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tarithenurse · 4 years

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Stolen - 8

Pairing: Loki Laufeyson &/x fem!gifted!reader Content: Tension? Yeah, that sounds like a good description. That and...plot propellant. A/N: Damn, I miss hugging. Hubby hugs good, but I miss hugging friends etc. Take care, peeps <3

8. Man That You Fear

... Reader ...

It’s taken days before you’ve regained enough strength to walk to the hallway and another few before you manage to make it all the way to the tree room (flanked by a handful of Älfir guards) where the priestess once again awaits you. Wandering among the silvery trees, she doesn’t say much to you, she just smiles like there’s some secret joke no one has let you in on.

Loki’s standing by the fireplace when you return, one handing resting on the soft curves of the mantel piece and the neck bend as if he’s studying the flames which have a purple tint that somehow gets swallowed in the blackness of his hair. Uhoh. You have lost count how long it is since the Asgardian abducted you and even if it might not be more than a few months, you already know from the tension in his shoulders and the knuckles, white from clenching his fists, that you are in trouble.

Even the flames seem to freeze at the sound of his cold voice. “I thought I told you the rules.”

Cold, yes, but it’s the softness that scares you. “They came to fetch me while you were aw-”

“And you went with them!”

The room is getting colder or maybe, you think, it’s the panic rising in your lungs that makes it feel that way.

“They...I...” Each word is visible as a puff of breath, a cloud hanging in the darkening room. “I was afraid they’d be angry if I didn’t!”

Freezing! Not only is the cold real – seeping into your bones and prickling your nose and eyes – a layer of frost is spreading from Loki’s hand by the fireplace, quickly oozing across any surface and smothering the fire with a wet hiss. And your captor? He is nothing like you ever had expected when he turns to face you at long last. The always pale skin appears to have been touched by the cold too, adopting the cool colours of winter which stand in stark contrast to his eyes: cast in shadows, the darkness practically fuses with them and makes a redness in the irises glow like embers, smouldering, just waiting to burn down the world.

“Don’t fear their anger,” he hisses.

A spark of your own ignites, driving you headfirst down a path of stupidity and stubbornness. “You want me to fear you? I fear what you might do to others but no! I will not fear for my own life just so you can feel aall mighty and powerful! If you wanna kill me, then bloody do it!”

You might as well have slapped him. Startled at your fury, Loki steps back and now you see that his eyes are as they always have been – a deep, ever-changing green – and the cold is gone just as abruptly with only the melting ice on the walls and floor to prove it was ever there.

“I don’t- no-no!” He sighs, pinching the brow sharply. “It is not my intention to harm you...even if you can be frustrating. No. It’s...the Älfir are, for the moment, our allies...but...” he finally looks to you, pleading almost -”their desires are fickle and so are their allegiance. If a great threat were to present itself it’s more than likely they will side with him and forsake their former friends.”

Conspiracies and fear mongering. You had expected more of a god. “If a -”

“He is coming.” Stepping right up to you, Loki grabs your by the upper arms – gently but insistently. “Already, whispers are hailing the changes he will bring. Mad, he is...and more dangerous than you can ever imagine.”

You know that look in the Asgardian’s face, recognize the tremor in his voice. He’s faking, the logic voice in your mind tries to convince you but the argument falls flat because all you’ve ever heard about this man is that he never shows any weakness. Another ruse and you might have fallen for it without question.

“You’re...afraid of it. Of him.”

Gobsmacked, you watch the tall man pull himself together and try to brush it off. Letting go as if he has burned himself, Loki scoffs at the notion. Pacing the room, which you have seen him do every day, he begins to talk about the fragility of various empires and alliances through a history you never have heard of before. His hands steady themselves with simple actions such as pouring wine for the both of you, scratching an itch in his palm.

No, I won’t let you. “Don’t deny it! Who’s coming?”

“Answer me first...” His back is turned, but you know his lips are pressed together into a thin line. “What did you say or do while with the Priestess?”

Fine, stubborn mule. “We walked. In the room with the trees and altar.” Sighing and closing your eyes, you try to recall any conversation however one sided it must have been. “She...said some things but of course I didn’t understand and I kept telling her that. She seemed happy anyways. Just held my hand as we kept walking about...”

Something cold touches under your chin, tilting your head up. Surprised at the sudden contact, you look and stare straight into the depths of Loki’s gaze. He’s so close you can smell the scent of flint and snow on him, and for a millisecond you imagine brushing your lips against his to find out if he tastes the same way.

“You’re telling the truth.” He lets go, leaving you standing with nothing to lean on for moral and emotional support. “Fine...you want the truth? Then you shall have it.”

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cyberneticlagomorph · 5 years

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The River Debacle™

this is the only appropriate reply to that post

a lil background for the uninitiated: a long time ago candyland stole a river from wonderland (”but jack how do you steal a river?” with a lot of magic and pettiness) just to piss us off. the river was made of hot tea, and had such notable features such as: giant lemon slices, sugar lumps, fish that were actually tea strainers made of precious metals

and yes they stole the ENTIRE river, there is a noticeable chasm in wonderland where the river used to be. this happened centuries ago but people still remember it and candyland likes to rub it in my face whenever we have deliberations.

OK NOW ONTO THE NEW DEVELOPMENTS

this river debacle is better than I thought

apparently this started centuries ago before even Queenie was on the throne, according to her this is all her sister's fault. I didn't even know she HAD a sister. Her sister was queen of wonderland at the time, the Black Queen to be precise.

her sister was set to be married to a candyland royal as part of a treaty as brought up by the (elder)godly parents of either nation

from what I've been told, Queenie's sister was like terror incarnate and had a mastery over death that literally no one should have ever

Idk what was up with the poor bastard from candyland but I do know that the sister (ruling queen at the time) killed him and brought him back several times over the course of the marriage for reasons unknown (read: you don't WANT to know)

the river was a wedding present, gifted from the patron god of candyland as a gesture of peace. it was well received by everyone.

now here's where it gets fucky

you'd think murdering and unmurdering someone repeatedly would be cause for alarm and perhaps war right?

WRONG

THEY PURPOSELY SENT SOMEBODY THEY DIDN'T CARE ABOUT CUZ THEY KNEW THE BLACK QUEEN WAS LIKE THAT

right now you're probably thinking "oh so they hated wonderland prior to this"

but I'm getting the vibe that candyland hates EVERYONE

you would too if everyone kept eating your subjects and territories and brushing it off as "oh well they're just candy"

but that's largely unimportant, what IS important is that all they cared about was the treaty

this thing was so air tight that it didn't matter if the sad sack they sent on the obvious suicide mission died or not, all they cared about was wonderland itself. which at the time had a massive monopoly on agriculture and was a serious military powerhouse, and this was before Queenie commissioned the looking glass from bits of her dead cousin

apparently wonderland had been squeezing the surrounding weaker territories for protection money for EONS, and candyland was at its breaking point. hence the marriage and the treaty. they did all this to shuffle themselves from under Wonderland's fucky umbrella

officially allies with the river to symbolize their partnership, trade routes were formed, people stopped being raided and robbed by wonderlands forces. bc one of the big articles was that wonderland wasn't allowed to attack candyland anymore. for ANY reason. and then the black queen finds out from her undead hubby that this was all a huge charade to steal military secrets

but he was lying

years of being tortured by that woman and years of being pissed off by the people that sent him over there to die and he just

snapped

the black queen mobilized her forces and laid siege to candyland, and by gum those saccharine bastards gave as good as they got. but the black queen had been so focused on her new enemies she failed to notice that her sister had been killing her siblings one by one in an act of jealousy and greed

eventually Queenie murdered her sister, she put a stop to the war but the damage was already done. and years later when Alice fell down the rabbit hole and started picking off True Royals, candyland watched and they waited

but instead of Idk killing Queenie or otherwise helping Alice, they stole the river they'd given as a gift.

it's like seeing some dude get stabbed in his kitchen and remembering he never gave you your lawnmower back so you just go get the lawnmower and leave him to bleed out cuz fuck that guy

I'M LOSING MY MIND Y'ALL

#long post #ic #ask to tag #the river debacle

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rhetoricandlogic · 6 years

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Ally

by NALO HOPKINSON

PUBLISHED IN MAY 2018 (ISSUE 68) | 3100 WORDS

It’d been a warm, sunny spring afternoon. The grass in the cemetery was green, the roses and lavender in the wreaths fragrant. Iqbal’s funeral had been a quiet affair, all things considered.

