#*I have no idea who Melissa doesn't like in particular

[not-so-mundane-after-all]

Dick & Rachel and the Invisible String theory (part 1)

Well, I finally gave in and decided to write it all down. How can I not when the show is basically slapping me in the face with it? It's all right there, if you're only willing to look. I've been dropping the phrase invisible string in relation to these two here and there for a while now and it's time to give it some more sense.

And yes, I am well aware this might be a stretch - it's Titans, nothing is ever intentionally that deep. But if there's one thing that show ever did right, it's this relationship, from the pilot to the end. So it's worth looking into it for me even if it's only my delusion speaking and it's not officially a thing.

So what is the Invisible String in this case? It's a connection, most likely supernatural, linking these two characters together and tethering them to each other in a way that is unexplainable by either logic or feelings. It plays into the definition of soulmates, though in this particular case other things like fate or magical powers might be connected. It's a bond made of love, fueled by love, but not responsible for it - the characters' feelings feed into it and strengthen it but they are their own and aren't affected by the existence nor strength of the bond. After all, even with the connection already in place, Dick and Rachel could have met and ended up hating each other.

Which means that not every scene they share will end up on this list I've put up here. Most of the time, the characters' actions are driven by their feelings, and the circumstances surrounding the scene are easily explainable. But sometimes, something strange happens and no matter how you look at it, you can't figure out how it happened without the so-called "higher power" at play.

(the higher power in question is most likely my delusion but fuck it we ball)

So where does it start? Obviously, in the pilot episode.

The dream that had started it all. The show is opened by it, it sucks you right in. This is where the String is born. Rachel walks right into Dick's memory of his parents' death and lives through it with him, even though she has no idea about it at the time. The dream we see in the pilot is also not the first time she has it; when she wakes up screaming and her mother comes in to comfort her, Rachel tells her what happened in half-sentences and broken words, not bothering to explain further and Melissa's look of understanding tells us that she already knows the story. The most important detail proving the connection's existence here is in Rachel's words.

"He was so scared. I felt it."

Somehow, thanks to her still developing powers, she was able to feel what he was feeling in that moment, proving that she is indeed inside his memory. Rachel didn't sense Mary's or John's emotions - only Dick's. Because they are gone and he's still alive so the memory is still alive as well.

The only thing the show had never bothered to explain here is the why. Why him? Why this? It feels a little random at the surface level, dreaming about a memory of some stranger you've never met. Even if we're talking about fate, about destiny bringing them together, the question still stands. Why Dick? Why didn't Rachel dream about the moment Gar became a metahuman? Or the moment Kory came to Earth? That one would have made sense, since Kory had been sent with the mission to kill The Raven. Guess we'll never know.

The connection is the most visible from Rachel's end, because her powers come into play. They might even be the reason the String exists in the first place. After her mother is killed, Rachel runs to her hometown's bus station and seemingly randomly picks Detroit as her destination, unaware that this is exactly where Dick is. The String is leading her to him without her even knowing.

But we can see it working through him as well, even though he's human and doesn't have any magical abilities.

We're introduced to a detective/vigilante, who's known in his day job for helping kids. The very first scene we see him in, he's looking through a file of a physically abused child. So the situation in the pilot is not his first rodeo. He's been dealing with kids in his line of work before, troubled kids more often than not. Rescued them from sticky situations (either with or without the Robin suit), and most definitely signed off some papers and handed the kids over to social services. And he never got attached. No matter how bad the situation was. His job required him to not get involved.

But then this kid shows up, a kid who recognizes him somehow (she can sense something familiar about him the second he walks in but doesn't clock it until he tells her his name) and she knows things about him she's not supposed to know. She tells him her mom was killed and his demeanor changes from slightly hostile to compassionate immediately because it's something he can relate to. She's begging for help with eyes full of tears, so blindly trusting despite just meeting him, talking like he's her only hope and his resolve is already starting to break.

And then she takes his hand. Whether intentionally or not, she dives into his head, and her dream and his memory become one. They expand, giving Rachel further glimpses into his past. And they both feel it.

And boy, does it spook him. The weird and very conscious feeling of getting sucked into his own head, the unexplainable connection to this kid in front of him who for some reason is able to dig in his brain, a connection that only seems to be fueled by his growing concern for her and her situation. It clearly freaks him out. He's a lone wolf, he doesn't get attached. Neither his day or night job allow it. So what does he do about it? He runs.

"I can't give you the kind of help you need." But he wants to. And it scares the shit out of him because this shouldn't be happening. This should be easy. Get her statement, check it, call social workers. Sign off a few papers and be done with it. Just another kid, another file, another day at the office.

And yet he has to force himself to leave the room and not give in to her desperate begging. He goes to do what he's supposed to do, turns it into just another case.

He tries to leave it. Makes some calls, grabs his coat and heads out. Dude is already out of the building, ready to call it a day and let someone else take over but something stops him in the middle of the parking lot. A sense of duty? Strange worry twisting his gut? Instinct telling him that something isn't right? Something is pulling him back to this girl and no matter how hard he's trying, Dick can't walk away.

Because you see, the moment Rachel took his hand and they both experienced the memory at the same time, the String solidified. I visualize it in my head as two opposite ends slowly reaching toward each other and when this happens–

–the ends meet. They snap together and two separate pieces of the String become one. Only the thing is, right now it's just a thin thread. Now it's up to them to either break it or make it stronger.

(if somehow you're still reading, I assume you know what happens)

As we dive further into Season 1, there are plenty of moments along the way that show how the String strengthens with Dick and Rachel growing closer. 1x04 especially has a moment that is a definite milestone in their relationship — Dick making a conscious decision to stay and take care of Rachel, no longer afraid of the connection and responsibility. But we don't see the String at work again until episode 1x07, "Asylum".

Now, as a singular event, this next scene doesn't necessarily qualify, because it can be logically, scientifically even, explained. But it's here because it's the first of the several instances creating a pattern across all seasons: a pattern of Rachel bringing Dick back to reality from the confines of his own mind.

She seems to be the only one to have this ability to such an extent as she does, and as the seasons go, we even watch it grow in its effectiveness.

When she finds him, he's been pumped with drugs and kept trapped inside his head for an unspecified amount of time, we can assume more than an hour. He's limp, completely unresponsive and it takes her several tries to wake him up. And what does it? A reminder of what connects them, of the promise he made her, the promise that he will never leave her.

It's not that easy to notice unless you look closely but his eyes gain focus and snap to hers the second she says "You promised!" Unknowingly, Rachel tugs at the String and yanks him back with those two words — she needs him to remember, she needs him back because she's scared, and even though her own mother is standing right behind her, none of it matters because Rachel won't feel truly safe unless he's there to keep her safe — and it works because keeping that promise is a priority to him, it's what keeps him going. "Yeah, I guess I did," he says as he comes to his senses and gives a tiny reassuring smile to let her know that he remembers. And we all breathe with relief (well, I did).

Then we move to the very end of episode 1x10 "Koriand'r".

Why is Dick the only one able to cross the cloaking barrier around Angela's house? Why did he run at it at full speed, determined and so sure he'll break through even though he risked literally crashing into a wall, and went right through it with no problem, while neither Kory nor Donna couldn't? It's simple: Trigon allowed it because he knew about the String. Having similar powers to Rachel, he could sense it in his daughter and decided to use it against her. He even knew when Dick and the girls appeared in front of the barrier. Trigon recognized how important all these people are to Rachel, but there was something about this particular bond that caught his attention and made him realize Dick is the perfect pawn. If he wants to break his daughter, he first needs to break the one person she loves the most.

What deserves a special mention here is a little moment at the end of episode 1x11 "Dick Grayson" because this is the first time in the show that the word "love" is used to describe Dick and Rachel's relationship. And it comes from none other than Trigon himself.

Because you do. He knows. Despite never having met either of them before. Trigon has been back on Earth for what, an hour? And he sensed it right away.

That's it for season 1. I was originally planning to put all seasons in one post but obviously didn't consider that there is a 10 image limit and that I talk too much lol

So if you're curious for more, read part 2 and part 3 here. They will dive into how the Invisible String manifests itself in season 2, and check out part 4 for seasons 3 & 4!

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

As someone who has been in the Harry Potter fandom since the 2000s, it becomes obvious that what really made the power go to J.K. Rowling's head wasn't her new fame and fortune - but rather, how the Harry Potter fandom practically worshipped her as a god when the books were still coming out. If you look at old interviews with J.K. Rowling and Emerson Spartz of MuggleNet, and Melissa Anelli of "The Leaky Cauldron" website, Rowling and her PR team specifically curated these interviews - much like with "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" - to only see and praise her in a good light. (Spartz was a fanatical JKR supporter in particular, even going as far as to mock and attack Harry/Hermione, or Harmony, shippers "on her behalf". Rowling laughed at it.)

The Harry Potter fandom and their militant support for J.K. Rowling as a deity-like figure in the 2000s, simply because she wrote the Harry Potter books, really went to Rowling's head. It's also probably where she gets this idea of, "I read my most recent royalty cheques, and find the pain goes away pretty quickly." She genuinely still believes that the Harry Potter fandom still supports her, and still has her back, because she still thinks that fans are putting her on a pedestal. However, in the 2000s, most of these fans were teenagers and young adults who didn't know any better, and weren't mature enough to see how this was unhealthy, for both them and Rowling.

