#I stan one manic pixie girl

[stephsageek]

"Anything you can do, I can do better"

[majycka]

Megumi stans....we won, I guess? maybe just for now..

JJK 266 THOUGHTS AND SPOILERS AHEAD!

Aight megumi enjoyers, at least one of us has been in the trenches when Megumi was getting SHOVELED PILES OF SHIT ON for losing his will to live when he's a traumatized 15 years old boy having a valid reaction to a death of a loved one (aka who may I repeat, HEAVILY REITERATED in the manga is someone whose his entire desire to live hinges on). As of from the currents chap, I'm considering Yuuji's acknowledgement/understanding to Megumi's actions a W for us or idk maybe that's just me because he gives Megumi the empathy and understanding he needs in his crazy ass suicidal life, and it raises the question of whether this is gonna fully push Megumi for his comeback moment?

More yapping under the cut

In order to explain why the magnitude of this chapter is such an important development for Megumi, his trauma needs to be discuss first and, there's four people we need to go through to reflect his stages of life. Toji, Tsumiki, Gojo, aaaannd Yuuji! :D

TOJI, the dad who left for milk.

Although we barely see any interaction with these two (only one fight scene from them), Toji no doubt kickstarted the trauma of Megumi the moment he decided to left for milk and never return again. He's traumatized by the Zenin's which explains why he acted out in that way and abandoned his child. All he's life he's treated as the outsider for being the odd one out. He lashed out from it as he got stronger, calmed down when meet Meg's mom who then died, and went back to lashing out again, forgetting that he has a tiny son waiting for him at home. Big L for Toji.

I know that Gege reiterated in his interview that he wants to craft a story where there's no right and wrong people, but I'm gonna proceed to be harsher towards Toji here because he's the ADULT situation. Yes, a traumatized adult who's fucked up and not perfect, but I still hold him accountable in perpetuating Megumi's trauma because Toji proceeded to repeat the cycle of trauma that moment he decided to leave, thinking that turning over Megumi to the Zenin is the best option cuz he got The Ten Shadows Technique. From Toji's perspective, it seemed the better option because he was raised knowing his no cursed energy made him an outcast in his family. It's drilled to him that cursed technique was everything for Zenins, so of course, he thought that his son with a valued technique will make the Zenins, olympic gold medal holder of abuse, treat him better. But, heck no! Just look what happened to that Naoya, who despite being raised differently as Toji or Maki and Mai, ended up as a piece of shit. In the end though, I gotta give him the bareeeessst minimum because he kinda pushed Gojo to interfere with Megumi being sold off to the Zenins(which has another set of problems discussed for the later part of discussion).

I try to stay true in including Gege's intention in writing here, and also other nuanced perspective cuz that's the type of series JJK is that yes, Toji DID care for his son in the barest minimum and in his most emotionally stunted way.

However, the damage is done, and Megumi is left with no prime adult caretaker to protect/guide him with only an older sis to have any resemblance of it .

2. TSUMIKI, the manic pixie dream girl sister.

To define the term (as I've stolen from Google) , manic pixie dream girl (MPDG) means "a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist." They are often associated as love interest in movies, BUT I AM NO WAY SHAPE IN FORM ENDORSING MEGUMI SEES HER THAT WAY. Instead, I am using MPDG as a loose term to describe Tsumiki because like most MPDG, we barely know ANYTHING about her actually and we only saw her through the eyes of Megumi which is being pretty and dead.

Not essentially dead and not essentially just pretty because Megumi described her to be the model of a kind person and someone that Megumi wishes to protect, aka his greater purpose of life, which is yah, great, but we are stuck with this perception of Tsumiki. We don't know her, and I think the closest thing we got an unbiased perception of her is when she chucked a cartoon of milk to Megumi (she will call out his BS). This connects back with Megumi's trauma because who else are you gonna hinge your will to live on when the prime adults in your life failed you? He sees her in a brighter light in order to survive. A way of coping mechanism even.

AND YET, despite all his talk appreciating her kind traits and killing people in the culling game to get back to her, you would be surprised that instead of apologizing to her that he was all emo about, he was a dick to her when they reunited. 💀💀

And in fact, the narrative punishes him for this flaw.

To the point that when Sukuna took over his body, he "killed: Tsumiki in his hands which didn't just left Megumi the guilt and shame of being a dick to his sister before she dies but also the impression that Megumi was the one who "killed her." This makes Megumi an active participant to his own tragedy, and it serves a big slap on his face that he's also at fault here.

3. GOJO, the traumatized bro who tried his best.

This is definitely the raging hot debate of the fandom which is their dynamic, and my take breaks this perception of the uwufied Gojo a lot of the fandom seems to like. Yes, I do see Gojo as another perpetrator to Megumi’s trauma, another adult that failed him but not in such of a black and white way thinking of Gojo’s the wholly bad guy here. Believe it or not, he’s still a part of the chain of generational trauma, being a "chain" as in he's a victim AND perpetrator of the system. I called him the traumatized bro who tried his best here because as much as Gojo knows how cruel the jujutsu system is for the kids, he still unintentionally passes over the core mindset of such cruel system to Megumi since Gojo still did grew up in this system normalized in his eyes.

"Jujutsu Sorcerer is an individual sport."

I say "unintentionally passes" because no, Gojo doesn't have the same intention as Zenins/majority of the system who drills "strength is everything" in the most fucked up way possible. Yes, he enjoys Megumi’s company and treats him nicely. Yes, he sticks his neck out for him. Yes, he wants them to be strong so they can change the system. But this isn't about Gojo. It's about Megumi who still undeniably suffered from the accumulation of the few adults in his life failing him which includes Gojo. Gojo offers protection to Megumi. KEYWORD: Offers. It’s in exchange for Megumi working under Gojo as a jujutsu sorcerer. Now, for smol Megumi here, who truly going through the horror show of abandonment from his dad, agrees to it because apparently, according to Gojo, it’s the only way to protect his sister.

"I'll take care of things! But you're gonna have to work extra hard. I'm countin' on ya."

Annnd thus the cycle repeats! Although it wasn’t as bad as Zenin’s abusive environment Toji was raised, Megumi is still pushed in the same cutthroat environment of the jjk world that Gojo believed he can survive just because Megs has a valued powerful technique if only he himself fullfills his potential, like Gojo’s Six Eyes. BUT Gojo, who delights in his power, forgets a crucial part that…..Megumi isn’t like him!

Check out what Megumi has to say. (aka bud doesn't want any of that sorcerers shit and just wants a domestic life)

So the thing is, was Megumi ever asked his input in choosing to be a jujutsu sorcerer? Well, yah….and all it circles back to just protecting his sister and people like her. There’s a set of problems that comes with this mindset though that Gojo was valid to point out and that is Megumi doesn’t think about himself enough. “It’s ok to be selfish!” Gojo said in the context of being a stronger sorcerer.

But at the same time, he also gave Megumi the idea to that if he doesn’t work as sorcerer, then he won’t be able to protect his sister when he was a mere 6-7y/o boy.

You know that circulating meme of Megumi pulling Mahogora for minor inconvenience? Well, guess what that tells his suicidal tendencies in protecting anyone but himself. Kid got no sense of self-preservation because his self esteemed has completely tanked itself due to his abandonment issues, and now that he’s expressing how it emotionally and physically paralyzes him, he has every valid reason to do so.

Why, yes, Gojo was 19/20 at the time he first met Megs, still a kid, doesn't know shit, and has unaddressed issues being treated as The Strongest Weapon(here’s a dedicated gojo-centric meta I wrote previously about Gojo and his issues cuz he's one complicated fool). I describe this whole situation as an unaware traumatized kid taking in another traumatized kid which is not a fun mix to have, and I understand that Gojo ain’t exactly prepared for that kind of job.

HOWEVER, I’m way harsher to point out Gojo’s failure as an adult in Megumi in the later part of the series because at this point, Gojo's a grown adult, he waxes poetry in being responsible for the next gen , and we get to see his priorities throughout the series especially with the Sukuna’s fight, like seriously he had one legitimate fun fighting someone on par with him.

