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altik-0 · 5 years ago

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Personal Revelation

I've spent the last two weeks trying to figure out how to write this post, but my mind has felt like it's tumbling around a washing machine and trying to figure out how to straighten my thoughts into a coherent message has felt impossible. But I'm driving myself crazy continuing to hold off on saying something, so I'm going to just rip off the bandage now, and we can talk in more depth after the cut.

Hi! 👋 I'm Asexual and Aromantic! Let's talk about it.

Where to even start

This month has been a fucking trip.

On the one hand, this has been the fourth month of nearly continuous quarantine for the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other, the end of May was the spark that began a wildfire of protests against police brutality that have swept across the country, including the seemingly milquetoast land of Salt Lake City. I found myself simultaneously figuring out the umpteenth way to keep myself entertained while being in home nearly uninterrupted for over 90 days, while also desperately searching for the courage to exit my home and join the marches against injustice.

And in the background of all of this, it was Pride Month.

On the 12th, a Youtube creator I follow released a video about their experience discovering themselves as non-binary. You should watch it, but what is important for the sake of this post is that the bulk of the video is an asynchronous telling of various moments throughout their life that, in reflection, show them that "[they] were who [they] are now, back then". These moments form a tapestry that tell a story of self discovery, and the result is incredibly powerful.

They released a rough cut about a week earlier for Patreon supporters, and I was immediately transfixed. I watched it three times in a row on the first day it was uploaded. I watched it twice more after the release. Hell, when I pulled this video up now to get the share link I couldn't help but sit and watch through it all over again.

At first I didn't really know why I felt so attached to this piece in particular. Yet still, I spent multiple nights laying awake for hours in what felt like a dreamlike haze at the time. It took three nights like this for me to realize I had spent all this time reflecting on my own past moments, and revisiting them through the lens this video had shared with me.

How I got here

It is September 2005. I am currently at a school dance. I know I am supposed to be finding someone to dance with and enjoy that for some reason, but all I want to do is go home. I might consider mustering up some courage and just asking someone, anyone, to dance, if it weren't for the fact that I still didn't have any friends. Instead, I feel trapped, wandering up and down the side wall, waiting for it to be over so I can finally leave. I stumble across a small group also sitting on the sides; a girl reading manga, and another playing Yu-Gi-Oh! with a boy across from her. I approach: "I didn't realize anyone still played this" They invite me to join, and soon I find myself with genuine friends at school for the first time in years. I never think about asking someone to dance again.

It is the summer of 2017. I am at a bar with some coworkers at the end of the week. I don't drink, but I've opened myself up to joining people for happy hour because it feels like a good way to socialize, and I've genuinely enjoyed getting to know folks. My team lead makes a comment that he feels it's impossible for a man and a woman to ever have a friendly relationship without having some element of sexual tension between them. I rebuff this comment -- initially I feel a sense of feminist frustration at the concept, as if it is implicitly saying that men and women should not work together. As the conversation continues, I realize the real reason I feel so sure this is wrong is because I have never felt this way toward anyone I've worked with.

It is the summer of 2008. I am in church, listening to the new instructor for my Sunday school class shift the discussion towards politics. Since he began, every lesson without fail will eventually derail into right-wing screeds. For him, any issue that is even vaguely left-leaning is a potential avenue for Satan to take hold of you: feminism, activism, even environmentalism. But lately he has had a particular fixation on the topic of gay marriage, and it is beginning to take a toll on my mental health. Being in these classes, hearing a man in a position of authority repeatedly say "it is not that we shouldn't love these people, but we need to still understand that they are committing a sin" has become physically painful to listen to. Of course, I am not queer, just an ally -- I can only imagine how painful this must be for those who are directly affected. I will nearly pass out from exhaustion and anxiety during sacrament meeting a few hours later.

It is February 2020. I am out to lunch with a friend and coworker. I have just recently changed jobs after less than a year, because I was hopelessly miserable at my last one. It should have been a dream job, marrying two of my closest passions, but instead I felt suffocated by being in a world where everyone seemed indifferent towards me at best, or actively hated me at worst. My friend invited me to join this job, and although it is a miserable job, I find solace in being able to go to lunch and have genuine conversations with someone I get along with. He mentions his wife is pregnant, and the stress of tending for his current child while she is resting. I acknowledge the frustration, though somewhat awkwardly since I am still single. "Oh, yeah, I sometimes forget you aren't married yet, haha. Well, don't worry, you'll get to join in on the fun soon enough!" I want to say "I very much doubt that"; instead I say "Well, I guess we'll see." The conversation does not feel so genuine anymore.

It is January 2009. I am watching House M.D. with my dad. We bond a lot while watching tv. We're both avid fans of MST3K, and we are invariably the obnoxious people in a movie theater a few rows down cracking jokes throughout the film. It feels fun and rebellious, even if we're doing it at home where nobody will be annoyed. This episode starts with Foreman and Thirteen waking up together in bed after clearly spending the night together. My dad cracks a joke about how "they're going to get in trouble, since they aren't married!" I quip back "nah, it's not a big deal, they just slept together, haha." My dad pauses the show and turns to me, deadly serious: "Who told you that was okay?!" I am a deer in headlights. I suddenly realize that I meant "slept together" literally, but nobody else uses it that way. I don't understand how I missed that.

It is October 2010. I am at home, speaking with my mother after coming home from school. She has always been a political firebrand, and especially after I left the church and started college the two of us have connected on this a lot. She has just read an article that mentioned the expanded acronym "LGBTQIA", and says she doesn’t know what all the "I" and "A" refer to. I don't yet know what the "I" refers to, but I suggest the "A" is probably for "asexual". She says she hadn't heard of asexuality, though that does make sense. I realize I don't recall hearing about asexuality before either. I don't actually know if anyone identifies like that. It just somehow feels like something that must exist.

It is the spring of 2007. I am at a local game store playing at a Friday Night Magic event for the first time. I suffer from very extreme social anxiety, and I spent the entire week a ball of nervous energy. Despite myself, I have managed to drive myself to the event and register. I have promised myself dozens of times over that I already knew Magic players were people similar to me, so there was no reason to worry. My first match is against someone wearing a frilly dress, cat ears, and tail. She mews at me several times while playing. On the surface I have frozen and only robotically go through motions of playing the game because my anxiety has boiled over to the point that I cannot quite function properly. Inside, I am filled with pure delight at realizing that someone could feel comfortable expressing themselves that openly in a space like this. I eventually become friends with this person who I will later learn is trans -- I had never met a trans person before. I will become close friends with three more trans people, at least two enbies, and countless other queer people over the next decade of playing this wonderful game.

It is November 2019. I am at work, sitting at my desk, feeling completely numb despite starting the day energetic to the point of mania. I've just had an argument with a close friend -- perhaps the closest friend I've ever had -- and it ended... poorly, to put it mildly. So poorly, in fact, that it is safe to say we are just not friends anymore. The reality was that there were always problems between us, and this was a culmination of conflict that never really got effectively resolved. It might not have even been possible to resolve. In the moment, though, I cannot escape the suffocating feeling that I am a failure as a human being; someone who simply does not know how to maintain a relationship. My mind goes through loops of how I could have said something differently to have it end better. The emotional pain will not fully make sense to me until several months later, when I realize this was the closest thing to a break-up that I've ever experienced.

It is January 2012. I am watching House M.D. with my dad again. Since leaving the church, watching shows like this has been a desperate lifeline for our relationship. We don't joke as much anymore. This episode features a side plot with an asexual couple, who House determines is simply impossible, and uses his power of supreme logic to prove the asexuality wasn't real all along. I have heard of asexuality, though I don't know where or when, so I am angry at this. Of course, as an ally. I want to joke with my dad to release some frustration, but he is still in the church, and I don’t think he will empathize. I stay silent, and do not enjoy this episode.

It is December 2019. I am scrolling through a Discord channel I was invited to from one of the leftist creators I follow. This community has been a breath of fresh air in many ways, and one I found surprisingly helpful was an NSFW adult content chat channel where people are open about sex, fetishes, and more. I've considered myself fairly open-minded and sex-positive, but I'm still a virgin at 28 so I've found there is a lot I just don't know about. Today, someone has started a conversation about what qualifies as "taboo" and relating it to kink-shaming. Another member replies, mentioning they are asexual and find the whole notion of taboos being kind of bizarre. My mind reels at seeing someone who identifies as asexual in this chat. Over time I find out there are several other people who identify at least gray-ace in this chat, some who even draw risque artwork for commission. I realize how little I actually understood about what asexuality really was, and begin scouring the internet for articles and wikis on asexuality.

It is April 2010. I am at an Apollo Burger across the street from the local game store where I am playing in a Magic prerelease. My friends I followed over are talking about weekend plans, and one of them makes a joke about doing some chores to butter up his partner to have sex. The joke does not go over my head -- I am straight, and understand sex, even if I am still a virgin -- but I still can't help but think out loud: "You know, I just don't get why people make such a big deal out of sex." The awkwardness and confused looks are suffocating. I drop the topic immediately.

It is June 2020. I have just watched a video from an enby Youtube creator about their experience discovering their own gender identity. Over the next three days I will see every one of these past experiences, along with hundreds of others, flash before my eyes in rapid succession, over and over, until I begin to realize that I haven't allowed myself to truly identify how I do. Every time I asked "am I asexual?" in the past, I would dismiss it because I understood sex and have a sex drive. Once I actually researched asexuality, though, I almost immediately found stories of people who identify as ace and still experience a sex drive. I also discover a lot of stories from aromantic people that sound painfully similar to feelings I hadn't even realized were not the norm. For the first time I begin to realize I may not just be an ally.

So what does this mean

I came to a sense of satisfaction with living alone and single a long time ago. At first this came with a certain level of shame, because I felt like it was only because I was too cowardly to enter the dating scene and try to find a relationship for myself. Over time the impact of the shame diminished, but it never went away; it just became a quiet background noise that I got accustomed to pushing back.

But now that I feel comfortable calling myself "Aromantic", I don't feel any shame. A romantic relationship is simply something I don't need. Instead, I can focus on fostering the kinds of deep relationships that do feed my soul. That will likely be a difficult thing to do -- awkwardly traversing intimacy was something most people worked through as a teenager or young adult, and I'm nearly 30, haha. But it at least feels possible now.

But really the biggest change for me is that I feel like I can be honest and public about who I am in a way I never was before. Simply being open about this piece of my identity somehow feels important if for no other reason than to let other people who felt like I did growing up that they aren't alone.

So... yeah. I'm aroace. And I always have been.

#coming out #aroace #aromantic #asexual #pride #god it's nice to have an emotional post that doesn't need to be tagged as garbage for once

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margridarnauds · 6 years ago

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obscure ask meme: 14, 26, and 3

3. what movie/game/etc. helps you calm down?

The Mummy, 1789, and Chronicles of Narnia for me. Also: Star Trek: TNG and Murder, She Wrote. They’re basically like time portals. Also, given that I nearly cried while playing Wii: Endless Ocean recently, I THINK it’s safe to say that that one counts. Even listening to the opening number is just…memories. Happiness. Calm.

14. do you like makeup?

I like seeing what other PEOPLE can do with it and I’m always impressed and slightly envious of the transformation factor (the possibility of having cheekbones is very enticing, tbh), but I can’t be bothered to learn how to do it myself. It seems like an encumbrance as far as every day life. I DEFINITELY think it’s ridiculous that women are expected to double down on it in order to appear “professional” while their counterparts don’t.

26. what do you think about genderbent Solène or Olympe?

Hm…..I’m ALWAYS down for 1789 genderbends, because I think that you could get a really interesting story out of that, probably more interesting than the canon story. I would probably ship Fem!Laz/Fem!Ronan like fucking UPS.

More under the readmore because I ended up thinking way too much about this and very little of it ended up coherent:

I THINK Solène would be hard, if we’re assuming that she’s genderbent into a cis dude from a cis woman, given that Canon!Solène puts so much of an emphasis on childbirth=womanhood, which is personally……EH to me, especially when I know her character was written by a bunch of dudes, but….Hm, it’s hard because on one hand, I feel like a genderbent Solène (Solal?) wouldn’t have to deal with nearly the same issues that Solène has to deal with in canon. Obviously, Ronan fucking off to Paris after their father died would STILL be devastating on an emotional level, but it wouldn’t be quite the SAME level of devastation as a woman who’s lost her family home, the only source of economic stability they HAD in the form of the farm, and both of the major male figures in her life, with no inheritance or dowry to give her a cushion. The employment opportunities for a guy in France at this time were significantly larger, even though he COULD still be a sex worker, because it’s not like male sex workers didn’t exist at this time either, though there was always that added sense of danger due to the illegality of it. (Not that that…..REALLY stopped anyone. I mean, the Tuileries and Palais Royal were NOTORIOUS gay hangouts, though most of that, from what I REMEMBER was more casual sex rather than necessarily sex work.) And, tbh, you could even keep the Zuka/Toho thing with him getting a keeper, since it’s not like that would be UNUSUAL, though I could see him taking a more personal job like, say, a valet or a footman, since that would give off some plausible deniability. (Remember when I mentioned in Forgiveness that Ronan tended to act as Laz’s valet? YEEEEEEEEEP.)

