#These two disasters when it comes to emotions trying to hide parallel things from each other

[bwabbitv3s]

It is not even that Clark is not careful enough, uses to much force, or is not aware of potential risks, just that when rescuing people even the most careful help can hurt them. When it comes to rescuing people Superman is one of the gentlest, most careful, and precise hero out there. He also is able to rescue people in situations or from accidents that otherwise would have been fatal. From places that normal rescue workers would be unable to reach.

The type of accidents where body retrieval would have happened as almost no one else could have done it. It is why people don't really talk about it. As while suffering bad fractures, whiplash, losing mobility in a limb, or paralysis is awful they are alive. No one blames Superman when their Aunt needs to use a wheelchair now after being saved. As if Superman had not been their to pull her out of the car as it was falling off a bridge she would not have made it. It is not seen as a failing of him as a hero, or as someone to blame, but as part of that accident.

Bruce's has never had to have NDAs signed or even try to smooth things over with family members or the injured. The funds to help people with medical bills is not seen as a bribe to stay quiet. It is the silent understanding that the care is going to cost them a lot of money and they don't need to worry about that. That let them help with this so it is not a burden on them.

Clark is always careful and uses his powers as best he can, but he can't always be as gentle as he wishes he could and still rescue someone in time. Sometimes the choice he makes is to cause the least harm while saving them. It does not make it hurt less knowing that someone will have scars or life changing injuries from his rescue of them. No that always hurts. He always strives to learn to be better when it comes to rescuing people. Why he is always the first to sign up for rescue courses and lectures at the league.

What allows him to keep doing it and not freeze up when the time for those decisions are the letters. They are uncommon and often long after the event. Long letters that explain lots of things or ramble about nothing and everything. Small notes that are just a couple sentences. Some are types up and others hand written. Children tend to send him pictures drawn in colourful crayon or pencils. He even has a couple that included photos taken of them getting home for the first time after the hospital. All of them thanking him for helping them make it home to those they love.

Clark keeps it a not secret per say, but makes sure to not mention it to Bruce. As he just knows that if he were to mention how he checks in on as many of those he rescues it would drive him mad. Knowing him it would be seen as an undue risk to bring his identity to check in on them so much. That if it were to be noticed as a pattern that his enemies could use it against him. Yet he does his best to check in at lest once, if not in person then by going through records. He is just lucky that his job as a reporter means it is not seen as suspicious.

There’s a pretty high chance that Bruce secretly, under pain of death, pays for and conceals all of the people and innocent bystanders Clark accidentally injures or kills.

Because those super powers result in injuries and deaths, undoubtedly. Buildings topple and people are caught in blast waves. Clark’s laser eyes aren’t always accurate enough.

But he doesn’t know. Clark doesn’t know that Bruce quietly pays for rehab and funerals and long term care. Clark doesn’t know that the woman he saved last week suffered a fractured vertebrae because of how fast he pulled her out of that burning car. He doesn’t know that Bruce quietly paid for a million-dollar hospital stay because of her subsequent paralysis.

Bruce doesn’t tell Clark about them. He pays off bills and long term trust funds for patient care. He hides what he can from Clark because if Clark knew, he wouldn’t be able to go on being Superman.

And maybe, one day, when Bruce dies, he learns exactly what his best friend was doing, all these years. But at that point, there’s no Superman anyway. Not without Batman.

[paintedrecs]

Helloo i saw a tweet you made saying you recently watched a bunch of gay animes and i was wondering if you could perhaps make a list and post them on twitter? I'm always looking for anime to watch and i know your tastes align with mine. If it isn't too much of a bother perhaps? I hope you have loveky days!!!❤❤❤❤

Hey friend! I put off answering this, sorry, because my answers tend to be unnecessarily long and I was v tired when I got the original message. But if you’re still interested, here’s a lil rundown of some of what I’ve been watching/reading. In reference to this tweet, where I was watching a show that definitely isn’t gay but is kinda gay if you just squint the tiniest bit, which I’ve gotten used to doing.

If you follow me on twitter, most of these proooobably won’t be new? But I talk about/RT things on a scattered basis, so maybe there are some you haven’t checked out yet. 

So, the canonical gay! I’m only going to list the ones I liked and/or remember most - my Quest For Gay Anime started two years ago, and I watched pretty much everything I could get my hands on, but at that point, there were only a few I loved enough to rewatch/buy/recommend. The list has gotten a little longer since then, unfortunately for my attention span and wallet.

(I’ll be honest, a lot of the really popular/older BL have too many consent issues for my tastes - I understand the context and all that, and no hate on anyone who loves stories that didn’t particularly appeal to me. But I’m including this note cause (a) if I don’t put a really well-known BL anime on this list that’s probably why (b) I’m gonna drop in a few that toe that line but I’ll try to include warnings where relevant.)

ANIME FAVES

DOUKYUSEI (Classmates)

This is kinda where it all started. I saw a tweet going around with a trailer for a very soft, lovely movie about two boys falling in love, and I thought whaaaaat an actual gay story? Where they kiss? And I don’t have to just imagine it??

Still one of my top faves. It’s beautifully animated - like filming watercolors? It always makes me feel languid and happy. The story and characters are realistic, in a very kind, hopeful way, as these two navigate starting a relationship that neither of them expected. It’s available on Amazon video - I own a digital copy there, hah, as well as the physical blu-ray, because I watch it often enough to want both.

I also recommend the manga, although I’ve only recently discovered that apparently the story did not end after the first three volumes, so I can only recommend that far. (I’ve heard it, unfortunately, gets angstier, and it’s still incomplete? The first three volumes feel complete to me, so I’m happy to leave it there if so.) 

The movie pretty much covers the first manga volume - it’s a very accurate page-to-screen translation - and there’s some really wonderful relationship building and exploration of family dynamics in the next two volumes.

HITORIJIME MY HERO (My Very Own Hero)

Another huge favorite that I have literally watched like 30 times at this point. Two gay couples, double the fun, although this pairing is by far my favorite.

I’ll direct you to my very long post on this topic for more information, but the short version is:

Warning: there is an age gap and student/teacher relationship, but it’s treated very thoughtfully and is directly addressed as part of the story. They have to navigate through how to make their relationship work (issues with friends, coworkers, society). And they didn’t meet as student/teacher - it’s a lot more complicated, with some fantastic family dynamics. There’s a lot of angst to Setagawa’s backstory that makes you really appreciate the happiness and love he finds with Kousuke & his whole family. (Many more details in my watch-this-anime post.)

The series is 12 episodes long, with a WONDERFUL (happy) ending that makes me cry LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME. Gosh I love this show a lot. It packs some serious feels - I cry, I laugh, I cry again, but for happy reasons.

It’s from a manga, but I do not recommend the manga. The manga falls into a lot of the tropes that I personally don’t like; I think the anime does a much better job of tackling the complexity of their story and treating these two with the thoughtful nuance they deserve.

Can be found on Amazon; I bought the blu-ray, and it’s one of the exceedingly rare cases where I love both the sub and the dub. There are slight differences in translation that really makes it worth watching both.

GIVEN

Wow, this one. Available on Crunchyroll, 11 episodes with a movie coming soon.

It’s newer to my list, and it’s really, really good. I’ve only read the first two volumes of the manga so far (with two more on preorder), because tbh I have trouble reading scanlations online and find it a lot more enjoyable to just wait for the official translations in paperback form.

So far the anime lines up pretty closely with the manga, so I do recommend both, although at this point I enjoy the anime more - partly because of some of the choices they make in rearranging/expanding scenes, and partly because it’s a story about a band, so it makes a huge difference to be able to actually hear the music.

And Mafuyu’s song is worth it. Wow. I listened to it on repeat for like two weeks after the episode first aired.

Uenoyama (the dark-haired stern-looking heart-of-gold character, I have a type), is my favorite. He is a MASSIVE disaster gay, and a lot of his scenes are absolutely hilarious. The dynamics between the characters aren’t what you’d expect - it’s amazing to watch the seemingly quiet Mafuyu come out of his shell and display his true personality - and there’s some really gritty, emotional material, too.

What’s fascinating about this one is that there are parallel stories going on about past loves and heartbreak, and how truly loving (and losing) someone doesn’t mean you can’t find happiness again.

(Warning and a spoiler: there is a suicide that happens before this story starts - Mafuyu’s ex-boyfriend - and while nothing about it is graphic, that event is central to Mafuyu’s story, so there are some weighty episodes. It ultimately leads to him meeting Uenoyama and joining the band. And finding himself again.) 

The movie’s gonna focus more on the secondary couple, but I’m still excited to see more of them! And...more angst, I imagine, but hopefully a lot more happiness as well.

SARAZANMAI

Okay, fair warning: this show is weird.

I think if you’re familiar with Japanese folklore, particularly kappas, you might have a much better intro than I did, but considering the creator laughed about how much they got away with by hiding the weirder parts of the story during the initial pitch, I...am not sure about that.

It’s weird but I liked it a lot. I’m not even going to attempt to explain it in the space available here, but the wiki page has a decent summary if you’re curious before diving in.

The very, very condensed version is that the main characters are three middle school boys who get turned into kappas by the kappa prince, who sends them on missions to retrieve “dishes of hope” every episode. In the process, they learn more about themselves and each other, since each time they complete one of these missions, it results in one of their big secrets being spilled to the others.

I like the main trio (and there’s a gay subplot there, too, where one of the boys is in love with his best friend but doesn’t know how to tell him), but I started watching the show because of the “villains,” Reo and Mabu. They have a deeply angsty backstory that you don’t get to until the last couple episodes. Up until then, they have a transformation sequence every episode that ... yes, gets repetitive, Miraculous Ladybug-style, but I still sat and watched, entranced, every time.

One of the things I like about this anime is that while it is very, very gay, it’s not about being gay. It’s a fantasy story where several characters just happen to be gay. As much as I love romance (which the rest of these recs definitely have been), I like being able to see gay people (or kappas...) in different genres, just existing.

And if you can’t get into the show (11 episodes, available on Crunchyroll), there’s a spinoff manga about Reo and Mabu being disaster dads to a baby girl they find on a dish in the middle of the street. I think it’s a human AU (kinda?), but it’s super sweet and funny and I liked it a lot.

THE BETRAYAL KNOWS MY NAME

Okay, so this was an early favorite, and I rewatched it recently and laughed a lot about how massively dramatic it is, but I don’t care, I’m still into it.

We’re skirting the edge of “canon gay” here, because you never get an on-screen kiss, and it’s technically a shoujo manga. But...it was at the top of a lot of BL lists when I was first hunting for good stuff to watch, and the relationship between Yuki and Luka is deeply romantic (and achingly piningly good) and central to the story.

The title’s linked to one of Luka’s frequent lines: “I will never betray you,” which he earnestly tells Yuki at every opportunity he gets. Luka is an extremely powerful demon, and Yuki is part of an immortal (via reincarnation) clan that hunts demons. But in Yuki’s past life, they fell in love.

Yuki was, at that point and in previous lives, a woman, but something changed this time around: he was reborn as a man, and without any of his memories.

Luka, who waited for Yuki to be reincarnated so they could be together again, still remembers and still loves him. But he keeps his devotion on Yuki’s terms, refusing to force the memory of a relationship that Yuki might have wanted to forget.

There’s one particularly great scene where the leader of Yuki’s clan asks Luka if anything has changed - if they can still rely on Luka to stay by Yuki’s side and be his protector. “They have the same soul,” Luka says. Gender doesn’t matter. He loves Yuki. He’ll always love Yuki. 

And Yuki, though he doesn’t remember loving Luka, begins to slowly, inevitably, fall in love again.

The anime is 24 episodes - while it doesn’t fully close out the story, it does have some closure, or at least a solid sense of an upcoming happy ending. (I own the DVD; I don’t think the show is currently available to watch online.)

There’s also a manga, which is beautifully illustrated, wow, the sheer level of detail in this blows me away. Which, unfortunately, was way too much work to maintain at that level and ultimately destroyed the author’s health, so the last few volumes get shorter and shorter and the story trickles to an unsatisfying conclusion.

I still love it a lot, though, and it’s another example of establishing a great relationship within the context of a much larger story - a sweeping, complicated fantasy epic.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Those are my primary favorites, unless I’m forgetting anything (and for the purposes of this post, I’m leaving out things like Tiger & Bunny and Promare, which are very gay and embraced as such by the creators but also not something I’m comfortable including in a Definitely Canonically Gay, You Won’t Ever Be Disappointed By Future Reveals list). If I have the energy, I might make another post like this for those kinds of stories.

But there are a few others that I enjoyed, if not enough to buy copies of or collect merch for. These include:

No. 6

Dystopian, so definitely very dark and kind of visually disturbing in places (for instance, people rotting from mystery infections). There’s a central m/m romance and one kiss, but the ending is kind of an open one without a super happy conclusion. It doesn’t have high rewatch value for me - I’ve only ever watched it once and don’t really feel inclined to go back - but it's got good storytelling and is worth viewing. 

Kizuna Koi No Kara Sawagi (Much Ado About Nothing OVA)

That last bit of the title is important to get you to the correct OVA, since there are different variations of this story. It’s been a long time since I tried the main anime, but I did not like it - I had major issues with its story, particularly with the sexual assault plotline. I did, however, love the OVA and have recommended it to people as something that can be watched independently.

There's still a little dodgy content in it (as with a lot of things in the BL genre), but it's mostly a lovely established relationship story with a lot of bittersweet feels, with flashbacks to how the couple got together. 

It’s necessarily a "happy" story either, though, because they're in a loving, committed relationship in a society where they can't be open about that, and it takes a toll. They're doing their best to work through the difficulties together.

Ai no Kusabi 

SERIOUS WARNINGS FOR THIS ONE.

It's about a society with "Blondies" as the elite ruling class and dark-haired "Mongrels" from the slums. There's slavery, plus some serious sexual consent issues...which I found extra prevalent in the newer version (prettier animation but much more cringey on the content).

The 90s version has rougher animation but a more interesting story. The relationship is still not necessarily healthy, but it reads as a lot more of a forbidden love BDSM relationship.

Even so, the ending is SUPER unhappy. I cannot emphasize that enough. I was watching all these things on my own without any warnings, so this one hit me really hard, and I couldn't stop thinking about it for days after. I’m not sure if I'd watch it again, but I've had interesting conversations with others who did.

I guess what I liked about it is that it’s a very different kind of story - and like I said earlier, it’s nice to have variety in genres. As long as every story isn’t dark and tragic, it’s worthwhile to sometimes experience ones that are told well. And weirdly (since this is not something I would watch with my family) it reminded me to some extent of the movies I grew up with - the 80s and early 90s had a lot of dark sci-fi, and my family really loved watching them, so there’s something...nostalgic about how disturbing it is? Thanks parents. At least this one’s gay.