Gojo DELIGHTS in power no doubt, he chooses kids with most potential, he gets excited finding those kids, and this is the type of the closest dependable adult Megumi has in his life.

Yes, financially supported but Gojo isn't around much when he's working and on demand sorcerer almost 24/7. That's why growing up sure do sucked ass for Megumi especially when no one’s really there to guide and to keep an eye on your development AS A PERSON AND NOT JUST A SORCERER which the latter part is what unfortunately Gojo’s more eager to do.

4. YUUJI, the guy who just wants Megumi to know he matters to him as a person.

Yuuji and Megumi were definitely the highlight of this chapter because in the bleak world of JJK where everyone seemed to be succumbing to the repeated fuck ups of the previous gen (like that Yuta-Gojo situation), this chapter actually offers that THERE IS HOPE that the new gen can do better like what Yuuji just did that the adults in Megumi's life are too emotionally stunted to do. Yuuji take the time to listen to Megumi's emotional thoughts, what he feels as a person, and not just listen, but to understand and empathize. It even took lots of attempts for Yuuji to make Megumi open up.

He responds to Megumi's vulnerability with care and love, and Yuuji understands the pain Megumi is going through from losing his sister. With someone in pain like that, Yuuji knows he can't just go around saying "just live" to someone who's practically suicidal.

The treat of this all is when this scene comes next. Yuuji also shows his vulnerability and expresses that Megumi matters to him!

"It's lonely without you..Fushiguro."

This scene clearly parallels Gojo and Megumi's first meeting, so I'm gonna try to throw my two cents here and explain why Gege choose this direction. Remember what I said about Yuuji giving us the hope of the new gen escaping from the shackles of generational trauma? Well, I think this parallel is a way in saying that what Megumi needed when he was so young was someone to see him and his pain who's just a kid abandoned and forced to fend for themselves because the prime adults decided to to dip out. This is Megumi we are talking about here who's unaddressed issues stays hidden beneath all the pressure of him being The Ten Shadows Technique. He's valued for his technique. That's why Gojo showed up to meet him in the first place. That's also what the jujutsu system looked after for their child soldiers. Yuuji tries to break this chain of trauma their mentor unknowingly repeats. He'll show up for Megumi again and again because he's his dear friend even if Megumi's being difficult to be pulled out of Sukuna. And the beautiful thing is Yuuji didn't had some grand inspiring speech or grand offer to convince Megumi, he wasn't even sure Megumi will be up for it. Yuuji simply want to say that he matters to him. That understands him. That he's important to him so much he'll be sad when he dies, and it mattered.

"This is...Fushiguro Megumi's...!!"

And now that Megumi is showing signs in taking his body back, it's now his turn to save himself. Yuuji did his part, and for someone whose future has been controlled by everyone but himself, this time Megumi gets to decide what comes next.

[venuscnjunctpluto]

Astro pt 3.

Credit: @venuscnjunctpluto

(I’m on spring break and literally have 50 other things I should be doing but we’re back at it again folks😝)

Venus conjunct saturn women 🤝 men w mommy issues

The worst moon square moon beef I’ve seen is Taurus and Aquarius. Both won’t let it go like the Taurus moon thinks they’re making sense while the Aquarius moon wants to seem unbothered it’s a mess.

Taurus Venus people are so beautiful (ex: Victoria Monet, Ariana Grande, Leighton Meester, Cillian Murphy, Matthew Gray Gubler, plus my mom💕)

There are three types of Aquarius risings: one who walks around in pajamas and chokers, one who is legit a model, and the one who wears graphic t shirts and multiple finger rings)

Also I notice a lot of aqua rising women love dressing masculine (ex: Zendaya, Nicki Minaj, and Aaliyah) if you see a girl w her pants sagging with her hat turned backwards w every color of the rainbow on. just know she’s a aqua rising.

Sag Venus women are bisexual ex: Erica Mena, Nicki Minaj, and me lol

Most kpop stans have libra placements and this is coming from a libra moon

Underdeveloped Men w Fixed sign placements are such incel. Leo esp mars when their ego gets hurt they cannot take it. Aquarius thinks they’re too good and smart for women so they can’t understand why no one wants to be around them. Do I even need to explain Taurus and Scorpio?😭

Pieces Venuses are down bad ex: the men crave a manic pixie dream partner and when they can’t live up to the natives fantasy; they cheat. The women are usually loyal but they are blind asf and will neglect and abandon their relationships w others just for their partner who may or may not be trash. On a good note; they are very very very giving in relationships and so sweet but just because y’all can give doesn’t mean you have to constantly.

Brent faiyaz and Jungkook have Scorpio Mars😮‍💨 I don’t know what it is but I wanna date one so bad. What’s y’all experiences?

Certain signs and placements date people w similar charts. Like I notice Taurus suns usually date eachother bc who else is about to put up w them (just kidding…no I’m not🙂) also Scorpio placements (ex: future and Ciara, Megan fox and machine gun Kelly, Karruche and Chris brown…these are terrible examples😭)

As far as Venus conjunct ascendant synastry…I honestly only feel the tension when I’m the ascendant. Whenever my Venus conjuncts someone’s asc it doesn’t really move me like I don’t think they’re unattractive I just don’t really gaf. Their personalities are fun because my sag Venus and mars knows they can take a joke. I think Scorpio/8th house doesn’t really care too much about looks and appearances. In fact I notice Scorpio Venus men view the people they date as beneath them in some way and they do that to feel comfortable as if that person can’t get better and leave or cheat.

I always tell people I don’t have a type which I kinda don’t aesthetically but: Virgo rising, moon-Pluto or Scorpio moons, Virgo mars, Taurus suns w aqua moons, air venuses or mars, libra risings, Scorpio mars😚

Blueface and Chrisean have Venus square pluto synastry. When I say they are the most exaggerated example of this synastry it’s crazy. She clearly seems trauma bonded and believes she’s truly in love with this man (Venus). While he’s using her for money (pluto) and maintaining control over her at all times. That’s another thing w Venus Pluto synastry the venus person looks worse in the public eye because we’re always outwardly vulnerable (the good and bad) while Pluto doesn’t show just how insane they are overtly. But he’s the jealous one because peep how mad and aggressive he gets when she gets any sort of attention outside of him (ex: when Drake followed her and he twisted it to be related to him) Pluto really thinks they OWN the Venus person like that Brent lyric “they only wanna fuck with you cause they know I fuck with you” that’s their mentality. (They’re both physically abusive to eachother and need to breakup asap)

Also everyone talks about how much she’s changed for the worst since she got w him. Her missing tooth and getting multiple tattoos of that man. I’ve seen this guy w his Venus square his ex’s Pluto and he looked terrible while w her and when they broke up he got hisself together. My conjunction synastry took me from wearing bold colors to black for months😭

Sag placements esp Venus or mars men are bow legged asf

Lana Del Rey’s catalog is the epitome of 8th house stellium. Constant changes, a certain loneliness that doesn’t go away, learning and growing, but also never giving up hope.🦋

Cancer mars men and their pregnancy fetish…lil durk has like 5,000 kids and his ex India said that she wanted another baby because of how affectionate he was when she was pregnant.

A lot of football/soccer player have air mars. (Ex: mason mount, kylian mbappe, phil foden)

Women w sun-Neptune, Uranus, pluto may have terrible relationships w men bc of their relationship w their father

Aqua, sag, and cap placements are funny asf😭 I’m one of them and I don’t even try but people are always dying laughing around me

I’ve been in two “lust” triangles and both pairs had one Taurus placement friend and one Scorpio placement friend. The Taurus friend (literally both of them had birthday two days apart) liked me and had their Scorpio friend (one was a Scorpio Venus and the other was a Scorpio mars) spy on me or maybe they just offered😭 long story short the Scorpio friend ended up liking me in both situations I just✨felt✨ it. Taurus and Scorpio are both sneaky and possessive they have opposite energy and it’s very likely they could like the same people. It gets complicated because Scorpio is more likely to keep their crush a secret which can cause unintended overlap.