Our circle was getting too old for the type of soap opera drama that had marked our younger years. We’d lived for enough decades that my friends and I had settled into some kind of rhythm, had dared to allow some of our sharp edges to be burnished smooth.

So by the time of Iqbal’s funeral, Joachim had long since given up staging drunken screaming matches in parking lots with Jésus for stealing Joachim’s boyfriend Steve, lo these many years ago. After all, soon after Steve had left him, Joachim had met and bottomed to Randall at a play party, and they’d been together ever since. Randall had ceased lamenting the flawless beauty of his youth to anyone who would (or wouldn’t) listen. He’d started dating a couple of eager smooth-skinned houseboys, vetted by Joachim. The young men kept Joachim’s and Randall’s boots spit-polished. Randall had let his hair grow in grey, waxed his mustachios, and relaxed into his daddy role.

Munroe had become an actual daddy as a result of a drunken evening with his dyke friend Alice. He ended up sharing custody of the little girl with her—mostly amicably, with some glaring exceptions. “Baby” Tina was twenty-two years old now. She’d attended the service with hugs for all her uncles and me, her aunty. Almost everyone had remembered to call me Sally. After all, it’d been seven years. Pete did slip up and call me “Jack . . . er, Sal,” but I didn’t bite his head off; he was, after all, burying his husband. But it’s been seven fucking years, dude, and you’re still making that mistake?

When I transitioned, Pete’s awkwardness about it had cooled our friendship down quite a bit. So as I stood beside the grave site with the others, watching the coffin being lowered mechanically into the hole and longing to get out of the black pumps that were crushing my toes in two very stylish vises, I was surprised when my phone buzzed with a text from Pete: The bar in an hour? Just you and me?

Well. It’d been years since he and I had hung out like that, but I knew exactly which bar he meant. I texted back, Make it an hour and a half. To underline that I wasn’t going to let him “Jack” me again, I added, Momma needs to slip into something more comfortable.

I only stopped at home long enough to switch my heels for flats and give the hubby a squeeze, but Pete was already waiting when I got to the bar. He was nursing a virgin Manhattan, extra maraschino cherries. Nowadays, sugar was his drug of choice. He looked glumly up at me and kicked out the chair opposite his. The haunted look in his eyes made my heart ache. I sat. He said, “Rye and soda?” I didn’t even need to nod. He knew what I liked, and was already signalling the waitress.

Two women sitting together at the bar gave me the side-eye. They leaned their heads together to talk, scowling at me the whole time. Easy to figure what they had their panties in a twist about. “You okay?” I asked Pete. “Never mind. Stupid question.”

His eyes met mine. “Something happened the other day.”

“With Iqbal?”

He frowned. “Yes. No. I’m not sure.”

I sighed. “Tell me.”

He tried on an ill-fitting smile. “I dunno. It’s dumb. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“‘But you must be mad,’” I quoted. “‘We’re all mad here.’”

Unlike the Cheshire Cat’s, his smile became a little more real as he quoted back: “‘There’s no use trying. One can’t believe impossible things.’” His smiled cracked. “Maybe it was just the stress. Of everything. Of Iqbal . . .”

My drink had arrived. I took a sip, let the bite and chill of it roll around on my tongue, swallowed. “Pete, I’m listening. You know I always will, no matter how crazy the thing you have to tell me.” No matter how hurt I was that we weren’t really friends any more.

His eyes were wet. “You remember Mrs. Richardson.”

It wasn’t a question. Pete and I had known each other since we were teenagers in high school. He was the first person I told outright that I wasn’t a boy. He’d laughed it off, quite gently. But I’d never mentioned it to him again.

And of course I remembered that cunt. She shouldn’t have been allowed near kids, much less allowed to foster young Pete. Meeting a foster kid had been quite the eye-opener for me. Meeting the spinning ball of hatred that was Mrs. Richardson made the skin on my arms crawl, made me almost grateful for my passive-aggressive mother and my transphobic dad.

I said, “One minute she’d be sweet as pie, the next she’d be raging.”

“She wasn’t always like that, though. At some point, she changed.”

I hadn’t known that. “Really? What turned her evil, then?”

“The other way round, Sal.”

Good. I was back to being Sally, or as close as Pete would get to it. “Wait—you mean she used to be worse?”

He nodded. “When I was first placed with her, she’d come at me night and day. She said I was a lost cause, but she would whip me into shape. Once I laid the table with the knives and forks on the wrong side of the plates. She sent me to bed without dinner.”

“Seriously?”

“She made me do all kinds of evening and weekend chores till I was so tired, I fell asleep on top of my homework. Then she punished me for getting bad grades. Took my socks away that fall and winter. Couple of my toes never recovered from the frostbite.”

It felt like the bottom had dropped out of my belly. “We were friends! Why didn’t you tell me?” The Mrs. Richardson I’d met mostly yelled a lot. Vile things, usually variants of “dumbass.” And she’d refused to give permission for Pete to go on any school trips.

“I’d only just met you. It started happening in summer, when you were away at camp. And anyway, it didn’t last long.”

“Lasted long enough for you to get frostbite that winter.”

He shrugged. “What good would telling you have done?”

“We could have told my folks, or the school! Someone would have gotten you out of there!” I was nearly shouting. People near us glanced at us then looked away.

“You’ve never been a foster kid. More likely, no one would have believed us and the investigation would just have made her hate me even more.”

All that time, he’d been suffering. And all this time, he’d kept his secret from me.

“She was careful to only hit me in places the bruises wouldn’t be seen.”

“Jesus.” I sucked back more of my drink and waited for him to continue. But he stayed silent. I prompted him: “What made her get nicer? Or at least, made her stop physically hurting you?”

“I’ve told you about my dad, right?”

Clearly he needed to change the subject. “Yeah, a bit.” Pete’s dad had raised him alone. Got hit by a car and killed when Pete was thirteen. That’s how Pete had ended up in foster care.

“Dad used to let me read Alice in Wonderland to him. He took me fishing, worked on my science fair projects with me. He never raised a hand to me.

“I saw the accident, rode with Dad in the ambulance. He was bleeding, semi-conscious, but he held my hand till he couldn’t any more. He kept saying, ‘I’ll come back to you, Petey. I have to look after you.’ And then of course he didn’t come back. He died. And I was sent to Mrs. Richardson.” Pete clamped his hands around his drink. They were trembling a little. I wondered whether he’d even told Iqbal about Mrs. Richardson.

My drink had gone right through me, and I desperately needed to pee. I knew from past experience this place had segregated washrooms. That’s why—or one of the reasons why—I’d stopped coming to this bar. I crossed my legs and leaned forward in my chair, as Pete clearly had more to say about that bloody bitch.

“One day, she was hitting me—on my legs—and I was trying to act like it wasn’t hurting. She was pissed because of some damned thing she thought I’d done, I don’t even remember what. I do remember I was trying to tell her that I hadn’t done it, and she was shouting, ‘Children should be seen and not heard!’”

