#I also think that living for centuries would make anyone a little crazy

[victor-veloci-simp-69]

AU where Victor Veloci was not an OG!Dino but a mutant dino.

Imagine an AU where the only survivor is Ms Moynihan.

Desperately lonely, and with science advancing day by day, she gets the idea to try to make a companion.

(Be warned, this does get a little dark. Implied kidnapping and human experimentation. Nothing explicit, but yeah. Be safe. Not fanfic, just thoughts.)

There's a lot of directions this could have gone in.

Maybe she tries to make a clone baby with her DNA and someone elses.

Maybe she kidnaps some guy/teenager/kid off the street and gives him some dino-juice.

Maybe she even knows Victor. A neighbor, a friend, a fellow scientist or co-worker. Maybe he was a flirty barista at one point.

(How many people would she go through before she got a successful Victor Veloci? Was he a first time success or are there dozens of failed experiments who didn't survive? At what number would she give up? To what lengths would one go to, to no longer be lonely? Where is the line in the sand?)

No matter who he was before, or how many there was before, Victor Veloci is born.

He's not perfect. He's a dinosaur but he looks nothing like Ms Moynihan:

He's bigger, lacking the feathers that shine so beautiful on her, and scaled like a reptile. He looks as a human would expect a dinosaur to look like.

Maybe Moynihan gives up. Maybe she's tried so long and the results have never been what she wanted. Maybe her conscious catches up to her. Maybe she realises Victor is the closest she will ever get.

(Maybe she continues, thinking that Victor is the closest she has ever gotten, and victory is around the corner. Maybe he grows resentful at being considered not enough; a failure; an unloved, cheap imitation that will be discarded at first oppertunity)

She does not abandon him. He is her constant companion. She teaches him, of sciences and history and culture and the constantly shifting world.

(Does he remember his old life? Was he always Victor or was he someone else?)

Maybe he grows restless at being Imperfect. Maybe he grows frustrated at Ms Moynihan being content to it just being the two of them.

But eventually, he leaves. He takes on the surname Veloci. He convinces people to his cause.

Does he do it to find the formula to make himself perfect? No longer second best, no longer wrong?

Does he do it to make himself less lonely, less unique in a world where he is the only one, no one, not even his creator understanding what he is, what it is like.

Better yet, does he tell people he is an ancient Velociraptor because its easier to explain, because his past is painful and he'd rather be something he is not.

Or does he tell people that because he has deluded himself into thinking he is.

[artigas]

I’m really happy that Black Sails is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, but (predictably) some of the takes I’m seeing online are so busted. It’s wild to me that anyone would complain about the fact that Anne Bonny kisses Jack after she’s developed this life-changing relationship with Max. It’s absolutely wild to see anyone roll their eyes or feel uncomfortable about the fact that Flint has sex with Miranda when he returns to her in season one or that Max is most likely a lesbian but actively has sex with men for pay and knows how to make that pleasurable. It’s crazy to me that some of the very audiences who claim to want queer representation feel so discomforted when they actually see the mess and seeming inconsistencies of queerness that they asked for.

The reality is that there are lesbians who have had (and will have!) meaningful, mutually-gratifying, and deeply sexual relationships with men. There are gay men who’ve enjoyed having sex with women, who are gay as the day is long and nevertheless feel sexually attracted to a woman or two and are nevertheless gay men, full stop. There are gay cis men who are happily married to trans women. There are femme dom tops and butch bottoms and there are mascs afab people who like femme boys. There are non-binary people and trans men who actively identify as lesbians. There are ace and aro people who enjoy thinking about and engaging with sex — sometimes in fiction and sometimes in real life. Queerness, in fiction and in reality, defies neat categorization. That is the beauty, power, and (perceived) unorthodoxy of queerness.

Now, I’ll say this — do I think the straight men behind Black Sails were actively thinking deeply and insightfully about the paradoxes and fuckery of queer identity when they wrote Black Sails? No! By their own admission, Steinberg and Levine have owned up to the fact that some of the writing of the show was really hinged on their own blind spots as people who are not (to my knowledge) members of the queer community. If I want to be generous, I think that the beautiful mess of Black Sails is that, in not feeling like experts enough to designate specific identity labels to any of their characters, the writers stumbled their way into more authentic representation of lived queer experience, which is to say that the notion that James Flint was actively thinking of himself as a gay man was anachronistic. As many lesbian archivists and theories have noted, the notion of a queer identity — as in, queerness is who you are, not what you do — was patently unthinkable for most cultures in the past. In other words, the idea that Anne Bonny operates in the eighteenth century as a lesbian and thus would not willingly engage in relationships with men is not only untrue of the series, but untrue of most recorded lesbian experiences in the real world. The notion that a lesbian would operate her entire life without engaging sexually or romantically with men, for instance, is a very new privilege that some of us are very lucky to enjoy, but it is not true for the vast majority of human history — hell, it’s not even true of our present world.

This is all to say that think that there’s something really funny about how we want queer characters to fit into neatly organized boxes. This isn’t a new problem, either. When the show was still airing, the BS fandom would get itself into tizzies about wether or not Flint is gay or bisexual, wether or not Anne Bonny is a lesbian, wether or not Silver is queer when his only canonical relationship is with Madi, etc etc. We’ve been having these discourses for years and I don’t know. I get that much of it is fueled by how badly some people want to see themselves represented in media, but . . . well. The siloing of queer characters and queer narratives into neat little boxes has never felt very authentic to me and nine times out of ten, it’s also just so damn boring.

[nohoperadio]

Imagine a far-future society, we don't know what's happened but the Earth is dead, I'm vaguely picturing them all living on space stations or something, there are only precious few species of plants and animals being kept alive, very few indeed, you couldn't quite count the remaining species on your fingertips but you could certainly check out all of their Wikipedia pages within the space of an hour. Future Wikipedia I guess, I mean whatever it is they have. No edible fruit or vegetables have survived at all, I'm not sure what they do for food, something futuristic presumably. Some kind of... future powder?

But there's this project that's been in the works for decades, they've figured out they can synthesize an apple. I don't know how that works, but the scientists have figured out a way. They're going to make an apple and this is like landing on the moon for them, everyone's insanely hyped about it, nobody's seen an apple for millennia... well see part of what's going on here is that the historiography of the time back when Earth still existed is irreparably bad now, it's super impressionistic because so little survived. And I guess partly because the Genesis story has been all blown out of proportion (there's more to it but that's a big part of it) these guys have a really exaggerated idea of the importance of apples to Earth humans, they basically imagine us eating apples all day long and worshiping apple gods and making apple art and all stuff like that. It's pretty silly but remember they have NO fruit or veg, they eat powder or whatever it was I said, they don't even have a rough concept of what "eating an apple" might be, like does it get you high for example? I bet they think it does, like a really spiritual special kind of high! They must have embellished it so much right? Gotten real carried away.

So like I say it's really hype, they're going to finally make an apple! A real one I mean, not like an approximation of what some scientists theorize an apple might be like, they've figured out how to definitely do it accurately (somehow, idk, just trust the omniscient narrator that they're doing it for real). But: they can only make one. Too much resources required or some shit, like I said this is their equivalent to the first moon landing except maybe more so, it's not a sustainable plan to reintroduce apple trees or something, they can only make one apple ever and that'll be it.

