#{ ben is a fucking adult on this blog and YET }

[gleefullypolin]

Can we all just sit down and have a chat...

Like family dinner or some shit because seriously you all are being fucking mental.

Sorry this is long and I'm just ranting to myself. DNR

I didn't have social media until the start of the year for Bridgerton. Mostly because so much of the fandom is fucking mental. My only socials were for Captain swan and don't get me wrong, that place is a cesspool of shit too but come on guys...this is crazy shit for a romance show about a family.

On my last one, I got it...the fandoms hated each other because the ships cross pollinated. (you see what I did there) lol. Captain Swan hated Swan Queen, Swan Fire, everyone wanted to burn each other alive and nothing was happy. I know discourse.

But this is literally no reason at all. They are brothers and sisters with no incest. They aint out here fucking each other.

Now, what I do want to say is, I sit back quietly and watch but I also keep a lot of receipts. So seeing a lot of people talking like they are up on a high tower of purity is pretty funny, because I also watched the shit show that happened at the end of S2. Trust me, there is no high tower to be sitting on, when that tower had sniper guns and you were literally shooting at people from them.

Polin's for the most part are quiet. Their reddit is pretty peaceful. There is always something being talked about, a competition to be voted on, pretty art, a fun meme, interesting conversation to be had. It's not a hate fest. That was necessary because the main sub is a rotten piece of shit that cannot be navigated for the most part and is not safe for Polin's to be in.

If you have been there, you would know that every six days or so, someone will post the same tribe, "I didn't like S3 and can't get through all of it, please help me understand why" usually followed by a sentence that says "S2 is the best and I love X or I was so upset when Ben got shoved to the side" Again I have no idea why these posts are necessary. If you don't like something, don't watch it, don't ask us to help you figure out why you don't like it. But also, these posts aren't actually there for them to ask us anything, its simply there to boost the negativity around S3.

There is no need for this, but it continues to happen.

The anti blogs continue to spew stupidity toward Polin that doesn't even track with normalcy. If you are an adult with this type of blog, please go back to your job and re-evaluate your life. But you cannot be NOT part of scripting, casting, shondaland, bridgerton, and still have so much insight into the scripts, casting, shondaland, and bridgerton. Please be so for real and go to work.

The Kanophies have spent so many years torturing the Polins that it has become normal in this fandom. So normal that now anything that happens for S4, it is just expected that Polin world shut the fuck up and take their medicine and if anything outside of that happens, it is bad behavior on our part. I think the Polins have earned their voice.

S3 was SUCCESSFUL, let me say that for the dumbass idiots in the back who do not understand how things work and twist themselves into pretzels to try and misconstrue numbers, try and talk to you in facts that don't add up, make you feel like the world is upside down, or speak like this:

"Every season builds on the next and so it makes sense that each season is more popular as the next comes out so it only makes sense for S3 to see these numbers."

If that was the case, S2 would have done better than S1 and yet here we are. With that not being the case. Also if that was the case, shows would not get cancelled so often because viewership dies down as shows continue their seasons. Math doesnt math because they are simply wrong.

The things they are saying are only to help them feel better. Look I'm not wanting Bridgerton to be cancelled. I'm happy when all seasons do well. S1, S2, S3 are ALL on the Top 10 list. I'm incredibly proud of S3 and how well it did, mostly because those parts of our fandom OPENLY ROOTED FOR ITS FAILURE. They wanted it to flop, they prayed for it to flop, they told our leads out in the open they wanted them to do terribly and hoped they sucked. This is what we are dealing with, again, we have receipts....you are not on a high tower.

And yes, its not the whole fandom, these are sub sets of the fandom, I will give you that IF YOU WILL ALSO GIVE US THE SAME GRACE AND STOP BLAMING ALL POLINS FOR OURS!

But also, is it not odd.....completely that when something does go down....on the Polin side, its from an account that was created that day or from a week prior who is suddenly being incredibly racist or homophobic. OUT OF THE BLUE. We should all be wary of accounts like that and call them out.....WHICH POLINS do immediately.

Sadly, what I'm seeing coming from the other side, is from long time accounts calling Nic fat, trashing our side of our ship. Being rude to Luke. Just go read some comments on Netflix for any post on Bridgerton. S3, S4, doesn't matter, I dare you. It's not nice from our beloved fandom.

So spare me your lectures. Look at yourselves in the mirror. Stop telling me that I have to be nice. I'm done with this.

Yes, the video came out yesterday and some Polins made a comment about chemistry. And why did that happen?

BECAUSE THE FIRST THING A BENOPHIE ACCOUNT SAID WAS:

THANK GOD we finally have leads with chemistry again.

Isnt it good to have leads with chemistry again

THIS is what chemistry looks like instead of that fake stuff from before

Ok that is what bullying is. So we punched back. And I'm sorry, but sometimes you just get fucking tired of being talked shit to all the damn time. And yeah I didnt see chemistry either. I didnt respond to anyone about it, but you know what I'm not going to lecture anyone who did. And the ONE comment that stirred the pot was LITERALLY not directed to ANYONE and all it said was ERM. so spare me the clutching of the pearls.

I'm over being attacked and being called the bully.

Polin fanfic writers can't even write fic about Pen being friends with Anthony or a story with Kanthony without being bullied in their comments. They can't write a fic about Newton with being trolled in their comments and called racist or worst because they dared take a dog away from a POC. I wish I was making some of this stuff up that I have seen in comments. It is brutal out there and I have never seen it going the other way. I'm sorry, I have gone out and searched. It's always some account created brand new and faked. These are long time accounts commenting on people who wrote a nice fic and tagged a ship APPROPRIATELY.

So how about you sit down and enjoy your season and maybe, just maybe if you spent more time writing your own fics, speculating on your own season, enjoying your own leads and keeping S3 out of your mouths, you might spend less time worrying what Polin's are doing.

It's just so fucking tiring.

Sorry for the rant.

edit: I'm not just yelling at outside our fandom either. some of our own polin's need to cut shit out too. L/N are having to alter their own behavior cuz our side act like fucking freaks too. Stop stalking them. Luke's had to alter his SM profile or posts how many times because you guys are calling around to his hotels to ask about his GF. Would you all act like the adults you all actually are.

[nothorses]

as i understand you and your friends have a habit of taking what can be called the "ben shapiro argument method" (taking what someone says and misconstruing it enough that they have no way to respond without looking bad, even though it has nothing to do with what was originally stated, nor does the opposer raise any real points), i have decided to present this as a nice, clear, and concise numbered list, so i hope you can respond in a way that makes sense for once! :) 1. it was not private, that person posted it on a publicly available blog, the person in question chose to make this public 2. huge difference between what you're describing and FANTASIZING about that and "corrective rape" for transgender women and cisgender lesbians as well, which is what happened 3. i never said i disagreed that trans people should come together against transphobia, i said that the word "transunitism" sounds fascist, because it does 4. unlike the person in question, i am anonymous, i am choosing to stay private, you have no right to know what i do or do not enjoy. hell, you don't even know if i am an adult, and making a leap like that is a really dangerous thing you should reassess, because if this keeps coming up, as it has proven to, and people keep saying this, as they have been proven to. you will inevitably land yourself in deep shit.

sure, let's play.

it was a (password-protected, afaik) kink roleplay blog marked NSFW and restricted to adults. that's not the same as consent, for anything. it is especially not consent to spread shit around to random individuals who also, like, do not want to fucking hear about it (as I do not) (that's also sexual harassment btw. if you even care).

what I am describing is literally what happened. what I am telling you is a. not contradicted by anything he has said elsewhere, and b. what he told me. at minimum, you should not be making the assumption or claim that the kink is his without iron-clad proof, regardless of whether or not you believe me that it was someone else's.

literally do you hear yourself.

you are saying that you believe the only difference between situations where it is or is not okay to judge a person by their kinks, spread them around to strangers, and encourage harassment against them-- is whether that information has been made available to you (even if this was not consensual).

buddy. hey.

I don't want to know about your fucking kinks, you absolute buffoon.

these tags?

blatant sarcasm. I am mocking you, because your logic is all the way unhinged.

it would be literally horrific if everyone was expected or required to publicly state their every sexual interest, fantasy, kink, thought, or act so that the entire rest of the world could judge their morality and determine how worthy of harassment they were based on fucking Thought Crime.

but your argument hinges on the assumption that everyone should know about the sexual roleplay this guy did at the request of his transfem partner a few years ago, because it makes him dangerous that he has this kink (even though he doesn't actually have this kink).

so here's my question:

how do we know you don't have these kinks? how can we be sure you're not just hiding them? anon, you could be the biggest rape fetishist in the world for all anyone else knows! you are literally anonymous- who's to say you don't have a sex roleplay blog where you act out even more scandalous and non-normative sexual fantasies? I certainly don't have any way to know!

if the only thing that makes you a "good person" here is that nobody knows about your kinks (yet), then this truly has nothing to do with the kinks themselves.

I don't want to fucking know your kinks, anon. I also didn't want to know his. I don't fucking care, I did not consent to any of this, and neither did he. both of us, and many others, have asked explicitly and for years now for this to please, please stop.

and yet here you are.

[creeps-and-pasta]

Hi! Came across your blog while looking into creepypasta stuff and was wondering if youd know some key info on the main characters and the various versions of them? Ive seen lots of different versions of the creeps and lots of varying ages for them, it seems cool but also a little confusing. Like ive seen several ages for Jeff Woods: 13, 15 or even in his 20s. Im pretty curious about him and some others like Jane, Ben, and Nina!

Thank you for taking the time to send me these asks! I love explaining and going over creepypasta history. Also, thank you for your patience, I’m busy moving into a new apartment, so I’ve been neglecting this blog for a while. 

I haven’t yet found one place to find a bunch of creepypasta history in one place, which I’ve been trying to fix. I’m planning on making either a google docs or neocities page one day that will put a bunch of creepypasta info in one place, but that will be a while. The info I’m pulling from is TV Tropes and the creepypasta fandom wikia.

The creepypasta fandom is different from most fandoms, because it lacks a true canon. Jeff the Killer is a huge example of this, it’s really hard to tell who first came up with him, or which version is the original. 

Essentially, the famous Jeff the Killer image has been around since 2005, and in 2008 a user on Encyclopaedia Dramatica named Sesseur created a video about Jeff the killer and Liu, which I will link here. (WARNING for images of spiders and the original Jeff the killer image). My favorite line from the video is “he’ll fucking gut you” lol.

So anyway Sesseur is credited as the creator of Jeff the Killer and Liu, though it’s unknown if he created the og image or not. It’s notable that Jeff is an adult in the story. This version is Jeff C. Hodek.

The classic Jeff the Killer story, where Jeff is a kid that gets bullied and set on fire, was created by GameFuelTV on deviantart. This was in 2011. This is Jeffery Alan Woods. Jeff is like, 13? 

A rewrite was made in 2015, by K. Banning Kellum, who I believe has a tumblr account, so be nice to him. This is the Jeff that has half his face burnt off, I think Kellum possibly did this to mimic TwoFace from the Batman comics, rather than the Joker homage that Jeff has had for years. I believe this Jeff is still named Jeffery Alan Woods.

There’s also Mr.Betty Kreuger’s version that I may as well mention. He’s a voice actor that did a whole lot of creepypasta impressions back in the day, and has a terribly written creepypasta series on his youtube channel. I…do not like MBK, but admittedly his hallway of nightmares video is sick af. He has a really good LJ voice. ANYWAY. His version of Jeff is called Jeff Keaton. 

I could go into so much more depth with this, and I will probably make another post soon detailing the many Bens in this fandom, along with Jane and Nina. This is just…a lot of work to write about lol. I used to have notes about this somewhere, but I can’t find them atm.

    I guess the key word here is “interpretation”. There is no One True Jeff, or one way for a person to write him. It’s all up to your personal interpretation of who Jeff is, what he is like, and which last name you prefer him having.

[adultswim2021]

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #82: “Baffler Meal” | January 1, 2003 - 12:00 AM | S08E01

An all-time classic, wonderful episode. Ending 2002 on a high note (technically this is the first episode of 2003 being that it aired at midnight, but I’m delaying my EPHEMERA CORNER post for as long as I can).

The origins of Aqua Teen Hunger Force are laid bare for all to see with Baffler Meal. Aqua Teen Hunger Force was famously based on a rejected Space Ghost script. Well, this is that script, re-imagining the Aqua Teens based on old designs and concepts from that unproduced episode. The desired effect is to approximate what that episode would have been like had it been produced in 1999 before the Aqua Teen Hunger Force series proper was developed. It’s supposed to be confusing; to the point where in the DVD commentary track they even question weather or not they should make it clear within the commentary that that’s what’s going on here (they do).

I will now take this opportunity to quote one of my favorite synopses of a TV show ever, originally taken from tvtome (remember tvtome? god, what a great site):

Space Ghost is forced into a raw deal with the deadly Colonial Man, forever altering the future of classic rock - again. Willie Nelson and a MOCKERY of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force star in this episode. This episode mocks a great comedy show. It doesn't feel funny in the least.

Here you can see the lack of understanding for what the episode really is. Despite the fact that the ostensible Space Ghost fan (tvtome was run by volunteer submissions for it’s episode data) should one-thousand percent understand the Space Ghost connection, clearly recognize Dave Willis’ voice (he still voices Meatwad in a very similar manner), etc. The degree of confusion this episode caused can not be understated.

Nuggets from the DVD commentary:

Frylock is a guy in a costume in this. Okay, that wasn’t specifically from the DVD commentary, but it’s the first time I caught that detail, ever, and I don’t want to start a separate bullet-point list for stray observations.

Shake’s read of “blahd” instead of “blade” was inspired by a real typo in the script, just like “Branford the Branford” before it.

Todd Hanson of The Onion helped write this episode and kept pitching a character named Napkin Lad. I believe Napkin Lad actually comes to be later in the Aqua Teen series.

And another thing I love: The cool song at the end. The part where Dave is like “OH BABY, YEAH BABY” etc. towards the very end of the episode? That part gets stuck in my head like, VERY FREQUENTLY, and for years I thought it was Bob Odenkirk singing in either a Mr. Show or Ben Stiller Show sketch and have been trying to place it forever. Turns out it wasn’t Bob, but David, and I ain’t talkin’ Cross, do I sound cross to you? Do you even appreciate wordplay??

NEXT is my end-of-the-year roundup of second-run premieres, shorts, commercials, bumpers, etc. That’s right, EPHEMERA CORNER is back! But it’s gonna be a long one so I might break it up over the course of a few days, maybe a week, even.

MAIL BAG

I think these were all anonymous, please forgive me if I have, as the French say, “fucked up” by failing to name the conspirator.

2002 is almost over! What do you think brak's position on the iraq war was? Carl's? Hesh's? Junior addleburg's?

Brak: against, but respects the office of the presidency and urges using civil methods to protest. Carl: pro, he is a white supremacist and is supportive of any and all mass destruction committed on non-white nations. Hesh: HESH WANTS SOME SEX! lol. Junior Addleburg: has not been told about the war.

Do you think you are being overtly charitable to Brak this time around? Surely the best Brak show episode isnt even half as good as the worst Home Movies episode. Right?

I do tend to react to “better” Brak episodes the same way you encourage a problem student when they squeak out a B minus. There absolutely was a time when I loved The Brak Show and was all-in on it. That time was SEPTEMBER 2nd-8th, 2001. Hippo was certainly a factor. 9/11 may have also contributed.

I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but I’ve been keeping a running episode ranking of Adult Swim shows as I’ve been doing this. It’ll probably get revised at some point, so I’m not exactly ready to share it. In my ranking I tended to group Home Movies episodes very close to each other, and I would sometimes talk myself into ranking things a little higher or lower than I normally would just to break up a long streak of Home Movies. So I can actually say with impunity, yes, there are strong episodes of Brak Show that I've ranked over weaker episodes of Home Movies. But I might have to have a little chat with the man in the mirror about that.

