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sarka-stically · 6 months

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im mad enough to make 2nd post and I barely post ever. this show was never high tv but this ep rly spat in the face of everything i liked about it. usually i try to be positive but here you got random list of all things terrible in no particular order (vaguelly chronologic who knows)

ALSO I dont take them probably assuming they would have more eps and then scrambling to fit the story in one episode as decent excuse... the stakes they set up in ep7 werent impossible to fix with one ep, they just wrote terrible episode

ed's entire character arc of 2 seasons being rolled into tiny ball and thrown in the trash. and no he isnt slipping or spiralling again, it isnt him being hot protective husband, this is him, character who spent 2 seasons trying and failing to be better and finally decided that the healthiest thing to do is to just drop the lifestyle that brings out the worst in him and pursue simple life THROWING IT OUT after finding out its not as easy as he assumed and he would have to work for it??? incredible fucking message david jenkins, if being better version of yourself is just lil bit inconvenient its not worth it go back to your crappy ways.

and NO its not him slipping, the tone of this whole thing is very distinctly victorious. and also NO the path he took now is not in any way different or better than the one he left. there is even fun triumphant vibe to him KILLING PEOPLE which was always treated as sth BAD for him??? literally absolute nonsense

what the fuck was that plot?? why are all pirates arrested?? when all they did was sink those ships?? i know this show tends to be cooky and silly and cartoony, but this was just absolutely random unexplained jump of stakes.

WHERE THE FUCK are all the other husbands of jackie. this is barely valid complaint but this stupid ep rly makes it look like swede is her only husband and I dont appreciate it

why the unholly hell did they spend entire season actually setting up crew as important, give them their own opinions and relationships to their captains, have izzy even mention that THE CREW is what its all about.... and then have them barely have any speaking roles in this episode and 0 plot relevance

that fucking PLAN??? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT??? im sorry why the fuck did their plan include walking through the biggest swarm of brits while having mr noseless richie UNSECURED amongst them??? why even BRING HIM other than to have him there specifically so he can be the one to shoot izzy for future drama???

izzy. death.

i genuinely could be FINE with izzy dying if they wrote it decently. and id even be fine with it in this episode. if they made it fucking meaningful... but they had my man, mr famously skilled pirate catch random bullet because he is incompetent actually... bullet into the side of the body that ofmd physics say is survivable easily??? and then give 0 attention to it??

ed being there while he dies??? this truly makes me just feel like they killed him only so in hypoteticky s3 they can woobify poor ed some more... or even give him excuse to be narrativelly clean of any atrocities he does in name of revenge

but it makes no. fucking. sense. ed shluldnt be there saying ur my only family, ed has not treated izzy as family ONCE in this entire show, ed barely talked to izzy after first 3 episodes, he is NOT the person on that ship who cares about izzy the most of all. if anyone should be there while he fucking DIES its the crew. who has shown constantly through this season that they care about him, who he made whole speech about in THIS SAME EPISODE. im sorry frenchie did NOT carry izzy back on the ship to drop him on the floor and have ed who I REPEAT HAS NOT SHOWN HE CARES ABOUT HIM AS MORE THAN AQUITANCE SINCE LIKE EARLY S1 be the one to be there in his last moment.

I get izzy wanting to make amends but BOTH OF THEM SHOULD BE APOLOGISING, HE SHOULDNT VE BEGGING FOR FORGIVENESS and ed shouldnt be framed as blameless in their relationship in izzy's last moment.

and what made me genuinely laugh was izzy saying that the crew is ed's family. they are literally NOT. everyone who was aboard the revenge either hates him or is scared of him, and I dont think they had enough reason to change their minds as ed hasnt rly spent any time with the crew and shown only care for stede. they are NOT ed's found family and this payoff and this found family line is so ridiculously not set up and not narrativelly deserved it makes me laugh.

overall absolutely ridiculizs episode it made me laugh and it made me angry and it also made me angry how quickly we move past that

#okay ik done im tired im gonna go take bath and sleep this off #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd finale

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attorneys-against-court-violence · 9 months

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Alright sit down I'm ranking Dual Destinies culprits. Spoilers abound!

Just going to list my thoughts on all 5 culprits in order of beloved to beloathed. Expect me to be mean.

Marlon Rimes

Easily the most nuanced and sympathetic of them all, and a well-written one to boot! His grudge against the orca is understandable, yet flawed in a very human way. He had no intentions of harming anyone - in fact he wanted to save his co-workers from what he saw as a dangerous animal. When Sasha was arrested he went out of his way to lie in order to get her off the hook. When push came to shove, he accepted his sentence to save her and punish himself for unintentionally setting up the Captain's death. It's all the more heartbreaking that Azura wasn't even killed by the previous orca, rendering all of his hatred and actions resulting from it irrational and unfounded. He sort of reminds me of both Simon and Aura in a few ways; taking the fall to save a friend, trying to enact revenge on someone he saw as a crazed, emotionless animal... his plight has plenty in common with both. 5-DLC gets a lot of praise in my books for its parallels to the main conflict (not that the other cases lack them) and Marlon is no exception.

The thing that makes Marlon so compelling is that he isn't a monster. He doesn't even have much of an ego, calling himself too weak to save anyone. He's a man who acted on his rage and made a dreadful mistake in doing so, trying to right his wrongs and eventually being forced to give up and admit that he had no right to do what he had done. Even agreeing that he had no right pruely on the basis of it causing someone to die inderectly. Him being rehabilitated at the end is the feather-on-the-cap to show that he's someone the characters genuinely care about and wish to do better in spite of his flaws. It took a while and plenty of evidence, but the Captain's words finally got through to him and he's a lot better for it. His animations are wonderfully creative, by the way! Turning the spyglass into a faux microphone, re-using the bucket of fish for a Popeye-esque transformation, the name-tag turning into a rapper's gold chain, his breakdown turning the witness stand into both a helm and a set of prison bars - so much visual creativity with this guy! It's such a treat.

The worst I can say about him is that the rapping is a bit of a stereotype. Yes, this is the same game that body-shames the one fat character, has no idea what a trans person is, and... well we'll save that part for later. No one enjoys that. That said, I'm willing to say the good far outways the bad here. It lead to one of the funniest witness testimonies in the series so I can't be too mad!

2. Ted Tonate

What a peculiar character... semi-verbal, anti-social, obsessed with explosives, and overall a strange specimen to behold. It doesn't feel like he has a specific quirk more than it feels like everything about him is off-beat, ranging from uncomfortably still to absolutely feral. I like it!

More importantly - while he did commit murder and assault - he does serve an important role in the plot and is not completely incompetent or heartless. That courtroom would have become a graveyard without his warning, after all! He's a bit like Frank Sawhit where he'll resort to physical violence under pressure but doesn't seem to have intended to kill necessarily. Difference is Frank was a common thief, while Ted's a bona-fide member of the police's bomb disposal unit who - black market deals aside - actually carries his duties out and does a good job. Nice little misdirection there too. That opening monologue fits the phantom better than Ted but we don't figure that until near the end. It doesn't erase the fact he's done some terrible things but at he's not a monster. Just a woefully anti-social guy who doesn't respond well to being called out.

Dual Destinies gets a surprising amount of mileage out of its Case 1 antagonist and it's a treat to watch. There's plenty that case does to give the game a bad first impression, but Ted's not one of them. He can stay!

3. Aristotle Means Aaaaaaaand we've nose-dived. Prepare for snark.

Means is emblematic of a much larger issue with Dual Destinies; it doesn't seem interested in treating the main conflicts of its cases as much more than generic good vs evil despite having an abundance of material to make things more interesting. Yes, I know Ace Attorney culprits aren't the most 3-dimensional bunch - usually the character conflicts they cause are the most interesting parts. Though they usually make things fun by being smarmy bastards. Means is just repeatitive. It's one thing to be a shallow bad guy, it's another thing entirely to beat you over the head with a single catchphrase without putting any spins on it. Manfred has the same one-track mind in his philosophy but he never felt this aggressively tedious about it. There's also the fact that, well... the ends DID justify the means in the end. Dual Destinies' main conflict would not have been solved without Aura taking extreme measures to save Simon. Having that while saying "doing bad things is bad no matter what!" with this guy makes him feel all the more flimsy and misguided. Him wanting to save Juniper and honour her wishes by any means necessary is a nice way to add flavour to the conflict but it's grossly overshadowed by him being a flat cartoon for the most part.

I feel like there's a sorely missed opportunity here for him to point out that Phoenix Wright also exercised that philosophy at times. Yes I'm talking about forging evidence in 4-1, it would have been a nice way to make his conflict with Athena more interesting. Pointing out that her boss is an exemplar of "the ends justifies the means" - especially with Apollo in the same room - is an idea that fills my brain with thinks. Might have even been the reason why he invited Nick to the academy too... oh well. It takes a lot to bouy a one-track villain like him up as it is without actively adding more baggage through redundancy and lack of presence. He doesn't even do much of anything or have a chance to BE evil before his hair stands up like other villains. He's just. Annoying. I know I keep comparing him to Manfred, but imagine a version of him that didn't do anything until the tail-end of the last trial and with none of the backstory and gravitas. That's the level Means is at.

A crappier Manfred. Joy to the world!

4. ???

YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SOMEBODY! YOU HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL! Hell, he arguably does have dramatic weight as-written. He's the embodiment of the distrust and denial of ones true feelings/identity that has caused this racket in the first place. Dual Destinies as a whole is a game about people who put on masks to do what they feel is right or necessary, then being forced to take the mask off, confront themselves and their actions for what they truly are. Having a villain who's hidden his identity this entire time is such a fitting choice! It's just a shame that he, oh you know, it's small thing it doesn't really matter... DIDN'T HAVE AN IDENTITY WORTH HIDING TO BEGIN WITH!!! Dual Destinies beats you over the head about how scary this guy is for having no personality. And that's exactly the problem. When you spend that much time telling people the villain isn't worth caring about then that's what people are going to take away. Nevermind that his personality for most of the game was a goofy detective man who valued JUSTICE! above all else, a man who is willing to question his own definitions of it despite what others may think but still allows it to justify doing awful things like zapping Simon. Maybe that could have been the answer! That he allowed his perception of JUSTICE! to warp so much that he became this ghoulish ghost who kills and commits acts of terrorism without remorse. His life being threatened when his literal mask falls acting as a metaphor for how he is unable to confront himself for who he is and what he's done; he, in his own eyes, would be the least justified of them all, and so he has forsaken his identity to avoid that truth. A truth that would spell the end both within and without.

But no. The game does everything in its power to tell you he's a hollow, empty husk of a human being. More importantly, even if the above was the case it doesn't do anything at all with the concept. It just comes across that his main conflict is "who tf am I?" Which is... oddly sad and worrying? Yes, I do think the idea of letting your true self go leading to awful, terrible things and the horror of realising that that's exactly what you did - even denying it or using it as a point of strength - is an interesting and befitting idea. They just don't do anything with it before he's already carted off to the pile of characters we'll never hear from again. There's nothing there by design to the point where it doesn't feel like there was anything he COULD have discarded in the first place. His lack of identity feels less like a concept the writers wanted to explore and more of an excuse to get a twist villain who could pretend to be anybody.

It's a diservice to both the story and to the false identity he had before this. "Bobby Fulbright" somehow ended up a more interesting character and he's the one who's chastised by other characters for being a simple idiot! And he was discarded for this guy! "Bobby" should have mattered more, both to the characters and to the phantom's identity. Not get an unceremonial "he was dead the whole time" reveal and be completely divorced from the phantom's character in every way the story can think to do. Erasure in more ways than one... no wonder people felt betrayed. In a bad way. You shouldn't feel betrayed by the writing if it's any good and that's how plenty - myself included - felt. Oh, and having the only character who's low/no emotion be the shallow bad guy is not a great look... I'll say it again; the problem isn't that he's the antagonist. It's that he's not a well-written one. A psychopath would be fascinating as a character in ANY role in this psychology-focused mystery game if Dual Destinies had the gall to make one that's actually interesting. Remember what I said about Means crushing the conflict into something too simple for the concept behind it? The phantom does that on a wider scale and it deals a massive blow to Dual Destinies to have its overarching villain so infuriatingly empty and disposable. It makes themes of trust and masks I mentioned fall flat.

I'd rather Athena kill Metis over this. It'd be a similar concept with more justification behind it without completely dismissing the players emotional investment or cheapening the themes of the game. Or at least execute those things in a better way than this. In justice we trusted...

Sidenote: I was torn between ranking Means or the phantom here. While Phanty is definitely more interesting to talk about than the living staute, him sucking hurts more than Means due to his status as the main villain. It's easier to get away with being a shallow puddle when you weren't meant to swim much in it to begin with.

5. Florent L'belle

You'll notice I didn't put an emotional marker on this guy. That should tell you everything you need to know. At least the phantom makes me feel something, even if it is abject despair at how much of a gaping hole he leaves in the story. Florent just... I mean he's... His breakdown's creepy, that's kinda fun... I got nothing, he's just sort of there.

Lick a toad, you inferior Redd White. I'm going need to borrow Bobby's Jolt of Justice next time you show up.

At least I'd feel something that way.

#dual destinies analysis #dual destinies spoilers #ace attorney spoilers #aa5 spoilers #aa4 spoilers #marlon rimes #ted tonate #aristotle means #the phantom ace attorney #florent l'belle #lotta text in this one watch out! oooooo!

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bluerosesburnblue · 8 months

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The last we talked about Final Fantasy XVI, you'd just seen someone get punched by a certain someone. Are you any further now? Like, have you seen the ending of the game? And if you have... I guess the developers of Final Fantasy XVI have said that this game has so much lore, they could make a sequel with it, which is most definitely true. LOL. Who knows if they'll ever actually do that (if so, it'll be very far off), but if they do, what do you think it'll tell? What would you want it to do?

I have indeed seen the end of it by now! To be honest, I kind of have mixed feelings on the plot of the game as a whole. Love the characters, Clive especially is now one of my favorite Final Fantasy protagonists, but I can't help but feel that the game is a little disjointed in spots. They advertised it as the story of Clive's life spanning three eras, but those three eras don't have equal weight and end up coming across as Prologue #1, Prologue #2, and The Actual Game if that makes sense given that you've actually played the game and I've only seen other people play it. And, honestly, when I think back on it, I kind of liked what Prologue #2 with Clive in his late 20s was putting forward the best out of all three sections

I liked the darker and more personal angle that they were putting down, with a story about a man whose latent powers went berserk and he ended up hurting someone close to him, desperate for revenge without realizing that the one he wants revenge against is himself. But then it feels like they resolve that angle very fast and everything after that is a very classic "god is evil kill god" Final Fantasy plot. It's a well-done version of that plot to be sure, and I can really respect how well they tried to capture the feeling of old-school Final Fantasy games, but given how much of the marketing was about this game being darker and more mature, to me it felt like the themes got almost less mature as it went on, going from personal grief, this desperation to rebuild, the price of revenge, etc. to a more generic "free will good" story

Spoilers from here on out

That said, the developers are correct that there's so much lore, and to me that's the best part of the game. I've always found stories that heavily feature elemental-themed areas a lot of fun, like Avatar: The Last Airbender or One Last God: Kubera, so this game giving each summon a specific element and, for the most part, keeping it one summon/element per faction was really interesting to see brought to light. I think the fact that they touched on different factions viewing their Dominants differently was a good start, I just wanted to see a bit more of it on-screen because again, like I said, they started doing that at the beginning, but then it kind of got completely overwhelmed by the "Ultima wants Clive to have all of the Dominant powers" stuff and then never bothered to really look back at how the people felt about losing their nation's Dominants (also they way that they handled Clive taking the powers was kinda weird? Like, Dion carries on just fine and can still transform but Jill gets benched? What?)

Ahhhhhh I just... I almost wish that Ultima had just been an interesting background element and that the game as a whole had focused more on the infighting between the nations and Dominants and Bearers, rather than the other way around. I just found Ultima so generic and uninteresting, and that the game focused too much on making Clive this Super Awesome Chosen One because of it, when I found he was at his best when he was just a kind, awkward man struggling with this unprecedented power he was stuck with and the trauma it brought him

Because to be honest, at the start of the game I wondered if, maybe, what was happening was that they were gonna pull some classic Final Fantasy Dark World stuff and have it be that every Eikon had a dark counterpart. So Ifrit would be the Dark Eikon of Fire to Phoenix's Light Eikon of Fire and they could have used other classic FF summons as the Dark Eikons, like Garuda vs. Sylph. And the Light Eikons could bless people with their power like how Clive had the blessing of the Phoenix, while the Dark Eikons could steal powers. But, no, it's just Ifrit being Super Special and everything. Also... why... was Joshua the only one who could seemingly bless others with his power? Dion couldn't give Terrence a Blessing of Bahamut or anything and give him some light powers? Jill had to let Clive absorb her Shiva powers rather than blessing him with them becauuuuuuse...? And, man, it could've been so interesting if they had a sideplot on Anabella trying to force all of the Dominants to bless Olivier to match Clive or something. Or maybe not even a sideplot, that sounds like I would've liked it way more than the Ultima stuff because of how much more personal it has the potential to be and the game could've been a race to take the power of each Dominant before Olivier could get their blessings. Olivier was so underutilized

As for the lore, I think they do a really good job fleshing out Bearers, so really if they had more to look into, it would be the unanswered questions. Like, we know that Valisthea is only one continent on this world (Cid isn't originally from there, and IIRC neither was Barnabas's family), so what are the others like? Where is Leviathan? Are the theories that the Medicine Girl was Leviathan's Dominant, just not yet awakened, true? (Also, if Ultima needed Clive to have all of the other Eikon's powers, why were we even allowed to skip Leviathan? Shouldn't we have had to track them down? Why did they end up lost?) If the truth is that Ultima's people descended from another world and created humanity, then where did the idea of the Goddess Greagor come from? And what about the legend surrounding the star, Metia? Is Metia magical or is it just a cute legend thing?

Hmmm. If they ever did more with FFXVI, it would have to be a prequel, wouldn't it? Because I think where it left off was exactly where it should have, with some hope for the future and the world moving on, bittersweet with all of the losses that it took to get there but worth it all the same. (I know that there's a lot of theories about who "Joshua Rosfield" is in the end, and I actually prefer that it's ambiguous. Whether you think Clive succeeded in bringing Joshua back at the cost of his own life, or that Clive took Joshua's name which is the one that I think has the most in-game hints to it, or even if you want to think of a third option like one I've seen where Clive survived, but the "Joshua Rosfield" in question is actually his and Jill's son named in Joshua's honor, sacrifices were made and hope remains)

So I think the route with the most potential might end up being a Cid-centric prequel about what life on other continents is like. And I would never complain about more Cid, especially in regards to how he was chosen by Ramuh and what about how things are on other continents is that made him so averse to how Valisthea does things. I think that Cid is really something special due to his status as an outsider looking in on Storm and Ash and how his different perspective compared to everyone there is such a catalyst for what happens in the plot and it's a real shame that most of what we get of Cid is posthumous. So if FFXVI was to get its own sub-series, that's where I'd take it

#liz answers #oveliagirlhaditright #final fantasy #final fantasy xvi #it's an interesting game to be sure #i like a lot of what it's got to it i just... idk i feel like it didn't match my expectations based on what we were shown pre-release #and it's one of those unfortunate things where what i built up in my head based on that marketing that was hiding spoilers #ended up being more interesting to me than what we got #and again i don't think that ffxvi is bad! it's not! it has a lot of interesting things to it #it just wasn't what i personally was hoping for but i can fully understand how someone else could fall in love with it #i do love clive a lot though #10/10 he's so serious while also being a bit of a dorky sweetheart

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subiysu-chan · 3 months

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I’m curious, is your book gonna be like a non fiction history sort of thing or historical fiction? Are there any liberties you’re taking? I’m totally gonna buy that when its done my special interest needs more attention omfg

More like historical fiction. Thanks for asking ! It'll be in French, though.

