#rw true suffering

[therotconsumed]

thought process when winds

@insane-oc-posting

#rain world #rain world inv #rw inv #rain world enot #rw enot #rain world oc #rw oc #rain world iterator #rw iterator #rw true suffering #rw shipping

[insane-oc-posting]

#rain world #rain world oc #iterator oc #insane oc posting #rain world true suffering #rw oc #rw true suffering

[uniteight]

"Does it get easier with time for the immortal? If I was born normal If I become normal, can I stay close? With the children, we link our arms Make a circle and sing a song Knowing there was no chair for me all along"

DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH RAIN WORLD BRAIN ROT THIS SONG GIVES ME LIKE LITERALLY THAT FIRST VERSE IS ALREADY H E A R T B R E A K I N G AND I HAVE SO MUCH INSPIRATION AND JUST AAAAAAAAAAAA THINK ABOUT MOON OR PEBBLES OR LITERALLY ANY ITERATOR WHILE LOOKING AT THE LYRICS MY HEART MY HEART OW OW OW OW OW OW OW IM DEAD AND DYING AND I HAVE EVAPORATED AND BECOME ONE WITH THE WATER CYCLE MR STARK I DONT FEEL SO GOOD :(((((((((

#foaming at the mouth rn and furiously making an au SPECIFICALLY so i can use parts of this song as inspiration #rain world #rw #rain world iterators #MY 3 FOLLOWERS I HAVE A JOB FOR YOU I NEED YOU TO SPREAD THIS SONG IM BEGGING YOU OTHER PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW MY AGONY. #agony pain suffering tragedy true and utter devastation #Youtube

[pineappleciders]

Hi there! First of all, I want to say I love your art! You have a very cute style. Second of all, if it's okay with you, can we get some headcanons for the RW Omori gang (plus Mari) on their reactions to the reader (their crush) liking someone else? Even if you ignore this, thanks for reading it! :)

-🪐

A/N: thank you so much!! i hope you have a good day/night :))

RW OMORI gang (SUNNY, KEL, AUBREY, HERO, BASIL, and MARI) and their reactions to G/N reader liking somebody else headcanons

slight angst/hurt warning

SUNNY

he'd be super sad but he wouldn't really show it

in fact, he'd talk to you the next day as if nothing happened and he never liked you at all

he hates himself for it but he can't help but hold a but of resentment for the person you like

he understands though, he doesn't like himself so he doesn't expect anyone else to

he still has feelings for you but he tries to push them away,, it's still painfully obvious to anyone else though

KEL probably notices and once he asks about it, SUNNY gets all emotional and rants to him about the person you like

overall it'll probably take a huge hit at his mental health but he copes by like,,, making your headspace counterpart like him back (kind of like with aubrey?? again he hates himself for it but it's his only way to cope without MARI to talk to)

KEL

he'll probably laugh it off like usual

he's hurt but he expected it. i think he has a low self-esteem but doesn't show it

he still talks to you like normal, but if the topic of your crush ever gets brought up he tries to change the conversation or just stop talking altogether

he does hope you two get together for your happiness, but the voice in the back of his head curses your crush (he feels terrible for it and shakes the thought away)

he unknowingly tries to spoil you sometimes, like showing up at your door with food or just getting you stuff

he doesn't really think about it, it just happens (and if someone points it out he gets embarrassed and stops)

he definitely gets jealous and is heartbroken but he pushes it away and acts fine. your friendship will continue normally if you don't like him back, after all he is an expert on pretending like everything is okay!!

AUBREY

her first reaction is to kind of scoff

she isn't angry at you, she's angry at herself for thinking she had a chance

she might avoid you for a few days after, because she's embarrassed and she doesn't know how to take it

eventually she gathers herself together and starts talking to you again. she might be a little more on edge around people though

she's upset, but she doesn't let it show. she knew it was coming, it always does. she doesn't know why she keeps expecting things when all that comes is disappointment

she still kind of tries to rizz u up but stops herself because she doesn't want to cross any boundaries. by rizz i mean taking you places or holding your hand

again kind of angry at your crush but she doesn't hate them or anything. she doesn't think it's anyones fault but her own

overall?? she suffers in her own mind for a bit but gets over it after awhile. she still talks to you and you guys are still best friends, she just pushes her feelings for you down as far as they can go

HERO

he's pretty upset but he pushes it down,, that's what him and KEL were taught to do when they were sad

some days it might take him a little while to get out of bed. his health has decreased after his depression following MARI's death, but his routine gets just a tad slower after he realizes you don't like him back

he wants to think he'll never find true love again. the rejection hurt even worse because this was the only time since the loss of his girlfriend that he truly liked someone, and just as fast as it started, it ended

still talks to you a lot and gives you gifts. in fact, people on the outside might even think you're dating with how much he spoils you

despite his very obviously romantic advances, he tried to convince himself and everyone that it's not like that at all and that you're just friends

he isn't truly lying, after all. you are just friends. but his subconscious is still trying to claw onto any sort of love he can get

BASIL

he chuckles awkwardly and leaves to go cry

similar to AUBREY, he didn't know why he thought he had any chance of you liking him back

he has an attachment to you, romantically or not, so no matter how hard he tries to push his feelings away they always come back when he sees your smile

he gives you flowers from his garden and takes more photos of you. not in a creepy way, it's really the only way to cope for BASIL. to reassure himself that you aren't leaving.

even if it isn't romantic, even if it involves no love, he is by your side, and you're sure to remind him that

he'll pretend everything is fine, but acts a little more jittery around you

then when he gets home at night he cries himself to sleep (not unusual for BASIL)

probably talks to POLLY (or AUBREY post good ending) about the situation, and they'll comfort him and give him advice

although AUBREY just might try to hit it into his skull that you don't like him back

he bottles up his emotions and lets them spill out when he's alone. if you ask him what's wrong or if your tone of voice changes, he's hugging you and crying into your shoulder

he wouldn't dare utter a word implying his feelings of anguish about you, no no. he can't have you worry or feel bad.

