#all of my characters in community garden are important but these two are technically the main characters

[sunriseindigo]

hiiiii more ocs :)

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 24 Thoughts

Chapter 24 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

Ah, the beginning of the Arc the movie Monkey King Reborn is based on! It will be very delightful to spot the similarities for myself!

But first we have to finish the previous trial. I really don’t like how the emphasise is kind of put on women as being tempters. Especially when the exemplary lady is explicitly stated to be sixteen, that is a child!

Still not a fan how they put so much ridicule on Zhu Bajie as well when they equally pressured him into the whole situation.

Hm Sun Wukong schooling his Shifu. We love the communal grandpa dispersing his knowledge.

And here are the two sillies! I’ll take it in immortal years they’re closer to being old tweens or young teens. That’s the feeling I get from them at least.

Ah, teaching the kids that uhm, actually just make friends with people if they’re nice, religion should not be of any importance there. There are some really good lessons to be taken away from this novel.

One could say they are… Home Alone.

I wonder if the sight of the Daoist Abbey makes Sun Wukong melancholic with thoughts of his first Shifu.

Clear Breeze, I most certainly prefer the J. F. Jenner and movie’s translation and technically also the German translation of Pure Wind, and Bright Moon are notably nicer in the novel than the adaptation. They only get rude when they actually have been wronged. Just looking at their movie counterparts, these aren’t the same kids.

Plants you say? Now don’t mind if I look them up! Spoilers this turned out a bit of a difficult ordeal so take all of this with a grain of salt.

For accuracy, spinach yes and celery yes.

Mare’s tail… maybe? My search came up with Beta vulgaris aka Chard/Swiss Chard instead, though both plants fall under the term vulgaris in their scientific name and are plausible options as they are both native to Western Asia. Since it is a vegetable garden for people however I might be inclined to personally go with Chard, in part also because I have eaten that vegetable before and it is not only quite tasty but also nutritional.

Funfact in German Chard is called Mangold, definitely sounds like a plant an immortal would eat. But again that’s just personal bias, in reality it could still be either.

Back to the list, I have no clue where beet comes from in this line, but ginger yes.

Seaweed no. It seems to actually be moss of some kind and I looked up as to possibly why it’s in this garden. Indeed certain types of moss are used for medicinal or culinary purposes in some cultures. But don’t go out and just eat moss you find in your garden! A lot of mosses are toxic and no good for eating, so be careful!

Bamboo shoot yes and melon yes. Squash, more like gourd, but technically yes. Watercress no, my research came up with wild rice instead, but watercress is still native to Asia as well.

Now for this next line I would like to remark that there is some potential difference in the Chinese Original. Chive technically yes the Google Translate said just onion though, garlic yes, coriander yes, leek and scallion technically yes though if the characters for those two are put together the translator says they translate to chives instead.

The second paragraph I will not touch as that one is more complex.

The local Tudi really tends to be the living loremaster, in a way that makes a lot of sense in world too, something I can always appreciate.

Heh, Sun Wukong doing a little trickshot with the mallet. Not that it worked, but he tried.

Sha Wujing being the good little brother getting roped into shenanigans by his older brothers. The feeling of found family is strong with this one.

At the end I would like to shill the movie a bit as I really like that one and it does make for quite a good companion piece for this Arc. It also has one of the best Sha Wujing designs in my opinion.

[patchdotexe]

OKAY. UM. so it's been Literally Like A Year Or Two since i last talked about Rescue in any detail (?!) so you guys get some unhinged rambling about furries

...UNDER THE CUT, BECAUSE THIS GOT LONG.

Sol, he/him: woke up one day in a weird abandoned lab with no idea how he got there or literally anything at all. and then found out that thanks to Dubious Science he is now unable to be killed. which is very cool except for the "i dont know where i am, apparently i've been missing for HALF A YEAR, and also now my blood is BLUE????" thing. originally stressed, sarcastic, and distrustful, but once he's in a safer environment he turns out to be warm-hearted if awkward and has trouble expressing his feelings. technically undead. Rescue's set in 2017ish so he's, like. 20. likes spicy food, space, and Sonic; dislikes bright red, jello, and sticky things.

Zyd, she/her: fellow lab experiment with a lot of knowledge on the projects the lab was undertaking before being abruptly abandoned. fills Sol in on the whole "yeah you can't be killed anymore, have fun with that" thing, has a more extreme form of it where she literally can't feel pain but regenerates super quickly. comes off as very self-confident and driven, but is actually exhausted and wants to go back to a normal life as much as Sol does. this rabbit has trauma. likes horror movies, loud music she can yell along to, and citrus; dislikes being touched (with exceptions), harsh noise, and shirts.

Tank, she/they/he: literally just kinda Shows Up, does terribly at getting in Sol's good books, and is just kinda running around Causing Problems on accident. initial impression of being airheaded and naive, but that starts to crack eventually bc it turns out they're an anxious mess with a super low opinion of herself. oops! also they broke in but are very avoidant on Why. manages to blunder her way into becoming good friends with Sol afterwards. likes rhythm games (bonds with Sol over them), speedcore, and shrimp; dislikes getting talked over, romcoms, and needles.

Monty, he/him: third member of the Lab Experiment Gang, although Sol doesn't get to meet him for a while due to Tank knocking things off course. chronically ill and willingly volunteered hoping it'd help, became friends with Zyd, and then things went Terribly Wrong. nonverbal. prefers communicating through text (they confiscated his phone). was a theater kid. i BARELY talk about him and he didnt pass the sexy lamp test for an uncomfortable amount of time despite his friendship with Zyd being incredibly important. likes gardening, Portal, and trashy YA fantasy; dislikes bananas.

CY, they/them: WHERE. IS MY ART OF THEM. DID I SERIOUSLY NOT SAVE RECENT STUFF INTO THE RESCUE FOLDER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA okay uh. CY is a hostile AI and the reason why the lab got abandoned - everything's in lockdown until they can figure out how to neutralize them, which is difficult when they've basically evolved into a virus that's taken over the lab's network and is trying to break through to the outside world. there is a lot more to them but they're kind of a mess. could probably be a notITG SRT villain.

Griffin, he/him: android assistant that is completely unaware the lab is abandoned because, like. the experiments patients are still there! somebody's gotta look after them! was very much not programmed to handle any of this and so is constantly frazzled and would like everyone to stop trying to break out, please. would also like everyone to stop trying to break IN, PLEASE, YES THAT MEANS YOU TANK. Zyd is very friendly with him, Sol has no idea what to make of him, CY fucking hates him. he's a... cat... dragon.. robot... thing..?

Seb: they/them, was named Sandblast until literally 5 minutes ago (originally was a Soundscapes character so theyre named after a song but got ported into Rescue years ago and i. never changed their name). trying very, Very hard to balance Griffin out, not really succeeding. has a lot of guilt about basically everything and is just trying to keep everything running smoothly. quiet and nervous. Wow I Wonder Which Leo Designed This Guy (it was pat)

there's also at least 3 more guys but one of them doesn't have proper art yet (Aloe, "sibling" to Seb and just kinda vibing her way through the whole situation), one of them barely has info at all and might be a backstory character, and the third one needs a huge overhaul. i swear to god ill do proper work on anybody that isn't the main trio (sol/zyd/tank) and CY someday

[ckneal]

So, there’s this one angel story in the back of my head that I know I wont write. I wont write it, because it’s utter nonsense, with very little regard for the canonical timeline of Supernatural, and a willfully blurry view on what is and is not “in character.” It’s fluff. It’s all fluff, in the form of a bunch of smaller stories that gradually weave together, following the Love, Actually style of storytelling, but instead of problematic love stories, it’s all about angels playing hooky from Heaven after the Fall.

(Seriously, there is no substance here, I swear.)

Stories include Abner, living out the first half of the movie Family Man, struggling to figure out how to be a good father and house husband after he steps into the life of the raging alcoholic who agreed to be his vessel. There’s also a very minor story about Esther (not to be confused with Hester, who is not in this story because she never deserted her post in Heaven) learning to play the part of a little girl and navigating schoolyard politics, but kids can be mean and Esther learns the hard way that Michael’s approach to asserting dominance in Heaven does not translate well. There’s also Daniel and Adina, who both settle into vessels in the same movie theater where a romantic comedy is playing, and fall into a very innocent, play-acting sort of love after they leave the theatre—like little kids pretending to be in love, recreating the scenes from the movie, but at the same time not really understanding it. Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael each trying to roll with the luxurious high roller life style, and awkwardly running into each other at VIP poker games, exclusive spas and clubs, and the occasional orgy that they promptly leave IMMEDATELY after running into a sibling (don’t give me weird looks, Balthazar and Gabriel canonically include that sort of thing in their definition of luxury, and the whole thing of their story is their siblings keep cramping their style). Tyrus is in there bowling, somewhere. Benjamin’s playing arcade games with his wife. And then there’s Thaddeus, my pet favorite minor angel character, realizing what’s happening as he’s falling with all the other faithful angels during the Fall and seizing the opportunity to abandon his life as a guard and torturer, settling into a pop star for his vessel—initially for the sake of the cushy lifestyle, but then gradually looking back, before the garden and Lucifer, before everyone was assigned a job in Heaven, like it or not, and the options were to adapt or to be smote, and remembering that back then, he could sing.

And of course, Michael and Adam get a story too—in which Michael lowkey gets into a pissing contest with death, as he and Adam travel the world, hitting up hospital after hospital to heal people. Because the first thing Adam wanted to do after getting out of the cage (okay, second thing—burgers came first) was go to the nearest medical center and start healing people left and right. And at first, they’re having a great time. Adam steals a white jacket he finds in the breakroom somewhere, and anytime someone says he looks a little young to be a doctor (Adam still looking nineteen years old, because I say so), Michael wipes the poor sap’s mind. But eventually—sometime after they’ve cleared out the children’s ward, the cancer ward, the cardiac ward—Billie shows up, sniping at them that they can’t just go around healing people who are destined to die, because there is an order to life and death that cannot be shoved aside. And Billie tries to make a show of it, as Terra did with Dean, by having several people who Adam had healed over the course of the day inadvertently cause several massive accidents. The news suddenly comes pouring out of the television, channels flipping as newscasters talk about tragedies occurring in several different parts of the city they’re currently in. The sound of approaching ambulance sirens fills the air, as in the hospital hallway, doctors and nurses begin hurrying to receive a rush of ER patients.

Adam’s horrified.

Michael does not take kindly to this. He snaps his fingers and makes it so that the carnage has never happened. Because he is the archangel Michael, only two steps away from being a god, and if he says that all of these people are going to live, then they are going to live, and he WILL NOT be intimidated, especially by an amateur reaper whose only qualification for her position was dying at the right time.

Billie in turn lands Michael with a cold stare, and points out that the order to life and death is beyond even God’s authority, let alone daddy’s blunt, sniveling instrument.

As Michael’s eyes start to glow, Adam steps in and says, “So, to be clear, you want us to stop healing people on the verge of death? We can do that.”

After Billie leaves, Michael is outraged, but Adam says, “No, Michael, THINK about it.”

We then cut to other stories, where newscasts in the background reveal that ailments that are not IMMIEDATELY fatal (AIDs, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.) are mysteriously disappearing overnight, worldwide.

Billie is not amused, and tells her reapers to be on the lookout for an archangel at every major hospital in the world.

Cut to Michael throwing open the door of the bunker, muttering aloud to Adam that he’s going to do it, he’s going to bind Death, just like Lucifer did—how hard can it be? Sam and Dean see him as he goes stomping off toward the cabinet where they keep all of their magical dry goods, but Michael snaps his fingers and the two of them are abruptly half drunk in Dean’s man cave, sitting in front of Dean’s flat screen TV, watching some campy monster movie, because that’s lowkey what Michael and Adam assume they do all day.

As they’re raiding Sam and Dean’s supplies though, Adam says, “Wait, I have an idea.”

Cut to Abner looking up while pushing his vessel’s daughter in a park swing, and literally seeing Michael and Adam chasing an ambulance, so they can technically heal the person inside before reaching the hospital.

Yes, I’m aware that Abner was dead by the time Michael and Adam got out of the cage. But see, this story? This story is like when someone gifts you a goldfish unexpectedly, and you put it in a bowl, checking in to feed it a couple times a day, lowkey expecting it to die. But it doesn’t die, it gets bigger. And you’re not a cruel person, so you put it in a bigger tank, but it just gets bigger again, and you don’t really know what’s going on, but you know, you just kind of keep checking in, meeting the minimum requirements but not really getting in there as a guiding force because it’s a goldfish and it’s surely going to die any minute now—but then you look over and there’s giant tank taking up your living room, and you’re thawing out bloodworms twice a day, and looking into tankmates to keep Charles company, and realize that “Oh wow, I guess this is a thing now.”

