#she was given the dead wife flashback treatment

[artheresy]

OH I’M GOING TO BE SO ANNOYING ONCE 1.4 COMES OUT, I HOPE ALL OF YOU ARE PREPARED AND I HOPE ALL OF YOU ARE READY FOR ME TO RANT ABOUT WVERY SINGLE THOUGHT HCQ RELATED THAT COMES TO MY HEAD

Thinking about,, Blade v Jingliu,,, the shot of them sparring together back when he was Yingxing *sobs*

[mooshs-crack-headcanons]

What fucks me up the most about 1098 is something I don't see many people bringing up

So we have the very fucked circumstances around Bonney's birth, right? Everything that happened to Ginny is beyond fucked and capulates exactly everything that's fucking wrong about the Celestial Dragon "system" and the World Government.

Then you have Kuma, just imagine dealing with this trauma AND having to have heard your wife - who was on death's door as she's on the phone with you and your closet comrades - tell you she's dying of a terminal illness and it's a miracle she even had the chance to talk to you for the last time, you leaving to teleport to where she is in desperation to save her ultimately missing her last I love you and her probably dying ON CALL given how we see the den-den mushi receiver still in her hand after she's already gone, THEN finding Bonney, her daughter, and the million fucking horrific things that must go through your head for her even to be able to exist, then swearing to your dead wife you will raise her as your own. Think about how fucked that is.

But then, turns out Ginny's illness was genetic. And Bonny now has it and can no longer be exposed to sunlight. The kid's make fun of her over it - over something she can't control. Then it turns out she has only five years to live because no normal doctors can find a cure, ultimately and I'm assuming leading to Kuma going to Vegapunk to find a cure and maybe that's how the Government finds him and only lets the treatment happen in exchange for Kuma working for them as Warlord - the last part being only a theory for now.

So you have all of that, right? But you know what's the kicker for me?

All the stuff about Ginny, Bonney only just found that out when she looked in Kuma's bubble. She didn't know beforehand.

I mean why would she? She's actually twelve, a child, only appearing older due to her fruit and probably having to appear older to be a pirate and all the stuff being a pirate entails for her own safety to at least appear to be an adult - which I'm heavily guessing she only did become a pirate in the first place just to find her dad, which is really really fucking sad. But she's a kid, Kuma - also probably dealing with the World Government and Warlord shit at the same time and pre-pacifista - would've never told her at this age. This is a fucking heavy topic, and to learn that not only Kuma isn't her biological dad but she's also... part Celestial Dragon is something that should take a lot out of anyone and with her apparently crying all night after seeing the bubble, now it just makes even more sense. But even still, she loves her dad - not some fucking monster who enslaved her mother, her actual dad who loved and raised her and most likely agreed to being a World Government genie pig in exchange for treatment to save his daughter's life.

Only so few chapters so far and I'm personally already considering it my favorite saddest, depressing, gut wrenching backstories. And general this flackback just adds so much to all the pre-established stuff we already knew about Kuma. It's the type of flashback that puts so many things in place just 🫠 it's fucked up and sad but I absolutely live for these types of flashbacks like I'm crying, disgusted, my heart ripped out but damn Oda. You really didn't pull punches, huh?

[reidscanehand]

Profile Me

Spencer Reid x BAUfem! Reader

Category: Angst (this is very sad)

TW: The Reader is dead after losing her battle with leukemia and the subsequent grief surrounding her death and funeral. 

++++ = change in perspective; ~~~ = passage of time; italics indicate a flashback

Based on a request by @you-sunshine​ 

This request has taken me a long time to fill because I wanted to do it justice. I’m very lucky in that 99% of the requests I receive are really beautifully thought out and intricate in detail. I’m also very lucky that a lot of you guys trust me enough to allow me to write darker material, or material that touches on topics like grief, anxiety, trauma, drug abuse, etc. I joke about being angsty, but I’m truly honored to be given such a responsibility. This was actually quite cathartic to write and I hope you enjoy it as much as you can. I’ll have something slightly happier out soon. Love you all xx ​

~ “Those we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch.” - Jack Thorne ~

Aaron Hotcher has seen a lot in his time on this earth. He’s taken down countless criminals, beaten his own ex-wife’s murderer to death, fought tirelessly for justice and peace, but he knows this funeral is going to be one of the saddest things he’s ever witnessed. He’s been retired from the FBI for nearly five years now. In truth, he’d only met you a couple of times. He’d obviously been to the wedding about three years ago, but was seated on the groom’s side. You were a lovely person, he just didn’t know you terribly well. He’d heard you were sick, but didn’t really know the details. However, upon your passing, David Rossi had given him a call. After exchanging some pleasantries, Dave had been silent for a moment before sniffling and swallowing. It took Aaron a moment to realize Dave was crying. 

“Dave, what’s-”

“Y/N died this morning,” Dave rasped. 

“Oh, God, Dave...I’m so sorry,” Hotch breathed, a lump forming in his throat. He didn’t know you terribly well, but he knew the team loved you very much. That Spencer loved you very much. 

“Um...I mean we all...we all knew it was coming, she’s...um...she was diagnosed last year with leukemia. She was in chemo for a while, but...she decided to stop treatment a while ago. It got worse and...and well...” Dave’s voice drifted off and he sniffled again. “I know you didn’t know her super well, but, uh, the kid...the kid is pretty far gone at this point and, um, I think it’d be great if you came to the funeral.”

“We’ll be there,” Hotch agreed immediately, “Jack and I both. Where do I need to send flowers?”

“Um, I’ll email you the funeral home details,” Dave had answered. “Um, Aaron, I need to ask a favor of you, actually.”

“Anything, Dave,” Hotch replied. 

“Could you, um...could you escort Spencer to the funeral? I think the fact that you didn’t know his wife that well will, um...make this easier for him,” Dave had asked. 

And that is how Hotch found himself now waiting outside apartment 23 having dropped Jack off with JJ. He knocks again, worried Spencer hasn’t heard him. 

“Reid,” he calls. There’s a few muffled footsteps and the turning of a lock and the door opens to a disheveled Dr. Spencer Reid. Eyes puffy and red-rimmed, his hair in somewhat of a disarray, looking pale and sickly himself. His black suit makes his bright blue tie stick out even more than it usually would. 

“Hey, Hotch,” Spencer croaks out, attempting a smile. He steps to the side and allows Hotch to walk into the apartment. Hotch doesn’t bother to take in the space, knowing, from his own experience, exactly the devastation he’ll see. 

“Can I...can I ask for your opinion?”

Spencer’s quiet voice is so surprising it makes Hotch jump a little. “Oh, of course, Reid. Anything.”

“The tie…” he replies, looking down at it. “Does it look too, um...festive? Y/N...she, uh…” Spencer swallows, clearly not ready to say your name quite yet. “She asked me to wear it...it was her favorite.”

“Then you should,” Hotch responds gently, “but, no, it’s not too festive.”

Spencer nods, stuffing his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight uncomfortably from side to side, “Thank you, by the way,” he whispers. He meets Hotch’s eyes and tacks on, “For the flowers. Peonies are...were...were the flowers Y/N liked the most.” 

“You’re more than welcome,” Hotch says, quiet enough to match Spencer’s tone. 

“Thank you for coming to get me, too,” Spencer adds, looking away as he grabs his keys. Hotch only nods in understanding.The two men slowly make their way to Hotch’s waiting car in complete silence. They’re about ten minutes away from the graveyard when Spencer finally speaks again.

“How did you do this?” his raspy voice asks. The tinge of youth and innocence that always plays on Reid’s tone isn’t gone, but sounds lost, numbed by too much pain in such a short time. 

Hotch takes a deep breath before responding, “I’m not offended by you asking me, Reid, but our situations are very different.”

“How?” Spencer inquires, still staring ahead. 

“With Haley,” Hotch begins, the wound never quite as healed as he would like, “I always felt a strong sense of guilt. It was my fault she died, in many ways, no matter what anyone tells me to the contrary. I loved her, deeply, but I know that there was some guilt behind everything I did for her after we divorced.” Hotch chances a look at Spencer who nods dazedly. 

“You have no reason to feel guilty about Y/N,” Hotch assures him, “and no matter how much you’re blaming yourself for this loss...that’s what it really is. It’s just a great, gaping loss.”

Spencer says nothing, but nods again as they pull into the parking lot. Hotch watches as the younger man takes a deep breath, looking down at his hands.

“Is it okay…” he begins, swallowing around his tears again. “Is it okay for me to still be wearing my wedding ring?”

“Of course,” Hotch assures him again. 

“I wish I was...I wish I was stronger,” Spencer whispers, almost as though Hotch hadn’t spoken. “She was so strong...and...and now….”

“Spencer,” Hotch breathes, putting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, “you’re one of the strongest people I know. I know this feels impossible, and it will for a while.”

Spencer nods and quickly squeezes  Hotch’s hand on his shoulder before sniffling and getting out of the car. 

++++

“Thank you all for being here,” Spencer begins, looking out at the crowd of people in the small Virginia graveyard. “My wife, Y/N Reid...had only a few requests when she started to plan her funeral. She sat me down at the hospital and told me that she wanted as few tears as we could possibly manage, and that she would like her team to deliver a profile...her profile. In addition to these requests, I selfishly had one of my own.” Spencer takes a deep breath, trying to pull it together. “I have always loved stories, as did Y/N. We read more than the average couple, the both of us, and we always….we always said that...if-if we had k-kids, they’d...they’d read a lot too.” He futilely wipes at his eyes before continuing, “So, I asked if I could tell some of my favorite stories about her and she said I could, as long as she had approval on which stories,” he smiles to himself, a single tear falling down his cheek as a light titter of laughter comes from the crowd. “This is the story of one of the first times I had a conversation with my wife,” Spencer continues, barely able to speak around his now flowing tears, “outside of the office, anyway. She told me she’d read my doctoral dissertation; my first dissertation from CalTech. I asked her why...”

“I wanted to know what you were like before you became the prestigious ‘Doctor Reid’,” you giggle, your hands shoved into your pockets. It’s a cold Wednesday in early November. A local case is giving the team nothing but headaches, especially Spencer, who’d been slaving away at his desk, barely functioning from sensory overload. The geographical profile keeps changing and, with it, the unsub’s victimology changes as well. The signature is always the same. Everyone’s in a bad mood, but Spencer could barely work, hardly able to form coherent sentences. You’d noticed because, of course you had. The poor genius was sitting at his desk, barely able to read a page in ten minutes, let alone his usual five seconds. With Emily’s permission, you’d decided to go for a walk to clear your head and had practically dragged Spencer along with you. It didn’t take much convincing from you to get Spencer to go with you, but he’s been unsuccessfully attempting to quell the steadily growing crush he has for you, and going for a walk with you proved far too tempting an opportunity to pass up. 

“And?” Spencer asks. “What did you find?” 

“Not much,” you admit, “you were very much the same.”

“Ah,” Spencer muses, scrunching his nose, “that’s disappointing.” 

You stop walking, staring at him curiously, “Why would that be disappointing?”

“You went to find someone who wasn’t Doctor Reid-”

“And I was lucky enough to find him anyway,” you say, as though it’s simple and right. “Going to look for someone else and still finding you isn’t a bad thing Doctor Reid, in fact it’s quite the opposite.”

“You don’t have to call me Doctor Reid, you know,” he teases, blushing a bit. “You’ve been with the team for almost a year now. You can call me Spencer.”

“For this conversation, I think I need to be speaking to Doctor Reid, actually.”

“What conversation?” he looks down at you, trying not to get too distracted by how pretty your hair and eyes look gleaming in the soft sunlight of the late afternoon. 

“I read your dissertation,” you smile up at him, “and I have questions.”

“Oh,” he manages to reply. He was...not expecting that. “Um...why?”

“Because,” you respond, walking ahead, “I’m no genius-”

“I don’t really think intelligence can be quantified-”

“Says an actual genius,” you tease. He looks down at you, eyes scanning your face, surprised to see nothing but pure, unadulterated admiration and kindness in your eyes. “Are you profiling me?”

“I’m waiting for the other foot to drop,” he deflects because he is, indeed, profiling you. 

“What do you mean?” you tilt your head to the side. 

“You’re joking, right?” He stares at you, attempting to not be too aggressive as he waits for the inevitable. 

“I’m still lost,” you counter.

“When are you going to tell me that you’re only kidding or something?” he asks, trying not to sound snappy, but stuff like this always happens to him. No one in their right mind is ever interested in his work, so why would you be all of a sudden?

“Oh,” you nod, looking a little stunned. You stop for a moment, not looking at him, your mouth opening as you start to say something, only to stop yourself. “Yeah, um...I’m sorry if I’ve, um, if I’ve annoyed you, Doctor Reid. It won’t happen again.” You start to speed walk away and he just manages to grab your elbow to stop you.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he exclaims. “You’re...you’re not annoying me, Y/N, but...you can’t be serious.”

“Why can’t I be serious, Doctor Reid?” you ask, not looking at him even as he holds on to your arm. 

“Because...because why would you want to know about my dissertation?”

“It’s not really about the dissertation, Doctor Reid,” you sigh, finally looking at him, “even though I’d be thrilled for you to tell me absolutely everything you know about anything, including identifying non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression. It’s about...it’s about-”

“What?” he asks, very confused. You let out a deep sigh, looking down at your shoes. You look up and scrunch your nose for a moment before decisively continuing. 

“It’s about getting to know you,” you whisper, looking him directly in the eyes. “I like you. And I don’t know how you’ve missed that...or maybe you haven’t missed it at all and you’re just purposefully avoiding it, in which case-” 

He pulls you to him, hands resting on your upper arms, “You like me?”

“Very much,” you murmured, eyes drifting down to his lips briefly and back to his eyes. “Is that...is that okay?”

“It’s more than okay,” he manages to whisper before slotting his lips over yours. 

“I guess I probably should have said,” Spencer jokes, “this is also the story of our first kiss.” 

There is another small titter from the crowd and Spencer manages a small, tight smile as he allows the memory to finish playing in his mind, “My wife always knew how to make the best out of any situation. I think I speak for the whole team when I say it was her sunny disposition that got us through many a difficult case.” There are some nods of agreement from the team, even from Rossi who is struggling not to sob too loudly. 

“She had a particularly generous soul,” Spencer continues, fruitlessly trying to push through the lump in his throat. He clears his throat before going on, “A soul that never stopped giving...not even in the end. When-when Y/N decided to s-stop chemotherapy treatments she told me while sitting up in her hospital bed and reading a book…”

“Did you know that the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau objected to a song sung at his bedside when he died?” you query. Spencer looks up from the papers he’s grading at your bedside, admiring how, even weakened by illness, you still look adorable and beautiful.

“Yes, actually,” Spencer replies. “Didn’t he tell the priest singing to him to stop?”

“Yes,” you giggle airily, “to be more accurate he said, ‘What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune.’ Those were his last words.” Spencer eyes you cautiously before putting away the last of his essays to grade and standing, crossing to your bed and sitting down gingerly next to you. 

“What are you reading?” he asks, curiously. You turn over the book, showing him the cover, but not meeting his eyes. 

“Famous Last Words,” you answer quietly. Spencer studies your face, but you still refuse to meet his gaze. 

“Why...why are you reading that, Y/N?” he whispers, hating that he already knows the answer. You take as deep a breath as you can manage, an extremely difficult task for you nowadays. 

“I need inspiration ,” you rasp, “for what I’m going to leave you with.”

“Y/N-”

“Spencer,” you interrupt, finally meeting his eyes. You take his hand and squeeze it tightly. “The cancer has spread further. Even if the doctors were comfortable continuing chemo, even if I wanted them to, it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Y/N, please-”

“Baby, listen to me,” you whisper, tears slipping down your cheeks. Spencer wipes them away, tenderly laying his forehead against yours, placing a kiss on your hairline. Even through your tears, you smile gently, “We have done all we can. The doctors have done all they can. I have done all I can. It’s time...it’s time to let it happen.” 

Spencer breathes out a harsh breath, “And now, the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation will, per her request, deliver the profile of Y/N Y/L/N-Reid.” 

The team crosses from their various places around the coffin to stand next to Spencer. Penelope squeezes his elbow from her position next to him. He grants her a tight smile as Luke takes her other hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles for comfort. 

“Y/N was a female in her mid to late twenties,” begins Emily, trying desperately not to cry. 

“She was intelligent and kind,” adds JJ. “The kind of woman that made even the darkest days seem bright.”

“She remembered things about others that no one ever bothers to recall,” Matt manages to rasp out. He chokes back a sob, wiping away some tears before continuing, “Things like your second daughter’s favorite color, and what your third son’s favorite class at school is.” 

“She drank more coffee than what seemed humanly possible,” Luke states. “Somehow even more than her husband.” There is a small titter and Spencer nods to Luke in appreciation. 

“She was so beautiful,” gasps Penelope, barely able to breathe around her sniffling. “I’ve never seen someone continue to look glamorous, even on the hardest of cases. She’d come out of the smoke of an arson fire or the siege of a shoot out looking as flawless as she was going in.” 

“She was the best profiler this team ever had,” rasps Rossi abruptly. “It takes a very strong soul to look evil in the face every single day and somehow still smile and recognize that even the worst of unsubs are just humans too.” It’s this admission from Rossi that gives everyone pause. There are several strong sniffles and Penelope begins to subtly pass round a pack of Kleenex. 

“She-she was…” Tara begins, “she was the kind of friend you always dreamed you’d have. And we were so lucky to have known her.” 

There is another huge pause as the team moves to the side, leaving Spencer alone again. He gets another squeeze on the shoulder from Emily before she moves back to her previous spot. He looks at the grave in front of him, barely seeing it through the unshed tears in his eyes. 

“My wife was always somehow able to see the good in everything,” he almost whispers, barely able to speak. “But I doubt even she would be able to see this as anything but what it is...a massive, painful loss. I think this goes without saying, but I’ll leave you with this, Y/N was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. To a lot of people, actually. And someone so wonderful hardly deserves an ending like this. So, to quote her favorite of the famous last words: as he died Sir Arthur Conan Doyle grabbed his wife and said, ‘You are wonderful’. And nothing could be closer to the truth of my wonderful darling, Y/N.” 

~~~

“Hey, Boy Wonder,” Penelope says. She’s standing in his doorway pretending to not notice the books scattered everywhere behind him, pretending not to notice the blankets piled on the couch that he clearly had just exited, pretending not to notice the coffee cups haphazardly placed around the room, and pretending not to notice how horrible he knows he looks. It's been a week since your funeral. Your mother’s called a few times to check in and he’d answered the best he could, but Spencer hasn’t left your apartment. He hasn’t showered in days, has been living on coffee and the occasional spoonful of peanut butter and his own tears. He feels numb. He’s not surprised to see Penelope, of all people, attempt to come and visit him. 

“Hi, Garcia,” Spencer rasps, his voice incredibly raw. He steps to the side and lets her come in.

“I come bearing gifts,” she attempts to sound bright, but Spencer knows she’s sad too. Knows that he’s not the only one suffering. She places a fruit basket on the side table near the door. 

“Pineapple and bananas, and then some nuts and seeds,” she tells him, gesturing to the basket. He wants to respond, Spencer really does, but he just stares at her. Garcia’s smile fades slightly when he doesn’t reply, “The nuts and seeds have magnesium, and then the-the pineapple and banana have naturally occurring-”

“Serotonin,” he interrupts, gruffer than he means to. He clears his throat before continuing, “Thank you, Garcia. It’s appreciated.” 

The pretty blond huffs out a gentle breath before meeting his eyes again, “I’m not even going to ask if you’re okay, 187, because...because I know you’re not. No one would be. But...um, I actually...I have something else for you.” She shimmies the laptop bag off of her shoulder and stares at him.

“Uh, Garcia, I don’t-”

“I should say,” Garcia interrupts, with only a little more force, “that Y/N has something for you.”

Spencer opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. He hasn’t said your name since the funeral, hasn’t allowed himself to. 

“Sorry,” Garcia states quickly, “I should’ve...I should’ve...said that differently. Um, she recorded a final message for you with strict instructions to bring it to you one week after the funeral.”

“A message?” Spencer repeats, barely able to comprehend what’s being said. 

“Just a recorded voice message,” she clarifies. In a matter of minutes, Spencer and Garcia have cleared a small area on the couch so that they both can sit, Garcia’s laptop settled on the slightly cleared off coffee table. She quickly locates the file and hovers her hand over the spacebar. 

“I haven’t listened to it,” she blurts, suddenly. “Just so you know.”

“Okay,” he replies numbly. She glances at him, still apprehensive. 

“I’m just letting you know that...I don’t know what this is going to be like.”

“That’s okay,” he responds, voice barely above a whisper. 

“I just want you to know that-”

“Garcia,” he interrupts, only a hint of sharpness to his tone, “this is going to be difficult no matter what you say.” She doesn’t look at him. Awkwardly, he reaches out and gently pats her shoulder. “It’s okay.” 

She attempts the tightest of smiles before nodding. Spencer retracts his hand back to his own lap as Garcia presses the spacebar. 

“Hey, Spencer,” your voice rings through the computer. He chokes out a sob. He’d been avoiding listening to old voicemails, old videos, anything of this nature because it was just too hard, but to hear you, and to hear your recent self, your soft voice tinged by illness and exhaustion, was almost too much to bear. 

Penelope hits the space bar, pausing the recording, “Should I keep going?”

“Yeah,” Spencer whispers, not looking at her, arms hugging around himself. 

There’s a long pause on the recording before your voice continues, “This is so fucking sad, isn’t it? This might be a stupid idea, but, um, I’ve asked Penelope to bring this to you the week after the funeral. I know that you’ve been trying to read and probably not sleeping much...I also know the apartment is a mess, but...that’s how grief works, I guess.” 

He smiles slightly at that, glancing around the apartment. The books everywhere, the piles of blankets where he’d been attempting to sleep, the coffee mugs...you’d known him so well it hurt. Tears well in his eyes with the futile wish that he could somehow be stronger for you. That the apartment was clean and he was adjusting quicker. But he also knows that a quick adjustment would feel like disrespecting your memory. Spencer feels Penelope watching him and realizes she’s paused it again. 

“Keep going,” he urges, “please.” She nods and taps the space bar, a deep breath playing on the speakers before you continue. 

“I love you, Spencer. And I know I’ve said that to you almost every day for four years, but I need you to know that...of all the things in my life...” you’d taken a deep breath and swallowed thickly, clearly trying not to cry. “I have had a wonderful life. I had a great childhood, I got to live my dreams and work for the FBI, I had awesome friends and a fantastic family...but the last four years have been...the absolute best thing that has ever happened to me. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” 

Spencer doesn’t even try to stop the tears spilling down his cheeks now. Best thing that ever happened to you? Spencer is nearly 39 years old and, other than the ten months he’d spent talking to Maeve, he’d always believed, until he met you, anyway, that he’d be alone forever. And he’d been as content with that fact as one can be, but you? You’d saved his life, saved his heart, really. And he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to recover from this. 

“I’ve never been a pragmatist, or anything like that, but until I met you....I don’t know that I ever believed in it all. I’m not sure that I’d ever really believed in true love and...and magic, really. But, then, you came along....and, suddenly...suddenly, not only was I in love, but I was in love with a man who can pull a nickel out of thin air.” You let out a breathy laugh and Spencer’s heart lurches as it turns into an intense cough that you’re clearly, painfully trying to quell. After another small pause, you continue, “I don’t have much time left...and time...time has never really seemed to matter as much before...but... all I want now is more time with you. That’s greedy, I guess. I got to spend four years loving and being loved by you...that’s enough for a lifetime.” You pause, clearly crying, sniffling over the recording a bit. “I know what I want for my eulogy won’t be easy for you and I’m sorry, but I have one more dying wish to ask of you, my darling.” You take a deep breath, obviously trying to keep your voice even. 

“Take your time. Live the life I can’t anymore. Keep being the extraordinary man you are. The world needs more people like you...strong, brilliant, kind, brave, silly, wonderful...and willing to make the world a better place. Take your time, Spencer.” You pause again, a sob breaking through the sniffles. Another breathy laugh leaves you, “I don’t want to say goodbye to you...but this recording has to end sometime. As you know, I’ve been reading famous last words...trying to figure out something to leave you with...I know his actual last words were ‘Oh fuck’, which feels appropriate, but just before that Roald Dahl said, ‘I’m not afraid, you know, it’s just that I’m going to miss you all so much’.” You’re fully crying on the recording now, the sobs ringing through the speakers. You sniffle after a moment, “God, I love you.” And with that, the recording ends. 

Spencer stares ahead blankly, tears flowing so freely that the collar of his pajamas are wet. He can’t even look at Garcia, though he can hear her trying to stifle the tears. He’s finally able to break eye contact with the computer and look over at Garcia, trying to silently sob. He looks at her, now barely able to contain their mutual sadness. 

“Thank you,” he rasps out, before crashing into her with a huge hug. The two of them exhale, both letting out enormous sobs. “Thank you for giving us this,” he chokes out. 

“What do you mean?” Garcia asks.

“Thank you for giving me a way to say goodbye,” Spencer sighs. “I’m not better...I don’t think I ever will be, but...just, thank you.” 

“Anytime, 187,” Garcia breathes. She pulls away from him and stands up, wiping off her eyes. “Are you okay? Do you need me to stay here?”

“No, you go on home,” Spencer replies, “I’m sure Luke is waiting for you.”

“He’ll be fine if you need me,” Garcia assures him. Spencer shakes his head and hugs his friend goodbye, thanking her again as she leaves the flash drive with your voice recording on it. 

When the door is closed, the sun is beginning to set through the windows of Spencer’s apartment. He takes the flash drive and places it on a shelf among some other deeply prized antiques. He looked around in the quiet light of the afternoon sun. He hasn’t quite stopped crying since the funeral, but the tears are less obtrusive now, less numbing. As though the knowledge he can still feel is better than nothing at all. 

“Well,” he whispers, knowing that, somehow, you can hear him, “I guess I should clean up. I have a life to keep living for you, my love.” 

~ “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” - Emily Dickinson ~

