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grandinventor · 3 years

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At the risk of sounding like a Jindosh apologist here (I am.) I will preface that Jindosh is a bad guy, he has either killed people personally or got them killed for experiment purposes by his Clockworks and has dissected the dead so he is not good, he is a villain, I acknowledge that.

Now with that out of the way I wanna criticize the narrative surrounding him and his mansion and how it sometimes falls flat on it’s face trying to demonize them thanks to a lot of points my friend @divaythfyr brought up. I’ll put all of that below the cut:

Yesterday I was told this line and I won’t lie it is...bad. Line in question:

Billie: "His home is supposed to be full of marvels. Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal. Kids, even. People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help."

But because I couldn’t live with the idea that he kills children you know the simplest villain demonization tactic in writing history (kick the puppy, kick the child whatever) and I think it’s pretty cheap to try and make him worse than Sokolov, I talked to the Jindosh apologist committee and thot about it so I’ll go over this line by line.

1. "His home is supposed to be full of marvels.“ - Okay but isn’t his home also supposed to be scary? Isn’t the whole “Why would anyone build a scary mansion like this?” line from Emily/Corvo as they enter supposed to tell us that this is a scary place? Which is funny because in reality the mansion itself isn’t scary at all, in fact it’s extremely logical in the way it unfolds and exposes the rooms. It’s perfectly functional and as someone with a major in architecture, I can say it’s the best designed house in terms of organization in the game. There is no way to die in the mansion unless the Clockwork Soldiers and the guards get you - which goes for literally any important/rich person’s house? You walk in someone’s house uninvited and their guards get you. You can die if you get behind the walls but it’s extremely difficult to do so especially in the places where you can get squished. The house itself is completely harmless. So the whole idea from Jindosh’s end that it’s a maze is stupid on it’s own too, the house is perfectly logical and Stilton’s manor is an actual maze because I got lost 10 times in there.

2. “Locals go in as a test of courage, or because they're desperate for a meal.“ - okay first part is correct people go in his house to either steal, test their skills or kill him. He says as much himself. He says fabled thieves and assassins died there. Again probably from his guards and Clockworks since you can’t die from the house in any rational way. And then he dragged them half dead or dead in his lab to dissect them. He has a fascination with watching people die because he is like evil and a villain like that. Which brings me to the next point which is:

There are only two ways to get in his mansion without powers. There is the bridge below which is broken and the railway which is guarded and has a Wall of Light on the other end. So how will anyone that is not prepared with a grappling hook or some kind of way to close this gap gonna get in? How is your random average person gonna go in? And most importantly why? Do people just walk in aristocrat’s houses and expect not to get out in a body bag or?

Besides he has a) a lot of free food and drinks in the lobby which is his threshold as to how far you are allowed to go so if someone wanted food they can just walk in and take it and leave (after you know, scaling a mountain for whatever reason because there aren’t easier houses to steal from) and b) he has an audiograph, because I am sure he assumes people can’t read, which tells you “Do not enter or you will die and I will dissect your remains and this is a promise.” Like why add a warning if you wanna lure people in? Unless those people think they can outsmart him so they come with intent and not just because they need food/shelter. Also he has food right next to that audio.

3. “Kids, even.“ - okay this one, the scary line. I won’t lie this made me uncomfortable. So like if we assume that normal people can enter by normal means (which in point 2 is clear they can’t unless further elaborated by the game on How? and Why?), a child going in as a dare and dying is possible. Billie after this line goes on to say that she saw a child dare his brother to touch the wall of light which vaporized the child, so the implication is possible. It’s possible a child went in his mansion as a dare and bad things unfolded. It’s also equally possible that it didn’t. We know of adult men dying because we see the bodies. For this one is just a rumor. You can take it either way depending on how you feel about Jindosh. It’s very unlikely a child would get this far though, unless this was some kind of Disney movie. Also Jindosh wouldn’t personally have a reason to kill a child you know, like I know it’s the easiest “this villain is super evil!!!!” writing tactic, but he had a pretty shitty childhood, he felt hated by his mother and probably wasn’t treated so nicely by his (bastard) brother. He likes to exercise his lack of control during his younger years by having control over other people through his house and toying with them. He is very childish in a sense too (with his toy house and toy soldiers), and because of all of this I truly don’t think he would kill a child. He wants a real challenge and to test out his machines and his house against the best and smartest Karnaca can offer, not children. Though my opinion here can be highly biased.

Also many children can casually pull 6ft tall levers I’m sure--

4. “People say you can hear them at night, pounding on the windows, calling for help." - we know people have died in the mansion and they have been crying for release, as he says so himself. But again the above points kind of challenge as to who these people that died inside were. However because you know I’ve been playing with his mansion for four years cause I am a dumb hoe, I can say that there are very little windows. In fact the majority of windows that aren’t blocked off by the cliff or the mechanisms are around his laboratory.

Now yes people could go there and bang on them sure. But they literally...face the lab and chances are no one is gonna hear you bang on that side. The other windows not facing the lab are in the foyer where...you are allowed to be and nothing is gonna happen to you.

And the windows that actually face a side where let’s say someone could hear if someone was banging are the windows on the front of the house. Only the thing is, there are no windows on the front of the house except in the foyer.

Here are the buildings from across his mansion which I guess can maybe hear if someone was banging on the windows. But again no windows on the front of the house.

The fake windows is where the mechanism for the ceiling over the gallery in the upper hall is. The one that kinda extends and unfolds from there. So isn’t entirely possible that the banging and screaming or whatever people heard is just...the mechanisms of his house? The scary evil child killing house? Which is actually moving and making a lot of noise at all times?

So in conclusion? Yes, Jindosh is bad, he has no regard to human life, he divides society as innocent bystanders and criminals. He does dream of an army of Clockwork Soldiers to eradicate all crime. Be, he isn’t a senseless killer, it’s his neutrality and fascination with death as well as his black and white thinking that makes him dangerous. He doesn’t see people as human. In the majority of cases we know of (except one for some reason? That cursed baker who got his brain fried why did you have to do that Jindosh!?) he experiments on people who he deems criminals without sympathy. Also in situations where he thinks it’s justified - breaking in to steal from him or hurt him, the Blade Verbena, prisoners that can actually provide a learning experience for his Clockworks and Sokolov. He doesn’t go kidnapping people off the streets to experiment on them.

And despite his evilness being completely logical, the whole game tries to paint his mansion as this big puzzle and trap when in reality it’s...really just a house. The level design is beautiful and amazing but I think it doesn’t really carry the point as strongly simply because it’s not any more dangerous than any other mission and it’s just more fun when it comes to gameplay. The design is great but it never gave me the feeling of it being a horror house. So I think that demonizing Jindosh through hearsay instead of through his actual mission is a bit of a weird choice. A lot of things don’t reflect how evil he is, but not in the good way of “The Grand Inventor doesn’t seem evil but he is.” and instead you get it hammered how evil he is from the start without actually ever experiencing a climax of his evilness you wouldn’t expect. It’s not that every story should have a twist, but usually when you say someone is evil, you either make them good at the end or even more evil. Jindosh never has that climax, he is the same start to finish and that is... mildly annoying and slightly threatening. Like his level is pretty but not scary and they keep trying to convince you it’s scary which makes it weird which I guess is because if you listen to a lot of his unused lines and old concept art, he was supposed to be this stereotypical mad scientist but in the end they changed his visual design and lines so much he comes off as lukewarm. I understand what they tried to do with Jindosh but I feel like they failed to do it and had to rely on everyone saying he is super irredeemably evil to justify lobotomizing him.

Anyway this post is too long, sorry if the read more doesn’t go through somewhere and please feel free to counter my points I am open to different and non biased views (or even information I might not know because I haven’t read the books or found everything).

#kirin jindosh #me putting this with full confidence in the tag #i hope i dont wake up to anything bad

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aion-rsa · 2 years

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Army of Thieves: Hans Wagner Safes Explained

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This article contains spoilers for Army of Thieves and Army of the Dead.

Army of Thieves, the prequel to Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, has less to do with zombies than you might expect. Yes, there are a few undead creatures shambling around the claustrophobic hallways of Ludwig Dieter’s (Matthias Schweighöfer) nightmares and on European newscasts showing the horrific outbreak in Las Vegas, but the movie’s not really interested in what’s happening across the Atlantic. Instead, Army of Thieves is about the mythical safes built by legendary (and fictional) locksmith Hans Wagner, one of which will eventually become the vault Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), Ludwig, and the rest of the squad of mercenaries will risk their lives for in Army of the Dead.

Years before that fateful heist in post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, Ludwig is a man named Sebastian, a bank teller living in the city of Potsdam, Germany. He lives a boring life of routine, but he has a dream: to become the first safecracker to break into all of Wagner’s safes, which are thought to be impenetrable and are even designed to destroy the contents held within after two failed attempts to unlock them. Ludwig runs a YouTube channel about the history of these vaults, and its through one of these videos that we learn the dark reason why Wagner created these safes in the first place.

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After the death of his wife and son, Hans Wagner decided to create “The Ring Cycle,” a series of four safes inspired by the four operas that make up composer Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, a 15-hour epic about a magical ring that grants dominion over the world. The story follows a huge cast of characters — gods, humans, and other mythical creatures — as they try to acquire the ring, all leading to a massive cataclysm that destroys the gods and Valhalla.

Each safe is named after one of the four parts of The Ring of the Nibelung: Rhinegold, Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (German for “Twilight of the Gods,” which is so cool). But like Richard Wagner’s opera, the locksmith’s Ring Cycle was meant to end in tragedy. Hans built one last vault, designed to be his final resting place, a place to lock away all his suffering after the tragic deaths of his wife and son. When the safe was finished, Hans locked himself inside. While his workers tried to free him, they were no match for such a master work. Hans died inside that vault, which was later dropped into the ocean, his body still inside.

Ludwig and master thief Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) manage to find and crack open three of Ring Cycle safes — Rhinegold, Valkyrie, and Siegried — before Interpol finally catches up with them. The movie ends with Gwendoline allowing herself to be captured, sacrificing herself, so that Ludwig can go free and find the Götterdämmerung in Las Vegas. Army of Thieves confirms that Ludwig’s journey was always meant to end in Bly Tanaka’s casino. By joining Ward’s squad, Ludwig can finally crack the final Ring Cycle vault and honor Gwendoline’s sacrifice.

One interesting detail that’s only briefly mentioned in the prequel is that each safe now contains the wealth of Bly Tanaka, the billionaire casino owner who hires Scott and the rest of the mercenaries in Army of the Dead but secretly plans to use the heist as a distraction in order to complete his real mission: acquire alpha zombie DNA for the US military, which wants to create its own undead army. Does this mean that Tanaka has been pulling the strings for much longer than we thought? Might he have been manipulating events, using the other three Ring Cycle safes as breadcrumbs, to finally draw Ludwig to Vegas for one final performance?

These are the questions Zack Snyder’s upcoming Planet of the Dead (“Army of the Dead 2”) will have to answer. Army of Thieves is streaming now on Netflix.

The post Army of Thieves: Hans Wagner Safes Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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vagrantblvrd · 4 years

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so i started watching The Old Guard because of your posts and mashes so well with the Immortal!FAHC so i was wondering, what are your thoughts on that, like who is the oldest, which era is each member of the crew from, how did they die the first time, and so on :3

Yesssss. >:D

But, no I hope you liked it, friend!

The first time I watched I was thinking that too!

As to Immortal!FAHC I have many thoughts on it from before watching this movie.

I’m also no good at history, and get my eras mixed up? (Like oh my God I had that intense focus thing going on as a kid for a while for WWII warplanes after watching Memphis Belle with my dad, but aside from that, yeah???)

(All of this is to say please excuse inaccuracies as most of what I know is from media and Wikipedia. Also, some of these are more well thought out than others, so pls to keep that in mind.)

Presented in no particular order:

My favorite take on it though has Gavin as the oldest, right? (Pretends he isn’t, but the others find out over time because he stops trying to hide it when he realizes it’s not an issue with them the way it’s been with other immortals he’s run across for whatever reason.)

Born during the Bronze Age and the person he was back then was just awful, horrible little asshole without redeeming qualities to speak of whatsoever.

Came from a wealthy/important family which is something that’s people can still tell to this day even if he’s not a bastard about it anymore.

He died alone and unloved (no reason to love the person he was back then, something he freely admits to anyone asking who wants the real answer) to thieves/bandits or some wasting illness, idk.

From there he learns how not to be a complete piece of shit and honestly, it takes him a long goddamned time.

Lifetimes, really. (Not his, of course, but as time goes and all that.)

Watching and learning from the people around him from the poor farmers and so on who take pity on this dirty traveler on the verge of starving to death to emperors and kings and queens and other puffed up royalty and such.

Favored Italy and England enough that he’s woven both into the Golden Boy’s persona with the accent and references to this grandfather of his that he makes to people who don’t know he’s an immortal.

(Definitely has ties to the mafia, if not served as the head of the Italian mafia for a time, making a comeback as a long-lost/bastard descendant recently discovered with a remarkable likeness to a former mafia head who’s since moved to Los Santos, because of course he did.)

To be fair, he’s still learning with the Fakes, found family and all, and he’s the happiest he can remember being? (Because sappy feels and the whatnot.)

Jack I picture as a viking, because the beard and uh, not much else reason for that line of thinking.

Just this great warrior/peacemaker among his people who dies in battle. (Possibly betrayed because jealous fellow viking at how well-liked and respected Jack is and so on.)

He’s “mellowed” over time, likes to play friendly and affable and so on, will let himself be insulted if it serves the crew’s interests and such? But oh, wow, watch out when he’s angry? (Especially if it’s due to someone hurting someone he cares about.)

Ryan I see as medieval times with the whole kings and queens and knights. (Possibly due to the influence of Kings AU???)

Noble born and served as a knight before being killed in battle or spot of ~intrigue by a political rival/enemy.

Totally got his revenge before realizing the kind of trouble he’d be in if he tried to reclaim his life - unnatural and all - and ended up living a nomadic lifestyle after that. (A vagabond, if you will, because that never not stops being funny to me.)

He gets tangled up with thieves and the like for a while, did some murder for hire that’s been his main career path ever since.

(And okay, if one of the thieves he worked with for a while was this skinny bastard with a big nose and the most ridiculous questions that’s possibly a thing that happened, because reasons. And Freewood.)

Michael I see coming in around the Revolutionary War?

Family moved to the colonies when he was a kid and so on. Signing on to fight against the British and dying in a battle against them, still remembers what it felt like bleeding out in the mud. Has nightmares about it sometimes.

There used to be this whole Thing about it when he met Gavin whenever he leans hard on the British bit that gets even more involved after Jeremy joins the crew.

(Also, also. If Michael and Jeremy collude together against that British asshole, well. That’s a thing that happens. Along with smooches, because none of your goddamned business about that, okay?)

Jeremy comes in during the whole cowboy era, because of the Rimmy Tim getup and I think it’s hilarious as hell.

Originally from Boston (hence the dumb running joke with Gavin and Michael)and moved to the ~wild west as a kid because Adventure and then shenanigans?

Died in a train heist gone horribly wrong and just. He doesn’t like to talk about it, but since he mentioned once it has something to do with his fear of heights, just.

Yikes, you know?

Also, also, the whole bit about cars becoming a thing just before he died (I’m trying not to make a joke about it being of dysentery on a certain trail, but it’s so hard), which is part of why he’s got a Thing about cars now.

(Vroom-vroom fast and that armada of his.)

Trevor, okay, Trevor.

Based pretty much on what his GTA V character used to wear and Trevor himself makes me think of Prohibition-era gangster along with Alfredo?

He and Alfredo started out as street kids in Chicago and the fastest/easiest way to make money for kids like them involved the mob and it was just.

A thing that happened? The two of them coming up in the ranks and BFFs (possibly something more, who can say???) before getting gunned down by rivals one day.

Would have woken up together if the morgue hadn’t fucked up so they went a few years thinking the other had died before accidentally running into one another again, because reasons.