MARI

similar to KEL, she'll pretend like nothing happened

she's definitely sad, and might even talk to SUNNY or HERO for advice (for clarification in an AU in which hero and mari are not dating..... to make it make sense)

she accepts it. she's heartbroken, but she'd rather die than push you or cross your boundaries, or show any weakness, so she ignores it and moves on.

of course, every once in awhile, if you and your crush were dating, she'd see you two together and definitely feel some frustration bubble up

but she can't let it show. she'd be an asshole for getting mad at you for dating someone, or resenting your partner. MARI understands.

she understands that she isn't perfect. she knows she isn't a great partner. she doesn't blame you, really.

you two continue your friendship, close like nothing went on. but deep down, MARI has so many emotions that she can't keep in for long.

who knows when it's going to spill out?

#omori x reader #omori mari x reader #mari omori x reader #sunny omori x reader #omori sunny x reader #hero omori x reader #omori hero x reader #basil omori x reader #omori basil x reader #omori aubrey x reader #aubrey omori x reader #kel omori x reader #omori kel x reader #omori headcanons #omori imagines #omori kel #omori sunny #omori aubrey #omori hero #omori basil #omori mari #kel omori #sunny omori #hero omori #basil omori #mari omori #aubrey omori #omori fandom

[matan4il]

I love your posts about Jewish representation on TV and it reminded me of another post I saw by someone else who talked about how there’s a movie coming soon to Amazon that’s based on a book (it’s called Red and White & Royal Blue), and how the only Jewish character from the book was the only character to not be cast authentically in the movie because the actress and her family and openly and proudly Christian. I don’t think the character herself was canonically very religious, she goes home for Hanukkah, but she was written as Jewish ethnically. The blog I read it on talked about how it’s Jew erased because they didn’t cast someone Jewish and you can’t play another ethnicity (especially a minority one) and because the character doesn’t really do anything Judaism related, no one will even know she was supposed to be Jewish. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on it?

Hi Nonnie! And just lemme give you the BIGGEST hug! I thought this was fascinating. I'm so glad that you enjoy my posts about Jewish representation on TV and in film, they're obviously really important to me on a very personal level. IDK if this'll make you happy to hear, but I plan on writing at least two more posts about Jewish rep, one on OUaT and one on Friends. All in the context of my theory regarding Jewish rep. Here’s my thoughts on your ask...

What you're asking about can be referred to as the question of "Jewface." It's a term that has existed since the late 19th century, when non-Jews started portraying caricatures of Jews, often while wearing fake enlarged noses, fake long beards, ragged clothes and speaking with a thick Yiddish accent. By 1909, mainstream American Jewry had already decried this custom. But recently, this term has been brought up again, in 2021 Sarah Silverman wanted to talk about the way Jewish roles often go to non-Jewish actors.

I have to admit that as a general understanding seemed to take over that white people should not be cast in the role of POC for several reasons, Jews were left out of that discussion, so I think Sarah was absolutely right in bringing it up, as are you to ask about the casting of this Jewish character in RW&RB. The thing is, Jews ARE an ethno-religion. That means that we're not like Christians or Muslims, who are only bound together by a shared religion, Jews are also bound by shared ancestry. We're not the only ones, BTW! Another prominent ethno-religion is the Druze. Now, the Druze are far more strict than the Jews, they cannot marry any non-Druze and no one can convert to the Druze religion. Judaism isn't as strict: Jews can marry non-Jews, and people can convert to Judaism. However, for most of Jewish history, not that many people converted to Judaism. It was due to more than one reason:

Many non-Jews never got a chance to know Jews and Judaism, so there would be no reason for them consider converting.

Judaism on its part is against trying to convert non-Jews to Judaism (we believe that if someone converts, that means their soul was always Jewish, they were always meant to be a part of the Jewish people. But for that, conversion has to be an act of free will and not the result of a campaign of persuasion).

Jews were persecuted to such a degree, they suffered discrimination in every walk of life you can think of, they were lied about, demonized, repeatedly attacked, too often even massacred, so why would you want to be a Jew? Even if you did get to know Jews and Judaism and decided you liked this, the price to pay for being Jewish was just too great. This was an obstacle to conversion as well as to simply marrying Jews.

This is why for the most part, non-Jews did not convert to Judaism. At the same time, Jews sought to marry other Jews in order to pass on the Jewish identity, faith, values, traditions, culture, language, etc. As one lady explained it to me some years ago, "If you truly believe that a certain set of values is full of good, that your religion is true and enriching, and that your culture is beautiful, why wouldn't you want your kids to have all that as well? And the best way of ensuring that inheritance was by marrying and having kids with another Jew."

That means that to a great degree, the People of Israel (notice, this is what Jews call themselves in the Bible: not the Religion of Israel, the People of Israel, עם ישראל) did remain one people, one nation. Even the exceptional people who did convert to Judaism, they also married into the Jewish people, and their kids married Jews as well, and so did their grandchildren, and so the descendants of converts still shared that same common Jewish ancestry.

And all of this together was probably critical to the survival of Jewish identity. Take for example the Philistines. They were a seafaring people (most likely Greek and originating in the island of Crete based on the pottery they left behind) who invaded the Land of Israel from the west and settled along the southern part of Israel's coast. When the Babylonian empire invaded and occupied the Land of Israel roughly 2600 years ago, the Philistines were expelled to Babylon together with the Jews. But where the Jews maintained their identity long enough for the Persian empire under Cyrus the Great to defeat the Babylonians and allow the return of exiled populations to their homelands, the Philistines disappeared from the pages of history. Historians believe it's most likely that as a small minority, they inter-married with the majority, the Babylonians, to the point where they lost their culture, their language, their faith, and as a result, their distinct identity, and that's why there's no record of them after the expulsion to Babylon.

Now back to the question of casting, while Jews all over the world share common ancestry, we don't necessarily all look the same. The Middle East is actually a place where facial features and skin tones have always been very diverse, and that's what the Jews are, Middle Eastern. Add to that some degree of inter-marriage with convert Jews, and the result is that there really is no one look that all Jews share. So the question of casting, I don't think it's best tackled through that prism. I think it's more about the way the ethnic part of the ethno-religious identity of Jews should be acknowledged. About feeling like we matter, and that casting directors take Jewish identity into account, just like they do when they cast for a black character or an Indian one or a Native American. I also think having this conversation would allow us to talk about how the idea of Jewish facial features HAS BEEN demonized along the centuries (precisely that idea of the "Jewish nose" that was used in ugly antisemitic caricatures, or the idea of Jews having darker complexions than the average European).