So as you can imagine, quite apart from all the scientific resource that's gone into this project, there's been a ton of resource invested into (not to mention endless public fascination and debate over) the question: who gets to eat the apple? It's a big deal! Everybody envies whoever's gonna eat it; most people also don't envy them. Since time immemorial, the essence of the apple has been defined by centuries and millennia of myth and speculation and storytelling holding together scattered fragments of a mysterious glorious past. Very soon, the essence of the apple will be defined by whatever this guy says it is, whatever the apple eater manages to communicate of the ineffable experience that will always be theirs alone. Humanity will demand a report, and the apple eater will have to be a poet of rarest genius at the very minimum to be trusted to deliver it, they hold the most privileged position maybe anyone will ever hold by being allowed to do this, and all that will remain of that briefest experience for all eternity will be their words. They're an instant prophet, no questions asked. I don't know about you, but if that was me I would definitely shit myself.

Well anyway forget about all that stuff. I was only thinking of this because it occurs to me, you're kind of like the apple eater of your own life, right? I mean nobody's making a big song and dance of it like those crazy apple space freaks, but it's true no?, you *pokes you in the face quite hard* with your highly specific soul positioned in your highly specific situation, that's only going to happen once, you're the only one who's ever going to know what that's like, assuming you aren't going to give some sort of big testimony, somehow. Only difference is like I say, no one really cares in your case, although actually I do sometimes, I hope that doesn't weird you out. I'm just saying imagine being asked the question! As if the answer really did matter! In theory anybody could just walk up to you and do that! I promise I won't ask you, if you promise you won't ask me.

[fairdale]

to william herondale, with love

you have two options when it comes about will.

you can choose to stay in the surface, to think of him as a sassy, sarcastic, superficial and selfish man who doesn't give a shit about anything nor anyone except for jem, who makes insensitive jokes and doesn't care if he hurts people.

or you can choose to know him. the little parts of him that make him wonderful, sweet, delicate and caring. and, oh, how much love will fill your heart when you realise how much he deserves to be loved.

and how much he craves it.

will is sarcastic, yes. he's funny, he pulls off jokes like it's nothing, he makes people laugh, he sings the demon pox song and makes everyone think he's a little crazy.

but he's also the kid who left his family too young because he thought he was cursed and he loved them too much.

he's also the kid who thought no one could ever love him anymore.

he's also the kid who felt terribly lonely after leaving his family.

he's also the kid who wanted jem to be his parabatai so badly he didn't care he was sick and that he would leave him too soon.

he's also the kid who didn't want people too close to him because he loved them and didn't want anything bad to happen to them. jem was different. it wasn't just because he was sick, it's because he was jem. because jem saw who he truly was when no one else did. his heart beat because jem's did as well.

he's also the man who loved to read. the man whose name will still be dancing in the walls of the library centuries later. the man who found a safe place between books.

he's also the man who was so in love with tessa he tried to break the curse after years of living like that, because his love was so pure, so deep, so real, he had to do something.

he's also the man who put his hands into the fire to save jem's yin fen, because he couldn't imagine a life without him. because he didn't want a life without him.

he's also the man who was desperately in love with tessa, but made himself scarce because he couldn't put his own happiness over tessa and jem's. because he saw how good they were to each other.

he's also the man who held jessamine in his arms when she died too young.

he's also the man who let jem go when he told him he didn't want to live like that anymore even though it would forever break him and he would take a part of his soul with him.

he's also the man who went to save tessa even when he felt his heart getting carved out of his chest when jem died.

he's also the man who learned how to have his sister next to him again, the man who went back to his parents even if he were terrified.

he's also the man who made sure tessa never doubted for a second that he was devoted to her.

he's also the man who travelled the world with her and wrote her letters to show his love.

he's also the man who made sure to love his children loudly, to tell them he was proud of them and that they weren't monsters.

he's also the man who fought against injustices in the clave.

he was also the man who died surrounded by his loved ones (because he was, in fact, so loved).

he was also the man watching jem and tessa's wedding dream since the other side of the river, being happy for them.

will was the man with a heart so big he didn't know what to do with all the love he held in it.

when someone asks me, but why do you love him so much? well, how can you not? how, when he tried to love so quietly but he was screaming, when he was trying not to care but he cared more than anyone.

will herondale was, is and forever will be the character i hold closest to my heart, the character who made me laugh, cry and love the most.

"he lies consistently. he always invents the story that will make him look the worst."

"but it was there, in the touch of his hand on her cheek, in the softness of his voice, in his eyes when he looked at her. it was the way she had always dreamed a boy would look at her. but she never dreamed up someone as beautiful as will, not in all her imaginings."

"all my life, since i came to the institute, you were the mirror of my soul. i saw the good in me in you. in your eyes alone i found grace. when you are gone from me, who will see me like that?"

"against his own will, almost, will felt himself understanding; he would have done anything, he thought, told any lie, taken any risk, to make tessa love him. he would have done— almost anything. he would not betray jem for it. that was the one thing he would not do."

"don’t you see, will? you’re a person like me. you are like me. you say the things i think but never say out loud. you read the books i read. you love the poetry i love. you make me laugh with your ridiculous songs and the way you see the truth of everything. "

"when she tilted her head up and brushed his lips with hers, he cupped her face in his hands. so many years, he thought, and each kiss was new as the break of day."

"wo men shi sheng si ji jiao," said will, and he saw jem’s eyes widen, fractionally, and the spark of amusement inside them. "go in peace, james carstairs."

"and in the shadows they’d whispered, reminding each other of the stories only they knew. of the girl who had hit over the head with a water jug the boy who had come to rescue her, and how he had fallen in love with her in that instant."

"she remembered when will had died, her agony, the long nights alone, reaching across the bed every morning when she woke up, for years expecting to find him there, and only slowly growing accustomed to the fact that side of the bed would always be empty."

"i don’t know how to live in the world as a shadowhunter without will. i don’t think I even want to. i am still a parabatai, but my other half is gone. if I were to go to some Institute and ask them to take me in, i would never forget that. i would never feel whole."

"i miss you. we miss you. someday, we'll all be together. not too soon, my angel tessa. i can wait."

...

"my name is herondale," the boy said cheerfully. "william herondale, but everyone calls me will."

[naivety]

sorry i'm still thinking about "are you asking or making me?" i do think like. obviously louis resents armand a little bit for saying no but i also think he resents him for NOT saying no. for instead saying are you asking or making me, a Complete opposite of the last time he asked a vampire more powerful than him to turn someone for him. but while with lestat, louis was the one begging, here armand absolutely puts him on his back foot with a single sentence in which he surrenders the power louis is asking him to wield to LOUIS. permission not to beg, a power that's also a reminder that that power is completely artificial. yet it's still there! we see in san fransisco when armand asks questions like this he will absolutely do what louis Tells him to. but it's something that's entirely dependent on armand. he can only concede that power because he has it to begin with, and when he asks are you asking or telling, it puts louis in a position of power in which he can also abuse that power, which. i do think he'd like to think of himself as someone who never would, not after lestat, while lestat in contrast was asked directly by louis to turn claudia, was begged to, and he absolutely did Not have to say yes. but he did, just because louis asked.

