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fizzingwizard · 4 years

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OK gang here we go, episode 33!

It was better than last week, which was better than the week before, so... make of that what you will.

Pic of the week!

A look of steely Dan determination.

More below!

Like I said, this episode is an improvement on the last one, by virtue of plot stuff actually happening, a few big happenings, and references to the other kids that suggest they haven’t been completely forgotten about (only mostly). Don’t get excited though - it still leaves much to be desired. I cry endlessly for the animation budget. But let’s get into it...

Taichi and friends are still in pursuit of SkullKnightmon and Hikari. We found our for sure last week that the creature in the little crystal is, indeed, Millenniumon, or rather a fragment of him, and his fragments fell all around the Digital World at the end of the great war or whatever it’s called and they’re the source of the miasma and they absorb energy from the human world etc etc...

So we find this big ass crystal which seems to be the central one, I guess? because it’s the biggest? and several creepy looking acolytes (dun dun DUN it’s VADEMON my FAVORITE DIGIMON) surrounding it and chanting...

Vademon: Find the horcux, kill Harry Potter, find the horcrux, kill Harry Potter,

In other news, there’s a lot of doom and gloom happening with Jou, who, bereft of his underwear, is forced to censor himself with his partners head. Gomamon you don’t deserve this

Jou: I need to get away from these Nanimon before I go prematurely bald too!!

Mimi, meanwhile, is Boxing Champion of the World.

Koushirou is the only one working. He’s on his way to pick up Jou, so I guess that means Yamato will get Mimi? That’ll be fun lol. We saw Yamato for half a second but it was the same frame of him riding Garurumon we’ve seen five times already so why bother capping it.

Koushirou is also keeping an eye on the satellite situation but doesn’t know what to do about it yet. Kabuterimon asks if he shouldn’t take a break about now and Koushirou says “I’m okay, besides, this is the only thing I’m good for” T___T you know this would be heart-breaking if I really believed the writers have ACTUAL PLANS to make good on Koushirou-related character development.... >:[

no this honestly pisses me off so much but I STILL do believe we will get SOMETHING for him and the others and probably not too far in the future... I think... I hope ugh

Back to Team A, they see lots of Digimon coming at them. Taichi’s like “it’s an attack!” but Sora, whose Fight Mode unlike Taichi’s has an actual Off switch, is about to figure out that they are in fact not interested in the kids at all and are running away from something.

Taichi: I can’t believe they didn’t want to kill us. Doesn’t everything in this world want to kill us?

The Digimon are fleeing from a suspicious crater with a familiar stone in the center. SkullKnightmon raises his own crystal fragment into the air and stuff happens.

By stuff I mean black lightning and purple-blue light which is meant to signify Evil which is mega DUMB because blue and purple are the most awesome color combo EVER I mean it throw some turquoise in there too and I will buy it whatever it is a necklace a shawl a codpiece

There are eight crystals that rise from the ground surrounding the central crystal and share energy with it. I thought the number eight might be significant you know for obvious reasons but it doesn’t appear to matter in this episode.

Evil crystals or not, Taichi’s on his way to save Hikari once and for all!

Hikari: Thanks, but no thanks, oniichan.

Taichi: H-Hikari! You don’t understand! You’re too young to go off with a strange man!

Hikari: But oniichan I love him

Taichi: Who do you think I am, Tevye!? You’re not marrying him and that’s final!

Hikari: waaah why don’t you understand me!!

ok back to the story...

Hikari abandons her brother for his muscular studly lover SkullKnightmon.

... >_>

Using Hikari’s powers, SkullKnightmon evolves to Gundamon DarkKnightmon. Meanwhile there’s lots of chanting and stuff about this being SkullKnightmon’s purpose or some such. I still kinda hope we get a redemption arc for SkullKnightmon or that he has something more to do with the story...

Agumon stops Taichi from wigging out and they go to save Hikari together, but before they can they are beset from all angles by henchmen.

Sora: Hey, you take care of Tweedle Dee and I’ll get Tweedle Dum!

Birdramon: *gets punched in the head* I hope you brought enough aspirin...

Then these guys appear. I’ve forgotten their names but evil as they look they literally just stand there till they get blown up and then more appear... I guess that’s a kind of talent

Takeru: Leave the small fry to me!

Pegasusmon: Takeru when I said I wanted a Happy Meal this isn’t what I meant

Hikari begins to be absorbed into a dark pocket dimension of DarkKnightmon’s or something like that. It seems like a very chill experience.

Taichi: I’ll save you! Take my hand!

Hikari: O... nii... chan... Fuck you...

ok so here’s my problem here.