~~~

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[phati-sari]

Hello Phati Sari. I asked the question about the suicide attempt. And I just saw the answers about Arnav’s abuse. That is what I am getting at. I feel like he reflected on his feelings for Khushi and realized her innocent or not didn’t matter because he loved her. But I’m not sure he ever reflected on how his actions drove her to the state of mind where she would carefully plan a suicide based on the reasons she gave. And jumping from a one story building could have caused multiple broken bones.

This continues my earlier ask. Couldn’t type anymore. Besides broken bones, head injuries and lacerations could occur. I am at a disadvantage because I don’t speak Hindi so depend on blogs for translation and analysis sometimes. He does say sorry on the way to remarriage but in the light of the real abuse he did I am not sure it showed effectively enough his understanding of that. I just discovered the rewinds where he reflects and I understand he does show it there sometimes but I can find no

To continue. Sorry so long. I can find no English translations for his dialogs in the rewinds. Is there a place you know where some might be available or can you throw some light on pieces of his dialog that shows some deeper understanding of how his actions were abusive and he takes ownership for that abuse aside from Khushi letting him off the hook because she knows he loves her and her tears hurt him too. Sorry that isn’t enough for understanding even in fiction. Please edit ask if need. Than

Hello!

Firstly, I have to say that I think I’ve answered your question already. I realise it was not to your satisfaction, but in my mind I’ve already given my answer. I’m going to answer using specific quotes from your ask to make this a little easier because I think you’re actually asking a different question entirely.

But I’m not sure he ever reflected on how his actions drove her to the state of mind where she would carefully plan a suicide based on the reasons she gave.

But explicitly on-screen, no.

And jumping from a one story building could have caused multiple broken bones. Besides broken bones, head injuries and lacerations could occur.

Well yeah, I wasn’t minimising what could’ve happened. Your earlier question, however, explicitly asked whether Arnav could chalk it up to drama, and I said he could. 

That you didn’t like the answer doesn’t change my outlook -- yes the outcome could’ve been serious but a man who thinks he was duped by this woman’s faux innocence, that she was always trying to entrap or confuse him, could absolutely have come to the conclusion that she was faking her attempt at suicide because she wanted something from him.

To clarify, I’ve never thought her attempt was anything but serious, and have written essays about how much I disagreed with the track being given a comedic treatment.

I just discovered the rewinds where he reflects and I understand he does show it there sometimes

Does he though? I mean, Arnav spends most of his time spouting poetry in the Rewind, not genuinely reflecting on his behaviour. I’ll admit to my bias -- both EJ and Rewind strike me as out-of-character bullshit that I enjoy if the mood strikes me, but they’re not canon in my eyes.

Is there a place you know where some might be available or can you throw some light on pieces of his dialog that shows some deeper understanding of how his actions were abusive and he takes ownership for that abuse aside from Khushi letting him off the hook because she knows he loves her and her tears hurt him too

You’re not going to find this in the canon. I’m sorry, I understand why you’re looking for it, really I do. The closest we get are vague statements in EJ and in the Rewind. 

(This turned into a bit of a live-blog on the Rewind.)

In Episode 1 of the Rewind, Arnav reflects on their first meeting. He says that he was angry at Khushi because his show was ruined. He says that he rained upon her like lava. (Lava?? That’s taken straight from fanfiction my God.)

Arnav: “Aaj yaad karta hoon toh lagta hai ki kitna bura bartaav kiya maine uske saath uss din.” -- When I think about it now, I think of how badly I behaved with her that day. 

He admits to wrongdoing but as it immediately follows a justification, I’m not convinced it’s particularly reflective or deep. He always knew he was wrong -- the countless flashbacks to this meeting showed this in the canon.

In Episode 2, when he talks about the release of the video footage, Arnav smilingly tells the camera that he didn’t realise it would ~complicate~ Khushi’s life so much. This one action invited Shyam into her life and he smiles while he recalls it???

Ugh, this is the episode with the naaaaaavvvvvvv. Naaaaaaaavvvv. Fuck me dead I hate the Rewind so much, anon you’d better send me loads of virtual potatoes for this!

Episode 3, in which Arnav reduces his abuse of the employer-employee relationship with Khushi to a video game in which one has to defeat their opponent.

At least she apparently took the raksha bandhan seriously.

OH MY GOD THE MUG I’D FORGOTTEN THE MUG, BLISSFULLY WIPED IT FROM MY MEMORY. MY EYES. MY EEYYYEEESSS.

In Episode 6, Arnav admits he feels guilty when he thinks of the things he said and made Khushi do on the night of the photoshoot. His punishment is taking his wife to eat parathas -- a punishment Arnav admits is inadequate because he made so many mistakes.

In Episode 7, Arnav admits that regrets many of his decisions in his and Khushi’s story. But he hedges, saying that his mind wasn’t listening to his heart at the time. And then tries to justify his anger by bringing up that she told everyone about Lavanya.

In Episode 8, Arnav says that he gets goosebumps when he thinks about something happening to Khushi at the guesthouse. He says he still gets tears in his eyes when he thinks about how her arm was hurt. And yet, no examination of physical abuse.

In Episode 9, he admits that he’d crossed too many lines and Khushi’s anger was justified when she resigned. He admits that he made her life miserable, that he was “torturing” her. He says that he’d never send her where her life was in danger, though, and that she was wrong in saying that.

Ahh I’d totally spaced on him saying that he’d heard his dhak-dhak for the first time on Teej. 

In Episode 14, Arnav reiterates that he regrets how he treated Khushi, and he wishes they knew what they know now: that they were falling in love.

And then Arnav disappears from the Rewind. His behaviour in the contract marriage and beyond is not reflected on.

I’m not seeing anything in the Rewind that constitutes Arnav showing a deeper understanding of his abusive behaviour and taking ownership of it and its influence on Khushi. I mean, it’s there in the edges of what he says, but it’s not actually what he says. And what he says was always in the serial -- in his monologues, in his flashbacks, in his moments of introspection. It should not be news to anyone.

When I say IPKKND is set in a fantasy world where Arnav’s behaviour is not coded as abusive, I don’t mean and so we shouldn’t examine it through that lense. I mean that the characters will not admit to it being abuse any more than Aragorn is going to comment on the lack of women in LOTR or Aslan is going to say “I’m actually Jesus.” The conclusion that his behaviour is abusive is external to the serial, internally he’s driven by the trauma of the Tragedy and has the blessing of Devi Maiyya.

And so, there is no examination -- internally -- of this behaviour. Even in Lavanya’s case, Arnav never mentions the gross power imbalance and her ready acceptance of his abuse as reasons for the breakup. The show is silent on the topic (though my recaps aren’t) and the audience is left with the genuinely absurd idea that it was about how he didn’t love her. It wasn’t -- he knew he didn’t love her when they first broke up lol. It was about their interaction at the poolside where she admitted he’d never been nice to her. Ever. And that she just accepted as it as a given in their dynamic. Even in the Rewind, Arnav emphasizes that he didn’t love Lavanya, that he only saw her as a friend, instead of admitting he was emotionally abusive.

Coming back to Arnav’s reflection -- Arnav always, always, will be able to justify his point of view. Everyone is the Hero in their own story -- the entire thrust of this blog is to show that.

Now, I don’t need Arnav to say he was abusive -- I know he was, but I also think the redemption he was offered in the serial was fine (I’m qhsahil in that exchange, but I reckon you will agree with the others). I think it was in keeping with the characters shown in the serial and I have absolutely no desire to see any come-upperance or vengeance on Khushi’s behalf.

In conclusion, I get where you’re coming from, and I even understand why you want to see him say and admit these things, but I disagree that we see (or ever will see) them in the canon, or that we even need them in general.

Thanks for asking!

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The 100 6x12 "Adjustment Protocol" Review

Hello friends, it’s good to see you all again! I’m happy to be sharing my thoughts with you in this form again. Tonight I’m reviewing episode 6x12 of The 100 “Adjustment Protocol”, written by Kim Shumway and directed by Antonio Negret. I found myself underwhelmed by the season’s lead-in to the finale episode and I’m detailing why below! 

The Good

1. Eliza’s Exceptional Encore

Eliza Taylor has been on it this season. She’s been given extremely meaty scenes and she keeps blowing them out of the water. Clarke has been through so much lately and I am always excited to see what Eliza brings to the material she’s been given. The last few episodes have perhaps been some of the most challenging in her career and she’s been phenomenal in each of them. This episode was particularly tough for her, having to vacillate between Clarke playing Josephine, to Clarke listening to her daughter’s crazed rants and having to hide her tears, to Clarke experiencing the grief of realizing that her mother is dead and having to camouflage it so that her Josephine cover remains intact — and her friends remain alive. I wanted to reach through the screen and hug her when she broke down, because the girl has been through it!

For several seasons it’s been easy to debate about Clarke being a “worthy” hero because her actions don’t often line up with what we’ve been trained to expect of heroes. She is always ready and willing to make the tough choices, to kill whoever needs to be killed to save her people, to reach into the darkest parts of her own soul to make sure that other people don’t have to. This season Clarke has been unwilling to compromise on the promise she made to Monty’s memory. The promise to “do better” is layered in everything that she does and everything that she says. If last season was about the development of Bellamy into a “fully realized” leader, this has been that season for Clarke and she is extraordinary. 

I do find myself concerned about what Abby’s death will mean for Clarke’s determination to be different. It would be so easy to fall back into her old patterns, to lash out and turn her rage to all of the inhabitants of Sanctum (including innocents) instead of just on Russell who rightly deserves it. I’m hoping that she turns to her friends for support in this moment (and in the future) because heaven only knows that she’ll need them to get through this and I believe that perhaps that will be one of the biggest pluses of this season. With all of the crimes her friends laid at her feet this season, after watching Clarke go through so much and consciously continue to “do better”, I hope that we come through this with them realizing how much Clarke has done for everyone, often at her own expense. She’s a hero and she deserves to be treated as such. 

The Bad

1. Men Ruin Everything (Especially Female Television Characters)

In a rather shocking (not!) development, Dr. Abigail Griffin has joined the ranks of deceased characters even as her body continues to walk among the living. It’s been clear to me since Season 4 that Abby and Kane didn’t have long for this world, with Kane’s Season 4 quote, ”The youth will inherit the Earth”, playing a huge part in my thought process. I expected Abby to die that season, due to the problems she was suffering post A.L.I.E., but thanks to Raven’s genius (and Kane’s unwillingness to let her walk out of the bunker) she lived to fight another season. I expected Kane to die in Season 5 after he was attacked mercilessly by the cannibal Vinson and yet he survived those wounds as well. For some, that was a relief but I personally found myself confused and after tonight’s episode (and, in all honesty, their treatment all season) that confusion continues. Instead of being treated with the gravity that main character deaths deserve, both felt unceremonious and rather rushed, but at least Kane received a hero’s death. 

Abby’s story has grated on my nerves from the moment she first appeared in Season 5 with a drug addiction that was second only to her addictive obsession to Kane. Prior to Season 5, Abby’s story involved Kane but did not revolve around him. After that, all bets were off and Abby was only capable of caring about one person and that person was Kane. Everything she did in Season 5 and Season 6 up to and until Kane’s death served one person: Marcus Kane. Abby, a mother, a grandmother and one of only two qualified doctors for all of the people aboard the Eligius ship, became nothing more than a pawn on a romantic chessboard. She, like so many women on this show once they become romantically involved, became nothing more than a support for the man in her life. Even her death, which should be a hugely pivotal moment for this season, as Abby is the only mother of the original 100 we have any connection with, became wrapped up in the irony of what she’d done only three episode prior to save Kane. 

I believe that it also says quite a bit about how this show (which features women quite heavily) understands feminism. It is tragically horrific to kill a woman only a few episodes after killing her male love interest. It sends a message, even if unintentional, that she is only worth keeping around as long as her man is there, too. Abby’s arc could have been finished well in the closing scenes of Season 4, it could even have worked in the mid-season finale of Season 5, but after giving her a drug addiction (which she had not completely conquered), showcasing the absolutely insane lengths she was willing to go to save Kane (which she was not given time to properly “learn” from), it was clear that Abby still had some growth left in her. Unfortunately, it’s a story we’ll never get to see. 

In addition, the lead in to Abby’s death was painfully obvious. They needed to make 6 hosts, they only had 5 bodies. After making herself an obvious threat to Russell, Abby made herself a nightblood (“Like mother, like daughter”, says Jackson in the background for additional foreshadowing) and she’s in just the right age range to be suitable to host a 50-year-old man’s wife — unlike Ash (aka: Echo). She makes up with Raven in a rushed moment and conveniently learns that Clarke isn’t as dead as she thought she was — all in an effort to “finish” her storyline. As she dies, we’re treated to Raven and Jackson sobbing through flashbacks of her loved ones. It’s a death and not one particularly suited to a character of Abby’s standing on the show. More, fans of Paige Turco are likely going to have to prepare to watch “Abby” die once more — just as they did with Kane. It’s been a rough season for fans of Kabby. May we meet again Abby Griffin, you deserved more than you were given. 

2. Forced Female Friendships are not Feminist (Say That 3 Times Fast)

This episode felt like a good reminder that most TV writers do not understand female friendships (yes, even if the writers identify as women themselves). In this episode we are treated to a moment that is still confusing me as I write this (after my second viewing of the episode): Clarke and Echo (and Gaia and Miller) are reunited and in a moment of relief, Echo hugs Clarke after realizing she’s managed to kill Josephine and that ...doesn't make sense. This season has felt like a huge attempt to retcon Clarke and Echo’s relationship into a friendship that does not exist; in fact Echo has been kinder to Clarke than people who have known Clarke for longer (albeit only by a few months) and that doesn’t work for me. 

In the Season 5 two-part finale, Echo literally threatens to kill Clarke, because she is enraged that she left Bellamy to die, in the Season 4 premiere she does the same, in Season 3 she is responsible (in part) for killing many of Clarke’s “people”; and yet, the show, in a strange attempt to portray “friendship” between two women who the audience largely believe to be romantic rivals (because that’s how they are written), would have us ignore all of these previous transgressions, pretend the characters don’t need to have at least a conversation about mending their relationship and have jumped onto the bridge of friendship together. Echo and Clarke honestly don’t even know each other. It’s disingenuous and another example of the horrible ways in which a show that primarily features women treats those women. 

Even worse is the fact that, after repeating Monty’s mantra all season long through many characters (but primarily Clarke), we watched Echo murder Ryker last episode in cold blood. (I have yet to come up with a reason his death makes sense. Yes he was going to wipe Echo, but Miller had him at gunpoint and he’d surrendered. It would have been easy enough to force him into the chair, tie the restraints and gag him — leaving him to be found later by the guards, or in this case Josephine.) What about Echo’s actions this season (in the small amount of screen time she’s been given) equate to “doing better”? We watched people castigate Clarke for killing people to save her people, but no one has anything to say to Echo for killing people to save….herself? It’s baffling that this show continues to have Echo act in ways that are antithetical to those of our confirmed heroes (Bellamy and Clarke) and suffer absolutely no negative pushback from anyone. At what point do we see the consequences of her actions? Especially with the messaging for this season? 

3. Plot Holes Big Enough to Sink a Ship In

As per usual, The 100 once again crafts a season that is perhaps too big for its season length. This problem has been consistent since Season 4 and it’s largely because, after Season 3, the show which once prided itself on the fact that “anyone could die” has now become afraid to kill even the most useless character, if at least one fan likes them. This episode attempted to wrap up several character and plot arcs and as a result it felt overcrowded and rushed. Between bringing the Flame into the plot, the nightblood, making new primes, Emori and Murphy becoming Primes and pretending to be Kaylee and Daniel, Gabriel returning to Sanctum, Russell bombing his people and forcing them to kill each other, Priya’s kidnapping, and Abby’s death it’s just too much for one episode to handle!

If they needed all of these things to happen before the end of the season they should have begun the wrap up sooner (and or gotten rid of two characters in Season 4 and 5 respectively as mentioned earlier) and this is one of the prime reasons I support and advocate for smaller casts. Because every character with even an ounce of screen time is given the “main” treatment, all of their storylines must somehow be wrapped up in the final two episodes and it has historically not worked. In fact, this particular episode’s issues are so glaring largely because this season seriously pared down the amount of time it spent with people who weren’t Bellamy and Clarke (much like Season 2), greatly alleviating the audience’s need to care about so many different characters and it worked! Season 6, up until this episode has been one of the best seasons (my current order being 2, 1, 6, 4, 3, 5) because it felt like they were returning to the heart of the show: Bellamy and Clarke and their relationship to one another (however you might describe that). With this disjointed episode I was again reminded that there are too many characters I don’t have enough time to care about and it sapped the joy out of an otherwise excellent season for me. 

But perhaps that’s my own fault. Perhaps I’m expecting too much from this show in its sixth season and of course I’ll wait to pass final judgement until the finale airs next week. I’ll be writing that review as well! I can’t wait to close out the season with you guys. See you soon!!!

April’s episode rating: 🐝🐝.5

The Season 6 finale of The 100 airs Tuesday, August 6 at 9/8c on the CW.

[jupitermelichios]

Ragnarok Remix

So a lot of you will probably already know that I really don’t like Ragnarok as a movie, and I thought it would be an interesting exercise to try and rewrite the plot to see if I could come up with something I’m happier with. I did the same thing for Star Wars Episode 1 a couple of years ago and it was a lot of fun.

I’ve kept most of the shape of the story, since the structure is really good, and a lot of the scenes. The main change is swapping out Hella for a different villain because that character isn’t Hella in any recognisable way, and using that name added nothing to the character and hobbled them in terms of what stories they could tell in the future, as well as cutting off the entire Tenth Realm stuff and the associated characters. I’ve also swapped a lot of Odin’s scenes with Frigga, because frankly Odin doesn’t deserve the Morgan Freeman treatment they gave him. The final big change was to Loki’s timeline. Given the nature of NDAs at Disney, they may well not have known that Loki was due to be killed off, and since we do know that now, I wanted to give him more character beats so that he was in a place where killing him off made more sense, and we therefore could do kid!Loki in the future rather than just bringing back Hiddles from the dead for the fourth time.

Anyway, this is mostly just a writing exercise. Hopefully even if you like Ragnarok, you might find it interesting.

So Thor still goes to Muspelheim, and everything plays out the same except for a throwaway mention of Thor being Odin’s second born child from Surtr. (I would also change the thing where Thor doesn’t know Surtr exists, because honestly not knowing who rules one of Asgard’s client kingdoms is exactly the kind of shit Thor was supposed to have grown out of in Dark World).

He goes home, finds Loki pretending to be Odin and reveals his disguise. They go to earth to find Odin, but when they get to the nursing home he’s not there. The nonsense with Strange happens, because a lot of people didn’t bother to see his solo movie so he’s got to be here as well so that audiences know who he is before IW, but instead of sending them to Norway, they get sent to Monte-Carlo.

Thor tries to get Loki to apologise to Odin, but Odin seems largely disinterested and when they try and persuade him to come home, he says he feels like seeing the world instead and one of them can be king in his place. Odin’s whole manner is shifty, and the audience is left with the impression that he knows something he’s not telling.

The siblings start to fight over which of them will be the one to rule, while Thor also keeps trying to persuade his father to return, when they’re suddenly picked up by the rainbow bridge and whisked back to Asgard but a visibly frightened Skurge.