However, I've encountered this issue before in the realm of YA authors and the book community in general, and what J.K. Rowling doesn't realize is that the only reason why Harry Potter fans supported her at the time was simply because she wrote the Harry Potter books - and was continuing to write the series at that time. They didn't care about J.K. Rowling, the person - they cared about J.K. Rowling, the content provider, who kept providing them new Harry Potter content. They only cared about her because she was writing new Harry Potter books.

Once Rowling finished the Harry Potter series, and started writing her adult mystery books, readers' interest in Rowling as a content provider dropped off sharply, and they lost interest, to the point where she had to publicly reveal that she was "Robert Galbraith" in order to boost flagging book sales. It became clear that people only cared about her Harry Potter series.

I feel this is also why J.K. Rowling's slide in to TERFdom is not only performative and self-seeking, but that the people who claim to support her only do so solely because she's anti-transgender. Much like with the Harry Potter fandom - which only cared about J.K. Rowling, in the sense that she was providing them new Harry Potter books and content - TERFs only care about J.K. Rowling because she supports being a TERF. Most TERFs don't actually seem to care about her as a person, and as such, I think J.K. Rowling is seeing them as a misplaced source of support.

It's also worth noting that J.K. Rowling seems to have sought out the TERF community to fill in the gap left by Harry Potter fans, and the fandom at-large, increasingly distancing themselves - or growing and maturing beyond - their single-minded support of J.K. Rowling. For years, Rowling had her ego constantly stroked and fed by Harry Potter fans, to the point that she internalized her entire sense of self-worth on "being the author of Harry Potter" and providing content to people. Or, in the mind of J.K. Rowling: "Without Harry Potter, who am I? What is my purpose?"

Unfortunately, Rowling decided that her new "purpose" was fighting "trans rights activists".

When the Fantastic Beasts film franchise - which J.K. Rowling co-wrote the scripts for - crashed and burned, and her attempt to win back Harry Potter fans and the fandom with new Harry Potter-based content failed, she turned to a new echo chamber for self-validation instead: TERFdom. The TERFdom provided easy and lazy source of validation for Rowling, as instead of putting in actual work to create new Harry Potter books and scripts, she can just rest on her laurels, and occasionally post low-effort tweets that she can post instead, and which garner her a lot of attention. Rowling tunes out all of the negative attention, and only focuses on those praising her, or even worshipping her as their own "Personal Jesus" - the same as she did back in the 2000s with her Harry Potter interviews, and then later on, with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The Harry Potter TV show reboot on HBO Max is now Rowling's third attempt - if not fourth, counting the travesty that was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - to either try and win back the Harry Potter fandom, or to create a new Harry Potter fandom by exposing Gen Z and Gen Alpha to the series. However, things have changed a lot since the 2000s, and that includes far more support for LGBT rights, so I feel like this third attempt is going to backfire horribly on her.

quoted (but not formatted as a quote because it's too long for the new tumblr engine) from the comments to the r/Contrapoints thread on her 2023 JK Rowling video, a striking takedown/analysis of why it seems the author of Harry Potter has gone so far and so fast off the deep end away from the core principles that initially made her work so popular with a western millennial and down YA audience

[princeescaluswords]

You Can't Be a Fox and a Wolf

This work is for @teenwolf-meta's Meta May Monday, for the prompt transformation.

In The Divine Move (3x24), working from the clues found on the Shugendo Scroll, the pack defeats the nogitsune. While Derek, the twins, and Chris Argent destroy the commandeered oni outside, Isaac brings in the Nemeton-wood cannister that can serve as its prison, Stiles and Lydia distract it, Scott bites it, and Kira delivers the coup de grace with her mother's katana, reducing it to a fly. The key to its defeat is weakening it enough to be imprisoned, "changing the host." As Stiles triumphantly says, "you can't be a fox and a wolf."

Yet, in Teen Wolf: The Movie, the nogitsune taunts Scott in the climactic fight with the consequences of his earlier defeat.

Nogitsune: Do you remember, Scott, the gift that you gave me? The bite of the alpha, the power of the werewolf.

Immediately, this seems like a significant plot hole, or at least a contradiction in the lore. If Scott's bite gave the nogitsune the power of a werewolf, then the Shugendo Scroll was wrong, and changing the host was not the key to saving Stiles and defeating the nogitsune. While it may seem to contradict the entire finale of Season 3B, there is a much simpler and more well-established alternative answer.

The nogitsune was lying.

That declaration was a stratagem, designed to weaken its opponents. It was a trick, and one it had played many times before. Of course, it changes its appearance, but it has done that before, even in the same movie, assuming Victoria Argent's form and manipulatively directing a newly-resurrected and quite confused Allison against its enemies. It seems this particular trick is one of its favorites: turning the fears of its opponents against them, causing them doubt and pain, which in turn strengthens it. How do I know this? Because it has used it repeatedly.

In Riddled (3x18), the nogitsune stages a takeover of Stiles while the boy is undergoing an MRI. It plays on Stiles's terror about the possibility of having frontotemporal dementia, because as the Sheriff points out later "You don't take away their courage, you take away their hope." The nogitsune torments Stiles with its riddles and then says:

Nogitsune: "Your friends. Your family. Everyone who ever meant something to you. We're going to destroy all of them, Stiles. One by one."

It's only then that nogitsune reveals as face: Stiles's face, similarly to the reveal in the movie. Doing so implies that they are the monster. Stiles already doubts his own virtue as a person, which is only implied in his words and his actions, and originates in the past, we learn about later in Required Reading (5x06):

Claudia: He's trying to hurt me. I don't care if you don't believe me, but he is. He's trying to kill me.

The nogitsune doesn't use "we" just to be cool. By tapping into Stiles deep-seated trauma and misapprehension that he's a threat to those he loves, he weakens Stiles and strengthens itself enough to allow the fox to take over fully, confront Noshiko, and leave the hospital. The fact that it's not true -- that it's Claudia's illness that made her afraid and nothing in Stiles's nature -- doesn't matter as long as it digs at Stiles's doubt.

Similarly, in De-Void (3x21), a "captured" nogitsune in Stiles's body talks to Melissa while she is trying to tend his wounds after fooling her to remove his gag.

Nogitsune: Really, Melissa? I shed one tear? That's all it takes? Come on. You can't crumble that easily. How are you going to hold up when Scott knows the truth?

Melissa: What?

Nogitsune: When he finds out why his dad really left? You know he overheard it, right? You had no idea. You called Stilinski right after it happened. You didn't tell Scott, but you told the Sheriff. Hmm. But Stiles heard it like he hears everything. But you want to know why he never told Scott? Because he knew that Scott would never forgive you. He knew how much he would hate you.

This time the trick is designed to unsettle Melissa and to sow confusion and dissent, moving pieces on the board so it can kidnap Lydia. We already knew at that point that Melissa was worried about Scott's reaction to his father leaving, and we learned that all the way back in The Tell (1x05):

Melissa: Oh. Well, trust me, we're much better off without him in the picture. Harris: Well, does Scott feel the same way? Melissa: Yes. I think so. I hope so.

It doesn't matter that we know that the nogitsune is lying about what Scott's reaction would be. Scott literally does not blame his mother even for rejecting him in a jail cell in Fury (2x10); his disdain for his father being absent is completely focused on Rafael But the nogitsune is playing into Melissa's fears about her own decision and its consequences.

The same way it plays into Lydia's fears and doubts in Insatiable (3x23) in order to feed off her pain and keep her unbalanced. While its got her trapped in the tunnels beneath Oak Creek, it has to keep Lydia, an intelligent person, from figuring out why he kidnapped her.

Lydia: They'll find me. My friends are going to find me. Nogitsune: You think so? I myself, was kind of wondering what they're doing right now. What useless lead they're chasing. I wonder if maybe some of them have bigger problems to deal with right now. Are they really spending every minute looking for you?

While that speech did serve to point out to the audience what was going on with the others, it also managed to attack Lydia at her weakest, the reason she felt she had to play dumb to get a boy to like her, and only started revealing her intellect when she was appreciated for it. But she still has worries that no one cares that much about the real Lydia, as shown in Restraint (2x06):

Lydia: I don't need anyone to hang out with. I need someone to talk to. Allison: I - I understand that it's important, but if it can just wait - Lydia: Why is everyone always telling me to wait? Why can't anyone have "right now" available?

The fear of Lydia being rejected, of not being important enough to people, of being made to stay in the car and out of the way, of "Nothing in this room is valuable." has been with her since the beginning of the show and stayed with her.

As I said, this is nogitsune's primary weapon -- turning the fears and doubts of its prey into sente, the advantage, as well as its food -- and its excels in its use. Which is why I'm pretty confident that the taunt delivered to Scott in the movie was just that: a baseless falsehood. And nothing convinces me of that more than the word choice that the nogitsune use: "gift."

Scott: Us? You mean you! You did this to me! Derek: Is it really so bad, Scott? That you can see better - Hear more clearly, move faster than any human could ever hope? You've been given something that most people would kill for. The bite is a gift. Scott: I don't want it.

