#this goes for the hot dog story too but why are we unable to recognize Marketing in its barest forms

[pack-yr-romantic-mind]

i mean the actual answer is that it costs them nothing to just print the 99 cent number on the cans since that has no bearing on what the distributor sells them to the store for, so if a can is going for more than 99 cents at a given gas station, it doesn't change the perception and brand loyalty of the consumer.

This like when the costco founder said he'd kill the cfo if he tried to raise the price of the hot dog

[retrocontinuity]

Eat, for this is Her Body: Chainsaw Man and the Doxology of Cannibalism

"One day," Anthony Oliveira writes in "The Year in Apocalypses," [Jesus'] disciples approached their master while he was silent in prayer and made a request: 'Lord, teach us how to pray.'" From here, Jesus teaches them the Lord's Prayer, what the Catholic Church once called "the summary of the whole gospel":

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Denji is no one's disciple. When we first meet him, he is closer to how Oliveira describes Jesus himself, "homeless, gleaning for food in the field like a sparrow and relying on the kindness of strangers to put him up, . . . a man cheerfully resigned to powerlessness." And so, Denji doesn't need to be taught how to pray. He has always known. Every bone in his body at the opening of Chainsaw Man sings out the Lord's Prayer: "forgive me my debts", "deliver me from evil." And, of course, Denji is intimately familiar with the prayer's most pitiable, most powerful line. It's this line that he cries out to Makima when he rests, Pieta-like, in her arms at the end of the first chapter. It can only be this line, one that Denji might have written himself:

Give me, from this day forward, and for all the rest of my days, daily bread.

Bread runs throughout CSM like a mocking scent that you only fully identify in the last two chapters. It should have been a sign to all of us when the first meal Makima buys for Denji is not bread (but rather a hot dog and udon noodles). It isn't until Denji meets and enters Aki's home that he is seen making a hideously overladen slice of toast for himself, luxuriating in having all the toppings he was denied. The morning after she forces Denji to open the door to Power's death, Makima makes the very breakfast she once promised to serve Denji: eggs, coffee, salad, and sliced bread. But this is a meal that Denji never eats—maybe the only meal in the entire series that he, a survivor of the meanest starvation and poverty, ignores. There is only one other time we see this meal in CSM, and it is subtle, almost off camera, though no less meaningful: in Chapter 53, after Reze's death, as Denji sits down to breakfast once more with Power and Aki.

To revisit CSM's public safety arc is to see all the ways the plot connects itself to food and the act of eating, both appetizing and revolting, both profound and profane. Denji, eating gyoza at a bar for the first time. Denji being forced to swallow barf as he is kissed for the first time. The Fox Devil, who eats indiscriminately and on command, who refuses to return to Aki after being fed something disgusting. A fox that is hunted and transformed into stew. Denji eating sandwiches at Reze's cafe. Aki and Angel eating noodles. A woman sitting down to eat a hamburger for the first time, before she commits mass murder. She is worried she has lost her taste buds, yet she exclaims, "So delicious!" We know, later, that this woman is a liar, that no part of her is what she presents herself to be. Should we take this moment at its face value then? Was Santa Claus simply lucky enough to have preserved her sense of taste? Or was it her one last act of humanity, to recognize that it is not enough just to eat, that man does not live on bread alone, that there must be at least food that is also delicious, that inspires people to get up and dance—even if it means she has to lie about what she can experience?

Food is necessary for survival, and CSM is a story about survival. But CSM is also a story about glimpsing the after. After you know you can keep living, what next? After you are no longer starving, after you have been forced to kill a friend, after you have touched your first boob, after you have been betrayed, what next? After you are tired of eating toast with jam for breakfast, what do you eat next?

The version of the Lord's Prayer we tend to recite asks for "our daily bread." But this, most modern scholars believe, is a mistranslation. The Greek adjective as it appears in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke is "epiousios," which doesn't mean "daily" at all, but rather something too complicated etymologically for me to even begin to parse. The point is that what we ask for in the Lord's Prayer is not just bread for today, but bread for tomorrow. Both the physical bread and the spiritual bread. Bread on this kingdom of earth, and bread that is the kingdom of heaven. Bread to feed our bodies, and bread to feed our souls. The realm of the divine is full of these moments, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one.

Denji starts the series asking for daily bread, and ends the public safety arc with Nayuta, Makima's reincarnation, asking him for daily bread. Trash heap Denji, living with his not!dog Pochita, really was just asking for daily bread. A slice to eat for breakfast, maybe even with butter and jam. But he too learns that bread, physical bread, is not enough. Merely to subsist, to eat good food, is an empty life. And what he must give Nayuta is not just bread, as was given to him. Otherwise, he will be trapped in a cycle of creating more Makimas. Instead, he must give her a relationship, a family, a world that Makima was unable to create. He must give her, in Pochita's words, lots of hugs. He must give her, in the words of the Lord's Prayer, epiousios.

To be clear, I am not arguing that CSM is meant to be read through a Catholic lens, and I doubt Fujimoto had all of this in mind when he wrote it (though he must have thought something, given that he drew a very large print of Gustave Dore's "Satan descends upon Earth" in Makima's entranceway!). But there is something primal (primordial?) about the Lord's Prayer. If every reader can understand the horror that the Darkness Devil represents, so too we can understand the intimacy and comfort of the Lord's Prayer. It is, as Oliveira writes, "a simple peasant's mantra for detoxing anxiety." Jesus opens by addressing God as father—not king, not an all-mighty spiritual being, but rather "abba, which is rather closer to 'dad,' and not in the intercultural Greek of his adulthood, but the Aramaic of home and childhood." The Lord's Prayer asks for what we always want, the only thing any of us have ever wanted since leaving the womb as infants: for no bad things to happen, for there to be enough to eat.

Even if what we have to eat is another person.

At the center of the Christian liturgy is the Last Supper, and at the center of the Last Supper is a meal that functions as ritual, abomination, accusation, transubstantiation, paranoia, and an early example of cracking open a cold one with the bros. Here, Jesus shares bread and wine with his disciples and then, as if trying to invent r/creepypasta years before its time, informs them they are actually eating his flesh and blood. This image is so powerful and heretical that the Romans accused early Christians of being cannibals. And why shouldn't they? It's there in the text. "Take, eat. This is my body. This is my blood." Stripped of the grandeur of tradition and ritual, this is downright vampiric. And yet it goes on to become the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

Oliveira begs us to see the Last Supper as a family meal, one shared by Jesus and his found family. "All he is really saying is, 'I hope when you eat together, you remember me.'" It's a good reading, one that moves me to tears, and is the framework through which I see the events of chapter 80. Because Makima is not the first time that Denji "consumes" a friend, and I don't just mean him sucking Power's blood or taking Pochita into himself. When Aki died, he left half his fortune to Denji, who uses it to support himself and Power. They "pigged out on good food," he tells us. This is Aki's symbolic body, through which he provides Denji his daily bread. Eat ice cream and onigiri in remembrance of me.

But it is not how I see the events of chapter 96. Denji does not eat Makima in the context of a feast. He does not partake of her in a communal meal, as Jesus did, among his found family. He eats every bite of Makima alone. Jesus said before his death, "this is my blood, which is shed for many." Yet Denji says to Makima, I alone will absolve you alone of your sins. I alone will bear you alone.

Denji's Last Supper is a lonely remembrance. He is hoping that no one but him will remember her. He is hoping to wholly consume her, because he loves her. "We love as cannibals," French philosopher and activist Simone Weil wrote. "Beloved beings . . . provide us with comfort, energy, a simulant. They have the same effect on us as a good meal. . . . We love them, then, as food." In fact, Weil believed we cannot love any other way. As humans, we are forever doomed to want to eat the ones we love. In order to escape, we must both be devoured by God and then become food for our fellow human beings. As Alec Irwin writes of Weil's philosophy, "the devouring violence of God must be positively harnessed in order to dismantle the machinery of human cruelty."

If Weil is right and being devoured is transformation, a crucial part of salvation, then in eating Makima, Denji redeems her. He turns her into food to break the cycle of her cruelty. For Makima's power itself is consuming, cannibalistic. She "eats" humans in order to use her power, which remains mysterious like God moving across the face of the earth, leaving only broken corpses as a sign of its presence. So it must be Denji, not Chainsaw Man, who does the consuming. If Pochita had consumed her, as she had always prayed for, then it would simply be another act of violence being enacted. Instead, Denji gives her salvation by turning her into human food—his food.

To Denji, Aki was human, his family, his brother, his friend.  It is Makima he loves as a God and a woman. To him, she is Satan and God, his betrayer and his creator, his salvation and his friends' damnation. So he must take her, consume her, digest her, excrete her, reduce her to nothing, as she once consumed and excreted and reduced him. "I ate her to become one with her." He ate her to become her. There is no truer form of his love than for Denji to take Makima into himself. I use those words purposefully, because this is the rejection of classic cishet PIV penetration, that old hoary chestnut of men inside women. As Don Delillo famously outlines in White Noise, we talk about sex as if women are containers, rooms, elevator lobbies: "He entered me," "I want him inside me," "I took him into myself." Denji and Makima never have physical sex, but this is a consummation, a reversal of roles. We are given the only sex that Shounen Jump will allow us, with Denji taking Makima into himself. She enters him. She is inside him. He is—physically, emotionally, willingly��penetrated by her flesh. She is released inside of him, becoming part of him.

Because the divine is full of moments like this, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one. That is the kingdom and the power and the glory. For Makima now lives in that country inhabited by God, where loving and eating are one and the same. For that country is none other than Denji's body.

In conclusion:

Substitute Makima for "God", and the preceding statements are still rigorously accurate.

Further Reading:

Anthony Oliveira's ongoing podcast reading the Gospel of Mark (Patreon exclusive, but I highly recommend, even/especially if you are a heathen like me)

Hannibal (NBC)

Daniel Birnbaum and Anders Olsson, An Interview with Jacques Derrida on the Limits of Digestion

David Farrell Krell, "All You Can't Eat: Derrida's Course, "Rhetorique du Cannibalisme (1990-1991)." Research in Phenomenology, vol. 36, 2006, pp. 130–180. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24660636. 

Alec Irwin, “Devoured by God: Cannibalism, Mysticism, and Ethics in Simone Weil.” CrossCurrents, vol. 51, no. 2, 2001, pp. 257–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24460795.

[idy-ll-ique]

Ethereal.

Pairing: Chris Evans x F!Reader

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: None

Requested: by @sushiinmidnight

How about reader x chris evans and they've met before and one day he is walking Dodger past a cafe and he sees her there and goes in to talk to her ends up raining so they go back to her place walking in the rain ....

Summary: Y/N has a job interview at a cafe near her house. As she is leaving after the interview, the interviewer asks her out on a date but before she could answer, Chris and Dodger interrupt her. What happens when Chris finds out that she said yes to the date? Will he try to win her over?

Author's Note: Hi guys, I'm back. first of all, @sushiinmidnight , thank you so much for the prompt! Many people were expecting the sequel to one of my other fics, Dogs (read it here). I decided to make it that (also, I'm sorry if the ending isn't what you required, I really am! hope you still like the fic 😚). Enjoy!

---

"I'm awfully sorry about this, Bet, but I have an important interview at the cafe and I can't keep Zeus alone at home," Y/N apologized to her sister again as she stood by her door. "Are you kidding? I love hanging out with Zeus, she is so friendly!" Bethany laughed, kneeling over to pet Zeus who sat by her feet. Y/N smiled.

"Thanks again, goodbye!" Y/N left and heard the door closing behind her. She walked to the cafe where her job interview was, nervously playing with her hands. Y/N had a degree in business administration, which she wanted to put to good use. Having been jobless for 5 years, she felt like she needed something to do.

She reached the cafe and a man waved her over. Immediately recognizing him as Oliver, her interviewer, she walked up to him. "Miss Y/N Y/L/N? Please, have a seat." She grinned at him and sat down. They exchanged greetings and proceeded with the interview.

In her opinion, the viva went great. Apparently, Oliver thought the same. "That was awesome, Y/N, you're good at this! I can't tell you this now, but I'm 95% sure that you're gonna get a call back." A relieved and excited smile bloomed on Y/N's face. "That is wonderful!"

"Hey, um, also off-topic, I wanted to ask you something." 

"Go ahead." 

"Do you wanna get a coffee with me sometime? I have another interview to take right now so maybe later?" Oliver rubbed the back of his head. She was about to answer him when a bark startled them both. They whirled around just as a dog jumped into Y/N's arms. "Dodger, stop both— Y/N? Hey, how are you?" 

"Hi Chris, I'm good. I missed you too, Dodger," Y/N laughed, kneeling and petting the dog's head as he happily wagged his tail. "Chris Evans?" Both turned to look at Oliver. "Hey, nice to meet you!" Chris smiled at the man. "Chris, this is Oliver, my interviewer." They shook hands.

"Oliver, nice."

"Hi, it's nice to meet you, too. Unfortunately, I have to leave now, so Y/N…?"

"Yes?"

"The coffee…"

Y/N considered her options. She had an obvious crush on Chris, but like, come on, as if he's ever going to like her back. Plus, Oliver was hella good-looking. "I'd like to go on a date," she smiled at him. "Awesome! I already have your number, I'll text you later, okay? Bye!" Oliver left.

Chris, meanwhile, sported a huge frown on his face. She was going on a date with Oliver and not him? No, he decided, he was going to convince her to acknowledge her crush on him and go on a date with him. Not Oliver. "Chris? Everything okay?" He looked at Y/N and an automatic smile bloomed on his face.

"Wanna have coffee?"

"Damn, what is it with handsome men asking me for coffee today? Do I look that good in this suit?" Chris laughed at her joke. "You look ethereal. Let's go inside." Chris and Dodger entered the cafe, leaving Y/N to gape after him. Wait, what? She looked ethereal? No, let me rephrase that, he thought she looked ethereal?

Feeling butterflies in her stomach, she walked in. She saw him sitting in a corner with Dodger's leash tied to the table. She went over and sat in front of him, unable to contain herself. "Do you really think I look ethereal?" she blurted out. "Of course, I've thought that ever since I first saw you at the park 2 months ago."

"Holy fuck, Captain America thinks I'm hot."

"Language." 

She burst out laughing at his joke, which caused him to smile. "Folks, what will your orders be?" They turned to look at the waitress, who gave them an amused smile. "Um, a Frappuccino, please," Y/N mumbled, embarrassed. "Same." She nodded and left. 

"So, what's up? What was the interview for?" Chris asked, leaning back. "Nothing, just a tech company. I'm gonna work from home; I have lots of free time but I can't go out because of Zeus." At Zeus' name, Dodger let out a mighty bark. "Dodger has missed Zeus a lot," Chris chuckled. "Yeah, Zeus misses him, too."

"Now you're gonna be too busy to hang out with me," Chris pouted. Y/N blinked, since when did they decide hanging out was normal? She had only gone out with him 2 days and hadn't even seen him for 2 months! And suddenly they were best friends? Something was fishy…

"It'll be a 9-5, so I'll be free in the evenings," she shrugged, playing along with whatever he was suggesting. "Great! We can continue hanging out at the park, with Dodger and Zeus." Ah, she should've guessed. He was suggesting it for Dodger, not himself. I mean, there was no reason for him to hang out with her anyway, except for the fact that their dogs liked each other.

"Here you are." The waitress placed the two cups in front of them. Y/N picked hers up, hearing a loud rumble outside the room. "Hm, look at that," Chris commented and both looked out of the window. The sky was dark, laden with rain clouds. "We need to get out of here quickly," Y/N sighed, sipping her coffee.

Just as she said that, they heard raindrops hitting the window. "Too late," Chris laughed. "Looks like the storm will last a while…" The intensity of the rain soon increased and it started thundering. Y/N took out her phone and called Bethany, keeping the call on speaker and placing it on the table. "Y/N, still at the cafe?"

"Yes, I'm trapped with… with a friend," she answered, doing her best to not glance at Chris. "Okay, I get it. Don't come walking in the storm, you fall sick too easily. Remember when you fell sick that one time when you were 16? Took you quite a while to recover." Chris snickered as Y/N went red. "Yes, yes I do remember. I just called to ask if Zeus can live a while longer with you?"

"Bro, she can live with me forever!"

"Shut up, she's mine. Why do you younger sisters always steal stuff? Anyway, I have to go now, bye!"

"Bye, broski." Y/N ended the call, playfully glaring at Chris as he wheezed. "What are you laughing about?" she chided. "You have got to tell me the story of when you were 16? What happened?" Y/N sighed and rubbed her forehead. They had to spend a while here, she might as well become friends with the guy she was stuck with.

"Nothing. I got diarrhoea and it's disgusting so… live with it." He pouted and crossed his arms. "Fine, only because it's disgusting." All of a sudden, a news anchor's voice filled her ears and she turned to look. The receptionist had switched on television there. 

The news reported that this unexpected storm was most likely going to last for hours. "Looks like we're all stuck here," she laughed seeing Y/N's expression. "I guess we are!" Chris said joyfully. Why was he so goddamn happy today? Y/N rolled her eyes at his cheerfulness.

Dodger hadn't barked in a while, so she glanced at him. "Aw, Chris, he's asleep," she crooned, clasping her hands. "He always sleeps during storms. The thunder scares him and when he's asleep, he can't hear it so that's good." Y/N laughed. "Zeus is the same, she's scared of storms too." 

"Our dogs are so alike, no wonder they like each other so much," she sighed, finishing the last of her coffee. "Can the same be said about us?" Y/N blinked and looked at Chris, who intently stared right back at her. "Uh… pardon?" she stammered. "What things do you like?"

"I… Marvel, I guess."

"Oh, I love that."

"You know my likes and dislikes, dude, we've met before," she deadpanned. "That I do," he winked, resting his head on the table. "Hey, can I ask you a question?" Y/N didn't want to be blunt, but she had to be. It was the only way to get some answers out of Chris' big, beefy body.

"Sure, love."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?" He sat up, frowning. "It's obvious you're flirting with me, I mean, I'm not dumb. I just… why? Why me?" He remained frozen for a few minutes before speaking. "I obviously like you," he spoke quietly, "I just want you to feel the same. I really do like you, Y/N. Ever since you offered me your water bottle the day we met. Remember that?"

She did, indeed, remember that.

"But it's just… I like that you are doing this… just… I felt like it was sudden."

"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" He looked at her with such innocent eyes that she found herself nodding involuntarily. "Please don't go out with Oliver today." Before she could stop herself, she started laughing. "Chris—" She took his hand and clasped it with hers, "—were you really jealous of Oliver?"

He pouted. "Not— not jealous…" he grumbled, reaching out with his other hand. "Aw come on, you are totally jealous of Oliver!" Y/N giggled, getting up. She sat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She liked him, he liked her, all was well and they were happy.

"Fine, maybe I am," he countered loudly, "Don't go out with him?" This time, it was much softer. "I won't, silly. I just had the best date ever." Y/N reached up to kiss his cheek, but pulling a pro-gamer move, Chris tilted his head so that his lips touched hers instead. Y/N wanted to pull away but she gathered herself and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Mm, you're mine," Chris mumbled when she pulled away to breathe. "Whatever you say, weirdo." He shoved her, rolling his eyes before quickly pulling her back to him, tightly wrapping his arms around her. "Your weirdo, right?"

"God, who would've thought Chris Evans would be so goddamn possessive," Y/N joked. "All the fanfictions about me correctly predict it…" Y/N looked at him with wide eyes. "What? You read fanfictions?" she asked loudly. "I've only read a few… they were somewhat accurate and somewhat not, but mostly fun. And surprisingly well-written."

"Hey guys, congrats!"

Chris and Y/N turned to look at the lone waitress and the receptionist. "Thanks! Just don't tell anyone, okay? People will come in mobs to kill me," Y/N snorted. "Come on, we've been hiding our relationship for a long time now, what's one more?" The waitress and the receptionist shared smirks. "Wait what? You're…?"

"Gay!"

"That's awesome!" Chris guffawed as the receptionist and the waitress shared a kiss. "I wish you both well," Y/N beamed at them. "As us, you!" the waitress grinned. 

---

"Y/N, I have to ask you something…" The rain had now cleared up, almost 3 hours later. Y/N, Chris and Dodger were now preparing to leave. "What is it?" She looked at him. "Tell Oliver you're not meeting him today." She good-naturedly rolled her eyes and took out her phone. "Okay, I'll tell him in front of you so you'd finally leave me alone."

"Babe, we're dating now, I'm never gonna leave you alone," he smirked. "Okay, you sap." She texted Oliver hi, I won't be able to make it today, I'm sorry :( and kept her phone away. "I am a sap and proud of it. Anyway, wanna come over later?" She considered her options. "I'll get Zeus from my sister's, change my clothes and be at your place soon, okay? Just text me your address."

"Great! Bye!"

"Chris, don't—" Too late, he gave her a quick kiss before she could remind him they were in public. As they walked in the opposite direction, Y/N shook her head.

No way today had just happened.

But it had.

And by God was it amazing.

