#the first part was supposed to actually be a nightmare sequence but then i got carried away

[avocado-frog]

Dahlia. 5

Rating: T Warnings: child death, murder, human experimentation but only briefly referenced, implied child abuse, child abandonment Title: 6/7/2020 Word count: 5.5k Summary: The inside of the lab wasn't any better. Plain, white walls. Pristine, white, tiled floors. Thick, glass windows. A few books, a stack of paper and pencils, a toy or two, the only thing they got to pass the time before one of the people- white coats, blue masks, blue gloves- called one of them back.

Winter brought on hopelessness. Like it would never really end. They would never leave that place alive.

(12/3/2010)

Feet crunching in the frosted grass, book held protectively under his arm, with his camera wrapped around his wrist, Logan found a spot underneath the overhang, leaning against the glass wall.

He waited, knowing he wasn't going to get a lot of time to read before the kids came to bother him, but he didn't mind. The only thing he worried about was the cold. The uniforms didn't do much in way of heat preservation.

Logan thought it was ironic how much he hated the winter. He had ice magic, which was what Leo told him when he offhandedly mentioned his disliking of it. The other kids thought it was hilarious.

In truth, Logan missed normal winter. Before his eleventh birthday. When he shared a room with his older brother, when they stayed up late to watch holiday movies. Houses decorated with bright, colored lights, decorating his own house, staying home from school, the last day before break was always filled with paper snowflakes, loud music, baking cookies. Flying to China for a week to visit his grandparents on his father's side, and then to Japan for the rest of his family on his mother's side, then back to America. Three weeks in total. He remembered wishing that his family members would just visit them instead, but it was always fun to visit. He couldn't remember anything from when he lived there himself.

Logan was fourteen now, turning fifteen in January, and he didn't even know what month it was. He only knew his birthday and current age, because that's what the adults told him. Logan Kari, fourteen, January fifteenth, nineteen-ninety-six.

The other kids couldn't remember much from before. Before their kidnappings, before the lab, so Logan had to teach them. Every tradition he could remember, every detail. He told them lots of stories. He could only imagine the disappointment on Leo's face when she realized how truly underwhelming a microwave was. 

Winters were spent outside in the dreary weather. Logan couldn't feel the cold, but he knew that for the others- Leo especially- it got bad. For Logan, ice magic let him feel heat worse, yet be unaffected by the cold weather. Still, the sky was a light gray, snow drifting silently. The trees beyond the fence looked jagged and lifeless as their leaves were buried beneath white snow.

The inside of the lab wasn't any better. Plain, white walls. Pristine, white, tiled floors. Thick, glass windows. A few books, a stack of paper and pencils, a toy or two, the only thing they got to pass the time before one of the people- white coats, blue masks, blue gloves- called one of them back.

Winter brought on hopelessness. Like it would never really end. They would never leave that place alive.

-----

(5/12/2011)

"It's safer to go in groups," Logan tried to rationalize. The twins, ten years old, both nodded like they understood, but Logan could tell. They were scared. Scared Logan would leave them behind, scared that they would pay the price for what Logan was going to do, scared that Logan and Lily and Jasmine would all die.

"I'll come back for you in two months," Logan promised. Leo gave a firm nod, and Cass bit her lip, nodding along. "I promise."

"You'll be okay?" Leo looked up at him, and he smiled thinly, forced.

"Yeah, we'll be okay, Leo." Another nod. "You'll protect each other while we're gone, okay?"

Leo grinned, nodded again, and took her sister by the hand. "Promise."

Two months...

...He didn't see them again for six years.

-----

(5/13/2011)

A fifteen-year-old Logan, desperately clinging to the smaller hand of a nine-year-old Lily, with his younger sister, Jasmine, trailing close behind. Tunnel vision, as the exit came into sight. His peripheral vision faded to black, it was all he could see, all he could think about. He'd come back, in two months, for the twins.

He almost reached, he was so close. Gunshots fired in the distance, there was a thud, and Logan slowed to a stop, already tensing like a spring as he began to turn.

He was met with the sight of Lily, hands covering her mouth as she stared down at something with the most horrified face he'd ever seen on anybody that young, and his gaze snapped to where his eight-year-old sister should have been.

His sister laid on the white, tiled floor, in a white uniform, stained bright red, as blood created a shiny pool under her head and stomach. She was already dead. There was no use in moving to try to save her.

Logan pushed Lily behind him, as his heart rattled, pounded, threatened to explode, and suddenly, he was overcome, overwhelmed, every emotion began to flood his system.

Footsteps ran towards the group, and they were so close to being done. His breathing quickened, he couldn't control it. His head hurt, his vision spun. He wanted to vomit, only able to stare down at the sight of his sister. He couldn't breathe.

An almost-painful sense of cold ran through his veins, growing sharper, and sharper, until it felt like he was being stabbed, and he screamed.

Sharp pillars of ice shot around him, nearly hitting Lily, narrowly avoiding Jasmine, impaling the men with the guns. Three of them, Logan could count, fell through the ice spikes, leaving bloody trails behind. The ice blocked off any more from coming through. He did the only thing he could think to do, and grabbed Lily by the hand, trembling as the ice followed in much smaller spikes, out the exit.

Logan couldn't see. Alarms blared bright red, loud. Screams, gunfire. Logan didn't stop, on autopilot now.

Deep, deep into the woods was when he finally slowed down, hearing Lily struggling to breathe finally snapped him out of his panicked daze. She leaned against a tree, fighting to catch her breath. Logan fell down, palms digging into the sharp blades of grass, vision blurred.

Arms wrapped tightly around his chest, eyes pressed hard into his knees, shirt stained with blood, his veins turned ice-cold, lungs constricting, chest tightening, he couldn't breathe.

He screamed.

-----

(8/10/2013)

Getting out of the forest was a blur. He couldn't remember how he survived with Lily during those few months, but it was a lot harder than what he planned. He thought he could go back for the twins in two months, but he couldn't even leave the woods for five.

He felt sick. He promised he would go back for them... it just had to be put off momentarily. The weather grew hotter, and Logan was sure he was going to die for at least a week straight. Still, his timing was perfect. At least it wasn't winter. Lily wouldn't have made it.

The first thing that they had seen when they got out of the forest was a highway, and Logan barely reacted in time to save Lily from being hit by a car. He held her hand tightly as they found a way to safely get across, his heart racing as he finally stepped foot on something that wasn't grass. Solid asphalt.

Logan found himself immediately overwhelmed.

People ran past them, there were so many. Talking, yelling over the phone, racing each other down the sidewalks. Lily pressed herself into his side, and he was okay with that, terrified that she would get lost.

Maybe he was paranoid, but people shot them looks. Either disgust or pity, Logan couldn't tell. But he suspected that the two of them didn't look fantastic.

Mostly, they were stopped on the streets and asked where their parents were. Logan had no way of contacting his family, and was quite confused when it turned out that nobody knew his mother or father at all. The world outside of the lab was a lot bigger than he remembered.

A few states away, they managed to find a house. One that nobody lived in. The door creaked open with a careful push, and Logan didn't let go of Lily's hand, inching inside.

Dried blood stained the ground at the bottom of the staircase, trailing down from the steps. The fifth step down was cracked, the railing splintered. In front of one of the rooms, another puddle of dried blood. The furniture had a thin layer of dust, four of the eight bedrooms used to be occupied.

The first room was a kid's room. The one with the blood in front of the door. A small, wooden bed was pressed against the corner of one of the walls in the back, a blue comforter, yellow fish adorning the fabric, haphazardly twisted against the gray sheets, pillow tossed to the floor, stuffed animals- a yellow pufferfish, a pink starfish, a gray shark- strewn around the floor near the bed. As if the child had been in a rush to get out.

The boy who lived there must have really loved the ocean, Logan thought, as he continued to search through the room. Coloring books sat atop a desk, neatly arranged. Markers were tossed to the ground. A bookshelf filled with thin books, basic facts about different types of fish. A DVD sat on the floor, covered in dust. A cartoon mermaid sat on a rock with a crab and a yellow fish was on the cover. Coloring pages with that same cartoon mermaid laid underneath it, scribbled in red and purple and teal.

The boy signed his drawings in blue crayon. Ryan, with a backwards 'Y'.

The next room he found must have belonged to another boy of the same age. Logan liked to imagine that this one was supposed to have cleaned his room, but threw everything into his closet and under his bed like his parents wouldn't notice. In any case, his room was messier. Orange bedsheets, dinosaur stuffed animals. The room itself was painted bright orange.

Plastic dinosaurs, plastic bugs, plastic green army figures. Barely any effort was put into hiding the toys. By his TV was a handful of DVD cases, action movies for little kids, and a collection of episodes from a show about superheroes. ...Turtles wielding weapons and color-coded masks, something Logan didn't understand a single bit.

There was a wooden toy sword at the end of the hallway, coated in blood, and Logan thought it was safe to assume that it belonged to this one.

A deflated basketball sat underneath the desk, beside a bin of action figures. On the top of that desk, unfinished homework assignments for- Logan assumed preschool, maybe kindergarten. Signed with the name Sam, all capital letters, several exclamation marks at the end.

The third room, another boy's room. Glow stars stuck to the ceiling had all mostly died out, though they formed neat constellations on the walls. Foam planets hung from strings above the bed. This one was neatly made, unlike the other two, only slightly ruffled up.

Books about space laid scattered around the floor, coloring pages ripped out and taped to the wall, scribbled-in drawings of planets and astronauts and spaceships.

A big, plastic castle sat against the wall, plastic dragons sat on either side like guards. On the inside of the castle, a princess in a pink dress, and a prince in a red cape, with several knights gently laid in different rooms of the dollhouse.

This one took great care of the toys in his room, he noted, seeing how neatly arranged they all were, lined against the walls, organized perfectly. A small projector sat on the floor, displaying photos of the universe on the ceiling, while a narrator's voice told facts.

Elliot's name was written in overlapping, big handwriting on each drawing, some of the letters capitalized, some lowercase, varying in size. Always in purple marker. At least one of the letters was always backwards. They were all signed with what age they were done by, too. Two years old, three years old, four years old, and then five. It stopped at five years old.

The fourth room must've been the parent's room. A bed with red blankets, a desk against the wall, and a dresser on the other side. Above the desk was a photograph. Logan paused.

Leo and Cass told them that they had brothers. When Logan would ask what they wanted to do when they got out, it was always what they said. They wanted to go home, see their mom and dad, and their younger brothers.

They must've died earlier that year. If Elliot was five, at least, and Leo said that the last time they had seen them, they were two years old, doing the math, it made the three kids five years old.

So, Logan kept that photograph of the kids up on the wall, dusted them off, and cleaned the blood from the floor. He had to ask how to get a key made by the neighbors, got one for himself and for Lily, and cleaned each of the kid's rooms. He couldn't bring himself to get rid of anything, couldn't bring himself to throw the drawings away. Everything was kept in boxes in the attic.

Finally, he was finished. Finally, he could sleep. He took the room that was downstairs, the parent's room, so that if anybody broke in, he'd be the first to know. Lily took one of the last rooms down the hall, it didn't have anything in it. A guest room.

Logan locked the door to his room and didn't come out.

-----

(9/6/2013)

Logan could hardly make himself leave his bed. The door was locked, and he had no intention of letting Lily inside. Lily... Lily was self-reliant. She could take care of herself. She was almost ten years old. Logan was eleven when he had to start taking care of himself. Lily could do the same.

He closed his eyes. His sister bled out in front of him. Spikes of ice shot at guards, warm blood splattered on his face. He took off running. His parents found him with a girl they didn't know instead of the sister he was supposed to keep safe. He couldn't find his parents at all. Leo and Cass were probably dead. Their family was dead. He wondered what happened to the three kids. What happened to the parents.

Lily pounded on the door and screamed for him to get up. Logan ignored her, curling in on himself, staring at the wall, tired, afraid to sleep.

Lily was crying and Logan was restless. Eventually, he had to get up. Eventually, he had to go outside again.

When he did, it was because there wasn't anymore food, there hadn't been in almost two weeks, and they would starve to death if he didn't figure something out.

She would die.

She would die.

She would die.

His sister was dead.

During the year the kids had spent wandering around, looking for a place to live, people acted strange. They would ask if they needed help, try to call the police, offer a place to stay (those were good days) or give them food or money. Logan had... maybe twenty dollars saved up.

Twenty dollars didn't make them as rich as Logan thought it had. It bought them a box of rice, a can of beans, cabbage, carrots, juice, some apples, oranges, and a bag of candy. It was enough for the time being, but they would need to find a way to get more money at some point. He had to get creative with the cooking, making something Lily would eat every day, something different, or else she would get bored, and it was a good distraction.

Logan got the both of them in school, had to lie and say he was Lily's brother (it put a weird taste in his mouth) and that they had both been homeschooled up until that point. They both struggled in the grade they were put in, but school was a good distraction for them both, too.

 ...For Lily, at least. Logan was terrified every second Lily was out of his sight. 

-----

(11/1/2013)

He didn't expect the twins to be there when he came back, but he was still devastated when they weren't. Logically, he knew they were dead.

He told Lily, and she cried, and she didn't talk to him for five days. Logan retreated back to the safety of his bedroom.

He failed them, too.

-----

(12/18/2013)

Logan, against his better judgement, let Lily go to the park across the street. By herself. He was afraid, scared that she'd be caught and killed, but she turned ten two days before, and was convinced that she could do it.

Logan was proud of himself, actually. He managed to get a job, and was able to keep himself and Lily alive. He didn't have to pay for anything regarding the house given that he technically didn't own it. He didn't know how to buy a house. Lily came back home from the park, knocking on the door. Logan hummed to himself, thinking that he must've locked it by accident.

Lily stood with two other kids on the other side of the door.

Two other kids, one (nine years old) had a gash on their forehead, unconscious as they leaned against the second. Black hair fell over their face. The other kid, looked a lot younger, maybe six, had their hands covering bleeding ears.

Logan rushed them all inside, took the one with the bleeding forehead to one of the kid's rooms, (Ryan's, he thinks). The other one never left their side. They couldn't hear- jumped whenever anybody spoke, always had their hands covering their ears- and didn't like to talk, and couldn't read or write.

It took the first kid, the older one, a week to wake up, and they couldn't talk very well either. Logan suspected brain damage. They had trouble articulating words, had trouble walking without using the wall as support, always had a headache, couldn't concentrate, and had seizures once or twice. That was absolutely terrifying the first time it happened.

The other one, the six-year-old, nobody could talk to them. Nobody knew their name until the other one told them.

"Dylan," the older one- Jaxon- mumbled. They refused to tell Logan their name. They pointed at the other kid. "That's... what they said that- that they wanted- wanted to be called."

Dylan. Logan nodded. And that's what they called them. Dylan and the other one. Dylan spent most of their time trying to learn how to read, glaring at Logan if he tried to help. They figured it out after a while, eventually learned to write, and it made things easier.

Dylan was a little hard to read. They weren't fluent in sign language until they were around ten, but they learned to read at seven. Dylan and Logan could talk to each other, the thing was whether Dylan wanted to. They hardly ever initiated a conversation with anyone who wasn't Jaxon.

Dylan didn't trust them. They were six years old and had a backpack packed because at any second, Logan was going to kick them out. That's what they thought.

Logan picked up on sign the quickest, followed by Dylan, and then Lily, and finally, Jaxon. That one wasn't great at picking up on languages. They had to sign slowly for them and for Dylan. Logan didn't mind.

Dylan was scared of him. They hid behind a locked door with Jaxon, huddled in the corner of the room until it was time to eat. They would take the plate, and watch the other kids, would wait until they were all done, wait thirty minutes, and then they would start. Once they were sure Logan wasn't poisoning them.

They were six years old.

One day, Logan tried to figure out a way to make Dylan trust him a little more, so he told them about the toys up in the attic. The children they belonged to were only a year younger than Dylan was.

So, that was how the kids discovered that the attic door had an automatic lock function when it closed.

Nobody could find Dylan for hours, because Logan was out trying to get something from the store and didn't know about the attic, and left Lily in charge while he was gone. He returned to find Jaxon in tears, Lily absolutely frantic, and Dylan sobbing in a locked attic.

It took several more hours for Logan to convince them that nobody locked them in there on purpose.

Two years passed, and the two kids had both decided that they wanted to go to school, because it was where Lily and Logan both left during the day, and Logan worried about leaving them home alone much more than he did about having them in school.

Dylan was eight for their first day of school, putting them in second-grade. Like with the other two, Logan had to say that they were siblings. He didn't really mind it as much as he did before.

Dylan insisted that they would be fine on their own, since the other kids were obviously in different grades. But as much as Dylan didn't trust any of them, they hated being alone.

Something happened that day. Dylan might have been overwhelmed, or something was said to them, or being alone was a lot harder than they thought.

Logan got off of work early to pick the kids up that day, and as he waited outside with the parents of other kids, Dylan was the first one out.

Dylan, fearfully looking around, chewing on their hand, crying, eyes snapping to meet Logan's gaze, making a beeline towards him, head burrowed in his stomach, sobbing. People turned to look, made little sympathetic noises, and Logan had to protect the poor kid from a few of the adults who brought it upon themselves to try to get them to stop crying.

Logan spent a lot of time trying to find the kid's families. But they never found Dylan's parents. Nobody knew where they were, and Dylan had only been three years old, they wouldn't have remembered anyways. Logan managed to find a file for Dylan somewhere, and found their parents through that. They learned from there that Dylan had been left on a dumpster in an alleyway nearby, and nobody could figure out a way to tell them. Logan was the one who ended up having to do it, when he was eighteen, and Dylan was nine. Dylan took the information about the abandonment, and simply left for the park across the street. 

Logan could tell that Dylan cried about it, face hidden with a hood pulled over their head when they came back. Neither of them talked about it, but Logan wanted to find Dylan's parents more by that point. He had a lot of words for them that he would never say in front of the kids.

They found the other kid's parents when they were eleven, a little while after they learned about Dylan. Logan expected them to leave, possibly for Dylan to go with them, because Dylan liked them the best.

The kid had looked uncomfortable- almost afraid- throughout the entire visit, and it only got worse when they started to argue. Logan had been out in the kitchen, he didn't know what it was about, and nobody spoke about it when it was done.

...When it was done, the kid had a broken wrist, Lily knocked out a grown man with a toy baseball bat, and their father was being arrested.

As Logan attempted a home-made cast around the kid's wrist, he decided that maybe those two were better off with him, anyway. They had said that they'd rather stay than let Logan try to find alternative family members for them.

Logan had six biological siblings that he never spoke to, and his parents, who he hadn't seen since he was eleven.

-----

(9/12/2016)

He always kept his door open. That was the rule, the first thing he told the kids. His door was open. Lily had nightmares, sometimes, and wanted to stay with him. Logan never minded. Jaxon joined every so often, and Dylan only once or twice.

One night, he recalled waking up to finding all three of the kids- Lily was thirteen, Jaxon was twelve, and Dylan was nine, he'd known the younger two for three years by that point- all asleep in the bathroom. Lily's hands were stained blue, Jaxon's hair was wet, also dyed blue, and Dylan was surprisingly unscathed. Jaxon's hair was sloppily cut to his ears, chopped poorly, done by the hands of three kids.