Lastly, I know some people might point out that Jews get to be cast as non-Jews, so supposedly this shouldn't prevent non-Jews from being cast as Jews. Well, other actors who are POC are sometimes cast in roles originally intended for white people. An example is the 2018 show Troy: Fall of a City which cast a black Achilles, even though he was Greek (and specifically described as having fair features, as the ancient Greeks believed that was a sign of being favored by the gods). As much as such a casting might stir a discussion, at no point would we assume this means it would be okay to cast a white person in a movie about Martin Luther King Jr.!

Which brings me to another point, the question of which Jewish roles are played by Jews and which are not. This is something that I thought of being a gay woman. I know that a lot of gay actors, once they come out and are publicly perceived as gay, they get type cast as gay. It doesn't matter whether they look gay. It doesn't matter that prior to coming out, they could get lots of straight roles. Once they're identified as gay, there's a world of roles they're not going to get anymore, especially as a romantic lead or an action hero. It's a part of why many gay actors choose not to come out, even if they're okay doing so on every other level.

I'll just stop the analyzing of gay roles for a second to mention that this was true for Jews for a really long time as well. Yes, they were cast in non-Jewish roles, but they had to change their names and make sure no one would know they're actually Jewish. For example, beloved comedian Danny Kay was actually born David Daniel Kaminsky. Kirk Douglas, the movie legend? Born Issue Danielovitch Demsky. Winona Ryder? She was born Winona Horowitz. Natalie Hershlag? You know her as Natalie Portman.

At the same time as openly gay actors are limited to (mostly minor) gay roles, there are MAJOR gay roles in the entertainment industry, the ones that will have prestige attached to them, and those are almost always played by actors who are publicly known as straight. Think of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain, Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club or Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name. They're all men that the public knows as straight. Now, I think straight people should be able to play gay and learn some empathy for gay people through that, that gay people should get to play straight and not be punished through the loss of work opportunities for being open about being queer, and I also think that when it's all mixed up, that can also prevent the bullying of an actor for taking on a gay role to the point they're forced to come out (by accepting that it's okay to be queer, straight, questioning, gay-but-before-realization, and take on a gay role). BUT I do think we have to talk about the Big Gay Roles being cast almost exclusively by straight actors. We should put studios and execs, not actors, on the spot, and ask them for more Big Gay Roles and for more diverse casting in those roles, and we should def not badger a teenager for being cast in a gay role.

Along the same line, I was asking myself about Big Jewish Roles. TBH, over the years, there haven't been many, give or take mostly Holocaust movies. But now in recent years, we have the non-Jewish Rachel Brosnahan in the lead role as a Jewish woman in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, until that show was canned we had the non-Jewish Kathryn Hahn set to star as the Jewish Joan Rivers, the non-Jewish Daniel Craig was cast as the lead in the movie Defiance which told the real story of Tuvia Bielsky leading a group of Jewish partisans and saving the lives of roughly 1200 Jews during the Holocaust. These are just some examples off the top of my head, there are many more. So yeah, I'd like more Big Jewish Roles and more actual Jews cast in them.

In conclusion, I think Jewish actors being cast in Jewish roles should, at the very least, be talked about because it does matter and it does help explain a part of Jewish identity, and I also think we need more Jewish stories with Big Jewish Roles, and I think it does very much matter that those be cast (at least predominantly if not exclusively) with Jewish actors.

Thank you so much for being interested! And I am so sorry for the length... But I really didn't know how to do this subject justice in less words. xoxox

You can find my ask tag here and my other posts about Jewish representation here. xoxox

#ask #anon ask #jewish representation #jewish #jewish stuff #jumblr #judaism #jewish rep #jewish roles #jewish characters #jewish movies #jewish films #jewish media #jewish ethnicity #jewish indigeneity #fandom love #jr #pride #mm #kindness

[whumpster-fire]

Ya know, as much as I love The Railway Series / TTTE and I hate the whole “Sodor is an oppressive capitalist dystopia Sir Topham Hatt is evil, TTTE is anti-worker propaganda” thing, I’ve been rereading/rewatching some of the stories lately, and... I have to admit, some of them really do teach a very unhealthy attitude towards work, and in particular treating working while sick and “pushing through” injury being treated as a positive thing.

Like, off the top of my head I can think of three stories - Edward’s Exploit, Old Faithful, and Gallant Old Engine - where an engine has been suffering from health issues for a while but continuing to work regardless, finally has something serious / potentially catastrophic go wrong, and has to push through and limp the train back to the station because the train will be late / passengers will complain and the struggling railway that the engines are reliant on for survival may close, and this perseverance is portrayed as a positive thing, and long overdue repairs portrayed as a reward for this good behavior.

Which is kinda fucked up if I think about it.

Like, this is something different from the “Thomas Comes to Breakfast” thing where an engine is blamed for being careless when really it was a human who fucked up. It sounds bad but it’s caused by Awdry’s constant struggle between anthropomorphization and depicting railway operations with maximum realism resulting in him never being able to decide how much autonomy and agency the engines have, and he conceived of the engines’ personalities as allegorical for both the quirks of real machines and for the behavior of the real-life people working with them. And the moral lessons about arrogance and carelessness still usually hold up.

But in the “engines pushing through breakdowns” stories, if you view the engines as people then their bravery in pushing through bad situations is admirable, but it seems like there’s never any blame placed on the humans putting them in those situations by neglecting “medical” care and causing worse injuries by making them work while injured, and it’s never questioned that they should put not only other’s safety but others’ profits and convenience before their own well-being. And if you view them as machines then, uhh, failing to perform necessary maintenance on machinery to save time/money thus eventually causing something to break that’s much more expensive than if you’d fixed the original problem and take it out of service for months is a fucking stupid way to run a business. And extra stupid when you’re working with heavy equipment that can fail in a way that can easily cause severe injury or death, which is true of all trains and triple stupid with steam locomotives which are a giant fucking Mythbusters Hot Water Heater Rocket on wheels.

