#she has a more detailed backstory than michael??? what are you talking about

[destructo-range]

'helen is so underdevelopped as a character!' 'helen's boring!' stfu u just don't like her bc she's a woc and because she doesn't behave exactly like michael. yall put so much effort into developping michael's character inside your minds and completely look over her because she's 'poorly written.' stop.

[bellmo15-blog]

Precursor Drone Kiera

Oh Kiera, out of all the childhood crushes I had growing up you are the one I'm surprised I don't get more art off despite the fact that the Jak and Daxter series is still one of my favourite Playstation exclusive franchises. Well, this series and Ratchet and Clank.

Inkling Michael: Wait, what about Crash Bandicoot. That was like THE defining title on the Playstation 1 and you've even admitted you love that series and was even the first video game franchise you played.

I said Playstation EXCLUSIVE franchises! Why would I count a franchise that has been multiplatform since 2001, only the first five games are exclusive to a Playstation system and N.Sane Trilogy was only a PS4 exclusive for a year before going multiplatform anyway as a Playstation Exclusive?

IM: Okay but how do you explain stuff like Bayonetta then where the first game's multiplatform and was even re-released on PS4/Xbox One and PC for it's 10 year anniversary but Bayonetta 2 onwards are only on Nintendo systems?

That's...... complicated because of how no one else other than Nintendo wanted to even publish Bayonetta 2 in the first place... Okay fine, you got me on that one!

Believe it or not, this pic actually has a bit of a backstory behind it's inspiration. I was replaying Jak 2, specifically the PS4 re-release since it had trophy support and I had become a bit of an avid trophy and achievement hunter in the past few years and wanted to add another one of my favourite games to that list of fully Platinumed games especially since I had Platinumed the original Jak and Daxter a few years ago. I... gave up on trying to Platinum Jak 2 after remembering the insane score requirements for some of the optional challenges though and I REALLY didn't want to use the Orb Farming glitch or Debug mode to just get the Platinum instantly. However midway though my playthrough a sudden thought came into my mind relating to the Precursors, the ancient and technologically advanced beings that much Jak and Daxter's world and lore is built around. My though process was basically "Okay but what if the Precursors had hypnosis or fembot technology for controlling hostiles?"

And that's it! That's how this whole idea was spawned! Just a random intrusive thought while playing a game I absolutely adore. I came up with a design, picked who I wanted to be the victim which of course it was going be Kiera (though trust me, I was close to going with Ashelin at one point) and asked Ameer to draw this for my next Fully Detailed Ko Fi reward. And maybe this is just my own childhood love for Kiera talking here, again she was one of my childhood crushes, but this is honestly one of my favourite things I've gotten Ameer to draw for me so far. And finally uploading it for more people to see feels good. Nothing could ruin this night at all.

Genie Michael: Sony ported Jak and Daxter The Lost Frontier to PS5 before they ported Daxter! :D

...... Why do I even hang out with you people?

Artist is AmmerAshourDraws.

[charlieconwayy]

Please talk about Macaulay and Paris's relationship

this made my night better because this is my favorite topic

the important thing to note prior to getting into anything, is that mack's paternal instincts have always been a major part of who he is. natasha lyonne called him "the patriarch to his beautiful siblings" (fuck you kit) just last week. the major reason that mack took back his finances was so he could give his mother the money to keep her apartment and help raise the kids. when the apartment burned down (eye roll), mack and his then wife took in the kids. obviously the major reason mack has been even more reclusive than normal in recent years is bc of the birth of his children. it has always been his dream to be a good father and have a happy family.

mack's relationship with mj is obviously a crucial part of the backstory. he has described their friendship of not being necessarily a father/son one, but one of two equals. what is incredibly important about that distinction is that for mack, having a father only meant manipulation and abuse. mj treating him like an equal and giving him a safe space to be a child was a major refuge for mack, especially when he was being treated and being told he was nothing but a cash cow. obviously, as mack has said, mj resonated with mack's super stardom and controlling father. it was largely the reason their friendship began, and while we don't know a ton of details about their relationship after like 1992, it is evident how important it remained to mj until the end and how important it remains to mack today.

mack was made prince and paris's godfather when he was 17-18, while an elderly liz taylor was made the godmother. of all the people in mj's life, siblings, family, friends, etc, mack was entrusted with this honor, which says SO much about mj's view of him and trust in him (we don't know much about his relationship with prince, as prince largely strays away from the spotlight). in his auto biographical parody book (that's rly not a parody and is just a comedic retelling), prince and paris are mentioned in the dedications (on the list of people he hates, joe jackson is listed which always makes me smile) and he tells a story about hanging out at toy stores late at night w a pop star and his children. there's video footage of mack at one of their birthday parties and obviously the famous photo of the three of them watching michael on stage.

we know that after the '05 running into each other in the bathroom during the trial, mack and mj didn't see each other again, but remained in touch with the occasional phone call. mack has praised mj for his dedication to his children during that time, and attended his funeral in '09.

obviously, mack is known for being reclusive and once she got her modeling contract, paris became a very public and open figure. over those years, we got glimpses into their relationship. they have matching tattoos (mack's only tattoo) of spoons, which is an inside joke that they have. paris has spent holidays with mack, particularly one thanksgiving spent in paris with him and brenda. one of the most notable moments was paris introducing her then-girlfriend cara to mack and brenda.

when asked about paris in his interview with marc maron, mack stated: "i am close with paris. i'm going to warn you now, i'm very protective of her, so just look out. i am a very open book when it comes to things, but with her, she is beloved by me."

while paris often posts about mack, mack never does the same about paris. even when speaking ab mj, he doesn't mention paris sans this one time. i believe the reason for this is because mack knew how mj tried to shield his children from the vulturous media, and wants to respect that. i also think a major component to why mack is the perfect godparent for paris is that mj did everything he could to protect mack, and mack wants to extend the same to paris.

paris is constantly critized for not talking about her father enough, and she should be allowed to keep their relationship private if she so chooses. something that is so important to remember is that mj passed when paris was a very little girl. perhaps this is why she finds solace in mack - he got to grow up with mj, while she was never given that luxury.

seeing her attend his walk of fame ceremony was incredibly emotional and touching. i was surprised that she came bc mack is so intensely private about their relationship, but their love and support for each other (always attending events for the other privately is a mainstay for them) is so evident and i know it meant so much to him to have her there.

as paris put it at the ceremony, it's more than a friendship, it's family.

[windsorbay]

THE CHARACTER.

FULL NAME: Christian Victor Ford

GENDER: Cis man

PRONOUNS: He/Him

AGE + BIRTHDAY: 27 + May 9, 1997

LENGTH OF TIME IN WINDSOR BAY: Almost 6 years

HOUSING: Coral Coast

OCCUPATION: Published Novelist

THE INTERVIEW.

What’s it like, living in Windsor Bay? Did you ever picture yourself settling down here or did you always know this would be your home?

"Windsor Bay. It’s strange, right—this, this beautiful town exists just out of sight, if you live in, like, Portland or Salem or whatever. This town exists, and it’s magical. It’s perfect—I mean that. Genuinely. I, I would dream my whole childhood away, my whole youth proper, just about someplace that feels like this one does. My dad, he has roots in this town…so I do, too. I do as well, and when I think about that fact, I feel so damned glad because not everyone has a legacy. Maybe this legacy is not the best to have, if you know—you know what, never mind that. It’s whatever, right. Right. Anyway, what was it we were talking about—did I ever picture myself settling down in this spot, or was I called here, or was I taken by surprise. I guess I didn’t really picture myself settling down someplace in the Pacific Northwest, if I’m being truthful. I wanted to move to Chicago—that’s why I went to U Chicago, is I planned to stay in that area. It’s a beautiful school, but not the literal town that Windsor Bay is. If you like cities, I think Chicago can be your dream come true, but Windsor Bay is absolutely mine. I’m here because I wanted someplace with a backstory. By the way, I’m a writer. Backstory is something I kind of got obsessed with when I was writing my first novel during my sophomore year of college. My friends were kind of, a little bit, not-as-much-as-me-but-still-trying novel writers, and one of them kept hounding me about this scene I’d written…said it was the best thing literally ever, because it implied backstory. Implied, not revealed. So I said, fine, and I started actually trying to imply backstory because I wasn’t going to be outdone by an accident. And I realized my dad’s hometown, Windsor Bay, implied backstory. I wanted to live there more than I’ve wanted to live anywhere, ever, and I’ve wanted to live multiple places throughout my life. The instant I graduated, I moved. The end, happily ever after, etcetera etcetera. The reality of Windsor Bay is actually a lot cooler than the backstory thing I just rambled on about discovering; it’s genuinely the most sincere town, with the most sincere lifestyle, and I’m so in love with the whole experience. If I had to recommend one thing to people considering this little place…live somewhere you can appreciate nature. I’m on the beach so I can swim more, take walks more. That was conscientious. Do that, and you’ll be way happier with your daily routine—I promise you."

What’s your family like? Are you still close, or have you blocked all their numbers?

"So everyone knows what the Ford family is like. I’m not going to beat around the bush, because everyone already knows that. Windsor Bay is like that with the founding families. I’m here because I care about history, I just finished describing that to you in exhaustive detail, with my obsession with backstory and all that. I am not obsessed with the Ford family. I’ll say that again—I am not obsessed with the Ford family, and whatever happened with the founding that may or may not have been a big effing deal, so please keep that in mind about me if you happen to look at my full name one day and see that my middle name is literally “victor”. I love winning as much as the next person. But I’m not cutthroat. I swear I’m…not. Anyways. My parents. My mom, Maria, is the sweetest, kindest, most warm human being I’ve ever met. She’s an absolute pro in the garden, and the best co-chef I could have asked for growing up. Now. My dad. I’ll say this—if I were to see Michael Ford right now in front of my house, asking me to move back to Washington and do the fancy things again like he cares about, I would just not answer the door. I was going to say something…well, worse…but I would not answer the door. I would let him stand out there and think I hated him. Is that bad? To do to someone? Make them think you hate them? Maybe there’s not any risk there, because there’s honesty there. But, well. I digress."

We’ve all had our fair share of shit hit the fan and moments in the sun — tell me about a defining moment in your life, good or bad.

"I was in high school—you know what, I’m not going to do that one. It’s about my…yeah, yeah, guess who, right? It’s about my dad not showing up for something like he was supposed to do, and that defined me in some way. That changed me. But I’ll do a different moment. When I was in my freshman year of college, there was this professor I had for an English class that drove me quite literally insane. He was one of the best, that’s true. He was a great professor. I have to admit that…but he drove me insane because every single idea I had, I knew he would despise. Not original enough, he would say. Too…“rote”. Too “routine”. My ideas aren’t like that, by the way, they’re original ideas that are mundane at the outset, but it’s honestly whatever at this point because I’ve long since given up on trying for ideas that aren’t genuinely mine. But anyways, this professor gave me an A on a paper, and it was the moment I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I could make it as a professional writer. It’s not that easy, you know. Being a professional, getting published, getting popular, it’s really tough. But I saw that what I had done had spoken to this man who was my polar opposite, and I realized that I could truly do it. I could truly become the person I had dreamed of being my entire life…a bona fide novelist. The real deal. And…I could be happy. That was part of it, too, I remember. I’d written a paper that had moved the mountain, moved the professor who quite literally was impossible to please, it’s not just me saying that… And now I could do life my way. It was like a message from another world or something. It felt like a holiday. It felt like a birthday. That, beyond a shadow of a doubt, changed me for the better."

Are you a leader or a follower?

"Leader. It’s hard to tell at first, but I’m definitely the leader type. That’s why I don’t get along with my younger brother, Charles; he thinks he’s a leader, too. Well, try it out, Charles. Give it a shot. There’s only so much leading you can do when you’re being more selfish than Satan. Leadership is a selfless thing, that’s what I believe. I know there’ve been leaders who’ve been, well, literal Satan, but I firmly think that leadership at its best is about giving of yourself. I need to try to do that more. Maybe I’ll…or should I…oh, I’m sorry. Thinking out loud."

THE PERSONALITY.

— + open, determined, intelligent — -spiteful, obstinate, rude

CHRISTIAN IS PORTRAYED BY JACOB ELORDI AND WRITTEN BY HANNAH.

