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xtruss · 2 years ago

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Unlike the movie, the real-life cocaine bear didn't go on a coke-fueled rampage, but it did consume a fatal amount of cocaine left in the woods by smugglers. Here, an American black bear, Ursus americanus, eats dandelions. Photograph By Barrett Hedges, National Geographic Image Collection

There’s A True Story Behind ‘Cocaine Bear’—And It’s No Laughing Matter

The new comedic horror film is based on the real-life drug overdose of an American black bear—and illustrates how human recklessness endangers wildlife.

— By Erin Blakemore | March 13, 2023

What would happen if a massive mammal ingested a bear-sized load of cocaine? Cocaine Bear, a comedic horror film directed by Elizabeth Banks, imagines the results: a chaotic, coke-fueled, carnivorous blood fest. The film is a hit, raking in over $57 million worldwide. But there’s a true story behind the bear—and it’s no laughing matter.

The film was based on a 1985 incident involving a 200-pound American black bear that was found dead from an overdose in a Georgia forest. The strange discovery was front-page news, and garnered the bear joking nicknames like “snow bear” and “Pablo Escobear.”

But the story of the real cocaine bear began decades earlier—and highlights the effects of humans’ recklessness when it comes to the wildlife around them.

How Did the Bear Get Its Paws on Cocaine?

The real story begins with a man named Andrew Carter Thornton II. Born in 1944, he was the son of a prominent Kentucky horse breeder and became an expert paratrooper for the U.S. Army, even earning a Purple Heart when the U.S. invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965.

Thornton left the Army that same year and returned to Kentucky, where he joined the Lexington police department’s narcotics squad. But Thornton soon became more interested in selling drugs than cracking down on them. As a former colleague told investigative reporter Sally Denton years later, Thornton was “‘an 007 paramilitary type personality...an adventurer driven by adrenaline rushes’ who got bored being a cop.” He eventually resigned from the police and became an attorney.

Thornton’s desire for excitement led him further and further into his side career in narcotics trafficking. In 1981, he was indicted along with 24 others for piloting a plane that smuggled marijuana from South America into Lexington, Kentucky; after months as a fugitive and a massive manhunt, he served five months in prison and was disbarred.

Then, in September 1985, Thornton took to the skies for what would be his last drug smuggling mission, jumping out of a plane over Knoxville, Tennessee, with a duffel bag containing $15 million in cocaine. He died when his parachute failed.

But though Thornton’s life was over, his legacy was not. Two months after the smuggler’s death, a Georgia hunter found a dead bear surrounded by the remains of a duffel bag investigators would later deem to be Thornton’s. A medical examiner concluded the 200-pound bear had died of acute cocaine intoxication after ingesting about three to four grams of cocaine. “It’s enough to kill anybody,” the investigator told reporters.

What Wappens When an Animal Ingests Cocaine?

But did the animal actually get high from the cocaine? It’s unclear—and scientists are unsure whether any animal experiences the same type of high that humans do from substances like alcohol, marijuana, or cocaine. Though animals do ingest substances like catnip, hallucinogenic mushrooms, and alcohol, there’s no way to know if they seek out the substances for their recreational effects.

But drugs do have some effects on animals: Reindeer have been seen acting erratically after consuming mushrooms, for example, and all sorts of wildlife has been observed getting sleepy after a sip of alcohol. Sometimes, too, ingesting them can be lethal.

When the real "cocaine bear” was found in the woods, it had been dead for about a month. In contrast to the rampages depicted in the film, investigators didn’t report any threatening or destructive behavior ahead of its death. Nor did it eat the entirety of the cocaine Thornton is thought to have smuggled—and officials concluded that a human had made off with the rest.

As ursinologist Chris Morgan told Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos, though it’s likely that the bear experienced a physiological reaction of some kind, the story of its death is less a tale of a drug-crazed bear and more an illustration of how humans’ trash endangers animals.

The Reality of Wildlife and Drugs

Many cases of drug ingestion by animals can be explained by curiosity or just plain hunger—and though accidental exposure is common, it’s often the result of human carelessness or cruelty.

Studies have found that when human drug use rises, animals are more likely to consume those drugs. One team of researchers found that dogs are at greater risk for opioid poisoning in places with higher opioid prescription rates, while dogs living in states with lower legal penalties for marijuana use are also at higher risk.

Marijuana toxicity can disable and even kill cats and dogs, but the Pet Poison Helpline, a poison-control service, says it gets even more calls about animals accidentally eating antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications, ibuprofen, and other toxic substances contained in human medications.

In many states, intentionally giving an animal drugs or alcohol is a crime. Increased legal protections for animals are part of a wider trend of legal measures gaining traction nationwide, Nat Geo reported earlier this year. One new National Park Service proposal being considered would ban the use of food lures such as donuts, dog food, and bacon grease in bear hunts—an effort to keep the animals from becoming accustomed to scavenging for human trash.

The Aftermath

As it turns out, the cocaine-poisoned bear wasn’t the only one put in potential danger by Thornton’s drug run. It had found just one of many drug-stuffed duffel bags Thornton allegedly dumped throughout rural Georgia and Tennessee before his fatal skydive. In the wake of his death, investigators found evidence Thornton and his associates had smuggled 880 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. However, no other bear casualties—or cocaine-induced rampages—were reported.

For decades, Cocaine Bear remained a tragic footnote in the life of a legendary career in crime. But the 2023 film has made the bear’s coke-provoked end a legend of its own. And incredibly, “Pablo Escobear” isn’t the only cocaine-ingesting animal in the news: Reports have surfaced of a wild cat captured in Cincinnati with cocaine in its system—another reminder that animals and substances designed for humans are a dangerous match.

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chemicallady · 3 years ago

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Science and Vision

Part I ; Part II ; Part III

A/N: Sorry for the long wait! I wasn't inspired and I have a million things to do know that I'm starting my master. But here we are with part III of this case! Let me know if you like it or if you have some advice for me!

Couple: Greg Sanders/Female!Reader

Category: F

Content Warning: //

Summary: Greg really is the good guy, here and he wants to fix things with you.

*****

Las Vegas, December 7th 2010

It's really hard to trust someone. In the very first moment you moved to Vegas, you decided that you were going to be that kind of person that everyone can lean on.

No more shitty ghost stories or paranormal activities. You made a statement on this new life: 'I'll be surrendered by people this time, even if I have to fake. Even if I'll have to die with my secrets.'

But you screwed up because of a guy. You thought that Greg was a nice young man, that you can trust him. That he wasn't that kind of person who judge or put others in no way out situation. You were wrong.

He sold you to Brass without a evidence of your participation in the abduction of a young woman.

You had to quit your job at Frank's when cops have started to stare funny at you, like you're a weirdo. A freak shows. Everybody talks at the department and now everybody knows.

.... what's is left? you are unemployed, angry and... disenchanted. Because Vegas grows on you and you like living in this chaotic circus. Because you enjoyed your time at Frank's Diner, your coworkers and - of course- the restricted guests.

And now you're leaving with nothing.

Furthermore, you feel betrayed by Greg and God damn you still fancy him. He was always so charming with you. So nice.

And you fell.

Hard, this time.

There is no way out. You have to move, again. California? Arizona? It's the fucking same. The more you try to build your own life, the more you are moving in the south.

You'll end up in Mexico, one day or another.

While you are setting up your stuff inside boxes, you hear someone knocking at the door. Is not a really nice ward, north on the Tropicana, full of drug dealers and hookers. But that's what you could afford when you moved in. And you hadn't the time to settle down your stuff, looking for a new flat.

Immagine your surprise when, opening the door, you are face to face with the man who did this mess.

《 No way, how did you get my address?》 You asked immediately, rude.

Leaving the door open, you come back inside. You can barely look at him right now.

He enters the room, moves towards you and you stop immediately to pack your stuff. 《 (y/n), look.... I'm here to apologise 》 he starts with honest eyes. He really looks sorry for you.

But despite of his good intention, you are still pissed off. 《 You are apologising for what? Because I lose my job? Because you sold me to Brass? Or maybe because you umiliated me?? I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I trusted you.》 You pick some of your clothes and put them inside of a backpack. 《 I thought you were different, you know? I felt something I can explain like a-》

《 A connection? 》 he interrupts you. 《 I feel it too. Right now. Since the very first moment we met 》 Those words leave you speechless.

《 Are you joking?!》

《 No, (y/n), let me explain!》

He asks you to stop doing things and pay attention just with a gaze and after a moment you decide that there is nothing left. So why deny him a chance?

《 Shoot, Greg.》

《 It was something in your eyes. Like a sparkling light. I don't now how but... It was like looking inside my grandma glaze》

《 ....What the f-》

《 She was a psychic. As you are.》

This time is your turn to look at him surprised. You didn't see that coming and it's strange. You use to be very good in reading people.

《You inherited it, right ? Her gift?》 , is you next question. 《 Thats why you brought me to the department.... because you believed me》

《 Yes. That's the point.》

《 But why you are so dumb?》 The way you say this makes him smile a little. 《 No one ever believes this things! If your grandmother was a psychic you should know. First role: never tell the police you know someone's dead!》

《 She spent her life in Norway, is a little bit different in there.》

《Yes but you actually live here, asshole.》

This time, the both of you are smiling.

《 I don't want you to move away because of me, (y/n)》 , he tells you. 《 Help me and I'll help you in taking back your job or... find another one.》

You look cynic about that. 《 like what? Official Crime Scene Psychic? CSP?》

He giggles. 《 We can figure something out togheter...》

With a sigh, you nodd. 《 Than fine... What do you want from me?》

And you'll never forget his expression in this moment. So determinate. 《 Come with me on the scene of the abduction of Nina Foster. Let's bring her home. Lets solve this case togheter.》

#greg sanders imagine #greg sanders x reader #greg sanders fanfiction #greg sanders #csi fanfiction #csi crime scene investigation #csi imagine

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brokehorrorfan · 3 years ago

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4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 2 & Maniac Cop 3

Unlike most franchises that reach a third installment, particularly in the horror genre, the Maniac Cop trilogy comes from the same creative team: director William Lustig (Maniac, Vigilante) and writer Larry Cohen (The Stuff, Phone Booth), two icons of cult cinema. They also share several cast and crew members, most importantly the unmistakable Robert Z'Dar (Tango and Cash) as the titular baddie. They may not be of the same quality - more on that later - but there's a sense of consistency throughout. A notable disparity is their producers, distributors, and availability over the years. While a different company has the rights to the 1988 original, Lustig's Blue Underground owns both sequels. As such, they have arrived on 4K Ultra HD before the first film.

Following a gratuitous flashback that replays the final moments of the previous film, 1990's Maniac Cop 2 begins with a bang. An attempted robbery of a New York City bodega turns deadly for both the owner and the criminal after Matt Cordell - a wrongfully disgraced police officer back from the dead for vengeance - shows up. While Maniac Cop was quite ambitious for a $1.3 million movie, the second installment utilizes its increased budget of $4 million to go even bigger. Every cent is on screen, with more bloodshed, more explosions, more gunfire, more car crashes, and a hell of a lot more fire. The result is a rare sequel that eclipses the original.

Robert Davi (The Goonies) as the headstrong Lieutenant Sean McKinney and Claudia Christian (Babylon 5) as police psychiatrist Theresa Mallory are the new leads tasked with stopping the maniac cop. Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead) and Laurene Landon (It's Alive III) reprise their roles as officers Jack Forrest and Theresa Mallory, respectively, but they're unexpectedly killed off in the first act. Lustig and Cohen felt that their stories had already been told and utilized them for a Psycho-esque twist; certainly preferable to writing them out entirely. Campbell's charisma is difficult to replace, but Davi is an inspired choice and feels more like a cop. He goes full film noir, complete with fedora and trench coat. Christian seems to be less engaged in the material than the rest of her castmates.

Leo Rossi (Halloween II) chews the scenery as a serial killer who serves as the Igor to Cordell's Frankenstein. The unlikely pair work together to recruit an army of deadly criminals to lay waste to the city, including Clarence Williams III (Tales from the Hood). The impressive cast also includes Michael Lerner (Barton Fink), Charles Napier (Rambo: First Blood Part II), Robert Earl Jones (Sleepaway Camp), a background role by Danny Trejo (Machete), and a cameo from filmmaker Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead).

Following the example set by the first film, Maniac Cop 2 is an action-horror hybrid that doesn't skimp out on either. On the horror side, Maniac Cop 2 adopts the typical slasher sequel trajectory of placing more focus on the killer and giving him a higher body count. No longer merely lurking in the shadows, a chunk of the runtime is dedicated to Cordell's perspective. He's considerably more disfigured this time around, courtesy of a 1.5-hour makeup process by special effects artist Dean Gates (Maximum Overdrive, Phantasm III).

But the action steals the show. The French Connection-inspired car chases are anxiety inducing, none more so than the stunt in which a woman is handcuffed to the steering wheel of a runaway car from the outside. But the piece de resistance is the picture’s climax in which Cordell and his minions break into a state penitentiary to free death row inmates. What follows is one of the greatest fire stunts (or, more accurately, series of fire stunts) ever committed to celluloid. It's not just long but involved, with multiple people fighting while ignited, culminating with flaming bodies - not dummies, but stunt performers fully engulfed in fire - dropping from the seventh story.

1992’s Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence is part of the notorious pantheon of movies credited to Alan Smithee, a pseudonym adopted by directors who disown their films. In this case, Lustig quit during filming, with producer Joel Soisson (who went on to helm Children of the Corn: Genesis and Pulse 2 and 3) stepping in as first-time director to complete the project. Lustig had a myriad of reasons to leave, mostly stemming from the fact that the Japanese financiers refused to fund the original concept about a Black detective in Harlem. As a result, Davi was brought back for the lead role and production began with an incomplete script.

Although his name was cleared after dying for a second time at the end of Maniac Cop 2, Matt Cordell is resurrected yet again - this time via an occult ritual performed by a voodoo priest, Houngan Malfaiteur (Julius Harris, King Kong). With Cordell back on the streets wreaking havoc, Sean McKinney (Davi) also returns to stop him once and for all. A melodramatic subplot involving a wounded officer left in a vegetative state (Gretchen Becker) becomes increasingly important as the film embraces a Bride of Frankenstein motif; one that could have been really interesting if not so half-baked.

The messy plot often fails to coalesce, but with the context of the behind-the-scenes struggles, it's amazing Maniac Cop 3 turned out halfway decent. Even facing such limitations, Lustig is incapable of making a completely uninteresting movie. His brilliance shines through in several set pieces; they're just fewer and further between than usual. Attempting to one-up Maniac Cop 2's fiery conclusion, the climax features a lengthy car chase in which Cordell is on fire while driving a car and attacking an ambulance driven by McKinney.

