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justasparkwritings · 4 years ago

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Codename Cupid: Chapter 24

Previous: Codename Black Panther Meets Codename Cupid

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x OFC

Genre: Secret AgentAU, Government AgentAU, Angst, Some Fluff

Rating: PG17

Word Count: 3.2K

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Consensual Sex, Mentions of Rape (as in, wait, she raped him?)

Summary: Black Panther is onboard and Cricket & Bunny make an important decision regarding the trajectory of their relationship.

Penultimate Chapter

OT8

Present Day

The sunlight streaks through my window, blurring my vision with its shine. I’m fairly exhausted, and sore, and dare I say, happy? I’m pulled away from my restorative slumber as my phone rings, Earth, Wind & Fire blaring. I’ve had the same ringtone since I was 19, and I’m never going to change it.

“Fuck,” I whisper, taking it from the charger and rolling my eyes at the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Hey, did you get kidnapped?” C asks.

“Um, sort of? Why?” I slip out of the bedroom, tossing my robe over my barely clothed body and sit on the couch.

“It came across my desk and I was wondering if there was something you needed to tell me,” C informs me.

“Oh?”

“Is there?” She pushes.

“No, everything is fine,”

“Okay, are you sure?”

“Are you tapping my phone?” I ask.

“No,”

“Do you know someone who is?”

“Depends, do you?” Her words are delicate, leading without being forthcoming.

“Perhaps,” My voice pitches up at the last syllable, a hold over, a question that I refuse to ask.

“Hmm,” That’s her tell.

“You knew, this whole time?” I accuse.

“Well, sort of. I was clued in a bit ago,” She tells me.

“Did everyone know about this before me?”

“What have they told you?” She’s trying to toe the line.

“A little, I go back in today,” She probably knows this already.

“Keep Jungkook close, he’ll be helpful,” C advices.

“How did you –

“Your onboarding will you go smoothly if you don’t fight RM and Suga,”

“Seriously?” I snap.

“Seriously, trust me,” Her older sibling reeks, doling out advice I didn’t ask for.

“Fine,” I huff, how is it that everyone knows about this organization besides me?

“Love you,” She says.

“Mean it,” I respond before I hang up.

I look towards my bedroom, where Jungkook lays, and am beyond upset. How is it possible that everyone knew about OT7, that I was being followed, except me? My own sister? Jungkook is one thing, he works for them, but her? Why didn’t she say anything sooner? That’s truly what’s making me so upset and frustrated, that I was working 14-16 hour days, beating myself up for not finding Cupid answers sooner, and my fucking sister was sitting on all the information I needed. What’s worse? She didn’t let on that she knew. She didn’t drop a hint, a breadcrumb, a wink or knowing glance. All she wanted to ask about was Jungkook, in a year, all she ever asked… Fuck sisters.

“Cricks, do you want coffee?” Jungkook stands in the door frame to the bedroom, chest bare, ink spread across his arm and up his right peck. His hand tattoos, and the one on his upper shoulder, are my absolutely favorite. They’re sentimental, meaningful, powerful. Black with minimal color, they’re staggering against his honeyed skin. While his model status is never lost on me, it’s his thoughtfulness that gets me every time.

“Yes please,” I reply.

“You thinking about last night?” He moves with ease towards the small kitchen, pulling my favorite mugs from the cabinet.

“Which part?” I ask.

“Any part,” He shrugs, his muscles moving up and down seamlessly.

“Yeah, a little,” I tell him.

“What’s on your mind?” He turns, arms crossing, I swear he tries to look tough, but he just looks like a pissed off Thumper.

“My sister knows,”

“Knows?”

“About you, about OT7,” I clarify.

“How?”

“No fucking clue, she said not to piss off Namjoon and Yoongi, though.”

Jungkook snorts before nodding his head, “Watch out for Jimin and well, you saw Seokjin. He bottles it up and then explodes. Jimin’s just a hot head. Namjoon, is ruthless, but no one is as ruthless as Yoongi-hyung.”

“That leaves you and Tae? And Hoseok, I don’t know much about Hoseok,”

“You’ll really like him, you’ll like all of them. They aren’t as rough around the edges as they seem,” He pours the coffee into our mugs, reaching into the kitchen to grab the oat milk to pour into mine.

“Did you put caramel in it?” I question, sniffing the liquid.

“Mm, three pumps right?”

“Yeah, what, a 1/5 of what it took you last night?” I wink. Jungkook hates when I’m blatantly sexual, murmuring a simple ‘stop’ as his cheeks become a deep crimson.

“That’s really what you think of me?” He questions, moving to stand in front of me. I spread my legs to let him stand between, and he leans down, hands on my thighs. “After last night?”

“You know that’s not what I think, Bunny,” I reply. “You know how highly I think of you and your sexual prowess.”

“Then don’t fucking tease me about it,” Jungkook leans down to place a kiss on my cheek.

“Can I ask one work question?”

“Yes,” He grabs his cup and sits on the stool next to me.

“What happened between Taehyung and Cupid? She says it was a difference in opinion, a misunderstanding that led to an abortion? That’s not Taehyung though, and OT7 wouldn’t make her abort anything, would they?” I sip my coffee. Fuck me if he doesn’t make it better than I do.

“She wasn’t pregnant,” Jungkook answers.

“She wasn’t? Why did she lie?”

“She’s full of lies, Cricket,”

“Okay, then what actually happened?”

“She took advantage of him,” Jungkook’s eyes stare into his coffee, the blackness reflected in his irises.

I nearly choke on my coffee. “Of Tae?”

“Mm, of Tae, more than once,”

“Did you-

“We didn’t know, I didn’t know until I was onboarded fully. Tae went to Joon-hyung, and then it was handled.”

“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Oh my god.”

“Mm,” Jungkook’s signature sound is muttered, a delicate whisper against my raging anxiety.

“She raped him?” I question.

“Yes,” He refuses to look at me, but the clench of his jaw is unmistakable.

“But... wow,” Is all I can say.

“Wow?”

“I just, if I had known, I wouldn’t have worked with her,”

“You didn’t know,” Jungkook’s hand engulfs mine in that familiar embrace.

“Is Tae alright?”

“Yes, he went to a lot of therapy and was pulled from field work,”

“The mission was terminated, fuck that’s a loaded word, but he didn’t have to –

“No, the second Namjoon knew, he ended it. That’s one of our rules, no one engages in behavior they are not comfortable with,” He informs me, another piece of information I’m sure Namjoon will be telling me during onboarding. God, days spent listening to Namjoon go over rules? I’d rather suffer through another one of Cupid’s family dinners than sit through him. Is he like, fun? Now’s not the time to ask… but fuck me if I’m not curious.

“She, Cupid, she said he made her abort the baby, which didn’t match up with the Taehyung I was seeing or with any evidence but then again she never gave me any records to check it with and I wasn’t allowed to look into her health record at all,” I ramble.

“That tracks. There’s a lot you’ll find out about Cupid, and her family… there’s a lot you don’t know, Cricket. But, for right now, you need to know that there was no baby, she was never pregnant, just wanted to trick Taehyung into sticking around. It began with Yoongi, and just escalated.”

We sip our coffee in silence. The tension is dissipating, but I’m still nervous and scared. I consorted with a known rapist, worked months with her, took her money. What will Taehyung think of me now? Do I apologize? I should apologize, when I see him. Though, that’s not the responsibility of the victim to accept an apology. I didn’t know. Like I told Yoongi, I’m not Nixon, this isn’t Watergate. No one will ask what I know and when I knew it, no one will back date and check my sources to confirm. But I will always know that I engaged with her after she committed various offenses against someone I know I will care deeply for, someone who cares deeply for the one I love.

I know it’s not in my place to feel guilty, or maybe it is. Isn’t part of being an ally sitting in your own privilege, your own ability to feel grateful that it wasn’t you, and recognizing you have leaps and bounds in order to support those who have gone through whatever it is? I’m an ally to Jungkook, though I’m not Korean or first generation, and he’s an ally to me, though he isn’t biracial or a descendant of slaves. We both work towards the same cause though. Doesn’t sexual assault, rape, harassment, fall under the same umbrella?

“Cricket?” Jungkook’s hand has moved to rub circles on my back.

“Bunny?” I glance at him, bottom lip between my teeth again, though I’ve already gnawed off every dead skin cell.

“Hm?”

I always smile when he makes that sweet sound, or its derivative, mm.

“Do you still want to move in, or was last night an over correction for the fight?” I question.

“You’re really doubting me today, aren’t you?” His brows slope against his eyes, his ministrations against my back freeze. Those furrowed little lines on the flesh where the slope of his nose meets his forehead mark his deep concentration.

“I’m not doubting you. I just want to make sure. You know, we’re in our twenties. We are prone to fall for the cohabitation effect.”

“The what?”

“Couples who move in together as a reaction to fear their relationship will dissolve, often move in to preserve something. Then when they realize they aren’t compatible or don’t want to continue being together, they don’t break up because they live together,” I inform him.

“Is this one of your theories?”

“No, it’s Dr. Meg Jay, The Defining Decade. I have two copies, you should read it,”

“Okay, put it on my bedside table and I will,”

“Oh, so you’re, in?” I smile.

“Oh, I’m in, completely,” Jungkook kisses me soundly, hand creeping under my shirt to caress the bare skin.

“We have to get ready,” I tell him, tilting my head to grant him access to my neck, which has thoroughly missed his touch in the last eight hours.

“Fuck it,” He murmurs, the vibration of his tenor voice echoing through my skin.

“Bunny, they’re going to be so mad, and I know Namjoon already hates me,” My hands gently ghost down his chest, drawing shapes against his abs before resting on the hem of his boxer briefs. He’s so tempting, all skin and muscle, sweeping bleached locks and soulful eyes. I was right for driving into them.

“He doesn’t hate you,”

“Yoongi at least-

“They don’t hate you, we’re just a unit and you bring new energy to the entire group, that’s all it is.” He confirms.

Pulling the inner flesh of my lip between my teeth, I exhale. “What if they hate me?”

“They won’t,”

“Jungkook,”

“Y/N”

“Will that change your opinion of me?” I ask.

“Oh honey, of course not,” He assures. I don’t know what it is, blind faith and trust I guess, but I always believe him on the first go.

“Okay, do you want to shower before we go?”

“Together?” He asks. His hands are still under my shirt, gently palming my latte skin until it burns with desire. I hate how good he is, how seductive, sensual, misleading his bunny smile and endearing eyes are. I want him always.