[local-sourchild]

Ok so, tbh, Helena doesn't have a LOT of lore as many of my other characters just yet, because reasearching is FUCKING hard

I changed her backstory a bit though because before she technically was royalty but I honestly can't fit this detail without having ro change a lot of what I already don't know T-T so yeah she's a normal gal now

She doesn't know much about her family though, she was kidnapped with her baby sister when she was around four and while she was sold to Portugal, Ndidi (yeah she's Helena's sister again cause i love the dynamic of Daniel and Elizete being cousins tbh BUT I'll probably change Ndidi's name cause that's a nigerian name and she isn't nigerian anymore)

She mainly grew up on Emma's farm and was married off to Michael when she was 11 cause she was "a strong boy" or whathever and Emma wanted to keep Michael permanently close

Idk there isn't much about her lore per se but I've constructed more of her character? I guess, she isn't exactly like what you would expect her to be? Yeah, Helena is cheerful and bubbly, but HEALED Helena tbh

She is trapped in a loveless marriage with a demon of a man and for real? Even though she manages to impose on Michael, he's still agressive towards her and he has beaten her up a few times when drunk. Helena is just really really tired of having to lose her life to dedicate it to covering Michael's problems or caring for him (hence why she hands him to the government)

she does have a lot of internalized guilt of being the one to cause Michael's death and she feels guilty for Daniel's death too, even if it wasn't her fault. during her marriage she is almost gloomy, as if someone put a fucking rock over her

She regains most of her light back when she meets Luanne and their relationship truly is what heals her, she is genuinely happy with Luanne and the woman kinda open her eyes that life actually isn't miserable

She flinches a lot if you raise a bottle near her though but her reflexes are fight, not flight, so 100% chance she'll grab your arm to stop ya if you try to give her a high five cause she's afraid you might hit her

Helena kinda hates catholicism? She's like "yeah the aesthetic is cool but nah" because it reminds her too much of Emma and Michael so she rather not associate with christianity tbh. She respects it though, she will never talk bad about it, it's more religious trauma

Also, fun random fact about her but before being reincarnated she was kinda insecure of her body? I mean, Helena has very heavy dysphoria in the past, but she is also very confident when it comes to herself. She wants to change but won't let you talk shit bout it. And she was VERY concious of her weight cause hormones influencw where you gain weight, so high testosterone levels you are most likey to gain weight in the belly while high esteogen levels hips and thighs, so Helena kinda tried to work out so she wouldn't gain weight cause she didn't wanted to have a belly, cause in her hair then she wouldn't pass and would look even more masculine

But when on hormones when reincarnated, she puts on .a lot more of weight than she used to have and she's actually happy about it, she doesn't really mind, so yeah, hormone treatment made her self steem A LOT better

And Helena is probably my only character that fully transitioned? Both she and Michael are my trans characters that wants to transition, but since Michael can't have a mastectomy cause it could put him at risk, I guess Helena is the only one to do all surgeries. And yeah, she had plastic surgery on her face too

She's a singer but her public image doesn't bother her that much? She doesn't want to blow up and be famous, she rather just do some gigs and work around. And she's also an amazing mother as well, lmao, all of Michael's kids talk to her even though the twins don't talk even to him and she's basically the one trying to avoid everyone to get high, kill peopl and do dumb shit (she fails on all three though)

I wish I had more lore for her, but overall, she was a housewife for Michael, killed him, travelled and met Luanne and married her, she doesn't have much extra in her life and it's pretty calm. She's more of a sociable character, so her depth is on her interactions with others than herself. She's pretty lonely inside tbh

AND SORRY PARENT, I FELL ASLEEP YESTERDAY AND HAD TO GO TO THE CITY TODAY 😭

i honestly think i should talk more about my ocs, i love them sm but no one knows shit about them-

[libby250]

Transformers Rewatch:

(Long rant incoming)

It’s been a while but rewatching these movies (at least the first three) has reminded me how of much I HATE Sam Witwicky.

He was a whiny little bitch and arrogant and he SCREAMED SO MUCH. Yes, I know, you’ve been in the middle of robot battles while on the highway, but once the Deceptions are gone you can STOP SCREAMING!

He also treated Bumblebee like shit and took him for granted. In the beginning of the second film, he wanted Bee’s help to destroy the kitchen Deceptions he accidentally created, and after Bumblebee did, Sam started yelling at him and blaming him! (CHARLIE WOULD NEVER!!)

And when Optimus Prime came to ask for Sam’s help, he was all “No, I just want to be normal. Fuck you and your MUCH BIGGER problems. I’m not going to talk to the leaders of my species so you can stay on earth, the ONLY HOME YOU CURRENTLY HAVE IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!”

Mikaela was a more interesting character and should have been the main character. Megan Fox was a great actress in these movies and she didn’t deserve all the shit she was put through. (Also she didn’t scream nearly as much as Sam did even though they had almost the same amount of screen time in the first two movies and when she did it didn’t irritate me or make me want to punch her in the face.)

Her character had so much wasted potential. She loved cars and worked in a male dominated industry. This could have been the perfect movie of a woman saving the world and becoming the hero despite constantly being undermined by everyone around her and used for her looks. This would have a great message for little girls. The storyline would have also worked perfectly with her backstory.

Her dad stole cars and sometimes had to take her along (this is way more interesting than a boy getting his first car). One day they steal a yellow camaro (bumblebee) from someplace (a junkyard or car lot) and Bumblebee lets them because Mikaela’s grandpa found Megatron in the ice (same story with Sam’s grandpa, but different family name and it’s Mikaela’s grandpa instead of Sam’s. Sam isn’t even in this version of the movie). The film continues like normal with her meeting the Autobots and trying to find her grandpa’s glasses at her house and being taken by Sector 7 blah blah blah.

Or make Sam a woman. We need more female led/dominated movies! I saw a fanfic where Sam was a woman (who still has a crush on Mikaela, which Yay! We need more gay action movies too). But this idea probably wouldn’t work knowing how Michael Bay writes and treats his female characters and actresses. >:(

Long rant short, Sam was a horrible character, Bumblebee deserved better, Mikaela deserved better and the main role.

Also, Charlie in the bumblebee movie was 18 in the 80’s. A fun plot point could be that Charlie is Mikaela’s mom. If Mikaela was 18-19 in 2007, that means that she was born 1988-89, making Charlie somewhere in her early twenties when Mikaela was born and around her mid forties in the first Transformers movie. I don’t think this would work though with how the Bumblebee movie ended.

AND ANOTHER THING!!

That stupid fucking agent that was all condescending to Optimus Prime EVEN AFTER HE WAS DEAD in Revenge Of The Fallen infuriates me!!!

Yes, I know he was supposed to be that way to make us hate him and give a way for Megatron to come back blah blah blah.

But seriously!! You’re a national security agent with a high enough position to even be in the same room as the Autobots and you’re talking about things that are dangerous.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in a top secret base that probably has top notch internet security because you don’t know what the Decepticons are capable of. He already mentioned that the Autobots have greater advancement in weaponry but he doesn’t know what the Decepticons have a greater advancement of. Which means you don’t go into unnecessary detail about things of great national security because you don’t know if the enemy has greater advancement of things you don’t even know about. Which means you should always think that the enemy is listening in. He’s a national agent so he should already know this.

He’s the reason that Megatron came back and that Optimus died and that reason the sun was almost stolen.

That was the point but I feel like they could have figured out a better way of doing it. It just seems like lazy writing.

[tiggymalvern]

Burn Notice - season 6 rewatch

My rewatch of season 6 didn’t change my take on any of the main events. It did prod me into a few other thoughts, though, mostly about what isn’t there. It made me curious about Sam’s family. Seven years, and he only refers to his blood relatives twice – first when he tells Michael about how he stole an air rifle when he was ten, and his dad had the cops put him in a cell to teach him a lesson. Then when Elsa’s son is talking to him about how hard it is trying to deal with parental expectations when you’re not what they want you to be. That’s all we get. And maybe Sam’s parents are dead, maybe he’s an only child (less common in that generation than now), but no talk of aunts, uncles, cousins, anybody? We get Jesse’s tragic backstory and why this disaster of a found family are all he has, but Sam’s situation seems to be the same and nobody mentions it. This is a man who’s turned being likeable into a professional skill. He cultivates an entire network of people who’ll risk their careers, and in some cases jail, feeding him confidential information, because they think he’s a nice guy. But apparently his own relatives don’t like him, or he’s avoiding them. There has to be something bad there, right? And honestly, it fits my headcanon perfectly well, because my Sam is bisexual, and if his family discovered that in the 1970s or early 80s, that would explain everything. But I’m curious if the writers ever had any thoughts on it, because we have some very specific details on background, childhood and family for the other three main characters, while Sam’s just a big blank space for everything except his career. The other thing notably missing is any interaction between Madeleine and her adopted ducklings after Nate is killed. They all show up for the funeral, but otherwise they’re entirely conspicuous by their absence. Which is understandable, because she’s furious, and not just with Michael (she specifically says there’s enough blame there for everybody) and nobody would be enthusiastic about putting themselves into that line of fire. But at the same time, Madeleine’s flailing, and Michael’s flailing, and every time he tries to mend fences with his mother she vents her anger on him, and everyone just steers clear and leaves them to it? That’s... harsh. And not just on Madeleine and Michael, because a stressed out and emotion-driven Michael isn��t particularly pleasant or safe to be around. Sam definitely knows that, and Fiona must too. Jesse might not – yet. And honestly, he’s getting a pass from me because he hasn’t known Madeleine for as long as the others, so he’s not best placed to be running interference. But Fiona and Sam? Trying to mitigate and defuse the tensions between the surviving Westens would almost count as self-preservation, given the alternative of leaving Michael struggling to deal with it all. In many ways, they have a better relationship with Madeleine than Michael does, because they’ve really only known her at her best – they don’t have all the years of baggage and failed trust with her that Michael has. Fiona has a good enough relationship with Madeleine that she keeps in touch with her even after she’s given up on Michael and she’s living with someone else. How many people still hang out with their ex’s mum? Sam lived with Maddie for a while, which is more than adult Michael ever did – Michael turned up in Miami broke and homeless, and went around begging favours from anyone he knew rather than go to his mum’s house. And Sam could probably get away with a bit more on the Nate front because he had nothing to do with it, he was with Maddie and Barry the whole time. But if they make any attempt to help Madeleine and Michael in their grief and guilt and recriminations, we don’t see it. Apart from the funeral, we don’t see Maddie with any of her ducklings until after everything's gone to hell (hello, stressed out and emotion-driven Michael!) and they’re all literally running for their lives. After Maddie’s told Michael that she has to forgive him (and by extension the rest of the gang) or she’ll lose him too. So did they actually all ghost Madeleine all that time, or did they try and we weren’t shown it? Because if they did just keep their heads down and wait for it to blow over, they are godawful friends. On medical stuff – I have SUCH a love/hate relationship with the cruise ship episode. This is the Pearce I really wish we’d seen more of, because she’s awesome when she’s allowed to take a big role in Burn Notice shenanigans. But the ep also drives me up the wall, because nobody is remotely consistent on whether they’re talking about bacteria or a virus. And no, that’s not how a Gram stain works. Or what it does. The writers went to so much trouble for that scene where Michael’s rehearsing how to fake being an infectious disease specialist – trying to learn all the CBCs and PLTs and PTTs – they obviously looked some of that up. So why didn’t they double check the basics? AAAAARRRRGGHH. Sometimes they obviously checked. When Sam gets shot, most of the detail there is pretty good. Not all of it, but I’ll accept there’s a limit to what you can show, and what you can mock up for Network TV. But the consequences of delaying treatment for an abdominal gunshot wound, that’s all nailed. Even when you’re not bleeding significantly, if you delay surgery for 24 hours, the survival rate drops to 50% because the septic peritonitis kills people. Probably, like everything else on these shows, it came down to time, and the writers didn’t have enough of it to look up everything. But seriously, they could have given the cruise ship script to someone with any kind of medical or microbiology training for an hour and had it fixed. Any vet tech/nurse could have made those edits and made it a really good, fun ep that doesn't make me want to scream...

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Gonna be posting my asks and answers from @well-shit-im-a-morosexual-now here cause tumblr's fucking up that blog:

Hii!!! I basically agree with everything you just said but I'll go into more detail on it with your points:

- I do 100% believe S4 should be a new character/angel focused season. I think I said so in the lesson 60 summary too that it'd make sense and be interesting to meet the angels and get their side of the story without the brothers' interference (the angels give me HEAVY morally grey characters who think they're wholly in the right vibes and I love it) + there's still a lot of Simeon and Solomon backstory to explore!

- The way S3 ended and how much of it was anyway about the angels I definitely think S4 will expand on it and introduce them

- And I think it'll possibly start right after S3 ends? I mean Raphael's here now and Solomon wants to start properly training MC so why not. And there's no other reason to leave Simeon and Luke behind than to start it up with them in the centre

- ALSO!!! ANDISJSHSKS "RAPH" given what they've showed of him he seems like the type of person to take HEAVY offense to that

- S3 did end with Raphael. Simeon called him by name.

