#there;s so much to dissect with sam and his parents it's fine

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight: If Only You Had Compassion

Prompt Creator: @summerssixecho

The bad blood between humans and ghosts was going to come to a head eventually, and when it did everyone was going to get hurt.

Danny sighs, runs a hand through his hair, and leans back against the wall; staring at the news disbelievingly.

They had lost.

Lost the entire goddamn case. Because the American government had officially decided: Ghosts were not sentient. Ghosts were not beings. Ghosts did not have rights. And ghosts were a threat to the country. Meaning any and all instances of ghosts and anything -excluding weapons or other items used to combat, control, or harm ghosts- were illegal to exist, possess, or help.

Danny, they, had gone about this the human way. Had been respectful. And nice. And friendly. And it didn’t fucking work. They extended a hand and got fucking bit.

And of course, anyone who had been fighting for ghosts and their rights and safety were the first ones to come under fire and scrutiny. And with nearly all of Amity Park being on that list, it was no surprise the G.I.W. were coming here and banging on doors at record speed.

What’s worse? Danny had been the loudest voice. Of course he had. He had to be. He was fighting for his own goddamn rights after all; not that the government or his family knew that. But it wasn’t just that. No.

Danny Phantom was King. THE High King. This was something he had to deal with, had to handle. And well... the cards hadn’t landed in his favour. In their favour.

But that wasn’t the end of it, because on top of it, his parents couldn’t understand what he was doing, to the point that Danny had to just get out of that house.

Technically he was homeless now, but well, being a ghost rather negated that. He had a whole dimension if need be and could get by just goddamn fine on the streets.

In the end, Danny had lost pretty well all his respect and love for his parents. They had become the enemy too and he just couldn’t afford room to old sentimentality and dwelling on ‘what could have been’ if they had been better people and parents.

At least Danny had listened to his gut and firmly ordered all the ghosts back into the Infinite Realm. He didn’t have to worry about any full ghosts getting captured, tortured, dissected, and destroyed.

Elle was safely with the residents of the Far Frozen too, so no worries there.

And Vlad... Vlad could look after himself. Last he heard the man fully intended to blow up his entire mansion and lab should the case fall through, purely to stop the G.I.W. from getting their hands on anything. Money only went so far in protecting yourself and your assets after all. Danny didn’t doubt the man’s willingness to do it either.

So that just left Danny. The one who was really the most at risk. He was damn near the face of the case, of the campaign. He was a minor still, limiting his rights even further. His ‘parents’ were hunters, hunters that idolised the G.I.W. and worked with them gladly and eagerly.

And he was a true halfa. Exactly half and half. He couldn’t even hide himself from the Fenton’s janky scanners, hiding wasn’t an option.

But then again, hiding had never even been an option for him. Hiding wasn’t Phantom’s thing, wasn’t the Kings thing. For now though? He lays low. He watches. And he waits. Waits for the Observants to finally back him proper. For FrightKnight to rally and ready. And finally for ClockWork to give him that melancholic face that says there is no other option.

Because Danny played this like a human. Because Danny gave humanity a chance. Because Danny wanted to have faith in people. Because Danny had hoped his goddamn half-beating heart out.

Because Danny was scared. Because he was still a kid. Because he shouldn’t have to pick one or the other. Because he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Well now there wasn’t much of a choice. He picked ghosts the day he took that crown. The day he agreed to apprentice under ClockWork instead of the Fenton’s. The day Danny Fenton became just a fabricated mask for Danny Phantom to hide behind.

And now everyone was going to have to play their part. Fulfil their role. Dance out repeating history on the world’s stage. Everyone was going to have to pay a price.

Because when you take away someone’s rights in your own eyes, then they take away yours in theirs.

Because when the government decides someone doesn’t get to exist, and then every other government falls in line because the military powerhouse that is America has decided, then that someone is going to thrash and bite and scream to get to exist.

That’s how its always been.

Survival of the fittest.

And humans? Humans weren’t the fittest by miles.

Because humanity had been given coexistence on a paper. Had been given peace on a paper. And had drawn weapons and scalpels and hate instead.

And for that, this means war.

And not just a skirmish or dispute. No. An all-out bloody war. A massive war. A war beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations or worst dreams.

Because what humanity didn’t know is there were laws that existed. Laws that already governed dead and mortal interaction and travel between the realms. The Oaths and Seals. Older than most of the Ancients and predating nearly all mortal life in the universe.

And one of those Seals states simply that any being of death or life could traverse between Realms freely without harm, threat, or unwilling containment from ruling bodies or any species as a whole.

To say ghosts couldn't exist here. It was such a direct blatant violation. There was no way around that. There really wasn’t. If it wasn’t acted on then it could be overlooked as someone making stupid laws and ignored. But that just wasn’t the case. Wouldn’t be. In that sense it was both blessing and curse that Amity would be targeted first. He had a chance to stop them. To hedge them at the gates.

To cut the Gordian knot.

To meet them at the doors to his lair and tell them what awaited them should they choose to pass. Should they choose to continue a damned and forsaken path.

It would mean revealing himself. Would mean ending the lies and double life. It would mean definitively and finally choosing a side. Choosing ghosts. But it was what had to be.

And if they choose to cross him?

Then it’s game over.

Because Amity was Phantom’s lair. The High Ghost Kings land. His people. His subjects. His. It would be treason. Would be a crime against the High Crown. Against not only the Seals but the Kings Decrees and the Law Of Ages as well. There would be no going back.

The punishment was death. Was absolute subjugation. Was the end of humanity's reign upon the earth.

Because in the eyes of the universe, humanity would have forfeited the right to stand as equals to the dead. They would become lesser and treated as such. Any human who refused to kneel and bow to the Infinite Realm, to him, would be summarily cut down and disposed of.

He didn’t want this. He truly didn’t.

But it wasn’t his choice to make.

It was humanities. The G.I.W.’s.

Danny had very little faith.

But at least he could try. He was a determined bastard to a fault. Even when he should probably give up. When it was probably a lost cause.

This was hopeless now. He knew it. But he had to try and when that failed... then he’ll fight. He’ll fight with a frown and tears screaming down his face. But he’ll damn well fight.

Because that’s who he is. What he is. Because if he doesn’t do this for the ghosts then he’ll do it for the humans he protects.

For Sam and Tucker, both nearly halfas themselves due to UnderGrowth and a past life lived.

For Star, Paulina, Dale, Brittney, Kwan, Ashley, Emilie, Todd, James, Dash, Mikey, Nathan, Rosalia, Jasper, and Carrie, so horribly contaminated by Spectra’s and Bertrand’s experiments.

For Jazz, who’s opinions and field of study made her a ‘threat to humanity’ all the same.

For Valerie, who’s nanobot suit ran on ectoplasm that she could never be separated from without her death.

For Lancer, and Trent, and Remi, and Testlauf, and Ishiyama, who all just knew too much.

For every citizen of his home, his lair. Because the G.I.W. would wipe them all out.

Because he was King.

It does not matter how a king cries nor mourns nor wishes things could be different. Because a king sees his people free before he grasps his own. Because a king knows his people safe before he dares relax. Because a king does not belong to himself but to the people he rules. Because they are the kings children dear and he must see them well. Because it is his duty to do what they can not and pay every price. Because a king can never fall unjustly. Because he is their hopes and dreams.

