#its very much a paper doll episode

[gonedreaminggg]

in response to @xerith-42 's post about shadow knights because the brain rot is so real.

all of these ideas come from @xerith-42 i just wanna give my take on some of them

I fully believe SKs run hot. the SKs that died and are now undead are made from fire. their new bodies are created from the lava and ash from the nether. And, with SKs like Laurance, who never died, they still had to go through a transformation. It's mentioned as extremely painful. One of the most painful things in the world is being burnt alive. Shadow Knights are one with the nether, and one with the fire and lava that engulf it.

Since Laurance isn't a full SK, I imagine him just completely forgetting to eat for days and passing out and scaring everyone. The malnutrition and lack of sleep don't actually affect his health, but he can definitely hit a stopping point.

I'm also imagining Aph asking Vylad what day it is and he says some shit like "December 14th" meanwhile its a blazing hot summer.

For the doll headcanons (from @adepressedgaydragon), all I can think about is heavy dissociation and the catatonia that can come with that. Sure, the ragdoll-esque episodes that SKs have are because the doll-like features come with being an SK, however its also because they are all so mentally unwell, and eventually they have to just shut down.

I do think that each Shadow Knight resembles a different kind of doll. Gene being porcelain makes so much sense. He is so chaotic compared to the other SKs we know, yet he seems so fragile. Especially with his temper.

I love Sasha being a wooden doll. I feel like she creaks when she walks.

I think all of the doll features progress the longer you are an SK. The progression stops once you answer the calling, but the symptoms don't get any better. If an SK decides to not answer the calling, they might fulling transform into a doll. It reminds me of Medusa, as well as the amulets that let Zane open the Irene dimension.

Laurance's symptoms took a while to kick in, and they still aren't that bad because he's a very new SK compared to the others we've met. He reminds me of a rag doll. He's very light on his feet, but he also seems really clumsy. Plus, with the disconnection that he can feel from his limbs, he trips over his feet alot.

I do think that Laurance has to let out his anger every now and again or he's going to literally explode. He'll never admit it, but there have been times where he's so close to hurting Aphmau. Then, he just has to leave and let out his anger. He's beginning to hate her. He still loves her, however since the calling has latched onto her, her presence makes him livid. Laurance is just not okay in the slightest. He's had no time to heal. He's a product of his environment, and it's been so chaotic.

I feel like Garroth is the only one who can truly see past Laurance's "condition." I think it's because he has such a one-track mind, in a good way. He sees past people's faults so easily, unless they are there just to cause harm. Garroth just sees Laurance as Laurance. He understands that being an SK is just part of being Laurance.

Being a Shadow Knight is all about balancing scales. There are two sides to everything. The calling being to kill the one you love. Dying yet being so alive. Having so much power, but being as vulnerable as a paper doll. When the scales are finally tipped is when Shadow Knights gain their immortality.

I honestly don't know if this makes any sense I'm quite literally shitting words atp

#my brain is actual mush rn #i could talk about this forever #aphblr #aphmau #aphmau mcd #laurance zvahl #aphmau minecraft diaries #minecraft diaries laurance #sasha mcd #gene mcd #vylad ro'meave #zenix mcd #shadow knights #shadow knight laurance

[quietblueriver]

Part II of the Camp Prudaj AU, featuring equine therapist Imogen and children’s vlogger Laudna. Part I here.

In which Laudna appears and charms Imogen through a phone screen.

-

The episode opened on a tiny animated paw batting at a skein of red yarn, which unraveled to spell Crafting Creatures as a melody, something that sounded like it was coming from a phonograph, played in the background. It was cute and seemed fairly normal for a show aimed at children, even if the paw was a little gaunt.

And then the creature to whom the paw belonged came running out after the yarn, scruffy black rodent body and bone-white bird skull head skittering across the screen, a small with Laudna and Pate scrawling in black font behind its tail as it moved.

“What the fuck?”

The words escaped on an exhale, low and reflexive, her head moving away from the screen of her phone, like she might see something different than a half-living, mutant rat chasing a ball of yarn if she gave it a little distance.

She did not see something different.

The creature turned to face the camera and titled its head as it said, “Well, what’re you waitin’ for? Stop starin’ and come on in.” The accent was absurd, something from a community theater production about a chimney sweep in Whitestone, and Imogen huffed a laugh, torn between revulsion and amusement.

And then the camera zoomed out and faded to black, opening again on a woman—Laudna, she assumed—sitting in a worn, ornate rocking chair that looked as though it could’ve been pulled from a few centuries back. Its occupant might’ve come with it. She was all delicate, high cheekbones and big, dark eyes. The tilt of her head and the cut of her jawline, the way her hands moved effusively and still somehow gracefully with her words, which were, themselves, lilted out in a distinctive accent (Whitestone, she thought, but about as far from Pate’s overexaggerated growl as possible)–all of it was classic and classically feminine, a match to her chair and the lace of her high collar.

“Hello, there. Welcome to Crafting Creatures. I’m Laudna and…” Her hand disappeared for a moment over the side of her chair and when it appeared again, it was maneuvering the wooden sticks of a puppet, a familiar and horrifying rat thing coming to sit on its hind paws (Haunches? Her rat anatomy was lacking.). “You’ve already met Pate.”

The rat took a bow, tiny front paws dipping low as its body tilted. “‘Ello. Pate de Rolo at your seeervice.”

Laudna made a small effort to hide the movement of her mouth but seemed much more concerned with Pate’s movements, and, Imogen imagined, maintaining that fucking accent. She was smiling, really smiling, as Laudna drawled, voice unnaturally low, “What’re we up to t’day, boss?”

Laudna’s eyes met the camera directly again, and in her own voice, she offered, body moving side to side very slightly in what might’ve been anxiety but which seemed much more like irrepressible delight, “Well, I thought we’d make some acorn dolls.”

The screen shifted to a list of materials, ones that had also been posted in the description, Imogen noticed, and Laudna read them and then said, easily, “And if you don’t have these, don’t worry! You can pause here to go find some acorns or draw the dolls on paper or just imagine on your own!”

The screen shifted again and Laudna tapped a long, bony finger against her temple, black nail a stark contrast to her pale skin.

“Remember, your mind is a wonderful thing. It can take you wherever you’d like to go. And anytime you’d like! So, today, if you’d like to make dolls the same way that Pate and I will or differently than we will—with shells or pen and paper or in your fantastic imagination—please do! We’re excited to make something with you.”

“Enough talkin’,” Pate said, dancing across Laudna’s lap to perch on an arm of the chair and stare at the camera with the black holes where its eyes should be. “Let’s get to it.”

Imogen followed along as Laudna and Pate decorated their acorns—faces with various expressions, pants and skirts and dresses of every color—and then stacked them together to form little dolls. The camera shifted occasionally, shots from above of the decoration and process, Pate’s little claw making an appearance every now and again, and wider shots of the small table where they worked.

She tuned out after a few minutes, caught in watching Laudna. Her mannerisms and tone and vocabulary all made Imogen feel like she might be watching one of the classic movies her math teacher had loved so much, one well-worn copy or another in the old VHS player on an afternoon close to a holiday break.

It took her a few minutes to notice, because Laudna was incredibly charming and incredibly gorgeous and because, relatedly, Imogen was incredibly gay, but there was something different about Laudna, something that made Imogen’s brain whisper, Look again, although she hadn’t, from the moment Laudna appeared on screen, considered looking away.

She was alluring in the same way all of those actresses had been to (equally incredibly gay) teenage Imogen, undeniably beautiful and out of her time.

But unlike the lead in An Evening in Whitestone, there was something just slightly too much about Laudna. Her skin was too pale, too thin, her eyes too wide and too dark, her hands moved just this side of too quickly, closer, upon examination, to anxious than ethereal. The smile stretched too far across her face and the features were too sharp, sliding from delicate to the kind of worrying thinness that warned of illness.

It didn’t make her less gorgeous. Not to Imogen, anyway, who appreciated unique features and who, with her own scars climbing from her fingers to her sternum, liked to believe that imperfect didn’t mean unattractive. (It didn’t, on other people. The opposite really. She was a sucker for a scar and a story. As for herself, well. She was trying.)

It did, though, make her different, and it made Imogen, who understood very well how differentness could shape a person, consider her (examine felt too clinical and also at least a little creepy but was probably, if she were honest with herself, the best word for what she was doing)—the way she moved, the way she dressed, the musicality of her voice, Pate. Laudna seemed so wonderfully herself, but Imogen wondered how much of the way she carried herself was meant to distract, whether Laudna had always been built for a different time, what made her want to make a children’s series with a nightmare puppet. She wanted to know her, she realized. And she might get to.

As Laudna and Pate settled back in the rocking chair and began to discuss next week’s project—some furniture for the acorn dolls—and what materials they would be using, Imogen found herself looking forward to coffee.

Laudna laughed at something Pate said, which Imogen considered, after this brief time watching, to be endearing rather than disconcerting. She took a look at the time and plugged in her phone. There was a whole playlist of these videos, and she had a whole evening of nothing.

“What do you say to a quick story, before we go?”

“Yeah! What abou’ the one with the crickets?”

“Wonderful choice. Do you know, I made some finger puppets that will work beautifully for this.” She rummaged in the basket beside the chair and emerged with a handful of small, knitted multicolored creatures. “Alright. Ready, then?”

Imogen kicked off her shoes and settled back into her bed. Ready.

#imodna #southerngothic #imodna fic #camp prudaj au

[jewishcissiekj]

oh man i've got a few questions because i havent actually gotten to her yet.

first ones kind of rehetorical but what is up with ventress and being orphaned? everyone in star wars has a dead parent or two but damn.

im curious about that planet you always talk about that i simply cannot remember how to spell. starts with an r.

oh and i NEED a fun fact. multiple if you have them.

abd finally, whats your favorite source material? what screams "best characterization" to you? i think i know the answer to the second one, but whats the absolute bottom of the barrel trash that you wish you could wipe from existence?

ooooh I have answers

for the first one, I feel like it was originally (in Legends) just to get her parents out of the way so she'd has a reason to ally with Ky Narec and make her story more tragic. She was the daughter of two warlords who were killed by an opposing warlord (who also killed her Jedi Master eventually), and she ran away after their deaths. In TCW she wasn't orphaned at all but she was given away by the Nightsister nad her mother (who we see in a flashback in the episode "Nightsisters"), and was later raised by a slave owner who was killed by Ky. So she's basically an orphan to benefit her origin story.

yessss Rattatak!!! my glup shitooine. my love my sunshine my favorite Star Wars planet ever. It only appears in a few comic issues and two tv episodes and I'm still not sure what is the appeal it has on me but I love itttt. It's the planet Asajj grew up and was trained as a padawan on, and it's this war-ridden wasteland with bald people and a whole lot of problems. There's not much lore for it, and most of the lore there is comes from the Old Republic video games that I haven't played, but its people are prone to have Force Sensitivity and I just like its vibes. I have a lot of headcanons about it and the wars there, and I love the Rattataki a lot, it's just a fan playing ground for me and it may not sound like it but it is miles more interesting to me than Dathomir.

a fun fact um wait a minute. when developing her younger model for the flashback in "Sisters", Katie Lucas wanted her to have a mohawk. that led to these fucking concepts (from TCW season 3 witches and monsters featurette)

also she canonically once stole a Wookie doll from a Gungan child for some reason (hyperspace stories 3). very silly of her

my favorite source material for her is Star Wars: Republic #60. it's Obi-Wan and Alpha 17 trying to escape her castle and find out her origin story. I'm very normal about it. It's honestly a great issue for her and it establishes many of the things I love most about her (Ratttatak, Aidus, Ky, Warlord Origin, castle Ventress, and more). Haden Blackman's writing is in is so good. the cover is amazing. a close 2nd is her Clone Wars (2003) appearances for many reasons. least favorite is very very unexpected. Dark Disciple. I don't need to just erase it from existence I need to travel back in time to the pitch meetings where it was suggested and burn the paper and the computers it was written on. I need to kill that book

ok!!!! not sorry for the rants I love writing especially about Asajj

#daily asajj thought of the day #thanks for the ask! #asajj ventress #i have a lot of made up lore for ratatak and asajj's family #and yet funnily i don't have headcanons for her parents' names #aaand btw there ae more funny concepts in the tcw featurette i mentioned #honestly asajj's characterization is on point in every single one of the old 00s comics bc. well. they established her character #but i like the way w haden blackman writes her the best #star wars #republic 60 #rattatak #rattataki #sw #ventress #star wars comics #star wars legends #star wars eu #ky narec #star wars concept art

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Worf

By Ames

It’s an honorable week here on A Star to Steer Her By because we’re shining our character spotlight on the show’s first Klingon main character, Worf, Son of Mogh! He’s also the first specifically main cast member to span two different series (sorry, O’Brien), so we’ve got glimpses from both The Next Generation and its films and also Deep Space Nine to cover. Worf might get the most time of any character to truly develop, growing from the guy who gets thrown across the room by the baddie of the week into the complex warrior who, for just a moment, wears the robes of the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. Go Worf!