Gakuen Heaven

To pull us back from the darker content, here’s one that I guess was adapted from a dating computer game. As far as I can remember, it was pretty free of cw; fun but not as emotionally engaging as some of the others. It’s pretty much just a fluffy story about a boys’ school on an island with a mystery plot and a romance.

MANGA RECS

I sprinkled some manga recs alongside the relevant anime, but here are a few others that I’ve only experienced in book form. (I’ve got one on my nightstand right now that I need to read, but if it’s good I’ll just update this post I guess, I’ve put this reply off for long enough.)

OUR DINING TABLE

Unlike a lot of the other manga I’ve read, this is a single volume, which means it has a nice, solid conclusion that wraps everything up wonderfully and doesn’t leave you any room to worry that the author will insert unnecessary drama down the line. (That’s an issue, ok? It happens a lot.)

A very soft, sweet romance that’s actually a lot more about building family - which is something that hugely appeals to me. Highly recommend. Loved it, bought it, will definitely reread it. I’d love to see it eventually made into a movie, like Doukyusei.

MY BROTHER’S HUSBAND

This is a hefty book - I ordered it after seeing a joke-tweet about the live action adaptation (which I haven’t been able to find to watch online). I was surprised by the size of the book but even more (pleasantly!) surprised by its contents. I’m not familiar with the author’s other works, although I’ve heard this is the uh....softest and sweetest of his writing. It’s honestly way more uplifting and healing than I was expecting.

Again, it’s largely about family: a quiet, very private Japanese dad dealing with a visit from his deceased (estranged) twin’s extroverted and cheery Canadian husband. This could go down some very dark paths, but it really doesn’t...there are some smatterings of homophobia mixed in, since that’s sort of the point, but there’s a lot of wonderful self-discovery and building new family bonds.

OUR DREAMS AT DUSK

Oh man. This series. Irene Koh (Legend of Korra comics illustrator) recommended it on twitter, and I picked up the first volume from my library and then could not stop. All four volumes are now out in official translations, and they’re so, so good.

These are definitely on the more realistic side - less of an idealized, prejudice-free view of the world, with more of an accurate picture of what it’s like to be not-straight in Japan.

And I phrase it that way because there’s a lot of variety in the characters in these books. The main character is gay - just coming to terms with the fact that he is, because life would be so much easier if he didn’t have a crush on the hot guy at school.

Content warning: it gets so bad at school, in fact, that he starts out the book planning to commit suicide. It’s dark. But it gets much better, and by the final volume he’s grown so much in his confidence and sense of self-worth - because he becomes a part of a community of other people who teach him that it’s okay to be himself.

And all the other storylines are wonderful. Some of the other characters you get to know include a trans guy, an ace woman, two girls who (spoilers!) get married in the fourth volume, and a much older gay guy who’s been with his partner for several decades.

It’s not a fluffy story - there’s some really tough material throughout, and people aren’t always nice, even the ones you really, really want to be - but they also learn and work hard at communicating with each other. I think these are pretty extraordinary books. Beautiful and heartbreaking but also deeply affirming.

[trensu]

Episode 27: The One where I Want to Punch Basically Every Sect Leader in the Face. Repeatedly. With a Chair.

And we start off back in the rain, AKA OUR ENDLESS TEARS

Wwx is like, do you remember our promise?

And lwj flashbacks TO THEIR LANTERN SCENE FROM THE ONE WHERE LWJ FINALLY SEES THE LIGHT

WE GET TO SEE LWJ’S PRECIOUS BABY FACE AS HE FALLS HEAD OVER HEELS IN THAT FLASHBACK

IT HURTS SO GOOD

Wwx: i wished to stand with justice and live without regrets. But tell me now, who’s strong, who’s weaker? Who’s right and who’s wrong?

Lwj: wei ying! 

Oh god, his voice! HE’S DISTRESSED

Wwx: is this the promise we pledged our lives to keep?

THEY BOTH LOOK SO HEARTBROKEN RN

Oh, look, lwj is doing the deathgrip of gay yearning on bichen again. We haven’t seen that in awhile AND I WISH WE WEREN’T SEEING IT NOW

Okay, but for real, how can lwj look so hurt here when the actor is literally doing nothing with his face??

I know i’ve mentioned that before, BUT C’MON, HOW?? HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK??

Wwx: my only regret is that i didn’t stop the jin clan who took living people as bait

I REGRET YOU NOT TAKING DOWN THE JIN CLAN TOO

WE COULD’VE AVOIDED SO MANY PROBLEMS IF WE’D JUST KILL OFF 90% OF THAT CLAN, OMG

And now wwx is all, i missed my chance to protect wen ning before so now i MUST leave to save him

BC WWX IS THE BEST MOST HONORABLE PERSON IN THE WORLD

Oh no

Oh noooo

He’s pulling out his demon flute. We’re gonna get THAT SCENE

Wwx: lan zhan, if i finally have to fight them, i’d prefer to fight with you

Wwx: if i am doomed to die, at least i can be killed by you. That would be worth it.

HE SAYS THAT BC HE TRUSTS VIRTUOUS LWJ TO STOP HIM IF HE REALLY IS IN THE WRONG

AND I AM SCREAMING IN PAIN RN

BC LOOK AT LWJ’S FACE

HE’S LISTENING TO HIS SOULMATE TELL HIM THAT HE WANTS HIS DEATH TO BE AT HIS HAND

Oh god, he’s doing the bichen deathgrip again

He tears his gaze away from wwx and turns to the side TO LET THEM ALL GO PAST

EYES LOWERED AS HIS HEART BREAKS INTO A MILLION PIECES

HE’S CRYING OH GOD HE’S CRYING

THERE ARE TEARS GOING DOWN HIS FACE, OH GOD WHY IS THIS HAPPENING

HE DIDN’T EVEN CRY WHEN HIS HOME GOT BURNED AND HIS FAMILY WAS MISSING AND/OR DYING

And now he drops his umbrella to the ground AS HE TRIES TO DROWN HIMSELF IN THE RAIN

*HYSTERICAL SOBBING*

THEY PACKED ALL THAT HEARTBREAK INTO THE FIRST 6MIN OF THE EPISODE, WTF, SOMEBODY STAB ME

And after all that emotional torture we get Plot Stuff happening

Blah blah wwx at the burial mounds blah blah sect leader banquet blah blah

Ugh, gross, they’re letting the idiot sect leaders talk again

They’re all blah blah wwx is evil blah blah he murders ppl blah blah we hate him blah blah

SHUT UP YOU BUNCH OF WALKING HUMAN-RIGHTS-VIOLATIONS

This whole part here is so difficult to watch. They’re literally just trash-talking my PRECIOUS SUNSHINE BOY

Jc, lwj, and lxc look visibly uncomfortable with what’s going down and they kind of sort of tried to defend wwx but they didn’t present a united front or hold their ground

Instead they let yao and ouyang run their stupid mouths

Anyway

Here’s little itty bitty bits of almost wangxiantics in the middle of this mess

Jgs: yeah, jc, i know wwx is your trusted bro and all but idk if wwx actually respects your authority. Do something about it, maybe

Lwj: *subtly glares at jgs*

And then everyone joins in on dragging wwx’s name through the mud bc apparently that’s the hot new thing in the cultivator world

If you look closely while this is happening, you can see that lwj legit GRINDS HIS TEETH with how much he’s holding back. MY POOR BB HAVING TO SIT THERE AND LISTEN TO EVERYONE DISPARAGE HIS SOULMATE

Jgs: wwx totally doesn’t respect you, jc, my bro. Everyone here heard him say how much he thinks you suck or whatever

Lwj: No I didn’t.

OOOOH, LWJ IS ANGRY AS HELL

HE’S OUTRIGHT GLARING AT JGS 

Jgs: what??

Lwj: i never heard wei ying say that, nor did i see him disrespect clan leader jiang

HANGUANG-JUN I LOVE YOU, LOOK AT YOU DEFENDING THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE, I’M SO PROUD OF YOU 

And ugh, disgusting, jgy steps in to be all “oh, well, wwx said so many awful things that day, who can possibly remember the specifics?”

Lwj visibly swallows here, as if he’s choking back a response, and his lips are all pursed. 

HE’S FURIOUS. HE’S ROILING WITH IMPOTENT ANGER, WHICH IS THE WORST KIND OF ANGER, TBH

That’s all the wangxiantics we get from that terrible awful sect leader banquet

THOSE SECT LEADERS NEED TO GET PUNCHED IN THE FACE

LIKE, A LOT

WITH A CHAIR

OR A TABLE

YOU KNOW WHAT, LET ME JUST TAKE BICHEN AND BEAT THEM ALL WITH IT

OR BETTER, YET, I’LL USE BAXIA. I WON’T EVEN CUT THEM UP. I’LL JUST BEAT THEM WITH THE BROAD PART

*ANGRY YELLING*

Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute! 

This isn’t a wangxiantic

But it is an EPIC MOMENT that should be commemorated.

Because here we get…

*drum roll*

MIANMIAN BEING A BOSS

Jz: blah blah wwx kills our people indiscriminately blah blah

Mm: not indiscriminately

Mm: indiscriminate is not accurate

And everyone around her is like, confused and offended because they’re assholes

Mm: in this specific case, if the overseers did abuse the Wen prisoners and kill wen ning, then what wwx did was not “killing indiscriminately”

Ouyang: nah, the overseers said they never abused/killed anyone

Mm: OF COURSE THEY’D FUCKING SAY THAT. THEY DON’T WANT TO FACE PUNISHMENT, YOU IDIOT

(okay, she didn’t call him an idiot outright or swear, but it was totally there in her tone of voice and also ouyang is an idiot so there)

Mm: you all think you’re so smart and voice your opinions so loudly

Mm: I SECEDE FROM THIS BULLSHIT. FUCK THE JIN CLAN AND YOUR STUPID CLAN POLITICS

And she throws down her jin robes and mARCHES RIGHT OUT OF THAT SHITHOLE WITH HER HEAD HELD HIGH

MIANMIAN PLEASE MARRY ME

Lwj watches her do that and two seconds later follows her out bC HE RECOGNIZES BADASSERY WHEN HE SEES IT (and also she defended the love of his life)

And that badass moment ends

But the banquet of idiots keeps going

The jin clan needs to learn how to shut the fuck up

God, they just go on and on and on

Why are they torturing me like this

OH WAIT, WE’RE OUTSIDE THE BANQUET HALL NOW

We see lwj and mm standing together on a terrace, talking to each other

BUT WE DON’T GET TO HEAR WHAT THEY SAY TO EACH OTHER AND THAT HAUNTS ME TO THIS DAY

WHAT DID THEY SAY

TELL MEEEEEEE

Oh, side note to let you all know this direct quote from nmj - “that girl really has a backbone.”

Okay nmj, i’m slightly less angry at you now. I won’t try to beat you with bichen or a table or a chair.

(but now i kinda wish mm would join the nie clan. I think she’d do well there and also i want to see her carry a gigantic saber)

We get some chitchat with the Official Bros™ but idc let’s move on 

(tho i do appreciate the look nmj gives jgy, like, HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME lolol)

Ooooh, now we’re getting lan fam time

ANGRY lan fam time, uh oh.

Lqr: lwj, have you regretted it? I didn’t punish you when you broke into the Forbidden Chamber bc i thought you’d self-reflect 

Lqr: you shouldn’t have gone to qiongqi way and let wwx go. Should you make one mistake after another?

And lwj is kneeling in front of him this whole time with a blank face

Lqr: what’s the use of getting you to memorize the Great Big Book of Lan Fam Rules?? Tell me, what is rule 52?

Lwj: No association with evil

He answers immediately and without any inflection to his voice.

Lqr: did you forget what happened to your father???

AND WE FINALLY GET A REACTION HERE

Lwj practically gasps and lifts his gaze to meet his uncle head-on

Lwj: my mother, she…!

Lqr: hold your tongue!

And just like that, lwj shuts down again; expression flat and gaze lowered

GOD, THIS CLAN HAS HURT HIM SO MUCH THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE

I MEAN, THEY MUST’VE, FOR HIM TO BE ABLE TO JUST DISCONNECT LIKE THAT

THAT IS NOT THE BEHAVIOR OF A NORMAL WELL-ADJUSTED PERSON

Basically the entire lan clan needs to go to therapy, like, STAT

Oh, i just noticed, lwj has his fists clenched at his sides. He’s clenching them hard, too. I think they’re trembling a bit, actually…

Lqr: i’ve been taking care of you since you were a kid; you’re like my son.i was strict bc i wanted you to stick to the right path and avoid your father’s tragedy

Lqr: that’s what i wanted to say to you. I hope you choose the right path. You may leave.

Lwj still bows respectfully before taking his leave

And i’m sure y’all are wondering, hey trensu, why did you make us endure that angry lan fam time that hurt us deep in our soul?? That wasn’t wangxiantic at all!

That’s where you're wrong, my friends!

It’s actually SUPER wangxiantic bc lqr kept drawing parallels to lwj’s dad the practically whole time

You know, the dad that married their mother who murdered some guy and had the whole world turn against her. 

(Sound familiar?)

The same mother that dad loved with his entire being and did what he could to keep her safe from the ramifications of her actions? By marrying her? And hiding her in the cloud recesses?

YEAH, HE’S EQUATING WANGXIAN WITH LWJ’S PARENTS’ TRAGIC ROMANCE

Bc, you know, that’s a totally hetero comparison to make lol

Oh, now we get to see our favorite Disaster Het be less of a disaster

We’re not going into detail here bc we’re not here for hetero shenanigans, yuck (actually, i’m apparently weak to Pining Idiots of all kinds bc this whole jzx/jyl scene is giving me tender feelings)

BUT

I do want to add that OMG FOR REAL LWJ AND JZX HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR LOVE LIVES, IT’S FANTASTIC

I NEED 10 MILLION FICS OF THEM COMMISERATING OVER THEIR SHARED DISASTER-NESS

Also, how the HELL did jzx end up being the one who was able to express his intentions clearly? He was all “please don’t go to the burial mounds, stay here with me so i can protect you from all who would want to hurt you”

DAMN IT LWJ, IF YOU’D JUST SAY THAT TO WWX, HE’S UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON. 

YOU CAN’T JUST BE ALL “COME TO GUSU” WITH NO EXPLANATION

Jzx accomplished this before you did, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED.

Huh, okay, i guess i did go into a bit of detail with that hetero nonsense. Oh well.

Now we’re at the burial mounds again with wwx

AND WE SEE A-YUAN PROPERLY FOR THE FIRST TIMEEEEE!!

ANY A-YUAN MOMENT IS BY DEFAULT A WANGXIANTIC, GUYS, TRUST ME.

AAHHHH, WE SEE A-YUAN DO THAT LEG-GRABBY THING HE DOES!!!

HE’S SO CUTE. TOO ADORABLE.