And though he cries and begs and weeps, his blade hand must stay steady and his sword must strike swift without mercy. Even if he wants to run, every friend and family dear he must be willing to sacrifice if the need arises. Even if that leaves him alone and in pain.

Because that is the cost of the crown.

And now Danny has to pay his dues.

Has to see himself a conqueror to the human world he once protected with everything in him.

He doesn’t want this but this is what the world has given him and he must walk with it.

Into a future that may be filled with hurt and pain. That’ll make him hate every breath he takes or the things he’s seen. Or maybe something beautiful will grow from the ashes. One can only hope.

He sighs and stands. What must be, must be. Running a messy hand through his hair and shaking a spray can. He may as well tag the place where he found things changed before he goes.

Goes to wait on the road.

Wait for the men in white suits to make their arrival.

Wait for the end result of the pain the mortal government chose to wrought.

Wait for Danny Fenton’s ending.

The spray cans psssshh is oddly loud. It hurts his ears.

The FrightKnight meets him outside the alleyway. He nods and Danny nods back. It is done. His army awaits him.

He wishes it didn’t.

He knows the humans have armies of their own. Awaiting retaliation or strike back perhaps. But those armies won’t see war. They won’t do battle or struggle to win. This won’t be two forces meeting to oppose each other. No. It will be more akin to an exterminator coming in with his toxic fumes and spraying down annihilation.

The Dread Army stood four billion strong.

That wasn’t a force humanity could face.

And the Dread were truly non-sentient. Casualties on their side was not of issue or concern. And should humanity somehow persevere and fight back. Then there would be so many more ghostly armies ready and waiting for his regretful and pain-filled command.

He senses the pulse from the Observants, sent out through the Infinite Realm’s ectoplasm and across the threshold of life and death.

They approve. And inside, he weeps.

He traces his fingers on the bricks, walls, and trash cans. Everyone is tucked inside. They know what’s coming as much as he does, just not what comes after. They see this as their end. Danny does too, but for different reasons.

He knows Sam, Tucker, Valerie, and Jazz are all hovering over the extractions waiting for his signal. Waiting to pull his lair into the Infinite Realm. Waiting to save them and leave him behind.

Amity will always be home. But it just won’t be the same. Not for him. He won’t be able to just be another citizen in their eyes or to them anymore. And his friends, they’ll have to look at him knowing that he’s was ultimately directly responsible for the demise of at least thirty percent of humanity.

And he’ll have to get used to that being reflected back at him in the mirror. And refusing to look at all was a weakness he couldn’t allow himself to have.

Stopping at the fountain, its waters reflecting gears and cogs and swaying necks of clocks. As it always had since everything began. As if the water was counting down to the end itself. Only Danny knew that was more fact than fiction.

Water flows like time after all. And no matter what it must continue on. For the sake of life. For the sake of growth. For the sake of time itself continuing on. For the sake of everything.

Danny sits on the edge and it is not his own reflection that greets him, a small mercy, but ClockWork’s.

They look old and tired and worn. Aged by the faults of humanity's actions and inactions. Aged by the weathering storm that is change and its cruelties. But above all else, aged by what they know must be and what they must ask of him.

All is as it should be.

And isn’t that an awful thing.

Danny can only look to the sky tinted faintly green and nod, carrying on his way. Changing everything with every step he takes. Aching more with each breath he takes. And becoming more king than hero with every inch the city limit grows closer.

A hero can fall and rise a king.

But is still a fall all the same.

Because a king does not do what is right. He does not do what is good. What is just. What is kind. He does what he must. Decides what is best.

Humanity decided what was best and lost the bet. They gambled against death.

But death...

Death always wins in the end.

It’s the house we all must rest on. It is the debt collector at the end of every tax season. It is our last breath or a snap of the neck at the end of the noose of our own creation. It is the bullet in the gun that we forged ourselves. It is the black screen left after the credits roll, only ghosts going home.

It was always going to be this way.

What will his ‘parents’ do. Will they die. Will they live. Will they force their way back to the mortal world and seek to strike him down. Will the town or ghosts see them hanged as an example. Will they accept reality and learn. He doesn’t know. In a way he doesn’t want to.

Regardless the town’s edge approaches and he finds himself standing on the precipice of everything he has ever known, everyone he has ever loved, every place that has ever housed him.

And now he steps forward to leave it behind. Says goodbye with resounding footsteps. Mourns the loss as the G.I.W.’s armoured vehicles and containment trucks drive toward him.

Toward death.

He wished they’d stop. Turn back. Change their minds. But knows they won’t.

Ignorance would be bliss.

The most decorated vehicle stops barely feet from him. The officer inside hoping out with a smirk that Danny hates down to the bottom of his guts.

“Well how nice for the worst of them to come greet us. What. Here to turn yourself in for your disgusting crimes against humanity“.

Danny honestly doesn’t care about their words. Not how they’re said nor what is said nor who says them.

It’s meaningless.

Danny shakes his head disappointedly, “I tried. I really tried. So sorry about this. But you leave me no choice”.

The man squints at him. Not that it matters.

Danny looks up at the sky, if he didn’t know better he’d say the clouds were swirling all centred around him and waiting for him to do as he must. As the crown commands. Sighing, “I don’t know why humans must make things so hard for themselves”, and lets his human form melt away without any flashy light show. Green energy pulsing out of his feet and shooting skyward like flaming arrows lighting up the funerary ship seeing a fallen warrior off.

The reaction is immediate. They open fire on him, pausing only when every single high anti-ecto round merely bounces of his green shield; the town behind him shimmering green before vanishing like wet oil wiped off canvas.

Danny shakes his head, “that isn’t how this is going to be. Sorry”, and takes one single step forward. Voice bellowing and sturdy though he feels like shaking apart into sand, “the American government, on behalf of the entirety of the human race, has designated that the ghost species is no longer allowed amongst them or on earth. As such, they, alongside the rest of humanity, have broken the True Kept Equivalent Co-Existence Fault Line Seal of the Exterial law of the Realms. Your options are as follows: revoke your illegal actions and halt your approach or continue on as you are knowing that your actions are an act of war and punishable by the immediate annihilation of thirty percent of humanity followed by the forced subjugation of your entire species. Furthermore, any actions of violence or harm taken against Amity Park, her citizens, or Daniel James Janus Fenton Phantom, will count as an act of treason and war against the High Ghost Sovereign, king of the entirety of the Infinite Realm; and is punishable by immediate death and I do mean your death”.

He stands there and stares. Waits for a response. The men take their time, but eventually...

One of them fires.

“There’s your ‘answer’, you lying ectoplasmic scum”.

Danny bats away the weapon, not even bothering with a shield. They would need nukes if they wanted to so much as scratch him.

He had all the Infinite Realm’s ectoplasm at his fingertips after all. And it sings to be used. To defend its lands and king. To strike down those who must be, for the prosperity and safety of its people.

And Danny gives it that.

He must after all. It is his place.