So put on your baldric, grab your bat’leth, and top off your mug of bloodwine as we give Worf all the honor he deserves (which every so often, isn’t very much, but other times is a lot!). Read on for the commendable battles below and listen to our death yells over on this week’s podcast (fight your way to 55:39). Today is a good day to die.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Bloodwine is red / Andorians are blue… While we gave Dr. Pulaski lots of props for whipping up an antidote so she could participate in Worf’s version of a tea party, it’s also just lovely that Worf honors her by performing the ceremony in the first place in “Up the Long Ladder.” Deep down under the head ridges and scowl, Worf is just a poetry-reading, tea-sipping teddy bear and we love it.

Klingon paper dolls Star Trek characters jump at any opportunity to play dress up, and we get a good instance of that in “The Emissary” when Worf and K’Ehleyr put on their warrior garb to trick a crew of Klingons in cryostasis into thinking they represent the Klingon Empire. As always, this episode gets some extra points for featuring K’Ehleyr, and it turns out Worf’s pretty good at improvisation too.

We have bonded and our families are stronger While we’re certainly going to give Worf some shit for how badly he parents his biological son, his connection with Jeremy Aster in “The Bonding” is actually quite beautiful for the both of them. Each an orphan, they are able to form a familial-type relationship together, and it’s really touching when Worf invites Jeremy to join him in the R'uustai that will bond them as brothers.

He has claimed the right of vengeance A trend emerged in our Best Worf Moments when they tended to fall into the “killing the fuck out of some jerk who deserves it” category, and the first to really deserve it is Duras in “Reunion.” Duras has been begging to get murdered since we first heard his contemptible name, but when he killed Worf’s mate in cold blood, Worf knew exactly what he had to do with his bat'leth.

You may now give birth Despite the fact that it resulted in adding a baby to the cast (blech), we have to give some credit to Worf for delivering the O’Brien baby in “Disaster” in a way that only he could. We’d need a whole additional blogpost for all the great Worf one-liners throughout the two series, as Michael Dorn’s delivery is always gold, but “Push, Keiko, push” has got to be pretty high up there.

Doesn’t gik’tal mean to the death? Worf sees so much potential in Sito Jaxa in “Lower Decks” and spends most of the episode arguing on her behalf for a promotion. So when we see Worf testing her with the made-up gik’tal martial arts to teach her to stick up for herself, we can’t help but see in her just what Worf sees. Ya know, until Picard totally gets her killed.

Assimilate this! Sure, it’s a soundbite-y line designed to be marketable in the trailer, but when Worf survives getting his EV suit punctured by tying it off with some Borg bits and then blows up the interplexing beacon in First Contact, it just feels right. Maybe it’s that Michael Dorn can get away with cheesy lines like “Assimilate this!” or maybe we just love watching Borg explode.

If you were any other man, I would kill you where you stand While the movies are mostly showcases for Picard and Data, First Contact gives some great moments to the other castmembers. Worf’s standoff with Picard is nothing short of chilling. Borg are overrunning the ship and Picard orders Worf and his security team to what is almost certain to be their deaths. Lucky for us, Worf doesn’t actually mutiny, just threatens to a little bit.

And in this corner… While we spent most of The Next Generation watching Worf getting knocked around as shorthand for “the alien threat is strong,” by Deep Space Nine, we don’t really get that anymore and instead he actually gets to kick some ass! In “By Inferno's Light,” Worf is forced to battle Jem’Hadar after Jem’Hadar in the fighting ring, and he refuses to quit even when he has every right to.

Help me fight again, Worf You’ll see in a second that sometimes when Worf tries to help another Klingon die with honor, things can get complicated, but when Kor asks for help going out in the warrior fashion, Worf is totally a good guy about it. He gets the old legend a place on Martok’s ship in “Once More Unto the Breach” even though it’s not Martok’s favorite thing, but in the end, Sto’Vo’kor gains a new warrior.

Seven down, one to go We still have more “killing the fuck out of some jerk who deserves it” mentions to bring up! What list would be complete without the murder of at least one Weyoun on it? In this case, Worf straight up snaps the neck of Weyoun 7 in “Strange Bedfellows” when he has the opportunity and it is a thing of such beauty that it gains Damar’s respect.

What I have done was for the Empire Finally, our last jerk who needed to get killed the fuck out of is that bastard Gowron in “Tacking into the Wind.” Gowron was going around making terrible decisions, rewriting the history books, and trying to get Martok killed in various ways, and Worf finally has enough and kills him in honorable combat. He gets the cloak of the Chancellor for it but selflessly passes it to Martok, like an absolute boss.

—

Worst moments

I would rather die than pollute my body with Klingon filth While Geordi is putting racism aside to be able to coexist with his new BFF Bochra in “The Enemy,” Worf takes the opposite path. By refusing to let Crusher give his blood to Patahk, Worf condemns the injured Romulan to death just because of his race. And then the show takes some of the guilt off Worf by having Patahk refuse treatment anyway, leaving Worf’s hands clean, I guess.

This is not unlike a drumhead trial Worf is also quick to fall in line with Admiral Satie’s Red Scare of a trial against crewman Tarses in “The Drumhead.” He gets so infatuated with dispensing justice that he jumps past “innocent until proven guilty” and determines that Tarses is guilty of treason because he’d lied about his alien heritage, when the two things aren’t even related.

Would you further dishonor our family with your disobedience? It’s a running joke in the Star Trek community that Worf is a terrible father and… well, he is. To his defense, he did have Alexander sprung on him when K’Ehleyr died in “Reunion,” and he did try to pawn the little brat off on the Rozhenkos, but that was a terrible move too. So when we watch how clueless he is trying to parent in “New Ground,” we cringe hard at how Worf just doesn’t get it.

Donkey Kong: 1. Worf: 0. A lot of Worf’s decisions about how to deal with his paraplegia in “Ethics” are complicated and problematic, but the way he ended up in such a state is what we’re really here to roast him on. My dude got bitched by a big blue plastic barrel in the cargo bay, and that is downright dishonorable for a Klingon warrior. Battle, sure. Explosion, fine. Spat with Spot, of course. But not blue barrel!

How could your mother mate with a Romulan? Worf’s prejudice against Romulans comes out again in “Birthright” when he learns that Ba’el is half Romulan and he starts spouting racist accusations at her when he’s already seen what kind of a person she is, and even what kind of person her father is. Since his father’s death at Khitomer, it’s a long road for Worf to accept that all Romulans are not that same, and it’s unclear if he ever gets there.

Tell him he is a pretty cat and a good cat All your hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By are ride-or-die cat people, so when Worf refuses to tell Spot he’s a good cat and a pretty cat in “Phantasms” when Data asks him to look after the feline, we take it super personally. Frankly, Data should have looked elsewhere for someone to catsit because what’s supposed to be a humorous moment in the show just makes us angry at Worf. Hiss!

I believe the Ferengi bartender is plotting something By the time Worf joins Deep Space Nine, his racism against Romulans doesn’t come up, but his racism against the Ferengi sure does. Ever since “Hippocratic Oath,” Worf refuses to call Quark by name, instead calling him “The Ferengi bartender.” We joke sometimes on the podcast that the only race it’s okay to be racist against is the Ferengi, but you know what? It’s really not okay.

My life is in your hands Sure, we can argue that Kurn coming to Worf for the Klingon rite of Mauk-to’Vor in “Sons of Mogh” is messed up and puts Worf in a tough position, but Worf manages to pick an even worse outcome for his brother. Instead of killing him and sending Kurn to Sto’Vo’kor with his honor intact, Worf does the least honorable thing and has Bashir wipe Kurn’s memory. Without Kurn’s consent! Eeesh.

Everything you do reflects on me There were a bunch of times during DS9 that we really thought Jadzia could do better than having Worf as her mate, and “Let He Who Is Without Sin” is the chief offender. Worf starts the episode arguing about Jadzia consorting with other men even though she’s with him now, gets jealous of the Dax’s previous relationships, and generally poopoo’s Jadzia’s streak of individuality like a toxic boyfriend.

Have you accepted Kahless as your lord and savior? And that’s not even the worst thing Worf does in the abysmal episode “Let He Who Is Without Sin.” He spends the rest of their vacation on Risa palling around with the New Essentialists who’ve decided that people enjoying things is bad form, which is just Worf being petty. So when he goes out of his way to help them literally rain on everyone’s parade, it’s super damaging to his character.

I do not know you, nor do I wish to know you After Jadzia’s death, Worf utterly fails as grieving in a healthy, productive way and instead opts to take it out on Ezri during “Afterimage.” Just because she’s not Jadzia, Worf treats the poor Trill with disdain, ignoring the fact that she too is living through the trauma of being joined to the symbiont. None of this is her fault! Don’t yell at the innocent cupcake!

If it looks like a Dax and it quacks like a Dax… Worf and Jadzia had chemistry like whoa and we were here for it. Worf and Ezri… just don’t. So when they bump uglies in “Penumbra,” we just find it kinda gross and distasteful. My dude, that is not your wife anymore, and she’s in a very vulnerable state having had the Dax symbiont thrust upon her, so it strikes us as kind of problematic that they go to the bone zone (and I don’t mean Worf’s calisthenics program).

—

Qapla’! Now that we’ve got our honor back, take the R'uustai with us and subscribe so that you can see our next batch of character spotlights as we segue smoothly into our crewmates from Deep Space Nine! On the flip side, you can listen along to our dishonorable rewatch of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, challenge us to a bat’leth fight on Facebook and Twitter, and join us for some good tea in a nice house.