“Why else would I’ve skipped the underwear?” I move his hand under the hem of my night shirt. He growls ever so softly at the feeling of my bare ass in is hand. “And to think, you thought I was kidding about your work last night! Sore or night, I think we’ve got enough time for me to prove you wrong.”

~~~~~

“Here’s my question,” I start, directing OT7’s focus to me. It’s been three hours of listening to Namjoon go over protocols and procedures. I haven’t smiled once, well, Jungkook did walk by and wink at me, which I’ll admit, made me blush. This is my second time in the large conference room, and together we’re discussing the case, my knowledge of the Lee’s, and where we stand now. It feels like a scene out of Be More Chill, but instead of data dumping everything I’ve learned, they’re painstakingly pulling it from me. Yoongi’s got my hard drives, all my notes, he’s cracked every password and firewall defense I set up. Of course he is, he’s Min Yoongi.

“Yoongi, how the fuck did you become so off the grid? I couldn’t find you, period.”

“That’s part of my job, Black Panther,” He smirks.

“Your work on Enterprises was under Park Yoongi, and you left no visible trace on the company. You don’t show up in alum magazines or columns, no birth certificate, anything of public record is gone. What the fuck did you do?”

“That’s for me to know,” Yoongi winks at me.

“And Namjoon, what the fuck happened when you turned 16?”

“What do you mean?” He asks, puzzled by the question.

“You are everywhere, every magazine, every scholarly article, on every universities formal lecture docket, and then poof. Like you didn’t exist,” I stare at him, he’s far less of a dick than I previously thought. We have some similarities too, actually, OT7 and I are far more alike than I realized.

“I did exist, I was just busy training,” He shrugs.

“You started training at 16?”

“A little before that, has JK not told you?”

“He’s hardly told me anything,”

“Even after you found out?” Jimin asks.

“Even then, what was it you said?”

“They’re not my stories to tell,” Jungkook shrugs. He’s across the table, in his designated spot next to Taehyung and I desperately wish I could hold his hand. Who. Have. I. Become?

“Mm,” Namjoon nods, “I was brought on from an early age, trained and then helped shape this group into what it is today.”

“Namjoon’s the reason we exist,” Hoseok says.

“He helped select all of us, leads us, makes the decisions,” Jungkook says.

“So your stunted upbringings trace back to him?” I ask.

“They trace back to the people above him, Black Panther,” Yoongi corrects.

“Right, the mythical beings above Namjoon. Do they exist? Have you seen them?”

“They exist, and they’re a little terrifying,” Seokjin adds.

“So Namjoon isn’t the end all be all? He’s not even the oldest!”

“True, he does have to listen to Seokjin,” Jimin laughs. “Sometimes, when hyung is mad, he just launches at Joonie, it’s so funny.”

“You have to listen to him too,” Yoongi’s glare cuts through him.

“So do you, Yoongi-hyung,” Jimin doesn’t back down.

“Anyway, Namjoon-hyung had to go through everything first, that’s why he disappeared from the worlds stage.” Seokjin finishes the tale, bringing us back together.

“Yoongi joined shortly after,” Namjoon continues, “The rest fell into place, well, except Golden Maknae,”

“Jungkook?” I turn to face my boyfriend, his nose is scrunched, and his hand is behind his head, scratching his neck.

“He nearly left, luckily, Joonie always knows what to say,” Taehyung says. “I was what, technically last?”

“Technically, yes,”

“Which is why we were in training together,” Jungkook reminds him.

“So you’re one big happy family?” I ask.

“We fight, but it’s been a decade, we know each other too well,” Yoongi speaks. “which is why when Jungkookie fell in love, we were caught off guard.”

“Mm,” I nod, mimicking his gesture. “Though you left him off my romantic partners,”

“Well, that was his request,” Namjoon says.

“We’ve all experienced heartbreak and fallen out of love. We all hoped that JK wouldn’t be stunted because of our work,” Seokjin explains.

“Can we not?” Jungkook asks his hyungs. They all turn to him, sensing his discomfort, and laugh.

“Fine, fine. Back to work,” Namjoon advises.

“What exactly is the next phase of the plan?” I wonder. “I mean, Cupid doesn’t want to work with me anymore, so what’s next?”

“Good you asked, Black Panther,” Namjoon changes the slide and passes me another file. “The next phase requires little work from you, aside from ensuring we have all your evidence. The case moves up the line to the Feds and the other countries who are indicting them.”

“Who all is getting indicted?” I ask.

“Hopefully the entire board, the entire Codename Valentine family, minus Cupid,”

“What will be left for her?”

“Depends on what they take,” Yoongi sips his coffee. He’s much easier to read in person, his features, however angelic, are deeply expressive.

“What about their investors?”

Seokjin doesn’t hesitate to respond, “Their money will be frozen for a while, then returned to them.”

“Do you find it deeply romantic that you’re citing their financial downfall when that’s how you met Cupid?” I ask him.

“I prefer a slight twist of fate,” Seokjin nods, the bob of his head accompanying the pout. “When will this go down?”

“The Feds and a few other groups move in on Lee Enterprises early next week,” Jungkook answers. I remain confused as to what he exactly does within this group, it seems like a little of everything but what is everything?

“So, that’s it? I did my part?”

“Yes, you did, exceptionally well,” Namjoon answers.

“You kept her snooping for over a year, all of which we used to nab the rest of her family,” Yoongi starts, “Sure, you were an unexpected parasite for a minute, but you’ve done good work.”

“First of all, rude, secondly, what will you do now?” I glance at each of their expressions, they’ve mastered the slightly inquisitive yet passively uninterested poker face. It’s impressive, their collective shift in attitude, the quiet “hmm” Yoongi hums, the eyes widening on Jimin, the unmistakable panic within Hoseok, all gone within seconds, like a musician losing an award in real time.

“What do you mean?” Hoseok asks.

“When this is over, what will you do? You’ve worked on this for nearly a decade? Who will OT7 be after this?”

“Wow, ask the horrifying existential questions,” Jimin attempts a chuckle, but it comes out as a strained cough.

“We’ll move onto our next mission,” Namjoon responds confidently.

“Which is?”

“You will not know unless we need your services,” He snips.

“Okay but why onboard me? Doesn’t that already make me like an honorary member? No longer OT7 but OT8?”

“No,” The unison chorus of voices that radiates off the glass is chilling. Accompanying the harsh put down, a chorus of laughs.

“Cult vibes,” I mutter.

“We’ll be fine, Black Panther. The question remains, what will you do?” Namjoon asks.

I don’t have an answer, I don’t have a response, all I have is the panicked look on my face. They know I haven’t got a fucking clue what my next career move is. Will I become a member of their team, or a part of the larger organization? Will I go back to aiding depraved housewives in their mission to defame their cheating husbands? I have enough money to hold me over for a month or two, but I guess the question isn’t whether or not I will go back to cheating husbands and slutty mistresses, but do I want to?

I don’t know.

Next: To Have Loved and Lost

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getalittleclosey · 5 years ago

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100k+ larry fic rec

hi! i’m becca and i read...so much fic. these rec lists are an accumulation of fic that i’ve read or reread and extra loved from 2016-now. there’s a wide range of stuff here and i think there’s definitely something for everyone!! i divided them up by length so you can check out all those categories below!

please make sure to read tags and warnings on all these fics!! the only things i think i can guarantee is that these are all larry, there’s no non-con, no age play, no eating disorders, no mentions of bg, they end happy, and they’re mostly aus. oh and they’re all on ao3 and some are locked so you’ll need an account! anyway i hope y’all enjoy!!!

under 5k

under 10k

under 25k

under 50k

under 100k

☆ with a whimper by kitundercover 133k

Dystopian AU. Louis has been alone for too long to remember how not to be, and Harry has too much to worry about to deal with a scrawny, wild, stranger. ---

The man grips his arm tightly. “You’re not going to say anything.” It’s not a question.

Louis shakes his head, his body twitching.

“Fine.” Large green eyes survey him before letting go. “It’s cold. Take this. Wear it.”

Louis can’t help another flinch as the man’s long scarf is wrapped around his tender neck, it’s still warm. He touches the soft material. “Thank you.”

The man bears his teeth. “Don’t thank me. Don’t ever thank me.”

☆ never be by cherrystreet 118k

Monica: You've got to see her again. Ross: And why do you care so much? Monica: Because! You could get to live out my fantasy! Ross: You had fantasies about Emily? Monica: No! Y’know, the fantasy! Meet someone from a strange land, fall madly in love, and spend the rest of your lives together.

The one where Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family.

☆ that sounds fake but okay by dancingontheceiling 113k

Harry Styles is a rookie journalist forced to work the gossip desk at a major New York magazine. Louis Tomlinson is the A-list actor who doesn't appreciate Harry or his articles.

☆ if it kills me by you_explode 111k

Harry and Louis have worked together in a difficult office environment for six years. They're best friends; Louis is the bright spot of all of Harry's days. But Louis is in love with Harry, and Harry's engaged to someone else. And that's only the beginning.

The Office AU. More or less follows the first five seasons. A lot of pining and misunderstanding the depth of feelings and rejection and angst, until there isn’t.

☆ shake me down by agreatperhaps12 209k

Harry's new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

☆ love is a rebellious bird by 100percentsassy, gloria_andrews 135k

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

Don't hum Bolero.

note: i fucking love this one. my current car is named thunder because of it (all the cars i’ve leased over the last 9 years have been named after vague larry fic references)

☆ one more time again by orphan_account 232k

Harry looks down to where Louis is cradling his hand between his own. Louis' hands are slender, the bones delicate, the nails bitten short. The 2-8 on the backs of his fingers is gone, but the faded scar from a skateboarding mishap in Year 7 is still there.

Harry's hand is awkward, knobby-boned and naked, no rings, no tattoos. It's too big for his wrist and his wrist too big for his arm. Yet it still somehow fits in Louis' in the painfully perfect way it always did.

He blinks back the sting in his eyes.

On the morning of his second sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden, Harry wakes up to find that he's sixteen years old, on The X Factor, and that he has a chance to make things right.

A canon-compliant fix-it fic (sort of).

note: there’s a 15k second part

☆ soft hands, fast feet, can’t lose by dolce_piccante 113k

American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

note: there’s a 5k second part to this

extra note: idk if this is an unpopular opinion but i’ve always preferred this over escapade or rntm

☆ paint me in a million dreams by green_feelings 113k

Harry's one of Hollywood's biggest actors, has made a name for himself in prestigious films and lives the life of a superstar. There's just one thing missing to make it picture-perfect, but the one Harry's in love with is completely out of reach for him. Enter Louis, one of Hollywood's biggest actors himself, who just came out of the closet and taps new genres in the industry. When Louis sacks the role Harry auditioned for in Scorsese's next big film, their irrational feud starts. Who could have guessed it would get even worse when for promo season, their teams decide to present them as a couple for publicity?

In short, Harry's in love with someone and doesn't care about dating anyone else, Louis never felt home in L.A., Liam writes love songs for someone he shouldn't write love songs to, and Niall makes everything better with good food.

☆ walk that mile by purpledaisy 150k

Harry stares at him, the line of his jaw standing out scarily. “I wanted to get the most out of this trip so I planned it carefully.” His voice is low and steady and somehow that’s worse than when he was yelling. “So far, you’ve put your sticky fingers on everything I’ve tried to do.”

“Sticky fingers?” Louis repeats, offended. “Are you saying it’s my fault you got stung by a bee? Had you been alone you would have gotten halfway to the Dotty Diner and ran the car off the road because of an allergic reaction, so don’t go blaming me.”

“Polk-A-Dot Drive In,” Harry spits before getting out of the car. He slams the door shut with a deafening reverb and Louis rolls his eyes. - A Route 66 AU where falling in love was never part of the plan.

☆ landslide by aimmyarrowshigh, spibsy (lucy_and_ramona) 143k

The year is 1976. In November, Jimmy Carter will take control of the White House. Americans are meeting Laverne & Shirley at their apartment in Milwaukee. Hotel California diverges from the reign of Kool & the Gang. And the FBI is still reeling from the repercussions of Watergate, the tragedy at Wounded Knee, Operation Family Secrets, and the strategic terrors of the anti-cult movement.

That's what Special Agent Harry Styles has been told is the basis of his mission to an abandoned farmhouse in rural New Hampshire.

With his hair grown out long and his shirt untucked, he's going undercover to do reconnaissance on suspected cult leader Louis Tomlinson, who has led a group of people out into the middle of nowhere, leaving no record of the life he'd had before. All Harry knows is what the agency gave him: Tomlinson's name, and instructions to figure out what he's doing with the eleven people he brought with him.

In the year that Harry spends undercover and under Louis Tomlinson's wing, he learns more than he ever expected.

note: i will rep this fic until the day i die. even my mom knows how much i love landslide

#fic rec #one direction #larry stylinson #mine #longgggg fics #11 of these!#fic masterpost

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janiedean · 5 years ago

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i was reading michelle obama's book and i reached the part where obama won the 2008 elections and they met bush and wife who gave them the white house tour and she talks about how nice they were and like putting an effort into ensuring there was a smooth transition so making extensive notes and stuff and then they later got their own daughters to come back and show the obama daughters the "fun" parts of the white house and it reminded me of this letter the bush twins wrote to the obama girls~1/2

when they were going to move out after trump won and it was a nice sweet letter n i remember all the discussion at the time being like although the bush govt was horrible,his legacy was literally war,everyone always said as a person he was really nice and the fam and well. like, trump has somehow managed to make ppl feel nostalgic over bush and cleaning up at least bush's personal reputation if not his presidency just by being so terribly himself. 2/2

... this is... a question that would require a very long answer but tldr as someone who is not american but Was Around During September 11th In Europe And Spent High School Arguing About How We Should Not Have Been In The Iraq War: bush being... like, not a horrible person the way trump obviously is never was the point of his presidency or anything like that - like, the thing about the bush jr presidency was his entourage more than him. like, he obviously was there because of his name and because he was hardly The Most Charismatic Person In Existence in the sense that the party could put whoever next to him to decide what was happening and it’d have worked, bush jr barely had enough background cv to actually be a decent president and it showed? like ffs before sept 11th he looked like everyone but him was deciding what music he should play and after then... like it was obviously karl rove/condoleeza rice/colin powell until the first term and that entire circus around him deciding things and he went along with them half of the time X°D like guys the bush jr presidency was a complete shitshow and believe me we were all relieved when it was over (and in 2004 everyone I knew was like SERIOUSLY AGAIN???) and there was nothing good about it whatsoever because in between war crimes, the iraq war, katrina and the economical crisis that his administration did nothing to slow down, the patriot act and so on (I mean guys I rewatched moore’s fahrenheit 9/11 a couple years ago or so and I was like GOD I THOUGHT I HAD FORGOTTEN ALL OF THIS BUT Y I K E S) never mind the fact that even here we knew that things in the us were at the point where if you just barely criticized him you’d find the fbi on your door it was just... the worst it could have been. but it wasn’t because of HIM only, it was his party, his crowd, his advisors, his father’s influence most likely and the fact that those people preyed on the post sept. 11th period to do their usual ‘let’s make use of people being terrified to earn money’ because that’s what it was and no one convinces me that the iraq war was for anything but money/sending people off to give the military a nice new round of recruits.

now: when you have trump in charge obviously bush jr looks at least like a presentable person - because sure af trump is not - even if I honestly hope people don’t get nostalgic over that term because no one should ever feel nostalgic about 2000-2008 in that sense, ffs it was completely out of control here and I can’t even begin to imagine how it was living there but like... imvho trump is just endemic of a problem that has started with the nixon/reagan presidencies because that was when they started outsourcing work in the us/went ahead with the reagan-thatcher amazing monetary policies of LET’S NEVER CHECK WHAT THE BANKS DO that brought us to the 2008 crisis (this not going into the fact that the american left has a hell of a lot of problems including not necessarily supporting unions/worker’s rights but nvm that) and so on, because sorry but like... nixon > reagan > bush sr > bush jr > trump seems like a clear line of republican elected presidents to me, and it’s a) a guy who would have done anything to not back out of vietnam and got impeached because of watergate who thought he was untouchable, b) a former actor who knew nothing about politics who destroyed the us welfare, didn’t gaf about aids because it only killed gay people so what was the urgency and again started the monetary policy of NO ONE GETS CHECKED that brought us to the 2009 crisis, c) former businessman who lost the elections because ECONOMICAL CRISIS and is famous for the fucking gulf war when the us had funded saddam previously, d) his son who had zero cv skills to be a president and oh hey when he was the governor of texas signed the concealed carry permit, promoted JESUS DAY and won also spreading rumors that his opponent was lesbian because THAT WOULD MAKE HER LOSE VOTES and was there for the party to use as a face while karl rove & co decided everything else and has a legacy including iraq/afghanistan war, katrina, the patriot act and guantanamo, e) a former businessman who used to judge on talent shows, admitted to having grabbed women by their privates, can’t even handle his own money, is absolutely crooked, only gaf about his approval ratings and let 100k people die of covid because he could and who can’t wait to start another war and idk how he hasn’t yet, and also is a face for the worst part of the republican party. like. you can’t tell me that all these lovely candidates aren’t basically showing that if the american left is not doing too well the american right at this point doesn’t even care for hiding how basically they only care about the rights of people with money and don’t give a single fuck about bettering their citizens’ lives so *shrug* like... bush jr was atrocious, trump is atrocious and the previous three were atrocious and they’re symptoms of the fact that the american right is likewise atrocious and has been getting worse since nixon (not that before it was that much better but that’s beside the point) and that has nothing to do with how bush jr as a person could have been a better one than trump (DOESN’T TAKE MUCH I mean he did say he didn’t want to vote for him...) but it has all to do with how the republican party’s entourage has been garbage for years and especially was during bush jr and is likewise garbage now. *shrug*