Capricorn mars: I don’t get mad like I rarely get upset😐

Us all hearing them yell behind closed doors and come out like nothing happened:

[franollie]

feeding your haterisms, what ships dyou hate??

only doing ships i actively have filtered out:

1. DICKBABS: nothing will fill me with more rage than seeing babs with two functional legs long hair and a batgirl suit being a sexy lamp for a batboy. a batboy that she was never that interested in for that matter. ALSO, dickbabs only became a thing to invalidate dickkory and more specifically the importance of kory in dick’s life. on an even broader level, it disregards the importance of the role that the titans played in dicks life in favor of pretending that the “batfam” is more important to him. and because of that its a very “tell dont show” ship where all of a sudden they’re inseparable and the worlds cutest sweetest couple because theyre soulmates, but we never really get to see them fall in love so everything just falls flat. the ship doesn’t benefit either one of them and honestly if im in a bad enough mood it can turn me off an entire series

2. timber: i tried. i wanted to like it. its cute i guess it just feels so…fake??? idk it reads like a pr stunt and i hate the tim drake that’s dating bernard because it doesn’t feel like the tim drake i know and love so i just associate it with modern tim…all around just a big squick for me. also ive had some bad interactions with timber stans who were really rude to people who ship tim with other characters notably tam and steph

3. harlivy: ikik this one’s gonna get me. listen, i used to ship them BIG time, and to a certain extent i still do but modern harlivy is NOT the harlivy i fell in love with. unfortunately dc has watered them down and polished them to make them marketable. a fate worse than death…they’ve been defanged. i mean harley’s just a manic pixie dream girl with no real motivations for fucks sake. that being said, im more of an ivycat enjoyer because i think thematically they make more sense and can relate to each other in more significant ways than harlivy can.

[biggie-chcese]

rain code age headcanons because i have literally only ever been choosing ages based on what's funniest but now i wanna cast away my grand layers of irony and be genuine for a moment. also. this goes pretty in depth so be prepped for the long haul when you click read more lmao.

spoilers for the whole game below and it's because of one specific character iykyk

Yakou - this man has the soul of a guy in his late 40s going through what would be his midlife crisis if not for the fact that he's fully aware he passed the midpoint years ago. but that soul is trapped in the body of a guy who doesnt look a day older than 28. what moisturizer does he use? i doubt he even uses anything other than that 13 in 1 shampoo. anyway, i think he's 32.

Halara - 26. nothing really to justify this other than they've got that mid 20s swag but 25 didn't feel right. adult enough to be as competent as they are yet young enough to look like that. moving on.

Desuhiko - 19. i think he's the youngest of the NDA because. well. idk man have you read his dialogue? he's got a whole lot of growing to do and is still very lost on his direction in life. he's giving 'bitch fresh outta high school (or in this case, detective training) and relishing in his freshly obtained freedom."

Vivia - 28? yeah i got nothing for this i am going purely on vibes here. 28 just feels right.

Fubuki - 23. she's clearly still a bit young but is also clearly a grown ass adult who wasn't raised right so i think this makes for a happy medium, especially if she's already been on some worldwide adventures n shit before the game. works out quite swimmingly methinks.

Kurumi - 18. for my personal comfort bc we'll get to yuma later but im not gonna sit here and ignore the way the game constantly grovels at the audience's feet to ship them so id rather she not be any younger than this. anyway, more about her: she tends to hold her own as an informant with more competence, maturity, and effecience than most of the NDA. but she also has a pretty childish black and white view on things, like believing her beloved detectives are always right (girl if you were real you would be ENTRENCHED in stan culture oml do NOT get into minecraft youtubers) but i've... seen 18 year olds on the internet that are exactly the same so whatever

Aetheria girls - putting them all at 17-18 because, based on honorifics, they are treated as upperclassmen by their peers in the Japanese dub. i think waruna is the youngest and kurane is the eldest.

Yomi - 25. he has that vibe. old enough to be taken seriously as an adult but young enough to act like That™. yknow?

Martina - 32. she's giving older woman sexy librarian vibes and generally carries herself with a certain level of poise and maturity but is also a freak in a way that can best be explained by being a woman in her 30s. not elaborating on this

Swank - 41. to me he's like those awful surly businessmen who go to cabaret clubs to drink and smoke their office job woes away and cheat on their wives. but he also has extreme mafia boss swag about it so i kinda love him for that. dunno what this has to do with age tho. moving on.

Seth - 22 because he's giving youngest brother. i think he's the youngest of the peacekeepers in general. guillaume definitely bullies him about this.

Dominic - 34. bro is built like a jojo character what else do you want me to say. he's still got that youthfulness about him that makes me think he's still not going through his midlife crisis, so i wouldn't place him any older

Guillaume - 23. guillaume is so girlypop manic pixie dream girl core that she's definitely got the energy of someone who is young but also strikes the balance of being someone who has a job and a mortgage. dunno how she does it. id like to think she isnt even much older than seth but still bullies him for being the baby of the peacekeepers. do u understand my vision. please. they have so much annoying coworker potential.

shinigami - idk like 1000. she's a death god who cares.

yuma - okay. yeah. look i dont give a singular fuck about age discourse- headcanon whatever you want- but from looking at canon material i genuinely think that he could not possibly be any younger than 21. 20 if we wanna push it. yes, i know he looks young. i have eyes. but also, im in my 20s and the most common thing people tell me when i reveal my age is "oh, i thought you were 15." one time a person asked me if i was 12. at my job. that i was actively working at. i was 20. adults can look young, and contrary to the classic 1000 year old loli dragon trope he doesnt act overtly childish. he acts like a normal fuckin guy. yes he cries but like. you wouldn't in his position? bro speedruns lifelong trauma so skillfully that he's backwards long jumping into alternate universes where everything is somehow worse. i'd be freaked out if he didn't cry. also im aware that the child prodigy detective trope is a thing and that kodaka has written that before but... he was number one three years ago. and the training takes two years. which means, if he is a minor in the game's present day, he started working at the WDO at 12 and became number one at 14... at the oldest. have you ever met a 14 year old? forgive me for not suspending my disbelief here. and really the kicker for me is that yuma has a line where he says he's not sure if he's drinking age (which would be 20 in japan), but you know who would be sure? you know who knows yuma's age better than yuma?

makoto kagutsuchi - this megacorporation CEO has a fully stocked minibar installed in his penthouse. <- sentence i cannot bring myself to believe if it's about a child. since i also cant picture him becoming CEO at age 14 without yomi at least once angrily pointing that out (he only ever mentions that makoto is an outsider, or has his head in the clouds), id like to think both him and yuma, at their youngest, earned their top spots at their respective organizations at 18. it keeps their gifted kid syndrome and young prodigy-ness without making things comically ridiculous or uncomfortable for the sheer amount of sexual situations yuma gets put into.

anyway that's my silly little ramble on age headcanons. this was actually really fun to think about. shoutout to kodaka for leaving out the ages. funniest choice he could've made

[tlbodine]

Overthinking Goosebumps: Monster Blood

Monster Blood was the 3rd Goosebumps book of the classic original series, released in 1992. It's one of the few books to spawn multiple sequels and repeat appearances, which I suspect is due more to Stine's enjoyment of the concept (and flexibility it affords) than it being a fan favorite. I don't know anyone who cites the Monster Blood books as their favorite. There's probably some MB stans out there -- shout out if you are -- I just haven't encountered them.

As a kid, I didn't love this book. I didn't connect much with the main character, who comes off as a bit of a whiner, and the premise didn't really grip me. I also thought it had one of the more boring covers of the original Tim Jacobus runs, since it's just some slimy stairs. That didn't stop me from having a folder with that art on it, which I actually still have and which contains a bunch of cringeworthy young writings from yours truly.

Weirdly enough I'm enjoying it more as an adult then I did as a kid. Maybe that's just the excitement of nostalgia talking. Or maybe I'm seeing and appreciating some things that didn't register or resonate with me as a kid. As an early entry into the series, Monster Blood is finding its footing in terms of tone and style. The formula had not yet been completely perfected, and I think some of its eccentricities are charming, even as other elements have not aged so well.