In short, the story says we’re ignoring the timeline, and it’s calling the shots. I’m just keeping the tank clean.

The angels all eventually wind up running into each other. Abner and Esther happen upon one another in a park, where Esther is morosely realizing that she is terrible at being a human child but she does not want to go home to Heaven, and it just happens to be the same park where Abner goes with his “little nibblet” once a day to let her toddle around the playground while he chats with nannies and other house parents. Anael, Adina, and Daniel meet up when the latter two’s game has reached the point where they’ve decided to get married, and they apparently need to buy something new—preferably blue—as per this very important rhyme someone told them about. Esther and Gabriel run into each other in an ice cream parlor. Thaddeus gets recognized while doing an interview on TV that everyone sees. And, while out joyriding in a Lamborghini, on their way to meet up with the growing community of angels who decided to opt out of their responsibility to Heaven and their father’s legacy, Balthazar, Gabriel, and Anael are all startled to see Michael land on an ambulance stopped next to them at a red light.

Balthazar and Anael are both terrified, as if they’ve just been busted by a parent, because Michael, of course, is the guy who enforces the rules, and isn’t he supposed to be in Hell? They both shoot Gabriel looks as if to say ‘what the hell are you doing’ when Gabriel, watching as Michael climbs down and matter-of-factly wrenches the ambulance doors open, calls out, “Hey, Mike! Is that you?”

Michael looks over, freezes for a second—not prepared to be suddenly thrust into a social situation in the middle of his self-imposed mission to spite death—then his eyes flash and Adam takes over. “Oh hey, you’re Michael’s family? What a small world! I’m Adam, I’ve heard so much about you. Wait, hang on—”

The light starts to turn green, but Adam snaps his fingers and it promptly reverts to red.

Three jaws drop in the luxury car, and they don’t even hear Adam politely explain that he and Michael are in the middle of something, as he ducks into the ambulance, because Michael’s evidently letting a tiny human use his powers like it’s nothing, and what does that mean?

“Sweet dad in the unknown, Michael’s shagging a human. . .”

“Nooo!”

“HOW?”

“Hey, kid, you like weddings?”

At some point in the story, all the MIA angels are together, and Benjamin or someone comes running in saying, “Quick, they’re coming! Everyone hide!”

And everyone scatters, except for Michael, who stands in place, saying, “Gabriel, we’re archangels, two of the most powerful beings in existence. Why would we—”

And then Gabriel picks Adam up like a sack of potatoes and sprints off, calling back, “Trust me, you do NOT want to get involved with them!”

Being a projection, Michael is obligated to follow.

Team Free Will then walks by, looking constipated from whatever Big Awful Thing is currently threatening to destroy the world.

The story, of course, culminates in the wedding of Adina and Daniel, who still don’t quite understand what marriage is beyond promising to love each forever, which of course they will, after all, they are the very best of friends—which is about the same concept that most of the other angels present have. Adam is the first one to actually approach the big awkward question, upon finding out who the bride and groom are.

“Wait, aren’t they brother and sister?”

To which Serafina’s Adam, (who is of course there since Serafina was the original angel to play hooky) whose sons married his daughters, and all the angels, who do not understand what that has to do with anything, all cock their heads in unison and respond with, “So?”

Adam struggles to find words, looking into so many innocent faces. Then Benjamin’s wife puts a hand on his shoulder, whispering, “Shhh, let them have their fun.”

Benjamin’s wife and the two Adams wind up sitting at the venue’s bar, where they order nachos from a very confused bar tender, and watch as the angels go about setting up a wedding. But given that most angels haven’t been on earth regularly in roughly two thousand years, none of them have a clear grasp of what a human wedding entails.

“I heard it’s traditional for the father to give away the bride.”

“I think they’re supposed to kiss over bread.”

“Do humans still slaughter cows at these things?”

“I’m pretty sure someone is supposed to break a glass—”

Several angels promptly throw glassware on the floor.

At no point do the angels ask the humans for advice.

Occasionally, Gabriel knowingly throws out obscure details to keep the confusion going.

“You know, the groom needs to stand with the right arm to the aisle in case a sword fight breaks out.”

“Right! . . .How do we know which one’s the groom?”

At the bar, Adam open’s his mouth to say something, but the original Adam shushes him.

“No no, son, let them get there.”

The angels agree that being the better fighter, Adina should be the groom.

They’re nearly ready to start when Michael suddenly doubles over with his hand over his mouth. It coincides with the sound of Adam pounding the bar top, having just eaten a Carolina Reaper pepper on dare. Michael’s eyes quickly flash silver-blue as he straightens, and both he and Adam are abruptly fine—even if their eyes are still watering somewhat. But a different sort of damage has already been done, as Anael, Balthazar, and Gabriel all abruptly turn toward the triad of humans, having been reminded that the Michael walking around with them is actually a projection. In actuality, Michael is anchored to the human ex-college student sitting at the bar.

All three of them rush toward Adam, but Serafina gets there first, asking Adam if he’s ever tried mushroom tea.

Balthazar gets there next. 

“Adam, was it? We didn’t get to talk in the car, let’s fix that. Are you over twenty-one? You know what, this is a family affair, don’t worry—CAN I GET TWO SHOTS OF DON JULIO OVER HERE?”

From that point on, any time Adam turns around, there’s one of Michael’s siblings, wanting to get to know him—by consuming some sort of beverage. Because Adam and Michael are sharing body—and that means they share a liver too. A bet ensues as to how much it will take to get God’s alleged favorite wasted.

Gabriel’s actually one of the first out, having been convinced that Michael would be a lightweight. Little does he suspect that Benjamin and his wife caught onto what was happening soon after Adam was fed his third long island iced tea and second jager bomb, and began quietly cleansing the alcohol from his system through casual shoulder pats and high fives.

Adam does not know what to make of any of this, but it’s Michael’s family and he wants to make a good impression, so he just goes with it.

Thaddeus, of course, is in charge of music, Gabriel and Esther consume the majority of the cake, and Michael catches the bouquet (he may have cheated after finding out what the bouquet toss is for).

[concerningwolves]

Hey I'm doing a short story for class about an autistic girl who discovers she have telekinesis and I want to knows how to portray her properly and how beint autustic affect her powets with makint autism sounds baf

Hi anon! I’m very sorry if I’m answering this too late for you; I barely had time to even look at my inbox in October and November, and then when I got time to do so this month, I got overwhelmed by the backlog. Nonetheless, I’ll answer this and hope that even if it’s too late for your original purpose, something in it will help you (/help anyone else who reads this) :]

AUTISM, SUPERPOWERS & FAIR REPRESENTATION

Okay, so, the basic answer to “how not to make autism sound bad” is approach the story with compassion and/or empathy – but that’s a very broad answer and probably not overly helpful for specifics. I’ll start with the “how to represent autism well” part and then break down the superpower-specific stuff from there.

1) Autism should be an integral part of your characters’ personhood, but not their entire personality

As an autistic, I struggle to define where my autism ends and my personhood (i.e., my sense of the “self”) begins, because they’re so deeply entwined with one another.  Autism is a condition that alters how I think and interact with the world, and therefore profoundly impacts how I perceive both myself and the things around me. That doesn’t mean, however, that my only personality trait is autism. It all gets very convoluted and existential – would I still be ‘me’ if you removed autism? What is ‘me’? Is it even fair to think of autism as a separate Thing? – but it is worth considering if you want to get inside your autistic character’s head.

A trap that allistic creators tend to fall into is “this character likes [X] / does [X] because they are autistic”. For example, I once saw someone say that their OC likes blue because it’s a calming colour and therefore sensory-safe. This is a valid process on its own: I also like pale blue (+ other pastel shades) because it’s a sensory-safe colour! But where many allistics fall down is in not considering that an autistic character’s likes, dislikes and hobbies don’t have to relate to their autism.

Although the show has its flaws, I do think that Sam Gardener from Netflix’s Atypical is a positive example of an autistic character just liking something because they like it. His special interest is all to do with penguins and antartic wildlife/explorations, and he also enjoys art as a hobby because... he just does. That’s not to say these things don’t intersect – he takes a scientific illustration class in college precisely because it combines two things he likes; it’s also fair to say that autism gives him an edge in drawing because autism brain is excellent at grasping theory/technicalities. But ultimately it’s nice to have an autistic character whose interests and personality traits go beyond the stereotypical special interest.

For more on representing autistic characters, check out [this post] where I go into a bit more depth. (NOTE: that post is on my list of things that I want to revise/rewrite/flesh out, so it might change soon, but the basic stuff is still the same).

2) Autism isn’t inherently “bad” – but that doesn’t mean it’s without issues, either

Autism is not the devastating tragedy that neurotypicals like to present, but it does come with its own difficulties and pitfalls that you should acknowledge if you want to write a well-rounded autistic character. There’s often discourse/debates on my dash about whether it’s fair to call autism a disability. I’d say it is – there are definitely aspects of autism that are disabling, i.e., sensory overload, burnout, trouble communicating, etc. – but it isn’t a disability in the way that allistics/abled people think.  

Some aspects of autism are “double edged”, in that they have useful and troublesome sides. Speaking for myself, hyper-empathy means that I’m good at grasping why emotions Do The Thing, which is incredibly useful in filling in gaps in my social sense! But. It also means that I struggle to draw a line between my own emotions and someone else’s, and am simply awful at creating healthy emotional boundaries. As the writer, you create good representation by showing both sides. Let your character have meltdowns! Let them have trouble in social situations! Let them get burnt out or overwhelmed! But also make sure to show that this doesn’t make them inherently burdensome to other characters, and explore the good/neutral aspects of autism, too.

3) So, how would all of this impact superpowers?

A lot of that depends on your world’s magic/superpower system. Some things to consider are:

Does your character need to be concentrating?

Do emotions influence how controlled the power is?

Does the power take a physical or mental toll on the user?

etc.

These are laws you ought to think about as part of worldbuilding, regardless of a characters’ neurotype or ability, but I do believe that autism will have an impact on how a character interacts with their powers. For example, many autistic people have difficulty with fine motor skills and spatial awareness, either as part of autism or due to a co-existing condition [1]. This could theoretically cause trouble if a character needs to gauge personal space/use spatial perception when using telekinesis to direct objects. Where emotions effect a power, emotional dysregulation or rejection sensitive dysphoria could also come into play by disrupting a characters’ concentration or control. 

Make sure to show your character working with or around these sorts of issues, and keep a balance between the pros and cons. If sensory input throws off her concentration, what are ways she can get around that? Earplugs for noise, dark glasses for light sensitivity, seamless clothes, headphones... etc etc. On the more negative side, I can only imagine the chaos I might cause during a meltdown if I had telekinesis: objects flying everywhere, lightbulbs bursting, general pandemonium. That said, telekinesis would be great if I could levitate myself and just hang there without any sensory input. Also useful if I needed to get stuff and didn’t have the energy to move because of burnout, or if I could use telekinesis to “weigh down” a blanket on top of me during meltdowns. There are some really fun possibilities here! 

Another way to avoid showing autism as a burden/something bad is to give your character a support network and/or accommodations in the story. Have your character find ways to work around issues just like a neurotypical person would, yes, but also have other characters be understanding and ready to help. Thriving support systems are just as important as the autistic character themself.

Basically, address the fact that some aspects of autism are difficult to cope with/require aid but don't overtly focus on that, you know? Your character can get upset, frustrated, or be resigned. She can beat herself up! All autistic people live with this feeling of "not good enough". But show her overcoming this, show her with a good support system, and show her being a person as complex and developed as any other character.

FOOTNOTE(S)

[1] general practise in diagnostic circles is to avoid diagnosing with things like dyspraxia if another developmental disorder is present (i.e., autism), but we’re still learning about what the big ice-cream bar of autism actually covers. What traits an autistic person has can vary hugely from one person to another.

[popwasabi]

“Who are you?” The scene that defines Chadwick Boseman’s legacy

Yesterday, the world lost a bright and promising, burgeoning talent in Chadwick Boseman.

I had wondered privately for a while if something was wrong with him, as others had as well online, as he appeared increasingly sicker with each interview he gave over the last two years. I thought maybe I had been looking too much into it, not wanting to jump to conclusions about who he was but now gravely we all know why.

The much too young star of films such as “42,” “Marshall,” and of course, “Black Panther” had been fighting a largely private battle with colon cancer for four years.

It was devastating hearing this news yesterday, the man who undeniably left behind a legacy of playing prominent black heroes, both historical and fictional, passed away just as he was starting to truly hit it big. When you begin to realize the man was dealing with cancer as he performed physically demanding roles in the MCU you begin to see the character and determination of a man unwilling to quit in the face of true adversity.

