#but also deserved like who wouldn’t be obsessed with sydney

[frozenspraycans]

carmy @ sydney tbh

#whole season 2 just chasing after her validation like #with his big lost puppy blue eyes LIKE GOD STAND UP #but also deserved like who wouldn’t be obsessed with sydney #everyone is #she got everyone wrapped around her pinky #sydney x carmy #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #sydcarmy #chefs kiss #the bear #the bear fx

[captaincoffeegirl515]

What the hell was that last act???

So first of all I want to say that I did enjoy most of the movie. It was okay. The sex scenes didn’t do anything for me though since I’m just not interested in sex at all. But while I more-or-less liked the movie, I felt that the big plot twists in the last act and the ending were badly done because… how the fuck did ANY of them manage to get away with ANY OF THAT??? Like from a legal standpoint it’s just ???

This got so much longer than I anticipated, so the rest is under the read more. And yes, there are so many spoilers. So if you haven't seen The Voyeurs yet and don't want spoilers, please avoid this.

Seb and Julia literally confess to selling their old apartment in order to spy on the people who live there and use them for their art show. Like, yes, they put that clause in the Terms of Agreement for the apartment (which literally no one ever reads) but there is still the matter of Informed Consent. Informed Consent is usually in the form of a contract Pippa and Thomas both need to read and sign, or via verbal questions and answers which is filmed so Seb and Julia would have physical proof of an agreement. This is basically telling them what footage was taken, how it will be used, and if Seb and Julia have permission to share the footage publicly. In Thomas’ case, since he’s dead, his next-of-kin will be asked. Only then are Seb and Julia legally allowed to publicly share and showcase the Pippa and Thomas’ pictures. And Seb is a professional photographer! He should know that!

Have you ever seen prank shows? Like even the ones on YouTube. Have you noticed at the end of some videos, there would be a part where the filmers would approach the person who was pranked and ask if they could use their footage in the video. That’s Informed Consent. They need to ask permission to use a person’s footage in a video or if they need to blur out the person’s face for privacy. Seb and Julia even showed a picture of a dead man for chrissakes! Remember the outcry when that YouTuber posted a video of a suicide victim in Japan???

The Japanese interviewer was right to disapprove of their methods because even though there was a clause in the Terms of Agreement, the prank (because isn’t that what that whole show they did was?) or experiment still resulted with someone killing themself (yes I know it was murder, but the world doesn't know it). They can possibly still be held liable for causing Thomas to kill himself the same way a prankster can be held liable if their victim dies from a prank because of this thing in Law called the Eggshell Rule or Eggshell Plaintiff.

What this means is that a defendant is liable for any injuries caused by the defendant’s actions, regardless of how unforeseeable or uncommon the plaintiff’s reactions to the defendant’s actions are. So for example, there is a scary prank where the prankster jumps out of the bushes and terrifies people. One of them turns out to have a heart condition, suffers a heart attack, and dies. Regardless of the victim’s frailty, the prankster can be held liable for exacerbating the condition and causing the victim’s death. Likewise in the movie, they can say that Seb and Julia, by orchestrating the whole thing and making Thomas see his girlfriend cheating on him, could have caused him to become broken-hearted and kill himself. Therefore, Seb and Julia can be liable for Thomas’ death.

And then here’s the kicker! The famous photographer and his wife, a famous model, both suddenly end up blind AFTER their big art show where they displayed Pippa’s scandal. And not by accident. No. This was obviously surgically done. And NOBODY suspected foul play?? Nobody thought about revenge?? Nobody thought it strange how their blindness was clearly done with a surgical/medical precision nor suspected the couple’s subject, Pippa, who they thoroughly humiliated, who also worked as an optometrist technician at a lab that has the machines that could cause that kind of blindness??? And they're both still alive! They can easily tell the police who did it!

It should have been way too easy for the police to know that it was foul play. Blood tests can tell that Seb and Julia had been drugged. How they were blinded can be traced to the optometry lab. Pippa would be the easiest main suspect due to her connection to them with revenge as the main motivation after they humiliated her in that art show.

And yes, I agree that what Seb and Julia did was wrong. They used Pippa and Thomas, and then murdered Thomas so they can have some juicy story to tell!

Even so, what happened to Ethical Codes in the medical field? What happened to the Hippocratic Oath? Non-maleficience rule? “Do No Harm”? Pippa should have been slammed with, idk, medical malpractice or something, after using her knowledge of the LASIK machine and using it to permanently blind people (which is an actual fear real people have about LASIK surgery), have her license revoked, be fired from her job, and possibly serve jail time. Why is she walking free all willy-nilly and still being allowed to continue stalking Seb and Julia?

I’ll admit though that maybe I’m being more harsh towards Pippa because I myself used to be a Board Certified medical professional (my license expired last year because I hadn't been working in that field for a while) and because of that, her actions angered and horrified me more.

Normally, we as an audience are made to root for the main character or hero, but I found it difficult to do so because Pippa herself is a terrible person. She's a pervert and a creep. She was obsessed with the lives of other people, stalked them, and even went as far as committing crimes in order to fuel her obsession - trespassing, breaking and entering, destruction of private property.

And my goodness this actually makes me think of a few Ben Hardy stans who are like this. Well, idk if going to Ben's school so that she can get a copy of a school film he was in can be considered a crime, but it's still fucking creepy.

Pippa’s got that Savior Complex where she tries to rescue this poor neglected wife from her horrible cheating husband (the same one she herself wants to fuck because she’s obsessed with him). And then when it all goes south, she immediately turns around and blames THOMAS of all people because “he started it”. Like, so what if he did?? He still had enough maturity to realize when they were taking it too far, and decided to stop with the stalking. He told her to stop multiple times but she was too blinded by her obsession and lust for a man that she doesn’t even know.

AND THEN!! She stalked a grieving husband (I know we know that was a lie but Pippa didn't know that) and proceeded to cheat on her boyfriend with said grieving husband. And frankly, I don’t understand why she’s so vengeful about Thomas’ death considering how easily she forgot him so that she could cheat on him. Like. Who knows, maybe he still would’ve killed himself regardless of the poisoned drink because the last thing he saw was his girlfriend cheating on him with the man she’d been obsessed with for the past idk how long. Even in the scene after Thomas died, there was a momentary grief where Pippa was all “it’s my fault Thomas died” but it was all too brief and immediately after she went back to obsessing and asking about Seb. And they want me to believe that she’d want to avenge Thomas’ death? No. I think she blinded Seb and Julia because she was angry at being called out for her obsession. For being told that she was wrong to go that far. It wasn’t about her “love” for Thomas. It was about how humiliated she was about being wrong.

Can you believe that Pippa gave this whole speech with the fable about being content with what you have and not to try to be greedy by wanting more and then she just immediately DOES THE OPPOSITE OF THE MORAL by cheating on her boyfriend because she wanted more aka Seb???

The more that I think about it, I feel like the true villain of the movie is Pippa herself. Her obsession with Seb is what started the whole thing. If she had been able to keep a healthy distance, none of that would’ve happened to begin with. There would be no fights over how far things were going. Seb would have no scandal to tell. She worsened Thomas’ insecurities of not being enough for her, making him go to great lengths just to try to please her. Poor Thomas. He truly deserved better.

Pippa also has awful friends. Instead of stamping down the creepy behavior, they’re giving tips on how to listen in on other people’s private conversations! And then later try to excuse her cheating on Thomas. And then help with her obsession AGAIN.

Acting-wise, I felt that Natasha, Ben, and Justice were incredible and I loved them. I love how conflicted Ben played Seb and how you can see it in his eyes. My favorite scene was the one where Seb and Julia had that confrontation over the wine where Seb asks if she ever felt guilty and Julia just stares right back and stares him down. Natasha was brilliant as Julie pretending to be all friendly and vulnerable with Pippa. Justice was very emotional and I love the scenes where he was horrified at how far Pippa was taking everything. For me, Sydney was the weakest one at acting. While there were some okay parts, her face can be really stiff at some points, like during the sex scenes.

Overall, I thought the movie to be quite thought-provoking especially in this day and age where people can find the most intimate details of another person’s life so easily, be that through Carrd, Instagram stories, Facebook feeds, and other social media sites. It makes you think about parasocial relationships, how people can be so obsessed about people that they’ve never even met, and how that obsession can easily grow into something dangerous that can ruin lives. Good movie, terrible last act. Too much sex for my taste, but then it wouldn’t be called an erotic movie.

Outside of the movie, I really love the chemistry between the four of them. I love watching their interviews and seeing how they interact with each other.

Last but not the least, I know this may be random but my brain likes to zoom in on the weirdest things. How on earth did Pippa manage to get Seb on top of that operating table?? No offense but Pippa is fucking tiny. Seb’s like twice her size and mostly muscle AND unconscious. Like ??? Sorry but that threw me off so much it’s ridiculous.

#ben hardy #natasha liu bordizzo #justice smith #sydney sweeney

[purpleyellow]

characters unlocked

basic info: 

Chung Minkyung/Mae 

The Boyz 12th member

birthday: 1999/01/14

birth place: Seoul - South Korea

Chung Minji 

TXT 6th member

birthday: 2001/05/31

birth place: Sydney - Australia

a/n: have I gone insane and made two ocs at once? kind of. actually, I haven’t made up my mind about actually going forward with them yet but I’ve had this idea for about two months and my mind couldn’t rest unless I actually wrote it down. and since I already had it typed out, I might as well share it right? (awkwardly laughs and runs away). 

also disclaimer, this is 100% focused on the ocs and not on their groups, you may be asking why since I never really cared this much about backstory before... I honestly don’t know, my brain thought of it like that and that’s how this turned out.

2011

Minkyung watched the teacher leave the room from the corner of the classroom and began packing up her things as the girls around her whispered between themselves. She didn’t blame them for talking, considering this was the first time in months she had made it through the first period without her mother showing up. 

Actually, some days she wouldn’t even go to school due to her day packed with auditions and art-centered classes. But this time she had, and just for a moment, she allowed herself to think she would have a normal day. Until the teacher had to answer a knock.

Walking back inside, the middle-aged woman speared a pitied glance at the girl and nodded once she excused herself. The official routine of letting her know her mother had arrived was long gone after the fifth consecutive time it had happened.

Going outside as fast as she could, so she wouldn’t hear anyone talking about her. Minkyung met her mother near the school entrance.

“Let’s go, we can’t be late” The woman rushed her, picking up her backpack and throwing on the backseat before circling her car and sitting in the driver’s spot. She barely waited for her daughter to buckle up before driving away from the parking lot. Wheels scratching the pavement as she did so.

“What is it this time?” She asked with half the excitement of her mother, leaning her head on the window as she watched the school becoming small in the rearview mirror.

“Acting gig. You got this in the bag” The older woman spoke cheerfully and Minkyung hummed. Once they stopped at a red light, her mother turned to her and brushed her a strand of hair behind her ear “Hey. I know you’re growing tired but I think this one might be it. Just blow them away with your talent, alright baby?”

“Alright, mama”

2011

Minji sat at the curb as she watched her friend jumping into the backseat of her parent’s car.

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride sweetie?” The friends’ mother asked her leaning out of the window “Eliza was telling me you usually wait quite a while, I can talk to you mother and arrange a carpooling system with her”

“No, it’s fine Ms.Smith” Minji hugged her lunch box and smiled sweetly, her small feet tapping the ground in a rhythm she had made up “Mom should be arriving soon, I don’t want her to worry if I’m not here”

“Well okay, be sure to mention that to her so next time you don’t have to wait” The blond woman smiled politely before driving off. 

Minji waved at them and stared at the empty sidewalk in front of the school. Checking her pink watch for the fifth time, she noticed she only had to wait five more minutes before she gave up on waiting and walked home. 

The girl knew there wasn’t a big chance of her mother remembering she had a younger daughter to pick up, but still, she allowed herself to wait for an hour every day. Just in case she would show up.

After the five minutes were up, the 10 year old grabbed her stuff and began her usual walk home. The neighborhood wasn’t too dangerous and she would only have to walk six blocks to arrive, but still, it felt too cruel for the teacher to see it happening constantly. 

The woman had walked half of her way to get to the girl when she saw a tall man approaching, she sighed relieved as Minji gasped surprised.

“Dad” She jumped on the man’s arms and he laughed, waving at the teacher before picking her lunch box that had fallen on the ground. 

“I came home from work earlier today, I figured you’d want some company on your walk home” He patted her on the head and the girl smiled brightly “I’m sorry for not being able to do this every day”

“It’s fine. Come, I’ll show you the pet store I walk by. Oh, and there’s this old lady resting on her porch every day, she always gives me a good afternoon” Minji smiled pulling him by the hand as they made their way back. 

2014

Minkyung quietly stood in the hallway as she heard her parents discussing. Earlier that day, her mother got an email confirming her acceptance into a trainee program in Korea, the multiple years of singing lessons and learning various instruments had finally given a bigger result than the acting route had. 

The girl had never seen her mother more excited than after getting the news, but since she told her father about it they had been locked in the kitchen arguing about the changes this opportunity brought to the family.

“I don’t know about this, it sounds pretty expensive” Mr. Chung sighed walking back and forth. 

“It’s an opportunity for our daughter to finally become someone. She worked so hard for it, we don’t know when the next one might come. This is her chance” 

“She is someone already. She’s our daughter, a sister, and a student. What will happen with her studies after she’s gone?”

“She can keep them overseas, she’s homeschooled after all”

“Only because she couldn’t keep up with school and your obsession for making the girl famous” 

“She wants this just as much as I do” 

“What’s going on?” Minji showed up out of nowhere startling her sister, who whispered for her to keep quiet and listen.

“They’re discussing moving to Korea” Mikyung waved her off and returned to listen, but the younger slapped her arm and frowned. “Ouch, stop that dumbass”

“Why would we move to Korea?” 

“I passed an audition there. Mom is convincing dad to accept it”

“No, absolutely not” Minji shook her head, walking determined downstairs only to be stopped by the older “Let me go. I’m not moving because of you” 

“Minji don’t, let them discuss this, mom almost has him”

“I’m not moving. I don’t care what you want. Different from you I have friends here, I have a life. I’m not going because of you” 

“Hey, stop that” Their father opened the kitchen door to stop the two arguing girls. 

“No, I’m not stopping. You’ve always given Minkyung the fancy tutors and expensive courses without thinking twice. She can go on her own, I don’t want to leave our home”

“We are a family, if one of us is going, the rest is too” Her mom spoke up pointing a finger at her “And this might be your home, but Seoul is your dad’s and mine. We’d be going back to our family. No more trips during holidays and all of that. Think about it, it would benefit us all”

“No, it wouldn’t. Dad would have to leave work, and I have school and my friends. We built a life here” Minji cried out looking between the two of them. In the back, her sister leaned on the wall and watched them ultimately deciding her future.

“And you’ll build a new one in Korea too. Think about all the work your sister has done for us to have this chance”

“This is her chance. Not ours”

“Minkyung” The man spoke, shutting the two up and getting the girl’s attention. “Do you honestly want this? We would be investing a lot once you sign with them”

“Yes, I’m sure of it” She answered, it was honest. But considering that was the only thing she had worked for her entire life, there was no way it wouldn’t have been.

2015

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in there with you?” Minkyung’s mom asked her again as they made it in front of the building. 

“Yes, mom” The girl rolled her eyes fixing the big duffel bag under her arm “Most people leave their families for this. I don’t want to brag that mine follows me no matter where I go”

“They deserve to know we support you” The woman cupped her face in adoration and she laughed.

“It isn’t a matter of support, some people just can't afford to move around”

“Okay, but I’ll come by your accommodations later to bring the rest of your stuff and you’ll tell me everything then”

“Fine. Oh, and mom. Can you give Minji my guitar, she might have a better use for it than leaving it untouched”

“You don’t want to have at least one of your instruments with you?” The woman frowned, reluctant in passing by her daughter’s belongings to the younger.

“I’m sure they’ll have a bunch I can practice on” The girl shrugged moving around on her feet.

“If you say so. Don’t forget not to let the boys mess with you okay. And don’t stress if you don’t get along, remember this is only one phase for you to become the star you were born to be”

“Uh, okay. I have to go” Minkyung gave her a hug and walked inside the building, blushing furiously as her mother screamed good luck to her.

Walking to where a receptionist was, she noticed a boy, a little older than her, getting some credentials with her. Standing behind him, she waited until the woman asked for her name.

“Chung Minkyung” The girl said and she nodded.

“Right, the girl from Australia. I have your stuff here too”  The woman said and the boy, who was puzzly looking through his papers, looked up at the mention of the Country and quickly stared at her, wondering if he should introduce himself or wait a little more “You’re both going the same way, press two in the elevator down the hallway and go to the room on the far left”

Thanking her, Minkyung picked up her things and nodded for the boy, giving him a tight-lipped smile as they walked together.

“I’m sorry, I think I overheard you’re from Australia. I’m from Canada, and my Korean is a little rusty. Do you speak English?” He smiled embarrassed and the girl nodded.

“Yeah, no problem. Mine would be too, but my mom made me take lessons as a child because speaking both languages would be good for the resume” She told him as they entered the elevator “A little TMI, I’m sorry. I’m bad at making friends”

“It’s fine” He laughed nervously and looked around before hitting him that he hadn’t introduced himself “I’m Jacob, sorry for not saying my name”

“I’m Minkyung but I guess you can call me Mae if you want to” She smiled generously at him and he nodded. The elevator’s doors opened up for them to step out. 

Walking inside the room they were told, several heads turned around to stare at them and a buzzing boy came straight to greet them. 

“Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Youngjae. Where are you guys from?”

“Uh- My name is Jacob, I’m from Canada” 

“Oh, you came from the international auditions, right? In that case you can call me Eric, I used to live in LA” Eric smiled and looked expectantly at the girl.

“I’m Mae, I came from Australia” She smiled nervously and he gasped.

“Oh wow, we’re all from different places” 

“Yeah um could you show us around, I’m kind of lost right now” Mae said and Jacob nodded from her side making Eric laugh.

“It’s my first day too actually” He said making both their eyes widen “But everyone seems nice, let’s introduce you to them and they’ll help us figure things out” 

“How are you so comfortable?” The girl asked on a whim and cleaned her throat embarrassed after realizing what she had done “Sorry, I’m sorry. I- I suck at meeting new people”

“It’s fine” Eric laughed, intertwining his arm with hers “We’ll get along, all of us. Let’s talk to the others because they’ve been staring for a while”

2017

“Your sister is debuting today?” One of Minji’s friends, Yoojung, gasped on her left as they stood in the food court at the mall. The three of them wearing their school uniforms while deciding what to eat.

“Yeah, and my mom is a mixture of excitement and annoyance at home, that’s why I’ll stay in this place until her and dad leave for the stage”

“Annoyance?” Jisoo, her other friend asked while looking at the ice cream store “Let’s go to the parlour”

“Sure. And yes, her original plan was for Minkyung, I guess Mae now, to go solo after a while. But last month she came home exclusively to tell her she wasn’t going to leave her group” The girl said nonchalantly as if it were old news for her.

“Wow, that’s so cool” Jisoo gasped, making Minji roll her eyes.

“Why are you not going to the debut showcase?” Yoojung asked again, making her shrug.

“We were never that close, since she became a trainee we haven't talked at all. I’m sure she won’t miss me that much”

“Still, you would meet a bunch of good looking idols, I’d give everything to be there” Jisoo said in a dreamy tone and both of the girls laughed at her expression.

The three of them were slowly walking to get their sweets when a couple stopped them in the middle of the aisle, quickly handing a card to each of them and introducing themselves as scouts from an idol company.

“We’re holding auditions tomorrow and it would be lovely if you could attend, I’ll make sure to remember each of your faces” The lady smiled politely, her gaze sticking a little more on Minji than on the other girls.

They gave some more information to them and gave a quick goodbye. Looking at the card and back at the girls, Minji tried to sound as casual as possible while asking if they would show up for the process.

