "Nick Booker" pun 16:48 "Wait I can do this one."- Phil 16:50 "Okay go on Phil, do it."- Dan 16:55 Pause that pose 16:57 "I live for the positive reinforcement of Lady Layton being happy that I'm assembling the clock hand."- Dan 17:03 Phil is distracted momentarily by something off to the side. 

17:05 “Hello copper.”- Dan 17:07 "'Ello 'ello 'ello, Miss Layton.'"-Phil 17:09 "That is exactly what he-"- Dan 17:10 "That's what his face looks like"- Phil 17:11 "With his tiny face!"- squeaky Dan 17:12 "It's so squished."- Phil 17:29 "Yeah get in there."- Phil (what was this about? I forget. Context.)

17:38 Danispanting  17:45 "'Magnificent'."- Dan (inside the clock face) 17:46 "That's just what we were saying."- Phil says so sweet. I think they were admiring the art design but it got cut. 17:52 "I know what gets you going Earnest."- Dan (enormous cogs) 17:58 "Like a corpse."- Dan 18:00 "I wanna do it!"- AssertivePhil (not a corpse mind you) 18:02 "Okay Phil, find the cranny. How good is Phil at finding that spot? He found it. There we go."- danisnotappropriate 18:08 "REDDISH WRISTWATCH!"- x12 nice reference 18:26 "UH CLOCK"- both groaning 18:36 "Get that self esteem, yes!"- high pitched Dan

19:17 "Do you know what you're doing or-?"- Phil with the biggest smile 19:19 "Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah!"- Dan 19:20 Jumpcut to zoom in on the terrified children and away from a flirty Phil. 19:28 "Woyah!"- Dan 19:32 "Oh no. Oh we f***ed it. Impasse."- Dan 19:42 "You reckon?"- Dan (then “I reckon”) 20:05 "King of Bubbles."- Dan 20:06 "I would not have been able to do that."- Phil 20:07 "Really? You play a lot of uh, of um, shape popping apps."- Dan 20:11 "True. Maybe. Maybe."- Phil's eyes 

20:17 “Who do you think stole the hand?”- Phil 20:21 "I think it was the dog."- Phil 20:36 "I feel like that's a good taste of the mystery solving experience."- Dan 20:38 "Yeah. You've given it a little lick, but you don't know the full answers. Cause you could go find out yourself-"- Phil 20:43 "You just ruined the nice... description..."- Dan 20:46 "Like you've got the flavor."- Phil 20:47 "Why do you- no, no!"- Dan 20:48 "Like a lollipop."- Phil 20:49 "Stop with the licking!"- Dan 20:50 "Sorry."- back to innocent angel faced Phil

21:00 Price and Promo 21:16 "I'm just here for the anime to be honest, like a show I just started watching."- Dan 21:20 Phil tongue 21:21 "A lick of the Layton Lolly."- holy hell Dan, looking at Phil while saying that was indecent 21:31 "Clicking our buttons."- Phil 21:34 "For more vids, last vid."- Dan 21:38 "I'm gonna go kidnap a talking dog."- Dan 21:39 Sherlock theme outro and eye hand thing by Phil.

[randomrichards]