I do take some liberties, but not a lot. Mostly "fill in the blanks" kind of stuff. Like Charles-Henri becoming his father's assistant at 14 instead of 12. Heavily inspired by the Mémoires.

The main plot with Charles-Henri so far would be:

(of what I already written)

-Charles-Henri gets expelled from boarding school

-Charles-Henri becomes his father's assistant for a spell

-Charles-Henri returns to another boarding school were he gets bullied and befriends the school's corrector. (His job is to whip the kids).

-During this time, he has a misadventure. Basically, his friend is in financial trouble and he gets bullied. His main bully is involved in some not good activity, so Charles-Henri tries to kill two birds with one stone. He gets caught, explains everything, but his plan succeeds anyway. Charles-Henri even manages to manipulate his bully into punching him in front of a teacherHe now has to work extra hard to regain the trust of his teachers.

-His identity is discovered when his dad goes to visit him. They leave almost immediately, and there is some father-son bonding time.

-Charles-Henri is privately tutored by Grisel

-Now, I am at the part, were Charles-Henri nearly litterally dies of boredome because he doesn't get jumped any more.

-(Next to be written) Once healed, he gets to see the theater with his big sis and father Grisel (his tutor), they get recognized and have to make a run for it.

-More bonding and learnign with tutor and big sis (who also crushes on him)

-Charles makes his first comunion, and is very happy about it. Father Grisel is very pleased his pupil made it so far, and everything is cute. The priests gets suspicious about father Grisel, but it's quite inconsequencial.

-Father Grisel finally succombs to his illness.

-Now, Charles-Henri has no other option but to become his father's apprentice.

-Brainwashing from granny and executions

-Sibbling bonding time. The shinigans with his sibblings and his father's other apprentices make it so Charles is more willing to become an executioner. Jean-Baptiste and Anne-Marthe encourage this as this helps avoid in-fighting.

-Eventually, Jean-Baptiste has to leave for Brie-Comte-Robert because of either vacations or actually doing some work there. Charles-Henri was picked at random to go with him, and so Jean-Baptiste, La Blancheur, Caboche, Charles-Henri, Nicolas-Charles Zelles and Petit Matelot all leave for Brie-Comte-Robert. They have to stop at an inn because the horses get too tired to carry the carriage further, and Jean-Baptiste randomly share a table with a musketeer and master swordsman, who was one day branded by Jean-Baptiste's hand. The tavern owner thinks the Sanson are nobility, and they get extra nice service, thinking it would later attract a higher end clientel. They recognize each other and the argument rapidly escalades to the Musketeer drawing his rapier. Jean-Baptiste had left his weapons under lock and key in the carriage seat to eat, and only has a butter knife to defend himself. His hand is gashed, but otherwise, he's unharmed and manages to actually win and wrestles his opponant to the ground. He asks his servant to fetch the roughest brush they can find, and uses it to expose the man's brand in front of the audience, as revenge for outing him as executioner. They are forced to leave. Jean-Baptiste ends up paying double than intended and leaves his silk coat, so that the tavern owner has something to survive on now he's probably out of buisness with this scandal.

-After the Brie buisness is done, they all return to Paris.

-Some time passes, and New Year is upon them.

-January is insanely stressful, with all the extra injuries, all the executions that didn't happen in december happen then, and eventually, Jean-Baptiste's heart gives in. He has a heart attack, he survives but half-way paralyzed.

-Runnign the household with a hemi-plegic head requires a lot fo their attention.

-Rivals all flock, and it's time for Anne-Marthe to shine. And brightly she does, she presents Charles-Henri to the magistrates, but surprise !

-Some rivals have already arrived, they failed, but it means someone had been spreading the news about Jean-Baptiste's declining health.

-Spoiler ! Spoiler ! Spoiler !

-So, a few days later, another rival arrives to their house, and places an ultimatum: the eldest daughter's hand, or he would take Jean-Baptiste's post. He's adult, competant, and the magistrates do seriously consider his candidature. So, the wedding takes place.

-The day before she leaves, Madeleine-Claude-Gabrielle confesses her feelings for her younger brother, and says that if he doesn't want her virginity, it's fine. She then does not need her beauty, and disfigures herself and shaves her beautiful hair in an act of both protest, and because if Charles-Henri doesn't want her, she no longer needs or wants her beauty. The card was already played.

-Charles-Henri attends, and his uncle too.

-In the end, the Lescombats affair happen. Charles-Henri falls for Madame Lescombat or Marie-Louise Taperet. In a last ditch at survival, she manipulates him into distracting the jailers to allow her servant and lover to enter her cell one more time. He then has to listen to the woman he falls head over heels for have sex with another man. Boy is fifteen.

-Some few weeks later, Taperet is no longer pregnant and her lover is dead. So of course, she replaces him with another one, and Charles-Henri has to do this entire thing once again. They both did consider doing it together, but Charles-Henri is too cowardly to break the law under the nose of a rival, and should the plan succeed, would not be able to bring himself to bring his own child to the Hôpital Général.

-Soubise thinks Charles-Henri is the father, and would do anything to prove it.

-He fails, but the hanging is a fiasco, and Charles-Henri nearly dies lynched. He survives with a completely broken finger and many severe bruises on his back.

-The epilogue ends with Nicolas-Gabriel being called in to patch him up, and some after-care insues. The nail matrix has to be destroyed in the surgery to save his finger. Charles-Henri is now convinced that if God allowed him to live, it's to continue the Sanson family legacy. The end.

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semi-imaginary-place · 10 months

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ffxvi

Congrats on 13 years on T Clive, pop off king.

hrreeklwnnfdddddcchhhhh so many names. ok ok so iron and dhalmek are fighting. and woeld(??) got asked to help dhalmek and they said lol no. and empire?? (which empire???) sent assasins after iron's shiva. i'm having to pause every 10 seconds. shiva's ice and cape and stuff could have been more translucent.

I do think its interesting how the entire backdrop of this game is resource scarcity driven political conflict. like rosaria is invading iron for resources because it itself is in threat of collapse. also nice to see that the "good" king isn't all that good.

wait wait the crusaders and empire are different factions?? ugggg im so confused. i heard crusaders and holy kingdom and put those together but the crusaders are from iron kingdom? wait if iron hates dominants how'd they get shiva.

did rosaria invade and annex jill's kingdom too?

wow they family dinners these people must have. brother's love and admire each other and are also a little jealous of each other. mom hates clive and dotes on joshua but is also trying to appeal to dad. dad is tired.

sanbrequois? they're french??? ah so this is the empire

oh shit. clive is ifrit? so the one he wants revenge on is himself??? thats juicy. so those indestructible ancient ruins can be destroyed by eikons. hmm i cant tell there was definitely something up with clive and the hooded figure and ifrit but then we got a 3rd person pov of ifrit killing pheonix.

yikes

i was wondering how he ended up an imperial slave. given he was the archduke's son he could have been a political prisoner and he's important enough for his name and face to be known, but nah anabella sent him to the frontlines.

one tattoo is for the magic people, what the other for? clive still has his pheonix abilities even though joshua is dead is he actually a bearer or did people just think he was because of the pheonix abilities.

kill those soldiers or we'll kill these children. sounds like a terrible deal

for supposidly being his dog we don't see enough of clive interacting with togul. its always jill carrying him around or that old woman petting him.

this si starting to remind me of smt neutral/genocide route where you kill everyone from every faction. factions are still confusing me are royalists sabrque or waleod

i lost the plot. we're searching for some dominant in a village in imperial territory and getting attacked by... waleod? iron? thank you ign so royalist are waloed

ooooh i was getting branded and bearer confused which is easy to do

why's cid after the dominant? recruitment? counter to clive's revenge. stir up a bit of trouble for the bigger nations? well benedrikta has been harassing this one village and kidnapping the bearers

cid's going to die isn't he. he's too good. and he has mysterious japanese coughing blood disease aka fantasy tuberculosis

ok the titan dude. the woe.. woelda?? king dude. cid. damn girl keep them wanting. this game is just benedrikta and every man she's had sex with. i never even watched game of thrones and im starting to get why everyone is comparing this game to it. gotta milk that M rating.

i have ... reservations about benedrikta's character writing. also cid's right why do you have to go and fight garuda clive. leave her be. you start hearing voices and your instinct it to listen to them. bruh.

the environments are really pretty I'd totally mod out combat and have a nice walking simulator

ok damn clive did you have to kill her for the crime of being in your way

ok yeah i was starting to wonder if the hooded flame man clive was seeing and the one benedrikta captured were different people

the devs didn't hold back huh sex scenes. clive bare ass naked in a dungeon. why is he naked you found him with clothes on.

cids into men. thats 2 comments now one from a villager who thought clive was warming cid's bed and now cid calling clive pretty but not his type.

on one hand before ifrit killed pheonix i was thinking oh maybe the brothers reunite after 13 years. and then ifirit stuck his hand through phoenix and beat him to a bloody pulp and i was like yup dead. it would make some narrative sense if joshua was the hooded man but eh i dont know if i like it but i also dont know if i like having joshua just die like that.

it is joshua. joshua main character moment. evil cursed brother with the potential to destroy the world. well phoenix did revive his entire health bar once during the battle.

either testing for bearers at birth is an imperial tradition. or clive wasn't a bearer when he was born. both interesting implications. 3rd option is anabella decided to make clive's life even more miserable.

martha reminded me does clive look hella like his dad. people in ros...e...lin? might actually recognize him.

cid how old are you that you're calling clive lad and boy or was clive originally scripted to be younger?

squeenix... its ok for a woman to look middle aged. she's still beautiful.

wait wait wait. normal people cast cast magic in the deadlands but i thought the whole thing with bearers was that their powers weren't tied to the mothercrystals. also ... jill and clive are both dominants. are all those powers dependent on the land's aether?

xiv pulls a kingdom hearts. this i wasn't quite sure but now im pretty sure. clive seems to think the hooded man he's seeing is the same as the one everyone else is seeing (joshua) but theres really two of them. the one he saw 13 years ago speaking a strange language is not joshua.

the writers make jill's entire character motivation for 13 years protecting the women taken from rosaria by the ironmen but then drop that on the ground the moment she meets clive?? Those Women didn't stop being captive just because they stopped being on screen.

cid took credit for benedrikta's death? ooh politics!

joshua phoenix fire, jill shiva ice, benedika garuda wind, forgot that guys name titan earth, cid ramuh lightning, prince dude bahamut light, eastern king guy odin dark. who is the 8th? no water leviathan?