“Nah” Yoojung said making Jisoo nod along “But you should, they seemed more interested in you than us”

Humming along, Minji stuck the piece of paper on her pocket in the promises of deciding that night.

2019

“Hey, what are you doing?” Mae asked after coming out of her room and seeing Kevin, Changmin, and Haknyeon huddled up around a computer.

“A new group just debuted” Kevin mumbled, scrolling down what seemed to be an article and she snorted.

“So what, rookie groups show up literally every day” She rolled her eyes standing behind them and reading some of the words flying by “Tomorrow X Together, isn’t that Bighit’s new group? Wait, why are they talking about us there?”

“Because there’s a rumor that one of the members is your sister” Haknyeon said and as if on clue Kevin stopped in a picture of Minji.

Feeling like time had frozen, Mae widened her eyes and gasped, pulling Kevin away and scrolling down herself to check if she wasn’t having a fever dream.

“You never said you had a sister” Q noticed casually as she freaked out in front of the computer.

“She never came to visit us either” Kevin complained for a second and then gasped “Wait, was she missing? Did you just find your missing sister?”

As the boys began sharing conspiracy theories as to why they didn’t know about the existence of Minji, Mae turned to them with a shocked expression and waited until they fell silent to quietly mumble 

“That little devil never told me she wanted to become an idol”

#the boyz oc #the boyz 12th member #the boyz addition #the boyz extra member #the boyz au #the boyz female member #txt 6th member #txt extra member #txt au #txt oc #txt addition #txt female member #txt female addition #kpop addition #kpop au #kpop oc #female!kpop #k pop oc #k pop au #the boyz imagines #txt imagines #Mae #Minji #koc

[laughingupfromhell]

My Gillette Experience + Pre-Show M&G.  7.28.18 -- Extended Edition

I’m sorry this has taken so long to post, but it’s literally so hard to get my thoughts together because I’m still so overwhelmed by the fact that this even HAPPENED to me. I’d convinced myself it wasn’t in the cards, that Taylor didn’t know me, and that I needed to find a way to be okay with never meeting her. But then, IT HAPPENED. (I’m going to write the whole story from the time I got the DM and it’s going to be really long, so if you just want to read the Taylor part, I’ll write it in bold so you can skip to it easily. Just keep scrolling. I’m just posting the long version so I can look back on it whenever I want and never forget anything. I’ll post just the Taylor part individually too in case you don’t want to hunt for it.)

Friday, July 27th, I had the worst day at work. I work in a cafe, and the AC was out in the kitchen which made the entire place SO hot. Literally, it was 92 degrees in the building and we had the ovens on. I live in Florida, so it was disgusting and I felt so sick. We were shorthanded, I was stressed out about my flight, dealing with some pretty intense anxiety about meeting people I had never met before because I’m shy af, and just overall feeling kind of bleh despite being so excited for the concert the next day. I found out as I was on the way to the airport that my flight had been delayed nearly three hours and that set me into panic mode, because it would put me in Boston around 2 in the morning instead of 10pm. Eventually it got pushed back to only an hour delay, which made me feel a little better, and I passed the time in the airport just walking around the shops and scrolling tumblr. Jaime @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes texted me to tell me that one of my best friends Meredith @meredithswift had just met Taylor and I was SO excited for her because I’ve known how much she wanted this since we started talking in 2008. Jaime was like “you next!” and I was like “noooo, it’s not going to happen for me.” Taylor was intent on making me look like boo boo the fool.

Right before I boarded the plane, around 8pm, I took a selfie at the gate because I was bored and tagged Taylor in it on tumblr and said “I’m coming for you, Taylor!” I didn’t even know she was online, and she never liked the post, so I didn’t think anything of it after that.

 I boarded the plane, but there was a RIDICULOUS thunderstorm going on so we sat on the tarmac for nearly two hours, and I had been DMing back and forth with Jeannine @it-feels-like-a-perfect-night all day, so when I saw a notification on tumblr, I thought it was her...until I opened it and it said taylornation. All of my internal organs came flooding out of my ass in that moment and landed on the plane floor beneath me, not clickbait. I literally didn’t believe it was real for a whole hot ass minute because things like this do not happen to me and I was LITERALLY sitting on a plane about to go to Boston so WHAT WAS HAPPENING??? I open it, and they asked for all my information, and when the best time to call was. I was like????!!!? I’m LITERALLY SITTING ON A PLANE LESS THAN 24 HOURS BEFORE MY SHOW AND YOU WANT TO KNOW WHEN THE BEST TIME CALL IS???? YESTERDAY???? I ALREADY HAVE MY BAG CHECKED, I DON’T HAVE TIME TO BUY ANOTHER OUTFIT, I LOOK LIKE A RAT!!!! So obviously I said “I don’t land until midnight but anytime after that, thank you so much!” 

At this point I’m in such shock I literally have no reaction other than to stare unblinking at the seat in front of me and go into full body tremors. I’m pretty sure the girl next to be me on this flight thought I was scared of flying or something, because I was literally shaking so hard I could hear my teeth chattering together. My heart rate shot through the goddamn roof. If you don’t believe me, here is a helpful graph from my Fitbit. I hit 117 BPM from 58 BPM. I’m pretty sure that is indicative of an actual heart attack.

I didn’t know what to do, so I immediately texted my mom and I KNOW it says the message is confidential and you’re not supposed to tell anyone but I needed my mother to know that if her only child died mid-flight, it was taylor nation’s fault and to tell Taylor I loved her. It was VITAL. The southern jumped out -- I literally haven’t called her mama since I was 10, I don’t even know. 

I also told my friend Lindsey @lskbe because I once promised her she’d be one of the first to know if it was ever going to happen and she was a GEM even though she DIDN’T ANSWER ME RIGHT AWAY BUT ANYWAY!!!! (screenshot provided by her). She made me a playlist titled 7.28.18 on spotify and everything for the occasion because she is extra and I love her. 

 I spent the next 2 1/2 hours literally trying not to pee myself with anxiety and excitement because then of course I start thinking WHAT IF THEY FORGET TO CALL? What if it’s just merch? What if I’m boo boo the fool? What if this isn’t real life? Then we hit turbulence and my thoughts turn darker like WHAT IF THE PLANE CRASHES AND I DIE BEFORE I MEET HER? I literally had to make Jaime reassure me multiple times that turbulence wouldn’t make the plane crash and that I would survive. We love her logical brain. So obviously now that I’ve stopped panicking it’s time to take selfies to post later.

 I finally make it to Boston and at this point I think I’ve dissociated because I just can’t even think about it anymore. My brain was on overdrive and I didn’t even know how to process. It was either shut it down or shout it from a rooftop and I COULDN’T TAKE THAT RISK. 

I got to meet my sweet honeys @straightlinedownx and @heypay FINALLY and it’s up there in my top ten best moments of life. They’d just gotten home from Night 2 so they were pretty spent and it was 1:30 in the morning, so we all headed to bed, but if you thought I was sleeping, you’re WRONG because I was literally peeing every half hour because I was so nervous and excited. I was like a chihuahua I swear to god. I was talking to Brittany @messthatuwanted for most of the night trying not to be suspicious and I guess I did a pretty good job because she NEVER FOUND OUT until I wanted her to. Which is what her snake ass deserves tbh. I literally didn’t get to sleep until 4:30 in the morning and then I woke up at 6:45 am and was like...well they said they’d call me in the morning, and technically it is morning, so I should stay up. Clearly logical. Obviously. We love anxiety. I couldn’t turn the ringer on for my phone because I was sharing a room with people and I didn’t want to wake anyone up so going back to sleep was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. 

I spent most of the morning internally exploding, and I eventually told @heypay because I needed someone to tell me I was being crazy and that they would call and she did a very good job at this, so thank you Paige, you’re the love of my life. We were all laying around, relaxing, watching Lejla and Liana’s pet rabbit eat a salad, you know...typical things friends do, when I got a call from a NYC number and shit my pants. I got up from the floor so fast and ZOOMED to the kitchen and Paige followed after me and practically shoved me out of the apartment door so I could have some privacy lol. It was Sydney from Taylor Nation and she was a sweetie and asked how my flight was and and rambled on about delayed flights and I was like....I literally do not care, I’m so sorry, please tell me what I NEED TO KNOW WOMAN I AM DYING!!!! Eventually she cuts to the chase and is like “have you ever had an opportunity before?” And I was like um...hehe..it depends on what you mean by an opportunity because I REALLY JUST WANTED HER TO SAY THE WORDS and she was like “have you ever met taylor before?” and I was like NO!!! I HAVEN’T!!!! At this point I’m shaking so hard I had to lean against the wall for fear of falling down the stairs because THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING, HUH? Then she asks if I’m going to the show with anyone who hasn’t had an opportunity before and I said YES, my precious baby Emily @straightlinedownx. So she asks for Emily’s information and thank god I had checked her facebook to find out her birthday before just in case they asked (since they asked for mine) because IT WAS A STRESSFUL TIME. So she tells me I’ll get a DM within the hour letting us know when we’re verified and where we should pick up our envelope between 4 and 5 pm and I’m just saying thank you over and over and over again because WHAT ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO DO LIKE WTF IS EVEN HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!!!!!!! 

So in my head I had this beautiful thing planned for how I would tell Emily she’s meeting Taylor, but it turns out beautiful plans can’t happen when your brain is literally exploding, so instead of doing this elaborate thing where I filmed her reaction and everything, I just went over to where she was lying on the ground and kicked her. As friends do. She turns around and I’m like “Come. Here.” I was probably terrifying, I’m so sorry Emily, but I didn’t KNOW WHAT TO DO. So she follows me out to the kitchen and WHAT DO YOU SAY OTHER THAN WHAT IS HAPPENING???? SO I JUST SPIT IT OUT AND SAID “We’re meeting Taylor” and she deadass goes “No we’re not.” Just so casual.  And I’m like “We are. We’re meeting Taylor tonight. I got a DM on the plane and they just called me. I’m bringing you. We’re meeting Taylor.” AND THIS DUMB BICTH GOES “ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO BRING ME????” AND I’M LIKE “BICTH YES????? OF COURSE I DO???” And then she just kept doing this the rest of the day and it was my favorite thing. Here she is in Starbucks ten minutes after finding out. 

So we spent the rest of the day obsessing over make up and hair and we headed to the stadium around 2 PM because we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to meet up with people and buy merch etc. Here’s us waiting for our ride (photo credit to angel @iknowplacesclean and a big thank you for letting me stay at your apartment spur of the moment!!!)

 We met up with Steph ( @thesethingswillchange), Leyton, Jess ( @jtmaster13) , and Sammi (@slytherinraven13) and I got to tell them all what was happening and they were SO happy for us because they’re literal angels on earth.

 Once we made it to will call and gave them our names, THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT so I started to panic, naturally, but it was chill because they found it eventually and we immediately started taking pictures with the paper. Some nice lady offered to take one for us, bless her, because the struggle was so real. 

By this point I had told all of my friends but Jaime @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes and Brittany @messthatuwanted because I was planning on snaking them the way they snaked me when they met Taylor, and it brought me the greatest joy in life since they both thought I was incapable of it. Little did I know that Jaime was on her way to SURPRISE ME AT THE SHOW which was a MESS since I was in REP ROOM WHEN SHE WAS LOOKING FOR ME! But more on that later. So we met @ninetay89 at will call and we were all so excited for each other because honestly it’s what we all deserved and we just kind of hung out, waiting in line for the gates to open and that’s when Meredith @meredithswift came RUNNING towards me full force. Meredith and I met when we were 13 and 15. We were each others first online friends, and we became full blown stans together. She was the one that convinced me to make a taylor tumblr blog in the first place way back in 2010. We’d never, ever met before that moment and it was honestly one of the highlights of my entire life. I love her with my whole entire heart and it was one of the best hugs I’ve ever gotten. We didn’t let each other go for like 3 minutes. It was great. 

The gates finally open and me and Emily ZOOM up to the 100 level bathrooms to fix our make up because the humidity was KILLER and we were legitimately melting. Then we had to run back down the stairs to meet at the bottom of 129/30 and met up with @sunflowershealing and she was SO sweet! I’m so glad we got to meet! 

So a security guard comes up to us and tells us we’re actually supposed to meet at the TOP of 129, which isn’t what the paper said but it’s FINE, so we go up MORE stairs and it’s honestly beginning to feel like gym class now but it’s fine because I will do hours of cardio for Taylor Swift if need be. So we go up only to be told to go back down the stairs AGAIN because what is organization and they give us our wrist bands and we’re GOING TO REP ROOM BITCHES. 

Let me just say that I was chill literally the entire day. I was excited, yeah, but I wasn’t nervous or anything. Even when we got to Rep Room, I was totally fine. But when I saw the Rep Room doorway, I was jumping up and down like a five year old because how was this REAL LIFE? I never in a million years thought when Taylor shared the fact about Rep Room and showed us the inside that I would ever see it in PERSON. And here I was, walking through the arch??? SOUNDS FAKE. So we get in there, and there are three polaroid cameras sitting on a table next to the throne, but I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to touch them since I’ve heard that a lot of pre-show meet and greets weren’t allowed to do much in rep room. So Emily and I just kind of hang out next to them and hope for the go ahead, which Steph from Taylor Nation eventually gives us and then she has to help our dumb asses put film in them because we’re USELESS. But it’s fine. We take pictures on the throne first, and they came out so iconic honestly I will never take a better picture. 

Obviously I had to take a picture with the iconic rainbow dress.

My one singular complaint about the polaroid idea is that rep room is SO dark and it doesn’t really work well with the film. 

There was water, coke, diet coke, and sprite available to us, but not the booze or the cookies that were in previous rep rooms. Probably because it’s pre-show or because there wasn’t media that night, I’m not sure. Anyway, we’re able to mingle for about 8-10 minutes maybe? Maybe shorter than that, but Steph tells us to put the cameras up and line up. We were third from last to go in of about 5-6 groups. I’d say there were about 10-12 people in there. I’m pretty short, so  I couldn’t see Taylor when they opened the curtain to let the first group in, but I heard someone say “She’s wearing the purple Olivia shirt” and I was like...I literally hate her. Everyone keeps talking and I just wanted them all to shut UP so I could HEAR HER SPEAKING. Eventually, we’re a few groups from going in and I hear her laugh and that’s when it really started getting real. This was really happening. I was about to meet Taylor. Surprisingly, I managed to STILL hold it together. Right before we went in, “Type” by Todrick Hall comes on and I was screaming because I KNEW that would be her favorite song on Forbidden. 

So they open the curtain and she’s standing RIGHT there and she opens her arms so wide and goes “oh my god hiiiiii” and without hesitation I just go right into her arms and wrap her up so tight and said “Hi, I’m Megan!” and she starts laughing and goes “I know! I picked you last night, I see your posts all the time, I saw your selfie like I’m coming for you...and I was like I’m coming for you, I sent your post to TN and was like I need her, bring me her.” Literally I wish I could describe in detail the noise that came out of my mouth when she said I know, because it definitely wasn’t human. I was like “YOU KNOWWWWW???” But i literally growled it like some kind of rabid animal, I’m SO sorry, Taylor. That was the first time I lost my chill, which surprisingly only happened twice. 

As soon as she drops that bomb on me she turns to Emily to hug her which is what she DESERVES but I was so shook by what she said that I was leaning in for another hug but her back is to me now so I kind of halfway climbed her back I HATE MYSELF. Like my hand was gripping her shoulder and my other hand was pressed against her back and I had to physically talk myself off the ledge like BE COOL BITCH, BACK UP, DON’T BE WEIRD! So I just subtly slide my hands off of her and step back...only to embarrass myself further by stepping closer to Emily, aggressively rubbing her back and shouting “THIS IS EMILY! WE LOVE HER!!!!” Honestly what the fuck is wrong with me? She goes “Thank you guys so much for coming!” And I literally PANTED out “THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR INVITING ME!” Literally I was malfunctioning. I needed to be rebooted.

She turns back to both of us and shimmies her shoulders because she clearly wants me dead and goes “Sooooooooo....” and without hesitation I go “We need to talk about ‘Look What You Made Me Do’” and she’s like “okay, what do we need to talk about?” And then...I did it ladies. I literally told her I didn’t get the joke when it first came out, it flew right over my head and I thought she was being serious about the old taylor being dead and I was so worried about her that I threw up in a parking lot. She goes “Oh my god WHAT? That makes me so sad!” But she was laughing so hard, she threw her head back and covered her mouth, and for a split second I’m like DID I HURT HER FEELINGS??? DOES SHE THINK I HATE THE SONG??? So I was like “NO NO BUT I LOVED IT!” and she goes “You threw up!” And I’m like “BECAUSE I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU! I WAS LIKE IS SHE OKAY????” And she literally can’t stop laughing, she’s doing that stupid dolphin laugh she does and I literally wanted to smoosh her face between my hands because I adore her so much and she is so fucking cute and GOD I WANT TO DIE. So she goes “I was literally climbing out of a grave dressed as a zombie, you didn’t get how that was supposed to be funny???” And I was like “NO, I understood it was a joke when the video came out but for a whole week before I didn’t get the joke!” And she goes “Ohhhh, when the single dropped and you listened you were like WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER???” And she just kept laughing like honestly what the fuck is my life? I made Taylor Swift LAUGH? ME??? (Emily said everyone in the room was laughing, like the security at the door and everything I literally want to jump off a cliff.) So I was like “YES EXACTLY! I was like is she okay? I’m so worried about her, I need to know that she’s okay!” And she like...touched my arm and goes “But you’re okay now, right?” and made the most INTENSE eye contact like...if there is one thing I will say about meeting her, it’s that she keeps eye contact with you the WHOLE time and you know she’s hearing everything you say, she’s paying attention to every word and you KNOW she cares. And I’m like “yeah! I get the joke now, I get it, I swear!” And EMILY GOES “I don’t think she’s okay...” like honestly... drag me.

So I attempt to change the subject and the bitch CUTS ME OFF and leans in to me, looks down at me with this smirk on her face and goes “....do you need me to explain the joke to you?” like she was TEASING me, but I was being DRAGGED. I was like “NO, I get it now! I get it!” BUT SHE EXPLAINED IT ANYWAY. She explained that the whole concept of the line came from how people were saying Taylor Swift is over, she’s dead, and she was making fun of the whole cancellation culture that social media and media in general has, so she decided to just be like “Ohhhh, cause she’s deaaaaaad” (and she said it in the funniest, whiniest mocking voice I literally can’t stand her) to show them all how stupid they sounded when they said things like that. To paraphrase because I don’t remember exact wording, she said that’s really just the whole tone of the album, reputation, itself. That there are a lot of things that go into building a reputation, but that a reputation isn’t real, it’s a perception that can be formed by any number of things, true and false, but isn’t always based on what is actually happening. It’s fake, just like the old taylor being dead is fake, it’s a joke. I think the entire time she was saying this I kept repeating “No I get it, I get it” because I wanted to be sure she knew that I got it, but I think she really just wanted to explain it in general and I’m so glad she did, because I loved the insight. And then she goes “BUT IT’S SO FUNNY NOW because they’re like ‘What is she doing with the snakes? Why is she doing that? She’s so annoying!’ And I’m just like BECAUSE YOU TWEETED IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN EVERY SINGLE DAY! YOU’RE JUST MAD BECAUSE IT DOESN’T BOTHER ME ANYMORE!” And I shit you not, she was literally screaming this in my face, and acting like she was scrolling through her phone and laughing like...I was scared lmao. I just kept saying “I’m so proud of you, you just took it back, it’s what you deserve!” God, she’s so pretty when she laughs I can’t stop picturing it and hearing it and I don’t know where I could possibly go from here, I’ve peaked. 

She turned to Emily then, and I’m not going to share what happened there because it’s Emily’s story to tell, but I’m literally so happy that she gave her the love she deserves. The moment they shared touched me so much. 