Are you only doing animated shows or are you going to do live animated shows to. I feel like most people agree Tim and Eric bringing live-action to the block ruined it permanently even if you think those guys are funny in a vacuum. I'm just wondering because I know you did animation only for your Simpsons Night B-sodes so I feel you are a "tooned-in" guy.

Live-action is getting reviewed too! I can’t WAIT to revisit Saul of the Molemen. Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not sure where to draw the line on the internet stuff, though. If it aired on Adult Swim I’m very likely to cover it, but I don’t see myself covering the FishCenter repeats that aired at 4AM. Anime is generally getting the shaft. Sorry. I think it’d be cool if somebody started a blog that covered Adult Swim Action. But yes, you are right, I’m a pretty tooned-in guy. Lots of people have said this about me.

If you had to dress like any of the Adult Swim First Era characters for Halloween who would you dress as and who would you LIKE to dress as if difficulty of pulling it off wasn't an issue.

There was a Space Ghost muscle suit at one of those Halloween Stores one year and I very nearly bought it even though I had no intention of wearing it for Halloween. I did a very low-effort season 4 Hank Venture because by happenstance my hair looked like his at the time, and I found what looked like Brock’s jacket at a thrift store.

Putting on a blue Sealab uniform and only traveling in a chair with wheels would be real fun. I could probably pull of an effective Carl. As far a difficult costume I’d be the poolside announcer during the O.G. bumpers, because I imagine that he’s very muscular and his dick is real long and it’s constantly flopping out of the pantleg of his swim trunks and that it’s getting sucked off all the time by them old ladies and most of the time he’s like “no no, we mustn’t do that, for I am a professional” but every now and again he’s like “well alright” and this would reflect my experiences at whatever Halloween party I’m at except it would be a 20 year old woman dressed like an old lady because it’s Halloween. Thanks for the question.

Do you have a girlfriend? What does she think of Adult Swim or does she hate cartoons like mine.

I’m not done with the last thing. I would also have a bullhorn and I’d be using it while getting sucked off, even though that’s a discreet affair. Like, we’d find a bedroom that was empty and lock the door and I’d be like “Oh yeah baby suck my peenie, yes you are doing so good at sucking that.” in hushed tones, but into the bullhorn. I’d also use it to yell at children for wearing racist or appropriative costumes, which, as we all know, leads to more getting-your-dick-sucked. Anyway, I got a wife and we literally met at an Adult Swim event during Comic-Con! It was Tim & Eric Awesome-con 2007! I’M NOT LYING

Would you rather take one big bite out of meatwad or drink the entirety of Master Shake.

I wonder if Master Shake is warm. Anyway, I’d go with that, biting Meatwad seems like CERTAIN DEATH.

[breanime]

Bre’s Boys for their reaction when they find out their kid is getting bullied or teased in school

Billy Russo: Billy acts cool during the meeting with the teacher, but he’s seething inside. He hates that his baby boy is getting bullied and didn’t tell him. That night, you and Billy take your son to Anvil. “Violence,” Billy starts, standing in the training room in his sweats, “Isn’t always the answer. But when someone is hurting you, you have a right to defend yourself and others.” So Billy teaches him self-defense, and you and Billy have a talk with your son about speaking up for himself and going to an adult when things get too heated. A week later, you and Billy get a call that your son knocked the bully out...and Billy is so proud, he takes the family out for a nice dinner. 

Logan Delos: “Someone is teasing my princess? But baby, you’re perfect! They’re just jealous!” Logan lets your daughter know that she is smart, beautiful, charming, and unique. He leaves no room for questions--she is his perfect baby, and she should be proud of herself. So she is. Your daughter goes to school the next day with her head held high, and when the other girls try to tease her, she just flips her hair, looks them straight in the eye, and says “you know... jealousy really is the ugliest trait, ladies.” Mic drop.

Jax Teller: When your son comes home from 2nd grade in tears, Jax sits him on his lap, tells him it’s okay, and listens to him. You pace in the living room, heart pounding. When they come out, your son is holding Jax’s hand. “We had a talk,” Jax announces, “Can you call the principal, we’re gonna need to speak to the teacher.” The day of the meeting, Jax pulls up on his bike with you sitting behind him, and the whole MC accompanies you. The meeting goes well, the other kid’s parents are apologetic, but you’re pretty certain that the sight of a bunch of big, scary bikers made an impression on the bully and every other kid at school. Your son doesn’t have any problems after that day. 

Coco Cruz: Coco grew up getting teased, about his Mom, his accent, his clothes, so when he hears that his daughter is getting teased, his heart breaks. He hates seeing her so upset and unhappy, so he does what he wished someone had did for him... He goes to that kid’s father and beats his ass. Then he picks you up from work early, drops a stack of cash in your lap, and takes you and your daughter to the mall for a shopping spree. And that is that!

Angel Reyes: When your son comes home with a black eye, you’re ready to kill someone, but Angel is amused. Your son reports that he was standing up for another kid in his class, and the bully looks worse than he does, and Angel laughs, clapping him on the back. “You know what, you just earned yourself a swing on the bike! C’mon little man!” You shake your head, laughing, and watch as Angel tries to teach your adolescent son how to ride a bike. You know you’ll be getting a call from the school in an hour, but hey... Your son was a hero. 

Miguel Galindo: Miguel calls the teacher, the principals, the school board--he wants a meeting with everyone present. His son is a Galindo, so the fact that anyone was messing with him was UNACCEPTABLE. Miguel brings every bit of that cartel boss power with him to the meeting, and once it’s done, they call your son in and they (the school board) apologize to him for not handling this sooner. Later, Miguel takes your son aside and has a talk to him about “reasonable violence” and lets him know that sometimes... it’s okay to fight back. 

Nick Amaro: Nick installed a strong sense of justice in your son from the get, so when he gets a call from you saying that your son was getting suspended for fighting, he already knew what the fight had been about. He met you at the school, and sure enough, your son had gotten into it with the kid who’s been calling him names all semester. “Your son broke his nose!” The principal reports. You and Nick try to keep a straight face, and since fighting is against the school rules, you except the suspension...but you don’t punish him when he gets home. In fact, Nick turns, smiling at both of you. “Who wants ice cream?”

Johnny Tuturro: The day your daughter comes home in tears because a boy pushed her on the playground, you thought you might have to restrain Johnny. After he had his own meltdown, the two of you comforted your daughter. “Daddy’s gonna show you how to protect yourself,” Johnny promises, “Come on, it’s time I taught you how to box.” Meanwhile, you call the teacher, who says she’s been hearing things about the boy but hasn’t caught him in the act yet. A week later, he pushes her again...and she breaks his nose, busts his lip, and makes him cry in the middle of the playground. The teacher maintained that she didn’t see anything at all, and Johnny takes her to Build A Bear after school. 

Rio: Rio isn’t surprised when your daughter admits some of the girls at school had been harassing her. He is, however, surprised to find that your daughter is upset about it. “You know it’s just jealousy, baby girl,” he tells her as she cries in her bed, “Your mom went through the same thing in high school... You just gotta let it roll of your back.” “W-what does that mean?” “It means you don’t give a shit what irrelevant people say about you, because YOU know your own worth.” She sat up, wiping her tears. “Dad?” “Yeah?” “Can I say... three curse words?” Rio smiles. “Yeah, Princess... just don’t tell Mom.” “Okay,” she takes a breath, “Fuck those bitches.” Rio nods approvingly. “Fuck those bitches.”

*******************************************************************************************

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think! Which one was your favorite?

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[marybeatriceofmodena]

Ben Solo’s Story Arc - An Autopsy

This will be the second post before I publish the full TROS review, mainly because it’s yet another thing I want to get out of the way first. After which, I’ll be posting an announcement about the future of this blog, but no worries – I’ll be sticking around.

After Rey and her parentage, I’ll be talking about Ben here specifically – mainly because I have a pretty big inkling that his plotline for TROS was mutilated, and that he initially actually had an arc.

Except, somewhere in the executive meddling, for reasons I myself am not sure of (okay, I got some theories but it’s pointless to share them here), it got cut.

The Rise of Kylo Ren might be an inkling that there was something more in the works, also that when it comes to its take on Snoke, it directly contradicts things TROS sets up. The simplest explanation is that the Lucasfilm Story Group had a hand in TRoKR, and not for TROS. But even then… the comic reveals things that make me BAFFLED they didn’t put that in the films. I don’t want to be that person who thinks 30 minutes of TLJ should have been dedicated to Snoke’s origins, but stuff like how Ben didn’t even destroy Luke’s Jedi Camp? THAT’S the kind of thing you need to include in your film.

Also, I 110% believe the rumors that JJ Abrams just ignored the Story Group’s existence entirely. Wanna know why? Just the fact that Exogol is established as the Sith world… when we know thanks to The Clone Wars that it’s Moraband – which would have been super easy to use. But fuck continuity I guess.

I will say though, I am NOT surprised it’s leaking out that the movie was severely tempered with and was constantly changing during production, simply because from my first (and only) viewing… I could tell something was wrong. Namely, I could tell that Ben’s arc had been mutilated – and the more I think about it, the more glaring it gets. It’s not even that I’m mad that Adam Driver (aka Golden Globe/Academy Award nominee Adam Driver) gets relegated to playing Darth Exposition for 75% of the film (and godawful exposition at that), it’s literally that so much of what remains of his arc makes no sense, and it affects Palpatine and Rey by extension.

I explained why Rey’s character arc was butchered here, and I’ve also talked about how Palpatine’s implication in her arc didn’t work either, so I won’t talk about it too much here, nor do you need to have read it prior in order to understand this post. I will also point out that a lot of what will be my speculation – so for all I know, I could be wrong, but I’m trying to fill in the holes here.

So, for starters… somehow, Ben knows that Palpatine is still alive. Somehow, he knows how to get to him. AND SOMEHOW, THE WRITERS DECIDED NOT EXPLAINING SHIT WAS THE WAY TO GO. This is not even on the level of not explaining who the fuck Snoke is in the two previous films – while I do think there could have been a throwaway line in TLJ, it didn’t “hinder” the story.

HOWEVER, not explaining how Palpatine is still around and kicking (well, he’s on life support so kicking might be a little too flattering), why he decided to reveal himself right there, right then, and how the hell Ben knows he’s around, how he figured out how to get to Exogol using the holocrons… THAT IS A BIG PROBLEM. This is the triggering element of the rising action in your story. But before you do that, YOU. NEED. EXPOSITION. TO. SET. UP. THE. CONTEXT. OF. YOUR. STORY.

What TROS did would be like skipping Finn’s intro when he’s with his Stormtrooper squad on Jakku, removing the interrogation with Poe and Kylo entirely, and just start TFA with him escaping with Poe without any explanation given. Oh, and also cut out Rey’s introduction as well, and we first meet her when she kicks Finn’s ass in Niima Outpost. You’d just have a bunch of characters coming out of nowhere, and you’d have no frigging clue what they’re doing, and what they want. And that’s what TROS does with Ben and Palpatine.

Take the handling of Snoke, for instance. I’d be a lot more mad about the Snoke retconning if it wasn’t for… what I’m going to call the “Snoke Stew” (and I’d crack a joke about how it was probably made with the DNA of a guy called Stu, which is not funny but still funnier than most of the jokes in TROS). That’s pretty much the one thing that stops me from being mad, because of how STUPID it is.

But the explanation for Snoke’s origins just… retcons so much that has been established before, INCLUDING INFO FROM A COMIC THAT CAME OUT AFTER TROS. We knew Snoke had a past, even if we weren’t privy to it yet. We did kind of know that he was a rich guy, like all the shitty rich people we saw in Canto Bight, who happened to be a Dark Sider and was seemingly smart enough to kill his way to the top. Considering how exploitative the First Order is when it comes to resources and that a rich patron would be welcomed with open arms, it makes sense.

With the explanation given by TROS, it just provides a fuck ton of plotholes to the fact he took over the First Order while killing off old Imperial higher-ups to establish himself as Supreme Leader. Do you really think a guy in a golden bathrobe would just be able to take over out of fucking nowhere because he killed all the higher-ups? No. And even if some of the higher-ups knew that Snoke was a Palps plant (like Pryde seems to), I doubt Ben would have stayed Supreme Leader for as long as a year.

But that’s not even the biggest problem! Seriously, I don’t know if Palps is senile in this film, because we got an ENTIRE trilogy explaining how the guy is one of the worst evil masterminds to have ever lived, in the Galaxy Far Far Away and even in today’s culture. Here, you don’t even understand what the fuck he even wants! I’m “guessing” he fucked with Ben to get his revenge on Anakin, because he uses Ben as his lackey while being seemingly totally oblivious that Ben is working against him (what happened to “every voice in your head”???). He wants Ben to kill Rey… while knowing Rey is his granddaughter, and while telling her when she shows up that he wants to use her as a new host or some shit. Seriously, MAKE UP YOUR MIND ALREADY.

This said… I honestly wonder if Ben was initially meant to be the new host, and not Rey. Because not only that was an actual theory I had pre-TROS, but it would make a shit ton more sense than having Rey be the host – not to mention it’d be the ultimate revenge against Anakin (and if you want to get REAL yucky, he may have planned to have Rey be his new consort, but I’ll spare you more speculation about that aspect). But nah, I guess.

The most damning thing in all this is that there’s no difference in Ben’s overall behavior and actions AFTER Snoke has been killed, when it’s clear Snoke was the biggest influence on him. Saying that Palpatine just kept messing with him makes no sense because with Snoke dead, any voice Ben would still hear would make him go “NOPE” and do exactly the opposite of what said voice tells him to do.

Like, for real, with Snoke dead, unless he’s REALLY stupid (I mean… Ben is reckless, but not stupid), why would Ben do anything a now Random Voice would tell him to do?

The thing is, there have been hints in previous material that Ben isn’t exactly 110% on board with what the First Order does. He’s clearly against blowing up planets, he snarks about how Stormtroopers should be clones instead – which could just be a throwaway snarky line, but considering Ben’s past… I can see him not being too fuzzy about the Stormtrooper program. Like, I’m not saying he’d start a Galactic Free Donut Day, but there would be a change. It wouldn’t be Business as Usual – especially that Ben wasn’t that young (23) when he joined Snoke, and it’s a little hard to go from “My uncle tried to kill me in my sleep and I’m going towards the one figure I think can protect me” to “Blowing up planets and enslaving people is the way to go”. It would have worked if Ben had been brainwashed from his teens, but not so much as an adult – hence you need a little more nuance with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.

Oh yeah, and the Knights of Ren? They’re just there to look cool. “But they kidnapped Chewie!” Yeah, what was the fucking point of them kidnapping Chewie apart from giving a reason for the Beautiful Friendship Gang to get on the Star Destroyer and give us fake suspense because we all know how it’s gonna end, just end my suffering already. Also, NO INTERRACTION WITH BEN? DID YA FORGET CHEWIE IS LIKE, HIS UNCLE? DID YALL FORGET BEN WAS PART OF YOUR FAMILY OR…

Seriously, that sequence on Pasaana where they’re just standing there on top of a fucking mountain? I called that part the Backdesert Boys. That tells ya how much I hated it.

Oh yeah, and they’re fighting fodder for Benny Boy in the end, because of course they were Palps’ lackeys all along, can’t think of anything else that’s more imaginative.

So what could they possibly add to Ben’s arc, that would explain so much, like how Ben finds Palpatine, or how he’s always one step ahead from the Beautiful Friendship Gang in their Wild Goose Chase no one fucking cares about?

This is where I got into speculation/conspiracy theory territory. Brace yourselves. 

*

So, the film has Lando reveal that he and Luke “knew” about Palps being around thanks to snooping around… except that makes no bloody sense. Lando was never involved in a Force plot of any kind, and he was never that close to Luke anyway. I mean, Lando’s a nice guy and all, but he’s not really besties with Luke – he’s Han’s friend.

So that research should have taken place either before Ben joined Luke at Jedi Camp, either after. Then again, before would make no sense, because why would Luke leave that critical of a search on the ice for 10 to 15 years? The only place where I can place it in time, where it would make logical sense… would be when Ben was around, and it’d make WAY more sense to have him be Luke’s sidekick in that search.

