the lesbian computer from portal was right. given the circumstances ive been shockingly nice

insane like/reblog parity on this post btw

Yay

Whatever she’s getting paid triple it (insta)

Wake Up Dead Man does an excellent job at every turn of displaying the misogyny of the Catholic Church and I really can’t stop thinking about it.

The first thing we learn about Martha is that she runs EVERYTHING, and she truly does, down to feeding Wicks. She keeps the church running smoothly, she keeps Wicks alive and presentable for his entitled, hateful sermons. The church only functions with Martha there to make it so, and yet, only Father Jud seems to recognise how much she does for the church itself.

Simone funds everything. Out of the very few regulars that Wicks has whittled his congregation down to, Simone is the only person we hear of making such substantial donations, giving the church all of her savings for the promise of healing that Wicks cons her into believing that he can provide. Simone is seemingly the only person willing to give enough money to keep the church alive.

Vera raised Wicks’ heir for him, did exactly what her father wanted, and is given absolutely nothing in return by any of the three men she has devoted her life to. Cy is thrown at her, given no choice but to raise him, a boy who she first believes to be her brother who she later finds out has no connection to her at all. Motherhood is forced upon Vera no matter what affect it may have on her life. Vera’s life has always been used by the men around her as a tool for their own gain, yet even she knows she has not done enough to earn her father’s approval, only pleased with her, never proud.

And Grace, that poor girl, has been characterised as a greed driven beast who desecrated a church in a fit of shrieking demonic rage, shown against a blood red night sky. Grace, who was, in reality, a young single mother shunned by her small town, by her father who was no doubt turning her own son against her, who had her only chance to escape her prison of judgement stolen from her.

Her existence is what actually motivates Wicks’ sermons as a whole, the memory of “the harlot whore” ultimately the root of what drives him, raised on hatred and judgement that he inflicts upon anyone he can rather than the kindness and understanding he ought to practice and preach, the utter opposite of Father Jud. Arms up instead of out. Even somebody like Doctor Nat is only driven by his growing hatred of women after his wife left him.

Misogyny is so woven throughout the church that I think it makes it all the more powerful for Jud to rename the church after Grace. Perpetual Grace, not Fortitude against the twisted retelling of her existence, but preserving the one thing she was never afforded. It is only the women who find happiness in the end. Vera is free of Wicks, her father, Cy, all of the men who took her life and used it for themselves. Simone plays her cello again. Martha finds forgiveness, she finally lets go of the hatred that drove her entire life. Grace is given redemption and honour. Those poor girls

Omg y'all Y'ALL

3 years ago, I wonder if they have gone through all that rice yet…..

Another of the great epic threads…

Buckle up y'all this is the longest image description I have ever made.

[image id:

A thread of Twitter posts by user Shiv Ramdas @nameshiv, plus one reply at the end. Individual posts separated by line breaks below. Posts in the thread read as follows:

OMG my brother in law, the gift that never stops giving, was tired of being sent to get rice every day so he decided to buy in bulk, talked to the shop about it, wires got crossed, now there is a literal TRUCK FILLED WITH RICE outside the house and my sister is losing her shit lmfao

If you have never heard a woman destroy a man with one sentence 25 times in a row you should meet my sister. She’s terrifying rn, I’m on the phone and I’m scared and she isn’t even angry at me lol

To clarify, this is India so when I say truck, I don’t mean SUV, IT IS A LITERAL LORRY FILLED WITH RICE

Update: BIL is now negotiating with lorry driver. My requests to keep phone on speaker so I can hear have been coldly rebuffed. I can however confirm that bribe has been offered and rejected. I cannot say whether this was a question of principle or price

Update 2: BIL wants everyone reading this to know that I’m a dick for livetweeting it and this is not helping

as a horror writer, I can now confirm to you with evidence that anything can be horror, I just watched a man’s face curl up in abject terror at the words “Why Is It Still Outside My House?”

Update to Drama: BIL had come in to explain that driver insists they’ll have to take the rice (and pay) but midway through thought better of it and is now negotiating with driver again. An excellent demonstration of the flight instinct in mammals when confronted with mortal peril

Side update: They also apparently have to unload the rice themselves.

Update: Calls are now being made to owner of warehouse

Update: Warehouse Owner is not taking calls. Spot negotiations have resumed.

Also all of you enjoying this need to join me in thanking Mom for going above and beyond the call of duty and carrying phone between locations & also relaying key info while somehow also social distancing so we can continue bringing you our live reporting on this unfolding crisis

Update: BIL is making headway. Lorry driver and helper have accepted cigarettes from him. Negotiations have resumed while all 3 smoke.

Update: Lorry driver just laughed at something BIL said. BIL also laughing. Cigarettes may have been a masterstroke by BIL. We are moving our reporting back indoors to inform Sis.

