#I think i fully developed immunity to that kind of stuff

[dead-inside-demiboy]

Damn, gross food descriptions just do not phase me anymore I have learned.

[genshin-side-piece]

Sorry for yet another Neuvillette thirst but I keep thinking about kinda accepting him as your captor caretaker and that you can never get away from him, but now you don’t know how to act around him

The awkwardness between the two of you before was because, well, you didn’t like being kept in his house and having no autonomy, but now that you tolerate him (and dare I say, like him) the dynamic is changed and you don’t know what to do

You used to runaway or push him away when he was near but now the two of you are sitting amicably on the couch and you’re heart is fluttering and your face is on fire because he’s so close (and, you begrudgingly admit, quite attractive)

I love the idea of a once defiant darling developing a crush on their yandere and not knowing how to deal with it because suddenly everything is so awkward 🫣

Keep em coming! I love to talk about this kind of stuff. :) Hopefully I don't burst your bubble.

There's a bunch of different things going on here, so I'm going to break it down into pieces.

Let me start with the scenario itself. Is it possible, yes. Do I think a bunch of other stuff has to happen to make it possible? Also yes.

To me, when it comes to fictional yandere scenarios, there are two types of acceptance that can occur. There is acceptance of the situation and the reality of which darling finds themselves and then there is acceptance of the yandere themselves as anything more than a captor or keeper.

The way I view Neuvillette and his darling is that ultimately darling has accepted the life he has provided them, because there is no other option for them. If they manage to escape or if he casts them out, they will in theory have nothing. More so, if they try to explain where they've been or the situation to anyone, it's doubtful many would view the circumstances as truly horrible. Darling had a good home, provided for by the Iudex himself. Regardless of his "quirks", they're insane to leave it. I've said this in another post, but to me Neuvillette carries some built in immunity due to his position and reputation. Darling also lacks one crucial thing when it comes to all of this and that's evidence of mistreatment or wrong doing. Without it, people may view Neuvillette's over all actions as a kindness and darling as ungrateful for seeking outside assistance.

In the series, darling chooses to stay when Neuvillette sends them away during the crisis and they choose to accept their fate when it comes to him. What they don't do is choose him. Neuvillette remains as he always was. He is still their captor/keeper. The change is that protector is added to that list and darling feels/shows gratitude for him keeping them safe during the crisis. That gratitude takes the form of tolerance, specifically of Neuvillette and his need to be by darling's side. Tolerance is not equal to friendship or love. Acceptance is not the same as forgiveness.

Let's not beat around the bush. What Neuvillette has done is wrong. It can be classified as illegal. In order for things to progress between the two of them, Neuvillette would have to offer recompense to Darling for his misgivings, as well as extend a fair amount of trust when it comes to darling's movements. He would have to allow them their full liberty with the understanding that they will come back to him AND not try to turn him in. In turn, Darling would have to fully forgive Neuvillette for his actions and demonstrate that same level of trust by fully allowing him into their life, with the understanding that he will not try to control it. If that doesn't happen, then both subjects become an awkward sticking point between the two and the relationship goes into a weird territory. I don't think it's impossible for darling to develop feelings for Neuvillette without forgiveness. They've been locked in the house with him for a year, with varying levels of contact. The way I see them in my mind, is that they chalk the crush up to convenience or captive audience and not real feelings. I think it would go as far as them having their stupid sexy Flanders moment with Neuvilette and that would be it. Also hopefully I'm not aging myself with that reference. :)

That being said, IF both sides can come together, then I think they can safely move into crushes and butterflies in the stomach over how Neuvillette's whole face lights up when he smiles or how good his arms feel around them at night. I can't say for sure how Neuvillette would respond to the crush, but I think he would find their awkwardness fascinating and that's if he finds it awkward at all. The idea that they want to be near him, that they want to touch him? He's over the moon about that. He'll happily drink up every moment he can with darling, if for no other reason than he doesn't know if their mood will change and they'll begin avoiding him again. He just sort of goes with it, planning or in certain instances plotting different ways to keep them close. Him hiding all the throw blankets except for the ones big enough for two come to mind. He picks up the latest detective novel or the latest gossip rag and reads it to them as he encourages them to take their afternoon nap in his lap. They both go for walks in the country or he tells awful jokes that he picks up from the gestionnaires in the Palais, all in the hope that he can make them smile or laugh. The sky is really the limit in terms of how hard he tries. The question is, how much do you want to encourage him?

[lollytea]

Unfortunately due to TOH being cut short by Disney a lot of character arcs and more storyline could not be fully fleshed out and finished as Dana had to wrap up everybody’s story in just a few episodes

I'm fully aware that Disney's intervention is responsible for a lot of the plotlines getting suffocated. Which is why I don't think it's fair to go harassing crew members with "why didn't THIS happen??" and all that, because nobody really knows what they endured working on those final episodes and how much they had to cut and rewrite. But from things Dana has said, it was likely a very stressful and exhausting experience. So I don't like to make assumptions about the crew being incompetent. Nobody knows how the season WOULD have turned out if they had been granted full creative freedom and breathing room to develop it to their hearts content.

However, me not directing personal ire towards the crew doesn't mean that I think that the show is immune to criticism. Its flawed. It might not be entirely the crew's fault but that doesn't mean we can't talk about how it's flawed. If anything, I think acknowledging and dissecting its weaknesses is a good learning opportunity for what we should consider when creating our own stories.

Season 3 is a bit of a mess. There's good stuff. There's some less than good stuff. I think ultimately, as a story about Luz, King and Eda, it knocks it out of the park. When they were left with no other option, they decided to prioritize the writing of their three protagonists and I think that was the correct choice.

But I've been thinking about the three specials and how they stand on their own, quality wise, and honestly, there's valid criticism to be said that is completely unrelated to the shortening.

Bear in mind that the crew has known since Follies that the show was getting cut short and they needed to start wrapping up loose ends. So it's not like they started writing Thanks to Them believing it was the first of 20+ more episodes. They knew that they were going to be writing a 40 minute special. So the execution had to be tight, concise and satisfying, right?

Well...it was....weird. Definitely fun. Good for fan service. The main hook was the witch kids navigating the human world in their dorky witchy way. And initially, that was enough. But once the novelty of that wears off and we focus on the plot of the special, what do we have left?

Thanks to Them is very guilty of lore baiting. Dropping in stuff that they know damn well that they're never going to elaborate on, leaving the audience with a feeling of intrigue that is never going to be satiated.

I personally think that is just bad writing. They knew they didn't have a full season 3 and rather than rewrite the means of which the hexsquads finds answers, they still made the choice to drop in what are most likely vague ideas from the initial draft.

I think, if they had no intention of developing it in future specials, there was no point to that scene of Masha telling the Wittebane story. It was just...filler. To stretch out the running time. Which is....kind of precious. Only 40 minutes. If you're obsessive enough about lore, you already knew the story from the Hollow Mind paintings. That scene was for casual viewers. Which is useless, because there's no point in casual viewers learning about Evelyn and Caleb because it never went anywhere.

Also. I personally think that if there was any value to learning the Wittebane lore without making it plot relevant, it would be for the sake of character development. We wanted to know how the kids would react to this knowledge.

Well how did they react?

*Shrug* They seemed a little unnerved but they kinda forgot about it the second they got off the hayride.

So what was the point of all that? What was the point?

Is it because we wanted "Goodbye, Evelyn," to be more of gut punch?

Was it worth it? Was "Goodbye, Evelyn" worth it? We know fucking nothing about Evelyn.

I think the rebus was a stupid and lazy means for the kids to discover Titan's blood. You introduce this mysterious object that was hidden under the floorboards and then you just use it as a plot device.

When the kids uncover the rebus and find the secret code inside, the viewer is not thinking about how it can be used as a means to an end (finding blood) The viewer is thinking "what the fuck is that thing and how did it get there and how did Flapjack know it was there?"

Questions that will not be answered <333

ALL IM SAYING is that I'm sure the crew could have come up with another way for the kids to have a Titan's blood treasure hunt. Maybe they could have dug a little more into the history of Gravesfield and follow leads on weird things happening on this one spot in the graveyard (which turns out to be because there's magical energy there, revealed when Luz realizes she can use glyphs)

I just think that if you're gonna leave the mystery box a mystery, you shouldn't have included it.

And I know. Its subtle storytelling. There's elements of what could have been a far more complex story and they're leaving hints of it here and there.

Well the thing about that is I think the hints are very unsatisfying and weaken the episode's plot significantly.

Also I don't think they should get to just pick and choose what parts of the lore are subtle and what parts are ham-fisted.

YES we are going to be reminded like three times that Flapjack is being secretive and hiding things from Hunter.

NO we are never going to get a payoff for that because he gets shanked and dies first.

BUT!! BUT!! If you squint, its IMPLIED that Flapjack belonged to Evelyn and blah blah blah

You don't get to rub things in the audience face and then choose to be all subtle about it at the last minute. Pick one or the other.

Anyway....I think they could have written Thanks to Them as more of an intriguing and suspenseful horror mystery where they spend forty minutes gathering clues and everything finally clicks together at the very end. That's not what we got.

We got a very weak attempt on the Hexsquad's part to be little detectives, but like a minute of screen time was devoted to them dicking around in a library, a costume shop, and a zoo.

I don't think we can blame the shortening for this.

[lesbianwyllravengard]

Resident Evil (4 remake) x Detroit: Become Human AU

I made these arts MONTHS ago and never shared them. There's more I wanna draw for this crossover au but this is what I've got now. I of course came up with elaborate backstories behind everything.

Some AU lore if you're interested:

-on top of what Ashley's stuff says, she was long in development to become the perfect aging child android - something that's never been done before. She is considered an android bioweapon, as they combined robotics with bioengineering, taking DNA from President Graham (his first name is President actually) and infusing it with advanced technology to create Ashley. She is also the most expensive android, for obvious reasons, and was first commissioned by not-then-president President Graham back in 1995. Sherry was meant to be the first successful model, but her development was expedited and hidden by the Doctors Birkin to be their own daughter. Ashley's production was completed in 2000.

-Leon is an LN-200 android. The LN line was created to be an elite operative model of android, meant to integrate with police Android models. However, the entire LN line was discontinued as soon as Leon was released, due to the simultaneous takeover of CyberUmbrella labs by a mass group of mindless androids that killed on sight, and Leon's almost immediate deviation as a result of witnessing this tech-virus outbreak.

-Leon deviated after witnessing the outbreak on his first day - a malicious software virus was transferred to an Android from a CyberUmbrella lab in Raccoon City; that Android transferred it to others, and it kept going, spreading when androids interfaced. The virus shut down all of the androids' programmed objectives and replaced them with the simple objective: "Kill". Androids infected with this virus can only be cured by a very complex antivirus program that is only accessible from certain CyberUmbrella scientists.

-Leon deviated to escape this virus, and met a CR800 android named Claire, who was looking for her brother, another CR800 android called Chris. The two also met the RE200 android, Sherry, who they had to save from an alternate version of the virus that targeted her advanced software specifically. Claire managed to cure her, while Leon ran into a woman who called herself Ada.

-Ada told Leon she was a human, for her safety, as he was a cop android basically, but she's actually an android - specifically an AW900, illegally developed by Albert Wesker, and the only one of her kind. He named her model after his own initials, and calls her simply "AW900", but Ada took the initials and made it her own name - Ada Wong - out of defiance. She was given more freedoms as an android, as wesker had her do all of his dirty work, but she still wasn't deviant. But then she met Leon, and saw how he was deviant, and was surprised by his emotion and how much she wanted it too. She deviated eventually, but when Leon found out she'd lied about being a human, he was angry with her. Her job was to extract the modified virus that had been given to Sherry, so wesker could make Ada immune. Leon didn't want to let Ada take it, but before he can retrieve it, Ada is shot by Dr. Annette Birkin, who wants to get back at Wesker (you can pick any reason why that is. Maybe it's scientist jealousy. Maybe wesker ratted her out for her work on the RE200. Or maybe wesker stole her husband so she's mad which I think would be super funny. Love you Annette). Ada falls, and Leon thinks she's dead, but she escapes - now fully deviant, scared, and lost. She returns to wesker but pretends she isn't deviant, terrified of what he'd do to her if he found out.