#Ffxvi #ffxvi spoilers

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downstarr · 2 years

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The Accidental Seduction of Edward Teach by Stede Bonnet, Gentleman Pirate - Chapter 3, Minuet

This story begins assuming Calico Jack left the Revenge, Ed stayed, and Jack didn't betray the crew to the English. How would the slow burn of Ed and Stede's relationship have carried on? How long would it take for them to realize their feelings for each other in the absence of life-changing events?

Plot-light, especially compared to my hypothetical S2 fic, A Pirate's Life for Us. The main driver of plot is Ed and Stede's accidental flirtation and growing intimacy.

Fluff and non-graphic smut.

-----

Stede gives Ed a gift. It goes well at first, but Ed grows frustrated by the lack of progress in their relationship.

Notes: This is the piece Ed is playing during the first part of this chapter.

------

“Fuck off. You got that for me?”

“I will not. And I did,” said Stede as he beamed at Ed.

Ed was standing in their shared quarters, staring flabbergasted at a fortepiano that Stede had just unveiled with a flourish. Even the cloth he’d used to cover it before the reveal was loud and decorated with an intricate pattern of pineapples and birds of paradise.

Stede looked deeply pleased with himself, both with the acquisition and Ed’s reaction.

“How did you even get it in here?” asked Ed incredulously.

“Well, it was no small job, I’ll tell you that. They had to tilt it on its side and then I had to have a man in here to make sure you could still play it. It won’t be like a piano on shore, but you should be able to pick up your playing,” And then Stede added, a bit shyly, “...if you like. No pressure, of course.” And suddenly he was looking like he was recalculating and worrying he’d made a big mistake.

Ed walked around the piano and ran his fingers over the keys. The instrument was clearly secondhand and well-loved, but it produced a pure sound for a relatively small instrument. “Mental,” he mumbled. “I haven’t seen a piano on a ship, well, since I first sailed.”

“If you hate it…we can get rid of it. It’s…well, I’m sure I could sell it.” Stede stood a distance away, suddenly tense and awkward.

Has he given you presents?

Ed heard Lucius’ words of advice from a week or so prior when he’d played relationship counselor in the wee hours of the morning.

“Why would I hate it? It’s a fucking piano on a pirate ship,” Ed gestured to the instrument in question. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. I love it.”

Stede exhaled like he’d been holding his breath. His face relaxed. “I never did ask. How did… you learn to play? Of all the skills I’d imagine Blackbeard would have, music wasn’t high on the list. No offense.”

“None taken.” Ed seated himself at the fortepiano and slid his long fingers over the ivories, producing a soft tone. “I was young. Scrawny. Just started sailing. Didn’t have any real skills. Captain Hornigold loved the piano. He had a man called Mister Yarrow who used to play for him. But he had terrible arthritis in his hands and couldn’t really play anymore. I was told if I could learn to play enough to entertain Hornigold, I could keep my berth.”

Ed hadn’t thought about his earliest days in a very long time. That was when things still felt relatively optimistic. He’d left his home and his mother behind - a mother who had never really forgiven him for killing his father despite the man’s drunken abuse. In killing him, he’d removed her support system.

“How old were you?” Stede asked cautiously as he stepped closer.

“Oh…fourteen,” said Ed as he started to play Handel’s Minuet. He hadn’t played in years, but he’d played that particular piece so frequently that his fingers remembered exactly how to bounce over the ivories, to dance with a light touch. It was a sad, melancholy sound. The small piano wasn’t perfect, but his competent playing got the most out of it. Some bits, he struggled to dig up from the depths of his memory.

Stede moved up behind him. He felt hands on his shoulders, resting on the nape of his neck as the music grew more intense and sadder.

Ed saw flashes. His mother’s face. Captain Hornigold, harsh and demanding but neither as cruel nor drunken as his own father. He felt Yarrow’s lash as he got the notes wrong. He remembered going to bed with aching fingers and swollen knuckles, both from the hours of piano tutelage and manual labour of learning to be a sailor.

“You started sailing…at fourteen?” asked Stede.

“Twelve,” Ed replied. “Soon after my father died. He was a bastard, but he paid the bills. My mother couldn’t afford to keep us both fed and clothed, so I had to make my own way soon after.” His words were matter-of-fact, and distracted by his attempt to dredge up the notes from the dark recesses of memory.

“Oh, Ed,” said Stede softly.

Ed felt the man’s aristocratic fingers cup the side of his neck. His hands were warm and soft. Stede swept his hair over one shoulder and pressed fingers into his tense neck muscles.

The music of the minuet was infused with the sadness of his memories. Ed closed his eyes and concentrated on the music itself, and the warmth of Stede’s body as he stood behind him.

The longer the music went on, the closer Stede got, until he felt the man pressing against his back, hands on either shoulder. He felt fingers sweep over his collarbone, and along his neck. And for a time, both men were lost to the melancholy music. Ed just let his muscle memory dance his fingers across the keys.

Long after the last note had echoed through their shared quarters, both men were still. The only sound was the gentle rocking of the ship, the distant murmur of the crew’s conversation, and the steady, deep breaths from both of them.

“Extraordinary,” whispered Stede after what felt like an age of silence. “Ed, you’re very talented.”

“Mhmm, no I’m not. I’m rubbish,” Ed murmured self-consciously. “People’ve told me so. You’re just being…” he turned his head and looked up at the man who still stood close enough he could feel the rhythm of his breathing, “...being…Stede.” His eyebrows lifted.

“Now, listen. You know where I come from. I’ve had occasion to hear many talented people in my life. I’ve even heard that piece before. But I’ve never heard it like that.” Stede squeezed his shoulder and moved around him, hand still on his shoulder. “I meant it when I said we could get rid of it if it’s got bad memories for you. But if you think you want to keep playing, well…”

Ed looked at Stede, then looked shyly away and at the keys. “Mhmm, I dunno. It’s not very piratey.”

“But does it give you joy?”

Ed considered the keys in front of him. He touched a few and listened to the notes. He hadn’t thought about the piano in a very long time, until they’d encountered the one at the posh party. It had come back to him as easily as swimming. Easier, really, seeing as he was a terrible swimmer. He had never played for his own edification - just, like so much else in his life - to survive. But something felt different now, seeing the effect it had on Stede. “Well…” he mumbled, “...I like that you like it.”

Stede moved around to the front of him. And for the first time, the other man touched his face, cupping his cheek through his voluminous beard. He pressed through until he found the curve of Ed’s jaw. “If you keep playing, I want it to be for you. Not for me.”

“Awwh,” intoned Ed shyly. He tried to look away, but the hand on his jaw stopped him from turning his head too far. “Maybe we can keep it. For a bit. But if it turns into a thing we just throw clothes on, we might want to get rid of it?”

Stede smiled, “That’s a deal, then. I won’t pressure you to play it. You just play whenever it strikes your fancy.”

—

Maybe it was because it seemed to make Stede happy, but Ed started playing the piano nearly daily. He’d play a happy little tune while they waited for their breakfast, bawdy tunes to entertain the crew, or as an accompaniment to Frenchie or The Swede as they sang and played. But it was never quite as intimate as that time when he first played that sweeping, sad minuet.

Ed kept looking for that moment to reoccur, but as it seemed to be the pattern, the moments of intimacy between them never quite progressed. It was driving the pirate half-mad. He had these moments of deep connection, but he was terrified to push lest he scare Stede away.

Until one night, both were alone in their quarters, and Stede asked Ed to play something for him. Ed nearly refused, as he’d fallen into a fit of grumpiness, convinced once again that the aristocrat didn’t return his feelings despite what he felt were obvious signs. He started out to play something loud and plunky, with no flare. The frustration spilled out onto the keys.

Stede stepped over and reached out to take Ed’s hands. “Hey…you’ll wake the whole ship.” He squeezed his hands. “Maybe no piano tonight, then, ay? Why don’t we go to bed? I can read you something if you’d like.”

On another night, that offer would be welcome. Ed had spent many a night listening to Stede’s voice as they laid beside each other in bed. It didn’t really matter what it was - it relaxed him and helped him drift off to sleep. But tonight, he was far too frustrated and restless.

“Not sleepy,” Ed muttered. “Going out on deck.”

He didn’t look back to see Stede’s reaction.

—

Ed didn’t make it as far as the aft deck before he ran into Izzy in the corridor. His right hand man was drunk, judging by the scent of rum on his breath. He had never been a particularly heavy drinker, but the longer they stayed on the Revenge, the more the man seemed to partake.