HONOURABLE MENTION: Gru and Dru Impersonate Each Other from DESPICABLE ME 3 After a period of bonding, former Supervillain Gru (Steve Carell) and his bumbling estranged brother Dru (also Carell) decide to make a family dinner a little fun by dressing up as each other. Sure, this scene might be a little random, but it’s so enjoyable to watch these two try to imitate each other. I included this scene thanks to Carell’s impressive voice acting. Rarely do you hear a voice actor portray one character impersonating another character they also voice. To pull this off, they can’t sound like the later character, they must sound like former character trying to impersonate the later character. One perfect example is the scene in the Looney Toons Cartoon Rabbit Fire, when Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc) and Daffy Duck (also Blanc) pretend to be each other to trick Elmer Fudd (Arthur Q. Bryan). When Bugs impersonates Daffy, you don’t hear Daffy’s voice. You hear Bugs doing his best Daffy impersonation. The same goes the other way. Carell pulls off the same affect with the characters. When Dru imitates Gru, it’s more innocent compared to Gru’s snarkier imitation of Dru. Such is a challenging task for a voice actor, and Carell pulls it off with graces. The Aging Montage from A QUIET PASSION This brilliant montage starts with each member of the Dickenson clan sitting in front of the camera like they’re posing for a portrait. When the camera closes in on Emily Dickenson (Emma Bell as a teen, Cynthia Nixon as an adult) and her family, they age right in front of our eyes. Director Terrence Davies is not known for using special effects, but the way this film flawlessly ages up the characters from one actor to another is breathtaking. 10) Wonder Woman Enters No Man’s Land from WONDER WOMAN As if I need further explanation. It’s Wonder Woman strutting in the middle of a battle field! And she’s dodging bullets with her shield and bracelets! And she’s kicking German soldier’s asses! All to the tune of her awesome theme song (courtesy of composer Rupert Gregson-Williams). Of course, it wouldn’t have worked without Gal Gadot’s performance as Wonder Woman. Not only does she give off the presence of a true warrior, but you can feel the conviction as DC’s greatest heroine steps into battle, ready to defend the greater good. 9) The NASCAR Heist from LOGAN LUCKY Steven Soderbergh is a maestro when it comes to filming a heist scene. Watching a Heist unfold in Ocean’s Eleven and the sequels were always a blast to watch. He proves he still has the moves with Logan Lucky, where he brings a blue-collar spin to the tropes. This time, the masterminds are the unlucky Logan brothers (Channing Tatum and Adam Driver) who plot a heist on NASCAR with the help of demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig). Of course, they must break Joe out of prison to accomplish this goal. And it must be done quickly so Jimmy (Tatum) can be on time for his little girl’s beauty pageant. So not only do we see a heist unfold, but also a prison break, and a riot to boot. It’s just as glorious as the Heists in the Ocean’s movies. There are also a lot of funny moments surrounding this sequence, from Clyde’s (Driver) prosthetic arm getting stuck in a tub to Joe stopping a heist to explain the science of using gummy bears to make a bomb. 8) That Plot Twist from SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING To me, what made Spider-Man so special was Peter Parker’s struggles to balance his personal life with his superhero life. He had enough problems being bullied at school and having money troubles at home, but getting super powers only added complications to his life. Sure, Peter earns the glory of beating up bad guys as Spider-Man, but it comes at the expense of letting people down in his personal life. It made matters worst when those dangers found their way to his doorstep. Case in point: this plot twist. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) second life as Spider-Man has taken its toll on his social life, making it near impossible to socialize with Liz (Laura Harrier). Despite missing multiple events, Liz finally gives him a chance when she becomes his date for the homecoming dance. Just when everything’s coming up Parker, his joy comes crashing down when he finds out Liz’s father is Adrian Toombs, aka the Vulture (Michael Keaton). Now Parker’s faced with a dilemma; go through with his date and let Toombs get away with his heist or stop Toombs and ruin Liz’s life. When Marvel movies were criticized for being too predictable, this plot twist took everyone by surprise. I was at a preview night for this movie, and never have I heard an audience sound more shocked by a twist in my life. 7) The Opening Bank Robbery from BABY DRIVER Of course, we can’t talk about the best scenes from 2017 without mentioning the years’ best car chase. From the opening scene, we witness the precision Baby (Ansel Elgort) puts into his driving as he helps bank robbers (Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm and Eliza Gonzalez) evade police while listening to John Spencer Blue Explosions’ Bellbottoms. It’s always fun to watch a heist unfold in movies, but this car chase is a sight to behold. This scene plays more like a musical number the way the car sways gracefully in tune to the song. And the way that car swerves around that tight alleyway is a beauty. 6) All the Bomb Disarming Scenes from LAND OF MINE These are among the most intense scenes of the year. You can’t help but be on the edge of your seat while young German POWs try to diffuse millions of landmines on a beach. Yes, they’re Nazis, but they’re also frightened kids. They all dream of going home, yet they are stuck in a village that despises them. You sit there with dread knowing that one wrong move and Kaboom! These kids have to maintain a steady hand, but many of them are fidgety from terror. You are always anticipating an explosion, yet every Boom comes as a shock in this movie. 