armand's single question tempts to paint louis in this light he'd despise at the same time as making armand exempt to actually answer yes or no. it makes louis seem like a bully for asking at all when armand concedes the power of his own free will to him. of course he can't make him! he wouldn't! but that's not what he was doing! he was Asking armand. to do this thing for him. because, well. love <3 and armand refuses to answer! instead he warps the function of a question at all into something he doesn't have to answer! to actually engage with as a person with free will and responsibility for that free will! i think he'd much rather be told what to do because then he can't be held responsible for it. life feels a whole lot safer to live when he doesn't have to grapple with his own innocence or guilt in his 500 years of living a life full of crossroads and judgement calls and decisions. every decision he has or hasn't made in 5 centuries. like even in this last episode, he's admitting his guilt to daniel in the same breath as saying he couldn't stop it, there wasn't anything he could do, but also louis forgives him! like just because he doesn't want power or responsibility he thinks it means.... he doesn't have it? just because he's willing to verbally and even actionably cede his power to someone else, it means he isn't culpable. even though he can only cede it Because he has it in the first place, arguably more than anyone else in the situation.

the mental gymnastics he will go through to maintain his innocence in a given situation is crazyyy like talk about victim complex personified. but i also think it's one of the few genuine things about him. he actually looks relieved when louis' answer to his question is that it's okay. i won't make you. the last time his free will was truly stripped of him was so so long ago but his victimhood is also frozen in time forever. that wound of a more genuine powerlessness was never healed, not in 500 years, and it's easier to just stay in the open, festering shape of it than try to heal and grow around it into something new, even though it already has whether he liked or not, also without his say. i don't think he knows how to exist in that shape because he never chose it himself.

it is just delicious to me. loumand power dynamics are crazy but they can be so much crazier when contrasted directly with loustat. with loustat, lestat is clearly the one with the power in the dynamic but he also more often genuinely gives in to louis just because. just out of love. he does abuse that power too just like armand, but with loumand, armand more often directly puts the power of their dynamic into louis' hands, but it's only By backing him into a corner with questions like this. are you asking or making me. i won't say no to you. you can either make me or keep your mouth shut. and, well. more often than not he just doesn't ask at all. better to remain silent than to put himself in a position in which he'd have to beg ever again.

[explainslowly]

Semi-random manga rec based on looking at what I rated 10/9/8 on myanimelist like a decade ago

For your benefit I am going to eschew the stuff I see discussed on tumblr all the time. Like by this point no one needs me to tell them that like, Junji Ito is good, right? Right.

The water is just fine:

Hikaru no Go - now this one used to be pretty big in fandom spaces but it was like fifteen years ago so I don't feel bad bringing it up. It's a sports shonen about a boy falling in love with Go and growing up through finding his passion in it. A classic bildungsroman type of shonen narrative but executed with finesse. Also illustrated by the same guy who drew Death Note if that sweetens the pot.

Kekkaishi - do you guys like a fun little shonen about creatures and youth with magic powers and shit? This one is simply a pleasure to read as well as well paced. I especially appreciate a somewhat strict magical/power system. Maybe it's nothing insanely special but I do feel it has been somewhat overlooked so I put it on this list.

Hourou Musuko - this one got an anime fairly recently (*checks notes* uhhh. In 2011. Nvm, kill me) so people might know it. But hey, you guys want a sweet little manga story about a teen trans girl and her gaggle of friends? Of course you do. This managaka generally writes a lot of stories about queer ppl, so feel free to check out all her work.

Ashita no Ousama - bildungsroman, but for the girlssss. It's a story about a young girl moving to the city and falling in love with theater and writing. I am simply a sucker for stories about people finding their passion and working at it.

Getting deeper:

Blame! - again, a recommendation that would sound sooooo silly like twenty years ago but Tsutomu Nihei is simply not in the public eye the way he used to be. The pleasure of this manga is to a large extent visual. But you guys do want to see a trek through a crazy technological landscape, don't you?

Bokurano - Mangaka is a known sicko and this fucked up little story about feeding children to the war machine is a good entry point. What if Evangelion was even more evil? Now you can find out.

Monster - the Naoki Urasawa story that really put him on the map. I think people say that 20th century boys is superior but why not start at the source? Psychological/mystery story especially suited for people who can set aside their reservation when the psychology gets a little dubious with it (if that's a line you don't cross, do go on and check out 20th century boys instead)

Now we are getting somewhere:

Shigurui - Anyone here looking for an awe-inspiring visual orgy of violence? Anyone?

Dainippon Tengutou Ekotoba - I am outrigh obsessed with this mangaka's visual style. The thick, bold brush lines make me craaaazy. This is as good as any entry into their work, I think - a urban fantasy story about Tengus living in the modern world.

National quiz - looking for a zany distopian sci-fi with great visuals? Look no more!! I don't remember the details of what happens in this one but I remember it being strange and interesting, so do check it out.

Soil - what if Twin Peaks was a manga? Well, it's not one to one, but this too is a story about a small town and fucked up bizarre shit happening in it. Also incredible art, in my opinion.

Shintaro Kago - making an exception here and mentioning a guy instead of a specific work. The thing about Kago is that he shines in writing bizarre short stories, so ultimately you really could start anywhere with him.

[davidwarnercorner]

Hostile Takeover (1988), starring David Warner, Kate Vernon, Michael Ironside, Jayne Eastwood, and Will Lyman (Youtube Link).

This is the first obscure David Warner movie I'm reviewing! Not the first one I've watched, but the one that made the biggest impression on me so far. I genuinely liked it and would recommend it (the only downside is that the only versions I can find online are VHS rips with not the highest video quality).

The premise: Eugene Brackin (David Warner), a disaffected, repressed office worker at a local power plant, takes three of his coworkers—Larry Gaylord (Michael Ironside), Sally Laird (Kate Vernon), and Joan Talmudge (Jayne Eastwood)—hostage, but makes no specific demands. Outside, local police chief Smolen (Will Lyman) tries to diffuse the situation without resorting to violence.

The sets are limited: most of the action takes place either in the office or just outside of it (it would probably make for a good stage adaption). Hostile Takeover is a character driven story about what it takes for someone to crack and what happens when they do. It engages with ideas about modernity, alienation, and longing; interwoven throughout are references to the T.S. Eliot poems "The Hollow Men" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (and maybe others that I didn't pick up on). Whatever you make of it, this movie was trying to say something about modern life.

(More under the cut because this gets long. Spoilers below.)

Reviews

Reviews for Hostile Takeover are mixed, but I'm going to defend it a bit. Is it a perfect movie? No. But I think the experience suffers if you come into it with the idea that this is a true horror film, when really it's a psychological thriller. There are two brief scenes where there's a lot of dramatic blood, but those make up maybe half a minute of the total 90. There are tense, suspenseful moments, but I'm quite a coward when it comes to horror and this didn't bother me.

A lot of other online reviews call it a "Thanksgiving horror movie," and I'm not sure how this category got attached to it. It came out in December 1988, so it can't be based on release date, and Thanksgiving is never mentioned, we only see that it's autumn. Maybe it's because the movie was released in some countries under the title Office Party and the fact that it starts on a day when people would normally be out of office, like for a holiday (admittedly, I thought it was just a weekend).

Characters

All the central characters in this are interesting in their own ways and get their own moments of backstory, but the ones I want to talk about most are Eugene, Sally, and Smolen.

Eugene - a man who is frustrated enough to take his coworkers hostage but also polite enough to demand that the police bring dinner for them and repeatedly says he doesn't want to actually hurt anyone. David excels at playing characters that are a bit angsty and not quite satisfied with themselves, and Eugene fits that mold.

