#One of the more subtle details I love in DE is how some of the skill portraits parallel character portraits of people hbd associates with.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 2 - Psyche Skills

Part 1 - Part 3

[yourstory-teller]

The ramos one could be something like how he is breaking ankles and injuring people on the field but around the girl he likes he is all soft and sweet, his teammates can't believe it is their same aggressive teammate

Hey bb, thank u sm for requesting!! I'd never written for him before, but it was fun, even though I don't know if I really like this lol

But I promise you I did my best. Hope you enjoy it ♡

Tame the beast

Part of the players were moving in a frenzy. It was normal for this kind of thing to happen during a game, it was to be expected. There were just some people who crossed the line, or got really, really close to it. Some would say close enough to start something.

Ramos walked incessantly towards an opposing player, forehead pressed against his, while the other man kept stepping backwards, trying hard not to trip. "The fuck do you think you're talking to? Huh?" His voice changed considerably at times like this, so much so that even his own colleagues feared the things that he could do. After all, whatever happened to him could harm the entire equipe.

What happens is that, during a play, the Spaniard had made a tackle that directly hit the opposing player's ankle. After that, instead of helping him up, or apologizing, he scoffed, as the other laid down on the grass, complaining of pain. Obviously, the guy wasn't very pleased.

Some of both men's teammates moved to intervene and, after much painstaking, managed to pull them back. Sérgio mouthed an "Hijo de puta", before walking away. Well, it could be much worse, honestly.

Perhaps less than an hour later, everyone had already moved to the dressing rooms. The buzz was loud and between laughs, jokes and screams it was almost impossible to actually hear each other.

Neymar was the first to miss his friend. In the midst of what they insisted to call a conversation, he discreetly nudged mbappe and leaned in to speak close to the boy's ear. "Where's Ramos?" he asked, then saw Kylian move his head to look around the room, just like he'd done a few moments earlier. "He's been away for a bit, right?" "Right." And with a kind of unspoken agreement, they both got up and started walking towards the back of the room, close to the lockers. 

When they were already farther away from the shouting of their mates, a much more subtle and smooth voice could be heard. And when I say smooth, I mean smooth. It sounded eerily like someone speaking a few good octaves higher than what they would usually sound like, like when you're talking to a baby, or a dog.

It took them a while, but they gradually did recognize that voice. "Is this-" Kylian started, but the older man was quick to bring a hand over his mouth.

"I know, honey, I'm sorry, but he started it!" Sergio sounded like a kid being scolded and the two secret listeners did everything they could not to burst out laughing. What a time to be alive.

"I miss you too, baby. But I'll see you soon, right?" This time, the tone used was much lower, almost pleading. He most definetely sounded nothing like the number four they had just seen and heard out on the pitch. It was almost ridiculous to imagine that it was the same man.

"Okay, anjo, I'll call back later. Love you." Ney's eyes widened and he quickly grabbed his friend by the arm to avoid being caught snooping around.

That's when they noticed. Glorious moment.

To say that they laughed about it again and again and again, was an understatement. Neither of them spoke about that with the others, but they didn't need to, anyway. They would eventually find out themselves.

As said, Sergio got to see you not long after that. You had gotten a few weeks off and, of course, would spend as much of that time as possible in the company of your handsome boyfriend. You had arranged everything, every little detail together, and his anxiety was almost palpable, even over the phone.

So, like the hopeless romantic that you were, you decided to surprise him by arriving a few days early. It was cliché and could be very predictable, but you still hoped he wouldn't suspect a thing. He didn't. When you showed up that day, right after a match his team had emerged victorious from, he was as incredulous as you imagined he would be, perhaps a little bit more.

You calmly walked over to your boyfriend while the others were still busy cheering around. He was standing still, seemingly in disbelief of the fact that you were actually there, within reach, for the first time in a while, too fucking long, if you asked him. But when you were just a few steps away, looked like it finally hit him and Sergio was immediately grabbing you into the tightest, warmest embrace, that you missed so much.

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and allowed yourself to get lost in the feeling of being at home.

When you pulled away, just enough to look into his eyes, he stared back with such apparent adoration, that it made you dizzy. Your foreheads now rested together, his lips brushing against your trembling ones. And as he whispered how much he loved you and that he had no idea how he managed to endure all this time away from you, you could feel his tears flowing down your own cheeks.

That's when everyone noticed.

After that, the other players teased him to death. Light hearted jokes, of course, even though sometimes they did carry a hint of envy. Whistles and kissing noises, but it just didn't bother Ramos. The only reaction he'd show was an eye roll and, occasionally, a slight blush that took over half of his face.

"So, Ramos, is she going tonight?" Marquinhos asked, eyebrows dancing suggestively. "We know she's going, he can't even breath without her" "He's whipped, doesn't even deny it"

It would be impossible for you to realize that there really was such a big difference between Sérgio Ramos on the field, and Sérgio Ramos when he was in your company. To other people, however, this discrepancy seemed more than obvious.

Of course, he wasn't really a violent person in everyday life, at all. He was a serious person and somewhat closed off, sometimes even frowning, but not violent. On the field, however, it was a completely different story. When he wore the team's shirt, his presence on the field was nothing short of threatening, in many ways. Sérgio was a great player, fast, skillful, but, above all, an aggressive player. And this was the man the team was used to.

Maybe that's why it was so shocking for them, seeing the two of you together.

Right after a tough workout, or another bitter defeat, which wasn't uncommon playing for PSG he would crawl into your open arms and completely melt, like putty against you.

"It's amazing" You'd hear a whisper, coming from, you just knew, probably Neymar. "She tames the beast." It took a lot of effort and a maturity that you definitely didn't have, for you not to chuckle.

It was funny, yes, but also flattering and, in a way, gratifying, to know that there was a side of him that was kept just for you, and no one else.

"Come on, babe, we're gonna have fun." Your grip around his waist was tight and you moved so that your chin was resting on his chest.

While spending the season with him, you learned that it was common for the players to gather after some more intense training sessions or a few matches, sometimes to celebrate, sometimes to lift their spirits and feel more invigorated to get back to the fight. These weren't really parties, but more like get-togethers, albeit relatively ostentatious and considerably eventful.

"We can have fun here!" You sighed, despite the smile that made its way to your lips. "I know, but we're gonna have plenty of time to stay here. Please, love." You insisted once more, giving him your best attempt of some puppy eyes, but he'd always been better than you in these type of things. He sighed and rested his head back against the pillows, closing his eyes.

You found yourself smirking as he looked back at you, an amused glint in his brown orbs, which now looked almost black. It all happened so fast and you honestly don't know how, but in a second Sergio was hovering over you, strong arms pinning yours against the mattress. It was easy to notice how there was still so much care and delicacy in how he held your wrists.

"Fine" He lowered his head until his lips were ghosting against the corner of your mouth. "But after that, it's gonna be just us. In this room. For a long time." You couldn't control the giggle that rumbled through your ribcage. "Si señor."

[arcadianambivalence]

IWTV S2E2 and History

One thing I really appreciate about this show is how it interacts with its historical setting. I worried that when Louis and Claudia left New Orleans last season, the show would start to shirk the historical details, but the latest episode has given me enough historical tidbits to chew on (pun intended).

Hidden behind the humor of lines like "Paris is shit" and the thrill of meeting other vampires, there's a sense of foreboding lingering beside the recent traumas.

As with the first episode of season 2, Louis and Claudia are surrounded by reminders of war, even if they do not have the context (or empathy) for the survivors they encounter. Claudia complains that she has to pick twice as many pockets to get by, but the two are still able to afford an apartment. Meanwhile, food staples and clothing are still rationed, but people and pigeons are easy to come by.

"Paris was Nazi scar tissue at the time..."

Louis explains, but the scars historically ran deeper than a tourist (and Louis is The stereotypical tourist in this episode) could understand. Blackouts, food shortages, rations, soldiers, and refugees linger at the corners of the episode.

Even Madeline is introduced to us by a man warning Claudia that she was a collaborator or Nazi sympathizer (he does a subtle salute and points to the shop window), which will certainly influence how the next episodes take her through her narrative beats.

The plays performed by the Théâtre des Vampires cross 1920s to 1940s expressionism with absurdity and horror. Even after all this time, Louis is unenthused about the theatrical performances.

"The plays were weird. They always ended in death or some kind of cruel, barely motivated violence."

Armand's reply is dulled by the onstage spectacle:

"Life is cruel. Life is violent. [...] It was all a seduction to lure the cattle into a willing belief of disbelief."

It's a line that is all the more concerning if you know where the story is going...

Annika, the doomed woman onstage, is from Belgium, yet another country recovering from occupation and war. When she desperately tries to convince the audience to flee (not just for them to help her, but to save themselves), she speaks Dutch, so neither the French nor English-speaking audience members understand her.

Still in character, Santiago pretends to offer her a choice. She could live if she gives up someone to die in her place, if she, as the phrase goes, "turns someone in." First, he offers to take her husband, and she refuses. Then he offers to take her son, and again she refuses. Finally, he points to a man in the audience. She nods vigorously, but it's a cruel joke.

Santiago has already made up his mind about her. He addresses the man, warning him against trusting his neighbors:

"They'll give you up in a wink."

As if someone who spent the last five years in occupied France would need reminding.

The warning is for us, the viewers.

Later, the troupe takes Louis and Claudia to a mansion, ostensibly to eat people who, apparently, hoarded resources from the black market. Another show for Claudia and Louis, tourists who still think of themselves as the "good" vampires. Because why would a troupe of vampires concern themselves with that? They don't need anything from the black market. They don't eat anything from the black market. Where was this sense of justice in recent years?

As with Annika, it's yet another excuse to enact cruel and public violence against people they consider less than them.

So when Santiago's introductory prologue includes lines like:

"Being vampires, and by nature superior to you mortals, we can [...] disrupt your tiny ship called human decency."

"Our jobs, which is at the heart of it, to laugh alongside your misery while you cry and scream for more."

"Everything you're about to see is real. Remember that when you leave here tonight. You are all complicit [...] I love you for it."

You know things are not going to get better for Louis and Claudia.

[neylo]

Becoming Marshal of France - Part one: The annoying but necessary shit

@cadmusfly is a bad influence and a terrible temptation. I want you to know that you have succeeded.

Since I was a kid, I loved the feathered hats, the colourful shiny uniforms and the overall vibe of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. Apparently, it wasn't a phase.

I am a cosplayer and I love myself a good challenge. And now here it is. I am to make the ultimate entry for the Napoleonic fandom of Tumblr and make my own marshal uniform. I cordially invite you all to join my journey and perhaps, get inspired!

Let's start with the tunic.

Disclaimer: Reenactors, chill, I am not a millionaire - I can't, unfortunately, afford the expensive replicas of the buttons etc. I do not intend to participate in any kind of reenactment activity, and therefore I can't promise 100% historical accuracy. I would love to. But right now I can't.

Note: I use the metric system. It is nice, it is logical, and you should implement that too, Americans!

Before you start:

Step one: find the appropriate fabrics. Are you looking for dark blue? Great start. Now, it's time for some research. Napoleon's Marshals book by Osprey Publishing has done a great job describing the details. You can basically choose your own preferred material: Silk, velvet or linen. Congrats! For a whole-ass marshal tunic, you will need 2-3 metres of fabric depending on your size.

You will also need lining. I recommend linen lining and viscose lining for the sleeves.

Step two: Assess your insanity. There are multiple uniform patterns, each for a different occasion (source):

If you have three years of free time and unlimited supplies of goldwork threads, you can do the grande tenue - the first picture. I would advise you not to. But if you want, there is actually an extant one you can draw your inspiration from. It belonged to Ney. If you are going for this, you will indeed be the bravest of the brave.

Petite tenue is more subtle with less embroidery. Still, difficult as hell.

Tenue de campagne is the one I am going for. I don't like commitments. You will only need to embroider the collar and the cuffs + some stuff on the back. That is doable. That is what I am doing.

Step three: The pattern. The thing is, the patterns of the era were almost the same. I simply butchered my civilian coat pattern and changed it for a single-breasted one with a standing collar. Do you want help? I will share the pattern with you.

This is how my thing looks at the moment.

Step four: Embroidery. What is this shiny thing on the Marshals' uniforms? This is a kind of embroidery called "goldwork" and you need special metallic threads for it. They are not exactly easy to find, but Etsy is your friend. There are multiple US shops, and there is also EmbroideryMaterial shipping worldwide from India. They have a great selection and very agreeable prices.

For the Marshal tunic you shall need two kinds of threads:

The French wire (lol, it is really called like that!)

The Japanese thread (a thread wrapped in a thin gold plate)

You will also need small gold sequins.

I will show you the embroidery progress when my threads arrive. Before that happens, we need to design the embroidery. No worries, someone did it for you. That someone was actually me:

That's it for today.

Stay tuned for more posts.

[hamsterclaw]

I want to say that ‘The Vows’ couple are my favourite. I keep reading it again and again. There is nothing better than this. I love them so much. Whenever I see any part of it on my dashboard I read it again along with some other parts. I just love it so much. The reader’s character of being bratty, misunderstood, and not evil is so perfectly balanced. And Yoongi accepts her not just tolerates her, this is my fav part of this fic. He is so much in love with her. And even though she makes him really mad he still loves her the same.

OH MY!!! 😭Thank you so much, this analysis is spot on and exactly why I love writing them and I am so so happy that you're enjoying them.

Here’s another little drabble for you because Min Yoongi has been wrecking me today.

Pairing: Vows! Yoongi x reader

Warnings: Sex, swearing, Seokjin

By now, you're pretty good at recognising when your husband is genuinely angry. He's often difficult to read, but you've been making an effort lately, and you're starting to recognise his tells.

When his mouth is in a straight line and his brow's slightly furrowed, he's bemused. It's the expression he had when you hid all his left shoes.

When his brows are drawn together and his mouth opens slightly, he's irritated. He gets like this sometimes when you and Seokjin are arguing.