5) Run Rabbit Run from GET OUT Is it just me or does easy listening Rock N’ Roll music make horror films more unsettling? Notice how creepy Robert & Johnny’s We Belong Together sounds in Christine, as if it’s emphasizing the car’s obsession with its owner. And then there’s the infamous X-Files episode “Home”, when the sound of Johnny Mathis’ Wonderful Wonderful warned of the mutant monster’s oncoming attack. What makes these innocent sounding songs work so well in moments of terror? One reason is how the director plays on the irony of the upbeat music playing over a terrifying scene, as if to taunt the heroes. Another reason is how the lyrics an unintentionally further the tone of the film, as indicated by the former. A most recent example is how director Jordan Peele uses Flanagan & Allen’s Run, Rabbit, run in the opening scene of Get Out. First, the chorus is almost warning innocent bystander Dre (Keith Stanfield) of oncoming danger. Second, the uppity tune is as unassuming as the suburban environment, adding more suspicion to the world around Dre. Finally, it introduces the reoccurring theme of running which includes the creepy scene of the Armitage’s groundskeeper Walter (Marcus Henderson) randomly running around at night. And I haven’t even started on the brilliance of how the film was shot. Shot in one take, Peele has the camera circle around Stanfield as he walks alone at night (never a good idea in horror movies). And then we see a white car U-turn right behind him and follow him and you know the shit’s about to hit the fan. Then the camera circles around him, we realize the car’s door opens and out of nowhere, a man in night’s armor knocks him out and drags him into the car. This scene is a lesson on how to build suspense. There’s also a satirical element in how it takes the stereotype of white people’s fear of black neighborhoods and turns it on its head. 4) The Opening Fight Scene from THE VILLAINESS and the Stairway Fight Scene from ATOMIC BLONDE The reason I put these two together is they share a theme of female assassins fighting multiple killers within a confined area. And they are both shot in one take. What separates them is how they are filmed; one done with stylized glamour and the other with gritty realism. Let’s start with the Korean action film and learn how to start an action movie. This Korean action film hits the ground running with our anti-heroine Sook-Hee (Ok-bin Kim) going John Wick on a group of gangsters. Facing off armed and sword-wielding assassins, She shots and slices across a seedy alleyway through a hallway. All shot from Sook-Hee’s point of view. That’s nothing compared to when they take the fight to the gym. In an environment surrounded by mirrors, cinematographer Jung-hun Park deserves credit for keeping the camera out of sight. Then in a moment of master filmmaking, we see Sook-Hee’s POV as her head smashes into a mirror and then the camera switches to a third person perspective. How they managed to pull this off is a miracle. While director Byung-gil Jung was looking to impress through camera work, Director David Leitch was looking to impress through choreography with Atomic Blonde. While trying to transport key witness Spyglass (Eddie Marsan), MI6 Agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) finds herself ambushed by two KGB agents. And so, commences a brawl that leave all battered, bloody and exhausted. But just when it seems like Broughton is done, along comes more Agents to open fire on her. The camera follows Theron and the villains as they try to shoot at each other, throw each other down the stair and pummel each other to bloody pulps. It offers a more realistic portrayal of brawls. In most action films, the hero takes down thugs with ease. But like the Hallway scene from Daredevil, when henchmen get knocked down, they get back up and deliver their own hard blows. This not only humanizes the protagonist, but makes the action more gripping. 3) Remember Me from COCO Okay, it’s more of a song than a scene. But this song is special in how its meaning changes throughout the film. Remember Me is the most famous song of Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez)’s late idol Ernesto De La Cruz (Benjamin Bratt). Trapped in a family with a draconian “no-music” rule, the song embodies Miguel’s passion for music and his longing for escape. But as the spirit realm reveals the downsides of a music career, the song’s meaning changes in Miguel’s mind. By the end of the film, the song showcases music’s power to connect loved ones. It also serves the film’s theme of the importance of remembering loved ones after they’re gone. On the lighter side, the song was also used to make fun of overplayed songs like Disney’s own Let it go.[1] 2) The First Rehearsal from A LONG TIME RUNNING In the first day of rehearsal for the Tragically Hip’s final concert, late singer Gord Downie returns from cancer treatment bearded and frail. From the recorded footage, you can see the rest of the band unsure of what to do. And then guitarist Paul Langlois begins the first notes of Escape is At Hand for the Travelling Man, and the band follows suit. In this moment, we watch Downie in suspense, waiting to see if he’ll have the strength to go on. But then he sings the first lyrics, he slowly reveals the charismatic front man Canada has grown to love. While we already know the Tragically Hip final concert goes off across Canada without a hitch, this documentary still has us in suspense in this moment. This moment feels like a moment of triumph for Downie, who is using his last ounce of strength for his last hurrah. With the recent passing of this extraordinary front man, this scene has more weight to it. 1) The Ending from Dunkirk No film ending has left more of an impact than this haunting, beautiful conclusion to the year’s best war movie, Dunkirk. SPOILERS AHEAD: After spending nearly two hours on the edge of our seats, we are finally relieved to see the 300,000 soldiers finally rescued from Dunkirk. In this moment, Zimmer finally breaks the cycle of intensity to deliver a beautiful melody of triumph. To the soundtrack of a Winston Churchill speech, we are treated to a series of haunting images, from Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) staying behind while his fellow men leave to a newspaper article declaring George (Barry Keoghan) a hero. But none compare to the conclusion of Farrier’s (Tom Hardy) storyline. There’s something awe inspiring about the image of an airplane slowly landing on a beach during sunset. Add Zimmer’s music and it almost brings a tear to your eyes. There’s also the image of the heroic pilot standing alone as he sets his plane on fire. Add the fact that not only does he have no way to get home, but he ends up captured by German soldiers and this scene stays with you forever. [1] Which was written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who also wrote Remember Me.