He woke up Jaxon, took Lily and Dylan back to their respective rooms, and gave him a proper hair cut. He already knew, if he was being honest. It hadn't been much of a shock when Jaxon whispered his name to him, when he cried after Logan smiled and said it was okay, when Jaxon did end up in his room for the rest of that night. Dylan came out maybe two weeks later, but Logan had never known them as anything but Dylan.

Lily was Lily, so she was accepting of them both (almost aggressively so) and Logan did as much research as he possibly could on the matter. Logan didn't care. As long as they were all happy. He was proud that either of them trusted him with that information at all.

-----

(10/13/2016)

The kids always faltered when introducing each other to people.

Logan referred to the kids as their names, like the rest of them did, and he would be asked one of three questions. If they were related, whether or not he was their adoptive father, (god forbid) or whether they were adoptive siblings. Logan always went with the siblings route, because he was not old enough to be their father at all and did not want to be referred to as such. But he never introduced them as siblings unless asked. 

He was hardly listening when Lily invited a friend over, and when she gestured to Logan, introducing him as her brother, and that'd been it. He didn't think anything of it, until a few hours later. He never mentioned it.

Later, she asked if it was okay if she did that, because she knew about his biological sister, and Logan decided that it was fine.

Jaxon was the second one, when he had to go home early from school, after falling from the monkey bars and hurting his arm, when the nurse opened the door for Logan.

"Your brother's here."

Jaxon stood up, followed Logan to the car, and fidgeted with his hands like he had a question that he didn't want to ask. Logan had to prompt him.

"Are we brothers?" Was Jaxon's question, and it caught Logan off guard. Jaxon's face immediately filled with regret. "Sorry. It's just that the- the teachers at school all say that we are, 'nd Lily calls you her brother, too. So I was just wondering..."

Logan shrugged. "You can call me whatever you like. I don't mind either way."

"...Okay." Jaxon played with the end of his hoodie string. "I think I'd like it."

And when Dylan used the sign for brother to get Logan's attention, that was the one that nearly made him cry. Dylan had just stood there, wondering why Logan was crying when they had simply wanted to inform him that they were out of apple juice.

-----

(11/12/2018)

Logan had found it mildly worrying that Dylan and Jaxon had both met a new person that day, named Cass and Leo respectively. Even more so when Jaxon told her that the Leo he met had been looking for a Logan. And when Dylan told him that the Cass had been looking for a Lily.

Dylan had invited the two over for dinner the next day. Logan said that was fine.

He accepted the twin's deaths ages ago. He made a mistake, a poor judgment in not taking them. He worried, though, that they would have ended up like Jasmine.

The two that Dylan invited over, had in fact ended up being the twins, looking so different from when they were ten. Logan guessed them to be sixteen now. They didn't look hurt, Cass had stayed relatively the same, now wearing black glasses, a brown cardigan sweater. She was polite, kind, she was the same as six years ago.

Leo was different, and painfully so. Sharp, angry, paranoid. Logan almost didn't recognize her. If she didn't share the same name as his supposedly-dead childhood friend, he wouldn't know it was the same one.

He let the twins stay. How couldn't he? He should've taken them with him from the beginning.

Two people turned to four with the addition of Jaxon and Dylan, and they stayed like that for five years, until the twins. Six people became nine, with the triplets that joined soon after.

Logan wouldn't change it for anything.

-----

(3/20/2019)

Logan's door was never locked. It was always open at night.

So the night that Logan woke up to frantic pounding on the door, to Sam screaming for him, when he shot up and scrambled for the doorknob, fumbling with the lock until it turned, it was worrying. Because he never locked or closed that door.

"...Sam?" Logan rubbed at his eye, and stared at him. His face had lost color, tears in his eyes, hands clenched into fists at his sides. "What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

Sam didn't speak, making some choked noise, gesturing to the kitchen, so Logan followed him, and slowed, and stopped.

His ears rang, he couldn't focus, he had to stay awake long enough to fix this. Blankly, he remembered Dylan telling him to hide the knives.

He told Sam to get Cass and to get Dylan, and the boy darted up the staircase, leaving Logan with Ryan and Elliot.

Ryan, eyes glazed over, pale, staring at his brother, blood flowing from a deep cut on his palm, dripping onto the tiled kitchen floor. Breathing shallow, he looked up at Logan, desperate.

He didn't say anything, and Logan didn't want him to. Moving carefully, he directed Ryan away from the scene, whispering for him to stop looking, as he led him to the countertops, sitting him down on the top, raising the bleeding hand into the air, searching for their first-aid kit.

Several footsteps ran down the stairs, and Logan couldn't even begin to imagine what the other's reactions would be.

Elliot, on his side in a pool of blood. Still alive, but barely. Dylan's magic was able to keep him alive, Cass's was able to fix the wound, and stop the bleeding, but it took both of them a long time, and Logan didn't want to think about Elliot at all so he didn't watch.

"It's really deep," Jaxon muttered, sitting near Ryan because he didn't want to see Elliot either. "If Cass doesn't... finish soon.. he might need stitches."

Logan knew that, but he appreciated Jaxon for filling the silence. Jaxon turned to Sam, asking a question.

"He won't like it," Sam cringed.

Logan hated giving stitches, and it turned out that Ryan shared their collective fear of needles. Every single one of them, besides the twins, were afraid of needles.

Logan never had stitches before, so when he told Ryan that they wouldn't hurt, he didn't actually know.

Whether Ryan was just afraid of needles, or in genuine pain, Logan didn't know, and it didn't matter, because either way, the minute his eyes locked on the needle in Logan's hand, he was screaming. Thrashing to get away, begging to be left alone, and it was a struggle, and Ryan didn't leave his room after that.

The aftermath of that, Logan didn't think anyone took it well.

Leo and Jaxon's fight was proof of that. 

Two months ago, they were inseparable. They contrasted each other so much, and yet complemented each other perfectly. Logan knew that on Saturdays, they would stay up either watching movies in Leo's room, or in Jaxon and Dylan's to play games until Dylan kicked them out. There was never one without the other, but Elliot was their third in that group. Elliot almost dying created a rift, and Leo took her anger out on Jaxon, and nobody found him until morning.

Leo and Ryan disappeared, and Cass left to stay with her cousins. Sam stayed with the others on the chance that his siblings would come back, and Logan left to finish college in-person. He hated to leave them, but this was something he couldn't fix.

Logan regretted leaving them so much. Sam called every day, updated him on everything that happened, and it was his favorite part of the day. Sam made new friends, Logan was happy for him, but sometimes, it was different. Sometimes, Sam was crying because of a bad nightmare, worrying that he would never see his siblings again, that Elliot would die, and Logan reassured him that it was going to be okay. He didn't know if that was the truth.

Mostly, he regretted leaving because of his siblings. Sam and Elliot were a whole separate thing entirely. Of course, he cared about them, he was worried about Elliot just as much as the others were, but the others, those were his main priority.

Dylan, especially, was upset that he left. Logan visited whenever he could, and Dylan always avoided him. Logan knew exactly why, and he hated that he was reminding Dylan of their parents.

Jaxon was just angry in general, called Logan an idiot for leaving, and yelled and screamed when he had to leave again. Lily had to hold him back from literally attacking him.

Lily said that she understood, that she wasn't mad, but Logan could see the undercurrents of anger hidden in her eyes. She denied it every time.

-----

(6/7/2020)

Logan finished packing the last of his things into his car a while ago, and had resorted to sitting on an empty mattress. Sighing, he stood up, knowing that it was better to get it over with.

He'd be home in two days.

[knickynoo]

Back to the Future Part III, The Novel by Craig Shaw Gardner: Thoughts, commentary, and general ramblings

Part 1: Marty-themed nightmares and lots of cowboy talk

• So! We all know how this one starts. Marty's just come running down the street; he announced he’s back from the future, and Doc is out cold.

• Marty brings Doc home, and while Doc is unconscious, we get to go inside his head for a little dream sequence! And if I may say so: it’s a travesty that this wasn’t in the movie. He has a nightmare that there are Marties everywhere, and he can’t get away from them. Everywhere he turns, there’s A Marty staring back at him. His escape from the horde of Marties only comes when the “Howdy Doody Time” theme song starts, and he wakes up. Since the song also wakes up Doc in the movie, I’d like to believe he was also having Marty Nightmares.

Also, this reminds me of that one post. I can't track down the original to include a link, but I do have a screenshot saved, so that'll have to do.

• Meanwhile, Marty is over on the couch having Cowboy Dreams. He dreams he’s in the Old West with Clint Eastwood and is woken up by the sound of Doc talking into his tape recorder.

• As Doc reads the letter, Marty sits quietly in a chair, intently listening to the whole thing, which is very un-Marty if you ask me. Very glad we ended up with Movie Marty wandering all over the place and touching everything, as it should be.

• Ok, the book earns a point for having both Doc and Marty get emotional to the point of actual tears after reading his letter. Doc is sniffling and wiping tears away, and Marty is described as, “trying hard to keep his lower lip from quivering.” They should have cranked up the emotion for the movie scene.

• Also, I somehow purchased a version of the novelization that was printed in Great Britain, so I’m continuously running into different spellings, such as “centre” and ���favourite.” My inner voice narrating as I read is occasionally speaking with an accent because of this. Adds to the fun, I guess.

• Once they locate the DeLorean in the mine, it says, “Doc and Marty grinned at each other,” then they just get to work uncovering it. This is interesting to me because it contrasts so much from the actual movie scene where these supposed grins are replaced with a look of awe from Doc and a look of what I can only describe as horror/fear in Marty. It’s one of my favorite scenes of part III because of their reactions, actually. It's almost as if the realization that the car has been there for so long, and that the older version of the guy standing next to him had stood in that very spot to hide way back in 1885 is a little too overwhelming for Marty. It's a great moment. Next time you watch part III, really focus in on their expressions during this quick little scene.

• Book Marty does NOT stumble over the word “schematic.”

• When Doc tells Marty that he always wanted to be a cowboy, he mentions that he spent a few summers working at Statler’s Ranch, where he learned how to ride horses and shoot guns. In the DeLorean Manual (you know I always have to bring up this book; it’s a treasure trove) Doc says he learned these skills because his father sent him away to “wilderness camp.”

• Got a chuckle at what follows Doc talking about those summers working at the ranch: “Marty got the oddest look on his face. He was probably trying to imagine Doc Brown as a cowboy.”

• Marty then asks Doc how he ended up becoming a scientist instead. Which is kind of an odd choice. Are you to expect me to believe that Marty doesn’t already know the story of how Doc went into science?? This is something I assume 1980s Doc would have told him in their first week or so of knowing each other.

• Marty, initially wary at Doc being “stuck” in 1885 has a change of heart after hearing Doc talk so enthusiastically about his older self getting to live out his cowboy dreams. He says, “Doc, if you’re happy, then I’m happy. It’ll be a whole lot easier for me to go back to 1985 knowing you’re living it up in 1885.” I actually think this is a wonderful addition that might have been nice in the movie. It just…it displays their relationship so nicely. Marty doesn’t WANT to lose his best friend, but he values Doc’s own happiness above his own. To Doc, he isn’t stuck or condemned to a life in the Old West. He’s living out his childhood dream! If you’re happy, then I’m happy. It’s such a beautiful way to reframe the situation.

That seems like a good place to leave things for now.

[daisy-daze17]

Omori Manga Thoughts cause it was uhhh

OK so like. The thing is I only got into the omori fandom in February of this year so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

1. I'm mostly a fan of the art style-- a lot of people said that Sunny always seems to have a panicked expression so it's hard to read into him, plus the characters look a lot younger than they're supposed to (Which I find odd). But other than that, I think it does a really good job representing the scarier parts with very abstract drawings of Mari/Something. They coloured it well and thank god did Kel's skintone right. There is one particular panel that I especially love:

So much detail and it captures the feeling of seeing faraway for the first time really well ^^

Some nitpicky positive thoughts:

Sunny could have looked more distinct from Omori because the only difference I see are their outfits. Maybe make Sunny's features softer and have less contrasting values so we can see an immediate difference.

I like how they did everyone's eyes-- Sunny/Omori's are just dull and black, and everyone else with dark eyes are shown to have a light in them. (Just a nice detail i appreciated)

I like how Omori is clearly less expressive compared to sunny, but I think Sunny could have benefitted from having more emotions than surprised/blushing.

2. The pacing was weird. like really fucking weird. The basic structure of the game Omori is: Omori is in whitespace -> Omori plus the gang (Hero, Aubrey and Kel) meet up with Basil and Mari in headspace -> everyone minus Mari goes to Basil's house and learn all the combat stuff along the way -> after fixing the photo album it suddenly shifts to basil in a panicked state before glitching you back into white space again. The moment when basil shifts the mood from calm to terrifying is REALLY important.

It forces the new tone on you very suddenly and also sets up a lot of mystery surrounding Mari when Basil can't finish what he was going to say about her. By now we know that something is very wrong and it has to do with Mari, but we don't know what.

The manga is kind of all over the place the whole time. First we see the christmas scene when Sunny gets his violin. But then Mari does her whole nightmare thing and we know somethings up from the first few pages. Next we wake up at night as Sunny in the real world... yet it shows the little "THREE DAYS LEFT" as well? At this point I was super confused because basically the entire nighttime sequence is shown through a sort of montage with Sunny's mom's voice message in the background before transitioning into the day when Kel first knocks on the door. A cool thing they did was parallel Kel's knocking with the creepy knocking we get from Mari Something. HOWEVER for reasons unknown they just completely cut out the fight against something on the stairs??

Something I was really excited about was seeing how they would integrate the combat into the manga. And they do it later with the Aubrey fight (more on that later), but not now? So now I'm wondering if they'll include Sunny's three fears that he has to overcome.

So next we find our boy (KEL!!!!!) and he is asking Sunny if he wants to come to Hobbies. I did find the dialogue here pretty awkward as Kel bounced back and forth in demeanor, but that's to be expected since Sunny isn't talking. (And I appreciate how he shows some kind of reaction to seeing one of his best friends after 4 years lol)

I mean compared to this when he just jumps straight into his hobbez idea without much reaction to actually seeing Sunny lol.

The most notable thing after this is the Aubrey confrontation with Basil and the other hooligans. I DONT KNOW WHY but they chose to not show the hooligans in that scene!! The hooligans are aubrey's little gang/posse who she hangs around with all the time and the people we always see when she's bullying Basil.

It's very important to note that Basil is talking to KIM here. He starts the conversation begging for her to tell Aubrey to give the photo album back. Aubrey is actively ignoring his attempts to get it back, with basil claiming "She won't listen to me."

In the manga she appears out of seemingly no where and proceeds to beat Basil directly with her bat. Prior to this we get no setup or explanation as to why Aubrey's attacking him or what the situation is. WORST OF ALL, It's only Aubrey alone attacking him and NOT her gang of the Hooligans. The hooligans are important in showing us just how isolated and ostracized from society Basil really is after Aubrey began bullying him. He literally has a whole gang of kids who call him a creep and attack him regularly. Here it seems like Aubrey is insane and is just beating him selfless for kicks. (not that I'm justifying Aubrey's behavior in the game, but the lack of context makes this situation even worse.)

I think It's also important to bring up how they switched around the order of events because in this situation, it's not working. We're supposed to first be introduced to younger Aubrey and Basil in headspace-- their younger counterparts. Aubrey is strong-willed and excitable and Basil is calm and kind. And most importantly-- they're VERY GOOD FRIENDS. So seeing Aubrey revealed to have been bullying him these past 4 years shocks the player and makes them understand how much things have really changed. Doing it the other way around will automatically villainize DW Aubrey since we already know what goes on in real life.

And then something interesting happens-- Sunny blacks out during the fight and returns to Headspace. This is SUPER weird as we've only ever seen Sunny go into headspace while sleeping, because it's an escape mechanism he uses to avoid The Truth. Does this mean he isn't aware he goes into headspace unwillingly sometimes? And what does this mean for the continuation of the real world story? Are we going to go through the entire Space Boy quest just to get back to that scene?

Anyway, I'm interested to see how they take it from here. Maybe they'll do a continuous switchover to the real world where they jump between it more frequently. But I question what that would mean for the timeline because the events of headspace happen in between the three days while Sunny is sleeping-- so he can't be in two places at the same time. Maybe they'll write more and more random ways for Sunny to black out to do this?? They defiantly are trying to take a step back from following the game exactly. I can't say I don't like it because I don't know how it'll turn out, so I'm excited for chapter 2!

[felixcloud6288]

PMMM Rebellion Movie

Those images during Homura's explanation of things have some real witch art-style to them.

Those tears(?) formed a spiral at the end.

This opening has real Fantasia vibes.

Madoka!? Why are you in the ballerina crowd?

I really want to know how that bear thing is animated. It looks like a real item made using stop motion.

SAYAKA!!! and Kyouko!!

A musical?

Why is the dessert witch here?

I'm not even five minutes in and have written all this.

It's the same family scene from episode 1.

So Hitomi and Kyousuke are already dating in the movie.

I saw it! Madoka has that magical girl mark on her left middle finger. Can't tell what it is but it's pink.

This opened with Homura explaining the law of cycles so I'd assume this is after the main series but things are definitely not adding up.

Madoka does the late for school run complete with toast in mouth.

ClaRis returns to make the opening theme.

Opening theme remarks: This is so obviously going to be about Homura. I love how the others are able to be carefree and have fun. Even though it's supposed to represent some tragic thing (I don't know, does Homura feel isolated and the others don't know her distress?), there's something funny about her moping while the others are doing a cheerful dance.

First time seeing Kyouko in a school uniform.

Sayaka and Kyouko's interaction over the homework is such a perfect microcosm of how they view what a magical girl is.

Oh great. Teacher's a conspiracy nutjob.

And her rambling sets the story to shortly after December 21, 2012.

It's Moe-mura. So is this an earlier loop?

Nevermind. What's a nightmare? The anime ended saying they're hunting demonic beasts.

Another shot where I could see Madoka's finger mark. It looks like it's just a pink line.

Hitomi has a fairy-tale princess bed.

Oh, so that's what nightmares are.

I'm SO OBSESSED with staring at everyone's fingers!!! I never saw Mami's mark in the anime and I can see she has one too. It's orange, but I can't tell exactly what it is. I think it might be a diamond.

Bebe? Okay. Why is that little witch living with Mami?

Got a good laugh seeing Mami use magic to curl her hair.

So glad Sayaka realized that Kyousuke isn't worth being upset over.

I'm so happy Kyubey hasn't said a single word. I hope just shuts the fuck up for the whole movie.

A full sailor Moon-esque transformation sequence.

Something felt off about Homura's transformation. I had to rewatch everyone's transformation sequences and while Homura's wasn't the only one that had witch runes appear, it was the only one where they interrupted the tranformation rather than being part of it.

Everything about Homura's transformation sequence dripped with sheer awkwardness. She does not know how to be flashy or cool.

I actually had a PTSD flashback when Bebe got real close to Homura's face.

Do they actually have to sing to dispel the nightmares? That felt like the kind of song you'd sing to a kindergarten class.

Okay. Their soul gems get replenished by the power created by turning nightmares into happy dreams.

Loved seeing them all work together. We never got anything like that in the anime.

Bebe keeps talking about cheese. Is that why she ate Mami in the anime? Cause Mami's head looks like a cheese wheel?

What's with the math teacher's face? Oh it's everyone.

Anime cabbage rule: All drawings of food must look amazing.

