#we did a rewatch of the movies (the three real ones)

[wheel-within-a-wheel]

(3/2): 24. a song associated with a holiday or a special day?

okay this is an odd answer. but

#two christmases ago i got my brother a dvd of shrek from a thrift store #and he got me a dvd of shrek from a thrift store as well. #also we already owned a dvd of shrek?? #granted it was a pretty scratched one i think #that kind of kicked off a brief shrek hyperfixation in both of us #we did a rewatch of the movies (the three real ones) #and we would have the soundtracks on a hell of a lot #this was around the time nym4 was going so this is why shrek was a trivia subcategory in one of the challenges #that was actually a pretty nice time for me in spite of everything going on #the christmas after that one was way more boring and forgettable so now i have this association between the shrek soundtrack #and the christmas/ new year period #i couldn't really pick a singular song. sorry for not properly answering the question #my posts #asks

[corrodedcoffins-blog]

Invisble String

luke hughes x actress!reader

note: short cute introduction to this au, get to know how long Y/n has been Luke's celeb crush and get to know Y/n

also in 2018 reader is 17 and Luke is 15 for reference so like do the math i can't do everything

2018

"Why do you even want to watch 'It' you hate clowns?" the eldest brother asked, holding a bowl of popcorn while he rounds the couch to were he previously sat.

"Jack asked for a scary movie so I suggested a scary movie." though he wasn't lying, both statements were true, it wasn't the real reason he suggested the movie. But like he would ever admit that to his brothers because he'd never hear the end of it if they knew. Little did he know they already did.

"He wants to watch it because Y/n L/n is in it." Jack mumbled, not looking up from his phone where he looked up the cast list, and he begins to laugh along when his older brother starts to.

"Not true."

"Too true."

"Shut up. Are we watching this or something else." Quinn says, being the mediator among the three.

All throughout the movie, while Luke was gawking at his dream girl, Jack and Quinn would make eye contact over his head silently laughing at their brothers face of awe whenever Y/n was on screen. When she walked slow-mo out of the store, the scenes at the quarry, Luke had the same face as the boys on the screen except he wasn't acting.

-

2020

73 Questions With Y/ L/n | Vogue

Y/n opens the door for the vogue camera man, after she just shut it on him.

"Hey! Y/n L/n! You excited for your 73 questions with vogue?" the interviewer asks enthusiastically.

"Yes, I am.. Does that count as your first question?"

While the man asks several questions, Y/n lead them into her living room.

"Who do you want to play you in a movie about your life?"

"Umm.. Sadie Sink. And I would like to play Sadie in the movie about her life."

"What is the knewest thing in here?"

After quickly looking around the girl grab a recent purchase of hers a stuffed octopus.

"I recently bought this stuffed animal. It's an octopus, because there's only one or else it would be octopi."

"Interesting, and what do you think is the coolest thing in this room?"

Setting down the octopus, Y/n walks towards her book case. Grabbing what looks to be a very old book.

"This is a vintage edition of Little Women the same one my mom read to me when I was 12 and the same one I reread in preparation for my role as Amy March."

While placing the book back on the shelf the man asks, "Without looking do you know what the last word of Little Women is?"

Jokingly Y/n pick the book up again and starts to open it, and the two chuckle, she then continues to answer the question. "No, um..I know, 'end'."

"End?"

"Yep. That counts as a question."

"It's actually 'this'"

"... 'This'?" the man nods before Y/n continues, "No, you're wrong it's end. Because all books end in 'the end' how could you not know that."

The interview continues into the girl kitchen, while she pours herself an iced tea.

"What is your favourite sport?"

"I don't really have a favourite sport, but I guess I'll say hockey. 'Cause y'know they're hot."

-

imessage

Rowdy

Did you see your girlfriend said hockey boys were hot?

Maybe you have a chance

Lukey

Shut up.

Luke rewatched that interview a couple to many times.

-

2023

Y/n_updates

liked by i_said_SpeakNow, LikeRibbonsInYourHair, and others

Y/n_updates: Y/n was at the New Jersey Devils vs Philadelphia Flyers preseason game! she was with the Devils wags too! Just more proof that her and Luke Hughes are dating... What do you think?

view all comments

taytaySwft: they would be so cute!! i hope they're together ☺️

_spider_man: what's with the it girlies dating professional athletes right now?

jackhugheswife: damn he could do better than her

amyMarchstan: better than the gorgeous and successful woman she is?

harrie13: I miss her and Lucas 🙁

stranger_80: No him and Sadie!!!

anne_Cats: so she's got a thing for Lukes huh?

harrie13: lmao i didn't even realize that 😭😭

TaybrinaStan: she's doing for hockey what Taylor is doing for football.

note: yes i did only make her previously date Lucas McLaughlin for that one joke that's not even funny.. what about it?

#luke hughes x famous!reader #luke hughes x reader #luke hughes #luke hughes x y/n #luke hughes oneshot #jack hughes #quinn hughes #hughes brothers

[towriteloveontheirarms]

Peakaboo! I see you... (modern!Stalker!Aegon II Targaryen x reader)

synopsis: You have always felt safe in your own home, shutting out the scary, real world. Unknowing, that someone stared at you through the large windows almost every day and night. But a window is just glass, and glass… oh it breaks so, so easily…

warnings: Dark fic, non-con, slight somnophilia, stalking, obsession, mentions of alcohol and drinking, afab reader, angst, fluff, smut, oral sex (f receiving), p in v sex

word count: 8k

taglist: @urmomsgirlfriend1, @agqrtz

(If you want to be tagged in the `kissing booth AU´, for a specific character/fandom or in general let me know in my asks, comments or DMs)

a/n: So, in honor of spooky season I started rewatching `You´ and this is what happened. Let me know if I missed any tw´s or anything. I hope y´all enjoy!! <3

When you had moved to King´s landing you found yourself alone and truly scared for the first time in your life. Fleabottom wasn´t the safest place to begin with, but it was the only thing you could afford while attending Uni, leaving you very little safe spaces. One of them being your friend Sarah Snow´s place and the other, your own apartment. Where you could shut out the scary real world with the turn of a key and multiple locks. Cuddling into your bed with your phone, the tv providing the only source of light in the apartment. It´s still early in the evening, but you had always valued a quiet night in over going out to some shitty bar or club or party, like your friends did. You silently shake your head at the thought of Sarah, Aly and Cassandra getting hammered at some party right now. And as if they heard your thoughts your phone starts to ring with an incoming videocall.

“Hey girl!” Aly exclaimed the second you accept the call. Making you hold the phone a little further away at the sheer volume of her voice. You can see your other two friends in the background, getting ready for going out.

“Hey, Aly. What are you up to?” You ask in a much quieter tone.

“We´re going out tonight.” By the way her words slur ever so slightly it is clear that the three of them had been pregaming.

“Okay, but… Why are you calling me? You know I am not in on the whole party thing.” A feeling in your gut told you, that a plan was afoot. A plan you wouldn´t like as much as sitting at home and watching movies.

“You´re coming with us. That´s why.” Cassandra´s voice sounds from the background.

“Oh no. No. No. No.” You insist.

“No, no talking back this time. Your gonna like it. I promise. There is this really niche bar, that has an open mic thing tonight for anyone that wants to share their work. It will be great.” Cassandra tries to convince you in a sweet voice.

“Ugh. Cas, Aly…”

“Come on. You always whine about being insecure about your writing. This could be great for you.” Sometimes you really hated your friends persistence. Especially when her points weren´t even half bad.

“Alright, fine. Send me the address and give me an hour to get ready.” You hear them cheering as you rub your eyes with the hand that isn´t holding up the phone. “But I won´t get behind that microphone. No matter what you say.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just get yourself presentable and come down. We´ll meet you there.” Just as suddenly as they had called you, they hang up again.

You throw your phone to the side and sigh deeply. Running your hands over your face, followed by bringing them down onto your upper thighs in an attempt to motivate yourself. Of course it doesn´t work and so, with another sigh you turn the tv off and hop into the shower. The warm water feels nice on your skin and when the time to step out, the typical feeling of not wanting to leave overcomes you. But you have to get ready if you don’t want to get shit from Sarah or Cas, so you force yourself to put on some light makeup and grab the next best clothes from your closet, that make you look presentable. Looking at the location of the bar you realize that it is only a few subway stops from your place and so you grab your phone, keys and wallet and head out to the station closest to your place. Checking twice if the pepper spray is still in your purse.

You walk down the stairs just in time for the subway to arrive.

When you arrive at the bar Sarah, Cassandra and Aly are already waiting outside. Greeting you with a mutually hollered “Babes!!”

“Heyyy!” You mirror their tone. Putting on a wide smile to not let them see how tired you really were.

Together the four of you enter the bar and the first thing you notice over the low chatter is how stuffed it is already. You barely find a table that fits all of you and immediately order a round of shots. A good choice as it turns out, because you barely have time to put down your coat, when you hear your name announced over the mic. A frown flits over your face, but you don´t have the heart or maybe the energy for a discussion now, so you pound back another shot and get up on the small makeshift stage. You sit down on the uncomfortable bar stool and introduce yourself. Beginning to read the latest excerpt from the book you were writing that you still have on your phone. The audience honestly doesn´t give much of a reaction, aside from your friend´s aggressive cheers. And the spotlight blinds you a bit, letting your anxiety practically spike. You can hear your voice shake as you read. Your hands and legs still tremble when you finally get back to the table.

“Y´all are such assholes. I told you I didn´t wanna read…” You protested as you take a drink from them.

“Aw, you were great either way, babes. Now come on. Let´s enjoy the evening.” Sarah tries to keep peace, laying a soothing hand on your arm. You know she means well. All of them do, but you still feel kind of hurt, that they had gone behind your back like that.

Over all the commotion and the people that read after you, you completely ignore the blonde stranger who, ever since you had entered the bar, couldn´t seem to turn his eyes away from you. Blissfully unaware of the dark thoughts behind them. And it stays that way until you leave. Tipsy, staggering up to the uber under his hidden watchful eyes. You close the door behind you and push the feeling of being watched aside as a side effect of being a woman alone in the outside world. He follows you in his own car. Thoughts of needing to have you and being the one for you swirling in his mind and possessing his every thought. Your mind however is occupied with the need for sleep and so he goes easily unnoticed. Looking through the widow of your ground level apartment as you undress and go to bed in only your underwear. He can even count himself lucky enough to go unnoticed by you over the next few days as you follow your usual routine. Going to the gym, the library, lessons, grocery shopping. Whatever you do, his eyes are on you. Until he is sure he knows your schedule by heart. Moving him along to step two of his plan.

You meet up with your friends at a bar again. A different one this time and on your own accord. It was the last day before spring break and them all leaving to visit home. All of them except for you. You don´t mind not going home so much as being alone for a whole week. So, you make sure to enjoy the evening with them and once again ignore the feeling of being watched that had sat in the back of your brain for the past week or so. And when you go to get another round of drinks, that´s when he strikes.

You make your way over to the bar. Not really looking where you are going, when you run into someone. Their drink spilling all over the front of your shirt. You jump back as the wet fabric clings to your skin.

“Woah, I´m so sorry. Are you okay?” The stranger gives you a bright smile, flashing his perfect teeth. A smile that reaches his lilac eyes. Making them sparkle and crinkling their corners. He holds out some napkins for the stain that steadily grows more uncomfortable.

“Thank you. Yes, no. Yeah, I´m alright. Uh, I´m sorry too. I totally didn´t watch where I was going.” You tap at the stain in order to hopefully take some of it off. Smiling back at him. You can´t help but to. “Let me buy you a new drink. To make up for all of that.”

“No, no. I should buy you one. I totally ruined your shirt. I insist.” He is so effortlessly sympathetic that you couldn´t even protest against his words if you wanted to.

“Okay.” Youn nod and follow him to the bar, where you sit down together.

“I´m Aegon, by the way.” He extends his hand for you to shake, which you do while offering up your name.

“It´s nice to meet you, Aegon.” The two of you order drinks and fall into conversation easily. Talking about anything and everything until you feel your phone vibrate inside of your pocket. Pulling it out you see Cassandra´s name on the screen. Reminding you of who you actually came here with and why.

Another glance at the clock tells you, that it is well past midnight.

“Shit, I didn´t realize it was that late already.” You turn to him to say goodbye. Ready to never see this handsome not so strange stranger ever again, when he makes you another offer.

“Want me to drive you home? It´s probably not safe out there at this time of night.”

“That would actually be so great, but I´d hate to inconvenience you. I probably live in the whole other direction from where you need to go.” You rub your neck. Taking a step back, ready to leave to say goodbye to your friends.

“Come on, it would be my pleasure to do that for you. I would hate for something to happen to you on your way home. Just say yes.” Aegon´s gaze is so intense and there is only one thought behind them, that the alcohol has made you ignorant of to his luck. If you leave alone now, he wasted his chance.

You sigh. “Okay, alright. Thank you so much. I just need to say bye to my friends and then we can go.”

He offers you his jacket to hide the stained shirt and then follows your lead back to the table.

“Hey, girls. I´m super sorry I just dipped, but I met Aegon and he´s gonna drive me home now. I´ll explain tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yeah, alright. Just be safe and don´t do anything we wouldn´t do.” They wink at you and turn back to their conversation as you and Aegon make your way outside to his car.

Ever so gentlemanly he opens the door to the passenger side of the golden Mercedes s-class for you, making you curtsy jokingly and giggle, then walks around to the driver side, to get in himself.

The two of you find your way back into the conversation and so you don´t even realize that you never actually told him were you lived. Nevertheless he pulls up in front of your apartment complex in no time.

“I had a really nice evening with you tonight.” He says with another wide grin and soft chuckle.

“Me too. And I´m sorry again for that drink. One would think that at my age I would´ve learned how to watch where I´m going.” You run a hand through your hair. Still slightly embarrassed about your carelessness.

“No, again, it is fine. I should have watched my steps as well, but if you really want to apologize you could give me your number? And we could meet up again some time. I´m guessing you´re on spring break too now.” It´s almost frustrating how good he looks with his head tilted and those beautiful lilac puppy dog eyes. If there was any doubt about wanting to see him again, they are all gone now. You need to see him again. So, you pull out your phone and give him your number.

“Don´t let me wait too long before I hear from you.” You give him one last smile before exiting the car. He sits in the car until you close the building door behind you and then parks his car around the corner to go back and observe you for a bit longer without being overly obvious.

Through the large windows Aegon watches you like every night of the past week. Stepping out of your clothes, doing your nightly skincare routine, before slipping on the smallest pair of pajamas he had ever seen and slip underneath the covers to watch some more tv. Falling asleep in front of it. All with an almost dorky smile. He thinks you are the cutest thing he has ever seen. The way you are so excited about your little meeting is something he has never seen in his life and he is instantly hooked. Fantasies about you being all excited and running up to him when he enters the apartment after a long day out enter his mind. Thoughts about sharing the sweetest kisses. When he opens his eyes he sees something that isn´t as innocent as he first perceived you.

Your hands caress your breasts and wander bellow the blanket, your back arching as they enter your core.

Aegon lets out a breathless curse. His own hand wandering inside his pants to tug on his length. His thoughts turn instantly. From innocent kisses to you arching your back up until your breasts touch his chest. Writhing and squirming underneath him from the pleasure he is giving you. Your tight walls fluttering around his cock as you come from the circles his thumb rubs into your clit. He has to clamp his hand over his mouth so you don´t hear him moan outside of your window. Once he´s finished, he leaves. Not wanting to push his luck, but definitely looking forward to the next time he´d see you.