I stared at Pete, my mouth open in shock.

“Suddenly she stopped mid-swing, with her hand pulled up, like someone had grabbed her by the wrist. She opened her eyes wide and said, ‘Petey.’ And . . . she stopped hitting me. She dropped to her knees to look at the bruises that were coming up on my thighs. And then she said the strangest thing.”

“What?” I was trying hard to forget my twinging bladder. One of the two TERFy dykes had just gone to the washroom. The other was watching me, her lip curled in disgust.

“She said, ‘What did she do to you?’ You know, talking about herself in the third person? Then she went to hug me! That freaked me the fuck out. I pushed her away. She stood up, looked confused. She asked me where the kitchen was.”

“In her own house? Was she having a stroke, or something?”

“Yeah, maybe. Iqbal was confused too, when he had his first stroke . . .”

“Hey,” I said, “Do you want to get out of here, just go home? Or come back to our place? We have a guest room, you could spend the night.”

But Pete was looking off into the memory distance. He continued, “I pointed to where the kitchen was. She came back with cold water and paper towel. She dabbed my bruises and said she was sorry, that it was such a long way back and she’d brought the water as quickly as she could.”

“Bitch was seriously crazy.”

Pete had the waiter bring us refills. I hoped I could hold my water. In a pinch, I could dash back home, use the toilet there, be back in twenty, thirty minutes tops, and not risk being attacked for the unforgiveable crime of peeing in a public toilet.

“After that,” said Pete, “I never knew whether I was going to get evil Mrs. Richardson or good Mrs. Richardson. It messed with my head. Sometimes she’d just sit in her armchair in front of the TV and mutter, like she was arguing with herself. And sometimes she’d just look scared out of her wits. I was so glad when I was legal to leave.”

I smiled. “I was bigtime envious of you, getting to be on your own when you were sixteen.”

“You were an idiot, then.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“That was no picnic, either.” He sipped his drink, then looked up. “I just remembered something. The day I left, I was just heading out the door when she put her hand on my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She said, ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t look after you the whole time. It’s such a long way round.’ Then her hand fell away, and her face just changed. She stepped back. She watched me leave, and the look on her face was the most hatred I’ve ever had directed at me. And that’s saying something. I scrambled down the driveway like the Devil was at my heels.”

I shuddered. “Did you ever see her again?”

“Not her, no. Heard she’d jumped in front of a car, or something. Didn’t care.”

“Pete,” I said gently, “You were telling me about Iqbal?”

He stared into his glass, spoke with his head still down. “We used to fight. Like, knockdown fistfights.”

“Oh, no.”

“’Fraid so. Blood was shed, there were trips to Emergency, the police were called.”

“Police? To a fight between two brown men?”

“Yeah. It’s a miracle we survived.”

When one lives in a world in which large portions of it want one dead, every minute is a triumph, every breath a defiance, and, if one’s jib is cut that way, every statement a manifesto. The everyday vagaries of life and love are just writ that much larger, because they mean that much more. The game of “he said/he said” is raised to a level of artistry rivalled only by the sport of kings. Every breakup is forever, because love may never find one ever again. Every new lover becomes one’s whole life, because one is stealing love from the jaws of hatred. What t-shirt to wear with the perfect jeans to go clubbing is almost as brutally important as what words to write on one’s placard to attend that demonstration against legalizing faith-based homophobia. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It stopped, all the violence between us. One day, Iqbal took his hands from around my throat—”

“Pete!”

“—and he looked at his hands as though he’d never seen them before. He said, ‘No more. I’m not going to fight you anymore.’ I mean, it didn’t end right away. For one thing, I wasn’t ready to stop. Didn’t know how, really. But Iqbal really meant it. He’d changed. Eventually he got me to go to counselling with him. And bit by bit, we figured shit out. Figured out how to be good to each other.” Pete sobbed, once, so loudly that people three tables over stopped to look our way. “God, Sally, I miss him so much.”

“I know, honey.” I took his hand in mine. He jumped at my touch. I tried not to feel hurt.

“You know the last thing he said to me?”

I shook my head.

“He said, “I found my way home to you, Petey. I looked after you. I got better at it, so that I could be with you all the time.” He went unconscious after that, and was gone by the next morning.”

“He loved you very much. That wasn’t strange at all.”

He nodded absently, then pulled his hand away to pick his glass up. He had a sip. “Okay,” he said. “I suppose. But here’s the thing; only my dad ever called me Petey.”

I tried to concentrate through the yammering of my bladder. “No, that’s not right. Didn’t you say that Mrs. Richardson did?”

“Once. The day she stopped hitting me.”

“And Iqbal?”

“Once. The last time he was conscious.” Pete’s hands started shaking so badly that he had to set the glass down. He put his hands in his lap. “So what I’m really asking myself is: who was I married to all those years?”

Something squirmed in the pit of my belly. How could he even think—? “Pete . . .” I whispered.

He jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry, Sal. It’s just been so hard the last couple of days. Losing Iqbal, the funeral, all those people to be polite to while . . .” He stopped, his face pulled into the lineaments of grief. “My head’s just been full of all these weird thoughts.”

“I understand,” I murmured. But I didn’t. “You need to be gentle with yourself this next little while.”

“Let me get the check.” He put some bills on the table.

“Okay, thanks, but first I just need to . . .” I stood, clamping down hard on my aching bladder. Another reason to be thankful I’d diligently done all those post-surgery kegels.

Pete sighed, as one does when one is about to say something difficult for others to hear. “It’s just that . . . well, Mrs. Richardson, Iqbal; people around me keep turning into someone else. You used to be Jack; now you’re Sally.”

The cold burn of betrayal and erasure was just about to tsunami over me, scouring me from skin to bone, when he got a strange look in his eye. In a clear voice, he said, “But Jack is just what people called you. I finally figured it out. You were always Sally. You have always been exactly who you are right now.”

I can be an emo bitch sometimes. When I started weeping, he pulled me into his arms. “Sally, I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick.” For the first time in years, my friend and I held each other like the close companions we used to be.

And then I really, really had to go. I waited, hot-footing, till I was as sure as I could be that there was no one in the Women’s. Pete stood outside the door painted with the stick figure lady in a triangle skirt until I exited safely. He walked me home, hugged me again on the street outside my apartment building. I told him I’d check in on him tomorrow, waved goodbye as he headed off in the direction of the subway station.

Age and a track record of survival can bring poise to a life lived cheek by jowl with the possibility of danger. You might say that one’s trigger becomes less hairy. Nevertheless, one is always watchful for that slight shift, the moment when a situation turns.

That new look in Pete’s eye, the complete change of demeanour. And wasn’t that the first time, he’d called me Sally? Not Jack-er-Sal. Not Sal. Sally.

In the long elevator ride up to my twenty-first floor apartment, I tried not to ask myself whether Pete’s sudden change of heart had been all him. As I kissed my sleeping husband and got ready for bed, I tried not to feel guilty that I didn’t care who had been behind Pete’s eyes. Whoever it was, they were my friend.

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Nalo Hopkinson lives in a home filled with books, art supplies, tools, art projects at various stages of unfinished, more books, and brown-skinned mermaids. She has aches, pains, chronic fatigue, and a quirky brain. She has far too much to do, and nowhere near enough time to marathon watch annoying but addictive science fiction TV. She loves dance. She’s working on a novel about a monster carried by a girl who turns into a woman. The girl does, not the monster. She cooks great food (mostly) and mismanages her schedule. She doesn’t answer her phone or check her voice mail messages.