“I remembered when you used to come to me to bandage the knuckles that Yarrow made bloody and raw from the stupid fucking piano,” slurred Izzy. “And now you play for him like a trained dog, just like you used to play for Hornigold. After we mutinied and threw the damned thing into the sea, I didn’t think I’d ever see you play again.”

Ed tried to get past Izzy, but the corridor was narrow.

Izzy grabbed handfuls of Ed’s nightdress and got up in his face in a way he never would have while sober. “Is this what you’ve become? Lapdog to a lesser man once again? A man who teases you…but won’t…”

Ed glared at the other man and gave him a shove. “Won’t what?”

“Fuck you,” hissed Izzy. “Maybe he doesn’t even like men. Maybe he’s just a fancy lad and you’re going to keep pathetically pining for him forever…”

Izzy was close, and getting closer. They had their dalliances when they were younger, but Ed had stopped when he realized the man liked to be beaten down just a little too much. Despite Ed’s rejection, he was well aware that Izzy would go back to their old habits in a second.

And Ed was so very, very frustrated.

Izzy knew it. That’s why he felt emboldened to grab hold of the back of Ed’s neck and haul him in for a sloppy, intense kiss with a scrape of teeth.

As soon as Ed tasted the other man, he knew that was not what he wanted. But he didn’t push him off as quickly as he should have.

“Ed?”

The voice was a small, soft squeak. Ed turned his head and shoved Izzy off to see Stede standing there, eyes as big as saucers as Izzy stood with his hands on his backside. He was holding two cups of tea.

Ed knew in that moment that he had not misread the man at all. The look of sheer disappointment and heartbreak shot daggers into Ed’s heart. “Stede. It’s not…” He tried to pull off, but Izzy cruelly kept hold and forced Ed to shove him off violently.

By the time he did, Stede had disappeared back into the cabin. When Ed tried to open it, he found the door was latched from the inside. Continue reading on Wattpad Continue reading on AO3

(As of May 25, 2022, there are 17 chapters with a new one added roughly every other day.)

#ofmd #our flag means death #our flag means death fanfic #our flag means death fanfiction #ofmd fanfic #blackbonnet #stedward #fanfic #fanfiction #pirates #stede bonnet #edward teach #romance #tenderness #fluff #sweetness #gay #lgbtq

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mikuni14 · 2 years

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Kinnporsche ep 10 - AKA The Chaos

I don't know what to think about this episode, which looks like it's not even part of KP as it looked so far, as if it was directed by several people at once, with a weirdly abrupt ending. The result is a chaotic mix of good moments with completely stupid or cringe ones.

I'll start with what I didn't like to be done with it: - ok, I’ve been treating KP for a long time as a series which thinks that killing people is enough to call yourself "mafia drama" lol. I accepted it. But in this episode, the amount of incompetence, glaring mistakes, and stupidity of these supposedly professional bodyguards and mafiosos just went beyond all the already VERY EXTENDED limits that I’ve set for them in my good faith and generosity - soooo Tawan has a bulletproof vest, but the rest of them don’t, because ... what, it affects The Look? The silhouette? Is not manly? :D Geee, I don't know, Gustavo Fring wears a tasteful white bulletproof vest, but maybe because he's a REAL mafioso :D Big, who has just been shot, doesn't need it? I know Kim looked super hot during the shootout, but man, you're either hot and dead or you've got that vest and you're alive. And you only live after this scene because you have a plot armor, nothing more. - I know that the creators of the series have never heard of crossfire, but in this episode they have not heard about it even more -Big was obviously killed just to get someone semi-important killed. His death was unnecessary and his moment of dying stupid. I literally burst out laughing as he gave his little speech to Porsche about Kinn. That was so awful. As if Big didn't even deserve a proper, dignified death. How his passing was practically ignored by the others, I won't even mention. Anyway, this scene is just a body count and a shock value. - talking about feelings during tense scenes, oh, he loves you, oh, you never loved me, oh, I love you Vegas, I thought I WILL DIE, I just don't know if from laughter or embarrassment. Meanwhile, Kinn and Vegas bodyguards either die of embarrassment with me or treat it like just another episode of their favorite soap opera 🍿 - I don't understand and I will never understand Thai BL's love for💩 jokes. I don't think there is a Thai BL drama in which there were no jokes about it and no characters sitting on the toilet (I think the most disgusting was FUTS). I can see that even KP can't avoid this, um, shit. I HATE IT. There are MILLION of options to punish Kinn, Porsche my dude, why THIS?????? - why Pete fought seriously with Porsche when Vegas was gone, no reason to pretend and fight, why Pete and Kinn have a scene and "Porsche is innocent, must proof his innocense" when they both know it?? - KimChay is developing. This time I braced myself and I watched their scene, which, as I predicted, sucked. Chay, looking like a little baby: I love you, do you love me? Kim: * after a long pause * I'm hungry, Chay: ok, I'll make you some eggs. WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS, PLEASE STOP

What I liked: - of course Kinn had a plan, it was obvious. I wish he had brought Porsche into it from the start, but I begrudgingly give an “ok” and a little pat to Kinn’s head beacuse he was just ABOUT TO inform Porsche about it and eventually trusted him to carry out his own mission. I wanted Kinn and Porsche working together from the start, but well, you can't have everything. Ultimately, Kinn trusted Porsche, that's the most important thing to me - how the brothers resolved their conflict, although the result of the fallout could still prove destructive. Korn literally gave up on revenge as in when a mom tells you "be a better person and give way to the other kid who is weaker and dumber," His brother KNOWS it and his bruised pride, public humiliation and the fact that his son has to go into hiding, can push him to attack the main family in the future. Not to mention that Ken was spying on the main family on orders from both Vegas AND his father - Pete and Porsche cool fight scene - there were no stupid quarrels and conflicts between Kinn and Porsche. They’re even more mushy and chummy lol - VEGAS. Vegas turned out to be even crazier and inhuman than I dared to expect. Vegas is an EXCELLENT manipulator, he is one of those "pretenders" who do it all the time, like in the scene with Porsche on a bike and during the hug, he pretends even when Porsche is not looking (or maybe part of him actually enjoyed that time with Porsche? maybe he enjoys pretending?). His engagement scene with Tawan is EXCELLENT, Vegas is mega-convincing. I LOVE that he started playing with Pete with "electrifying genital scene" lol, I didn't even dare to dream about such a scene. I didn't dare dream of a Vegas like this. I hope it will get EVEN WORSE. - Kinn’s meaty tit. When Porsche is looking up at him from his chest, he’s literally dragging it with his cheek, what a sexy milisecond 😳

Anyway, I hope this episode was just an accident and not the new norm because, let's be honest, it wasn’t very good.

#kinnporsche #Vegas The Perfect manipulator #Vegas without a single humanity cell in his body #remembering Pete Big and Todd the Hedgehog while Kinn is busy #I named the hedgehog Todd to honor John Sheppard #three fandoms detected!

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shitpostingkats · 2 years

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Epsilon, Carolina, and Parallel Character Arcs

To me, there are two lines that stick out from the freelancer collection. The culmination of the two characters that play center stage for the entirety of the duology, Epsilon and Carolina. Their stories wrap in two of my absolute favorite, gutpunching, and heartfelt lines of the entire show:

"I forget you."

and

"Your past doesn't define who you are. It just gives you the starting point for who you're going to be."

Epsilon and Carolina's quotes work in parallel to each other; on one hand, Church making the deliberate choice to lose the memory, to stop, for the sake of someone he cares about. He forgets. And Carolina, making the choice to hold that close, to move on, for the sake of herself. She remembers.

What makes this absolutely fascinating is they’re following the same story, healing from the same pain.

Red vs Blue is all about memory. Unabashedly, the show has been very vocal about its primary theme since the day they first decided to have actual writing. But one thing I think doesn't get enough attention is how this is carried over and represented in season 9, the season that flashes between the memory unit and PFL's early days. In Church, the usage is obvious: he's living in a memory, a projection of his old life. Might as well make it a good one. But the other side of the season is also a recollection. It's Carolina's memory. We get to see the good times, before things went wrong, before people died. We get to see the twins working in tandem, the team functioning. Carolina and York banter. Wash is still the goofy rookie. They drive through the city listening to music and crack jokes and show off. Sure, it shows the beginning of some of the tragedy to come, but the freelancer side of the season ends with a scene between Carolina and the director, saying 'this was the warmup. From now on, it will be serious.'

Church and Carolina are both remembering their teams. The people they love. And how their lives got ruined by project freelancer. Those moments, those memories, are going to be the driving force and rage behind their team up, their quest for revenge. The idea that these people, this family, was hurt by one man and his stupid goals, is their shared trauma that leads to them being the driving force of the plot.

Even in season 9, we see Church trying to hold on to his memories. To make sure he has all his facts right, that everything, down to the smallest detail, reflects real life. Eventually, he uses this for closure. He finds Tex, and sees the rage she's carrying in her. Not at what the director did. Honestly, she seems to be mostly over her past as Allison seeing as it, you know, wasn't her. But the same idea, that so many lives were lost, all for the sake of someone that wasn't her. That she didn't get to make her own choices.

Same trauma, different result.

She sees Epsilon, trying so hard to remember, to hold on to everything, and she says "hey." She tells him off. She says ‘Even if these memories matter to you, holding on to them is hurting me.’ So Epsilon lets go. He decides that these memories aren't going to save anyone, they're just going to keep both of them from healing.

Tex was the reason Epsilon was even created. Like he says, "You were the memory. You were the key."

Epsilon is memory. He's the key. And he choses to throw it away, so it can never be unlocked again. It's bittersweet but it isn't fair, her being brought back over and over, her very autonomy violated, for the sake of someone else’s story.

And hey! That's another theme he shares with Carolina!