I think that Ronan would STILL be horrified, because it would still be a little sibling of his and Ronan’s deep enough in the closet at this point that he can see Narnia from his house and I think that, for all his posturing, Ronan is still something of a country boy, but it wouldn’t be the same as his LITTLE SISTER, since a lot of Ronan’s issues with Solène and sex work stem from….him being an 18th century man. Solène “gave up her dignity,” and now Ronan’s perfect little image of a societally acceptable life post-Revolution, where he comes back and everything is nice and happy and they can live on the farm together and Solène can get married off to a nice man and have ten kids while Ronan gets married to a nice girl…that’s all gone. I don’t…let Ronan off EASY for seeing his sister as being “ruined,” even though I do think that I ultimately go a lot easier on him than a lot of people do, but I do think that’s very much where his line of thought’s going. One of Ronan’s biggest flaws is probably that, for all that he talks of Revolution and changing the world….he doesn’t really….know HOW to move beyond his own prejudices. He can be surprisingly conservative like that. Which is far from UNUSUAL for a revolutionary at the time; he’s not UNIQUE there. I do think that if Ronan saw his little brother as an aristocrat’s kept boy, he would still FREAK. And then become Lazare’s kept boy because DO AS I SAY AND NOT AS I DO.

Another thing that would be possible would be Solal becoming a soldier. That would be a job with steady shitty pay, food of questionable quality, a roof over his head of questionable quality. Soldiers occupied a very…ODD place in society at this point, if I’m remembering correctly from the research I did nearly a year ago, because on one hand, they COULD be seen as heroic everymen, but there was also a distinct stigma caused by their itinerant lifestyle (esp. re: women) and tendency of causing trouble in the towns where they were boarded. Because you have a bunch of guys in one town for a certain amount of time, some of them getting drunk and rowdy, particularly on holidays and festivals, and….It’s not the SAME level of stigma that sex workers had, obviously, but Ronan would probably NOT be happy with it, especially since it puts them on essentially opposite sides. I can also see Ronan FREAKING OUT over it because of the circumstances of their father’s death, which could cause a pretty similar argument to their canon argument. The “Je Veux le Monde” EQUIVALENT would then be him snapping against his superior officer and deserting to join the Revolution, where he and Ronan reconcile. Though, tbh, I’m not sold on EITHER of the Mazurier sibs being able to take orders. Like….Solène is pragmatic enough that Solal probably COULD, but I think he would be seething after a while, especially if he had a dick for an officer.

Tl;dr: I think that a genderbent Solène would still be POSSIBLE, but I also think that so much of Solène’s arc is really inextricably bound to her being a woman in 18th century France.

Olympe would also be difficult, because the entire reason that she meets up with Ronan is that she’s the Queen’s undergoverness/confidant, and I think that it would be very…difficult for a man to be in that same level of confidence. Or, at least, to be in that level of confidence and NOT be accused of having an affair with her himself. Maybe he’s a young, softspoken courtier who somehow gets entangled in the whole situation? Maybe even a friend of Fersen’s, as opposed to Antoinette’s, with his Enlightenment ideals contrasting to Fersen’s conservatism? His father wanted him for military service initially so that he could carry on the family tradition, but instead he somehow became wrapped up in court life instead, learning to keep his mouth closed and smile. (Though in contrast to, say, Laz’s family, his father was very supportive of him taking an alternative path, even if he was disappointed.) But who still has a conscience and so rushes to the Bastille to try to save Ronan’s life anyway when things go south.

I actually think that Genderbent!Olympe would have a lot in common with Laz, since they would both have that military background and both are doggedly loyal to the Royal Family. With the key difference being that M!Olympe isn’t as DEEP into things as Laz is. Laz is just…covered in blood at this point, whereas M!Olympe ISN’T.

Also, IF we go with the “Solal is a soldier” option, then that gives the two of them more of an opportunity to meet if Solal is anywhere near the Bastille at the time.

It would also explain a LOT about his fear about getting involved with either of the Mazurier sibs, because THAT could ruin his life at court, and it would give Artois some leverage to try to use. Not that I haven’t written a carbon copy of that plotline with Laz before.

Again, it’s hard, because so MUCH of Olympe’s role is tied into being a woman in 18th century France. Again, not IMPOSSIBLE, but DIFFERENT. I think that you would end up with a completely different plot/character.

#olympe du puget #solène mazurier #fallenidol-453

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animebw · 5 years ago

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Binge-Watching: Paranoia Agent, Episodes 7-10

In which we splinter into a million different directions, some good, some less so, and all of which make it apparent what’s going on with this show’s bizarre construction.

No Guarantees

I think I’ve figured out what’s going on here.

I’ve been banging my head against the brick wall of Paranoia Agent for a while now, trying to hash out my feelings towards it without ever feeling like I even understand what those feelings are. I’ve been a blind kid lost wandering in the dark, groping for things that might not even exist. And that hasn’t been a fun experience, not for me and most likely not for you either. My best analyses are the ones that inspire me, the shows that make me want to buckle down and ruin my wrists with two straight hours of writing breaking down every single noteworthy aspect and how they all interlock with each other. At the end of the day, I write for this blog because I enjoy doing so, and I never want that to stop being the case. But I haven’t been inspired by Paranoia Agent, and I haven’t been able to figure out why. I’ve had so many disparate thoughts and conflicting streams of consciousness regarding what it is and what it’s trying to do, and trying to wrap them into any sort of coherent point has proven an exercise in frustration and futility. How do I write about my opinions toward a show when I’m not even sure myself what to make of those opinions? Why can’t I get a clearer picture of my own reactions and ultimate conclusions? Why can’t I get a read on this freaking show?

Well, after reaching the end of this stretch of episodes, I thin the reason’s become apparent: the reason I can’t figure out Paranoia Agent is because the show itself is written in such a way that it’s nearly impossible to figure it out.

See, I knew going in that Paranoia Agent was going to be heavily mystery-driven, and from what I’d heard of Satoshi Kon as a director, I was prepared for things to get trippy and surreal as time passed. But that’s not the kind of obfuscation I’m talking about here. What I mean is that Paranoia Agent, on a moment to moment basis, gives you no guarantees about what you’re about to get. Remember last session where I was utterly baffled by that one episode descending into Loony Tunes farce territory to explore the psyche of the supposed Lil Slugger captured by the police? It turns out, that kind of episode-to-episode experimentation is kind of the norm with this show. Despite the consistent grimy, saggy, brick-brown aesthetic, the actual tone of any individual pocket of this universe is completely up for grabs. And at this point, the plot has fractured to such an extent that the show is able to leap between completely disconnected events and tell completely disconnected stories in the same universe, swapping tone, location, setting, characters, overall flow, and even animation style at the drop of a hat. In fact, looking at the show as a whole thus far, Paranoia Agent is less about an overarching story and more about being a playground for different explorations of similar ideas. Every episode in this chunk goes in a completely different direction than the others, with completely different intentions and executions, only loosely recognizable as still part of Paranoia Agent by the continued focus on Lil Slugger and the themes of societal corruption, anxiety, and escape from pain. It’s a thirteen-episode mood piece where the mood is never a given.

Answers and Questions

To see what I mean, one need only look at how vastly different all these four episodes are. Episode 7 continues the main plot but ramps up the intensity to a million, using a repeated motif of harsh white light that casts the city in the same bleached, sinister glow as Stein;s Gate. Following the one policeman’s descent into insanity as he dives further and further down the rabbit hole of the Lil Slugger case, his psyche collapses into a surreal dreamscape reminiscent of a David Lynch film (his dream of the old man, in particular, was very much like the Club Silencio scene from Mulholland Drive) as he uncovers a series of chilling secrets and connections that both clarify the ethos driving the mysterious vigilante and yet make it increasingly obvious that whoever he is, he may be beyond mortal comprehension. As it turns out, the kid they captured was a red herring all along, a pretender to the throne inspired to take up the Lil Slugger mantle after hearing about him. But the only people he actually attacked where the fat kid and the police officer; the rest of them were subject to the real deal. And as both the policeman and myself realized at pretty much the exact same time, that means the only people the fake attacked were the only people who weren’t saved from their pain. In other words, my theory was true from the beginning; Lil Slugger comes to those backed into an emotional corner and offers a release from their pain and stress, a release that cleanses their anxiety and leaves them smiling emptily, like hollow dummies staring dead-eyed out upon a perfect world. Whether that’s a metaphor for drugs, technology, or just an all-purpose symbolic blanket, it’s clear he represents what so many people in today’s increasingly anxious society long for: the ability to forget all their troubles and just be happy, ignorant, and dumb.

It also makes for the best episode of the series thus far, thanks to some truly incredible direction that sells the policeman’s slow descent into insanity with chilling effect. From the slow build of his increasing delusions to the hrsh cuts between points in his life, it blurs the line of fantasy and reality until you can no longer trust when the next hard cut will be this poor guy waking up from a nightmare or if he’s actually experiencing the warped world we’re seeing through his eyes. I honestly thought that dream of Lil Slugger coming to clock his brains out was the real deal; that’s how well the lines were blurred. You really get the sense that whoever Lil Slugger is, if he comes for the emotionally desperate, the policeman isn’t too far down on the hit list. And the build to the reveal that he’s the man on the radio, trying to tap into some unknown channel to spread the truth throughout the world, had my jaw on the floor. That moment at the end of the episode where he opens the door to his room and the silence is suddenly cut with the scream of radio noises in his basement, drilling the truth into us with the unexpected shriek of a man gone mad? I say again, this show’s soundscape is second to none. But it still leaves fascinating questions to mull over when all is said and done. How does the old man fit into all of this? Why does the symbolism in the dream sequences cast his as Lil Slugger’s double, or like a copycat who can spit and multiply and lurk behind every face at once? But the most terrifying question of all? Lil Slugger just committed his first actual murder. For the first time, his attack ended not in emotional salvation, but death. And judging by future episodes, it’s only the first time his attacks end in death. Somehow, for some reason, the holy warrior is ramping up. Whatever darkness is coming, it’s coming fast. And the fact that I’m still excited to see what that darkness is is a testament to the strength of Paranoia Agent’s thematic prowess. When it’s operating on this level of societal exploration, it is fantastic.

Circus

But that’s just that one episode. There are three more episodes on this bunch, and all of them splinter off in completely different directions that I can barely register how they’re supposed to connect to each other. Episode 8 is another wacky-zappy slapstick routine, this time focusing on a bumbling found family of lunkheads looking for the best way to kill themselves. Yes, really, that’s the level of tonal whiplash we’re dealing with here. And for almost the entire episode, we have no idea how it connects back to the main story. There’s no familiar characters, no reference to Lil Slugger, and even the animation style is cruder and more unpolished to facilitate broader expressions and physical comedy. It’s an incredibly bizarre, off-putting experience that feels tonally at odds with the rest of the show, and that’s even before the weird stylistic tic that has the characters sometimes converse in screenshot text messages taking the place of their actual words for some bizarre reason. We eventually connect back to the main plot when they settle on trying to call Lil Slugger to kill them, but even then, it’s not clear if we’ll ever see these people again. They just don’t fit the universe established by this show’s main narrative. They’re too wacky, too bizarre, too bumbling and buoyant to make sense in the same universe, to the point where I was half-expecting this to be some really freaky dream sequence. And that’s not even considering that if this episode really is part of the same world, that implies there are people who just can’t die no matter how they try to kill themselves. I mean, some fucker jumped in front of a train and somehow stumble off it dragging his broken foot like it was any other Wednesday. How do I even square that with the world’s internal mechanics?

Episode 9 fares a lot better than that one, because it’s at least got a coherent point to make. It centers around a quartet of gossiping ladies telling increasingly outlandish stores about Lil Slugger and his attacks, jumping between genres just as frequently and jarringly as these episodes. That actually made me chuckle, seeing these dopes try to one-up themselves with tall tales that swung between maudlin romance to family drama to medical thriller, and by the time Lil Slugger was showing up in people’s wombs I was having a ball. But it’s when they turn on the fourth member of their group that things really pick up in a nastily entertaining way; her stories are no more outlandish than any of theirs, but because she’s the outsider in their clique, she’s the one who gets called out and shut down. It doesn’t matter which of the stories they tell, if any, are actually true; what matters is what people get to tell them. The truth is enforced not by objective reality, but by societal hierarchy that determines which voices are given precedence. The strongest personalities dominate, and it doesn’t matter how wrong they might be or how right the ostracized woman might be; the in-group determines what’s true, and what’s true is what they determine. It’s a microcosm of Orwellion groupthink at its finest, and the moment at the end of the episode where the outcast responds to her husband’s attack by prioritizing the story over his life is the last nasty nail in the coffin to bring it home. When your truth means nothing without the story, reality no longer matters. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt or who suffers, so long as you have the power to exert your “truth” into the world. Once again, when Paranoia Agent is on its societal storytelling bent, it packs a hell of a punch.

Episode 10, sadly, descend right back into uncertain territory for me. It takes the form of a sardonic infomercial on the anime industry, with cute mascot Maromi’s informational diatribes on the people that make anime set not to an upbeat infomercial, but a cynical, bitter, destructive portrait of a production falling apart, almost like a thumb in the eye to Shirobako (which I know was made almost a decade later, but shut up, I’m trying to make a point here). And I do appreciate how Maromi’s peppy speeches start becoming punctuated by increasingly nihilistic conclusions as the episode goes on, as well as the reality-warping ways the animation of the show the team’s making starts to creep into the world of Paranoia Agent at large, blending the lines between the unreal and real once again. But this time, I think the lines become too blurred too fast; I completely lost track of what was happening by the end, when anything came to pass, what sequence of events led up to the climax and how it all fell out in the end. I get the point that this one guy’s incompetence ended up stressing everyone else out so much that Lil Slugger showed up to save them, a black metaphor for the sorry work conditions of the anime industry. But the logical progression of events ended up losing me by the end.