#Nalo Hopkinson #Ally #short story

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its-just-like-the-movies · 7 years

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Date Night!: Death Note (17, F)

I think part of the reason it’s so much harder to really analyze a perfect film than a perfectly shitty one is that a great film leaves you wondering how they did it. What geniuses had the decision to write that score, to edit in this style, to write that character in such a way, to interpret them so fully? I can’t imagine how much time I’ve spent wringing my hands at Annette Bening in 20th Century Women, trying to understand Dorothea Fields as a creation, as a conscious work of art by way of multiple collaborators as well as the actress playing her, amidst a film that feels utterly human and alive, and without seams in any way. I bring up this film here because I had this thought watching Adam Wingard’s disgusting, dull take on Death Note only a few nights ago. You may be asking “Why is it that both of your Date Night pieces have been centered around demonstrably monstrous acts of garbage?” and I say wait a minute, we’ve seen good things. One day I’ll talk about Shin Godzilla. But that’s just me postponing the inevitable. Tommy and I, and our very good friend David, sat down on the first of September and decided to watch a train wreck that was even worse than we could have imagined. It hasn’t just been whitewashed, but striped of all the source material’s morality and mythology, about as far removed as one could be from anything in the original series while vaguely needing to use certain character names and still actually having a death note, and Americanized in the worst possible way. But it steals baldly from other films and makes it central character completely unbearable while everyone else is vaguely more interesting and doomed to the sidelines of the story. No one wanted this film, necessarily, but is it too much to ask that it be good?

The first immediate example we get of the film’s selective pilfering of its Japanese source material is that our central character is named Light Turner. It’s not in any way a typical American name, especially for white boys with dye-blond hair, but because the source material starred a dude named Light, why not? They couldn’t let that central character stay Japanese, though, because this is America, so it has to be about a white dude and his white girlfriend trying to dodge the world’s greatest detective, a young black man who is still called “L”. The white soon-to-be girlfriend is named Mia, and we know that she is Serious and Not Like Other Girls Or Whatever because we see her looking Hardcore and Bored and Over It during cheerleading practice, a brunette in a sea of blondes, who finally just starts smoking rather than letting the Other Girls catapult her in the air. This is probably because they wouldn’t hurl her into the sun itself, which is the only thing Hardcore enough for her to join. And we know Light is Hardcore and Over It but Still Has Morals because we see him doing another student’s homework and later trying to save another student from the most college-graduate-looking motherfuckers who ever decided to teleport from the 90’s to now and bully someone.

It’s almost too easy to tear down this shambling mess of a film. Wingard shoots Ryuk as though the filmmakers either couldn’t afford to make him look presentable or were just embarrassed to look at him. Light is a terribly bland protagonist, made even blander by the far more interesting sociopathic tendencies of said soon-to-be girlfriend Mia and the truly bizarre spectacle of Wingard’s remodeled L. This version of L is at least someone interesting to watch, even if it’s in such a conventional way as to have almost no resemblance to the original version of the character. Mia, on the other hand, is only altered insofar as her obsession with Light is really just an obsession with the death note itself, and a desire to kill off people more indiscriminately than he does. There’s something deeply uncomfortable about how Mia and Ryuk are eventually aligned as the villains of the piece for lacking a moral compass, especially when Light’s feels superficially arbitrary and utterly dull, and even moreso given that Mia’s eventual betrayal of Light feels like some version of “bitches be crazy”, but both are still the most captivating characters on the screen. If Ryuk has almost no real reason to be there after his introduction, Willem Dafoe’s self-satisfied line readings make the character a welcome presence. That this character egs on Light to commit his first killings was perhaps the biggest sticking point to David early on, given the manga version’s role as an excited but impartial audience surrogate more than anything else, but his presence is still entertaining. Dafoe’s reading of the line “Humans are so interesting!”, one of the few moments where Ryuk got an actual close-up, was also the only actual chill I got during the whole 100 minutes, though credit must partially be given to my shock that any line from the manga - let alone one of its best, in the early going - even made it into the film.

My previous interactions with the Death Note media empire is having gotten partway through the manga and the anime dub in early high school, losing interest a little while after the death of a major character, though not necessarily because that character died. Maybe it felt like the end of the series, or maybe I just straight up lost interest, or moved on to a different property. That being said, I still remember Death Note and its characters fairly well, and certainly well enough to know how butchered this abominable film was. It’s astonishing how much Wingard tries to alter these characters away from any resemblance to their source material, but it brings up what strikes me as the largest question I have about this film, and all the grossest politics and connotations I can think of surrounding the terms “whitewashing” and “Americanizing”. Of course America’s version of Death Note had to star a white boy in the lead role, because Hollywood can’t just have a leading character of color for no reason at all. Of course he had to be saddled with a faux, crummy version of “morals” with a faux-tragic backstory behind his killings while his girlfriend is giving the depravity that made the original so noteworthy and framed as the eventual Big Bad for it. Mia Sutton is perhaps the only character Death Note has going for itself, a genuine female sociopath on film who barely seems motivated by her hubby-in-crime and is more than willing to ditch him once he gets cold feet. Apparently Wingard credits Mia as having more of Original Light’s traits instead of Misa Amane’s, which makes sense to think about but speaks plenty about Wingard’s seeming disinterest in actually adapting his source material. I kept thinking about The Hateful Eight’s Daisy Domergue, featuring another case of villainous characters whose only point of agreement is that the lone lady of the bunch is the worst of them all, though there her crimes are left mainly vague, her threats treated like bluffs once she has the room to say them rather than getting smacked around by her walrus-moustached captor. It’s the film’s most toxic element, one that I’m not convinced Jennifer Jason Leigh’s performance makes the right decisions about in portraying her. The Hateful Eight is also a much better film than Death Note - what film isn’t? - albeit with its own, significant flaws, but in Death Note Mia’s crimes and the crimes of her allies and enemies are all equally defined, because the film is so awful it needs her amorality if only to give the viewer someone compelling to root for, as my squad saw it, because Margaret Qualley commits to her character and makes us sad to see her go. I don’t mean to imply that Qualley is a better actress than Leigh, nor is her performance necessarily stronger in these respective films. But sometimes mere competence in a shitty film is easier to like than a commendable misfire in an uneven one, and Qualley’s work is one of the few umbrellas we can run under in this heaving shitstorm of a film.

I truly don’t know how to engage with L, who seems like the most conspicuous victim of Wingard’s rewrites. LaKeith Stanfield is clearly giving his all to the performance, and if you told me he was the only person on set who’d ever read the manga I’d believe you in a heartbeat. But all the intrigue of his work, the intensity it achieves in certain moments, is drowned out in how overly mannered this character is. Repeatedly L is seen sloppily eating gummy bears ascribed with ingredients that enhance thinking capabilities, rather than strawberry shortcake because it’s fucking delicious, that’s why. Twitchy behaviors are augmented by the character’s complete lack of chill, rather than the naturally super-intelligent, laid-back L the manga gave us, one in terrible physical shape and complete physically incompetence. Here, L gets a chase scene by car and by foot, and brandishes a firearm. Here, L gets a traveling Victorian set to be imported into the middle of the San Diego Police Department’s office area. At least he still gets to keep his own brand of amorality, perfectly content as he is to use some criminals as bait to see where “Kira” is based, but he’s not the savvy liar and manipulator detective of yore. This character is conventionally compelling, but perhaps the most emblematic case of Wingard’s seeming desire to write a Death Note film that doesn’t actually resemble any previous Death Note property. Who knows why this character was cast with a black actor in a shocking white version of San Diego - or even if there was a “reason”, and Wingard just liked Stanfield’s ideas about the character - but the spectacle of him being placed in a chokehold by SDPD chief Light’s Dad was easily the grossest thing Death Note had in store. I can’t help but wonder what Stanfield really saw in this opportunity, how much he got out of it, and what the disparity is for having highlight roles in the best and worst horror films of 2017.

