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Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

#ferris bueller's day off

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I had CA: TWS playing in the background at work today, and something caught my attention that I have idly wondered about before, but this time, it was like a great big flashing sign. So much so that I had to go back and replay the scene.

Pierce: The timetable has moved. Our window is limited. Two targets, level six. He already cost me Zola. I want confirmed death in ten hours.

I saw that then I watched the scene on the bridge. Watch the Winter Soldier. He comes in for the attack, and the first person he takes out of the equation is Jasper Sitwell. AKA the man who let the Lumerian Star get captured by pirates. AKA the reason Fury got the intel and had his suspicions raised. AKA the reason that the timetable was moved. AKA the reason they lost Zola.

I always assumed it was Steve and Natasha he was coming after, but no. Steve is Level 8.

Just watch the way TWS attacks. He doesn’t go for Steve or Sam directly. He takes out Sitwell, the easy target, first then aims through the roof of the car at Natasha first. And when the car crashes, he doesn’t go after Steve.

Instead, he fires towards Natasha, and only misses because Steve pushes her out of the line of fire. The blast sends Steve hurtling over the ledge. You would think he would be a priority target after that, but TWS ignores him. Instead, he calmly stalks after Natasha like a predator.

The other HYDRA operatives are firing like mad, shooting at everything, but he just watches for Natasha. He doesn’t fire until he has her in his sites. He only fires three times when she’s still on the bridge, and each shot only just misses her. (Speaking of, I love that the only thing that makes him lose his cool and fire as wildly as the other HYDRA agents, is when she manages to land a hit on him. That’s the one time he doesn’t aim)

When he gets given the machinegun, he also doesn’t waste his ammunition once she’s out of range. He hops over the edge of the bridge and goes after her on foot. The only time he actually bothers himself with fighting Steve is when Steve attacks him.

Also, I think this whole scene really demonstrates the difference between the design of the Winter Soldier as a weapon and the way HYDRA have used him. HYDRA tends to be very much smash in and “KILL THEM ALL WITH FIRE!” style, whereas the Winter Soldier is very much carefully aimed and positioned. Just watch the way he moves when he’s hunting. Or even when he’s firing. He is absolute stillness and quiet, compared to the chaos and destruction of the HYDRA boys. He just walks into a scene, lifts his gun, fires, and just like that, is gone.

#ca:tws #winter soldier #bucky barnes

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At the local bar doing trivia night theme of presidents absolutely whiffing failing every question. Nobody on our team knows fuckall about the presidents heights this isnt basketball and everyone here isnt a sportsgay even if it were. Here comes the next question. Who was the only president who never married? My boyfriend and I look at each other. Wild eyed. Knowing. Hush falls over the bar as groups panic trying to divine this knowledge from the aether. “I know this one” beckett says, sounding hunted. “I know,” i say back, like we’ve been stalking a great and terrible man-eating beast for its head and turned around to discover it behind us. “Who the fuck,” my friend says. The answer rises in me like the tide. Unstoppable. “James Buchanan,” i say, and then bite my tongue to stop myself from continuing. Dubious, but aware it’s the only response we have, my friend writes down the answer. “Why?” my other friend inquires. “How do you know that?” “People think he was gay” i reply. We are gay enough that this skates without further inquiry. My boyfriend and I avoid eye contact. Our answers are graded. We have failed trivia. Oh my god did we ever fail trivia. But question 11- who was the President who never married? has a stark graphite checkmark next to it. James Buchanan. Our friends laugh about the gay people knowing the gay president. Becketts hand finds mine under the table. We exchange a look of profound, soul eroding knowledge.

We went to stucky together.

#stucky

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oh is one of my teams playing tonight? so sorry, too busy watching old chl prospect games on youtube, i can't hear you over doe eyed 17 year old leon draisaitl

#hockey #edmonton oilers #leon draisaitl

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trevor z’s hard launch saga being #sponcon is so good and in character i couldn’t have made it up if i tried

#I lol’d #trevor zegras

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I think the Hunger Games series sits in a similar literary position to The Lord of the Rings, as a piece of literature (by a Catholic author) that sparked a whole new subgenre and then gets blamed for flaws that exist in the copycat books and aren’t actually part of the original.