This is meant to be all emotional and stuff right?? Hikari’s been blowing off her brother for an unknown reason (we all figured out what it was but look the main characters don’t know and that’s what counts) and he’s finally managed to catch up with her. His hand is inches away from catching hers and pulling her to safety. She’s got creepy glowing eyes. She mouths “o..nii...chan...” with a creepy smile before being pulled into darkness.

I know it’s for kids so it’s not going to be too scary or anything but there ‘just like... no build up here. The storytelling style is too mathematical. “We go from Plot Point A to Plot Boint B via Battles 1 2 and 3...” There’s nothing happening in between to make us feel Taichi’s desperation, or even to know what Hikari’s feeling in this moment. Is she really okay with this? Is she having second thoughts? It doesn’t make any sense for her not to be scared. I fully expected her to go through with it, but she can be scared and still go through with it... come on...

It’s like that scene from Utena except sapped of any and all emotional impact.

I don’t really remember how Greymon got up there in the first place since he can’t fly but at least we get a scene of him and Taichi plummeting to the earth after failing to save Hikari. The kind of thing that would be dramatic if there were any kind of animation budget at all.

The one thing the show is sure to do is show us Taichi’s expressions, which I guess is something... It’s just so rushed and the accompanying dialogue leaves something to be desired.

Greymon: Don’t give up, Taichi... Taichi... um. what are you doing...

Taichi: stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself

Anyway, Taichi is Big Mad. I thought (hoped, to be honest) that we might get a glimpse of him going wild with dark energy like in the Devimon episode again... Or at least a hint that that was a possibility in the heat of the moment before Agumon snapped him out of it. But nope.

He takes a moment to be upset and then says “There’s no time to worry about what to do” and goes to save Hikari... from inside DarkKnightmon somehow :P

This does not go well.

Meanwhile Hikari is surprisingly okay for someone who was just eaten alive by sentient VantaBlack. She discovers a peculiar light inside... DarkKnightmon’s intestine??? Is that where we are now??? lmao

She recognizes the light as the voice that has been calling her and tries to head towards it, but is blocked by some purple jello.

There’s a kind of cool thing that happens here... We just had a scene where Taichi desperately tries to grab his sister’s hand and yank her out of the clutches of evil, but fails, mostly because she doesn’t do anything to help him since she is weirdly okay with the situation. Now we get a mirror of that moment with Hikari bursting out of the jello with her arm outstretched to grab what is clearly Tailmon’s paw.

Only Tailmon does take Hikari’s hand.

It was really cool to see the brother and sister paralleling each other this much. It shows the ways they’re both courageous and determined and caring.

Meanwhile Taichi finally whips out WarGreymon. Honestly, I feel like this should have been WarGreymon’s intro episode. This would have been a good time for a new evolution, rather than in a fight with a nobody that I’ve already forgotten. Idk. WarGreymon uses Brave Tornado to knock DarkKnightmon’s lances away and burrow into his armor. So, yeah, Hikari’s in his intestines, lmao.

Hikari is being chased by a two-headed monster who is in for the migraine of its (their?) life when the tornado crashes into it.

Hikari: Big brother! You look so cool!

Taichi: Promise me that no matter how many men come into your life, I’ll always be number one.

Hikari: okay that is creepy

WarGreymon explodes DarkKnightmon from the inside out x’D and Taichi gets a redo of his hand-reaching scene. First he berates Hikari for running off on her own and then smiles.

Hikari says she always believed he’d rescue her. Aww.

Sweet sibling love.

Then there’s this really hilarious sound which turns out to be the Vademon hivemind giving a collective cry of distress x’D it’s lmfao amazing. Then they start chanting “Next time next time next time” just in case you thought Millennium was defeated and we can go home now.

Taichi: Sora, do you know where I can buy a leash for this kid? I can’t keep chasing her like this. Aren’t kids today supposed to be glued to their phones and never go outside?

Patamon’s Girlfriend Radar piques at the bundle in Hikari’s arms.

And it is indeed Tailmon, and she’s been waiting for Hikari all this time.

Tailmon: I am Tailmon, a Holy Digimon.

Patamon: oh my god you can’t just call yourself holy ugh you’re so self-centered

D’awww.

They’re both sooooo cute. I’m annoyed they didn’t get a cool ending card like Takeru and Patamon did last week though. But still, this is a sweet moment.

So, there’s not a lot to complain about in this episode, comparatively speaking. I wish we had more dialogue and understood the value of a dramatic pause etc. Also wish Sora and Takeru had more to do than fight the henchmen. Like, if you can just erase an entire part of an episode and it still works fine, you clearly didn’t need that part so why waste time on it.

But at least we do get reactions from Taichi, and at least we got plot development. The Taichi/Hikari parallels were cool. And even though I had other hopes for how this arc would turn out, I’m glad it’s over because maybe we can finally do some other stuff now. Maybe. I want to get back to Koushirou SOOO bad but more than anything I am still gobsmacked by how long it’s been since Yamato’s had anything to do but ride on Garurumon. That is WEIRD. He’s YAMATO.