We're never explicitly told why he did what he did, but it's not that hard to infer. Eugene is a shy middle-aged man who lives alone in a tiny apartment, has nothing better to do than come in to his meager-paying job on an off day, and is maybe a little infatuated with his younger female coworker but is too restrained (and too self-conscious?) to pursue her even when she shows interest. He seemingly followed the "right" path for the 20th-century man and yet still feels his life is hollow. He insists that he's not a crazy, "psycho-type," he only wants to be perceived that way so he'll be sent to a hospital in the end, presumably because he wants to escape it all.

I wouldn't pick up a gun about it, but I can understand his despair. The loneliness and alienation he feels (and, on the other hand, the obsession some of his other coworkers have with money and power) are predictable side effects of the capitalist hellscape we live in.

...Moving away from that, let's talk about how hot David is in this. Some of that may be down to my personal preferences: I'm a sucker for stressed-out businessmen and the role that made me notice him for the first time was Sark/Ed Dillinger in TRON. But here...the suspenders with the gun holster. Him walking around with his tie loose. Being 1988, he'd started going grey and late 80s-early 90s David is peak dilf for me, the silver streaks in his bangs and at the temples make me feral. It's no wonder the next character, Sally, wanted him.

Sally - some Letterboxd reviews were very negative to Sally, saying that she's actually the most unsympathetic character and that she manipulates and seduces Eugene. I disagree, though I may be biased because if I were in her situation, I'd probably (want to) act the same. Textually, though, I think there is some support for my interpretation.

In her introductory scene, we see her walk into the office and immediately flirt with him. It didn't seem like she was doing it to mock him—she's also the only one (I think?) to call him "Gene" instead of his full name, which implies some fondness. We later learn that Sally is attracted to power, and she comments about how powerful Eugene is in his newfound position as hostage-taker, but let's remember that she was interested in him from her first scene, before there was any hint of anything being different that day. We also see that she previously attempted to "sleep her way to the top," but that it didn't work for her and she's bitter about the whole thing.

People also seem to think her affection towards him was just in service of self-preservation, but by the end she doesn't even seem to care about that anymore. She says to him, "you can still get away if you use me as a shield...you're loving and honest and kind, you don't have to die for this, Gene!". You could argue it's some kind of Stockholm Syndrome situation, but imo she seems to be basing this on experience beyond just the last two days spent in the office.

Also, like, is it really so hard to believe that she might genuinely be into him? Some people are just into dilfs and that's okay! It's normal! Us dilf-fuckers deserve the representation and Sally is great! She hates her asshole boss and wants the old man dick, she's just like me fr.

Unfortunately (spoilers), she doesn't get her tropical beach vacation ending with Gene and instead has to watch him die. And she'll have to live with that memory. It's all the more tragic because there are hints that their relationship could have worked if they had been able to open up to each other under different circumstances. As Smolen says, "what a fuckin' waste."

Smolen - there's more to this guy than initially meets the eye. He looks like the total opposite of Eugene, a stereotypical jock, but as the story progresses, parallels are drawn between the two. Someone even accuses him of holding the rest of the police force hostage because he won't let them go in guns blazing. He also takes the time to try to understand Eugene; he's the one who figures out the poetry connection. Eventually (spoilers), he ends up being the one to kill him and, though this is probably an artifact of the bad VHS quality, it looked like there was a trickle of blood running down his own forehead. In the end, both of them were forced into violence they didn't want.

Connections

Random connections I made while watching the movie, kind of like a trivia/fun facts section I guess?

Eugene reminded me a lot of D.B. Cooper. All these years later, we still don't know who he really was or why he hijacked that 727 on Nov. 24, 1971 (now that'd be a Thanksgiving movie!). What we do know was that he was middle-aged, polite to the crew, and had an unspecified "grudge."

One of the T.S. Eliot poems the movie references is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," a stanza of which goes like this:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.

This part is not quoted in the movie, but it hit me kind of hard considering this context: David played Hamlet on stage in 1965, but it'd been almost 25 years since then when Hostile Takeover was made, and he was in the middle of being in a bunch of random B-movies. It also makes me think of when he was asked, around the time TRON came out, about playing so many villain roles and what he'd like to be in next, and he said something like "I'd like a romantic comedy." And then he...didn't get that? Ever? At least not as a lead. I...yeah. He does at least get the girl in this one! Briefly!

Conclusion

Should you watch this movie if you're a David Warner liker? Definitely. Should you watch this movie otherwise? At least give it a try. I didn't know where else to mention it but the soundtrack also stood out to me, it's very 80s but still good. The way they incorporated the popping and clanging sounds the heaters inside the building make into the music...banger.

I'll be posting some gifs from the movie soon. If you do watch this, or have watched it, please let me know what you thought....am I getting it all wrong? Are you team Sally?

Youtube Link Here. This is to a different or upscaled version than the one I watched. I only found it after I took all the screenshots and did all the gifs. My loss is your gain...?

[varlaisvea]

WIP Wednesday!

lol no one tagged me; I have 18 followers and I write mostly ESO fic. Clearly, I post for me. 😂

This won't make it into the final draft, but I like it anyway. This adorable ESO quest features a Nord whose wife is a High Elf—the only High Elf I can think of in ESO who married someone decidedly Apraxic. So I decided to have my also Very Apraxic OCs meet Viggol and Telline.

1.5k words, G-rated, discussion of racism

Two non-Altmer discuss what it’s like to be married to someone who has to keep you a secret—and who will live more than a century after you’re gone.

------

Viggol looked back to where our Elves were talking. “That’s my wife,” he said proudly. “Drives Telline crazy when I tell people that. She thinks these stick-arsed Elves are going to run us out of town, but I have yet to find one who actually believes me when I claim that beautiful Elf debased herself by marrying an idiot Nord.”

“In plain sight is this one’s favorite place to hide,” I said.

He grinned. “See! You understand—that is the upside of living somewhere where all your neighbors consider you to be a genetically inferior halfwit, no? It would be absurd to imagine that Telline’s dutiful house-servant is actually her beloved husband. That’d be like suspecting your neighbor is secretly married to their horse.” He paused. “Though, I suppose I did wonder about a few of my neighbors back in Dawnstar…”

“Ha, this one has spent several long, cold, dark winters in Winterhold…” We exchanged a knowing glance. “But we are only visiting Summerset. Thank Jone and Jode, we do not live here—no insult to you.”

“None taken,” he said. “Telline grew up here, but we’ve only lived in Lillandril together for a few years. Just us and Pickle.” He gestured to the elderly dog at Telline’s feet. “It’s almost insulting; our neighbors don’t even seem to suspect a dirty Apraxic affair, even though everyone has dirty Apraxic affairs on this damned island. But Telline says I am far too handsome for that to protect me for long.” He nodded to himself, acknowledging the truth of his wife’s concern, then turned to me and scanned me from ears to tail. “You can relate, of course.”

“Just so,” I said, nodding to join him in somberly considering this problem. “As an up-jumped animal, this one is even more genetically inferior than a Man—most Elves probably imagine Eymei and I are colleagues, if they think anything at all. But, this one is strikingly handsome enough that occasionally an Altmer casts a glance, as if they suspect Eymei has a wicked little fetish for sugar-tongued liars.” I met his eyes, and the look on his face suggested he already knew what I was going to say next. “It is not as sexy as it sounds.”