Maybe all this is some nightmare of Homura's? I think she's implying to Kyouko that everything she doesn't know is kind of being awkwardly filled in.

"Veni, Vidi, Mitaki Hara"

We're already in weirdo limbo world and we haven't reached the final stop?

Bus driver is really unconcerned that someone jumped from the roof onto the engine.

Is Mitakihara the name of the city the story takes place in?

Everything is creepy.

Moe-mura was just an act.

I bet Kyubey is behind all this. I have no proof but I need an excuse to hate him.

Hold on a second. Were Bebe's familiars mouse-themed because she's obsessed with cheese?

Every time Homura pries into something she doesn't know, things get weird.

Homura, you shouldn't accuse the cheese freak when Kyubey is RIGHT THERE!!

There's a drawing of Bebe with a Mami palette-swap and a moustache at 46:08.

All the billboards are BEBE.

MAGIC OF GUN!!!!

WHAT!!?

Wraiths? Is that what we call the demonic beasts?

The witch wants to keep things the way they are. Oh dear. It's Homura.

Bebe and Sayaka know too much. They and Madoka should not exist in this world.

SAYAKA TURNED INTO HER WITCH FORM!?! WHAT'S GOING ON AND HOW CAN I BLAME KYUBEY FOR THIS!?

Why are those "children" throwing tomatoes at Homura?

Madoka's finger mark is just a line. LAME!!

Madoka was literally trying to make Homura go back to how she was at the start and Homura ended up rejecting the false reality where Madoka never vanished.

Why are creepy children chanting Homura's name while the world ends? Why is this movie so creepy!?

KYUBEY SHUT UP!! GO BACK TO BEING ALL "Kyu, Kyu".

Oh great, there's more of them.

Witch Homura's familiars are a mix of British Royal guards that look like Homura and children. Homura wished to relive her time with Madoka but be able to protect her instead, so the royal guard theme makes sense.

Awesome! It IS Kyubey's fault!

Kyubey and his entire race really are just the worst.

Loving the montage of Homura being singly obsessed with killing Kyubey forever.

Oh so Homura's familiars aren't royal guards. They're a prisoner escort. So I guess those children familiars are the onlookers mocking the prisoner on their way to their execution.

Sayaka can command her witch form.

Sayaka and Bebe are commanding familiars from all the witches from the anime.

Now that I think about it, we never saw Sayaka pull of any actual pagical feats. This is cool seeing her create music sheet platforms.

Sayaka/Kyouko OTP!!

Sayaka's witch form is wielding a copy of Kyouko's spear.

Kyubey's final words being "I don't understand at all" is so appropriate when getting destroyed by the power of love.

A familiar of the Walpurgis Night is escorting Sayaka and Bebe.

There's still 20 minutes left. Something bad is totally going to happen.

Homura, what are you doing?

Why is that spool of thread a recurring item in the movie?

Okay. I have no idea what just happened, but I guess Kyubey's going to suffer for eternity so I think it's a net positive.

Homura looks so tired.

Oh Homura's mindset did not change from when she became a witch. She just doubled down. Even her familiars hate her.

Wait what?

Madoka is wearing the ribbon her mother didn't recommend.

That same montage of events from episodes 1 and 10.

I genuinely do not understand the ending at all. Did Homura just completely nullify the entire magical girl system and Kyubey, witches, and all that just exist as things outside existence?

There shouldn't be stars on the dark side of a half-moon. The moon is literally cut in half.

Homura just threw herself off a cliff. And the half-moon and cliff perfectly divide the scene. I guess Homura has figuratively and literally gone off the deep end and plunged herself into the darkness.

Kyubey is scared. Kyubey is SCARED!! Emotions are a mental illness to his race. Homura drove him mad.

Y'know, a theme in the series is that there's no such thing as a selfless wish. Everything has a selfish motive and the entire witch system banked on girls trying to be that selfless person they're told they should be and consequently making wishes that don't give them any happiness. Even though Madoka's wish destroyed the witch system, it was still one of those 'selfless on the outside, selfish on the inside' wishes cause she always wants to be helpful. And Kyubey's system still existed but in a less effective way.

Homura effectively made an absolutely selfish wish in the end. She wanted to make sure that Madoka can always be with her, and she rewrote the universe to destroy the entire cause and effect preventing her from having that desire.

Ironically, it looks like this is the good ending because no one has to suffer from the magical girl system at all. And all the aspects about it still exist to keep things running, but don't actually effect anything. The only one who will suffer is Kyubey.

back

[mylittleredgirl]

favorite and least favorite parts of each trek, with absolutely no thought put into it before making this list:

🚀 classic trek favorite: the ~aesthetic~. fuckin LOVE big chunky plastic buttons and beepy things, the mini-skirts, the sparkly metallic fabric, the whole deal. least favorite: janice rand leaves forever :( :( every single appearance she had was BONKERS how am i supposed to experience that and then ever hope to fill that void 🪐 tng favorite: soooooo soothing to know that our guys will always be both kind and correct and at the end of the episode i will learn something about how to be a better person. also romulans are there. least favorite: shit fuck i shouldn't have started this post because i'm already drawing a blank. ok ok i hate that the ship's counselor role got nerfed into a "therapist on the bridge" when it's actually so so important!! that needed to be explored so explicitly that dudebros on the internet have to shut up about it forever ⚾️ deep space nine favorite: THE CHARACTERS MY FRIENDS. the cast of dozens where every single character right down to the randos on the promenade are great. headed up by benjamin lafayette sisko and kira nerys, truly characters of all time least favorite: dukat's insanity/pah-wraith arc. like i do get why this narrative parallel makes sense against sisko as the prophets' emissary but also, it's bad. 🥔 voyager (that's a leola root by the way) favorite: i LOVE the early seasons where everyone is so adorable and spunky and they're just tooling around the delta quadrant being terrible at making friends. also tuvok is there. least favorite: kes leaves forever :( :( i hear you out there saying "fury" but come here. look at me. look at me. kes leaves forever. 🛰 enterprise favorite: controversial actually but i love t'pol's arc. i DID NOT love it as it was airing because watching poor jolene blalock having to act her way through ever more demeaning episodes is painful and terrible, but t'pol is magnificent actually? the fish out of water vulcan finding herself in foreign waters?? self-destruction on the way to rediscovering her own personal relationship to logic??? imagine if we'd got three more seasons of her with manny coto in charge it would've been glorious. least favorite: can we PLEASE do something with hoshi and travis i am BEGGING. also physically painful what american jingoism did to captain archer but i might have emotionally coped with it better if travis got lines. 🍄 discovery favorite: michael burnham is the light of my life she makes me cry out emotions that have been buried since i was in utero i don't even know. also the changing opening sequence my beloved least favorite: need one of those serial killer string boards to figure out what's going on sometimes??? can't say that too loudly tho because the discovery haters can smell blood in the water 💃 short treks favorite: THE CONCEPT I LOVE THIS least favorite: more??????? :( 🥷 star trek picard favorite: seven of nine in comfy sweaters kissing a girl filled holes in my life i didn't know were there!!!?!?!?? least favorite: don't like when picard is a jerk :( don't like when no soji and elnor :( :( :( 🤪 lower decks favorite: every second is a relentless outpouring of love for star trek, it's like a sleepover where all your friends are sitting around talking about how much they love tng except your friends are 900% funnier. least favorite: i have a hard time with cartoon violence sometimes so i get TENSE and also badgey haunts my nightmares for real for real 👨‍🍳 strange new worlds - actually i have only seen the first episode despite posting about it as if i have seen all of it haha my bad SO favorite: new star trek to watch!!!!! least favorite: now everyone knows i haven't watched it yet and i am losing trekkie credibility babes 😬 👩‍👧‍👦 prodigy favorite: rok-tak my DAUGHTER least favorite: that feeling of being in a warner brothers cartoon and there's an anvil above all our heads with J/C DISCOURSE painted on it just waiting for the show to make a wrong move

i swear i must have forgotten at least one series there is so much star trek now??? anyway feel free to make your own post about this, i am curious!! if you absolutely MUST i suppose it's ok to think about your answers for more than 30 seconds.

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: The Snowman

There's just no sugarcoating it, this month has been rough for your dear old friend Peebs. It's mostly my ongoing struggles with mental health and mental healthcare bureaucracy, as well as my specific neurodivergence apparently being atypical. This is all to say that I'm grumpy af, and as such I will see Sucktember 2024 off with writing about two movies that I think are bad. First up is the 2017 cinematic disaster The Snowman.

Now, the Snowman is infamous for being a poorly made film, in part because that by the look of it they didn't get around to filming all of it. Dan Olson has a very good breakdown of that side of it, and as such I won't try to come up with much new to say about that. Yes, entire plot points are obviously created from B-roll and sloppy voiceover, the dubbing of Val Kilmer is strange and unpleasant to the mind, hell, that entire subplot could be cut down to not feature Kilmer at all if they had actually full-assed it, the ending is a fucking enigma, etc etc. What I will be focusing on, however, are just how weird of an adaptation it is. Like even if they got around to filming all of it and assemble it more completely, there would be parts of this movie that is just puzzling, and I want to get into that soft sweet meat a little today.

Ok, I lied. There's one exception. There is one nonsensical editing decision with this movie that I need to talk about and nobody's talking about it. The movie opens with a flashback to the backstory of the murderer, which isn't outrageous as these things go, it's a thing, especially in Scandinavian Crime Fiction. What really gets to me is that after this flashback, we cut to our hero, Harry Hole (pronounced with a long o, get your minds out of the gutter) waking up hungover in a park. Our hero Has Problems, that's not unusual either. However, I would argue, what the movie has told us with this sequence of events is that the Murder Flashback was about Harry, and might even have been a dream/nightmare.

Like this is Film Studies 101 stuff, the Kuleshov effect. The juxtaposition of two cuts convey narrative. If this was how the book started it'd be fine, The Snowman is smack dab in the middle of the Harry Hole series, perhaps the readers, or the narration, is mindful that they're depicting two different characters here. The camera, the all-seeing idiot of the screen, can't imply this kind of thing, and so characters need to show their thoughts and feelings through action. That is not what is happening here. In fairness, though, if the movie had the coverage to actually convey that Mr. Hole has been On The Drink Again, and how this contrasts with his character, that would be fine.

Anyway, let's get back to the weirdness. The first one is probably the biggest one. Why is this movie set in Norway? Like genuinely, why take a British and US cast all the way across the pond to speak English in the streets of Oslo? Yeah, you need snow for the snowmen, so it's not like you can film this on a LA backlot (at least cheaply,) but there are places that have snow over in the US as well, and while the Norwegian State Subsidies of overseas film productions have been pretty juicy lately, surely Canada hasn't been bled dry yet?

Ok, I'm being a cynic about this, but frankly, it's not like the movie makes great use of the setting. There's basically no Norwegian cultural details that moors this thing a bit and makes it feel like there's a story. There's Swedish songs, chiefly Härligt, härligt men farligt, farligt by Björn Skiffs, as well as the Swedish version of the birthday song. Now, in fairness, there is overlap between Swedish and Norwegian culture especially in the eastern part of country. Shame then, I suppose, that this song is sung in Bergen, the very westernmost edge of the country. The concert Hole and his son that isn't his son (but it is his son) goes to is incomprehensible nonsense, I assume by design, but it would've been a great excuse to drag in some local act for some cred. Mais non, I suppose, it's all set dressing for Fassbender to mope around in.

One thing I've noticed that is weird in this is that the movie ends up, mostly by accident, implying that basically all the locations in the movie are like... close to each other. The biggest sinner is the train ride between Oslo and Bergen, which takes between six and a half and seven and a half hours. It's not quite a full day's undertaking, but if you somehow went there and back again in a day, you're probably pretty tired and not, like our friend Harry, slunking around crime scenes like it's the only thing you know how to do.

Another thing that gets to me is how unwilling the city seems to be to show any convincingly scuffy sides of Oslo. Oslo is a reasonably clean city, and the local police's dilligence in herding the transient and narcotic-employing population city from the view of the tourists should be noted if not commended. That said, when Harry falls into a drunken slumber in a location that looks like one of the semi-fancy places downtown, it doesn't exactly sell the believability of it. Round those parts, you would not be left to potentially die from exposure. You'd be roused, and if you weren't willing to get the fuck out of dodge and freeze to death on someone else's property you bet your ASS some very firm-looking security guards would be happy to escort you off the premises. There are places in Oslo that look sufficiently scuffy to really sell the "guy's collapsed, uncertain if he's sleeping, drunk or high as a kite" kind of idea, but it seems nobody gave enough of a shit to find any of them.

Then there is how incongrous the setting seems in time. Beats By Dre product placement places us in the contemporary, but there is one thing that bothers me with it. Through the movie our heroes struggle with this clunky Web 1.0-looking piece of telecom tech that you keep expecting to be important in some way, at least as a weapon of blunt force trauma, but no dice. The villain of the piece thwarts it at one point to allow the requisite fridging of the movie's supporting actress raise the stakes without advancing the plot any. No, this strange piece of over-specialized impractical tech just kind of exists, as some commentary on the Norwegian Technocracy with all the relevance stripped away.

Part of this, I suspect, is Garbage In, Garbage Out. Yeah, making this feel like a story actually set IN Oslo and portraying distances and the general feel of travel in Norway would help a lot, but there is many things it would not fix. It would not fix said fridging where our Cop Lady gets Taken Off The Case For Being Too Close, and then goes on to try to seduce some juicy leads out of a suspect in the case. It's a total dud, as he is just a creep, and the real killer finds her and kills her with the creepy guy none the wiser and no actual progress made. What, this 90s crime thriller written by a man has some janky perspective on the lady characters? You don't say.

While it is not the graves of its sins, the ending of this movie is weird as fuck too. After standing up to his dark mirror The Snowman Killer and coming up one finger short for his troubles, the last shot in the movie is Harry... taking on another case? Sure, I mean yeah, but why stop there? Harry isn't planning on quitting, if anything he's a workaholic. It's not like he has gone through a journey of maybe wanting to work less and concentrate on the family that isn't a family (but it is a family) he has. Sure, he has expressed a desire to, but his failure to even try has been as lukewarm of a "distant parent" narrative could possibly be. So what is the ending supposed to make us feel? Good because The One Good Cop That Can Get Shit Done is still out there The Dark Knight-ing for us? Sad because this Disco Elysium protagonist in the making is still on the self-destructive cop beat? Excited because the Guy Who Investigates Grizzly Crimes Is Still Investigating Grizzly Crimes? Beats me, and by the look of it, it also escaped the film makers.

It should come as no surprise that re-watching The Snowman didn't exactly endear me to it. It's a sloppy, incomplete film that probably wouldn't be any good even if they had the chance to film it, although it would perhaps not scream out the choreography of the final twist so loud if there wasn't one character literally pointless apart from secretly being the killer all along. This, together with the awkward pacing, lacking introductions and altogether flat affect of the whole thing, makes it seem like an adaptation that took too much from the original work. While yes, a lot of adaptations could do with harking a bit closer to the source material, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

[shinjisdone]

Vinland Saga S2 Episode 20 Take...

Spoilers below:

God...bro...stop.

First of all the battle:

It is so interesting to see both sides of a 'warrior': The one who revels in the killing and loses himself in the blood and the one scared for their lives. Each of them experiences both sides and its just *mwah* to see FOX being the one TERRIFIED. The one who first suggested to Olmar to kill to truly "become a man". The one who was glorifying the act, telling him so sadistically how easy it is once you realize how soft and fragile a human's body is.

And now it is the Joms vikings who feel the same glee as they strike down each slave as if they are toothpicks.

It shows the humanity and hypocrisy. How each loses - either to the bloodlust or straight up their lives.

It also shows the difference between mere mercenaries i.e. the 'guests' and actual, trained vikings who work under the king. It's *Chef kiss*.

The look in the vikings eyes are the same as the guests and Askeladd's band.

Bro Thorgil is insane???

You know that the moment you meet him but he keeps doing mad things to keep reminding you. Like, dude swam around the island with a sword on his back, no armor to defend himself and was ready to decapitate the king who he worked for just months ago???? Cuz his family got insulted thats why.

Bro is on the same level as Thorkell.

And Canute actually fighting back??? AND ATTEMPTING TO KILL THORGIL TOO? My man got guts and its so surprising.

There is no way Thorgil thought he might do that. Plus, he was too confident to even think he might lose.

Ketil u son of a bitch he survived. There is just something infuriating and tragic knowing a phony like him could fall this deep and low in his own arrogance, pride, weakness and delusion.

Man shouldve died. Stop saving him, Snake.

And now to the tearjerker

Bro

Bro bro bro. Arnheid just...seeing her family waiting for her? Hinting even an episode before that her unborn child is already dead. Gardar took care of it like its own kid in the sequence.

And she woke up just to say her thanks and bid goodbye. Thorfinn and Einar keep trying to give her hope and not to die...

But she keeps on asking; Where will we go and is there war? Is there slave trade? If so, then I don't want it.

She'd rather die. All of these things are just another prolonging nightmare for her.

I was a bit sceptical of Arnheid as a character but it all makes so much sense.

She's just supposed to be a normal woman in the world of the nordics. The world of vikings, war and slaves. Not the daughter or wife of a warrior or anything but just a woman.

She had everything that was part of a normal life. A village, a home, a husband and a child and it's all just taken from her.

She did absolutly nothing wrong. Her only crime being her existence.

When there are no men to defend you in times like these, you are taken away as a slave, your toddler child seen as useless and killed. You are taken to a master and work as his servant, maid and bedwarmer. She becomes pregnant without asking for it but decides and has the strength to protect her second child.

And then...one thing goes wrong and it all comes tumbling down. The master who "adores" her beats her to death and the one person she wanted to protect dies.

"Everyone I loved died. Why should I live?" She has no reason to live anymore.

This isn't just tragedy falling upon you. It's a young woman's will being completely destroyed by the cruelty of this world - of the men who wage war and those who enslave her.

Why should women live in a world like this? Anything peaceful can be taken from them in an blink of an eye and they are collected either as a "prize" for the vikings or sold off as slaves. They are especially vulnerable compared to men. They are straight up SOUGHT by raiders. It's insanity.

The war takes away their fathers, husbands, Brothers and sons. Slavery takes away their mothers, sisters and daughters.

And her speech of asking why she should live mirrors Thorfinn's speech of "Nothing good has ever happend to me" - That's what I think at least.

It's the reason why he looks so pained at that part especially I believe.

Man lets all say thank you to Thorfinn's convenient elephant-like memory. Guy remembers when you sneezed and why like 7 years ago.

Just seeing him try to bring her back to life like his father did, which he saw when HE WAS SIX AND SO CONFUSED ON WHAT HIS DAD WAS DOING AND IT WAS FOR ANOTHER SLAVE NO LESS

And Einar keeps on trying to give her hope 😢 he confesses how much he likes her, even now...

And oooooooooouuuugh here comes Ketil and my blood boils

SNAKE STOP SAVING HIS ASS

Einar trying to kill him and PUNCHING THORFINN when he tried to stop him hurts. My man would never raise a hand against Thorfinn but here he did nooo.

Bro but Thorfinn finally snapping him out of this oh so familiar rage and telling him "don't become like me. Don't drown in that nightmare I've had" *sobs*

*BIG SOB*

They make her a grave...and Thorfinn, once again, just conveniently remembers what Canute once said about his view on God and Love.