#star trek #star trek podcast #podcast #worf #the next generation #first contact #deep space nine #up the long ladder #the emissary #the bonding #reunion #disaster #lower decks #by inferno's light #once more unto the breach #strange bedfellows #tacking into the wind #the enemy #the drumhead #new ground #ethics #birthright #phantasms #hippocratic oath #sons of mogh #let he who is without sin #afterimage #penumbra #klingon #michael dorn

[non-neutoniangender]

Finally back to watching campaign three now that I'm done with school. An oh my god!?!?!? First of all, the ad read from Sam was something else. Also,

LUDINUS!?!?!?!? The fucker.

The casts reaction to him was gold, especially Liam. You can see the pent up Caleb anger in him.

NATURAL 20!!!!

The nightmare king really is a peice of shit

A non-human peice of shit for sure

The DIVINE GATE!?!?!? on the MOON???? oh boy.

Boy its funny to see everyone jump to "these are bad gods stuck on the moon" to "wait what are we saying, its fine, they're probably in love and on a honeymoon, its fine"

The web of connections is huge

This is feeling like the Marisha moment from CR2

Lol breaking the lense is such an Ashton moment.

The complete mistrust of Ira and his papers.

I love what Matt is allowing with the dual detect thoughts this campaign.

Shit Ira is a master manipulator. God I hate his guts.

God I'm so enamored with Laudna and Imogen.

Beau shows up when you need her!! <3

The cast banter is so good!!

Curiosity on a stone

Knowledge on a biscuit

Passion on a leaf

I'm DEAD.

The therapy discussion. This is so funny.

The doll!??!? Fearn is a master if dry humor. While the whole cast is loosing it.

The traumatized by their parents kids in the corner is hilarious. And so right.

The parents were okay discussion!!

The allusion to all DnD characters parents being shit!!!

I'm so proud of Fearne!! Talking to her parents about her issues.

"I have a child" the whole cast!!! The parents.

Oh Fearne. I love her.

Orym being the behind the scenes support adamantly. He's the heart of the whole group in some ways.

Matt's keyleth is <3. Also the way marisha looks at Keyleth Matt is <3.

"Dont know where you are. Hope you're happy" damn orym.

Orym is so melancholy. I want happiness for him.

Damn... Dancer. Bitch.

D'awwww cuddling!! Also "I'm a little creeped out, not by you obviously" they're so cute together.

Oh my god I had those dolls as a kid!!! They're awesome!! Thats so sweet of chetney.

The buildup, and subsequent follow-up to " I guess I'll just buzz saw him" was incredible. Sam is great and his characters are always so underestimated.

The way Matt jokes that they are all ruidus born. Like. He's right right!?!??? Like they all have to be?? Or at least quite a few of them.

I have so much anger towards that manipulative bitch Delilah Briarwood. The catharsis I will feel when when she is gone..... good lord

Also the faces of the whole cast when the first HDYWTDT. The dead silence of.... did I just kill a PC.

Big props to Laura for that deep cut of a Wicked reference lol.

This FCG moment is really powerful. Also the grass being painted by someone.

Orym says he isn't a leader. But he is. Just a leader from the back. A role model.

All the heartfelt moments!! So very nice!!

All in all, a very cool episode.

#critical role #cr spoilers #cr3ep31 #ludinus da'leth #fuck ludinus #laudna #imogen #imodna #fcg #orym is a leader #theyre all fucked #but theyre working on it

[oneinathousand]

Are you a newer fan of Treasure Island 1988 and are hungry for something else that’ll scratch that itch? Then you oughta check out the 13 episode-long 1970′s series The Adventures of Captain Vrungel, which was also directed by David Cherkassky, if you haven’t already. As someone who only watched it for the first time a few days ago, I can confirm that it holds up pretty well, and although it’s not as flashy as Treasure Island, and it’s not something that I personally would care to rewatch as much as Treasure Island, it has its own distinct charms and memorable characters that are worth experiencing, if only so you can see the genesis for the style that would be expanded on later. 

The plot, which eventually becomes somewhat more complicated than meets the eye, concerns a global boat race taking place in the early 20th century. The titular Captain Vrungel, a level-headed but often oblivious teacher, decides to participate and takes his student, Lom, as First Mate; right before the race begins, the two recruit the mild-mannered Fuchs as their third crew member. 

Unbeknownst to Vrungel and Lom, however, Fuchs, a gambler in dire financial straits, recently stole the Venus de Milo statue at the behest of the mysterious criminal Chief, and is now smuggling the statue aboard Vrungel’s ship, the Trouble. Chief sends two of his goons, Bandito and Gangsterito, to chase the crew down and retrieve the statue, but are themselves constantly pursued by Agent 00X, a man who never quits; all the while, Vrungel and Lom are blissfully unaware of Fuch’s crime and of the true nature of the race they’re taking part in. Each episode sees the crew come up against everything from natural sea phenomena, to illness, to Bandito and Gangsterito’s various schemes, that they have to think their way out of.

Tonally, the show is distinct from Treasure Island in that while it also maintains a generally comedic vibe throughout, this is less of a rapid-fire, over-the-top kind of thing, and more of a laid-back, amiable type of comedy, with even the slapstick being laid-back. It’s the kind of comedy to me where you might not laugh out loud, but it might put a smile on your face with it’s cleverness, although maybe for you it’ll split your guts laughing, who’s to say? Captain Vrungel has a slower pacing typical to a lot of older animation that you don’t really see as much anymore that lets the audience sit back and soak in the vibes, I don’t really know how to put it into words.

Part of Captain Vrungel’s more understated comedy comes from it’s mostly paper doll animation style, where by it’s very nature slapstick can’t really have the same oomph as other types of animation, so it doesn’t rely on physical humor as much to tell jokes.

For those of you who might not have cared for those few sections in Treasure Island where they would temporarily switch to a paper doll style and are hesitant to watch Captain Vrungel because you might miss having cel animation, I can say in my opinion that the character designs for Vrungel are done in a more visually appealing way than those parts of TI were, and it’s worth seeing how intricate it is. For more complicated shots, they do occasionally switch to cel animation, and even though they are less polished than what would come later on, they still often utilize inventive perspective shots that are fun to look at and provide visual interest for the show as a whole.

Another thing to note about Captain Vrungel is that it’s also a musical, with most episodes having one or even two numbers where the characters will burst into song, the rest of the soundtrack being orchestrated in contrast to the synths of Treasure Island. Not all the songs are memorable, since there’s so many of them, but the standouts will get stuck in your head. I think I’m gonna remember “We Bandito Gangsterito” and Agent 00X’s theme song till the day I die.

All that being said, one of the best parts of The Adventures of Captain Vrungel are probably the characters; as with every other aspect of the show I’ve discussed so far, most of them are not as eccentric as the cast of Treasure Island, nobody’s gonna be unironically making edited clips of the show set to phonk music making them look like gigachad badasses; however, most of them either do their job as a character just fine or are memorable in their own way.

Captain Vrungel himself is the straight man contrasting the other characters, lacking the quirks of fellow straight man protagonist Jim Hawkins, but he brings a calming presence that grounds the story. He’s very much like a father or grandfatherly figure, being wise and welcoming to others, sometimes exasperated at the silly things happening around him, but also sometimes participating in them if he feels like it. He does exactly what he needs to.

First Mate Lom is an early example of a himbo, being loyal and hard-working but not very bright. Of all the main characters, he gets the least to do, being the strong guy most of the time, which is a shame since he’s performed by Dr. Livesey’s voice actor (though Papernny did also get to voice the main villain, Chief, though I can’t really discuss him because it would spoil things).

Speaking of Treasure Island voice actors, the other prominent one from there who showed up here is Blind Pew’s VA playing the co-lead Fuchs, and although the character has a few visual similarities to Pew, the two have very different personalities. In short, he is what you might call a “woobie”, a “scrunkly blorbo”, or maybe even a “poor little meow-meow”, in the same genre of character as Tack from The Thief in the Cobbler, someone you would want to give a big hug if he were real. Without giving anything away, I’ll just say Fuchs goes through a nice character arc.

Three characters, however, come close to stealing the whole show, and could have easily had their own spinoff series based on their dynamic, and that’s the goons Bandito and Gangsterito, and Agent 00X. If you’re a fan of the “two minions who always hang out and have a surprisingly wholesome friendship despite being villains” trope, you’ll enjoy Bandito and Gangsterito as a duo. Are they totally stereotypical Italian gangster types? Oh yes, but they’re the Team Fortress 2 kind of stereotype where they’re so over the top it goes back around to being funny to me, but if you’re irritated by them for that reason, I understand.

As for Agent 00X, think of Captain Smollett’s ability to take any punishment thrown at him and turn it up to 11. No matter what Bandito and Gangsterito do to shake him off, he always comes back with a laugh and a smile on his face. Of all the Vrungel characters, he’s the one who’s most similar to the Treasure Island characters, and it’s with him that the animators do a lot of the test runs with his humor and animation that they would use more and more later on.

If anything I’ve written here has intrigued you enough to check out the series, as of this posting there’s one video of the whole series in English subtitles that I’ve been able to find so far which doesn’t have as good of video or audio quality as other uploads that are only in Russian, and the subtitles have some mistakes throughout, but it does well enough with translating the jokes that those technical shortcomings won’t impede your viewing experience too much.

The show takes a few episodes for the characters and overall plot to get set into place, but if you view it as a 2 hour-long movie, the pacing flows more smoothly.

#the adventures of captain vrungel #treasure island 1988 #soviet animation #the adventures of captain wrongel

[forestwind1234]

Okay, genuine question. Where should I start if I want to get into Star Trek, lol

This really depends on what you like in your scifi and what format of a show you prefer.

If you like campy episodic shows like The Twilight Zone and Classic Doctor Who, you could start with The Original Series. However I’ve had multiple friends who just. Can’t get past the production value and mediocre acting. Personally I really love the set and costume design though.

A lot of people recommend to start with The Next Generation. I feel like people really recognize that cast, and although the first season can be a little rough, it really picks up and tends to be conistently very high quality. TNG was my first Star Trek, and I loved the character growth and the fact that there were plots that picked up across episodes.

If you like more seriealized scifi like Farscape or Babylon 5 I really reccommend Deep Space Nine. I consider it to be a sister series to TNG and in it they explore a lot of the fallbacks of the Federation and what happens after the Enterprise sails away into the sunset. I also adore the cast.

My friend who’s really into adult cartoons watched Lower Decks first and while I really like LD he also didn’t get like 90% of the jokes. I reccommend watching this at least after TNG (like how I did) and idealy after TOS as well.

The Animated Series is low key my favorite Trek, and the episodes are only like 15 min long but it will feel like your brain is getting microwaved and its like watching the TOS cast play with paper dolls. They did do some super fun and interesting things with alien designs with it.

To be transparent, I haven’t watched any of Enterprise, I’ve only seen a little of Voyager, and I haven’t watched any of the modern Treks (Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Picard and there might be more idk). My understanding is that most modern Trek is very much nostolgia bate and rarely poses the ethical questions or political commentary of older Treks. Personally after I finish DS9 I want to watch Enterprise.

Sorry for the huge wall of text!

TL;DR: Watch a few episodes The Next Generation first. If you want something more serious maybe go for Deep Space 9, and if you want something campier maybe go for The Original Series.

#text #me #long post #ask #star trek

[pomegranate-cuties]

Chapter 19 Reactions

First time poster, long time reader and so on. All instances of bold in quoted text is my own emphasis. Now, without further ado:

People who have never seen these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon, scarcely realise that living quality. I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one of the fighting-machines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings had a considerable vogue, and I mention them here simply to warn the reader against the impression they may have created. They were no more like the Martians I saw in action than a Dutch doll is like a human being. To my mind, the pamphlet would have been much better without them.

