#whose relationships do look like a drunk spiders web

[buttherainbowhasabeard]

Promising Young Woman (2021)

*contains spoilers*

Revenge is a dish best served stone-cold sober…

Delightful and dimpled British star Carey Mulligan has had a successful career to date, playing alongside leading men such as Leonardo DiCaprio (‘The Great Gatsby’), Ryan Gosling (‘Drive’) and Michael Fassbender (‘Shame’). Despite not always being centre stage, many of Mulligan’s film choices have been eclectic in terms of genre, and it seems this winning combination of offbeat and orthodox have all led to her explosive lead role in the indie assault on the senses that is ‘Promising Young Woman’.

Carey is Cassandra Thomas, a 30-year-old whose promising career as a doctor went into a tailspin when she dropped out of medical school following the rape of her best friend Nina Fisher at the rough hands of their classmates. It’s implied that Nina – overwhelmed by what happened to her and the lack of support or investigative interference – committed suicide, and in the years since, Cassie has dedicated her life to avenging her friend’s death. Rather than continuing to try to take the claims up with police, Cassie turns unconventional vigilante and offers herself up as hot-mess boy bait, spending her nights fake falling-down drunk in bars and clubs to see and document how many men attempt to take advantage of her. Going so far – arguably stupidly so – as to let them take her home, Cassie abruptly reveals her sobriety to shock them into acknowledging and lamenting their predatory behaviour.

These scenes in particular are deliciously satisfying – that moment the self-proclaimed “nice guy” realises his unwilling date is more than aware of her surroundings and is going to confront him about them. The genius of these moments is in the power of Mulligan’s swift and drastic transformations. She doesn’t need to threaten or produce a weapon to take control, her stark sobriety is enough.

Making her feature filmmaking debut, director Emerald Fennell has had her fair share of femme fatale experience as head writer on Season 2 of TV’s addictive ‘Killing Eve’. Her love of strong, clever but chaotic women are all bundled into one with the creation of Cassie. She’s a Villanelle-esque sexy sociopath with a skewed moral compass, complimented by a noughties heavy soundtrack featuring a screechy orchestral remix of Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’, a rom-com inspired routine to Paris Hilton’s ‘Stars Are Blind’, and DeathbyRomy’s cover of the Weather Girls’ ‘It’s Raining Men’.

‘Promising Young Woman’ could just as easily be called Privileged Young Men. With a narrative that draws on #MeToo, toxic masculinity and on campus rape culture and rituals, this is a film that is unapologetic about its subject matter and in your face about its opinions on it. There are not-so-subtle traces of trends that are played out in real life today, like dismissing women’s allegations to protect men’s reputations. Whilst Nina’s life was destroyed and her credibility doubted, male peers like perpetrator Al Monroe (Chris Lowell) and his sleazy friend Joe (Max Greenfield) were given glowing references, advanced to the top of their fields and became popular pillars of their communities, industries and social circles.

Although predictable for me, the eventual reveal of the one good man from Cassie’s past being complicit in Nina’s rape (her happy-to-take-it-slow boyfriend Ryan played by a charmingly goofy Bo Burnham), is a gasp out loud moment. Her world is once again shattered beyond repair when she realises the relationship that has made her happy for the first time in a long time was built on a lie (or to give him the benefit of the doubt, a very bad mistake). He is the first man she felt she could trust, be herself around, and fall in love with, but she discovers that underneath he was at worst, another one of the guys, and at best, an indefensible bystander.

You’d be forgiven for thinking ‘Promising Young Woman’ is all anti-men. Everything about it - on the surface and in the trailer - screams angry, bra burning feminist. However, it’s more nuanced than that and takes more of an anti-bad men, anti-bad women and anti-bad behaviour stance, as many of the movie’s female characters also have to confront the fact that their refusal or disinterest to speak up and call out abuse has enabled criminal conduct to set in, rot and spread. Cassie - an anti-hero herself - holds a grubby mirror up to the faces of the women from her college days with varying degrees of cunning and callousness, from feigning the abduction and pimping out of the University Dean Elizabeth Walker’s daughter, to tricking an inebriated former classmate (Alison Brie) into thinking she was unfaithful, or worse, sexually assaulted, in a hotel room.