Take a Rest

But the real issue at the heart of the matter here isn’t the objective quality of any one of these episodes. What’s throwing me about Paranoia Agent is I legitimately have no idea how they’re all going to fit together in the end. We’re three episodes away from being done, and there are still so many loose ends and unanswered questions that need to be addressed. But all of these episodes take place in such vastly different headspaces, with such seemingly different rules, that I have no idea how they’re all going to mesh into the same universe. The rules are never a given with this show, and while that can be exhilarating when it’s got its eyes on the goal, it spins off in so many different tangents that I often struggle to understand what the connections are supposed to be. It’s like Penguindrum in that way; I’m never quite sure if the surreal dreamscape in front of me actually makes sense or if it’s just a smattering of random bullshit with no connective tissue. And at least with Penguindrum, the emotional core of the story was strong enough to bring it to a close in the end. Paranoia Agent purposefully doesn’t have that warm center, so when it can’t rely on the strength of its focus to justify its harsh attitude, it really starts sinking for me. We’ve still got one more session to go, though, so maybe everything will sort itself out by the end. After that, I’m going to take Episode 10′s final advice and take a rest. Overwork is never something to aspire to, after all. And something tells me we’re all gonna need to take that advice when everything is said and done.

Odds and Ends

-Oh shit, I just realized; they don’t have any shadows. What does it meeeean.

-Accurate depiction of higher education there. Jesus, what a perfect visual metaphor for students being overstuffed with information.

-Okay, the black humor of Maromi’s PSA going over the dead animation director was a very nice touch.

And so we press on. See you next time for the end of Paranoia Agent!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #paranoia agent #mousou dairinin

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that-wandering-belle · 6 years ago

Text

The Beginning of Another Story...

So this was my contribution for the Klaroline Sweet Swap exchange :P Hope you guys enjoy and thanks for reading! :)

Isn't it lovely, all alone Heart made of glass, my mind of stone Tear me to pieces, skin to bone Hello, welcome home

There's screaming. So much screaming coming from what feels like every direction around him and it takes Klaus a moment to realize the screams are all coming from him.

And there's the pain too. The type of pain that makes you feel like you're being ripped apart from the inside out and if he were more coherent, he might wonder if this is karma for all the people he's caused this very type of pain to.

There's another flash of Henrik covered in his blood, Kol engulfed in flames. Mikael's hateful face as he finishes beating him.

And then, another blood curdling scream as he feels a new and stronger wave of pain.

He can hear the chanting but his mind is too far gone from the pain for him to discern who's chanting what and his eyes are too blinded by that same pain to see who it is.

And as he lies there, his body writhing in the most excruciating pain he's ever endured, he knows. This is it.

So this is how I go out…

He closes his eyes and the pain subsides just enough for all the shouting to stop for a moment. And for just a moment, he's able to think a little more clearly and he thinks about his life. He thinks about his family, the ones he's lost and the ones still here and all that they've been through over the centuries. From being turned into the first vampires, to hybrid curses, to running from Mikael, to daggers and coffins.

And he thinks about her.

Caroline.

He had told her once, "It would be impossible not to notice you," and he meant it.

He thinks about their first meeting in that classroom with Tyler to when she walked back into his life after more than a decade because of his sister's doing. He thinks about the months they spent in Buenos Aires with her friends, Bonnie and Enzo, trying to figure out a solution to their problem with the Hollow and how miraculously during that time, he and Caroline grew closer. He thinks about the time he'd almost kissed her while they danced too slow for the upbeat song on one of those nights, before they were interrupted.

And he thinks about how bittersweet their last exchange earlier that night and he hated the thought that it could be their final exchange...

He finds her in the library, pouring over one of the grimoires but he can tell by how tense her body is that she's not really concentrating.

"Hey," she says when she looks up and sees him, her eyes raking over him but not the lustful way he's caught her doing over the last few months when she thought he wasn't looking.

No, she's looking for any sign that something's wrong.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, her voice laced with a worry she can't disguise.

"I'm fine," he assures her. "No pain. No hallucinations. Unless this is one of them but even if that were the case, I can't really find it in myself to complain," he adds with a smirk but she doesn't take the bait.

With a sigh, he moves around the desk where she's sitting and gently takes the book from her.

"What are you doing?" she immediately protests, trying to snatch it back but he places it out of her immediate reach.

"When was the last time you slept or fed, Caroline?" he asks seriously.

"I'm fine," she repeats his words. "Now can I have Bonnie's grimoire back please?"

"That wasn't exactly an answer to my question, love," he points out dryly.

"Really?" she laughs humorlessly and it hits him how much he misses the sound of her laugh.

Not this, but her actual, genuine laugh. And her smile. God, what he wouldn't give for a genuine Caroline Forbes smile right about now.

Both had started to diminish when the hallucinations had started because of the Hollow a few weeks back, and he hadn't seen or heard either again since he'd received that phone call from Freya, letting him know that something was wrong with the others.

The four originals had taken the Hollow from Freya to save their sister. Since the Hollow could only be anchored by something nearly as ancient and powerful as it was, at the time, the only solution they had found was to transfer into themselves but they had split it into four and went their separate ways to weaken it and keep it from possessing any of them. But as it turned out, it had only been weakening their own bodies all this time.

Weakening them enough that it would have completely possessed or killed them had Klaus not taken all of the pieces of the Hollow inside of himself after trying to dessicate them as another temporary solution had failed.

Being a hybrid and therefore more powerful than the others, he had the advantage of not being as affected as they were. Not at the time.

But that had soon changed after all of the Hollow had been transferred into just him alone a few short days ago...

"You're concerned about me when you're the one who- who…" she trails off, shaking her head with a sad smile.

"Hey look at me," he speaks quietly as he crouches in front of her and gently tilts her chin to get her to do it. "It's all going to be fine. Aren't you supposed to be the ever optimistic one?"

She shoots him a look and he smiles a little.

Truth is, he wants to believe his own words but he has no idea if this plan will actually work. "All magic has a loophole, a check and balance of some sort, even this," Freya had insisted. There was scarcely any information to be found on the Hollow, most of it being myths and legends, so their search had not been easy or very fruitful. But, after searching for years and working tirelessly for the past couple of days, they thought they had finally managed to find a way to destroy it. It was a long shot, Bonnie had said, but it was still a shot, and it was better than nothing.

Well, he couldn't argue there.

Now the plan was set and now they just had to wait until the moon was at its highest for that would be when the witches would be at their strongest. Unfortunately, there was no way to determine if the moon's position affected the Hollow too but it was a risk they were going to have to take because they were running out of time.

He brings up his hand to cup the side of her face and gently strokes it with his thumb and feels her lean into his touch, her eyes softening as they meet his.

That doesn't long however, when she notices the black veins on his arm from the dark magic roiling inside him and growing more powerful while his body grows weaker by the second. He feels it, but he's determined not to let it show, especially when he sees the worried look cross her features again and decides she could use with a distraction.

What a nice change in roles, he thinks wryly.

"Come on, love," he says as he stands and gently tugs on her hand to get her to stand too. "I think a break is in order and I do believe I owe you a tour," he smirks.

Since they had arrived in New Orleans a few days ago, they had all been too busy trying to find a solution to get a chance to look around the busy and colorful city.

"A tour?" she repeats incredulously. "Seriously?"

"Yes," he chuckles. "Believe it or not, I'm a fantastic tour guide. There's a lot I can show you about this city."

"You mean all the food, art, and culture?" she asks, with the first hint of a smile he's seen in a while and that, coupled with her words, have a bright and dimpled grin forming on his face.

"You did get it. I had wondered…"

She looks away briefly and if he didn't know any better, he would say she looks almost embarrassed.

"What is it?" he asks curiously.

"I…" she sighs and takes a step back to retrieve her phone from where it sits buried under some books on the desk.

He watches her curiously tap away at the screen until a few moments later, he hears his own voice playing through the speaker and he didn't think it was possible for his smile to grow anymore but trust Caroline to be able to do the impossible.

"You kept it."

She nods once, another small and almost shy smile playing on her lips.

"I've been transferring it from phone to phone over the past 16 years," she admits. "I think a part of me has always known that I would eventually take you up on your offer… I was just scared before."

He feels a sting at the thought that Caroline was afraid of him, but he nods in understanding because he can see why. He had given her plenty of reasons to fear him in the past.

"I can see where it's not so simple deciding to take a trip with the big bad hybrid," he tries to say jokingly and is a little confused when she quickly shakes her head.

"It wasn't that," she assures him and looks away with a small sigh before continuing. "Years ago, there was a hunter that was after Stefan and was targeting everyone he cared about to lure him out of hiding. She almost killed me, but I managed to get away with Matt's help."

Klaus listens intently, inside feeling the anger rise and already plotting the death of this nameless hunter if she wasn't already dead.

"Matt told me it wasn't safe for me to stay in Mystic Falls, not until that had all blown over, so he told me to go somewhere I knew would be safe. So… I packed some things and got into my car and I drove here… to New Orleans."

Klaus isn't sure he remembers how to breathe. He's watching her intently and trying to keep that wretched hope at bay but failing miserably and when she looks up at him and finally meets his gaze again, he knows he's done for.

"I was in trouble, and I came to find you," she speaks softly but firmly. "Because I think deep down, a part of me has also always known that you weren't the villain of my story."

His hand is moving before he can even think, coming up to cup the side of her face and pull her closer, unable to stand the distance between them. He wants nothing more than to feel her, to touch his lips to hers but he shows some restraint and instead closes his eyes as he rests his forehead against hers because not touching her at all right now feels like an even worst agony than the one he's been subjected to the last couple of days with the Hollow.

So he takes a moment to just breathe her in and he feels her hand come up to clutch his arm, as if she were trying to hold his hand there. As if he would even think about moving it.

That wretched hope courses through him but it feels like it's taunting him. Making him think he might finally be so close to having everything he wants, his family well and together and Caroline by his side, all at once. If only he could count on having time…

"In all the time I've been alive, I have had but a few regrets," he speaks so quietly she would probably have a hard time hearing if not for her own supernatural hearing. "But I think perhaps one of my biggest regrets is not getting more of that time with you, Caroline."

He feels her grip on his arm tighten as she shakes her head.

"Stop," she says as she pulls back and he can see the tears that form in her eyes. "Stop talking like you're going to die. You're not going to die. You can't. You owe me a tour remember?"

He can feel his chest constrict at the way her voice cracks in the last part.

"So you can't die because I'll find a way to bring you back just to kick your ass myself understood?" she tries to add on jokingly as she blinks back the tears.

Or at least, he thinks it's jokingly.

He smiles a little and uses his thumb to catch one of the tears that escapes her in that moment.

"I'll try my best," he says with a ghost of a smile as he touches his forehead to hers again and closes his eyes.

He wants nothing more than to be able to stay with her like this forever. To just be able to hold her, to feel her just like this always. He loves her. The time spent apart had not changed that. He still loves her and somehow, by some miracle, he did something right to earn her affections enough for her to not push him away in this moment. And if this moment is all he has with her, it was worth it.

He pulls back just enough to take her in, his eyes taking in every little detail, recommitting every every line, every curve, every freckle, every inch of her face to memory.

She opens her eyes and meets his gaze and he feels that now too familiar ache in his chest. He stays absolutely still as she lets her eyes explore every inch of his face like he'd done with her just moments ago, before she lets her hand trace the same path her eyes had just followed.

He just watches her, suddenly too afraid to move and realize that this was yet just another hallucination. But then her eyes meet his again and her hand slips around his neck, pulling him closer while she leans in and closes the gap between them and presses her lips against his.

The kiss is soft and almost tentative at first, but it quickly becomes hungry and passionate and his arm wrapped possessively around her, holding her close, like he would never be able to hold her close enough. For a split second, he worried he might be hurting her, but when he loosened his hold on her, she immediately used her own hands to pull him closer again, almost like she couldn't stand any inch of distance between them either.

When he pulls back, he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against hers again and the words slip past his lips.

"I love you."

Her eyes snap open and for a second she looks just as surprised as he feels and almost a thousand years of insecurities and believing no one outside of perhaps his family could ever love him, have him bracing himself for the sting of her rejection.

But then he sees her eyes soften again before she captures his lips again in a kiss that's not soft and tentative like the other first started. No, this kiss is filled with a passion he's not experienced before. As if she's trying to show him how she feels about him even if she can't say it in words and it's more than he thinks he deserves.

She finally pulls back but doesn't leave his arms and he tries to hold her closer, ignoring the pain and trying to focus only on the blonde in his arms for just a moment longer.

But soon, too soon, they hear the sounds of his siblings and the others, and they both know it's almost time to go.

He doesn't immediately let her go however, and brings up his hand to cup her face and let his eyes take her in, even if only one last time…

"In case this is all the time we get-"

"If you start saying your goodbyes right now, I will hurt you," she tries to say sternly but her voice cracks as she speaks.

He feels the faintest of smiles tug on his lips as he nods and gently strokes the side of her face, like he's unable to stop touching her.

"You were my last love," he murmurs almost as if he were speaking to himself, speaking so quietly, nobody else would be able to hear him.

But she does. And she chokes out a sob as the tears start anew and it takes her a moment before she can finally speak.

"And you're supposed to be mine," she whispers.