Key Update: Cigarettes were in fact a huge strategic blunder because BIL apparently assured sis that he’s definitely finally quit smoking on Sunday and in no way shape or form was supposed to have packs of cigs just there in pocket ready to be used as negotiating aid.

Update: Bereft of victims for the moment, sister is now asking me if I knew about this. There may be a slight lull in updates while I swear innocence and try to avoid becoming collateral damage in this tale of Indian Carnage

Update: I have convinced sister that I am not party to this. However Mom and I have fled back outside because dad just walked in and asked sis “what is this truck outside why did you call it?”

BIL Update: Warehouse Owner still not taking calls but they have reached some chappu of his who told them to call someone called Manu, he’ll take care of it. That’s all we know about him. He’s Manu, this is his number and he’ll take care of it. He is the Mr. Wolf of warehouse cockups

Update: Manu is not answering the phone.

Update: Dad has also come outside and joined outside reporting crew. Mom asked him why are you here and his response was why are YOU here? We are all here

Update: Manu just called.

Manu is now speaking to lorry driver. Driver is getting animated. He is the real victim (I kinda agree)

Manu is now speaking to BIL.

BIL is getting animated

Manu has asked to speak to lorry driver again

Manu clearly believes in getting all sides in a conflict before coming to a decision because he is now speaking to lorry driver’s assistant. A wise judge. Maybe he’ll want to speak to me too. One can but hope.

Manu is now speaking to BIL again. So far he has shown no interest in speaking to us. This is humbling.

Mom is scolding dad for demanding to speak to Manu. Dad has been banished back inside as punishment.

Meanwhile Manu and BIL do not appear close to a resolution.

Dad attempted to break curfew and come back out. He has now claimed he’s done with the whole thing and doesn’t care and also where the hell is dinner and he is going to room to watch news because state of the world matters more than a ruddy truck. Valid points, but I am skeptical.

BREAKING NEWS: Manu is Coming

First however, Manu obv has to talk to driver again. Manu seems to be a talker, he has lots to say to everyone. Still nothing to say to me though. Hey Manu, nobody likes a snob, you know. I’m a person too.

Phone has been hung up. We are now waiting for Manu.

holy shit a lot of y'all care about my BIL and his misadventures with rice trucks. We’re still waiting for Manu so consider this an ad break. Get popcorn, visit the loo, order some rice.

also since what’s an ad break without ads, I talk about storytelling, humour etc here:

[Patreon link attached. Link URL: https://www.patreon.com/ShivRamdas Preview image is a very cute, fluffy cat sleeping on its back. Preview description reads: “Shiv Ramdas is creating writing/journalism and communities.”]

Update: Manu called again. He is lost and needs directions.

Mom is making everyone eat food while we wait. Ironically there is no rice on menu.

Update: Mom just called back. I think Manu may have arrived.

Okay we’re outside (sorry bout delay, but we’re dependent on mom who DGAF about anyone during dinner, even Manu)

Since I know I cared about this and was wondering, Manu kinda looks disappointingly average. He’s just normal, random desi uncle in shirt pant. Sad!

BIL is now making what appears to be a passionate case. Manu certainly appears sympathetic, he is nodding.

Manu is now nodding at what driver says. Manu nods at everyone.

BIL just played the “are you married” card. This is escalating. Manu’s sense of husbandly empathy has been invoked.

It turns out Manu is indeed married. BIL is visibly relieved.

Lorry Driver wants them both to know that he too is married.

In a tragic twist, Lorry Driver’s marriage was not deemed worthy of discussion by anyone. Lorry Driver is now my rooting interest

It appears Manu is brokering some sort of compromise.

Apparently compromise is that if BIL buys some sacks of rice* and then Manu will make the rest just go away. *Number under negotiation

Manu has opened aggressively with a you take half I take half offer. BIL has countered by pointing out in that case Manu will need to take him too

BIL is now saying he can do 10 bags but does Manu want a bottle of scotch thrown in? I deeply admire this man’s commitment to corruption.

Plot twist: Manu is a teetotaller apparently

THe lorry driver has shared that he however, would rather like a bottle of whisky. He is also willing to accept rum. He’s accommodating like that.

Manu has informed him he won’t be getting anything of the sort. Lorry driver looks unhappy

Lorry driver is no longer speaking up when Manu wants him to chime in. Heel turn.

BIL just produced a MS Dhoni/Tom Brady level comeback and has sent for rum for lorry driver. He is exploiting the breach.

Meanwhile mom wants to go to bed and I need to convince her not to she is our only window into this ricely saga send thoughts and prayers

Update: Mom is not going to bed just yet, I invoked this ridiculously large audience and it swayed her. I think she may be judging y'all for caring this much about rice, but she’s been judging me my whole life too, you’ll be fine

Neighbor Uncle has emerged wearing kurta pajama. He wants to solve the problem himself.

