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blind-rats · 3 years

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The Rise & Fall of Joss Whedon; the Myth of the Hollywood Feminist Hero

By Kelly Faircloth

“I hate ‘feminist.’ Is this a good time to bring that up?” Joss Whedon asked. He paused knowingly, waiting for the laughs he knew would come at the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer making such a statement.

It was 2013, and Whedon was onstage at a fundraiser for Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to legal equality for women. Though Buffy had been off the air for more than a decade, its legacy still loomed large; Whedon was widely respected as a man with a predilection for making science fiction with strong women for protagonists. Whedon went on to outline why, precisely, he hated the term: “You can’t be born an ‘ist,’” he argued, therefore, “‘feminist’ includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people, is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us.”

The speech was widely praised and helped cement his pop-cultural reputation as a feminist, in an era that was very keen on celebrity feminists. But it was also, in retrospect, perhaps the high water mark for Whedon’s ability to claim the title, and now, almost a decade later, that reputation is finally in tatters, prompting a reevaluation of not just Whedon’s work, but the narrative he sold about himself.

In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of being “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” on the Justice League set when Whedon took over for Zach Synder as director to finish the project. Charisma Carpenter then described her own experiences with Whedon in a long post to Twitter, hashtagged #IStandWithRayFisher.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Carpenter played Cordelia, a popular character who morphed from snob to hero—one of those strong female characters that made Whedon’s feminist reputation—before being unceremoniously written off the show in a plot that saw her thrust into a coma after getting pregnant with a demon. For years, fans have suspected that her disappearance was related to her real-life pregnancy. In her statement, Carpenter appeared to confirm the rumors. “Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working on the sets of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel,’” she wrote, describing Fisher’s firing as the last straw that inspired her to go public.

Buffy was a landmark of late 1990s popular culture, beloved by many a burgeoning feminist, grad student, gender studies professor, and television critic for the heroine at the heart of the show, the beautiful blonde girl who balanced monster-killing with high school homework alongside ancillary characters like the shy, geeky Willow. Buffy was very nearly one of a kind, an icon of her era who spawned a generation of leather-pants-wearing urban fantasy badasses and women action heroes.

Buffy was so beloved, in fact, that she earned Whedon a similarly privileged place in fans’ hearts and a broader reputation as a man who championed empowered women characters. In the desert of late ’90s and early 2000s popular culture, Whedon was heralded as that rarest of birds—the feminist Hollywood man. For many, he was an example of what more equitable storytelling might look like, a model for how to create compelling women protagonists who were also very, very fun to watch. But Carpenter’s accusations appear to have finally imploded that particular bit of branding, revealing a different reality behind the scenes and prompting a reevaluation of the entire arc of Whedon’s career: who he was and what he was selling all along.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 1997, midseason, on The WB, a two-year-old network targeting teens with shows like 7th Heaven. Its beginnings were not necessarily auspicious; it was a reboot of a not-particularly-blockbuster 1992 movie written by third-generation screenwriter Joss Whedon. (His grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show; his father wrote for Golden Girls.) The show followed the trials of a stereotypical teenage California girl who moved to a new town and a new school after her parents’ divorce—only, in a deliberate inversion of horror tropes, the entire town sat on top of the entrance to Hell and hence was overrun with demons. Buffy was a slayer, a young woman with the power and immense responsibility to fight them. After the movie turned out very differently than Whedon had originally envisioned, the show was a chance for a do-over, more of a Valley girl comedy than serious horror.

It was layered, it was campy, it was ironic and self-aware. It looked like it belonged on the WB rather than one of the bigger broadcast networks, unlike the slickly produced prestige TV that would follow a few years later. Buffy didn’t fixate on the gory glory of killing vampires—really, the monsters were metaphors for the entire experience of adolescence, in all its complicated misery. Almost immediately, a broad cross-section of viewers responded enthusiastically. Critics loved it, and it would be hugely influential on Whedon’s colleagues in television; many argue that it broke ground in terms of what you could do with a television show in terms of serialized storytelling, setting the stage for the modern TV era. Academics took it up, with the show attracting a tremendous amount of attention and discussion.

In 2002, the New York Times covered the first academic conference dedicated to the show. The organizer called Buffy “a tremendously rich text,” hence the flood of papers with titles like “Pain as Bright as Steel: The Monomyth and Light in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” which only gathered speed as the years passed. And while it was never the highest-rated show on television, it attracted an ardent core of fans.

But what stood out the most was the show’s protagonist: a young woman who stereotypically would have been a monster movie victim, with the script flipped: instead of screaming and swooning, she staked the vampires. This was deliberate, the core conceit of the concept, as Whedon said in many, many interviews. The helpless horror movie girl killed in the dark alley instead walks out victorious. He told Time in 1997 that the concept was born from the thought, “I would love to see a movie in which a blond wanders into a dark alley, takes care of herself and deploys her powers.” In Whedon’s framing, it was particularly important that it was a woman who walked out of that alley. He told another publication in 2002 that “the very first mission statement of the show” was “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”

In 2021, when seemingly every new streaming property with a woman as its central character makes some half-baked claim to feminism, it’s easy to forget just how much Buffy stood out among its against its contemporaries. Action movies—with exceptions like Alien’s Ripley and Terminator 2's Sarah Conner—were ruled by hulking tough guys with macho swagger. When women appeared on screen opposite vampires, their primary job was to expose long, lovely, vulnerable necks. Stories and characters that bucked these larger currents inspired intense devotion, from Angela Chase of My So-Called Life to Dana Scully of The X-Files.

The broader landscape, too, was dismal. It was the conflicted era of girl power, a concept that sprang up in the wake of the successes of the second-wave feminist movement and the backlash that followed. Young women were constantly exposed to you-can-do-it messaging that juxtaposed uneasily with the reality of the world around them. This was the era of shitty, sexist jokes about every woman who came into Bill Clinton’s orbit and the leering response to the arrival of Britney Spears; Rush Limbaugh was a fairly mainstream figure.

At one point, Buffy competed against Ally McBeal, a show that dedicated an entire episode to a dancing computer-generated baby following around its lawyer main character, her biological clock made zanily literal. Consider this line from a New York Times review of the Buffy’s 1997 premiere: “Given to hot pants and boots that should guarantee the close attention of Humbert Humberts all over America, Buffy is just your average teen-ager, poutily obsessed with clothes and boys.”

Against that background, Buffy was a landmark. Besides the simple fact of its woman protagonist, there were unique plots, like the coming-out story for her friend Willow. An ambivalent 1999 piece in Bitch magazine, even as it explored the show’s tank-top heavy marketing, ultimately concluded, “In the end, it’s precisely this contextual conflict that sets Buffy apart from the rest and makes her an appealing icon. Frustrating as her contradictions may be, annoying as her babe quotient may be, Buffy still offers up a prime-time heroine like no other.”

A 2016 Atlantic piece, adapted from a book excerpt, makes the case that Buffy is perhaps best understood as an icon of third-wave feminism: “In its examination of individual and collective empowerment, its ambiguous politics of racial representation and its willing embrace of contradiction, Buffy is a quintessentially third-wave cultural production.” The show was vested with all the era’s longing for something better than what was available, something different, a champion for a conflicted “post-feminist” era—even if she was an imperfect or somewhat incongruous vessel. It wasn’t just Sunnydale that needed a chosen Slayer, it was an entire generation of women. That fact became intricately intertwined with Whedon himself.

Seemingly every interview involved a discussion of his fondness for stories about strong women. “I’ve always found strong women interesting, because they are not overly represented in the cinema,” he told New York for a 1997 piece that notes he studied both film and “gender and feminist issues” at Wesleyan; “I seem to be the guy for strong action women,’’ he told the New York Times in 1997 with an aw-shucks sort of shrug. ‘’A lot of writers are just terrible when it comes to writing female characters. They forget that they are people.’’ He often cited the influence of his strong, “hardcore feminist” mother, and even suggested that his protagonists served feminist ends in and of themselves: “If I can make teenage boys comfortable with a girl who takes charge of a situation without their knowing that’s what’s happening, it’s better than sitting down and selling them on feminism,” he told Time in 1997.

When he was honored by the organization Equality Now in 2006 for his “outstanding contribution to equality in film and television,” Whedon made his speech an extended riff on the fact that people just kept asking him about it, concluding with the ultimate answer: “Because you’re still asking me that question.” He presented strong women as a simple no-brainer, and he was seemingly always happy to say so, at a time when the entertainment business still seemed ruled by unapologetic misogynists. The internet of the mid-2010s only intensified Whedon’s anointment as a prototypical Hollywood ally, with reporters asking him things like how men could best support the feminist movement.

Whedon’s response: “A guy who goes around saying ‘I’m a feminist’ usually has an agenda that is not feminist. A guy who behaves like one, who actually becomes involved in the movement, generally speaking, you can trust that. And it doesn’t just apply to the action that is activist. It applies to the way they treat the women they work with and they live with and they see on the street.” This remark takes on a great deal of irony in light of Carpenter’s statement.

In recent years, Whedon’s reputation as an ally began to wane. Partly, it was because of the work itself, which revealed more and more cracks as Buffy receded in the rearview mirror. Maybe it all started to sour with Dollhouse, a TV show that imagined Eliza Dushku as a young woman rented out to the rich and powerful, her mind wiped after every assignment, a concept that sat poorly with fans. (Though Whedon, while he was publicly unhappy with how the show had turned out after much push-and-pull with the corporate bosses at Fox, still argued the conceit was “the most pure feminist and empowering statement I’d ever made—somebody building themselves from nothing,” in a 2012 interview with Wired.)

After years of loud disappointment with the TV bosses at Fox on Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon moved into big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. He helped birth the Marvel-dominated era of movies with his work as director of The Avengers. But his second Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, was heavily criticized for a moment in which Black Widow laid out her personal reproductive history for the Hulk, suggesting her sterilization somehow made her a “monster.” In June 2017, his un-filmed script for a Wonder Woman adaptation leaked, to widespread mockery. The script’s introduction of Diana was almost leering: “To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls. Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.”

But Whedon’s real fall from grace began in 2017, right before MeToo spurred a cultural reckoning. His ex-wife, Kai Cole, published a piece in The Wrap accusing him of cheating off and on throughout their relationship and calling him a hypocrite:

“Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

But his reputation was just too strong; the accusation that he didn’t practice what he preached didn’t quite stick. A spokesperson for Whedon told the Wrap: “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife. Many minimized the essay on the basis that adultery doesn’t necessarily make you a bad feminist or erase a legacy. Whedon similarly seemed to shrug off Ray Fisher’s accusations of creating a toxic workplace; instead, Warner Media fired Fisher.

But Carpenter’s statement—which struck right at the heart of his Buffy-based legacy for progressivism—may finally change things. Even at the time, the plotline in which Charisma Carpenter was written off Angel—carrying a demon child that turned her into “Evil Cordelia,” ending the season in a coma, and quite simply never reappearing—was unpopular. Asked about what had happened in a 2009 panel at DragonCon, she said that “my relationship with Joss became strained,” continuing: “We all go through our stuff in general [behind the scenes], and I was going through my stuff, and then I became pregnant. And I guess in his mind, he had a different way of seeing the season go… in the fourth season.”

“I think Joss was, honestly, mad. I think he was mad at me and I say that in a loving way, which is—it’s a very complicated dynamic working for somebody for so many years, and expectations, and also being on a show for eight years, you gotta live your life. And sometimes living your life gets in the way of maybe the creator’s vision for the future. And that becomes conflict, and that was my experience.”

In her statement on Twitter, Carpenter alleged that after Whedon was informed of her pregnancy, he called her into a closed-door meeting and “asked me if I was ‘going to keep it,’ and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me.” She added that “he proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me following the season once I gave birth.” Carpenter said that he called her fat while she was four months pregnant and scheduled her to work at 1 a.m. while six months pregnant after her doctor had recommended shortening her hours, a move she describes as retaliatory. What Carpenter describes, in other words, is an absolutely textbook case of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, the type of bullshit the feminist movement exists to fight—at the hands of the man who was for years lauded as a Hollywood feminist for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Many of Carpenter’s colleagues from Buffy and Angel spoke out in support, including Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” she said in a statement. Just shy of a decade after that 2013 speech, many of the cast members on the show that put him on that stage are cutting ties.

Whedon garnered a reputation as pop culture’s ultimate feminist man because Buffy did stand out so much, an oasis in a wasteland. But in 2021, the idea of a lone man being responsible for creating women’s stories—one who told the New York Times, “I seem to be the guy for strong action women”—seems like a relic. It’s depressing to consider how many years Hollywood’s first instinct for “strong action women” wasn’t a woman, and to think about what other people could have done with those resources. When Wonder Woman finally reached the screen, to great acclaim, it was with a woman as director.

Besides, Whedon didn’t make Buffy all by himself—many, many women contributed, from the actresses to the writers to the stunt workers, and his reputation grew so large it eclipsed their part in the show’s creation. Even as he preached feminism, Whedon benefitted from one of the oldest, most sexist stereotypes: the man who’s a benevolent, creative genius. And Buffy, too, overshadowed all the other contributors who redefined who could be a hero on television and in speculative fiction, from individual actors like Gillian Anderson to the determined, creative women who wrote science fiction and fantasy over the last several decades to—perhaps most of all—the fans who craved different, better stories. Buffy helped change what you could put on TV, but it didn’t create the desire to see a character like her. It was that desire, as much as Whedon himself, that gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer her power.

#Joss Whedon #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #Ray Fisher #Charisma Carpenter #Feminist

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moribundanchor · 3 years

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The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post 11: The May Queen

The last lap of the film is the culmination of two separate tracks: one, Dani breaking with Christian, coming to terms with her grief, and sloughing off her old life, and two, Dani being embraced by her new family and, with that final, slightly-mad smile, finding joy with them. Much as in the “Do you feel held by him?” scene, Ari masterfully keeps the final scenes of Midsommar walking that tightrope between validating the Pelle/Dani romance and minimizing it in order to center Dani’s broader character arc and story, and to that end, he doesn’t even wobble. Still, he can’t get out of this without some explicit (though not explicit) mushy stuff for the OTP, and that, of course, is why we’re here.

We already mentioned the dance competition in the context of Pelle and Team Hårga winnowing Christian real good so he can be Maja’s baby daddy, but this is yet another opportunity for Pelle to demonstrate to Dani the contrast between him and Christian. As Dani begins to dance, Pelle is right up front, attentively, patiently, smilingly watching. She has every bit of his attention and support. Meanwhile, Christian stumbles into the audience late, burdened and internally roiling after his meeting with Siv.

Now, we don’t know how Christian ultimately answered the Matriarch when she asked if he would mate with Maja. Ari, the imp, cuts away. Not to taint our favorite scene with comparison, but very like Dani’s protests in “Do you feel held by him?” Christian’s evasions, more pronounced in the Director’s Cut (“I’m here with somebody,” “We haven’t even talked.”) are frail, toothless things against the truth joined with temptation. He doesn’t love Dani. And he does want Maja. By the time he comes to watch the dance competition, Dani dancing is the furthest thing from Christian’s mind, even though betraying her is the crux of his dilemma.

And do please remember that Siv proposes this ritual snuggling to Christian as something Dani will not know about, so he really is contemplating betraying her, as opposed to what Pelle suggests to Dani.

This is the contrast that waits for Dani during a break in the dance. Pelle smiles at her flirtatiously, even proudly, and silently applauds--totally here for you, Dani--while Christian is literally looking the other direction, back towards where Maja--oops, I got myself eliminated, teehee!--has taken her seat. During the dance, Dani is, yes, tripping balls and speaking gibberish, but she is still having the best time ever. So, initially exhilarated, Dani wilts the moment she sees Christian, and if we were going to argue that Dani doesn’t reciprocate Pelle’s feelings, the visible heartbreak on her face here would be Exhibit A. Except people are more complicated than that. Relationships are more complicated than that. Dani is definitely more complicated than that. Letting go still can hurt long after you know it’s over.

All that being said, even the most complicated relationship stuff can get simple real quick with a grand, unambiguously romantic gesture, and as Dani is crowned May Queen, finally, finally, finally, we get one. No evasions, no apophasis. Stunned, still kind of high, Dani’s new family washes her away in a tide of congratulations. Odd welcomes her home again, in Swedish this time, and it’s just a lovebomb lovefest all the way down. The only ones who don’t hug and/or paw at Dani are hallucinations (or are they) of her parents in Hårgan garb, her mom laying one surrendering caress on Dani’s shoulder as she passes by, and, of course, Christian, poor dope, standing by the maypole, looking every bit as alone and lost as Dani probably has felt up to this point. The Fire Temple is a ways off, but he will never again be allowed close to her. They are over.