Cassie’s methods are extreme and quite frankly mad, but her motives are steeped in an obsessive desire to do right by her friend and seek justice whatever the cost (the latter playing out in tragic but successful fashion in the finale). She is an intentionally entangled fly, luring spiders of all shapes and sizes to the centre of the web, daring them to do their worst. Most times she is well prepared, and even when it seems like she’s bitten off more than she can chew, another dose of vigorous vengeance is plunged in (even if it has to be done posthumously!)

Physically too, she’s a calculating chameleon. From pigtails, flowery blouses and flats for a girl-next-door look, to blow-job blotted lips, tight dresses and skyscraper stilettos to give off a late-night pick-up vibe, every element of her outfit is deliberate and devious. Dressed up in a wig the colour of a Rainbow Paddle Pop and sexy stripper nurse outfit in the film’s final act, Cassie is the literal sexual objectification of the promising young medical practitioner she could have been. Instead, she’s a practitioner of pain, turning Monroe’s bachelor party into her plastered patients.

Handcuffing Al to the bed upstairs, it looks like she’s reeled in her biggest fish to date. “It's every man's worst nightmare, getting accused of something like that,” Al cries, to which a deadpan Cassie replies “can guess what every woman's worst nightmare is?” But soon the tables turn when he breaks free, overpowers her and smothers her to death with a pillow. It’s a brutal and distressingly drawn-out scene, and it takes a while before it hits you that she really is dead and this is where her sad story ends. Joe and Al burn her body. It’s all over. Or so you think.

We cut to Al’s wedding, and as Juice Newton’s ‘Angel of the Morning’ plays, Ryan begins to receive scheduled texts from Cassie, taunting him from beyond the grave with a juicy contingency plan. Using Al’s ex-attorney Jordan Green (Alfred Molina) and his regret and grief over representing the wrong party to her advantage, Cassie had sent him incriminating evidence about Nina’s assault and her own demise in advance. “You didn't think this was the end, did you? It is now” the first texts read, as police sirens wail and officers emerge from the woods to arrest Al for murder. “Enjoy the wedding! Love, Cassie & Nina” the final messages say, followed by a perfectly placed winky face emoticon as Fletcher’s ‘Last Laugh’ cues the end credits. It’s a gratifying water cooler moment, bona fide badass yet bittersweet, but you’re still left wondering if it was all worth it.

‘Promising Young Woman’ could be cut from the same tortured heroine cloth as ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, ‘Kill Bill’ and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, with Nina and Cassie’s friendship rivalling ‘Thelma & Louise’. It covers a lot of taboo territories and topics, from slut shaming to consent and coercion, and evokes the harrowing Margaret Atwood quote “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them”.

‘Promising Young Woman’ is not for the faint hearted, and anyone who fears the film may be triggering should stay well clear. It’s not always easy viewing and it’s not always fair, however it’s more than just a pitch-black comedy or clear-cut tale of rape-revenge. It’s a brave, bold and original satire with bite and brains.

4/5 stars.

[venetum]

Monachopsis - one

read on ao3a peter parker x harley keener fanfic

read on ao3

Peter was in the middle of his weekly Skype calls with Ned when Tony called him. Things had been a little bit difficult for the two boys since they’d gone their separate ways for college, with Peter deciding to stay in New York and go to Columbia in order to continue to be Spider-Man while Ned accepted his offer from MIT. But they’d persevered—setting up a time for at least one Skype call every week and texting back and forth as much as their busy schedules would allow them—and their relationship remained as strong as ever even three years later.