The idea that the stories we see in television, the ones guided by trauma, aren't always correct, because your pain doesn't mean you can hurt other people. And not in a "oh you want to Kill the person responsible for your trauma and that makes you a Bad Person and you will eventually have a Change of Heart." (Though that does, kinda, happen, buts it’s way more nuanced and well written and makes much more sense for their personal arcs than the stereotypical 'uwu murder is bad' trope.) No, Carolina and Church are never decried for their goals, for wanting to lash out or obsessively remember. They get called out when their ideals, the ones explicitly labeled 'noble' or 'romantic' by popular media, hurt the people who are trying to help them. Church compulsively follows Tex through layers of memories, chasing the girl he's determined to love. In any other story, that would be sweet. Carolina wants the director dead, wants the man who hurt her and her friends killed. In any other story, that would be heroic. But both of them get called out for their behavior.

“Romance happens in movies. In real life, it’s called stalking.”

And, interestingly, by the people who they aren’t hurting. In the memory unit, Tucker, walking restraining order, is the first one to make Church question if what he’s doing is wrong. Carolina is berated for her treatment of the reds and blues by Wash. Wash. Wash, the guy who’s the only one other than Carolina and Epsilon who knows the entirety of what the director did, the guy who’s carrying the traumas of three different people in his head, the guy who should want the director dead more than anyone. But he also has his experiences from the previous seasons. He’s the one who steps up, like Tucker did, and tells her ‘I know books and tv have taught you that this is okay, that you can treat people like side characters in your personal story, but I’ve been down that road. In reality, it just makes you a jerk.’

Trauma does not give you a free pass to be a bad person.

Throughout season 10, our story is now flip flopping between Carolina-and-Epsilon, and the final days of project freelancer. The bad days. Connie’s death and Maine’s degradation and Tex’s betrayal and the final mutiny. And, most importantly to Carolina, her final fight with York.

Though it pains me to do so, I’m going to pull a quote from season 15.

“Sometimes, I think York was my chance at a fresh start. And I threw it down an elevator shaft.”

Carolina is fighting between the two sides of herself, the parts she sees as being “splintered” by the project. The good leader, the team commander, the captain of her little family, versus the ruthless soldier, the headstrong killer, the ‘best of the best’. She spends time tracking down all the old bodies of her teammates, trying to reconcile how much she loved them with the fact that they all betrayed each other. Connie’s helmet, Tex’s crashed ship, and, once again.

York.

When Epsilon shows her the recording of York, she sees her chance at a ‘fresh start’. She sees her old teammate, her almost love, the man who was willing to die to do the right thing. Epsilon tells her “I know what it’s like to spend your whole life chasing ghosts.”

From his perspective, this is crucial advice. The choice to stop remembering, to move on and let go, is what kept the woman he loved being forced to live, over and over again. It's the choice that got him out of the memory unit, that allowed him to overcome his grief and have a semblance of closure.

But to Carolina, the memory of York was the only thing giving her reservations. The memory of ‘do the right thing, no matter the consequences’. The memory of a family, of friends, of jokes in the pelican and a lighter that says Errera and the idea that she got more from the project than years of hell and trauma. The idea that she needs to ‘let go’ is exactly what breaks her.

Again, same history. Same pain. Different ways they come out of it, different ways they heal.

From then on, Carolina is dead set on killing the director. She’s ruthless, vicious, and downright suicidal. Epsilon, who was just beginning to stitch himself together, feeds into it, with newfound whiplash after getting his full memory back. Together, they become a dysfunctional little battle team of loathing, eventually driving away any help they had and dooming their vengeance to failure.

(Of course, they only survive because the very people they abandoned look at eachother and decide ‘They were hurt. They hurt us. But this thing they’re chasing, this trauma, is what brought us together in the first place. And we’re going to hold on to that companionship, the shared history, instead of the actions made by someone mad with grief.’ You know, kinda like the original pfl chose not to do.) (Honestly, people really undervalue the sim troopers in my opinion. They went through almost the exact same thing the PFL team did, just on a broader, less personalized, level. The fact that they look around and, without even knowing it, choose love and sticking together the exact same way Carolinas' previous family didn’t, is hecking underappreciated.)

But I digress. Honestly, I think up until the very end, Carolina planned to kill the director. This wasn't a big lie, she wasn’t on the fence. She really planned to put a bullet in his skull.

I think the reason she didn't, the reason she walks away, is the usual strange trifecta that the series had been running on since season 6: a combination of Alison, the director, and the ai he created because of her loss.

When she enters the room, the first thing she sees, no, hears, is her mother. Her mother, reminding her husband, reminding them both, to never say goodbye. A message from almost literally beyond the grave to not miss her, not mourn her, but just to. Think of her as not being here right now. Carolina wonders if she should have decried her teammates' memories the way that she did.

Next, she sees her father. A man who, in his own words, “has a mind more filled with memory than it is with hope.” Honestly, props to everyone on that scene, because up until then rvb had some really rocky human animation, but that moment, that frame, is so bleeding with tiredness and hopelessness that it hurts every time. She sees a man who is so overcome with mourning, with seeing someone he loved as “gone”, that it killed hundreds of people. I think Carolina decides not to kill him, not because he looks so lost, but because she sees what she will turn into, if she puts a gun to his head.

And finally, my sweet darling Epsilon. God fucking damn you and your funky little robot monologues that tear my heart out of my chest. Epsilon screams at the director, lists his crimes, finally lets all the deaths that have been piling up spill out of him, and there's a very telling line that I adore with the entirety of my soul.

“I’m here to remember what you’ve done. Someone has too.”

Because that's what Epsilon sees himself as. Not a person, not a fragment, just a memory chip to use to hold the director accountable. That's literally how Epsilon is introduced to the cast; the piece of evidence that can testify against project freelancer. He thinks he’s just a receipt.

But Carolina hears this and thinks ‘I can remember them.’ All season, she’s been thinking about the final days, the betrayal and the scheming and the family that ripped itself apart. But she needs to remember the earlier flashbacks, the joking team and the days when things were easy, too. She’s been living this season in a memory, and she didn’t even make it a good one.

Like Church, she chooses to fight for her team, for her memories, and for herself.

“Your past doesn’t define who you are. It just gives you a starting point for who you're going to be.”

So Carolina chooses memory the exact way Epsilon didn’t. She kisses her father on the head and assures him he’ll be remembered not as the director, but as Leonard. She walks out, decides to let herself remember York and Tex and Wash and Connie and the twins.

It’s no surprise that the season ends on an anecdote about Allison. Carolina, the woman who’s remembering her, and Church, the ai who forgot. These two people, who both loved her, albeit, in wildly different ways, swapping a story that isn’t tainted by PFL, just a small cheerful story. They aren’t mourning her, not like the director did. They’re acknowledging that she’s gone, that her death shaped their lives, their shared trauma, and they’re digging through the pieces to find something they want to hold close, something to build themselves on anew.

Your past doesn’t define who you are. Your memories shape who you become. But you get to pick which ones you keep, which ones you hold on to. You get to decide which experiences are your starting point for who you’re going to be.

#red vs blue #rvb #rvb carolina #rvb epsilon #essays #listen I just have a lot of thoughts about the Legitimately Good writing the middle seasons of rvb had and I want to talk about them

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spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub · 2 years

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SO's US Book Tour : Arkansas

True Grit

By Charles Portis

I have never read a Western. I haven’t ever wanted to read a Western. But when flipping through the list of books for Arkansas - I tripped over True Grit and thought, why not, I’m branching out. After struggling to get through The Monkey Wrench Gang, I worried that I was going to find it difficult to get through. Turns out that was not the case! I was pleasantly surprised at the ease in which I got through this one. It is a good story. It’s not my favorite, nor will I probably ever pick up another Western, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I’d might.

This might be the simplest book I’ve read so far, which is fine. A book doesn’t need to be overly complicated to be enjoyable, and I think it works in the book’s favor to be a straightforward adventure-slash-revenge story.

Written in the late 1960s but set in the 1870s, the narrative is that of an older Mattie Ross recalling about how when she was 14-years-old her father was murdered by a hired hand - Tom Chaney - and how she set about bringing him to justice by hiring a US Marshall by the name of Rooster Cogburn. And that’s really it - the book, like the narrator, is pretty focused on that plot.

Honestly, when I first started reading, I was a little skeptical of a grown man writing from the perspective of a fourteen year old girl. And, admittedly, Mattie Ross doesn’t really sound like a girl her age - 19th century or otherwise. But I think it actually works in the novel’s favor. I really appreciated Mattie’s focused drive and her shrewd observations. She isn’t one to mess around. She isn’t one to get caught up in overly emotional sentimentality. Her world is harsh - but she still tells it like it is. Sometimes, it is to comic effect - having deadpan reflection of rather obscene human nature is pretty funny at times. But the ‘true grit’ the novel’s title refers to is really Mattie - and her unwavering pursuit to bring justice to her father’s murderer.

It’s funny - all through the novel, Mattie tells everyone she meets that her one goal is to take down Tom Chaney for the murder of her father. It becomes a mantra, and becomes strikingly similar to Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, who repeats his revenge mantra to anyone he meets. In fact, the characters are similar in design when you bring them down to a base level.

Anyway -- while I doubt it’s that realistic that a fourteen year old during the 1870s would get away with as much as Mattie does, I like her as a character -- much more than I thought I’d might.

The other major character is Rooster Cogburn, a washed out, gritty old US Marshal - who has a lot of baggage carried around from his colorful past. Part of the charm of the novel comes from the unlikely pairing between Cogburn and Mattie, which never really dissolves into a found father/daughter trope, which again, is a nice change of pace. Cogburn, begrudgingly, ends up respecting Mattie in the end, and they bond in the way people on adventure do, but it always is billed as a temporary alliance -- one that Mattie appreciates from the lens of an adult, but never grows beyond the mission they set out to accomplish.