With merely a flick of his fingers the Dread Army make their debut. Some are here, some are elsewhere. But where ever they may be they bring down destruction and chaos and punishment.

You may think Danny wrong for placing all this on one man’s response, but in truth he, as Phantom, had informed every government of this reality already.

The decision was already made. The choice already set in stone.

He just thought that maybe...

Maybe.

These men before him would have some heart. Some soul. Some sense. Some compassion.

And choose to say no. And refuse to follow orders.

He would rather team up with humanity to stage a coup d’état against their respective governments than what has to transpire now.

The FrightKnight appears and gores the man who dared to fire at Phantom knowing the consequences of doing so. Danny forces himself to watch the man fall, knowing his orders and words and actions were as much the sword that killed him as the one his High Dread Knight wields.

The FrightKnight turns back to him and he knows there is sorrow in his helmeted eyes, for he knows his Knight knows he is not a hardened man nor a man at all.

Just a child with too much weight. Too much hope. Too much asked of him. Too much power at his fingertips. And too much of both life and death.

“Go”.

Danny does as he’s told, as he’s asked. Thankful to have even an ounce of personal responsibility lifted off his shoulders.

Humanity was never going down a good path. Never doing the right thing.

Damning the water they drank with oil and plastics.

Damning the air they breathed with tar and fumes.

Damning the earth that fed them with pavement and poisons.

Damning their fellow neighbouring mortal species with overhunting and stolen lands.

It was only a matter of time before they damned themselves with their ego and actions.

Nothing can survive if it burns every bridge around it.

Especially if the bridge it sets its sights on to burn is the bridge with death.

For only nothing lies where death can not be.

End.

Prompt: After a fierce legal battle to end experimentation on ectoplasmic entities, it's determined that, no, ghosts can't have any rights in the human world and possessing ghostly artifacts, materials, or organisms is illegal. With the GIW enforcing the new laws, starting with Amity Park, how will Danny avoid scrutiny?

#Danny Phantom #phandom #phic phight #phic phight 21 #phic phight 2021 #danny #angst #hurt no comfort #war #giw fucking things up #humanity fucking things up #ghost king danny #drastic action #amity's danny's lair #fan fic #phan phic #my writing #have a fic suck my dick #phantomphangphucker #little more mature one here #murder #gothmoth #thetribalmoth

[that-peach-anon]

Did no one say Sam and Max coraline au? Ahaha i wrote for it anyways (:

Almost 3000 words of Geek angst because i adore her character kahshdkshs

This was written based on @lesbialien 's coraline au and i hope y'all enjoy it!

---

Geek had never been one to depend on others. She had grown up in the basement after all, and being a kid genius, she knew how to take care of anything necessary for survival.

Not that she had been taken care of before. Not many people are interested in adopting the kid that was busier studying bugs' corpses rather than playing dolls with her peers. But that was okay too. She'd much rather be left in the orphanage where there were no parents to smother her and distract her from her studies, she was a person of science after all.

And then came Sam and Max. A duo that called themselves “freelance police" but had much too twisted morals and messed up ethics to be considered any sort of responsible and trustworthy employees. And that was okay. Geek didn’t have that many worries about ethics and morals, after all, to learn things, sometimes morals and ethics get in the way. If she had been adopted by normal people, they would have insisted for her to stop with the dissections and chemically hazardous experiments because that's “not for kids", and that would have been awful. But no, Sam and Max didn't care about that, in fact, most of the times they were the ones in danger, where Max would eat dead animals or consume poisonous chemicals, and Sam would just laugh it off and never get angry at Geek for them allowing Max to do so.

And that made sense. They weren't her parents, so why should they berate her for doing whatever she wanted. She more or less worked for them, only seeing them every few times that they needed some wacky gadget for another case. And that was totally fine with geek. Yeah. They didn’t care if Sam and Max were always busy, they were just her employers, more or less. So it was fine that they didn't spend that much time with the duo, she was only there to make stuff for them, and that was okay. Or at least she liked to pretend so.

But then something changed. One day, the rabbit and dog approached her looking rather embarrassed, which wasn't common for them, and asked to talk to her. That had triggered some alarms. They never were serious or mature enough to have talks instead of just being ignorant to everything, so this meant they were about to do something drastic that involved her. And that wasn't bad, per say. They were glad to finally be able to spend some time with the two, but she wasn't sure if this was going to be time spent doing something enjoyable.

Maybe they had decided that her services were no longer necessary? Or they had found another child genius that was happier and more energetic than Geek will ever be, and they were about to trade her for them? The possibilities were endless. But nothing had prepared them for what truly happened.

Across from them sat a beaming Sam and Max, signed adoption papers on top of the table that stood between them. Adoption papers for them. They had adopted Geek. They were her parents. This wasn't really what she expected out of all the unpredictable things they could do.

“You two… adopted me?” Her voice had been quieter than she wanted it to be, barely able to fight back the nausea slowly crawling up their throat. “Officially? As in, legally?”

“Well, yes.” Sam looked rather calm for what was supposed to be a tremendous occasion for her. “Me and Max were talking during a case and we thought it would be a good idea to adopt you, so we did.”

“Plus, the orphanage was being annoying as hell and kept bothering us about if we were gonna adopt you or else you had to go back!” Max added, apparently picking something off the sharp blades he had as teeth. “And we don't wanna look for a replacement, so this was the least troublesome thing we could do.”

If she didn't know Max better, they would think he didn't care at all, but she could see how his left foot was bouncing in place, a nervous stim he had whenever he was anxious. Max always had a soft spot for kids, so she knew he was just trying to look calm while he panicked on the inside.

“Am… am I supposed to call you two dad and father from now on?” She asked, bunching the end of her skirt in one hand.

“Do whatever you want, kid.” Max answered dismissively, Geek ignoring the way he had one of his hands holding Sam's, another telltale sign of nervousness from him. “We don't care.”

“Okay.” Their usually strong voice was now soft, barely leaving their tongue as it weighed down like lead. “I'm going back to the basement if you don't mind.”

“We'll be here if you need to talk, alright, kiddo?” Sam had asked, already stretching as he got up from the chair. Geek had done nothing more than give a dismissive hum, already having their mind in a turmoil, thoughts thrashing around like a hurricane, making her head spin and stomach tighten.

  That conversation had happened a few days ago, already just a sour memory she kept repeating in their head as her thoughts bothered and invaded her mind. Not much had changed noticeably. Now they would sometimes check up on her before grabbing a gadget and leaving, or tell her about a case before already going to another, leaving her alone for hours on end. Now Sam used more nicknames like kiddo and champ, and Max had taken to calling them kid instead of Geek. And that wasn't bad, Geek just couldn't bring herself to act with them as if everything was fine and nothing changed.

Were they going to stop her from doing her experiments because it was too dangerous and they had to make sure she stayed alive? Would they not let her do anything dangerous in case she could get hurt? Or maybe they would try putting her in school, even if she had already attended college at this point. Or they'd simply stop her from being herself and make them act like a normal child.

That would be way out of character for Sam and Max, but maybe this wasn't something she was scared of, but rather something she hoped for? Perhaps she longed for the two of them to worry about her and care about her instead of only herself being the only one that actually cares about what happens to them. Maybe she wanted a break from having to take care of herself while still a child and have someone else be the one caring for her.