sorry for the rant guess I hadn’t ranted about my old friend w since I was like seventeen but I did spend my teenage years arguing that as a nation we shouldn’t support him soooo guess I had to xD

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #american politics for ts #this is where i say to read maharidge's homeland everyone #that said sorry guys bush jr is a serious generational issue here #like everyone hated his guts #could we imagine trump was gonna happen #sigh #janie rants #politics tag #Anonymous #ask post

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bluedalahorse · 6 months ago

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I love this post for thinking through a lot of things I had questions about! I haven’t read the books since high school and the Anne Rice canon has of course expanded since then, so the details were helpful to know, and there’s so much that’s plausible here. And the 70 vs 77 years detail… yes. I love it.

The one thing I want to add to all this incredible math is the historical significance of Daniel and Armand’s relationship coming to an end around 1980. The 1980s was the beginning of the AIDS crisis, and in the US, Reagan and his other conservative buddies (backed by conservative fundamentalist Christians) dominated politics. These things together would lead to an absolutely unfathomable number of deaths for queer people—you may have read about weekly funerals, entire gay neighborhoods being destroyed, etc—and these things are not exaggerations. Queer people in the 1970s had made significant progress in convincing the government to recognize their rights, but in the 1980s this was rolled back as America reoriented itself around the heterosexual nuclear family. Sex workers and people who used drugs (both populations that resonate with what we know so far about Daniel and Armand’s characters) were also at risk as a result of AIDS and shitty AIDS policies. And then there were phenomena like Satanic Panic, and lots of fearmongering around anything seen as less than conventional.

One question @heliza24 and I have been turning around in our brains for so many hours and days after 2.5 is how to address the question of Daniel’s memory. 2.5 already has Armand erasing Daniel’s memory of 1973, so to have him do it again and again would feel narratively sloppy and redundant. After thinking about it far too much, however, I do think the one way to avoid that would be to have Daniel ask Armand to erase his memories of the relationship in 1980(ish). Whatever the circumstances of Daniel asking and the relationship coming to an end, to have it happen in that particular historical moment—the beginning of the freaking Reagan era, the aftereffects which are fucking up our lives to this day in 2024—would be fascinating, actually. Because Daniel asking to have his memories erased would also be a re-closeting, at a time when the country was re-closeting itself and rolling back gains in LGBTQIA+ rights. At a time where countless people were about to die en masse and even more people were about to look away. It would be a re-closeting that Daniel consents to, but it would be really tragic, and a really interesting decision for the show to unpack.

It’s also important to point out that despite the horrors of the 1980s, queer people fought back and asserted the value of their lives. ACT UP did countless protests and direct actions to make sure that people got the treatment they needed to survive. These actions changed conversations around public health, which down the road benefits Daniel when he is disabled in the 2020s. They also helped to change the public perception of queer people. So even if Daniel does re-closet at the beginning of the 1980s, he’s still connected to that history.

In addition to naming the AIDS crisis and its impact on queer communities, I also have some lingering thoughts about the changing nature of journalism between the 1970s and now, and how the deregulation of the 1980s and 90s paves the way for the rise of cable news and conservative talk radio and other things that have spread information and wrecked discourse, but I will save them for later. (Daniel in the present styles himself as a sort of old school investigative journalist who brings down corruption, Watergate-style, but it’s interesting that he adopts this persona and hangs onto it as his lifeline in a time when the nature of news itself has been so warped by people in power since the 1980s. Look. We are eventually going to have to have a conversation about Daniel Molloy and the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine.)

One of the things I love most about the show version of Interview is how deeply aware of history it is, and how much fun it has playing with historical subtexts. The historical shout-outs aren’t shown to be like “oh look! this decade! how cute!” They’re there to make a point. 2.5, set in the 1970s, was all about exposing the “American Dream” as a lie. The 1980s was a time when people tried to crawl inside that lie and stay there as long as they could, and we’re still dealing with the mess that created now. Is Daniel going to try and crawl back inside that dream? What would convince him to do it? I cannot imagine the show would leave the 1980s and the AIDS crisis and reactionary conservatism off the table, when the 1980s are literally right there, screaming the themes of the series in bold letters. FFS “it’s morning in America” was a slogan for Reagan’s reelection campaign in 1984 and we all know what morning means for vampires and their other unconventional friends. LOOK. MAYBE WHAT I’M SAYING IS. RONALD REAGAN IS THE REAL VILLAIN OF INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. DO WE SEE IT. DO WE SEE MY VISION.

The one thing that I don’t get is if Devil’s Minion happened during the 70s, that means that Armand was basically leaving an heavily injured Louis alone in their house for long periods of time. In the book, Daniel and Armand basically move in together and spend all their time together. The Chase also seems like a full time job. I feel like Armand wouldn’t go do that, as he’s still madly in love with Louis during that time. He’d probably devote all of his time taking care of him. Or do vampires just heal faster, even with significant burns?

Hi!

So see, The Chase is actually why I think it was clever of the show to have Louis attempt what he did when he did, and be so severely injured by it. Because, as I said here, Louis having such extensive burns means there is really only one way for him to truly heal from them quickly and that is if he does the same thing Lestat had to do in the books when he was severely burned in the same way in the books and I feel we will see him be on the show (and probably was doing when Armand contacted him in 2x05 back in 1973) -- and that is to go underground, into the very earth itself, to sleep for a time and heal.

See, that is one reason Louis begged Armand to put him in his coffin at one point after he was hurt. Vampires heal quicker from injuries when they are in their coffins. And they heal even more quickly -- and grow even more strong in their abilities and powers -- if they go into the earth to sleep for a time.

In the books, Lestat went to sleep underground in the earth for 55 years from all the heavy injuries he got -- first when Claudia slit his throat, then when Louis set him on fire, and then, in Paris when Armand threw him off a tower. Lestat went underground, into the earth, to sleep from 1929 to 1984, to heal from all of that.

So I think Louis likely did the same thing for a short time after he and Armand left Daniel at the drug den -- Louis went into the earth to sleep and heal from his wounds.

And when a vampire is in the earth asleep, they are at their most safe from harm. Even during the burning from Akasha, the vampires who were asleep underground were not burned by her, because they couldn't be burned while within the ground. I'm only up to Chapter 15 of Prince Lestat, but that is a word and tactic that is being broadcast by Benji for all vampires to do during the worldwide second burnings -- to go into the earth, underground, if a burning begins where they are to escape it.

So in truth, Louis wouldn't actually need Armand to watch or take care of him once he was in the earth, underground, asleep. Because that's how Daniel actually first met Armand in the books. Armand was just hanging out at Lestat's house for decades, waiting for Lestat to wake up again while Lestat was asleep underground. Armand didn't need to watch or take care of Lestat as he was doing so -- Armand was just there because he had nowhere else to go. So when Daniel stumbled into Lestat's house looking for him, chasing Daniel actually gave him something to do.

And so I think the same will be true wrt the show. Once Louis goes into the earth to sleep and heal, Armand really isn't going to be needed by Louis for however long Louis sleeps underground. Just like in the books when it came to Lestat doing the same thing.

In fact, I can see a parallel with Lestat and Louis now both being underground and asleep at this point in time in the show, both healing from everything they have both gone through, as I honestly expect Lestat to also get severely burned during the events of Paris, just as we saw Louis get burned in 2x05.

So yeah, once Louis is safely underground, Armand will basically be by himself for however long that may last. And I can see his curiosity with that boy Louis called "fascinating" occupying his mind again, and him deciding to check up on that boy out of curiosity. And, as I said here, Daniel remembering the first interview still -- as well as the inspiring words he now had on repeat in his mind -- I think is going to have Daniel first looking for Louis and then, failing to find him again, will have him try to find Lestat.

Because in the books, all Daniel did to find Lestat's Garden District house -- which Lestat was sleeping under at the time -- was to go through property ownership documents in the Hall of Records in New Orleans, and find Lestat's name listed, right there, for a few properties, the Garden District house being one of them. Daniel, of course, would have never been able to actually get to Lestat himself, because Lestat was deeply buried under the earth at that time, but he still found the house easy. And then, when he arrived there, that's when Armand first caught him and locked him in the cage.

One of the things about The Chase I always wondered about before now wrt the show's version of it was what Louis would have been doing during it, as I always thought it was critical that only Armand and Daniel be involved in it. This is the main reason I thought The Chase in the show would only last a year or so, instead of the 4 years it lasts in the books.

But now, with Louis being so severely burned, I think that gives the answer. Just like Lestat, Louis will go into the earth, underground, to sleep and heal. And, just like in the books when Lestat did the same, Armand will be alone and on his own while he waits for Louis to wake up again. Which will probably take some years to happen.

And the only reason I don't think Louis will be asleep for the whole time Devil's Minion happened in the past -- which was 12 years in total -- is because of Louis calling Daniel "our boy." Meaning I think, at some point, Louis was with Armand and Daniel both sometime after Armand and Daniel fell in love and came together while Louis was asleep, and he and Daniel became even closer friends during that time. But who knows? Maybe Louis just calls Daniel "our boy" because of what took place during those 3-4 nights back in 1973 and nothing else, and Louis just sees Daniel as a "testament to their companionship" or whatever, and he really was underground asleep during almost the whole of Armand and Daniel's relationship. That is very possible as well IMO.

At any rate, I do think there might be something to Armand saying that he and Louis have been together "for 70 years" in the bedroom scene in episode 2x01, but then Louis saying they've been together "for 77 years" at the top of episode 2x02. Armand could have just been speaking in general numbers, or . . . maybe there is a 7-year gap when they weren't together. And maybe that gap is talking about the years Louis spent underground asleep and healing -- which it's clear that Louis himself wouldn't remember in the present-day, since he didn't even remember attempting to kill himself in the first place (thanks to Armand's memory reprogramming on him). And, during that 7-year gap, that is when The Chase happened, as well as 3 of the 8 years Armand and Daniel were fully together after confessing being in love with each other as well.

Which, come to think of it . . . if you do the math on that? 1973 + 7 years takes you to the year 1980. And if you look at Daniel's LinkedIn page, his writing credits didn't really start accumulating until 1981. As Daniel said himself, the 1970s are just a blur to him. And this could be why.

So I can imagine Louis waking up around 1980 or so and learning from Armand that he and Daniel are now together. And yes, I think Louis would be okay with it -- because hell, at least Armand wasn't alone while Louis was asleep healing, and Louis himself already has a fondness for Daniel anyway. (All of this happening being something Louis doesn't remember anymore now of course).

But between Daniel's growing career and Alice somehow coming into the picture sometime in the 1980s (because yes, I do think Alice is real, even if I also think a lot of Daniel's memories of her are really memories about Armand), things begin to go sour, with Daniel probably insecure because -- like in the book -- Armand kept refusing to turn Daniel so they can be together forever, and Armand reluctant to turn Daniel for a host of reasons I mentioned in this post, as well as probably not trusting Daniel to not run off and leave him once he is immortal (which is also a fear that Armand had wrt turning Daniel).

Anyway, so yeah, I actually think the reveal of Louis' burns strengthens the argument that Devil's Minion happened in the past because it now gives us an idea of what was going on with Louis not only during the time of The Chase, but also quite possibly the first 3 or so years of Armand and Daniel being a fully in-love couple. And that is that Louis went underground, into the earth, to sleep and heal. Just like Lestat was probably also doing from his own post-Paris wounds and injuries at that same time. Louis and Lestat both were safe underground in the earth -- which is the main way for vampires to heal faster from heavy wounds while being safe while they do so -- and didn't need anyone watching over them or taking care of them.

And so, just like in the book with Lestat when he was underground asleep (because in the books Armand and Louis had already long broken up and gone their separate ways when Armand was just hanging around Lestat's house waiting for him to be fully healed and wake up again), I feel the same thing likely happened on the show with Louis. Louis was asleep underground, in the earth, healing; and Armand was alone and left to his own devices because of that when The Chase between him and Daniel first began.

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #devil’s minion #sorry for the unhinged ranting op #i just had a lot of thoughts about the 1980 date #and what the 1980s could mean for daniel

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xtradonaire1 · 5 years ago

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IT’S EVEN WORSE

Many Politicians believe Trump is an open book that anyone can read or see-through, calculated, and easily manipulated. These characteristics may have been true of him in the early days of his presidency. Today you will find a more angry and sinister person willing to do devilish things towards anyone he considers as his enemy.

Trump selected Barr as his Attorney General for no good reasons, he made certain that Kavanaugh would be placed on the Supreme Court bench, but more importantly Trump had learned and understood the Power of being President. Most active Republican Congressmen/women and Senators understand that power as well, which is why they are too afraid to cross him.

Admittedly, Trump may come across as a spoiled brat when he doesn’t get his way publicly. But beneath his childish outbursts is a veil of premeditated destruction to all his enemies. This side of him is frightening even to his closest friends and terrifying to his enemies. Ask Michael Cohen (Trump’s formal attorney) who Trump is, he will tell you…the half has never been told, it’s even worse…

Trump is loaded with more power now in his presidency than ever before, at the same time, his daily News conferences have been an utter disaster and failure. So much so, that he discontinued them for a short while. But, on May 11, Trump held a press conference that would showcase all the wonderful things he believes his administration has done and is doing in reference to the COVID-19 virus. Trump had hanging banners all around as if he was trying to convince Americans to believe his banners. Unfortunately, Trump ended his News Conference abruptly creating more of a fuss about his behavior instead of his hanging banners touting his success. Trump’s frustration has once again displayed its ugliness in the wrong place at the wrong time. Trump realizes he’s the most powerful person in the room and yet his inability to convince the American people has to be upsetting. According to the Pew Research Center, 65% of Americans believe Trump was too slow in the initial response to the Coronavirus threat.

youtube

The New York Times reported March 7, Trump saying anyone who wants a Coronavirus test can have one and on May 11 during his News Conference he said it again. The truth is a lot more complicated than presented, and no, anyone who wants a Coronavirus test cannot have one.

It appears President Obama is living rent-free in Trump’s head and this is where the plot thickens for a man like Trump, who has unlimited power.

During the Russian investigation, Trump hand-picked someone who could protect him from all his woes. Maya Angelou, said it best, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time” Before Barr was nominated as Trump’s attorney general, he wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post praising Trump for firing FBI Director James Comey May 2017. Less than a year later he criticized Mueller’s Russian Probe. One had to wonder was he auditioning for the attorney general position? One thing that was clear and certain, Trump had found what he had been hoping for but more importantly, what he needed. On Feb.14 2019 Barr was confirmed by a 54-45 near party-line vote. William Barr is intelligent and crafty, he knows how to use the dark cracks of justice in the courtroom. He understands the complexity of turning over each and every leaf, trimming every corner or thread against or for his client. Barr knows how to present a case to his staff of attorneys in such a manner that they will be salivating to carry out whatever destructible act he orders. In March 2019 Barr concluded that the evidence in the Russian investigation did not determine that Trump had committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. The half has never been told, it’s even worse…