And now he just...wants to stop him???? Bro how????

He SAID THERE WOULD BE AT LEAST 50 MEN AND THE WORST CASE SCENARIO IS THAT HE'LL GET AWAY WITH HIS LIFE AT LEAST

STOP SAYING THAT UR SCARING ME

LEIF ALREADY LOST U LIKE 2X PLS DONT DO SOMETHING RECKLESS

IM LEGIT SCARED. WHATS HE GONNA DO? TALK????

Ugh...I'm so feelings it makes me sick

[callmeblake]

Part 2 from a leathermouth interview on jerseybeat february 11th 2009

see part 1, part 3, part 4

Q: That’s a great answer, actually. So, the video for “Bodysnatchers 4Ever” is due out I guess today – can you tell us anything about it? (Writer’s note: At press time, the video had not yet been released to the public.)

F: Yeah! Well, really, it keeps in the style with doing everything ourselves. It orignally started as: I wanted to make a film that would go along with the record, so I went to my friend, Dane Castoro. He kind of blows me away with his talent in editing and directing - he makes short films on his own. So, we got together in my basement and backyard and started to come up with concepts for the movie. Because of time constraints and just lack of…coincidences, I think, we couldn’t finish the movie in time for the record to come out.

So, what I did was, I kinda cut out pieces from the twenty minute film and did a video out of it – so it’s highly edited. I think the storyline is very blurred right now, but hopefully in maybe another time we can finish the film and the story will actually be seen – but it’s really just a nightmare sequence. There were four people really involved – me, Dane, his girlfriend and another friend, and we just kinda sat around and filmed stuff. I’m really happy with the way it came out – it took a long time to edit it and do a lot of stuff and post. We really wanted to go for this feel where these tapes were found and let the viewer kinda interpret things about it. I’m really proud of it – I’ve never directed anything; I’ve never done anything with films before, and I’ve always wanted to. But this is my first attempt at it, so I hope it works out.

Q: Was it a weird shift to make for you or did you like totally embrace it?

F: Well, the technical side was the problem, and that’s where Dane came in so amazingly. I didn’t know shit about how to film or how to edit things; I used all his knowledge for that – that made it a lot easier.

Q: Mm hm – I’ve seen the sneak peak; it’s really interesting. It reminds me of an old-time silent movie; it’s a really cool effect.

F: Yeah, that’s what we were kinda going for.

Q: It’s awesome. What's the symbolism, by the way, behind you always being the one killed in the press photos?

F: (laughing) Well, I told Epitaph I didn’t want do press photos where my face was being seen so much – there were a few got out there that kinda weren’t supposed to be released. But I said that I would only show my face if I could have it smashed. So that was kind of the idea that me and Jamie came up with.

Q: (laughing) Oh, that’s awesome! So, you've listed the lyrics to "Leviathan" as EVP - so you're saying it was written by the dead?

F: Um, it’s more of a lend to channeling things that are around you and being almost a medium for that – and also having a breakdown as well. There’s a small sequence of lyrics that I do go back to, and they are kind of set, but for the most part, I like it to change every time. It’ll change depending on, based on everything – where I am at that point in time, what happened in my day; it’s just an open-ended thing, where I’m feeling things inside and channeling that.

Q: Ah, that’s interesting, so basically no one’s ever hearing the same song twice.

F: Right.

Q: That’s cool. Um, most hardcore band moment you've witnessed so far?

F: Hm, oh man…

Q: Come on, you have to have a good story!

F: It’s really, I mean, to me, the most hardcore moments are doing it – like traveling with no means…(chuckles) This is one of my favorite experiences: we had a show up on Long Island – this wasn’t with LeATHERMØUTH, this was with another band I was in – our van broke down just in the middle of the LIE and we had to push it to the side. So, it was either get it towed home – because we had like two miles left on one person’s AAA card – or get it towed to the show and then just figure it out. So we towed it to the show, played the show – and not all of us could fit in the tow truck, so some of us had to hide in the back of the van with the equipment. So we kind of hung out inside until the thing came, and I think we got home at like 10:00 in the morning, because he cops had to…I don’t know, we had to like finagle something to get home. To me, that was the biggest hardcore moment.

Q: (laughing) That’s definitely hardcore – that’s like trying to sneak out of another country illegally!

F: Yeah, you do or die!

Q: I guess anybody that went to that show had to go “Look what these people did just to get here, I mean, come on!”

F: (laughing) Yeah, that was a kind of funny moment, when the broken-down van pulls up behind this like sirened tow truck and then it gets lowered – we’ve gotta get out of the tow truck – and as soon the tow truck leaves, you kind of sneak the guys out of the back that weren’t supposed to be in the back with the equipment, so…

Q: (laughing) I’m not here, I’m just walking behind this amp!

F: Exactly!

Q: You've done lot of shows now already, with this band – what’s your favorite moment so far?

F: I like it when people obviously don’t get it, and are visibly annoyed (we both laugh) – those are some of my favorite moments. But, we’ve been fortunate enough that a lot of people are really enjoying it, and have been coming out; whether it’s from myspace or just hearing the record.

Q: They’re singing along, so you’ve got good fans.

F: That’s a real inspiring moment, when people are singing your words back to you. I’ve been lucky enough to experience that a couple of times, and it’s really some of the best feelings I’ve ever had.

Q: That’s gotta be incredible! Um, I actually have a few more: what I wanted to ask you is: you’re touring with a different lineup than you recorded with; was that a smooth adjustment to make?

F: Um yes, but it also wasn’t really that bad – I mean with the original lineup, we’d only really played like two or three shows, and that was spread out over at least six months. And the only reason for that was that our schedules just weren’t really working together. When I would come home from tour, someone’d be like “Oh, there’s a show, do you wanna play?” I mean, there was no real demand I guess for a tour or anything at that time, because we didn’t really have any songs yet, so both shows we played were really only like six or seven song sets. So it was just getting our feet into the water, and then when the touring lineup came together, that’s when we really started to play and get together like all the songs we had.

Q: That’s gotta be incredible! Um, I actually have a few more: what I wanted to ask you is: you’re touring with a different lineup than you recorded with; was that a smooth adjustment to make?

F: Um yes, but it also wasn’t really that bad – I mean with the original lineup, we’d only really played like two or three shows, and that was spread out over at least six months. And the only reason for that was that our schedules just weren’t really working together. When I would come home from tour, someone’d be like “Oh, there’s a show, do you wanna play?” I mean, there was no real demand I guess for a tour or anything at that time, because we didn’t really have any songs yet, so both shows we played were really only like six or seven song sets. So it was just getting our feet into the water, and then when the touring lineup came together, that’s when we really started to play and get together like all the songs we had.

Q: Yeah, that first show was sort of sprung on you last minute, wasn’t it, if I remember correctly? It was a last minute decision, like “Hey, can you be here in two days?”

F: Mm hm, exactly. We did like a CMJ show. We hadn’t planned on playing a show or anything, I was just like “Oh hey, I’m in town this week.” There was an opening spot on the showcase, and I got the call. I was like “Alright, let’s see if everybody can do it” and we did it.

Q: Yeah, you pulled it out – you have to roll with it sometimes.

Q: Yeah, you pulled it out – you have to roll with it sometimes.

F: Yeah, that’s the fun of the band, and also the fun behind the record – even recording some of these songs – have the sense of urgency that you get; you have that first take and you just put it out there. I think that with the recorded aspect of this band, it needed to be that way. If it was overproduced or even thought about beyond a couple of takes, it wouldn’t be the same.

Q: Yeah, you’re right – I actually was reading a little from the people that had been following this band since the beginning, and they were hoping that it wasn’t going to deviate too far from the demos; they liked that they were dirty.

F: Right, and I think that really encompasses the band –to hear it in any other way, I don’t think it would be as special.

Q: Yeah, it has to be sort of seat-of-your-pants.

part 3 (link coming)

[i-am-infinite]

Guilt (Part 2): The Market

(Din Djarin x ForceSensitive!F!Reader)

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Description: Moff Gideon has found someone else to run his experiments on and word gets back to Din. Will he take his son far away and try and find somewhere safe? Or will the guilt of an innocent being put in his son’s place eat away at him? (No Y/N or ___ used)

Word Count: 4.5K

Warnings: violence, mention of blood, needles, crude talk, symtoms of anxiety attack, fluff, angst, implied death and death, let me know if I'm missing any

A/N: This took a while to write because I was really distraught after Chpt 14. Also planning on turning this into a little series. I'm going to try and finish it before my next semester starts in Feb. I also don’t know how to write fight sequences so sorry in advance. 

You see a stormtrooper take aim at your rescuer. Right when he pulls the trigger, you reach your hand out screaming, “NO!”

It was supposed to miss him. It missed him before. Instead of bending out of the way, it hits him and the Mandalorian goes down fast. Before you know it, more troopers come, grabbing Dr. Pershing and dragging him away. They start coming towards you when you hear yourself say, “No, please no!” You could run towards the speeders, but there’s too many of them now, they can catch up easier. Looking back at the shiny man, tears leave your eyes. You were supposes to save him. That’s how it was supposed to happen. You start screaming the only name you know for him as a stormtrooper grabs your arms and has them twisted behind your back. Dragging you back to where you escaped from, the stormtrooper is calling your name. 

He keeps calling it as he shakes your arms then follows it with, “Wake up.” Why does that mechanical voice sound different from the rest? The words echo in your head. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. 

The stormtrooper helmets transforms into the one of the Mandalorian as you open your eyes. His hands leave your upper arms as he crouches in front of you. Still disoriented, your own hand comes up to your cheeks to shield your face when you realize it feels damp to the touch. Closing your eyes again and taking deep breathes you have to tell yourself over and over again: He’s here. I’m here. It was just a dream. Finally calmed down, you open your eyes to Mando still squatting in front of you. 

“You okay?” His modulated voice says to you. Nodding your head while wiping way the last of the tears, you can’t help but feel heat rise to your cheeks, wishing you could just disappear as you sink further into the copilot chair. “You want to talk about it?” he tentatively asks next. If it were anyone else, you would’ve probably said no, but seeing his tenderness as he cared for Grogu over the past few hours in hyperspace makes you give in. 

“We- we were back there, about to get on the speeders,” your heart rate picks up again thinking of it. You have no idea why the dream is affecting you this much. Continuing on with a shaky voice, “The stormtrooper, h- he shot you before I- I could- and” tears were forming in your eyes again, “and they st- started dragging me off and-” your voice suddenly barely above a whisper as you continue, “you weren’t moving.” 

You shouldn’t have shared it. Oh gosh, you wish you could take it back now. He hasn’t said anything. He probably thinks you’re weak now, unable to handle yourself, let alone a nightmare. It was a stupid dream, you are about to tell him when you hear him sigh, “Give me your hand.” Confused, you hesitate, causing him to tilt his helmet to the side and hold out his hand. Giving in, you hold out your own, placing it in his still hesitant. Moving his hand down to your wrist, gripping it lightly as he moves it his chest plate, he speaks again, “Feel this? This is beskar, strong enough to withstand blaster shots. While what you did was impressive, all you stopped from happening is me having to clean my back plate later.” Your face falls at this, noticing it, he brings his other hand over yours. You feel all the heat you have left in your body run up to your face. He declares, “That dream wouldn’t have come true. You’re safe. They won’t get to you again, I promise.” 

Still with your hand against the cool metal, all you can say is, “Oh. Thank you.” You wait for him to let go of your hand and wrist before you pull away, but he still hasn’t. Grogu stirs on the chair to your right, waking up after seeming to have slept through your nightmare. As if the noise startled Mando, he finally lets go and picks up his son. Clanking could be heard coming up from the ladder. 

Mando sits back in the pilot chair with the little green child who keeps trying to reach for the different buttons on his lap, as Dr. Pershing also seems to have finally woken up. Coming into the cockpit carrying a discarded IV bag. Oops. Should have put that back in at some point. 

Pershing comes as squats to the side of your chair, blocked off by the arm rest. “Looks like you’ve got some of your color back, which is good. Just to be safe, you should probably leave this in for longer.” Just nodding your head in response, scared your voice will falter, but now not knowing if it was from the dream or the prolonged touch of the beskar man. Or the fact that Pershing just pointed out how you’re blushing right in front of the person who caused in the first place. 

Trying not to look up at Mando, due to sheer embarrassment, you fail at your task when he turns to watch Pershing with the child still on his lap. He tries to be causal of his hand on his thigh, a little too close to his blaster as the doctor gets closer to you, while Grogu plays with his fingers. Father and protector, you smile to yourself. Realizing your line of gaze, he moves his other hand to hold to his child and abruptly turns his chair towards the stars as you feel a cold pinch in your arm. 

. 

The next hour or so is spent in silence, preparing to land on who-knows-what-planet. As long as you can get off this chilly ship and descend out of the numbness of space, it doesn’t matter where. You might be being a little over-dramatic, but wearing a now torn, thin, short sleeved shirt, some sort of pants with blaster powder now littering it, and no shoes, you think you deserve the right to be just a tad dramatic. The IV bag is finally finished, so there’s one less ice-cold thing touching your skin. Still you shiver in your seat, not wanting to impose too much and ask for a blanket or a change of clothes. Hopefully wherever you get off is warm, or at least warmer. 

Finally descending, you see tall, colorful structures, bright blue skies, and so much green. It’s beautiful. You can’t take your gaze off the gorgeous landscape getting larger before your eyes. Pulling your legs away from your chest, you brave the cold floor yet again to try and get a closer look. Audibly making a noise as you shiver, both men turn towards you, finally taking in your tattered appearance. With a static-y sigh, your starting to think that’s how he starts everything he says, the Mandalorian notes, “We should probably get you some better clothes.” His helmet points down to your feet, then tilts as he says, “And shoes.” 

. 

Bare feet hit the luscious green grass, toes curling and uncurling into it as you deeply inhale the fresh air. The sun hitting your skin makes you feel alive again, warming you from outside to inside. It’s as if you can feel the golden rays pouring out of you. You have never seen nature as brilliant and as vibrant as it is here, you never want to leave its warmth. Too caught up in your own little world, you don’t notice the two men start walking towards the city. Grogu babbling in Mando’s bag snaps you out of it and you slightly jog to try and catch up to them. 

It takes a while to walk into the city, considering where Mando landed his ship. By the time you actually get there, your feet feel like one of the thousand rocks you’ve stepped on during this journey. The armored man barely seems to notice at first of you trailing behind, only stopping when the city is finally in view. So now to top of being cold and unequipped for this amount of walking, you are now tired. Grrrwwww. And hungry. Hopefully no one heard the atrocious noise your stomach just made. When was the last time you ate? 

Mando must of heard it growl because before you can react, he tosses you a few credits and tells you to go get something to eat while he takes Pershing somewhere to set up his new life. You didn’t catch the last part because you’re already following your nose to the nearest source of food. While walking away you hear more static come out of his helmet, like he was sighing again, but it wasn’t the same as last time. It almost sounded like a laugh. Was... was he laughing at you? You whip your head around, but they’ve already disappeared. Shaking your head, you turn back and let your stomach take the lead again. 

. 

Mando and Grogu finally come back when you are all about done with this meat on a stick. They find you sitting in front of this little shop, eyes closed in bliss about finally eating. There’s barely anyone around, so it was not very hard to spot you. Finally looking up, ripping one of the last pieces off the kebob, you beam up at him. You don’t know it but seeing you happy after the events of this morning, brings a smile to the bounty hunter’s face. Offering his hand to help you stand, he asks, “Better?” You nod your head in response while he helps pull you up. Shoving he little piece of meat into your mouth, you hear his voice yet again, “What even is that?” 

“I don’t know,” you counter. “All I know if that it smelled really good. Honestly if I knew what it was, I probably wouldn’t be able to eat it,” you finish with a giggle. He just nods, still without you seeing the smile planted on his face. You two walk side by side going into the city, with Grogu in a bag on his father’s hip of course. 

You can hear the main part of the city before you actually see it. People are bustling, vendors litter the streets, it’s astonishing. And overwhelming, very overwhelming. Your breath hitches as you recall that a vendor was the way they found you before. But no, no you’re safe with the Mandalorian, he said they wouldn’t get to you. No, that he wouldn’t let them get to you. Without noticing, you start walking closer to Mando, more into his personal space than he usually likes. You’re close enough to graze his hand while walking, and right now you desperately want to reach out and grab it. Okay, it’s okay, just focus on your breathing, in and out, in and out. 

Too busy trying to calm yourself, you don’t notice Mando look over at you after he felt you invade his space. He whispers to you, “Are you okay?” but the volume is too much to get his question to your ears. Instead he lightly puts his hand at the small of your back, causing you to slightly jump. Looking around, your line of vision finally falls on the bounty hunter’s arm, now removed from your back, moving back towards his side. A blush creeps up to your cheeks as your realize that he noticed you. Pull it together. You manage to walk only a few more feet until someone bumps into you and instinct takes over as you grab onto something to steady yourself. The thing that happens to be is Mando’s arm. 

Luckily, he extends it behind your back to steady you, but not before sending the poor soul that accidentally bumped you what can only assumed is a death glare. That poor man turns as pale as a ghost. You almost forgot how menacing he could be. You’ve only been on the receiving end of Mando’s protection and don’t want to know what the opposite would be like. You two continue to walk with his arm guiding you, until you see it. Shoes. You nearly forgot about the pain in your feet until you saw them. Hand no longer on your back, you hurry forward, leaving the now frenzied and confused Mandalorian behind. 

Reaching the stand, you turn to find Mando with his hand on his blaster and his bucket of a helmet frantically looking around the area for a sign of danger. The T of his visor finally looks back at you and you just mouth to him, shoes! and then point at your bare feet. He tilts his head to the side and you just know that he sighed. Shaking your head, you let out a huff of air that resembles a laugh at his signature way of expressing himself. 

. 

Before you know it, you have new shoes, already on your feet, a few shirts and two pairs of pants. Mando insisted you have layers because who knows where they might end up. This begs the question, what kind of trouble has he gotten into before, better yet what trouble are you getting yourself into? Babbles from a hidden baby remind you that maybe the trouble is worth it. 

The shiny man and you continue walking around the marketplace of the city. He said he wanted to see if they had any spare parts that he could use for the Razor Crest and you were just happy to be wearing boots and having the extra time to break them in. “You can go look around if you want, I’m going to be over here,” Mando states as he inspects some round, gear-looking thing. Figuring you’d get bored of the mechanical items, you go to wander. “Hey,” the modulated voice cuts through again, “stay close.” Nodding, you only go two booths down to look at the books laid out. 

Eyes scan to find anything remotely related to this thing, this power, you and Grogu possess. In the back of your mind also knowing you’re searching for something to tell you more about Mandalorian culture, as you have become intrigued by your new companion. While looking, something shiny, much like Mando, catches your eye. Turning to the next booth, the item seems to be a hair pin. You freeze. 

A flower hair pin. Pearl in the center, with gray and white iridescent petals. No, no, no, no this can’t be happening. It feels like you can’t get enough air into your lungs. Your legs feel like lead, but you need to get out of there, you have to. The table has more unfinished glass pieces there too, just like before. They can find you. They can get you. They can get the baby. No that can’t happen, you force your tense legs to move as your hands shake. Backing up away from the stand, you bump into the book stand, letting a stack of books fall into the dirt. “Sorry, sorry,” you say with an unsteady voice. You need to find Mando, you need to find the baby, you need to -

Hands grab the back of your shoulders, as you think it’s over. You try to shake them off when you’re turned around to a familiar T visor. You stop fighting against him and grab his forearms. Your breathing still hasn’t slowed as he asks with a sternness you haven’t heard from him, “What happened?”