First, The Story

Monster Blood opens with a young Evan Ross pleading with his mother not to leave him with his weird, old, deaf Great-Aunt Kathryn. We quickly discover that his parents are in the process of moving for his father's job, and while they buy a house and get settled, Evan and his courageous-but-disobedient old cocker spaniel Trigger need to stay with the only available relative they can find -- his father's aunt, who helped raise her nephew but has been quite eccentric after going suddenly and completely deaf 20 years ago.

Evan's stuck with an old lady he can't communicate with and who's a complete stranger to him. Trigger, his only ally, is banished outside for barking at Kathryn's cat. And there is no TV, radio, Nintendo, or other entertainment in sight, aside from a very odd collection of books on science and...witchcraft?

Luckily, Evan does manage to make a friend in the neighborhood in the form of Andy, a girl who's a pretty solid 12-year-old manic pixie dream girl archetype. Andy is funny and bold and definitely shakes things up. Also on the block are twin bullies Rick and Tony Beymer, who enjoy such fun activities as beating up kids, stealing bikes, and tying up cats. They’re a couple little thugs.

Anyhoo, Andy shows Evan a weird curio/toy shop and Evan spends $2 on a dusty can of Monster Blood. At first, this substance would appear to be your regular everyday type of slime — it glows, it stretches, it squeezes, it oozes, it bounces. But over time it begins to change, growing, expanding, overflowing any container it’s placed in. It becomes warm and sticky to the touch and seems to suck and swallow anything in its path.

Worse, Trigger eats some of it and starts to grow, doubling in size until he’s a spaniel the size of a pony.

Everything eventually comes to a head in a collision with the twins, who attempt to steal the substance only to be subsumed by it as it spreads and grows. Aunt Kathryn steps in to intervene, revealing that she is responsible — she laid a witch’s curse on the monster blood that Evan brought home, presumably causing it to grow.

But it’s soon revealed that Kathryn wasn’t working under her own volition. Instead, she’s at the mercy of none other than her black cat Sarah-Beth who is in fact a witch in disguise and who has been controlling Kathryn’s actions this whole time, even causing her deafness in a bid to isolate her. The monster blood ploy was an attempt by the cat/witch to scare Evan away, or at least punish Kathryn for having a visitor.

Luckily Sarah-Beth doesn’t get a chance to act any further on her scheme before a giant size Trigger bowls her over into the monster blood. She’s absorbed, which presumably undoes the spell. Everyone but her is spit back out unharmed, Trigger shrinks to his usual size, and Kathryn even gets her hearing back just in time to explain everything to Evan’s mom who’s arrived to pick him up.

Happy ever after? You’d think, if you didn’t know there are at least three more monster blood books…

Overthinking It

From a critical perspective, the greatest failure of Monster Blood is its third act reveal. The curse is foreshadowed fairly, but Sarah-Beth’s motivation feels thin and slapped together, and none of it really makes a ton of sense. You live in the house with him. Why curse his toy slime, of all things? Why not just trip him on the stairs or bite him or something? If you’re the one calling the shots, why are you choosing to live as a cat? It reads like an ad hoc explanation on Stine’s part to make sense of two disparate plot threads at once: the mysterious slime, and creepy old Aunt Kathryn.

That said, I feel like we’ve glimpsed the very tip of an iceberg of disturbing backstory between these women. I think there’s ample evidence to suggest Kathryn was already involved in witchcraft. What was her relationship with the human Sarah-Beth? What soured it to the point that a powerful magic wielder is willing to live as an animal while exerting total control over someone, forcing her into complete isolation? That is dark and sadistic and I hope somebody out here has written the lovers to enemies fic that goes with it.

Kathryn’s backstory isn’t the only thing that feels like brushing past a glacier. I’m also deeply side-eyeing Evan’s parents. What we know is they’re having this discussion about moving in private. Their kid has to eavesdrop. Is everybody else they know *really* on vacation or is there something else going on that requires reaching out to an elderly relative you haven’t seen in at least a decade? Is it really easier to buy a house without your kid weighing in, or are you sorting out something messier in your relationship?

And that right there is, I think, the key to the actual horror of Monster Blood. It is above all else a story about lacking agency, and the struggle of having responsibility prematurely thrust upon you.

When we meet Evan, it’s easy to get annoyed with his whining. But his circumstance is terrifying. He’s alone in an unfamiliar place, with a stranger he cannot communicate with and whose ways and habits are alien. He is given no say in what happens in his life - he’s being ripped from a familiar school and friends and doesn’t even get a vote in the new house - and the only way he knows any of this is happening is he’s eavesdropped.

Not only is Evan isolated, he’s also forced into independence. Kathryn seems capable of doing the bare minimum to keep the kid alive, but he’s basically left to his own devices. Moreover, he has a dependent (his dog) in his care.

So what happens? He ends up quite literally over his head in a scenario that is growing too big for him.

There’s a nightmare pretty early in the book that is easy to call out as a fake scare. But it reads so neatly as an anxiety dream that I have had, that I hesitate to condemn it. Indeed, the whole book has a kind of feverish anxiety dream logic to it: I opened this can and now the stuff inside won’t go back in. It’s growing out of control and eating everything. My dog is growing out of control and I don’t know why or how to stop it. I can’t even hold onto his leash anymore.

This is classic stress dream stuff. This is the very personification of a loss of control. Faced with a problem, Evan tries to fix it and it grows beyond his ability to cope, but no one else can really help him. This is true for the overflowing monster blood of course, but equally true for the bullies who badly beat him, or the dog with a mystery ailment and a vet who can’t diagnose the problem.

That’s genuinely harrowing stuff.

There are a couple of solid scares in Monster Blood, but far and away the most horrifying is a scene where Evan, having been gone visiting Andy all day, suddenly remembers he needs to check on the dog penned up outside. He rushes out just in time to find Trigger panting and choking hideously, because he’s grown too big for his collar and it’s digging into his throat. Evan struggles for quite a while to free his dog, and we see every desperate rasp and frothing breath, his eyes rolling back, his legs buckling. It is genuinely scary stuff, both viscerally and in its implication. You’re all alone, Evan. You’re the grownup now, you’re responsible for another life, and if you screw this up nobody will help you…and problems are happening that you can’t even comprehend, much less solve.

No wonder the poor kid has nightmares!

I do feel we should spend a moment acknowledging some of the troubling aspects of Great Aunt Kathryn. I don’t feel qualified to weigh in on what her character means for Deaf representation but I have to assume it’s not great. Her apparent refusal to learn to communicate is hammered home again and again. That it’s magically induced and reversed at the end also feels not-great.

I’m also intrigued by her description as being “large” and “robust” and of having a curiously clear but “deep” voice. I get that this is probably just meant to play against the expected frail old lady archetype (it even gets lampshaded in Evan’s inner monologue) but it’s striking to me.

Or maybe I’m just busily mentally writing that “trans Kathryn and her scorned witchy lover” backstory fic. Somebody stop me before I actually write this damn thing.

If You Liked This, Here Are Other Things to Give You Goosebumps

When you’re a kid, strange old people are scary. They just are. It’s a trope R.L. Stine returns to again, most notably in How to Kill a Monster (which for my money is a better Goosebumps book).

But if that trope appeals to you, you may enjoy M. Night Shyamalan’s 2015 found footage horror, The Visit. Viewer beware, you’re in for naked grandma.

If the idea of mystery substances growing and taking over appeals to you, Stine revisits the idea (in a very different way) with The Blob That Ate Everyone, and of course all the subsequent Monster Blood books.

But I doubt this book would exist if not for 1958's The Blob, where a young Steve McQueen battles an indestructible blob from space. Or, for that matter, the reboots -- 1972's Beware! The Blob (a sequel) and 1988's The Blob (a remake, with a decidedly darker tone).

I'd also recommend The Stuff, a 1985 low-budget cult classic about 80s consumer culture and a mysterious substance that takes over the people who consume it. There's even a memorable sequence with a dog eating some and becoming...uh...different.

That's all from me for now. How about you? Feelings on Monster Blood? Did you ever kind of want some as a kid? Do you ever eyeball a can of slime at the store and think about this story? Come tell me about it.