They’ve been together ever since, a pain in Geoff’s ass before he managed to get them to sign on with the crew.

(Trevor kept the fashion sense he had from back then, because of course he did. Doesn’t always dress like he used to, but sometimes he gets the urge and Alfredo laughs at him for it, but he never says a word against it because Trevor looks good like that, you know?)

Speaking of Geoff?

Born around the time Trevor and Fredo were running from Elliott Ness and his Untouchables.

Lied about his age to join the Army and served overseas in the European theater in WWII. Infantry, saw his share of battles that took the shine out of things (what there was to the stupid he kid he was) really damn fast.

Actually survived through the end of the war and made his way back to the US, did some odd jobs here and there for a while as he tried to figure things out.

Listened to the wrong friend (or right one?) and ended up working for some criminal-types, got dragged into the life before he knew it.

Managed to stay alive, learning the ins and outs of being a criminal and all that up until his luck ran out and he ran afoul of some corrupt cops.

Woke up in a ditch somewhere coughing up bullets and freaked out as hell - anyone would be - and then, uh.

Kind of kept going?

Figured shit out as he went, and ran into Jack sometime in the fifties, sixties? Whenever and it was them for the longest damn time before Geoff got the idea to set up in Los Santos for a bit, see how that worked out for them.

(Regret. So much regret because look at all the assholes fucking up his life after that, you know? Really, Jack, stop laughing at him because you’re part of the problem, jackass.)

Lindsay I see as being either relatively young - died in the 80s, 90s? - or as old as if not older than Gavin, depending on the day? (My day??? Idk, I love both a hell of a lot.)

Died in a bank robbery when the asshole responsible for setting the charges to get into the vault miscalculated how much explosives were needed and it was just.

Messy.

Super, super messy.

Fiona is absolutely the youngest, someone Gavin ran into in Europe when he pulled the thing about being his own descendant.

Met her in Paris on his way to the US when she got so goddamned angry at him for accusing her of picking his pocket (a thing she totally did, btw), but she cased such a scene she managed to escape before the cops or Gavin could do anything about it.

She dies in Liberty City working for some assholes who never deserved her, and Gavin happens to be there when she makes the mistake of picking pockets to get enough money to get the hell out of the city before anyone realizes she’s not as dead as she could be?

Terrible disguise of baseball hat, big sunglasses and a scarf over her face, but her response at being caught out as a thief is too similar for Gavin not to realize it’s her.

And then, you know.

He mentions this crew out in Los Santos that would be interested in someone like her? Not as a pickpocket because she’s clearly awful at it - “Hey!” - but they’ve chatted a bit and she mentioned something about sniping - or maybe just perked up when he brought it up.

(Visiting a sniper he used to work with and so on.)

Anyway, why not look them up if she’s ever in Los Santos?

And then she does, of course, and then shenanigans???

Also, also, some of them definitely crossed paths over the years. Ran into one another and are all, “Oh, this asshole again,” maybe work together for a while before going their own ways

They all have this story about meeting Gavin for the first time that no one, no one puts together for the longest damn time.

Like.

How the hell could Jack have met Gavin back when he was being a viking when Gavin claims he died in the 60s?

(Claimed to know the Beatles personally, because of course he did.)

Ryan and that thief he met that one time, got all these FEELS for him that had them being partners in crime for a long, long time before circumstanced forced them apart.

...And then met him again a century or so later and on opposite sides before Gavin did a heroic “sacrifice” to save him at the expense of his current cover. Like, they totally picked up where they left off afterward, because not that stupid? But they got maybe fifteen, twenty years after that together before they were forced apart by circumstances again.

Pattern repeats for a long goddamned time before they happen to meet up again around the time Geoff and Jack get to Los Santos and so far their luck seems to be holding steady. (I just. Man, I love the idea of them being the kind of assholes who are stupid in love with one another but the universe at large is like, lol and tosses a wrench into the works every once in a while for the hell of it and them eventually finding one another again. Because DELICIOUS ANGST.)

Or Michael when he was marching to the next battle and some asshole asking him the stupidest question imaginable next to him? (British accent, sure, but he wasn’t the only one on their side with one, so yes.)

Jeremy and that one Pinkerton agent that one time???

Lindsay and that asshole working for a rival gang who didn’t kill her even though he could have? (When she asks sometime after joining the Fakes he’s just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ even though he didn’t like the asshole he was working for at the time and actually engineered the bastard’s death, but yeah, sure, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

Fiona, well.

Everyone knows that story because she’s like “YOU MOTHERFUCKER,” when she sees him at the penthouse the first time he strolls through the door after she joins the crew.

And just.

Yes.

They put the pieces together at some point and are like son of a bitch because they figured Gavin’s story about being a beatnik or whatever he said he was when he died was the truth?

And Gavin’s like, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ because technically it wasn’t a lie.

He was a beatnik when he died in the 60s, it’s just that that wasn’t the first time he died.

Eventually he tells them about it in bits and pieces, because they don’t push, demand an explanation. (God knows they’ve all got their secrets and reasons for them and such.)

He tells them because he trusts them and they prove he’s right to by not betraying his trust in them and I’m just, like. Full of FEELS right now, so yes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ALSO.

Bonus?

But I seriously love the idea of Meg being the inspiration behind the Morrigan.

Just.

Yes.

And if she happens to meet Ryan and Gavin while those two idiots are thieving their way across Europe sometime? That’s definitely a thing that happened.

Also, also, you know she checks up on them in Los Santos from time to time, because old friends (possibly more?) and gets along with Lindsay and Fiona like a house on fire.

Sometimes literally, the three of them >:DDDDDDDD while Geoff’s back at the penthouse shut up in his room because no, no, do not tell him how much of his city’s on fire, Trevor, no.

Idk whether I like former Roman soldier Dan or medieval knight Dan, but whichever one it is he and Gavin go way, way back and they delight in shenanigating about almost as much as Meg and her terrors do in that Geoff is very much :(((((((((((((((((((((((((( when they get together because some part of the city is guaranteed to be on fire at any given point.

#ragehappy #freewood #jackeoff #alfreyco #jeremichael #immortal!FAHC au #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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ninjakitty15 · 3 years

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Chapter 7: Ain’t Nothing But A Horned God (Loki x OFC Pairing)

"You know, super strength and natural parkour aside, that kid is really living up to his second identity," I mused as Peter popped in right after Loki and I got dressed in our daywear clothes and were about to binge watch the Orville.

"Why do you say that?" Loki asked, eyeing Peter as well.

"If you get rid spiders the humane way and just release them into the wild again, they will still find their way back in. Hand me that newspaper over here, I can fix that."

"I thought you said he was cute, isn't that a term of endearment?" he teased.

"He lost that effect when he killed the mood I was about to build up here. The fuck you want, kid?" I barked at the energetic idiot Tony loved so much.

"Mr. Stark's not here?" Peter squeaked.

"Hell if I know, ask Friday or better yet, beat it."

My trying to get rid of the kid seemed to somehow have the exact opposite effect I had hoped for, not unlike when a person that can't deal with cats walks into a room with one in it, that cat will instantly greet the hapless person and never leave them alone. Peter apparently grew a pair and turned his attention on me specifically, seeing as he apparently had met Loki while I was in captivity.

"So you're one the team now, huh? Where you from?"

I blinked at his sudden confidence. "Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin," I sang the old tune of my town.

"Where's that?"

"Near Salem," murmured Loki beside me. "No wonder you wanted to go there yesterday, you were homesick."

"You've been in my position before I'm told so I'm guessing you know how I felt."

"Why didn't you just say so?"

"That would mean admitting I actually feel things and I'm not one to catch feels here, gross."

"Have you got a superhero name yet?" asked Peter eagerly.

"I'd have to be a hero first for that to work and I'd rather not."

"Why not, its the funnest! Get to meet all kinds of people and everything!"

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "That's supposed to convince me? Really? Tony told me you were clever too, Loki you're the god of lies, how could you let that slide? I hate people, if anything that'd push me toward antihero or even villain. Kill em all and then add em to the undead army, who's with me?!"

"You said so yourself that would take a lot of energy and convincing to make your victims part of your army," mused Loki.

"Sshh, he doesn't know that. Why are you still here if Tony's gone?" I asked Peter.

"He told me I'm welcome to hang out with the team in his absence," Peter replied confidently. "What were you two doing before I got here?"

"Having passionate s/m sex in every room we can get into, you look a bit too young to join but you're welcome to watch," I teased.

"No one gets to watch that," Loki stated stiffly. "That's for our eyes only. Don't you have homework that needs doing about this time?"

"All finished, Aunt May says I can't go out and be Spiderman till its done. Hey, Mr. Loki, Tony says you're not actually from Asgard but a planet of frost giants, is that true?"

"How astute of him to bring that up," grumbled Loki. "Yes, what of it?"

"What do Frost Giants look like?"

"Pete, hun, you don't go asking gods questions like that," I warned the kid, seeing Loki get all tense and serious. "Didn't your aunt ever tell you to stop sticking your nose in places it's likely to get broken in?"

Loki however had other thoughts though didn't look too pleased in acting on them as his once fair skin started to turn blue, green eyes became red and curious markings formed on his head and face. Peter looked absolutely excited being the obnoxiously curious kid he was but made no move nor questions and just tried to his best not to piss off the god while studying him at the same time. I however couldn't help but reach over to touch his face though he caught my wrist.

"You'll burn with frost bite if you touch a frost giant or one touches you."

"Sweety you are touching me," I noted. "My flesh is dead, hydra already tried extreme temps on me, no sweat."

He quickly let go despite my reassurance in fear he was freezing me with his touch, a blackened handprint remained where he held me for a moment before my necro-magic healed it and I was back to simply being a reanimated walking dead girl. I gently touched his face, my thumb brushing over the markings.

"People seem to think red eyes always means evil here," I mused. "Yet theres a fuckton of superheroes wearing red elsewhere, Tony, this little arachnid that needs to be swatted with a newspaper, Thor's cape. Red doesn't mean evil, it means power, anyone wearing red is displaying a power move."

"You don't wear it," Loki told me.

"Weren't you listening during my many rants? I don't make a habit of displaying what I'm capable of, that totally gives me away before I can even attack. It's all about subtlety, something spiderling here needs to work on before asking gods sensitive questions." I glared at the kid who had the grace to look a little ashamed, it was almost cute. At that point, just for funsies, I snatched the newspaper on the coffee table, quickly rolled it up and started smacking the poor boy with it. "Bad spider!" Peter made little move to defend himself though didn't seem too bothered by being whacked by a dead woman either.

"Don't break him or Tony will kick you out," Loki warned though I could tell he was just as amused by my antics as I was smacking around Peter.

"Dude can catch a bus with his bare hands while some people can barely catch them on their feet, he's fine. Ain'tcha kiddo."

"Stop calling me kid, I'm a teenager," mumbled Peter.

"Which is just another term for a kid that thinks they're an adult so really you're not helping your case here. It's adorable how easy it is for you to dig your own grave, even if it with a beach shovel."

"Maybe he's more likely to break you if you keep teasing him," Loki noted.

I arched an eyebrow at him. "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

At the reference, Peter seemed to perk up again. "You've seen those movies?"

"Sweety, I might have been locked up for 5 years but even I know that everyone's seen at least one of them that's still alive."

"Why were you locked up, are you a criminal?"

"What did I tell you about asking sensitive questions, Loki, give me back my spider smasher."

"She was kept by Hydra, no you will not be beating on Tony's favorite project, especially not when there's surveilance everywhere in the tower."

I rolled my eyes at Loki and glared at him. "Meaniepants."

"Do all necromancers look like you?" Peter piped up.

My glare shifted to him then. "Look like me? You really wanna go there? I might be dead but I can still kick your ass, Spiderboy."

"It's spiderman," he grumbled.

"Not with that attitude it ain't."

He shot a web at me angrily and while I knew he never actually meant any harm and I wasn't quick enough to dodge it, I really hated spiderwebs since the first time I walked into one face first, unable to see it. Death magic rushed to the spot he hit me and essentially dissolved/rotted away whatever the hell the webs were made of so they fell apart and off me. Loki looked at me curiously while Peter looked just a little bit horrified. "Try that again, Pete, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker." My eyes went white while blackened veins popped up around them. That got Peter more than horrified and he backed away with repetitive squeaky apologies. Seeing as he got the message, my face relaxed back to its normalness. "I fucking hate spiderwebs."

"I'm curious, if that was an enemy in front of you and not Peter, what would you have done?" asked Loki.

I turned over to the god and smirked maniacally. "Point me in the direction of one and you might find out."

"You didn't do this when we raided the Hydra base the second time."

"They weren't enemies, they're minions of them. Peter you're really cute but your curiosity is harshing my buzz here, lay off on the sugar and either buzz off or calmly wait for Tony to return. You're like ice cream to me right now, so good but so not worth the brain-freeze it comes with."

"If you're always getting a brain-freeze then you're eating it wrong," countered Peter smugly.

"There's hardly a wrong way to eat ice cream, kiddo."

"Um yeah there is, any way that's not right from a cone. Surely you jest."

"Prefer it with a spoon so I don't make a bigger mess of myself than I already do...and don't call me Shirely."

"Call me biased but I believe the spoon is the better option if we're talking the same food she was wolfing down right after she moved here," Loki noted. "I can't imagine a better way to eat it out of its original tub."

"Plus you can fend off intruders and late night food thieves with a spoon, kinda defenseless since you'd eat the cone after and then you got nothing but a sticky mess to contend with," I added.

"Hold up, that was you that ate my moosetracks ice cream?" Peter squeaked.

"Tony said he bought it and therefore it was his ice cream but he also said his helado es mi helado so not yours at all. Also Thor was the one that finished it because unlike some other Asgardians, he asked nicely."

Loki scoffed and playfully glared at me with crossed arms. "I do and take what I want, there's no need for formalities." His response was a well aimed throw pillow to the face because why else would you call them throw pillows if not for their intended purpose? "Are you sure you want to do that, love?"

"Am I sure? Kinda late to be asking that after the fact, init? But seeing as it already happened, I'm gonna go with yes I am, whatcha gonna do about it?"

"I have to ask if you're sure you wanna challenge the God of Mischief like that?" Peter asked me worriedly.

"Firstly, what's with people asking me if I'm sure, of the three of us which one here is still a virgin and learning the ropes of kicking ass and taking names? Secondly, if you're calling him that based solely on Norse Mythology he's also the goddess of eight legged foals and father of a world ending snake and thus far the only thing close to those myths is the bigass snake in his pants but that's none of my business."

Loki looked beyond amused at me both calling him out on his mythology and representation of it and that not so subtle compliment that may or may not have boosted his ego to the size of Yggdrasil and all the nine realms combined. "While I'm pleased with the last statement about me, I can very much assure I'm the master of mischief, that much of the myth is 100 percent true, Thor can attest to that and any surviving Asgardians besides him that know of me."

"Just because you are known for something specific does not make you the master of it. By that logic, I'm the Goddess of Zombies."

"Hela beat you to that by at least a thousand years," Loki argued.

I glared at my lover and eyed the nearest throw pillow in contemplation, maybe I should hold it against his face gently and then apply pressure. "Sure, if there really was just one realm of gods to go with that might work in your favor."

"What do you believe in then? Where does your faith lie if not in yourself?" he challenged.

"In my life, in my experience and in my line of work there is only kind of gods I follow in faith and those are the gods of death."

Whether he caught onto it or knew my line of thought somehow or not, I couldnt tell but his next response was damn near perfect. "And what do you pray to the gods of death."

I grinned wickedly. "Not today, bitch."

"I'm hurt you wouldn't consider praying for me on your knees," purred Loki.

"The only way to get me on my knees is by taking away what keeps me standing and at the moment you've become my reason to stand these days," I replied smoothly, catching him off guard with the claim of more mortal devotion. "Would think that's obvious considering I come alive at your touch."