- As much as I do want to see more Diavolo and find out more about his and more importantly Barbatos' backstories I don't think they'll turn up much? Or at least not until the last few lessons cause he left saying he had important personal issues to take care of back in the devildom

- I genuinely thought they would be shown in S3 after Solomon mentioned them and yeah damn I wanna know more about them. Also I just saw the Solomon UR+ animation card from months ago today

- I definitely want to know whose grave he was leaving flowers at

- As much as I want an angel focused season the amount of withdrawal I'd go through without the brothers is insane. I'm heavily invested in them but at least for now their arcs are at a place that can be paused

- they all got together to help Beel, a lot of Satan & Lucifer's + Belphie & Diavolo's issues have been resolved. I do want to know more about Lucifer's fear though and how he met the rest of the brothers (since they already told us Beel's story)

- With what they've said I kinda see Michael & Raphael being parallels to Diavolo & Lucifer, respectively. The somewhat childish boss and the long suffering right hand. I can see Diavolo wanting to like Michael purely because he wants to make proper peace with the Celestial Realm but also being somewhat internally pissed with him given how protective Diavolo is of the brothers and I can see Michael being sweet and friendly in return despite the fact that given everything Michael has said about demons, even in current times, he would probably be looking down on Diavolo for being 'wicked' and 'evil'. Basically I imagine them having the same kinda passive-aggressively polite relationship that Diavolo and Simeon had in S2 but somehow even less friendly

- Yes!!! Like I said the Celestial Realm gives heavy morally grey vibes and I want that to be explored more. I also need Luke's realisation that the Celestial Realm isn't always right to continue

- I have SO many Lilith HCs and I desperately need them to talk about her more. Like I understand why she's a sore topic and that Lucifer never even told them about her room in the HoL depite the fact that they've probably lived there for thousands of years and she does get brought up a bit in Belphie's fear but I need more. I also want them to explore why Belphie was so insistent with blaming the humans for Lilith's death when it was the angels that killed her, I gave my theories behind it in one of the summaries but I really need more solid answers

- I've always wanted more girls (or any girls really) and the way I was disappointed that we never got to see Lilith (I mean I understand that some players would HC her to look like their MC even though she died thousands of years before MC and they probably wouldn't share a resemblance but still) but I never considered Solomon's apprentice was a girl and I dunno why.. OKAY BUT CONSIDER GIRLS AS NEW LIS!!!!!

- I definitely think they would, it would make no sense if they didn't after how much they were hyped up and I might actually scream if they don't get designs. That being said I have very clear ideas of them in my head and I'm gonna hate having to part with them

[mittensmorgul]

As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt.  I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

[aggieharkness]

From the ashes I rise

Summary:  Sometimes, in the night, the memories return, surrounding you, eating you alive until you can't breathe. Everything is so real again and yet there's always a hand that pulls you, saves you. Blue eyes meet blue eyes and everything is fine once more.

a/n:  I read an interview with Katy Wix and this idea popped into my head, I hope you like it and if you would like me to write anything at all my PM are always open and so are my comments :) Thanks for reading and if you have any suggestions about the story at all don't hesitate, tell me.

warnings: backstory, witchcraft, PTSD

From the ashes i rise

Mistletoe was poisonous, that’s what Alison had said as she hung it over every threshold she could find, in every room all over the house, that if eaten anyone could die, or if touched in a weird way, not really sure herself what she meant by that, but the point was still there. Mike didn’t think it was necessary to have thirty all over, one or two was more than enough, but her argument was unbeatable “It’s a ghost thing”. It wasn’t, Fanny didn’t want that thing in every door and Mary thought it was work of the devil, hanging a poisonous plant everywhere, but Alison meant well, she actually was hoping a kiss or two might happen during the night.

All the presents were given, and carols were sang, Mike had to force his family to join in after a few solos with Alison, not knowing the ghosts were performing as a choir ready for the X-factor, the bottle of wine and the eggnog gone by then. Soon the ghosts started to retire, too many emotions and plans for tomorrow, Mike’s sisters and parents biding them goodnight after the last carol and slice of spotted dick, completely drained. Close to midnight the only people left were Alison and Mike who sat close to the window just watching the snow falling, in the background and close to the fire Mary, Fanny and Kitty sat on the sofa chatting lightly about nonsense as to pass the time. Interrupting their conversation Alison wished them a happy Christmas and a goodnight and left with Mike trotting tiredly behind speaking lazy words looking up at the ceiling, he really thought ghosts levitated, Kitty jumping of the couch and following like a merry pet that only hoped to be able to sit close to their loved ones, excited words vanishing in the distance after a few minutes, the sound of a door closing meeting a comfortable silence.

All alone at last Mary rested her head on Fanny’s shoulder, her fingers travelling to get a hold of her hand, just tapping and twirling in between her sleeve and fingers. It was a lovely night, quiet, cosy, homely inside the house, layers of fresh snow accumulating all over the county. This would be their first Christmas together, officially together, and although everything was new, they weren’t nervous about the holidays, they had been getting to know each other for months, telling each other about their lives, who they met, what they used to do, dreams, hopes, nightmares and painful remainders. After Fanny’s outburst a few months ago, they had slowly gone through every bit of her past, tears and fights happened sometimes, but didn’t last long. Mary had talked about herself and family too, and was giving small details about her trial but hadn’t still talked about it, and Fanny was not about to push her, so they just sat there, looking at the fire quite content to just be with each other.

-Why’s so important to has a tree in the house?

-Oh… It’s just tradition. We’ve always had a good tree in Button house, and I didn’t want it to be forgotten. You saw what Alison brought, it was but a bush, a disgrace.

-It was small, but… cute.

-Maybe for a bedroom or an office, not for the entire house. No, a fine mansion such as this requires a spectacular tree, and for this one I’m very grateful to Michael’s father.

-We didn’ts have this. We would has a small dinner, pray and say thank you and go to bed to wake up and work on the fields. We trys to give the little ones something, like dolls made of rags or-

-Little ones? – Fanny stopped staring at the fireplace to look at Mary, who seemed rather calm and composed, quite relaxed in her arms.

-Yeah. Little Willy and Joan. They was very young when the illnesses got them. My sweet little babes didn’t makes it through winter before me husband passed. They would coughs and coughs until one night they stopped, and the Lord tooks ‘hem. My husband slipped on ice and died not long after. They thoughts I had done it.

-Who?

-The villagers.

-Mary, did they… if you don’t want to tell me it’s alright… Did they judge you because of…? The trial was because of this?

-Well… They thoughts I had given ‘hem to the Devil and I trieds to tell them, but no one listened. It was the illness, not me. They didn’ts care at all.

-I’m so sorry. It must have been so hard for you to have to go through all that on your own.

-It was. It really was. I tooks care of all of them until their last breath, buried them and tried to keeps going so the land wouldn’t go to waste, but they thought it be strange and so they came. In the night.

-Okay, that’s enough for today, it’s Christmas and-

-They came in the night, like an army of shadows with torches and pitchforks, screaming witch, witch. – Fanny’s words hadn’t been heard, Mary was too far away from the land of the dead, as if she was reliving everything all over again, her eyes glazed, staring at nothing. -They broke the door and tooks me from my bed, throwing me over a donkey. It was cold, so very cold and windy and the voices of the people were yelling and screaming that I needed be burned were so loud, too loud, but they put me in a stone house, and I waited. I don’t knows how long I was there, but it was long. Others there were visited, but not me, until one morning I was pulled out. They had… The had dug up my family and were showings them as proof that I be a witch. They were so thin, I has forgotten how much they hasn’t eaten, their skin purple and blue. I trieds to close me eyes, but they made me look for hours as the spoke and judge me. People I thoughts were friends accused me of having stolen animals from their houses, that I had talked in something that wasn’t English, and my drawings. They said they be witchcraft and burned them in fronts of me, but they were not. I’m not a bad witch Fanny! I swear I’m not! – the agitations on Mary’s voice and limbs caused her to stim in anxious movements, a terrified look on her face as if she was seeing her, but they weren’t in Button house. Mary kneeled in front of her, crying and begging her to believe her, her body moving erratically on the floor, her hands shaking as they were stinging. – I be not a bad witch! I dids nothing, please, believe me. I has always been faithful, I does not be a servant of the Devil. Please, Fanny, please, don’t lets ‘hem burn me! Please! I be not powerful enough, please, I don’ts want to die! PLEASE!

Her cries were muffled by Fanny’s chest as she held on to Mary, speaking soothing words trying to calm her down. The smoke that was surrounding them was thick and black, and it filled Fanny’s lungs like she was breathing sand, tears filling her eyes as she coughed, but didn’t let go of her. The fire in the chimney vanished, leaving the room in a soft darkness only broken by the light coming from the outside. Mary’s body shook with each sob, her brain still bringing the memories back, the harsh words and lies, how the bodies of her family were mistreated, pushed about, poked and thrown; her remedies had been worthless to bring them back to health, but had helped to bring them to a peaceful rest. She had held her children feeling how they were leaving her, but only smiled down and sang to them, as they wished, smiling back weakly at her, soon the candle gave out, and she remained like that, singing until only cold silence had filled the room. The moment a cold wind had passed through her she knew it was over, and gently laid them down, tucked them in and continued to sing, tears spilling, her chest constricted as she tried to hold onto what little she had left. Joseph, her husband had left to visit his brother who had just had a child and wouldn’t be back for another few days if the weather allowed it, so she had had to get the priest and accompany her children to their last resting place. The house was quiet and cold, disturbing and filled with such pain that Mary had thought about leaving, but she couldn’t, the land was still to be prepared for the spring, and more children would have to be born to sustain her family, she couldn’t lay back and grief as much as she wanted or needed.

The sound of a horse made her stand and walk outside, a candle lighting up the figure of her husband. Once glance at her face and he dropped to his knees and cried, Mary holding him as he cursed and screamed, her heart breaking even more. The next morning, he didn’t dare look at her, and she knew why: he had hoped she would be able to safe them, but her supplies were low, and as much as she had tried it hadn’t been enough, and he blamed her for it, she blamed herself for it. She was far from perfect but had always considered herself rather good with plants and flowers, she had been told form a very young age that she had a gift, her mother had always called it that and refused to choose another term, but as Mary had grown older, she learned as to why. A gift is a godsend, something people could even call a skill, but in Mary it had always been more than that, it was witchcraft, and that was the Devil at work. Joseph loved her and had admired her gift ever since they had been children, she was a healer, but now he thought it to be a curse, a useless power that had done nothing for his children, he almost seemed to forget that they were Mary’s as well in his own pain. She lost faith in herself in just a few weeks, and slowly had retreated into herself, resenting everything she had ever done or been, until one freezing morning she had accompanied her husband to the barn to milk the cows. Before entering she looked at her right and saw one of the chickens outside in the snow-covered soil and had hurried to pick her up before she froze to death, leaving her husband to attend to his business in silence. A big racket reached her ears as she put the chicken back in its cage and ran all the way back to the barn pushing the door open. The water had leaked and froze on the floor overnight causing him to slip and fall on the pitchfork. Mary screamed, she could feel her throat raw even now, and had rushed to his side, but it was no use, by the amount of blood he was expelling he would only last a few minutes. She had begged him to hold on, that she would find a way to fix this, but he knew better than to make her believe her own lie and had pulled himself off it and held onto her hand, apologising for not being there, saying a last I love you as a small trickle of blood escaped his lips.

Fanny knew there would be bruises where Mary was holding onto her, fingers digging onto her flesh even over her clothes, the smoke still around them, but refused to let go. She kept on talking to her even though she knew that Mary was far away, and she couldn’t bring her back or didn’t know how to but knew better than to leave her. She wouldn’t become George and wouldn’t leave her love alone when she was clearly hurting. In her own nightmare Mary was staring at the coffin of her husband, her expression blank, undisturbed, neutral as they put him down next to their babies, a thunderstorm coming fast towards them, but she didn’t care, she watched as they covered his grave and the priest prayed for his soul, a feeling of déjà vu running down her spine. In a monotonous pace she made her way back to the house, the wood creaking, the air cold and dead. Her trunk was almost empty except for a few more dried leaves and roots, dust and webs covering the empty holes and jars. Anger rose inside her chest, fury at her own self for not having learned when she had had to the opportunity how to be a proper witch, the books laid underneath the floorboards forgotten. She ripped them out, throwing them across the room, tears flowing freely as she cursed and screamed, but soon she grew tired, and just kneeled on her broken floor, holding on to her apron. Looking up she saw one of the books laid open in front of her, words about love, curses and magic written all over the thick worn-out pages, elaborated drawings decorating them.