Like, despite what parodies might say, Katniss is nowhere near the stereotypical “unqualified teenager chosen to lead a rebellion for no good reason”.  The entire point is that she’s not leading the rebellion. She’s a traumatized teenager who has emotional reactions to the horrors in her society, and is constantly being reined in by more experienced adults who have to tell her, “No, this is not how you fight the government, you are going to get people killed.” She’s not the upstart teenager showing the brainless adults what to do–she’s a teenager being manipulated by smarter and more experienced adults. She has no power in the rebellion except as a useful piece of propaganda, and the entire trilogy is her straining against that role. It’s much more realistic and far more nuanced than anyone who dismisses it as “stereotypical YA dystopian” gives it credit for.

And the misconceptions don’t end there. The Hunger Games has no “stereotypical YA love triangle”–yes, there are two potential love interests, but the romance is so not the point. There’s a war going on! Katniss has more important things to worry about than boys! The romance was never about her choosing between two hot boys–it’s about choosing between two diametrically opposed worldviews. Will she choose anger and war, or compassion and peace? Of course a trilogy filled with the horrors of war ends with her marriage to the peace-loving Peeta. Unlike some of the YA dystopian copycats, the romance here is part of the message, not just something to pacify readers who expect “hot love triangles” in their YA. 

The worldbuilding in the Hunger Games trilogy is simplistic and not realistic, but unlike some of her imitators, Collins does this because she has something to say, not because she’s cobbling together a grim and gritty dystopia that’s “similar to the Hunger Games”. The worldbuilding has an allegorical function, kept simple so we can see beyond it to what Collins is really saying–and it’s nothing so comforting as “we need to fight the evil people who are ruining society”. The Capitol’s not just the powerful, greedy bad guys–the Capitol is us, First World America, living in luxury while we ignore the problems of the rest of the world, and thinking of other nations largely in terms of what resources we can get from them. This simplistic world is a sparsely set stage that lets us explore the larger themes about exploitation and war and the horrors people will commit for the sake of their bread and circuses, meant to make us think deeper about what separates a hero from a villain.

There’s a reason these books became a literary phenomenon. There’s a reason that dozens upon dozens of authors attempted to imitate them. But these imitators can’t capture that same genius, largely because they’re trying to imitate the trappings of another book, and failing to capture the larger and more meaningful message underneath. Make a copy of a copy of a copy, and you’ll wind up with something far removed from the original masterpiece. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of blaming those flaws on the original work.

#hunger games

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i know this will make me sound old and boring but once i’m home for the night i’m home. i don’t like upsetting my plans even when i don’t have any. yes it’s only 8pm but i spent the whole evening believing i’m not going anywhere, i cannot perceive or be perceived right now, try again later

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Sleeping Beauty dir. Clyde Geronimi | 1959

#movies #sleeping beauty #prince philip

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Aspencore

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dana scully character of all time. she's five foot two. her two day jobs are cutting up dead people and professional ghostbuster. she's got daddy issues. she owns a fluffy little dog. she's held multiple different government officials hostage multiple times. she kissed her boss on the mouth. she accuses said boss of trying to kill her like once a year with literally no foundation. she's catholic but her favorite movie is the exorcist. she shot her best friend. she was abducted by aliens and still refuses to believe in them. she dresses like an underpaid arts teacher. she met god in a parking garage. out of the two times the man she's been blisteringly in love with for years confessed his feelings to her, the first time she got so overwhelmed she started crying and the second time she thought he was high on painkillers. she can't park a car. she once had an existential crisis, got a tattoo, and slept with a serial killer. she wears socks on the beach. she might be immortal

#x-files #dana scully

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men in tiny little crop tops.

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they need to make more music from 2007