I want to see a RWS story where an engine severely damages themselves by trying to keep pulling a train they’re in no condition to pull and it’s treated as a bad thing and a bus having to take the passengers isn’t the end of the world. I want to see a mid-level manager trying to impress TFC getting chewed the fuck out and fired after it’s found out that he pressured or guilt-tripped an engine into lying about ongoing pain. I want to see an entitled Karen passenger waving a ticket stub in the crew’s face and complaining about how much the railway sucks in full earshot of an engine who’s just sitting there in horrible pain and their fireman just snatching the ticket stub, climbing into the cab, and throwing it in the firebox.

Like I guess James’s wooden brake blocks are sort in that vein but it’s kind of glossed over who the fuck let him pull a freight train with wooden brake blocks in the first place.

#Thomas the Tank Engine fandom #The Railway Series fandom #fiction discourse

[normalonline]

Patrick Bateman walks into planned parenthood

Everyone should agree with me because I'm normal and sane and the world is crazy and wrong. 90% of arguing addicts give up right before they convince the person they're debating that they are right and 10% stop before they get angry. Abortion is something I don't care about. I think it's something for women, both sides of it. That isn't a statement about it being a female right to decide, but it's an emotional issue that impacts women more. I was thinking how ineffective and delusional most anti abortion activists are. It's funny to me that they truly thought most people agreed with them. I don't think most people disagree with them, most people would rather have the "right" to the "option" though. I said this to my friend, he and I both view it as murder, but he thought saying that was immoral. Murder isn't immoral in anyones worldview though. No one thinks killing soldiers is wrong and most people like soldiers! Only insane pacifists think absolute non-violence is good and most of them support abortion so the whole thing is stupid.

This isn't really about abortion though. My friend said something to me that started a tangent of thought within me that was really interesting. He said that he thinks that everyone fundamentally knows what is moral and feel bad all of the time about their immorality. I don't think this is true. We're all born babies, if we aren't aborted. Babies get taught they're special and then told they're equal to other children and then have to rediscover that they are special when they learn no one is equal. There is one true point north moral compass in the world, deviation from that is wrong and will make you unhappy in the truest sense. But suffering is the basis of Christian morality and the way we orient morality more generally. Christ suffered despite perfection. Everyone who suffers generally feels it's unjustified regardless of what they might have done. To feel otherwise is base nihilism. Some people are like this. You can abduct a terrible person, in this scenario by random, and torture him, he will still feel and play the truth of a victim of circumstance. No one ever went to their death thinking they would burn in hell. The hero is Faust, we are all him, despite moral fault God will still save us in particular right?

I thought more about what person, or type of person thinks of themselves as a kind of monster despite still being axiomatically good. It's the RW incel on twitter. This is the origin of the "chad" as it exists within the wojak paradigm, not the OG bait. More specifically though, the Patrick Bateman archetype. This was a character created to be unequivocally bad, yet he and many other villain-main characters personify the raison d'être of the based guy. If all of society tells you you're bad even if you know with absolute conviction you're in the right you will internalize this message. This is why everyone I know, including myself, chain smoke cigarettes. All institutions and the majority of society says it's bad so it must have merit. Smoking is good though and all men should do it because it's cool and feels good. It's serious mental rot being made the only example that exists in society of the thing you really shouldn't be. People want to be what they're expected to be even if it's bad. This is a natural human condition and very social. Being "bad" is bad for you though. Maintaining a positive outlook despite being the villain-designate is very challenging. This isn't self reflection. Outsiders are tools of change but in enacting it often break themselves or more commonly break before enacting change thus becoming loud annoying and useless which is a tragedy. The force of time breaks us all but none quicker who are utilized as its agents.

[melon-official]

478 rw and 9+13 lily

4. (what would be their favorite Sims™ game?) i'm not a player of the sims so i went to google for help...

..it says sims 3 has the highest amount of character customization and it's also the one mcr sang in simlish for, so im gonna pick that one

7. answered here!

8. (whats their worst trait as a person?) theres a couple to pick from here (more if you poll everyone he knows) but i think the top contenders are:

his general forgetfulness irt his own health and hygeine (greasy 90% of the time)

his complete disregard for social cues and expectations leading him to appear super self-centered/impolite, always getting in people's way, etc

(although it's not as often) his personal faith in what is Right and True giving him very strong opinions about situations that he really doesn't need to get that opinionated about in the long run

-

9. (what if they were evil?) really interesting concept to break down for lily cuz one of the driving factors of the way i write her story/growth/etc is that she's just lily. like, she's human. (well. splatoon equivalent. whatever.)

what defines good vs evil in a regular person? evil like she decided to side with a villain/opposing party somewhere along the way, or evil like she's just an antagonistic person or particularly unpleasant to be around? or evil like how's she painted as an antagonist in a world where the story isn't about her? lily has a lifetime of struggles that have to do with her moral code or what she's done, if she deserved x amount of suffering or y amount of happiness

what if lily were evil? well her story would be a different kind of tragic. she lives in a constant state of tragedy where her misfortunes give her opportunities to grow, but it's unclear whether she or the narrative is in control; if she had the plot of an antag instead her tragedy would be a compounding downward spiral, a crash and burn, and potentially/doubtfully a slow climb back up

13. (if they were given the opportunity to suddenly disappear off the face of the earth, would they take it?) depends on when you ask her: lily from the age of 13 to 15ish would without a question, lily post-hero mode and before oe would think about it and weigh her options, lily in the metro could go either way depending on her day (i.e., either she'd lunge for the quickest way out or bite back the need to escape for the sake of people looking for her), post-metro lil would jokingly consider it but ultimately decide not to, and once splat3 starts lily wouldn't want to at all. except for a few days before moving to splatsville when everything seemed hopeless and she couldve been easily persuaded to.

#9 was like hmm.... i need a minute to think about this...!!!! #my ocs #lily #ramen water #thanks for the ask

[toweringclam]

Paramount City: The Underground, Pt 2: Colors and Characters (MTG Planar faction)

Overview, The Metropolitan Defenders, The Underground Pt 1

The Underground are centered on Green mana, as they are primarily interested in serving the people. However, while White mana pulls them towards community defense, Red mana pulls them towards vengeance. With the devastation wrought by the Phyrexian invasion, the people need champions more than ever, and arguments over which is more effective praxis are more contentious than ever.