Tell us how you really feel Mr Narrator! As someone who's been accepting any and all illustrations of our tripod aliens as canon, I'm feeling very attacked right now. And who was it who first described the Martian machines as a milk stool, hm?

The internal anatomy, I may remark here, as dissection has since shown, was almost equally simple.

I love these delicious little hints of a post-Martian world 🥰

They did not eat, much less digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, and injected it into their own veins. I have myself seen this being done, as I shall mention in its place.

Virgin digestive system (humans) vs Chad vampire metabolism (Martians). Also, I'm having a bad feeling about the fate of the Curate...

Their undeniable preference for men as their source of nourishment

[Audio and video description: Official YouTube music video for the US version of "Maneater" by Nelly Furtado, an uptempo electro-pop song with an infectious, thumping beat. The video is set to start at the chorus (timestamped 2:12), depicting Nelly Furtado dancing in a dimly-lit, dilapidated warehouse, interspersed with shots of the crowd dancing in other rooms of the warehouse:

Maneater, make you work hard Make you spend hard, make you want all of her love She's a maneater, make you buy cars Make you cut cards, make you fall real hard in love She's a maneater, make you work hard Make you spend hard, make you want all of her love She's a maneater, make you buy cars Make you cut cards, wish you never ever met her at all

End description.]

These creatures, to judge from the shrivelled remains that have fallen into human hands, were bipeds with flimsy, silicious skeletons (almost like those of the silicious sponges) and feeble musculature, standing about six feet high and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets. Two or three of these seem to have been brought in each cylinder, and all were killed before earth was reached. It was just as well for them, for the mere attempt to stand upright upon our planet would have broken every bone in their bodies.

[Audio and video description: Scene from "Chocolate with Nuts" (season 3, episode 52) of SpongeBob Squarepants. SpongeBob, with a bandaged head and two crutches, and Patrick, with a neck brace and both arms in casts, knock on the door of a potential chocolate customer. The customer wears a full-body cast, eyepatch, and ventilator face mask, with an IV drip attached to his right side.

The video begins with a close up of the customer's face, who laments, "Ugh, some guys have all the luck. I was born with glass bones and paper skin. Every morning, I break my legs, and every afternoon, I break my arms. At night, I lie awake in agony until my heart attacks put me to sleep." As he speaks, a violin begins to play, and the shot cuts over to SpongeBob and Patrick, who look like they're about to cry.

Right as the customer finishes his speech, the mobility device holding the customer's leg out from him falls. A wire snaps, sending the customer tumbling down the stairs to the sounds of shattering glass and cries of pain.

End description.]

In the next place, wonderful as it seems in a sexual world, the Martians were absolutely without sex

Ace pride 🖤🤍💜

The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular. Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on earth, have either never appeared upon Mars or Martian sanitary science eliminated them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life.

Yes! I'm so glad this's been finally addressed, because it was the first thing I was curious about. It's a little inconceivable to me for life to exist on other planets without microorganisms, but that may be a lack of imagination on my part. What's more interesting is what this might mean for Martian immune systems...

#war of the worlds #daily war of the worlds #pomegranate-cuties

[owlkhemy]

Because I had to bring up the thing:

The Grand Old List of Owlkhemy's Bizarre Childhood Fears!

I've had ... a LOT of weird fears. I still do have a lot of weird fears. And I love talking about them, especially in the context of what I used to be scared of as a kid. So, I'm making a list! For no reason other than... why not?

Under the cut for length...

- The Warner Brothers logo, the first thing I ever actually feared. I thought it would fall out of the blue sky onto my head. (I'm pretty sure this was my first experience with my mild megalophobia. It still freaks me out, just a little, because of the implied size.) Here's an example, if you're not familiar:

- The Dodge Ram logo. I thought it would chase me down the halls for... a shockingly long amount of time, actually. I blame this on those godawful Rev Roll Ram enemies from Pac-Man World 2, the first PS2 game I ever played. Rev Roll Rams are actually cute... when they're not flinging you off snowy cliffs.

- Another enemy from PMW2, Stony. Stony is a weird... rock gorilla thing. Here (sourced from the Fandom wiki):

It guards an area and shoots fireballs at you. I didn't like having to maneuver around them, which turned into a fear of it. Fun fact: it continues to move during the pause screen for whatever reason. No fireballs though. Just swaying back and forth.

- A pig statue in a local grocery store. I'm not sure if it's still there. It was dressed in a chef's outfit. It was probably actually really cute. I just didn't like that it was watching younger me from the top of the meat shelves.

- The basement. I hated our basement, namely because I was pretty arachnophobic as a kid and there's a bunch of cobwebs down there. You couldn't even say the word "downstairs" to me. It's still not pleasant, not because of the possibility of spiders, but because it's cold and there's still cobwebs and those are annoying. Speaking of...

- Spiders. I actually used to not fear them as bad. But then I had a weirdly round one directly over my face once in my treehouse... Looking back, the silhouette was probably just a garden spider or cobweb spider, but my young kid brain for years thought I'd nearly had a run-in with a black widow... which I don't think were even known to be in our area at that time. Now I don't mind spiders nearly as much, as long as they're not touching me. I've even kept a few for a few months as pets, mostly jumpers.

- The idea of being sucked down the drain. It took a cute song about exploring in the drain to get me to not worry about it. It didn't help that it seemed every show had an episode with that concept. Plus children don't have a good grasp on the fact that it is physically impossible to fit down a drain.

- The WGBH 2 logo from 2001 to whenever they got the next one (idk). It scared me because, well, there's a blue "2" at the end that suddenly flashes up and I somehow never noticed the one sign that it was about to appear, the clear neon (argon?) tubes that eventually formed it. (VERY MILD JUMPSCARE WARNING and LOUDNESS WARNING in video below, just in case)

- The TV show The Big Comfy Couch. Not because of the clown or doll characters, but because of a song about belly buttons in exactly one episode that I never wanted to see ever again. I overcame this fear after, essentially, being forced to watch the show during my first ever dental procedure that used ✨️laughing gas✨️. (I, however, adored the Owl Television logo, the one with the striped background. So if it ever came on, I would hide behind the couch until the show ended and wait till the credits were over just to see that. I even had a construction paper pastiche of the logo in my room. I called it Roundy.)

- I read the book Dewey The Library Cat and the ending made me so sad that I hid the book under the couch so I'd never face its existence ever again. I found it years later and promptly read it again. Wasn't scared after that. Just more sad.

- AUTO, from Wall-E. For some reason the way he carried himself in that movie was horrifying to me. Maybe it was the deep ass MacinTalk voice.

- Bigfoot/Sasquatch. I used to watch Finding Bigfoot and the possibility of it being outside my window was really terrifying to me.

- Ghosts, but not in the typical way. I also used to watch Ghost Adventures. I hated the voice the Ovilus uses, but "light anomalies", as they called them, freaked me out the most. I still remember one weirdly curly one vividly. (As a side note, the sound they used to indicate certain light anomalies was really annoying to me when they slowed down footage. I remember covering my ears at it once.)

-Black and white scary things. If something is scary and in black and white, I will not like it. I blame this on discovering both Yume Nikki's Uboa and Undertale's Mystery Man/Dr. W.D. Gaster (who MM is often thought to be as of this writing) around the same time, and being subjected to content of both. (I love both of them now, with only a mild bit of fear.) I... cannot deal with certain black and white things now though. There's, like, a chess machine SCP where there's an image of distorted black and white faces that I remember looking at but actively can't remember the image... and that's probably for the better, but I'm going to go look and describe my reaction when I get back. ... Okay that wasn't that bad but I'd still jump out of my skin if I, blindly, had to scroll rapidly through so much "UPLOADING..." text like what's supposed to happen in the actual article and then be faced with THAT. (It's SCP-1875, by the way. Antique Chess Computer. I'm not putting the image in here for my own sanity.)

- Repetitive creepy music. Especially ones with repetitive ostinatos. Blame this on the good Doctor as well, though even before that I was always mildly creeped out by Lavender Town. I think I have reasoning for this - I was watching so much Gaster-related content at the time that I automatically associated his (eight-note, seventeen-second) Theme with either incoming glitchy jumpscares, or being directly after a glitchy jumpscare. So now any repetitive music freaks me right out. When @redpanda411 and I watched a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time playthrough, I was freaked out by the Forest Temple music because of that one section. I have an uneasy reaction to Drip Drop Galaxy's music, which is otherwise very nice:

... and I also got freaked out by one particular water theme in a Nintendo water themes video once, but I can't remember what it is at the moment. I'll stick it here when I find it.

(Me from the future: Okay okay, I THINK it was the Swamp Palace theme from A Link Between Worlds? The water themes video is gone, but I can still recognize most of the songs from it.)

- Computer. Viruses. Oh god. I think this is just because I really hate technology getting destroyed in general, but computer viruses scare the crap out of me. (Then again, says the person who was saved from a Trojan by fricking Norton Antivirus of all things. That's the one thing I can give them credit for.) I know just a little too much about technology to know just how terrifying viruses can be. One of the first ones I remember learning about and being terrified of was Stuxnet. Especially since they think it managed to sneak onto other memory sticks... and I was an avid user of a memory stick. Granted, it doesn't do much harm to things that don't use all three of the things it specifically attacks, but still... The one I currently get absolutely scared shitless of is "ÿ", or OIETIF. Literally nothing suggests it's currently able to be spread on the internet, but if you somehow got it without knowing what it was or does... your computer is fucked.

- The Yogurt Boy from that one Skittles commercial. Just... NO. Why did they think that was cute/quirky/an okay idea for an ad. Behold, a man(?):

- Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls. In the show proper I didn't mind him at all. It was only through reading TV Tropes' Nightmare Fuel page for the series that all the implications about him kind of clicked. I even had a dream with him in it once, which is... foreboding given that he's called a dream demon.

- I... am actually blanking so hard on more fears. So I guess I'll top this list off with the one thing that has always managed to scare me, somehow, without fail, and that lead me to my very own phobia coining:

Distorted Faces.

(Or, dysprosopophobia.)

I mentioned that one horrific SCP above under the black and white section, but on many occasions I have inflicted psychological damage on myself by deciding to look up what makes some characters so scary. I most recently did this at 12:30 AM with a character from OMORI. (Not recommended.)

The video game characters or even enemies that have stuck with me the most, for some reason, have been the ones with some sort of Facial Abnormality™. Whether it be the masks of the Voodoo Bunnies in Crash of the Titans and Omminus from FlingSmash, to the probably-similar-intentionally Eye Thing™ going on with my beloved Uboa and Mystery Man, to the completely uncanny facial distortions of THAT thing and the purple guy in that one creep's FNAF videos, if something looks Off about it I will actually die a little inside.