And as he presses his lips to hers again, he wonders how it can be possible to feel his heart simultaneously soaring and breaking at the same time.

He thinks he hears someone shouting his name. He even thinks it might be Rebekah but he's too exhausted to check to be sure.

When the darkness washes over him, he can't help but welcome it.

xxxxx

Klaus can hear the sound of voices off in the distance and he frowns, unable to discern what they're saying.

The pain has seemed to finally have stopped, but he feels like his body's trying to recover after being broken in half.

Hell, for all he knows, maybe it was.

The voices stop and everything is quiet again. Too quiet and he has to wonder if he actually heard anything at all. Everything feels so uncertain and he hates it.

As more of his senses seem to finally start to become more alert, he becomes aware of the weight pressing against his back and around his middle.

That's enough to make him finally jerk awake and for a second, he's confused as to where he is until he recognizes his surroundings.

He's back in his room.

He has no idea how he got there, no idea what happened-

"Klaus?"

At the sound of her voice, he immediately turns and finds Caroline blinking up at him and he has a sudden and strong urge to take her in his arms and hold her close. To confirm that this was real. That she was real.

"Are you okay?" she asks as she slowly sits up, her voice laced with a concern that matches the one in her eyes as she takes him in.

He nods, because he can't seem to find his voice in that moment.

He feels like everything is still uncertain, his mind still not entirely convinced that this is all real and not another one of the Hollow's tricks.

Maybe he was still dying back in that circle. Maybe they had failed in defeating the Hollow.

But then he feels her hand cover his, distracting him from his thoughts for a moment.

"Hey," she says softly, keeping her eyes on him. "What are you thinking right now?"

"What happened?" he asks. "Is the Hollow-"

"It's done," she informs him, with no small amount of relief in her tone. "Bonnie, Freya, Davina, Vincent and the coven… they did it. We don't know if it was because they all combined their powers or the spell actually worked, but they did it. It's really gone," she gives him a watery smile. "You've been sleeping for like 10 hours now but, it's gone, Klaus. It's done."

He almost doesn't dare believe her, a part of him doesn't want to. A part of him still unconvinced that this isn't all just some hallucination, the most cruel hallucination of them all so far. To make him believe that he might actually have a chance at getting what he wants before ripping that hope away.

Almost as if sensing his thoughts, he feels her bring her hand up to cup the side of his face, her soft blue eyes peering intently into his own.

"Hey, listen to me," she says softly but firmly. "It's over. It's done."

He brings up his hand to cover hers, as if her touch is the only thing anchoring him, making him believe that this is real.

"It's done…" he repeats, needing to say the words himself to believe it.

It's not exactly a question, but Caroline nods anyway, and he sees the beginning of a smile form on her lips. That honest to goodness Caroline Forbes smile that he had missed since this had all started and his eyes eagerly try to recommit it to memory.

"Thank you," he says, keeping his eyes on hers.

"For what?" she asks with a slightly confused look.

"For helping me," he answers earnestly. "For staying by my side through all of it. I know it wasn't exactly easy."

She nods subtly and gives him a slightly watery smile.

"Thank you for not dying," she responds, only partly joking and it brings a small smile to his face. "I really would have hated looking for a way to bring you back just to kick your ass."

He can't help the laugh that escapes him then, and as he watches the bright smile that appears on her face as she looks at him, that honest to goodness Caroline Forbes smile that could light up the room, hell the whole block , he can't stand the distance between them any longer.

He slowly leans in and she meets him halfway, her lips easily finding his as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her closer. This kiss is different from the others. Whereas the others were filled with heartbreak and the regret of unfulfilled wishes and promises, this one is full of life and promise. A promise of something new. Something better.

And as he eases her down back onto his bed, he pulls back just to take her in again, as if to reassure himself one more time that this is real. That they are real.

He takes in her blue eyes that are once more shining with that happiness he's missed seeing in them. He takes in her lips, swollen from his kisses, and he sees the corners tug up into a blinding smile that's he's powerless not to return.

He quickly leans in and captures her lips again in another hungry kiss and soon he's moving them down her neck, leaving a trail of kisses against the soft skin he's longed to taste since he left her that day in the woods.

He hears her giggle when he finds that ticklish spot so he repeats his motion just to hear that sound again.

"You know your family is probably going to be waiting to talk to you right?" she says as he kisses his way up her jaw now.

"I know," he agrees, smiling when he feels her shiver slightly as he softly nips at the skin.

"I'm serious," she says a little breathlessly. "They wanted to talk about your meeting with the witches later."

The witches had all agreed to help the Mikaelson's, well, primarily Klaus, on the condition that a treaty be put in place between them. While Klaus had grumbled about how impractical it would be, he was running short on options and Caroline was optimistic that this treaty would allow the witches and vampires of New Orleans to peacefully coexist.

"Later," he says, stealing another quick kiss. "It can wait for now."

And he would talk to them, he wasn't trying to avoid anything, he just wanted to enjoy this moment with her a little longer before it was time to go out there and face the world again.

Either she senses his thoughts or she feels the same way as him, because she subtly nods and brings up her hand to wrap it around his neck and pulls him down to her again.

This time, their kiss is unhurried, the two of them content to just be together like this. To be together at all.

And as he feels the weight of her arms wrapping tightly around him, holding him like she'll never be able to hold him close enough, he smiles into the kiss and he thinks this must be what coming home feels like.

Because in that moment, it's what he feels. Like he was coming home after almost 1,000 years and finding peace.

Yes, it felt like coming home and finding peace at last.

xxxxx

Caroline is now convinced that the Mikaelson's really do have some kind of Cinderella fetish.

After the Hollow had been defeated, Rebekah and Kol had almost immediately announced that a celebration was in order. And of course, that celebration came in the form of a ball.

"It's Mardi Gras, it would be a crime if we didn't celebrate!"

Caroline had only rolled her eyes half-heartedly while Marcel laughed and Klaus smirked, both very clearly receptive to the idea.

Even Bonnie and Enzo had seemed a little more than receptive to the idea.

Not that she wasn't receptive herself. She always did enjoy a good celebration herself (especially if she was the one planning it), but if she were being completely honest, it was the thought of attending this grand party with a bunch of old, powerful, and worldly vampires that made her a little nervous.

Especially considering that she would be attending the party with Klaus as his… girlfriend?

They haven't really gotten the chance to really talk about everything in relation to them yet.

After he'd woken up that morning, they might have gotten a little carried away doing other things that certainly involved their mouths, but not exactly talking.

She's not sure if she'll ever be able to bring herself to look most of his family or his minions directly in the eye after she'd been horrified to discover that they had heard everything that she and Klaus had been up to when Freya not so subtly (but kindly), suggested getting sage for all of the rooms and the embarrassed look on Elijah's face, amused look on Kol's, and disgusted look on Rebekah's more than confirmed why.

Klaus of course had remained completely unbothered by it all, but he had made sure that none of his family -Kol and Rebekah- would make her feel even more uncomfortable about it.

After that embarrassing meeting that thankfully ended sooner rather than later, she'd bid Klaus goodbye much to his dismay. But she knew he needed that alone time with his siblings and Marcel, knowing that after that ordeal they had all gone through together, they needed that as much as she and Klaus needed it in the morning.

And maybe she also needed that time with her friends. Bonnie had also been through her own ordeal with helping in defeat the Hollow and Caroline wanted to spend time with her oldest friend and see how she was doing.

They had spent the rest of the afternoon at the place Bonnie and Enzo had chosen to stay at since arriving to New Orleans, and apparently would continue staying in for the foreseeable near future. They watch reruns of crappy day time TV while sort of talking about what came next, and listening to Enzo's old stories about his Mardi Gras experiences before Bonnie announced she was hungry.

They were supposed to be trying to decide on what to order for dinner, but Caroline finds herself a little distracted. Has been a little distracted almost the whole day, truth be told.

She keeps thinking about his confession, his 'I love you' replaying over and over in her mind. She remembers all those years ago, when she told him she knew that he was in love with her and he hadn't denied it, and of course, she remembers clear as day her graduation night, his whole 'I intend to be your last' was pretty dang hard to forget, but hearing him say the actual words, especially more than a decade later, it felt like something else entirely.

Needless to say, it had taken her by surprise. It had left her breathless… and maybe a little scared. Not scared of him. No, scared of her feelings for him because she knows she's falling for him too. Falling hard . She meant it when she told him that he was supposed to be her last love. Because since he came back into her life, a part of her has known that he would be. But believing and knowing don't make this all any less terrifying. Sure, she's fallen in love before, but not like this. This is different and maybe that's why she was afraid of loving him but she knows, she can't stop herself from falling for him anymore than she could stop the sun from rising or setting.

And she's terrified. Terrified of losing herself and after what they've just gone through, she's terrified of losing him too.

"Gorgeous?" she hears Enzo's voice break through her thoughts and she quickly turns to look at him. "Where'd you go just now?"

"Yeah, is everything okay, Care?" Bonnie asks, looking at her with a hint of concern. "You've seemed a little distracted all day."

"Yeah, no everything is fine," she quickly assures them. "I just…"

"Don't tell me there's trouble in paradise already?" Enzo asks, only half-joking, making Caroline roll her eyes.

"No, everything with Klaus is fine," she answers and looks away as she feels her face heat a little. "He told me he loves me."

Both Bonnie and Enzo don't say anything for a beat and she looks back at them.

"Sorry Gorgeous, but was that supposed to be a secret? If so, it was the worst kept secret on the planet after the BT Tower in London."

Caroline shoots him a look and hears Bonnie laugh.

"Sorry Care, but he's got a point," Bonnie agrees. "Is Klaus telling you that he loves you a bad thing?"

"No," she answers quickly.

"But?" Bonnie probes, sensing there was more.

"I'm… I'm falling for him too," she confesses, feeling her cheeks flush.

She catches sight of Bonnie and Enzo share a look and she frowns a little.

"What's that look?" she asks.

"Nothing," Bonnie answers. "It's just… that's also the worst kept secret on the planet after Klaus being in love with you."

"Seriously, Bonnie? You too?!" she reproaches, making the couple laugh.

"I'm sorry but it's true," Bonnie shrugs. "Anyone who sees you two together can see it."

"Yeah, you two always look like you're one loaded glance away from tearing each other's clothes off," Enzo mutters with a smirk.

"Thanks, Enzo," she smiles sarcastically.

"You haven't told Klaus, have you?" Bonnie guesses. "That you're falling for him?"

She looks away sheepishly before answering.

"I couldn't…" she admits. "I'm scared I guess."

"Scared of what?"

"I've just… I've never felt this way about anyone before and I guess I'm scared that I'll lose myself. That I'll wake up 500 years from now and I won't recognize myself because I've let myself be consumed by this love that it's changed me. And maybe I'm scared that if I let myself love him, I won't know how to stop and that one day, I'll wake up 500 years from now and he'll decide forever is too long to spend with someone like me, and he'll walk away. And what if something like the problem with the Hollow happens again but this time we're not so lucky and I can't...," her voice cracks, and she feels her chest constrict at just the thought. "And I just keep hearing this little voice in my head that keeps telling me that maybe I should just walk away now before I'm in too deep."

"Oh Care," Bonnie says with a sympathetic smile as she moves to sit on the couch beside her and wrap her arms around her. "I don't really don't think you have to worry about any of that. For one, I won't let you lose yourself, even if that means locking you up and doing hypnosis," she jokes.

Caroline shakes her head with a small laugh, especially as Enzo agrees he'll help.

"But I don't think I'll have to because I know you won't let yourself get lost," Bonnie continues sincerely. "The fact that you're even thinking about this let me knows you'll be fine. And yeah, this was a close call but you have to focus not on the fact that he almost died, but the fact that he lived. Besides, like death would be able to stop Klaus Mikaelson for long? I think he's more stubborn than you so between the both of you, nothing stand a chance," she jokes. "That voice in your head is wrong. I mean, you're already thinking about a future 500 years down the line with him. I think you're already in too deep."

Caroline can feel her face burning and finds she doesn't know what to say to that, especially as Bonnie's words really hit her and she realizes in that moment that her friend is right.

"And don't worry, Gorgeous," Enzo smirks. "He's definitely on the same page as you. Trust me, he's thinking of forever with you too."

"How could you know that?" she asks genuinely curious.

Sure, his whole 'last love' speech implied he was thinking long-haul with her, but she had never told anyone about what happened that night on the football field.

"I see it in the way he looks at you," Enzo says simply. "It's the same way I look at Bonnie."

There are no words to describe the smile that spreads on Bonnie's face and Caroline feels a smile tug on her lips as she looks at her two best friends, feeling a rush of happiness for them. And maybe as she watches them together and sees how easily they can talk about forever, well maybe it eases some of her fears too.

xxxxx

A while later, Caroline arrives back at the Mikaelson's and is surprised to find Klaus waiting for her.

"Hey, is everything okay?" she asks, concern lacing her voice.

"Everything is fine," he assures her with a grin as he wraps his arms around her. "How was your visit with Bonnie and Lorenzo?"

She rolls her eyes a little amusedly the same way she always does every time he calls Enzo by his name.

"It was good," she answers with a slightly sheepish smile as she remembers what they talked about but she hopes he doesn't notice the slight change in her behavior. "Bonnie and I are planning on going dress shopping this week for your family's ball. You guys really have a Cinderella fetish don't you?" she adds teasingly.

"I have not the slightest idea what you mean," he smirks.

"Do you think your sister might want to come dress shopping with us?" she wonders and sees him smile.