At the end of the procession, for maximum dramatic effect, Dani’s happy Hårgan sisters tilt her toward OHAI PELLE. As Pelle bends down to her, initially he appears to be in supportive friend mode, (“My God, Dani! May Queen!”), but then he just sweeps Dani up in a kiss that isn’t long enough to stop the ceremony, but just long enough to be undeniably romantic. In the script, the kiss is actually described as a “blunt, passionate kiss.” While so much of the Pelle/Dani ship is not scripted, here it is plain: Pelle, now wearing the Wunjo rune, is Dani’s wish for an understanding, loving partner come true, and for the minute she can be spared from the procession, he is kissing her for all he’s worth. Let’s just watch this on a loop for a while.

This is the moment that has launched several thousand “Did Pelle like Dani?” Google searches, and it looks like a freaking wedding because it kind of is. Look at all the Hårgans bursting with happiness, not just for Dani, but for them. We are all Hårgans because all Hårgans are clearly Pelle/Dani shippers. (Okay, there’s something going on with Inga, but that’s a different analysis post.) Dagny in particular looks like she’s going to cry. My sweet brother birthmate found him a newblood and they are the cutest. Both Pelle and Dani are in full Hårgan dress for this kiss, as though their relationship always had to be consummated with Dani fully planted in the fifth panel of the spoiler tapestry. Also note that the pink flower in Dani’s crown reflects her heartbeat. Notice how it speeds right on up while she’s in Pelle’s arms. At this point, Dani might yet equivocate--not that she’s very equivocal in the moment--but crown flowers don’t lie.

Christian probably doesn’t see this moment. In addition to succumbing to “the tea with special properties,” he’s watching from the maypole, and Dani and Pelle would have been obscured from that vantage by a few dozen white-clad bodies. But if he cared enough about Dani to celebrate her triumph instead of blankly witness it, if he had been able to refuse the tea...but then, if he cared that much, we wouldn’t have had a movie.

Once Pelle surrenders Dani, the happiest and proudest of all possible soft cult boys, she’s urged toward a litter in the shape of the sun and lifted high off the ground. The Hårgans serenade their queen in a procession to the dinner table, Pelle prominent among them, his hands arranged in a cradling gesture previously seen when the Hårgans burned Dan’s body. This is an assumption, but it seems a fair one, that the gesture conveys Pelle bearing Dani’s spirit, even if he’s not one of those physically carrying her litter. In the wide shot, you will notice they are sailing Dani right past an image of Terri hidden in the trees. In this scene, Dani is very literally leaving her birth family and Christian behind. When Dani takes her throne at the head of the mirrored banquet table, Pelle will placidly sketch the moment, and as previously mentioned, we’ll see him reflected in the table surface, indicating how he’s still plotting even in that idyllic moment which would seem to be the culmination of all his hopes and dreams. After all, Christian’s still breathing.

Sadly, this concludes the dramatized Dani/Pelle content. We know. We’re sad, too. In the major scenes around the kiss itself--the serenade, the photograph, the dinner after her crowning--Pelle is near Dani, but not next to Dani. No more close communicating reaction shots. We can see Pelle enthusiastically toast Dani at the dinner table, and she seems to trade a sly, flirty smile with him immediately afterward, but that’s it. We can’t even see Pelle’s reaction when Dani gags on the pickled herring. In the final ceremony, Pelle’s crowned, too, just as the movie has been promising all along, but he and Dani don’t share the stage or even a single shot. Blocking and camerawork, so suggestive of their love story up to the point Pelle lays a good ‘un on her, suddenly becomes a blue-nosed chaperone. But consider what the film would be like, what it would have to become, otherwise. Midsommar isn’t primarily a romance anymore than it’s primarily a horror movie. Nope, it’s not a horror movie either, not really. It’s Dani’s story; it just happens to have smooches and blood eagles in it. So the kiss is a great moment, but it’s going to have to last you. (Hey, would you like to see our fanfics?)

Green Man/May King or not, it would appear there’s more post-canon wooing for Mr. Pelle to do (though Ari has confirmed more than once that Pelle has an excellent chance with Dani, wink.) The script specifies that Pelle is one of the Hårgans that bears Dani’s throne to scoop her up after she stumbles in her May Queen raiment before the film’s final shot, but like so much Dani/Pelle content in the script, that doesn’t actually end up on film. The last we see of Pelle, he’s on his knees scream/crying as the Fire Temple burns, and the last we see of Dani...well, the last we see of Dani is the final, iconic shot of the film. Insane? Eh, maybe. She’s synced up with her new family and having her unholy affekts burned away. Probably should check back later for that one. Happy? Definitely. Ever after? Sure looks like. And why not? Girl got her wish.

Oh, but there’s one more topic we have not quite explored. The writing on the wall. And the ceilings and the tapestries and the clothes and the footwear and the decorative flourishes and the furniture and the tables and plinths and the...

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

#the pelle/dani receipts #pelle/dani #dani/pelle #pelle x dani #dani x pelle #pellani #midsommar

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picturejasper20 · 3 years

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I want to talk about this scene from the episode "Plans,Trains and Hot Air Mobiles" because it summarizes pretty well what i like about Heather and Alejandro´s relationship in this season.

Alejandro is introduced in episode one of Total Drama World Tour. He actually made his character debut in the Total Drama Action Special but it is World Tour when we really get to see his real personality.

On the surface, he appears to be a charismatic gentleman that is liked by many girls from the cast.This is not surprising since he is very good at reading people's emotions, he is considered hot by the girls and he is both atheltic and intelligent.

¨Because compared to me, Heather is a saint¨-Alejandro

However, he uses his charm and way of words to manipulate other participants into doing what he wants. In this way he acts a foil for what Heather used to be back in Season 1 Island.

Having experience with tricking others, Heather quickly picks up Alejandro's manipulation and starts a rivalry with him due to both having similar personalities and being on different teams.

At the start of the series Heather tries ignoring Alejandro's flirting, already knowing what he is trying to distract her from the game. Yet, she shows to have feelings for him multiple times the series.

Most common examples are when she is talking about him in the confessional and finds herself praising Alejandro's looks and strategy. In return, Alejandro praises Heather a few times in confessional scenes by saying how she is good at playing the game.

(Both denying their feelings when Duncan brings up the subject)

While they have mutual feelings for each other they both completely deny the existence of them when they are confronted about it. This usually makes them be mocked by the rest of the their teamates who are fully aware of what is going on with their relationship.

"Just give it up and make out already" -Blaineley in Chinese Fake-Out.

"Speaking of failed romance...You want me to hit the common area so you two lovebirds can start building your nest together?"-Duncan in African Lying Safari.

This subplot remains very prevalent throughout the season. It’s one of the main arcs and it what often drives the story in many episodes.

Based of the points that I already made one could describe Alejandro and Heather’s relationship as complicated. They both are clearly in love with each other but because of their strategy and pride they can’t bring themselves to be honest about how they feel.

Another interesting point that makes their relationship unique in Total Drama is how they both took an antagonistic role in the season they were introduced, with Heather being the antagonist in Island and Alejandro in World Tour. This makes fall in the category of ¨villain romance¨.

(Heather and Alejandro celebrating their victory in ¨Africa Lying Safari.¨)

What’s more is that they are willing to show a nicer side that they won’t usually show to other competitors. This is more obvious with Alejandro’s case, who rarely cares about anyone else but himself. There are some examples of him getting distracted by Heather while he is trying to win a challenge. Once he lost one on purpose after watching Leshawna punching Heather in ¨Slap Slap Revolution¨. It isn’t clear why he would sacrifice his chance of winning like that but it’s likely that he didn’t mean to get her hurt when he was flirting with Leshawna on that episode.

Heather also shows a new range of emotions that she barely showed in previous seasons. She gets very distracted by her crush on her rival, she blushes when Alejandro flirts with her in the last episodes, she becomes embarrassed when others bring up her feelings and gets jealous when she sees Alejandro being romantic with other girls.

She has been capable of being nice to some characters such as Tyler, Leshawna and Harold before but is Alejandro is the person who she really cares about.

Now, how is this relationship represented in the song ¨ I'm gonna make it¨ From ¨Planes, Trains, and Hot Air Mobiles¨?

The song starts with Alejandro pulling Heather close and making them dance on top of the train while he sings:

¨This show's a train, it's moving fast.

You and I weren't meant to last.

Voting for me just wasn't right.

So look out now, you're in my sights¨

Alejandro is making reference not only the alliance they made in the episode ¨Africa Lying Safari¨ but their relationship by telling Heather that ¨they weren't meant to last¨. He justifies this by saying how show is only temporary and he is here to win the game. He also mentions how he felt betrayed by Heather when she voted against him after saving her in ¨Awwwwww, Drumheller¨.

It’s worth of mentioning that Alejandro wasn’t mad at her for breaking their alliance so much as he thought Heather took advantage of his feelings for her. When he helped her by getting out of a hole in ¨Awwwwww, Drumheller¨ he did it because he cared about her and didn’t want to leave her stuck in there. This action represented a good character development for Alejandro since it was probably the first time the show his feelings for a girl were honest and was nice to someone without hiding behind a selfish motive.

After he makes Heather fall off the train, Heather sings this:

¨Mr. Fair now, suddenly

I have to barf now, excuse me!

Don't try to make me feel ashamed.

I know you would've done the same.¨

Heather points out Alejandro’s hypocrisy knowing he has tricked people before and he wouldn’t have any problem in doing what Heather did if he was in her position. She mentions how he shouldn’t try to make her feel ashamed for trying to vote him off because of this reason.

They both later sing the chorus together:

¨I'm gonna make it.

You can't stop me now, just you try.

Our fortune's waiting

It's time for you to say, bye-bye-bye.¨

These lyrics also make reference about how their relationship won’t work as long as they are in the show. When it comes to the price, they both forget about their feelings and prioritize winning above everything even if this means betraying each other in the process.

The lyrics clearly emphasize that they are not going to let the other win and reinforce their rivalry, showing that they relationship is going to stay this way as long as they only care about the money. After breaking up their truce, they are going each one on their own way.

After Cody and Sierra sing their part, both Heather sing together again while dancing:

¨You are the worst, why must you torment me?

It's all a game to you, but not to me.¨

This part talks about their mutual feelings and how this is ¨tormeting¨ both of them. This has to do with not knowing when the other is just faking and trying to use these feelings for their advantage.

The main conflict of their relationship is how they are in love but can’t be honest about how they feel since they are afraid of one using this against the other make them lose the challenge on purpose. They are fully aware of how they are both very strategic and manipulative, and so this means they can’t let their guard down.

The song ends with Heather getting the advantage in the race to the coast and leaving Alejandro behind.

In conclusion: I think this scene does a good job at explaining the conflict between Alejandro and Heather in World Tour. Their relationship is a bit complex because they both like each other but they don’t want to let that stopped them from winning the final prize. This makes their interactions between them go from caring to mutual dislike as they don’t know what to think about the other. If they learned to forget about the money for a while and understand how much they have in common, they could make their relationship work. But as long as they keep acting the same way, it’s going to be hard for them.

#total drama world tour #tdwt alejandro #tdwt heather #total drama Alejandro #total drama heather #tdwt song #total drama meta

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who-am-i-no-one · 3 years

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Emma. (2020)

I watched this movie in late January. After multiple viewings and re-reading the book, I have a lot of thoughts about this adaptation.

It seems rather strange, given that Emma is part of my holy trinity of Austen novels, that I didn't watched the most recent adaptation earlier. I think it was mostly due to my initial impression that Anya Taylor-Joy's otherworldly looks didn't quite match what I had in mind for the titular character. I decided to give this version a try after watching Queen's Gambit. Not sure that Anya's looks will ever grow on me, but she did impress me as a young actress who seemed to have a maturity beyond her years.

Long story short: really wished I had seen this movie earlier! It is absurd and heartfelt at the same time, imo, the version that best imbues Austen's humor. It is now my favorite adaption, with the possible exception of Clueless, and I'm not quite sure how much of that is just nostalgia.

From the casting to the direction to the script to the costumes to the set to the soundtrack, I could tell the creative team really put a lot of love into this project. It's always a joy to watch something that's made with love and made well.

Direction

Autumn de Wilde's directing is quite good. I would never have thought this was her first feature. She certainly has a unique and colorful style, which is probably to be expected for such a famous photographer.

Funnily, while watching the movie I kept thinking it reminded me of early Hollywood romantic comedies like Bringing Up Baby (incidentally one of my favorites) or The Philadelphia Story, and then reading interviews and seeing that she had tried to bring in some of that style of humor made me feel rather validated. Also the servants' reactions were awesome!

Absolutely loved the fact that they decided to show that Knightley and Emma were in love with each other very early on in the story, with Knightley more aware of it. I've read some people complaining about the surprise of Emma's being in love being ruined. But come on, did anyone reading two chapters into the book think it wasn't going to be the two of them together in the end?

Loved how much of Knightley's point of view we got in this movie. This is one repressed pinning man. I can totally see this Knightley riding ventre a terre from London in the rain because he thought Emma was heartbroken.

The only gripe I had was the lack of Frank and Jane's subplot. As it seems they shot some scenes for that, I assume it was the director's discretion to take them out. I remember thinking while watching the movie that they must have expected the audience to be familiar with the story because some things just didn't really get explained or extrapolated on a lot. If you hadn't read the book it'd be 30 minutes or more into the movie before you put two and two together and figured out why Mr. Knightley is always at Hartfield.

Script

The script takes most of the dialogue directly from the book, which is awesome. I love Austen's writing because there is a certain musicality to it and retaining that in large part for the movie really made it better for me. The deftness with which Eleanor Catton moved dialogue from one scene in the book to a totally different one in the movie was quite brilliant. Everything flowed so well.

The scenes that differed from the book were also excellent - namely, I really loved the Jane/Knightley duet, the infamous nosebleed and first kiss scenes. 💖 I thought the screenwriter used those changes to quickly establish plot points and character arcs well.

Costume/Hair

Not a Recency expert so can't say much about the costumes and hair as far as period correctness but from reading other reviews it seemed like they were very true to the period. Obviously appreciated them taking the time to show the audience how men got dressed in that time (purely for research purposes obviously 😜).

Emma's dresses were all quite beautiful. I especially loved the black evening dress, the pink one with the roses and the proposal dress. Also loved the little pop of red shoes that went with the proposal dress. As someone who wore red shoes with her wedding gown I heartily approve.

Absolutely loved how Emma's curls unwound as her life unravels. Similarly think they must have done the same for Knightley to a lesser extent. His hair during the card playing scene at the Westons was quite terrible.

Set

I! Loved! Hartfield! It looked just like a doll house. Really most of the sets looked good enough to eat. So much pastel. Reminded me of French macarons.

I liked how everything in Donwell Abbey was shrouded in Holland covers. Makes a good point that Knightley barely lives there at all, that his home has been with the Woodhouses for quite a while now. Which, of course, makes his sacrifice at the end just a little bit less of a sacrifice?

Soundtrack

Isabella Waller-Bridge's music really meshed well with the tone of the entire film. The male and female opera singers, sometimes sounding as if they are bickering with each other and other times seeming to be in duet, was a brilliant touch. The folk music was a little jarring at first but really grew on me.

Johnny Flynn's end credits song "Queen Bee" is amazing. I love that we get Knightley's perspective at the end with a song written and sung by Knightley. It's a lovely coda to the movie. And now, if the next Austen hero doesn't write one for his SO I'm going to think him a very poor sort of lover.

Cast

Anya's Emma was really great. I'm glad they allowed Emma to be her bitchy self. Lol. I haven't watched the 1996 and 2009 versions in a while but I distinctly remember them making Emma too nice. I recall writing after watching the Garai version that Emma was actually mean and they should have let her be mean! If she's not a brat in the beginning, how will we see her change for the better later on? I love what a snob and how manipulative this Emma was and so assured of her place in her little society but still had the vulnerability of almost an imposter's syndrome which I feel most people can relate to.

Her chemistry with Johnny Flynn's Knightley was off the charts. Pretty much every scene they had together I half expected them to reenact the library scene from Atonement lol.

Mia Goth was a wonderful Harriet. She really captured Harriet's inexperience, naivete and diffidence. The orgasmic sounds she was making during the gypsies attack scene were awesome. Although, I could probably have forgone a few of Harriet's scenes for more Frank and Jane.

Not sure why they made Mia go brunette since the book specifically mentioned Harriet was fair? Perhaps having all three leads as blondes was just a bit too much. I'm also not sure if I liked Harriet's ending as I really don't think Emma, even in her most contrite mood, would invite further friendship from a tradesman's daughter and soon-to-be her husband's tenant farmer's wife. This seems a piece of modern day wishful thinking on the part of the creative team.

Bill Nighy was so good as Mr. Woodhouse. He made it so believable why everyone would do everything in their power to accommodate his whims. The gag with the screens was too funny. He was able to sketch out a lonely quirky old man who is afraid to lose those close to him in very limited screen time. Absolutely loved the scene where Emma was heaping blame on herself and he just sat with her in sympathetic silence.