It would have totally explained why Luke freaked the fuck out reading Ben’s mind, because only Palpatine can give her that severe of a PTSD-like reaction. It would have totally explained why Ben would run to Snoke, grooming and desperation set aside, under the promise that they’d associate to defeat Palps, because if you ignore the plot hole extravaganza of TROS, you’d bet Snoke wouldn’t want Palps anywhere near his throne – mainly because Snoke is a wannabe Palpatine who targeted Ben to get his own Vader. It would have totally explained why Ben thought becoming Supreme Leader is a good idea – even if it’s morally wrong, it makes logical sense. It would have totally explained why Kylo was collecting Sith artefacts in the year gap while keeping in mind he made his distaste for the Sith clear in TLJ. It would have totally provided the audience (and Rey) a good reason to forgive Ben, because even if he had godawful methods, he wanted to do the right thing and save the galaxy from the person who came this close to destroying them, as well as his family. That would have provided for him the means to realize that he cannot defeat Palpatine using Palpatine’s means – as Rose said, he’ll win by saving what he loves, and not destroying what he hates. That would have made Rey the glitch in the matrix, who must join forces with Ben because without her, he would have been doomed despite his best efforts.

And before you tell me that would have been unnecessary… let me put it to you this way. Ben keeps saying it's too late, and if it was just that, it could be interpreted as him thinking he went too far to come back. But he also adds that he has "something to do", and I'm here waving my arms like "WHAT? WHY? FUCK, YOU DIDN'T EVEN KILL YOUR FELLOW STUDENTS!!! THEY'RE NOT EVEN BOTHERED TO SAY THAT IN THE ACTUAL FILM!!!"

Hence why my theory is the simplest way to just tie it all neatly together, without retconning anything. There.

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SUPER SIMPLE TO DO. Except that, as I mentioned earlier, they mutilated Ben’s arc, and left him to play the part of Darth Exposition, until the very end, when they have Ben save what he loves… but even then, I can’t even appreciate that either, because it happens in a way that makes EVERYONE look horrible, while Ben is, from a storytelling perspective, a saint… a saint everyone ultimately forgot about.

[in-tua-deep]

Ok so like I’m big dumb and have been stalking your blog for hours and just realized the tua should be pronounced like too ripppp anygays I absolutely fucking love and live for your writing and have a question for you (feel free to ignore it this is your blog!),,,,what do you think would’ve happened if Klaus had died instead of Ben.

asdfgDFSGH okay big mood but admittedly I pronounce as in too-ah deep myself lmao

HMMM that’s an interesting question because if Klaus died, he would just vanish. No one can see him, because he’s the only person that ever saw ghosts to begin with. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around, does it still make a sound? If a boy becomes a ghost, but no one can see him, does he really exist?

You have Ben, who doesn’t numb himself with drugs but also probably withdraws from the rest of the family. Klaus used to coax smiles out of him, and Five used to throw books at his dead and demand Ben discuss metaphysics with him. Admittedly different relationships, but they were the ones that held him together. And then Five vanishes. And then Klaus dies. 

And Ben is well enough liked by the rest of the family, but he’s not really close with any of them. Luther and Allison are too obsessed with one another, Diego is too obsessed with beating Luther at anything, and Vanya is a ghost that only Five ever really reached. 

Ben leaves the day he hits eighteen. He doesn’t tell anyone, he just leaves. He quietly finds the shittiest apartment on earth, works two jobs, and puts himself through community college during the time he doesn’t have. He changes his name. He keeps the Ben, but ditches the Hargreeves.

He keeps his head down, he works hard, he never mentions the Umbrella Academy and he spends his nights with his hands pressed against his stomach wishing that his ‘superpower’ was anything but what it is. 

He’s a bright kid. He makes friends. He doesn’t have the money for med school, which he wanted since he desperately wants to heal instead of hurt, so he compromises and goes into nursing instead. He gets to help people just as much, and he doesn’t have to deal with the staggering amount of debt he would be in. (He’s still in debt from schooling, just not as much.)

Ben works long thankless hours. He holds the hands of an addict whose organs are failing. There’s nothing the doctors can do but ease the young woman’s suffering. He sees Klaus in the eyes of the desperate young people who come in, and he rolls up his sleeves and tries to help. 

Vanya write her tell-all book, and Ben reads it as carefully as he did the various tomes that Five tossed at him so he would know what Five was yelling about this time. He traces his fingers across Klaus and Five’s names as they appear, and he pretends he isn’t angry that Vanya just pulled back the curtain and exposed their gaping wounds for all the world to see. 

Five and Klaus are not props in Vanya’s coming of age story. They are background characters killed off for development. Ben understands that Vanya is angry, that she was abused, but he wishes she could see that this wasn’t the way to go about it

(Ben understands now, that Vanya was abused. He sees her, sometimes, in the people who float through the hospital with scars on their arms and legs and stomachs. The ones who stare right through the doctors and look away when their very concerned parents speak up. He sees her in the young man whose father yells for all the ED to hear that he is selfish, that he needs to be more like his older brothers who are successful. The father is escorted out, but the young man checks himself out against medical advice. Ben never sees him again.)

He isn’t as impacted by the book as perhaps the others are. No one knows what happened to the Horror. Ben isn’t questioned about it, because no one knows that they should question him about it. He watches the youtube videos of Allison getting accosted by paparazzi and wonders if Vanya knew what she was doing when she published that book.

Somehow, he doubts it. 

He adopts two cats. Their names are Séance and Boy. Ben calls them Seya and Brat. His friends ask him if he was a fan of the Umbrella Academy growing up, and Ben shakes his head with a wry smile. “My brothers,” He explains, “They were always more into it than I was.”

And then Reginald dies, and there’s going to be a funeral, and Ben doesn’t want to go. But he thinks about the siblings he never calls, thinks about the hospital room with the old man who is dying who told him with a bitter smile that he never mended any bridges, and picks up his phone. Ben applies for time off due to a death in the family, is granted it, gives his spare key to the girl across the hall who has vowed to take care of Seya and Brat as if they’re her own, and he goes. He goes to the manor for the first time since he left it, over a decade ago. 

He almost thinks it’s his power at first, that something went terribly wrong because he hasn’t let out the Horror for a good long while and the flash of electric blue was unmistakable. But it’s not him, and the portal in the courtyard spits out a child and Ben’s hand shoots to his mouth and it’s shaking because that’s Five. That’s Five the day he left, all scrawny limbs and drama, in a too big suit.

He ushers Five inside, and gets down some bread to hand to his brother who already has the peanut butter and marshmallows well in hand. (Ben wonders, for a moment, why those ingredients are in the house to begin with. He’s positive Reginald doesn’t like marshmallows, after all. But he has more important things to worry about right now, so he lets that thought go.)

He listens as Five tells them they have eight days, and he believes. Four-Five-Six have always had more nebulous powers that the first three children combined. Strength, mind control, and knife throwing are surprisingly straight forward. Ghosts, dimension ripping tentacle monsters, and fucking with the fabric of space and time are… not so much.

Ben looks at his siblings, who have changed so much and yet so little, and decides that priorities are in order. Because as much as he cares for his siblings, and he does, they’re all grown ass adults. Despite what he says, Five looks very young and Ben has seen too many children with the same haunted eyes and sharp words. 

Somewhere in the middle of all of this there’s an open window, and Pogo saying something about a missing box or a book or something, but admittedly Ben isn’t paying all that much attention. Not when he has bigger things to worry about

And Five has a choice between Vanya, who he loves but doesn’t want to drag into his general bullshit because she doesn’t have powers, and Ben who is a nurse and who seems most inclined to believe him. So after the Griddy’s incident, he goes back to the manor and Ben stitches him up with steady, experienced hands and asks Five what he can do to help

Five looks almost surprised. “You believe me?” He asks, suspicious lacing his voice. It makes something inside of Ben ache, but he blames it on the Horror. 

“I’ll tell you what.” Ben says, looking Five in the eyes. “I’ll make you a deal - I’ll help you with anything apocalypse stopping, no questions asked.”

“But?” Five asks, but he sounds less suspicious and more comfortable with terms on the table. Their family isn’t used to unconditional support, after all. 

“Come stay with me after we save the world.” Ben requests, and holds up a hand before Five can protest. “Yes, I know you aren’t a child. I know you can take care of yourself. But quite frankly, I’ve been missing my brother for almost seventeen years now, and I don’t have anyone to debate the finer points of mathematics with at three in the morning, do I?”

I don’t want to let you go now that I have you back. Ben doesn’t say, because he’s already pushing Five’s ability to deal with sentiment as it is. 

Five’s eyes look suspiciously wet as he looks away, but he spits out a quick “Fine.” and they shake on it. 

And so Ben ends up accompanying his brother to MeriTech to check out a serial number on the back of an eyeball. He places a calming hand on his brother’s shoulder, and calls in a favor with a doctor who he prevented from killing a patient who talks to a friend of a friend and they find out that the eyeball they have hasn’t been manufactured yet.

And hey, if Ben didn’t believe the whole time travel thing before he certainly does now, looking at an impossible eyeball in the hands of an impossible boy. 

And Ben is a trustworthy ally, level-headed with enough deadpan humor to make even Five snort in laughter. Ben cherishes even aborted giggle close to his heart. 

Five comes to him with a shy look and introduces him to a mannequin named Dolores. Ben thinks about the little girl with the spiral fracture telling him solemnly that she wasn’t scared but Mr. Hippo was, and he thinks about all the years that Five spent alone, and he gently takes Dolores’s hand in his and thanks her very much for looking after his brother all those years.

Five blinks in surprise, but it’s a good kind of surprise, and he’s notably warmer towards Ben after the interaction. 

It reminds him, just a little bit, of Klaus before Reginald ruined him. The way he’d occasionally just talk to thin air or react to something that no one else could hear. It makes Ben oddly nostalgic, and probably means that he’s much more tolerant of Five’s interactions with Dolores than he should be.

Ben is with Five when Hazel and Cha-Cha storm the mansion. Luther and Allison and Diego hold their own with knives and kicks and the destruction of one chandelier. No one is taken, no one is kidnapped, because there wasn’t anyone just getting out of the bath with headphones in to catch unexpected. 

Eudora Patch listens to Diego tell her that his mother is dead, and that his brothers are running off together to who knows where, and she doesn’t find a message on a van’s window and go to rescue a hostage. Detective Eudora Patch lives to fight another day. 

Five scribbles probability maps on his walls and tells his audience of Luther and Ben that he plans to kill to save the world. Luther gets up in arms about it, but Ben just stares Five down and quietly tells him - “You promised.”

Because Five can’t stay with him if he’s in jail. 

And Five looks away and says there is one way to get more information, and Ben can already tell he’s not going to like this. 

They don’t have a suitcase to bargain with this time, so Five offers himself. He tells Hazel and Cha-Cha to meet him, because he’s decided to give himself up in return for them leaving his family alone. They get there, and they’re having a stand off, and Five demands that the assassin duo call the Handler.

Between one breath and the next, Five vanishes. Not like he’s supposed to vanish, in a flash of blue light. Just gone between one blink and the next.

Ben may or may not be responsible for the ensuing destruction of Hazel and Cha-Cha’s car and subsequently their briefcase which was located within said car. In his defense, it had been a while since he last drove out to the middle of nowhere and let the Horror go ham. And if, in this timeline, it’s Hazel who gets taken hostage because Ben is furious and he’s not losing his brother again, and Cha-Cha figures she’ll bust her partner out later but for not retreating is a wise move well

“Call your boss back.” Ben says, voice tight as he stares holes through a Hazel that Luther has helpfully tied up with some rope from the trunk of the car. “This is now a hostage exchange, you for my brother.”

“I’m just a grunt.” Hazel informs Ben, helplessly, “They’re not going to trade me for a legend like Five.”

Ben gestures for Luther to drive as he shoves Hazel into the backseat. As someone who has seen a man burst into an eldritch horror and destroy his only chance at going home, Hazel wisely complies. Ben smiles with all his teeth as he informs Hazel cheerfully that he’s going to tell Ben everything he knows about the Commission, the apocalypse, and his legend of a baby brother.

Later, in a family meeting with Hazel sitting tied up on the couch as they all loudly debate what they’re supposed to be doing now, Five shows up in a bright flash curled around a suitcase and scaring everyone

In another world Five brushes everyone off and proceeds to collapse. 

In this one, Ben pats his brother down while ripping him a new one about telling him to full extent of plans for gods sakes and when his fingers come back wet with blood Ben frog marches his brother to the infirmary for Mom to stitch up with his assistance. 

“We are a team.” Ben informs his idiot brother, “Yes I know we have to do everything to stop the world from ending, but it’s no use if you die along the way! I care about you, you idiot! So you’re going to sit here and heal while I go with Diego and Allison and deal with this Harold Jenkins motherfucker, okay?”

And Five grudgingly agrees when Ben pops a phone in his hand and teaches him how to facetime so that technically Five is with them the entire time and kept in the loop. Allison’s sacrifice of her phone for this purpose is duly noted and ignored, and Ben spares a split second to make a mental note to get Five his own phone at some point.

And when Luther finds out about everything, Ben quietly asks Five to pass the phone over and basically informs Luther that yes, Dad was a grade A prick but Luther is Number One. Dad might not care, but the dozens of people that Luther helped save during their stint as the Umbrella Academy? They sure as hell cared. And right now, Luther has a mission. Babysit both assassins sitting under their rooftop, because as proven by the break in Hazel is dangerous and where Hazel is surely Cha-Cha isn’t too far away.

That, at least, keeps Luther from going off and drowning his sorrows. 

Since Diego isn’t wanted for murder in this timeline and Patch is alive, there’s no splitting up involved. Ben and Allison and Diego trick a cop, investigate a hospital, and find their way to Vanya’s cabin where secrets come to light.

Allison reveals that she rumored her sister into believing herself ordinary, and Ben can’t help it when he just loudly mutters “I hate this fucking family.” which breaks the tension and makes everyone stare at him.

Since he is not going to admit that he’s stress quoting a vine (god damn Dr. Hernandez got him hooked on them) he ends up just blurting out “I can’t believe Dad made Allison do that!” because really it’s important to establish that yes, Allison did the thing but also Allison was four it’s not like she knew what she was doing, “I’m glad he’s fucking dead, jesus. What kind of a prick does that to a couple of toddlers? Fuck him like, for real.”

and in the aftermath they’re all just sort of standing there staring at one another?? And then Diego is like “Uh. so. i have a police file on your boyfriend? And turns out his name is also the name of the dude Five says caused the apocalypse? Say hello Five” and Five just waves from his little screen

and Ben puts his hands on his hips and is just kind of like “Five if you repeat any of that language I will gut you like a fish. You’re too young for that.” and Five starts sputtering about being older than all of them and cursing and Vanya is giggling and Diego is grinning and mission accomplished! And then he turns to Vanya and is kind of like “Hey Vanya also if you need me to kick Leold Jenbody whomstever the fuck his name is’s ass, I do kind of have a big old tentacle monster at the ready. But of course, you get first dibs. Also like, have you seen his creepy attic shrine to the academy with all our eyes x’d out and our throats slashed? Because it’s like, honestly up there on the level of creepiness. Not quite as bad as that very explicit letter Allie got when we were fifteen, but not too far off either, you know?”

and look i’m not an expert but Ben just. De-escalates everything. He’s a tiny bit like a capybara who will also kick your ass if you really need him to. 

And they confront Leonard-Harold and he tries to convince Vanya that her siblings are evil and he’s the ultimate good of whatever but it’s really hard when there’s Ben there muttering “God we all need so much therapy” to the side and “why is this family such a hazard to society. why do we always attract the weirdos.” and “this is what we get for the lack of a strong father figure in our lives I just know it” and other weird shit like that

anyway Vanya realizes that Leonard has only ever been using her for her powers and was manipulating her from the start, especially when he pulls out his knowledge of her powers as his little trump card as if they didn’t all just have a weird heart to heart about Allison sort of erasing Vanya’s knowledge of them as toddlers

“So do we just? Lock Leonard up until April 1st passes?” Ben asks Five and he feels a little like he’s cupping a magic 8 ball instead of a phone but whatever. But it’s Diego who just is kind of like “Oh hey I got this, this fucker has skipped out on so much probation and done a runner and shit and I can totally just call Patch to come out here and lock him up. Can’t cause the apocalypse from jail now, can you?”