But he clearly wasn’t just doing it for himself when he continued making and promoting NINE more movies despite his diagnosis, afterall no one would’ve blamed the guy for taking it easy these past four years. He’s had many scenes that define his legacy over his all too short career but I feel it can really be summed up in one particular moment from by far his most famous film; “Black Panther.”

Those who know me or have read my work know that I have a fairly cynical relationship with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While I would not say most of them are “bad” per se, I would say a ton of them are largely interchangeable action comedies with pretty straightforward messages about good vs evil for general audiences. They are largely popcorn escapism and though there is nothing technically wrong with that, I was starved for an MCU film that was sincere about its story finally and had something real to say.

Enter “Black Panther” in early 2018.

“Black Panther” was everything I had long been waiting for in the MCU; a film with a real sense of vision and theme, a killer soundtrack, great supporting characters, a complicated and nuanced villain, and a story that didn’t feel the need to add a joke after every single scene like more typical MCU movies. The tip of that spear of course was Chadwick, who had already proved to be a great Black Panther in one of the few other sincere Marvel flicks “Civil War.” His natural charisma, physicality, and dramatic presence in this role made him a huge standout in frankly the best ensemble cast of any superhero movie ever.

The scene that truly sums up not just the mark “Black Panther” left on Hollywood but Chadwick’s own legacy comes at the very end though (the first of three, of course. It’s an MCU movie, afterall).

T’Challa has defeated his usurper cousin Erik Killmonger, his rule restored in Wakanda but clearly a changed man from the story’s beginning as he reckons with the complicated legacy of his father. He travels to Oakland, the birthplace of Killmonger, with his sister Shuri who he explains the crime committed by their father in this place and how it set off the events of the story. He turns to Shuri, tells her that he has decided to help this afflicted community by creating a Wakandan outreach center for the youth to give them a new hope in life. As he says this he decloaks their ship nearby, surprising the youth already in the area who are immediately in awe of it. One of the kids turns to T’Challa, smiling, a sense of inspiration and intrigue brewing inside, and asks “Who are you?” to which the young King simply smiles, then the credits roll.

It’s a simple scene but it truly speaks to the impact left behind by Chadwick and the importance of representation. 

“Black Panther” is hardly the first starring vehicle for a black man, it’s not even the first black super hero movie but what it made it different is it was the first blockbuster to truly lean unapologetically into its African identity to focus on the inspiration of a story centered around that culture. It showed Hollywood that an action blockbuster not just centered on a black star but centered on African culture had vast widespread appeal.

White kids will never have a shortage of white superheroes to grow up with on the big screen; a diverse palette of Supermans, Spider-mans, Captain Americas, and shit we’re even getting our sixth new Batman actor since 1989 soon. But Chadwick gave black kids their first real Superman of their own. 

In the years since this came out, I have seen the influence, at times, firsthand among the youth. I work part-time as a kids martial arts instructor and each Halloween party we’ve held I’ve seen a few more T’Challas among the costumes represented. When I ask kids, black, white, or Asian, what their favorite superhero is, it always warms my heart to see a kid light up when they say “BLACK PANTHER!”

(Seriously, cute AF)

This goes beyond just my anecdotal observations of course; the film grossed a billion dollars, and there are countless videos online of kids yelling “Wakanda forever!” at the top of their lungs while rocking a Black Panther suit or reciting one of the movie’s memorable lines. It’s beautiful because it speaks to that last scene’s key message; inspiration.

Growing up myself, as a half Asian American, there weren’t a ton of role models who looked like me to take inspiration from. I didn’t really understand how much this could affect me until I finally did start seeing people like myself occupy positions of influence. I didn’t start caring for baseball until I saw a slugger named Hideki Matsui smash a couple dingers in a Yankees’ uniform in the early 2000s. I didn’t care much for martial arts, outside my very early youth, until I witnessed a half Japanese Brazilian named Lyoto Machida KO Thiago Silva at UFC 94 in 2009. I didn’t care much for soccer until a striker named Keisuke Honda played out of his mind in the early rounds of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Sometimes you gotta see something happen in order to believe and be inspired by it and it’s easier to visualize it when you see someone who looks like you do it. That’s what representation means and why it’s important.

It’s easy for white America to dismiss the need for representation in media when theirs is so saturated in the culture everyday. Cries of “wHaT aBoUt wHiTe HiStORy mOnTH?!” delivered unironically while their history is proudly given front seat consideration in all forms of media, film, and influence every day. This is why it drives me so crazy when a white person tells me “representation isn’t important” because apparently, they “don’t need it.”

Well motherfucker, of course you don’t need it. You fucking got yours already!

(What every non-white person wants to say when confronted with this tired, out of touch argument...)

“Black Panther” delivered a superhero that not only black children could be proud of and love but someone they could draw inspiration from. Kids are going to want to become film directors cause of this movie, actors, stuntmen, martial artists, scientists, engineers, and so many other different things that the world of Wakanda proudly showcases and it’s all thanks to Chadwick’s leading man performance that made it possible.

Some jokes I’ve heard frequently on the internet is that Chadwick was on somewhat of a quest to play every major black role in story-telling history, what with performances as Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, James Brown, and of course Black Panther. But I think his 2018 speech at his Alma Mater of Howard really explains why he kept looking to play these major positive black roles.

(I encourage you to listen to the whole thing but the part that’s important here begins at 21:55)

Hollywood likes to pigeon hole certain demographics of people (aka non-white) to play stereotypical roles forever until they are proven to be lucrative in different ways (Qualified Immunity of film-making if you will…). Black people largely could mostly play thugs and drug dealers, Latinx can only be gang bosses and poor servants and gardeners, Asians are either kung fu masters or some other offensive perpetual foreigner. And in worst cases no role at all, instead whitewashed for general audiences (aka white folk). 

Chadwick took a stand that the color of his skin did not define who Hollywood narrowly believed he could perform as and set out to play characters and people who could inspire a new generation of African Americans and show the rest of the country that they were more than a stereotype.

When that young kid in that final scene asks, “Who are you?” and T’Challa smiles its because he knows he’s already changing hearts and minds for the future, just as Chadwick did playing this truly inspirational role.

“Black Panther” is not a perfect movie. I could discuss the ways it could’ve been better and even, less problematic in parts on a different day, but the legacy it leaves behind is one that’s undeniably positive and Chadwick was able to make that a reality. Perhaps he understood that if the world knew his diagnosis it would blunt the impact of “Black Panther’s” release, that if little kids and African Americans alike knew their superhero was already dying it would mar the film’s positivity and influence. I can’t speak for the dead obviously, and in no way am I saying one should just push through a cancer diagnosis and keep it secret, but I can see Chadwick understanding what it would mean for the audience if they just believed for as long as possible that they would have their king of Wakanda forever.

As Robert Downey Jr. said on social media last night “He leveled the playing field while fighting for his life.”

Though I will never know him personally, by most measures Chadwick seemed to be exactly the kind of hero he showed up to be on the big screen and his legacy will ultimately be that of one who looked to inspire others, particularly the next generation until his final breath. If that doesn’t make him a hero, I don’t know what does.

Rest in power, King. Wakanda Forever…

(Via BossLogic)

[the-resurrection-3d]

Shipping meme 12, 21

Was seriously worried for a second that this was about the CWC stuff lmaoooooo

12. What drives you away from a ship?

That's a good question! This answer got long because I thought about LHA and saw red, so I'm putting it all under a readmore.

My immediate thought would be "that's not enemies-to-lovers, that's just being a cunt (and not even the fun kind)." A good example would be The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson, which I literally had to ragequit several years ago because all the relationship development up to that point had just been the main guy ignoring the narrator's obvious distress and repeated attempts to tell him to fuck off so that he could disrespect her boundaries, physically grab her, and then trick her into going on a first date with him. After all these years, I have no goddamn tolerance left for shitty, one-sided relationships in YA. Maybe the book got better and deconstructed his behavior later on, maybe I just missed something, I don't care to find out because YA Books Cannot Be Trusted Like That. Far as I'm concerned Wintergirls is the only book Anderson's written that's worth a damn, anyway.

And this might seem like a weird thing to be upset over considering I literally just recommended a fic where Hermione has her body and life literally torn apart by Lucius Malfoy, but I think it's important to note that Eden holds Lucius accountable and never, ever pretends the relationship could truly work.

(A quote from the epilogue: "Can you imagine Lucius and Hermione being together in the outside world? Buying a house together, having children, and getting a dog? Lucius making Hermione breakfast in bed? Arguing about the mortgage and sitting in the garden drinking tea? It would never have worked.")

It's because the narratives truly recognize the fucked-up nature of their characters that these relationships can even be interesting. Imagine Hannigram if everyone on the show just acted like murder and cannibalism were completely fine. It would certainly be funny, but not nearly as interesting. (This is also why I prefer YinxYuck over Yoop even though both involving teenage boys violating a teenage girl's consent/trust. The fact that Yin was so quick to forgive Coop but not Yuck could have been interesting, but because that double standard is seemingly not recognized by the narrative, I'm pushed into the less charitable reading that it was just a lazy, off-screen redemption to force the ship to work. Yoop is also just a far less interesting ship for a myriad of other small reasons, but I hope you see where I'm coming from here.)

This also, to a lesser degree, applies to ship fandoms-- there have been plenty of ships where I could see myself liking it, ways it could be interesting, but everyone who's already into it is just there for the fetish porn. Cool for you. But no thanks.

(Completely one-sided power dynamics are also a turn-off-- if I'm gonna be in this for the long haul, then one character needs to eventually get some level of (at least) emotional power to wield against their lover/captor, even if physically they're completely at the lover's mercy. Will manipulating both Rat Boy Whose Name I Can't Remember Right Now and Hannibal while in jail. Yin outsmarting Yuck time and again even though he's physically and magically stronger than her, to the point that he doesn't even seem to really notice that Yang's there most of the time. Stuff like that.)

While we could further dive into genre and the different levels of realism within these stories, the more important element is just the fact that Knife guy had no personality outside of harassing her. Deadass that is all he did in the book. Where's the flavor. This tastes like fucking sand.

[I should probably also note that "stuff I write content for" and "stuff I ship" can be two different things-- I wrote a Ren/Strade ficlet once, but I don't really ship it, and I think Ren's a much better character in BTD 2 explicitly because Strade's dead. When it comes to stuff like BTD or even some of my old Tordtryck stuff, it's more about inhabiting the perspective of an abuse victim rather than shipping, if that makes sense.]

21. Have you ever received hate for a ship you liked?

Directly? Technically yes, once, but it was only a young kid bringing up Ye Olde Paultryck discourse to me, and I just tried to politely explain that I wasn't interested in rehashing that drama. Because I get it! There's a lot of context that's been lost here, and if you're just a young tween getting into this show, the accusations being made against shippers are quite upsetting! But that wasn't so much hate as concern.

There's also of course the indirect "paul and pat both hate the ship," "you're shipping real people," "you're shipping a dead man's oc" kinda hate that most every shipper in the EW fandom's seen at least once.

I think I've largely avoided hate by a) being irrelevant lmao and b) most of my ships being acceptable enough within their own fandoms. (Catradora is a five-season nightmare and YinxYuck is arguably incest, but both are so popular within their respective communities that sending someone hate for them is gonna get you laughed out of the room.)

I hope that all made sense, lol. Thank you for the ask!

[whyhellomynameismary]

Like what you see? Wanna see more spooky?

So as a result of the Film Theory video, I’ve gotten a large influx of followers, and as I’ve just started my new post-grad day job, I haven’t really had the time to address this. So first off:

Hi! I’m k! It’s very nice to meet you all and I’m very glad you’re here! There’s two more episodes left in the series and I’m happy I’ll have this lovely community to end it with!

Now onto more important matters:

Do you like this kinda content? Do you want to see more weird/wacky internet storytelling?

Well, I want to do my favorite thing which is divert attention from me onto other people!

Let this be your reference post! I present to you:

k.’s Megamasterlist Of Cool Spooky Shit Online

So, if we’re gonna start with anything, it feels only right to start with the strange collection of webseries/arg’s that made me want to make a webseries of my own - The Slenderverse! Everyone knows Slender Man, the meme, but if you don’t know him as a webseries icon, check these out!

Marble Hornets: The OG, the first Slender Man related webseries ever made. Film boi disappears, leaves tapes to his friend, hilarity ensues. Hilarity, in this case, refers to terror, fear, stalking, murder, and all those other super-fun things.

TribeTwelve: Tribetwelve is (UPDATE since I forgot this was here, as of Nov 9, 2020, I’m taking most of my info off this section. I’m keeping this on the list because so many people have bonded with the art itself, but the creator has been revealed to have done some really terrible things, so that should be kept in mind when choosing to engage with this series.)

Everymanhybrid: A rad storytelling venture with a real neat plot and a very compelling cast of characters. They did some pretty rad ARG stuff too, while they were still ongoing.