When she looked like she was stepping into position for a photo, I suddenly flashed back to everything my friends who had met her already told me -- that if you stop talking, the M&G will end, but if you keep talking, so will she, so I sort of side stepped and started talking to her about how I’ve dealt with some pretty toxic relationships in the past couple years, and how it breaks my heart to think she’s ever felt the same way as I have in those moments of vulnerability and hurt, but that I was so thankful for songs like Dear John and Better Man because it made me feel less alone. And she goes “it’s always nice to know that you’re not alone in feeling the way you do, I totally get it. But that’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? That’s why we come to a stadium and we sing and dance and cry (we said cry at the same time, what kind of shared brain bullshit?) with each other, because we understand each other. We have that connection.” 

From there it got a little personal for me, and I want to keep that for myself, but she gave me the biggest, tightest hug and said some of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me and I’ve never felt more loved in my entire life than I did in those few minutes in a room with her. She said “I love you sooo much” and I said I loved her too, and then she asked what we wanted to do for a picture and Emily goes “I wanna do a smoosh...” because she’s the cutest person that has ever BREATHED and Taylor looked so confused so we both said at the same time (at the suggestion of Paige) “Can we do a Taylor face sandwich?” and she got so excited and was like “YEAH, I’ll smoosh your faces to mine!” So we got in position for that I knew I grabbed onto her, but I didn’t actually know what part of her I grabbed, I think I was reaching for her hand forgetting that her hand was on my face LOL. 

Anyway, we got our picture, she told us she loves us and hopes we have fun at the show and that she was so happy we were there and Emily manages AT THE LAST SECOND to go “CAN YOU PLAY COME BACK BE HERE.....please” and I’m like “Yeah, like....tonight.” And I felt so bad because I know I sounded so forceful and I DIDN’T MEAN TO. And she goes “Well, I can’t tonight because I promised someone else I’d play a different song, but I promise I will play it at a show soon, I know how much you guys want that one, I promise.” And we thanked her and told her we loved her and took our autograph and our dignity and got the hell out. 

I remember I was shaking when I came out of rep room, but I wasn’t freaking out really. I was still pretty chill. Chiller than I expected to be. We got about halfway back to her seats and I screamed “WHAT DID SHE SAY???” because for about five minutes, I blacked out completely. It was such a whirlwind of emotion that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to feel again. When we got back to our seats, the sweet angel that is Steph came over to me and asked how it went and I managed to get out “I said Hi, I’m Megan and...and....and...” and then I completely LOST MY SHIT and started SOBBING in Steph’s arms. I literally could not process that she KNEW WHO I WAS! I’M A LITERAL GARBAGE CAN! WHY DID SHE KNOW ME??? WHY DID SHE LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT? WHY DID SHE LAUGH SO MUCH? I COULDN’T PROCESS!

Steph: Meg, Taylor wanted to meet you, how do you feel?  

 The sobbing didn’t last long and I recovered just in time to meet my sweet baby Lauren @iknowplaces13 which I was SO EXCITED FOR! She was so happy for me and such an angel BUT THIS WASNT THE END OF THE ANGELS because JAIME APPEARS OUT OF THIN AIR TO SURPRISE ME (even though Dani @screamedsooloud ruined the surprise by accident but it’s FINE) and at this point, I still haven’t told Jaime that I met Taylor and I’m squirming trying to get out of the vice like hug she’s giving me so i can pull up my sleeve and show her my wristband LOL. Eventually she lets me BREATHE and I yank my sleeve up and go “SURPRISE, Snake!” and she literally is the blinking man gif, just no actually expression, raises her eyebrows, looks down at it and back at me and just goes “....when?” and then LAUNCHES herself at me because she is the sweetest, purest bean on the planet and was so genuinely happy for me. She’s listened to me cry about how I was sure this would never happen for so long and she kept telling me she was sure it would happen in Tampa and it was SO fun to outsnake her for once. I started telling her the story and every time I’d tell her something new, she’d tackle me again, it was so PURE. I love her with my entire heart.  Here’s a picture after I’ve cried all my eyeliner off. 

And then I snaked Brittany @messthatuwanted for snaking me because it’s what she deserved: 

The show was obviously amazing and we had great seats near the B stage and were able to make it to barricade, which was such a highlight to an already amazing night. I danced so much and sang at the top of my lungs and had a full on breakdown during long live that Emily the angel had to hold me through because I literally could not cope. Just full on sobbing for half the song. I had so much fun with Emily, Steph, Jess, Sammi, Leyton, Lejla, Sarah, Paige, and everyone else I spent time with this weekend. I’m forever grateful to Taylor for bringing so many amazing people into my life, I don’t deserve any of you and I can’t wait to reunite with 99 percent of the people I met at Gillette in Nashville. 

I quite literally had the time of my life with you, @taylorswift. Thank you so much for loving me like I love you, thank you for loving my friends and for bringing them into my life. I’ll never forget you as long as I live.

#7.28 #rep room #rep room story

[textsfromtheborderline]

Honestly, he broke up with me. That was the first step to getting myself out of that situation. It took another 6 or 7 months before I was able to really untangle myself from that cycle, but I did, it became a lot easier to not go back to it.

We talked on the phone on our anniversary, which was about five months after we broke up, and I realized that I really had nothing to say to him. I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t happy to hear his voice, I wasn’t depressed or missing him, I just felt...nothing. He’d had me wrapped around his finger for so long, giving me just enough hope to stay attached and obsessed, but I’d told him I needed space, and we hadn’t talked in about two weeks, and when we talked that day I just felt, I don’t know, indifferent?

Then about two weeks later, he forgot my birthday, which was another big push in the right direction for me, realizing he didn’t really care all that much. We talked once or twice that next month, but finally I told him I was done. He’d hurt me too much for too long and I needed to get away from that. He hasn’t been the best at respecting that,  but every time he'd try to reach out, it got easier and easier to ignore it. I’ve blocked him on all social media and his number, so he can’t contact me at all anymore, which has helped even more.

I think the thing that really killed it was that I kept telling him if he wanted any sort of relationship with me, he needed to apologize. He needed to own up to all of his mistakes, all the ways he hurt me, all the ways he messed with my feelings and manipulated me into staying attached to him. And he couldn’t do it. He’d tell me I needed to forgive him so we could move past the issues we had and try to be friends (because he desperately wants me in his life still, which is frustrating), but he wouldn’t apologize. He’d tell me to just get over my grudge because apparently I’d hurt him too, according to him, but where I’d apologize for the ways I’d supposedly hurt him, he never could. He could never admit anything was his fault (and I think that’s due to a lot of his childhood trauma) and he couldn’t move past that to keep me in his life.

And at the end of the day, I’m so grateful that he could never manage it. It showed me his true colors and taught me that he didn’t deserve any part of my time or love or attention. He’s back together with his ex, who he spent over a year emotionally cheating on me with, and they got together not even two weeks after he ended things. It took me much longer than it should have to realize he was keeping me around to give him love and attention when hers wasn’t enough, and I realized he was hurting her in the same way he’d hurt me. I have no love lost for her, I think she’s also a pretty awful person, but morally, I went through so much heartbreak and I couldn’t stand to do that to someone else.

Honestly, he just did a lot of things to destroy me and eventually, I got sick of crying over him all the time. I put my foot down and asked for space, and when he gave it to me, I realized how much I loved it and how much I needed it. As I started getting better, I started to stop missing him. I could finally see him for what he was, a manipulative, abusive asshole. And I don’t think all people with NPD are like that. But he had no interest in getting better and didn’t care about who he hurt with his behaviors, so long as he was getting what he wanted from them. It still breaks my heart to know that he is an incredible person under all of his issues, but he doesn’t want to put in the effort to be that person. He’d rather be horrible than own up to the fact that he has a problem. I want to get better, I want to be happy, I want to work on myself, and having him in my life was detrimental to that.

Breaking that cycle wasn’t easy, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

-Sydney

#qna #fp #anon #npd

[bookishreviewsblog]

V.E. Schwab: Vicious (Villains #1) | Lara

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

“Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.” When can I marry Victor and adopt the rest of his gang? Seriously, I would do anything (ANYTHING!) for any of them, but I’ll come to that later. Dark, twisted, vicious. This story reminded me all over again why I am such a sucker for hardcore anti-heroes. Victor and Eli are best friends and college roommates. Were. Before Eli shot Victor and sent him to jail after he killed his girlfriend. It is sure as hell more a little bit more complicated, but it started with Eli’s research on his class thesis about EO – the ExtraOrinary. Namely, those are people who endured trauma, more accurately near-death experience, and body’s chemical composition changed and gave them… powers. Naturally, what would two arrogant, rich, bored seniors do rather than experiment, on themselves? What could possibly go wrong? World building in this book is by all means astonishing. As in Shades of Magic, Schwab provides a whole new perspective on superpowers. This mixture of science fiction and fantasy makes a perfect foundation for an extraordinary story. I especially like the concept of EO’s getting their powers – persons last thoughts are somehow connected to the source of their newfound power. Genius. I have a sudden urge to write a poem about Schwab’s spectacular writing and pacing. This book is everything I didn’t even know I needed in my life. The whole book is, in fact, a big preparation for the epic encounter between Eli and Victor. The book begins with the opening of Eli and Victor’s story, how they got to where they are, ten years from the moment that changed their lives and where are they now. Then it slowly introduces backstories, development, motives and then it begins the process of including other characters who complete their story. I loved the way Schwab introduced her world and story, with all “10 years ago” “two weeks ago” chapters she created the rhythm of slowly unraveling the plot, and I could, indeed, feel the story piecing together like a puzzle. Tension is everywhere, all over the city of Merit, and it keeps increasing, chapter by chapter, hour by hour until I almost lost it from lunatic anticipation. It is growing slowly, almost lazily, that I didn’t notice it at first, but towards the end, it was so much of it that I was all nerves. Even though I knew (suspected,,) Victor had a plan the whole time, I felt on edge the whole time and just waited for everything to go wrong. The plot was really dynamic and it is so worth reading because I couldn’t part with my kindle for the most of the time. I really want to shout this aloud a few more times because I am afraid there is a person in some corner of the Earth that don't know it. Victoria Schwab has the absolute greatest characterization. Victoria Schwab died, was revived and received power to write the most shshiny, perfect, spectacular characters. That’s the only explanation for this perfection. Victor Vale“Because you don't think I'm a bad person," he said. "And I don't want to prove you wrong.” I knew I’d love a wonder that Victor Vale is from the moment he appeared on the pages. An introvert ambitious genius constantly overshadowed by his charming roommate. From early descriptions, I could see something that is going to be a big trigger for Victor – jealousy. He’s constantly envious of Eli, even though he does not know it. Whether of his ambition, knowledge, his girlfriend Angie or his ability to charm his way out of anything, he is constantly overshadowed by him. His chance to shine pops out during Eli’s research about EO’s – if they could do it and Victor became EO, wouldn’t that make Victor equally, or even more important for the research and force Eli to work together? Well, that is about to be good. His blind determination to become part of Eli’s research turns to obsession, and he isn’t willing to stop until he succeeds, no matter the cost. After a series of events, he ends up in jail for ten years. That is, like, “before” (before becoming EO) part of his character. I’m still missing out some of his backstory, but I hope Schwab will bless us with that in Vengeful. “I want to believe that there's more. That we could be more. Hell, we could be heroes.” The “after” part of Victor is insane. What can a guy do in prison for ten years? Well planning a vicious revenge sounds like a deserving source of entertainment. I love revenge and characters driven by it because it always makes things dirty. So, Victor breaks out of jail, with nothing on his mind but sweet sweet vengeance, no moral compass and ability to inflict or stop pain on anyone. The reason I said there is “before” and “after” of his character is that becoming EO changes people. It takes some basic but vital feelings, like grief, guilt, regret, empathy. He remembers what it’s like to feel those things, but can’t actually force himself to feel them, but has to constantly “remind” himself of it. He acknowledges something is wrong, because he set it like that in his mind, but he doesn’t sense it. (I had a quote but can’t find it, damn, but here’s one I found: “A pang of guilt, something foreign after a decade in jail, nudged his ribs.”). That I-don’t-care-but-care, ughgghghgg he’s so adorable, with a weak spot for twelve-year-old necromancer, old dog and his hacker cell mate. (“Victor fed it to him, and gave the dog’s ears—which came to his stomach, even sitting on the stool—a short scratch. He looked from the beast to Sydney. He really was collecting strays.”) Mitch Mitch aka chocolate milk is the most iconic character ever to exist. A kick-ass hacker, who constantly ends up in prison for crimes he didn’t commit. So one day, he loses it and decides to actually commit a crime, well, if he’s going to end up in jail anyway, better make it good. He’s actually the ultimate sweetheart and I love him. Sydney Sydney is also a EO, with a badass power – she can raise the dead. She grew up with manipulative older sister and parents who didn’t particularly care for her, so she isn’t to eager to go home after her sister and her psycho boyfriend try to kill her. I just have to say how much I love the three o them together. They are such a cute, badass little family and I love it so much how they grew on each other without knowing it. “She knew exactly where she was going. Serena hadn’t told Sydney to go home. She hadn’t told her to run away. She’d told her to go somewhere safe. And over the course of the last week, safe had ceased to be a place for Sydney, and had become a person. Specifically, safe had become Victor.” I’m melting inside. Eli Cardale “If Eli really was a hero, and Victor meant to stop him, did that make him a villain?" Eli Cardale the ultimate villain, who believes himself a hero with a mission from God to purify the world and protect people from monsters that are Eos. I guess he forgot that he’s an EO himself, whoops. “When no one understands, that's usually a good sign that you're wrong.” But it’s all good if he feels blessed. I actually thought I’d like him for his dedication to the cause, but he just annoyed me all the time with his god complex. Serena Serena is a really good female villain – always gets everything her way and know exactly what she wants. She has real ambition and is a type of villain I usually like but she possesses a dose of bitchiness that made me hate her. *spoiler* I was so happy when Victor killed her, but I have a bad feeling about her and that they aren’t done with bitch-siren yet. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and read the second book in one go, probably regretting it later because I’ll miss half of my life 😊

#books #bookreviews #v.e. schwab #vicious #villains

[joshmspicer]

lets get personal.

Nabbed from @pantherdaemon​ and somehow missed last week

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? “One Foot”, “Voicemail Freestyle Mike Wiebe”, “A Walk Down the Trail” (though it’s been a bit), “First Time”, “It Ends Tonight”, and “Survival”

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? @pantherdaemon​ It’s about time bro

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. “WWE maintained little interest in scouting, much less signing, Japanese or Mexican talent, widely considered the second and third points of the wrestling world’s triangle.”

4: What do you think about most? “So at what point...?”

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? “Stopping for tear”

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? I gots pants

7: What’s your strangest talent? I can curve my tongue?

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) Girls deserve the fucking world but can go too far. Boys can be rude without knowing they are but can also be endearing.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? Not to my knowledge.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? A few moments ago when I was listening to “Undisputed”

11: Do you have any strange phobias? Not a fan of little bugs

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? Yes

13: What’s your religion? Agnostic Lutheran

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Going to my car or walking into somewhere

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? In front

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? Breaking Benjamin, easy

17: What was the last lie you told? “I’m sick as a dog, can’t make it into class.”

18: Do you believe in karma? A form of it, yes

19: What does your URL mean? It’s my old OC from my Xiaolin Showdown days, Jack Spicer’s brother. Brought it with me during the brony days as my alias and it kind of became more than I ever though it would be.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? Weakness is my need to please everybody. Strength is my ability to listen to everybody and offer advice even if I’ve never personally been in that situation.

21: Who is your celebrity crush? Emily Blunt

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? Yes

23: How do you vent your anger? Either my listening to Linkin Park or venting in a text post

24: Do you have a collection of anything? Magazines, video game or animated posters, pictures, and t-shirts

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Phone, never done the latter

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? I’m just happy I’m not completely like my dad.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? I loathe that one stupid fucking bird from Iowa that always does that same rhythm all damn day. I love an animal chirping that isn’t a bird.

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? “What if you stayed in Minneapolis after Dad died?”

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Yes and yes

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. A pen and a water bottle

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? My usual media room. I’m used to it so it smells like normalty

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? High School Homecoming

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? East

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? Sydney Sierota

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? Living and breathing in an attempt to survive.

36: Define Art. Creative outlet through various forms with an intent to tell a narrative, vent emotion, or for personal entertainment.

37: Do you believe in luck? Yes

38: What’s the weather like right now? Dark, clear, cold

39: What time is it? 10:47 PM mountain time

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? Yes, YES

41: What was the last book you read? How WWE Should Have Booked The Book Vol. 1

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? Yes

43: Do you have any nicknames? Toad, Toadman, Spicer

44: What was the last film you saw? Bad Times at El Royale

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? Worst pain at the time was a broken pinky. Worst pain over time was a fucked up shoulder that any movement caused it to just drive me into agony.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? No

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? Probably

48: What’s your sexual orientation? Rather not put a label on that right now

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? Yes

50: Do you believe in magic? Yes

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? Don’t forgive so easily, much harder to gain back trust

52: What is your astrological sign? Cancer

53: Do you save money or spend it? Spend

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? Technically it would be Patreon

55: Love or lust? Lust

56: In a relationship? Nope

57: How many relationships have you had? None

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Nope

59: Where were you yesterday? At home

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? Yeah the envelope that came right My First Girlfriend is a Gal

61: Are you wearing socks right now? Nah

62: What’s your favourite animal? CAT

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? God I could not tell you

64: Where is your best friend? Probably at home or asleep in the Canadian wilderness of the BC

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. I am not going to do that. Not sorry.

66: What is your heritage? A whole bunch of European countries. My dad’s side is known to be varied and my mom’s side is the same, but I’d assume mostly Germanic

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Reading fics in my bed

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? Murphy

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Of fucking course

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? Yes

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? Save the fucking dog. If I’m that deep in my job that one more tardiness means I’m done than it’s not worth it. Plus, I can explain to them and my future jobs why I was late. I feel like people would understand.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? A. Yes B. If I can, travel places, see all the people I haven’t see in a while or at all, and actually finish things I haven’t ever finished. C. Of course

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. Trust

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? Fuck me for it but “"Crepuscularity” but it’s a sad kind of happy

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? Nice

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? Trust and the ability to talk to each other about anything and especially when it’s about that trust or about things that are hurting the other person

77: How can I win your heart? Show genuine interest in me and what I like.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? Yes

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Oh god. Um...submitting that audition for “This is Why I Clop”. I wouldn’t know any of my online friends if it wasn’t for that.

80: What size shoes do you wear? 11 1/2

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? “RIP: This is empty because there’s no body in it, so feel free to go ham.”

82: What is your favourite word? Fuck

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Alone

84: What is a saying you say a lot? “To be quite honest”, “everyone and their mother”, “to be fair”

85: What’s the last song you listened to? “POP/STARS”

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? Red/orange

87: What is your current desktop picture? Still the ME 2 collage

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? I can’t answer that

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? What’s the one kink you hate liking?

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? Ask if they can talk. If they can’t and are just looming, try to get back to sleep.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? Control time

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? Oh this is a good question. That last 30 minutes of the Jan. 2012 BronyCon where I modded the stream and heard “You Only Got One Life to Live”

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Goodbye that sexual assault in the common room

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? Always music huh? I’m gonna say Cher

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Los Angeles

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? Probably

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? Nah

98: Ever been on a plane? Yep

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? It’s...it’s not easy anymore. And I know I make a lot of mistakes and whine a lot and am in no position to hate who I am or what I’ve done and I know that I don’t deserve everything I’ve gotten, but...it’s hard to want to live life and enjoy little things when you’ve been told that you’re great at a lot of things and end up never getting there because you didn’t put enough work in or you weren’t lucky enough to get it. And then you’ve got this great big old dream looming over you that you can escape in because it’s so much to imagine what it would be like. But you know that deep down you’ll end up back home working at Menards and ending up just like your father. Well guess what? If I’ll never be shit, duck? Than I’d least like to fucking know if I ever had a chance in the first place.