#a convo with owlkhemy #weird fears #childhood fears #long post #videos added

[girlbossveronica]

i think theres a real problem with modern serial storytelling in long-running shows where as the fanbase of these shows grows to a frighteningly large influence in and of itself, the narrative of the show becomes increasingly reactive to that base.

like its not a bad thing for a show to respond to what the fans think. its actually very valuable! literally any creator can tell you that feedback is a critical part of the artistic process and thats one of the benefits of having a multi-season show as opposed to a limited series. but when the priority of a narrative stops being “what story do we want to tell” and starts becoming “what will shock and/or appease our audience” (so they can keep doing free advertising for us/make us more money), it immediately becomes a two-dimensional caricature of itself. and this abandons any emotional, philosophical, or thematic depth a piece of art could hope to have.

and the problem is that strategy works, until it doesnt! its genuinely scary how much their fanbases initially lean into this, further reinforcing the reduction. i have seen fans actively brag about how they negatively manipulated ratings for a more experimental episode, or how they feel secure that a show wont try anything new “at risk of upsetting the fans.” regardless of how satisfied one is in the short term, the long term consequences of this media engagement is depressing. no wonder so many bland cookie-cutter reboots keep getting greenlit. no wonder so many shows become repetitive, becoming little more than making fanfic scenarios for their paper doll characters to dance around in or kiss. artistic bankruptcy is profitable. riverdale, supernatural, stranger things, glee, the walking dead, any cw show honestly take your pick.

none of this is to say that schlocky tv is bad or immoral. whats entertaining is entertaining. but rewarding pandering leads to an industry built entirely on pandering and fanfic-bait, and even good shows devolving into an embarrassing mess.

#there is more i want to say #particularly about how the focus on shipping and romance rotted peoples brains out of their skulls #but thats for another day #1k #2k

[favefandomimagines]

Give Me A Reason to Stay (b.b.)

Summary: the battle is over, you can finally breathe. but will bucky give you a reason to stay with him in Louisiana? 

AN: inspired by the finale of tfaws! so potential spoilers and obvs i’m gonna include some angst (stark!reader)

You finally caught a moment to breathe after what felt like years of fighting. After so long of going from one disaster to the next, you could finally stop and pause. Actually enjoy life for once. 

Since your father died, you never stopped moving. Being CFO of Stark Industries, helping Wanda escape the authorities after her grief induced episode and then Sam and Bucky called you for help. It never seemed to stop. 

But, after Karli died and the rest of the Flag Smashers gone, you could take your well deserved pause. At least for a little while before your inherited work called. 

Sam invited you to come to his home town in Louisiana for a celebration of sorts and you couldn’t say no. Him telling you that Bucky was going to be there was also a selling point. 

You and Bucky had a complicated history. You helped Sam and Steve stop him and HYDRA and then went on the manhunt for him. Even after finding out he killed your grandparents, you were still there. You understood that it wasn’t Bucky’s mind, just his body. You were there in Wakanda and helped set him free from his trigger words. 

But nothing ever progressed from the stolen looks, the longing glances and the quick touches. The amount of times Bucky Barnes saved your life and threatened others who tried to hurt you, you thought he felt something for you. But the nagging feeling in the back of your head told you that you were wrong. 

At the celebration, the many neighborhood kids were gathered around you as you created stars in your hands, almost like your own personal galaxy. The kids thought it was magic and you rather liked that perspective on your powers. 

Bucky and Sam were talking with Sarah and some other neighbors but Bucky couldn’t focus on the conversation when he was too busy watching you. 

Your smile was so wide that he thought it could light up a city block. You looked genuinely happy, a look he hadn’t seen on you in a long time. It was refreshing and your happiness made him happy. 

“You’re being creepy.” Sam commented, nudging the super soldier. “What?” Bucky asked. “You’re staring.” Sam said. “I-I was not staring.” He stammered. “You so were. Just tell her how you feel already. I can assure you she feels the same way.” Sam told him. “I can’t just tell her.” Bucky rebutted. “Yes, yes you can. What are you afraid of?” Sam asked.

The 106 year-old man paused for a moment as he continued to stare at you. “I can’t be the one that causes her more pain.” He said. Sam furrowed his eyebrows at Bucky’s answer. “She’s been through too much already. Losing Natasha, watching her father die, the nightmares she has. I’m not back to myself yet and I can’t cause her anymore pain.” Bucky explained. 

The conversation was cut short when you approached the two men. “I’m so sorry, Sam. Pepper just called and said the donors are pulling out of the eco-friendly power source project we’re working on. She needs my help fixing it.” You told them. 

“Do you really have to go?” Sam asked. “Unfortunately. Pepper says she can do it on her own, she did it before I was old enough but since my name is still attached to the company, I have to go. Board meeting at 9 tomorrow.” You explained. “I’ll go grab Sarah, she’s going to insist on giving you leftovers to take.” Sam said, giving you a nice smile. 

You turned to Bucky who was very quiet since you walked over. “So, you’re really going back?” He asked you. “Yeah. Unless you give me a reason to stay.” You answered honestly. And rather boldly.

Bucky wanted to say something so bad. He wanted to tell you that he loved you and wanted you to stay with him there but the words didn’t come out. And if he was already feeling bad before, the look on your face broke his heart. 

You gave him a tight lipped smile, a small head nod before you walked away from him. He watched as you slapped a fake smile on, say goodbye to Sarah and Sam before leaving the party rather quickly. 

“What the happened with Y/N?” Sarah asked approaching Bucky. “Nothing. She just had to go.” Bucky lied. Sam saw right through it obviously. Something had happened between you and Bucky and he was determined to find out and play cupid. 

“What really happened?” Sam asked. “She asked me to give her a reason to stay. And I didn’t say anything.” Bucky answered. “Come on, man. You love her, she loves you. Y/N wouldn’t give you the time of day if she couldn’t handle your baggage. You need each other more than you want to admit, Buck.” Sam said.

Bucky sighed and cursed himself for letting you go. “Okay, what do I do?” He asked. “Go to New York. Pull a rom-com move and crash that board meeting and tell her that you love her.” Sam answered.

And Bucky did just that. He got on the first flight to New York and came up with a whole speech in his head for what he was going to say to you.

He made it at the nick of time and was surprised he still had security clearance to the building. When he arrived to the correct floor, he saw Pepper standing in the hallway.

“Bucky, I didn’t expect to see you here.” She said to him. “Where’s Y/N? I need to talk to her.” Bucky said. “She’s in the conference room, preparing for the meeting.” Pepper answered.

Bucky practically ran to the conference room and almost broke down the door.

“B-Bucky?” You questioned. “I love you, Y/N. You asked me to give you a reason to stay and I was scared. Scared that I’d cause you more pain and you don’t deserve that after what you’ve been through. But I can’t deny that I love you anymore.” Bucky confessed.

You were at a loss for words, not really expecting a love confession from Bucky Barnes. “You love me?” You questioned quietly. “Yes. I love you.” He said. “Come back to Louisiana with me. We can start over, have the life we both deserve. Or, I can come back here and you can still help Pepper run Stark Industries. I don’t care as long as I get a chance at a life with you.” Bucky added.

“You really mean that?” You asked. “I really do mean that.” He answered. He watched you intently as you processed everything Bucky had just told you.

You looked down at your presentation notes before you picked them up and folded the papers in half. “Friday, can you bring Pepper into the conference room please?” You asked the AI. “Of course, Ms. Stark.” It said.

You and Bucky waited in a tension filled silence when the door opened. “What’s going on?” Pepper asked. “I think it’s time I sign those papers.” You told her.

Pepper smiled widely at you, happy that you were choosing yourself over the company for once. “It’s about time.” She commented. “I’ll go get them drawn up.” She added before leaving the room.

“Wait what papers?” Bucky asked. “I’m giving every aspect of the company to Pepper. I’ll no longer be listed as an executive for Stark Industries. Which means, I can go anywhere I want for as long as I want.” You explained.

“You mean-“ Bucky started. “I’m going to Louisiana with you. For however long you’ll have me.” You interjected. Bucky laughed lightly as he made his way over to you, cupped your face in his hands and kissed you deeply.

It was a feeling you both had been waiting for and it was one that was definitely worth the wait. You had been putting off your personal life out of fear it wouldn’t work but now you just wanted to be with each other. No matter what happens down the line.

“And if it wasn’t obvious, I love you too.” You said once you parted. “I’d hope so, doll.” Bucky replied.

—

You and Bucky approached the large gathering of people with food in your hands, saying your hellos and giving out hugs and handshakes.

“There you two are! I was wondering if you’d ever show!” Sam scolded you two. “What do you expect? We’re newlyweds.” You laughed. “And it’s about damn time it happened too.” Sarah commented.

You sat down at the picnic table, Bucky resting his flesh hand on your thigh. You stared down at the ring on your finger quite fondly and thought of your dad. Hoping he’d be proud of letting the company go three years ago and living your life to its fullest.

“Aunt Y/N! Can we see the stars again?” Cass asked with all of his friends behind him. “Can’t say no to a future leading astronomer now can I?” You teased the boy. You got up from the table and stood a few feet away, creating the stars with your hands like you had years prior.

Again, Bucky watched you fondly but this time he wasn’t pining after you, hoping he’d build the courage to tell you how he felt. He was watching you as his wife and as his future.

“You really do love her, don’t you?” Sam asked. “Yeah. I really do.” Bucky answered, a smile adorning his face. “You’re going to be amazing parents.” Sarah added. “Parents?” Bucky questioned. “Oh no she hasn’t told you yet.” Sarah said, standing up from the table.

“Is Y/N,” Bucky started. “Am I what?” You asked. Bucky turned to you and rose from his seat so he could stand eye to eye with you. “Are you pregnant?” He asked.

You looked behind him and glared at Sarah before staring back at Bucky. “Yeah, yeah I am. You’re gonna be dad James Bucky Barnes.” You told him with a watery smile.

Just the thought of bringing a child into the world with Bucky made you more emotional than you thought possible.

“I’m gonna be a dad?” Bucky questioned. You nodded your head and Bucky scooped you up in his arms and if felt like everything was falling into place.

After 109 years of not having an ounce of peace or feeling as if he was a monster and a burden, he was getting the life he had always dreamed of. And he got to do it all with you.