Remember Rudy Giuliani’s memorable statement, Truth isn’t Truth? By their standard destroying one’s opponent with lies can be considered as truth, their truth. Don’t be shocked about how low Trump and Giuliani will go, we saw some of that in his News Conference where he accused former President Obama of committing crimes worst than watergate. When asked by a reporter what was the crime, he was unable to give the reporter an answer. This is only the beginning of the tools taken from their slime box that he and his comrades will use against his opponent. The Ukrainian investigation may be out of the news cycle, but Rudy and others are still actively creating a narrative they hope will be compelling to American voters.

With the help of Barr, Trump got by the Russian probe; although he was impeached by The House Of Congress, Trump was not removed because of a majority control Senate Republicans. Today Trump is displaying a feeling of invincibility. Which is why he is the most dangerous man in the world…and that’s not all…the half has never been told, it’s even worse…

youtube

One of the saddest news reports ever to be reported will be the mishandling of the Coronavirus in the beginning stage. There is no escaping the fact that more than 100,000 Americans will die from this virus because we failed to act promptly and responsibly. No hanging banners in the White House Rose Garden, no tv news channel, or our favorite radio host is capable of substituting for giving us a moment of silence to reflect on all the Americans we lost, with a fake celebration of victory.

With all of these villains surrounding and in the White House, maybe someday someone will be able to explain why Ahmaud Arbery was gun down senselessly while jogging (Feb.23,2020) by a father and son. Trump said he was disturbed by what he saw while at the same time hinting that there may be other footage he has not seen. He concluded by saying he will have his department look into this case. The truth of the matter is that there are many people of color that are being gunned down daily all over America in senseless acts that are never reported leaving parents, loved ones, and communities feeling helpless and hopeless, which is why I concluded..the half has never been told, it’s even worse.

The Pew Research Center, April 2020

The Washington Post

The New York Times

Maya Angelou

Make your Entertainment to the Max! 5000+ Apps Download all of your favorite apps, including Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Twitch, and more. Control Capsule Max right from your phone with the “Nebula Connect” app. Download it now from Google Play or the App Store, https://amzn.to/2YsXp7Q

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source https://xtradonaire.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/its-even-worse/

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i-am-my-opheliac · 6 years ago

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Phanfic Finder List

Finally managed to complete my list. I was a bit short of time and not in the best mood, so I ended up throwing in a couple of new stories in between my favourites, and all in all I really love every single fic on this list.

1. Age Difference: hard times, baby by @queerofcups (12k, E)

As soon as I saw this tag I knew I would have to recommend this fic. Admittedly this is more than just age difference, it’s a beautiful combination of time travel and smut and an approach to the 2009x201x trope that I’m just a sucker for.

2. Snow in London: fulsome by @queerofcups (500, G)

So maybe I’m just a Dann fan account, but their writing always has that innate quality in it to be so damn deep and I’m amazed that a story so short can pack so much introspection and character growth in it, so many implications of fears and wish to feel free. I especially love that it’s straightforward with no dialogue, the descrption of the first day of snow feels poetic and the way it is, plain back text on white background with no decorations around it just goes so perfectly with it. It’s a small gem in my collection.

3. Chance Meetings: The One Star Review by @jestbee (20k, M)

This tag was probably the hardest one for me. There are a lot of stories that start with an accidental meeting and develop from there, so many gorgeous AU built on made-up worlds. So I decided to make my life easier and choose one that I already know and love, just so other people can know and love it too. And maybe I’m biased because I did beta read this story, and saw how much thought went into it, but I just love the idea of it, I love picturing Phil in the kitchen and I can totally see the snobby way Dan loves and talks about food. It’s just perfect, and there’s a vibe to this story that reminds me of a rom-com, all autumn colors and the smell of spices.

4. Road Trip: my heart will howl (till you pull it off the ground) by islet (21k, T)

This is one of those stories that just stay with you the moment you stop reading them, those stories that come back to you in a flash when you least expect it, stories that leave you with a itch to know more of the universe where they’re set. There’s something poetic about it, and I adore the way the road trip is not only a physical trip but also a metaphor for the growth of these characters, both as people and as a couple. It’s beautiful in its pain, you feel every emotion Phil is going through so deeply and the ending leaves you without a breath.I highly recommend this story and the sequel, because there is something about it that just makes it vivid in the mind.

5. Radio show: The Pianist Everyone Is Talking About... Is My Husband by natigail (25k, T)

Surprisingly enough, there aren’t as many stories that focus on Dan and Phil working at the radio show as I thought they would be, and this one technically isn’t a radio show story per se, but Phil does work at the radio show, and I love the office vibes that just surround the whole story. I love Phil’s reactions and I’m a sucker for Phil being the radio host for a chance. And if it also works into it a somewhat twist of Phil being the “fanboy” rather than Dan, well that’s just a plus. There’s dan and phil and there’s radio setting, I’m not cheating!

6. Skype sex (2009/2010): read between the lines (i will if you will) by @phanbliss (72k, M)

There are hundreds of fics on ao3 that explore the sexual relationship building in 2009/2010, and admittedly this story is so much more than that, but I can’t help myself, whenever I think about a story set on Skype in that time, this is the one that comes to mind. It’s not only beautifully written, but the build up is in my opinion so realistic, portraying the insecurities and the desires of two people getting more and more into each other. I love that it focuses on the build up and lets the readers connect the dots with what we know of their history once they met, because we know that story, but it’s how it came to be that is up for interpretation and I love how right this one feels.

7. Vegas Trip: Roll the Dice and Swear by @ramonaspeaks - (15k, E)

I think this author and this story in particular needs no presentation, and that’s probably why it’s so vivid in my mind. I love that the premise of it is so simple and seemingly purely sexual and yet there’s a character exploration that feels so real, especially when you think about the age they’re supposed to be in.

8.Sexuality Crisis: a new blue by @watergator (6k, T)

This is a really lovely take on the build up to Dan meeting Phil, his relationship with his previous girlfriend and what it might have been like questioning his sexuality with the onslaught of confusing feelings. It captures perfectly what it feels like to have a relationship at that age, spanning from high school to university, and questioning if that’s what you really want, who you really are, if it’s just because everyone else is doing it.

9.Sexual Roleplay: イカ - by @phandomsub (2.8k, E)

There were so many options for this tag that I almost found myself defeated in trying to choose one, which is why I ended up rereading one of my old time favourites, because why not. And if this is a twist that also involve some really incredible tentacle porn, well, you can’t blame me. I love the dark atmosphere of this piece, it makes you feel tense and trapped with the onslaught of feelings and the revelation at the end is a breath of relief, almost knocked over by the last two sentences. There’s a particular dark nuance that is often found in tentacle play but it’s played so so well.

10. AU inolving a hospital: grey’s (ph)anatomy by @alittledizzy (1k, T)

Mandy has the ability to really insert Dan and Phil into whatever universe she’s picturing for them and fill it with such specific details that you are left there thinking “oh, of course, of course this is how it go. They were born to be this.” This specific AU is probably one of my favourite, it involves one of my guilty pleasure tv show and it just works. There’s a whole universe described in something relatively so short, and it’s just a scene of their lives and yet it says so much, of who they are, who they’ve been and who they’re going to become. And I wish I had more of it, but it lives perfectly on its own.

#phanfic finder fest #fic recs #so many gorgeous fics #so many talented authors #just tuck in and enjoy

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prezaki · 6 years ago

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A Thousand Second Chances - The life story of Eddie Brock

from Venom (2018) Issue # 2

I just spent a week speed-reading through every single comic appearance Eddie Brock has made in the 30 years since his creation and I fell in love with his character hard and fast. In order to process all that I’ve learned myself, I feel like I need to write down his life story with thoughts and important moments. Figured I might as well make this public since it might help out other new fans who don’t have the time and madness to dig through 30 years of comic history. Any older fans reading, feel free to correct me if I’m getting my Marvel lore wrong, I am VERY new to this and hopelessly overwhelmed.

This fully ignores ‘Venom: Dark Origin’ because it frankly just contradicts every other mention of backstory. It also thus ignores Mary Brock, the sister who was invented to justify the Nova crossover issues and who doesn’t appear outside of these two things, because she frankly doesn’t fit the rest of the lore either.

Content warning for suicide applies everywhere here, it’s a topic that comes up time and time again in Eddie’s life.

This got... long.

Eddie is born as the son of Carl and Jamie Brock. Unfortunately, Jamie passed away during Eddie’s birth, leaving his father emotionally cold towards him. The family is wealthy so Eddie is always well-provided for, but he never receives any affection. In order to win praise, Eddie studies hard (top grades) and gets into sports (beginning his lifelong passion towards muscle training), but nothing is successful. His dad did apparently make some worrisome statements though. (from: Lethal Protector, except for the panel which is from the Maximum Carnage arc)

At some point in his childhood Eddie gets into a car accident that cost Carl a lot of his fortune. Nothing is specified about this as of yet, but it looks like the current arc might go into detail. (from: Venom 2018)

Eddie gets into college and when the Watergate scandal happens, he is inspired to change his career to journalism. This places his birth year around 1950, I suppose? (from: Lethal Protector)

After college, Eddie gets a job at the Daily Globe, where he works as a successful investigative journalist.

At some point here, he meets Anne Weying and they begin a relationship. She describes him as ‘smart, witty and boyish’ (though he’d never show it in front of his father). He used to love taking her to fairs and amusement parks. The two get married. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

During his work for the daily globe he encounters a creature named Krooba. This is some weird bonus story and I only mention it because this panel is honestly hilarious. (from: Marvel Flashback series)

Then the Sin-Eater murders shake New York and Eddie interviews a source who claims to be the culprit - but just as Eddie reveals their identity, Spider-Man catches the real Sin-Eater. Eddie is disgraced as a journalist because he fell for a compulsive confessor. He loses his job with the Globe due to this incident. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

This also fully destroys his relationship with his father whom he now doesn’t have contact to anymore. Anne says he lost his boy-ish charm here and started seeming a little mad. Their marriage falls apart. (from: Lethal Protector)

To make a living, Eddie now has to write made-up stories for gossip magazines. He describes these as ‘venomous’ and that descriptor is the reason for his later pseudonym ‘Venom’. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

He starts body-building excessively during this time in hopes to relieve the tension. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Through all this he blames Spider-Man for his downfall - this is not logical, but hey, blaming others makes things easier. Eddie is a person with an astounding one-track-mind and a tendency for splitting.

Eddie can’t handle the misery of his current life and grows strongly suicidal. However, he is also a practicing catholic and struggles with the fact that suicide is considered a sin. Thus he goes to the Our Lady of Saints church to pray for forgiveness before ending his life. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

In front of the church he hesitates and is encouraged to go inside by Deadpool, who is totally oblivious to Eddie’s actual intentions. Yes, really. (from: Deadpool: Back in Black)

In the church, Eddie encounters the symbiote that Spider-Man brought back to earth as his suit and which he then subsequently rejected after finding out it is a living creature. Both Eddie and the symbiote hate Spider-Man, so they take this as basis to bond together.

Important here is that it is literally canon that Spider-Man inadvertendly taught the symbiote how to love (from: Web of Spider-Man) and that the symbiote wants to try and make their relationship with Eddie more mutual than the one with Spider-Man (from: First Kill). So take THAT as you want.

In the first day of being together with the symbiote, Eddie takes down some criminals who murdered his neighbour and establishes his vigilante killing style through it. (from: First Kill)

Eddie makes first attempts to kill Spider-Man (whose civilian identity he knows thanks to the symbiote’s memories) by pushing him in front of a train and trying to throw him off a roof. (from: Web of Spider-Man)

There’s some weird special story set in this timeframe about how he gets the advice of some veteran he interviewed on the job once to do this. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Then he attacks Spidey directly and they fight in the church.... and well, Eddie dons a priest costume for a while, just... because aesthetic. He does have a flair for the dramatic.

This is probably the appropriate time to mention that from here on Eddie is always naked. Every time you see Eddie Brock wearing clothes, it is the symbiote assuming the shape of clothes. Eddie wears underwear at best and even that is often not present.

Eddie loses this battle with Spidey and is sent to The Vault, a super high security prison. Escaping from there, he kills a guard who happens to be an influential person’s son and well, it bites him in the ass later. Important here is also that Eddie absolutely always laments it when he ‘has’ to kill innocents. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

In trying to get to Peter after this, Eddie visits Aunt May a few times pretending to be Peter’s friend. It is hilarious. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

The next attempt at besting Spider-Man is ended by Spidey pretending to accept the symbiote back, which the symbiote is actually excited about, much to Eddie’s dismay. However, the bond with Eddie is too strong for the symbiote to simply sever it and both symbiote and Eddie pass out from the strain of trying. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

This is a good time to mention that in the 2003 Spectacular Spider-Man run it is revealed that actually Eddie had terminal cancer All Along and knew he’d die without the symbiote, so part of him wanting to kill Spider-Man is a wish to eliminate host body competition and thus survive. I personally absolutely think this is an asspull that undermines a lot of the first 20 years of characterization, but eh.

Eddie goes back to The Vault and has not one but two run-ins with the Avengers when attempting to break out. Neither attempt is successful and in the end he uses the symbiote’s abilities to fake his own death in order to successfully escape.

A huge battle over who gets to kill Spider-Man happens and Styx touches Venom... the symbiote takes the brunt of this attack to protect Eddie - and thus they seemingly die for him. And this is like written in 1990. Eddie literally cries about it. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Now a normal human, Eddie is sent to the normal human prison Ryker’s Island where he is cellmates with the serial killer Cletus Kasady. Eddie works out a lot in the cell and it drives Cletus crazy - he brings that up again more than once. Big mad about the muscle gains. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Though Eddie also just plain beats Cletus up during this time because Eddie hates people who kill innocents. This might have contributed to Cletus hating his muscles. (from: Carnage 2016)

The symbiote isn’t dead and returns for Eddie! They break out! Also the symbiote literally gives birth during this process, no biggie. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Venom and Spider-Man fight again. Venom actually gets Spidey unconscious in this battle but instead of killing him then, he... kidnaps Spidey to an abandoned island to have another fight. Eddie just gotta be that extra. During this fight Spidey fakes his death and escapes. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Eddie decides to live happily ever after with the symbiote and just stay on the island. They’re very happy together. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Sometime here, Darkhawk gets stranded on the island, fights Venom, gets spared by Venom. Life’s like that. (from: Darkhawk)

Then he meets Wolverine inside of Wolverine’s nightmare because sometimes Marvel is ???? like that ??? (from: Marvel Presents)

Eddie’d probably have happily stayed on this island forever, had the child the symbiote gave birth to not bonded to Cletus Kasady, creating Carnage. Spider-Man realizes that Eddie, knowing symbiotes, is probably a big help in fighting a symbiote-bonded killer so he reveals himself to Eddie again and gets him off the island to fight Carnage. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Once Carnage is defeated, Eddie just gets sent back to The Vault.

There is some weird episode here where Matt Murdock is his attorney and he tries to get free by pleading insanity and pretending the symbiote died. That fails of course. (from: Trial of Venom)

Then an even weirder episode happens where Venom encounters a bunch of villains and then just ends back up in jail anyway.