Miranda Hart's Miss Bates was excellent as well. She has long been one of my favorite British comedic actresses but she can also do drama well. Her reaction to Emma's teasing on Box Hill and her forgiveness of Emma later brought me to tears.

Josh O'Connor's Mr. Elton was deliciously creepy. The carriage proposal scene was at once a little scary and hilarious. I actually liked the portrait scenes a little less because I found the acting there slightly affected and veering into 1995 Mr. Collins territory. But as Austen described Elton as having "a sort of parade in his speeches", this was much more forgivable. Really loved Mr. Elton's determination to eat cake during the Eltons' visit to Hartfield.

Tanya Reynolds was an excellent Mrs. Elton and in very little screen time was able to bring to life this meddlesome nouveau riche. Adored her little shimmy during the ball.

Amber Anderson's Jane really looked as if she were in a decline. Callum Turner did a good job as a slightly restless, mischievous and immature Frank Churchill. I did feel his looks were a bit too modern but that's just my personal view.

Given how many scenes they had I thought they used the time they had pretty well with furtive glances and sly smiles at each other to establish the relationship.

Connor Swindells was such a love sick puppy as Robert Martin. Did this role ever get cast in other adaptations? I don't seem to recall at all.

Special shoutout to Oliver Chris's John Knightley. Absolutely had me in stitches.

And last but never the least, Johnny Flynn's Mr. Knightley:

To preface, I will never not fall for Mr. Knightley in any version that I watch. And really, get yourself a good looking enough actor with good enough chemistry with Emma and good enough acting chops and you should have a fairly successful Knightley.

I judge all my Knightleys by the Box Hill scene. And up to that point in the movie, I really liked Johnny Flynn's Knightley. He was playful and sexy and jealous and slightly bitchy as well. The duet scene was lovely because I always appreciate a man who can play instruments and sing well. The sexiness and chemistry of the dance scene was off the charts. That's all well and good. And like I said before, given any well cast actor, I probably would have liked them in those scenes as well, just as I've liked Northam's and Miller's Knightleys.

But, the Box Hill scene absolutely blew me away. To make sure I was not just biased towards the last Knightley I saw on screen, I did go back and compare each version's Box Hill scene and I am, actually, even more blown away. Some of it is a credit to the directing and script, but a large part of it is Johnny Flynn's acting in that scene.

As far a script and directing, the set up to the fight scene was fantastic. Loved Anya's expression changes after she makes the joke. Loved Miranda Hart's Miss Bates as she realizes what Emma meant. The silence that followed. Knightley's shocked face and how sympathetic he was to Miss Bates. Can probably write a whole thing just about this scene alone.

I loved the fact that Knightley had an internal struggle as to whether or not to approach Emma and reproach her for her behavior. I know the book has him tell Emma about his struggle but that just doesn't work as well for me on screen.

During the scene you can just tell how frustrated and disappointed in her he is even though he tries to keep his voice low. But the way he reprimands her does not at all feel lecture-y and I feel like part of it is because it seems like he starts to lose control a little bit as well. His voice starts to crescendo as she stubbornly refuses to admit she was in the wrong and culminates in "badly done, indeed!" with actual fingerpointing. Yikes.

Then he losses steam and looked regretful, almost devastatingly so, at his own outburst and perhaps felt that he was losing her by giving this speech and looked as if he would have said something more - an apology or some words of comfort to soften the blow? - but didn't.

This remorse and the struggle at the beginning really bookended the scene for me.

Absolutely loved his Knightley, and, really, him as an actor after that.

The proposal scene as well was very good. His delivery was just really good. The way he said "If I loved you less then I might be able to talk about it more." with some regret and then closing his eyes as if he can't believe what he just said. Soooo good. Also, he cries very pretty, lol.

The delivery of the three "yes" during the kiss scene as Emma asked for confirmation that he really was ok with giving up his house to come live with them was also brilliant. It just kept getting softer and softer but he never breaks eye contact. Absolute chef's kiss. His closed eyed little smile of content after Emma kisses him just made me melt into a puddle.

Yup, overall I'd say I rather liked his interpretation of Mr. George Knightley. 😜

I did wish they hadn't giving him such sideburns but after watching some Emma interviews I can totally understand. If he didn't have the sideburns there'd be more complaints about how young this Knightley was. He's got such a baby face.

...I seemed to have written an entire essay on this movie...yeah, I just have a lot of feelings and thoughts about this version...

#Emma #emma 2020 #jane austen #movie review #austen adaptations

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beneaththetangles · 3 years

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Tangles Writers Do Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai, Arc 2: To Drop or Not to Drop

Greetings, Tangles readers!

Yesterday, Twwk posted an excellent article to kick off our deep dive into the Bunny Girl Senpai series. Twwk’s article focused largely on Sakuta’s character: his selfless, genuine love for Mai and his transparent, authentic self. But of course, Sakuta’s character isn’t all sunshine. As Twwk points out, he tends to dance on the line of commitment to Mai throughout the show, and often gets himself into trouble with his speech and conduct.

And if you’re looking for a perfect example of these negative characteristics which Twwk discussed, look no further than Tomoe’s arc. In some ways, this arc presents Sakuta with no filter—authentic and honest, sure, but also hurtful and demeaning. Today, I’ll be writing about how episodes four through six of Bunny Girl Senpai almost compelled me to drop the show. I’ll reason through why I ultimately decided to stick around. And I’ll describe how my personal struggle with this arc of Bunny Girl Senpai finds its place not only in Tomoe’s story, but also, perhaps, in your own.

Got all that? Good. Let’s proceed.

Before we continue, enjoy a coffee break, sponsored by best girl Rio Futaba. (Look out for her article in a few days!)

I’ve always had a strained relationship with Bunny Girl Senpai. Let me be clear: I’m 90% into this anime for the cheeky banter between Sakuta and Mai. It’s fantastic. So I really liked the first three episodes of the show. Episode four, in contrast, presents the first signs of genuine conflict between the two, as Tomoe’s Adolescent-Syndrome-caused looping leads to a misunderstanding with not only Mai, but the whole school. Ultimately, Tomoe and Sakuta end up feigning a relationship for Tomoe’s sake: Her friends think that she’s dating Sakuta and she feels uncomfortable admitting their mistake.

Already, the flashing lights were going off in my head. Mai’s gone and Sakuta’s pretending to date someone else? It all seems foolish and immature and out-of-character. (And where’s my Mai dialogue?) Regardless, I was willing to forgive those minor setbacks to see how things would go in Tomoe’s story. But as things progressed, it became very clear that the dynamic between Sakuta and Tomoe was far different than that between Sakuta and Mai. In some ways, it was endearing. Sakuta’s sort of like a big brother to Tomoe, hanging out with her, bringing her food when she’s sick, and lending her an ear amidst her struggles.

But as many big brothers are wont to do, Sakuta pokes fun at Tomoe. And many times, it goes way too far. Now, I’m willing to admit that some of the discomfort I felt at Sakuta’s jokes might say more about my boundaries than the show itself.1 But much of what Sakuta says to Tomoe in this arc could genuinely be classified as sexual harassment, and there’s times when the jokes genuinely trouble Tomoe. It threw me off, to the point that I was ready to cast the show away out of sheer discomfort.

Amen, Tomoe. Amen

Why, then, did I decide to stick with the show?

Before I continue to answer that question, I’d like to clarify the tension I’m describing here a little. I don’t mean to imply that watching Bunny Girl Senpai violated my conscience. Stay away from shows like that—but I’m talking about something a little different. Bunny Girl Senpai doesn’t violate my conscience in these scenes; it violates my moral standards. These scenes don’t tempt me to sin; they portray sin as a good thing. They don’t inspire shame but anger: anger at wrongs going unpunished.

Maybe a few examples will help to clarify what I’m trying to say. When I think of problematic anime, I think of Made in Abyss, which contains several scenes that arguably sexualize minors. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, one of my favorite shows, runs into the same issue with the relationship between Lucoa and Shouta. And The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a fan favorite, has its own issues with sexual harassment as well. These are all shows which clearly contain scenes which violate moral standards in such a way that no one could be blamed for dropping them outright.

Of course, all the shows that I’ve listed, including Bunny Girl Senpai, are shows that I watched through to the end. So why didn’t I drop them? There’s a lot I could say here, but in short, it’s because each show, despite its flaws, had something worth staying for. Haruhi drew me in with its absurd yet hopeful celebration of the oddities of this world. Kobayashi reminded me that sometimes it only takes a dinner table to welcome those who share nothing in common with you. And Made in Abyss presented a stirring tale of adventure with its own moral quandaries to boot.

What about Bunny Girl Senpai, then? Well, if it’s Sakuta’s personality that turned me off, it’s the same personality that kept me coming back. Again, despite his flaws, Sakuta is abundantly authentic. At his best, he hates lies and misunderstandings; he doesn’t pull punches; he says exactly what he’s thinking. And for Tomoe, who’s struggling with fitting in and finding her own identity in the midst of the chaos of adolescent social interactions, Sakuta’s bluntness comes as a great reassurance. Regardless of how her friends treat her, she knows Sakuta will always treat her the same way he always has. He’ll always be there for her.

In fact, I have a theory. I think that Tomoe’s struggle to reconcile Sakuta’s good and bad sides isn’t too much different from my own. Even as she finds herself angered and frustrated by the things Sakuta says, she knows there isn’t genuine malice behind them, because she knows Sakuta is for her. His bluntness sets her on edge, but it also sets her at ease, because she knows he’s willing to tell her what she needs to hear, and to help her grow in the process. It’s because Sakuta is Sakuta that she knows that she’ll be loved no matter where she’s at. It gives her the confidence to move forward.2

And in the end, I think the moral tensions that I’ve described in this article aren’t too much different from the same tensions we experience in all our lives. It’s really easy for us as people to polarize reality. That artist or that book or that show is problematic, so anyone who supports them is problematic. Alternatively: that artist or that book or that show is good, so anyone who discredits them is wrong. But life is more complex than that. I should know: I find that complexity in my own heart, as I vacillate between good and bad intentions and desires and actions. Like Sakuta, I can issue a word of wisdom in one moment and a word of mockery in another.3 I need grace in every moment of my life. We all do.

So what if, instead of polarizing reality, we learned to live as children of grace? What if, when people hurt us, instead of responding in anger, we responded in gentle love? What if, when ideas harmed us, we wrestled with them rather than smacking them down? What if, when media unsettled us, we stopped to ponder intentions, rather than to assume them?

I don’t have answers to those questions. It’s certainly a hard task, to show the grace we’ve been given. But, at the very least, I hope I’ve shown that it’s okay to wrestle with these tensions rather than to find cheap answers. That is, after all, what Bunny Girl Senpai is about: learning to live in a world where there are no cheap answers, and demonstrating kindness and faithfulness in the meantime. Those are lessons worth learning—even if there are a few rough patches along the way.4

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Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai can be streamed on Funimation.

1 To be fair to the writers of the show, some of the worst jokes from the light novel source were toned down for the adaptation. The comments still make me deeply uncomfortable, though. 2 I want to be very careful here. I don’t mean to say that Tomoe shouldn’t feel angry at Sakuta for the things he says. I’m simply pointing out that she’s facing the same tension I am in deciding whether or not to stick with the show: the antithesis between affirming what is good and confronting what isn’t. 3 Again, in an abundance of caution, I’ll say that while both Sakuta and myself exhibit these sorts of moral tensions, that doesn’t reduce the weight of Sakuta’s sins. I’m not excusing Sakuta; I’m condemning both him and myself. 4 Much of what I said in this post was inspired by Alan Jacobs’ Breaking Bread with the Dead, which argues for reading classical literature because of its ability to confront our sensibilities and form us into better people. In some sense, I think his argument can be adapted into a case for watching anime in the same sort of way, and that’s what I’ve tried to do here.

#Anime #Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai #Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai #Grace #Sin #Articles #Author: sleepminusminus

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gofancyninjaworld · 3 years

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2020 in One-Punch Man. Part 1: Manga

How shall I describe this succinctly?

It's like ONE and Murata looked around them, saw a raging pandemic, massive disruption to all walks of life, uncertainty of when, if, or how it might affect them, took a massive drag of their cigarettes and said: “Fuck being conservative. Let's go wild. Fuck making our current arc a webcomic retread with fancier fights. Let's introduce more lore, let's have more characters interact in ways one would never have imagined, let's have characters do things that hadn't previously been thought of and make this really exciting.“

If you were holding onto the webcomic as your guide to what next, 2020 was not a good year for you.

723 pages in 24 updates (including revisions) changed the status quo ante in deliciously unanticipated ways!

Where we left off in 2019, we were following the webcomic pretty faithfully, with most manga-original elements being removed at a fast clip. Phoenixman was dead, the mercenaries had died a brutal death, the ninjas had been resurrected but had run off buck naked, Orochi was dead, G5 was very much destroyed, Drive Knight had appeared but had obligingly limped off, taking Nyan with him. The S-Class heroes were in trouble with the cadre exactly as expected and Saitama had met up with Flashy Flash. Tatsumaki had finally found Psykos. Yup, no real changes here.

2020, HAHA!

Awaken!

Throwing manga-specific elements away? As if! They took the great opportunity that preparing chapters for publication to critically review and revise the story so as to first, make it move at a faster pace and second, to be enriched. It’s meant that chapters for volume 22, 23, and 24 (to come) have been redrawn to accommodate the changes and we got the benefit of many of them between April and August of this year.

We started with Phoenixman’s fight with Child Emperor. It started innocuously enough with Phoenixman resurrecting, but then we got a much more interesting chunk of knowledge -- the existence of a metaphysical world modelled on one’s on psyche where the assault on Child Emperor’s sense of self took a much more existential nature.

From a purely physical battle (and some nifty cool info about the Subterraneans) to an otherworldy battle happening in parallel with the physical battle:

It ended up a very interesting examination of Child Emperor’s character and his relationships with other heroes, as well as telling us something else freaky about Saitama’s ability to be anywhere he damn well wants to be.

Ah, and Phoenixman lives. Albeit as a little chick (for now). He’ll probably be back, but not just yet.

The mercenaries were next. They didn’t die. Not because Amai Mask had a change of heart, but because Iaian listened to the niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach and turned his team mates around to intervene just in time.

As you’d expect, trying to guide the mercenaries back to the safety of the surface has been an incredibly challenging ordeal for the disciples. It’s revealed much more about the way the disciples trust each other and lean on one another, and yet, when there was no option to do so, Iaian stepped up wonderfully to fight to save the mercenaries.

We’ve also learned something interesting about why mercenaries exist at all in a world supposedly at peace. I look forward to seeing where this plot might go next.

Elsewhere, we got to learn a little less about Puri Puri’s dancing and swimming lessons, but we got some really awesome nods to the mythical in Bakuma (the baku is a long-nosed creature formed out of all the bits left over after creation that eats dreams) and Electric Catfish Man’s sudden sense of doom is both reference to the way catfish are supposed to detect earthquakes and just damn cool.

A monsterised exploitative business man taking the form of a demonic dream-eating monster that consumes weaker monsters so as to exploit their abilities is so appropriate on many levels (and unreasonably hot!).

Yes, Waganma does make it to the surface, along with Saitama and Child Emperor. Saitama gets chased away by a Sekingar outraged that there’s a clueless hero just wandering aimlessly around. Child Emperor goes back underground and I loved to death Waganma being pierced with remorse as he realises that the hero is going to go risk his life anyway. He’s spoiled, but his keeping quiet came from a place of being a scared human being desperate to be saved (a surprising number of fans did not like that -- they preferred to think of him as a psychopathic monster incapable of remorse).

Orochi still has a date with a gloved fist, but he’s getting to live a little longer than he did before.

Overall the story is tighter and there’s a lot more interest as well as future plot hooks than there were. I’m interested in seeing how it gets tied up in the next volume sometime in 2021.

Reddit did not take it well. Summary of discourse:

sorry not sorry, I lost patience around the 500th whiny post

Advance!

What about the new chapters we got? Also here, ho ho ho, that status quo has gotten a good kicking!

Orochi came back. Not the most surprising surprise in the world, given how carelessly Saitama punched him. Also not surprising that he came back stronger; Phoenixman had wonderfully demonstrated that monsters can bounce back from near-death situations much stronger. But his form... such a disgusting, slimy, ever-shifting mass of tentacles and dragons, consuming all in its way led to the third craziest development: his fusion with Psykos to launch a new monster.

I’ll spare you the disgusting intermediate stages but the end result has been the birth of Psykos-Orochi and with that, what had been a total sweep for Tatsumaki turned into a much more dangerous enterprise where every mistake of hers got punished brutally.