[andrewnstewart]

I’ve got a lot of opinions. Anyone who follows me on Facebook or Twitter or in real life knows this. I constantly want to talk about things that are going on in the world of entertainment, but I need an outlet. That’s what this is for. Every week, I’ll give you my thoughts and impressions on the biggest pieces of entertainment news, from trailers, to promotional images, to breaking news stories. I’ll even provide short reviews or impressions of the things I’m watching, reading, playing, and listening to every week. So sit back, relax, and get swept up in the swirling vortex that is… Opinionado!

Film:

Justice League (Trailer 1)

Whoo boy. Starting off with a doozy, huh? This was probably the most anticipated trailer on the planet. Even before Batman v Superman’s release, fans and critics alike have been wondering “What the hell is that Justice League movie going to look like?” Turns out, the answer is “Like a Zack Snyder film”. It’s got the incoherent action, the muted colors, overall grimy texture, and the copious amounts of slow-mo. The only thing this doesn’t have is Malick-like shots of wonder and Christ imagery. I’ve watched this thing a few times now and tonally it’s just all over the place. The film LOOKS exactly like a sequel to BvS would be expected to look, but they’ve sprinkled in a bunch of “light-hearted” attempts at humor (some of which works and some of which doesn’t) and layered the whole thing in a cheesy, rock-version of The Beatles’ “Come Together” because apparently Beastie Boys’ “Unite” would have been too on the nose. Look, it’s no secret that I’m not a fan of how Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder have handled the DC Extended Universe. I want them to succeed, because I actually like DC Comics and their characters and storylines, but I also want them to fail so that they can just start the whole thing over from scratch and do it the right way. I have no idea if Wonder Woman will be good (although the skeptic in me says to not get your hopes up), but I’m almost positive that Justice League will not be a good film. I hope I’m wrong – I actually like what they’ve done with Aquaman and the Flash, and I think Cavill, Affleck, and Gadot are actually a great central trinity – but man, some parts of this trailer look really bad! Cyborg is just awful on every level (is his costume still rendering?) and the set pieces in this thing just look so dreary. It’s like someone took Return of the King and turned down the saturation. And really, “Come Together”? Damn.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (Trailer 2)

“If you’re nothing without this suit, then you shouldn’t have it.” CHILLS. Man, I am so ready for a good Spider-Man movie, and I really hope that’s what this is. It’s not the Marvel film I’m most excited about this year (that honour goes to Thor: Ragnarok), but I’m cautiously optimistic. I think that Tom Holland is a great Peter Parker, and I’m geeking out that Spider-Man will get to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I mean, could anyone else sell that “Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” line the way that Robert Downey Jr. sells it? I don’t think so. I love the whole “John Hughes with superpowers” thing, especially since I just saw the same thing done quite effectively in Power Rangers. We haven’t see much from the extended cast yet (remember that Donald Glover, Martin Starr, Hannibal Buress, Tyne Daly, Kenneth Choi, Tony Revolori, and Logan-Marshall-Green are all in this movie and I think we’ve seen glimpses of maybe2 of them in the two trailers released thus far), but I love the chemistry between Holland’s Peter and Jacob Batalon’s Ned. I’m even excited for the Vulture, and I don’t like the Vulture as a villain. I haven’t been a big fan of any of his iterations, be it revenge-seeking engineer, youth-sucking vampire, acid-spitting mutant or whatever, but I think this works. If anyone can pull this off, it’s Michael “Birdman” Keaton himself, and they’ve actually designed a Vulture suit that looks appropriately badass, especially when paired with that vintage military flight jacket. I’m excited to see where they take this whole thing.