They find Hogun in the bridge chamber, seriously injured. He tells them that he was leading a scouting party to investigate rumours of a monster being seen on the outskirts of Asgard. Through a mix of exposition and flashback we learn that the rumours were true and the whole party were wiped out except him, who managed to escape by calling the Rainbow bridge, however he lost a leg in the transport as it was hurried and Skurge doesn’t have Heimdall’s eyes. This allows us to establish the ‘don’t leave the bridge while it’s moving’ thing.

Hogun dies in Thor’s arms, and Thor swears revenge. Dragging Loki with him, he gathers Sif and the remaining warriors Three and gets Skurge to transport them to somewhere close to the site of the last sighting, but not so close that we don’t have time for a couple of quick character beats to remind the audience who the three are and get them invested.

They find the monster and try to fight it but it’s crazy strong. Thor tries to send Sif home to rally the troops there but she refuses, so Volstagg goes, promising to send help. They continue trying to fight and Fandrall is killed. When Mangog destroys Mjolnir, Sif realises there’s no hope and calls for a rainbow bridge. Thor tries to pull her in with them but she refuses to go and he looses an arm in the beam (if we’re doing King Thor, we’re committing to full King Thor). The Mangog reaches into the beam and tries again to kill them. Sif distracts it, saving their lives, but Thor is knocked out and he and Loki are both pushed out of the beam.

While he’s unconscious, Thor has a vision of his mother. She’s in her chambers in Asgard weaving a tapestry. When he asks her how he can be seeing her when she’s dead, she just reminds him that she’s a goddess. Thor tells her what’s happened, and she names the Mangog for the first time. She tells him that while mortals answer to gods, gods answer to the mangog, who exists to punish their sins. When Thor asks what sins Asgard as committed, Frigga asks him whether he thought the conquest of the other nine realms was achieved bloodlessly, but doesn’t elaborate further. Before wakes up, Thor sees that the tapestry she’s weaving shows Frigga and Odin with not two but three children, himself and Loki, plus a redheaded girl. When he touches the figure of the girl, she fades out of the picture.

Thor wakes up on Sakaar, and gets picked up by Valkyrie who takes him to see the Grandmaster. Unlike in the original, the Grandmaster seems to know who he is, although when Thor says he’s from the nine realms the Grandmaster keeps trying to correct him, insisting there’s ten realms not nine. He’s also accompanied by a dark-haired woman who Thor is convinced is Loki, but who refuses to acknowledge him. We see Thor being prepared for battle, but rather than a haircut, it’s getting a metal cap put over the stump of his missing arm. He realises Valkyrie is a Valkyrie (but based on her tattoos rather than her sword this time) and tries to persuade her to fight for Asgard but she refuses.

We cut back to Asgard, where Volstagg has assembled an army to try and slow down the Mangog. We see him saying goodbye to his wife and their many children. We discover that Sif survived and made it home, but is badly wounded. She tries to argue that she should accompany the army, but Volstagg refuses, saying that Thor would want her to be regent in his absence, since there’s no one else he trusts more than her.

In the gladiator tunnels on Sakaar Thor meets Korg and Miek, since they were the best bit of that film, but we also get a cameo for Raava the Unskrulled. (If you haven’t read Black Bolt, she’s a female-identifying Skrull space-pirate who is one of my favourite characters in Marvel, and would fit very well into this movie).

We get the big set-piece fight with the Hulk in the arena largely unchanged. The only real difference is that the Grandmaster’s box and the crowd contain a lot more recognisable Marvel alien species, including Khymelians and Shi’ar (technically Fox probably owned them back them but it’s not like they were using them), Skrulls, Kree and the Sisterhood of the Badoon. This is our chance to establish Skrulls existing prior to Cap Marvel, even if it’s only as a tiny background Easter-egg.

While Thor’s unconscious after the fight, he once again sees his mother and a tapestry. This time it shows the world-tree but there are ten realms instead of nine. When Thor asks her about the tenth realm and the disappearing girl, she tells him that once there had been ten realms, and Odin had used the inhabitants of the tenth realm, who call themselves Angels, as mercenaries in subduing the other realms. The battles grew bloodier and bloodier and Odin was never satisfied with what he had conquered. She says that he had destroyed realms, and when Thor protests that all the realms are still there, she tells him that what makes a realm is the people rather than the land. Eventually the price the Angels demanded grew so high that even Odin couldn’t pay it, and so as payment they took Odin’s firstborn, a girl called Aldriff. Thor wakes up as he’s trying to ask his mother what happened to the tenth realm.

Thor wakes up in Hulk’s apartments on Sakaar and Hulk mocks him for calling for his mother in his sleep. Thor realises that if Hulk is strong enough to defeat him then maybe he’s strong enough to fight Mangog. He tries to persuade Hulk to help, but Hulk refuses. Realising that he’d have a much better job persuading Banner to save innocent people, he asks Hulk to change back, and Hulk again refuses. Thor then asks him to help him leave the planet, and that Hulk agrees to, on the understanding that Hulk will stay behind.

Hulk calls Valkyrie to his room and Thor jumps her. During the fight he wonders aloud why there are so many Asgardians on Sakaar, saying it’s a conincidence that he and Loki ended up in the same place as Valkyrie. The mention of Loki’s name seems to distract her enough that Thor’s able to get the upper hand and overpower her. They take Valkyrie’s control device to remove Thor’s electric collar, and find the quinjet. Thor manages to activate it enough to shut the door, intending to go back on his word and take Hulk with him. Hulk goes mad trying to escape, but in his anger accidentally triggers the final message the jet recieved from Natasha as he left, causing him to turn back into Bruce. However the quinjet is now too badly damaged to be used.

Valkyrie is searching the palace for the two of them. During her search she goes into a room below the slave quarters were a huge cage holds a giant wolf. Loki is there, talking affectionately to it, as though it were a toddler. It’s initially calm, but goes wild when Valkyrie enters, trying to get to her to eat her. As Valkyrie enters it looks as though Loki is about to open the cage, but she stops when she sees Valkyrie watching her. Valkyrie confronts Loki, demanding to know if it’s true that she’s Loki. Loki admits that it is, and explains that although there was only a few minutes between her and Thor leaving the rainbow bridge, the nature of Einstein-rosen bridges means that she’s been on Sakaar for decades of mortal time. She disguised herself because Loki is known to be an agent of Thanos and even though she’s no longer affiliated with him, most planets wouldn’t wait long enough to let her explain before they executed her. Valkyrie asks if the wolf is Loki’s son and Loki admits that he is. Valkyrie says that that must mean that he’s Fenris Wolf, and goes to kill him but Loki stops her, saying that even if he’s the herald of Ragnarok and a monster, he’s still her son and she would burn worlds to protect him, and then adds that there’s nothing they could do to hurt him anyway, since he’s the child of a god and an Eternal (no further explanation than this as to his parentage is offered). Valkyrie leaves to find Thor, and Loki tells Fenris that she wishes that she could just let Thor die for a change, but she can’t bring herself to. She turns back into her male form and goes searching for Thor.

Thor and Banner try to regroup and come up with a new plan, and Banner tells Thor that if he even turns into the Hulk again he doesn’t think he’ll turn back. We get the impression that Thor would prepared to risk that if it would save Asgard.

Back on Asgard, Volstagg tries to call for the bifrost to take away civilians who have got caught in the battle, but Skurge is so afraid of the Mangog he deserts his post. We cut to Siff exploring the the Allfather’s vault looking for weapons, and we see the eternal flame there as well as various other little cameos. Then she finds Heimdall, locked up in a cell inside the vault. She releases him (she’s holding the infinity gauntlet we saw in Thor 1, and asks him “is this…” and he tells her it’s a fake before saying that they need to hurry to the gate.) They arrive at the bifrost just in time to pull out the civilians before they’re killed. Siff asks Heimdall how the battle is going, and asks whether Odin or Thor is coming to save them, and he just tells her to ready the city’s last defences.

On Sakaar, Loki finds Thor and warns him that the Valkyrie is looking for him, and tells him he should take one of the Grandmaster’s ships. When Thor asks why he’s helping him, Loki says that their mother appeared to him in a dream and asked him to watch out for his brother.

Valkyrie finds them just as they’re stealing a ship and Loki shows her a vision of the death of the Valkyries in the battle to retrieve Princess Aldriff to slow her down. She knocks him out, but the memory of her fallen comrades is enough to persuade her to help Thor. She uses a wall pannel to unlock the slave quarters, and Korg suddenly finds that the looping tunnel doesn’t loop anymore and he’s able to leave. They begin an uprising.

Thor wants to leave Loki behind, but Valkyrie wants to get him as far away from Fenris as possible, worried that he’ll unlock the cage, and insists they bring his unconscious body with them. They’re initially planning to aim for the portal Thor had come through, but Heimdall appears before him to tell him to take the Devil’s Anus portal.

They take the ship through the Devil’s Anus, pursued by guards. However, Fenris senses his mother leaving and goes wild, managing to smash apart the bars of his cage. His violent actions begin the total collapse of the palace, as he was in the foundations of the building. He manages to follow them by jumping from guard ship to guard ship, eventually diving through the portal after them. During this sequence, Loki comes too. His skin as been turning gradually more and blue until eventually the collar freezes and snaps. As soon as he wakes up he reverts to his Asgardian form. Banner reiterates that he can’t become the Hulk, and we see that Thor has finally learned his lesson when he tells Banner than he won’t ask that of him.

The Mangog arrives in Asgard, announcing his presence by throwing Volstagg’s body onto the steps of the palace where Siff and the last remaining soldiers are rallied to meet him. As they raise their swords to attack, Thor’s ship arrives and Thor confronts the Mangog. Meanwhile Volstagg’s wife is trying to get the civilians out via the bifrost. Valkyrie and Banner go to help. Hildegun recognises Valkyrie and explains that she was a Valkyrie herself once, but retired before the massacre to get married. She produces a dragonfang blade out of her pack, and gives it to Valkyrie to use in the battle.

Thor’s battle against the Mangog is not going well, even with the support of Siff and the soldiers. It manages to get Thor pinned and puts out one of his eyes, and he passes out from the pain.

For a third time, he sees his mother. He tells her he can’t fight the Mangog, that he can’t do anything without his hammer and he’s not as strong as her and Odin. She tells him that he’s better than either of them ever were, and he asks her again about the tenth realm. She tells him that as punishment for taking her child, she wiped them from existence, and that’s why she says that Thor is a better person than his parents. Thor says that being a good person isn’t what he needs, he needs power, and she tells him that the power is within him - the hammer was just a conduit.

Seeing what’s happening, Heimdall uses the Bifrost to send a vision of himself to Odin, to tell him that he’s needed. When Odin refuses, and calls Heimdall a traitor for not reporting Loki, Heimdall tells him that he had to watch the slaughter Odin ordered on the Nine worlds, and listen to the screams, and keep the secret of the tenth realm, but he’s damned if he’s going to passively watch all of Asgard burn for Odin and Frigga’s sins. Odin refuses again, but before Heimdall can do anything else he’s distracted by events on Asgard and disappears. We get a beat of Odin just sitting, obviously considering Heimdall’s words before we cut back to the bifrost.

The civilians on the bridge are nearly at the bifrost control when Fenris arrives. Bruce asks what it wants, and Loki appears out of the crowd and says that Fenris wants to eat the world. Valkyrie says that they have to fight it, and Loki says that he can’t kill his own child. Realising that there’s no other choice, despite Valkyrie’s reminder that he doesn’t have to, Bruce Hulks to fight Fenris. When Valkyrie tries to ask Loki to get the civilians to the Bifrost, he’s disappeared. Before she can do anything, the Mangog appears between her and the Bifrost. Heimdall is forced to leave his post and fight.

In Asgard, Thor wakes up to find Loki with him. He tells Loki that Mangog is here to punish Asgard for their parents’ sins (to which Loki says that he knows, Frigga had told him as well) but there might be a way to save the bit of Asgard that matters - the people.

Thor arrives to join the battle on the bridge, now able to use his lightning powers without a conduit.

Skurge turns out to have been hiding inside the Bifrost hall. He hears Odin’s call and activates the bridge to bring him through to join the fight at the same time as Loki reappears. They end up fighting back to back, and Loki blames him for what’s happening. Mangog hits Loki especially hard and he looses control of his shape, reverting to his Jotun form. He says that he must have made a pretty poor replacement for the baby that the Angels stole, and Odin says that he didn’t steal him to be a replacement, and there’s never been a day when he regretted taking Loki in, even when Loki was lost to them.

Surtr emerges from the palace and begins burning everything, and then the Mangog destroys the bifrost controls just he begins burning, trapping the remaining Asgardians on a burning planet.

Korg’s ship appears above the fight. He seems fairly bemused to have gone from a collapsing palace to another collapsing palace, but agrees to take the civilians when Hildegund asks and between her and Skurge they manage to get the civilians onto the ship.

Realising that there’s no hope, Odin tells Hulk and Valkyrie to get to the ship. Valkyrie isn’t happy about taking orders from the man who got her entire unit killed but Thor persuades her. Loki wants to stay because of Fenris, but Odin tells him that even though he’s a better parent than Odin even managed to be, there’s nothing to be gained from staying here. Loki tries to say goodbye to Fenris, but Fenris is so consumed by hunger that he attacks him, and Loki admits there’s nothing to be done.

Thor tells Odin that he’s going to stay and help him hold off Mangog long enough, but Odin tells him that Asgard in exile will need a king, knocks him out and gives him to Loki to drag to the ship. As it pulls away, Fenris leaps for it, nearly bringing it down and Skurge leaps from the ship, sacrificing himself in order to distract Fenris.

Once the ship is gone, Odin is struck down by Mangog. As he’s dying he sees a vision of Frigga reaching for him. He says that he can’t go, he’s a monster and should stay and burn with the monsters, and Frigga tells him that she’s a monster too but at least they taught their children to do better than them, and they walk into the darkness of death as Asgard burns behind them.

On the ship, Thor tries to appoint Loki as king, but he’s too caught up in grief over Fenris, and then Sif, since she had been the regent, but she refuses and names him King Thor. The last shot of the movie (that isn’t a post credits scene) is of a bearded, one-eyed, one-armed Thor seated on his throne surrounded by the survivors of Asgard.

[dynamicsneeze-blog]

‘My Sister, The Serial Killer’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite: a review

When one is a head nurse, one tends to be adept at keeping things sterile. This knowledge serves Korede well when her sister, Ayoola, calls her not once but thrice into a rather bloody situation to clean up her mess.

Korede and Ayoola are born to a successful man and his wife in the Nigerian city of Lagos. On the outside, they’re considered a beautiful family, well-respected and put-together to those who aren’t privy to what happens behind closed doors. Their father is a cheat of a man, selling cars he knows are used as if they were new. And worse, he beats, emotionally abuses, and psychologically tortures his wife and kids. Their mother is passive about this treatment (save an incident where her husband brought home his 20-something mistress to use their marital bed). Their father dies of mysterious circumstances and none of the women mourn him except when out in public where such emotion is necessary to not rouse suspicion.

When the story opens, Femi is dead by Ayoola’s hand. He attacked her, she cries. It was simply self-defense. Korede doesn’t press further at first but she knows three men being slaughtered in simple self-defense seems implausible. Throughout the story, we see Korede work through layers of issues within her own mind: the jealousy that lie in wait at nearly every turn; the doubt she feels at what Ayoola is telling her and the corresponding guilt for feeling that; and her feelings for a man who clearly is not interested in her. The way her past and present intertwine is fascinating to see and I’d honestly give this book four stars out of five.

So, I’ve got some thoughts. This is where spoilers happen.

I found it interesting that Korede got frustrated that Tade didn’t “really know” Ayoola and that she thought it was all very surface-level when that’s exactly how she interacted with him. She might have known tidbits about him, she might have known him for longer and spent more time, but she didn’t really know him either. And I think she comes to realize that in the end. Obviously!

I also wonder what exactly happened to their father. The suggestion to kill him was thrown around once in a flashback and I wonder if Korede did that. Or what if their mother did! Oh man! Given they were all being abused mercilessly by this horrid man, I bet he didn’t die of natural causes but it’s never really clear that anyone killed him.

I love the pacing of the novel too! I considered it more as scenes in a movie and I noticed that a lot of people didn’t quite like that. I don’t personally need novels I read to have any kind of flow in that way; as long as things come together and make sense to the story at hand, I’m good. Which brings me to Muhtar, the man in the coma. Why would you ever tell someone in a coma that your sister is a serial killer? She was a head nurse; she should know that comatose people can still hear and have the potential to internalize what was being said to them. That’s the one part of this story that I didn’t quite understand but it served to underscore Korede’s lack of a support system.

I finished the book in a night so it’s not a terribly long read but it certainly made me feel like I finished something worth my time! It was eloquently written and structured in a way I truly enjoyed. I wish every book had that in at least a fraction of what My Sister had.

[osmw1]

Poison-Wielding Fugitive   Chapter 22

“Father, is there anything else that you need?” “I’m alright for this here now. But the next batch will be a bit tricky, so I’ve got to get started on it soon.”

The trembling apothecary replies with a cough interspersed. That’s a little worrying.

“I’ll help out too.”

I begin tidying the messed-up room. Arleaf watches her dad so that she can make his work easier, even if only a bit. A coughing fit interrupts his work, but he soldiers on. He blends herbs both poisonous and not, along with some dried monster organs all together with his mortar and pestle. He then distills and boils the mixture, but the lengthy and complicated process still isn’t finished. During a break in their work, I meet Arleaf’s mother for the first time. She walked out to the shop from her bedroom.

“Haa… haa…” “Mother. Hold on, okay?”

Arleaf wipes the cold sweat off her mom’s face, wrings out the towel, and places it on her forehead to cool her down. I take a peek at Arleaf’s mom. I can see where Arleaf gets her good looks from. There’s a red spot around her collarbone… I see a petal.

A single petal… and according to Veno, she dies if the petal disappears. It’s no laughing matter anymore. There’s no way they didn’t notice her condition until now. While we wait for the medicine to be finished, I can only hope both Arleaf’s parents get better after taking it.

I’m not here to watch them work; I help out with the compounding. Seems like they’ve gotta turn a bunch of different ingredients into medicine. And after helping out at Arleaf’s home for a few hours…

“Almost done.”

Arleaf’s dad mutters out while holding back his coughs.

‘How baffling… that would only halt its progression but not completely cure the person of the disease. Does he want to test the vitality of the patients?’

What?! Why would they make something like that? Didn’t you say that they can easily recover if they take their meds?

‘Judging by that man’s work, it looks as though he knows not how to make medicine to treat Bloodflower… aye, it seems not all humans have found a cure.’

Hold on, Veno. You’re saying the cure isn’t common knowledge?

‘If that is the finished product, then indeed, I think he knows not.’

… that reminds me, Veno even knows how to make stamina recovery potions.

‘Perhaps, that is how the apothecary makes his money. By selling his symptomatic treatment and not curing the cause, he will have an unending source of income.’

No way he’d do that. Never mind himself, that’s his wife who’s been infected. That kind of profiteering just doesn’t make sense.

‘I wonder. Humans are greedy animals. There are humans that can simply abandon the sick, even if they are blood-related. For example, if a man wants another woman, his first wife becomes a nuisance.’

You’re cold. Why are humans such despicable creatures to you, Veno? You’re normally brimming with curiosity, and so I even go out of my way to tell you about things…

‘…’

He stays silent after hearing me out. However it may be, Veno, do you know how to make a proper cure? If you do, tell me and I’ll advise them.

‘By doing so, thou art beckoning misfortune upon thyself. Even I would avoid doing so. Dost thou recognize the risk of this action?’

… what do you mean by that?

‘Thou wilt not be recognized for thine efforts if thou should fail. We shall be driven out of this village.’

How awful for you to speak like that. I’m trying to do what I can to save these people. How can I do nothing and watch them suffer?

‘That medicine depends on the fortitude of the patient. There is a chance of survival; there is no need to be pessimistic.’

I can’t stand such a cold-hearted idea of prioritizing my own survival.

‘Thou… I do not disagree with thine feelings. In fact, I find it very noble. However… I have experienced how foolish humans can be, thus the reason for my advice.’

But I haven’t heard a single damn reason from you! How the hell am I supposed to understand anything?

‘Hah… listen then. Hear my advice then extend thine hand. I fear the burden of the repercussions will be too heavy for thee. I ask thee to refrain from making a hasty decision.’

A hasty decision?

‘Aye. Saving others will incur an appropriate liability. Should thou fail, they will hesitate not to turn upon thee. It matters not whether our intentions are good or not, they will come for thine head.’

Veno begins to explain. Once, there was a person trying to find a cure to the epidemic. By chance, he concocted a potion that was effective and shared it with the people closest to him. The ones who received help were thankful to him. Unfortunately, the cure he created was by accident. He was not able to eradicate the disease. Once the story of how he found a cure spread out, others surrounded him desperately demanded him to recreate the cure. Of course, he had no more cure to offer. He tried reasoning that he had only unexpectedly stumbled upon a working formula.

Those who clung to that small glimmer of hope found nothing in return. Anything else they did was rash and thoughtless, Veno lamented. This is the guy that spread the disease around, isn’t he? I bet that bunch bought their cure for an unimaginable amount of money! That’s right, they’re his accomplices. That makes them no better than him.

They’re witches—no, demons! Let’s get them! We’ll hunt them witches! Try them all!

The family of the dead arm themselves and lynch the ones who were saved. The ones who were saved were branded as witches…

‘… a long time ago, I was given a record of pharmaceutical insight. I spoke with this person and learned that he was repenting for living. Repenting, as the others who were not so lucky had shifted their blame on him, making him a scapegoat.’

… Veno must have a point in telling me all this. Man is bound to commit acts of foolishness. I can deduce that he’s trying to tell me that I could possibly hurt the innocent.

‘Thus, if I teach thee how to create a cure, thou ought to take responsibility. Ascertain whether thou can and should.’

… I can’t half-ass this. I really have to do this well and follow through with it.

‘I have come to be fond of thee. Hence I wish not to see thee needlessly hurt.’

I believe him. Really, that kind of thing isn’t out of the realm of possibility. What if I give people a hope but can’t follow through with it? That’s scary to think of. Not to mention, I’m a nobody. They’re just some village people from a strange and unknown parallel world.

“…”

Suddenly, I had a flashback of everything that had happened since I came here. Arleaf saved me, helped me complete quests, and got me a good rate at the inn. And though this village may be rather quiet, people took me in. Everyone’s been warm and cordial to me. To think that I could emotionally wall them off and think about my survival first…

I was only staying here to train and develop myself before the pursuers get to me. The swamp was simply convenient for me. I can make all these excuses, but I can’t excuse the fact that everyone treated me well. I chuckle a little at Veno.

‘What is it? Is something funny?’

I’m a wanted criminal because of you. If I do good, then they’ll have less of a reason to pursue us. That means I should help them out to fulfill my childish sense of justice. Even if Veno’s medicine doesn’t work, it doesn’t change a thing. I’d rather regret doing something than regret not doing anything at all.