Why is that only number three? Because Tatsumaki raised up the entire base to try to encompass the whole monster (and it turns out that she was thinking far too small -- the monster had actually eaten large sections of City Z) and Psykos-Orochi uses the space to launch a beam so powerful that it literally cuts off part of the Earth itself. It was a real I see it, but I don’t believe it moment.

if you didn’t spend a few seconds just staring in disbelief, you’re not paying attention. OMG. Boy is the Earth in trouble.

Why is that only the second craziest thing? Because of why this fusion monster was able to do as it did. ‘God’ doesn’t just go round looking like a semi-tangible being giving random homeless men magic powers. Yup, the Earth really in in trouble if some supernatural being is smushing monsters together to make a stronger one and then granting it extra powers. Just like that, the struggle has turned cosmic.

Tatsumaki trying to figure out how to fight back and save City Z from being swept away by a tsunami, save the heroes, and save the planet from further damage by the beams all at the same time was one of the most spectacular fights to date.

As I said earlier, this monster has presented Tatsumaki with a real fight where the slightest mistake on her part leads to severe punishment. She wound up in trouble when she underestimated how extensive the monster actually was and let up on twisting it too early, only to have it come right back and skewer her hands.

Thankfully, Genos came in and saved her from that pinch, then held the monster at bay long enough for Tatsumaki to finish saving the strike team so she could give the monster her undivided attention.

Which is a very tame way of saying that that was an incredible development in capability. That some of the fandom had trouble accepting (they suck). Watching their protests has been an exercise in special pleading. They have no trouble understanding how Murata uses scale...until it came to accepting the size of the explosion resulting from Genos smacking away Psyko-Orochi’s execution beam then it had to be a fisheye lens (visibly incorrect, but who’s talking facts here?). Have had no trouble understanding how Murata portrays escalation... until it came to accepting that Genos is strong then no, somehow the monster had to be weaker. Have had no trouble with the freeze frame language that Murata uses to portray things happening at great speed... until it came to accepting that Genos could move really, really fast. For some people, the new is only welcome when it confirms and validates preconceptions. Anyway, that’s my rant done!

the most unlikely of partnerships and they’re still going despite having taken a hell of a battering since this scene

Guess who’s back?

We’ve also been seeing more heroes come back to the fray. The emergence of the Tower of Doom acted as a clarion call to every hero around and able to move. Metal Bat sneaked out of hospital to come running back. Tank Top Master hitched a ride with Mumen Rider to go to City Z. He intended to stick around and save people, but seeing how much wider scale the fight was, he literally threw himself into battle.

Drive Knight decided he literally had to have a piece of the action, took up a ton of power from the nearest substation and came flying in to intercept a desperately escaping Psyko-Jet... ah, I didn’t say? Yes, the monster turned into a machine to run away once hard-pressed.

And we finally got to see what Blast actually looks like, courtesy of a flashback of Amai Mask’s. He definitely looks the part of a caped superhero and it’s little wonder he’s stuck in the imaginations of so many. But now I’m even more interested in seeing what his deal is and what is he’s like now

The one thing we know for sure will be happening is that Garou will not be denied his destiny. He’s coming. But what else is happening? Ah, that’s all in the air.

Bring on 2021!

#OPM #review #long #2020 #so much has happened #so much still to come #manga #Garou is coming BACK #13th #December #December 13th 2020 #so many incredible developments #Genos coming back far stronger than he's ever been and then hanging tough despite overdoing it #the unquestionable appearance of a meddling godlike entity #the Psykos-Orochi fusion and all its crazy permutations #the massive loss of life in Z-City: such an irony between heroes killing themselves to save a few individuals when mass death is all around #Not mentioned; Saitama Flash and their misadventures with Manako

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adamarks · 5 years

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simon snow has fucking dragon powers or some shit and this is my goddamn proof

Whilst you people were having a meltdown over Baz and Simon not hashing it out (Simon’s not in a place of understanding his self worth enough for that yet.), I was having a meltdown about Simon Snow The Literal Fucking Dragon.

Now, this is obviously going to have major spoilers for Wayward Son. I’m going to assume you’ve read it if you’re reading this. I’ve put a lot of thought into this theory and this is a long ass post so I’m putting it under the cut. Now. Let’s go, lesbians!

First and foremost, let’s start with the wings and tail.

Simon’s wings are established at the very beginning of Wayward Son to represent something. We don’t really get to quite know what that something is until they start referring to Simon’s wings the same way they used to refer to his magic.

The most direct reference to Simon’s wings symbolizing his magic is in Simon’s section of the prologue at the very end of the book:

“It’s time for me to stop pretending I’m some sort of superhero. I was that-- I really was-- but I’m not anymore. I don’t belong in the same world as sorcerers and vampires. That’s not my story.

Dr. Wellbelove said he could remove the wings. And the tail. Whenever I’m ready. I could go back to school then, or get a job...”

This section directly confirms that yes, these wings are a metaphor for Simon’s magic. They’re all he has left connect him to the world of magic. They’re the only thing still making him feel even remotely on the same level as Baz and Penelope. (This book really was all about the concept of self-worth and how completely lacking it affects not only us but those we love. Phew, talk about a doozy. No wonder we’re all crying.)

Now that we’ve established that Simon’s wings, at the very least, are his one tether to magic, let’s drive the nail into the coffin of the wings and tail being absolutely, 100% symbolic of his magic.

As I mentioned earlier, the book starts treating the wings exactly the same as it treated his magic. This even starts before Wayward Son. The first mention of Simon’s emotions relating to his wings and tail is in the first book. In the epilogue, in Baz’s section, during the dance scene.

“His tail whips out of my hand. It tends to slash around when he’s upset.”

This really starts to come out in the last fourth of Wayward when he’s “itching for a fight.”

His wings constantly poke, prod, and generally annoy Baz and Penny because he refuses to put them away. Almost.... like... how his magic..... felt suffocating.... and too much... and he couldn’t push it back... or tamp it down. *cough*

Okay, so that was all pretty basic, boring, base-building stuff, yeah? Pretty “whatever we get it.”

Well, here’s where it starts to get fun.

Let’s talk about Simon’s Mirrors.

Lemme just explain what the hell a mirror is, first. In case we all flunked our high school Lit classes.

A mirror character is, in simple terms, a character that acts, looks like, or reminds you of one of the main characters. Through these “mirror characters” some important information about the main character is revealed to us subtextually.

Let’s name our Simon mirrors:

Ebb

Agatha (she’s being developed as her own character but that’s not stopping her from mirroring our good lad.)

Aunt Fiona (to some extent anyway. she doesn’t really factor here.)

There might be some minor ones I’m forgetting (I’m not including foils) but these are our main guys.

I put Ebb on the list first, but let’s start with Agatha, the cranky heroine of our dreams.

Throughout the whole first book, Agatha is shown to be Simon’s mirror. Them both mooning over Baz in almost the exact same way. (Jesus Christ they’re embarrassing to watch.) The waiting on rooftops, the handkerchief. (Don’t get me started on Simon carrying around Baz’s scarf in Wayward. I’m soft and everything hurts. Our poor, stupid, stupid boys.) It’s not exactly subtle.

In Carry On, Agatha reveals just how much Simon also resents his fate. He never really expresses it, but Agatha is reflecting to us how he’s feeling. They both get progressively less resigned to the bullshit “Chosen One” fate as the book goes on. They both make it out alive. Maybe everything will be okay.

But then Rainbow rolls up with a Sex On The Beach and Gucci sunglasses to tell us that “fuck no everything’s not okay.” (She’s right. God, I could go on a rant about how no one ever talks about how you feel when you’ve defeated the villain. When you’ve escaped the dungeon. Hhhhh)

Wayward Son immediately sets Agatha up as even more of a mirror than she was in the first book. We’re shown right away that the two of them are both in a depressed funk. They’re both at “15%” and miserable. These two are echoing each other like NEVER before and I am LIVING for it.

Like, we even get this amazing bit in Chapter Four:

“That would feel like an answer to... the question of me. Then I could say, ‘Oh, that’s who I am. That’s why I’ve been so confused.’”

They! Are! Struggling!

Now, how does this relate to Simon having literal fucking dragon powers? Good question, thank you for asking.

In Chapter Fifty-Six, when Pen and Agatha are stuck in the back of Fuckwad Vampire #3′s car, Agatha says this:

“I honestly thought I could walk away from it all-- like magic was a place. Like magic was a person. Or a habit I could break.

When Simon first came to Watford, he couldn’t make his wand work. He could barely cast a spell. He thought they were going to kick him out, that he wasn’t magic enough.

“You don’t do magic,” Penelope told him. “You are magic.”

I... am magic.

Whether I like it or not, whether or not I claim it. Whether or not I carry my wand.

It’s in me, somehow. Blood, water, bone.”

They!! Are!! Both!! Magic!!

Magic is in them! Magic is with them! They’re made of the stuff! They can’t cut off this part of them, no matter how much they want to. (lmao. talk about good old internalized homophobia. I don’t really have an opinion on what Agatha’s sexuality is, btw. I’m using homophobia as a blanket term because I have no clue what’s up on that front.)

Simon is made of magic. He doesn’t want to remove his wings. Even though he has to hide them. Even though he thinks he’s a Normal now. Like Penny said, “an aeroplane is still an aeroplane even if it’s on the ground.” (I’m not sure that’s verbatim, apologies.)

Simon still has magic. We just can’t see it. He’s made of magic. He is magic. He was literally conceived during a spell. Bitch is as magical as you can get.

But where is the magic???? Where’d it go???? Hello????

I’m getting there. I promise. First, we need to talk about Ebb.

Ebb wasn’t only Simon’s weird Aunt figure; she was his mirror. Ebb was what would’ve happened to Simon if he hadn’t rejected the mage at the end of Carry On. Ebb just gave in. She didn’t want to fight anymore, and she figured Shithead The Great knew more than she did.

God I just fucking hate Mage so much like holy shit. Anyway, anyway.

Ebb was the strongest magician next to Simon. She didn’t want to fight. She didn’t want to use her magic for any great purpose. She just wanted to be. Agatha even reiterates this in the epilogue of Carry On.

“Like, they couldn’t just let her be.”

(No, Simon doesn’t miss killing things in Wayward. He misses excitement and having a purpose. He mainly misses having a purpose. Not having one of those fucking sucks.)

What the fuck does Ebb have to do with this? Why can’t I just get to the point?

My point is!

My Point IS!

That goddamn dragon with the sheep was supposed to remind you of Ebb.

So, let’s do the math. If 1=1x1= 1 then...

Ebb = Margaret = Simon

Sure, sure we had Simon screeching that he wasn’t a dragon. But Margaret was immediately like,

“Not yet.” She pets his wing. “Are kitten. Someday dragon. Someday ferocious.”

Simon smells like a dragon, but also apparently “smells like iron.” Whatever the fuck that means. I mean I guess it means that Baz could still sippy sippy. (Which is gonna happen or I’ll eat my own toe.)

One more thing:

“I wanted wings,” he says. “I wanted to fly.”

“Why tail?”

“I wanted to be free!”

Gee, that sure sounds like what Agatha was saying earlier, huh?

YEAH OKAY HE’S HALF DRAGON!! WE’VE ESTABLISHED THAT!!! WHAT THE FUCK AM I ON ABOUT!!!!

Omg thank you for asking. I’m going to blow your mind with my final point.

The Final Point: The Baz Problem.

Wayward Son is, by all accounts, Baz’s book. It develops everyone beautifully and everyone has an arc, but this book is where Baz gets to shine.

We found out in this book that vampires are immortal.

This introduced a whole new issue, an issue that surfaces every time immortality is introduced as a possibility for one character but not the rest.

Someday, Baz will be left alone.

He’ll inevitably outlive everyone he cares about. We all know our poor, beautiful, delicate bastard boy couldn’t take it. How deeply he cares is his most beautiful and wonderful trait, and this could break him.

I wonder, how long does a dragon live?

Penny talks about the improbability of Simon and Baz in Chapter Three.

“Star-cross’d lovers. ‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.’ The whole shebang.”

Simon’s magic was always described as smoke and fire. The first creature we learn about Simon fighting was a dragon. (Chapter 1, first page of Carry On)

“You’ve slain a dragon, Simon. Surely you can manage a long walk and a few buses.”

God, I just really hate Bitchface the Mage. Anywho.

Simon. The One Who Came to End Us. Simon. The One To Save Us All. Simon is the dragon and the knight. He’s his own worst enemy. His arc will be completed once he accepts the “dragon” part of himself. It’s poetic as fuck, I must admit.

Simon has to find love and care for himself, and then this baby dragon will be grown. He’ll be “on top” as Margaret had said. (God, could you imagine all the dragons waking up? How fucking epic would THAT be? Fingers crossed.)

The monster that drains living things and the monster that burns all in its wake. These losers are starcrossed, but they complete each other. Dumbasses. I just love them so much why can’t they get their shit together.

Simon and Baz’s storylines are utterly intertwined. They’re perfectly matched. Simon might not know it, but their hearts are already tied together; they beat in sync. They’re two stars orbiting each other. And, if we’re all very lucky, maybe they won’t crash. Maybe this story won’t end in flames.

So, in conclusion, I really really really want Simon to breathe fire. The only other way I could see this twisting is the wings somehow going away and Simon getting a regular-magician amount of magic. That’s kinda lame tho and doesn’t complete his arc correctly. This dumb boy is a dragon now and there’s nothing we can do about it. (EDIT: actually yeah simon’s not gonna lose his wings no way in fuck. check out my meta.) Also? I would sell my soul to see Simon getting really possessive over really weird objects for his hoard.

Thank you for sticking with me this far, dear reader. I’ll leave you with this thought: Baz is Donkey and Simon is the dragon from Shrek.

Check out my other meta on the future of simon and baz’s relationship and how penny and agatha relate

scarf meta as well check it

Gonna be tagging peeps so this can circulate better.

@carrybits @neck-mole @watfordwallflower

#Wayward Son #wayward son spoilers #Carry On #Simon and Baz #Simon Snow #Baz Pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #penelope bunce #agatha wellbelove #ebb the goatherd #meta #carry on meta #wayward son meta #snowbaz #this will end in flames #long post #i did put a read more

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ckret2 · 4 years

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idk if someone actually finally sent this ask but i'mma do it since it seems people are dancing around it: if you're comfortable with it, may we have some radiosnake sexual headcanons (wherein alastor is not sexually repulsed or is demisexual/grey-ace ofc)?? love, a very happy demisexual who just finished a cold day in hell literally two minutes ago

You win the prize for "actually has the courage to directly ask for sexual headcanons" because no, nobody else has asked yet. Sorry for taking so long to answer it but like... the answer is over 2000 words. Have fun.

Now, anon, I've got something important you should know.

When I brainstorm radiosnake stuff, there's a little chatroom I do it in. What happens is, a lot of times, I'll come up with a scene or a scenario or a plot arc, and I'll describe it to that chat. And then, every once in a while, I'll say, "... and then here's how that same thing goes over in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks." I have. A looot of little ideas set in the parallel universe where Alastor Fucks.

(He's still somewhere on the ace spectrum in all those ideas—either he's demi or else he's sex-neutral/sex-positive ace, depending on the idea—but he does Fuck.)

However, 1) a majority of these ideas are very clearly set specifically in CDIH's verse, and so I don't wanna share them as broad "radiosnake headcanons" when they're tied to one specific fanfic; and 2) a lot of them are angsty, and if you're asking for general headcanons then I'm assuming what you probably want is them actually having a good time rather than several decades of self-induced suffering over unrequited desire. So if you want CDIH-specific stuff and/or angsty stuff (or, more likely, CDIH-specific angsty stuff), hit me up again and I'll share some more stuff. For now, I'll talk about more general non-angsty headcanons.

Okay so most of this answer is geared toward Alastor's perspective since it's like, it's the more interesting one to me in this context, he's the one gradually figuring stuff out while Sir Pent's hanging out being allo with over a century of having his sexuality sorted out.

So that you know what kinda headcanons I'm rolling with here: there's, like, several ways I can conceptualize Alastor's orientation in my head, and they're sorta ranked by how "true" they are to me. Not "true" as in "how canon I think they are," but "true" as in, like, what Feels the Most Right to me.

The #1 Most True version of Alastor in my head is 100% ace/aro. He's not "repulsed" by sex (or romance, for that matter) in the sense of "disgusted/horrified/never ever wants to hear about it," but he, like, has absolutely zero interest in DOING it. He's not repulsed by the subject but he is by most touch, including the kind of touching necessary for sex. Might have some, like, academic curiosity about sex & romance, might enjoy it in a fictional context simply for the drama it adds to a story, but has no desire to be a participant. He can listen to a friend talk about their sexual escapades in graphic detail for an hour without an ounce of discomfort but if they offer him a quick peck on the lips he goes "I'm out." He might have sex Once just to see what it's like/just to say he has and that’s where his curiosity ends.

So that's my mental Most True Version Of Alastor.