She had never really learned to read, missed her opportunity back when she refused to learn in favour of helping her family with the lands. Looking at them she realised what a huge mistake that had been. With a snaping sound the pages caught on fire, flames devouring them in just a few seconds in front of her perplexed eyes without giving her much room for her to safe them. Even in the darkness of the house a thick shadow of anger and pain covered her face, leaving it unfeatured over the broken floor, ashes falling around the crevasses of the wood. She didn’t know for how long she had been sitting there, minutes turned to hours, silence filling every pore, but in the background she could have sworn a voice was talking to her but the words were so quiet she couldn’t really make out what they were saying, not that she really cared. The field spent several days waiting for Mary, but she never came, her strength was gone and just the thought of heading to the barn and witnessing the blood was too much for her to bear, she just spent her days inside the house, lightning up the candles with her fingers, defrosting the bedsheets with just one snap. All alone allowed her to see if she still had it in her and whether she could actually do more than what she had spent her life doing, but in the night, right after she had settled for the night once more footsteps broke the silence, Mary’s eyes snapping open, listening as they became more and stronger, they sounded almost angry, but she couldn’t bring herself to stand. Suddenly silence met her once more and she decided to close her eyes in hopes she would be able to sleep, but the door was opened with such force that the wood snapped and a group of men burst in, torches and pitchforks in some of their hands as they grabbed Mary. Their fingers dug onto her skin, her throat raw from not having spoken in days as she screamed for them to let her go, but they didn’t listened, tied her instead onto the back of a donkey, the wind blowing strongly on her face, women and men looking at her as if she were a freak in a circus, insults and hash words reaching her ears as they made their way to the village.

Fanny could not make head or tail of the random words Mary was speaking, the only thing she was sure of was that wherever she was she was fighting someone from the way she was moving in her arms, hands slapping and grabbing her silk dress, ripping the seams as she pulled to escape her grasp, but she didn’t let go. The screams woke some of the ghosts, the Captain included, and as he entered the room he witnessed Mary’s glazed eyes and the face of utter terror on her ash covered features. Fanny’s worried look made him stop right on his tracks, looking at them not sure as what to do to help except for forbidding anyone from entering the room.

-Fanny?

-Leave. Theodore, go.

-What’s going on? Why is Mary… Do you need me to call Alison?

-No. Don’t trouble her. I’m not quite sure, but we can’t do anything but wait it all out.

-NO! I DIDN’TS DO IT! YOU KNOWS ME! TELL THEM MATILDA!

-What?

-She’s been speaking like this for twenty minutes now. Theodore, listen to me, go.

-Absolutely not, what if she hurts you?

-I’m dead.

-Oh, right, still, what if she does something and you are all alone?

-I DON’TS! I BE NO SERVANT OF DEVIL’S! I’M GOOD! WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!

-Ahhh!

-Fanny!

Her hands felt like they were on fire, forcing her to let go of Mary as big thick clouds of black smoke surrounded Mary, orange lights coming from within, falling backwards over the carpet. The Captain rushed to her and helped her sit as he checked her blistered hands, tears of pain running down her cheeks. Mary stared as the priest took hold of the parchment where her sentence was written, showing it to everyone that surrounded her as she was tied to the stake, utter fear and horror filling her chest. Her friends were crying, but didn’t utter a word in her favour, she truly believed they thought she had done it; defeated the only thing she could do was beg, but all her words landed on deaf ears, the smell of fire reaching her nostrils from behind, the urge to escape becoming so primitive the ropes were digging onto her wrists and ankles, but it was too late. The fire spread quickly all around her, smoke making her eyes water, coughing over and over, oxygen becoming increasingly more difficult to breath. Her head felt foggy, lightheaded, her vision blurry as the figures became just colours. Her voice was gone at this point although she continued to scream, but soon enough the feeling of tiredness took over, her eyes closing slowly, and everything went dark and silent. When she opened her eyes, she was standing on the stake, the wood gone, turned to ashes. Not understanding what was wrong she took one step, then another, everyone was gone from the forest except for a figure that stood in between the trees. The force of a pair of hands grabbing her by her hands caused her to yell, a thick fog around her as the figure came closer and closer, a sweet female voice trying to talk with her until she was face to face with Fanny, utter terror on her face, calling her name. The pain in her hands was unbearable, but Mary was out of control, fire starting to come out of her hands onto the carpet. Slowly her surroundings became clearer, the living room filled with black smoke as she managed to grasp onto what was wrong. The memories where far too vivid still.

-Mary? – she couldn’t find her voice all of a sudden, just stared at Fanny with wide open eyes. – Mary, can you hear me?

-Mary, are you with us?

-I…

-Just nod if you can hear me. Good, that’s it. Okey, can you stand?

-We should tell Alison to open the windows.

-Don’t worry about that right now Theodore. Help me hold her.

-Fa… Fanny…

-What is it? Do you need anything? Are you okey?

-Fanny, what… what happened?

-Long story. Are you okey?

-Yes. I thinks so.

-Alright. Can you walk? You should get some air.

-Okey. Dids I do something?

-No, don’t fret.

-But Fanny, your…

-I’m perfectly alright Theodore. Mary didn’t do any harm at all, now, did she?

-Ohhh. Of course, Mary, everything is perfectly alright. You are just a bit shaken.

-I… Fanny… I didn’ts do it. You knows I didn’t.

-Of course I know. It was the illness, you said so yourself.

-I trieds to help, but I be not strong enough. I should has been taught.

-Let’s get you outside, come on.

-I be not a bad witch. You believe me, not?

-Mary, listen, you have been through something very traumatic, let’s wait until you more or less are back to your normal self.

-Aun… I mean Fanny, do you think we should wait? Remember Humphrey or Kitty, it’s not good to hold things.

-I will not have Mary talk about her past so soon after this incident. If she has reacted this way Lord knows how she could react if we forced her to speak once more. I don’t ask you about the war, do I?

-That’s different. I didn’t fight, but Mary…

-That will be enough young man. I said no, and it shall remain as such until I think she’s ready, if she ever is. You didn’t hear her scream for mercy the way I did, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even George. Have I made myself understood?

-Yes, aunty.

-Good.

-Aunty? You two are related? – from the other side of the banister Alison and the other ghosts were staring, Kitty and Pat incredibly worried. – The smell woke me up. What happened? Why is Mary so pale? What the hell?

-Don’t trouble yourself Alison, we have everything under control.

-Really? Doesn’t look like that to me? You two are related?!

-Yes, is not that important Alison. He’s my aunt’s grandson, but I always let him call me aunt.

-No wonder you two are so… similarly weird. He must have been a child when you passed.

-He was very young, yes, but it doesn’t matter at the moment.

-Fanny’s right, we have a… ghost thing going on that must be solved at once.

-This is not just a ghost thing. The entire house smelled like it was on fire.

-Hmm. – Mary’s hands grabbed onto Fanny’s dress, a grimace on her face. The blisters on her hands were slowly disappearing, but the cloud of utter confusion over their heads was thick and becoming bigger as they tried to protect her from everyone’s questions. Why couldn’t they shut up, couldn’t they see how much pain they were causing Mary?

-SILENCE! All of you! Mary, darling, where do you want to go?

-I… I don’ts know.

-Okey, let’s go outside for a bit to clear everyone’s head, is that alright?

A nod was all she received. Both women moved in slow steps towards the main entrance, no one dared to follow. As Mary moved towards the outside so did the smell, the house free of smoke in under five seconds as if nothing had happened, questions floating in the air. If they had been alive the feeling of the snow on their skin would have made them shiver uncontrollably, but the wind and fresh air were now welcome. The seams of Fanny’s dress were completely ripped leaving her freckled skin exposed, Mary seemed to be focusing on that, her eyes following every little beauty mark she could find as she tried to calm her racing thoughts. Everything had been so vivid, so real. She hadn’t thought of them in almost 400 years and at the same time she hadn’t stopped at all, they were in the back of her head always. Her hands were warm, spreading heat like a fire as her fingers traced patterns over Fanny’s exposed skin, grounding herself. Lady B wanted to speak, wanted to ask her so many questions, but didn’t know how to tackle this, she hadn’t been allowed back when she had been younger to ask anything that wasn’t what her mother had considered “lady like”. Such a waste. Thankfully she didn’t need to as Mary lifted her head to look into her baby blue eyes, the only constant she seemed to find in her mind, the love she felt for her, she wasn’t sure of what was real and what was a memory, but she was certain that Fanny was there, her soft flesh beneath her fingers, she was real and so was what she felt for her. She was madly in love with her and at the moment it felt right, the only clear thing in her mind. She had never intended to hide anything from her, but the fear was too great, had been too much and she couldn’t escape from its grasp, she had been alone with her own thoughts, drowning, until a hand had pulled her from the freezing waters. She could forget everything she had ever lived both in death and life as long as Fanny remained in her heart forever, she was enough.

-How are you feeling?

-Better. I hurt you, didn’ts I?

-Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. I’m perfectly fine now.

-I’m sorry.

-Whatever for?

-If I hads done things differently, if I hads been better…

-You wouldn’t be here, with me. It might sound selfish, but I wouldn’t change anything from our pasts.

-I’m sure you knows by now, you are smart.

-Know what?

-What I be.

-You are Mary, nothing more and nothing else unless you want to be more. Do you?

-I was so scared they would find out, and… what good dids it do? I was killed anyway.

-I’m sorry you went through that, and we can’t change the past, believe me, I’ve tried, but now things are different. People like you or me would have been hanged back in my day, and nowadays they can get married and have a life, just like everyone else, because being different doesn’t make you bad. No one is going to hurt you if you want to be your true self Mary. I love you either way, and I won’t leave you.

-I… I be a witch. – both knew what she was, but she needed to say it. It felt liberating in a way to say who she was, what she had been hiding her entire life and death and it felt right to say it to her. Her smile didn’t falter, her eyes didn’t sparkle with hate or worry and her stand didn’t shake, she was still there looking at her as if she were the only one in the entire world.

-I know, dear.

-You… really don’t minds? At all?

-No. Maybe you can light candles with your fingertips, or transform cups into frogs, but you are still the same Mary we all know and love. You are still my Mary. – God, it felt wonderful, she felt light as air, a happiness she had never felt blooming in her chest as Fanny’s hand took hold of hers, the other one cherishing her cheek wiping with her thumb the tears she hadn’t noticed were falling from her eyes.

-I’m dead, I can’t learns now how to… be me. I don’ts know if I can do it now, maybe I lost my powers.

-We can try if you really want to. You and me, and maybe the Captain or Pat, but not Julian, let’s leave him out of this.

-Okey, I likes that.

-Do you know any small little trick that you use to do when you were younger?

-I don’ts know… Well… There’s one. I don’ts know if it will work, but…

She let go of her, clasping her hands in front of Fanny, staring at them with such concentration, such perfection. Inside her it felt like a rush of excitement and energy was flowing through her veins making her feel… alive. Fanny felt the energy shift around them, it was exhilarating, something new she had never imagined possible. Mary was at peace with her own soul at last, she could see it in her features, a comfortable breeze embracing them as Mary lifted her gaze and opened her eyes, staring into Fanny’s eyes. Her breath caught in her throat, a gasp escaping from her pink lips as she saw the brightest blue she had ever seen in her life, not even in those expensive fabrics she had seen in the shops, no, nothing could compare to the life emanating from Mary’s eyes, it’s as if that shade hadn’t existed on the faze of this Earth until Mary had opened them. Her hands unclasped revealing a small red dot, it was slightly disappointing, Fanny had expected something grandiose, until the little dot started growing in size revealing a beautiful deep red velvet rose in full bloom in between her palms. The feeling of disappointment vanished altogether as soon as Mary placed the flower in her own hands. It had been so long since she had felt the petals of a flower in between her fingers, the droplets of water falling on her palms, the sweet smell of a fresh rose, and all that had come from Mary, from her own bare hands. It was perfect and eternal.

-I can stills do it.

-Don’t ever stop.

Her lips were so close, just an inch away from Mary’s, it was torture until she closed the gap between them, crashing her mouth over hers earning a soft moan from Fanny, and for once she didn’t regret it. Neither of them had ever felt so alive before, so ready to meet the world and fight. They were strong, so incredibly strong and everything was because of a rose. Mary’s mind had calmed by now, all her thoughts were still, quiet, everything would be fine. Her husband had adored her gift and she would never say she hadn’t loved him with her entire being, but four hundred years was more than enough time to make peace with ones inner demons, he would always hold a special place in her heart along with her children, her two little babies, but for once she was free to be who she had always been meant to be and with who she wanted. The kiss ended too quickly for their liking, but there would be time for more. The dress had miraculously fixed itself once more and Mary’s smoke had vanished completely, but the snow was still there and so was the moon and their rose. Unconsciously Mary placed one arm around Fanny’s waist as they watched the snow build up around them, the cold didn’t bother them, her other hand resting on Fanny’s tummy, the rose blooming even more as she did that, green leaves growing underneath. At last, on Christmas everything was perfect, no more painful memories from Fanny’s bankrupt family or Mary’s loses. It was just magical.

[byorder-fanfic]

Finn’s Lost Loves

Summary: Finn’s lost more than anyone else knew because of the war, and every stupid thing his family have done afterwards to keep themselves in charge.