The first half of the book details Mattie searching out Cogburn. I never really thought of Arkansas as being a part of the old west, but the backdrop works really well -- Arkansas being on the edge of the frontier. It kind of reminded me (due to my limited engagement with the time period and location) of those frontier towns you start in at the beginning of the old computer game Oregon Trail - where you get your goods and stuff before setting out across the west to get to the Pacific coast. The second half of the book details going out into ‘Indian Territory’ - the unclaimed wilderness on the Arkansas/Oklahoma border - where, really, there are no laws and anything can happen.

They’re joined by a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf, who is out to get Chaney for killing a Texas senator. Of course, LaBoeuf and Cogborn don’t get along - and LaBoeuf isn’t really thrilled that Mattie is tagging along to bring Chaney down. But he becomes instrumental in tracking down the gang of thieves Chaney is hanging out with.

Tom Chaney, himself, isn’t really in the novel that much - and to be honest, he’s kind of flatly dumb and villianous. There are much livelier characters even within the gang of ‘bad guys’ that Chaney is hanging around, that the confrontation seems, well, a little anticlimactic if I’m being honest. But the purpose of the novel is less about the destination and more about the journey into the wilderness, and the resolve of Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf at bringing the outlaw in.

One of the aspects of the novel that I did find fascinating is the detail of the worldbuilding. The novel makes reference to the American Civil War, and to the politics of the 1870s. There are references to how life is different in Arkansas, to Texas, to the East Coast. I don’t know much about Charles Portis - but I have to believe he’s fairly knowledgeable about the time period he’s writing about. Not only is he able to drop these references to the time authentically, the novel itself feels like it was written back in the 19th century. In some ways - it reminds me of all those classic stories we had to read in school that documented and showcased life during a specific era.

I believe this is one of those novels that is considered a modern classic - and I can see why. I liked it well enough for what it was (though I doubt I’ll ever feel like going back to this world) and can understand its popularity - especially to those who enjoy stories set during this time period. While it may not be for everyone, it very clearly is a Western, I’d definitely recommend it - and am glad I picked it up.

#so's us book tour #true grit #charles portis #books #book reviews #arkansas #westerns

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daffenger · 2 years

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chapter four thoughts : the brain rot is setting in u-u/

if they have claudia going a little mad, a little mad, a little mad next chapter I am SO here for it!!! girls can must and will kill for fun u-u

i guess we are all slowly starting to wonder whether rashid isn't secretly armand and in a way it doesn't make sense because why would he play servant to louis ?! but on the other hand ! anything that hints of a present-day plot i love. i like the crotchety old daniel who watches jeopardy very much ^^ i also love the old man lestat we got this episode !!! louis and claudia instantly bonding on being the younger generation is so cute. and lestat lying about his age !

i feel like when lestat's cruel with louis it's because they are so different ; and when lestat's cruel to claudia it's because they are so similar ("histrionics." look in a mirror ! mister bleed from the ears). I did get the vibe when she brings the corpse of her boyfriend's home that what he says ("it's easy to get carried away when you're young and in love") & what he makes her do (watch the body burn) echoes some past experience of his. which has me wondering whether maybe nicolas de lenfant in the show was accidentally killed by lestat rather than turned.

As in, yes, lestat is a sadist, but (if I try to put it into words), he's cruel when he's hurt, or his cruelty reflects his wounds. And since he's a big ball of trauma and hurt under a thin veneer of fancy man with no manners, he's always lashing out. (Louis says it so well in the novel when he tells Daniel something like, lestat kills like he's taking revenge on life, but I don't remember the exact quote).

The OTHER problem with lestat is he's exceedingly cruel to himself, so of course he would be cruel to Claudia when she reminds him of himself.

#amc iwtv #*txt

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rainecloud020604 · 1 year

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Can you tell me about Karma I saw you uploading images to (??? pronouns??) toyhouse and I'm very curious

you cant see me shaking with excitement and also i let this sit for a few days cause i havent touched my laptop since thursday SDFHKHFKJWFHDSJ anyways this is about to be a lot you asked for it

Anyways <333 Karma my beloved (pronouns, he/him doesnt care about gender and is probably agender thinking about it) hes another one of my comfort characters who every once in a while i will just draw and draw and draw, I also have drawn a few comics with him which I'm kinda surprised that I have done more than one dfhskjFDHSKJ but nevertheless hes fun to draw and like also one of my many greyscale ocs cause if you cant tell i really like those Hes a god, of what? Balance and Revenge. He doesn't like being a god, its so much responsibility and also the way people will treat him for being so powerful isn't ideal to him. he prefers to play amongst mortals and interact with them, pretend to be one and blend in with them even because he just really hates being a god :( Also he is Jardins twin and Universos uncle

He is an old god, which makes the pressure he feels significantly worse as he has seen so much change and dissolve, build and be destroyed. Including the godly realm he is from, most of the people that worshiped their gods ended up just...stopping, stopping or were wiped out and this made a good portion of the gods from their realm forget what they were, several reincarnated themselves out of boredom (A rather common practice in fact, Karma is an older god due to only doing so once) and it ended up falling into chaos, and as well as several mortal faults at some point some order was established but it had fallen to severe corruption, someone did rise to power several times once this weird system was established, the one that had the most power was supposed to be in charge and head of things, every once and a while it would cycle on who was there/old enough

Karma is a rather powerful god, never took as head cause he believed the entire thing was stupid but after a while with Vida became in power he reluctantly agreed to take a position as like his right hand man, only because he his brother and a handful of others were plotting something to help everyone realize and remember what they were and get things back to normal and not this fucked up mess of things and upon taking this position it led to a lot of abuse that Karma just, tolerated and didnt argue or fight against at all because he really couldnt risk it with how close he had gotten to get this plan executed and have this all be over.

Karma used to have a wife when he was younger, she was the goddess of winter and also suicide, which should hint to one thing that happens next, she didnt warn Karma at all, hell she didnt expect him to be there to witness it either but he was, Inverno was no longer there and Karma was alone in the woods with more than a broken heart and grief to carry, is he over it? no no he isnt but hes getting there slowly

He has a fear of sewing needles due to Vida, as well as most of his will to fight back against being abused was burned out, as if enough wasnt killed by his abusive father who favored him over his brother and wasnt shy about it and led to Karma trying everything to get him to hate him. It didn't work at all which led to frustration but he no longer is able to be near his father or think about him for too long without getting upset or stressed out. Other than his father using him like a tool to just brag about, Vida treated Karma like a puppet and would literally have strings attached to him only he could see and feel,which sucked for karma. But he let Vida do it just to get close enough for thousands of years to one day kill him, which he finally was able to do.

He adopted a baby angel named Winter who he will protect with everything in his being, shes a delightful child who he rescued from being kidnapped and she is a handful but makes his day brighter, he takes care of Winter and roams the mortal realm just getting to know mortals and befriending them as well as enjoying what small things there are there and the mortal realm has to offer him, he likes dresses and the color yellow which i associate with him, he also plays the guitar and violin <3

there is so much more but i will stop here SDHFKJWHFJHDFSKJ

#asks #mutuals #karma #woagh oc lore hgrkjeFHDKJ theres so much

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watching-pictures-move · 2 years

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Movie Review | The Street Fighter (Ozawa, 1974)

After the death of Bruce Lee, there was an attempt to market Sonny Chiba as his successor, yet comparing Lee's work to The Street Fighter and its sequels, their presences couldn't be more different. Lee's characters carried themselves with a certain dignity and swagger. Chiba's protagonist is brusque at the best of times, animalistic when he goes to work. Lee as a fighter was graceful, measured. Chiba, as the American poster for The Street Fighter suggests, fights dirty. When you see Lee in the climaxes of Enter the Dragon and The Way of the Dragon, you can see how storytelling, mise en scene, philosophy and choreography come together. Chiba in combat is a man possessed, an instrument of violence. If Klaus Kinski could do karate, one expects it would look like this. Both of their films have their share of blood, but Chiba relishes any opportunity for additional brutality.

And I think that gets to the fundamental difference between the characters they played. Lee's heroes are just that: heroes. There's a reason he's been an aspirational figure for decades. In these movies, Chiba's character is at best morally compromised and at times capable of evil. When The Street Fighter opens, Chiba rescues a death row inmate from execution. But after the inmate's brother and sister are unable to pay up, Chiba gets in a fight that leads to the brother's gruesome death (Chiba's culpability is questionable as the brother accidentally leaps out the window) and then sells the sister into sexual slavery (Chiba's culpability is undeniable in this case). This is supposed to be our hero? But as the movie progresses, we learn that Chiba himself was once the victim of great cruelty, his father having killed by Japanese occupying forces in China after being suspected of espionage. The movie brings this up not to excuse him but to frame him as an arguably tragic figure. He metes out cruelty because it is all he knows.

All of this creates a certain amount of poignancy in his efforts to do noble deeds, which frequently end in tragedy, although a certain patronizing quality does emerge in Chiba's treatment of the female characters. The second movie, The Return of the Street Fighter, has him warm up to a denim-clad orphan whom he tries to keep at an arm's length, while the last movie, The Street Fighter's Last Revenge, has him pushing away an interested suitor, telling her "You're not the girl for Dracula." (He then puts on a mask with fangs, and at several other points dramatically removes his mask Mission: Impossible style.) He also turns down a request to take another mercenary played by Etsuko Shihomi under his wing, with this amusing but also offensive exchange.

"You fight well for a woman." "So what if I'm a woman? I'm Huo Fong, a fire bird from Taiwan. A lone wolf killer like you." "I don't care if you're a fire bird or a grilled chicken." "What?" "You're ten years too early to fight against me. Put on your makeup and start husband hunting. You're not too bad actually."

Shihomi also played the woman who was sold into sexual slavery in the first movie, and no, this isn't the same character. Shihomi and Chiba reunite in Sister Street Fighter, and while I don't recall their character names, I'd wager they played different ones there too, because if they were the same, Shihomi's character would have had a superhuman ability to turn the other cheek.