Next week...

... Looks like it’ll be a light-hearted undersea episode. I’m cool with that. The preview clips had a “Sebastian’s Calypso” vibe that I dig. It’s still about Taichi’s group but I think that’s to do more actual face time with Tailmon and Hikari. I hope we see the others as well and if not maybe the week after. I will be happy if this episode has some personality to it.

#fizz watches digimon 2020 #digimon adventure 2020 #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digi spoilers #digimon

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 4 years

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Magnolia

I don’t know much about Magnolia or Paul Thomas Anderson, but I do know that it takes someone paying me to get me to watch a 3-hr+ drama that doesn’t star Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, and a really big boat. This is one of my mom’s favorite movies which is why she requested it for me to review. It’s packed with a balls-to-the-wall star-studded cast (Tom Cruise! Julianne Moore! Phillip Seymour Hoffman! John C. Reilly! William H. Macy! Felicity Huffman!) and I’m genuinely excited to see how they all fit together. Cause they have to all fit together in some coherent way, right? Well...

Do you remember in Sorry to Bother You when the Equisapiens came out and things just took like...a real turn? That’s kind of what this was like. Whereas StBY pushed a thought to its most extreme, but logical, conclusion, what Paul Thomas Anderson has done here feels like a magician doing a lot of impressive illusions - sawing a lady in half, making a motorcycle disappear, pulling smaller things out of bigger things - and then for his final trick, walking onstage amidst a grand plume of smoke, dropping his pants, taking a gigantic shit, and then saying, “You’ve been a great audience, thanks a lot and goodnight!” It’s not like you can say the experience was BAD. Everything up to the finale was a really great time! But when you’re left on a note that is that bafflingly odd, it kinda colors the way you’ll remember the whole thing.

Magnolia is the story of one long day in the life of 12 people living in Los Angeles who are all connected via an extensive web from acquaintances to married couples to parents and children to paid caregivers and beyond. It’s a day that has the same kind of ups and downs as any other day until it, well, turns into something else entirely. I’m not sure how else to explain it, but if you want to know more, spoilers will be spoiled below.

Some thoughts:

Patton Oswalt cameo! I am a massive fan and thought I knew his whole filmography and OMG how did I not know that he was in this!!

Ok, in spite of my skepticism this entire opening sequence about coincidence had me hooked IMMEDIATELY. Like, this is some damn good storytelling, if this were a novel, I would not be able to put it down - that pull, that’s what it feels like.

Am I the only person whose encyclopedic memory of character actors/roles gets distracted when they see someone from something that is wildly disparate compared to the role you’re currently watching? For example, I had to pause the movie and confirm via IMDB that I did just see Professor Sprout from HP scream “Shut the fuck up!” at her husband while brandishing a shotgun.

Would people really recognize a grown ass man from being a successful child game show contestant? I’ll tell you the answer, no they wouldn’t, because no one realizes that Peter Billingsley (aka Ralphie from A Christmas Story) is the head of the elf production line in Elf.

I knew this was a stacked cast, but holy SHIT this is a stacked cast. If I had $1 for every fantastic character actor I recognize in this, I would have at least $37, and these are people in the film who have maybe 2-3 lines each. It’s a deep bench is what I’m saying.

This makes me miss Phillip Seymour Hoffman so, so very much.

Watching PSH care for and be so compassionate and gentle with his hospice patient, Earl (Jason Robards),makes my heart ache terribly. All of the people who have been unable to perform this kindness, this type of compassionate care for their closest loved ones as they lie dying in isolation of Covid...it’s overwhelming.

OMG I’m counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Very Good Dogs in the old man’s house!

I know Scientology is evil and he’s undeniably a complicated and morally grey person. I know all that. But goddamn I just love watching Tom Cruise COMMIT. Particularly when he commits to just absolute fucking sleazebag slimeballs. And boy oh boy is Frank Mackey an absolute fucking sleazebag slimeball.

Related - I know Frank looks like Tom Cruise, so he could get people to sleep with him no matter what, but I honestly feel like as a human being, this flesh suit is WAY more attractive balding and fat in Tropic Thunder than he is in this shiny brown shirt/leather vest/long hair combo.

I’m getting an uncomfortable vibe about these black characters being written by an artsy white dude, because I don’t know any young black kids who want to hang around with cops and offer up information about who committed a murder in their building. In fact, the way all of the black characters are treated in this film - as liars, criminals, the disingenuous “main stream media,” and thieves - feels rooted in some racist ass bullshit. We see a lot of nuance in our white characters, but even in a film that has, shockingly, more than one key black role, we don’t get that spectrum or nuance.