Word count: 2019

Warnings: Mentions war and blood, talks about eating disorder, self harm and self-esteem, and homophobia (only a little bit, period accurate), a lot of toxic masculinity 

Author’s note: This is a lot of angst with little bits of fluff and a sad ending. Sorry. It’s basically an overview of Finn’s character, backstory and his relationships with the family that we’ve never gotten to see! It’s based off a piece of prose in my drafts, so if you guys like this, I might post that as well. Hope you enjoy, and please comment, I love hearing your opinions and any constructive criticism you might have xx

Finn loved books. Once upon a time, he really did. He loved the way Tommy did the voices, and Arthur made those wild motions with his hands, and John could always make him laugh as he told him about that thing that happened in the pub last week. He loved how Ada and Polly would tuck him up in bed, place a kiss on his temple and read the letters from the boys. Then they came back, and he didn’t need to read letters. Or books. Or anything really. Soon, he didn’t even go to school. He just wanted to be with his brothers. Now they tell him to piss off more than they beg him to stay. Tommy and Polly scold him for not being able to read off the betting boards, and John makes everyone else laugh when he holds a big volume under Finn’s nose, so that everyone knew that Finn was still illiterate. Finn hates books.

Finn loved Church. He didn’t need Polly to drag him by the heels as he sobbed under the Virgin Mary’s stare like his brothers when he hopped, skipped and a jumped all his way down the road. He always sat by Isaiah, the two boys out-screaming each other in the hymns and seeing who Polly would scold first. He wore the crucifix everyday, and treated his rosary with all the sacred carefulness a six year old could manage. He loved the psalms and Jeremiah’s voice ringing through the streets and the way everyone was always together (even Charlie) on Sunday. Then he had to light candles, praying for his brothers’ safety that was only answered with their damnation as they dragged back blood and French mud into Watery Lane. Now he cries through the paper thin pages of a Bible and his only prayers are that the boys never see his tears. What did he have to cry about after all? He was never a soldier, but he should learn to be a man. Finn hates Church.

Finn loved healing. Ada dragged him along to her nursing classes and soon his only reason to come to Church was to learn how to tie bandages and fix up cuts and bruises. No one noticed his long absences- they either assumed he went to school still, or they were far too busy with the race tracks to care for the whereabouts of their youngest brother. But then he'd slipped up, and he'd never seen his brothers laugh so hard when he proudly told Polly he was going to be a nurse one day. Even his aunt and sister, usually the ones on his side, had to purse their lips together as Arthur roared out: "Hear that, Tom? We got ourselves a Nurse Shelby here! Want a dress and hat to go with it?" He told them all to fuck off and stamped out, but he didn't understand what he said that was so funny. When he asked Isaiah, who had just turned fourteen and starting to see Finn less and less, he just said that being a nurse was a woman's job. He didn't like being laughed at for being a girl, but he didn't know why. He still hoarded textbooks about anatomy and the like under his bed, tracing over the detailed pictures with his skeleton finger as he wished. And wished. And wished. And almost prayed that he could read the little ink words. When he found Arthur with another red line on his neck, he offered him some medicine to cure his big brother's blues, thinking just a bit of Tokyo would keep his brother here with him. No one asked why Finn was sad. Oh well, at least he could protect his brothers now. Finn hates healing. Finn loved food. Always the big eater in the Shelby household, he managed to always have a full stomach despite the poverty that reigned. He was a stickler for sweets, though, and as soon as he mastered the art of sneaking rings and wallets from unsuspecting strangers, he soon graduated to thieving lollipops and boiled sweets and even some toffees that he proudly deposited into his aunt's hand with a toothy grin. But the boys would look into his empty plate and his skinny frame and tell him he'd better watch out, soon he might actually have a shape under those bulky clothes. They always laughed, and he felt himself completely embarrassed at the dinner table. He dumped more sugar than milk into his tea and stole chips when they went to the seaside. He'd always offer to share, wanting to provide for them for once, but they'd tell him he was the one who needed it. He sees his ribs and the little vertebrae of his spine and wonders why can't he just be strong like his brothers. Even though he despises it, he picks up boxing to fill out his form. Maybe training with Isaiah was an extra benefit, but the older boy had long since talked to Finn on the regular, and made a point to laugh at him when he fell onto the floor. So, Finn graduated from second helpings of lunch and too-sweet tea to the sour delights of whiskey and cigarettes. Just like his brothers. Finn hates food. Finn loves his family. He loves Polly, the mother he never had, and will never feel like he does enough to repay her for his entire childhood. Then Michael came back, and soon there wasn't any chore lists on the downstairs table for someone to read out for him, or little check ups throughout the day as she makes sure he's okay. That was when he realised exactly why Polly raised him in her empty arms. He loves Arthur: his eldest brother, who used to lift him up on his shoulders and teach him to draw. Finn still has faded old pictures of galloping stallions (signed in block letters: A.W.S) slipped between the filled out pages of the sketchbooks he hides in his wardrobe. Then Arthur came back, with what everyone calls Flanders Blues, but no one explains, and Finn feels like he's losing his brother everyday when he comes back smelling like a brewery with blood on his fists. Finn loves Tommy. A father figure to him, the kind of man he wants to be when he grows up. But then Greta died and Tommy went to war, and the man who took him horse riding every weekend was gone, and this Tommy was colder. Finn loves John as the best friend he's ever had, always laughing together, giving sometimes useful advice and finding days to just spend time with each other. Despite John's bazillion kids, widowerhood, and then his new wife, he's always had time to spare for his little brother. John was the one who told him what bisexual was when he found Finn sobbing in his room, he was the one that took him to the doctor when he passed out from malnutrition, and he's the one that made him swear to never use razor blades on himself again. Finn loves Ada. He sees why Freddie calls her an angel, and used to love it when she pretended to take Finn to the library when in fact they were both slipping away to a Communist meeting, which would usually end up in Ada and Freddie slipping away and leaving Finn in the trusted supervision of leftist radicals that he happily chatted away to. Ada always took care of him, making sure he was never involved in the business (on either side) and telling him that being a soldier is a life sentence, not an honour. He lives because Ada keeps him safe and sane. Then Ada leaves. Finn hates the Shelby name that everyone screams at him like a condemnation, that invites slurs and hatred that only he gets because he doesn't look like a proper Shelby man. Finn hates his family. Finn loved Isaiah. A childhood crush that brought butterflies to his stomach and blushes to his freckled face. He sketched the boy's face so many times, he knew it by memory. They held hands when they were chased down the streets, laughing and sprinting as their spoils stayed securely in their pockets. But Isaiah was older than him. Soon after adolescence hit the Jesus boy and Peaky Blinders offered him a role, without the constant of Church, the two greatest of friends became almost strangers to one another. But Finn still loved him. He never told anyone, of course. He knew he wasn't a real homosexual, because he most certainly did enjoy holding hands and kissing the cheeks of girls his age (poor boy was flustered to ever do more!) but his heart still belonged to the preacher's boy. With more faithful women in the family than ever before, Finn knew he would be crucified if he ever told anyone. John was the only one who knew, and that was based on the fact he paid more attention to his brother than anyone else combined. He said he should just go for it, but Finn knew Isaiah couldn't be like him. And even if Jeremiah was always the kindest man that Finn ever met, he still didn't trust that the cross on his neck wouldn't shame him or laugh at him for the fact he was completely enamoured with his son. Then Finn got drunk, and when he woke up, his entire family knew exactly how he felt and Isaiah wouldn't look at him in the eye. He ran away to the stables, crying on Uncle Charlie's shoulder who told it would be alright. He made sure to keep an eye on Finn ever since, keeping an eye on his wrists and fists. The incident was soon forgot by everyone but him. Finn couldn't find it in him to hate Isaiah, but he knew he didn't love him any more. Finn has never loved Michael. He thought he could, at first, when he saw the tweed suit and a face more innocent than his. But then Tommy promoted him almost on the spot, and Finn had never at once felt so much rage bubble inside him. Everything he has done for his brothers, every passion he sacrificed, every humiliation he shouldered, just so they could see him as an equal. But no, there are only three Shelby brothers as far as anyone else is concerned, and Finn carries on as errand boy. He ignores all Ada's good advice, and swear that he will make his brothers proud of him one day. So, he puts on the thorn crown of a Peaky cap and wears the waistcoat and wool coat of his brother's likeness, and parades about Small Heath like he actually was apart of the makeshift royal family. Then Finn found Michael and Isaiah kissing in the alleyway. Even though Finn had made a point to announce that his brothers had started giving him more work, Isaiah still fucked off to the pub with Michael every night, devoting his time and attention to only him, and Finn couldn't understand why. Now he did. If Finn had been violent like Arthur, he certainly wouldn't have thought twice about taking the cup on his curls and cutting the smirk off of his cousin. He had stolen his brothers' respect, his surrogate mother's attention, his place in the business, the affections of the one boy Finn had ever loved. He had stolen Finn's everything, and Finn hated him. They both froze and stuttered. Excuses about just being friends, just experimenting, but he saw the way they held each others shaking hands just as he and Isaiah used to hold onto each other as they raced through the streets. "I'm glad you're together." He shocked them both with a forced smile. "You both deserve to be happy." The two were kinder to him after that, almost back to the old friendship he had missed, and Finn knew he didn't hate Michael. Or Isaiah. Or any of his family, really. No, Finn hated himself.

[allaboutve]

FAVORITE MOVIE REVIEWS: #9 THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, John McTiernan

My ninth favorite movie is perhaps my most embarrassing.  The Thomas Crown Affair is fundamentally a date movie that happens to be about a heist.  And call me a liberal fruit bat, but the film articulates some very problematic values.

However, The Thomas Crown Affair benefits from being one of my favorite movies from my adolescence and does a lot of things right.  One of these is its representation of New York City, which is not accurate in detail as much as in spirit.

As an adult I appreciate the relationship between Thomas Crown, played by Pierce Brosnan, and Catherine Banning, played by Rene Russo.  There are no easy answers in the movie or in their fun yet troubled romance.  

Although The Thomas Crown Affair is shamelessly materialistic its moral strength is its honest amorality.  It never mistakes its main characters’ drives with a higher sense of right and wrong, which is sadly becoming the norm in today’s media.

Thomas Crown is a Wall Street Mergers and Acquisitions giant with a fondness for one particular painting--Noon - Rest from Work by Vincent Van Gogh. He affectionately calls it “Haystacks.”  

Late for work and stuck in traffic, he leaves his personal chauffeur in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to view the painting from a bench the impressionist wing.  It should be mentioned that Crown brings a briefcase containing his lunch, which he eats in the museum.  

He shows up later in the day at the Wall Street headquarters of his company Crown Acquisitions, having accidentally left his briefcase in the museum.  Crown spends the rest of a busy day looking at his watch, waiting for the day to finally end.  Crown finally leaves the office with another briefcase and returns to the Met.  

I should mention that over the course of the day, a foursome of Eastern European thieves smuggle themselves into the museum hidden inside a Greco-Roman Horse (“Trojan Horse”) preparing to heist the very same wing Crown frequents.  Their heist is unrealistically complex--involving crawling through air ducts, sabotaging the air conditioning and an airlift via helicopter.

When Crown arrives, he discovers the nefarious goings on and draws museum security to it.  Security thwarts the art thieves before anything is stolen.  But not quite.

1999 audiences knew from the trailer that Thomas Crown would steal one of the paintings.  But in fact, the entire heist was orchestrated by Crown.  While the impressionist wing is sealed and the thieves apprehended, Crown slides under the closing gate, steals one painting off the wall and stashes it in a briefcase hidden under a museum bench.  He left the briefcase in the Museum intentionally!

And Crown is only able to make his escape because one of the gates is wedged open by the second briefcase he brought work.  We later learn the briefcase was loaded with titanium.  

Crown does not steal his “Haystacks.”  Instead, he steals a painting by Claude Monet San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk.  The movie sets up the painting early on as the watershed painting by Claude Monet that founded the Impressionist movement, worth $100 Million.

(It should be mentioned that this backstory is made up for the movie.  The Claude Monet painting that founded the Impressionist movement is named Impression, Sunrise.  It is actually housed in Paris and its subject matter is superficially similar to San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk, though less dramatic.)

This is our first insight into Crown’s personality.  Crown spends the early part of the movie fantasizing of an easier life, like the man enjoying a siesta in Noon - Rest from Work.  But it is a facade.  Crown is after the drama, dynamism and richness embodied in San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk.

The above synopsis is only approximately the first twenty minutes of the film.  The rest of the movie focuses on the investigation of the robbery.  On the case are two NYPD detectives (“Michael”) McCann and Paretti--played by Denis Leary and Frankie Faison.  

Having four thieves in custody, they want to treat the case textbook and overlook some of the unusual details.  But they are joined within the first hour of their investigation by a Private Investigator named Catherine Banning, played by Rene Russo.  

Her job “is the painting.”  Already a nuisance to the detectives, she sits in on the Witness ID of the thieves, in which Thomas Crown is the witness.  Banning gives Crown several suspicious glances, the gears in her mind turning.

After doing some research Banning discovers Crown has a habit of bidding on paintings by Claude Monet at auctions.  She becomes certain that he stole the missing Monet, and after she resolves other details of the robbery McCann and Paretti believe her.

