mruizlosa

[rocaillefox]

what i do in minecraft is i cut down some trees first and then i go and find a mine and i mine for a bit. and then i have a sword. and then i fight monsters, then build a house, then farm- but if there is a tameable animal that i find at any point during this, that animal takes precedence and ive gotta do what i can to tame them immediately and become their friend

[ms-rampage]

Hi! I really liked your response to my request. That story about Lucifer and his sister was just great! Can I ask imagine for Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel (separately) and their fem!s/o? Chuck came to visit his sons to meet their chosen ones. During the conversation, he repeatedly hints that he wants grandchildren, embarrassing his sons. I thought it might be interesting and funny. I'd be glad if you'd take it. If you haven't had enough of me yet :)

No problem! I’ve been wanting to write more Y/n + SPN character content for a while now. 

Grandfather God

Fem!Reader x Archangel Michael (Supernatural) 

Warnings: Nothing bad

Summary: Archangel Michael has finally found his soulmate. His father, Chuck, pays him and Y/n a visit, and hints for them to expand their family. 

I’ll be posting something similar with Lucifer and Gabriel sometime this week!. Hope you enjoy my writing 😊😊.

Note: Y/n = Your name. Y/L/N = Your last name. Y/E/C = Your eye color. 

__________

Michael, the oldest Archangel heard that he has a soulmate, but he didn't really ever search for her. He knew of his soulmate for several centuries, and who would’ve known it would be a human. Y/N Y/L/N. 

At first he watched her from a distance, seeing how her hair moved in the wind. How the sun shined down on her, making her Y/E/C eyes reflect. How beautiful she is.

When he finally showed himself to her, she was very skeptical at first. She thought he was just some random dude flirting with her, then she saw his wings and everything changed from there. 

Fast forward to 3 and 11 months later, you and Michael are happy together. Kissing on your guys couch, his soft lips moving from your lips, down to your jaw and moving further to the crook of your neck. Titling your head up to give him better access.

As much as you wanted kids with him, he told you the consequences with humans and Angels having kids, ending with you dying when giving birth to it. 

“Michael, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but I think we should have kids” you tell him. He looks at you with a look of uncertainty. You knew he wanted to say something but he didn’t know how to put the words together correctly. 

“Y/n, I love you, and as much as I would love to have kids with you” he pauses for a second, “But there’s something you should know about humans and angels having offspring”. 

Tilting your head in confusion, “What is it?”. Getting a bad feeling about what he's gonna tell you.

He takes a deep breath, “Humans and Angels having offspring are called a Nephilim. They’re very powerful. More powerful than Archangels, you getting pregnant because of me, will cause very bad things to happen, but most importantly it will cause you your life to deliver it”. 

You give him a sad look, then you look down at the floor. Part of you knew there would be a catch to being soulmates with a celestial being. He suggested you two could adopt, but you wanted to have your own kids, but if getting pregnant by a celestial will cause you your life then adoption is another option to entering parenthood. 

Despite being very bummed that you wouldn’t be able to have kids with your soulmate, you still loved Michael the same way. Nothing changed.

Then you get a surprising visit from Michael’s father, Chuck aka God. To be honest you were expecting him to be slightly taller, having a long white beard and have some sort of Heavenly appearance. 

“Father?” he mutters in confusion. 

“Hello son” he greets his eldest Archangel son with a smile. 

“What are you doing here?!” he asks.  Surprised by his father's unsuspecting visit.

He steps further into your guys home, “I just wanted to drop by and meet your chosen one” he says. 

He looks over at you, a slight smile on his face “Hello Y/n, it’s finally great to meet you”. 

There he is standing before you, God, “H-Hi God” you respond, hesitantly. 

“Chuck” he says, “You can call me Chuck”. 

He has a seat on the couch, “So another reason why I came here was to-” he stops talking all of a sudden, and looks around the living room. 

“Is something wrong??” you ask, concerned. Worried that you might have offended or upsetted him. 

“No, no nothing is wrong, but uhh, I'm noticing there aren’t any small furniture or toys in here" he says looking around, getting up off the couch.  

“Small furniture? Toys?” you question him. Eyebrows furrowed at him. Confusion in your voice.

“Michael?” he says, turning to face him, “Is your pullout game a little off?”. 

Making the Archangel turn bright red, and making you giggle softly. 

“W-w-what?!” he asks stammering, feeling completely embarrassed. Trying to avoid making direct eye contact at his father, and also with you. Laughing awkwardly.

“Yeah, I mean. Are you missing your shot? Coming off a little short?” he asks, patting his shoulder, laughing, “I mean you can always try again and again until you get it inside her”. 

You look back and forth at the two, after a few minutes of Chuck embarrassing Michael. It finally hits you to what he is hinting at. 

"No need to be a child about it" he tells the Archangel. Michael who is probably acting like he has no idea what his father is talking about, or maybe he is delusional to having sex with you.

“Wait, wait are you saying that Michael should impregnantate me?!?” you ask, breaking the embarrassing tension between Michael and God.

He nods, “That’s exactly what I’m saying”. You look over at Michael and back at Chuck. 

“But, but Michael told me about the dangers of humans and celestials having offspring” you explain to him, “That I could die!”. 

He nods in agreement, “Yes, Nephilims are very powerful. Giving birth to one will cause you to lose your life, but I can prevent that from happening”. 

You both stare at him with wide eyes, “What!?” you both exclaim in unison. He smiles at the two of you. 

“Yes, I can prevent Y/n from dying when giving birth to the child” he tells you, “I mean Grandfather God has a nice ring to it”. 

With the snap of his fingers, he makes you protected from the death of delivering the half human, half angel into the world. 

“What was that?!” you ask, confused. Looking around the room, and down at your body. 

“You’re protected” he tells you, “So when you and Michael do it, and when the time comes for you to give birth. You won’t meet Death when you give birth to my grandchild”. 

Michael looks at his father with a concern look, “So Y/n won’t die? Heaven won’t be going after her? Or our child?”. 

God nods once again, a huge smile on his face “That’s right. You all will be protected, and you two can have as many kids as you want. To be honest with the both of you I just want the title as a grandfather. We can be the most superior, and powerful family in the entire universe”. 

You look over at Michael, a hug smile on your face almost in tears, and you hug him, burying your face in the crook of his neck. Kissing him.

“So I suggest you two get busy” he tells you both before disappearing.

Later, You and Michael spend that night making love, conceiving your first child together.

[demenior]

Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 1/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

(This will be a long post. This is your only warning.)

Admittedly this is a bit of a weird thing to be doing, but I wanted to try it out for 3 reasons: 

I love talking about my own work and 

It functions really well as a self-reflective tool for me to improve on, and 

I can answer some big questions people might have because there was a LOT of worldbuilding in these stories. 

We’ll start off with reflective stuff, and move into the juicier world-building focused stuff later into the post. There will be major spoilers for both fics to come!

To begin with a funny anecdote, Why Did I Write These Stories?

I was beginning to write and work out the story that I wanted to write for Spn (what will now be To Destroy a Man. As I was writing the scene, I realized I had a LOT of ideas and while I was trying to avoid as much exposition as I could, it became quickly apparent that I was needing to create my own au (this scene eventually became chapter 34 of To Become a Man). A short prequel seemed like a good idea, to quickly hash out the ‘prior’ events that I needed to go through so all the readers could be on the same page. While plotting out prequel points, I realized Sam and Dean were going to have drastically different experiences during the same time period, and I was trying to figure out who’s pov would be better for which scenes, and how to keep momentum when they’re going through such radically different types of changes. Ultimately I decided to split their povs, which I also thought would be a fun project! And I naively assumed each pov would take about 2 chapters each, rounding out to maybe 15k total.

I had my ending points: Dean n Cas soul-merged and (basically) married, Cas on the lam from heaven and a complete anomaly, and Sam juiced up full of powers and a weird mix of archangel and antichrist but still 100% human and ready to fight God. 

Now I needed to add weight to these changes, so I wrote 200k of build-up.

Am I proud of these fics?

OF COURSE I AM!!! These are the longest fics I’ve ever written AND finished AND in the fastest freakin turnaround ever (both were finished writing, barring edits, in like 6 months holy shit)

I didn’t write a single scene that I “didn’t” want to write. If I had trouble writing it, as in it was fighting me, I scrapped it. Most obviously was the scene in Dean’s pov where he and Sam were intended to meet some other hunters and Dean declines working with them because he’s nervous about being outed as queer. It was meant to be a good scene! I wanted to introduce some new characters! But it just wasn’t working so I said ‘thank you, next!’. 

But it means this story was an absolute joy to write. Because for a while all I was doing was ‘if I wanted to write one scene into supernatural, what would I write?’ and then just DID that!! It’s why there’s a lot of ‘Salmondean do dumb shit or have really dumb heartfelt conversations’ scenes.

Would I change anything?

If I’d been less eager to start sharing, I might have planned out the story beats a little tighter so there were less ‘soft’ chapters and a draw/pull for people to come back and keep reading. I felt Dean’s story specifically lagged at points and could have used some tighter editing (there was a noticeable lull in directed movement between Dean n Cas getting together, until Sam corrupts Amy).

I also probably would have held Sam’s story until I’d finished Dean’s so I could make the two line up better! Probably could have inserted more scenes into Sam’s fic that way, and made sure things were a little more consistent. In an ideal world one concept I had was to release 1 chapter from each pov every week that would correspond to the same time frame so we’d be getting real-time SalmonDean pov narrative. Unfortunately that didn’t work!

The biggest takeaway overall is for me to focus more on what moves the plot, and to make my scenes do more than 1 thing so I can cut down on wordcount and increase my efficiency. 

Of course every writer will find things they want to fix in anything they’ve ever written, so these are minor “mistakes” at best. I’m so dang proud of these fics. 

Onto more interesting things!

How Did I Put These Fics Together (because it’s different than anything I’ve ever done before)

Normally when I write a story, I plan out the beats I need to hit, see where I need to insert any kind of foreshadowing/buildup, and then write from A to B to C and so on and so forth. Hence, this is why I can normally post things as I complete chapters, because it’s all a linear progression. 

For these two stories, rather than linear plot/a normal story structure, I just sat and free-wrote any and every scene that came to mind and then pieced them into a kinda-linear form like putting a quilt together. You’ll note that this is why there’s not a lot of internal callback or a feeling of sense of time flowing within the fic (save for points where I went back and specifically edited it in). How long does the story take place over? Hard to say! Your author has the barest grasp on linear time even on a good day (how many times did I say ‘see you on [wrong day]’ at the end of chapters lmaaoooo)

This also meant EXTENSIVE editing on the back end once I decided in what order I wanted my ‘quilt pieces’ to be. Hard to say if this is a bonus or a negative!

But I did want to try and capture the vibe of the lives they lead, as a bit of a ‘slice of life’-style story, when the slice of life is the profound weirdness of the Winchester roaming life, and how things are status quo- until everyone almost dies oh shit!! And then they have to keep living because no therapy we die/undie like Winchesters. Do I think I captured this effectively? Hmm. Good question. 

Dem where the FUCK did the inspiration for a lot of the magic and creature weirdness even come from?

Honestly? Music, primarily. And completely mishearing lyrics!

Nightwish ‘Ever Dream’: the line is ‘my song can but borrow you grace’ and because my brain is scrambled eggs on a good day, I heard ‘grace’ ‘song’ and ‘borrow’ in that order and have had, for YEARS, the mental image of Cas borrowing Dean’s soul to power himself up for battle.

From there I’ve always been enamored with the ‘wavelength of celestial intent’ descriptor that Cas drops in s6 for “what he is”. 

I also really like ocean metaphors mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the ocean and things in it since I was like… 5??? So really this was me just rolling with what I know lmao. I love using (somewhat) accurate scientific metaphors for very intangible things!

I was also finishing my degree in biology/ecology while writing these fics and I think it shows

Stars ‘The Night Starts Here’ gives us the series title and the fic titles. Except for ‘To Exist Again’. TEA was almost titled ‘The Upwards Fall’ because I wanted all 3 of the Main Stories to have titles from this song, but I couldn’t make anything else work in tandem with the series name ‘The Love It Takes’ while also working for Sam’s personal story. So Sam, as always, is the rebel <3

Stars ‘Up In Our Bedroom, After The War’ is basically the vibes of the whole story. TFW has been, literally, to hell and back!!! There’s a bit of melancholy and sadness, a lingering dark, but the chance of a bright new tomorrow and a soft start.

Let’s Talk About Themes in The Story! What were you looking to accomplish? 

My earliest notes for TFW are, as follows:

Dean’s journey of self-discovery (who am I when I’m not trying to be Dad?)

Dean wants to settle down! He wants a big family! He wants to be domestic!

Basically: Dean doesn’t want to have a short life of hunting. He wants to live!

Dean’s journey of realizing he’s bi, and him accepting that

Dean’s relationship to Sam is both older brother/parent 

And continuing Dean balancing these roles while also letting Sam be an adult 

Dean’s Big Issues/Fears about never being good enough for people to want to stay with him (these are effectively highlighted in that Cas thinks he’s not useful enough to be wanted)

Sub Plot:

Castiel’s autonomy

Cas’ fall from grace, to trying to restore Heaven, to wrecking it further

He’s majorly depressed by the end of s7 (before purgatory)

Wants to stay in Purgatory but doesn’t tell Dean

Remains depressed after leaving, but resolved to keep living on because he’s clearly meant for something

After the seraphim reveal: does he have free will?! How does he grapple with this? How does he live in a way he can be proud of?

And lastly

Sam gets his powers back CAUSE THATS HOT

where tf did they go????

he got them from Lucifer?????

sleeper agent??????

Sam is The Chosen One

Accepts that he is More Than Human and to celebrate all parts of him

Lucifer and Sam friends?? Work together????

Sam needs autonomy in his choices/his life

If you compare these to the overall arc of TFW within the two stories, I think I got a lot of them! But you’ll also note a lot of these things aren’t concrete goals that are easily measurable (ex: Dean wants to learn to bake pie. In chapter 1 he starts a fire in the kitchen. By the end of the story he finally makes A Good Pie.) part of the lack of concrete milestones was why I felt it was important to tell Dean (and Cas’) story by going back to the point they meet, in s4! Dean’s gradual change towards his feelings for Cas, his relationship to Sam (heavily influenced by the s7 events of this fic) and then his own relationship with himself were such slow burns that I felt it would be a disservice to try and cram a change like that into a timeline like “1 year”.

I felt like these subtle changes and adjustments actually felt a lot truer to life-- people often change in very small, gradual ways over time, even without realizing it and often times not consistently! If only we could all gain skills like the sims, where we can easily level up and remain at that high level of performance! 

So the Guy Who Ate Satan, A Celestial Nuke that Developed Sentience, and Dean walk into a bar…

Sam’s story in Spn The Show has always been a ‘chosen one’ kind of narrative. Sam is living with one foot in the realm of the monsters, and I wanted to bring that back full force! It really makes sense for him that he should only continue to grow in power, might, and magic!! As the story progresses.

Cas also got a power up! I do desperately love in the show that he was kind of a grunt/nothing angel, and so even when he defected to TFW he was a huge help for them, but in the scale of things he was an annoying fly to most other angels. It really worked for the underdog story of s4/5. In this I wanted to give him a power up, and originally it was actually going to be close contact with Sam that eventually changed Cas into something unknown (you can still see traces of this in ch34 of TBAM, where Death remarks ‘Castiel could be [Sam’s] first creation’. But for a combo of reasons: how Sam’s magic needed to have intent, the entire concept of free will and consent, and how much I wanted Dean and Cas to have their effect on each other, I decided to go with the route that Cas has actually always been something angel-adjacent rather than becoming something new. TFW/Supernatural has always been about free will and making your own story, so I amplified that with Cas.

Dean has always been A Normal Guy, which is part of the appeal of him and Sam (2 normal dudes!) taking on the Very Not Normal. As explained above, Sam’s story is ‘normal guy finds out he’s the chosen one’ and so, in a story about very large concepts and huge monsters and acts of magic, I felt it was very important to keep Dean as normal as possible. To the point it became a running gag to me, personally, in that ‘no matter what cool shit happens around him, Dean has to stay as Just A Guy’. And it’s a very humanizing role that allows the story to have the scale it does!

What were the most important themes in your story?

Sam’s Autonomy

I wasn’t even going to include the plot about Lucifer’s death in this story— that was going to come up in a later story, actually! And rather than Sam having ate Lucifer, the original idea was that they’d become a SamandLucifer entity (this harkens back to a concept I wanted to write when Swan Song first aired). 

That storyline would have involved a lot of mental ‘Sam and Lucifer discuss what it means to live, which one of them is more worthy of life and if they do deserve to destroy the world for the pain they’ve been forced to go through, just to create the dichotomy of good and evil for everyone else’ discussions. There would be a lot of talk about how Sam hates and fears Lucifer for the pain Lucifer put on Sam, how Lucifer hates Sam because he and Sam are the same but Sam’s brother loves him anyways, etc. 

Ultimately that was scrapped because Sam’s entire story in the show is always about how the world and everyone around him manipulates him and that he never actually gets to make choices about his own life or body that aren’t influenced or part of someone elses’ design. And that always bothered me that Sam was never allowed to be himself without having to be ashamed of it, and I wanted to make sure that Sam’s triumph of being proud of himself/proudly choosing to exist (again) was evident in his story

In the end I needed Sam to have this visceral win over his tormentor. As the story shows, in this case Lucifer was abused and put into a position where he was incapable of empathy and could only express himself in violence. Sam even understands this! But it doesn’t change the fact that Lucifer tortured Sam in unimaginable ways for thousands of years. 

With that in mind I didn’t like the idea of Lucifer and Sam having “co-ownership” of their new identity, so I made the choice that Sam had to be the survivor. This tied in well with Sam’s new crusade to restore free will to the universe, because he’s breaking the narrative of his own story!

While Castiel wasn’t a pov character, his own autonomy and free will was equally as important. You’ll note that many, many paragraphs and conversations revolved around that theme and that in the end Cas followed himself (and love!) which ensured his freedom of self <3

The Brothers are WEIRD PEOPLE!!!! And Codependent to a Worrying Degree, but It’s Also How They Survive

It’s very hard to show “unusual” relationships when you’re writing from the pov of the two people who don’t think there’s anything weird about their relationship. Sure, they say ‘yeah it’s probably weird that we still share a bed’ but that’s kinda more in line with ‘I had a nightmare and I want to be close to the person who makes me feel safe’. Hashtag normalize co-sleeping when you need it!!!