‘Good grief… well, we have become stronger. Thou need only to do thine best. However, if others seem to do anything foolish, thou must follow my orders. Thou must protect thyself against any possible dangers.’

Suppose the villagers do anything foolish like Veno said, I have to listen to what Veno tells me to do to survive. I pray for that day never to come.

‘Then, I shall teach thee how to create a remedy for Bloodflower. Listen closely.’

Gotcha. As Arleaf’s father completes the finishing touches on his medicine, I grab the bowl he was planning to use.

“That won’t heal this disease.” “Hah? What are you sayin’, Cohgray?” “Yukihisa?”

Arleaf’s father glares at me with doubtful eyes while Arleaf worriedly watches us.

“You know that too, don’t you? This will only alleviate the symptoms of Bloodflower and nothing more. It depends on the patient’s system to fight the disease.” “… ah. But as everyone knows, this is the only thing that works against Bloodflower.” “I know of a cure for Bloodflower. I didn’t think it had spread this far, so I was a bit shocked is all.” “The hell you sayin’? If you’re going to screw around, then get the hell out of—cough cough cough.”

The instant the man looked at me when I interrupted him, his face flushed red with anger, only to be cut off by his violent coughing. I took the opportunity to bare his chest. Only one petal of blood remains.

His condition is as bad as his wife’s, who has been confined to her bed for a while. Impressive. Normally at this stage, people can’t get up. That’s what Veno’s said in his analysis of the disease.

“Father!”

Arleaf calls out while rubbing her father’s back, trying to soothe his cough.

“Cough cough. Ar-Arlea—cough.”

Arleaf’s father points at me, trying to get me out of his way.

“Mu…” “Father, I didn’t know your condition worsened this much…”

Flustered at the state her dad is in, Arleaf avoids looking him in the eyes. It doesn’t seem like Arleaf’s dad has the strength to force me out of his way either.

“Are you saying—there’s such a mi-miraculous drug…?” “Watch me. All I need to do is add a little more to what you’ve just made.”

I repeated what Veno had just said to me and continue Arleaf’s dad’s work. The poisonous herb pogneuk magically appears in front of my eyes. Consumption of it causes shortness of breath.

‘Mash the pogneuk with the mortar and pestle then add the neutralizer, making a potion. Add in a pinch of dietetrodake spores.’

I add the ingredients exactly as Veno instructs me to.

‘Then, take five milliliters of water squeezed out of marphina and mix that in. We do not have enough from the previous time we made it.’

I just wanted to double-check whether I’m making this right. Most of what I added in is toxic. This only looks real deadly to me. You sure this is okay?

‘Worry not and just do as I say. Up comes the hardest part. So that it accounts for five percent of the potion the apothecary has made, add in our concoction. Any less and it shall not be effective. Any more and it shall spell death.’

Gah… you couldn’t have made this any harder, could you? I can probably use Detect Poison on the final product, but I can’t stand to see myself fail now. I try to stop my hand from shaking so much and hope that this is five percent.

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /next/ (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread on Novel Updates) (please support me on Patreon or Paypal)

[illeity]

The Best of Anime Winter 2018!

Older anime recommendations [here].

Best Overall

Sora Yorimo Tooi Basho - A Place Further than the Universe

You taught me the courage of stars before you left.

How light carries on endlessly, even after death.

With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite.

How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.

Tamaki Mari wants to achieve something special, something that would make the most of a youth that she is aware is slipping away with time. Kobuchizawa Shirase, who lost her mother during an expedition to Antarctica, is struggling to find the means to see her again. Alongside Miyake Hinata and Shiraishi Yuzuki, these four friends brave obstacles to travel to one of the most inhospitable places on earth, to a place further than the universe.

It's my pick for the season because of how determined the show is at beating you over the head on the value of chasing after your dreams, no matter how foolish, no matter how difficult because of the finitude of this life. If shows have a "monster of the week" format, this show has a "lesson of the week" format, as each episode exhausts every angle on dream-achievement and its various opportunities and threats without being completely on the nose.

The four are subjected to self-doubt and doubt from other people and friendships that wane as they chart a trajectory that only they can take. They cling to each other in shared sentiment, as the farther they get, the lonelier the path becomes and even progress and exciting new sights are weakened as they find themselves way past their comfort zone, beyond any shore line they're familiar with, with other people they barely know.

And that's how life is supposed to be: You build a world around yourself and craft order out of the chaos, but order creates boundaries, and shuts us from growing and expanding and becoming prepared for dangers beyond our garden. And so we willingly subject ourselves to more chaos, because we're strong enough to do so and because failing to grow might as well be something akin to being dead. And by this dance of order and chaos, we reach ever farther and move with time, as meaning condenses around us like a medal ever being made.

Best Drama

Koi wa Ameagari no You ni - After the Rain

We hate the rain when it fills up our shoes

But how we love when it washes our cars

Tachibana Akira is a High School runner who lost everything when her Achilles tendon ruptured. Kondo Masami is a 45-year old manager of a chain restaurant who had resigned himself to ageing without any ambition. Tachibana is in love with Kondo.

This age-gap romance could have gone any other way but it went with the kindest, most sensitive treatment to its characters with neither condemnation nor approval. The story goes from Tachibana's fledgling affections and pivots to Kondo's struggle to find self-worth when his dreams had faded away. And all of this came about when he realizes that someone can love him for all his failings and forces him to take a long hard look and to reconnect with friends and his passions.

The anime then becomes a 12-episode long metaphor for rain, making use of its various traits as clever figurative language. They water each other, and grow beyond their injuries and histories. And like rain, they comfort, and sometimes inconvenience, but above all, they purify and makes things new again.

Best Comedy/ Best Cute Girl Anime

Yuru Camp - Laid-back Camp

Oh, one day you will go away from this

Oh, one day you will know we’re men of snow

We melt one day

Shima Rin is a quiet girl with a streak of independence, preferring to camp by herself. When a camping trip is crashed by Kagamihara Nadeshiko, an irrepressibly energetic girl who discovers the joys of winter camping for the first time, she reaches out of herself, and discovers the quiet pleasures that come with having an experience alongside other people.

It's so strange why I find myself laughing up in this series. The humor is diverse from acorns suddenly talking to Kagamihara and Shima Rin playing each other off like an elder couple. The humor pulls itself from out of the blue, from events where you don't expect them and they work.

And when the series isn't making you laugh, it's making you awe in wonder at Nature with beautifully rendered landscapes and a very, very cozy atmosphere of good sights, good food, and good friends.

When Non Non Biyori, another slice-of-life anime with stunning visuals and light tone, ended, I thought there would never be another show to approximate it. It’s here, it’s funny, it’s warm and it’s called Yuru Camp.

Honorable Mention

3-Gatsu no Lion - March Comes in Like a Lion

Oh my friends I am heavy Can I beat within your heart? Can I bleed within your love?

There's nothing more to add what I haven't said before: Chica Umino has crafted a live beating heart of a world that protagonist Kiriyama Rei lives in. Centered on Shogi, growing up, and coming to terms with the choices we've made in life are repeating themes even as they are shuffled and played with to differing effect.

Instead of an everyday that we tend to take for granted, every scene carries the weight of ultimate significance, where even tertiary characters are given history and language, their character represented and described in visual metaphor. From the weighty cloth sashes of a history of carrying the lost dreams of friends, to a colorless, rain-soaked painting of existence as payment for perfection in Shogi, the show makes use of the medium to its fullest. And if that's not enough to entice you, the last episode has the greatest first eight minutes to ever grace the medium.

Best Sci-Fi/ Fantasy

Mahou Tsukai no Yome - The Ancient Magus' Bride

You lean towards despair Any given opportunity you're there But what is there to gain? When you're always falling off the fence that way.

The romance between Japanese girl Hatori Chise and mage Elias Ainsworth comes to a head as she steps into her destiny as mage and fights off her impending death. Her growth as a person and her maturity were a pleasure to watch as she rotates through aspects of the feminine: as friend, as sister, as a mother, and as a wife. Her hero's journey is as much a repaving of the road she was supposed to take, destroyed by the past and discouraged by the future.

Best Girl

Takagi (Karakai Jozu no Takagi-san - Skilled Teaser Takagi-san)

Takagi is the queen of smug anime girls, dishing out an endless torrent of teasing upon her sole target, childhood friend Nishikata. It's endlessly entertaining to see Takagi win the upper-hand in every matchup between the two wits because she is exceptionally skilled in reading Nishikata and lucky in circumstances that depend on chance.

But as sweet as this youthful play is, it's easy to see that while Takagi runs circles around Nishikata, she always stops short of coming too close, unable to convey her affection past anything more than mere play and impenetrable smile.

Best OP

Flashback - MIYAVI Vs KenKen (Kokkoku -  Moment by Moment)

TV Size: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhBA6ynorvc

Full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79IYCjmP_RM

Infectiously catchy, Flashback bounces along with rude guitar licks and a drop made of clouds and pins, propelling the viewer through a sense of excitement, strangeness, and dread alongside unnaturally tinted scenes of dark neon and tall, boxed typography.

Best ED

Ref:rain - Aimer (Koi wa Ameagari No You ni - After the Rain)

TV Size: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbVahv8rcQY

Full Size: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLbOid9mRi4

This was the pick for the sole reason of the song, which is an astoundingly moving ballad which (from the OP, the show, and this ED) again uses rain, this time as a metaphor for desire and fears of regret. The visuals are spartan and entirely aesthetic, of raindrops on an umbrella and then zooming shots of Tachibana as she slowly comes into color.

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Ranking Every Single Companion Departure

https://ift.tt/35el4vd

Graham and Ryan have left Doctor Who, and it was sad/joyous/on telly (delete as applicable), but where do their departures rank on the all-time list?

The question of “Who counts as a companion?” is a tricky one. Overall it’s an ad hoc combination of different criteria, with allowances made for the exceptions that are intended to fulfil the companion role on a one-off basis. The ranking system is based on whether the departure makes sense for that character, how well it’s built up to, and what it says about Doctor Who in a larger sense. The article only covers TV stories because I value what remains of my sanity.

That’s all the exposition. Please enjoy this non-linear history of production compromises.

47. Peri

Peri spends almost her entire time on Doctor Who being miserable, scared and under threat (even Big Finish doing a timey-wimey farce with Peri has abuse as a plot point), but there’s no compassionate release for her. Her mind is erased so her body can host another. She dies scared and alone, and it’s unlikely the Doctor could have saved her. While this is horrible, it could function, very bluntly, as an indictment of the Doctor and his treatment of Peri, but then it is revealed that this didn’t happen.

Peri is instead married with a pink love-heart around the flashback (the Matrix is corny AF apparently). This is because producer John Nathan-Turner changed his mind about killing Peri after they’d filmed her death. 

On one hand: yay, someone not dying. On the other: she only goes to a slightly better place, and when companions return from the dead it tends to require some cost to the Doctor. Here, any previous suggestion that the Doctor mistreated his companion is abandoned. Peri’s happy ending, rather than death, is that the Doctor abandons her without explanation and her new husband is an angry warlord who doesn’t seem the type to understand PTSD.

46. Leela

Producer Graeme Williams hoped that Louise Jameson would stay on in the role of Leela, despite Jameson insisting that she was leaving, and so didn’t write the character out. Leela was a warrior, intelligent but steeped in tribal superstition, and the investment in making a potentially problematic character work in her earlier stories gave way to more generic writing, hence Jameson’s departure. At the end of ‘Invasion of Time’ Leela abruptly announces that she wants to marry the Captain of the Time Lords’ Guards.

To borrow a term from critical theory: this is total f****** dogs***.

Jameson was happy for the character to be killed off but instead she ended up married on Gallifrey. We never see her again. It’s a lazy piece of writing; disrespectful to the actress, the character and the viewer.

45. Dodo

Poor Dodo never really stood a chance. Originally intended to be from Sixteenth Century France, producer John Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh remembered that previous historical companions had been deemed unworkable and so another was probably a bad idea. Instead, Dodo started off Cockney until the BBC told the Doctor Who team that she had to speak in Received Pronunciation English.

A happy-go-lucky soul, the production team never warmed to their creation and Dodo is sent away to recover from hypnosis halfway through ‘The War Machines’, and we never see her again. Polly tells the Doctor “she’d like to stay here in London and sends you her love” two episodes after her final appearance.

44. Sergeant Benton & 43. Harry Sullivan

Sergeant Benton and Harry Sullivan appear in ‘The Android Invasion’ as if it’s just another story for them. Benton last appears as an android duplicate and Harry says nothing during the final fight scene. They never appear again. For all of the strengths of early Tom Baker stories, emotional resonance is not one of them.

42. Katarina

Katarina was brought in for the final episode of ‘The Myth Makers’as a replacement for Vicki, and then sacrificed herself in ‘The Dalek Master Plan’. The production team had decided that, as a Trojan handmaiden, Katarina’s ignorance of modern and future technology meant she’d be hard to write for. This makes sense to an extent, except that her death involves her activating an airlock. So we have a production team creating a problem but solving it by suggesting that it wasn’t insurmountable anyway. As the Doctor says at the end of ‘Dalek Master Plan’: “What a waste.”

41. Sara Kingdom

Having killed off Katarina, the production team needed a new companion to fill her role for the rest of ‘The Dalek Master Plan’, so Terry Nation wrote in a Space Security Agent inspired by The Avengers’ Cathy Gale. After killing her own brother, believing him to be a traitor, Sara Kingdom joined the Doctor and Steven’s attempts to stop the Daleks from using the Time Destructor. Ultimately Sara is killed by the device, ageing to death. As the planet around them turns to dust, Sara’s body does likewise and is blown away by the wind.

It’s a horrific fate, to the extent that cuts were made to the sequence. Sara Kingdom was always designed as a short-term companion, and actor Jean Marsh wasn’t interested in joining the show permanently.

Companion deaths aren’t intrinsically a bad idea, it’s just that they can’t be regular, expected events or else the show becomes ‘Come with me for an adventure, you’ll probably die. Yes I’m a psychopath’. They’re usually short-term solutions to mistakes but the momentum of the Doctor’s failures here could have gone somewhere. Instead, the show casually resets itself to the status quo on a flimsy pretext, so these deaths mean little. If Doctor Who doesn’t care about their impact, why should the audience?

40. Liz Shaw

New producer Barry Letts had decided that Liz Shaw was too intelligent to be a Doctor Who companion, and the interpretation most generous to Letts here is that Liz wanted to continue her own work rather than be drafted by UNIT as an assistant. While I hope this was the intention, it’s still a move that implies a reductive take on the role of the companion (that they’re a function rather than a character) and reinforces the paternalism of the Doctor: fatherly, yes, but also dominating and controlling.

39. Polly and Ben

Polly and Ben follow the Doctor into the TARDIS in ‘The War Machines’ and discover at the end of ‘The Faceless Ones’ that they’re back in London just when they left. They ask the Doctor his permission to leave, saying they’ll stay if he needs them. The Doctor is sad to see them go but doesn’t stand in their way, although he does suggest that Ben can go back to the Navy to become an admiral and Polly can… look after Ben.

It’s a pat, patronising little scene that comes and goes suddenly, especially as Polly and Ben haven’t actually been in the story since Episode Two. Polly and Ben leave and the Doctor and Jamie immediately start talking about their next adventure.  The production team had decided the characters weren’t working, and the best you can say is that they were given slightly more ceremony than Dodo.

38. Astrid Peth

The thing about Astrid’s death is that it’s impossible to type ‘She pushes a mugging gold-toothed businessman down a ravine using a fork-lift truck (in slow motion)’ in a way that conveys any sense of pathos. People talk about Andrew Cartmel’s time on Doctor Who influencing Russell T. Davies’ approach, and while they’re wrong (RTD would have written it like that anyway, even if the Cartmel era didn’t exist, but fair play to Cartmel for being on that wavelength) few ever mention ‘Time and the Rani’as an influence. Russell T. Davies’ writing sometimes feels like he’s gleefully trying to combine the tone of Sylvester-McCoy-playing-the-spoons-on-Kate-O’Mara-while-Kate-O’Mara-is-dressed-as-Bonnie-Langford, with the opening ten minutes of Up. Sometimes he actually does it! This was not one of those times.

37. Adric

The Davison companions tend to get good leaving stories that are apparently based on some unbroadcast version of Doctor Who in which they’re completely different people.

So on one hand obviously the death of Adric was a memorable piece of television that affected people deeply on broadcast, but on the other hand it’s a glorified jump-scare. Adric is on board a space freighter about to crash onto prehistoric Earth and cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. He doesn’t know about that last bit, so instead of getting into the escape pod he attempts to solve a logic puzzle that is stopping him from controlling the ship. His bravery in going back to the ship doesn’t achieve anything. In fact if he had succeeded it would have changed history dramatically, so he dooms himself for nothing.

It’s brutal, in comparison with earlier companion deaths the emotional fallout is poorly handled, and it doesn’t pay off anything we’ve seen earlier. Consider Adric’s character up until his final story – a reckless know-it-all who keeps joining the bad guys – and it doesn’t join up with his final story and fate. The initial setup of Adric feeling like an outsider is swiftly resolved rather than used as motivation for his death. There’s no redemption, just a cruel and unlucky moment of bravery for the sake of a semblance of drama.

36. Amy and Rory

Steven Moffat’s first companion departures are not his best work. Initially Amy and Rory broke a trend: companions leaving as they get married off. Only then Moffat wrote a poorly handled pregnancy storyline where the characters’ emotional responses felt implausible, and unlike his softening of the Twelfth Doctor’s character the attempts to address this were bumpy. Then for Amy and Rory’s departure he has River Song, the Doctor’s wife who he rarely meets in chronological order, tell them that he doesn’t like endings and “never let him see you age”.

This reminds you that the Doctor isn’t only manipulative and scheming on an epic scale, and the fact that he tries to convince Amy not to try to go after Rory continues is more in-your-face selfishness (another example of the Seventh Doctor era being on similar wavelengths to the post-2005 show), rather than feeling like a genuine concern for her safety.

Now, I love Doctor Who, I like that the hero is flawed but that they try to be hopeful (and Moffat addresses this successfully elsewhere). The issues with giving the Doctor flaws are whether they’re dealbreakers for people watching, and whether or not they’re deliberately done. This feels like it’s aiming for a commentary on the Doctor but goes too far, and I can understand people finding this hard to watch.

As with many of Moffat’s ideas, just because it didn’t fully work here doesn’t mean it won’t crop up again later.

35. Kamelion

There are a lot of cases of a companion leaving because the production team can’t make them work, but this is a bit on the nose.

Like Adric’s death, Kamelion begging the Doctor to destroy him would have much more impact if it followed through more substantially on previous stories. Unfortunately Kamelion’s character was that of a shape-shifting robot where the robot prop didn’t work, and rather than have him just assume a human guise they simply never wrote him back into the series until his final story. As a result, there’s no real relationship in play when the Doctor grants Kamelion’s wish. On the other hand the robot’s plight is consistent with what little we know of him.

While it’s never fun to watch someone beg for death, it’s more of a testament to Gerald Flood’s acting and Peter Grimwade’s script for ‘Planet of Fire’ that his death scene works.

34. Donna Noble

Everyone remembers the sequence in ‘Journey’s End’ where the companions pilot the TARDIS and drag the Earth back to the right place while “Song for Freedom” builds and Freema Agyeman looks directly at the camera. It’s joyous. It’s huge. It’s wonderful.

The 10 minutes that follow are bleak.

Rose gets her compromised happy ending, then it’s the fate of Donna. She gets given some of the Doctor’s mind, becomes even more brilliant, but then comes the turn: this will kill her. She can’t be this brilliant, she can’t have any more adventures with the Doctor. As she shouts “No” the Doctor wipes her memories of their time together.

33. Lady Christina de Souza

Flying off in a knackered double-decker bus to further adventures is a really good way to go. This would rank higher if it weren’t for the fact that the character is hard to warm to. Unlike Donna Noble’s first appearance in the show, Christina’s role in ‘Planet of the Dead’ doesn’t allow for much pathos or depth, and the character never returned on television to show these. As it is we’re left with a bored member of the aristocracy flying away in some very British iconography, but without the promise of a Barbara Wright figure puncturing their ego.

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32. Mel

It’s worth stressing that any critique of Mel as a character has to firmly centre on the inadequacy of her creation. She was devised as a computer programmer from Pease Pottage who was into keep-fit, and that’s her entire character. It seems churlish to criticise Bonnie Langford for playing the part as “Bonnie Langford in Doctor Who” because there was nothing else for her to go on.

Mel leaves the series because she decides to travel with Glitz, a mercenary. Does this follow on logically from her character? All we know about Mel is that she’s wholesome and enthusiastic and seems extremely unlikely to go off with a violent intergalactic Del Boy.

However, she gets another leaving scene that would be wonderful if it reflected a recognisable character. We get a sense of the Doctor’s affection for Mel and a series of wonderful melancholy moments: the Doctor shutting the conversation down so he doesn’t have to deal with human emotion, his obvious sadness at another friend leaving because that’s what his life is. Mel’s last line about putting a message in a bottle and throwing it into space (“It’ll reach you. In time”) is brilliant.

This scene bears comparison with Sarah Jane’s leaving scene, specifically because it wasn’t in the original script but the lead actor insisted it be added in its place. It was the scene Sylvester McCoy read when he auditioned for the role.

31. Adam Mitchell

Adam joins at the end of ‘Dalek’ and leaves at the end of ‘The Long Game’, the next story, and has a piece of future technology in his forehead so whenever someone clicks their fingers a little door opens up and you can see his brain.

Yes, in the grand scheme of things this is unfair. Other companions have done stupid things and the Doctor has helped them. The Brigadier flat out murdered people. But Adam was deliberately rubbish and this is reminder that the Ninth Doctor is a damaged man who lashes out. When he says ‘I only take the best’ it seems more like an excuse to get rid of Adam than anything factual, but then the Doctor starts acting like it’s true. 

30. Vicki

Vicki left the series because producer John Wiles heard actress Maureen O’Brien complain about her dialogue in ‘Galaxy 4’, so decided to let her go when her contract expired one story later. This led to her being paired off with Troilus at the end of ‘The Myth Makers’, set during the fall of Troy. A late decision requiring rewrites, this is quite an enigmatic fate. We see Vicki fleeing Troy after its fall with Troilus, the Doctor hopeful that she’s safe, but we never see her again. Given the TARDIS’ translation gifts, one imagines she suddenly has to learn Luwian.