#jmsanswers

[bardqueenofgallifrey]

listen I don't wanna get in an argument or anything I just wanna say that you can dislike reylo all you like, no one's saying you have to like it, but when you reblog posts about it being bad cos it's abusive etc. it comes off like you're being slightly hypocritical - you've talked about liking spuffy in the past, and of course twissy. they're equally as fucked up as reylo, if not moreso. again you don't have to like reylo but why guilt people about it given your own tastes?

like I really wanna stress that this isn't hate or anything, I'm just genuinely wondering why you want to shame this one particular ship when it's clear you like some problematic ships of your own, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to have people blogging about how nasty they are all the time. it's your blog obviously, and you can totally do what you like with it, I'm just ... why shame these particular shippers?

No, I mean, it’s a good point to make, so I’m glad you brought this up. 

For me, it’s about how the ships are presented. 

Best Enemies is obviously fucked up, they’re presented more as enemies and the romantic reading of it is more on the fan side than the canon side - their strong friendship is canon, and the romantic hints are there, but more in a wink wink nudge nudge sort of fashion. I would not say they’re painted as a romantic ship very much at all, much less any kind of romantic ideal. 

Spuffy is a bit trickier. It’s very much painted as unhealthy when it starts out - Spike becomes creepily obsessed with her and has obviously done a load of terrible shit (although I think some people forget that Spike, for a long while, doesn’t have a soul, and should really be being judged alongside Angelus as opposed to Angel, you know? I’ve always thought that the fact that soulless Spike was capable of any kind of empathy at all, let alone the rather large amount we see in him alongside his more evil and selfish traits, has rather huge implications about how theoretically good the real Spike is, but that’s a whole different discussion). Buffy also uses him in a multitude of ways, and it’s a general mess, but it’s portrayed as such! And when Spike crosses that line, and tries that really bad thing, it’s shown as fucking serious and it sends him off to atone. And he does atone, but away from her. He goes away and tries to better himself so that he might deserve her, but ironically once possessing his soul, stops trying to push himself on her because obviously now he sees that isn’t remotely okay. And his love, by that point, is incredibly unselfish and very much without any kind of expectation. So I’ve always seen Spuffy as starting off as incredibly unhealthy, and actually being a very rare case of convincingly becoming something passably healthy, if still a bit complex. 

Now, of course, theoretically Reylo could go a similar path. But the difference is how the fandom and canon treat it. It’s the textbook “trash dude meets the heroine and tries to get her on his side and she’s adamantly against it and people read that as romantic potential and that this girl can fix him”. It crops up in loads of places, and I suffered several seasons of Captain Swan in OUAT following this nonsense as well, and also the Bellamy and Clarke shippers in the 100. In these cases, it’s not usually being presented as a problematic ship, in the way that Twissy and Spuffy are self aware. It’s presented as grand and sweeping and romantic when it shouldn’t be, or just isn’t. 

The whole “tortured bad boy gets fixed by the golden heroine” thing is just... yikes. (I know Spuffy comes close, but Spike ultimately fixes himself.)

That’s not to say that they can’t work when the writing is good, I’ve just rarely found it to be the case. (Adrian and Sydney, from the Bloodlines book series, are a good example of it working, even though Adrian isn’t quite a bad boy, and only has one particularly bad action in his past of any significance, and again, it’s an instance of him bettering himself because he sees it’s the right thing to do, though it is partly because he finally has somebody who believes he might actually succeed.) 

Obviously this is all fairly fine line stuff, and entirely my own perspective, but that’s basically how I hold the disdain for Reylo that I do while shipping other questionable ships. I hope it makes sense? Maybe I am hypocritical, a bit, but the distinction exists to me, and makes sense to me, even if maybe it doesn’t to anyone else. 

Like, if the series had been written completely differently, maybe Reylo could have worked. Just like how maybe Captain Swan could have worked if they hadn’t done what I consider to be the worst written/most forced romantic dynamic between main characters I’ve seen in a TV show. But as it is, with people reading scenes of interrogation and torture as sexual tension or romance? No thanks. 

#asks #shipping #anti reylo #spuffy #best enemies #anti captain swan #anti bellarke #my ships #i say shit #goldenaltar

[twilightsaga]

Honestly I understand why people are weirded out. But please, the actresses are NOT the ones together. The characters are, and they're the same age. They're WORKING together. They had a kiss, not a sex scene. If you want to say the producers are gross for the casting, or, IDK, even Sydney for taking the role, I'll understand, but the actual relationship between the characters doesn't deserve to be called that when it's actually so nice and well written(imo).

except the fanbase is already sexualizing their relationship. the fans are already shipping the actresses. the age gap is inappropriate and they should’ve hired someone younger for emaline or older for kate. it’s pretty simple. so i’m not gonna defend it when it’s clear the writers and casting director chose to go the inappropriate way. not only did they pair her with an adult and have her feel her boobs, they also had her film a masturbation scene involving porn. as for the relationship on the show, i don’t think it’s unhealthy but after rewatching and discussing it with someone, emaline mainly likes kate bc of the attention kate gives her. she was obsessed with oliver and even admitted to kate she wanted his attention more than anything. also her style went from punk rock (oliver’s style) to a softer style as well as piercing her nose ( kate’s style) as soon as she started liking kate. anyways again if the actresses were age appropriate i wouldn’t have a problem with anything but one is a minor (who looks like and is practically a child idk how yall feel comfortable shipping her with an adult??) and one’s an adult so yeah not gonna support that.

#everything sucks! #emaline x kate #replies #anon

[candidlytaron]

Chapter Three: τρία

Play the lotto you might win it

It's like 25 for life so you bust out of prison

Something's in the air

It's like that feeling when you're just about to kill it,

Take your last shot you know you're gonna hit it

Something's in the air

— Shawn Mendes • Something Big

• • •

THE PROJECT

ISLA

    Isla and George sits across each other on a café. George takes a sip of his coffee and Isla is telling a story about how her audition went. They haven't seen each other in quite a while because of their busy schedule. George offered they hang out here, instead of the flat, since he wanted to treat Isla for her favourite cheesecake and thick hot cocoa.

    Georgios or George Alanis had been Isla's best friend since they were in middle school when Isla was still staying in Greece. They were both nearly an outcast because they were both new. George came from Sydney and Isla came from London, both are half-Greek. George was actually the one who got Isla hooked into acting, but Isla just couldn't abandon singing, so she began doing musical theater workshops in freshman year of high school. "At least I get to do both things that I love and have learned to love," she explained.

    Ever since then, as opportunities rain down on George, he doesn't forget to share his blessings with Isla, and she does the same, therefore, they both rise to the top together like they promised to each other. And now, they've auditioned in the same upcoming production, and are looking forward to finally working with each other for the first time, after all these years.

    And with their closeness, typically, people assume that they're a couple, as much as they try to explain a hundred times to interviewers that they're just best friends, with a statement even released in their social media. It's either that or they completely assume that they are eventually going to fall for each other. Their explanation was: if they'd eventually fall for each other, it could have happened a long time ago but it didn't. And none of them seem to hint out having feelings for each other anyway, so they're confident it's never happening.

    "...Georgie, I'm extremely fucking desperate for this, you have no idea," Isla says, placing down her cup of coco down harsher than intended, it creats a small spill on the glass coffee table. So she wipes it with a napkin.

    "So am I. Everyone's looking forward to seeing it, so imagine the exposure that's going to give you."

    She laughs. "But what if it turns out to be suckish? How's that going to go?"

    "We've won big awards two years ago, last year and this year, Isla. If it turns out to be suckish, it's kind of a part of life as an actor, isn't it?"

    Isla rolls her eyes. "Taron doesn't have a shitty movie?"

    "Oh, well, that's because in your eyes, he's perfect. Also, didn't you hate The Golden Circle?" He says, pressing his cup on his lips and taking another swig.

    "Yeah," she says, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "I did hate the story line. However, Taron wasn't even terrible in his performance there at all. If anything, he deserves all the awards."

   George shakes his head, smiling. "No, Isla, I was talking about the movie itself, not Egerton's performance. You thinking that it's perfect is already quite intrinsic. I was just thinking that that movie was definitely over-hyped for a shit story line."

    Isla gasps and throws a napkin on George's chest jokingly. In shock that someone would actually talk shit about the film that even she hated. It's like criticising someone's parents. You're not allowed to do it because it's going to be very offensive, but their child can.

    "What?"

    "Don't even say that!"

    Laughing, George takes the napkin off his chest and toss it back to Isla. "I thought you hated it! So do I. I can't believe you actually made me watch that shit."

    "George, I'm the only one who can talk shit about that movie."

    "And I don't?"

    Isla nods, looking absolutely protective and determined. "Yeah." And George just responds to it by chuckling and taking another sip on his coffee, with a playful smirk that also screams 'You are unbelievable, Isla Constantinou.

• • •

    A month has passed since the audition for what might seem to be their biggest production yet, and this, we get the results. This is a highly anticipated movie of the next year because the creators hyped up everybody with the release of its story line and concepts, including Isla. That's why it's going to be such a big deal if she ever gets accepted. But she knows in her heart that she's going to be good at executing the character. Like she's born to play it. She's insecure, yes, but this time, she feels really confident and even she can't tell why. She just have this gut feeling that she'll be succeeding if she gets this role. The exposure, the story line, everything's just perfect.

    She sits on her bed, with her chin on her knees, her toes curling on the white duvet and her phone in her hand. Anytime now, they will contact her, and she's been really wanting this role because of the character's great backstory. She was taught way back to not expect so much after auditioning, but now, only once in this case, she's breaking the classic rule. She knows she did well, and she gave it her all.

    Her phone rings, making her jump. She turns to the caller ID and it's the casting director. Her heart starts to race as she slides her thumb sideways to answer the call she desperately had been waiting for. "Hello?" She's trying to remain calm, but the pressure's already on. She just wants the result so she can get it over with, whatever it may be—a celebration or devastation and bitterness.

    "Isla Constantinou," the director greets. "We might just be giving you this character. But I'm going to need you to be able to try with the other casts to see the compatibility. Is that all right?"

    Her lips are quivering, as if she can't find the words to reply. She's just nodding and nearly in tears, but she keeps reminding herself that the pressure is still on. The results aren't final. She still has to be good at this next stage.

    Finally, she responds. "Yes! Yes. Who are the other cast, if I may ask?"

    "For your role or for the other characters?" Isla shakes her head as if she can be seen by the director. She doesn't even want to know who is also competing for her role. She just wants it hers without any more competitive demeanor nor insecurity.

    "For the other characters."

    "Well, there's Trent Grand, tentatively played by Georgios Alanis, Howell Ellis, played by Taron Egerton—"

     Hold the fuck up, She thinks, her heart racing even faster and she isn't even paying attention anymore to the rest of what the director is saying. She's only focusing on one thing. Taron Egerton? She's going to possibly be working with the Taron Egerton? It's everything she's ever dreamt of ever since she got in to show business. Although, the pressure raises up to its core temperature. This is what she's been waiting for all her life, and it can finally happen. Here, she begins to wonder if she'll ever get along with him or she's just going to get ignored like she feared would happen. But they will both be playing the lead. They have to almost always agree with each other, or at least would just have to interact with each other.

    She almost forgets that her best friend is also a tentative cast. So, the possibilities are:

         1. She might stick on George's arm the entire time whilst she fights her anxiety over officially meeting sober Taron. At least, when he was drunk, he wouldn't remember anything embarrassing that Isla could have done. This is a completely different story now. And she doesn't even know if he's going to remember her.

         2. If he does, it's going to be extremely awkward to hear Taron say 'Hey, did you became my instant best friend in the after-party whilst I was fucked?' She wouldn't know how she's going to respond to it. Hence, probably using George as a shield in case this scenario actually takes place.

              2.1. If she'll be honest, Taron would be weirded out by her, surely. But she already has a defense in case he attempts to distance himself away from here because of what happened. 'I saved your ass from getting too drunk at the party. You should be thanking me.' Unfortunately, though, she didn't save him from getting videotaped getting pissed and dancing awkwardly to EDM.

              2.2. If she lies, guaranteed Taron will find out about it. There were already a lot of eye-witnesses of Taron getting too drunk, let alone seeing the openly desperate celebrity obsessed with him, with him.

         3. George will be encouraging her to talk to Taron and befriend him. But he might recognise her.

              3.1. If he recognises her from all the gossip websites, it's going to be pretty awkward if she tries to befriend him. Everybody is going to think that she's trying to make her way on Taron.

              3.2. If he recognises her from the award show, he will probably welcome her with open arms or he'll interact with her—what a dream.

              3.3. If he doesn't recognise her at all, that's definitely going to be extremely embarrassing, at least for Isla's part. Taron possibly wouldn't even get to observe the mortifying moment but she will never forget it.

         4. George might be the typical friend who pushes you to your crush and that's not going to end well. Isla shall speak to him as early as now, but first, she'd need to congratulate him. It isn't confirmed yet that they really got the part, but at least, finally, she will still be acting with George. It's everything she's been waiting for because it never happened. They got involved in different workshops because Isla's house is a little too far from George. He offered that he'd give her a ride to and from the drama school, but Isla's step-father just shook his head. He never liked the idea of Isla being friends with George because he thinks that it's just George's way to get into her pants, which George vehemently denied. Nevertheless, to this day, Isla's dad is still skeptical, but is starting to trust George bit by bit because nothing has happened to them in the past nine years.

    The director stops mentioning the main characters and those who will portray them. "Is there any more questions?"

    "When will this trial be and where will it be held?"

    "Tomorrow morning at ten. I will be texting you the address."

    "Okay," Isla says finally. Smiling from ear to ear. "Thank you very much."

    After the phone call, Isla calls George right after. The phone rings, and George immediately picks up. "So, what's up?" He picks up, sounding like he's trying to contain his excitement and waiting for Isla to figure out. But Isla already knows the surprise, and she notices that her hand is actually shaking. She doesn't know if it's either from excitement, or from nervousness, or both—definitely both.

    "Georgios, Γεία σας! we're cast in the same production! Although, tentative, but still!" She says, almost squealing from excitement. "Tomorrow morning, we work on the compatibility of the casts."

    "Ah-huh? Is that the actual reason why you called me? Or is there still something else in your head?" George already knew way ahead. It appears that Isla's the last one to know, at least between the two of them.

    "What?"

    "Something tells me that there's something else you have in mind."

    Isla rolls her eyes, as if he can see her. "Okay, okay, fine. Taron is playing the lead and my character—Heather's boyfriend."

    "Ah-huh. That's what I've been waiting to hear," he says, laughing. "That's exactly what I have been waiting to hear." He sighs and shift quickly to another topic. "Anyway, what time do we wake up tomorrow?"

    "Well, it starts at ten, so maybe seven. Well, depending on the travel time. Where is it, anyway? The casting director told me that he's going to text me the address but I haven't received anything yet."

     Then her phone vibrates. He puts George on loud speaker and see who messaged. It's the casting director.

    "Never mind. I just received it."

    "Me too. I'm actually viewing it on this traffic at the moment. It's about one hour from our crib, but it's still depending on the horrid traffic. I guess I'll pick you up at seven."

    Seven?! Isla thinks. She usually wakes up at quarter to eight and just adjusting a bit so she set up the time at first. But she forgets to mind the deadly London traffic.

    She needs to make a good first impression. She has got to be there on time.

     She can’t tell who she wants to impress though: The directors or Taron?

    She swallows, and nervously say "seven it is."

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER FOUR

#taron egerton #taron egerton fanfiction #please help me #my head is literally throbbing right now oh my god

[retrauxpunk]

i saw this bunch of asks and i’ve decided to answer all of them because fuck waiting for asks that’s why

billie jean: what do you notice more in a song - the drums or bassline?

probably the drums. this is embarrassing but i barely even know what a bassline is. don’t ask.

sweet dreams (are made of this): what’s the best dream you’ve had?

i was in the hunger games with ben whishaw. we were sort of allies. we were some of the tributes remaining toward the end of the game. we had this intense moment of eye contact in which we weren’t sure if we were going to kill/get killed by the other, and then we made out. fuck yeah.

africa: favourite 80s music video?

i agree with @cheapskate-bleeding-queer​, Dancing in the Street is really something.

every breath you take: who’s the first person your mind goes to when you hear a love song?

either my boyfriend or my ex, depending on what kind of love song it is haha

should i stay or should i go: how many languages do you speak?

one fluently, one relatively proficiently, and basic spoken knowledge for another

uptown girl: what’s your favourite book trope?

there’s too many! here are a few i like: allies fighting with sword-like weapons back to back; badass battle magic; characters deciding to make out as a way to hide their real agenda (e.g. trespassing); saving each other’s lives; cyberpunk/biopunk; urban fantasy; people who save the world/have magic powers but also have normal lives of school/work

don’t stop believin’: what’s the longest journey you’ve been on?

mmm... flying from sydney to london. jesus. an entire day. but it was business class, so it was pretty cushy ... the flight from germany to sydney felt much longer because it was in economy and the shorter flight (8) was first, and the second one (16 or some shit) was second, so really i was going a bit nuts.

i wanna dance with somebody (who loves me): who was the last person you danced with?

my boyfriend, at the paramore concert

maneater: where did you spend your last friday night?

hanging out at my boyfriend’s work, playing beer pong

jessie’s girl: what would you do if you found out your best friend was seeing your ex?

be incredibly shocked/surprised and upset and bitter ... and ask them why? and also chew out my ex too. but more angry at the best friend because they know how my relationship with the ex went and it’d be a real douchey move for them to get with them haha. ...thankfully this is very very very unlikely to happen.

born in the u.s.a.: what’s your home town like?

sunny with a beautiful harbour. very expensive in terms of housing. pretty multicultural, with white, asian, and middle eastern being the dominant groups (in descending order). lots of great food.

wake me up before you go-go: how did your last date go?

saw Early Man with my boyfriend at the cinema. it was nice. uneventful but pleasant, which is how things usually go when you’ve been together for years...

girls just want to have fun: relationship with your parents?

we have really different/conflicting views about basically everything, which is what happens when we’re from different generations and grew up in different cultures... #immigrantlife but they tried their best and love me and i love them even though it has been kinda rough

beat it: opinions on the police force?

a necessary institution, i’d rather have one than not have one, but has several serious endemic issues regardless of which culture we’re talking about

never gonna give you up: how old were you when you joined the internet?

around the time this was a meme haha :p ... around 12-13, when I got into message boards and post by post roleplaying.

faith: when was your first kiss?

15 for a peck, 17 for making out

i’m so excited: where was your first kiss?

outside my house for the peck, and in Sydney’s Hyde Park for making out

take on me: could you reach the high note?

absolutely not, but i make a dumb attempt anyway

footloose: favourite musical?

The Book of Mormon!!!!!!!

9 to 5: do you like country music?

I’m not sure. Maybe?

back in black: what makes a good rock song?

a strong beat! strength of instruments! a hot voice and good lyrics. makes me want to start drumming my fingers/tapping feet/headbanging, no matter where i am. i’m too crap at music to be able to give a better answer, so have that subjective one.

material girl: are you sentimental?

absolutely. i’ll bleed my heart all over your carpet and ruin your clothes. though i don’t know if that comes across for people who don’t know me too well?

walk this way: what was the most expensive thing you bought in the last six months?

probably concert tickets for me and my boyfriend ... either that or my Doc Martens

you shook me all night long: are you seeing anyone at the moment?

yup

thriller: favourite film genre and why?

I like quite a few, but probably action/thriller. I love good action movies, I love watching well-choreographed combat and general Cool Badassitude, and the dialogue tends to be peppered with fun humour too. Really good for suspense and engagement.

i want candy: chocolate or sweets?

Chocolate

ghostbusters: how far do you believe in the paranormal?

I don’t really, but I wouldn’t push my luck either.

the power of love: does true love exist?

absolutely! all love is true love. if it’s not true, it’s not love.

hungry like the wolf: what’s your crush’s favourite music genre?

stuff like Queen

walk like an egyptian: favourite song currently in the charts?