"I'm sure she'd enjoy that. Bekah looks for any excuse to go shopping, how much more with someone who has the same penchant for it," he teases.

"Sorry not sorry," she shrugs with a smirk. "How did it go with your family today?"

"Better than I could have expected," he smiles and she feels a smile tug on her lips too. "Now, how's about a trip with just you and me?" he adds with a mischievous smile.

"And where are we going?" she adds with a raised brow, a smile still playing on her lips.

"I believe we have a tour that's long overdue don't you think?" he asks with a dimpled grin.

She smiles and eagerly takes his hand and as they make their way out the door, it's hard to tell who's leading who.

xxxxx

They spend the next couple of hours exploring New Orleans which is even livelier and more colorful during this Mardi Gras season and as he shows her some of his favorite spots, she thinks she can finally understand why this is one of his favorite places in the world and she thinks she can't wait to see his other favorite places in the world with him.

She has to admit he really is an excellent tour guide, providing just enough information about certain places to be helpful, but not enough that it keeps her from enjoying it and deciding what she thinks about it herself. And she loves hearing his own stories he shares, making her that much more eager and impatient to hear stories about his other ventures in the world.

He takes her to the places that serve some of the best food she's ever tried and by the end, her waistline is very thankful that she can't put on any weight as a vampire. Especially after she has her first beignets.

As the night wears on, Caroline finds herself thinking more and more about her earlier conversation with Bonnie and Enzo. She had left their place determined to tell Klaus how she feels about him, but the problem is she doesn't exactly know how. So, as the night wears on, she finds herself stealing more glances at him, trying to decide if this is the right time and of course, always chickening out.

That seems to come to an end however, when Klaus finally calls her out as they're walking down one of the crowded streets in the French Quarter.

"Something on your mind, love?" he asks a little hesitantly after about the fiftieth time she's looked at him and quickly looked away.

"Uh, yeah. Sort of. Yes," she answers, trying and failing, to keep her nerves at bay.

She sees the corners of his lips twitch but he doesn't say anything and allows her to continue and she sucks in a small breath and decides this is it.

"I have a confession," she starts.

No doubt sensing her nerves, she sees him tense even though he tries not to let it show.

"Oh?"

"About you," she continues.

This, understandably makes him pause, and the two stop walking as they turn to face each other.

When he doesn't say anything, she knows he's waiting for her to continue, so she does.

"I… I'm falling in love with you too, Klaus," she confesses and when she sees the flash of surprise that gives way to a joy and hope he seems to be trying to keep contained, almost like he's waiting for the ' but... ', she decides to put all her cards on the table. "I am," she repeats, taking his hand in hers because she knows he's having a hard time believing what he's hearing. "I'm falling for you. Every day I feel like I fall more and more. And I couldn't tell you before because it scared me…"

"Why did that scare you?" he asks, genuinely wondering and she laughs a little as she shakes her head.

"I don't know. Maybe because we're not talking puppy love here, no pun intended," she says, biting back a smile when she sees him roll his eyes but she sees the beginnings of a smile tugging on his lips. "I just… I want it all with you, Klaus. I want to travel the world with you, come home to you, experience all the art, culture and food in the world with you and I want you to be my last love and I…" she trails off, cursing herself for rambling when she had this whole speech planned out in her head.

"Done."

She looks back at him and sees that dimpled smile she loves so much and she thinks she's never seen him smile like this before. It's the type of smile that could light up an entire room and she knows she wants to see this smile again and again in the future.

But his response comes back to her and she forces herself to focus.

"Done?" she repeats dumbfounded. "Which part?" she asks with a breathless laugh.

"All of it," he smiles as he moves closer and wraps his arms around her, pulling her close and she goes more than willingly. "Done."

"Just like that?" she repeats incredulously.

"Did you really think I would object?" he chuckles.

"No, but I don't know, I didn't expect it to be so easy. I had this whole speech planned out and everything."

He laughs and steals a quick kiss.

"It won't always be easy because you and I are still first and foremost, you and I, so I've no doubt there will be challenges, and maybe I'll be shit at this, but I like to think of myself as a smart individual who can learn from his mistakes, and I trust we'll be able to overcome and learn from whatever challenges come our way together."

"Sounds like you've given this some thought," she says teasingly, if only to try to lighten all the emotion she feels welled up in her throat.

"Caroline, I've been where you're at for a long time," he smiles. "I've just been waiting for you to catch up."

She feels the laughter spill past her lips before he captures them with his and as she eagerly returns his kiss, she feels her heart racing. Racing with a happiness and love she had only ever hoped would be hers and as she pulls back and meets his eyes, she knows he feels it too.

"So where will we be traveling to first?" he asks as they walk back sometime later.

She smiles and shakes her head.

"I don't know," she answers, amused that he's already planning their first trip not even an hour later.

"Rome?" he asks teasingly. "Paris? Tokyo?"

She shoots him a look, rolling her eyes at him playfully as memories of the night he proposed this very same offer comes to mind but she feels a smile tug on her lips at the reminder of how far they'd come since then, and that his offer still stands more than a decade later. He smiles too, almost as if reading her thoughts, and kisses her again until she forgets what they were even talking about.

In the end, they decide to go to Paris first.

But that, is the beginning of another story…

#klaroline #klaroline fanfiction #my so called writing

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thewebcomicsreview · 7 years ago

Link

[I tried to reblog this but Tumblr got mad at me for some reason so I’m doing a link post instead. Damn it, Tumblr]

Okay. Fair warning, I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but I have seen the movies, and I don’t much care for the EU. Quotes come from IMDB.

The problem with this is that Star Wars, as a film series, has always been about how all of those things are terrible. Individualism and romanticism are always presented as chauvinistic and antithetical to the common good

In what way is the totalitarian fascist empire based primarily on Nazi Germany “individualistic” or “romantic”? Totalitarian governments are about as far from individualistic societies as you can get, and what romantic ideal does the empire use to justify its rule?

Governor Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away forever.

General Tagge: But that's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?

Governor Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.

“Fuck you, Death Star”. There’s no indication ever that the Empire has any ideals that it’s supposed to stand for, or that there are places where the locals are pro-empire. In Episode 3, Palpatine says he’s becoming emperor for security reasons, which has less to do with the philosophy of Star Wars and more to do with the Patriot Act,and was pretty explicitly not the rationale by ANH.

Success and failure in every Star Wars film is measured by whether or not characters embrace and cultivate collective action

This is only true if you ignore the bad guys generally, and specifically ignore Revenge of the Sith, where Palpatine teamkills everyone and wins completely as a result, and then makes an empire of bad guys who work as a coherent unit and still fail.

That being said, the leftism in the original trilogy is embedded far deeper in the story. In A New Hope, Luke and Han grow as characters by expanding their view of the world and understanding that they have a moral obligation to participate in something bigger than themselves.

It’s a massive stretch to say “protagonists have to work together to fight bad guys” is an inherently “leftist” trope. Doubly so in the Vietnam War context of A New Hope. The problem with America’s involvement in Vietnam wasn’t that soldiers weren’t working together.

In The Empire Strikes Back, our heroes face ruin when they’re separated from the Rebel Alliance, and Luke nearly destroys himself by acting out of selfish impulse and valuing the defeat of Vader over the greater good.

I know I just said this one, but

[Luke has seen a vision of Han, Leia and Chewie being tortured in Cloud City]

Luke: I saw - I saw a city in the clouds.

Yoda: [nods] Friends you have there.

Luke: They were in pain…

Yoda: It is the future you see.

Luke: The future?

[pause]

Luke: Will they die?

Yoda: [closes his eyes for a moment] Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

Luke: I’ve got to go to them.

Yoda: Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could; but you would destroy all for which they have fought, and suffered.

Luke didn’t go to Cloud City to fight Vader. He went to save his friends. Yoda wanted him to complete his training so that he could beat Vader, but Luke considered his friends more important than his destiny. It was Yoda who wanted the big one-on-one anime fight, that’s why he withheld Vader being Luke’s father because he (correctly) thought knowing that would make Luke unwilling to kill Vader.

Only the collective actions of Lando and the people of Cloud City allow our protagonists to survive

What? “The people of Cloud City” don’t do shit. Lando turns on the stormtroopers, then announces “Hey, yo, I just turned on the Empire so everyone better bail” and everyone bailed. There were no useful NPCs on Cloud City helping save the day. The only thing the people of Cloud City did that Lando didn’t tell them to do was deactivate the hyperdrive on the Falcon to prevent the heroes from escaping.

It’s essential that Luke’s redemption of Vader is not what defeats the Empire- that’s just his personal journey. His contribution is to distract the Emperor to aid in the mission’s success. Even if Luke had failed and turned evil, the Emperor and Death Star would still have exploded.

The Death Star would’ve exploded, but Luke had enough time to drag Darth Vader to the shuttle. If they all turned evil, the Emperor could’ve walked to the shuttle himself and flown off to his fleet of Star Destroyers just outside (that all, uh, magically disappear in the actual movie, but shh).

When the Clone Wars erupt (caused by capitalist powers run amok), instead of protecting the people as their historical role is described, the Jedi become generals in a conflict with disposable soldiers to protect the property of the Republic, going so far as to become bodyguards to its Supreme Chancellor.

1. The Clone Wars are caused by Palpatine as an attempt to overthrow the government, and have nothing to do with capitalism except that the trade federation is allied with him for reasons never really explained in the movies. 2. I have no idea where Diaz is getting the idea that the Jedi weren’t protecting people. I’m pretty sure Yoda defended a bunch of Wookies in Episode III. 3. Also they protected the Supreme Chancellor, who by my count is a people. Sure, he was evil, but the Jedi stopped protecting him when they figured that out.

4. It kind of undercuts your “Star Wars is pro-collectivism!” theory when you attack the Jedi for using an army of literal clones to defend the Republic. The original stormtroopers were not individualistic, and this carries over to the First Order as well.

Poe Dameron: What's your name?

Finn: FN-2187.

[pauses]

Finn: That's the only name they ever gave me.

Poe Dameron: Well, I'm not going to call you that. Let's see... FN... I'm going to call you Finn. How about that

Finn: Yeah, Finn. I like that.

Finn literally doesn’t have a name until Poe gives him one. Their bond starts with Poe recognizing Finn’s individuality in an actually kind of aggressive way.

If Yoda killed the Emperor, he’d be arrested and the Emperor’s claim of Jedi traitors would be validated. Some other horrible person like Tarkin would take over, and the Galaxy would hate the Jedi even more. Yoda and Kenobi were still overvaluing individuals at the expense of understanding the systemic causes for their situation; they’ve already lost, and this is why they don’t take serious action again until the people of the Galaxy begin to unite together on their own

[Citation needed]

The Republic was willing to support Palpatine because of the droid army he was secretly running. Killing Palpatine would end the clone wars, and thus end the crisis was was threatening democracy. The war WAS the systemic cause, and killing Palpatine would end it.

Canto Bight shows those capitalist forces never went away: Finn and DJ discuss an arms dealer who has literally been in business selling weapons since the time of the original Empire.

DJ does give a “both sides are the same vote Jill Stein” speech, but DJ also sells them out to the empire, so it’s not over because he doesn’t have the moral high ground

Poe plainly thinks being a good pilot is “blowing something up” because that’s what Luke and Lando did, forgetting that the successes of those characters were the result of intense, meticulous planning and cooperation. Poe is preoccupied with glory, the easy-to-remember parts of the Rebellion. Of course, the old Rebels never went off script because they understood their job was part of a disciplined group effort, but Poe fails to internalize this. This kind of chauvinism doesn’t just cut Poe off from others and cloud his judgement, it gets almost the entire Resistance killed.

Poe’s flaw in TLJ is that he takes huge risks that don’t always pan out, and that he doesn’t unquestioningly follow a leader who refuses to tell anyone why her plan isn’t a suicide mission for reasons that rapidly make less sense over the course of the movie. Poe’s plan didn’t involve blowing anything up, it was literally to disable the tracker so that all the rebels could escape, which he did because he thought that was the only way they could escape because no one told him about the secret base their cloaked ships could escape to because that plotline honestly doesn’t make much sense the longer it went on.

Finn’s attempted suicide run against the “battering ram,” while seemingly selfless, is still grounded in selfish desire to “win,” unlike Admiral Holdo’s sacrifice. Poe even tells Finn that it’s too late to destroy the laser weapon, but Finn goes anyway. Even if Finn had destroyed it somehow, it wouldn’t have saved anyone, just possibly delayed the First Order, which was the point of their attack before Poe called it off. Holdo’s sacrifice was different because she was directly saving defenseless ships from being exploded.

Can you hear it? Can you hear the creaking of Aaron Diaz bending over backwards to fit the plot of the movie into his theories? Holdo wasn’t trying to save the resistance’s property. She wasn’t worried about the poor defenseless ships. She was worried about the people, and her sacrifice bought them some time. Which is exactly what Finn would’ve done had Rose not pushed him out of the way. He would’ve destroyed the lasers, the resistance would escape out the back door, badabing badaboom.

I know this would’ve happened because it’s literally what happens when Luke shows up and heroically sacrifices himself instead.

Yes, it’s kind of strange that the movie goes “heroic sacrifice is bad” immediately before a heroic sacrifice saves the day, but blame Rian Johnson for that I didn’t write this shit.