This is from the pilot, episode 1 of season 1. The Bite has been the source of everything that Scott has suffered and every loss he has endured. Even fifteen years later, Scott cannot escape its consequences. The nogitsune, as it was made clear, considers winning the game if Scott dies in Allison's arms this time, after the nogitsune makes his best friend lover kill him. By evoking where it all began, the nogitsune lays the foundation for Scott being willing to do this, being willing to end his life by sacrificing it. So, yeah, it was a lie based on a transformation, lying just like it did with Victoria's face, like the MRI results, like Melissa's dark secret, like Lydia's worry that she's not valuable.

But Scott didn't fall for it, because he's more than just the pain, strife and chaos that has filled his life, something a monster who sees pain as food and only wants 'more' could never hope to understand.

[dizzybevvie]

Ok me and a friend got talking and. heres (some of) the things I personally would do if tasked with rewriting Mystreet.

[very brief mentions of Katelyn, Garte + the Lycan parents :>]

Im totally stealing this idea from @bread--squid--uwu but Aph's name is Aphrodite now. Makes sense with the guys all being into her, still keeps the nickname, makes sense for Sylvanna etc

Reducing the ages. It makes noooooo sense to me that theyre all like, 35. They're fresh out of college, like 21-23.

Magic would either be a big part of the world building or removed entirely. Not a fan of the soft magic system. If removed, Lucinda would be a more like, herbs + the moon kinda witch you know? She also likes DnD

knowing more about peoples backstory! Laurance in particular has such little clarification on his family and upbringing

We get to know about all the shady goings on of the Ro'Meave household because theres no way Garte is a good man i do NOT trust him

Katelyn + Travis don't get back together

Aphmau goes to a different college to the others and meets Aaron (max of 2 years older) there because I'd personally like it more if the rest of the group didn't know him beforehand! That way Gar and Laur are able to be upset with the idea of him. I like the idea that they get so in their own heads that they plan out a whole argument that Aaron just. doesn't take the bait on at ALL and they realise that maybe theyre in the wrong for jumping to conclusions.

The ultima Werewolf thing would have to be totally revamped idc. I dont remember how its explained in the show, but I like the idea of it being a curse on the family possibly by Lucinda's ancestors. (Melissa + Lucinda could have a moment too!)

KC has like a common Japanese name because it reflects her fear of being forgettable (?). Also she is actually asian

CHARACTERS HAVE LAST NAMES. Except for Lucinda because again, I want the magic to be more prevalent and I think its cute that shes kinda the odd one out

Zane is Autistic and its discussed! I want Garroth to learn to respect his boundaries

On the same note, Garroth and Zane actually make up. I think Zane and Laurance being worsties is fun but the brothers need to be on neutral ground at LEAST.

Aaron is introduced early on. I don't really care how, but him being introduced half way into season 1 is partly the reason Aarmau is so rushed

People have identities. Not everyone needs an exploration or a label, but at the very least, Katelyn is Bisexual throughout the series and Garroth, Laurance, Melissa, Lucinda and Teony are some flavour of gay

Teony is more relevant. she doesn't have to be in the main group but I'd love to see her more like she works at the mall or smthn

The Garroth/Laurance/Aph dynamic changes majorly. They still constantly are trying to one-up each other by sweeping her off her feet but its more playful than anything serious. They get super competitive abt it but its still a but of fun. Whether she likes either of them isn't important. What is, though, is that Gar + Laur are absolutely unknowingly competing for eachother's attention. Maybe theres a cringy little moment where theyre like, "Well I would take her to get SUSHI!" "well I would- wait I LOVE sushi!" you know what I mean? also they actually have a conversation about the kiss at the play instead of just incoherently screaming (theres also some of that tho)

The Lycan family dont get a redemption arc

Dante and Aphmau need something because they could be sooo good but their dynamic is lacking so theyre cousins now. Maria and Sylvanna are sisters or something i dont know.

Also, Gene doesnt have that weird thing going on with Aph in high-school. He's now her friend who gives her a twix sometimes and hisses at Ivy

Totally biased but Id really want Garroth and Laurance's queerness explored. If its a first for either or both of them, how they feel about it, how they're navigating it. I want them coming out to not be a big deal but I want it to be a realisation.

I dont remember who came up with this but Laurance had Cadenza dye his hair ginger for a while because he wanted to feel like part of the new family? adorable. love it. Also Caleb doesnt exist purely because he throws a wrench in the adoption thing

The street has a name. I dont care what but it has a name

Id do something different with the maid cafe, not sure what yet. I dont think Aph would own it, though.

Aphmau's character is more of what it was in season one. Like the girl you call when youre drunk at 2am and she makes sure you get home safe and then brings you sweets kinda vibe? shed get you out of a tough situation

Aaron + Aphmaus relationship is a more relaxed version of what it was in season one, too. They can be romantic or platonic, but they like watching movies and teasing each other not. doing whatever they do in s3 and onwards.

PEOPLE SAY SORRY.

Dante & Travis: The Show is a podcast that Dante and Travis run twice a week. Its world renowned (16 regular viewers)

Garroth is british. Britain exists in this universe and any towns/cities/villages Jess named are somewhere within the USA

Laurance characters get consistent colour pallets.

Dante is trans literally just so i can fight off Squid's Two minute Two Dick Dante agenda (/j)

[librarycards]

im glad that my mom died anon back to explain myself:

well, honestly i keep thinking about this book in terms of it’s popularity and my opinion about it after reading it was - „it is popular to say anything”. to me, the most popular works are usually bad because they’re easy to digest and boring - so i’m stuck on No Opinion about igtmm - also with the argument of „i never read book like these (mental health memoirs/trauma memoirs) so i don’t have anything to compare to” and „i liked it only because it was relatable to me” and yet i keep thinking about it a lot. idk i think i’m just surprised that someone who reads as much as you do thinks that highly about the most popular book of 2022. maybe things sometimes get popular for a reason

no, I completely get that! i generally agree (and also generally avoid mainstream/popular books about disability, especially psych disability and ESPECIALLY disorderly eating). my curiosity about this book was mostly fueled by 1) an interest in some of the other topics mccurdy discussed, including religious abuse and sexual abuse in the entertainment industry, and, of course, 2) having grown up with icarly and loving/admiring miranda and jeanette as a kid, and also wondering "where jeanette went", especially in the wake of the news about schneider's vile abuse.

the centrality of mccurdy's experiences with anorexia and bulimia were actually a surprise to me, and initially made me worried to continue, and it was the sheer quality of mccurdy's writing and storytelling that compelled me to keep going - she is just a genuinely good writer, and a clever comedian in the style of hannah gatsby, able to exercise the full gamut of emotions in a reader without abandoning them/us to despair.

in terms of the actual depiction of ed-related stuff, I think that mccurdy has an exceptional sense of her own internality. her acting and dance training is undoubtedly an influence on this - she is able to coordinate her bodymind such that the internal experience she expresses are meaningfully readible by outsiders. that is to say, she doesn't write psychiatric disability as i do, and as i would, because she's different from me! she doesn't engage ideas of opacity and illegibility, rather, she highlights moments she is able to share with her interlocutors, and pulls on a shared script of lived experience. i value her depiction for its genuineness and intimacy. i think audiences broadly tapped into her ability to manage particularity and universality. we see ourselves in her work, while also understanding the sheer uniqueness of her narrative (and, as a result, respect her as the authoritative teller of her own story, which is kinda the whole conceit of the book!)

so, that's a longer-ish answer to my own admiration / love of the book! i also thought about what other "popular" books do this –– pretty much the only ones that came to mind were True Biz by Sara Nović, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, and (for disorderly eating stuff) Milk Fed by Melissa Broder.

if you're looking for a more opaque // Mad depiction of psychiatric disability, try My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki (disorderly eating), The Fast by Hannah Weiner (disorderly eating), and, broadly, A.S. King, one of my all-time favorite authors who writes Mad and narratively experimental YA books (and really deserves more love!!!!). She's best known for Ask the Passengers, but my all-time favorite of hers is Still Life With Tornado.

[studyingsocialjustice]

can you give any theatre/acting related advice that you have learnt through your studies as a theatre major? thanks

Anon I am SO sorry - this ask is from a year ago and I literally JUST saw this and I have absolutely no idea how that happened. I hope that you are still following me and will see this!

EDIT from May 2023: Haha. Oops. This ask is now from maybe like two years ago? Possibly almost three? I genuinely don't know. But I am so sorry that it's taken so long. I remember exactly what I was doing while typing my original response to this: I was folding laundry and trying to get ready to move back in to school, and I was procrastinating doing the folding by typing my response to this, and then my parents came in and were like "why aren't you folding laundry" and I remember saying to myself that I would come back to this ask and then I never did. But you probably don't care about that much, so here we go:

My top three things I have learned, in order:

Number One: Script analysis is everything. It will help you connect to and understand your character, it will help you to connect to and understand the world of the play - it is the foundation for understanding everything. Look at the historical context of when the play was written and where it stands in the playwright's repertoire chronologically. Look at word choice. Look at how the characters interact with each other. My favorite books I recommend for this are A Practical Handbook for the Actor by Melissa Bruder, Lee Michael Cohn, etc. and Backwards and Forwards by David Ball. I read these books in my senior year of high school, so four years ago now, and I still use their methodology for all of my script analysis. Their methods are incredibly useful and I highly highly recommend reading them. B&F was also required reading for my Script Analysis course at my university this year, and it is still just as useful. The books are old enough that they aren't too expensive to buy, and you could probably also find copies online, though I'm not sure of that.