The SECOND most true version of Alastor is like, the exact same as that, except he's just barely demiromantic enough that he might, once, fall in love. The odds of him falling in love are the same as someone's odds of winning the lottery. This is the version of Alastor I use in CDIH and other radiosnake fics, where Sir Pentious happens to have been lucky enough to win the lottery, but also, it took fifteen years before it happened. Alastor's feelings about touch & sex are the same, EXCEPT that whoever he loves is excluded from the Touch Is Unpleasant rule, which opens up a few more possibilities.

And I've got more mental versions of Alastor but that's as far as we need to go to be relevant to this post.

So given the above: Alastor's natural internal pool of Enjoyable Physical Activities that he would be autonomously inclined to want to try with Sir Pentious is broader than "nothing at all" but stops short of actual sex. More like sensual activities.

The not-necessarily-sexual sensual things that are obviously & immediately available on Alastor’s Selectable Menu Of Romantic Physical Activities are gonna be things like:

--Cuddles! We're starting as vanilla as possible, folks. Cuddling and sleeping in bed together. 95% naked cuddles are acceptable, although Alastor is inclined to keep his underpants on. Moving to "underpants" from "underpants AND undershirt" is a Notable Intimacy Milestone for him because like Back In His Day undershirts were part of the required underwear, so to him that's taking off 50% of his underwear. It's like switching from loose boxers to a thong. On the other hand Sir Pent is just, totally nude, because look at him he already isn't wearing any pants, he's got nothing to hide.

--Massage! Neither one of them is any sort of professional but tbh on a scale of 1 to 10 a massage can be as bad as a 3 and still be enjoyable y'know? Alastor tends to offer if he notices Sir Pent is sore and/or if Alastor has decided he's gonna be in Extreme Over-The-Top Performatively* Romantic Mode tonight. He always sort of forgets that the option of being massaged exists until Sir Pent offers it in return, because, like, he thinks of himself as a floating radio voice with an inconvenient meat puppet attached, sometimes he forgets that the meat puppet can be pampered too. And then he sits there in a blissed-out daze while Sir Pent goes holy crap your shoulders are like oak, how have you not snapped your own spine with tension yet.

(*Note here when I say Alastor can get "performatively" romantic I don't mean "going through the motions but isn't feeling the love"; I mean that, like, basically NO romantic gestures come naturally to him because he just isn't feeling the gestures even though he's definitely feeling the love. He's sort of figuring out How To Perform Romance As An Action by drawing on how he's seen it done in books/movies/etc. and picking & choosing the things that seem most fun to him to do. So in a sense he is performing a role that he's conscious of when he interacts with Sir Pent romantically, but that's because "performing a role" is how Mr. Perpetual Radio Host approaches all of life—and he's only performing this one because he genuinely wants to and because he's enjoying it.)

--Body worship! Alastor is really deeply squicked out by touching someone's skin/hair/fur but on the other hand (and maybe specifically because it avoids the squick) he is really deeply fascinated by Sir Pentious's scales, which feel Not At All Like Mammal Skin. He also still does the "??? oh right, I have a body too" thing when Sir Pent returns the attention—but Alastor's like, okay, I’m obviously more familiar with my own body than Sir Pent is, I don’t find my body that interesting but it must still be interesting to Sir Pent.

--Showering together! Sir Pent has figured out that if he starts singing in the shower there is a 99% chance that Alastor will trip over his own pants trying to simultaneously strip down and run to the bathroom so that he can join in on SHOWER DUET TIME. Frankly it's a lot safer to just go "hey I'm about to take a shower, wanna join?" but sometimes he doesn't just to see how fast Alastor shows up.

--Kissing! Making out is completely and always an option. Three of Alastor's most defining character traits are being a radio host (which kind of reduces a person to their voice), his perpetual smile, and his cannibalism. Like 80% of this dude's existence revolves around his mouth. He's absolutely got some kind of oral fixation. He gets into making out—as long as it's with the right person. There is exactly one right person. Sir Pent is okay with this.

Other enjoyable mouth activities:

- Kissing places other than the mouth

- Being kissed in places other than the mouth

- Biting

- Being bitten

And there's the overall list of non-sexual sensual activities that Alastor is into!

... And then eventually at some point Sir Pent is like "no pressure but hhhhypothetically sssspeaking are there possibly any sexual activities you might be interested in trying out" and Alastor is like "What? Oh! Right! Actually forgot sex existed for a bit. Yeah sure fine let’s try it." And that's the point at which they start experimenting with activities beyond Alastor's default activities!

Despite just about everything else with mouths being good, things Alastor is NOT into:

- Blowjobs

They did try. It seemed like a logical starting point. Alastor was like "I've liked putting my mouth everywhere else on this snake, it stands to reason I'll like putting it there too!" He got himself psyched up. He faced down The Dicks. He went, hmm. He stuck his tongue out and poked one.

He went "Yeah this isn't happening."

And Sir Pent went "Honestly you've already surpassed my wildest dreams just by getting that far."

They tried it the other way around too and Alastor went "Yyyye... hmmm... nnnnnooo no, no, don't think so. Not into that at all."

And it took him all of five seconds to reject the mere possibility of ever trying rimming, and the only reason it took that long to reject is because first Sir Pent had to explain what that is.

But everything else with mouths is great! Like. Everything. Sir Pent could go "can you lick my eyeball" and Alastor would go "which one? :)" (Sir Pent would probably not ask for this. But the point is he could.)

Figuring out Alastor's acceptable/enjoyable sex acts was a lot of experimentation like the above with BJs. And what they figured out is: he doesn't want his junk touched. Like. At all. In any context. Which, you know, understandably cuts down on nearly all the sexual options out there. But that’s the hard line: no touching his dick and no touching his butthole. Even if he, like, actively has a raging boner.

(Fun fact that I actually had to do research on, because despite being ace I did not know this due to the fact that I don't have a dick: if you are ace and have a dick there's good odds you'll still pop a boner in sexual situations, even if you have zero interest in what you’re looking at or participating in it. It's like something in your crotch goes "oh! Oh! A naked butt! I know what to do here! We got training for this! Time to ready the cannon!" and something in your brain goes "why the hell are you readying the cannon, we are absolutely not going to use the cannon, the cannon is a major inconvenience here" and the something in your crotch goes "listen, pal, I'm just following my orders. I don't tell you how to do your job, don't tell me how to do mine." The tl;dr here is that when Alastor is experimenting with Sir Pent, he could be completely bored out of his mind and still get a boner because biology is funky like that.)

The first few times this happens Sir Pent goes "are you sure you don't want me to, y'know, give you a handjob or something?? I feel like an inconsiderate jerk not helping out" and Alastor goes "absolutely not" and Sir Pent goes well okay I've made a career out of being an inconsiderate jerk, I guess I can do it in the bedroom too.

What they do manage to gradually figure out is that Alastor is perfectly fine with touching Sir Pent's junk, as long as it's not with his own junk or with his mouth. So hand jobs? Totally fair game. Letting Sir Pent grind against his thigh or abdomen? No problems with that. (Alastor flopped on his stomach going "this really does it for you??" and Sir Pent rubbing in Alastor's tail fur going "... yes." and Alastor is like, "wow. wild.")

More than that, Alastor gradually starts to figure out he likes that. Not necessarily the sensation of having a couple of dicks rubbing on his thigh—that's just sorta weird and probably always will be—but the knowledge of what it's doing to Sir Pent. He likes knowing he's giving Sir Pentious pleasure. He likes hearing him gasp and seeing him writhe and knowing that it's because Sir Pent wants Alastor and that Alastor has the power to give him exactly what he wants. He likes hearing Sir Pent hissing his name and little praises and one-word requests. ("Alastor’s existence revolves around mouths” includes sounds coming out of mouths, he gets more out of words and little noises than he does out of sight & touch combined.)

They figure out that what Alastor enjoys doing best is spooning Sir Pent from behind, wrapped around him to jerk him off. In bed or in the shower or even sitting with Sir Pent in his lap or between his legs. Alastor can put his chin on Sir Pentious's shoulder to listen to the sounds he makes and watch how his long long body moves, he can wrap his free arm around his waist and feel how he tenses and relaxes and squirms, they can kiss (and/or bite, biting is nice) with a little bit of careful positioning...

Also it's easier for Alastor to quietly sing to him from there.

... Alastor sings during sex. For the record. The first time he does it it's a nervous "I don't know what I'm supposed to be saying and it seems too quiet—oh I've got a solution" but soon it's just. A thing he does. Sir Pent gradually goes from "what? seriously? this is what you're doing?" to "lmao you dork" to "well I guess I now have a new kink I will never be able to get rid of, thanks." Sometimes he'll shakily sing along and Alastor's guts will melt into warm goo.

So there's a general overview of the more, like, normal stuff they get up to. Considering that their shared hobbies include things like "murder" and "being better than everyone else" and one of them is a cannibal, I'm sure that once they get down the basics they just get weirder. Copious amounts of blood get involved! Not their own blood. Other people's.

#(the content under the cut is of course very n s f w)#radiosnake #hazbin hotel #alastor #sir pentious #anonymous #ask #headcanons

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creacherkeeper · 4 years

Text

Hays Code

community fic annie & abed friendship. pre relationship trobed hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending cw for discussion of historical homophobia and non graphic discussion of past suicidal thoughts 3600 words

on ao3

To be frank, Annie wasn’t in the mood. Not in the mood for what, exactly? Anything. Everything. Talking or not talking, eating, sleeping, breathing—just living, really, was going to push her over the edge. It was one of those days where all she craved was a good scream and maybe to fling her arms around a bit, but that wasn’t appropriate and honestly, you’re an adult now and is this how you get your way? So, she’d politely excused herself and walked just a tad extra fast all the way home. She just wanted to be alone.

Honestly, who gave an 89% on an essay? The only feedback she’d gotten was: “These words taste like radish in my mouth. I hate radishes.”

She slammed the door more forcefully than she should. The frame wasn’t very good, and Troy always said one day she was going to knock it down. There was a teacher at Greendale that knocked a door down that same way—slammed it a little too hard day in and day out, until not only the door, but the whole frame keeled right over. That teacher was doing it on purpose, though. Took him six years to prove some inexplicable point.

Maybe Annie should do that. Knock out a whole frame just so people stop pushing her.

Her backpack was flung to the ground, and, for just a moment, she let out a strangled wail. It wasn’t as satisfying as she wanted it to be, but there were neighbors and their creepy landlord, and, no matter how riled up she was, she didn’t want to cause any trouble.

She made her way to the kitchen, because if she couldn’t be happy, then at the very least she could have chocolate. It didn’t make things better, it didn’t really help, but … it felt like a little rebellion, every time. Troy and Abed had done a good job loosening her up (within reason), but it still felt like she’d won a little victory when she skipped dinner and just went straight for dessert.

Her hand was on the cabinet when she heard the shuffle from the other room. Her heart thudded. Her grip tightened. Troy and Abed were supposed to be in class (she was supposed to be in class), and if either of them were home, so to would be the sounds of dialogue, or music, or a video game track. The apartment was never just … quiet. Not unless she was by herself.

Her hand crept back to her side. It flexed like it might grip the handle of a gun, but she reminded herself she’d given it up when she moved into the apartment. She understood that it was different for her to have one than Troy and Abed, she really understood that, but her nerves got the better of her sometimes. Sometimes she missed it.

She slid the knife off the counter as quietly as she could.

She crept into the living room.

“Are you going to knife me?” Abed asked, face neutral.

Her heart and legs floundered. “Jesus Christ, Abed! You’re supposed to be in class.”

She could practically see Shirley’s disapproval of her choice of swear, but, okay, look, it wasn’t even really, technically, his name—if you went by the Hebrew, the more accurate—okay, no. No. She was getting off track.

Abed’s eyes followed the knife as she gestured towards him and then the blank TV.

“Why are you just sitting here in the dark? You scared me half to death!”

“Sorry.”

“Are you doing a scene where the character is thinking of something, and they’re silent, but going on this whole internal journey, and then, at the end, they jump up and run off camera to go do something dramatic?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Oh.” The knife dropped a bit. “Then what are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

They stared for a moment, Annie at his face, and Abed at the knife. It finally fell limp to her side as her eyebrows scrunched and mouth pursed in confusion.

“Oh. Okay.”

Her fingers twisted and curled around the handle. Abed went back to staring towards the TV—unusually and ominously blank.

She cleared her throat and quickly dropped the knife back in the kitchen, then tiptoed her way towards him.

“Is there … something bothering you?”

His head tilted back and forth almost imperceptibly as he decided how to respond.

“Just thinking about tropes.”

Her shoulders relaxed. That sounded more like him. She was almost worried that Abed had been abducted and replaced by a doppelganger, or that he’d gone into the dreamatorium alone and had gotten too stuck in a character. But he was just thinking about tropes. That was fine, that was Abed. The familiarity gave her enough confidence to approach fully and perch on the coffee table in front of his chair.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” she said, doing that little half-smile nose scrunch that always worked on Jeff. She wasn’t sure Abed even saw it, the way he was looking over her shoulder instead of at her, but the apology felt good to say. “Is there a trope you’re thinking about in particular?”

He hummed and gave a short nod. She waited for him to continue, but he just stared in that way that he did and rubbed his thumb over his fingers in a quick, anxious pattern.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, realizing her mistake. She’d asked a yes or no question and he’d answered it. “What trope are you thinking of?”

“Hays Code,” he shot off, a drum beat in the air.

The name sounded familiar. But sometimes the things Abed told her about were like a pipette drip in the tumultuous ocean of her brain. It didn’t mean she wasn’t listening, but it was drown out by the raging storm, the cutting rocks, the moon and the tides and the break on the shore—oh and sharks, maybe-

She shook her head.

“Would you mind explaining what that is?”

His finger rose in a point like he was going to begin, but it was an awkward, faltering second before the words actually began to spill from his mouth.

“Hays Code, or the Motion Picture Production Code, adopted and enforced in 1934. A set of morality-based guidelines that stifled American filmmaking with self-censorship rules until 1968. Among the guidelines were bans on sacrilegious profanity—like your little outburst just there—violence, drugs, sexual content, among other things.” His eyes flickered, only briefly. “Though not explicitly stated, the Code affected media portrayal of homosexuality, to the effect that it could not be portrayed without sufficiently condemning it as immoral, or …” His fingers continued their nervous dance. “-ending their story in tragedy. While the Hays Code was abandoned in 1968, its effects were deep-seated. That particular unspoken rule became what we now would refer to as ‘bury your gays’. The Code was abandoned, but the trope was too well established to die with it.”

She blinked. Her mouth felt dry. Her fingers wrung much like his from where they were held in her lap.

“Abed?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can I sit with you?”

She’d never really asked before. Usually it was an unspoken assumption—that was Abed’s seat, and the other was Troy’s. She didn’t have one, so she sat with Abed. She’d never minded. It was nice. There weren’t many people she felt comfortable being that close to, but Abed was just the right amount of warm, and holding his hand felt like a star through cloud-cover, like a lighthouse on a familiar shore, a point of contact that kept her grounded and real and there.

But, she asks. This time, she had to ask.

Abed’s eyes glanced at her shoulder, at her hands, at her chin, back down.

“Yeah.”

He scooted over as she moved towards him, and instead of settling on the arm of the chair, she let her weight fall next to his, both of them crammed sharply together in the too small seat. He was trembling, just a little. She wondered if he’d eaten.

His hand slipped into hers.

Though her breath stuttered, she hoped it wasn’t enough that he’d notice.

“Abed, are you gay?”

For all that he could ramble, shroud his meaning in metaphor and obscure reference, Abed didn’t like when other people beat around the bush. He appreciated directness and honesty. So, though it felt to Annie like some dam had been broken, like all her soft guts would come spilling out at any moment, she asked the question as simply as she could.

The silence rang too long, though it couldn’t have been more than a moment.

“Maybe,” he said. His fingers wriggled, testing against hers. “I have liked the girls I’ve dated. Though it’s hard to tell if it’s more aesthetic appreciation, or- or if I just enjoy their company. Most of the ways people describe feelings are alien to me, so sometimes it’s hard for me to tell.”

“And with guys it feels the same?”

He shook his head, just a little. “Different. It … It feels different.”

Annie took as even a breath as she could, trying not to let her palm sweat against his own, though she didn’t, in the end, have much power over that.

“And thinking about the Hays Code has you worried that … that what you’re feeling is bad?”

He shook his head again, but it was a few seconds before he spoke.

“I’ve been trying to figure out my arc for a while,” he admitted. “Creating … contrived little schemes to nudge it this way or that. I’m not sure I can fight this one though. I don’t know if I can change how it ends.” He swallowed, throat bobbing. “The trope is well established for a reason.”

Annie’s hand squeezed his, not to comfort him, but out of reflex. She tried to relax it, blinking quickly against a sting in her eyes.