Despite appearances, it’s not Darth Vader that Ren idolizes, but Luke. Unlike Finn and Poe, Ren grew up around his hero, but when it was clear that Luke didn’t compare to the legend of Luke, Ren retreated to a legend he could never meet: Darth Vader. Ren was also trained with an incomplete, sanitized version of the Jedi, and once again when this sanitized version fell apart, he turned to evil

A reasonable fan-theory with no textual support. Luke tries to kill Kylo after Kylo turns to the Dark Side. We have no idea what made Kylo listen to Snoke.

Appropriately, unlike our heroes, he doubles down on his chauvinism and never learns the lesson

Kylo is not evil because he’s sexist (1), because he feels any great attachment to the Sith (2), or because he’s patriotic (3), so I don’t think you’re using the word “Chauvinism” correctly. He doesn’t even care about Vader anymore by the end of TLJ.

Luke disappoints Rey, but this doesn’t have the disastrous impact that it had on Ben Solo because Rey’s aim is understanding, not personal glory.

Let’s ask Rey what she came to Luke for.

Rey: I need someone to show me my place in all of this.

Hm. It sure seems like Rey wanted to know what her individual role in the story was, and perhaps even had hopes that it would be “the hero”, which is why she’s reduced to tears when she learns her parents were some randos. Rey absolutely wants the personal glory, but she’s willing to accept not being super-special because protecting the resistance is more important to her.

Facing the Emperor, Luke wasn’t tempted by his offers of personal power and glory because that’s not really what he wanted. Rey was tempted, but resisted. It’s her character arc! It’s a big part of why she wanted to turn Kylo good, because she wanted to do it.

Rey: You didn't fail Kylo. Kylo failed you. I won't.

Amazingly, "Rey wants personal glory but rejects it in order to save the resistance” works way better for the point Aaron Diaz is trying to make then his own interpretation, but Diaz has some thing where he doesn’t want to admit flaws exist in his favorite characters even when their whole storyline is about overcoming said flaw.

That spark is carried most clearly in Rose and Rey. Both have humble origins and never aspired to be recognized as heroes, both are disillusioned by meeting their heroes, and both grow from that experience while inspiring others to take up hope.

Diaz ignores Rey’s arc and Rose kind of doesn’t have one (certainly not one related to being crushed to learn Finn’s a wuss) so I’m not sure how they both grow but okay.

I’m spending way too long on this. Star Wars as a franchise isn’t “about” anything, because a billion different people have worked on it (Marcia Lucas, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, JJ Abrams, and Rian Johnson being the most important) and they didn’t all share an artistic vision or even a cultural context.

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #Spoilers #Star Wars Spoilers #Aaron Diaz #Dresden Codak

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anactualchad · 5 years ago

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the couch story

So this is kind of a long and personal story, but we have a friend who has this idea for a movie.

It’s about a couch that eats people.

We’d always try to get him to explain the story to us, but he could never explain the whole thing--it’s really just a series of ideas in his head rather than an actual, developed script.

So, that led a friend and I to make jokes about what this couch story is truly about, what genre it is, what kind of characters are in it, etc. This would always make our friend mad, saying that we “don’t get it” and that we’re ruining his idea.

Last night, my friend and I we were talking about outlining/structure/plotting methods in storytelling. We discovered we had some differences in opinions, and somehow, the couch came up. That’s when we decided to put our storytelling to the test, with the couch as our victim:

We’d each write a treatment of the couch story and see who has the more interesting story. Then we’ll give it to our friend who conceptualized the couch in the first place and make him decide which ones better (he’s gonna choose neither, we already know).

The first thing that came to mind was “What if Junji Ito wrote The Couch?” Stemming from that idea, this is what I came up with:

the couch:

A young girl is trying to push her way through art school. She stays home all day drawing but feeling like nothing inspires her.

Her boyfriend is way out of her league and works really hard, but he loves his gf and encourages her to keep expressing herself through her art.

The boyfriend recently got a promotion at work which has made him happier, more interested in going to the gym, and in general trying to improve himself. Meanwhile, the girlfriend stays inside most of the day and eats junk food. The boyfriend tries to motivate her to pursue her art and even once suggests that she try going to get some exercise--something that she silently resents.

To try and make the apartment more “inspiring” for her, the boyfriend comes home with a moving crew who brings in this ugly ass couch. The couch has a tan, leathery texture and a weird blend of earthy fleshy tones. Truthfully she hates the design and finds it nauseating to look at so she doesn't go anywhere near it.

The bf says he thought she’d like it and shrugs, says he’s not really sensitive to these things since he isn’t an artist, and he decides to chill on the sofa and do his usual bedtime routine of watching TV. Meanwhile, the girlfriend does her usual routine of sketching at her desk.

After a few days, the bf comes home from work totally exhausted. He figures it has something to do with how hectic work has got so he goes and plops down on the couch. A few hours later, it seems like he’s really coming down with some kind of fever or something so she starts tending to him. She tries to sit on the couch with him to comfort him but he gets irritable and says he just wants to lay down, so she just goes back to drawing.

The next morning he wakes up feeling even worse and decides he’s going to stay home from work. This inspires the girlfriend and gives her a lot of energy. She suddenly has all the energy in the world to cook, clean, shop for food, and to do everything he has wanted her to do. She tends to him, makes him tea and meals, and pats his head and comforts him.

One night, in between his naps, she becomes heavily inspired to sketch the boyfriend while he’s laying on the couch sleeping peacefully. However, her sketches don’t seem good enough for her. Her lines are way too stiff and she just can’t capture his essence, so she throws out all the drawings.

The next day his condition has elevated to a stronger fever and complete exhaustion, and it’s so bad that they have to call a doctor over to the house. The doctor checks him out and says he has a fever so he must be fighting some kind of infection. They’re puzzled as to what this can be. The doctor takes a blood sample and says he’ll go have it tested and call them about the results soon.

That night the girlfriend is feeling really horny and wants to have sex with her sick as hell boyfriend, but he’s insanely exhausted and says he can’t, even though she’s been so good to him. She insists, saying that he’s just so cute right now so she rubs his cock and sucks him off all the while he’s frail and sick and she thinks this is so adorable. He basically passes out after splooging in her mouth, so she masturbates in their bed and passes out.

The next morning the boyfriend is now looking insanely weathered and emaciated. It’s a really shocking transformation from the night before, but the girlfriend insists that he’s starting to look better, and she props him up so that he can sit up instead of laying down. As she does, his body seems almost malleable with the way that he leans into the couch, almost as if he’s taking the shape of the couch rather than the couch taking shape of the weight sitting atop it.

The bf is really weak, but he manages to explain to the girl that he fell into a very deep sleep last night, but then awoke and was experiencing sleep paralysis. He was stuck staring at the ceiling, and he could hear all these different voices all at once. It must have been several dozens of people, they were all screaming and yelling in complete hysterics. From what he could make out, they were all yelling “Let me out,” and “Someone help me” and “Get me out of here!” Some of the voices were completely incomprehensible because they were in other languages. All the while he was completely paralyzed--he had no sense of his own body and could only see the ceiling directly above him.

Just then the phone rings so she goes into the other room to get it. It’s the doctor, and he starts explaining to the girl that the results came back.

However, the results are inconclusive. What does he mean? Well, and he has no way of explaining how this could have happened, but they find that there’s more than one blood type in his blood sample--something that should be absolutely impossible. Not only that, but there are other “anomalies” in the sample that they cannot identify with the equipment in their clinic’s lab. He has sent an emergency rush order to have the blood inspected at a university’s laboratory.

The doctor asks if the boyfriend’s condition has gotten any better. The girlfriend thinks for a moment about how she wants to answer, but before she can, the boyfriend starts moaning for the girl.

She runs out into the living room to find that he is literally being bent and contorted into the shape of the couch rest. His head/neck is bent back inhumanly to the curve of the headrest, his jaw wide open and stretching, gaps forming between his teeth, the top of his head/forehead flattening and being pushed backwards. Likewise the same is happening to his body and legs.

The girlfriend goes to see if she can pick him up but finds that even his skin is beginning to fuse with the couch. Upon closer inspection, his skin is turning into the same strange leathery texture of the couch and beginning to match its tone and color. She’s no longer able to pull him up from the couch without it pulling on his skin and making him wail in pain.

The boyfriend is groaning and appears to be pleading but he can’t actually mouth any coherent words anymore because of how deformed he has gotten. He’s a babbling, incoherent, drooling mess.

The girlfriend gets a chill up her spine and she darts off into her bedroom. She comes back with her sketchbook and she starts drawing what she sees. She is able to capture her boyfriend’s new grotesque form much easier than she ever could when trying to capture him while he was normal and healthy. She continues drawing obsessively late into the night while the boyfriend is becoming nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the couch and moaning sorrowfully.

#fiction

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keptin-indy · 8 years ago

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Dresden Files: Salem

I’ll try to post these on Mondays or Tuesday, since that’s when I do the previous weekend’s writeups. Feel free to ask questions if anything not clear or you just want to know something!

Background info

If you know the Dresden Files books, this game starts during the events of Changes, but with some small changes. If you don’t know the books, the relevant info is that wizards and “Red Court” vampires have been at war for some years now and the main character, Harry Dresden, just managed to set off a really powerful curse that killed all of them. For some reason, during the fight leading up to that, the Wardens - wizard cops - were unable to help him because “they were sick”. The big change in this campaign is that the illness was a deadly plague set off by the vampire ambassador who had just been by and it killed a swath of the powerful people who had gathered to meet her.

I’ll try to link Dresden-specific terms to wiki pages for people unfamiliar with the universe. There may also be some easter eggs in the links sometimes...

Setting (in the GM’s words)

If anyone in America were asked to compile a list of the locations important to the occult history of the country, it would surely include Salem. The town is nearly universally associated with the witch trials of the 1690s. Everyone, clued-in or not, associates Salem with witches, and, in this world of the occult, associations can have power. In this case it has lead to Salem having probably the largest supernatural community on the east coast of North America. That area includes (for the supernatural community at least) Boston as well.

And community it is, much more so than many other cities around the globe. Salem is a geographically small town, yet rich in history, emotions, and magic all attracting a different crowd from the spooky side, if they didn’t have some structure and order there would be constant conflict (well, more-constant conflict). The city has evolved a particular brand of stability, with regular gatherings of all the major power-players in the city. This isn’t a court or anything so formal as that, but usually neutral parties will side with the aggrieved party in conflicts, preserving the status quo. Until recently these gatherings were informally lead by [Warden regional commander] Michael Rowland, one of the more powerful denizens of Salem, how they will shake out going forward remains to be seen…

Characters, or at least what was known about them at the start of game. The Dreseden Files RPG is set up so that most of the PCs had met each other by the start of game, but we weren’t a coherent party yet.

Murchah O’Dougal has lived in Salem for a long time. He switches jobs every few decades, but it’s Salem, so people have caught on that the tall, thin, taciturn, middle aged man isn’t your vanilla mortal. Additionally, he likes taking long walks on the beach...the parts under the water, without the benefit of breathing gear. He’s not a very social man, but he helps out where he can, especially if it involves ghosts, which he can see and interact with. He’s the one who convinced Eunice to leave her nursing home.

Eunice Featherham’s son married a witch. Now, Eunice was an intelligent woman and knew there was no such thing as magic, so it was pretty insulting that her daughter-in-law could use it. It was even more insulting that she taught it to their daughter Evelyn, but then both her son and the witch had to die in a house fire, leaving Eunice to raise Evelyn the Right Way, eg without magic. Over the years as Evelyn grew up, Eunice could feel her age catching up with her, and when it was time for her granddaughter to go to college, they sold Eunice’s house for tuition and put her into a nursing home, where she eventually died. Damned if that was going to stop her, though, not when there were so many people who needed her sage advice, starting with the nurses at the home. In desperation, the home called the Salem Witches’ Circle (kind of a magical chamber of commerce), who asked Murchah to talk the irate ghost out of terrorizing the staff.

They also called Dr. Evelyn Featherham, who was now living in Boston as the city’s only therapist dealing with the supernatural. After a long struggle with Eunice’s parenting, Evelyn had finally reclaimed her magical heritage and was using her experiences to help others through situations they couldn’t explain to anyone else. One of those people, 10 years ago during her clinicals, was a teenage mage grieving over the loss of his father. Now, though, she had to deal with being permanently haunted by her grandmother and trying to convince her receptionist not to quit because of the new office ghost telling her how to answer the phone correctly.

Once upon a time, a witch found a tiny black kitten in a dumpster. She had been looking for a familiar, so it seemed like serendipity and she took him in and named him Sir Adler Toebeans. She was absolutely not expecting her cat to start talking a couple years later and even less to change his shape into anything he felt like. It seemed her kitty was in fact some kind of fae or at least a changeling, though he didn’t have any more idea what he was than she did. Regardless, she switched awkwardly from pet mom to real mom and Adler eventually moved out and got a job at Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, where he worked in the museum itself and made short films as both advertising and subtle education. [A note on pronouns: I’m using “he” because Adler has presented as slightly more masculine than anything else during the game. He doesn’t seem to have an innate sex or gender, so I may switch back and forth with “they” depending on how game goes/the situation.]