[utilitycaster]

13 and/or 23 for the ask game

13. the core 3 Vanguard generals. Someone remarked how no one kept insisting that like, Vecna or the Briarwoods or Trent had a point - they had their fans, but they were either the cool kind of villain stans of the "hell yeah ruin everything and be evil! can't wait until you get murdered but it will be fun while it lasts!" or in a handful of cases, unhinged weirdos mad about unrelated shit, mostly re: Caleb's relationship choices, who decided Trent wasn't threatening enough. There were people who were very sympathetic to Lucien, but they were largely people who thought Molly was more present within him instead of, essentially, the bitch in his ear, so this reduces to Molly Blorbification and can be solved as such. But like, people are like "what if Ludinus is right?" and it's like. he's done a little too many "destructions of entire cities that were nothing but at minimum tolerant of him" for that. Moving on, Otohan has no personality, never did, and so if you treat her as anything but a dope-ass stat block in a leather bodysuit you've blorbified too much, and oh, let's talk Liliana. Because the thing is: I do think Liliana is extremely sympathetic. She is, in fact, the character my "a character can be sympathetic and wrong" post is about, though obviously it's much more widely applicable. But something that recently struck me is how many people who were filled with nothing but vitriol for Relvin after episode 48 have, despite no new information other than "Liliana thinks fondly of him", suddenly acted like this was a deeply touching moment from Imogen (which it is! but if you've been a dick about Relvin it's like ?????) and it's like...given that it was clear he still loved her from his appearance, it feels extremely blorbo-centric morality. Liliana skipped out on Imogen to join a cult, and I get why, but it was all "Imogen's trying to connect with her MOTHER" well a cool way for that to have happened is for her mother to have BEEN PHYSICALLY PRESENT. All of which is to say I think Liliana is redeemable, and she's slowly (pushed by Imogen the whole way) been moving in a heroic direction, but she's still done an immense amount of harm to her family and to the world, and it feels like a lot of people cannot wrap their heads around the possibility that you can be both a victim and also hurt others simultaneously.

23. I wouldn't say it was unwilling - you can't really make me do anything I don't want to in fandom, to be totally honest, because I am an adult confident in my opinions and intelligence - but Callow/moore is something I didn't expect to like and ended up greatly enjoying. The early shipping of it was like. there's some vague flirting but you're all kind of projecting the same generic manic pixie dream girl narrative people put on Jester's relationship with Caleb (and, to a lesser extent, Fjord). It also, to me at least, felt really pair the spares early on, and I still have several shippers of it blocked for being absolutely vile towards Chetney, like, genuinely saying shit "my wish list is that Ashton cockblocks Chetney this episode", like, not even Ashton and Fearne kissing, just Ashton spiting Chetney. (Said shippers are also, to be honest, some of the worst offenders of refusing to understand that Fearne is nonmonogamous). HOWEVER the canon ship is actually a lot of fun.

[delivish]

haha your recent tumblr Stutters piece finally let me connect the dots on what was vaguely familiar about the pairing that was bugging me because I couldn’t remember the name for it 💡😮 ❤️❤️ so thank you! ❤️❤️❤️

The phrase was “manic pixie dream girl” 🤔 just cause to me Stan/Butters pairing gives off major MPDG energy or I guess in this specific case boy/girl/bigender?Genderfluid? depending how people write Margarine/Butters. My interpretation of the pairing is a quirky, bubbly sunshine that revitalizes a sad sack by emotionally supporting them and showing them life still has joy and meaning. 😂 Which despite feminist critique is still fun to read 😝. Though this is entirely based off fics I have read where he is a depressed alcoholic all the time, since I have no frame of reference since I don’t follow the show. Though not necessary I think there is potential for trope subversion as well. Curious what your interpretation is on how they fit together?

oooooo!! hmmm, see, while I could certainly see Stutters falling into a lot of the manic pixie dream girl tropes, I don't necessarily see it for them (and I'm not the most, like. eloquent person? so forgive me if this is all word vomit that doesn't make a ton of sense, but I will do my best!!)

namely because in a lot of MPDG tropes, the pixie is meant to be this quirky, lovable character with no real flaws whose only function to is to provide emotional support to their love interest, or to teach him important life lessons, all while receiving very little in return. and, despite the pixie's love interest being objectively the saddest, wettest beast you can imagine, somehow he still gets his girl because. idk, pity I guess?? lmao

but Butters is a significantly flawed person. they BOTH are. Butters is a gossip, he's a follower, he's naive, he's a people-pleaser who can be easily coerced; he's the type of person who won't stand very firmly on his convictions, especially if it means people might like him more or he has a chance to feel powerful and be a part of the in-crowd. BUT. he's also a hard worker, and a bright, selfless and genuinely kind person who loves life and loves making other people happy!!

and Stan is an absolute sweetheart, but i also think he can also be a sad sack who takes himself much too seriously and a cynic and someone who cares a lot about his image but conversely can be very, very insecure. his tenderness and sensitivity are assets, but i also think he's someone whose feelings can be hurt very easily and doesn't always think or even consider the ways in which his own behavior contributes to some of his grief because he kinda romanticizes it in a way! i can see him being the type of person you could come to with very real concerns, and somehow end up comforting anyway even though you did nothing wrong, lmao

(which, as an aside, is why i think Style really, really works as a pairing because Kyle is someone who absolutely refuses to coddle Stan, but we're not talking about them!!!!)

i think they would both get on each other's nerves at first. i think Stan, while genuinely liking Butters, would find him kind of weak and annoying, whereas Butters would think Stan is cool but also an impossible wet blanket at times. and because Butters can be an easy target, and Stan cares a lot about his image, I think the thought of being with Butters seriously would embarrass him a little because seriously?? him??

these two aren't the most obvious match and I love them anyway because I find all the ways they would butt heads and still fall for each other really fun. because i do think they would be good for each other, but they'd have to work at it, and that's just!!!!!!! Idk, so much more interesting to me!!! because they DO see each others' faults, and for all the ways each one annoys the other, I think they are both really, really kind people who would treat the other very tenderly, and be very intentional about it (I also think they'd have the most INSANE unexpected physical chemistry hehee)

anyway ramble over the only other thing I'll say is if you like South Park, you should definitely watch the show, all of it!! not only is it goddamn hilarious, but it is very difficult to build solid fanon interpretations if you don't engage with canon <3

[sanyu-thewitch05]

Imagine Male Yandere Artists X Female Reader Creation. Obviously inspired from the Greek myth of Pygmalion…but think of how much worse and complicated it’d get if poor reader Darling was a project worked on by multiple men together…It’s almost as if this is now Greek Pygmalion myth X Helen of Troy myth. Let the war for love begin.

General premise…reader Darling comes to life through the power of the mens’ accidental prayers of love to the goddesses of love. She is everything the men wanted in a woman somehow (dare I say Mary Sue territory, and a sprinkle of Manic Pixie Dream Girl I suppose since she is still otherworldly just being born and all). Doesn’t help that Darling is also enchanting every man she meets across the city too. Her creators all get mad jealous, and fight over who has the true “rights to have her,” (cause we stan men who see women as their property *sarcasm). Climax…the creator men end up offing each other off in the art studio (battle royale style), and their blood mixes together into another art creation they had collaborated on together. And through the power of love and “friendship” (*cue jazz hands), the men are reborn into one, and can pursue Darling more easily. I’ll leave up to you if Darling is genuinely more pleased with this new outcome of the mens’ rebirth, or if she’s terrified to no end of what they’ve become. (I trust your writing skills as always). Either way, no escape for her. The power of love is a formidable foe…

A/N: Some of these asks might be late because I'm trying to brainstorm as for what to do character-wise. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Your body was crafted from clay and stone. Your hair and scalp are threaded from spider webs, horse hair, and human hair. Your body shines with the finest oil. You are the perfect woman. The name on your plague was...well, you didn't have a specific name, so per se. But your creators decided to name your statue Earth's Women. Your name was because of your magical abilities. In the morning sun, your hair is curly, and your skin is olive-brown. By the afternoon, your skin is dark brown, and your hair is so coily it sometimes is in an Afro. During the evening, your skin whitens, and your hair straightens out. By nightfall, your skin is an albino white, and your hair is bone straight.