And then there’s Light, remixed from a type-A, grade A model student into an angsty loner who has literally nothing going for him but a wonky dye job and being lucky enough to get a handheld killing machine. Putting a hat on the guy makes him instantly the blandest man alive, and he as much as anyone else is shorn of the traits that made the character such an interesting protagonist. Yes, Mia gets so many of Light Yagami’s traits, but can Light Turner have anything going for him? Can he not nearly shit himself once Ryuk (in such a bitchy spectacle of an arrival) storms onto the scene? Can he not have a motivation so forgettably stitched on the film all but abandons it twenty minutes in, and can his morals actually be interestingly complicated instead of bland, Americanly contrived? Nat Wolff’s Light, possibly the worst performance of the year, is such a guileless goon that his last-act transformation into a criminal who’s actually capable of planning out a long con to save his own life and kill one of his enemies is easily the least believable part of the film. It’s astonishing how much the want of having Evan Peters and Emma Roberts in the lead roles is present in how Light is styled and in how much Margaret Qualley just fucking looks like a less actively bitchy version of Emma Roberts. There’s even a little card that says “Normal People Scare Me” in the American Horror Story font in Light’s locker, like some emo kid in 2011, which gets to the heart of this character’s deep mischaracterization. Why make this kid into a Tate Langdon-type who’s so blatantly angry at the world it’s honestly shocking his father takes as long as he does to realize his son is a fucking mass murderer? How is it in any way a bold, difficult statement that the valedictorian can be a sociopath, that kids with ostensibly no real problems can also want to end the world themselves? There’s a lot I didn’t like about the fourth season of AHS but at least it gave us an emblem of corrupted white, heterosexual male privilege and prejudice that this film just can’t recognize, or won’t.

A funny, somewhat poignant, and very quick moment in Okja sees a character flash a newly made tattoo on his arm that says “Translation is Sacred”. Death Note is not just an abominable act of translation, but of adaptation, of fidelity to a source material’s characters and themes. Outside of its vaguely compelling supporting cast, a lot of Death Note feels haphazardly cobbled together from a multitude of sources and bad ideas all meant on making the film more palatable to an audience that only wanted this film because the source material was so rich, most notably that killings in the Death Note seem to be primarily carried out by Final Destination, Rube Goldberg spectacle-type accidents, rather than simple, mundane accidents. Why make a Death Note film if you’re not going to make it resemble Death Note at all? It feels late in the game to say that I’m not fundamentally against molding source material to suit an adaptation, especially with something as dense as Death Note into a feature film under two hours. But there’s not a single alteration that this film makes to the material that helps it in any conceivable way, no small high point worth the heaps of garbage you have to sift through to get it. It’s not so much a misfire as a willful rejection of any sharp edges or idiosyncrasies that made the original property the hit that it became. It’s also, hopefully, the kind of misfire that kills a hoped-for sequel dead in its tracks. If there’s one thing we can do to reckon with the fact that this shambling corpse of a film exists, the best thing we as a viewing audience and as people who want adaptations of ambitious, international properties can shout from the rooftops that hypnotized FBI agents are leaping off of like synchronized divers. We liked them for a reason, and if you shear off that reason to be more appealing, all you’re left with is a boring white boy nattering on about his schemes in a hospital bed, outshone by a demon barely in focus, and failing in every way to live up to that demon’s last, great line. In the world of Adam Wingard’s Death Note, humans aren’t interesting. They’re cardboard cutouts of characters that aren’t tarnished by association, but shine a little brighter in comparison. You couldn’t ask for a less ambitious take on this property, no one did, but we got in anyways, and if no one will bother to learn from it, then all we can do with this maddening pile of shit is heave it straight into the sun and hope it burns into an even greater state of nothingness than the film has achieved just by existing in this neutered state.

#death note #my posts #my reviews #date night #this 1s 4 u bb

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conversationdriversbiolab · 5 years

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Happy Birthday Edit Update 18 March 2019 5 p.m.

341.) Toni Esposito…Italian Pink Pink Kitty Kitty Sensible Therapeutic Expectations_______ Come here Kitty Come here...Rigatoni Rich Prosciutto Decadent Bite Size...Tempting Excellence Teeter Totter Topless Expedition Experience Ford Explores Go for a Ride too________ --> My Way of Saying… Como Aqui Venir Aqui Tener Caja Chica Gatito... Totem Tossup Totters deadlock draw Figure or Crest She was always Mine and will always be Mine Reel Rock Touch and Go______ if and only if…the Sun Kisses the Moon and First Temptations Last a Life Time Forever and Always Exceeding Supreme Excellence Excellent Heaven a Past_______Social Girlfriend Graduate of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill 1998 Tri-Delta or Chi Omega… She was a Biology Chemistry Major and presently she is a Physician Assistant in Banner Elk, North Carolina 2011, who worked at Boone Urgent Care as a (Physician Assistant)… Was she…Is she…did she…? She studied at University of Nebraska at Omaha got her Postgraduate Degree in Physician Assistant Studies in the year 2006… She Got a BS Degree from Jefferson College of Health and Science… Lives in Banner Elk, North Carolina born on 21 March 1976… I Just Didn’t Need the Ariel Sensation…for me or by Myself Aries Star… Ariel Sensations… I Always Knew… I loved you more than a Sign, the Sign, or the Sign of a Time…The Sign of Times…I never told Anybody about the _______Last Days in Town Dance Flower Bump & Grind Signature Stamps I was wondering who in the Hell is watching us at Bessies Late Spring 1997 so were we going Public We wasn't always plontic in private________…. You call for it I just gave it to you…Off of Stand by Recommendations and Second by Second Requests… You be my Alphabet.. I’ll be your Back Up Base or Buck a Base or Base a Buck… Can you pick me up…? “Ask your hubby he might breakdown_____Spinal Tap Touch & Go Cords.… with pin point Accuracy Fulfilling all Requests…” Got her Master's Degree of Physician Assistant Studies at Jefferson College of Health and Sciences School year was 2002 · BS Physician Assistant. The UNCW 1995 to 1997 Italian Shaved Iced of a Attitude… Why didn't you tell me what happen when it happen instead of waiting a year later. I would of been more than Glad to do the Goldberg the Goldbird on him... I have learned if you hurt another male to protect a female the police want do nothing to you...What did the UNCW Professors do and say because he was real popular...? (1)

However you did Knee and kick him in the Ally Opp Belly Up Broughton HighSchool Pistol Pete Mavarick also got handles Owe the Balance Beam did not Kick Back and you Kicked Off Ooh... However, you are real mean when you are disrespected or violated...I Guess I know I have never seen it...Except on the Basketball Court....Average boys make me laugh thinking College Division One Females and Up feel so good you look like all the other Girls outside of Athletics...you just was and wanted 100% Kill...huh Touchdown My Exceptions (Born: March 21, 1977) Oh....Um...August 29, 2008 --> She came along from the or a Stork A B B Y she never heard about us…? …………….) (2)

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hekate1308 · 7 years

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Aftermath

Yes, still going. Basically at this point I am fixing the universe. What can you do.

Being himself again feels amazing.

The second the spell lifts is... indescribable. Finally able to take a step outside his room, finally his own master once more.

He didn’t expect his mother to let him go so easily. In return he lets her go. She’s too scared for her own hide to attempt to go against them now.

As soon as the warding’s down, he’s in front of the Men of Letter’s base, but finds they’ve strongly increased their protection.

Bollocks. He would have loved to tear them apart limb from limb.

He returns to the mansion to Dean reading him the riot act.

“The second the spell is lifted you just disappear?”

He wasn’t that fast, he could point out. After all he had time to send Mother on her way and... hug Dean.

Strange.

Strange, but not bad.

“I wanted to check on the Men of letters”.