We both chuckled and watched seabirds soar over the waves. Pickle was attempting to chase a gull, but quickly decided his obviously-achy hips could not sustain the effort, and came over to lay in the warm sand next to us.

“It’d be a great story, if I could tell it to anyone,” Viggol said, after a long silence. “For two or three years, I jokingly bothered Telline about marrying me at least weekly, until I started to feel like the joking had a bit too much feeling behind it; like I was pressuring her. I knew she couldn’t marry me. I just wanted to be with her. But, two or three months after I stopped pestering her about marriage, we got drunk and she asked me! It’s illegal, not to mention dangerous and socially repulsive, here in Summerset, but we weren’t in Summerset—I hauled her right then and there to the nearest Mara shrine. Of course I wouldn’t actually marry her until we were both sober, but we sat right next to the shrine for several hours until we were both of sound mind. And she didn’t back out!” It was very sweet, how moons-eyed he looked as he recounted this.

“Ah, when an Elf is willing to do something moderately spontaneous for you, this is true love, yes? What convinced her?”

He laughed. “She said—” he did his best impression of his wife “—‘I have never done anything stupid enough to risk regretting. I suspect you’d say risking regret is the only way to do something that thrills you.’” He looked over to where she was standing, with unabashed adoration on his face. His eyes were dewy when he turned back to me. “That was what she said. Why she was willing to marry someone who would die before she was middle-aged. She said she wouldn’t stay married to me unless she was right about it being thrilling. That was almost fifty years ago, and she’s still here, even though I don’t have more than ten or fifteen years left.” He wiped a tear and laughed self-consciously. “Sorry. I don’t usually get to tell people how wonderful she is.”

I just smiled. “This one can sympathize; please, do not apologize! You have found just the right audience. Fifty years is a long time to keep such things hidden.”

“Heh, if you’re asking for advice, friend, I don’t know that I can be helpful. Before this, we lived in Solitude for a couple of years—no one gave a skeever’s arse about our relationship there, though we still had to be discreet in public, and careful around Altmer. We did live in a cave for a few years; that helped.”

“An Elf willing to live in a cave for you! That is love, walker!”

“Don’t I know it! She was actually the one who originally suggested Blackreach. My adventuring days are over, but I found Blackreach to be more neighborly than Lillandril, if that tells you anything. But after fifty years of adventuring alongside her crazy Nord husband, at very least, Telline deserves a few years of uneventful, easy living.” He smiled and shook his head. “I was younger than you are now when I met Telline, and she was a bit older than your… wife?”

Somehow it felt fitting that this strange Nord would be the first to hear the news. “Yes. As of yesterday,” I said, with an unexpected choke in my throat. “Married in Eymei's ancestral tradition. There will be no Rings of Mara for us, but that is unimportant—two days ago, we both truly believed we'd never consider marriage. To each other, or at all.”

“Ha! An Elf willing to do something very spontaneous for you,” he said. “Congratulations! That sounds like quite a story!” We both laughed, and he hugged me with boisterous Nord enthusiasm. I was surprised at how much I appreciated it. “If you’re ever back in Lillandril, I’ll buy you a pint of ale so I can hear it. Or… whatever sickly-sweet thing you probably like to drink.”

I glanced back over to Eymei and Telline. They were both staring stone-faced at the waves as they talked.

Viggol said, “can’t imagine their conversation is as fun as ours. Not that most Altmer particularly enjoy fun, far as I can tell.”

I laughed sadly. “Congratulations on the sand slipping through your fingers!”

Viggol laughed too. “Since I was a little mer, I dreamed of being young and sexually frustrated while my spouse grew withered and elderly.”

“It is unjust that we must hide our relationship from Praxis-obsessed Altmer, but at least I get to spend decades waiting for my beating heart to be torn from my chest with well over half of my life still ahead of me.”

“Yes, I am so looking forward to the isolation and despair of grieving my life’s love, whom most of my kin consider a lesser being.”

Now Viggol and I were also staring stone-faced at the waves.

After a long silence, he said, “you’ll lose your mind if you don’t give voice to thoughts like that sometimes. I’m glad we could help each other—I don’t get to meet a lot of people I can talk to about my marriage. But friend, if there is one piece of advice I can give you… that Elf married you with full knowledge that that would be her future. I don’t even have to know your wife to know she has already stared all of that in the face. Am I right?”

I nodded.

“It weighs on me every day,” Viggol said. “It’s going to weigh on you, too, and believe me, it’ll only get worse as you get older and she stays young, capable, and beautiful. Part of the reason I was a bit in denial about the end of my adventuring days.” His voice came out strained as he continued. “It took me almost losing Telline to get it through my skull: I could either get crushed under the weight of what she’s willing to face for me, or I could be worth it.”

I looked down at my hands. “It is hard for me to imagine anyone being worth that.”

“Me too, friend. It’s impossible for me to say whether I’d make the same choice, in her place. But… doesn’t matter what I’d do. Fact is, I’ve got that Elf fooled well enough that she keeps making that choice every day—I’ve gotten to live my life knowing for damned sure that the wisest, kindest person I know thinks I’m worth it. So, I decided that until the day I die, I will do my best to be the person Telline thinks I am. I don’t always live up to it, but the effort has made me better in more ways than I can count.” He waited until I met his eyes. “Don’t do what I did. Don't waste your time worrying that you’re not worth it. Be worth it.”

I looked over at the Elves. They were sitting on the sand now; Pickle had wandered back over to them, and was laying next to Eymei. I think Eymei might have been quietly casting a lay-on-hands on his hips, as Telline talked.

I sighed. “The person Eymei thinks I am is… quite a cat.”

Viggol smacked me on the shoulder good-naturedly. “What if she’s right?”

[monstersinthecosmos]

Your Marius playlist is so good ‼️‼️‼️🫢I never would have thought of wardruna and heilung for him but it’s perfect 100/10

dgdsgaklsd thank you !!!!!!!!! I'm really excited that you like it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Marius playlist if anyone is curious (: )

Sometimes people think I'm crazy because I don't really hear lyrics when I listen to music so all my playlists are built on VIBES ONLY. Marius playlist is like: Music That Could Be the Score of an Existential Crisis When You've Lived in Centuries of Darkness and Also Have Trauma From That Time You Were Murdered By a Pagan Cult. Any time I'm listening to music in the wild and I hear this vibe, it gets dropped into this playlist, regardless of lyrical content LOL.

The neofolk half of it speaks for itself, I think. I've also written meta about how I think black metal feels tonally appropriate for the Ancients. And like neofolk is one of those genres where like, so many of the fans are metalheads LOL. (I mean i got into Wardruna because of Gaahl haha it started there). And like I absolutely lose my mind over like pagan black metal/blackened folk metal where they bring in all the historical instrumentation into the metal like HJDKALGDS THE TEXTURE, I DIE, it's my fav genre of music. And it's just so incredibly bleak, but also so patient. It feels so heavy and existential and full of dread!!!!!!!! 😍 And thinking in a vampire context it's like ANCIENT OLD TRAUMA!!!! Bad memories from CENTURIES AGO. Idk man it just feels so good.