Because of these abilities, you gained the love of millions around the world. Many prayed for you to be alive. For you to be their perfect woman. Then, one day, the sunlight shining on you made your body crack. Your creators were so upset that they closed the exhibit to fix you. When your creators touched your skin, your statue crumbled. Screams and dust fill the room. Suddenly, your human body rises from the rubble.

"Where am I?" You ask, dust covering your dark skin.

"My God, she's alive," An olive skin man with black curly hair says. "Stai bene?"

You try to move your naked body, but you fall. Your legs are too wobbly.

"Get her a towel, Leon! She's never used her legs before," Ciro commands, rushing to pick you up from the debris. "And bring some bandages and wound treatments too! She's bleeding!"

Several hours later, you are properly introduced to your creators. There are six creators, and they call themselves the Sexy Six. Each one created a body part for you. Leon DiCardio made your head, Ciro Nikolaou shaped your torso and bosom, Aoi Hiroshige crafted your left leg, Matias Dorado sculpted your right leg, Abe Okoro created your right arm, and Caspian Narain made your left arm. Together, six men from different continents made a woman representing every girl.

"So what are you going to do with me, now?" You ask, tightening your fluffy robe.

"We're going to have to hide you from the public. They can't know you've come to life. You're something a leader would start a war for," Ciro says, giving you a cup of water.

"That's a bit unfair, isn't it? If the goddess answered their prayers to have her come to life, shouldn't we introduce her to the public? If we don't, we'd be defying the goddess's will," Leon says, making Ciro think about his decision.

"True. I suppose we could take her out in public. But only if she wears a cloak to cover her face," Ciro says, making everyone happy.

When you walked through the city, you could understand every conversation. Turns out, you can understand every language known to mankind. It was overwhelming, but Matias helped you power through it by distracting you with clothing. Abe took you away from Matias soon after and showed you the foods of every culture. You tasted everything, and even brought back sweets. You hardly even noticed Caspian glaring at Abe before he snatched you away to learn how to dance.

You are simply beautiful to him, to everyone, really. Your skin getting darker and your hair becoming coils under the afternoon sun while you twirl in circles was a scene that magic could've created. In the sun, you are everyone's Cinderella.

"Let's go, Every," Ciro says, dragging you away from the crowd.

"Hey, I wasn't done yet!" You whine, trying to stop Ciro from moving.

"I don't care. You're drawing too much attention to yourself," Ciro replies, putting your cloak back on and walking you home.

When you arrive home, Ciro puts you in a windowless white room. You lay on your bed and stare at the white ceiling.

"It must be nighttime," You say, noticing your hair is straight. "I wonder what my creators do during the night? I wonder what humans do when the sun falls?"

You sneak out of your room and tip-toe to a room with the lights on. You hear arguing and hide behind the wall.

"You can't keep her to yourself!" Matias yells, breaking a glass.

"Says the man showed her clothes like it was a date!" Ciro hisses, making you flinch.

"Hah, please! If you want a date, try Mr. Prince Charming of Oceania! He was dancing and twirling with her in the middle of town!" Matias retorts, making Caspian stand up with fury.

"At least I wasn't trying to charm her with food!" Caspian yells, glaring at Abe.

"I don't see how you brutes made such a pretty thing," Leon remarks, looking at his peers fighting.

"Don't drag me into this, Mario," Aoi insults, making Leon grab his shirt collar.

"Don't call me that you piece of crap," Leon snarls, making Aoi smile.

"You know what, I have an easy way to settle this. Whoever is the last one standing gets to claim Every for their own. I always hated having to share credit for creating her, anyway," Aoi wagers, pulling out a blade.

"Fine by me," Ciro says, pulling out a dagger.

Everyone pulls out their blades, daggers, and knives and begins their battle. You try to stop them, but you get thrown to the side. Cuts and bruises are made, but no one is dead yet. A trail of blood leads to the art room, and you see Ciro stab Matias through the heart. The Spaniard falls to the ground and extends a hand as if he was reaching for you.

"Matias!" You scream, running to his body.

Leon's bleeding corpse is thrown onto you as Aoi is on a stabbing rampage. You glimpse at the hole in Leon's head and throw up on the floor. When you look up again, all is silent. The floor is painted red, and Aoi is the only one standing. He looks at you with a crazed smile and drops his blade.

"You're mine. My work of art. My woman," Aoi says, hugging you with his bloody body.

You can only hug him back in horror. A squelching sound comes from below you, and you see Abe stabbing a dagger into Aoi's back. Aoi slowly releases his hug, then collapses onto you. His blood has stained your whole being red.

"What am I going to do now?! You all were supposed to help me!" You cry, putting your bloody hands on your face as you weep.

You cry until morning. When you awaken from your exhaustion-fueled sleep, you find bloody footprints. Your former creator's latest statue, coined Luno, is missing.

"Where did it go?" You question aloud, getting up from the sticky floor.

"My love, you're awake," A naked man says, coming from behind a wall.

"Luno, you're alive?" You ask, backing away from him.

"Yes, the goddess of love spared mercy on us and brought me to life for you. Through the blood sacrifice of our masters, I am here to be your divine equal," Luno says, kneeling and kissing your hand. "I have all the traits our six masters did."

You snatch your hand away, and trip over Aoi's corpse.

"Princess, be careful. I don't want you to trip over anyone and hurt yourself," Luno says, his face shifting into something similar to Ciro's.

"I don't want anything to do with them! Not after how they killed each other!" You shriek, standing up and heading towards the secret entrance.

"My love, wait!" Luno yells, running after you.

You close the stone door behind you and pant, looking at it. Luno's muscular arm punches a hole through the wall, and his eye looks at you.

"Eve, don't run from me! We are made to be!" Luno yells, breaking more of the stone.

You don't waste any time running away, your feet leaving bloody footprints. You don't know where this passage leads to, but you don't want to be here. Not with him.

"Seafoam?" You question, seeing signs of the sea on the lower walls and stairs.

You get onto the last step and look at the blue water. Luno's heavy footsteps are getting closer, and you don't have time to think. If you were every woman on Earth, surely you could be a mythical creature as well. You dive into the water, swimming till you find the open sea. Your master's blood washes off of you, and you swim to wherever you want to go. Luno, arriving too late, stared at the bloody mist in the water at the bottom of the stairs. In his eyes, a vow to always be yours and always find you is made.

Thus beginning the never-ending cycle of you running from him. An everlasting, divine hunt for the woman with a thousand faces. Prey to be caught for the man with a thousand features.

[steelbluehome]

Paste Magazine

A Different Man‘s Exhilarating, Insightful Genre Blend Is More than Skin Deep

By Katarina Docalovich

April 2, 2024

You can change your hair, you can change your clothes, you can surgically change your face to that of Hollywood hunk Sebastian Stan, and you’ll still be the same awkward, unlikeable weirdo on the inside. Or at least, that’s what writer/director Aaron Schimberg asserts in A Different Man, an exhilarating blend of body horror, dark comedy, sci-fi and romance. Even with all the power of the 21st century’s most scientifically advanced beautifying technology, the human race has still not figured out a medical surgery to make us better people, perhaps because this wouldn’t be a particularly profitable industry (but that’s a discussion for another time).

It’s not that Edward (Sebastian Stan), an unsuccessful actor afflicted with neurofibromatosis, is a particularly vain individual. In fact, he’s hesitant to undergo the radical facial surgery that eradicates his disfigurement. It just so happens that the surgery gives Edward Patrick Bateman levels of handsomeness. Can you blame Edward for taking that chance? Who among us wouldn’t opt to look a hundred times more conventionally attractive?

It’s once Edward abandons his own name for a fake sounding one and forsakes his former nice guy identity for a new debaucherous life as a wealthy real estate asshole that we realize, hey, maybe this wasn’t such a great guy to begin with. On top of that, maybe I, the viewer, am also an asshole for assuming Edward was a decent guy just because his face was deformed. This is a layer that Schimberg explored with his previous film Chained for Life; is it more morally deplorable to gawk at or to pity the severely deformed?