I LOVE YOU A-YUAN

Lol, wwx is all if you don’t let go i’ll plant you like a turnip

And a-yuan plops himself down in the dirt like YOUR THREATS DON’T WORK ON ME, OLD MAN, I LIKE BEING IN THE DIRT

Then he asks wwx for 3 elder brothers and 2 elder sisters, awwww. He thinks wwx can grow them in the garden (like cabbage patch kids!!!)

Plot stuff happens

Blah blah wwx and wq share moment blah blah jc shows up blah blah

Lol

Jc sees that glowing talisman door thing and is like THAT SIGN WON’T STOP ME BC I CAN’T READ

And then whips it down with zidian

Now we get some feelings-laden Yunmeng bros time

A-yuan shows up and leg-grabs jc and it’s ADORABLE

But jc yells at him bc he’s a JERK

Wwx scolds jc and then is a Dad to a-yuan: don’t put your hand in your mouth, you were just touching dirt!

Awww, we get to see jc fight back a smile at this! HE WANTS TO BE AN UNCLE, I JUST KNOW IT.

Plot plot plot stuff happens

More plot stuff happens

And the episode ends with us still in the burial mounds with the yunmeng bros

And you know what, i’m just gonna focus on our BAMF mianmian moment bc quite frankly the rest of the episode either had me in tears of anguish or spitting mad. There was no inbetween. 

I’m gonna end up having blood pressure problems at this rate.

I’m too poor young to have blood pressure problems.

The Jin clan better pay for any medical bills I get because of them, I'm just saying

Return to Masterpost

[eponymous-rose]

I’ve also further progressed in my Vorkosigan re-read! Memory was as wonderful as I remembered (Illyan and Miles going fishing via improvised hand grenade out of boredom is always a highlight). 

I love the way Bujold structures her books---I talked about that a bunch with Mirror Dance---but Memory is just brilliantly laid out. Miles is spiraling, Miles fucks up, Miles gets fired (the closest pop-culture parallel I can think of is a superhero having to permanently revert to their mundane secret identity), Miles’s friends manage to yank him out of the mire, and then... surprise bizarre out-of-sequence murder mystery! The victim’s not dead! Miles keeps finding clues out of sequence and realizing he was meant to be framed! And god, you’re so sure it’s Haroche right at the start and then you have that moment of “oh well shit of course he thinks Miles might have it in for the boss that just eviscerated his identity” and so you’re still surprised when that first instinct was right! And then he offers Miles his life as Naismith back. Even Cordelia placed a bet on Miles giving up his life as Vorkosigan. And... he doesn’t. Mirror Dance was about Mark fracturing himself to survive. Memory is about Miles dragging himself back together to live.

I love how Illyan takes the loss of his memory chip---it’s fundamentally a piece of him gone, but it’s also freedom from thirty years of being a tool of his emperor (and then of Aral), and his embracing this destruction of his identity and learning to move forward is such a great foil/foreshadowing for Miles’s revelation. Everything in this story is about moving forward, not without regrets, but moving forward. It’s so fitting that the romance story going on in the background is Alys and Illyan, two 60-somethings, falling in love (and god, I love the scene where Miles wanders in on them in the morning and thinks something like “huh that dress is more of an evening style isn’t it?” and then like ten hours later the penny drops).

And god, Miles and Elli. I love how this was done, how it’s made apparent that you can love someone, and they can love you, and you can be very good for each other in a lot of ways, but your circumstances can still be such that marriage will annihilate one or both of you. It’s nobody’s fault, but the inevitability and recognition of it means it’s not always a devastation: “He could feel the letting-go in them, with the easing of the tension and the terror, with the slowing of every pulse of their blood. Not pain, or not so much pain, but only a just sadness, a due measure of melancholy, quiet and right.” Even when they’re quite bizarre relationships, the relationships in these books are very mature and well-thought-out from a narrative point of view, and this is a wonderful example.

Just a really, really lovely book:

No wonder he was laughing. He wasn’t mourning a death. He was celebrating an escape.

“I’m not dead. I’m here.” He touched his scarred chest in wonder.

[...]

Harra Csurik had been almost right. It wasn’t your life again you found, going on. It was your life anew.

Aaaand on to Komarr! God! I love this book! The most Miles possible meet-cute for his future wife: board at the home of her family on an investigation, have combat flashbacks on a shopping trip with her, and wind up watching her husband die horrifically while chained to a rail on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, knowing if he reacts too strongly he’s likely to have a seizure that’ll dislodge his own breathing mask, killing him in the same terrible way. You know. Rom-com stuff.

Speaking of relationships portrayed well, Ekaterin and Tien’s disaster of a marriage is extremely chilling in its realism. Even as you absolutely detest Tien, you can see how Ekaterin got yanked into that orbit, and it’s all all all so tied in with the very same aspects of Barrayaran culture that we’ve seen Miles face: Tien destroys everything because of his perception of what the response would be to his illness (where Miles, for better or worse, never had the option of hiding it), and because of his shitty insecurities about Ekaterin’s fidelity (echoes of a young Aral come to mind). We’re given explanations (his brother’s literally impossible-to-live-up-to example) but are never expected to see them as excuses, which is a very fine line to walk. The end result is a believably fucked-up relationship that draws on parallels with every single time you’ve ever thought to yourself about a friend, “Oh god sweetie you can do so much better than him”.

And Ekaterin’s thoughts about being bound to this marriage are right along the lines of the most stick-in-the-mud traditional Barrayaran loyalties we’ve seen Miles exhibit, all tangled up in language about honor. And even though it very shortly (and mortally) becomes a moot point, I love that she gets the chance to decide to leave Tien in spite of that. 

I also love the scene between Tien and Miles, talking about Nikki’s jumpship obsession, partly because of the obvious contrast between the two of them, but mostly because it illustrates how much of Tien’s awfulness is because he’s just... fundamentally a bitter coward with no imagination.

"Well, every boy goes through that phase, I suppose. We all outgrow it. Pick up all that mess, Nikki.”

Nikki’s eyes were downcast, but narrowed in brief resentment at this, Miles could see from his angle of view. The boy bent to scoop up the last of his miniature fleet.

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them,” Miles murmured.

“That depends on whether your dreams are reasonable,” said Vorsoisson, his lips twitching in rather bleak amusement. Ah, yes. Vorsoisson must be fully aware of the secret medical bar between Nikki and his ambition.

“No, it doesn’t.” Miles smiled slightly. “It depends on how hard you grow.”

The alternating POVs between Miles and Ekaterin are charming because we get to see Miles from an external (non-hostile) point of view and get all excited about each small revelation, and then we get to see Ekaterin both from Miles’s point of view and from the point of view of her own very active inner monologue, giving us insights we would otherwise have missed since she, as Miles says in the understatement of the century, has a tendency to underreact.

Their relationship is built up very carefully: there’s an obvious mutual interest practically from the first, but they both have reason to be cautious. There are those moments of genuine rapport early on, and then the shopping trip! It’s such a clever revelation, and so layered!

Miles was traumatized at Dagoola IV by watching Beatrice fall from the shuttle in front of him: he reached out to try to catch her, and just missed, and she died. And then we have this perfectly safe little parallel, with himself and Ekaterin falling off a water feature in a shopping district, and he manages to catch her, this time... and they both go over. It’s cute and oddly triumphant...

...and then he realizes exactly what it means. If he’d caught Beatrice, he’d have gone over with her. They’d both be dead, and that revelation hits right after he’s had a whole book to figure out just how badly he wants to live. And to Ekaterin, it’s a very quick summary of what and who Miles is: he’s the man who would not let go. BUT Ekaterin ALSO frames her leaving Tien in that context: she’s not just watching him fall, but purposefully releasing her hands. It’s so twisted and so complicated and such a weird little microcosm of their respective states of mind. And while part of it is Ekaterin giving Miles the little push he needed to properly process that trauma, fundamentally and on a larger timescale it places Miles as the “I’ve been in this hole before and I know the way out” path to Ekaterin’s healing. It’s so well done.

There’s also a hell of a parallel in the physical aspect of Miles’s seizures coming on unexpectedly in moments of great stress versus the psychological aspect of Ekaterin’s whole coping mechanism being built on trying desperately not to flinch or show strong emotion.

(And I don’t know where else to put this but special shout-out to the running gag of Vorkosigan House getting gradually overrun with cats, to the point where Miles starts, apropos of nothing and on a totally different planet, asking strangers if they’d like a kitten.)

These kids! Will they make it work? I may be only halfway through the book, but I have a funny feeling things might work out...

Also, here’s the “rescue” scene in full, because it delights me so:

The root-compacted soil of the edge sagged under her weight, and she began to slide precipitously forward. She yelped; pushing backward fragmented her support totally. One wildly back-grappling arm was caught suddenly in a viselike grip, but the rest of her body turned as the soil gave way beneath her, and she found herself dangling absurdly feet-down over the pond. Her other arm, swinging around, was caught, too, and she looked up into Vorkosigan’s face above her. He was lying prone on the slope, one hand locked around each of her wrists. His teeth were clenched and grinning, his gray eyes alight.

“Let go, you idiot!” she cried.

The look on his face was weirdly, wildly exultant. “Never,” he gasped, “again--”

His half-boots were locked around... nothing, she realized, as he began to slide inexorably over the edge after her. But his death-grip never slackened. The exalted look on his face melted to sudden horrified realization. The laws of physics took precedence over heroic intent for the next couple of seconds; dirt, pebbles, vegetation, and two Barrayaran bodies all hit the chilly water more or less simultaneously.

The water, it turned out, was a bit over a meter deep. The bottom was soft with muck. She wallowed upright onto her feet, one shoe gone who knew where, sputtering and dragging her hair from her eyes and looking around frantically for Vorkosigan. Lord Vorkosigan. The water came to her waist, it ought not to be over his head---no half-booted feet were sticking up like waving stumps anywhere---could he swim?

He popped up beside her, and blew muddy water out of his mouth, and dashed it from his eyes to clear his vision. His beautiful suit was sodden, and a water-plant dangled over one ear. He clawed it away, and located her, his hand going toward her and then stopping.

“Oh,” said Ekaterin faintly. “Drat.”

There was a meditative pause before Lord Vorkosigan spoke. “Madame Vorsoisson,” he said mildly at last, “has it ever occurred to you that you may be just a touch oversocialized?”

[curanonemu]

ateez soulmates au | jung wooyoung

✧ Blooming Flowers AU ✧

tags: wooyoung's pov, mentions of other members, a very poor attempt at mastering floriography, i TRIED, overuse of colours, cuteness cute mess :D

word count: 2,044

I hope you guys like this~ ♡

For as long as he can remember, flowers have bloomed around him. He'll be fine, it'll be the most ordinary moment in the world, and suddenly something will click and there he'll be, petals floating around him as flowers bloom from his skin.

It's funny how he can't handle too much of pollen, and when the flowers are more than he can take, he sneezes and sneezes and his skin itches like anything. Yet, while the flowers bloom outwardly, they make something within him bloom.

Solidarity.

A connection like no other, because he's not the only one for whom the flowers thrive.

Wooyoung found out early on in life how his soulmate identifier works.

After losing a dance competition that he'd poured his all into, and coming back home feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet, he'd held it in long enough to make it to his room before slamming the door shut and slumping down to the floor as he let out everything. Tears wet his cheeks, face hot and eyes burning, and all he felt was the anguish from not being good enough.

He was just not good enough, that was all; all he had to do was be better, practice till he was perfect. But how could he fool himself at that moment? The crippling dejection made it hard to even swallow around the lump in his throat while he cried silently, nails digging into his palms as he tried to stop himself from letting out any sound.

Then the piercing pain from his nails had softened into a foreign feeling, nails free from digging into his skin and his fists felt too full to remain clenched. He'd unclenched them, let his hands fall open as he stared at his palms in wonder. There, instead of blood, lay a single flower on each palm.

On his left, a purple flower that he didn't recognise, petals curling in quite a lovely manner, a contrast from what he was feeling.

On his right was a sprig of heather, a light purple, almost-lavender which stood out against his skin, countless delicate buds brushing across his palm as he held it tenderly. Heather was one of the few flowers he recognised from hearing his mother talk about them.

But why was it, and the nameless flower, doing with him? He'd pondered over it for a moment, before getting up. He couldn't ask his mother when his face was absolutely terrible. All he could do was use some trusty search engine to answer his questions.

'Heather, Lavender: Solitude or loneliness.'

Loneliness? Was he lonely? He wasn't. All he felt was the solitude that came after dashing everyone's hopes to the ground and stomping on them, and coming back home with a loss. So, yes, solitude it was.

The moment he figured that out, he also noticed that his emotions... seemed to be overlapping with something else. Like two parallel lines finally swerving and intersecting, by some miracle or disaster.

It was as if he had dual trains of thought, dual feelings, emotions, dual everything. But instead of it being chaotic and giving him a headache, he just felt like waves across channels had bled over into each other, finally. A dull hum which in no way disrupted his line, merely providing comfort in its constancy like it was always meant to do so.

But the longer he stared at the flowers, the calmer he felt. He was Jung Wooyoung, and Jung Wooyoung didn't get sad for long.

The thrum of another in his veins sang a bit, and as he watched, he sprouted more flowers, blue blooms in his palms as leaves rustled over his wrists. He took a deep breath, before tilting his head and wiping his eyes against his shoulder, before he stood up and walked out of his room, leaving the door open.

"Mom?" he'd asked and she'd turned around, mouth opening in surprise before she shut it as she took in his appearance. Her lips had twitched, before she sighed. "Wooyoung, what do you feel right now?"

"That's what I want to know."

"Do you feel particularly hopeful?" She asked, and he wracked his brain before nodding. Yeah, it was a huge turn from his emotions just minutes ago. "Those are irises, Wooyoung."

He looked at her for further explanation, but when she turned back to her work, he asked again, "Why am I growing flowers?"

"I don't know, maybe you're a farmer?"

He'd whined at her, trying to get it out of her to no avail, and had finally resigned himself to believing that he had a blooming syndrome before she'd told him about soulmates.

Right.

Those existed.

Did that mean his soulmate was also sprouting flowers?

He suddenly remembered the emotions and thoughts that weren't entirely his own, snaking around and intertwining with his, and that's when he'd realised.

When Jung Wooyoung and his soulmate felt the same things, flowers bloomed.

The mystery had been solved. All that remained was knowing which flower meant what.

Fast forward to a few years later, when Wooyoung gets a job in a flower shop only because he wants to know what his soulmate is thinking.

It's a stupid reason, his co-worker and new friend San laughs at him, though he does call it cute because San's as much of a sap for his unknown soulmate as Wooyoung is for his mystery flower person.

Yeosang rolls his eyes at him, and Wooyoung would like to think it's out of the other boy's affection for him, and not because he knows exactly how much Wooyoung has pined over this soulmate that he's never met, and wanted to know what they think.

It's such a hit-or-miss phenomenon, honestly. But it always ends the same way.