“I’m guessing they fortified their security?” Cas asks.

He nods.

“Would have been too good to be true” Dean mumbles. “Don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving. Burgers, anyone?”

Dean knows he has a weakness for his cooking.

“I’ll get the beer. We have something to celebrate, alright” Sam decides.

“We gotta get Crowley up to speed anyway, might as well do it during dinner” Mick says in something that, while not quite yet a convincing American accent, makes it seem far less likely that he’ll storm into a Starbucks and demand a proper afternoon tea.

“You sure you’re from London?” Aaron asks.

Mick beams. “I’ve been training my accent so I can play fed if it’s necessary”.

“Wonderful. A + for effort, Peachfuzz. Can we leave the room now, please?”

“Sure” Dean says, leading the way. “I imagine you’re sick of these walls.”

“You have no idea”.

“By the way” Aaron asks while they’re walking to the dining room (he’s walking because he finally can again), “last night I wanted to go to the bathroom and ended up at the swimming pool.”

“There’s a lot of power running this place. Why do you think bedrooms keep showing up when we need them? It’s bound to glitch now and then.”

Aaron accepts the explanation as a matter of course.

“Makes for much less cleaning than in the bunker” Dean comments.

“Do you think Mary ever goes back there?”

“There’s nothing left. Crowley saw to that.”

Of course. Not a scrap left for these bastards.

“I like the feel of this place. It’s good” Matan says, still studying Crowley.

The hints are piling up that his soul is not as dark as it used to be. If he’s being honest, it’s rather confusing. He certainly feels like the same demon he always was. He just has... other priorities now.

And Dean’s burgers really are delicious, even if he really makes any excuse he can to cook them.

Not even Moose complains about there not being any salad to eat.

After their meal, they start calling on their allies, so they know he can finally be trusted again.

Well.

As much trusted as it gets, anyway. He is the King of Hell after all.

Speaking of which, he should perhaps go check everything’s well...

Mick hangs up the phone, his face glowing.

“Mel’s coming over.”

On the other hand, Hell can wait.

“Crowley! So good to see you out of that trap!”

“It is better than you having to be carried in a bathtub, mistress of the waves.”

“Oh, really, that was the fun part”.

“Speak for yourself” Dean grumbles, but even he is smiling at the wraith flitting around in their swimming pool.

“Hi Mick” she says casually. He does his best to disappear behind the golem.

“And who’s this?”

“Aaron and Matan, his golem”.

“You do have the most interesting guests.”

“It appears to come with the territory” Cas tells her, eyeing the pool.

“You are one to talk, Mr. angel.”

“Not anymore.”

“I’m sure Dean disagrees.”

“Guys, not that I’m not glad you are enjoying your banter, but there are still people who want to kill all of us” Aaron says.

“Sorry, he’s a bit tense because we didn’t call him...” Sam begins.

“Hello?” he gestures towards his golem.

“Wait” Mel asks, “are we going to literally tear them apart?”

“It would be easy” Aaron answers.

Crowley decides he can stay.

“Yes, but we’re not going for that. Sending the message that we destroy anyone who poses a threat... That’s how they worked for years. That’s how they got big in Britain. We won’t let that happen” Dean says firmly.

“What we’re building... the foundation of it not’s going to be fear”.

Fine by him. He should know best that fear as a method of subjugation only works up to a certain point.

He really should check what the demons have been doing while he’s been gone.

“How moving, Squirrel, but there are more phone calls we need to make. I would go tell our friends, but...”

“They can’t be sure you’re not still under the spell” Dean finishes. “True.”

“I’ll tell the nature spirits” Mel happily offers. “They will be relieved you are who you should be.”

There’s a meaning behind her words he understands only too well.

Still, he has to go to Hell.

“I’ll be back soon” he tells the room.

“Don’t let the demons bite” Dean calls out just as he vanishes.

It has been two months since he was placed under the spell. He hasn’t been here in... perhaps three? His sense of time is still acting up, probably because it was easier to just relax and go with the flow, so to speak, while he was waiting in his room.

Everything seems to be in order. No one appears to great him, but he’s got used to that. Other demons despise him, always have.

He’s still surprised at how Hell feels, though.

No matter how much he abhors the place ever since he was torn apart by hellhounds for his deal, it has always felt like he belongs here.

Because of course he does. Hell’s a demon’s home.

Only this...

God, he can’t wait to get out of here. Either it’s actually worse than he remembers, or he has forgotten just how bad Hell can be, how it tears everything apart, only leaving rage and hatred –

He’s back in his room at the mansion without having made a conscious effort to return to it.

That was... interesting.

He teleports to the library. Everyone’s either on the phone or using other ways of communication.

So the rabbi figured out the Hebrew communication spell. Crowley meant to ask him about that.

Aaron finishes his talk and turns around.

“Al is... really something”.

“That he is.”

“He says to tell you he’s glad he doesn’t have to lie anymore. And someone called Lizzie Hexam almost started to cry?”

“She’s a very affectionate lady.”

“I can tell.”

Aaron’s eyes wander over their little group.

“When Dean told me... I didn’t imagine things to have grown this... big”.

“The Winchesters really changed the landscape in the last two years” he agrees.

“Not them alone...” Aaron trails off. “You know, I was a little worried. When Dean said “King of Hell” I imagined Lucifer 2.0, not...”

“My amazing self. I know.”

Aaron’s next words still surprise him.

“If it wasn’t for the powers, I wouldn’t have guessed you’re a demon.”

That can’t be true, certainly. He is very demonic. He did have a lot of fun with Ketch, after all he was going after his –

Wait. That’s a reason he had fun doing all of that. He’s supposed to –

But no, he’s not. Because the boys wouldn’t like it.

By the time night arrives, he’s rather confused from the day’s events.

Maybe it’s just an after effect of the spell.

Wandering through the mansion, ensuring it’s still safe, he happens across Dean, who’s enjoying a nightcap in the library.

His first drink of the night, it appears.

“Hey, Crowley. Want a drink?”

“Always glad to join. Where’s the hubby?”

“Cas is already in bed. I’m not that tired.”

He pours him a glass of Craig.

“So you’re good?”

He nods.

“Thank God for that. Hunting’s not the same without you in the background being annoying”.

“I want to point out that I am also sarcastic and useful on the forefront.”

Dean chuckles.

“I know that.” He looks at him.

“Still, man. Good to see you out of that trap.”

After a pause he adds, “Missed you.”

He wouldn’t have admitted that a few years ago. But he already hugged him, so he probably figures it doesn’t matter.

“Naturally you did.”

“You are never going to change, aren’t you.”

“You think I haven’t?”

The sincerity of his question surprises.

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Of course you have.”

Crowley looks away.

“So gonna tell me what this is about? It’s not Rowena, is it?”

He grimaces; that’s a subject for another day.

“No. She cast the spell, but she also set me free without being forced to. She can go and do what she wants. I don’t care.”

“Alright then, something else. Want to talk about it?”

“I hate Hell” he says simply.

“I’ve known that for years.”

“No. When I went there today... I absolutely loathe it. Can’t stand the place.”

He turns his head to find understanding in Dean’s eyes.

“When was the last time you did something really douchy anyway?” he asks abruptly.

Since he’s been wondering the same, he has finally found an answer.

“I blasted that shifter last week.”

“When it tried to strangle Mick. That’s hardly a demonic act.”

“There was Ketch.”

“Come on, every single one of us wanted to kill him. That doesn’t count.”

“You don’t know what I did to him.”

“And you seriously don’t think he did the same to others, even though he was human?”

“You’ve grown quite good at discussions” Crowley grinds out through his teeth.

“I’m not even sure what we’re really discussing anymore, so – “

“Do you still think I’m evil?” he interrupts him flatly.