To be completely honest, Peter’s relationships with his friends from high school hadn’t really been affected by their moves to college, nor by the distance. If anything, it was the friend who lived closest to him that Peter had somehow lost. Peter Parker and Harley Keener Stark had been attached at the hip almost as soon as Tony had introduced Peter to his son, a few months after Tony had first approached Peter about Spider-Man. With Harley only a year older than him and enrolled at his school, the boys had gotten along even better than Tony had initially hoped they would. Well, until Harley left for university, that is. He’d chosen to remain in the city, but had vehemently denied Pepper and Tony’s offer for him to continue living at the tower, insisting on living in his own apartment by the university instead. That was when things had started going downhill for the two of them, with Harley absorbed so completely in the attention he was getting at college that he was too busy to even give Peter a second thought.

Not that Peter still cared about him. He’d had plenty of time in the past three years to rid himself of any feelings he’d once harboured for the blue-eyed boy. Platonic or otherwise.

So there Peter sat, fiddling with the latest version of his web-shooters at his desk as Ned rambled on about the project he was currently working on, blissfully unaware of the storm that was about to wreak havoc on his entire life.

And then his phone rang.

“Sorry, Ned, hold on one second,” Peter told his best friend, already reaching out to grab his phone as Tony’s own unique ringtone filled the room.

Ned only nodded, having been around Peter long enough to recognise who was calling.

“Hey, Tony! Everything okay?” Peter answered the call.

“Do I need a reason to call my favourite son?” Tony wondered, sounding mildly offended.

Peter rolled his eyes, laughing. “No, I suppose you don’t. So, how was the meeting with the board? They give you the go-ahead to finally retire, old man?”

“Something like that,” Tony sighed. “That’s actually what I’m calling about. Can you drop by the tower in an hour?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll see you there.”

“See you, Pete.”

Peter hung up and bit his lip, wondering what exactly the board had done this time to put his mentor in such a strange mood.

“Everything okay?” Ned’s voice filtered through the speakers of Peter’s laptop, drawing his attention back to his best friend.

Peter shook his head, “Yeah, everything’s fine. So tell me more about this code you’re writing.”

_____

Harley blinked blearily up at his parents, wondering idly if he had drunk enough the night before to be currently hallucinating to the extent he was sure he was.

“I’m sorry, you want me to what?”

“Date Peter Parker.” His father—Tony—helpfully supplied.

“Absolutely not.” Harley snapped, folding his arms over his chest in defiance.

He saw his mother’s lips twitch up into a small smile, surely reminiscent of the many tantrums Harley had thrown that had left him sitting in this exact position.

“Harley,” Pepper began gently, taking a seat next to her son. “We need you to listen to us right now. The board does not want you to take over from us once we retire, partially because they think you’re too young and partially because of your reputation in the press. They don’t want to have to deal with a CEO whose messes they’ll constantly have to clean up and honestly? Your father and I agree.”

Harley rolled his eyes, his gaze flickering between his parents.

“I don’t see what any of this has to do with me dating Peter. Besides, Tony did way worse when he was my age.”

“Do not compare yourself to me, Harley.” Tony snapped, “You were meant to be better than that. Better than me. And we both know the board won’t take this shit from you because they took enough of it from me. Peter, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything the board would object to at all. He deserves better than having to be dragged into this mess, but we don’t really have many options so I suggest you get your act together before Peter gets here and listen to us, or you’re going to have to kiss this legacy goodbye!”

Harley’s hands curled into fists at his sides, the blood rising to his face as Tony completed his rant. Of course, he fumed, of course Peter’s pristine reputation will be swooping in to save the day.

“Why don’t you just make Peter your precious CEO then?” Harley retorted, ignoring the dull pain that had begun to throb in his chest at the thought that his parents might actually prefer the younger boy to him. God, he needed a drink.

“He doesn’t want the job, Harley.” Pepper sighed. “You and I both know you’d be perfect for the job if you tried. So, if this is what you want then that’s exactly what we need you to do—try.”