When his expression goes completely blank, you look at his hands. When his hands are like they are now, loosely clenched, and he looks at you with heat in his gaze, he's angry. It doesn't happen often, but you're quite sure, that on this occasion, Yoongi is angry.

Scratch that. He looks pretty fucking mad.

You think frantically about all the things you've done lately, trying to remember if you've done anything especially provoking.

He’s looking straight at you across the room, and you can feel his eyes burning into you.

What have you done this time?

Your husband's still staring at you, and if he didn't look so damn irresistible in the sharp black suit he's wearing, you'd already be running.

His gaze flicks down over your body, blatantly looking you over in a way that's unusual for him.

Ahhhh fuck.

You stole his suit.

The last time Yoongi and you had to attend a public event together, you went all out. You'd picked up a vintage gown, had it altered to fit you like a second skin, had spent hours being primped and preened just so you could turn up on his arm looking like the most perfect version of you money could buy.

Yoongi had barely blinked. In fact, he'd grumbled something about you making him late to the event.

And so today, when you'd walked past the suit laid out for him in his wardrobe area on the way to the shower, an idea of immense brilliance had flashed into your mind.

You'd reached out, plucked the hanger off the rack, and marched to your room with it clutched in your hand.

You'd sent him some excuse about working late and had told him you'd meet him at the hotel, and then you'd put on his suit.

Crisp white shirt, a jacket with a subtle pinstripe, and a black tie that you'd had to ask Mrs Gye to help you tie. You'd forgone the suit trousers entirely, and the jacket on you is long enough to cover your ass.

Just about.

The piece de resistance though? The platinum collar bar connecting both ends of the collar, tucked under your tie.

You're not entirely sure how you're going to get it off without help, especially since the look on Yoongi's face makes it seem like he's unlikely to want to help you right now.

You like the suit he has on though, now that you can see it more clearly. It's almost identical to the one you have on.

Trust your husband to have a backup suit on standby.

He even has a collar bar like yours, and damn he looks so sexy you want to jump his bones.

Belatedly, you realise the reason you can see all the detail on his suit is that he's much closer than he was when you last checked.

Shit. He's heading straight towards you, face like thunder.

You squeak and back away, straight into the hard chest of Kim Seokjin.

Seokjin sighs wearily.

'At least tell me what panties you're wearing so I have something to jerk off to later,' he says.

'I'll give them to you if you help me get away,' you say quickly, seeing an opportunity.

'You're not going anywhere,' Yoongi says. His hand closes on your arm like a vice.

***

Yoongi’s driving, one hand curled loosely on the wheel, the other on the centre console of his car, close to your bare thigh.

‘Nice suit,’ he says, the first words he’s spoken to you since you left the event.

You smooth the wool over your thigh. ‘Thank you, it’s Valentino.’

Yoongi looks at you like he can’t quite believe your audacity.

‘It looks like the suit I was meant to wear tonight.’

‘Yeah?’ you ask, all innocence.

‘I didn’t know you could tie a tie that well, I should ask for your help next time.’

‘Mrs Gye helped,’ you offer nonchalantly.

‘Where are the pants?’ Yoongi asks. He glances in the rearview mirror, signals to turn.

‘They didn’t fit,’ you say, shrugging.

‘Because they were measured specifically for me,’ Yoongi points out.

You give him a sidelong look.

‘You don’t like me in womenswear or menswear it seems,’ you mutter.

Because you’re watching, you see Yoongi flick his eyes to you.

‘I like you in everything,’ he counters. There’s a pause before he says, ‘and nothing.’

He slows the car, and you look around curiously at the darkness around you.

Yoongi pulls to a complete stop.

‘Why did you steal my suit to wear tonight?’

You don’t have an answer, but Yoongi doesn’t seem to be waiting for one.

‘Is it because I don’t buy you enough beautiful clothes?’ he muses.

‘I buy my own clothes,’ you point out, defiant.

‘Is it because it wasn’t enough for you that I came so hard when you were wearing that ridiculous dress at the last event, I passed out?’

‘You liked that dress?’ you ask, inordinately pleased.

Yoongi glowers at you.

‘If you didn’t act like such a brat all the time, I’d compliment you more,’ he growls.

You raise an eyebrow. ‘You like it when I’m a brat, Yoongi.’

He doesn’t deny it. Instead he looks out the window.

‘How many times do I have to come inside you before you realise how stunning I think you are?’

He turns back to you.

‘Jagiya, I will always think you are beautiful.’

There’s no heat in his voice now, the words come out with a quiet simplicity that rings with honesty.

You’re still processing when he continues, ‘and I will always think you look irresistible in my clothes.’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘For stealing my suit and leaving me to have a replacement delivered at short notice?’

You turn to him.

‘I’m not angry,’ he tells you. ‘But if I were, how would you make it up to me?’

You bite your lip, then slide your seat back.

‘May I kiss you, Yoongi?’

He’s staring at your lips. ‘Yes.’

You slip your hand down his chest, past his belt buckle, down to his lap.

‘Here?’ you ask, hand over his lap.

‘Fuck, jagiya, please,’ he breathes.

You lean over and undo his pants, slide his half-erect dick out.

Yoongi reaches out, wraps a hand around your (his) tie, loosely.

‘Hey,’ he says, just as your lips touch his cock.

‘Mmm?’

‘Tap me if I’m holding too tight, ok?’

He waits until you nod before he leans back in his seat. His perfectly coiffed hair flicks forward as the back of his head meets the headrest, and his thighs spread as you lick along his cock.

He’s quiet as you suck him to full erection, the only clues you have that he’s enjoying it are the erraticness of his breathing and the way he’s twitching over your tongue.

‘Fuck,’ he groans, fist tightening in your tie, tugging you down.

It’s making the tie tighten around your neck, but you like how it feels.

‘Fu— uh—- uk,’ he groans again, stuttering as you hollow your cheeks and take him all in, the head of his cock nudging the back of your throat.

You swallow, and he slams a hand against the car window.

You reach under, cup his balls, and his hips jerk against your face.

He’s holding you so tight, filling your mouth with his cock so well you can barely breathe.

‘Gonna cum,’ he warns, ‘fuck, I’m gonna —-‘

He doesn’t finish his sentence, moaning long and deep as he shoots his release down your throat.

The tie tightens again, and then he lets go.

‘Jagi, are you ok?’

He’s tipping your chin up to see your face, and the concern in his expression makes you feel warm.

‘I’m ok, oppa.’

He pulls you up to kiss him.

‘Don’t ‘oppa’ me, brat.’

He’s undoing your tie deftly, unthreading the collar bar so he can unbutton your shirt.

‘Let me see,’ he grunts, unbuttoning your shirt rapidly, pulling the plackets apart to expose your lack of bra, the thin, sheer panties you slipped on.

He presses his thumb over your wetness, places his other hand over your exposed front.

‘What do you want, my love?’ he asks. He slides two fingers under your panties, tugs. ‘Want me to kiss you here?’

His knuckles nudge against your core, and he groans. ‘You’re wet, you like sucking my cock, don’t you, jagiya?’

His fingers slip inside you, stretching, scissoring, his movements fast and insistent.

‘Yoongi,’ you cry, and he laughs, thumb rocking back and forth over your clit, making you buck against his hand.

'You're so easy to please, my love,' he taunts.

A lock of hair's fallen over his forehead now, and he looks so good you could cry.

Yoongi cups your breast, squeezes. 'Your little pussy's so fucking tight, I can barely move my hand,' he tells you. 'Gonna come for me?'

You cry his name as your pleasure crests and you press your face into his neck.

Yoongi leaves his fingers inside you but wraps his other arm around you, pulling you into his chest.

The cool metal of his collar bar digs into your cheek.

'I'm gonna help you get re-dressed, ok, baby?' he says, voice low, rumbling in his chest.

'Then I'm going to take you home and we're going to do this again.'

[aibazuos]

My Brazilian ass is thinking way too much about a One Piece Brazilian military dictatorship AU and I need to put it out there or I will explode

Honestly, the only reason that's something I have such strong opinions about is bc Luffy is Brazilian and there's just so little Brazilian characters in media in general (There's more in Japanese media than in other places but I don't have the time to explain it, if you want to learn more about that you can watch this video).

I don't know how ethical it is to find parallels between a fictional work and very real events that caused the suffering and death of a lot of people. But I think that this is a way to share more of this very important moment in Brazilian history.

So, let's start with a bit of actual history before jumping into my strange attempt at mixing a media that I love and the history of my country.

(Tw: discussions of torture, death, abuse of power by the government, gun use, armed revolution, censorship and anything you can think about that has to do with a military dictatorship. I won't go into detail, but if that's something that triggers you be mindful of that)

Oh, not a TW but something you should know, there's a lot, and I mean a lot, of communism, socialism and anarchism, just so you know

The coup d'état

In 31th of March, 1964 the Brazilian President João Goulart was overthrown by the army. The coup would later be described as a "revolution" by Castelo Branco, one of the Presidents during de dictatorship. It was said to be revolution bc of the "threat of communism" that had been taking over Brazil.

I need to make this very clear, Brazil had at the time some communist and socialist party's, but there was no actual threat from them, since they weren't popular enough with the general population.

This anti-communism reasoning had been used before to instal dictatorships is Brazil, such as the Getulio Vargas government. And it's still being used to this day by far-right politicians to manipulate the public (no, I'll not be arguing about this, if you truly think Brazil has an actual communist threat you can go and find another blog for you, mine isn't the place. block me if you feel the need)

The coup, and the whole dictatorship, was funded by the US

The Institutional Acts

The Institutional Acts were extra-legal decrees that were issued. There were 17 of them and more than a 100 complementary acts.

The Institutional Act number 5 is considered the more violent one, it allowed: the revocation of mandate of any elected politician, the president to interfear in government of states and county's and it made possible for a citizen to lose their constitutional rights. This Act was the one that basically legalized the torture that was already happening.

The Torture and Assassinations

Again, not going into detail, but there was a lot of people who disappeared after being arrested. The most infamous case is of Vladimir Herzog who was found in his cell after "self deleting" with his tie. The photo of his body was sent to the news by the army, but it was questioned by the public, bc he used his tie, but his his legs could touch the floor, so not the most efficient way. I do not recommend looking for his name online unless you want to see the fake self deleting photo, there's no blood or gore, but it is a dead body.

You could be arrest for subversive behavior, basically anything that the government deemed to be against it. A lot of students and teachers were arrested, journalists, actual revolutionaries and people that they would call "communists" even if a lot of them weren't communists.

The Censorship

A lot of art was censored during the dictatorship. Some musicians, such as Chico Buarque , found ways to still criticize the government in their songs but in a more subtle way that wouldn't get them caught. But even then Chico Buarque had to flee the country at some point. (Construção, Cálice and A Banda are very good songs that he wrote during the dictatorship and that are seen a symbol of resistance, really recommend them)

Carlos Marighella

Carlos Marighella was at one point considered enemy number one by the government and was classified as a terrorist. He participated in the armed fight against the dictatorship and founded the Ação Libertadora Nacional (National Liberation Action)

Before the coup he was already part of the Communist Party and an atheist, getting arrested even before the coup bc of an offensive poem he wrote about the administration of Bahia.

The ALN was involved in the kidnapping of an American ambassador in 69, along side the MR-8, another revolutionary movement.

Later that year Marighella was killed in the back of a car after being shot multiple times by the police. The photo of his body would be sent to papers, and through that way his son, fifteen at the time, discovered about his father’s death.

His death would get the urban guerrilla slowed down, but the rural guerrillas still happen and it got more support.

In 1996 the Ministry of Justice would recognize Marighella’s death as the estate’s responsibility. In 2007 it was decided that his wife, Clara Charf was to have a lifetime pension from the government (she is still alive at 99 years old). And, in 2012, after investigations, the Ministry of Justice declared his amnesty post mortem.

(Again, be careful when searching about him, the pictures of his body are not hard to find, and it’s a very bloody image. He was shot multiple times)

The end

The dictatorship ended in 1985. At that point the military was having difficulties keeping itself in power, since the direct elections for governor in 1982 had already elected 10 governors that were in opposition to the dictatorship.

Along side that, during 1983 and 1984 there was a civil movement called “Diretas Já” that wanted the direct elections for the president back, since those stopped happening after the dictatorship took place. That movement was taken down, but even then in the indirect elections of 1985 the non-military candidate, Tancredo Neves, won the election, officially ending the dictatorship.

The end of the dictatorship had already been expected by the military. So in 1979 the president João Batista Figueiredo signed the amnesty for anyone who had committed political crimes, including the torturers. Dilma Rousseff, the first woman to be president of Brazil, elected in 2012, was one of the many people to be tortured by the military and one of the few that survived it. And the current president, Luís Inácio "Lula" da Silva, was part of the syndicalist movement during the dictatorship (not saying I like them, but they are very important figures today and I think it puts into perspective that this events weren't that long ago)

About 400 people were confirmed dead after the end of the dictatorship, but more than 20,000 were missing. It's very hard to find the information about the missing people, since even if files were made about them they are either hidden somewhere or they have been destroyed. To this day new information about this period is being discovered.

In 1988 the new constitution had been written and put into place. It still is the constitution that is being used to this day and is called the citizen constitution, since it was made for the new democratic government. It also made the presidential elections direct again.

WTF AM I DOING??? (AKA: the actual One Piece part)

(honestly there's still a lot of history during this part, I'm terrible at this)

The Marighella question

I just needed to work someone based on Marighella into this, he is such an important figure in all of this. I had two main ideas, either Gol D. Roger and Monkey D. Dragon could fulfill this role of a number one enemy but bc the main character is obviously Luffy i kinda want to make it Dragon.

I think I have some ideas abt their father-son relationship, or lack of it, that would make it interesting.