It's frustrating because like all the EXTREMELY SPOOKY ANCIENT MOOD MUSIC tends to be Nordic and I wish I could find some what had more Italian influence (this is a thinly veiled rec request if anyone has any) because every time I do go down the rabbithole and look for Italian neofolk it isn't what I'm looking for. I need like that deep terrifying Wardruna sound you know? It's gotta be out there, I will keep searching!!!!!!!!!!

There's some Balkan & Greek bands in there which are so great (Negură Bunget & Rotting Christ lol) and I have to go back and drop in more Karl Sanders for Akasha vibes lol. There are some really cool Middle Eastern metal bands too that use cool instrumentation (thinking of Melechesh) but they're not gloomy enough LOL. I need to go take a stroll and see if I can find some spooky stuff. And there's some really great Greek pagan/folk which probably is similar to what I'm trying to find but I'm looking for like the more neofolky half, like I need Greek Wardruna LOL.

But I really love most genres of music as long as it's gloomy and like the overlap of neofolk with pagan/black metal is like the perfect type of gloomy for me hasdkjga AND LIKE WHEN IM DAYDREAMING ABOUT MARIUS IT FEELS REALLY GOOD BECAUSE THE SOUNDS FEEL SO ANCIENT. And bands like Wardruna and Heilung give me so many God of the Grove feelings it just makes me think about the cult trauma. 🍿 (even if the regions are a little inaccurate please let me live, I'm doing my best with what I can find.)

[lost-technology]

My brain's been chewing on a weird, small worldbuilding-tidbit that I was thinking of having a passing mention of in a '98 based fanfic. The idea applies to all, though. So, I've been seeing some youtube videos and arguments regarding religion and the usual rhetoric that "as societies modernize, religion goes away" and the old idea that "one day, religion will be nothing more than a curious relic." I disagree with this. I'm a little freak who retains spirituality even though I reject most of the dogma I used to adhere to. I think there are more people like this than advertised. It also annoys me because, historically, how many CENTURIES have people been saying this? Philosophers in the 1800s, I think even some in the 1700's were so utterly SURE that in the future nobody would be religious anymore - yet, here we are. Like it or not, it's still...a thing. Anyway, people have been waiting for and assuming the Pure Secularist Future for frickin' ever and making assumptions about sci-fi universes. "What does God need with a starship?" and all that. Meanwhile, in TRIGUN, which does things differently, one of the main-catalyst characters, the protagonist's beloved mommy openly talks about believing that her dead boyfriend is in Heaven and refers to her birthed-from-a-human-created species children as "angels" or being "like angels." Plant-engineers in the manga refer to Plants as "having the appearance of the messengers of God." Anyway, the main thing is, here is Rem, a scientist who lives on a spaceship occasionally throws out Christianese in everyday speech. (I don't remember her doing such in the manga), but in '98 and Stampede, it's there when I'm pretty sure that some of the youtubers I've watched recently would think she probably shouldn't be on a space-science team because "300 years from now, people like her won't exist." Or if they do, they should be barred from science due to "being crazy." It got me thinking, what if there's a social turn-around in the Trigun universe? What if the creation of the Plants and the discovery that they pull things from "a higher dimension" actually revives spiritual impulse in human society? Maybe there's not any particular controlling dogma that anyone adheres to anymore during the spacefaring age, but maybe it is not uncommon at all for people to believe in "God," or in "Heaven" or the concept of angelic beings because, well, here are creatures that contact a mysterious, unknowable dimension and essentially do supernatural feats. I mean, it's RIGHT THERE, so maybe it's not considered "unscientific" to have a spiritual lean anymore. Just food for thought... because Rem likes talking about angels and ISN'T looked at strangely for it or told to "be more rational." Maybe at that point in time, viewpoints like hers are considered the most rational thing in the universe.

[faerywhimsy]

Hello, I would like to linger on the topic of Armand and love in (primarily) the setting of TVL.

"What do we have now! Answer me! Nothing but the love of each other and what can that mean to creatures like us!"

Working backwards for a hot minute, this is the last appearance we have from Armand in The Vampire Lestat. It comes immediately before Armand tosses Lestat out of the very tower Lestat so graciously gifted to him.

Symbolism? Oh my heart, I lived for this sort of stuff during my English degree.

Anyone who's read a single page of TVC knows that love is pretty much prized above all things in the world of these vampires. It's... pretty much the only thing all of them by some unspoken agreement seem to hold dear. Even Rhoshamandes (one of many scions of Akasha) from the Prince Lestat at least appears to gain something from the affection between him and his fledgling Benedict. But I'm definitely getting ahead of myself.

Sorry guys, strap in if you wanna. This is gonna be another long meta post.

To go from the end right back to the beginning, something about Lestat does seem to bring Armand back to 'life'. And, in response, just the sight of him makes Lestat gasp. Armand is "perfect", "dazzling", "incarnate beauty". His voice is "teasing", his eyes are "fathomless". I've read bodice rippers with prose less purple than this.

Okay, fine, it turns out a lot of this is all a mind fuck from Armand to Lestat but I've already written a longer interpretation of that over here (and thank god because it just wouldn't have fit here). Just because we're seeing Armand's use of the mind gift does not necessarily invalidate some feelings behind it. Armand is one tightly wound, fucked up ball of crazy at this point in the eighteen century, and everything of him this early kinda has to be read through that lens.

All night you've been searching for me, he said, and here I am, waiting for you. I have been waiting for you all along. Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this.

Ultimately, Lestat's rejection of Armand after this is pretty brutal. He (correctly) manages to ascertain how much of a threat Armand poses to him, despite their both being of the blood. Later he even marvels at how he was able to overcome Armand in the brutal beating that followed. (My personal head canon is simple: Armand let him).

Yet still, Armand asks to be loved by Lestat and, thereafter, begs Lestat to be allowed to travel with he and Gabrielle. So when you read the disavow of love Armand makes—after Lestat has left him and returned to him, only to promise to leave him once more—it feels pretty clear Lestat went and fucked Armand all up and down. (I also wanna mention that meta post I think about often and is basically my head canon, on Armand's PoV in The Vampire Armand that shows him again rebounding hard in the wake of being rejected yet again. Let's face it, this is realistically an immutable part of Armand's character.)

How much of an impact did Lestat's rejection of Armand have? Allow me to put it this way: It takes him almost two hundred years for Armand to find his heart again after Lestat, but no more than forty years after Daniel before he finds some solace and makes house with Louis in Trinity Gate (kinda important to me to make this point given the consensus in fanon is Daniel is Armand's great love story).

Finally, there's a part of me that can't help but wonder how things might have gone differently, had Lestat not brashly come back with impossible demands of Armand. Would Armand have been capable of forgiving Lestat if he hadn't come talking about how little he actually needed Armand after he used Armand for a draught of his healing blood?

When Lestat first sees him again, he uses such words as "brilliant light burning in him", "thinly veiled excitement", "caressingly", "soft and compassionately" to describe Armand's attention. This is moments before Lestat goes off at the mouth.

And... just... damn, man. Maybe it would have been best to face Marius and his measly "condemnation" is all I'm saying. At least Marius wasn't in love and the worst he (probably??) would have done was turn his back on Lestat. No wonder, honestly. These are all immortal blood drinkers we're talking about, not a high end wine tasting.