Neighbor Uncle has unemerged because he was not wearing a mask and Neighbor Aunt was shouting at him

Meanwhile BIL and Manu seem to be closing in on a deal in the 20-25 bag ranged. Lorry Driver is now not even trying to hide his alignment switch.

They are now shaking hands. I believe we may have an accord.

Final terms: 23 bags, one bottle Old Monk, one bottle scotch*. Everyone is exhausted. *Lorry driver is the best fucking negotiator of the lot

IT’S NOT OVER OH GOD NOW WHO WILL UNLOAD 23 BAGS ARGUMENT HAS STARTED

Lorry driver is sick of this shit. He has told helper to unload bags.

Helper, LD and BIL are now unloading bags. This will take a while.

Manu’s work is done. He is leaving. This is not the only crisis he needs to solve tonight, no doubt. No rest for the elite specialist

Neighbor Uncle has re-emerged, now wearing mask.

BIL just asked Neighbor Uncle to help with bags. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a senior citizen walk home that fast.

Correction: He is not a senior citizen apparently. My mistake.

end posts by user Shiv Ramdas.

Reply by user Eric @\alem_do_sol reads: Someday, maybe many years from now, your family is going to be out of rice again and your sister is going to have to decide if asking her husband to go and buy more is worth the risk of this happening again

end desc]

[image id:

Photos shared in reblog by Tumblr user icemankazansky. A post from the previous thread has been pasted over one of the photos. Post reads: “To clarify, this is India so when I say truck, I don’t mean SUV, IT IS A LITERAL LORRY FILLED WITH RICE”.

Both photos display industrial-sized lorry trucks loaded with hundreds of bags of rice. Each bag appears to be roughly half the size of an adult man. God help BIL.

end desc]

I think like. As a director and screenwriter, and I say screenwriter really specifically here, the revelation I walked away from Wake Up Dead Man about Rian Johnson was like...

We've given him his flowers on tying in social commentaries into his plots. We've given him his flowers on his pacing and how he abandoned shock value for well done foreshadowing that appropriately supports the twist. Like we've given him his flowers on a lot of things.

But like. On a technical standpoint, as a fellow, albeit amateur, storyteller, so to speak, the thing I love most about Rian Johnson is his understanding that character growth should be a revelation.

Like. Rian Johnson is smart in that Benoit Blanc is never the "heart" of the film, and frankly, this revelation would have never hit so damn hard if he wasn't, so, brilliant choice on that front. A lot of the story this time revolved around Benoit saying it's a game to him and he's gonna win it and Jud fighting back and saying this isn't a game, this is people's lives, and then we get the ending of the "game", where Benoit puts grace and compassion over "winning".

But the thing about it is this whole fucking time, through all three movies, it was leading to this point.

Because as much as Benoit Blanc says it's a game to him, the second he steps onto the crime scene, he looks for the kindest person there, and he says, "Even if I have to sacrifice my pride, I will get you your justice, and I won't let you be wronged."

Every time he steps into frame, he's looking for Jud. For Martha. For Helen. He hones in on them with this sort of instinct, and with the cinematography and lighting choices in Wake Up Dead Man, in the way the light hits Jud, the way the shadows play off of Benoit, right until "Benoit's Damascus", it becomes really, really clear to me.

Benoit's character development here is a revelation.

He goes into the darkest places, into the scene of a crime, into a murder mystery, where the darkest of human impulses have played out, and he looks for the light with all the frenzied passion of a madman.

It may in part be about a game. But it's definitely always been about more than that to Benoit. Because like with both Martha and Jud, even when all of the clues point to them, he has this unwavering faith in them, this resolute drive to prove to them their own goodness, even if he barely knows them.

His second priority is to find the killer.

His first priority is to not let the light go out.

And I think it's such a wonderful choice for a modern day private detective after decades of tired, exhausting gritty homicide detectives and cop shows and Blue Blood aesthetics. As someone who devoured Poirot and poured over Holmes and cried over Father Brown, it makes me so, so happy to see.

what you need to understand about wake up dead man is that it is a coming of age movie about a 35 year old priest

Entrances into Our Lady Of Perpetual Fortitude Grace

So I’ve seen people point out that Father Jud is a carpenter but I haven’t seen it discussed that he tries multiple times to confess to murders he didn’t commit and in doing so, take on the sins of others and the consequences for them

WAKE UP DEAD MAN SPOILERS SCROLL AWAY IF YOU HAVENT SEEN IT

the concept of the groundskeeper being mistaken for the resurrected leader in wake up dead man as an inverted reference to the actual bible where Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardner (Mary Magdalene turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus…supposing him to be the gardener.” John 20:14, 15)

Rian Johnson your mind is so powerful truly in awe wow

i wanna reiterate the fact that even when wicks is exposed as the liar he is that the flock are still 100% behind him, and it's proven Very Quickly that he does not care for them. he goes out of his way to insult every one of them despite their faith in him which i think is a GREAT microcosm of what happens in conservative communities. you support something that hateful and you're surprised when they turn that hate onto you. very "i didn't think the leopards would eat my face!" esque. i love u wake up dead man!!!!