We stared at each other for a long silent moment, Loki looking somewhere between admiration and something else I couldn't quite place, his eyes shining like freshly cut and polished emeralds. He also looked torn between wanting to shove me against the nearest wall and makeout or reply with a smoother, wittier comeback because this dude was as desperate to have me as he was to have the last word and prove he was the master of mischief. Men in a nutshell, doesn't matter where they're from or how hard they are to kill. Speaking of things hard to kill, the arachnaboy was still present in the room, watching the two of us verbally spar/flirt before something apparently clicked in his head and he frowned, turning toward me.

"H-how exactly would you know if I was a virgin or not?"

I cackled at his attempt to call me out and act at least a little more confident. "Elementary my dear Parker. Besides the fact you both look and act a day before you're legally of age in this country? It might have something to do with your reaction to Loki's pants snake- there it is! You look different shades of uncomfortable hearing about just the size of someone's dong. Guys usually are either confident with what they got or pretend they are long enough to snag someone to use it on and hope for the best...There's also the fact regardless of age and powers you're radiating with life unsullied, I can sense it on you. Lemme know when you are legal and I might be able to help you with that though." I winked at him, causing yet another priceless reaction from Peter and a scowl from Loki.

"I'm not overly fond of sharing."

"Don't knock til you tried it, besides, I could be six fix under by the time he's open for business, right Pete?" I nudged the poor kid with an elbow for good measure, it was too much fun messing with him.

"I'm sorry, I'm just getting so many mixed signals from you right now I gotta sit down and um wait for Mr. Stark."

I watched the kid scoot away to another room, leaving us alone for once and I grinned and relaxed, turning my attention back to Loki. "And that is how you get rid of a spider properly, if you can't kill it, make it wish it never came in."

"That whole charade was to scare him off?" asked Loki incredulously.

"He's just so precious and innocent, his ears must be burning from the naughty stuff by now. I mean yeah, if he was legal I still wouldn't mind corrupting him physically but I doubt he's got the stones to take me up on that should I be around then. Besides, there's more than one way to sacrificing a virgin these days, isn't that what you gods demand all the time?"

"I'd rather just take you on the sacrificial altar several times over till I'm the only god that can give you what you pray for," he growled.

I blinked in surprised, he was usually a little more clever and subtle in his suggestions and I somehow activated the animal in him with my incessant sexual teasing between him and Peter. "Would the couch do? I don't think the coffee table would survive despite it being solid mahogany." An uncharacteristic squeal of surprise escaped me as his response was a low growl followed closely by a master of mischief pouncing on me.

#loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #lokixofc #loki x ofc #loki x original female character #nell the necromancer #necromancy #loki x nell #avengers #necromancer

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secretagentdreamer · 5 years

Text

Day 24: Secret Injury

Fandom: Marvel. Character(s): Peter Parker, Tony Stark, May Parker. Warnings: mention of injuries, nothing too detailed. Word Count: 1457

-*-

2016

Penny Parker walks into her flat and nearly drops the DVD player she is carrying. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

Her dad is sitting on the couch with Aunt May, he’s holding a slice of her freshly made walnut date loaf (which is maybe about the most edible treat May can make) but he put’s it down when he sees Penny. “Can’t a father just come to visit his daughter?” He jokes. Penny gets a quick glance at a particularly nasty looking bruise on his face before he’s wrapping his arms around her waist in a firm hug.

Penny tries to hold back the wince of pain as he squeezes her cracked rib and her just generally bruised middle: stopping that car from running into a bus had been incredible but it had left its mark for sure. And it’s not like she can tell dad or May so she tries to cover the wince and the inevitable pain as she hugs him back just as tightly. “I just wasn’t expecting you is all.” She mumbles as they pull back. Her eyes flit up to look at the bruise again which at closer inspection is actually a black eye as well, and judging by the color is just about brand new. “What’d you do to your eye?” Penny questions.

“Oh, just an incident at work.” Dad says ambiguously and Penny narrows her eyes at him. The last thing anyone had told her was that her Dad had been taking a step back from Super Hero work, especially after what had happened with Ultron and Sokovia, and had been trying to work things out with Pepper. (She knew the second one hadn’t worked out well: Penny still talked to Pepper at least once a week, more if she could catch Pepper at the right times, but her dad didn’t need to know that.) But, judging by that bruise it would appear that her dad was failing at the whole stepping back thing as well. “Hey, May, do you mind if I talk to Pen in her room for a second? I’ve got a trip in mind that I know she’ll just love.”

May wipes her hands on her pants before getting to her feet. “Go ahead, I’m running late for work anyway.” She walks away to her room but not before giving Penny a kiss on the head as she goes. “See you tonight?” She asks and Penny nods still wondering about dad’s earlier words: he hasn’t taken her on a trip since the last school holidays. And that had only been a short one to the London before he had been called away by business: Penny is now wondering if it had been actual Stark Industries business like her dad had told her, or Super Hero business.

Dad grips her by the should and tugs. “Come on, kid, best we have this conversation in private.”

And now Penny is panicking: he knows about Spider-Man.

There’s nothing else this could be about and honestly Penny is surprised she’s been able to get away with Spider-Man for so long without her father noticing.

Penny leads her dad into her bedroom, feeling like a criminal on death row, especially when dad closes the door and locks it behind them. “Dad, I swear I was going to tell-!” She cracks instantly, spinning on her heel to face him but he holds up a hand and Penny stops.

She is so dead.

But instead of yelling at her about becoming a Super Hero without telling him, she watches her dad as he walks to the bin and spits out May’s walnut date loaf into the bin with a dry comment of, “As walnut date loaves go, that wasn't bad.” Penny thinks he’s going to start in on her then, he certainly looks ready for it, his whole body is lined with tension but instead he looks at the collection of old computers, monitors and other hardware she has splayed out on her desk. “Whoa, what do we have here? Retro tech, huh? Thrift store? Salvation Army?” He looks mildly impressed as he inspects the circuit board she had been fiddling with the night before.

Penny shrugs. “Some of it, yeah, some is from the garbage.”

Her dad grimaces. “Please tell me why on earth your dumpster diving Penny?” The sound of the door closing indicates that May has now gone to work and Penny is mildly grateful that at least she won’t be finding out about Penny’s Spider alter ego.

“Cause the stuff I find at the thrift store are mostly just old and still usable. The stuff from the garbage is actually broken. I like trying to fix them, I just wanted to be like you, dad.”

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Dad sighs, “A little bit too much like me kid. Quick question of the rhetorical variety,” He pulls out a phone, tapping a button and a mini projection shows some of the clips that people have filmed of her and have put on YouTube. In the first clip she’s stopping a carjacker, webbing him to the ground before swinging away, and in the next clip is only from the day before where she had caught a car mere seconds before it crashed straight into a bus. “When did you become able to stop 3,000 pounds at 40 miles an hour? That's not easy. You are fourteen years old and you’re making Rogers look weak.”

Penny squirms at the icy hard note in her father’s question. “That's all- That's all on YouTube, though, right? I mean, that's where you found that? Because you know that's all fake. It's all done on the computer. It’s like that video, what is it?”

Dad is nodding along with her words, a too calm expression on his face, hiding the irritation beneath it. He taps again at the phone and another video appears on the projection: this time it’s the outside view of May’s apartment, more specifically the view of her bedroom window. Where, after a couple second wait, her handmade costume, with Penny wearing it, crawls into the window she now leaves open an inch. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah . . . oh, you mean like those UFOs over Phoenix?” Dad deadpans barely concealing his anger. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I was going to tell you-” She tries again but is cut off yet again.

“What the hell is going through your head, Penny! You are fourteen years old. You should be out there: worrying about a math test, or seeing bad movies with friends and talking about boys. You shouldn’t be out here stopping thieves and car accidents! And to top it all off: you’re doing it in a onesie! I know I’ve never been the best parent- there’s a reason I sent you to live with May and Ben- but I feel like watching me nearly die numerous times would’ve discouraged you from wanting to be a superhero!”

Tears spring to Penny’s eyes at being yelled at but instead of backing down like she normally would, she feels inexplicitly angry. “I could say the same thing to you!” She points at the black eye. “What Super crisis is happening now, huh? I thought you said you were going to step back!”

“That’s different! I’m a grown man, I know what I’m doing when I go into a fight! You’re going to get yourself hurt, Penelope or worse killed! All because you want to be a hero? Why you doing this? I gotta know. What's your MO? What gets you outta that twin bed in the morning?”

Penny can only thank some higher power that her dad doesn’t know about the cracked ribs and how she’s currently a walking bruise. She’ll keep those injuries a secret for now. “Because… Because all my life I wanted to be like you! Because even before Iron Man, you were always my hero! And I didn’t go out looking for these powers: I’ve only had them for six months and all of a sudden, I can really be like you! And because bad things happened and I couldn’t stop them before but now I can and I can’t just sit back and lets these things happen!”

Dad just stares at her throughout her outburst, just listening to what she’s saying for the first time in months. Penny expects him to keep yelling at her: about how dumb and irresponsible she’s being but he doesn’t. Instead, he just says, sounding defeated, “We’re not done talking about this. But I’m on a bit of a time crunch and I came here for Spider-Man’s, (which by the way, why the hell are you going by Spider-Man?) and I’m going to need your help apparently. So, pack your bags, you’re going to Germany.”

#whumptober2019 #day 24 #my writing #marvel fanfiction #peter parker #tony stark #may parker #genderbend!peter parker #female peter parker #iron dad #spider son #iron family

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salmonthestoryteller · 5 years

Text

Army

A Roswell New Mexico/Krull AU Fanfic

(Set in the Same AU as Destiny)

And since 9/10 in the fandom probably don't have any clue about such an old movie:

High Fantasy Sci-Fi AU in which the Invaders were aliens, there was a lot of magic, the main ship came from warring kingdoms, and one member of the said ship spends the whole movie captured by the villain.

I couldn’t resist writing more of this AU with the fandom fusion theme....

“You’re choice of roads kinda sucks.” Noah complained, emptying pebbles out of his shoe.

Alex sent the magician an amused look. Valenti was calm as she surveyed their route. “This way saves us days of travel.” She informed him.

“Let’s go, then.” Isobel led the way into the rock strewn mountain pass. The rest of the group followed behind.

Alex noted a shadow dart between two boulders, as Noah hurried to catch up to him and Max. “Robbers.” He whispered.

“We know it’s not the Alighting. We don’t know if they’re robbers.” Alex whispered back..

“In these parts, it’s little likely to be anything but.” Max opinioned.

“Don’t worry, I’ll turn them into pigs.” Noah promised. He moved to one side of the path, glancing through his papers in search of the right spell. Two men leaped out to throw axes at him as a third dodged out in front of them to throw a spear toward the group.

Max dodged in front of his sister to shield her - knocking aside the spear with his own as Alex drew his sword. A woman leapt into the saddle of the horse Alex was leading that held many of their supplies - snapping a whip at him and making him release the reins to dodge the attack. She quickly took ahold of the reins herself and backed the horse away from them. The spear thrower disappeared behind the rocks again, but a different man and woman stepped out with swords of their own.

A squeal escaped from the small pig Noah had accidentally transformed into - unharmed but trapped beneath the throwing axes. The group closed ranks around each other, backing toward a boulder to keep at least one approach protected.

“You're surrounded by a hundred men!” A voice called out from hiding.

Alex gazed suspiciously at the boulders and rock formations that were around them. “A hundred isn’t enough!”

“Are you mad?” Isobel hissed at him.

The woman who stepped out into the front of their path gazed at him with amusement, as other men and women appeared from around the boulders. “Well, what do we have here. Fighters!” She seemed amused at the notion.

Alex did a quick count of those in sight. "Looks like you're short at least ninety men."

“Let’s just kill them and get it over with, Maria.” The man who’d thrown the spear earlier had a second one in his hands, and raised it as if to repeat the previous action.

“Wyatt!” The woman snapped out in a lecture. The man in question froze. “I don’t kill men without a good reason.”

“Lucky for you, I don’t either.” Alex sheathed his sword.

Maria laughed at the suggestion, an amused smile still playing across her lips. A blonde woman stepped out from the boulder right beside them, holding a crossbow, and the group turned - startled. Alex noted up close the broken manacles that were around her wrists.

"You're escaped prisoners." Max noted aloud what Alex had been thinking.

"Thieves, bandits, and brawlers." Maria supplied.

"Desperate people." Alex translated.

"As desperate as the likes of you will ever meet." Maria agreed.

"Good. Those are the types of people I need."

"You need?" She sat down on one of the smaller boulders. "Look here, Fighter. These? They follow no one but me. And me? I follow no one at all."

"Would you follow a king?" Isobel broke in.

"A king?" The woman wielding the crossbow burst out laughing at the words.

"I was hardly born yesterday." Maria told her. "I certainly wouldn't follow just any mad man wandering the wilderness claiming to be a king."

"Would you follow a King… to the Black Fortress?" Alex asked, undisturbed by her dismissal.

"Now I know you're a bunch of lunatics. I wouldn't follow my own mother to the Black Fortress. Not that even she'd be crazy enough to go there."

"Is it crazy to fight for your world? To protect your friends and family?" Alex asked, glancing at the other men and women in the valley as well. "The Alighting are after us all."

"Noble sentiments." The blonde spoke up. "But we fight for profit."

"The profit is freedom." Max told her. She rolled her eyes at his insistence. "And fame."

"Freedom?" Maria interrupted. "Look around you. We have it. As for fame, that's an empty pocket. Count it, go broke. Eat it, go hungry. Seek it and go mad."

"Well said." Valenti spoke up. "But this freedom and fame would extend to your families."

Her words brought silence from the gathered group. Hesitance. A teenage girl leaped down from one of the peaks to stand before the group. "I will go with you."

"Rosa!" The woman who'd stolen the horse cried out.

"It's worth the risk, Liz." She insisted.

"She shames you all." Isobel spoke up.

Ignoring the tension, Alex pulled out the glaive amulet hidden in his shirt, taking one of the keys from it to unlock the manacles around Rosa's wrists. Several of the prisoners stepped forward to watch.

Maria stood up, approaching as well. "Only the king and his lord marshall have the keys to these manacles."

"That's right." Alex shot her an amused look.

"You're certainly not the Lord Marshall. You look about the age to be… one of Jesse Manes' sons?"

"The exact age." Alex returned.

"I must be losing it." Maria paced away.

"I need an army." Alex's words made her pause and turn back. "You and yours are worth an army." He tossed the key to her.

She studied the key in her hand, then tossed it back. "If we win, remove them. Otherwise I'll die with them on."

Alex nodded at her terms.

"Well, you heard him." She turned to the others. "We're now an army!"

"Unpaid army." One of the swordmen complained.

"Problem, Hank?"

"Just thinking aloud."

"That would require you being able to think." Maria challenged, before heading over to join the main group.

"Do you have horses?" Alex asked her.

"More than you do, apparently." Maria turned to the blonde with the crossbow. "Cam, take Wyatt and Kate. Go get the horses and supplies. Looks like we'll be on the move."

"On it." Cam nodded.

"Your choice of traveling companions is only growing more questionable." Noah, human again, rejoined the group.

"How do you even know where the Black Fortress is?" Liz had climbed down from the stolen supply horse, though she had yet to relinquish the reins.

"We don't yet. We're going to the Emerald Seer." Alex supplied.

Maria froze momentarily at his words. "What makes you think she'll see you?"

"I think she'll see us." Valenti spoke up.

Maria turned away from her knowing gaze. "So, which of Manes' sons are you?"

"Alex Manes." Alex supplied.

"The one who was supposed to wed the Antar Prince."

"The same. The Alighting captured Michael."

"The Alighting captures no one. If they caught your lover, he's dead."

"Be silent!" Isobel hissed, taking a step forward.

"Iz." Max pulled her back.

"I'm only telling the truth. The Alighting takes no prisoners." Maria insisted.

"They took him alive. I saw it with my own eyes." Alex broke in.

"And you think you can rescue him, defeat the Alighting, and save the world?" Liz looked at him doubtfully.

"That's the plan."

"I'm not sure that sounds like a plan."