What I'm writing here is basically a pre-story and the very beginning of it, bc of it some characters are going to be left out (also I haven't watched all of one piece)

Monkey D. Garp

Born in 1904 in the city of Rio de Janeiro

Joined the military in 1922 at 18

Had Dragon in 1929 at 25

Fought in WWII as part of the cobras fumantes (smoking snakes)

Had a difficult time being there for Dragon when he was growing up since he at the time was to rising up the ranks

Tried to get Dragon to join the military

In 1951 when the Getúlio Vargas got into power again Dragon had been affiliated to the communist party for 5 years and Garp stated to hide their connection so that he wouldn't have to report his son.

Luffy is born in 1952 and Dragon takes care of him until 1955. Garp tries to take care of him for a few months, but bc he's a this point a Brigadier General he doesn't have the time to take care of a kid, so Luffy is sent to live with Dadan in Salvador.

When the coup happens Garp burns every file that has Dragon's full name

When Dragon is expelled from the communist party, in 1967, Garp thinks that he's going to calm down and stop, but a few months later more violent revolutionary actions start happening and Garp just knows that it is his son

Garp tries to disturb the investigations that are slowly getting closer to Dragon, but when the U.S starts putting more and more funds into finding and killing Dragon he is forced to stop or he'll be under suspicion of treason

When Dragon dies in 1969 Garp goes to Salvador to tell Luffy face to face abt his father's death

He again tries to get Luffy to join the military, trying to get his grandson to be safe, maybe that way he can resign

Luffy refuses and Garp knows that if he resigns he won't be able to protect Luffy, so he doesn't resign

When his colleagues start talking about this new traveling artists that are making subversive plays in the more rural areas Garp promises himself that no one will kill his grandson

Monkey D. Dragon

Born in 1929 in Salvador, Bahia

He remembers the fear that he felt every time a soldier came bearing news of his father's situation. Would this be the time they tell him he died while fighting the nazis?

The first time he learned about communism was by chance. Some activists had ran scared after the police arrived and left behind some copies of the communist manifesto. He was 14 and that was the first book he read through that wasn't for school

When WWII ended in 1945 Dragon was relieved to have his father back, but that didn't last long. Soon Garp was back to work

They moved to Rio de Janeiro after Garp came back

Since Rio was, at the time, the capital and Gétulio Vargas had just been deposed it wasn't particularly difficult for Dragon to start going to communist meetings

In 1946, when Dragon is 17, he officially joins de communist party

After he graduated high school in the end of that same year he officially moves out and start living in a college commune

He goes to the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) to get a sociology degree

He graduates in 1950

When Vargas becomes a President again in 1951 Dragon is arrested for subversion for the first time

He's in prison for a few months

When he sees Garp after that they both know that no one can know about their connection. Vargas is in power again and an active member of the communist party that is also the son of an important figure from the military has the biggest target in his back

They wouldn't see each other for years. Both still living in Rio de Janeiro, but no attempts at contact would be made

In 1952 Luffy is born, Dragon is his sole caretake

For his son he tries to lay low, he knows what is like to have an absent father, he doesn't want his son to have the same. He does more office work, publishing unsigned papers in various communist papers and that works

For 3 years that works, but then he's arrested in a violent way. He is shot in the stomach and 2 cops press him to side of the car while putting handcuff on him

Luffy sees everything

When he gets his one call he calls one of his friends and asks them to take Luffy to Garp's house in as many codes as he can use, trying to make sure that the cops didn't know he had a son.

This time his arrest lasts 2 years, he thinks that it would've lasted more if Vargas hadn't ended his own government by killing himself

He goes to visit Garp, to visit Luffy

But Luffy isn't there and Garp won't tell him where Luffy is

He's angry, furious, but at the same time he knows that Luffy is going to be safer away from him

He never sees Luffy again

Juscelino Kubitschek (JK) is elected President in 1955 and the construction of Brasília, the new capital, starts

Things calm down for a few years between JK's government, Jânio Quadros resignation from office and than João Goulart

But the coup happens

Everyone in the party knows that if things had been hard when Vargas was president they are about to get worse now

The younger members of the party, the ones that hadn't been there when Vargas was president, either get even more radicalized or leave the party

Dragon feels like they aren't doing enough, people are getting tortured and killed and they are writing articles that are never going to be published

He's expelled from the party, his colleagues see him as being way to violent, but he takes some people with them and makes his own revolutionary group

They finally get some world out there, but the military makes sure that none of it gets to the papers, censoring everything

The military gets more vicious in their search for Dragon, so Dragon gets more violent

Civillians are never to be killed, even if they are sometimes caught in the crossfire

They throw a grenade in an U.S building and things get harder, now the U.S wants Dragon's head too

He knows that he's going to die, that the police has found his colleagues, his friends. He knows that he is one of the few left and, maybe, if he dies first, the ones that are still alive can get away, maybe live normal lives

He writes letter and records messages in tapes, most os them are for Luffy

When he gets shot the first time he knows that this it, that he's going to die there in the backseat of a car

Quickly the other shots follow

Monkey D. Luffy

Born in 1952 in the city of Rio de Janeiro

His gramps sent him to live in Salvador when he was very young

For some reason he doesn't have many memories from before he went to live with Dadan... but he remembers someone being shot

He's 5 when he meets his brothers. He loves them

School is boring

Gramps wants him to join the army when he grows up

One day, when Luffy is 7 a band of traveling artists appear in town, the cops hate them but Luffy is immediately interested

Shanks is just so cool and so strong

Luffy wants to be like him when he grows up

They get into a fight with some low grade soldiers and Luffy tries to defend them

He fails

Shanks has to protect him and gets shot in his shoulder, he loses movement of his arm

Luffy promises himself that he would get strong enough to not let anyone he cares about get hurt

Shanks continues to tell him that it wasn't his fault, the cop should't have pointed at gun at a child

Just as sudden as they came the leave, Shanks gives Luffy his straw hat

Things go back to how they were before, except now Luffy knows he will never be part of the military

Gramps is angry when he hears that

When he's twelve his teachers start talking about how the military is now in power, they say it's a good thing "We'll finally get ride of the commies, there will be order in the country"

Luffy feels something sick in him

A month later Sabo dies

Luffy and Ace didn't go to school for a week

Ace graduated and left. He said he wanted to do something good, make their childhood dreams of changing the world into reality

Luffy wants to go with him but Ace refused

Luffy is now alone

School is still boring and now his teachers continue to praise the military in everything they do. Some of them seem scared of the military though

He's 15 when he hears whispers of this “commie bastard” that is been causing havoc in Rio de Janeiro

He's 16 when the papers now have the face and name of the commie bastard, a guy with a face tattoo, " THE TERRORIST DRAGON"

He's 17 when his gramps shows up in town, with a paper in hands that declared that Dragon was dead

"Your dad Luffy, he died"

Gramps begs him to join the military, to keep himself safe

Luffy can't agree to that, not after having see the military hurt so many people and stop them from being free

All Luffy wants is to be free

That is the first time he sees his Gramps cry

His gramps said that his dad left him tapes and letters

Luffy hears and reads all of them that night

When Dadan and gramps go to wake him up next day they find an empty bed

Okay, this post is already way to long and characters like Ace and Sabo are more interesting if I talk abt them at a later point

Honestly I really recommend taking pieces of the history of your country and characters you love and smash them. It doesn't need to be something so traumatic as my choice was, you can just use something that you think is interesting.

My choice was the dictatorship bc I think One Piece deals a lot with themes like these with the marines that it was the most obvious choice. Also communist Dragon, honestly that was a big part of it too

Less important, but like, I really do need to change the names of the IRL presidents and stuff like that. bc even the idea of "Monkey D. Dragon" and "Getúlio Vargas" being two people alive at the same time is weird

I don't know if this post will get attention, but I do plan on writing more of whatever this is

Also, this shit wasn't beta'd I just needed to get this out there as soon as possible

[possibly-j]

My Linux Journey

This was originally supposed to be a post on learning Linux but I got to rambling so enjoy my story about my journey with Linux. Expect a post on that topic at a later date.

~The early days~

I think my introduction to Linux was honestly quite smooth. See I'm poor and am not inclined to sail the seven seas when I can get by on a free option. And as I looked for free software I started to pick up that the safe ones were always "open source" and seemed to always support, sometimes primarily, Linux. Eventually my curiosity was piqued and I decided to look into it. I was confused by a lot of things, but I was setting up a Minecraft server for my friends and saw people recommend Linux, specifically Debian, for the job. So after unsuccessfully installing it once (I don't know how I think I got scared about formatting the drive) and not understanding how formatting works and deleting the operating system by writing it over with 0's (I keep adding comments but seriously where did I get the impression I had to do that?) and reinstalling I got it set up, downloaded everything I needed, and got it working in a few days. This taught me a lot. The command line, which I wasn't unfamiliar with but rarely used, was my new best friend, or rather only friend. I learned how to do updates, navigate the file structure, download software, and use Nano because, well, I had to. But most importantly, I like how clean everything was compared to Windows (subtle foreshadowing), and I wanted more.

~Adoption~

I was building my computer and really wanted to make the jump to Linux, so I researched and landed on Kubuntu. I installed it, smoothly this time, got some software, got confused by Snaps, opened Blender and- green bar. I had a new AMD graphics card, so driver issues weren't unexpected, but it deterred me enough to just install Windows instead. I did decide though to try on my laptop since it was older and mostly used for web-surfing. I installed Pop! OS because I thought the tiling was cool (more subtle foreshadowing) and... It worked great! I quickly got used to the nice GUI elements it provided and my prior knowledge of the terminal made it easy enough to fix odd issues that came up. However, and I'm sure everyone who knows anything about Linux sees this one coming

~Distro Hopping~

I'll save you most of the details but I think it went like this

Pop! OS, got mad at Gnome, switched to Manjaro with KDE (Which will be my DE of choice for the rest of this), wanted Arch but wasn't comfortable enough with the command line yet.

Broke something, switched to Debian, liked it on server thought I might like it on my laptop.

Wanted newer software, switched to OpenSuse Tumbleweed.

I used OpenSuse Tumbleweed for I think a year straight. It's just that good, but I can't leave good enough alone so

Alpine Linux, because I thought it was cool. Actually planning on moving back to it once I'm done needing my laptop to always be working because it meets that "clean" criteria like no other in my brain (See I told you it was foreshadowing).

And right now Endeavour OS, because I wanted something with good documentation and didn't feel like setting up Arch.

Oh and I use i3 now, to finish off the foreshadowing.

There were a bunch of short lived ones throughout that, but those are the memorable ones. Also I installed Fedora on the computer I built a few months back and now use it over Windows whenever I can.

~Where I am Now~

If it isn't obvious, I'm sucked in. I've almost built Linux From Scratch, three times, installed Gentoo a few times, and even tried expanding my horizons further with FreeBSD, which I love but the software support isn't great for my needs. Linux is natural to me and I even have my own bits of obscure knowledge on fixes for odd issues with my hardware. I have weird opinions about init systems (Weird because I don't actually care much, I just like OpenRC more than SystemD because it's simple). Windows feels slow to use, and not for hardware reasons it just takes me twice as long to do anything. I really love tiling window managers like I don't understand how I lived without them. I primarily use open source software when I can but flatpaks and web applications fill in the gaps nicely.

~Closing Notes~

I love Linux, probably a bit too much, but it's just a fun time. It works well for me and I've spent enough time in the ecosystem that it's what I'm used to. I see a lot of new Linux users on here so if you're new, welcome! Don't let the often toxic community (at least on Reddit, I don't know about here) get to you. My absolute favorite part of Linux is that you get to have choices. Make use of that, find what you like, and don't be afraid to reinstall Arch for the 10 millionth time. There's a lot to learn, and maybe my story will be of some help. To those more experienced than me, how the fuck do you understand chmod

:q!

[voyeur-clairvoyant]

Hot take of the night:

After watching 50+ tarot de marseille channels on youtube I have some conclusions

Either all of them are dumb fucks or they straight up give a shit about history (and I'm a walking bathtub of acid).

Like, I GET that someone is the 90's had less resources so YEAH! I can understand if they believe some silly myths like "tarot was made in Egypt" and shit like that.

NOW, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2024 I CAN'T STAND another bitch saying "✨The Lover card is all about choices✨". WHAT?? Like, be fucking serious! That's a factual mistake due to poor artistic skills and missing info.

Then again, I can understand it from someone who had to learn by themself 50 years ago BUT YOU HAVE A PHONE AND YOU HAVE WIFI and by god you're lucky I don't have your adress cause I'd be on the fucking news.

LOVE. THE FUCKING CARD IS ABOUT LOVE.

I'm serious. Either many of them are dumb as a rock or they give a massive shit about history and basic facts and I'm ready to commit first degreee homicide.

"✨The Hanged man is about self-sacrifice and perspective✨" Wrong

"✨Death is actually not about death at all but E V O L U T I O N✨" Wrong

(talking about tarot de marseille and other classic decks. I'm a massive "no one cares about" enjoyer of the esoteric decks)

If I hear another one of them say ANYTHING about the fucking flowers or the fucking leaves in the minor arcana I'm hunting them down and eating them cannibal style, ok? Are all on the same page? Jesus Chirst, basic shit like why the Bataleur has "potential and power over the elements". They have NO idea, like, do they seriously think tarot is just a list of wacky pictures with fortune cookie level of messages added to 'em at random??

How many readers read with a tarot deck but can't actually read tarot?? (subtle but important difference)

Basic stuff like the fucking context. NO, the Rider-White-Smith deck is not the first one, and for god's sake tarot has nothing to do with Egypt and that's lowkey a racist take. Fuck you Gebellin, but at least you were a moron with historic blindness, IN THE OTHER HAND, you tarot "master" with internet access and a youtube channel, can you repeat that shit about how "tarot is actually the sacred texts of Thoth hidden into playing cards" or are we normal about historic records?