But she couldn't ask that from Sam and Max, they had reckless personalities. They only really showed direct worry when something truly bad happened, like when one of the duo went missing and the other went mad trying to find them. To be honest, she didn't think they truly had showed any direct worry. Whenever they asked about how she felt they always dismissed her answer because they were more entertained by something else. They truly did try to care for them, but the two of them just weren't used to not being in tune with someone's feelings like they were with each other’s. She doesn't remember the last time one of them had to ask the other how they felt, they just usually knew.

She knew they didn't do it out of malice, they just didn't really know how to communicate. The two had never been the most in tune with feelings, barely acknowledging their own in favor of living a blissfully ignorant life. Their attempts at “parenting" Geek never quite worked out. She supposes it’s because they don't really know how to take care of something that has the capability of human thought. The most difficult thing the two had truly raised up until now was a crocodile, and he had had to be left in someone else's care in the end, so maybe it didn't count. But they tried, or at least tried to try.

The blame couldn't be placed only on the two, though. Geek's internal conflict also served as an incredibly unhelpful existence. While she did long for this whole family thing to be normal, it never did feel quite right. She felt like an intruder in the dynamic of the duo, like her only reason to interact with them was to provide a place where their gadgets came from. They felt… like a side-character, like someone who didn't belong. Maybe Sam and Max forgot about her whenever they weren't talking to her directly. I mean, the two barely knew she existed half of the time, so it was a possibility.

Anyway. So, listening wasn't their strong suit. But that's okay, at least they cared to ask, even if it did upset Geek when they found out none of them had truly listened. But that was alright, she could deal with being ignored, she already lived with that for 13 years. It was fine. She could just care for herself.

Which, wasn't something she was currently doing while dissecting a bass. In fact, she was so lost in thought, reminiscing over the words that kept playing in her head, that they had no time to notice as the scalpel slid and cut open a gash in their palm.

“Ow! Goddamn it!” They shouted in pain, the cutting tool falling on the tray next to her, letting out a loud bang as metal met metal.

Using a nearby tissue, she pressed it against the palm, grumbling at how much blood was seeping out and how annoying it would be when trying to move their hand. It was a bit deep; she probably would have needed to bandage it up but that was fine. They had created a gadget meant to cauterize wounds, so it would be healed pretty quickly.

Rummaging through the gadgets in their desk, she ignored the blood dripping and staining the tiles beneath her feet, sighing loudly when they remembered where the gadget was.

Max had taken it a few days ago to test his theory. The gadget looked like a simple butter knife, but it heated up dangerously, so the lagomorph had wanted to see if by stabbing someone with it, the wound would cauterize and it would be a good torture method. She hadn't been able to get in a word before Max had run away with it, a manic smile already on his face.

And just like with all the other gadgets they got from her that they didn’t end up destroying, it was most probably thrown half-hazardly into their closet, added to the junk pile they had, ranging from memoirs from their cases to just random crap they found and decided to keep.

Arriving to the office, she opened the door with her elbow, already prepared to apologize for all the blood falling from her hand, but just like every time Sam and Max left for a case, the office was empty, the only noise coming from the still on ceiling fan. Closing the door with their back, Geek looked around to examine the room, cringing at how everything was either littered with bullet holes or just plain destroyed.

Opening the closet with her foot, she pulled on the string that hung from the ceiling, closing her eyes as the artificial yellow light invaded their vision, fluorescent shine illuminating the room. Blinking to adjust, she stepped further in, eyes jumping around to try and spot the object she was searching for. Where would a gadget hide in such a messy-

The object she was looking for fell in front of her, startling them as it rolled away a bit. Sighing, she knelt down to grab it, eyes snapping up as she realized that before her stood a small purple door with a gold doorknob. It was one of the memoirs from a case that Sam and Max had gone on, a fight against a gigantic banana slug in a mostly inhabited building. In the end, the owner of the building, a nice woman named Coraline, had decided to destroy the place, claiming it had too many child disappearances and was no longer safe. Since the slug had left nothing, they both stole a door that was in the wreckage, just chucking it into the closet and forgetting about it.

But now, instead of being fallen as it had been before, it was vertical, attached to the wall, with a dim blue light coming from beneath it. Geek had seen stranger things in her life, so they simply shrugged it off and turned to leave.

“Geek.”

Freezing in place, she turned around as a lulling voice came from the door. How did it know their name? Putting the gadget down, seeing as the wound had already stopped bleeding, she stepped closer, already grabbing the knob to slowly pry the door open, tilting their head as inside there was only a long blue tunnel, similar to those fabric tubes cats and young babies played in.

This was new. It definitely wasn't her making, and Sam and Max aren't smart enough to make a whole dimensional portal, so this wasn't part of their knowledge. Crouching down, she started crawling through the tunnel, only looking back when the door clicked in place as it closed by itself. At the other end was a door almost identical to the one she had gone through, except this one held what looked to be like claw marks.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed it open, sighing in disappointment as it led back to the office. Stepping out, she gasped as they realized that Sam and Max were there now, both looking to their respective tasks as they worked away, Sam typing while Max carved something onto his desk. Above them hung a “welcome home, Geek!” poster, slightly crooked to the left as it held on by two thin nails, one in each of the top corner.

Hearing the door close behind her with a slam, both Sam and Max turn to her, Geek immediately turning around to look at the small, purple, closed, door.

“Geek! Where were you? We were worried sick! We were waiting for you to tell us about your gadget you're making but we couldn't find you anywhere!” Sam spoke, stopping his typing as he pushed the chair away from his table, already standing up to greet her.

“Yeah, I wanna know if I can kill someone with it!” Max shouted, jumping up from his chair as he tried scrambling after Sam, in a spider like way, crawling onto his shoulder.

“Sorry about disappearing, I was just going through that door in the closet.” She explained, turning back around and looking down at their feet. “I'm sorry.”

“That's okay, kiddo! Just tell us next time so we don't worry so much.” Sam ruffled her hair as he spoke, Max jumping down from where he had perched himself to hug Geek, making her tense up.

“Yeah, we missed you lots!” Max spoke, seeming not caring about how tense Geek was in his arms, or the way she was barely breathing.

Looking up at Sam, she let out a shout of surprise as they spotted the black buttons that substituted his eyes. Pushing away from Max, she stepped back, looking at him in horror to find Max, too, had button eyes.

“What's wrong, kid?” Max asked, tilting his head at them. “Got something in my teeth?”

“You're not Sam and Max.” She affirmed, backing away and already grabbing the doorknob once again.

“Well, of course not! We're Other Sam and Other Max!” The tall dog replied in a duh tone, as if it was obvious. “We're just like them, except better in every way! Now come on, tell us about the gadget.”

“Okay.” Even when talking only to what seemed to be imitations of Sam and Max, she couldn't bring herself too not be polite. Kids were supposed to obey their parents, according to all the movies and series she watched as a way to know how children normally behave. “It's a neutron destabilizer-"

“Ooooh, neutron destabilizer, huh? Sounds fun!” Max exclaimed, hanging off of one of Sam's shoulders, smiling.