The next morning you text the girls group chat. Apologizing for your behavior the previous night, by telling them every detail about the conversation with Aegon. How nice he was to you and how you thought that maybe, after a couple more dates, you could say he is the one. And as if he smelled you were talking about him in that moment you get a message from Aegon. Asking you out for coffee. You try to hide the smile that forces its way onto your mouth by biting your lower lip, even though there is no one there to hide it from. You answer him quickly and this time take a little extra time getting ready. Facetiming Aly, who is the only one that isn´t on a plane yet, to consult her on what best to wear. Even if she teases you relentlessly about being so nervous about a simple coffee date.

The truth is you haven´t been out on an actual date in years. Not after your last boyfriend had broken up with you for reasons only known to that absolute piece of shit. You had wasted three years pf your life on him and he couldn´t even give you a reason as to why he didn´t want to be with you anymore all of a sudden.

You take a deep breath to calm your nerves and hopefully stop the bouncing on your leg. Entering the small café he had asked you out to where you find him already sat at a table. A half smirk spreads his face. And by the seven you have to calm yourself down not to do anything embarrassing as a result of the glee you feel upon seeing him.

“Hey, I didn´t make you wait too long did I?” You ask bashfully.

“No worries. I basically just sat down.” He assures you. Watching with careful eyes as you take of your coat to reveal the dress you had chosen with Aly´s help and are now second guessing if the choice hadn´t been a bit too revealing.

“Phew, I´m glad to hear that. I hate making people wait for me.” You wipe away an imaginary drop of sweat and chuckle.

“Nah, you´re good.” He goes to say something else, but in that moment a waitress interrupts him to take your order. Which of course Aegon makes a mental note of. Just like anything he had learned about you so far. The waitress, an older woman, seems to recognize the nature of your meeting and how nervous you are and gives you an encouraging smile. You smile back at her and make sure to remember to tip her later.

“Alright so, normally I´d ask how you have been, but since we last saw each other last night I guess did you come home well yesterday?” You quipped.

“Yeah, I did. How about you?” The two of you share a laugh. Without the alcohol in your system he seems even more effortlessly charming. Coffee gets followed by dinner, which he invites you to. Talking about family, life, dreams and aspirations. You tell him about your parents’ divorce, the relationship you have with all of them, how studying and writing is going. How your dream is to be published one day. You open up to him more than you ever have to anyone in that short amount of time and he listens. He listens so well. Telling you about his studies and his father’s company, that he will inherit one day, yet he never makes you feel small compared to him, like others would probably make you feel. It would be easy to, but he just doesn´t. And your feelings for him grow ever stronger. He even persists on paying for you. Saying that you could pay the next dinner, but the two of you are aware that you could never earn enough money to pay a meal this expensive.

At the end of the day he drops you off at home once more, but when you hug him goodbye whispering “Thank you so much. I had such a great time today.” Into his ear he goes in for a kiss.

It’s a possessive claiming of your mouth kind of kiss. All clashing teeth and heavy bursts of breath. Wandering hands, pulling on clothes in a needy attempt to get the close proximity you both want so deeply. He pulls the air from your lungs only to breath it back into them a second later. It´s hard to do, but in the end you manage to pull away.

“It´s late. We should continue this another time.” You whisper with your forehead resting against his shoulder. Everything inside of you screams to keep going, but your brain told you to take it slow. To savor it.

“Okay. I can´t wait.” He lays a peck on the shell of your ear. Letting you go reluctantly. “Text me when you get home.”

You chuckle and step out of the car. Pulling out your phone the second you close the door behind you to text him a quick `I´m home. Had such a great time with you. Can´t wait to do this again <3´.

He watches the glow of the screen vanish behind the large window. Replying with a `Same. Sweet dreams<3´, but this time he doesn´t stay around to watch you. Instead he goes home to sink into one of the dreams he had ever since he met you. One where he watches you sleep in the morning, the rising sun and the way you lay sprawled out beside him making you look like an utter goddess. And then you wake up to give him a smile that makes him feel like he has a heart attack. It feels so real that when he wakes up to another text from you, he has to pull himself together to not mess up his carefully hatched out plan. His train of thought gets interrupted by his phone ringing.

“Good morning…” Your raspy morning voice comes out of the speaker. You sound absolutely gorgeous to him. Making his eyes roll back into his head a little.

“Good morning, doll. What´s up?” The smirk on his face is audible in his voice.

“Nothing much. I just wanted to hear your voice.” You murmur, rubbing your eyes. “Oh gods, that sounded so cheesy. I´m sorry.”

“Hey, you´re good. I actually think that´s really cute.” He muses.

“Oh? Well, I guess I don´t have to feel like it is too soon when I tell you I had the weirdest dream tonight.” You chuckle and clear your throat from the sleepiness.

“Really? Do tell.”

“I don´t know. I can only remember that we were together, in my apartment and I guess you were watching me sleep and it felt so real… I probably sound so weird right now.” You scoff at yourself. Wondering why you even told him that.

He on the other hand chuckles at your confession. Cursing himself out in his mind, to will himself to stay strong.

“I had the same dream. I hope you don´t think I´m like a stalker or obsessed or something now.” His tone is lighthearted, but the gods now he needs you to stay unconscious of that side of him. No, he wasn´t any of those things. He was looking out for you. You meant a lot to him and that meant he wanted to protect you. “So, you know. You at least aren´t weirder than I am.”

Sadly you have a shit ton to study, before spring break ends and so you aren’t able to meet again in the coming days. Of course that doesn´t mean that he can´t see you though. The feeling of being watched follows you around like a burning shadow throughout that time. Yet you push it away. Telling yourself that it was probably just exam stress or social anxiety or something. Which Aegon, knowing you as well as he does, is grateful for. Usually he would hate to see you anxious or stressed, wanting to take all that burdens you off you, but when it came to him getting caught… Well, not that he was doing anything wrong, but experience has taught him, that people tended to see things differently from him.

So he stays hidden. Texting and calling you every day and watching you sink your fingers or a toy into your sweet cunt each night. Every time he is overcome by thoughts of how you would make so much sweeter sounds if it was his length that your walls where fluttering around as wave after wave of pleasure rolls over you. Each time he reminds himself anew that things are going steady with you and it would  only be a short while until those thoughts became a reality.

On one of those evenings you surprise him with another call. Curses fall from his lips under his breath as he scrambles around the corner, praying that you haven´t heard his phone.

“Hey…” He says after pressing the green button on the screen.

“Hey, is this a bad time? You sound kinda out of breath.” Your voice chirps on the line.

“No, you could never call at a bad time.” Except for now kinda. “What´s up? Didn´t you say you wanted to write all day?”

“Yeah, I did. When my friends come back tomorrow there will be little chance to do so uninterrupted, but um… I couldn´t focus. Like at all.” You murmur.

“Oh, can I do anything to help?” he purrs.

“You could get some Starbucks and come over?” You ask in the most tempting voice you could offer. Not that he needed much persuasion to tend to any of your wishes as soon as you asked.

“Sure. I´m on my way.”

“You´re the best. Thanks.” You chirp and then the only thing that can be heard on this side of the line is the tone of the disconnected call from the device in his hand. Sprinting to his car, he almost drops his keys in anticipation at the prospect of spending time with you. Basically racing to your favorite coffee shop to get coffee, and some pastries he knew would be more than happy about right now. He knew, knowing everything about you would come in handy one day.

At the same time you put your laptop to the side. Trying to find something to pass the time until he would arrive. Which was harder to do than you would have thought and so with nothing to do, you decide to put some effort in your little meeting. Sitting down in front of the small closet to look for a cute dress to put in. Getting ready just in time for a knock on the door.

“Come in, it´s open.” You yell as you go to sit back down on the couch.

“You know, you probably shouldn´t leave your door unlocked in this neighborhood. Whoa…” He stops in the doorway when he sees you.

“Wh-What?” You tilt your head and look at him with confusion in your wide eyes. You look so innocent right now.

“Do you always write like that?” Aegon puts down the snacks and vaguely motions to your outfit of choice. “Cause… If so, I want to always be around for it.”

You can´t hide the snorting laughter that forces it´s way out of your lungs. “That´s really sweet, but no. I usually don´t look like this at all when I write. In fact I usually look so much worse you would want to stay as far away from me as possible.”

“I seriously doubt I anything in this world could ever make me want to stay away from you.” Aegon lays his gentle hands on your shoulders and a feeling of warmth spreads in your guts.

You look up at him through your lashes and before you know it your eyes flutter close. Then, a moment later, your lips meet his in the most gentle kiss ever. And you don´t know when things escalate. If it is when your hands come up to cup his cheeks. If it is when you stand on your tip toes to make it easier to deepen the kiss ever so slightly or when his tongue presses against your lower lip to silently ask for entrance. The result is the same. The two of you forgot about why he came over in the first place and abandon everything to make yourselves more comfortable in the bedroom. Rolling around the mattress as you make out heavily. His hands are everywhere on your body at the same time, just as yours are on his. Each touch feels like the right thing to do. The only thing that feels even more right is the way he sinks himself into your tight, warm walls. Like he had wanted from the moment he first saw you.

He´s so careful not to hurt you and as you lay in his arms afterwards, cuddled close, his finger drawing small patterns on your shoulder, you can´t hold back the smile. This is the fastest you have ever gone this far with a person. Mostly out of fear, that they would only want to use you for it. Yet even after only one official date with him, you know there is no reason to be afraid. It´s almost funny how shortly you have known each other and yet you rely on him for everything. He knows you so well already, has an incredible gift of listening and observing, like no one else you had met before. Ever. Before you notice it, a giggle falls from your lips, just as he kisses your temple.

“What´s so funny, doll?” Fuck, even the nickname you usually hated sounded so good from his lips.

“Nothing, just… I just thought about how shortly we´ve known each other and yet we know so much about each other already. I never had that.” You say in an amused tone.

“I´m gonna go ahead and take that as a good thing.” He huffs a chuckle.

“Oh yes, definitely. I honestly love how open we can be with each other.” Oh if only you knew.

“Me too.” He mumbles into the crown of your head. Placing another peck there.

As it turns out it isn´t only the first time you sleep with him, but also the first time you spend the night together. Your activities had robbed all of your energy and with a little more quiet chatter, the two of you slide of into slumberland.

You are sad to watch him leave the next morning, but the alarm on your phone, that interrupts your romantic little breakfast that Aegon had cooked, painfully reminds you, that you promised to pick up Aly from the airport.

“I´ll call you later, okay?” You promise him as he steps out of your car.

“I can´t wait already.” He replies.

You make your way to meet your friend and of course he follows you once again. Extra careful that you don´t see his car. It wasn´t necessarily low-key after all. Things are easier once he follows you into a café that looks like no ordinary student could pay for the food there already, keeping a close eye on you as you and your friend order brunch, nothing unconventional from what you have told him about her and your other friends. He starts to toy with the idea of leaving to not get caught, when something Aly says makes his ears perk up.

“So, how is it going with your new favorite person?” Her tone is light and she wiggles her eyebrows at you.

“I already told you to stop calling him that.” You laugh at her antics. “And don´t even try calling him my boyfriend. We haven´t even been on two dates yet.”

“Yeah, alright. Not even on two dates, but he has also been inside of you and has spent the night at your place after getting you snacks simply because you asked him to…” she shoots you an unbelieving look. “Like seriously. And you haven´t even told me all the dirty little details yet. Bitch, you owe me. I thought we were friends.”

If his heart beat higher before, when the word boyfriend left your lips, it beats even higher now at the mention of your night together.

“There´s not much to tell.” You try to deflect.

Not much to tell? He asks himself. He thought he had done better than `not much to tell´.

“Oh hells no. You know I won´t let you off that easy.”  She persists.

“Alright. Okay. It was great. He was so sweet and made sure to make me come like two times before he thought about himself. You happy now?” You try to keep your voice down as much as possible so the people around you don´t hear. Which is only a half success as Aly´s squeal gets you some of the unwanted attention anyway.

“Was he big?” Her question earns a shocked expression and gasp from you. And a concealed giggle from Aegon.

“I mean I guess. You know I don´t have much to compare it to, but I´d say he was solid.” You shrug. “Now can we please change the topic? How was your time with the family.”

Aly starts on a rant about everything her family did and said and so Aegon decides to go before he truly overtaxes his luck.

As he walks by the window you are sitting close to, you think it is him, weighing the options of saying something or not, deciding against it. You were just imagining things, because Aly was talking without a single pause and you missed him. You sigh, trying to concentrate on whatever your friend was talking about.

When you finally get home it is late afternoon already and you are pretty tired, but you can´t pass up on the call you promised Aegon.

“Hello there.” He picks up.

“General Kenobi.” You answer in the fashion that the Star wars quote commands.

“How did it go with your friend?” He asks feigning genuine interest as if he hadn´t been there for the most interesting part.

“Yeah, it went well. I just got home, basically.” You sigh and rub your eyes, who were burning for some reason.

“Wow.” He huffs amusedly.

“You can say that loudly. I originally planned on asking you if you want to come over, but I totally forgot that I have an early class tomorrow that I need to prepare something for. This week is gonna kick my ass…”

“Ah, damn. So how about we meet up Friday evening? I could pick you up and we could check out this new bar that just opened.” He suggests. Knowing already what this meant for the coming days.

“That would be so cool.” A yawn interrupts what you were saying. “Gods I´m sorry I´m really tired. Would you be mad if we hang up now and I´ll text you again before class?”

“Not at all. You go ahead and do your thing. I´ll hear from you tomorrow.” He reassures you.

“Thank you. Good night, Aeg.” You chirp.

“You have a good night too and don´t overdo it with the studying.”

“I won´t, mom.” Your faux annoyed tone gets broken up by one last chuckle before the two of you hang up. You always laugh so much with him. More than with anyone else and at the same time your deep talks are on such a level you don´t know how to express it to your friends.

You have always felt safe in your own home, shutting out the scary, real world. Unknowing, that someone stared at you through the large windows almost every day and night. But a window is just glass, and glass… oh it breaks so, so easily…

Friday takes forever to roll around, but when it finally does, nothing can wipe the smile from your face. Your mood is basically indestructible. As is his. You sing and dance your way all through out getting ready and when Aegon rings the bell you open the door with a spring in your step.

“Someone´s in a good mood.” Aegon muses.

“Just happy about seeing you.” You admit. Hugging him and kissing his cheek as a greeting. “Lemme just grab my purse and then we can go.”

You lock the door behind you and together he drives you out to a place that can hardly be classified as a bar. Upon entering the place you feel massively underdressed, but he doesn´t seem to care. He is just happy to be there with you and you are happy to be there with him. He asks about your week and how your writing is going while you sip one drink after another until you feel a light buzz. The alcohol making your insides feel as warm as his presence and his hand on your thigh do. Over the duration of the evening you gradually move closer, but by the time he drops you off, he lets you go with just a quick peck to your lips.

“Thank you for the nice evening.” You rub your eyes. Wanting to say something, anything to stay close to him just a bit longer, but your tired and tipsy mind can´t come up with anything.

“With you it´s always a nice evening. Now go on. Get to bed before you fall asleep in the passenger seat.” He squeezes your thigh one last time before he lets you open the door to head inside.

As always he parks his car around the corner to watch you until you fall asleep, but somehow tonight something is different.

Aegon feels a strange sensation tugging at his heart. A longing. To have you right this second. He doesn´t know what comes over him, but without a second thought he takes one of the stones in front of your window and throws it at the glass. It was meant to tap the glass, at least that´s what he tells himself, but instead it breaks it.