From there I did try to point out how the boys have a weird perception of lifestyle in the little things they did. 

From thrifting everything from clothes to appliances to books (thrifting is a valid lifestyle! It’s incredibly handy when you’re on a budget.) 

To never actually having condiments or knowing how to use a dishwasher cause they’ve lived in a car, a motel room, or squatted in old houses their whole life.

I tried to have them wear each others’ clothes or casually swap things as much as possible. They live out of each others’ pockets!

Also the brothers are just weird people!! It’s hard to show from their pov, cause they don’t know how far off from normal they are, but like…

Everything about Sam and Amelia was NOT right like holy shit those two were wilding in their grief. They are very lucky things worked out for them and that they got to be hashtag Weird Girls together

Dean explicitly, in the story, gets horny after killing stuff!! Violence has done a number on his psyche and he’s gotten some wires crossed that maybe shouldn’t have been, or maybe could be worked out in a safe space but… uh… how likely do we think Dean is gonna go find a safe space to deal with any of his shit???

LOVE!!! Love is truly what this whole story is all about

If you’ve read the stories, you know how much emphasis I put on love. Love is the strongest force in the Spn Universe! It’s what averted the apocalypse and saved the world (Swan Song), it’s what created free will (Cas’ entire arc!) I love love!!!!

I went out of my way to not put any definitions on platonic love vs romantic love because I think love is love is love and how you express that is the difference. Neither is more powerful than the other because LOVE is powerful!! Sam and Cas are the most important people in Dean’s life and he loves them equally! He shows this by giving Cas kisses and stealing Sam’s socks.

It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when I have to hear explanations like ‘I love you, like a brother’ or ‘I love you, but like, as a friend because I’m a lesbian and you’re a man’ etc etc in media. If you have to continuously define how your characters love each other, then I don’t think you’re doing a good job of portraying their relationship. So you’ll see that I never put those parameters in any conversation. Dean DOES muse that he loves Cas differently than he loves Sam or Bobby, specifically because there is a romantic and sexual tone that his feelings for Cas takes, but not because he loves Cas more or less than he loves Sam or Bobby.

Which means, if you haven’t realized it yet, the Series + Fic Titles are meant to be a complete sentence because the power of love IS the thesis of this series:

The Love It Takes To Exist Again (Sam’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Become a Man (Dean’s journey!)

The Love It Takes To Destroy a Man (TBA)

And now for fun stuff. Behind the scenes!!

What’s Something People Probably Don’t Know?

The demonic fungal/hydrothermal vent growth on Sam’s arm was thrown in literally as I was posting the chapter because I had just finished a 48 hour cram session of writing a report on tube worms for an ecology class (I was chanting my tube worm song as I wrote it) and it ended up being a HUGE hit with both readers and myself. But it was so last minute I had trouble fitting it in more throughout the rest of Sam’s story!

Cas’ orders? That may or may not have bound him to Dean and removed his free will? Were written into Sam’s story and I went ‘oh SHIT that’s compelling’ and then left them there as a ‘guess I’ll figure that out when I get to Dean’s story lol’

Originally Dean and Cas were supposed to get together after having their souls bonded, and have been in a UST limbo the entire time before that. Mostly because I think the entire concept of ‘we just got married of the soul I guess we should try dating?’ is very funny. CLEARLY the two of them were way more eager to fall in love than I anticipated (thank you Cas for your honesty) but you can still see shades of this original idea here and there (especially in ch35 of TBAM)

I never intended Dean and Benny to connect so well!! Benny was going to reunite with Andrea, she was going to live, and they were going to go off into the world and leave the story. And, uh, here we are. I’m still debating if I need to adjust the relationship tag or not haha. Polyamory is fun, especially when I was planning for Sam to be the polyamorous brother...

Speaking of, I can’t believe I forgot about Sam and his sexuality! If I rewrote TEA I would have had Sam contemplate more on his lack of sexual appetite due to trauma, up until he meets Benny and he gets to rediscover how he wants to be a sexual person

Many of Sam and Dean’s absolutely stupid sibling conversations were lifted near-verbatim from conversations I’ve had with my siblings

And lastly...

Dem where’s Kevin????????????? Where is our sweet baby boy????????

He’s SAFE!! He’s in the Hunter pipeline somewhere cause Sam handed him off to Bobby’s people. He and his mom are safe and at some point they probably got rib sigils like SalmonDean did against angels, but for demons. I didn’t have room in this story for him!!! But my baby boy is SAFE and I want to get him back to university because it’s WHAT HE DESERVES!!!!

To that point: god there were/are SO many characters that I just didn’t include in the story so far because I didn’t feel comfortable including them without stalling the story for them. To that point: pretty much everyone who is alive/dead in s8 is that way in this story, except Bobby who gets to live.

[Check Out Part 2 for reader questions!]

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Afterward

So, this is just a place for me to toss in some other Hellsing stuff I wanted to talk about outside the reading of Hellsing itself.

Okay so first off, I wanted to document this cool trivia I noticed about Rip van Winkle, the werewolf(?) with the musket that fires magic bullets.   Her weapon is based on the 19th Century German opera Der Freischütz. The opera is based on a  story published by Johann August Apel in 1811, and this writing was based on German folklore.    The legend involves a marksman who makes a contract with the devil and receives seven magic bullets.   Six will hit whatever the marksman wants, but the seventh is at the sole discretion of the devil himself.   In Hellsing, the Major speaks to Rip about her own musket and reminds her that the opera ends with Zamiel, the devil, coming to claim his due.  This is intended to foreshadow Alucard counterattack on the H.M.S. Eagle, where he plows through Rip’s defenses and kills her in gruesome fashion.

So I went back and counted all the times Rip van Winkle shoots her musket, just to see if there was any special significant to it.    The first was when the old Nazi officers complain to the Major, and Rip shoots the Colonel’s cane before he can strike the Major with it.     At least, I’m pretty sure that was the idea here.  The cane breaks and everyone looks around and Zorin points to the lady with the gun to indicate who just did that.   So that’s one bullet.

After assuming control of the H.M.S. Eagle, Rip van Winkle meets with the Eagle’s first officer, who betrayed the crew to Millennium in exchange for vampire powers.    She then betrays him and his fellow traitors, killing them all with a single shot from her musket.    This is where we first find out what her ability is.   So that’s two.

The British Navy tries to take back the ship by sending a helicopter full of SEALs, but Rip destroys the entire team with another shot from her musket.   So that’s three shots fired.

While Hellsing prepares their own response, the Navy tries again, this time sending a fighter plane to sink the Eagle with missiles, but Rip shoots down the missiles and the plane with one bullet.   Four.

This is where I started to wonder if there was a particular pattern to Rip’s use of the musket.  I’m pretty sure she just uses one bullet and can fire it as many times as she pleases, but she was literally singing songs from the opera and it seemed kind of superfluous to have her foil two separate attack by the Navy.  The first one showed us that conventional forces wouldn’t get the job done, so the second one only makes sense if Kouta Hirano was just trying to add to the count.

Then Alucard arrives aboard a modified SR-71 Blackbird.   At 85,000 ft in the air, he’s out of range, but then he nosedives onto the deck of the ship.    Rip fires again to destroy the Blackbird before it crashes into them.    Five.

Alucard survives the crash and wipes out all of Rip’s soldiers while she has a panic attack.   Cornered, she finally gathers her wits and attacks Alucard.  Her bullet hurts him, but he eventually catches it in his teeth, neutralizing her weapon and leaving her at his mercy.  That’s shot number six.

I was hoping this shot would be the seventh, since the seventh bullet in Der Freischütz belongs to the devil, and Alucard caught this one in his teeth, but no.   Then I remembered that the musket gets fired one last time...

... in London, when Alucard releases the familiars of all the victims he’s consumed over the centuries, including Rip Van Winkle.  She fires the musket once more, but this time it’s Alucard directing the shot into the helicopters of the Ninth Crusade.   Shot number seven is at the discretion of the devil himself, and “Dracula” is a diminutive of “Dracul”, a Romanian word for “devil”.   Neat stuff.

Okay, so now let’s talk about Seras, because that’s kind of my jam.   What’s the deal with this line?  “Her existence is somewhat of a marvel.  You could say it’s somewhat of a joke.  Perhaps she herself has not even noticed yet!!”

That’s the Major discussing Sir Integra and Seras in Volume 5.   He stresses that neither is to be underestimates, and I think he makes a good case for Integra, but with Seras he never actually comes to the point.   So what’s up with that? 

Of course, there’s the truth we saw in the final battle.  Once she finally drank blood of her own volition, Seras became a full-on vampire and one of the most powerful warriors on the field.   She destroyed the Captain quite handily, and he was the strongest guy Millennium had.   But this seems a tad obvious?   Why not just spell it out for Zorin.  “Hey, our intel says she’s weaker than expected because she won’t drink blood, but that could change at a moment’s notice, and she’s still strong enough to take down a lot of our soldiers, so proceed with caution.” 

I’m not saying the Major is wrong.   He told Zorin not to engage, and he made the right call.    I’m just wondering what the “joke” is exactly.  

I think it might be one of two things.   By the end of Hellsing, Seras demonstrates a similar level of ability to Alucard.  Sunlight appears to have no effect on her, she can summon familiars like Alucard, and regenerate her wounds with great alacrity.   I’m pretty sure she’d be about as hard to kill as Alucard himself, which Integra said was a product of Hellsing “enhancements”, rather than natural vampire power.   Except Seras was never “enhanced”, she seems to have just inherited these “super-vampire” powers from Alucard when he turned her.   The Major and Doctor may have anticipated this, and the “joke” was that Seras could completely upset the balance of their plans, except she’s too squeamish to drink the blood that would make this possible.  

Or, the joke might be that Alucard turned Seras at all.   He just sort of did this out of nowhere, and I’m pretty sure no one saw that coming.   Millennium and Walter had been keeping tabs on Hellsing for decades, and not much changed until Alucard decided to add Seras to the group.   The vampires in Millennium’s Last Battalion were all produced through the Doctor’s artificial vampire research, which was based upon intense study of Mina Harker, the last person Alucard turned into a vampire before he met Seras.   

So from that standpoint, Seras represents a superior version of Mina, who represents the ideal that the Doctor was trying to achieve.  At best, his finest artificial vampires could only be as strong as Mina Harker, and Seras got that way in one night by a twist of fate.  

I guess there’s no way to be sure what the Major meant.  I checked the OVA subs and dubs and they basically repeat the same line, so there’s nothing for me to triangulate there.  And maybe it only refers to Seras being a joke in the sense that she was mostly comic relief up to that point.   Even that badass moment she had against Jan Valentine’s ghouls probably didn’t impress anyone at the Millennium office.   

Finally, I checked out Hellsing: The Dawn, and it really wasn’t worth the trouble.   I couldn’t find any official English release, so I sort of gave up on it, but I finally ran across it last week and decided to check it out.   

Basically, it’s only six chapters, and very little actually gets done in those six chapters.   I’m not sure if Kouta Hirano is just running super late on the thing, of if he abandoned it completely, but my guess is he got this far in and decided there really wasn’t any point in continuing.   

Let me break it down for you.

Chapter 1: Walter is sent to the Major’s facility in Warsaw, to destroy the vampire research.   He jumps out of a plane with Alucard’s coffin.

Chapter 2: The Doctor reports on his progress to the Major, and they briefly discuss “She” aka Mina Harker.  From what I gather, Mina is still alive/undead in 1944.   Then Walter crashes into their facility and declares his intentions to kill them all.

Chapter 3: The Major is impressed with Walter’s power and offers him a place in his command.  Walter refuses and the Major leaves him to die at the hands of the Captain.

Chapter 4: Walter fights the Captain, and Alucard finally emerges from his coffin in Girlycard form.

Chapter 5: Walter and Alucard fight the Captain, who now stands revealed as a werewolf.   The Major somehow recognizes Alucard on sight and takes an interest in observing the battle.

Chapter 6: Alucard leaves to go hunt down the Captain’s superiors, leaving Walter to fight alone.  Alucard then encounters Rip van Winkle and defeats her with ease.    He seems like he’s about to kill her when some menacing figures approach from the shadows...

In other words, not a whole lot actually happens that we couldn’t have guessed from the original Hellsing manga.    At the rate he was going, it would have taken Hirano maybe 30 or 40 chapters to actually get to anything truly juicy, and I’m not sure the audience would have wanted to wait around for that.    The main problem is that we already know how this ends.   None of the good guys or bad guys die, because they all show up in Hellsing 55 years later.  The Major will lose badly enough that he has to evacuate the whole operation to Brazil, and that interests me because somehow he has to lose this battle, but not so badly that he can’t escape.  

What disappoints me is that there’s really only three things of interest about this part of the Hellsing mythos: Walter’s decision to betray England, Alucard’s relationship with Walter, and the Major’s relocation from Euope to South America.    The Dawn appears to gloss over all of these.   The Major asks Walter to switch sides in their very first encounter.   Walter refuses, but we know he’ll say yes later, so there doesn’t feel like there’s any conflict to this.  So far, Walter comes off like a little shithead, so if he changes his mind at the end of this story it’ll seem completely capricious.   I’d like to think the Major could say something persuasive to convince him, or Alucard could piss Walter off enough to push him into the Major’s arms, but none of that seems to be happening.  

The Girlycard form is taken completely for granted.   Al shows up and Walter immediately takes offense.  He knows Alucard doesn’t normally look like this and he sees no reason for this new look.   Al just says the same thing he says about it in 1999, that form and appearance mean nothing to him.   Well if it doesn’t mean anything to Alucard or Walter, what’s the point?

The way I always imagined it, the Girlycard form had a lot of emotional baggage for Walter.   I figured he met Alucard in this form, and they spent some time together hunting down the Major.    Walter fell in love with Girlycard, even though he should have known better, and when Alucard finally abandoned the form, he knew that there was no way his feelings would ever be returned.   And this would build resentment within Walter, making him more interested in joining the Major.  

Instead, none of that seems to be happening.    This is just one big long fight in one building.   Hirano already threw his biggest gun at Walter, so there’s no buildup to the Captain.   Alucard won’t fight the Captain, but it’s unclear what else he’s supposed to do instead.  There might be a good story in all of this, but these first six chapters don’t encourage me.    Also, they keep jumping over to check in on Arthur Hellsing in London.   I don’t think this guy is Integra’s father, but maybe her grandfather had the same first name?    He looks cool, but he has nothing to do.   He’s like thousands of miles removed from the action, so anything he says or does just comes back to him talking about how tough and cool Walter is.   So yeah, I think The Dawn is a huge waste of time, and maybe Kouta Hirano reached the same conclusion.  

And... yeah, that’s all I’ve got.   In May, I’ll be liveblogging another comic.   Will it be as successful?   Only time will tell...

[bulkyphrase]

Everybody & the Avengers Team

I've got a new fic rec list for you!

The stories in the "X & the Avengers Team" tags focus on one person's relationship to the Avengers team as a whole. Courtesy of AO3's tag browse and Excel, here's a ranked list of the top 20 most popular pairings:

Tony Stark | 2470 total, 240 OTP

Peter Parker | 2255 total, 85 OTP

Steve Rogers | 602 total, 56 OTP

Loki | 387 total, 26 OTP

Natasha Romanov | 308 total, 35 OTP

Clint Barton | 268 total, 46 OTP

Bruce Banner | 244 total, 15 OTP

Thor | 209 total, 7 OTP

Avengers Team | 174 total, 24 OTP

James "Bucky" Barnes | 156 total, 7 OTP

Wanda Maximoff | 143 total, 4 OTP

Phil Coulson | 105 total, 9 OTP

Darcy Lewis | 91 total, 6 OTP

Matt Murdock | 60 total, 8 OTP

Sam Wilson | 53 total, 5 OTP

Nick Fury | 41 total, 5 OTP

Harry Potter | 40 total, 0 OTP

Pepper Potts | 31 total, 1 OTP

Vision | 29 total, 2 OTP

Stiles Stilinski | 25 total, 0 OTP

In chart form, if you like charts:

Notes:

The numbers after the names are the number of stories tagged with that ship. OTP means the number of stories where that is the only relationship tagged on the story. Numbers are accurate as of July 2021.

Story Recommendations

For your reading pleasure, included below is at least one fic rec for each pairing except the crossovers from non-Marvel fandoms (apologies to Mr. Potter & Mr. Stilinski). Most are gen fic, and even in the ones with a romantic pairing, romance is not the focus.

Tony Stark

As Subtle As Cognitive Recalibration by petroltogo (Teen, 8949) tumblr: @tonystarktogo

Standing inside his penthouse, listening to Rogers, Barton and Banner explain to Fury how they just happened to stumble over the Tesseract on a routine security check of Stark Tower’s roof and wouldn’t you know, they’ve managed to fight off the looming alien invasion before it could really start and secure the missing overpowered nightlight is one of the most surreal situations Tony has ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Peter Parker

the worst field trip ever by shrill_fangirl_screaming (Teen, 3420) tumblr: @i-am-having-an-emotion

"We're on a field trip," Peter said. "To here. And Tony decided to be our tour guide and absolutely embarrass me, so can you please help get him under control?"

Which is how Peter Parker, architect of his own destruction, ended up with not one but two superhero pseudo-dads being annoying on his school field trip.

Steve Rogers

Do You Remember Being Happy? ('Cause I Sure Don't) by GalaxyThreads (Teen, 11022) tumblr: @galaxythreads

That seems about right. He doesn't know how he knows that, though. He does have vague memories of an annoyed fondness at finding peanut butter in some sort of jam. Thor's doing, because he doesn't see the point of using two knives when one works just as fine. He knows that. How does he know that? He knows all those little details, though, almost innately. How can he know these strangers so deeply?

Everyone else below the cut!

Loki

Proprietary by TheThirdMarauder (Teen, 7639)

No, Loki simply wants the Avengers conquered. The details of whom, how, and when matter not. Unless, of course, said details interfere with Loki's plans. Then, well, then none can fault him for protecting his own interests.

Loki has always been exceptionally good at lying to himself.