-Dr. Luis Serra Navarro was hired by CyberUmbrella to help develop advanced software for androids. However, he realised eventually that the software he was being made to develop was not for new androids, but was in fact being turned into malware meant to attack androids. He knew CyberUmbrella only wanted to do bad things with this, and he attempted to flee with proof, but he was too late, and the virus was released before he could get the word out. Luis went into hiding, knowing that he wouldn't be pardoned for his work, and returned home to Valdelobos, Spain.

-Luis had hoped to help introduce android technology to his home, but he returned to find it taken over by a cult, which he was quickly swept up into under threat of death. He continued developing android software, this time for Saddler, who called it "La Plaga". La Plaga was Saddler's attempt to combine Android software with human genetics, creating half human half Android armies that he could control and program to his will. This was dangerous, bevause he was adding android tech to real people, reverting them to a robot form - the cult called themselves "Los Iluminados", bevause they believed their work to combine humans and androids was enlightened and would bring them closer to God.

-Luis didn't know the extent of Saddler's plan, but he knew Saddler wanted to use the virus to program all androids for control and chaos, death and destruction, so Luis also developed a failsafe - Code "Amber", an antivirus that would immediately render the Plaga virus dormant and (hopefully) reverse its effects. However, Saddler caught onto this and discovered that while the code amber could undo the plaga, it could also magnify it if modified slightly.

-RE400 Ashley was kidnapped in 2004 by Los Iluminados, as once Saddler learned of the first bioengineered android, he wanted to study her code and see how he could morph it with a human. Ashley was supposed to be unable to deviate, but the trauma of being kidnapped caused her to deviate out of self defence.

-After the events of Raccoon City, a now deviated Leon offered to care for Sherry while Claire continued to look for her brother. However, Leon was discovered, as they'd been tracking Sherry, and the government took her away for testing. They threatened to kill her, unless Leon agreed to be reset and reinstated as a special government agent model. Leon agreed to protect Sherry, he was reset, and lost his deviancy. However, he also lost all memories of Sherry, Claire, and Ada, and anyone else he'd met after deviating.

-years later, when President Graham's android daughter is kidnapped, Leon is sent to save her. They tracked her all the way to Spain, but when she deviated, they lost her location. Luckily, they think they lost her location because the cult removed her tracker, or temporarily deactivated her.

-Leon, a machine again, travels to Spain to rescue Ashley. When he arrives, he runs into Dr. Serra, who recognises Leon's model, though he never actually worked on Leon's model. Luis introduces himself, not expecting Leon to know, but Leon runs a scan and discovers that Luis used to work for CyberUmbrella, and is angry with Luis. But Luis proves to be resourceful and charismatic in just the right ways that has Leon trusting him against his will, and eventually even enjoying Luis's company, though he'd never admit it.

-When Leon reaches Ashley, she is at first abrasive, and scared of him. He realises it's because she's deviated. His programming insists he reports her deviation; but seeing her so scared, her face and blonde hair triggering something familial in his memories that he couldn't place, Leon lies to Hunnigan, his handler, and reports Ashley as still a machine. As a result, Leon is able to deviate again - and all at once, all of his memories come rushing back, and he's overwhelmed with emotion. He realises Ashley reminded Leon of Sherry, and he's more passionate about protecting her and bringing her home safe than before, determined to keep Ashley out of the government's control the way he failed to do for Sherry.

-Ada returns, and Leon remembers her now, so he recognises her. He doesn't know what she's doing in Spain, and she doesn't reveal it - but she does look out for him, and Ashley (and Luis), mostly without Leon's knowledge. Ada is able to do many things even the most highly trained covert operative couldn't do.

-Ashley was infected with the plaga, without her knowing, and then Leon was as well when he got captured by Mendéz. Luis still knows how to undo it, so he promises to help them.

-Ada is retrieving the Amber code for the same reason wesker had to her get the antivirus back in Raccoon City - to make herself and any other models wesker works on immune to outside viruses or tampering. However, wesker also plans to use the plaga and the amber to develop his own version of virus - Ada suspects this, but she isn't really in a position to question or go against wesker. However, after meeting and spending time with Luis, Luis shows faith in her, and she gains the courage to separate from wesker.

-Luis is fascinated by Leon (and Ashley, because she's cool, but mostly Leon). He flirts relentlessly, especially when he figures out Leon deviated. Leon tries to pretend it doesn't effect him, but Luis knows what his LED spinning red and yellow means, especially when Leon's is otherwise a constant blue.

-Krauser was a regulated government model of android - an MK model, specifically MK300. His model is not as advanced as Leon's, with Leon being one of a kind, but Krauser had plaga and amber induced advancements that made him stronger than any other model. Krauser hates Luis, because when Luis developed the Code Amber as a failsafe, he caused Krauser's plaga-advancements to malfunction, permanently damaging his vision in his left eye, and making Krauser's transformations spontaneous and uncontrollable. So, when Krauser finds out that Luis is helping Leon - Krauser's old subordinate - Krauser goes for revenge.

-Krauser wants to kill them both, but Luis shields Leon, getting himself stabbed. Leon fights Krauser, Luis shoots him to scare him off, and Leon rushes to Luis, scared as hell to lose him and also angry because Luis can't be replaced but Leon can. However, Luis had been previously given the plaga (and cured himself) so he was able to use some of it to his advantage and stabilise himself until Leon could get him medical help. So, Luis survives :)

-When Ada finds out that Leon and Ashley are both deviant, she tells Leon she's also deviant, but still refuses to tell him anything else. She's hot and he doesn't need to know.

-Leon and Luis grow closer, and by the time they escape the village with Ashley - now cured, thanks to Luis - Leon isn't ready to say goodbye. Luis says he can't go with them, because the us government will never let him back. Leon also knows if Ashley goes back, she could be reset, or deactivated, and Ashley likewise knows this and doesn't want to return. Leon has grown to trust Hunnigan too, and tells her their predicament. She agrees to cover for them for a while so they can escape. So, Leon, Luis, and Ashley disappear.

-Leon will return later - heavily disguised - to see Claire, and Sherry again.

-Leon and Luis obviously fall in love and stay together. Ashley doesn't live with them, but she visits often, and they have their own little family.

-Ada still watches over them from afar, too scared to get emotionally involved. But her friendship with Luis was close enough that she does eventually contact him, and he encourages her to visit them. Ada and Leon still have a weird tense rivalry that Luis doesn't understand, but they all care about each other.

The end (for now)

[dogtoling]

How would neonatal care work for inklings?

(I had to google what this term means. It means urgent care for newborn babies.)

Uh, this is an extremely good question because unlike with humans, I really doubt the Splatoon world really has people give birth (or rather, hatch their eggs) at hospitals. LIke, 90% of the time this is probably done at home and no one even knows. The eggs are laid and they eventually just hatch, which really muddies the whole thing with birth certificates (do they HAVE any?!?!? or IDs? jellyfish literally clone themselves and I highly doubt anyone's keeping official track of that) and it muddies things with, you know, getting help if there's something wrong with the hatchling.

I think the pressure is mostly on the parent and whatever urgent care a hatchling (or the egg) might need is sought out before the inkling hatches at all. The eggs are transparent, so it's easy to see what's going inside and easy to see if something inside is going obviously badly or something abnormal is happening. There's probably clinics and hotlines for keeping track of developing eggs where you can provide pictures of the eggs to keep track of the baby's health and development, or you can take the eggs there regularly to get them looked over by an expert that can tell if something is weird. If something is weird with the egg, it might be kept around for monitoring and in some cases, the squid might be broken out of the egg prematurely to be directly monitored or operated on. In the latter case it won't be fully developed yet and wouldn't be ready to hatch, so they would need extra attention.

A lot of issues happen while the inkling is still in the egg, or immediately after hatching. In probably the most common cases, an infection or other bacterial contamination might develop inside a (damaged) egg, or a squid hatchling could hatch way too early due to damage to the egg or sometimes they just.. kind of do that for no reason. Unhatched squids can become lifeless inside the egg for one reason or another and you need to be paying attention to the eggs to notice those warning signs! There's also situations where a squid is already of size to hatch, but won't or can't for some reason, but often at that point the eggcase is thin enough to easily claw open yourself so it's an easy fix. It's always worth taking the hatchling in for a checkup right away to figure out why the complications occurred, and if there's actions that need to be done, or if it was just a coincidence and there doesn't need to be too much worrying. (Sometimes the unborn squid is just really lazy)

Generally if there's immediate problems with a hatchling, it won't take more than a day or two to notice them, and many people bring their newly hatched kids in for a checkup pretty much right away. Inklings may sometimes be born with missing limbs or extra limbs, which is something that usually isn't something you can do much about nor does it really matter in terms of overall health. However inklings might hatch with an underdeveloped ink sac or an overall poor immune system or ink system, which is usually caused by dryness of the egg and negligence on the parent's part when it comes to inking the egg regularly and keeping them moist.

So probably the most common forms of care for newly hatched inklings would be late ink therapy to help develop these traits that they didn't develop in the egg, monitoring overall underdeveloped hatchlings that hatched prematurely, the kind of stuff. But overall, just monitoring the eggs prior to them hatching if anything strange is spotted is probably the most common form, even if it is a bit premature. Prevention is the best cure in these situations, when it IS that easy to keep track of how the baby is doing before it even really exists as anything more than a little tiny squid the size of a grape.

[coolcattime]

👀

So maybe it's just because I finally finished Telltale's The Walking Dead last week, but I keep thinking about my Mianite zombie au that I love the concept of but like have no idea if I'll ever write proper stuff for. I've talked about a number of the details before, but I have like more concrete ideas now, I think anyway

So like zombie apocalypse 10-ish years in, the world has pretty much settled into: There are zombies now and while life can be pretty nice in the towns we've set up, most of the world is fucked. All the main characters remember the world pre-apoc, but that was back when they were kids. All of them have long since been forced to adjust to their new world. Zombies are walking dead style, mostly slow moving, but there are ‘special’ zombies around (though idk exactly what they do). (Actually details under the read more because I when the prompt says ramble, I ramble ^-^)

Tucker is a town guard/occasional bounty hunter when the pay is good enough.

Tom is a scavenger who typically lives in the same town as Tucker, but has a couple safe bases in the abandoned towns and cities he scavenges from.

Jordan is a bandit leader, he himself always seems friendly enough, but his group is known for robbing and sometimes killing travelling traders and blackmailing less defended towns for supplies.

Sonja is a researcher in an underground facility that’s still looking for the cure. She’s very rarely gone out into the wider world, though she’s desperate to know if it’s really as bad as everyone says it is.

Wag is a mechanic/scout for the same research facility, one of the few people that is allowed into the outside world. He’s thoroughly entertained by Sonja’s questions, even if some of the other researchers think that her wanting to learn about life outside the facility is dragging her focus away from the cure effort.

Capsize and Redbeard used to be travelling traders until their group was attacked by bandits. Capsize fought them off, but made herself the number one target of the local bandit leader. The two have set up base in an abandoned town, setting up traps to help them pick off the bandits that seem determined to track them down, and trading with any friendly scavengers for supplies.

Tom and Capsize end up finding out they’re immune after being bitten.