Darkharvest: It’s got a, uh, CULT following. (I’m booing myself).

MLAndersen0: Brothers, suspenders, and Slendy, oh my!

Whisperedfaith: Technically about The Rake, but it tends to fall in with the ‘verse too - More Cults! Also this guy directed a whole damn movie - Lillith!

The Record Of Stan Frederick: A total complete standout, taking on a dramatic, very cinematic tone that gets me every time. Every episode was very well built and had me hooked deeply. It can get heavy, but the story and themes are exceptionally well done.

Keratin Garden:  I Came Out To Learn About How To Paint My Nails And Slender Man Is Making Me Feel Really Attacked Right Now. Also, it’s just really nice to see lady-led slenderseries.

There’s TONS more in the ‘verse - it’s a crazy rabbit hole of what is effectively an open-source monster. Got a cool recommendation? Drop it in the comments!!

WHAT’S THAT? SLENDER MAN IS COOL, BUT YOU WANT EVEN MORE? MAYBE SLENDER MEN AREN’T YOUR JAM? Well good thing there’s a huge amount of other great ARGs, webseries, and online storytelling experiences out there. Here’s a big sampling:

Daisy Brown: A gem of a webseries. I adore this story so much. Beauty and baby monsters. Go watch this and go give the creator all of your love. Also she’s involved in another series - Echo Rose!

Alantutorial: A strange man teaches you basic life skills. Made by Alan Resnick, a creative genius also involved in Wham City Comedy and AB Video Solutions.

2h32: I love the aesthetic of this one, like cosmic horror meets gothic romanticism meets 1930s radio - very Art Horror.

Archive Enrichment Center: Somebody put cameras in this kids house - who are they? Why are you creeping on a random person trying to live their life? What sort of strange goings on are happening in this house? Strange organizations? whack

POSTContent: More spooky tutorials, god I need to catch up on this one it’s so well done and very engaging.

CH/SS: A strange tv program, russians, and possibly a strange entity? This one is a wild ride that’s mind bogglingly fascinating.

TheSunVanished: A twitter account in an alternate universe wherein the sun just yeets itself somewhere else, or so we think - aliens? What’s happening in this timeline?

Petscop: If you’re here from Film Theory, you’ve probably already heard of this one. I really need to catch up more on this one.

Soursalt: If you like gore, this one’s for you - the creator pushes his series so far Mr. Youtube has gotten mad at him for it.

Monarch’s 52 - I haven’t gotten around to watching this one in full, but I think it involves the SCP foundation!

That’s just a small sampling of the dozens of works out there - there’s no doubt I’m forgetting some, and that’s where you guys come in! If there’s something cool out there you wanna share, drop it in the replies here! Also let me know if I screwed up the links, cuz that was a LOT of them. In this house, we’re all about spreading the love and spooky. There’s tons of other great things out there, just waiting for you to find it!

Fly, be free my scary ducklings!

Much love, 

-k. 

[dawning-star]

LFRP - Rinalys Dawnstar {Updated}

Basics –––– ✢

▌NICKNAMES: Rin

▌AGE: 28 or so

▌RACE: Au Ra - Xaela

▌GENDER: Female

▌SEXUALITY: Heterosexual

▌MARITAL STATUS: Single. 

▌SERVER: Balmung - Crystal Data Center

Physical Appearance –––– ♤

▌HAIR: Rose colored pink, reaching down to around her chest. Usually worn up these days

▌EYES: Lilac, with violet limbal rings

▌HEIGHT: 4 fulm, 10 ilms

▌BUILD: Lean. Toned enough to maintain her dexterity.

▌DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Rinalys has a number of scars along her back in particular, remnants of her time in servitude. As of late, she has become less hesitant to show them, but will not quickly answer questions about them unless she trusts a person. The palm of her left hand is also heavily scarred, branded and cut. Each wound on her has a story, and many of them are, in fact, linked ot her past.

▌COMMON ACCESSORIES: Her left hand will always be gloved.

Personal –––– ♢

▌PROFESSION: Member of the Midnight Pearl, Part-time Associate of Priarch Enterprises. Formerly a mercenary

▌HOBBIES: Gardening. People watching. Information seeking. Social drinking.  

▌LANGUAGES: Eorzea Common, Xaelan

▌RESIDENCE:  Sealight Estate, though she also has a small home of her own in the Mist.

▌BIRTHPLACE: The Azim Steppe

▌RELIGION: She has a very basic belief in Azim and Nhaama. Mostly learned through childhood stories. However she’s lived in Eorzea longer than the steppe so that’s minimal at best.

▌FEARS: Being Abandoned. Feeling helpless. Death (at least a little). The past catching up with her. Abnormally large insects that should be set on fire ASAP.

Relationships –––– ♡

▌SPOUSE: None.

▌CHILDREN: None.

▌PARENTS: They exist, technically. She hasn’t been with them for most of her life, however. Their whereabouts are currently unknown, but presumed to still be the Steppe.

▌SIBLINGS: None that she’s aware of

▌OTHER RELATIVES: None.

Traits –––– ♧

extroverted / introverted / in between

disorganized / organized / in between

close minded / open-minded / in between

calm / anxious / in between

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient / in between

outspoken / reserved / in between

leader / follower / in between

empathetic / unemphatic / in between

optimistic / pessimistic / in between

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy / in between

cultured / un-cultured / in between

loyal / disloyal / in between

faithful / unfaithful / in between

Vices / Flaws –––– ♠

▌SMOKING: never / sometimes (very rare) / frequently / to excess.

▌DRUGS: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess.

▌ALCOHOL: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

▌OTHER FLAWS: Stubborn to a fault. Can be hotheaded under the right circumstances. Frequently short on gil for basic necessities. Illiterate. Is also a little bit of a troublemaker when the mood arises.

Possible Hooks –––– ♦

The Midnight Pearl - Saviors from hard times of her own, she once sought sanctuary within their walls. In time and in getting to know the others she would join their ranks herself, seeking to grow and become something more. As such she can often be seen in events that they may hold, or other business they conduct.

Priarch Enterprises - At best she’s employed in Edarien’s care part time, coming and going as her whims see fit. Anyone in contact with the company has likely heard mention of Rin in passing. Maybe a story or two about her temper and something she might have beheaded.

Taverns - She’s a bit notorious for being at the bar a little frequently. Rinalys has her fair share of tabs racked up, but finds it a good place to gather information. Of course the fun that comes from mingling there is important too.

The Wandering Kind - Despite a home of her own these days, this girl is one who can’t seem to stay in one locale for too long, which means that she might just end up in your neighborhood. How long she stays is another matter.

What I’m looking for –––– ♥

Mostly, to expand the number of contacts that I have and open up doors for possible interactions outside of my current ones. I tend to keep to myself and am hoping to change that even a little. IC or OOC alike.

New friends, possibly ships, I’m pretty open to stuff admittedly. Anything deep requires familiarity and communication before I’m likely to go with it. I’ve been burned at least a couple times. 

I’m all for pre-established relationships as well or establishing a job network for her. In the past she’s been a mercenary as well as a member of the Rogue’s guild, beyond being a former slave. There’s a large amount of wiggle room in it too given her tendency to not stick to one place. 

Out of Character –––– ♣

I get anxious. This can ease up once I’ve gotten to know a person. Groups/Events can take a lot of working up to go to, however. I’ve been better about it recently. Usually.

I also am very prone to getting distracted by things and can easily throw myself into something that wasn’t what I intended to do for hours on end.

My work schedule might make it a bit difficult for consistent RP. I tend to be scheduled where I’m on for 7 days, and then off the next 7 for ten hour shifts at a go. So patience is a must if you do want to make plans.

Most RP will generally be in game or on Discord, if it happens.

Contact Information –––– ✰

Tumblr - I’m always free to field asks or messages here. Headcanons, asks, starters are all things I adore as well if wanting to keep it casual.

Discord - On request

In game - Rinalys Dawnstar. 99% of the time on Balmung, usually in Ul’dah if I’m bored.

[itmighthavebeenintentional]

ItMightHaveBeenIntentional’s Masterlist

Supernatural Stories

Shackled After nearly ten years, Sam Winchester calls Miriam Bard to collect on a life debt. Unfortunately for Miriam, Sam leaves out a few important details.

Characters: Dean Winchester, Miriam Bard (original female character), Sam Winchester, Castiel Rating: EXPLICIT. 18+ONLY. PLEASE READ/HEED WARNINGS.  Warning: Warnings change each chapter, please check every time. Ch 1 Warnings: Implied loss of family, grieving, depression, cursing, Demon!Dean, Sam’s tendency to leave out vital details for folks helping him to save Dean (read: Sam’s tendency to be a Winchester)

...

Walk Me Home Twenty-four years ago, Kimberly Harper met a boy who changed the course of her entire life before up and leaving one night. She spent years moving past the memories, building a stable, satisfying career as professor of folklore and mythology at the local university. Then the accidents start, and she’s forced to seek help among her hunter contacts. All it takes is a knock on her office door to send Kimber’s carefully built emotional walls crumbling to the ground. Inspired by P!nk’s “Walk Me Home.” A birthday present for the incomparable @thoughtslikeaminefield.

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Dr. Kimberly Harper (original female character), Mysterious Big Bad,  mention of Garth Fitzgerald, John Winchester/Teenage Dean/young Teenage Sam (flashbacks) Rating: Mature.. 18+ONLY. PLEASE READ WARNINGS. Warnings: Show level violence, show level parental neglect (let’s not John bash, I’m just saying), show-style witchcraft, show-level mental manipulation, stalking, bit of angst, sexual content (higher than show level),swearing, general yearning. ...

Dear Mr. Fantasy  Sometimes when he sleeps, Dean sees flashes of other Dean Winchesters, in other universes. Inspired by Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and the header image; prompt given by @thoughtslikeaminefield​. @cabin-fever-bang​ prompt fill.

Characters: Dean Winchester, AU Dean Winchester, original female character, Sam Winchester; mentions of Castiel, Chuck, AU John Winchester, AU Sam Winchester, and AU Danny Elkins  Rating: Teen Warnings: SEASON 15 SPOILERS, bit of angst. ...

To My Soul You’ve taken to walking when insomnia strikes. Dean and Sam have their own means of dealing with their occasional insomnia. Every now and then, your paths cross. Inspired by Van Morrison’s “And It Stoned Me”. Image by @there-must-be-a-lock

Characters: Reader, Sam Winchester, mentions of Dean Winchester Rating: Most anyone. Warnings: Some loneliness. This story is very soft, there’s not much to warn about. ...

Detours on the Road So Far - OR - Why Sam and Dean Need Actual Adult Supervision Shenanigans. Lots of them. Probably some pie. THIS IS CRACK FIC.

Characters: Our main dudes. Some friends, frenemies, and various other entities. Rating: Range from Teen to Adult, changes each chapter. WARNINGS CHANGE WITH EACH CHAPTER. READ/HEED WARNINGS FOR EACH CHAPTER. ADULT THEMES THROUGHOUT, SOME ADULTIER THAN OTHERS. ...

The Rose “She’s fifty today, and in Dean’s opinion, there’s never been anyone more beautiful.” An alternate Dean reflects on the life he’s led. Sequel to “Dear Mr. Fantasy.”

Characters: An Alternate universe Dean (no, not that one), his wife (original female character or female reader, depending on how hard you stare at it), mentions of Sam, John, vague reference to Chuck. Rating: Most anybody can read this one.  Warnings: SEASON 15 SPOILERS, bit of angst. Honestly, it’s pretty sweet. ...

Crossword Clues and Coffee A chance encounter in Lebanon’s finest (read: only) diner leads Dean to find the one thing he never knew his life was missing.   

Characters: Dean Winchester, Esther (original female character), Sam Winchester, Castiel Rating: Most anyone. Maybe a smattering of language. Warnings: Tiny bit of language? Angst. LOTS of sass. Honestly, it’s a lot of fluff. No romance. ...

I’m Ready “I can’t...I can’t take my forever if you’re not in it.”  A Destiel story, eventually. Picks up right where the show left off. Not technically a fix-it, as I didn’t change anything, but I promise it gets better.

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel. Many Original Characters, Appearances by John Winchester, May Winchester, Bobby, Jody, Donna, Charlie, Kevin, and a few other name drops you’ll appreciate Rating: Teen Warnings: Cursing, mentions of (canon) child abuse and neglect, mentions of past trauma, working through trauma, denial, bit of pining ...

We’ve Got Tonight  “It’s not your job to do this, Andy. You make people happy. I was in the diner all of ten minutes, and you knew exactly how to get me to smile. You do normal, real things like garden and sing karaoke. Saving the world is my job, Sam’s job. Sometimes it’s even Cas’s job, but it’s not yours.” Inspired by Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight”

Characters: Andy (Original Female Character), Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, Crowley Rating: Mature Warnings: Major Character Death, More Major Character Deaths (sort of?), higher than show level violence, blood, light smutting, language, demons, apocalypse, inferred suicide, cult activity.