Dean blinks. Takes a sip of his drink.

“You’ve certainly done enough evil deeds in your lifetime. Sammy told me you bragged about it.”

“And then I didn’t kill him.”

He was convinced back then that it was just a move to show his power, to torment Sam Winchester.

He’s not so sure anymore.

“Thanks for that, by the way. But I guess it... depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you want to be evil.”

That question was once so easy to answer, too.

“I...”

He stops.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. What do I know? I’ve been a demon, Sammy got close, Cas became God... There are more things in Heaven and earth...”

“Shakespeare, really?”

Dean shrugs.

“He was right about that, at least.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

And, side by side, the best hunter in the world and the first and only King of Hell who will end up renouncing his crown sit and enjoy the silence.

#my writings #destiel #crowley

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gokinjeespot · 5 years

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off the rack #1274

Monday, August 12, 2019

I was at out annual cottage rental over the weekend and just got home. I brought my boat up this year and fished in some new water and had a blast.

Future Foundation #1 - Jeremy Whitley (writer) Will Robson (pencils) Will Robson with Daniele Orlandini (inks) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). The reason that we haven't seen these kids on the racks recently is because they've been jumping around the multiverse with the Fantastic Four. They're still doing that but they have a mission to find pieces of Molecule Man. I know that Jeremy Whitley can handle team books with his run on The Unstoppable Wasp being very enjoyable. I like the nice clean art by Will Robson and the cliffhanger ending introducing the super villain so I'm going to keep reading.

House of X #2 - Jonathan Hickman (writer) Pepe Larraz (art) Marte Gracia (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). I loved this intimate look at the lives of Moira MacTaggert. This goes way beyond her being a scientist or the girlfriend of Professor X. Fair warning X-Fans. These issues are selling out fast so garb them off the racks when you see them.

Batman #76 - Tom King (writer) Tony S. Daniel (pencils) Tony S. Daniel, Sandu Florea & Norm Rapmund (inks) Tomeu Morey (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). City of Bane part 2. This is where we find out where Bruce is while Thomas Batman and Gotham Girl protects Gotham City. This alternate reality is chock full of surprises.

Daredevil #9 - Chip Zdarsky (writer) Lalit Kumar Sharma (pencils) Jay Leisten (inks) Java Tartaglia (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). No Devils, Only God part 4. This is turning out to be like a new Daredevil origin story. Matt questions if there's a God and whether he should use his super powers to fight crime. Matt thinks he's a good Catholic but then he goes and breaks a commandment right at the end. I don't care if we don't see the old familiar red costume again as long as Matt goes into action fighting crime either on the streets or in the court room.

Black Cat #3 - Jed MacKay (writer) Travel Foreman (art) Michael Dowling (flashback art) Brian Reber (colours) Ferran Delgado (letters). Xander the Merciless goes power mad when he gets his hands on his Star-Stone again. Jed MacKay makes clever use of Felicia's bad luck super power to get out of this caper unscathed. I can't wait for the next heist.

Lois Lane #2 - Greg Rucka (writer) Mike Perkins (art) Paul Mounts (colours) Simon Bowland (letters). Lois's brand of investigative journalism gets her in deep doo-doo. When bullets start flying it doesn't help when your hubby is not around even though he's faster than one. This is about government corruption and is just the right kind of story for the times.

Invisible Woman #2 - Mark Waid (writer) Mattia De Iulis (art) VC's Joe Caramagna (letters). The presence of the Black Widow legitimises this "Susan Richards (nee Storm) was a spy" story. Their team-up in Madripoor gets them a new lead to Sue's old partner. Get ready for another red head.

Immortal Hulk #22 - Al Ewing (writer) Joe Bennett (pencils) Ruy Jose & Belardino Brabo (inks) Paul Mounts (colours) VC's Cory Petit (letters). The Hulk isn't in this issue much because he's fighting the Thing over in Fantastic Four. His allies however are getting ready to take on General Fortean/the Abomination. Not to worry Hulk fans, the big green galoot will join the fray I'm sure.

DCeased #4 - Tom Taylor (writer) Trevor Hairsine (pencils) Stefano Gaudiano (inks) Rain Beredo (colours) Saida Temofonte (letters). It's the anti-life equation that's zombiefied the DCU and there's no way to reverse it. I liked how Cyborg was the bearer of the bad news. When Captain Atom succumbs, it makes for an explosive ending to this issue. We've seen this happen before with Captain Atom blowing up and I don't know how the heroes are going to survive.

Berserker Unbound #1 - Jeff Lemire (writer) Mike Deodato Jr. (art) Frank Martin (colours) Steve Wands (letters). This new book surprised me. I picked it up because both writer and artist are names that I am familiar with and have enjoyed their previous work. It starts off like a Conan rip-off with a big burly ginger warrior wandering home only to find his wife and daughter slaughtered. He then commences to kill the invading horde singlehandedly but is wounded. Things get interesting when he takes refuge in a cave and is transported to present day New York City. I know this has been done already with Red Sonja and recently with Conan being brought into modern times in Savage Avengers but I like Jeff's stories and I'm going to keep reading this one.

Superman Up In The Sky #2 - Tom King (writer) Andy Kubert (pencils) Sandra Hope (inks) Brad Anderson (colours) Clayton Cowles (letters). It would be hard to believe that there are people that don't know who Superman is or what kind of hero he is. If you know anyone like that you can give them this comic book for a very concise portrait of the Man of Steel. Superman gets some reluctant help in locating a kidnapped girl and the search continues. I loved the action and pathos in this issue.

Savage Avengers #4 - Gerry Duggan (writer) Mike Deodato Jr. (art) Frank Martin (colours) VC's Travis Lanham (letters). The gang's all here. The last splash page and the next issue splash page made me chuckle. What an unlikely team of Avengers. Elektra, Doctor Voodoo, the Punisher, Venom, Wolverine and Conan the Barbarian all fighting the sorcerer Kulan Gath and the alien demon he conjured. It's no coincidence that this book and Berserker Unbound #1 hit the racks in the same week. Mike Deodato Jr. can really swash a buckle.

Agents of Atlas #1 - If you're a fan of big super teams, this is the book for you. There are nine on the cover and there's plenty more inside. This issue has two stories. The new crew of young heroes are in "The Portal City of Pan" by Greg Pak (writer), Nico Leon (art), Federico Blee (colours) & VC's Joe Sabino (letters). I do find the little ID captions annoying but it does help to identify all the players. Otherwise you'd need a score card. In "Behind the Veil" by Jeff Parker (writer), Carlo Pagulayan (pencils) Jason Paz (inks), Dono Sanchez Almara (colours) & VC's Joe Sabino (letters), the senior team of 3-D Man, Venus, the Uranian, Gorilla Man, the robot M-11 and Namora investigate a temple controlled by a corrupt general. Both stories reminds us that there are dragons involved with this outfit. I had forgotten that. I think everyone did a good job with this huge assemblage so I think I'm going to keep up with their adventures.

The Sensational Spider-Man #1 - This $4.99 US one shot has two stories harkening back to the good old days when the heroes and villains were clear cut and easily recognisable.

In "Burn Job" by Peter David (writer), Rick Leonardi (pencils), Victor Olazaba (inks), Rachelle Rosenberg (colours) & VC's Travis Lanham (letters), Spider-Man teams up with the Human Torch to fight off Firebrand, a bitter super villain out to hurt his ex-wife. This could be where the idea of a black costume for Spider-Man got started. It was submitted by a fan in the early eighties and Editor in Chief at the time, Jim Shooter asked the guy to submit a story plot. This was before Secret Wars. It's a fun story and holds up after all these years.