Fuck, Aegon curses under his breath, praying to the seven or any other deity that is willing to hear him that you didn´t wake up from the commotion. When your apartment stays silent, he decides that it isn´t safe for you alone with the broken window situation. It takes a few tries, but in the end he manages to climb through it. Keen on not making to much noise while walking over the shards on the ground, he tiptoes over to your bed.

You lay with your back towards the free side and so it is easy for him to slide in under the covers as well. He presses his chest as close to your back as possible, his hand laying innocently but protectively over your waist.

Aegon kisses your temple and silently promises to not close an eye, to watch over you, all night.

But the night is long and having you so close to him, smelling your shampoo and feeling your hips rub against his every time you shift in your sleep, makes it hard to keep his hand there. It also made him hard. The next time you shift in your sleeping state, his hand wanders down to your thighs. Once more and it lands trapped between them. Gently caressing your slit through the thin material of your leggings.

You sigh and stir lightly at his touch, but don´t wake up. Instead you just press yourself closer to him in your unconscious state. The action prompts Aegon to bite his lip to stifle the moan that wants to break free from his lungs. He can´t give himself away like this. He would only scare you and that is the last thing he wants to do. You simply look so good, how could anyone help themselves. You can be lucky he is there to watch over you.

A quiet moan comes from you as he continues his ministrations. The touch barely light enough to tease, but that heavenly sound pushes him further.

His hand slips underneath the waistband, past your lace panties and finds your already wet heat.

“Fuck.” He whispers, pushing two of his thick fingers inside of your entrance. He wants to take things so much further, but if he wants you to stay asleep he has to be careful. He pumps the two digits in and out of you at a slow pace. Feeling you grow even wetter as you squirm, quiet moans the only tell for the pleasurable feeling you are experiencing. He speeds up the movement of his fingers slightly, until he can´t take the lewd noises coming from your core anymore. He just has to taste you or he was sure he would die right then and there.

He shifts his position on the mattress, turning you onto your back, pausing when you stir again, moving to lay between your legs. Your pants are discarded and carelessly thrown to the side, before he dives in for the first taste of your heavenly center. He regrets not taking the time to appreciate your body the way it deserves, but he needs you so much there is no time for that now. His tongue licks a stripe up the length of your cunt, moaning at the sweet taste. And when he hears your own quiet moan and sees how you bring your hips closer to his face he is unstoppable. His tongue delves into you, fucking you with it and recklessly. Reaping every single one of your little noises and movements. He is so far gone that he doesn´t even realize, that with every new stir you start to wake up a little more.

At first your mind is still foggy with sleep and the pleasurable feeling his lips and tongue bring you. Your hand instinctively treads itself into his hair. But when you fully come to You scramble backwards until your back hits the headboard. His mouth chasing after you before he realizes what has happened and looks up at you.

“Aegon?! What are you doing here?” You gasp.

“Shh, it´s okay. Just let me worship you in the way you deserve.” Aegon slides his hand up your calf in a feather light touch.

“How did you get in here?” You ask, becoming more panicked.

“The door. I told you, you need to be more careful. You are lucky I came here to protect you.” His voice is soothing and so deep. And so you relax a little, leaning back as he resumes his previous activities.

But somehow something just feels wrong. Like a feeling in your gut. This is so unlike anything he has shown you of himself. Thinking about it he hadn´t shown you all that much in the first place. And that feeling just won´t let itself be shaken off so you shove his head away once more.

“Can we please just go back to sleep? I don´t really feel entirely in the mood right now.”

“Oh doll, that sounded much different a while ago. I didn´t even touch you all that much, yet you were still soaking those lace panties for me.” He climbs on top of you, rasping the words into your ear. “And the position I found you laying in… You´re such a fucking tease. It´s like you were begging for it.”

A sickening cold fear spreads in your system. A yelp leaving your mouth as he pulls you down by the ankle so your core is pressed to his. You are too in shock to return his kiss when he forcefully presses his mouth to yours. This is not the Aegon you know, but something tells you that this is the real Aegon. Coming back from the shocked state, you try to push him away. Hands pressed to his chest and legs eagerly searching for a way out, but he is too strong.

“I don´t want this, Aegon. Please stop.” You whimper into his shoulder as he mouths at your neck. Nibbling at all the most sensitive spots. Hating yourself for the growing even wetter as he rubs his length against your core. You don´t even know how or when he rid himself of his own pants. All you know is, that he now is pulling on your night shirt. Eager to get it off while simultaneously pinning your wrists down over your head so you would stop pushing him away.

As it turns out it is harder to do than imagined and so another yelp falls from your lips as he rips the fabric off your body. Your chest moving with fast and harsh breaths.

“Shh, everything´s alright. I´m here to take care of you.” He silences you with another unrequited, bruising kiss.

You are helpless against him, squirming and writhing underneath his much larger frame. This whole situation is so absurd and to add to all of it, when you bite his lower lip in a desperate attempt of self defense and getting the upper hand, he simply laughs. Tears start to prick in your eyes as the sound reaches your ears. As much as you want to blink them away they free themselves. Running down your burning cheeks accompanied  by a sob.

“Aww, don´t cry doll. I´m going to  make you feel so good. Just relax and let it wash over you.” His free hand wanders down to roughly caress one of your breasts. Rolling and tweaking the nipple between his fingers until the bundle of nerves stands hard at attention and your back arches off the bed. Which he takes as the sign to go ahead in what he is doing. Bringing his mouth down to the other breast, sucking and kissing on it until that nipple looks much the same like the other.

With one swift motion Aegon pushes inside of you, his cock stretching you out like no one had before. It is nothing like your first time together. He immediately starts to thrust inside of you at a fast pace.

"Aegon... please... st-op." You cry out to him to no avail.

Rutting into you at an almost breakneck pace. His head bows down and you feel puffs of hot breath hit the skin where your neck and shoulder meet. The feeling is utterly upsetting and you want to throw up at the same time you lost all the strength in your body. It´s all futile.

“I already told you I´m not gonna stop. You know deep down that you enjoy this. So why don´t you make this easier for yourself and stop fighting it.” His teeth sink into your tender skin harshly.

"Aahhh! Fuck, that hurts! Why are you doing this?" You question him.

"Because you deserve to be worshipped. You are a goddess walking amongst men." He nibbles on your ear. Much softer than the bite before, but that doesn't make anything better.

His hips continue to piston into yours. The sound of wet skin slapping against skin filling the otherwise quiet apartment alongside with your bitter cries. The moon outside is the only source of light illuminating his features.

You try to turn your head away from him, but he forces it back by your chin. So instead you close your eyes. You can´t stand to look at him anymore. His face that looked so sweet and innocent to you before is now distorted into a grimace of sick pleasure. Eyes closely watching your every reaction and a sheen of sweat covering his skin, sticking the front locks of his silver blond hair to his forehead.

With a few more thrusts he comes inside of you and for a short moment you have the hope that this is it. Aegon relaxes against you, but as your cries become weaker you notice how he only seems to get harder inside your warmth.

“Can you please let me go now?” You try again with a quiet, shaky voice.

“Oh, you think I am done with you yet? No no no. We are done when you come around my cock and accept me for who I am. What you made me.” His tone is nothing short of condescending and he tuts at you as your crying grows hysterical again.

You guess the gesture is supposed to soothe you, but it has the exact opposite effect.

You cry yourself into a near state of incoherency as he pushes your knees up against your chest forcefully, giving him a whole new angle inside of you. The way the head of his cock bullies your sweet spot is the final straw. It hurts. Despite it feeling so wrong it feels so good. You hate yourself even more as inadvertent pleasure runs through you like electricity. Making your toes curl and your eyes roll back. You scream louder with every thrust of his until you are near voiceless. You try to remind yourself that your body reacting to it doesn´t make it any more right and it doesn´t mean that you secretly enjoy it. But it´s so hard.

“You like it deep, don´t you?” Aegon´s voice in your ear painfully pulls you back into reality.

“Please.” You beg one last time, but the plea, just like all the others, falls onto deaf ears.

Your body gives up any last fight it has left. Quietly sobbing when your walls flutter around him and your hips start to shake. A wave of pleasure, or maybe just disguised shame, washes over you, provoking Aegon´s second orgasm.

“You are mine. You will never leave me. No one can love you like I do.” His voice sounds so soft. So genuine.

You almost want to believe him, but that would require a level of coherency you currently do not possess.

As you lay there with your whole body shaking, trying to come down from this experience and waiting for what he would do next, you ask yourself where things had gone wrong. What did you do to provoke this? To deserve this? Yet no matter how hard you pray to the seven for a sign or anything at all really, you don´t get an answer.

#aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon ii x reader #aegon targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #aegon ii #dark!aegon targaryen x reader #modern hotd au #modern hotd #modern house of the dragon au #hotd #house of the dragon #hotd fic #house of the dragon fic #hotd x reader

[perfectfangirl]

notes after rewatching fallout s1 ep1

so once again like a crazy person [i've done this with star wars sequels before] i've decided to take three and half pages of notes over the course of an hour. i've been a fan of the games for at least a decade and i'm actually always watching lore content between the installments though so while i do know some minute details, within the show, there was some things i was interested in and curious about that i just decided to jot down. some of this may be things discussed already and some of it might be something i wasn't sure if anyone brought up before but anyways! maybe i'll do the whole season, but here's my ramblings • them titling the episode "the end" was when i knew i'd love the show • ok but i really wonder if cooper can still do those party tricks? he was really good at them and lucy would probably love them too 🥺 • thinking back, the radio in the first scene mentions not knowing where the president is--- beginning to wonder if he was the guy sitting in on the vault tec meeting • just realized they introduced the mr. handy robot in some of the first scenes • ten years of nuclear threat according to anchor but the show is careful not to give away all the cards because why does the weather anchor make it seem like they know when the bomb will drop? idk but birthday boy mother turns off tv real "head in the sand" like • the nat king cole song that's playing though [wondering if the song is mirroring specifically cooper's feelings about barb despite everything hmm] • horse's name is sugarfoot 🥹 • him having to pay alimony... wonder what the prenup? was like... [still think he probably loves barb 😞]

• them calling him a pinko despite him being an architect of vault boy's persona, a quintessential presentation of a "man's man" acting as a cowboy, a real cowboy, a former marine--- wondering if there was a smear campaign after his situation with barb and vault tec, him working children's parties leads me to believe... • did the kid's say the birthday boy's name was boyd? [if so, there's another character in the games with this name and this is also the name of a character walton has played in another series, funny] • weather man show's up again distressed, wondering if we'll get more info about that day • everyone ignoring, cognitive dissonancing their own nuclear annihilation is so prescient if not disturbing and damning

• him teaching janey the thumb thing ☹️ • cooper's voice when he says "let me see if i can't rustle you up a piece" 😩 • janey being the only one to notice the first bomb • the fear in cooper's eyes • cooper being in denial one last time before realization sets in • people becoming animals the moment they realize what's happening--- one guy punches his friend not letting his family into the fallout shelter • people getting into their cars and cooper onto his horse to escape--- wonder how fast they could be since it doesn't seem you could outrun nuclear annihilation

• lucy being raised so well under the circumstances 😔 [hope she never becomes her father] • i haven't trusted steph since episode one • lucy being a teacher [amongst other things] and asking maximus about what happened after the bombs fell makes so much sense [and also much like another person suggested is an interesting juxtaposition to cooper's pre war knowledge] • lucy showing how skilled she is for being a marriage candidate when in reality we are seeing someone fit for the wasteland is crazy on second watch • is lucy not watching a cooper howard movie with her dad? hello??

• them reading "war and peace" in the family book club is rich • lucy [thinking] she's not good at guns, ironic • steph having to step in like a sisterly type because lucy's mom isn't there 😞 • the wedding dress on lucy being ill fitting, tight as symbolism for lucy not truly "fitting in there" and being constrained [foreshadowing] oof • the vault boy sign in the back saying "don't lose your head" lmao • didn't catch the "cousin stuff" until someone mentioned it on tumblr and twitter 💀

• the flashback we see of lucy ending up being almost a false memory, a misrepresentation of her actual memories, that she has been on the surface, in the sun • norm taunting lucy about her future husband being "anybody" and a "cannibal, crammed full of tumours" 😭 unfortunately for ghoulcy, this was some of the heaviest foreshadowing [the raider also could have been one too] • why didn't hank recognize moldaver? • so many things i still don't understand about vaults 31, 32, 33 • the growing realization they are raiders was pretty funny to me lmao

• moldaver having to sit through the disingenuous lies of hank ugh • norm going into vault 32 like they wanted them to know what was up? or is that just how vault doors work? they used lucy's mom's pip boy [that hank lied about burying] • lucy putting norm in a storage vault, she really is so strong • the handed down wedding dress getting messed up • i am curious if the raiders [shady sands survivors?] only mostly harmed vault tec aligners but maybe not • the way hank and steph retaliating a little too well • hank acting like he doesn't know moldaver when everyone really does know moldaver • moldaver telling lucy she looks like her mother is really such a tipoff

• realizing maximus is getting bullied 😭 • dane... might love maximus a little idk • from latrine duty to basically ruling over the brotherhood of steel • they really showed some dude jacking it lmao it's just normal i guess 💀 • maximus being defeated and having a rightful outburst of emotion, poor guy • the poster saying "the outside world can never harm you"--- funny • chet would've died up there 😭 • them not opening the vault back up for her, wondering if the vapourized bodies are from the initial bomb drop or the subsequent shady sands ones • dane almost gets maximus killed three times tbh • maximus joined the brotherhood of steel to get back at what vault tec did, essentially hank's doing, hank has many enemies • knowing the enclave, it makes sense why siggi is hunted • cooper the ghoul's introduction though • the bounty hunter saying his captors dig cooper up every once in a while to cut pieces of flesh off him 😞 no wonder cooper acts the way he does 😔 he's been taken advantage of, no wonder he doesn't trust anybody and is horrible to everyone • "why is this an amish production of "the count of monte cristo" or the weirdest circle jerk i've ever been invited to?" why would he say this 😭 • cooper's... been invited to circle jerks 👀 • does the bounty hunter know the ghoul is cooper howard?

• him not harming the chicken, him healing dogmeat, there's something there, folks • people only digging him up to use him again 😞 • what a coincidence he's dug up just as lucy leaves the vault • "i do this shit for the love of the game" he's a character, he's playing a character, real theatre kid • hence why cooper is introduced as "the ghoul", cooper is long gone • "us cowpokes, we take it as it comes" something about this lineee

#fallout #fallout show #the ghoul #ghoulcy #lucy #maximus #cooper #text post #my meanderings #the end

[affixjoy]

Today I continued my Star Trek journey by rewatching Star Trek (2009) and boy howdy do I have some thoughts.

So first off, I saw this for the first time when I came out in 2009. It wasn’t my first experience with Star Trek, but it was probably my first with Kirk and Spock and that gang. I remember liking it a lot.

Now that I’ve watched all of TOS and a few of the movies with the original cast my feelings are a little more complicated.

Overall, fun movie! I imagine they had to have felt the weight of recasting and redoing such iconic characters, and in a lot of ways they succeeded. It certainly got younger people like me interested in the franchise!

💫 Spock: I do love this version of him. His “live long and prosper” to the VSA is perfectly bitchy and I’m obsessed with it.