“Do you even know what neutrons are?” She asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“It's a part of the atom just like electrons and protons and all that sciency stuff.” He waved her off, and if he had actual eyes, she was sure he'd be rolling them.

“Yeah… anyway, I think the name is pretty self-explanatory so you must know what it does and-"

“But how does it work?” Sam interrupted, leaning back against his desk.

“You… actually want to know?”

“Of course, we like hearing about your day!”

“Oh.” She absent mindedly let go of the door, giving her full attention to them. “Well, it works by-"

And this was how she spent the rest of the evening. And sure, this Sam and Max weren't the real ones, but it actually felt nice to be heard once. Besides, they didn't seem to be hostile, so it didn't look as if they would be dangerous. So yeah, they did end up convincing them of sitting down to talk about other projects, but it was okay. It's not like she was going back. Visiting them was a one-time thing, right?

#sam and max #sam and max freelance husbands #sam and max freelance police #darla gugenheek #samandmax

[hiphopscriptures]

The Second Slavery: How the Democratic North Kept Their Foot on Your Neck

Our nation has erupted in days-long protest, sparked by the murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers. Cities across the U.S., and even across the world have taken to the streets to make their voices heard. Some of the most violent clashes between protestors and police have happened in Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Atlanta where we saw two college students being pulled from their vehicle and attacked by police. What also can’t be ignored is the systematic lockdowns of cities where mayors along with local law enforcement have declared citywide curfews, oftentimes making these announcements within minutes of said curfews expiring. Chicago has even taken to shutting off their CTA public transportation, which left many essential workers and protestors stranded on the evening of May 31, 2020. Speaking of, May 31st is the anniversary of the bombing of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma which took place in 1921. As we commemorate the 99 year anniversary of the bombing of Black Wall Street where a town of successful Black families and businesses were not only terrorized but ultimately destroyed, Black people in America must dissect and investigate the other foot on their collective necks - the collusion of our government, politicians, and police organizations with immigrant populations enabling them establish wealth in the same way as our country’s forefathers - on the backs of Black people.

The south has an overt and often open racist history that has been on display for centuries, along with the legacy of slavery. The North, however, in places like Boston, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and many other cities is where the mob and mafia organized crime ran rampant and were also integral in institutionalizing racism against Black Americans. These same machines created unions that were politically connected to the Democratic party who aided and abetted in the financial rape of the African American community by denying them union jobs, adequate housing and worked with the police unions to keep Blacks ‘in line’. Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters routinely provided interest free loans to the Mafia. The movie Harlem Nights depicts many of how this was orchestrated, including purposely inundating Black neighborhoods with illegal activities such a prostitution and gambling, typically for about a period of 5 years or so before having massive raids to take down Black crime bosses, only then to evict the residents so that White immigrant populations could come in and buy cheap real estate that would almost always skyrocket in value. These same immigrants came to despise and discriminate against the very African Americans who made it possible for them to come to this country. 

It’s kind of disheartening to see the lengths that Ray, Quick, and their circle have to go because a White criminal, who has a dirty detective on his side, wants a piece of their pie.

(nerdist)

The Immigration Act of 1965 was a direct result of the Civil Rights movement organized and executed by Black / African Americans - “Over the next four decades, the policies put into effect in 1965 would greatly change the demographic makeup of the American population, as immigrants entering the United States under the new legislation came increasingly from countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as opposed to Europe.” This facilitated the acceptance of many immigrants of color to the United States. Once on these shores, parents of immigrant children often discouraged their children fraternizing, emulating or dating African Americans. 

https://twitter.com/keilahhhjd/status/1267199334296109056?s=21

 In addition, almost all of these immigrant groups profited from the same types of organized crime that had benefited their white immigrant predecessors such as the Irish, Italians, Russians and many more of European origin. Money laundering, bootlegging, prostitution and many other illegal activities directly funded many of what are now established businesses, suburban enclaves full of homes and lifestyles that their descendants enjoy. The origins of the Mob in America can be traced to the urban ghettos of the late 19th century where Irish, Italian and Eastern European Jewish immigrants struggled to survive amid poverty, overcrowding and discrimination. These immigrants could get only the most dangerous and low-paying jobs (source: themobmuseum.org). The movie, Gangs of New York depicts much of this history, “The Irish Bowery Boys soon formed in a nearby area known as the Bowery. Battles between the Bowery Boys and Dead Rabbits (claiming more than 1,000 members each) were legendary, each of which was supported by smaller gangs they had spawned...Shrewd politicians immediately recognized the potential asset that the street gangs might represent. In the early 1830’s, several politicians (ward and district leaders) bought grocery stores in Five Points and the saloons and dance halls in the Bowery, the gathering places for the gangs. In return for their assured protection of the gangs’ meeting places, and financial rewards offered to the gangs for their loyalty, gang leaders returned the favor by taking care of jobs like blackjacking political opponents and scaring unsupporting voters away from the polls” (source: sagepub.com).

Philadelphia and Boston could also lay claim to having substantial street gangs before the Civil War; [sic] Philadelphia’s Public Ledger identified nearly 50 Philadelphia gangs between 1840 and 1870. These gangs persisted; a New York Tribune reporter described the northern suburbs of Philly in 1948 and 1949 as swarming with gangs.

“If any nationality has been linked to organized crime in the UnitedStates over the years, it would have to be Italian-Americans, at least in popular perception...countless books, movies and TV shows, from The Godfather right up to the Sopranos, the image of the Mafioso has become synonymous with the face of gangsters in America.” However, the Irish Mob began as penniless immigrants in the mid-19th century battled their way to power and established the first crime syndicate in America, which lasted for at least 150 years (source: toledoblade.com). The first gang leader from the streets to achieve prominence was John Old Smoke Morrisey, who ran gambling joints, saloons, and brothels in New York City, ultimately aligning himself with Tammany Hall, the city’s corrupt Democratic political machine. Of course the best known Irish (democratic) family is the Kennedy clan. Boston native Joseph P. Kennedy, father of JFK and Robert Kennedy was a bootlegger during Prohibition who supplied liquor to a rogue gallery of crime bosses, including Al Capone. During his son’s presidential campaign, Joe reached out to mobsters for help and Sam Giancana, then the Mafia boss of Chicago, delivered the state of Illinois for JFK, helping provide his winning margin in the 1960 election. Decades later, the Russian mob, Colombians and Latin Americans became the face of organized crime in America.

While the Italian mafia was the largest and most powerful, other ethnic groups also had organized crime rings. On the west coast, especially there are Asian American gangs as well. In Koreatown in L.A. for example, the original gangs first came from Korea, and flourished by being involved in illegal activities such as drug dealing, organized crime, money laundering and prostitution. Since the liberalization of the immigration laws of 1965, Chinatowns in the U.S. have experienced a consistent increase in their crime rates. 