“He despises me,” Harley pointed out in a last-ditch attempt to stop the ridiculous plan his parents had come up with to please the board. “And even if he didn’t, I don’t date.”

“We’re not asking you to fall in love with him, Harley.” Pepper laid a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Just… pretend for a few months, okay? Go on public dates, be seen holding hands by the press, do whatever you need to do to convince the media and the board that you’re turning over a new leaf and maturing enough that they can trust you to lead a company.”

“This is ridiculous.” Harley pointed out once more. But as ridiculous as the plan was, following in his mother’s footsteps and inheriting the company from his parents had been his dream since he was thirteen years old and had moved in with the pair. He would do it, for them. For the dreams he used to have. “Has Peter even agreed to this yet?”

Tony smiled triumphantly, knowing they had worn him down. “He should be here any minute now, we figured it would probably be best to run things by you first and get any drama out of the way before he gets here.”

Harley ran a hand through his hair, the urge to walk over to the bottles on the other end of the room and pour himself a drink intensifying at the thought of having to face Peter Parker again in such a close setting. “Great.”

“So, you’ll do it?” Pepper raised her eyebrows, wanting to get a clear answer out of her son before Peter arrived.

“If he agrees, sure. Why the hell not?” Harley shrugged, trying his best to appear nonchalant. After all, what were the odds that Parker would actually agree to fake-date him, anyway?

Well, it turned out that the answer to Harley’s question was way higher than he’d anticipated.

______

Peter sat silently across from Tony and Pepper as they explained their situation with the board to him, forcing his gaze to remain on the couple instead of allowing it to drift to where it actually wanted to go—to observe the slightly rumpled boy who was the main reason Peter had to be at the tower today.

“Sure,” Peter finally responded, a few moments after the two had stopped talking. “I know how important it is to the two of you to leave S.I. in good hands, and you’ve been planning your retirement for years. I’m down to help in any way I can.”

The boy sat next to him scoffed quietly at his comment, cursing under his breath and shuffling in his seat so that he too was facing his parents. Pepper beamed at Peter, her smile closely mirroring the one plastered on Tony’s face once the pair realised that Peter was, in fact, serious.

“Alright, then. Let’s work out some of the specifics, first.” Pepper pulled her StarkPad over to her and began typing. “We’ll want the two of you to start as soon as possible, of course, so that you have enough time to make the relationship look serious before the break-up.”

Peter simply nodded, his mind still reeling at the fact that this was actually happening. He was going to date Harley. Harley who he hadn’t spoken to properly in three years, Harley who had been the person Peter relied on most in the world, until suddenly, he wasn’t anymore. He wondered idly if maybe he should’ve taken some time to actually think about this decision first.

But, no. He knew Pepper and Tony would only be asking this of him if they had no other options left. This was the right thing to do. He just hoped that his heart would survive the process.

“When exactly will that be? The break-up, I mean.” Harley finally spoke up from next to him, breaking Peter out of his thoughts.

“Around when you graduate, probably. Preferably after the board offers you the job.” Pepper responded, the pace of her keystrokes increasing as she jotted down her thoughts.

“Which gives you approximately nine months to prove to press that you’re madly in love.” Tony provided rather helpfully. “Piece of cake.”

“So you say,” Harley huffed.

Peter resisted the urge to sigh. He could already tell that he was in for the longest three months of his life.

“Alright, so we should probably go over some basic rules while we’re all here. Firstly no one outside of this family can know that the two of you aren’t actually together.” Pepper began. Peter opened his mouth to interject, only to be cut off by Tony.

“Yes, that includes Ned and MJ, Peter.”

“Secondly, we need the two of you to not be involved with anybody else during the course of this relationship because we absolutely cannot risk providing the tabloids with an even bigger scandal.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” Harley exclaimed. “You might as well send me away to be a fucking monk while you’re at it.”

Tony snorted, “Cut the shit, kid. Not fucking around for nine months isn’t going to kill you.”