---

A/N: Please leave a like, thank you for reading!!!! :)

[ssson-of-sparda]

A Dozen Ice Cream Cones (Dante x Fem!Reader)

Summary: Patty wants to know what happened to the girl who offered Dante his very first strawberry sundae. But to know the rest of the story, she must erase the dozen ice cream cones from Dante's tab. (Part 2 of A Tab To Erase) (Part 1)

Tags: Pre DMC3 Dante / Dante is Tony Redgrave / Flirting / Lost Friends to Lovers / Implied Sexual Content / Explicit Language

Author’s note: You wished for Part 2, there it is ;-) If you want to place this part of the story in the DMC timeline, I'd say that it is shortly before DMC3. Dante is roughly eighteen (and so is Reader) and still goes by the name Tony Redgrave. Again, the Dante who is talking to Patty is definitely post DMC Anime. I decided not to give many details about him so that he could be the one of your choice. Can definitely do a part 3 if you want.

MISSION 2

Dante was about to get fleeced. He could feel it in his guts, which had somehow developed this strange ability to knot tightly in his stomach each time he was about to lose. Probably the result of so many years of bad luck in gambling. And yet, Patty’s eyebrows were weirdly furrowed as she was quietly eyeing all of the cards in her hands. She had to have a straight flush. Dante had no doubt about that. So why wasn’t she playing? “You know, Dante. I was thinking …”       “Not again.” The man grumbled, wondering why she was taking her time. But Patty had learned to ignore Dante’s sudden irritations long ago, knowing they were always brief and harmless.       “You didn’t stay friends, right?” Dante arched an eyebrow and stared at the girl in front of him as she was sitting still, big blue eyes fixed upon his face, patiently waiting for the answer to her unexpected question.   “What are you talking about?” A sigh escaped his mouth. He knew what she was talking about. He just wanted to elude the answer. But the little blonde was not one to easily give up. “With the little girl. The one who made you first strawberry sundae. You didn’t stay friends. Why?”                   “What makes you think that?” Using a question to avoid an answer. Yes, could work.             “Well, if you had a friend making you strawberry sundaes for free, then you would not spend an unreasonable amount of money on them. So, I’m guessing she must not be around anymore.” Patty was perceptive. Dante could give her that quality, for sure. Though right now it was more a bother than anything else. “What happened?”       “She moved on with her life.” was the only thing that he felt like answering as he quietly stood up to take a beer in his fridge, certain that this was just the beginning of another long questioning.               “So you never saw her again after that night in the diner?” Patty asked as she watched Dante slouch back in the couch, taking his cards back in his hand to cover whatever expression Patty was trying to spot on his face.       “Yes, I did saw her again.” He finally confessed, eyes on the dog-eared Queen of Hearts he was grazing with his thumbnail.             “Then tell me!” The girl begged, unable to resist the excitement growing in her body any longer. “ Why would I? Don’t you have any stupid soap opera to watch?”       “ The TV’s broken… AGAIN.” She complained but he couldn’t care less. He had no money to afford buying a new one or fixing this one. Plus, there was nothing worth watching on TV so …“Come on. I’ll erase the dozen ice creams cones from your tab if you do.” Dante looked away from his cards with a sudden tiny smirk as he noticed Patty on the edge of her chair, impatiently waiting for the new part of his story to begin. “Now you speak my language, Patty.”         “ You never do something for free! It’s annoying!”       “Are you kidding me? I do a lot of things for free. That’s why I’m so broke and live in this hellhole.” He waved at the place with open arms before taking a gulp of his beer with a grimace. Yuck, it’s hot! And of course it was. He hadn’t paid the bills yet again.           “So we have a deal, then. Now tell me.”

A DOZEN ICE CREAM CONES

                 It was the nineties – perhaps the most awful period for anyone who had even just a small sense for fashion or music - and as the city of Red Grave was still lovingly dancing on ridiculous love ballads on Friday nights, wearing tight crop tops, colourful scrunchies and platform sneakers, Dante – now named Tony Redgrave - was trying to make his place as a young mercenary in the rough areas of the city, hanging in bars serving some drinks stronger than strawberry sundaes (though he would always order one at some point) and in clubs where women would gladly take their clothes off if asked too, mind a few bucks of course (except for Venus. Venus would always flash her breasts for free for her sweet Tony).

“Not sure I want to know that.” “ Oh yes. Forgot the story must be PG-13, sorry. Anyway …”

He was looking for jobs, something that would help him pay for a proper roof over his head and the fancy long red leather coat he had just bought (five hundred bucks but worth every single dime) and luckily for him he knew the perfect man to find him that.

His name was Enzo Ferino. A short and chubby Italian-American broker, probably the best informant in the neighbourhood, one who could smell high-paying jobs for miles around especially those Dante loved to refuse.

“Where was Morrison?” “Can I tell my story please?”

“Come on Tony! You can’t refuse that job. Not another one. Not again.” He almost threw a fist on the counter before he remembered the last time he did so. Two bullets had whizzed the top of his black curly head and he had had thanked his mama for making him so short. “Haven’t you heard the reward? Don’t you see all the zeros on that check, my friend?” Yes, there were four and enough to pay the bail and few rents of the place he wished to rent to create his own agency. But Dante didn’t want that check nor did he want that job.             “If he wants to recover a stupid necklace, he can call the cops for that … or a bailiff. I don’t go after silly poker players. I have better things to do.” He took a sip of his whiskey, the third of the night, not even looking at the two men sitting next to him and begging him to take that damn job with pleading eyes.               “You have nothing better to do!” Enzo shouted, throwing his hands in the hair like a living Italian cliché. “Please Sir. It’s my girlfriend’s necklace. One she offered me on our anniversary. It’s very precious to her.” The man who wished to hire him declared as he started rummaging in the pocket of his designer coat.               “And you bet on it?” Dante scoffed. “Damn. What a perfect boyfriend you are. But that’s still a no.”

The man pressed a piece of paper next to Dante’s drink. A photo, a polaroid, judging by the quality of the paper, carefully placed face down like a poker card, showing that that man was most probably a pro-gambler or at least was used to card games. Another reason not to help. He would probably lose the damn necklace right after recovering it.         And yet, Dante took the picture in his hand. Though he didn’t really know why he did. Certainly the curiosity to know what kind of chick that prick could have in his life or maybe the will to use the picture to taunt him about his taste in women. He imagined a prude church girl, some daddy’s girl probably as rich as him, not very pretty but fancy, wearing pearl earrings and silk headscarves matching her shiny shoes. The type of girl that swaggers in the street and roll her disdainful eyes when they see men like Dante (though they might secretly wished he would rumple their sheets).  

Patty cleared her throat. “What? Every girl loves some good bad boy once in a while... And how do you even know what that means?”

He couldn’t be more wrong. And he couldn’t be more surprised. He would recognize those big (colour) eyes and that sweet smile among thousands, despite the time apart, despite the years that had turned a fearful little boy into a daredevil mercenary and an adorable little girl into a magnificent young girl. He would recognize them always because they were the first that had made in smile when he thought he would never smile again.                 “Her name is Y/N. She’s the sweetest girl in the world. Innocent. Pure.” Dante cringed at the man’s words, finding them rather repulsive and somewhat perverted. Something in the way they were rolling off his tongue.       “Come on, Tony. You can’t say no to a sweet girl.” Enzo’s sentence was met with a glare that made him shiver but when he saw his partner stand up and empty his glass of whiskey, he somewhat relaxed. “You’re pieces of shit. Both of you.”         “Does that mean you take the job?” Dante didn’t bother answer.

                 But he took the job. Not for Enzo. Especially not for his shitty client. And even less for the cash. For her. Just for her. To finally return the favour after so many years. Because he owed her one. Because she was possibly one of the few humans he’s always respected in his ten years wandering the nighty street of Red Grave. And because she didn’t deserve an asshole like the one she dated to lose something apparently so precious to her in a silly game of cards. An easy job for someone like him but one he despised nevertheless. He hated to deal with humans. They were sometimes worse than demons and you can’t fix problems with them by using a sword.

“Don’t tell me you won the necklace back?” “ I did. Fair and square. Well … almost. I ended up using my sword. Turned out the Mafiosi who had Y/N’s necklace were a bunch of demons who had made a few bars in downtown Red Grave their lairs.”

But once Dante had Y/N’s necklace in the palm of his hand he did something only Dante could do. He refused the reward, refused all the zeros on the check and the chance to finally buy that agency he wanted so badly. “The things you do for beautiful women.” Gunsmith Nell Goldstein had said when she had given him back his guns, all polished and fixed, after he had wrecked them on the job again. “They’re your weakness, Tony. Always leading you around by the nose … or something else.” Perhaps, but he never minded.        

And as he watched Y/N approaching the door to her home out of the corner of his eye, a bunch of books under her arms, looking for her keys in her bag, Dante knew he would not regret his weakness for women or his decision to refuse the money.      

She looked as sweet as he remembered, as delicate as in the picture if not more. And just as her shitty boyfriend had said, she indeed seemed rather innocent and pure. Almost fragile. Nothing like the girls he had met before, especially those he had seen undressed at Love Planet or in one of the magazines he kept in his drawers.       “Goodness grac…” She almost dropped her books as she jumped, surprised and somewhat scared, and put her hand over her heart that had certainly missed quite a beat when she noticed this insanely tall stranger on her doorstep.   But her sudden fear disappeared immediately when she recognized the silvery white hair covering the icy blue eyes of the man before her. “Tony?” She arched an eyebrow and he smiled with the same childish joy she had witnessed on his face years ago. And just like that, she was certain it was him.       “Hello, Y/N” He offered his hand and she briefly stared at it, remembering for a small instant the time she held out her tiny hand to him the same way, the night they met. And so she grabbed it, genuinely happy to see him again and yet curious to know how he had found her and why he was back after so many years.       But when she fell something cold and metallic in his hand she got her answer. “My necklace. How?” “Won it back for you.” He simply answered but that was enough for her to understand what happened. “[Boyfriend] lost it on a poker game, didn’t he?” And even though that didn’t really surprised her as she knew how much he loved gambling despite her telling him not to, it disappointed her anyway. “You shouldn’t date boys who have a streak of bad luck in gambling… Except those like me.” She looked up at Dante’s piercing blue eyes, unsettled by his flirtatious humour, thinking he accidentally let that slip but he definitely did not. Those last words, impulsive and yet somewhat well thought out, had rolled off his tongue with a scandalous smoothness and a self-confidence that had rooted her to the spot, speechless, but in a weirdly pleasant way that made her want to slap herself. “Or especially me. Depends if you like trouble.”     With a smug smirk, he stared at her, deep in her eyes, almost … hungrily? She didn’t really know. All that she knew was that never a man had looked at her that way. Certainly not her boyfriend. And who knew such icy eyes could set fire to her cheeks like that? “But, judging by that place and your guy, you seem to enjoy some well-ordered life.”

Not really. Not at all. Her life was boring, plain and dull. Nothing like in the books she read. Nothing like what she had dreamed of. But exactly what her mother had wished for her.         She was an adorable daughter, a top student finishing up high school, ready to leave Red Grave with her well brought up boyfriend to start a life many would envy but that she cared little about.     She wanted adventure. She wanted excitement. Passion. Frivolity. Freedom. And maybe even some danger. She wanted all that and more.           And as she looked at the self-assured man in front of her, she couldn’t help but believe that he had somehow managed to obtain all that. And she wanted to know how. How did that life feel? How could he live such a life? How could she have the same?         And Dante noticed that small fire, that tamed lonely flame burning deep in her eyes that needed just a drop or two of gasoline to rage and shine brightly. Something he could easily provide if she let him, if that’s what she wanted.

“Take care of yourself, Y/N” He nodded her goodbye and as he shifted to walk away, she opened her lips to say. “Would you like a strawberry sundae?” And she cursed herself for this, so damn loud in her head. You have a boyfriend! A voice repeated on and on, feeling the temptation in her heart and the ideas of what some people would call unfaithfulness seeping in her brain. But as she opened the door to her apartment, ready to finally kick the boredom out of her life for something else, for something more, the voice seemed to fade.           Guess the Devil truly finds work for idle hands to do.

[bokutos-eyebrows]

A Trip to Paradise

I literally am so in love with Hinata I just want to give him everything. In celebration of his birthday I present to you a smut fic starring our favorite Tangerine boy… :) he deserves all the pleasure in the world. Please enjoy~

Hinata Shoyo x fem! Reader

Word Count: 2,304

Warnings: NSFW 18+, semi spoilers

On vacation in Rio, you get ditched by your “friends”. With nothing better to do, you watch the local beach volleyball tournament, and catch the eye of the best player there…

Hey, we went out to the club~ See you later tonight maybe? We might need a ride to the hotel!

“Fuck,” you groaned as you read the text that popped up on your phone. “Who goes clubbing at 11 am?” 

You had come on this trip with girls from school who thought you were your friends, but they had ditched you to go clubbing multiple times throughout the week.  Not wanting to babysit a bunch of drunk girls, you decided to ignore their text and explore the city.

It was another hot day in Rio, the beach was crowded of course, but you enjoyed people watching. Your eyes scanned the horizon before falling on a large crowd. Huh, beach volleyball? You watched as the crowd erupted in cheers. Curious, you made your way over to the commotion. 

The star of the show was a tan, orange haired boy. He was fast, even in the sand, and could both set and spike almost flawlessly. You were awestruck by his passion for the sport. He and his partner won that set, furthering in the competition. You stayed to watch the next game, unable to take your eyes off him. 

“Another win for Hinata Shoyo,” The announcer boomed as the crowd cheered loudly. Someone started chanting “Ninja! Shoyo! Ninja! Shoyo” which caught on quickly. Hinata beamed at the praise, waving his hands and bowing. He must be a local, you thought before locking eyes with him through the crowd. He shot you a huge smile and thumbs up, and just like that, you fell under the Shoyo love spell.

You stuck around for the remainder of the competition. Watching Hinata dominate the court was addicting. You loved seeing his smile when the crowd cheered for him. Entranced by the talented player, you didn’t realize you had 4 missed calls from your friends.

Walking away from the tournament, you called your friend back only to receive a drunken earful about how you needed to come pick them up. Begrudgingly, you left the beach. After an hour of trying to wrangle up the drunken group safely back to your hotel, you headed back to the beach.

“There's still a while before sunset,”  you mumbled to yourself, “I hope I didn’t miss the end of the competition.” But to your dismay, there was no longer a crowd, just a few groups playing around on the courts. You sighed, sad that you wouldn’t be getting another glimpse of the majestic Shoyo.

“Oh! There you are!” You heard an enthusiastic voice call out from behind you. Turning around, your heart fluttered as you saw the orange haired boy running towards you. 

“Hi! I’m Hinata Shoyo! I saw you in the crowd today, thanks for cheering me on!” He beamed at you, smile as bright as the sun.

“H-Hi I’m y/n.” You stuttered, surprised that he recognized you.

“Aah! Y/n! Are you here on vacation?” 

You explained your situation to an empathetic Hinata. He knew how lonely this city could be when you’re on your own. He took you for a walk down the beach as he listened to you vent about your ‘friends’.

“Well, if you want, I can show you around! I know all the best spots in town!” 

You smiled at him, “It’s okay! You really don’t have to just becau-”

“But I want to...” Hinata interrupted, “So let’s go, yeah?” He grabbed you by the hand, leading you to the best date of your life.

Everywhere Hinata took you, the locals were calling out to him, asking about his day and offering fruits or drinks. He had friends in every part of the city, even the stray dogs and cats adored him. He bought you your favorite ice cream, fresh from the local paleteria. 

Shoyo had so many stories about his volleyball antics, things that happened during his delivery job, and just daily life, that you were convinced he was the most interesting person in the world. The way his eyes lit up when he remembered something funny or talked about his friends back in Japan was enamoring. I could listen to him for hours… you mused.

“Oh! It’s almost sunset, I know a really nice spot overlooking the ocean, if we hurry we can make it in time!” Hinata exclaimed, grabbing you by the hand again.He took you to a secluded hill with a panoramic view of the entire coastline.

“Hinata, will you take a picture of me please? I want to remember this view.” 

He took your phone as you posed with the sunset in the background. After taking a few pictures, you noticed him struggling to focus on the camera.

“Is something wrong?” You asked.

“N-No, I’m just having a hard time since the view is so beautiful…”

“Yes! I’ve never seen a sunset like this!”

“No,” Hinata looked up at you, “You’re the most beautiful view.”

As much as you wanted to giggle at the cheesy line, Hinata said it with so much genuine sincerity you couldn’t help but blush. He stood next to you, handing your phone back, also blushing deeply.

“W-Was that too much?” He stuttered nervously.

“Not at all,” You put a hand on his cheek, “It was really sweet...you’re really sweet. No one’s ever shown me such a fun day..” You felt Hinata’s breath hitch as you leaned in closer. 

“Shoyo, can I kiss you?” 

“You can do anything you want to me, y/n.”

With that, your lips gently pressed onto his. He tasted faintly of strawberries from the ice cream he had earlier. You felt Hinata’s hands slowly grasp your waist. Not wanting the moment to end, you deepened the kiss, slowly moving your lips in rhythm with his. You loved how he smelled like the faintest hint of sunscreen and sea breeze. 

Hinata squeezed your hips as you opened your eyes slightly just to look at the precious boy. His long lashes fluttered as you kissed him. He looks so cute even with his eyes closed. You put your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to you. The slightest gasp left your mouth as you felt his growing hard on press up against your stomach.

“I-I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it..” 

You giggled and pressed your body closer to his. “Why don’t you take me to your place next?” Hinata smiled slyly as he led you back to the city towards his apartment.

As you arrived, Hinata was fiddling with the lock on his front door. You hugged him from behind and started kissing his neck, making him almost drop his keys in his frenzy to get you to his bedroom. He finally got the door open and gently pulled you inside, pushing you up against the door after closing it.

“I’m going to get you back for that, y/n.” He teased as he started to leave wet kisses on your neck. You moaned, excited to see what the night had in store for you.

“Hinata! OH! UH S-Sorry!” You hear a new voice yell as the silhouette of another man runs away.

“Oh, shit! PEDRO I’M SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!” Hinata broke away from you and chased after the man, only to drag him back to where you were for an awkward introduction. 

You learned that the man was Pedro, Hinata’s roommate for the duration of his stay in Brazil. He was a little awkward at first, but opened up to you when Hinata told him that you like anime and manga too. The three of you talked for a while. Hinata gave you an apologetic ‘sorry we got interrupted earlier’ look but you didn’t mind. As long as you got to stay wrapped up in the world of Hinata Shoyo a little longer, you were happy. 

“Well, I have an exam to study for tomorrow,” Pedro yawned, “If I can stay up that is…”

“Pedro! Take your studies more seriously!” Hinata chided. His roommate just waved him off and left towards his side of the apartment.

“He seems nice! I’d love to have a roommate with the same interests as me!” You spoke, turning to face Shoyo.

“I love Pedro! I feel lucky to have found him..” He scooted closer, thighs touching yours, “And I feel lucky to have found you too...should we head to my room?” 

You smiled, eager to finish what the two of you had started. “Yes, please!”

Hinata picked you up and ran to his room, locking the door behind him. He gently tossed you onto his bed. You studied his room as he got on top of you, only to have your arms suddenly pinned down above your head. 

“Hey.” Hinata bent down, face inches from yours, “Pay attention to me now, okay?” He commanded. You nodded, entranced by his sudden change. 

He smiled at you cooing different praises as he started to trail kisses up and down your chest. He released your hands as he helped you shimmy out of your top, gasping in awe at his full view of your chest.

“You’ve got such a nice body, y/n.” He whispered, fondling your breasts. You gasped in pleasure as he flicked his tongue over your nipple, earning a slight moan from him. “I’m going to make you feel so good..” 

He released your soft bud from his mouth and started kissing down your torso, licking the area above your waistband. You whined in anticipation as he unbuttoned your shorts slowly before pulling them down, leaving you in just your panties.

“Ooh! What cute panties! They’d look cuter on the floor though!” Hinata giggled, tossing off your underwear in one swoop. “Ah! That’s more like it.” He lowered his face to your already sopping wet core.

“Thanks for the meal!” 

Hinata wasted no time plunging his tongue onto your slit. He licked circles over your clit so quickly, with just the right amount of pressure, you thought you might cum right that second. You felt your orgasm building up, just as you reached the edge, Hinata moved his mouth off your clit and directly on your entrance. He pushed his tongue in, licking around your walls diligently. You gasped, eyes rolling to the back of your head. The feeling was even more intense than before and you rode out your release on Hinata’s tongue.

“Ahh! Shoyo,” You moaned out, fistfull of his hair in your hands. You felt his lips curl into a smile at your quick orgasm.  But he didn’t stop there. He started licking up and down your slit, making sure to lap up every drop of your release. You gasped in delight when you felt his fingers start rubbing your clit at the same time he was eating you out. He started to go faster, rhythmically matching his tongue with his fingers. You felt another orgasm start. Hinata reached up to cover your mouth from being too loud as you came a second time on his face. 

Exhausted, you panted out his name. He gave one more lap up and down your slit before getting up. “You’re so pretty when you cum for me.” He mused, stroking your hair. 