Natasha Romanov

What Girls Are Made Of by enigma731 (Teen, 4613) tumblr: @enigma731

She rolls her eyes but does as he’s indicated, using his shoulders to leverage herself up onto his back, her arms around his neck and her legs hugging his waist.

“You know,” he says blithely, “this isn’t really what I tend to picture when I think of a hot girl riding me.”

Natasha groans, deciding that if his sense of humor gets them arrested, she’ll kill him herself. “Just go.”

Clint Barton

Dear Clint Barton (circa age 7) by pollyrepeat (Teen, 4221)

With a normal person, this might count as blackmail material, but a) this is a case of mutually assured destruction if ever there was one, and b) Fury is immune to embarrassment. Not just in the regular, Tony Stark way, either, oh no. Things that could possibly end up being embarrassing to Fury get somehow warped and changed until they go from mortifying all the way over into useful and/or good for his image. It’s like a superpower.

Carrying Clint’s small child self around on his shoulders more than once has probably already hit the interagency rumour mill as an example of Fury’s innate awesomeness: good with rocket launchers and small children.

Also available as a podfic!

Bruce Banner

They're Not Wrong by Trumpeteer34 (Teen, 10163)

As Tony began to pace around the hole in the road to keep himself from shooting repulsors at the nearby buildings in a fit of rage, Thor began to study the nearby area. There was no sign of either the Hulk or Bruce Banner beyond the crater. The surrounding area, aside from the rubble of the fight, held no clue as to their friend’s location.

“Guys, he’s gone,” Tony growled into the communicator on their private line, drawing Thor out of his darkening thoughts. “Someone tranqed him and took him. He’s gone.”

Honorary mention goes to the Responsible Science series by @letteredlettered - the stories don’t have the "Avengers Team & Bruce Banner" tag, but they could, and they are amazing. The best Bruce Banner writing I've ever come across.

Thor

Fortunately, I Am Mighty by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 3062)

Steve was the first one to speak. “Are you okay?”

Thor nodded. Which was a bad idea, as it turned out, because now there were little gray lights flashing in front of his eyes. “I’m fine.” Absolutely everyone narrowed their eyes, and he added, “But, uh. Could we possibly not get back in the car just yet?”

Avengers Team

Civil Wasn't by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 7123)

"We're having an ideological conflict here," Tony stated with disbelief. "Are you telling me you still want to go out to dinner?"

"It's a standing engagement, Tony," Rhodey reminded him.

"Not you too—"

"We already had to reschedule from Friday when Natasha was..." Rhodey frowned. "What were you doing?"

The question was directed toward Natasha, who shrugged and said, "Spy stuff."

James "Bucky" Barnes

You Know How I Feel, aka, The Adventures of Bucky and Muffy the Dinosaur by ifeelbetter (Not Rated, 4511) tumblr: @ifeelbetterer

“As you may have heard, Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, recently rescued a tiny part-robot dinosaur during the Avengers’ battle with Dr. Doom in Antarctica,” the other newscaster explained. “Pictures of Barnes and the dinosaur were posted on twitter by fellow Avenger, Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, and immediately made Barnes’s new pet America’s sweetheart.”

“Her name’s Muffy,” said Steve."

Wanda Maximoff

and the woman was young again by Mira_Jade (General, 3669)

Tony Stark called them the Cap's Kooky Quintet, and sometimes the term amused her – causing her to lift a sardonic brow where someday a smile would truly smile. She enjoyed the presence of comrades – true comrades – and she enjoyed the way their minds wove and bound together about each other to fluctuate against her senses as one. There was something soothing about being in their midst, and even when their loud and brash ways – their painful Americaness - rubbed her raw and drained on her, it was ever the knitting of their minds that soothed those moments over, and made them inconsequential.

Phil Coulson

Coulson's First Day of School by storiesfortravellers (Teen, 3055)

Coulson looked up at him. “I like drawing pictures with Mr. Rogers. I like having tea parties with Ms. Potts. I like it when Dr. Banner reads me books, and I like it when Natasha teaches me things. And I like when you play with me. You do really good voices when we play action figures. And you’re the only one who lets me do stuff like jump off the high diving board at the pool or eat three cupcakes or play tackle with kids at the park.”

Clint didn’t realize that. He was pretty sure that meant that he was doing something wrong.

Darcy Lewis

Beginner Yoga for Dummies (Darcys) and Sad Hobos by chailover (Teen, 3434)

Darcy had a theory: crazy attracted crazy, working kind of like gravity. It was pretty much her explanation for her life after Thor. And if she had thought the type of crazy Thor attracted was bad, be it Loki or the Warrior Three and Sif, or the dark elves and the Convergence, it was still nothing against what the Avengers manage en masse.

Matt Murdock

Double Blind by smilebackwards (Teen, 2381) tumblr: @smilebackwards

Stark snaps his fingers. “You can’t see half of my inventions. This explains so much about you and why you’ve never been properly impressed by me.”

“Does it?” Matt says, ambiguously.

Sam Wilson

Bystander by scribblemetimbers (Teen, 52029)

“I just want you to know,” Sam says loudly, cautiously raising his hands, “That I’m very poor and very sleep-deprived and literally the only thing you can kill me for right now are my notes.” He pauses. Wait. On second thought: “Please don’t steal my notes.”

“I’m not—I’m not a mugger,” Not Mugger rasps out, and for all that he looks about to keel over and die, the man actually manages to sound offended.

Nick Fury

Bedtime Story by dixiehellcat (Teen, 2532) tumblr: @deehellcat

Fury snorted. “I have to check in with the duty officer. I’ll be back in, let’s say twenty minutes. I expect all of you to have whatever your pre-bedtime routines are completed, and be in here pajama’ed and ready to be read to.”

He tapped the book under his arm, then left with the usual dramatic swish of his long coat. Bruce scratched his head. “Did…he just say be ready to be read to?”

Pepper Potts

Pepper and the Avengers (Which She Knows Nothing About) by rebelmeg (General, 6696) tumblr: @rebelmeg

The Avengers, that mismatched group of hurt and heroism, was one of the most important things in Tony Stark’s life. So, naturally, Pepper had made them an important part of her life too.

Vision

039. Intoxicated by aimmyarrowshigh (Teen, 100) tumblr: @aimmyarrowshigh

It might be nice to fit in, just this once. To lose a bit of composure.

Vision floated over to the refrigerator and, with some timidity, pulled off a magnet. He stuck it to his forehead.

[thebeautyoffandoms]

Mmm yes guess who decided to rant about norman, using the excuse that “hey, it’s his birthday.”

very long post, very many spoilers <3

From the moment I watched the first episode of TPN, I… liked Ray. I had a feeling that Norman was going to be more prevalent than Ray’s, but honestly his character (at first) didn’t feel any kind of special. I never disliked him per se, it was just one of those things where… I liked him, but if someone were to ask me “what characters in TPN do you like?” I’d end up forgetting to mention him. 

I started to like him more when he said he’d do it because he “liked Emma” (something along those lines) but that’s definitely just because I’ve always been a hardcore romantic and thought “awwwwwwh! Tiny boy! He’s in love!”. I also definitely cried over him many times, but I’m sure nearly everyone who watched/read TPN did too- you know, the look on his face when he realized that there was a cliff, watching him be shipped off, and even when it showed him writing everything down for Emma. Norman never failed to stab me right in the little heart, that’s for sure. And boy did I not expect him to come back and beat the everloving crap out of me-

TPN has some insane plot twists for sure. From the beginning, all the way to the i n t e r e s t i n g ending- while some could have been executed better, Norman’s character has some of the best plot twists. You may be able to get me to think, but you will not change my mind. Our man was shipped off, our man was alive, our man grew like a freaking foot taller, our man was a traitor, our man was sick, our man rIPPED MY HEART OUT OF MY CHEST AND STOMPED ON IT A GOOD COUPLE OF TIMES THEN TRIED TO MEND IT WITH A BANDAID- ahem.

I probably would have cried harder if Norman’s being alive wasn’t spoiled for me, but that scene still hits so different. Even now that it’s all over, I read it just to try and feel how it made me feel again. It was a lot like a calm… both before and after the storm. Not just the readers, but the characters too, were able to get a heartwarming break. Norman was alive, he was well(? He grew very much and looks like an entire man now, but he was seemingly well), and everyone had a safe place to live for the time being. Even though we the readers weren’t there for the “good ol’ days” when they were small and didn’t have to worry, it still felt (to me at least) somewhat nostalgic. Sorta safe, you know? The previous chapters were horrendous, heartwrenching, and just not good, so it was a sweet moment to relax. Emphasis on moment though, because it didn’t last long at all. 

Next came, oh right the focus is back on yaaaaay murder the demons! Yay, Norman’s going to give Emma a chance! Oh my gOD WHAT IS NORMAN DOING- aka, the chapters where things really started getting all out of whack. In between all that mess of the promise and whatever, our darling, lovely, beautiful Norman was being a dirty traitor. These chapters really hurt my heart, because it felt… in character, but- what happened to our Emma-loving, I’ll-do-this-because-Emma-wants-it, anything-to-make-her-happy boy? Where’d he go? Why was he replaced by a tall cold-hearted man??? Of course, also came the parts where Norman breaks down in front of Emma and Ray, nothing but a child before them. When he admitted that he didn’t want to die (another sort-of plot twist), hugged them, cried into their arms. Ahh that hurt a lot. 

While everything “worked out in the end”, Norman’s character had a semi-bitter end in my view. While this isn’t about Ray so I shouldn’t put the focus on him, I dislike how Norman had the focus put on him in the last chapter. Yeah, Ray helped find Emma, but Ray was quiet for the majority of it, while Norman got the honors of trying comfort and help Emma. It felt sort of… idk, hypocritical?? Sure, you love Emma, but you still hurt her. I know Ray hurt her too, Ray was also a traitor, but it feels like Ray’s betrayal was… less? Maybe I’m biased, ANYWAY POINT IS, Norman was kinda like “ohhh Emmaaaaaa, poor Emma, doesn’t remember us, let me comfort you” and Ray was just sitting there. Maybe that’s Ray’s fault, maybe I’m bitter at Norman for no reason.

Ok, in all seriousness- Norman’s character really does mean a lot to me. He pushed the plot in an entirely different direction that I thought it was going multiple times, and certainly kept me on my toes. In reading, things like that keep me hooked, and Norman definitely helped shape TPN into being a series that I’ve kept near and dear to my heart for a while now. Plus, he’s been carrying all of season 2. Without the plot twist of “ohhh he’s alive”, I’m not sure how this season would have turned out… it definitely would have lost my interest for sure, so I really do love him. In the end, he is just a kid, and he was put in a pedestal too high for any kid to handle rationally. The fact that he did everything he did while remaining somewhat mentally sound, the fact that he endured the pressure of being seen as a god and savior to so many people, the fact that he pushed through obstacles over and over and over again, is so amazing. I love him so much, and I hope that in their little universe, he was able to spend his birthday happily and with his friends <3 (though… Norman won’t have been born until 13 years from now- still, happy birthday you dirty rat!!!)

[wisteria-lodge]

Character Analysis: Sorting The Old Guard

@sortinghatchats has a brilliant personality/character analysis system based on the four Hogwarts houses. At this point it’s become much more interesting and nuanced, which is part of why I’m moving away from using the names of the houses.

Here’s how it works. Everyone gets two houses – a Primary House and a Secondary House

YOUR PRIMARY IS YOUR MOTIVE. IT’S WHY YOU DO THINGS.

LION Primary’s sense of morality and ethics comes from inside. Things just feel right or they feel wrong.

BIRD Primary gets their morality and ethics from the world outside them. They decide what they think is right.

BADGER Primary is focused on the good of the group. Who cares if something is technically “moral” if people are getting hurt?

SNAKE Primary is a lot like Badger, but instead of protecting the group, their highest law is the well-being of the individual people they love.

YOUR SECONDARY IS YOUR METHOD. IT’S HOW YOU DO THINGS.

LION Secondary gets their power from being direct, honest, completely themselves. Their “plan” is just keep going until someone stops them. If they see a locked door, they kick it in.

BIRD Secondary collects tools and skills. They build things, find things, learn things. If they see a locked door, they go through their box of keys until they find the right one.

BADGER Secondary is fair, hardworking, and shows up. They’re good at getting people to trust them, and good at getting people to help them. If they see a locked door, they knock.

SNAKE Secondary knows the right mask to wear for each situation. They’re adaptive. They go in the back way. They find the third option.  They’re the ones who know how to pick the locks.

And now let’s talk about The Old Guard. Also, SPOILERS.

***

Nile Freeman is a bright Badger primary, defined by her groups. “I’ve got people who love me,” is the first thing she tells the team. And follows that up with, “I’m a Marine.” We meet her in uniform, part of a squad. Getting back to her family is her main motivation. (And it’s a “my family” thing - not a “my mom” or “my brother” thing.) Family continuity and family history mean everything to Nile, and that’s so Badger. Religion is also used as visual shorthand for “Badger” a lot, and Nile’s got her cross necklace. And she doesn’t want to kill people. Doesn’t matter if they’re the bad people who killed her, they’re still people. Badgers can’t ignore that.

Nile’s challenge is figuring out a way to separate from her family (and become an immortal commando) while still keeping her healthy, shining Badger intact. And she does it by expanding. It’s not just about protecting America and her family anymore. She looks at the wall outlining all the good the Old Guard has done, and her community expands to include them, and all of humanity.

She’s definitely got a Lion secondary. Yes, she’s willing to run into the villain’s stronghold with a bag of guns and not much plan - but this is an action movie, that stuff is kinda a given. I’m thinking more about when she has to lie and say her miraculous healing factor is an experimental skin graft – she hates doing it, she’s so bad at it, you can see her skin crawl. Nile is powerful when she is able to just lay out what she believes. People like Agent Copley and the Afghani women just feel the honesty and conviction bleeding off her, and come around to her way of thinking. 

Nile also has a Bird secondary model. Smashing down walls isn’t appropriate all the time, so a lot of Lion secondaries learn to use one of the mellower secondaries as backup. Nile’s Bird is subtle, but it’s there. She applies her anti-militant training to the situation, and thinks they should “follow the money.” She can identify a Rodin sculpture across a dark cave. And she spends a while trying to reason away the fact that she’s immortal (considering hypnosis, drug trips, all that fun stuff.)

Andromache the Scythian aka “Andy” is also a Badger primary. But a very old, very tired, very burnt one. She’s been protecting humanity for about ten thousand years, and she feels all the people she wasn’t able to save. Andy starts off the film doubting whether any of it mattered, if she was actually able to protect her community at all. Because she can’t protect everyone, she is forced to shrink that community down. She can protect Nile, Joe, Nicky, and Booker – and that has to be enough.

The situation with Quyhn is a good look at the sort of darkness that can live inside a Badger Primary. Because Andy stopped looking. She could have spent hundreds of years pouring money and time into finding Quyhn - and neglected the rest of her team, and by extension humanity. But Andy’s a Badger primary. That’s not a thing she can do.

(A Snake primary would never have stopped. Someone like Nicky would burn the world, if that’s what it took to get Joe back.)

If your preferred weapon is an ax or a hammer, then you’re a Lion secondary. That’s just how it works. You are too direct and too smashy to be anything else. Ms. “I always go first” Andy, leader of the group she thinks of as an army? Even when she’s discouraged and exhausted, her Lion secondary is still so loud. She has a bit of a Bird secondary model: she sets up rules like “we don’t do repeats, it’s too risky,” and establishes code words linked to specific maneuvers. But you can tell she’s a little uncomfortable with that kind of thinking. She wants to hit things with an ax and give inspirational speeches. And also threaten people.

Which means that Andy and Nile match perfectly. They are both Badger Lions with Bird secondary models. And that makes perfect sense. Nile was “born” at the same time Andy lost her immortality. They are both warriors. Nile is the one who will “go first,” when Andy isn’t able to anymore. She’s the one who gets Andy’s ax at the end. She’s the new Andy. Andy’s redemption comes with waking her Badger primary up, and training a replacement. Or as she puts it, “I think you showed up when I lost my immortality so I could remember what it was like (…) that there are people still worth fighting for.”

Nicolò di Genova aka “Nicky” fights for Joe. It really is that simple. His backstory tells you everything you need to know: he fought in the Crusades until he fell in love with a Muslim, and had to choose. On one hand - religion, country, job, society, security. On the other hand - the man he loves. For Nicky the answer is obvious. Because he is such a Snake primary.

As long as he’s with Joe, he’s fine. Agent Copley is trying to explain himself, Nicky doesn’t care. “I’m sure you’re bringing us to the person who paid for your betrayal. There’s a TV [on this plane] Joe!” The villains can talk all they want about the greater good and moral imperatives and changing the world. Nicky is just bored. “A fine justification. I’ve heard it so many times before.” None of that stuff matters to him.

His secondary is harder to spot, underneath the really loud primary and the really loud Lion secondary model. But I think I see a Badger secondary. Nicky’s a caretaker. He brings Andy her favorite candy, sets up Nile for the night and shows her where to sleep. Joe says that Nicky’s heart “overflows with a kindness of which this world is not worthy,” and I get that they’re in love, but that’s still some serious character testimony. I’m also going to throw in the fact that Nicky’s a sniper. Being a sniper is not like hitting things with an ax. It’s all about getting in place and being careful and patient. Badger secondary traits.

Yusuf Al-Kaysani aka “Joe” actually takes the time to lay out rules he lives by. Which is interesting, because the only other people in this film who do that are the villains. Those guys are not motivated by personal loyalty: they’re either Lion or Bird primaries motivated by “the greater good.” The Old Guard is a very Loyalist movie. When we get our big Theme Scene, the French shopgirl tells us, “Today I put this on your wound. Tomorrow you help someone up when they fall. We’re not meant to be alone.” That’s the ethos of the movie. It’s very Badger.

Joe gets how Badger Primaries work. He gets Andy, and the best example of this is when he comforts her by saying Quyhn “would be insane” by now. He’s basically saying, “you don’t have a responsibility to her the way you have to the rest of us, because she’s not really a person anymore.” It’s dark, but so is Andy, and that line of reasoning would make sense to a Badger primary.