While the underdeveloped story is the biggest issue, it's not the only one. The characters are less engaging, and many are tasked with delivering heaps of exposition. The action is subdued, with a couple of notable exceptions. It largely plays as a generic, forgettable slasher, often falling into the trappings of a direct-to-video B-movie. It's particularly disappointing coming off the strength of the previous installment, bringing the trilogy to a hasty conclusion.

Davi is always interesting to watch, but his character doesn't gel as well with the plot this time around. He’s often wasted by pining over Dr. Susan Fowler (Caitlin Dulany, Class of 1999 II: The Substitute). Z'Dar is also given less to do. Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen) steals every scene he's in as a junkie criminal. Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) has a small role as a rather goofy doctor; he has a fun scene with Paul Gleason (The Breakfast Club). The cast also includes Doug Savant (Desperate Housewives), Vanessa Marquez (ER), and a cameo by Ted Raimi (Evil Dead 2).

Both films have been newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision HDR and new Dolby Atmos audio mixes for the 4K Ultra HD releases, which also include a Blu-ray disc with the restoration and additional extras. As viewers have come to expect from Blue Underground's recent restorations, each picture receives a flawless presentation plus worthwhile extras. They also sound great, down to the infamous "Maniac Cop Rap" that rings in Maniac Cop 2's end credits. The first pressings include embossed slipcovers.

Maniac Cop 2 doesn't have any new extras, but the existing special features are munificent enough. The making of featurette really sings, with 47 minutes of anecdotes from all of the main players: Lustig, Cohen, Davi, Christian, Lerner, Rossi, Z'Dar, Gates, stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos, and composer Jay Chattaway (Maniac, Silver Bullet). Lustig discusses how he did not get along with Christian and details the inspiration of Jackie Chan's Police Story and The Thing from Another World on key scenes. It's also fun to hear both Davi and Z'Dar impersonate Lustig's distinct voice.

An audio commentary by Lustig and filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, The Neon Demon) is a fun listen. Refn has been developing a Maniac Cop reboot for years, but he largely serves as a moderator, prompting Lustig to share insight on the film, much of it dedicated to identifying what was shot in New York vs. Los Angeles. Other Maniac Cop 2 special features include a 2012 screening Q&A with Lustig, a deleted scene, four trailers (international, French, German, and UK teaser), and gallery of posters and stills.

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence boasts a new audio commentary by Alan Smithee - that is, Lustig and Soisson. With the hatchet long since buried between the two, they're able to offer a candid conversation about the troubled production, even poking fun at its faults. Lustig begins by noting how depressed he was from the start, as on the first day of principal photography he was replaced as the director of True Romance after a year of prep. They also touch on the original concept, noting how Cohen had already been paid so he had little motivation to write the script. Lustig also points out a couple of minor touch-ups he made to the film when overseeing the new transfer.

Maniac Cop 3 has a comprehensive featurette of its own, with Lustig, Cohen, Soisson, Davi, Z'Dar, Fowler, Becker, Razatos, and cinematographer Jacques Haitkin (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wishmaster). It's a fairly candid 25 minutes - with Lustig notably more negative here, circa 2013, than in the new commentary. Special features are rounded out by seven deleted/extended scenes, the theatrical trailer, a gallery of posters and stills, and the original synopsis used to sell the movie in 1991, which shows a considerably different take on the movie.

Maniac Cop 2 and Maniac Cop 3 will be released on 4K Ultra HD on November 16 via Blue Underground.

#maniac cop #maniac cop 2 #maniac cop 3 #robert davi #bruce campbell #blue underground #dvd #gift #review #article #horror #william lustig #larry cohen #claudia christian #nicolas winding refn

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iamalwayswatchingfilms · 3 years ago

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All films

All the films I’ve ever watched? I have too much time.

1902 A Trip to the Moon

1938 Bringing up Baby

1940 Pinocchio

1941 Dumbo

1942 Bambi Casablanca Cat People

1944 Curse of the Cat People

1950 Cinderella

1951 Alice in Wonderland

1953 Peter Pan

1954 Rear Window

1955 Lady and the Tramp The Ladykillers

1959 Sleeping beauty Some Like it Hot

1960 Psycho

1961 101 Dalmations Breakfast at Tiffanys The Parent Trap West Side Story

1962 To Kill a Mockingbird

1963 Lord of the Flies

1964 A Shot in the Dark Mary Poppins

1965 Juliet of the Spirits Sound of Music

1967 The Jungle Book The Producers

1968 2001 A Space Odyssey Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Night of the Living Dead Rosemarys Baby

1969 Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

1970 The Aristocats The Railway Children

1971 A Clockwork Orange And Now for Something Completely Different Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

1972 Aguirre, the Wrath of God

1973 Don’t Look Now The Exorcist La Planete Sauvage The Long Goodbye Paper Moon Robin Hood Tom Sawyer The Wicker Man Mean streets

1974 Blazing Saddles Swallows and Amazons Young Frankenstein

1975 Dog Day Afternoon Jaws Monty Python and the Holy Grail One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest Return of Pink Panther The Rocky Horror Picture Show

1976 Bugsy Malone Carrie Freaky Friday King Kong Pink Panther Strikes Again The Omen Taxi Driver

1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind The Island of Dr Moreau Suspiria Star Wars: A New Hope

1978 The Deer Hunter Grease Halloween Watership Down

1979 Alien Life of Brian Quadrophenia

1980 Airplane! The Blues Brothers Flash Gordon Friday the 13th The Shining Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back

1981 An American Werewolf in London Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

1982 Annie Blade Runner The Dark Crystal ET Poltergeist The Thing The Snowman

1983 The Dead Zone The Man With Two Brains National Lampoons Vacation Scarface Wargames Christine Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Videodrome

1984 Amadeus Footloose Ghostbusters Gremlins Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Karate Kid Never-ending Story The Nightmare on Elm Street Sixteen Candles Dune This is Spinal Tap

1985 Back to the Future Brazil Brewsters Millions The Goonies Re-Animator Room with a View The Breakfast Club National Lampoon’s European Vacation

1986 Aliens An American Tail Big Trouble in Little China Blue Velvet Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Labyrinth Little Shop of Horrors Stand By Me Platoon

1987 The BFG The Brave Little Toaster The Evil Dead II The Lost Boys Planes Trains and Automobiles Predator The Princess Bride Raising Arizona Withnail and I

1988 Beetlejuice Big Die Hard Heathers The Land Before Time My Neighbour Totoro Scrooged They Live Twins Who Framed Roger Rabbit Willow

1989 Back to the Future 2 Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure Do the Right Thing Honey I Shrunk the Kids Kiki's Delivery Service The Little Mermaid National Lampoons Christmas Vacation See No Evil Hear No Evil

1990 Edward Scissorhands Home Alone Kindergarten Cop Misery Tremors Wild at Heart The Witches

1991 The Addams Family Beauty and the Beast Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey Drop Dead Fred Naked Lunch Point Break Silence of the Lambs

1992 Aladdin Army of Darkness Candyman Ferngully Home Alone 2 Lost in New York Howards End The Muppet Christmas Carol Of Mice and Men Reservoir Dogs Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me Waynes World

1993 Addams' Family Values Groundhog Day Hocus Pocus Jurassic Park Mrs Doubtfire Nightmare Before Christmas Secret Garden True Romance

1994 Ace Ventura Pet Detective Clerks Interview with the Vampire Leon: the Professional The Lion King Little Women Miracle on 34th Street Pulp Fiction Reality Bites Richie Rich The Santa Clause The Shawshank Redemption

1995 A Little Princess Clueless Cold Comfort Farm Jumanji Mallrats Pocahontas Se7en Toy Story The Usual Suspects

1996 101 Dalmations Bottle Rocket The Craft Fargo Independence Day James and the Giant Peach Mars Attacks Matilda Trainspotting

1997 Anaconda A Simple Wish Austin Powers The Borrowers Cube Cure The Fifth Element The Game Hercules Jackie Brown Liar Liar Princess Mononoke

1998 The Big Lebowski Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Mulan The Parent Trap Ring Rushmore The Truman Show

1999 10 Things I Hate About You American Beauty Austin Powers 2 Being John Malkovich The Blair Witch Project Dogma Fight Club The Green Mile The Haunting The Iron Giant Matrix The Mummy Stuart Little The Talented Mr Ripley Toy Story 2 The Virgin Suicides

2000 Almost Famous American Psycho Battle Royale Chicken Run The Emperor’s New Groove The Grinch Help! I’m a Fish Memento Requiem for a Dream The Road to El Dorado The State I Am in Unbreakable

2001 Amelie Donnie Darko Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone Hedwig and the Angry Inch Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Jeepers Creepers The Lord of the Rings Monsters Inc Moulin Rouge The Mummy Returns The Others Princess Arete The Princess Diaries The Royal Tenenbaums Shrek Spirited Away Wet Hot American Summer Zoolander

2002 28 Days Later About a Boy Austin Powers: Gold Member Catch Me if You Can The Cat Returns City of God Dark Water Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Ice Age Ju On: the Grudge Lilo and Stitch Panic Room The Ring Scooby-doo Signs Spider-man Stuart Little 2

2003 Big Fish Bruce Almighty The Cat in the Hat Cheaper by The Dozen Elf Finding Nemo Girl with a Pearl Earring I Capture the Castle Kangaroo Jack Kill Bill Vol.1 Lost in Translation Oldboy Peter Pan Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl The Room Rugrats Go Wild The Santa Clause 2 School of Rock

2004 A Series of Unfortunate Events The Day After Tomorrow Dodgeball Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Finding Neverland Five Children and It Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Howl’s Moving Castle The Incredibles Kill Bill Vol. 2 Life Aquatic The Machinist Mean Girls Napoleon Dynamite Polar Express Scooby-doo 2: Monsters Unleashed The Secret Window Shaun of the Dead Shrek 2 Spider-man 2 Spongebob Movie Team America The Village

2005 The 40 Yr Old Virgin Batman Begins Capote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Cheaper by the Dozen 2 The Chronicles of Narnia The Corpse Bride The Descent Grizzly Man Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy House of Wax Kronks New Groove Madagascar Nanny Mcphee Robots Shark Boy and Lava Girl The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants V for Vendetta Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-rabbit 2006 Accepted Black Sheep Borat Charlotte’s Web Clerks II Deck the Halls The Devil Wears Prada Flushed Away High School Musical The History Boys Little Miss Sunshine Marie Antoinette Miss Potter Nacho Libre The Night at the Museum Over the Hedge Pan’s Labyrinth The Santa Clause 3 Southland Tales Tekkonkinkreet Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny This is England Wicker Man Wind in the Willows

2007 Blades of Glory Bridge to Terabithia Charlie Bartlett The Darjeeling Limited Eagle Vs Shark Evan Almighty The Golden Compass High School Musical 2 Hot Fuzz Hot Rod Hp Order Phoenix Into the Wild Juno The Mist Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium No Country for Old Men Ratatouille The Simpsons Movie Son of Rambow Spider-man 3 St Trinians Superbad There Will Be Blood Waitress Walk Hard Zodiac

2008 Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging Assassination of a High School President Batman: the Dark Knight The Boy in the Stripe Pyjamas Bronson Cloverfield Forgetting Sarah Marshall Let the Right One in Mamma Mia! Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Ponyo Role Models The Secret of Moonacre The Spiderwick Chronicles The Strangers Tropic Thunder Wall-e The Wave Yes Man

2009 500 Days of Summer Adventureland The Boat That Rocked Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Coraline District 9 Fantastic Mr Fox Funny People Hachi: a Dog's Tale Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Inglorious Basterds Jennifers Body Moon Mr Nobody Orphan The Road Splice Teenage Dirtbag Up Watchmen Where the Wild Things Are Whip It Zombieland

2010 127 Hours Alice in Wonderland Biutiful Blue Valentine Despicable Me Diary of a Wimpy Kid Easy a Gulliver's Travels Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Inception It's Kind of a Funny Story Kick Ass The Last Exorcism Let Me in Macgruber Megamind Remember Me Scott Pilgrim Vs the World Shutter Island Submarine Tangled Toy Story 3 True Grit

2011 Attack the Block Bridesmaids Cabin in the Woods Cowboys & Aliens Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules Drive Fright Night Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 The Help Hick Hugo Kill List Megan is Missing Red State The Skin I Live in Super 8 Tree of Life We Need to Talk Abut Kevin X-men First Class

2012 21 Jump Street American Mary Antiviral Avengers Batman: the Dark Night Rises Frankenweenie The Hunger Games Les Miserables Life of Pi Looper Moonrise Kingdom Paranorman The Perks of Being a Wallflower Pitch Perfect The Place Beyond the Pines Ruby Sparks Seven Psychopaths Sinister Stories We Tell Stuck in Love V/H/S The Watch Would You Rather Wreck It Ralph

2013 12 Years a Slave About Time The Book Thief Dark Skies Enemy Evil Dead How I Live Now The Kings of Summer The Lone Ranger Machete Kills Monsters University Night Moves Oculus Pacific Rim Palo Alto Prisoners The Purge Saving Mr Banks The Secret Life Walter Mitty Short Term 12 Shrek the Musical Snowpiercer Under the Skin V/H/S 2 We're the Millers

2014 22 Jump Street Annabellle As Above So Below The Babadook Bad Neighbours Big Eyes Big Hero 6 Bird Man Boxtrolls Comet Creep Ex Machina The Falling Gone Girl Goodnight Mommy The Grand Budapest Hotel Guardians of the Galaxy Interstellar Into the Woods It Follows John Wick Kingsman The Lego Movie Love & Mercy The Maze Runner Nightcrawler Paddington Pride Spring This is Where I Leave You Tusk Two Night Stand What We Do in the Shadows Whiplash Wish I Was Here X&Y

2015 Ant-man The Big Short Carol Demolition Departure The Final Girls The Good Dinosouar Green Room Hell House Llc Inside out The Invitation Jurassic World The Little Prince Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Mustang Our Little Sister Paper Towns Peanuts Movie The Revenant Room Sinister 2 The Stanford Prison Experiment Star Wars: the Force Awakens Suffragette Tale of Tales Turbo Kid Victoria The Visit The Witch

2016 10 Cloverfield Lane 20th Century Women A Cure for Wellness A Monster Calls Arrival Better Watch out The Bfg Captain Fantastic Deadpool Doctor Strange Don’t Breathe The Edge of Seventeen Everybody Wants Some Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them First Girl I Loved The Founder Free Fire The Fundamentals of Caring The Girl with All the Gifts The Good Neighbour The Handmaiden Hidden Figures The Hunt for the Wilderpeople I Am Not a Serial Killer Jackie Keanu Kubo and the Two Strings La La Land Manchester by the Sea Mascots Midnight Special Mindhorn Miss Stevens Moana Moonlight My Life As a Courgette The Neon Demon The Nice Guys Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Raw The Secret Life of Pets Silence Sing Sing Street Streetcat Named Bob Suicide Squad Swiss Army Man Tallulah Train to Busan The Void The Wailing War on Everyone Yoga Hosers