A wizard with a mysterious past came from Syria to America and fell in love with a woman whose high-society family had profited off of the supernatural while disdaining them as people. The pair ran away together and she was disowned, so they settled in Boston where he took magical odd jobs and she tried to figure out how to be working class. Eventually Sebastian “Baz” Bassam was born and later his sister Olivia, and their father began to teach them how to control their magical talents. When Baz was 14, his father was killed in a multi-car pileup, but not before his uncontrolled magical energies shorted out an entire hospital wing, unintentionally taking a lot of people with him. This large-scale violation of the First Law of Magic brought the attention of the local Warden-Commander, Michael Rowland, and when Baz subsequently brought down a possession victim with his therapist during his grief counselling, Rowland decided to train the boy alongside his daughter Sylvia. These days he’s a full-fledged Warden who likes to think of his duties as magical community outreach rather than beheading first ans asking questions later. He also looks like a cheerful Syrian lumberjack. [Note: Dat’s me! It’s going to seem like I spent a narcissistic amount of time on my own character in the writeups, but a) the first arc just has a lot of Baz-plot and b) when the GM asks if anyone is doing anything, the others haven’t really answered much and I hate to leave the GM hanging.]

As part of his education in control, Rowland sent Baz to a Tibetan monastery when he was 19 to learn meditation and healing with the monks there, traditional allies of the White Council of Wizards. While there, Baz befriended a litter of Temple Dogs, newly returned from having been dognapped and taken to Chicago of all places. One of the puppies was notably rambunctious and ended up outside the monastery walls trying to eat a yeti several orders of magnitude bigger than it. The puppy ran back to the temple, yeti in hot pursuit, and hid behind the Warden-in training, who fought off the yeti and saved the puppy and monks from the puppy’s own bad decisions. As a “reward”, he was given the perpetrator so the monks wouldn’t have to deal with it. Baz named him Samuel Gompers Bassam and took him back to Boston, where he grew into a very large Tibetan Mastiff who can see spirits and whose teeth technically count as a holy weapon, which he mostly uses against Baz’s shoes. At one point while attempting to eat a ghoul, Sam met Adler as a dog and brought him back home, where he stayed for a few days before abruptly turning into a bird, thanking Baz for his hospitality, and leaving before any questions could be asked. [Note: Yes, Sam is a PC. One of my friends decided it was an awesome idea to play an actual, only slightly magical, non-talking dog.]

Session 1

The town of Salem had been enjoying an uneventful Fall, supernaturally-speaking. Even Halloween, always an anxious time for those in the know, had gone by without any major mishaps. That all changed one night in November, when every practitioner or supernatural being in the world awoke from vivid dreams of the world ending in fire and blood. Many people recognized the dreams as the psychic backlash from some kind of spell, and those with more magical experience further narrowed it down to some kind of worldwide curse effect even though such things were thought to be impossible. Around Salem, the Community woke in terror and reached out to one another. The shapeshifter Adler called his mother in the Witches Circle, who told him that calls had begun to come in from several of their members, including some of the older ones, who were so shocked by the experience that they had been taken to the hospital. Dr Evelyn Featherham likewise checked in with the Circle and headed to the hospital herself to volunteer for on-call psych services. Her late grandmother, Eunice Featherham, checked the news on the constantly-on TVs in her nursing home and saw confused reports rolling in of simultaneous coups and assassinations in several South American countries, which she assumed was the work of either the CIA or Communists. Finding that news less than interesting, she floated out to track down her granddaughter. Murchah O’Dougal, always watchful of the ocean for reasons known only to himself, walked into the Bay, but saw nothing amiss; whatever he was looking for had not been disturbed by the hideous dreams. Baz Bassam, Warden of the White Council, immediately checked on his mother but found that her sleep hadn’t been disturbed at all; presumably meaning that regular mortals were unaffected by the spell’s backlash. He called his sister at college, who most definitely had woken up, but had nothing to offer her besides assurances that they were all okay for the moment. Knowing Warden-Commander Rowland was in Edinburgh at the moment, he called head witch Mary Harrison, who was coordinating a makeshift command center to coordinate help to those who needed it and a response, should it become necessary. Before heading over to lend his help there, he checked in with Warden Command at Edinburgh, but found chaos there, too. The wizard who answered the phone said that they only thing they knew right now was that the Red Court appeared to be no more. From what they could tell, every single member had been wiped out at once by a spell. Once they had more information, they’d be sure to get back to Warden Bassam, but in the meantime they had to figure out who was in charge of the Wardens. This was almost as alarming than the giant curse as far as Baz was concerned, but with no more info coming from Edinburgh, all he could do was head to the witches’ command center and try to keep people calm and safe until more news came out.

After a long, sleepless night, morning came with no more information. Invitations went out to the members of the Greater Boston supernatural community from Ian Fitzpatrick, the caretaker of the largest neutral territory in the area, Hamilton Hall. Before the meeting in the evening, one of Edinburgh’s army of clerks called Baz to read off the last wills and testaments of Michael and Sylvia Rowland, naming him as heir to their magical holdings. Baz was gutted, as Michael Rowland had been his mentor and surrogate father-figure since his father’s death, and he’d grown up and trained alongside Sylvia for nearly ten years. The clerk couldn’t tell him how they had died or any details about what was happening within the Wardens; only that he would likely get “official” notification of the Rowlands’ deaths at some future date. That the lawyers were working faster than the Wardens was significant cause for alarm all on its own.

That evening, Fitzpatrick welcomed representatives from all the major power blocs and notable individuals into Hamilton Hall, formally allowing everyone through the threshold. Baz sought out Mary Harrison before the meeting proper began and warned her about the deaths of the Rowlands and magical killing of the Red Court. Fitzpatrick brought the meeting to order and announced the Rowlands’ deaths himself, calling for a moment of silence that was observed by most people present, with the notable exception of the representatives of the Winter Court (and Eunice, though due more to her difficulty hearing than any disrespect). Adler asked how they had died and Fitzpatrick said there had been an attack on the Wardens in Edinburgh, which was the first Baz had heard of it. Ignoring that for now and trying to give the impression of a calm and level-headed authority figure who wasn’t grieving, Baz announced that he knew where the nightmares had come from and explained the curse that had taken out the entire Red Court. The gathering was shocked that something that large could have happened and that the threat of the Red Court was suddenly gone (though the Summer Court and Daniyah, a powerful local sorceress, seemed less surprised), and Fitzpatrick adjourned the meeting , saying that he knew full well some people were going to use the situation to jockey for power. He gave them a week to get it all out of their systems and then he would call another meeting to see where Boston should go from there. The jockeying and networking began before anyone even made it out the doors. Baz asked Daniyah what she or her spirits knew about the attacks, but she would only tell him that “things” were awakening that had lain dormant for many years. Knowing it would do no good, Baz continued to press for details and was informed that the city faced two threats...from within and from without. Eunice floated from group to group eavesdropping and overheard the Winter Court proposing to murder someone for the sole reason that the scarier warden was dead now, which she dutifully reported to Baz with a stern admonition to stop them. Without more details, Baz simply went over and stood meaningfully by the faeries. Meanwhile, Adler took on his dog form and sought out Sam, warning him that his wizard was in danger and offering his help guarding him for the next few days. Sam, in turn, told him to be aware of Daniyah, who no longer smelled purely human anymore, but instead like some kind of spirit, and also her owl familiar, who was definitely a spirit, though he hadn’t been able to figure out what kind without licking it. Baz turned around to see a familiar black dog incongruously petting his own dog, and asked if he would stick around and answer some questions this time. Adler agreed, but answered everything as literally as possible without offering any information was wasn’t specifically spelled out and some that was. He told Baz that he had enjoyed the name he’d given him last time and to keep using that, and that he would follow and protect Baz along with Sam while the immediate danger hopefully passed. Seeing that Baz was distracted from his rightful duties, Eunice got into an argument with the Winter Court, but her attempt to spook them into following the straight-and-narrow backfired when they scared her right back, startling her back into a dementia episode. Baz and his two large dogs circulated amongst the other faction heads, assuring them that he was as dedicated to keeping the peace as his predecessor and generally attempting to politic. Murchah drew him aside and offered to train him to use the sword he carried and Baz tried to find a polite way to tell him that he had specialized in swordplay for years. Unconvinced, Murchah asked to see his fighting stance and was pleasantly surprised to find that Baz was not merely boasting.

Finally, the meeting broke up and Murchah headed back out to his ocean patrol, only this time he noticed strange behavior in the fish. Not being a spellcaster himself and having no way to track magical energy, he called the Circle, who told him to call the Warden. Baz had not yet made it home, so Murchah left a cryptic message with Baz’s mother to call him back. Eventually Baz returned home with one dog more than he left with and reintroduced “Fenrir” to his mother, warning her this time that he was definitely sentient and could talk (though Adler refused to do so on principle now). He returned Murchah’s call, but with nothing more to go off of than “the fish are weird”, decided to let it wait until morning. Adler insisted on sleeping in Baz’s room, which required some setting of ground rules, starting with a promise never to harm his mother. Adler agreed, but was less forthcoming in answering Baz’ questions about his nature or allegiance, saying only that he wanted to protect both Sam’s human and the city balance he represented as a Warden. He otherwise revealed only that he could take on many forms, though he wouldn’t say if he had a natural or default one, and that he usually worked at Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery, where he could use his skills to great effect. Baz was both fascinated and slightly frustrated at the mysterious creature playing bodyguard for him, but when he found that Adler could use computers, he immediately handed over the password for the email account Olivia had maintained for him and begged his help keeping in contact.

“Fenrir” woke up early the next morning and got the household coffee, which he served to them with creepy mostly-human hands on a dog body. Betsy (Baz’s mother) was relieved when Baz gathered the dogs and put on some swimwear to meet Murchah at the beach. After some discussion about everyone’s underwater capabilities, Baz conjured air bubbles around his and Sam’s heads while Adler turned into a Lovecraftian fishman, and the group followed Murchah into the Bay, but Baz was at a loss figuring out what was causing the irregularities Murchah claimed to see. Sam happily ate one of the affected fish. Returning to the surface, Baz asked Murchah to call Dr Evelyn Featherham, who was more sensitive to tracing ongoing magical effects than he was, but shortly after her receptionist answered the phone, the poor woman was shoved aside so that Eunice could do her job “better”. Talking around the old ghost, Baz asked the receptionist to pass the message along when Evelyn had a free moment. Evelyn eventually had a chance to call back from her ghost-proofed office and promised to come out during her lunch break. Murchah hired a boat so that Evelyn (followed, of course, by Eunice, who was determined to chaperone her daughter meeting a young man on a beach) wouldn’t have to get her work clothes wet, but she couldn’t see the magical eddies from above the water and ended up having to do into the drink anyway. Unfortunately for her, only Adler seemed to be adapted enough for underwater hunting of this kind, and he realized that the fish were all swimming in a huge circle tens of miles across. The group returned to the boat to track down the center of this circle, which was occupied by a “fishing trawler” that didn’t seem to be doing any fishing. Adler turned into a bird to scope it out and noticed that some of the “fishermen” milling around on deck not fishing were concealing decidedly non-standard tentacle-arms. When he reported this back to the group, Eunice immediately floated over to the trawler and began haranguing the people on deck about their terrible work ethic. The “fishermen” were not expecting a sudden ghostly tirade and very sensibly tried to escape her senile wrath. Taking advantage of this distraction, Adler changed from a bird into a rat, dropping onto the deck and scurrying below. One of the doors inside was both locked and well-sealed, so he disconcertingly grew hands in order to pick it. The door swung open, revealing the rat with hands on the one side, and a number of tentacled cultists chanting around a circle on the other side. Adler scurried out of sight, but the cultists merely locked the door rather than give chase. Adler tried to direct Eunice’s wrath downstairs, but she found that the room was warded against spirits. Adler again reported back to the other boat and Murchah drew up alongside the trawler so the mages could board and follow the shapeshifter below. Adler once again picked the lock and Baz opened the door and demanded to know what was going on with as much gravitas as a man wearing a tank and swim trunks could manage. The cultists rushed to attack the newcomers while Murchah ran straight for the summoning circle and began disrupting it, hearing unsettlingly familiar and ancient voices whispering in his head while he did so. As Baz and Sam fought the cultists, Adler transformed into a hideous claw monster and jumped into the fray, startling everyone on both sides. Eventually the cultists were knocked unconscious and Evelyn could examine the remains of the circle Murchah was still determinedly wrecking, declaring that it had been meant to awaken something deep in the ocean.

#dresden files rpg #tabletop rpgs #livejournal replacement #game #Dresden Files: Salem #actual play

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myhahnestopinion · 7 years ago

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The Night A GORILLA-WORSHIPING, TOAST-CRAVING, SPOILED BRAT Came Home: FRIDAY THE 13th - THE ORPHAN (1979)

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone! Of all the horror franchises with a seemingly endless string of unnecessary sequels, the Friday the 13th series is perhaps the most absurd. Over the course of twelve films, the Friday the 13th series has taken Jason to both Manhattan and outer space, transformed him into a zombie and later a demonic worm, and has featured two film proclaimed to be the final installment, neither of which actually were. Despite its increasingly absurd attempts to stretch out the franchise though, or perhaps because of it, the franchise has found a lot of success and earned a rightful amount of recognition in pop culture (and a lot of affection from me).

But the Friday the 13th franchise almost never came to be, or, at least not in nearly the same manner. Before the release of the series’ first installment in 1980, the producers had to negotiate for the rights to the name, thanks to the rushed release in 1979 of a horror film, plagued by production problems for many years, called Friday the 13th: The Orphan. The producers were, of course, able to still use their preferred title, but somewhere out there, deep in the multiverse, there exists a world where a deal was never reach. In this world, a truly dark world indeed, there would never be a Freddy Vs. Jason or a Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. No, in this world, we might have gotten a twelve-entry series centered around one orphan child’s worship of a monkey god in the hopes of procuring some jelly toast.