Alley Cat (WRG) is their leader, and has been since they were first formed. Ironically, she's also the only founder of the Defenders still left alive. Though everyone assumes she must have super powers of some kind, her only true ability is the one she stole from King Mob. The rest is just her own skill, and until recently, it didn't seem like age would ever slow her down. But the loss of Paragon is a blow that she never thought she'd suffer, so certain was she that she'd die first. In her grief and regret, her leadership has suffered and allowed divisions to fester.

The Watch are centered in White. They're a loosely affiliated network of neighborhood heroes who stake out a small section of the city and tailor their sense of justice to the needs of their community. What works in one place might not work in another, and a hero has to know the people they are protecting if they want to be effective.

Jack O'-the-Harts (GW, Elf) is one example. A fae child who ran away from their abusive "parents" as a teen, they've claimed the urban blight of the Cambo neighborhood which have become home to a herd of urban deer. While the impoverished Cambetons are happy to have such good hunting at their doorstep, people in more affluent neighborhoods nearby consider the deer pests and often organize culling operations. Hunters who take more than their fair share will find themselves under attack by a strange cloaked figure who leaps like their legs were springs.

The Vindicators are centered in Red. They are violent vigilantes that believe that direct action must be taken to remove the worst malefactors from society. When the rich and powerful can prey on the vulnerable with impunity, protected by laws and bodyguards, the Vindicators are there to bring bloody retribution for their crimes.

Anemia (RG) is one example. With her seemingly endless arsenal she blasts and slices through the bodyguards and mercenaries that protect the rich and powerful. Money means nothing to her, neither does mercy. All that matters is the blood of the guilty. Her methods are sometimes seen as especially brutal even by other Vindicators, but it's hard to deny their effectiveness. No one knows for sure why such rage burns in her heart.

Most Underground members don't fit neatly into either group. They might have greater goals than the more small-scale Watch, but still find discomfort in the brutality of the Vindicators. Or maybe they just can't fit in with the moralistic Defenders, but still want to do good for the world.

Blind Justice (RW, Angel) is one example. Cast out of heaven for her desire to intervene in mortal affairs, she was stripped of her halo and thus her eyesight, as an angel can't see in the darkness of the mortal world without it. For one brief moment during the Phyrexian Invasion, she could see clearly, but alas, it did not last. It has taken some time for her to understand the concept of mortal justice, but she pursues it with a flaming sword.

#mtg #magic the gathering #magic:thegathering #magicthegathering #paramount city #fan planes #mtg planes #planes of the multiverse #superhero #superheroes #comics

[oftarotandnoodledragons]

Seventy-Four: Five of Pentacles (Reversed)

Real cases of suffering ... tend to go unheard. This is not only because people who are genuinely suffering typically lack the resources with which to publicize their condition, but also because ... many forms of suffering deprive people of the very ability to express, sometimes even think, the fact that they are suffering. -Jamie Mayerfeld, Suffering and Moral Responsibility

He had a fever when he was in Spain, And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake; 'tis true, this god did shake: His coward lips did from their colour fly, And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world Did lose his lustre. -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

When a rule is enforced, the person who is supposed to have broken it may be seen as a special kind of person, one who cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed upon by the group. He is regarded as an outsider. But the person who is thus labeled an outsider may have a different view of the matter. He may not accept the rule by which he is being judged and may not regard those who judge him as either competent or legitimately entitled to do so. -Howard S. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance

Have I stopped misposting? Okay. Good.

The overarching theme for the home straight of Tarot has been that of challenges. The Two and Five of Cups were the challenge to look at the undercurrent of much of this journey, that of coming to terms with my self-esteem; a process that is continuing. This card, the Five of Pentacles, on the other hand, is a reminder of another challenge for me: the ability to synthesise and find the meaning and application of the cards. Being of the Pentacles, and the last of them, it is apt that it talks to the physicality of the cards in this regard.

So, while I'm still looking to June 13, the blog's tenth anniversary, as a "deadline", I've not felt ready to deal with this card; and now I have a scant two weeks for the remaining four cards, some of which I know will require a lot of work (I feel like that this will play into the Eight of Wands, when it appears...). The challenge since returning to the blog post-migration is that I feel like I've not been able to tap into my intuition, that it's been dulled, and thus I've not been able to address the card and its energies in a way that I feel is fair and deep enough to crystallise my understanding and be a guidepost for future reference; similarly, some of the cards for me are faded memories and have regained unfamiliarity. That's why I lament when I feel like my posts become academic exercises, like a lecturer has asked me to "compare and contrast the approaches Bunning, Thirteen and Esselmont have on this card". But sometimes, that's all I can do, because I don't know the card; yet through that, I find some understanding.

The Five of Pentacles is a card that exemplifies this. In the way that Temperance was the first card I drew when I made my notebook, the Five of Pentacles is the second. Its notes are lacking the depth and maturity of the past ten years of experience, and partly because it was before the blog, I don't have a memorable, relatable moment to attach it to. My notes' depth of interpretation is weak, and the format I've written here seems incongruent with the standard that has since emerged; yet, I remind myself that much of the writing has come from my intuition rather than my intellect, my subconscious speaking to my conscious. The interpretations written in my book are just one foundation to my Tarot understanding: this journal is, as I intended long ago, designed to flesh this out and provide a means for new insights and greater familiarity.

Existential writing aside, let's actually take the time to look at this card. So be it, then. Extending beyond my usual four muses, Smith's imagery in the RWS version is apparently regarded as one of the most famous; I would disagree since it didn't really strike me outside of Tarot, but I would rather call it one of the most iconic, and that goes back to the very root of that word as well: icons. Given that Tarot is full of symbology, this image forms the basis of many, many interpretations of this card. Rather than derive at a meaning from my muses, I'm not going to source my interpretation because it seems so prevalent, and because it's taken from the story the card tells in the RWS imagery: two ailing peasants in the cold, trying to fend for themselves and suffering in the process outside the window of a church that they don't even look to, where there is warmth and sanctuary. That then lends itself to views ranging from lacking emotional security of one's childhood (thanks Ediya) to being too proud to accept help from others and failing as a result. From this central artistic theme is where we can then look at how my muses address it.