2017 A Ghost Story Baby Driver The Babysitter Baywatch Before I Fall The Beguiled The Big Sick Blade Runner 2049 Boss Baby Brawl in Cell Block 99 Brigsby Bear The Bye Bye Man Call Me by Your Name Captain Underpants The Death of Stalin Detroit The Disaster Artist Dunkirk The Endless Fist Fight The Florida Project Geralds Game Get out Good Time Happy Death Day Hot Summer Nights I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore It It Comes at Night I Tonya Jumanji The Killing of a Sacred Deer Kong: Skull Island Lady Bird Lego Batman Life Logan Logan Lucky The Man Who Invented Christmas Mary and the Witches Flower Mollys Game Mother! Murder on the Orient Express My Friend Dahmer Okja Paddington 2 Phantom Thread Please Stand by The Ritual Rough Night The Shape of Water Spiderman Homecoming Split The Square Star Wars: the Last Jedi Thor: Ragnarok Thoroughbreds Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri The Tribes of Palos Verdes Xx You Were Never Really Here

2018 A Futile and Stupid Gesture Alex Strangelove American Animals Annihilation A Quiet Place Avengers: Infinity War Bad Times at the El Royale The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Black Panther Blakklansman Bohemian Rhapsody Bumblebeee Calibre Cam Can You Ever Forgive Me? The Christmas Chronicles Christopher Robin Climax Crazy Rich Asians Deadpool 2 Eighth Grade The Favourite First Man Greta The Grinch Hereditary Hotel Artemis The Incredibles 2 In Fabric Isle of Dogs Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Leave No Trace The Little Stranger Love, Simon Mamma Mia Here We Go Again Mandy The Man Who Killed Don Quixote Mary Poppins Returns Mid90s The Miseducation of Cameron Post Mute Ophelia Overlord Pacific Rim: Uprising The Package The Polka King Possum Set It Up Shirkers Shoplifters The Slaughterhouse Rules Sorry to Bother You Spiderman: into the Spider Verse Strangers: Prey at Night Suspiria Tag To All the Boys I've Loved Before Tyrel Under the Silver Lake Vice Wildlife

2019 A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood Always Be My Maybe Animals Annabelle Comes Home The Art of Self Defence Avengers: Endgame Between 2 Ferns Booksmart Buffaloed Captain Marvel Color out of Space Come to Daddy Daniel Isn’t Real The Dead Don’t Die Doctor Sleep Dolomite is My Name Escape Room Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile The Farewell Fighting with My Family First Cow First Love Glass Godzilla: King of Monsters Good Boys Good Boys Halloween Honey Boy Honey Boy Hustlers In the Tall Grass The Irishman I See You Jay and Silent Bob Reboot John Wick 3: Parabellum Jojo Rabbit Joker Jumanji the Next Level Klaus Knives out The Last Black Man in San Francisco Late Night Lego Movie 2 The Lighthouse Little Monsters Little Women Ma Maleficent 2 Marriage Story Midsommar Missing Link Noelle Once Upon a Time in Hollywood The Other Lamb Parasite The Personal History of David Copperfield The Platform Pokemon Detective Pikachu Portrait of a Lady on Fire Ready or Not Rocket Man Saint Maud Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark The Secret Life of Pets 2 Shazam Someone Great Spider Man Far from Home Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker Sword of Trust Them That Follow Toy Story 4 Uncut Gems Us The Vast of Night Villains Zombieland Double Tap

2020: An American Pickle The Babysitter: Killer Queen Bad Education Birds of Prey Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Brahms: the Boy Ii Broken Hearts Gallery The Call Chemical Hearts The Devil All the Time Emma. Eurovision Song Contest: the Story of Fire Saga The Grudge Hamilton His House Hubie Halloween The Hunt The Invisible Man Kajillionaire The King of Staten Island Little Women Love and Monsters My Octopus Teacher The New Mutants The Old Guard Palm Springs Possessor Promising Young Woman Run She Dies Tomorrow Shiva Baby Spontaneous Spree Swallow Tenet The Trial of the Chicago 7 The Vast of Night We Can Be Heroes Zappa Zola

2021: Army of the Dead Army of Thieves Bad Trip Candyman Fear Street Part 1: 1994 Fear Street Part 2: 1978 Fear Street Part 3: 1666 Flora and Ulysses Free Guy The French Dispatch Love Hard Luca Moxie Pig Zack Snyder’s Justice League

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ot3-watch · 4 years ago

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Episode 2: The Homecoming Job

How does he make seven dollars a day that doesn’t seem remotely accurate

WHAT DO THEY GOTTA DO MAN? WhAT DO THEY HAVE TO DO?

This was so skeevy. DId he get shot up by accident? Did the Castleman guys just start shooting? Like what?

This poor Doctor. She’s so great, but she really should not have said “that’s not the way the world works.” That seems like such a challenge.

This is what I mean about the continuity confusion! Why would Hardison have to call them if Leverage was set up at the end of the last episode????

Sophie’s acting in the commercial audition wasn’t terrible. Weird for an audition, but not terrible.

Eliot’s so unfazed by having a gun pointed at him, I love it.

You don’t even SEE Parker I can’t

I don’t like stuff. I like MONEY

“I’m not gonna tell a couple of known thieves what i did with a multi million dollar payout” you so smart eliot

ARE WE NOT GONNA MENTION THAT HARDISON IS UBER ARTISTICALLY TALENTED

Parker’s so excited by mundane office stuff it’s adorable

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT IT NOT SEEMING LIKE ENOUGH MONEY FOR THIS WHOLE SETUP?

Eliot’s face at the sports. Hardison building stuff for him from day 1 it’s adorable

IT’S A VERY DISTINCTIVE SOUND!!! I LOVE IT!! SO IT BEGINS

I love how it all starts out so simple, just get the money it’s fine, and then they always end up like… toppling the entire corrupt system.

Where did Parker’s shower cap go in later episodes? Like… she’s a thief. The need for a leather shower cap likely would not disappear…

SOPHIE’S DRESS I LOVE IT

...It disgusts me that they can buy congressmen AND IT”S NOT EVEN ILLEGAL!!!

LIKE I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHY LOBBYING AND LARGE SUM CAMPAIGN DONATIONS ARE LEGAL

How does Eliot just… know what words have the necessary sounds?? How is he so smart? HOW IS THIS MAN A THING I’M IN LOVE

“Oh, there they are. Really loud too” I love her in this episode

I think Castleman is one of the WORST groups they’ve gone up against. Not in terms of like, bad for TV, but just in terms of them being super evil. The stolen money, the attempted murder, and things always feel even more disgusting when you include army contracters.

OH WAIT I UNDERSTAND WHY HE WAS SHOT I REMEMBER OKAY IT MAKES SENSE IT’S FINE

Did… Did Perry just grope Sophie? Are we going to just ignore that?

So, do docs and nurses really wear crocs that much? I thought good supportive sneakers would be more common

AVENGING ELIOT TO THE RESCUE!!

… where did nate just randomly find a defibrillator.

IT’S A VERY DISTINCTIVE STYLE

“...I actually hurt people… so…”

I FUCKING LOVE ELIOT SPENCER

I’m sorry, I doubt you’re reading these posts for endless heart eyes for eliot, but THAT’S JUST HOW I FEEL

SPEAKING OF HOW DOES HE LOOK SO HOT IN A DISHEVELED WHITE BUTTON DOWN

Sophie already trying to stop Nate’s drinking. Why did they just… forget to address it later? Like when he falls off the wagon in S2, no one cares anymore.

HOW IS SOPHIE SO PRETTY

Nate’s accent is terrible. Why is all their accent work terrible? WHAT DIALECT IS THAT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE

“Those are the same signs your wife is cheating on you” Or… just the signs that someone is trying to hide something from you? Like in general??

I always feel bad about the congressman’s cancelled wood panels until i remember how he got them and the lives at stake so he can have a nice house. It’s so icky

This whole law thing is so clever but is that really how it works?

I love that Hardison is already in love with Parker. I love it.

...The only difference between Sophie and a politician is Sophie doesn’t have the authority but makes up for it with having a moral code.

“I’m sorry it’s too far away for you to punch I’m sure that really frustrates you” I fucking LOVE HIM

What’s a better ship? The OT3 or Parker/Money?

...And another IYS reference. Should I start a tally? How many episodes they mention Nate’s past with IYS or Nate’s past with Sam? How many times they show that fucking Sam clip? I’m gonna start doing that at the end I think.

“WHat is it like a creepy contest?” CUE PARKER HEART EYES I CAN’T I LOVE THEM

Is the money story real? Like did the money transfer really happen? Because it sounds like it could be real, like i wouldn’t put it past them, but i really hope its not

... So I looked it up and there’s much more money in cash per person. Nate’s full of shit. (Or the writers just got bad info but I like blaming Nate more)

Why does this security guy look like a john cena wannabe i hate it

NATE AND SOPHIE’S DiSTRACTION IS INCREDIBLE. Can you imagine if they were a real couple though, and the guard was that fucking rude to them?

ELIOT’S HAPLESS SECURITY GUARD IS SO FUKING CUTE IM DEAD

What’s a better ship, Parker/Money or Parker/Explosions

WHY IS THE CONGRESSMAN WEARING A WHOLE ASS TUXEDO???

… Knowing what I know about black men and cops… why the fuck would they have Hardison driving the truck? I’m just saying that seems like a real easy and VERY AVOIDABLE way of getting him killed.

ALTHOUGH THIS IS THE FUNNIEST HARDISON SCENE

“This is about my eth-ni-ti-city? It’s because I’m Jewish?” AS A JEW THIS MADE ME DIE LAUGHING. I COMPLETELY LOST IT THE FIRST TIME I HEARD AND IT STILL MAKES ME CRACK UP!!!!

HE’S JUST SO FUCKING FUNNY

“JUSt cause a brother likes matzah ball soup? What’s wrong with that? Sammy Davis?” I CANNOT

ELIOT IN THICK RIMMED NERD GLASSES I LOVE IT

… why did they.. Not check the container number??? I’m so confused?? WHY ARE THEY SO STUPID???

The PR stunt they’re trying to pull right now… sleazy slimy

They switched the order of the accusations… like…

“We’re gonna lead with Crap.” politicians always do

...Technically, the money is stolen? Like… I’m not gonna say they don’t deserve it? But… it’s technically stolen

ELIOT HAS SO MUCH RESPECT FOR PERRY BECAUSE HE WAS ALMOST HIM

I’M CRYING DON’T LOOK AT ME

“One more” ELIOT YOU SOFTIE

“I bought a plant” PARKER YOU SOFTIE

“What does it do?” YOU’LL FIND OUT

The cherry red tesla is so over the top i hate it. I hate sports cars though so like

OKAY SO FINAL EPISODE THOUGHTS: 7/10. Characterization was much better. They seemed like more human people. Points off for Castleman becausE as gross as it is to kill people through negligence for money, it’s so much grosser to ACTIVELY murder them for money WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A LEGITIMATE BUSINESS AND HAVE GOVERNEMNT ASSHOLES IN ON IT LIKE I’M SO FUCKING DISGUSTED. Added points for the HUMAN HEART EYES EMOJI THAT IS ELIOT SPENCER. Points off for Perry kind of assaulting sophie AND FUCKING GETTING AWAY WITH IT. Added points for Parker being adorable. THis was one of the episodes that put me on the fence about her when i wa not in love with her.

IYS count: 2/2 Sam reference count: 2/2 (for the children’s hospital donation in the beginning)

#leverage #leverage rewatch #ot3 #leverage ot3 #eliot spencer #parker #alec hardison #nathan ford #sophie devereaux #the homecoming job

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gayenerd · 4 years ago

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An interview with music journalist Paul Zollo. I believe this is from 2000. I’m a sucker for Billie Joe talking about his songwriting process.

By PAUL ZOLLO

SEVEN STORIES ABOVE THE SUNSET STRIP in Hollywood is the Chateau Marmont, an old hotel rife with the ghosts and scandals of Hollywood’s recent and not-so-recent past. Famous for the elegant, old-world discretion it affords all its guests, for decades it’s been a safe harbor for stars seeking to circumvent the squall of media surveillance. It’s where John Belushi died, sadly, back in bungalow three, and where Jim Morrison wrecked his back by swinging Tarzan-like from the roof, using a drain pipe as a vine. Every star, it seems, from Chaplin and Bogart to Dylan and Lennon have hidden out here while in Hollywood. “If you must get in trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont,” Harry Cohn, the first boss of Columbia Studios, once told William Holden.

So it’s an appropriate setting for Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of Green Day, to be holding court. Armstrong and the band are no strangers to scandal – they’re the ones who started a mudfight that bordered on insurrection at Woodstock II; they’ve been outspoken about their fondness for drugs and alcohol; they’ve been especially harsh in their expressions of scorn for many other bands; and they’ve frequently “redecorated” hotel suites, bars and Tower Records stores alike with a flair for creative demolition that brings to mind the heady decadence of the Doors and others.

In fact, parallels between Armstrong and Jim Morrison abound. Like the leader of the Doors, Billie Joe is the creative catalyst of his group, but only writes within the fold of his fellow musicians. Like Morrison, Armstrong has been known to walk on the razor’s edge of life, bringing an authentic, expansive passion to every song he sings. He’s also been known to match his inclination to strip his soul bare in song by taking off his clothes in concert. The difference is that when Jim Morrison did it, all hell broke loose, the country was shocked and the singer was arrested. But when Billie Joe does it, he gets acknowledged on the MTV news, Kurt Loder smirks, and that’s about that. Being shocking these days is just not like it used to be.

‘It’s something unpredictable,

But in the end is right

I hope you had the time of your life.”

From “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)”

By GREEN DAY

Few things seemed more unpredictable than the thought that Green Day would have a Number One hit with a pretty ballad of all things. Even more unlikely would be that the song, officially entitled “Good Riddance” but better known as “Time Of Your Life,” would become as ubiquitous in the American consciousness as the Star Wars theme. Used on “Seinfeld,” two episodes of “E.R.,” and extraneous sporting events (as when Mark MacGuire became the king of baseball’s home-run derby), Green Day’s ballad quickly became more famous than Green Day itself.