And okay when Patch arrives to them all cornering Leonard in this cabin and also she sent some people to his house and there is a Whole Ass Dead Body up in there alongside this creepy serial killer shrine and oh yes Harold Jenkins is going away.

After that it almost seems a little anticlimactic to just climb in the car and go home? But I mean. That’s what they do. They argue half heartedly about music choice in the car and arrive home to find out that Five has untied Hazel and they’re both chilling at the bar drinking and honestly no one is sure where the little umbrellas materialized from because surely Reginald wouldn’t allow such a thing in his house, right? Luther is just kind of shrugging in the background (maybe a little tipsy) because you can’t expect him to know what’s going on in Five’s head

on the bright side Hazel seems pretty chill and has decided he is not going to try and kill any of them anymore because what he really desires is to run away with the nice donut shop lady. No, no one knows how to respond to this except perhaps Five who is cheerfully wishing Hazel luck. 

and considering that Luther has the whole general time they dealt with Leonard and the car ride back to come to terms with Vanya’s powers and the fact that Dad sucks and there’s also the matter that in this au Vanya did not slit the throat of his most favorite siblings so i mean. He’s okay with this. He is so beyond caring about the shit this family gets up to anymore. He’s going to need so much therapy when this is all over. 

Ben just sort of looks at this motley crew and everyone just looks fucking exhausted and he’s just kind of like. “Okay! Well. I for one did not get that much time off work for all of this but seems like y’all could use a vacation. My apartment is sort of shitty but i have a fuckload of extra blankets because sometimes I stress quilt, and no, no one is allowed to judge me for that fact, and my sofa is pretty great so I mean. You guys can come meet my cats?”

and that’s how everyone piles up into the car and goes to Ben’s place and meet his cats while buying a metric fuck ton of ice cream (Allison insists because even if Leonard ended up a creep, Vanya liked him at first and so it’s break up time) and no one can agree on a movie to watch and Diego is complaining because Ben put Dolores in the best spot while Five argues it’s because she deserves it

and look. Ben has been quiet and kept his head down and lived his life for a very long time. But looking at his siblings, at Luther ducking his head because he burned the popcorn and Allison gesturing dramatically with a bottle of nail polish as she does Vanya’s fingers and Diego teasing a scowling Five who both cats are fighting over his lapspace

and Ben can’t help but think that if Klaus were here (and his brother’s power was seeing the dead, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility) he would be proud of how far they’d come.

Ben certainly was.

[aion-rsa]

Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

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Editor’s Note: This post is updated regularly. Bookmark this page and come back to stay up to date with the best horror movies on Amazon Prime. Den of Geek participates in Amazon’s affiliate program and may receive a commission from links on this page.

Updated for October 2020

Amazon Prime’s selection of horror movies is as extensive as it is terrifying. What’s more, they have a significant selection of both new and old/classic films for your scary pleasures. So we’ve compiled our picks of the best scary movies to watch on Halloween (or any other time) on Amazon Prime Video right now.

Now, pour yourself a glass of something good and dig your fangs in to our list of the best horror movies you can watch on Amazon Prime Video.

Afflicted

One of the better recent found-footage efforts takes a ghastly turn when one of the filmmakers wakes up foaming at the mouth with his eyeballs rolling back in their sockets. He can also suddenly run faster than a car speeding in a school zone. Diagnosis: vampirism.

There is no cure for the undead except feeding on human blood (especially child molesters). That epic travel blog they were planning is going to be supernaturally epic.

Watch Afflicted on Amazon (US Only)

Bone Tomahawk

Writer and musician Craig Zahler made his feature directorial debut with this grim, ultra-violent and unique hybrid of the Western and horror genres — two great tastes, etc.

Read more

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Best Horror Movies on Netflix: Scariest Films to Stream

By David Crow and 2 others

Movies

The 20 Best Horror Movies on Netflix UK – Scary Films to Watch Right Now

By Rosie Fletcher

Kurt Russell is outstanding as Sheriff Franklin Hunt, who must lead a posse into the wilderness to rescue three people from a brutal tribe of Indians who may not even be human as we know it. The grisly confrontation that ensues is not for the squeamish. Zahler gets the period details and the horror right, while the rest of his excellent cast includes Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox and others.

Watch Bone Tomahawk on Amazon

Buried

Before he found failure as Green Lantern and then career rebirth as Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds made this tight, claustrophobic thriller in which he wakes up to find himself sealed in a coffin.

Turns out that Reynolds’ character is a contractor working in Iraq, abducted and buried by an insurgent kidnapper who has left him a cellphone. While the abductor calls to demand a ransom, Reynolds attempts to contact the outside world — with director Rodrigo Cortes never leaving the confined space of the coffin. What’s amazing is how well he and Reynolds pull this exercise in storytelling economy off.

Watch Buried on Amazon

The Cabin in the Woods

A remote cabin in the woods is one of the most frequently occurring settings in all of horror. What better location for teenagers to be tormented by monsters, demons, or murderous hillbillies? Writer/Director Joss Whedon takes that tried and true setting and uses it as a jumping off points for one of the most successful metatextual horror movies in recent memory.

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Movies

Best Horror Movies to Watch on Shudder Right Now

By Rosie Fletcher and 1 other

Movies

31 Best Horror Movies to Stream

By Alec Bojalad and 1 other

Like you would expect, The Cabin in the Woods features five college friends (all representing certain youthful archetypes, of course) renting a….well, a cabin in the woods. Soon things begin to go awry in a very traditional horror movie way. But then The Cabin in the Woods begins doling out some of the many tricks it has up its sleeve. This is a fascinating, very funny, and yet still creepy breakdown of horror tropes that any horror fan can enjoy.

Watch The Cabin in the Woods on Amazon

City of the Living Dead

Italian horror director Lucio Fulci kicked off his famous “Gates of Hell” trilogy with this gruesome, crude but surreal 1980 gorefest, in which a reporter (Christopher George) and a psychic (Catriona MacColl) struggle to stop those gates from opening and letting a horde of hungry undead into the world.

Fulci loosely based the movie on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, vying for the latter’s brooding atmosphere while indulging in his own trademark splatter. The results are somewhat slapdash but a must-see for Italian horror fans. Followed by the much better The Beyond (1980) and House by the Cemetery (1981).

Watch City of the Living Dead on Amazon

Climax

An uncategorizable but still horrific entry from the endlessly provocative French director Gaspar Noe (Irreversible), Climax starts off with — of all things — a lively, lengthy dance number in which an isolated dance troupe nails the erotic, exotic, physically demanding routine they’ve practiced for months.

But then someone slips an extremely potent drug into the punch during the party afterwards, and the tight-knit troupe turns into a raging mob of psychotics who tear, beat, and fuck each other to death. Another not-for-the-faint-of-heart film, Climax is perverse, macabre, and visceral — yet somehow alive even in the midst of all its morbidity.

Watch Climax on Amazon

Crawl

Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) has to battle both hungry alligators and relentlessly rising floodwaters in this punchy better-than-you-expected thriller from director Alexandre Aja (Piranha 3D). Scodelario plays Haley, a college student who goes to check on her reclusive dad during the onset of a Category 5 hurricane and finds him injured in his basement just as nature runs all kinds of amok.

Our own Patrick Sproull said in his review that the movie delivers an “exhilarating shock to the system” and simply wants to “entertain the bejesus out of you,” which is all we want in these waning days of the Republic. Killer alligators and a deadly cyclone? It’s like two scary movies for the price of one.

Watch Crawl on Amazon

The Crazies

The Crazies is a zombie movie without the undead. And that kind of makes sense given that it was written and directed by the zombie maestro, himself: George A. Romero.

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Movies

Best Horror Movies on Hulu

By Alec Bojalad and 1 other

Movies

Best Modern Horror Movies

By Don Kaye

1973’s The Crazies (there’s also a 2010 remake) tells the story of an experimental bioweapon called “Trixie.” There are only two possible results from exposure to Trixie: death or irreversible raving insanity. That’s rough. But what’s even worse is that Trixie is accidentally unleashed in Evans City, Pennsylvania, turning the small town into war zone where any neighbor could become violently insane at any moment.

Like his zombie works, Romero uses this creative horror/sci-fi concept to great satirical and symbolic effect.

Watch The Crazies on Amazon (US Only)

The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone strangely remains both one of Stephen King’s more underrated movie adaptations as well as one of director David Cronenberg’s more unsung efforts. Yet it ends up being among the best from both author and auteur, while also providing star Christopher Walken with one of his most moving, complex performances to date.

Walken’s Johnny Smith awakens from a coma to find out he’s lost five years of his life but gained a frightening talent to touch people and see both their deepest secrets and their future. Whether to use that power to impact the world around him is the choice he must face in this bittersweet, eerie and heartfelt film, which found Cronenberg moving away from his trademark body horror for the first time.

Watch The Dead Zone on Amazon

The Devil Bat

Ah, The Devil Bat. One of those infamous vampire movies that isn’t actually about vampires. But who the hell cares when it has Bela Lugosi in it, right?

But this poverty row production from 1940 features plenty of atmospherics, as well as a giant honkin’ bat, and that’s enough to set the mood on a chilly night. Especially if you’re indulging in adult beverages or contraband. If nothing else, just bow down to Bela.

Watch The Devil Bat on Amazon

Die, Monster, Die!

This was just the second feature film ever adapted from a story by H.P. Lovecraft, with movie producers eager to find other horror writers’ work to plunder after Roger Corman hit it big with his Edgar Allan Poe movies in the early 1960s.

This one is based on Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” which you may recognize as the title of a recent nutty Nicolas Cage movie also based on the same tale. Boris Karloff stars in this one, about a scientist who discovers that a crashed meteor begins to mutate all the plant and animal life around his home, including him and his wife. It’s kind of a slow burner but it does have its weird-ass imagery.

Watch Die, Monster, Die! on Amazon (US only)

The Exorcist III

Out of the many attempts to sequelize William Friedkin’s classic 1972 movie The Exorcist, this is the only one worthy of the original. William Peter Blatty, author of the original book, wrote a sequel novel called Legion and adapted and directed it himself for this chilling movie starring George C. Scott.

Scott plays Detective Kinderman (the role filled by Lee J. Cobb in The Exorcist), who investigates a series of murders that have connections to both the first movie’s exorcism and a spate of killings done years earlier by the now-dead Gemini Killer. Even with extensive studio-forced reshoots, Blatty has fashioned an eerie theological thriller, with one sequence that is a stone-cold classic of tension and shock.

Watch The Exorcist III on Amazon (US only)

A Field in England

2013’s A Field in England presents compelling evidence that more horror movies should be shot in black and white.

Directed by British director Ben Wheatley, A Field in England is a kaleidoscope of trippy, cerebral horror. The film takes place in 1648, during the English Civil War. A group of soldiers is taken in by a kindly man, who is soon revealed to be an alchemist. The alchemist takes the soldiers to a vast field of mushrooms where they are subjected to a series of mind-altering, nightmarish visions.

A Field in England is aggressively weird, creative, and best of all clocks in at exactly 90 minutes.

Watch A Field in England on Amazon (US only)

Frankenstein: The True Story

Well, not exactly. Originally presented as a two-part mini-series on NBC back in 1974, Frankenstein: The True Story takes plenty of liberties with Mary Shelley’s milestone novel. But it keeps the essence and atmosphere of the story intact, while taking it down some interesting new narrative paths.

The cast is sensational, led by Leonard Whiting as Dr. Frankenstein, Michael Sarrazin as the creature — who starts out beautiful and ends up degenerating into a monster — and especially James Mason as the Dr. Pretorius-like Polidori, named after one of Mary Shelley’s colleagues who was there when she began writing the novel. Frankenstein: The True Story is both macabre and lush, and deserves rediscovery.

Watch Frankenstein: The True Story on Amazon

Fright Night

Screenwriter-turned-director Tom Holland lets a jaded, smarmy vampire named Jerry Dandridge loose in suburbia and watches the blood spurt in this beloved ‘80s horror staple.

Chris Sarandon brings a nice combination of amusement and menace to the role of the bloodsucker, while Planet of the Apes veteran Roddy McDowall is endearing as a washed-up horror host recruited into a real-life horror show. Much of Fright Night is teen-oriented and somewhat dated, but it still works as a sort of precursor to later post-modern horror gems like Scream.

Watch Fright Night on Amazon

Hereditary

Between Hereditary and The Haunting of Hill House 2018 was a great year for turning familial trauma into horror.

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Movies

Hereditary: The Real Story of King Paimon

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Hereditary Ending Explained

By David Crow

Written and directed by Ari Aster, Hereditary follows the Graham family as they deal with the death of their secretive grandmother. As Annie Graham (Toni Collette) comes to terms with the loss, she begins to realize that she may have inherited a mental illness from her late mother…or something worse.

Hereditary is terrifying because it asks a deceptively simple but truly creepy question: what do we really inherit from our family?

Watch Hereditary on Amazon (US only)

The Hole in the Ground

Recent horror trends have stumbled across a universal truth: kids are very creepy. A24’s Irish horror film The Hole in the Ground makes great use of that truth.

The Hole in the Ground follows a woman named Sarah O’Neill who opts to leave her (likely abusive) husband and move out to the lonely Irish countryside with her son, Chris. Things are going well until Chris starts to exhibit some strange behaviors. Not only that, but an old woman in the village tells Sarah that her son “is not your son.” When that woman is found dead with her head in the dirt, Sarah is forced to confront that maybe little Chris isn’t her Chris after all.

Watch The Hole in the Ground on Amazon (US only)

The House of the Devil

Indie horror auteur Ti West’s low-budget creepfest is a homage to 1980s horror yet plays it straight; he sets out to make a movie with the feel of genre films from that era without making self-aware in-jokes and references — and he mostly succeeds.

But The House of the Devil is also the definition of a “slow burn”: very little happens for much of the first hour (save a jolt here and there) and then the third act explodes into a paroxysm of murder, gore and Satanic horror. That makes the film feel a little off-balance, although in the end it all becomes quite unnerving.

Watch The House of the Devil on Amazon

House on Haunted Hill

What would you do for $10,000? How about surviving a night in a mansion haunted by murder victims and owned by a psychotic millionaire? Seems like a party trick until people actually start dying.

Vincent Price is the master and mastermind of a house that suddenly makes everyone homicidal—but the real pièce de résistance is what dances out of a vat of flesh-eating acid.

Some vintage horror never dies, and this 1959 classic is immortal.

Watch House on Haunted Hill on Amazon

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

One of a holy trifecta of remakes that actually improved on their predecessors (the other two are John Carpenter’s The Thing and David Cronenberg’s The Fly), 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers hits that horror/sci-fi sweet spot with a cosmic premise, terrifying imagery and a nerve-rattling naturalism.

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Movies

The Legacy of Invasion of The Body Snatchers

By Jim Knipfel

Movies

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers: How Philip Kaufman’s Remake Improved on the Original

By Ryan Lambie

Director Philip Kaufman shifts the story from small-town California to San Francisco, while updating the metaphor from a warning against Communism to a cautionary tale of urban alienation. But in the end, watching those duplicates of Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams and Jeff Goldblum ooze out of their alien pods is as terrifying as ever, making this a genuine classic of its time.

Watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers on Amazon (US only)

The Last House on the Left

Released in 1972, the directorial debut of the mighty (and sadly late) Wes Craven remains one of the most important horror films ever made. It helped kick off an era of horror cinema that tapped directly into the unrest of the late 1960s and 1970s, the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, the alienation between parents and children and the escalation of violence throughout the nation.

It also showed, in nauseatingly graphic fashion, what happens when you strip away the veneer of civilization from both the characters you are expected to despise and those you are supposed to like. The result is still a crude, disturbing and grueling experience that is genuinely not for everyone.