“Hinata,” you breathed out, “You’re amazing..I..want to feel you.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Hinata threw off his clothes and started teasing you with his erect length. 

“Do you really want me to put it in?” He double checked that you were okay.

“Yes please right now!”

Hinata entered you slowly, stretching out your walls with his stiff member. He groaned out in pleasure.

“Y/n, your pussy’s so wet for me.” He whispered as he started thrusting into you. You grabbed his hips, pulling him in deeper with every thrust. He took the hint and started fucking you faster. You kissed his neck, making sure to leave hickies that would last a while after you had gone. 

Shoyo pulled out of you, flipping you over onto your stomach. You propped your ass up and he smacked it hard before pounding you from behind. He was going absolutely feral and you loved every second of it. 

“Spank me harder!” You cried out. Hinata obliged, leaving red hand prints all over your ass. He loved the fact that you’d probably still feel the sting of his hands the next day. As he thrusted into you again you felt yourself let go. Your mind went blank and your third release came out.

“Ohh y/n, you love my dick so much you squirted everywhere!” Hinata teased.

“I-I’ve ah,” you tried to speak, “I’ve never done that before.”

Hinata beamed at his accomplishment, “I told you I’d make you feel good.”

Now it was your turn. Wanting to make him feel just as good, you started thrusting back onto him, shaking your ass to give him a nice show. He tightened his grip on your hips as you clenched your walls on his length. He gasped at your change of pace.

“Y/n, I’m gonna- ah,” He pulled out of you and painted your backside with his release. Panting, he reached over and grabbed a towel to wipe you off before you both collapsed onto his bed. 

“Shoyo that was amazing.” You whispered, too exhausted to talk at full volume.

“How much longer are you staying in Rio?” He asked suddenly.

“I don’t leave for another 3 days..”

“Stay with me till then.” Hinata grabbed your face gently. “I’ll give you the best three days of your life.” 

You smiled, excited to be able to enjoy the rest of your vacation with Hinata.

“Okay. I’ll stay with you, Shoyo.”

Notes:

I literally only meant this to be a short one shot and it ended up taking 6 google docs pages I am a SIMP for this man 

[lightsandlostbells]

wtFOCK season 3, episode 3 reaction

In this episode, Sander shows up 15 minutes late with croques (I know this joke has to have been made before, sorry)

Just adding again that if you are looking for an all-positive review of this show, this is not it. Please don’t read if you would prefer not to hear negative takes.

Episode 3

Clip 1 - Robbe on the beach

Robbe is sharing a bed with Noor. He’s doing some good physical acting because even just lying there, I can tell how stiff and uncomfortable he is. He wakes up and looks bummed. It’s pretty early and he’s on vacation so you know he really doesn’t want to be spooning with a girl if he’s getting out of bed right now.

Gotta say the detail of Aaron’s ass being half-exposed in his sleep is a detail that made me lol.

Robbe goes to the beach and listens to music. He types a text to his mom that he can’t make it to see her this week because he’s at the seaside, (because he’s supposedly doing a school project with Jen, lmao) but then he deletes it. So perhaps he is feeling guilt over not visiting, or he’s just got mixed feelings and wants to distance himself from his family situation right now.

Clip 2 - FINALLY

Robbe goes back to the house and sees a mysterious dude. It’s only been like 20 minutes since Robbe left the house, so this guy must have just arrived. Don’t know why they didn’t just combine these clips, especially since it would’ve been a nice contrast to get Robbe moody and alone vs. the jolt he receives with a cute boy’s arrival within one clip.

The important thing is that we finally meet the Even of this season, who I’ve been pretending I didn’t know is called Sander. I’m going to repeat what dozens of other people have said and say yes, this is Jack Frost from that one movie in live-action form. 

Sander does a bit where he roasts Robbe about not having breakfast ready and he expected it when he made a reservation; Robbe acts half-amused, half-confused as fuck, as if part of him recognizes it as a windup but he also doesn’t know who this dude is, so maybe he could be for real?

Afterwards Sander is like, let’s go bitch, we’re grabbing breakfast, and he introduces himself. Robbe is still flabbergasted but he follows Sander out the door anyway, possibly compelled by Sander’s charisma, possibly just swayed by a hot guy. He has no idea how important this meeting is in the grand scheme of things. Robbe, your story is finally starting in episode 3!

OK, I like Sander’s intro! It’s in line with Even’s paper towel trick. Sander is getting Robbe’s attention with a dramatic introduction. He made sure to make a memorable first impression. It works not just for Robbe, but for me as a viewer as well. And I like that Robbe was caught off-guard like Isak was and they didn’t instantly fall into banter or anything, because let’s be real, if some strange dude showed up in your kitchen and started talking to you like this, you would be pretty WTF no matter how nice his face is. 

I am not sure if this show will do the thing where Sander has been pining after Robbe for a while before this meeting - we have seen glimpses of Sander so it seems as if he’s seen Robbe before, but if he’s not from the same school as I think is the case, then I wonder how much he really could have developed feelings for Robbe? Even saw Isak the first day of school, so it’s easy to understand that he developed a crush in the time between that and S3 just by seeing Isak doing his thing at school regularly, and he had plenty of time to learn who Isak was. With Sander, it seems like he just saw Robbe randomly, and that makes sense for “hmm, a cute guy” but not really this giant crush on Robbe as a person. 

This is why it would have been good to actually show what Robbe did or made in the graffiti scene, because it would make sense if Robbe drew something that would have intrigued Sander.

Anyway, the larger point is that this scene does make sense if you consider that Sander was waiting for Robbe and this was a planned intro. I assume there is some way that he found out Robbe would be here this weekend. If this is not something Sander expected, then it’s pretty impulsive of him. Though I can totally buy him winging the booking.com bit if that’s his personality. But it makes more sense to me at the moment to imagine that Sander knew Robbe was coming.

Clip 3 - Robbe and Sander at the store

Robbe and Sander are grocery shopping. Sander quickly establishes himself as having an outspoken, confident personality. I do like how instantly his vibe comes across, which is helpful since we’re making up for lost time.

Sander asking Robbe how many hot dogs one eats has some G-rated “Even immediately starts talking about blowjobs” energy. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence and they really are just talking about food, but like. It’s an Even. 

Amber sends them the shopping list full of normal grocery items. Sander is like NOPE, not getting that. Well I hope no one has any dietary restrictions they need to follow, lmao.

Robbe asks Sander how he knows Amber, but Sander gets distracted by the song over the loudspeakers so he doesn’t have to disclose the truth yet. The song is by “Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie. He asks Robbe if he’s a fan and Robbe is like “yeah!” but Sander challenges him to name three of his songs and Robbe is a flop. Again, I do like how forcefully Sander comes across, his personality is evident.

I have to say: out of all the remake Evens, he’s the one who most immediately comes across as a magnetic personality. Granted, he seems to have a very similar vibe to Even whereas some remake Evens have rather different personalities from the original recipe. But Sander does come across as someone you’d meet (or Robbe would meet) and be a little smitten and swept off your feet right away. 

David Bowie is also a good choice for an Even’s musical taste, especially because of Bowie’s sexuality. I guess you could say it’s pretty on the nose, but it still works for me. I don’t know a ton about the origins of Rebel Rebel but it references gender fluidity and sexuality, so it’s feels fitting for an LGBT-centered season.

As a diehard Ronan/Adam shipper (they’re my OTP of OTPs besides Evak) this scene of Sander pushing Robbe on the cart in the store is calculated to appeal to me. Pynch peeps, you know what I’m talking about. /finger guns

As a personal tangent, I also think grocery shopping is one of the best things you can do on a first date to know if you’re compatible with someone. I have been grocery shopping with people who were dull and no fun, and I have been grocery shopping where it’s an adventure in itself. I strongly believe that you can have fun with the right person in even the most mundane situations. 

Back to Robbe/Sander: this part’s really cute! It gives us a sense of who Sander is and it shows them having fun together. They have a comfortable chemistry and I think Robbe’s vibe in this scene hits the right notes of being starstruck and a little over his head, but acclimating to Sander’s OTT personality and being able to relax and have a good time. He’s certainly having more fun than he expected when he woke up this morning. 

The spinning and eventual slow-mo moment to Rebel Rebel! Great! Super effective at catching that feeling of holy shit, sudden butterflies in my stomach? I can’t look away from this person? I think I have a crush?  

Sander scanning Robbe and saying it’s expensive = lmao, genuinely funny.

And I do like the idea of Sander pushing Robbe and it being chaotic and messy as a way to visualize/signify the arrival of him in Robbe’s life as a way to shake it upside down. (Although, lol, I kinda hate them for causing a mess for the retail workers.)

Sander crashes the cart and Robbe into some boxes. After checking to see if Robbe’s OK, Sander plays it cool and walks away whistling. I do love Robbe’s reaction, that we see him trailing Sander and sneaking happy glances at him. Good stuff.

Taken on its own, this is a terrific first meeting, and I can see how this scene would inspire optimism in the season picking up from here. However - and I hate to be a downer because this scene worked for me - it’s the same issue that I’ve said before: we shouldn’t have waited two full episodes for this clip. Though this scene was great and established an easy chemistry, it also wasn’t that personal and didn’t last too long, and now they have to go back and hang with everyone else, so how are they going to continue to bond on their own? They should just go find other errands to do, away from everyone else. 

Clip 4 - Robbe and Sander in the kitchen

Noor is right there in the kitchen with them, but being hungover, is unable to be a third wheel in the way that Emma was to Isak and Even. Amber’s annoyed that they didn’t get anything on the shopping list, Sander shoos her out and says Robbe and he will cook.

Again, this not the same room for intimacy as Evak because they’re not alone! Anyone could walk in at any moment! People were just there! And I think you COULD do something interesting with that, how frustrating it is that everyone else is there, but it doesn’t work so well when it’s like … the first time they meet and they really need that space to get to know each other (considering, for the millionth time, that we are racing to catch up with only just meeting Sander). We really need to either play into the lack of intimacy and adjust the timeline of the relationship accordingly, or they need to manage some extra moments with the two of them to really establish the connection.

They make croques (weren’t bread and cheese on Amber’s list? So they did get something she asked for, heh) and there’s a fair amount of innuendo and suggestion, with the leaning down and leaning toward each other in the tight space. I do really like that and think it’s effective. They notice the chemistry, Sander touches Robbe’s back as he walks by.

More Bowie with Under Pressure. (This would be a really good song choice for Robbe’s POV to illustrate all the shit he’s dealing with.) Sander is very charming, he’s singing and having a good time, he lights up a joint. He opens up a bit about how making croques is a family tradition and asks Robbe if he has any traditions, and Robbe is still withdrawn and doesn’t go into it. Good moment! Robbe’s family is a touchy subject.

Sander licking the joint is quite an Erotique moment for Robbe. I also like that Robbe is clumsy with the croques, seemingly because he’s flustered by Sander’s Sanderness.

I like the Sander actor quite a bit so far. Like I said, he’s super intense and charismatic. He’s also super fucking forward with Robbe, feeding him some croque while they eye fuck, and I’m sorry but that feels way too pointed for this relationship so far The rest of the scene captures the unstated sexual tension but Sander sticking a sandwich in Robbe’s mouth while Robbe stares back is too obvious and feels like they’re trying to sell this really hard in order to make up for lost time, it took me out of the scene. Robbe is tentatively getting more comfortable with Sander, but I don’t buy that he would be that comfortable at this point. It would have been better if they’d stuck to, like, the subtle thrill of sharing a joint (where OMG Sander’s mouth has been?? Yowza).

Britt shows up and she’s Sander’s girlfriend! Oh nooooo!

Except Robbe and Sander met SEVERAL HOURS AGO so this doesn’t really have much of an impact? Isak pining over Even for a week and Googling him and stalking him creates a big buildup both in audience expectations and in Isak’s, whereas Robbe JUST met this dude. We’ve barely had time to form any expectations.

Imagine if you’ve never seen Skam and you’re watching this in real time. You’d be like “Awww, bummer, this guy has a girlfriend, I guess,” rather than “OH SHIT NOOOOOO” because you’ve been following them for a week and watching their conversations and their eye-fucking and getting to know Even through Isak’s eyes. Because you’ve had plenty of time to become attached to this character and because you’ve had time to sink into Isak’s POV and feel his crush on this guy. You feel the stakes of learning that Even has a girlfriend. Robbe learning that Sander is dating Britt is disappointing ... but how disappointing, really? There’s a low level of investment in Sander so far, for both Robbe and for us. I mean, sure, he’s charming, and we’re probably thinking he and Robbe might be cute together, but at most you would have had five hours to get attached at this point. If you look at it one way, this revelation is good because Robbe had only a brief window of time to get his hopes up before learning Sander has a girlfriend, as opposed to Isak who had a full week.

This is where the season’s odd storytelling choices start to fall down. Because there’s a lot about these last few clips that I enjoyed on a micro level. They work as individual scenes. It’s when you think about them on a macro level that the logic and emotional resonance doesn’t hold up. And I think that there are many, many story elements - in wtFOCK and most of the remakes - where a lot of writing only makes sense if you are coming with knowledge of the original show and sort of filling in the blanks here, rather than wtFOCK putting in the work itself.

I also think it’s something of a disappointment because S3 portrayed the experience of developing a crush so beautifully, the desperation to learn more about a person and get close to them, the obsessive focus. wtFOCK is by no means required to do that, but it was such a vulnerable, intimate way to get into Isak’s head that I can’t help but miss the extended crush period for Robbe. We really needed more of his POV.

Robbe decides to cope by getting high. Aha, there’s that Under Pressure for Robbe! 

Actually, it seemed super weird to me that the timestamps had them meeting like 5 hours ago? Because it seemed like they went shopping and went home soon after where Amber inspected the groceries, but apparently there were hours between that, so what were they doing in the meantime? Not anything important, apparently, because we didn’t see it.

Clip 5 - Sad sad Robbe time

The others are playing trivia and Robbe is just social distancing like 10 feet away staring at them while listening to music on his headphones, lmao. Britt has quite the grip on Sander’s neck.

Noor comes over and Robbe asks her about Britt and Sander. Sander studied Visual Arts at I think a different school than Robbe. Imagine how effective this would be if Robbe did this LAST WEEK, like “casually” asked Noor about Sander or something. But of course that would have required the story to be moving forward last week.

Sander stares at Robbe and Noor as they make out. Get back in Robbe’s POV, for fuck’s sake! This isn’t even an impossible moment to have from his POV. Have Robbe and Noor make out, Robbe opens his eyes and spies Sander looking at him, he looks again and Sander has looked away. That creates an element of doubt that will live rent free in Robbe’s head. 

This choice annoys me more and more. Where’s the tension in quite firmly suggesting that actually, Sander is into Robbe right after showing that Sander has a girlfriend? There was soooo much juicy tension squeezed from Isak and the audience not knowing what the fuck was up with Even and Sonja. People forget it now, but as someone who watched OG S3 in real time, there were plenty of viewers who thought Even was just stringing Isak along or doubted the sincerity of his feelings, because the show effectively kept us in Isak’s POV and for many viewers there was room to doubt Even’s intentions. Honestly, we didn’t really get real confirmation of Even’s feeling until episode 9. I just don’t see how it serves the story to a) take us out of our main character’s POV b) to make sure the mysterious love interest is somewhat less mysterious this early.

Clip 6 - Paintball

The squads play a friendly game of paintball, and by that I mean they try to annihilate each other. It’s a little hard for me to tell who’s shooting who since it’s fast and everyone has masks and is dressed in either black or camo, except Aaron in his onesie.

Sander and Robbe end up next to each other. They see Britt on the ground. Sander runs up and shoots Britt several times while she tells him to stop, clearly in pain. Britt yells at him to be normal sometimes and to use his head from time to time. Sander apologizes as Britt runs off.

Robbe and Sander exchange a look like “hmm” and Sander says he thinks they’ve won. He walks off. The music feels … weirdly triumphant?

This scene sits pretty weirdly. I don’t think this clip was pointless, I definitely think it has a point, but … what are they going for here. Thinking about it, I’d say the concept of this scene is good, but the execution feels off. wtFOCK has a real tone problem that becomes apparent later in the season.

I don’t think shooting Britt means Sander is manic, but I DO think part of the intent was to show he’s impulsive/gets carried away/can be OTT. Which is not bad (although there’s some sketchiness abut how this is tied to his mental illness if he’s not manic right now, and about how mentally ill people are dangerous) but it’s his reaction that gets me. Because it’s one thing if he gets carried away and we see him show remorse (which he does, briefly) but then he’s like cracking a joke with Robbe. It would be way more effective if we saw his remorse lingering. Not to mention yeah, he could have hurt Britt! It’s not that Sander has to be flawless, but this is one of our first impressions of him and it’s not great. It might work if you think it’s setting up Sander as something of a dangerous bad boy for Robbe (“you only like bad news” go the lyrics) but I’m not sure how much the show leans into that, especially because Robbe seems happy that they “won” rather than alarmed at what the fuck Sander just did.

But the part that baffles me most is how this matters to Robbe/Sander? Is this supposed to be a cute, flirty moment? A “haha, fuck my girlfriend, I like you instead” moment? Because wow, was it cruel on Sander’s part, and Robbe doesn’t seem that bothered by it. I get that maybe Sander IS supposed to be upset with himself but is brushing it off, but yeah, the offense is just too much for me, when physical harm comes into play. 

IDK, I could get behind the ambiguity of reactions in a scene like this, but there’s something off about the seriousness of what Sander does - which is acknowledged in-clip by Britt’s and Zoë’s reactions - combined with how Robbe and Sander end the clip, as if we ignore those reactions to make it a fun shippy moment. It’s pretty unappealing. We don’t even really see or hear anything about Sander and Britt making up or talking it out, we don’t see any lingering tension between them due to this incident, it’s like this clip was forgotten. Presumably they made up off-screen before the next clip, but in that case, we should have seen Sander run after her to apologize? Where’s the emotional fallout? It doesn’t really stick for Sander, Britt, or Robbe. 

Clip 7 - Bonfire

Robbe is upset with Sander and Britt making out. He goes over to Aaron who is also sitting sadly alone.

Aaron says he doesn’t know how Robbe does it, getting girls, and how he was so chill with Noor in the bathroom. IMO they could’ve ramped up Robbe’s fuckboyness since it didn’t come across that clearly to me, but this is one thing I do like about the potential of Isak and Magnus interaction … the Magnus looking to the Isak for girl advice, making the Isak have to preserve some sort of reputation as a ladies’ man, giving him some cred with his friends that he’s afraid to lose.

Robbe says it’s different because Noor goes to a different school so it wasn’t as bad if she rejected him. But wasn’t she handing out dance performance flyers in the hallway at Robbe’s school? That made me think she was a student there. But IDK how Belgian school works, maybe that’s normal.

Aaron goes over to talk to Amber and makes her a s’more, but Amber walks off because OMG so many calories. Aaron is bummed but Luca takes the s’more and eats it. Uhhh, the obvious buildup here is for Aaron/Luca, wtFOCK writers. She is literally taking and enjoying what Aaron is offering. I sense a connection. 

I’m tickled by Aaron referencing American TV shows when he makes the s’more. His s’more is missing the best part, the cheap melted chocolate, which to be fair would probably have caused Amber to slap him over the calorie count.

This scene is at least from Robbe’s POV as he watches them, thank God.

Clip 8 - Haunted house

The boy squad (who are called the Brrrothers) set up a haunted house. That’s actually a pretty fun scenario. They lock the others in, because teenagers don’t care about fire hazards. But still seems like a great time.

Sander helps the others through the window, what a gentleman.

Aaron and Amber have the cliché “fall down into each other” moment so I suppose that’s the start of their romance. Now she holds his hand. Boo, no Luca/Aaron … at least Aaron/Amber is still better than Basile/Daphne so far.

They climb onto the roof to seek a treasure, which turns out to be alcohol. There’s a rooftop party, people drinking and smoking and having a good time. Robbe and Sander share a Look before Sander and Britt get cozy.

I mean, again … would’ve been better if they hadn’t spoken like. Twice.

Clip 9 - Aaron throws away his shot

Robbe is grumpy on the way back from the haunted house, which he calls Jens and Moyo’s ego trip. I think he’s mostly just sour about Sander and Britt, but also he could be annoyed that he wasn’t involved, although that mainly seems like it would be Robbe’s fault for distancing himself.

Aaron valiantly offers to check the house for murderous ghosts before they go back inside.

See, I KNEW Aaron was going to pull some shit with a practical joke when he went inside, I just didn’t expect him to pretend to get SHOT. The dedication… it’s in very poor taste, though.

Of course it’s a prank, but Amber acts very concerned. You know, this is actually a good way to show how Aaron is immature and keep the Amber/Aaron pairing apart … compared to Basile/Daphne where it was just nonstop sexual harassment, here we see Aaron being sweet and thoughtful with Amber and potentially making progress with her, and then ruining it by being an insensitive teenage dumbass. But he can still grow into more of a mature kid and prove himself to Amber that way.