💫BONES!! if you’ve read any of my other posts you’ll know that somehow Bones snuck up on me as my favorite character. I love his intro here, and I think Karl Urban gets the tone just right. This really is a buffet for the McKirkers out there, I can see how this led to 1000 academy era fics of them.

💫Kirk: oh Jim. Jimmy Jim Jim. Baby boy. What are you doing. How did being played by Chris Pine (who is incredibly hot) make you LESS attractive??

Obviously this Kirk suffers from some Kirk drift and the added trauma of losing his dad. He’s so much angrier, so much less sweet and nerdy. Rewatching this now I can see why I was so hesitant to like him in TOS because he’s a lot less lovable here.

💫 I get it’s an emergency and they had to for plot reasons, but almost all of Pike’s staffing choices make no sense. Sure, Spock as acting captain, I get that. But everyone else?? Imagine being one of the other people there who has been with starfleet for years and seeing him hand Kirk the role of first officer. The ship can’t be entirely cadets can it?? Imagine the group texts going around after like “thank god he didn’t die because I really need to bitch about this.”

💫 I love all three Uhuras (tos, aos, and snw) and I get why they made her Spock’s love interest here because they’ve got fun chemistry! They have a lot in common, they’re both hot and smart, I get it. But cmon guys, that man is a 6 on the Kinsey scale. You keep pairing him with women and it doesn’t work.

💫 I feel like they worked in lots of little references to classic trek, from plot stuff to smaller details like when Spock enters from the turbolift at the end in a very TMP way. I love that, it makes me feel like the people making the movie really care about the stories and the characters. When Spock Prime says good luck I felt all the weight of his relationship with his Jim and how it changed him. So lovely and touching.

And just how close they made Kirk and Spock stand, especially towards the end of the movie. They were always glued to each other in TOS and JJ must have known us Spirk shippers needed something to latch on to 😅

💫 There’s too much action in this movie for me. We didn’t need to see Scotty beamed into the water tank. The best sf stuff is always story based, I don’t need extravagant fights and cgi shit. I’m sure there are people who watch science fiction for the spectacle but I’m here for the ideas and the feelings.

💫 goddddd everything with Vulcan and losing Amanda. Rip all our hearts out why don’t you. Spock’s mom dying is just heartbreaking. I know they had to lose someone we knew to make the destruction of the planet more real to us as viewers but so crushing to see it.

💫 Old Spock 😭😭😭

He knows right away who Jim is and expects that Jim found him on purpose.

Old Spock just launched right in to the mind meld huh. To me this really says that he and his Jim are on very casual mind meld terms and he’s not fully understanding that this Jim is not his Jim.

Think about how fucking weird all this must be for old Spock. How heartbreakingly strange it would be so see a young version of your husband and send him to a young version of yourself. Meeting all your old friends young selves, years after you’ve lost them all.

And from here out it’s just miscellaneous thoughts I jotted down while watching that don’t fit great anywhere else:

⭐️I love when the redshirt is so excited to get the Romulans and Kirk gets this look like… that’s why you’re here? Dude the battle not the appeal here. A nice glimpse of how this Kirk is similar at heart to TOS Kirk.

⭐️Love you Sulu and your fencing skills

⭐️I love when they stop the lift for emotional reasons.

⭐️“Our destinies have changed” goddddd great speech Spock

⭐️Jim has the look of a man who is frequently escorted places by security

⭐️Spock wants to break Kirk so bad 😂

⭐️When Jim slaps Spock’s back and Spock has a look of “I think that just awakened something in me.”

⭐️Spock you’re calling him Jim already? You slut. (Delighted, affectionate)

Overall I think it’s a fun movie but it misses a lot of what’s at the heart of the classic Trek I love. They try to do everything too fast and it just doesn’t work as well for me. I’m excited to rewatch the next two and see how these versions of the characters change!

#spirk #star trek #james t kirk #spock #leonard mccoy #star trek 2009 #nyota uhura #not a bad movie! #but missing a lot of the vibes I love #I get why people love it and I get why people hate it. #mckirk

[pillowspace]

i have a super very real theory that Sun from celstail sundown is actually megamind

you see. in chapter 4 y/n goes to a place and does things and talks to this guy, right? and then a couple more stuff happens and they call Sun 'Bernard'

if you've seen megamind then you know that he totally accepts the name bernard after dehydrating the libary guy named bernard and stealing his looks. and then in celstaisndal sundown Sun totally accepts then name bernard after y/n panics and picks a random name. He even makes jokes out of it.

That is how this very real theory came to be.

and i have proof.

after rewatching the film (i did not rewatch it. i just want to sound like i'm not sleep deprived) you know that when Megamind dehydrates bernard and steals his looks, bernard goes from a very bored uncaring underpaid guy to a very happy and charismatic fella.

we know, based off what Sun has said in the book, that the other gods are meanie butts and don't like mortals and stuff. (idk man) So maybe the real god of day is a meanie butt like the rest, but megamind stole their body and became the super nice Sun man we know and love.

you may be thinking (at this point you probably aren't thinking) "oh but clownnstuff, how would Megamind get the day powers and stuff." Well, my friend. if you've seen the movie you'd know that towards the end when Titan is going all evil bad-guy crazy, Megamind takes Metroman's form and 'gets his powers' through his technotagy.

Sun's heat? obviously a heated blanket and/or body suit. Sun's ability to know the time at all times? Megamind literally transitions forms through a watch. Sun bleeds gold stuff? totally 100% juice boxes.

"but clownnstuff, gods aren't mortal like bernard and stuff. How could the dehydration gun work on them" number one. do not deny megamind's ability to 'become' a god. number 2. teh dehydration gun sucks all the hydration out of the target. We know Sun has some sort of liquids in his body because when he's first introduced he's bleeding and stuff. i think blood might have water in it, idk. it's liquid and can be removed or smth. number THREE i just remebered that they do not have to be dehydrated before Megamind can transform into them. Tehy are scanned before getting dehydrated, the dehydration process is just to make sure there aren't 2 of the same person walking around or for surprise attacks and stuff. All megamind would have to do is scan Sun and scidadle the flip out of there. and it would't be too much of a worry because why would a god just come to earth?

so i think maybe after megamind scanned Sun, sun got all mad and stuff and is like 'fee fi foe fum, your forhead looks liek a bum' and beats the crap out of megamind. So Megamind makes a narrow escape and teleports to a strange forest place (y/n's backyard place) but ends up in a bloody mess and just lays there.

also moon is totally that fish guy. But megamind knew that a God named 'Minion' would not be a good god name so because Sun's name is Sun he thought that the other guy was obviously Moon. also, the reason Megamind (sun) is desperate to get back to the Celestial realm is because he totally aciidentally left minion there and dropped the machine thing that allows him to travel from the mortal realm to teh celeastial realm so minion cannot get home.

it all makes sense if you truly and genuinly beleive me.

but that's just a theory. A BOOK THEORY!

(i apparently wrote this theory at 4 am a couple days ago)

#ask #celestial sundown au #UAHAHAHA!?!?? #DAMN ITTTTT THEYRE FIGURING OUT MY SECRETS

[tyrantisterror]

Ok, one more Utena post even though I'm technically done with this year's rewatch.

There's a trope - an archetype, really, though I'm not sure if it's actually been named as one yet - in fairy tales where a female character, often a young one, is given instructions or some other form of social contract to follow, disobeys, and suffers peril and misfortune as a result. Little Red strays from the path and gets vored by a wolf, Goldilocks breaks into a house and gets eaten by bears, etc. It feels pointed to me because boy characters who do the same get the opposite result more often than not - Jack not only repeatedly breaks into a giant's house, but robs the place several times, makes out with the giant's wife, and murders the giant in cold blood when he's caught. There's counter examples you can find (boy who cried wolf did not come to a good end), but overall, the formula is:

disobedient boy gets a shitload of money and fame, often slays a monster or beast along the way

disobedient girl gets punished, often by way of being mauled by wild animals

With me so far?

Ok, so, Utena opens by establishing a purposeful artifice, telling the prologue of the story in the style of a shadowplay theater production, and structuring the narration as if it's a fairy tale. Utena, in this telling of the start of the story, is the disobedient girl. She is instructed to remain pure of heart so she can become a princess and marry a prince, and decides instead to be a pirnce herself. Not a pirncess, a dragon-slaying, damsel-rescuing prince. Instructions disobeyed, cue up the wild animals of disproportionate moralizing bad ends. They even end the narration with, "But was [a girl wanting to be a prince] such a good idea?"

In essence, gender roles, immutable, unchangeable gender roles, are the fairy tale that our characters playing out. And, as the show goes on, it extend even farther than that, where all sorts of societal expectations we force upon the young - gender roles, compulsive heterosexuality and monogamy, on and on it goes - are that fairy tale, that theater script, that theatrical artifice. These kids are being forced to become archetypes against their will.

And, by the standards and tropes of fairy tales, Utena must be punished for her disobedience. She must face a great humbling that either destroys her or forces her to obey. That's how the fairy tale goes - that's what's in the script of the shadowplay.

We even get reminded of this with our Nanami side stories - Nanami, even more than Utena, is the archetypal Disobedient Fairy Tale girl, and her episodes always focus on her getting humbled for one of her abundant character flaws (and often involve some trauma related to rampaging animals). She constantly reminds us what will become of the disobedient girl - and thus what will become of Utena.

But Nanami also breaks her narrative, which ends up being what our heroes must do as well. When she's set up for her ultimate humiliation - tricked by the brother who she has misplaced a great deal of her desperate need for affection onto into believing he's not biologically related to him, and thus could consummate her icky childish crush on him if she truly wanted to, which, as is later revealed, would just end up being for real incest since they actually ARE biologically related, and is all around icky regardless - Nanami decides to fucking bail. She wants to get away from everyone and her brother especially, she wants to go to another school, she wants to exit the narrative. She's forced to have a final bout with Utena, but ultimately not only avoids her ultimate humiliation/punishment for her disobedience, but makes good on her desire to leave the role she's assigned - from this point on, she has nothing to do with the plot of the show, appearing briefly in the background now and then and ducking out of the movie entirely.

And that, ultimately, is what Utena and Anthy do - as do at least three members of the supporting cast, possibly, depending on how you interpret things. They look at the fairy tale they've been made to live in and decide to fight tooth, nail, and tire tread (when Utena turbo teens into a car) to escape it. The ultimate disobedience, you could call it - a full on revolution.

I also think it's notable that the ultimate villain of the story, the final antagonist, is the prince who gave Utena the instructions, Akio/Dios. Dios himself tried to live up to his role to the letter, to follow his own instructions/archetype as the charming prince who rescues damsels and slays monsters. And it nearly killed him. But rather than shake off the archetype, he's decided to own and exploit it, using it to control everyone around him - he becomes the one who masterminds the literal machinery of the narrative, the industrialized, heartless mechanisms of a formulaic world where people can only live the roles they're assigned and never go off script. And when it's destroyed, so is he - he has allowed himself to be someone who can only exist in this world of limited, simplified, impossible-to-live-up-to roles.

Like, as meta writing goes, it's just a fucking banger.

#Here's to all the disobedient girls out there #Valentines with Utena

[anthurak]

Rambling about Perma-Death in Videogame Stories

So is anyone else just completely and utterly done with the trope of ‘If you die in the game, you DIE FOR REAL!1!1’ that we see in untold numbers of stories about characters getting trapped in video games?

Like I was just watching some clips from the Jumanji reboot and now I just can’t stop thinking about the same thing I thought when I saw it back in 2017: WHY does perma-death HAVE to be a thing here?

If you haven’t seen it, the premise of the reboot is that the magic board game of doom from the original 1995 film realized that board games are getting less popular and thus upgraded itself into a videogame cartridge/console to be more appealing to would-be players. And has now sucked in four unsuspecting teens for an adventure now parodying videogame tropes instead of a board game.

Now the big ‘threat’ posed to our protagonists is that they each start with multiple ‘Lives’ which allow them to immediately respawn when they die. But they only have three lives each, which of course leads to the implicit idea that if they can’t lose ALL their lives or it’s GAME OVER, ie; they’re dead for good.

But the thing is, nothing in the movie actually DEMONSTRATES to our protagonists that this is actually the case. They just… assume that if they die three times they’re dead for really realsies.

And while watching/rewatching the movie, I just kept thinking WHY did the threat of perma-death have to be a thing? And also the fact that it didn’t even make SENSE in this context.

Like the Jumanji game is clearly sentient to a degree and seems driven first and foremost to get people to play it. So I have to ask; WHAT sense does it make for Jumanji to outright, permanently KILL its players? After all, if the players are permanently dead, they can’t exactly PLAY now can they?

Furthermore, just look at the old-style sidescroller games that Jumanji clearly based its new form on. What happens in those games when you lose all your lives? It doesn’t permanently lock you out and keep you from playing ever again. Instead you lose your progress and are sent back to the start of a level. Or in those particularly hard games, you are sent back to the very START of the game.

So don’t you think that makes WAY more sense for how Jumanji would work?

Imagine in the film when the heroes’ fifth party member Alex, the kid who got trapped in the game twenty years earlier, starts to lose his last life, the rest aren’t able to save him. He seemingly dies… and then there is this bright flash.

Then all five of the players are suddenly back in the jeep with Rhys Darby hamming out exposition at them, right back at the start of the game.

I don’t know if that would make for a better paced film, but I definitely think it would make for a more interesting story that could explore some of the real underlying aspects and nuances of how playing a videogame actually goes. Because now this is no longer a challenge of luck or split-second intuition, but of trial and error. You know, like most ACTUAL videogames!

Now that our heroes know there ISN’T actually a threat of permanent death (because this is, you know, a GAME!), they can engage in one of the most FUN parts of playing a big, open-world sandbox game: trying any number of crazy, nonsensical ideas to see if one of them actually sticks!

And I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a great way to ratchet up the dark-comedy as the characters start trying all kinds of crazy ideas that get them killed more often than not. And if you think that wouldn’t make for a very entertaining movie, let me point you to a little-known flick called Groundhog Day! Not to mention the fact that story would still have stakes. The characters still have the goal of completing the game and there’s always the threat of them losing their progress and having to start over. Plus it makes for a great method of character development and bonding as the five are forced to learn how to work together until they’re functioning as a seamless unit.

This is really my overall point about how the threat of perma-death in these kinds of stories feels like such a crutch to needlessly generate generic drama and stakes. Not to mention kind of going against the very thing that makes something a GAME in the first place.

It’s why my actual favorite ‘people getting sucked into a videogame’ story is actually the anime Log Horizon. Because in that series the respawn mechanic of the MMO the characters are sucked into still works, and the story instead revolves around its characters learning to adjust, adapt and live in this new reality. Not to mention it still finds an interesting way of maintaining stakes and consequences to characters dying even if they can respawn: Namely that because the game’s respawning mechanic involved taking away a certain among of Experience Points from a player as a ‘cost’ for reviving, this means that players now lose pieces of their memory every time they respawn.

All in all, while I understand its appeal to writers as an easy way to generating stakes and danger for characters, this whole trope of ‘die in the game you die for realsies’ feels SUPER old and super cheap at this point. And I have serious respect for any story that subverts or averts it.

#rambling #rambling about stories set in video games #jumanji welcome to the jungle #log horizon #seriously check out log horizon #the character writing can be a bit meh but the world-building is FASCINATING

[was-theoretically-theo]

Twenty questions that he has to answer.

How is your sleep schedule like? Don't mess with Theodore's. I annoyed him for a year about it and finally he got it right. Tho I am sure he got it right because of someone else. (Aka you) 😏

What are your friends like? Explain in brief. Treat this like a three marks question.