There is nothing I would love more than to learn that Frank Mackey is 1) gay 2) impotent or 3) both. He’s so disgustingly over-the-top misogynistic, it honestly feels like it should all be a complete act.

I confess I am on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how all these narrative threads tie together. It’s compelling as hell, even though half the time I don’t know why these people are having these long, meandering conversations. The pacing feels so deliberate, like a puzzle coming together. There’s real craftsmanship in how every scene is plotted to feel connected rather than manic or disjointed.

This pharmacist is being unprofessional as hell. Judgy McJudgerson, mind your fucking business, Julianne Moore’s father is dying! [ETA: ope, that’s embarrassing, Earl is actually her husband.]

NO THE DOG IS EATING THE PILLS OH NO VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THE DOG.

I think I knew this, but this soundtrack is fantastic. All Aimee Mann and Supertramp, and Jon Brion’s score is this thrumming, anxious thing full of strings that underscore all these nervous conversations, and then it shifts into these low, mournful horns when things start to take a turn and everyone is reaching their lowest points.

I love this interviewer (April Grace) who is taking Frank (Tom Cruise) to task. I think it’s particularly noteworthy that she is a black woman, because the kind of misogyny Frank peddles is rooted in white supremacy.

Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) is breaking my goddamn heart here. I think he and Phil (PSH) are my favorite characters.

Jim (John C Reilly) is the perfect example of how even a cop with the best intentions, with absolute kindness and love is in heart, is abusing his power and sexually harassing a woman he encountered in the line of duty, who is eager to appease him because she doesn’t want to be charged with a crime. This movie reads a LOT differently than it did in 1999.

I normally really love Julianne Moore, but she is a screeching mess in this. I can’t stop staring at her mouth and all the contortions it makes as she delivers every line in hysterics. She’s one of the few weak spots for me here.

Listening to Frank go on his whole diatribe about what society does to little boys to break them and victimize them HAS to be the source of where Keith Raniere got at least half of his NXIVM bullshit. Like, some of these points are word-for-word.

Also if Frank makes as much money as he seems to, there’s no way he would drive a shitty Saturn sedan.

It feels like the common thread of this movie is everyone is terrible and cheats on their spouses, and you should come clean when you get cancer so you can die peacefully. Weird moral, but ok.

If Jim is a cop, how does he not see that this woman he’s interested in (Melora Walters) is coked out of her mind?

Y’know for being a quiz kid, Donnie (William H. Macy) sure is kinda stupid.

I confess I’m not taking many notes throughout this because I’m just kind of sitting breathlessly still watching all these conversations unfold because I am on the edge of my fucking seat to find out how all this is gonna come together.

Secret MVP of this movie is the mom from A Christmas Story (Melinda Dillon) who is giving the performance of her goddamn life as Jimmy Gator’s wife.

Did I Cry? On the surface it appears ridiculous, but when Tom Cruise is having his breakdown at his dying father’s bedside, I admit, that really got me. If you’ve ever been faced with that kind of hysterical, I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening, it feels like the whole world is ending kind of shock and hurt and anger, that’s what the crying looks like.

Are those......frogs?? That landed on Jim’s car? It’s raining fucking frogs???? OK for those of you sensitive to frog harm, this movie is going to take a real hard left turn for you, because I swear that came out of NOWHERE.

Um.

What.

Pray tell.

The fuck.

The climax of this movie - is when literal frogs rain from the sky.

And we finally got resolution about the dog, and the dog DID die, and I’m pissed about it. It’s offscreen but still.

I'm sorry - I know I’m fixating. But how is it possible that I knew about all the characters performing a sing-along to Aimee Mann’s (excellent) song “Wise Up” but I did NOT know that the climax of the film involves literally thousands of frogs falling to their death from the sky? How is that something that escapes entry into the cultural zeitgeist? I’m with it, you guys. I have been Very Online for over a decade, and before that, I read a lot of Entertainment Weekly, and like it just seems that this is something that pop culture really should have told me.

I think the funniest moment of this movie might be the credits in which I discovered that not only is Luis Guzman playing a man named Luis, he’s actually playing himself. I don’t know why, but I can’t stop laughing about it. That was a 189-minute setup to one dumb punchline.

I think I loved this movie but I don’t quite know. The frog thing really threw me. What I’m taking away from it is that even when it doesn’t feel like it or seem like it, we are all connected to each other, always, in ways we can’t see or know. As Wife astutely pointed out, it’s reminiscent of the pandemic - we’re all in the same storm, but we each have our own boats and our own experiences within that storm. And it’s kind of nice to remember that right now, that connection still exists even when it feels so far away. Just not if you’re a frog I guess, cause they really got the short end of the stick here.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#121in2021 #magnolia #magnolia review #paul thomas anderson #tom cruise #julianne moore #phillip seymour hoffman #John C Reilly #william h macy #movie reviews #film reviews #patreon review

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cherylsvixens · 8 years

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Pink Skies

PINK SKIES — you are my favorite everything. been telling girls that since i was 16. shut up, i love you. you’re my best friend. ( pink skies, lany )

REQUEST — archie comforts his best friend.