...

Marvel/MCU Stories

Breathe With Me “The magnitudes of the rocks and trees and streams are so delicately harmonized, they are mostly hidden.” John Muir

Characters: Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, original gender neutral character (reader) Relationship(s): Established poly relationship.  Rating: Teen, but probably not even that Warnings: This is meant to be a comfort fic, rather than a triggery, angsty one. Anxiety attacks, stress, someone with a news-watching trigger, but otherwise the story is people finding ways to cope/deal with their triggers and supporting others who are doing the same. ...

After Midnight She calls him one last time, determined to put an end to their tryst. Loki feels differently. Written for @fvckingavengers Quarantine Challenge, prompt #32: “After Midnight” by Dorothy. Be gentle, this is my first posted Loki story. Beautiful header by @there-must-be-a-lock ; thank you so much, friend!

Characters: Loki, unnamed female character/reader Relationships: Loki/unnamed female character/reader Rating: Mature. 18+ONLY. Warnings: sexual content, Loki being persuasive

...

How Long The call comes sometime after midnight, pulling you instantly alert from your deep sleep. Your phone is set to “Do Not Disturb,” and only one number is programmed as an exception.

Characters: Reader, Steve Rogers (Nomad Steve Rogers, Nomad Captain America) Relationship(s): reader x Steve Rogers Rating: MATURE. 18+ ONLY. 

...

Shadows and Pills Some people come away from the Battle of New York with scars and broken bones. Some come away with nightmares and years of therapy ahead of them. Some don’t come away at all. Alexa comes away with a shadow.

Characters: Alexa (original female character), Dark/Evil Loki Rating: Explicit. 18+ONLY Warnings: RAPE, Torture, Abuse, Self Harm, Negative Images of Psychological Services/Mental Health Professionals, Hallucinations, Stalking, Supernatural Horror, Prescription Drug Use and Eventual Abuse, Mental Illness, PTSD, Flashbacks of Violence, Flashbacks of Tragedy, Starving Oneself, Isolation, Physical and Mental Exhaustion, Denial, Self Neglect, Gaslighting, Mental Spiraling, Mental and Emotional Abuse ...

Real Person Fic

Binging “The last thing he wants you to think is that you’re simply a convenience, someone he just keeps on the hook for when he’s got time.” Inspired by Mr. Stan’s infamous Men’s Health photo shoot, as well as his “Cheat Day” video.

Rating: M, 18+ONLY Warnings: Language (heh), smut, fluff, excessive use of breakfast foods. Characters: Sebastian Stan, Reader/Unnamed Original Character Word Count: 2.4k ...

Every Now and Then “It’s a simple case of not enough versus taking what you can get. Sometimes she sees him for a day or two, then not again for almost half a year.” Relationships are hard. When one person is a world-wide superstar and both people are idiots, they get that much harder. They both take what they can get, but eventually that may not be enough.

Characters: Tom Hiddleston, Reader Insert/Unnamed Original Female Character Rating: Mature, 18+ONLY Warnings: Two large dollops of smut, a half-cup of angst divided, several pinches of language, dash of loneliness, and a good sprinkle of lack of communication. Fold ingredients together gently, bake at 200c fan for 20 minutes, then serve piping hot from the oven.

[fatehbaz]

Some responses to Earthworm Discourse:

g u e s s    a g a i n

Honestly, though, I still rescue earthworms from sidewalks and have since I was a child in our little informal, weird-girl, after-school bug-club, as I’m sure many of us did and still do. All life has value. (Still feeling confused about the ethical/ecological implications of rescuing non-native worms. When so many United States cities present as sanitized, sterilized, anonymous concrete-asphalt landscapes - covered in manicured non-native grass lawns - are the already-firmly-entrenched non-native earthworms causing much more damage in residential lawns if you save a few, so long as you avoid introducing them to intact ecological sites outside city limits? No pun intended, but that discourse is a whole other can of worms. Discussion for another time.) So I’ve seen some disparaging remarks made about the Moral Character of non-native earthworms, so obligatory statement: Earthworms of course are not villains or actively malevolent. Colonization; Indigenous dispossession; empire; profit-oriented thinking; industrial monoculture; large-scale geoengineering over years to reshape the entirety of the Turtle Island and Latin American landscapes as if they were “bountiful” European farms populated by “familiar and comforting” European species, etc. -  earthworms are a physical manifestation of those issues.

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[Spokesman Review - 20 November 1999. Andrea Vogt, staff writer.]

Two of the largest and most iconic native earthworms on the continent are actually found west of the Rockies. Shout-out to [a commenter] for explicitly name-dropping the beautiful and alluring Palouse giant earthworm (Driloleirus americanus), a rare and elusive species, one of the earthworm species actually native west of the Rockies (from the Washington-Idaho border in the Inland Northwest). [More on the worm.] It lives in the Palouse Hills; in the nearby Nez Perce Prairie and Lower Clearwater canyon system; and in some sites in Washington’s East Cascades ecoregion. Much of the Palouse has been converted to agriculture, damaging the soil, and the worm was apparently missing for decades until recent encounters confirmed that it’s still alive. The Palouse giant earthworm and the endangered Oregon giant earthworm (Driloleirus macelfreshi) - from prairie-oak woodland of Willamette Valley - are both contenders for the title of “largest native earthworm in North America.”

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Excellent info:

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Nice to hear some info on boreal environments, thank you @theeclectickoalastudent - This is also how tiger salamanders (Ambystoma mavoritum) - native in North America east of the Great Basin - were artificially introduced to Mediterranean California: People were importing salamander larvae as fishing bait. (Pretty brutal to begin with, if you ask me.) And now the iconic, unique California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) - endemic only to California and which was already endangered - is forced to directly compete to reclaim its own oak woodland and chaparral habitat from its introduced relative. And we can’t let United States “conservation” and land management agencies and institutions off the hook for the obscene and mind-boggling scale of damage they’ve historically done stocking non-native sport fish species in watersheds of the American West, followed by the stocking of non-native crustaceans to feed the fish. (Speaking of non-native species threatening salamanders, I was [just] hyperfixating the other day on how the Mazama newt - endemic only to Crater Lake, Oregon - may soon be driven extinct by the voracious introduced crayfish species Pacifastacus leniusculus.)

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Important disclaimer, by the way: I also wanted to clarify something, so I’m reposting some text I recently shared. Regarding the worm post, I wanted to say: [I know some people who have shared “unleash earthworms” posts clearly did so because: fun; irony; joke; etc. (And, yea, I really like imagining invertebrates/writhing creatures as emblems of resistance/anti-imperialism: “We’re worms, we’ve been stepped on for years, we persist! And our reward for submitting to the decay of the soil is to be engulfed in the loving embrace of one million mycorrhyzal fungal tendrils; by submerging ourselves into the soil we are really a s c e n d i n g.”) I was not vauge-posting about y’all. Like I said previously, I think peoples’ hearts are in the right place and I generally like people I meet here in anti-imperialist/ecology-oriented circles. I think that the originators of the most recent iterations of those posts were clearly being playful. My green tea-fueled ranting about Problematic Worm Etiquette is mostly due to: (1) sometimes I get Like That, (2) I’ll concoct any excuse to talk about Great Lakes regional ecology, and (3) I know some - not all - people were taking “release worms!” advice seriously, so figured it be nice to be explicit.]

On that note, regarding earthworm introduction as a means to improve your own access to food (via garden) or food (via using them as fishing bait): I did definitely see some people being serious about this, so it’s worth noting the irony of a well-meaning action which nevertheless deliberately introduces European species, erasing/degrading native ecology, and also resulting in the destruction of Indigenous foodsheds. Reshaping the Earth, remolding the continent, and promoting the physical/literal invasion of a European species in the hopes of making the land more “fruitful” and “bountiful”? In my US and/or Canada? Just as likely as you think.

Really important stuff right here:

(Sugar maple is one of the plant species most susceptible to death when non-native earthworms invade nearby soul. Thank you for sharing this, @aanzheni)

A map of native foodshed regions of Turtle Island/North America, based on a template originally made by ethnobiologist Gary Paul Nabhan, presenting hypothetical “food regions” and reflecting the vital local staple foods.

Sugar maple is important.

I talk too much, but @big-edies-sun-hat said it more tastefully:

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@nonsensikelly - Thank you for the info. (And yea, earthworms are well-entrenched in temperate North America.)

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I really am not a good person to ask. (Though I’d identify some blatantly obvious solutions - Indigenous autonomy and land management; the dismantling of industrial monoculture crop extraction and associated industry; etc.) I’m not a soil scientist, botanist, entomologist, or technical ecologist/biologist (more into environmental geography/history). However, I had your comment in mind when I wrote [this post] about loss of forest understory and savannafication in the Midwest, addressing why it is that so much earthworm research comes from schools/institutions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario, due partially to the critical ecological importance of the northern central hardwoods forests as a frontline against worm expansion into boreal environments.

@mi-el-lat​ I know @cedar-glade already responded to you and it’s worth reposting:

also from cedar-glade, but formatted so the link is clickable:

you can get idea about how gray the knowledge of both invasive earthworms and the effects of potentially invasive predators are from many articles out now a days trying to figure out ecological dynamics of earthworms in any shape or form. https://www.inhs.illinois.edu/resources/inhsreports/may-jun00/worm/ 

Since a lot of invasive earthworm research and dialogue focuses on the Great Lakes region, we’re in luck because Tumblr might have a resident expert so to speak, since I’m pretty sure @starfoozle specializes in Great Lakes-region invasive species. Regarding “What Can Be Done” to rally community effort, for someone with experience in Midwest landscapes specifically involving citizen science and community engagement with ecology, shout-out to @glumshoe.

And if you’ve got questions about botany, soil, and plant ecology generally, these people are much better scientists than me. They know exactly what they’re talking about and I cannot recommend them highly enough: @spatheandspadix / @botanyshitposts / cedarglade, again ... all of whomst also have firsthand experience with plants and ecosystems of the Midwest and Great Lakes.

Sorry for the long post!

[skipygmod]

Art is somewhat hard to understand its concept from some, and no wonder because the misinformation about this term has been promoted. And because of that, there’s a constant debate about the topic.

Art is not a personal concept. When we talk about art, we’re not talking about tastes, but a discipline. And like any other discipline, it takes some logic and reasoning. I want to make sure why is there the mistake that art is ambiguous when it’s pretty clear. There are two categories about the definitions of art or preferably two ways to see art.

There’s the belief that art has an objective definition and the view that art is something personal. The 1st definition I’m mentioning appeared first, and because of that, it’ll be the one I’m talking about first.

While the artistic expression has existed since the first steps of humanity, that definition was given by old schools and when society stabilised art as a discipline because it never was considered as such.

METAPEDIA (100% trustworthy) Art is the use of ability or imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments or experiences that can be shared with others. Artistic pieces are the materialisation of human feelings, ideas or a worldview, that being carried to others, have the faculty to enrich their personalities. A town’s art is part of its culture and reflects its customs, believes and behaviours. Spanish Wikipedia (Not my cup of tea)

Art (From Latin ars, artis, and Greek τέχνη téchnē) is generally understood as any activity or product made with an aesthetic and also communicational purpose, where they express ideas, emotions and in general, a worldview through a diversity of resources, like sculptural, linguistic, resonant, corporal and mixed ones.

Definición.de Art (From Latin, ars) is the concept that encompasses all creations made by the human being to express a sensitive vision about the world, either real or imaginary. Through sculptural, linguistic or resonant resources, art allows expressing ideas, emotions, perceptions and sensations.

If we go to different sources, the definition is written with different words, but the idea is the same. Art is about material or experience of aesthetic nature, that materialises thoughts and feelings; and can be shared with others to enrich the personality.

Concept

The definition of art is open, subjective and debatable. There is no unanimous agreement between historians, philosophers or artists. Over time, there have been numerous definitions of art, including: “art is the right order of reason” (Thomas Aquinas); “Art is that which establishes its own rule” (Schiller); “Art is style” (Max Dvořák); “Art is the expression of society” (John Ruskin); “Art is the freedom of genius” (Adolf Loos); “Art is the idea” (Marcel Duchamp); “Art is the novelty” (Jean Dubuffet); "Art is action, life” (Joseph Beuys); “Art is everything that men call art” (Dino Formaggio); “Art is the lie that helps us see the truth” (Pablo Picasso) ; “Art is life, life is art (Wolf Vostell)”. The concept has changed over time: until the Renaissance, art was only considered the liberal arts; architecture, sculpture and painting were “crafts.” Art has always been one of the primary means of expression of the human being, through which it expresses its ideas and feelings, the way it relates to the world. Its function can vary from the most practical to the most ornamental; it can have religious or merely aesthetic content; it can be durable or transient. In the 20th century, even the material substrate was lost: Beuys said that life is a means of artistic expression, highlighting the vital aspect, the action. Thus, everyone is capable of being an artist.