29. Nyssa

Nyssa, a scientist/fairy princess mash-up whose entire family and planet was destroyed by the Master (who took over her father’s body) could be a great character. Her innately calm, generous and curious nature contrasted with all the horrors of her past is full of potential, and indeed her choice to stay behind at what is essentially a space leper colony is consistent with this. However, because none of this is ever seriously addressed in the show, the potential pathos of her leaving is greatly reduced. As is often the case we have to make do with a sad leaving scene, where Tegan flat out says to her “You’ll die here” to which she replies “Not easily. Like you I’m indestructible.”

As with Adric’s death, there’s the vague shape of something weighty and dramatic there but without the substance to fill it. John Nathan-Turner hated soaps, but actually using their techniques might have given us a stronger sense of Nyssa and Tegan’s relationship, meaning the audience wasn’t left to fill the gaps.

28. Jackson Lake

Considering during the course of ‘The Next Doctor’ Jackson Lake is in a fugue state, has a breakdown, remembers the death of his wife and the abduction of his child… he seems quite well adjusted by the end of the story. Reunited with his son and suggesting a Christmas dinner honouring the people they’ve lost, Lake seems to be in a better place than the Doctor.

27. Steven Taylor

Steven went through a lot: Wounded in Troy, witnessing the deaths of Katarina, Sara, and the Huguenots of Paris. Initially conceived as a replacement for Ian, meaning he took on most of the action sequences, he leaves in ‘The Savages’ to mediate between two societal factions after a story designed as a more cerebral alternative to biffing. It’s a good place to leave for a character who had stagnated (which, as you can see, happened a lot).

26. Graham and 25. Ryan

Ryan didn’t get killed or converted by Cybermen, so that’s progress. What did happen is that the Doctor accidentally returned to Sheffield ten months late. Yaz is hurt and Ryan returns more comfortably to his old life. Graham is also there.

The returning character of Robertson, an American tycoon with interests in becoming President functions as both a Doctor Who villain and a Donald Trump analogue (in a story universe containing Donald Trump) and this version of Doctor Who isn’t currently capable of dealing with that. Ryan watches Robertson on telly, unpunished by the Doctor and resolves to do something. This is a good reason to go, especially given the concerns of the Chibnall era (at its best focussing on the impact on well-drawn individuals, at its worst expositing over abstractions and sketches).

Graham decides that he will stay with his grandson after Ryan’s sudden announcement. This pays off their development in Series 11, where they had the main character arc of that series.

So far so good, but we also see Graham and Ryan deciding that, actually no, they’re not going to deal with real world problems, just Doctor Who-style adventures instead. It’s a useful microcosm of the era: good ideas present but not followed through on, being not shown Ryan’s reasons for leaving, and not successfully tethering the characters to either the forced whimsy of Doctor Who or the contemporary societal issues it wants to highlight.

And a final issue, which may be resolved: why is this the break-up of The Fam?

This ending doesn’t preclude the Doctor coming back to visit them in any way. In this respect it’s a classic companion departure: practically speaking actors aren’t always free for a cameo or a return visit (for example William Russell wasn’t ultimately available to play Ian Chesterton for ‘Mawdryn Undead’, so the Brigadier was written into the role of a school teacher instead), which means the Doctor not returning for their friends becomes a feature of the character. So while Ryan and Graham are choosing to leave, rather than being drastically and permanently separated, is the Doctor is still making the decision to cut them out of her life?

24. Mickey Smith

Mickey is given, in ‘The Age of Steel’, a proper old-fashioned companion exit, by which I mean some plot points are introduced at the start of his final story and by the end they’ve caused him to leave. Here it’s based on the Doctor and Rose’s behaviour and Mickey’s worth being dismissed until he does something heroic. He’s finally able to say to Rose that she doesn’t need him anymore and move on. Broad brushstrokes stuff in a busy episode, but it continues the idea that the Doctor makes people better that was emphasised from 2005 onwards.

Sure, he does it by being a bit of a prick here but the point stands.

23. The Brigadier

What is the Brigadier’s final story? I’m looking for a story that is written as a final departure, ideally after sustained involvement in the show. For the Brigadier that means ‘Terror of the Zygons’ doesn’t quite work, it wasn’t meant to be his final story (he was unavailable for ‘The Android Invasion’). ‘Battlefield’might have been his final bow, but writer Ben Aaronovitch set up the Brigadier’s death then found he simply couldn’t kill him off. The episode the Brigadier is initially written out of the show in is ‘The Wedding of River Song’ – where the Doctor receives news of his death by phone – and this is swiftly retconned with the divisive Cyber-Brig from ‘Death in Heaven’.

These two were written after Nicholas Courtney’s death, and the first one is used for dramatic weight but is over with too quickly. The latter does show the Brigadier, even in death and converted, saving the life of his daughter and helping the Doctor before going on to possibly eternal life – as seems right and proper – but as it involves the Brigadier’s buried body being reanimated there’s an invasive element connected to a beloved figure. As with many of Steven Moffat’s ideas, just because it didn’t fully work here doesn’t mean it won’t crop up again later.

22. Turlough

Peter Grimwade deserves credit again. Given the job of writing out Turlough, Kamelion and potentially the Master while also writing in the new companion Peri, Grimwade actually makes the brief for ‘Planet of Fire’ work. Here Turlough realises early on that his home planet is involved, and by involving his family Grimwade makes the stakes personal. Turlough also gets to use his brains here, rather than just wander around with a gun looking scared.

Turlough’s departure is developed through this story, and the farewell scene is a low-key goodbye as he admits that travelling with the Doctor has made him a better person. Again, it doesn’t follow from previous episodes, as Turlough isn’t developed as a character after ‘Enlightenment’, but in the context of this story it works well.

21. Mike Yates

An example of Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks addressing how being a regular Doctor Who character might make you feel, Captain Mike Yates is shaken by his hypnosis when undercover at a petrochemical company and becomes concerned about the environment. He falls in with a plot to reduce overpopulation and restore Earth to a golden age by time scooping dinosaurs into central London, because Doctor Who, and is discharged from UNIT. He goes to a meditation centre to recover, and uncovers a sinister plot – because Doctor Who– and ultimately gets better. Yates gets an arc and closure, especially in comparison to his fellow UNIT soldiers.

20. Nardole

Nardole, chiefly a comic relief character with moments of depth, is entrusted with the task of evading the Cybermen for as long as possible while keeping a group of humans alive (a continuation from his assigned role of monitoring the Doctor). It seems likely they will eventually fall, and though this is de-emphasised to stop an already tragic episode from overloading, it’s quietly harrowing. Adric’s death shook up the children watching, Nardole’s affects the parents: the feeling of being a guardian to children in an uncertain, dangerous world is all too familiar right now.

19. Sarah Jane Smith

Sarah Jane’s departure in ‘The Hand of Fear’(written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin) comes out of the blue. An early outline for the story involved the Brigadier’s death, sacrificing himself to save the world. This was lost in development, and the story delayed while it was simplified. In the meantime Elisabeth Sladen asked to leave and for Sarah not to be the focus, married or killed off. Sarah was going to be killed off though, in a story called ‘The Lost Legion’. Script Editor Robert Holmes disliked the story, so a simplified version of ‘The Hand of Fear’returned to replace it with Holmes writing Sarah’s leaving scene. This was rewritten by Sladen and Tom Baker, with Holmes unavailable to do further rewrites. This is why Sarah’s departure is sudden. There’s no huge focus on her and then unrelated to the rest of the story the Doctor receives a summons to Gallifey where humans are not allowed (and given what happened last time he went he probably doesn’t want to take Sarah). What the scene does have is a strong sense of the unsaid to it, a sense of wistfulness akin to seeing someone else living in your childhood home.

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18. Wilf

Essentially, if Bernard Cribbins is crying then I’m going to cry. It’s Bernard Cribbins, for god’s sake. He’s so lovable its actually weaponised against the audience, and while ‘The End of Time’ might not be to everyone’s tastes, Cribbins makes every scene he’s in work, so you’re thoroughly invested in Wilf and his responses. However, this is harks back to Susan’s departure. It’s undeniably moving that the Doctor is making this man cry with happiness… after lying to him (no mention of the safeguards he put in Donna’s mind, or that Donna didn’t want her memories wiped anyway) and who he emphasises is “not remotely important” before saying it would “be my honour” to save him. It’s said of the Doctor “words are his weapons” in ‘Hell Bent’, and the pattern emerging here is that they’re weapons he uses on his friends; when the Doctor says “I only take the best” this is not only another weapon, it’s asking the question: the best for what?

17. Bill Potts

Potentially eternal life you say? A walking dead person? Maybe keep the dead body aspect of it and this idea has legs. Bill follows the Brigadier in becoming a Cyberman, and Clara in returning from the dead to travel the universe. The images of Cyber-Bill carrying the Doctor, the reaffirmation of who Bill is, the arrival of Heather: all of these are great.

Steven Moffat was right that the show hadn’t been diverse enough in its casting, but presumably no one behind the scenes understood that there are unintended connotations to a white man telling a black woman that she can’t be angry if she wants to be accepted – as happens to Bill in ‘The Doctor Falls’ – or that Clara got a gore-free death compared to the lingering shots of Bill’s gunshot wound. There’s also ambiguity in ‘Twice Upon a Time’as to when Bill dies – in that episode she is represented by an avatar taken from a moment near death, but given everything that’s happened to Bill this could be tomorrow or in a million years’ time – so overall this one has some extreme highs and lows.

16. Romana and K9

After Mary Tamm left the show, feeling similarly to Louise Jameson that despite a strong start her character was reverting to the stock companion figure (a damsel in distress, tripping ankles, screaming for help to advance the plot that’s being explained to them) Romana regenerated with Lalla Ward taking over the role. Ward left the show as new producer John Nathan-Turner came on board, and while Romana’s departure was foreshadowed well in advance, Nathan-Turner didn’t want any soap opera elements creeping into Doctor Who, and so Romana’s farewell scene was understated and rushed against Ward’s wishes. Otherwise it’s a good exit for Romana, who refuses a summons to Gallifrey and, finding herself in another dimension, decides to go off on her own journey after her travels with the Doctor.

K9 goes with her because John Nathan-Turner hated K9. Compared to ‘School Reunion’ this is just completely dismissive, but there is at least a coda: another scene at the end of ‘Warriors’ Gate’ where K9 and Romana face their future together with optimism, and Adric asks the Doctor if Romana will be alright: “Alright? She’ll be superb.”

15. Susan Foreman

The first companion departure, and something of a template. Susan falls in love and stays behind. Actress Carole Ann Ford left as she was unsatisfied by Susan’s lack of development.

It’s the Doctor’s decision to leave Susan, his granddaughter, behind. He locks the doors on her, believing that she stands a better chance of happiness staying on Earth rebuilding after a Dalek invasion. William Hartnell didn’t want Ford to leave and channels that into his performance. A clip of this scene was used to represent Hartnell at the beginning of the twentieth anniversary special ‘The Five Doctors’, and with Susan’s fate unconfirmed after The Time War his line ‘One day I shall come back’ lands even heavier: we know he never did.

No wonder he never comes back for anybody else.

14. Captain Jack

‘The Parting of the Ways’ is Jack’s departure story as it’s his last as a regular companion before moving to Torchwood.

Torchwood was not announced until after Series 1 of Doctor Who, and so when it became clear that Jack – with his cheesy grin and action hero posturing – was going to die, it was unexpected. There’s a sense of inevitability about the Daleks killing him when everyone else is dead but, because this was a new series, it was never clear how far it would go. Maybe there’d be a last-minute reprieve. Ultimately there was, but as far as self-contained character arcs go Jack’s journey from con-man to sacrificial hero works, and if it had ended there, it’d have been on a high.

13. Adelaide Brooke

In Base Under Siege stories we have the stock character of a distrusting commander who doesn’t get along with the Doctor. A fun idea in ‘The Waters of Mars’ is ‘Hey, what if they were the companion for one episode?’

One of the less fun but still powerful ideas is also that the Doctor’s behaviour be so unnerving that this stock character would kill themselves in response. So here we have someone standing up to the Doctor as he states the laws of time “are mine, and they will obey me!” What’s interesting is that this is not dissimilar to the standard companion departure, but operating in the epic register rather than a more intimate one. The Doctor has previous on saying that companions have to leave and not giving them a choice, but here the controlling behaviour is scaled upwards to time itself. Possibly the show was not ready to explore this explicitly in a smaller scale just yet.

12. Grace Holloway

Sneaking in unnoticed is the fact that Grace Holloway, the one-off companion for the 1996 TV Movie, ends the film by kissing the Doctor at midnight under the fireworks but refusing to go with him because her experiences have given her renewed self-confidence. Grace is that rarest of things – a Doctor Who companion who gets to leave on her own terms without the Doctor being a dick about it.

11. Ian Chesterton

Ian and Barbara are the first humans in Doctor Who to explore the universe in the TARDIS, taken away by force when the Doctor kidnaps them. Initially they want to return home, but this desire fades. However, when they’re presented with a chance they take it. As a contrast to Susan’s departure, Ian and Barbara’s departure is joyful as it turns out that you cantravel with the Doctor and leave on your own terms as richer, fuller people.

10. Rose Tyler

Rose and the Doctor. The Doctor and Rose. It’s easy to lose track – amidst the melodrama, epic gestures and various tensions – of the way Series 2 sets up Rose and the Doctor being torn apart almost straight away. They’re so wrapped up in how much fun they’re having that it stops them from noticing other people’s feelings. It becomes clear that had the Doctor and Rose done this, the Torchwood Institute wouldn’t exist, so Harriet Jones wouldn’t have had a weapon to fire at the Sycorax in the preceding Christmas episode. However, the show is also telling you that Rose and the Doctor being split up is a colossal tragedy; performances, visuals and music tell you this is incredibly sad while the stories are reminding you they’ve contributed to their own downfall.

This is a companion departure with the heartbreak turned up to 11, to the point where the pretty loud “Brought this on themselves” track can get lost in the mix. Here’s the beginnings of companions burning out rather than fading away.

There’s also the unfortunate business where Rose Tyler, the beloved character who helped bring Doctor Who back as a critical and popular success, rips holes in the universe to find the man she loves.

Said man takes her back to the place she had the worst time of her life, gives her a genocidal sex clone and then quietly leaves when she’s making out with it.

9. Ace

Bearing in mind that Ace has left Doctor Who in so many different canons over the years, it’s specifically her departure in ‘Survival’ that I’m taking as her final story. I’m heavily indebted to Una McCormack’s book on ‘The Curse of Fenric’ here, as it makes the very good point that for everything that could happen to Ace – whatever fates spin-off media has in store for her – there’s nothing quite as perfect for where Ace has reached at the end of Season 26 as the promise of further adventures, the possibility of joy rather than darkness, an ellipsis rather than a full stop.

8. Barbara

Why is Barbara’s departure better than Ian’s? Because:

In ‘An Unearthly Child’ the Doctor asks them “What is going to happen to you?”, the single most important question in the entire series. Firstly because that is half the format of Doctor Who, and secondly because the other half is the same question in reverse. If Barbara Wright doesn’t happen to Doctor Who, then Doctor Who is a short lived 1960s sci-fi show about a cantankerous old git who kidnapped some school teachers (Missing presumed wiped).

7. Zoe and 6. Jamie

Zoe and Jamie both leave suddenly at the end of ‘The War Games’. Patrick Troughton was leaving and the actors decided to go with him, and that sense of an era ending bled into the fiction. 

At the end of ‘The War Games’ the Time Lords are named and appear for the first time, represented by a group of solemn men in robes who wield immense and ineffable power. The Doctor is put on trial for stealing the TARDIS and interfering on other worlds. His companions are returned to a time after their first meeting with the Doctor, their memories of their travels erased. This isn’t built up to, but there’s a general sense of unease in the final few episodes and the Time Lords seem aloof enough to mete out this sort of punishment.

Jamie and Zoe try to escape with the Doctor, but when they’re recaptured he gives up. With Patrick Troughton’s Doctor this is especially shocking, and it’s only his melancholy resignation that convinces them to give up too. Zoe ends up back on a space station, and knows there’s something she can’t quite remember, but with Jamie – who has been with the Second Doctor for almost the entire incarnation – he ends up back at the aftermath of Culloden, charging a redcoat. In a kind touch, the redcoat turns and flees, suggesting Jamie might be alright in the aftermath of the battle.

Doctor Who wasn’t really huge on tearjerkers until 2005, but it was very, very good at quiet melancholy.

5. Martha Jones

Martha is in love with the Doctor. The Doctor spends the entire series pining for Rose and being oblivious to this fact.

Martha Jones puts up with a lot, looking after the Doctor while in his human John Smith guise and having to restrain herself while being continually patronised, racially abused and treated like an idiot. She then spends a year travelling the Earth avoiding capture as the Master enslaves and murders the population, holding Martha’s family captive while she does this.

So frankly when Martha says she’s leaving and the Doctor still doesn’t understand why (“Is this going anywhere?”) it’s hugely cathartic for the audience and for someone who deserved better. Some people do get to choose when being with the Doctor stops, and it’s usually great when they do.

4. Jo Grant

However muddled the reasoning behind Jo Grant’s existence, the casting was inspired. Essentially a remix of Jamie (which suggests that Jo and Liz could have worked if Jamie and Zoe did), Jo Grant wasn’t the brightest but wasn’t stupid, and was incredibly loyal and brave.

With the Doctor’s paternal streak fully activated, the production team decided that Jo falling in love and telling the Doctor “he reminds me of a sort of younger you” would be exactly what the Doctor didn’t want to hear. In contrast to Victoria’s departure and the Doctor’s selflessness there, the Doctor doesn’t do what Mike Yates does when marriage is announced (looks upset and does his best to mask it) but instead quietly slips out and drives away by himself. The fact that he leaves in a way that suggests jealousy or loneliness is a huge change; now we see the Doctor closer to Susan’s position and he does not like it.

3. Tegan

Coming at the end of ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’, where she’s seen a lot of people killed and the Doctor pick up a gun and announce that he’s going to kill Davros (who Tegan presumably hasn’t heard of), Tegan’s leaving scene is very close to being perfect.

Firstly there’s the line “It’s stopped being fun”, which begs the question of when it started being fun for her, but that’s ignorable. Secondly, and this is more about personal taste than an inconsistency in characterisation, there’s a case to be made for Less is More here. Tegan runs from the Doctor and Turlough as he begs her not to leave “like this”, which causes the Doctor to consider his actions before he and Turlough leave in the TARDIS. As it’s dematerialising, Tegan runs back in has one final line. For me it’s just a line too far, and Tegan being unable to say anything at all would have been more powerful, especially for the self-described “mouth on legs”.

However, that’s more window dressing rather than substance: the reasons for Tegan leaving are excellent: it’s a commentary on the stories and Doctor we’ve seen recently, and a plausible emotional response to them. It sets the Doctor on his way to ‘The Caves of Androzani’ where the show comes even closer than ever to paying off a sustained period of grimdark storytelling. Adric’s death might be more famous, but Tegan’s departure is much better writing from Eric Saward and deserves more plaudits for it.

2. Victoria

Actor Deborah Watling wanted to leave, and so Victoria goes in ‘Fury from the Deep’. Here the character has a plausible response to screaming at monsters and getting into trouble: she leaves. She says that she’s having a miserable time screaming and getting into trouble, but isn’t sure if she can go: her father died saving the Doctor, she’s an orphan out of her own time. The Doctor intervenes and suggests a family she can stay with.

Most importantly, the Doctor and Jamie stay an extra day to give her time to think it over, and the Doctor stresses that it must be her decision. On top of this, the final scene of the episode is the Doctor quietly trying to make Jamie feel better about her leaving. Rather than the usual one scene and gone deal we have something drawn out, stemming from character, full of warmth and empathy.

1. Clara Oswald

Potentially eternal life you say? A walking dead person? Maybe lose the dead body aspect of it and this idea has legs. ‘Hell Bent’ is a divisive episode (referential meta-commentary on Doctor Who isn’t what everyone was looking for from a season finale) and the ideas in it are incredibly pointed: the grieving Doctor overthrows Rassilon, shooting a potential ally to retrieve Clara from a moment before her death, and tries to wipe her mind to save her life, addressing the long-term trends of companion departures head on.

Rather than a Gallifreyan epic, this is focussed on one relationship and the shade it casts on the Doctor’s behaviour, all the while dancing in and around threads from other plotlines. The Doctor wanted Gallifrey back so badly, but now it’s simply a means to an end for him to bring Clara back.

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Clara’s final story is often compared to Donna’s departure because of the mindwipe element and the idea of Clara being a Doctor-like figure in her own right – here realised rather than excised – but looking at this list you can see how it harks back all the way to Susan: the Doctor thinks he knows what is best and often gets it wrong, and what seems like extreme behaviour in this story is actually pretty standard. Here he gets properly called out on this behaviour, the show finally able to address this in an intimate rather than epic setting.

The post Doctor Who: Ranking Every Single Companion Departure appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[jordm]

Heartland 11x09 - Challenges review

“Mongolia… why not?”  - Amy 

Well… I could list a few reasons why but anyways. I digress. Not the point? Or is it? Long story short, this episode brought challenges to all characters; some I welcomed (Georgie, Mitch, Amy and Georgie), some which were kinda cringe but also kinda good (Amy and Mongolia, Ty) and some I appreciated/understood but didn’t really like the outcome (Tim).

I’m going to try to keep this short. Try, being the key word. 

Also please appreciate this photo of Mitch looking at Lyndy. Because I do. 

[EDIT: I tots failed at this short thing, courtesy of my popular dislike for this new somewhat re-used Mongolia storyline]

AMY

Amy still hasn’t told her father about her trip to Mongolia, even though she leaves in a few days. Literally. Luckily, or unluckily, Georgie let it slip in a conversation to her grandfather. Let’s pause here to appreciate Tim preaching wisdom onto his family.

“World’s oldest babysitter” - Tim about Jack babysitting Lyndy

“Is the well being of a horse in Mongolia mean more to you than your daughter?” - Tim

Amy seems to finally realize that maybe, just maybe Jack isn’t the best choice of a babysitter especially considering he has to look after his other grandchildren, so she wisely asks Lou to come home and help babysit. Lou agrees (after all, she does miss Katie and Georgie and y’know should do her motherly duties)… and thank god, because Jack already fell asleep with the baby monitor in his hand in the beginning of the episode.

Later on, Amy insists on going even though it’s revealed later that Ty won’t be there to pick her up, despite Tim and Jack insist it won’t be safe. “It’ll be fine” says Amy, which means everything won’t be, because TV law. Jack says he’ll go with Amy since they don’t want her going on her own, but Tim wants to go because he wants (needs) to spend time with Amy. This i get. They’re protective but also want her to ‘grow her wings’ so the compromise is to let someone accompany her since Ty is apparently too busy to pick her up. And it’s totally fair, if Amy is so dead set on going- which she is. 

SIDENOTE: I kind of hoped to see a Tamy reunion Mongolia airport scene and a car ride with the two of them going to the site and Ty showing Amy the sites. But oh well.