“Good Riddance” now stands alongside Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”, Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” and Sting’s “Every Breath You Take,” as one of the nation’s most misappropriated hit singles. Like all of those songs, which are much darker if you examine their core than the mainstream ever seemed to recognize, “Good Riddance” actually comes closer to condemnation than the kind of nostalgic celebration for which it’s been used:

“Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial

For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while

I hope you had the time of your life. “

From “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)”

By GREEN DAY

Though Green Day’s presence on the world stage shifted from popular to astronomical because of this song, many of their old fans felt alienated by their secret heroes’ injection into the mainstream. “[`Time of Your Life’] was a drastic change for us to record,” Billie Joe said. “We knew that there were going to be some people that weren’t going to like it because it’s not a 1-2-3-4-Let’s-go-punk-rock tune. Mike [Dirnt] said, `This is a real beautiful song, who cares what people think?’ So we just went for it. Long term thinking, you know. Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a life-style. We’re just as much punk as we used to be.”

Of course, definitions flow fast and fluid, as purveyors of punk, such as Armstrong, play along the borders of pop. “A lot of punk rock bands are always trying to be so hard all of the time,” he said. “Macho brutality doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good songwriter. I think that some of the Beatles’ songs are way more punk rock than most punk songs written today. Like the song `Yesterday.’ It’s such a bittersweet song. “

Billie Joe was born in 1972 and grew up in Rodeo, a little Californian town just outside of Berkeley. His father and uncle were both jazz drummers. “I was a guitarist in a house of drummers,” he said. His father died when he was ten, the same year he met a neighbor named Mike Pritchard who shared his passion for making music. Together they decided to drop out of high school to start a band, which they called Sweet Children. It was a decision Billie’s mother encouraged. “My mom sort of let me do whatever I wanted,” he said. “When I quit school, she thought that was a good idea because I was really ambitious to play. So I started touring when I was seventeen.”

Pritchard changed his name to Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool replaced Al Sobrante as official drummer, and they called themselves Green Day, a Bay-area euphemism for a day spent smoking pot. Their first release was an indie EP called 1000 Hours, after which they signed with Lookout Records to make 39/Smooth and Kerplunk. In 1994 they ascended to the major leagues, signing with Reprise, and released Dookie. They soon became an MTV mainstay, and their mudstorm performance that year at Woodstock cemented their reputation as a band on the edge. Three more singles followed, as did sales of more than eight million albums worldwide, and a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Insomniac was released in the fall of ’95, but instead of going on a European tour as planned to launch it, they elected instead to stay home and write and record more songs. The result was the most popular, and most critically acclaimed album of their career, Nimrod, which included “Time Of Your Life.”

Warning was the new album at the time of this interview, and the impetus for Billie to talk. Inspired by the rich lyricism of Springsteen’s The River and Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, Green Day went away for a while to write and play the songs before recording them. It’s their first self-produced and most sonically adventurous album to date, blending layers of acoustic guitars in with the electrics, and with some unexpected detours, such as the German beer-hall stomp of “Misery,” and the Clash-meets-Kinks pop-punk of the title song.

“Caution police sign you’d better not cross

Is the cop or am I the one that’s really dangerous?

Sanitation expiration date question everything

Or shut up and be a victim of authority

Warning, live without warning…”

From “Warning”

By GREEN DAY

Today Billie Joe is ensconced within an overstuffed burgundy couch in his hotel suite. Although he’s drinking coffee from china cups, and eating fresh fruit and croissants from a silver tray, he’s remained loyal to the punk lifestyle, and is wearing a black t-shirt and baggy jeans. Prior to our talk, rather than linger in the luxury of his suite, he ducked down into the hotel’s bleak back stairway for a cigarette. Though he’s undeniably a star of the first degree, he’s uncomfortable with such designations, and shuns all the trappings of stardom. As opposed to the Ferraris and Lamborghinis driven by his peers, an old Ford Fairlane remains his vehicle of choice. He did admit to one extravagance, however, which he revealed somewhat sheepishly. “As soon as I could afford it,” he confessed, “I went out and had it primered.”

BLUERAILROAD: You write all the songs together in the band. Do you start songs on your own and bring them in?

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: Yeah, sometimes. I’ll come up with the song with the chord changes and the lyrics, and then I bring them into practice, and then we sort of restructure them together. I like to come in with a tune. I’ll just play guitar and sing it for them, and then we start to learn it. And as soon as we start to learn it, we can make changes and come up with a different structure. Move the chorus around, make the verse a little longer. That kind of thing. I definitely like to think of it as a collaboration between the three of us.

Do you always change the songs?

Well, we have a lot of songs. There have been some that I have brought in and nothing really needs to be done. Sometimes I’ll suggest a part that needs to be worked with, and we’ll try some different things. And then they’ll write their bass-lines and drum parts around it.

Do you ever have a problem sharing credit on songs you wrote alone?

Well, we’re a band. We’ve been able to stick through a lot of years because the three of us support each other. The songs come from Green Day, and I like to stick by that. We like to just keep things equal in the band, and I think it’s what has made our band healthy over the years. We give each other respect. There is no one who stands out more than the other one in this group. Especially since we’ve known each other for so long.

These days do you write on electric guitar?

No, on acoustic. I have a Silverine Harmony. But it sounds good. I just have it around the house, so I’ve written most of the songs on it.

Do those songs then shift a lot when you bring them to the band, and play them on electric?

No, because I always have it in the back of my head about the dynamics of electric guitar and drums and bass. Between me and Mike and Tre, I always have that dynamic in my head – what am I going to bring to the table that they’re going to be able to play, and which will have our certain energy. I always keep our energy and our music in mind, sort of subconsciously. But I think that’s the beauty of this. That not only can I play these songs with a band at full volume, but also that I can play them on a cheap, acoustic guitar. And it can have the same kind of impact.

“Warning” would work that way.

Yeah, it does. That kind of came all together at the same time. I think lyrics on this record were really important to me, and to have a well-rounded record as far as what kind of topics I wanted to write about, and sing about. That was one of those songs that seemed to just write itself. It just came really naturally.

Is that unusual for you, the feeling that a song writes itself?

Well, I try to go for inspired moments. But if I want to write a song that sounds like it has a pop kind of edge to it, I really want to be able to say something. I have to say something – it’s vital for me. I can’t just write something that would be sugar-coated, and have a pop song with nice lyrics that go along with what everyone is doing on the radio these days. It’s very important for me to have a message that goes along with the writing. So, you know, what comes to mind for me is a song like “The Ballad of John & Yoko,” where [Lennon] had this really nice sounding song. But the lyrics penetrate like a knife. “They’re gonna crucify me…” That’s kind of nice way — nice, I mean, in an oxymoronic sense – to put forward something you want to attack.

You’ve done that in many songs.

Yeah, I think it adds a sort of demented side a little bit, sort of like a clown in a circus. But it also makes the lyrics a lot stronger. If you take a band like Rage Against The Machine, the music is aggressive, and the lyrics are aggressive at the same time. And I love Rage Against The Machine, but sometimes it feels like you getting bombarded by someone’s else’s point of view. The person is not telling you to think, but what to think. And that’s one thing that I really wanted to come across in the music and the lyrics. To think about the world around you, and not what to think, so to speak. And at the same time, to have my opinions coming through at the same time.

Are you always clear about the meaning of a song while writing?

No. That’s hard. I mean, sometimes I’ll have things in the back of my head that I want to write about. But I never want to come across as pretentious or preachy. So I just wait for my thoughts to settle. To a certain extent, you have to be a little self-righteous and I think it’s healthy. Especially when, nowadays, there’s so much stuff that is about decadence. And when it comes to rebellion, a guy who has a Rolex watch and is driving around in a Porsche, talking about that he really wants something to break, I don’t really think of that as rebellion, I think of that just as a decadent rock star.

Do you have any kind of routine for songwriting?

Last record I was just sort of pounding songs. Anytime I had any inkling of an idea of anything at all, I would just grab my guitar and play it and work on it no matter what the song was like. Whether it was inspired or I just got drunk and started playing. But this time I waited for inspired moments. And I think it took me a long time just because of that. I wanted everything to sound refreshing, and something that would make you want to turn it up a little more.

Did you have times when you tried to work and nothing would come?

Oh yeah. You get frustrated. You feel, “Man, I just want to write a fucking song.” And sometimes it’s just not there. And you can’t dwell on that when that happens. You have to just let it go.

I don’t ever want to try to outdo myself. I feel like if you try to outdo yourself from the last thing, instead of just working on your inspiration, I think the music kind of suffers a little bit, sometimes. Sometimes I’ll just get a very general idea about the kind of song I want to write. And I’ll just sort of store it in the back of my mind and see what comes out. It can come out in five minutes, it can come out in five days, five years, five decades.

Are there songs you worked on for years?

Yeah. “Longview” was one that we worked on for years. We knew what we wanted to write about. I told Mike to write a bass line and one day I came home. This is when we lived in the same house. He had just dropped some acid (laughs) and he said, “Listen to this.” And I said, “Okay, I guess it sounds good.” He came up with this bass line that really worked well, so we ended up practicing and came up with the song.

Are there many songs you start that you don’t finish?

Yes. And I’ll just wait for the right time and the right place for it. There are some songs I finish but then I think it’s not right for the record we’re working on. There’s a couple of songs like that off of Nimrod. “Time of My Life” had been written a couple of years before.

That song resounded in enormously with the public. Was it just a fluke, or did you sit down with the intention of writing that kind of song?

Both. I think that anyone can sit down and write a song. Whether or not it’s any good is another thing altogether. You know, there’s no school you can go to that will help you learn how to become a songwriter. But you can sit down and do it. Especially with rock & roll. But to put something down that is actually really great, it does go beyond you a little bit, and sometimes it takes patience.

Do you write all the time?

Yeah. Whether it’s good or bad, I don’t know. Or if it’s appropriate for what kind of idea or sound that we want to get across on the record.

Where do you think the great songs come from?

I don’t know. I really don’t. It comes from somewhere deep down inside of you that you didn’t even know existed. It’s kind of like seeing a shrink or something. (Laughs) There can be a lot of anger, or sadness, or joy, that you had but you didn’t even know you really had – but it can all come out. You feel a connection with it, and so other people can, too. You strike a nerve.

Does songwriting get easier the more you do it?

I think so. I think you definitely learn more as you go. I think you find new ways to motivate yourself. You test yourself a little bit more and see what comes about. And you challenge yourself in new ways to see what comes out. You learn new ways to get the engines going. But whether or not it does get easier, it’s what I do. And I love doing it.

#'I don’t ever want to try to outdo myself'#HE'S SUCH A FUCKING LIAR #at least he knows the music suffers from it #BUT HE'S A GODDAMN LIAR #article #articles #interview #billie joe armstrong

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imreallyloveleee · 4 years ago

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thoughts on 4x09

- flash poll: do we think they chose “tangerine” as the trigger word just because it’s also the name of a movie and they (almost) always name the episodes after movies?

- this episode is all over the place, and it moves fast, and frankly none of it is very interesting except maybe Jughead discovering that his grandpa lives in that old abandoned bus the Black Hood tried to kill him and Ethel in last season (I stg that is the same set)

- but even then, there really is not much to say here? (she said, and then proceeded to type out another 1,000 words) the first scene is confusing because Jughead sounds like he’s reading the very end of a book but he was only supposed to write the first chapter. and Dupont is immediately like

and just gives him the contract out of nowhere. is this.........................part of the “kill Jughead” ploy? i genuinely can’t remember. you don’t need to answer this. i will find out eventually. or not, because riverdale drops plot points like it will need a trail of them to find its way back through the forest someday. moving on,

- maybe my brain is poisoned by capitalism (just kidding, it definitely is) but $5k to buy the rights to the Baxter Brothers in...let’s just say 1970? that’s about $35k today, and NOT BAD for a YA mystery novel written by a teenager. nobody knew it would go on to make millions. just like his useless son, I have zero sympathy for FP Jones I.

- speaking of his useless son, oh my god, how useless is FP Jones II??????? let me count the ways.

1. Archie says everyone is “too scared to call you, or the cops”, which, uh, FP is the cops, Archie. how sad is it that when Archie’s in need of a father figure, he goes to THIS guy, when Tom Keller is standing right over there looking dejected with a pair of boxing gloves slung around his veiny neck.

2. FP has camera footage of vigilante Archie punching bad guys in the alley next to his rec center, because these bad guys? Never go anywhere except the alley next to his rec center. Never. Not once. I think they literally live there. And yet FP and his cop force...can’t track them down. Too hard. Nay, impossible!

3. FP decides the solution is for him to join Archie in beating up a couple of bad guys in said alley, which accomplishes absolutely nothing, because DUH.

Look, almost EVERY problem in Archie’s life this season is because of FP Jones II’s incompetent law enforcement. The end.

- back to Jughead for a sec: the secret society initiation scene at the end is fun! they do a little fakeout with Bret holding the rock, like maybe this is the moment they’ve been flash-forwarding to. instead Jughead gets to use it to bash open a skull (parallels!). you just know that lil drama boi is eating that shit up.

- Pop tells Veronica the speakeasy lost its liquor license. When did the speakeasy get a liquor license?

- Veronica’s recruiter for Columbia comes to the speakeasy. Veronica is like, can’t talk, gotta sing this tepid rendition of an Elton John banger in front of a room full of adults who hang out in bars run by high school students, and give Casey Cott a chance to earn his paycheck this week

- Bettybettybettybettybettybetty. I don’t know. I just don’t know. This storyline sinks deeper and deeper into absurdity until the moment when Charles tells her she can kill Dark Betty before she was born, if only Good Betty can go back in her memory and stop Child Betty from braining her dying cat with a rock. it’s at that moment when this storyline becomes so deeply stupid that it actually transcends all earthly matters and achieves the sublime.

- finally, Cheryl. this girl needs to hook me up with her air purifier because one second she is filling her entire enormous living room with multiple bug bombs, and the next everything is a-okay. I would feel very safe hanging out indoors at Cheryl’s house in Covid times.

- Penelope says she punk’d Cheryl with Julian the doll because Cheryl was living in such happiness with the dead corpse of Jason, and Penelope was jealous. I am just going to set this down, and leave it there.

- Jasons’ viking funeral is incredible. Who set that blazing fire? it is NOT easy to build and start a fire like that. I bet it was Betty. you just know there’s some poor sap downstream taking his kid fishing for the day who’s going to stumble upon Jason’s half-burnt, half-rotted corpse in a little boat. this is like the first scene in a horror remake of A River Runs Through It.

- is there a more iconic duo than “Betty and Archie” and “never appearing onscreen together ever, because they have nothing to do with one another’s lives”? go ahead, i’ll wait

#loveleee rewatches riverdale season 4 #will i finish by january 20?#yeah i probably will #because i'm def not watching ep 17 or 18 lol #riverdale

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simsadventures · 5 years ago

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My Hunter Girl

Summary: Bucky tries to learn more about your lifestyle and decides to go on a hunt with you and your brothers, much to Dean’s and Sam’s excitement.