"Lunacy." Maria shook her head.

Far above the gathered group, at the edge of the mountain path, a silent figure watched… and waited.

Fini

In trying to fill character spots I have come to realize that ¾ of the Roswell cast, even the side characters, are female.

#alexmanesweek2019 #roswell nm fanfic #fanfic #roswell new mexico #Roswell Nm #au #fusion fic #apparently my goal is to use every character in this somehow #it's technically malex but Michael gets to be captured all fic #cuz that's the way the movie it's based on goes #sorry michael #krull au

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zoeykaytesmom · 5 years

Text

What is Life (Chapter 3)

We meet Lauren Sullivan and unfortunately, Rafael’s father as well...

January 1991

@lyssa1385 @sweetsummertime99 @gibbs274 @esparza-army @thatesparzacrush @tropes-and-tales @jramirezblogs @xemopeachx

“Uh, hey,” a blond girl said to Izzy as she walked to her AP English class.

“Hey?”

“I’m new here and I’m completely lost. I’m looking for Mrs. Fuentes AP English II class and I can’t make heads or tails of this map.”

“I’m on my way there now, actually. Come on.”

“Thank you. I’ve tried to ask some of the other girls but they just walk passed me like I’m not even there.”

“Trust me. I know exactly what you mean. I’m Izzy Rossetti by the way.”

“Lauren Sullivan. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Watch it, Rossetti,” Dawson laughed as he tried to knock her books out of her hands.

“And this fool is Antonio Dawson. Antonio this is Lauren Sullivan.”

“What’s up?”

“He has no manners. Ignore him.”

“Excuse me. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I gotta go. I’m gonna be late for French,” he told her as he practically ran off.

“Your boyfriend?”

“No. Just my friend. We’ve known each other all our lives practically.”

“Oh. He’s cute,” she giggled.

“Yeah, I guess he is,” Izzy agreed as they walked into the class. Izzy took her seat next to Rafael, behind her brother while Lauren took the empty desk behind Rafael.

“I hope everyone finished reading ‘Romeo & Juliet’,” their teacher announced as she walked in, shutting the door behind her to which most of the class rolled their eyes. “Oh, come on. Shakespeare isn’t that bad.”

“I just don’t get why people think that story is so romantic,” Rafael started. “If we have to read Shakespeare, then why not ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Macbeth’? Those are much more interesting than a story of teenagers whose families don’t get along and they end up killing themselves in the end. There’s nothing romantic about that.”

“What do you consider romantic, Mr. Barba?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” he answered with a chuckle. “My parents are far from happy.”

“But I asked you the question.”

“Fine. To me, a romantic story would have an ending where the couple happily grows old together, maybe they go to sleep one night in their 80s, and that’s it. The end.”

Izzy didn’t know why but she started laughing to the point she had to cover her face with her book. Maybe it was his inflection but she could hardly contain herself.

“You find him entertaining, Miss Rossetti?”

“No, ma’am,” she said with a cough to curtail her laughter.

“You know, I sort of agree with Rafael,” Lauren quietly spoke up. “I mean Romeo killed himself for no reason because Juliet wasn’t actually dead. I understand he didn’t know that but honestly, my life is worth more to me than a forbidden love.”

Rafael looked back at the girl that sat behind him and sort of nodded with a smile.

“Okay, moving on,” Mrs. Fuentes laughed.

*****************

“So, what’s the story with your new friend?” Rafael asked as he and Izzy sat at the kitchen table in his parents apartment while they studied for their upcoming Geometry test.

“Lauren?”

“Yeah. She’s in our English class. I’ve seen her hanging out with you and Erin.”

“Uh, she just moved here from Philadelphia. One brother, one sister. Lives in Riverdale. Why?”

“No reason,” he shrugged.

“Liar. We’ve been friends for a year. I know better.”

“I mean, she’s cute. She seems nice.”

“Well, she is coming to stay the night with me Friday.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And you’re going to call her.”

“I am?”

“8:00 sharp.”

“I won’t be interrupting a pillow fight, will I?”

“Shut up.”

“What are you two doing?” They heard his dad say as he sort of stumbled into the kitchen.

“Just studying,” Rafael answered without looking up from his book.

“You ever gonna tell this girl you’re in love with her?”

“Dad!”

“What? Izzy, can you not tell my son is head over heels in love with you and has been for a year?”

“Why don’t you have another drink?”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Rafael.”

To say Rafael’s father was an asshole was an understatement. He had never went into detail but Izzy knew they constantly fought. Rafael liked to read, liked to learn, and he was horrible at sports as a child. His father had told him over and over again he wasn’t the son he wanted because of that reason alone.

“You know what? I just remembered I’m supposed to pick up Erin.”

“Yeah, okay, Izz. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She gathered up her books and things, said a small good-bye to Rafael’s dad, and left.

“Did you really have to do that?”

“Do you even like girls?”

“What’s the supposed to mean?”

“Izzy, Yelina…you’ve never made a move on either of them. You took Izzy to a dance a year ago but couldn’t seal the deal.”

“There was no deal to seal.”

“I bet you’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to my room.”

“I’m not done talking to you, boy,” his father told him as he pinned him against the wall.

“I have nothing to say to you,” Rafael told his dad as he pushed him away.

He went to his room and shut his door. “One of these days,” he thought to himself as he sat at his desk as his hand curled into a fist. He hated the fact that his dad was right, though. He had been crazy about Izzy since the day they met.

He wanted to kiss her at the dance he took her to and even after but Erin had made that practically impossible. Sure, they spent a lot of time together, especially during the summer and he could’ve made a move but he was afraid she wouldn’t welcome it.

Just like Yelina, he thought Izzy was too pretty for him and would never be interested in someone like him.

*********************

June 1991

“So, when will Lauren be home?” Tony asked Rafael as they sat on the couch in Bensonhurst, playing Super Mario Brothers 3.

“Next week. Wednesday, I think.”

“Things going pretty good there?”

“Yeah seem to be,” Rafael smiled. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.”

“Seriously, man?”

“I just thought…I figured you and my sister would’ve ended up dating by now.”

“Your sister doesn’t see me like that. She never will. She’s got Antonio after all.”

“They’re not really dating. They just hang out.”

“Oh, I didn’t see him kiss her the other day when they got back from the movies?”

“But they’re not really…I don’t know.”

“I like Lauren. Anything I felt for your sister or Yelina is gone.”

“Okay. I won’t mention it again.”

“Where is she today anyways?”

“Her and Erin went swimming. They both had the day off from our uncle’s pizza place so they’re taking advantage.”

About an hour later, Izzy and Erin came in. Erin was sunburned from head to toe basically.

“Hey, Rock Lobster.”

“Fuck off, Tony.”

“Language, Erin,” Stella teased as she came downstairs.

“Sorry, Stella. I don’t just tan like your sister.”

“Yeah but they make this stuff called sunblock that you’re aware of, right?”

“Ha, ha, Barba.”

“Hey, I’m just saying. I mean this could’ve been avoided.”

“He’s right.”

“I’ve heard enough from Izzy, thank you both.”

“Erin go into my kitchen, get a bottle of vinegar, and then go upstairs, run a cool/lukewarm bath, put the vinegar in the water and get in it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And stay upstairs afterwards. We don’t want to smell pickles all over the place.”

“Leave her alone, Tony,�� his sister scolded.

“I was only kidding.”

Rafael couldn’t help but look his best friend up and down, albeit discreetly, as she stood in her shorts and very soaked tank top.

Yeah, he had feelings for Lauren, there was no mistaking that, but he still kicked himself for not making a move their freshman year after the winter formal.

“So, what do you two have planned for the rest of the day?”

“Just playing video games,” Tony answered his sister.

“And I would for the two of you to move it upstairs please. Your dad will be home any minute and very tired. Izzy, I’d like you and Erin to keep it down tonight as well. After the fire they had to deal with on 86th, he’s going to be very exhausted.”

“No problem, Ma,” the twins answered in unison.

“I mean it. All of you.”

Erin’s parents were out of town while her older brother Steven was in the police academy and they didn’t really want Erin at home alone so she was staying with Izzy while they were gone.

The guys unhooked the Nintendo to take to Tony’s room while Izzy went up to her room.

“I might smell like a pickle but I’m not stinging as bad as I was,” Erin said as she walked in the bedroom with pink walls that held a “Ghostbusters” movie poster, a Beastie Boys poster, a RUN-DMC poster, and a Duran Duran poster.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t use the sunblock,” Izzy laughed as she flipped through “Seventeen” magazine. “When you’re 30, you’re gonna look like a 30-year-old handbag.”

“Kiss my ass. What are the moron twins doing?”

“I resent that. Oh, you meant Tony and Rafael. They’re playing video games I suppose.”

“Why don’t we go to the movies or something?”

“I am not going to see ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’ again, Erin.”

“How many times did I go watch ‘Lethal Weapon 2’? Besides, you know Kevin Costner is hot.”

“That may be true but we’ve seen it twice. Plus, you know who’s really hot? Christian Slater.”

“True story. Ooh, let’s watch ‘Pump Up the Volume’.”

“Works for me. I’ll see if Mom will let us order a pizza.”

#Rafael barba Rafael Barba/OC fanfic AU

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thesffcorner · 5 years

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Robin Hood

Robin Hood is directed by Otto Bathurst and it’s a reimagining of the Robin Hood stories. I say reimagining, because this film has barely anything to do with the time period or the actual historical tales, and yet somehow it’s still one of the better adaptations out there.

This film positions itself as an origin of sorts; we start with Robin of Loxley played by Taron Egerton being called into the Saxon army to join the Crusades, except here the army seems to be English(?) and lead not by King Richard Lionheart, but the actual sheriff of Nottingham played by Ben Mendelsohn. After four years of fighting Robin tries to intervene in the execution of a Saracen soldier, the son of John (I know he has a full name, but he’s not credited as such and I don’t remember how to spell it, played by Jamie Foxx), and failing that, he is returned to England. There he finds his property seized by the Sheriff, Maid Marion gone (who in this version is neither a Lady nor a wood smith's daughter, but a thief played by Eve Hewson), and the Sheriff proclaiming him dead. At the behest of John, Robin starts training to become a master thief, the Hood, who will take down the Sheriff from the inside.

I love Robin Hood. I grew up on the stories, and I had an illustrated version that collected all the most famous tales and as such I am familiar with the source material. I have hated every single Robin Hood adaptation Hollywood has shat out, with the exception of the Disney version which is fine, if a bit simplistic and Men in Tights, which is both the closest in tone and execution. This version is at once excellent and batshit insane; I had a lot of fun watching it, and I do recommend it, but it’s not a good film. It has some major problems, and how much you will enjoy this depends solely on how forgiving you are of them for the sake of action and style.

Stylization (Automatic Ballistas? In my movie?):

The stylization of this film is intense and very ridiculous. What I feel like it was going for was Moulin Rouge/Great Gatsby, but what it actually ended up as, is the Matthew MacFadyen Three Musketeers.

Nothing in this film is of the time period; the clothing, the scenery, the castes, the weapons, the way people act and speak. We are introduced to Maid Marian in the first scene of the film, wearing a headscarf while she has on a dress with a cleavage so deep and so pronounced it would be considered raunchy by today’s standards, nevermind the 1300’s! And this is her ‘thieving outfit’.... Right. The moment where Robin tells her she’s stunning I was like… well, her boobs sure are. Robin himself wears regular modern day shirts, leather jackets, and let's not even touch on what everyone is wearing at the party for the cardinal.

The scene where they show the Crusades is so insane I genuinely thought we started watching a different film. It’s shot like a war movie, with lots of tight, worm’s eye perspective shots, and everyone is wearing armor that looks like modern day kevlar vests. There is a ballista which fires arrows like a machine gun and the way people are shooting arrows and crossbows in narrow corridors is like something out of a video game. In fact this whole sequence feels like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed had a child and it was a good indicator as to the rest of the film. I didn’t mind the stylization as much, but there were times, mostly with Robin and Marian’s outfits which made me go “what am I watching??”

Tone (Zero Dark Loxley):

Let me go through just a few scenes as an example of just how wildly inconsistent and fluctuating it really is. The first scene is the meeting between Marian and Robin; it’s supposed to be romantic, something akin (ahem, a copy) to The Princess Bride. But it’s shot so weirdly, and the blocking is stiff and unnatural and the dialogue is just so full of quippy one liners that I felt like I was watching a porno!

Then, Robin gets drafted and the next scene is literary The Hurt Locker, but with arrows and catapults instead of bombs. There is even a fellow soldier Robin is trying to rescue, and like I said, it’s shot exactly like a war film. It was by far the best and tensest part of the whole film, and the action was creative and well shot and edited for the most part, especially the fight between John and Robin.

The scene after that is absolutely brutal and honestly almost too dark for this film. It shows the English torturing the captured Arabian soldiers and has two executions which are brutal. But then, we cut right back to Robin Hood shenanigans with Tuck, and I swear I got whiplash. This happens throughout the film; we have a scene of funny, quippy dialogue between Robin and Tuck or Robin and John, and then bam, the next scene is torture, or a riot.

Plot (Nobody Expects the English Inquisition):

The tone isn’t helped by the fact that the plot of this film is completely ludicrous. It is essentially several heists that culminate in a massive riot/heist, but the plan of the villains makes everything that much more crazy. Warning SPOILERS, but trust me, you want to know the plan.

The Sheriff of Nottingham is working with a Cardinal to finance the Arabian army during the Crusades, so they can beat the English, and presumably win the war, so then I guess the Cardinal can say whoever is King in this (neither Richard nor John are mentioned once) is unworthy of the crown and install The Sheriff as the new King… what? Do the Arabian soldiers know they are being paid by the English? Does the Sheriff’s death squad? Because they seemed all too happy to execute Arabian soldiers and lost a lot of their men in the skirmish. Also, do the cardinal and the Arabs have a deal that after they win they won’t just invade England? Cause that sure seems like something they’d want to do. Also England wasn’t the only country (well it wasn’t even England, but we’ll ignore that for now) fighting in the Crusades. There was Normandy, Lombardy, the Holy Roman Empire…. Are they also in on this plan?

Another thing; the whole bit with the Sheriff wanting to imprison or kill all his subjects who had no money to pay in the mines; who are you going to rule over if your populace is dead? No. Sense.

Characters (Ben Mendelsohn Makes Everything 300 Times Better):

Speaking of the Sheriff let’s talk about his backstory.

Ben Mendelsohn is an excellent actor, and he elevates material that is usually far beneath him to good, even great standards. And he is clearly having the time here; he has several monologues, many scenes of shouting or overacting, and he has really good chemistry with both Egerton and Fox. The scene where he is threatening John is probably the best acting in the film, and I wish the two had more time to spar.

However, this character’s backstory and the way he delivers it is insane. I have to put a SPOILER warning, but trust me, you want me to tell you what it is. The Sheriff apparently was an orphan, raised in a church orphanage, where every night the Lords and Cardinals would come to beat and possibly, heavily implied, sexually assault the children, including him. He has a long monologue about this, where he goes in graphic detail, of which I will spare you here, and he tells all of this to Robin of Loxley who he has, at this point known for a few days at most. Honestly the pure confusion and terror on Egerton’s face during this scene was what I was feeling the whole time. The film makes you remember this backstory, brings it up in both every scene Egerton and Mendelsohn have after this and even have Robin callback to it at the very end in a pretty callous manner, unbefitting of the film’s protagonist. And I have to ask, why? Was the Sheriff being a greedy, immoral man not enough, now he has to be the victim of child abuse and sexual assault too?

Speaking of bad idea characters, Will Scarlet is in this and boy did I hate him. Jamie Dornan is finally allowed to be Irish in this which is refreshing, but by God, he has nothing to work with. His whole character is just set up for a sequel and in this film he just exists so Marian has a reason not to immediately reconcile with Robin. Why filmmakers always feel the need to have Will’s character be some kind of a twist, instead of just playing him straight is beyond me.