We can judge Edward’s new neighbor Ingrid (The Worst Person In the World’s Renate Reinsve), an aspiring playwright, for not giving him a chance because of his affliction, and we can judge her for many other things later on that I would hate to spoil, but it is more difficult to judge her for rejecting Edward once his true colors shine through. I was fully prepared to write Ingrid off as a classic manic pixie dream girl when she first busts down Edward’s door wearing a yellow crop top and matching yellow booty shorts that reveal her abs, fawning over his typewriter and adorably asking about his childhood photos, but I underestimated Schimberg’s understanding of the darker and more insidious parts of the female psyche.

It becomes clear that Ingrid has no qualms about lying to herself and using the pain of others for her own artistic gain. Just as it is easy for us to assume Edward was a good person because he was hideous, it is easy for us to assume Ingrid was inherently “good” because of her undeniable beauty and charm. As fate would have it, Ingrid writes a play that feels eerily similar to Edward’s life pre-surgery, and she’s searching for a lead actor—the role Edward was “born to play.” Edward’s newfound beauty is now a curse, and he clings desperately to what could have been.

At the exact moment when Edward believes he can trick himself into recreating the past with Ingrid in some warped way, the charismatic Oswald (Schimberg’s previous collaborator Adam Pearson) enters their lives stage right, and suddenly, he’s everywhere. Pearson is so compelling here that I hope it becomes his new calling card after long being known as “the guy from Under the Skin.” Oswald is the kind of guy who does yoga in the park, already knows the cutest women at the bar, and flawlessly performs karaoke without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. Oswald is so enchanting, lighthearted yet understanding, and funny that you almost don’t even notice his neurofibromatosis-caused facial deformities, proving that you don’t need to look like Sebastian Stan in order to live a prosperous life surrounded by loved ones. He’s Edward’s exact foil.

Much conversation will be hashed and rehashed regarding the third act and final shot of A Different Man, and I found myself questioning whether or not Schimberg would have the technical ability to land the plane after so many twists and turns, but I was silly for doubting him. A Different Man is a major work—even as it shapeshifts from Cronenberg to Kaurismäki, developing into new territory at every turn, Schimberg never loses sight of his central questions: What makes us who we are? What does it mean to be a good person in this weird but beautiful world, surrounded by other people? Without providing precise answers, or resorting to the tired old cliché of “beauty is not skin deep,” Schimberg throws us in a new direction. There are always large objects falling out of the ceiling, and people loudly pounding down the door. Much like life, once you get comfortable in the rhythm of A Different Man, Schimberg shoves you out of your seat and forces you to question what you thought you knew about yourself and those sitting next to you.]p

A Different Man also signals the kind of marriage between independent New York filmmakers and “the Hollywood elite” in a way that we haven’t really seen since Uncut Gems. The supporting cast of A Different Man is a who’s who of New Yorkers who have dedicated much of their lives to independent filmmaking and programming. The list of cameos includes, but is not limited to, Funny Pages director Owen Kline, Screen Slate founder Jon Dieringer, Anthology Films Archives archivist John Klacsmann, and filmmaker/programmer Caroline Golum. Whenever a major producer like Christine Vachon and a consequential actor like Sebastian Stan spot a winning project like A Different Man, much less help those artists behind it bring such a unique vision to fruition, it’s nothing short of a miracle.

Director: Aaron Schimberg

Writer: Aaron Schimberg

Starring: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, Adam Pearson

Release Date: April 3, 2024 (New Directors/New Films) September 13, 2024 (Limited)

[iammissingautumn]

It just me I remember how every south park fanfiction I have read written in 2017, where stan or butters were the love interests,they were always potrayed as "manic dream pixie boys" if that make sense. U know the two types : the depressed manic dream pixie boy who is artistic (Stan) and the always positive one (Butters)

which was a huge misunderstanding on their character??. It kinda mades me laugh but in second hand embarrasment.

@erratic-brainrot u when ur a manic pixie dream girl like butters and i’m a manic pixie dream girl like stan we are in love we are not the same.

Stan was made to be a manic pixie dream girl but god made him amab bc if he did it afab he would be crazy about it

[stephsageek]

[loveinlilies]

CHARACTER BINGO KAZU & ALSO THE RED HEAD YOU SHOWED ME PLEASE <3

KISSES U ON THE FOREHEAD TYYY BESTIE I am. Sending these to u if u rb so quick homie (also PLAYLIST??? CAN I 👉👈 GET DA LINK I LOVE THEM!!)

Edit: THIS NEVER POSTED??? HOMIE??? I have to post this because they're my favs I.

Kazu!!

When I had my manic pixie dream girl phase in high-school I seriously saw this man after my Juza moment and went "he just like me fr"-

now that I've grown and he developed (with oddly similar themes lmao-) I loooooove to see him happy and I just.

WISH ALL MY KAZUNARI STANS THE BEST I LOMF HIM AAAAAUUUUGGGHH (its been so long but. I still loooOOOoveHiIiiIiimMMMM) he deserves better than Tsuzu's berating sometimes (which is why I'm leaning towards azukazu or misukazu) but!! He's so positive and I honestly wish I could keep that energy up. <:)

~

Rinne Amagi

Said I wouldn't like him because of the stereotypical asshole with a golden heart he likes to play as but. Man I fall for those kinds of characters so of COURSE I like the unit I said I wouldn't.

Anyways!! I recommend stories like sudden death or main/scout ones because. He gets so mischaracterized BECAUSE of the asshole persona (like Taichi he's very good at putting up a front!) He's literally so smart and everyone in Crazy B knows he'd put himself in harms way to protect those he loves (it comes from his destined to be ruler situation)

AAAAUGH. I would date/kiss him this smug bastard

[vulpixtual]

fun facts about high school me

i was very obsessed with edie sedgwick. i didn't fuck with andy warhol but i loved her and dressed like her once for a costume party.

i also dressed as a jackson pollock painting for halloween

other fixations i had: sylvia plath, kurt vonnegut, beat happening, jack kerouac and that era of literature, the velvet underground and everything about that scene minus andy warhol, the perks of being a wallflower (lol)

my life goal was to either be like ernest hemingway (write, travel a lot) or carrie bradshaw (write, live in a big city)

i had a pop punk / hardcore phase, but tumblr ruined that for me (thank god)

i didn't go to prom because i was too anti establishment to do something like that and also prom is expensive!!

i did tech for my school's theatre department and i hated it so much lmao

i was the editor in chief for my school's newspaper. that was much better than theatre imo

(not so fun fact) some guy two years older than me became very obsessed with me and then hated me 1. bc i did not like him back 2. he treated me like a manic pixie dream girl and then got upset when i was a normal teenage girl and 3. he thought i knew he plagiarized a story he wrote from an anime (i did not know for the record) so he tried to ruin my life for years. the only reason it stopped was because i got too old for him to care about.

i didn't date for most of high school bc i just didn't like most of the people i knew then. i did have what we would now call orbiters online, mostly on my old tumblr account.

i did okay at school. i was bad at math and science, but good at everything else.

i had kind of basic taste in tv shows. i loved how i met your mother and glee (one of the first fandoms i used tumblr for lol)

i avidly used last.fm which played a big role in me getting my first boyfriend

i wanted to be a redhead so bad and dyed my hair red for most of my high school years

i used to meet people off tumblr all the time and it was not a big deal because it was just other teenagers

a lot of my friends were very into this local band who went through a few different phases and they're now a famousish band. i don't like their music tbh but they were always nice guys. they performed at my friend's 16th birthday party and i once found photos from that party floating around on tumblr and it was surreal.

i smoked weed for the first time when i was a junior in high school

i got in a very big fight with my senior english teacher because she said ayn rand and her books were not political and i was like wtf are you talking about

micro phases i had in high school: loving witch house, wanting to be in skins, wishing i was from socal because i loved best coast so much, rookie mag stan, thinking modcloth was the goat for fashion

[gingerylangylang1979]

There is a post with one of the writer's confirming in a roundabout way that Claire indeed was written a bit Manic Pixie Dream Girl and the arc with Carmy was inspired by romcoms like Garden State and High Fidelity. So it was on purpose. Whether or not that was a good choice is open to interpretation. So yeah, her basically just being an all affirming Carmy stan was intentional. Him being like this lost schoolboy, coming into his own, main character who just happens to be the ideal doting boyfriend was also a choice. It was all sweet and soft but cloying. I feel bad for anyone who really thinks they are sustainable based on what was essentially a fantasy. She never saw his bad side, they never had a fight, she told him nothing bad will ever happen because there isn't another shoe, she said he never needed to apologize. I mean, come on.