Lemon To A Knife Fight by the Wombats

(i’ve had) the time of my life: if you could relive any ten minutes of your life, what would you relive?

listening to Pink Floyd’s Time while on acid (the first time I’d tried either the album or the drug)

just can’t get enough: what’s your guilty pleasure?

I don’t really feel guilty about my pleasures?

i’m gonna be (500 miles): how far apart do you and your best friend live?

lmao. a 24 hour flight apart. about as far away as you can get

you spin me round (like a record): favourite modern cover of an older song?

i don’t know many, but the Scissor Sisters cover of Comfortably Numb as a disco hit is really good!

we built this city: if you were president, what would your first ruling be?

oh god uh I don’t know. but some stuff I’d like to make happen are: increasing taxes on fossil fuels, more protections for queer folk, making abortion safe and easily accessible, overhauling the sex ed curriculum in schools to include a lot more focus on consent and the nuances of consent instead of focussing purely on physical sexual health, increasing funding for mental health, OH BOY I COULD GO ON AND ON 

how will i know: do you believe everyone is deserving of love?

by default yes ... for people like ivan milat ... no ... so, yes, except in the extreme cases of people proven to be unrepentant and unwilling to reform after committing atrocities

nothing’s gonna stop us now: what’s been the biggest hurdle you’ve faced in your life so far?

either my own mental health RE being quite neurotic/obsessive, or a bad former partner who did some things that fucked me up. they’ve recently seemed to be truly sorry/empathetic though so that one at least will be getting better now. tbh they’re both getting better, so that’s nice!

come on eileen: have you ever written a song? if so, what was the genre?

i kinda wrote lyrics and had an idea for a melody for this ... some kind of bad sappy love song that would probably be in the pop rock category? oh god i’m so glad i have no further memory of it

living on a prayer: which was the song of your childhood?

if we’re talking pre-teenagerhood ... um ... I dunno! maybe ‘Sk8er Boi’ or Atomic Kitten’s ‘The Tide is High’ haha. as for my mid-teens ... Tokio Hotel’s ‘Der Letzte Tag’. late teens, it’d be ... maybe Taylor Swift’s ‘Holy Ground’.

sweet child o’ mine: describe your perfect first date.

meeting somewhere public, having good food and drink, excellent conversation and laughs, then going to my/their place and having more of the same, and making out and potentially Other Things wink nudge giggle wink wink nudge

don’t you (forget about me): is there anyone from your past that you regret cutting ties with?

No. HA. feels good to say that

eye of the tiger: favourite 80s movie?

i .................. don’t know if I have one

under pressure: give an example of a world event that occurred the year you were born.

Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa

with or without you: what would you value most: a relationship or a job?

oh my god i don’t fucking know. 

another one bites the dust: where did you achieve your biggest accomplishment?

what ... even was my biggest accomplishment ... I guess either in my school’s exam hall (getting a high ATAR), or on my apartment couch (finishing NaNoWriMo)

pour some sugar on me: turn ons?

oh boy, hmm: having the exact same ideological beliefs as me; a lean but toned body; Irish/Scottish/Russian accents (among several others); neck kisses; being clever; being very skilled at something (esp something with a physical dimension e.g. drawing, playing guitar, snowboarding, etc.); the right amount of confidence/bravado but only when I’m already into them (otherwise this becomes a 10000x turn-off) 

in the air tonight: do you enjoy flying?

YEAH BB

tainted love: thoughts on synthesisers/electronic drum kits/technology based music?

i have no problem with it and it can produce excellent stuff just like any older instrument

like a virgin: share a controversial opinion.

i hate avocados

karma chameleon: what do you like most about your appearance?

on good days, hair and face. otherwise, my body.

#this was fun! #these are good questions #about me #ask quiz

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/sentencing-their-dog-to-death-how-the-anti-vax-movement-spread-to-pets-society/

'Sentencing their dog to death': how the anti-vax movement spread to pets | Society

Sam Kovac can’t say for sure what prompted it, but in the past few weeks the Sydney veterinarian has been faced with the same alarming, beguiling question over and over: “Will this vaccination give my dog autism?”

“It’s actually ridiculous. I mean you hear chatter over the years, but just in these last few weeks it’s really, really ramped up,” he tells Guardian Australia.

“Most of the time people are OK, they’re not staunchly against it once you tell them the science and the statistics [but] we have had people walk out in hysteria, saying that there is absolutely no way their dog is getting [vaccinated] because they believe it causes auto-immune diseases or, specifically, autism.”

Kovac is so perturbed by the trend that he felt moved to speak out about it in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph this week, saying he didn’t believe anti-vaxxers deserved to have animals as pets if they were willing to put them at risk of diseases such as canine parvovirus.

“They are sentencing their dog to death from one of the most shocking, horrible viruses you can imagine,” he says.

“If a disease as contagious, as horrific and with a high mortality rate as parvovirus existed for humans, this conversation would be so different.”

Vaccinations do not cause autism in dogs or humans. But there is an important distinction: there is no such thing as autism in dogs.

“Well, there are certainly no recorded cases of animals with the condition that I know of,” Kovac says. “And there is no diagnostic test to check for it in dogs or cats anyway.”

The amplification of the anti-vaccination movement in online communities and its association with the rise of populism and anti-establishment politics has been well documented.

This year the World Health Organisation included “vaccine hesitancy” among its 10 biggest threats to global health, pointing to a 30% increase in the number of cases of measles worldwide and a “resurgence” of the disease in countries that were close to eliminating it.

In March, the head of Britain’s National Health Service, Simon Stevens, blamed “fake news” by “vaccination deniers” on social media for a tripling in measles cases in the UK in 2018. In December a Guardian investigation pointed to the way populist rightwing politicians in Europe and the US were capitalising on the mistrust of vaccine science.

In 2015 Donald Trump wrongly linked vaccination schedules to autism in a debate during the Republican primaries, while in Australia One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was forced to apologise in 2017 after she asserted that the government’s vaccination policies amounted to blackmail.

But are our four-legged friends really the latest front in the anti-vaccination movement’s war?

Naomi Smith, a sociologist from the Federation University in Victoria, has published research mapping out the anti-vaccination movement’s presence on social media by trawling through hundreds of thousands of posts and comments on popular anti-vaccination Facebook pages.

A dog in India receives a vaccination. Photograph: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images

The anti-vaccination movement was not born with social media, but Smith’s research highlights the role social media plays in fostering and amplifying its conspiracy theories.

Did they talk about dogs, though?

“Well, no, they didn’t, but what was really interesting is that after we published I got emails from vets saying we have seen this in our space too,” she tells Guardian Australia.

“So it didn’t come up in our data but it’s definitely something I’ve heard about since, because people have approached me about it.”

Most concerning was an email from an equine veterinarian in Queensland, who told Smith he continually faced reluctance from anti-vaxxers opposed to the Hendra virus vaccine.

The Hendra vaccine is not without critics – last year horse owners from New South Wales and Queensland launched a class action against the pharmaceutical company responsible for developing it, claiming it did not provide adequate warnings about potential side effects. But Paula Parker, the president of the Australian Veterinary Association, believes much of the opposition to the virus is based on “bad-faith” arguments.

“There are unfortunately some people making bad-faith arguments about Hendra, and some who get into internet rabbit holes and come out misinformed, it’s heartbreaking to us because it’s an amazing vaccine for a disease which is life-threatening to horses and humans,” Parker says.

She too is aware of a broader reluctance among a small number of pet owners to vaccinate, and sees a link with the flourishing market for “holistic” animal care, which she says “anecdotally seem to breed some reluctance to vaccinations or other conventional treatments”.

A horse on a property in Queensland is given the Hendra virus vaccination. The fatal disease is also a threat to humans. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

“There are some complementary therapies like acupuncture which are helpful adjuncts to conventional medicine, [but] the difficult part with homeopathy is there is no regulation in that space,” she says.

“Most of them don’t cause harm, they’re just not effective, but the biggest worry is that pet owners seek out that kind of care and delay a diagnosis and required treatment.”

For Smith, too, there is a clear link between the so-called wellness industry and the spread of anti-vaccination messaging.

“What’s super interesting about the wellness movement, or industry, is that anyone can talk about it, you don’t have to have any kind of credentials, and it seems to be that those conversations naturally lead to a suspicion of established bio-medical practices,” she says.

Smith points to the example of Taylor Winterstein, wife of the Penrith Panthers NRL player Frank Winterstein, who claims vaccines cause allergies and believes parents are being “bullied” by GPs who “pressure” them to give their children vaccinations.

The Daily Telegraph reported last month that Winterstein was charging $200 for “informative” workshops, teaching other parents about her views.

Winterstein told the paper she had “never once said not to vaccinate”, but added: “Vaccines are not safe and effective for everyone, a ‘one size fits all’ schedule does not fit all bio-individual children and where there is risk there must always be choice.”

Smith is critical of that approach: “You’ve got footballers’ wives holding anti-vaccination seminars and their credentials are essentially being very good looking, which somehow means they’re speaking to some deeper truth that they understand what it is to be healthy,” she says.

“We’re very food- and diet-obsessed in this culture and people are constantly looking for advice about how to be healthy, which is fine, but that’s not all that these people are selling.”

That the anti-vaccination movement would turn its attention to animals is unsurprising to Smith.

“This attitude towards, I say this in quotation marks, ‘bodily and dietary purity’, is being translated by people into their pets because we view pets as part of the family now,” she says.

“So if you’re taking on the attitude that you’re going to keep your family, again, quote-unquote, ‘safe’, why wouldn’t you extend it to your dog too?”

Source link

#Australia news #current health news usa #Health #health news usa #latest health news usa #pets #Science #Vaccines and immunisation #Health News

[glittership]

Episode #74 — "Best for Baby" by Rivqa Rafael

Direct download here!

And here’s the RSS feed: http://glittership.podbean.com/feed/

Episode 74 is part of the Autumn 2018 issue!

Support GlitterShip by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/

    Best for Baby

by Rivqa Rafael

When I jack in, I shove the plug into its socket harder than I should. The disconnect–reconnect tone combination sounds; the terminal is as grumpy as I am. Who wouldn’t be? I’ve been kept back late in the lab to finish a job. Which was stolen from me. By the person who asked me to do this, as a “favor.” Who also happens to be my supervisor, so I can’t say no.

I load up the interface, drilling straight down to the zygote’s chromosomal level. Hayden’s been a bit careless, like he always is on the rare occasions he actually gets in the wet lab. I get to work, fixing his mistakes. Back in my body, I’m grinding my teeth and hunching my shoulders. Before I sink deeper into the VR, I take some deep breaths and roll my shoulders the way Lena showed me. Her yoga obsession has fringe benefits for me—my body needs to be relaxed if I’m going to do my job properly. Just for a moment, I’m back in our living room with Lena coaxing Kris and me to stretch with her. It’s enough to refocus me.

For all that it’s a science, there’s an art to working in the interface. The prion scalpel is tiny—obviously—and delicate; it needs to be handled with care, the type of care that only comes from being completely in tune with your neural implant and the system it’s connected to. It’s something Hayden seems to lack. Keeping my movements graceful (thank you, Lena), I begin to repair the damage. In here, I’m both the pipette and the hand depressing the button; I’m the prion scalpel; I’m the machine. The translation overlay is just a guide; I’ve been able to recognize bases by shape for a long time now. When I started, I thought I’d never remember the sequences, but I know our most common mods by heart now.

[Full story after the cut.]

  Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 74 for June 17, 2019. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Today we have a GlitterShip original, which is available in the Autumn 2018 issue that you can pick up at GlitterShip.com/buy, on Gumroad at gum.co/gship08, or on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and other ebook retailers.

If you’ve been waiting to pick up your copy of the Tiptree Award Honor Listed book, GlitterShip Year Two, there’s a great deal going on for Pride over at StoryBundle. GlitterShip Year Two is part of a Pride month LGBTQ fantasy fiction bundle. StoryBundle is a pay-what-you-want bundle site. For $5 or more, you can get four great books, and for $15 or more, you’ll get an additional five books, including GlitterShip Year Two, and a story game. That comes to as little as $1.50 per book or game. The StoryBundle also offers an option to give 10% of your purchase amount to charity. The charity for this bundle is Rainbow Railroad, a charity that helps queer folks get to a safe place if their country is no longer safe for them.

http://www.storybundle.com/pride

Our story today is “Best for Baby” by Rivqa Rafael, but first, our poem, which is “Aubade: King Under the Mountain” by Tristan Beiter.

    Tristan Beiter is a poet and speculative fiction nerd originally from Central Pennsylvania. His poems have previously appeared in GlitterShip, Eternal Haunted Summer, Bird’s Thumb, and Laurel Moon. When not writing or reading he can usually be found crafting absurdities with his boyfriend or shouting about literary theory. Find him on Twitter @TristanBeiter.

  Aubade: King Under the Mountain

by Tristan Beiter

  I wake to the crackle of the thousand-year hearth in the center of the room, to the bells tolling. Never church bells, but the deer harness hanging on the wall.

I stretch towards his space, removing my earplugs—which I have taken to wearing since even the tomtes snore something terrible. Luxuriate in the furs: big piles of wolf pelts and

bear skins that make up our bed under the intertwined roots of these seven great pine trees which are our roof, warm, with the wind through them and older than even Klampe-Lampe,

who has risen already and left. But he’ll be back soon. I can see the pile of battered, burnished gold and silver, still waiting to bedizen him, bracers and torcs and earrings

and necklace upon necklace—careless ugly riches that have lasted generations of trolls living hundreds of years, all mounded up and displayed on knobbled bodies

and in untamed hair. I pluck my earring, bracer, heavy silver beads from the ground and put them on. When he returns, he’ll carry me in his left hand to the throne room under the mountain.

    And now for “Best for Baby” by Rivqa Rafael, read by A.J. Fitzwater.

Rivqa Rafael is a lapsed microbiologist who lives in Sydney, Australia, where she writes speculative fiction about queer women, Jewish women, cyborg futures, and hope in dystopias. Her short stories have been published in Defying Doomsday, Crossed Genres’ Resist Fascism, and elsewhere. She is co-editor of feminist robot anthology Mother of Invention.

AJ Fitzwater is a dragon of repute living between the cracks of Christchurch, New Zealand. Their fiction appears in such venues as Clarkesworld, Lackingtons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Glittership. A collection of their Cinrak the Lesbian Capybara Pirate stories will be out in May 2020 from Queen of Swords Press. Their stranger than fiction can be found on Twitter @AJFitzwater

    Best for Baby

by Rivqa Rafael

When I jack in, I shove the plug into its socket harder than I should. The disconnect–reconnect tone combination sounds; the terminal is as grumpy as I am. Who wouldn’t be? I’ve been kept back late in the lab to finish a job. Which was stolen from me. By the person who asked me to do this, as a “favor.” Who also happens to be my supervisor, so I can’t say no.

I load up the interface, drilling straight down to the zygote’s chromosomal level. Hayden’s been a bit careless, like he always is on the rare occasions he actually gets in the wet lab. I get to work, fixing his mistakes. Back in my body, I’m grinding my teeth and hunching my shoulders. Before I sink deeper into the VR, I take some deep breaths and roll my shoulders the way Lena showed me. Her yoga obsession has fringe benefits for me—my body needs to be relaxed if I’m going to do my job properly. Just for a moment, I’m back in our living room with Lena coaxing Kris and me to stretch with her. It’s enough to refocus me.

For all that it’s a science, there’s an art to working in the interface. The prion scalpel is tiny—obviously—and delicate; it needs to be handled with care, the type of care that only comes from being completely in tune with your neural implant and the system it’s connected to. It’s something Hayden seems to lack. Keeping my movements graceful (thank you, Lena), I begin to repair the damage. In here, I’m both the pipette and the hand depressing the button; I’m the prion scalpel; I’m the machine. The translation overlay is just a guide; I’ve been able to recognize bases by shape for a long time now. When I started, I thought I’d never remember the sequences, but I know our most common mods by heart now.

Finding my rhythm, I begin to work a little faster; I’ve almost forgotten about Hayden and his insistence on getting his grubby hands all over this project. I don’t have forever in here—the zygote needs to go back on ice—but I’m in the zone now and there’s still plenty of time. I’ve got this. Sure, I’m not going to get any credit for it, but Hayden’s going to owe me. I’m logging everything, so he can’t conveniently “forget.” If I play my cards right, this might be the last step to me finally getting a promotion. Goodness knows I deserve one. Maybe Hayden would even back me up.

I zoom out to look back at my work so far, and gasp. Something’s wrong. I should be about halfway done, but it’s like I was never here. No, worse. There are deadly cancer mutations here, lots of them, right where I was working. All types that wouldn’t show up until later in life, too. None of it was here before, and time is short.

  You had to know Hayden pretty well to pick up his aura of desperation as he talked up the state-of-the-art equipment. PCR machines and centrifuges just look like boxes with touchscreens if you don’t understand what they do, after all.

The couple lacked the air of anguish that infertile couples usually have when they walk through. Or the wonder often displayed by more-than-twos and gonadically incompatible—my heart panged as I thought of what it would take for us, how we’d—stop, it was pointless even to think about it, I told myself for the millionth time. I just worked here; I’d never be a client. Kris had already banned me from talking too much about work. Like me, she was implanted. You grow up knowing your place, not rocking the boat, aiming for what’s feasible. Lena was more willing to indulge me the fantasy; would we split everything evenly, or would one of us provide the mitochondria and the other two a set of chromosomes each? Both could work. I snapped myself out of it. Kris was right about this one; I just wished I could convince myself to believe it as thoroughly as she did.

These two eyed the machinery with indifference. Probably here for mods, and mods only. If they weren’t using a surrogate, I’d drink my Taq polymerase.

“Impressive. How do you guarantee your results, though?” Mom-to-be glittered with diamonds—genuine, I could only assume. Closest I’d ever got to any, anyway.

“As I already explained…” Hayden caught my eye before I could look away. “Perhaps you’d like to meet one of our geneticists? Merav can answer your questions in far more detail.”

Dad-to-be’s suit was so well-cut and so fine, it might even be real wool. His hair was immaculate and he smelled of expensive cologne. His HUD glasses were shiny, a model too new for me to recognize. “That would be excellent.”

Setting my face into a neutral expression, I swiveled on my stool to face them properly while Hayden introduced them as Mr Blake and Dr Ashdowne. The names rang a vague bell and they were obviously capital-I Important, but I didn’t work it out until later. Hayden scolded me later for not standing up, but it just didn’t occur to me. As it was, I was going to have to start mixing my reagents again by the time this interruption was over. “I’d be happy to.” I did my best to distill and explain the years of research into genetic variables, what we could reliably reproduce and what we couldn’t, how we managed successive generations of mods, and how we tested each zygote’s chromosomes before allowing it to progress to blastomere—all non-invasive.

They nodded along as I spoke; I couldn’t tell if they really understood, but Hayden smiled at me, which was a rare occurrence, so I was lulled into feeling grateful.

At some point, they started talking to each other, right over the top of me. They dithered about hair color, wondering whether the stereotypes about blonde hair still held. Did they notice the irritation in my voice as I tried to explain how many other variables might be at play in their child’s success?

“We just want the best for our baby,” Ashdowne said, almost pleading, but there was an edge to her voice that made me think that “best” meant something different to her than it did to me.

“Of course. But this is just the beginning. We can’t control much of growth and development when upbringing plays such a large part. And epigenetics have an effect as well.” Keeping my voice even and patient was hard; there were only so many ways I could say the same thing. “Think of it as… venture capitalism. You’re making the best possible investment with every tool at your disposal, but that doesn’t guarantee that things will work out exactly how you planned.”

Ashdowne nodded, but Blake’s eyes were flinty. “You’re saying our child might crash, and it won’t be your responsibility?”

“I’m saying your kid might dye their hair one day, and that’s not something we can control for. We’re very clear about what we promise and what we don’t. It’s in the contract; I assume you’ve read it. It’s up to you.” Maybe it wasn’t the right PR line, but I wasn’t PR.