#imagine #imagines #marvel imagine #marvel #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan imagine #sebastian stan #tony stark #sam wilson

[lovelybarnes]

restless- b. barnes

pairings: bucky barnes x reader, mentions of natasha romanoff, sam wilson, and steve rogers warnings: mentions of nightmares and clingy bucky but it’s mostly fluff about: bucky can’t sleep without y/n a/n: i was going to post this yesterday but i fell asleep :| my computer was literally open and nearly dead when i woke up lmao

today marks one week that you’ve been gone, and with it, the official shortest amount of sleep that bucky has gotten in a week. he supposes it’s sightly pathetic that he can’t sleep well- or, really, at all- without you, but you continuously tell him you chase his nightmares away for him, and without you there to make them disappear, where else will they go but deep into the crevices of his mind, where they’ll hide long enough for him to let his guard down and lull himself to sleep, only to wake up with the ugly memories of things he hoped he’d forgotten. he’s constantly told that his attachment to you is overbearing- not by you, though. never by you- because it must be, with how much he clings to your side, always touching some part of you so that he’s sure that, yes, you’re there. not a dream or an illusion, although you’re good enough to be one.

he misses every part of you; your fingers and the way they run through his hair, trace his features with such tenderness he nearly believes he is what you see, your voice and its ability to transform the most mundane words into the greatest poetry, sing soft songs into his skin until he’s fallen asleep, your eyes and how they examine him in the best way possible, glowing when they meet his.

he longs for you, but he can only imagine your smile, the bitter reminder that you’re probably showing it to some psychopath for the mission you’re on. he hates steve every time the memory is evoked, the panic that comes with your being used as bait for some of the most screwed up villains in the world only returning stronger. he’s tempted to go get you himself, uncaring if he screws up the mission because at least he’ll have you.

stark will call him pathetic, then go to bed with the love of his life, so bucky prefers keeping his thoughts about you to himself, much like he’d like to keep you. you’ve told him you can handle yourself, and bucky never doubts it, having been victim to the using of your skills when he first encountered you as the winter soldier. you kicked his ass then, and you kick any and all ass now.

it doesn’t help his sleeping schedule, though your calls do. he swears you’re an angel because there’s no way a normal human could glow like that through a screen, but you always laugh off his words and simply tell him to turn his brightness down. however, you haven’t taught him that yet, so he greets you with the same sentence every time. his smile is always brighter after your calls, the dark bruises under his eyes reduced as if he got a full night’s rest. it’s your effect on him, and as much as everyone teases you both for it, they appreciate it.

you’re due to come back in a week or two, but bucky is unsure he can wait that long, and judging from your chirpier-than-usual voice in your latest interaction, you’ve finished early, like you always do. he likes to imagine it’s because of him, behind the deprecating voice that screams at him why would it be? (the answer is that you love him and hate every second you’re away from him)

sam scoffs when he overhears him telling that to steve, sitting down next to bucky, “man, there is no way you can tell that from a phone call. even if you could, i know she’s good, but to shave two weeks off mission time? natasha hasn’t even been able to do that.” a proud smile grows on bucky’s face without his permission as he shrugs, “she’s that good,” he brags, choosing to ignore the fake gag sam sends his way.

you frown when he tells you what he thinks on your call a few hours later, lips puckering into a small pout, “how did you know? i wanted it to be a surprise!” you ask through a crackled voice. so much for state of the art technology, bucky thinks, but is glad nonetheless to hear your voice. “i know you too well, doll. you’re really coming back today?”

you nod excitedly, biting your bottom lip. “mhm! i missed you and my bed too much to stay here a moment longer. villains are such pervs,” you complain, nose scrunching. bucky’s jaw sets when he hears your words, immediately thinking the worst. “but, i’m coming back today, so it’s fine. what do you want to do when i get back?”

bucky shrugs, “be with you,” he answers simply, making you laugh. “other than that, dummy. we could watch a movie, have a little date night to make up for the one i missed while i was gone.” bucky grins at this, remembering his plans for that night. “okay,” he agrees, “we’ll watch one of those movies on my list. although sam put some weird ones.”

you concur through chuckles that pass through the phone, reminding him how much you love him. he swears an oath to never let you go again and bites back a yawn that you see right through. “you’re sleeping the moment i get back,” you instruct, and bucky nods with your words, even when the sole idea of your being within arm’s reach is obviously too enticing to pass up for sleep. “whatever you want, doll. as long as you’re here.” he replies, thinking about spending the night pressing kisses to your hair and checking for any injuries you may have withheld from him.

the sentence is dishonest and you both know it, but you leave it at that, missing him too much and sure he’ll rest with how exhausted he must be. you say goodbye without the actual words, only giving a blown kiss and a “see you later.”

bucky spends the rest of the hours without you thinking of you, skimming through the words written in the little blue notebook you got him to replace his old one. that one sits on his dresser, the disuse proven by the layer of dust that covers it. the names he spent hours agonizing over, tracing his fingers over the indents made by the pen, are hidden by its cover. they never fade from his mind, though. only half of the pages of the one you gave him are blank now, and the ones that aren’t are bright and white, inviting him to drop his pen on the lines and jot whatever reference he didn’t understand but wants to. he eyes the names of the movies and shows, some accompanied by quotes that refer to them. “new girl: nick miller,” he reads, remembering how one of your friends said he was the avenger version of the character. “friends: ‘joey doesn’t share food,” sam told him that one when he didn’t let him have any of his chips. he looks at clueless, recalling the way all of his teammates stare at scott whenever the movie comes up. there are a couple pages like this, some of them recommendations and others titles he kept hearing. tonight, he decides on starting a new show, but he leaves the actual show up to you to decide.

you arrive a couple hours later, when stars have littered the darkness that bled through the sky. it’s all very rom-com-filmesque, the way you light up when you see his face- even through how tired you clearly are- and how you jump into his arms, ignoring the ache in your muscles because the way his arms wrap around you seems to make it disappear. he gathers you in his arms and kisses everywhere on your face, treasuring your laugh and the feeling of your lips pressing to his shoulder when you hug him again.

even when you pull away, he doesn’t let go of your hand, flesh fingers tracing small circles into your skin. you don’t complain, even when steve shoves papers in front of you and asks you to sign them with a sheepish look. sam comes by and teases bucky lightheartedly, hounding bucky to let you have both your hands. you chuckle at his request and squeeze bucky’s fingers, kissing the back of his hand, “oh, no, he better not,” you half-joke. he smiles, red tinting his cheeks as he gently draws you closer.

you don’t feel like driving at the moment, and you need to water your plants, completely sure that wanda forgot to do it, so you end up going to your room, even though you spend most of your time at his own room or your apartment outside the compound. you can tell how little the room has been used by the spotless counters and floors, furniture clean of any of the knickknacks you usually leave. you only sleep here when bucky leaves for long missions, his absence is overly blatant when he’s gone, and your plants keep you from feeling too alone.

you usher bucky inside, tugging open your drawers to search for something for him to wear. you grin at the soft fabric under the pads of your fingertips, recalling the memory of stealing them from bucky’s closet to soak in his scent when you couldn’t have the real thing. the considerable use has washed away all traces of him, and you decide that needs to be fixed, picking out clothing for him.

you change into one of his old shirts and make tea while he changes, smiling when you feel his arms wrapping around your waist and kissing your jaw. “what do you want to watch tonight?” he asks, and you contemplate it while you pour your drinks, shoveling spoons of sugar into each one to make it as sweet as possible- his favorite. “new girl, i think you’ll like it,” you reply after a moment.

he unravels his arms from around you, taking the mugs from the counter and following you to your room after you peck his cheek in thanks. “okay, i want to see what this nick miller is all about,” bucky says, making you laugh softly. “c’mon,” he urges, opening his arms for you after setting the cups down. you cuddle up to his side after you grab your computer, setting up netflix and choosing the show.

halfway through the first episode, bucky feels the fatigue hit him like a ton of bricks, hours of missed sleep catching up to him now that he’s finally relaxed and comfortable. keeping his eyes open is a job all on its own, and the sweet smell of your hair combined with the way your fingers move on his chest, softly writing letters and drawing shapes, is too much to resist.

you barely notice when he shuts his eyes, the evening of his breathing alerting you he’s succumbed to his tiredness. you stop the video and quietly shut your laptop, placing it on the bedside table while moving as little as possible. he feels you shift through your efforts, pulling you closer in his sleep. you chase away his nightmares like you always do, letting him sleep his first full night since you left.

he wakes up rejuvenated and embarrassed, sputtering out embarrassed apologies that you shush with kind reassurances and tender kisses. he’s reminded of how wonderful you are when you turn, arms extending to reach into your bag and carrying out a small stuffed animal that you say reminded you of him.

#bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #sam wilson #steve and bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x reader fluff #fluffy bucky barnes #fluffy bucky x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #you x bucky barnes #reader x bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n #y/n x bucky barnes #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #marvel #avengers #avengers x reader #avenger!reader #fluff

[dinosaurtsukki]

haikyuu!! buzzfeed unsolved AU

OK THIS IS THE LAST BUZZFEED UNSOLVED RELATED HEADCANON SET I PROMISE 

[edit: check out the link at the bottom of the post for more buzzfeed unsolved au content :)]

hinata and kageyama:

90% of the show is them yelling and nobody watches it with earphones on

both of them believe in ghosts but that doesn't mean they want to see one

hinata will literally go to the bathroom five times before going to the spooky house and kageyama gets mad at him for it but there is Fear in his eyes

producer: 'were you scared?'

kageyama: 'pfft, no'

cameraman: *points camera down to show that kageyama's legs are shaking*

they also bring a shit ton of food with them when they stay the night at a place and they'll deadass be eating while talking about the history of the place

‘this house *crunch crunch* was built in *crunch crunch* 1972'

the producers tell them to stop bringing snacks but fans of the show love it

sometimes they'll shoot a mini mukbang video

SPICY, BARBECUE POTATO FRIES | Mukbang at the Waverly Hills Asylum'

hinata: *looking up how to do a seance on wikihow* it says we gotta offer some food for the spirit

kageyama: *spills the doritos he was eating on the table

*after 20 minutes*

kageyama: fuck this

hinata: *starts eating the doritos*

producer: ...

the ghosts: ..................the, audacity

tsukishima and yamaguchi

pretty much a ryan and shane duo right here

yamaguchi: we'll be visiting this place as part of our ongoing investigation on the question, are ghosts real?

tsukishima: *shakes head*

yamaguchi just wants to see the look of fear in tsukishima’s eyes at least once

yamaguchi: *hears a random thump sound* fUCk tSuKkI a gHoSt!!!

tsukishima: *sees a chair being tossed across the room* huh, the wind is pretty strong today

he likes to stick his head into attics to scare yamaguchi

yamaguchi always carries a water gun full of holy water

yamaguchi: i have holy water with me and i'm not afraid to use it! but i'm also sorry you had to die such a horrible death i hope you find peace soon

tsukishima: *walks into a basement that is supposedly a portal to hell* fuckin’ take me already

so many 'yamaguchi being an angel and tsukishima being a demon for 10 mins' video compilations 

daichi and sugawara

a very chaotic buzzfeed unsolved duo

suga, who is satan’s child himself, and daichi, who needs a raise

daichi: hello everyone! this is daichi,

sugawara: and suga

daichi: and you’re watching...

sugawara: jackass!!

daichi:...buzz...buzzfeed unsolved??

daichi started out being afraid of almost every place he had to walk into but after having to deal with the chaotic mess that is suga for an entire season, he no longer Feels Fear

this is because suga will deadass film a tiktok dance video no matter where he is

daichi: suga, someone was literally axe-murdered there

suga: *dancing along to ‘I’m a Savage’ or whatever that tiktok song is called*

daichi: *at cameraman* do you see what i have to deal with every day?’

suga is only genuinely scared by ghosts when his followers point out that a ghost was caught on camera in one of his tiktok videos

suga: *watching the video*

that was the end of suga’s tiktok career

tanaka and nishinoya:

another bunch of loud bois but they are much louder than kageyama and hinata

they’re very much into proving the existence of cryptids and are most known for that episode they spent hunting bigfoot by dressing up to look like bigfoot

tanaka: ‘you know that thing they do in cartoons where they stack on top of each other under a coat so they look like just one big guy?’

nishinoya: ‘ryuu i love you so fucking much’

other guy there who is also trying to catch bigfoot: oMg ItS bIgFooT *takes picture with the blurriest camera he could find*

both of them are very committed in their investigation of the supernatural and they’re very unconventional approaches

nishinoya: *lying on the ground in a creepy basement* EAT MY HEART DEMONS! WE’LL PUT THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE!

tanaka: *takes out a spirit board* *spells out O-M-A-E  W-A  M-O  S-H-I-N-D-E-I-R-U*

ghost: *spells out N-A-N-I*

tanaka and nishinoya: *screaming*

kuroo and kenma: 

kuroo deadass flirts with any ghost or demon they encounter and kenma would sleep over in a haunted asylum for ten bucks

kuroo: *sidles up to the infamous annabelle doll* hey there little lady, what’s a pretty thing like you doing in a locked, glass case with a ‘don’t touch’ sign like this?

kenma: kuroo, there’s a demon inside her

kuroo: well, i’m a bit of a demon myself

kenma: she attempted to choke a guy in his sleep

kuroo: oooh, choking. i can get behind that...

kenma: *looks at camera*

the demon in annabelle: d-daddy??