You will often hear the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren angrily tweet or disclaim aloud that their parents came to America AFTER slavery and that they “worked hard” to achieve financial and business success, therefore the idea of reparations is absurd and Black folks in America should follow suit and “work hard” as well. What’s so interesting is that all of this history of the corruption among immigrant organized crime and their collusion with politicians, government and law enforcement is not only documented but glorified in history, film and ironically rap music. Most recently one only has to look to last year’s The Irishman starring Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesce. The mob museum is literally an entire museum celebrating how these groups came to America, created a crime syndicate and created generational wealth, all while local politicians and police chiefs winked, shook hands, quietly collected their cut on their way to vacation in Miami with their families. These are the same cops with their foot on the necks of George Floyd, the same system that gave Jacob the Jeweler 2.5 years and a $50,000 fine while the BMF crime family serves 30+ years in prison. Who is really being protected and served? 

We encourage all of you, especially those that live in major cities across the U.S. to do your own research of the history of organized crime and cross reference wealth and ownership of land and businesses in those same cities. It is only then that you will truly connect the dots, especially as you fully realize how those actions contribute to denial of home loans, redlining, poorly performing school districts etc. It was just prior to the murder of George Floyd gripping the nation that we were largely discussing the upcoming presidential election, an ornery white woman in Central Park. The south’s history of slavery, terrorism at the hands of the KKK and segregation are well documented, but the largely Democratic stronghold of the North has produced structural racism that is just as sinister if not worse. In the words of Joe Biden, “You Ain’t Black” if you don’t comprehend the second slavery created by the North which has largely contributed the conditions we now find ourselves in.

  Other sources: csun.edu, repository.upenn.edu, pbs.org, wikipedia

#bmf crime family #george floyd #amy cooper #blm #black lives matter #the irishman #gangs of new york #protests #looting #joe biden #donald trump #black wall st #ados #fba #african americans

[shinobicyrus]

Full Disclosure

My Christmas Truce fic for @rainosa, who asked for “Danny & parents angst.” I angsted the best I could manage this close to Christmas.  

 “...You redecorated.”

Tucker turns around and furrows his brow at him. It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s the first thing Danny can think of as he stands in the doorway to Tucker’s room, the strap of his duffel digging into his shoulder.

“Huh?” Tucker looked around for confirmation. “Oh! Right, yeah. I moved some things around like...last semester? I think?”

Last semester? Has it really been that long since he visited Tuck at his house? New anime scrolls have replaced the last of the posters that had been around since middle school. The bookshelf has been moved to make space for a brand new desk, where Tuck’s computer is humming and idle. At least that was the same- unless Tucker’s been replacing its innards again.

No, except for the bed in the same old corner, Tuck’s room is practically unrecognizable. It’s been a lot longer than just one semester since Danny’s stepped foot in his best friend’s room, and he never even realized. 

Too busy with ghost-drama, probably. 

Tucker opens his arms to indicate the room, still littered with rumpled old clothes, comic books, and tech magazines. “Well, mi casa and whatever, I’m failing Spanish.”

“Tucker, you speak fluent Esperanto with Wulf. How are you failing Spanish?”

“Can never find time to finish the homework. It’s okay, I’ll just ace the final and squeak by.” He sweeps aside some t-shirts to excavate the carpeting  underneath. “Uh...you can put your stuff here. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting-”

“It’s fine.” Danny throws his duffel bag down on the cleared floor space and braces for the inevitable question. 

Instead, Tucker asks: “You want to watch a movie or fight off a demon-invasion on Mars?”

Danny releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Maybe just a movie. Scientists accidentally opening a portal to hell sounds a little too...”

“Relevant to our current situation?”

"Yeah. That.” Danny sits down on Tucker’s bed and winces when he feels something very not-cushiony or bedlike. He rummages underneath and pulls out a thick comicbook with a werewolf-looking woman in frayed clothes on the cover. Tucker practically dives across the room to snatch it out of Danny’s hands as he just starts flipping through it. 

“Ha-ha that’s not a movie what’s this where did it even come from what a mystery.” Tucker quickly banishes it to his bookshelf. 

Danny raises any eyebrow. “The Den of Empress She-Wolf?”

“I am invoking the ‘no-judgements’ clause of our friendship.”

“Wow, it must be really bad.”

Tucker scowls in a vain effort to hide the blush coloring his cheeks, making Danny laugh. It feels good, feeling the tension from the past few hours dissolve in a short fit of giggles.

Yeah, coming here had been a good idea.

He lets Tucker choose the movie, and they both sit down on the bed with their backs against the wall. At least the TV hadn’t been moved since the last time Danny had been over.

He doesn’t really pay attention to the movie. It’s difficult to focus on anything for too long. At some point, Tucker’s Mom knocks softly and shows up with a gigantic bowl of stovetop popcorn. Danny doesn’t know what cover story Tucker fed his parents, but it had to be close enough to the truth, judging by the concerned look she thinks she’s hiding.

“Thanks, Mrs. Angela.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble. Just made a little too much, is all. You boys are settled in for the night?”

“Yes, Mom,” Tucker groans like he’s suffering. 

“Fine, fine, I won’t keep bothering you.” 

Danny’s phone pings in his pocket. Without even looking, he reaches in and silences it. He doesn’t need to see who it is- all of his friends have their own ringtone. 

Tucker looks at him, wearing the exact same look his mom just had. “Are you gonna check your-”

“Hit play, we’re in the middle of my favorite scene,” Danny says. It’s not a lie; Andrew Garfield really shines with classic Spider-Man sass against that carjacker.

Tucker looks like he wants to say something, but finally relents and starts the movie back up again. Danny releases another breath he’d been holding.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. The room’s dark when he jolts awake; still muddled, Danny briefly thinks just for a moment, that he’s home. 

Tucker is sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed near Danny’s feet, the light from his laptop screen painting deep shadows and harsh digital. The memory of where he is and why he’s there settles back into his headspace like a sharp slap of focus. Danny knuckles at the crust and dark circles around his eyes. “What time is it?”

“A little past one.” Tucker keeps his gaze on the screen, keeping the manic tempo of clacking computer keys. Danny has no idea how that didn’t wake him. Maybe he’s gotten too good at grabbing whatever sleep he can, or his subconscious finds unmistakable Tucker-noises comforting.

Danny sits up and reaches out blindly for his phone, but this isn’t his room and Tucker keeps his nightstand on the other side, so he just ends up slapping his hand against the wall. Tucker wordlessly pulls Danny’s phone from someplace and hands it to him, somehow still typing one-handed. 

“Thanks.” He looks at the blanket pooled around him that wasn’t there before. “I took your bed,” He says it like an apology.

“S’okay. You looked like you needed it. That thing was buzzing up a storm, by the way.”

He’s right. The lockscreen says Danny has fifteen new messages. Sighing, Danny plugs in Sam’s birthday and checks them. Text messages from Jazz and Danielle, updating him and asking if he’s okay. No missed phone calls from his parents, thank God. 

The last call made on the phone was technically yesterday, when he called Tucker and asked if he could stay the night. Thirty seconds was all his voice could manage, at the time.

Even though Tucker had told him the time, it hadn’t registered until Danny’s looking at the clock on his phone and sees the missed notification he scheduled. Danny sits up straighter. “Patrol!” He blurts out. “I completely-”

“Already taken care of,” Tucker keeps coding. “Val and Sam are handling it.”

“Those two...together?”

He shrugged. “I dunno man, I think they had a secret meeting and hashed out their differences when we weren’t looking.”