Marion, if we ignore the ridiculous outfits she’s forced to wear is fine as a character, but she just doesn’t fit with the fabric of this world. First off, how was she living with Robin (and everyone knew this) without being married to him? And how is she living with Will now without being married to him? Also, how is she allowed to question and attack the Sherrif without being 50 kinds of executed after the first time she dared to speak? She was also a lot more proactive in the whole going against the Sheriff business than Robin, so why he was leader at the end and not her is also beyond me, but what do I know. At least she wasn’t a damsel in distress.

Tuck and John were both fine. I liked them both equally, though John gets a lot more screen time. Jamie Foxx kills every scene he’s in, and I liked that he had his own mini storyline with the Sheriff and his son’s death. I don’t understand why they felt the need to combine the role of Little John and the Saracen character (who in my version of the stories was called Salim), but he was still a great character. Tuck was comic relief, but he was a welcome change from the rest of the film, and he resembled his story counterpart the closest.

Robin Hood himself was a mixed bag. Like Foxx, Taron Egerton is a trooper and he give Robin a lot of charm and life, which this version of the character desperately needs. There are several scenes where he is absolutely frightened, emotional or suffering from PTSD, end Egerton sells it. He is great at the action scenes, has the physique for the part, and brings a charm and a sexiness to the role that really works for the scene where he’s the Lord Loxley.

What doesn’t work (at least not always) is the actual character. Bless his heart, but he has no chemistry with Eve Hewson, no matter how much he tries. He has much more chemistry with both Foxx and Mendelsohn, but the issue is that Marian is his entire motivation. The film resorts to numerous cheezy flashbacks of their romance, scenes of them kissing or longingly looking at each other and it just comes off as ridiculous and forced. If they were going for a Princess Bride vibe, that film worked because a) Cary Elwes and Robin Wright had chemistry b) the film established their love and didn’t rely on flashbacks to convince us they were in love, we just knew it.

I did like that Robin was a bit selfish, and seemed to be doing things just to win Marian back, even though technically that’s not faithful to the stories; it was was a good starting point for the character to grow from. I’m just not sure he grew much at all; at the end of the film he’s still a bit selfish and a bit petty. Things like his PTSD are also never really addressed and explored and though again, it makes sense that Robin being in the wars would suffer from it, I’m not sure Robin Hood is the place to tell it.

Conclusion?

All in all this film was very fun. It doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, and as such it tried to be everything and excels at nothing. However the good acting, fun action scenes and truly bizarre style of the film more than make up for it, and I implore you to go see it, both so you can experience the madness yourself, and so it makes enough money for a sequel.

#robin hood #moni talks #film review #robin hood review

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thenewlittleprincess · 3 years

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Stars Are Falling

Monday, December 15, 2025 4 pm and it's... TEDDY... DA... VINCI !" says an offstage announcer.

The band, mostly a set of horns, start up, with a tune that could have been a hit in 1938, in the days of Benny Goodman.

"Always ready Teddy here and welcome to the Teddy Da Vinci show. The big news story today:

'Will President Kat get the Nobel Prize?' Rumor has it that some Members of the Norwegian Parliament want to nominate our very own President Katherine Elizabeth Hemingway for a Nobel Prize.

"The one problem is... Which prize does she qualify for?

"Some want to nominate her for a literary prize.. Only problem is, she's never actually written a book... [Laughter from the audience] In fact, as a former primary school teacher, the last thing she wrote, in Chestnut Hills Elementary School, was probably something on the board like 'See Spot. See Spot run. Spot and Jane run.' [laughter from the audience] Now the question is, 'Are the Norwegians so desperate to give our first woman President a Nobel Prize that they will call that "literature"?' [laughter and applause from the audience] Well, they say books are dying.

"Some want to nominate her for a Nobel Economic Prize... Well, she's not exactly an economic theoretician, with her Bachelor of Education degree.. Wait, I know what she could get the economic prize for.. Getting a $ 130 trillion tax increase through Congress to cover a $ 3 trillion dollar deficit! Kat Hemingway has, for the first time, combined economics and magic... abracadabra and the money in your World Bank account just disappears! [laughter and applause from the audience]

"Some want to give her the Nobel Peace Prize because she proposed her 'Ploughshares Plan' to literally bury all the world's nuclear weapons. But . . . didn't they notice? Nobody actually wants to talk about that plan . . . Certainly none of the nuclear powers . . . Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel . . . Where are they? They kind of nodded and smiled [audience laughter] . . . Like 'Uh huh . . .'. I think they'd have to change the name of that Prize to the "Nobel Pipe Dreams For Peace Prize" to give her that award [laughter and applause from the audience]. Ah well, I guess you can't blame her for trying. . . .

"I think the New Little Princess has a better chance of getting a Nobel Peace Prize but they have to make a new name for the prize. I think she is the first child ever to have started a war! [applause from the audience]

"By the way, she'll be here later, to sing her last new song before her Christmas videopacks get released next week. So we'll ask her what she thinks of the President's action on Guatemala: will it help restore democracy in that troubled country? . . . "

The Princess' appearance is at the end of a long queue of actors, famous businessmen, politicians, even other top-of-the-chart singers. Teddy Da Vinci's been a Las Vegas-and-now-New York personality for a generation and only recently started this show to chat with his friends in public on the ICT. That the Princess is even here is a big step up for her. If the President had not said, this morning, "I want to thank the New Little Princess, because I didn't really understand what was happening on the ground in Guatemala until I saw the video she showed on the Carrie Woodlawn Show last week", and publicly invited her and her family to Christmas lunch at the White House in the media conference, she would never have got here.

When her Princesistos and Princesistas on the ICT feel like they have been watching the boring hob-nobbing of Da Vinci and his peeps for an eon, after a commercial break, suddenly The New Little Princess skips on to the stage and comes over to Teddy's desk.

Teddy hugs the Princess and invites her to sit on his sofa with the famous people who are still there. She looks over in awe at them, having seen every one on the ICT, whether in movies, videos or on shows like this, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. Several of them say "Hi", at which she gulps and says quietly, "Hola".

"Well, welcome, New Little Princess!" says Teddy. "I think you're no stranger to shows like this now."

"No, I'm on them every day now," says the Princess.

"And last week you were on Carrie Woodlawn, weren't you?" says Teddy.

"Aye," she says.

"And did you know the President was watching?" Teddy says.

The Princess sits on her hands, her eyes widen and she slowly shakes her head 'No'.

"And did you know she mentioned you today?"

The Princess flashes her Altrincham Cat grin and slowly nods.

"Yes," says Teddy. "And what do you think about what she announced for Guatemala today: quarantine, no-fly zone, air support for the revolutionary fighters there? Is that going to be enough to topple the military government there, that is.. not your favorite group o ' guys? "

The audience laugh.

The Princess hisses like a cat and says "They're no one's favorite group except murderers and thieves. For them, they're poster kiddies."

The audience laughs even louder.

"Truth be told, I dunno 'understand what the President is doin' there in Guatemala now. But the important thing is, after three months of talkin 'about it, she's doin' somethin '. That'll make other countries do somethin' and maybe, maybe, that's the beginning of the end for the Guatemalan junta ! " says the Princess.

The audience applaud.

"As for what she's doin', she's the President, not I, and, if we trust her - and I do - we've got to believe she's doin' the right thing. The only thing I want to say to her, in front of everyone, here and on the ICT, is 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! If the people of Guatemala have any chance it's because of you and your people, and people and leaders like you across the world," the Princess says.

The audience applaud again.

"Well," says Teddy. "And we hope that she does know what she's doing. And, if it works, maybe she will deserve that Nobel Peace Prize I talked about before."

"Dunno' want the War Prize, by the way," the Princess says, her eyebrows raised, looking like a teacher who's just caught someone cheating on the test.

The audience laugh.

"Oh, you heard that?" Teddy says, his eyes shifting left and right.

"Aye," says the Princess. "Do ya think I weren't listenin '? In the dressing room? Made me Mum shout at me. 'Now see what ya've gone and done? ' [mimicking her mother's Scottish brogue] "

Teddy clears his throat.

The audience laugh again.

"I dunno 'want to play War Child. I dunno' want to start a war between America and Guatemala. What ya've missed out is that there is already a war in Guatemala, between the junta and the ordinary people. I want it stopped! But the only way it will stop is if countries like yours lock up the junta or at least chase them out of power. Got it? " says the Princess.

Looking chastened and embarrassed, Teddy, the great actor he is, says "Yes, Miss Princess."

"So, then. Can I show me video now?" the Princess says.

"Uh ... yes ... sure Miss Princess," says Teddy, playing his role to the delight of the audience.

"There's no sound," the Princess says. "So I have to tell you what you're about to see. This was just taken by someone with a videocam in the street in GC - Guatemala City. Zero production. The trabajadores marched out of their factory because their wages aren't enough They are wavin 'their signs tellin' that, but it's all in Spanish, so you won't understand. It's a huelga : they shut down the factory and block the gates until they can get a rise in pay. Then came the Army and you can see what they do with no explanation. "

In the video, a lot of men are marching in the street waving signs. Then the Army arrives. There is some kind of shouting match. Suddenly, there is blood everywhere as bombs are dropped and the infantry open fire, even shooting the demonstrators in the back as they run. At the end, the street is clear but littered with the dead and dying.

The Princess' face looks like a delta.

"Have ya seen it? Have ya got it now? There's the war. It's not my war. That's what I - and now your President - is tryin' to stop. And you can try too."

The Princess wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands, gulps and tries to sit up straight and speak clearly.

"Just send a contribution to the Guatemalan Freedom Fund. That's World Bank account GFF30749. G ... F ... F... 3. .. 0... 7... 4... 9. That goes to buy doctors and medicine for the victims like that. Plus food and clothing for the refugees and for the people fighting those soldiers. Plus guns and bullets. Until the President can knock out the junta the people need all that," the Princess says.

"Well, you're certainly a great little salesgirl," Teddy says. "Now what about singing? Mark sang and Trini sang and Tina, your friend from Pina Colada, sang."

The Princess grins and waves her fingers at Tina Mendes, another Pina Colada starlet, but 12 years older. Tina smiles and waves back.

"Aren't you going to sing?" Teddy asks.

"Of course!" says the Princess. "This will be me last chance to introduce a new song from me Princess At War videopack, comin' out next week. It's called 'Stars Are Fallin' and it's for me non-fans, or at least fans who never do anything."

"Never do what?" asks Teddy.

"Look," says the Princess. "Me Dad says like 20,000,000 people see me talk about Guatemala and ask them to put money in the Freedom Fund or send a message to their President to lock up the junta but only 2,000,000 people do anything. The other ones are sleepin'."

"Sleeping?" Teddy says.

"Must be," says the Princess. "So this song is to wake up the sleepin' dead, or dead sleepin', before they create millions really dead in Guatemala by doin' nowt but nowt. And get them to wake up and do somethin'!"

"OK, little Princess, it's your show," says Teddy, pointing to the other side of the stage where the Princess' Army wait with their instruments.

"Cheers, Teddy!" she says.

The audience applauds as the Princess skips over to her Mighty Synth and sits on her bench.

The Princess starts a few chords, with sound effects, on the synthesiser and one-by-one, the other instruments fall in behind her.

After the musical introduction, the Princess starts singing, putting chords between her lines, while the band carry the music.

Why are you sleepin'?

While the world is goin' mad

Why are you sleepin'?

When we're losin' everything

We ever thought we'd ever have

I sit here watchin' the sky

Watchin' the stars fall

And watchin' them die

Why are you sleepin'?

When you should be makin' history

Why are you sleepin'?

Why don't you just do somethin'

Like pick me up, take me and run away with me?

There's nothin' left for us here

Why not force the exit?

Run away from the fear

'Cos the stars are fallin'

Over me and you

The stars are fallin'

Nothin' we can do?

You say "Sh! I'm sleepin'"

Oh, yeah . . .

[Only organ chords on the synthesiser, quietly]

We are ridin' on a wave

Of livin' history

Where it's takin' us

Is a nightmare and a mystery

[Band resumes playing, full sound]

Everythin's gone sour

All the sweets have gone off

And when I scream at you

"Just do somethin'!"

You just look at me

And just cough . . .

[The music stops. The Princess covers her mouth with her hand and coughs, then rolls her eyes.]

[The music starts again]

[The Princess sings a full octave crescendo] "Oh, Yeah-h-h-h? "

[Shouted] I say "Look but the stars are fallin'!"

[Singing again]

Over me and you

The stars are fallin'

Don't tell me that there's

Nothin' we can do

You say "Sh! I'm sleepin'"

Oh, yeah . . .

[Rapped]

And I shout "Yeah, right"

Done nothin' all day

And doin' nothin' all night. . . .

[Sung]

And you're fallin' . . .

You don't know but you're fallin' too . . .

[Softly, just synthesizer – organ sound - chords as Princess says quietly]

And nothin's happenin' . . .

I'm cryin'

You're still sleepin '

And my people are still dyin '

[Whispered, through tears]

Sleep tight

Good night

Hope you get your soul back

From the moonlight.

[Princess bursts into tears, crying into her hands]

#stars #falling #2025 #child #popstar #thenewlittleprincess #new song lyrics #original fiction #original song #interview #revolution #Guatemala #comedy

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ruffoverthinksthings · 7 years

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Alysane-Mormont’s Questions About The Isle, Answered

@alysane-mormont

tumblr is being stupid and won’t let me reblog. Anyway, *cracks knuckles* let’s do this.

1. The involvement of Auradon in the Isle. How much do they have? Are the housing and money controlled? Do the villains have to pay for to live on the isle? Are they assigned jobs and such?

Auradon was involved in the construction of the initial buildings, the creation of the islands it stands on (presumably using the leftover land from the moving of the original states, like dead zones used as buffers while they fused them together), and of course, imprisoning/resurrecting all the villains, their minions, and other criminals there.

They have no control AGU (After Great Uniting), nor do they want to; all of the Islanders are basically left to their own devices.

No, the Villains don’t need to pay. It’s a prison, you don’t pay for your own accommodations. Whatever Auradon Silver Dollars are currently circulating among them are the same Auradon Silver Dollars they were given 20 years ago, save a couple hundred lost to damage or carelessness, so at least inflation is non-existent and steadily dropping.

They might have been once upon a time, but whatever infrastructure Auradon left them behind has long been destroyed, abused, or stolen and broken beyond use.

2. Food. Where are they getting their food on the island? The Isle doesn’t seem to be big enough to grow enough food for the entire island. Are they getting food delivered from the island?

They get most of their food from the trash barges that Auradon sends over. The Isle of the Lost is literally their dump, and because Auradonians are so wasteful, they throw almost to entire packs of perfectly good food in there, or toss bread as soon as it gets a day old, or stale.

They ARE growing, hunting, and catching food, but just barely. You can see in Descendants 2 that Harry collects /steals some fish from a girl fishing by the dock, and delivers it to one of Ursula’s staff at the Fish and Chips.

Aside from fish and shellfish, they eat rats, wild dogs, insects like cockroaches, and the occasional alligator if the population gets too big and starts crawling up off the beach and snacking on them.

3. Government. Maleficent is in charge, but what does that mean? That she chuckles evilly, and says she is? Does she have a council, is it EQ, Jafar, and Cruella? A lot of the problems on the Isle could be solved by a good government not run by a fairy made of ham and anger, a former vizar not giving advice, a woman who probably spent all my kingdoms money on botax, and a clearly unhinged puppy killer.

Maleficent has an army of thugs that keep her fed, in the lap of Isle luxury, and from anyone trying to rise up and overthrow her. Otherwise, she leaves everyone to their own devices unless she needs someone specifically for whatever reason, and has lieutenants doing the business of keeping things in some semblance of order to try and minimize violent revolts.

As the saying goes, “I have minions for that.”

Evil Queen, Jafar, and Cruella are her fellow power players, or more likely, enemies she tolerates keeping closer than others.