Watch The Last House on the Left on Amazon (US only)

The Lighthouse

The second feature from The Witch writer/director Robert Eggers is just as accomplished as his debut, if almost entirely different in tone and imagery.

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Movies

The Lighthouse: the myths and archetypes behind the movie explained

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

The Lighthouse Ending Explained

By David Crow

Whereas The Witch was an exercise in Puritan supernatural terror, The Lighthouse is more of a descent into watery psychological madness, seasoned with a heavy dollop of Lovecraftian horror. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are brilliant as the mentally crumbling guardians of the title structure, with the latter in particular giving a crazed performance for the ages.

Watch The Lighthouse on Amazon (US only)

The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue

This 1974 film is almost as famous for its many alternate titles (including Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue and Let Sleeping Corpses Lie) as it is for being one of the first worthy zombie films to come out in the wake of Night of the Living Dead six years earlier.

With its counter-culture protagonists and environmental message (the dead are brought back to life by a form of radiation used as a pesticide), Manchester Morgue tries to be as socially conscious as the Romero classic it emulates. But it’s all about the zombie mayhem as well — and in full color, no less. This cult classic deserves a place of honor in the pantheon of the walking dead.

Watch The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue on Amazon (US only)

Midsommar

It’s hard to categorize Midsommar, Ari Aster’s followup to his absolutely terrifying horror debut, Hereditary. Part straight up horror, part The Wicker Man, and part anthropological study, Midsommar seems to occupy many genres all at once. Aster himself called it a “break up” movie. But whatever genre Midsommar is, it is a brilliant, and at times deeply disturbing film.

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Movies

Midsommar: Florence Pugh Considers Ending Theories, May Queen Fandom

By David Crow

Movies

Midsommar: Getting Immersed in the Movie’s Terrifying World

By Don Kaye

Florence Pugh stars Dani, a young woman trying to heal in the wake of an enormous tragedy. Dani follows her boyfriend, Christian, and his annoying friends to an important midsummer festival deep in the heart of Sweden. Christian and company are there partly to get high and have fun and also partly to study the unique, isolated culture for their respective theses. To say that they get more than they bargained for is an understatement. But Dani may just end up getting exactly what she needs.

Watch Midsommar on Amazon

Neverlake

Horrors always lurk at the bottom of murky lakes, but the dead-eyed doll heads and evil statues staring from beneath the greenish surface of this one will have you begging Swamp Thing for mercy. That’s before some brutally disfigured orphans shamble out of the woods.

When Jenny visits her archaeologist father in Italy, long-drowned secrets start bubbling to the surface. To think, all this was supposed to be a vacation. Riccardo Paoletti’s directorial debut is worth checking out.

Watch Neverlake on Amazon

Night of the Living Dead

George A. Romero’s 1968 zombie classic The Night of the Living Dead messed up the minds of late ’60s moviegoers as much as it messed with every horror movie that followed. Shot on gritty black and white stock, the film captures the desperate urgency of a documentary shot at the end of the world. It is a tale of survival, an allegory for the Vietnam War and racism and suspenseful as hell freezing over.

Night of the Living Dead set a new standard for gore, even though you could tell some of the bones the zombies were munching came from a local butcher shop. But what grabs at you are the unexpected shocks. Long before The Walking Dead, Romero caught the terror that could erupt from any character, at any time.

They’re coming to get you. There’s one of them now!

Watch Night of The Living Dead on Amazon

Nosferatu

Nothing beats a classic, and that’s exactly what Nosferatu is. As the unofficial 1922 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this German Expressionist masterpiece was almost lost to the ages when the filmmakers lost a copyright lawsuit with Stoker’s widow (who had a point). As a result, most copies were destroyed…but a precious few survived.

This definitive horror movie from F.W. Murnau might be a silent picture, but it is a haunting one where vampirism is used as a metaphor for plague and the Black Death sweeping across Europe. When Count Orlock comes to Berlin, he brings rivers of rats with him and the most repellent visage ever presented by a cinematic bloodsucker. The sexy vampires would come later, starting with 1931’s more polished vision of Count Dracula as legendarily played by Bela Lugosi, but Max Schreck is buried under globs of makeup in Nosferatu making him resemble an emaciated cadaver. Murnau plays with shadow and light to create an intoxicating environment of fever dream repressions. But he also creates the most haunting cinematic image of a vampire yet put on screen.

Check it out.

Watch Nosferatu on Amazon (US only)

Open Grave

Post-apocalyptic zombie fans won’t want to miss the love child of The Walking Dead meets 28 Days Later, now with amnesia. When a man who’s forgotten every fragment of his identity (Sharlto Copley) wakes up in a body pit crawling with pathogens, he scrambles out to fight a swarm of brain-craving undead along with five other amnesiacs.

Read more

TV

The Best Horror TV Shows to Watch Right Now

By Ron Hogan

TV

Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix

By Alec Bojalad

It gets even more terrifying when the pieces of memory hiding in his flashbacks are unearthed.

Watch Open Grave on Amazon

Overlord

War is terrifying enough as is. It doesn’t need the addition of Nazi super soldier zombies. Thankfully the J.J. Abrams-produced Overlord decided to include them anyway.

Overlord picks up on the eve of D-Day when a paratrooper quad is sent in behind enemy lines to destroy a German radio tower located in an old church. Their plane is shot down and only a handful survivors land. Those who do will soon discover that the horror has just begun.

Watch Overlord on Amazon (US only)

Vestron

Paperhouse

Hard to see in the U.S. since its 1989 release (it’s still not out here on DVD or Blu-ray for reasons unclear), Paperhouse was directed by Bernard Rose, who went on to make the equally acclaimed Candyman three years later.

But Paperhouse may be his masterwork. A young girl named Anna (Charlotte Burke) finds the line between reality and her dreams blurring, with her alcoholic father transforming into a frightening monster in the dream world. A slightly confusing ending doesn’t lessen the impact of this highly effective dark fantasy fable.

Watch Paperhouse on Amazon

Pet Sematary (2019)

After the classic Stephen King novel of the same name and Mary Lambert’s 1989 movie, what could there possibly be left to say about Pet Sematary? Quite a lot actually! Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer breathe new life into this old tale…not unlike a certain “sematary” itself.

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By John Saavedra

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Jason Clarke stars as Louis Creed, an ER doctor from Boston who moves his family to rural Ludlow, Maine to live a quieter life. Shortly into their stay, Louis and his wife Rachel (Amy Semeitz) experience an unthinkable tragedy. That’s ok though as neighbor Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) knows a very peculiar place that can help.

Watch Pet Sematary on Amazon (US only)

Phantasm

Director and writer Don Coscarelli has said that this 1979 cult classic was inspired by a recurring dream — and we believe him, since Phantasm has the surreal, not-quite-there feel of an inescapable nightmare from start to finish.

With its bizarre plot about a funeral parlor acting as a front to send undead slave labor to another dimension, the iconic image of the Tall Man, killer dwarves and those deadly silver spheres, Phantasm was and is like no other movie of its era.

Watch Phantasm on Amazon (US only)

The Pit and the Pendulum

Following the success of his first Edgar Allan Poe movie starring Vincent Price, 1960’s The Fall of the House of Usher, director Roger Corman returned to Poe for a second serving, once again starring Price and also featuring horror queen Barbara Steele, with a script by Richard Matheson.

The movie gets off to a slow start and very little of the plot is derived from Poe’s moody short story, but the picture drips with Gothic atmosphere and saturated colors. Vincent Price gives another mesmerizingly over the top performance, and the final 20 minutes — where we finally see the title torture device swing into action — is worth the price of admission alone.

Watch The Pit and the Pendulum on Amazon (US only)

Pumpkinhead

Another cult favorite from the late ‘80s, Pumpkinhead stars Lance Henriksen as a country store owner whose young son is killed by a bunch of teens on motorbikes. The grief-stricken dad consults with a local witch to get his revenge — and she assists him by summoning the monstrous title demon.

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TV

Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix

By Alec Bojalad

TV

Best Horror TV Shows on Amazon Prime

By Alec Bojalad and 1 other

The directorial debut of makeup FX wizard Stan Winston, Pumpkinhead boasts one of the most memorable screen monsters of its time and a haunted performance by the great Henriksen (also notable is Florence Schauffler as the terrifying witch). But Winston’s direction itself is routine, causing Pumpkinhead to just miss being a true classic. It’s still a terrific Halloween watch.

Watch Pumpkinhead on Amazon (US only)

A Quiet Place

Thanks to a killer premise and excellent execution, A Quiet Place was one of 2018’s best horror movies and now it’s ready for a second life on streaming.

The film, directed by erstwhile Office star John Krasinski (who also stars in the project) follows the Abbott family as they try to survive a dangerous post-apocalyptic world. To make things even more difficult, however, the world is populated by blind creatures that also possess a devastatingly strong sense of hearing.

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Movies

A Quiet Place: Who Are the Monsters?

By David Crow

Movies

A Quiet Place, and Using Low Budgets to Electrifying Effect

By Ryan Lambie

Father Lee and mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) try to protect their children from these monsters – all the while not making a sound. The formula of A Quiet Place is destined to be oft-repeated for a reason. Horror really works when you’re unable to scream.

Watch A Quiet Place on Amazon (US Only)

Season of the Witch

Bored Stepford-esque housewife Joan (Jan White) is stuck in a suburban bubble with an abusive husband when she meets a mysterious new neighbor (Virginia Greenwald) who practices witchcraft. Pretty soon, Joan is casting spells to have affairs with college boys half her age, suffering from Satanic nightmares that wake her up to grim reality, and initiated into her neighbor’s backyard coven.

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Movies

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Movies

The 17 Best Christmas Horror Movies

By Elizabeth Rayne and 3 others

Proof that you never know what really goes on behind white picket fences. Another fine bit of weirdness from George A. Romero.

Watch Season of the Witch on Amazon (US only)

Suspiria

Suspiria is not necessarily a remake of the 1977 Italian film of the same name so much as its inspired by it. And that makes sense, as the simultaneously vibrant and creepy tone of the original film is nigh impossible to replicate it. So this Suspiria goes in a bit of a different direction tonally.

Dakota Johnson stars as Susanna “Susie” Bannion, a woman who enrolls in a prestigious Berlin dance academy that also happens to be run by a coven of witches. As Susie climbs up the ladder of the Markos Tanz Akademie she comes to learn more about its secrets.

Watch Suspiria on Amazon

The Tenant

Roman Polanski, in addition to being a creep and outright sex criminal, has a grand fascination with apartments, directing an unofficial “Apartment Trilogy” with Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Tenant. And it’s not hard to see why. There is something a little strange about dozens if not hundreds of relative strangers all calling the same place “home.”

1976’s The Tenant is the culmination of Polanski’s obsession with communal living and in some ways is the creepiest. Polanski stars as Trelkovsky, a paranoid young file clerk who is on the verge of succumbing to the constant dread he feels. Things are exacerbated when Trelkovsky moves into a Parisian apartment and discovers the previous occupant killed herself. What follows is a tense and trippy exploration of fear itself.

Watch The Tenant on Amazon (US only)

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The Wailing

Get ready for this epic-length (156 minutes!) story of possession and exorcism in a small village from director Na Hong-jin. Kwak Dowon stars as a cop who investigates a series of mysterious and violent deaths, only to discover that they have a supernatural cause that soon infects his family.

Despite odd moments of humor here and there, The Wailing is almost unremittingly bleak and its imagery is thoroughly unsettling. Deliberately paced and building an atmosphere of unspeakable dread, The Wailing is a standout of Asian horror.

Watch The Wailing on Amazon (US only)

Oscilloscope

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Mexican director Jorge Michel Grau garnered a ton of attention back in 2010 for this moody, low-key, character-driven study of a family of cannibals impacted by the death of its patriarch.

There’s no back story about how the clan became eaters of human flesh; they simply are, and the movie accepts that and focuses on the dilemma in front of them. That is more effective than spelling everything out. An English-language remake from director Jim Mickle (Stake Land) popped up in 2013.

Watch We Need to Talk About Kevin on Amazon (US only)

The post Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[valkerymillenia]

Umbrella Academy

season 2, episode 8

Once again- live blogging my thoughts and reactions in one post to avoid spamming.

So this is how the FBI gets their hands on Vanya, huh? Seems most fan theories were wrong.

Oh, Sissy's last name is Cooper!

I did wonder about that -how did remember her name despite forgetting everything else? If she knew her name then she should have been able to remember other little fragments.

Of course the feds focus on the fact that her name is Russian. Cold war bullshit. I guess they think she's a spy or since Russian sleeper soldier or something.

"I'm not Russian" -you kinda are though 😅 Tatiana was Russian and gave birth to you in Moscow sooo...

DID VANYA JUST SPEAK RUSSIAN?!

Is that one of the 7 languages that Reggie all the siblings or....? Does it... Does it have something to do with her powers or her birth place?

"simple-minded boy"? FUCK YOU.😠

"communist threat" there it is 🙄

Oh no, she's losing her cool. Here come the powers... I keep wondering how she does that 'sucking the life' out of someone thing. 🤔

That's a lot of puke.

Poor Five, he's starting to crack under the stress.

Why is Ben gagging? He's dead, he shouldn't be able to feel or smell the puke.

Loving Robert's real curls starting to show.

"I regret nothing" -hmm.... Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of.

"there's a giant dead white boy on my couch" 😆

"Oh, I see. It's gonna be one of those kind of nights, huh? So are we burning or burying?" -this is why I love Klaus! He doesn't even flinch, he doesn't care what happened, he doesn't ask, he just immediately decides that he's going to help his sister get rid of a dead body like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Although, it would be interesting if Klaus actual saw the Swede ghosts too. I just want Klaus to be seeing ghosts everywhere again, ok? I want that struggle from season 1 to be brought back and not swept under the rug for plot convenience. As a writer, if you make something an important character trait, you stick with it and they haven't done that with Klaus, they are half-assing his struggle with his powers.

It's the Swede really going to...? Oh good, saved by the cat.

Oh! So that's what "lavender" means! I was right, it was the perfume, it was probably obvious but I'm a little dumb.

Ah! Lila is trying to hire Diego for the Commission???

Diego is so confused.

"colorful history" sounds so wrong and sexual 😣

Diego is so full of bullshit. His loyalties absolutely lie with his family, he's just too defensive to admit it.

Reginald FRAMED Pogo's family drawing? So he's a better dad to the chimp than his own kids, huh?

THE TELEVATOR!!!!!!! PLANS FOR THE TELEVATOR!!!! I love comic references, please tell me we'll see a real televator in the show!

So Reggie really is planning something about JFK...

"are you involved in something nefarious?" "Quite often. Did you have something more specific in mind?" -at least he owns it 😆

"shaggy man" -ah! Poor Diego!

Reggie really loves this Grace, huh? But she has a point.

Five is losing it a bit, huh?

The baby powder 🤣

"I have to find myself" -RIGHT! I was wondering when this would come up! Old!Five was there for the JFK thing so Five just has to find his old self and his briefcase in order to correct all this mess. More comic references!

"arguably the most dangerous assassin in the time-space continuum" -DAMN RIGHT 💯

"paradox psychosis" 🤣I know it's supposed to be super serious but the symptoms are so funny...

"a spotter? What is that? Like a wingman?" 😆 This parallels that "Body man? What's that? Like a masseuse?" line in s02e02 where Five is the confused one.

Five, do you really think your brother can stop you if you spiral? Because I don't.

Luther doesn't have a great attention span, does he?

Harlan's drawing is interesting... I get a feeling it's important.

Shit, they are torturing Vanya!! This is so bad!

LSD? LSD?????? No, that's a terrible idea with her powers!!!

Eeeewwwww the eyeballs! 👁️

That's a hell of a bad trip... The way the music makes with the visuals reminds me of my synesthesia though.

Oh! So this is where the scene of all the adult siblings in the Academy uniforms is from!!! (I remember someone saying it was Diego dreaming of having a drugged hallucination in the asylum, they were pretty close! It's Vanya drugged by the FBI instead!)

"I get you" -that is not the face of a person that gets this at all, Luther!