You can’t think of how to explain with your mind and heart racing and can only answer with, “We need to get out of here.” He pesters why to better understand the situation but all you can answer with is, “please,” as tears threaten to spill. “We need to get out of here please Mando.” He looks around confused, trying to find any source of danger, but turns his attention back to you when your grip tightens and you try to pull the three of you out of there. 

He lets you lead him to the edge of the city, back towards the green scenery you landed in. Finally stopping you with his hands on your shoulders again, he calls your name, “You need to tell me what is going on.” Taking a few breaths trying to compose yourself, you explain how the day before you were taken, you were at a shop similar to the one you were at. How you saw this hair pin then cut your hand while the person working tried to help you clean up. Explaining how you thought nothing of it, until you realized they wanted your blood for experiments. You barely make it through telling him that you saw the same set up with the hair pin at that booth. 

“That’s how they must have found me. We need to get out of here before they recognize us, please,” you plead. His helmet hangs down low as he slides one hand down to take your hand and begins walking back towards the ship. 

Arriving back at the ship, Mando hands you the bag filled with new clothes, “Go change, I’ll take care of this.” Just thinking he meant to fly the three of you off the planet, you go into the ‘fresher and get ready to take off far away from here. Finally dressed and hearing the latch close, you climb up to the cockpit. Grogu gurgles and makes grabby hands for you to pick him up from the co-pilot seat. While doing so, you realize the pilot seat is empty. 

“Where’s your dad, huh little one?” you coo at him. You called out to Mando to get no response. Attempting to climb down the ladder with the child wasn’t easy, especially still worried from before. You call out to Mando again, this time more frantic as he’s nowhere to be found. Your hear rate increase as you search the ship. Pressing the button you think would open the latch of the ship does nothing. What? did he lock you in here? You open some cabinets to be met with his armory. Picking up a blaster, you start rambling to the kid, “Your dad won’t mind right? Yeah, he’d want you protected. I won’t need to use it, but just in case. Yeah, just in case. Why don’t we also hang out in the cockpit away from the doors? Sound good?” You’re only met with muffled babbles back as Grogu sticks his stubby hand in his mouth. “Yeah, we’re going to be okay. Nothing is going to happen.” You hope.

. 

Back in the city, Din is looking for a stand that has this... hair pin? Does he even know what one of those looks like? He’ll figure it out, you knocked some books over, so he decides he’ll start there. Unfortunately for Din, most of the vendors are closing down their booths. Dank farrik. He’s got to move quickly before they’re all closed. 

Speed walking, he comes across the same man working the booth Din was at before you panicked. He asks the man if he knows if there is a booth that sells this item, and thankfully he points Din in the right direction. Four booths down. The people who wanted his child, and now you, could’ve been four booths down from him and he had no idea. Now’s not the time to beat himself up over this, he needs answers. Stalking up to the table, he’s met with a young man cleaning up the stand. Without looking up the man says, “What can I help you with?” Din’s hand ghosts over the pin you described to him and sees the many broken pieces scattered on the table. 

“Seems a little... unsafe having all of these around,” Din observes while now moving around the table. The man finally looking up, goes white in the face and begins to run. Why do they always think they can outrun me? Chasing the man down an alley, Din uses his grappling hook around his feet and the man goes tumbling to the ground. Grabbing him by the collar to face him. Anger laced through his modulated voice, “Did you follow us?”

“Nope, just the lucky bastard that happened to be on the same planet as you,” He spits out. Din notices that he moves his jaw to the side, but the man continues, “Don’t worry they’ll find you and the child soon. Oh, and I’m sure the troopers will have a good time with that pretty little girl you have once  they get their hands on her.” Before Din can land a hand on this guy, he bites down on something and there’s electricity everywhere, just like he saw with Bo Katan. Din barely jumps off the man in time. Now full of adrenaline and anger he stands there for a few seconds thinking of his next move. Kriff. He needs to get back to you and his son. 

. 

You are sitting on the cold floor of the cockpit, with Grogu on your lap, hand hovering the blaster that is next to you on the ground. Banging coming from the Crest makes you jump. It sounds like the hatch opens, so you clutch Grogu closer and pick up the blaster as you stand up. The pram is still in the cockpit, so you put the baby that is pulling your hair in and close it. Going to the opening between the levels, with shaky hands, you raise the blaster and wait. Clanging can be heard when you finally hear Mando call your name and the kid’s.

Hopping down the ladder, blaster still in hand, you smile at him as he stands still. “What the hell are you doing with that,” he barks at you. You stand there dumbfounded, he’s the one that left you in the ship with his child. He should be glad your first thought was to protect him. He continues with his hands on his hips, “Do you even know how to use that?”

Still startled, you stammer, “You just- point and shoot?” With that his hands go up in astonishment and back down again, almost as if he’s saying, are you kriffing kidding me? Why is he so angry right now? 

“You’re - you’re the one that left me, that left us here,” you point back up to the cockpit, “I didn’t know if someone else could get in or not. Why are you so angry at me for trying to protect your son?” 

“You could have shot him or yourself, you don’t even know how to use it,” his voice raises and he takes it out of your hand. 

“I’m not the one that left us here defenseless!” you scream. Both of you stand there for second huffing at each other. Finally thinking a little bit more rationally, you ask, “Where did you even go?” 

Pushing past you, he put something in your hand, “I took care of it.” He climbs the ladder as you look. The hair pin. He took care of it? He took care of it. Your face falls thinking of what that means. Following him back up, you take Grogu from the pram and place him on your hip. 

“You took care of it?” you say astonished, “Care to elaborate?” Mando sits in the pilot chair already plotting a new location. 

“No.” Your eyes go wide as he spins the chair to face you. “I’m flying us out of here and I-,” his hands go up in defeat, “I need to eat. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come up.” He sounds less angry but still very annoyed. At this point you’re fuming. You spin on your heels with Grogu playfully slapping his little 3-fingered hand across your face for attention. 

You leave the cockpit and grab two food packets on the crate before the ladder opening. Stuffing them in your pocket, you try to maneuver yet again down the ladder with a baby clinging to you. Hopping off the last wrung, you go to sit on the crates you woke up on. Opening the packets, you help feed Grogu his. 

Why was he so mad? If anything, he should be thankful that you were being resourceful. And after the past couple of days you think you deserve the right to be a little worked up about things like this. The anger is fueling you right now. It keeps spiraling, you can feel the darkness surround you. This used to happen when you were younger. Your emotions would almost devour you whole. Luckily your mother would always tell you, it’s okay to have these emotions but don’t let them consume you. She would lead you through some breathing exercises to help you calm down. Oh, you wish she were here with you right now to help. Could she have known about this ability you have? That’s not important right now, you need to breath and calm down. While doing so, you feel two little hands come and rest on your chest, as to help you relax more. Playing with his ears, the weight of the day starts to set in. You feel your eyes start to droop and before you know it, you’re asleep yet again. 

. 

Din holds his head in his hands. He shouldn’t have snapped. He knows this. It’s just knowing that Moff Gideon and his Imps could be anywhere in the galaxy trying to find others like the two Jedi he seemed to have collected. Are you even a Jedi? He still has no idea how this even works. Din shakes his head trying to clear it of what that man said. The anger boils up in him thinking of what he said about you, about their hands on you. He wishes he could’ve gotten a few punches in on him. He got out easy. 

He’d do anything to protect Grogu, he knows it and they know it. But now with you in the equation? He’s terrified. He doesn’t know what he got himself into with now both of you under his protection. You don’t know this but he saw you peeking through the opening, with your hands shaking holding the blaster and with such fear in your eyes. A pain springs up in his chest just thinking of it. Looking up towards the door, he thinks it might be time for him to stop hiding and time to go apologize for his behavior. He did just leave without explaining. You also have just been kidnapped and rescued in a matter of days. He sighs, remembering what you have gone through, and now with the reminder in the city. He should have been a little calmer and not taken out his frustrations out on you. 

Putting his helmet back on, he opens the cockpit doors and climbs down the ladder again, only to hear soft snores. There you are with your back against the wall, with Grogu in your lap. Grogu’s eyes open and he starts to make, very slow, sleep filled, grabby hands at his dad. Carefully taking the baby out of your arms, he opens up his own bunk and places the child in his little hammock. Quiet babbling is directed at him and Din responds, “I know, I know, I’m getting her a pillow and blanket.” 

Moving back over towards you with those items in hand, he places the pillow in its spot and carefully shifts you into a lying position, bringing your legs up onto the crates. After placing the blanket over you, Din moves the fallen pieces of hair out of your face. You look so peacefully, he can’t help but stare. Finally, he sighs, “I guess I better teach you how to shoot then.” 

Taglist: @rogueheretic555​ @heythere-mel​ @dancingwiththeplanets​ @ohpedromypedro​ 

[ahogehope]

BlazBlue Alternative Dark War Nightmare Fiction Event English Translation (Part 8: At the Edge)

IT’S FINALLY OVER! -cue game over music-

PLEASE READ THIS FIRST:  I realize this isn’t getting as much (actually not much of any) traffic as opposed to the reddit posts, but I’d like to extend this request over here as well. I’d definitely like to continue working on translations for this game but am unsure whether I should jump right into the most current event (the Dark Mai one) or start on actual story content next. So my question is: what do you guys want to see more? Reply to this post or shoot me an ask or whatever it is tumblr does these days.

Crossposted from reddit just for a little more exposure.

This is part 8, or the ninth story quest in the event.

Previous parts can be found here: [Part 1-1, Part 1-2, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7]

Some notes:

- The default name of Rei is used for the player character and was selected as male at the beginning of the game.

- I’m still on the fence on if I should be using honorifics or not. Your opinion on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

Click here to be taken to a pastebin with the translated dialogue or look under the read more to read it here. 

Section 8 – “At the Edge” (TL: Read as “kazuaru hazama-nite”)

Kazuma This is...

Ciel It’s very similar to the room we found hidden beneath Ishana.

Raabe So... this is the “innermost part.”

Hazama Oh? What’s with you guys all of a sudden? You’ve all got this shocked look on your faces. Have you guys been here before?

>We’ve been somewhere like this before. Hazama Really? Normally I’d ask to hear more about what sort of place that was but... Hazama We’re not exactly in the best place to be taking our time, wouldn’t you agree?

>Never seen it before in my life. Hazama Hey now, don’t just leave me in the dark like that. Hazama You’ll just make me even more curious if you keep it a secret, y’know. Hazama But... now isn’t really the best time to get into that, is it?

Fuzzy Raabe’s right though. This is the innermost part you guys have been so keen on getting to.

Fuzzy You brought those six keys here so you could activate the elements... and finally escape.

Raabe What happens next then?

Fuzzy You’ll just have to find out for yourself, right? You will, won’t you? Really though, even I don’t have any idea what’s supposed to happen next. Ahahaha.

Raabe We don’t have much of a choice either way, it would seem.

Kazuma As soon as we activate the elements, all of the mana we’ve collected will activate with them and accumulate around us.

Kazuma Much more mana than we’re used to will gather together in one place.

Hazama Will that be problematic for us?

Kazuma There’s no reason why it should be. This is probably the perfect place for it actually...

Fuzzy If you’re gonna go ahead and start it up, I’d let Kazuma do it. Since he’s a magician he should be used to working with mana and the elements already.

Ciel Kazuma-san, would you be willing to activate the elements for us?

Kazuma I, uh, yeah, I can do that. That shouldn’t be too difficult.

Kazuma Let’s see here...

Hazama You’ve looked like you’ve had something on your mind for a while now.

Hazama I agree that Kazuma-san’s the best suited out of all of us to carry this out but... don’t push yourself if you don’t think you can handle it.

Hazama If we really have to we can always looks for another way to activate them...

Kazuma ......

Kazuma ...No.

Kazuma I can do it.

Raabe Hey, hold on...

Hazama Are you sure?

Kazuma Yes. Please, allow me.

[a green magic circle appears, surrounded by the six elements]

Hazama Oh my... I can already feel how the air around us has changed. Looks like you managed to pull it off without a hitch after all.

Ciel Is this... activated mana? But this feeling, where have I...

Raabe It can't be. This is...! Hey, Kazuma! Stop whatever it is that you’re doing!

Kazuma ......

Raabe Are you even listening!? Earth to Kazuma!!

Kazuma ...Ah... it’s just like I thought. I was wondering... if that’s what it was...

>What’s wrong, Kazuma-san? >Who are you talking to?

Kazuma Who...

[a dark green shadow with veins and one glowing eye starts to materialize]

Hazama Uuh, guh, ghh....

Ciel Hazama-san? Is something wrong?

Hazama Please be careful... Something’s... coming...!

[the shadow becomes fully visible]

Raabe Wh... What’s going on?

Fuzzy Hmm, I wonder what it could be～? What do you think?

Fuzzy What about you, Rei? What do your “eyes” see? You can see it, can’t you?

Raabe Don’t look. ...I guess that’s impossible, huh. Try not to focus as much as you can. This... isn’t a collection of mana.

Ciel Raabe-san, Rei-san! We’ve got a problem.

Ciel I’ve confirmed the appearance of the cauldron.

Ciel But... there’s nothing around here that looks like it could be the cauldron. And if there’s a cauldron here, then who is the Observer...?

Raabe They’re both right in front of us.

Ciel Eh? Wh-What do you mean?

Raabe The cauldron came into existence across this entire world the moment this guy appeared. In other words, that shadow... it’s the Observer.

Raabe It’s also the cauldron. There’s no other explanation for this sort of reaction. This much condensed seithr... this is the cauldron.

Hazama What’s that now? Seithr?

Hazama You mean what Kazuma-san’s magic is activating right now isn’t...

Raabe It’s not the elements or mana, no. It’s seithr!

??? Ahh～ god, you losers took fore～ver to show up.

Ciel !?

??? Shit though, you guys sure have been through a lot, huh? But thanks to you I can talk as much as I want again.

>The shadow spoke! ??? Kyahahahaha, just a shadow, eh... Well, I guess that’ll have to do for now.

>Who are you? ??? What, you wanna know my name? You really wanna know who I am? Sure, I’ll humor you...

Kazuma ...Yuuki Terumi...

Spirit Terumi Oops, looks like you beat me to it. But yeah, the kid’s right. Don’t go forgetting it, numbskulls.

Spirit Terumi Yuuki Terumi. That’s the name, folks.

Hazama You were lurking inside of me.

Hazama Earlier when we were fighting Saya-san, she said she had sensed something within me... I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant at the time.

Hazama I had no idea that it would turn out to be something like this.

Spirit Terumi Hyahahahaha! Damn, I didn’t realize you were so out of the loop, Hazama-chan.

Ciel So you’re familiar with Hazama-san as well.

Spirit Terumi Oh yeah, best of buddies, thickest of thieves, call it what you like but we’re rea～l intimate. In fact, I know all you guys.

Spirit Terumi You’re the morons who’ve been running all over the city doing my dirty work for me. Hyahahahahahaha!

Kazuma So you were... using us? Does that mean that Fuzzy-san was also...?

Fuzzy Can’t say I know about any of this. I’m only here to fulfill my role. Really I’m just a pawn here.

Fuzzy You guys are all just pawns too. But even the pawns are necessary in the end, right? It’s not really a game if all the pieces aren’t in order, after all.

Spirit Terumi The trap over here gets it. And now since you’ve been such good little slaves so far, how’s about you do me one last teensy-weensy favor...

Spirit Terumi And die for me, will you? Hyahahahahaha!

Raabe I see now. We’ve been playing right into his hands this entire time.

Raabe When Kazuma started the activation sequence, he wasn’t channeling the mana or the elements. He wound up summoning this guy instead.

Ciel No way... Then does that mean the whole story about escaping from the city was a lie?

Spirit Terumi Come on, even if I’m not that cruel. I’ll still let you guys out.

Spirit Terumi All aboard the Terumi express! Now serving a one-way trip straight into the Boundary! Just make sure to keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle, or you might lose them!

Hazama Are you always this egotistical?

Hazama Things may have gone your way up until now, but we’re not going to just stand here and let you do whatever you want.

Hazama ...It was wrong of me to bring you all this way when I sensed something was amiss, no matter how small it may have been.

Hazama Looks like I got you all mixed up in something undesirable after all... I’m really sorry, Rei-san.

Hazama But I don’t think I’ll be able to handle this one by myself. I’m afraid I must ask for your assistance one last time.

>Let’s all get out of here together. Hazama Thank you. I’m... truly glad to have met you.

>Let’s kick his ass and get the hell out of here! Spirit Terumi Ooh, someone’s a little touchy. That sort of enthusiasm is contagious, y’know.

Ciel Assuming combat position. All eyes on target. Ready when you are!

Raabe His form is still unstable. It’s hard to say if his existence has fully taken root yet or not.

Raabe The reaction he’s giving off is definitely strong but... he might not be able to use the full extent of his power the way he is now.

Raabe We need to strike before all of the seithr has finished gathering in one place. Let’s get this over with quickly.

Fuzzy Go, go! You can do it!

Hazama Are you ready for this, Kazuma-san?

Kazuma Ah, uh... Right.

Spirit Terumi Oh? You wouldn’t really team up against little ol’ me, would you? Heheheheh.

Hazama Well then. Let’s go, Terumi-san.

Spirit Terumi Guh, shit...! My power... no, none of this shit. None of it’s good enough!

Kazuma ......

Fuzzy Whoa. You guys really creamed him.

Hazama ...I think that shadow inside of me... Terumi-san detached himself completely from me during the course of that fight.

Hazama It’s the strangest feeling. It’s unsettling but also like a... weight’s been lifted, in a sense.

Spirit Terumi Ha, haha... Hyahahaha...! Damn, that really could’ve gone better.

Spirit Terumi I guess you win this one. I really lost to some lame spin-off side characters. Ain’t that right?

Kazuma Yes. I... think that’s what happened.

Spirit Terumi Heh, hahahaah! Yeah, them’s the breaks, huh. Tch, what a pain in the ass.

Spirit Terumi Man, this sucks... you’re really blue-balling me here. Taking on a bunch of pussies like you should’ve been a joke.

Spirit Terumi Sure screwed myself on that one.

Kazuma ...Please send us back.

Kazuma As long as you do that... I don’t think we’ll have to hurt you anymore.

Spirit Terumi Ha! Hurt me? You really think you can hurt me? Hyahaha, you don’t have a lot going on underneath that pretty face, do you, kid?

Spirit Terumi Don’t make me laugh.

Ciel Are you going to continue resisting?

Spirit Terumi Oooh, close but no cigar! This isn’t what you’d call resistance...

Spirit Terumi This is an escape!

[static]

Kazuma ...Ah. H-Huh?

Ciel This is...

>It’s Ishana! Kazuma Yes, this is Ishana. It’s the same place we were before we found ourselves in that strange city...

>Are we back? Ciel ...It would appear so. This is where we were standing before we were taken to that strange city.

Ciel But what does this mean? It’s safe to say that we took out the Observer but we weren’t able to destroy the Cauldron...

Ciel Regardless... we managed to escape the Phantom Field.

Raabe I still need to look into everything further so this is just a hypothesis for now, but...