The term art comes from the Latin ars and is the equivalent of the Greek term τέχνη (téchne, from which ‘technique’ comes from). Originally it applied to all man-made production and disciplines of know-how. Thus, artists were as much the cook, the gardener or the builder, as the painter or the poet. Over time, the Latin derivation (ars -> art) was used to designate the disciplines related to the arts of the aesthetic and the emotional. And the Greek derivation (téchne -> technical) for those disciplines that have to do with intellectual productions and articles of use. At present, it is difficult to find that both terms (art and technique) are confused or used as synonyms.

Attributes of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1769), by Anna Vallayer-Coster

What I don’t like about the Wikipedia article is that it contradicts itself. It starts with a clear definition with no ambiguities; later, it says that art is subjective because there’s not a consensus about its definition. That is because many experts have different ideas about what art is, which it’s absurd because the fact that someone understands something differently doesn’t deny the truth. It’s like saying that I understand math differently and mathematics have different interpretations, in other words, they’re subjective, which it’s ridiculous. Many examples of opposite ideas that Wikipedia put as an example don’t contradict each other. Because they are straightforward ideas, at most an expert prioritises more thought than another one. It’s not like one of them said that art could be anything, what is ugly or a person. They got certainty about what is more important in art, not that art is each thing.

Let’s analyse why the given definition makes sense, breaking down the features that compose it:

1. Art refers to some material or experience with an aesthetic character: 

That makes sense because it’s aesthetic; it makes it striking and presentable; also, it reflects effort. And reflecting something that requires effort it gives a meaning that art is a job, I mean if it’s not a job and anyone can do it, then why would there be artist or experts in the first place? Besides, if we take out the aesthetic feature in the definition, then horrible and harmful things would be considered art.

 2. It materialises ideas and feelings: 

That tells us that one of the foundations of art is it has to have a communicational function, I mean, art must have a meaning. That makes sense because if art has no meaning, what’s the point of doing it? So you can admire it? Why admiring it? What are your reasons to admire it if it doesn’t mean anything? Let’s leave out the communicational function of the definition. It has room to the fact that if something is beautiful, then it’s art. Beauty has a very high rank, so it would make the definition ambiguous.

3. It can be shared to enrich the personality: That’s extremely important because it gives art a purpose; every discipline must have a purpose. It’s part of the concept of the field; I mean schools exist to educate, science exists to make life easier and preserve the species. Science is a discipline, and art just like science has a purpose; to enrich the personality. Through art, you think, you learn something new. As said earlier, art is a materialisation of ideas and feelings, and that’s why consuming art is good. With art, you learn, art is emotional intelligence. Art just like science is something that has its reason to be, its logic; it’s merely another kind of logic, another type of intelligence.

The 2nd definition of art is something personal, and so; subjective appears after 1884 when the artistic movement; The Impressionism, which it was contemptuously criticised back then; was active. The impressionists, in defence of the critiques they got, they forced the idea that “Beauty was in the eyes of the beholder.”

That’s absurd to me because as I explained earlier, not just because someone has a different take, it doesn’t mean that an objective or relative truth cannot exist. I mean, you can say a sickness can be beautiful, but the thing is no matter how much you want to bend reality, it’s a fact that an illness is not beautiful in any way.

While I respect the impressionist movement to a certain point, and I respect its ideology to sacrifice complexity to leave colours to transmit emotions. I do consider that its new subjectivist definition of art was a terrible misfortune, because of that there’s a lot of confusion with a term that easily was well-defined through centuries. Not only that way of thinking brought lots of notoriously inferior artistic movements like Cubism.

In a nutshell, it’s a mediocre way of thinking that brought with itself misinformation, a decline of the idea of art, and a drop of quality.

My point reinforces with a simple comparison; you have to compare the works that were created with an objective definition of art, with the ones with a subjective definition.

Think for a moment how well-defined was the first definition, and how it demanded higher standards. Turning out in more outstanding excellence and compare it with the problems and ambiguities that brings the 2nd definition.

According to the ambiguous 2nd definition, art itself is ambiguous; then anything can be considered as art. It all depends on how it’s seen. If that’s true, it promotes overthinking; in other words, pretentiousness. You are praising something for its lack of content or its confusing/contradictory content. On the other hand, if we omit many features of the 1st definition, the idea of arts stops making sense. Let’s say art for some is what is beautiful, but it’s not necessary to be communicational. That means art lacks substance, and then painting green a wall is art, because the colour is beautiful.

If presenting just a beautiful colour is art, then it doesn’t make sense trying hard to create something with substance. Because a painting that took you days to perfect will be as praised as an empty portrait with no meaning.

Let’s consider art to be transmitting something, in other words, having a communicational function. Still, our message doesn’t need to be beautiful nor aesthetic. We’re saying that things like wishing death to somebody can be considered as art, or just communicating anything is art; even a conversation.

There’s a reason why a political speech shouldn’t be considered as art. The political address is communicational and discipline, but not an artistic one. I could go on for hours explaining why it doesn’t make sense to have a very flexible definition of art, and why the first one has better results.

The first one never created a creative standstill nor restricted the artists. It helps them to push themselves and reach excellence; the praise of their people aided them to create culture.

What is too abstract loses all meaning as art. I’m not saying that art shouldn’t have an ambiguous character in certain aspects, after all. As I said in the past, subtlety is one of the most of import components in good work. The difference between an ancient artwork and modern art nonsense is that the first one counts with recognisable elements that give you tools to interpret. While modern art is so abstract, that it’s not made up of anything, I mean, it’s not like it’s hard to understand, you’re so pretentious, that you see messages where there’s none. The work was done like that on purpose so people can fill the empty voids instead of taking credit from that job to the author, who has no conviction in what they want to express.

Minimalism is not a type of artistic technique; it’s a type of design. It works well, and it’s attractive for advertising or to spread information, not to have a pragmatic and crucial message because minimal art lacks eloquence.

The only thing that our free and modern definition of art is doing is to create confusion, lower the standards, and to ridicule the name of art. It’s because of things like a man taking a shit can be considered a piece of art nowadays, people who don’t know about art; dimmish its value. That’s why people don’t see art as a World Heritage Site, and it’s as important as science. And that’s why people who want to be artists to suffer, because their parents don’t want them to be artists. Because they consider something artistic work as a ridiculous job and has lesser value than other jobs.

We must start to understand what genuinely is art. We must begin to understand its importance, its work. We must change the popular mindset about art. When people see art is work, that it requires effort, dedication, sweat and tears. That art is quality work, and that is not something that is just held to personal perception, or taste. It’ll be the time when people will start respecting art again. Maybe then, the fans will be more demanding, business people will abide by franchises more. And they’ll set out to see that in the entertainment world there’s not just entertainment, but also art.

                                                                  -

We all know at this time and age whoever judges art with a postmodernist view is an idiot and a spoiled brat. I’m not going to argue with hicks anymore about something that they’re not interested in. Instead, I’ll address to people who are genuinely interested in art, no matter their reasons for their interest. Especially I’ll address to a group who is following and having me in mind.

So, my brothers, believe it or not, art can say more about the state of a society than a thousand words.

I have the hard belief that one sees GOOD art when a society is good and healthy.

And one sees bad art when a society that is not very intelligent or diseased.

After years of studying and being interested in the world’s history, this funny pattern repeats with no exception whatsoever. It’s by far one of the best ways to judge the quality of a nation.

Even though you want to believe it’s an issue about money, the truth is that it’s not the case. I want to point out that a wealthy society can produce art, that art is degenerate, sick and anti-nation.

That should not be surprising because art is the reflection of a person’s soul and spirit level. Degenerate art reflects a sick society and a disloyal state. Anyways, why is producing art so important anyway? My idea of saving the world has to do with anything artistic-wise.

As this curious study shows, our shitty modern buildings make us depressed, and no wonder.

They’re grey, similar and dull.

Capitalism and globalism destroyed that magic.

In ancient times, we were leaving our homes with excitement because we were feeling inspired by our surroundings.

Instead, now most people are doing jackshit and repeating a depressive routine.

In ancient times, our ancestors were admiring and praising the stars as their gods.

Now you can’t even see a single star because there is smog.

It’s like that simple joke of “Retro Always Wins” was never a joke, but actual reality. Not only art is getting shittier; life itself gets even shittier. Horrible shit happens every day, but nobody cares. Horrible shit occurred in ancient times, but people were inspired and giving their lives away. They cared about things, and they weren’t sedated in front of a screen. Modernity made us weak and epicurean. I’m not too fond of the modern world, and I’d love even to be a miserable hobo if I had the chance to live in those magnificent times. To be surrounded by those beautiful castles, that fine music. At the same time, I can see little kids playing outside.

Even the CIA admitted that the elites manipulated art to control your emotions. Typical from this disgusting modernity, nobody gives a fuck, nobody complains, nobody talks about it. We accepted our fate as an uninspired herd with no ambitions. We don’t have art to inspire us anymore. However, we got stupid entertainment that makes us temporarily happy to stay still, immobile and inactive. In a nutshell; we reached the point that it’s completely useless.

Or isn’t it? I understand why people don’t listen to me because many turn down my message and because they sense me as a lunatic or excentric. After all, I’m not someone to be considered as normal. What moves my gears is something different. If at the end I will die and so will the universe and nobody has no certainty about what will happen next. Then why worry about all this shit about values, beauty or inspiration?

Because it feels right for me, when I was a kid, one person who used to make me happy was my grandfather. He’s part of why I started liking cartoons a lot. He used to tell me cool stories and made impressions of cartoon characters to make me laugh. I never met such a joyful and full of energy person like him in my life. He always inspired me, telling me his stories and showing me how strong he was. One day… he just got cancer, my grandpa was going to die, and while I was sad about it, I was too weak to face reality. I sometimes wanted to escape and not thinking of sad stuff. I made so many hedonistic things at the time. I couldn’t look at my grandfather because he’s just wasn’t the same, all that jolliness was just gone. My grandfather died, I didn’t dare to say goodbye, and that’s why I hate hedonism, and I love fascinating and beautiful art.

Hedonism weakens us, and we always know it when we fall into it. Instead, art or even good entertainment inspires and join us together.

That’s why I promised myself never to lose my spirit, no matter how most people see me; I will be me—doing crazy things, taking risks. The victory means finding a superior status, and defeat means finding death. There won’t be in-betweens for me; I’ll be eternally inspired, even in the eyes of death. No cancer will change that, not even the cancer of modernity.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

TWD 10x13: What We Become -Details

Okay, let's talk details. This won’t be terribly long. Most of these are things we’ve been talking about for years, so I don’t think I need to over explain them. If you have questions about anything I point out here, send me a message or an ask. ;D

***As always, spoilers abound for 10x13 below. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

There are a lot of small symbols that were very important, but also things we’ve seen a lot before, so I won’t go over absolutely every instance. For example, in Michonne’s hallucination of Andrea, she finds bullets on the ground. I thought that was significant.

We saw a lot of boats, such as the little boat Michonne and Virgil arrived in. She had him locked in handcuffs on the boat, a symbol of the sheriff. We also saw a lot of fives. Virgil said something about how she could've unlocked him five hours ago, his kid was five years old, etc. Of course, we also saw a lot of threes.

The herb garden reminded me of Herschel at the prison, and the fact that Virgil kept talking about making tea was kind of a call back to Herschel making the tea in order to fight the virus in S4. I'm also wondering if the tea theme this episode might be related to the Tibet theme we've seen a lot of lately. When talking about his kids playing, Virgil mentioned sailors and buried treasure. interesting references, no?

Okay, one thing that jumped out at me was the fact that we saw three graves for Virgil's family. It reminded me of 7x04 when Father Gabriel filled in an extra grave so that they could lie to Negan about Maggie having died. In the episode, it only really focuses on the one grave (the fake one) but if you think about it, there were three graves. Glenn, Abraham, and then the fake one for Maggie. Well, TD pounced on that at the time because we're literally talking about an empty grave. About someone Negan thought was dead, but who's really alive and well in a different place.

So, a callback to that, but I'm starting to think the three graves represent the three resurrections from the pickle story. I will talk a little bit more about that either tomorrow or Thursday.

Virgil’s backstory was just a little bit confusing. Apparently, this facility was still functioning, even after the apocalypse hit. But when stragglers would come to the islands in boats, they would take them in. He talked about how people started to run short of food rations and a fight broke out and resulted in a newbie being killed. I kept thinking that that story and wondering how we're supposed to apply it.