They signed the contract.

  I put the zygote back on ice and try to log into another. This couple only wants one child; that’s part of why they want it perfect. Still, each client typically has more than will be used; we need that margin for error as much as the IVF specialists do. There are four more zygotes. This should be salvageable. But each one gives me an “unavailable” notification. What is going on?

Returning to the first zygote, I allow myself a tiny sigh of relief when I can still get back in. It’s a mess, but I can fix it in time. I think. I set up an extra firewall, the best I can code on the fly. We’re down to the wire here. Last chance to get it right, assuming the other zygotes are gone for good. If this one doesn’t work, doesn’t stick, we’re going to have to fess up and get more samples—if they don’t cancel the contract, which wouldn’t surprise me. I’d heard that Ashdowne had found the induction and retrieval unusually difficult, and it wasn’t fun at the best of times. So much for the Important clients. Fucking Hayden, honestly.

Working in the same order I always do, I begin cleaning up the chromosomes. Again. It’s almost easier this time. The errors are so obvious, it would be comical if it weren’t so dire. As though someone used a pickaxe instead of a prion scalpel.

I’m wincing, I realize, just looking at these errors. I’ve never seen so many cancer mutations in one place. Forcing my body to relax, I get back into my rhythm. This is definitely within my capabilities to fix, and with the logs I have running, maybe I’ll get some recognition for it. Maybe even that bonus Hayden had hinted at, even though it’s seeming less and less likely that it’ll be him authorizing it.

My firewall pings; someone’s trying to log in. Hayden.

“That firewall is going to look very suspicious to the auditors,” he says, using a private channel on the company comms.

“Standard protocol when there’s a security breach, which there certainly seems to have been. I hope you’re looking into it, Hayden?” I’m pretty sure he isn’t, but I choose my words carefully, aware that my logs will pick this up along with everything else.

  Hayden added me to the team officially, and I had to sit in on endless meetings when I should have been doing real work. He assured me that it would be worth it; that there were bonuses for jobs like this. That is, jobs for billionaire corporate royalty like Oliver Blake and Penelope Ashdowne. So I did my best, and that seemed to be good enough. From what I could tell, they liked having an “expert” on board, even if they didn’t actually listen to me very often.

But then one day, Hayden was in the meeting before I arrived, chatting to “Oliver” about the stock market and complimenting “Penelope” on her outfit. After all these weeks, I was still calling them by titles; Hayden had said it was important I was respectful. That didn’t seem to apply to him, though. He ran a hand over his sleek hair, as though checking it still hid his neural implant. “Oh, Merav, didn’t you get my memo? I really need you on that rush job. I’ll take this from here.”

“But—” I bit my tongue quickly. Hayden was my supervisor and he was within his rights to do this. Outside the room, I checked my work datapad.

I hadn’t missed any messages.

  “Oh, this doesn’t look like a security breach to me. Seems like an internal error.”

Staying quiet, I carefully roll chromosome 19 back up while I think through my options. There’s no way an audit would incriminate me; my logs are streaming as they should. What is Hayden playing at? “Have you checked on the zygotes in meatspace?” I ask finally.

“Some kind of lab mishap. Terrible, isn’t it?” So that was why the other zygotes were “unavailable,” with this one only missed because I’d been working on it.

My heart thunders in my chest. “That’s going to suck for whoever made that mistake. What’s worse, do you think, the docked pay or having to apologize in person to the parents?”

“Tough one. Sure is a shame for that person.”

“Still, one zygote is better than none.”

“Fuck me, you’re actually trying to fix it,” he says. It takes me a second to notice he’s swapped to socmed comms, the one that’s supposed to be the most secure on the market. No logging options at all.

“No, I am fixing it. It’s my job.” Frantically, I switch to loudspeaker mode, and my datapad to record ambient sound. It’ll catch all the lab noises as well, but it’s the best I can do. The red light blinks at me; I allow myself to exhale and return to the chromosome I was working on.

Instead of replying, Hayden changes tack. “You have a long-term girlfriend, don’t you?”

“Two, actually.” In ordinary circumstances, I’d enjoy flustering Hayden with that. It’s not a secret and we encounter plenty of polyamorous folk in our line of work, but I’m completely unsurprised that he hasn’t paid attention. But I’m too stressed and wary to enjoy the moment.

“I, ah, huh.” He falters for a second; I hear skepticism that I, of all people, could possibly have not just one but two lovers. But he’s clearly a man on a mission and plunges on. “Ever wanted a baby of your own? The… three of you?”

I finish up the short arm of chromosome 2; no colon cancer on my watch. “We might adopt one day, if we can afford it.”

“What if you could, though? Have a biological child, I mean. You’d want to?”

“I don’t want things I can’t have. Waste of time.” I borrow Kris’s words for this lie, but it’s hard to imagine a person I’m less interested in having this discussion with than Hayden.

He does this fake laugh, short and barking. “Lots of other things to spend that money on anyway, right?”

“Sure, if you had it.” Just a couple more silent mutations and I can move on to cleaning up the epigenetic layer. Time to work out the end game. “What’s this about, Hayden?”

“What if I told you there was better money in just… stopping now, if you know what I’m saying?”

I recalibrate the scalpel and begin clearing the methylation around the DNA; there’s way too much, because of course—Hayden fouled up everything he could. “No, I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Jesus, are you stupid, or are you being deliberately obtuse?”

I take my time replying. I’m working, after all, and this part is fiddly. “You’re going to have to explain yourself either way.”

He only hesitates for a moment. “I know some powerful people. People who have an interest in seeing Blake and Ashdowne suffer.”

“They’re last names now? You were such pals.” Methylation is at regulation levels now. Next, I sculpt the histones to the shape that centuries of research has determined to be ideal. Working quickly, I correct the errors to the surrounding proteins. A perfect zygote.

“You know what your problem is, Merav? You have no idea how to play the game. You think hard work is rewarded. It isn’t. You have to be daring. Take a risk. Not as though the modded are ever going to give us a hand up, right?”

  That first meeting. “You’ve got one of those implants, I see,” Ashdowne said, eyeing the side of my head, where my undercut showed off the neural implant. Like my early adopter parents, I was proud of my body hacks and what they could do. No gen mods in the world can tune you into tech like an implant can. Wearables? VR headsets? Ha.

Blake dragged me back to reality. “They’re illegal if you’ve been modded, aren’t they?”

“Yes. Unfair advantage to have both, right?” I struggled to keep the sarcasm from my voice. A thousand years on my salary, and, by inference, my parents’, wouldn’t be enough to pay for mods. I might like my implant, but I didn’t like being treated like dirt for having it.

Hayden was all polite formality. “Merav’s implant allows her to interface directly with our machinery. We couldn’t do what we do without our ‘planted staff.” Hayden was quite willing to keep his implant covered to keep the clients happy, and he was pretty enough to get away with it.

“Ah.” His expression didn’t change, but the sneer was evident anyway.

“We just bought that little company that makes this brand, remember, dear?” Ashdowne raised an eyebrow at her husband. “Whatever it takes to get the best.”

“That’s right!” Hayden said. “You get what you pay for in this industry. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. If you’ll come this way? You haven’t seen the clinic yet.”

And then they were gone, leaving only the scent of cologne and perfume.

  They’d deserve it. They would. They care as little for me as a person. For a terrible, shameful second, I’m tempted. I imagine it; going off the grid, doing illegal mods for the rest of my life. Holding a baby, my baby, our baby, in my arms.

I zoom out and look at the zygote in its entirety. Regardless of how horrid this baby’s parents are and my dead-end job that undervalues me and underpays me, after I’m done, doctors and nurses will make every attempt to give this tiny clump of cells the chance to become a person. And these days, they tend to get it right, especially with a proven surrogate. The mutations that are left won’t kill this child, only make their later life a misery of radiotherapy and chemo. Teach the parents empathy? I don’t think so. In an instant, it’s clear what I need to do.

“You’re right, they want us right where we are.”

He chuckles with relief. “I knew you’d come around.”

“But I’m pretty sure assaulting their offspring isn’t going to change that.” I terminate the call with Hayden and send everything to head office; the logs of my work on the zygote, all of today’s communication between the two of us. Everything. Highest level alert, coded “suspected bioterrorism”; that should take care of it. They’ll deal with him better than I can.

“Time check,” I command the interface.

“Five minutes, twelve point four seconds.”

It’s enough time. Carefully, making sure not to introduce any last-minute errors, I unwind one 3p25 and fly up to OXTR. Just a couple of small changes are enough; a haplotype here, a couple of extra copies of an allele there, and I’m done and zipping the chromosome back up.

It’s a tiny change; there’s so much beyond one gene at play here. Goodness only knows what kind of methylation, and socialization for that matter, lies ahead for this kid. But the way I see it, a little extra empathy never hurt anybody.

  END

    “Best for Baby” is copyright Rivqa Rafael 2019.

“Aubade: King Under the Mountain” is copyright Tristan Beiter 2019.

This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.

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Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a reprint of “The Chamber of Souls” by Zora Mai Quýnh.

Episode #74 — “Best for Baby” by Rivqa Rafael was originally published on GlitterShip

#GlitterShip #lgbtq fiction #queer fiction #short stories #science fiction and fantasy #podcast

[missenden]

5.3.17 3:07am

My homesickness died away very quickly thankfully! I love being home but I also love my independence here in Sydney. While I miss my family, it’s strangely easy for me to function without them here. I love my freedom. There’s not much I’d trade it for in this world.

This week has been very busy! I took on an orchestra gig with John’s orchestra, the concert of which was on Friday night. I enjoyed it and thought it was fun + good to bash through repertoire; Brahms 2 and the Dvorak Cello Concerto were great pieces to bring me back into the orchestral side of my music making. On top of that, it was great to see my music friends again.

I also helped at O Week on Wednesday and Thursday; I had a great time helping out at the SUAMS stall with all our committee; if I’d been this friendly with everyone before I’d quit the exec, maybe I wouldn’t have quit.

Speaking of that........I quit the SUAMS exec before the uni year even started lol shit. And all that based on thinking I was going to miss the welcoming event which I’m now still able to go to...nice one, Alyssa. Really organised, you are. Though really, I think quitting the exec was probably a good idea... I think I wanted to be on there for the wrong reasons. I’ve achieved pretty much what I wanted to achieve, and I think it’s best for someone who can commit their full time to the job instead of me half assing it. And also I still feel (to an extent) like an outsider. But yeah. What’s done is done. And I have until AGM to enjoy being able to fit in to doing exec stuff with all the other law students.

I also dropped out of the music tour I was meant to go on in April to Europe... Somehow coincidence has made it that the night before I rang SYO telling them that I can’t go because of uni (missing 2 exams and 2 assignments is really not a good idea), someone tried to join the tour; hopefully this means we only lose $300 instead of 2k. Really really hope this works out. Bummed I can’t go, but really I think the idea is so abstract that I haven’t even really started to get excited about it yet. That said, the fomo is going to hit me really really hard when everyone goes over I think.

At the O week stalls I joined my uni’s social soccer society and the piano society; they have lots of small weekly events so hopefully I’ll be able to commit to those and have some fun! Had ramen with Charlotte after walking around the stalls which was great.

On Thursday night I went to a law party and remembered exactly why I’m not really friends with people who do law. So many of them just seem so pretentious, wanky and obsessed with acting older than they are; what kind of 19 or 20 year old rocks up to a club in a full suit and dress shoes? It just seems so strange to me really. Anyway, discounting this, it just seemed to me that so many people are trying so hard to network and meet people for the sake of their future careers...and I wonder if that’s really going to make me happy (bc right now it really does not...). Which led to me thinking that maybe it’s a good thing that I’ve dropped so many of my commitments; maybe I’ll be able to try some new things (soccer, piano, find a karate club etc) and be a happier person.

I’m always stressed; it’s probably my most defining feature along with my ability to work hard. I hope I can let some of that stress go and have more fun; if I can’t relax now, when will I ever in my life? Maybe it’s time to chase what makes me happy while I still have the opportunity to, and not worry so much about my resume and doing everything to keep up with the crowd of crazy law students who seem to find satisfaction in being execs for things like the accounting society. Maybe my goals aren’t the same as theirs, and therefore my journey is one that takes a different route to theirs too...only time and a lot more thinking will tell.

I’ve really got to bloody sleep because it’s late and I have rehearsal tomorrow; I’ll finish up with a quick note about college.

Moved back into college today which was really nice actually! My room is very modern, spacious and nice; I’m very grateful for it but also feel slightly uncomfortable by the wealth and opportunity that surrounds me. Of course I’m glad to have an ensuite etc, but what on earth did I do to deserve one? And how is it fair that I can just walk 5 steps to the bathroom instead of 20m when people can’t even feed themselves? I probably think about this too deeply, but it helps me to stay grateful for what I have, so I guess it’s not a bad thing?

College is fun. I’ve missed being around everyone but have forgotten exactly how tiring it is being around friends all day everyday. Hopefully I can strike a good balance between alone time and being with friends, especially when uni starts. Spent the day shopping with Jesse today; was fun, and I’m looking forward to more fun in the coming weeks.

I’ll hopefully do a bigger post about college in the next few days, but until then, time for sleep!

[jezfletcher]

Oscars 2017

It's Oscars time again, and before the great, grand anticlimax which is the actual ceremony, I'd like to take you through my regular wrap-up and count down of my favourite Oscar films of the year. Unlike recent years, where I've had ample opportunity to watch the best films periodically throughout the year, 2016 involved dedicating a large proportion of my spare time to helping keep a small human being alive. As a result, no I've not seen fewer films this year, but I have had to cram most of them into the space of the month between the end of Sydney Festival and the Oscars ceremony. In all, I saw 42 Oscar-nominated feature films this year, which is all but 5 of the total. Of those, I could have seen O.J.: Made In America, but its 4.5 hour running time made it a daunting prospect, and difficult to squeeze in amongst all the Keeping A Small Human Being Alive. So it's a pretty good hit-rate. Sadly, it means I'm missing out on some films with an excellent pedigree, though: Asghar Farhadi's films are always excellent, but The Salesman comes out in cinemas a couple of weeks after the Oscars. 20th Century Women is directed by Mike Mills, director of two very fine films I've seen—Beginners and Thumbsucker—and is up for Best Original Screenplay, one of my favourite categories. I'm also missing I Am Not Your Negro, another Best Documentary Feature nominee, and My Life As A Zucchini, up for Best Animated Feature. Anyway, without further preamble, here's my countdown of the films, from best to worst. My write-ups may well not be as detailed as previous years (due to, ahem, small human being alive keeping), but I'll try to dive more deeply into some of the ones which warrant it in particular.

1. 13th

A truly phenomenal, and utterly engaging documentary from Ava DuVernay (director of Selma), charting the fortunes of the black American population since the 13th Amendment to the constitution and the abolition of slavery. In it, she presents compelling arguments that, although the official abolition of slavery occurred a century and a half ago, the caste separation between the black and white populations continues. She charts this through various stages: the post civil-war continuation of slavery, which allowed slavery as a punishment for crime; the Jim Crow racial segregation laws; the war on drugs; and the present day practice of mass-incarceration. Through all of these, DuVernay shows how each of these disproportionately affects the black community, and posits persuasive arguments that these are merely a by-product of the exact same mentality that promoted slavery of black Americans in the first instance. Moreover, she promotes the theory that these laws are not just some kind of retribution, or covert racism, but an economic necessity for the white population to maintain its cultural advantages. Indeed, this is no different, DuVernay argues, than modern-day slavery itself. Disenfranchisment, subtle propaganda, racial stereotyping and profiling; these are all symptoms of the same illness. It was a truly remarkable documentary, and one which fortunately ended with a firm call to action, firmly rooted around the Black Lives Matter movement. It needed it, as a final note of optimism, because the argument she presents about how this has continues throughout history was utterly convincing.

2. Hell or High Water

A really fine film, with a great cast, and a sense of engagement throughout. You immediately empathise with everyone in this film, both the duo of bank-robbing brothers, and the law enforcement officers hunting them down. There's lovely bits of mystery to the tale that hook you from the start, and it makes for a really engaging film from start to finish. Jeff Bridges is great, and deserving of his Oscar Nomination, but the film wouldn't be successful without equally charismatic turns from Ben Foster and Chris Pine. They all work as an ensemble to tell this tale, and it's a rollicking ride. Definitely worth your time.

3. Land of Mine

After the second world war, Denmark's western coastline was filled with German landmines, left after a feared invasion via the country. The Danish army decided it would use its German prisoners of war to clear the mines. Enter Sergeant Rasmussen (Roland Møller), who commands a troop of around 20 young Germans, most not much out of adolescence, as they clear thousands of mines from a remote beach. This is a film filled with inherent tension. From very early in the piece, we're subjected to the heart-stopping thrill of defusing these mines, and it's made clear that the filmmakers are not shying away from the shock of them unexpectedly exploding. But the way this device is used in the film is where it gets its real power. Director Martin Zandvliet knows he can shock the audience at any point in the film. But he doesn't waste these opportunities. Instead, he plays on the anticipation, the stress and the audiences own fear to beautifully paint the situation these young men find themselves in. And from this, Zandvliet crafts a really quite emotional and human tale. There's a conflict inherent in the situation for these characters. Set at the time when the German's atrocities during the war were being discovered, there's the feeling punishment these German soldiers is warranted—they will face the crimes of their country. But we spend time with these boys (and they are boys), and we see the innocence and humanity in them. We see their simple dreams—one wants to be a bricklayer, one is going to work in a friend's factory, all dream of their mother's cooking—and are reminded that they too are victims of war. All of this is packaged into a film that's quite captivating and thrilling, due to that manipulation of its premise. It's a really well-constructed and very powerful film. I've not seen any other work by this director before, but I anticipate some fine things from Martin Zandvliet in the future.

4. The Lobster

(Written up in 2015 (!!)) I really loved Yorgos Lanthimos's breakthrough film Dogtooth, but was lukewarm to his follow-up effort Alps. Nevertheless, I was enthusiastic about seeing The Lobster, the director's first feature in (mostly) English. This film very much harks back to the aesthetic and devices of Dogtooth, however, which makes it a much more indulgent experience. David (Colin Farrell), is a recently single man, who arrives at the mysterious Hotel, where single people are ushered in order to force them to couple-up with other singles. They have forty-five days to do so, after which time, supposedly, they will get transformed instead into the animal of their choice. You have to accept the premise of the film, because it's Lanthimos, and he gives you no option otherwise. But once you do accept it, it's a really quite wonderful exploration of this near-future dystopia. Lanthimos explores this notion of singledom as a curse through the Hotel, and through the outcast Loners whom are routinely hunted by the Hotel's guests. Macabre but prosaic tableux are played out by Hotel staff illustrating the benefits of living life as a couple. Counterpointing this need to be coupled is the infeasibility of forming a perfect union—one in which your defining characteristic is shared by your partner: your limp, your near-sightedness, your singing voice. It makes the cruelty of this world plain in its beige reasonableness. Lanthimos has assembled an exceptional international cast here, filled with peripheral actors who provide comedy, tragedy and pathos. Besides Farrell, we have Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Léa Sedoux, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly and Angeliki Papoulia (probably best known for her work in Lanthimos's previous films, especially Dogtooth). This ensemble provides for an exceptional range of talent, from comic to heart-felt. It is indeed, very, very funny—despite the traumatic unreality of the piece. There's something very disturbing in the film, but in a way that twists it towards the surreal rather than the truly upsetting. this is not to say that Lanthimos shies away from his trademark brutal depiction of cruelty and violence. This is here, and it serves its purpose. You're never going to escape one of his films completely unscathed. But overall, it forms a really genuinely impressive piece of work. My only criticism of The Lobster compared to Dogtooth is that there almost felt as though there had been nothing like Dogtooth before it, and this is not true of The Lobster: The Lobster was rather like Dogtooth. But at least if one is labelling a film as derivative, it being derivative of one of the most unique and idiosyncratic films of the past 20 years is no bad thing.