Another neat detail I noticed in Wake Up Dead Man is that when Father Jud says he’s just spent the past hour writing down everything that happened and summing up the story, it actually happens exactly one hour into the film.

still talking about wake up dead man but the moment during the call with louise where father jud looks down to the broken jesus figurine and realized how he had lost himself in the investigation. cause i chuckled a little bit when they smashed it with no hesitation after, just a little bit earlier, father jud had cared so much about the jesus images that he quietly removed blanc’s hat from the bust on the table as they were talking

i thought it was a funny way to show how invested he had become in being blanc’s watson, but of course this movie has an actual script so it comes back to bite him in the ass when louise reminds him what being a priest means to him and he looks down to see the broke plastic jesus looking up at him i love when movies are movies

The best shot of the year

Those in the notes worried about this being AI, it's not - her name is Pan Xiaoting and she's a badass billiards pro

I love the symbolism of the jewel becoming part of the new cross after the events of Wake up dead man. I am literally chewing dry wall over how perfect this ending is for Jud Duplenticy, specifically.

Throughout the movie Jud keeps repeating that religion should not centralise the ego, hatred and violence. It should centralise community, love and acceptance in line with the teachings of Jesus. And then Jud takes this jewel that has caused so much pointless violence within the community. That has caused so much pointless violence against him. And what does he do? He gives it to Jesus.

He doesn’t keep it for himself, he doesn’t throw it away or give it to the church. No, he gives it to Jesus. Jesus who internalised all sin to give the world a clean slate after his death. Jesus who forgave humanity.

Jud forgives and lets go of the grief the community and church brought him. He acknowledges the sins his community and his church have committed and counters the hatred and violence with love. Because that’s what Jesus believed in. That’s what he fundamentally believes in. He is not here to “fight the wicked or bring them to justice”, but “to serve them and bring them back to Christ”

By “displaying” the stone as the heart of Christ Jud also buckles down on his belief that we need to openly acknowledge our shame and not hide it away. We should not let it fester until it consumes everything good in us, but acknowledge and accept it as a part of us. Because God acknowledges and accepts it as a part of us.

It’s a poignant callback to the exchange between him and Benoit Blanc where the detective accuses him of only joining the church, because it gave him a place to hide from his mistakes and to get a clear way to absolution. And Jud, who has openly talked about the mistakes that lead to him joining the church from the very beginning of the movie, counters that he didn’t find his way to god, because he wanted to find absolution.

He says he made these mistakes with open eyes, but that his faith helped him acknowledge those mistakes. He believes that his mistakes don’t condemn him for eternity in the eyes of God. He believes that God does not hide or fix people who have made mistakes. He believes that God loves people when they are guilty.

So he takes this jewel that has been tainted by violence and hatred. That represents the sins of the community. And makes it the heart of Jesus. Symbolically the community is not only forgiven, but also told they are loved even though they are guilty. Because that is the heart of Jesus’ teachings in Jud‘s eyes.

Thematically it fits so beautifully into Jud’s character arc. Honestly one of the most satisfying endings I have seen in a while

I actually have come around to the series being called Knives Out instead of named for Benoit in any way. Because Benoit isn't truly what ties it together, it's the consistent social commentary themes. And do you remember why it's called Knives Out?

"You're a pack of vultures at the feast. Knives out, beaks bloody."

THAT. That has not stopped being true. THAT is the heart of each movie.

It isn't named after the first movie. It's named after the line. It's named after the disregard of morals in the name of greed.

The best thing about Jud's ministry is how un-evangelical it is.

And I don't mean it's not like the Evangelical church, I mean he's not interested in convincing anyone to be a believer or a church goer. When the woman at the construction company starts talking to him about her mother, he doesn't tell her that God is there for her. He tells her that he's there's for. She already knows she can go to church, maybe she is even a Christian and feels like she has her God's love. But Jud knows that what she needs is another human being, because she's talking to him.

And that's such a better way to welcome people to your church than telling them to go. He's letting her know that there's fulfillment and safety and love there beyond just the religious side, because he's there.

Jud isn't interested in convincing anyone. He meets Benoit where he's at as an atheist, talking about the stories as just stories that we can take meaning from, and that works. It inspires Benoit to a moment of real, selfless kindness. He makes sure Benoit knows the doors are open any time he wants to enter, even if he enters as an atheist every time. Because the important thing is how you affect people and their actions, not how you affect their beliefs.