WORD COUNT — 2.3k

NOTES — a late v-day gift from me in the form of head-over-heels archie and his aloof best friend, the reader. this was originally going to be a quick little piece about y/n spraining her ankle and archie being her overprotective boyfriend; somewhere along the line, it ended up becoming archie trying to keep y/n’s mind off jason on her first valentine’s day without him. ( requests: open )

“AND LASTLY, RIVERDALE High and its River Vixens want me to wish you all a very lucky Valentine’s Day.” As if the seductively indolent slurring of her words wasn’t already saturated in sexual innuendo, Y/N Y/L/N then drops her left eyelid into a cocky-wink-unhinged-jaw-combo. Archie struggles to contain the dance of his thin lips, as if a sudden jerk or spontaneous movement could shatter the frangible moment between best friends, but then wolf-whistles, hoots, and hollers erupt from his classmates, and he’s left with shards; a television in the corner of the room, the outro of Riverdale’s Morning Announcements, a fading screen, a teacher shushing his now animated peers.

Irises fabricated of molten gold and honey veer to his left, where Betty Cooper sits in their homeroom class, where she’s always sat in their homeroom class. Luck would have it that the pair’s surnames were alphabetical neighbors, and in a time like this, Archie is grateful for the blonde serving as his focal point. Betty rolls her pinkened brims into her mouth and shrugs, physically saying, ‘sorry the best friend you’re in love with is such a slut!’ The blonde, herself, would never verbalize such a statement, but he’s sure she’s thinking it. She’s probably had more than a slick thought or two about the trail of flings and shortcomings the River Vixen’s left behind since the unfortunate demise of her boyfriend, Jason Blossom—especially upon discovering that Y/N was the friend Archie chose to fall in love with, and not the girl who actually loves him back.

It’s all been very messy, this year (problematic might be a better word, a word Y/N would say), a continuous thread of nadirs that ought to break under the weight of their own misfortunes. He’s seen Y/N heave sobs over an open casket, heard her voice go raw as she spoke of Jason, watched her die all over again when she learned that her boyfriend was not the golden boy mask he’d woven for her; and she’s seen Archie break, enveloped him in her arms and allowed him to mourn a relationship that never should’ve been, listened, and comforted, and bent over backwards for him when she could hardly stand upright for herself on most days. Somewhere amidst the timeline of glueing themselves back together, it cracked down on him like an epiphany: She’s his favorite person.

And what better day to tell someone that than V-Day?

Betty tethers Archie’s cognition back to his current surroundings with a flick of her toe to his ankle. “Bell rang,” she says, gathering her books into the crook of her arm. Only after he’s stood from his seat and swung the straps of his backpack across his shoulders does the blonde ask, “You gonna tell her today?” Unprompted, she continues, “Yanno, that you like her?”

He’s become so accustomed to denying it over the months (no, they’re just friends; no, she’s dating someone else; no, he isn’t interested in her like that) that his tongue’s sputtering out a ‘what?’ before he can even process it.

Identical brows, somewhat darker than the flaxen waves growing out her scalp, perk. “Don’t tell me you’re chickening out, Archie. It’s Y/N’s first Valentine’s Day without Jason, you have to make it memorable for her.” Betty gesticulates when she’s passionate; Archie has to duck his head to miss a flying hand.

“I’m not–I’m not chickening out, Betty. I’ve” —Passersby stumble their way around Archie, who’s abruptly stopped feet away from Y/N’s locker— “actually got something planned.”

The blonde follows the jut of Archie’s head over to the woman of the hour. She hasn’t neared her locker yet, still on the adjacent side of the hall, immersed in conversation with Valerie Brown and Josie McCoy. Archie knows even the vaguest of outlines of her, though, knows the coiled tendrils that plummet past the nape of her neck, knows the silver hoops that always dangle from her lobes, knows her toothy smile like diamonds embedded in her gums, knows the laugh he spends most of his time with her goading. Betty does not know her in a similar fashion, and only recognizes Y/N for who she is once she’s fumbling with her padlock—and then steps aside so Josie can do it for her.

The following seconds are so agonizingly tedious that Archie’s heart swells in anticipation.

One: Y/N opens her locker.

Two: Y/N’s full lips part.

Three: Quaking fingers extract a bouquet of yellow petals bound in ribbon.

“Those are the roses you gave me and Ronnie.”

Archie grins. “Yeah.”