Danny double-checked his messages, but there wasn’t anything from Sam or Val.

“So...uh.” Tucker clears his throat. “Jazz filled me in. While you were asleep. Actually, before you got here, too.” 

“She...did?”

“Yeah....her, Sam, and me kinda had this planned out for a while, now. For when it happened.”

“Oh.” He can’t quite look Tucker in the eyes. It’s...he guesses he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s actually really touched, that they had his back when he didn’t ask for it- that they were ready for whatever happened and never told him so he wouldn’t feel any more pressure than he already was.

“You told them.” Tucker says it not like a question.

“Yeah.”

“And...now you’re staying here.”

“It...didn’t go well.” Danny finally drags his eyes up to Tuck’s. “How much did Jazz tell you?”

“Just that shit went down and Operation We-Never-Decided-On-A-Name was in effect. She didn’t think it was right to say anything more unless you were ready.”

He should have guessed Jazz wouldn’t just blab about everything. His big sister was a lot of things (see also: meddling, anal, way too cheery at seven a.m.) but she’s been surprisingly good with boundaries and keeping his secrets, after the first few hiccups. “Wanna know the funny thing? It wasn’t the half-ghost thing.”

“But...what else would it be?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it just about gave them a heart attack, but things didn’t get bad until I told them everything.”

Tucker’s eyes widen. “Everything, everything?”

Danny chuckles sadly. “Turns out, finding out your best friend from college is secretly a ghost-monster trying to kill you and/or destroy your marriage is one thing, but your own kids knowing about it and lying about it?”

“Ooohhh.” Tucker nods. “That.” 

“Yeah. That. And since things couldn’t possibly get any worse, I thought: ‘why not just rip off the filthy band-aid that is my life all at once and tell them about their clone-daughter, too?’”

Tucker winces. “Ooohhhh crap.” 

“And that’s when the yelling started.” Danny changes his voice in a poor imitation of his mother. “’She’s just a little girl, how could you let her run away on her own!’ I mean, yeah, I definitely deserved that- but she had Valerie looking after her, and it’s not like I could force Danielle to do anything she didn’t want to do! And with Vlad I tried to explain how I had it under control, like, we had a mutually assured secret identity thing going on- he stopped trying to actively murder Dad years ago. All our stuff was strictly foiling evil plots and him beating the crap out of me sometimes.”

“And the cloning.” Tucker adds.

“Okay yeah that too, which is sort of how Danielle got name-dropped by sorta accident in the first place, but then they had the gall to berate me for not trusting them!” It’s like being back in the living room all over again. Danny’s fist is balled so tight his nails are biting crescents into his palms, and in the dark he can tell his eyes started blazing green again, which probably hadn’t helped things with his ghost-hunter parents, much.

“Trust? I’m like, Trust?! How can ever really trust people that have tried to shoot me on sight, before? That have spent whole family meals talking about dissecting me ‘molecule by molecule.’ How can I trust people that build a goddamn portal to the netherworld in their basement and put their family and the whole freaking town in danger every. Single. Day?!”

They’d been appalled when he exploded on them, even Jazz  looked uncomfortable, even if it was all thing’s she’d been saying for years- if a bit gentler. Looking back on it- replaying the whole thing over again- made his heart pound with residual panic.

But Tucker? Tucker just nods and listens.

Danny has to swallow down the sudden dryness squeezing his throat. “I blamed them.” He manages, throat hoarse. “I blamed everything on them. I told them their stupid portal turned me into this, and I looked them in the eye and said I saw the first accident, the one that made Vlad, and I said that if they wanted to angry at anyone, they should look in a mirror first.”

“Ouch,” Tucker says. “Not exactly inaccurate, but ouch.”

“It was around then I decided staying there was probably a bad idea and packed a bag.”

“That’s...probably for the best.” Tucker nods. “Get some distance, clear your head.”

“You and Sam kind of came up too.”

“We did?”

Danny makes sound resembling a laugh. “They asked if you guys knew. I don’t think I laughed harder in my entire life.”

Tucker blinks at him, slowly processing what he’d said, then bursts into a shoulder shaking laugh. “Oh my God. They actually asked if we knew?”

Danny chortles. “I know, right! I was like, ‘how do you think I even survived this long without going crazy’?”

Tucker’s so far gone he’s slapping his eye and wheezing desperately. “You literally yell ‘I’m Going Ghost!’ in the hallways at school! Even if you didn’t tell us, we’d have figured it out in like, a week!”

“I know!”

“Jazz figured you out!”

“I knooow!” Danny keels over with laughter, tears streaming down his face. 

Tucker wipes a tear from his eye. “And-heheh- and I think Sam would have noticed that her boyfriend’s eyes freaking glowed whenever they- wait- did you tell them you and Sam are-”

“God no, are you kidding? What am I, nuts?”

That just ignites a whole new round of laughter- they’re probably too loud, Tucker’s parents are two rooms away and might be wondering what sounds like a pair of cackling lunatics coming from their son’s room. But Danny and Tucker surrender to it and fall together in a heap on the bed, still shaking with little leftover giggles.

They lay there quietly in the dark on the bed like they used to in grade school. Back then staying up into one-am was a huge deal, devouring junk food, playing video games, and watching gory age-inappropriate movies action movies.

Now they usually stayed up this late hunting ghosts and cramming what little homework they could manage before falling asleep in exhaustion. 

Danny suddenly feels very tired. 

“What are we supposed to do now, Tuck?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Stay here the rest of the weekend, eat unhealthy shit, and bingewatch bad anime from my hard drive?”

“God yes. You’re the best.”

“Hahah, hell yeah. Who’s best friend now?”

“Still Sam, but for completely different reasons.”

“No fair, I think I’ve proven I can totally pull off that same skirt.”

“I love you, Tuck, but that was so wrong.”

“Don’t shame me I got fifty bucks outta that deal and my legs looked great.”

Danny snorts back a laugh- and freezes when his phone buzzes.

Tucker waits a few moments for Danny’s head to stop pounding quite so fast before asking. “That Jazz again?”

“...no.” Danny’s shaking fingers fumble the password twice before he manages to bring up the single text message:

Mom [1:37am]: Never forget you’re my baby boy and I will always love you 

Tucker might be right about the best friend thing after all. He doesn’t say a word while Danny cries quietly on his bed. Just sits up, pulls the blanket over the both of them, and starts typing a comfortable rhythm on his laptop again.

#christmas truce 2017 #rainosa #danny phantom #tucker foley #merry christmas #hope you enjoy it #i did my best to angst #but about 50% of how *i* deal with personal crisisies is to ignore them and sleep until they go away #(spoiler: that usually doesn't work) #also sorry i guess my subconscious solution to angst is friend-bonding and laughing to make the hurt go away #i make a terrible #phantomrose96 #my writing #my fanfiction

[mrmichaelchadler]

Thumbnails 7/20/18

Thumbnails is a roundup of brief excerpts to introduce you to articles from other websites that we found interesting and exciting. We provide links to the original sources for you to read in their entirety.—Chaz Ebert

1. 

"Why Bo Burnham's 'Eighth Grade' Gets It Right": At Indie Outlook, I share my thoughts on the best film I've seen thus far in 2018.