I think a political dimension can be read into the movies as well. The first movie has Chiba face off against an international crime syndicate, the second one brings in a sort of non-aligned movement of karate clubs in different countries, and the third has a political corruption plot. How coherent this is in terms of a left-right spectrum I cannot say, but it evoke a certain disaffection that might have been felt in Japan at that time. In that context, Chiba's perverse professional code comes into focus. If you pay him, he will do the job, no matter how dirty. If you try to rip him off, watch out!

But ultimately these movies are an excuse to watch Chiba fuck people's shit up, and in that sense, they're quite diverting. These are '70s Toei productions and as a result feature some very handsome widescreen cinematography, which makes the violence more startling. Chiba throws his opponents against the cramped edges of the frame in the rough and tumble fight scenes, which are punctuated with bursts of ultraviolence (an x-ray shot of a crushed skull, eyes popped out by a punch to the back of the head, other assorted Fulcian eye trauma, castration, ripped throats and more). In that sense, the first film is the best as it metes out the gore with the most frequency and gusto. (It was famously slapped with an X rating for violence alone.) The climax, drenched in rain for added dramatic flair, has Chiba tearing out his opponent's throat and holding it up to the camera in a flourish that imitates 3-D. Folks, this is what we go to the movies for.

#film #movie review #the street fighter #shigehiro ozawa

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lucindarobinsonvevo · 26 days

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hey you guys want to hear about my neighbours saints row IV au? of course you do. I'm going to tell you about my Amy mission cause I think its FUN :)

so, since I assume none of you have played SRIV the basic plot is that in order to get revenge on an evil alien who blew up earth, the Boss (protagonist) must save their gang from matrix style pods where they are forced to live their worst nightmare. 'nightmare' is pretty flexible within the game. The gang is currently on a stolen ship from the aliens with pods of their own to enter and reenter the dream worlds. Now you're with me.

So, our protagonist for this story is Elle. The other main characters are Robert, Andrew, and Tash. Tash's beautiful maths mind has made her the Matt/Kinzie computer person who has limited control over the 'simulations'. Tash avoided the initial capture, and first rescued Elle, knowing her determination and put frankly, stubbornness, would make her the best candidate to save everyone else. They then saved Andrew, per Tash's request, and followed that with Robert, at Elles.

Even though Leo was the next on the list to be rescued, he's a bit harder to pin down than Amy, who is easily located. Upon entering Amy's mind, Elle, Andrew and Robert are separated into three different missions - cause there are three different Amys. All collectables are hidden in each level, and must be discovered to be unlocked.

Mission 1 - Robert. This mission takes places in a crowded shopping centre, and is meant as a renactment of Amy being kidnapped by Nene and passed off as Paul's daughter. Robert enters the shopping centre, and finds small Amy, alone and scared. Collecting her he assumes he must be looking for Paul. Speed slowed considerably by having to carry a small child, and unable to jump he needs to complete a series of platforming sections while chasing who he believes to be Paul. Robert is extremely annoyed about this, as he does not want to find Paul and believes he will not be helpful to the team. While chasing Paul, he has a series of small cutscenes of his own that can be triggered by collecting his collectable - Golden Cats. These cutscenes are all from the perspective of baby Amy, and are of people Robert doesn't know. He notes that none of these people seem to be Robinsons, but concludes they are Nene's family. Eventually he catches Paul, but it's not Paul. It's a man he's never seen before with a striking resemblance to Amy. Before he can process what this means, he is booted from Amy's mind mission completed.

Mission 2 - Andrew. This mission is based on when Amy placed a live grenade in baby Andrew's crib in 1992. Her nightmare is that the grenade could have gone off, and killed not just herself, but also Baby Andrew. In this nightmare, Amy is her 1992 self, and Andrew is a baby in his bassinet. Andrew finds it weirdly touching that Amy remembers him so fondly, and would care at all about this random memory. At first, Andrew suspects he must find the grenade before the timer runs out, and kills them. He gets several quest markers all over the 1992 living room, but only time to investigate one before each explosion. At the explosion, the scene resets. After dying three times, Andrew wonders if he should think outside the box. Andrew decides that instead of taking the grenade away from Amy, he should just take Amy from the grenade. However, this doesn't work as attempting to open the front door with make Christina yell at him. there is no way through to the kitchen to find Christina. Young Amy is distraught, but can be spoken to. Eventually, Andrew figures out that the solution to the puzzle is a series of dialogue choices with young Amy. Each successful choice delays the explosion by a few moments. Eventually, Andrew realizes that the grenade is in HIS pocket, and Amy's worst fear is not dying from a grenade, but him being angry about it in the modern day. He disposes of it through a window, and assures Amy that she was just a child that didn't know any better. When she stops crying, she embraces him and tells him that he is her baby forever no matter what. If you collect Andrew's collectable during the mission - pool balls - he will get cutscenes from his own interactions with Amy, as a baby, where she espouses how much she loves him, leaving him touched.

Mission 3 - Elle. This mission is Adult Amy. The mission starts with Elle, in a bridesmaids dress, entering a church. Amy is at the front of the certainly christian but not any kind of christian in particular, church in a recreation of Charlene's dress. She looks wildly unhappy to be there. For Elle's mission, you have to fight off hordes of Liam, Gary, Kyle, and Terese's brother as they come in waves. Elle's collectable - silver hearts - can be found in the level access cutscenes of Amy lamenting her boy troubles to a dismissive Elle. In the final cutscene, she attempts to communicate to a dismissive Elle that Leo might still have feelings for her, leaving Elle perturbed. Eventually, after taking down enough waves Tash is able to skip through several waves of enemies and unlock the boss - Leo. Initially, Elle is elated, and believes that Amy must want Leo to save her. However, when Leo turns hostile, she realizes this is not the case. Unlike the others, Leo cannot be killed, just knocked down. When Elle realizes she can't take down Leo alone, she turns to Amy, and asks if she would like to help, annoyed with her just standing there. Amy says she would but the dress is to heavy. Elle must then free Amy from the dress with her melee weapon, and she will join in the fight with a weapon of Elle's choosing. After knocking Leo down, again, Amy is able to use a grenade to explode the stained glass window behind her, and escape with Elle.

Back in the real world, Amy is picked up from the alien mothership, and brought into the fold. She doesn't remember anything about Robert's mission or cutscenes when he asks about them.

#neighbourspost #amy i love you amy

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the-cat-chat · 2 months

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January 27, 2024

Christine (1983)

JayBell: My understanding before going into this movie is that it's Herbie but with murder. And honestly, it's kind of true. I will say this movie actually wasn't as silly as I thought it was gonna be. It could've been wayyyy sillier.

My major issue with this movie is how sharp and sudden the transformation of the main character is. Like the big deal is that he makes a supernatural connection with this car, and the car begins changing him. But because the first part of the movie is from the perspective of the friend, the viewer doesn't actually get to see his change from nerdy dude to asshole. He just shows up one day, already full asshole and lacking glasses and with a new wardrobe. It would be nice to see this as a progression and not a sudden change.

The construction of the plot feels odd. It's broken up into segments. The friend's point of view, and then the main character's, and then it switches back to the friend. I also think the investigator guy isn't as incorporated into the plot as he should've been.

It's basically the plot of Carrie, but focused on a young guy instead of a young woman. Well-meaning best friend, controlling parents, supernatural force (aka car) used as instrument for revenge against bullies. It has almost all the elements of Carrie, but Carrie is way more sympathetic and has a more interesting dynamic with her mom.

Rating: 5/10 cats 🐈

Anzie: I really have no clue what to say other than this is a total experience. And that I loved it while also being simultaneously baffled and cringing bc of the weird behavior or the characters. First off I could see how Arnie was kinda cute (later to realize it’s the younger Matty Healy rat boy look- and then even later to change my mind when Arnie loses his mind). Andrew the old man selling the car?? I’m not saying anymore on him he needs to be forgotten. But let’s divert- the guys at school- ummm they’re all at least 35 right??? Did they really look at them and say sure he’s 17, sure he looks full of youth??? Bc I didn’t. And again the teenagers in this are almost as gross as the Halloween ones- actually grosser maybe. And what they do to Christine?? Annnyway, I really don’t understand his mom’s whole conniption over the car??? And it seemed excessive?? And then Arnie “changes”- can we talk insane??? Love how we get no insight into how he linked up with the girl his friend had asked out- he just shows up at the football game with her. And it’s actually nuts bc his friend gets so distracted he almost, AlllllMoST becomes paralyzed. I think it’s interesting that Christine didn’t do anything but maker Arnie “cooler” I guess until people kept saying that they hate her. Like would everything have been good?? Bc I know she did the same mind control/ killing thing with the guy who owned it before?? But this time it seemed only when there was a threat to Arnie keeping and owning the car. I don’t know cray it’s cray either way. Also???? Just remembered bc the car like bit?? The guy on the assembly line- then killed the other guy that worked there too. So nevermind im wrong I know nothing. And then the murders! And Harry Dean Stanton as the cop?? Who does nothing? And all the other kids that bullied Arnie get murdered too.

I really was wishing that the car was doing all of it alone without taking over Arnie- but alas that’s not what happened and Arnie dies too :( —— I hate how they try fighting the car - and it takes forever- and they’re like Christine will come- ok and your shocked when you kill your best friend??? Why not steal it and crush it with something when he’s asleep, or drive it off a bridge. But nnnoooo. And in the cringy words of the girl - she said it best- and the weirdest/ “we didn’t do so hot” ——- he’s dead!!!! You didn’t do so hot!!!! What!!!! It was his best friend???? And you knew him for what like a month and half that time he was scary/ borderline aggressive and verbally abusive?bc his car took over his mind and soul. Oookkkkk.

Rating: 4.5/10 Cats 🐈

#movie #movie review #film #film review

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