Wooyoung will be going about his day, completely alright, and then something happens which sets him on edge, and all of a sudden begonias will bloom from his fingers, leaving him to catch them all, and probably sneeze too.

He'll be feeling like he's on the top of the world, and chrysanthemums will grace him with their presence.

But they always transition into something stupidly romantic, which leaves his face burning and heart beating way too fast. It's not his fault his soulmate likes him as much as he likes them!

Moments after Wooyoung's reeling from a sneezing fit, with his heart blooming like the daffodils that are adorning the counter of the shop, San ends up finding his soulmate. Right before Wooyoung's eyes, though he understands only when they hug and shed tears and link their pinkies and San smiles at him gleefully.

San, the one who secretly wanted to meet his soulmate more than anything. Wooyoung's happy for him, he really is, but when someone's identifier is a string tied around their finger, it's only a matter of time before they find their soulmate.

In contrast, Wooyoung has to play roulette with his emotions to find out what his soulmate's feeling, forget actually ever meeting them. It makes his mood sour for a moment, before he shakes his head. He promised himself he'd try to be as positive as he can, if only to make sure his soulmate is too. He never wants them to sprout flowers of sadness, just so they can both revel in it. He wants his soulmate to only get flowers of happiness. He succeeds around half of the time. His soulmate must be a very happy person.

Maybe they're happy being without Wooyoung…

No. He's not going to spend time thinking of such things. There's absolutely no way someone could not love him, especially when they're his soulmate.

Wooyoung spends the next few days listening to San gush about his soulmate, and the devious part of his heart is amused as all hell when Yeosang effectively calls him a twelve year old. He's called Wooyoung that a million times, but then again, they've not been friends for four years for nothing.

It's another day at the flower shop when Yeosang is hanging around, and Wooyoung's surreptitiously trying to glance at the numbers his friend always hides. The phone rings, and Wooyoung sighs, giving up and choosing to look at the numbers on the device instead as Yeosang raises an eyebrow at him.

It ends up being a request for a delivery, and Wooyoung has exactly a moment of trying to convince San to do it before his soulmate walks into the shop, smiling and waving at all of them. Dammit.

The next moment, Wooyoung's being pushed out of the shop with a bouquet in his hand, and their thanks ringing in his ears. Heck, even Yeosang stays inside.

As he gets on his bicycle and goes out on the road, he huffs. Why couldn't San and his soulmate go out to deliver the flowers? They could've had a nice date. But of course, they'd rather hide between the shelves at the shop and kiss, while Yeosang uncomfortably gags in the background.

Oh well, at least Wooyoung's not the one left to gag while he secretly wishes that he could kiss his soulmate behind shelves too. All in due time. He'll make sure to kiss his soulmate when he meets them, regardless of where they are.

The thought makes him giggle, and he allows the wind to cool him down as he cycles. He reaches his destination soon enough, some big hall with an important ceremony. He's about to leave the bouquet at the reception when someone hurries out of the doors and asks him to take them inside instead.

Your tone is clipped, but you look out of breath and frazzled, and Wooyoung can sympathise. Evidently, this event is taking a lot out of you, so he just nods and follows you when you lead him into the hall. You're almost at the main table, Wooyoung at your heels, when the sound of music floats through the air. It's a piano piece, your favourite.

And who'd have thought it's also the song Wooyoung's mother played to him when he was young, telling him it was the song she'd danced to at her wedding. The melody he grew up listening to.

It happens almost instantly. Camellias, pretty pink buds blooming across his hands. There's so many of them, he's surprised. He didn't expect the longing to be that intense. trying to gather them sheepishly and apologise to you for dragging you down under them.

And then he notices it. Half of the flowers aren't even blooming from him. They're blooming on your skin, your face pale as you stare at him. Pale, and then flooding with colour, like a flower blooming in spring.

His eyes widen, jaw dropping and he almost screams. Almost, because people are gathering around them and you look even more stressed than you did before, despite the flowers going crazy around you.

That just won't do.

The flowers are joined by white carnations, adoration, and then more camellias following them, red this time. The song's still playing, the pianist probably having a field day (in more ways than one) as he gets to witness two soulmates meeting.

Wooyoung sets down the bouquet he's still managed to carry till now, on someone's lap and grins at them when they thank him. Then he's stepping forward and taking your hand gently.

"Do you like this song?" he asks softly, not wanting to scare you. You nod, and he notices how you've calmed down a bit, the line in his mind calming down too, soft instead of the frantic buzzing from moments ago.

"Do you like dancing?" he asks again, and he can't help the creasing of his eyes nor the mirth that shines in them as you duck your head, purple flowers blooming around you both once again as your emotions coincide.

Viscarias.

Plucking off a flower from his hand and tucking it behind your ear, he smiles at you. Placing an arm around your waist, he lets go of your hand, bringing his up to caress your cheek.

"Will you dance with me?" he asks, right before he smashes your lips together, uncaring of the crowd around you. Hidden among the flowers blooming uncontrollably, he feels your smile against his lips.

-

jasjdksf this took too long! still, i hope you guys liked it!! <333 you can find other posts in this series under my #ateez soulmates tag!

Hongjoong | Seonghwa | Yunho | Yeosang | San | Mingi | Jongho

[ramblesofadreamerofthestars]

I WANT TO SEE MY LITTLE BOY - The 100 7.05

He’s back bitches! The King Bellamy Blake has returned for two whole minutes this episode!

Spoilers for the above episode of the 100 and guess what bitches I’m finally doing this on my computer so no long ass post warning!

      The writers are sticking with their trend of giving me a character for like five minutes of screen time and making me fall in love with them huh! Amazing, sure hope nothing bad happens to Levitt because that would suck :)))). Seriously though he was so adorable, just binge watching the 100 (I’m so sorry sweetie) and falling in love with Octavia Blake and the rest of the disaster children and immediately switching sides love that for him. His little smile when he was using the skaikru words I love him, did y’all see that knee slide to get to Octavia? I want him in every episode from now on thanks, I’m sure they wouldn’t kill him for emotional damage to the audience :)))

     Ahhhh, I see, they gave Hope different haircuts to make the timeline easier to follow. Thank gods for the timeline stamps because we were jumping all over the place this episode. I thought there was going to be way more Sanctum storyline this episode and was pleasantly surprised by the balance because the anomaly storyline is just So Much Better. 

    I will say, I didn’t hate the Sanctum story this episode?? Like I didn’t enjoy it but Murphy and Emori are always a plus and Indra getting more screen time as well as being a driving force (maybe?) for the plot going forward is an Excellent decision, this bitch gets shit Done and you love to see it. The last scene had me wondering though, did he (Shaiheda) already take out the mind drive and hide it somewhere? Or do Something with it because it was a weird cut to not show the mind drive being taken out...Either way, JR Bourne really be out here doing the Most with this character huh like he really said what if I just went Off in absolutely every scene I’m in.

    That transition between Murphy getting doused in oil and his early cockroach days “I’ll survive” was So Good y’all, they knew exactly what they were doing with that. I love this stupid asshole so much, his growth? Unparalleled. His complete indifference to the faithful dying, very sexy of him despite the way everyone in the room looked at him. He’s seen the cult shit before, been there done that, and Uncle Murphy going Kill Bill Sirens when he saw the kid getting prepared to be sacrificed was incredible. Also, fuck the faithful for that?? What the actual fuck, first of all burning your people in a suicide protest is stupid but whatever that’s your issue. But children??? what the actual Fuck, I’m so sick of the faithful and Trey and everyone else fuck. Also, it took me a hot second to remember Daniel’s boyfriend whoops but ya, fuck the faithful and also??? They took over Delilah’s parents taverns and fuck them for that specifically that’s so rude

“That just tickles’ and “Had to find the right dress” “You did” who’s doing it like them, no one. They’re just such a delight to watch on screen.

       Poor Gabriel he’s really just like “Could you two not murder...for TWO MINUTES”. Hope makes sense, with her losing Dev because she hesitated to kil and her desire to find her mother and save her family. Also her line “It’s called love you son of a bitch” absolutely iconic, fuck whoever Anders is I’m so sick of all these cults trying to kill each other to become the supreme cult. Who Cares! Echo killing that man who had nothing to do with Bellamy dying and the...unstableness?? Of her expression? They have definitely made a choice with the path she’s going down which...I Guess. Sucks that after like eleven years of peace she is Still making the same choices she would have in the earlier seasons, but childhood conditioning is hard to overcome. I’ve seen people talk about her being Finn 2.0 and while I can see the similarities (the writers fucking love parallels in this show), I don’t think they’re going to have Bellamy kill her? It might be that she’s following the same downward spiral Finn did, but it wouldn’t add anything to Bellamy’s character like it did Clarke, and I think (hope) the writers have a different end in mind for Echo.

Speaking of Bardo, HOW FUCKING INTERESTING IS THAT PLANET WHAT THE FUCK! THE TECHNOLOGY IS FROM THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS?? WHO ARE NOW CRYSTAL GIANTS FUCKING E X C U S E  M E?!?!? Shout out to Anders for that exposition but Why the Fuck are we even bothering with Sanctum when we could be exploring this planet are you fucking kidding me. What the fuck is M9 can we Please just get an episode of Bardo lore. Also, who the fuck do the new Bardoeans come from, because I think they would have had to have come from before the first apocalypse right? And why are they so fucking interested in Clarke, saying she’s the key. Like when is she not the key, but still, I have this horrible suspicion that because Every Godsdamn Thing In This Series Comes Back To The Fucking Flame, I bet you they want her because the last memory they got from Octavia, Clarke had the flame (I think?). Can you tell how sick I am of the fucking flame? 

And our king is back! They really gave us crumbs this episode, his immediate reaction to Clarke’s name, taking out four of the disciples by himself, I stan one man. Seriously, I have missed Bellamy so much these episodes (this is in no way a wahh why did Bob Morley have to leave blah blah blah, I just genuinely missed the character Bellamy Blake) and I am So Excited to finally get the gang all back together. No I don’t think for a second he’s dead lol, the anomaly was Right There and he’s not stupid. Whether he’s now on the ice planet (can you imagine if we got a Bellarke reunion next episode, I’d lose my mind) or he’s on that last planet with an active anomaly stone (likely, given how much the writers love to SEPARATE BELLAMY AND CLARKE), he’s alive and is doing whatever he can to get back to his family.

(Bob Morley said The Ring Stays On and I think that’s very valid of him)

 I do think that with all the anomaly stones and it having been like,,, 130 something years since they left, I think they’re going to turn the Earth stone back online, and the original delinquents who are left are going to come full circle and return to the place they claimed as home. 

I genuinely really enjoyed this episode, I think it was one of the best of the season so far. Next episode! We going on an Arctic Exploration featuring snow! caves! and cave spiders?? Exciting times all around and we return to our queen Clarke Griffin and her team of badasses. Also, maybe Gaia? And the identity of that man who was turning off the anomaly stone, please and thank you. Also, where the fuck is Madi? Who’s watching this kid ljdfsjfsl. Very excited to see what happens to them, less excited to see the cave spiders, but here we fucking Go!

[bananarama-fantana]

Trouble in Paradise

Steve Harrington story  (updated re-post) 

chapter one - chapter two - chapter three - chapter four - chapter five - chapter six - chapter seven

Chapter One - ‘Homecoming’

Word count: 3465

Warnings: smoking, drinking, pretty much just a bunch of teen angst (I didn’t sleep for three days writing this so the only real warning is to always stay hydrated and sleep)

Masterlist    

I wasn’t bitter.

I kept telling myself that. I wasn’t bitter and I certainly wasn’t a bitch, even if Carol wanted to say otherwise. I just had that icky feeling I got.

It all seemed far too reminiscent of the Homecoming dance my junior year, when he’d asked out Holly Peterson and the pair had stood up on stage shamelessly sucking face with cheap plastic crowns on their heads for everyone to see, all the other cheerleaders swooning, the American high-school dream. I remembered the first half of the night, with Carol and the vodka she’d stolen from her mom’s (not so secret) hiding place. We were sitting on the ledge next to the sinks in the girls bathrooms while she did her mascara and her hair, listening to her bitch about Tommy and the cheer-team and practically every other person in our school. I’d had my dress pulled up to my knees, ruining all the creases, drinking as much as I could stomach to try and cover up that same icky feeling.

Carol was a friend out of convenience more than anything, a bitchy older sister who I let drag me around to parties to get drunk with. I had only really seen her have actual emotions a couple times that I could remember, once when Tommy cheated on her the first time and she’d cried all the way through 5th period, and the next after her brother told her he was joining the army. Other than that she was just Carol all the time. She was never really someone I wanted to spend time with but despite being one of the most popular girls in school she really didn’t have that many other friends. Ever since Kathy Gates caught her giving a blowjob to Kathy’s long-time boyfriend Pete, the whole crowd turned on her like an angry mob. On some level I kind of felt sorry for her, she was still a person after all and the whole thing had been him, not her, but at the end of the day Pete and Kathy exchanged their promise rings and Carol spent her time with me instead. Before I knew it, I was dragged into the whole charade right next to her, like the Wicked Witch of the East and the Wicked Witch of the West: the twisted sisters of Hawkins high.

“And like she’s got this smile like she thinks she’s fucking better than me all because she’s vegetarian!” she was saying, adding about the millionth coat of mascara to her eyelid.

“That’s total horseshit, I saw her eating a cheeseburger like last week,” I replied, jumping down from the ledge next to her and straightening out my dress.

The dizzying air full of hairspray and perfume was nauseating in itself. Music was already playing in the sports hall, the drums from Venus by Bananarama echoing along the corridors, reminding me painfully of the whole bullshit scene that awaited me back at the dance. It took a couple seconds to realise just how drunk I was after standing up, almost going over on my ankle, trying to walk in my borrowed pair of sequined high-heels. Carol was cackling as she watched me.

“Way to be a light-weight, Y/n!”

“I’m fine,” I protested, pushing fingers over my scalp to try and give my hair a little more volume. I had looked better in the car but this would have to do.

“You look like shit,” She said, continuing to laugh. I gave her a dark look as she took the vodka from me with a face like the Cheshire Cat. “I don’t know what the fuck your being a bitch about though, Clark obviously wants to screw you,” She said before taking a drink.

Clark was my date that night, a senior and a douche. He wasn’t the type of douche Carol would hang around with though, he was a kind of pretentious douche, he went to college parties, smoked Marlboros, he’d read Bukowski’s ‘love is a dog from hell’ and now he thought he was the shit, I had talked to him once at a pool party in the suburbs and figured just as much. Carol liked him because he had friends who were in college, I only really liked him because he had good weed. To be honest there was really only one reason why he was my date though.

Steve fucking hated him.

Even the memory of that way of thinking still made me feel ill. It had always felt pathetic. Every girl in the whole school was looking at Steve the same way I was and that made me sick to my stomach. There was a big part of me that wanted to scream that he wasn’t even that great. Sure, he had the hair and the looks and the charm, but the guy was a dufus, a total airhead, he was barely making it through high school and he wasn’t even smart enough to care.