“Nothing angered me more as a teen than high school movies that failed to take my pain seriously. Despite its memorable soundtrack, ‘Grease’ was a sanitized nostalgic fantasy populated by adults with a troubling case of arrested development. Even films I adored, such as ‘Dead Poets Society,’ contained stereotypical nerds with thick glasses, ever-present allergies and zero social skills. ‘Eighth Grade’ doesn’t have an ounce of condescension, and the laughter that it generates—which is plentiful—arises out of recognition rather than ridicule. (Fisher’s under-the-breath delivery of ‘Who cares?’ while forcing a banana into her mouth is uproarious.) Burnham avoids any hackneyed melodramatic plot developments because he’s well aware that the life of a middle schooler is dramatic enough. Of course, no honest film about junior high could be made without it getting slapped with an R rating by the MPAA for—in this case—‘language and some sexual material.’ What the ratings board, in their famously limited wisdom, appear to have forgotten is that junior high itself is rated R. No parent, teacher or guardian can prevent a sixth grader from rapidly losing their innocence bred in elementary school as they enter a volatile community preoccupied with puberty and four-letter words. This transition would be less extreme if schools simply housed grades kindergarten through eighth grade under the same roof, a prime motivator for students to be better role models. It’s so easy to feel detached from the rest of existence while imprisoned in junior high, and every single person currently enrolled in it is entirely of age to see this movie. This is a rare instance in which sneaking a purchase with a fake ID could prove beneficial to your mental health.”

2. 

"Of Their Age: Olivier Assayas on the Making of 'Cold Water'": In conversation with Criterion's Hillary Weston.

“‘Cold Water’ was a turning point. I’ve always had a hard time with scoring movies. It’s something I did on my first and second features, and I was not so happy with the results. I did it on my third feature,  ‘Paris Awakens,’ and though the music was by John Cale and considerably better than the music on my previous films, I was still not happy with the way music connected with emotions and within the images. The movie I made right after that, ‘A New Life,’ had no music at all. So ‘Cold Water’ was a way of going back and building a new relationship with music. What was fascinating about it was that, for the first time, I was using only music that I loved. The way I approached that very long party scene was by structuring it with music, with tracks that would cover the specific emotions and the way they change during the night. Ultimately, the songs ended up becoming one with the narrative—they say something that’s beyond the story. I think that people who have experienced the seventies are connected by that music, so all of a sudden it’s a universal language. In many ways, the soundtrack to Something in the Air is much closer to the kind of music I loved at that time. I was very much into British underground. But the way I approached  ‘Cold Water’ was a little different. It doesn’t have the music I was actually listening to; it’s the music kids at that time were listening to.”

3.

"Europe's rising nationalism is putting pressure on film directors and the stories they tell": According to Jeffrey Fleishman on The Los Angeles Times.

“‘There is now a blacklist of books, theater directors and filmmakers,’ Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, whose ‘Ida’ won an Academy Award for foreign language film in 2015, told the press in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where he won the director award for ‘Zimna Wojna (Cold War).’ ‘I have the honor to be on this list. With the new [Polish] government, which has taken control of public television, it is just like under communism.’ Polish authorities have denied a blacklist, but ‘Ida,’ the story of a Jewish orphan raised by Catholic nuns after her parents were killed in World War II, touches on the sensitive question of Polish complicity in the Holocaust. The nationalist government, controlled by Law and Justice Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, amended a bill last month, making it essentially a civil violation to accuse Poland of having had a role in those horrors. It was part of a broader effort by the establishment to whitewash any hint of transgression and celebrate Polish identity. ‘They are obsessed with rewriting history,’ said Agnieszka Holland, a Polish director and Academy Award nominee. ‘They want to change the history into this heroic, nationalistic legend where all Poles are wonderful and all others are guilty of everything.’ She added that the government explored the ‘quite naïve idea’ of producing an epic film on Polish history — spoken in English — that would be distributed by Hollywood.”

4. 

"'I Like Being Aggressive in the Storytelling...': Michael Dinner on His CBS James Ellroy Adaptation, 'L.A. Confidential'": Another great interview conducted by Jim Hemphill at Filmmaker Magazine.

“The conversation with the director of photography began with what I didn’t want to do. The cliché in film noir is hard lights coming in through blinds, so we shot everything with soft light. And then there’s a conversation about lenses — we shot on wider lenses that had a shallower depth of field. In general I tend to shoot on the two extremes of the lens; I like being aggressive in the storytelling and taking the audience by the neck and saying, ‘Pay attention to this.’ There’s a scene in the pilot early on where a guy pulls a gun, shoots a cop, gets in his car, speeds away, does a U-turn, and then he’s T-boned. My thought was, I’m going to shoot this the same way I would shoot this scene today, it’s just that they’re in period outfits in period cars. There would have been a way of shooting that 50 or 60 years ago – even 20 years ago – where the camera wouldn’t be as aggressive. I wanted it to be as kinetic as possible, so I turned to the visual effects people and said, ‘I don’t want to be limited.’ The great thing about Broadway in downtown Los Angeles is that there’s architecture to hang shots on, and then you just have to somehow remove the little signs and meters and lines on the street and things like that. I wanted to make sure I could rotate around 360 degrees and clean it up, because that to me makes it less of a museum piece. So that was the approach: how can we tell this story so that there’s an emotional pop to it, and it’s aggressive in modern terms, but still assimilates noir filmmaking? It was tough, because we don’t preserve architecture in Los Angeles. Trying to recreate 1952 L.A. is like doing a science fiction movie set on the planet Xenon.”

5. 

"Terry Gilliam and his 'Don Quixote'": Cineuropa's Susanne Gottlieb reports from the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival about the exuberant director's latest polarizing feature.

“Gilliam has a natural aversion to awards and the big limelight. In Karlovy Vary, he jokingly pushed the narrative that he achieved something that the legendary Orson Welles couldn’t. Welles, whose films also got caught up in production complications, was opting for an adaption of the Don Quixote material that never materialized in its final form. But while Gilliam is a fine director, none of his work reaches Welles’ cultural legacy. The comparison is a bit farfetched. Has the master of fantastic worlds simply grown too bitter with the business? Gilliam hopes he hasn’t become Toby. ‘There are so many talented filmmakers that make their first film and then they get dragged into the seductive world of commercials,’ he says. ‘They never come back, so this movie is a warning to young filmmakers.’ Having himself shot commercials, Gilliam is familiar with the instant financial gratification of the money paid in that sector. In an early scene in the director’s latest feature, Toby’s loss of vision and purpose as a filmmaker becomes apparent when he watches the student version of his own ‘Don Quixote,’ a piece of art with an aura he is trying to replicate in a big budget production. Glued to the DVD Player, he gets lost in the film, dissecting its soul but coming up empty. If that was the warning that would reach the young filmmakers in Gilliam’s own audience loud and clear, one might cherish the lesson learned and move on, even if it took a very uneven movie to get there. Unfortunately, that is not the only lesson Gilliam’s film advances. The convoluted mess that is ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,’ a miscellaneous mix of ideas, sends out another warning even clearer: sometimes, it is better to kill your darlings.”

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