Aaron seems regretful of it, but Moyo and Jens are like YOU DA MAN. I regret to announce that this boy squad kinda sucks so far.  At least Aaron seems like he might have some character development, judging by his reaction here.

That was nicely done as a way to create conflict with the Aaron/Amber relationship, and establishing some mutual interest before showing where Aaron needs to grow as a person, even if I’m like ... we really got to stick to Robbe’s POV/story, man. 

Clip 10 - Another prank

Moyo and Jens ask Robbe to go get them beers, and it’s a prank and Aaron’s in the freezer so I guess Aaron did not learn anything, never mind. 

Echoing what I said above: I’m absolutely not expecting the boy squad to be perfectly well-behaved rational empathetic adults, and it’s not like this prank is some deeply cruel thing, but there is just. So much. Of the shouting, pranking, casual sexism, crude comments, and general obnoxious behavior. I’m really trying to keep in mind that Isak’s boy squad was also full of the horny gross talk about girls at the beginning, and that it was a necessary part of showing Isak’s alienation from his peers.  Or that by now on OG S3 we had several awesome moments from Isak’s squad that we haven’t reached yet because the season’s paced a few episodes behind. Still. Ugh. Maybe it’s the shouting? I feel like this boy squad is ... shoutier ... than the other boy squads. Making them prankmasters is also not helping. I think you have to walk a careful line between making them realistically flawed straight dudes who alienate Isak with their talk of girls, and making them screaming caricatures who are all “fuck girls get pussy hot chicks sex sex sex.” There’s a lack of warmth and innocence to balance it out. We need some indication soon that these guys are going to be there for Robbe when shit goes down. 

Robbe snaps at them and storms off, and Noor follows him. WOW, it would be good to see ROBBE’S POV of this scene!!!! What happened next!!! 

Nope, the clip ends here!!!!

Clip 11 - Halloween

Everyone’s dressed up and preparing to go to a Halloween party. The girls are cute putting on makeup and chatting about necrophilia. There’s a comment where Luca says a guy sounded like “a begging Romanian” and errrrr, I did a bit of a double take at that. It’s not my culture or language so I don’t want to talk out of my ass, but I thought this was generally considered to be an offensive thing to say (although one that people frequently say anyway due to prejudice). What was the fandom reaction to that line? 

People are dancing at the party. Apparently Jens and Jana are friends with benefits. Lol, at least Jana is not FWB with their P-Chris, that guy sucked.

Amber’s still mad at Aaron, understandably. Moyo cheers up Aaron on his recent romantic failure, which is nice and a much kinder moment than 99% of the material they’ve given Moyo thus far, and they go look for other girls.

I do love all the Halloween makeup. Look at Robbe’s hair!

Zoë checks her phone because I guess Senne drama is gonna happen.

Noor tags a wall with R+N in a heart, oh dear.

Robbe stares sadly at Sander and Britt dancing. Noor tries to get him to dance because the song is great, Robbe says he’s more of a Bowie fan and namedrops Changes. OK lmao, again, this doesn’t work so well that Robbe has suddenly become a Bowie expert when he’s been at the seaside the whole time. I know it’s silly when Isak starts acting like a Nas expert, but there was enough time for him to look up Nas between when Even mentioned him and when he talked to Emma about him to gain some basic knowledge of Nas. I guess Robbe could’ve been looking up Bowie in the last few days when he’s brooding alone, but lol, he’s also been kinda busy. Or Robbe is just bullshitting about Bowie, but the fact he was able to name a Bowie song when he couldn’t earlier in the episode suggests that he did look into Bowie. 

Now there’s the Call Your Girlfriend moment where Robbe makes out with Noor while staring at Sander, then Sander stares back, eyefuck, blah blah.

I gotta say. I’ve seen various takes on Call Your Girlfriend scene by now. And what I notice - at least from my recollection - is that the remakes tend to focus more on the actual eyefucking. Because the OG scene doesn’t actually have Isak and Even staring at each other, going back and forth, for a while. Most of that scene is about Isak’s longing. Isak dances with Emma, looks at Even with Sonja. He kisses Emma, looks at Even kissing Sonja. It’s about Isak wanting Even but instead being with a girl. When Even looks back it’s not this long, extended thing! Because it’s not really about the eyefucking. It’s just confirmation, for both Isak and for us, that we are not imagining this chemistry between them. It’s a shot of hope that Even also wants Isak despite mixed signals. That even though Even is passionately kissing his girlfriend, he’s thinking about Isak. And then Isak closes his eyes - he doesn’t eyefuck Even through three verses and the bridge, he closes his eyes - and we don’t need to be told to realize he’s imagining he’s kissing Even instead. 

First of all, the most effective part of the CYG scene is the timing. The song is perfectly timed and Isak’s reactions are perfectly edited to make us feel that frustration and longing that Isak does. It’s a way more vulnerable scene that most of the remakes seem to realize. Most of the scene is Isak looking without that look being reciprocated. And Even’s returned look comes just as we’re losing our minds (plus it matches the on-the-nose lyrics, lol). The endless eyefucking in the remakes isn’t that special or interesting in terms of delivery. 

Second, here’s the thing: I think we forget, since we know that Evak are endgame, that at this stage during S3′s real-time run, it wasn’t certain that they were endgame. In fact, many people weren’t even sure Even liked Isak back! I was lucky enough to jump into Skam right before the first kiss, and there was so much doubt, it was crazy. Even and Isak shared an awesome afternoon together, but Even brought his girlfriend to this party, he’s still dating her. Isak is doubting whether this thing can go anywhere with them, if Even even is interested in him like that. And Even looking at him during CYG IS the confirmation that Even’s into him. It’s the confirmation for the audience that we didn’t imagine Even’s attraction to Isak. Whereas in wtFOCK, Sander is like openly staring at Robbe when Robbe isn’t watching, and the show breaks Robbe’s POV to make sure we know this. Sander is feeding him croques by hand while they lock eyes. He’s being much flirtier and the show is not hiding his interest. wtFOCK introduced Britt as an obstacle to this potential relationship, but does she really feel like one when Sander has been communicating his interest all along? Is there any doubt he likes Robbe? Not to mention Sander was just introduced this episode, and there simply isn’t the buildup, the time to weigh in and question his motives, the investment in whether he likes Robbe or not. So the tremendous release of tension in this scene is just not the same, because the tension isn’t there to begin with. 

The OG Call Your Girlfriend clip is not about two guys who are hot for each other challenging each other to look away. The clip is about vulnerability and longing, and that vibe has been missing from sooooo many of the adaptations. Like anything in the remakes, change is not inherently bad. Change can provide for some interesting and thoughtful material. But I don’t think the remakes always realized when they’re making a change. On the surface a scene will be similar to OG, but the emotional buildup, the timing, the tension, the symbolism, etc. will be very different, and if you’re not aware of how even the littlest change can alter the meaning of a scene, then the scene can fall flat.

Clip 12 - End of trip

Everyone’s packing up to go home, Amber calls out the boys for sitting there and not cleaning (she’s right!)

Robbe helps Sander with the empty bottles. Sander asks about Robbe and Noor if they’re doing well. Robbe says yeah and then asks about Sander and Britt, Sander says it’s been “ups and downs” with mostly downs lately. Ups and downs could also refer to bipolarity, though I don’t know if I’d jump to Sander having “mostly downs” mentally just yet.

Sander says he seems to get on her nerves lately, and they’ve been together for half a year. Okay sooooo … they’re way less serious than Even and Sonja, and Sander has much less to lose by breaking up with her. I mean. Do they not see where, emotionally, this removes a lot of Even’s conflict in OG, and presumably much of Sander’s conflict in this version? It mattered that Sonja had been with Even for years. It mattered that he was used to her taking charge. It mattered that they’d sunk so much time into this relationship and survived such rough patches. Unless there was a really really drastic event in Sander’s life like right when he and Britt got together, that she was instrumental in helping him face, it seriously cannot compare to what Even and Sonja went through. He asks Robbe what he would do, stay or go.

He reaches around Robbe, getting sorta touchy feely, Robbe steps away. 

Sander says maybe he (Sander) is scared he’ll never find someone, someone who’ll love him. Tension between him and Robbe as they consider each other. This insight is good to understand Sander, at least.

Robbe says he thinks Sander will find someone like that, Sander asks where, Robbe says he should meet new people, Sander says “on a weekend trip with strangers?” Robbe is like “...yes.” (Did you get to know each other? Did you really?)

They lean in for a kiss, but then Luca shows up to take out the trash so the moment is ruined, Sander walks off.

SIIIIIIGH this could have been a good scene if they like … developed this relationship or didn’t pace this story so weirdly. On top of the rushed Sander/Robbe development, the buildup to this scene on its own is odd. In OG, the kitchen almost-kiss happens right after the Call Your Girlfriend moment where they lock eyes, after Even stares at Isak across the room. There is palpable tension in the kitchen because they’re basically riding a high together. This is like the morning after their version of the CYG, which should have been an “aha! he likes me back!” moment for Robbe, but instead the momentum and sexual tension just kind of paused and consequently this scene almost feels random, like I felt the contrivances to put them in the same situation as Isak and Even here. (Think about it: Was there a reason this scene had to be the next morning instead of later that night? What happened after that eyefucking clip, did Robbe and Sander just go about their night like NBD?) The CYG clip and following kitchen scene felt like a clear example of cause and effect; the wtFOCK equivalents felt more like they were hitting arbitrary points in the OG rather than feeling fitting to its story.

I just realized we got like NO insight into Robbe’s sexuality crisis this episode, either, the way we did with Isak in episode 3. And maybe we’ll get some of it in the future, but I do think it weakens the story not to have any of that at this juncture. We’re three out of 10 episodes and we’ve barely scratched the surface of our protagonist’s main conflict this season, which is about his sexuality.

HOW I WOULD REWRITE THE EPISODE:

Introduce Sander sooner, for fuck’s sake.

Okay, that ship has sailed, moving on. Have the grocery scene go on longer, or rather, have them go somewhere after the supermarket, like they decide to take a detour to a park or something and go hang out and talk, to the point where Amber starts texting them like “Where the fuck is the food?” Show Robbe unwinding just a little, talking about his own interests, his own taste in music. It’s understandable that he might not open up about the deep’n’heavy stuff yet, but perhaps in either this scene or another one later this week, Sander asks him a family-related question and Robbe doesn’t answer with his whole sad backstory, but he gives a little, maybe has a fond memory of his mom, a tradition they had when he was younger. We see this little happy/sad moment and it’s like something about Sander compels him to open up and we get the complexity of his relationship with his mom, that it’s not all good or bad.

Instead of Sander shooting Britt excessively in the paintball scene, have him and Robbe team up and strategize for a while. We see they work well together, oho. They’re having a lot of fun. And maybe Sander DOES shoot Britt but it’s not this prolonged close-range thing, it’s just him being caught up in the moment as he and Robbe work together. He shoots her (again, it’s a little OTT and enough to make her upset but not quite as bad as in the filmed scene) and she runs off and we see him have an “oh” moment. Oh right, I got caught up being with this guy I like and forgot I have a girlfriend. He feels seriously remorseful and runs after Britt. And maybe when Sander shoots Britt, Robbe has a moment of “!!!”, maybe Sander likes him Like That after all! But then Sander runs after Britt and they kiss and make up because it’s just a paintball game, after all, and Robbe is like, oh, right. It’s just paintball.

This episode really convinces me how vital episode 2 is, even before Mekke øl, in establishing both Even as a character and the Isak/Even dynamic. We get why Isak likes him even before they speak again. It’s so beautiful and honest, with Isak checking out Even’s video, searching for him on social media, that desperation … and then how much R+J hits Isak in the feels. The equivalent would be if Robbe was listening to David Bowie on his earbuds and having a big moment. So er, why didn’t they just ... do that? Robbe is sitting alone listening to David Bowie and watching Sander and Britt be cuddly, and there’s this feeling of longing and being close to Sander via the music while at the same time being so far away. It might be too obvious and faithful to OG, but it would also, you know. Probably be effective. It is also set-up for Robbe talking about how he’s a Bowie fan to Noor.

Have Sander talk to Robbe after Robbe flips out on his friends after the prank! Maybe Sander calms him down by doing a weird Sander thing! Maybe Robbe confides a bit about his shitty home situation or his crappy friends so he and Sander connect on a deeper level! But the prank clip ended immediately after Robbe stormed off, and for some reason the show was like nah, it’s not important after that, even though it was a prime opportunity for good, insightful content into Robbe’s head, or a way to let Robbe and Sander bond some more. 

If they cannot talk directly, how about some indirect moments where they connect, other than paintball? We get some stares at each other but those could be structured to show off more of a connection. Their eyes meet when something funny happens. Robbe or Sander are Jim Halperting at each other when Aaron or Amber says something ridiculous, like can you believe this shit? Everyone’s sitting around listening to music and Sander goes and puts on a Bowie song and Robbe smiles to himself.

(Not that they needed to do movie references in this version, but they should have totally gone with Labyrinth references for Robbe/Sander, just saying. I’m not even sure how it would work thematically, I just think it’d be delightful.)

(OR VELVET GOLDMINE, aka “Todd Haynes wrote and filmed David Bowie/Iggy Pop fanfiction where Ewan McGregor and Christian Bale fuck on a rooftop.” God I love that movie.)

In the haunted house, have Robbe and Sander like ...touch, accidentally, or grab each other out of fear, or do one of those cliché “we find ourselves close together, breathing hard and staring at each other” moments. I don’t care! Just give us stuff to work with! Like there even IS a split second moment where Robbe is climbing out of the window and Sander offers him a hand, it’s just not played for any drama or tension or emotional reaction - I mean, wtFOCK are you doing, wtFOCK writers? 

There is a glaring flaw with this episode, in that there were SO many opportunities to actually have Robbe and Sander interact throughout the episode, and yet overall the potential was totally wasted.

Consider that Isak and Even went to the same school, but they were in different years and didn’t share any classes. So when, for example, Isak hangs out with Even in Mekke øl, I can easily buy that Isak doesn’t see him again until Even returns the snapback. Or that he doesn’t see Even after the snapback scene until the neon party. Therefore, I feel like I’m seeing all the essential moments of Isak’s interaction with Even, I am getting the “full story” with Evak and sufficient evidence to try to piece together what Even’s deal is. 

Robbe and Sander were living under the same roof for days. This is a drastic departure from the original. Realistically speaking, there would have been so, so many more opportunities for interaction, or moments where we could’ve gained insight into that developing attraction. Sander and Britt would’ve been sleeping in the same bed at times, right? How did Robbe react to that? Could we have seen his jealousy? Was there ever a time when Robbe was coming out of the bathroom and he bumped into Sander and it was awkward? Or when someone else left a room and Robbe found himself alone with Sander, and he didn’t know what to say? Did Robbe try to avoid Sander the entire time? Did he try to talk to him but Noor or Britt walked in? Did Sander try to talk to Robbe? Was there any interaction between them besides what we were shown on screen? Did Robbe get up and sit on the beach listening to music and Sander joined him and they shared headphones? Did Robbe go outside one night just to get away from Noor in his bed and Sander was also sitting on the porch and they shared a joint and talked about stuff? Eh? Ehhh???

The problem is that I don’t believe that we were shown the “full story” of Robbe and Sander this week. I can’t believe that because, logically speaking, there would have been way, way more interactions between them even if they were actively trying to avoid each other. For whatever reason, wtFOCK decided to have Robbe and Sander meet at the seaside and spend a week in the same house. Okay. But despite the opportunities that scenario provided to really catch up and develop the hell out of the Robbe/Sander relationship after a delayed start, the show just didn’t do that. And I do feel cheated, not just because it’s rushed and lazy, but because it doesn’t even make sense. Obviously wtFOCK cannot film every minute they were around each other, but it sure as hell could’ve given us more substantial content than it did. 

Even if you want to emphasize how they can’t really be alone with each other because they’re with almost 10 other people including their girlfriends ... fucking run with that, man. Milk it for all it’s worth. Make us feel how frustrating it is that they’re not alone, that Robbe is paranoid about getting too close to Sander in case everyone can tell he’s got a crush. Or show them in a scene with other characters, but they’re interacting in an indirect way that makes it seem like they’re the only two people in the room. Their first clip and the almost kiss at the end of the episode is the only time when I really felt that tension at all, and I use “tension” loosely in the case of the almost kiss.

We also have little information this season on Robbe’s specific sexuality crisis, and that’s also hurting the narrative. I’m aware that the next episode dives into some of the clips that OG Skam got to in its episode 3, so I don’t want to harp on it too much now ... but I do have some basic questions, such as: where is Robbe at with his sexuality right now?

We have gotten very little introspection on him thinking about being gay, or what it means to be gay. We did not have the big crush fixation on Sander that Isak got on Even: Googling him, looking him up on social media, trying to find out everything about him. We did not have Robbe taking gay tests online. Yet he goes from meeting Sander to trying to kiss him within days.

And I think the lack of sexuality crisis further diminishes the already weak tension of the episode. If Robbe was more strongly dealing with his sexuality, then I would be able to accept him falling for Sander so fast and so hard a bit more easily, to the point of almost kissing him, even if their emotional connection wasn’t really established. But he hasn’t been given the space to do that. He hasn’t been given the space to even think about being gay or what that means. So he’s supposedly going from internalized homophobia to almost kissing Sander, with none of the introspection shown on screen. Why? What is running through his head?

So obviously, in rewriting the episode, let’s set up some actual sexuality conflict with Robbe. Maybe he’s trying to look up gay stuff online while he’s locked himself in the bathroom or when everyone else is asleep at night, or he’s trying but unfortunately he’s paranoid people are looking over his shoulder, or the boy squad grabs his phone as a prank and he’s terrified they’ll see that he was searching “how to know if you’re gay.” Maybe other people start talking about a sexuality-related topic, a gay celebrity, something like that, and Robbe’s reaction matters - like he makes an ignorant comment and someone schools him, or he makes a downright offensive comment and someone chews him out. Someone makes a gay joke and we see how it makes Robbe squirm. Someone makes a gay joke and then gets called out on it and we see how it makes the wheels turn in Robbe’s head.  Have Amber or Noor or whoever make a boneheaded comment about gay people and Sander schools them so we see Robbe get a HMMM moment. HMMM, does Sander like dudes? HMMM, maybe I should reconsider my opinions on gay people? I don’t know, man! Literally! Anything! 

Maybe have his advice to Aaron be more obviously bad? More fuckboyish? We see him overcompensating for his sudden Sander feelings by doling out some uber-heterosexual manly man advice to Aaron about how to impress a girl. Aaron is like, are you sure that’s a good idea? Robbe is like, pffft, obviously, what, are you gay? Are you too gay to make a move on Amber? Show her what’s what. This leads Aaron to do something very stupid and insulting and sexist with Amber, which leads to Amber getting mad at Aaron and Aaron getting mad at Robbe for Robbe’s dumbass advice. Maybe Jens and Moyo jump in because God knows we need some good moments from them, and they’re like, seriously, Robbe? Why did you think that was a good idea? Robbe gets mad and storms off. 

To some degree I’m like … well, what IS Robbe’s problem with Sander dating Britt, really? He met this hot and cool guy, but a few hours later learned the hot guy had a girlfriend. It sucks, but what is pulling him in so hard and so fast other than Sander being so hot? It’s a disappointment, but is it this truly devastating thing? He doesn’t know much about Sander, they’ve had so much less of a connection than Isak and Even. They had one fun morning, basically. It’s true that crushes aren’t rational and that a teenager can fall for someone based on crumbs and hotness, I fully realize you can’t turn off your romantic feelings like a faucet. But the show didn’t put in the work of making me believe in the strength of those romantic feelings in the first place. The fact that it is realistic for teenagers to have shallow crushes does not mean that I have to accept weak writing to fill in the blanks for this romantic connection that is supposed to be a powerful love story. Actually, let me bold that and rewrite it as a general rule: The fact that something can be realistic does not mean we have to fill in the blanks in order to make up for weak, lazy writing. 

I know that Isak and Even didn’t have a TON of interaction before episode 3, but they definitely had more, and Isak had time to research Even and develop a crush him based on what he found: he learned a bit about Even’s hobbies and interests, he was touched by a piece of art that Even loved. They bonded, they BOTH opened up - we saw Isak melt a little and banter whereas Robbe hasn’t really loosened up with Sander, except running around the grocery store (oh, and letting him stick a croque in his mouth, I guess). In the kitchen scene after getting groceries, for example, Robbe basically says nothing noteworthy, nothing to give either us or Sander a better understanding of him, or an appreciation of his sense of humor. There’s no real banter. If you watch the Robbe/Sander scenes, it seems like Sander dominates them, and that’s great for learning about Sander as a character, not so much for feeling like they’re mutually connecting. And if they want to portray Robbe as shy or awkward around Sander, I get it. But I don’t get where the emotional connection comes in, and frankly I don’t feel like I know much about Robbe as a person. 

So here’s my suggestion: Don’t do the almost kiss.