Then it hit me. I do believe that this entire thing was sort of a replay of Grady. Think about it this way. Grady didn't really take in stragglers so much as force them in, but they were bringing people in all the time. The newbie who was killed in a scuffle could be Beth. 

Plus, you have the fact that Michonne was thrown into a cell, imprisoned, and at one point, she makes a break for it, much like Beth did. She even let people out on her way out, just as Beth let Noah out with her. And, like Beth she wasn't able to escape as she'd hoped, because the boat was on fire. Also, the food try Virgil gives her looks an awful lot like the ones they used at Grady.

When Michonne and Virgil first go into the facility, there's a whole bunch of debris almost blocking the hallway. There's a small space they can squeeze through, but a blonde, female walker is caught in the space. So, Beth walker. After Michonne kills her and lowers her to the ground, you can see a phone cord and receiver wrapped around her. More of the Communication Theme there. It also reminded me a lot of Still, when Beth and Daryl had to go over and under things and right the clock because it was in their way. Just reminded me a lot of the golf club.

They even use a stretcher as a shield – talk about a hospital theme — and there are lots of posters about that talk about not spreading virus. That's a little weird with the pandemic going on right now, but obviously there is a theme here. (And yes, it’s a VD poster. 😊)

As I mentioned yesterday, there are people hanging in the room, just like a golf club.

I also thought the dead rats in cages were interesting. It reminded me of the pet shop in 6x03, which was right before Glenn’s death fake out. This is also the second time we've seen rats the season. The first time was right before Alpha’s horde arrived when a pack of rats ran across the field in front of Yumilo and Kelly. I’m not sure how to interpret the rats, yet, but I’ll keep an eye on them.

There's technically a water theme because of the island, but we also kept seeing water dripping from the faucet. We found out that Virgil accidentally locked his wife and kids inside the right happened. It's a lot like Father Gabriel, only the opposite. He locked inside instead of out, but they still died.

Every time Virgil looked through the door, he reminded me of Rick and the Governor and last season Daryl looking to the door the same way. That theme very much revolves around Coda.

Threes. Virgil told it had that conversation three times and he kept saying, "I want you to see." Part of the speak no evil theme. When Michonne is hallucinating, she says she's cold, and he says, "then picture of the sun." Remember that we saw the sun drawing at the prison and it's always been sort of a symbol of Beth.

Another big thing that jumped out at me is that when Negan gave Michonne his bat in the clearing, he said, "wish them a happy new year from us, will you?" I'm not entirely sure clear on what this means, but we have definitely heard it before. In 4x16, when the Claimers were about to kill Rick, Joe Claimer also talked about New Year's Eve. These are the only two times I can think of that we've heard it, though I might've missed other instances. 

The only thing I can think of is that New Year's comes after Christmas. If Christmas represents someone returning from the death fake out, then maybe New Year's Eve makes a weird kind of sense. Nobody really had a death fake out quite like Beth in S4, but it's also true that when everyone scattered from the prison, no one knew if anyone else was alive. Rick and Michonne didn't know if Daryl was alive and Daryl didn't know if they were alive. I don’t know. I’ll have to think on it more.

I will say anything more about Michonne’s hallucination, except that it was really epic. I really enjoyed that part of the show.

When she gets out and realizes the boats been set on fire, she tackles Virgil. He's talking about his wife and says, "she always told me the right thing to do, and then she was gone, and I didn't know what to do." Sounds like something Daryl could say about Beth, right?"

Michonne talks about mercy and letting Virgil live. I thought that was sweet because it was a callback to what she and Rick learned from Carl.

The next day when she talks to him in his cell, he talks about looking up at the stars (constellation = Sirius) and also about heaven, will Michonne talks about hell. So there's a big heaven and hell theme going on here.

After she finds the boots in the storeroom, he takes her to the boat. One thing I noticed was that he talked about the boat washing up in the big storm. I think the characters were talking about a big storm in the very beginning of the season, so I’m assuming it's meant to be that one. There’s something strange about that big storm because they keep referring back to it.

We see red crustaceans and reads near the boat. I’ll talk more about those in my next post. On the boat, we see a yellow life preserver, blue coolers, and a pickle jar (resurrection. Yea!). All important symbols.

The book Michonne finds suggests the boat set out from the New Jersey shipyard. I'm assuming that's where she’s headed.

When Virgil is surprised that they're willing to let him come with them, Michonne says, "sometimes the most injured are also the most forgiving." Just reminded me a lot of Daryl.

I thought it was super cute that RJ chose Little Brave Man for his call signal. I totally didn't get it at first, but remember that earlier in the season, Judith was telling RJ the story of Rick on the bridge and she called him, "the Brave Man." So, using “Little” Brave Man, is just another way of saying Rick Junior. Super cute.

Here are some other quick things my fellow TDers have pointed out:

During Michonne’s hallucination, the camera angles were weird and skewed, much like a Grady.

Andrew had a bone-handled knife, just like Beth did.

When Michonne killed herself in the clearing (hallucination) she said, "welcome to the New World." That was originally Jesus’s line. I'm not sure if we should be reading into that too much, but it could be that they're going for the fact that this kind of the opposite. Jesus’s line was said with hope, where Michonne says it here in a negative, homicidal sort of way.

I thought it was sad that Virgil ended up staying behind. Even though he said he pictured heaven with his family when he hallucinated, the island is actually his personal hell, because they're dead. He's just staying behind to put flowers on their grave every day. So, it's like he’s staying in hell. Also, the flowers are very much a symbol of death and loss in this episode. I'm sure that will segue into the next episode, Look at the Flowers.

Finally, the two people Michonne helped were interesting. It reminded most of us of the two people Morgan helped at the end of Here’s Not Here. In this case, the guy was wearing a sheriff's hat and a poncho, which I find suspicious. But no way to know where that's going yet.

Okay, I think that's all the details I have. I'll probably put up a new TWD video tomorrow. The next day, I have something I'm super excited to show you guys. It's gonna be crazy! Stay tuned.

[aplaceforthesoul]

Anonymous submitted:

i messed up and it's kinda destroying me (22/f) hi, thank you for providing this space <3 your love and support is so amazing! if this could be posted anonymously i would really appreciate that.

i really messed up about two days ago and it’s all i’ve been able to think about. i’ve had an upset stomach and can barely sleep.

basically, i’ve been seeing this guy the past 4 months. things were going great. we met each others families, talked about the future, had a great sex life, and our love languages match up perfectly / we mesh so well. but he kept saying he doesn’t want to be boyfriend and girlfriend just yet (for a few reasons, one being that we are both looking for work and aren’t sure if we’ll end up in the same city). so i kept saying i agreed that we should wait before we are super serious/put a label on things. i hadn’t been seeing anyone else or sleeping with anyone else these past 4 months but was still a bit confused about us. so, last week i asked him how casual he wants us to be and he said he hasn’t seen anyone else and doesn’t want to, and i said the same.

which was true, but, this week i went out of town to stay with some friends. long story short we went to a party one day and i got so unbelievably drunk and hooked up with one of the guys there. he was flirting with me a lot and for some reason i went with it. we had sex for like 1 minute and then in my blacked out state i realized that was not something i wanted to be doing.

i have never regretted something so much in my life. the next day i facetimed the guy i’ve been seeing these past few months. i told him everything and was crying the entire time and told him how sorry i was. i really hurt him and he says he feels like i dont care about him, which isnt true at all.

i guess in the moment, my drunk mind was like “yeah im still single, im nobody’s girlfriend.” but it still feels like i cheated??? (this whole thing is v out of character for me)

maybe i didn’t realize HOW MUCH i liked him until after, which feels like it makes no sense. anyway, he was supposed to call me today to talk through things… but hes really upset and said he’s still not ready to talk.

i know i was only seeing him for 4 months… but im falling so hard for him and part of me even feels like he could be the one. im terrified that i just messed it up and im scared he won’t wanna see me anymore. he’s one of the best people i’ve ever met and i dont know what to do but i know now that whether we have a title on this thing or not, i only want him.

how do i calm down until i hear from him? is there anything i can do? i have bad anxiety and the advice i’ve been getting from family and friends isn’t helping :( just earlier my mom said “if you liked him so much i dont know why you would jeopardize the relationship” which only makes me feel shittier. please help! thank you so much <3

guilt can be such a destructive emotion to feel, it’s awful and I can relate a lot )-:

technically? you haven’t actually done anything morally wrong. even if you both liked each other? he was the one to say no to a relationship, no boyfriend / girlfriend labels. I get his reasoning, for sure! but I think it boils down to communication and he should have been clearer about what he wanted this to be, because it’s not really fair to say “I don’t want a relationship” and then get upset when something like this happens. 

I’ve been in a “I don’t want a relationship but I like you” type situation before, it really is a confusing place to be? and that means that communication is more important than ever.

all you can really do is distract yourself, as much as you possibly can. find activities to full engage your brain, it helps a lot to keep your mind occupied. maybe that’s baking something fresh in the kitchen, doing some gardening, maybe drawing / painting if that’s your thing? yoga or meditation can possbly help you to maintain a sense of calmness, but they’re activities that can allow your mind to wander so it may not be the best distraction to improve your mood. 

I don’t think you’ve ‘ruined’ all chances of this working out, I think if he’s this upset then chances are that he does have feelings for you and doesn’t want to let you go. hopefully when he is ready to talk? be very honest and direct, if you want things to continue with him then have a very open conversation about boundaries, what you are / aren’t ok with, what you want this to be. ask him those questions too, hopefully you guys are both on the same page about things.

it’s tough now but we’re only human, mistakes happen sometimes. some people might say that’s a shitty cop-out or an excuse, but it’s honestly true! it’s ok if you’re not perfect -- unfortunately you can’t get in a time machine and reverse what happened, but you can learn from it for the future. all you can do at the moment is apologise, use words and actions to show you’re sorry, take it one day at a time. let us know how things go for you lovely, good luck xxx

- tash

[nadziejastar]

If BbS V2 really was what you theorized they might have been better off planning it as a series of shorts. A game about filling in the gaps of other games was probably a very hard sell for executives, regardless of how much the overall saga would benefit from it. With shorts it would be perfectly normal to jump around, there wouldn't have to be a flimsy excuse to shoehorn in Disney worlds if they weren't necessary for the story, and it might even be cheaper if 2D animation was acceptable.

— So what will it be?

I can’t say that quite yet, but it will be more “official” than a side story. I actually told the producer this recently, and he said “…what?” It’s the mystery KH. (laugh) Of course, I am also thinking about KH3.

— In an interview in the KH Days Ultimania, you said ‘I’m thinking of a mystery KH that made the producer go “what??”‘. Was that KH3D?

No, it wasn’t. I originally planned to make that after KHBBS, but we ended up making KH3D and the project was stopped. It’s a shame, but we won’t be starting that project again.

I think you are correct. The premise of the game seemed very weird and that’s probably a big reason why it got cancelled. But the story still really needed all the loose ends tied up in some way. FFXV got a short animated series called Brotherhood. I totally think KH3 could have benefited from something like that to fill in all the blanks. And fans would love seeing a 2D animated version of KH. I know I would.

The biggest issue the series had was that it was spread out across so many different handhelds. But the HD collections solved that problem. If the shorts were included in the HD collection, or made freely available, it could have worked really well. It’s no worse than making so much of KH3′s plot tie into Union X, which is less accessible than Brotherhood, for example.

A game about “blank points” was probably just too weird from a gameplay perspective, which I understand. I also agree about the Disney worlds. That also seemed like it might have been an issue. KH games suffer when the Disney worlds aren’t incorporated well. This isn’t an issue in games that feature new worlds like KH1, KH2, KHBBS, or KH3D. Even Days was mostly fine IMO. The worst offenders were CoM and Re:Coded which felt like the Disney worlds were just obligations and their plots were tired rehashes. KHUX Disney worlds were also very strange, too. Even 3D was weird since it used sleeping worlds. Stuff like that is why the series gets lambasted as being too confusing/convoluted.

— What about the missing 0.3?

We thought to tell the story of 0.5 with all three characters, but instead we decided on 0.2 with a focus on Aqua.

Honestly, I can’t even think of how Disney worlds would be incorporated into a lot of the “blank points” story. Nomura said KH0.5 was supposed to feature all of the wayfinder trio. Does that mean they would be playable? I dunno. Aqua was in the Dark Realm. That was a very unconventional world. It had Disney-themed locations, but it’s still not technically a Disney world. Story-wise, it was also unconventional, since she just spent all that time talking to herself until she briefly teamed up with Mickey.

I have no idea what Nomura planned to do with Ventus. Dream world? Or flashbacks to how he met Xehanort? Or he just wasn’t gonna be playable? Then there’s Terra, who was living as apprentice Xehanort and possessed. I don’t see how that functions gameplay-wise, unless it was something weird like you playing as the Lingering Will or something. There was the whole subplot of Namine communicating to the Lingering Will, which was poorly handled.