Joe also understands Nicky’s Snake primary. He  knows he’s Nicky’s world, and he never stops demonstrating that. He has Nicky’s back when they fight (Nicky passes things over his shoulder without looking). He has Nicky’s back when they sleep (as the big spoon). He learned Italian for Nicky, and when Nicky is freaked, Joe just shows up with that “his kiss still thrills me, even after a millennia” speech. But that speech is also him explaining his worldview to the guards, the same way he bothers to tell them, “You shot Nicky. You shouldn’t have done that.”

When Nile asks, “Are you good guys or bad guys?” Joe responds, “Depends on the century.” He is interested in those large moral questions, and the answer he has decided on is a combination of Andy’s Badger morality, and Nicky’s Snake morality.

And to go with that really complicated Primary, I think Joe really is just a straightforward Lion secondary (another reason he gets Andy). I mean... he literally headbutts people. 

Sebastian “Booker” Le Livre, whose nickname is a very silly pun, is the most vaguely drawn character. I’m not sure if he turns Nicky and Joe over to Merrick because he wants to die, or because he wants to find a way to help Andy die. Or both. But either way, he is a very burnt Snake primary.

Booker seems to be the only one who kept up contact with his family after learning he was immortal. As a result, he got to watch his son die painfully with “hate and despair in [his] eyes,” blaming his father for not loving him enough to save him. It’s been about 150 years, but Booker is not over this.

That is a very Snake primary love, and when it comes down to it, Booker is a Snake with no people he can throw himself into loving the way he loved his son. (No wonder he drinks). He wants more emotional intimacy from Andy than she is able to give him - not in a romantic way, they have more of a sibling dynamic. But look at the betrayal in his eyes when he learns she’s lost her immortality: “Andy, look at me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

This is the exchange right after Booker betrays the team:

JOE: You selfish piece of shit. NICKY: Joe, leave it, please… BOOKER: What would you know of the weight of all these years alone? JOE: You’re a very pathetic man Booker. NICKY: Joe, stop. BOOKER: You and Nicky always had each other, right?

Nicky is sympathetic. He’s a Snake primary like Booker, he knows what living without a Person must be like, he knows exactly why Booker did what he did. Joe doesn’t. He only sees how Booker has failed to look at the big picture (like Joe would have, because he’s a Bird, that’s how he thinks) and that he made an objectively dumb call. Joe is angry at him for the rest of the movie. But the others, who know what it’s like motivated only by personal loyalty… they kind of get it.

To round things off, Booker is a Bird secondary. You can tell by the way he collects skills. He’s the operation coordinator, the quartermaster, the driver, and the tech guy. He’s also not afraid of a plan with steps. Nile calls him, “the brains of the operation” (although she’s probably being nice). Still, Booker is a good example of the way Bird secondaries aren’t always smart. His plan was pretty objectively terrible, but that was because his primary was so compromised.

tl;dr

Nile – Badger/Lion (Bird model)

Andy – Burnt Badger/Lion (Bird model)

Nicky – Snake/Badger (Lion model for fighting)

Joe – Bird who has built Nicky’s Snake morality, and Andy’s Badger morality into himself/Lion

Booker – Burnt Snake/Bird

[chaoticevilbean]

Four In One : Chapter Three

Training went extremely well for the teens, though Shiro seemed to be slowly losing the will to live and Allura was confused at some of the more... interesting conversations that occurred. Coran wasn't there, busy keeping the ship running smoothly. Only one incident occurred, and that was when Keith underestimated how big Lance's steps were in the invisible maze and he walked right into a wall. After that, Keith was far more careful with his directions and began instructing Lance to slide his foot forward until told to stop, then move to stand in that spot.

Allura called for a break somewhere after Lance won his fourteenth game of lasertag, which was being used as "long-range training". Pidge told Shiro that it was really just a game of "see how long it takes for Lance to find you" after his third win in twelve doboshes. Apparently, flying made you an easy target, but so was having wings out at all, and hiding in one place made it easier for Lance to aim, but moving around made you stand out. The last game, Shiro was out in twenty-six ticks for taking to the skies and trying to shoot everyone down as fast as possible (Lance technically got the shot, but Shiro was out of it for a few doboshes because of the four lasers that hit his chest). Pidge snuck up on Hunk and hit him, but Lance had been scoping his best friend out as well and seen her, and took his opportunity to strike after she shot. Keith almost won, but Lance was actually just luring him in. The emo was supposedly too loud.

"Time for lunch, pala-"

"Lance, drop the gun! I will tase you!" Pidge interrupted Allura in order to rush out of the training room, with Hunk and Keith in tow. Space Dad™ was once again sacrificed for the greater good, otherwise known as the teens' benefit. Allura ignored Shiro's pleas for help and Lance, who was bearing down on his prey with a slightly manic grin in place, instead making a beeline for the kitchen.

Lance strolled in ten doboshes late, whistling a tune as he made himself a plate of pink and orange food goo that looked like bunch of Twixx yogurt. Shiro limped in after him a few ticks later, a haunted look in his eyes. The other humans ignored him, continuing to discuss where the f-bombs would go if they were used in the Lord of the Rings series, Extended Edition. Coran seemed intrigued as to what the story was about, especially since Alteans apparently are just like Elves. Allura was looking between Lance, who had joined in the conversation as soon as he sat down; Shiro, who was eating seemingly out of habit alone; and the rest of them, who were acting as if this was all normal.

Just to be clear, it wasn't.

Lunch came and went rather quickly, though Shiro took his time to finish, knowing that as soon as the group went to the training room, they would finish long-range practice. AKA Lance's dominion. AKA the time to say your prayers, write your will and die. But Coran's stern gaze kept him from taking too long, so the team was back in the hallways in under a varga.

"Alright," Shiro called out as soon as the final game ended. Pidge looked at him from where she had collapsed dramatically on the floor, relieved that they were done. Hunk and Keith both audibly sighed from their own 'death' spots, Lance's gun still trained on Hunk's chest. "Since we seem to be getting better, it's time for close-range fighting. Grab your weapons and we'll get the ring set up. Don't forget your new armor."

The teens rushed to grab their new weapons, those that had them. Coran had adjusted their armor's settings so they could switch to outfits that better fit close-range combat. With glee, each kid pressed the buttons to change.

Keith's armor became light, scale-like plates, layered on his shoulders and chest and back. His legs had similar plating but with smaller pieces. Armguards spread from just below his wrists to just before his elbows, scale-looking as well, but elongated and with more pointed ends near his elbows. His wrist guards connected to fingerless gloves and the armguards with more flexible material, something a bit like leather. The boots were sturdy, with thick soles and protected toes. All of the materials were colored to accentuate Keith's red-hued wings and were smooth despite the plating.

Hunk's armor was much thicker, meant for protection and strength. The chestplate was thick, covering his back, front, shoulders, and a little more on the edges. His legs were fully covered in only slightly lighter pieces, and his arms matched. The boots were thick and stocky, with grooves and near minuscule spikes to allow for better grounding. The armor looked like stone, brown except for a few gold and light brown highlights. Small spikes protruded from the shoulders, elbows and knees, an extra and probably unneeded defense.

Pidge's was far lighter than the others. Varying shades of green, made for quiet movement and small spaces, the material provided padding on the joints and chest. The gloves fit perfectly to her hands, thin enough for full movement but thick enough to give her some protection from sharp objects and heat. Her boots were padded on the sole, but as light as the rest of her armor. All of the greens were arranged in such a way it looked like the shadows of some foliage.

Shiro's armor was befitting his leadership status, black and white and gold. It looked like a modern version of what ancient knights wore on Earth, complete with a gold-embroidered black cape. The armor fit Shiro perfectly conforming to him easily despite the metallic material. A few spikes were strategically placed along his left arm, and his metal one was without any armor at all, though Pidge quickly began babbling about making an upgrade on the tech so it would match the color scheme at least.

Lance's armor was the one that gave them all pause, Pidge even stopping in her talk to stare at the change.

A cape of cerulean hung from his shoulders, attached to two straps that crossed in an X over his chest. Bands of a flexible blue metal wrapped around his biceps and forearms. Small rings of the same metal clung to his knuckles, slim-fitting. A thin material of an almost clear creamy color connected the bands and rings, patterned with small scales by light blue lines. Dark blue trousers cut off at halfway up his calves, the waistline melding seamlessly into the straps on his chest with a belt of chains sewn in to avoid jangling. No shoes formed on his feet; instead, there were bands on his ankles and toes, with the connecting fabric the same as on his arms.

"Where's your armor, Lance," Hunk asked, moving around his friend in a circle as if there would be more to the outfit when he did. Lance was just as shocked as the others, though one look at Coran's knowing smile and he could guess the reason behind his sparse clothing. Two down, five to go. Coran knows all.

"Um, Coran, are you sure this is a good idea?" Shiro looked at the Altean in concern. All of the outfits were both stylish and functional, but to those who didn't know what Lance's wings looked like, the Blue Paladin's armor was severely lacking in the functional department.

"Of course, Number One," Coran chirped, turning on his heel to swiftly walk over to the control room. "I'll start on simple simulation as a warm-up, and we'll go from there!" The words left no room for argument, and they all rushed to put on their helmets. Matching their armor patterns, Keith's was shaped to seem like a dragon's head, covering all of his head except his face. A thin transparent screen that was shaped like a small flame extended over his right eye, meant for transmissions. Hunk's helmet was similiar, though a bit thicker on the top and looked like a mass of stone and rubble mashed together. The screen was for him was shaped like a clip-art mountain. Pidge's helmet was a wreath of cording, wrapping around her forehead and clipping to her ears. The vine-like green pulled her hair out of her face, and a leaf displayed information. The back of her head had a bit more covering, 'leaves' adding protective surface area. Shiro's was as traditional as the rest of his armor, the helmet's visor was modernized with high-tech eye pieces that shined gold. Lance's helmet was more like a crown, a band of the blue metal on his arms encircling his forehead under his hairline. The scale-patterned fabric hung down in strips on either side of his eyes and all around his head, connecting with another band that Lance clipped on around his throat. A teardrop-shaped screen hung down from the top band, directly in front of his eye and looking almost like a jewel.

The simulation started quickly, a few gladiators rising from the floor. Most of them had swords, though a few had simple guns to test how well they could take down a long-range opponent via close-range attack. Shiro, Keith and Pidge had their regular weapons, while Hunk and Lance's bayards shifted the moment they switched to their armor to close-range. Hunk had a large club, meant to cater to his strength. Lance had a rapier, the blade perfectly weighted to his hands and light-weight to provide speed.

The team lunged forward instantly, taking down the gladiators with ease. The next level started once they finished, not giving them a breather. Shields were activated and deactivated as they attacked and protected each other. Lance noticed that the group was gravitating towards him as the levels passed, due to his armor, or lack thereof. As much as the sentiment was nice, he knew that they needed to stop and spread themselves out equally. He needed a plan to show them he would be okay, and when a large group of opponents rose a little ways away from the others, but close enough to him, he struck. With a large warcry, Lance charged forward, drawing the attention of everyone on the field. Ignoring the worried calls of his Space Flock, the teen cut through the gladiators, dodging their retaliating blows with his flexibility.

"Are you guys gonna fight like we did before or are you gonna keep worrying about my lack of safety? Cuz I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I hold the record for most injuries regardless of attire!" Lance teased the others as he finished off the last two in the group, receiving only a small cut on his upper arm. He wouldn't even need a bandage. Hunk caught on first, slipping back into their normal routine easily. Pidge, Shiro and Keith promptly followed, Lance rejoining the team's formation.

Falling into the rhythm of battle was simple and effortless, and Lance found himself moving solely out of muscle memory as the robots used the Galra tactics they were programmed with.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lance was nervous to finally join the Garrison. He was able to find his dorm room easily and had unpacked in a matter of minutes. Now, he simply waited for his roommate to arrive. Malosi Garrett was the other name on the little plaque, and Lance had been bored enough to translate the name. Apparently, Malosi was 'strong' in Samoan, but that told him little about the boy he was going to share a living space with. Was he called strong because he was bold, or because he was physically strong, or something else entirely?

The questions ground to a halt as the door suddenly opened, a large bag the first thing Lance saw. Right after it was a boy with a yellow headband and dark skin, broad-shouldered and tall.

"Oh, hi!" The boy hastily dropped his bags onto his bed, turning to face his roommate just as fast. "I'm Malosi Garrett! It's nice to meet you! Well, I mean we technically haven't met yet because I don't know your name, but I think this counts as meeting. Sorry if I'm rambling, you probably think I'm a dork. I'll just get to work on unpacking." Words tumbled from Malosi's mouth faster than water through a strainer. Lance was struck by how low this dude's self-confidence was and how much he reminded Lance of his brother Marco. He chuckled softly to himself, before standing and walking leisurely over to Malosi.

"Anything I can do to help, mi hermano?" Malosi looked over at him, and a beam was quick to overtake his features.

"Sure thing," he said, and that was that. The two of them finished unpacking after longer than Lance had taken, but less time than it would've taken Malosi alone. He had brought a lot of recipes and scraps of projects and medication for his anxiety. It was almost noon when they were done, and both of them decided to wait a bit before using the communal kitchen that they shared with three other rooms to make lunch.

"Thanks for helping me," Malosi told his new friend, pulling his phone out and staring at the screen, though his eyes frequently glanced back at Lance.

"No problem, mi hermano," Lance assured, using his new title for the other teen.

"But it wasn't 'no problem'," Malosi challenged. "It took a lot of time, and you didn't have to do it."

"Where's all this coming from, mi hermano?" Lance inquired. "You're definitely worth any effort, a hunk like yourself."

"I'm no hunk."

"Yes, you are. You're name is literally Strong. You have to be a hunk. It's like, the law or something." Malosi looked up from his phone in surprise.

"You translated my name?"

"I was bored, and I wanted to know what Malosi meant. But now I think I'll call you Hunk, so you know how guapo you are."

"You don't need to do that, loʻu uso," Malosi blushed.

"Too bad, Hunk. You, mi hermano, are no longer allowed to think so lowly of yourself. Confidence is key," Lance chirped to the newly dubbed Hunk. After a moment, Lance added, "What does loʻu uso mean?"

"It means mi hermano," Hunk grinned.

The two were inseparable after that, and Hunk asked Lance to groom his wings after only a week together, around the same time Iverson pulled him aside. Lance assured Hunk that his hidden wings was not distrust, but a different, private reason, and quickly suggested his roommate "groom" his hair. Hunk never pushed the subject, taking his friend's word.

Neither of the duo ever judged each other, not even when Hunk said he was going to grow his hair out so he could try braiding it, or when Lance asked his brother in all but blood to help him put on makeup. Their bond never strained or stretched, not over school breaks or when one met someone new and hung out a bit less. Pidge's presence only added to their bond as they both tried to add the other boy to their mini-flock, not that either would admit to doing so.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The last gladiator fell and a small bell sound rang through the arena, drawing Lance from his thoughts. Hunk was the one to swing the final blow, and Lance whooped at his best friend's success.

"¡Bien hecho, Malosi, mi hermano!" Lance crowed, dropping his rapier and jumping on Hunk's back with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which is to say a lot. Well done, Malosi, my brother! Hunk's arms immediately came up to hold Lance's legs, now giving him a piggyback ride.

"Faʻafetai lava, loʻu uso e! Sa fai sina malie!" Hunk chuckled. Thank you, my brother! It was a little fun!

"Lo fue, ¿no? ¡Y eras muy guapo cuando aplastaste a ese robot!" It was, wasn't it? And you were very handsome when you smashed that robot!

"Anyone want to translate whatever that was?" Pidge butted in, her hand raised like she was a student in a classroom. Hunk smirked at the smaller paladin.

"Lance and I are bilingual and I taught him Samoan and he taught me Spanish, so we sometimes talk to each other in our native language. Usually we're alone, but I guess Lance got excited. Ain't that right, aulelei?"

"Yeah, lo siento, guapo." Lance rubbed his neck sheepishly, before turning to see the even more confuzzled looks of his companions. He sighed before translating. Yeah, I'm sorry, handsome.

"I congratulated Hunk, he said thank you, we said the training was kinda fun, and I told him he looked handsome. Aulelei means beautiful and guapo means handsome. We like calling each other that."

"What about Malosi?" Shiro asked. "That didn't sound like it was Spanish."

"It's not," Hunk confirmed. "My name is Malosi, whi-"

"Hold up, I thought your name was Hunk?" Keith all but cried.

"Yeah, and you thought my name was Taylor because that was my nickname in class," Lance quipped. The silence following caused him to turn once more to look at the Red Paladin, only to see him as red as his title.

"You thought his name was Taylor, didn't you?" Hunk deadpanned. Keith nodded as he stared at the ground. Shiro was attempting to hide his amusement, but Pidge didn't, instead full on cackling.

"But I guess since Lance has pretty much always called me Hunk, it makes sense that most people would think that's my real name," the Samoan continued, as though Lance wasn't currently dying of laughter on his shoulders. "Malosi is my actual name. It means 'strong' in Samoan."

"So you two call each other beautiful, handsome, strong and hunk?" Shiro clarified, brow furrowed. The duo affirmed this, before Hunk jumped back at the two Alteans that were suddenly right beside them.

"What is this Spanish?" Allura asked excitedly. "I thought humans were the only native sentient species on Earth?"

"We are," Lance spoke slowly, "but we have multiple languages because of we have multiple different cultures and countries. I'm from Cuba, so I speak Spanish as my first language, and Hunk is Samoan. The language that we all collectively use is called English, and it's the only one in the universal translator you aliens use. Hunk learned Spanish and a bit of Swedish because he likes IKEA stuff, and I also know Samoan, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, German, and I'm trying to learn Russian, Altean, and Galran. And maybe Balmeran, if I can get a communication to Shay."

"He's one of those super linguists that learn every language they can and therefore understand most people," Hunk interjected.

"I know Italian, too," Pidge huffed out, still catching her breath from the laughing she did.

"I'm Japanese."

"I know some Korean," Keith inputted, obviously trying to draw away from his younger self's mistake.

"Amazing," Allura breathed. "I didn't know humans were so diverse! And why is it you learned so many languages, Lance?"