“kuroo flirting with demons and kenma looking at the camera for 5 minutes”

kuroo’s actually a huge fucking scaredy cat and kenma secretly tries to push him over the edge

kenma: *plays computer-generated screams of the damned on his phone*

kuroo: WHAT WAS THAT?

kenma: ...I didn’t hear anything *looks at the camera as if he was on the office and plays the sound again*

kuroo: i was too scared to close my eyes last night

kenma: i was actually able to catch a bunch of pokemon last night. who knew the winchester mansion is such a hotspot

producer: did you catch any evidence of ghosts?

kenma: ...i caught a gastly

bokuto and akaashi:

bokuto is a die-hard mothman fan and akaashi is emotionally involved in proving that ghosts exist he will stop at nothing

akaashi: all of the evidence on the shadow figures and orbs spotted in this place can only suggest one thing...

bokuto: mothman did it

akaashi: no

bokuto: yes

akaashi: mothman is literally five states away

bokuto: he has wings

during their individual investigations, akaashi has already foreseen how bokuto is going to react

producer: it’s been quiet for a while. do you think bokuto’s no longer scared?

akaashi: oh no. he should be screaming right about now...

bokuto, inside the haunted house: *screams and waves his flashlight around*

akaashi:  and then he’s gonna call for help

bokuto: AKAAAAAASHIIIIIIIIII

*few hours later*

bokuto: i saw my life flash before my eyes in there

akaashi: *muttering incoherently near his ‘evidence wall’ full of blurry pictures and red string*

bokuto: i must’ve stared into the abyss at one point

akaashi: this place is fucking haunted. can i go back? it’s for sale right?

ushijima and tendou:

ushijima’s knowledge of ghosts is based on hollywood movies and tendou has exorcised places just by vibing

ushijima: *brings out a pottery wheel* if there are any ghosts in here, you know what to do

he’s actually never watched Ghost he just knows That One Scene

tendou: *naruto-running through the goatman bridge with a go-pro strapped to his head* IT’S MY BRIDGE GOATMAN, IT’S MY BRIDGE!!!

the Goatman Himself: i’ve never felt so fucking scared in my entire fucking life

ushijima believes that chanting in latin will Summon the Ghosts and tendou takes full advantage of that

tendou: *handing ushijima a slip of paper* here, apparently this will summon a full-bodied apparition

ushijima: thanks *begins chanting*

producer, interviewing tendou to the side: okay, what did you make him read this time?

tendou: i typed out ‘let me eat your ass’ in latin on google translate and went from there

cameraman: *zooms in on ushijima chanting*

the ghost haunting the castle: *is confused in French*

in the end neither of them get evidence on ghosts

ushijima: well, we'll have better luck next time

tendou: maybe even revisit this place ?

the ghosts: i know i'm dead but this is the first time i've been scared for my life

[EDIT: for more buzzfeed unsolved au content written by me, check out The Search for the Mysterious Mothman, a headcanon set feat. bokuaka]

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! buzzfeed unsolved AU #kagehina #tsukkiyama #daisuga #tananoya #kuroken #bokuaka #ushitendou #kageyama tobio #hinata shoyo #tsukishima kei #yamaguchi tadashi #sawamura daichi #sugawara koushi #tanaka ryuunosuke #nishinoya imagine #bokuto kotaro #akaashi keiji #kuroo tetsurou #kozume kenma #ushijima wak #tendo satori

[sammyloomis]

random hobbies i think the ud kids have

hannah - she buys and repaints those weird dolls with the articulated joints. beth has 100% been scared shitless after turning a corner and walking into hannah wearing giant fkn magnifying glasses carrying a half painted doll head, and it’d explain why the washingtons have a doll house in the basement thats full of what looks like high end designer dolls fghjk

beth - bug taxidermy. i used to have this hc for hannah but i think it fits beth more tbh, i just feel like all the washington sibs have vaguly unnerving hobbies bein horror kids n all :’]. she made a butterfly display for hannah one birthday and its one of hannahs fave things in the world. on a related note, she’s the go-to sibling for getting spiders out of rooms

josh - goes to thrift stores and buys unmarked vhs tapes and just spends hours upon hours watching them in the hopes of finding some Weird Bullshit... tho its mostly old soap operas and ads from the 90s. the weirdest thing he’s found so far is what looks like a home made porno that halfway thru gets taped over with an episode of star trek. he was very disappointed. its what a good 60% of his shelves are made up of amidst the collectors edition blu rays

sam - sammy..... ohhh sammy sammy sammy what to do with you. sams the kind of person who, as well as being the mom friend, makes exercising her whole personality and i Love that for her so so much. as a fandom i think we’ve kinda agreed sam rock climbs recreationally, but i think we can extend that to Most physical activity. shes never Not moving or on a hike or doing yoga or at the gym and when she Isn’t doing those things shes either asleep, studying, working, or at a party following everyone around with water bottles.

ashley - once i read a fic where they mentioned ashley drawing with charcoal and its truly never left my mind since. she has them all over her room, taped to her door, over at friends houses where shes just started sketching and Left it there. for someone who hates horror and scary things, they’re always Super Fucking Creepy cause she bases them off her nightmares n anxieties. her hands always have black soot all over them and her rings leave little white spots when she takes them off

chris - paints and collects figures, everything from warhammer to gundams to ships in bottles, if its to scale hes gonna want it. its kinda hard for him cause hes got those big sausage fingers but he manages. has whole shelves full of the things and paints dnd figures if u ask him nicely. also owns a pair of those magnifying glasses that hannah has for her dolls and he looks like the epitome of nerdism when his mum comes in with snacks for him and he looks up from painting a fkn orc in his barely lit bedroom with those things on

jessica - collects bottle caps, she just has a whole drawer full of the things. shes been doing it since she was a kid and wants to find Some way to display them one day but not any time soon, has a surprising amount of variety considering she almost exclusively drinks diet coke. she also steals everyone elses before they throw them out and it’s not just everyones habit to hand jess their bottle caps when they open a drink, and she just makes grabby hands at them until they do

emily - emily has bigggg collage energy. but like, rly artistic and fancy shit?? like she goes to thrift stores to find stacks of old magazines and newspapers and art books and fashion catalogues and has whole scrapbooks full of her creative ideas. semi related, but i think shes Big into designing her own clothes and uses said collages as a way to kinda blurt her ideas onto paper in a more fun way. NOBODY but jess has seen these btw, they are Very Secret and Embarrassing

matt - BAKING!! matt loves baking so much i swear to GOD this boy knows how to make a killer tray of brownies. whatever his family dont eat he ends up taking to whatever party and/or gathering everyone else is at because he just makes so much stuff it’ll go to waster otherwise (and having a friend group where half of them are stoners defo helps)

mike - hes always struck me as a mechanic kinda guy?? like he used to hang out in the garage when he was a kid and watch his dad fix the family car and hand him the tools. it translated into him always wanting to tinker with something, tho he usually breaks it. had those “build ur own lamp” kits as a kid

#ash.txt #until dawn #im not gonna tag every kid cause no one cares that much anymore dfghjk #but yeah!! im still resolute abt most of these

[scorpionatori]

Forbidden Book of Friends Reveal: Anime vs. Manga

I don’t know what decision making goes into the ordering of anime episodes when adapting them from the manga, but it’s a shame the scene of Natori telling Natsume about forbidden exorcists techniques was moved around when it was one of the biggest revelations in the series. The anime moving the scene from the arc with Takuma and his shiki to the arc with Matoba’s letter worked, but it took a lot of impact out for Natsume and Natori and the audience. Let’s compare these two arcs and the topics and story elements they deal with:

Matoba’s letter (ch52-54):

Matoba sends Natsume a lengthy letter that he never opens, and ends up finding him and blackmailing him into helping solve a dilemma for his clan. Earlier Natsume had lost the letter at Natori’s apartment after asking for his help resealing a youkai. Natsume finds out more about exorcist drama and politics with Matoba’s clan. He also learns that Natori is regularly being threatened with curses and that the lizard not going to his left leg may mean he’ll lose it one day. Natori finds the letter Matoba sent to Natsume and sees that he is getting further pulled into the world of exorcism, and he destroys the letter. The main topics this arc deals with are:

Exorcist clan politics and history, Natori being targeted by colleagues, exorcists colluding to sabotage the Matoba clan

Natsume becomes increasingly worried about Natori’s safety due to his colleagues trying to hurt him and the unsettling implications of the lizard avoiding his left leg.

Natori becomes increasingly worried about Natsume’s safety and involvement with exorcists and tries to intervene secretly.

Takuma and his shiki: (ch60-62):

Natsume finds one of Natori’s paper dolls damaged by rain after watching one of his movies at a downtown cinema. He worries he’s in trouble and heads to the address on the doll where he ends up finding out Tsukiko had hired Natori to investigate something for her. They ultimately find out two of Takuma’s shiki thought they were abandoned by him after he lost his sight, and Tsukiko had put up barriers out of worry, which kept them trapped outside. Natori accidentally overhears about the book of friends from the other shiki, Ginro, who mentions Natsume having something dangerous on him that exorcists shouldn’t even have. Later, Natsume finds out that Taki’s circles and the book of friends are forbidden by exorcists because they’re considered cruel and dangerous. Natsume performs the ritual of release for the shiki. After he and Natori say goodbye to each other, Natori tells Urihime to find out what dangerous item Natsume has been hiding. The topics in this arc are:

Human and youkai relationships, complications from them making contracts with each other, humans losing their ability to see youkai, therefore leaving behind the ones who cared for them.

Humans who can’t see youkai feeling helpless to protect those who do.

Exorcists have rules about what kind of spells and contracts are allowed, and Taki’s circle and Reiko’s book of friends are both forbidden objects.

Continued from the Matoba’s letter arc, Natsume and Natori are both becoming more and more worried about each other’s wellbeing.

Natsume’s ongoing dilemma about wanting to tell Natori about the book of friends but not knowing if he should.

The topic of forbidden techniques does work somewhat in the Matoba letter arc, as it fits in with exorcist politics. However, the arc did NOT deal with what was most important about the revelation: the book of friends.

The book of friends was not a topic in the letter arc. The arc mainly focused on the turmoil in the exorcist community and the history of the clans, Matoba’s desire to acquire Natsume as a powerful ally for his clan, Natsume’s increasing concern for Natori’s wellbeing, and Natori’s increasing anxiety around Natsume getting sucked into the world of exorcism, and his overprotectiveness and attempts at intervening in secret.

There was no room in here to fit in the book of friends revelation in a way that was actually impactful. Natsume didn’t have time to reflect on finding out his grandma’s book is considered too cruel to exist, he was too busy having to help solve a massive problem for Matoba at a large exorcist gathering. Natori knew nothing about Natsume carrying something forbidden at this point and barely noticed his concern. And besides, he was also too busy worrying about Natsume receiving letters from Matoba. The very important revelation about the titular item of the series becomes a fleeting anecdote that isn’t touched on or important for the rest of the arc, and therefore diminishes its impact.