"Don't freak out." -like that ever worked 😆

Lila trying to have her cake and eat it too with her mom and Diego.

That informational video 🤣🤣🤣

Free coffee! Weekly donuts* (*fees apply)! Wow, so tempting 😒

"whatever your skill, education, or comfort level with moral ambiguity (...)" 😆

Are the Fives just having a staring contest? 🤣🤣

Ah! How can Five be bitchy and aggressive to HIMSELF 😆

"all those years on the apocalypse, we never stopped working about our family." -why does Luther look so damn surprised to hear this?? Why the hell does he think Five is doing so this for?!

Wow, Five is really bitter about his body, isn't he? He's making old!Five so nervous 😅

Oops, there's stage 4 for old!Five!

And there's stage 3 as well and stages 5 and 6 for little!Five.

I get a feeling Five doesn't really have the accurate calculations, he's just lying and using the originals.

"I don't trust him!" -he's... He's you...14 days ago! How do you not trust yourself?

"but he's you" "exactly" 🤣🤣🤣

I'm so afraid how what Diego is going to do. I get a feeling hell fuck up trying to be a misguided hero again...

"I'm Diego. I have a knife." 😆

"it's very shiny" 🤣

So Diego is a legend, huh? 😏

"there's been a coup d'etat" "what's that? Cadillac?" -don't play dumb, Diego, I don't believe for a single second that you don't know what a coup is.

So the new apocalypse WAS Vanya's fault but by proxy (actually more the FBI's fault), she was just a small domino. So literally the only one that didn't actively do anything to impact the timeline ends up being the one doing the most damage (again)? PLOT TWIST!

Oh no, DON'T GET ANY IDEAS ABOUT YOUR SISTER, DIEGO! YOU SAW HOW BADLY THAT ENDED LAST TIME!

No, I refuse to believe "she will always be the bomb" 😠😠😠😠

LOL, hi, Dot!

NO! LUTHER, YOU MORON! DON'T GIVE HIM ALL THAT INFO! YOU'LL CHANGE EVERYTHING AND CEASE TO EXIST!!!

These dumb siblings exhaust me

"little jerk-off" -why are you insulting yourself, you weirdo? 😆

Old!Five with all the PP symptoms and yet he says he never felt better in his life 🤣

"you're getting paranoid" -you both are, and sweaty, itchy and gassy. All that's missing is the homicidal rage at this point 😅

Vanya's hallucination shows us a twisted paranoid view she has of her siblings and it's very interesting:

-Ben is protective, defends her, he can do no harm, probably because he died young so nostalgia blurs her memory of him

-Allison defends her but is also arrogant and condescending, speaking as if she's implying that Vanya is weak, probably because Vanya feels that Allison is perfect and has an inferiority complex

-Luther is just as arrogant and looks down her, calling her lazy, but does so without malice (more mockery than anger)

-Klaus is accusing and suspicious but still on the fence and excitable, probably reflecting Vanya's own doubts and how she herself sees Klaus

-Five just stares, judging and silent but unable to look away, probably because she trusts him but she also doesn't know him, there's the same nostalgia effect as Ben but because Five came back (to stop her) the inferiority and fear of judgement is still there

-Diego is completely different, awkward and detached, this one is the most interesting because he's one of the people that was most vocal and mean against her in season 1 but apparently she sees a kindred spirit in him to an extent, either that or she fears she means nothing to him

Maybe I'm overanalyzing again...

I totally predicted the dishes would be brains but it's still gross.

Ew, the chewing... 😫 It's giving me the creeps.

Why is she seeing Harlan's drawing? She was gone already when he made that particular drawing (I knew it would be important), is she connected to him now??

And how does she remember her own birth??

Holy shit, Harlan is feeling Vanya's pain!!!😲😲😲

"why are people so much heavier when they're dead?" "You got a lot of practice at this?" 😅

Ben and Klaus conversation actually makes me feel a bit better about the possession but it makes no sense at all 🤣

Poor Ray keeps meeting in-laws in the weirdest situations 🤣🤣🤣🤣 his face! 🤝

Ray is having a nervous breakdown 😣 poor guy...

The moment Lila notices Diego is missing, the intercom chimes "Loyalty isn't a choice, it's a lifestyle" and if that isn't foreshadowing for Lila choosing sides then I don't know what is.

This is a really painful way for Vanya to recover her memories but it's so well done!

Holy shit... 😳

Klaus asking the real question here. She's being tortured, Klaus, go help!!!

HOLY SHIT! HARLAN HAS VANYA'S POWERS NOW?!

No, no, no,no, no, no nononononono! This is so bad! A child with a disorder that makes emotions hard to regulate suddenly having an apocalyptic level of power that connects directly to emotion is just a recipe for disaster!

[migleefulmoments]

" a lot of people think that just with fan fiction, if you don’t like the outcome of the narrative, you can choose your own adventure and write you own ending." The only person who thinks real life is a fanfic and you can write your own ending is Abby. She's been claiming the end is near for the past 4 years and yet this year Darren got married and when their first anniversary rolls around and they don't get divorced, I'm sure a new end date will be set so Abby's fanfic can continue.

Wasn’t that her most obtuse answer to date? I can’t believe she can’t see herself in that statement. I cackled that she called it a choose-your-own-adventure story since that is something that said about her “theories” many times-including the other day. Someone is reading my blog. 

The nonnie’s point is laughable. They argue that the cc players are real people but fans have made their story into a soap opera. The only “fans” rewriting Darren, Chris, Mia, Will and Ben’s lives into soap opera storylines is Abby and co. The rest of us are doing nothing more than accepting the truth as Darren, Chris, Mia, Will and Ben tell their own stories. 

Read on:

I realize that D,C,M,W, B, and so on are all real people, living their lives. And yet, their management teams (and to some extent some fans) have managed to trivialise their lives into some kind of soap opera. A few similarities -

* the main characters are a combination of good looking, glamorous or wealthy (undeniable) (Ummmmm...they ARE good looking but also they are wealthy and pay a lot of money to look good) 

* there are ongoing major themes running concurrently with lesser ones (serious dramatic roles/commercials/fashion appearances PR set-ups,paid sponsorship) (Every human alive has major and minor things happening in their lives at all given times. As for cc characters, keep in mind that Abby and company have fabricated a great many of the storylines you believe are true- e.g. Ben isn’t anything more than a friend of Darren’s, Chris and Darren aren’t dating, Darren isn’t gay, there is no contract, and Mia well-liked by everyone in her life) 

* there is often an emphasis on personal relationships and moral conflict (DC vs MS,DC&CC, CC&W/ill, MS vs the  CC fandom, CC fandom vs RR, MS&B/en etc etc etc) (All of these personal relationship storylines are fabricated by the Abby and the BNF who came before her!!!!!). 

* recurrent interior setting (TSG bar, PR house) (OMG, how does this person not understand that people frequent the same places in their lives? Again the cc fandom has fabricated the idea that these places are negative. In reality, Darren owns TSG and he loves it and there is no “PR” house. It’s Darren and Mia’s home and has been for years- a home that Darren is quoted as saying “I love our home”)  

*major life events (NOLA wedding, award winning performances, best selling books) (again, ALL humans have major life events).

* villains, or at least shady characters (B/en, SK, RR, M) (ALL CC LIES)

* secret relationships(the D/M/B/C merry go round) (ALL CC LIES)

* significant characters only make an occasional appearance (Ch/uck) (What the actual fuck? Nonnie must be young because all adults have family members they see rarely. Darren and Chuck live across the country from one another and he has 3 young children...he’s busy)

* clues are given to hint at behind the scenes drama or potential themes (disappearing wedding ring, group conversation in the background of the Halloween shots) (There are no “clues” suggesting BTS drama, this is another thing that Abby is fabricating).

None of this is meant to belittle anyone - these are just some observations. I would hope that all talented entertainers are living the lives they have chosen.

***********************************************************************

Hi Nonnie! I think your assessment is completely accurate and unfortunately, because of the outward packaging, a lot of people think that just with fan fiction, if you don’t like the outcome of the narrative, you can choose your own adventure and write you own ending (Nobody more so than Abby).  Unfortunately though, despite the setting and packaging, these are real people and there are very real contractual obligations to be met and fulfilled with a lot of people in the background pulling the strings (Who is Darren actually under contract to at his point and why does he continue to sign never-ending fantasy contracts with people out to hurt him?) And that means that as much as we WANT it to end and yesterday, and we are enraged that it ever went this far, for some reason, this was the choice D and C made as they thought it was the best one, or maybe the only one, for moving forward. And we have to learn that as observers, while we can speak our opinion and hope that our words matter, ultimately, it is not our lives and we have no control. (Your words are painful and hurtful and Darren has told you so.  You just refuse to listen)

[idk-my-aesthetic]

isle kingdom au

so i’ve had this idea for an AU for a little while, but i don’t wanna actually write anything for it until i’m done w/ my current descendants wips, but i also wanna talk about it lol so ig im making a post? please send me asks about it i wanna talk about it.... anyway

**tw for child abuse and semi-graphic descriptions of violence.

basically the premise of the au is that even though he tried to get it passed at first, ben never went through with pulling the vks off the isle. he kept meaning too, but it just kept being pushed to the back of his list of priorities bc he was so busy w/ being king and never happened 

so bc of this, the core 4 stayed on the isle and never got off it. if you’ve read the stuff in my keep them close series u probably have a better idea of my hc of the isle, but the basics of it are that 1) most of the parents are really bad and abusive + the conditions are disgusting 2) none of the kids are really evil and 3) the vks are all kinda frenimes/rivals and will work together to keep eachother alive even if they act like they hate eachother or will even hurt eachother

so, in the ‘canon’ timeline before going to auradon the core 4 are a gang and slowly gaining power. they’re already the top of the vk gangs and are like gaining on some of the adult ones.

bc they never go to auradon, they just kinda keep doing what they already are and gain more and more power. but, as they gain power their parents start becoming afraid of them and acting like more abusive in attempts to keep the core 4 under their control 

ok bare w/ me for this next bit bc it’s gonna sound real ooc for like a sec then make sense

so, as they’re gaining power and their parents are haveing more and more trouble controlling them their parents are becoming more and more violent.

im not sure on the order yet, but basically cruella, jafar, eq, and malifacent all do something like really really bad to their respective kid, so one of the other core 4 kills them bc like. yeah. 

i have some vauge ideas of what each of them could have done and i don’t really know if i want to say them or even use them tbh bc they’re like.... bad, like real bad. which they kinda have to be, you know? bc like.... none of the core 4 would turn to killing if they didn’t have a real good reason, and their parents continuing the abuse that they always have woulden’t be enough, so the parents would have to do something really really bad for one of the others to justify killing them 

its important to mention that none of them kill their own parent. it’s always one of the other 4, im not sure who kills who just yet, but none of them kill their own parent. They’re saved from their parents by each other and they never really have any confrontation with their parents (which will change l8r 👀👀, let me explain)

Even tho they didn’t kill their own parents, everyone kinda assumed they did in order to take their places/gain power. A handful of their friends know the real story, but it’s mostly kept under wraps and it’s like general “knowledge” that they killed their parents for power. They’re not really hiding it or anything, I mean they did still each kill one of the 4 most powerful villains so it’s not like anyone is gonna be less afraid if they knew the truth. ppl just make assumptions and never really question them and they just let ppl think what they do

So bc their parents are dead and they let everyone assume they killed their own parent they very easily climb up the ranks and end up in charge of the isle bc atp they’re seen as the most ruthless/evil/powerful

So now that they’re in charge of the isle they start like..... actually making it a livable place. Ofc at first they try to make a version of Carlos’s machine to break the barrier, but they can’t get it to work so he just modifys it to steal magic from the barrair for them to use. (Another idea stolen from my keep them close series but like I like the idea lol)

And when I say they make it a livable place I mean they start doing stuff like building water purifiers, making like safe houses, establishing some kind of working economy, taking control of the barge drop offs and how everything is distributed, fixing broken electricity, etc etc

A lot of what they do is based off of Carlos’s machines and designs, which like obvi other ppl are helping him gather materials and for and build, since he has power bc he’s like one of the ppl in charge. And he like teaches other ppl how to do what he does and fix anything that goes wrong

Evie kinda puts herself in charge of setting up like medical centers + homes for kids and stuff. Also some kinda way to grow food. B4 they’re in charge nothing can really grow but they use the magic they steal from the barrier to make stuff grow. And evie can use it to make like lots of healing items and such

Jay ends up mostly in charge of like collecting and distribution of their recourses. At first like the barge is kinda a hugeeee problem to deal with bc ppl are fighting over the like moldy food and destroyed clothes and stuff. But eventually they get it organized and have stuff sent to the respective place it should, like clothes and scrap fabric are sent to a place that repairs and sells them, parts and electronics are sent to Carlos or his helpers, etc

Other minor vks like Celia, dizzy, the sea three, Diego, etc are all in this two but this is already really long so just know they’re like helping and like pretty high ranking/highly regarded. Send me an ask with questions please

Mal is kinda regarded as the ultimate leader/queen of the isle ig even though the other 3 have basically the same amount of power. Mostly bc her job ends up being keeping the adults who dislike them inline and keeping their power as heads of the isle

Most ppl are just kinda chill w/ them being in charge, especially a lot of the ppl who were banished for minor crimes. A few of the adult villains try to fight them and end up dead lol, and anyone caught doing especially bad things, like r*pe, hurting someone they shouldn’t have, being a child abuser, etc will end up killed by mal or one of the others. They don’t kill u for like every crime obviously only the like inexcusable ones. Stuff like stealing or mental illness or w/e they basically just help you work through

They’re aren’t any like real laws ig but they deal with issues as they go and give harsh punishments if needed. It serves to keep themselves seen as strong/evil/powerful despite all the good they do and helps keep others too afraid to challenge them. Like frollo isn’t going to challenge them if Ursula tried the same thing and got killed. (The fact that she abused uma and her siblings obviously had nothing to do with that,,,,,,,,,,,)

So yeah! They basically turned the isle into a inhabitable place in the years that they spent as its leaders, and it functions as its own kinda kingdom despite its harsh and confusing laws/rules

But we ain’t done yet, lol

Basically everything I’ve just explained is.... mostly backstory? Kinda? It’s the type of thing where you slowly find out about all this stuff while they actual story goes on, but I figured it’d be less confusing to explain it first :3

So the Actual story starts a few years after when Ben originally was supposed to take the vks off the isle. He, all the other princess/princes he want to school with, the core 4, the sea 3, etc are all in their mid to early 20s.

Auradon has basically no clue what’s the deal w/ the isle. They’re only interaction w/ them is through the like goblins that bring over the trash barges, but those guys are chill and basically don’t tell the aks anything lol.

So Ben is ruling his kingdom, and the core 4 are ruling their own, both sides are doing pretty well and ignoring each other, but then! All of a sudden there’s these sudden deaths/fires/some kinda terrorist attack on the outskirts of the kingdom.

I haven’t thought through this part too much, but basically he knows that they’re is some kinda threat, but he doesn’t know excatly what it is. All he does know is that the villain that is attacking is demanding to speak to the children of malifecent, jafar, cruella devil, and the evil queen.

He basically rounds up the heroes of those respective stories bc they’re all being threatened in some way or another. The mystery villain continues to do more damage and seems basically impossible to beat, and has given them a time limit b4 they’ll go and start destroying more

They discuss their options and decide their best plan is to go to the isle and convince them core 4 to help, bringing along the heroes and some of the main aks w/ them

Obviously it doesn’t go well bc they show up and mal basically has them arrested lmao

Again I have more in-depth ideas for this part but this post is already wayyyy to long so I’m trying to hurry and finish up

The talk, vks meet their respective heroes, everything is from ak/hero POV so as they explore the isle and talk to the core 4 and other vks they slowly find out about all ^^^ that stuff up there

The core 4 are eventually agree, and they go to face the villains only to find out its their parents who have been resurrected!!!! Fuck!!!!