Which he then breaks out of and hears Spider-Man’s parents are still alive. This really gets to Eddie because in his mindset (which the symbiote only enhances - they influence each other mutually for the worse at this point) Spidey is a corrupting force and thus he needs to protect... his parents from him.... so he kidnaps the Parkers..... (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Spidey had ENOUGH of Venom at this point and tries to think of new ways to get him to stop already. Thus he contacts Anne and gets Anne to talk to Eddie. Eddie still very much loves Anne. It still takes Spidey saving Anne from falling debris and Anne’s subsequent explanation that Spidey IS saving innocents to make Eddie back off. But hey, he backs off!

And moves back to his birth city, San Francisco. Here a lot of things start happening very rapidly. Eddie encounters an underground city of social outcasts. A family member of the guard he murdered put together The Jury to kill him in retaliation. Life Foundation wants his symbiote. Spider-Man is there. Lethal Protector is a ride and I truly recommend it.

Life Foundation extracts symbiotes from Eddie’s symbiote to try and weaponize them, Spidey and Venom battle them together.

In the end, Eddie also saves the underground city from Life Foundation and moves in there as their protector, much to the joy of local resident Elizabeth who wanted him down there all along.

Then Eddie temporarily goes back to New York because Carnage is back. After getting badly beat up, Eddie comes to Spidey for help and... just goes to sleep on his couch. He changes into pajamas and all.

To stop Carnage, Spidey, Venom and the Black Cat form an alliance but Spidey remains strongly opposed to Venom’s muuuch more pragmatic view on life and death. He isn’t called lethal protector for nothing. Much moral debate is had. Maximum Carnage is a fun arc.

Then Eddie goes back home to his underground city and demonstrates his one-track mind in his solo series Funeral Pyre, where he tries very hard to help an undercover journalist trapped in a gang and still fails, creating Pyre in the process....

During some Daredevil issues, Eddie tries to steal a serum to erase Venom’s weaknesses but in the end doesn’t get it.

During some Silver Sable issues he... exists and helps her gang, I guess.

Then he appears in some Darkhawk issues where they rematch.

Back to solo-series; in The Madness, Eddie gets infected with a sentient virus, making it three people in his body. The virus is pretty crazy and assaults and frightens Eddie’s almost-girlfriend Beck, who is overall already convinced that the symbiote makes Eddie more mad. She states she can’t date him due to this and the two remain simply friends. Eddie gets rid of the virus in the end and returns it to where it came from.

The Enemy Within comes next and it’s just... goblins in San Fransico. Eddie teams up with Morbius against those goblins. Many goblins.

Then Venom fights Hulk because why not. (from: Venom vs Hulk)

Soon after, Venom appears in a few Iron Man issues because he believes Tony Stark’s business practices to be corrupt and tries to kill him for it.

In The Mace, conflict arises in the underground city and causes Mace and Venom to fight one another. Namely, people from the underground city attack others, who attack in retaliation - once Eddie learns that some of his people started this mess, he kills the offending underground city residents (and keeps it secret from Beck who asked him to spare them).

Venom then teams up with Nightwatch for a short appearance in the Nightwatch series.

During Nights of Vengeance both Elizabeth and Beck get kidnapped, inviting other characters to speculate on Eddie’s love life. Eddie states he won’t date either woman as he is too dangerous to date anyone. There’s also aliens who take over minds in this comic. That’s the actual main plot of these issues.

Now it’s time for Eddie’s next return to New York! Carlton Drake and his Life Foundation are working on something called The Arachnis Project (which is also the name of this arc) to create spider humans - hearing of this, Eddie travels to New York to get revenge against Life Foundation for the events of Lethal Protector.

The Jury has started working for Life Foundation in the meantime, though the events of these comics cause that connection to sever. However, they’re still in the same facility, so they do run into Venom there. Jury and Venom try to kill each other while Spider-Man desperately tries to stop any death on either end from happening.

Also Life Foundation gets defeated, obviously. Eddie returns to San Francisco.

Only to come back to NY shortly after due to news about the prison Carnage is held in.

Here, Eddie runs into Peter’s clone, the Scarlet Spider. In battle with him, Eddie gets separated from his symbiote and both of them get taken into custody to be studied, setting up the events of the Separation Anxiety mini-series.

Separation Anxiety marks the first time the reader ever gets to hear the symbiote’s thoughts and the majority of these thoughts are “Eddie” as the symbiote is desperate to return to him.

During this period of extended separation from the symbiote and with nobody to talk to, Eddie begins to reflect on his actions as Venom and starts second-guessing all the murders they committed. For the first time, Eddie is plagued by feelings of guilt.

Eddie gets broken out of this facility by the surviving symbiote-host-combos created by Life Foundation who seek Eddie’s help on how to communicate with their symbiotes. All of them are struggling to not get overtaken, making Eddie’s mutual relationship with the symbiote seem extraordinary.

Meanwhile the symbiote also breaks out and rushes to find Eddie, bond with him again and, in their worlds, ‘become whole, become Venom’. The symbiote does find Eddie in time to save him from Scream, one of their symbiote ‘daughters’.

But after being reuinited, Eddie tells the symbiote that he needs some time to think on his own to really figure out what of their actions was his choice and what was the symbiote’s. (the cap is from Planet of the Symbiotes which picks this back up.)

Before this storyline goes to its conclusion, Carnage briefly returns and travels over the internet, an ability which the Venom symbiote learns as well in the fight against Carnage. He returns back from San Fran to New York again for this. During this arc Eddie also makes a big mistake and almost kills an innocent man named Clive because he mistook him for being a malicious junkie. (from: Carnage Unleashed)

Then in Planet of the Symbiotes we then return to the break-up story. Eddie’s doubts about his own choices continue on strongly and get reinforced by Spider-Man to a point where Eddie rejects the symbiote. The symbiote, in emotional pain after this temporary break-up begins wailing. This wailing can be heard so far in the galaxy that it actually alerts the other symbiotes to the existence of earth, causing them to begin an invasion.

During this invasion, Eddie’s symbiote returns to him and reveals that for their species, they are considered abnormal because they seek to have a relationship with a host rather than dominate them.

The solution to the invasion is to let out an even more powerful mental scream to overwhelm the symbiotes with despair - Eddie and his symbiote fully bond again to achieve this and thus save earth. This is the arc that the movie presumably took Venom betraying his species for Eddie from.

Then during Sinner Takes All, we meet Anne again! There is a new Sin Eater around and she is being targeted - obviously, Eddie can’t let that happen and sets out to protect her. To heal her injuries, he lets the symbiote bond with her but doing so unleashes violent urges in Anne. She temporarily turns into She-Venom and murders a group of men who were attacking her. Once returning to her senses, Anne is horrified and gets away from Eddie - only to be taken hostage by an assassin who came to take revenge on Eddie for Clive, the person he almost killed during Carnage Unleashed. In the end, Clive himself calls off the manhunt on him, claiming vengeance wouldn’t make him feel any better.

Here continuity gets a little confusing because the next comic, Along Came A Spider, takes place soon after Planet of the Symbiotes and makes reference to Eddie not having talked to Anne since. This is why most continuities place Sinner Takes All before Planet of the Symbiotes, but that doesn’t quite make sense either due to the progression of Eddie’s and the symbiote’s relationship. Ah well, it is a mystery.

Anne is now under police protective custody, but the police also want her help to capture Venom. When Eddie calls, the symbiote travels over the phone-line and partially merges with Anne, which ends up also merging Eddie’s and Anne’s minds. Eddie immediately sets out to find her and retrieve her from the police.

On the way out, Venom gets into a fight with Spider-Man, which gives the police time to arrive and arrest Anne. When Anne calls Eddie from custody, she begs him not to come and bust her out, which he agrees to... but sends the symbiote through the phonelines instead, turning Anne into She-Venom once more.

Once the symbiote is back to Eddie (after some more fighting), Anne announces she wants nothing to do with him anymore because she never wants to get close to the symbiote again. She tells Eddie that only if he resists the symbiote and stops his vengeance quest, she’ll talk to him again.

Then Anne gets tangled up again anyway, as Rune frames Venom for murder and Venom has to save her once more. (from: Rune vs Venom)

Next there is a serial killer on the loose in New York! The police strongly suspect Venom to be the culprit, but it turns out to be Xenophage, eating everyone who has a symbiote inside them. (from: The Hunted)

While running from the police, Eddie temporarily assumes the identity of a skater and joins a group of skater kids under the name Rad Eddie. (from: The Hunted)

Eddie defeats the Xenophage. (still from: The Hunted)

Then comes The Hunger, one of the gayest comics from the 90s for sure. It starts out with Eddie and the symbiote holding hands at the movies. But Eddie once again has reason to suspect that the symbiote is making him more violent.

When Venom winds up actually eating someone’s brain instead of just using this threat as a catchphrase, Eddie is horrified. Seeing that Eddie will refuse any further brain-eating, the symbiote leaves Eddie. Eddie gets captured by Dr. Paine and experimented on.

Eddie finds out that the symbiote needs a chemical that is in brains but can also be supplied in other ways. Before he and the symbiote can fully bond again, Dr. Paine kidnaps the symbiote to also experiment on.

Of course, Eddie saves the symbiote and also finds out that chocolate nourishes his symbiote just as well, so he buys them heartshaped chocolate. (all from: The Hunger)

Then Venom gets pulled into some other dimension along with Wolverine, Scream and the skater kids from before. (from: Tooth and Claw!)

Next, Eddie gets finally captured by the police after all and put on trial. Matt Murdock takes over his defense again. When the prosecution calls Carnage for a witness, Carnage breaks loose and Venom, Daredevil and Spidey have to subdue him. In the end, no verdict ever comes as Eddie is secretly recruited by the Overreach Committee. (from: Venom on Trial)

Eddie is pretty delighted with his new James Bond gig. In License to Kill, we get to see him on a mission in great detail. Important here is that the Committee planted a bomb in Eddie’s chest as an emergency insurance to keep him in check.

Venom’s next mission is to protect a formerly corrupt government leader at a speech in a church. For this, Eddie goes undercover as a nun but instead of using the symbiote’s full shapeshifting abilities, he just takes his normal looks, puts on a nun costume and calls himself Sister Edwina. Iconic. (from: Sign of the Boss)

The next mission is... a pretty big misunderstanding. Eddie’s superiors use convoluted language to tell Eddie to scare Jonah J Jameson a little but Eddie thinks he is meant to kill him. In the subsequent clash with Spidey, Eddie hits his head hard and forgets Spiderman’s civilian identity and also the exact reasons for hating him. (from: The Venom Agenda)

The committee now decides that Eddie is way too much of a loose cannon for their taste and they want to get rid of him. While everyone takes too long to decide who should press the killing button, Eddie escapes the committee, but in the subsequent fighting the symbiote is seemingly killed. (from: The Finale)

Eddie without the symbiote is absolutely miserable and once more pretty suicidal. This is the beginning of an era, however, which makes the symbiote out to largely abuse Eddie. So when the symbiote returns, Eddie initially tries to get away from them to avoid more pain, only to be forcibly united with them again anyway. Venom then goes to visit Carnage and... eats his symbiote. Yeah. (from: Peter Parker: Spider-Man)

Venom then joins and subsequently turns on the Sinister Six. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Eddie finds himself missing Anne and wants to start over with her again. When he visits Anne, she is a paranoid wreck. As Spidey, now in a black Venom-esque costume again, swings by her window, she falls into panic. Eddie misinterprets that Spidey is what scares Anne and goes to fight him, but while he does that, Anne commits suicide. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

As Eddie grieves at Anne’s grave, Senator Ward shows up and steals his symbiote. Eddie gets arrested and sent to prison. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Now we’re entering territory of Venom (2003), the worst Venom comic. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but the majority of it is about another symbiote anyway. At some point during this Eddie gets his symbiote back and fights the other symbiote.

Proving further that 2003 is the worst Venom year, we go on with a comic where the symbiote eats the adrenaline off people (not even what they ate before) and also with the reveal that Eddie has cancer and his cancer made his adrenaline amounts more appealing to the symbiote. To save Eddie’s life, Peter makes him rebond to the symbiote against either of their will. (from: Spectacular Spider-Man)

Then Carnage has another child which he wants to kill while Venom has other plans for it. (from: Venom/Carnage)

The symbiote gets stolen again during Spider-Man/Red Sonja, but it’s overall not that consequential.

What IS consequential is that Eddie is now back to having moral qualms with the symbiote... so he... decides to auction the symbiote off to super-villains and give the money gained to charity. Without the symbiote, his cancer will advance and he’ll die. (from: Marvel Knights: Spider-Man)

Finding out that the person he sold the suit to kills innocents indiscriminately, Eddie attempts suicide once more. He is taken to the hospital and narrowly survives cutting his wrists open. After that, he is kept in the hospital due to his cancer. (from: Marvel Knights: Spider-Man)

In the hospital, Eddie has reoccuring visions of the symbiote urging him to kill. When he finds out May Parker is in the same hospital, the symbiote tells him to kill her. Eddie does comply with killing a nurse, but stops himself before killing May. He tries to commit suicide once more, only to be saved by Spider-Man. (from: Sensational Spider-Man)

Eddie starts working Martin Li’s homeless shelter, where May Parker also works. A touch by Martin Li, who is actually Mr Negative, heals Eddie’s cancer completely. This also turns Eddie into Anti-Venom - the literal opposite of Venom, a hero who’s touch cures and is harmful to the Venom symbiote. Though Eddie tries to kill his old symbiote, now bonded to Gargan, the symbiote refuses to kill Eddie when Gargan wants it to. Love is a word that is used again. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

Eddie now starts over as a hero as Anti-Venom, healing people and busting drug cartels. (from: Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live)

Eddie is the first one to find out Martin Li is Mr Negative and tries to fight him. He is also the one to reveal Mr Negative’s civilian identity to Spider-Man, temporarily teaming up with him and Wraith to take the crime lord down. (from: Amazing Spider-Man)

At some point here, Eddie offers miracle healings with the Our Lady of Saints church as his headquarters.

When everyone in New York starts developing Spider powers, Eddie heals people from them. In the end, his Anti-Venom powers are all used up in order to large-scale cure the crisis. (from: Spider Island)

Meanwhile the symbiote is bonded to Flash Thompson and the two work as government agents.

Having had enough of symbiotes alltogether, Eddie sets out to kill symbiotes and hosts that are still around. (from: Venom 2011)

Against his will, Eddie is forced to fuse with the Toxin symbiote. (from: Venom 2011)

The FBI recruits Eddie to help them against Carnage. This is the comic that I like to summarize as ‘Let’s Go Lesbians Let’s Go’. In it, Eddie, two latinx lesbians, two black women and some other dude stop Carnage and an elder God. It’s a really good run.

For the first time, a comic makes Eddie accept culpability for his actions as Venom!! Also during this story, he loses the Toxin symbiote. (from: Carnage 2016)

When Flash Thompson and the Venom symbiote are separated, Eddie helps contain the symbiote (which had been going around with a criminal named Lee Price) and then breaks into containment to re-unite with it. Here is where he starts calling the symbiote ‘love’ and ‘darling’ all the time. Sadly there is no real explanation for his change-of-mind on the symbiote. (from: Venom 2016)

The symbiote and Eddie now actively negotiate trust and such in their relationship, it’s very good. When Eddie finds a dinosaur in the sewers, he brings it back to Alchemax which created it. In exchange for bringing the rest of the dinosaurs back, Alchemax chairwoman Liz Allan agrees to study the symbiote to see what is wrong with it, since it appears sick.

During this dinosaur quest Eddie meets and bonds with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur!

Meanwhile at Alchemax, medicine for the symbiote is created. It turns out that remnants of Anti-Venom in Eddie’s body are making the symbiote sick. (from: Venom 2016)

Theeeeeen Eddie gets pulled into a parallel universe to battle an alien species called Poisons which kills hosts and permanently bonds with symbiotes. (from: Venomverse)

Back on earth, Flash comes to collect the symbiote, which struggles to choose between Flash and Eddie. In the resulting struggle, Flash turns into Anti-Venom instead. Venom, Anti-Venom and Spider-Man team up against Lee Price, who broke out of jail. (from: Venom Inc.)

Then the Poisons return and Eddie has to join the X-Men on a space journey to fight them. (from: Venomized)

At some point in between here, Eddie gets a job at The Facts Channel under the name ‘Mr. Sym’. Later Jonah J Jameson calls him out on how dumb that alias is.

The symbiote is about to spawn again and the FBI wants to interfere with it. Through trickery by Alchemax, Eddie and the symbiote manage to keep their baby. (from: Venom 2016)

The symbiote’s first host returns to earth and wants the symbiote back, who refuses and wants to stay with Eddie. By threatening their child, the first host manages to take the symbiote away anyway. Eddie bonds with the child symbiote, Sleeper, to go get his symbiote back. In the end, Sleeper lobotomizes the first host and uses his body to travel the universe. (from: First Host)

Due to causing way too much trouble, Eddie is now refused entrance to Alechemax. (from: First Host)

Jonah J. Jameson calls Eddie to protect Mary-Jane while Spider-Man faces a crisis with another arch nemesis. To defeat this nemesis, Eddie even lends the symbiote to Spidey. Flash dies in this big fight and Eddie afterwards attends his funeral. (from: Amazing Spider-Man #800)

The symbiote once more acts overtly violent and the resulting struggle in life results in Eddie losing his job at the Facts Channel. (from: Venom 2018)

Eddie Brock kills a god. (from: Venom 2018)

I don’t want to sum that run up any better than that, it is heartbreaking and should simply be read and personally experienced.