Peter’s glancer flickered between his mentor and Harley, his enhanced hearing allowing him to notice the increase in Harley’s heartbeat at the comment, his anger and embarrassment coming off of him in waves.

“Is there anything else?” Peter asked Pepper, desperately trying to redirect the conversation before Harley exploded.

“Not that I can think of at the moment. Just make sure to keep your public appearances constant and keep your social media accounts updated. I’ll let you know if we remember anything else.” Peter nodded, rising from his seat on the couch with Harley. The two boys made their way towards the door, Peter wanting desperately to escape before the situation got any more awkward.

“And, Pete?” Tony called to him just as he was leaving. Peter turned back to look at his mentor. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, Tony.” Peter smiled at him, giving him a quick thumbs-up before he left the study.

The two exited the room in silence, making their way to the elevator that would take them down to their respective modes of transport.

“So…” Peter began, shoving his hand through his hair as he tried to figure out what to say. “That was something.”

Harley grunted in response, keeping his eyes trained on the closed elevator doors. Stifling a sigh, Peter cursed the elevators at Stark Tower for taking what felt like eons to come get them when they were usually as prompt as ever.

“Look Parker, we don’t need to act like we like each other when there isn’t anyone else around. I’m doing this for Pepper and Tony, and for the company, and you’re doing this because Tony could ask you to jump off a bridge and you do that blindly.” Harley scoffed, “Let’s just get through these nine months and not kill each other, yeah?”

Peter narrowed his eyes at Harley, his heart aching slightly at how alien the man before him now was compared to the teenager he once knew.

“There was a time when you felt the same way about Tony,” Peter commented idly, breathing a sigh of relief as the elevator doors slid open.

“Don’t ever doubt my loyalty to this family,” Harley snapped at him, practically stomping into the elevator. “Don’t act like you know me, Parker. You don’t. Not anymore.”

Peter took a step back, not quite knowing how to respond. The elevator doors slid shut, sealing Harley inside. Peter sighed. Harley was right, after all. Peter certainly didn’t know the man that Harley had turned into, but he was beginning to doubt whether he’d ever really known Harley at all.

(A/N: Let me know your thoughts on this chapter!! And shoot me a message to be added to the taglist for this fic. I know its been aaages since I posted but I have more time, and I intend to finish this for sure.)

Tags: @livinglife1516​  @philipshaaayyyy​  @maywildflowers​ @carttorchdeatth​  @parkneroses​ @mauverawrites​ 

[triggerwarningrpg]

LALLIE is 33 years old and is portrayed by NATALIE DORMER. She is currently TAKEN.

Designation: criminal

Occupation: Santino's PA; order carrier/do-all; manager at The Pit

KEY FACTS

With a fairly high position within the organization, Lallie knows who The Big Five are, and passes their orders forward to the other members. She serves as an in-between and sometimes meets people in the name of Santino when needed.

Charismatic and full of schemes, it's hard not to like her. She knows what to say and who to say it to. The reason she is where she is, is because she can make her way inside and through just about anyone's mind. Also, she's not too proud to kiss ass if she has to.

Comes with iron fists. If you think you saw a blonde woman getting into a bar fight last Friday night— yes, it was her. Half because she enjoys it, half because someone was being a dick.

Works at The Pit, setting up fights, taking bets, kicking an asshole or two out when needed. That is of course the perfect job, since it puts her always close to Santino, and always close to all the fighting.

Drinks far too much for her liver to still be functioning properly.

BIOGRAPHY

For the way she looked – pale, and dark, and just messy –, she’d always done well in school, because doing well was much more a matter of pride than of actually wanting to learn anything. She would be the one with the best grades, but also the one picking up fights in the corridors and pointing fingers at other people when asked whose fault it was, and making deals with students older than her after class. She’d been a liar and a mercenary from the start.  