Warnings: Avengers x Supernatural crossover, fluff, vampires, mentions of death, implied smut, swearing

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x hunter! Reader, Dean Winchester x sister!Reader (platonic), Sam Winchester x sister!Reader (platonic)

Word Count: 2004

A/N: This is part II to My Girl miniseries of my favourite crossover. Hopefully, y’all will enjoy it as much as I did. Part III coming soon xx

This story was requested by @voltage-my2dlove. (I know I changed the request slightly, and I hope you won’t be mad, love!)

My Girl Miniseries__ Masterlist

Part I Part III Part IV

Your hair was splayed all over the pillow, and some of it even tickled Bucky’s cheek. It was yet another morning that the two of you woke up together in the bunker, trying to spend as much time together as possible, despite your crazy “schedules”. You were just glad Stark let Bucky use one of his planes because otherwise, you wouldn’t stand a chance in being together.

You knew it would be last night like this one in some time because there was this vampire hunt you and your brothers had to go take care of as soon as possible. You decided the night before that whatever was happening in Cody, Wyoming, had to be solved ASAP, because people were missing, and almost every other night, a new person appeared on the missing person list.

You rolled over to your side in the bed and watched Bucky, who still looked like he was in the land of the dreams. You couldn’t believe your luck, to be honest. Not only was Bucky a freaking super-soldier, and he looked like it, he was also incredibly smart, funny, and thoughtful. He would always come up with new ways to make you smile, even if it was just bringing your favourite breakfast to bed.

A gruff voice pulled you out of your thoughts.

“You watching me sleep, doll? Isn’t that kinda pervy?”

You giggled and swatted his chest lightly before you cuddled into Bucky’s side.

“Well, excuse me if I like to watch my boyfriend do pretty much anything, even sleep.”

Bucky hummed in his throat and kissed the crown of your head. “I like the sound of that, your boyfriend. I’m gonna miss you saying stuff like that while you’re on the hunt,” he mused, his eyes still closed, trying to catch as much relax as he could after the night of passion you two had.

“Why don’t you come with us?” You asked him incredulously, and his eyes shot open like never before.

“What? I’m not a hunter, Y/N, I’m a soldier. I wouldn’t even know what to do with a fucking vampire if he stood in front of me. And what about your brothers, huh? They don’t seem overly fond of me either.”

You laughed and kissed his chest, nuzzling your head in his warmth.

“If they didn’t like you, you wouldn’t be laying here right now, babe. My brothers can be very… unpleasant when they don’t like somebody. Trust me, you’re here means they’re fine with you. And besides, you’re a freaking Avenger, you can take on a nest of vampires with hunters like us. It’ll be fun! You’ll see what my job entails, and you’ll have a cool story to tell Steve and Sam. Just imagine Sam’s face when you’ll tell him that you killed a bunch of vamps!”

Bucky mused for a second, really thinking of his friends and what would they think but also at the fact that he could spend so much more time with you. On the way there, during the actual job, and getting back. He suddenly regretted having the plane. You could have driven there together!!

“Alright, fine! And since we have the plane, we can fly there and, you know, the job can be done so much faster, and we could be back here doing the things we’re so good at,” Bucky winked at you, and you couldn’t help it but laughed at him.

The only issue would be with Dean. You knew that taking the plane was a good idea, and you were confident that Sammy would be ecstatic about it, but you just weren’t too sure about Dean’s reaction. His relationship with his car, Baby, was out of this world, and you sometimes thought he went and slept in her instead in his own bed, just to not make her feel abandoned.

When you both were up and after breakfast, you finally caught a glimpse of your brothers. Both were in pretty good moods, you thought, judging by their joyful bickering.

“Boys? What would you say if Bucky went with us on the hunt?” You asked as happily and cheerfully as you could, trying to not give them a reason to say no to that.

They shared a silent conversation through their looks and the movements of their eyebrows, and despite growing up with them and being with them most of the time, you didn’t share this connection with them. So you just hoped the result of this conversation would be positive.

With a curt nod, Sam turned to you, and when you saw the glimmer in his eyes, you knew you won this round.

“Fine by us, at least we have more manpower, and from what we’ve heard, your boyfriend is quite capable of keeping himself alive, means we won’t have to worry about him.”

You beamed and squeezed Bucky hand which he slipped into yours while your brothers were debating in their minds.

“And another question, since that’s settled. How about we took Bucky’s plane? And before you start protesting Dean, let me just tell you this. It would suit us all, we can be in Wyoming in what, 2 hours, probably? And not the countless hours we would spend in the car, we can take care of this hunt so easily and be home to take care of other shit God decides to throw our way.”

Even though Dean’s face was stern and unyielding for unobserving eye, you could see his defences wavering. He was tired from all the driving even if he’d never admit it, and you knew that few more hours in his own bed sounded good even to his ears.

He grunted but shrugged his shoulders, looking straight at Bucky.

“Well, alright, pilot boy. Let’s get on the road, and take care of the shitshow in Wyoming so we can be home sooner. And may I just ask you not to do it with my sister in the kitchen, while her brothers are home? It’s pretty disgusting, man,” Dean growled as he walked past the two of you, and you had to hold in a giggle. You really hoped they wouldn’t hear the quickie you had a few nights ago, but with someone like Bucky, it was damn difficult to keep quiet.

The whole flight there, it was pretty much the same. Bucky would whisper some dirty jokes into your ear, only for you to blush heavily and snuggle closer to him, or kiss him passionately, which inevitably made your brothers cringe in their seats and grumble that they didn’t need to see any of this.

You would always shush them, which would only turn into bickering between the three of you. Bucky would watch it all with a smile on his lips, loving how relaxed you all were with each other, flipping fingers at each other and laughing uncontrollably at each other’s expressions.

Not that Bucky wouldn’t feel like that with Sam and Steve, but he knew that the bond you shared with your brothers was something else, and he was happy for you to experience something like this, even if he was a little jealous.

When you finally arrived, you divided into two teams. Your brothers went to the police station to find out if there were any witnesses or any evidence that you didn’t read about, and you and Bucky went into the morgue, to see if all those people who died in the last few days were truly people or if there were some vampires amongst them.

Bucky wasn’t really fond of the idea of seeing dead people willingly, but when he looked at you and saw just how engrossed in your work you already were, he left his doubts and thoughts behind.

He watched you intently everywhere you two went. The way your hips swayed a little more when you needed to catch some cop’s attention, or how you’d bite your lip when you were deep in your thoughts or buried in the books in front of you.

He would always have one hand on the small of your back, just a reminder for both himself and everyone around that you were indeed his, and that nobody should even try and come closer. Bucky was officially obsessed with you, and he just couldn’t stop falling harder than ever before. He knew you were it, but he didn’t know what to do.

Even during the hunt itself, while you were all covered in vamp blood with a machete in each of your hands, you were irresistibly hot to Bucky. All he wanted was to kiss you breathless and keep you hidden from the prying eyes, even if the eyes belonged to the recently beheaded vampire.

“She’s something else, huh?” Bucky heard, and when he turned, Dean was standing behind him, cleaning off his own knife.

“Yeah, she really is. You did a great job raising her, Dean. She is most definitely the best woman I’ve ever met.”

Dean smirked and patted Bucky’s shoulder freely.

“Damn right she is. She is a fucking Winchester! Look, I see you really like her, and by no means do I want to chase you away like all those other guys. You’re a good man, and my sister seems really happy with you. Let me just tell you, that the second you hurt her, and I mean even in the slightest possible way, we’re gonna chase you down and hurt you ten thousand times worse, understood?”

Bucky nodded slowly, and even though he was the super-soldier, probably one of the strongest people on this Earth, a slight fear crept in his heart. Dean Winchester was one scary motherfucker, that was for sure.

“Trust me, I would hate myself if I hurt Y/N.”

Dean nodded, and when he caught a glimpse of you marching towards them, he walked past Bucky with a small smile, yelling at Sam that they should put them on a pile to burn them to ashes.

“What was that about? You and Dean cool?” You asked, fearing to hear what you’ve heard like a million times. That your brothers intimidated somebody, you liked, and that person didn’t want to spend their time with you anymore.

This time, it would hurt even more because Bucky was probably the first guy ever you could see your future with. So you just prayed that Dean wasn’t a dumbass again and actually let you have something nice in your life.

“Nothing, just a friendly convo with your brother,” Bucky mumbled, and when he saw the slightly worried look on your face, he hugged you to his chest, despite your protest that you were disgustingly dirty.

“I’m not going anywhere, doll. I think your brother actually like me, just like you said this morning. I believe that if I ever bring you to him with as much as a broken fingernail, he’ll murder me in a way I advent even dreamt of, and I’ve been tortured by Hydra, but because I’m planning on taking real good care of you, I think we’ll be fine.”

You smiled so hard, your eyes watered, and your cheeks hurt.

“And you know why is that, doll?” Bucky whispered into your ear, sending shivers down your body and straight to your core. “Because I think I’m falling in love with you,” he added, and when you looked up at him, he was smiling like an idiot.

You laughed and jumped on him (and thank god for his reflexes, because your bump would really hurt if he didn’t catch you as fast as he did), and kissed him all over his face.

“I think I’m falling for you too, Bucky, how about we get home and I’ll show you just how in love I really am with you,” you said with a smirk, and you eared a throaty from Bucky. He slapped your ass and all but ran towards the plane, too excited to care about the groans coming from your brothers, following you two close behind.

Bucky Taglist

@this-kitten-is-smitten @paradisiacalsparks @crazybutconfidentaf @owlyannah @lassini @s-trawberryv-eins @reniescarlett

Marvel Taglist

@voltage-my2dlove @kneel-begyourpardon @lumar014 @ptrs-prkrs

Forever Tag:

@eileenalone @sasbb23 @p8tn0lish @coffeebooksandfandom @waiting4inspiration @caswinchester2000 @mogaruke @justthatfangirloverthere @mushyjellybeans @livsheph @sebbbystaaan

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arcticdementor · 3 years ago

Link

Part III of my series about the changing face of L.A. Click for Parts I and II.

I ended Part II with a look at how L.A. County’s Hispanics are habitual nonvoters. Let’s pick up seamlessly from there, in Compton. Compton used to be so black (over 85%) that at my high school we had a litany of “Compton so black” jokes.

…

Today, the birthplace of “gangsta rap” be not black at all. At last count (prior to the 2020 census), it was 68% Hispanic and 27% black, and I’d bet my house that the new figures will show that the Hispanic number has risen beyond 70% and the black has dropped below 25%.

Compton so Mexican its city hall’s a Home Depot parking lot.

Now dig this: In a city that’s roughly one-quarter black and almost three-quarters Mexican, of the eight elected officials (mayor, city attorney, city clerk, treasurer, and four councilpeople), only one is Hispanic. All the rest are black. And it gets better. That one Hispanic councilman won his election by just one vote, and our Soros-backed DA is prosecuting the guy for fabricating the one vote that put him over the top. Turns out the bean only ran because a black guy who’d lost his primary made a deal with him to run in his stead in exchange for giving the failed black candidate a lucrative city commissioner position if he won, and together they faked the winning vote.

Can you wrap your brain around that? The city is 70% Hispanic, and the only Hispanic council member, who only ran because a black dude made him, won by just one vote, and that vote had to be faked.

Get my point now about Hispanics not voting?

I mean, imagine a city that’s 70% black, but only one out of eight city officials is black. And then the county DA tries to nullify the vote that got that one black elected. There’d be riots! Neighborhoods would be burned to ash. Don Lemon would be screaming about “equity,” and the Biden Justice Department would be investigating the DA.

But Mexicans don’t care. They’re fine with letting the black minority pretend to be da Emperor Jones. That’s how little participatory democracy matters to them. And Dems have no desire to “enfranchise” Compton Mexicans because blacks are their most reliable and manipulatable minions. Never trade a slave for an independent contractor. Plus, as I discussed last week, when Mexicans do vote, it’s all over the map. As Newsweek contributor Richard Hanania pointed out regarding polls that show California Hispanics divided 50/50 on the Newsom recall (blacks are 65/35 against it), “I feel like it’s fun living in a state with many Mexicans because you get a wildcard aspect to politics. Keeps things exciting.”

…

So what we know is that Mexi voting ambivalence is resilient. Would it be equally resilient to rightist coercion? Who knows; no rightists out here are testing the waters. The Hispanic rejection of affirmative action was due in large part to a general dislike of blacks. And in February when the black- and Jew-run L.A. school board defunded all campus police and redirected the $25 million LAUSD security budget to a program to fund the education of only black students, the discontent among L.A. Hispanics was palpable. Blacks make up barely 8% of LAUSD students (Hispanics comprise over 70%). Hispanic Twitter exploded with fury over the “black-only” payday coming at the expense of campus security, and the L.A. Times was forced to admit that Hispanic support for campus cops was massive, especially compared with support from non-Hispanic whites (a whopping 67% to 54%).

So did our local “Republicans” try to make hay out of that? Of course not, because to do so would risk offending blacks, and the GOP establishment has sworn a blood oath that it shall never allow itself any forward motion that might jeopardize its (zero) chance of “winning the black vote.”

There could literally be one black man left in L.A., and the GOP would sacrifice everything for his favor.

…

So, our Mexicans are untested, and our rapidly decreasing blacks, our gradually increasing Asians, and our moneyed and influential secular Jews are a lost cause. What about our non-Jewish non-Hispanic whites?

Ay yi yi, they’re the woist of all. The leftist ones represent the bottom of the barrel of self-hating “please genocide me before I enslave again,” “I hope my son goes tranny so that my foul DNA might dead-end with my progeny’s amputated penis” wastes of space. The mostly non-Jewish white upscale deep-blue city of Manhattan Beach, for example, is filled with self-flagellating WASPs who spend their time trying to make their safe city less safe by “giving land back” to blacks who were supposedly racisted out of town in the 1920s.

And now Manhattan Beach is regularly visited by black criminals, from serial rapists to boardwalk thieves to a home-invasion attempted murder just a week ago. I’m sure the guilt-ridden Robin DiAngelos of Manhattan Beach excuse these crimes as justified reparations owed to noble negroes.

…

Worse still, our “rightist” whites—those who choose to be activists—are just plain batshit crazy. Our MAGAs are violent, self-destructive, foolish, and dim-witted (I’ve covered this before, and I’ll be revisiting it next week in a column that’ll post on the eve of the gubernatorial recall).