Let's start with Thirteen, because they discuss their cards systematically in the context of the whole. The card is a Five, and it is the instability that follows from the stability (or stagnation) of a Four. Just like the Page of Swords, they tend to be humbling challenges that will strengthen those who go through them. So since the Pentacles are that of the material realm, this card feels like it is the brother to the Five of Cups: if that one is the card of loss (and how one deals with it), then this is the card of lack. Lack is what Bunning focuses on with her themes: "hard times", especially financial hardship, "ill health", since Pentacles relates to the body after all, and "rejection", the lack of social acceptance. Esselmont expands on these, but then adds her own take: that of a "lack mindset" or fearing one doesn't have enough, where one focuses on what they don't have rather on what they do. To this all, Thirteen suggests that to deal with these energies, one should reconsider their values and focus on what one has; that the hardship teaches who one's friends truly are, who is honestly generous, and what really matters to someone.

And then we get to the Tarot Nova and Fairchild and Paschkis. Fairchild just gives all of this a glib, seemingly off-handed remark, with the majority of his prescription being that of one's hard's work and devotion to others not paying off and that one should let others know what one expects in return. That seems to go rather at odds to the accepted "canon" here. Indeed, Paschkis throws out the traditional imagery and doesn't allude to it at all: she shows a crocodile with five Pentacles on it as if it were a constellation. Compared to the richness of the RWS image I find it lacking (hah); however, the image of the toothy crocodile coming to consume is one that I can see linked to the more common themes of the card.

In my head I had thought that this card would be linked to The Tower or some other sort of loss and I was fearing it; but, this card has come out Reversed and this is one of those times that I feel like a Reversal is like night and day. Of course, that means I should temper my view to not be in complete opposition, but more in terms of the day following the night. Thirteen, in typical Thirteen style, focuses on the church and the ability of being that sanctuary; except nope, it ain't there, the peasants are on their own, cold and alone. And that's not what I'm finding right now; that's not day after night. So Fairchild and Esselmont are where I go again. Here I find more resonance, and it's woven through a lot of their prescriptions and analyses. The thought of not having enough expands into a "poverty mindset", where one feels unworthy because of their lack of possessions, that they do not deserve expensive things, that their money is spent on the trivial and not on what one desires; the call here is to determine if "I can't afford it" is a truth or a limiting factor, and that one will make it happen if they truly value it. I've been a little more outgoing with my money as of late, especially since I just went to a convention, yet I know I have debts that must be repaid. Speaking of this: Fairchild talks about a new source of income, and Esselmont talks about the end of hard times. I applied for a credit card for the first time ever and after a few weeks of silence, I was approved. Of course, it's not really a source of income, but a means to delay payments; I'm naturally cautious about it but considering that the bank offers cashback, it's a nice thing to have, and will help allow me to get a credit rating and potentially bigger purchases in the future.

But Fairchild leaves one of his esoteric yet resonant prescriptions: to learn the value of self-discipline and teamwork since they will bring rewards, and to express oneself as they choose despite others trying to make one conform. I feel this is related to my work, and it is something that I have been working on as I move through my new managerial position.

So the thing I've learned from this card is that I shouldn't be afraid of Fives; I should treat them like the Page of Swords and think of them as a challenge. Also, with this card, I've completed the Fives and also the Pentacles. The thing about the Pentacles is that it feels like it has a narrative that runs through the entire pips, and that the Five is the turning point of the tale. I would argue that it's my favourite of the four suits given its themes and internal reflections based on this critical mid-point: everything after this point is redemption and success with mature, positive energies in the Upright compared to the immature energies that come before this one.

Four cards remain and I must press on, finally feeling ready to do so. The next challenge lies with the card that I thought would be last, the redeemer, the nice departure for the blog: XXI The World. But it's Reversed. And as it is, of all the cards in the deck, The World is the card that I currently know and relate to the least. Herein lies the challenge.

#five of pentacles

[therotconsumed]

@insane-oc-posting the ever growing desire to cuddle them all

inv is just (he is about to combust)

#rain world #rain world inv #rw inv #rain world enot #rw enot #rain world oc #rw oc #rain world iterator #rw iterator #rw true suffering #ywpai #can be both tbh

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

#film noir #neo-noir #criterion channel

[lost-in-yujikiri]

Text on slide:

Kirito dreamt of losing Eugeo in the fierce battle against Administrator. In order to protect someone important, to not lose any more comrade, Kirito embarks on a journey with Eugeo to various place in Human Empire to find "another sword" worthy for duel-wielding.

Context: this is synopsis for Myosotis DLC in Lycoris game, which happened after main story ended. In main story, Cardinal & Eugeo survived the Adimistrator fight (the same one in LN/anime) but Charlotte still died. Administrator made plan beforehand to survive herself before so Kirito's gang (including Eugeo, Alice, Cardinal, Asuna & other RW girls) fought against that revival plan & Administrator herself 3 more times, in the 2nd rematch Medina, a new member who joined in the gang later died, in true ending she was revived but lost all memories. So saying that Kirito in Lycoris doesn't have any suffering like canon is not entirely true in game context, he cried when Charlotte died, he cried when Eugeo survived because the scenario where he dies would have been real, he witnessed all fucked up shit Administrator caused, he feels guilt he could not save kid Alice & she's still inside a memory crystal, he know Medina's sad past and witnessed how she once died too, which both Eugeo & Asuna hugged him & comforted him for. This DLC is based on his real fear of losing someone close to him once more.

Text on slide:

Kirito, Eugeo and Alice heard that "People are being attacked by beasts" so they head to investigate. The atmosphere in town is heavy & the town children were giving them cold eyes. So Kirito and co. infiltrate a noble's evening party in order to gather information.

Added a screenshot of Kirito & Eugeo in party suits because I like their looks, and Eugeo complimenting Kirito 🤭

Text on slide:

When Kirito got separated from Eugeo & the others in town, Asuna was the first one to find him. Both of them enjoyed a brief date holding hands until meeting up with Eugeo and the others.