The rest of The Thomas Crown Affair involves Banning’s attempt to retrieve the missing Monet by seducing Crown--who also appears to be seducing her.  While the plot develops it becomes unclear to both whether Banning is after the painting or Crown.

Whether or not The Thomas Crown Affair lands depends on its execution of the romance between Thomas Crown and Catherine Banning.  More than half of the movie conforms to the plot structure of any modern romantic film.  However, The Thomas Crown Affair deviates from romance tropes in several ways that give the film life where another film’s story and characters would drag.  

(SPOILERS BELOW)

This is not to say that there are not several romance tropes littered throughout the movie.  For instance, two love triangles are forced throughout the movie--involving Detective McCann and a young woman seen dancing early in the film with Crown.  One of these love triangles even leads to a misunderstanding that makes Banning betray Crown to the police in the film’s climax.

Banning is also led astray by Crown’s wealth and privilege--a tropey characteristic of female romantic leads all the way into the 21st Century.  This would not be distracting except that it occurs during a sequence in the Caribbean island Martinique where the film’s pace otherwise grinds to a halt.

For reasons to be discussed, these appear to be problems with the script from its most early drafts.  But The Thomas Crown Affair starts to circumvent romance tropes with its first shot.  If there is a theme in The Thomas Crown Affair I have come to respect, it is the couple’s incongruent needs.  Thomas Crown is attracted to Catherine Banning because of personal insecurity.  On the other hand, Banning is attracted to Crown because he is handsome, receptive and fun to be with.

Crown’s insecurities regarding his love life are first stirred up in his first scene when his therapist questions in session whether a woman could ever trust him.  In Crown’s relationship with Catherine Banning, he tries to prove that he trusts her as opposed to earning her trust.  

From this context, Crown cannot resolve by himself his insecurity about whether a woman can trust.  He is going about it wrong.  What’s more, trust issues are only Crown’s hangup, not necessarily Banning’s.

Crown’s insecurity is not resolved at the end of the film.  At a height of tension in their relationship, Crown promises Banning he will return the stolen Monet to prove that he trusts her.  Instead she passes the information to the police.

This turn of events is perhaps the strength of The Thomas Crown Affair as a romance film.  It is true that Banning sides with the police in part because of a misunderstanding about Crown’s relationship with another woman.  This sort of misunderstanding is typical of Hollywood romance films.  

On the other hand, the film avoids a more problematic romance trope by not stating whether Banning should choose Crown or the police.  Romance films are typically coded so that a couple, especially the female-gendered half, should choose their romantic interest over their other values or responsibilities.  But The Thomas Crown Affair does not even make the case that Banning should side with Crown over the police. 

A climactic chase follows between Crown and the police inside the Met.  Crown not only returns the painting while evading the police, he steals another--The Banks of the Seine at Argenteuil by Édouard Manet.  The painting by Manet is what Banning points to on their first date, saying she would steal that one if given the choice.

Banning goes to the Wall Street Heliport where Crown asks her to meet him.  But he has already left and his associate gives her the painting instead.  A generous gesture, but Banning does not keep the painting.  She returns it to the police instead.  

In that entire sequence, Crown shows that he did not fully trust her.  And Banning does not reciprocate Crown’s further doting on her. 

Catherine Banning’s attraction to Crown is based less on her emotional needs than for the thrill.  As Crown says on their first date, “You like the chase.”  This aspect is consistent with Banning’s counterpart in the 1968 film, Vicki Anderson as played by Faye Dunaway.

However, one of the major deviations between the 1999 movie and the original 1968 The Thomas Crown Affair is the remake’s “happy” ending.  Crown arranges to sit behind Banning on her flight back to Europe and draws her attention by speaking in a Scottish accent.

The scene is ambiguous as to the couple’s future.  The fact that Crown speaks in a Scottish brogue for his last line is a callback to the couple’s first date, when he says the hardest part of attending Oxford University was “learning to talk.”  Crown finally feels free of the pretensions of English and American culture.

At the same time, Crown and Banning’s needs in the relationship are so different that it is foreseeable they are not a long term match.  

As a film romance, The Thomas Crown Affair is refreshing because its romantic leads are not necessarily perfect for each other.  They have their own motivations that are never completely reconciled or resolved.  And that is more true to life than most Hollywood romances.

The Thomas Crown Affair’s script is written with a curious indifference to materialism.  In today’s world, its tone may come off as dissonant.  But understanding its perspective requires consideration of not only the era when it was written but the people involved in making the film.

The Thomas Crown Affair was one of the first films produced by Irish DreamTime, a production company founded by Pierce Brosnan and Producer Beau Sinclair.  By the time a Director was signed, at least one version of the script was already being drafted.  The best explanation why the film conforms to romantic comedy schlock is that its first draft was written to do so.

The early version of the script appears to have remained intact, since writing credits were still retained by Leslie Dixon and Kurt Wimmer.  And since Pierce Brosnan was a producer, this means that The Thomas Crown Affair was intended as a vehicle for Brosnan.  This is made apparent in the Martinique sequence, which is also where the film’s perspective on materialism is its most loud.

In the exact middle of the film, Crown takes a holiday with Catherine Banning in his island estate.  As intimate and seductive as the setting is, Crown also advertises his lavish lifestyle to Banning.  His seduction of Banning becomes more obvious when he offers her even more money than her commission to run away with him.

This sequence was likely included at the behest of Actor-Producer Brosnan himself.  The actor has a well known attraction to tropical locales and even maintains a home in the Hawaiian Islands today.  The ambiguities regarding Crown’s criminality or immorality would then be the product of indifference by the Writers and production staff.

This part of the film stands out in the 21st Century because of several scandalous stories involving Caribbean criminal havens, including the Paradise Papers and Jeffrey Epstein’s estate on Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  

Obviously these scandals were not in the mind of the Producers when the movie was shot in the late 1990s.  

But Thomas Crown is also represented ambiguously throughout the film.  He is a remorseless criminal who has his hands dirtied by other schemes--bribery and offshore banking.  This is consistent with the original 1968 film where Crown was more a villain than antihero.  But more than the 1968 film, Thomas Crown is humanized as a protagonist and romantic lead.  By association his values are also normalized.

Director John McTiernan’s similarities to Thomas Crown make the film’s perspective on materialism and white collar crime suspicious.  McTiernan did more than direct.  He also (uncredited) rewrote the script and used his own property and vehicles in the film.

McTiernan’s biography is also suspect.  In 2000 McTiernan wiretapped a film Producer and later lied to Federal Investigators twice.  Prosecution would drag until 2013 when McTiernan was finally sentenced to twelve months in prison.  

During McTiernan’s first sentencing in 2006, the presiding judge publicly stated John McTiernan thought he was “above the law,” and “lived a privileged life and simply wanted to continue.”

There is reason to believe that McTiernan based Thomas Crown on himself during his rewrite.  Thomas Crown is shown not to be attracted to fame or a cushy lifestyle.  Instead, he is a thrill-seeker with a death wish.

But Crown’s motives are never stated explicitly in The Thomas Crown Affair.  Furthermore, they are muddied by the existence of a forged Monet in Crown’s possession.  The forged painting is eventually discovered by Catherine Banning.  Although Crown needed the real Monet to commission the forged Monet, we learn by the end that Crown no longer had the stolen painting when he first met Banning. 

Although the forged Monet tricks Banning, this could not have been Crown’s intent when he commissioned it.  The best explanation is that Crown intended to trick the police.  

More than that, it means Crown committed his theft intent on being found out.  This is curiously similar to the judge’s description of Director John McTiernan--that he thought he was “above the law.”  McTiernan’s detachment from the consequences of lying to Federal Investigators twice also echoes Crown’s arrogant disrespect for the police.

There are also sociological reasons The Thomas Crown Affair is ambivalent about wealth and materialism.  Public opinion about Wall Street and the U.S. financial industry was not as negative in 1999 as it is in 2021.  This is partly a result of politics changing in response to current events.  

At the same time, the Wall Street boom of the 1980s and how it changed New York City were still fresh in the public consciousness of 1999.  Especially in 1999, where big business was not yet politically divisive prior to the Dot-Com Bust.

The indifference the public had for big business is embodied by Detective McCann.  By the end of the movie, although Thomas Crown has outsmarted the police and museum security, McCann admits to Catherine Banning that he does not really care about catching Crown.  

McCann implies that compared to cases of domestic violence and human exploitation he usually investigates, the art heist by Crown is a victimless crime.  The stolen paintings only matter to “very silly rich people.”

Detective McCann is held up throughout the film as its moral center.  He has legitimate care and respect for Catherine Banning--even though it is shamelessly teased as a love triangle.  He is motivated to solve the case from a sense of professional responsibility.  In his last scene Banning even tells him, “You’re a good man, Michael.”

But McCann’s indifference to Crown’s crimes is The Thomas Crown Affair’s moral failure.  The victims of art theft are not just the owners but the public itself.  Pop culture pre-Enron was similarly indifferent about fraud and white collar crime, believing the victims were only the rich and wealthy.  

This indifference is a product of the era.  The world would learn very shortly that costs of financial fraud and white collar crime are felt more by society than by the financial industry itself.  But to Hollywood and audiences in 1999, Thomas Crown’s art theft and financial crimes were all victimless crimes.

An aspect of The Thomas Crown Affair that deserves credit is its representation of New York City.  The city depicted in the film is different from the experiences of most New Yorkers, even in 1999.

Although the film is not always shot in the correct location, the city is represented well in spirit.  Early in the movie, a truck driver making a delivery to the Met gripes when Thomas Crown crosses into his lane.  Detective McCann similarly expresses contempt for New York City’s social circuit in a manner often overhears.  “I love this neighborhood, some of these broads are wearing my salary.”

An AIDS Research Ball hosted by BVLGARI is another realistic part of New York City culture in that AIDS activism had become mainstream by the late 1990s.

The Thomas Crown Affair is shot in a part of New York City that is inaccessible to most people, yet widely advertised.  And it is represented in film authentically and amorally--if for no other reason than because the film was shot almost entirely within the city.

Perhaps the most widely entertaining aspect of The Thomas Crown Affair is its contribution to the heist film genre.  Heist films are different from other crime movies in that the narrative usually follows the criminal’s or robber’s perspective.

Heist films are also preoccupied with how the criminal will pull off the caper.  They differ from detective films where catching and identifying the criminal are the lingering mysteries.  

But The Thomas Crown Affair is different from other heist movies in that the finer details of Thomas Crown’s capers are never shared with the audience.  For instance, when Crown steals the Monet we are left to wonder how he evaded museum surveillance.  Catherine Banning offers an explanation, but the question is never answered for certain.

Another mystery lingers when Thomas Crown steals the Manet at the end of the film.  Absolutely no hints are offered as to how he managed to steal it.  Part of the attraction of films like these is they leave audiences to guess how certain events occurred.  

My favorite explanation for the stolen Manet is that Crown had a mole working at the Met steal the painting beforehand.  That also explains how Crown obtained the information necessary to steal the first painting.

Catherine Banning’s explanation for why museum security failed to capture the first theft is that a heater was left in front of the painting.  That is because museum surveillance used infrared cameras that responded to temperature, and a heater would have been just enough to interfere with the infrared camera.  I should mention now that this feature of museum surveillance is one of the more far-fetched details in The Thomas Crown Affair.  Especially today, since face recognition software is in such demand in cyber security.

Lack of realism in films about art or jewel theft is common within the genre, and especially true of the era’s other films--Mission: Impossible, Entrapment and Ocean’s Eleven.  

The purpose of heist movies like this is wonder more than realism.  And prior films have been similarly tongue-in-cheek about painting and jewel theft--such including the Blake Edwards comedy The Pink Panther.  

Films like The Thomas Crown Affair are not intended to be a blueprint for future criminals.  Ironically, The Thomas Crown Affair did inspire one bank robber who got away with the loot using the same costumed diversionary tactic as Thomas Crown in the film’s climactic chase scene.

Even though I have said a lot about The Thomas Crown Affair, there are simple reasons why I am fond of the movie.  It is a well-made movie, beautifully shot and secretly intelligent.  It is a decent representation of New York City, despite complications in the script and budget.

The movie itself is light and entertaining and leaves it up to the viewer to make up their mind.  Yes, it requires some suspension of disbelief.  Yet even in that way, it treats its audience as mature adults.  A quality rare in action or romantic films of any era. 

-ve

NEXT POST--#8 LET THE BULLETS FLY (dir. Jiang Wen)

[well-shit-im-a-morosexual-now]

I don't have much to say about the rest of the S3 lessons, but I do have things to say about S4 of Obey Me.

Personally, I think that S4 should focus primarily on the angels (Simeon, Luke, Michael, Raphael, etc.), feature the side characters (Solomon, Barbatos, Diavolo), possibly introduce Solomon's first apprentice and maybe in Hard Mode you can check up on the brothers (you should know who the HOL brothers are).