I had known him longer than I could remember, guessing that we must have first met in kindergarten some time, growing up in that same small town world right beside each other our whole lives. Somehow always reflecting the other, like parallel lines that only really crossed during games of tag or dress up, or when he used to pretend to be a wizard or a knight, wielding a twig as if it were a sword to fight off all kinds of mythical beasts: a childish fantasy, foreshadowing a nightmare that would come to life just a decade later. In elementary school I would let him use my pencil sharpener and borrow my sacred coloured pens even though we weren’t that close. In middle school I had helped him with his English assignment when he never even bothered to finish reading the book, he called me a genius that day and it made me blush. He tried out for the basketball team and kissed Macy Johnson behind the bleachers the same day I got my first period and choked on my first cigarette, one that I had been given by one of the older girls as right of passage. In Freshman year I stood in the halls and listened to the story of how the newly appointed ‘king Steve’ had lost his virginity to a sophomore, while he ate rice pudding out of a little plastic cup in the cafeteria and read a poem I had written anonymously in the school paper, arguing with Tommy that he thought it was actually ‘pretty good’.

It wasn’t until I had been raked into the whole Carol business that we really started hanging out though, with her and Tommy playing tonsil tennis every minute they were within reach of one another, leaving me and Steve to sit and talk about ‘whatever’ to fill the time.

It was those nights at his house, sitting at the edge of his pool or in his car talking about just life or getting high or drunk or just sitting that made me realise how much I really liked him. Not just some school girl crush like in the 8th grade but actually knowing him and seeing him and thinking he was magic.

I liked to think he was different with me, as sad as that sounded, that I'd gotten to meet the ‘real’ Steve not just the douchebag facade, but that kind of thinking only breaks hearts faster. Carol didn’t know about any of it at that point, at least I hadn’t told her about it, but that night at homecoming was sort of the end of our sisterhood, at least as it was back then.

“Clark would screw a fucking lamppost if it laughed at his jokes,” I replied, giving her a look.

“Yeah but he’s cute though so why not?” Carol said easily.

“I’m not in the mood”.

“You’re never in the goddamn mood! I mean Jesus, I’ve got Tommy, Steve’s got Holly, if you’re planning to ditch Clark you’re just gonna’ look dumb!” That was the thing with Carol, she always had a picture in her head. What she wanted people to see. What she wanted all the other cheerleaders looking over at her to see and be jealous. I was her ‘best friend’ but I was more like an accessory.

The mention of Holly brought bile up in my throat again, making me wince, the icky feeling coming back, “I need another drink”.

Carol had pulled me back to the sports hall not long after that, happy with how she looked now. The sight that awaited was not a happy one, however, someone having clearly succeeded in spiking the punch. The whole room descending into a chaotic mess of filth; sweat, saliva, and showering glitter, with every other couple seemingly attached at the mouth.

It took no time before Carol and Tommy were all over each other already and something about that made me feel even more sick than before. Clark had been waiting around at the door talking to some girl, he was saying something about how he’d not been to a school dance in years, he thought he was too good for them. It took me a while to spot Steve in the crowd, whispering something in Holly’s ear while he handed her a drink and she played with his hair. He looked great. The whole thing was a disaster.

“You guys wanna go outside for a smoke or something?”

“Sure, baby,” Carol had replied to Tommy sweetly, at whatever point during the dance, leading the group outside into the night.

We were a motley crew, hiding behind the bike sheds round the corner of school to smoke. Avoiding the teachers, making us feel like adults for once, high on teen rebellion. Tommy and Carol just continued to feel each other up, holding cigarettes between their fingers now as well. Clark looked pretty put out, I almost wanted to just tell him to go talk to that girl again but Carol had told him to come and now all he was doing was standing around awkwardly trying to look cool while I gritted my teeth and bit down harshly, ignoring him and smoked my cigarette.

Holly was still giggling at all of Steve’s stupid fucking jokes, fluttering her eyelashes in her nauseating powder-pink cardigan. I had heard them all before too many times to count, each time somehow worse than the last.

“Hey, are you okay?” Clark’s voice broke me out of my enraged trance.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

He pointed at his lip, indicating mine. I'd been biting it again, so hard it had started bleeding. I swore to myself, trying to wipe it away.

“I’m fine, it’s just a habit.” He looked sceptical.

“Again?” Steve laughed, coming closer to hand me a tissue with a goofy grin and a cigarette between his teeth. A few nights prior I had bust my lip on the side of Steve’s pool after falling flat on my face. I had been pissed off with him that night but he was used to it, he probably just thought Carol was driving me nuts again. He hadn’t even laughed when I had fallen, just scrambled quickly over to me in a string of swears and curses, asking if I was alright and helping me to my feet.

The rest of the school week had been spent with him nagging me every two seconds that I needed to “quit biting at it, Y/n. It’s never gonna heal if you keep biting it like that” all while Holly stood next to him, fawning over him, hand on the back of his head running fingers through his hair.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s nothing,” I reassured, dabbing at the blood. I couldn't even feel the pain through the buzz, the blood was the only problem.

Holly gasped, hands coming up to her face, “oh no! She’s got blood on her dress!”

“Shit!” The dress wasn’t mine, it was a rental, and they were never going to accept it back looking like that.

“Hey, it’s fine you can get that shit out with like baking soda, right?” Clark said.

Steve scoffed. “What are you, man, a serial killer?”

Steve had never liked Clark so when he had rocked up to the dance with me hanging on his arm Steve hadn’t been impressed, whispering to me under his breath that I “could do better than that douchebag” not because he liked me or anything but just because I was his friend. He had said before that I was the only friend he had who he could have a real conversation with. We were just kind of like that. I didn’t like Holly either and I had told him just as much, he had just put it down to me having a thing against cheerleaders, I always said I thought they were all too uptight.

“What the fuck is your problem, asshole?” Clark bit back, Steve loving finally getting a raise out of him, he’d finally hit the gold he’d been digging for all night.

“Look, just drop it, Clark,” I cut in before Steve could say anything more and cause a scene.

“No, I’m not gonna just drop it, Y/n. I came out here with you for a good time and all I get is this moron riding my ass the whole night!” He said, gesturing to Steve.

“Leave then, man, go talk to Sadie fucking Lawson, that’s what you really wanna do,” steve sang back.

It was then that Carol broke her silence.

“Holy fucking shit!” her eyes were wide as she wiped her mouth, stepping forwards and looking right back at me, “I just figured it out!”

She looked at Steve and then back again. I let in a sharp breath.

“What the fuck are you talking about Carol?” Steve said exasperatedly. She was just laughing now. I closed my eyes, I knew what was coming.

“You don’t wanna fuck Clark, because you wanna fuck Steve!”

“What?” Tommy cut in, holding her arm and turning to look between us, he started to laugh too, “Oh my god. You’re right!”

I sighed, they were drunk, they were just drunk.

“Look, shut up, man. That’s obviously not true!” Steve was saying awkwardly, looking over at me cautiously, “Right, Y/n?”

When I didn’t immediately reply Carol and Tommy burst into more laughter, making my guts churn. It was like someone was suffocating me from the inside and stabbing me all at once, and all I could do was stand there and look into Steve’s painfully oblivious eyes.

“‘Course not, they’re just drunk,” I finally breathed out, running a hand through my hair and avoiding his eyes again.

“Bull-shit!” Carol yelled.

“Shut the fuck up, Carol,” I had snapped, feeling tears stinging at my eyes, the vodka pushing my emotions right to the surface, with a vengeance. She stopped laughing after that.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said, shut up.” It was a simple answer, that was silently begging her to just ‘stop’. But she didn't, taking a step towards me.

“Hey woah- woah, calm down, okay?” Steve brought his hands up between the two of us. Carol and I had fought before and it was never pretty. People at the dance had started to wonder over now too, after hearing all the ruckus. A crowd of spectators forming around the spot, drawing more attention.

It felt like the whole of Hawkins high was watching my life fall apart.

Over a year later I had still never quite managed to live it down, the whole school somehow burying my friendship with Carol in a night. We hadn't spoken again after the fight, which had somehow escalated so far that she had tried to rip out a chunk of my hair. I had stopped hanging out with her altogether the next day.

At one point she had called me late at night saying she missed me, but I knew that if I brought it up in person she would pretend it had never happened. But over the course of our high school lives we still went to the same parties and now, in senior year, the whole thing felt just like dé jà vu.

“You still like him, don’t you?” She was yelling over the music, drunk out of her mind.

Steve was dancing with Nancy Wheeler this time, dressed as Joel and Lana from Risky Business. The perfect couple to all appearances. The perfect couple, perfectly happy.

“You’re such a bitch, Y/n,” she slurred when I ignored her, repeating herself for about the fifth time that night. “Has anyone seen Tommy?”

“God! Carol, he’s an ass!” One of her new friends, Nicole, was groaning beside me. I guessed they had broken up again but I didn’t really care.

“Yeah, but I miss him,” she pouted, steadying herself on the sink and sliding herself across the tiled floor of Tina’s kitchen.

"I miss Steve,” I thought aloud, taking another sip of that weird drink and wincing. I really was that drunk, huh?

“Steve’s an ass!” The friend stated confidently.

I thought back to the Byers house last year, the demogorgon ripping through the wall and Steve hurling himself at it with no hesitation.

“He’s not so bad.” I shrugged.

Carol laughed. “He’s totally an ass!”

I liked to think I had changed a lot in a year, but Carol hadn’t. It was almost comforting. At least some things hadn’t changed. Despite Hawkins lab and inter-dimensional beings trying to eat everyone's face off, Carol was still the same-old Carol.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend anyway? Weren’t you dating some college guy, uhh... Pete something?” Nicole asked, leaning closer. She certainly seemed to know a lot more about me than I knew about her.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I answered with a grimace. In truth Pete was barely even a friend, sure I had slept with him but that had mostly just been because I had been drunk and he had been there, even if he was total dogshit in the sack. He sort of reminded me of Jonathan Byers when I first met him, he had a similar demeanour, granted a bit more put together, but mostly just watched a lot of Japanese horror movies. He didn’t keep to himself as much as Byers did though.

I had been surprised when Jonathan showed up at the Halloween party, when he told me Nance had invited him I was even more surprised. I hadn’t spoken to either of them at all since last year, I had seen him at the record store on Main Street a couple times, or in the halls at school and smiled, but that was it. The year before had left us all pretty broken, all starting when Jonathan’s brother had gone missing. A couple weeks later I cut my hand, heard a noise and thought nothing of it only to be woken up by something coming through the wall above my bed. I hit it with my bedside lamp at first, screaming at the top of my lungs, but it had done nothing, not even a scratch, so I ran out, still screaming like hell. The neighbours hadn’t heard me, they were in florida.

There was a quilted blanket my nana had given us lying out in the living room that night and when I hit the bottom of the stairs I had somehow kicked it into the fireplace on accident, the whole room going up in seconds. Whatever that thing had been, it had crawled back to where it came from, cowering away from the flames.

When the police and the firefighters showed up they thought I was insane, told me I must have been hallucinating from all of the smoke. Nobody believed me, not one, not until I spoke to Jonathan.

A year later here we all were, all four of us who had been there, signed the NDA's and everything, bound to secrecy. All in the same room but never further apart. Jonathan met my eyes across the room, he had been watching Steve and Nancy with just as much jealousy and disdain as I had, cradling a red solo-cup and a growing ball of hatred in my gut.

I hated to admit any of it, hated myself for still liking Steve, hated him for becoming less of an asshole, but most of all I hated that this time it was different.

This time he was in love.

[hypexion]

A Pile of Fanwalkers (Part 3)

Part three of all these fanwalkers. Now it’s time for all the ones who are mean, and should not be trusted. Sometimes because they’ll stab you, and sometimes because they’re just... kind of massively evil.

The basic format for each planeswalker will be a Name/Colour Identity/Pre-Ignition Typeline/Homeplane blob of information, a quickish description of them and some “fun“ facts, and then some hits and misses for extra flavour. Also, I’m going to split this into three posts - “Heroic“, “Okay“ and “Villians“, for I believe I have the moral authority to judge my creations.

Also some of these are going to be from fanplanes, which will go undescribed beyond whatever tidbits come out the character flavour. Others will just have a ?, representing a lack of knowledge and/or sufficent worldbuilding. With that out of the way, let’s go!

Villians

Evil is not a state of being. It is a form of intent, and a form of action. Some of these Planeswalkers can be trusted. Some of them may even appear to be nice. But make no mistake. They have caused suffering. They have altered lives for the worse. Either by design or consequence, their effect upon the multiverse marks them as villians.

Aster - B, Human Warlock, Zodyas - Aster was born under the influence of a bad star, which granted him the ability to draw power from negative emotions. But don’t think that makes him a bad person. Aster’s powers do not compel him to perform evil deeds. They simply enable him. Motivated by nothing greater than his own self-interest, Aster is the truest example of a disaster with a point of view. He was, while it lasted, a member of the Infinite Consortium. After Tezzeret forget how to run it, Aster managed to… convince a number of cells to accept his leadership. While lacking a grand plan for his splinter group, he’s interested in expansion, if only for the sake of increasing his own personal power. Aster may possess a certain kind of charm, and some level of restraint when compared to other ‘walkers, but do not be decieved. The moment harming you becomes worth the effort, Aster will be ready to do so.

Aster is often described as being pale of skin and dark of hair. There’s some weird magic causing that, since different cultures usually focus on different things when describing others. Aster prefers to dress in the fashions of power, whether that happens to be expensive robes, hand-tailored suits, togas or other such clothing. He preferes to wear darker colours, but if opulence is the style of a plane’s elite, then opulent he shall be. While he does carry a mean looking dagger, his primary form of defense are his so-called attendants - humanoid shades he commands via magic. These can perform many tasks, such as “fetch me more wine“, “open that door“ and “kill them“. When Aster planeswalks, he dissipates into a fine black mist. Interestingly, if he’s thinking about planeswalking, his magic generates a similar mist, that trails from him as he moves.

Hits: Power, influcence, tormenting his enemies, using people’s guilt to literally physically crush them. Misses: The undead, constructs, Loxy, Constellation Cults trying to recruit him, being around Ashiok for too long.