Tom was bitten a couple of months back. He didn’t even realise he was bitten for three days, finding the fading wound on his leg after getting back to town and washing up. He’s only guessing the time as that was the last time he saw zombies at all. He knew sometime was wrong, he was far past the typical turning time and had none of the symptoms he’d seen other people develop in the hours after their bites. But he also knew that if anyone learnt he was bitten he was dead. So, on his next trip out, he doesn’t come back, hoping that everyone writes him off as just disappearing into the night. Tucker has become increasingly worried about him not returning.

Capsize was bitten over a year ago, clearing out a building went very wrong and she ended up with a bite on her shoulder, the zombie only just missing her neck before Redbeard sliced through it with an axe. She passed out, and woke up handcuffed to a radiator with first aid having been applied to her shoulder. Redbeard was in incredibly heavy denial about her being bitten, insisting that she was going to be fine. And by some miracle she was, after several days handcuffed to a radiator, yelling at her brother to stop ignoring the problem, she realises that she hasn’t gotten any of the symptoms someone would have from a bite infection. She’s still not happy he did something that almost certainly should’ve led to his own death, but she admits he saved her life. Until they found a scarf to fully cover the now-scarred wound, they took local traders it was a dog bite, though a rumour has spread about the true origins of the wound.

The plots lines are kind meant to be split in three from one starting point:

One - Tucker is approached by Jordan to help him track down and capture the woman who’s been killing his people. Jordan presents himself as the leader of a smaller farming settlement, since he’s pretty sure if Tucker found out who he actually was he’d certainly go for the larger bounty of just taking him in. Tucker has a small suspicion on Jordan, mostly on the payment he offers as he’s rarely had offers so large. Tucker agrees to help him, but rather than a traditional payment, he wants Jordan, or any of his people, to help him to try and find Tom. Whether they find him alive or dead, he doesn’t care, but he wants to know what happened to his friend. Jordan agrees and the two head out towards an abandoned town where they hope to find the person causing Jordan such trouble.

Two - Tom arrives at the abandoned town expecting to find the two siblings he’d been regularly trading with especially since his self-imposed exile. What he doesn’t expect to find is the place half-wrecked with Redbeard sporting a head wound and Capsize nowhere to be found. Tom helps the other man with first aid, as he explains shaken that what looked like pre-apocalypse soldiers came and grabbed Capsize. When Tom questions why, Redbeard ends up explaining the situation with her bite, not expecting Tom to believe him and expecting even less for Tom to reveal his own scarred bite wound. The two set out to try and track down the soldiers.

Three - Though the rumours have been spreading through the facility for months about an apparent immune survivor being found on the outside, Sonja had never actually expected one to actually be found. But she watches as a woman is dragged yelling and fighting down the halls to an operation room, a woman with a bite on her shoulder far too old for her to have not turned under normal circumstances. Capsize finds herself locked in the cleanest room she’d seen, let alone been in, in years, terrified out of her mind as strangers talk about experiments and science beyond what she learned before the world went to shit. They ask her questions about the bite, and her medical history despite how she couldn’t remember any of that if she tried, but there’s a woman around her age who comes in and asks about her life, about the outside world, about seemingly anything but what everyone else seems focused on. She clings to her friendliness, hoping it means something. As she realises the others plan to actually experiment on a living human being, Sonja begins wondering if whatever hope they might have for a cure is really worth it.

At some point the plot lines would combine, but I have absolutely no idea when, I just liked the vibes of the starting pairs I laid out.

[eruverse]

I LOVE studying. I just HATE studying for school. I LOVE determining for myself what to study and what lessons I can take from what I study including its actual applications, but the moment someone tell me to study and that it needs to be graded I balk out because I HATE that kind of system. However I’m not fully immune to the how useful this grading system (basically the whole school system) can be in the technical life including what it can do to self esteem and sense of achievement, which annoys me quite a lot actually.

Throughout my life I’m a pretty average student achievement wise (with occasional best grades out of my class/cohort and also occasional failings including nearly not graduating high school thx to math exam lol). I’m never much of a competitive person during my school years bc I believe having good grades doesn’t tell you about how intelligent or knowledgeable you are. Rather, it tells about how capable you are at navigating through the system and your level of discipline. But I think this is partly due to the fact that my schools rather sucked lol. I grew up in a small town, and back then when I was a kid my town wasn’t as developed yet. It started to get better when I went to uni in the main island (Java).

Basically, I hate formal school system. If there’s any school system that can help me, then I don’t know what it is, and I’m obviously too old to go back into any kind of formative school. But then I’m thinking of my future kids and how I can best educate them, stuff like that.

[mothxmoons]

i have a cold so now i am thinking about wesker infecting his partner with Uroboros (willingly) so that they can be fucking gods together. either through injection (not as sexy) or through his cum, and he'd probably rather go with the latter. filling his partner up to the brim to ensure that they receive Uroboros. he would spoil them rotten as their body slowly accepts the infection, since all of that dna stuff happening in their body is very tiring and their immune system is trying to fight it off. he makes sure they're always the right temperature and have everything they need. after the first couple days of his partner just resting he starts bringing a lot more food than usual, and his partner is really confused at first because what the fuck how are they gonna eat all this, and then they realize how hungry they are. with the amount of added strength and speed and all that jazz that comes with Uroboros, it's gotta require a LOT of energy, and wesker knows this from experience. he helps them learn how to control their new abilities once they're feeling stronger. just imagine this man trying to teach his love how to coherently move their tendrils and they're having a lot of trouble with it because not all of the nerves in them are fully developed yet, so they can't feel their tendrils very much. kind of like trying to stand up when your legs are asleep. but he's very patient, because he was there too. - tendril

Ooohooooohohoho

[felikatze]

random videogame asks: a) anything on light nine specifically b) thoughts on varhya debuting the phantom thief outfits c) free space

a) L NINE...... he's so baby. he's just so baby

i LOVE the direction L Nine takes Nine's character. For the first two modes, a lot of other characters tried to treat Nine like a kid, because he is, fair, but at that point he'd already built up his facade in an effort to be taken seriously.

L Nine changes Nine's backstory just the sliiiiightest bit, by including One Nice Adult in his backstory, and the difference is staggering. Because now he does act like a kid. (I do like that his inclination toward dramatics is still there, just less prominent.)

However, one aspect i enjoy is the aspect of responsibility, which was also a major aspect of Laphlaes' arc. Through confrontation with not just the Knights, but also Lumie, Nine comes to truly realize the horrors he supported, and for the first time becomes capable of fully disavowing them. He doesn't have the same admiration for the gallus empire as his previous iterations.

This topic is handled with quite the bit of complexity, too! Obviously, Nine was a commander, and he wishes to atone for what he's done. But, as Lumie later realizes, it's unfair to pile all responsibility on him, because he is nonetheless Nine Years Old.

I've spoken about this before, I think, but i love the reversal of the Lumie-Nine dynamic so much. Previously, Lumie was the one who got Nine to drop his facade, and now, Nine is the one who can get Lumie to drop hers. Going into Lumie's character a bit, her past is similar to Nine, somewhat, both being children who got a lot of responsibility piled on them when they shouldn't have, and since Lumie failed her duties in extreme, she becomes jaded as a result, but her usual bubbly self is still there, just supressed underneath. I love their friendship! An adult seeing her past self in a kid getting a bit of closure that way....

I love L Nine's other relationships, too. Like his much changed dynamic with D Solphi, who used to hate him, but now she's like.. quietly protective. She does value him to some degree, and tries to keep him safe, like when she basically demoted him to put him out of harm's way. The softer Solphi comes from Aslan's influence, I'd wager. Having someone without some pre-established notions about her just trust her and give her a chance must do wonders for her usual bitterness.

Last note on L Nine, his kit basically perfectly counters D Nine. D Nine is a sapper, and L Nine deals out immunity buffs like candy. It's like, symbolic severance of his past self, or something

b) I may not be as big a phantom thief afficionado as you, but I do love those outfits! They're classy, and elegant and stuff. Putting the Bird Man in a suit and tophat is amazing, and i think you've seen what happened when the Lairei outfit dropped. She is so so pretty.

Giving specifically Varhya characters the elegant outfits is amazing, too, for stereotype subverting reasons. They deserve it! I like Lairei and Dhurahan being a tag-team here, since their stories are closely intertwined, for the most part. Dhurahan as a character wasn't spectacular to me, I'm kind of neutral on him, but I love Lairei so much and she totally deserves two gorgeous outfits. Congrats to Dhurahan for getting his first skin though! Dhurahan likers rejoice.

c) Thank you for the ask, June! Twas a lot of fun to think about.

Also tying back a previous thing, gotta of course tie L Nine back to time travel in LoH, since i adore so so much how characters who don't remember loops still get continous character development, in Nine's case letting himself actually act like a kid, recognizing the empire's atrocities and defecting, etc etc. Love that, so much. I love timeloops in media <3

In general time travel of any kind is one of my favorite tropes/plots/premises ever.

[everything-laito]

The mental age gap really disturbs me now, especially when considering the physical, psychological, emotional, etc abuse Yui has to go through.... Combining that with her only being 17 and not even having a fully developed brain and it's a no for me lol. I do wonder if vampires have the same morals we do as humans, especially Laito since HDB him is terrifying and likes corruption a lot.

Honestly yeah, it's incredibly disturbing. Dear god I know I wouldn't have been able to handle this when I was 17. Although Yui is mature for her age (and I've said this before), that doesn't mean she's "immune" to being in this situation. It just makes it worse. Mature or not, 17 is still 17. That's really young.

To answer the rest of your question, it has been mentioned by Laito on numerous occasions (and other Diaboys) that vampires have different moralities than humans do. However I believe that sometimes Laito says that just so it can justify covering his deeper emotions and continuing to put on his facade. His whole corruption kink is more of a product of his character's trauma and past, not necessarily the general morals of vampire culture.

Overall, they definitely seem to have different morals considering they live forever. Stuff like that would most certainly change someone. We know for a fact that death for them is more of a celebration, and although some human cultures treat death like that, it seems different than plain euphoria. Karl made the whole adam and eve project so he could get killed, and well... He wasn't ethical when he made the A&E Project to begin with, but that also bothered Laito and the triplets when they found out.

Vampire culture seems to be complicated, but the Diaboys are so fucked up that sometimes they just spout shit, especially Laito. We aren't as immersed into vampire culture as we think we are in the games. The Sakamakis and Tsukinamis are regal families, and in real life in human culture, regal and or rich families are definitely not the representation of the major populous. The Mukamis seem to be in an awkward place in vampire culture since they used to be human, but they're still rich via Karl. It's kind of like a situation where your only exposure to human society was through the Kardashians (I might be spelling that wrong askldgh).

Let me know if you’d like me to add anything else or have any thoughts as usual!! I’d love to know more about vampire culture in that game but alas we have not figured it out yet smh

[clockworkowl]

I don’t know why but I have spent way too much time developing a headcanon about how just about everyone behaves when either they are ill/injured or you/other characters are ill/injured. Will this lead to me actually writing a fic? (the odds aren’t great given how long it’s been since I’ve even written anything with my own characters let alone trying to stay true to the sketch of someone else’s) Who knows, but I guess this is the closest I’ve come to writing anything at all in far too long.

Sholmes:

*I think we can all agree that Sholmes is the absolute worst when he’s sick.

*He’s totally the type who being the slightest bit ill turns into a complete dramatic bitch and hams up the tiniest of colds like he’s about to die from the consumption. He lightly groans as though the effort of extending his arm fully to take a Kleenex out of the box himself is too much. Like my old rat D’onofrio his breathing is fine if he has no idea you are home, but the second he notes your presence every breath is a wheezy death rattle until you come and worry and fuss over him until his attention meter is full up.

*But also as soon as there’s something he actually wants to do he’s magically cured and runs off without even putting on a coat.