I have a few reasons for this (in no real order :):

Reading the lesson summaries that you (and others) have provided, it seems like Mike and Raph- along with the Celestial Realm- will be important this season. So, wouldn't be a waste not to show them off?

The side characters need development. This is a perfect opportunity for some.

Simeon and Luke were standing for a longer period than the brothers, so it would make sense for them to show up again.

Simeon was talking to some angel (probably Raphael) at the end of S3. The game should obviously expand on that.

*Diavolo runs a hotel chain in the Human World, so it would make sense to see him again. And because Barbatos follows right behind him...

Solomon's first apprentice needs to be explored. What happened between them?

*The brothers should take a back seat in this season, since they're always there. No offense to them, but I need a break.

New character interactions is would be fun. To me, the best character interaction would be between Dia & Mike. Would they hate each other because of Lucifer? Would they get along? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

It could show off/expand upon the Celestial Realm, a chance for more lore and theories.

It could finally give insight into Simeon's past- which is always a good thing. (Same for everyone else.)

Now that the list is out of the way, here are some miscellaneous things that I couldn't fit on the list (also an clarification for 5 & 7. They explanations will also have an asterix at the beginning of them:):

*I don't expect Diavolo and Barbatos to show up that often, but I think that they should appear in at least 1-2 chapters.

*I also don't mind the brothers showing up, but I am worried that if they appear prominently, they might over take the season.

I kinda want the Lillith plotline/point to come back. I definitely wish it was executed better, but I do want to see the reaction from the angels (Mike and Raph basically).

I hope Solomon's apprentice was a girl. There's just too many guys here, we need a little diversity.

I would hate it if they didn't give us character designs for Michael and Raphael, though I would find it funny.

Well, I think I'm done for now. Do you agree, disagree? Do you like the color coding, should I keep doing it? Basically, I just want your thoughts on this.

Goodbye for now,

Lesson 42 Anon

Hii!!! I basically agree with everything you just said but I'll go into more detail on it with your points:

- I do 100% believe S4 should be a new character/angel focused season. I think I said so in the lesson 60 summary too that it'd make sense and be interesting to meet the angels and get their side of the story without the brothers' interference (the angels give me HEAVY morally grey characters who think they're wholly in the right vibes and I love it) + there's still a lot of Simeon and Solomon backstory to explore!

- The way S3 ended and how much of it was anyway about the angels I definitely think S4 will expand on it and introduce them

- And I think it'll possibly start right after S3 ends? I mean Raphael's here now and Solomon wants to start properly training MC so why not. And there's no other reason to leave Simeon and Luke behind than to start it up with them in the centre

- ALSO!!! ANDISJSHSKS "RAPH" given what they've showed of him he seems like the type of person to take HEAVY offense to that

- S3 did end with Raphael. Simeon called him by name.

- As much as I do want to see more Diavolo and find out more about his and more importantly Barbatos' backstories I don't think they'll turn up much? Or at least not until the last few lessons cause he left saying he had important personal issues to take care of back in the devildom

- I genuinely thought they would be shown in S3 after Solomon mentioned them and yeah damn I wanna know more about them. Also I just saw the Solomon UR+ animation card from months ago today - I definitely want to know whose grave he was leaving flowers at

- As much as I want an angel focused season the amount of withdrawal I'd go through without the brothers is insane. I'm heavily invested in them but at least for now their arcs are at a place that can be paused - they all got together to help Beel, a lot of Satan & Lucifer's + Belphie & Diavolo's issues have been resolved. I do want to know more about Lucifer's fear though and how he met the rest of the brothers (since they already told us Beel's story)

- With what they've said I kinda see Michael & Raphael being parallels to Diavolo & Lucifer, respectively. The somewhat childish boss and the long suffering right hand. I can see Diavolo wanting to like Michael purely because he wants to make proper peace with the Celestial Realm but also being somewhat internally pissed with him given how protective Diavolo is of the brothers and I can see Michael being sweet and friendly in return despite the fact that given everything Michael has said about demons, even in current times, he would probably be looking down on Diavolo for being 'wicked' and 'evil'. Basically I imagine them having the same kinda passive-aggressively polite relationship that Diavolo and Simeon had in S2 but somehow even less friendly

- Yes!!! Like I said the Celestial Realm gives heavy morally grey vibes and I want that to be explored more. I also need Luke's realisation that the Celestial Realm isn't always right to continue

- I have SO many Lilith HCs and I desperately need them to talk about her more. Like I understand why she's a sore topic and that Lucifer never even told them about her room in the HoL depite the fact that they've probably lived there for thousands of years and she does get brought up a bit in Belphie's fear but I need more. I also want them to explore why Belphie was so insistent with blaming the humans for Lilith's death when it was the angels that killed her, I gave my theories behind it in one of the summaries but I really need more solid answers

- I've always wanted more girls (or any girls really) and the way I was disappointed that we never got to see Lilith (I mean I understand that some players would HC her to look like their MC even though she died thousands of years before MC and they probably wouldn't share a resemblance but still) but I never considered Solomon's apprentice was a girl and I dunno why.. OKAY BUT CONSIDER GIRLS AS NEW LIS!!!!!

- I definitely think they would, it would make no sense if they didn't after how much they were hyped up and I might actually scream if they don't get designs. That being said I have very clear ideas of them in my head and I'm gonna hate having to part with them

DO NOT GET RID OF THE COLOUR CODING! IT'S PART OF YOUR IDENTITY NOW! OWN IT!

[ezrisdax-archive]

Do you ship any Star Trek rare pairs? Tell us what you like about them!!!

Send me a ship and I'll give you my (brutally) honest opinion on it

I mean that’s most of my trek ships because of femslash, I’d guess kiradax might not fully count but!

ezri/leeta

I barely see any of this which is funny to me cause their mirrorverse pair is married for god sakes. but anyway I like both the mirrorverse pair of them and the main pair itself. I just think Ezri needs someone who would let her ramble and just get it? And also maybe not be someone Jadzia was involved with that much. I know Leeta and Jadzia were friends but like they weren’t as close and Leeta seems the most chill about Dax switching hosts. She’s a go with the flow person and Ezri could learn that at times too.

idk, I mostly just think they are cute and had potential and it was a shame we only got a season of Ezri so they don’t interact as much

ogawa/tasha

I once made an au gifset of this pairing because I just like the idea of them meeting and Tasha as security always coming in injured and Ogawa helping her out and them talking and getting to know each other over time and then getting to spend time together outside of sickbay and I just think?? it could be cute?? they could be cute?? give Ogawa a girlfriend pls.

joann/keyla

now I’m not sure how much this qualifies as a rare pair anymore, it def would meet the criteria on ao3 so I’m counting it. my god the looks between these two, the way Joann has been there for Keyla this season and noticed right away something was off and has just been reaching out. I’d love to see more of them interacting, what we do get each episode is small but it does give me hope they actually might head there some day? Like I’m not used to getting the potential of canon, it’s wild.

I do wish they’d delve more into their backstory and give me more details about Joann but I do accept these two aren’t main characters and then that gives me leave to make this however much I want of a big deal. to me they’re a big deal and I just need them to get together, I want to see that relationship develop.

michael/tilly

oh man I just checked and technically by ao3 rules which is to say if you have less than 200 fics on there, they count as a rare pair. That’s just sad to me because I do feel they should have a lot more and wow I’ve only written one fic for them??? I gotta fix that at some point.

These two!!!! I don’t have enough words to explain how much it means to these how these two hug and hold hands and are just there for each other!! all the time!! always in each others corners!! trying to cheer each other up!! jumping in to help the other without hesitation!! I need more of it, like what they’ve given me is great but I miss these two being roommate buddies this season, please give me another shot of them in their room just talking to each other about what Michael’s been through the year she was in the future without them.

Like this I’ve accepted I’ll not get as canon, I’m not expecting it and that’s fine but I still enjoy every scene they get to have with each other and they are just so cute ; ; I love them both so much and please kiss, I know I just said I accepted it but please.

b’elanna/seven

okay this one counts too apparently! now a lot of my feelings for these two you can blame @trillscienceofficer because she encourages me with these two but like there’s so much there.

there’s the whole outsiders together thing going on they have, the whole somewhat antagonistic but also a huge amount of respect for each other thing, the whole pushing each other to be better, there’s just a lot with these two that I enjoy.

I think Seven does need someone who would call her on the bullshit of trying to remain logical and unemotional and B’Elanna needs someone with a cooler head at times to make her see beyond just her immediate reaction. I really enjoy that over time you can see this relationship between them grow into a friendship and I just like to imagine more from there.

b’elanna/stadi

OKAY LISTEN.

tom dies in the pilot and I get stadi au is like...one of my fave aus. they’d be so much fun together! Stadi enjoyed the teasing and I can def see her doing that with B’Elanna and sure there’d be some antaganism at first because Starfleet vs Maquis stuff but they’d get there and I just wanted to see it. I just like to imagine it happening in my head.

t’pring/uhura

oh my god I did not expect this to count but I do think it might just be a bigger thing on tumblr than elsewhere. or maybe that’s just me. anyway, these two! one of my top trek femslash ships! like c’mon Uhura straight up “she’s beautiful” and I’m expected to not take it this way?

I’ve talked about these two so much at times before so I think I don’t have too much to say here beyond....Uhura deserved a girlfriend and T’Pring deserved to see what else what out there beyond Vulcan men. and they deserved to have a proper conversation with each other and do Vulcan kisses and human kisses.

tasha/troi

???? man are all my ships so low on ao3?? I need to fix this somehow. Again I’ve talked about these two enough I don’t have much else to say here because I was robbed of Tasha being in more seasons but what we got of these two interacting was already amazingly gay and god I just like to imagine how much gayer and gooder it would have gotten over time....

ro/tasha

THEY WERE GAY TOGETHER IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE AND I DON’T THINK WE TALK ABOUT THAT ENOUGH. even if they did kill one of them off, whatever I’m over it (a lie). 

worf/deanna

the rare trek het canon ship I have, like yeah I do love deanna/riker but these two were so fucking soft and good in season seven of tng I cry

worf/riker

look I’m putting 1 (one) slash ship on here and it’s this. I just enjoy riker teasing him a lot. I’m a weak individual what can I say.

[wellhalesbells]

as i no longer sleep (apparently), let’s do this awesome thing @yodas-yo-yo tagged me on!!  thank you!!

Rules: Tag 9 people who you want to know better/catch up with and then answer these questions.

3 SHIPS

i’m going with not necessarily my all-time favorite ships but the ones i’ve been reading like crazy lately

stiles and derek, as i’m sure we’re all well aware.  those’re my boys.  the dynamic they have just cannot be beat; it’s all shades of gray and built rather than plopped down without foundation.  derek, who has been betrayed and abandoned and is neglected at every turn by every other character in this universe, and stiles, who - importantly - doesn’t have pity for him but pragmatism: ‘you’re a useful dude, and so i am going to use you regardless of how everyone else would just like to write you off.’  it’s not an immediate, ‘ah, you’re perfect for each other,’ moment, it’s kind of a, ‘shit, dude, that is not a guy you should use because he’s suffered that too many times already and this is bad.’  but only through that does it become less about using derek and more about relying on each other, trusting each other’s judgments, and being the first call rather than the last.  i’m so emotionally tied to it because it’s freaking earned and no one is... pure.  stiles’ motives aren’t pure, derek’s actions aren’t pure, no one is a one-dimensional hero who can abide by a concept as infantile as good vs evil, they’re more real because of it and i’m more attached to them because of it.

okay, weirdly, lately..... clark and lex (and after i was just talking about one-dimensional good vs evil characters, lol), preferably with the smallville backstory of once being besties.  it’s just like the best of the best when it comes to tropes that do it for me.  they’re baked in and, unless it’s an au, unavoidable.  epic pining, best friends turned enemies turned lovers (or some variation thereof), a betrayed character (love when that’s lex and it’s post-belle reve), a morally gray manipulative genius who if they are depicted as not having ulterior motives is considered WILDLY out of character, a fucking canonical son made from both their dna, parallel universes in canon, not to mention there’s sex pollen in canon as well with red kryptonite in the mix.  (there’s nothing better than fics where clark is dosed so he’ll finally kill lex luthor only to fuck him practically down to his soul instead.)  i never even finished smallville and while i was always a fan of the ship, it was sort of more of a ‘ships in the night’ kind of ship, like: oh yeah, i know you *waves as you cross my dash* and nothing more.  then i read (and read and re-read and read some more) reconcilable differences and.... there is not enough fic for them out there, friends.  there just isn’t, and i’m sad.

merlin and arthur from bbc merlin.  again, i really like what’s often baked into this pairing: a scenario that comes up with some regularity is a betrayed or banished!merlin and arthur realizing too late what merlin means to him and having to go after him and prove himself.  i live for that shit, okay?  i live for the character who seemingly has everything realizing they have nothing without this other person (especially if said person is often mistreated or sidelined in canon - thank you, fix-it fanon!!!!).  i never was big into merlin fanfic UNTIL ao3 came up with the ‘exclude’ part of the search function.  i don’t want modern merlin pretty much ever and somehow that fandom is about 50% modern aus????  so i never read fic for it because it was so hard to find what i was looking for.  literally the day i saw the exclude option, i started reading merthur fanfic.  i wish there were more percival/merlin fics (i am SO FUCKING INTO size difference lately and i do noooot have a pair that i LOVE that has that, some that i casually read like jaskier/geralt but none that i can’t live without yet and i NEED IT), especially ones featuring a jealous arthur that endgames into merthur but that’s, er, a bit specific?  haha, and i have less than zero desire to write for either this fandom or the one above it sadly.