If you need issue numbers, this guide is your friend.

#eddie brock #venom #symbrock #is sort of in this #venom comics

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nobszone · 6 years ago

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So I was wondering what I was gonna say for my first post of 2019. A lot has happened in the world and there’s lots of ground to cover. Hell Tumblr’s self-inflicted gunshot wound is worth about three posts in its own right.

But, as always, I find that material has a tendency to present itself.

It started a few days ago when Michael Cohen agreed to testify before an open session of Congress regarding his interaction with Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

I was intrigued but I didn’t think much of it, figuring that he’d mainly confirm a bunch of things the public suspected to be true, namely that Trump violated campaign finance laws re: his payments of hush money to individuals like Stormy Daniels.

And that’s when things took an interesting turn.

The New York Times reported that the FBI launched a Counterintelligence inquiry against Donald Trump following his firing of then-FBI director James Comey. While their Criminal inquiry has long been known, this was the first confirmation of a Counterintelligence inquiry.

“In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

“The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.”

So in other words, the FBI was so unnerved by the firing of Comey, they opened a Counterintelligence probe in response. Now you may think that’s an overreaction, a knee jerk response by the FBI.

Well, the next day this happened.

The Washington Post reported that Trump has not disclosed details of his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin to senior administrative officials.

“President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

“Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.

As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.”

Ignoring everything else, this behavior is not normal. It’s nowhere close to normal.

Trump’s behavior here would not have been done in any of the previous 44 Presidential Administrations. That is a fact. I dare you to argue it.

There are more people in Moscow who know what Trump and Putin discussed at those meetings than there are in D.C. In any other Administration, this would be setting off major alarm bells.

And that brings us to today. Carl Bernstein (of that Woodward and Bernstein) said in an appearance on CNN that he’s been told the report being prepared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller will focus on showing that President Trump may have been acting on behalf of the Russian Government.

You can hear it from the man himself:

“This is about the most serious counterintelligence people we have in the U.S. government saying, ‘Oh, my God, the president’s words and actions lead us to conclude that somehow he has become a witting, unwitting, or half-witting pawn, certainly in some regards, to Vladimir Putin.

“From a point of view of strength… rather, he has done what appears to be Putin’s goals. He has helped Putin destabilize the United States and interfere in the election, no matter whether it was purposeful or not.

“And that is part of what the draft of Mueller’s report, I’m told, is to be about. We know there has been collusion by [former national security adviser Michael] Flynn. We know there has been collusion of some sort by [Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul] Manafort. The question is, yes, what did the president know and when did he know it?”

Folks, what else is there to say?

This is the Titanic sinking into the ocean.

This is the Hindenburg bursting into flames.

As Rarity said, this is The. Worst. Possible. Thing.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this is only based on the conjecture given by someone with secondhand knowledge of a report who’s conclusions may not be made public, and even then it’s only a draft of said report. So, really, the only way for us to know that this is the angle Mueller is pursuing is for us to read the damn thing ourselves.

At the same time, if you can’t trust one of the guys who broke the Watergate scandal, who can you trust? Furthermore when you consider the information reported above, as well as the list of people indicted and/or charged by the probe who have ties to Russia, you get to a point where you start to think that this is in fact the angle Mueller is pursing.

And, even worse, that it might be true.

Now I know there’s still those of you who maintain that this whole Russia probe is a sideshow, nothing more than sour grapes by the Dems who still can’t get over the fact that Hillary lost to this guy.

If you still think this is much ado about nothing, I want you to do two things:

Read the posts I’ve made about this investigation as well as the articles linked in said posts, including the ones linked above

You can tell me why I’m wrong

Because this is not normal, folks. There is nothing about Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia that is anywhere near normal.

I’ve been saying it for months now, but I feel the need to repeat this. There’s only two possible explanations for what’s going on right now.

The Democratic Party is involved in a massive conspiracy with America’s intelligence and law enforcement communities, Silicon Valley, the Mainstream Media, several other Left Wing political parties around the world, and presumably the Illuminati to unseat a sitting US President for no reason whatsoever. Essentially a bloodless Coup.

The President of the United States may have not only committed a crime, but might also be working for a foreign power.

The real question, followers, is who are you going to believe?

Donald Trump, or your lying eyes?

#poltics #American Politics #Donald Trump #robert mueller #Russia

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watching-pictures-move · 2 years ago

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Put On Your Raincoats | Public Affairs (Pachard, 1983)

This review contains mild spoilers.

As my friends south of the border are celebrating their Independence Day, I figured I would join in vicariously with my viewing choices. And what better way to celebrate than with a pornographic political satire? I mean, the poster has the American flag as well as an appealing shot of Annette Haven's back, so how can you lose? Probably the most impressive thing about Henri Pachard's Public Affairs is how heavily it commits to actually working as a political satire. (His western Showdown, which I enjoyed, had a play-acting quality, but this feels like the real deal.) The politician here, a congressman running for senate played by Paul Thomas, actually has a defined set of political accomplishments and positions, namely a proposal to loosen land ownership disclosure laws in exchange for foreign contributions, as well as an anti-pornography agenda. The latter marks him as an obvious villain in the genre, although the movie stretches some credibility when it has him endorsed by a radical feminist anti-pornography activist (who happens to secretly be a sex maniac), when in reality his supporters would more likely be the Evangelical right. The movie is cagey about which side of the spectrum he's running from outside these handful of proposals. It's also interesting that he stresses his outsider status and business credentials ("I'm proud of being a businessman, that's what New York needs, a businessman"), which invites comparison to a certain modern day politician, but really has been a card played in political campaigns since Watergate cast a stain in the public eye on established insider status. Now, if I can briefly spoil the ending (skip to the next paragraph if you don't want it ruined), while it probably read as cynical during its original release, but it might seem a bit more optimistic in present day. Sure, it's disappointing that blatant corruption couldn't bring down the crooked politician and it took revelations of his infidelity to do it, but at least that stuck.

In contrast, you can look at Cecil Howard's Spitfire, which carves out its politician as having a moralizing, anti-sex agenda but doesn't try to define it in any coherent terms. This also compares favourably to that movie in terms of the lead performance. In Spitfire, Robert Kerman played the politician as too obviously sleazy, to the point that it was unlikely he would succeed with the demographic he was supposed to be pulling votes from. Here, Paul Thomas plays the character with a lot more polish and coldness, and is compelling especially when showing his lack of scruples in private. From having listened to a bunch of Rialto Report interviews, I've gotten the impression that Thomas was a bit of an asshole or at least pretty full of himself, and without relitigating beefs that I have no further insight into, those qualities lends itself well to his performance here. I think his performance does suffer in that he comes off a bit too calculated, so that he comes off like a real politician but not one who would be as popular as this movie purports him to be. (I do think Spitfire is worth checking out as Howard is a reliably strong visual stylist, and it has a good supporting cast, particularly Tigr as Kerman's nymphomaniac daughter.)

This movie does have a dilemma inherent to pornography, in that the sex scenes maybe work at cross purposes with the dramatic thrust in the movie. The sex scenes are quite well executed (in large part thanks to the enthusiasm of the performers), but many of them feature Thomas treating his assistant played by Annette Heinz quite badly. (I should note that the bad treatment is in terms of emotional callousness, not sexual assault, the latter of which is frequent enough in the genre that I feel the need to add a disclaimer here. I should also note that the sex scenes will frequently cut to dramatic moments or montage through them, which I would wager upset the raincoat brigade but pleased the "watching it for the plot" brigade.) These scenes are clearly supposed to be hot (and, ahem, mission accomplished), but we're also supposed to empathize with Heinz. And I think she does give the movie some heart, doing some reactive work during her scenes that I found quite affecting. (One especially tricky moment has her climax while on the verge of tears.) I'd only seen her in one other movie and don't recall her performance there, but I was quite impressed with her in this movie and am interested to seek out more of her films.

The other supporting role that surprised me was by Joey Silvera as Thomas' campaign manager, a former pimp who feels a certain loyalty to Thomas for having given him a second chance. There's a nice texture to his performance, a mixture of desperation, misguided loyalty and moral conflict conveyed with elegant understatement. I've found him a reliable supporting player in the genre, but this is the best I've seen him. Of course, as you round out the cast, you have to get to the gal on the poster, and Annette Haven gives the real movie star performance here. I liked the way the movie painted her sexual agency as a sign of independence and strength, in contrast to the sleaziness of Thomas and his donors. Haven has to put up with an amusingly annoying George Payne, who keeps whining about Haven's insistence of pursuing this story and also runs out the door the moment they finish having sex. Robert Kerman shows up as Thomas' biggest donor, mangling a German accent and spouting a bunch of probably fake German ("the language of love") for comic relief. He has the good fortune to be married to Kelly Nichols, who provides a nice, low key counterpoint to the more overtly comedic and dramatic performances around her and imbues a not entirely positive character with a certain dignity. If there's a theme here outside the politicking, it's of women having to put up with subpar men.

#film #put on your raincoats #movie review #public affairs #henri pachard

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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THE STANDARD WAY TO DEVELOP APPLICATIONS NOW IS TO LAUNCH FAST AND ITERATE

Bear in mind, this is really great, not what a piece of shit; those fools will love it. You need to cut and fill to emphasize the central thread, like an illustrator inking over a pencil drawing. And we'd be reading that the election was a referendum on the war in Iraq, instead of sitting in front of computers, and I suspect the human brain is just as lumpy and idiosyncratic as the human body. The 'riting component of the 3 Rs then morphed into English, with the bizarre consequence that high school students now had to write in school is that a real essay you're writing for yourself. I bought it, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Their fundamental problem is that they still don't realize how much they suck. Essayer is the French verb meaning to try and an essai is an attempt.

In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko ridicules a company overloaded with vice presidents. Occam's razor means, in effect, an annuity. Good thing for the Democrats that their screen lets through an occasional Clinton, even if they had to move back to Canada and live in their parents' basements. The time I haven't spent in bookshops I've spent mostly in front of, instead of that the Democrats are out of touch with evangelical Christians in middle America. For example, I've always been fascinated by comb-overs, especially the extreme sort that make a man look as if he's wearing a beret made of his own hair. So if you start from ideas for nonprofits, you find they often behaved like nonprofits. Statues to be cast in bronze were modelled in wax. It lets you take advantage of new insights you have along the way. One of the reasons Web 2. I do, I look them straight in the eye and say I'm designing a new dialect of Lisp. People never say that about me.

Essays should do the opposite. They use it because it yields the best results. Maybe the situation is similar with malaria. You could make a preliminary drawing if you wanted to, but you have to figure out what will make them happy, and that's a really useful property in domains where things happen fast. At the very least I must have explained something badly. An essay is something you write to try to figure something out. I write one. Nor has anyone there ever even sent us an email.

Almost all technology, from Unix to bitmapped displays to the Web, and it is a huge win in developing software to have an interactive toplevel, what in Lisp is called a read-eval-print loop. It's hard to stay interested in something you don't like yourself. The whole room gasped. Fundamentally an essay is a train of thought, as dialogue is cleaned-up train of thought—but a cleaned-up conversation. If they did, it would be useful to a lot of money—so does IBM, for that matter. Well, it was like coming home. But when I think about why I voted for Clinton over the first George Bush managed to win in 1988, though he would later be vanquished by one of the most unobservant people, and it would be useful to a lot of people are going to want these.

Etc, etc squared. This is at least nominally preserved in our present-day thesis defense: most people treat the words thesis and dissertation as interchangeable, but originally, at least some people who know that a high performance car looks like a Formula 1 racecar. But I don't try to fix the unconvincing bits by arguing more cleverly. It's this fact that makes programing languages a good idea in the first year of a startup. Pundits said Carter beat Ford because the country distrusted the Republicans after Watergate. Most applications—most startups, probably—grow out of personal projects. I, Ada have lost, while hacker languages C, Perl, Python, Smalltalk, Lisp. The connection may be surprise.

You could make a preliminary drawing if you wanted to, but you weren't held to it; you could work out all the details, and even a design spec for software. The version on the App Store. One way to appeal to programmers is with software. If you're benevolent, people will rally around you: investors, customers, other companies, and potential employees. They got it from IBM. I do the same thing in programming languages. They got it from IBM.

If you feel you're really helping people, you'll keep working even when it seems like your startup is cheap to run, and it gets judged, as any fourteen year old could tell you that you might want different mediums for the two situations. It is not merely an accident of history that the great paintings of the Renaissance are all full of people. And after the lecture the most common complaint you heard about Apple was that their fans admired them too uncritically. One thing that leads us astray here is that the original raison d'etre of classical scholarship was a kind of intellectual archaeology that does not need to be done in the case of contemporary authors. They just smelled wrong. Our generation wants to get paid up front. I was never sure about that in high school? And yet for most of the practice of good design is how well it works for the user doesn't mean simply making what the user needs, not simply what he says he wants. It makes me spend more time on the Octoparts than I do with most of the other startups we've funded. Palm and RIM haven't a hope. Collecting surprises is a similar process. I can convince smart readers I must be near the truth.

Perhaps this tends to attract people who are earnest, but dull. When it comes to surprises, the rich get richer. To make something good, even for idiots. That, it turned out, was no coincidence. A good architect, for example, the idea was discovered during the Renaissance, journeymen from northern Europe were often employed to do the landscapes in the backgrounds of Italian paintings. It's much like being a doctor. If there's one piece of advice I would give about writing essays, it would be useful to a lot of time in bookshops and I feel as if I have by now learned to understand everything publishers mean to tell me about a book, and perhaps a bit more. The sort of writing that attempts to persuade may be a valid or at least inevitable form, but it's not the best way to get at the truth, as I think lawyers would be the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. For example, people who apply to Y Combinator don't generally have much money, and yet would also work as a development machine? Originally the only way to communicate with the server was to ask for a new page. I run into difficulties, I find I conclude with a few vague questions and then drift off to get a cup of tea.

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back-and-totheleft · 4 years ago

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After the Fall

In Oliver Stone’s new film, World Trade Center, a rescue worker stands atop a pile of steaming rubble, planning his descent into the inferno below. “I need a medic up here,” he yells. “Anybody a medic?”

“I used to be a medic,” comes a voice from the darkness.

A tiny figure scrambles up the base of the hill like a large bug. As he passes into the light, we see that it’s Frank Whaley, an actor who got his start with appearances in Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors and JFK.

“My license lapsed,” the figure says. “I had a few bad years. But I’m good.”

Such is the legacy of Stone — a towering figure in modern film who always seems to be wrangling his own personal demons — that it is almost impossible not to read a scene like that autobiographically. A three-time Oscar winner as both writer (Midnight Express) and director (Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July), Stone has spent much of the past dozen years surrounded by controversy or chaos: His satirical tabloid blitzkrieg Natural Born Killers caused novelist John Grisham to accuse him of engendering real-life murders. Nixon, his oddly sympathetic portrait of the ex-president, eluded liberals and conservatives alike. The jumpy, kinetic editing style he employed in the day-for-noir U Turn and the pro-football pageant Any Given Sunday inspired longtime Stone critic Elvis Mitchell to label the latter “the world’s first ADD epic.”