Galina - WB, Human Advisor, Ithmorne - In her early life, Galina leaned much more towards the White aspects of her personality. Even as a member of the Zoriac Imperium, she valued their goal of peace greatly, and was one of those that saw certain practices as a detriment to that goal. However, this did not last. When the outpost she was in was raided, everything changed. The ignition of her spark saved her life, but not her right eye. Fortunately for her, Galina arrived on Ravnica within dragging distance of a Simic emergency care clinic, where it was assumed she was an Azorius member who had suffered a run in with the Gruul. This was a role she was happy to take up for real, once the chance provided itself, seeing the Senate as an obvious parallel for the Imperium of her homeplane. In fact, Ravnica seemed to have many similarities with Ithmorne. This could only be due to the work of Azor, the great Sphinx who had brought peace to her warring plane so long ago, and whose Compact still enforced it now. Galina soon realised that her ability to traverse the multiverse would allow her to find more worlds ‘saved’ by Azor, and in turn learn more from them. Ultimately, she decided, those factions on Ithmorne too small to be affected be the Compact would be forced into co-operating. And if not? Then they would perish. Such would be the price of peace. The process had already begun, Galina believed, and if accelerating the pace was necessary, it would be done.

Galina has white skin and long brown hair. Additionally, the events that led to her ignition left her with a noticeable scar, running from her temple, across her right eye, to halfway down her right cheek. Many wonder how her right eye survived such a wound, and the truth is that it didn’t. Instead, she had it replaced by the Simic while on Ravnica. Galina generally wears the standard uniform for those in her position in the Zoriac Imperium - navy blue military robes, kept in the best condition possible. Rather than carry a weapon, Galina relies on her mastery of law magic, using it bind and impede her enemies. She is also capable of many of the standard black mana abilities, especially those which weaken her foes. When combined, these make her a formidable, and potentially deadly opponent. Galina’s planeswalking effect is a jagged and chaotic burst of darkness, which can cause minor damage to living things that nearby.

Hits: Peace through power, Azor, law and order, her own take on the concept of justice, Simic biomagic. Misses: “Barbarians“, insubordination, traumatic memories.

Malius - UBR, Human Wizard, Innistrad - In every profession, there are those that push boundaries. They look at the rules, and wonder which are truly needed. These are the kind of people the majority of Innistrad distrusts. And in the case of the stitcher pariah Malius, they are completely right to do so. While his fellow skaberen found his “wolf with werewolf arms“ experiment a daring new idea, even they had limits. Rumors began that he had started to use demons as a source of parts, and that he consorted with diabolists for unknown purposes. These rumors contained some truth - Malius was interested in demons and had, for a time, used them to “improve” his creations. But over time, he had become interested in the nature of demonic pacts, and how one might acquire the benefits without having to pay the price. Somehow, he was able to construct a device that extracted the source of a demon’s power, and began using it to infuse himself with dark power. For a time, not demon, nor mob, nor torch-wielding monstrosity could stop him. The destruction of the Helvault was an opportunity to Malius, bring him yet more specimins. Everything was going well, until an angel arrived. She cut through his creations, and had both the strength and motivation to kill Malius. In an act of desparation, he activated the extractor, aiming it at the angel. She exploded (don’t worry - she got better (sort of)). This would have been incredibly fatal to Malius had his Spark not ignited, sending him across the Blind Eternities to Zendikar. And so, he soon discovered all sorts of new things to stitch. Including Eldrazi. In fact, Malius was straight-up ecstatic during the events of Eldritch Moon.

Malius’ various experiments have left him with sickly, pallid skin, and pale white hair. His eyes no longer appear human, and those who spend time around him soon feel uneasy. Malius wears the standard dress of the stitcher, a white labcoat, brimming with tools and notebooks. Malius often manipulates his tools via telekinesis, either to work upon a new creation, or as a method of attack. In dire situations, he calls upon the demonic powers he has infused himself with, physically taking on the form of a demon. This grants him signifigance strength, speed and endurance while it lasts, but prevents him from planeswalking, making it as risky as it is useful. When Malius planeswalkers, he disappears in cloud of dark and burning ash, crackling with lightning. This occurs even when he cannot actually planeswalk due to being a demon.

Hits: Extracting demonic power, demonic infusions, terrifying creations. Misses: Angels, torch-weilding mobs, basic medical ethics.

Skath - WBG, Naga Assassin, Orpheri - At first glance, Skath is like any other planeswalker assassin you might meet. She kills people for money, and she does it well. However, she is still a member of the organisation that trained her, a religious order of assassins on Orpheri. So Skath will not kill those standing on sacred grond, those not old enough to be an adult of their kind, and she requires more than just a payment before targetting a diplomat or member of a religious order. Beyond the rules of her faith, however, Skath kills without hesitation, selling death for gold and jewels. When not killing, she is surprisingly thoughtful, a writer of poetry and cultivator of interesting plants. And while unrepentant, she not always unrelenting. Put up enought of a fight, or simple hide in a shrine for a few days, and Skath will move onto easier targets.

Skath has copper-brown scales, and no hair, because Naga don’t have hair on Orpheri. She wears light armor on her torso, which is engraved with protective magic. Her favoured weapons are two scimitars, enchanted to deliver venomous strikes. She also carries a dagger, and a number of poisons, so that she might have the perfect tool for any assassination. In a pinch, she can bite someone, however the Naga Assassins of Orpheri consider this an act of last resort. Mainly because once you identify the cause of death as Naga venom, finding the killer is fairly simple. Skath planeswalks with a flash of pale orange light, leaving behind traces of sand. Interestingly, she is capable of being incredibly precise with her appearance on a plane, and has sometimes managed to planeswalk into a room based on it’s relative position to a know location.

Hits: Getting paid, botany, the statisfaction of a job well done. Misses: Cold places, oath-breakers, Locke, people attacking her from sacred ground (this is actually a bad idea - her religion sees this as an act of desecration, meaning you ultimately forfeit the protection provided).

Look at all these not nice people. It’s probably best to keep a distance between you and them. Of course, their motivations differ greatly, so if you were to find yourself in close proximity to them, you might be able to avoid getting stabbed. Or worse.

[moonlightreal]

Winx Club season 8/24

In which we get to the prize in this cereal box.

24 Dyamond on Ice

At last, at last, at last!  I have waited all season!  Squeeeeeeee!  And if it weren’t for Evergleam finding me a site to watch these on, just because she wanted to do something nice for me and read my episode reactions, I wouldn’t be watching now!  Evergleam, you are the greatest!

Ah, I’m so excited!

Ok, I kind of know what’s coming, and from what I‘ve heard it sounds… it sounds dumb.  So yes I am vibrating with excitement about something I will likely snark the heck out of once I see it.  But that’s the joy of fandom too, isn’t it?

Alfea!  Wizgiz and his Scottish voice!  Pop quiz nobody was prepared for!  Tec and Musa are not prepared.  Aisha says it isn’t fair.  Stella is more concerned with sneaking carrots from Flora’s snack basket.  Oh wait, no those are Stella’s snacks, perspective made it look like they were on Flora’s desk.

The test is, “Animal metamorphosymbiosis.  All you have to do is turn into an animal of your choice!”  Wizgiz poofs into a mouse, a dachshund and a hippo.  Girls are worried, except Stella who’s chowing down on carrots.  Is this a healthy eating PSA?

Bloom goes first and successfully poofs into a kitten the same red as her hair.  Aisha becomes a butterfly, Tecna a lamb, Musa a songbird and Flora a tiger.

Everyone runs away from the tiger, even though it’s talking with Flora’s voice.

Wizgiz smells a rat.  Stella is not what she seems!  It’s Kiko!  Stella poofed Kiko into a copy of herself so she could stay home and sketch fashion, which is what she’s doing when the girls get back, each carrying a pile of heavy books.

But let’s take a minute to ponder transformations.  Those are some random animals the girls picked!  Flora’s not the tigery sort and it seems like Aisha should have been an otter.  I also wonder if she was showing off; wouldn’t insects be harder than mammals, since you have to transform more?  I wonder what was going through the writers’ heads when they chose each girl’s animal, and what was going through the girls’ heads when they chose what animal to do!  maybe all it proves is that transformation is actually not effected by your personality even though it seems like it should be!

Anyway, the girls are mad.  So is Kiko.  I wanna see the scene where Stella bribed him to do it!  Hah!  Stella isn’t actually sketching fashions, she’s getting caught up on her homework.  ‘there’s so much to study!” she’s behind.  

Tecna says that as punishment Wizgiz gave them all a lot of homework, so now they’ll have to study even more!  Hang on, that’s not fair!  The girls didn’t know Stella was cutting class, and Stella did manage a successful transformation after all!  

Stella: I wish I was somewhere far away from here!”

The star case appears!  “If that is your wish young fairy, it shall soon be granted.  What you seek is a world frozen and battered a place where an ancient bond was shattered.  This realm is called Dyamond, to be precise.  Covered with crystal and mysterious ice.  There you will find the seventh star you’ve awaited, follow the secret of a sister separated.”

Stella: “Sister? Whose sister?”

“Whoever completes this final (hollar?  Haul?) will get the stars and keep them all.”  so whoever gets this last star will get the others. That’s handy!

Stella’s still curious about the secret of sisters but Bloom says one step at a time.

Nobody mentions Daphne.  If I hadn’t been spoiled my first thought would be Bloom and Daphne, they’re the sisters separated in Winx, and on the frozen planet Domino back in season one.  Definite parallels here!

Tecna pulls up Dyamond’s stats on her phone.  “It’s a world of crystal, and the surface is covered in magical ice.”  Cool looking planet, it has a… I don’t even know how to describe it.  Floaty geometric outer shell?  You’ll have to look at a picture.

Off we go!  We have to stay ahead of the Trix!

Cut to Icy’s grumpy face.  She’s watching with Darcy and Stormy.  Icy says, “Dyamond...” in a way you could tell the voice actress was trying for emotional while still doing Icy’s voice.

The other two are ready to go, to get there first.

Icy: “No.”

D&S: “No?”

Icy; “We’re not going to Dyamond.  It’s too dangerous.”

Stormy: “But we have a mission.  The last prime star is there.”

Icy: “So we’ll let the Winx risk it all and find it.  And once they get the star we’ll take it.”

disappointed Trix. Darcy wanted a trap, Stormy was hoping for some good old fisticuffs. I love you two, don’t ever change.

Icy: ‘We’ll stay here and track their movements in the dark hologram.  That is all.”

Oh, it has a name. Heh.

Valtor floats dramatically down from the ceiling and reminds his minions of their place.  Icy actually looks scared!  Valtor asks what she’s afraid of.

Icy: ‘I’m afraid of nothing.”

Valtor orders her off to Dyamond then.  Icy clenches her fists.  Valtor makes the mark glow on the Trix’s hands and reminds them he can dump them back in limbo anytime.  Valtor’s voice actor is having so much fun.

Icy bows and says, “As you wish.”  but when the three go to fly out Icy tells her sisters to go on without her, that she’ll catch up.  Darcy and Stormy shrug and fly away.

Alone, Icy lands on the balcony of the asteroid and finally makes that thoughtful face I’ve been watching for for half the season.  She summons a sphere of glass with a lavender crystal flower in it.  Sad music plays. “Dyamond… how long… it’s not meant to be like that!  The timing’s all wrong.”  sad music and the winds of outer space blowing Icy’s hair and her cape.

Well that was sudden!  Also, “timing’s all wrong’… did Icy have a plan? Dare I get my hopes up that there will be an explanation for why all this was never hinted at for seven whole seasons plus all of this one up until right now?  

Back to Alfea!  The Winx are ready to leave, after they make sure Stella is the genuine article.  But then Sky arrives in a new ship, the “single seater Crow.”  I like the design, reminds me of a sled.  Sky is bummed that he got here just as Bloom’s off on another mission.  He has tickets for the Technomagic arena for tonight!  But his date might not be back in time.

The girls leave to save the universe.

Disappointed Sky: ‘Sorry… wait, what am I saying sorry for?  Well if there’s no other way to see you tonight, I’ll go with you!”

Dyamond from space! I like.

Winxboarding over cool waves of ice, as if a stormy ocean froze all at once.  Good music.

Tec’s still looking for information.  “Bloom, I haven’t  found much information about Dyamond, only it was once pretty populated.”

They see the remains of buildings under the ice.

Bloom: ‘It looks totally deserted now.”

Flora: “Something serious happened here.”

Stella: “Someone left the fridge open?”

Again, no mention that the same thing happened to Domino so the Three Ancestors or a similar type of being could be the cause here.

And with nothing but crystal and ice as far as the eye can see there’s no hint at where the prime star might be hiding.  The music turns sad as the girls board past broken buildings and these giant totem-pole type things.  The girls wonder what happened to the people who lived here. Long scene of destruction.

Bloom: “A deserted world… no life at all.  it’s a real mystery.”

Which gives me plotbunnies because there must be people who investigate magical disasters like this.  

Through the ice we see crystal flowers like the one Icy had growing on a tree.  More good sad music.

A sign of life!  A little creature!  Stella thinks it could be a sprite or an animal. Tecna says it means there must still be life on Dyamond.  Bloom asks Flora if she can talk to the trees.  Flora does this light-up-pink spell, and the other Winx are impressed but Flora can’t sense anything.  She says the trees are asleep.

It’s a white fox. After it!  Through very cool frozen thorn plants.  Interesting conversation, Bloom is surprised the fox is running away and Tecna agrees.  Flora wonders what the little critter must have gone through and Aisha says she wouldn’t want to stay on this planet.  

The fox makes the giant thorn bushes break apart and collapse, and the Winx have to board away or be squished.  They escape and look down to see the fox glaring at them.  

Bloom can tell something is up, but she doesn’t know what.

The Trix are here, all together again.  Darcy and Stormy are ready to find the Winx and battle.  ‘this place is so boring!  Give me something to hit with my lightning.”

I dunno, I’d think the ‘Total destruction’ aesthetic would appeal to witches!

Stormy sees the white fox and thinks it would be a good target for lightning!  She strikes a pose, ready to throw lightning when Icy ices her hand. Stormy and her suddenly heavy hand fall to the ground.

Stormy: “Icy, what’s your problem?”

Icy: “Leave that fox alone!”

Darcy and Stormy look at each other in confusion.

The fox comes up to them and Icy looks down at it with a tragic expression.

And… flashback!

Silver-haired moppet in funny shorts skipping over a pile of pink crystals towards a river and a crystal-flower tree.  Blonde girl following worriedly. They’ve found a mother fox with three cubs.  

They look royalty. they’re both wearing really pretty very detailed peacock blue clothes, the younger girl in weird short-shorts and the older in a gown.  The older girl has frizzy yellow hair tied up in an elaborate style with a bunch of braids and a many-layered bead crown.  The younger girl has masses of wavy silver hair up in a singly ponytail, and she’s wearing funny shorts with leggings underneath.  she’s much the braver of the two, clearly dragged her big sister out here.

Silver runs around with the foxes while her sister makes a crown of crystal flowers that have fallen from the tree.  They cute-hug.

Back in the present Darcy says their mission is more important than the fox.  Go find that prime star!

Back with the Winx, they’re boarding along when the star case appears then vanishes again.  Guess we must be in the right place!  The girls walk along what seems to be the traditional “narrow path along a steep cliff” which seems like exactly the place for using winxboards, but ok.  The path threatens to crumble beneath their feet.  The fox seems to be on a higher path, shadowing the Winx.  she’s also in danger of crumbling ice-path.