We need to talk about Claire (I'm so late to the party I know, forgive me)

I procrastinated a bit to start The Bear S2 for some reason, so when I finally started and almost immediately disliked Claire I thought maybe it was just my biased opinion. But no, not entirely at least, apparently A LOT of people disliked Claire. Makes sense, she's an all-tell-no-show nothing burger of a character. But why? This show is amazing, can't be that it's bad writing, not specifically for one character.

I saw a few people theorizing that she's bland like that because the way we're seeing her is the way Carmy sees her. The old tale of falling in love with the imaginary version you created of someone instead of the real person they are. That would make sense, they chose to do it in a extremely annoying way, but it does make sense. Carmy had a crush on her as a teenager but never acted on it, so he probably already had this imaginary version of her ready to go since he was younger. And that's why she seems exactly like that, an imaginary woman idealized by a teenage boy with a crush. The extreme close-ups and ASMR-dialog every scene she's in plays into that as well, we're seeing this very narrow vision of this character. Watching her feels so forced and unreal, because it is.

And even (almost) every male character in the show being like "Claire is so perfect" would play into that same ingenue-trope fantasy these men created of this girl (not in a weird way, btw), because none of them really know-know her as a person.

If that's the case, if that's what they were going for, bravo! And I'm all in to see how this cracks, how Carmy comes to realize it's not healthy to try and date the idealized version of a real person because, sooner or later, reality will prevail and not correspond to the imagination, leaving everyone disappointed.

If that's what they were going for, I'm excited to see how it plays out in S3. This will be some very interesting development in Carmy's arc. - And then we'll need Syd's to be pushed in a similar fashion (but with different means) as well. Hence the Marcus plot. - But ok, that last part is very-very biased speculation, for sure.

---

Or not, or I'm all wrong. I am delusional after all, you already knew that by my last post. Curious to see what you guys think though.

[weaversweek]

#Uncool500 - the big list (middle bit)

Follow-up to (the bottom bit) and before (the top end)

This is from the #Uncool50 music biography I did in October and November. Contest sponsor @nonoxcol@twitter.com has compiled a full #Uncool500 from our nominations.

Each nomination was worth 10 points, but we could each nominate four singles for 11 points, and one song for 12 points. (“Since yesterday” was my 12-pointer, the 11s went to “Constant craving”, “You oughta know”, “The middle”, “Bulletproof”.)

Ties are broken in a lot of ways. It’s all inspired by “This is Uncool”, a handbook of great singles from the last quarter of the 20th century. Anything in that book gravitated to the top of the tie; anything from this century followed, and songs from the 20th century and not in the book came further down.

Acts that had a lot of songs nominated went ahead of acts with just the one big hit. Where a player had nominated the same act three or more times, the singles they'd nominated got relegated to the bottom of the tie - this happened to REM and Duran Duran.

This section covers songs with 4 or 5 nominations, positions 226 to 109.

40 points 226 Dr. Mabuse - Propaganda 225 Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty 224 Let the music play - Shannon 223 Pacific - 808 State 222 Kids in America - Kim Wilde 221 Automatic - The Pointer Sisters 220 Spacer - Sheila & B Devotion 219 Hurt - Johnny Cash 218 World in motion... - Englandneworder 217 Let's dance - David Bowie 216 Sowing the seeds of love - Tears For Fears 215 Under pressure - Queen 214 Running up that hill - Kate Bush 213 3am eternal (live at the SSL) - The KLF 212 Living in another world - Talk Talk 211 Pale shelter - Tears For Fears 210 A town called Malice / Precious - The Jam 209 It's my life - Talk Talk 208 This must be the place (naive melody) - Talking Heads 207 Shout - Tears For Fears 206 Big Decision - That Petrol Emotion 205 World shut your mouth - Julian Cope 204 Everlong - Foo Fighters 203 Uptown funk - Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars 202 Connection - Elastica 201 Fell in love with a girl - White Stripes 200 All my friends - LCD Soundsystem 199 Tender - Blur 198 I travel - Simple Minds 197 Got to give it up - Marvin Gaye 196 Insomina - Faithless 195 Spellbound - Siouxsie and the Banshees 194 Stan - Eminem 193 Hounds of love - Kate Bush 192 It's a sin - Pet Shop Boys 191 What difference does it make? - The Smiths 190 Kiss - Prince and the Revolution 189 White lines (don't don't do it) - Grandmaster and Melle Mel 188 Don't you want me - Human League 187 Regulate - Warren G ft Nate Dogg 186 Rapper's delight - Sugarhill Gang 185 Push it - Salt n Pepa 184 September - Earth, Wind and Fire 183 WFL (Wrote for luck) - Happy Mondays 182 Live forever - Oasis 181 Step on - Happy Mondays 180 Gigantic - Pixies 179 Losing my religion - REM

41 pts 178 Wonderful life - Black 177 Song to the siren - This Mortal Coil 176 Faster / PCP - Manic Street Preachers 175 All of my heart - ABC 174 The wild ones - Suede 173 You get what you give - New Radicals 172 Forbidden colours - Sylvian and Sakamoto 171 Good life - Inner City 170 Take me out - Franz Ferdinand 169 Since I left you - Avalanches 168 Come on let's go - Broadcast 167 Up the junction - Squeeze 166 Enola Gay - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 165 Save a prayer - Duran Duran 164 True faith - New Order 163 Rock lobster - B52s 162 Procession / Everything's gone green - New Order 161 You made me realise - My Bloody Valentine 160 Pull up to the bumper - Grace Jones

42 pts 159 Brilliant mind - Furniture 158 Since yesterday - Strawberry Switchblade 157 Back to black - Amy Winehouse 156 French disco - Stereolab 155 Uncertain smile - The The 154 Avenue - Saint Etienne 153 My lovin' (you're never gonna get it) - En Vogue 152 Ain't nobody - Rufus and Chaka Khan 151 That's entertainment - The Jam

44 pts 150 The perfect kiss - New Order 149 Voodoo ray - A Guy Called Gerald 148 Say hello wave goodbye - Soft Cell

50 pts 147 Just like heaven - The Cure 146 Close to me - The Cure 145 Echo beach - Martha and the Muffins 144 The man with the child in his eyes - Kate Bush 143 Out of space - The Prodigy 142 With every heartbeat - Robyn with Kleerup 141 Tinseltown in the rain - The Blue Nile 140 Fast car - Tracy Chapman 139 Killing in the name - Rage Against the Machine 138 Love like blood - Killing Joke 137 Leave them all behind - Ride 136 Stand and deliver - Adam and the Ants 135 Everybody wants to rule the world - Tears For Fears 134 Crazy in love - Beyoncé 133 Left to my own devices - Pet Shop Boys 132 A design for life - Manic Street Preachers 131 Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys 130 Reward - Teardrop Explodes 129 Oliver's army - Elvis Costello and the Attractions 128 Knowing me knowing you - ABBA 127 Never understand - The Jesus and Mary Chain

51 pts 126 Regret - New Order 125 One more time - Daft Punk 124 I bet you look good on the dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys 123 Last nite - The Strokes 122 Dancing on my own - Robyn 121 Get ur freak on - Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott 120 Animal nitrate - Suede 119 Inner city life - Goldie 118 Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt 117 Nothing compares 2 u - Sinéad O'Connor 116 The look of love - ABC 115 Good times - Chic 114 Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

52 pts 113 The whole of the moon - The Waterboys 112 This corrosion - Sisters of Mercy 111 Golden Brown - The Stranglers 110 Going underground - The Jam

53 pts 109 Justified and ancient - KLF ft Tammy Wynette

Footnotes 162 - 20 specifically to the “Everything's Gone Green” 12" mix, 10 to "Everything’s gone green” in general, and 11 to Procession 135 - No nominations for "Everybody wants to run the world", an official remake.

The final part of the countdown - positions 108-1, six and more nominations, will come after Christmas.