A Ghost Story (Trailer 1)

Every now and then, there are movies that I hear enough good things about that I decide to abstain from watching their trailers. I did this for Arrival, I did it for Split (after seeing the initial trailer), I’m doing it for Colossal, and now I’m going to do it for A Ghost Story. So no, I haven’t watched this trailer yet, but I’m been assured that it’s a good one. Watch it, or don’t. Your choice.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (Trailer 2)

Man, I have no idea what to make of this movie, but I think I love it? It’s like Terry Gilliam, Baz Luhrmann, and Guillermo Del Toro got together to direct a pastiche of Star Wars, Jupiter Ascending, Moulin Rouge, Guardians of the Galaxy, John Carter, The Fifth Element, and Doctor Who. It’s so wacky and colorful and fun. I have absolutely no familiarity with the source material, but even if it fails completely on a plot and/or characters front, I need to see it on the biggest screen possible on opening night.

A Dark Song (Trailer 1)

I don’t have much to say about this one other than, uh, creepy. This looks to be right up my alley. I believe we’re going through a bit of a horror renaissance right now, and this looks like a strong contender to join the ranks of It Follows, The Babadook, The Witch, Get Out, and the rest.

It (Trailer 1)

Nope nope nope nope nope nope NOPE. That was my initial reaction to this trailer. Actually, I think my initial reaction was “holy shit”. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that this looks absolutely terrifying. I’m haunted by the image I saw as a child of a clown in a sewer grate, and this brings that right back to the surface. I get chills watching this thing. I know people are upset that Cary Fukunaga walked away from this project because they wouldn’t let him make the movie he wanted to make, but that doesn’t necessarily damn the movie. We were all upset about Edgar Wright leaving Ant-Man, but that movie turned out great. I’m not saying that Fukunaga’s It wouldn’t have been better, but that doesn’t mean that this one will be bad. Pennywise looks insanely creepy and the movie looks like it has been very well shot. I even kind of want to read the book now, which is insane, because I’m pretty sure it’s like, 8000 pages long.

Tomb Raider (Promo)

I mean, she looks great. That’s my opinion on this. She looks good. That’s really all we know, but it’s a good sign, right?

Sony Is Making Their Own Marvel Cinematic Universe (News)

If you haven’t already heard, this past month, Sony announced plans to release two new comic book movies in 2018 – an R-rated Venom film and a Black Cat/Silver Sable team-up film. If you don’t know who any of these characters are, that’s okay – most people who aren’t Spider-Man fans wouldn’t recognize them, which is why it’s weird that Sony is betting hundreds of millions of dollars that people will flock to the theaters next year to see them. Back when Sony was still producing those decidedly not-amazing Amazing Spider-Man films, they had plans for a grand web of interlocking Spider-Man films – a Spider-Man Cinematic Universe, if you will. They were in development on a Sinister Six film, a Venom film, and a female-led Spider-Man film. And then the Sony hack happened, and all of these details leaked out, and Sony began to tank. They ended up teaming with Marvel Studios to produce a new series of Spider-Man films that would tie into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, the first of which, Spider-Man: Homecoming, comes out in July. We all assumed that Sony’s dream of a Spider-Man cinematic universe had died, because it just doesn’t really make sense to do that without Spider-Man. Well, you know what they say about assuming, right? As it turns out, Sony is charging full steam ahead of producing a number of Spider-Man spin-off films that will be, in no way, associated with Spider-Man: Homecoming or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And that’s certainly… a choice. This is… this is maybe one of the more misguided decisions I’ve seen a studio make recently. I mean, I think DC is making a ton of mistakes with their cinematic universe, but at least they have access to all of their characters. Venom was designed to be Spider-Man’s foil. Black Cat was introduced as a love interest for Spidey. What are these characters without their shared history with Spider-Man? Imagine if DC made a Catwoman movie that had nothing to do with Bat-what? Oh, they did that already? Well how did it do? Oh. OH. Well… yeah. Then I expect these to do about as well as that did. Good luck Sony. You’ll need it.