Two: One of the best, and in my opinion most accessible methods of script analysis (especially if you don't want to read a whole book) is the Question Words Method: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? This works for monologues as well as general script analysis, and is usually applied to one character at a time.

For monologues: Who is speaking? Who are they speaking to? What are they trying to achieve by speaking? Where are they while they're talking? When in the course of the story is this happening? Why are they talking about this now? Why not later, why not sooner? To quote one acting teacher I had, why are they opening their mouth? And finally, how are they going about getting what they want? What tactics are they using, what's their word choice? What actions are they taking as they speak?

For characters: Who are they? This includes, name, title, relationships, basic biographical information. What do they want? What is their goal throughout this story? Where does this story take place? When? For a particular scene, where and when does that scene take place (general setting) and when in the course of the story does it take place? Why do they want whatever it is that they want? And how are they working to achieve it?

The most essential part of this, in my opinion, is what does the character want, and how they are going about achieving that. It's the objective and the tactics.

Three: This comes from one of my professors from this past school year. There is this idea in the world of theatre that if there's anything else you can see yourself doing, you should go do that because acting is only for people who can see themselves doing nothing else and just really really want it. Which is stupid because just because you might be able to imagine yourself taking a different career path doesn't mean you would be happy doing it. So, from my professor: "If you could see yourself doing anything else, do this anyway, because it's better." Again: If you could see yourself doing anything else, do this anyway, because it's better. If this is what you love, who cares about what else you could be doing? Do the thing that is fulfilling and makes you happy. It doesn't matter if other people think that it isn't a good career or won't make you enough money. If this is what you love, do it, because it's better than anything else.

I sincerely hope that this advice was helpful to you! Again, I'm so sorry that it's taken me so long to answer your ask; time unfortunately is not my friend and I've had a lot of - for lack of a better word - bullshit happen to me this year. Best of luck going forward, and please know that although it may sometimes take me a while to respond, my inbox is always open! I love giving advice, and am always happy to provide it!

[the-spooky-alien]

I posted 1,168 times in 2022

That's 1,168 more posts than 2021!

90 posts created (8%)

1,078 posts reblogged (92%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@cock-holliday

@baronessblixen

@amplifyme

@mulderwearingglasses

@agent-troi

I tagged 1,146 of my posts in 2022

Only 2% of my posts had no tags

#txf - 975 posts

#fox mulder - 772 posts

#dana scully - 749 posts

#msr - 442 posts

#fav - 79 posts

#fictober22 - 30 posts

#xffictober2022 - 30 posts

#the monstrumologist - 29 posts

#he's so pretty - 26 posts

#scully my beloved - 22 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#they could be talking about religion sports or even the reproductive function of mulder's fish and still tie it back to their relationship

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Okay, so I just watched The Unnatural and- I have literally no words. The MSR is just glorious in this episode ??? Like, they barely interact through the ep, but when they do, it's so flirty and fun ?? They're best friends in love, your honor. I mean, I thought, before seeing the ep, that the whole baseball game at the end was some sort of ploy for the investigation which I believed to be in the middle or early episode. And then I finally watched it and it's at the end and has absolutely nothing to do with an investigation and it's just Mulder and Scully having fun and flirting and touching each other and just being wholesome ??? With the little fight for who gets to put hands on the middle of the bat ??? And the cute little banter ??? AND THE WAY MULDER WHISPERS IN HER EAR ????

146 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

#4

Thinking of Mulder, touch-starved because nobody ever tried to give him a hug (because somehow, I can't imagine Phoebe or Diana being affectionate, and we all know his parents became distant after Samantha's abduction). Thinking of Mulder having to learn how to be touched, how to be held. Learning how to allow himself to be loved. Thinking of Scully being so, so patient with him, slowly easing him into tender touch until he stops stiffening in surprise when she hugs him from behind. Thinking about Mulder learning he's worth being loved through witnessing Scully's care and love for him. Thinking about them healing together, making each other better, smoothing over their sharp edges.

Thinking about them loving each other so much that they can never quite believe it but never stops wanting to believe in it nevertheless.

207 notes - Posted October 21, 2022

#3

I may be projecting, but I like to think of Scully as someone who isn't overtly physical ? I mean, she likes it when it's people she loves and trusts (i like to imagine she never refuses a hug from her mum, she doesn't refrain from ruffling her younger brother's hair to annoy him when they're children, and she used to like to hang out with Melissa on the couch, shoulders against shoulders, to watch the TV), but apart from that, she's reserved. The times when we see her be physical with other people (apart from Mulder) is usually to comfort them, and usually she just places her hand on their shoulders. (there is this one time she kisses Skinner on the mouth, but i'm pretty sure she was so lost in the euphoria of finding Mulder she didn't think about it. i like to think she couldn't look Skinner in the eyes afterwards).

Anyway, for someone so put together like her, so reserved, both emotionally and physically, it must have been weird to be parternered with Mulder, who is a very physical person. He's always in her personal space, always with his hand on her back, and I don't know, but there's something so trusting about this. About being someone who isn't very physical but allowing this special person to touch you because you like their touch. Because Scully doesn't show signs of being bothered by this, which means she doesn't mind, which means she likes Mulder's touch in particular.

I have no idea where I'm going with this, I might just be screaming into the void, but the simple idea of a physically reserved Scully allowing Mulder to touch her because she likes his touch, and then actually initiating the touching because she likes touching him too, is so dear to me. (and then i think about the pilot, where she leans into him, terrified, already trusting him enough to touch him like that after knowing him for like two days, and- they're insane for making me emotional like that)

242 notes - Posted August 31, 2022

#2

Squeeze is such an iconic episode. Not only does it gives us the memorable ''Do you think I'm spooky ?'' scene but it also gives us : Mulder in glasses, his horrible ties, Scully's impeccable fashion sense, Mulder being territorial over Scully, Scully realizing she loves her work and loves working with Mulder, Scully saying Mulder is a great agent, a creepy as fuck monster, Mulder's worst joke ever (''Somebody having a garage sale'') and Mulder's best joke ever (''Is there any way I can get it off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior ?''), an emotional moment of an old man finally getting closure over his worst case ever, Scully roasting the hell out of Colton (''Then I can't wait `til you fall off and land on your ass''), Mulder thinking Scully got the right guy and fighting to make her realize, and finally the soft shoulder touch at the end.

Oh and also this shot of very platonic gazing between two coworkers

342 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Why does she feel the need to speak so close to his face ??? HOW IS IT PLATONIC COWORKER BEHAVIOR

371 notes - Posted August 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[kimberlyannharts]

misc thoughts on Issue #115 -

= The Rita/Tommy scene is still really good and just serves to prove how trying to force that same kind of connection between M*tt and Rita makes no sense. It's another thing where dropping the M*tt/Rita thing out of nowhere is technically bad writing (especially since Melissa framed it as Rita wanting her Coin back - but I guess she doesn't anymore??????) but at the same time I'm glad they just gave up on it because why bother

= Rather than actual character focus Aisha gets another "here's a fact about my life that'll come out of nowhere to justify my actions in this particular scene" moment because we can't seem to go a fucking issue without showing off how sad poor M*tt is and how he needs comfort. I think what makes me especially mad is we're confirming Aisha a) has parents that don't get along and b) dealt with anxiety and we didn't...........turn that into any sort of bonding between her and KIM??????? At least she gets to acknowledge Adam and Rocky later on

= Drakkon taking the piss out of him is funny though. Because he's right, M*tt WAS being useless <3

= After Zedd Ranger's cool and intimidating debut he's apparently been spending these last few issues sulking on the Moon because his Zord has "stalled." These comics are so allergic to making Zedd a primary bad guy and I'll never understand it. It gets especially pathetic for Zedd when scene itself ends with Zordon scolding Zedd for "stealing" Serpentera as if he's a child (and as if Promethea didn't steal it first). And then later on Zedd attacking early will ruin their little sneak attack plan

= The Jason/Kim scene is also good. Did you know there are people who seriously think Jason was "put out to pasture" just because he's not a Ranger anymore. He's gotten more consistent screentime and development in this event than pretty much all the MMPRs except Billy

= This is the issue where Death Ranger gets "destroyed" and to this day we still have no idea if this really is the end for them or if there's the possibility it was a fakeout and they could come back in the finale. The fact that as the story goes on Dark Specter will start losing generals (and thus Rita starts losing allies) points to this being their end, but at the same time Rita being the one to do it (right after bringing up her "capacity for forgiveness") means the possibility for their return could still be open. idk. It's one of those things where it's felt less likely as we got closer and closer to the finale without anything happening (and I guess they COULD just come back in the finale as another ally against Dark Specter, but.....that's such a waste of a character like them)