What is your ideal way to spend weekends? Will you take Theodore to museums or not? Will you stay in and cancel your plans if Theodore doesn't feel like going? Without blaming him?

Do you know your love language? Do you know how to convey it? (You don't have to tell me what it is just say yes or no)

What's your favourite thing about dating my best friend? Treat this like a three marks question too.

What are some things you and him have in common?

Will you give all your chocolates to him if he asks?

What's your favourite movie?

Favourite way to relax?

Will you say sorry after an argument even if it wasn't exactly your fault? I believe that saying sorry doesn't mean that you are wrong it just means that you care enough to keep your ego aside and take accountability.

Do you like Spiderman/Percy Jackson? (Very important question)

Hobbies?

Any new hobbies you want to pick up?

Will you read a book just because it is Theodore's favourite?

Favourite poet, if any?

Will you get Theodore roses?

Will you help/ask whether you can help Theodore with his chores without him having to ask you?

Extroverted or introverted?

Most played song on your playlist?

If you could master any instrument than which one?

That's it. I guess. Hope you have a wonderful day, take care of yourself and him. Also, nice to meet you, I am Eleanor. Theodore is my best friend, I am his casual friend. I am from India. Eleanor is not my real name but that is what you can refer to me, for now. Any queries? Message me. Take care of my best friend for me. Give him hugs from my side. Time to time, lots of hugs. Theodore, give him a handshake from my side. Thank you.

passing the phone to him

Shalom!! Eleanor (can I call you Ellie?  Oo or even Elea ~pronounced Ella??~ if not that’s groovy too)

I’m very excited I’ve heard lots about you! All good don’t worry babes)

I try to sleep about seven hours a night but sometimes I sleep 8 but I couldn’t do anything less unless absolutely necessary I physically could not lose a day of beauty rest of it would ruin me

Friends….all pretty diverse actually and there are several different personalities.. I’ll give you my ride or dies so okay we All went to an alternative school not because we had disciplinary problems but because we had different problems that made normal schools challenging. Like I for example have dyslexia and ADD. Anyway my best friends and I sorta bonded over this and I’ve been friends with Elton since grade five and we still keep in touch even now but he decided to go to college and I did not he’s a literal fashion icon and the sweetest smartest cinnamon roll you could meet but if he’s not doing his work you need to get on him because he procrastinates like crazy. So now we only see each other on weekends. Kaleb on the other hand went overseas and we FaceTime every morning except Sundays because of church and she’s really into anime and I can’t tell you much about that stuff except the seven deadly sins is better than demon slayer and bleach is something Kaleb rewatchs every few weeks so you best expect that it’s going to be playing when you visit but my life really doesn’t have interesting drama thank goodness. (No offence starshine👀)

I love to spend my weekends exploring I used to hike a lot but Arc is not a fan of the outdoors though we’ve found he has a knack for gardening and does very good on the family farm he just really doesn’t see the point and I don’t really blame him I suppose it’s not for everyone and I know Arc is more of a moon person. Yes actually we do go to museums and no I wouldn’t ever get mad at him for that we all have our off days

Yes and yes but ours is not the same so it’s good to keep of communication in our relationship so we stay afloat. We really haven’t had any problems though as words of affirmation is something Arc is good at unknowingly because of his poetry addiction and I’ve always been a really touchy person

My favorite thing about dating Arc is his ability to express himself though body language for example we’re at a party I don’t have a ask in front of everyone if he’s tired from all the human interaction he just shows it with expressions or posture..or whatever he chooses to convey but I never have to ask. This can be a problem on the small occasion that I can’t see him because I cannot rely on him to tell me because I usually know.

We’re people pleasers and that’s one of things we sorta bonded over when we first met we feel horrible égéen if the thing wasn’t our problem or responsibility because it made whoever upset. We don’t have very good people skills I’m overbearing and him not enough which has lead a lot of people to sorta stay away unless of course you’re also like us. I’ve found that we both share an appreciation of art mine is more in fashion design and makeup while his is writing and visual sorta stuff

Without hesitation(I’m not a huge fan of chocolate)

Geek charming (I’m not sorry)

Meditation.

Yes because I will feel bad for making him upset though he’s probably right anyway as he’s more logical than me…but one cannot always choose mind over morals so maybe I might be right on the off occasion

Not really l…sorry..but I think wonder woman is cool if that’s the same fandom? 

Crocheting, sewing, working out, and I love to sing but I’m not very good at it despite what Arc says but I do want to get into photography 

I would if he asked me but I don’t really read them because he likes to tell me about them and I love hearing about them…he also probably wound be very happy at my reading for him because he knows reading is a struggle for me

Oh this is a good one! Probably the Edgar guy I like when Arc recites them especially Anabel Lee

No because he prefers Aster white aster to be exact..

Of course! Most our chores are mutual so we don’t have it set on who does what but if he’s doing something I’d definitely help him finish whatever it is

Extroverted

Teenage dirtbag by weetus I honestly have no Idea how I’m not tied of it yet and a close second is  in this shirt by the irrépressibles which I listen to while designing 

Definitely guitar it’s just so pretty but Theodore might get me into piano he plays like a dream

I do Hope your next three days go spectacularly well and this was really fun I definitely might consider this app or the website at the very least thank you.

#𝙼𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚁𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚒𝚎𝚜 #𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐬!✨

[joyce-stick]

Suzume Isn't Gay, But We Liked It Anyway

Despite not being as gay as Shinkai might have tried to make it during its development, Suzume is still quite a good film which we enjoyed immensely on account of its characters, compelling narrative, visual beauty, thought-provoking themes, and the improvements observed over Shinkai's previous two films. So this an essay about Suzume, about why it's good, what its themes are, and our glowing recommendation.

Transcript under the cut.

Previous video essay/transcript: Audrey's Best Girls Winter 2023

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Citations!

Baron, Reuben. “Director Makoto Shinkai on the Anime Artistry of Suzume - Exclusive Interview.” Looper, Static Media, 12 Apr. 2023, https://www.looper.com/1254434/director-makoto-shinkai-anime-artistry-suzume-exclusive-interview/.

Brzeski, Patrick. “Makoto Shinkai on How Anime Blockbuster 'Suzume' Reflects the Current State of Japan: ‘the Most Honest Expression I Could Put on Screen.’” The Hollywood Reporter, Penske Media Corporation, 7 Mar. 2023, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/makoto-shinkai-interview-suzume-anime-berlin-2023-1235329404/.

Pulliam-Moore, Charles. “Makoto Shinkai Wants Suzume to Build a Bridge of Memory between Generations.” The Verge, Vox Media, 15 Apr. 2023, https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/15/23678724/makoto-shinkai-suzume-interview.

Jackson, Destiny. “Director Makoto Shinkai on the Tender Resonance and Maturity of Making 'Suzume': ‘I Think about How to Dig Deeper so I Can Emotionally Move People in My Vicinity.’” Deadline, Penske Media Corporation, 15 Apr. 2023, https://deadline.com/2023/04/suzume-makoto-shinkai-japanese-anime-weathering-with-you-your-name-1235325691/.

https://twitter.com/ao8l22/status/1513116464210919425

https://twitter.com/moogy0/status/1592346490315640836

I had a few good reasons to assume I would hate Suzume.

We've seen three of Shinkai’s films. Yes, those three. We liked Your Name quite a bit when we saw it in theaters, but its flaws became apparent on a rewatch a few years later. We did not like Weathering With You, which made its flaws apparent to us rather immediately. Never watched it since watching it the first time, but, I don't know, maybe we'll go back to it.Still, thinking about that film had us pissed off for a little while, although we're less pissed off now, for reasons we might get to later. So, when we went to watch Suzume, I was reasonably expecting to hate it, or, even worse, enjoy it, while seeing some intractable flaw in it that ticked me off immensely about it.

And… I found none! I mean, maybe I'll think of one later, but my current opinion of Suzume, as I write this hours after having seen it, (and speak it, 'bout a couple days after having written this) is that it was a pretty good film with a lot of breathtaking visuals, funny moments, some emotional bits, and no real huge flaws to speak of. In fact, not only does this film lack the biggest flaws of its predecessors, it's also got a few things about it that I appreciate more.

First thing I liked immediately: Girl. I mean, her name, is the title. It's no secret that we of the joystick system appreciate beautiful anime girls, and this particular such beautiful anime girl is good, both as the protagonist of the film who does all the proactive things to save the guy, which is different from the last two movies where the guy did all the stuff. I'm not gonna pretend like Shinkai is suddenly some kind of feminist icon now for correctly giving a female character some goddamn agency, but: it's a nice touch for us personally, given that… we like girls. It helps that Suzume is emotional and interesting and funny and has a pretty good arc through the movie and her voice actress does a good job- no, we did not watch the dub. I'll probably talk a bit more about her later, but I think she's good.

I think it's important to mention with regards to this girl, that she was, apparently, supposed to be gay. This information came to light in the English speaking anime community after a Japanese entertainment journalist tweeted a tweet sayin’ as much, and then professional translator Moogy went and tweeted about it in turn, citing this journalist as a source. I can’t find that this chain goes back any further than that, although I tried to out of personal interest, because, if I had, then I would’ve been able to write that into the Wikipedia page- which, I DID CHECK, and it briefly mentions that -

Okay, so, since writing that, another, Wikipedia-admissible, source, in the English language, emerged, in which Shinkai is interviewed, and confirms this to be true. So as such, I added that information to the article, with that source. Look. There it is! And it’s still there, probably, unless someone removed it while I was making the video.

In this interview, the interviewer asks Shinkai directly about this, and he says, “I’m surprised you know it! I’ve only told Japanese interviewers about it!” Clearly Shinkai is unaware of the power of Moogy. So, he goes onto say, that, yes, it was his initial idea for a companion, and that the theoretical character who Souta replaced would’ve been Suzume’s onee-san crush; that’s how I’m taking this whole ‘sisterhood romance’ thing. He thought he’d done enough with the boy meets girl thing, and he wanted to try doing something else.

His producer rejected it, because, in Shinkai’s translated words, “You may be tired of these romantic stories, but your audience loves it,” which, I believe, is a polite way of saying “I don’t think a gay film will sell.” The chair thing was chosen to “not make it too much of a romance”.

Shinkai further says— and this part kinda gets me— that he doesn’t think the story would’ve changed if it had been gay, or if Suzume had been a boy or non-binary or whatever. Quote:

“It's not necessarily the context of male/female; it's about a human overcoming something. In my future films as well, I want to focus on that human story as opposed to too much commentary on gender or sex.”

So, my reading of this response, and, take this with a grain of salt because it’s only my personal interpretation, is that while Shinkai was interested in making a gay film as a change of pace, he did not consider it important enough to insist on. There were other things he wanted to make the movie about, and he didn’t want to die on the gay hill.

And, y’know, that’s a shame, but I think it’s fair enough. I would have liked to see the alternate timeline where no one stopped him from making the film gay, but if it wasn’t already clear, I like the film that we got, and I don’t fault Shinkai for having other priorities as a director, like, for instance, getting his film funded and keeping his job. And honestly, I can halfway see the merit in not making it a gay film, because then it’d be a lot harder to, y’know, address the themes, without addressing whatever gay discourse there’d be that overshadows the themes.

I don’t say this to be like, “ooh, the film would’ve just been gay and that would’ve been bad,” it would’ve been good for the film to be gay, I just mean that a lot of the time people are more concerned about there being representation rather than the quality of the story in which the representation exists and it becomes the gay thing, rather than, the thing that happens to be gay, and that’s not always great. I mean, I guess we are getting a little bit of that just off of the knowledge that the film could have been gay, but at least I don’t have to think about talking about it too much past this point, because it’s, y’know, not actually in the film.

Shinkai said other stuff, too, I guess, about the animation and how the characters have different color palettes for daytime and evening and night scenes, which explains the very convincingly presented amusement park scene, that happens at night! So that was interesting.

Anyway, that’s the addendum I have about that, I’m gonna go back to the rest of this:

I have no idea if this would've been good for the film or not, but we have a different video being written about gay pandering, so, let’s move on then I guess!

The second thing that we liked was the film's opening minutes. And to explain why this is, I need to give a bit of context, I think. So, in short, after the 2011 nuclear meltdown and earthquake that irreversibly forever changed Japan and the life of all the people living there (and also delayed Madoka Magica's finale), Shinkai apparently decided that he wanted to make a bunch of films about it. About three so far, to be exact. Which, y'know, is not a bad motivation for making films. It's certainly a better motivation than I had to write this video

So, as such, his last three films are a novel fusion of wacky comedy, coming of age romantic melodrama, and disaster film. Your Name and Weathering With You had really slow buildups to the disaster part of the disaster film, to the point that mentioning it is almost a spoiler, but I'm going to assume it isn't because everyone has now seen those films. So they have a whole first half where it's just kind of weird supernatural romantic comedy slice of life hijinks but then it abruptly tone shifts in the second half.

This is actually, I think, the source of both of these films' major issues. It's kinda cool to watch them the first time and then see the story's tone shift when the mid movie plot twist happens, introducing the big disaster scenario aspect of the story along with it, but the drawback to that approach is that you have, in essence, a movie whose plot twist is that it becomes a different movie. This both contributes to the odd tonal whiplash and also means that the supernatural disaster part of the film is weaker and not as well fleshed out as it could be.

Suzume, on the other hand, smartly introduces the main conflict of the story in the first act of the movie. This choice is good. The serious existential threat to Japan stuff that the film is about is the immediate focus of the film. This allows for a more balanced tone, as then the movie can comfortably use its comedic parts to add levity to its treatment of that harrowing topic, rather than the existential stuff comin' in like a sledgehammer to break a previously comfortable tone- which, I should say, IS a thing you can do, and IS a valid choice to tell a story, I just don’t think it was necessarily a choice that Shinkai handled well before. The pacing is much improved, as the supernatural aspects of the film are more evenly developed and the story has more time to explain itself. Mostly. There's like one scene I don't get. I’ll get to it?

Anyway, the end result of this choice is that Suzume feels like a much more focused and complete film, rather than two halves of different films. Aaaaaand, I appreciate this! A lot. I can see this choice maybe maybe maybe making the movie less interesting to some people, because it's paced more like a normal movie than Shinkai's other previous two romantic comedy disaster movies, but, hey, I think it's nice that Shinkai seems to be growing as an artist and a writer and a filmmaker, who made a normal movie that didn’t leave us confused, and disoriented, and confused, about what it’s about

Other things I like… I like the visuals. The animations and backgrounds and visual effects and the CG are all pretty fire. Suzume is generally a really beautiful film! We all knew this, but, really, it's really good. I like the chair thing. I like the way that the chair is animated. Apparently the animation of the chair was inspired by Luxo Jr., y’know, the Pixar short that became the origin of the Pixar lamp, and… yeah, I can see it. It definitely does have that old Pixar vibe of “inanimate object moving like a very real human inanimate object” that that has. I just like the way the legs move, and the way it emotes so convincingly with these subtle but credible motions.

There’s one scene involving a roller coaster that- that scene is incredible, that’s definitely one of the most visually novel sequences in all of Shinkai’s films that we’ve seen. I like the character design of the guy, Souta, also? When he’s not a chair, I mean. I dunno. The last two guy characters in the last Shinkai films looked like generic anime boys, but this guy looks like the kind of guy who I can believe a woman would find attractive. I like the look of his hair, I like how grizzled he is, I like his long gray coat, I like that you can look at this tired hunk of a man and immediately see that he’s been places and that he’s carrying some shit with him. Bonus points for that he looks like one of the Monogatari exorcists.