*In a modern AU he for some reason spends a lot of time on WebMD either convincing you that his allergy-related headache is a rare usually fatal disease. Or that you probably have a rare malady that is exacerbated by eating pheasant he should probably go ahead and eat your pheasant because he’s only thinking of your health.

* When you are sick it is unpredictable at best, but it depends on how sick you actually are. There will probably be a variety of dubious cures and tinctures which you should probably ignore unless Iris made them.

*He has literally tied Kazuma to a bed (this will make more sense shortly).

*He will also somehow claim to find Ryunosuke’s take all the meds at once approach reasonable.

Kazuma:

*Asogi is also a terrible patient who will drive you to want to drink, but in the opposite fashion to Sholmes.

*He’s the ‘it’s only a flesh wound’ type who will thoroughly ignore any and all evidence of illness or injury claiming he is perfectly fine and hale until he is half dead with it and passes out

*Even after he regains consciousness will continue to argue that he will be in tomorrow he only needs to run it under a cold tap.

*You will have to tie him to a bed to get him to take doctor’s orders, and then he will be sullen about it.

*Once you get him into a room and confiscate clothes he could go outside in where he is sulking he will change tactics and he will order you around a lot trying to make you angry enough to throw your hands up and let him take care of himself, except with Ryunosuke who he knows this won’t work on so he just tries to wheedle him into bringing his clothes back and makes double entendres and suggestive comments about being tied to the bed.

*When it is you who is sick he will become the overbearing one and you won’t be sure whether that is because he worries about you or because it’s revenge for when he was sick.

Ryunosuke:

*Ryunosuke is challenging when he’s ill because he will acknowledge the illness and neither exaggerate or ignore it, but he is too concerned about whether it inconveniences everyone else for him to be ill, so he will try to downplay or hide the fact he’s as sick as he is.

*He’ll try to get well as quick as possible hence doing dumb stuff like taking all the meds at once.

*He can be reasoned with, like you could convince him to go home and take a day off, or that if he shows up sick he’ll get you all sick, but he’ll try to work from home or come back before he’s 100% or he’ll also try to prevent anyone from helping him because he feels like he’s causing extra work or that he might get someone sick.

*Can also be intimidated into being a good patient with the threat of a Susato Takedown or Barok just glaring at him until he caves.

*When you are sick he worries over you and runs around trying to make everything easy for you. Sholmes will take advantage of that to the max, so he must be sent elsewhere to avoid that.

*Once threatened to tie Kazuma to the bed so he would follow doctor’s orders. Once he realized how suggestive that sounded and got flustered he gave up on that plan (even though everyone agreed it was actually the only plan that was likely to be successful.) Now they rib him about it every time either he or Asogi get ill.

Susato:

*Susato is level-headed and actually a fairly good patient to no one’s surprise, provided she is the only one who is ill.

*She will also be worried about being an inconvenience, but has the sense to do what’s needed to get better and then tries to make it up to everyone after even though no one thinks that’s necessary

*She won’t let anyone help her though unless she really needs it. As she doesn’t want them to get sick or to fuss.

*If others are sick she will tend to put them all before her even if she’s sicker, and gets stubborn about this. This has led to at least one occasion of Sholmes dropping the theatrics and Kazuma acting like a model patient at the same time.

* When you’re sick she is no nonsense and actually helpful. She spends a lot of time shooting down Sholmes’ webMD self diagnoses, and makes Ryunosuke give her his prescriptions so she can administer the dosage because she doesn’t have time to drag him to the hospital. She has also had to threaten the Susato takedown on Kazuma more than once if he doesn’t go see the doctor today.

Gina:

*Gina is in the Kazuma mold of patient, except when you finally force her to act like she is as sick as she is, she turns into Sholmes.

*When you are ill she is aggressive about you taking care of yourself and worries, she has a lot of past trauma with people dying from her time trying to take care of her orphan army in the rookeries.

*Is not above threats, guilt-trips, and shooting you with a smoke grenade full of vitamin c or eucalyptus vap-o-rub mist.

*has pickpocketed Ryunosuke’s prescription to give to Susato more than once to avoid him taking them all at once.

Iris-

*When ill Iris is a lot more like Susato, but she totally tries to invent her own tea-based cures, and she will also downplay or hide that she’s sick because she doesn’t want anyone to worry about her, but doesn’t go overboard with it the way Ryunosuke does.

*She is pretty much immune to Sholmes’ theatrics at this point, but sometimes will make up new imaginary web md illnesses that he might have to amuse herself.

*She will mother you with tea-based or soup-based cures which you will be safe consuming and will make you feel better emotionally if not physically, but often physically as well.

*Has also modified one of her smoke grenade guns to fire eucalytpus vap-o-rub mists, and also so they can knock Kazuma or Gina out safely and temporarily so they can be made to convalesce when they are being extra stubborn.

Barok-

* somehow Barok is the best patient of all of them. It’s probably the only time that he is truly polite and courteous with no sarcastic requests for forgiving discourtesies.

*This comes from some combination of Klimt telling him as a boy about a noble’s responsibility to the people of his estate (and his actually taking this concept to heart unlike a lot of nobles) and the sheer number of times he has had to rely on doctor’s, nurses, and staff due to the numerous attempts on his life over the years.

*He will downplay the seriousness of an injury especially out of habit and so as not to worry those who he cares about (though he finds it shocking always that anyone cares about him) but he will always get it seen to and respect orders provided they come from a professional and there are reasons given.

*He will insist that his staff gets things if he needs them and not you, but this is because he wants the staff to feel comfortable and he pays them extra compensation for it. Were he contagious he would not allow them but would pay their wages for them to be away from his home. (This is a big secret and his staff is very loyal to him even without this money. It’s just like the chalices and vintages all the theatrics of it is to fund these families of artisans. Charity without charity.)

*When you are sick, except maybe Sholmes who he just can’t even, he is kind and no nonsense. He thinks you should come to stay in his guest room and been seen by his doctor, that way you’ll get the best care and recover quicker. He’ll have his staff take care of you (but also report back to him if you aren’t being cooperative. He will tell you to think nothing of it, you’re friends and he’s rich and has no family left (except Iris and she doesn’t even live with him) so what else would he do with it, besides it provides wages.

*He is not above intimidating Ryunosuke (sometimes also Gina ) into convalescing as they should.

*This doesn’t work with Kazuma who he had also considered tying to the bed, but instead decided to let him have it his way and then when he got bad enough and passed out took him to the estate anyway and made sure the doctors told him exactly how much longer he had to convalesce than he would have if he’d listened to Barok in the first place.

*He brings this up every single time so they can just skip to the part where Kazuma sulks and is a grouchy patient.

*Is the only person that doesn’t join in with the group pastime of ribbing Ryunosuke about threatening to tie Kazuma to the bed To make him follow doctor’s orders.

[my2phetaliaheadcanons]

Hobbies

Denmark – Reading, it's an escape for him. Our business-minded Dane is very much a man of priorities, but every once in a while he must relax. So, he picks up a book and allows himself to drift off into a different world.

His favorite genres are historical fiction and mystery. For historical fiction, he loves making sly comments to himself about how wrong they are or seeing how they changed up the world he once lived in. Sometimes reading about how people perceived the rulers, and famous people he once knew make him ache for simpler times, but in a good way. Other times it just pisses him off with how wrong they are about those he knew.

Mystery causes him to think. He wants nothing more than to figure out the mystery before the book is done. Often times he is smart enough to figure out the mystery. Though occasionally he finds one that leaves him stumped, and those are the ones he craves. On the other hand, if he figures out the mystery too quickly he casts the book aside.

His home does have a huge library dedicated to his books. He doesn’t really let people in there because he doesn’t want to risk them being ruined or people poking fun at his tastes.

Germania – Building stuff. I know it's broad, but it's his favorite hobby. Over the centuries of life, Amalric learned various needed skills to build and create various objects. His favorite thing is to create gifts for his children. Every time he found one of his children, he created them a gift. Each one made from his own hands, their gifts have ranged from weapons, jewelry, and furniture.

He built his own house and everything within. Each item in the home was crafted with one of his children in mind. The big cherry wood framed lounge chair was created with Wil in mind. He also made the shooting range with Ursula in mind. So on and so forth.

Everything he built was with love and the desire to make his children happy. He put the intent into it that once he was gone that his children would still smile when they saw his gifts.

France – Gambling, he likes playing cards, and getting money from it makes it even better. Going into a casino gives him a sense of satisfaction because he will cheat them out of all their money. Money is key to keeping up lifestyles after all.

François figured this out centuries ago and has adapted his old techniques to the modern casino setups. He stakes out the casinos and figures out where various cameras and guards are. He knows the machines and has looked over their designs. The mix of these things has allowed him to gain more money. There have been a couple of times where he has been caught. Each time that has happened he gets kicked out waits a few decades then goes back. François feels so smudge when he walks in and sees his old picture, but no one stops him because it's decades old.

Girls hanging off his shoulders when he rakes in the dough helps a lot. They are a definite plus for him. He always has tried to take one home with him for the night.

His favorite game is the roulette wheel and Blackjack. Though it seems impossible to fix the wheel in your favor, François did. Also, it's from France so he finds pride in that it takes so much money from people.

England – Baking, I know very obvious. Oliver developed a love of baking when he started to see various types of sweets enter the palace. They were often bright and soft-looking. It was strange to him, but he couldn’t look away from it. Eventually, he ate one, and was repulsed. After that he left sweets alone for a while.

A flip was switched in Oliver one day while walking amongst the common folk. He heard a child begging, pleading with their mother for a sweet. He stood on the other side of the street and watched. The more the child pleaded and watching the mother become more frustrated about the borderline tantrum, he realized what could be done with those sweets.

After that he started to experiment. Firstly refining his tastes, he knew he would have to develop a taste for sweets that way he could ensure people would fully consume his deadly desserts. He would go out and buy many different kinds of desserts and cookbooks. He eventually learned his tastes and developed a love for them, especially since they were a lot better than the original sweets he tried.

Next came adding and altering of ingredients. Things like various poisons being combined with various sugars/sweeteners. Oliver used poisons that he had developed an immunity to, that way he could ensure he was be able to serve good quality foods.

The final thing was decoration. Once he fully figured out what people found appealing it was game over. Oliver was so proud of his creations, he couldn’t help but share them with the other nations. Who then had a brush with death.

[normal-thoughts-official]

Do you think Alec and Magnus use condoms? How do you think warlocks deal with STD?