I know, I know, it’s a Skam S3 staple. But wtFOCK has really not earned this moment. We’re not in dire need of confirmation that Sander likes Robbe because wtFOCK is making it obvious. The tension is not developed enough to merit an almost kiss, Robbe’s sexuality journey is not far along to make it super believable. If they’re kissing next week for real, just let that happen without the episode 3 interrupted kiss. 

If you do want an almost kiss, maybe one or both of them is a little drunk? Or a lot drunk. Like, noticeably tipsy. Their inhibitions are lowered. I could buy that, especially if Robbe has a morning after freakout. oh god i was drunk and about to throw myself at sander!!!!! OR hahaha we were pretty drunk so it didn’t mean anything ... unless...? So long as there’s some effect on Robbe.

Because it’s a Skam remake, we probably do need a big end-of-episode clip, though. A turning point. Personally, I would be fine with just some smoldering unresolved sexual tension that doesn’t go as far as an attempted kiss. (I mentioned above that I am a diehard shipper of Ronan/Adam from The Raven Cycle and let me tell you, you do not need an almost kiss to get across the sexual tension. Once upon a time I wrote a draft of a post charting their relationship development through all their intense stares.) Perhaps Sander and Britt start fighting, Sander walks off, Robbe finds him or maybe he finds Robbe and they’re like, sitting together on the beach, and they have this personal and possibly subtext-laden conversation, or maybe this is when Robbe finally opens up about something personal (like he mentions when his parents used to fight, IDK). They don’t touch. Or maybe their knees brush. They stay perfectly still and don’t lean in. But they look at each other and don’t look away until someone calls for them or comes to collect them, and that’s how the moment is ruined and the spell is broken. That would be enough for me.

Maybe we could end on a non-dramatic note and Robbe and Sander end up sharing earbuds and listening to a David Bowie song. Or a song by someone that Robbe likes and wants to share with Sander, IDK. We leave them staring at the beach and trading surreptitious glances and catching feelings. A real butterflies in the stomach scene.

This also would have been a great episode to hint at Sander’s mental illness. You could show Britt hovering and telling him not to drink or smoke, you could have Robbe walking in as Sander is taking his medication (but obviously he doesn’t know what type of meds they are yet). You could have the suggested ending fight between Britt and Sander contain veiled references to his mental illness because Britt thinks that Sander was skipping his meds or he was doing something that she thought was a red flag. Robbe overhears them arguing but again, he doesn’t realize the real context. 

I felt like Noor was kind of in the background for this episode, and look, I thought she was overused in the first two episodes, but in this one, her presence would have been more useful for Robbe’s storyline, such as having her interrupt a Robbe/Sander moment, or showing us that she’s growing frustrated with Robbe’s lack of attention to her. 

Stay in Robbe’s POV, I beg you. Do this one simple thing. It’s OK to give random scenes outside his POV from time to time (like the girls doing their Halloween makeup) but anything relevant to his arc should be from his eyes only, and anything not relevant to his arc needs to be managed carefully so it doesn’t suck up too much screen time from his story.

I’ve been looking at the social media that was posted for this season, but I don’t really have a ton to say about it. wtFOCK seems pretty active with the characters’ Instagram accounts, so I commend them for that. So far the text messages don’t seem to be adding a ton to Robbe’s story - I specify Robbe’s story because a lot of them are not even texts that involve him, lmao. Like there’s a text between Zoë and Senne that effectively sets up trouble in that relationship, and it’s way more enlightening than texts that actually involve Robbe.

I think there’s legit potential with this cast. I like all the girls, I think Sander’s actor has some good onscreen presence… even though I don’t care for how the boys are written, I think they have potential. It’s just frustrating when you see the potential being squandered even more than if there were little potential to start. 

Just to add, like I said above, this isn’t my culture or language, and I know that I’m missing context. Let me know if there’s anything I didn’t get on account of not being a teenager in Belgium.

[dragonkeeper19600]

BATIM Lore from Dreams Come to Life

I ordered that Dreams Come to Life Bendy novel from Amazon. I’m a fast reader, and the book is clearly intended for a younger audience, so I was able to finished it in less than a day. I don’t see a lot of BATIM fans talking about this book, and it doesn’t come up all that often when people are formulating theories. This in spite of the fact that the book actually answers a lot of the mysteries surrounding the Ink Machine, the studio, the characters, etc. The novel is basically a prequel set in 1946 that tells the story of a recent hire to the studio and what he experiences there.

So, I’ve decided to make a quick compilation of what the book reveals about the game’s setting and characters. 

Obviously spoilers below:

Thomas Connor and Allison Pendle are strongly implied to be a couple. Thomas shows up to a party with Allison on his arm, and the two are very intimate with each other in general.

Wally is the only janitor working in the whole building.

There are several women working in the studio - more than the young male protagonist expected - and a few are even in higher management positions. The then current head of the art department is a woman named Abby Lambert. Dot, a female writing intern, explains that many women were hired in the studio during WWII while the men were overseas. When the war ended, rather than fire the women and give the men their jobs back, Joey kept the women on staff. Some of the male employees were so irritated by this they walked.

That said, there are a few moments where Joey expresses sexist ideals, saying that “women don’t really understand business” when Abby Lambert objects to wasting art supplies and showing favoritism to Buddy, the protagonist, because he “reminds him of himself” (in other words, he’s a young, white-passing man).

For a long time, Bendy was held behind a locked door in the music department. It’s Buddy who lets him out. Buddy’s narration describes hearing an insistent whining sound, like that a dog that wants to get out would make, before he opens the door.

Susie is no longer working at the studio by 1946. Allison and Norman make a few comments about “poor Susie” but don’t elaborate on what happened to her.

Henry created Bendy, Boris, and Alice Angel. However, Alice Angel didn’t make her debut until after Henry left.

Joey is still really sore over Henry walking. He rants to Buddy about how “betrayal” is the biggest enemy to personal success. He also calls Buddy “Henry” as he’s saying this.

Linda is Henry’s wife. Henry quit because the long hours at the studio were too demanding for the relationship. (Henry’s reasoning was hinted at by Joey’s speech at the end of Chapter 5 of the game.)

Joey’s main MO is to hire talented people and then take credit for their accomplishments. He lets people think he created Bendy, obtained the patent from the Ink Machine from Thomas Connor, and got violently angry when Thomas tried to get it back.

Norman mentions that the studio did well for a while after Henry left, but Joey has been putting a strain on finances with frivolous spending on the Bendyland Park, the Ink Machine, throwing huge parties, etc.

Bendy’s heyday has already passed by the time Buddy starts working at the studio. Buddy vaguely recognizes Bendy’s image when he first arrives but can’t quite place him. Buddy partially blames this on his family’s economic status making them unable to afford movie tickets, but Joey seems deeply hurt that Buddy doesn’t know who Bendy is.

I’m gonna tell you how Buddy meets Sammy because it’s one of my favorite scenes. The book tries to play it for horror, but I couldn’t help laughing because it’s just Classic Sammy ™:

So, Buddy was hired by Joey kind of on impulse as a gofer. On his first day, he’s asked to deliver something to the music department. He gets lost and ends up in the recording studio. There’s nobody there except a single, creepy violinist.

All of a sudden, Sammy comes tearing into the room covered head-to-toe in ink. It is everywhere. He’s so slathered in it that Buddy can’t tell that he’s looking at a person at first. He responds to Buddy’s offer for help with “My eyes!” Because the ink is in his eyes.

It’s shortly revealed that one of the ink-filled pipes was running through the closet where they keep sheet music. Sammy apparently went to the closet and got drenched when the pipe burst on him. Sammy also pulls a shard of glass out of his own head, which leads me to think that maybe he banged his head into the pipe hard enough to shatter it.

The book also goes into some detail about what Sammy’s corruption process was like. Buddy mentions in his narration seeing black stains on Sammy’s gums after the burst pipe. It turns out Sammy accidentally swallowed some of the ink. In a very disturbing monologue toward the end of the book, Sammy mentions how he could “feel [the ink drops] moving around inside me.” The ink in his system triggered a craving for it, so he proceeds to slam down bottles of ink like cans of Fanta. I’m totally serious. Buddy actually catches him drinking a bottle while at his music stand. He fucking empties all the bottles in the closet and then begins pestering Thomas and Abby for some of theirs. 

We don’t actually see him transform since he goes missing for several days. It turns out he’s been hiding in the studio all that time. When we run into him again in the climax, he looks like he does in-game. 

The Ink Machine changes ordinary, store-bought ink into what Buddy calls “Bad Ink” that has a number of supernatural properties. Among these:

Pictures drawn with it will move across the page. I don’t mean like a Harry Potter-style moving image, I mean the drawings themselves will slide off the page as though being dragged by a mouse in Photoshop.

The ink will actively seek out people and attempt to flow into their orifices.

As we see with Sammy, getting some into your body will trigger a craving for more.

Sammy is convinced that the ink moves according to Bendy’s will. He believes that the ink sought him out and helped forge some kind of psychic bond with Bendy. However, as we see in the game, Sammy isn’t as good at predicting what Bendy wants as he seems to think.

Joey seems to believe that being submerged in ink long enough will cause a person to lose their soul. Joey only wants “good, real” souls (his own words) to reanimate through the Machine.

Henry isn’t the first person Sammy has tried to sacrifice to Bendy. Sammy grabs a few other employees, ties them up, and coats them in ink, apparently in order connect them to Bendy. Among the kidnapped employees: Norman Polk. 

In addition to its constant production of Bad Ink, the Ink Machine can also reanimate the souls of the recently dead into living toons. 

At the end of the novel, Buddy drowns in the ink, but Joey apparently got to him in time to resurrect him into Boris. It’s heavily implied that Buddy is the Boris Henry befriends at the end of Chapter 2 of the game.

Buddy implies on several occasions that he is now sharing a mind with Boris. When he first wakes up after being reanimated (tee-hee!), he is alarmed at first to find himself existing in three dimensions instead of two. Buddy has a hard time telling if certain basic needs, such as hunger, are coming from him or Boris and mentions that Boris “starts to whine” when Buddy “asks himself too much,” adding: “We don’t like it.”

Buddy’s senses are now enhanced to those of a wolf. He can smell better, hear better, and has better night vision. However, he is also incapable of speech. He can understand himself just fine, but all the human characters can hear is a series of growls and barking noises. 

Buddy is apparently losing his mind to Boris’s. Boris’s mind isn’t in an antagonistic relationship with Buddy’s; he just seems along for the ride. Even so, Buddy finds that his memories are fading and his emotional needs are growing simpler. The book is framed as a memoir he’s writing while living in the studio, and there are a few occasions when he forgets what the book he’s writing is and has to remind himself. This is consist with Sammy’s dementia-like behavior during the Hot Topic Q&A, where he showed signs of memory loss and struggled to stay on-topic, sometimes forgetting what he was talking about mid-sentence.

Finally, appearances:

Allison Pendle is platinum blonde and as gorgeous as a movie star. Buddy can’t understand why she’s into voice work instead of being on camera.

Sammy is described as being bony and angular (like a bird). He also wore those same suspenders before his corruption.

Bertrum Piedmont is described as big and burly.

Norman has bushy eyebrows.

Buddy never really describes Thomas Connor, only mentions that he usually looks elegantly dressed. It is, however, implied that Thomas is POC in the following exchange:

Sammy: “Tom, come on, why would I want your ink?”

Tom: “It’s Mr. Connor.”

Sammy: “Why can’t I call you Tom?”

Tom: “Because we’re not friends. And you will give me the respect I deserve.”

[long pause]

Tom: “What’s wrong, Mr. Lawrence? Not used to giving someone like me respect?”

Sammy: “What’s that mean, ��someone like you’?”

Tom: “You know what it means.”

[writeintrees]

Carter Part 1 of 4

Summary: This is it, Carter is going to die here. His torturers are relentless and no one is coming for him. At least that is what he thinks until a mysterious stranger busts into the building searching for their sister. Carter is brought to the rebels, who surprise him, keeping him on his toes and helping him to work through a few things. This group is so happy and kind and better than he could ever dream of. 

Found family, trans mc, chronic pain mc, trauma, hurt/comfort

Content warnings: torture (simple physical injury and neglect), blood, low self esteem, negative self talk, history of physical and mental abuse from family and a partner, self harm scars, panic attack, getting triggered, derealization, dissociation

3155 of 15060 words total

part 2, part 3, part 4

“Just kill me.” Carter says, his eyes staring at the floor. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

No one knows he is here. Hell, it will probably be days before anyone notices he is missing. And his neighbors or boss would not know where to look even if they did care about him. Everything about his life is shallow attachments and long hours at home alone. No one will even miss him when he is dead, he thinks bitterly. There is no use in stringing this out. 

“We have ways of making you talk.” The woman says with an oil slick of a smile. Two box braids run down the back of her head. The hair ombres to platinum blonde as it goes. She reaches to run her finger reverently over some metal instrument. Which one it is does not make much of a difference to Carter. He is sure it will hurt. They can hurt him in a thousand ways, he is not doubting their skills. He just has significant experience with pain.

He has no idea why this random vase is so important to them. He just knows he hates these people to his core and does not want them getting whatever they want. They will likely kill him anyway so what is a little more pain to cause these fuckers further frustration. Maybe his life is good for something after all. He would not hate going down fighting for something even if he does not know what is going on.

“I’m sure you do. But any pain you inflict will either be something I’ve felt before or it will make me pass out. Pain isn’t new to me. Just do yourself a favor and save your time and energy. A clean body is easier to dispose of anyway.” He cringes a little at the self loathing that creeps into his voice. He hopes they will not keep him alive just because of that. 

The woman does not seem to hear his words though as she grabs a blade. “You’ve never had to deal with me before.”

-------------

Cuts litter his exposed skin, oozing clotting blood over the textures of existing scars. Some he is proud of and some he is trying to accept as part of his story. The one that puckers around his right shoulder. The twin curves under his pecs. The cigarette burns and parallel white stripes along his wrists, belly, and thighs. 

He breathes steadily and stares straight ahead. The woman brushes the flyaways angrily from her forehead. “Fine. Let’s kick it up a notch.” Her eyes are wild when she pulls out the pliers. Before he registers what is happening, she grabs his hand tight to the point of feeling his bones shift against each other. With a sickening tug there is the feeling of a thousand paper cuts. She grins as he gasps. She inflates with confidence at being back in control. She walks slow circles around Carter’s heaving body while preening, taking in his pain while she sips from a water glass. He scrunches his eyes closed for a moment, struggling to breathe through the newfound pain before it settles into the background with all of his existing pain. 

After a minute he looks up at her with newfound boredom stemming from dissociation. Mostly through depression and having to accept the pain because it does not fucking stop. 

She grabs his hair roughly and tugs his head back at an uncomfortable angle. He stares at the ceiling beside her head. There is a crack in one of the tiles and another has a brown stain on it. Must be from water damage. Or some other fluid, knowing this place. He does not actually know this place, has no idea if these torturers have set up shop here or if it is just an abandoned building they are using as a one-off.

“Hey!” She spits. “Look at me while I’m talking to you!” She pulls him out of his thoughts. He hadn’t even realized she was talking. “As I was saying, you’d better tell me where the vase is or I’ll have to make things worse for you.”

“Don’t waste your time. I’ll bleed out before I tell you.” His voice betrays just how tired he is. He hopes it lends him credibility.

With a yell she grabs both of his shoulders and… he is on the floor and his chest refuses to expand. The room is spinning and his head has a sharp pain at the back. He dully remembers a loud crack and now his head is against the pavement, his chair toppled with him still tied securely to it. It takes him a few dizzying minutes to be able to breathe again and when he is able to it hurts like a motherfucker. His ribs and abs hurt with each intake of breath. He thinks she might have kneed him in the gut but he is not sure.

“Be ready for more tomorrow.” She laughs callously. There is a clack and the screech of a door barely on its hinges. “Get him into his cell.” Her voice is distant and reverberates through the passageways outside this concrete room. 

There are two sets of footsteps. It is too bright with the lights bearing down on him, but then there are shadows over him and wrestling his arms and legs out of their restraints. They fumble with the ropes across his chest before one of them makes an irritated noise with a low voice. Carter reflexively cringes at that sound. No matter how many years later, he always cringes, wants to stay small and quiet. That is probably why he doesn’t cry out or have a witty comeback when the world goes tipping on its axis again. He hangs his head and focuses on not throwing up from the vertigo. His ankle hurts and he shifts his leg to see a large strip of skin has been taken out by the rough edge of the chair leg as he was righted.

The rope comes loose and he almost goes careening to the floor. It seems too close, like gravity is pulling him from two directions. It is a good thing that the two guards -- or whatever they are -- grab him by the shoulders and manhandle him to his feet. When he stumbles they jab sharply into his ribs but the increase in pain makes him even more out of it. He is way beyond the point of pain sharpening his senses. His brain is floating miles away and watching this whole scene play out through a small screen. 

The cell is concrete too because of course it is. This whole place is gray and sharp and uncomfortable. Heat immediately begins seeping from him when he faceplants onto the unforgiving ground and embeds grit into his knees and the heels of his hands. 

As the door scrapes closed he tries to come up with something witty to say. He is stuck on what he had been telling the torturer for hours. “You don’t fucking listen to reason do you?”

And with that he is closed into the room.

It is more of a closet in dimensions. Maybe they split a normal room into smaller cells. All he knows is it is small and dark. The only light comes from the seams around the door and from a crack in the wooden ceiling above him. And all the light reveals is the texture of the rocks petrified in the walls and the thick, wet dust in the air. There is the muffled sound of screaming through the ceiling.

He is still shirtless. The air is room temperature but he finds himself shivering. He wraps his arms gingerly around his sides as he lies down on his side. Sitting causes a hot, sick feeling to rise in him from the torn muscles in his abdomen. His throat constricts and he mumbles to himself “don’t throw up don’t throw up” until it passes. He pulls his knees up one by one with his hands, not trusting his hips to do the work. The blood across his skin is mostly dry and he still has his pants. It could be worse, he thinks as another shiver wracks through his body and causes a dull oof to escape his lips when his abs tense. The cuts itch and he closes his eyes tight against the memories. 

The next day is more of the same. Cuts and burns and a lot of punching. Every time he makes a sound she has this slimy smile that scares him more than the pain to be honest. She looks at him like an ant she is about to set fire to and he knows that she will draw this out for as long as she can. 

He is able to stay on his feet the next time they shove him into his cell. That is a victory. He smiles and keeps eye contact with the guards as they heft the door shut. This time there is food and a ratty old blanket waiting for him. The wrapped hamburger is cold but he eats it so fast that his stomach hurts. The blanket smells like dogs and piss but he wraps it around his shoulders anyway. He is unable to lower himself to the ground so he sits propped up in the corner and the blanket takes the skin gouging power of the concrete down two notches. 

There is a jittery feeling under his skin that he recognizes from the times he has forgotten to fill his pill case. Withdrawal. It fucking sucks but when all of the medications leave his body over the course of the next few days he realizes with a pang that most of them did not help anyway. Well that is one way to rule them out. The ones meant to work towards his fibro at least. The rib pain is back with a vengeance and fire streaks through his joints with the pangs of emotion.

As it nears a week he gives up on them listening to reason. He does not give up on the witty retorts though. Even if there is no reaction to them. He feels delirious, spewing out half-formed comebacks that might not even make sense. Sometimes they are in response to what the torture lady has done in his dreams. Reality is frayed at the edges and he has no reason to work to repair it again. He just laughs in the face of it all. Maybe if they see his sanity slipping they will give up on him finally. 

Instead he just gets new forms of torture, them ramping up their techniques thinking he will talk. Even the thought makes him laugh. The worse they are, the more resolute he is that he will never give them anything. They cannot take away his spirit and he will fight until his dying breath. He revels in their frustration just as they revel in every flinch and gasp and scream that comes from his mouth. And there are more than he can count. More injuries across his skin than his many moles and more bruises beneath. He throws up blood one of the many times they make the pain bad enough for his stomach to empty its contents. He spits the acid onto his torturer’s boots and she plants her toe into his diaphragm.

Back in the cell he is leaned up against the wall. His pants are tattered but not in a trendy way. They are also stiff with blood. His skin is blotchy with cuts and burns and bruises. Some of the older ones have gone to green-yellow between where new ones overlap. 

His eyes follow up the grey wall to that cracked floorboard. He used to rock climb once upon a time. Maybe if his abs heal he could try scaling up to the ceiling and prying the board loose. Even though every part of his body is worse each day than it was the last, he clings to that impossible fantasy of escape as he drifts into fitful rest.

In the morning of his eighth day he hears noises. He is no sooner conscious than the door is thrown open. He prepares himself to make the guards’ jobs as difficult as possible but the scowl on his face gives way to confusion. Instead of the two normal guards, there is someone entirely new. They are wearing all black but hold themself with authority, hand-gun poised at the ready. Their brown hair is tied into a ponytail down their back that swishes as they turn to move onward.

“Wait! Who are you?” What is going on? 

They stop with only one foot visible through the opening of the door. “Do you know where the others are kept?” Their voice is cold.

“I think there’s someone in the next cell over.” He tries to push himself to stand but his vision spots and slants and he is back on his hands and knees. Heat splotches across his skin sickly. He focuses on his breathing.