= Kim literally ends this issue targeted by Rita and unmorphed WHY DIDN'T SHE GET CAPTURED AND CORRUPTED RARGRGRHH

[the-firebird69]

Nicki Minaj Parks Pink Lamborghini Aventador at Kmart

https://www.motortrend.com/news/1310-nicki-minaj-parks-pink-lamborghini-aventador-at-kmart/

There's no emblem on the front it says but this is in the past and I still have this car it's awesome it's a dream is real fast it goes too fast he says all of us ladies say it no matter how big or small or old and what race it always goes too fast and it's a Lamborghini and that's what it is. I ended up there to 290 and that was enough and just want to keep going the design is intense and he worked on it with his brother Mr Lamborghini and that's his name and I'm appauled now that's pretty cool. Susie Adam shaved it like a bullet shaped it like a bullet and the reason is it's for space travel to earth and back and we did figure that out by the first specific location and it did not figure that out he already had one for the Moon and this was particular design would work where he's talking about this is strange and the tires are odd I have the earlier ones they make sense so trying to figure out where people say they used to see these on Mars and it's bringing it up again don't having to fight over there and off Saturn had a friend here says it's really gross it is really gross and scary it's a lot of stuff I'm just going to take in. I'm off for like doing this idea and I'd like to order some but I don't know who to talk to and he says Jen or Melissa you have to watch out not to get one of these trumpsters I get that too and she put in touch with them and it is a black market type safe and they have to be smuggled around so that's kind of cool we like that stuff. Good.

Nicki

Yeah really in trouble when we want to do this and it's not Dr Dre and it's not double t whoever that is a big dog have knees we know what you're saying these guys have names but anyways so we talk down there and we're not down there now. We like to order these and we're going to try and find your gals and talk to them about it see what they say and please have a couple other avenues we might try that too

Gotti and yeah that's me

Olympus we're going ahead with this project and swear it looks like it work

We you hear them say stuff they don't want it and we need to do it. I put in for this idea when I heard about it and I know the effect and his ideas pretty good to build up and ship them to Africa and then ship them back crazy but that's what happens and actually it's a South America as well I don't know what to say this will probably work

I have a couple ideas on how to make it work and I'm going to start using it now

Thor Freya

We did too and we like the fish projects please but really we need to get it going somehow and I know what you're saying you can't sit there and talk to your sister just no s*** she doesn't know anything and can't get the chassis out so that's fun. I know how to make the body that fits on the Corvette he says to get it out there and need to have a shot that has the bodies so if you're sending completed it'll look like it comes from there that makes sense

Garth

I don't think it's about a carbon fiber anymore and the metal is pretty thick you have to stamp it and we can stamp it here so we get what you're saying

Shaq

We have a lot of these things and all over the world and Africa is a good place to start China too it's a good idea

Thor Freya

Olympus

Thor Freya

[my-mt-heart]

Can you talk a a little more about the Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride interview!???? Please!

Sure. I want to put it out there though that the answers they're giving are more than anything vague interpretations and probably shouldn't be over-analyzed. With that said, here's my over-analysis.

When they're asked where their characters' heads are at going into S11, they're careful to only give starting points. Norman in particular seems to only be addressing the first couple episodes where we know he will in fact be spending a lot of time with Maggie and Negan, getting chased by Reapers, losing Dog, etc. What he means when he says, "he's trying to reconnect with people who matter to him," Carol makes a lot of sense as does Maggie. But we can't know for sure what he's trying to articulate without being in his head. Same goes for the line about "trying to get something back that was taken from him." Could be Leah, could be Dog, could be Carol, could be something abstract. The episodes themselves will give us a better sense. EDIT: I’m more convinced now he’s talking about Dog. 

I love the nod to Daryl's and Carol's unspoken communication they have going on, but I especially love Melissa calling out that they still have to use their words sometimes. It's so true. They'll never move forward if they keep relying on their ability to read each other's minds.

I have to say, it is so nice to have an interviewer explicitly acknowledge Caryl's "romantic energy." Maybe it's just me, but it feels like it's been a while since the question's been raised. Melissa's answer intrigues me the most for several reasons. First of all, I have been describing Daryl and Carol as life partners for the longest time (I challenge you to go through some of my older posts and find proof because it's there), so to have that validated by someone who should have one of the sharpest understandings of that relationship is fucking awesome. To me, "life partners" is the highest connection possible. It's a spiritual marriage if not a literal one.

Second, and this is just my interpretation (I obviously can't say for sure what Melissa is trying to get at), the idea of this connection being "something she just keeps inside of her" makes me think feelings are being repressed. She can have Daryl any way she desires in the depths of her subconscious, but (as far as she knows at this point) she can't fulfill those desires the same way in the real world because she doesn't "own" Daryl. He's not under her control. He's free to think and feel however he wants to, he can interact with whoever he wants to. He's not tied down to her. Maybe he doesn't want to be. I'm probably reading into it too much, but to me, it all speaks really well to Carol's deep insecurities about what's possible for her. Anyone else have thoughts on this??

To no surprise, we don't really get any new info on the spinoff (but confirmation that it's still happening is good, right?) I'm glad there will be a smaller group of characters, which I definitely take to mean new characters. I get the idea of an expanding world, but as we have seen on the main show lately, it makes for some very choppy storytelling. No thank you. Just give me as much Caryl as possible.

Lastly, when Norman says there will be "a whole new set of questions" for press junkets for the spinoff, it makes me think one question in particular will probably have to be scratched off the list: "Will Carol and Daryl ever get together?" ;)

Overall, a lovely read. Now I'd just like to watch the episodes, please.

[migilini]

I Do - Charlie Gillespie

a/n: I watched to many seasons of married at first sight and this came to mind. Just pretend that Charlie in this GIF is wearing a suit. Kinda a part two to Fifth Time Workes A Charm

Requests are open btw! (not just for Charlie)

words: 3k

warnings: none just fluff and a lot of crying

MASTERLIST

---------------------------------------------

You barely slept during the night. You kept waking up what felt like every hour to check if it was time to get up. The bed felt awfully empty and you would give everything right now to be in his arms. Then finally, the clock strikes 9 am and you are up on your feet, the nerves getting the better of you. The hotel room was nice and clean, you didn't like it, it felt too white and too lifeless to you right now.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, glowing but tired eyes staring right back at you. Taking a deep breath you tried to shake the nerves with a silly little body shake, then you smiled at yourself before heading into the bathroom to wash your face.

A knock on the door interrupted you mid-splash and you went to the door with a dripping face. “We’ve arrived!” your best friend Elouise or Eli for short exclaimed and hieved her whole baggage onto your bed. “What do you mean we?” you leaned your head out of the room and into the empty hallway. Just as you were about to close the door, feet pounded on the carpeted floor. “Sorry, sorry! Had to finish the call with hair and makeup.” Tris, your other best friend screamed through the halls, as she frantically came running towards you, phone clutched in one hand while the other held two dresses that flattered behind her.

You looked at her in amusement "Need a glass of water?" You chuckled at her heavy breathing and closed the door behind you.

"Oh yes please"

"Y/N you're so not ready...well lucky for you we are here. So hop hop go shower ma lady." Eli shushed you into the bathroom "and scrub every inch! I'll check if I have to!” You still heard their laughter as you get rid of your clothes and step into the shower. The warm water relaxed your muscles and your nerves immediately.

Several minutes later, now smelling like a goddess and wrapped into a soft white towel, you sat on the bed in your now crowded hotel room. While you were showering your nerves away, your dress, the hairdresser and makeup artist arrived.

“There she is!” greeted the makeup artist “Come sit down, we’ve got everything out and you and I already discussed your look. Are we still okay with it?”

“Yes, Carlos. But make everything as cry proof as possible okay?” you said laughing slightly.

“I also brought you a coffee and a croissant. I know you don’t usually eat something in the mornings but we don’t want you to faint now do we?” Tris held a tablet in front of her with several cups of coffees and something to eat. You took a cup gratefully, shooting her a quick thanks, holding the cup as Carlos started on your face and Melissa, the hairdresser started drying and styling your hair.

“Can I have my phone back?” You said to no one in particular.

“Nope, sorry.”

“Emi! What--It’s my phone!”

“I do know that. And you should know that Tris and I know you very well and you would’ve called or more likely face timed him by now and put a bad omen over the whole day.”

“Yeah. You and Charlie can’t be away from each other for long.” Tris acknowledged and sided with Emi.

“You’re just jealous that I’m in love.” You shot back with a smile and stuck your tongue out at your friends which in return gave you a growl from Carlos and Melissa who needed you to sit still.

After what felt like an eternity you were done and now it was time for your bridesmaids to get ready. They purposefully taped a piece of cloth over all mirrors so could only see yourself when you were 100% finished with getting ready.

Now that you had some time to actually think about today, your mind started to wander. Was Charlie ready by now or were there some complications? Tris did get a call earlier to then just run out of the room and come back 20 minutes later. What suit would he wear? Was he just as nervous as you? Totally unaware of how much time you passed, you were ripped out of your thoughts with a forceful swat on your shoulder.

“Miss Bride? It’s time to get the dress on.” Tris squealed.