"I learned Samoan for Hunk; Italian for Pidge; Korean for Keith; Japanese for Shiro; Chinese for the little Chinese place that's near my house in Cuba with the sweet family running it; German for my friend Sophia; Russian for Dominic, my sister's husband; Altean for Allura and Coran and so I can read some stuff in the library; Galran for Keith and missions; and Balmeran for Shay because we're trying to keep in touch." Lance ticked off the languages, seemingly unaware of the turmoil in all but the Yellow Paladin. The Cuban boy had always learned whatever he could to make his friends feel better, and Hunk had seen it firsthand when Lance had semi-successfully made a traditional dish he had heard his roommate mention when he was homesick. It wasn't the best, but it was enjoyable all the same.

The others had no experience with the Lance that learned his friend's language and made their favorite dishes as best he could and once helped Hunk figure out what his first tattoo was gonna be.

"Lance, I don't even know Galran," Keith mused, still wrapping his head around the fact that he was twice on the list and he was more Texan than Korean or Galran.

"But you're still part Galra, so I want to be prepared for when you learn it or when you need to translate something you find about your heritage."

"I'm done!" Pidge declared, walking away. "I'll be working on some coding before dinner! Come get me when Lance stops being so quiznacking good! First he finds a way to let us groom him, then he shows himself as a self-sacrificial idiot, and now he's somehow learned every language! When will it end?" Pidge kept loudly muttering to herself as she left the room. A few ticks after her absence, the team busted out laughing, Shiro and Keith leaving to shower and Hunk to start on dinner. Lance waited, gesturing for the Alteans to do so as well.

"What did you need, my boy?" Coran queried once the others were definitely out of earshot. Lance hastily closed and locked the training room doors, turning to face the advisor and princess nervously. With a deep breath, Lance pushed his wings out, spreading them just a bit. With the size of his wings, it was still easy to see all four of his wings when he stretched.

"Oh, Lance, those are beautiful," Allura gushed, calmly striding over to his side.

"They are indeed, my boy," Coran marvelled. "I don't fully understand why you would hide them."

"Well, they're impossible," Lance explained, beaming at the praise. "On Earth, some mutations are strange and not as accepted as others. Shiro's scales would be one, though it's rather small so people wouldn't make such a big deal. Pidge's and Hunk's would be considered beautiful more often than not. Keith's would definitely get people in an uproar. Wings like mine would make me an outcast in a tick. My town was accepting of me, and my family never once treated me badly, but I've heard enough stories of people with big mutations getting attacked to risk it."

"So, I take it you're planning on telling the others?"

"Yeah, and I was hoping you could help." The Alteans looked at each other, smiled, and turned back.

"How can we help?"

[a-little-slice-of-fandom]

A) hi how ya doing? B) I miss you C) can you analyze anything of Aragon? Thank you :)

Hey anon! I’m doing good ❤️❤️❤️ thanks so much for asking! I hope you’re doing well too!

Aragon is really interesting to me, because her song is kind of like the bohemian rhapsody of six. Very few people will say that it’s their favourite, but everyone will instantly sing along because it’s so catchy! Plus, it’s a great song to follow ex-wives with. It keeps the energy up and introduces the audience to the plot of the show.

I will say this until the day I die: while I would love if more songs were as scathing as say AYWD...you could never start with those songs. It’s too much too quickly. You need the more catchy, light-hearted songs of Ex-Wives, No Way and DLUH to start with because it helps get the audience invested in the show and the plot as a whole. Six, first and foremost, will always need to work dramatically. That’s why the old, more openly bitter No Way was changed to something a little more light-hearted.

The first thing that always comes to mind when I think of Aragon is regal. She’s the queen who was married to Henry for 24 years and was a Spanish princess as well. She’s the refined, confident queen who knows her own worth and honestly? I get the vibe she just wants a little bit of respect from the other queens. While some people characterise Aragon as rather cold, I honestly don’t get that? The show portrays Aragon as a very loyal person despite all that Henry put her through, and she clearly cares for Mary and also, to a lesser extent, Parr as her god daughter (remember she calls Howard “the least relevant Katherine”...meaning she does see Parr as relevant.) and she often refers to other queens as “babe” even though she was just arguing with them five seconds earlier (harking on the idea of forgiveness, something I think Aragon is very good at in the show!). Plus, while there’s only one line referring to Mary, Aragon is always so protective of her and warm to her. In the album, Renee’s “aw, hi baby!” is the most adorable and heartwarming part of the song and it’s clear she adores her daughter, while the “oh, you don’t remember?” in the live versions is so protective of her baby. It’s honestly something we don’t discuss enough. Moreover, Aragon’s song is one of the most energetic, but she has her earnest moment of pleading as well, along with her undisputable strength of refusing to back down and accept Henry’s lies. She is also incredibly passionate when talking about something she loves or defending herself when she has to (which make sense! This was the woman who rode with an army wearing armour while pregnant. Aragon was not to be messed with!).

I personally disagree with people who try and claim that Toby and Lucy wrote Aragon as the “angry” queen because she never truly gets to the levels of boleyn or seymour (yes there’s the miscarriage argument where she does raise her voice but like...are we ignoring Seymour’s “boohoo Mary had the chickenpox” or the fact that Boleyn is also shouting in that argument??? And she usually goes louder than Aragon???) and yet she’s so often defined by that trait even though other queens share it and are even more extreme. And yes, Im fully aware of why certain people characterise aragon in this way and I’m so annoyed that even though we continually call out the fact that’s it’s problematic, it continues to happen. However Aragon does have flaws like every good character should. Aragon just won’t try and listen to the other queens. She refuses to accept that Boleyn or Seymour might have had a worse time than her. Now I personally never got the feeling that Aragon blames the other queens for anything. Her feelings are directed at Henry. Notice in now way she talks about how henry is “running around with some pretty young thing” and she refers to him having “one son with someone who don’t own a wedding ring”. Those people? They’re clearly supposed to be Boleyn and Bessie, two people who are actually on stage at the time. But Aragon doesn’t take an easy shot at either of them in her song. She doesn’t say their name or call them out or try and involve them in her song. Contrast this with DLUH where Boleyn grabs Aragon, forces her to be front and centre in this verse and then insults her constantly (“three in the bed” = airing Aragon’s and Henry’s ✨ intimate issues ✨ with the entire world while “Don’t be bitter, cause I’m fitter” and “he doesn’t want to bang you, somebody hang you” are both pretty self explanatory). I think it’s absolutely key that Aragon doesn’t blame Boleyn or Bessie or direct any misplaced feelings towards them in no way or the show. Her (very justified) feelings of anger and betrayal are (generally) directed at Henry. And that’s something so many people ignore! And I personally wish more people would be like Aragon in this regard in the real world. I don’t know if other people agree with me, but it’s your boyfriends/husbands job to not cheat on you, not someone else’s. I do know some people think that Aragon is slighting Boleyn and Bessie in that verse but if we’re sticking to tudor ideals, Aragon not mentioning them by name (in essence keeping their “dignity” and “honour” intact) would be the kinder thing to to. (Note I’m only saying this with Tudor ideals in mind. I also think Aragon fully knows that Bessie was 13 when Henry started making advances on her and again, refuses to blame Bessie for what happened because she knows she’s a victim).

However...Aragon doesn’t ever try and listen to other queens and will insult them if she has to. She (along with the other queens like Boleyn and Seymour) gets more and more defensive and petty as the show continues. However, she never gets to the same levels of hard hitting insults has say Boleyn. But I mean...Aragon was a queen who went through so much in her lifetime and never was able to really talk about it. Yes, she resisted Henry trying to get their marriage annulled, and she was one of the strongest women at the time, but she couldn’t deal with her emotions the same way that we can today. She never got to told Boleyn to go away or leave her alone. She never got to bad mouth Henry because he was the king. She was, first and foremost, a lady, and she was expected to act in a certain way all of her life. And now that she’s reincarnated in modern days, she doesn’t have to do all of those things. She can be annoyed and let it show, she can tell Boleyn all those things she wanted to do back in the day. Some actresses even lean into the idea that it’s sort of cathartic for Aragon to FINALLY just say what she wants to say without having to worry on how it would reflect on her as queen. Mind you, I still think that Aragon considers how her words would reflect on her (much more than any other queen) but she definitely has more wiggle room within the show than she did during her reign.

In addition, while the fandom also like to reduce Aragon to obsessed with her religion, I actually really like how her relationship with Catholicism is portrayed in the show. While I do concede that Aragon’s faith is sometimes reduced to the butt of the joke, that’s not always the case and I personally really enjoy how Aragon seems to gain a lot of strength from her religion, instead of it holding her back or hindering her. While I do understand why so many characters in media struggle with their religion or find it suffocating (my relationship with Catholicism is...fragile at the best of times), but I genuinely love this idea that Aragon’s faith is what guides her and gives her inner strength in times of need. I mean,,,when she’s pleading to Henry during now way, the music slows to something that sounds more like a gospel song, Aragon is kneeling with her hands clasped and there's bright white light around her (i also vaguely remember something that looks like a crucifix behind her as well? But I'm not 100 percent sure on that). At the time where Aragon is most vulnerable and needs to find inner strength and wants guidance...she turns to her religion and that's seen as a very positive thing!!! The same with Aragon's verse in Sox. Moving to a nunnery and finding friends there is something that's now postive and liberating instead of being stuffy and boring and restrictive like nunnery are often portrayed as in media. (yes I know that's also a play on Henry wanting to send Aragon into the nunnery after their divorce but I do think that there’s no malicious religion-basing in Six is a nice touch that’s often overlooked).

Finally, Aragon’s costume is quite important to her character. It is one of the more feminine outlines (especially the updated version on broadway) and I do think it’s an inadvertent issue that the queens with the more stereotypical feminine costumes are more catty whereas the more stereotypical androgynous or masculine outfits (aka Parr and Cleves) are often the voices of reason, but I don’t think that’s intentional or is intended to comment on anything. It’s just a coincidence. However, the gold of Aragon’s outfit obviously symbolises her love, courage and passion, along with indicating her status as a noble. While yes the rest of the queens were all noble in some way before they married Henry, Aragon was a Spanish princess and the daughter of two incredibly powerful monarchs. She was probably the highest standing out of any of the queens, and her costume reflects that. I also think that her wearing gold to flaunt her status could be her trying to make up for the years between her marriages to Arthur and Henry (where she didn’t have many provisions made for her as far as I know) and also the last few years of her life. (I’ve seen differing reports on how Aragon was provided for after Henry divorced her, with her claiming that she was living in poverty while others state she got 3000 pounds. If anyone has any confirmation then let me know). Either way, her wanting to flaunt her status after her reincarnation by wearing lots of bright gold makes total sense. I’ve also seen a few people say that the bust on Aragon’s costume is the most historically accurate but I can’t confirm that, although if it is then that’s a really nice touch.

Well this took ages, but it was fun to finally get to analyse stuff again AND do it on a queen who doesn’t get discussed very much!!! Aragon often gets reduced to “catholic” or “angry” within this fandom, even though she is just as complex as any other character within the show but she just expresses things in very different ways. And that’s okay! This whole show is about how women (and NB folk!) are different and do have different experiences and do express things differently and have different personalities and that’s okay! We should celebrate our differences.

[365days365movies]

January 14, 2021: GoldenEye (1995) (Part 1)

He’s suave. He’s sophisticated. He’s spy. He’s...

The late, great Sean Connery. 

Ignoring the less then savory aspects of his personality (AKA the Barbara Walters interview...both of them), Connery is undoubtedly the most famous Scottish actor of all time. Sorry, Whovians, I love David Tennant, too. But Connery’s got him beat. He’s been in so many iconic films and roles, his influence is undeniable. But most famous of all is his turn as Agent 007, the man himself, James Bond.

I’ve seen all of Connery’s original Bond films (not counting Never Say Never Again), and my favorite is Goldfinger, in case you were wondering. But outside of that...I haven’t seen any Bond movies. Since him, the character’s been played by David Niven, George Lazenby (now THAT’S an interesting story, lemme tell you), Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and the two I’ll be looking at this month: Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

I’ll be looking at Brosnan tomorrow, in Casino Royale. But today, I’m looking at arguably the third most-famous Bond, Pierce Brosnan, in one of the most famous modern Bond movies, GoldenEye.

Also, yeah, never played the game I KNOW IT WAS A ‘90S CLASSIC I WASN’T ALLOWED TO HAVE VIDEO GAMES. 

So, what to expect from a Bond film? Well, I’ve got a checklist here, hold on...HERE we go:

Gadgets

Girls

Good-for-Nothings

...Good music?

I’m feeling a little alliterative of late. But, yeah, looking for the Bond Girl, looking for cool gadgets, looking for dastardly villains, and listening for the theme song for the film. Got my list set, and expectations are set to Connery levels. Let’s do this, shall we?

Recap

We start at a dam in Russia. Bond James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is infiltrating the dam, and we get our gadgets checked off right away, as he whips out an acetylene torch. He barges in on a guy in the bathroom (rude, and awkward), then meets up with Alec, AKA Agent 006 (Sean “he dies, he’s the villain, or he’s the villain who dies” Bean).

Yeah, calling it now, Alec here’s gonna die, or he’s the villain, or he’s the villain who’s gonna die. It’s Sean Bean. More importantly, it’s Sean Bean in the ‘90s. There are very few options for him. Anyway, the Russians try to stop them from blowing up the plant, and...well, Alec’s being held hostage. Yyyyyyup. And he gets shot?

I don’t know how...but I’m betting that he’s still the villain. He’s Sean Bean. C’mon. He doesn’t die this early in a movie.

The unambiguously evil Russian general (hey, the Cold War just ended) almost get Bond, but he escapes in typical Bond fashion. They chase after him, and Bond chases an airplane. How, do you ask? I WILL FUCKING SHOW YOU HOW.

WHAT??? WHAT??? Physics just broke, and Issac Newton just tunneled to China. And then the facility blows up.

And THEN the opening begins. Let’s hear the Bond song and check out the opening.

...WOW. Just...I mean...OK, so Bond songs. From the first Bond movie, Dr. No, up until the one before this one, Licence to Kill, the intros were designed and directed by Maurice Binder. They were all composed of silhouetted women, often against colorful backgrounds, and almost always nude or skimpily dressed. There would often be themes or objects seen in the film itself, and sometimes actual scenes, often projected onto women themselves. They all definitely had a similar feel and style. And then, Binder sadly passed away in 1991.

Enter Daniel Kleinman. This is Kleinman’s first take, and this is also the first movie to use CGI. While it’s not terribly obvious or gaudy in the film proper, Kleinman uses this new technology to make this intro SURREAL AS HELL. It expresses the film’s connection to the fall of Soviet Russia, and a post-Cold War society. And is does that in a pretty obvious, if abstract and dramatic, manner. And honestly, on retospect...yeah. It definitely works. Even the song, which is sung by Tina Turner and written by Bono (yes, really), works well by itself, and in my opinion, better when with the actual film. So, crazy and weird as this sequence it...kinda grew on me. I like it! Weird, but I like it a lot.

We cut to nine years later, with Bond taking a woman on a drive/race on a cliffside highway with...well, there’s our Bond girl! This is Famke Jannsen, playing...Xenia Onatopp.

Yes. Really. Oh boy. We aren’t being even slightly subtle about this, huh.

The woman in the car demands him to stop, and they make out, as one would expect. That night, he heads to a party, as James Bond does. At the party, James enters a card game with Xenia. Again...as James Bond does. This is immediately followed by him hitting on Xenia, ordering a vodka martini (shaken not stirred), introducing himself as “Bond, James Bond,” commenting on the Bond Girl’s name, and saying suave shit. 

HOLY SHIT THAT SENTENCE ALONE HAPPENED WITHIN 1 MINUTE OF SCREEN TIME

Look, movie, when you got a Bond...you gotta space that shit out. Ration it a little bit, not front load all of it WITHIN FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE OPENING’S FINISHED. It’s like giving someone a beer, and then they EAT THE FRIDGE.

Jesus. OK, Miss Moneypenny (Samantha...Bond, that’s neat!) gives Bond some information, tells him not to have sex with Xenia until they tell him to (yes, really), and then say’s that she trusts he’ll say…”On-a-Topp of things.”

YES. REALLY.

Speaking of Xenia, she’s with an Admiral, having the most TERRIFYING sex I’ve ever seen in a movie. And I’m legit not sure if he survived after it. Like, real talk, it was...frightening. Somebody steals his ID, real nonchalant like, and we cut to the next morning, after his maybe-death? James makes it onto the yacht the next morning (they were on a yacht, by the way), planning on getting some information.

Meanwhile, the ID is used by...someone...to get into a leader of global military leaders. Pretty sure the Admiral got Kegel’d to death; not even joking, it’s a real possibility, and I am shaken AND stirred. And so was the Admiral.

See? Toldja.

Looks like their unveiling a new tactical helicopter, the Tiger. However, the pilots are shot by Xenia and someone else, and they take their place, stealing the helicopter. Bond tries to stop it...even though there’s literally no way he could’ve known they were going to steal the helicopter? I mean, I guess you could assume that, but...I dunno, it’s a stretch.

Meanwhile, in Siberia, a group of radar analysts or some such, where we meet Boris (Alan Cumming, who I feel like I never see play an actual Welsh person...or in a good movie) and Natalya (Izabella Scorupco). Boris is a thirsty computer nerd who hacks the US government for fun (because ‘90s nerds in movies were basically only this), and Natalya puts up with him.

The Tiger helicopter arrives, carrying Xenia and the General (Gottfried John, by the way) from the dam 9 years ago. They show up here, seeking something. Xenia shoots up the place, killing everybody except Natalya (and maybe Boris, since we didn’t see him die). Xenia, by the way, appears to be a straight sadist, enjoying inflicting pain on unsuspecting victims. The two leave, getting what they came for.

London! James Bond returns to MI6 headquarters, and meets his secretary Miss Moneypenny, who calls him the fuck OUT. She is my favorite character now.

MI6 has intercepted a distress call from the station in Siberia, and found the helicopter. The mission is heard by both Bond and M (Dame Judi Dench herself, pre-Cats). Meanwhile, the base in Siberia is hit an electromagnetic pulse originating from an orbiting satellite, which causes EVERYTHING to explode. Pretty sure that’s not what EMPs do, but why not? Suspension of disbelief. 

Natalya’s still alive in there, by the way. And she’s not having a great day. You know those work days, right? Your coworkers are all dead, your equipment and office space explode, you’re trapped in a burning building, two American jets get hit by an EMP and crash into the building. Mondays, amirite?