Raabe I don’t think that city was an undiscovered Phantom Field.

Raabe It’s foundation was built on Ishana who had already lost its Observer.

Raabe Using the power of Observation, that shadow calling itself Terumi must have found its way in and overwrote things when it took over.

Kazuma So it was... re-Observed?

Raabe That’s exactly what it was.

Raabe In other words, we weren’t so much moved somewhere else as it was our surroundings themselves were changing before our eyes... That’s probably what happened.

Hazama Well, it was certainly an experience I could have lived without and I’m still not overly sure how any of it was possible but...

Hazama Everything worked out in the end, right?

Hazama We all made it out safe and sound. Let’s be thankful for that, shall we?

Hazama Ahh～, truly all’s well that ends well.

Ciel Hazama-san. And Fuzzy-san, too. The two of you came back to Ishana as well I see.

Fuzzy Bzzt, wrong answer. Really, did you hear a thing Raabe just said? None of us actually came back anywhere.

Fuzzy We were all just sort of displaced.

Ciel Ah, so we were. So then would Fuzzy-san and Hazama-san be considered foreign entities in this situation?

Raabe There’s no way to know for sure what the Phantom Field has classified them as but... that’s probably the case.

Raabe Neither of them are involved with Ishana.

Hazama Hmm～, while this place does look incredibly delightful, I’m afraid this isn’t where I belong.

Fuzzy Me either. I’m not getting any good vibes from the ambience around here. I don’t think I’d fit in very well.

Raabe ...Once a Phantom Field has been liberated of its Observer, any foreign materials left behind should gradually start to return to where they were originally from.

Raabe Here soon your existential information should be sent back to your own worlds.

Fuzzy I guess we’re stuck hanging around here until that happens, huh～.

Fuzzy Well, not like it matters. I’ve never been here before so there’s no harm in exploring a bit. Don’t you think?

[Fuzzy leaves]

Hazama And there he goes. I suppose it’s best to just let him have his fun while he can.

Hazama But more importantly... Rei-san, Ciel-san, Kazuma-san, Raabe-san.

Hazama Thank you all so much for your help.

Hazama When I was still wandering around all by myself, I was at a loss as to what I was supposed to do...

Hazama But as soon as I joined up with you guys, everything just sort of naturally clicked into place.

Hazama A lot happened back there, but I want you to know that from the bottom of my heart I’m grateful we were able to escape from that bizarre city.

Raabe ...Is that all you have to say? I can’t say I’m very convinced.

Raabe It still feels like you’ve been manipulating us this entire time.

Hazama Don’t be ridiculous! It must’ve been fate that I ran into you when I did. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.

Hazama I’d even go so far as to say that you saved me.

Hazama I’m honestly in your debt. If you ever need an extra hand for something, I’ll be sure to do everything in my power to help you out.

Hazama Then again... I can’t guarantee that the me you’ll encounter then will be the same as I am now.

Hazama Let’s do this the right way this time. My name is Hazama. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

Hazama Rei-san.

>Pleased to meet you.

Hazama Yes. I wish you all the best.

Ciel ......

Raabe ...We still need to head back and check the data to see if this was indeed the abnormality the System was detecting.

Raabe We’ve overstayed our welcome. Let’s return to base.

Kazuma ...I guess this is goodbye then.

Kazuma Hadn’t you said earlier that you couldn’t stay for long?

Ciel That’s correct. We’re still only outsiders in this world.

Kazuma ......

Kazuma ...I’m really glad I was able to see you again. Getting to spend more time together... it was really fun.

Kazuma I feel like I know myself a little better now.

Kazuma Thank you so much.

Ciel There’s no need to thank us. We were merely here for our mission.

Kazuma You’re as blunt as always, Ciel-san...

Kazuma ...I think I have my own perplexing “mission” in front of me... nevermind. Hang in there for me, will you?

Kazuma I’m rooting for you.

>Thank you. >Good luck, Kazuma-san.

[static]

Kagami Rei! Ciel! Thank god you guys made it back in one piece～!

Ciel Oh. You startled me. What’s the matter, Kagami-san? You seem out of sorts.

Kagami Well, what did you expect!? Almost as soon as you two got in you just fell off the grid!

Kagami I wasn’t able to pinpoint where either of were for a long time...

Kagami Your signals only reappeared inside Ishana’s Phantom Field a little while ago, y’know!

Kagami So what happened? Nevermind, it’ll be faster to get the answers from Raabe’s internal data.

Kagami Either way, I’ll get an investigation started. First you guys need to go get a medical check.

Kagami And watch yourselves this time, got it!?

Ciel Y-Yes, ma’am.

Kagami I  can’t let you out of my sight for even a second. Geez...

[Kagami leaves]

Ciel It would seem we’ve caused quite the stir in our absence.

Ciel Let’s head to the medical room. I’ll go with you, Rei-san.

Hazama So this is supposed to be the famous Ishana, huh? Now that I’ve finally gotten a good look at it, it truly is nothing more than a ghost town.

Hazama ...Well then. I wonder where I should be heading next? With the help of those suckers, I was able to remove the chain that was inside me.

Hazama I should be able to go just about anywhere now.

Hazama At any rate, Terumi-san is right back where he should be. Although I can’t say I’m overly thrilled that he left me to do all the grunt work by myself.

Hazama ...I would have been in quite the bind if it weren’t for that boy, though. Heheh.

Hazama But still, what a successful endeavor that turned out to be!

Hazama For me, for Terumi-san... Even for him.

Hazama “End Gazer”... The One Who Sees the End. I can’t wait to see how this will play out.

Kazuma ......

Kazuma Ishana... All these years here, and I still haven’t learned a thing.

Kazuma But... I feel like I finally know why I’m here... Just a little...

Kazuma I feel like I’m home.

https://imgur.com/a/VfNvhRF

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 5

 - more myth than man... or not? the mortality of tom riddle and the anatomy of a villain-

That leaves us with Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of adult Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort in movies 4-8.

I generally find adult Tom Riddle disappointing, even in the books, in terms of character depth. Instead of delving into his motivations and the inner psychology of a villain, we get... slight body horror? And in the movies, it’s even more egregious. 

If a story is as good as its villain, adult Tom Riddle is a bit of a let-down, especially on-screen.

“I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost . . . but still, I was alive.”

Perhaps the very first time I watched it, I found this scary, but I must confess that nowadays, Voldemort’s resurrection is more funny to me than anything else. The forked tongue and the nose slits, yes, are supposed to allude to Tom Riddle’s loss of humanity, but I don’t think it...worked out that way in practice.

I know that’s how it is in the books, but ugly equals evil (and vice versa) is a tired trope. not only that, but under the CGI, Lord Voldemort is so difficult to relate to, so inhuman, that it’s hard to (1) see his true depravity (2) connect with him emotionally (3) at least for me, not laugh at him flapping around the graveyard in GOF like an oversized crow. 

Now, the reason I’m going on about this is not (just) me being petty. Lord Voldemort is the Boggart for most of the characters in the HP universe, meaning their greatest fear is Lord Voldemort. He represents Fear; as such, he should be utterly terrifying. Now, I don’t mean horrifying in that sense, but Voldemort’s grand entrance should at least feel somewhat unsettling, have some sort of a Gothic atmosphere...

"But then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron."

Visually, this looks great. But it’s not scary. And I’m not a purist by any means, but the words are scarier than the book. Darkness induces fear. 

“The lack of any kind of visual stimuli increases anxiety, uncertainty, and tension.”

So, having Voldemort’s pale body materialize isn’t as scary as it could be.

Furthermore, I think Fiennes’ overexaggerated expressions would actually come across as properly horrifying/threatening rather than funny if they just left his face alone. Yes, Fiennes does manage to emote the fear and the anger through the CGI, but it’s like he’s too alien to be scary, at least to me. The amount of memes with Voldemort suggest I’m not the only one this way inclined.

I think there’s probably a problem going on with the uncanny valley. (Images from the Mori essay linked).

[When things are still]

[Creepy things are creepier when moving]

Now, I assume Voldemort is meant to be zombie-creepy, or at least that how Harry describes him in the books.

"The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry...and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's but with slits for nostrils...."

Now, we can’t get Harry’s experience of being haunted by Voldemort in his dreams, because what I think makes Voldemort’s countenance so truly frightening to the other characters isn’t his snake-like nose or his red eyes, but the potential. Voldemort is, in essence, the Grim Reaper. You are at his mercy, and you’re probably going to be dead. 

“This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour.“

And yes, Voldemort can be quite funny and witty, but..

“I will allow you to perform an essential task for me, one that many of my followers will give their right hands to perform.” (To Peter Pettigrew)

...it’s still incredibly dark, sadistic humour. Whereas the teenage Tom Riddle we’ve been discussing has just barely dipped his toes into evil, Voldemort is, well... swimming in it. At this point, he think he undeniably enjoys causing pain.

And much of what makes Voldemort scary is subtle. 

For example, what I personally consider haunting is the fact that he’s got a cave full of Inferi. A cave full of reanimated dead bodies. 

Either he dug them up, which is unlikely... or perhaps, a twenty-seven-or-so-year-old Tom Riddle would lie in wait like a bird of prey, very quietly and patiently, perhaps reading a book, waiting for an unsuspecting Muggle to wander past. Maybe killing is a game to him at this point, when it’s not so personal as killing Harry Potter. Maybe it’s a whispered Avada Kedavra, and then he carries the dead body away to his cave. Maybe he Imperiuses them to walk off the cliff. Maybe he tortures them first.

Shudder.

And I don’t think you can show that kind of horror through any CGI or make-up, so...

You know what is terrifying? Revolting? True crime; real-life people who do unspeakably horrible things. And I think a lot was missed out on, in stripping Tom Riddle physically of his humanity. Yes, Riddle is a monster...

But, as we’ve seen, he’s a human monster, not some eldritch horror from the seventh level of hell or something.

I just think it would be interesting to have this perfectly normal-looking human do all the horrific things Voldemort does. I want to see that sick joy in a human face and feel disgusted. I want to see fear make his bottom lip tremble, and feel a misplaced sense of empathy. (Think President Snow from the Hunger Games -- now, that’s a sick, twisted villain who we can relate to as a human being, but still love to hate -- or what about The Joker?).

And out of everything they chose to CGI, why on earth did they not make his eyes scarlet? That might have made him look at least somewhat menacing, rather than a failed lab experiment.

(Don’t even get me started on his and Bellatrix’s death scenes in the movies-)

Here’s President Snow. He’s got a cute little granddaughter, he sends kiddies to kill each other Battle Royale-style every year, and he poisons all his political opponents. He’s also a master manipulator and has a penchant for white roses. They cover up the smell of the sores in his mouth from eating the poison too, to conceal his treachery.

Heath Ledger as the Joker in Dark Knight (2008), who is, according to NYT (which I totally agree with), the best Joker. Now this is a villain done right, with many Voldemort-like traits. On a scale of one-to-ten, he’s absolutely terrifying. Why? He’s (unlike Voldemort in the movies) incredibly intelligent, shows young-Tom-Riddle-like skills for charm and manipulation, plays with humans like they’re his own personal psychology experiment (and to hell with the Institutional Review Board), and has one, single, very clear goal -- chaos. Like Voldemort, he wears an inhuman mask that’s not horrifying in its own right; but unlike Voldemort, the human is all there -- terrifying, real, and with a bottomless, obsessive desire to destroy. His disordered thinking is all out there for the audience to see. The Joker’s motivation is to enjoy himself; whereas Voldemort seems to lack drive. Why does he want to take over the world -- who knows, with Voldemort? The Joker wants to see it burn.

Let’s try to do the same with Lord Voldemort:

[SLIGHT FLASH WARNING]

I had to go with this because Voldemort isn’t legitimately terrifying in many scenes. And yes, this unrefined anger somewhat speaks to Tom’s immaturity

By this point, seventy-one year old Tom Riddle is a hollowed-out shell of a human being. After decades of building his power, he was defeated by a one-year-old, and ended up slumming it as a spirit for a decade, got defeated again, was a shrivelled-up baby for a year, then finally got his body back.

He’s angry, okay! And Fiennes does a great job of portraying the sheer, destructive, unbridled rage of this character.

The body language. again, since his face is inhuman, this is super important. and Fiennes’ body language is great. Voldemort/Riddle commits to his actions. He is very emotionally-driven.

But yet, he doesn’t feel capable, in the way that the Joker or President Snow do. Yeah, we know anecdotally that he’s incredibly evil, sadistic, and second only to Dumbledore in terms of power, but he loses to a baby, and then that same baby as a teenager. So, we really could have done with seeing Voldemort’s power, cruelty, and evil firsthand a lot more often.

Voldemort is not well-characterized. I don’t understand his motives, and the ones that I do understand are not compelling.

Not to die? Well, he’s already made several Horcruxes. Why not sit back and relax? Why start a war and risk himself?

JKR said that Voldemort’s great desire was to become all-powerful and eternal. But that’s... boring! It does little to tell us about Voldemort, other than that he’s a villain and a wannabe dictator. 

Furthermore, the charm, manipulation, and cunning that are hallmarks of younger Tom Riddle’s personality are gone.

Is Voldemort (to return to Jungian terms) all shadow? An empty creature of simple creation and destruction, perhaps? We’ll discuss this further down...

And this isn’t a problem of having a fantastical world with magic and the like. Grindelwald’s quiet, self-possessed, almost coy “So you think you can hold me?” was infinitely scarier than anything that has ever come out of Voldemort’s mouth. It was chilling. 

OOTP is my favorite book, and the Ministry sequence is one of my favourite in the films. 

This scene where he psyches out Harry, talking so quietly that he could just be a little voice inside his head (and again, during the possession scene)? Absolute perfection. 

Why? Because this showcases what’s truly scary about him. Voldemort can get into your head. He can make you do things. And perhaps, if we had seen that more often, we’d understand how scary he is.

I wish this had been his grand entrance, and not whatever that scene in GOF was. Somehow, him screeching “I WANT TO SEE THE LIGHT LEAVE YOUR EYES!” is not menacing. At all. 

But, I can’t help but think how much greater the emotional affect would be if he had more human features (think the burned-and-blurred, waxy features from Dumbledore’s memory). 

Just imagine these scenes if Voldemort looked human, and spoke as quietly as he did in this one.

Because of the reason that I have little to go on in terms of characterization that I haven’t already covered, we’ll discuss the myth and legend of Lord Voldemort.

I can’t decide if the statue in the films is supposed to be the Angel of Death or the Grim Reaper. He has a skeleton and carries a scythe, but he also has wings. There are so many different interpretations, attitudes towards, and personifications of Death across the world that I don’t want to draw any one conclusion. But I must wonder if Lord Voldemort, with his yew-and-phoenix wand (which carries heavy symbolism of immortality and rebirth) and almost deified figure is meant to be a personification of Death himself? His name, Lord Voldemort, is a shade close to Lord Death.

For years, it has stumped me that wizards and witches are afraid to utter Voldemort’s name, especially since we only see the Taboo in the middle of the last book. It didn’t make sense just based on fear; in the real world, we don’t circumvent Hitler’s name, for example.

Perhaps this may have been obvious to others, but it wasn’t to me.

Here’s a counterargument to myself; why Voldemort shouldn’t look human.

Voldemort, in the Wizarding World, is seen as a literal deity.

I promised to attempt to answer this question in Part 3: 

And so, I can’t help but wonder if the opposite is true… if Tom Riddle creates Horcruxes, would that grant him additional magic powers?

In Part 3, I likened Tom Riddle to a sorcerer in Russian folklore, Koschei the Deathless, also famous for sequestering his soul in objects. This source suggests that Koschei was considered not an ordinary magician, but a representative of the ‘other’ world, the world of death.

So, what if... creating Horcruxes makes you... more than human? Now, I could definitely see god-like status being appealing to sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle. Perhaps, even appealing enough to kill for. Now, his proclivity for Avada Kedavra makes sense. We know it’s an incredibly sinister spell, but at the same time, it’s a very humane way to kill. Why might it be so horrifying?

Here’s a weird theory.

To the best of my knowledge, no one but Voldemort is seen using the Killing Curse more than once or twice. 

Perhaps, ordinary mortals can only cast Avada Kedavra a few times, but Tom, having split his soul and having become in some way a non-human instrument of Death, can cast it however many times as he likes, and that is part of what serves to make him so terrifying.

This makes the idea of Voldemort tossing around Avada Kedavras actually incredibly terrifying, if you take into account what that might mean.

The collective cultural fear of speaking Voldemort’s name supports this theory.

Take the chthonic (underworld) deities of Greek mythology; most notably, Hades and Persephone, the king and queen of the underworld.

Hades, the god of the dead, was feared. 

So feared that the word ‘Hades’ (”the unseen one”) was so frightening, that people came up with all sorts of euphemisms to circumvent actually saying it and he was rarely even depicted in art. For example, they would refer to him as Pluto (”the rich one”), Clymenus ("notorious"), Polydegmon ("who receives many"), and perhaps Eubuleus ("good counsel" or "well-intentioned"), amongst many other names. 

However, he was not seen as evil; just stern, cruel, and fair. Like most Greek gods, he had an associated cult (the Death Eaters, anyone?)

Another interesting connection between Hades and Voldemort is that Hades was associated with snakes.

Persephone (suggested to have a pre-Greek origin and probably pre-dates Hades), who was also a vegetation/fertility/spring goddess, similarly, was referred to as Despoina (”the mistress”), Kore (”the maiden”), etc, because as the terrible Queen of the Dead, it was considered unsafe to speak her name aloud. In mythology and literature, she is sometimes referred to as ‘dread Persephone.’

--Just like how Lord Voldemort is referred to as The Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, You-Know-Who... (and if you’re Dumbledore, ‘Tom’.)

Her central myth served as the context for the secret rites of regeneration at Eleusis (which was basically a mystery cult devoted to her and her mother, Demeter), which promised immortality to initiates.

We don’t know for certain what exactly went on, because, mystery cult -- the members were sworn to secrecy -- but it revolved around immortality and rebirth and possibly psychoactive drugs. 

Perhaps ironically, in comparison to the Death Eaters, anyone could join, as long as they could speak Greek and had never committed murder.

And that concludes my assessment!

[theparanormalperiodical]

French Nuns And Newspaper Clippings: The Real Stories That Inspired The Exorcist (1973)

The year is 1632.

We are in a remote commune in Northern France. The situation is bleak: an outbreak of plague has started snatching lives again, and King Louis XIII is ordering the walls around Loudon to be torn down. The locals are more divided than ever.

But things are about to get worse.

Way worse.

The local nuns are beginning to act strange.

It started when one young nun claimed she had a vision of a dead priest. Suddenly, all 17 clergywomen are reporting similar visions. They then begin cussing, shouting, and displaying more and more aggressive behaviour.

17th century nuns do not act like this.

Oh no, this was something unholy. This was demonic possession.

331 years later, this little-known historic tale would feature as one of the main inspirations behind horror’s most iconic movie.

Yep, the film that still gives you nightmares of young girls walking down stairs crustacean-style is based on a true story. But it’s worse than that. It’s based on two tales of alleged possession, several real-life people, and a demon many still worship today.

*nopes the f*ck out*

Let’s Talk About The Exorcist

Let me just clarify something: the exorcist is not the creepy, possessed ‘lil girl. An exorcist is a person that performs exorcisms - so here, it’s the priests.