5. Nocturnal Animals

Tom Ford, fashion designer-cum-director, made an exquisitely and painfully beautiful film in 2009 called A Single Man, which showed off his visual chops and his rapport with his cast, but also tended towards fussiness, and an over-reliance on laboured perfection. I enjoyed it a good deal, but it's nothing compared to his sophomore effort Nocturnal Animals, which ends up being a truly remarkable film. In it, we see two parallel stories. In the first, a wealthy gallery owner (Amy Adams) receives an unpublished manuscript of her ex-husband's first novel. She becomes obsessed with it, as her current marriage falls apart around her. The second follows the plot of the novel, in which a man (Jake Gyllenhaal) loses his wife and daughter to kidnappers during a roadtrip in rural Texas. As the second plot weaves through the investigation of the crime by Detective Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon, in yet another incredible turn from one of my favourite actors), we start to perceive the connection between the novel and the lives intertwined in the real world—driven home by the fact that Jake Gyllenhaal also plays Amy Adams' ex-husband in reality. It's a conceit that's been down before in film, but it's done with such panache here, thanks to Tom Ford's not-insignificant talent as a director, and his flair for visual style. It makes for a really quite thrilling film, and one which engaged me throughout. It's also, in many ways, a much more ambitious film than his first: where A Single Man had to gleam with crystalline perfection, Nocturnal Animals is a rougher affair, and it's the better for it. Ford has a strong hand as a director, but here he knows when to let the story flail a little, and to let us see it in its unvarnished ugliness. It shows development and maturity. And so, much more than I felt with A Single Man, I'm now genuinely excited to see where Ford goes as a director. This film shows the true potential for future mastery, and maintains that sense of grand talent that was in his first film. Based on the current trajectory, his third film could be something utterly brilliant.

6. Arrival

This was the kind of film I was always going to like. From Denis Villeneuve, a director I've much admired in the past, It has the hard-edge of real science fiction to it. Alien spacecraft have appeared at various points around the world, and the film follows the efforts of a disaffected American linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams, again) to decipher their language, and provide a way for communication. On top of this story of scientific discovery is the global political turmoil, which is woven together in such a way to provide the conflict and tension of the film. Villeneuve has a knack for picking exceptional scripts, and he carefully places them in such context to get maximal emotional engagement from the audience. He also manages here, as he has in other films like Incendies to contrive an exceptional plot twist towards the end, which is in plain sight throughout the film. By the end, everything is so neatly packaged together that it's utterly satisfying, and the twist is so beautifully wrought that it warrants a second viewing. But mostly, it was just an engaging film throughout its length. I was rapt, and that's because it was so well crafted. There was nothing out of place, nothing superfluous. It was just great film-making; you didn't see the craft, just the story.

7. Captain Fantastic

I missed this film at the Sydney Film Festival this year, but I'm very pleased it ended up with a nod come Oscars season because otherwise I might well have missed it. It follows the tale of Ben Cash (Viggo Mortensen) and his children, who live isolated in the wilderness, learning survival skills, philosophy, hard sciences, critical thinking and a code of atheist ethics. The film opens soon after the death of the children's mother, who recently left their encampment to get better treatment. In order to attend her funeral, the family has to travel to New Mexico, and reintegrate into society. There's an odd seduction to the world Ben creates for his family. In particular, the sense of first trying to divorce yourself from all of the trappings of societal norms, and once that's done, to raise your children in the best possible way. The film, then, becomes an exploration of how that philosophy is in direct conflict with the rest of the world. It's engaging as a road-trip movie, but it's more of a philosophical exploration. Each of the encounters and small events on the journey present another facet to this conflict. Maybe it's just me and my lefty-leaning ways, but it was very easy to take Cash's side in the conflict, even as you could see the difficulties this presents for his children interacting with the people of the “real" world. Mortensen is exceptionally good in the lead, but it's really an ensemble piece. George McKay as Bodevan, Ben's eldest son is another stand-out. And there's ample support in the later pieces from Frank Langella as Ben's father-in-law. Overall, it was a really engaging, and extremely thought-provoking film. It didn't make me immediately want to drive my wife and son to the hills to start living the Cashes' existence, but it did raise some interesting thoughts about instilling values in your children. A film that can affect your world-view is a powerful one.

8. Manchester By The Sea

I think I'm spending too long on these films, so I might take it easy here. This is a fine film, and in the best tradition of a film just telling a story in such a good way that it gets propelled to the Oscars. There's nothing particularly Oscar-baiting about this film, but it is undoubtedly the kind of film that often gets Oscar nods. Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is a custodian for a block of apartments in Boston, who gets called back to his hometown after his brother dies. Here he looks after his nephew (Lucas Hedges), and faces up to his past. It's a well-structured film, and everything is put in place very nicely. It's a good performance from Affleck (who I believe is still the front-runner to take out Best Actor), and Hedges provides a fine counterpoint. And the cinematography is particularly good: capturing very well the atmosphere of this seaside Massechusetts town. Definitely worth a look.

9. A Man Called Ove

I thought this film was going to be this year's bizarrely comic Scandinavian garbage (like The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared, which I hated). There is that sense of staid Swedish comic timing in the opening scenes, as we are introduced to Ove, a crotchety elderly resident of a Swedish housing estate. But while the film could have left him as an unsympathetic, blank mystery, it takes on the much more difficult task of showing us all the stories of his life that have brought him to this point. And in so doing, not only is there great empathy induced in us (to the point of great emotional upheaval), but the characterisation of the old man we see is perfectly wrought. Much of the success of the film comes from the performances, and both the old Ove (Rolf Lassgård) and the young Ove (Filip Berg) are excellent, with Berg putting in place all the sympathy we need for Lassgård's gravitas to drive home. It's a rare thing that a film so beautifully balances comedy and tragedy, but A Man Called Ove really manages it with finesse. Hannes Holm should take a bow.

10. Moonlight

A really great film, charting the life of a black man from childhood into early adulthood through three sections. In the first, the young Chiron (Alex Hibbert) is taken under the wing of a local drug dealer (Mahershala Ali), and provided with a kind of mentoring that has been missing from his life. In the second, the teenage Chiron (Ashton Sanders) struggles with bullying. And in the third, the now adult Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) reconnects with a friend from his past (Andre Holland). All of these vignettes are provided to explore an aspect of a young man's life, in particular highlighting the challenges faced by a person of colour. The fact that it doesn't go where you expect it to go, or where many genre films that look superficially the same would go, is where this film really stretches out into its own identity. It makes it feel warmly human and affecting in a way that many films fail. There are some elements of this film that I didn't like, however, which is why a film of this emotional power finds itself not at the very top of the list. For a start, the cinematography is done in the extremely offputting, shaky hand-held style, which proponents claim add immediacy, but which I think just makes for nausea and distraction. Indeed, in general there are a few things which seem to detract from the immersion of the film. Fortunately, it doesn't matter all that much due to the fact that the story is compelling enough in and of itself. So it's not without flaws, but it still stands tall as a truly excellent film. This must be seen as the front-runner to knock La La Land off for Best Picture, and while apparently the chances of this are sweet fuck-all, it is much, much more deserving of this honour.

11. Lion

A much more rigidly structured film than Moonlight, much more Oscar-baity, and nonetheless in some senses more enjoyable, Lion tells the remarkable true story of a young Indian boy separated from his family, who finds himself adopted by an Australian couple. The tale is told in two parts: first the young Saroo (Sunny Pawar) as he struggles to survive in Calcutta. Secondly, Saroo as a young man in Australia (Dev Patel) trying to search again for his birth family in India. Both parts are strong, but I found the first section particularly good, and the performance from young Sunny Pawar surprisingly mature. Patel is also good in the second part (and he does a surprisingly passable Australian accent), but the story of his life in Australia (especially his relationship with his girlfriend (Rooney Mara)) is less compelling, meaning that in the third quarter the film regresses to a simmer. I always find Nicole Kidman surprisingly inoffensive in film, given I don't think of her as an actress I particularly like, but I think here her Oscar nomination is a bit of a stretch. But in general, it's a very entertaining and genuinely crowd-pleasing film. It's in some ways a very safe film, which means that it never has the opportunities to really transcend its genesis. But it's a fine story, and it's put competently on screen by first-time director Garth Davis. A very long shot for Best Picture, but it would be a more worthy winner than others.

12. Hidden Figures

If there was an award for biggest Oscar-bait of the year, and La La Land wasn't for some reason in vogue, then Hidden Figures might well clean up. This is a very obviously structured film, but one with a great story to tell, and put together with enough verve to make up for its shortcomings. It tells the story of three black women working as mathematicians in NASA's offices in Virginia in the lead up to John Glenn's first orbit of Earth. This, at a time when racial segregation was still in place in the southern United States, Virginia included. The heart of this film lies in the performances from the three leads, Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae and Octavia Spencer. Spencer is as good as always, and Henson competently provides a worthy central protagonist. But I found Janelle Monae to be the most compelling presence, and I think she can feel slighted not to get a nod for Best Supporting Actress. It's a fine film though, and it was thoroughly enjoyable throughout. Again, like Lion it was rather safe, but it did a good job with what it was attempting.

13. Sully

This should by all rights have been much lower on this list, but I genuinely found it enthralling, moving and very enjoyable, and a surprising return to form for Clint Eastwood, who has been in my bad books for his last few films. At the Oscars, it's only up for Best Sound Editing, however, but it's a good enough excuse to go watch what's a really good film anyway. It helps that, unlike a seemingly large swathe of film critics nowadays, I do rather like Tom Hanks, who is as solid and reassuring an actor as Chesley Sullenberger is a pilot. Here, he doesn't have to show the emotional range that he did in Captain Philips, but it's a very capable performance nonetheless, and no less entertaining for its subtlety. But the main attraction is the story: both Sully's amazing achievement in landing a plane in the Hudson River with no casualties, but the subsequent investigation. Both of these, Eastwood puts on the screen with consummate skill, in such a way that there's always tension and intrigue. It's something of a wonder to see, given I'd largely written off Eastwood after American Sniper. I'm pleased to see that he at least had a Sully left in him.

14. Zootopia

A very enjoyable animated film, with a solid political message under the surface. It follows the tale in the eponymous city of Zootopia of a young rabbit police officer (Ginnifer Goodwin) who teams up with a petty criminal fox (Jason Bateman) to unlock a city-wide conspiracy. The story is not the film's strength though, and neither is the visual style, which relies a little too much on a kind of jukebox/spin-the-wheel backdrop presto-chango that sees the protagonists traverse through a sequence of environments just as an excuse to give the latest snow or jungle foliage rendering a whirl. But where it is better is in the depiction of the threat of dictatorial tyrrany (sadly, something we need more than ever nowadays). The undertones of the film are much stronger than the colourful surface package, and that's the best part of the film. Where it has to rely on plot to progress the film though, it ends up being more of a disappointment.

15. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

A decent follow-up to the excellent Force Awakens, Rogue One details the events immediately preceding A New Hope, in particular, the efforts taken to obtain the stolen plans of the Death Star. This could easily have been done quite poorly in many ways, and could have felt superfluous or self-indulgent, so it's something of an achievement that it's as successful as it is. But the story is only so good, especially once you know where it's going (and you should, at least to some extent). There's a lot of tacked on plot-lines about the remnants of a Jedi subculture which perhaps broaden the canonical Star Wars universe, but which do little to help this particular film. But the ending had some clout, and adds additional gravitas to the original saga in a rather pleasing way. The characters are generally reasonably good, although the main character Jyn (Felicity Jones) is numbingly bland—to the extent that I honestly remember the film with a kind of blanked-out blind spot in the centre of it. Better is the support, in particular Diego Luna as Jyn's eventual offsider, and the always excellent Ben Mendelsohn. I didn't even mind Alan Tudyk's motion-capture turn as a reprogrammed Imperial droid, which others certainly did. The CGI Peter Cushing though is pure uncanny valley, and every moment he was on screen was slightly unnerving. Overall, I definitely enjoyed it. Moreover, it's a film with enough clout to ensure that the revamped Star Wars universe has momentum leading up to Episode VIII. And I'm certainly looking forward to that.

16. Doctor Strange

Another film that has absolutely no business being as high as this is Doctor Strange, which I found to be a really entertaining outing from the Marvel stable. The concept goes like this: a gifted but egotistical neurosurgeon (Benedict Cumberbatch) has a horrific (self-inflicted) car crash, and loses the ability to use his hands. In search of ever more esoteric cures for his injuries, he finds the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who uses “magic" to protect the world from the non-physical threats, “in the same way the Avengers protect the world from physical threats". OK, nice way to weave this into the same universe at least. What this film is, first and foremost, is a visual spectacle. There's a reason this is up for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars. It's because the effects are genuinely a cut above almost everything else this year. Not only are they beautifully crafted, but they're visually inventive, in a way that makes you remember the spectacle of really good special effects before everything was just how many CPU cycles were used to render each strand of a character's hair. It helps as well that this film manages to assemble the likes of Cumberbatch, Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams and Mads Mikkelsen. It adds weight to a film that doesn't need it (and possibly doesn't warrant it), and yet you end up with this rare treat in having them all present for it. Overall, it's not a heavy-hitting film in terms of story or cultural impact, but it's hard to deny that it's a very successful one for a blockbuster comic book adaptation.

17. Toni Erdmann

Up for Best Foreign Language Film, Toni Erdmann revolves around a German woman Ines (Sandra Hüller) working as an executive in Romania, and the attempts by her estranged father (Peter Simonischek) to reconnect with her. When their initial time together is awkward and frosty, the father returns as his alter ego Toni Erdmann—complete with false overbite, bad wig and outgoing personality. Posing as a life coach for Ines's CEO boss, tacitly accepted as such by Ines, the two manage something of a shaky relationship as Ines struggles with the pressures of her job. It's an awkward film in many ways, but an intriguing one. Despite the rather comic premise, it's deeply depressing for large tracts of the film—and in particular, Ines's life is achingly unfulfilling. Early sequences between her and her father are also filled with that kind of teeth-clenching embarrassment that makes a film hard to sit through. Depending on which character you most identify with, it's likely either a similarly squirm-inducing experience, or a rollicking comic deconstruction of the business world. All of this is for a purpose though, and the ending is surprisingly and genuinely quite cathartic. It makes the rest of the film seem like it was worthwhile, even though I remembered the bulk of it as being rather unsettling to sit through. Due to the discomfort, I'm certainly less enthusiastic about the film as a whole, but by the end I could certainly see it as a worthwhile piece of cinema.

18. Allies

I'm going to skim this one. It wasn't a bad film, but it was done a deep disservice by the trailer, which gave away the major plot point of the film (which happens about 40m before the end, and sets up the great climax). The opening scenes were good though, but because we knew where it was going to end up, there's a little bit of “when are they going to get to the fireworks factory" to it. Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt are serviceable enough to drive the film forward, and the production design and costuming is good (which is what it's up for at the Oscars). Not a huge standout though—it would have been better if I'd seen the trailer.

19. Fences

Denzel Washington's third film as director sees him square in front of the camera as well, as a blue-collar working man and the life he's carved out for himself and his wife (Viola Davis) in suburban Pittburgh. He seems a devoted husband and father, albeit one who drinks too much, and who seems to keep secrets. This film suffers severely from the fact that it's so obviously based on a stage play. It comes to the screen in such a way that's not nearly divorced enough from its genesis, so it feels rather like you're just watching a static stage from a series of different angles. Most of the action happens in the small, unfenced back yard of their home, and you can almost exactly see the way the set is constructed on the stage. It's also monumentally too long for what it is—running at well over two hours it feels every minute. And it's particularly galling at what's obviously the Act break in the stage production (where a nice drink in the lobby would have been very pleasant). But there's undeniably good things about this film. The two lead performances from Washington and Davis are superb, and they are both rightful nominees in their categories. Washington has a lot of dialogue in the film, and it's a hard-working effort even to put it on screen, but Viola Davis's character has a much better emotional journey, and she evokes a level of empathy that makes this really quite compelling. In the end, it's something of a product of its genesis. It's well done, but maybe it couldn't have really been done any differently without significantly changing the purpose and drive of the film. I'm not overly insulted that this has a Best Picture nomination, but I am a little surprised at it.

20. Kubo and the Two Strings

The studio that produced Kubo has done some good things recently, in particular Boxtrolls, which was my pick of Best Animated feature two years ago. And there's a reason why they're getting kudos, because films like that and Kubo and the Two Strings are good films which break out of the mould of the common animated fare. In Kubo, a young boy sets out on a mission to find his missing samurai father and defeat the evil spirit of the Moon King. It's all a bit Mystical Ethos for large parts, but it's a visual treat, both for the stop-motion animation and the fine integration of CG imagery. It's also inventive in a similar way to Doctor Strange, meaning that the visual effects are not just “a slightly better iteration of what we've seen before". With all of this, it can be something of a treat. While the main plot is not necessarily all that engaging, the emotional engagement of the characters is well-drawn, and it can be affecting at times. That's rare enough in this kind of film, and adds some much needed gravitas. Overall, it was decent enough as a film. I could easily believe that it might end up pipping Zootopia to my nod for Best Animated Feature (despite the fact it's lower on the list), due to its coherence as a package.

21. Star Trek Beyond

Eh. I'm going to skim review this one as well. It's another Star Trek film, but noticeably better than the second one at least. I feel this is at least partially due to the fact that Simon Pegg co-wrote this, and there's a level of knowing comedy that elevates this to some degree. It's entertaining, and there's something now comforting about this crew of the Enterprise in a way that the first one felt jarring and inappropriate.

22. Loving

Here's perhaps the first film on this list that was something of a disappointment to me. This is by no means a bad film, as it strings together the tale of Richard and Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga), and interracial couple who became the test case for mixed-race marriage in the United States. But it's also a film by Jeff Nichols, who has done phenomenal work in the past, and who doesn't match that with this rather staid and understated film. To some extent, however, Loving is specifically designed to be staid and understated. This is, after all, just a story of two regular people who are in love and who want to live, married, in peace. The film becomes a study in this regular life—there's nothing extraordinary about that. But once you get that message, it leaves the film itself underwhelming as well. Ruth Negga, however, is a real bright spot. Understated as the film demands, her portrayal of Mildred Loving is careful, particular and strong. Edgerton is serviceable, but can't match Negga, and it shows to some extent. But it's a good film all up. There's just something so flat about it that it has a hard time really attracting attention to itself, and by the end of the film I could say with absolute certainty “that was a good film". I just could muster much passion for doing so.

23. Moana

I'll skim this film, if you don't mind. It's a fine Disney film, and put together with really quite pleasing visuals. In particular, they've clearly put a lot of CPU cycles into the rendering of water, given the large proportion of this film is set on the ocean. And the songs are decent enough, composed as they are by Lin-Manuel Miranda. He may we get (and may well deserve) his EGOT for this film. Overall, it was only so good in the end, but it wasn't offensive or otherwise underwhelming.

24. Deepwater Horizon

I'm going to skim this one too, although it's not a bad film, encompassing the events leading up to the explosion and eventual leak of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. There's something quite engaging about the early scenes as we watch with a sense of impending doom all of the complex, finely-tuned machinery, knowing what will eventually happen. It's less interesting later once the explosion happens and it becomes something like Titanic-but-with-more-oil-fires. But in the end, it's a relatively coherent tale, that's also interesting intrinsically.

25. The Jungle Book

A decent enough, but very lightweight excursion in turning Disney's classic animated feature into a green-screen affair. There's something a little bit bizarre about moving the canonically cartoonish animal characters into the realm of the hyper-real, especially as an outwardly convincing bear character starts crooning along to “The Bare Necessities". The lead actor is strong enough to largely carry the film at least. And the visual effects were relatively well done (at least to the extent that they didn't include a creepy CGI Peter Cushing), which is what it's up for. So kudos for that.