The Takuma arc, on the other hand, was perfect for this revelation. The main plot of the arc revolves around the messy complications of contracts between humans and youkai. Natsume spent a lot of time thinking on his desire vs hesitation of telling Natori about the book, only for Natori to accidentally overhear about it. And shortly after that, Natsume innocently asks if there’s spells that allow humans without sight to see youkai (thinking of Taki’s spell) and immediately learns that that sort of thing is forbidden. Then he hears that the exact sort of contracts that are in the book of friends are also forbidden and considered cruel.

There was way more tension here with this scene happening shortly after Ginro mentions the book when Natori walks in. Natsume knows he caught at least part of the conversation, and Natori now knows Natsume has something dangerous on him called the “book of friends”. He doesn’t know what it is at first, but later when he sees Natsume’s reaction to hearing about forbidden contracts, it becomes pretty obvious what kind of thing the book is. This also causes Natori to become very concerned.

Natori was definitely able to connect the dots between what he heard earlier and Natsume’s face when he finds out about forbidden contracts, which gives him more clear motivation to find out what it is as well. In the anime, all he knows is that Natsume has something called the “book of friends” that is the kind of thing exorcists aren’t supposed to have. In the manga, he hears this and then afterwards sees how scared and worried Natsume is when he hears about forbidden contracts for the first time. It’s safe to assume at this point that something that was titled “the book of friends” is probably a book of forbidden contracts with youkai. This makes the reason behind Natsume’s constant involvement with youkai even more apparent. Not only is he in possession of something outlawed by exorcists (when he was recently dragged into a big dilemma by the leader of the community), if he’s in possession of a large collection of youkai contracts who are bound with their real names, this explains why they go after him so much and why he can not keep a distance from them. Natori knows for sure now that Natsume has a massive target painted on his back for both exorcists and youkai, beyond just his strong spiritual power. He knows full well what his colleagues and Matoba are like, and how dangerous youkai can be. This gives him a much stronger motivation for gathering info on the book of friends when he has a pretty good idea of what it is, as opposed to in the anime when he only had a very vague idea. Even if it was wrong to search for info on it without Natsume’s knowledge anyway, Natori’s fear of the book of friends and urgency in finding out what it is is more understandable in the manga, whereas with how it was framed in the anime, people probably found it easier to read him as suspicious and sneaky more than very genuinely concerned about Natsume’s safety with such a thing.

Again, I don’t know what all goes into the ordering of episodes in anime adaptations, and it doesn’t matter as much in an episodic series such as Natsume Yuujinchou, but there’s still definitely important things that can get altered or left out or taken out of a better context when the order is changed from the manga. Natsume finding out his grandmother’s book is forbidden was a very important reveal for a lot of reasons. It’s very difficult for him to learn that the item he already had a lot of complicated feelings on is considered cruel even by exorcists. This increases his feelings of guilt for having such an item and his love for his grandmother vs his fear that she was a bad person for binding so many youkai (in general this was not touched on enough in the anime, but I could write a whole other essay about that). He’s also been debating whether or not to tell Natori about the book of friends since they first met, only for him to find out on accident. And then shortly after he learns from him that it is forbidden in the exorcist community to bind youkai with their real names when making contracts. Overall, while they made it work with the changes, it wasn’t as impactful for the characters or the audience to move that scene from its original context.

#natsume yuujinchou #natsume takashi #natori shuuichi #this isn’t ~super~ long but #I’ve been meaning to make a post about this for awhile haha

[project-paranoia]

Let’s Watch: Yin Yang Master: Dream of Eternity

I have watched this movie 85 Whole Entire Times and I do not regret.  The only thing wrong with this movie is that it wasn't a fifty episode series.  I cried, I laughed, I fell in love.  The cinematography is on point, the acting is amazing, the crew member who put snow on people's eyebrows did an amazing job, and the acting!  The subtlety, the gentleness, the love and affection, the discussion of race is one of the best I've ever seen.

As people have pointed out before in series like X-Men that fear of mutant's is practically if not thematically justified due to the laser eyes in a way that fear of ethnic minorities just isn't in real life.  In Dream of Eternity however humans are equally if not sometimes more super powered than the yao they hunt.  Demons - very much not in the Christian sense - are a mixture of spirits, resentful souls, and animals and plants who cultivated to human form.  They often appear human at first glance and in some cases the extent of their power seems to be the limited to turning into a smaller more vulnerable animal.  Qingming's deliberate care and gentleness not only reflects his upbringing as a Yin Yang Master, but parallels the experience of racial minorities labelled as aggressive.

The movie takes particular care as well in the way it looks at trauma, grief, and love.  The three of which haunt the main characters and send out ripple effects into the world around them.  In the world of Dream of Eternity no loss is purely private, it spools out into the world around the person effected until they make an effect to acknowledge and deal with their experiences.  Qingming's warmth and gentleness isn't just marked by his behaviour but by the orange light he's lit by and his variety of shishen - but he is also separate, standing alone in frame and facing away from the people around him.  Boya's loss has made him unforgiving and as cold as the blue light he's lit in, and yet he is open and instinctive, talking and acting as soon as the thought enters his head.  The Empress is lost and drifting, trapped and grief stricken, vulnerable to those who profess to love her.  The film is simple, it says and shows what it means when it means it - but it is also as complex as the very human characters it depicts.  

The movie is made even more complex by its pull from theaters.  Claims of plagiarism drench the edges of the movie, which as true as the assertion that Fan BingBing went on a spa vacation in 2018.  Although this blog is about Chinese censorship dealing specifically with BL content, Chinese censorship also effects those who criticize governmental policy.  I hope that supporters of this blog will also support Chinese media threatened by censorship for many reasons so that artists and others involved in film making can continue to make meaningful content.

Doing a watchthrough of a movie is not feasible, but please enjoy a few thousand words - with spoilers on Yin Yang Master included:

* That gentle chiming and rain soundscaping is so soothing, what a great way to calm and lull the audience before the movie even starts * Qingming is so small and isolated in the frame - cinema! * The lighting and cinematography is just so good * Shifu, soft gentle teacher * So much love stored in the Shifu * Instant grow * This boy is Sassy * This theme of deflection in Qingming's character is established early * Deflection with a teleportation portal and then immediately deflection verbally * Shifu is certainly an attractive man aged up, but his face is also soft and gentle, something to note when his double pops up later * Also the awkward question of don't you have someone you want to protect, maybe part of the problem is that shifu is just really bad at wording things * The answer that yes he does has several meanings, one of which is immediately apparent when Shifu acts out one of those Father Saves Child By Yeeting them youtube videos * ACtion MuSIC * I love them your honour * The spirit guardian's design is so specific and elegant, absolutely superb you funky little shishen * I wonder if Qingming ever thinks about that if he didn't come back with all his fellow disciples that Shifu would have been fine * Maybe it's not that he doesn't have someone he wants to protect and more that he believes that he's not capable of protecting those he wants to * subtle indication Shifu's qi is corrupted * Precious Magic Childe ;-; * The framing, I'm living for it * The Serpent graphic is lovely * Also the way they set things up * Qingming cares so much about his shifu * Mark Chao just has the ability to crumple his face like paper * Sad Time exposition involving the corrupting influence of desires * "When you're gone I'll be all alone" in just about all you need to know about Qingming at this point in the story * Also like, sympathy for Shifu in raising this lonely child.  By all accounts he was an absolutely superb father figure, and Qingming I'm sure was not an easy child to raise.  He's the sort of kid that would take a lot of calm and patience. * Slumber party! * It's kind of interesting that this is an activity Fangyue and He Shouyue are doing together.  He's definitely obsessed and in love with her and she's just doing friends and family activities with him * Also yellow/gold lighting is kind of their thing * It's interesting how they do the make up for He Shouyue.  The actor is very attractive, but they make him up to look doll like, a little too pretty, a little too shiny.  Like a porcelain doll. * Cool lit Boya and warm lit Qingming appear! * Camels! * The framing is so good, they're careful to be sure he's shown as obviously isolated as much as possible * And it should go without saying that I adore the City * The matte painting is outstanding * But there's also the lighting, the vignettes, the clusters, the foliage * It is a supremely beautiful set * The irony that Killing Stone is playing along with Boya's music and then it's Boya who kicks him around * A small note, but one I appreciate - even when Boya has warm highlight's they're red instead of orange * "It's Jason Bourne!" * I hope Qingming paid for that water taxi * It's interesting how Killing Stone goes from the safety of Qingming's orange light to the danger of Qingming's blue * Colour related foreshadowing! * Look at this poor sweet man, how could anyone suspect him of anything.  He's just a sad man who loves his dead wife * Qingming's use of a fan is interesting - battle fans show up all over wuxia and xianxia, but it feels like it also ties into the way he's so very careful in how he presents himself.  There's that quote that a sword can only be a sword but other weapons are also able to serve other purposes - not a perfect quote but the point is got across. * The way Qingming just knocks Boya back, like get An Clue, my dude * The way that Killing Stone curls around the pipa ;-; * So the movie is based on the book series 'Onmyoji' by Yumemakura Baku.  The books start with Seimei (Qingming) and Hiromasa (Boya) already in a relationship talking about various cases Seimei has recently experienced.  Plotwise, obviously the stories are different, however thematically Seimei and Hiromasa discuss why some yao stick around and solutions to the difficulties and dangers they might cause - which is generally from Seimei's very successful perspective to listen and treat them like humans.  So in that way the plots of the books and the movie are quite different, but the themes are just about identical. * Boya says Don't Talk Me I Angy and also that demons don't have feelings and Qingming's face takes out a billboard that's just like Ah, Another Fantasy Racist, Excellent * Qingming also does what should be done in this situation, taking care of the victim not the racist * Fight scene!  Fight scene! * Qingming's first few moves aren't to attack, they're to distract and just hold his fan up to block Boya's way and his view - it's only when Boya persists in attacking that Qingming fights back * Qingming's sassy smile, he is very much deliberately irritating Boya as much as he's refocusing his attention and distracting him * "nICE sWORD" * I've sighed that sigh before * This boy is taking great pleasure from teasing Boya, but also he makes a really good point * I understand and relate to what Qingming did, but also I can understand why Boya was ready to throw rocks at Qingming when he saw him again * Killing Stone lit in Qingming's orange light again * Killing Stone, my beloved * A good gauge to the state of the world for yao is no one has told this sweet boy before that demons have feelings too * There are several lines like this in the movie that just drop kick you with Implications * The same way Qingming clung to Zhongxing, Killing Stone wants to join up with Qingming to have some compassion in his life * The way he asks to be a spirit guardian is so formal too, and Qingming is so gentle with him, I cry ;-; * The warm orange light of Qingming's love ;-; * He heals the wounds * It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realise it's the actual imperial degree speaking and not one the of Jingyun Temple Masters * The mutual this guy again is delicious * "Is it because of your pretty face" * Boya draws his sword so fast and Qingming is so amused by it * Longye!  Queen!  I love her! * The two of them seem to understand each other instantly * Those sassy little smiles * He Shouyue looks even more like a doll than before * Longye has her head on a swivel from second one, she plays the Maiden so well like she's not a skilled master * And her customer service smile * Qingming is shooketh

* What happens next?  You'll have to watch and find out!

#1683 words #yin yang master dream of eternity #yin yang master #censorship #chinese censorship