She’d also been a drunk, but that came later. Say, seventeen. That was also around the time she realized certain things are only illegal if someone finds out. For Lallie, her morals never came between what she wanted, and what she had to do to get it. It must have been this, then, that made her shift to crime so smooth.

Although she got her first taste at it whilst still in Liverpool, it was in London that she got to know more about it. She’d moved to study law, as funny and ironic as it may seem. That’s where it begins: the money. The debts. With no degree yet to show or it and no qualification other than her drive and ambition, it was the illegal route she took, weaving her way through any connections thrown at her. If you ask her, it wasn’t hard. In no time Lallie had deliveries to make, men she had to talk in or out of deals, places to be far too late at night. At first, she was doing it for a fridge full. Then, she was doing it for her studies. Then, she was doing it for just herself. She knew that when she first fired a gun. Now, she’d always been violent— the type to pick fights at bars and throw punches if wronged. But when someone asks you to kill someone for them— you don’t do it with your fists.

She ascended quickly among her gang, earning the trust of whoever it was needed to keep herself in a good enough position and the cash coming in. Now, it was that much more important, seeing as some of that would be going to her son– however the hell that happened. She might not see him, as she doesn’t care as much as a mother probably should (and likes his father Nicolau much more than she could ever do him), but the money was there at least. But more than the need, there was the want. And much more than a mercenary, she is greedy, and if there is ever a way to rise even higher, she’ll take it. So she did.

A much bigger, established gang hired her services instead, and for them she worked under wraps, the sole act of doing it a betrayal to her original one. This alliance resulted in the death of many, setting the leader at rage and after her head.

This was when Santino Falcone himself, her knight in a leather jacket, decided to grace her with his presence. While scouting for new members, he'd heard of her, and then he heard of this price on her head too. It was a good thing he could afford it. As someone who wanted all other gangs gone, the work she'd been doing was enough to pique his interest— and finish what she'd started by ending the remaining gang altogether. It was a favour she didn't think would come for free. Her services however earned her not only her life, but also a place for herself within the Organisation now that the other gang was gone. Of course, it wasn’t much of a choice; it didn’t take a genius to guess that if she didn’t pick them, she’d picked death instead. But this was Lallie. She did want them. A higher position, they’d offered, and a paycheck much higher than the best she’d ever received. She was looking for the catch– but there was no catch. The Organisation was of course just a whisper, but even then, they were feared.

In the life of new and (not so) improved Lallie, she’s trusted with the identity and affairs of the Organisation’s leaders, acting more or less like their representative and spokesperson, as she carries down their orders to all others beneath. The same effectiveness from before is showcased here, and the same ruthlessness. It is both a blessing and a curse to be so close to the source of the fire; in a place where the slightest bad move gets you dead, she’ll do well to watch her steps.

PERSONALITY

+ cunning, daring, adventurous, clever, and gregarious - disloyal, selfish, opportunist, infidel, and huffy

RELATIONSHIPS

Santino Falcone— the man who brought her to the center of this spider-web, and at the same time, saved her from her own mess. But it was a deal with the devil; he didn't do it out of the goodness of his heart. She now works directly under him, passing his orders and the other members of The Big 5 down to the ones that matter, attending meetings he cannot (and, frankly, doesn't want to go to). She's a teacher's pet, and if you ask her, work wouldn't be the same without her sarcastic quips about his (lack of a) love life, and him berating her for coming in hungover.

Nathan Winter— someone she's known for years, Nathan and Lallie date back years, when they did some work together. They soon became friends and when she got hired by Santino, she knew his set of skills were just the kind that people like him would be looking for. He knows one or two things about her before all this; secrets she trusts him to keep.

Nicolau de Leon— her oldest friend and father of her son. They've known each other since her college years, where they became fast friends— the kind with benefits. An accidental child came out of it and whilst Nicolau is surprisingly fit for parenthood, she is not. His mother is the one raising 10-year-old Raphael, whilst Lallie more or less tries to pretend he doesn't exist.