As for Suzume! Well, her design is maybe a bit generic, but… she’s a girl. It’s not like our standards are too high for girls. She’s supposed to be an ordinary girl, and, y’know, in this movie contrasting with this dude and then this chair, that works out well. And also, I appreciate that she rotates her outfits throughout the movie. My headmates and I love to see a woman change her clothes, not necessarily directly. I’m just saying, that denim jacket thing she had going on in Kobe, and when she lost her shoes in Tokyo and then borrowed Souta’s boots? Specifically borrowing the boots, because, the only pair of shoes that we own looks like this:

It’s a small thing, but like, Shinkai couldn’t make Suzume gay. Widespread trans representation in anime is a bit far off. I might well be eating off the floor conjuring table scraps pointing at a woman in a man’s shoes and saying “oi, isn’t it gender?” But like, 1, it’s a woman wearing a man’s shoes, and 2, yes, it is gender. And we like the gender. You cannot stop us! We did get to see the movie a second time with a friend, (thank you for seeing the movie with us, and reviewing our script!) and she insisted that the boots are femme coded, and, we disagree, unfortunately. I’m sorry, we cannot see these boots as anything but gender.

However! It is Shinkai’s fault that Onimai exists. That scene in Onimai is definitely influenced by that scene in Your Name. We know this because Nekotofu said so in interviews. Onimai is very good and based and funny, and this is a fact upon which I, and all of my headmates, equally quite agree. It’s nice to agree on something with all of yourself. SPEAKING, of the opening scene in Your Name:

Shinkai did not sexualize Suzume. So, if you hated that scene of Your Name, there’s none of that! There’s no chair peeping on Suzume or anything like that. So, if that knowledge helps you somehow, now you know.

Long story short. Should you watch Suzume. Well, yes obviously. By the time this video comes out, or, by the time you're seeing it, its theatrical run might be over, but like, if it’s not, then, yes, I recommend going and seeing it, like, today. And if it is, then remember to see it whenever it’s on blu-ray or streaming services or your local cat-themed anime distributor. Shinkai made a normal movie. I hope he makes an abnormally good movie next time. I believe in this man. Again. Somewhat. It’s not like it really matters what I say or think, but I do also hope that his next movie is just gay. I won’t matter, to me, or, to us, if his next movie is just a carbon copy of Suzume, but gay. I mean, he got away with making a heterosexual Your Name once after making the heterosexual Your Name. There is nothing stopping him. Except for the pigheaded businessmen who he may have to argue with.

Anyways, that’s that, I guess I’m going to talk more specifically about the plot now, so, if you didn’t see the movie, then, leave, now, if you care. If you did see the movie, or do not plan to see the movie, then, uh, don’t leave. Please. I’m going to put the Patreon credits here. It is not the end of the video. Please do not leave.

Intermission for extra thoughts and Patreon credits!

Hello everyone. This is Audrey, of the joystick system. The name of the brain that I’m the lead woman of. We’re still a plural system, as I’ve not forgotten, thanks to Luci and all my headmates.

As I already think I said, we saw Suzume a second time with a friend. As of this speaking, it continues to play in movie theaters, at least where we are, although it’s not showing nearly as often and probably not in as many places. Nonetheless, if it’s still playing in your area, I obviously very much recommend it. If you have the time and money to see it a second time after seeing it the first time, I think you should see it a second time. Because it’s good!

One thing I’d really like to change about this video, overall, is the tone of it. I think it came off way too much as “oh yeah, Suzume’s actually pretty good”, because I walked in with muted expectations, and then walked out feeling like it was pretty good but also kind of waiting for it to hit me that it’s actually bad… And, no, no, it’s an absolutely fantastic film and I imagine is probably going to line up with our top 5 movies of the year. Although, it’s not like we watch a lot of movies, so it probably won’t have too stiff of a competition. A different friend of ours saw it, and they absolutely loved it and had a lot of really good things to say that just made us like it more- so, yeah, no, Suzume is fantastic. Please watch Suzume. If you can.

I think I also should say, I disagree pretty strongly with the assertion that Suzume is “the same film” as Your Name and Weathering With You. As I’ve already said, the structure is much more cohesive in how it introduces the plot without the plot becoming the plot twist of the plot, and also there’s just a lot of improvements on writing and characterization and storytelling and the film is generally much more tonally consistent than either Your Name or Weathering With You. Sure, it’s a similar overall plot to both of those films, but I think there’s just as much merit in iterating on old ideas as there is in introducing new ones, and Suzume does a healthy amount of both. Maybe it’s a remake of the same movie, but if that’s so, Suzume is definitely the best version of that movie, and I think the growth Shinkai went through as a director and writer to get there is crystal clear.

And as I hope I’m about to make clear, the thematic weight of the film is much stronger as well. The decreased focus on the romance subplot helped a whole lot in that regard, I think, to bring the themes into greater focus, and like, gosh, is the film REALLY THEMATICALLY GOOD on top of being so well structured and written and visually spectacular. I walked into Suzume expecting it to be bad, I spent like two weeks while writing the script and making the video trying to think of flaws in this movie, and I can really only think of like two, which are one, that it’s not gay, and two, that some minor plot details are maybe a small bit inscrutable.

But neither of those things actively bring the film down! It’s just great! And, if we had the time to watch the film a third time and then do a complete rewrite of the script, I’d probably change the tone I took with it, but y’know what, I gotta say a thing, I’ve left people waiting long enough, this movie won’t be in theaters forever, so, it’s good enough, and good enough is perfectly good enough.

Also. The music was really good. It was a lot less intrusive than in Your Name and Weathering With You. Those two films really love going all ham on their mid-movie insert song sequences? In Suzume, the music is, the musical score, which is really really good and is used really extremely effectively in, specifically the chair chase scene, and the amusement park scene, and the opening of the film, and the big Tokyo scene, and really the whole film. It was just really very good.

And, other than that, I think I mentioned everything I wanted to mention in the script, so, uh yeah, that's that!

So, before we get back to the video, channel housekeeping. I don’t think we’re going to be able to keep doing videos, at least not regularly, as things are going. If you’re not already aware of the disaster life we lead, we’ve been aimlessly floating around quasi-homeless and unemployed, for about our entire adult life, and spent around three years crashing at a friend’s place, for longer than we should’ve been because of executive dysfunction, burnout, and general mental illness. And also money.

Most of the stuff we’ve been making our videos with, including our desktop PC, was stuff we got before we were quasi-disowned by our parents, almost, uh, six (note: four or five) years ago? and the rest of it is stuff we have, very not hyperbolically, emptied our bank account for because we kinda needed it. So, if that stuff breaks, and it’s going to eventually, we’ll be on even more hiatus until further notice. Obviously this is pretty untenable, so, we’re going to have to try to get a job, and I don’t see great odds of that working out for our transgender neurodivergent failwomanchild self, and it’s obviously going to mean we have less time to make videos and write things. Naturally the stress of our unstable situation has already been doing that job, but. Y’know.

So, if you want to help even our odds: Ko-fi or Patreon. That is currently our only steady source of income, and even a little bit extra would make a pretty big difference for us day-to-day. You can send us monthly donations through either, although, they take a smaller cut on Ko-fi, so, there’s that. Ko-fi is also the place for giving us money one time as opposed to regularly.

As for what you get out of this, well, besides the obvious your name here and access to our discord, you will earn our gratitude and also we will feel indebted to you, which will lead us to try our best to keep making things. And also if you ever encounter us in person, we’ll give you a hug, if you want one, as long as you’re not, like, creepy about it.

Is that everything? Um. Yeah. That is everything. Here's all the names of all the important people who...

Thanks to our generous Patreon backers:

Ada. Just Ada • Andrew P • Anime Omelette • ASabitsukiFlow • Brea • ColorfulCast • dameDiadora • deeso • Dorian Newlin • Duskpixie • Elvenoob • Emma • Femboy Bebop • Gwen Starlight • hikari no yume • Katherine Ullman • Kaylee Smerbeck • Korin • L Tantivy • Lilly • M • Mira Yeuden • Nichtschwert • Nik Gothic • Pigeon • R2Walker • RukaCollie • Sally • Saoirse Russell • Scimitar • SimplyAero • SleepySlug • Spiderrebelnews • Thijs • Trucy • Vile Lasagna

And, that’s that. Thanks to all of you, named onscreen and vocally, and also those of you not named but who’ve been watching, or encouraging us personally, for your support. Now, back to the normal part of the video. Spoilers for Suzume from here on, obviously.

Intermission over!!!

Okay, so, spoilers.

Plot of this movie! I’m just gonna steal bits of the Wikipedia summary, because I don’t want to write a plot summary myself and get waylaid.

Suzume Iwato is a 17-year-old high school girl who lives with her maternal aunt in Kyushu. One night, she dreams of searching for her mother (who, it's inferred later, died in a tsunami) as a child in a ruined neighborhood. The next morning, while headed for school, Suzume encounters a young man searching for abandoned areas with doors. He then is cursed to turn into a chair by a kitty cat who desires love and she runs away from home with him, and he explains that these doors in all these abandoned places are doors to an alternate dimension that occasionally let out supernatural beings called worms that do earthquakes, and they need to do the right rituals to close the door properly. So their journey across Japan to prevent the earthquakes and also get Souta back out of being a chair, thusly begins.

First of all, I think that Shinkai did an excellent job conveying the pain of losing one’s mother. I say this, because, uh, we have also lost our mother, and grieved her loss. She’s not dead, in case you’re wondering, she’s just a worthless piece of human garbage. So, I guess it’s a little perverse to compare our being estranged from our shitty nuclear family as a result of the events of our entire life up until we were twenty to Suzume losing her single mom in a natural disaster when she was four, but I can’t pretend that the former experience did not lend itself to us empathizing with her, in general. Like, we did definitely cry. That’s a thing that we did.

I also like how cleanly the movie conveys this information within a few minutes. Like, you get the opening sequence of the small Suzume searching for her mother in the Ever After, and then she wakes up a seventeen year old, and you hear her address the woman who is her guardian by that woman’s first name, and it immediately clicks, "ohhhh… orphan, got it, got it, got it," and yeah. In contrast to the previous two films where Shinkai took half the damn movie establishing what these characters’ lives and their relationships with their friends and relatives were like, this kind of storytelling efficiency (which, is present throughout the film, in establishing Souta's relationships as well) is impressive.

And like I said, I like the immediacy with which the plot begins, with Suzume meeting Souta, being asked about the ruins, and then going to check them out herself. I like that there's not a whole album of insert songs in this movie, no fancy opening cinematic, no big deal montage, just a smash cut to the opening title card while Souta and Suzume are trying to close the door in the old bathhouse. It's clean. It's real good.

So, then Suzume tries to patch Souta up when he gets injured, and then he gets cursed by this cat to become a chair, and then the movie gets further good! Suzume runs away from home to help Chair Souta capture this important cat that's supposed to be keeping the earthquakes from happening. And this greatly aggrieves her aunt Tamaki, who's just been trying her best her whole life and everything and I will say, um-

I'm going to get to that!

So, one thing I have to say specifically- I had not read any details about Suzume's plot or interviews from Shinkai before seeing it, and I kind of got the whole deal immediately with everywhere that an earthquake comes out of being an abandoned place of gathering. A closed bathhouse, school, amusement park. This all feels very harrowing to see onscreen- as an American! even though it's clearly intended as commentary on Japan's population decline, because, uh, have you heard of dead malls

If they ever do an American live action version of Suzume, it'll be about them visiting abandoned shopping malls, probably. please do not do that

But yeah, like, we live in Portland, Oregon, and compared to having grown up in pre-covid Philadelphia most of our life, post-covid Portland feels like a ghost town. Like, it's not actually, there's obviously still people who live here, and I don't mean that derogatorily because we love Portland and we'd like to keep living here, if possible, not the least because we get easy access to HRT. But like, there's a lot of closed and abandoned places in Portland, so many empty areas and business that have been boarded up and closed to the point that at times, wandering through downtown Portland almost feels like living in an open world video game where most of the buildings don't have designed interiors.

Places that all clearly closed within the last three or four years, with their signage up and everything. Places that are left in stasis to lie disused or else be reclaimed by the homeless until the homeless get chased out by the cops. It's all just really… eughf. It makes us sad to see this place, this whole country really, be stuck in this kind of disgusting degradation while our government fails to provide for us, let alone adapt to the challenges ahead of us, just leaves all these places where people lived, where people are living, now, to stagnate and stand like zombies of a past we can't go back to

There’s a scene in Heathers, one of our favorite movies of all time, where the main antagonist J.D. has a whole emotional reflection on how the stability of this franchised commercial convenience store enterprise has kept him feeling like there’s continuity in his life, and like, yeah, that’s kind of a feeling.

[Video ID: J.D. (played by Christian Slater), a black haired edgy looking teenage boy of about 16-17 wearing a long black jacket, paces about the convenience store "Snappy Snack Shack", speaking in an affected hard to place accent, to Veronica Sawyer (played by Winona Ryder), a brown-haired teenage girl of around the same age, who is wearing a grey dress that exposes her shoulders accompanied by a blue flower brooch on her chest, and black overalls)]

Veronica: I see you know your convenience speak pretty well.

J.D.: Yeah, well, uh, I've been moved around all my life. Dallas. Baton Rouge, Vegas... Sherwood, Ohio. There's always been a Snappy Snack Shack. Any town, any time, pop a ham and cheese in the microwave and feast on a Turbo Dog. Keeps me sane.

Veronica: Really?

Like, it’s eugh, because, obviously as an anticapitalist, we kinda dislike these sorts of places, the shopping centers, the strip malls, the gas stations, we're against all of this bullshit on principle these places are all kind of intensely hostile to… life, in general.

But also, these places are a part of the world we live in, and they are stable! Relatively. They are kind of the only way we've known the world to be. And it’s sad to see that stability be ever so more greatly upset by the pandemic and the… everything, with nothing on the horizon to replace it. And if and when we see this kind of stability disappear completely, it’ll be sad, even if it’s replaced by something better. We’ll probably miss something about wandering these gross, heavily commercialized disgustingly homogenized nightmare places that’ve been cannibalizing our communities this whole time. Yeah, we hate it, but... it’s where we live, and we’re not immune to nostalgia.

Nostalgia is just a nicer word for grief

And this same very such eughf feeling is very much echoed in Suzume. There’s this deep and palpable grief for these places and the people who used to live here felt in this film, and inherent in expressing that grief is Shinkai’s expression of the, y’know, important stage of grief, i.e., acceptance. Because, to close the doors, Suzume and Souta have to not just, close it, but also think of all the feelings and experiences of the people who used to live in these places, and then… let go.

When the amusement park scene happens, the ferris wheel starts moving, and Suzume is drawn in by the image of the ghosts of the people who once rode it, Souta starts yelling for her to stop, to not go in- not the least because she can’t see what she’s doing and is putting herself in danger, but also because she cannot go back. Those people who used to sit in that ferris wheel, laughing, crying, living, in this place, cannot come back. Suzume can’t go back. This past can’t be gone back to.

Okay, so, one thing I missed when I saw the film the second time. When Suzume was drawn into the Ever After through the ferris wheel door, she was seeing herself of the future in there, and that, was foreshadowing the end of the film. I’m keeping this part anyway because the emotional impact of that scene was still as described even if this plot foreshadowing bit was something I missed the first time seeing the film.