Betty reiterates her previous statement, stringing her words together in that patronizing way reserved for naughty and aloof children. “Those are the roses you gave me and Ronnie.” Archie doesn’t know why she repeats herself. “Yellow roses mean friendship, Archie.”

Huh. That’s certainly not the message the ginger wanted to get across.

The curve of his lips falters gradually, and then all at once. “I didn’t know the colors had meanings!”

“Didn’t you ask the florist?”

“Florist? One of my dad’s employees was selling flowers out of his trunk.”

“You bought me, Ronnie, and Y/N trunk flowers?”

“Archiekins!”

Matching flushed countenances swing to Y/N’s beaming disposition. Fluid as the water, as all her movements are, she jumps him, limber legs fastening around his waist and long arms clasping at his neck. The friendship roses, still entangled in her digits, rest on his shoulder. “I lovelovelove the flowers sooo much. And the card, it’s too fuckin’ cute!”

“Card?” Betty echoes. The singer’s embarrassed to admit he’d forgotten the girl was there.

A dimple hollows into Y/N’s cheek. Archie’s grip underneath her thighs tightens, determined to keep her balanced even as she unfurls one hand from around him to showcase the cheesy Valentine’s card he printed online. The Guy Fieri meme had seemed like a good idea in pretense—she likes the cooking channel, she likes memes—but the slow arch of his friend’s eyebrow is a silent shit on that thought.

“Ay, lil mama, let me go down to your Flavortown?” she reads, an amalgamation of disgust and what the fuck? weaving her words together with a pretty bow. “Archie!”

“Isn’t it so funny?” Y/N interrupts, unperturbed by the girl’s exasperated timbre. “I haven’t even seen that one on Twitter.”

For all it’s worth, Betty does force the corners of her mouth into a polite grin. “Very funny,” she agrees, then shoots daggers above Y/N’s head. “Not very romantic, however.”

“'Cause it isn’t supposed to be romantic, Betts. Me and Archie are just friends. See? Yellow roses mean friendship.”

The ground opens up and swallows him whole.

(Or, at least, he wishes it had.)

Smack! Thwack! Thwop!

It’s a scene straight from a teen romance movie; his hand is bent at the wrist, thick digits enclosed around the fourth pebble he’d found by the Y/L/N siblings’ tree house, when the girl divides her baby pink curtains. Ignited is the pulse in his chest, the mere sight of her bathed in her bedroom’s warm lighting sending his heart into a flurry of rampant thumps. Y/N appraises him for a beat and then lifts her windowpane.

“What is your childhood trauma, Archibald Andrews? Do we know?” Archie isn’t foolish enough to be disheartened by the slice of her tongue. He’s witnessed the uncoming and, later, redoing of the girl too many times to shy away from her at her most vulnerable. And it’s sweet, he thinks, in their own sort of way. Everyone gets Y/N, the River Vixen or Y/N, the Femme Fatale, but he gets the Y/N that sheds her falsified smile and overzealous antics, and just is. She’s so busy compelling her peers to forget she was one wedding ring away from being a widow that she rarely is.

The material of his button-down stretches across his shoulders in a boyish shrug. “Too many 80s movies with my dad, I think.”

“Evidently,” she remarks, tucking her chin into her soft open palm. “I find it hard to believe you couldn’t find a date tonight.”

Truthfully, he hadn’t been searching for one. “Didn’t want one,” he shouts. “I wanna spend tonight with my best friend.”

Y/N dips her head, ponytail sliding against her right cheek. “That’s sweet, but I’m not gonna be a good time.”

“Shit, I always have a good time when you’re around.”

“It’s gonna take me hours to put on my makeup, get dressed, find the right shoes.”

“Then don’t.”

“You really should be getting to second base with a girl right now, Archiekins.”

“You’re the only girl I want.” Shock blesses the apathetic hue of her eyes. Her lips part, and her brows elevate, and she just looks at him, like she’s waiting for the punchline. Archie delivers: “To be with. Tonight. You’re my best friend and you, you need someone. You need me.”

Her stiff posture alleviates. He can breathe again. “Meet me by the front door.”

(The second crack.)

Riverdale's—the town with pep!—greatest woe is the girl they’ve swallowed under passing vehicles and manicured lawns and streets that turn desolate after midnight, under colonial homes and suburban families with 2.5 kids and a golden retriever. She’s destined for events better than graduating high school, and enrolling in the next town over’s community college, and returning to begin the mundane life of the previous generation’s. So if anyone breaks out of this town, it’s going to be Y/N. While he has her, though, Archie’s just gonna count his mini blessings.

Their mode of transportation to Pop’s is Mr. Andrews’ junky jalopy. A month and a half of strenuous labor (chores), busting his ass at construction sites, and maintaining a high B average was a fair exchange for the chance to drive Y/N around for once. It isn’t that Archie’s uncomfortable or emasculated by the girl in the passenger seat being a year older than him—believe you him, it takes a lot more to even bruise his ego—but he wants today to be special. It’s his last opportunity to bury her memories of Jason with his body.