The second story "With No Power" by Tom DeFalco (script & plot), Ron Frenz (pencils & plot), Sal Buscema (inks), Chris Sotomayor (colours) & VC's Travis Lanham (letters), shows us that we all must still have some responsibility for our actions. This one made me roll my eyes but I got all nostalgic seeing the Ron Frenz and Sal Buscema art. This is not a must have for Spider-Man fans but you get your money's worth if you've got some to spare.

Absolute Carnage #1 - Donny Cates (writer) Ryan Stegman (pencils) JP Mayer (inks) Frank Martin (colours) VC's Clayton Cowles (letters). This isn't a case of my saving the best for last. More like I'm not a Carnage fan so if I didn't have time to read this, no big deal. I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. Donny Cates lays out what this story is all about very nicely so that I could follow what's going on even though I haven't read a Venom or Carnage story in a while. Carnage is collecting the DNA of anyone who has ever been touched by a Symbiote which means innocent lives are in danger, particularly Eddie Brock, the original Venom. I'm glad this is focused more on Eddie's story rather than Carnage's murderous ways, otherwise I would not want to continue to read the rest of this mega event. There are going to be many cross over books so if you want to get the whole story start saving up your money now.

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ggdbcheapforsale-blog · 5 years

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keimanzero · 6 years

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Anyone know where I can find this series on VHS or DVD? All I can find are manga books. Thanks.

Greetings fellow Toonami anime fans! I am now keeping those of ya who cannot get CN's Adult Swim Toonami on TV informed and up to date on Toonami's eppys each week. From now on, I am going to be posting updates weekly (Usually on Sundays) here at FB and Twitter as well as at Gaia's Chatterbox.

First off here's the new ASToonami schedule (All times Eastern):

11 PM: Dragon Ball Super

11:30 PM: Dragon Ball Z Kai

12:00 M: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

12:30 AM: Gundam:Iron-Blooded Orphans)(NEW)(Season 2)

1:00 AM: Hunter x Hunter

1:30 AM: Lupin III Part IV

2:00 AM: Naruto Shippuden

2:30 AM: Outlaw Star

3:00 AM: Cowboy Bebop

3:30 AM: Ghost/Shell:2nd Gig

Samurai Jack has been terminated but this coming 28-29 October Hall-o-we'en weekend, Toonami is airing a marathon of the final season of this long anime series.

Updates for 21-22 Oct 2017:

DBSuper: Tournament continues w/ Earth the property of Universe 6 if Beerus's team loses to Champa's team. Vegeta then takes on Hit, the strongest team member from Universe 6. Using time travel, Hit easily defeats the Saiyaan prince. Goku now faces this unusual assassin warrior who is a millenium old! Goku feels him out before going to Super Saiyaan first like vegeta did. Goku soon discovers Hit's secret time travel trick and is using it against the big blowhard. Who will win? Find out 5-6 Novenber weekend.

DBZ Kai: While Gohan struggles to master the Z Sword on Kai World and the kids (Trunks & GoTen) try to master 'fusion' on the Lookout, Babidi & Buu continue their reign of terror on Earth. At long last, Goku returns to Otherworld w/ Baba where king Yema informs him that Gohan is not dead yet. Videl tells the gang that she senses that Gohan is still alive- somewhere. Buu builds himself a house out of people turned into clay and continues his rampage. In a rare show of kindness, Buu restores a blind boy's sight and then creates a carton of milk for the lad from a poor delivery guy. Goku meets his son Gohan on the Kai World and Gohan manages to break the Z Sword thus proving that it is the sword's wielder (Goku also handled the Z blade w/ ease) who will have the ability to defeat Buu. The old mustachioed Supreme Kai (From 15 regenerations ago) appears to Kibita, Shin, Goku and Gohan with a revelation for them.

Jojo's BA: Joseph's 'bugbite' on his arm is revealed as a Stand who almost kills him after killing a doctor in India. The cops think Joseph's the killer. Finally, Joseph's Hamon Stand defeats The Empress (Enya) who was the young harem girl. As she dies, the sorceress reverts to her true old crone form. On towards Egypt for the 4 friends.

Gundam:Iron-Blooded Orphans: Orca now leads Tekkaman's kids as advisors to the now allies Gallahorn but all is not so peaceful. More battles and the Boss engineer tells a Tekkadan 17 year old boy that he is too old for the surgery he needs to undergo to pilot a mobile suit Gundam. Kudelia chats w/ her boyfriend who is the best pilot in Tekkadan. Tekkadan & Gjallahorn forces ally to defeat the Dawn Horizon pirates who are forced to retreat.

Hunter x Hunter: Several teams band together to defeat the Bomber team by hoarding catds. HxH seems to be turning into a cross vetween Yu-Gi-Oh and Sword Art Online. With the combined tactics of Hisoka, Gon and Killua, Razor is at last defeated. He gives Gon news of Jin, Gon's father and the gang heads into battle against the Bomber. Well, almost. The big guy with the team that has defeated the pirates agrees (For a 75 card) to draw Bomber's fire while Killua's injuries heal- 3 more weeks. Bisky, Killua and Gon leave the area and hope to avoid Bomber. Hisoka leaves the groups in search of the Phantom Troupe.

Lupin III: Lupin takes a day off with Zenigata hot on his heels. Lupin, Goemon and Jigen are on their way to a sushi restaurant when Lupin drops a bimbshell. Seems he's agreed to help out Fujiko by delivering Josephine, a doggie belonging to a rich fat lady to Fujiko when the cruise ship she's aboard makes landfall at port. Lupin avoids Pops persistent pursuits and does a Duke Boys' number with his car when he jumps from the Cape to the ship's deck. The dog bites his mistress (She refuses to pay the reward to Fujiko) and swims back to shore where he is befriended by 3 co-eds.

Naruto S: The tale of Iruka Sensei and Naruto concludes and we are back to Sasuke and his new gang who are on their way back to the Leaf Village while the Okatsuke rethink their plans. Now they are after the 8 tailed Beast.

Outlaw Star: Arriving at a faroff outpost, Gene, jimbo, Melvina and Twilight part ways for awhile. Twilight has 'business' to attend to but promises to meet them back at the Star. Gene and Jimbo go after a notorious outlaw (10K Wongs reward) and manage to defeat an Android version of the bad guy for a 2K Wongs reward. Mel is left to her own devices and expores the shops. Twilight arrives back with the gang, having defeated the real culprit and collected her 10K Wongs reward. Gene cannot wait to split this world!

Cowboy Bebop: Heavy Metal Queen is 'VT', a space rig 'trucker' who joins forces w/ Faye and Spike to bring down a bounty head named Decker who has stolen a shipment of unstable explosives. We learn how to make a hangover cure called a 'Prairie Oyster'- Yuck! VT has an ongoing bet with a fat stack of Woolongs to the winner. Just guess what VT stands for and win! Spike wins by guessing Victoria Terpsichore, the widow of the famed bounty hunter Terpsichore. However, he takes only a hundred Woolong note for his share and tells VT to buy her hubby a Prairie Oyster with the rest. This eppy inspired me to create 'Trucks In Space' which has become an ongoing part of my fanfictions.

Ghost/Shell: 2nd Gig: In the first eppy from this 2nd season of GITS, the Section Nine gang, headed by Najor Makoto Kucinagi rescues hostages from a group known as the Individual Eleven. They take out all of the 11 members of this hostile refugee group despite the red tape and slow paperwork from the Home Secretary and the new Prime Minister who looks a lot like Chief Aramaki's wine cellar friend in the London eppy 'Angel's Share' from the first season. Who can name all 8 members of Section Nine? Who knows who the 9th member(s) is/are? Hint- They ain't human!

No video games this week.

See ya next time, gang. Tell your friends about my updates.- The Keiman.

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