They're beautiful, you know?

Bristol photographed a young crewman of a US Navy “Dumbo” PBY rescue mission, manning his gun after having stripped naked and jumped into the water of Rabaul Harbor to rescue a badly burned Marine pilot. The Marine was shot down while bombing the Japanese-held fortress of Rabaul.

“…we got a call to pick up an airman who was down in the Bay. The Japanese were shooting at him from the island, and when they saw us they started shooting at us. The man who was shot down was temporarily blinded, so one of our crew stripped off his clothes and jumped in to bring him aboard. He couldn’t have swum very well wearing his boots and clothes. As soon as we could, we took off. We weren’t waiting around for anybody to put on formal clothes. We were being shot at and wanted to get the hell out of there. The naked man got back into his position at his gun in the blister of the plane.”

Fantastic Beasts: CoG movie thoughts!

SPOILERS AHEAD. Bewarnedddddddddddd.

As much as I loved the twist that Credence was NOT the long lost and prophesied Corvus Lestrange (before it got ruined by the bigger and cheaper twist that he’s a long lost or unknown Dumbledore), the movie spent way too damn long getting to it.

A lot of reviews complain about the disjointed pacing and editing through the movie, and they’re absolutely right! A real frustrating bit is they dont even friggin show how Credence found the baby phoenix which ends up being such a huge part of the end reveal! Literally we see him explode-imploding an entire floor from rage-loss at the house elf death, we cut to Newt or something for a bit, then it’s back to Credence where he’s already sitting in front of an ugly baby bird trying to feed and comfort it.

A scene that warmed every bit of my “Credence should be Newt’s assistant” heart but seriously where the fuck did he find that bird. There’s theories of “oh maybe he found it in the circus” or “maybe grindlewald sent it” but we don’t know! It just shows up then we keep seeing him carefully carrying it around adorably! Then it’s a BIG part of the twist! We should at least see a longer scene of him actually finding it or it finding him or WHATEVER.

And all this disjointed spread out plot is even more frustrating because everyone (except grindles) is going after the same thing! This movie should have been Fantastic Beasts: The Search for Credence’s Birth Records.

Yusuf was an important bit and I hope he sticks around (he was in the end DumbleSquad shot so looks like it) but why that whole thing with the parasite? What did that add to the plot?? The scene looking for the family records took way longer than it should have (tho the newtina making up was adorable).

And there was this weird set up where Newt is told that the Ministry wants to kill Credence (and wants him to do it), he refuses and is visibly upset by the assassination plot along with his travel ban. Someone else steps up for it and we see Newt get an angry determined face and storm out. Dumbledore finds him, tries to get him to go to Paris to find Credence before assassins or grindles do. There’s a grand speach about Newt always just does what’s right.

Then Newt faffs around until he finds out Tina’s in Paris then mainly focuses on finding her. Ok! He misses her! But it just seemed kinda weird seeing how in the last movie this was the foolhardy good hearted person who willingly parted with his creatures to chase down a wild destructive force of magical rage down into the subways because he refused to let another obscurial die. We even see with his flashbacks that Newt cares so much about beings who are hurt and cast out, animal and human. Risking himself and what he cared about to help beings society sees as “monsters” is a HUGE part of his character that we see over and over.

And as adorable as his awkward stammering and infatuation with Tina is (salamanders! I loved it! Him calling her beautiful when Jacob described her as “intense”! Adorable!), it just seemed weird that he pretty much forgot about Hey This Traumatized Scared Dude Is Gonna Be Manipulated Or Killed because he got SO fixated. He even seemed to only help Tina with the family records thing because it would keep her talking to him????

I felt like we had this set up for “Newt and Tina team up to try and save Credence’s life/soul” and the movie maybe tried for that and then it got lost in Newt’s fixation on Tina and then on Yusuf being more of a mystery than he needed to be (oh my god why the parasite thing and him being unconscious for so long why) then on family records then on drama bc Leta and finally we just get them yelling Credence’s name as he goes to Grindlewald.

And all that while DRAGGING the question “Is he Corvus Lestrange????” question forEVER. Even in the family crypt they spent so much time all back and forth back and forth that I was with poor Credence just like IS HE OR IS HE NOT GODDAMN.

my beautiful son

and I love him so much

The Sentinel was TV show that ran from 1996-1999. In it, Jim Ellison, an Army Ranger, gets stranded in the jungles of Peru, and his team is all killed. The isolation etc. causes genetic-but-previously-latent hyperactive senses to wake up. So he has super-hearing, super-sight, etc.  He gets rescued and unconsciously suppressed the senses again and becomes a cop in Cascade, Washington. One day he’s on a long, isolated stake out, and the senses come roaring back and fuck him up because of the sensory overload.

Blair Sandburg is an anthropology student studying the concept of Sentinels, who he describes as “protectors of the tribe” and who have these hyperactive senses. He’s found people with one enhanced sense, but never all five. He hears about Jim, arranges to meet him, and convinces Jim to let Blair ride along on his police work so that Blair can study a real live Sentinel and Jim can get help controlling his senses from Blair.

The series is full of little details about the senses and how they work and the mythology around them. Here are the ones that usually come up in fic:

The zone out:  This is when the Sentinel gets hyper focused on one sense and blocks out all other input, becoming almost catatonic. They have to be coaxed out of it with quiet talking and contrasting sensory input.

Spirit guides:  In the show, Jim has several visions in the spirit world. While there, he has a spirit guide, a panther. When Blair ends up in the spirit world with Jim, his guide is a wolf. They also occasionally see their guides in the real world, usually trying to warn them of something or tell them something or lead them somewhere.

Territoriality:  The Sentinel is described as having a primal instinct to protect his/her tribe. Jim’s interaction with another Sentinel that appeared on the show is…complicated, but fic usually just runs with the idea that Sentinels have a territory (the boundaries of which they determine) and that they’re extremely protective of it. They usually don’t like other Sentinels in their space, either.

Guides:  Guides are fanon. People sometimes forget this, but literally the only place that guiding comes up in the show is when a guy in the spirit world tells Jim that “he guides you”, referring to Blair. However, it’s fanon that is 100% accepted by everyone in Sentinel fandom and the resulting trope. So. The Guide is assumed to also be genetically determined. They’re usually presented as someone who is good at calming the Sentinel, who has a strong connection to the spirit world, and who are generally a stabilizing influence on the Sentinel. Guides are also presented as the people who are most capable of getting Sentinels out of deep zone outs.

Bonding:  This comes from a scene in the series where Blair is dead. Like, the medics call it. No heartbeat. Dead. Jim flips out, and goes over to Blair, and we cut to the spirit world, and stuff happens, and then the panther and the wolf run toward each other, jump up and merge in a giant flash of light. And Blair comes back to life. Fandom takes that merging of spirit guides and runs with it, usually giving them an awareness of each other’s location and empathy. Other effects of the bond vary depending on the author.

I think those are the major elements of the trope! Damn, that got longer than I meant it to. *g*

And if that wasn’t enough, and you’d like some fandom history, check out the additional info behind the cut:

Mads Mikkelsen: Cannes 2018 (Arctic) [X]

By: thejennire