We get a wider view, the Winx are walking up a path around a mountain that is basically buried under a huge frozen waterfall.  We see this because it’s what the Trix see as they watch from afar.  Darcy and Stormy are again keen to fight, but Icy sees that the fox is following and tells them to wait.  Stormy calls her out again, ‘What’s wrong with you?” but Icy blusters, ‘I’ll decide when it’s time to strike!

This is feeling really tragic suddenly.  The three of them have been always together for YEARS and had so many evil adventures but they don’t trust each other at all.  Icy can’t trust her sisters not to jump all over even as small a sign of weakness as, “There’s stuff, ok?  Don’t hurt the fox.”

Winx walk along path/semi-cave.  Fox watches.

Stormy: “I’ve had enough of your floundering, Icy!”  she shoves Icy and blasts lightning at the mountain.  Icy yells, ‘No!”

Avalanche!  Winx run for it!

Icy panics. “What have you done!  what have you done!”  Stormy looks concerned suddenly, seeing Icy freaking out this much.

They see the fox crying in the midst of the avalanche.

Incoming big damn hero!  Sky lands and immediately rescues the fox.  He chatters happily about how he’ll take the fox to Bloom, ‘I’m sure you’ll like her, and you’ll have Kiko to play with.”

This is possibly the most likeable moment Sky has had all season.  I just love it.

Icy still in a panic attacks Sky.  She ices his suit wings and sends an avalanche to crush his scout ship, sending it crashing through the ice into water down below.  (And having played Subnautica Below Zero, I know all about the fish in that water!)

The Winx watch in horror and Bloom goes to help Sky, who is by now hanging off the cliff with his suit wings frozen.

Bloom: “Sky, you should not be here!”

Sky: “I agree, but can we talk about this later!”

Two likeable Sky moments!  

Icy goes in for the kill!  She sends tons of ice crashing down on Sky, sending him down to join his ship in the water.  Yikes!

Sad music again, Icy hovers holding the fox in her arms.  She flies away, leaving the confused Darcy and Stormy to follow after her.

Bloom: “Magic Winx, Sirenix!”

Oh my gosh Crystal Sirenix is beautiful.  I knew it was, I have pictures, but… it really is.  Love the crystal headdresses.  Love the way it takes from the original “gothic sirenix” design, incorporating the long skirts that eventually ended up in harmonix with the scale leggings. Everyone’s in their correct colors.  Of course Aisha’s teal and purple is my favorite but Bloom’s almost-no-pink is also looking good.  

And they comment on it!  “Our Sirenix form is different!  what happened?”  Tecna says, “It’s Crystal sirenix!  Our powers are reacting to the magical ice, to protect us.”

They immediately dive down to find Sky, and discover that they glow in the dark water! Tecna says their Crystal Sirenix “has a high degree of adaptability.”  It’ll do whatever they need, that’s cool.  But it does muddy up… well, I thought of Sirenix as being a transformation that exists for the purpose of protecting the Infinite Ocean, so how many past Sirenix fairies would have to deal with magical ice?  Maybe the adaptability wasn’t a known thing, it’s just… magic.  Since magic does everything by magic, you don’t know what else it might do.

And that’s all! Whew, what an episode!

So Icy’s backstory is… Bloom’s backstory.  Writers just went, “Well this was a hit the first time, let’s use it again!”  Or, since I want to believe the best of these writers even when they make it really hard, the writers thought it would be cool to have the main hero and main villain’s stories mirror each other.  Bloom and Icy have suffered similar things, being torn from a beloved sister and had their world frozen, then each of them went to school and ended up with close friends.  But they ended up as two very different people, which I think we can put down to Bloom being young enough that she didn’t remember Domino and then she ended up with super loving parents while Icy ended up with nobody until she got to cloud Tower and met her roommates who told her the legend of the three Ancestral witches...

[beyondalicerp]

Name: Fiona Brenton Age: 25 Date of Birth: March 25th Gender: Cis Female Sexuality: Homosexual Residence: Fevered Forest Occupation: Jeweler Species: Pixie Affiliation: Undecided  Face Claim: Vanessa Morgan Played by: Amber (She/Her)

The Phoenix’s title has always been a reminder of their darkest day. They were only an infant when they faced disaster, found in the rubble of their mother’s home. They were rescued by a passerby who liked to believe that the child was a reincarnation of the woman who died in that fire. Thus, the Phoenix gained their title and their mother’s name. Decades later, this pixie has done their best to avoid the spotlight and live just well enough to get by. They have since returned to their home in Fevered and run a small jewelry shop that is renowned across Wonderland. However, their title still follows them. 

The Duchess: It was an unlikely partnership. The two come from very different classes, but they share one interest, and that is everything that involves shiny things. The Duchess loves to be adorned in the most beautiful jewelry, and the Phoenix provides it. The Duchess has gone out of their way on occasion to bribe a few knights to look the other way when it comes to their use of magic. The Duchess also provides much of their jewels for a cheaper price than they give most. Their relationship is strictly business, and while the Phoenix does not trust the Duchess as a person, they at least believe they can rely on the most powerful woman in Wonderland to keep them in business.

The Twisted Twins: The Phoenix grew up around the Twisted Twins, and they related to the Twins in a way only they could. People feared the Twins for what they were, just as they feared what bringing home an immature pixie would do. They grew up knowing that they would also be on their own, and for that reason the Phoenix was always somewhat protective of the two. They have tried to keep the Twins out of too much trouble, and they have been there to defend the Twins when others have let their fear overcome them. They might all have been left in this world without a family, but the Twins are the closest thing the Phoenix has.

The Aggravated Artist: One would think that these two would have a lot of common, growing up in the same place with similar shame and disappointment. However, the Artist’s rage paralleled the Phoenix’s at every turn, and the two butted heads constantly. They could not stand one another, and as a result only added to each other’s reputations. Eventually, they both left the orphanage and went their different ways, and the two have only occasionally shared looks across the market since. The farther they stay from each other, the less damage Wonderland will endure.

The Phoenix is currently TAKEN.

The original Fiona Brenton was an inhabitant, a woman of strength and independence, compassion and kindness. She was a woman who was respected and loved, growing up in Fevered in a small stone cottage all her life. Her home was built by her grandparents to be strong and withstanding of the elements, especially those famous Fevered fires. It was a comfortable home, and Fiona thought she would raise her daughter there on her own after the child’s father left them. She thought they would be safe there.

No one knows how the fire started, but young Fiona has always believed the worst. She was only two weeks old when some passerby pulled her out of the ashes of her mother’s home. The placed had been burned down from the inside out. While the structure still mostly stood, the inside was burned to dust, and little Fiona was all that remained. The man who found her, having known that older Fiona had lived there, made up the story that gave the child her title.

Some believed that the fire was a rebirth. The child looked so much like her mother that they could have been the same person, burned up and reborn like a phoenix. That was why they named her after her mother. Well, that and the fact that they didn’t know what Fiona had named her before. Then, they brought the child to the orphanage, and her magical story stopped here.

New Fiona spent her entire life in that orphanage. No one wanted to adopt a pixie that might have killed her own mother. She grew up bitter, but she wasn’t going to let anyone’s judgement stop her from trying to live her life. All she wanted in life was a little comfort, a little financial stability, and somewhere she could be without being constantly looked at with pity... She worked hard, studied hard, and got out of there as soon as she could. 

The first thing Fiona did when she left the orphanage was look for the burned cottage in the Forest. It was an emotional moment to see the place in ruins, and yet it had also become home to flowers and animals since that fire all those years ago. After thinking on it long and hard, spending a few weeks at the Inn on their own, Fiona decided to rebuild.

If this place was a symbol of rebirth like people said, then it would be reborn itself. With the help of a kind carpenter, Fiona learned how to repair the stone structure of her home, and slowly - piece by piece - it became whole again. 

The next step was to find a way to keep her new home stocked. She had thought over and over before about what career she would choose when she was grown. She heard rumors that her mother was once an herbalist, but that didn’t quite seem to be Fiona’s thing. She had always had interest in crafts at the orphanage, however, and so she took up an internship with the blacksmith.

She learned from there that while blacksmithing was a fun gig, as she enjoyed the heat quite a bit, making tools and weapons was not in her interest. Instead, she preferred the smaller things. Bracelets, then rings, then more complex accessories... And her talent was apparent from day one. She quickly learned she could make a lot of money selling jewelry, and people adored her designs.

She added on to her new home to create a small workspace and shop. Most of the time she sells her goods in the market, but traveling with expensive items like that can be dangerous and so in order to buy such marvelous things, she has found people are willing to travel, even into the Forest.

A year or so into her new business, a knight became suspicious of Fiona’s methods. She did use her own magic to make much of her jewelry. In fact, she used her magic a lot of the time, despite the law, and she has never been one to hide her wings. She knew she was bound to get caught, but she simply didn’t want to throw away that part of herself that Wonderland told her to be ashamed of. It was her, and... It was the only thing she had of her father. 

Luckily, Fiona had made a powerful friend. The Duchess got the knight off her back, and has kept her out of trouble since. Fiona has been able to live her life freely without consequence. That made her feel invincible...

Around Wonderland, many dread to see the Phoenix. Her story may have been sweet sounding at first, but the truth is very clear. The Phoenix was not only a danger to her mother, but to others as well. Her bitterness toward Wonderland has shown itself more than once in Fiona’s aggressive habits. She is brash, she is confident, and she is not afraid to get into a fight. She probably thinks of herself as quite the badass, to be honest, though deep down she knows it’s all to cover up the self-hatred and shame. 

[wazafam]

Tenet proves two things - time travel is best left to the professionals, and Christopher Nolan should be the man to lead James Bond after the departure of Daniel Craig. Released in theaters contentiously during the throes of COVID-19, Tenet will perhaps be remembered more for its impact on the cinema industry than for anything that transpires on-screen. Tenet has also (not unjustly) earned a reputation as Christopher Nolan's most confusing effort yet, and with Inception in his back catalog, that's some feat. Tenet doesn't just require multiple viewings to understand properly, it demands copious note-taking, subtitles, and frequent use of the pause button.

But beyond the confounding inversions and brain-melting timelines, Tenet is essentially James Bond with a PhD in theoretical physics. John David Washington's Protagonist is a top-tier spy with suave charisma to spare, and embarks on a mission to save the world from an evil Russian baddie with paper-thin motives. Along the way, he takes in all manner of exotic locations and tempts a femme fatale to betray her lover, all to a cinematic soundtrack on the grandest of scales. The Bond DNA in Tenet is obvious from the first scene, and makes no attempt to hide the copied homework.

Related: Tenet: Is Neil Really Dead?

With Daniel Craig due to step down from his gig at MI6, the future of James Bond has reached a crossroads. More than half a century down the road, the "James Bond" name is still one of the most influential in cinema, and Eon will have its choice of filmmakers when the time comes to think about Bond 26. Tenet proves Christopher Nolan should top their wanted list.

A change of face has barely inconvenienced the James Bond franchise in eras past. From the earliest years of Sean Connery to the 1990s cheese of Pierce Brosnan, 007 moved from one incarnation to the next in a seamless transition. Each adventure was a self-contained affair where long-term arcs (like the gradual reveal of SPECTRE) played out in the background, and there was very little continuity besides small references - Roger Moore's Bond visiting Tracy's grave, for instance. Minimal effort was made to differentiate each iteration of 007, creating a unceasing conveyor belt from film to film, regardless of whether Bond regenerated in the meantime.

When Pierce Brosnan received the boot after Die Another Day, it was painfully clear that James Bond was in dire need of modernization. New upstarts like The Bourne Identity had reinvigorated the spy genre, while Mike Myers turned 007's shtick into parody with Austin Powers. As a result, Bond returned as a man reborn in Casino Royale. Not only was Daniel Craig's Bond darker, edgier and more grounded, but the modern films have depicted a character from his very first years as a Double-0 agent to a veteran repeatedly failing to retire in No Time To Die. Where previous Bonds would drift their Aston Martins briskly around the issue of continuity, the quintet of Daniel Craig films crash straight into it, following one man's journey from start to finish.

With No Time To Die marking the end of James' career (he's even replaced as 007 by Nomi), Bond 26 can't recast the lead role but keep the same cast, tone and continuity, as in the old days. James Bond's next offering needs to reboot, starting from scratch in much the same way Casino Royale did in 2006. This is especially vital in the current landscape of shared universes and multi-platform franchises, where audiences are more attuned to how each installment may or may not be interconnected. Whatever the next guise of James Bond might look like, it has to differ from the current model... and this is where Christopher Nolan comes in.

Related: Tenet: Can Time Travel Really Change The Future?

It's a well known fact (probably) that all British filmmakers have at least a little James Bond in their blood, but with Tenet, Christopher Nolan pens a heartfelt love letter to all things 007, making no apologies whatsoever. One of the most obvious parallels is in Kenneth Branagh's villainous Sator, who could quite easily be parachuted into your Bond film of choice, and few questions would be asked.

A vicious Russian arms dealer with a God complex, Sator would destroy the world simply because his own death is looming, and The Protagonist even meta-points-out how ridiculous his motive is. But Nolan kicks the mold of a classic Bond villain up a few notches (or down, we really can't tell anymore). See, Sator isn't the real villain of Tenet; he's a proxy for unseen villains from the future looking to rewind the entropy of the planet and erase Earth's past. This creates a unique dynamic where success or failure is bigger than any single enemy, and Tenet's final battle actually hinges on keeping Sator alive long enough for The Protagonist to recover the Algorithm. It's a far more inventive finale than two men firing guns at each other, or battling upon a precariously high ledge. Nolan creates the suspense and thrills of a final confrontation, even while The Protagonist and Sator are in entirely different countries.

Branagh aside, more or less every major character in Tenet has a counterpart in James Bond - Barbara is Q, Fay/Michael Crosby share the role of M, Mahir is Felix Leiter, etc. But nowhere does Christopher Nolan indulge more in modernizing Bond-isms than with The Protagonist and Kat. Ian Fleming intentionally wrote his James Bond character as a blank slate for readers to project themselves onto, and Nolan duly follows suit by not even giving his "protagonist" a name.

John David Washington's hero also strips the toxic masculinity of James Bond right back. Tenet's Protagonist is every bit as dangerous and cool as Bond, and by manipulating Kat for his own ends, the character's morality isn't squeaky clean either. But where 007 would've bedded Kat right under Sator's nose then come up smiling the next morning, The Protagonist is restricted to a small kiss before the final battle, recognizing that to sleep with Kat would be questionable due to her emotional state, and put her in even more danger from the maniacal angry husband above deck - two things Bond often (willfully) overlooked. Generally speaking, The Protagonist is less mission-centric than Bond too, prioritizing rescuing innocents, but never shying away from murder when the occasion arises, and crucially, allows Kat to save herself in the end, rather than letting her flounder as a helpless damsel.