Yes, a lot of their problems CAN be solved by Good Government, but like any IRL government, there needs to be support from the people, the administration, and someone willing to pay for it. It is NOT in Maleficent’s interest to have a fair, egalitarian government where she isn’t getting the lion’s share, nor will she dedicate precious resources towards creating one, nor do the majority of the population have the capability or the desire of working together to overthrow her and make something better.

The issue is, even if they hypothetically defeat Maleficent, they start fighting among themselves for who gets to sit at the highest seat and lord over everyone else and get the lion’s share, and unlike majority of the population, Maleficent is immortal, immune to sickness, does not need to eat, sleep, nor go to the bathroom.

There were a LOT of rebellions and their members who were done in by poison and sickness through the abuse of the Isle’s unsanitary conditions, starved or dehydrated to death or submission, or quite literally went down the toilet, along with the bodies of the rebels themselves.

4. Business. How does any, non food, business stay in business? No one pays for anything. They probably only pay for food cause that shit would be a lot harder to steal cause see #2.

They fish, they try to farm, they get their ingredients from the trash barges. People frequently steal, yes, but the proprietors ALSO rip off and steal from their customers, which gives new meaning to the sign “Please don’t leave your valuables unattended.” That aside, certain establishments like Ursula’s Fish and Chips are a reliable enough source of food that people will pay for the convenience—better lighter several silver dollars, than with several new bumps on your head and lacerations beside.

That aside, Harry Hook makes a real killing as security, alongside being a “tax” collector.

5. Why was Mal and the others in charge? This one is probably due to me not yet reading the prequels, but they never seem to go beyond bullies.

Like Ben or the other royals: birth. In Descendants, who your parents or ancestors were is EVERYTHING.

6. Population. Auradon is clearly okay with the Villains reproducing, so what happens in a generation or two when they grow to big for the Isle? Leave them and let the Isle fall farther into poverty then it already is?

They let them overcrowd and deal with it themselves, and will probably not care about the hell that happens, the food riots, and the more… drastic measures they take once space and resources get non-existent.

7. Who gets put on the isle? The major villains, sure obviously. But what about their henchmen? Are they guilty by association, and for doing their jobs?

All criminals, from highwaymen, buccaneers, thieving traveling showmen and women, evil sorcerers, larcenous prostitutes, corrupt businessmen, shady tax collectors, gang enforcers and extortionists, you name it.

They’re guilty by association, though I assume some have been given consideration, like Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

8. How canon are the sequels? Are they ALL noncanon, some? Peter Pan 2 and Rescuers 2 were in theaters, so do they count? I like to think based on D2, that Cinderella III is canon.

All sequels are non-canon, as are the animated series. I don’t consider this true for my headcanons, as all the sequels and animated series’ add so much more to the series.

9. Which actual non-sequel Disney princess movies count? The Black Cauldron obviously, but what about like Lilo and Stitch or Atlantis?

Lilo and Stitch and Atlantis are presumed not included, until further notice. This can be evidenced by the lack of aliens, or that of flying vehicles.

10. Why didn’t any of the Villains hook up. TV Tropes taught me that Frollo x Gothel have a following. and Maleficent and Evil Queen might be a thing. Why don’t they have more inter-dating, why are they all single parents?

Because the power of Shipping is one thing, actually compatible personalities for a long-term relationship that lasts enough for procreation is another. Generally speaking, you’re asking TWO paranoid, selfish, violent, and narcissistic beings to try and compromise, have empathy for another person, and show some semblance of love or care for them to be willing to have sex with them, among other things.

Even if ONE of them is willing to make it work, go google see “I Dated A Narcissist” to see how well that goes.

All of the VKs parents are presumed minor henchmen and non-notable villains, dead, or purposefully forgotten after they got the known parent pregnant/bore them children, such as Mal’s dad, “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-In-Front-Of-Maleficent” or “Nameless,” for short.

11. Poor Claudine. Who the hell let Frollo have a kid, a daughter no less. If HoND taught us anything it’s you don’t need love to be happy, but another thing was don’t allow Frollo need woman or children. And he has one. Someone tell me Claudine is living with someone better like the Horned King or something.

Auradon did, by virtue of not caring in the slightest, and the Islanders did also, by not caring what the fuck the crazy, lecherous, delusional, self-righteous preacher does, and what poor unfortunate soul lets themselves be taken in by his silver words, or finds themselves in such desperate conditions he’s the better option.

No, Claudine is living in Frollo’s decrepit church. She rings Dragon Hall’s bell-tower, as well as that of her father’s church/her home.

12. What do you lose when you go to the Isle? Jafar isn’t in genie form anymore, but Ursula has tentacles. Is the Horned King still the master of my nightmares?

Everything, basically, except for the clothes on your back—even your family name and all associations are removed, as a character like Dizzy Tremaine is referred to as “Dizzy of the Isle.”

Ursula still has tentacles because she was born that way. It’s an inherent part of her being, while Jafar was changed from a human into a genie. The Horned King has presumably lost that job, or someone much kinder has taken care of it.

13. Why weren’t the children removed at birth? Disregarding the fact that they were all growing up in abusive situations, why would you allow Villains to bred a future generation of children to be villains?

BECAUSE AURADON DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT VILLAINS, OTHER THAN THEM BEING IMPRISONED AND FAR AWAY FROM THEM, OUT OF SIGHT, AND OUT OF MIND. Think of Auradon as basically every ass-backwards, heavily conservative Southern USA state you can think of that still thinks flying the Confederate flag is a good idea, and a thing of pride.

14. Who they hell thought this was a good idea? Lock all the villains on isle, bring them back to life if you have to? They should hope they barrier doesn’t fall cause you have a whole lot of people who can use magic and are angry at you. Chernabog is probably in there, Hades and the Titans, the Horned King, all people who can destroy everything. If you wanted to make the villains suffer, they should have been put in custom made prison, like the Red Lotus in Legend of Korra. The entire Isle is a ticking time bomb that could destroy Auradon.

Majority of the population and a good deal of the Royals. Please remember: most of these states came from Western Europe in the Medieval Ages, where the public beheading of criminals was an event that parents willingly brought their kids to see. They are from cruel, vicious, vengeful times where the Miranda Rights, the Geneva Convention, or what we know as the right way to deal with criminals—treat them humanely, then reintegrate them into society—has yet to even be considered an idea, or worse yet, treated as blasphemy of the highest order.

To them, if you do “evil,” you deserve evil in return, and kindness is reserved for those that “deserve” kindness.

The Auradonians are also very vengeful people who hold serious grudges. They like to think of themselves as the “absolute Good” people which is how they justify their evil actions—they wouldn’t be in Auradon if they were capable of doing “bad” things, now, wouldn’t they?

Think of it as how Frollo justified setting the entire city of London on fire and murdering countless Romani people in cold blood—he is the Judge, he is the Symbol of Good, therefore all his actions are Justified and Right.

Yes, they better hope that barrier stays up, as Maleficent damn near screwed over the entire kingdom if Mal and the others hadn’t fought her.

All those deities are there, but they’re severely depowered. It’ll take a while or an explicitly magical artifact like Maleficent’s staff, which hasn’t been drained entirely, for them to be able to wreak havoc again. It’s why Fairy Godmother’s wand is so highly sought after.

This entire realm is a ticking time bomb. On the one hand, you have the Isle, on the other, you have the systematic oppression of minority classes like the Fae with the magic ban, the dwarves being used as slave labour, and “animal rights” being limited to “you do all our household chores for us, and you get nothing in compensation.”

Not even Pongo and Perdita are given a scholarship or any sort of support for their 101 children, now ready to go to college, and Ben is only beginning to redress their grievances.

Beast ran this country by yelling, stomping his feet, and bullying everyone into following whatever HE wanted to do, damn principles like compromise, empathy, or sanity, and only now are we seeing how bad of an idea that is, and the majority of the Royals are too busy having tea parties and the commoners fawning over 24 hours news coverage of how pretty they are and the dresses they are wearing to even care about the impending collapse of their unsustainable and unjust society.

In case it wasn’t obvious, Disney’s attempt to make a series that shows that there is no Pure Evil or Pure Good made their most horrifying Dystopia yet.

#author's note #disney #descendants

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Army of Thieves Review: Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead Universe Gets Second Helpings

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Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead universe is expanding, and not in all the ways you expect. The first movie, which involved time loops, robots, aliens, and even copulating zombies, unsurprisingly left viewers with lots of questions, but don’t expect this universe’s sophomore outing to deliver any of the answers you’re looking for. Instead, Army of Thieves is a prequel that largely ignores the zombie-infested hell of Las Vegas, and it’s all the better for it.

Green lighting a prequel before the first movie had even dropped always seemed a bit presumptuous on Netflix’s part, but the connections between the two films are so minor that it hardly matters. Director and star Matthias Schweighöfer (who plays master safecracker Ludwig Dieter in both Army films) has made an entertaining heist movie that stands on its own two feet.

Army of Thieves is really an origin story for Ludwig, arguably Army of the Dead‘s best, most likable character. Six years before Ludwig joins Scott Ward’s expedition into post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, the quirky safecracker is living in Berlin, working a dull office job, and running a YouTube channel nobody watches. His life is a boring routine, but he dreams of conquering the Ring Cycle, a series of legendary bank vaults created by a grand master locksmith that have never been cracked. Ludwig has learned everything there is to know about these mythical vaults and has even put in countless hours of practice into unlocking whatever he can get his hands on. In a flashback, we even learn that while other kids were playing outside, Ludwig was in his room cracking small safes. That someone would dream of becoming a safecracker from a young age seems a little outlandish but it works when the character is as weird and meticulous as Ludwig Dieter.

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Unfortunately, becoming a master safecracker doesn’t seem like an attainable dream for Ludwig — until he meets the mysterious Gwendoline (Game of Thrones‘ Nathalie Emmanuel) who offers him a new gig that will change his life and put him on the path that will eventually lead to Vegas. Along with genius hacker Korina (Ruby O. Fee), action hero wannabe Brad Cage (Stuart Martin), and constantly hungry driver Rolph (Guz Khan), Ludwig and Gwendoline set out to find the Ring Cycle and steal all the money inside.

Yes, it’s a trope-y, by-the-numbers heist movie, and not a particularly original script from Army of the Dead co-writer Shay Hatten, but Thieves sort of knows it and doesn’t take itself too seriously. In fact, it happens to be pretty funny movie, thanks to Schweighöfer excellent comedic timing and warmer outlook on life in juxtaposition to his much colder comrades, who play things straight despite how increasingly ridiculous their caper set pieces get. The movie is light on the gritty (sweaty) tone of its predecessor, and that’s a better fit for a character like Ludwig, who felt like an underdeveloped, comedic relief redshirt in the original but is fully fleshed out here and in his element. Despite its over two-hour runtime, Ludwig and the gang’s romp around Europe feels relatively breezy (although 20 minutes or so should have probably been excised anyway).

Army of Thieves isn’t just a showcase for Schweighöfer’s talent as a charming comedic actor but also as a promising director. While his predecessor used some…unusual camera techniques for the original, Schweighöfer goes for something much cleaner this time around, including shots of beautiful European vistas that would feel right at home in a James Bond movie. Some of the action sequences are better than others, but Schweighöfer does deliver a few standout moments, such as a fight scene with Emmanuel in the cavernous depths of a heavily guarded bank.

Ultimately, the best parts of Army of Thieves are the performances, from Schweighöfer’s nervous genius, to Fee’s sarcastic hipster hacker who also moonlights as a DJ, to Martin’s try-hard gunslinger who often feels like a tongue-in-cheek nod to some of Snyder’s own characters. There’s also Jonathan Cohen as a loser Interpol agent named Delacroix who is always two steps behind Emmanuel’s calculating master criminal. This ensemble is fun to watch, even if some characters feel more fully realized than others. I would have liked to spend a bit more time with sandwich-loving Rolph, who feels more like a henchman than a real member of the team. His intro sequence is cool, though.

As I said, if you’re mostly in it for the zombies, Army of Thieves won’t really scratch that itch. Yes, the movie nods to things going on in Sin City but you won’t be spending any real time there. In many ways, this prequel feels like the start of a spin-off series starring Ludwig and friends, and judging from the quality of this first outing, I’d definitely say more vaults await.

Army of Thieves is out on Netflix on Oct. 29.

The post Army of Thieves Review: Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead Universe Gets Second Helpings appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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iamcarriesoom · 7 years

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Planes, Tanks and Automobiles

Fast & Furious 6 opens with Dom and Brian racing along some absurdly beautiful coast and looking very mad at each other. I SEE RIGHT THROUGH IT, YOU GUYS. YOU CAN’T HIDE THE BROMANCE. They’re actually racing to get to the birth of Brian’s baby. (Where were they coming from? Why wouldn’t Brian stay home with Mia when she’s so close to giving birth? He’s a criminal millionaire, it’s not like he had a day job to get to.)

This movie has opening credits like it’s a TV show- like a nine minute super-cut of the best clips from all the previous movies. I’m on board.

I still don’t understand the bond between Dom and Elsa Pataky (or just her character in general. What’s her deal?) It’s gonna be awkward when Letty inevitably comes back.

Hobbs is somewhere, talking to…some suspect. We’re supposed to think it’s Dom, but then he walks around to see him from the front and surprise! It’s not Dom. You couldn’t fool me, movie. As if Dom would run off so soon after the birth of his nephew. Don’t you think we know how important family is to him? He starts beating the shit out of this guy, and someone watching is like “Is this legal?” Hobbs’ partner (whose name I only knew after I looked it up on IMDb, so I’ll call her Angel Dust because that’s her character in Deadpool) is like “nope.” It’s bordering on a little too self aware, but I laughed.

Hobbs comes to see Dom for help, and Dom is like “nah you can’t make me,” but Hobbs gives him the new pictures of Letty. Extremely chill Elsa Pataky is like “babe you should go, it’s fine, I get that I’m your second choice and honestly, likewise.” I’m pumped already, I love a good “criminal with a heart of gold helping to catch the TRUE bad guys” story (Catch Me If You Can, White Collar, etc etc.)

Dom is like “Brian, you should stay, you literally just had a very cute baby moments ago with my sister.” Mia is like “No, you’re stronger together. You always were.” Except all the times they worked as a team and people died, but sure OK. Hobbs is like “I know you guys are a family.” No shit, Hobbs.

I am again surprised that Wonder Woman is in this movie, even though I like and am committed to her character now. I just feel like I should have known? She and Han get a call to meet up. Tyrese turns his private jet around to come join the team. Luda showers some pals with money from an ATM and heads off to meet everyone. They’re like the Avengers, and Hobbs is…Nick Fast&Fury? Is that a thing that works?

They’re trying to catch some extreme bad guy played by Gaston. In true Fast & Furious fashion, all character motivations are laid out very quickly and quietly with very little detail. He’s assembling the pieces to create some kind of device to black out communication “for a whole country” (any size country??) for a day, so he can sell it to somebody, probably. I don’t fully know what law enforcement agency Hobbs works for, but somehow he only has one partner and this band of thieves to work with to find the world’s foremost super-criminal. They all negotiate “wipe our records” deals, which seems silly at this point because you know they’re just going to dirty them right back up again.

They wire up Fake Vin Diesel and send him in to see Gaston so they can catch him. As if it’s gonna be that easy. While they’re watching that go down, Interpol gets robbed, but Gaston basically traps all the cops in the city underground (are they all dead now?? Is this the scene in the franchise with the most fatalities?) and we get the first car chase of the movie, because apparently the gang are now in charge of investigating security breaches at Interpol.

Gaston has this insane low-slung racecar with a little scooper on the front so any car that hits him goes flying. It’s a true evil genius contraption. Cars are flipping left and right. Do cars actually flip that easily? Also, I feel like flipping cars would result in more injuries. More of these people should be dead or at least concussed.

Dom takes off after Letty and after cornering her, they both get out of their cars for their grand reunion. Except Letty shoots him in the shoulder and takes off. Yikes!

Gaston pulls out files on all the good-bad guys, and they find a picture of Letty sitting on Dom’s lap. She just says “That’s the guy I shot.” Letty in this movie is like Peeta in the last Hunger Games. She apparently lost her memory in the car crash that everyone assumed killed her.