The fucking obsession with the little details. And fuck, I'm a devil's advocate so I can see how incredible must be from a surreal perspective the use of Dali's paranoid-critical method on tarot HOWEVER, I'm tired, Im so fucking tired about the meaningless details.

The Fool is not carrying a spoon, bitch be fucking real hashasha. It's a rod, a simple stich to carry his bundle of few belongings.

The missing leg on the Bataleur's table is not hiding on the Papesse's card or talking about secrets and hidden info. LOOK at the fucking card and use your brain: It's not there because the artist made a poor woodcut and the table was too big for the card. That's it.

Wheel of Fortune is a gore scene from an artistic pov. Absolutely destroyed.

The Empress has no fucking wings, again, be for real, it's just a badly drawn throne.

The lines in the Papesse's book mean absolutely nothing.

No one cares about if Death is cutting it's own foot.

Hermit's lamp used to be an hourglass because the card is TIME but then again, who cares.

I'm so tired about all this nonsense and this is just the basic level of nonsense hahaha. I'm not even touching the fucking monster that the New Age (and Alejandro Jodorowsky) created. The fucking white-washing of all cards and context into pathetic and unrelated new interpretations without any actual deep.

People have a natural fear of death. And shit! You can see how bad it was that even its name was banished into the "Arcane sans nom" or the "Arcane 13". People have always been pissing and shitting their pants thinking about death.

BUT BITCH, even that was fairest and more honest than straight up pretending Death has nothing to do with death. The little cunty names like "change" and "transformation" are the same shit as the arcane sans nom just done more cowardly. Am I being a dick? Yes, absolutely, I'm sorry for what I'm saying but this is my vent post of the year.

Tarot is something so humble, simple and human that the mere idea of talking about it as something "hidden" or "arcane" makes me sick. It's right there! You already know it! Love! Death! Time! Fame!

You have been on this planet for idk how many fucking years, you know the Sun, the Moon, the Stars. What else do you need?

Tarot should be easy and humble but instead we have a massive ton of bullshit about how "mysterious" and "enigmatic" the cards are, mixed with another ton of white washed nonsense and historic blindness. Look at the card!!! Look beyond the details of the artistic interpretation!!! Look beyond the shadow casted by the puppet and look beyond the puppet and into the light of the prime fire!!!

"✨The Lover card has actually nothing to do with love✨" and shit like that are not the revolutionay statement they think it is. As a matter of fact it's a prideful demonstration of their own ignorance.

Tarot IS easy, humble, obvious, and clear and I'm willing to die in this fucking hill. (once again, talking about TdM and classic tarot. The esoteric decks are their own hell ahshasa)

[justatalkingface]

More thoughts on the Rebel!Todoroki AU

I'm now actively thinking on this. Why.

My main thought starting this line of thinking is about how none of the Todoroki's ever blow the whistle on Endeavour in canon; while some of it (a lot of it, unfortunately, knowing Hori) is probably about not wanting to ruin his life, since they've secretly loved him all this time or whatever, it's probably also based in a few more practical facts: not wanting themselves to get dragged into the mud, wanting not to drag their mother into the mud, and an Endeavor-born lack of faith in heroic accountability which is completely canon, to the point where they may have gotten assassinated if they made too big a stink about it. While those same practical motivations are still there, so no blatant call outs of what he did, in this AU there is far less mercy in how they discuss Endeavour to outsiders.

Fuyumi, here, is still rather soft spoken, and when she talks to reporters, she always leaves them with a positive impression, until they review what she actually said, and not how she said it, and they realize she never once actually referred to Endeavour as her father, or as someone related to her, or in any sort of relaxed way indicating that they're family; it's just 'Endeavour, Endeavour', over and over again, always carefully proper in how she refers to him by his hero name, which is de facto his job title.

Moreover, they then realize she never says anything nice about him; hell, she barely talks about him at all! Summed up, she basically says that, 'Yes, I have heard about a hero named Endeavour' and that 'Yes, I have heard he has done (this newsworthy thing); I heard about it on the news just yesterday'.

It leaves every interview she gives ultimately unusable for how utterly empty and lifeless they all are.

Natsuo, meanwhile, is less subtle. And by less subtle, I mean he has one line about Endeavour he gives to anyone who asks him, every time he's asked about him: "Every day I wake up I pray he trips over a banana and dies."

Nothing else. He says that one line, says bye, and walks off, and has done this for years. He's a cryptid like figure for those that pay attention to this kind of thing, and in the hero forums more focused on the celebrity end they have long running debates on if he actually means that, or if this entire thing is this strange, elaborate joke he's been running on anyone who pays attention to him; he never goes into any other detail, and every other Todoroki refuses to comment on this, even Endeavour (if for different reasons than his children).

Rei... the thing is with Rei is her life is kinda utterly destroyed. Natsuo and Fuyumi care about things like their reputations, if they'll be believed, and her reputation, but Rei herself? Nah, she's gone through eight cycles of the stages of grief while she's been trapped in the psych ward, and Rei no longer cares about those petty things; at this point in her life? Rei wants one thing, and one thing only:

To kill Endeavour with her own hands.

And since she decided that, she started acting better, to get good evaluations and to get her husband to visit her as she gets 'cured'; she lies and lies and lies to every therapist about whatever they want to hear, she acts calm and sensible and buries all her negative feelings deep down inside her, while carefully practicing small, but controlled uses of her Quirk in ways that no one else can tell.

And she does this for years, slowly cycling into a deeper insanity, because as it turns out? Endeavour doesn't actually care if she's 'better' or not; he got what he needed from her, and while leaving her locked up is a money drain, he's got the cash to burn and it's more convenient for him to just have his inconvenient wife locked away, far from the prying eyes of the media, than to let her out and risk an incident of some kind. By the time he actually does go to visit her, she's at a level of fucked up far beyond she had ever been outside, even at her worst, and there is zero hesitation in her when he finally appears before he, repentant. As it turns out, all her children have grown up, but they've all drifted further and farther away from Endeavour as they aged; he lives alone now in his massive house and the last time he got a chance to talk to his prized heir in private, without the cameras watching, so they could have a real conversation? Shoto froze the hand that touched him solid before walking off without saying a word, and it was only then that the reality started to sink in.

Rei then acts, as she has been for years now, and the second he lowers his guard, he stabs him in the face with a shiv she made out of ice. Here, Endeavour doesn't get a cosmetic scar from a Nomu, no. Here, he loses an eye to his wife.

And as for Shoto? Well. In this, at least, he is his mother's son: Shoto well and truly does not care about the media; he was burned by them when he was young and grew up distrusting them, and never once saw a reason to change that stance; at this point, he basiclly considers them more noise pollution more than anything legitimate, and the media classes that UA put the students in in their third year did nothing to change this impression, no matter how hard Present Mic tried.

As a hero, Shoto is many ways... raw. He doesn't focus on how his costume looks, or talking to his fans, or getting his image out there, or even having an image, he just... saves people, half out of defiance of his father's way of life, where saving people is just a tool to help his image rather than being a reason in itself, and half out his genuinely good nature.

Out of spite, he's reverted to an older form of heroism, and people noticed that. There are plenty of hero 'traditionalists' who see him do his own thing, be blunt and uncurated and hate it, but he nevertheless has a steady and growing fanbase for how straight forward he is; among his fans, he's known as the 'Rebel Hero' and over time he eventually took to calling himself that because he never really bothered with a hero name beyond 'Shoto'. He's never been able to break into the highest ranks of heroism, and probably never will (not that he cares), but in sheer amount of fans he's actually in the top twenty or thirty of heroes in Japan.

To be fair, he only gets away with it because he's Endeavour's son, because he never needs to generate his own popularity when the media loves to use him for an easy scandel when nothing's going on, and when his sheer notoriety protects him from the worst abuses of the Hero Commision, because unlike others, if Endeavour's son, the one everyone knows and is an active hero, was to suddenly disappear, Japan would lose it's shit, and they're smart enough to know that, even if Shoto himself isn't away of how dangerous the waters he treads in are at times.

All of this, of course, makes his response to questions about Endeavour infamous: he says absolutely nothing.

On the rare, rare, rare occasions he deigns to talk to a reporter, if that reporter dares to mention his father the same thing always happens:

First, he uses his version of the Endeavour patented, 'I don't care if you live or die so I'll gladly walk over your lifeless corpse' stare on that reporter for about thirty seconds. Then he walks off without saying a word.

And then he never acknowledges that reporter's existence ever again.

And this is not because he's trying to spare anyone's reputation, or even to try and harm Endeavour; his contempt of the media is that low that he genuinely thinks talking about his father with them is a complete waste of time.

...Well, anyways, beyond all that, a few more thoughts on this AU concept as a whole: there is no Dabi here, he genuinely died. There is, in fact, no AFO at all, and the greater plot of MHA basiclly isn't happening; All Might is, depending on when whatever story is happening is in the timeline, either in his final years of heroism or retired, and with no successor, because Izuku ruins Shoto's glorious clusterfuck. The people are there, sure, but society isn't quite at that point of seconds away from falling to pieces, so they're all in different places (if I commit to more world building on this I'll try to figure out where the more relevent people actually are). If this ends up with a greater plot beyond 'various stories of AU Todorokis', I like to think it'd focus on the HC as the main villains in how they're controlling and perverting heroism.

I like the idea of Shoto killing his father and going on a villain origin story as part of a long running psychotic break, I really do, but I honestly also like the 'Rebel Hero' dynamic I literally just came up with today; I'm conflicted. As kind of a middle ground it's easy to put off Rei's confrontation until years after he becomes a hero, and even justify it (because, you know. Never coming to see her is an Endeavour thing to do) so I can get both, but it feels like a cop out, like I'm refusing to commit.

Meanwhile, while working on how Rei is thinking (that is to say, I took the canon blank slate and blatantly made shit up), I'm wondering if I should make her a villain, here; after stabbing Endeavour, she escapes, and takes on a lot of the Dabi energy this story doesn't really have. No real development, just the idea of it: I'm still on the fence if it's good or not, but I think it's interesting so I'm mulling it over, and waiting to see what happens in my rotten swamp of a mind.

I think this is one of my few non-critical posts? I don't think it belongs in the usual 'mha/bnha critical' tags I use, anyways.

[dedalvs]

what kind of books do you like reading?

My favorite era is 19th century Russian literature. Some of my favorites from there are Dead Souls by Gogol, Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, and Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov (I was utterly baffled as to why everyone was talking about Ivan Goncharov when I came back to Tumblr!). I loved a lot of early 20th century American literature, in particular F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was an early hero, and I also read a lot of Joseph Heller and Vladimir Nabokov (Russian/American). I've read everything by Franz Kafka—even the bizarre stuff, like Amerika—and loved it all. My favorite writer of all time is Virginia Woolf, and I love reading writers who experiment with style (Lewis Carroll, of all people, has a nice early example of stream of consciousness with Sylvie and Bruno). I think the best piece of writing I've ever seen from America is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

I've also read and enjoyed some stuff from the 16th-18th centuries (in particular, Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queene, and John Milton's Paradise Lost), but a lot more that's a lot older. Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron is a great collection of tales like The Canterbury Tales, but better (note: I haven't yet read 1,001 Nights. Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur was a lot of fun. I slowed down a lot about eight years ago). I even love the fake ones that are tales within tales like Jan Potocki's The Manuscript Found at Saragossa. But I love chasing down and reading older works, like sagas and epics. Some of my favorites are The Nibelungenlied, The Kalevala, Njal's Saga, and The Epic of Sundiata. Gilgamesh is absolutely incredible. I've read some clunkers, though, like The Song of Roland, which I found dry, dull, and short.

As my reading slowed, I liked to read books aimed at young readers. Growing up, I loved the Oz books, which I find to be an utterly fascinating example of uniquely American (and non-European) fantasy. We have that and Little Nemo, but most other fantasy you get (outside of modern times) is distinctly European, and owes more to Lord Dunsany and Tolkien than anyone else. I loved The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, which I just finished ready to my daughter (Walter Moers). Michael Ende's The Neverending Story is probably the best book for young readers I've read. And then there's the Moomin books by Tove Jansson... What a find those were! Written for kids, but so unbelievably melancholic and subtle! Every page is packed with so much loneliness and longing! I couldn't even believe what I'd read after reading Tales from Moomin Valley. "The Fillyjonk who Believed in Disasters" is something I think every adult should read. It reminds me a bit of The Magic Mountain (see below) in how subtly it captures a character or series of character traits that are quite natural and recognizable, but so hard to pin down! Tove Jansson was brilliant.

For utter, nonsensical, bizarre, indulgent, and absurd escapism, I read E. T. A. Hoffmann. It's hard to even describe how ridiculous his stuff is. Like...you read this stuff, and are saying, "You can't DO that! You'd be laughed off AO3 for that!" And yet he does. And he doesn't care. He had an audience of one, and that was himself. I have no idea how his works are even remembered. Utterly bizarre.

That captures a lot of it. Here are some that don't fit elsewhere:

The Buru Quartet by Pramoedya Ananta Toer (masterful)

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (wrecked me)

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (tore through it!)

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (this one, too! Thick book, but such a quick and joyful read—and written with such exquisite detail!)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (one of the best of the 19th century)

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (so subtle... Let me tell you, this is a long book, and like, it's 90% over, and suddenly this new character is introduced, and it's like, "What even is this…?", and yet, somehow, he takes like 50 pages, and you suddenly care about this guy... Astonishing)

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (tour de force; her best, in my opinion)

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (his best that I've read, and the one I'd recommend to everyone)

Forest of a Thousand Daemons by D. O. Fagunwa (terrible translation, but so wonderfully inventive!)

Black Elk Speaks (I want to mention this, because I really loved it, but it has a problematic history, so fyi)

True Grit by Charles Portis (one of the most beautiful short novels I've ever read; the Cohen Bros. adaptation is actually very, very close to it)

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (what a smack in the face that one is!)