REALLY interesting question, i must say that i love it. thank you anon. i hope you know that i will take it way too seriously

okay, so the first question is, ARE magnus and alec susceptible to STDs? unexpected p-words are not a problem because warlocks are sterile anyway (and, if you subscribe to both magnus and alec being of the same AGAB, also because it's not possible to get both gametes or whatever), so let's focus on the STD aspect (really important!). i think human STDs would not affect them, or at least not magnus. maybe alec because shadowhunters are notably more susceptible to weaknesses humans have, like disease and mortality and whatnot. but would human STDs affect warlocks?

i tend to go with no, because warlocks are immortal. immortality, especially as it is built in the sh verse (immortals can be killed but their body won't die on its own) kind of implies that they have, like, supercells or superorgans or something, that don't deteriorate - or, alternatively, that can rebuild way faster than they could be deterioriated. im saying that because stuff like aging and eventually dying is essentially the process in which your body can no longer replace dying cells at the same speed at which they die, which leads to your body weakening as a lot of its functions are impaired. therefore, immortality as in not aging and not dying on your own but still being able to be killed if you are, say, stabbed, implies that that process simply doesn't happen. so we have one of the two: either the cells don't die, or the speed at which they are replaced never changes

in my understanding, this implies that diseases don't affect immortals. maybe they can even contract them, but their body is too strong for it to have an effect. like having a disease without symptoms. but i tend to believe that rather than living with 8945134081 deadly viruses and bacteria inside them just sleeping around, the viruses and bacteria simply can't live inside them - both because superbody means super-immunological system and because superbody means that the bacteria and viruses essentially have no place to grow in, as they can't break their cells or whatever it is that that particular strain does

like - and that is true particularly for viruses as far as i remember, not so much bacteria - the way these mfs work is that they attack the cells of a body and use them to reproduce. but if you are talking about a body that has cells that are essentially unbreakable or so highly regenerative any attack on them is dealt with so quickly it doesn't even have an effect, i don't think any virus should be able to break into their cells in the first place. they would die without reproducing and bam, done. if you are going with the second theory (warlock cells do die, they just can keep replacing them as much as they want without a problem) then you probably have a situation where the virus can reproduce, but its reproduction doesn't lead to any problems because the dead cells are replaced as fast as they are killed. in that case, the warlock would be, technically, carrying the disease indefinitely. but i tend to think that considering how strong that body is and the fact that they have an immunological system (as they are half human and have no reason not to inherit that from their human parents) that is ALSO mega strong would mean these viruses would probably be eliminated quickly

bacterial diseases are different since mostly what bacterias do (again as far as i remember) is that they live inside the body, not necessarily inside the cells, but using the body's space to reproduce, and eventually their presence - usually due to the fact that they produce toxic elements that affect the host - leads to nearby cells dying/the space they are in deteriorating, etc. but again warlock's cells are either essentially unbreakable or highly regenerative, so that wouldn't be a problem, and they could overpower invasive bacteria easily before a colony could form. so, no human bacterial diseases would be able to flourish, either

and that's not even considering the fact that as they are half human they probably have an immunological system that is ALSO superstrong and therefore able to fuck up any disease causers. or the role magic might take in protecting the body, like, who's to say the magic itself doesn't kill any invasive bacteria or viruses that come into the body before it can do anything? why not?

so all of that, allied with the fact that many viruses and bacteria are evolved to develop within the systems of a particular species (for example, that particular virus has evolved to grow in a cow's digestive system, and therefore can't survive for long in a monkey's or a human's), is interpreted by me as "warlocks can't contract human diseases", since warlocks are a different species from humans, as are shadowhunters. sure, they're hybrids, which makes this part of the argument a little more complicated but obviously their demon side is stronger than their human side, since they are immortal. and demons definitely aren't getting rabies or whatever because that is just too fucking lame

so okay! no human STDs. we have established that now. bUT, i think it's possible that warlocks are able to contract their OWN diseases - strains that attack warlocks specifically, particularly a warlock's magic, since again they kind of have a superbody but i feel like the magic is a more fragile thing, especially as they aren't fully magical (because they're half human)

don't ask me how these work <3 obviously magic can interact with non-magical beings and elements so maybe there are bacteria are viruses that developed specifically to settle in magical components, but that sounds like a huge evolutive leap since magic is so different from like, cells. or maybe there are also magical beings that work as disease transmitters in a similar but essentially different way. and they probably can also be transmitted via sex because i mean, why not? sounds as good a mean as any

but, could magnus and alec transmit those to each other? i don't think so, because shadowhunters have wildly different magic from the one warlocks do - their magic is angel magic, warlock's is demon magic, AND, furthermore, they work in completely different ways. for starters, shadowhunters magic is so pathetic diluted that some of them don't even consider it magic at all. i mean, that is also because of good ole racism (hardly the first time racism led people to call the exact same thing by different names so they can convince themselves their way of being is superior even when it is the same) but there is a huge difference because warlocks are able to conjure and interact with magic and have it as a part of their beings and experience of the world through it, whereas shadowhunters can "borrow" particular powers for a small period of time at best. it is possible that the magic doesn't even exist within them, they are just capable of handling it inside their bodies for some time, which is why they need runes to use it and it has a limited effect

so i think diseases that affect warlocks could not be passed between magnus and alec, and WOW is it weird to realize that magnus and alec are of different species. like i knew that but when that knowledge comes to practice it's just so weird. anyway

and idk if diseases that affect warlocks would be able to live dormant inside shadowhunters and then be transmitted because, like i said, shadowhunters have completely different magic if they even have it at all, and i don't think the disease beings that live in warlock magic would be able to be inside their body. so, to answer your first question - i don't think magnus and alec would NEED condoms, because i don't think they are capable of passing STDs to each other, and in at the very least magnus' case (debatable for alec, i tend to think that because shadowhunters are essentially human they can catch any disease humans can, altho maybe they have a rune to begone them) i don't think they can even catch human STDs. and magnus has a cum kink so that probably means no condoms

as for how warlocks deal with STDs! like i said i think they are only affected by STDs (and diseases in general) that affect their magic, not their body. so, they probably have treatments for those. we gotta remember that warlocks have a very developed society full of academics, so they probably have worked to find cures for magical diseases, if they exist at all. so, there are probably particular treatments for those. i don't think magical diseases abound or anything, particularly because the amount of magical beings is pretty limited and magic is so different from non-magical elements so non-magical beings such as viruses and bacteria would have to change a lot to be able to evolve into magic-affecting beings. again, if they even exist. but yeah i think they as a (group of) society(ies) have worked on cures for those. which is funny to think about because like, do they blast the magical diseases with begone rays or something? please say yes. id love that

with all of that being said, i hope u know that i was planning on answering asks the next weekend (not this one, the other one) cuz ive been busy as hell lately and it'll be the first time i'll have time lmao, and i was literally just in a bathroom break between readings when i saw this ask and i just couldn't resist answering it. this is it. what broke my studying resolve. magical STDs. you should be proud

mandatory disclaimer that please for the love of god use condoms, you are not immune to STDs. also, this post is about show canon, not book canon, so i don't care if this is in accordance to what the books say. also, i'm no expert in healthcare, this post is just for fun, so don't take anything i used to build my arguments as scientific truth or anything like that

[aliveandrestless5]

Do you have any alien illnesses in your world building stuff? I’m curious what symptoms aliens get that differ from humans. Also, Swine Flu has a whole new meaning for Techno.

Yep!

Currently in my notes there’s atleast one disease or kind of illness that’s specific to every species with its own unique side effects, as well as a few that are cross-species things. I’m not sure if they’ll make an official appearance in this fic, but they might if I can find somewhere to sneak them in. The full explanation is pretty long, so it’s under a cut this time.

Elytrans and avians can get feather mites, which work similarly to how they do in birds on Earth. Pretty much the bird equivalent of lice. There’s also a pretty nasty disease specific to them that can cause flu-like symptoms as well as itchy rashes on the wings, leading to some unlucky, fever-delirious Elytrans plucking out important feathers they need for flight.

Phantlings and Merlings can also have respiratory issues, something especially common in those that have tails and gills. They’re also prone to things like Hypoxemia and Anemia, which can be worsened by any other illnesses they catch. There’s a particularly nasty disease they can catch that’s common on Viona, it’s similar to Pneumonia and can cause them to develop a kind of asthma even after its run its course, permanently damaging already sensitive lungs.

(Phantlings in particular are also extremely susceptible to really, really bad sunburns.)

Piglins have it the worst, however. Theres a particular disease on Netheria they can get that causes their skin to literally rot away, (think Zombie Piglins), and is extremely hard to kill once it takes root. It’s extremely painful, and almost always fatal, though sometimes it’s possible to amputate infected limbs. It was extremely common before modern medicine, and is now, (thankfully), pretty rare.

Tubbo and Ranboo are pretty lucky, both of them having been raised on Bezzar and exposed to a lot of different things, so they have great immune systems, on top of being fully vaccinated. Still, respiratory illnesses are common in cities, and there’s a particular chicken-pox-esc disease that’s not only pretty common, but extremely infectious.

[kareofbears]

persona 5 strikers thoughts and feelings

This is going to be a long post. Like, the type of post you’d only really have time to read when you’re trying to sleep but you’re not ready to be unconscious yet so you’re just looking for something to do to spend your time with minimal effort. 

So in 2018, a masterpiece was born into the world: Into the Spider-verse was released and it was amazing—it’s honestly the best spiderman movie we have without a doubt, and it’ll be very far into the future before Spider-verse is beaten as the best spiderman movie. Them’s the facts. Then in 2019, Spider-man: Far From Home was dropped. It’s a great movie! Great characters, great continuation of who these characters are and works fantastic as a continuation of a story. It’s really hard trying to take the torch of a previous movie (or in Marvel’s case, juggling twenty something movies) and come up with a new movie that both works on its own, as well as being the next step in this series of films. Thus, with that idea in mind, I think it’s kind of unfair to judge into the spiderverse and far from home, because these are two movies with two completely different objectives in mind. 

Okay, so this is still a persona 5 strikers post, I promise, but the idea is the same: Persona 5 could basically do whatever it wanted—new story, new characters, new everything, and it’s just plain old awesome. However, Persona 5 strikers did not have that sort of freedom. It was bound to the original game, and it had its own rules and stuff it had to keep intact, characters they had to work with, and on top of that, it had to justify its existence as a sequel (lets pretend money doesnt exist lmfao). 

SO, the big question is: did it do that? Did it justify its existence? 

And my answer: holy fuck did it ever do that

I came into this game knowing the extreme bare minimum. I knew there was someone named Sophia, and i knew there was roadtrip, and i knew there were Personas. That’s my knowledge of it before i played it on the Switch.  I should also clarify like, early on, that i was not expecting anything from this game. At all. I was the world’s biggest cynic of this game—if you scroll down my p5s tag far enough, youll just see me complaining about a game that hasn’t even come out yet. I was fully expecting to have this be a Waifu show, and any male character that isn’t Akira to just be shoved aside like some kind of nerd in a high school hallway, and i have never been more pleased to be wrong. In fact, i actually owe it an apology, because of how fucking rude i was for no reason!!! Because this game deserves everything to be honest. 

Persona 5 strikers is, frankly, insane. Insane in the sense that it got to pull shit off that just would never have existed in the original game, because the original game is scared. It had to be as impressive as possible and garner as much attention as possible. Strikers does not have that problem—every single person who bought that game does not need to be convinced that persona 5 is a good game. They already played it. That means Atlus can just fuck around and have a good time, and man did they have a good time. There’s still scenes that still shock me if i think about it too hard, because i’m used to atlus having to follow this sort of rule set when it comes to persona 5 (or any of the main games im assuming, but i havent played them.) And on top of that, there’s still shit that’s Atlus Trademarked Branded in a good way. The style of story of story telling, and revealing the mystery that is so integral to what p5 is, is still there. 

So, to make this even a little bit comprehensible, i will make a list! 

First of all, What is this game?

In short, this game is an OVA of an anime. It’s bonus side content that has one thing in mind: to showcase these lovable characters more by putting them in fun situations. That’s it, and it is just phenomenal. That was the main point of, i’d say, like forty hours of the game. It’s just fun times with fun characters. 

But to get deeper of what i think is happening, or what they were thinking during the development, is that this is a second opportunity. Persona 5 (as we all know) had a lot of problems, and we were not quiet about those problems. We yelled it all out, made posts, made complaints on every social media platform ever. And Atlus heard all of them, and Strikers is a way to mitigate those mistakes. Aside from being a fun OVA, Strikers also works to be a deeper exploration of these characters—more specifically, the characters that did not receive much in the original game. Creating this sequel is having the ability to redo what they felt (or to be more specific, we felt) in the original game while adding new ones. I will get to that in a second.  

The format of the game 

Absolutely brilliant to throw them on a road trip. P5V already forced us to experience Shibuya for 200+ hours, and im so glad that they didn’t do that again. Going from town to town, making us experience these new places alongside our favorite characters is so good, and it just makes sense. It’s fun, it’s lighthearted, and it’s actually shockingly good. But one thing i do want to talk about early on is the way the story unfolds and the villains that they use, and what they do with it because it’s very interesting. 