“What are you thinkin’ about over there?” the sophomore inquires, shifting his gaze from the road for a well-deserved glimpse.

She segues into a different topic. “This your song?”

Pride clutches the boy’s sharp features. She can recognize his voice. “Yeah. You like it?”

Y/N hums, a discernible tune from his guitar. “You’re good with words.”

“Thank you. What are you thinkin’ about?”

She says it, and he slams down on the breaks. Their automobile lurches forward; his seatbelt thrusts him back into the torn pleather seat; Y/N nearly slips out of her own.

(“I don’t think Jason loved me.”)

Archie Andrews has never heard a bigger load of bullshit in his life.

He wishes he had—really, he does. How easy it would be if Jason hadn’t loved Y/N, if she’d been another name scrawled in their 'fuckboy handbook,’ as Veronica labelled it, if he’d hit it and quit it and left her. This agonizing uphill battle that seemingly never plateaus wouldn’t exist. Y/N would be his girl, and he’d be her guy, and who’s Jason Blossom? His existence would be like grains of sand slipping through the interstices of their fingers. He wouldn’t have to see her die every fucking day; Cause of Death: Grief. Y/N is so overraught with grief some days that God, does he wish Cheryl’d been an only child.

Of course Jason Blossom loved her. Jason Blossom had to love her. Because nothing is ever delivered to him with a golden spoon in its mouth.

Because she is Y/N Y/L/N, and it is utterly impossible to not be bewitched by her.

“And you said you passed your driver’s test?” she asks, her shade-too-innocent tone delineating a joke. Archie’s lost his appetite for jokes.

“Is that what you’re spending your Valentine’s Day thinking about? Y/N, he loved you. If there’s an afterlife, he still loves you. And maybe it hadn’t started out that way, but that’s the way it is now. Look, th-there’s a lot of stuff being dug up about Jason, and he isn’t who any of us thought he was, but what we can’t dig up—what no one can dig up—is that he didn’t love you. You know this.”

Curious gaze scans his profile, absorbing the thin line of his lips, the skin between his brows marred with creases, the eyelashes that dust the apples of his cheeks with every blink.

“Do you love me?”

Archie’s spine straightens, head tilting to meet her wide optics. This is the shot he’s been waiting for—"you know the answer to that, too"—but he decides against taking it. It isn’t a question of when he’s ready to tell her just how much he adores her, it’s a question of when is she? And she isn’t ready, not quite yet.

He’ll wait.

He was willing to wait 'til he was 18 to make his relationship with Jennifer public.

He can wait for Y/N.

“You’re good with words, Archibald Andrews. Very good.” Her lips curve into a glossed crescent, the most honest smile he’s ever spotted on her delicate countenance. “And you’re my favorite person.”

Cloud 9 looks like the effervescent pull of his lips. “You’re my best friend.”

So, it goes like this:

“Thanks for the best V-Day ever, Archiekins. I mean it.”

“Of course, anything for you.”

“And thanks for paying for all the fries I ate.”

“I, uh, I didn’t pay? I thought you did.”

“I left my wallet in my car, I thought you did.”

“Well, it looks like we don’t pay for food anymore.”

Curls fall down Y/N’s backside like rivulets as she tips her head and laughs. She then shifts her weight to the tips of her beaten-down converse, puckers an already full pout, and misses his mouth just centimeters to the left, designating a kiss at a pink corner.

And Archie loves her, he really does.

#aandrews #riverdale imagines #archie andrews x reader #archie andrews imagines

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years

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Must-Reads Of The Week From Brianna Labuskes

The Friday Breeze

Newsletter editor Brianna Labuskes, who reads everything on health care to compile our daily Morning Briefing, offers the best and most provocative stories for the weekend.

Hello! It is once again Friday, which means I’m going to attempt to do my very best to give you a snapshot of some (read: a fraction) of the best stories from the week amid a flood of them.

But first! Take yourself on this journey about how the most well-known coronavirus image (that gray blob with stone-like texture and red crowns and colored flecks) was made. Sometimes when the government is creating informational illustrations it focuses on the vector or the symptoms, but for this coronavirus the CDC’s Alissa Eckert and Dan Higgins went with what’s called a “beauty shot.” It’s a very cool read!

All right, here we go:

The confirmed number of confirmed cases globally ticked past a million this week in a grim milestone that experts still say represents only a percentage of the actual cases out there. The U.S. had recorded over 250,000 cases as of press time, with more than 6,500 deaths.