You took a look at your best friends who looked absolutely stunning, at some time they got changed into their dresses. Emi smiled at you with a glossed lipped smile, her brown hair up in a bun while little strands of glitter strings framed her face. She wore a turquoise halter dress with some nude heels. Tris wore a bit of a darker turquoise strapless dress, her colourful hair falling straight over her shoulder. Both had simple makeup, a nude smokey eye with eyeliner.

Your eyes started to tear up. “Guys...you look absolutely stunning.” Emi walked over to you and embraced you in a hug. “We look really fudhing good but you’re gonna look even better. Now hop hop get undressed we have to lace up the dress.”

While your friends were working on lacing your dress up, you wondered out loud. “How much do we wanna bet that Owen lost the rings?” You chuckled and then yelled, “That's way too tight!”

“Oh Owen is so gonna lose the rings but we'll be fine. You’re gonna have rings or I'll run and get you some new ones.” Tris reassured you with a smile.

“Can I finally look at myself? I want to see if I look like a bride.” Emi and Tris shared a quick look before agreeing. Emi ripped the cloth away from the closest mirror. An audible gasp was all that was heard, everybody fixated on your reaction to yourself.

“I look like a real ass bride. I- oh my god… I look so good.” You coaxed out, trying not to cry, this got all a bit real too fast.

And you really did look amazing. Your open hair fell over your shoulders and ended right underneath your boob. It had a lot of volume and little glitter braids in it and Melissa had curled them to perfection so they framed your face perfectly. Your makeup was stunning as well, the reddish-brown and glittery smokey eye complementing your skin tone and eye colour. Carlos finished the look with a pinkish nude lipstick. You were glowing.

The cream coloured dress sat perfectly on your figure, the A-line cut highlighting your waist, the flowery lace flowing from the corset top down to your feet. The dress was poofy but not too much. You looked more like Sofie from Mamma Mia and less like Cinderella. You adjusted the straps and smiled at yourself.

“And I’m telling you, Charlie will bawl his eyes out when he sees you.” Emi patted your back and finished lacing up your dress. Tris couldn't contain herself anymore and let out a little sob “I’m sorry. You just look so gorgeous. I can’t believe you're getting married.” You pulled her into a hug.

“We don't have that much time anymore. the photographer should be here in five minutes to take your bridal pictures and pictures with the bridesmaids.”

The photo session went by quickly and you could tell that they turned out amazingly, by the way, Paul, the photographer, smiled at his screen. Megan, Charlie's sister and your other Bridesmaid came in at the last minute, due to the fact that she just flew in in the morning.

Then it was time for the first look. At first, you weren't sure if you should do this or if it would be better if the first look would be at the ceremony itself. You thought it would be funny to send Tris to the first look instead of you. So you, Megan and Emi sat in the hotel room waiting patiently.

The door opened “You two are really made for each other.” Tris came back in with a huge smile on her face. “Why? What happened?” You asked, the nervousness in your voice was evident. “Was he mad?”. She started to laugh “No absolutely not because he had the same idea as you and sent Owen.”

The room erupted in laughter “Oh no he didn't!” “Of course he did”

The next couple of hours flew by so quickly. You got to the venue. Your parents came by to say hello to you and to shed some tears. They also told you that most of the guests have arrived and everybody is waiting excitedly.

Finally, it was time. You nervously cracked your fingers, as you waited for all the guests to take a seat, the closed door in front of you the only thing shielding you from your fiance, your dad standing beside you in a suit.

“Nervous?” he asked you with a slight smile, you could tell that he was trying hard not to cry.

“Very. But I’m telling you if he doesn't cry I'll turn around and we gotta try again.” you joked.

“Oh my dear...he will.” he quickly took a look at his watch and then linked his arm with yours.

“Ready?” you shot him a smile and nodded “As ready as I'll ever be.”

The outside speakers started to play the instrumental version of Cherry Wine by Hozier and the doors opened.

It was mid-May and you and Charlie decided on an Outside wedding. After searching for a great venue you finally found one. It was an old brick house with a small colonnade of bushes in the garden. It was absolutely perfect but you didn't even look at the decorations because as soon as your eyes met his, the world stood still.

He stood at the front of the colonnade where some candles burned beside him. He wore a forest green tuxedo and that dashing smile of his. The closer you got, the more you saw how much he was crying and all you wanted to do is hug him and wipe the tears away. Your cheeks hurt from all the smiling but you couldn't stop, some tears of your own spilling out of the corners of your eyes.

You kissed your dad on the cheek and let him sit down in the front row, your eyes only momentarily leaving Charlies. “Hi, handsome.” You smiled up at him and instinctively used your thumb to wipe away some tears. “Did you cut your hair?” you asked, nodding to his now chin-length hair (think October Charlie) He grabbed your hands in his and kissed your knuckles while slightly nodding his head “You look...just wow,” he whispered so that only you could hear. You just wanted to give him a compliment when the officiant interrupted you.

“Now it's getting serious.” you said while he said “No backing out.” with a wink.

“The couple standing in front of me met at the young age of 18 in the middle of the street. Y/N bumped into Charlie here and practically fell for him right there and then. She shot him a quick sorry and went her way but the universe knew that these two needed to be together so the next day he bumped into her, totally accidental of course.” the crowd laughed and you and Charlie beamed at each other. “Sadly for Y/N that day she carried an expensive Cake that flew to the other side of the pavement. Charlie felt so bad that he promptly invited her to the next bakery where they got a cup of coffee and a new cake. Today we’re gathered here today to celebrate that love.”

“I believe that the two of you wrote your own vows? Y/N would you like to start?” You nodded and turned around to take a piece of paper from Emi who stood behind you, already missing the warmth of his hands in yours.

“Charlie, you know I’m not very good with words so I really struggled to write this, but here we are standing in front of your family and friends to share our love. I knew I loved you…” your voice wavered and you let out a sob “sorry...I knew I loved you in the first week that we’ve met. We sat on a bench in the little park right around the corner from where we met. You were late and totally out of breath when you arrived. You apologized like crazy but I didn't care, you don't know this but I had a really shitty day that day and just seeing you made it all worth it. That smile of yours knocked me off my feet completely.

From that day on I only loved you more and more. I love the way you try to wake up every day with a smile. The way you always seem to have so much energy and that you try to share that energy and love with the whole world. I love waking up in your arms because they feel like home and I miss you like crazy when I don't see you for a day.

I never really believed in love at first sight before I met you and I’m so glad that you ruined my cake. I promise to try and make you smile at least twice a day, to listen and care for you, to dance with you in the kitchen while our pizza is in the oven. I also promise to try your questionable food combinations at least once every time.

I can’t promise you that we won't fight or that we won't have our ups and downs but I will promise that we’ll work it out, that we’re not going to bed with grudges, to talk about our problems and thoughts and to always make up. I promise to be your partner in crime and to take all the blame if we ever get caught and lastly, and most importantly...

I promise to love you more and more until my heart stops beating, even when the day comes that we're old and grey, I promise to always see you with the same eyes and the same heart that I see you with at this exact moment.” You took a deep breath to try and stop your sobbing. Now it was Charlie's turn to wipe away some tears.

“Baby, don’t cry your makeup will get ruined.” he joked and you let out a small laugh. “Charlie, I believe now it's your turn to speak your vow.”

He took a shaky breath in before taking a folded piece of paper from the inside of his tuxedo pocket. “I want to start off with a simple I love you. I love the way you still give me butterflies every time I see you. I love the way you care not only for me but for everyone around you. I love the way you're patient with me. I love how much you're willing to try new things with me to make me happy because you really didn't like swimming with sharks. I admire how hard you work to help others and above all, I love how you love me.

It's in the way you look at me with such patience and compassion, the way you listen to me even if I'm rambling on, the way you push me to try harder even when I feel like I've done enough. You love me without judgment and chose to see the beauty in my flaws. Today, I want to make promises to you that I will always keep. I promise to love you back forever and harder each day. I promise never to get angry at you for making honest mistakes, even if I asked you to turn the lights off every night for the past week...

I promise to never stop holding your hand or give you a goodbye kiss. I promise to walk through life, as your biggest fan, your shoulder to lean on, and your best friend and I vow to stay silly, to never take ourselves too seriously, and stay just immature enough for cake and breakfast for dinner.

You're my soldier, my lover and above all, my best friend and I'm so excited to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Both of you were grinning and crying like idiots. “Now can we have the rings please?” the officiant asked the crowd and a teary-eyed Owen stepped forward the rings clutched in his hands.

“Thank you.” the officiant gave each of you a ring. “Do you Y/N Y/L/ want to take this man as your husband in sickness and in health?”

“I do.” You smiled up at Charlie and slid the ring on his left ring finger. “Oh good it fits,” you murmured and made him chuckle.

“And do you Charlie Gillespie want to take this woman as your wife in sickness and in health?”

“I do.” He grinned widely and also slid the ring on your left hand.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Charlie, you may kiss the bride.” Your lips locked with his and you couldn't be happier. Your hands found their way into his hair while his hands gripped your waist. His lips were soft and warm and you missed them dearly in the night the two of you were apart. The crowd cheered when he dipped you.

“I present to you for the first time Mr and Mrs Gillespie!”