#Sword Art Online #SAO #Alicization Lycoris #SAO Alicization Lycoris #Kirito #Kirigaya Kazuto #Eugeo #Alice Zuberg #Alice Synthesis 30 #Asuna #Yuuki Asuna #Youtube #my translation

[dragynkeep]

Tolkien treated Frodo’s trauma with fucking respect and gave him a happy ending that still acknowledged the impact of the Ring and the quest. To see people put RW “neurodivergence is evil actually” BY in the same category is BULLSHIT.

at the core of it, tolkien wrote out from his experiences & what he saw happening to a lot of his fellow army men; the “ sickness ” that they couldn’t recover from even after the war was over, much like frodo not being able to recover from the morgul blade wound. it feels so raw & realistic & emotional because it comes from experience & true care towards these characters.

mkek have never gone through any of this, especially not miles & kerry. they wrote a racism storyline but they’re two white men & miles is constantly flip flopping between him ever suffering discrimination or not. all are able bodied, the only one who is nd is miles who has adhd  —  which just makes ironwood’s semblance worse because he should know the harmful impact  — & all of them, sans kiersi, are cishet. kiersi isn’t even a good mark in that direction considering her depiction of nonbinary & asexual people in her works.

you don’t have to have to be part of these demographics to write them, but you do have to show them the respect inherent to these lived experiences. otherwise, you end up with the tone deaf, offensive mess that is rwby & then you get weirdos comparing it to lotr.

#rwby #lotr #mkek critical #owl.txt #answered #q

[luna-lime]

The deal that's "13 reasons why" part II

I'm back, yet with a another 13rw post, one of the many on this site for the last week. It's still a BOOM and tomorrow it will be a week since 13 reasons why season 3 dropped. And I've been meaning to talk about some more things that I have on my heart about this show. I was not making notes ( which now I really regret ), but I am sure I can squeez some of my feelings out here. Still I AM PUTTING A SPOILER WARNING HERE! Many of you already saw the show, but still if you didn't, be warned and maybe come back after you've finished. With that said, let's just jump to the other topic that has been on my mind since the first episode basically.

Ani Achola. Seems like she is the main conflict in this season. And I can see why. Let me get this one thing straight: I don't like Ani as a character, but I fully respect the actress Grace Saif who made an incredible job of portraying Ani. But about that later.

So my initial thought was: "Who is this girl and why is SHE narrating the show now?" Writers and producers of the show should have known better than this. There is plenty of choices to put into that position, so why putting there a totally insignificant character? Maybe that wouldn't be the problem in the end, but oh boy her personality. I didn't really catch for how long Ani was around, but if my sources are correct, she came to Liberty high somewhat closely after the Spring dance. So basically not for long huh? And the fact she was put right to Bryce, is also a bad writing in my mind. Of course she would be living close/be close with the dead person. First we had Clay/Hannah, now we have Ani/Bryce. This girl is just a straight up liar and no one should believe her one bit. Isn't she suspicious? Boys... I sure would not confide with my most secret secrets to someone who I barely know. So how could she know that much of details? She basically knew everyone's side of the story, reason why they might have hurt Bryce, etc... WHAT? 13 RW writers what? You want to tell me, that those damaged kids who FINALLY put it somehow together, to create some of a inner-circle would just, let someone new and random in? Just like that? Because Clay gave her a tour? Doesn't make sense. Trying to justify Bryce's actions? Excuse me, step aside milady. "Have you heard about Hannah Baker?" "You hear summ?" ... But what made me, probably the most mad about this smart pants was when she was telling the police officer about Clay. I will be honest, Clay isn't a great character, none of them are supposed to be great characters. But making my boy Clay an obsessed stalker? ... EXUSE ME? She doesn't know about Hannah and Clay's relationship, yet here she is telling the police that he was obsessed with the dead girl? AND THEY ACTUALLY USE THIS AGAINS HIM? ARE YOU INSANE? I am sure this is not how police works in America. Or nowhere in the world actually. Ani then just comes to Clay, like nothing happened, they've been good friends, she was helping him with cosplay ( the only party which made me feel at least a little bit good about Ani ), going out with him, making a group project. Sweetheart, if he'd be so obsessed with you as you said he was, would you still hang out with him that much? I don't think so KAREN. A lot of her statements didn't make sense. The details in her statement didn't make sense? How on the earth she knew so much? Everything basically. The inner-circle doesn't know about each person's secrets, why Ani does? Just doesn't make sense in my eyes, at all.

And the whole Bryce situation? You acted and seemed like a bright girl, wasn't she written like that? Obviously she wasn't so bright when she slept with an ALEGGED rapist. For a normal person that's just disgusting, to let a rapist touch you. She knew, Bryce raped Jessica and she considered Jessica a friend. So why would she? I know, some of you might say that it had nothing to do with Jessica, since it was her personal thing but... She joined Jessica's group, so basically she was fighting for something Bryce started? THE BRYCE she slept with numerous times, THE BRYCE who told her "Ani, I need you." ... At least she was right at one thing, that was really the worst thing she has done in her life. I'd change the line to "One of the worst things in my life I've done" but I don't write the rules here, now do I? This wasn't the only thing honey, you basically lied. You knew Alex and Jessica killed Bryce, but you told the police it was Monty. I mean okay... let the dead bury the dead, but like... ?? Isn't this just a evidence to the police, that she is a huge liar? She lied for the first time, she admitted it ( I think to her mother too ) and yet she did it again. I know, she wanted keep Alex and Jessica safe, which I appreciate a lot, but that still doesn't change my opinion about her being a liar.

As her mother said "Don't get involved with these people's things." All you had to do Ani was just to listen to your mom, ONCE in a goddamn lifetime. But you didn't. This is a fin I think, because there is nothing more I could say to this.

I still don't understand how she acquired so much knowledge about the whole situation, sometimes just writing goes off hand I guess. My idea of a different narrator is still true and I'd change her for anyone from the original characters. I'd been a great change to see Clay narrate the story this time, since Hannah is gone and Clay is still considered to be the main character of them all, so I still don't understand this choice of the producers and writers. Anyways... I guess I won't ever change it, so there is no point for me to theorize about who would have been better. Everyone and anyone, basically.

And on the last note, as I mentioned earlier, I don't like Ani as a character but fully respect the actress. I am sure the writers nor the actress knew that the Ani character won't be too popular among the fadom. I mean... who would have thought RIGHT? I just want to say, that the actress doesn't deserve hate, because she ISN'T ANI ACHOLA. Just as Justin ISN'T BRYCE WALKER. SO ISN'T Timothy MONTY. I've recently read that Grace deleted all of her social media due to hate she was getting. Please people, don't be dicks. They are out here, making an amazing show to entertain us, yet you give them shit. Stop, okay? Respect the actors and respect the writers, no matter how bad it can sometimes be. I hope Grace will get better soon and come back.