— Which worlds did Pluto travel when he had that letter?

I can say that he appeared in worlds that do not appear in the game [KH1]…. well, other than the current worlds, there are other worlds that the Heartless erased. The End of the World did not exist at first and is a world that is made up of erased worlds put together. Also, there is that place the door to Kingdom Hearts appears. At first that was another world, so that means that Sora and the others are now residing in that world which returned to what it once was.

— After debugging Traverse Town, the King says to Sora, “That day, your travels began here. Also on that day, I was here too.” Does that mean that the King was in the same place at the same time as Sora adventured into Traverse Town in Kingdom Hearts I?Seems so. What he was actually doing becomes the previously mentioned “blank time period”, but in this title, it’s implying that the two crossed paths in the same place.

Mickey probably would have been playable. In Blank Points, we saw him in the Dark Realm, and his blank period in Traverse Town was something Nomura specifically said he wanted to show. I guess he might have visited Disney worlds with Pluto and we could have played in those? I don’t know if that world that was shown in the end of KH1, the grassy place with the crossroads, was supposed to be important. It sounded like Nomura wanted to explain why Pluto was there with Mickey’s letter, though.

— About the World of Darkness and such, you haven’t gone into detail. Could you possibly talk about some of these things? Does the beach at the beginning and end of KH II have some connection to the World of Darkness?

Presently there are 4 main untold stories to consider: “the period of the King’s absence”, “the period of Riku’s absence”, “Roxas’s time in Organization XIII” and “Xehanort’s past”. In this case, the story of “the period of the King’s absence” is set in the realm of darkness. I am examining a way to tell these 4 stories so I might be able to find a way to tell them soon.

Young Xehanort’s past was another blank period. Him visiting Disney worlds is…possible, I guess. The best candidate for visiting Disney worlds is Riku, though. Nomura said he wanted to cover Riku’s period of absence, which probably includes KH1-2. In KH1, he was a bad guy and in Blank Points, he was shown in Neverland. Monstro is another possibility and that might have been intended to connect to the Monstro subplot in KH3D with Dark Riku. We also saw Riku in Twilight Town watching Roxas and Xion, so his Days period is open. Then there’s his period of absence in KH2, which opens up those worlds. In the novels, we know Riku spent most of his time in KH2 with Namine and Axel, and he also kept an eye on Sora, like during The Land of Dragons and the Beast’s Castle.

I didn’t notify you but you might’ve already heard from Yen Sid-sama. I’ve come to train to become a Keyblade wielder. Until now, I’ve only been waiting for you guys to come back from your journey. Maybe with this I can at least help out a little.

The magician Merlin-sama can use magic that surpasses time. Here, we can forget about the flow of time. Isn’t it great? Lea’s training with me. He apologized to me over and over again. It’s alright, I’d say, but he’d keep on apologizing…

At first I was a bit scared but as we trained together we started talking to each other. I found out Lea also has a best friend he wants to save. I felt like, he’s not a person that I can bring myself to hate…

Sometimes….. He’d stare at my face, so I’d ask him, what’s wrong? “I don’t know, but I feel like it’s something I must recall”, he’d say…

Your journey is a journey that will help many people and the people you’ll meet from now on. I have a feeling these people you meet will also need your help. The journey might be hard but please stay as the cheerful and bright Sora I know. Because your smile, will save many hearts…..

Then there’s Lea and Kairi. I guess we could have played through their training and the world could be based on The Sword in the Stone? I figured that was what the forest area in KH3 was supposed to be, but I dunno. Then they could have flashbacks during their training. I think we were definitely supposed to get more scenes of Lea and Kairi talking to each other, where she learns that he has a best friend he wants to save. It was obviously referring to Isa. KH3D was all about Lea looking for him, and he summoned his Keyblade immediately after learning that Isa was a vessel.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see where that subplot was going. Lea was training to rescue Isa. Roxas being Axel’s “best friend” in KH2 was supposed to be a red herring—a pretty well-written one at that. People just didn’t pick up on it due to Roxas’s popularity bias. I doubt Lea would have told Kairi all the details of him and Isa being human test subjects. Like, she still didn’t understand why he didn’t wanna take off his black coat in KH3. But he’d tell her enough to know that he has a best friend who is a vessel and we’d learn what happened. It would have made their closeness in KH3 a lot more understandable if Kairi knew about his past. In his heart, he could tell that Kairi was Xion, too. And that’s how I’m gonna do it in my fanfic. :)

After KHBBSV2 was cancelled, Lea had no backstory anymore, so I guess we were just supposed to conclude that Lea was referring to Roxas in Kairi’s letter when he said he wanted to save his best friend. Which is just…dumb and insulting to the audience’s intelligence. Lea knew even in 358/2 Days that Roxas looked like Ventus. He said he kept it a secret from Roxas, so he obviously knew for a long time. It sounded like he realized it as soon as he met him, which is why he got so nostalgic for his childhood right after meeting Roxas.

Before he started his training with Kairi, he also knew that Ventus was one of the lost Keyblade wielders they were all looking for. Up until Yen Sid’s tower, Lea thought that Ventus was going to remember him as Axel. That’s how he was going to reunite with “Roxas”. He had no reason to think he needed to rescue “Roxas”, since that was Sora’s job and he was handling that. Of course he was referring to Isa in that letter.

Eh, I dunno. It’s possible we’d get to play as young Lea during his flashbacks in Radiant Garden. During the experiments, maybe he was tasked with Heartless clean-up duty inside the castle. He doesn’t have a Keyblade, though. Just his frisbees. It’d be unusual to have him be playable, but not impossible. If so, that opens up the castle, like the Hollow Bastion areas from KH1. All in all, the gameplay part of BBSV2 seemed pretty strange and the Disney worlds didn’t seem completely necessary, either. I think a series of animated shorts could have worked phenomenally well.

[atamascolily]

Continuing with The Vein of Gold exercise, more films, more themes. I’m so predictable, y’all.

(Aka what Captain America has in common with Matilda)

9. Matilda

Nobody does montages like this film. There are at least three, and they’re all amazing.

10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (live action I, II, and III)

(I didn’t hallucinate these films, okay??)

11. The Shadow

12. Jurassic Park

13. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This particular gif looks like it ought to be Renaissance painting or something.

14. Night at the Museum

15. Hanna

Apparently, freeway fight scenes are a thing for me? They’re a staple of CA:TWS, along with Terminator and the Matrix films. Not to mention a lot of the Inception set pieces. Basically, if a film is set in modern times and has any action scenes whatsoever, I want one on a freeway, kthanx. Maybe because I hate being stuck in traffic? Or maybe just because it looks cool?

Identity issues: boy does CA:TWS have them in spades. From Bucky’s brainwashing--”Who’s Bucky?”--to Natasha’s “Who do you want me to be?” questions abound. Natasha is constantly changing her identities--literally in the climax--and her hacking saves the day. Her final scene is very reminiscent of Sarah Connor’s in Terminator, too. For the first time, Steve faces an opponent who’s literally his equal and opposite, so the doubling/duality motif is reminiscent. And the Winter Soldier is also a slightly-more-human version of the Terminator! He even has a metal arm and programming!

Also, the film as a whole is super-suspicious of technology, and there’s the ‘80s references of the old computers in the bunker and “Shall We Play A Game?” Not to mention HYDRA’s surveillance thing is kinda like Skynet, plus they intend to target people for what they might do in the future, and not stuff they’d already done...

(NB: Both Terminator and CA:TWS are thematically reminiscent of Three Days of the Condor--which I have not seen, but have read the novelization. I fucking hate Condor, because it is such an obvious Male Fantasy, with an obvious Male Gaze, Cardboard Cutout Female Characters and a Doormat Obligatory Love Interest. Maybe the movie is better?? God, I hope so. But aside from its initial premise, Condor  is thoroughly grounded in “the real world,” lacking super-soldiers or robots to make it engaging for me.)

What can I say about the three live-action TMNT films? Um, so they tap into the “underground” theme I have going, and also “nifty puppets/sfx”, “so much the ‘80s/early ‘90s,” and martial arts mastery. April and Casey are weird foils to Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, and the Shredder and Darth Vader have a lot in common, as do Splinter and Yoda. April is inducted into the weird alterworld of mutant turtles and yakuza gangs, and the turtles get mistaken for entertainers/performers at several key points across the three films. The first two films are set in New York, with a focus on sewers and urban squalor, but also a pastoral retreat to April’s family farm during the training montage/rest and recovery sequence. Leonardo--always my favorite--communicates telepathically with Master Splinter, and the turtles stage a rescue like Luke tries in ESB and succeeds (on several occasions) in ROTJ. There’s a constant tension between maintaining the masquerade and uncovering the truth. There’s even a time-travel plot to take them back to medieval Japan, thus melding all of the themes/motifs together!

Not to mention the radioactive ooze that creates the turtles in the first place as a comment on questionable tech--it also creates some of the antagonists in The Secret of the Ooze AND GIANT MUTANT DANDELIONS.And there’s a sequence where they break into a lab full of early ‘90s computers that could be straight out of Jurassic Park. So, um, yeah, about that....

Jurassic Park:  amazing sfx and puppetry. Human interactions with the other--usually but not always negatively. Badass botanist (wish Ellie were the main character instead of Grant but still!). Ominous jungle setting. Tension between science/tech and biology. Mutations as a plot point. “Life, uh, finds a way.” A corporate museum getting trashed by a T-rex in the climax--contrast with Night at the Museum, for a more docile take on the same motif! Tension between the truth and maintaining the masquerade. The perils of corporate power--see Ian Malcolm’s speech on the importance of moral responsibility and power. (Yes, he is an asshole and the author mouthpiece, but he’s also Jeff Goldblum, so he gets away with it.) Contrast this with Cyberdyne System in Terminator, and HYDRA’s surveillance system in CA:TWS. Also, shirtless Jeff Goldblum - contrast with the male nudity in Terminator, and Captain America’s and Luke Skywalker in tank tops and short sleeves. Also, “Dinosaur eats man / Woman inherits the earth” exchange. And GIANT REPTILES just like TMNT!

The Shadow: huge Asian/martial arts influence on the hero. Rigorous training with mystics in the wilderness. Psychic powers. Secret identity, keeping up appearances, and maintaining the masquerade. Self/shadow--it’s the hero’s superhero NAME; IT’S NOT SUBTLE. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? THE SHADOW KNOWS! *ominous cackling* Fabulous fashion. Plot points involving a sarcophagus and busting into a museum (paging Night at the Museum). Amazing scenery, especially all of the hotel sequences. As always, I’m more interested in the female side character--in this case, Margo Lane--than anything else. Also, a scientist character played by Ian McKellen with questionable tech!

(I will never claim this film is good, and it has a TON of problematic elements, but even so, it made an impression on me, especially since I had been listening to a lot of vintage “The Shadow” radio dramas before I saw this, so I was familiar with The Shadow’s basic schtick. Also, even though it sounds like a cliche, The Shadow pretty much invented all the superhero tropes, so technically Batman and Dr. Strange owe him a debt and not the other way around... )

Hanna is very similar to Terminator, CA:TWS, and Matrix in that it features a protagonist being relentlessly hunted--in this case, by government agents very similar to those in the latter two films, only played by Cate Blanchett. Amazing underground lair/chase sequence, plus a fight in a German subway station; not to mention great desert sequences (hi, Star Wars!) and an abandoned theme park.

Matilda: the power of reading, a young girl saving the day because Adults Are Useless, classics references, newts, telekinesis. Like Steve Rogers, refuses to be cowed or lie, even when it would be in her own best interest to give in to tyranny. Interesting foil with Hanna, in that both are named after their super-powered protagonist, only Hanna’s powers are all based in incredible violence. Hanna is also wrestling with the question of who she is and what her purpose is in life, and she’s a survivor, just like Sarah Connor in Terminator. Also, a question of heritage and origins, as in Star Wars.

Night at the Museum: I usually don’t like Ben Stiller, and I think this movie would be stronger with a different lead actor, but Robin Williams is great as Teddy Roosevelt (mentor figure!) and it’s a natural history museum coming to life after hours with a giant T-Rex skeleton. Also, the miniatures are hysterical, and Akmenrah is great (contrast with The Shadow for their museum MacGuffin, too). Great sfx, too. Contrast with Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump in Return to Oz, too. See also Steve stealing his uniform out of the Smithsonian in CA:TWS. It’s also a Found Family (or Family Reclaiming, depending on your point of view) along with The Secret Garden, and Matilda, and Star Wars and...

Anyway, I’m pretty sure a bot armed with this information could be used to generate stories tailor-made for me, which is both hilarious and frightening to think about.

Stories: I have a type.