[buddha-in-disguise]

Since the end of S5 on Supergirl, and even just ahead of that, I've had ideas swirling around on how they might explain Melissa's absence on set. Yes, they could use her stunt double, much like they did for the start of S4, while Melissa was in Broadway, but this is an entirely different beast. Covid of course likely impacted it all for them, as the intention was, after a quick few weeks off, they did some filming, to get Melissa's scenes in the can, before her maternity leave. Covid definitely changed that.

My main thoughts. For a while I was thinking it was Lena's biological mother who headed leviathan. But as the season wore on, that became less likely for me. Why?

Lillian Luthor.

I hope this make sense as I explain.

After Crisis, we know Lillian Luthor is not from Earth 38.

We also know she doesn't have the same feelings as Lex in regards Supergirl. Sure she's a menace in Lillian's eyes, but not someone who is worth getting too tangled up in, certainly when you compare it to Earth 38 Lillian.

We know the leader is a woman.

What if - as per 5.19, as Lex hands Lillian the bottle - we discover that Lillian is the leader of leviathan?

By handing Lillian the bottle, he unleashes leviathan on the world again.

But more than that. As Supergirl, Lena & the rest of the Superfriends have to do battle again, Lex has to call a temporary truce (much like he did in Crisis) so they defeat Lillian. Quite quickly defeating her, and the rest of leviathan.

Lex escapes (tbh I'm not too bothered what happens as long as he is no longer around!)

In the midst of all this, Lex somehow traps Kara and Lena in the bottle? Or a different version of it, something he devised.

Or perhaps he captures the Superfriends and Lena and Kara are the only ones left on Earth Prime?

I'm less likely to go with that, as I think it works far better if it is Lena and Kara.

So, Superfriends, including Kelly as Guardian, have to try to find a way to get them released from the bottle (or whatever it is Lex trapped them in) and also still need to do their hero duties on Earth Prime.

Meanwhile, Kara and Lena are trapped. Together or possibly apart from each other. I'm also thinking they are apart, but aware the other is there. But this allows Lena in particular trying to figure out how they can escape, so the focus is less on Kara, allowing her double to film, particularly if they have a lot of stunt scenes.

They escape eventually, but so do others (think Fort Rozz) & the rest of the season is spent trapping the ones who escaped. Lena and Kara realise they actually love each other and tentatively begin a relationship.

How they end the season to explain away Supergirl in upcoming events? I've no idea, unless they simply have her not retiring, but reducing her superhero antics, allowing Dreamer and Brainy to take on the bigger tasks.

She marries Lena. Is happy as a reporter, wife, cool aunt, and later mother.

Closing credits.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001)

This review contains spoilers.

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive was released in recent years by the Criterion Collection, that great home video company that's probably the OG of boutique labels, known for putting out acclaimed, significant or otherwise interesting films in really nice packages. (For some reason I had been thinking they put this out only last year until I actually looked it up. I guess my sense of time has been a little warped as of late, and as much as I'd like to tie this review into pandemic-era life, the fact is other labels have captured my attention lately, as can be evidenced by my embarrassingly large and extremely shameful Vinegar Syndrome haul from their Halfway to Black Friday sale from a few months ago.) Now, nobody in 2021 is going into this movie truly blind, but if I happened to pick up the Criterion cover and perused the back, aside from the list of special features and disc specs, you'd see the below (which I grabbed off their website):

Blonde Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia (Laura Harring). Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project. David Lynch’s seductive and scary vision of Los Angeles’s dream factory is one of the true masterpieces of the new millennium, a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge like no other.

Now, this is a tough movie to evoke with only a blurb, but I'd say that does a pretty respectable job. I however do not own this release. What I do own is the barebones Universal DVD that was released a few months after the movie, back when going into the movie blind would have been far more likely. This is the description on the back:

This sexy thriller has been acclaimed as one of the year's best films. Two beautiful women are caught up in a lethally twisted mystery - and ensnared in an equally dangerous web of erotic passion. "There's nothing like this baby anywhere! This sinful pleasure is a fresh triumph for Lynch, and one of the best films of the year. Visionary daring, swooning eroticism and colors that pop like a whore's lip gloss!" says Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. "See it… then see it again!" (Time Out New York)

Now, the previous description probably couldn't fully capture the movie's essence, but this one makes it sound like an erotic thriller. (Could you imagine somebody going into this thinking this was like a Gregory Dark joint? I say this having seen none of his thrillers and only his hardcore movies, although I must admit an MTV-influenced Mulholland Drive starring, say, Lois Ayres is something I find extremely intriguing.) But you know what? Good for them. Among other things, this movie, with its two all-timer sex scenes, feels like one of the last hurrahs from an era when mainstream American movies could be unabashedly horny, before we were sentenced to an endless barrage of immaculately muscular bodies in spandex (stupid sexy Flanders) somehow drained of all sex appeal (god forbid somebody pop a boner...or ladyboner, let's be egalitarian here). I apologize if I'm coming off as a little gross, but having been able to barely leave the house for practically a year and a half, watching sexy movies like this is one of the few remaining thrills at my disposal. Please, this is all I have.

Now I suppose I should say something about the movie itself, but it might be a challenge given how elusive it is in certain respects (Lynch is notoriously cagey about offering interpretations of his movies) and, as a result, how heavily it's been scrutinized over the years. No doubt any analysis I offer as to the movie's overarching meaning will come off extremely dumbassed. What I will note however, is that for whatever reason, the scene I remembered most vividly is where Justin Theroux walks in on his wife with Billy Ray Cyrus, particularly the candy pink paint he dumps on her jewellery as revenge. We've been following Theroux, a movie director, as he's been having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, having had control over casting his lead actress taken from him, which he proceeds to process by taking a golf club to a windshield of his producers' car and then reacting as above when he finds his wife with the singer of "Achy Breaky Heart".

With his Dune having been notoriously tampered with by producers, I suspect there's a bit of Lynch's own experience in the scene with the producers, which plays like an entirely arbitrary set of rituals deciding the fate of his movie with no regard for his opinion or even basic logic. While I don't know how particular Dino DeLaurentiis was about his espresso, I did laugh. Now, taking the reading that the first two acts of the movie are a fantasy of Naomi Watts' character, who is revealed to be miserable and ridden with jealousy in the third act, the amount of time we spend with Theroux is maybe hard to justify. Is this perhaps her "revenge" on him, his romantic and professional success having been flushed away while he flounders in search of greater meaning to his arc? Aside from possible autobiographical interest, these scenes do play like a riff on the idea that everyone is the main character in their own story, and if the Watts and Laura Harring characters can be thought of as having merged or swap identities, then perhaps Theroux's arc is the remainder of that quotient. (Now, it's worth noting that aside from being insecure and arrogant, Theroux in this movie is a less stylish than the real Lynch. If Watts conjures the best version of herself in her dream, Lynch maybe doesn't want his dream avatar outshining him.)

Now why did the Cyrus scene stick with me all these years when other details had slipped? Mostly because I'd found it amusing, partly because of the extra specific image Lynch produces, and somewhat because of the casting of Billy Ray Cyrus. Now, I don't have any special relationship to the Cyrus' body of work, but Lynch's casting of him, with his distinct mix of bozo, dudebro and hunk, results in a very specific comedic effect. This is something Lynch does elsewhere in the movie, like when he has Robert Forster show up as a detective for a single scene. The Forster role is likely in part a leftover from the movie's origins as a TV pilot, but the effect is similar (albeit less comedic). Melissa George appears as a woman who may or may not be a replacement for Watts in some realm of reality. Other directors obviously cast actors for their screen presence and the audience's relationship to their career, but the way Lynch does it feels particularly pointed, as if he's reshaping them entirely into iconography. The effect is particularly sinister with the presence of Michael J. Anderson, with whom he worked previously on Twin Peaks, and Monty Montgomery as a mysterious cowboy who dangles the secret of the movie over Theroux's character.

Cowboys in movies are frequently heroic presences (see any number of westerns) and are otherwise innocuously stylish (I confess I've come dangerously close to ordering a Stetson hat and a pair of cowboy boots), but the presence of one here feels like a ripple in the movie's reality. A dreamy, brightly lit mystery set in Los Angeles should have no place for a cowboy. It ain't right. (It's worth noting that Lynch at one point copped to admiring Ronald Reagan for reminding him of a cowboy. Is this his expression of a changed opinion? I have no idea, but Lynch has never struck me as all that politically minded.) Neither is the hobo that appears behind the diner. Certainly hobos have made their homes behind diners, but this one's presence and the way Lynch produces him feel again like a ripple in the the movie's narrative. Jump scares are frequently knocked for being lazy and cheap devices to generate shocks, but the one here gets under your skin.

Now about the movie's look. This starts off like a noir, and the mystery plot on paper would lead you to think that's how the whole movie plays, but the cinematography is a lot brighter, with almost confection-like colours, than that would lead you to believe, at least during the daytime scenes. This is another element that likely comes from its TV origins, but it does give the movie a distinctly dreamlike, fantastical quality that a more overtly cinematic look, like the one Lynch used in Lost Highway a few years earlier, might not capture. This is one of the reasons I think this movie works better than that one, and there's also the fact that the amateur sleuthing that drives the bulk of the plot here serves as a more pleasing audience vantage point than the male anxieties that fuel the other film. I also would much rather hang out with Naomi Watts and Laura Harring than a charisma void like Balthazar Getty.