The Exorcist was originally a book written by William Peter Blatty. Adapted to a film series (and a TV show) starting 2 years later, they both shared a close plotline. Well, to begin with, anyway.

A statue of a demon is found in an archaeological dig of northern Iraq. The discovery unleashes a mysterious spirit/demon/god called Pazuzu. On the other side of the world, a young girl begins exhibiting strange behaviour. Regan, a typical 12-year-old American girl, refuses to eat or sleep and becomes aggressive. All the while, strange things happen around the house.

The doctors provide no answers to her behaviour, so the mother of the supposedly-ill child turns to religion instead. She finds help in the form of a priest who is experiencing a crisis of faith and consequently doesn’t believe this is demonic possession. But a couple chats with the girl convinces him that yep, she’s bunged up with a demon. So, he asks the bishop if he can perform an exorcism. A priest fresh off that dig in Iraq is shipped over and they get to work. During the final exorcism, one of the priests opts to save the possessed girl by asking the demon to possess them instead. The possessed priest chucks himself out of the window and as he falls to his death, regains his faith in God.

The Exorcist is one of the most famous horror films - if not, the most iconic - of all time, from the traumatic FX makeup of a possessed Regan to sequences ‘80s America wasn’t ready for.

But The Exorcist was not a stand alone film. Contrary to popular belief, what followed was 4 (soon to be 5) sequels ‘n’ prequels that unravelled a deep, dramatic plotline. There’s a reason we don’t hear about them.

In the following films we see the aftermath of Regan’s exorcism and emerging doubts about whether she was in fact really possessed. Political and theological themes rise to the surface, looking deeper at the priests that conducted the exorcism rather than the victim. At the same time we take part in an archeological dig, meet a serial killer, and get a front row seat to a battle during WW2.

It’s a wild ride. But this ride is brimming with reality.

Blatty directly cited inspiration from a number of sources, most famously the 1949 demonic possession of Roland Doe that he first heard when studying at Georgetown University. But he has also claimed that many of the characters who navigated the possession of Regan were based on real people.

Take Father Merrin, the exorcist leading the exorcism: he was based on a British archaeologist that excavated the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls (ancient manuscripts written in Hebrew) had been found.

But the nature of the exorcism that filled out a majority of the film were informed by the work for Father William S Bowdern, a Jesuit priest who exorcised Roland Doe himself.

However, it wasn’t just the mortals that were inspired by real, historic figures.

Pazuzu Is An Actual Worshipped Demon

Without Pazuzu, there would be no possession. Without Pazuzu, there would be no exorcism, nor the need for an exorcist.

We only see the demon in flashes - but these moments inherit a history that takes us back as far as 3500BC. Pazuzu was an ancient Mesopotamian or Assyro-Babylonian god that was the king of the demons of the wind. He brought storms and drought, and although recognised as an evil spirit, he also drove away other evil spirits. He strives to protect us from plagues and misfortunes, and his rival, Lamashtu, causes harm to mother and baby during childbirth.

He is known as both a demon and a god, but in The Exorcist is recognised more as the former.

We do catch a couple glimpses of Pazuzu, but we only see his face clearly when he begins to take over young Regan. The pasty white face and blood red eyes don’t fit ancient lore: Pazuzu is traditionally depicted as having the head of a lion, the body of a human, the talons of an eagle, a pair of wings, a scorpion’s tail, and a ‘serpentine penis’ (I can’t work out if this is the penis of a snake or a penis that looks like a snake and like I don’t wanna know k).

The Exorcism Of Roland Doe

It’s one of the most famous cases of possession - and we don’t even know who the victim actually was.

In 1949, American newspapers began to pick up on the story of an exorcism in Maryland. A teenage boy was at the centre of mysterious poltergeist activity after the death of his spiritualist aunt. She was the one that first introduced him to an ouija board.

After typical paranormal activity took place, priests were summoned to exorcism him. During these exorcisms, furniture began to move by itself, the boy began to attack priests with rogue bedsprings, he began to speak in an unknown voice, the mattress he lay on began to shake, and words like “evil” and “hell” began to appear in scratches upon his body.

It was a very similar state to the one Regan was in during The Exorcist.

Roland Doe (a pseudonym, obviously) to this day has remained anonymous, and - if alive - he would be 86 years old.

Despite this being the most known case of alleged possession - rivalling only that of Anneliese Michel - it has received a large dose of skepticism and debunking. The supposed location of the exorcism and some personal details of Roland Doe have been contested. Plus, many believe Doe was actually a spoiled, attention-seeking bully who simply repeated Latin phrases heard at school in order to create some elaborate prank.

Regardless of whether it was real or not, it is a landmark moment in paranormal history.

And 300 years before a 14 year old lutheran began to growl Latin at his family members, a group of women began to show similar signs of a haunting.

The Possessed Affair Of Loudon And Aix-en-Provence

I’ve already introduced you to the possessed nuns of Loudon. But it turns out The Exorcist also took inspiration in another French convent: Aix-en-Provence.

The nuns of Loudon pinned their possession on the demon Asmodai and gave a number of different answers as to who summoned it. Some claimed it was either a priest named Peter or Zabulon (a biblical figure). But a week after this, a man named Urbain Grandier who had amassed a lot of power and a strained reputation in the community was considered the culprit.

Soon after the nuns first exhibited strange behaviour, they were hidden away and the symptoms stopped.

The accusations levelled against Grandier were clearly inspired by political motives as he had publicly attacked the cardinal’s work and the taking down of the wall. But locals say he would appear at random in the convent with no one sure as to how he got inside. It was even claimed that he had made a pact with the devil - from which a physical contract was supposedly uncovered - and that he had attended witch’s sabbat.

The priest was executed for sorcery and given ‘the boot’ (a method of torture).

Loudon and Aix-en-Provence are considered cases that fit in well with wider witch trials taking place across western Europe in the 17th century. The possession of the Ursuline nuns of Aix-en-Provence were similar to that of Loudon - but were just a tad more mental.

20 years before Grandier was convicted, a young woman, Madeleine de Demandolx, confessed to the superior of the convent that she had been intimate with the local priest. She was sent away to Aix-en-Provence to get some distance but soon began to do some rather out-of-character things.

She would have convulsions and soon the other nuns began to do the same. It appeared to be contagious.

But things got hella weird when the nuns gathered together in a holy cave that Mary Magdalene was meant to have once lived in (Sainte-Baume) to be exorcised. Instead of just shaking, they all tried to outdo each other in symptoms of possession.

Once would cuss fervently; another would speak in a deep, demonic voice.

A political story soon unravelled full of accusations, executions, and even Madeleine being released from jail at 77 for her alleged witchcraft.

So - are you ever going to watch The Exorcist after this?

(Me neither.)

If you liked this post, go on and let me know with a like ‘n’ a reblog. And if you want to hear somethin’ spooky every Saturday, go on and hit follow!

[rogueartistjyn]

I see a bunch of confusion over the fight Kara was describingto Zor-El. Here’s my take. It was a combination of bad editing, sloppy writing & a flubbed line. In the opening sequence when Kara’s eyes go white she is looking around and seeing all of her friends/loved ones dead. Normally, we would get an edit here of what she was seeing, but they just skipped over that. She says, “No, no, no, not again!” She is actually looking around as she speaks as if she is seeing bodies because the Phantoms are torturing her & making her see things over & over again. We aren’t being shown what she’s seeing & usually we would.

Zor-El mentions that Kara must be a mirage because the Phantoms have been torturing him to also see things that aren’t there.

Kara says, “This place is nothing like I remember. It’s worse.” That’s because she was safe in her pod the first time. Zor-El comes back with

“Indeed. From the safety of your pod, you never faced the Phantoms.”

Kara reacts by recoiling a bit thinking of the Phantoms. This made some think maybe they did get to her pod, but I do not think that is what the story intended. I think what they are actually trying to convey is that it IS worse because the Phantoms got to her THIS time. Zor-El’s dialogue in response to her reaction is,

“They got to you, didn’t they?” Now, that might make some think the Phantoms got to her in the pod, but clearly that is NOT what is being said because she responds with events that happened far after her pod time. He asks her, “What did you see.”

He is talking about what she saw before he reached her. We have no idea how long she was out there. Remember, it was supposed to be the finale when we left her trapped. A significant amount of time would’ve seemed to have passed if it had been the finale.

Her response goes along with what we saw her doing at the beginning of this episode.

“I was in a cavern, a fortress of one of my enemies. She was dead, but so was everyone I ever loved.”

It’s easy to see why many people thought she was talking about Reign, and she might be, because it is a memory, but a memory that the Phantoms took and expanded and made worse, not the actual memory as it happened in reality which is why she said, “Not again.”

She continues with, “Cut down, while they were trying to save the world, and I just stood there among their bodies...horrified.”

Now it sounds like Crisis. Most likely because the Phantoms combined the Reign memory and the Crisis memories into one terrible nightmare. If they had given use a visual in an edit, we’d have a better grasp, but no.

She continues with, “I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t wake up.” So we are supposed to understand it wasn’t real. She did save them in both instances. She then says, “I wanted to die there with them.” This is what makes me think she saw this more than once before Zor-El reached her. It was replaying. Each time she tried to save them & each time she failed. Part of her knew it wasn’t real, but another part kept buying into it because it was made up of things that have been real for her. Then she says, “But I couldn’t do that either.” Which is incredibly dark because it means she reached a point where she tried, but the Phantoms didn’t let her & instead started the mirage over.

All of this should have been shown. The torture, the hopelessness, the fear, the trauma, but in true CW fashion, we skipped the show for a tell.

Zor-El responds to her with, “A terrible vision.” She comes back with, “Not a vision. A memory. One that I thought had finally stopped haunting me.”

What I think they were trying to convey is that her memories of losing people, Alex in the plane, tank, VR, Lena multiple times, Mon-El in the pod, CRISIS, etc., etc. Those memories of (almost) losing people are still with her. She has mentioned on multiple occasions that losing the people she loves because of who she is, is her greatest fear. She’s dwelled on it. The Phantoms made it all real. And she thought she had moved past those traumatic events when in reality, they haunt her. Every moment. She just pushes them back & ignores them.

She then says, “But it was crystal clear. It felt like it would never end.” So this lets us know it WAS a mirage. It was the Phantoms. Not an event that has actually transpired.

She then mentions Fort Rozz. I saw some posts about this as well. Again, the writing here is a bit confusing, but I think we had a misread line as well. Kara says, “Mother once told me that Fort Rozz is rooted in space above the rocks by an anchor.” Now, I have hearing issues, so I use Closed Captions. The caption read “WAS rooted in space” which makes more sense with what she says after as well as the fact that we all know Fort Rozz broke free and crashed on Earth. Basically, Fort Rozz broke free FROM its anchor. The anchor is still there. Kara goes on to explain, “The guards come and go through a portal at the base. If we can find the anchor—“ Then Zor-El cuts her off. The anchor that was left behind after Fort Rozz broke free is still there as is the processing base and the portal the Kryptonian guards used to bring prisoners back and forth, to & from Fort Rozz.

I don’t know how they manage to convolute that scene so much, but they did and wow, these are professionals? Anyhoo, I hope I cleared that up for anyone that was confused.

[duelofthefatesmp3]

i DO actually wanna know how youd make kotor 3 !!!!!

this ask has been sitting on my inbox for so long on PURPOSE! i wanted some time to re read the revan book + watch some swtor gameplays so i could give a concrete answer about why the book and swtor arent satisfactory and what i would do instead (im not like. a storytelling god so i this is just my PERSONAL idea). under the cut!

to begin with, what's wrong with revan the book and swtor, mai?

i am very fond of swtor i think it was such a nice idea to have an "open" world game set in star wars old republic time. but ultimately, it was not a good conclusion to revan and meetra's storyline! now, i don't really know what happened in the development of the third kotor game (if there ever was a plan for one) but it's clear they dropped the ball on that and decided to start a whole different project. i don't think we can blame disney for that one, because it was announced on 2008, launched in 2011, and disney had just bought star wars that year. so who knows.

the thing is that it's painfully evident that a bunch of the story that was gonna be in the third game, ended up in the book + misc parts of swtor. much of the book feels like a gameplay.

now, it was clear when the book was planned that they wanted to keep revan's story open so when the game came out, they could have a cool Revan storyline so he could make a cool villain appearence and draw in some of that kotor nostalgia. which ehhhhhh. uh. i don't really think did any favors for revan's character. he didn't have a satisfactory arc (I'm not saying "a happy ending" because good arcs aren't always happy) but at least some closure?

revan went through many big events in his life. we didnt need to keep his ass in stasis for his fun villain moments 300 years later. we already had what we wanted from him: jedi turned sith turned jedi again to defeat a terrible threat. that was it we could have let it there and it would have been cool! but then they decided to drag and drag his story just to leave him right where he was before. he just suffered a little more in the in-between.

you could say he finally redeemed himself of all of his crimes this way, but wasn't that the whole purpose of the first kotor game (and would have been the purpose of the 3rd?)

swtor does not centre revan in his own narrative. he's a side character for the player to experience. and look, i get it, we've had a different protag on each game, why not have another one in this one. well, because the protagonist has no personal relationship with revan. meetra was one of his closest friends, and fought with him. there is a connection that can be exploited. but the swtor protagonist is just some guy 300 years in the future who happens to stumble into revan and his life. not even his descendants get to fully interact with revan.

also, there is the fact that revan is not the centre of the game itself, only of a particular storyline. and it's weird, because swtor could have happened without revan's involvement.

ms. meetra surik, ms. bastila shan, women of the world I'm sorry

so it's no news that star wars is misogynistic as fuck right. cause it is.

so you decide to make your gender neutral protagonist a guy. then you decide to make your other gender neutral protagonist a woman. cool. now let's guess who gets underdeveloped, turned into a plot device without reason, and promptly fridged in the most unceremoniously fashion just to fullfil some manpain moments. which one do you think got that treatment.

i know the revan book is supposed to be about revan, but why make meetra go through a whole arc just to undermine her character and turn her into the faithful servant of the guy? she leaves everything behind for him, sacrifices herself for him, hell not even dead is she not serving the guy. and she was the second game’s protagonist! she beat up a bunch of powerful people and now she’s just meh, there? she had so many interesting ways to interact with revan (meeting kreia, revan’s first master, encountering another force consuming entity, etc.)

meetra went through a whole arc about dealing with the guilt of doing something horrible and having the consequences of it cut her from the force. we see her broken, then slowly come back to the world and reconnect herself with the force, then stop running and face the consequences of her role in the war. thats such a cool character with tons of potential! and nothing happened!

then we got bastila who is. a whole deal. so you make her go through a “promising jedi who defeated revan, to questioning reluctant companion, to fell into the dark side, to was redeemed thanks to her bond to revan, who helped her come back because he’d been through the same experience” arc, and then you decide to push her to the side to have a baby?? which is... its clear that the writer didnt know what to do with her (or with the other characters outside of canderous) so hey, lets get her to marry revan and have a baby.

my ideal kotor 3

to preface, im not a game developer, so some of my choices could be stunted by what a kotor rpg can do lol. of course, it would follow the same mechanics and have the same format as the first two, because consistency!

the fun way to start the game, would be from scourge’s perspective. we get to play as a sith! i’d even say you get to change scourge’s name and gender and looks (i know sith have different looks)

in scourge’s storyline, we get from his arrival to normound kaas, to his talks with nissyris, to his missions working for her. in some of these, we can make scourge lean into the dark or the light side! fun! plus we get some exposition with dialogue options. it all continues untill we get to nissirys story about the emperor. we get a fucked up cutscene of his childhood and then BOOM when its over, we see revan waking up from a nightmare and their pov starts.

ok, as for revan’s story, since we’d have to pick it up from where kotor ended, i’d have a little cutscene of revan back into the ebon hawk, with bastila, and them telling the crew to take them to courascant. then cut to a council meeting where revan and bastila get scolded in private, then rewarded by the republic. i would also like to see some revan mournink malak’s death mayhaps. since he was their childhood friend and all.

i would 100% scrape the marriage and two years passed part. as the book said, the council had no use for revan aside from the legend(tm), so why would they stay in courascant. revan was very alienated from the jedi at that point, despite being back in the “light side”

then like, to revan asking around for meetra and other jedi from the mandalorian wars, we can cash in that atris cameo, then revan starts to have these visions about the sith emperor, and maybe we could get a playable dream sequence about revan’s fight with mandalore the ultimate (I KNOW I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT.) and we get the whole exposition to mandalore telling revan that the sith are behind it all. i believe we should get a bunch of these flashback/dream sequences of revan’s past doing shit. cut to revan burying the mask in a planet, then back to the present. we see a bunch of mission and juhani scenes trying to reach him, but he keeps pushing them away. revan and bastila meet canderous, travel to the ice planet, meet clan ordo (god i love clan ordo) you get the whole quest, you decide weather to spare veela or not, maybe you get a cheeky mandalorian companion (force sensitive mando oh?) and leave canderous behind.

we can visit like, a couple more planets searching for clues maybe, etc. then when reaching nathema, you are forced to go alone as revan, get to explore nathema a bit (raiding ancient location yay) nathema as a location can be so fun because you can have it weaken you hp bar and also you cant use the force (which, in game is pretty cool)

then we get to scourge and nyssiris arriving to the planet, they fight but since theres two of them and revan doesn’t have the force, they beat the shit out of them, and while running away, they get in a fight with bastila and the companions in the ebon hawk (ebon hawk shooting game my hated). bastila manages to get a glimpse of revan’s thoughts before they take them away. but the ebon is so ruined it takes bastila, t3 and the mandalorian a while to fix it, and they get stuck into the unknown regions for a while. the ebon hawk is left in an outer rim planet with t3 fixing it, bastila and the mandalorian run back to the jedi council, only to get caught in the middle of the jedi civil war. we can have bastila choosing to hide in courascant and trying to make sense of what she saw, reading texts about the sith empire, trying to plot a course to where they took revan (more atris! but shes pissed at her now)

cutscene to meetra’s pov, leaving malachor v behind, getting calls from everyone at the hawk (atton my beloved) but just as she’s leaving she gets a force message from revan, calling for her to find him and sending visions of normound kaas. then, through her force bond with visas, she tells her not to go because they’re gay and in love and whatnot.

then boom, she gets intercepted by bastila’s ship, with the mandalore and the other mandalorian (yes i do love having a bunch of mandos on board) and they go on their way to find revan.

now i want there to be an underlying message of “we can’t take our friends with us because we have to do this ALONE we’re powerful JEDI we don’t need our FRIENDS.” meetra gets asked if she wants to bring any friends and she’s like “no. we have to do this alone.” along the game you get constantly contacted by other game characters, you get the chance to talk to them or ignore them.

so, we get back to nathema, and meetra has a whole “holy shit this is just like darth nihilus but ten times worse. but i beat darth nihilus. i can do this!” then she finds peace in this place without the force, we get a whole speech about how the odds arent against them, they find a way to normound kaas, and get going.

in normound kaas i thought about them getting a whole mission about how to infiltrate the citadel, only to get helped by scourge. he joins the party, we get a little flashback of all the years he spent trying to make revan remember and they storm the citadel. we get to fight the dark council members, fun! then we get to free revan and the game switches povs. bastila hands the mask to revan and he has a cool “yes im revan im pretty cool” then a nice heartfelt yet rushed reunion with everyone.

then have a small CONVERSATION WITH MEETRA where she talks about the sith triumvirate she defeated and revan is impressed with her and is like “we are the last hope of the jedi, we’ve learned to walk between light and dark, we’ve done horrors but we can still make things right, our experience has made us more powerful etc.

then they fight the imperial guard, ALL OF THEM, meetra revan and scourge make it into the throne room, they all fight the emperor. meetra shows the emperor that she has seen the void, she has cut herself from the force, and she’s not afraid of him, revan supports her, talks about redemption and hope  and NOW.