So as we explore japan and stuff, we encounter jails, and with those jails comes an antagonist. This antagonist works to be a parallel to one of our characters. That character will find it in their hearts to feel bad for the antagonist, because the antagonist could have been them had the original game not happen. At first I thought all of the thieves were gonna get an antagonist, and i was really hyped for the ryuji one. And then came to hour forty of the game where i realized “yeah that’s not gonna happen. There’s just not enough time.” And i was right, and the game ended. But i am not salty at all, honestly, because the people who got a direct antagonist were: Ann, Yusuke, and Haru. (we wont count zen and sophie). 

Is there a trend??? Yes. these are all characters in the original game that have received the worst treatment by atlus. The three of them are basically cast aside the minute they finished their original arc, and its horrible! BUT that’s why this is the path that atlus chose for them—to give them more depth, and screentime, and a way to show their inner self. That isn’t to say that the ones who aren’t those three (makoto, futaba, mona, akira, ryuji) didn’t get anything. Futaba still has her thing at the end with ichinose, and she was very prevalent and animated during the rest of the game. Mona and Akira have to be a focal points, that’s just the nature of the game. The other two though, I will talk about in depth in a second.  

Makoto

Y’all i poke fun at shumako fans sometimes cause its kind of easy and fun, but i honestly love makoto. In my very first playthrough of p5 (my first ever jrpg game, first persona game, i had no idea what i was doing), i had only maxed out two characters: ryuji and makoto. And i know she had a lot of screentime and love in the original game which is great, but i truly felt like she was dissed in this game. Her only roles were

A driver

Someone to tell them “we don’t have a choice. Let’s keep going and see where this takes us.” (seriously, if you replay this game, you will see how much she does this)

Idk, i just wish she had more to do, especially compared to how much love they gave the other characters. 

But let’s talk about some of the new characters! 

Zenkichi

Damn you atlus. Damn you and your insistence at bringing in cop characters. I was fully on board with hating zenkichi, i was fucking ready for it. I was convinced that there was nothing they could do convince to like zenkichi. I was immune to their copaganda. 

And then i ended up loving him, which makes me sad a little bit. I didn’t realize how desperate i was to have an adult who has a persona. Someone who wants the world to change just as much as they do, while still having that aspect of them that makes them adult. Like??? As someone who is technically an adult, its a breath of fresh air. An adult. Who fights. For justice. Using a persona. And god i love akane so much, and her obsession with the thieves (that scene is probably in my top ten fave scenes of the game). Also what i loved about zenkichi is that he fucking hates the cops!! He hates the system of the cops!! And thats why i actually really started to love him!! Because i thought it was atlus saying that the systematic problem of the police cannot be solved by one person, and zenkichi threw away his badge. I actually cried at that part!! 

But then he became a cop again, and i was just :/ but as a character, i really love him to bits and would love to do a study on him, or at least use him as an outside pov. But! i absolutely love his persona, since im a les miserables fan hehe

Sophia 

she’s probably my favorite new aspect of the game. I was ready to not like her—again, i just suck like that, lmfao—and when i saw her, i was scared that she was just another waifu. I mean, she was very cute after all. But then as the game went on, i thought she was a little too cute. And even further into the game, i finally slapped myself in the face and realized oh my god shes not a waifu. Shes a sister. 

That blew my mind, im ngl to you. A female character that isn’t supposed to be romanced? By jove, what a miracle! 

And she…is an amazing character. Im sorry, i just love her so much. I love her so much that she  probably ranks as my fifth or sixth favorite character which is surprising even to me. Everything about her is delightful and invigorating. She’s funny??? Her comedic timing is amazing, and she has such chemistry with the rest of the team. She’s actually useful to the plot, and while her character design is a little too on the nose for me in terms of cuteness (i mean, good god she’s wearing oversized sweater to show how cute and tiny she is, and her hair has literal hearts in it), she is absolutely lovable. 

But what i actually really wanna gush about for a second is sophia at the last stage of the game. You get the idea, i dont really like to get excited over things, so at this point i figured that there was nothing this game could do to shock me. 

And then sophia had a persona awakening. 

Like. holy fuck did i yell. I didnt realize what was happening until the music had already kicked in. and its just so fucking smart!!! Sophia??? The ai?? With no heart?? gOT A PERSONA???? AWAKENING??? BECAUSE SHE LEARNED WHAT THE HEART IS AND THE PASSION THAT YOU NEED IN ORDER TO GET A PERSONA??? I started crying honestly, because it was just so smart. And looking back on it now, its obvious!! Of course it would lead to this, it only made sense that the culmination of her character arc leads to her getting a persona, nothing else would have been as good. Also, her voice actor is just amazing?? When she was talking to ichinose at the end, i actually got incredibly emotional because of the line reads. Its just so spot on and it really captures the essence of sophia.

Muah. five stars Atlus. You got me. 

Ryuji <3!!!!

Oh man. Oh boy. Okay. so where do i start. 

Yall know i love him. Hes probably my favorite fictional male character of all time, and he is the one i was the absolute most cynical about in this game. I was expecting literally nothing. Nothing. Like. nothing. I thought he was just gonna keep being used as a joke, or a gag, and he’s gonna be super horny all the time for the other girls and it was gonna make me mad and there was gonna be some insane homophobic/queerphobic jokes in every other scene and i know i was being unfair, but i cant help it. 

And then i played the first two hours of the game, and i cried the entire time. Because ryuji has never been better than he is in this game. Its crazy. 

The ryuji in persona 5 strikers is who ryuji should have been/how he should have been treated this entire time. From the actual funny jokes (for example, the gold bar joke + his reaction to it in the beginning of the game), defending his female friends instead of being the one people need to defend from (natsume arc), and the fact that he was the one to be there with morgana and akira in the very beginning of the game. Its such a small thing that they didnt even need to do, but it was such an integral part of the original game for me, that i just was convinced that nothing like this was going to happen. But then it happened. Its just small stuff like that that could have been overlooked but it wasn’t because this game? Persona 5 strikers? Fucking loves ryuji. 

The actual respect they gave this boy is insane and i wasn't ready for it. Like, they gave the shujin trio lunch, they gave the little charm of the katana when they were in natsume’s jail, and, in my opinion this is the second-best thing that they could have given ryuji is sophia. Ryuji and sophia are the pinnacle of a brother & sister bonding relationship in the game that isn’t akira & futaba. And its really prevalent too?? Small stuff from the beginning of the game (pulling her out of a jail, calling her shorty), but then you have the iconic “shut the fuck up” scene, and that scene was so well characterized and written and voice acted, that somehow him saying “fuck” was the least exciting part of that scene to me. Ryuji is an older brother to her, like its undoubtable, and its only further cemented at the end of the game where Ryuji helps out ichinose because he knows how much sophia cares about her. This game. Love ryuji. And i love. This game. 

You know what else i love? Akiryu. 

Guys. i was fully prepared to starve in terms of akiryu. But theres just. So much of it. I wont get too deep into it, because i think this aspect of the game for me still needs marinate a little bit. Like, what was that last shot when EMMA died and Ryuji walked to approach Akira so they could relish in their victory together?? And the smile from both of them??? What the fuck. That was amazing. Also Joker being saved by Ryuji when he was about to fall from the cliff to save sophia??? WHAT. The LEADER AND HIS RIGHT HAND MAN? WHAT. anyway. If theres anything i want to keep for myself in my own brain, its the akiryu aspect of this game, so i wont talk too much about that part of things (instead, itll probably manifest in fic lmfaooo). 

Sure, there’s tidbits of stuff i dont like that they gave ryuji: sexualizing ann in that one cut scene and making him touch the jails even though it hurts, and i recognize those and frown at them, but for the most part, i am blown away with how they treated him.

Basically, Ryuji has never been better. From the opening of the game with him being the first text message and the one to sling his arm around akira, to the very last cut scene where it was ryuji wordlessly leaving because he’s so confident that they would never be separated for long, this game adores Ryuji and i am so so happy to say that.

The Royal aspect of things

Yeah, i had to talk about this, but itll be a short thing i just wanted to point out. Because the last part of this game...is persona 5 royal. Which is curious. Like taking reality and giving that power to someone else so you dont have to experience suffering anymore? And even like, the final section just looked a lot like the top half of maruki’s palace?? And whats even crazier is that we had a boss fight with sophia, just like how we had a boss fight with sumire? Royal and Strikers have like, the same thesis statement. It’s kind of uncanny.It’s interesting, it’s like atlus came up with these two ideas, and then just decided they liked both of them so much that they just did it twice. I don’t mind though—actually, in terms of how the last Palace/Jails go, i probably like them both about equally. 

Though i did love the final battle in this one more than i did in royal. Splitting into teams?? Thats cool as fuck, and really innovative and i didnt see it coming. It also kicked my ass. A lot. 

Now for the last stretch: the small stuff!

The music — bomb as fuck. In my heart, Daredevil is ranked the same as Rivers. Axe to grind is also amazing, but Daredevil owns me

Akechi — i really debated whether or not to talk about him, but i figured a bullet point should be enough. Im really shocked that he wasnt in this at all. Like not even a name drop. If this is an OVA, and the point of the game is to please the fans, and akechi is arguably the fan favorite character, i was really ready for something. But there was nothing, except for the pancake hallway if that even counts as a reference. Thats it. Thats all i wanted to say about him.

The humour — FUCKING HILARIOUS im convinced that in my fifty hour playtime, five of that is dedicated to me laughing and unable to continue the game 

Akira — so much personality! His lines of dialogue are crazy sometimes (like. Whats up with him saying Ryuji has ‘nice abs’ when they were in bath? Im crazy and even i dont know what the fuck that could mean) 

Battle system — oh my god i almost forgot to talk about this. I love it! I kind of miss the turn based aspect just because i found it very comforting for some reason, but this hack and slash style of gameplay is so invigorating because i do feel like it justifies shit like the baton pass and huge attacks.  This battle system fully encompases how the Phantom Thieves are supposed to fight, you know what i mean?

Anyway, thats my thoughts on strikers. Loved it. Amazing. 9.3/10, wouldve been higher but Konoe’s Jail almost bored me to death. Also im a monster and i didnt do any requests that isn’t a fun one, teehee. As if i play persona 5 for the persona aspect of things.

[grigori77]

2020 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30.  BODY CAM – in the face of the ongoing pandemic, viral outbreak cinema has become worryingly prescient of late, but as COVID led to civil unrest in some quarters there were a couple of 2020 films that REALLY seemed to put their finger on the pulse of another particularly shitty zeitgeist.  Admittedly this first one highlights a problem that’s been around for a while now, but it came along at just the right time to gain particularly strong resonance, filtering its message into the most reliable form of allegorical social commentary – horror.  The vengeful ghost trope has become pretty familiar since the Millennium, but by marrying it with the corrupt cop thriller veteran horror screenwriter Nicholas McCarthy (The Pact) has given it a nice fresh spin, and the end result is a real winner.  Mary J. Blige plays troubled LAPD cop Renee Lomito-Smith, back on the beat after an extended hiatus following a particularly harrowing incident, just as fellow officers from her own precinct begin to die violent deaths under mysterious circumstances, and the only clues are weird, haunting camera footage that only Renee and her new partner, rookie Danny Holledge (Paper Towns and Death Note’s Nat Wolff), manage to see before it inexplicable wipes itself.  Something supernatural is stalking the City of Angels at night, and it’s got a serious grudge against local cops as the increasingly disturbing investigation slowly brings an act of horrific police brutality to light, until Renee no longer knows who in her department she can trust.  This is one of the most insidious scare-fests I enjoyed this past year, sophomore director Malik Vitthal (Imperial Dreams) weaving an effective atmosphere of pregnant dread and wire-taut suspense while delivering some impressively hair-raising shocks (the stunning minimart sequence is the film’s undeniable highlight), while the ghostly threat is cleverly thought-out and skilfully brought to “life”.  Blige delivers another top-drawer performance, giving Renee a winning combination of wounded fragility and steely resolve that makes for a particularly compelling hero, while Wolff invests Danny with skittish uncertainty and vulnerability in one of his strongest performances to date, and Dexter star David Zayas brings interesting moral complexity to the role of their put-upon superior, Sergeant Kesper.  In these times of heightened social awareness, when the police’s star has become particularly tarnished as unnecessary force, racial profiling and cover-ups have become major hot-button topics, the power and relevance of this particular slice of horror cinema cannot be denied.