Yes, it has taken a while into this year of The Night X Came Home, but I have finally found a film that is in contention for the worst film I have ever seen in my life. Like many movies that are in contention for this dishonor, Friday the 13th: The Orphan is barely recognizable as a movie. It’s a cinematic experience that forced me to pause the movie at several points to clear my head and reorient myself in an unsuccessful attempt to decipher what exactly was happening in this movie, who any of the characters are, and what pieces of this movie actually mattered (if any).

“At night, they poop in my room,” is the film’s first line of dialogue, spoken in voice-over. Well, at least that is what the subtitles from Amazon Prime suggested was the first line of dialogue, in its futile attempt to figure out what exactly is being said by the film’s indecipherable audio gibberish. Based on context, I assume the line is actually meant to be “At night, they appear in my room,” but I like the subtitle’s interpretation better, because it accurately informs the audience as to just how crappy this movie is going to be.

This voice-over is spoken by David, a wide-eyed, insufferable young boy, who finds himself awoken in the middle of the night by these people who poop in his room, in order to attend his father’s funeral, a seemingly unexpected elaborately-planned event. As David approaches his father’s open casket, another young boy, Peter, leans over to shout, “Now you’re an orphan,” in such a manner that one is not sure whether it’s intended as bullying, or just blunt exposition. Given that we later learn that the two of them are best friends, apparently the latter.

As David stares at the body of his father, the film suddenly jumps into a flashback of David’s father embracing him and proclaiming his love for him, because it would be impossible for us to know that David’s dead father loved him, if not for a flashback dedicated solely to him explicitly saying so.

Following the funeral, David’s aunt Martha arrives at the family’s mansion home to take care of her orphaned nephew. David refuses to greet his aunt though, instead locking himself away in the laundry room to have another flashback, this time of his mother’s funeral. I’m very glad this film took the time to feature two completely different funeral scenes, because Peter’s blunt exposition and his aunt’s arrival were not nearly enough to clue me into the fact that both of David’s parents are now dead, and he is in fact an orphan. Perhaps the movie was afraid that we would not believe that the star of Friday the 13th: The Orphan was in fact an orphan, given that none of the movie takes place on or even references Friday the 13th. Yes, they were going to steal the brand name and not even have it related to their film in any regard.

After establishing that Friday the 13th: The Orphan does indeed center around an orphan, the film loses all desire to establish a storyline, characters, or anything remotely coherent as a scene for a good long stretch of the film, as if the creators never thought past coming up with a title for their assemblage of footage.

In the course of a few minutes, we are introduced to the mansion’s groundskeeper, an African man named Akin, who the film handles about as well as you would expect a low-budget film from the 70s made by no one with any sense of quality or self-awareness would handle. Before we are allowed to know who Akin is though, the film thrusts us into a parade, and then into a tent where a man tries to hand David an elephant and his aunt scolds him for trying to take it. Nothing comes of this. In fact, one might say it’s irrelephant! Ha Ha Ha Ha!

I’m sorry, guys. This movie broke me.

We also have a scene where David and his friend Peter run off, saying they are going to “kill the Indians.” This must be a euphemism for peeing on a barn that I have never heard of, because that is all that happens in this 20-second long scene of the two of them.

There’s then two incoherently-brief scenes, one where David goes to sit on Martha’s lap after she beckons (that’s the whole scene), and one where he spies on a woman who is apparently showering in a broom closet. It’s like if Alfred Hitchcock had made a prepubescent version of Psycho when he was also a prepubescent with no knowledge of how filmmaking work. The film also manages to cram in two more extended flashbacks to when David’s parents were alive, which serve no purpose other than informing us yet again that this kid used to have parents and is now an orphan, in case you still didn’t know.

Crammed somewhere in the middle of this poorly-shot, indecipherable garbage is one logic progression of scenes where David attends a fancy dinner party. It is here that we are introduced to Bill, a bearded man who endears himself to David by pouring a glass of water on David’s head, and telling David chestnuts make him fart. Later, he approaches David for some comforting words of wisdom. “You owe nothing. Not to your family or your god or your country,” he says, seemingly channeling the awful libertarian parenting of Man of Steel’s Jonathan Kent. Theirs is truly a friendship for the ages… or at least for about 5 minutes, at which point the film completely forgets about the character for pretty much the rest of the movie.

This dinner party also features an exchange where David tells his aunt that he really, really needs to whisper, which she immediately shuts down. It’s a scene that makes absolutely no sense, unless “whisper” is another euphemism the film never bothered to explain. If so, then this film has far too many euphemism for peeing for me to keep track of when I’m still trying to figure out what the hell is the plot of this film.

Thankfully though, the dinner party introduces us to the central conflict of this movie. David reaches across the table for a piece of toast, but is scolded by Martha, who tells him that toast makes him cough too much. And so, David, the sole inheritor of a wealthy estate, unable to cope with being denied access to his jelly toast, is sent straight into the arms of a gorilla god.

David’s father, as told to us by a series of inconsistent and incomprehensible bits of exposition and flashback, is a frequent hunter in Africa. It is over in Africa where he gained the same level of knowledge of culture and artifacts that would be possessed by a privileged white guy who visited a foreign country once and never went anyone but the hotel gift shop. One of these artifacts is a stuffed gorilla, which David sets on a pedestal in his secret hideaway in the family’s chicken coop. As voiceover of his father declaring the gorilla to be the king of the jungle plays, David knees down and begins to pray to the stuffed gorilla, who he dubs “Charlie.”

To emphasize David’s shifting devotion, the film then cuts to a scene where his family is receiving Holy Communion, and David throws his wafer on the ground. He doesn’t need your stinkin’ holy bread anymore, priest! He shall have the toast of his gorilla god now!

After David becomes a disciple of Charlie the Gorilla God, he also begins to strike up a greater friendship with Akin. David figures that there’s no one better to talk to about worshiping gorillas than a person from Africa.

Yep, I warned you about this.

Furthering the film’s delicate handling of race, David sits down next to Akin and asks, “Akin, why are you black?”.

Unfazed, Akin gamefully responds. “I am not black,” he says. “You are black, and I will be white.” He doesn’t elaborate on this any further though, so, uh, if you know what he’s saying, then please inform me, because I really don’t know what he means.

“Can I touch your hair,” David asks next, to complete his perfect trifecta of racism.

And so, naturally, David and Akin start smoking hookah.

Martha catches them in the act. As Akin attempts to explain, Martha shouts, “Don’t touch me… black man,” at which point the film begins to rapidly cut between several different shots and color tints, almost as if the film itself is embarrassed, like someone who drops a racist joke and tries to slink away after realizing they’re not surrounded by receptive company. Martha decides to send Akin away, but this only ends up strengthening David’s worship of his gorilla god.

Worshiping at the feet of Charlie, David is struck by a vision, where he sees his mother and father in an argument. After shouting over how David’s dad is always away in Africa, David’s mother accidentally shoots him with an elephant gun she was holding. Yes, David’s mom killed his dad, despite the fact that his dad was clearly present during the flashback to his mother’s funeral earlier in the film. To further the confusion, David’s mom proceeds to put the gun in her mouth and kill herself, meaning that his parents died at the same time, but had too entirely different funerals, and David’s father managed to still be alive for his wife’s. That’s devotion! This kid has been smoking hookah though, so not sure how much we can trust these sudden hallucinations of his.

During this vision, we also learn the gorilla god is also David’s father, or possessed by the spirit of his father, or something. It doesn’t make sense. I mean, if we evolved from apes, then why is David’s father a gorilla god?! Checkmate…?

After this, the tension between Martha and David begins to escalate in the kind of way that only tensions between characters with drastically different motivations and personalities from scene to scene can. First, we learn from a dream that David’s father used to love Martha, but married her sister instead. This reveal is entirely irrelephant, outside of the fact that it suddenly makes Martha angry at David, as she suspects that David has stolen her picture of his father. “It’s the only picture I have of him,” she says, while directly looking at several other pictures of him.

After this, Martha becomes annoyed at the barking of David’s dog, and ends up slamming the dog in a door, killing him. Well, at least we’re told he was killed, but the dog moves his head all around when David is supposed to be mourning him. Guess no one every taught him to play dead! But, eh, the dog still might be the best actor in this trash.

Martha ties David to the bed at night, because this film really can’t decide which one of these two we are supposed to be rooting for. Their maid, Mary, finds him like this, unties him, and consoles him… by marrying him…? They tell each other that they will “love, honor, and obey each other ‘til death do us part,” and David gives her a ring, so, uh, yeah, I guess this prepubescent boy and his maid are married now.

The next day, when Mary is giving Martha a massage for no reason, Martha, understandably, confronts Mary about this apparent marriage to her underage nephew. “You slept with David last night?” she asks, which Mary affirms, not doing much to convince me this was not in fact a marriage. “You, his father, the African. God knows what kind of orgies you have been having around here!” Martha shouts at her. Uh, by the sound of it, the fun kind, obviously!

When David loots Martha’s bedroom for some reason, he hides under the bed after he hears Mary coming. She’s not alone though, as Bill is with her, returning from his hour long absence from any relevance to this plot. “Oh, I don’t care about David,” Mary nonchalantly states, a complete reversal on her motivations from the child-marriage scene, because this film has no idea why any of these characters do anything they do either.

Bill and Mary begin to have sex while David is still under the bed. I mean, that would be a bad enough experience for a child, but, remember, this is also his wife/maid! “Hey, you’re putting on a little weight, aren’t you?” Bill asks Mary, as part of his seduction technique that inexplicably works.

The film cuts, and Mary is downstairs doing laundry. A sheet is suddenly pulled over her head, and she is stabbed repeatedly with a knife. Yes, at the hour and seven minute mark of this hour and twenty minute movie, the film finally remembers it was supposed to be a horror film, and not… whatever this has been so far. The film never explains who the killer is though. It implies that David, feeling betrayed, killed her, but the film clearly shows the hairy arm of a grown man doing the actual stabbing. Maybe he was channeling the power of Charlie the Gorilla God?

The film cuts again, and David is running away from home in the snow. He stumbles into the home of Jean and Percy Ford, who were dinner guest at that party way back before all this gorilla nonsense. The two have a lot of racist thoughts to share, but in an amusing occurrence, Percy begins to tell Jean all about this “Jew layer” that he knows, but the subtitles end up changing it to “new lawyer.” This is presumably a incidental mistake, but the idea that even Amazon’s subtitle generating computer program is fed up with this movie’s racism is quite amusing. The Ford’s find David, and return him to Martha.

Martha is upset that David tried to run off, and so decides she wants to send him to a boarding school. At this point, with about 10 minutes left to wrap up all its nonsensical tangents, the film decides it’s the perfect time for an extended dream sequence, which includes David being rolled through a dilapidated orphanage in a wheelchair to a doctor. The doctor removes their mustache to reveal that they were actually Martha all along, and she proceeds to cut out David’s tongue, before David wakes up. I would commend this film for capturing the nonsensical nature of dreams pretty well, but considering the whole film has been that bizarre and illogical, I don’t think it deserves it.

And so, the film, after spending an obscene amount of runtime on flashbacks, dream sequences, non-sequiters, and contradictions, barrels towards its finale. Martha heads to the chicken coop to destroy David’s statue. Before she can, Charlie the Gorilla God spring to life and attacks her! Yes, Charlie the Gorilla God is indeed the one true God, oh ye of little faith! David shows up, shoots Martha with the elephant gun, and returns home… to finally enjoy his toast. Buttered toast, jelly toast, yummy delicious toast! Truly a happy ending… I think…

Oh, and Mary shows up again in the end as David is eating his toast. Yes, the same Mary who was killed like 20 minutes ago. Literally everything in this movie is meaningless.

Friday the 13: The Orphan is the perfect proof of that wise old adage “First is worst, second is best.” It may have been the first to claim the Friday the 13th name for its film franchise, but rather than giving us an amusing escalation of creative teen murders, it squandered it on a gorilla god and some toast. I honestly don’t know what to make of this movie. The film plays about exactly as well as one would expect a hastily assemblage of a tumultuous decade-long shoot by incompetent filmmakers would play. While the film is indeed about an orphan, as it reminds us time and time again, it has absolutely no connection to the date Friday the 13th. I can’t help but wonder if the title was slapped on in an attempt to force the producers of the 1980 film to cut a deal, the only hope of profit for this dreadful mess.

The pursuit of toast was really the only consistent through line in this dreck, with every other character shifting personality and motivation literally from scene to scene (Not that there are many scenes in this movie, or at least not many that have a clear beginning, middle, end, and purpose.) It’s a baffling, dream-like series of incoherent gibberish, tied together by some odd saccharine song that basically sounds like “Up Where We Belong,” in what I assume was another attempt to force a lawsuit for some quick cash. I don’t know what the film is about. I don’t know what any of it means, or why I should care. I don’t know who any of the characters are, or who I am supposed to be rooting for. If there was anything to take away from this abysmal film, it would be that toast is yummy. That’s your takeaway, readers. That’s your moral. That’s the only coherent statement this film makes. Now, if you excuse me, I’m off to pray to Charlie the Gorilla God, and ask that he bless me with some jelly toast.

Friday the 13th: The Orphan is available to stream on Amazon Prime, and is on DVD.

NEXT: The Night AN UNSEEN, UNCHALLENGED, UNSURPRISINGLY OLD GHOST Came Home...

#film #thenightxcamehome #halloween #fridaythe13th #theorphan #horror films #bad movies #so bad its good

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