“Hey, are you okay?” They have entered his cell and are knelt in front of him, one hand on his shoulder. 

Carter laughs bitterly. “Do I look okay?” 

They grimace, their eyes wandering over the cuts and bruises and brands that litter his skin. “I’m looking for my sister. Do you want to come with us?”

He looks into their eyes, astonished. Why would they help him? He had already come to terms with dying here. There was nothing beyond getting through the day. Now the unknown opening up in front of him is dizzying. He nods, not trusting himself to speak past the flood of thoughts and emotions through his mind. He tries to get up but has to fight the sudden nausea that sweeps over him. That causes a little panic. He needs to not fall behind. He needs to not slow them down. This is his only chance.

A hand grasps his upper arm -- with a grip so unlike the guards -- and helps him to his feet with care. He thinks that the hard mask from before must have taken a lot of concentration for them to keep up. It has fallen into concern which settles naturally onto their features. The stiff blanket has come halfway off but he pulls it up with him anyway. Once they see that he seems steady on his feet, they walk back to the threshold and glance back at him to check if he is following. He hurries into the hallway, pulling the blanket tight around him.

It is an incredibly different experience from the days previous. He is able to walk freely and take in the details that he was oblivious to amid his fear and pain. His rescuer types in a code to the door and is pulling at the handle before the latch even clicks open. Light floods the room to reveal a shape in the corner.

“Tasha?” They call tentatively. The person bolts upright, looking towards them with unfocused eyes. They run to her side and fuss over her in a blur of hands. “Tash. Oh my goodness what did they do to you? Where are you hurt?” They keep pulling their hands back, drawn to the visible injuries but scared to touch them. Her body looks much the same as Carter’s own with cuts and bruises. She has on torn pants and a sports bra. Her hair is the same shade of brown as her sibling’s but shorter, more of a bob.

“Em? Emille, how…? What?” She mumbles out. 

Emille is frantically struggling out of their black jacket. They tug the sleeves off inside out then try to force it onto their sister whose eyes have fallen onto Carter. He shuffles awkwardly, hoping his presence will not crowd or overwhelm his fellow torturee. Her head lolls slightly as her sibling manhandles her. Her eyes are glazed over in a way that tells him she is not hearing much of what they are saying. 

Emille is unraveling before them. “God damn those fucking bastards are going to pay. Tell me everything they did so I can do ten times worse I swear to fucking-”

“Can you stand?” Carter interrupts.

Tasha’s eyes focus slightly. He wonders if he just imagined it with how the silence stretches on. “Yeah.” She rasps finally. She grabs onto her sibling’s shoulder and they stand together, walking towards the door with Emille’s gaze concerned and unmoving from their sister.

“Alright then. I assume you didn’t incapacitate everyone so we should get going, yeah?” Carter waits for Emille’s response. They nod and start striding confidently back into the hall. He follows their lead. The way Tasha steps on only half of her left foot leads him to believe at least a couple toes are broken. She does not complain though. If she did it would probably cause Emille to stop on the spot. She might realize this or she might just be used to hiding the injuries to keep the torturers from that satisfaction. He would understand that too.

Carter has never been to this side of the building. There is very little that he has seen, to be fair. They go up a back staircase slowly. The way Tasha swings her legs up makes him think that her hips have been injured.

When the door opens the light is blinding. But he has very little time to adjust because no sooner does the door swing open than there is yelling echoing behind them. The siblings shuffle out and he follows blindly and almost eats it when the ground drops out from under him. He catches himself with a straightened leg and the shock echoes all the way through his body and rattles his already concussed head. He sucks in a breath and steadies himself. Alarms start blaring from the building behind.

Emille is helping Tasha into a red SUV. Carter walks himself to the car and lets himself into the back seat. 

Emille rushes around into the driver’s seat. “Let’s get the hell out of here!” 

Carter’s head knocks against the headrest behind him. He shuts his eyes against the headache that blossoms around the back of his skull. He keeps his eyes closed for most of the jolty drive. He is pretty sure Emille runs some red lights and takes turns way too quickly. Eventually the drive evens out into a gentle drift from start to stop and back again. 

It is comforting knowing he gets a break and feeling his body heat being bounced back by the fabric of the car seat. He hopes he is not getting blood on it. He can always come back to clean it later. For now he is just taking slow breaths and reveling in it all.

next chapter

[mst3kproject]

510: The Painted Hills

 You don’t see a lot of movies where the top-billed star is a dog.  I’m going to venture that it’s probably a bad sign. When the dog actually deserves it, for being the best actor in the film… well, that’s even worse.

A grizzled old prospector (who has a name but I’m gonna call him Stinky Pete, both for the Toy Story reference and because he looks like he never bathes) has just struck gold.  He hurries into town to file a claim, and then he, his business partner Len, a boy named Tommy, and Shep the dog get to work mining.  There’s plenty of gold to be had, but you know how it goes – mo’ money, mo’ problems, and the problem here is Len.  The more gold they dig up, the more Len is paranoid somebody’s going to come and rob them.  Eventually, he doesn’t even trust Stinky Pete anymore, and pushes him over a cliff. Too bad for him, Shep the dog discovers the crime, and now she’s out for revenge!

Okay, first of all, this movie is set in the mountains of California (the Native Americans in it are, for the most part, local Miwok people speaking their own language!), but the Painted Hills are in Wheeler County, Oregon.  Apparently Desert Hot Springs, California, is sometimes called Painted Hill, but that’s in freaking Coachella Valley, an area that looks nothing like anywhere in this movie!  What gives?

Second of all… have you gotten the idea that I’ve saved the boring movies for last? Because that’s exactly what I’ve done. There were movies like Radar Secret Service and The Starfighters that were so gut-wringingly awful I just really wanted to get them over with, but then there were movies like Time Chasers and The Painted Hills that I just kept putting off and putting off because they were too dull for me to even write about the pain they put me through. It wasn’t a sharp, torturous, kidney-stone type pain like some of those worse films… it was just a low, dull, ache that refuses to go away.

Time Chasers is actually a pretty good comparison with The Painted Hills, in that both take an intrinsically compelling idea and make it as boring as they can.  In Time Chasers it was time travel and paradox – in The Painted Hills it’s a good man’s descent into madness.  I’m pretty sure Len is supposed to start out as a nice guy, a friend to Stinky Pete and with a fatherly affection for Tommy.  Then greed overtakes him, until he is driven to murder one and contemplate killing the other.  If this was the movie’s intention, though, it fails.  Len is surrounded by red flags from the beginning, and where we should see his growing paranoia, we’re instead watching a cheerful mining montage.

Stinky Pete originally heads into town to share his find with a friend named Frank, who was Tommy’s father.  He arrives to find that Frank has died, and part of his share in the mining claim has been bought up by Len.  This makes Len an interloper from the beginning, and when he first shows up dressed all in black, we immediately know he’s going to be the bad guy.  The arc would honestly be far more powerful if he were somebody Stinky Pete knew and trusted, rather than a relative stranger. What little we see of them working together is not nearly enough to establish that they have become close, and the red flags around Len make his betrayal an inevitability rather than a tragedy.

We see Stinky Pete, Len, and Tommy agree to start building a sluice with Len still a nice guy, and then there’s a montage, and the next time we see Len he’s got a beard and is plotting murder.  How much time we skipped I have no idea, but with it went all of Len’s development.  The Painted Hills is a short movie, but other than this one thing it’s very careful to establish things.  It sets up the fact that Bald Eagle is a skilled herbalist and that Tommy knows his grandchildren.  It sets up the pastor and how he knows to recognize Tommy’s horse.  Yet it can’t bother to give us even bits of the most significant character arc in the movie?

The other major disappointment in the story is that Tommy, who ought to be the human hero, is never vindicated.  He tells his story to the pastor, who doesn’t believe him.  When they find Shep later, Len is already dead and they still have no proof that he killed Stinky Pete or tried to poison Shep.  The fact that Len tried to shoot the dog may be a clue, but it’s not the same as discovering the hidden gold or the bottle of poison, or some other bit of material evidence.  For all we know, Tommy tried to tell the story to his mother only for the pastor to assure her that he made the whole thing up.

While I’m here… why does Len re-hide the gold?  Is he hiding it from Shep?  Yes, re-hiding it does cast doubt on Tommy’s story, but he had no way of knowing the pastor was coming.  Why is he so determined to kill the dog?  Does he think she’s going to tell on him?  His behaviour here, including running out into what we’re evidently supposed to believe is freezing cold without a coat on, is entirely irrational, and completely at odds with what he was doing a moment earlier, when he calmly told the pastor that Tommy was making up stories.

The most believable character moment Len has is when he thinks Tommy has died in his fall from the horse.  The shock of this brings him to his senses and he is visibly relieved to find Tommy still alive.  Thoughts of killing the boy vanish, and he takes him inside to come up with another plan. This is also the most captivating moment of the movie, both because it is so well-played and because Tommy is not nearly as annoying as a lot of little kids in old movies.  It also lends credibility and tension to the sequence that follows, in which Len tries to convince Tommy he’s jumped to conclusions.

Unfortunately, this bit stands out so sharply because the rest of the acting is dreadful. Everybody is flat and stagey, just standing around with their thumbs in their belts reciting their lines and trying not to look at the camera.  Bruce Cowling as Len tries to give a physical performance in a couple of spots, inching his way along a narrow ledge or trying to knock the gun out of his frozen hand, but it never works.  It’s always too pantomimey, and the sets are never convincing.  There’s no way we believe he’s in danger of falling and he’s obviously not actually cold.

The only good actor in the movie is, as I already mentioned, the dog.  She’s clearly very well-trained and it’s actually rather hard to watch when she’s supposed to be writhing in agony from the poison.  A big contributing factor is obviously that a dog has to show-not-tell, whereas the human characters do an awful lot of telling.  Kudos to her and to her trainers and handlers.

Besides Time Chasers, the other thing The Painted Hills rather strongly reminds me of is old made-for-tv Disney movies and nature documentaries… things like Lefty the Dingaling Lynx (which for some reason I was obsessed with at the age of six) and White Wilderness (the one with the lemmings – the lemming scene was actually staged in the city where I live).  Something about the technicolour, the lighting, the pretty but unconvincing matte paintings, and the recited line reads all adds up to warm fuzzy childhood memories.

As an adult I realize that these films contained appalling animal cruelty and a fair amount of dark content of their own, but it’s still weird to see the same aesthetic in a dark tale of murder and revenge.  Then again, The Lion King is also a dark tale of murder and revenge, so maybe I’ll get back on topic now.

The theme of this movie, as stated by the narrator over the opening credits, is a dog’s bond with her loving master, so strong that she even avenges his death. Dogs are known to do stuff like this, but the way it’s presented in The Painted Hills makes it look like Shep is less ‘loyal and loving’ and more ‘actually psychic’.  First there’s the way she starves herself while Stinky Pete has a fever and is unable to eat. I could believe her refusing to eat because she’s pining for her human, but the idea of some nonphysical link that specific seems a bit silly.  Same with Stinky Pete’s death – Shep isn’t actually there to see it, she just somehow knows that Len’s responsible.  When she refuses to eat the poisoned food until Len tosses it to her from the table, I was honestly surprised this was not portrayed as her somehow knowing it was poisoned!

The narrator’s speech also left me a bit surprised that Shep actually survives the movie and goes off to live happily ever after with Tommy, especially after the rather shocking shot where we actually see her blood staining the snow from a bullet wound!  The movie had seemed to be leading up to her being able to die at peace having avenged her master’s death and ready to join him in the hereafter.  I’m honestly not sure how I feel about them not going that route.  I mean, nobody likes it when a dog dies in a movie, but having her be fine at the end feels like they chickened out.  I dunno.

‘I dunno’ is really my whole response to this movie.  There’s not enough substance here to be worth the level of thought I have to put into a review.  The fact that it manages to make a revenge movie so colourless would be fairly impressive if I weren’t so bored.

Although I gotta admit… it’s not every day you get to see Lassie just straight-up kill a dude.

[fullmetalirin]

Fullmetal Alchemist OG vs. Brotherhood: Rush Valley (OG 26, BH 11)

Another 1:1, but the content is actually very different this time.

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 26: "Her Reason"

Mustang investigates Hughes' murder and concludes through Armstrong that a high ranked member of the military may be responsible for his death. Izumi Curtis, Edward and Alphonse's teacher, shows up at Central looking for them, but she has missed them by a few days. Edward, Alphonse, and Winry, on their way to Ishbal, arrive in Rush Valley.

We open with Mustang getting an invoice for all of Ed's hospitalization charges. LOL.

Mustang demands to know where the Elrics are. He's pretty harsh and aggressive.

Riza grabs her gun when Izumi barges in.

We're still doing the equivalent exchange intro? This is starting to raise the question of what "those days" are, exactly. From what point in the timeline is Al saying this?

New OP, though! It looks more like a slideshow of scenes from the anime. New characters are in it, most notably Wrath.

Automail girl is told she can't get a cannon arm because it's for men.

How does automail arm wrestling work? Wouldn't it just be determined by the quality of your automail, not your own strength? Despite this, the girl puts up an impressive showing against the champion before he cheats.

Announcer initially propositions Al, but then goes into a bit about how short Ed is. LOL.

Ed is looking more muscular than before, I think? He should be 16 now, so that makes sense.

Extra comedy from Winry when the announcer calls his automail shoddy. LOL.

Ed tears the guy's arm off! Did he use alchemy for that?

The big guy has a tiny replacement arm.

Ah, Ed did use alchemy.

Winry beats everyone up. I think it does lean a bit into "female violence is funny", but that she has a legitimate reason that's treated seriously makes it work, I think.

Now we get the scene with Mustang investigating. He talks with Armstrong in an alley instead of in the open. Thank you.

Mustang makes the same deductions, but his reasoning for the Philosopher's Stone connection is that the Elrics left without telling him, implying they didn't trust the military with information about the Stone. That's more reasonable.

Bechdel Test pass when Winry talks with Paninya.

Cartoon face when Dominic walks in on Paninya. It's a little much, but appropriate given the lightheartedness of this plot.

Dominic knows Pinako as a brilliant engineer.

Ah, a race shows the power of her automail legs as well. That's clever.

Paninya calls Ed a pipsqueak before starting the race. I wonder if Winry coached her on that.

Ed leaps two stories with his shonen protagonist powers.

Ed looks strained while running, while Paninya isn't breaking a sweat.

Paninya leaps from the roof straight onto the ground with no ill effects. Ed does the same thing, so it's not just that automail absorbs the shock. Artistic license, I suppose.

Without the rocket, Paninya's leg collapses and she falls off the building. Ed saves her by extending… rock platforms that break under her? I guess that would slow her a little, but if she's already going that fast that must still be pretty painful.

Winry blushes when Ed says he can't let anyone show up his automail. Aw.

Back in Central, Hakuro shows up to intimidate Mustang. So I guess he's finished razing Liore. Mustang grovels for him.

Sheska wants to continue the investigation, but Mustang says it's been suspended.

Oh wow, Izumi's here already? Thinking about the timeline… it seemed like it only took them a day to get here by train, and it has been a day since Izumi showed up in Central, so that checks out.

Winry is sad that Ed doesn't want automail. I think that's a bit much? She's known he wants to restore his body for a while now.

Cartoon faces when Sig barges in. I think that's reasonable; as a cliffhanger, it is clearly meant to be jarring, and it's a clean break from the seriousness of the last scene.

New ED. The bit with Winry typing with the dog is really cute. Winry inexplicably having her shirt open so we can see her boobs is less cute. And it looks like the text in the background is a plot summary of the story? I wonder if it's notes the mangaka gave them, or their own? I think I preferred the last one's music, though.

FMA Brotherhood Episode 11: "Miracle at Rush Valley"

Edward, Alphonse and Winry arrive in Rush Valley where Edward's state alchemist pocket watch is stolen by a pickpocket named Paninya. After chasing her down, they find she has automail legs. Winry asks the automail's creator, Dominic LeCoulte, to let her be his apprentice, but her request is swiftly denied. Winry convinces Paninya to stop being a pickpocket and return the pocket watch, but first she peeks inside and sees the date when the Elric brothers burned down their house. Meanwhile, Dominic's daughter-in-law is having a baby, and she is unable to travel to a hospital in the poor weather. Winry and Paninya deliver the baby, resulting in a successful birth. Winry asks Dominic again to be an apprentice, and this time he directs her to another automail mechanical engineer. With that, Edward and Alphonse continue onward to Dublith.

We're doing the alchemy intro again.

Recapping the last episode, again.

We start in Rush Valley this time. Curiously, we don't get the ship-teasing of Winry behaving exactly the same way as the girlfriend who wants her boyfriend to buy her the expensive ring; Ed is just exasperated over her fangirling.

Ed is really grouchy.

Cartoon skit where everyone crowds around Ed's automail and… strip him? That's pretty awkward.

Cartoon skit when Ed realizes his watch is gone.

Cartoon skit when the villagers ask to see Ed's automail again.

We get emphasis on how hot and inhospitable the region is. Dominic apparently lives in the mountains, rather than a back alley.

Winry and Ed yell at each other. I can just feel the romance wafting off them.

Ed and Al somehow recognize Paninya despite not seeing her earlier, and are able to see the watch in her hands even though she's only a speck from their perspective. How.

Cartoon skit when Ed sees her.

Ed uses alchemy to make steps carving a direct path to her.

Then he makes a huge wall to cut her off, about on part with Izumi's levee.

Ed then makes grasping arms out of the ground. How are they bending?

Al ambushes her and makes a metal cage. They did say earlier that this area is rich in metal ore, so that makes sense.

Paninya has a blade in her leg instead of a rocket, and it… can cut through the metal bars, somehow.

Ah, her other leg has the cannon.

I'm just now noticing she does not have an automail arm.

Winry catches her. How? Did she sneak ahead?

Comedy when Winry wants to look at Paninya's automail.

Al's head falls off, which is amusing.

Winry nuzzles Paninya's knee. Uhhh.

Instead of being amazed by Winry's work, Dominic scolds her for making the limbs too heavy. This is where we get introduced to the possibility the automail is stunting Ed's growth. Of course, in this continuity that will come to nothing because consequences are for losers.

Ed has a fantasy of towering over everyone. This is actually very funny. We see him still daydreaming while we resume in the present, which is also funny.

Why is Al constantly turning into a cartoon, though? I think he's spent more time in cartoon form than not this episode.

We get a cartoon of Ed being a single-celled organism when Dominic calls him one. It amuses me.

We get a picture of the fetus when the brothers touch the pregnant woman, which I find unnecessary and kinda gross.

The brothers gush about how miraculous childbirth is.

Paninya says her stumps ache when the weather turns bad, which is a nice detail showing that automail isn't perfect.

When Paninya gives backstory, there's no flashback to the accident, but there is a flashback to Dominic because the man is what's important here.

The whole conversation places much more emphasis on Dominic, how grateful she is to him, how she wants to pay him back, etc.

Winry argues with her to stop being a pickpocket.

Ed sealed his watch shut with alchemy.

Cartoon where Winry opens it.

Cartoon when Ed tells Winry about the labor.

The labor scene is similar to Elicia's birth, so I guess OG moved this there. No line where she snaps at them for making a fuss, though. It has way less emotional impact and context here when it's just some rando, and the men's incompetence is less excusable when they're adults. Winry has to do basically everything herself.

Ed notes that Winry's a doctor's daughter so she does actually know this stuff… and then immediately undercuts it by saying she probably didn't absorb any of it because lol women thinking they know stuff, amirite? We've seen no indication Winry is doing anything wrong. Why are you being a dick, Ed.

Shot of Dominic riding through the rain.

Winry goes in to help with the birth, but we stay focused on Ed whining about how sad it is he can't help.

Cartoon Al when he gushes over the baby.

Same line about mothers accomplishing what alchemists can't, but Winry tells him not to compare alchemy with "the mysteries of life".

Ed is mad at Winry for opening the watch.

We get a flashback to them burning the house.

Winry is determined to stay with them because she's ~so amazed by Ed's resolve~. Also explicitly says she wants to get better just so she can help Ed.

Comedy and slapstick when Ed demands his watch back from Paninya. I guess slapstick targeted at women is sort of equality?

Dominic melts when doting on the grandson. Ed notes it's out of character and gets glared at and turned to cartoon.

Ed has to push for Winry's referral; she doesn't think to ask herself.

Paninya is called a "tomboy", and is invited to come visit. So I guess their relationship isn't as close here?

The Elrics run past a wanted poster of Greed. Nice foreshadowing.

Ed tells Winry to get better so she can make him better automail when he leaves.

Conclusion

So these are really two completely different episodes. There are similarities in characters and the basic plot, but they're portrayed very differently.

Taken individually, I'd say they're both good. Like with the Resembool episode, when comedy and lightheartedness is actually appropriate, Brotherhood does great at that. The episode is a fun low-stakes adventure with a lot of good jokes. Conversely, OG making its own plot was also a good move. It's still a breather episode, but sticks to the more subdued, less madcap energy characteristic of the anime, so it doesn't feel out of place. We get clever use of elements and lots of people talking about their feelings, which is exactly what I want out of OG. The episodes are both good examples of their series' respective ethos.