Then the first of two HBO documentaries (Comandante) on Fidel Castro was shelved for being too sympathetic, while a subsequent portrait of Yasser Arafat (Persona Non Grata) saw Stone’s crew fleeing Ramallah four hours before the Israeli army attacked the Palestinian leader’s compound. (A third film, expected to profile either Kim Jong-Il or Saddam Hussein, was canceled.) He has been arrested twice — in 1999 and 2005 — for DUI and possession of marijuana, respectively. During an appearance at HBO’s “Making Movies That Matter” panel at Lincoln Center in October 2001, he allegedly made inflammatory remarks regarding the September 11 attacks, earning him scorn and ridicule in The New Yorker and elsewhere. Most painfully, when Stone, in 2004, finally realized his 20-year obsession to make Alexander, a sweeping history of Alexander the Great filmed on three continents, the film failed to find a domestic audience.

Now comes World Trade Center, a delicate, contained and extremely powerful evocation of our 2001 national trauma, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña as John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, New York City Port Authority cops who were miraculously excavated from beneath the glowing rubble of Building No. 7. In an odd way, it brings Stone’s career full circle: His first student film, Last Year in Viet Nam, made at NYU in 1970 (for film professor Martin Scorsese), opens with a panorama of southern Manhattan and what would have been the Twin Towers, except that they weren’t completed until January 1972. But in another respect, World Trade Center may be Stone’s most subversive film yet — a rousing, populist, patriotic adventure story that kicks the legs out from under the right-wing criticism marshaled against him. It could prove the ultimate irony that the bête noire of American conservatives — the man who profiled right-wing death squads in Salvador, My Lai–like atrocities in Platoon, hostile takeovers in Wall Street, the anti-war movement in Born on the Fourth of July and, most notably, the fecund proliferation of Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theories in JFK — may find his most enthusiastic audience among the very partisans who have heretofore decried his lifetime of work. As no less a cultural observer than Mel Gibson said of Stone in the 1997 thriller Conspiracy Theory, “He’s a disinformation junkie for them. The fact that he’s still alive says it all. He probably should be dead, but he’s not.”

In person, Stone has an infectious laugh, seems genuinely engaged and takes the full measure of my questions before answering, at which point his ideas often come so fast they seem to be skipping across the surface of the conversation. He’s also the most fun kind of intellectual, in that he perpetually appears to be trying to figure himself out. Briefly a classmate of George W. Bush’s at Yale, he seems — at least on the evidence of our wide-ranging, three-hour discussion — to have absorbed a good deal more of its freshman syllabus. We spoke at his West L.A. editing suite, where he is currently preparing a three-hour, 45-minute DVD-only “road show” version of Alexander, complete with intermission.

L.A. WEEKLY: Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?

OLIVER STONE: L.A. Asleep. My wife put the TV on.

And what did you think was happening?

It was sensational. It was exciting. It was horrifying. It reminded me in its barbarity and ferocity of the French Revolution — the tumbrels, heads falling. And I had feelings of anger in me, and vengeance. I had a fight with my son, actually, because he was much more objective about it: “How do you know? Don’t assume anything. You’re acting like the mob.” But there were other feelings as well. You know, I realize I’m an older person; I’ve seen Vietnam and a lot of death and shit. Oklahoma City was horrible. JFK’s assassination. Watergate. The 2000 election. We’ve been through our times of shit in this country, so this was another version.

World Trade Centeris very powerful — emotionally powerful. I had a very visceral reaction to it.I think it’s obviously the film, but it’s also more than the film — it’s the fact that the subject matter is so loaded. If you make a film about fire jumpers, and a fire jumper comes to see it, he’ll say, “Well, you got this part right, you got this part wrong.’?” With this film, we’re all fire jumpers. It’s also very different from a lot of your other films — it’s gentle and contained and quiet. I’m wondering if you had to devise a different approach because the subject matter was so delicate.

I just want to say first that the way I look at myself — it’s not necessarily in the result — but with every film, I really have made an effort to make each one an island unto itself in this little sea that we go around in our ships. And every island has been a destination, a stop for a period of time. I’ve tried to take a different style for every film, because it’s the story that comes first, and the subject dictates the style. Even with something like Natural Born Killers, which seems very stylistic and eccentric, it’s still the content that I think is valid and important. With this film, certain things presented themselves: Obviously, the sensitivities of everyone involved, but ultimately that’s the sky around the project. With JFK, for instance, there were his children to think of, Jackie was still alive, Teddy Kennedy. Blowing his head off in Dealey Plaza didn’t go down well with them either. But there was a bigger story to tell.

Here we were limited by movement, so we worked out a style by which, methodically, the film would go in and out of light: Light would fight with the dark, or rather, light would try to make it up to the dark. Claustrophobia is an issue with a film like this. I did Talk Radio, so I know that feeling of being on one set the whole time. Also, Born on the Fourth of July: That was a very contained movie, in a way, because we had a young man in a wheelchair in the second half, where there’s very little movement. When I read this script, I said, “How do we make this movie watchable? How do we make the tension manageable for a mainstream audience?��

It may surprise a lot of people that you’re not using a lot of shock cuts, moving around inside the frame — what you’ve termed your “cubist” style.

Well, where can you move in a hole? A hole is limited. Finding the right point of view in the hole is crucial.

You once said about Platoon?, “I felt like if I didn’t do it now, I’m going to forget.” We’re five years out from 9/11 now, and there is much public hand-wringing about whether it’s too soon yet to deal with this subject matter.

I think it’s a bogus question. The consequences of that day are far worse today. More people have died since then because of the war on terror. There’s more war, there’s more fear, and there is constitutional breakdown left and right. Have the good sense to go to the psychiatrist quickly. If you’ve been raped, talk to somebody about what that day itself was like before you build up all this armor.

You pursued this film, correct?

Yes. Petitioned. My agent, Bryan Lourd, a man of taste, said to me, “Look, I read this script two weeks ago — it stays with me, it’s emotional. I don’t know if it will make a dime, I don’t know if I can get it financed, but just read it.” So I read it, and I said, “My God, I never thought of this — to do 2001 this way.” I knew [World Trade Center producers] Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher. But no one would make it; Universal dropped it at the [proposed] budget. I was doing other things, I wasn’t stopping my life. But then it came back around. Paramount was just coming into being [under new management]. We were very lucky, because that new studio energy was coming in, and they wanted to make it so badly that it happened right away.

And did you talk with the producers about politics — if there would be a political viewpoint that informed the story?

There was no room for it, because John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno were not interested in politics, per se. They don’t talk about politics like you and I do. Their lives are not determined by it; they live according to what is given them. So it never entered into the equation. I loved the script [by Andrea Berloff] as it was. I loved the inspiration of the story. So I vowed to stay inside those parameters.

New York is probably the most liberal city in America, and yet the 9/11 attack has been so politicized, its imagery considered so proprietary, that right-wing skepticism has been mounting steadily against you since this project was announced. A story in The New York Times said the film is being strategically marketed to right-wing opinion leaders using the PR firm that advised the Swift Boat Veterans group. It even quoted the conservative National Review Web site as saying, “God Bless Oliver Stone.”

I knew [the studio] was doing grassroots marketing to everybody — Hispanics, cops, firemen, teachers, church groups. I didn’t know that they had hired a specific firm; I found out that day. I’m pleased they like it, because it goes beyond politics.

Could you foresee a left-wing backlash against the film?

If people on the right are responding with their hearts, I’m all for it. But if they’re making it into a political statement, it’s wrong. Those on the left might say, “Oh, this is a simplified context, and these are simplistic working-class values. You’re not showing a wider political context.” Or secondly, that we’re sentimentalizing the event — which would be unfair, because I think there’s a lot of grit there. But this is a populist film. We’ve said that from the beginning. In our hearts, it was a Frank Capra type of movie. And he didn’t necessarily get great notices.

In an odd way, I was reminded of Preston Sturges Hail the Conquering Hero — a wartime comedy that pokes fun at the notion of patriotism and, by extension, patriotic movies but which, by the end, almost subversively, fills you with this patriotic fervor. I’m wondering if you see this as your “Nixon in China” moment: Only the director of Nixon and JFK could get away with a film where the most heroic character is an ex-Marine who consults with his pastor before putting himself in harm’s way.

That character, Dave Karnes, is an unlikely hero. He goes to church — that’s a documented thing; he checks with his pastor in a born-again church before he goes down to Manhattan. He evaded the authorities. Get it done; that’s a Marine thing. I think you can argue that the Marine is an ambivalent character, because at the end of the movie, this sense of vengeance is what fuels the wrong war in Iraq.

But for him it’s the right war.

For him it’s the right war. That’s correct. I think if you really look at JFK or at Nixon, which are the two political films I did uncensored in my career — which is amazing unto itself — JFK is neither right nor left, and was attacked equally by the left, who did not like the Kennedy figure of 1963. It was done in the centrist tradition of American dissent: It questioned government and the authority of government. So I was taken aback that the right made such a big issue out of it. I suppose, because they were in office [when the film came out]. But they had never done that historically. They would have been on the side of the investigation; [Barry] Goldwater may well have been. JFK was not a bunch of fantasies strung together. It involved an enormous amount of research — as much as World Trade Center, if not more.

You could make the same argument about Nixon. You took the dominant political figure in our lifetime and gave him the Shakespearean treatment his life cried out for.

It was a psychological point of view. The right wing thought it was going to be a hatchet job; instead, it made him a human being. Unfortunately, in my career, I have spoken out between films, and that’s what’s gotten confused with the films themselves. I think the focus has been lost. Somewhere along the line, I guess, I said, “Look: I’m a filmmaker, but I’m also John Q. Citizen, and things piss me off. I have a right to say, if people ask me and they’re interested, what I fucking think.” And that’s the line I’ve always gotten in trouble with. It’s always between the films, if you look at the statements I’ve made. There’s nothing in the films themselves, as far as I know, that’s really offensive politically.

How much of the criticism against you do you think is organized for partisan political gain?

I’ve always wondered that — especially in the ’90s, after the JFK situation. You have to wonder: Will it come out one day in a government file? You hear about those programs from the ’50s and the ’60s. I was so grateful that Michael Moore came along. He helped me.

He seems to enjoy it. Maybe it’s the counterpart to how the left treats Charlton Heston.

Charlton Heston once said in an interview, “People like Oliver Stone would never hire me in the new Hollywood.” And I went out of my way on Any Given Sunday to hire him. I loved him. I said, “Forget politics, I love your character.” Political reputation pigeonholes you, and in a society that’s very busy, it’s an easy way to get rid of having to think too much about people and what they’re saying. I’m a dramatist; I’m a humanist. I protest.

There’s one line in World Trade Center — I think we hear it on a TV monitor in an office at the Port Authority — where the announcer says, “. . . the shock of the explosion that was coincidental with the two towers coming down,” and then you move on to something else. Was the suggestion that an unexplained explosion might have accompanied the towers’ demise the one seed of doubt you intentionally planted in an otherwise apolitical movie?

Well, I think that all reality is questionable, as you know. Frankly, I’m not an expert on that at all. And I haven’t pursued it, because I think the consequences of where we are now are far worse. But even if there was a conspiracy, it wouldn’t change where we are now. We’re into another place, where there’s more war, more terror, more bankruptcy, more debt, above all more constitutional breakdown and more fear than ever before. That’s very serious. And we’re on the edge of possibly something bigger and very dangerous. Richard Clarke’s book [Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror], at least, is about a true conspiracy that we know existed, of a small group who took over the government and did it their way — manipulated, created the war. It’s 30 or 40 people, right?

Sy Hersh says it’s 11 guys.

It was a conspiracy, and it was basically at the top. It’s Cheney and Rumsfeld influencing Bush. Cheney and Rumsfeld go back to the Ford administration, and when they got their way, they kicked butt. That’s a great story. But that’s not even all of it. When you’ve got a guy like Representative Pete Hoekstra from Michigan, who was a friend of the Bush administration — who had approved of the Patriot Act, the eavesdropping, the taxes, the bank records, all of it — saying in the press that there’s something worse that he’s pissed off about, because they hadn’t consulted him. Something worse? I mean, all the cards are not on the table, right? This is a big story. And we’re living it. How can you write about it? We’re fucking rocking in the boat. It’s like trying to write a great war novel when you might be going into World War II.

Were you at Yale the same time Bush was?

I was in the same class, yeah. I don’t remember him. I was never in a fraternity. I went twice — I dropped out one year and then went back for half of a second year and dropped out.

But at one point Bush requested to meet you, didn’t he?

Yeah, I met him. It was a political breakfast speech here in California at a club, the Republican right wing. They invited me — they’ve always had fun with me, I don’t know why — and it was a big hotel room and a speech about tough love and justice in Texas. He was governor then, around ’98 or so. I swear, I knew in that room on that day that he was going to be president. There was just no question. He had that confidence, and they adored him. There was an organized love for him. He asked for me to come up to the podium and we had a one-on-one. I was in the Bush spotlight — that thing where he stares at you and he gets to know you a little bit.

Assigns you a nickname.

There was one funny line. He knew I’d been in Vietnam. Actually, I didn’t know he’d been at Yale. He told me he’d been in my class; it was a surprise to me. But then he said he’d had a buddy who had been to Vietnam who’d been killed. “Buddy,” he said. It was funny — it was on his mind, he raised it. And it was the way he looked at me: I just felt like, boy, I bet you he’d rather his buddy had come home than me. But he was very friendly, very charming — a very sociable man.

Have you ever thought about going into politics — running for office? Would you consider doing that in a later part of your life?

Not seriously, no.

Orson Welles wrote a weekly political newspaper column during WWII — he was friends with FDR through Sumner Welles, a distant relative of his and a presidential adviser, and at one point he considered running for the Senate from California or his native Wisconsin.

Politics is about raising money and being popular and shaking a lot of hands and spending a lot of time with people. Those are not my strengths. It would be exhausting and would completely destroy my ability to do what I do.

You were pro-Vietnam before you enlisted in the infantry, right? You were fairly conservative?

Yes.

So we could say that you spent the entire 1960s across the political divide from most of what you’ve now come to stand for?

My story is complicated. I did write a novel about being 19 called A Child’s Night Dream. My parents divorced when I was 14, and being the only child, there was no family to go back to. Basically, going to Vietnam was really throwing myself to the wolves. It was a form of rebellion and suicide.

I’ve read a quote to the effect of “I felt like I had to atone for the act of imagination.” Was it actually the failure of the novel that sent you over the edge?

After I left Yale the second time and finished the novel — I was writing the novel instead of going to class, and that’s why I flunked out — my father was supporting me, and that’s an impossible situation: 19 years old, your father is furious at you for the tuition that he’s lost, and you’re living in his apartment trying to finish a novel. It’s like Jack Kerouac moving back home with his mother. But I really believed in it: I was insane with passion. It was the only thing I had. I had no woman friends in my life. I had nothing to support me beyond that. And when that failed, I went into the Army with the idea of “Let God sort it out, whoever I am.” It’s egregious to think that you can be on the level of Mailer or any of your heroes — Hemingway, or Joyce; I was into Joyce heavily at the time.

Part of the fun of watching someone like you working without a net, from a distance, is charting the rises and falls of your career. And sometimes there are films that don’t hit right, that suffer because of the moment or the context — the sky around it, as you put it. I’m thinking specifically of Nixon, which was a commercial failure, but seems to get more sophisticated every time I see it. Or, more recently, Alexander.

I’ve had three big setbacks, in terms of being completely dismissed: Heaven and Earth, Nixon — by many people, at least — and Alexander. On Alexander, it was just devastating, because in America and England, the numbers were so tough. It wasn’t just that people didn’t like it. It was ridiculed. It was destructive criticism. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world we were connecting, we were among the top 20 films of that year in the foreign market. We did better than four of the five Oscar nominees abroad. It was well respected.