So who is the best to accompany her? To be fair, neither of them going with Amy is great. Jack is objectively old, and Tim is dealing with his tumour issue; perhaps Mitch is honestly the best option or, you know, none of them at all going. And I’m not honestly sure who the best to go with Amy on this trip is… (The answer is neither) BUT all I know is that I don’t really like this Mongolia trip either way. I mean, let’s face it- no one does. Not even the casuals. But the way they’re approaching this, with Tim accompanying her… I don’t hate (but I also don’t love because of this situation is coming up). I’m meh and seeing where it goes.

The one part I did enjoy about her storyline was Amy coaching Georgie on the Devil’s Lake jump. She suggests building the duplicate Devils Lake jump where Ty built her the practise ring all those seasons ago. And then, the memories flood back to Amy, and we see flashbacks from many seasons ago when Ty first build it. And it made me feel was miss those good old days when the storyline was about the simple things/everyday life and everyone was close to home. (But bonus points for incorporating those flashbacks!)

Lastly, let’s also appreciate Tim’s wit about Mongolia, where he wasn’t completely wrong.

“It’s like three inches from Afghanistan” - Tim about Mongolia on a map

TY 

First, we see that Ty is in Mongolia and safe… so far. We all know better than to expect a happy Mongolia storyline no? Ty finally sees Attila and Attila really is sick, but once he gets some fluid in him, he seems to be improving. i enjoyed seeing Ty work as a vet, even if it’s not in Hudson, which hey, can he please do more of. Apparently, Attila has been pretty depressed and sad since he arrived, which in itself is kind of depressed and sad.

One more thing; the Mongolian people really did under-estimate Attila’s condition. It wasn’t just a respiratory illness and if they had an inkling that it was perhaps more serious… maybe they could have arranged treatment faster.

Look, after seeing Attila’s condition, i’m not against Ty going to Mongolia. But..

Can someone tell me why is this a good idea to rush off to help Bata when he knows it’s going to be dangerous? I get their friends, and it showed off his good personality traits of helping and being there for his friends, but he didn’t even think about the resulting consequences or you know, the danger. He was hired for a job to TREAT ATTILA, he was flown over to TREAT ATTILA, not to help his old friend out of a situation. I get that he wants to help his friend but Attila’s health is going to continue to be at risk if something happens to him. Plus he knows his wife is coming, so why put himself in danger? Although this showed off his do-good traits, I just think he should have though this out a little more, especially when him and Bata ran off to help a neighbouring village. 

ALSO how did Ty not know that Mongolia was a dangerous place considering he’d been there already?! Helloooooooo.

We learn that Poachers (yay for continuation!) have been going village to village burning villages down since they reported them to authorities. When Ty hears this he texts and calls Amy not to come- a little too late, but she leaves her phone at home and she doesn’t get the call. 

Frankly, I can’t say i didn’t see that coming.

NEXT EPISODE: We see that Amy and Tim arrive and hear that Ty is ‘missing’ . They then are forced to go onto a ‘search and rescue’ mission. Sigh. Ty can’t catch a break.

GEORGIE

Amy gets word that the Summer games will feature a Devil’s Lake jump, and gets permission from Paula to use her cross country course. They seem to be two peas in a pod now. Kidding.

Anyways, we also learn that Wyatt is in Calgary with his family and him and Georgie aren’t talking, but Amy wisely uses this to take this as an opportunity to focus on training/the Summer Games. Which she maybe should have done before, because you know… career >> guys. 

On the first time she tries, she gets thrown off the horse and into the water. Luckily, Dylan is there to chime in with this line: 

“It’s easier when the horse jumps with you” - Dylan 

Georgie rightfully panics because she’s afraid won’t get the jump down before Amy leaves, which is apparently in a few days. I mean, your coach wants you to learn a new jump in a few days even though she’s leaving in a few days, won’t be at your competition for the first time and she doesn’t want to run into Dylan; AND is dealing with the whole Wyatt situation? Yikes.

BREIF PAUSE TO POINT OUT A SAD POINT: Can I also point out that when Georgie said, “i’ve never not had Amy at a competition before” or something like that, it’s kind of a hit to the stomach for Lou? Her AUNT is always there but her mother has barely attended half of her competitions. Wake up Lou, Amy is more of a guardian/mother to Georgie than you are. 

Anyways, Mitch says that he can build the Devils Lake jump, which leads to a funny line when Mitch realizes that Dylan is the reason why he’s “up to his knees in dirt and why she won’t train at Westfield.” End result is, she ends up acing the jump on the course, and get’s a promise from Dylan that he’ll see her at the summer games.

ABOUT DYLAN: I still don’t ship Dylan and Georgie (although it is much easier to think of shipp-er names for them than Wyatt and Georgie), because I did love G/W together. Right now, i actually think i’m on the “Georgie needs to focus on training” boat and that she also should be really good friends with Dylan because the two of them could push each other (like Ashley and Amy) to be better riders. 

TIM

We learn that he had a second scan, and the shadow is unchanged; Tim is also having the same symptoms. Then there’s that ominous sign as he drives away…

DEAD END.

Anyone else catch that?

Tim this episode is the voice of reason and the only one bringing up what happened last time in Mongolia, which proves to be all too true. We see Tim’s fears in the future after the last scan as he is not helping Jade with her rodeo plans, wants her to enroll in a rodeo school program thing and is talking to his contacts to get her there. He wants to ensure Jade’s future is set up, even if/incase he’s not there and that’s heartbreaking. 

“You don’t know where you’ll be in the fall” - Tim projecting his fears for the future onto Jade

ABOUT CASEY 

Casey and Tim in the care is awkward. Casey is the only one talking and when Tim finally realizes casey isn’t okay, she confesses with Jen gone, it’s the first time she’s had a chance to think about an things/her brother. Casey talks about how hard it was when Hank was sick and says she doesn’t know what she’d do without Tim. This is awkward, and Tim’s face shows it. 

He doesn’t want to burden her with his illness and make her go through it all again and relive the whole Hank saga, especially given her relating her struggles she is going through… so he breaks up with her. He needs space. “It’s not you, its me” And this one time, it’s actually true. 

My opinion is that, well, Tim has good intentions but it honestly isn’t the best decision. He should tell Casey and let her decide if she wants out; once she finds out, she might understand, but she might also resent him even more for not even giving him that option. I do get why he went that route- he really was thinking of Casey and her well being so she doesn’t have to go through it all again, however, this could have been approached in a different way. In fact, him telling her could have led to a stronger relationship and y’know, more support and more love for him. Which he needs.

I mentioned this before, but he wants to go to Mongolia because he wants/needs to spend more time with Amy. In short, I don’t get reasoning but this overall doesn’t sound like a great idea considering his state and Mongolia being dangerous. I mean… at least he told Jack? Jack of whom…. why did he even let him go? I mean, at least let Amy in on the half truth who is travelling with him incase something happen so she has the full story… but hey i’m all for daughter-father bonding.

JACK

Short appreciation segment for Jack, who is already tired and has agreed to also take care of Lyndy (and Katie, even if Lou agreed to come back)

“it’s my wife” - about Lisa, who is in France. Shout out to Jack for letting us all know where Lisa is even though she was really missed in this fall finale.

Lastly, a nice acknowledgement to him and Tim’s relationship and how it has come so far. Guys. Jack is the only one who knows about his illness. This wouldn’t have happened a decade ago. Jack promises not to tell anyone against his own wishes, which i feel may bite him in the back. 

OVERALL

… I liked this episode. Not my favourite by far due to Mongolia, but also not my least favourite. An average episode with a predictable cliffhanger. I enjoyed the Georgie storyline, seeing Mitch (not as a romantic interest) and Amy’s role in all of this, including the flashbacks. While I do think Ty should have thought before running to help Bata and off to the neighbouring village and i wish he wasn’t even there… it wasn’t unexpected given the circumstances and i enjoyed seeing him work as a vet. Plus despite Tim’s questionable choice to accompany Amy and break up with Casey, he had good intentions. So.. can’t fault him for that (okay I can but whatever).

So I guess i’m one foot on the Mongolia storyline train… i won’t ever be completely on it, but as long as this train is moving, I’m moving along with it and hoping they make the best of it given they must do this storyline (just hanging on though).

SONGS IN THIS EPISODE ( @heartlandians)

Nation’s Son - Evan Olson

Stronger than Longing - Kat + James

Shadow in the Road - Sam Weber 

[miriannemiri]

Rogue Leader, Black Leader

Astonishingly, that prequel to Wingmates I said I might write is done.  It was requested for stakes in a wager, and then I ended up writing it all last night.  It just all came together, one of those fabulous moments when writing just works.

So, thank you to @kaelinaloveslomaris for both the prompt and the beta.  

The doomed mission and its immediate aftermath.  Contains brief mentions of unnamed characters dying.

Rogue Leader

The nexu roared as he caught it with his ��saber, but Luke knew it wasn’t a debilitating wound.  This mission might well be the one he didn’t come back from.

Something had felt off about the mission—not least that he was assigned to a ground mission without any of the people he usually worked with.  The reasoning had been flimsy, wanting to have his Jedi awareness of danger because they were operating closer to the Core than usual and on a planet where they didn’t trust the governor was actually as on their side as she claimed.

He’d thought that the source of his unease at first, changed his opinion when he sensed Vader upon entering the system.  Nothing concrete, nothing that let him pinpoint the Sith’s actual location or even confirm he was nearby, instead of several systems away with his Death Squadron as reports indicated.  Nonetheless, he’d reinforced his shields as much as possible.

With so little to go on, he hadn’t mentioned it, but it had made him less cautious about that sense of unease.

Events a few moments ago had proved that relaxation had been a mistake.

They’d been jogging through a snowy forest to the rendezvous point where they were due to meet with their contact.  The mission leader had had a moderate lead, acting as scout, when they’d reached a meadow.  She had been a hundred meters into the meadow by the time the rest of the team left the trees, but she’d stopped and gestured for them to join up with her for a moment.  She hadn’t signaled danger, but something had twitched in the Force.  He’d quickened his pace, and the rest of the team had matched him.

She had reached for something on her belt, but he hadn’t had a chance to see what before the ground went out from under them, dropping them into a great pit with five hungry nexus.  With the leader still above, the nexus outnumbered them.  Luke had cursed and started to jump from the pit when one of the nexus swiped at him, but a sense of danger had him jumping back instead before a blaster bolt hit the ground right in front of him.  He hadn’t had time to investigate, grabbing his lightsaber and swiping at the nexu.

With the nexu distracted for a moment by its injury, he chanced a look up and found the person who’d shot at him—the woman who’d been leading the mission.  Worse, the pit was ringed with figures in the uniform of the governor’s personal guard.

Traitor.  For a moment, the voice in his mind sounded like Vader, but the death of one of his teammates pulled him from his fears that his anger with a traitor made him too similar to his father.

One of his still-living teammates had managed to get their back to the wall, blaster in their hands.  They were all right, for the moment.  The other had two nexus circling him, so Luke ran with Force-enhanced speed that let him get away from the nexu he’d injured for a moment.  He dodged several blaster bolts, but one of the circling nexus turned and lunged at him.  He dodged right into a blaster bolt.

It was a graze only, but it hit his forehead.  Blood covered half his face, got into his eye, and he fell to the ground as the world greyed for a moment.  That moment cost them.

Rage hit Luke hard, carrying a rush of energy with it, and he managed to stumble to his feet, away from the nexu that had been nosing him.  Both his teammates were down, and he could no longer sense the Force clearly.  Something was interfering.  A concussion?

Something black and red cut across his vision, and his head sang with pain and suddenly amplified sounds of combat.  Definitely a concussion.

Except that when he could see clearly again, the nexu was dead.

The red thing buzzed by his line of sight again, but this time, he got a better look at it.  A lightsaber.  A red lightsaber.

He looked up in time to see Stormtroopers corner the last of the soldiers on the rim while Vader leapt from the edge of the pit and caught his ‘saber on the way down.  The Sith landed in front of Luke, close enough the Sith’s cape brushed against him, and he felt dizzy.  He sank down, the tension he’d been feeling draining away.

His vision blurred for a time, but he heard the combat fade.  Then he heard Vader’s voice.  “Check for survivors from the Rebel team.  Ensure they are provided proper treatment for their injuries.  Do not mistreat them.”

Surprise made Luke blink his eyes open, not sure when he’d closed them.  He saw Vader walking over to him, but the fear he would have expected to feel just wasn’t there, even when the Sith crouched down and gathered him up.

Sleep, child.

The gentle voice carried him down into darkness.

Black Leader

Though he was certain the child would be horrified to see him there upon waking, might even blame him for the way the mission went wrong—and why wouldn’t he, after Bespin—Vader couldn’t bring himself to leave Luke’s side.

No one had known he was on the planet, no one but the troops he’d brought with him.  He’d had a premonition and acted on it, unwilling to lose Luke as he had Shmi.  (As he had Padmé, but he’d refused to acknowledge that, refusing to believe he would once again cause the loss with his actions.)  Still, that caution had made him come in secrecy, taking only a few troops and a ship that didn’t scream its association with the Imperial Military.  One of his personal ships that few knew was his, modified to be fast and difficult to track.

He’d had reason to be glad of his choice when he sensed his son pick up on his presence in the area, and he’d added to his shields just as the child had.  He’d been glad again when he arrived to find Luke already injured; the fast ship had made it easier to get Luke back to Executor quickly, rather than trust the nearest hospital.

A good thing, given what reports his subordinates had brought him about the planet’s governor while he paced before the bacta tank where Luke floated.  Traitor.  To both sides.

He hadn’t left the medical wing since he’d carried Luke inside.  While the medics had diagnosed and treated the child, he’d hovered.  While Luke had been in the bacta tank, he’d paced the room.  Now that Luke was sleeping peacefully, he’d relented enough to sit.  It had been a full day, and he was tired, but his bigger priority was that Luke might be less alarmed if he was not looming over the bed.

Vader could sense it when Luke’s mind shifted toward consciousness, and he braced himself for the child’s terror and rejection.  He doubted Luke even knew Vader had been the one to save him from the nexus, creatures that had given him too many flashbacks to an arena on Geonosis.  His son would carry scars from their claws, just as his wife had.  Luke’s shields had meant Vader nearly hadn’t gotten there in time, but he had.  That was what he had to remember; he didn’t have any hope Luke would believe him.

Luke turned, shifting, seeming to search for something.  His presence in the Force expanded, creating a far larger field of awareness.  That field brushed over Vader a second before Luke's eyes opened halfway, hazy and only half-aware but looking straight into Vader’s through the mask.

Instead of reacting badly, Luke smiled at him, closed his eyes, and drifted again, but the sense of the child’s Force presence remained wrapped around Vader.  He didn’t dare move, not wanting to disturb his son’s sleep, nor to end this short time when Luke had not only been glad to see him but trusted him to guard Luke while he slept.

The child only slept another thirty minutes before he woke again.  This time, he stiffened before he opened his eyes, and Vader knew it was his presence Luke had sensed.

“You are safe, young one,” he said.

Luke opened his eyes.

“I have ensured your injuries were treated.  When you have recovered, I will permit you to return to the Rebellion.  You have my word.”

For a long moment, Luke merely studied him without speaking, and he could sense the child using the Force to judge his honesty.  He made no attempt to hide his intentions.  “If my master learns you are aboard my ship, he will expect me to turn you over to him.  As I am unwilling to do that, I will allow you to leave.  Without tracking you.  No tricks.  No trap.  I came because the Force warned me you would be in danger.  That was my only motive this time.”

To Vader’s surprise, Luke only nodded.  “The rest of my team?”

“You were the only survivor.  I had my men check.”

“I know you did.”  Luke closed his eyes, and sorrow slipped through his shields.  Then he shook his head and looked back at Vader.  “What are my injuries?”

“You had a number of cuts where the nexus clawed you.  Two cracked ribs, probably from the fall into the pit.  Most seriously, you were hit by blaster fire twice, once on your thigh, mostly healed, and one to the head, leaving you with a concussion.  You will be spending another night in medical.”

“How long has it been?”

“Thirty hours.”

There was a long moment of contemplative silence, surprisingly comfortable.

“What now?” Luke asked eventually.

“Now, you focus on recovering.  You have nothing to fear from me or those under my command.”  When Luke’s stomach growled, Vader felt his scars stretch in a painful, unfamiliar smile.  “I will bring you something to eat.  It will not take me long.”

Indeed, he returned inside ten minutes with a tray he set down on Luke’s lap.  Then he sat quietly while the child ate.  Luke watched him periodically but didn’t speak.  By the time he finished eating, Vader could sense the child’s energy fading.

“Do you wish me to leave you to sleep in peace?”

“No.  Stay.  Please.”  Luke settled back in the bed.  “You’ve been here the whole time.  I don’t mind if you stay now.”

Pleased, touched in a way that was no longer familiar, Vader sank back into the chair at his son’s bedside.

In the next twenty-four hours, Luke woke more often.  Sometimes, he stayed awake long enough to eat and exchange a few words.  The rest of the time, he woke only long enough to confirm Vader’s presence.  Vader stayed the whole time.

A bit less than two hours before midday, Luke woke and stayed awake after he finished eating.  Vader summoned a medic into the room.  The medic discharged Luke, but they didn’t leave the private room immediately.  They were both aware of the significance of this moment.

“You may leave, as I promised.  I will provide you with an untraceable shuttle and credits to facilitate your return to your Rebels.”

“Or?” Luke asked after a moment.

Vader blinked.  “Or,” he said slowly, “we can attempt to reach an agreement between the two of us.”

“You want to bargain?”

“It is your choice, my son.  We both wish Palpatine dead, and I feel we would have a better chance of accomplishing that if we had some sort of cooperation established, but it is your decision now.”

The Force was completely still around them, giving no hint of guidance but clearly waiting, just as Vader was, for what Luke would decide.

“All right, Father.  Let’s talk.”

[raifuujin]

Parents of DCMK

Because I feel like my views of the parents tend to be different from the norm, and I have the time, I’m finally going to go into my thoughts about each grouping. (Or at least, the main parents we actually know information about.)

Yukiko and Yuusaku: 

They don’t deserve the hate they get on their parenting style. Which usually falls onto Yuusaku, because clearly Yukiko’s personality looks better than the guy who’s already in the know and less relatable. The usual arguments are:

1) They left Shinichi alone in Japan while they moved to America. Well. He didn’t want to go with them, and he was at an age where he could live alone. They wanted to go, he didn’t, he could handle himself, so okay, everything was fine.

2) They set up a whole scheme to pretend to be his enemies and scare the ever loving heck out of him. Yes, they did. With the full purpose of scaring him to death, because they wanted him to get an idea of just what he was getting into. Immediately after, they told him: It’s going to be like that, it’s dangerous, so come with us and stay safe instead, other people can look into it. Again, he told them to mind their own business and not get involved, and they (mostly Yuusaku), respected that wish instead of forcing Shinichi to come anyway. They even talked Agasa into helping to get Shin to see what could happen, and yet the full blame is almost always only on Yukiko and Yuusaku, when Agasa knew Shinichi’s situation full well and he still went along to try and convince him on the danger.

Yuusaku is too all knowing, and that’s really the only thing that playing into what people hate about him. The whole ‘troll’ aspect. But he does know his family, and tends to respect their wishes and treat them as people. He took smol Shinichi’s concerns about a teacher’s special treatment of Ran seriously when everyone else brushed it off as jealousy without a second thought. He never outright gave Shinichi answers, and instead let him investigate on his own with hints. Yes, he was always ahead, but he never abused the knowledge and instead helped nudge Shinichi into figuring out things on his own.

And while he’s been Conan, Shinichi has gotten help from his parents any time he actually needed them. His mom might be used more often for her disguise expertise, but he still got his father to play a part when necessary, and they never complained. They were ready to help their son as support, and always are, so in that, they’re arguably the best parents in DCMK.

Extra information: They were together four years prior to having a baby (Shinichi being 16 and Yuusaku giving his proposal 20 years prior to the series as mentioned in the Desperate Revival), so they more likely had a better idea of what they were doing.

Eri and Kogoro:

They do have issues with their relationship, and Gosho really needs to resolve it one way or another, either with a full divorce or... I’m not sure I’d be happy seeing them get back together after all the ways have been written to show why they don’t work for each other, but it’s also there as an option.

In terms of parenting... Kogoro was not good as a father in the slightest at the beginning of the series, and implied that it had been like that for a long while after Eri left. With his new fame, getting out more, more family trips and interactions, he’s been getting better. But prior to the story events, he’d be the worst parent. But at this point in the series, he’s picked himself up more, curbed his bad habits away from the extreme, and he’s outright admitted he wants Eri to come back. It’s heavily implied that her leaving led to his habits getting worse and him getting to the point we see him at at the beginning.

Eri has encouraged Ran to come stay with her instead, but Ran herself chose to stay with her father to take care of him. Eri’s very first appearance was her meeting up with her daughter for the day, and Ran seems to drop by as often as she wants. While Kogoro from the beginning clearly needed help and couldn’t take care of himself, much less his daughter, Eri has been the opposite, very self sufficient and responsive to Ran.

As husband and wife, they have a lot of problems and Gosho needs to stop giving hints of them possibly getting together while simultaneously showing that there will always be another problem and never resolve any of the ones that exist. As parents, Eri has been the best with Ran. Kogoro had too many issues to begin with to help his daughter, though he’s been getting more and more responsive and concerned for both Ran and his separated wife (and Conan, despite the head abuse). He still tends to think of himself first, but when there’s clear danger to his family or people he cares about in general, he does have a serious and competent mode. He’s starting to try.

But parenting, second best with Eri, Kogoro making some progress.

Extra information: They had known each other since childhood, and the poor experience has given Eri a pessimistic view of romance with childhood friends. To a point of once advising Ran not to follow in her footsteps, which based on her experience could be a genuine concern, but is an issue when Ran’s only had Shinichi (and Sonoko) as childhood friends, and she knows they’ve been close.

Chikage and Toichi:

Would be fun aunt and uncle, probably not the best parents, could arguably be worst.

We don’t see much of Toichi or know about his personality outside of flashbacks, and Kaito’s admiration tends to skew how he’s viewed. What we do know is: 

1) He became Kid to get attention off of the Phantom Lady. Which would have meant his plan hinged on convincing her to drop that job and possibly included him assuming she’d say yes to getting together with him. 

2) He challenged child Shinichi and purposefully tried to scare him and Ran to get him to pass a message to Yuusaku. Which only half worked, and was unnecessary when he made plans for how to pass a message along via Yukiko anyway.

3) There are multiple instances of him teaching young Kaito not to interact with strangers, don’t let people know your true emotions, and that it’s better to act ignorant than show your hand. Which isn’t good advice to try giving to a kid who hasn’t experienced enough in the world yet to understand all the distrust.