The Tempest by Shakespeare (my favorite of his)

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (best written work from America in the 19th century)

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (by contrast, one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read in my life; HILARIOUS)

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en (read the whole thing, and...wow. lol So much repetition with humor throughout capped off by brilliance)

The Bostonians by Henry James (the best demonstration of exactly what he aimed to do: produce an ending that has two equally plausible and utterly opposite interpretations that can both be supported textually)

Nohow On by Samuel Beckett (the culmination of his work, and a worthy one)

Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert (I bawled—loudly—after reading "A Simple Heart"; I couldn't help it)

Thanks for asking this! It's been so long since I've really read... It's nice to remember. I wanted to read the Studs Lonigan trilogy for ages now... Oh, and I went through a Gabriel García Márquez phase! And Tom Robbins! And, of course, I've read all the wonderful comic novels by my friend Nina Post, whose wit astounds me.

Okay, now I'm just not getting to sleep. But this is some of what I've read that I've loved. Also, for certain things, I've read a lot (like 19th century Russian literature and Samuel Beckett), so I can tell you what not to read. For example, A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov? Pass. Same with The Golovlovs by Saltykov-Shchedrin. You can probably pass on War and Peace, as well, due to its girth, but you're going to miss some good stuff (amidst a lot of dry stuff).

Okay, hitting the button now! I'm done.

(Oh, but if you were assigned Their Eyes Were Watching God and kind of passed on it because it was a "school book", that was a mistake!!!)

(Oh, Cane by Jean Toomer!)

(Oh, and if you want a short one that has a "wah-wah!" ending, check out As I Lay Dying by Faulkner! lol That rascal...)

(OH! And the "school book" thing? Hard ditto on Of Mice and Men. Holy shit, that book... Wow.)

(OMG BABBIT!!!!! I loved it!!! Pass on Main Street, though.)

(Oh, and John Updike can miss me with his Rabbit stuff... YIKES!)

(Oh, and if you like Woody Allen's style but not Woody Allen, try Portnoy's Complaint.)

(Last one: Jasmine by my short fiction professor Bharati Mukherjee, who sadly passed away far too soon. On the last day of class, she'd forgotten she was going to have us read Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. As we were walking out the door, she made us promise to read it. I never saw her again, but I did, Ms. Mukherjee, and it was tremendous. Thank you so much for what you gave me. I had so much trouble showing my work to other people before that class. You helped me so much, and I wish I could've told you. You may think those who have influenced you will be around forever for you to thank one day, but they're not. Today's the day. Tell them what they meant to you. You'll regret it if you don't.)

[chamaleonsoul]

hi ana <3 could we have your fashion enthusiast thoughts about milan luke pretty please?

Hiiiiiiiii

an opportunity to ramble about two of my favourite topics??? Thank you!! And also another excuse to scroll through my gallery looking at pictures of Luke that make my cry and wonder how i haven't been admitted into a mental institution yet? THANK YOU. Also, i'll do you one better and give you my professional thoughts about it 😌 (i'm still a few months away from graduating but idc!! fashion designers are made not graduated).

Okay sooooo, let's begin in chronological order shall we? First we have, the White Stripped Suit™:

This one is my Favourite visually (<-this will make sense later) for many various reasons. 1) While white is a colour that suits literally everyone, it's one of Luke's star colours since his colour profile is light (light eyes, skin & hair. This means light colours make him stand out [if that were possible, he is the sun in its human embodiment but whatever 🙄]), and I appreciate the person who assembled this outfit together because they knew what they were doing. Also, i have a liking for striped/grid fabrics, so.

2) While the fit is very modern (slim, simple and clean) the combo with the open collar shirt with print on the chest, chain necklaces + chest hair showing😵‍💫💫 make the whole look very 70's and i, a person who loves the sluttiness of that decade, like that very much.

3) I'm a big fan of the signature Luke Hemmings ring set™😵‍💫😵‍💫 + the double charm necklaces😵‍💫 in silver, with matching silver glittery eyeliner???😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 12/10.

This suit gets bonus points bc it's similar to one used by one of my favourite blorbos<333 Louis de Pointe du Lac in Interview with the Vampire (2022).

Overall, it's a simple outfit, but it's leaning towards a statement outfit (because of the almost total-white-look [the shoes break that but it's fine]) and i personally Love that🤍🤍

Then we have outfit #2:

Unfortunately I did not find many pics of this one? Sad bc i can't give it such a detailed analysis, but I can say that I love love love the sharpness dark colours bring to his features. And this black on black pattern/stripes over knitted shirt? Mwah. Once again a very harmonic and cool combination of colours + silver complements (makeup, jewerly) that fit him perfectly!! (And the way the pearls just sit on his neck like that? Absolutely ridiculous).

In spot #3 we have what sent me into cardiac arrest and almost made me throw my phone into the abyss (aka plaid purple outfit):

This one,,,,, this one right here🥲🥲🥲 First of all, it makes me so happy (as a Luke fan, as a designer and as a person) to see he's experimenting with clothes and image and the way he presents himself to the world. This is what modern fashion is made for!!! To help you find a visual representation of who you are!!! And it really makes me so sentimental to see this and remember things like that old tweet where he said he felt weird putting on lip balm and now here he is, daring to do so much more than that, enjoying himself, being happy– it just🥹🥹🥹 I cry.

Solely because of that, this could be my favourite one, but in addition we have:

-The punk touch of it all🖤 that i so love!! Starting with the plaid of course, then the chunky studed shoes with the usual delicate jewerly he uses layered with that industrial chain (and all the rings😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫).

-The loose fit of both the skirt and jacket makes me think he's comfortable experimenting but also not throwing himself head first, which is great!! The jacket is wide enough he can cover himself naturally if he feels the need to, and the long skirt is a safe new territory because it covers almost the same as pants do, and the pleates bring some texture/volume to the fit since he's not wearing a shirt (i feel so dizzy).

-Gorgeous matching hand bag!! I love seeing him with one don't text.

-Makeup is subtle but also matches the whole outfit (boy obviously enjoys an harmonic combo, he's just like me<3).

All that makes this outfit my favourite one because of what i'm getting from it<3 (although visually #1 is still my fave. There's just something about it that scratches my brain the right way).

Moving on to #4

Yet another star colour of his!!! (since his colorimetry is light+cool, blue is His colour). And this particular shade is very, very close to the colour of 2023, we love a superstar🌟 on trend.

This is what i call a standard Luke Hemmings, which means a casual combo of a nice 2 piece suit with a comfy/fun top and boots (can be alternated with tennis shoes). I'm obsessed with his shirt collection🥲

Of course i can't go by this one without making a reference to Miami Vice because come on. It's right there!! This fit is obviously looser and following the oversized trend that came (and that'll stay for a while) with quarantine and the whole 80's<3 revival. I also love me a good italian lapel ngl. So this outfit earns a #3 spot on the list!

And last but not least we've got:

This gorg plaid beige + black shirt combo of which I also didn't find many pics of :/ however, it's safe to assume this was a tank top situation with brown/black shoes to match.

Once again we have a beautiful set of rings that scorch my braincells<3 with a sky blue wristlet i want to steal immediately!! It's so pretty and i wonder what he keeps in his purses besides his phone and maybe some lip product. I don't need sleep, i need answers.

Anyways. While beige usually is considered a warm colour, this one in particular leans towards cool, which stays on line with all i've mentioned before ((:

I also like that the make up is a little more noticeable since the outfit is more subdued. This one is a #4 on the list, which weirdly makes the black jacket outfit last?? Surprising since i'm personally married to black, but whats a girl gonna do

And sooooo, overall i think the outfits are simple, comfortable and kinda classic even, but have a few modern touches that elevate them for the occasion🤍 I love that since I both personally and professionally prefer that mix of styles.

Not gonna apologize for the long ass response bc you brought this unto yourself!! Licherally!! Anyways, thank you for coming by and asking my thoughts, i really appreciate it🤍 (:

[bluestar22x]

I Love This Town

The Writing Contest - Chapter 2: I Love This Town

Summary: After weeks of focusing on their screenplay, Javi convinces Nora to take time off to celebrate her birthday.

Pairing: Javi Gutierrez x Female!OC (Nora Delaine)

Rating: 18+ Series

Word Count: 5,000 (ish)

Warnings: Fluff, heavy drinking, mentions of drug use (weed), hints of romantic interest and sexual tension

Author’s Note: Giraffes are one of my favorite animals so shocker they ended up in one of my fics. Loved the TLOU giraffe scene.

xxx

"So what are we considering as the catalyst of their reunion?" Javi inquired as he leaned back in his chair, eyes shooting in your direction.

"I can't decide if it should be something dramatic or subtle," you admitted to him, pressing the eraser of the pencil you were playing with in your hands to your lips. You leaned back in your chair as well and stared at the screen of your laptop as if the empty page of word document on it would help you figure it out. It was worth a shot.

He hummed. "What if Angie is in a car accident and that makes Nolan realize how much he still needs her? Wants her?"

You pursed your lips together like you were sucking on an awfully sour candy. "That's so cliché though."

He nodded. "You're right. We go with subtle then?"

"I'd like that," you said, sticking out your bottom lip as you pondered over it, "But I'm not sure how we could go about it. Their argument was pretty intense. I'm not sure if it would make sense for them to get back together over a small gesture or event. You know?"

"Yes, I get that," he replied, licking his lips before sighing. "Maybe we call it a day and see if sleep will help us find some inspiration?"

"It's worth a shot," you agreed, moving to shut down your laptop. It had been a long day writing a very angst heavy portion of your co-written screenplay and you were not about to turn down a quiet night at the guest house that you could use to unwind and catch up on some of your beloved TV shows.

Since you'd started working with Javi on the script a month ago you'd both spent many late nights in the sun room trying to figure out how to tell each step in your characters' journey through life together in such a way that it would be as compelling as the brief overview you'd written down in the short story Sierra had sent him.

It had been very rewarding to see a flushed out version of it on paper, these characters feeling more like friends every time you sat down to skim over what you'd both written previously.

As much as you wanted to make more progress, to get past that bump in the road their relationship was currently facing, sometimes breaks were important. A fresh mind often comes with fresh ideas Sierra had once told you, and it had never been more true for you since you'd let the screenplay consume most of your daily thoughts.

"If we come up with anything overnight we can just jot down the important details on a notepad before we head out to celebrate," Javi figured.

"Celebrate?" you frowned.

"Don't deny it," he said, a grin breaking out on his face. "I know tomorrow's your thirty-fifth birthday, I saw the note marked on your calendar for April eleven, and we're not going to spend it all stuck in this room the whole day. We've made excellent progress and you deserve to have fun on your big day."

"You have something planned?" you asked, surprised. While you and Javi had become great writing partners and good friends over the last few weeks, he wasn't usually a planner. The few times you'd spent together off his property had been spontaneous decisions or trips planned by Walter to help you both de-stress or do some research for the script.

"I do," Javi confirmed brightly. "It's early in the morning though, so I'd advise not to go to bed too late."

"Oh, so it's a surprise," you noted. You weren't big on surprises, but he looked so excited about it you kept that feeling to yourself. "Anything I should know? Like what clothes to wear?"

"Nothing fancy," he answered. "Casual wear you're not afraid to get dirty."

You arched a brow at that. "Are we going to bathe in a mud pit or somethin'?"

You wouldn't put it past him to think that would be a good time. He'd once mentioned to you he was considering it since apparently mud was supposed to be good for the skin. You had restrained yourself from telling him that he already had amazing skin, afraid of it sounding inappropriate for your current relationship.

He chuckled. "Not tomorrow. Though if you'd like that, I could have Walter arrange an appointment for you."

"If I decide that's something I want I'll set it myself," you told him.

Javi smiled, undeterred, used to you refusing to let his manager or any of his other employees assist you beyond cleaning the guest house and occasionally cooking for you. "Of course." He stood from his seat and stretched. "Meet me on the front porch at six am. Bring an overnight bag."

"Okay..." you said slowly. Where exactly was he going to take you? Camping? He wasn't the type.

He reached out over your two desks that were pushed together to give your shoulder a squeeze. "I promise you won't regret it!"

You could have sworn he had an extra bounce in his steps as he exited the room.

Whatever he had in mind, he was clearly certain it would make your day.

You grinned. You were only cautiously optimistic he knew you enough to pull off a pleasant surprise, but him caring enough to try was enough for you.

What had you done to deserve two friends as good as him and Sierra?

x

You barely slept that night, too curious about what Javi had planned. An outing to LA? A play in a theater? A meeting with Nic Cage? You wouldn't put it past him to use your birthday as an excuse to spend more time with the friend he admired. You wouldn't blame him. You weren't the type to get starry-eyed over the famous faces of Hollywood, but you did have a few favorite authors you'd love to sit down and talk with, so you could relate on a certain level.

You were dressed by five, in an old pair of blue jeans, your usual sneakers, and a plain dark green long sleeved shirt. No jewelry besides a pair of small silver studded earrings and limited make up. It wasn't far from your usual style. You were a comfort first kind of person most days.

You were happy you were done early, but tired, even after a cup of coffee. You were also entirely clueless on what to do while waiting for the next hour to pass. You eventually plopped down on the couch with a pen and notepad and started writing out any idea you could come up with for the reunion of the main characters in your screenplay.

You'd compiled a healthy list by the time the living room clock hit six fifty-five and you decided that was close enough. You stuffed the page of written notes into one of your front jean pockets and sprung up to your feet with the most energy you'd gathered in years. You pulled on your fleece jacket and grabbed the overnight bag you'd packed the night before on your way out, locking the main door behind you.

Time for the surprise to be revealed.

It took you three minutes to reach the mansion (you refused to call it a house) by foot, bag slung over your shoulder, and when you did, you were shocked to see a familiar face standing at the top of the porch steps.

"Sierra?" you gaped, halting.

She grinned as soon as your eyes met. "Hey, girl! What's up?"

"What's up?" you repeated incredulously. "What are you doing here?" You began moving towards her again. "And if you're here, where are Buttercup and Tux?"