“And … the ending you’re worried you’re going to get …”

She let the sentence hang, because, frankly, she couldn’t find it within herself to finish. There was a knot in her throat she couldn’t swallow past.

Still, he took her meaning.

“Have you seen Dead Poet’s Society?” he asked.

Her stomach twisted. She nodded. She was glad he wasn’t looking at her, just staring towards the TV, because she wasn’t sure what her face would betray.

“Yeah.” His head jolted a bit. It was only slightly different from his thinking head tilt, but she recognized it as a sign of his nerves nonetheless. “It wasn’t a one to one metaphor, but it was about as blatant as it could be at the time. It still hit home for a lot of people.”

She cleared her throat, but it didn’t get rid of the choking feeling. “Have you thought about this before?” She wasn’t sure if he would gather her meaning—not the Code or the movie but … she couldn’t bring herself to even think it.

His lips pulled. He looked down at their conjoined hands, at Annie’s white knuckled grip.

“Not recently.”

Her grip relaxed, if only a little.

“But in the past?”

His shoulder shrugged against hers, and he let his thumb swipe back and forth over her knuckles.

“Kids are mean. Life is hard. You know how it is.”

She coughed out a little breath, nodding just a touch too quickly. “I get it. I do.”

Suddenly his brows furrowed, and his head swiveled towards her.

“Sorry,” he said, eyes darting back and forth over her expression. “I didn’t mean to make you worry about your own ending.”

Her eyebrows drew to mirror his.

“My …? Why would I be worried about my- Abed, you don’t think I’m gay, do you?”

His lips twitched at the side. He blinked.

“Sorry,” he said again. “Sometimes I misread people. I’m just very good at patterns, is all, and I’m a lot more observant than people think—”

“I’m not- You shouldn’t—” Her heart thudded like the crack of hooves at a horse race, and her eyes burned, and her stomach twisted. He couldn’t just- She never said- But he was watching her with that open, knowing stare, and she thought, if she couldn’t tell him right there, right then—if she couldn’t tell Abed, who had just put his heart on the table before her—when would she ever say it?

Her next words escaped as a croak.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

The understanding was quick to light his eyes. He nodded.

“I’m not ready to- I could never really—” She took a wet, shaky breath. “How long have you known?”

He looked as if he was weighing his answer. He was still staring at her with that intensity only Abed had.

“A while,” he told her eventually.

“Have you told any—”

“No.”

“Not even—”

“No.”

She let out a breath. “Okay.” She swallowed, squeezing his hand. “Okay.”

He settled back down next to her, head tilting softly downward. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“I’m not worried about tropes, Abed.”

“But you’ve thought about it, too.”

Her eyes darted away, around their living room. “About the Hays Code? No, I—”

“Annie.”

She froze. When Abed used her name like that, short, soft, she knew he was serious.

Her breath rattled through her nose. She pulled on his hand until their conjoined fingers were resting against her, arms wrapped around her in something like a hug.

“Kids are mean,” she repeated hoarsely. “Life is hard. You know how it is.”

He shifted a little closer. He nodded.

“I always felt like … like I had to be perfect. Like any little mistake, any slip up, any error, and … everything would come crashing down. I’d lose it all. Even as a kid, I knew my parents’ love was conditional.” Her swallow was harsh, tears dripping down her cheeks. “And so I took every advantage I could, because I thought … I thought I was just playing the game. I did everything I could to be at the top, because I thought being number one would keep me from losing.” She let out a laugh, breathy and bitter. “It didn’t. I just fell harder.”

She could feel Abed looking at her, but her gaze was fixed firmly on her lap. If it were someone else, Troy or Jeff, maybe Britta even, she’d want them to comfort her, to hold her, to tell her it was okay and that her fall from grace hadn’t been as bad as she thought. Abed didn’t, and she liked that. She liked that he just listened.

“I lost everything. My school, my scholarship, my friends … my family. I’d been thrown in the proverbial gutter and I just thought …” Her face pinched as she tried to get out the words. She shrugged. “Well, I’ll never be able to climb out of this one. There’s no point in …” She sighed. “If I hadn’t had been in the clinic, I don’t know. They watch for that sort of thing and, I don’t know, even in there I was so worried about being good. The day I got out, I enrolled in Greendale. It wasn’t what I thought my future was going to be, but it saved my life.”

There were a few beats of silence as her sentence hung, as her lips wavered and her eyes wept.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make this about me.”

“It’s okay,” Abed responded, quiet, and she knew that he meant it.

“I’m sorry you’ve ever felt the same way.”

“Me too,” he said. “But—for you, though.”

A tiny laugh escaped her, and she shifted to rest her cheek on his shoulder. She lifted her free arm to wipe the wetness from her face.

“Abed … I know we’ve said this before, but … tropes are good for movies. Movies have arcs, narrative, structure. But real life isn’t that way. Our stories aren’t bound by convention and rules. Just because it happens in the movies, doesn’t mean that’s how your life is going to go.”

“Yeah.” His fingers moved in pattern between her own. “Movies make sense, though. Life doesn’t. Life is chaotic and messy and confusing. You never know what someone’s going to say next. You can guess, and I have, but you can’t know. You can’t keep the ending in mind when you’re watching. A good ending is logical—it’s the only correct solution to a puzzle you didn’t think to solve. There’s foreshadowing. There’s staging. Characters have motivations, and they’re not always clear—but if you don’t understand you can watch it again, and again, and again, until you get it. If you don’t like it, you can’t change what happens, but there’s a comfort in it always staying the same. You can laugh, you can cry, but barring that, you can just … be there. You can be affected as much as you’ll be affected and the movie doesn’t care one way or another. It just exists, and you do too. And in a way, that’s its own kind of peace.”

Annie let that explanation wash over her, a display of emotion in its own logical kind of way. It made sense in the way that Abed frequently made sense if people just cared to listen. And for the moment, she didn’t feel like she had to respond, just sit there with him, listening in the way that he had listened to her, just existing with him like he obviously craved.

After a minute had passed of feeling his hand squeeze and loosen, watching his toes wiggle in his socks, she asked, “Abed, did something prompt all this? You seemed fine yesterday.”

He swallowed, fingers and toes stilling. Finally, she pulled away from him.

His eyes darted towards the open door of the dreamatorium, and hers followed.

Oh.

On the floor were strewn chocolates, different kinds in little wrappers, looking like they’d been thrown and fallen in their places. Only the corner of it was visible, but through the doorway she could see the rounded corner of a pink carton.

Valentine’s was coming up.

“You got those for someone,” she said, not really a question.

He hummed.

“You got those for Troy.”

This, too, was a statement. It was one she felt as sure of as anything else.

He hummed again.

“Were you worried he’d say no?” she asked, turning back to face him.

His eyes lingered on the abandoned chocolates.

“No,” she corrected herself. “That wasn’t it.”

“I’m not sure what my arc is,” he said slowly. “I can contrive it all I want—I don’t know what my ending’s gonna be. I can ponder, I can analyze, but … I don’t really know. And that scares me. It scares me as much as it scares anyone, I think. But Troy is … he’s not set in stone. I have my guesses. I know what I hope. But what if by asking him I seal his fate? What if I take him off the path of the prom king and star athlete and I- I railroad him into decades of unspoken rules and tragedy? I- I can’t do that to him, I- I can’t—”

“Abed.”

His mouth clamped shut.

She pulled his hand a little closer.

“Those are worries that I think, while maybe phrased in a different way, anyone would have. Life is hard and full of uncertainties, and … you and I both know it’s not any easier for us. It’s exponentially harder, in ways that most people wouldn’t even think of. Not because of movie rules or media tropes, but because … well … it’s just that much more uncertain. But, in spite of all that, I have one question for you.”

It was a very movie drama thing to say, and she knew it would draw his interest. His eyes slid to her, not meeting her own, but hovering around her nose, her mouth, her chin.

“Despite the uncertain ending,” she said, “despite the tropes, would it not be worth it if, along the way, he was happy?”

His head darted, just a little.

“Because, for whatever my opinion’s worth, I think if you asked him, he would be really, really happy.”

His eyes fell, down to the collar of her shirt, and she knew from his stillness that he was thinking.

Finally, he spoke.

“Your opinion’s worth a lot. More than most, at least. For the record.”

She huffed a laugh and leaned against him, letting her cheek rest against his shoulder once again.

“I know I’m a complete and utter hypocrite,” she said, “but sometimes I think you have to stop worrying about how it’ll all turn out and just embrace a moment for the moment that it is.”

“Wow,” he said flatly. “I don’t think I’ve seen you once practice that philosophy.”

“Oh, shut up,” she laughed.

He rocked their hands, leaning into her as well. “No, I get it, though. I do.”

“So …” She pulled back to look at him. “What’s the homage gonna be when you ask? What script are you working off?”

After a moment, he looked at her, face painted with an awkward little smile.

“I think maybe I’ll just wing it,” he said. “Speak from the cold, mechanical heart, and all that.”

A breath escaped her nose. She smiled at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

For a few moments, there was quiet.

“Hey, Annie?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He nodded, shy, and looked away again. The heat between their palms and their pressed-against sides was starting to become uncomfortable, but Annie didn’t want to leave. This was Abed, her Abed, her boys, and, if push came to shove, she could have stayed like that forever.

#community #annie edison #abed nadir #annie & abed #YES IM ON A COMMUNITY KICK IM SORRY #ANNIE! IS! GAY!#ABED! IS! GAY!#i had to get this out of my system

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winterfergerart · 4 years

Text

A Sort of Hiatus on Canon Related D:BH Content

I said as much on twitter, but here I’ll go into a little more depth about why I’ll be sticking with AUs. This is a personal post, and I’m not speaking for anyone else. Minor edits added to fix my failures at English.

I do enjoy Detroit: Become Human. It’s never been great. It’s always struck me as sort of that gloss of tonedeaf some 90s Star Trek: TNG episodes had, where the characters were good but the plot would be some sort of fumbling social commentary that was very awkward and sometimes uncomfortable (See “Code of Honor” or “Journey’s End”). Every decision course of D:BH either has that vibe or if you choose more aggressive, less sympathetic routes some sort of mediocre early 2000s AI style android movie feel.

With a sort of detachment, that’s easy to watch. That’s the reason why “coded” things can often have a sense of lingering popularity even where representation is important. Someone who is ‘queer-coded’ or ‘autism-coded’ or “race-coded” can often be watched no matter what’s going on in the real world without sparking a sense of real world trauma so long as there’s a safe degree of separation. It can be imported and exported to places where certain subjects are forbidden. It can usually be enjoyed without provoking a sense of anxiety but also being relatable.

Of course this can go the opposite way, too. Until very recently, Destiny was pretty cut and dry on its “shoot the alien invaders even after we establish a ‘not all invaders’ standard.” Sort of a bad scene after you realize races like the Fallen are actually refugees from the same thing that’s happened to humans. They’re described as ‘nomadic’. But no, they lost their home. They’re searching for a new one. They’re refugees. Emperor Callus is seeking more territory but being cooperative and negotiable in contrast to other Cabal, and his people only attack you when you attack his. But it’s so masked in bug people and space rhinos that it’s easy to wave off. Only recently have we, in game, actually started questioning the good guys and how good they are.

Metal Gear Solid has its own coding, too. It’s thinly veiled, usually exploitative towards women especially, but the one thing that Kojima very much got right was its respect for painful international history. If you listen to any amount of radio recordings from most of the latter games, like Kaz’s briefing files in Peace Walker or calls with Para-Medic in Snake Eater, you will see an intense respect for actual harsh pasts and the real history that leads to these campy, fake futures and nonexistent conflicts.

Now that brings me back around to D:BH.

Detroit: Become Human is not as separated from reality as it should be for the sake of its subject matter. There’s not enough stated awareness about the real past while it aims too close to current social circumstances with its android plot arc. You get a short comment made by Rose Chapman about the history of the underground railroad and then passionless meanderings in potential world-establishing futures in found news articles and on TV. There are various holocaust/nazi themed shapes in designs and grim ideas/plot angles used in reference to fictional androids and not the real people that suffered because of them. They’re left like Easter Eggs and not meaningful commentary. There are riffs of actual symbols from the ‘android lives matter’ flippant remark from Connor to the tacky uses of slavery-related song. Hank’s suicidal ideology was depicted as unique when more cops die by suicide than in the line of duty. There are authority figures meant to be as bad as the ones being protested that, yeah, get what’s coming to them, but there are cops that fearfully react and kill androids and you’re meant to be sympathetic to them.

There’s enough realism there to hurt and right now it can’t be handwaved away. It’s salt in an open wound rather than being an overly optimistic mild embarrassment. There are problems enough that if the actors didn’t do so well with their material and with improvising, it’d be intolerable.

I will likely continue to draw Hank and Connor along with the other stuff I draw with that awareness because I love redemption arcs. I need redemption arcs and I love Clancy Brown who is a good soul. Most important to me is the treatment of depression in D:BH. So far it’s been the only game that has gotten depression and suicidal ideology in such a way that I completely identify with and relate to. But I can celebrate that in a context that’s not a landmine of badly depicted tonedeaf reminders. Right now, no better than an interpretive dance of mourning or offering someone a pepsi to end racism.

So for the next few weeks if I draw them I’ll be using AUs, probably. If anyone is interested, reverse AU plot is a corruption conspiracy plot where Hank’s memories were put in an android and sparked a little at a time, monster AU is him as a werewolf that hunts other monsters, and I very recently posted my Fallout AU rundown.

#text post #if you want to avoid just blacklist the tag #dbhhidden #i'll label everything with that #you can always blacklist by ship name too #i use those more often than canon names #important message from the BinkysaurusRex

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knightofameris · 3 years

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YEAAAAAHHHH WE SMARTASSES!! WOOOO WE GOT THROUGH MIDTERMS

p h y s i c s ?????? I am. So sorry. i am so sorry you have to deal with physics. that sounds horrible and i would never wish it upon anyone. AND NO YOURE SMART YOU GOT THIS!!! i am cheering you on while also planning on overthrowing anyone who tries jeopardizing your way to the top— anyways. brain = off. mind = everywhere but nowhere at once. and no u.

HHHHGNFNGHHGG I LOVE NARNIA SO MUCH. the entire story was so good and it always made me cry no matter how many times i read the books/watched the movies. not me having the hugest crush on both edmund and susan pevensie....., ANWYAYS YES!! i can totally see what you’re saying with their similar writing styles!! god i love when authors :) and MC is just. Amazing. there is no other way to describe her. i love her to pieces and if i could i would steal her for myself ngl i wouldn’t be opposed- i mean what?

the more i read the more i just want to stop at the A/N right before all the alt endings 😭😭😭 it’s so tempting, because i feel EXACTLY how you feel with going there for the boys but now i’m just so invested in MC finding herself and becoming happy. i want that someday. it’s making me realize how much i want to be a main character and it’s sad BDKSNDS

(also thank you for recommending me this,,, honestly it made me so happy when you made a specific post for me,,, i love it when people send me things bc it reminds them of me or they want me to get into it bc they think i’ll like it like it just warms my heart fbsksndksk) —🧸 <3

HI HI HI UPDATE I FINDIEHD ALL THE ALTERNATE ENDINGS WHILE LISTENING TO THE RESPECTIVE PLAYLISTS THAT THE AUTHOR MADE ON SPOTIFY AND IM REALLY GOING TO CRY?????? AND THEN I LISTENED TO SOME OF THE SONGS FROM THE REGULAR PLAYLIST AND IM JSUT SITITNG HERE ALSO I LOVE DIBA AND ARANYANI SO MUCH I MISS THEM WTF AMERIS HELP I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMORE THIS FANFIC HAS CHANGED ME WHAT THE FUCK —🧸

p.s. my favorite ending and arc in general was iwaizumi’s. i refuse to comment further

I COMBINED IT CUS I FEEL BAD FOR SPAMMING THE DASH AHAHAHHA.

and putting it under a read more because this bad boi is long

I still,,, have another midterm. but its okay this one I'm not too worried about LMAO.

KDSAJFLADSJF YEAH ME TOO IM SORRY I HAVE TO DEAL WITH PHYSICS TOO what kind of dumbass chooses physics as their major? (me, i’m the dumbass) BUT THANK YOU AHAHA. ill fight everyone for you too!!! brain off always, I accidentally posted the drabbles when I was supposed to post them all tomorrow AHAHAHAH.