…

In largely red Beverly Hills (and surrounding Westside areas), the Persian, Israeli, and Orthodox Jews, who are not suicidal, are holding the line against the violent crime and property crime that still disproportionately come from blacks (ironically, as the county’s black community shrinks, the thugs are forced to venture beyond their comfort zone in search of victims, rather like how bears become more bold as their natural habitat shrinks). But what of the areas that are largely Hispanic? Well, our Hispanics (as the Times pointed out) have a more positive view of police than our whites. That’s something often overlooked by those who claim to study criminality in racial or ethnic groups. It’s never just about criminality; it’s also about acceptance of policing. Whites who dismantle the criminal justice apparatus are as much to blame for rampant criminality as low-IQ thugs. Portland is an example of how poisonous such whites can be; violent crime in that city isn’t the result of a huge population of blacks but a huge population of self-hating anti-cop whites.

…

Our Hispanics occupy a middle ground: between black and white on the criminality scale (not as high as the former, not as low as the latter), but better than both groups on acceptance of policing. Half of L.A.’s cops and sheriff’s deputies are Hispanic, and our sheriff, Alex Villanueva—an unapologetic kick-ass crime fighter—survived the George Floyd purge last summer because his fellow Hispanics backed him against the blacks and whites who sought his ouster.

A county can weather criminality if it allows rigorous enforcement. L.A. had a lower murder rate than it does today back when there were more blacks but also more enforcement. Now that blacks, leftist whites, and secular Jews have decided that enforcement equals genocide, the last hope for the county lies with the Westside Persian/Israeli/Orthodox Jews and the Eastside beans.

There’s a logic to this, as those groups mingle more than you might think. Be it as nannies, gardeners, construction workers, warehouse personnel, or restaurant staff, the Westside is where many Mexicans go to work every day.

As one of those Westside Jews (though an outlier, as I’m “red” without being Persian, Israeli, or Orthodox), I would absolutely throw in with the beans as opposed to the leftist whites or the MAGA whites. Both groups, like blacks, have become suicidal. And suicidal people are dangerous.

Yes, Mexis have gangs, and you don’t want to walk down certain Eastside streets at night. Big shit; no one has reason to except those who live there. In the 1970s those areas were worse when they were black.

But Mexicans do the scut work around here, they don’t riot when one of their own is arrested (indeed they arrest their own), and they aren’t dangerously self-destructive.

I’ll take it.

Not that I have a choice; it’s the way it’s gonna be, demographically, whether I like it or not.

But it’s not the worst-case scenario, or even the second-to-worst. And these days that’s good enough.

#david cole #taki's magazine #los angeles #compton

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365days365movies · 4 years ago

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January 3, 2021: Cliffhanger (1993)

Sylvester Stallone.

The Italian Stallion here is one of the most prominent action movie stars of the ‘80s and ‘90s, coming to prominence with Rocky in 1976. And before we even start this review, here’s the deal: I refuse to make fun of the man’s iconic voice. Yeah, I get it, we’ve all shouted “YOADRIAAAAAAH!” at some point, but his voice and face is due to a botched birth, which pinched a nerve and caused permanent facial paralysis. We all got something, and I’m not gonna target him for it. It’s been done enough.

I also can’t really comment on his acting ability. Why? Well...OK, some confession time. I’ve BARELY seen Stallone in a film. That’s going to be fixed this year, as I’ve added many of his films to the list for 2021. So, what have and haven’t I seen? Let’s start with haven’t, shall we?

I haven’t seen:

Rocky (1976): Sports November

Rocky II (1979): maybe Sports November

First Blood (1982): later this month

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992): Please. Please don’t make me.

Cliffhanger (1993): Give it a minute.

Demolition Man (1993): Science Fiction September

Judge Dredd (1995): maybe Science Fiction September

The Expendables (2010): later this month

I have seen:

Tango and Cash (1989): Dumbass buddy cop movie with Stallone and Russell; 2/5.

Antz (1998): Sub-par Dreamworks rip-off of an already kinda sub-par Pixar movie; 2/5

Spy Kids 3: Game Over (2003): Yeah...I saw this in theaters, on my birthday. I saw everything in red and green for, like, an hour afterwards. Worth it. 2/5.

Rocky Balboa (2006): Somehow, this is the only Rocky movie I’ve seen, Creed included. And from what I remember, it was fine. 3/5.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017): The ONE good Stallone movie I’ve seen, and it isn’t even a Stallone movie. 5/5.

So, yeah, I haven’t seen any good Stallone movies, sans the one. But now, some of you are probably asking another question: “Why Cliffhanger? You literally haven’t seen any major Stallone movie, so WHY CLIFFHANGER?”

First of all, I think everybody’s kinda slept on this movie. It was a big success back in the day, but people have basically forgotten it at this point. You’ll see in this review that there aren’t even many GIFs from the movie made, and it wasn’t easy to find enough clips to make my own, honestly. Does it deserve to get slept on? I mean, we’ll see, right?

Secondly, I just watched a Tom Cruise movie where he dangles off of a rope, and I liked that, so why not do that for the next one, I guess! And third...honestly, I saw this on the list, and it kinda just spoke to me. It called to me, like a boxer calling to his love. Hey, look, a reference to a movie I’ve never seen. We’ll get there. We’ll get there. Oh, and SPOILERS from here on out, by the way.

Recap

We start on a cliff. Surprise.

Michael Rooker (y’know, Yondu from Guardians of the Galaxy) is hanging out (HA!) with his girlfriend Sarah on a cliff called the Tower. Y’know, third date kinda stuff. First date is dinner, second date is dinner and a movie, and third date is free-climbing up a cliff to your near death. Well...near is a strong word…

ANYHOOOO, We meet Gabe, played by the big man himself, Sly Stallion, who’s a rescue ranger in the Rocky Mountains. So, Rocky, the Rockies Rescue Ranger is sent to save Yondu and Sarah. Unfortunately...someone forgot to check the equipment before the rescue mission…

Not gonna lie, this scene is actually heart-wrenchingly tense. And the ending...well, if you’ve seen Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls...you know what happens here. And it’s actually somewhat traumatic, for Gabe and for me. Seriously. It’s a roughie.

Cut to almost a year later, and Gabe is...NOT OK. He and his wife, Jessie (who is a pilot for the Rescue Rangers, and was there when Sarah fell), have been separate, and Gabe just can’t do it anymore. And I get it, honestly. That was a hard experience, losing someone and blaming yourself. And no, it wasn’t Gabe’s fault. But to add insult to injury, he has NO SUPPORT SYSTEM. His wife doesn’t seem to understand, his former best friend Yondu hates him (getting GotG Vol. 2 flashbacks), and he’s basically all alone. Geez. You guys are jerks.

Meanwhile, a plot is afoot! And hey, it’s Tripp from CSI: Miami, AKA Rex Linn! I always liked him, so it’s cool to see him in other roles. Turns out, though, that Tripp is working with a group of thugs to steal from the US Treasury. This villainous group of 8 thugs is led by John Lithgow, AKA Lord Farquaad from Shrek, who is channeling Hans Gruber from Die Hard, and trying super-hard on that British accent. Anyway, after a pretty great mid-flight action sequence, the group of thugs loses 3 suitcases of money, amounting to millions. In the process, they also lose Expendable Thugs #1 and #2. This will be a trend.

The thugs crash their plane into the mountain, killing Expendable Thug #3 in the process. They stage a rescue situation to get some expert mountain climbers to help them find the money. Jessie, after having just told her hubby to suck it up like a big boy (I don’t really like Jessie, by the way), begs him to help find these people. Reluctantly, he agrees, and has a tension filled reunion with his former best friend, who blames him (unfairly, in my opinion). That animosity disappears as soon as they find themselves held hostage by the thugs. And so, the money hunt begins!

First suitcase is on a cliffside, and Stallone goes to get it. Some shenanigans quickly ensure, and the thugs shoot at him. An avalanche occurs because these dumbasses have never seen a movie, and in the process, we lose a suitcase of money, Expendable Thug #4 goes the way of Sarah, and Gabe is presumed dead. Farquaad tells Yondu to tell his coworkers that everything is fine, and he’s gonna stay on the mountain to ride out the storm. Which is #5 in the list of “moments in this movie where I would 100% die” I grew up in a warm climate, this is not a comfortable hypothetical situation for me.

Anyway, our intrepid team of criminals takes Yondu to find the next suitcase, while Jessie and Gabe separately make their way to the cabin that Yondu was talking about. They catch each other up, and they can’t contact the main office because...Jessie’s radio died in the cold? You...you work amongst mountains as a rescue officer for stranded hikers. That’s the best excuse the writers came up with? Why the hell didn’t she bring a better radio? They HAD to have spares, right? RIGHT? Geez, no wonder you needed Gabe’s help.

The tracker, with its marvelously outdated computer graphics technology (IT’S A UNIX SYSTEM IKNOWTHIS), leads the thugs to the next package, but not before Gabe and Jesse get there! Gabe leaves a ransom note for the money, holding it hostage. This eventually leads to a nighttime chase in the snow, leading to Expendable Thug #5 going The Way of Sarah.

By the way, it’s also at this point that I notice that it is VERY bright...for being in the middle of the mountains at night. And I get it, you can’t exactly have your movie be shot in darkness, but...look at this.

Like...wow. That’s the fakest outdoor shot I’ve ever seen. I guess I’m glad it isn’t a day-for-night shot, but...yeah. Wow.

Jesse and Gabe find themselves in a cave full of the cutest goddamn bats I’ve ever seen. This is supposed to be a harrowing experience, but simply makes me jealous. They’re fruit bats, by the way, and they’re also WAY too high up, altitude-wise. At least, that’s what I assume. I’m a bird-guy, not a bat-guy. Eventually, they make it out of the cave after Stallone does some free-climbing...loudly. Loud enough for the super-violent, sociopathic, knife-and-gun-loving Expendable Thug #6 to hear them. And that’s when Gabe ICE-PICKS HIM IN THE LEG DAMN

Understandably pissed, and not as understandably still walking around without crying (#6 in that list of me-dying moments), the thug finds and beats the SHIT out of Gabe, handily. But then, he calls Jessie a bitch, and Gabe is, above all things a feminist. Which leads to him, and read this CLOSELY:

This leads to Stallone, bloodied and beaten, PICKING THE THUG UP OVER HIS HEAD, AND IMPALING HIM ONTO A STALACTITE. Not a stalagmite, a STALACTITE. HOLY SHIT!.

Well, Expendable Thug #6 is dead, there’s a bomb on the mountaintop, Jesse almost goes The Way of Sarah, and Frank (another guy who works with them, don’t know if I mentioned him) gets lured into a trap where he gets killed. An “Aww” moment from me; I liked Frank, he seemed like a really nice guy. This eventually leads to Farquaad and Tripp out-crazy-ing each other, and Farquaad winning by killing Expendable Thug #7, who does not go The Way of Sarah (blessed be her fall).

Gabe finds the remaining money, while Tripp, Yondu, and Expendable Thug #7 get there just after. Tripp leaves, and Yondu then delivers my favorite line of the movie:

Oh, sorry, no, it’s, “In a minute, I’ll be dead. You will always be an asshole.” Thug #7 beats the shit out of Yondu, I get flashbacks to GotG 2, and Thug #8 goes THE WAY OF SARAH, BLESSED BE HER FALL. Tripp finds the tracker without the money, and officially loses it, outing himself and Farquaad to the government officials who FINALLY get here.

Tripp finds Gabe, they make their way to a frozen mountain lake, and Gabe SHOOTS TRIPP FROM UNDERNEATH THE ICE. That shouldn’t have worked for many reasons, but that was cool, so fuck it. Now, it’s just Farquaad, BUT HE HAS JESSIE! OH NOOOOOOOooooooo.

This whole thing culminates in a tense, cool chase sequence between Gabe and Farquad in the helicopter. The helicopter crashes into the mountainside, and the two fight while on the helicopter, which is now hanging from the cliff.

Oh. Oh, I get it.

This inevitably leads to Farquaad and the helicopter going, of course, The Way of Sarah. Blessed Be Her Fall. #BBHF.

And that’s it. Our three heroes are, themselves, rescued by the government agents, and we pan away from the cliffside, as the credits roll. Boom. Cliffhanger.

Stay tuned for the epilogue, which contains the review!

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Batman ’89: What Happened Next in the Burtonverse After Batman Returns

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This Batman article contains spoilers.

Tim Burton’s original vision for Gotham City and the Dark Knight are returning to the forefront of the DC Universe in more ways than one this year. Not only is Michael Keaton back in the cape and cowl for The Flash movie, which is currently filming in the UK for a late 2022 release, but DC is also releasing a sequel comic to Batman ’89 this week. No, this isn’t Batman Returns but a brand new continuation of the Burtonverse from Batman ’89‘s original screenwriter Sam Hamm and artist Joe Quinones that “pulls on a number of threads left dangling” by Burton, all while recreating the singular look and feel of the movies, down to Keaton’s iconic Batsuit and Batmobile as well as all of the cool gadgets and Gothic architecture.

This six-issue miniseries is a big deal — not just for fans of the Burtonverse and Keaton but for the creators themselves. You may already know the story of how “Batman II” eventually became the divisive Batman Returns: after delivering a box office smash, Burton and Hamm were quickly tapped to make a sequel, but the filmmakers disagreed on the direction the next movie should take, leading to the director replacing Hamm with Daniel Waters (Heathers), who churned out something much darker and sans Robin, the Boy Wonder. With the Batman ’89 comic, Hamm gets to finally deliver his own take on what happened next.

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As for Quinones, this comic wouldn’t exist without his designs for the book, which he originally pitched to DC in 2015 with writer Kate Leth. Revealed on his blog in 2016 were designs for Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face, the debut of Batgirl and Marlon Wayans’ Robin (finally!), and even the return of Catwoman — all of which will finally come to pass in the new miniseries, according to DC Comics.

But how are all of these big moments set up in the comic? Batman ’89 #1, out this week, begins to set the stage for an interesting new future for the Burtonverse. Spoilers ahead…

Batman ’89 picks up after both Burton movies, effectively the director’s “Batman III” if such a wonderful thing existed. After the Joker’s death and Penguin’s demise, things in Gotham City are worse than ever, as the Dark Knight’s crusade seems only to lead to more crime. We’re treated to chaos on the streets from the opening panels of the book, which are set on Halloween night, as the remnants of the Joker Gang and Penguin’s Red Triangle Gang loot stores, mug citizens, and attempt to hijack two armored cars full of cash with a cargo helicopter. In fact, it’s after the Caped Crusader thwarts the Joker Gang’s helicopter, sending it crashing into a building, and leaving several citizens dead or critically injured and millions of dollars in damages, that Gotham DA Harvey Dent decides he’s had enough.

Meant to evoke the endless charm and swagger of Billy Dee Williams, who played the character in the first movie but didn’t return for the sequel, Dent is finally given the spotlight he deserved decades ago. In Batman ’89, he’s a man on his own crusade.