I read a few English language interview articles with Shinkai talking about Suzume right after seeing the film, both because I wanted clarification before I ran my mouth on two things. 1, I wanted clarification on what the cat wanted. I’ll get to him. 2, I wanted to be sure my interpretation of the doors thing was on point, which it was. Shinkai talks in one of these interviews about how when covid was happening and Japan was still trying to have the Olympics happen, it felt really irresponsible and bad, and he did not agree with this. He says, and I quote,

“You were opening this new door and not sure of what’s on the other side without bringing closure or understanding or coming to terms with what’s behind you. I want to say a lot of the Japanese population felt the same way. There was this kind of awkward air about us, and it really wasn’t time to open new doors without first reflecting on what came before us.”

And like, yeah, I agree. I just really, really agree with this. It is indeed what I took away from the film before I read this interview. Suzume spends this entire movie reflecting on the past and trying to grow beyond that and ultimately the one door that she opens, on purpose, is the one that she decides to open intentionally after reflecting on what brought her to this point and deciding what she needs to do and

Eugghhhh

I’m just saying, it worked. It really did work. For us, at least.

Now, to be clear: Japan and the United States are two different countries, and, while there are similarities in how the pandemic left our societies, they're ultimately two different societies, and I don't really know jack shit about Japanese society- I'm just relating, my feelings, of my experience, uh, our experience, as an American, to the feelings that we took away from Suzume.

And... even if I understand this all right. If the people who need to see this sort of message saw it, or, like, took that away, or acted on it when it did... that’d be nice, but ultimately I don’t think that Suzume will move any politician or other person in power making these decisions in Japan, or any country, enough, or in the right ways, to have any impact on policy. But y’know, Shinkai’s just a guy making movies, and I’m just one of the various split personalities of a deranged F-list anime YouTuber, so whatever. Such is life. It’s at least a nice sentiment.

So, the other things, in no particular order. I did cry a bit when Daijin, the cat, got sucked up back into the keystone. He’s hard to like at the start of the film, for, y’know, the reasons why he is, but ultimately when you consider that like… he’s been trapped that way, the same way as Souta spends trapped as a chair, for years? Centuries, for all we goddamn know? Once that clicks, it’s really hard to not empathize with him. And yeah, he might be a god now, I guess, but who knows if he was a person before, or, what even, and just, I think, I think if you spend god knows how long as a sacred relic keeping Japan from being destroyed by earthquakes, you at least, at least, maybe, maybe deserve, if nothing else, a little pet.

[pets microphone]

that was your little pet.

In one of the other interviews Shinkai did, he talked about how Souta becoming a chair, and also a Keystone sealing away the earthquakes, is intended as a metaphor for the experience of pandemic lockdown. It’s not a directly equivalent analogy, but, like, it does make sense! Souta is being forced into a position of being confined, to keep this dangerous and virtually uncontrollable force of nature under control, for the greater good and long-term preservation of society. And when you consider that Daijin was in the same position for gosh knows how the hell long, it makes it a lot easier to empathize with him! He wasn’t being malicious, exactly, not, willfully anyway, he knew that vacating his position was putting everyone else at risk, but, he did it anyway cause he just kinda snapped, like, fuck this, I want to go outside! That does make a lot of sense! Also it sticks out, also, when Suzume screams at Daijin, because that’s, y’know. It’s a whole scene. I feel like I want to say something about this! But I can't really land on anything to say about it? But yeah.

I think the whole thing with Suzume needing to sacrifice Souta midway through the movie is really well done. It’s extremely funny to me that Shinkai apparently thought to stress this point of the movie as how important it is for her to make this difficult choice because of how people criticized Weathering With You for not really being meaningfully critical of the consequence of Hodaka un-sacrificing Hina? And also that Hina never really gets a choice in being un-sacrificed, far as I remember, so... [whispers] that’s a little unintentionally sexist,

but whatever. I’d have to watch the film again, and I don’t feel like doing that right now

Suzume’s aunt, Tamaki. I do like her. She’s a pretty level-headed guardian, as guardians go. I like that when she finds Suzume and Serizawa in the car, and sees that going to this door is important to Suzume, she’s not immediately like, “fuck your feelings, we’re going home”? She’s curious about the child under her care. She’s concerned in a way that she’s willing to not only go all the way to Tokyo, but also to follow Suzume the rest of the way to see what's up because she clearly understands, logically, that even if she doesn’t know what it is that’s compelled Suzume to go this distance, it must be something that she needs to sort the fuck out in order to move on with her life, and that’s kinda good?

Although I should note that while she clearly sees the pragmatic value in not fighting Suzume on this, she’s also pretty reluctant to. She has a line where she’s like to Serizawa while Suzume is asleep, let’s turn the fuck around and go back, she’ll give up. So, y’know, Tamaki’s at least more open-minded than our mom was!

Speaking of that. There’s this one scene in the film, where Tamaki loses her shit at Suzume. Goes on screaming on about how she hates Suzume and wants her life back, and then she runs off to Serizawa being all like “I think I’m losing it,” and it’s a whole thing. On our first viewing, this scene felt a little out of nowhere. It was a whole sudden shock to have this intense scene happen and then also its pivot back into the magical realism aspects of the film with the black cat’s appearance, which confused us a bit cause I don’t think that was really explained at all.

But, watching the film a second time, and seeing the arc of Tamaki’s frustration reaching its peak with the benefit of hindsight, it made more sense that she’d come to a rope’s end and flip out like this. She’s been chasing her niece all across Japan, she’s ridden for several hours in a busted convertible in the rain, she doesn’t even have a proper explanation, her coworker has raised to her that this might be a kidnapping scheme- I get it. It’s a scene that I get.

I still do not understand the role of the large black cat though. Our friend agreed that that part didn’t make a whole lot of sense. So, that didn’t change.

I think the reason why it felt out of nowhere to us the first time is because it was entirely too familiar to our real life experience. In the middle of Tamaki’s rant, Suzume responds by saying, “but you said, ‘you’re my daughter,’” referring to when Tamaki first took her in, and said that. And Tamaki snaps back, “I never said that.” Our mother also did this exact thing, vehemently denying that she said and did things that we definitely remembered her saying and doing. (There's a word for this, it's... it's called gaslighting!) Living with someone who denies you this much, who makes you question your memory and your sanity and your general perception of the world this much, by forcing their own grief onto you like this, is just… really, simply, awful.

Throughout our childhood, we heard our mom say similar shit to us numerous times. That we were a horrible incorrigible child, that she hated us for ruining her family, that she wished she’d aborted us— all those sorts of things. The tone of Tamaki’s unadulterated rage in this dialogue was all too familiar to those memories. So, yeah, on both viewings, we were, very uncomfortable. Even knowing it was coming the second time around, it kinda caused us to actively recoil in our seat, to the point that our friend who we were seeing it with noticed our reaction and held out a stuffed animal she’d brought with her for us to pet.

So, um, yeah, that specific scene may or may not have triggered the PTSD that we may or may not have.

Tamaki does apologize for this later!

And she also, debatably, gets a bit of a pass for this since she’s not Suzume’s mother, and thus cannot reasonably wish that she had aborted Suzume, but can instead wish that she’d not done the unambiguously good deed of keeping Suzume out of the Japanese child welfare system, which, I can’t imagine is a good experience for a child. I don’t imagine any country’s child welfare system under capitalism to be a good experience for a child, but, y’know.  Well, we’re also kind of entirely opposed to the traditional family structure and the basic premise of parents in general, because giving only one or two people total power over a vulnerable young human life is not an ethical tradition to have in any case, but… eugh. That’s something for some other video.

In an interview with Deadline, Shinkai talks about this scene, specifically quoting the “give me back my life” part, and he says that on some level, all parents feel that way to their kids. And that while he acknowledges that it isn’t by any means acceptable to ever say that kind of stuff to a child, it is, y’know, a feeling that is there that he poured into it, and that he wanted to be there, for the parents in the audience who ever felt that way and regretted it. This is how we found out that Makoto Shinkai is apparently not single and does in fact have a child.

He also says, in this other interview with the Verge, that, he wanted the film to provide for an opportunity for people of different generations to emotionally connect with each other. So, in that context, I really understand why this scene is here. It’s serving the purpose of setting up that emotional bridge, that door between Suzume and Tamaki, these characters of two different generations who ultimately come to understand one another, with the hope that audiences in a similar emotional position might come away from the film having felt some sense of healing by way of, y’know, getting that. And also Shinkai talks about how the idealized nuclear family structure is not a thing that’s tenable or possible for a lot of families in Japanese society, and, it’s not very tenable for a lot of people in American society either!

So I recognize the intent of this scene. I think it’s commendable, even. If there is a parent and child out there who saw Suzume together on whom this had the intended impact, I think that that’s wonderful. I sincerely hope that they exist!

Even still… we, were a child, who regularly had this sort of thing said to our face by our real life mother, and tried, in good faith, many times over the years, to repair our increasingly fraught relationship with her, and failed. I am deeply, regrettably cynical about familial relationships because of our traumatic experience with our own family. Our mother is not the sort of person who would come to meaningfully empathize with us through seeing this film.

And we really fucking hate her, so… yeah, this scene is difficult to watch. It’s difficult for us personally to feel any sympathy for Tamaki when she’s saying that kind of stuff to Suzume, and once it was over I could only really kind of feel glad that it was over.

But! It’s not like it’s the film’s fault that our parents were bad. I don’t think our reaction was intended. It just happened! It just happens sometimes that different people other than who the thing was written for react to things differently. That doesn’t make the scene bad, or any less valuable to include. And I do think that Tamaki’s relationship with Suzume is portrayed pretty well and with a surprising degree of nuance! It’s good! Tamaki is a good character and she means well! And I do like what Shinkai said in that Verge interview about wanting to portray other family structures.

However I think that their relationship would work better if she was gay, because honestly, that entire “get out of my life” speech would hit a lot more and probably work a lot better in the context of being directed at a gay teenager rather than an assumed heterosexual one. But, hey, we thought we were heterosexual for most of our life, so, who’s to say much of anything!

Was there anything else I forgot to talk about? Um…

We cried at the end of the film, both times we saw it!

And also, while this film couldn’t have improved our relationship with our mother, it did serve as a very good bonding experience with our friend. I’m really glad we took her to see it. She really liked the scenes where Suzume sits and steps on Souta as a chair, that that was clever, that they took the opportunity to get away with that with him as a chair. And she also agreed that the chair in general was really well portrayed visually. She also cried! at the end. the heterosexual chair film made a lesbian cry. uh, two lesbians, cry. I’m not going to say anything more than that.

Thank you to everyone who watched this entire video. I have an excuse to do a bad job editing it now because there’s not that much footage of Suzume available and it’s all gonna get me copyright striked anyway

To summarize, Suzume Good. Suzume. Watch Suzume. I’ve been Audrey of the joystick system, and I did not hate Suzume. Thank you. Goodnight

#suzume #suzume no tojimari #suzume spoilers #video essay #youtube #joyce-stick #joystick system #your name #weathering with you

[ro994art]

A very specific nitpick I have with 'Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate'

I don't do text posts here very often. This feels odd, let's just get on with it.

I was originally going to write down a full-on review expressing my utter disappointment and disgust dislike towards the horrible and cheap "sequel" to my favorite Dreamworks movie, Megamind. A sequel which, by now, we all know was nothing but a glorified extended pilot for a Peacock series that I have not watched, but it honestly looks just as mediocre, so I have no current plans to.

Hoooowever, I have since seen many reviews of this "movie", most of which have been able to express my feelings and thoughts pretty well. So it felt like I didn't have much else to contribute to the discourse.

Except for one thing that I have not seen anyone talk about (or maybe they have talked about it and I just haven't seen it), and it was one of the things that bothered me most about the film. So this post's entire purpose is to publicly point it out.

No, I'm not talking about Keiko herself (although yes, she was my least favorite character and completely ruined the movie and this franchise for me thanks for asking). It's more the purpose of her character.

You see, and allow me to put my cranky old lady pants for just a moment, I believe most people have been able to guess that the entire reason this character was put into the movie was to be a target audience insert. So the 8 to 12 year-olds watching can go "Hey! This character is around my age and has the same interest as me! I'll keep watching for her!" (Do no ask me how well that's going because I personally do not find the excecution of it all that great, but I digress). And although, as a more mature viewer and long-time follower of the franchise, this does feel a bit annoying, having this kind of character when you're trying to appeal to a new audience is, technically speaking, not a bad thing in itself. And when executed well, this can totally work.

But here's the problem.

It makes no sense for a character like this to form part of Megamind's story.

You see, my friends, for those of you who have not seen this movie (which, for your own good, I sincerely hope is the majority of people who are reading this), "Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate" is VERY explicitly supposed to take place two days after the events of the first movie.

Just two days.

This is explicitly said at least two or three times in the first act of the movie alone (I value my sanity too much to rewatch the film to double-check that fact, but I'm fairly confident in that).

If you all remember, the masterpiece known as the original Megamind movie came out in 2010. Therefore, the most logical thing to assume is that the events of the film itself also take place in 2010, if not before that, right? It's never explicitly stated, but since there is nothing that confirms or denies this, I think it's the default assumption we as an audience should make.

Now, I did not own my first cellphone until the year 2012 when I turned 13 (don't make fun of me for that fact), so, correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't think in 2010, we were seeing thing such as:

Smartphones like the one Keiko has throughout the film,

People using said smartphones to make livestreams in which people leave likes and comments in real time,

Kids who are content creators gaining half a million subscribers in TWO LITERAL DAYS (I cannot stress this enough) by getting information and newsflashes from goodness-knows-where,

App equivalents to TikTok and Instagram with as much popularity as we saw in this,

And overall, just social media getting the same treatment and functioning the same in 2010 as it does in 2024.

I mean yes, in 2010, things such as the ones I listed above were probably beginning to take popularity and to become a thing. But they surely weren't as well-established as they're being presented to us in Megamind "2".

This cheapquel "sequel" is suppossed to be only two days after the first one, and yet, everything that revolves around THIS KID'S existence suggests to us that we're in the 2020's era of internet, influencers, and social media. Heck, the earliest I could buy any of this believably happening is like, 2018. 2015 as a stretch.

We went from 2010 to (at least) 2015 in two stinkin' days.

No sense whatsoever.

Logically speaking, there's no way TikTok Childstar Keiko was even born in the year the first Megamind took place. Like, her birth year is 2011 at the earliest, and you can't convince me otherwise. Why do you even exist two days after Megamind was renowned as the hero of Metrocity? Please go back to the womb.

(That got personal, sorry. This kid gets too much on my nerves)

"Well, TECHNICALLY since it's never stated when the first Megamind took place, nothing's stopping them from making it so that it's been 2024 all along"

If that seriously does not sound like gaslighting your audience in order to force "hip" references that resonate with the kids watching almost a decade and a half after the original film came out to you, then I don't know what does. I don't even care if "you're not suppossed to think too hard about it" (which is a lame excuse for lazy writing btw), just watching both movies back-to-back, the tonal differences and any chronological references just clash way too much for me to buy this as a legitimate follow-up taking place in the same universe, same city, and even same week.

So yes, "Megamind vs The Doom Syndicate" sucks, and the inclusion of this character and this anachronistic plotline, for me, is a huge reason why. It's insulting to the audience and a clearly desperate attempt to appeal to a new generation of kids that frankly, if Megamind had gotten a genuinely good sequel, they would've liked it all the same, even if it didn't include a 12-year-old TikTok influencer with a half-baked personality and forced role in the story. Because seriously, don't even get me STARTED on how forced her joining the gang felt, holy crap. 😓 But that's a tangent for another day. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just leave this meme here and move on.