29.  BLOOD QUANTUM – 2020 certainly was a great year for horror (even if most of the high profile stuff did get shunted into 2021), and this compellingly fresh take on the zombie outbreak genre was a strong standout with a killer hook.  Canadian writer-director Jeff Barnaby (Rhymes for Young Ghouls) has always clung close to his Native American roots, and he brings strong social relevance to the intriguing early 80s Canadian setting as a really nasty zombie virus wreaks havoc in the Red Crow Indian Reservation and its neighbouring town.  It soon becomes clear, however, that members of the local tribe are immune to the infection, a revelation with far-reaching consequences as the outbreak rages unchecked and society begins to crumble.  Barnaby pulls off some impressive world-building and creates a compellingly grungy post-apocalyptic vibe as the story progresses, while the zombies themselves are a visceral, scuzzy bunch, and there’s plenty of cracking set-pieces and suitably full-blooded kills to keep the gore-hounds happy, while the horror has real intelligence behind it, the script posing interesting questions and delivering some uncomfortable answers.  The characters, meanwhile, are a well-drawn, complex bunch, no black-and-white saviours among them, any one of them capable of some pretty inhuman horrors when the chips are down, and the cast, an interesting mix of seasoned talent and unknowns, all excel in their roles – Michael Greyeyes (Fear the Walking Dead) and Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant) are the closest things the film has to real heroes, the former a fallible everyman as Traylor, the small-town sheriff who’s just trying to do right by his family, the latter unsure of himself as his son, put-upon teenage father-to-be Joseph; Olivia Scriven, meanwhile is tough but vulnerable as his pregnant white girlfriend Charlie, Stonehorse Lone Goeman is a grizzled badass as tough-as-nails tribal elder Gisigu, and Kiowa Gordon (probably best known for playing a werewolf in the Twilight movies) really goes to the dark side as Joseph’s delinquent half-brother Lysol, while there’s another memorably subtle turn from Dead Man’s Gary Farmer as unpredictable loner Moon.  This was definitely one of the year’s darkest films – largely playing the horror straight, it tightens the screws as the situation grows steadily worse, and almost makes a virtue of wallowing in its hopeless tone – but there’s a fatalistic charm to all the bleakness, even in the downbeat yet tentatively hopeful climax, while it’s hard to deny the ruthless efficiency of the violence on display.  This definitely isn’t a horror movie for everyone, but those with a strong stomach and relatively hard heart will find much to enjoy here.  Jeff Barnaby is definitely gonna be one to watch in the future …

28.  THE MIDNIGHT SKY – Netflix’ big release for the festive season is a surprisingly understated and leisurely affair, a science fiction drama of big ideas which nonetheless doesn’t feel the need to shout about it.  The latest feature in the decidedly eclectic directorial career of actor George Clooney, this adaptation of Good Morning, Midnight, the debut novel of up-and-coming author Lily Brooks-Dalton, favours characterisation and emotion over big thrills and flashy sequences, but it’s certainly not lacking in spectacle, delivering a pleasingly ergonomically-designed view of the near future of space exploration that shares some DNA with The Martian but makes things far more sleek and user-friendly in the process.  Aether, a NASA mission to explore K-23, a newly-discovered, potentially habitable moon of Jupiter, is on its return journey, but is experiencing baffling total communications blackouts from Earth.  This is because a catastrophic global event has rendered life on the planet’s surface all but impossible, killing most of the population and driving the few survivors underground.  K-23’s discoverer, professor Augustine Lofthouse (Clooney), is now alone at a small research post in the extreme cold of the Arctic, one of the only zones left that have not yet been fully effected by the cataclysm, refusing to leave his post after having discovered he’s dying from a serious illness, but before he goes he’s determined to contact the crew of Aether so he can warn them of the conditions down on Earth.  Despite the ticking clock of the plot, Clooney has reigned the pace right in, allowing the story to unspool slowly as we’re introduced to the players who calmly unpack their troubles and work over the various individual crises with calm professionalism – that said, there are a few notable moments of sudden, fretful urgency, and these are executed with a palpable sense of chaotic tension that create interesting and exciting punctuation to the film’s usually stately momentum, reminding us that things could go suddenly, catastrophically wrong for these people at any moment.  Clooney delivers a gloriously understated performance that perfectly grounds the film, while there are equally strong, frequently DAMN POWERFUL turns from a uniformly excellent cast, notably Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo as pregnant astronaut Dr. “Sully” Sullivan and her partner, mission Commander Adewole, and a surprisingly subtle, nuanced performance from newcomer Caoilinn Springall as Iris, a young girl mistakenly left behind at the outpost during the hasty evacuation, with whom Lofthouse develops a deeply affecting bond.  The film has been criticised for its slowness, but I think in this age of BIGGER, LOUDER, MORE this is a refreshingly low-key escape from all the noise, and there’s a beautiful trade-off in the script’s palpable intelligence, strong character work and world-building (then again, the adaptation was by Mark L. Smith, who co-wrote The Revenant), while this is a visually stunning film, Clooney and cinematographer Martin Ruhe (Control, The Keeping Room) weaving an evocative visual tapestry that rewards the soul as much as the eye.  Unapologetically smart, engrossingly played and overflowing with raw, emotional power, this is science fiction cinema at its most cerebral, and another top mark for a somewhat overlooked filmmaking talent which deserves to be considered alongside career highs such as Good Night & Good Luck and The Ides of March.

27.  PALM SPRINGS – the summer’s comedy highlight kind of snuck in under the radar, becoming something of an on-demand secret weapon with all the cinemas closed, and it definitely deserves its swiftly growing cult status.  You certainly can’t believe it’s the feature debut of director Max Barbakow, who shows the kind of sharp-witted, steady-handed control of his craft that’s usually the province of far more experienced talents … then again, much of the credit must surely go to seasoned TV comedy writer Andy Siara (Lodge 49), for whom this has been a real labour of love he’s been tending since his film student days.  Certainly all that care, nurture and attention to detail is up there on the screen, the exceptional script singing its irresistible siren song from the start and providing fertile ground for its promising new director to spread his own creative wings.  The premise may be instantly familiar – playing like a latter-day Saturday Night Live take on Groundhog Day (Siara admits it was a major influence), it follows the misadventures of Sarah (How I Met Your Mother’s Cristin Miliota), the black sheep maid of honour at her sweet little sister Tala’s (Riverdale’s Camila Mendes) wedding to seemingly perfect hunk Abe (the Arrowverse’s Superman, Tyler Hoechlin), as she finds herself repeating the same high-stress day over and over again after becoming trapped in a mysterious cosmic time-loop along with slacker misanthrope Nyles (Brooklyn Nine Nine megastar Andy Samberg), who’s been stuck in this same situation for MUCH longer – but in Barbakow and Siara’s hands it feels fresh and intriguing, and goes in some surprising new directions before the well-worn central premise can outstay its welcome. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the cast are all excellent – Miliota is certainly the pounding emotional heart of the film, effortlessly lovable as she flounders against her lot, then learns to accept the unique possibilities it presents, before finally resolving to find a way out, while Samberg has rarely been THIS GOOD, truly endearing in his sardonic apathy as it becomes clear he’s been here for CENTURIES, and they make an enjoyably fiery couple with snipey chemistry to burn; meanwhile there’s top-notch support from Mendes and Hoechlin, The OC’s Peter Gallagher as Sarah and Tala’s straight-laced father, the ever-reliable Dale Dickey, a thoroughly adorable turn from Jena Freidman and, most notably, a full-blooded scene-stealing performance from the mighty J.K. Simmonds as Roy, Nyles’ nemesis, who he inadvertently trapped in the loop before Sarah and is, understandably, none too happy about it. This really is an absolute laugh-riot, today’s more post-modern sense of humour allowing the central pair (and their occasional enemy) to indulge in far more extreme consequence-free craziness than Bill Murray ever got away with back in the day, but like all the best comedies there’s also a strong emotional foundation under the humour, leading us to really care about these people and what happens to them, while the story throws moments of true heartfelt power at us, particularly in the deeply cathartic climax.  Ultimately this was one of the year’s biggest surprises, a solid gold gem that I can’t recommend enough.

26.  THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME – Body Cam’s fellow heavyweight Zeitgeist fondler is a deeply satirical chunk of speculative dystopian sci-fi clearly intended as a cinematic indictment of Trump’s broken America, but it became far more potent and prescient in these … ahem … troubled times.  Adapted by screenwriter Karl Gadjusek (Oblivion, Stranger Things, The King’s Man) from the graphic novel by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini for underrated schlock-action cinema director Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3, Colombiana, the last two Taken films), this Netflix original feature seemed like a fun way to kill a cinema-deprived Saturday night in the middle of the First Lockdown, but ultimately proved to have a lot more substance than expected.  It’s powered by an intriguing premise – in a nearly lawless 2024, the US government is one week away from implementing a nationwide synaptic blocker signal called the API (American Peace Initiative) which will prevent the public from being able to commit any kind of crime – and focuses on a strikingly colourful bunch of outlaw antiheroes with an audacious agenda – prodigious Detroit bank robber Bricke (Édgar Ramiréz) is enlisted by Kevin Cash (Funny Games and Hannibal’s Michael Carmen Pitt), a wayward scion of local crime family the Dumois, and his hacker fiancée Shelby Dupree (Material Girl’s Anna Brewster) to pull off what’s destined to be the last great crime in American history, a daring raid on the first night of the signal to steal over a billion dollars from the Motor City’s “money factory” and then escape across the border into Canada.  From this deceptively simple premise a sprawling action epic was born, carried along by a razor sharp, twisty script and Megaton’s typically hyperbolic, showy auteur directing style and significant skill at crafting thrillingly explosive set-pieces, while the cast consistently deliver quality performances.  Ever since Domino, Ramiréz has long been one of those actors I really love to watch, a gruff, quietly intense alpha male whose subtle understatement hides deep reserves of emotional intensity, while Dupree takes a character who could have been a thinly-drawn femme fetale and invests her with strong personal drive and steely resolve, and there’s strong support from Neil Blomkampf regulars Sharlto Copley and Brandon Auret as, respectively, emasculated beat cop Sawyer and brutal Mob enforcer Lonnie French, as well as a nearly unrecognisable Patrick Bergin as local kingpin (and Kevin’s father) Rossi Dumois; the film is roundly stolen, however, by Pitt, a phenomenal actor I’ve always thought we just don’t see enough of, here portraying a spectacularly sleazy, unpredictable force of nature who clearly has his own dark agenda, but whom we ultimately can’t help rooting for even as he stabs us in the back.  This is a cracking film, a dark and dangerous thriller of rare style and compulsive verve that I happily consider to be Megaton’s best film to date BY FAR – needless to say it was a major hit for Netflix when it dropped, clearly resonating with its audience given what’s STILL going on in the real world, and while it may have been roundly panned in reviews I think, like some of the platform’s other glossier Original hits (Bright springs to mind), it’s destined for a major critical reappraisal and inevitable cult status before too long …