And in case literally everything didn’t make it clear by now, this is a Cold War movie, taking place after the Cold War was concluded. See, the McGuffin for this film (it’s a Bond film, it’s kind of a requirement) is Project GoldenEye, a nuclear weapon meant to detonate in the upper atmosphere, creating an EMP. The weapon was developed during the Cold War, and has now been stolen by the Janus Crime Syndicate, whose heads include Xenia Onatopp. General Ourmunov is also suspected to be a part of it.

This information all comes out during an exposition speech, as is standard for a Bond movie. But after that speech...OH...OH, it’s so good. See, up until now, Miss Moneypenny was really the only major female recurring supporting character in Bond’s life. But we’ve flipped the script, having M played by Dame Judi Dench. And lemme tell ya...what follows is Dench REAMING BOND THE FUCK OUT. And it’s glorious.

Mind changed, M is now my favorite character. She tells him what’s what, then gives him his mission: get GoldenEye back.

We finally get our big gadgets showcase, as we see...Q (Desmond Llewelyn)! First introduced in From Russia With Love in 1963, Q is the MI6’s spy gadget man, and has been played by Llewelyn since then! He’s the only remaining cast member from the original Connery films, and it’s awesome to see him here! He’s been in more James Bond movies than anyone else, at 17. Sadly, he died in 1999, but it’s still cool to see him! We get cool gadgets, of course, including a pen grenade, a car with missiles behind the headlights, a leather belt with a grapple, a LOT of shit in the background, and a missile hidden in a leg cast and wheelchair. This is such a funny sequence, and absolutely the best scene in the movie so far, holy shit. More of THAT, please.

Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, the General finds out that Natalya is alive, as well as Boris being missing. Calling it now, he’s been taken by Janus, or he’s working with them. Bond arrives and meets up with CIA Agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker), whom I also really like. He’s had enough of Bond’s spy bullshit, and he cuts to the point. He also identifies himself by showing a rose tattoo with the name of his ex-wife, Muffy. Yes, really.

Bond meets up with a Russian gangster whom he has a...pre-existing relationship with. Apparently, he shot him in the knee, then slept with his wife. You stay classy, Jimmy. You stay classy. This man is Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane), an ex-KGB agent and current gang leader. He tells him that the head of Janus is descended from Cossacks, a group of Russians that worked for the Nazis in World War II.

Natalya finds a way to contact Boris over the internet, who tells her to trust no one, and sets up a meeting with her at a church. This is, of course, a trap, as Boris is working with Janus. Xenia, for her part as a Bond Girl, does her duty and finds James to have sex with. Xenia, it should be noted, is ABSOLUTELY THE FREAKIEST of the Bond Girls. Like, Goddamn is she kinky, you have no idea. Like...is this sex or a fight scene? The film genuinely can’t decide.

Bond forces Xenia to take him to the head of Janus, who’s in a Soviet statuary of some kind. And who’s waiting there but…

Yup. Called it.

See you (and Sean “died, but didn’t die, and is a villain, but is still gonna die” Bean) in Part 2!

[oboe-she-didnt]

I just finished watching the X-Files and I have a lot of thoughts

Yes it’s 2021 and I’ve finally finished a show I should have seen ages ago. Normally I might make a YouTube video with all my thoughts but I feel like doing something more immediate and since no one I know has seen it...here I go.

Going in nearly blind (besides knowing “Mulder’s the believer and Scully’s the skeptic” thank you ATS, Mulder/Scully is one of the quintessential ships of fandom history, and there was a reboot or something a couple years ago) I found myself rather hooked from the beginning. I enjoyed the practical effects, the seasons-long mysteries (though sometimes not knowing the answers got frustrating), and the way the show managed to stay fresh for its original 9 season run. It was definitely a well-crafted show with a good balance of monster of the week episodes (further divided into procedural monster of the week - your average monster/witch/freak of science killing random people - and character-based monster of the week - the haunted house on Christmas is the first episode that comes to mind) and lore/mythology building episodes (everything tying back to the alien conspiracy aka anything that said “Written by Chris Carter”)

I can see where the Mulder/Scully chatter has come from. I was definitely shipping them very early on, and not just in a “ooh they’re rivals so of course I’m gonna ship them” kind of way I was expecting going in. They are one of those examples of fictional soulmates, platonic, romantic, two people who are essential in the others’ lives. They are the epitome of “the best romances come from people who work well together”. Literally. They balance each other, even when sometimes the roles would get flipped. You need a logician and you need a believer in your search of The Truth. I also appreciated overall it seemed an equal balance between each of the pair getting “damseled”. It wasn’t Mulder saving Scully all the time (another thing I was kind of expecting). The one thing I’m still puzzling over is which one I would consider the one main protagonist, if I had to choose. My gut says Scully, she’s the audience insert brought into this fantastical world who grows to open her mind a little. But by the end, it’s Mulder who has all his questions answered, his purpose for coming to the X-files complete. Mostly. Pretty much. There’s always another conspiracy, though.

I will stand by my early observation that my absolute favorite parts of the show are Scully’s right arching eyebrow and Mulder’s inability to function like a normal human when she’s out of the office. I never thought I’d get emotional over pencils stuck to the ceiling but it happened.

And now a rundown of thoughts on all the main characters...

Mulder: Two things I said most often to the TV: “you cheeky little shit, you’re gonna get yourself killed” and “oh honey I want to give you a hug!” I also wish I had done a little more BTS research besides figuring out where and when to watch the 2 movies because that would have saved my two season litany of “he’s gotta come back, they wouldn’t kill one of the main characters off offscreen, he’s written and directed episodes, I would have heard at some point if he got fired, Chris Carter’s just pulling a conspiracy of his own, he’s fucking with the audience by pulling him off the credits, right right RIGHT?” and then I should have figured out the reboot was LITERALLY STILL THEM so that would have saved my The Truth litany of “well all his mysteries are solved so I guess his arc’s complete, it’s a supernatural show so I GUESS you can kill off one of the mains in the finale, but there’s too much build up to save him, I would have heard about it if it had THAT kind of ending, right right RIGHT?”

Scully: Two things I said most often to the TV: “Yes you go girl!” and “oh honey I want to give you a hug!” Gillian gets all the credit for wearing those fucking heels for that long and probably didn’t get paid enough for it (though I appreciated their little callout to it in the movie episode). I’m glad they only went to the mystical pregnancy well once, though the build-up was a little too heavy-handed. I can’t wait to rewatch and see the gradual development of her knowledge and understanding, so much so that by the time it becomes her and Doggett as the team, Scully is absolutely without question the “Mulder”.

I also would say, about both of them, that they need a vacation...which they did get...probably not the vacation I was hoping for them.

And now for many less thoughts about the rest:

Skinner: flip-flopped maybe a couple too many times for my liking. Wish we knew a little more about him. Definitely the first person to ship the two of them.

The Lone Gunmen:

AKA “ahh it’s my boys!” (me squealing every time I saw their actors’ names appear in the credits). Nice little extension of the team and interesting to see technology from “back then”. Loved how they used their stories as little breathers after really heavy two-parters. 

Frohike: adorable little grump who knows his kung fu

Langly: did he just choose not to cut his hair for 9 years or did they not let him?

Byers: marry me

Smoking Man: or whatever nickname you want to call him. Yes, I know they revealed his name but I’m not bothered to look it up now. The definition of “you aren’t dead in a supernatural show unless you die on screen” (though he goes and breaks that trope too because hey fan service!). Had me saying “ugh this bitch” every time he appeared on screen so I guess he got the job done.

Krycek: also had me saying “ugh this bitch” and I wish I didn’t learn his actor’s name so early on so I would be more surprised when he showed up in later seasons. I think he worked pretty well as a secondary bad guy and is another I’ll be watching more for in my rewatch.

Marita: grew more tired of her the longer she stayed on. Became less interesting when she was revealed to be in with the Syndicate. Nice to have another female character, though.

Jeffrey Spender: my catchphrase with him was “I wanna slap his little weasel face”. I figured out who he was before it was revealed, though that I blame on my ability to recognize actors...unless it was supposed to be an easy enough twist to figure out? (I guess the actor made enough of an impression in the “greatest hits of Smoking Man: America’s assassin” episode for them to want to keep him around). Did not like him one bit until Season 9. Then my thoughts were mainly “JEFF!? They’re entrusting the safety of William to JEFF!?”

William: okay the episode “William” was pretty much me saying “what the FUCK was that?” and I’m mad I didn’t figure out the Jeffrey twist that time. As for the character, kid deserves better. I was waiting for a Once Upon a Time style knock on the door “hey, I think you’re my mom” at some point but NOPE he had a purpose and they were sticking to it! The ambiguous powers (AKA which came first, this or Stranger Things 2?) were a little annoying, I suppose, but there wasn’t enough time, or interest, to explore it all. Also, pandemic? That sure hit differently to a viewer today than it would have a couple years ago holy shit.

Doggett: didn’t like him at first, which I guess you’re not supposed to, but then he turned into a big old teddy bear. Whatever happened to him? Dude deserved a shout-out in the reboot.

Reyes: loved her from the start, a different kind of “Mulder”. HATE what they did to her in the reboot. I thought she and Doggett were supposed to live happily ever after.

Okay, I think I’m pretty much out of thoughts for now. Excuse me as I start watching all over again, free of some of this “what’s gonna happen next?” anxiety since I now know where it’s all going.

[pedropascallovebot]

the way it’s calling me

The Mandalorian x Tangled AU

summary: a certain mandalorian isn’t sure if this it’s a capture, or a rescue mission when he meets the bounty he’s been sent after.  

aka, din isn’t sure how he keeps getting tangled up in these situations. 

a disclaimer: i wanted to retell one of my favorite stories, but i did take some liberties! i very much hope you guys enjoy. :’-)

—

Din didn’t care for under the table jobs for a multitude of reasons.

For starters, there was no telling how far the bounty could of gotten on foot. There was no telling if she was even alive, or what she was really on the run for.

He was offered a hefty amount of credits as a down payment for finding a runaway daughter, and an unwavering amount of riches and reputation when said asset was retrieved. (He wasn’t counting on the latter, but business in the guild was slow and a bit of extra money for ship parts wouldn’t hurt, he supposed.) The woman who sought him out as he was walking to his ship from the Covert was in shambles, tears streaming and practically shoving money in his face. How could he say no?

He did say no, actually. Din said no three times before she said her daughter would die if he didn’t find her, and what was the Mandalorian, a soldier, a protector, supposed to say to that? He hesitantly took his money, and when told there was no tracking fob, he almost threw it back. Another reason to despise these off the record commissions. If he wasn’t assured the girl was most certainly on this planet, he’d be halfway back to Nevarro by now.

But he didn’t throw it back in her face. Now he was right smack dab in the middle of an unfamiliar green planet with absolutely no direction, no name of a bounty, only a vague description of her appearance, and a place to bring her back to when captured.

Din doesn’t like the idea of going on an entire manhunt for basically pocket money, when it just sounds like an attempt to escape a helicopter parent. But he’s already taken payment, and it’s probably too late to regret it now.

—

Maker, he regrets it.

Bri’n is huge, and it’s all trees and dirt. It’s nearly impossible to find footprints or anything that can trace someone without a fob. He’s already deep in the forest when he finds the first manmade structure- a shack, with loud music, and clearly lots of alcohol.

He knows this, because said shack reeks of liquor and general man smell, and he’s about to give up. There’s absolutely no way that the bounty could be here, but he’s come way too far to not at least check, and he nearly fucking faints when he looks inside.

Of course, he thinks. Just when he’s about to start toying with the idea of violating too many codes of honor, he sees a girl from the window who looks suspiciously enough like the description the woman who hired him gave.

With the nonsensical thought of “pulling a fast one” and bolting with the money, (which Din knows he couldn’t do- on his list of attributes, thievery was not one of them) the plan goes to shambles when he sees how many men are absolutely in awe of the first girl they’ve probably seen in a long, long time. Din was not looking for a fight with one bounty, let alone an entire gang of drunkards.

Walking in, every single lowlife who’s ever done anything slightly illegal is now twiddling their thumbs, which gives him free reign to do whatever he wants- which right now, is get this girl back to her crazy mother and call it a night. He walks directly towards the table, where the bounty is being offered drinks galore, and he stops right in front of her when she’s pushing away a full glass. If he wasn’t pissed off he took a dead end job, he might feel bad for this girl for having to repeatedly deny these chaavlas.

“Can I help you with something?”

He stares at her, and the collection of men stare back at him.

“What’s your name?”

He remembers quickly he never got a name from her mother, and this might be a problem. Could he really capture a bounty based on a guess that it was her?

“It’s-“

The skinniest, and by far tiniest of them all stands up, and gives his best attempt to match Din’s level.

“What business have you got here, tin-can?”

The entire bar is now very clearly enjoying the show, and it takes everything in him not to pull out his blaster and make this situation a helluva lot easier.

He turns back to the girl.

“Clearly, you have a lot of loyal friends here, but we need to get you back home to your mom,” he demands, attempting to scare off any defiance she’s going to give. “She’s waiting for you back home, and she’s worried. Let’s not make this anymore difficult.”

Her mother hadn’t really provided much intel about what level of threat she was. For all he knew, she could be wielding her own weapons, and he didn’t care too much to find out. All he knew was her mother had told him she’d employed many others to go after her daughter, and some had done it for free. She had expressed obvious displeasure about payment through her pleas for help.

“I’m not going home, so you might as well-“

Din isn’t waiting anymore; he goes to grab her by the arm when he feels someone grab his own.

“She said she ain’t goin’ home, didn’t she?”

A voice from behind him makes Din slowly turn around, which proves to be a mistake when a raging drunk goes to throw a punch at his beskar. Grabbing the culprits fist, he twists it backwards before grabbing the blaster at his side, pointing it at the contestant who was going in for the kill.

Din is certainly not getting paid enough for this.

He goes to push down the body of the fist he’s gripping, when he hears yet another voice from behind him- for the first time in his life, he’s relieved to hear it’s just his bounty.

“Listen to me!”

Din is in shock when everyone goes quiet. Even the man who’s got a weapon pointed on him has his focus on the girl who is now standing on the table. When the hell did she have time to get up there?

“I’m not sure where I am, and I’m not sure where I’m supposed to go, but I left my mother to find more than the fate that was waiting for me if I stayed with her. I’m looking for an adventure! Haven’t any of you ever wanted that too? Even you!”

Din realizes she’s singled him out, and from behind his helmet, his face goes unexpectedly red.

The man to his right speaks up.

“When I was nine, I once dreamed of adventure too!”

Looking to his side, Din sees the drunk man completely in awe of his bounty’s improv monologue. What kind of bar has he stepped into?

Then he starts speaking.

“When I was younger, I told my parents I was going out to pick up a compressor at the market. By the time they realized I was gone, I was halfway off the planet with a ship me and my buddies hot-wired.”

Din is now the one staring. The entire bar is silent, and not the type of scared silence he’s used to. All of these patrons seem genuinely interested in whatever the hell is going on, and even his bounty is looking expectantly at the man talking.

“Needless to say, we didn’t get very far. We flew and flew until we ran out of resources and landed here, and the four of us lived off the land until we found settlement” he continues, and takes a sip of one of the drinks that was still unoccupied on the table from earlier. “That was years ago. My buddies are all gone, but every day I’m still happy I took that leap, because look where I am now!”

He widens his arms and looks around at the dirty establishment they were currently in.

Din can’t stay here any longer, so he pipes up.

“That’s very nice, but I came here to get her, and get out-“

“I lost all of my money because of gambling!”

You’ve got to be kidding.

The same voice goes on when murmurs of encouragement are scattered around the bar.

“My parents were rebel fighters, and I was next in line to be, too! That wasn’t my type of gig, though, so I skipped town and got really good at Sabacc. Not too good, though, because one game later I’m out on my feet, completely drained of everything! When I tried getting ahold of my parents, they were nowhere to be found. Down on my luck, I ventured out, and hey, what do ya know! I found some work on Bri’n.”

For the first time in his entire life, Din realizes he’s accidentally let go of his fist of his attacker. He realizes this not by being punched, but because the attacker starts talking about his dreams, too.

“I once wanted to run an outpost for-“

Nope, nope. Din has officially had enough.

“I don’t care,” he points to his asset. “You? Come with me. Let’s get you home.”

“So everyone can share their dreams, but as soon as it’s my turn, everyone’s gotta go?”

And because not a single moment in this situation can go normally, the attacker pulls a knife out and points it directly at Din.

“Do you really wanna test your odds when I have a blaster? Because I like my own.”

“What are you gonna do, Mando? Shoot me?”

Din wasn’t planning on shooting him, but he didn’t like being provoked, so he points the gun at his leg and pulls the trigger. This sends the drunkard into a fit of pain on the floor, and makes everyone turn away. The show was over. He turns to his bounty, and slides the gun back into the holster at his side.

“You ready to hit the road?”

He’s greeted with an empty chair.

Fuck.

[purplepalmdelight]

seven months to forever (robin/reader)

(aka @nxncywheeler came up with some really cute headcanons about snuggling with robin and i had to write smth. so i did <3)

"Goodnight," Robin says, slumping hopelessly onto the couch. She tugs the blanket you'd had around your shoulders over herself, snuggling down into it until she's a fuzzy blonde and blue burrito.

"It's three o'clock in the afternoon," you feel compelled to point out. Robin arches a brow at you, which isn't nearly as scathing as usual when it's coming from a bundle of fleece. You arch one right back. Judgement can go both ways in this friendship.

Robin breaks the stare-off with a huff and flops onto her side. "It's goodnight o'clock in the afternoon," she retorts. It is not.

You go back to your book, because arguing with Robin is like arguing with a deaf rock. The protagonist is an idiot. It's sort of funny, though. You never used to read for fun; you've always tended towards action movies, or rollerblading, or, like, skinny dipping. You know, interesting things. But Robin likes to read, and you like Robin, and seven months into some sort of friendship, you've started picking up novels now and again. The ones she reads to you, mostly, because you always get distracted by her voice when she's talking and it's too hard to focus on the story.