But one of our things to watch is female representation, and they don't compare nearly as favorably there.

OG's episode is about Paninya from beginning to end, and develops her into a full character with her own motivations. In Brotherhood, she's just a plot device to introduce us to Dominic, and is then swiftly forgotten about. Winry's conversation with her is also a lot friendlier in OG, and more focused on Paninya herself. I also find it very interesting that Dominic is only amazed by Winry and Pinako's work in OG; there's no question of her becoming his apprentice, giving the very clear implication she is already a master herself.

For all that people say Brotherhood is so much better at female characters, OG sure seems to care about and respect them way more. It does give us that weirdly gendered thing about the arm cannon, but it's not pushed very hard – Paninya doesn't have to give up her rocket leg, and she's not forced to give up her tomboyishness like Clause did.

Quite frankly, Brotherhood's "feminism" feels very manufactured to me. It does the exact bare minimum of what it thinks people want out of female characters, but no more – then, having paid its dues, it goes right back to gushing over how awesome the boys are. OG seems to be coming from a more traditionalist angle that leads them into some blunders, but I don't see any malice behind them; they've shown again and again a willingness to seriously engage with even minor female characters, even at the expense of the male ones, and that feels much more genuine to me.

[midnight-in-town]

We will be waiting for the night

For @dorkshadows ^3^ : A little evening in the mind of our very mad Lady Red pre/mid-canon, as I really enjoyed our old talks about her characterization. I also wanted to write my take on Lau’s character and I know you like him a lot.

I apologize for the random timing, but you are one of the few people I always wanted to dedicate a story to (non-spoilery preview: I am not a great author so it doesn’t make for a great gift) but unfortunately I’m often busy, so consider it a very very late gift for your birthday of last year (or a very early gift for your birthday this year, but I tend not to like celebrating birthdays in advance -> superstition :/). 

I hope you’ll enjoy it but even if you don’t, that’s okay. :D

/!\ Important notes before reading: 

Beware the madness and mentions of violence/drug use

If the story appears to be a succession of strange ramblings, then thanks for noticing because that’s what I wanted it to be considering that I see Red as mad, desperate and probably dissociating (which doesn’t mean I don’t like her, otherwise I wouldn’t write about her)

Also Madam Red in this story refers to Grell as ‘he/him’ and I made that narrative choice because Grell pretended to be a butler and not a maid in canon until their true identity was revealed, so I assumed Red inwardly saw Grell as a guy. If you can’t agree with/can’t respect that choice, please don’t read. 

Excerpt:

Just like the end of some unfortunate events, their beginning was the result of a miscalculation on her part, during one of these rare nights that she did not have Grell by her side as she got rid of one more of those ungrateful women.

Killing on his turf was… frankly something that she should have had enough intelligence to avoid, but on that night, her thirst had been too overwhelming and fate had decided that she were to be discovered by his kitty pet, the girl’s amber eyes ignoring the bloody corpse at her feet, rather staring at her the same way Grell would sometimes. As if the sordid murder of a fellow human being did not even deserve a flutter of the eyelids. 

Lau did not even bother to feign looking surprised either when his kitty pet brought her to him, all dirty and still wearing her bloody dark coat, as always reeking of iron, the taste or smell of anything sugary washed away by her sins and far far away in her madness. 

Also on: [AO3] [FFnet]

(The full story under read more)

She imagines the laugh of happy children on a sunny summer day…

“What are girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice.~~”

...before remembering that there will never be any children around her. Not anymore.

“What are girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice.~~”

And red. Yes… Red, red, with the blood flowing out of their body when they are killed.

But blood can be pretty sometimes, she finds, especially when it is used to paint a surreal scene of murder in some dark backstreet of London. The taste of iron is the only thing she does not like because it is too strong and bitter, she thinks as her lips form a smile in spite of it, so opposed to the sugary smell that children carry with them everywhere they go, as if to remind her that she should not have stabbed that prostitute as much as she did.

However, it is too late to go back, that she is sure of as she watches Grell smile at her, pointed teeth showing behind the dark red of his own lips and she wonders if he is going to say that they should go back now. To where there are no children anymore. There will never be.

“Can you believe that stupid stereotype that says that women are more likely to faint at the sight of blood?” Grell asks her, very matter-of-factly, his eyes rolling in annoyance as he keeps on smiling at her, “As if we women do not see more blood than those gents do. Men really only have their hotness to make up for their stupidity, I swear.”

She notices again that rambling away after they are done with their victim is something that Grell likes to do. She does not know if that is to ease away the awkwardness that killing theoretically might raise in him, but she could not be less bothered by it. She usually prefers not to say a word, relishing in the after of her madness, seeing as it is the only time she is allowed to let loose on her fury. The only time the rest of the world is asleep and she does not have to pretend.

Nothing can spoil the moment, nothing should and nothing will.

“We ought to go home,” Grell ends up saying when he notices her staring at the body without blinking, “who knows who could pass by at such a late hour?”

Possibly no one, she thinks, it is not like she is stupid enough to go crazy just anywhere but she knows he is right: lingering on the crime scene rarely ever is a good idea. Besides, she reeks of iron because of all the blood and the smell could definitely attract some… dogs.

“We ought to go home, Madam Red,” Grell repeats, as he checks some strands of his long red hair, his foot tapping on the ground with a slow rhythm, which she recognizes as a sign of impatience.

Right. Home.

“Go back then,” she says, feeling Grell’s strange eyes shifting to her bloody silhouette and inwardly hoping that she will not have to argue. “I still have somewhere I need to go to this evening.”

He used to protest whenever she started doing this after one particularly messed up evening (something about partners in crime being tied together like a butler and his lady were, until the end of nights), but now all he does is staring and, as always, she can feel the disapproval and the annoyance emanating from the phosphorescent gaze he likes to transfix her with.

One day, surely, he will protest again. Probably more vehemently than he cares to do now. He is a good actor after all, his shy and clumsy act to the criticizing eye of the world nothing but the antithesis of who he really is. That is what their life is made to be: at day, she is the lady and his mistress whom he shall serve with devotion but at night, when it is cold and dark, he goes back to how he first appeared to her. He is a Death God and she is nothing but a killer. She kills their victim, but she is just a murderess who could die at any time when he is Death and relishes in her sins.

So one day, surely, he will stop pretending seeing her as his equal when he decides that she shall not kill again.

Not that she cares, most of the time. And right now, there is no need to contemplate her possible death, as she has somewhere else to be at.

“Go home,” she says again, her voice echoing through the back alley but there is still no one else there to hear her. No children at this time of the night. Or day. Or at home.

Hah. Home…

Where he is dead. Where everyone is dead, really.

They say passion can burn men and women alive, though for Ann it never was passion but rather jealousy. And jealousy can eat the heart and soul of men and women, alive or dead.

Really, how many times did she want, imagine, dream and hope that she could be Rachel?

However, even though Rachel is finally gone, it is impossible to replace her because her sister took everything away with her, not only the man she still loves with all her heart and soul, but also the children.

Ah… Rachel always had it easy, did she not? Whereas sometimes Ann is not sure of the fact she is still supposed to be a living person. Maybe it would make things easier to know for sure where she is standing, but things were never so simple for her in the first place. She lost a part of her every time someone she loved died after all, while Rachel is dead and unable to feel anything anymore.

Speaking of which, for someone who is supposedly dead, Grell seems more alive than she is most of the time. That’s why she busies him with the task of being her one and only servant; that makes for company and sometimes she thinks that he is all she has left.

“If you were not my one and only muse,” he pesters often as a result, “I would not force myself to wear such horrid clothes.”

She is grateful to him in these moments because he keeps her in check by acting like he cares about what she does, which is a lot compared to the almost nothing she has left.

Where did the children go? She wonders as her mind wanders again, the killer that she is strolling through a very silent neighborhood of London, still focused on going where she always goes at the darkest hour. That is right, it almost could be a song: out of the two who could have been her own had she been Rachel, one is dead and the other changed too much. As for the other two blond little angels, one is almost a man and the gentle little pretty dove hardly comes by anymore.

It must be her mother’s fault. Lady Frances always was too astute.

Just like it was Rachel’s fault. It is always the mother’s fault.

Now I am lonely because of her. And the truth is that loneliness is as terrible as sorrow, she thinks as she walks through what definitely seems to be a deadly silent city, no echo of happy children’s cries anywhere ever again, because both leave crazy ideas in their trail when they linger.

Just like the end of some unfortunate events, their beginning was the result of a miscalculation on her part, during one of these rare nights that she did not have Grell by her side as she got rid of one more of those ungrateful women.

Killing on his turf was… frankly something that she should have had enough intelligence to avoid, but on that night, her thirst had been too overwhelming and fate had decided that she were to be discovered by his kitty pet, the girl’s amber eyes ignoring the bloody corpse at her feet, rather staring at her the same way Grell would sometimes. As if the sordid murder of a fellow human being did not even deserve a flutter of the eyelids.

Lau did not even bother to feign looking surprised either when his kitty pet brought her to him, all dirty and still wearing her bloody dark coat, as always reeking of iron, the taste or smell of anything sugary washed away by her sins and far far away in her madness.

Similarly, she did not bother trying to settle for a lie as an explanation: some nights were not suitable enough for her to pretend when she was so tired of it, and he had probably suspected her well before this instant anyway. That is why, as he had looked at her that first night, she instantly understood that he saw who she really was: not Lady Angelina, not even Madam Red, but rather ‘Jack the Ripper’.

…Or maybe he had never suspected her before seeing her like that. Hard to say with him.

“Oh, Angel! Why, I did not expect you tonight.”

In any case, it had been as if it was the first time a fellow human being had met the real her properly.

“I guess it was another lucky night for harvesting, then?”

And, in her eyes for some reasons that made him really look really attractive, his Asian origins and the fact that he was not... him a lost protest at the back of her deranged mind. Love and a wanton desire of flesh are nothing alike anyway. …Or maybe she likes how cunning he is, for that would be a common point with him, the man her sister stole from her.

“Who knows how long until our little Watchdog finds out about your hunting grounds though, hmm? So it is better that you fully enjoy it while you still can.”

Tonight though, unlike months ago, she is not brought in by his pet with gorgeous eyes but rather invites herself to his dark and hidden den, the dull feeling of apprehension lost ever since her first visits and his ever still cheerful banter absolutely misplaced considering their situation.

“I still think it is completely unfitting that they would give the name of a man to such a pretty killing Lady. Don’t you think so, Ran Mao?”

One could call this a good deal that they have between them, as she now makes a habit of bringing him the uteruses that she collects, when she does not want to go back to what she used to call home. It is a way for her to get rid of them without leaving any proof behind and he sells these miserable organs devoid of their function for pure profit, which is simply him being his resourceful self as always (as there is obviously nothing else to gain from keeping the secret of what she is truly capable of).

And there is a certain sort of madness there again as she always lets a tear or two fall when she gives them to him, each time the reminder that children are forever gone because her uterus was once removed as well and will never carry any. So much for broken dreams when Lau is the one making money.

Sometimes she goes home right after leaving with him the proof of her nocturnal madness, but some other times she is tempted to stay. It is not like his company is soothing (though she does seek him for it to some extent), but the opium he offers sure is.

Often, he likes to joke that she is his favorite customer, which is strange really because he lets her smoke for free, as compensation for the uteruses that she brings and that he sells, so she wonders if the term ‘customer’ can really apply to her.

Sometimes Lau smokes with her, some other times he just watches her losing herself further, Ran Mao always playing the part of the silent witness. Her amber eyes stare but never judge and despite it all, the girl’s silence and opium itself, Angel never forgets her presence, no matter if Ran Mao never uttered a single word in her direction.

She always loses her mind to opium when she smokes, she always sighs because she feels falsely at peace (‘for once’, she always thinks) and it is something that is priceless for her. Maybe that is what Lau means whenever he says that she is his favorite customer.

She thinks about Rachel as she smokes and she remembers her sister’s kindness and lovely smile. Her ever so gentle sister… Why did she have to make Angel so unhappy? Why did she have to steal the only man Angel ever loved?

She thinks about the children too. Why did they all have to become so estranged to her? Why did they not have any more time to play with her, as they used to? When was the last time she saw a smile on Ciel’s face or that she saw Lizzie at all? Why did Rachel have to take that away with her too?

She thinks about her dead baby. She always wanted a girl, because Rachel never had one. A girl as bright and cheerful as little Lizzie, a girl who would have replaced all the jealousy consummating her with motherly love. Why could her always fragile older sister give birth to two sons when Angel had to lose her only baby?

And ultimately…

“My poor husband…” she cries out loud without tears to the high ceiling, “I do not think I ever thought about him whenever I laid in his arms.”

“Now that is rather unfortunate,” a playful voice rises from the room’s foggy atmosphere. “Poor man, I cannot help but imagine how entranced by you he must have been if he knew of your idyllic and imaginary passion for your brother-in-law and still loved you.”

Lau knows what she is thinking about. Of course he does. Or maybe she is the one who told him once before?

She certainly cannot recall doing so, however, even with the sweet fog that opium lays all around her, she is sure that she does not want Lau to know that, at this time of the night, she cannot remember what the man she loved so much looked like and that as a result she cannot reach her memories of him.

In fact, this is why she loves Lau’s opium so much and why she keeps on coming back, but even a mad woman still has her pride and thus Lau cannot know about that.  

As Ann rides off on imaginary dark clouds this night again, Angel throws one last look down and the abyss that greets her in Ran Mao’s eyes is bottomless and beyond scary.

“Wait,” she asks Lau in a slurred whisper, “did your girl not have amber eyes earlier?”

And Lau’s laugh is low and deep as he exhales some smoke from his own pipe (for he chose to smoke with her tonight), while the girl at his side does not stop staring with her terribly empty gaze. “What are you saying, Angel? You chose your path long ago, why would you still be able to see the warm light of amber after everything you have done?”

She feels a warm hand lay on her forehead and does not understand because she is supposed to be where no one can reach her. Soon the sky above her turns into a mocking pair of slit eyes.

“I wonder…” Lau’s voice resonates all around her, the taunting tone anchoring her and forbidding her from flying to the sky, “Do you think the son of man you fell so helplessly in love with would spare you, should he know of your sins?”

“For you to speak about my sins, since when have you been Christian?” She tries to spit back but only manages to mumble.

“Oh, but without speaking of gods, the law is made by men and no matter where you escape to, no one will absolve you of all your wicked and jealous crimes, you know.”

She frowns at this. “This is… really bad philosophy.”

“So is Jack the Ripper’s, my beautiful Lady clad in blood’s red. You are a fascinating one. You try so hard to be beautiful, proper and noble when in reality you are nothing but a nasty bloodhound, following a long forgotten trail to reach your lost dreams. You know that is why you always come to see me, despite your denial. Because I am a dream maker.”

She would slap him harshly (for how dare he speak to her like this), but he is everywhere and nowhere at the same time and she cannot reach him. She cannot reach anything or anyone anymore, and yet Lau’s presence is all around her, as is the weight of Ran Mao’s eyes staring.

“Angel, floating high is nice,” Lau’s voice lulls her from far away. “You can watch over the world and unless someone looks up to the sky, they cannot see you. However, you will never get to fly away if you do not get rid of the shackles tying you down to your Earth. Dreaming and living will become the same only then, when you stop having expectations and fears.”

This is nonsense…

“Yes it is.” A voice answers her thought, but it is not Lau’s and Ran Mao never speaks. “But remember Ann, you are all mad here. That is why you lost everything.”

And for a brief second, Angel thinks she recognizes Rachel’s voice along what seems to be the very sweet and sugary smell of desperation.

Lau contemplates waking Madam Red up once dawn is around the corner, but it is definitely calmer when she sleeps instead of crying and besides, it seems that Ran Mao enjoys watching whenever the Lady dreams.

Sighing, he puts his pipe down and gets up to go pat his loyal kitty pet on the head. “Say, Ran Mao,” and the girl’s amber eyes silently stare at him and his thoughtful smile instead, “would it be very cruel of us to ask our dear Lady doctor to take care of one of our girls’ abortion?”

But Ran Mao just stares some more, before jerking her head away to resume her previous activity of watching over the dreams of the insane but beautiful Madam Red.

Your amusement will disappear if she dies too quickly, he hears in his head and he knows she is right.

Really, he hopes that the little Watchdog will not discover his aunt too soon.

Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn’t too off-putting and weirdly written. The title is in reference to this song, since listening to it is what gave me the idea for this story in the first place.

About Ran Mao’s changing eye color: it actually comes from the fact that different official artworks by Yana have her with either amber or black eyes, so I wanted to play on this a little, especially since I always had this little theory that Ran Mao might be yet another supernatural being. 

It’s hard to do Lau’s character some justice through writing, so I apologize if I completely failed, but the thing is, I doubt he is really the clueless character he pretends to be, so here you go for a more perverse and manipulative Chinaman. 

Simple headcanon of mine, but I always thought that Frances noticed when Red started to emotionally falter and realized that she might be the one behind “Jack the Ripper” which is why she forbade Lizzie to visit Red around the start of Kuroshitsuji. 

[cosmosogler]

hi. today i got up on time, which is a surprise, considering how little i actually slept.

i had dumb dreams. i had more to say about them this morning, but before i could write anything down i had to leave for linda and david’s. 

i was playing a very glitchy game. the level forgot to program in an ending, so it just kind of went on forever until you clipped through the floor. then it turned into like some film noir, i can only think “detective” story even though i am fairly certain there wasn’t really a mystery. it was... hard to see, because it was so dark. i remember there was something going on, but whenever i almost remember what the memory kind of slides around like a bar of soap. so whatever.

i showered and drove over to my relatives’ house. they made waffles and taught me how to make berry sauce. we talked about a ton of stuff. more than i can recall and list here. i ended up staying for four hours, which was just a little too long for me. when i got home i realized i was exhausted. i rambled at oz about jim cummings for a little bit and then i had to turn around and go over to gramma’s with my family for dinner. 

dad said something very interesting while we were on the road. mom asked if i had heard back from taylor about comicon. i said no, she hadn’t texted me back. dad strongly recommended i call. i said i would send her a facebook message about it. that prompted dad to start ranting about talking to someone with your voice and how i never know anything and this is why my generation never knows anything.

not only was it nonsense, it was also blatantly untrue and also annoying? he was sure angry about this imaginary phenomenon though!

while at gramma’s my family sat in the living room around the tv and discussed yet again how our glorious leader is “not a politician” and “not a bad guy” and then they started making, like, weird non-jokes about illegal immigrants and their children and laughing. i sat at the kitchen table staring at my brother while he chewed on the fat end of a water bottle.

it’s weird how gramma and grampa work... gramma basically hates foreign people except when she personally knows them. then she’s kind and even sort of motherly. i guess she operates under the “you’re not like the others” policy.

we had pizza. i also had a klondike bar because it sounded interesting more than because i was still hungry. actually there was so much cheese on the pizza that i started feeling kind of ill just feeling it in my mouth haha.

then we drove home and i diddled around for a while. i didn’t want to do anything and nothing updates on sundays. i played fetch with wiley and my brother in the back yard since the sidewalk was too hot to take the dog for a walk. it was over 100 today. 

i saw that my art trade partner had finally posted a reference of her character so i found some nice pokemon mystery dungeon remixes and got to work. she’s probably too young to recognize the jojo pose i used. it was fun looking up images of cosplayers (and araki himself) doing the poses. i had to use people models since jojo isn’t exactly known for its exceptional anatomical accuracy. especially for the stylish poses.

the character has just a few too many accessories that have to all be different colors for me to adjust the color palette well... and she stressed that the bracelets absolutely had to be “hot pink.” three times.

i noticed that these young artists spend a lot of time making sure their characters look like adult women even though they are basically just fursonas. all three of them were pretty... busty in the references i used. i don’t think i’ve ever drawn any of my non human characters like that...

while i was drawing i was thinking a little bit about why i was doing this. like... i know it’s mostly just to make other people happy and not for any personal gain. even though it puts a lot of stress on my wrist and fingers, especially when i use the tablet. like... i enjoy drawing. i guess that’s the reward here. why did i do the coloring page? because i enjoy coloring. 

but that’s not really what i want to be doing in therapy either, you know? my goal can’t be “help me learn to manage my energy so i can give and give and give.” that’s not gonna fly. 

i was so busy all day that i didn’t really have time to sit and do nothing but think about that goal. i guess that’s why i started writing the journal so early. to give myself time to complain my way through my thought process and hopefully arrive at a useful conclusion this time.

and immediately upon saying that i have no thoughts, of course.

i wish... i could get people to see me as a person and not a potential sex conquest or whatever. basically all of my relationships pick one or the other. but my goal can’t be to change how other people think. i can’t force anyone to think anything. all i can do is change how i present myself.

do i need to stop being afraid of judgment? i don’t know how i feel about being judged... i mean, it’s been a part of my life for basically the whole time. it’s gonna happen. it comes with being uncontrollably weird. 

do i need to learn to loosen up and commit? that would really be only for singing and dancing. people wise i run into the same problem as last night. just going to get steamrolled. 