Toichi has been shown to care about his family, arguably his friends in the case of the Red Tear, but he doesn’t teach his child in the best way with mostly magic and deception.

Chikage’s parenting is rarely seen, but she doesn’t offer Kaito much either. She was present in the first chapter of Magic Kaito, only really contributing to telling Aoko that her son doesn’t like fish (while preparing the fish she knows full well Kaito isn’t likely to eat in the hopes that ‘maybe this time he’ll eat it’) and showing that she knows Kaito found Toichi’s hidden room. No further mention of if she talked to him later, or if she was ever home, as the early manga focused more on Kaito outside of the house and his adventures.

She showed up later as having gone off to travel, no warning to the audience, but Kaito doesn’t seem to mind while he has things to do. She actually agreed to get together with a guy she just met who scared her almost to death just prior to him asking her to be with him, so seems impulsive. 

The times she’s played a more major part in Kaito’s story after her initial appearance, it was to ask him, as a thief, to clean up her mess, and to work with someone to give Kaito a hard time and a small side note of getting him to stop thieving. Which in some form included a disguise as his dead father, the whole reason he became Kid in the first place. Except unlike the Kudo’s attempt to get their son to stop chasing danger, this came late into Kaito’s career, not at the beginning, so concern isn’t the best excuse. No understanding of Kaito as his own person is ever shown, and actions taken with regards to him are less reasonable.

The Kurobas overall don’t seem like they’re responsible people, and they likely should not have been put in charge of a child. It’s no wonder Kaito has issues, Jii seems to be more the support and good advice giver more than any of what we see of Chikage and Toichi.

Extra: They got together 18 year prior to the events of present day. Kaito’s supposedly 17, which means most likely means they made him very soon after meeting and getting together. Neither have made good life choices, even if they are nice and fun people. Overall good people, bad as parents.

Heizo and Shizuka:

We don’t see much of them, Heizo seems to try and get his son to shape up and that’s the biggest flaw about him. He seems more work oriented, which is unsurprising with his ranking in the police force, and very serious. Heizo knows his son’s personality and skills, but tries to humble him and get him to also act professional instead of his usual hothead, rush into the situation self. (Which could lead to some real problems, such as if Heiji had continued his deduction from his first appearance and accused the wrong person in his rush to find the culprit before Shinichi could show up and beat him. Luckily Shinichi did show up and find the real murderer.)

Shizuka does seem supportive of her son, trying to attend one of his tournaments and checking on the people he goes a long way to visit to make sure they’re okay. There’s also mild disapproval from her of Heizo’s actions towards Heiji.

Heiji parents overall seem to be more average in terms of parenting, overall good but with some problems.

Nakamori:

Needs to get his butt out of Kid cases and stop ignoring his daughter.

...Okay, that’s obviously the biggest issue. He forgot Aoko’s birthday for gods sake, and left her in an empty house. Any other day, it might be fine, but that’s not the night to go out and get drunk. But he is there, usually in the mornings, they have meals together when there’s nothing going on at the time, and he talks to her about his thoughts on Kid. Even when the thought is that her friend could possibly be running around as a thief. Of course Aoko got defensive about that accusation towards Kaito, but she looks up to her father being an officer and always gets proud when he comes out ahead of a criminal like Kid. 

He’s never shown being a good parent, but also never shown teaching any bad morals or being gone for more than the night. His biggest issue is putting his work as more important than his only known family, which does still put him on the lower end of parenting, though still arguably not quite as bad as Kuroba parenting.

Don’t know enough about the other parent to make full calls on their parenting, but:

- Hakuba’s father put him against Kid to knock that arrogance down a peg or two and overall teach a lesson about things actually being difficult and needing real work.

- Sonoko’s parents, mostly mother, is a bit on the controlling side, seen best in Kid’s first appearance and her keeping an eye on the real jewel out of distrust of random people, and in Makoto vs Kid in saying he’d have to give up on Sonoko if he couldn’t win. Relationships and business concerns aside, they’re pretty lenient on Sonoko’s actions overall.

- I don’t even know with Sera’s mom, but I’m sure we’ll see more about her in the past to get more of an idea other than paranoia.

[late-stagechosen]

So, I'm talking to someone I'm considering RPing with, but their muse is an OC that's meant to have history with the Chosen, so we're still hashing out what that is.

Originally, I was playing this muse sort of off my other muse while I worked out things for that fic project that may be too huge to ever complete.

Not playing them off each other in a direct and tangible way, but they're two very disparate and both realistic looks into what being trans is. Because Ken has struggled as a direct result of it so much more than Ichigo due to Ken's parents being so cruel about it, it not only features very prominently in his story, but it's at the forefront of his identity. Ken is also monoethnic Yamato Japanese in Japan. My Ichigo, his mother was South African "Coloured"(mix of Black and white with a dash of patrilineal Japanese to explain the name) and Issin's Ainu Japanese, and he's always being attacked for his looks, so at the forefront of his identity is not being monoethnic Yamato Japanese

Often times, the thing you face the most discrimination and suffering for naturally ends up becoming a core part of how you identify.

I am very adamant on playing trans characters that want or have biological children not because I think having bio kids is some holy grail over adopted. In fact, in my project, Ichigo has both and is one of only a few characters to eventually have more bio kids than adopted. But because most of the world still demands sterilisation before legally recognising a person's gender or allowing a name change.

But mostly, for Ichigo, being trans is in the background. It's only really a big part of the story if they're going to a onsen/pool, or he's currently pregnant or something. It's not the biggest struggle in his life. His 300+ year old dad is a doctor who grew up in the Edo period, before America forced itself and queerphobia on Japan, and actually gets licenced in prescribing HRT so he can help his son. Of course, his son has a kid during that time because I was a teenager in the '90s,when a lot of teens were having kids, and I knew so many who were kicked out and met tragedy, but one with supportive parents who was happy and healthy and had a happy and healthy two year old, and I realised then that it wasn't the kids ruining their own lives, but the parents throwing them out that did.

And where Ichigo demonstrates that by being like my happy classmate, Ken demonstrates that by being like the ones who met tragedy.

Ken's parents are walking gender roles. Ken's dad is agressive or neutral toward his son depending on how his wife reacts, the end. So I figured they could be typical Japanese right-wingers.

Ken's mother becomes to fret over him...insofar as she fears having to sit with the knowledge she's a failure as a parent. I've said before I just don't find her actually shaping up and flying right after all she did believable. Papa, who realises everything in episode 23 and then seems to go right back to not caring beyond how his wife feels is much more believable.

So Ken's parents are incredibly unsupportive of who Ken actually is. Mama is passive or passive agressive about It. Papa sees a five hundred yen (five dollar) charge on the bank statement, immediately assumes Ken bought something related to being trans, like they make 500¥ binders or something (if only!) and starts yelling. The actual charge was for a piece of cake at a bakery that just opened up. That kind of thing.

When Ken hits puberty (on the night he's across the ocean in Mexico, no less), he tries to hide it, but, well, clothes stain, and Mama gives him this horrible talk about how he*will* become the woman he's "supposed to be," and Ken predictably has a panic attack and three days of unrelenting dysphoria like ants crawling all over his skin. Which is only overtaken in his head by the whole kidnapping thing. Seriously bad holiday season.

In RP, Ken bides his time and grins and bears it. In the project, Ken and Daisuke make everyone think they're dating since forever, causing Jun real confusion the day three years later Daisuke comes home and tells Jun he confessed to Ken.

Anyway, Daisuke and Miyako both like Ken. Ken's adult cousin Kouji is in a poly relationship with Junpei and Izumi, and Daisuke gets the idea they should team up and try to be in a three person relationship. It works, and Papa finds them sleeping in each other's arms late at night when he's messing with the central air.

Long story short, he gets thrown out, Jun is working and lives in Miyako's building, the three go to live with her. Miyako's family is super supportive and constantly around.

Even later (project covers eighteen years) Ken gets pregnant, miscarrying at five months.

The whole meanwhile, pretty much the entire country knows he's trans because different reporters had different parts of information. He's also sparked radio chat show debates about how to handle your kids coming out to you. Not everything said on those shows is compassionate or even correct.

So everyone knows his deadname. He will never get the chance to pass for cis as long as he is in Japan.

His parents won't let go of parental priveledges to him so easily, and puberty is really unkind to him. His build has very narrow hips, and he grows to five foot six, but other than that, he has a build not unlike Orihime from Bleach.

As much as he has older supportive people in Jun, his cousins in Nagoya, Osamu thé frog-shaped Hollow, Mimi and Jyou, who stick by them, his aunt and uncle Jenrya's parents, who pay for his schooling, and Mama and Papa are not giving him any money in the project, they still maintain control. And until he's 20, he may not be able to opt into his own treatment and his own plan on the national public option. I was in the US for high school, so I actually have to look that up.

On the blog, it's worse because he doesn't have the support network except not-dead Osamu, and his parents are his best option for money without feeling like a burden, though he's coming around.

Ken's voice has not dropped because again, he has not been able to consistently be on hormones. So how he sounds in canon is how he sounds here at 21.

All in all, he's clockable even if he wasn't nationally outed over and over.

Realise in that, he's completely lost control of whether he wants a given person to know and the chance to just be seen for who he is and not what. He's also lost the option to be stealth in every situation ever, which is dangerous.

Everyone ever also knows his deadname. Some people may not have even seen stories that tried to explain his transness and preferred name, and may call him by it without meaning anything, but it's mental death by a million papercuts to the heart whether they know or not.

The *only* solace he has is there's no reason to not leave the house for an entire pregnancy's duration when/if he has kids. Everyone knows anyway, and it's not like everyone sees him as himself even if he did pretend to be textbook (the only accepted narrative, which exactly why I'm writing him choosing to do that, again)

At the same time, people like his mother would choose something like that to give him invalidating speeches, which since Ken has the self-esteem of rotten bean sprouts, he would be a wreck afterwards.

I do think a friend trying to undo someone's invalidating speech once Ken's away from them could be a nice potential thread. Ken would be older than default age of 21, because here, he tried to go to university.

But in the end, Ichigo and Ken are definitely played off each other. Ichigo's what happens when kids have loving parents that understand that their kids are people, and Ken's what happens when kids have bigoted narcist parents that think kids are vanity projects to force to be as you wish, and inconvenient if you can't (think about how flashback!Mama treats Ken like an afterthought and inconvenience)

I like creating fanworks that contribute something to the world, and Ichigo and Ken offer two very different looks about the myriad of ways trans can look, and also offer two different sides of the same coin on a parent's duty to their children, a duty anyone takes on when they decide to become a parent.

Before I close, I should also say that neither character is upset about being trans. Even Ken knows the thing to be upset about is living in an unaccepting world. Not being cis, white, whatever priveledged demograph isn't a bad thingat all. It's neutral, as it should be. It's like having a predilection for a certain genre of book or something. But face enough hate over something, and it becomes an indelible part of your life story.

[themastercylinder]

  SUMMARY

Newcastle-born gangster Jack Carter has lived in London for years in the employ of organised crime bosses Gerald and Sid Fletcher. Jack is sleeping with Gerald’s girlfriend Anna and plans to escape with her to South America. But first he must return to Newcastle and Gateshead to attend the funeral of his brother Frank, who died in a purported drunk-driving accident. Unsatisfied with the official explanation, Jack investigates for himself. At the funeral Jack meets his teenage niece Doreen and Frank’s evasive mistress Margaret. It is later implied that Doreen is Jack’s daughter.

Jack goes to Newcastle Racecourse seeking old acquaintance Albert Swift for information about his brother’s death, however Swift spots Jack and evades him. Jack encounters another old associate, Eric Paice, who refuses to tell Jack who is employing him as a chauffeur. Tailing Eric leads him to the country house of crime boss Cyril Kinnear. Jack bursts in on Kinnear, who is playing poker, but learns little from him; he also meets a glamorous drunken woman, Glenda. As Jack leaves, Eric warns him against damaging relations between Kinnear and the Fletchers. Back in town, Jack is threatened by henchmen who want him to leave town, but he fights them off, capturing and interrogating one to find out who wants him gone. He is given the name “Brumby”.

Jack knows Cliff Brumby as a businessman with controlling interests in local seaside amusement arcades. Visiting Brumby’s house Jack discovers the man knows nothing about him and, believing he has been set up, he leaves. The next morning two of Jack’s London colleagues – Con McCarthy and Peter the Dutchman – arrive, sent by the Fletchers to take him back, but he escapes. Jack meets Margaret to talk about Frank, but the Fletchers’ men are waiting and pursue him. He is rescued by Glenda who takes him in her sports car to meet Brumby at his new restaurant development at the top of a multi-storey car park. Brumby identifies Kinnear as being behind Frank’s death, also explaining that Kinnear is trying to take over his business. He offers Jack £5,000 to kill the crime boss, which he flatly refuses.

Jack has sex with Glenda at her flat, where he finds and watches a pornographic film where Doreen is forced to have sex with Albert Swift. The other participants in the film are Glenda and Margaret. Overcome with emotion, Jack becomes enraged and pushes Glenda’s head under water as she is taking a bath. She tells him the film was Kinnear’s, and that she thinks Doreen was ‘pulled’ by Eric. Forcing Glenda into the boot of her car, Jack drives off to find Albert.

Jack tracks Albert down at a betting shop. Albert confesses he told Brumby that Doreen was, indeed, Frank’s daughter. Brumby showed Frank the film to incite him to call the police on Kinnear. Eric and two of his men arranged Frank’s death. Information extracted, Jack fatally knifes Albert. Jack is attacked by the London gangsters and Eric, who has informed Fletcher of Jack and Anna’s affair. In the ensuing shootout, Jack shoots Peter dead. As Eric and Con escape, they push the sports car into the river with Glenda trapped inside. Returning to the car park Jack finds Brumby, beats him senseless and throws him over the side to his death. He then posts the pornographic film to the vice squad at Scotland Yard in London.

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Jack abducts Margaret at gunpoint. He telephones Kinnear in the middle of a wild party, telling him he has the film and makes a deal for Kinnear to give him Eric in exchange for his silence. Kinnear agrees, sending Eric to an agreed location; however, he subsequently phones a hitman to dispose of Jack. Jack drives Margaret to the grounds of Kinnear’s estate, kills her with a fatal injection and leaves her body there. He then calls the police to raid Kinnear’s party.

Jack chases Eric along a beach. He forces Eric to drink a full bottle of whisky as he did to Frank, then beats him to death with his shotgun. As Jack is walking along the shoreline, he is shot through the head by the hitman with a sniper rifle – only identified as “J”, who was in Jack’s carriage on his initial train journey to Newcastle during the film’s opening credits.

  (Available at Amazon)

Get Carter (1971) (BD) [Blu-ray]

   DEVELOPMENT

In the late 1960s film censorship relaxation produced an increase in dark, uncompromising films, with many directors pushing the boundaries of acceptability. Get Carter was a film which explored this freedom. The film went from concept to finished film in just 10 months.

Michael Caine & Ted Lewis on Frank Street in Benwell  (now demolished) with the Dunston B Power Station in the distance – July 1970

In 1969, producer Michael Klinger devised plans for a gangster film to capitalize on public interest in the British criminal underworld after the Kray Twins’ convictions. Klinger was invited to view a first print of Peter Walker’s Man of Violence (1969) and was unimpressed, telling the director “I’m going to make a gangster film, but it’s going to cost a lot more than this and it’s going to be better”. After searching many publishers for material to adapt into a film, Klinger purchased the rights to Ted Lewis’s novel Jack’s Return Home. Andrew Spicer has written that “he sensed its potential to imbue the British crime thriller with the realism and violence of its American counterparts”.

Michael Caine & Mike Hodges on location  

Klinger had been approached in 1969 by another producer Nat Cohen to make a couple of films for MGM. In financial trouble and in shutting down its British operations, MGM was in the process of closing its British studios at Borehamwood and was looking to make smaller-budget films to turn a profit. At this time Klinger’s friend Robert Littman had been appointed head of MGM Europe and so Klinger took his proposal to him. MGM agreed a reasonable but below average of 750,000 (there is some dispute as to whether it was dollars or pounds) for the production. Within months of agreeing the deal MGM had pulled out of the UK. Klinger had seen Mike Hodges’ television film Suspect (1969) and immediately decided he was the ideal candidate to direct his new project. Hodges had also previously worked on current affairs program World in Action, the arts program Tempo and a 1968 children’s television serial, The Tyrant King, and all these past experiences informed his approach to his film debut.

English actors Michael Caine and Geraldine Moffat star in the film ‘Get Carter’, 1970.

English actor Michael Caine stops for a chat during the filming of Mike Hodges’ gangster classic ‘Get Carter’, circa 1971. In the background, on the left, is playwright John Osborne, who also stars in the film. (Photo by Terry O’Neill/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Klinger contacted Hodges on 27 January 1970 with a copy of Jack’s Return Home and contracted him to direct and adapt the screenplay, paying him a flat fee of £7,000 for his services. Hodges’ original working title for the film was Carter’s The Name. Steve Chibnall writes: “his treatment retained the essential structure of Lewis’s novel with its strong narrative drive, but introduced some minor changes to characterization and more fundamental alterations to narratology”. As Ted Lewis had not specified where his novel was set, Hodges felt free to relocate the story to a place he was familiar with, considering Grimsby, Lowestoft, Hull and North Shields before deciding on Newcastle Upon Tyne. Hodges said he was influenced in his writing by the works of Raymond Chandler and Hollywood B-movies such as Kiss Me Deadly, because they showed “how to use the crime story as an autopsy on society’s ills”. He did not, however, employ a traditional noir technique of using a voiceover to expose the character’s inner feelings.

The film is mostly faithful to Ted Lewis’ novel, with some exceptions, such as the fact that in the book, Carter does not kill “Cliff Brumby” and mails the pornographic film featuring “Doreen Carter” to a journalist, rather than to Scotland Yard. At the end of the book, Carter is wounded, presumably mortally, by a knife thrust from “Eric Paice,” rather than being shot by an assassin hired by “Cyril Kinnear.” Also, Eric is killed when he attempts to shoot Carter with Carter’s own rifle, but the old weapon backfires and explodes. The book also contains numerous flashbacks detailing Carter’s relationship with his brother “Frank,” including an encounter in which Frank tells Carter that he no longer wishes to see him after learning from his ex-wife that Carter May be Doreen’s father. The significance of the double-barreled shotgun as Carter’s choice of weapon (which in the novel symbolizes family ties and Carter’s memories of more innocent times hunting with his brother) was lost in the film adaptation. Hodge’s adaptation streamlines the plot to a linear narrative spanning a single weekend.

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 LOBBY CARDS

Carter’s killing of Brumby and his own assassination were further alterations from the novel, emphasizing the film’s parallels with revenge tragedy and Carter’s role as what Geoff Mayer calls “the moral agent… a “knight” forced to dispense his own sense of justice in a corrupt world”.

M-G-M executives protested Hodges’ decision to kill Carter at the end, as they were hoping to make a sequel to the film, but Hodges insisted that Carter should pay for his crimes. However, Hodges implies that he did not see Carter as morally any more justified than those he kills, and his death is intended to present his actions to the audience as morally bankrupt and futile: “I wanted him to be dealt with in exactly the same way he dealt with other people.

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“The significance of the double-barreled shotgun as Carter’s choice of weapon (which in the novel symbolizes family ties and Carter’s memories of more innocent times hunting with his brother) was lost in the film adaptation.”

  Following the success of Jack’s Return Home, the novel on which Get Carter is based, Lewis wrote other novels featuring Carter, including Jack Carter’s Law and Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon.

Co-produced by the actor after a string of flops had knocked off all the luster that he’d picked up in the mid-’60s, thanks to such films as Zulu, The Ipcress File and Alfie, the story of Jack Carter, a London gangster who travels to Newcastle to investigate the shady circumstances around his brother’s death, wasn’t just meant to revitalize Caine’s sagging career – he and his producing partner Michael Klinger (who took all the on-screen credit) were hoping to give a boost to the very concept of the British gangster picture, which by that point had slipped into stodgy irrelevance, like pretty much all British genre film making around the start of the ’70s.

Caine and Hodges had ambitions to produce a more gritty and realistic portrayal of on-screen violence and criminal behavior than had previously been seen in a British film. Caine incorporated his knowledge of real criminal acquaintances into his characterization of Carter. Hodges and cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky drew heavily on their backgrounds in documentary film. This—combined with Hodges’ research into the contemporary criminal underworld of Newcastle (in particular the one-armed bandit murder), and the use of hundreds of local bystanders as extras—produced a naturalistic feel in many scenes. The shoot was incident-free and progressed speedily, despite a one-day strike by the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians. The production went from novel to finished film in eight months, with location shooting lasting 40 days.

(Available at Amazon)

Get Carter (The Jack Carter Trilogy) Ted Lewis

    CASTING

There was pressure from MGM to have more big-name American stars in the film, which was successfully resisted by Hodges. As well as Telly Savalas, names posited by Klinger and studio executives were Joan Collins, and someone Hodges described as “the Canadian lead actress in TV’s Peyton Place”, which most probably means Barbara Parkins.  The production also utilized a large number of extras, most of whom were locals who just happened to be on scene when filming was happening. Others were sourced from local casting company Beverley Artistes, which sent everyone registered with it for audition, one of these being Deana Wilde, who was cast as the pub singer. Several of the company’s actors were also in background shots in the film including the casino, streets, bars and the police raid scene.

Michael Caine and Geraldine Moffat

Michael Caine as Jack Carter. Hodges wrote the screenplay with Ian Hendry in mind for Carter, but learned that Michael Klinger had already signed up Caine for the role. With the backing of a major studio Klinger was keen to secure a big name for the lead, and Caine was very prominent at the time, having starred in Alfie, The Italian Job and The Ipcress File. Hodges was surprised that a star of Caine’s stature would want to play such a thoroughly unlikeable person as Carter. Giving his reasons for wanting to be involved with the film, the actor said “One of the reasons I wanted to make that picture was my background. In English movies, gangsters were either stupid or funny. I wanted to show that they’re neither. Gangsters are not stupid, and they’re certainly not very funny”. He identified with Carter as a memory of his working class upbringing, having friends and family members who were involved in crime and felt Carter represented a path his life might have taken under different circumstances: “Carter is the dead-end product of my own environment, my childhood; I know him well. He is the ghost of Michael Caine”. He made subtle changes to Hodges’ depiction of Carter in the script, cut out pleasantries and gave him a cold, hard edge; closer to Lewis’s original envisioning of the character. Caine was determined to show a more minimalistic and realistic, less “pornographic” form of violence than was generally depicted on screen. Carter’s violent actions are restrained, business-like and sudden, never using 30 punches when one would do. Although he is not credited as such in the film, Caine has been acknowledged in retrospect as a co-producer. Hodges described Caine as “a complete dream to work with”. Caine only lost his temper once on set, during the very tense and emotional day filming the scene with Glenda in the bath, when the focus puller ruined his first take. Caine apologized immediately. In a strange coincidence, Caine’s stand-in on the film was a man called Jack Carter.