The manufactured warmth of the daytime scenes also results, like in Blue Velvet, in the nighttime scenes feeling like they're in a completely different setting, one which perhaps offers the key to unlocking the mystery, or at least revealing the phoniness of the movie's surfaces. I think of the evocative Club Silencio sequence, which comes as close as anything in the movie to laying its illusions bare. ("No hay banda.") But at times Lynch will throw in disarmingly childlike, inexplicable imagery, like the dancing couples against a purple screen in the opening, something that would seem tacky and amateurish elsewhere but feels oddly cohesive here. There are a number of directors whose work I admire for being "dreamlike", and putting them side by side they all feel quite distinct (you would never mistake a Lucio Fulci film for a Lynch), but they have the unifying idea of imbuing the tactile qualities of film with the truly irrational to really burrow into your subconscious. Other directors have made movies with some of the same elements as Mulholland Drive, but none have put them together in quite the same way.

[princeescaluswords]

Scott's Burden of Faith in

The Maid of Gévaudan

A close-reading analysis of the library scene in Episode 5x18 in honor of @momentofmemory's birthday.

There is an argument to be made that the climax of Scott's story arc in Season 5 does not come in Apotheosis (5x20) but in this scene two episodes earlier, an episode mostly focused on a guest star and a story set two-and-a-half centuries before the present time. Yet it's very possible to see that the crisis in Scott's life manifests in all its complexity and is resolve this particular night.

It is a crisis of faith. Not religious faith, but a crisis of Scott's faith in what he has come to believe is the right way to act; in other words, his faith in his own identity: the True Alpha. One of the things I love about Teen Wolf is the idea that Scott doesn't start out the series with any other vision for himself aside from the idea that if he works hard he might make first line. No one else expects greatness out of him either: his mother, Stiles, and especially not his own father. Deaton has an intuition, but he doesn't press the issue. They're not doing this to be mean; he's a teenager after all. He has to forge his own vision.

By the time of La Bête's rampage at the lacrosse game, Scott has been the alpha for 41 episodes, and while he may have faced dire straits, suffered incredible losses, and even endured temptation, his choices have, for the most part, been good choices. Every character says so. But Season 5? Not so much. I would argue that for the first time, the tragedies befalling his pack are a result of his decisions. It's not that these are malicious decisions, they are just wrong. When before all the setbacks had always been because of the power of the enemy, this time Scott has been responsible for some of them.

Scott starts 5B in doubt. "Why would they come back?" he asks his mother in Status Asthmaticus (5x10). This isn't someone who's blaming anyone else -- even Theo -- for what has happened. He's questioning his own credentials, his own right to possess the identity of True Alpha. He's not even sure he can pass AP Biology, he's not even sure he deserves to heal like a werewolf can, let alone that he can defeat the Doctors and their creations.

It's not that he doubts the value of saving people or even the value of his pack. He doesn't waver about whether he should try; he wavers about whether he has the ability to do these things. When he staggers into the library, he's tired, he's bloody, and he's realized one more thing he definitely cannot do -- defeat the Beast in a physical match up. He leans against the table, and it's not hard to imagine him wondering why he ever thought he could stop any villain.

The plan to get the game cancelled failed. The plan to sabotage the television broadcast vans failed. Kira's fox spirit has gone completely off the rails. Liam has been reduced to a walking pile of hamburger. He doesn't know that he's won Hayden to his side, but he also doesn't know that Corinne has been threatening Malia. He's as lost as Marie-Jean was when she went into the woods looking for a wolf instead of a werewolf.

Melissa: You know what you're doing when you say should too often? You're should-ing all over yourself.

We don't know what he was planning to do but then he looks around and sees that he's not in the library alone. To the audience, other than Sydney, they're strangers, but he knows them. That's what Scott does -- he knows people. He's the only character to use Boyd's first name. He knows that Kyle is a senior; he knows that Josh is a junior; he remembers Kira's name. He might be in doubt about his own identity, but he knows who these people are. He knows something else.

Gerard: A monster whose only purpose was to kill. Not for sustenance, not for revenge, not for any rational impulse other than the drive to end life wherever it's found.

They are all going to die. They cannot escape the Beast. They cannot fight it. He can't fight it. All he's been able to do is survive. And he hesitates. He looks around. Because what the heck is he supposed to do?

Theo: We gotta protect him, right? Scott, come on. Scott? Scott, this is what you do.

Scott looks around the library. He has died here. He has felt his heart stop lying on those steps right behind him. He can't win, and even if by some twist of fate he survives, everyone here will have seen his face. The students in the library will see who he is and there will be consequences for that. (Hello, Nolan.) It's not fair, but things have never been fair.

Scott: So, somebody has to do something. Somebody has to save everyone. So somebody's got to be the bait!

The crisis has arrived. He doesn't have any allies with him right now. He doesn't have a plan. He doesn't have an advantage. He's hurt. He's inadequate (Professional mercenary Braeden will point this out in a few minutes). These students are terrified. They know it too. They can see the blood.

Melissa: So all you really need is to ask yourself, "What am I going to do?"

He has to reveal himself. He has to protect them. He has to give the hope. He has to lead them. He has to have faith that he can do these things, no matter how badly he's screwed up or how much it has cost him, or how much it will cost him in the future. It is what an alpha does. It is what a True Alpha does, and whether he wants to be or not, that is what he is.

"Go upstairs."

That's not a plan to beat the Beast; it's not guaranteed to save anyone. it's a statement of faith in his own ability. Win or lose, survive or die, it doesn't really matter what happens next. It doesn't matter that the Beast will be revealed as Mason and that his mistake with Corey will cause the pack to lose a chance to stop all this. It doesn't matter that this will set the stage for Monroe when Nolan talks to her over the summer. At this moment, Scott grabs onto the faith that it is, in the end, a good thing his eyes are red and that he has healed and that he is standing right there in this library.

He roars.

[stopstresssingmeowt]

look, ask yourself this: if lena were a man, would the cast have screamed "they're not going to get together" at the top of their lungs? it isn't just about the supercorp fandom. it's about the treatment of the idea that two women could have the potential to be a couple. that lena and kara are a joke. i know that they didn't have bad intentions, and that jeremy jordan in particular has been an active ally to the lgbt community in the past, but that doesn't excuse the fact this hurt lgbt people.

Hey anon, sorry for the late reply. Most likely not, but then again look at the Bellarke fandom (the rival of the Clexa fandom). That ship is between a man and a woman and when Eliza (the woman) said "[something something can't remember] Bellarke shit" (there's a debate whether she said ship or shit), most of the Bellarke fandom acted just like how the supercorp fandom did when Jeremy and Melissa made the little joke. The Bellarke fandom immediately threw Eliza under the bus, called her bad things, and spewed so much hate. Why? Their ship wasn't between two women they don't have a lack of representation, they could've just jumped into another show that has a canon heterosexual ship. Considering how the Bellarke fandom (not all of em) would harass people who shipped Clexa, it reminds me of how the supercorp fandom is not innocent at all. The supercorp fandom harassed Jack's actor (I forgot his name) just because he got in the way of their ship, they harassed Chris because he plays Mon-el (who also gets in between their ship), they harassed Katie's brother, and just honestly harassed anyone that slightly said anything bad about the ship. If Lena was a man, and the supercorp fandom still acted the same, I wouldn't doubt that Jeremy would have still called us out. Honestly, it just boils down to how toxic the fandom can be and how much one little comment can make a fandom sharpen their pitchforks and light torches....did that make sense? I'm in class and honestly my brain is fried. Shoot me another ask if you need clarification :P

[the-spooky-alien]

I may be projecting, but I like to think of Scully as someone who isn't overtly physical ? I mean, she likes it when it's people she loves and trusts (i like to imagine she never refuses a hug from her mum, she doesn't refrain from ruffling her younger brother's hair to annoy him when they're children, and she used to like to hang out with Melissa on the couch, shoulders against shoulders, to watch the TV), but apart from that, she's reserved. The times when we see her be physical with other people (apart from Mulder) is usually to comfort them, and usually she just places her hand on their shoulders. (there is this one time she kisses Skinner on the mouth, but i'm pretty sure she was so lost in the euphoria of finding Mulder she didn't think about it. i like to think she couldn't look Skinner in the eyes afterwards).

Anyway, for someone so put together like her, so reserved, both emotionally and physically, it must have been weird to be parternered with Mulder, who is a very physical person. He's always in her personal space, always with his hand on her back, and I don't know, but there's something so trusting about this. About being someone who isn't very physical but allowing this special person to touch you because you like their touch. Because Scully doesn't show signs of being bothered by this, which means she doesn't mind, which means she likes Mulder's touch in particular.

I have no idea where I'm going with this, I might just be screaming into the void, but the simple idea of a physically reserved Scully allowing Mulder to touch her because she likes his touch, and then actually initiating the touching because she likes touching him too, is so dear to me. (and then i think about the pilot, where she leans into him, terrified, already trusting him enough to touch him like that after knowing him for like two days, and- they're insane for making me emotional like that)