i guess being more confident would help. especially academic confidence. impostor syndrome is deadly for careers. but i don’t think academic confidence is going to help with the underlying “cannot make connections” problem. 

haha. i guess i’m depressed. my brain just said “i could always kill myself. then there wouldn’t be a problem.” i wonder why the “start over” instinct is so strong in suicidal feelings. even if reincarnation was real, losing all your memories and experience could easily lead to you just making the same mistakes over again, even with different life circumstances. that’s not helpful. but then again, carrying your “beyond repair” feelings over isn’t helpful either. i guess that sucks.

should i ask for help from the therapist? as far as “setting a reasonable goal” goes. like, i’m already asking for help in general of course. that’s what therapy is. but again i’m worried about the difference between getting assistance and having my hand held. if i can’t be independent and self-sustaining here, where will that happen? “later”? how far is later? best to work on that now too.

what’s the difference between reasons and excuses? personal opinion, i guess. 

is this a problem i can look up on google? how would i even word that request? “fix my life pls.” “how to make connections.” “suggestions for handling a deep fear of other humans.” should i... be doing some personal research like a google search before asking the therapist for ideas? i don’t really have any other resources. can’t ask my parents. the rest of my family basically says “you have to get over it, you’re smart” when i bring up confidence issues. should i go to the library or something? surely out of the billions of people who have lived someone has had this problem before. 

google says to get people to take you more seriously you have to encourage others to talk about themselves. COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

linda’s advice for academic success was to work harder. as long as you work as hard as you can, things will work out.

i just... i don’t know where the limit is. i seem to have an endless amount of effort i can give and then suddenly i break. but i could just try a little harder if i kept going... i still have energy reserves in there somewhere. i feel like every time i break it’s because i am holding back and not because i am actually sick. like when i try to run. just because i’m tired doesn’t mean it is physically impossible to keep running. i could always just keep going, if i had the mental strength. but i am weak, so i stop running and walk instead. and then i can’t breathe or stand at the end of it because i ran too far i guess.

it’s hard to balance out the knowledge that i am mortal and able to be killed by a mistake with the fact that i have survived everything so far in my life (obviously). it’s not unheard of for people to die after pushing themselves too hard. but i look at that and some insane part of me says “but they were able to push themselves that hard in the first place, and you can’t. because you’re a wuss.”

should my therapy goal be to make better jokes?

but really, all that happens is that i feel like i didn’t REALLY try my hardest, because i have not literally died yet.

maybe i am splitting hairs and not focusing on the real problem when i think about the differences between words, between good connotations and bad connotations. i can’t tell. there’s a lot i don’t know, and even more i don’t understand. there are a lot of questions about myself i need to answer, but i can’t figure out how to think about them in a way that will allow me to give a definite answer. all my answers to hard questions are soft, laced with exceptions and the knowledge that there is more nuance to the situation than i am able to articulate. and then, i guess i get lost trying to navigate that. 

is that what it’s like to be unable to see the big picture? i always thought i was good at that. maybe i am not good at that either.

maybe i am retarded after all. there are a lot of questions i have about myself and i don’t know how to answer them. but i feel like an adult my age should have at least SOME of them answered, and i feel like many of my peers have come to decisions. i’m still trying to figure out what the questions even are. 

or maybe i’m hiding the questions i’ve already answered from myself so i feel less successful. who knows!!!!!

i just want to be safe more than i want to love other people. is changing what i want a good idea? and, if it is, what should i want instead? is throwing safety out the window a form of self harm? smells suspiciously like self harm to me.

if i get hurt again, i guess i could always pretend it isn’t real. or forget about it. but that doesn’t really make me happy either.

i don’t have the strength to back up my requests. evan at villanova made a big show of pinning me against the wall and there was nothing i could do about it because he was bigger than me. craig did his thing and i feel like i could have done something, but chose not to, and therefore what happened is my fault. i don’t remember being able to make a decision because i was so shocked by what was happening. but i should have made one anyway. i didn’t know if screaming would be an appropriate reaction considering there were other people in the room and none of them said or did anything. and when i broke up with craig they tried to get us to “talk it out” so we could potentially “get back together” or at least “be friends.”

what is even the point of having friends if they’re gonna be like that.

i have so many things to say in therapy and NO TIME to say all of them. how do i pick the “most important” things? how do i only pick a few things to talk about and still get across that this has happened for 24 years straight? how do i talk about this stuff when i don’t even WANT to remember it, let alone the fact that i barely remember it anyway?

except, you know, i do remember it very vividly. i just can’t be sure that it’s vivid and also accurate. because memories are persnickety like that. and it’s not like i can just go ask the people who were there what happened. they won’t remember it or they will just straight up deny it happened. like when i told dad that mom used to beat me.

wow it looks like i’m a wreck! how am i supposed to pick one thing to fix when EVERYTHING IS BROKEN?

maybe that’s what the problem is. like trying to fix the plumbing in a house that is on fire.

[ntrending]

How to beat the heat in a survival situation

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/how-to-beat-the-heat-in-a-survival-situation/

How to beat the heat in a survival situation

Surviving the heat can be a major challenge in a dry, shadeless environment. (Max Pixel/)

This story was originally published on Outdoor Life.

Summer heat can be brutal on outdoorsmen and women. But what happens when we have to deal with both the heat and the hard work of a survival situation? We typically worry about the dangers of hypothermia in outdoor emergencies, but heat-related problems can be killers too. Heat stroke is the most dangerous foe, but dehydration, hyponatremia, and sun burn can also take their toll on a beleaguered survivor. Thankfully, there are plenty of strategies you can use to beat the heat.

1. Monitor for Dehydration

The human body is full of different fluids, each with a different job to do. Water is at the base of all these useful liquids. In fact, roughly 60 percent of an adult’s weight is from water. When this water is depleted through sweating or any other water loss, we become dehydrated. When the lack of water is mild, we face the familiar symptoms that we’ve known our entire lives. We feel an increased thirst and our mouths become dry. We don’t have to pee very often, and when we do finally pee – the urine is more yellow and stronger smelling than normal. We may also get a headache, feel sleepy or dizzy.

When dehydration is severe, the symptoms are more severe too. We will have a rapid pulse and quicker breathing. We will not need to pee, or have a small volume of dark yellow pee. Headaches will be intense, and we may feel dizziness, lethargic, or confused. If the dehydration is bad enough, we may even faint. Before things get that bad, it’s best to monitor yourself and your group for signs of dehydration. The best gauge available is urine output and volume. These two things take into account all variables (like heat, humidity, health, age, weight, exertion, etc.). Don’t worry, we’re not asking you to pee into a graduated cylinder and keep a chart of the results. A general impression is good enough. If you’re not peeing every 2-3 hours, and it’s not the normal volume for you – then you are dehydrated. It’s just as simple as that. Drink more water until your pee schedule is back to normal, and make sure you don’t overhydrate with plain water (since that can lead to our next problem, hyponatremia).

2. Identify and fight hyponatremia

Salt, potassium and other minerals <a href=”https://www.amazon.com/DripDrop-Electrolyte-Hydration-Powder-Sticks/dp/B00PM0D77G/ref=as_li_ss_tl?th=1&linkCode=ll1&tag=popularscience-20&linkId=79012605a7505bd53007b031a13e2156&language=en_US” rel=”nofollow” title=””>are critical assets for your body</a>. When you lose too much by sweating and flood the body with plain water, you can be at risk for a rare, yet serious medical condition. (DripDrop/)

High humidity and summer heat can cause the body to sweat profusely. When this goes on for days, and only plain water is consumed, your normal level of sodium can drop to a dangerously low percentage. It’s called hyponatremia, and it can kill. Those with heart and kidney problems can be even more vulnerable to this condition, and its symptoms are easy to confuse with dehydration. A person suffering from hyponatremia may get a headache and feel tired or confused, just like dehydration. If condition gets more severe, that’s when the symptoms veer off course from ordinary dehydration. Hyponatremia can cause mild to severe muscle cramps and spasms (some call this condition “salt cramps”). Victims may experience an altered mental state or worse. Seizure-like episodes and decreased consciousness can follow, if treatment isn’t provided. Without electrolyte replacement, the brain will swell, leading to coma and death. The solution is simple. When sweating heavily, keep replacing your salt and other electrolytes. The World Health Organization (WHO) has a simple recipe that is used during humanitarian efforts. Add a handful of sugar and a pinch of ordinary table salt to each gallon of water. This isn’t the perfect blend for optimal electrolyte replacement, but the price is right and the ingredients are common. For the next step up, consider adding oral rehydration salts to your survival kit. There are many tablets and drink mixes on the market. I’ve been using and recommending Drip Drop products for years. They do a great job hiding the terrible taste of potassium.

3. Prevent Sunburn

Sunburn isn’t just annoying. It can be really painful and add one more problem to <a href=”https://www.amazon.com/Bull-Frog-Mosquito-Sunscreen-Repellent/dp/B00HRWW6BA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=popularscience-20&linkId=aae7b2b8d5a7d42d5e38e4bc54b783b0&language=en_US” rel=”nofollow” title=””>your list of troubles</a> in a survival scenario. (Bull Frog/)

We’ve all been burned by touching something hot, usually by accident, but this isn’t the same kind of damage as sunburn. Thermal burns are caused by radiant or conducted heat, and they are actually cooking your skin. Sunburn is not caused by heat, but instead, by ultraviolet radiation. Even though sunlight feels warm, it’s not warm enough to actually cook you. The classic redness, swelling, and pain of sunburn are reactions caused by ultraviolet radiation damage to your skin cells. That’s why thermal burns hurt and get red immediately, but it usually takes a few hours for sunburn to manifest. Prevention is the key to avoiding this irksome injury. Avoid the sun when you can. Cover all exposed skin with clothing, if you can’t avoid the sun. If you don’t have enough clothing, find something else to cover your skin (mud works nicely). Best of all, consider bringing some sunscreen in your survival kit. This can be a life saver in terrain that offers no shade. You can double your protection by picking a product that blocks harmful UV rays and repels insects.

4. Learn About Heat Exhaustion

According to the CDC, roughly 600 people die of heat related illness in the United States each year. As we engage in our favorite outdoor activities in summer (or work to survive an outdoor emergency), we open ourselves up to risk as the temperature and humidity rise. Humid weather coupled with high heat is the worst culprit, since your sweat won’t evaporate in the water-saturated air and your body is unable to cool itself naturally. The symptoms of heat illness can vary, but victims generally have a body core temperature over 100 degrees F (technically called hyperthermia). They may also have symptoms like dizziness, weakness, extreme tiredness, clammy skin and very heavy sweating. Field treatment in a survival situation will not be as easy as an everyday situation (since cold beverages may be in short supply), but the treatment is still possible. Treat heat exhaustion with these simple steps.

You (or the hyperthermia victim) should lie down in the shade.

Raise the feet slightly.

Provide lots of cool fluid, ideally drinks with electrolytes.

Continue treatment until recovered.

Allow plenty of rest the day following heat exhaustion, or it may return.

Now obviously, if it’s not a wilderness survival setting and you can make a phone call, call 911for help – especially if your hyperthermia victim is elderly or reports other health issues. But when you must be your own first responder, try to catch heat exhaustion early in its progression, and make sure you catch it before it turns into heat stroke.

5. Spot a Heat Stroke

Severe hyperthermia (or heat stroke) can be recognized by a core temperature of 104 degrees F (or higher), hot dry skin, headache, dizziness and a loss of consciousness. Of all these symptoms, the easiest to notice early is the dry skin. When a person is typically having a heat stroke, they have stopped sweating. Take this symptom very seriously. In your day-to-day life, call 911 immediately if you suspect heat stroke. When you’re on your own in a survival setting, begin field treatment immediately.

Put your patient in the coolest place available.

Raise their head (this is the opposite of the feet raising for heat exhaustion).

Place cool wet cloth or clothing around their body and fan them to lower their temperature.

Monitor their temperature. When it gets below 104 degrees, replace the wet fabric with dry coverings and continue to monitor.

Watch for signs of shock, and be ready to resuscitate if needed.

Get the patient to medical care as soon as possible, or lead first responders back to your site.

6. Protect Your Pets

High summer heat can kill our pets with the same condition that can kill us – by heat stroke. If the body temperature of either a human or a dog gets over 104F, they could die. With their fur coats, dogs can’t cool down in front of a fan the same way a human can. Dogs cool down by panting, which becomes less and less effective as the heat and humidity rise. Many different animals pant to evaporate moisture from the mouth and lungs. This evaporation normally cools their body, but if the humidity is high – evaporation cannot take place and their body can overheat quickly. Keep your pets in the coolest place available in hot weather, and make sure they have plenty of cool water to drink. Shade is important, and cool surfaces to lie on will help as well. Never leave your pets alone in a vehicle, not even for a minute, in hot weather.

7. Handle The Heat

Getting out of the direct sunlight is a great start for keeping cool. Set up shelter in the form of tents or a sun shade made from tarps and rope. If these aren’t available as building materials, then use brush and vegetation to build a brush hut for shade and protection. Next, cool down with wet cloth. This could be a wet bandanna wrapped around your neck or wet clothing (as long as you have something dry to changing into for the night time temperature drop). Don’t work or travel in midday, if you can avoid it. If you must move during the midday heat, create some shade that is portable. Stretch a space blanket or a piece of cloth over a branch, and you have created a makeshift parasol. This can allow you to walk and bring your “shade tree” with you. Make sure you stay hydrated, and don’t give yourself a heat stroke while trying to build a shelter to prevent heat stroke. Plan ahead for hot sunny days and high humidity, by building your shelter in the cooler temperatures of the morning or evening.

Written By By Tim Macwelch/Outdoor Life

[mst3kproject]

Neuroethology of Toads

All right, I've been feasting on low-hanging b-movie fruit for too long – let's try a short.  This particular short was not intended for public consumption.  It's meant to be informative, but not what you'd call entertaining... despite which, it's often very entertaining.  It's also divided into discreet sections, meaning the Brains could have picked and chosen their material to make it fit in whatever time they had left over from the movie.  I can't really compare it to anything that ever aired on MST3K, but I was riffing it in my head the entire time I watched it and I highly recommend heading on over to YouTube and taking a look for yourself.  If I’ll never unsee this shit, I’m gonna drag you guys to hell with me!

'Neuroethology' is the study of what goes on in an animal's brain – but unfortunately for all of us who want to know what the hell our cats are thinking, it's got nothing to do with reading the animal's mind as Markov the Magnificent does with Alex the Chimp. Rather, it's an attempt to understand the relationship between stimulus and behaviour.  In Neuroethology of Toads, the behaviour in question is snapping at prey, and the scientists want to know exactly how the toad comes to the decision that something is edible, hoping to learn how to program better object recognition software for robots.  They devise a series of experiments that first establish what stimulus is necessary, and then probe deep into the inner workings of the toad's brain.

This sounds so simple and dry when I just describe it.  In practice, it is bizarre. The first experiment sees the toad placed on a platform while a machine moves a piece of black cardboard in a circle around it.  This experimental setup is called an 'arena', which makes one think of some kind of toad gladiatorial combat.  If the cardboard is moved horizontally, the toad tries to eat it.  If it is moved vertically, the toad ignores it.  The scientists decide to refer to this as 'worm' and 'anti-worm' motion.  They investigate further, placing the toad in a box to watch lines move worm-wise and anti-worm-wise across a screen.  The toad strikes repeatedly.  Food is always out of reach, yet it cannot help itself.  Its brain is not complex enough to catch on to the trick, leaving the hapless amphibian a slave to its reflexes.

It's difficult to watch this and not come up with riffs.  I imagine Crow narrating the toad's frustrated internal monologue while Tom Servo makes observations like, “you mean all this time, all worms had to do was learn to stand on their heads?” In the break between the short and the movie, the bots attempt to ply Mike with hot dogs moved in weenie and anti-weenie motion across the hexfield.  Does mustard trigger his feeding reflex?  Does sauerkraut? Pearl watches, trying to steal their results.  Bobo interrupts, trying to steal the hot dogs.  He thinks  they’re bananas.  Everything looks like a banana to Bobo.

Having established a stimulus, the narrator goes on to talk about toad brains, and how the scientists implanted electrodes in them to keep an eye on the electrical activity within.  One of these enhanced cyber-toads is strapped to a platform to watch lines performing worm motion, and its toady little thoughts appear on an oscilloscope.  The machinery involved really looks like it ought to be disintegrating toads with sound waves or something.  Watching it rotate silently into position while the paralyzed toad sits there with a wire in its head is deeply ominous.  The lack of background music somehow makes it worse.

Here we learn that while toads have some neurons that specifically recognize worms, there are others that specifically recognize things that are not worms.  The worm cells and the not-worm cells have to agree that something is definitely a worm before the toad will bite it.  The narrator continues to say stuff like “the same stripe in anti-worm configuration goes practically unresponded.”  There are diagrams with the text in German, which don’t make things any less sinister or amusing.

The most horrible moment of all, however, is when the narrator starts talking about how the image of a large moving square activates neurons involved in running away. We don't get to see this particular experiment, but we can imagine it in detail: the toad, squashed on a table with wires in its brain as this giant shadowy shape looms over it, wanting to flee but unable to move, while lab-coated humans peer into its mind with machines.  Holy shit.  Maybe that's what those abducting aliens are doing!  Maybe somewhere out there in the space internet is a video called Neuroethology of Humans, discussing how our brains recognize things that are and are not ice cream!

Then we learn about how the scientists rendered the toad brains radioactive before dissecting them.

I'm not even kidding.  They offer a reason for it, but the viewer is forced to confront the fact that these German scientists created radioactive toad brains. What kind of science is that?  I'll tell you – it's mad science, that's what it is!  Anybody whose work includes torture, brains, and radioactivity is either a supervillain or... there's no second option there.  That's a supervillain.  It probably all ties in to their plan to kill Captain America.

Finally, the scientists must test their hypothesis about toad decision-making. To this end they sever some of the neural connections, figuring if they've got this right, then the stimulus that previously made the toad want to run will now make it respond as if to a worm.  And you know what?  They're right!  This poor toad is confronted with something that ought to terrify it, and instead it tries to bite it. Imagine this toad escaping into the wild.  A shape appears beside it. It strikes, expecting food, only to be plucked from the ground by a pelican.  It dies never understanding, believing to the last that it ought to be eating a tasty worm right now.

The film isn't meant to do anything but present the results of a scientific investigation.  The narrator's tone is detached throughout, and there's never any music or any attempt at humour.  There isn't even a title screen.  Only the brief opening sequence shows a toad outside a laboratory setting.  The whole thing is as un-cinematic as possible, yet it is often more engaging than some movies I've seen.  I certainly felt more involved in this than I did in The Starfighters. Why the hell is that?

I think the answer lies in a property not of the toad brain, but of the human one: we want to find patterns.  When presented with a set of information, we will attempt to see a pattern in it, and if we can't we will sometimes imagine one, as we do when we see shapes in the clouds or faces on Mars.  What seems to be going on in Neuroethology of Toads is a sort of narrative pareidolia.  We're being shown a film, so the 'pattern' to look for ought be a story.  There isn't one, so we make one up.

If Neuroethology of Toads had a story, it ought to be a story about the scientists learning how toad brains work.  The problem with this is that we never actually see them.  There are a few shots of young people, whom I imagine are grad students, working with the equipment, but these are very brief and do not focus on the individuals' faces, so we get no real impression of them.  What we do see is the toad reacting to a series of situations – so by default, the toad becomes our protagonist.  It is the toad we sympathize with, and it is the toad's internal monologue that we are tempted, as I noted above, to imagine.

This means the 'story' is a horror story.  We first see the toad in a fairly normal toad environment, eating real food.  Then it is trapped, teased, tortured, and finally murdered so that its radioactive brain can be dissected.  Just to rub it in, we're told that these toads are hand-fed.  They trusted those experimenters, and they were fucking betrayed. The fact that the experiments going on are the kind of stuff animal rights people have aneurysms over just reinforces the idea that the toad is a doomed victim, and then, of course, there are the repeated subtle reminders that the toad has no idea what is going on.  At least Mike, Joel, and Jonah know they're at the mercy of a mad scientist!  The toads can't even understand that!

Worse, it's possible to imagine the same things happening to you. We humans like to think that we're more than the sum of our parts, that our minds are somehow above and beyond our bodies, but that's just not true.  Google 'brain injuries' and you'll find stories about people who suddenly began believing that their loved ones had been replaced by impostors, or who lost the ability to read. Even if you believe in the soul, the brain is the computer we use to interpret our world, and when something goes wrong with it the results are truly fucked-up.

The cherry on this horror sundae is only added retrospectively.  If you watch the short a second time, you will have to revisit the first five minutes, which are the relatively harmless experiment in which the toad is following a piece of cardboard around in a circle.  This part is really quite funny, especially when the term 'anti-worm motion' is introduced.  Then you descend into madness, as the experiments get more and more horrible and you realize that the first bit wasn't so innocuous as you thought.  It's only the first step on a slippery slope that eventually drops you straight into toad hell.