"I asked your parents to watch them when Javi invited me last week," Sierra explained as you climbed the steps and pulled her into a tight hug. "He paid my ticket here. The limo too. Why would you refuse that? You can lie down comfortably in that thing. So much space."

"I missed you," you told her before you backed away from her.

"We Facetime each other nearly every day," she said, amusement in her voice.

"It's not the same."

"You know who is the same?" Sierra asked. Before you could say anything, she pressed on. "Nic Cage! As interesting as ever. And is it me or does he not seem to age? Maybe he really is a vampire."

"Javi fulfilled his promise," you guessed and she nodded. "When Javi used our connections through Facebook to contact me last week it wasn't just to fly me out. It was also to get my phone number so Nic could call me on video chat. Which he did, yesterday night. Best fifteen minutes of my life."

"Says the person who denied having a crush on him only last month," you teased.

"Okay! Okay," Sierra huffed. "I admit it. I still have a crush. But if you tell anyone in town, I will murder you. Bad enough you told Javi!"

"You sent my story to him without my permission so we're even," you declared.

She beamed at you. "More than worth it."

"So what's Nic up to?" you inquired casually. You could easily ask Javi, since you knew he and Nic called and emailed each other fairly often, but you were a good friend and you wanted to give Sierra a chance to gush all about the conversation they'd had.

"He's in Australia right now," she informed you. "With his family. He's officially back with his ex-wife. He took her and his daughter with him cause he's down there for a couple months to film a new movie. He couldn't give me details, but he told me it's an 'action drama'."

You smirked. "So mysterious."

"Stop it!" Sierra laughed, shoving you a little. "Or I'll pack my bags back up and go home."

"How long are you staying, and where?"

"Two days, three if you count the one I leave," she answered. "I'm staying in the barn loft. It's just like a normal house up there."

"There's a barn?" you frowned. You hadn't seen any barns with lofts on the property. Just the wine barrel storage.

Sierra rolled her eyes. "You've been here for a month and haven't seen the barn? It's on the southern border."

"You'll have to show me later."

"Sure."

You glanced around, searching for Javi, but you couldn't see him from where you were standing.

"So, do you know what Javi has planned for today?" you quizzed.

She snorted and folded her arms. "I'm not a rat. You'll find out soon enough."

You sighed heavily. "Can you at least tell me where he is? He's going to be late."

"He's dressing up," she told you. "Apparently slept through his alarm. He texted me like a minute ago about it and said he was almost ready."

You tapped your fingers on the top railing of the porch and she threw you an annoyed look.

"What?" you exclaimed innocently. "You know I'm bad at waiting."

"Impatient," she corrected you sharply. "You're impatient."

"Whatever."

A few seconds later Javi stepped out through his front door with his own overnight bag's handle gripped in his right hand. He'd clearly styled his naturally wavy hair into a tamer form, but otherwise he was dressed the most casual you'd ever seen him. Just a simple pair of black and white sneakers that couldn't have cost much more than yours, faded blue jeans, and a well used brown button down shirt with faint white stripes running down it. The shirt was unbuttoned by a few and you could see he was wearing a white tank top underneath it.

"Morning, sleepyhead," you greeted him.

He seemed to want to blush at that. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"It seems like our thing," you joked.

He chuckled. "Suppose so."

"So where are we headed?" you asked.

He beamed boyishly at you then. "It's a secret." He nodded at Sierra. "I hope you slept well."

"I did," she assured him. "We goin' or what?"

You shot her a look. "Now whose impatient?"

"I can't wait to see your face when you realize where we're going," she admitted.

You had never been more frustrated over friends insisting on a surprise. If Sierra thought you were going to love it, then you definitely were going to. You pouted at her but she just smirked right back at you.

There was the sound of a car driving up to the mansion and you turned around. Correction: limousine. Of course.

Sierra led the way into it and you dipped in to sit between her and Javi on the main seat. She'd been right. It was ridiculously spacey in the back of a limousine. You weren't even touching shoulders with either of them.

The driver greeted you all with a simple good morning and you returned it before he drove away from the vineyard.

You watched as the now familiar scenery of wine valley passed you by, trying to distract yourself from your excitement. It was a cloudy day but that hardly took away from the beauty of the area.

You eventually found yourself at the same airport you'd arrived by a month ago, but Javi didn't lead you to the boarding section for commercial planes, no, he led you past the usual customs line and onto a ramp for private planes.

"Of course," you murmured as you all came to a stop not far from one of the smaller ones. Sierra stomped on your left foot before you got ideas about ranting over how unfriendly private planes were to the environment and how unsafe they were compared to commercial flights. You grunted and let it go. Maybe the surprise would be worth risking your life.

The pilot of the plane, a man about Javi's age, shook his hands and guided you all on board. The plane was fairly basic for a private one. Spacious room for up to four passengers, the largest bathroom you'd ever seen in anything that moved (but was probably modest for a private plane), and a good sized kitchen area where the one waitress was hanging out.

Javi had her bring out a red wine that surprisingly wasn't part of his brand.

"Aged eighty years," he informed you as the waitress poured all of you a glass.

"We're starting early," Sierra noted, picking up one. "I like it."

"All this for me?" you questioned humbly.

"You deserve the best," Javi stated in such a matter-of-fact way that you didn't have the heart to argue.

You pressed your glass to your lips and took a sip. Your eyes widened. It was shockingly better than any wine you'd tasted yet. "Wow."

Javi laughed at your reaction. "Age matters. That's why I've got some of Valley View's wine stored away for when I'm old and a lot more gray."

"Definitely will be milking this glass for...," you trailed off. "How long are we flying? Can I know that?"

"About an hour and a half," he replied, taking a sip of his own. He examined his glass after, eyes going as equally wide as yours had. "That is really good."

You grinned.

x

You couldn't say that the hour and a half flew by, but eventually the flight was over and you and Sierra followed Javi to another limo, one in which you were barred from lowering the windows. They were tinted enough that you couldn't see outside and both your friends wanted it that way.

The ride dragged just like the flight, but finally you got to your destination and hopped out.

You lit up like a kid on Christmas morning when you saw the main gates of a place you'd only heard of.

"You brought me to the San Diego Zoo!" you shouted, astonished.

Javi grinned broadly at the excitement in your voice. "You like?"

"Of course!" You turned to Sierra. "Did you tell him I love zoos?"

"No, he thought of this on his own," she told you.

"You talk of animals so fondly I guessed you would enjoy this place," Javi said. "It's actually one that I donate to regularly. They have a great conservation program."

You hugged him impulsively and he wrapped you up in his arms tightly. You kept it brief, but it was difficult. It was the first time you'd ever embraced him and he was so warm. His broad frame around yours was comforting and he smelled nice. Like citrus fruit.

"Thank you."

He smiled brightly again and your heart soared. "You're welcome, amiga."

"We're having a private guided tour," Sierra informed you, distracting you from him. "You'll get to eat your heart out with all the animal facts about to be thrown at you."

"Dream come true," you declared.

"Nerd," she teased, tugging you towards the front gate.

The tour guide was waiting for you right on the other side of the entrance, and you stuck close by her as she led you all around from one exhibit to another, starting at the front and heading towards the back of the park.

You already knew a lot of what the tour guide told you but it was still amazing to see the animals as you wandered along next to her. You and Sierra took a lot of photos together in front of the paddocks of some of your favorite animals, which included Sierra's ultimate favorites - elephants. Javi got in on a few pictures too, with your encouragement.

It was almost noon when you neared the last exhibit and Sierra handed you a blindfold. You blinked at her.

"My idea," she stated, making hand motions at you to get to it. "Promise it'll be worth the stumbling around."

Once you were blinded by the fabric you looped your left arm through her right and let her drag you to it.

Someone placed something that felt like a branch in your hand then Sierra ripped the blindfold off your head. "Ta-da!"

You gasped. Barely an arm's length away from you were three giraffes looking curiously down at you from over a tall fence. You were on a wooden platform next to it, at chest height to them.

You took a moment to stare at Sierra.

"Don't look at me." She nodded towards Javi. "He figured it out."

"It wasn't difficult to guess giraffes were your favorite animal," he told you with a shrug when you twisted around to lay eyes on him. "You have the stuffed giraffe on your desk and your wallpaper always has one."

You beamed at him. "Thank you, Javi. I never thought I'd ever be this close to one, let alone three!"

He was grinning back at you. "I'm glad you like."

"Like? I love them!"

"They're looking pretty hungry," the guide cut in. "You should offer them the leaves."

You lifted the leaf covered branch in your hand right hand and offered it up to the closest giraffe.

The tan and brown spotted animal swooped its skinny six foot long neck down and immediately started ripping leaves off the branch with its extremely long tongue. The second ducked in to snatch some leaves off of it as well while the first chewed, and the third dove for the leaves on a branch Sierra was holding.

This can't be real, you thought. Never in your wildest dreams did you ever think you'd be feeding giraffes. Being so close to the tallest living animals on Earth was thrilling. They were downright majestic, even with their silly, misproportioned features.

"This is amazing," you remarked, making both of your friends' faces light up even more than they had already been.

When the branch in your hand was stripped of all its leaves the guide handed you another one which you accepted gratefully.

"How did you set this up?" you eventually asked Javi.

"The giraffes are one of the few animals the zoo lets people interact with, if you take the right private tour," he explained.

"Cool."

For twenty minutes you hung out at the giraffe paddock, watching them even after you'd run out of leaves to feed them and they'd moved on.

You didn't think you'd ever be able to thank Javi enough for the experience you'd just had. The memory of it would last a lifetime.

x

The private tour at the zoo was just the start of Javi's plans for your special day.

After a lunch on site you took a limo to the zoo's safari park and spent the afternoon watching all kinds of African animals roam a huge savannah like area from a Jeep. It was almost just as magical as feeding the giraffes.

Almost.

The safari was slightly cut short by rain, but it didn't bum you out. You'd had a fantastic day and you were ready to go back to Valley View, but of course, as far as Javi and Sierra were concerned, the day was only half over.

Another limo drive and you found yourself deep in Los Angeles, sharing a luxurious five star hotel room with Sierra. The overnight bag you'd brought finally getting put to use as you both got the chance to wash off the wild animal smells that lingered on your bodies and prepare for the night ahead.

"I'm glad I brought my best dress with me just in case," you told Sierra as you pulled it up over your hips, then your shoulders. It was a simple but elegant classic, a backless with thin black fabric. You had a fancy button down sweater to go with it if it got too cold out that night for your bare arms. "And that you bought me a pair of one inch heels."

"Couldn't let you out in LA in sneakers." She shuttered. "Not where we're going."

"I owe you."

"It's a birthday present," she insisted. "But if you really feel like you need to pay me back, you can buy me a drink tonight."

"Can you tell me where we're going now?" you begged.

"Dinner and dancing in a couple of classy places," she informed you. "That's all I know."

After you helped her zip her little red dress up you both headed for the bathroom to fix your hair. Sierra worked on braiding hers, and you left yours down, choosing to straighten it out.

"So, Javi was really thoughtful planning this day out," Sierra pointed out as she worked away on her hair. "Apparently Walter barely lifted a finger. He wanted to set up almost all of it himself."

"That was nice of him," you commented.

She rolled her eyes at you. "That's all you're going to say?"

"What would you like to hear?" you questioned, giving her a playful smile.

She groaned. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed!"

"What?"

"He's definitely into you," she stated. "He hasn't stopped smiling all day and every time I looked at him he was looking at you."

"Coincidence," you argued, "And he's always smiling. Look up sunshine in the dictionary - he's one of the definitions."

She huffed and shook her head. "Men don't usually spend thousands of dollars on a friend for their birthday, Nora."

"Yeah, but he's rich. They're different."

She sighed. "Are you telling me you're not interested?"

"In Javi?" You shook your head in denial. "Javi's handsome, sure. He's quirky, but sweet. We have a good working relationship and are forming an equally good friendship, but he's not really my type. He's a bit of a man child at times, he's spoiled. His staff do almost everything for him and he has everything he wants. An employee of his told me he was born into wealth, so he's never had to do without anything."

"So?"

"So we'd never work out."

"Soooo, you have thought about it."

You released an exasperated sigh. "I did say he's handsome, did I not?"

She nodded. "You did."

She went silent, but it didn't last long. "You can't know for sure unless you date him. Would it hurt to?"

"Yes, it would!" you answered her sharply, annoyed. "After the screenplay is written, I go back home and I'll have ruined our friendship for nothing."

"You could easily move here," she said.

"I have responsibilities back home," you told her. "I have a life back home."

Sierra rolled her eyes. "Hardly. But if you say so..."

"And he smokes weed," you added like it was a major crime. "Not around me, but I can smell it on him." You hated how he smelled after he'd smoked some. That kind of odor could be picked up from a mile away, you thought.

"That's the deal breaker?" She laughed. "Marijuana's legal in California, Nora. And even if it wasn't, he could have some kind of medical reason for it."

"I think he uses it to calm himself down," you admitted to her. "Seems to help him focus on days he feels extra amped."

"See? Reason."

You shook your head. "Still not going to get involved with someone who lives nowhere near me."

"So stubborn," Sierra muttered.

"That's if he's even into me like that," you added.

"He is," she assured you.

Even though logic told you that it didn't matter, a part of you liked the idea that Javi would be into you, whether Sierra was imagining it or not. You didn't think of yourself as the most desirable woman, and the idea that a man as handsome as Javi would be interested in you like that was flattering, if not a little unbelievable. He certainly couldn't be short on options for girlfriends. Yet he'd been single for a while and continued to be.

You pushed the thought aside. You didn't want to think or argue with Sierra anymore. You just wanted to enjoy the rest of your night, carefree.

"I'm ready," you announced as you applied hairspray in an attempt to keep your hair from curling back.