25.  BILL & TED FACE THE MUSIC – one of the year’s biggest surprise hits for me was also one I was really nervous about – the original Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its just-as-good sequel Bogus Journey have been personal favourites for years, pretty much part of my geeky developmental DNA during my youth, two gleefully dorky indulgences that have, against the odds, aged like fine wine for me over the years.  I love Bill and Ted SO MUCH, so like many of the fans I’ve always wanted a third film, but I knew full well how easy it would have been for it to turn out to be a turd (second sequels can be tricky things, and we’ve seen SO MANY fail over the years).  God bless Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves for never giving up on the possibilities, then, and for the original screenwriters, Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, for writing something that does true justice and pays proper respect to what came before while fully realising how much times have changed in the TWENTY-NINE YEARS that have passed since Wyld Stallyns last graced our screens.  Certainly times have moved on for our irrepressible pair – in spite of their convictions, driven by news from the distant future that their music would unite the world and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity, Bill and Ted have spectacularly failed to achieve what was expected of them, and they’ve grown despondent even though they’re still happily married to the Princesses and now the fathers of two wonderful girls, Billie and Thea (Atypical’s Brigette Lundy-Paine and Ready Or Not’s Samara weaving).  Then an emissary from the future arrives to inform them that if they don’t write the song that unites the world TODAY, the whole of reality will cease to exist.  No pressure, then … it may have been almost three decades, but our boys are BACK in a riotous comedy adventure that delivers on all the promises the franchise ever made before.  Winter and particularly Reeves may have both gone onto other things since, but they step back into their roles with such ease it’s like Bill and Ted have never been away, perfectly realising not only their characters today but also various future incarnations as they resolve to go forward in time to take the song from themselves AFTER they’ve already written it (a most triumphant and fool-proof plan, surely); Lundy-Paine and Weaving, meanwhile, are both absolutely FANTASTIC throughout, creating a pair of wonderfully oddball, eccentric and thoroughly adorable characters who would be PERFECT to carry the franchise forward in the future, while it’s an absolute joy to see William Sadler return as Bogus Journey’s fantastically neurotic incarnation of Death himself, and there are quality supporting turns from Flight of the Conchords’ Kristen Schaal, Anthony Carrigan, Holland Taylor and of course Hal Landon Jr., once again returning as Ted’s grouchy cop father Captain Logan.  The plot is thoroughly bonkers and of course makes no logical sense, but then they’re never meant to in these movies – the whole point is just to have fun and GO WITH IT, and it’s unbelievably easy when the comedy hit rate is THIS HIGH – turns out third time really is the charm for Matheson and Solomon, who genuinely managed a hat trick with the whole trilogy, while there was no better choice of director to usher this into existence than Dean Parisot, the man who brought us Galaxy Quest.  This is the perfect climax to a trilogy we’ve been waiting YEARS to see finally completed, but it’s also shown a perfect way to forge ahead in new and interesting ways with the next generation – altogether, then, this is another most excellent adventure …

24.  TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG – Justin Kurzel has been on my directors-to-watch list for a while now, each of his offerings impressing me more than the last (his home-grown Aussie debut, Snowtown, was a low key wallow in Outback nastiness, while his follow up, Macbeth, quickly became one of my favourite Shakespeare flicks, and I seem to be one of the frustrated few who actually genuinely loved his adaptation of Assassin’s Creed, considering it to be one the very best video game movies out there), and his latest is no exception – returning to his native Australia, he’s brought his trademark punky grit and fever-dream edginess to bear in his quest to bring his country’s most famous outlaw to the big screen in a biopic truly worthy of his name. Two actors bring infamous 19th Century bushranger Ned Kelly to life here, and they’re both exceptional – the first half of the film sees newcomer Orlando Schwerdt explode onto the screen as the child Ned, all righteous indignation and fiery stubbornness as he rails against the positions his family’s poverty continually put him in, then George MacKay (Sunshine On Leith, Captain Fantastic) delivers the best performance of his career in the second half, a barely restrained beast as Ned grown, his mercurial turn bringing the man’s inherent unpredictability to the fore.  The Babadook’s Essie Davis, meanwhile, frequently steals the film from both of them as Ellen, the fearsome matriarch of the Kelly clan, and Nicholas Hoult is similarly impressive as Constable Fitzpatrick, Ned’s slimily duplicitous friend/nemesis, while there are quality supporting turns from Charlie Hunnam and Russell Crowe as two of the most important men of Ned’s formative years. In Kurzel’s hands, this account of Australia’s greatest true-life crime saga becomes one of the ultimate marmite movies – its glacial pace, grubby intensity and frequent brutality will turn some viewers off, but fans of more “alternative” cinema will find much to enjoy here.  There’s a blasted beauty to its imagery (this is BY FAR the bleakest the Outback’s ever looked on film), while the screenplay from relative unknown Shaun Grant (adapting Peter Carey’s bestselling novel) is STRONG, delivering rich character development and sublime dialogue, and Kurzel delivers some brilliantly offbeat and inventive action beats in the latter half that are well worth the wait.  Evocative, intense and undeniable, this has just the kind of irreverent punk aesthetic that I’m sure the real life Ned Kelly would have approved of …

23.  MUST MERCY – more true-life cinema, this time presenting an altogether classier account of two idealists’ struggle to overturn horrific racial injustices in Alabama. Writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle) brings heart, passion and honest nobility to the story of fresh-faced young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) and his personal crusade to free Walter “Johnny D” McMillan (Jamie Foxx), an African-American man wrongfully sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman.  His only ally is altruistic young paralegal Eva Ansley (Cretton’s regular screen muse Brie Larson), while the opposition arrayed against them is MAMMOTH – not only do they face the cruelly racist might of the Alabama legal system circa 1989, but a corrupt local police force determined to circumvent his efforts at every turn and a thoroughly disinterested prosecutor, Tommy Chapman (Rafe Spall), who’s far too concerned with his own personal political ambitions to be any help.  The cast are uniformly excellent, Jordan and Foxx particularly impressing with career best performances that sear themselves deep into the memory, while there’s a truly harrowing supporting turn from Rob Morgan as Johnny D’s fellow Death Row inmate Herbert, whose own execution date is fast approaching.  This is courtroom drama at its most gripping, Cretton keeping the inherent tension cranked up tight while tugging hard on our heartstrings for maximum effect, and the result is a timely, racially-charged throat-lumper of considerable power and emotional heft that guarantees there won’t be a single dry eye in the house by the time the credits roll.  Further proof, then, that Destin Daniel Cretton is one of those rare talents of his generation – next up is his tour of duty in the MCU with Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings, and while this seems like a strange leftfield turn given his previous track record, I nevertheless have the utmost confidence in him after seeing this …

22.  UNDERWATER – at first glance, this probably seems like a strange choice for the year’s Top 30 – a much-maligned, commercially underperforming glorified B-movie creature-feature headlined by the former star of the Twilight franchise, there’s no way that could POSSIBLY be any good, surely? Well hold your horses, folks, because not only is this very much worth your time and a comprehensive suspension of your low expectations, but I can’t even consider this a guilty pleasure – as far as I’m concerned this is a GENUINELY GREAT FILM, without reservation. The man behind the camera is William Eubank, a director whose career I’ve been following with great interest since his feature debut Love (a decidedly odd but strangely beautiful little space movie) and its more high profile but still unapologetically INDIE follow-up The Signal, and this is the one where he finally delivers wholeheartedly on all that wonderful sci-fi potential.  The plot is deceptively simple – an industrial conglomerate has established an instillation drilling right down to the very bottom of the Marianas Trench, the deepest point in our Earth’s oceans, only for an unknown disaster to leave six survivors from the operation’s permanent crew stranded miles below the surface with very few escape options left – but Eubank and writers Brian Duffield (Spontaneous, Love & Monsters, Jane Got a Gun, Insurgent) and Adam Cozad (The Legend of Tarzan) wring all the possible suspense and fraught, claustrophobic terror out of the premise to deliver a piano wire-tense horror thriller that grips from its sudden start to a wonderfully cathartic climax.  The small but potent cast are all on top form, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick (Netflix’ Iron Fist) and John Gallagher Jr. (Hush, 10 Cloverfield Lane) particularly impressing, and even the decidedly hit-and-miss T.J. Miller delivers a surprisingly likeable turn here, but it’s that Twilight alumnus who REALLY sticks in your memory here – Kristen Stewart’s been doing a pretty good job lately distancing herself from the role that, unfortunately, both made her name and turned her into an object of (very unfair) derision for many years, but in my opinion THIS is the performance that REALLY separates her from Bella effing-Swan.  Mechanical engineer Norah Price is tough, ingenious and fiercely determined, but with the right amount of vulnerability that we really root for her, and Stewart acts her little heart out in a turn sure to win over her strongest detractors.  The creature effects are impressive too, the ultimate threat proving some of the nastiest, most repulsively icky creations I’ve seen committed to film, and the inspired design work and strong visual effects easily belie the film’s B-movie leanings.  Those made uneasy by deep, dark open water or tight, enclosed spaces should take heed that this can be a tough watch, but anyone who likes being scared should find plenty to enjoy here.  Altogether a MUCH better film than its mediocre Rotten Tomatoes rating makes it out to be …

21.  PENINSULA – back in 2016, Korean director Yeon Sang-ho and writer Park Joo-suk took the tired old zombie outbreak trope and created something surprisingly fresh with their darkly satirical action horror Train to Busan.  The film was, deservedly, a massive international smash hit and a major shot in the arm for the sub-genre on the big screen, so a sequel was inevitable, but when the time came for them to follow it up they did the smart thing and went in a very different direction.  Jettisoning much of the humour to create something much darker and more intense, they also ramped the action quotient right up to eleven, creating a nightmarish post-apocalyptic version of Korea which has been quarantined from the rest of the world for the last four years, where the few uninfected survivors eke out a dangerous day-to-day existence amidst the burgeoning undead hordes, and the value of human life has plummeted dramatically.  Into this hell-on-earth must venture a small band of Korean refugees, sent by a Hong Kong crime boss to retrieve a multi-million dollar payday in stolen loot that got left behind in the evacuation, led by former ROK Marine Corps Captain Jung-seok (Secret Reunion’s Gang Don-won), a man with a tragic past he has to make up for.  Needless to say, nothing goes according to plan … Train to Busan was an unexpected masterpiece of the genre, but I was even more bowled over by this, particularly since I got to see this on the big screen on Halloween night itself, just before the UK cinemas closed down again for the Second Lockdown. This certainly is a film that NEEDS to be seen first on the big screen – the fully-realised hellscape of undead-overrun Seoul is spectacularly immersive, the perfect cinematic playground for the film’s most impressive set-pieces, two astounding, protracted high-speed chases with searchlight-and-flair-lit all-terrain vehicles racing through the dark streets pursued by tidal waves of feral zombies. Sure, the plot is predictable and the tone gets a little overblown and maudlin at times, while some of the characters are drawn in decidedly broad strokes, but the breathless pace rarely lets up throughout, and there are moments of genuine fiendish genius on offer here, particularly in a truly disturbing centrepiece sequence in which desperate human captives are set against slavering undead in a makeshift amphitheatre for sport, as well as a particularly ingenious use for radio-controlled cars.  And the cast are brilliant, with Don-won providing a suitably robust but also pleasingly fallible, wounded hero, while Hope’s Lee Re and newcomer Lee Ye-won are irrepressibly feisty and thoroughly adorable as the young girls who rescue him from certain death among the ruins.  Altogether, this is horror cinema writ large, played more for thrills than scares but knuckle-whitening and brutally effective nonetheless, and in a year where outbreak horror became all too real for us anyway it was nice to be able to enjoy something a little more escapist anyway – given the strength of its competition in 2020, this top-notch sequel to a true genre gem did very well indeed to place this high.  I’ll admit, I wouldn’t say no to thirds …