After Dent watching the destruction and chaos of the opening panels from the streets after a romantic dinner with GCPD Sergeant Barbara Gordon, whom he’s just proposed to (!), he decides it’s actually the Batman’s reign of terror that needs to be stopped. Dent thinks it’s a vigilante operating outside of the law that has bred even more crime and death in his city. Although Batman swore to protect Gotham in his letter to Dent at the end of the first movie, the violence that’s erupted in his wake has left the city under siege, forcing the National Guard to come in to patrol the streets. A curfew has been put in place, while the soldiers hunt down the Batman.

The first issue raises some big questions about Keaton’s Batman that would have made for captivating big-screen drama. Early on, the comic asks whether the Dark Knight is ultimately doing more harm than good in Gotham, where citizens now dress up as Batman or the Joker and fight each other in the streets. But a grumpy Bruce Wayne (he’s also graying) stubbornly stands by his convictions during a meeting with Dent, who visits Wayne Manor to ask for Bruce’s help in taking down the Batman. Like in the movies, the duality of the character of Bruce Wayne is front and center in the comic, with the billionaire befriending people in power during the day while working against them as Batman at night.

The book also plays up Wayne’s friendship with Dent because it will likely be a key factor in Dent’s transformation into Two-Face. While the beloved district attorney is still one of the good guys by the end of the first issue, the ingredients for Dent’s fall from grace are already in place. There’s the trick coin he uses to make his own luck (given its own origin story that beckons back to Harvey’s childhood in the streets of Burnside), his marriage to Barbara Gordon that will likely never come to pass, his anger at Batman and Bruce (who is hesitant to help Harvey), and the way he threatens two Joker thugs with a gun — although he’s only trying to scare them, we see that the district attorney is willing to get his hands dirty, not unlike Christopher Nolan’s own version of the character.

How does Dent’s war on Batman begin? By deposing the Caped Crusader’s greatest ally in Gotham City, Commissioner Jim Gordon (resembling Pat Hingle). Gordon faces a vote of no confidence after the violence on Halloween, while Dent and Detective Bullock try to lure Batman into a trap with the Bat Signal, which has to be repaired every couple of weeks because beat cops keeps smashing it. No, Batman doesn’t have many friends left without Gordon. We do see their friendship flourish after two movies-worth of crime-fighting, though. The comic even addresses Gordon’s connection to Bruce’s origin story, which feels like a nod to what Keaton hoped would be the subject of Batman III if it had happened.

By the end of the issue, Batman is once again a wanted man in his own city, and when he runs afoul of another major character, he finds himself directly in the National Guard’s crosshairs. Yes, the issue sets the stage for the debut of the Burtonverse’s Robin, who ambushes the Dark Knight while protecting another kid who stole diapers and baby food for his little sister.

Here is the most direct connection to Hamm’s script for Batman II and what would have been Marlon Wayans’ portrayal of Robin, as well as the book’s most intriguing reinvention. In Hamm’s screenplay, Dick Grayson is introduced as a young Black orphan surviving in the streets with the help of his martial arts skills. In the comic, Grayson has donned his own disguise — a hooded black cape and a yellow face mask — to help the poorest of Gotham, and there are some interesting elements at play here that I would have liked to see on screen, especially the depiction of Robin as a hero trying to save those that the Batman seems to forget while fighting flamboyant villains and stopping heists in Gotham’s more affluent neighborhoods.

Some readers have long criticized the character as not only an example of “copaganda,” despite all the crooked police officers working in the GCPD, but also of a very wealthy guy beating up and maiming poor people. Robin’s debut as someone fighting for those Batman’s war on crime neglects seems like a way to talk about (or at least acknowledge) some of the deeper systemic issues in Gotham that the Caped Crusader can’t fight with his fists. This examination, coupled with Dent’s own crusade, even as worries that he needs to “hide his real face” to fit in with the elite and affect change for places like Burnside, would have been revolutionary back then and feels more relevant than ever now.

It remains to be seen whether the six-issue miniseries will really lean into this type of commentary, but issue one is a promising start for a modern reinvention of the Burtonverse, even as it packs in the nostalgia and imagines what could have been had Keaton’s Batman been given a trilogy.

The post Batman ’89: What Happened Next in the Burtonverse After Batman Returns appeared first on Den of Geek.

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lovehugsandcandy · 5 years ago

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Take Me Back to Places I Feel Loved In (Colt x MC, N*FW)

A/N: Title from “Boston” by Dermot Kennedy (along with the line “wandering ‘round in cities I feel lost in”). Longer A/N inside.

Pairing: Colt x MC, ROD

Length: 5275 words

Rating: N*FW (But a pretty light N*FW, at least. Swearing. Sexytimes.)

Summary: 5 times Ellie wasn’t alone for the night; 1 time Ellie wasn’t alone anymore.

A/N: I’m sorry, I have been really behind and out of touch and just going through some shit so, if I missed something you sent me or an ask or a message or anything, I am so so sorry. Also, this feels like every story I have ever written but I can’t think of anything new and I’m sorry for that too. And also, 5+1 stories are apparently my jam because I like the structure cuz I can’t figure it out on my own and I’m sorry for that as well. This is my “I am dreadfully, existentially alone” piece, so I apologize for that too.

“It’s just me.”

She breathed out a sigh of relief and flopped back against the bed, heart rate slowing from the petrified beat it hammered. She knew that voice like she knew her own name. She had wondered if she would ever hear that voice again.

It had been over a year since her terrifying race down the 405, over a year since Jason was put away and Hester and Wallace fled, over a year since her first day at Langston where she was thousands of miles from the corrupt cops and gangs of thieves in her past.

And yet, she never stopped looking over her shoulder.

Was it because she was afraid of what was behind her? Or was it because she wanted to see something that was never there?

And now, the summer after her freshman year, holed up in her childhood bedroom in her dad’s house, the room she knew better than any other place in the world, the room that no longer felt like home, her bedroom door opened. And in walked her past in flesh and blood.

“What time is it?” She rubbed her eyes, watching him shut her door. Without the hallway light, it was almost pitch black in her room, only slight glow from her laptop illuminating his sharp features as he sat in her desk chair to undo the laces on his boots.

“One.”

“What are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer, just finished taking off his boots and slipping his jacket onto the back of the chair, a hardened figure next to her desk, next to her science fair trophies and high school photo collage, the two parts of her life in sharp contrast. She inhaled when he dropped his elbows to his knees and cradled his head in his hands, head bowed in a way she had only seen once before.

“Colt…” She pulled the blanket back, sliding against the wall to make as much space as she could. “Colt, come here.”

He undid his jeans, belt buckle falling with a clank onto her rug, and made his way over, bed sinking under his weight. It was tiny, mattress perfect for a child but crowded with the weight of two troubled adults and a horrifying past that left scars both visible and broken wide only in the province of nightmares. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close, and he buried his head against her chest, burrowing against her as if she could provide some kind of solace from his world. She pulled the blanket over him link a cocoon, a minuscule hideaway where she could pretend that nothing existed outside this tiny bed and tiny mattress in her childhood bedroom.

“What happened?”

He only shook his head as she ran her fingers through his hair, soothing strokes that she hoped transmitted some comfort.

“Colt, my dad will be here after-”

“I know.” His fingers curled into her t-shirt. “I won’t be here in the morning.”

She dropped a kiss on the top of his head, blinking tears from her eyes. When she drove across the country, leaving everything behind, she knew he was on a path that she couldn’t follow, a path he would need to walk alone. But she still desperately wished she could protect him from all the pain that rebuilding entailed.

She closed her eyes and saw the flames engulfing Kaneko Auto Body behind her eyelids.

And when she opened them again, true to his word, he was gone.

ii.

Ellie rubbed her hands over her face. Mona made this look easy. Mona also made everything look easy. And apparently, picking locks wasn’t easy, especially when you were running on zero sleep and carafes of caffeine. She had to be home before breakfast; she didn’t have time for failure.

She took a deep breath and resolved to try again, one more time. Slowly, she inserted the pick, turning it in her hands and listening carefully, tracking the click of successive pins as she clutched the knob and prayed. One last flick of her wrist and, finally, the knob turned and she was in.

She edged in, carefully, stubbing her toe before she snatched her phone from her pocket to light the way. Her eyes scoped out the new surroundings as she slowly shut the door. The hallway was narrow and her eyes were drawn to the corkboard in front of her, full of schedules and lists and notes in a very familiar scrawl. She stepped closer so she could trail her fingers over the script, feeling lighter now that she was touching something etched in his careful hand.

She turned left, flashlight casting shadows against the wall as the hallway opened up into the shop floor. It looked like she remembered, bay doors in the same spot, rows of lifts and toolboxes an homage to the past, to the building that stood here before flames destroyed everything and everyone. She took a moment to admire it, marvel in the amount of work it must have taken to restore, before she slowly stepped up the stairs leading to the loft.

She hadn’t seen him since the summer, when he had barely spoken a word to her before falling into her bed. She hadn’t really understood it at the time but now, the first day of her sophomore year Thanksgiving break, when tests and papers and schoolwork lay heavy on her mind, now she understood the need to cling to someone, something, when everything was falling apart.

She edged the door open, silent as possible, and had just shut it behind her when his voice made her jump. “Hi, Ellie.” It was rough, hoarse and edged with a rasp that hinted at sleep deprivation and stress. She would have felt guilty but the relief that flew through her veins left no room for anything else.

“How’d you know it was me?”

He sat up to watch her, moonlight skating over his bare chest. “You cursed when you walked into the toolbox by the door.”

“Oh.” A smile flit over her lips. “Sorry.”

His lips quirked as he matched her grin but then fell as he took her in. She flushed under his gaze. She was sure she looked a mess, hair unkempt, clad in pajamas; she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. “What’s wrong?”

“I just…” She stepped closer to the bed. “I’m so tired, Colt.”

“Come here.” He opened the blanket, almost a mirror image of when she did the same for him, when she welcomed him into her childhood bedroom so he could fall apart. She bit her lip and felt weak as she toed her shoes off to slide in next to him.

He was so warm, bare chest hot against her cheek, and she could hear the steady thrum of his heart, loud and stable and solid in her ear. She took a deep breath. "School is hard. School is really, really hard.”

“I bet but you’re smarter than anyone I-”

“I’m not, I’m not,” she interjected, wailing, clenching her hands into fists. “I’m not smarter than the people there, they are-”

“You can’t think like that-”

“But I do, I do. Everyone has it together and I am just… ”

She trailed off as strong hands slid under her shirt, running lines up and down her spine, nonsense patterns at the small of her back. He hummed and she felt herself weaken against him, a heavy weight pressed down into his embrace.

He didn’t complain so she continued. “I just…everyone else is so smart and New York is so busy and chaotic, I’m just lost there and I have been since I started, and I constantly feel like I’m falling behind and no matter what I’m doing, I should be doing something else so I can’t even write a paper without panicking about the French conjugations I’m supposed to be working on and…” The words came out as a jumble against his skin. He fell silent, only nodded, hands never stopping their slow path up and down her back. A few times mid-monologue, she wondered if he fell asleep, but he was always focused on her when she lifted her head, eyes intent and lips pulled into a frown. And so she continued, talking and worrying and letting it all out until the caffeine left her blood and she could feel how tired she was, deep in her bones.

She could feel her eyes falling shut, worries and fears loud in the quiet space between them, her pain leaving only utter exhaustion in its wake. “Colt? What if I’m not enough?”

His whispered “you’re more than enough.” was the last thing she heard before sleep overtook her.

And when she edged out of bed, when the first rays of sunlight fell across her eyes, she watched him, for only a minute, pillowed in the covers, looking more peaceful than she remembered.

And, as she slipped down the hall to head home, she felt more at peace as well.

iii.

Finals were crowding out every other thought in Ellie’s mind as she dodged through incessant pedestrian traffic on her way back from her favorite coffee shop. Even this late at night, the city was densely packed, more people than LA crammed into a smaller area, all one on top of another, running ragged in a twisted hamster wheel with no end. She was still lonely, still lost, and navigating through Manhattan only made it worse.

At first, she loved the crowds, the vibrancy of the city an echo of life and possibility. Now, she had long since learned that it was all a facade. The blank dead eyes of the people she passed, hipsters and workers alike all staring at phones with headphones blaring, men in sharp suits steamrolling ahead, tourists dragging behind their heavy bags-all of it made her feel even more alone. She didn’t know how she could feel so alone when millions of people surrounded her, but the crowds of strangers and skyscrapers towering over her just reminded her of how small and solitary she really was. Her loneliness was palpable, a stabbing wound through the heart, a yearning gasp by her soul, a vague ache that stretched through the caverns of her mind and reminded her that she was thousands of miles from the people she loved.

Man, New York was hard.

She flashed her ID to get into her building and waited in the elevator, eyeing the three other people also going up, none of whom she had seen before and none of whom she would see again, and shifting the backpack on her shoulder. Once the doors opened, she trudged forward, feeling the weight of the books on her back and the depth of her exhaustion in every cell. She fished out her keys, turned the lock, and opened the door. She entered her single, dropped the bag, and screamed.

She managed to cut the noise off pretty quickly but it was still audible, so loud that the door next to hers flew open with a shout.

“I’m ok, Ingrid, I’m ok.” Ellie couldn’t pull her eyes from the shape on her bed, broad shoulders propped up on her pillows. “It was just a spider.”

That shape smirked. “A spider? Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

“A spider who can pick locks and only appears in my room in the still of night?” She rolled her eyes at him. “Sounds right. Colt, what the-? How did you get in?”

The grin that spread across his face was carefree, open. “How did you break into my garage?”

“You picked the lock to my dorm room?”

“Your school needs better security.”

“Colt…” She shook her head. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, quirking a shoulder as he watched her pull her books from her bag. “I was in the area. I have a deal tomorrow in LIC and I can’t miss it.” She crossed her arms until he continued, relenting under her glare. “I also wanted to check on you.” She looked at him dubiously. “I did. You, ah…you weren’t exactly 100% over Thanksgiving.”

She flushed, eyes dropping to the French book in her hands. “I know.” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry about tha-”

“Don’t be.” His eyes were earnest, honest. “Don’t be. You did the same for me. Last year.”

“When you broke into my house?”

His eyes clouded up and Ellie got the sense that he was looking through her, dullness gazing at something she couldn’t see. “When I had a rough time.”

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter now.” He shook his head and, just like that, he was back, eyes clear and looking at her fully, shrewdly. “How are you?”

“I’m…I’m ok.” He tilted his head, not fully believing her words. “I…finals are coming up. I just need to get through.”

“It’s almost midnight."