Idk how or why just yet lmao but I will soon

Parents are obvi pissed, core 4 face their own parents and finally get like some kinda closer or smthn idk I feel like y’all get the gist

in the end auradon agknolages the isle as its own kingdom and the core 4 as its leaders and open trade/remove the barrier so the isle can continue to grow bc it’s been struggling due to lack of recourses

And that’s like the basic outline of my au! I wanna write it eventually but tbh I’m expecting eventually to be like 3 years from now bc of how much other stuff I have so for rn I’m just gonna blog about it. Obviously there’s a lot of other stuff/plots/emotional arcs etc I didn’t talk about bc like This Post Is So Long I’m So Sorry, So please please please send me asks/questions/comments/even your own ideas!!! Please. Everything about this will be tagged with “isle kingdom au” :3

[bullyfemme]

“Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” and Bad Transphobic Pop Science

Many people engaged in discourse on this website, especially with truscum, have probably encountered their concept of “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria”. Those who have the fantastic shinigami eyes extension enabled and search for the topic will often find a litteny of red sites when you look for anything involving the term from sites that often spout anti-trans rhetoric and are constantly looking for pseudoscience to back up their beliefs. 

“Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” as defined by the official website for it (yes, really. Don’t click here if you’re triggered by transphobia) run by the transphobic parents of young trans teens, goes as follows: “A type of adolescent-onset or late-onset gender dysphoria where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood.” 

There are obviously flaws with this, even on the surface level of just this definition, without looking at the actual study conducted itself (though we will get there, trust me). 

First of all, you have to assume that you require gender dysphoria to be trans. There’s evidence quite to the contrary in that professionals and groups dedicated to assisting trans people agree that dysphoria is not a requirement for identifying as trans, and actual (read: not pop science) that has found that the brain is not sexually dymorphic and that there arent “male brains” and female brains”, that very few people actually regret transitioning (roughly .6% of trans women and .3% of trans men, please note the decimal and that both of these, when accounting for the fact that both groups only account for roughly half of all binary trans people, equal less than half of 1% of all trans people).

Pretending that evidence doesn’t exist, let’s pretend that the assumption that gender dysphoria is needed for being trans is correct. Even in that world view, this definition is poor and tenuous. When you describe “not having met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood”, you are going with the assumption that the child didn’t experience and hide it very well out of shame. Or that they did express it and their parents dismissed it and continued to dismiss it throughout childhood. Or that the child did not force themselves to perform hyperfemininity or hypermasculinity in order to try and “make it go away” in the same vein of a gay person forcing themselves into relationships and situations with straight people. Or that the child is not gay and gnc. Or that didn’t experience adolescent or adult dysphoria which the dsm-5 does define as legitimate experiences, as do MANY ACTUAL TRANS PEOPLE IF YOU TALK TO THEM, SOMETHING THE AUTHOR OF THE STUDY HAS FAILED TO DO. 

Many trans people who experience dysphoria don’t experience it until they hit puberty and their body undergoes changes associated with the wrong kind of puberty for them. Which, for the trans children of the parents surveyed (yeah, we’re getting there, they didn’t actually survey trans kids), allows them to say “well you weren’t like this before!”

There is one, single study conducted with regards to “Rapid onset gender dysphoria.” Lisa Littman, the woman who conducted the study, isn’t even a professional in gender studies. She’s a fucking gynecologist and obstetrician (pregnancy doctor). This is not her field of study. Much of her research is focused on detransition and her coined “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” despite, again, no experience in those fields of study. She’s a cis woman obsessed with making trans people identify as cis again, or as “normal” by her standards. If she would have done actual research, she would have found just how few trans people want to detransition after transitioning in the first place, or how many people who do detransition are trans people, often trans women, forced to detransition in order to survive every day. 

Beyond this, the study itself: where do I even begin. 

I have defined Ms. Littman as coining ROGD, and that’s not quite fair. The actual people who coined it are well-known terf website 4wavenow.com, conservative website Transgendertrend.com, and YouthTransCriticalProfessionals.org which is an organization of conservative scientists (theres an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one) who hide behind degrees while they churn out anti-trans propaganda. In fact, that’s what all three of those groups do. 

Now, finally, with all that out of the way. Let’s talk about this study, posted in the non-peer reviewed journal of academic health.

First of all, as alluded to previously, it was conducted by talking to the parents of these kids, not the kids themselves. This opens up a whole host of things to talk about, and trust me - we will. It was a 90 question quiz posted on the three websites mentioned previously: 4thwavenow, transgendertrend.com, and youthtranscrticialproffessionals.org. So, the survey is already poisoned, placed on websites with deliberate anti-trans agendas, with no way of verifying who the fuck was taking that survey. So if Tammy Terfbangs, mother of absolutely no one, gets on 4thwavenow and sees that a ~super scientific survey~ about those evil 14 year old trans kids, there is quite literally nothing stopping her from filling it out. I cannot even begin to describe how shoddy the foundation for all of this is. Or if, per say, a popular terf blog linked to this, there’s quite literally nothing stopping dozens or hundreds of terfs from filling this survey out. 

As a scientist, the methods in which she procured the “””evidence””” on anti-trans websites run by the parents of trans children makes me fucking furious. Imagine running a study about, per say, autism, and how sensory overload feels, instead of asking the autistic person, they asked the parents of the autistic person, and posting it on “TheCureForAutism.org” and “DontVaccinateEducate.Com” and then posting it in a shitty non-peer reviewed journal. Essentially, thats exactly what this is.   

This idea isn’t even new. The WPATH standards of Care, published in 2011, hosted a section called “Phenomenology in Adolescents”. This section had the following to say. 

“Yet many adolescents and adults presenting with gender dysphoria do not report a history of childhood gender-nonconforming behaviors (Docter, 1988; Landén, Wålinder, & Lundström, 1998). Therefore, it may come as a surprise to others (parents, other family members, friends, and community members) when a youth’s gender dysphoria first becomes evident in adolescence.”

The idea that the internet made your kid trans, the backbone of all of this, is just so ridiculous that the fact that I have to even talk about it is stupid. Many kids who understood they were trans when they were young but didn’t know what that meant and couldn’t put their identity into words. Fun fact, if you explain to someone a concept that they didn’t understand but felt before, they might in fact realize that it applies to them. The fact that resources are now available to them to give them information about their identity, and that trans people are more visible now than a decade ago when this generation of trans and nb people were growing up, is a good thing. 

Besides, considering just the quantity of shit like “transgender people DISPROVED by ben shapiro” and “NONBINARY CRINGE COMP #400000000000000000″ available on youtube being fed directly to toddlers with ipads, it’s not like all exposure to trans people has been framed positively, nurturing, or encouraging, and it would be beneficial to talk about the ways in which this is going to affect the trans and nb people who will be around a decade from now. 

There’s so much more I could talk about here, but I don’t think I need to. Instead, I will link to this amazing article that was the backbone of much of what I wrote. The author is a bisexual trans women with a degree in biochemistry, she knows what the fuck shes talking about. 

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 120

Chapter Summary -

And so the alum is released, how will Tom and Danielle act?

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

I am not one to dwell on the past and those in it, but when Reputation was released in November, you know it had to be checked and reported to Tom regarding its content.

All image rights belong to their owners

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ @jessibelle-nerdy-mum​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @damalseer​ @hiddlesbitch1​ @winterisakiller @fairlightswiftly​ @salempoe​ @wolfsmom1

‘Hey,’ Danielle walked into the kitchen with a smile on her face, which fell when she looked at the concerned look on Tom’s face. ‘What?’

Tom swallowed slightly as Luke cleared his throat. ‘The new album is out.’

‘And?’ She asked, folding her arms and bracing for the worst.

‘Well, there are a few references.’

‘Are they defamatory?’ Danielle asked.

‘No, but they are not pleasant.’

‘Well, she is hardly going to be pleasant, is she? That’s not her style, “I’m a victim, I am so lovely and the big bad men hurted me” is more her style.’ She put on a pathetic whiny voice as she spoke. ‘I bet Kardashian and the husband got it worse though.’

‘They did, and the press. Apparently, her songs are about no one and the press and people try to make it about her and people she is somewhat connected to.’ Luke scoffed.

‘Give me a line that proves otherwise.’

‘She references men with Jaguars and Range Rovers.’ Luke looked at some of the lyrics on the sheet.

‘What does Harris drive?’ Danielle already knew the answer.

‘A Range Rover.’ Tom confirmed.

‘Wow, shocking. “I reference things but don’t want to be accused of it being about anyone”. She really needs to grow the fuck up. Either say “Yes, I do sing about these things, and?” or actually keep away from it all, she comes across as a fool otherwise when it clear she is lying, but let’s face it, she was caught doing that before.’

‘Have you heard any of the songs?’ Tom asked.

‘No, I didn’t even know this pile of trash was out, why, should I have?’

‘The first song was released today.’

‘Please tell me it’s ridiculous. What is the album even called?’ She looked at the title on the page. “Reputation” Yeah, she’s building one of those alright.’

‘The song is called “Look What You Made Me Do,” Luke informed her.

Danielle paused for a moment, her eyebrows raised. ‘Is there a reason she titled a song after something abusive people say? That gives me the creeps. I have had to deal with a woman that had her jaw broken, her cheekbone broken and her eye swollen shut by a guy who yelled those words at her as he was being dragged away in a police car. She is mental. She is actually implying she’s abusive?’

‘I don’t think so. The lyrics are implying other people making her have to do stuff.’

‘Yeah, abusers do that too, imply the actions of others are why they do the shit they do. Highly narcissistic,’ Danielle growled, taking the groceries out of the bag she brought. ‘Where are the dogs?’

‘Outside, Mac is teaching Bobby in the ways of staring at birds hoping for them to fall out of a tree.’ Tom informed her. Seeing she was annoyed by everything, he walked over and rubbed her arms. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Annoyed, pissed off and angry that someone makes a living out of being an utter cunt to others. So many good songwriters can actually go an album without this shit.’ She growled before shaking her head. ‘I am glad this happened here, I just need to spit about it for a minute and I will go back to normal.’ She sighed before looking at Luke. ‘What’s the worst of it?’

‘Getaway Car.’ He stated getting to the page in question. ‘It’s a song that implies she is in an unhappy relationship and she uses another man to get out of it, but it was only a pitstop relationship, it was only to get rid of the first guy, it was only ever that from the start.’

‘Classy. So much for being a strong independent woman if you cannot even leave a relationship like an adult.’ She looked at Tom. ‘How many more relationships are you going to be accused of ruining?’ She scoffed. ‘I’ll have to keep an eye on you.’

Tom smiled at her attempt at humour, ‘Yes.’

‘How do you feel?’

‘Embarrassed, annoyed, as to be expected. Most of her focus seems to be on others, but it still is hurtful, to me, you Mum, Em and Sarah, we are all facing this now, I brought this on us.’

Danielle rubbed his arm. ‘She chose to do this, you took an adult approach to a break-up, she did not show the same courtesy.’ She then walked over to Luke with her hand extended, the publicist handed her the pages with the song lyrics on them, the parts suspected to be about Tom were highlighted. She scanned them and frowned. ‘She’s losing her touch, her whole chorus is literally “Look What You Made Me Do” no other words. Oasis, U2, Michael Jackson, and Prince she is not.’ She threw it down again. ‘I hope her voice is better autotuned this time. Would anyone else like a cup of tea?’ She asked.

Luke looked at Tom half in concern but seeing the other man smile slightly. Tom realised that Danielle was not overly bothered by it all anymore and was just moving on with the day. ‘Tea for me Darling, Luke is a coffee man.’

‘Okay. There are fresh hobnobs in the bag and I got a duck for dinner.’ She stated as she got the cafetiere out of the press for Luke.

‘Lovely.’ Tom smiled, going over to the bag to retrieve the biscuits. ‘We have been found to be house-hunting as well by the way.’

‘How many weeks pregnant am I?’

‘Not showing yet, but the winter jackets could be hiding it.’ Luke chuckled.

‘Good to know. I feel like almost going and getting a fake bump from a set to fuck with them. Nacelle offered and everything.’

Tom laughed. ‘That would screw with them alright.’

‘Please warn me in advance when you do that.’ Luke pleaded.

‘“When”?’ Danielle asked with a smirk.

‘You have a streak to you that I would imagine would cause you to seriously consider it.’

‘Aw, Luke, I believe you are actually getting to know me.’ Danielle laughed. She passed him a mug and the coffee. ‘Nah, it’s too much bother, it did cross my mind though. So what is the general consensus on that?’

‘That we are looking at a house worth four million belonging to Michael McIntyre.’ Tom grinned and folded his arms as he awaited her reaction.

Danielle stared blankly at him. ‘Four…..Four million? I nearly lost the plot at two million, I’d need to be anointed if you brought me to a place for that, what would you even buy for that, the Darcy house in Pride and Prejudice?’

‘A lot of the manor houses are in terrible condition, so they probably would go for that.’ Luke shrugged.

‘What the absolute fuck made them think that?’ Danielle asked.

‘Well, the “source” is a friend of mine that I apparently told, and they mentioned it.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘Ben, Jeremy and Luke.’

‘Hardly three gossips.’

‘People hear titbits of our conversations and assume the rest.’ Tom dismissed. ‘It doesn’t matter in general, only I thought I ought to tell you.’

‘Well yes, given my current condition, I cannot risk the stress of not knowing and it being dumped on me.’ Danielle rolled her eyes. ‘Are people actually that obsessed with you procreating?’

‘It is my own fault, I mentioned watching Jungle Book with my kids someday in an interview and they all are mad about it since.’ Tom shrugged. ‘No pressure on you.’

‘Clearly not.’ She scoffed. ‘I am going to let you two gentlemen get on with whatever you need to do and I am going to be boring and get some stuff done.’ She smiled going to the back door. ‘Come on you two fuzzbutts, get in and leave that poor chaffinch alone.’ The dogs immediately rushed over to her. ‘Come on, into the living room with me.’ She took her cup of tea that Tom was holding out for her and smiled at him before going into the other room, the two dogs following after her, though Bobby stopped at Tom or a moment and sat, hoping for a rub, on receiving it, he rushed after Danielle and Mac again before Danielle went out of sight.

‘That went as well as can be expected.’ Luke commented.

‘She is fine, once she is allowed a minute to be annoyed, I said as much.’

‘Yes, it is odd she calmed so quickly.’

‘She is not calm, she’s very much annoyed, but she cannot bottle it in, if she did, she would probably be five times angrier later. If she hadn’t already gone running today, she would be gone out now.’ He informed his friend. ‘But she has work to do, so she is going to focus on that now.’

‘How is she doing with work?’

‘Busy as hell, but she is a business partner now, so that is par for the course, right?’ Tom smiled. ‘She insists on doing everything she can from here and is looking into getting a fax machine for here too to minimise what she has to do in the office.’

‘Is she here quite a bit then?’

‘Most days of the week, because of the dogs more than anything.’ Tom smiled. ‘Another reason we need a bigger place, she needs a proper office.’

‘I ended up with a one-bedroom apartment making my second one an office, it does make life easier.’ Luke concurred. ‘See if her company will okay it as an expense, she could get it for nothing then.’

‘I will mention that to her.’ Tom smiled. ‘Now, what was this about a schedule?’

*

An hour later, Danielle came into the kitchen with paperwork in her hand and went over to preheat the oven. It was only after she got the duck out of the fridge that she realised the two men were still talking. ‘I am not after walking in on private Infinity War stuff, am I?’

‘No, nothing private, just dates and premiers.’ Tom smiled.

‘Okay, nothing too bad so,’ She sighed in relief as she continued to prepare the meat, noting the sheer amount of pages and dates on them. ‘It looks busy.’ She noted.

‘It is, it is utter insanity how much of it there is.’ Tom commented, Luke nodding in agreement.

‘When is the first trailer hitting?’ She enquired

‘Soon enough apparently, again, they are not telling us, but around the end of this month, start of next month.’ Tom smirked.

‘God, this is going to be something else.’ Danielle smiled. ‘How many of ye are without further contracts so far?’

‘We don’t know, we are all not allowed say, even to each other. Chris wants to move on though, as you know, he said that when we were talking to him. The others, I cannot say for sure. Ben is still contracted.’