26. Passengers

By all rights, this should be well lower down on the list than this. Because this is a film with a deep, horrifically troubling flaw in its central concept. I'd heard the concept of this film, and had taken it this way: Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence awake from hibernation far too early on what should be a hundred year journey to another star system. As they try to work out what to do with themselves, and to discover why they were mistakenly awakened early it becomes clear that in fact Pratt's character woke up first, and then purposely awoke Lawrence's character thereby condemning her to a life of isolation as well. Indeed, the fact that I knew this made me feel as though I'd effectively been spoiled for the big plot twist. So much to my dismay and horror, I discovered that in fact, Pratt is the protagonist of the film, and we are meant to feel for him to such a degree that we empathise with his decision to destroy another life. It's a mind-bogglingly stupid conceit for the film, and it makes much of the main plot actively offensive. So why is it not lower? It's because so very many of the aspects of this film otherwise are extremely good. The world-building of the universe in which they live is done with extreme care, and to such an extent that it's thoroughly engaging. The production design is beautiful and incorporates little details so well to create a sense of immersive atmosphere. The score is brilliantly evocative, capturing both the isolation and the scope of being alone in space. It's as though some idiot came up with a plot, more idiots jumped on board to produce it, and get it an impressive budget, and then every single one of the creatives decided they were going to pour their heart and soul into the film, even though it didn't warrant it. This is the sort of film that a production designer should be proud to have on their resume, and the sort of film a producer might stare back on years later with bleary eyes and go “what was I thinking?".

27. Hacksaw Ridge

I'm actually pretty surprised that this is up for so many awards. I feel like it doesn't pleasantly fit into a niche, and not in the way that a transgressive film can push the boundaries. It's a war film, but it's also a film filled with religious zealotry. And it overdoses on both elements to such an extent that I can feel as though it alienates a large proportion of the people who might otherwise enjoy it. Because it's really quite gruesome, and shows the horrors of war to such an extent that it starts to feel exploitative. But it's also sancitmonious to such a degree that it almost makes you want to vomit. It tells of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a conscientious objector in the Second World War, who refuses to carry a weapon due to his Seventh-Day Adventist faith, but manages to become a hero in the battle of Hacksaw Ridge nonetheless. Andrew Garfield is convincing in his role, but this largely just means that you're convinced you want to punch this guy in the head. I was put offside early enough that by the time he started his selfless attempts to rescue his wounded comrades, it felt more self-indulgent to me. Gibson's direction is partially to blame for all of this. There's a dichotomous nature to the film which is never reconciled, and it makes the whole film feel extremely awkward and unsettling. The fact that he's up for Best Director is perhaps one of the biggest reasons to raise an eyebrow this year. So, I'm not a fan, in short.

28. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them

Yeah, I'll skim this one too. It was fine, and it had a nice sense of place, and a nice sense that it was expanding the Harry Potter universe, which I have no problem with. But I hate Eddie Redmayne, and this has him at his peak. It also had a little bit too much of J. K. Rowling's “oh This Thing feels like a cute concept so I'll put it in without at all thinking through any of the implications of This Thing existing in the wizarding universe". So… eh.

29. Elle

Elle tells the tale of a video game company executive (Isabelle Huppert), who, in the opening scene, we see brutally raped, and who then appears to just get on with her life as though nothing has happened. It's a hard sell as a film, but at the very least we know from the very beginning what we're getting ourselves in for. In this film, we see Paul Verhoeven (of Starship Troopers fame) in his very best impersonation of Michael Haneke, and falling very much short of a plausible caricature. Because there's something genuinely nasty in this film, in a way that feels a little bit like Verhoeven is getting his jollies from making us watch this. There's a severity and a satire to even the most exploitative elements of Haneke's oeuvre which is entirely absent here, and it makes the film feel deeply unpleasant. Huppert (up for Best Actress) is good enough in the role, but she feels very much as though she's just doing a reprisal of The Piano Teacher without the guidance of Haneke, and fails to sell this as a tale of transgressive sexuality. She does well to rein in her performance as much as she does, but not enough to warrant an Oscar nomination here. In the end, this was really just quite a mess, and it feels more like an ego trip for Verhoeven. Hi might be thinking he's doing a prestige film, but in reality, it's Basic Instinct with the chocks off, and guided into the realm of the unpleasantly perverse.

30. Florence Foster Jenkins

A solid-enough bio-pic, with enough of a surprising edge to give it some frank comedy. Telling the story of the titular wealthy patroness to the arts (Meryl Streep), and her oblivious attempts at performing opera, there's plenty of scope for a very reasonable period piece. And it delivers there. It's decent, and it does what it promises. There's some interesting ensemble support, in particular from Hugh Grant as Jenkins' husband-or-is-he, and Simon Helberg as her accompanist. Helberg in particular is great in a character role, and fits in beautifully into the film. But the film as a whole is almost exactly what you should expect. There's no corners at all, no unexpected digressions or characterisations, and as a result it feels a little bland as a whole. It's also getting tiresome that Meryl Streep gets an Oscar nomination for just showing up on time. Yes, she's a good actress. We get it. This particular performance from her though is nothing out of the ordinary. So overall, I'm mixed. It's not a bad film, but it's also not an exceptional film either. That seems to be what we get from Streep, nowadays.

31. Life, Animated

A thoroughly underwhelming documentary about a subject that genuinely could have been terribly engaging. It follows the story of Owen Suskind, diagnosed with severe autism at age 3, who learns to interact with the world through his love of Disney animated films. The main issue with this film is that it has almost no structure or drive to it. It picks up at a seemingly arbitrary point in Owen's life, as he's preparing to leave school and branch out into the wider world. But it also looks backwards at his story so far in a kind of haphazard way. The emotional impact of the film is lost to a large extent due to this lack of focus. It's a shame because there's considerable promise in the subject matter, and Owen himself is a fascinating and genuinely engaging character. I was more disappointed than anything in the fact that the film squanders its opportunities.

32. La La Land

Oh Damien Chazelle. I'm so disappointed in you. Whiplash was my very top film of 2014, and I honestly couldn't wait to see what he did next. And it's such a shame that what he chose to do with all the skill clearly at his disposal is a very weak attempt to revamp the classic Hollywood musical. Now don't get me wrong, I don't at all mind a good musical. But the thing about seeing someone like Gene Kelly or Ginger Rogers on screen is that they're good at what they do. They're singers, they're dancers, they're entertainers. Ryan Gosling is a fine actor, but he's no singer, and and even less a dancer. Emma Stone is a passable actor, marginally better at singing than Gosling, and severely hampered in her dancing by her partner. It doesn't matter what the story is (although it's weak), this is a film that must live and die on its musical numbers, and they are just not good enough (with the exception being the opening sequence on the LA highways—which, surprise surprise, Gosling and Stone are not part of). As a result, the whole film feels pointless—if you're going to revamp the musical, do it right. This was, honestly, just a waste of potential from all fronts. My only hope is that this pulls an American Hustle, and by the time the voting has been done, everyone in the Academy pulls their head out of their ass and realises what they've done wrong in nominating this for so many awards.

33. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

When I was sorting this list, I genuinely came up against the very difficult task of separating this film and Oscars frontrunner La La Land. That says much more about La La Land than it does about this film, which was always going to be something of a struggle. Telling the story of the attacks on the US Consulate and CIA base in Benghazi, Libya (a favoured topic of attack by Republicans against Hillary Clinton), and directed by noted Hollywood dildo Michael Bay, this was a firm candidate to be my worst film of the year. And yet here it is, dangling some 10 places above the bottom spot. How did it get up here? Mostly, it comes from the fact that there's a persistent sense of energy in this film. From the start to the end, if there's not action on screen, there's the tension of potential action. There's the feeling that something is about to happen—maybe it's a lull in the battle, maybe it's a feeling of electricity between the Libyan locals and the US security contractors, or maybe it's the tension between the C.I.A. operatives trying to do their jobs and the personnel trying to protect their safety. It makes for a visceral experience at the very least. However, it will never cease to amaze me how easy it seems to be for Michael Bay to make films exceptionally boring. While the action sequences are well handled, and the mood of impending doom is maintained throughout the picture, there's almost no sense of plot that takes hold at all. It means that I wasn't engaged in what was happening to these characters at all (indeed, it doesn't help that all of the muscle-bound security personnel are almost identical). So in the end, while this was probably better than I was expecting, there was also just too much of the bad elements to truly transcend its genesis.

34. Tanna

There isn't a huge amount to say or to unpack from this film. Set and filmed on a Vanuatuan island, and scripted in the native language, it follows the tale of two star-crossed lovers who are arranged to be married to others in different tribes. When they try to go against the traditions of their people it causes turmoil. It's an underwhelming film in many ways, and relies almost entirely on the fact that it's filmed with members of the native tribes and in the native language for its novelty. As such, it feels more like a gimmick than anything else, especially because there's not much to the story. I will say at least that it's novel to have an Australian film nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars, but thats about as far as my love of Tanna goes.

35. Fire At Sea

An extremely underwhelming documentary, that loses focus due to attempting to conflate two prongs of a story that aren't all that connected in a narrative sense. It follows life on a small Italian island, and in particular, focuses on the young children who call it home, and contrasts this with the lives of refugees rescued from boats by the local authorities offshore. In theory it should be an interesting proposition, but the film is really lacking in substance, and showing the plight of the refugees, as terrible as it is, is not itself enough to carry the film. By contrast, the lives on the island seem banal, obviously intended as a poignant counterpoint—but given the film itself is already lacking in interest, it just feels as though these additional scenes drag out the film to longer and more extreme lengths of ennui. I didn't much enjoy this when I saw it at the Sydney Film Festival this year, and lo and behold, it's languishing near the bottom of the ratings in my Oscars write-up. The fact that it got to the Oscars at all is probably the thing that puzzles me.

36. Trolls

Meh. Going to skim this one for sure. An animated film, not up for Best Animated Feature, which is not a good sign. It's also rather cynically built around a line of toys, without the joy that came with the Lego Movie. It's up for Best Song, and perhaps only because the song was co-written by Justin Timberlake. But all the songs have a similar, over-produced pop vibe to them, which feels like the story stringing them all together is peripheral at best. Not a pick.

37. The Red Turtle

This one is up for Best Animated Feature, and it's genuinely pretty dull. It tells the tale of a shipwrecked sailor and the life he makes for himself on an island. It's produced by Studio Ghibli (although directed by a Dutch director), which of course means that it's beautifully animated. But in the tradition of certain Ghibli films, it can be excessively dull as well. The beauty doesn't save it, and the dialogue-free story has only enough interest to perhaps warrant a 20 minute short animation. Again, this is one that tested my patience to some degree.

38. Hail, Caesar!

This film was a monumental mess—a grab bag of different cast members and storylines that came together to make nothing more coherent than three different meals thrown in a pile on the floor. Ostensibly about the star of a Ben Hur-esque epic (George Clooney) being kidnapped and held for ransom to the studio, it's actually about 8 different interleaved plots of various value, and a wide-ranging cast that look like they don't much know what they're doing. The Coen brothers have done some good things in their career, but this is not one of them. I'll admit, however, that I'm often out of step with the consensus on Coen Brothers films. No Country For Old Men is also one of their weaker efforts as far as I'm concerned, and others I find certainly underrated (like Burn After Reading and Inside Llewyn Davis). So it's entirely possible that someone else found something to enjoy in this (beside Channing Tatum's dance sequence, which, while good, just further underlined the fact that the film as a whole was incoherent). For me, I'm deeply unimpressed, and I'll head to the next Coen Brothers film with a sense of trepidation. Fortunately, it's time for another darker turn from the duo, and that's often where the good stuff lies.

39. Silence

Monumentally too long, morally questionable and rife with glorification of Western imperialism, Silence was a genuinely pretty awful film. Running at almost three hours in length, we're treated to a hefty discourse on the barbarism of the Japanese meted out on the Portuguese missionaries proselytising Christianity in the 17th century. It follows two missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver), who attempt to find their former mentor and priest (Liam Neeson), who rumour has it has renounced Christianity and now lives as a Japanese. Along the way, we're treated to the honour in which Christian priests are bestowed by the (now hidden and secretive) Christian populations of Japan, in a bizarre sense of justifying what was in essence an attempt at cultural genocide. It's all to easy to try to read another meaning into Martin Scorsese's work here. To look for the parallels, perhaps, in the way Western countries are now spurning multiculturalism. But I think it's equally easy to see this as a film of faith for Scorsese, and in that way it becomes really quite troubling. The story, such that it is, is also not that good, and has about enough content for a 90 minute film. Indeed, much of the film, especially in the early segments, seems to underline the idea that this is a film vaunting Christianity, rather than questioning its presence in late feudal Japan. In all, I found this a genuinely unpleasant film in many ways, and not least because of the fact that it was 161 minutes of numbing boredom.

40. Jim: The James Foley Story

Another documentary, but this one up for the always wacky category of Best Song. Jim follows the story of James Foley, famous for being the first western journalist executed by Daesh/ISIS. It investigates his life leading to him becoming a freelance journalist, and the decisions he made in going to Syria that led to his eventual capture. It's an extremely partisan documentary—which here we can forgive to some extent because the other side is the world's leading terrorist organisation—that canonises Foley before we're given the chance to really form an opinion ourselves. It might be just me, but that really makes me resistant in the first place, but it becomes clear as the film continues that Foley was something of a fool, taking unnecessary risks and justifying them as some great necessity in the pursuit of journalistic truth. Part of this bias comes from the fact that most of the story is told by Foley's family members, who certainly put a sympathetic angle on the tale. This is followed up be fellow freelance journalists, who routinely take similar risks, and his fellow captors who ended up being released from an ISIS prison camp. Towards the end of the film, there's a half-hearted attempt to piece together an investigation into whether the US did enough to secure Foley's release—but the investigation, like the negotiations, it seems, stalled, leaving an unsatisfying number of unanswered questions. All up, it's not a good documentary by a long shot. And the song (which I note is only used over the credits) is mediocre fare from Sting. I'm disappointed on both fronts that it was nominated for an Oscar, both for the song, and for the fact that it meant I felt compelled to watch the documentary as a result.

41. Jackie

Honestly, this film was just utterly, utterly boring. And when it wasn't boring, it was only because there was a kind of horrified fascination with Natalie Portman's caricatured portrayal of Jackie Kennedy in the period following her husband assassination. Although, it's not just set in that period. It plays free with time, jumping around wherever it sees fit, loosely connected by a rather bizarre restaging of a television special Jackie Kennedy did showing the audience around the internals of the White House. It's structurally unsound, and there was always the feeling the whole superstructure could come crashing down at any moment. There were some good things in the film: the score was otherworldly on its own, and made for a really fine set of music that just had no place in this film. And the production design, costuming and the sense of time and place was well created. It's something that director Pablo Larraín has done to much better effect in his breakthrough film No, though. Now it feels a little like it's just been rehashed. But mostly, I just found the film to be excessively dull. I cared not a fig for anyone in the film, even as far as seeing them as interesting characters. They were dull cutouts, lacking in warmth and humanity, and even if there was a story, it was so completely fractured and sliced into pieces as to lack all coherence. A worthy spot in second bottom place.

42. Suicide Squad

I see a lot of films. Quite aside from my perennial Oscars binge, I make an effort to see a large volume of contemporary films, films from the cinema parthenon, classics and trash, the good and the bad. It's a hobby that I dive into with my trademark obsessive zeal. So keep all of this in mind when I say that of all the films I have ever seen in my entire life, Suicide Squad is the worst. That's hopefully quite a statement, and I intend it to be, but it requires some backing up. What is it that makes this film worse than any other? After all, I've seen abominations like Tommy Wiseau's anti-classic The Room. And the answer is manifold. For a start, it's an absolute train-wreck of a mess concept-wise. It lacks coherence in even its basic premise, which revolves around a group of criminals with superpowers somehow becoming the United States' first line of defense against Superman. Viola Davis (what the absolute shit is she doing in this movie?) plays a government something who convinces some other government something that this is a good idea. We're introduced, in slapdash, comic-book style, to about three of these criminals, and they're assembled, along with maybe two or three others who appear from nowhere without any explanation. Oh, and then there's a samurai woman who appears, and is meant to be keeping an eye on the criminals. But it's not really explained what she's doing there at all. All of the members of the squad (I don't think they're ever referred to by the title of the film, but I can imagine Harley Quinn doing a sneaky wink at the camera as she says the name of the film, so maybe they are) are kept in check by having an explosive planted in their brain, necessitating some dude following them into battle holding a laptop so he can blow them up if they get out of line. And then, for no apparent reason at all, there's the Joker. Famously played by a peak-Method Jared Leto (who reportedly spent the shoot sending used condoms to his fellow cast members), he's laughably un-sinister and incessantly banal. He's not part of any discernible plot at all, and seems to be merely a cynical exercise in setting up some future Affleck-fronted Batman film. Or something. Even that is perhaps putting too much credit on whoever vomited up the concept of this film. There's a weird sense that they made the film, realised it was too dark, and tried to lighten it up, with awkwardly delivered one-liners ejactulated onto the screen between scenes of utter banality. It made me laugh in incredulity, which is probably not what they were going for—although who knows what the producers of this film were going for. Certainly not the producers of this film. The fight scenes are utterly incoherent, and there's a weird obsession with filling them with a kind of strafing pink tracer fire which almost sent me into sensory shock (perhaps that would have been preferable to sitting through them). And they're so mind-numbingly over complicated that I honestly can't even recall what most of the characters superpowers were meant to be. Will Smith was in this film, and I think he was good at guns. Some other dude had a magical boomerang. One character could urinate lemonade or something. I swear this movie made me stupider. I could go on—but much as I want to dedicate my life to eviscerating this… thing… whatever it was, I've already wasted enough time and energy on it. Suffice it to say: what the absolute fuck were you thinking Everyone Involved In The Making Of This Film. There is absolutely no way anyone could have seen the finished product and said “Good, that's what we wanted". I can only believe they just got to the point where they were so completely sick of dealing with it any more that they just went “screw it: release it, do something to it, just get it the fuck away from me." But please keep it the fuck away from me as well.

For the record, Jackie, my second bottom film of the Oscars was at least 10 times better than Suicide Squad. In general, the standard was good this year. Or at least, good if you exclude Suicide Squad which has the unfortunate property of dragging everything else in its vicinity down with it. I also this year watched all but one of the short films. This is always a thoroughly worthwhile experience, and this year continued the trend. I'm not going to write them up, but in order, this is how they would rank for me:

Timecode (Live Action)

Pear Cider & Cigarettes (Animated)

Silent Nights (Live Action)

Pearl (Animated)

Joe's Violin (Documentary)

Mindenki (Sing) (Live Action)

Extremis (Documentary)

Piper (Animated)

Borrowed Time (Animated)

Enemies Within (Live Action)

The White Helmets (Documentary)

4.1 Miles (Documentary)

Le Femme et le TGV (Live Action)

All of these were worth watching, and I thoroughly recommend that you do. Watching the short films is honestly one of the most fulfilling parts of my Oscars project each year. All that's left now is for me to cast my ballot. Sadly, although I'm now a full voting member of the Academy, I believe I probably had to have these votes in a long time ago, and probably in a more official form than jezfletcher.tumblr.com. So it's likely that these votes won't count: Best Picture: Hell or High Water Best Director: Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) Best Actor: Casey Affleck (Manchester By The Sea) Best Actress: Ruth Negga (Loving) Best Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals) Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis (Fences) Best Original Screenplay: The Lobster Best Adapted Screenplay: Arrival Best Animated Feature: Kubo & The Two Strings Best Foreign Language Film: Land of Mine Best Documentary Feature: 13th Best Documentary Short: Joe's Violin Best Animated Short: Pear Cider & Cigarettes Best Live Action Short: Timecode Best Original Score: Jackie Best Original Song: "How Far I'll Go" from Moana Best Sound Editing: Arrival Best Sound Mixing: Arrival Best Production Design: Passengers Best Cinematography: Arrival Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Star Trek Beyond Best Costume Design: Jackie Best Film Editing: Hell or High Water Best Visual Effects: Doctor Strange And would you know my second bottom film gets two votes. How about that.