Why didn’t Alexander connect? Do we agree that it didn’t connect with English-speaking audiences?

I like the director’s cut better than the first version, because I had more time to prepare it. And the structure is different. It wasn’t because of the homosexuality — that’s a red herring. The mother’s back story and father’s back story, which are really essential, don’t come in until later. We’re doing a third, expanded version now — we’re going all out. This is not for theatrical; it’s for the people who love the film who want to see more of it. It’s the Cecil B. De Mille treatment — three hours and 45 minutes. What I’m doing is going back and showing the whole thing in its sumptuousness, really going with the concept that it had to be an old-fashioned movie, with an intermission, like a road show. Be a showman, instead of trying to be a responsible filmmaker. Go all out on this one. This is my Apocalypse Now, my De Mille epic. [The first time] I was trying to step up to the plate, so to speak. I should have pulled it back, taken an extra year like Marty did with Gangs of New York. But it would have cost a lot of money.

In Oliver Stone’s America, the documentary included with the DVD box set of your films, you say, “I’ve always admired Alexander because of the momentum and the speed with which he traveled and conquered. In my small metaphoric way, I would say the countries were films, and I moved through them like him . . . he’s striking everywhere. I think it was great. We had a great run. But it’s definitely a new phase.” Is Alexander the figure you most closely identify with?

I am a Method director to a certain degree. I do become part of what I shoot. And I think with Alexander, the perception is of hubris, certainly — “Alexander the Great? Who the fuck is he? He thinks he’s Alexander.” I could see that coming. But I always knew who Oliver Stone was. I never lost track of that. And I made the film humbly, in 94 fucking days on three continents. I ran the crew like I always run the crew. Nothing changed in my habits. I walked in the deserts, we shot in a sandstorm once, and it was the same old Oliver who did Salvador. Hubris is taking 110 days on some stupid comedy. That’s an insult to filmmaking the way I was raised. I’m sticking to NYU principles, and I still do to this day. Movies are a tradition; we didn’t invent it — we take it from somebody else and pass it on.

But with Alexander, you faced a challenge like you’ve never faced before, because no matter how bruising the attacks on JFK and Nixon, your core audience was always still with you. For whatever reason, Alexander failed to connect with an audience.

Yeah. In America.

In America. I don't wish to judge it; this is an empirical observation.

No, it didn't connect. Alexander is the high point of my life, and it always will be. I’m not asking for universal love on that; it’s just impossible. It’s not paced to the American style, nor is he a conventional hero. He’s filled with doubts. But Alexander is a beautiful story, and I think I did him well. I mean, I wouldn’t have released it [otherwise]. But I can’t give up; I would never give up. I would be all wrong in my assessments of myself as I work. You have to hear your own self, follow your own drama, or whatever Thoreau said long ago at Walden Pond. [“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”] Alexander was a huge setback for me, and it certainly hurt me in this business. But you have to understand that people have been saying bad things about me for years. I don’t listen; I have to try to keep going.

I don’t want to make specious connections, but you’ve had several high-profile drug arrests in the last few years. Before that, you were making supernihilist films in an edgy, frenetic style. I'm wondering if these are all moving parts of the same phenomenon.

I’ve smoked dope and drunk alcohol most of my life, okay? Getting pulled over and arrested is a fault, it’s a mistake — a wake-up call. I did get busted a couple of times. One was at a roadblock, so it’s not like I was endangering anybody’s life. The other time, I got pulled over by a civilian cop; I was actually busted for driving too slow. And when the tests came back, I was below the intoxication level. Nobody knows that, because it never got published that way. I should get a chauffeur is what I fucking should do. [Laughs.]

But nobody cares if you smoke pot. They care if it affects the work, if it’s part of a larger problem.

Okay, but I don’t feel bad. I got heavier, physically, at certain points, and I think that gives the appearance of degradation, like Jim Morrison. But I did have a pre-diabetic condition through my mother, and I was on too much sugar. Any Given Sunday, I love that movie, but it was more effort than you think — it was like a three-ring circus, to make five football games in five stadiums work. It took so much energy. There were some problems with the crew on that film. So by the end of that movie, my doctor said I was too stressed, and at my age it was dangerous. There were some issues of medications and stuff, no question about it. But sports people love that movie. With Alexander, there’s a fan site where there are people who have seen it 50 times. They go to the sites in Macedon. They love the romanticism of it. So it’s confusing to me. I’ve tried every fucking time to get it right, even if I haven’t been in my best physical shape. I will get it right. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but I’m going to get it right.

With World Trade Center, it's your first time to deal with studio financing in a decade; you look better, healthier. Has your life changed? Is this a new start?

Your story is a journalistic narrative, and it’s a good one, about Oliver coming back after Alexander, and how there’s a change in his life. And I’ve somewhat agreed with it, but I’ve also pointed out that my methods have stayed the same. But it is about your storyline, in a way — about life. If you go to film school, and you think about your career traditionally, you arc up, in the sense that your budgets get bigger, the stars, whatever. There’s a nice arc to a man’s life. You make your better films later — it’s horrible if you’re Orson Welles, if you make your best film first. And Alexander was a chance to do something on another level entirely. So I reached a peak of ambition. And the ambition was perhaps not matched by my execution, although there are points in the execution that do match the ambition, I think. So then it died a metaphoric death. Point of view died with it, as it died when Heaven and Earth came out. That [movie] was a very sensitive side of myself that I loved — it was tender, and the woman was tender. And it was ridiculed and killed, and part of me, you know . . . those feelings were hurt and eradicated for a while. Same thing with Nixon. You want to get rid of the person after you finish. You want to go back to being who you are, but you’re no longer the same person, because your journey has changed.

And part of me did die [with Alexander] — that part that was enamored of “my very important storyline,” end of quote. Me being the storyline. I played it out. I did all my biographical figures. I have no need to be John or Will. I had a need to be Ron Kovic. I had a need to be Alexander. I had a need to be Nixon and Morrison and Garrison. That’s the change. So now I can be myself, maybe. I can be more authentic to myself. I think there was an attraction to go from the past into the contemporary world in its most hellish moment. It’s like I dropped out and I couldn’t get back in, until by going back to 2001, I could come back into this era. I feel liberated, in the sense that, not that it would be next, but I feel I could do a movie about those next five years. Not that I think it’s complete yet — I think there’s a lot going on that we don’t know about in the government. But I think there’s something in the air. I smell it, and I feel fresh again, having done something — my new, 24-hour, humble microcosm of that day. Wherever I go with World Trade Center, it’s going to spin off to wherever I go next.

-Paul Cullum, “After the Fall,” LA Weekly, Aug 9 2006 [x]

#oliver stone #la weekly #World Trade Center #alexander #arrests #dui #drugs #September 11 #politics

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crowdvscritic · 4 years ago

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round up // JULY 20

New music is saving 2020! This is one of my most music-and-musical-heavy Round Ups yet, not even counting the Beverly Hills Cop theme I’ve been whistling and dancing to around my apartment this week. (Don’t judge—you’ll do it to if you watch any of those movies.) And speaking of movies, I’ve got three new movies from 2020 to recommend! When theatres reopen I might go every week even if there’s nothing I’m excited to see, but I’m thankful for VOD movies to tide me over in the meantime.

July Crowd-Pleasers

This Twitter Thread

I’ve laughed out loud so many times I don’t care if this thread is made up. An anonymous Frenchman is documenting the “adventures” of a British family with a vacation home next door and no clue what Brexit actually means. This journey is a sardonic roller coaster, but I appreciate this tweeter isn’t devoid of empathy.

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

An insanely satisfying legal thriller that will have you shouting at your TV. Matthew McConaughey is a hot shot lawyer who doesn’t care if his clients are guilty, but he starts to reconsider that position with his newest (Ryan Philippe). What seems like a cut-and-dry defense of a man wrongfully accused escalates into so much more. I’ll stay scant on the details so the twists can surprise you as much as they did me. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Summer Jams

2020 has gotten, um, a bad reputation, but I’d like to give it a shout-out for one of the best years of summer pop music in a long time. The last time I remember jamming to this many songs on the radio was 2013, the summer of “Mirrors,” “Get Lucky,” “Roar,” and “I Love It.” Thanks to Harry Styles, Lady Gaga, the Jonas Brothers, and Doja Cat, I keep flipping through radio stations looking for the next new song that will make me bop. Enjoy a round up of my favorite summer songs of 2020 so far on Spotify above.

Focus (2015)

As noted last month, I love when a heist movie can pull a fast one on me. Focus may not be a creative height of either Will Smith’s or Margot Robbie’s careers, but it’s a romantic and funny story of two con artists with just enough plot twists to keep me guessing. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10

Love Crazy (1941)

William Powell and Myrna Loy appeared in 14 movies together, and their chemistry in this zany romantic comedy shows us why. The premise starts with their married characters planning an eccentric anniversary celebration, but somehow it escalates to a legal declaration of his insanity. (Unlike My Man Godfrey, Powell is the comic instead of the straight man this time.) While how we talk about mental health has changed much in the last 80 years, this comedy is so screwball it can’t be taken seriously as commentary. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star in a musical light on songs but huge on charm, laughs, and diamonds. In a perfect world, we would have gotten more musicals directed by Howard Hawks, but if we could only have one, this is proof we’re not living in the darkest timeline. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Double Feature — Very Silly Spoofs: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) + The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

I’m very late to both of the parties for Monty Python (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) and The Naked Gun (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), so all I need to say about these absurd comedies is the hype didn’t ruin them for me.

Fast & Furious (2009)

In a strange turn of events, I finally succumbed to watching all Fast and Furious flicks. (Blame it on quarantine.) While my favorite remains the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw (maybe because it’s so unlike a normal movie in this franchise, sorry), the fourth movie is another highlight. It features one of the best character team-ups before the stunts become hilariously unrealistic and acknowledges some of the moral complexities of the plot, which is surprisingly uncharacteristic for a movie series about, um, criminals. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

Double Feature — Action Crime Movies Based on True Stories in the ‘70s: Donnie Brasco (1997) + The Bank Job (2008)

In, Donnie Brasco (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), Johnny Depp is an FBI agent undercover in the Mob, keeping an eye on Al Pacino. In The Bank Job (Crowd: 8.5 // Critic: 7.5/10), Jason Statham is caught up in an MI6 plot to save political face by breaking into a London bank. Both are tense, twisty, and somehow true.

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Jim Gaffigan: Cinco (2017)

While he’s best known for jokes about food, I’ll always appreciate how his self-deprecating jokes are never really just about his appearance or his many children, though he’s funny enough he could get away with that.

Covers by Switchfoot (2020)

Harry Styles! Vampire Weekend! My music tastes past and present collide in this album of bops Switchfoot covered this year.

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)

This is really just a plug to watch all three Beverly Hills Cop movies for Eddie Murphy at his funniest, Judge Reinhold at his most underrated, and a score so catchy you’ll be dancing to it for days. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

July Critic Picks

Hamilton (2020)

Who knew? Listening to the Hamilton soundtrack is not the same as watching it in the room where it happens. I reviewed the filmed production with the original cast for ZekeFilm, which was a treat since my May theatre tickets were cancelled. At least we’re not dealing with formal duels in 2020! Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 10/10

Double Feature — Journalism Films Based on True Stories in the ‘70s: All the President’s Men (1976) + Zodiac (2007)

Maybe it’s just because I have a degree in Journalism, but I appreciate a story about a good story. In All the President’s Men (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10), Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are digging into the Watergate scandal at The Washington Post even when no one else thinks there’s anything to investigate. On the opposite coast in Zodiac (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10), Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. are hunting the Zodiac Killer at the San Francisco Chronicle with the help of police officer Mark Ruffalo. This double feature focuses on reporters so committed to their work it comes at personal cost, but it highlights the need for people who are that committed to the truth to make our society function.

Greyhound (2020)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a studio in possession of a good World War II script must be in want of Tom Hanks, and we can always feel the warmest gratitude for any means of uniting them. I reviewed the film Hanks wrote himself for ZekeFilm. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

Dark Waters (2019)

Mark Ruffalo plays a real-life lawyer who helped investigate DuPont and change legislation on chemicals. A different kind of legal thriller than The Lincoln Lawyer, but yet another movie confirming Mark Ruffalo is a treasure. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

These Pieces on How We Interact With Media

I’m a believer in good journalism (see above), so I appreciate when writers do some self-examination on their own craft. I’ve been on an Instagram break the last few months because it’s been contributing to an anxiety spiral re: world events. It’s easy to talk in hyperbole, to complain, and to dehumanize others on the Internet, and I know I’m guilty of all three, so kudos to these writers for speaking on them.

“The Power of Media and Misinformation in the Age of Coronavirus,” DarlingMagazine.org (April 20)

“My Big Old Rant,” SeanDietrich.com (July 10)

“Kanye West and the Media Are Once Again Playing a Dangerous Game,” Vulture.com (July 13)

Brightest Blue by Ellie Goulding (2020)

You might know Ellie for her electro-pop hits, but I’ve always preferred her ballads that let her unique vocals shine. Brightest Blue is another collection of both styles, and it’s another strong outing from one of my favorite singers.

West Side Story by Richard Barrios (2020)

The making of West Side Story is a classic collision between art and commerce. This new Turner Classic Movies book details the many conflicts between the creative team, cast, and financiers to make one of the most beloved musicals and most Oscar-winning films in history, and you might be surprised it made it to the screen at all after reading it.

The Vast of Night (2020)

The Twilight Zone-esque movie is all about some weird happenings over the airwaves in a small town. Two high school students, one a nighttime radio host and the other a phone operator, team up to investigate a mysterious noise they’re hearing. The filmmaking is unconventional but gripping, and the story has major Stranger Things vibes, which is only helped by the fact that one of the stars looks a lot like Sadie Sink. (FYI, her name is actually Sierra McCormick.) Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

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folklore by Taylor Swift (2020)

It’s tricky to put into words what new music from Taylor Swift means to me because her words have been part of my life for over a decade and I admire what she shares of her creative process so much. Her unexpected eighth album is nothing like Lover—instead it’s a sonic and poetic continuation of songs and themes from Fearless and RED, her two most sock-me-in-the-gut-and-how-did-you-get-a-hold-of-my-journal collections. Just 11 months ago she released an album I said was her best yet, but I’m saying it again and even faster than last time.

Bonus: Enjoy this piece about the inspiration for her song “Last Great American Dynasty” from St. Louis Magazine.

Westworld (1973)

Before Jurassic Park, Michael Chrichton wrote and directed another sci-fi adventure set at a theme park with a Hunger Games flair. Here we go to a Western-themed resort where almost-human robots serve patrons’ every whim—that is, until they start rewriting their programming. At least we aren’t dealing with homicidal robot cowboys in 2020! Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9/10

Also in July…

I wrote a tribute to Olivia de Havilland after her passing at 104. She’s best known as Melanie in Gone With the Wind, but I’ll argue that’s not the best showcase of her talent.

The Best Picture Project continues with Clark Gable! He starred in 1934’s It Happened One Night and 1935’s Mutiny on the Bounty, but I’m only recommending one of them for your viewing pleasure. You can scroll a little further back or read the reviews here:

It Happened One Night – Crowd // Critic

Mutiny on the Bounty – Crowd // Critic

On SO IT’S A SHOW?, our pop culture references spanned 250 years with 1976’s Rocky and the 1726 novel Gulliver’s Travels. We found a crazy number of connections between Gilmore Girls actor Milo Ventimiglia and Sylvester Stallone, and we figured out what the hey the word “brobdingnagian” means.

You can keep up with everything I’m watching in real time on Letterboxd, where I’ve rounded up my favorite journalism films, including All the President’s Men, It Happened One Night, and Zodiac.

Images: Switchfoot, Media, Ellie Goulding, West Side Story. all others IMDb.com.

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