Seven months of friendship. Wow. You sneak a glance over to her, feeling yourself smile before you can help it. Robin is… she's amazing. You haven't read enough books to know the words to describe her yet. But she's captivating, fascinating, enchanting. She's endearing. She's amazing. She's always been in your class, but the two of you hadn't crossed paths. You had different social circles. Her with her nerds, and you with… you with… weirdos, mostly. Robin is a weirdo too, but in a different way. She's funny in the head, but she's… she's funny in the head, yeah. God, Robin is such a freak.

It's important that she knows that. "You're a freak."

A bedraggled blonde head pops up from under the blankets. Her face is twisted into a pout. "What'd I do?" You shrug. "Bully." She kicks out at your thigh, but she's all tangled up in the blanket, so it's just her whole body kind of vaguely flailing in your direction. "You're bullying me. This is why I like Steve more than you."

"Steve's a bully!" You protest. How dare she compare you to him? "He stole my cookie!"

"In second grade!"

"He was in fourth! He should have known better!"

Robin just rolls her eyes at your (incredibly justified) irritation and wiggles again. She hits you with her toes. A moment later, your book hits her toes. She yelps. "Y/N!"

You blink at her with a sweet smile. "What? I dropped it." You did not. She scowls at you again, but you can see laughter twitching underneath it. You settle back against the couch and find your spot again.

Seven months have passed easily like this. You may not have been close friends with Robin all your life, but it feels like it. There's something beautiful about it, these lazy afternoons with cheap fantasy novels and the muted television playing whatever movie she'd insisted on when she got here. The sunlight pools on her hair, turning it into gold. She's like Medusa, sort of. When you see her, you turn to stone for a moment; your whole body freezes for a moment to take her in. Robin is too much to take in at just a glance. She's overwhelming. She's intoxicating. She's this bright sunlight of her own, one that washes over you whenever you think of her, keeping you warm. She keeps you warm.

Yes, it's easy to be Robin's friend. Seven months have passed easily, and you think seven decades will pass just the same. It would be easy to spend the rest of your life with her.

It should be scary how easily that thought comes to you, but it's never scary with Robin.

You set your book down, quite suddenly seized with the urge to give your best friend the affection she deserves. She yelps as you lay down on top of her. You ignore it. She wiggles, kicking at you through the blanket, but her little grin is poking up at you, and you don't budge. Her nose is crinkled with her happiness. It's the cutest damn thing you've ever seen. "I love you."

Robin's cheeks flush pink. She burrows down further into the blanket. "I love you too," she mumbles, her voice muffled. You can't help but laugh at her. "Shut up. Get off me, bully."

You rearrange yourself, getting comfortable. "I bullied you once."

"You bully me all the time," she argues. "Now get off me. Meanie. Oppressor."

You pout at her and earn an eye roll. She does some kind of full-body flop trying to dislodge you, which fails miserably. Her nose crinkles up again. This time, you can't help but lean in and kiss the tip. "I never bully you. I never have, not even once ever."

"Yesterday you called me a watermelon," she retorts, which is unfair. True, but unfair.

"I like watermelon!" you protest. "That's a compliment! Ungrateful brat."

She sticks her tongue out at you, and you have the brief, absurd urge to poke it with your own. "I feel so complimented knowing you want to eat me," she replies drily.

There's a pause while you wait for her to pick up on it.

"Shut up."

You burst out laughing again and let her push you off the couch, tumbling onto the floor. It's only a moment before she's leaning over, her hand fumbling for yours. You grasp it instinctively and squeeze tight. Robin has nice hands. They're soft, but strong. Warm. Her sunlight is even sweeter when you're holding her hand. She tugs at you. "What do you want?"

"Come up here," she whines. "Cuddle me." You remain on the floor, arching a brow at her like she always does at you. It's nothing of a deterrent. She just tugs at your hand harder. "Y/N, I want hugs," she says sternly.

"You pushed me off."

She pauses, clearly trying to come up with an argument. There's a few beats of silence before she scoffs and pulls again. "If you don't cuddle me, I'll die." She's pouting. Shit. The puppy dog eyes. Robin's too cute to hit you with puppy dog eyes.

"Uh-" you try to keep focused on your argument, but she sticks her lip out further, and you want to kiss her, and-

Wait, what?

The sudden wave of confusion that crests over you must weaken your resistance, because Robin hauls you up onto the couch and then situated herself on top of you, draped along your entire body. "There. Now you can't get sneaky and escape," she says, sounding very satisfied with herself.

"I didn't escape. You pushed me off."

She kisses your cheek sweetly. "Shut up, bully."

You can feel yourself turning red. You tell yourself it's just the heat, though, and the tingling feeling flooding your body isn't from the sparkle in her eyes. How could it be? It's Robin. It's your best friend. "Watermelon," you tease.

When she laughs, you want to kiss her.

You don't.

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats #15 | Rainbows in the Dark

To the extent that a porn director crossed over to the mainstream, Gregory Dark would be it. Certainly, there have been directors who did one or two porn features early in their careers, like Abel Ferrara, William Lustig and Wes Craven, but they're known almost entirely for their mainstream work. There are also porn directors who did maybe one mainstream movie, like Gerard Damiano, but their careers were relegated to porn for the most part. Dark is the rare director who was prolific on both sides, so to speak, starting with massive hardcore hits like New Wave Hookers, moving on to directing softcore, thrillers and softcore thrillers with some regularity and eventually becoming a popular music video director. My initial plan was to explore the full gamut of Dark's career. I wanted to get a sense of each phase of his work and to see what elements of his style translated across them. Essentially I wanted to understand Dark as an auteur. But then something miraculous happened. I got lazy. (Also I had a muted reaction to some of his movies and became more interested in another director in the meantime.) So I decided to limit my exploration to a few of his early movies and call it a day.

The first one I watched was New Wave Hookers, his best known hardcore title and considered a classic in the genre. What I expected going in and what worked for me can be deduced from the title. Dark's visual style very much brings to mind the "new wave" in the title: big hair, fog machines and neon lighting, all of which are first seen in the opening credits, in which the female talent almost ritualistically present themselves to the camera. There's some stylistic precedent in the work of Rinse Dream AKA Stephen Sayadian (the artist I got more interested in as I delved into Dark's work), but Sayadian's aesthetic feels culled from the art underground. (Dark reuses a few of Sayadian's actors in some of his films.) Dark's style feels more commercial, almost packaged for MTV. (Dark intended his film as a reaction to hardcore porn features of his era, although I'd argue that his choice of camera angles still feels in line with other films of the era.) This is a movie that looks good and, thanks to some choice music courtesy of the Plugz (whose song "Electrify Me" accompanies the opening credits) and the Sockets (who provide the theme song), sounds good too.

What I gelled to much less was the sense of humour. The movie opens with two buddies played by Jamie Gillis (wearing a tie over a t-shirt) and Dark regular Jack Baker shooting the shit and watching another Dark production. ("That fuckin' guy looks exactly like you. Is that you?") Baker starts expounding on his thoughts about pimping and "programming" women to fuck with music. Baker also notes, "a pimp calls a chick a bitch". They doze off, and when they wake up they find themselves inexplicably in an office. Baker is wearing a yellow tracksuit, Gillis is sporting an East Asian accent, and there's a guy on the floor substituting for their phone. (Gillis asks: "Why do we not have a regular telephone?" Baker explains: "He got the power, the second sight.") As the movie proceeds to make good on its premise, wherein women have sex after listening to new wave music, we're treated to a steady stream of racial taunting. Baker grouses about black music being ineffective for their purposes, dropping the N-bomb. Gillis continues with his accent. The two get into racially charged arguments. A middle eastern client is served in a tent and barks like a dog after he's finished. At one point, Gillis wants sushi and is served by Kristara Barrington while East Asian style music plays on the soundtrack. I recognize that a lot of humour from the era is extremely politically incorrect and has aged poorly, but there's something about Dark's use of racist and misogynist humour that feels especially confrontational. I admit I was a bit bothered by all of this.

Still, there are moments of humour that did work for me. One of the headsets that the characters use has dildos protruding from both earpieces (pointing outwards, of course), and the production design, while not always stylish, is at least endearing in its blatant cheapness. To their credit, Baker and Gillis have undeniable chemistry and do sell the material as well as they can. (I laughed when Gillis, when confronted by the vice squad, drops his accent and exclaims "I used to work in your fuckin' office, and now I'm rich, I'm satisfied, and I'm Chinese, you assholes." Am I a bad person? Probably.) And in terms of how it meets genre expectations, I do think Ginger Lynn and Kristara Barrington have a real magnetism in their scenes.

Given the racial content in New Wave Hookers, it probably won't surprise anybody that Dark was a pioneer in interracial pornography. I am not a sensitive enough writer to begin unpacking all the implications of the concept, but I did watch one of his movies in the subgenre, Black Throat. This was a shot-on-video effort and looks considerably cheaper and uglier than New Wave Hookers, but shares some other qualities. It opens and closes with a punk song that references that film as well as Let Me Tell Ya Bout White Chicks, Dark's first interracial feature, and to be honest, the song is pretty fucking catchy. The movie follows Roscoe, a man who wears yellow sunglasses and both a polo and a Hawaiian shirt and his friend Mr. Bob, a talking rubber rat. He's searching through the garbage while arguring with Mr. Bob over what to eat when he finds a business card. "Madame Mambo's House of Divine Inspiration Thru Fellatio!" (All of the characters pronounce fellatio differently. Mr. Bob says "fell-uh-tee-oh" and calls Roscoe a "fuckin' honky", to which he responds "Fuck you, Mr. Bob!")

Roscoe insists he has to find her. "If I don't find her, I'm gonna die!" (When asked why, he responds, "I dunno, it sounded kinda dramatic, I guess.") Mr. Bob enlists the help of a "young urban professional pimp" named Jamal, played by Jack Baker. (He prefers the term "flesh broker" and describes upgrading his diet, clothes and investments.) Roscoe, Mr. Bob and Jamal go from scene to scene, watching other characters having sex in different racial combinations, asking them where they can find Madame Mambo. (Sometimes they ask the characters directly, other times they talk to their private parts.) The best of these scenes, in my humble opinion, is a light domination flavoured sex scene featuring Christy Canyon. Perhaps because of the dynamic, there's an element of actual acting involved here, and because Canyon is, uh, pleasingly proportioned and has a certain magnetism, I found this scene more engaging than the others, at least until it turns into a regular sex scene.

Eventually they go back to Roscoe's place and find a voodoo ritual taking place where a black woman with multicoloured hair (think the George H.W. Bush rainbow wig from the Simpsons, but straight, not curly) is jumping on their bed while a bunch of white dudes in hats, capes and sunglasses jack off around her. This of course is Madame Mambo and at this point the movie makes good on the title while drumbeats and funk play on the soundtrack. Given the premise, this movie proved (thankfully) lighter on racial humour than I expected going in. There is an element of racial critique in Baker's character, and Madame Mambo is certainly exoticized, but the racial content otherwise is limited to the interracial couplings and doesn't overload the dialogue. However, this is a fairly ugly looking movie, shot on video, featuring unimpressive camerawork and lighting as well as extremely cheap looking production design (although the movie does mine this for laughs). I also found the sex scenes overlong and the music a bit repetitive. I imagine if you were jerking off to this back in the '80s it was easier to get through, but trying to watch it now as an actual movie, despite some decent humour throughout, proved a bit of a challenge.

The next one I watched was White Bunbusters, which despite the first half of the title is not particularly racially charged. The theme song here, crooned in the style of early '60s rock'n'roll, explains that the movie is about anal sex, as the second half of the title suggests. We begin with Tom Byron thrusting into his wife Shanna McCullough (while wearing his glasses) only to be disappointed by her refusal to take it in the butt. The next day at the office (decorated by construction paper all over the walls, drawers sketched in magic marker and a crude sign with their business' name "Acme Proctology"), he hears an ad for the "A-Busters", an enterprising duo who will convince your wife or partner to let you put it in their butt. We cut to the A-Busters office and see them in yellow shorts, lime green suspenders and orange baseball caps, fiddling with their hi-tech instruments (which include an "anal listening device"). Soon we see them go to work on Jack Baker's girlfriend, taking a cash payment after the fact.

Meanwhile, Byron's friend Greg Rome hears about his woes and offers to let him fuck his wife Keli Richards (Rome is named Bob and Richards is named Bobette). Of course Byron takes advantage of Rome's generous offer, but later gets annoyed when Rome insists it was a "one time deal". They're interrupted by Jennifer Noxt, who asks about a secretarial position for the law office next door. Rather than correcting her, which would be the right thing to do, they have sex with her, which is absolutely not the right thing to do. ("So do I get the job?" "We'll call you later, baby.") We go back to the A-Busters, who go to work on a pornstar warming up for her first anal scene (the movie is called Hershey Highway to Hell). Eventually, Byron decides to make use of their services, and in the climax, when he's having a nice dinner with his wife (complete with plastic cups and paper plates), they crash the party and get to work. After it's all over, Byron thanks the A-Busters and shakes one of their hands, only to promptly wipe it off on his suit.

This is as lo-fi as Black Throat, and features a lot of raunchy humour, but thankfully no real racial content outside of the title. Perhaps because the focus is on a specific set of acts (threesomes, anal sex, double penetration), the execution seems more consistently energetic. The ratio of the threesomes is a little off from what I prefer, but I was not unmoved by the scenes involving Keli Richards, Jennifer Noxt and Shanna McCullough. I realize there are more dignified ways to spend one's time than watching in its entirety and singing the praises of a movie called White Bunbusters, but sometimes the lizard brain takes over. I feel compelled to report the facts, and the facts are that this is good at what it does. As an actual movie, there isn't a whole lot to this, but were I to rate this on the Peter-Meter as the filmmakers intended, it would fare respectably.

Where Gregory Dark's style and the sum of his provocations really worked for me was in The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning and The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage, a two-part odyssey through hell. (Attentive viewers may note that the original Devil in Miss Jones takes place before the heroine is sentenced to hell, but this is not a direct sequel. There is also a second part by Henri Pachard and later sequels directed by Dark that I did not see. The narrative in the third and fourth entries feels pretty self contained.) The movie begins with close-ups of our heroine, played by Lois Ayres, taking a shower while "A Christian Girl's Problems" by the Gleaming Spires plays over the soundtrack, her interiority hinted at with an astute song choice. (It's worth noting that this was not an original song made for the movie.) The structure intersperses her story with a series of interviews with those who knew her: an ex-boyfriend who "had a disagreement about the relationship" (he slept around); a woman speculates that Ayres was "a closet lesbian" and that "she probably went to live in one of those lesbian islands in the Caribbean"; a girl who knew her as a prude back in high school, a priest with a thick accent who offers a eulogy; her brother, who speaks in new age euphemisms and resents that she was the favourite growing up; and a blind ex-boyfriend who claims she was the loveliest person he knew "after Helen Keller". (This last character describes his sex life as very "normal": no peeing or dogs, wouldn't fuck pizzas, etc.) All these people knew her, but they didn't really know her.

The actual story follows her after she breaks up with her boyfriend (over the phone, as he shaves another woman's pubic hair while feigning innocence). She heads for a bar, brushing off a stereotypical black pimp played by Jack Baker who mistakes her for a prostitute, and promptly orders a "taco" (a draught beer, a Bloody Mary, and a draught beer in three separate glasses). Beside her is a man asleep on bar in tuxedo, who turns out to have been stood up at his own wedding. They hook up, leading to a sex scene scored by a blaring saxophone that I assume was practice for Dark's softcore work. The scene ends when the heroine knocks her head against the headboard and wakes up in a pitch black space near a grave. In comes Jack Baker, riding atop a woman, to tell her what the situation is. "You are dead, you got no clothes, and this is hell!"

The rest of the movie follows them going through different rooms, the heroine being unable to comprehend her fate, as they watch the different punishments endured by the denizens of hell. There's the room full of "peepers", virgins doomed to only watch sex for all eternity. (One of them explains: "I showed my tits to a guy to get a Gucci purse. He went off an overpass.") There are characters doomed to fuck until their genitals wear out or are ravaged by venereal disease. Baker gives Ayres a raincoat "to keep the come off", but the moment she forgets about it she finds herself getting gangbanged and promptly has to be rescued by Baker (okay, not that promptly, we get to enjoy this for a few minutes). Along the way we're led to believe from the interviews that the heroine might have a fetish for black men, and the conversation between Ayres and Baker grows increasingly heated and racially charged. This idea culminates in a trip to the "racist room", where a white man with a swastika armband is having a threesome with two women of colour while a white woman is sucking off two black men in tribal makeup. Ayres and Baker have a final confrontation on the subject.

"What about all the black racists?"

"Look bitch, when a black man hits a white man, we don't call it racist!"

"What do you call it then?"

"Smart!"

"That's ridiculous, there are plenty of black racists!"

"No dig, you stupid ass white bitch!"

"Look, you're even one of them, calling me a stupid bitch and a white bitch!"

"We'll you're stupid, you're white and a bitch, so what is your motherfucking problem?"

"You're crazy, negro, and you're one of the sickest people in here!"

"That's right, I'm a crazy negro! I'm so crazy I'll eat my own arm!"

This is a deeply uncomfortable scene, and what follows is even more disturbing, as we learn the true nature of the heroine's relationship with her father, a reveal that Dark plays for maximum shock value in depicting "The Ordeal of the Taboo Breakers".

In some ways this isn't all that different from New Wave Hookers, but Dark's direction seems more purposeful here. The stylized depiction of hell, with its black backgrounds and harsh neon lighting, imbue a real sense of menace into the proceedings. With the exception of two scenes, the sex isn't all that outrageous, but Dark's mise-en-scene has a way of rendering it almost as horror. It's not exactly scary and probably still "does the trick" if you're watching this for those reasons, but there's an undeniable charge here. Likewise, the dark humour and the racial content seem to work in tandem here, and Ayres and Baker really sell their adversarial chemistry. (It's worth noting that even by the standards of the video vixens that appear in Dark's movies, Ayres has an amazing hairdo.) Dark may not have entirely thought out his thesis along these lines, but the movie is provocative in its handling of this content, and unlike New Wave Hookers, not in a way that hurts it. At a combined 2+ hours, this probably runs a bit too long, but it does shape the usual procession of sex scenes into a structure that carries an uneasy momentum that matches the heroine's trepidation. We might not like what we're seeing, but we also can't help but keep looking.