Joss Whedon is Directing a Batgirl Movie (News)

Chances are if you know me, you already know how I feel about this news. My feelings towards the DC Extended Universe can be summed up with one Shania Twain song:

As I’ve said before, I’m torn on the DCEU – on the one hand, I’d love to see good movies based on DC characters, but on the other hand, I don’t want to see future movies saddled with the garbage continuity they’ve established thus far. I want a fresh start. Rebuild it from the ground up. Don’t build your home on a dubious foundation like Batman v Superman. Alas, Suicide Squad made enough money to keep this failed experiment afloat and I’m sure Wonder Woman and Justice League will help matters, regardless of their quality. With each passing day, I’m more and more convinced that we’re stuck with what we’ve got, but I can’t shake the feeling that everything Warner Bros. is doing is misguided. Did you know there are currently 18 DC films in various stages of development? Of those 18, only 6 have dates, and only 3 of those 6 have officially entered production. It’s absolutely bonkers. There is constantly so much drama going on behind the scenes of these things – the rumor mill is constantly churning, and it would be easy to just disregard it all if Warner Bros. didn’t have a history of driving talent away from their DC franchises (I’m looking at you The Flash). I’m not even sure it’s worth formulating an opinion over Whedon’s Batgirl film because the chances of a) it actually happening and b) Whedon being involved are so slim that it feels pointless. Will I watch a Batgirl film directed by Joss Whedon? Absolutely. I’ll watch anything by Joss Whedon. Would I rather he not make a Batgirl film and do something else instead? Absolutely. Will I get my wish? Probably! Who knows? Come see me in a year if Whedon is still attached to this stupid thing.

Review – Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Look, there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding this anime adaptation and the whitewashing it contains. I won’t defend it, but I also understand the decisions that lead to this point. I’m not going to say anymore on that here because frankly, I have no authority to do so. I also don’t have the authority to speak on this film as an adaptation. I’m not a big anime guy. I haven’t seen any of the source material. In fact, I skipped out on watching the original film specifically because I wanted to judge Ghost in the Shell on its own merits. So what did I think? I thought it was good! Not great, just good. I enjoyed my time with it. It’s not going to win any awards for plot or characterization – it raises some interesting questions that it never gets around to answering – but it sure looks nice. The production design is just fantastic. The effects, the sets, the cinematography – this is a nice film to look at it. I kind of want to see it again in IMAX for that reason alone. If you’re looking for some entertaining eye candy, you could do a lot worse than Ghost in the Shell. If you’re looking for a deep, philosophical sci-fi film that’s going to blow your mind, look elsewhere.

  Television:

Black Lightning Gets a Costume (Promo)

In case you weren’t aware, The CW is getting a fifth (FIFTH!) DC superhero show in Black Lightning. It’s unclear as of now whether or not Black Lightning would exist as a part of The CW’s Arrowverse, as it was initially developed for Fox, who passed on the script. The pilot is currently filming in Atlanta and we now have our first look at Cress Williams in costume as Black Lightning, and it’s… busy. Aesthetically, it actually fits in well with the rest of The CW’s superhero shows. They continue to go in a completely different direction than Marvel Television, who seem intent on downplaying as many costume elements as they can (just check out the leaked set photos from the Inhumans). Many have remarked that this would be a better costume for the Inhumans’ Black Bolt, but… we’ll get to that when we’ve got an official still from that production.

ReBoot Reboot is Official (News)

As a kid, I adored Reboot. The first computer animated TV series, ReBoot was revolutionary from an industry standpoint, but it was also revolutionary to me from a storytelling standpoint. ReBoot, along with its sister-series Beast Wars (or Beasties, for us Canadians) showed me that kids show didn’t have to be dumbed down. Both series’ featured dark, mature storylines, with character deaths and plot twists. A lot of my storytelling proclivities were formed during this period and they greatly influenced me. So it’s with a heavy heart that I must announce that ReBoot is returning as a CGI/live-action hybrid. Who is this for? People have been clamoring for more ReBoot for years, and every now and then we’ll hear something about an eventual ReBoot reboot, but now it’s officially official and I don’t think it’s what anyone wants. Instead of a straight sequel or a re-imaging, we’re getting some weird thing about teens who play an MMO and get tasked with protecting… cyberspace or something. I don’t know. It sounds really stupid. One of the character’s names is “Goog’z”. GOOG’Z! Apparently the original characters will play some sort of role, but I just don’t really have any interest in seeing human characters. Am I the only one? I hope I’m wrong! But I’m never wrong. My opinions are always right (re: DCEU).