She nodded at you, understanding that the conversation was over, and flashed you a cheerful smile. "Let's get to it, then."

x

After dinner at a classy restaurant that only served steak meals that cost one hundred dollars or more, the limo driver drove you, Sierra, and Javi to a night club called Club Midnight.

The night club was unlike any bar you'd ever been to. One side was full of expensive black leather lounge couches, the other was full of small glass tables with stools. The back had a huge bar and the side of it was practically one big blue light. A chandelier hung above it, crystals reflecting its golden illumination. At the front a DJ was set up on stage playing electronic dance music like those that were popular ten years ago, along with some hip hop.

The crowd matched the decor and music - a blend of rich and wild. Most were dressed in expensive night-on-the-town clothes, some of which left little to imagination. You got the feeling that though the thin band of leather around one woman's breasts didn't hide much it was still more expensive than your entire dress.

The dance floor was more busy than the seating spaces, mostly full of drunk twenty somethings with inheritances to burn.

"Javi!" you exclaimed, eyes shooting to him, stunned. You'd never imagined him liking this kind of environment. You'd expected a calmer environment, judging by the one wine tasting party he'd thrown at Valley View since you'd been there.

He shrugged at you innocently. "The drinks are very good here."

"Suurrrre," you teased.

"I figured you'd both prefer a livelier crowd than my usual," he added, fixing the collar of his navy button down shirt.

"Uh huh."

You all headed for the bar and you ordered a thank you Vodka shot for Sierra, which she quickly chucked back before Javi bought you all a round. And another. And another, on Sierra's plea.

"Thank you, Javi," she giggled after her fourth shot, a sure sign she was as drunk as a skunk, as your folks back home loved to say.

"Okay..., I think we've had enough liquid courage," you said, leading her away from the bar gently. "Let's hit the dance floor, huh?"

She nodded enthusiastically and followed you into the crowd. Javi wasn't far behind you. The music was popping (was that still the cool term to use?) and it wasn't long before you and Sierra were letting loose, forgetting about everyone else around, or at least not caring how foolish you appeared to be to any onlookers. The wave? The running man? The bend & snap from Legally Blonde? Why not? Dancing was one of those few times you knew how to let go - especially when you'd maybe had one drink too many. You were always a lightweight. You didn't drink straight liquor very often.

Javi was right there with you and Sierra and some of his nonsense dance moves had you both in a fit of giggles. You had to give the guy some credit - he was never afraid of what strangers thought about him, drunk or not. Sure, he was proper when he needed to be, but otherwise he was pretty laid back, and he knew how to have fun apparently. You wished you'd asked for nights on the town before this. It hadn't occurred to you that he'd be interested in dancing before.

Sometime during the night Sierra somehow convinced you to have your fourth shot and you lived to regret it as you started stumbling around the place. There were a couple steps in front of the bar for some stupid reason, and you tripped going up them. Luckily, Javi caught you before you could face plant on the hard tile floor.

He caught you at the waist, arms looping around you from behind, and when he pulled you back up to his chest you had to fight the urge to lean back against him. There was a solidness to him that both comforted you and stirred desire in you, especially in the condition you were in that night.

"Are you alright?" he inquired over the blaring music, his hot breath against your neck making you shiver.

You nodded and he distanced himself from you, one of his large hands still clamped on your shoulder to steady you.

"We should drink some water and head back to the hotel," he decided. "We'll fly home in the mornin' when our heads aren't spinning."

Home. For your entire life every time you'd heard that word you'd immediately thought of your hometown, even when you were living in a dorm for a full year at the University of North Dakota, four hours away from it.

But when he'd said that word to you, in that moment, you'd pictured Valley View. His mansion, the little house you were staying in on his property. For the first time you hadn't thought about your rental in Garrison that was ten minutes away from your parents' house.

When had you started to think of the vineyard as home? Even as the temporary one it was?

You were too drunk to figure it out, and you were too tired to care.

You could worry about that new development on another day.

xxx

Tagged: @harriedandharassed

xxx

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

xxx

[ccthewriter]

CC's New Watch Ranking - April 2023

Every month on Letterboxd, I make a list of the 10 best films I’ve seen for the first time. It’s a fun way to compare movies separated in time, genre, and country of origin, and helps me keep track of what I’m watching! This is a breakdown of those films.

April! An early heat wave broke and gave us the rainy, misty days that this month is supposed to contain. My vegetable garden is starting to take root. This is the first year I’m planting in earnest, prepping trays of seeds to make their way outside. I’ve been learning a lot, and keeping my eye on the backyard window as I’ve been settling in to watch these films. Plants like music - do they like film scores? Maybe I’ll take my speakers outside and find out. I bet they’d love Angelo Badalamenti, whose work is featured heavily in this month’s list. After a slow start due to several exciting new work opportunities (yay!), this month ended up containing some cinematic heavy-hitters! 

Click below to read the breakdown! Click HERE for the list on Letterboxd! 

10. The Hawks and the Sparrows 

1966 - Pier Paolo Pasolini

A delightful absurdist tale by one of Italy’s greatest directors. A father and son, whose attitude seems ripped right out of Waiting for Godot, wander a road with indeterminate purpose. Along they way they meet a philosophizing talking bird, and fall backwards in time to the life of St. Francis. Interspersed are some scenes of modern (1960s) Italian life, including the real funeral procession of a Communist leader. It’s a strange, lopsided work, perhaps not achieving the thought-provoking or artistic heights that the director intended, but contains some brilliant gems of absurdism. I’m particularly struck by several shots and discussions that focus on the Moon. You may know, reader, that I am obsessed with Fellini’s Voice of the Moon. That is an absurd, wandering meditation on the moon’s symbolism and power, and echoes of those ideas are found here, too. It gets me wondering about what Fellini and Pasolini shared, the experiences that united their thought, and got them to create such interesting, parallel pictures. 

9. For a Few Dollars More 

1965 - Sergio Leone

Impeccable craft. The platonic ideal of a Western that so many movies/other media try to grasp, but can never quite achieve. (Looking at you, Mando.) While The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly might be the ultimate piece in this trilogy, For A Few Dollars More still manages to hold all the compelling, subtle characterization and breathtaking conclusion that makes that capper so legendary. Two bounty hunters seek out a mad fugitive - they all double-cross one another in pursuit of victory. There’s just grand vibes within this thing. A legendary score, gorgeous shots, handsome sweaty men trying to kill each other (aka flirting), and other tiny design choices that are beyond iconic. What’s not to love? Toss this on with a bourbon, pardner, and watch them shoot a hat. 

8. Bitter Rice 

1949 - Giuseppe De Santis

What if we fought back against systems that oppress the workers of the rice fields AND we were both girls 👀. First and foremost watch this if you love wlw - there is some subtext that occurs between the main pair as they squabble. A jewel thief, coerced into crime by her shitty boyfriend, hides out among rice workers with her stolen goods. She meets Silvana, a peasant who catches onto their scheme and ultimately gets entangled in their lives. It feels like both the thieving pair lust after her. The politics of this one are messy, to say the least. Francesca, the thief, sides with some scabs who want to work the fields despite not being part of the union. Silvana organizes the workers against them, but ultimately they come to a patronizing compromise to let both sides work together. The film doesn’t care about the details that would make this labor struggle real - what does it take to join the union? Who organizes it? Do the members get to vote about how they feel about the scabs? Pulling those threads makes the movie collapse, along with the shoe-horned melodramatic ending for Silvana, which seems born out of an American Hayes Code sense of what must happen to a woman who "chooses wrong." Despite these elements, the film is shot beautifully by Otello Martelli, Fellini’s cinematographer, and contains one of the greatest framing devices for a neorealist film ever devised. A voice over telling you that what you’re about to see is the real testimony of rice workers, which diegetically shifts into a radio announcer present at the scene, is inspired. A film to yell at as you enjoy it. 

7. Touch of Evil 

1958 - Orson Welles

The film opens with a bomb being place in the boot of a car. Then there is an unbroken shot lasting about 5 minutes of that same car driving slowly through a crowded street. It is breathtaking tension building. Hitchcockian perfection. What follows is a surprisingly nuanced exploration of police corruption. These pigs live in paranoid fantasies sustained by evidence that they plant - hatred, ignorance, and alcohol let them forget that they created the justification for their hate themselves. This film drips with noir style and culminates in a chase scene that’s just as satisfying as the end of The Third Man. Who else understands noir like Welles? He gives a remarkable performance here. 

6. Inland Empire 

2006 - David Lynch

Lynch was doing creepypasta lo-fi found footage before it was cool. Seriously, watch this film and be surprised that this came out before Marble Hornets! Lynch’s first foray into digital filmmaking follows the story of actor Nikki Grace, played by the inimitable Laura Dern. (Consider her!) She is cast in a film that she later discovers is an adaptation, derived from a production that was shut down due to strange events happening to the cast. This grounded framing quickly dissolves into classic Lynchian surreality. The narrative is intersected by stories of 19th century Polish sex workers, modern day drifters, an unnamed woman who watches the film’s events on a TV screen, and more flashes of disconnected images than I could ever try to remember. Terry Crews is there for a few minutes. Lynch’s films defy simple explanation, as their very structure seems to repel logical attempts to define them. It is enough to say that this all builds into a moving tale of the exploitation built within the Hollywood machine. To be an actor, even with all the progress we’ve made, is to give yourself up to depersonalization, to completely vanish in the eyes of the viewer. Audiences want to see a self that is inside you, but is not you. You can get lost pulling on that thread. And there are dark figures who are only too happy to encourage you to get lost, who want to sit behind a camera and watch your selves separate, so they can bottle it up and sell it for massive, massive profit. Fascinating to see such a film come from Lynch, who by all accounts is a highly ethical filmmaker and whose crews (particularly Dern!) adore working with him. I think it takes a fundamentally good and kind person to truly understand evil - they must have the good grace to recognize what lives within them, what lives within all of us. 

(Also, these fucking rabbits terrify me in ways that I'm still understanding. I think I saw the short film Lynch made with them while I was under the influence of certain substances. They know what I'm thinking and will show up at my doorstep one midnight, I just know it.)

5. Lost Highway 

1997 - David Lynch

Whereas Inland Empire explores the loss of self that’s a feature (not a bug) of acting, Lost Highway explores a broader loss of self that can happen any time, anywhere, to anyone. Recapping the plot, again, seems a little pointless, but in brief, it’s about a jazz musician who appears to be stalked by a shapeshifting entity. As he tries to understand why he’s being targeted, he gets arrested for (apparently) murdering his wife - but while in jail, he mystically transforms into another person entirely. This new character lives an entirely separate life that eventually intersects with the original one in shocking ways. It’s all very cyclical, and vague, and contains a host of implications that are too broad to clearly explain. Lynch is the ultimate Oneric filmmaker in this way - the content of the dream is so different than the lasting impression it gives you. Towards the beginning of the movie the main character has this exchange: 

Fred: "I like to remember things my own way"

Cop: "What does that mean?"

Fred: "How I remember them, not necessarily how they happened"

That’s the ultimate explanation of how these films function. They are truly symbolic masses that pass through you, live inside you, and then transform into something greater than its sum ingredients. 

4. Bound 

1996 - The Wachowskis

So after dipping our toes into that Lynchian, vaguely defined dreamscape, here we have a much more straightforward film. What if the hottest most gorgeous most sapphic most jaw-droppingly sexy women imaginable did a crime together??? Wouldn’t that be cool?????? There really isn’t much in the way of symbolic nuance in this picture like there is in some of these other recommendations. This is just a straight-forward, tightly constructed crime thriller, starring (cannot emphasize this enough) just the biggest queerest icons you can imagine. I knew this movie would rewire me once I saw it, and am pleased to report that it really, really has. If you’re in the sapphic camp please check it out - it’s as required viewing as But I’m A Cheerleader is. Corky is a stone-butch ex-con who’s hired to renovate an apartment. She discovers that living next door is a mobster and his disaffected trophy girl Violet. Violet seduces Corky in the most noir femme fatale porn-adjacent way imaginable - quite literally “can you fix my pipes?” - and the two agree to pull one over on the mob so they can run off into the sunset. What follows is tightly constructed, steaming tension, as Hithcockian in perfection as Touch of Evil’s opening oner, but with a little more pulpy crass. Gays and theys, please, do not hesitate to watch this. It’s the film that let the Wachowskis make the Matrix, it is truly that spectacular. 

3. The Immortal Story 

1968 - Orson Welles

Welles is a master storyteller, a magician, a ponderous and monologuing baron of Art whose work is now embedded in the history of this medium. When he’s not playing himself, he’s playing corrupt, ignorant men. What do you think compels him to do that? He had the power and resources to play anyone he wants - why was this the role he chose? These questions will naturally rise up when you’re watching The Immortal Story, Welles’ last feature fiction that he would ever direct. It follows the story of a wealthy businessman who has a meeting with his assistant late one night. The businessman - this baron - reveals that he despises fiction, and only wishes to tell or hear things that are true, like data in a ledger. But then he reveals a story a sailor once told him, about a wealthy man who once paid the sailor to sleep with his wife and produce an heir. His assistant knows the story; he says this is a common folk tale, repeated in every port, on every ship, and that his master is incorrect in believing he heard it from the person it actually happened to. This sends the businessman on an obsessed journey - he commands his assistant to recreate this tale, to hire a courtesan, to find a poor sailor, and reconstruct this tale exactly as it was told to him, line-by-line, so that… well, the baron’s reasons for recreating this tale are obscure. Obsession? Stubbornness? A late-life spark of creativity? These questions intermingle with the first few I proposed. What impresses me so much about this film is that it is Welles clearly exploring his own creative drive, questioning all the motivations that have driven him to the life he has been leading for decades. It’s an incredible meditation from one of cinema’s greatest filmmakers. I firmly believe it sets the ground for the future explorations of truth and fiction that Welles accomplishes in F for Fake. How appropriate that this is the capstone towards his fiction-telling career. 