[chiarahq]

me  being  late  ?  unfortunately  more  likely  than  u  would  think  😔  but  i'm  here  now  &  so  excited  to  be  part  of  a  celeb  rp  again  because  they  are  my  kryptonite  !  i’m  sofi  (21,  gmt,  she/her)  &  this  is  chiara,  &  yes  i  did  carefully  select  this  gif  because  she  looks  hot  asf  &  i  want  to  thirst  trap  u  all  into  plotting  with  me  (ur  welcome)  !

⋆˙⊹  naressa valdez  ,  cis female  ,  she/her  — ‏‏‎ ‎ don't  look  now  ,  but  chiara  flores  just  walked  by  us  .  the  twenty -  three  year  old  lingerie  model  turned  entrepreneur  has  been  causing  quite  a  stir  lately  .  they're  known  to  be  quite  decorous  &  garrulous  ,  but  also  sybaritic  &  ambivalent  .  it's  no  wonder  they're  hollywoods  resident  bellwether  . rumor  has  it  they're  hiding  redacted ,  but  don't  ask  them  about  it  .  

&.  a  satin  brassiere  peeking  from  beneath  a  velveteen  pantsuit,  dainty  gold  chains,  wine  -  toned  lipgloss  &  smoked  liner,  an  inviting  smile  that  would  make  a  stranger  feel  at  home,  and  the  gentle  graze  of  fingertips  against  the  forearm    .

𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞  𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬.

full  name:  chiara  ysabel  flores. nickname/s:  chi,  open  to  pet  names. gender  &  pronouns:  cis  female  &  she/her. birthdate:  sept  25th. zodiac:  libra. orientation:  bisexual  &  biromantic. traits:  your  stereotypical  libra,  aka,  tactful,  gregarious,  &  visionary,  yet  indecisive,  vain,  &  vacillating. career:  lingerie  model  turned  fashion  mogul;  recently  launched  her  own  makeup  and  lingerie  brand  (  claim:  fenty  )

𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭  𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐚  𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬.

familial  connections  :  chiara  was  a  long  awaited  addition  to  the  flores  family;  with  maria  flores  thoroughly  convinced  that  she  would  never  experience  the  motherhood  she  had  always  dreamed  of  until  she  was  finally  blessed  with  her  first  &  only  child.  rather  naively,  maria  and  andre  expected  that  the  birth  of  their  daughter  would  be  the  missing  piece  to  restoring  their  already  crumbling  marriage  -  however,  if  anything,  the  added  stress  of  a  baby  was  the  nail  in  the  coffin.  that  said,  it  was  in  their  best  interest  to  stick  it  out  for  the  sake  of  their  public  reputation.  a  tiny  chiara  often  found  herself  caught  in  the  middle  of  an  argument,  and  as  she  grew  older,  found  herself  stepping  up  as  mediator.  her  presence  was  a  constant  reminder  that  although  they  no  longer  loved  each  other  the  way  they  once  had,  they  had  both  contributed  to  create  another  human  being  that  they  equally  adored  with  all  their  hearts  -  and  they  would  continue  to  push  themselves  to  last  another  day.  the  facade  of  their  relationship  finally  came  crashing  down  when  chiara  turned  sixteen,  and  andre  flores  was  caught  having  a  cosy  dinner  with  a  woman  much  too  young  to  be  his  wife.  once  the  public  found  out  there  was  no  longer  any  need  to  keep  up  the  pretences,  and  so  the  flores’  filed  for  divorce.  although  chiara  was  entirely  aware  of  the  state  of  their  marriage,  it  was  still  difficult  to  endure  -  especially  in  such  a  public  sense.  that  said,  everything  worked  out  for  the  best,  and  the  flores’  still  spend  every  holiday  together  as  a  family.

career  ;  from  a  young  age,  chiara  shone.  her  cherubic  features  &  polite  nature  opened  multiple  doors  for  her  from  a  young  age;  from  her  successful  modelling  career  to  her  stint  in  child  acting.  chiara  pursued  a  lot  of  things,  but  she  never  stumbled  upon  anything  that  was  more  than  a  fad.  that's  the  thing  about  chi;  she's  passionate  &  always  on  the  go,  but  often  lost  interest  fast.  she’d  pick  something  up,  just  to  drop  it  the  next  day  or  week  or  month.  it  was  a  running  joke  within  her  family;  her  parents  unable  to  keep  up  with  what  would  capture  chiara’s  attention  next.  something  that  persevered  was  her  relentless  need  to  be  in  control.  some  would  call  it  pernickety,  though  she  would  call  it  having  direction.  whatever  she  decided  to  put  her  mind  to,  for  however  long  she  felt  like  it,  she  would  excel.  with  the  safety  of  her  parents’  wealth  to  fall  back  on,  chiara  tried  her  hand  at  pretty  much  everything  you  could  imagine  -  she  dabbled  in  photography,  took  a  few  singing  classes  before  she  ultimately  decided  she  was  tone-deaf,  rekindled  her  acting  career  for  the  duration  of  a  handful  of  auditions,  and  even  attended  college  for  a  whopping  seven  weeks  before  dropping  out.  her  career  in  modelling  was  the  only  thing  that  was  a  constant,  with  her  signing  with  tbd  lingerie  company  (  bc  we  don’t  stan  vs  in  this  house  ).  chiara  was  happy  enough  during  her  time  there,  but  the  lack  of  diversity  within  the  brand  became  outstandingly  obvious  (  👀  ),  &  eventually  she  decided  to  take  matters  into  her  own  hands  ;  launching  her  own  inclusive  lingerie  brand,  ysabel.  following  the  success  of  ysabel,  she  then  extended  her  brand  to  include  makeup  products. 

personality  ;   

yes  we’re  switching  to  bullet  points  who  needs  consistency

chiara  is  a  bit  of  a  walking  oxymoron.  she’s  an  incredibly  passionate  &  determined  individual,  yet  her  attention  &  interest  are  fleeting.  when  she  cares,  she  cares  with  every  inch  of  her  being  -  but  the  minute  that  drive  is  gone  ?  she’ll  ditch.  

despite  mediating  pretty  much  her  parents’  entire  relationship,  chi  hates  confrontation.  she  radiates  Bad  Bitch  energy,  but  really  is  prone  to  sitting  on  the  fence  &  ducking  out  when  shit  hits  the  fan. 

chi  is  ridiculously  self-indulgent.  she  cannot  say  no  to  herself,  like,  ever.  it’s  a  dangerous  habit  that  extends  beyond  herself  -  if  she  sees  something  she  thinks  a  friend  will  like,  it’s  in  her  basket  without  a  second  thought,  aka  she’s  the  best  present  giver  ever.  as  a  result  of  her  indulgence,  however,  she  can  sometimes  come  across  as  kinda  ignorant  :/  

relationships  are  kind  of  an  iffy  area  for  chi...  she  knows  all  too  well  how  badly  they  can  go  spiralling  down,  so  she  tries  not  to  let  herself  get  too  attached,  but  for  the  most  part  she  fails  &  becomes  kinda  ...  infatuated.  she’s  terrible  with  rejection  due  to  her  obsession  with  how  people  view  her,  &  will  without  a  doubt  take  it  to  heart  -  so  for  the  most  part  sticks  to  flings  &  meaningless  flirtationships

has  a  pet  doberman  that  she  absolutely  adores  &  treats  as  if  its  a  little  baby  handbag  dog  <3 

𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝  𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

brotp  

sibling  like  friendship

ride  or  die 

childhood  friends

family  friends 

platonic  soulmates 

model  friends  /  models  recruited  for  her  brand  

unlikely  friendship

intrigue

project  partners

familial  connections  ?  maybe  a  cousin  ? 

mutual  friends  

childhood  crush  ?  maybe  a  friend  of  the  family  where  their  parents  always  joked  they’d  get  together  one  day

party  friends

good  /  bad  influence 

opposites  attract

exes  to  friends

muse

wingman/woman/person 

pr  stunt 

exes  (  good  terms,  bad  terms,  past  fling,  ghosted  )

will-they-won’t-they

fwb  /  ewb

confidants 

rival

[the-house-of-the-nine]

In Mind of Misery: Manipulation, Part 12

[ And so the journey begins.  Three Separate stories to tell here all happening Simultaneously.  Attacking from three fronts, is this the beginning of the end for The Nine?  Please Like, Share, and Follow us!   We are hoping to get new people coming our way, and could use the love! Thank you everyone!!!!! ]

Cast:

[ L.K ] -  Lazarius Kashebahl, Marseille, Raelyndia Duskhollow

[ P.K ] - Kretus Dark

[ V.D ] - Verzatea Duskflame, Pame Myl’Brin

[ J ] - Jursol, Jimba, Mawa

[ T ] - Talisin aka The Boy

[ R ] - Raven

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[ L. K ]   Once the door was demolished and sent flying out into the other part of the crypt they would notice something very interesting indeed; the blood was gone.  The previous room that was where the massive head had been was empty and all that remained was a simple stone room with a stairway up.

The group had no time for delay, they had to move quickly, and since the stairs were no longer a sliding board the would have no problem getting out.  Once they reached the top the would notice that the sky was black and the massive tentacle worms were flying across the sky.

Take to the trees.  The group raced away from the crypt in an attempt to put some distance between them and the horrible place.  But once they were finally safely away from their hell on earth; the reality sunk in.  What would they do now.

“We need a place to stay, somewhere we can repair and heal.  Raven needs energy, and Marseille needs some serious medical attention.  And it’s about time that boy got a proper meal.  We can’t return to Quelthalas, if we do it will spell disaster.  We all look like convicts.  And we need to make contact with survivors....Siida...”.  

Lazarius eyes narrowed as he clenched them tightly.  Losing both sisters.  He was certainly a mess.

[ R ]   The redheaded woman was unresponsive in Lazarius’ hold. Her slender form wrapped in cloth that left only hear bare feet and shoulders with bra straps exposed, leaving much to the imagination.

At first, if through the panic and chaos any took notice, one might note beneath the mess of black blood all over her, her skin was darkened and the veins that could be seen were blackened. Her skin had split in some areas, evident by the blotches of black soaked through various points of the cloth.

Was she breathing?

It looked as if Laz returned with a dead body. Not a peep came from her as he clutched and ran holding her. Her thick red hair covering up half-elven ears.

By the time they reached the outside world and were breaking through the tree-line to cover, all of those signs of void corruption had faded from her body and any void she was emitting was dormant.

[ P . K ]   Here he had been. Minding his own business. Cozied up in his small hut within the depths of the Ghostlands. He liked it here. It was oddly peaceful despite the badies within the woods. His favorite tavern was here, too and it made easy trek into the city if he needed supplies. He’d been in this small hut for… too long.

Anytime he began to think about how long his mood soured and he fell into a depression. But not today. He had hunted a lynx that morning, skinned it bare to sell its pelt, then gutted it, readying it for his dinner. Just as he was about to pour himself a steaming bowl of lynx and veggie stew, the rumbling started.

The red head was immediately on edge, tensing, a sense of gloom and doom overwhelming him a moment as memories began flooding back. No, this wasn’t happening. This place of his, this sanctuary he built, it was peaceful here. Then he heard voices over his crackling flame coming from the direction of the crypts.

The few people who would venture that area were usually experiences archaeologists and explorers. And so, his dinner interrupted, the man grabbed his daggers and headed toward that direction. A few minutes later… The red-haired male would easily be seen along the tree line, not hiding himself at all.

He never felt the need to in this area, finding most things barely able to call themselves threats. But what he saw, the mangled group, left him confused.

“What in the bloody. . . is this? Are… are you all o---“

He stopped dead, blinking once, twice,

“Teacup?”

He said quietly, realizing the blonde… was the spirited elf he’d met many months ago. The tall, lanky, tattoo-covered, red-headed elf gaped at the group, seemingly in shock.

[ V . D ]   The fresh air had certainly done wonders to alleviate the tension for both kaldorei and sindorei, Pame shaking from exhaustion with all the consistent excitement... Verzatea was shaking as well, although her shaking more so had to do with the wave of tears rolling down her cheeks as she endured Lazarius's recant of their situation.

Things were looking terribly bleak for them in this moment, and all she could think about was the horrors those in the Bastille must have endured. If it were anything like what their small and disheveled group experienced in the tombs she could only pity those who remained alive. If any did.

But first and foremost the issue of a safe space was a prominent concern before all else. Without a place to rest they could all die here and now in these woods. They were vulnerable bring exhausted, the wounded wouldn't survive long in this chill either... But the stench of ichor and rotting flesh and other unidentifiable offense odors was replaced with a peculiar smell.

Something that tickled an old memory in the far back of her mind... It was then that she'd lift her eyes to inspect the woods, her breath hitching in her throat before Verzatea mentions, her voice a ghost of a whisper as she tried to remember,

"This place... It's familar-- Like walking through a memory."

Only then did the appearance of Kretus stir the two elven women from their state of dismay. Pame stiffened and bore her fangs in a threatening snarl, her grip on Mars tightening-- until Verzatea audibly.gasps in astonishment!

"Kretus!"

She breathes out, relief swelling in her chest to see such a familiar and friendly face,

"By the Shadows, what are you doing this far out?"

Her lip quivers as she stumbles closer, her normally straight blonde hair frazzled and tousled about wildly with blood matting some tresses together. Too her dress skirts were soaked around the bottom of in a similar blood-- fel, everyone was soaked likely.. Resembling the devils rejects no doubt.

[ P . K ]   Kretus immediately moves forward upon her stumble, attempting to sling both arms under hers and tugging her to his chest in order to keep her from falling. Gods, they all looked a hot mess.

“I... live... out here,”

He replies absently to her inquiry as his golden eyes moved to each individual in her party of misfits.

“You all look as if N’zoth himself beat you up and dragged you through a pool of blood.”

[ L. K ]   Lazarius would have probably just burst into attack mode on this stranger; had he not had his hands full with the blanketed Raven.  She was curled up in his arms and he was unable to really do much, but all things considered he would have not given this man a second look if he was free.

"Verzatea, might we focus please. . . I am assuming you know this fire haired country boy. . . introductions can wait."  

He huffed, making sure Raven was secure and calling over to the man.

"While I am all for sentimental reunions; you have hit the nail on the head my friend. . . Oddly square on the head. . . that is exactly what just happened. . . in every sense of the word."

Lazarius would take several steps closer, past Marseille and Pame, around Jursol and her raptors and beside Verza and the boy she carried.  He would look the man square in the eye with those ancient blackened pools.

"We need a place to lay low, recover and take inventory on what exactly we are doing. . ."

He peered toward Verza.

"Familiar how, if you know someone who has a large enough facility for us to find refuge we need it.  We're losing valuable time."

[ J ]   Once outside she took to the trees to move, her raptors remained low but were cunning little fucks. They would easily avoid detection. Following the others in silence as they made their way to their destination. While she did not know where they were going, she fully trusted them.

She had at some point spaces out follows them, before hearing a strange elf yelling. There were no words yet from her as she watched and listened to the other talking. Her eyes glanced at Mars as she moved to help Pame with him.

“He be needin help now.”

Her words were few but she knew Pame understood. Jursol was ready to lend a hand with his wounds, and with a nasty tasting concoction that would help.

[ P . K ]   The red head scowled, mouthing the words, fire haired country boy with a bemused look on his face. As the male came closer, he squinted a moment, locking gazes. Why does he look familiar?

Kretus didn’t have time to ponder nor did he seem startled at Lazarius’ blunt reply of how right he had been on his observation. His Adam’s apple merely bobbed as he swallowed hard, and then he cleared his throat.

“I have a hut nearby with medical supplies, food, blankets, so on and so forth. I just did a supply run to the city two days hence. Come. It’s just a few minutes from here near the river edge....”

[ L. K ]   "I have a man with a missing arm, and teeth marks in his chest cavity. . .have you ever seen a twelve foot tall human head with a centipede body? He was devoured by it. . ."

Lazarius snapped, giving the man a stern look from his blood covered face.

"A comatose boy who has been out cold for several hours and is probably going to need a complete frontal lobe lobotomy. . .and this specimen I have quite literally plucked from an alternate reality who is going to die lest she feed on the raw dark energy of the cosmos. . . .and you've got a 'hut' was it?"

Lazarius peered down at Verza with another glance.

"Don't you have family somewhere around here? You were off for nearly two months visiting them. . . I thought you said the Duskflame Estate was somewhere on the border of the Ghostlands and Eversong. . ."

[ P . K ]   Kretus just stared at the man, hardly phased by the implied insult to his... hut.

“I mean that’s fine. Be on your way then if you have some where better to be. But something tells me my hut with things you will need for a journey is better than what you just described.”

[ V . D ]   Verzatea's shoulders tensed with the haughty and stressed tones, her hands clutching onto the familiar figure of Kretus. She would have pressed her forehead against the gentlemans torso when he first pulled her forth,  but rather than linger in this moment - no matter how she wanted to given it was the safest she'd felt since the tomb - she recalled the severity of the situation. Her eyes glance around then, hissing out:

"Mind your tempers,"

She sighs through her nose, standing up right now and releasing Kretus after a grateful smile was sent his way,

"It id very good to see you again my friend... And once more I must ask your aid-- While your home would be an appreciated opportunity to rest..,"

Tea glances back to offer the group an apologetic stare,

"We cannot linger... Its no guarantee we're out of the woods just yet. Theres another place, one much safer than the middle of the woods-- I just..,"

She glances around, the familiar forest and its natural scents riling those old memories once more... Childhood memories, even, but not enough to navigate the woods blindly,

"I dont know how to get there from here."

Turning to the group Tea remarks hesitantly,

"If we can make it to the North-Eastern most tip between the Ghostlands and Eversong Woods we can gather safely at my childhood home..,"

Glancing over her shoulder she'd peer up toward Kretus to explain,

"You aren't safe in these woods anymore, after having contact with us. Come with us? Lead us, even, since you know these woods well?"

Pame grunts as the weight of Marseille begins to dawn on her tired muscles, huffing out in aggravation,

"Choose quickly."

@siidaraykashebahl

@pyravari-kashebahl

@frompage112

@thebladeitself

@whatadarkbitch

@zandalaridruidofgonk

@miss-irascible

To be continued in “In Mind of Misery, Manipulation, Part 13″