President Donald Trump invoked his wartime powers to help manufacturers secure supplies needed to make ventilators and protective face masks, but is it too little, too late? New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state has become the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak, said on Thursday it will use up all available ventilators in less than a week. Meanwhile, FEMA said that most of the ventilators Trump promised to obtain won’t be ready until June.

Governors are distraught over their inability to obtain the needed supplies, likening the process of requesting the equipment to eBay auctions. “You now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you,’” Cuomo said.

Another roadblock is that 2,000 of the ventilators in the national stockpile are unusable because of a lapse in a contract that left a monthslong gap, during which the machines weren’t being properly maintained.

In the meantime, General Motors has shrugged off Trump’s attacks on the company (he said GM and its chief executive were dragging their feet on the project) and are moving full-throttle ahead at producing the needed equipment. “Every ventilator is a life,” said one GM exec.

With so much focus on ventilators, doctors are being advised on how to ration care and being told that they’ll be supported in their decisions not to perform futile intubations.

One quick note on that front: New York lawmakers are moving on legislation that would grant sweeping civil- and criminal-liability protections to hospitals and health care workers dealing with coronavirus patients.

And even though there’s a ton of attention on ventilators, the survival rate of any patient who requires one is only 20% — meaning that even without a shortage, they can only help a fraction of patients.

In other important news on the preparedness front:

The Washington Post: Inside America’s Mask Crunch: A Slow Government Reaction and an Industry Wary of Liability

The New York Times: Essential Drug Supplies for Virus Patients Are Running Low

The New York Times: The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed

The Friday Breeze

Want a roundup of the must-read stories this week chosen by KHN Newsletter Editor Brianna Labuskes? Sign up for The Friday Breeze today.

Please confirm your email address below:

Trump warned Americans this week that “hard days” lie ahead and that people should be braced for a “bad two weeks,” with the White House projecting that the death toll could be somewhere between 100,000 to 240,000. For what it’s worth, disease forecasters were mystified over where the task force got those numbers, mostly because we don’t yet know enough about the virus.

(What helped change Trump’s mind, considering he’d previously mused that the country could return to normal in time to fill the pews on Easter? Polling numbers.)

To help states deal with the crisis, CMS relaxed safety rules for hospitals, giving them unprecedented flexibility. The changes include what counts as a hospital bed, how closely certain medical professionals need to be supervised and what kinds of health care can be delivered at home.

The administration decided not to follow suit after a handful of states reopened their exchanges, though Trump seemed to hint that the possibility was still on the table “as a matter of fairness.” Also, to note, if people have lost their insurance because of their jobs, that counts as a qualifying event and they have 60 days to enroll in the federal exchanges, regardless of what Trump does with a special session.

And although Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, along with Vice President Mike Pence, have emerged as the leading voices of the administration’s pandemic response, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has taken charge behind the scenes. Critics say its adding confusion to an already chaotic situation.

And reports continue to emerge that the Trump administration was cutting pandemic detection positions in China just months before the outbreak.

In other news on the administration:

Politico: FEMA Braces for a Multi-Front War As Hurricane Season Looms

Politico: Inside The National Security Council, a Rising Sense of Dread

The New York Times: C.I.A. Hunts for Authentic Virus Totals in China, Dismissing Government Tallies

The New York Times: Trump Administration Officials Weigh How Far to Go on Recommending Masks

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be creating a special committee to oversee the implementation of the $2.2 trillion stimulus package and any other coronavirus legislation coming down the pike. “Where there’s money there’s also frequently mischief,” Pelosi said, in perhaps one of my favorite quotes of the week. Meanwhile, House Democrats may be raring to get started on a fourth stimulus package, but Republicans are pumping the brakes. At the very least, they say, they want to see how the current stimulus package plays out.

The news came the same day as it was reported that 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. That eye-popping number blows past all previous records. And experts say it represents only a sliver of the economic devastation the virus is wreaking on the country. There are many affected Americans who remain uncounted — some have lost jobs or income and did not initially qualify for benefits, and others, encountering state unemployment offices that were overwhelmed by the deluge of claimants, were unsuccessful in filing.

In other news about Congress and the economic damage from the outbreak:

NBC News: U.S. Economy Lost a Total of 701,000 Jobs in March

NBC News: Record Number of Unemployed Americans Will Stress State Medicaid Programs

The New York Times: Loeffler’s Wealth Becomes a Risk As Rivals Charge She Profited on the Coronavirus

The New York Times: ‘Never Thought I Would Need It’: Americans Put Pride Aside to Seek Aid

The New York Times: Why the Global Recession Could Last a Long Time

The Democratic National Convention, expected to draw as many as 50,000 visitors, was postponed from July to August in one of the largest disruptions to the 2020 elections so far. On the other hand, Wisconsin is going ahead with its primary on Tuesday, which is causing mixed reactions … including apoplectic rage.