They need some cars for their plan, so Hobbs and Luda go on a cute lil man date to a fancy car auction. Hobbs is like “You aren’t thinking about stealing these cars, are you?” Dude this is what you get for hiring car thieves. Some snooty guy comes up to them with some racist nonsense so Luda buys all the cars and also makes him give them his clothes.

Wonder Woman and Angel Dust go try to flirt some info out of a mechanic but he pocket-dials Gaston so he can send some goons. Han and Tyrese can see the goons approaching, but don’t do anything to help, stop them, or warn Wonder Woman and Angel Dust. There are a bunch of fight scenes, which I find kind of boring (these movies aren’t called The FIST and the Furious) but no one dies and they steal some insane harpoon contraption from the mechanic.

They realize that Gaston is working with Braga, the bad guy from Fast & Fourious/Wonder Woman’s old boss, so Brian decides to sneak back into the country with the help of that guy whose face he smashed into a wall a few movies ago.

Paul Walker and his they-must-be-color-corrected insane blue eyes get moved near Braga and he almost gets knifed to death a bunch. Braga tells him that he’ll only get near Gaston if Gaston wants him to, which isn’t really all that helpful. Also we learn that he found out about Letty’s memory loss and passed her along to Gaston.

Meanwhile, Dom gives himself a random night off and heads to Rita Ora’s street race, where he races Letty through a lot of traffic. Is no one racing on closed streets anymore?? He looks at her car and says “You never could resist American muscle,” which, nice. Smooth. I like it.

They chat in an empty parking lot and he reminisces about all their good times and she’s like “sure if you say so, stranger.” Question: if she has no memory, why is her name still Letty?

Gaston shows up and they quip back and forth for a while instead of just shooting each other. Dom almost get snipered but since Hobbs was there they were equally gunned and both backed down. Frankly I think Hobbs should’ve just shot Gaston while he had the chance.

Hobbs figured out where Gaston’s hideout is, so he’s like “Let’s go nail that son of a bitch” and he and Angel Dust barge in. THAT’S YOUR PLAN? TWO PEOPLE TO CATCH THIS NOTORIOUSLY SLIPPERY, DANGEROUS INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL????

Hobbs calls Luda, which is unremarkable except for the fact that his phone says “Samoan Thor,” and I laaaaughed and laaaughed.

Because he’s some sort of magical one-man TARU, Luda deduces that they’re going to steal “the component” (this is what they call it, I don’t know what it is) from an army base in Spain.

They move the component in a convoy to some secret new location, but Gaston and his crew attack the convoy and hijack a freaking tank! (Side note, the convoy is being escorted by 2 giant Jeep-y things, but they’re very easily taken down by bullets. Why wouldn’t you have this super valuable component escorted by some sort of armored vehicle? It was previously housed on an army base!

This tank just starts rolling over all the other cars on the highway, but somehow when the gang races in with their speedy speed cars they’re all going about the same speed. How fast can this tank go?? (I googled it and it said “up to 45 miles per hour on roads,” and “Some tanks have even gone as fast as 60 to 70 miles per hour for short periods of time” so I call shenanigans on this.)

I appreciate that the family is trying to draw attention from all the civilian cars because it seems like that tank is going out of its way to run directly over random cars (which, again, I think could easily outrun the tank except for when it crossed over and started going against the flow of traffic.) A LOT of people died in this scene.

They lasso the tank’s gun and us a car as an anchor, and Gaston sends Letty out during this high-speed tank chase to fix it. Except at that second the tank lurches, Letty goes flying, so Dom launches himself across a highway overpass to grab her and smash through a car hood. I think I yelled “WHAT?” out loud.

Han and Wonder Woman make such a cute team, but I know something has to happen to her since she’s not in Tokyo Drift, and it makes me sad in advance.

They capture Gaston and his few remaining goons, Letty defects to the good side, and they all head back to the army base. It’s extremely clear from the ominous music that this movie is not over.

Brian talks to Letty and apologizes for her amnesia, which he blames himself for. She’s like “I’m sure you didn’t make me, we cool.” According to imdb THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THEIR CHARACTERS EVER SPEAK TO EACH OTHER IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE FRANCHISE.

Gaston says he kidnapped Mia and she’s dead unless he gets to waltz out of there with the chip he stole from the tank. Brian and Dom freak out and the reasonable army guy is like “That sucks but too effing bad, we’re not gonna let a super-criminal go just for this.” Hobbs, the coolest/worst government agent ever, is totally fine with letting Gaston walk but also the family doesn’t get their records cleaned anymore. Obviously they’re like “family first.”

Gaston leaves but first turns to Letty and is like “Hey babe you coming?” Angel Dust is like “Hell yeah you bet.” OH SHIT! I briefly suspected she was a double agent like an hour ago but I forgot about it because frankly she’s not that interesting. I guess I was right all along.

They immediately start another chase scene while Ludacris starts trying to block the cell signals so Gaston can’t put in a call to have Mia killed. Ludacris joined this series as a street race facilitator; I’m not really sure why he’s a hacker now? They’re all like “Where tf does Gaston even think he’s going?” but then a giant plane appears overhead and drops a ramp for them to drive up.

On the plane we’ve got Gaston, Angel Dust, and Enormous Tattooed Goon fighting Dom, Brian, Letty and at some point, Hobbs.

Mia is also there, but she’s a lover not a fighter. I find it comical that Gaston is supposed to be an even match for Dom.

The rest of the team is in cars chasing the plane, also fighting some goons. They harpoon the plane a few times but the lines are anchored to the cars so eventually the plane starts lifting the cars off the ground as it tries to take off. Finally, the moment I’ve been dreading arrived. Wonder Woman falls off a car (heroically and on purpose to shoot the goon who’s about to attack Han) and presumably dies. RIP Wonder Woman.

The plane is eventually disabled by all the harpoons and gunshots, and it bursts into flame/explodes. Letty and Hobbs had made it off the plane, and Dom had somehow ejected Gaston who is presumed dead. Everyone is worried Dom is dead but he emerges from the rubble shockingly unscathed. Mia looks at Han and asks “Where’s Giselle?” which is apparently Wonder Woman’s name. Hugs and tears all around.

Dom hands the stolen chip, which he’d recovered from the plane, back to Hobbs and says all he wants is to go home. The family has a nice chill barbecue at the house. Hobbs shows up and makes fun of Tyrese’s forehead, which is weird since most of them are bald and Tyrese doesn’t even have a big forehead.

Hobbs and Dom talk about something but to be honest I wasn’t paying attention because I was just looking at the weird perspective of these shots. Why do these shots look so weird? Why is The Rock’s head so big?

Elsa Pataky, who is back to being a cop again, comes in to say goodbye and Dom is like “You don’t have to go.” I honestly thought he was gonna pitch the idea of a threesome (which, frankly, I kind of think would make sense in this weird family dynamic. A polyamorous alpha trio?) She and Letty high five over having the same boyfriend. The end.

Epilogue: That scene from Tokyo Drift where Han dies. Except after the crash, Jason Statham throws Dom’s cross necklace on the ground and calls him on the phone as he walks away from the rubble.

I’d been really torn on whether to watch Tokyo Drift 3rd or 6th (aka release order vs chronologically.) I had friends arguing for both and I see the merit in both sides, but I watched in release order. The downside was that when Han died, I didn’t really know or care about him, and when I DID get to know him I knew he was doomed the whole time. However, if I’d watched Tokyo Drift 6th and seen that mid-credits scene, I’d already know he dies in the next movie (and on a smaller level, it spoils that insane shot where they drift around the corner and the crowd scatters like ants.) I’ve settled on, for first viewings, watching them in release order makes sense. For any subsequent viewings, chronological is probably better.

Previously:

Vol 5: 5ast 5ive

Vol 4: Fast & Fourious

Vol 3: What’s even the point of driftng?

Vol 2: 2 Furious 2 Quit

Vol 1: The Fast & the Curious

#the fast and the furious #fast and furious 6

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infolibrary · 5 years

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25 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen

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25 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen

Here are 25 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen.

1-5 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen

1. In 2008 a beach was stolen in Jamaica. The 500 truckloads of sand remain missing to this very day. – Source

2. In 1978, Charlie Chaplin’s body was stolen and held for a ransom of £400,000. His widow refused to pay ransom because “Charlie would have thought it ridiculous.” The body was found 11 weeks later. – Source

3. Mile marker 420 was removed by officials in Colorado and replaced with a 419.99 sign because the 420 mile marker was stolen so often. – Source

4. In 2003 a Boeing 727 was stolen from an Airport in Angola. Despite a worldwide search, neither the plane, nor the two men aboard were ever found. – Source

5. A man who entertained at restaurants played a stolen Stradivarius violin for over 50 years before confessing its true value to his wife on his deathbed – Source

6-10 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen

6. In 1987, a small 93 gram radioactive device was stolen from an abandoned hospital in Brazil. After being passed around, 4 people died, 112,000 people had to be examined and several houses had to be destroyed. It is considered one of the worst nuclear disasters ever. – Source

7. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book that is most often stolen from Public Libraries. – Source

8. Bribes, kickbacks, stolen items, and money from illegal activities are all countable as taxable income in the US – Source

9. Mr. Rodgers car was once stolen, and then returned after the thief realized whose car it was. – Source

10. A .45 caliber handgun was stolen from President William Howard Taft and was then used in several murders. – Source

11-15 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen

11. When the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911 the police arrested and questioned Pablo Picasso. – Source

12. There have been 18 incidences of theft or loss of highly enriched uranium and plutonium confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in the last 12 years. – Source

13. LifeLock, an ID protection firm, ran a promotional in which its CEO was so confident in their services that he made his Social Security Number public. This resulted in him being the victim of identity theft 13 times, in addition to a $12 million company fine for false advertising. – Source

14. Selling stolen artifacts is the 3rd most profitable wing of the black market, after drugs and weapons. – Source

15. If you have bought or rented a movie on a DVD sometime in the last few years, you would have had to sit through the compulsory anti-piracy video at the beginning. Recently it was found that the music from that ad was actually stolen. – Source

16-20 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen

16. Intellectual property law doesn’t cover magic tricks. An original trick can be stolen from a magician and there’s nothing he can do about it. – Source

17. A US Army veteran, severely depressed after his wife filed divorce, both parents dead of cancer, his equipment stolen, income stopped, utilities cut off, house in foreclosure, stole a tank from the armory, went on a rampage on the streets destroying cars. He was finally shot and killed. – Source

18. Santa Anna’s prosthetic leg was stolen by the 4th Illinois Infantry and it is now on display at the Illinois State Military Museum. Later his second limb, a peg leg was stolen and reportedly used as a bat. Mexico has requested the leg’s return, but the museum refuses. – Source

19. There is a gang dubbed the “The Pink Panthers” who have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from banks and jewelers in crazy fashion (dressed in drag with prosthetics, fleeing in speed boats). They also once broke their leader out of a prison using machine gun fire and a rope ladder – Source

20. During a hunting expedition, Theodore Roosevelt’s boat was stolen by wanted men attempting to flee the country. Despite numbing temperatures and icy waters, he and his companions built a raft, took it down the river, and captured the thieves 3 days later. – Source

21-25 Interesting Facts About Things That were Stolen

21. There is a park with a statue of John Lennon in La Havana where a security guard is paid to sit next to the statue and put his glasses on and off if requested because they always get stolen/vandalized. – Source

22. The day before the United States began bombing Baghdad, nearly US$1 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq. This is considered the largest bank heist in history. – Source

23. German police were not able to bring a jewel theft case to trial because their DNA evidence matched two identical twins who each denied culpability. Both walked free – Source

24. After a rash of unexplained pay phone thefts, Malaysian authorities discovered that fisherman were using them as bait. – Source

25. An early version of Picasso’s The Weeping Woman was stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia with the ransom demanding an increase in funding to the arts. The painting was later found undamaged in a locker at a Melbourne train station and the thief was never apprehended. – Source

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#facts #Interesting #Stolen

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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND October 26, 2018 - HUNTER KILLER, INDIVISIBLE, JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN

A very impressive October is going to fizzle out this weekend with three weaker offerings that will allow Universal’s Halloween to dominate the box office for a second weekend in a row, even though Halloween proper isn’t until next Wednesday. (Honestly, the release of the video game sequel Red Dead Redemption II Friday might keep many guys at home in front of their consoles this weekend.)

HUNTER KILLER (Summit/Lionsgate)

The widest and most prominent new movie of the weekend is a submarine action-thriller starring Gerard Butler and recent Oscar-winner Gary Oldman, being released into roughly 2,600 theaters by Lionsgate subdivision Summit Entertainment. It deals with a submarine captain who works with a Navy SEAL team to try to rescue the Russian President from a Russian general who has staged a coup.

Butler has been out and about doing promotion for this movie directed by Donovan Marsh (director of something called Spud), but he’s already had a good year, coming off the surprise crime-thriller hit Den of Thieves earlier this year, which grossed $45 million. Butler’s previous movie Geostorm was a catastrophic bomb, at least in North America where it grossed $33 million on a $120 million budget. (It did better overseas.) The previous year, Butler had a similar mix of hits (the sequel London Has Fallen) and over-priced CG bombs (Gods of Egypt), but he’s still maintaining some of the box office pull he first found with Zack Snyder’s action 300in 2007.

Butler does get a boost among older moviegoers with the presence of Gary Oldman, who finally won an Oscar playing Winston Churchill in last year’s Darkest Hour, which grossed $56 million. In 2017, Oldman benefitted from appearing in the Samuel Jackson-Ryan Reynolds action-comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which grossed $75 million on the tail-end of summer. Even so, Oldman has had a spotty track record at the box office with hits like Dawn of the Planet of the Apesand Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies countered with bombs like Child 44 and Criminal. The movie also stars Billy Bob Thornton, Willem Dafoe, Linda Cardellini, as well as Common, who is making his fifth movie appearance in the last month!

Although there have been many submarine movies over the years including the Oscar-nominated German film Das Boot in the early ‘80s, the two biggest submarine films were the Jack Ryan film The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin, in 1990, and Denzel Washington’s Crimson Tide in 1995, the latter written by Quentin Tarantino. Those grossed $122 and $91.4 million respectively, and 2000’s U-571 also performed respectively with $77 million. Two years later, K-19: The Widowmaker with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson ended up with about half that amount, and few submarine films have done well since with 2013’s Phantom and 2015’s Black Sea, each barely cracking a million.

One presumes that even with the success Butler has had with some of his recent ventures, particularly the “Fallen franchise” (or whatever you wanna call it), it might be harder to bring out all of his mostly male fans with a submarine movie. It just seems like this is coming out too soon after Halloween and other stronger releases that might keep this from making more than $10 million over the weekend.

INDIVISIBLE (Pure Flix)

The next widest release of the weekend is yet another faith-based film, the new one from David G. Evans, who previously directed The Grace Card, which made $2.4 million after being released into 352 theaters by Samuel L. Goldwyn in 2011.

This is a biopic about Army Chaplain Darren Turner, as played by Justin Bruening from Grey’s Anatomy, and his wife Heather (Sarah Drew), who try to save their marriage after he get back from war with PTSD. It seems like a fairly typical faith-based film, and it’s the fifth film from PureFlix this year, the previous four grossing between $4.7 and $6.2 million. That’s a far cry from the some of the bigger Christian hits like 2008’s Fireproof or 2011’s Courageous, both which grossed in the $33 to 34 million range. It’s also nowhere even close to the $83.5 million grossed by I Can Only Imagine, which is by far, the biggest Christian hit of the year.

The lack of success of many recent faith-based films, including Unbroken: Path to Redemption (that $6.2 million PureFlix release) and God Bless the Broken Road, which made half that amount, makes it seem like there just isn’t interest in a Christian movie not based on a well-known book or song.

Indivisible is being released into around 1,000 theaters, which means it probably will end up opening in the same $2 to 3 million range as some of the other releases mentioned, which might be a push to get it into the bottom of the top 10.

JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN (Focus Features)

A movie that normally would have gotten a straight-to-video release in the early ‘00s is just barely getting a theatrical release into 500 theaters, and that’s Rowan Atkinson’s third outing as the bumbling British spy Johnny English, who this time takes on the threat of a cyber-attack.

Atkinson created the character in 2003 for the movie Johnny English, which grossed $28 million domestic after a $9.1 million opening, but the movie grossed $132 million overseas including $31.1 million in the United Kingdom, where Atkinson is quite famous for his show Blackadder and comic character Mr. Bean.

The 2011 sequel Johnny English Reborn might have done better if it was released soon enough to capitalize on the success of the first movie, but in fact, it did even better overseas with $151 million ($33 million of that from the UK) compared to the mere $8.3 million in North America.

Obviously, Universal Pictures wasn’t going to spend a lot of money to promote a third movie in the States, considering how poorly the previous movie did. Instead, they dumped it to its little brother Focus Features, who are wisely only releasing it into 500 theaters this weekend with the smallest amount of promotion.

The movie also stars Olga Kuryenko, Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, Charles Dance and James Lacy, which is a decent enough cast to bring in some Anglophile parents with their kids, but it’s hard to imagine this can make more than $2 million, which will probably place it outside the Top 10.

With most of the returning movies remaining dominant, there aren’t many questions to ask: Whether Gerard Butler’s Hunter Killer does better than I projected, and whether Fox’s The Hate U Give will capitalize on the word-of-mouth from its impressive A+ CinemaScore to maybe overtake First Man or even Goosebumps in their respective third weekends. Regardless, this week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Halloween (Universal) - $35 million -54% 2. A Star is Born (Warner Bros.) - $13.5 million -30% 3. Venom (Sony) - $9.1 million -50% 4. Hunter Killer (Lionsgate/Summit) - $8.4 million N/A 5. Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween (Sony) - $6.1 million -37% 6. First Man (Universal) – $5.1 million -40% 7. The Hate U Give (20thCentury Fox) - $5 million -35% 8. Smallfoot (Warner Bros.) - $4.2 million -35% 9.Night School (Universal) - $3 million - 10. Indivisible (Pure Flix) - $2.8 million -40% -- Johnny English Strikes Again(Focus Features) - $1.8 million N/A

LIMITED RELEASES

The big limited release this weekend is Luca Guadagnino’s long-awaited remake of Dario Argento’s SUSPIRIA (Amazon), which will open in New York and L.A. Friday. It stars Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey) as Susie Bannion, a young woman from a Memonite background who comes to Berlin in 1977 to study at a prestigious dance school with the legendary Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), but she soon finds out that there’s more to the all-women school than she thinks – in fact, it’s a witch’s coven. At the same time, psychiatrist Dr. Josef Klemperer (also played by Swinton!!) is trying to learn the truth about the school after one of his patients – a dancer at the school -- vanishes. Featuring an all-female cast that includes Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia Goth and Sylvie Testud, this is an amazing film that’s mostly a tense drama for the first 45 minutes, but then quickly turns into a suitably gory thrill-ride that gets completely insane in the last act. At the same time, it’s an interesting look at a historical period of time that overlays with the story going on at the dance school.

Also quite good is BURNING (Well Go USA), South Korea’s Oscar entry and the new movie from Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine). It stars Ah-In Yoo as Jong-su Lee, an assuming young man who hooks up with a girl from his old village, but when she returns from a trip to Africa, she’s a dashing and rich man, played by Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead), who Jong-su immediately suspects of hiding something. You can read what I wrote about the movie in my New York Film Festival coveragea few weeks back.

Sweden’s Oscar entry is Ali Abbasi’s BORDER (Neon), a strange fairy tale romance about a Swedish border guard named Tina (Eva Melender), whose chromosome defect makes her look different from others. Even so, she has the ability to sniff out anyone trying to smuggle anything across the border, which proves useful for a job. When Tina meets a “man” a lot like her, the two fall into a romance, which distracts Tina from a job finding a pedophile ring. Adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In) from his short story Gräns, it’s a truly original film at a time when we’re not getting very original movies, and it’s a strange concept that grows on you as it veers further into the fantasy realm. To say more about the Cannes award winner and some of its plot twists would be doing it a disservice, so just check out the trailer.

Stephen Dorff and Melissa George star in David Gleeson’s psychological thriller DON’T GO (IFC Films) as a couple dealing with their young daughter’s death by moving to a seaside village where their life is disrupted as the girl begins appearing to him in a dream.

Billy Bob Thornton stars in the long-delayed adaptation of Martin Amis’ 1989 noir novel LONDON FIELDS (GVN Releasing) directed by Matthew Cullen. Set in 1999, Thornton plays novelist Samson Young, whose life starts coming apart when he meets Amber Heard’s manipulative Nicola Six, who becomes Samson’s muse to break him out of writer’s block. Also starring Johnny Depp – in one of the most ridiculous performances of his career—Jim Sturgess, Cara Delevigne and Jamie Alexander, this movie was pulled from the Toronto Film Festival a few years back and has been entangled in legal battles. Having seen it, I can tell you that it’s a very, very bad movie.

Meanwhile, Susan Sarandon plays an ER nurse whose journalist son (Matt Bomer) has been kidnapped in Syria in Maryam Keshavarz’s VIPER CLUB (YouTube Originals/Roadside Attraction), which opens in New York and L.A. this weekend and then expands to more cities next week.

Latin-American filmmaker Lorena Villareal’s SILENCIO (Tulip Pictures) is a sci-fi drama starring John Noble, Rupert Graves and Melina Matthews, the latter playing Ana, who must find a stone discovered by her grandfather in the Zone of Silence, the Bermuda Triangle of Mexico, which has enough interest from others who want the stone’s power for themselves.

Now playing at the Film Forum is Life and Nothing More from Spanish filmmaker Antonio Mendez Esparza, starring Regina Williams as the mother of a 14-year-old son Andrew, whose life has been spiraling downwards and it gets worse when her son is confronted by a white couple. The film won the John Cassavetes Award for a film under $500,000 at the 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards earlier this year.

Would you believe that I have yet to see a movie directed by Frederick Wiseman despite being a huge documentary fan? The master documentarian’s new movie Monrovia, Indiana (Zipporah Films) will open at the Film Forumon Friday, as well as in L.A. on Nov. 2 and other cities to follow. I haven’t seen it, but I assume it’s about a town in Indiana.

Sanjay Rawal’s doc 3100: Run and Become (Spartan), opening in New York Friday and in L.A. on Nov. 9, follows a Finnish paperboy and an Austrian cellist who attempt to complete the New York-based Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race over the course of 52 days .

STREAMING

Sandi Tan’s doc SHIRKERS (Netflix) is about how in 1992 she tried to make an independent serial killer film called “Shirkers” in Singapore until the footage was stolen, and it certainly looks intriguing. (It’s also getting a one-week release at Metrographif you want to see it on the big screen.) Also, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, based on the teenage witch featured in Archie Comics, will stream its first season starting Friday.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Just in time for Halloween, the theater will be one of a couple that will be showing a restoration of John Carpenter’s 1980 horror film The Fog, starring Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis. (I wonder what happened to her?) Thursday, the theater presents Paul Auster X2, showing two movies by author Paul Auster: Lulu on the Bridge (1998) and The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007), both on 35mm with Auster in attendance. This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinee is one of my all-time favorites Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)—who knows? I might even go see it again.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Starting Friday is a restoration of Luchino Visconti’s 1954 film Senso (Rialto Pictures) with new subtitles that incorporates dialogue by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles written for the English adaptation The Wanton Contessa. It’s set during the 1866 battle of Custoza between Austria and Italy, after which Contessa Alida Valli decides to betray her own country’s cause in favor of a relationship with an Austrian deserter.Probably not my kind of thing, but perfect for the Film Forum crowd.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Just in time for Halloween, the Egyptian will show the restoration of Bill Gunn’s Ganja and Hess (1973; Kino Lorber), starring Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead), which Spike Lee remade a few years back. A discussion will follow the screening on Monday night.

AERO (LA):

The theater’s Halloween horror series includes double features of The Abominable Dr. Phibes with The Devil’s Rain on Friday night, Frankenstein with Bride of Frankenstein on Sunday night, and an All-night Horrorthon on Saturday night, which includes such “classics” like Jason X,Maximum Overdrive, Zombie 3, a 25th anniversary screening of Body Melt and more.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

I missed last week’s horror series but this week is A Woman’s Bite: Sapphic Vampires, an amazing series of vampire lesbians including Tony Scott’s The Hunger (1983), Dracula’s Daughter (1936), the Spanish-German film Vampyros Lesbos (1971) and many other rare offerings.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This week’s Weekend Classics: Coen Brothers offering is one of my favorites, 1990’s Miller’s Crossing, showing Friday though Sunday at 11AM. Also The Water Margin (1972) is shown as part of the Shaw Brothers Spectacularsseries. Maybe even more importantly, the theater will kick-off a week-long Directed by Orson Welles series that will lead directly into the release of the long-incomplete The Other Side of the Wind, which will show at the IFC Center along with Morgan Neville’s doc They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead. It will include 35mm prints of Chimes at Midnight, Mr. Arkadin and F for Fake.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This will also be showing the 4k restoration of John Carpenter’s The Fog.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Vincent Pricecontinues with Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) on Thursday afternoon, Return of the Fly (1959) on Friday afternoon and House of Wax (1953) on Halloween afternoon. The Museum of Modern Art also kicks off a new series called Catalan Cinemas Radical Years: 1968 – 1978 for the more experimental as filmmakers used their craft to rebel against Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco’s last years in power.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend sees the self-explanatory series Beyond Halloween: Five Horror Films by John Carpenter, which will screen The Thing, Christine, Prince of Darkness, Body Bags and In the Mouth of Madness. Just in time for the movie’s 25thAnniversary, the theater’s Family Program will screen Hocus Pocus on Saturday afternoon.

That’s it for this week, but next week, the holiday movie season kicks off with Bohemian Rhapsody, Disney’s Nutcracker and the Four Realms and Tyler Perry’s Nobody’s Fool starring Tiffany Haddish.

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend TheWEekendWarrior Movies HunterKiller Reviews BoxOffice JohnnyEnglish Burning Suspiria Burning

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booklr-16 · 6 years

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November TBR

Since Nanowrimo is also taking place in the month of November, and I am participating, I have italicized the books that I am definitely going to try to get to during the month of November. The books that are in plain black text are books I’ll either read in December or get to if I finish the books that I really want to read this month. For Nanowrimo, I also plan to post daily or weekly (most likely weekly) updates on my progress for writing as well as how much reading I’ve gotten done. These will mostly likely be done throughout the weekend when I’ll have time to write up my progress.

Hard Time, C.F. White - After Micky O’Neill is remanded in custody for breaching his court order, his already tempestuous relationship with Dan Peters is tested to the limits. Having to battle their way through a court case that could end with Micky in jail, social workers breaking up the family home, and the return of Micky’s deadbeat father, it seems everything is set to destroy their relationship before it even had the chance to start. With such high stakes involved, not just for Micky but for once-burned, twice-shy Dan, they both have to learn that falling in love isn’t always responsible.

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green - Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell - Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan… But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to. Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words… And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone. For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr - Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Fifty Shades Darker, E. L. James - Daunted by the singular sexual tastes and dark secrets of the beautiful, tormented young entrepreneur Christian Grey, Anastasia Steele has broken off their relationship to start a new career with a Seattle publishing house. But desire for Christian still dominates her every waking thought, and when he proposes a new arrangement, Anastasia cannot resist. They rekindle their searing sensual affair, and Anastasia learns more about the harrowing past of her damaged, driven, and demanding Fifty Shades. While Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Anastasia must confront her anger and envy of the women who came before her and make the most important decision of her life.

They Both Die at the End, Adam Silvera - On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure and to live a lifetime in a single day.

The Last Star, Rick Yancey - The enemy is Other. The enemy is us. They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us. But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves. In these last days, Earth’s remaining survivors will need to decide what’s more important: saving themselves…or saving what makes us human.

Lord of Shadows, Cassandra Clare - Emma Carstairs has learned that the love she shares with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, isn’t just forbidden—it could destroy them both. She knows she should run from Julian. But how can she when the Blackthorns are threatened by enemies on all sides? Their only hope is the Black Volume of the Dead, a spell book of terrible power. Everyone wants it. Only the Blackthorns can find it. Spurred on by a dark bargain with the Seelie Queen, Emma; her best friend, Cristina; and Mark and Julian Blackthorn journey into the Courts of Faerie, where glittering revels hide bloody danger and no promise can be trusted. Meanwhile, rising tension between Shadowhunters and Downworlders has produced the Cohort, an extremist group of Shadowhunters dedicated to registering Downworlders and “unsuitable” Nephilim. They’ll do anything in their power to expose Julian’s secrets and take the Los Angeles Institute for their own. When Downworlders turn against the Clave, a new threat rises in the form of the Lord of Shadows—the Unseelie King, who sends his greatest warriors to slaughter those with Blackthorn blood and seize the Black Volume. As dangers close in, Julian devises a risky scheme that depends on the cooperation of an unpredictable enemy. But success may come with a price he and Emma cannot even imagine, one that will bring with it a reckoning of blood that could have repercussions for everyone and everything they hold dear.

A Million Junes, Emily Henry - For as long as Jack “June” O’Donnell has been alive, her parents have had only one rule: stay away from the Angert family. But when June collides—quite literally—with Saul Angert, sparks fly, and everything June has known is thrown into chaos. Who exactly is this gruff, sarcastic, but seemingly harmless boy who has returned to their hometown of Five Fingers, Michigan, after three mysterious years away? And why has June—an O’Donnell to her core—never questioned her late father’s deep hatred of the Angert family? After all, the O’Donnells and the Angerts may have mythic legacies, but for all the tall tales they weave, both founding families are tight-lipped about what caused the century-old rift between them. As Saul and June’s connection grows deeper, they find that the magic, ghosts, and coywolves of Five Fingers seem to be conspiring to reveal the truth about the harrowing curse that has plagued their bloodlines for generations. Now June must question everything she knows about her family and the father she adored, and she must decide whether it’s finally time for her—and all the O’Donnells before her—to let go

Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas - After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her … but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best. Then one of the other contestants turns up dead … quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Ruin and Rising, Leigh Bardugo The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne. Now the nation’s fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army. Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives. Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova’s amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling’s secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.

A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzie Lee - Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy. Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, Cassandra Clare - Simon Lewis has been a human and a vampire, and now he is becoming a Shadowhunter. But the events of City of Heavenly Fireleft him stripped of his memories, and Simon isn’t sure who he is anymore. He knows he was friends with Clary, and that he convinced the total goddess Isabelle Lightwood to go out with him…but he doesn’t know how. And when Clary and Isabelle look at him, expecting him to be a man he doesn’t remember…Simon can’t take it. So when the Shadowhunter Academy reopens, Simon throws himself into this new world of demon-hunting, determined to find himself again. His new self. Whomever this new Simon might be. But the Academy is a Shadowhunter institution, which means it has some problems. Like the fact that non-Shadowhunter students have to live in the basement. And that differences—like being a former vampire—are greatly looked down upon. At least Simon is trained in weaponry—even if it’s only from hours of playing D&D. Join Simon on his journey to become a Shadowhunter, and learn about the Academy’s illustrious history along the way, through guest lecturers such as Jace Herondale, Tessa Gray, and Magnus Bane. These ten short stories give an epilogue to the Mortal Instruments series and provide glimpses of what’s in store in the Dark Artifices

City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare - Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what’s normal when you’re a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who’s becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn’t ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary’s only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father. To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father? In this breathtaking sequel to City of Bones, Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York City’s Downworld, where love is never safe and power becomes the deadliest temptation.

The Raven Cycle Series, Maggie S.

#books #bookworm #booklover #book blog #book photography #to be read #city of ashes #the raven cycle

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