For the total end: If you are suffering or feeling hurt, please don't be afraid to tell someone. Confide in your mother, father, sister, brother, friends or school staff. For more, please visit 13reasonswhy.info . You life is precious, not just to you, but everyone around you.

#ani achola #13 reasons why #13 rw #13rw #bryce walker #who killed bryce walker #Alex Standall #jessica davis #clay jensen #hannah baker #13 reasons why season 3 #justin prentice #grace saif

[sam-whump]

Rw part 14: training

Weeks went by and the war worsened. Jason was starting to get worried about how many of his man died. He didn't want them to die at all, but they stood no chance against the magic that Eloreth used.

Kaylan and Sam both noticed Jason's increase in restlessness.

"That's it. I'm going out there to defeat them myself." Kaylan told Sam as they were walking on their way to the training field.

"You can't just do that. You will die and it will break Jason's heart. We just need more people than they have so we can defeat them. That's all." Sam replied. It sounded easier than it was done. Not many people were lining up to leave their safe house behind and fight with a very likely chance of dying.

Kaylan let out a deep sigh. "Maybe we should surrender to Eloreth. Maybe they will spare some people if we do so. There is no way that we are going to win anymore."

"Are you out of your mind? They will kill us. You, me. Probably Jason too. We can't give up. I've got a better idea. I'll keep Jason busy while you try to recruit new members. Tell them that we have a secret weapon that Eloreth doesn't know of and that with their help, we will win the war." She ordered Kaylan, who just nodded and walked off. He knew there was no point in trying to talk back to her.

Sam knew exactly where to find Jason, in his room. "Jason-" she started as she walked into his room. "It's Prince Jason for you. But what's up?" He asked. Jason didn't sound too enthusiastic.

"It's time to train. You promised me to train me so I could get my revenge on Eloreth. It's time for you to make it true. I want to become as good as you are with sword fighting. I want to fight them with the sword and watch them suffer as the life leaves their eyes."

"Bit gruesome, but I can see why you want that. Alright. I have warned you, I am not going to be nice for you. And it will hurt." He stood up from his chair and walked over to her, looking straight into her eyes. "You will sweat, cry, bleed even. Are you prepared for that? Because I won't give you a break if anything breaks. You are going to keep training with me, until I say we are done." He was serious. He knew that the best way to train someone, was to put them through hell.

Sam felt a little scared as he stood so close and told her how hard it was going to be, but her hatred won. "Yes, sir. I'm prepared to do so." She answered confidently.

"Then meet me in five minutes on the field. I'm getting the medic so he can patch you up before it gets life threatening." His voice sounded much softer now, he even gave her a hug. "You know I care about you right? You'll hate me for this. But you'll be thankful when we are done." He added.

Sam nodded and even smiled a little. "I know. I care about you too. And there is no one else I would want to be trained by or die for. It's only you, Jason."

He nodded and gave a small squeeze in her unprotected shoulder before walking off to get the medic.

Sam did as she was told. She went to the field and waited there for Jason. She did feel more and more frightened as the seconds passed. She was scared of the pain it would bring, but she knew it was for the best.

Sam was admiring the view and got so caught up in it, that she was taken by surprise when someone kicked her to the ground and kept her there with a foot on her back. "First lesson. Always be alert." He told her before giving her the space to get up again.

"So we're starting alread-" She didn't get to finish her sentence as he went for an attack. Sam only managed to dive away just in time and then grabbed her own sword.

"Lesson two. They are not going to wait for you to finish talking." He told her while aiming another attack, which she blocked.

Sam could feel her heart racing. She did not enjoy this. She wanted the other, caring Jason back who would hug her when she had been having nightmares. But she couldn't back off anymore.

Sam made an attempt herself to attack him, only to have him block it and kick her in her stomach, making her bend over from pain. She felt the cold metal being placed on her now exposed neck. "Never bend over. They won't hesitate to cut your head off." He warned her. He lifted the sword again to give Sam space to stand up straight again.

But he did not give her time. She didn't manage to block the attack this time as he went for her shoulder. She let out a scream of pain as blood started to flow from the cut. She felt the urge to yell at him to stop, but he was already aiming for the next attack. He missed and Sam took a moment to take a relieved breath, when he kicked her down to the ground again.

"I told you to stay alert. Get up and fight me. Or is this all you've got? Because if that is the case, you're pathetic. Show me some real skills." He spat at her. He didn't mean anything, but hoped that it would anger her enough to actually try and attack him.

Sam felt some tears prick in her eyes as she pushed herself off the ground again. Her shoulder burned, but she wasn't giving in to it. She held her sword tightly in her hand and screamed as she went for another attack at Jason. She felt angered by his comment and did not stop trying to harm him, until the moment that he shoved her on the ground again and pinned her arms down above her head.

"You need to work on your footwork and balance. This is the third time I took you down by a simple kick to your legs." He stated before getting off her.

Sam was panting. Most of her body was already starting to ache from the intensive training. But Jason was not done yet.

It did soon become clear that Sam was losing her attention. At one point, she tried to block Jason's sword by using her bare hand and sliced it open.

The moment she fell down on the ground and couldn't find the energy to move any further was when Jason decided to quit. He let the medic come and bandage the wounds.

She got some water and rest for about half an hour before Jason said that they were going to start again. He had a much better stamina than she did.

"But-"

"What's that? Backing off already? I was clear. You're going through hell until you're strong enough to own it." He hissed at her.

And so it went. Sam fought for all she could, ignoring the many bruises and cuts she got from training with him.

They kept fighting every single day for hours without breaks. Sam ended up breaking her arm one time and then her nose or ribs another time.

Of course Jason kept that in mind a little and was a bit more careful while training. But only at the start. He knew very well that enemies took adventage of things like that and he didn't care how much it made Sam hate him, he was going to make her the best.

Weeks went by and Sam started to improve. She fell down less and less, up until the point she managed to floor Jason. Most broken things had healed along with the cuts.

As Sam floored Jason once more, a smile appeared on his face. "I think you're ready. You managed to beat me. Twice in a row. Your training is over, Sam."

Yet another long part!

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@whumpitywhumpwhump

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#royal war #sam #jason #kaylan #pain #blood #broken