LAST SONG I LISTENED TO

clairo - sofia, i love how hard my radio station is fangirling over clairo, she has such a nostalgia-inducing sound for me.

CURRENTLY WATCHING

okay, well, i actually just finished the shows i was watching: prodigal son, which was like a less avant garde, less horny, less gay, less people-eating version of hannibal.  instead of a guy who was too unstable to qualify to be an actual fbi agent and who has a loose relationship with reality and mental health, and maybe also a darker side, and a cannibal who definitely does, both of whom badly want to bang each other, it’s a serial killer father who has a darker side and a guy who was fired from the fbi for being too unstable, who maybe has one of his own, in addition to a loose relationship with reality and mental health.  i mostly enjoyed it.  i really liked the actors, the morbid and understated humor was hilarious (seriously, some of those one liners, both the delivery by the actors and the offhandedness inherent to them were just perfection), but.... they fridged the love interest (very VERY predictably) and they’re clearly shoving together the only unattached (”normal”) vagina and penis on the show because HETERONORMATIVITY!!!!!  (i expect more of you, greg berlanti, tsk.)  i’m hoping for more edrisa in the future because she is a fucking GEM (and it’s just SO NICE to see lane on my screen again!!!!), more jessica who might have the best sense of self and humor in the whole dang show, more michael sheen (because i just love the man in anything and everything), and about that finale (even though i saw it coming WELL in advance) i’ll just say: AINSLEY, MY GIRLLLLLLLL!!!!

the other i finished was the crown, season four.  this show never really wows me tbh.  i watch it mostly for a) the performances and b) my mom and dad, who love it immensely and love to talk about it with me.  if not for them i could easily zone out for an entire episode without even realizing it, with all the quietness and sweeping landscape shots, there’s just nothing grabby in there for me.  it’s very uppercrust british, y’know?  haha.  where a comment about your lilac drapes is really a dig about how you’re bringing down the entire commonwealth, which i love to read but watching?  it doesn’t really pull me in.  the high point of this season for me was gillian anderson’s portrayal of margaret thatcher, just the way she would contort her face was amazing to me, and the episode with fagan because hey, i totally knew about that already (which never happens, lol) and i love that actor from preacher and it was just really well-written and acted.  but, overall, pretty much i spent the whole season wanting a violent and bloody and embarrassing death to befall charles, that entitled and cruel little piss-ant, while knowing it wasn’t going to happen.  it’s one of those shows i watch where i’m glad i watched it, but i won’t remember any details about it in a week’s time.

and as for what i soon will be currently watching: i’m starting the great tomorrow!

okay, tagging: @livthelion, @ohlookagaydraco, @grimmypuff, @clotpolesonly, @midnightisquiet, @urban-barbarian, @callunavulgari, @hrast-ika and @i-sveikata!!

[mobius-prime]

222. Sonic the Hedgehog #154

Songoose (Part 2 of 2)

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

Today's issue is a bit bittersweet. While Karl Bollers hasn't always been the most popular writer, and I've definitely had my fair share of problems with certain aspects of his writing, it's hard to deny the heavy impact he had on the world of the comic. And this just so happens to be his last issue as a writer! That's right, though we've seen various writers come and go, this is the first time we're truly saying goodbye to a head writer. (You might be wondering about Michael Gallagher given his increasingly infrequent involvement with the series, but fear not, he's still got a few more future issues left in 'im.) Apparently he actually had quite a few plans for the storyline and characters post-StH#134, which was a while ago, but for one reason or another these never came to fruition, and never even had a chance to be salvaged for future issues by other writers due to his leaving the comic. So let's dedicate this issue to ol' Karl and the hard work he put into this comic, and appreciate what he brought to the table over the years. Onward!

It's the night of Mina's second concert, and the various Freedom Fighters are positioned at strategic points around and behind the stage and crowd to guard the venue from any more assassination attempts. Mina is pleased with Sonic's involvement in her protection detail, but Ash is considerably less so, and asks to speak to Mina privately before her performance. Sonic initially tries to refuse to leave her side given his duty to her, but when Ash gets in his face about it Mina steps in and tells Sonic she'll be okay to have a quick chat. Sonic reluctantly leaves the dressing room, and Ash confronts Mina about her decision to go through with tonight's concert, as he really feels it's too dangerous. She reiterates her feeling of security with Sonic around, and Ash's feelings of jealousy finally spill out as he details Sonic's perceived failings, including how he (totally unintentionally mind you) broke her heart a year ago by kissing Sally in front of her. He paradoxically refuses to "forgive" Sonic for… not dating Mina, I guess? Which you'd think he'd be pleased about considering that's the only reason he ever got to date her, but she stands firm against his tirade.

Really bad timing on this, Ash. Honestly, though, as abrasive and jealous as Ash can be, he's not wrong at all about his accusations, and in my opinion has every right to feel slighted and upset. He really does seem like a guy who's flawed yet genuinely likable - I mean, put yourself in his shoes (assuming you're not down for open relationships) and tell me you wouldn't feel the exact same way upon seeing your girlfriend routinely eyeing up another guy. Plus, he isn't flaky - notice that despite breaking up with Mina, he explicitly states his intentions to remain as her band manager. A lesser person might have left their ex high and dry out of spite, but despite their disagreement he's still completely ready and willing to help her organize everything she needs to remain a pop star. Careful, Mina, you better remember "Aly's" advice to you from a few issues ago before you let this guy slip through your fingers…

Outside the room, Sonic gets a call from Sally looking for an update, and when he lets slip that he let her stay in her dressing room alone Sally scolds him for not sticking to her like glue, ordering him back into the room to check on her. When he enters he's surprised to see her sitting alone with a sad expression, asking her what's bothering her. You'd think he'd have some clue of what was wrong considering he would have just seen Ash angrily stomping right through the very door he was guarding, but Mina just says she doesn't know how to explain, which Sonic quietly agrees with the sentiment of. She's able to collect herself for her performance, though, and begins by singing another song that definitely feels inspired by her crush on Sonic. However, Eggman's plan to kill her is still moving ahead, and he sends out Heavy and Bomb (well, Bombs, there's a lot of them) to infiltrate the concert crowd once the concert is well underway.

Sonic immediately grabs Mina and pulls her away from the edge of the stage while the rest of the Freedom Fighters rush in to battle the Bombs, something which I find funnier than it should be considering they're, well, bombs, and the best plan for dealing with bombs on legs would usually be to run the hell away from them before they blow up. Nevertheless, they seem to be holding their own by throwing or smacking the Bombs away before they explode, though Ash finds an excuse in the situation to insist once more than Sonic leave so he can protect Mina on his own, even somewhat spitefully pointing out that Mina was fine without Sonic for an entire year before now. Sonic initially refuses, but when Heavy himself arrives, crashing down onto the stage to target Mina directly, Sonic concedes and tells Ash to take her somewhere safe while he fights the robot one on one. At first Sonic teases and trash talks as normal, but when Heavy gives him more trouble than he bargained for he concocts a plan to drill into the earth and bait Heavy into following him, then drill straight into the nearby lake from below. This washes them both out into the open waters, disabling Heavy in the process. I'm not sure exactly how this plan even works, considering we've seen in previous issues that Heavy is waterproof - I mean, did Eggman take out that feature when he rebuilt him? - but either way, it does work, though Sonic falls unconscious once he gets washed out. Man, between his first battle against M in StH#132 and his easy escape from a watery grave in Anti-Mobius just a few issues ago, it really seems like later comic issues like to play fast and loose with the whole "he can't swim" character trait. Sometimes he can detangle himself from tight rope bonds and swim to safety without a problem, and other times he blacks out within scant seconds of touching water, and you never know which one you're gonna get till the plot calls for it. Of course, he's fine after waking up on shore, having been rescued by Bunnie, and the Freedom Fighters tell him that as far as they can tell they disabled or destroyed every Bomb in the area, meaning Mina is safe once more. With the threat ended, Sonic and Mina say goodbye to each other for the night, with Sonic making Mina promise they'll go out for chili dogs sometime soon. However, this wouldn't be a story if something didn't go wrong…

I like to think that this isn't even a case of the Freedom Fighters randomly missing a Bomb, rather being part of Eggman's plan - send in the big, obvious cavalry first to be fought and predictably defeated, then send in one last little Bomb to finish the job once everyone's guard is down. The explosion alerts everyone outside the backstage area, and they rush in to find Mina sobbing over Ash's body. Don't worry, though - when they rush him to the hospital Dr. Quack is able to get him in a stable condition, meaning that though he has a long slow recovery ahead he'll ultimately be fine. Sonic escorts a distraught Mina into Ash's room, where she admits her true feelings to his sleeping form.

I'm surprised that Sonic genuinely seems a little disappointed at their reconciliation, but then again, he and Mina were clearly shown to have some chemistry even before the time skip, though Sonic was obviously drawn more to Sally. It seems that with he and Sally currently being on the outs, and Mina having split from Ash, he had actually considered taking the chance with her - I mean, they did agree to a chili dog date after all - but now that's obviously not happening. Well, maybe the chili dog date is, but not Sonic and Mina becoming an item. What I'm trying to say is, this page has just sunk your Sonic/Mina ship. Fortunately, with this second failure Eggman has decided that trying to kill Mina is too hard and not worth his time, so she should be safe for now. He still finds himself lamenting the loss of his robotic body, however (something that you'd think should be child's play for him to fix considering previously roboticizing himself is literally part of his backstory), finding his current organic body too breakable. The use of that word suddenly makes him pause, having just come up with a new idea… but Karl certainly won't be the one writing about it, as with that final line of dialogue, he's officially completed his time as head writer for the Archie Sonic comics! Sayonara, Karl Bollers - though there were certainly some rough patches, on the whole I enjoyed your work on the comic, and we'll miss ya!

More Than Meets the Eye

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Josh Ray

…though remember, we are still dealing with Penders for a few more issues yet. Since the mission into Megaopolis a couple issues ago, Rotor, Uncle Chuck, Tommy, Tails, and Snively (plus apparently Fiona, for some reason) have all been hard at work studying and trying to understand the nanites. They try blasting them with a ton of electricity, but when that elicits no response from the nanites Tommy worriedly thinks Snively killed them with the zap, though Snively corrects him that biologically speaking, they're not really "alive," nor is anything that Eggman makes. While you may be technically correct from a scientific standpoint, Snively, I think Nicole might have a thing or two to say about your assertion that machines can't be alive…

Well! It seems Tommy was also unconvinced by Snively's words, and his tear splashing down into the nanite goo triggers some kind of reaction, prompting them to rapidly spread out and reach tendrils of themselves towards him. He's understandably a little freaked out and retreats into his shell, but the nanites don't hurt him as they make contact with the shell - in fact, the sensation is ticklish and causes him to start giggling uncontrollably, which must make for a very weird sight as Uncle Chuck reenters the room to investigate the noise. Tommy assures him that he's all right - and then from out of nowhere, his shell sprouts a pair of goddamn wings, because why the hell not?

I initially took issue with this concept due to it being established canon that the nanites can only absorb and reshape non-living matter, whereas turtle shells are definitely living matter, being full of nerve endings and basically being formed from repurposed bone matter from the turtle's ribs and pelvis. However, the above dialogue seems to indicate that they were able to fuse with Tommy's shell anyway by connecting straight into his nervous system. I would guess that after Sonic introduced the nanites to the concept of organic and synthetic coexistence a couple issues ago, they were just waiting for the chance to "study" an organic specimen in their own weird way, and Tommy just happened to end up as their test subject.  Chuck and Tommy call everyone else in, where he notes that the nanites seem to react to his thoughts without said thoughts actually controlling the nanites directly. He demonstrates this by thinking vaguely that he wants to go somewhere, prompting a pair of jetpack engines to sprout from his shell and ignite, carrying him straight out of the lab and into the sky above Knothole. The others watch with an odd mixture of bemusement and amusement as the nanites fly Tommy's body in a pattern, using contrails to write "We're just going for a test drive" in the air. Well Tommy, looks like you have a really cool and unique new ability! It'd certainly be interesting to be fused with self-replicating nanomachines that react to your thoughts and wishes by morphing themselves in ways to grant those wishes, especially when they seem to actively like their host.