NARNIA WAS REALLY GOOD (don't look at my old works tho, I wrote them when I was 15 and bad at writing please.) its very nostalgic and I really want to reread them tbh. they were just so good AHHHH

DUDE YEAH ID DATE MC AHAHAHAHAH. god. i was so tempted to not finish the fic either but here I am. i want to reread but I don't want to get hurt LOOOOL. fuck the boys we’re here for MC Suzuki. LOL

and of course!! I really thought you’d like it and I really really love this story sm. <3

ALSO OMG I NEVER LISTENED TO THE PLAYLISTS..... OOPS. LOL. diba is such a good character and aRANYANI is that how u spell her name idk. LOL I REALLY LOVED THE OCS. I liked her family even tho her mom wasn’t perfect and like, yeah! her mom doesn’t deserve a redemption arc but she’s trying to be better which I fuck with. even the mom knows she wasn’t perfect and that she should've done better. but alas.

you’ll need a few moments to let the fic settle in. good luck. LOL

I.... am biased and I say suga AHAHAHHAA with oikawa as a close second and kuroo next! also loved iwaizumi too!!!

ALSO ALSO. I'm in the discord server with the Fly High writer that she has, and I showed her some of your comments (I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND AHKDJG) but she said thank you and that it means the world! it took her a moment to reply because she was dancing around the room, her words not mine! LOL

#a.responds #from.🧸#a.anonfamily!!#from.nonnie #long post

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randomestfandoms-ocs · 4 years

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all of the qs of the most recently rebloggef otp as game for kirsty x tristan!!

1. What was their first impression of each other?

Kirsty thought that Tristan was a rich asshole who didn’t care about anything, Tristan thought that Kirsty was just Rory’s shadow

2. What is their ship name?

I’m undecided but probably Kirstan! Their tag is “we push and pull like a magnet do”

3. Describe their relationship dynamic

“area man in awe of his amazing wife”

4. What was their relationship like before they got together?

And first it was just Tristan flirting and being a bit of a dick (he’s been taught that that’s how he’s supposed to act) and then Kirsty basically challenges him to get his shit together and not act like a fuckboy. He takes the challenge and starts working on being flirty/teasing without being a dick too! Then they start dating, then break up, then become best friends, then get back together!

5. How would they describe each other?

Kirsty: he pretends not to care but he’s one of the sweetest people I know

Tristan: she’s amazing at literally everything she does, it’s terrifying

6. What do they love about each other?

There are a lot of things, but here are just a few!!

Kirsty: She loves how smart Tristan actually is, how caring he is underneath the aloof persona, and how patient he is when it comes to her relationship hangups

Tristan: He loves how clever Kirsty is, he loves watching her dance, and he loves how passionate she is about everything

7. What do they have in common?

They both struggle with letting people in, fucked up family dynamics, smarter than they let on, fear of abandonment

8. What are some differences between them?

Kirsty is much more of an introvert, obviously they come from very different social circles, Tristan is (at first) a lot more fake than Kirsty

9. What made them realize they were in love?

It was a really gradual thing for both of them! The first time they say it is during the carriage ride in the Bracebridge episode but neither of them can actually pinpoint a moment when they Realized™

10 What are their love languages?

For Kirsty: Quality time is her biggest thing but she also needs words of affirmation

For Tristan: definitely words of affirmation, both ways!

And both of them are big on physical touch!

11. Do they get married? Who proposes and how?

I haven’t really thought much about this yet tbh!

12. What would happen if they never met?

Tristan would have just been exactly like he is in canon! Kirsty would be much more introverted and insecure, and have a much harder time learning to finally speak up for herself

13. Who dies first? How does the other one react?

I have absolutely no idea

14. Are there any love rivals?

Not really!

15. Describe your favorite moment of that ship!

Oh god I can’t choose just one but I think the entire season 2 winter holiday arc!!

16. What do other characters think about this relationship?

Most people are really against it at first! Rory can’t stop seeing Tristan as a dick even after he’s changed, and Lorelai listens to Rory over Kirsty so she doesn’t approve either. Most people at Chilton aren’t really happy about it because they don’t think Kirsty is good enough for Tristan. Luke doesn’t really approve because he doesn’t think that anyone is good enough for Kirsty. The only people who really support it are Emily & Richard (because of his family; which makes Lorelai like it even less) and Miss Patty (who is their biggest stan tbh)

17. Describe or write a really fluffy scene!

Bracebridge Dinner!!! They go on the carriages together and it’s very soft and adorable and I just love them a lot and they’re there in the carriage with snow falling and when they’re stopped under the glow of a streetlight, Tristan brushes a snowflake from Kirsty’s eyelashes and tells her that he thinks he might be falling in love with her!!!! Kirsty says she thinks she might be falling in love with him too, then they kiss

18. Describe or write a really angsty scene!

I think the angstiest scene I have for them so far is when they breakup at the beginning of season 2! They didn’t see much of each other over the summer and then they get back to school and Tristan has fallen in with Duncan and Bowman and is acting like a dick and getting in trouble all the time. At first Kirsty tries to help but Tristan consistently rejects her help and eventually Kirsty breaks things off because as much as she loves him, she can’t help if he won’t let her and even though it hurts, his behaviour and new attitude are really hurting her

19. Talk about a headcanon you’ve never talked about before

When she first gets to Chilton, Kirsty doesn’t ever speak up in class. Rory is supposed to be the smart one and Chilton is about Rory getting into Harvard so she fades into the background but one day Tristan sees her notebook where she’s been writing down all of the right answers to Mr. Medina’s questions even though she never raises her hand. He corners her after class and asks why she lets it be “the paris show” when she knows the answers too and she just gives a sort of “Rory’s the smart one” reply wihtout really explaining; so the next day when the same thing is happening he eventually goes “You know, I think Kirsten knows” and from that point on he’s always the one pushing and encouraging her to actually let herself be seen as something other that Rory’s sister

20. What does a typical date look like for them?

Anything from grabbing a coffee to dinner and a movie to "let’s just exist in the same room doing our own things” to Tristan watching her dance rehearsals!!

21. What’s a really significant moment in their relationship?

I mean there are a lot but I think one of the earliest ones is when Kirsty first challenges Tristan on his dickish behaviour! It sets the tone for their relationship (holding each other accountable via healthy communication) and kickstarts their friendship

22. Ask your own question!

N/A

OTP Ask Game

#ask #answered #farklelucas #kirsty gilmore #about kirsty #kirsty x tristan #ship: we push and pull like a magnet do

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sorrelstream · 4 years

Text

entering “proper grammar” mode because I’m writing this on a google docs first and I don’t want to deal with all those ugly squiggles ahdfsdfds…

But!! Here’s the fully answered Ailuornymy question list, as requested by anon :D! More below the cut!

Favourite canon warrior name?

Hmm… let’s see… Honestly? Probably Silverstream! I don’t think we get many -stream suffixes anymore and there’s something soooo pretty about her name and the way it flows !!

Least favourite canon warrior name?

Snowbush. There’s something so clunky about the way this dude’s name reads in my head and I don’t know why!!! Also Harrybrook >:(

Warrior you’d most like to rename?

Harrybrook. I just!! It doesn’t sound nice at all please give him a better name :( Best name-change name? One-eye! I’m not sure if she asked for her name change or not, but I’ll admit “One-eye” is a pretty baller sounding name and I love that. Also Deadfoot has a cool name too (though I wish he had asked for that name change rather than saddled with it :/)!

Favourite canon character overall?

Mousewhisker and Hazeltail! They’re two unimportant side characters that don’t really do anything ever but man do I love them with my whole heart <3!

Least favourite canon character overall?

Thistleclaw and Crowfeather. I’ve talked about why I don’t like either of them a lot before so to keep it short they both make me incredibly uncomfortable nor do I enjoy reading about them at all.

Favourite Warriors book?

The Darkest Hour! It was my first Warriors book that I read from the main series (Sasha's manga was the first Warriors book in general and how I got into Warriors), and MAN does it still stick with me! So many scenes from that book are just iconic.

Least favourite Warriors book?

Anything from Dawn Of The Clans honestly :'). I tried so many times to get into reading that arc and I never could get into it -- it just bored me any time I tried. Same for AVoS, eh.

Favourite canon scene or dialogue of all time?

Such a random scene but there’s a scene I think about all the time from Power Of Three where Lionpaw has a nightmare about Hollypaw, and she just playfully (? ominously?) says “I’m going to get you” while hidden in the shadows before turning into a fox and attacking him. I think about it SO much…...

Favourite canon leader of all time?

Crookedstar, followed closely by Tallstar! I love them….

Character you think deserved better?

SO, SO MANY. IT’S UNREAL. Hollyleaf didn’t deserve to get killed off the VERY NEXT BOOK after she came back to ThunderClan, Snowkit didn’t deserve to get killed off just to push Speckletail into the nursery, Nightcloud didn’t deserve… literally anything she got both in canon and how the authors and fandom demonized her, Honeyfern…. Silverstream… the list goes on really :’/

Character you’d like to see “morally” flipped (made “bad” or made “good”)?

Leopardstar, kinda?? But not like. Morally flipped? I guess? I just mean I wish they had gone more into her redemption arc and why she allied herself with Tigerstar besides just “oh she was in love with him”. So it’s not that I wish she was morally flipped, but I wish they went more into her morality because she’s soo vague as it is (and, frankly, maybe I’m biased because I like her but I would’ve loved to see her overcome her initial prejudice or perhaps work for forgiveness for her Clan - perhaps her alliance with Tigerstar was out of worry for the entirety of her Clan since she saw him as the strongest cat and not just… because she “loved” him). Same for Breezepelt, honestly! They kept dancing between “he’s a troubled son of a negligent/abusive father” and “he’s evil :)” and personally? As a child of a negligent father who also abandoned me, it would’ve been way more … I’m not sure WHAT the word I’m looking for is but I think Breezepelt’s story would’ve been better if they focused on making him a troubled teen of a negligent, bad father and actually embraced Crowfeather being an antagonist in PO3 instead of not wanting to make him look bad. It’s just weird the erins flip flop between “this character is evil” and “this character is ok” so much it’s FRUSTRATING :/

Favourite AU (alternate universe) concept?

Answered here!

Warrior code rule you think is best?

Always help a kitten in need, no matter their heritage! I know that’s not the exact wording but anyways. Perhaps I’m biased because I, in general, don’t like reading about child death (I know it happens and I can handle it in some plots but sometimes it’s just so excessive), but in general I think it’s one of the best and genuinely helpful code laws, especially because kittens always deserve a chance at life. I think the second best rule would be the one that states a warrior does not need to kill to win a battle, because I think that adds a lot more depth (potentially) to how warriors value the lives of others and creates a bigger scene? scandal? when someone is killed in battle versus dying of wounds later on. It also, again, keeps the youngsters like apprentices safe!

Warrior code rule you think shouldn’t exist/should be changed?

If you know me, you won’t be surprised because it’s the same answer as always: the leader’s word is law. I’ve spoken a lot about that code before and even have a comic about its flaws, so I won’t go into it too much here, but I just think it’s a recipe for disaster.

Describe your ideal vision of Starclan/clan afterlife.

Hmmm let’s see… my ideal vision of StarClan/clan afterlife would be a little bit like what it’s like in canon at the moment but with a few twists. I think the borders would dissolve in StarClan so there’d be less in-fighting (though I imagine, after growing up your whole life hating your neighbors, a lot of cats have a hard time getting used to the no-boundary life-style of StarClan, and a lot of young/new spirits tend to stick within their own Clan cliques before venturing out and meeting former members of other Clans. Older spirits would be the ones most used to interacting with former members of other Clans). I think there’d be sections that mimic the corporeal Clan’s territories in theme, but with different landmarks and such so that new spirits have a new world to explore. I’d also take away the fading aspect because I don’t really think that’s… fair? I guess? It’s weird to me but I’d prefer not to go into it. I’d also make it so that there’s no great wisdom to these cats - or, at least, the wiser StarClan spirits are the ones that have been around for as long as anyone can remember. They wouldn’t be able to interfere with the living as much in canon and can only really visit medicine cats, or possibly leaders, in dreams; anyone else has to go to the sacred area to commune with the dead. Not sure what else though! This is just kind of a general idea.

Traditional or non-traditional naming. Thoughts?

I think both have their merits! While I prefer traditional naming systems because I enjoy seeing the way people develop suffix meanings and assign well-known meanings to them (and even connotations!), plus it helps me personally assign even the smallest trait to a side character so they feel just a little more real, I see why people would enjoy non-traditional naming systems as it does give more breathing room for individual name creation. Also, I’m not gonna lie, there’s some gorgeous lyrical names out there that flow beautifully. My heart will always belong to traditional naming, though, I think.

If traditional: What non-traditional suffix would you include in your system? If non-traditional: What’s your favourite canon suffix?

Traditional! I actually have included some non-traditional suffixes in my system, just for variety! But those are: -throat, -pool, -belly, -fern, -bee, -berry, -chirp, and -tooth, for example. There’s actually quite a few more but I don’t wanna list every single addition shfbd!

Best thing about the clan system as a concept in your opinion?

Hard to pick, honestly! But I do think the best thing about clans as a system is their unity; they’re a little society that has each other’s backs, and the care for young and elderly a lot is touching!

Favourite Warriors fanfiction (or fanfiction writer)?

HA this might be an obvious answer, but 100% solacefruit on ao3 (also: @/ailuronymy and @/burnt-sycamore on tumblr!). His worldbuilding is to die for and there’s something so charming and attention grabbing about his writing style that always has me waiting for the next update. Seriously, probably one of my biggest writer inspirations.

Favourite Warriors fanartist (includes animators)?

Answered here!

Most interesting villain?

Mapleshade and Sol, honestly. I’ve rambled about Mapleshade before, I think, but I think her story could have had a lot of potential to call out the misogyny and bias of StarClan and the code, and how mollies are often punished harsher than the toms for their code-breaking. Her story also features how weird the warriors are with the warrior code - it’s like they cherry pick what they want to believe? Oakstar sends three innocent kittens out of the Clan, presumably to die (which they do), despite the code speaking to never endanger a kitten’s life no matter their heritage, and no one ever questions him, or the rest of ThunderClan, for standing by to watch kittens die? Even Frecklewish outright stated she watched the kittens die and did nothing about it. Why? Why was everyone okay with punishing Mapleshade for breaking a rule of the code but no one questioned Oakstar or anyone else in ThunderClan for kicking out the kits alongside Mapleshade, when it was Mapleshade’s crime and not the kits? And why doesn’t Appledusk get punished or ostracized by his clanmates as severely as Mapleshade did? It had a lot of potential but it’s just a mess. Anyways - onto Sol. Another interesting concept kinda messed up by the Erins. In general, I really love villains that are just nuisances at best and no real threat - kind of like Heinz Doofenshmirtz - and with Sol’s backstory being the way it was, he was the perfect opportunity to have him be this little antagonistic shithead who, while annoying and causing problems, wasn’t actually a serious threat, and he of all villains would have had the best shot at redemption I think.

Favourite canon clan?

RiverClan! I love their aesthetic, their territory, and their general vibes. In love with water-based places <3!!

What would you ask Erin Hunter, if you could?

“Would you hand the series off to a new team of writers?” All good series must come to an end, but with Warriors being as broad as it is, I think this is a series where spin offs can be made and still thrive - just not with the current author staff we have at the moment. There’s lots of people with amazing, creative ideas for Warriors, and I know this is just a fantasy at best, but I would love to see a new writing team take over and weave brand new stories and worldbuilding with it in spin-offs. Hell, even I’d love to take a crack at publishing a Warriors spin off, but, again, it’s a fantasy at best.

Top five prefixes (canon or otherwise)?

Sorrel-, Chub-, Mink-, Rose-, and Vervain- (you can tell I like these prefixes considering these are all prefixes of characters featured in my webcomic besides Sorrel-, which is used for my wcsona’s name ha!) Honorable mentions to: Black- (or any color based prefix like Yellow-, Red-, Ginger-, Blue-, Gray-, White-, etc. I don’t know why but I’m fond of them), Beetle-, and Fidget- (which isn’t a traditional prefix, but I think it’s cute hehe.)

Top five suffixes (canon or otherwise)?

Just narrowing down for traditional because I need a smaller pool to pick from habdfsd but! -face, -flower, -stripe, -storm and -nose!

If you were on Drunk Warriors Rants, what would you talk about?

I have no idea what Drunk Warriors Rants is actually but I’m assuming it’s something where you get drunk and rant about warrior cats so… I would absolutely rant about Hollyleaf and mainly the wild mischaracterization the fandom has made of her break down and the murder of Ashfur. It irks me to no end how so many people have pushed this weird concept that Hollyleaf was aware her parents were Crowfeather and Leafpool when she murdered Ashfur to the point that most people I talk to genuinely don’t realize this, because not only does it just make so sense narratively but I feel like it really does take away from the depth that is her character. I think Hollyleaf is one of the few characters we get, like, an actual depth to, who is developed beyond “typical protagonist with love interest”, and has an interesting arc, downfall, and redemption. When she killed Ashfur, she was totally unaware that Leafpool and Crowfeather were her parents - in fact, the entirety of Sunrise is about Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze trying to figure out who their parents are, so I honestly don’t know where this whole “Hollyleaf knew about her heritage when she killed Ashfur” thing came from. It really ruins her arc by making her out to be some nonsense cat who killed to keep a secret she spilled anyways, and not a cat who killed to keep a secret she didn’t fully understand yet, who then completely unraveled once she discovered the origins and how her existence completely went against everything she was raised to believe in.