2. Mulholland Drive 

2001 - David Lynch

The perfect fusion, and appropriate mid-point, between Lost Highway and Inland Empire. Lynch explores the fundamentals of identity as two people try to discover who they are within the mad dreamscape that is Los Angeles. A woman stumbles out of a car crash into the home of a newly-arrived dreamer, ready to go on an adventure and help this woman restore her identity. Or, perhaps the real story is that a jealous actress clings to a more successful starlet, but gets her heart toyed with and torn to pieces as part of some power-tripping game. Lynch is a master of montage, assembling seemingly random moments into a cohesive whole that leaves a distinct emotional message. The competing, lopsided, cyclical narratives that make up this film are no exception. All the cutaways to different characters that intersect with the main pair’s lives are incredible, too. This is the Lynch film that most feels like it captures life itself. Its many contradictions and absurdities, its passion and revulsion. The highlight is the scene where the protagonists sit and watch an underground show. “It's all just a recording,” the performer repeats. This film is just a recording. Our lives will become a recording, once we’re gone and can only be remembered by artifacts. In this moment the movie seems to speak to the viewers directly, reminding them that everything they’re watching is false - and they’re allowed to let it transport them to other realms, anyway. 

1. The Music Room 

1958 - Satyajit Ray

One of the things I like most about movies from before, say, 1975, is that they don’t mind really lingering in a certain mood. Much of this movie shows a bored man, descended from royalty, lounging around his dilapidated palace. He hides from responsibility, debts, and truths he’d rather forget. But one doesn’t get bored watching him linger. Almost like a survivor in a horror movie hiding from a monster, Biswambhar is actively hiding, actively moping and avoiding the reality of his situation at any cost. It is a remarkable effect. Biswambhar’s only passion in life is live music, and his music room is his treasure. When his family meets a tragic turn of fate, he is left alone in his palace, situated on a flood plain that will eventually sweep away all his land. He decides to spend the rest of his life waiting for the day, living on ever-dwindling reserves of treasure and sherbet. Destiny seems to call to him at one point, and he decides to spend the rest of his reserve on one final, grand act, like in the good-old-days. He hires a musician, invites all his neighbors, and acts like he hasn’t been a reclusive hermit for several years. We understand him the most in this moment. The way he lights up, reopening the music room. The fantasy he embodies. As the musician plays, and we linger in the majesty of her dance and the hammering tabla, we are mesmerized just as he is. Cascades of meaning become clear. This man has sacrificed everything just for this moment, has given it all away to live inside a happy bubble, shunning the outside world… and can you blame him? How can anything life offers compare to the astral travel music can provide? If only he could have found a way to balance his obligations and this passion. Maybe if he had been a musician himself. But no. He can only watch… just as we, watching this movie, are now. Satyajit Ray is a director most capable of making the audience question itself, whose films seem to provoke deep thought and lingering wonder long after the work is over. This film might be the greatest example of that ability. As our own world changes in uncertain times, with an unclear future, a film like this forces us to question just what we’re doing consuming so much media. Like Biswambhar, I think many of us are turning a blind eye to environmental change so we can linger in the happiness of the music room, too. That’s the lesson to take away from this film. One can’t live their life waiting for that room to contain magic once again… 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading! If you liked any of these thoughts feel free to follow me on Letterboxd, where I post reviews and keep meticulous track of every movie I watch. Look forward to more posts like these next month! 

[star-shard]

So. Trigun Stampede.

Who doesn't love Trigun. I first saw the series back in high school and that show has stayed in my top five ever since.

So when news hit that a remake was in the works, I got excited. Especially after hearing the 3D animation was actually really good. Change in style or not, it was worth a look!

...And then I watched episode 1.

And it should be studied on how not to do episode 1 of a remake.

This is going to be spoiler city down below. Irrational venting too :)

Funny how I'm starting off with a 'spoiler warning' when Trigun Stampede spoils a major plot point in the OPENING SEQUENCE. We immediately are introduced to child Vash and Knives, even Rem is there.

At first I was thinking, okay that's weird. Sort of skipping over the build up and mystery of their connection and just explaining it right away, fuck my drag I guess.

But, whatever, the show starts off with a bang, it's an impressive space sequence.

And then we get a time jump and we're introduce Meryl and.... Roberto De Niro. And they're reporters.

....Where's Milly.

Where is she.

And who is this cardboard cut out of a character she got replaced with?????

I just finished the episode today and I don't remember SHIT about this man or what he looks like. Just a carbon copy of every cop type/doesn't play by the rules/I'm getting too old for this shit/you're in for it now, rookie

I could spot Queen Milly ANYWHERE, tall sunshine girl with a bad ass gun up her coat. And she was a legitimate partner to Meryl, they actually liked each other.

They were cute, in the original it right away establishes their dynamic as pretty in over their heads, but still hard workers. Why did this need to change, what does it addWHERESMILLY

And might I just say insurance disaster investigators is way more fresh and funny than regular ass news reports, it just is.

So anyway, in Stampede they're looking for Vash for an interview. And they happen to run into him. He's tied upside down. Not a terrible intro, a big part of Vash's character is him getting into wild situations.

They then immediately find out his identity from some military guys passing by.

Compare this to the first episode of the OG. Vash is built up like crazy. We see the town he's 'ruined', different bounty hunters are after him. Vash is so mysterious that all these guys confuse each other for who's the real Vash.

In Stampede? 'Yeah that's Vash, moving on'

THAT'S SO MUCH WORSE WHY DID IT SKIP THE BUILD UP.

It's like this show is RACING towards the next plot point, it's not giving the characters any breathing room, none at all. Any establishing character moments just come off as: fuck I guess we should show something about these guys instead of just exposition for a moment.

In the OG the story is pushed by the characters FIRST, not by a checklist.

Alright so here's new Vash. He looks. Fine. The hair difference is whatever. Not a fan of the new coat. The original was so well designed, the way it moved begged for really dynamic poses. This red coat just a large rectangle. Once again, it's sort of vague, can't recall details.

So they go to a small town bar. And Vash is welcomed by the townspeople.... Naturally, explaining why he's a good guy.

In the OG Vash is just sort of a wanderer that ends up in weird situations. And he IS a good guy, but part of why he's interesting is they show that through subtle moments. Like his dislike of violence, or the dirty look he shows a bounty hunter that's shitty to one of his subordinates.

Even if he's a good guy, there's questions about if he actually is a hero or more chaotic neutral.

In Stampede? 'Oh yeah Vash saved the town for free :D'

So. OG Vash: Insanely mysterious to the point where he can't be picked out from a crowd, dangerous with what he's left in his wake, yet never has casualties, has surprisingly good qualities, is a wacky ass man, goofs around in a battlefield but will rescue people in a split second, shows it all through natural dialogue and how he reacts to sudden situations.

New Vash: We're told he's wanted. We're told he's got a high bounty. He's pointed out to us right away. We're told he fixed a power planet. He's told to look at it again. He's told to participate in a duel by someone else so he does.

I don't want other characters to explain Vash or characters pushing him to his next plot point. I want to see Vash reacting, making decisions, saving the day because he sees the opportunity and jumps right into it.

It's only during the duel that we see a little of Vash's real character. That he's non violent, good with a gun, and a little quirky. Idk why we had to go through a wackass plot to get here, but we got here.

And then it ices the cake with ANOTHER Knives reference at the end of the episode. In episode 1 of Trigun OG, we see Knive's gun in the OP and thats IT, we don't know his name, we don't even know there's a villain yet!!

Trigun OG perfectly captures a stylish slow burn, but keeps it exciting through character's interactions. In the OG we don't even know we're on a colonized planet! The only hint is the two suns and weird ant eater horses in the first episode.

But because we already have three really likable characters in the OG, we want to follow their stories, we're along for the ride, we want to figure out his mystery of what's going on.

Stampede has all the pieces but it's lacking the heart, plain and simple. It lacks the original style, pacing, kick ass music, it's more interested in the lore rather than the characters, it cut out one of it's best characters, Vash is blander in both look and personality, and while the 3D animation really is pretty good it just can't compare to the 2D original.

Some of this rant is just 'it's not as good as the original', but even if it was a stand alone it's front loading of information is really sloppily presented.

All that being said, this is just episode 1. Who knows maybe it'll pull a hat trick and become a good show.

But just based off episode 1, I can't see it becoming a great one.

[griefxgifted]

So as I was saying before tumblr rudely deleted my post stuff.

One thing I do love about Threnody is the body diversity even if it is subtle at times.

I want to mostly highlight these four characters which at the moment are the ones my brain at 2am can focus on the most. Though an argument could also be made for Artemis as he too does not typically conform with gender-norms.

I want to start with Brier and highlight a detail I think Alyssa (the current artist for Threnody) has made a lot more obvious and prominent which I love. Brier is intentionally supposed to have more Masculine features. One of these, the most obvious in my opinion, is her chin being more flat and near clefted in some scenes.

I personally love this detail because even when I first watched Threnody I never really paid much mind to it but can appreciate it more in this styling. Mina even said these choices are intentional to her character design as not only is she supposed to have this smaller detail but the fact she has broad shoulders and is taller all plays into the more masculine parts of her. Yet I love how her identity even if she has "stereotypical" masculine traits is never questioned.

Quote: "Yeah it's intentional because I want them to seem kind of nonconforming but also hot - but like Brier is pretty tol and has broad shoulders and yeah some kinda masculine features on purpose"

I like how this plays on a few parts for the artifacts, how emotion has many different faces, the stages of grief don't conform to what is considered "normal" or what someone might believe them to be.

I'll briefly address Des because we don't know as much about him, but still I did I think guess a few things right.

Des has what I would consider an "anime chin" where it's "softer" and more rounded, pointed at the end which for many would indicate a more feminine-facial structure. He doesn't have the hard chin line as others do when looking at them from a side angle like this. A subtle way he doesn't conform with more stereotypical male designs.

Eton is. A bit of everything. Looking at his facial features he definitely has that more solid chin-line that men do tend to have but his body type speaks differently as he holds what is considered to be a very feminine or "female" body type with wider hips and smaller shoulders.

Not only does he wear pink, un-apologetically, he also holds that same stereotypical feminine body type. With a larger chest, though still "flat" and wider hips with thinner long legs despite the fact he's actually the shortest artifact there is. Eton seemingly is what many would consider to be a "twink" or "femboy" who still identifies as a man but embraces the feminine sides of him that make him happy.

Nim is the last, and I only have a couple things to say I wanted to kinda point out about how the pajama scene with her does show she isn't just that super skinny person we know her as. Yes, she has that curve and the hide hips and ass but she isn't completely, deathly, skinny. I can appreciate being shown moments when she isn't in the corset making her look like that "perfect" hour glass figure women are expected to have. Then again it works since she does sell baked goods and she has to look good to sell stuff ect idk.

I just wanted to make a post about how I appreciate the subtle or not so subtle non-conforming things in Threnody that while are not explicitly stated (a huge attention is not put on them, and yeah i know im kinda ruining that by pointing it out) nor is it really made an "issue" just is refreshing. It's nice to have characters that can be just in the world and be considered "normal" in that setting.

Also we stan thicc Artemis

[historyhermann]

"Carmen Sandiego": An Enthralling Animated Series [Part 4]

Continued from part 3

The series introduces two ACME agents inspired by past characters in the franchise: Julia "Jules" Argent (Charlet Chung) and Chase Devineaux (voiced by Rafael Petardi). While Chase is an arrogant and pompous fool, Jules is more level-headed, and is open to the reality that Carmen is stealing from other thieves.

This article was originally meant for The Geekiary. I submitted the article in mid-August 2022, on August 16, and it got sent back for edits, and even after a long conversation with one of the editors, including re-submitting the article a second time, I decided to publish it on my own (see original post for details) It was published on my History Hermann WordPress blog on Jan. 2, 2023.

Ultimately, Chase realizes that Jules was right all along about "La Femme Rouge" (The Red Woman). This differs from Zari, a focused and efficient agent who sides with the Chief above anyone else.

Carmen Sandiego makes Chase, and his actions, a form of comic relief. This contrasts with Jules' more academic and scholarly nature. She even goes through ACME case files to find Carmen's mother, and works as an antiquities professor at one point. More than any other character, she understands Carmen on deeper level. The series hints at possible romantic feelings between them.

In the the above clip from the interactive special, To Steal or Not To Steal, she dances amazingly, becoming a fan sensation when the special aired. The dance has definite gay, or bisexual, vibes, depending on how you interpret it, since Carmen's dancing excites Jules.

Not surprisingly, some fans speculated that Carmen and Julia would end up in a relationship by the end of the series. Their ship is known as Carulia, Julethief, Carmelia, and Carjules. It is one of the most popular ships for the series.

While the ship did not become canon, Capizzi confirmed that two VILE thieves, Le Chevre / Jean Paul (Andrew Pifko) and El Topo / Antonio (Bernardo de Paula) were a gay couple. He called them sweet villains you "can't help but love". At the end of the series, they open a food truck together, similar to Benson and Troy at the end of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts.

Additionally, one former VILE operative, Graham "Gray" Calloway (Michael Goldsmith), has an important role in the series. Some fans have shipped Graham and Carmen together, dubbing it "Graham Crackle". Like Carulia, this ship has some canon support. There are various additional ships that fans favor.

Some are femslash, like Paper Star and Tigress, Ivy and Jules, and Ivy and Carmen. Others that are slash. Some cross fandom boundaries, like the ship between Cassandra in Tangled and Carmen known as "Red Moonstone".

There are possible symbols in the series which hint at LGBTQ+ themes. Carmen often wears an upward gold triangle around her neck. It may be a subtle hint at the pink triangle, a reclaimed symbol of self-identity and pride, especially among gay people.

However, it is much less direct than the ax bass of Marceline the Vampire Queen, in Adventure Time, which resembles a labrys. The latter can be a lesbian feminist symbol, referring to self-sufficiency and strength.

© 2022-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Continued in part 5