Related: Nolan Could Solve Tenet's Biggest Issues If It Wasn't A Movie

Not for one second is anyone suggesting Bond 26 should incorporate multiple timelines, layered realities, or any other kind of Christopher Nolan science-fiction madness. As much as Tenet does right, its premise is ridiculously complex, and James Bond stands to gain nothing by diving down Nolan's quantum rabbit hole. With that said, audiences are perhaps ready for a smarter 007 adventure, and Tenet gives a perfect demonstration of how this can work through its action sequences.

The typical James Bond set-piece involves 007 being thrown into the thick of the action. Explosions go off, henchmen are killed with reckless abandon, and Bond races around an exotic locale in a beautiful car. Tenet offers the same thrills, but with a more cerebral foundation, the best example being the Oslo freeport heist where a jumbo jet is crashed as a distraction while The Protagonist and Neil carefully move through a series of gas-locked chambers to find Tenet's first turnstile. The sequence employs a lot of setup, with Neil getting a tour of the facility first, then both characters discussing their approach with Mahir, but the result speaks for itself. Action cinema that gets brain juices pumping alongside the adrenaline.

Arguably, Tenet is guilty of overindulging in this regard. The final "temporal pincer movement" is a cacophony of twisting timelines, pivotal moments happening off-screen, and unintelligible dialogue. If Bond 26 could follow the Oslo freeport sequence's example, but hit the brakes before reaching the complexity of Tenet's climax, 007's action sequences can adopt an entirely new dimension.

A self-confessed James Bond fan, it comes as no surprise that Christopher Nolan knows his way around a 007 adventure. But Tenet doesn't just prove the director's affinity for Bond - it's exactly the direction the long-running franchise needs following the Daniel Craig era. After the Die Another Day disaster, there's no question that 007 needed to drop the campy lightness from his formula. But Casino Royale and its sequels might've veered too hard in the opposing direction, stripping James Bond of its gadgetry, humor and levity. It's a balance that modern Bond films have struggled to nail, but Tenet handles with surprising ease. Tenet's inversion is, frankly, madder than a box full of badgers, but Nolan presents this insane concept with grounded realism. If the director can meld Algorithms and backwards fight scenes into Tenet's gritty, real-world setting, he can probably handle a few outlandish Bond gadgets while retaining the intensity post-Brosnan Bond is renowned for.

Related: Octopussy Marked The End Of A James Bond Series Tradition

Nolan can also fix another element James Bond has routinely struggled with in recent times - the mystery. Daniel Craig's James Bond movies try to inject a long-term sense of intrigue with the gradual reveal of SPECTRE (or Quantum, depending on the film), but the journey is a muddled one, awkwardly tying Blofeld into Bond's past. Tenet, along with most of Nolan's other releases, wholeheartedly proves the director's capacity for weaving an effective mystery. Bond 26 needn't bother with anything in the high-concept realm of Tenet, but a cohesive, Nolan-esque mystery plot would reinvigorate the iconic spy after No Time To Die.

More: James Bond: Every Way The Living Daylights Original Plan Changed

Tenet Proves Nolan Is Perfect To Reboot James Bond | Screen Rant from https://ift.tt/3b02N7I

[tachingusindramaland]

Goblin: The Lonely and Great God - Episodes 7-10 Recap: Life just got a lot more complicated

Tiara: Happy New Year Chingus!!!! With the holidays and our busy schedules, we decide to collect a bunch of Goblin episodes before talking about them. Hopefully going forward with the rest of Goblin, we will be discussing week to week. 

Tiara: It’s been a few weeks since we last got together and boy there is a lot to talk about. Where should we start? The Goblin Bride’s purpose is the pull the sword - let’s start there. Eun Tak wasn’t able to pull the sword out when we last got together, however she was able to not only grab the sword but to pull it. It got me to thinking what changed for Eun Tak to be able to become the Goblin’s Bride?

Logan: What a great place to start. There definitely seemed to be a significant change in Kim Shin’s frame of mind that lead to Eun Tak being able to finally grasp the sword. You can see the look on his face as he makes his mind up about something right before he hugs her. It was a significant moment. To me, it seemed as though he had given into himself-that he was finally willing to admit to himself that he loves her.

June: I agree with you Logan! I think that was the pivotal moment in this drama where he finally knew he loved her, and thus she really became his bride and was able to grasp the sword!

Tiara: That could be a reason considering love is a theme of the drama. It seems most of our cast of characters haven’t been very good in the love department. One thing I notice, the sword didn’t have the bloody cloth the first time, but the second time it was there. I wonder if there is any significance to that cloth of dry blood.

Logan: Haha. Isn’t that the truth! Things between the Grim Reaper and Sunny are a disaster, but at the same time seems hardly irreparable-thankfully! Very observant about the blood. I didn’t notice that. I’m sure there is significance to the blood. That moment became very dangerou to Eun Tak too as the Goblin nearly killed her. Luckily his powers also allowed him to save her. But within the scope of two weeks she’s nearly died at least 3 times-possibly more. She’s like the new Jan Di (cf Boys over Flowers) Seriously, though. I’m worried one of these times the Goblin won’t get to her in time.

June: Oh I know right! I'm just like on my toes now whenever I watch this drama because she's gotten too close to getting hurt lately.

Tiara: However, we know that Subway money is going to good use. For sure, Grim Reaper and Sunny are the weirdest couple in dramaland. It’s sweet and adorable, but very odd. I guess when you’re dating the Grim Reaper it’s going to be a strange relationship. I can’t put my finger on why the first time didn’t work but the second did. It’s still driving me crazy which is how I notice the bloody cloth. It also made me look at the color. Black, Blue, Red, and White are pretty much all over the place in Goblin. Shin’s power is a blue-green color and the scarf Eun Tak wears is a bright red. This has to be the connection, right?

Logan: OMG-that Subway product placement is starting to drive me nuts. A lot of dramas have Subway spots these days, but it’s excessive in Goblin. Lol. I just have to tell myself that it’s the same as if they had a favorite Cafe they frequented. The drama is a very visual one and so I think color is made to have a big significance not only to pull us in, but I agree that there does seem to be more to it. 100 points to whoever can crack the color code. Another person for whom color is significant is god, or the woman we’ve been calling Red Granny. Red is a color that her and Eun Tak share in common. That’s probably not a coincidence either. God is always wearing all red and Eun Tak has the one very important red item. I think the writers and producers put a lot of thought into these themes.

June: Yeah the colors in this drama seem to play a bigger role than most dramas I've seen. Especially with the red color. I really commend this drama production for its’ attention to detail.

Tiara: For sure, June.It’s believe that Granny in Red is a deity know as Sam Shin who is known as the goddess of birth. It explains why she is super protective of Eun Tak. It does make me wonder what her plan is for Eun Tak. Why did she work so hard for her to live? Also, the color of blue is something Deok Hwa wears a lot. You can see him wearing the color doing his pasting by with Grandma Sam Shin in the first episode. There are theories out there that Deok Hwa is a deity himself. The deity known as Elder Wol Ha, the overseer of marriages. It kinda makes some sense in some ways why these two continue to meet up. On the other hand Deok Hwa’s blue represents Shin’s blue. It could have meaning or I could be talking about nothing.

Logan: I think I saw that theory out there too. I mean, anything’s possible in Dramaland, right? Although Duk Hwa would have to be reincarnated then since Shin has known and helped raise him since he was a child. One thing I’ve noticed that is recurring, is the innocence of children. Both Kim Shin and Red Granny both watch after and protect children from the little boy in the hospital that Granny helped to the Chairman’s secretary who Shin became the patron of - children seem to have much more good in them than adults as Shin pointed out earlier.

June: I've seen a few theories about Duk Hwa as well but it makes me wonder where it all fits in because he has been reincarnated and been with Shin for a while now. But once again anything can happen in dramaland.

Tiara: Oh Dramaland, where everyone knows one another and anything can happen. Switching back to Granny Sam Shin, she told Shin, death will continue to go after Eun Tak if she doesn’t fulfill her purpose as the Goblin’s Bride. However, isn’t she a missing soul and death plans to take her on her 29, 39, and birthdays that end in 9? The scary threat didn’t really hold weight for me after hearing from the Grim Reaper earlier. However, I’m glad Grim Reaper told Eun Tak the truth about the sword. I really love the bonding relationship between those two.

Logan: Okay, I’m sure everyone who’s ever read any of my posts or drama clubs is going to be really really surprised to hear this (I’m beings sarcastic here)-but I love the Grim Reaper. He’s my absolute favorite thing about this drama so in a sense, as I almost always do, I have second male lead syndrome. However, I absolutely don’t ship him with Eun Tak. I just think that Dong Wook really makes this drama shine with his portrayal of the reaper. His relationships with the Goblin, Eun Tak, and Sunny are all charming and hilarious in their own way. I love that he’s become really close with Eun Tak when he once tried to take her life. I also love the fact that he’s come to terms with the fact that him and Kim Shin have become close friends even though they hated each other at first. It’s just too cute.

June: I love the Grim Reaper as well! His friendship with everyone in the drama is seriously the best. It just shows how far everyone has come friendship-relationship wise in this drama. The bromance in this drama has been a gift given to us all.

Tiara: Haha!!! No I’m not surprise at all, Logan. How can you not love Grim Reaper? He’s just super adorable. He’s dead pan is cute. Dong Wook has really done something special. There are times I get Blade Man vibes from the character and that isn’t a bad thing. I whole heartly love the family unit Shin, Eun Tak, Grim Reaper, and Deok Hwa have made. The moment when her three guys were waiting for her with the cake had me in tears. It was super sweet.

Logan: Yes, that scene had me near tears too! She hasn’t had people to care for her in a long time and now she has a family. Another scene that got me right in the heart was when Eun Tak realizes the ghosts that she’s been friends with for some time is actually the ghost of her mom’s best friend from high school and she has stayed on the earth for the sole purpose of watching over her and keeping her money safe. That scene was a tear-jerker. What a powerful friendship she must have had with Eun Tak’s mother in order to do something like that and what a cool parallel that she ended up having close friendships with both girls in the course of her life and afterlife.

June: Oh my gosh, all those scenes were so emotional for me! I agree with both of you all! I feel like it's been so long that Eun Tak actually had someone to care for her and now she has it. Poor girl has really gone through a lot.

Tiara: Jung Hyun turning out to be Eun Tak’s mom’s friend was the best twist. But I’m with you, Logan. I was a bawling mess during the whole scene. Jung Hyung stayed as a ghost to look after her friend’s child because of a promise really does make her the greatest best friend ever. The fact she hide all those bankbooks for Eun Tak actually makes me giggle a bit. If only Eun Tak’s aunt knew, I would loved to have seen her face. Speaking of aunt, she’s in prison. The best form of karma I’ve seen. I enjoyed seeing her try to intimidate Secretary Kim. Haha!!! Nice try lady, but he’s way more scarier than her.

Logan: Talk about Kdrama karma in action with Eun Tak’s evil aunt. There’s nothing quite like Kdrama karma.  Secretary Kim is quickly become more and more endearing to me. At first I couldn’t decide if he was evil or not, but I think he just doesn’t have a care in the world for what other people think- including the rich and powerful - and I super respect that. Ugh, but I almost forgot about the sad news we got in the form of Kim Shin’s vision of the future and the apparent death of the chairman. Why do they always have to kill the sweet good-natured characters?

June: Chairman’s death is really going to make me into a bawling mess. I already know it! I really hope that Secretary Kim doesn't turn out to be a bad guy. But I feel like someone has to be? I don't know!

Tiara: Secretary Kim also had me worried too. When he connected the dots about Shin never aging, I worried. Yet, we found out Shin has been Secretary Kim’s patron. Pretty much Shin has raised him. I’m still wondering if he is the reincarnation of Joong Won. I may be overthinking things, but the two actors look a lot alike. I’m not sure about that, June. I think the gods, time, and their situation is enough of a villain to not really need a person. As for the Chairman, I refuse to think about Grandpa’s death.

Logan: No, I’m right there with you, Tiara. Secretary Kim and Joong Won do seem a bit similar, but I’m hoping for the best. Maybe the Grim Reaper will decide to stop the Chairman’s death for some reason. His compassion seems to keep growing, after all. Speaking of the Grim Reaper, the one scene I just have to mention is the scene where he and Kim Shin are walking back from buying leeks trying to look like models and recreate the moment they saved Eun Tak from the kidnappers since she told them they looked cool. I was dying!

June: Bless whoever thought to put that scene in because it was literally pure gold!

Tiara: That’s a great way to put it. You can also add Shin to the mix too. Shin was a general who protect the people. He was given a command by the than King to protect his brother when he becomes King. He died by the command of his King (Yeo) and turned into the one thing his King feared, a god. Not just any god, but one who protects the people. It will be interesting if this holds any weight to the overall theme. The drama has finally confirmed Sunny is Shin’s sister from the past. I want more time with these two together. It was clearly obvious these two are siblings before it was outed.

June: I was glad my hunch on Sunny being the sister was correct when they confirmed it! I just want to see more of them interact though!

Logan: It’s a more realistic view of humankind, I think. Good people aren’t good all the time and bad people aren’t bad all the time truthfully. People are complicated. The scenes that take place in the Goryeo period and that tell the tale of Kim Shin, his sister-Kim Sun- and the king almost need to be their own drama. I find myself glued to the screen during any one of those flashbacks. I loved seeing that Shin and Sun really loved each other. But I especially enjoyed the romance between Sun and the king. I wanted to see so much more of it. The two have great chemistry.

Tiara: The siblings in Goryeo period just makes me sad. The relationship between Sun and the King is just heartbreaking. Sunny in present-day still has a lot of her personality from the past. Sun was bold and spoke her mind and she clearly still does this evening without knowing anything. With Sun and Shin dead, I do wonder what happen with Yeo all alone with Eunuch Won. What drove Yeo to paint Sun’s portrait over and over before his own death.

June: I'm hoping we do get to see more of what happened after their deaths and how the king ended up. I feel like there's so much stuff that can be seen with Goryeo time and present time, I hope they find time to show it.

Logan: It would be interesting to know what the king went through after their deaths. So I wasn’t sure if that’s what we were seeing when we saw a shot of Dong Wook dressed in Goryeo clothes in a historical scene. I kind of assumed he was supposed to be the king having aged and sounds like I’m not the only one who got that out of that scene.

Tiara: It could be right before his death or the years after. I get the feeling Grim Reaper will finally be learning his past life soon. I wonder how his relationship with Sunny will go. There was a Grim Reaper who run away with his former wife from his past. However, I don’t see Sunny running away with Grim Reaper no matter how cute he looks. I’m wondering if Sunny will remember the past too.

Tiara: Chingus in Dramaland has our next drama scheduled once Goblin is over. The drama we plan to cover will be “Almost Paradise”. I’ll let you all enjoy the clue. Until next time, watch more dramas.

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