NOW. how the alternate endings could go:

if you decide to take scourge through the light side, he manages to form a forcebond with meetra and revan since they’ve both teached something about the duality of the force, they get 100% stronger, but its still not enough. UNTIL. a bunch of ships (jedi and mandalorian, even non republic ships) arrive to dormound kaas, the gangs from each game storm the room and together they make the emperor and his guard a bunch of punching bags. they beat him! (unknow to them, this was a backup body because the emperor can do weird shit like that, and has only debilitated his plan, but he’ll come back dont worry). then they fly back to the republic, to tell the chancellor about the sith threat, and preparations for the war begin. meetra and revan get to live happily ever after for a while, then they die away from the jedi or the sith (waaah im thinking about them helping canderous rebuild the mandalorians, and them doing it since they killed so many mandos in the war)

BECAUSE IN THE END KOTOR IS ABOUT LEARNING TO PROCESS TRAUMA AND RECOGNIZE YOUR MISTAKES AND LIVE WITH THE GUILT WHILST TRYING TO FIX THE MISTAKES YOU MADE ALONG THE WAY. AND ALSO TO HEAL FROM TRAUMA YOU NEED A SUPPORT SYSTEM SO EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES SENSE TO YOU YOU SHOULDNT PUSH PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU AWAY. AND THINGS AREN’T BLACK AND WHITE ITS COMPLICATED SO YOU DONT END UP BACK ON SQUARE ONE YOURE A CHANGED PERSON.

or

if you decide to dark side scourge further, he betrays revan and meetra, they all die, and the emperor unleashes his angry lightning or whatever on everyone + a bunch of visions of all the enemies of past mocking them, and their loved ones suffering. and since you’ve had that “im not calling my friends bullshit” no one comes, you die there, and the emperor is only stalled for a few years. swtor ensues. scourge becomes the emperor’s hand.

now you could of course bring revan and meetra up in swtor, but maybe only as force ghost guides, or have some of the other characters of the game have relevance (visas tries to heal the miraluka planet 2021)

WELL THAT WAS A LOT OF WORDS. HOPE THIS IS SATISFYING ENOUGH

[solar-pxwered]

A List Of Norman Reedus Movies/Shows I Have Seen And My Opinions On Them

1. The Boondock Saints

The Best. A classic. Bloody and inappropriate and if I remember my count correctly, contains 194 “fucks” or variations of it (this movie certainly illustrates the diversity of the word). Terrible Irish accents. A KICKASS soundtrack. Willem DeFoe crossdressing. Dropping toilets on people’s heads. Over the top action sequences. Cheesy dialogue. Campy as fuck. I freakin’ love it.

2. The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

Some people didn’t like this one as much as the first one, and I admit that I wasn’t as fond of the new detective in this one as I was of Smecker...but, overall, I really enjoyed it and I drove 2 hours to see it in theaters. I love Romeo more than Rocco. The humor was on point. It was nice to see the original actors for Doc, Dolly, Duffy and Greenley. There was more terrible Irish accents, another KICKASS soundtrack, cheesy dialogue, over the top action sequences, still campy as fuck. I freaking love it.

3. The Walking Dead

Cannot even describe how much I love this show. I have ALWAYS loved zombie related shows and movies so this show was right up my alley from the very beginning all the way back in 2010. I watched it religiously every Sunday. I adore this roller coaster ride of a show and I especially adore Daryl, Carol and Jerry. This show has it all: Comedy, drama (hella lots of that), tragedy and triumph...and it never fails to pulls me in and hold my interest.

4. Mimic

Honestly, I saw this a LONG time ago and I hated it because...well, because I have a cockroach phobia, ok?! Don’t judge. Norman’s part was pretty small, not one of his lasting impressions on me.

5. Six Ways To Sunday

This is a weird one. It’s about an overly innocent 18 year (played by Norman) who gets involved in the Mob and develops an alter ego that’s violent and his complete opposite. There’s murder, prostitutes and good ol’ fashioned mother-son incest and it wasn’t a movie I suggest for the lighthearted or anyone with those sort of triggers. 

That being said, I watched the whole thing and didn’t hate it. It was just uncomfortable...as seems to be a theme with Norman Reedus movies.

6. Dark Harbor

This fucking movie...

Ok, so, I’ll be straight with you: I really enjoyed this dumbass movie. It had me guessing right up to the very end and it took me on a very strange ride along the way. 

If watching someone sexually feed a woman a poisonous mushroom, lots of dark eyed staring scenes or Norman Reedus making out with Alan Rickman is your thing, then go for it. 

7. Let the Devil Wear Black

It’s modern Hamlet. What else is there to say? If you like Hamlet, you’ll like this movie. If you like pre-car accident, baby face Reedus with the black hair, you’ll like this movie. I liked it.

8. 8MM

You know what the best thing about this movie is? Nicholas Cage. He steals the damn show no matter what movie he’s in and no one can even deny that fact. Norman’s part in this one is pretty small too but I liked this movie anyway because...well, Nick Cage. Enough said.

9. Bad Seed

I honestly can’t remember how this movie ends, all I remember was that it wasn’t at all how I expected it. I liked this movie because it’s a psychological thriller and that’s my most favorite genre of all time. The movie’s premise is a guy suspects his wife of having an affair and comes home one night and finds her murdered so he goes after her lover (Reedus) to try and kill him because he believes he was the one who killed her. It’s a cat and mouse chase sort of thing...now I need to rewatch it because I can’t, for the life of me, remember how it ends.

10. Gossip

Ok, no JOKE, this is the best movie I ever randomly discovered and I can’t believe how many people have never heard of it! It’s got some big names in it (Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, James Marsden and Kate Hudson to name a few).

It’s a psychological thriller/mystery drama in which three friends start a rumor at their school as a social experiment for their class. The rumor grows, however, and suddenly it’s out of their hands and spiraling out of control. People start getting hurt, reputations get dragged through the mud and then it escalates to the point of someone losing their life. The three main characters {Reedus, Headey and Marsden) try to figure out the truth behind the out of control rumors and discover more than they ever imagined, or ever wanted.

I HIGHLY recommend this movie. I really, REALLY do. The ending is one of the best twists I’ve seen in a LONG time.

11. The Beatnicks

This movie is so weird. It’s like...it’s just really weird. It revolves around two beat poets who find a magic box that somehow magically helps them get good at being poets but it’s like...an evil box and so they decide to only use it once and then get rid of it. Yeah, it’s a weird movie. Not my highest suggestion.

12. Blade II

Ok, if you’ve never seen the Blade Trilogy then I just don’t even know what to tell you. 

My favorite of the three movies, Blade 2 gives us the glorious Reedus character of Scud, the pot smoking, horrible-shirt-wearing, mechanical genius and Blade’s sidekick. Not only is he precious and adorable, the movie in all is enjoyable and has a fun rave-esque soundtrack. 

The one thing I hate? *SPOILER ALERT* Scud’s scummy betrayal.

13. Tough Luck

This is another one of those movies that I liked but it’s just so freaking weird. 

It’s a psychological drama where a down on his luck con artist, Archie (Reedus), tries to rip off a carnival worker and gets caught. As punishment, he’s hired to work at the carnival  to pay off the debt. He gets involved in a scheme to murder the owner’s wife, but falls in love with her in the process.

Things go to shit. He gets the short end of the stick. More plots and lies develop. It’s all twisted until the end and the answers fall into place.

I really like this movie, it’s one that I kept and still have my copy of. 

A word of warning though, never leave this movie on your movie shelf for your father to find and watch while you’re away at college, resulting in your mother calling you and asking you why you have such a nasty movie. Because the sex scene at the end is OUTRAGEOUS. I mean, it is the FUNNIEST fucking sex scene I have ever seen in my life and I can’t ever watch it without cringing and laughing. My mother, however, didn’t think it was funny at all and my father was too shocked to even form a sentence.

I highly suggest this trippy as hell movie.

14. Octane

Ok, to be fair, this movie is actually alright, although Norman’s character gets the shittiest death possible. I mean, imagine dying because some psycho vampire kisses you and bites your tongue out. That’s one shitty death.

But, overall, this is a good thriller. Johnathan Rhys Meyers plays the villain and he’s always pretty quality. The story is basically a teenager has a disagreement with her mom and gets picked up by this drugged up, blood sucking, vampire wannabe cult and indoctrinated joining them. Her mother joins up with a tow truck driver (Reedus) whose daughter was also kidnapped years ago and who has been hunting the cult down ever since. 

It was a cringe filled, yet interesting, movie and I didn’t hate it.

15. John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns

This is John Carpenter....OF COURSE I liked this one. 

I won’t say what it’s about because that would ruin the story, but it’s part of an anthology and John Carpenter loved Norman’s role so much he STILL talks about it today and suggests Norman to people in the industry.

It’s a good one if you’re into horror shorts or anthologies or the genius of the legend that is John Carpenter.

16. A Crime

I had completely forgotten about this movie until I started making this post, but now that I remember...I REALLY liked this one!!

This is a pretty sad one, but it was very good and Norman’s acting in it is absolutely wonderful. His character’s wife was murdered and the suspect was never found so his neighbor, who really likes him, creates a fake culprit so that he can finally get some closure. 

This is a good one. I suggest this one if you’re in the mood for a strange sort of romance movie that has underlying thriller tones.

17. Moscow Chill

I remember watching this one, and I remember enjoying it, but I honestly can’t remember anything about it except that it’s a Russian film in which Norman plays a computer hacker who gets hired to hack into a Russian bank and gets caught and put in prison. But I honestly can’t remember what happens in detail.

If you like foreign movies with hacking and subterfuge plots, then give it a try because I do remember enjoying it while I watched.

18. Red Canyon

This one is kinda fucked up. Imagine Daryl Dixon mixed with Breaking Bad mixed with Deliverance and you’ve pretty much got the story...

A brother and sister return to their mother’s hometown to settle things and put their horrible past behind them...but upon returning they end up reliving the nightmare all over again.

It’s a good thriller/horror watch, but there are scenes of sexual violence so if that’s not something you can handle, then don’t watch this one.

19. Hero Wanted

This. Is. A. GOOD. Movie.

Cuba Gooding Jr. is the lead and he does an AMAZING job. Gooding’s character is a garbage man who falls in love with a girl who never takes any notice of him. To get her attention, he stages a heist in which he is supposed to jump in, save the day, and win the girl...only the heist turns out to be real and he is shot and the girl is also shot in the process. He sets out for revenge and gets in way over his head.

Norman’s part in this isn’t very big...but HOLY SHIT, was it impactful. His character didn’t have a lot of screen time, in comparison to a lot of other people, but he had a solid backstory and reason for being involved and MY GOD did I cry about it. This was actually the first movie of his I watched AFTER discovering Boondock Saints and it solidified my love for his acting abilities.

A very good watch. Highly suggest.

20. Messengers 2: The Scarecrow

This one is pretty ok, actually, as far as lame horror movies go. 

The plot is simple: Blonde, beardy, corn farmer Norman gets slowly driven insane by the haunted scarecrow in his field that he thinks putting up is a good idea for some damn reason. He starts to get more and more violent and rapey as time goes on until his family is forced to take up arms against him.

It’s not bad. Second part in what I THINK is a trilogy? I’ve only ever seen the first two. If you like horror movies then this one is a good watch. As I mentioned though, there is an attempted rape scene in this one so just be aware.

21: Pandorum

It’s an alien movie. Astronauts run into a species that is stronger and hungry for tasty humans. Shepard (Norman’s character) doesn’t make it out alive. If you’re not in the mood to see Norman get LITERALLY gutted or other characters get nommed by aliens, then don’t watch.

If you ARE, then go ahead and watch, because it was pretty alright.

[naivesilver]

top six pinocchio adaptations? idek if there are 6 🤷‍♂️

Hollie, my buddy, my pal, my dearest, not only there are like twice that number that I personally watched/read/experienced, but there are many more that I still have to get to. So have no fear, I have plenty of material to draw from

Also thank you 💓💓💓 I know at this point I’ve flooded everyone’s dash with this kinda stuff but I so love talking about it and y’all keep saying I shouldn’t stop so here I am

Ask me my top 6 anything

So the thing is, I’ve already listed my top 5 adaptations here, but as it goes I have multiple different rankings when it comes to Pinocchio stuff, so there is no shortage of lists I could make. I could rank going by the amount of screentime the thrice-damned Cricket gets, or how much the Fairy irks me, but since this is a lovely day and I have no wish to ruin it by talking about characters I would personally take on in a fistfight, I will instead use another discriminator.

That is, the Lampwick factor.

Lampwick gets an astonishing amount of hate considering he is a) a child b) Pinocchio without the plot armor c) someone the story’s system failed, along all those other boys, but I love him dearly and I will defend him sword in hand. Some adaptations forgo him entirely (looking at you, German-Japanese cartoon who would have been perfect otherwise) but most of those who leave him in make him memorable, for good and for bad.

So, without further ado:

(Actual list under the cut because I got carried away with number 4 and it got LONG)

1) Luigi Comencini’s Le avventure di Pinocchio (1972)

This miniseries’ Lampwick is just *chef’s kiss *. Not only does he get the funkiest introductory scene, laying under THEE boat (a trendsetter, that boy), but the way he behaves is consistently amazing and depicts the friendship between him and Pinocchio aside from the more famous Land of Toys (?) escapade. Also, SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK STORY, but cutting off his death scene, leaving his fate ambiguous and having Pinocchio snap at his father for suggesting Lampwick might have gotten “what he deserved” was a balm for my heart. Plus, he got a sweet sweet character theme that also served as title track for the miniseries.

(Fun fact, I found out while looking up the theme that his actor and Pinocchio’s starred as brothers in another movie shortly after, which is a nice little piece of trivia to know :D )

2) Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio (2020)

YOUR HONOR, HE’S BABY! I want to protect him at all costs. The actor plays the part of Pinocchio’s shenanigan partner perfectly, and this movie takes a more realistic approach when it comes to depicting life in a poor maritime town in XIX century Italy, instead of showing Lampwick as someone who rebels against nothing. They cut out the final part of his story here as well, of which I could never be more grateful, for all that I’m a Pinocchio purist in most other cases. If you ask for my opinion, he deserves to be alive and happy somewhere else, and that’s that on that :)))))

3) Pinocchio miniseries (2009)

When I tell you that 11yo me was infatuated with him...Learning that Thomas Brodie-Sangster was already 18 when this aired was one of the biggest shocks of my life. He looked 15 at best, and only in the right light.

Still, what a good Lampwick. He’s snarky, he’s a bad influence, but he's a good friend, too, so it’s a win-win situation, isn’t it? He may be a bastard, but at least he will try to fix your sorrows in the most bothersome ways possible - remember kids, running off to a magical land is not a good way to cope with grief, but if you do it, at least stick to someone older than you who will do his best to keep you alive and distracted.

(Come to think of it, I’m still not convinced that Robbie Kay wasn’t influenced by this when he went on to portray Peter Pan.)

4) Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio (2002)

LISTEN. Listen. This movie is a problem. I can’t speak of this movie without having to wrack my mind to find the right words. Benigni single-handedly ruined my chance at credibility by making this both the weirdest AND closest-to-text adaptation currently in existence.

(Aside from a sequence of excessive Cricket presence towards the end, but I digress.)

So, Benigni made a peculiar choice when filming this movie; that is, he had all the child characters be played by adults while retaining somewhat childish behaviors. Now, if it was merely a humorous parody I’d be less concerned, but if it was that easy to reduce it to such a stereotype, I wouldn’t have watched it in the first place, because there are too many Pinocchio parodies in the world and I despise most of them.

No, once you gather enough suspension of disbelief to see through the comedy factor of this movie, you soon have to realize that it’s, in fact, very well made. So you have to come to terms with the reality that this perfectly in-character Pinocchio with a Tuscanian accent who lifts paragraphs straight from the book was played by a 50yo man, and that the Fairy was played by his wife. There are things I don’t want to deal with when I’m watching a Pinocchio adaptation and Benigni’s supposed mommy issues is definitely one of them.

“So what does Lampwick have to do with any of this?”, you may ask. Well, my friend, Lampwick is by far the oddest casting choice in this case.

Picture this: you’re watching this movie where there are no kids, only adults playing kids. It’s weird, but it’s kinda funny, because the way they’re dressed and the way they act makes it clear that you’re supposed to laugh at them. Then a new character, well-known jackass Lampwick, is herded in, and you expect another 40something comedian to pair well with Benigni.

Instead, what you see is Kim Rossi Stuart.

Kim Rossi Stuart was a heartthrob of late 90/early 2000s Italy. He’s still quite good-looking - in fact, he might have even gotten better with age and with a beard, but that’s my personal taste chiming in - but back then he was at the height of his career. He was in Fantaghirò, for God’s sake. And here he comes sauntering by, as though it was nothing at all, eating lollipops and playing at darts with a floreal-pattern-clad Roberto Benigni.

It drives me nuts. I’ve honestly never been more appalled by an actor choice in my life. But that’s precisely the reason why it ranks so high - I’ll be 80 and grey and STILL I’ll be wondering what the fuck Benigni was thinking when he picked him. It leaves a mark, that kind of thing.

5) Enzo D’Alò’s Pinocchio (2012)

(By this point you should have realized the reason I put director names and dates in is because they all have the same fucking title. Also, enjoy this unflattering screenshot I had to make myself)

This movie is sweet. Not memorable, but sweet. It’s more whimsical and cartoonish than most, and the target age group is clearly younger than the one for say, Garrone’s movie, but Lucio Dalla wrote great songs for it so I appreciate it.

I’m more of the school of thought of  “Lampwick as a kid Pinocchio’s age” than “Lampwick as an older mentor of sorts”, and this Lampwick was voiced by Paolo Ruffini, who has the right accent but which I find annoying, but still, I like him. I love older brother figures, and Lampwick in this movie takes the time to comfort a sad kid he doesn’t know and humor him all throughout their journey. They’re good together, and that’s enough for me. #justicefor2012lampwick

6) Disney’s Pinocchio (1940)

Cue great stupor from everyone involved. Yes, I hate this movie with every fiber of my being, but this is the stereotypical Lampwick. Not putting him in would have been nearly blasphemous. Also, so many adaptations ignored his existence completely that I have to make concessions sometimes.

In addition to that, his character is tied to a little traumatic memory of my own. I watched this movie when I was like, 5 or 6, and as opposed to my classmates and sister who got frightened by most of it I was pretty unfazed, since I already knew the real story had WAY worse scenes.

But I also have a pretty vivid auditory memory, so what stuck with me was not the kids being turned into donkeys as much as Lampwick screaming like “Help! Call your cricket! Call who you want!” with the most horrifying voice ever. Was part of my nightmares for a long while, nearly as much as other movie scenes I watched in the same time period and of which I’m still scared, like ET’s freezer sequence or Dumbo’s Pink Elephants.