[josiebelladonna]

Israel-

-has sent 1 billion dollars a year to gaza with nothing expected in return, even with the blockade to keep h*mas out

-has diverted 1 gigawatt of electricity to gaza every year to keep their lights on

-has dedicated 17000+ jobs to gazans even in the face of october 7—and in fact, someone who lives on the strip can readily come to israel for work (granted, they need to fill out paperwork and have a work visa, but you need to do that anyway just like anywhere else in the world)

-has dedicated infrastructure and healthcare with no cost to the patient to anyone in gaza—the infrastructure is meant specifically for homes, and not subterranean tunnels or missiles either

-has actually done a lot of good for gaza, more than anyone realizes, and what’s astounding is it’s virtually unknown out here in the west like you have to talk to someone who actually lives over there or at least hails from there in order to learn about it

-genuinely doesn’t want this conflict (and they sure as fuck didn’t ask for antisemitism to make the biggest, ugliest, most despicable entrance ever to the point of making allies shake in their boots, either). the only ones who do are their government officials and let me tell you, they’re letting those filthy pigs have it. trust me, the people of israel and the jewish diaspora didn’t ask for this because they actually don’t hate the palestinians… unlike h*mas and all of you screaming pree falestine. yeah, you may not realize it now and you may think i’m crazy but you will realize it eventually… and you’ll be looking at the existential crisis of the century.

-has signed peace treaties with all the countries around them, save for saudi arabia, iran, and palestine (by the way , i should also mention that every geography site i’ve ever frequented list it as “palestinian territories”, and yet they have a full-on government as if they’re a legit country… seems a little odd when the region has been referred to by many names for thousands of years, namely “land of israel” 🤔); they were about to with the former and then october 7 happened.

-as for the west bank, you know they’re all indigenous to the land despite how much anyone wants to deny it. sure, people have done stupid things over there but listen, they can work past them, especially when you’ve been persecuted (often for no reason) for thousands of years and all you want is to chillax in the desert, bro (also, see my previous reblog on antisemitism and how it’s as old as time itself). but if every country on earth has done it before, so can they.

-said it before and i’ll say it again: these chants coming from the pro-palestine crowd (i refuse to say them because at this point, they leave a bad taste in my mouth; they’re literally like the n-word or g*psy for me at this point) are antisemitic as fuck and calling for an end to the diaspora. plus! to make matters worse! if you know where these chants are coming from, if you have done any kind of reading (actual reading, not pulling this shit from tiktok or blog posts or—i’m sorry ahead of time, i really am—things based out of islamic countries, but especially from qatar), you would know that they do nothing for the palestinians themselves but infantilize their government! it doesn’t give them clean water or better living conditions or anything (plus, it’s not israel’s fault!!!) and this conflict has nothing to do with the rest of the world! write it all you want, call me a zionist all you want, you are not going to do anything for palestine! the only thing that can be done is let them sort it out themselves! god, the hypocrisy of pro-palestine is FLABBERGASTING!

some cuntwaffle on the internet: “genocide apartheid and those who agree with you are complicit we’re STRIKING!”

palestine: “y do u hate us”

[magnusbae]

okay but (about your tags on cuubism's post about hob not being special for being immortal) i feel like hob's optimism ISN'T super special, either. like... hate to say this but the majority of the world isn't sad all the time? at least not in my experience, i mean. like, in stories and to a lesser degree online, there's this very pessimistic outlook that's become the norm, and so when we see hob not becoming pessimistic, we think that's special, that's unique, that's surprising. but... idk, maybe i'm naive about this, but i feel like most people DON'T feel sad and bitter about life. it's not just that most people don't want to die, it's that most people find joy in things. most people can laugh. most people can be happy. hob just has the opportunity to do that on a longer scale than anyone else. he's unique for having that chance, not for taking it.

i feel like that's part of what makes hob such an interesting foil for dream. because dream is exceptional. he is special. he is everyone's dreams, everywhere; he is powerful beyond imagining. which is why i LOVE dreamling: hob is a completely normal guy who dream can look at and understand that life is good. people are happy. dream can be happy, too.

(it's dream's unique depression vs. hob's everyday positivity that gets me asldkfjhaskdjfhs)

anyway i haven't even seen the show or read the comics so like. take this with a grain of salt. but i really like the idea of hob as just a completely normal person who was lucky enough to be overheard by death at just the right time.

(Ref Post) Now see, let's start from the fact that in fanon, you're allowed to experience the ship in any way you personally enjoy. Many people genuinely love and prefer seeing Hob as absolutely normal guy versus Dream's sepernatual status.

If we discuss our philosophies in general about real people, I'd agree with you that generally on the internet, or more specifically on tumblr, a pessimistic outlook on things in the norm.

However in your example you had omitted a few key points. You've given the average person's day to day life as an example to people who are happy and generally optimistic. You do not take into account the events Hob had went through: pandemic on large and horrifying scale, battlefields, murders and starvation. Then even on a more radical scale, losing his wife and both his children, being drowned alive but unable to die from it (which is torture on a scale human's can't understand) being the only being of his kind aside from a stranger he meets once a century (alienation and loneliness) etc etc

Now those are not precisely your day to day experiences that most non-tumblr people would be cheerfully okay with, yes?

Most normally people would struggle to live with even one of those events, now, consider the fact, Hob lives with ALL of those events with little to no change to his personality, outlook on life and general functionality.

That is not your average human behaviour, simply aint.

Some people enjoy seeing Hob as 100% normal, some people like me, enjoy seeing Hob as batshit crazy too >:D

Like, yes, near Dream of the Endless, almost anyone, supernatural or not, would seem rather dull and normal, and it does not take away from the reality of things, Hob is still human, Hob is still RATHER normal near Dream.

But if you take Dream away from the equitation, and inspect Hob solely as an individual character, he is far from being normal.

By all means, he'd be considered the demigod of the story if other gods/endless were not introduced.

A character who does not age, die and who has no payment to pay for his boon, no secret Achilles' heel? Who lives century after century without allowing anything change who he is the core? (for better of worse he stays generally true to himself) like, frankly, that's not normal.

TLTR while I agree with you that tumblr's outlook on life is rather gloomy and most folk wouldn't be this blue, I would also say that most people would have severe reaction to trauma and loss, and wouldn't be able to carry repeated trauma through decades and centuries.

[galadrielspeaks]

thranduil (this is a threat)

THRANDUIL!!!!!

Sexuality Headcanon: overall I think he’s “straight” because he’s only loved one person (his wife) and she’s a woman. BUT if i squint my eyes really REALLY hard i can kind of see the vision of him having a super short one time heat of the moment kiss or fling with Bard. if i squint RLLY RLLY hard yeah! so like hetero-flexible maybe. sexuality and gender of elves are hard JNFNDJSJ

Gender Headcanon: just like the dwarfs i believe the elves live beyond the gender binary (especially mirkwood elves) but i think he identifies as male / leans towards masculinity

A ship I have with said character: I feel like he was really happy with his wife :( him and his wife for sure <3

A BROTP I have with said character: I think he and Galion are better friends than people think because how else would that elf find the confidence to get shitfaced with his King’s drink 😭 i think that they’ve been together since Doriath <3 :)

A NOTP I have with said character: Elrond :( i’m sorry it just feels like a bit like HUH. I don’t really see anybody shipping Thranduil with anyone though but sometimes I’ll stumble across an Elrond x Thranduil and it throws me off a little :/

A random headcanon: This is less about him and more about his wife, but I headcanon he married a Silvan elf. Both for love 🥹 and also because ngl it would be politically fortuitous for him to. This is so engraved in my head that fics / content where Legolas’ mother isn’t Silvan throw me off JDJFJDKSKS I feel like Oropher would be pleased with his line merging into Silvan culture so fully like that, given that he wanted to integrate into their culture already. And though he died before Legolas was born i think he would be very excited at the prospect of his half-sindar half-silvan existence. I also head-canon that he has a stronger connection to the forest than his father Because of his wife :D she taught him how to connect with it properly.