Legion Season 1 (Impressions)

I recently finished the first season of FX’s Legion, and… y’all should watch Legion. It is such a unique, gem of a show. I don’t want to spoil any of the weird, little things that make it so special, but I will say that the acting, the music, and the production values are all top-notch. It quickly became one of my favorite currently airing programs. Things start off weird and only get weirder, but the payoff is worth it. This is a Noah Hawley (Fargo) show based on the X-Men franchise. I shouldn’t have to convince you to watch it.

Attack on Titan Season 2 Premiere (Impressions)

It’s time. Time… for anime! I’ve never been a big anime fan, but one of the few shows that I had actually watched was Attack on Titan. I go to anime for weird, crazy things that I can’t get from American films and TV shows, and Attack on Titan fits that bill. It takes place in a world in which humanity has been driven into near-extinction by a race of mindless, titanic, naked men. Yeah, you read that correctly. The remnants of humanity hide behind 3 massive, concentric walls that protect them from these titans, but they’re forced to fight when a colossal titan breaks through the gate. They fight using these aerial maneuvering devices that utilize gas-powered harpoons attached to ropes to swing through cities and forests like Spider-Man. It’s as crazy as it sounds. It’s ridiculous, intense, disturbing, and graphically violent. I love it. After a 3+ year wait, season 2 has finally premiered, and the insanity has continued. There are a couple great twists in the first episode and I can’t wait to see where things go from here.

  Games:

Destiny 2 (Worldwide Reveal Trailer)

I, like many others, have a love/hate relationship with Destiny (both the game and the universal force). Prior to its release, I had it in my mind that we were getting something along the lines of “epic space opera of Mass Effect meets combat of Halo”. What I didn’t expect was “first-person sci-fi Diablo with less story”. It’s a very nice looking game with interesting art design, it’s got a good world with plenty of lore to discover, and the gameplay actually feels great – it’s just that none of that ever coalesced into a really great whole. The pieces are (mostly) there, but they were never arranged properly. The fun was mired by confusing systems and weird restrictions. I think there is a great game lurking somewhere in Destiny (and I’ve certainly sunk enough hours into it), so I’m hopeful that Bungie figures things out with Destiny 2. I think I like this trailer? The tone is a little off though; it feels like it’s trying way too hard to be whatever it thinks people want. I’m holding off judgment until we learn more about what the game actually is and how it differs from the first entry.

  Music:

Kendrick Lamar – “Humble”

Okay, first of all, the song is straight fire. Second, does anyone else feel like Kendrick watched Beyonce’s Lemonade and thought “I can do that”? Not that this 3-minute video necessarily stands alongside Beyonce’s opus, but it certainly seems to be inspired by it. The video is filled with fascinating imagery and interesting camera shots. I’m not smart enough to begin to understand what any of it means, but it sure looks great, doesn’t it? It inspires hope in me that I’ll actually enjoy Kendrick’s new album after feeling let down by To Pimp A Butterfly. Yeah, that’s right. Come at my haters.

Broken Social Scene – “Halfway Home”

I was a huge Broken Social Scene fan back in high school, and they, along with Arcade Fire, basically shaped my taste in music during the mid-to-late 2000’s. I was a fan of just about anything the Arts & Crafts label released, and at one point I was basically buying all of it (even though I ended up with many CD’s I disliked and would never listen to again). I thought that I had outgrown Broken Social Scene, but it sure brings a smile to my face to see them all performing on stage again. BSS concerts are a special experience, because it’s literally just a group of friends playing music together on stage. There’s a purity and an intimacy to it that you don’t get from big, packaged concerts. I’m not sure I really dig the song all that much, but I’m glad that Broken Social Scene is back regardless. “Friendship ladies and gentlemen, friendship!”

The start of a new series in which I share my opinions on the entertainment news of the week. I’ve got a lot of opinions. Anyone who follows me on Facebook or Twitter or in real life knows this.