What would your warrior name be?

Pretty obvious answer but my warrior name would be Sorrelstream! Or possibly Sorrelstripe, but I lean towards Sorrelstream. I love to swim a lot actually but I wouldn’t say I’m a particularly strong or skilled swimmer but hey… It’s my warriors sona and I get to give him one (1) skill.

Bonus questions:

Describe your favourite original Warriors characters!

HONESTLY this question is a little tough because I have such a huuuge cast of original warrior characters it’s hard to narrow down! I’d say if you’re interested in hearing more about my ocs or seeing them in action to check out my @/roseface blog, which is dedicated to my wc comic, or check out my ao3 account (kiittenteeth) because I’ll probably be posting warriors-centric original character stories there soon!

Describe your original Warriors clans!

Heyyy fun fact! I’m actually working on a small novel fanfic (only about ten chapters long) featuring my fanclans! They’re a group of four Clans set in an abandoned gated neighborhood/area - FernClan (located in the local abandoned mall), PondClan (located in the abandoned golf course), GleamClan (located in the local abandoned restaurant/diner), and FieldClan (located in the abandoned K-12 academy school). I won’t go too much into them here since I want to explore their worldbuilding in my fic, but keep an eye out for them when I drop the first chapter of Ribs!

Talk about your feelings about the Warriors series!

Oh man. A lot. The series itself is… disappointing, at best, but I’m awfully attached to it no matter how many times I try to break away from it. It was my biggest media interest growing up (keyword: media), so it’s a pretty big part of me and the way I grew up. Plus I met a good chunk of my friends through warrior cats related areas, so :’)!!! It’s a series that despite all its flaws is incredibly close to me but I’m mainly here to read everyone’s fan content because MAN does the fan content go above and beyond!

(Asked by @/whocares-idont) What’s your opinion on fan made Clan pantheons?

I LOOVE fan made Clan pantheons actually! Mythology was always something I loved learning about as a kid, and I’m particularly fond of the worldbuilding people make for the Warriors setting. I feel like creating a pantheon and mythos tied to it adds to the depth of the world and makes it all the more interesting and realistic, especially since mythology is such a huge part of so many cultures, both ancient and modern one. I think creating pantheons really adds to the setting people make with warriors, and, honestly, they’re always really fun to read about!!

#yes i did this instead of working on season change pages dshfbsdfds didnt feel like drawing today #nor have i felt like drawing in the past UHHH [checks watch] 3 days. oops!#anyways :)!! anon who requested this i hope u enjoy :D!#long post

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movienotesbyzawmer · 4 years

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

I mostly like Quentin Tarantino's movies, but when I saw this in the theater I considered it one of his worst. But I still liked some stuff about it. I liked the thick atmosphere of late-sixties Los Angeles, and I liked Leonardo DiCaprio's character's arc & his performance, and I liked some of the playful touches, even though some of them feel indulgent. "Indulgence" is a big concern when it comes to evaluating QT's movies. Sometimes his indulgences are charming and sometimes not so much. I'm kind of hoping a second viewing will make me like this movie a bit more. Okay, here goes…

Vintage Columbia logo. That kind of thing always works well on me.

First five minutes or so are cinematic in a familiar way, not much to note. But at about 0:06:15 there's a jarring little interruption where a narrator tells us LD just lied. The only moment of narration at all.

Then Al Pacino is reflecting on some of the movies he's been watching, and we see some clips. They look kind of vintage, but also kind of Tarantino-y. Like, that scene where LD torches Nazis doesn't actually look like it could be from the 60s.

"Bounty Law! Starring Rick Dalton!" Then a cut to a dorky TV musical sketch. Kind of funny. Not subtle. I love that announcer voice that says "Bounty Law!"

One thing that often works well in QT movies is when he has an actor deliver, and savor delivering, a weighty minute or so of dialogue that really sets up a situation. Think Christopher Walken's monologue in Pulp Fiction or the first scene with Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds. This AP conversation where he talks to LD about where to take his career is like a mini version of one of those but doesn't last as long.

0:15:10 - First really nice period shot of LA. Very nice to look at.

I think the intended audience for this movie knows details about the Manson murders that most moviegoers don't actually know. For example, the ominous close-up of the sign for Cielo Drive. I don't think it's a mistake; I think he's knowingly alienating some viewers so he can give a better experience to those who do know about them. So I can't imagine recommending this movie without also strongly suggesting studying the Manson murders first.

Brad Pitt speeds down a boulevard in West Hollywood, a filming location which has been very lovingly decorated in the style of the period. The production design of this movie was rightly heralded.

Sequence with BP in his trailer making dinner for himself and his dog. Vivid; at one point they cut to a closeup of a pinup poster. Doesn't seem to be a reason for that except for "I'm Quentin Tarantino and I do whatever I feel like". Indulgent, is what I'm saying.

Also indulgent is this minute we're spending watching Roman Polanski drive to this party at the Playboy mansion.

I don't remember noticing this before, but that's Damian Lewis playing Steve McQueen and that's kind of perfect.

Scene where Kurt Russell is telling LD that BP has a creepy vibe and killed his wife, then we cut abruptly to apparently a scene of BP having a mundane argument with his wife maybe… okay, leaves the audience wanting more info, but maybe in kind of an irritating way.

Now this scene with Bruce Lee holding forth. Bruce Lee probably didn't generally speak in arrogant, bullying Quentin Tarantino monologues. Entertaining scene though.

But the left-me-wanting conversation from the previous scene helps this scene with Bruce Lee be more tense. Also the not-ringing-true snottiness of Bruce Lee makes it funny how that fight goes down.

0:52:30 - Okay, LD is in costume as a bad guy on a show, and he's got the long hippy hair that was spoken of in the AP scene. Just saying, I like that it was described and now we're seeing what I'd pictured.

And now this memorable conversation between LD and the little girl actress. The kid acts so grown up. This could have failed because of course no eight year old talks like this girl. But this scene is awesome. And without movies by QT, there aren't scenes like this.

Now Margot Robbie. We've seen her in a few scenes so far as Sharon Tate, but she's only been depicted as a dancing starlet bopping around town. For those of us that know she's a Manson victim, it works in a certain way. But does it work otherwise?

Okay, this is a peculiar part of the movie, it's pretty fun but kind of insider-y. LD is talking about being in the running for Steve McQueen's role in The Great Escape, and they edit in some outstanding CGI scenes of LD in the actual movie of The Great Escape. Playful, but just a weird bit of color…

…but then here's this next scene where MR, playing Sharon Tate, happens upon a cinema playing a movie she's in, and after a leisurely-paced interaction with the cinema workers, she goes in and watches the movie. Unlike the CGI trickery demonstrated in the last scene with LD, we watch actual Sharon Tate on screen. MR is visibly delighted to see "herself", and to hear the audience reacting to her performance. It all works, maybe more in spite of than because of QT's ever-present choice-broadcasting (which is also why we get a good look at MR's feet in this scene).

This is followed immediately by the sequence of the TV show LD is shooting. More playful indulgence. We see the scene edited as it probably would have been edited in 1969, but shot with modern cinematography, and interrupted by LD calling for his line, then backing up and redoing some of the scene. Can it be justified beyond just the undeniable fact that it's pretty interesting? Maybe that's enough. Maybe I'm being a snob, but also, what, was I not supposed to acknowledge it at least?

Stuff now starting with BP picking up Margaret Qualley's dirty hippy flirty cultist character. Before she even has any lines, the screen is practically bulging from the force of MQ's personality. It's entertaining.

1:28:30 - More of the TV show. We get to see LD's character be a good actor, and impress the director and the kid actor, which touches him, it's nice.

It's an hour and 38 minutes into the movie, and now we're to the scene on Spahn's Movie Ranch. I'm already thinking that by now we should be deeper into some kind of story than we are, and now this scene that I remember vividly. Not totally in a bad way, but for all the good things about it, it is stretched way out. Suspense is built up, skillfully, but without the kind of payoff we'd probably like. I mean, it's like a horror movie, with the rat squirming in the trap and the tense music and the "HE MAY BE TIRED" line from Dakota Fanning, but then it's back to not being a horror movie….

…in fact, it's on to this charismatic-tough-guy scene that feels Pulp-Fiction-y. Our MINDS are BLOWN that he hit the guy so hard and made the cultists so mad, it's a fantasy come to life, but just in a movie!!! This stuff is long, but not THAT boring, but maybe it could have been a little less boring, plus more relevant to later events.

LD and BP are now watching an episode of a show he'd done. Way more violent than TV shows probably were in 1969. They like watching his little "heavy" role and chuckling about it.

Then a SIX MONTHS LATER card, and some narration for the first time since that little jokey bit in the beginning. Also jokey is the fact that this new section is narrated, VERY narrated, and is the fact that Kurt Russell is the narrator also jokey?

2:02:50 - "…going back to Missouri." LD's character is from Missouri? With that accent? Is this also an in-joke?

The aforementioned narration persists for a long time. Seems gratuitous. QT was clearly like "We'll do the first two hours of the picture without a narrator, and then suddenly there will be a whole bunch of stupid narration hahahahahahaha! No one else would do that!!! That's reason enough for me to do it!!!!"

Finale is going on now with the Manson cultist killer people approaching the house. If you know what really happened, you're freaking out. But if you know what really happened and you already know how this movie changes that story… it's entertaining. What I'm saying is that it's funny this second time through, without the worry about seeing what really transpired.

"And you were on a horsie!" "Nah something dumber than that" Hahaha BP is super funny in this scene.

Dang, the dog just mutilates Tex, and it's funny!

He violences that woman very very very much, it's nuts, kind of funny but so disturbing.

LD flamethrowers that girl in the pool. She's in the pool. But still dies from being on fire. /shrug

We never did get the whole story about BP killing his wife.

The last scene, MR talks to LD, inviting him up for a friendly drink with her friends. It ends with us thinking how nice it would be if she and her friends hadn't been the victims of a cruel slaughter just moments earlier. That's not a bad way to end a movie. But it's a long movie, and I'll say this again: indulgent. You might not feel that in on the jokes, and even if you do, you might not have as much time for them as this movie requires.

#once upon a time in hollywood

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autisticstarseed · 4 years

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if u could, perhaps, bless us with all the applicable symbols from that fic ask for hvh 👀

ooOoOOOoOO Rub s gay hands togehter omg ty friend 😍;;;;;;

💡 - What was the motivation behind the story?

hHH i hadnt written in 10+ years so when i latched onto this plot idea i just thought itd be a good time to jump the shark and try it again !! i just wanted smth really edgy and depthful bc im emo and the rest kind of snowballed

💎- What was your favorite part?

osdlfksd;lf it’s hard to pick a fav but the drunk scene was definitely the most fun to write at least

⛰️- What was the hardest part?

THE SCENE WHERE THE GANG IS KIDNAPPED BY ENKI,,,, i debated toning down the violence but in the end i knew where the story was going (and where its still going) and that its gonNA be kinda dark so why hold back now ig

🎭- What was the feeling or mood you were going for?

BITTERSWEET AF,,, sort of just treading the line of ‘hopeful’ and ‘hopeless’ at all times to fully portray the feeling of being at your lowest, but with that classic tss ‘silver linings just around the corner’ kind of undertone

🏟️- Who was your intended audience?

mostly all the adults that watched tss as a kid and felt like spirituaLLY MOVED BY IT cuz i really tried to tap into that Emotion Tee Em we all felt when we found out that zak was [redacted]

🔬- Was there one scene you were building up to/knew you had to get just right?

hHH theres actually a LOT of scenes like that and i think a lot of my general motivation to keep going comes from that ‘WAIT FOR IT WAIT FOR IT’ vibe slkdf:SDF but the Plot Twist tm in the latest chapter was definitely a big’n, and theres a few more of those still to come :^)

🗝️ - What were you thinking when you wrote it?

kjdjFSDs:DF tbh whenever i start really writing, [’im shifting into soup mode’ seinfeld meme voice] im shifting into maladaptive daydreaming mode

🎥- Were there any tv shows, books, or movies that influenced this verse, if any?

:^) devilman crybaby pls forgive me for everytHing

📈- Was there a clear character arch you wanted____ character to go on?

i actually have a short list of what i somewhat consider to be the story arcs in my notes !! mostly just for organization and obvs i wont list the future ones but so far we’ve seen the kushtaka arc, the enki arc, and now we’re in what i call ‘the annunaki’ arc.

🎢- Were there any scenes you were nervous about? For audience reception or otherwise?

ALL OF IT JSHDJSKD, but again a lot of the enki scenes i was worried would be too edgy TM, and the whole annunaki plot as well i was worried might be too ‘out there’ for ppl, but it takes the story exactly where i always wanted it and lines everything up perfectly so i went for it lol. i was also ofc worried if people would like ila or not bc oc but most ppl love her actually which is so 😭❤️

☠️- Did you consider killing off any of the characters? Did you?

8^) [mickey mouse voice] this is a surprise tool that will help us later ,

✉️- Did you title your chapters? What title do you like best?

yes! the next one actually has my favorite chapter title yet, but so far i like ‘so strikes the harpoon’ since its a throwback to the first couple chapters

☀️- Was there symbolism/motifs you worked in?

o every single paragraph is an overly thought out middle school poem im entering in the talent show actually

🎵- Did you have a playlist/piece of music that went with this story?

Yes !! i have HVH insp part 1, Part 2, and an extra one for all those songs that have the vibes but just dont fit enough to make sense in a playlist

📜-Do you want to write something like this again in the future?

probably ! ive learned i definitely like the edgy/darker and emotionally driven stories with ongoing plot, so that trend will almost definitely continue. idk if ill write a dystopia again anytime soon, but i think my future stuff will at least retain that long and heavy vibe

💁- Did readers influence/change any part of this story?

oh yEA like basically i was ready to quit after the very first chapter before it was even written and kinda just got it all out on a whim of motivation but was expecting to flake on it like i tend to do with projects, but the invested response to it was just so uplifting that its what ive been riding on all ten chapters and im so grateful for it :’)))

✏️-Would you go back and change anything if you could?

hHHHHHHH yes and ok this is terrible but i actually tend to avoid re-reading my older chapters until i hAVe to bc i suffer from that sO much ,,, , its just little things like tiny words i wanna change or bits i wanna take out/put in and once or twice ive even caught a mistake or plot hole/smth i forgot to add that i rly do have to go back and edit and i just turn to dust every tim e

⭐- What’s a scene/paragraph you’re proud of?

i really liked the northern lights scene!! it was meant to be a pivotal moment of that ‘bittersweetness’ vibe i was talking abt and it was another one of those scenes i had been planning for a while;;;

“ I think of how much the rest of the family would love this. This isn’t like the moon and the sun, where I can see it and know that even if it looks different, they’ll see the same one soon enough, wherever they are. This reminds me only that I am not with them. It stings. It seems unnatural for something so gentle and natural to appear before us as if we aren’t in complete, total fucking chaos. After all we’ve been through, and the sky still dances. “

📣-What was the best piece of encouragement you got?

AVERY ALL OF UR LIVEBL OGS AND COMMENTS GIV ME SUCH L I FE, ,, ,, CRYIGN CAT FA ce

🔦-Did you learn anything while writing it? About yourself? Writing?

isdfhSDF YEs, part of my hesitation to write came from this thing where i always just assumed there was a wildly high standard of writing in fandom spaces like in original literature spaces, where you had to have like 10+ sentences to a paragraph and you had to describe every tiny detail of a setting and you had to follow every single grammar rule or it was unreadable but like. genuinely its like sculpting with words as long as you have a shape ppl get the idea which is such a weight off my shoulders lol, its still a lot of work but so much fun to know i can to an extent do what i want and ppl actually like it like that. i also learned that like most other writers i have to cause my favs emotional and physical pain,

🎁- Any writing advice for people who want to write something like this?

hhHHHH 1. please do it its so fun just give in to the edge my guy , 2. try to get comfortable re-reading your chapters, for me its like when ppl listen to themselves sing/act but im trying to do better bc its so much more consistent when i keep it fresh in my mind and it also boosts confidence when u can pick out the things u like instead of the things u dont, 3. trying to have at least one scene in mind for each chapter that ur excited to write so u can have motivation to update faster! for me it doesnt have to be smth i think would excite the audience either like it could be the most basic thing but just having an idea of it and knowing i want to see it come to life rly helps me stay on top of it all

TY SM FRIEND THIS WAS SO FUN x x )

#lochley #long post/ //#hvh #human v humanity #secret saturdays #tss #sorry to spam the tag with a longk boi but hHBHHBH #TYYY #fanfic

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