‘Well, they left the whole situation at the end with Baron Mordo that needs to be addressed in the Strange movie.’ Danielle commented as she cut up an orange. ‘Adding Iron Man to Spiderman would make things interesting too, but it depends on what happens in the next two Avenger Movies. Damn it, I hate waiting.’

Tom chuckled. ‘If it is any consolation, we don’t know what happens other cast members, only ourselves.’

‘And anyone who you witness die.’

‘True actually, yes.’ Tom conceded. ‘But let’s face it, Loki survived how many deaths now, others could do the same.’

‘Yes, we have Black Panther to go to soon as well, that will be great.’

‘I had not realised that you are an actual Marvel fan.’ Luke stated.

‘Yeah, DC and Marvel were huge as cartoons when I was a kid, Spiderman, X-Men, Batman, Superman, it wasn’t Saturday or Sunday morning without the TV on with them on it.’ She smiled.

‘True actually.’ Luke conceded.

‘Elle, how long will that take to cook?’

‘About an hour and a half, I’d say, why? Will you be done?’ The men looked at one another and shook their heads. ‘Have you dinner plans this for evening, Luke?’

‘No,’ He said unsurely.

‘Wonderful, do you like duck?’

‘Yes, he does.’ Tom smiled. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘I am cooking anyway, what’s a few more potatoes or a bit of extra vegetables. What I will do is get my stuff and the dogs out of the living room and you two go in there and that way you can talk more without the sound of me clanging pots and pans.’

‘Elle, thank you, Darling, but it is just dates and other such things.’ Tom dismissed. ‘Work away.’

She said no more and did as required to ready the meal. With only a short time to go before it was ready, Tom went to the bathroom for a moment. ‘You do not mind my being here, do you?’ Luke asked.

‘Not at all, you are more than his publicist, you are his friend.’ Danielle dismissed.

‘But you and I do not know too great a deal about one another.’

‘No, but surely the best way to rectify that is to actually spend time in one another’s company.’

‘That is again, true.’ Luke chuckled as she offered him a wine glass. ‘Red, please.’

‘You’re not driving, are you?’

‘No, Tom drove me here, I will get a taxi back.’

‘I am not going to drink, I can drop you if he decides to.’ Danielle smiled as she got a nice red wine and opened it for him.

‘You are an incredibly healthy mature person, do you know that?’ Luke stated out of the blue, causing Danielle to look at him with her brows raised. ‘I mean that in a good way, I swear. You trust and respect Tom’s space.’

‘He has never given me reason to not trust it. If he says he is going out and will be back soon, he is; if he says he needs space for whatever reason, usually work, he is never far away. He does not stay away overnight when “going out with friends”. He has never come home covered in lipstick and love bites, so I don’t care.’

‘Or perfume.’

‘No, he has come home with a smell of that on him, because people hug him with perfume on, that is just the nature of his work, it does not mean there is anything untoward going on.’

‘Do you know, there are women that all but stick to their partners at premiers and sets. It is fascinating to watch when it does not involve your clients.’

‘I would actually love to watch that.’ Danielle laughed. ‘But that is so incredibly unhealthy. That, I would imagine, does nothing but urge a wandering partner. Plus could you imagine being stuck in each other’s pockets all the time.’

‘Or making scenes at events.’

‘I couldn’t do it to you. You’ve suffered enough.’ Danielle smiled.

‘Thank you. At least you are considerate of my health.’ Luke grinned in return.

[thecncitygirls]

About Jo

- Appears in the original series as an acquaintance of the Tennysons

- Has an older sister named Latasha who becomes a private detective

- Has the power to manipulate most species of fungi, decaying matter, and induce rot in organic material

- Has a quirk where instead of planting colorful flowers in pots she grows exotic and rare mushrooms

- She also has a love of fashion, and looks to nature as inspiration for her designs and costumes

- Her main weapon is a scythe that acts as a vessel/limiter for her powers

- She doesn't have a signature color, but tend to lean towards earthy and jewel tones

- She has to wear gloves at all times, another reason why she dislikes her powers

- She is not an alien hybrid and the origins of her powers are ambiguous

- She is one of the tallest characters; by fifteen she is 6'1

- She's also chubby and is not ashamed of her weight

- She's very shy at first and doesn't trust people until she really gets to know them

- Ironically she doesn't have any qualms about killing particularly heinous enemies; she makes sure they go down hard

- At the same time she does offer help to characters that are in desperate need of it

- Elemental powers run in her family: her cousin Patti has ice powers, and her future children has powers over the sun and moon

- Loves creepy things such as swamps and spiders

- Her seasonal motifs are midsummer and Autumn

- She often goes to abandoned buildings to practice her powers

- She can alter the chemical makeup of fungi (i.e. removing poisonous substances from toxic fungi to make it edible)

- She can also create her own penicillin which is very helpful on rescue missions

- She is Ben's love interest because anyone who's been on my main blog (@gritsandbrits ) would know that I really fucking hate BenKai.

- I based some of her character on Sakura Kinomino, as well as Emily fron Corpse Bride and Sailor Saturn

- She studies biology and mycology, but is pretty bad at foreign language and alien culture

- She is meant to be the "Earth" to Ben's space/sci-fi and Gwen's magic/fantasy.

- She was pretty suspicious of Kevin the first time they met as teenagers, but later finds herself a bit impressed by his willingness to change

- Her three OC friends are Ginger T. Glass, Emily Lewis and Sandy Clark (Sandy's a guy by the way)

- As an adult she retired from superhero duty to focus on her career as a fashion designer

- Her archnemesis is a gangster and eco-terrorist named Rosetta Thorndyke.

- She also has a few more villains in her Rogue's Gallery (which I haven't really come up with yet)

[penzyroamin]

heeey a tag game!!!

i was tagged by @ad-astra-de-luna i love you kat!!!

nicknames: uhh my real name is actually amelia? realized that some of yall might. actually think the name penzy is on my birth certificate? nah i just like penzy. so penzy, amy, ames, millie, mimi, etc

zodiac: taurus/gemini cusp. i don’t believe in astrology but i think it means i’m mega bastard? which is fair

height: 5′4″. i MIGHT be able to tough it out to 5″. we’ll see.

hogwarts house: ravenclaw with some hufflepuff tendencies fhsjdhsjhds

last thing i googled: “ciara renee pippin” yes i AM a slut for her leading player what about it

favorite musicians: uhh obviously i listen to cast albums constantly but outside of them i really love janelle monáe, dodie clark, crj, dolly parton, ben platt, mitski, etc. i like things with Feelings or a lot of electric keyboard noises fghsjhdjshgds

song stuck in my head: “arms unfolding” by dodie because holy FUCK guys

following: 153 people! i like a calm dashboard

followers: 230 people! specifically cleaned and kept free of p*rn blogs. hi guys!

do i get asks: sometimes! i have quite a few that i have yet to answer, whoops. i love all of them, i promise!

amount of sleep: right now, it’s summer, so anywhere between 8 and 14, lol

lucky number: 12. idk why

outfit rn: tank top, really soft shorts. obviously no bra because i’m a lounging gremlin

dream job: uhhh lots. novelist, book-and-score writer for The Stage, or a professor! what kind of prof just depends on what i end up being interested in sjdhsjhds. i can also see myself becoming a teacher in general, though

dream trip: ummm a big ol tour of the east coast of the usa! florida panhandle (FUCK south florida) to see my family and do the adult ziplining at the tallahassee museum and eat some good damn food and swim in some actually warm water (fuck you norcal), dc for all the museums and for some more family, nyc for theatre and museums and food and sightseeing and family and everything. preferably i would drag some friends who could withstand me infodumping on them

instruments: mainly clarinet, but also drums, and i used to be able to play guitar. i could probably pick it up again if i tried. i might relearn guitar and learn piano in college for fun

languages: english, learning spanish and asl

favorite song: currently??? “flowers” from hadestown is probably the most heartachingly brutal thing ever written. every time i listen to it, the “men are kind, until they... aren’t.” takes my breath away

random fact: despite being from florida, i have never gone to disneyworld. too rich for my blood!

aesthetic: quiet and sad songs, humming to yourself on the subway, biscuits for every meal of the day, messy buns, rose salve as lip gloss, dress shirts buttoned to the top button, a glass of sweet tea while you sit in the sun on a hot day. ankle length skirts, people-watching at amusement parks, having your earbuds tangled up in your pocket, oversized clothing, flower bouquets

tagging: umm if you looked at this and thought it looked like fun i’m tagging you! just say it was me, people won’t check!

[valkerymillenia]

Umbrella Academy

season 2, episode 6

I couldn't resist. More live-blogging of this episode.

My poor Allison...

Oh so that's what Handler wants from Five...

Ahah, Luther and Diego pointing out what Reggie did to Vanya and her reaction is awesome.

"no more number 1 or number 2 bullshit" -yes, Diego, baby, you're growing up! Also, him trying to bond with Luther and Vanya on his own accord is so fucking cute...

Klaus doing yoga 😆

Oh, so confirmed that the cult started by accident.

"you're a narcissist"? Ben, you've been watching him closely for 16 years, you know that's not true, you know the narcissism is just a mask, you know Klaus is actually insanely empathetic and compassionate.

Oh, wait, Ben is only saying this crap because he doesn't want Klaus to disband the cult. I get it now, Ben is the one being selfish here.

Oh, so the girl Ben likes is Jill... Boy is smitten.

Ahahah, Ben freaked out by the yoga poses 😆

Jesus, they really don't give Klaus space to breathe.

"my name is Klaus's and I'm an alcoh--- Ah, sorry, that's the wrong meeting" 🤣🤣🤣

Oh God, this is turning into a Spartacus thing... Oh, it's not.

There they go objectifying him and only hearing what they want to hear... These dudes are almost as bad as the ghosts.

Oh so it DID turn into a Spartacus thing!

Klaus tries to do the right and it always blows up in his face, huh?

Ray's priorities though 😆

Ahahah, Allison and Ray pulling a 'Pretty Women' rodeo drive scene 🤣 love it

That's a beautiful dress, Allison 😊

Wait! She's using her powers without the 'rumor' prefix! 😲 Yes!!!!!!

Oh, Allison is losing control... Is this the cost? Getting lost in the power trip? I mean, we already knew but not too this extent.

Lila, your mom is actually protecting you here. Listen to her.

Handler teasing Lila about Diego really is such a mom thing to do.

"I know you fancy yourself a spiritual guru..." - no, Ben, have you not been paying attention? That's literally what Klaus thinks he's NOT but nobody will listen to him. You're right that he needs help though.

Ok, Klaus is right. Ben keeps contradicting himself about what Klaus should do.

"you sound just like Dad" Oh, shit that's a really mean insult in this family 🥺

Holy crap, was that possession?????

That looks severely uncomfortable.

"I think I was inside of you" -.... No, no, too easy, I'm not going to say it. 🤐

DAVE?

Awww, Klaus doesn't even care about the punch.

Dave likes Dune, huh? Good taste.

Oh, the dog tags.... 😭

"it's an honor to die for my country" -no, honey, not like this

Oh shit, timeline changed, timeline changed! Dave is going to wear early. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

The shaking... Poor Klaus... How hasn't he snapped yet?

Swedes in the sauna, of course.

Strategically placed steam 😆

Ah! The Swedes FINALLY talk!

Ouch! Right for the balls. I'm starting to really like Handler.

"unharm my wiener" 🤣🤣🤣 poor boy

Handler, is this your attempt at protecting your daughter from feelings? It's twisted and evil but almost cute.

What the hell does "lavender" mean? Her perfume or something?

Southland Life?

The elevator scene! They really did all come together, I love it when Five is right.

AHAHAHAHAHAH What's with Luther and the stink jokes this season? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

'Daddy's girl' 😆

"team zero" I actually like that Diego keeps harping on the no numbers thing.

"classic" 😆

"hey pop, how's it hanging?" 🤣

"dead, yes, but I'm here! Klaus! Tell them I'm here!" -yes, please, Klaus, it's so cruel that you keep denying him that... 😣

"what are you writing?" Everybody leaning in and Diego getting all nervous. XD they are so conditioned, poor children.

The punch! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

"no, Vanya, don't!!!" Everyone is so scared of her but yet they are still making an effort to include her and that's so important!!

"oops" -that is not the smile of someone that means that oops, Vanya 😆

Reggie's sarcasm 🙄 I can see where half these siblings got their sass now.

Jesus Christ, Reginald is emotionally tearing Diego apart 😭 as much as Diego claims not to care what their father thinks, he cares, he really cares, they all do. I doesn't matter if you know that your parent is abusive, you will always have that visceral pain response of betrayal when they attack you and you will always in some way crave their approval. It's the terrible power imbalance of parental abuse.

There's the stutter! Poor Diego... Don't cry, baby...😭😭😭

Oh shit, Ben!

Reggie is not impressed. I get a feeling that they might have accidentally convinced him to NOT to adopt them...

"you in the cullotes" 😆 Reggie immediately tagged who the leader is

"I feel so violated" -why are they playing this for laughs?? It's horrible!

"oh, possession is a strong word, I'd like to say 'borrowed you'." -ok, so I get why Ben did that, Klaus pushed him too far and he got desperate. But please, PLEASE tell me Ben understands the seriousness of what he did and doesn't start abusing this ability without Klaus's consent.

ok, a serious thought now: no wonder Klaus did drugs, it was the only thing he could control in his life, the only way he had to take some control back, and this possession thing now only makes that more obvious. He has no control over his body if someone decided to take it, no control over the powers that make him see the dead everywhere, no control over his family life (the fact that Reginald locked in the mausoleum is just the tip of the iceberg in his lack of power), no control of the circumstances that killed the love of his life, no control over the masses that objectify him no matter how much he tries to tell them he isn't their savior and to leave him alone, he just has no control and nobody seems to get that, that's why him falling off the wagon is so serious and should be addressed by the family. Klaus deserves a family that cares about his suffering!!!

Congratulations to Luther for standing up to dad for the first time but Vanya is the only one with her priorities straight and goes straight to comforting Diego. And Diego immediately goes back to his passive-aggressive defense system...

I need more Diego-Vanya bonding in my life.

Poor Klaus... At least hold him properly, Luther.

I get a feeling this Grace is going to end up dying and I really don't want that to happen...

"technically I'm older than you right now" -no, Five, your not, you have no idea how old Reginald really is, he arrived in the US a full grown adult in the beginning of the century, he's inhumanly old (I never understood how he suddenly looked old in 89 when he adopted them considering that in 63 he looks almost as he did when he first arrived in the US so those decades before).

Ah, so that's what the ancient Greek was.

Reggie actually dishing out some wisdom and doing so patiently... Who is this?!

Don't you dare apologize, Five! You have nothing to apologize for!

Geez, Reggie and Five acting like they could be friends in different circumstances is actually surprisingly creepy. It also speaks to how fucked up even Five is about Reggie's abuse, even at almost 60 he's still clinging to the idea that maybe Reginald knows everything and has all the answers, he's still hoping that their suffering was for a reason and that Reginald might be proud of him. It's sad.

A cat? Are Swedes... Yes, the Swedes are in Elliot's house. Please don't let Elliot die, I like the poor weirdo.

The Swedes were more interesting when they didn't talk. (Still want to know what the glittery stuff they were drinking is).

"they do not abide women like us around here" -there or anywhere else, Sissy, it's 1963, homosexuality is literally illegal and considered a mental illness

Sissy actually makes a very good point.

Ok, this conversation is already veering their relationship into much healthier territory! Good. But now I'm scared for Sissy...

Damn, I hadn't even finished typing that last sentence and my fears were already proven right. Fucking Carl saw them.

Oh please, let Elliot be alive...

Noooooooooooo!

Damn it, I liked Elliot. He was so good to this family... 😩😠😢

"öga för öga"? Seeing as Elliot has something stuck in his eye, I'm going to guess that means 'eye for an eye' or something?

Ok, I googled it, yes, it's 'eye for an eye'.

I LOVE THIS HANDLER DRESS! 🤩

1982, huh? I'm guessing where about to see badass Five? I hope so.