This was, of course, only one of many flaws this movie had, but I feel like other people have ranted enough about how the writing, character portrayals, poor animation, bad humor, and lame attempts at world-building did the original Megamind dirty.

Here's hoping one day Dreamworks wakes up, thinks smart, and decides to give us the Megamind 2 we deserve, so we can all happily toss this... project, into the realm of non-canon media, where it belongs.

#ro994 rants #rant #megamind #megamind 2 #megamind vs the doom syndicate #megamind salt #megamind 2 salt #megamind rules #dreamworks #text post #critique

[fangirleaconmigo]

A big part of taking care of someone who is sick is just keeping them company because it is so isolating.

So I have sped through a lot of media this past few months while sitting with my sister. And I’ve read while waiting in the hospital and doctors offices.

Here’s the new stuff I’ve just watched and read: (if you wanna talk more about any of them hmu in the ask box. It may take me awhile to answer but I want the asks even so!)

Watched

Barbie. I loved how weird this was. We need more weird blockbusters. I loved seeing a creative team with so many women win so big.

The Bear. This show was a little too real but so well done. I would die for Syd. My sister and I have incorporated “Heard, chef” and “Yes, Chef” into our daily lexicon.

Good Omens S2. When I tell you I was SCREAMIN at the finale. Season three is not a want, it is a need. Right up there with oxygen. Bless Tennant, bless Sheen, bless Gaiman, Netflix hear our prayers.

Breaking Bad rewatch. My thoughts could fill a novel. If anyone wants more, drop an ask. But for these purposes, my only thought is that I will never comprehend people who watched this for Walter White and not for Jessie Pinkman.

Justified Primeval: Deeply enjoyed watching Raylan Givens tussle with a child just like him 😂. Also his chemistry with Carolyn was fuckn fire, I loved the ‘grown an sexy’ vibe. And YESSSS to that epilogue.

What We Do in the Shadows (tho not the finale yet) I will be completely honest I watch this for Guillermo de la Cruz. No thots head empty just Guillermo.

The Witcher S3: My sister actually actively dislikes the show 😂😂😭 so I wasn’t gonna watch it to the sound of her unsolicited critique. So, I went to my friends house to watch it. But turned out my friend’s Husband Joined Us. He is nice but he talked over it SO MUCH. (Like did you know that some of the buildings don’t have windows in the wide shots but then in internal shots, windows galore??) Bless his heart. Point being, I need to watch again.

Ladies First. I’m a big fan of women in hip hop so this documentary series was a MUST. It was great but it left me wanting more. I want a series for every year of women in hip hop. Incredible. Also I found some new artists to listen to.

Pacific Rim rewatch. The movie is just as much fun ten years later. The concept of drift compatibility is top fucking shelf my friends. Top. Fuckn. Shelf. Also, is this the only GDT movie where the monsters are actually the bad guys? 😂 I think it is.

Heartstopper. I watched this mostly because I wanted to spend time (virtually, alas) with my fandom wife and she is obsessed with this show. Glad queer teens have this. The main actors have amazing chemistry, and are super lovable and talented.

One Piece live action. I needed something lighter after being gutted by Breaking Bad so I turned to this show. Am now obsessed with Roronoa Zoro.

I Read:

Pageboy, Elliot Page

Under the Whispering Door, TJ Klune.

Velvet is the Night, Silvia Moreno Garcia

I am Spock, Leonard Nimoy

The Entire Murderbot Diaries series re-read for like the seventh time. This is like my therapy. By Martha Wells.

#the witcher #opla #breaking bad #justified #good omens #the bear #pacific rim

[itookyoudown]

for the ask game: top 5 justified episodes?

oh lordy this is so hard to choose. i'm not answering this with any thoughtfulness just going with gut instinct.

5: Full Commitment, season 2. this is my guilty pleasure and comfort episode because of how western it feels and how much tim gutterson we get :)

we even get raylan talking to dan!! i just love how all the pieces of the plot and characters come together in this episode. this also sets up and kicks off the finale of Bloody Harlan. really the last three episodes of this season feel like a mini movie to me, they all flow together brilliantly.

4: The Promise, season 6. this isn't my favorite season or even my favorite season finale, but it's one of my favorite episodes because of how bittersweet it is. it was the perfect wrap-up for a perfect show and the final scene is my favorite final scene in any show i've ever watched.

some characters survive, but nobody really wins and i love that. it feels like such a real true to life ending.

3: The Hunt, season 6. the episode that cinched boyd's characterization and showed us two flavors of domesticity horror (raylan and winona with willa's heart murmur reveal and trying to navigate co-parenting along with raylan's lackluster fathering VS boyd's abduction, terrorization, and assault of ava).

this is the most thriller-esque episode of justified to me and truly does verge into lowkey horror at some points. it shocked and numbed me the first time i watched it and the reality didn't really click until the second rewatch and by the third time it truly sunk in.

the fact boyd became the type of man his father and his brother were...utterly devastating and really changed my perspective on his character. and he chose it, he plotted it and organized it in a cold fashion. it's heartbreaking and at first you can't believe it but upon rewatches of the show it revealed to me that yeah...yeah. boyd was always capable of this and it's no surprise this is where he and ava ended up.

outlaw king and queen they never were and never would have been.

this episode is also fascinating because you can see critic response to it as a disturbing time capsule. look at reviews of this episode back when the show was airing...be prepared to be sickened by how often boyd assaulting ava is framed as "making love" or a reunification/rekindling of their relationship 🙃

this episode is always difficult for me to rewatch, but i still love it.

on a lighter note, i also delight in raylan being a fail dad and with city primeval fresh in my mind i love how it really does confirm his work over family priority from the get-go lol.

2: Outlaw, season 4. in general this is a solid af episode of justified in the best season of the show, but it ranks so high in my mind because it's the culmination of Arlo and Rayan's relationship. look, the truth is abuse is so rarely accurately portrayed in media. usually, it's revenge fantasy or feel-good simplification that reduces things down to evil monsters and pure perfect victims. and i get why that happens, i get it, most people find it healing and those stories do need to exist i'm not knocking them.

but justified has a complex and multilayered way of dealing with abusive relationships (they did it with boyd and ava too) that actually digs into how complicated and messy and painful they truly are.

the fact we get to see Raylan grieve Arlo in such an understated but devasting way...holy shit. one of the best moments in the show imo. because it doesn't matter if you hate your parent and they were shitty and abusive. you still loved them. you still love who they were in-between the abuse and maybe you don't grieve the person they were but you grieve what could have been and what you never had with them.

1: Decoy, season 4: all-time best episode of justified and top-tier episode of television everywhere. the episode is really the pinnacle of justified's genre (neo western). e v e r y t h i n g about this episode honors justified's storylines and honors characterization. heart and soul and brain all in one go.

it respects the lawmen and the outlaws in portrayal. the writing is tight, the dialogue is outstanding, and it comes with one of justified's most iconic and thematic shots (the stairwell scene).

#tooks.txt #justie games #yes season 4 and season 6 are my favorites can you tell

[gothwizardmagic]

ok i havent watched the su movie, su future, or fionna and cake yet but i am done with the "re" part of my "rewatch all the tumblr popular early 10s cartoons and see how they hold up" mission here are the results;

adventure time: dipped pretty badly in the middle (season 6 iirc) but overall really good with a few absolute bangers in there, and the ending is GREAT for real. more than any of the others i think adventure time did a really good job of growing up with its target audience while managing to have broad appeal throughout

gravity falls: BANGERS START TO FINISH NARY A FLOP ACTIVELY BETTER THAN I REMEMBERED also really fun to rewatch with hindsight of all The Theories and the ending itself knowing which clues were clues and which were red herrings. i dont even have that much to say gravity falls is just a fucking banger of a show if youre feeling nostalgic i strongly recommend the rewatch

steven universe: starts out actively Kinda Bad but progresses pretty quickly - only one Absolute Flop episode in the later seasons. (gem harvest.) i knew it was suffering from the steven bomb format but i didnt realise just how badly until i actually watched the show through consistently with no breaks. the story viewed contiguously is REALLY consistent and well paced (right until the ending but thats not the creators fault) and despite said pacing issues i really enjoyed the ending, found myself actually like. shouting out loud a few times it was SO GOOD FOR REAL also we owe so much to the crewniverse fighting for the garnet wedding this is such an all around queer show struggling to be itself at every turn which was interesting to look back on given how far we've come since. i will say that in the early seasons i dont think any of the writers had ever Met a thirteen year old like i get that steven is supposed to be immature but theres a difference between an immature thirteen year old and like. a seven year old. but that clears up with time and he starts acting his age as the story progresses

had more to say about su than the others bc i JUST finished it but man overall all three shows hold up pretty well and were worth the rewatch

#im not counting otgw in this mission bc like. its otgw we all know its great #also its the wrong time of year to watch it

[lizardlicks]

Nine People You'd Like To Get To Know Better

I was tagged by @blu3berrydraws, @erisenyo, and @paramouradrift lol thanks guys!

Relation Status: Married to my best friend and high school sweetheart

Favorite Color: green. any green. give me a green I will show you how beautiful it is

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Sweet tooth is currently satisfied. Spicy is just kind of a bonus. I think savory is looking good rn.

Three ships: Zukka is the obvious current answer, but I am a habitual multishipper by nature, so here are three ships that I very much enjoy which might not be on your radars!

First is @ablueeyedarcher's fault: How/Piandao. The SS CapyPanda. Are they minor characters who only show up for two or three episodes a piece? Yes. Do I care? No. Let them smooch.

Number two is Jee/Bato. Look. Jee is a tired gay man, He has served his time. Let him get out there and get the good dick. He's not a home wrecker though, he's not gonna get between whatever Bato has going on with Hakoda... unless maybe they invited him to get between them more literally.

Third is Zuko/Kuei. I know the the post canon comics pitted these two sad bitches against each other but listen, here me out. They're both young, inexperienced leaders dropped head first into navigating attempting to deescalate their countries post a century of hostilities with minimal helpful guidance, and they were also both used and betrayed by the father figures they we supposed to trust and rely on. What if when left alone, face to face, they bonded over venting their similar frustrations? What if that bonding turned into an unlikely friendship? What if that friendship tripped and rolled down a rocky hill of something more and they ended up in a secret affair between the heads of two of the world's most powerful states? What if it all came crashing in on them, but they couldn't untangle their very real feelings from their duty as leaders? What then?

First ever ship: Oh snap this is reaching back into Ye Old memory banks here. If I'm being totally honest I think it was the pink and green (later white, much later all the rest of the damn colors) rangers from the original run of the American version of Power Rangers. The internet didn't exist as we know it today so it was just a group of a half-dozen 7-9 year olds G O S S I P I N G on the playground between rounds of pretending to be actual velociraptors.

Last Song:

(Two Steps From Hell is my go-to writing times tune everything out music)

Last Film: Technically it was me and the rest of the adults post Thanksgiving diner keeping a running background commentary going on the worldbuilding choices in the Paw Patrol Movie that the little kids insisted on watching. Real answer, the last movie I sat down to watch with intention was Across the Spiderverse.

Last thing I Googled: solar chistmas lights. My coworker was complaining that her only outdoor outlet shares a load with an indoor one (which?? rude!) and her partner wouldn't let her put up more Christmas lights. I had to show her. The way her face lit up as she IMMEDIATELY zoomed to Amazon and started filling her cart. Apologies to her poor family and neighbors, but I definitely made her week and possibly her entire New Year.

Currently Reading: Hey did you know that @erisenyo is already releasing stuff for zukki week because she is. you should definitely go read that.

Currently Watching: Rewatching Blue Eye Samurai while spouse watches it for the first time. He's been big into old samurai and wuxia films since I can remember so I'm just sitting here anticipating his reactions to every easter egg and trope call back they've stuffed into this show and also spotting things I missed on the first round.

Currently Consuming: Peppermint mocha and a cheese, egg and sausage tornado. Don't question me.

Currently Craving: My cozy bed. Also a nice big bowl of curry.

Currently Working On: The next chapter of Learn to Carry Love. I'm so so so close to the finish aaargh!

Current Obsession(s): *Gestures at my blog*

And with that I'm gonna taaaaaaag @ablueeyedarcher @rainbowbarnacle @paintsplattere @allgremlinart @saccharineomens @thepioden @siggymcpissyface @curlicuecal and @yandereleorio! No obligation of course, just for a fun time if you wanna :D

#tag game #there were actually a couple different versions of this game with different questions between all the posts I was tagged in #so I combined them #anyway I have so many more odd ball ships where those came from you should ask me about them #gonna file this under #lizard is starting to ramble #Youtube

[emilyrox]

I got tagged by @intothewickedwood to do this :D

Three favorite ships: I think my favorite ships at any moment change depending on which media I'm currently obsessed with. But I think in general, my top 3 are:

Captain Swan (Emma Swan and Killian Jones) *Canon*

Lumity (Luz Noceda and Amity Blight) *Canon*

Darkstache (Darkiplier and Wilford Warfstache) *Not Canon But It Should Be*

First ship: uhhhhhh...I wanna say my first ships were from Total Drama. But I have NO IDEA which one it was.

Like, yeah, I liked Gwen and Trent (before they broke up) and Duncan and Courtney (before they broke up) and so on, but idk if I "shipped" them, or if I just liked them because they were canon at the time. I guess out of all the pairings I liked, the one that I consider myself actually "shipping" was Aleheather (Alejandro and Heather).

Last movie: I recently rewatched the Steven Universe Movie with some of my friends! Yeah it's not perfect but it's still fun and has some banger music (and Spinel is best character fight me).

Currently reading: That's really funny 10/10 comedy the person who made this tag game got jokes fr

Ok but for real I haven't read much since the semester ended. My honors history class had us do a LOT of reading and I was like uhhhhmmmmm.....

BUT, I think the last thing I read for that class was part of "Utopia for Realists" by Rutger Bregman. It was one of the few readings for that class that actually interested me and gave me a new perspective on poverty and how it affects people in ways we don't usually think about. I may finish it some day idk.

Currently watching: Rewatching episodes of Spongebob and the og iCarly with my sister. I also saw a few episodes of the new iCarly too. Apparently Spencer has 11 kids???

I saw S1 EP 8 of Helluva Boss when it came out (twice), and I heard the next episode of season 2 is coming out on Saturday!

But mostly I've been watching stuff on YouTube.

(I really need to finish OUAT with my mom and the reaosn why we haven't is because the series finale is all that's left and we're both like 'if we don't finish the show it'll never be over' and it's just aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

Currently eating: I ate two donuts for breakfast does that count?

Currently craving: I've been craving slushies for the past couple of weeks. I got a cherry one yesterday from an ice cream truck at my town's 4th of July celebration and it was gooood.

I did it I completed the tag game!

Tagging: @zee-the-zebra @kazoosandfannypacks @wispy-fox @thermodynamic-comedian @pirateprincessofpizza @fromthedeskof-darkiplier @wilfywarfy and anyone else that wants to do it :D

#tag game #intothewickedwood #once upon a time #ouat #emma swan #killian jones #captain swan #the owl house #toh #luz noceda #amity blight #lumity #markipliertv #darkiplier #wilford warfstache #darkstache #total drama #td alejandro #td heather #aleheather #steven universe #steven universe movie #spinel #utopia for realists #icarly #icarly 2021 #helluva boss #spongebob squarepants