John Osborne as Cyril Kinnear, Jack’s main adversary. Famous playwright Osborne was an unusual choice of actor; he was suggested by Hodges’ agent. The writer enjoyed the change, and saw it as a way to erase the image in the public’s mind of him as an angry young man. Osborne had never played card games before and practiced poker before the shoot to lend realism to the gambling scene. Osborne’s portrayal was a contrast to the description in Lewis’s novel of Kinnear as an uncultured spiv, giving him an urbane and laid-back demeanor, his delivery being so relaxed and quiet that it was difficult for the sound recordist to pick up, but Hodges liked the “menace in that quietness”.

GET CARTER, Britt Ekland, Michael Caine, 1971

GET CARTER, Michael Caine, Britt Ekland, 1971

Michael Caine and Britt Ekland

Ian Hendry as Eric Paice. Hendry had previously been cast by producer Klinger in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, and was Hodges’ first choice to play Carter, but by 1970 his career was rapidly declining. Hendry’s alcoholism and poor physical condition were apparent on set in Newcastle, and his envy at contemporary Caine’s success was exacerbated by his drinking. Hodges and Caine used his animosity towards Caine to their advantage to create extra tension in the scenes between Carter and Paice.

Britt Ekland as Anna. Ekland was cast as the leading lady of the film, as she was a prominent sex symbol of the time and would have already been familiar to US audiences through her work in The Night They Raided Minsky’s and Stiletto. Therefore her small role in the film was overemphasized in the publicity. Ekland was afraid of becoming typecast, having already played two gangster’s molls before Carter. She was also reluctant to take the part as she did not want to take her clothes off; however, she had financial problems at the time as a result of bad investment decisions by her accountant. She was later happy that she had been involved with the project.

Geraldine Moffat as Glenda. Moffatt was an experienced actress who had trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She attracted Hodges’ attention not just for her good looks but for her work on television plays such as Stella and Doreen.

Bryan Mosley as Cliff Brumby. MGM executives initially wanted Telly Savalas for the part of the “big man”, but were impressed by Coronation Street actor Mosley’s performance in fight scenes in Far from The Madding Crowd. A devout Roman Catholic, Mosley was concerned about taking part in such a violent film with depictions of criminal behaviour, consulting his priest over the moral implications.

George Sewell as Con McCarty. Sewell was the man who introduced Barbara Windsor to Charlie Kray. He grew up in working class Hoxton and had come to acting late when in 1959 he joined Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop. A well-known face on British television in the 1960s, his sandblasted features and shifty, haunted looks made him ideal for playing villainous characters or hard-bitten detectives. He seemed ideally cast as a London gangster colleague of Carter’s. After Carter, Sewell became more known for playing policemen rather than villains.

Tony Beckley as Peter the Dutchman. Lewis depicted Peter as a misogynistic homosexual in his novel, but these elements were not emphasized in the film, although the character is flamboyant and “camp”. Beckley had developed a specialism of playing sadistic criminals, so his part in Carter was somewhat similar to his role of “Camp Freddy” alongside Caine in The Italian Job.

Glynn Edwards as Albert Swift. Like Sewell, Edwards was also an apprentice of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, who had come to acting in his 30s. He had previously appeared alongside Caine in Zulu and The Ipcress File. After the film Edwards found work as a character actor and appeared regularly in the TV show Minder.

FILMING

Principal photography took place in the north east between 17 July and 15 September 1970. Hodges favoured the use of long focal length lenses (as he had used previously on Rumour) in many scenes to create a naturalistic documentary feel, especially in crowd scenes. The film was shot in “Metrocolor”, which was MGM’s trade name for films processed at its Eastmancolor laboratory. This lab processed Kodak’s Eastman Color Negative, so it is most likely the film was shot on this stock. Asked to comment on what he was aiming for in the look of the film, cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky said “The camera work on it… it was very influenced by Mike Hodges who has a very good eye for setups and he of course conferred with his operator and myself, but he influenced all of us, and much of the good look is due to him, I confess. My main task was lighting on location, very moderately, and waiting for the right daylight and setting the exposure on the lens”. In the first week of shooting in Newcastle, the ACTT called the crew out on one day strike. At the advice of Richard Lester, Hodges and his assistant director stayed at a separate hotel to the rest of the cast and crew, which enabled him to have some respite from the production after the shooting day was done. Klinger was present on set for much of the film shoot. However, Hodges said he encountered very little interference by the producer. At one point Klinger and Caine asked if Hodges might work in a “chase sequence”, but he persuaded them that it would draw too many comparisons with Bullitt (a chase sequence between Carter and the London gangsters is mentioned in the shooting script). Hodges tried to rehearse the racecourse scene between Caine and Hendry in their hotel the night before shooting, but “Hendry’s drunken and resentful state forced Hodges to abandon [the] attempt”.

Hodges described Caine as “a complete dream to work with”. Caine only lost his temper once on set, during the very tense and emotional day filming in Glenda’s flat, when the focus puller ruined his first take. Caine apologized immediately.

The most complicated scene to shoot was Kinnear’s game of cards. There are four simultaneous conversations, with a lot of plot exposition and the introduction of two important characters, Kinnear and Glenda. The technical complexity was compounded by the variation in light coming through the windows, and Osborne’s whispered delivery which made microphone placement difficult. Hodges moved the camera and the boom closer to Osborne as the scene progressed. Chibnall says that Hodges regretted not rehearsing the scene more thoroughly.

Base of the North Side coal staithes, North Blyth, Northumberland. Carter chases Paice along these near the film’s conclusion. The tops of the staithes as they appear in the film have been demolished so only the base of the structure remains.

In shooting the scene in which Carter throws Brumby to his death from the multi-storey car park, Hodges used four shots: one of the pair struggling high up on the stairs; one from the lowest level of the stairwell where Caine actually threw Bryan Moseley over the side onto mattresses; one shot of a dummy falling; and one of the body of Brumby on top of a crushed car.

Carter’s climactic pursuit of Eric used an amalgamation of two locations spaced 35 miles (56 km) apart: Blyth staithes and Blackhall Beach near Blackhall Colliery. The chase scene was shot in reverse, with Hodges filming Eric’s death scene first because of Hendry’s poor condition, Hodges being worried that he would be too out of breath to play the death scene after running. Hodges chose the beach for its bleak, dark atmosphere but when he returned to shoot the scene he found it bathed in bright sunshine, unsuitable for the sombre conclusion he was hoping for. He waited hours until the sun began setting to capture the overcast shadowy lighting seen in the film. The film shows the beach black with coal spoilings, dumped there by the mine’s conveyor system. The conveyor, a common sight on the East Durham coast, was known locally as ‘The Flight’. In the early 2000s, £10 million was spent removing these conveyors and the concrete towers, and cleaning tons of coal waste from the beaches of East Durham. The cleaning programme was known as ‘Turning the Tide’.

  LOCATIONS

Trinity Square car park, with Brumby’s rooftop cafe, was demolished in 2010

Locations along the east coast of England had been scouted by Hodges and Klinger in the spring of 1970, to find a landscape that suggested a “hard, deprived background”. Newcastle was selected after Hodge’s first choice of Hull proved to be unsuitable. Hodges thoroughly researched the local Newcastle crime scene, adapting the script to make use of settings and incorporating elements of his research into the story. His background at World in Action had made him accustomed to making films based on hard investigation and this informed his approach to Get Carter. One of the first locations which attracted Hodge’s attention was the Trinity Square multi-story car park, which dominated the centre of Gateshead. To Hodges, the car park and the cast iron bridges over the Tyne, “seemed to capture the nature of Jack Carter himself”. The car park symbolizes one of the film’s more subtle themes, which is the destruction of an old cityscape and its rebuilding in line with modern Brutalism.

Hodges described how wandering alone through the upper structure, he realized how the different levels could be used to reveal the hunter, Carter, and the hunted, Brumby, simultaneously but without either being aware of the other – adding to the suspense. The shopping centre and car park were closed in early 2008, and demolished in late 2010.

  Beechcroft, Broomside Lane, County Durham, the location of Cliff Brumby’s house, was finally demolished in December 2008

The location for Cyril Kinnear’s house, Dryderdale Hall, near Hamsterley, Bishop Auckland, provided a real-life connection with organised crime. It was the recently-vacated country house of North East fruit machine businessman Vince Landa, who had fled the country in 1969 after the murder of his right hand man Angus Sibbett, the so-called one-armed bandit murder. Many believed the crime was part of a failed attempt by the Kray twins to gain control of the Newcastle underworld; Michael Klinger and the MGM publicity spokesman dismissed the use of the location as mere coincidence; however, Hodges was aware of the significance of the house and chose it deliberately. Steve Chibnall writes “It proved a perfect location, reeking of authenticity and full of useful details such as the cowboys and Indians wallpaper…the African shield and crossed spears on the wall of the crime lord’s living room”. The Landa case also is referenced at the start of the film with a shot of a newspaper bearing the headline “Gaming Wars”. Other locations in Newcastle and Gateshead, Northumberland and County Durham were also used.

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Michael Caine on Westgate Road, Newcastle on July 27, 1970, taking time out from filming Get Carter

More Location Information, click here

POST-PRODUCTION

Klinger was a very hands-on producer and was present during shooting and in post-production. He suggested Hodges use John Trumper as editor. Hodges said that he and Trumper argued and disagreed constantly, but he still thought he was a “brilliant, brilliant editor” and was “very grateful to him for …how much he contributed”. Sound editing and dubbing was done by Jim Atkinson, whom Hodges described as “so obsessive about the job”. He gave Hodges multiple possibilities of how the sound could be dubbed, and explored every angle. Klinger was worried that the debut director might be overwhelmed with too many options, but Hodges said he and Atkinson got on very well.

Variation in light coming through the windows, and Osborne’s whispered delivery which made microphone placement difficult. Hodges moved the camera and the boom closer to Osborne as the scene progressed. Chibnall says that Hodges regretted not rehearsing the scene more thoroughly.

INITIAL RELEASE & CULT FOLLOWING

Get Carter suffered in its promotion, firstly from MGM’s problems and secondly owing to the declining British film industry of the period, which relied increasingly on US investment. Initial UK critical reaction to the film was mixed, with British reviewers grudgingly appreciative of the film’s technical excellence, but dismayed by the complex plotting, the excessive violence and amorality, in particular Carter’s apparent lack of remorse at his actions. Despite this the film did good business in the UK and produced a respectable profit. Conversely, US critics were generally more enthusiastic and praised the film, but it was poorly promoted in the States by United Artists and languished on the drive in. On its release Get Carter received no awards and did not seem likely to be well remembered. It wasn’t available on home media until 1993, however it always maintained a cult following. Subsequently, endorsements from a new generation of directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie led to a critical reappraisal which saw it recognized as one of the best British movies of all time. In 1999, Get Carter was ranked 16th on the BFI Top 100 British films of the 20th century; five years later, a survey of British film critics in Total Film magazine chose it as the greatest British film of all time.

Hit Man (1972) Starring Bernie Casey and Pam Grier Lewis’ novel was used as the basis for another film. Hit Man, was released in 1972 by M-G-M and featured mostly African-American actors. Set in Watts, the picture was directed by George Armitage and starred Bernie Casey. Hit Man was based more on Get Carter than on Lewis’ novel, and was produced by M-G-M specifically for the “black market,” according to a December 1972 Daily Variety article, after Get Carter performed well financially in foreign markets. Director Steven Soderbergh has stated that the original Get Carter also influenced his 1999 film The Limey, in which a London gangster (Terence Stamp) travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter’s murder.

  Wolfgang Suschitzky – On the set of Get Carter

  Cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky, also with a background in documentary film, followed Hodges vision unhesitatingly and to impressive results. Get Carter’s importance lies in the technical superiority of the way it was filmed

  Conversations – Mike Hodges

  For more interviews with Hodges, click the bottom link

Mike Hodges discusses being influenced by Western films and how Sergio Leone saw Get Carter as a Western.

           (Available at Amazon)

Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir by Nick Triplow

  (Available at Amazon)

Get Carter Roy Budd (Five bonus tracks) (Re-issue of 1971 Film)

  The majority of the music in the film was composed by Roy Budd, a jazz pianist and composer, who had previously worked on soundtracks for Soldier Blue and Flight of the Doves. Budd composed 13 distinct pieces for the film, including three songs, Looking For Someone, Love Is A Four Letter Word (with lyrics by Jack Fishman) and Hallucinations. The theme, (otherwise known as Carter Takes a Train) which is the best-known music from the film, was played by Budd and the other members of his jazz trio, Jeff Clyne (double bass) and Chris Karan (percussion), and was recorded on a budget of £450. The musicians recorded the soundtrack live, direct to picture, playing along with the film. To save time and money Budd did not use overdubs, simultaneously playing a real harpsichord, a Wurlitzer electric piano and a grand piano. Budd described the experience as “uncomfortable, but it sounded pleasant”. The theme tune features the sounds of the character’s train journey from London to Newcastle.

The theme was released as a 7″ vinyl single by Pye Records in 1971, titled simply Carter and backed with “Plaything”, another piece composed for the soundtrack. Original copies of the record are much sought after by collectors and sell for around £100. The soundtrack—including pieces not used in the film—was originally only available in its entirety in Japan, where it was released on Odeon Records. It was released in the UK in 1998 by the Cinephile label, a subsidiary of Castle Communications. In 2012 the theme was included on the Soul Jazz Records compilation British TV, Film and Library Composers.

The film includes other music which is not included on the soundtrack LP. The music playing in the nightclub scene is an uptempo cover of the 1969 Willie Mitchell tune “30-60-90” performed live by the Jack Hawkins Showband, which was the resident band at the Oxford Galleries night club. Hawkins’ name can be seen on the poster outside the club before Thorpe runs inside, and the band can faintly be seen on stage as Thorpe enters the club. A version of the band’s rendition was available on a live LP by Jack Hawkins, which was released under two titles, Psychedelic ’70s and later as Everything Is Beautiful, The pub singer, played by Denea Wilde, performs a cover of How About You? by Burton Lane and Ralph Freed, a song more associated with glamorous Hollywood films than the backrooms of Newcastle pubs. The Pelaw Hussars, a local juvenile jazz band and majorette troupe, also appear and perform two numbers, When The Saints Go Marching In and Auld Lang Syne.

  Interview: Mike Hodges on Get Carter

Get Carter was your first feature film outside of television work.  What was it that made you make the jump?  Was it a natural progression and did the jump have anything to do specifically with wanting to make Get Carter?

It was a natural progression.  In those days there were only three television channels so the audiences were huge.  Consequently your profile could (if all went well) be pretty high.  Feature producers watched out for any emerging talents.  Presumably because they were cheaper than established directors but also because there was a certain kudos to finding new contenders.  Michael Klinger, who spotted me, had earlier spotted Roman Polanski who made his first English films with him.  Cul-de-sac & Repulsion.  My two television films (Suspect and  Rumour) that attracted his attention were both from original scripts and I’d always dreamt of continuing on that trajectory.   It was not to be.  When Klinger sent me Jack’s Return Home, a novel by Ted Lewis, and asked if I wanted to adapt and direct it as a feature film, I couldn’t resist.

  What was it that you saw in it to make it potentially into a film?  And what aspects did you deliberately change from the novel?

It was a cracking novel. Sparse in every way.  Not a sinew of sentimentality.  Very much the way I like both my literature and films.  Initially I didn’t want to change anything.  It’s a long time ago but I think the first draft was much the same as Lewis’s original text.  Probably because I’d never before adapted a novel and somehow felt obliged to the original author.  At some point I knew I had to free myself from that straightjacket and begin to think only in cinematic terms.  I abandoned the novel’s structure of flashbacks and settled on a straight narrative form; one that I felt happier with for my first feature film.

  Moving on from that, the film is famous for its consistently astounding cast.  Firstly, however, there are many stories of the studio, MGM, wanting much bigger names in various roles such as Telly Savalas and Joan Collins.  Was there this pressure from the studio?  And how did you manage to resist these casting choices?

Yes, MGM wanted big names in the film.  Producers always do.  For me, the innocent, this was an anathema.  When casting my television films no executive had ever asked me about the cast.  That was simply part of my job.  Like a painter choosing a particular palette.  Now there was a star on board (Michael Caine) I realised I needed to surround him with unknown faces.  In that way, as with planting him in Newcastle, I could root Jack Carter in his own milieu.  So I fought off each of those ridiculous casting suggestions by simply threatening to resign.  It worked.  That’s because I meant it.

  Though the marvellous Ian Hendry was eventually to play Eric Paice in the film, he was initially your first choice for Carter before Caine came into the picture thanks to Michael Klinger.  What was it that initially brought Hendry to mind for the role and what was the result dramatically of having some genuine rivalry between Hendry and Caine because of this?

The innocent again.  I’d assumed no major star would ever contemplate playing such a shit as Carter.  It was an image problem every parasitic agent would advise against.  Ian Hendry, thought I, might just be interested in the role.  Whilst having had his moments among the gods in the Movie Galaxy he was more of a shooting star.  In the novel Carter is a much seedier character.  It was only the glamour (if that’s right word!) brought by Caine to the role that moved it towards the iconic.  The fact that Caine’s career was in the ascendance while his was in reverse undoubtedly bugged Ian.  Sad, because he was a wonderful actor.

  Much is made of John Osborne’s stunning performance as the gangster, Cyril Kinnear.  How did this casting come about?  Is it true that his performance was so quiet and subtle during the card game sequence that the sound crew were having difficulty picking up his lines?

For me casting is a totally instinctive process.  I never ask actors to read; only to spend time talking about anything under the sun.  Time enough for me to study them and hopefully fit them into my canvas.  I’ve often met actors for one role and decided to place them in another.  Filmmakers are lucky because they have a vast repertory company to chose from.  Casting villains can be tricky because their characters often amount to a bunch of clichés.  (Witness any Bond film!).  With Cyril Kinnear, whilst desperate to come at him from a different angle, I wasn’t having much luck.  My agent at the time was also Osborne’s and, out of the blue, he suggested him.  We met and liked each other.  John’s talent for invective intimated that there was another side to him than the affable playwright.  You’re right.  Chris Wangler, my brilliant sound recordist, asked for John to project more.  I resisted his pleas and simply moved the camera closer.  John’s decision to speak quietly was clever.  So mundane; so sinister.

  Why did you film Get Carter in Newcastle, when Ted Lewis’ original book, Jack Returns Home, is set in Lincolnshire?

It doesn’t say where it is, actually. He changes trains in Doncaster but you never know where he goes to. I’d done my national service in the navy, so I went into all these unbelievable ports like Hull, Grimsby, Lowestoft, North Shields, Immingham, all that. So when I was sorting out a film location, I went up the east coast to all of these places. Despite the film being firmly based on a fiction, I still investigated the local crime scene and happened on [a crime] that was to influence the very fabric of the film: the Dolce Vita murder. This crime, committed two or three years earlier, somehow captured the sleaziness and corruption festering in the city’s underbelly: it even involved a hit man, already incarcerated, but who, like Jack Carter, had come up from London. My research led me to many of the locations used in the film, including the grim Gothic house occupied by Cyril Kinnear (John Osborne), which had also been the home of the real-life criminal behind the murder. The veracity of the film’s thrust was confirmed soon after its release when the city’s manager, the first ever appointed in England, was arrested and found guilty of corruption, a cancer that had spread to very top of the country’s establishment.

  What were you looking for?

I thought it should be set in a very hard fishing port but the developers had got into all the ports. The last throw of the dice was to go back to North Shields and we’d gone into the fishing jetty there, and there was an area at the back that was called The Jungle. Visually, the place was extraordinary. I came via Newcastle, which is inland from North Shields. As soon as I arrived in Newcastle, I just had to shoot there. I got there before the developers moved in; they destroyed the place. All the houses we filmed in were condemned at that point. I opened one up again just for Jack’s brother’s house.

  Back to the film’s many buildings, one account suggests the famous brutalist car-park in Trinity Square where several scenes take place (including Cliff Brumby’s untimely demise) was due for demolition before the film.  How did you manage to sway them to not go through with it (with the car-park only being only demolished fully in 2010!)?

Getting the facts about Trinity Square has always been a problem.  It was rumoured as unsafe and that’s why the penthouse had never been opened as a restaurant.  That said I don’t remember there being any problem getting permission to shoot there.  At the time I had no idea its architect was, in fact, a friend, one of a poker party I used to play with.  Poker again!  Because the credited architect was the firm not the individual, I had no idea Rodney Gordon was truly responsible for this terrific building.  Not until he died in 2008, when I read his obituaries, did I realise this.  Since then (alas too late) he’s been applauded (especially by Jonathan Meades) as the leading light in British Brutalism.

  It’s a building that I definitely think defines the film particularly well in its uncompromising but confident nature. Finally then, with the film now considered as one of the defining pieces of cinema made in Britain, what is it that you think accounts for its resurgence and success?

Soon after its release in 1972, the film was banished to the dark shadows of cult status.  It was, after all, not considered a very nice film here in the UK.  But then most of my films have been more appreciated beyond these shores, particularly in the US and France.  That changed when, in 2009, the BFI decided to release it again; albeit in a limited way.  This time around I think British audiences found the endemic corruption intimated in its every frame more acceptable.  By then their rose-tinted glasses were off.  We no longer saw our country as a beacon of propriety, and law and order.  Our parliamentarians, police, press, the whole damned edifice, had been found to be wanting.  They all had their noses in the money trough.  The cancer of greed had reached every organ of British society.   Maybe, just maybe, Get Carter had been an accidental augury?

  Why did you decide to kill Jack Carter in the film?

That was the condition on which I made it. I wanted him being disposed of in exactly the same way that he disposes of everybody else. It’s without any sentiment, cold, put down like a dog with rabies.

  Would you like to have done a sequel?

No. I did come up with an idea that he’d had a child and I was interested in the genetic ramifications of this young man who’s as violent and unpleasant as Carter. He’s been adopted by religious parents and he’s trying to work out how he ended up like this, and they’re wondering too. That interests me but no one else was interested in it. It was called Jack’s Back.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

CELLULOID WICKER MAN

Interview: Mike Hodges on Get Carter (1971)

TCM Website “Get Carter” (NOTES)

They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? 2008 Edition – #570

Wikipedia

A Conversation with Writer/Director Mike Hodges by Maxim Jakubowski

  Get Carter (1971) – Retrospective SUMMARY Newcastle-born gangster Jack Carter has lived in London for years in the employ of organised crime bosses Gerald and Sid Fletcher.