General Opinion over said character: I. Love Thranduil. Like genuinely he is like, my favourite character i think. Which is crazy for me to say because I love many of the LOTR characters but I’ll be damned if Thranduil isn’t the character that I am the most in awe of. I think I just admire his persistence in the face of darkness. I mean cmon the dude has no ring of power and has been defending his kingdom for centuries like yes he’s been losing ground but considering his enemy was literally SAURON himself yeah i give my props to him. Especially because he maintained celebration and joy and his connections to his people and to his forest. Very big fan of the fact Thranduil gets a bit silly sometimes drinks too much wine and actively enjoys his people’s merry-making. Love it!

[stitching-in-time]

‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ is one of the better early Next Gen episodes, and honestly the score being so good really helps. There’s genuine emotion and a sense of wonder in the music in this episode, it doesn’t sound like anything else in the whole show, and I'm disappointed they didn’t play up the emotion in the stories with music like this very often. The scene where Picard sees his mom is just such a heart wrenching little gem- we rarely get to see Captain Picard talk about his family or show his feelings, and seeing him so visibly affected by suddenly meeting her, admitting that he always felt her presence with him, it’s a beautiful little glimpse beneath his guarded exterior. And the music really underscores how magical that moment is for him. It’s one of my favorite little scenes. 

Also this glimpse of his mom gives us some intriguing clues about his upbringing. She looks like she’s wearing an outfit from the 1900s, which would be pretty eccentric now, but in the 24th century would probably be even weirder, and she’s drinking tea, even though she’s married to a man whose family business is making wine. She seems pretty laid back and open-minded, and he clearly has great affection for her. On the flip side, the glimpse of Picard’s dad in ‘Tapestry’ shows us a very stern man who was harshly critical of his son’s choices, so I think we can safely conclude that little Jean-Luc liked his mom better and took after her. His oddly un-French love of Earl Grey tea is obviously something he picked up from his eccentric mom. One wonders how his parents ended up together in the first place, but who knows, maybe they were just really good looking when they were younger lol. Anyway, it explains a lot about his relationship with his brother, who was obviously their dad’s favorite, following in his footsteps by entering the family business and doing everything the proper way. I can picture Jean-Luc as a kid with this free-spirited mom who probably took him on picnics and adventures dressed up in historical clothes, while all the neighbors gawked at them and called them weird, and meanwhile she’s the one encouraging him in all his nerdy interests, and telling him not to worry about what his father and brother think, or what anyone thinks, to just read his books about space and archaeology and do whatever makes him happy. 

And maybe, when he’s on his starship as a bald old man in his captain’s chair, surrounded by his found family of fellow Starfleet nerds, with all his accolades and his place in the history books assured, he thinks back to his mom and her costumed tea parties, who lived her life on her own terms, even if everyone else thought it was crazy. And he’s grateful to her for encouraging him, knowing he owes a lot of his success to her, and happy because he knows that she would be proud of him for living his life his own way, and making his own happiness, even if everyone else might not understand it.

And I get a little misty eyed tbh.

(Sorry, this was supposed to be a normal analysis of the episode, instead of a side-trip to my head canons about Captain Picard’s childhood but oh well)

[lampmanliveblogs]

The false 'outer layer' of Philip's mindscape shows a rather disturbing reality to the man. His constant lies and distortion of the truth to those who meet him, him adopting the various different 'masks' and identities he needs to convince people he's trustworthy, his constant alteration of events to suit his perception... It's not just that he's manipulative and wants events to proceed a certain way to suit his goals, he really does think that's how events happened. Luz cracking his mask, exploding the portal and freeing Eda was spun into a 'triumph against Wild Magic ' inside his own head, where no-one else would ever see it. Wittebro falling in love was turned into a 'betrayal' against him, and a 'Mistake' that the Grimwalkers keep repeating, not because they have basic morality, but because they're 'flawed and broken' and it's better to start over than trying to 'Fix' them. Luz isn't disagreeing with him because he's wrong, it's because she's crazy, and if you can't talk a crazy person off a ledge, maybe it's easier to just push them off and get it over with. Even his true memory portraits are damaged, indicating just how hard Philip's willpower is distorting his perception.

And all this is spun off his need to control events, to have reality play out the way it does inside his head, because that way, he's right and everything he's done and will do no matter what is also right in the end. Philip cannot be reasoned with at all, because he's spent centuries locked up inside his own head and twisting his mind until it's a hollow shell of a rational human being's. He's lied so long and so loudly to everyone he can force to listen, that the ugly truth of reality compels him to violence every time somebody confronts him with it, because he can't handle the truth. In an ironic way, despite being analogous to a rigid authority figure that wants to force luz to 'grow up' and let go of her childish fantasies, Philip is the one that's spent centuries living in a fantasy world, whereas luz has been growing up from her time on the isles, and since this truth demeans him and all he's done, he denies it and the fact luz is right, even as the vision of 'reality' that awaits him outside the little kingdom he's built no longer exists. Philip is the last witch Hunter in existence, and the profession itself was not the heroic endeavour he seems to see it as, but and excuse for greedy individuals to seize land from the accused once the 'witch' was found guilty, but nobody seems to have told Philip this when he was a young boy, and as he got older, he only got better at ignoring the signs from reality that conflicted with his perception of events.

To paraphrase a certain talking head, "one thing to remember about liars, lad- they lie. They do it on principle. No issue too big or too small. They lie about anything they can get away with, and some things they can't, just to demonstrate their power over reality".

In a tragic way, Philip lies the longest and the loudest to himself more than anyone else, making him his own greatest victim of his delusions.

I think that at some point while doing the liveblog, I thought of talking a bit more about how Belos own mind distorts the reality of things in a way that makes him look better; the "Triumph Against Wild Magic" painting in particular, showing him as the victor, while in reality, it was more of a tie. Luz didn't defeat him outright, but she got one up on him, managing to get away with Eda and the others AND slowing down his plans by destroying the portal (and taking the key with her; if Hunter hadn't managed to take it from Amity, the portal would still be essentially useless).

Why didn't I do that? Because I forgot. Whoops.

These are some great insights though, much better than what I could've said. Especially when it comes to his need to control the world around him. Even after Hunter got the key for him, which he needed for his plans to work, he reacted with barely contained anger. Because even though he got the last piece he needed for his great master plan, Hunter disobeyed him, and he can't stand that.

I doubt there is anything that would make me sympathize with Philip/Belos at this point, but I will say this: The idea of him being the last witch hunter, someone who has so blindly pursued this false ideal for centuries, doing all the evil deeds to fulfill a crazy plan for the sake of a world that has moved past that and would condemn the things he did for them... there is something tragic there. He believes his works are for humanity's benefit, but everyone (well, most people) would be filled with horror if they heard of what he has done.