Her shoulders dropped. "I know. I just…” She trailed off. She couldn’t keep running at the pace she was going.

“Come here.”

She was across the bed in three steps, falling into bed next to him and burrowing into his t-shirt. “I’m better, I swear, I just-”

“Ellie, stop.” His careful hand lifted her chin, gentle, as if she were fragile and he could break her. Hell, she felt fragile and he could absolutely break her, just shatter her into a million pieces to be scattered into the dirt of New York, never to be recovered. "Ellie…“ His fingers curved around the hinge of her jaw, his eyes so close to her that she was lost in their dark intensity, and she couldn’t stop herself from falling forwards, closing the distance between them.

Once her lips were warm, hot, scorching, once her spine was tingling, and her breath had been stolen by the seam of his lips, he pulled back to brush her hair off her face. Concern was etched on his face, in the clench of his jaw and every line in his forehead; she could feel tears starting to prick her eyes and willed them away before she spoke again. "I just…I feel so alone.”

“You’re not alone.” He bit his lip, flushed and plush from their kisses, and gathered her even closer. “You never are.”

But when she woke up, the bed was empty and only she remained.

iv.

The knob turned and Ellie smiled, triumphant. School was still hard but, apparently, she was getting better at some skills. She turned on the light of her phone before walking in, edging around the toolbox on the floor and taking a look around. It was just like she remembered, small hallway, cork board in front of her but, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she froze. There was a new addition to the board, a small white envelope with her name on it in thick blue sharpie.

She frowned and carefully pulled the thumb tack out. The envelope was heavy in her hand and she looked around, confused, before she slipped her index finger in the fold to tear it open. When her hand found jagged metal, she had to smile. A key. She held it beneath her phone, silver glinting the spotlight. She wondered how long it had been there, waiting for her. At least it would be easier than breaking in.

She followed the path to the floor, slowly up the stairs, shutting the door behind her. She grinned triumphantly when there was no noise, thinking she had gotten in undetected, but her face fell when she saw the bed.

It was empty.

She looked around, wondering where he could be at midnight on a random Tuesday in June, before she sighed. She didn’t want to go home, not now; she needed to talk to him, lest he try to break into her dorm again only to find her away for a year. At least, that’s what she told herself, the desire to see him a hidden secret that lived in her blood, in the space between every cell that danced around her body and filtered through her heart.

“Colt?” Her whisper was met with only silence, only the dark night surrounding her. She glanced around the room once more, frowning when she didn’t see a familiar leather jacket. She didn’t know what else to do but crawl into his bed, sliding in between the sheets and stretching out, hugging a pillow close. It smelled like that fancy hair gel he hid in the bathroom, mint evoking memories of her hands in his hair and his lips at her neck.

It was only a sub-par facsimile. It wasn’t the same, not even close, but it was enough that she could close her eyes and pretend and feel slightly better, slightly less alone. It was enough that she could fall into dreams where she wasn’t at school, where she wasn’t going to travel halfway around the world; dreams where things were different and their lives were intertwined by more than these stolen nights.

It was later than she thought when she woke up. Apparently, she slept well in his bed, encased in his warmth and scent and memories.

She sat up, slowly, watching the sunlight peek over the rooftops on 92nd, when a clang from downstairs made her pause. Now that she was listening closer, she could hear noise, the soft din of a crooning Spanish melody, an electric drill grinding on metal. There were people working downstairs.

She stepped down the stairs cautiously, squinting to see a couple men under an open hood, a pair of feet hanging out from underneath the car’s chassis. No one she recognized. Crap. She took a few more steps down, trying to be silent, eyeing the distance between her and the back door, when the drill stopped.

She grimaced. She had been spotted. One of the men had seen her and gaped, elbowing his friend. Now that they were facing her, she could tell that they were brothers, likely twins, the only difference between them the tattoos that adorned the sides of their faces.

She nervously smiled as she walked down the rest of the stairs, hands in her pockets as she faced them.

“Oy, what the hell?” The creeper flew out from under the car, revealing a small girl, unnatural flash of fire engine red hair beneath a white bandana. “What are you fools do-?”

She stopped as her eyes fell on Ellie, widening as she crouched, then stood, exchanging a look with the twins.

Ellie gave a wave, awkward and small underneath the three pairs of strange eyes. “Hi.”

The girl raised her eyebrows and Ellie felt naked under her assessing gaze. “You must be Ellie. Boss Man and the Manic Man-Child are out of town on business but they should be back later today if you want to wait.” Her look turned dangerous, a leer that Ellie felt in her toes.

“Oh, no, I’m just gonna-” She gestured towards the door and, without waiting for another comment, she fled.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Her dad was still shuffling around downstairs, the clanging of dishes loud over the drone of a documentary on the saran wrap industry, when her window slid open. Ellie held her breath as a boot swung over her windowsill, followed by a jean-clad leg, and then a leather-clad torso, and then a smirk-clad face.

He shut the window behind him as she studied him, finger to her lips and pointing downstairs to make sure he knew the need for quiet.

“I know. It’s why I didn’t break in through the door.” The smirk on his face was insufferable, absolutely intolerable, and she wanted to kiss it off his face. “I heard you came to see me.”

"Yeah.” She dropped her phone onto her bedside table. “I wanted to talk.” The fact that she wanted, desperately, to see him was unspoken.

He sat at the edge of her bed, hands in his pockets, eyes cautious as they mapped the features of her face. “What’s up?”

“I wanted you to know I wouldn’t be around in New York next year.” She hadn’t seen him in six months, time and distance weighing heavy on her mind. She wouldn’t be seeing him for longer soon.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m studying abroad for the year. In Paris.”

He beamed and laid against her bed, elbows propping him up over the pink fabric. “Ellie, that’s awesome. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks.” She looked at her hands. “I don’t think you can ride your motorcycle to Paris.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I can’t exactly get on an airplane right now, either.”

“I know.” She swallowed. “I couldn’t pass it up and-”

“Of course not. Ellie, that’s fantastic. When do you leave?”

“September, start of the school year.” She looked at him, lying on her bed like he belonged there;. “I won’t be back until next fall.”

He sat up, suddenly intent, and leaned towards her, eyes glinting suggestively in the light. “I am so proud of you. But maybe we should make the most of the time we have.”

“My dad’s downstairs.”

“I know that.” His eyes never lost their shine.

She raised an eyebrow at him, trying to memorize everything, every curve of his lips, every look in his eyes, to encode in her brain when they were separated by more than locked doors, when land and water marked a distance neither could cross. “You know, I have spent lots of time thinking about how we would do this.”

“I’m listening.”

“I mean, it’s not often I have a boy in my room with my dad down the hall.” She gave a pointed look. “The bed creaks so that’s out. So we would have to be on the floor.”

His eyes lit up, playful, intrigued. “Really.”

“But I’d want the blanket there, so no one gets a rug burn.”

Colt quickly grabbed the blanket from her bed, movements fast and choppy. He laid it down on the floor, spreading it out as much as he could, enough to fit one college student and the boy she wouldn’t see for a long, long time. “Go on.”

“I’d want some music, something soft and sexy but loud enough that any noises might be hidden.”

He pulled out his phone, scrolling and frowning. “I have rap and Toby’s EDM mix, which I do not recommend by the way.”

“You’re lucky I have us covered.” She moved to her desk; after a few clicks of her laptop, the speakers started up a playlist she thought she would never get the chance to use.

“What next?” He stepped closer.

“I’d need to lock the door."

"On it.” He brushed by her, hand skating over her hip before he turned the latch.

She grabbed a pillow off her bed and handed it over. “Maybe put this at the crack at the bottom, try to muffle the sounds.”

“You’ve really thought about this.” He pushed the pillow into position.

“I’ve had a lot of time to consider everything.”

“But there’s one thing you haven’t considered.” He stepped over to her, eyes dangerously flashing over her.

“What?”

He grabbed her by the hips to pull her flush against him, lips stopping inches from hers. “You’ve never been able to be quiet with me.”

And he was right.

She had to cover her mouth with her hands when he laid her down, sliding her pants down shaky legs and replacing their warmth with his own. She had to bite her lip, hard, shock of pain and taste of iron barely enough when his tongue delved into her center and swirled teasing shapes around her nub of nerves. And she had to pull him down, lips pressed into his chest to muffle the shout when he swiveled his hips just so and she fell screaming into a place where there was only pleasure and warmth and she never felt alone.

They were still on the floor, lying on the wrinkled blanket with Colt’s fingers threading through her curls when she sighed. “I don’t like being so far from you.”

“You’re already across the country.” He traced a finger over her cheek and down her neck. “It’s only a tiny ocean beyond that.”

“I know.”

He pulled her closer, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek as he dropped kisses down her jaw. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Promise?”

He pulled back to look at her, eyes sharp. “I told you I’d always be there. I meant it.”

She sighed, low in her throat, as his lips found her jaw again and continued a meandering path down. Colt only ever said what he meant but maybe he meant words unspoken as well, every intimate touch mapping a line of love across her body.

She was alone when she woke up, But she didn’t feel so alone. And maybe it didn’t make perfect sense, but it was a win in her book.

“Ok, so now, the real question.” Ingrid paused until she had Ellie’s full attention. “Why aren’t you coming back to school?”

Ellie straightened the picture of the Eiffel Tower, hung over her new bed in her new apartment. “I dunno.” She shrugged one shoulder and avoided eye contact, instead busying herself in one of the giant boxes that contained the remnants of her life at Langston. “I guess I missed home and I had enough credits that I could graduate by only taking online classes and…”

“And?” Ingrid laid down on the bed, face melancholy, arms stretching from the wall to the edge of the mattress, long legs dangling over the side.

“And I was lonely.” Ellie grabbed a tiny French flag, another memento of her time in Paris, another year of wandering around a city she felt lost in, another year of being away from home and everything that she loved and everything that made her heart feel alive. “I just felt alone.” It was a loneliness that hung in her bones, inside the chambers of her heart, a pain that followed her like a shadow so every step she took echoed in the hollowness inside her.

“Ellie...you have me. And our friends at school. And your French advisor, who loves you. And the burrito guy at the campus center who always gives you extra guac.”

She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “I know. It’s just-” Three successive raps at their front door made her pause. “Urgh. Who could that be?”

Ingrid jumped off the bed, flouncing out of the room. “I’ll get it.”

Ellie shrugged, intent on finally emptying her giant suitcase; she didn’t really want to see the welcome wagon from the apartment building anyways. However, Ingrid’s cutting greeting made her pause.

“Hello, criminal deviant who broke my best friend’s heart.”

Ellie’s heart was in her throat as she ran to the living room, feet pounding on the hardwood floor, sliding in just in time to see Colt raise his eyebrows. “Hello, passive aggressive girl from prom.”

“Oh no, there’s no passivity here. I’m just aggressive.” Ingrid’s smile was all teeth, a shark dressed in bleach-blond highlights and impeccable attire.

“Not in the circles I run in, but ok.” He shot her a pointed look. “Hello, aggressive girl from prom.“

“Better.” Ingrid glanced over her shoulder. “I like this one. He sounds like he can be trained.”

“EXCUSE ME?”

Ellie couldn’t stop blinking at the exchange, at Ingrid and Colt squaring off in the doorway. Under normal circumstances, she didn’t know who would win this battle of sarcasm and wit; however, Ingrid had it partially right. There was one person Colt would always answer to and it was up to her to end this exchange.

“Stop, you two, stop it.” She shot Ingrid a look before turning to Colt. She had been back in LA for two days; apparently, word of her arrival carried quickly. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ingrid answered for him, shooting a wry look between the two before striding to the couch to grab her purse. “I’m gonna go.”

“What?”

“I’ll see you before I head back east.” Ingrid threw Ellie an air kiss before setting her sights on Colt. “Don’t you hurt her or I’ll hurt you.”

He only raised his eyebrows, watching her float out the apartment door without a backwards glance. “When did you two become friends?”

“It was a whole thing,” Ellie chuckled before catching his eye. “Colt, why are you here?”

“You know why. I didn’t mean to interrupt you guys, though.”

“It’s ok,” Ellie shrugged. “I was just unpacking.”

He smirked, examining the place, eyes falling on the hallway behind her. “You want help?”

~~~~~

He was not help.

Ellie’s suitcase lay abandoned on the floor as she watched him take in the walls, mostly bare, with some exceptions. He stood in front of her Eiffel Tower photo and ran a careful finger over the picture frame. “You’re not in this.”

“No. I took it.”

He looked at her, eyes intent on hers. “Did you have fun?”

“I…” She sighed and sat on the bed. “It was…an experience. Paris was big and the people were nice but…It wasn’t home.”

“Where is home, Ellie?”

She looked at her hands.

Colt sat next to her, still watching. “Is New York home?” He was close to her but they weren’t touching, a sliver of blanket between their thighs.

He had been on her mind when he was two thousand miles away. He had been all she could think about when he was five thousand miles away.

Now that they were three inches apart, why weren’t they touching?

“You’re home.”

She could tell that he was expecting that answer when he beamed, hands leaping off his lap to circle her shoulders and pull her close. “Why did you come back to LA?” The question was muffled by her hair.

Her reply was muffled by the fact that her face was buried in her shoulder. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Just tell me.”

She pulled back to frown at him. “You know the answer to that.”

“It doesn’t hurt to hear you say it.” He narrowed his eyes, peering at her like he was trying to figure out the intricacies of a job.

She sighed. “I came back for you, Colt.”

His lips were on hers before she could blink and she melted into him, melted into the one place where she felt safe and understood and not so alone. His arms wrapped around her, tight, and, in that moment, she knew that coming home was the right thing to do.

She could feel herself relax, the stress and fear of the last year falling away like every piece of clothing that he removed with reverent hands and eager lips, mapping each new inch of skin he revealed. She fell back against the bed, pulling him against her, wrestling his clothes off so she could feel miles of warm skin over her, his heartbeat solid and real against hers.

It was hard to feel alone when someone was inside of you, even harder when their lips were painting your face in gentle kisses, each one a promise that she wouldn’t be alone, not anymore.

After, when they lay together in a sated heap, bodies and limbs intertwined so fully that she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began, she realized that she had never really been alone.

And when she woke up, sunlight bright against the bare walls and bathing Colt in an ethereal glow, she realized she wouldn’t be truly alone again.

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Colt

@deimosensblog @alegria1580 @choicesarehard @thefarrari @moonlit-girl-wonder @going-down-downtown@soniadotalves@jolietmaraud @flowerpowell@poeticscolt @zaira-oh-zaira @umiumichan @akrenich @sibella-plays-choices @maxwellsquidsuit @liamzigmichael4ever @octobereighth @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction

#playchoices fanfic #colt kaneko #colt x mc #n*fw #lemon #choices rod #amy writes

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