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miraculouslbcnreactions · 3 months ago

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“Also because I want [Nino] to be more narratively important but that is a rant for another day.” And will that day be someday soon? Wink wink nudge nudge :3c

I am happy to give Nino some love, but before we do, we need to talk about how badly canon has failed him. The reason we need to have that talk is that the love I'm going to give is far more headcanon-y than I usually go in these analysis posts. For most characters, I can give a strong canon-based argument for a core characterization. For Nino? Well, I am pulling this stuff from canon, but I wouldn't exactly label it a "strong" argument. There are even elements of my take on Nino that you could label "grasping at straws".

And I'm happy to own that! I delight in giving Nino all the love he deserves even if it doesn't perfectly match canon, but that means that my Nino is less me leaning into the best parts of canon and more me shifting through canon, grabbing a few shinny bits, and weaving them into something that you may not agree with because my vision for Nino is to elevate him to match Alya in terms of narrative importance because I want the team show season two promised me even if I have to make it myself!

And if you don't want that? Then that's fine! I'm not arguing that everyone should adopt this take. My version of Nino is about as close to an OC as I get when writing fanfic. So let's get into it and talk about why I had to do that. (Also note that I have nothing against OCs. It's just that, when it comes to my own writing, I try to reserve them for original fiction or for very minor roles that no canon character could fill. Totally a matter of personal preference and not some sort of judgement.)

The Many Ways that Canon has Done Nino Dirty

If we look at what is arguably the main group of friends - Alya, Marinette, Adrien, and Nino - then we can see a clear base concept for the first three. Alya is the plucky reporter. Marinette is the headstrong leader. Adrien is the sweet goofball. Nino is... Alya's boyfriend? Adrien's best friend? Chris' older brother?

This is the problem that I was referring to above. Alya, Adrien, and Marinette have clear roles that you could pick out by just watching Origins. Nino doesn't. He doesn't even speak in part one and part two gives him all of six lines. These lines establish him as a nice guy since they're all about him being kind to Adrien, but that's about it. Here's one of them as an example:

Miss Bustier: Agreste, Adrien? Nino: (quietly to Adrien) You say "present". Adrien: (jumps up with his hand raised) Uh, present!

This is a cute moment for sure, but when I look at it, I can't tell you who Nino is supposed to be other than a nice guy, which isn't much to go on. Nice guys can fit a lot of roles.

This isn't necessarily a flaw. Some characters have roles that are immediately obvious and some characters don't. This second class of character usually just has a more complex role that will be discovered and defined based on their actions as the story goes on. However, because Miraculous' writing is all over the place, Nino gets screwed. Instead of his actions defining his nebulous role, his actions make his role impossible to pin down! Here are a few examples:

Nino the Protector:

Season two was big on the idea that miraculous had to be suited to their holders. That's why Chloe kept getting the bee as we saw in Malediktator:

Marinette: I must choose someone who's not impressed by people in power. Who can help me trap Malediktator. Huh?! Of course! That's it. (reaches for the Miraculous of the Bee)

And why did Nino get the turtle in Anansi?

Marinette: I need a protective Miraculous. (gasps, and points at the Turtle Miraculous Master Fu is wearing) That's the one I need, Master! (Master Fu gasps) Uh, if it's okay with you. Master Fu: (smiles at Wayzz, who nods to him) Do you have someone in mind, Marinette? Marinette: Actually, I think I found just the right person.

Okay, cool, we finally have a strong defining trait for Nino! He's a protector! Or, at least, he was here. Other episodes go directly against this role such as this nonsense from Illusion:

Nino: What's up is Ladybug and Cat Noir don't have us to help them anymore. Alya: (nervously) Um, um— uh— what do you mean, "us"? Nino: Well, us, you Rena Rouge, me Carapace! (Alya kicks his leg underneath the table) Ouch! What's the big deal? We can tell Marinette and Adrien we used to be superheroes.

This first issue with this episode is that we see Nino out his and Alya's secret identities without her permission even though the resistance did NOT require an identity reveal to be a thing. In other words, our supposed protector is taking a big risk for no reason. Then he goes and does this:

Nino: Hence my plan. We're gonna film an akumatization. Alya: And how are you, Comrade Ketchup, gonna be in the know when and where this akumatization takes place? Nino: Easy, Comrade Beurre Maître d'Hôtel. I'm gonna make it happen.

Which leads to the four friends antagonizing Gabriel even though Nino knows how complex Adrien and Gabriel's relationship is. A move that makes no sense for a supposed protector because Gabriel was far from their only option. Nino could have picked anyone, but he went with the riskiest candidate possible, exposing his best friend to a potentially massive backlash.

Nino also doesn't even try to contact Ladybug and Chat Noir prior to this insane plan, thereby putting the whole city at unnecessary risk! What kind of protector purposely causes an akuma without also coming up with mitigation strategies to minimize the resulting damage?

Everything Nino does in this episode should disqualify him from ever holding the turtle again or, at the very least, he should have to redeem himself before holding the turtle again. This is especially true since he never apologizes for anything he did in Illusion and this is just one example of the issue. It's actually kind of hard to find moments where Nino acts as a protector even though he holds the miraculous of Protection. So is he supposed to be a protector? Who knows!

Nino, The Empath:

That first example was long, so we'll pick two quicker ones to flesh this out. The first one is how Nino and Adrien's relationship is defined. In Origins and the New York Special Nino is written as a kind and sensitive guy who is acting as Adrien's guide to dating and other elements of the real world:

Nino: Yup. I love Adrien, but he's like a baby chick that's just started cracking out of his egg. He has a hard time understanding the signals people send him. Alya: What signals? Marinette isn't exactly sending them clearly. I mean, look! What is she doing with her arms? Telling him what to do in case of an emergency landing or something? Nino:(sighs) If only this trip could help Adrien finally come out of his shell.

But then you have episodes like Animan where Adrien is Nino's guide to dating:

Nino: Shhh! You know I'm no good with the ladies, especially this one all of a sudden. I mean, dude, do I go up to her and crack her a joke? Shoot her a compliment? Invite her to the zoo? Play it serious? Adrien: Nino, you're way over-thinking this. "Invite her to the zoo", you serious? Nino: Well, they have this really cool new exhibit there. Adrien: Listen, just be yourself, man.

And episodes like Illusion (discussed above) and Psycomedian (see below) where Adrien is deeply uncomfortable and Nino doesn't notice:

Nino: See, dude? I told you! Hilarious, right? Adrien: Uh... (laughs nervously) Right! Really funny, Nino. Nino: I gotta show you his other sketches. It's insane that you don't know Harry Clown! (laughs)

Which might work if these episodes were about Nino learning a lesson, but they're not. Nino learns nothing, so is he generally in tune with others or is he kind of oblivious to other peoples' feelings? And why did Nino ever think that Adrien was a good source of romantic advice if he also thinks that Adrien is "a baby chick"? Pick a lane people!

Nino's Hobbies

Our final source of confusion is trying to define what Nino even enjoys doing. Horrificator and Queen Banana have him playing around as an amature film maker, but we also see him acting as an amature DJ with the wiki even claiming that he's the head of the school's radio station. So which of these things is his passion? Movies or music?

To be clear, I think it's fine to have multiple passions, but this is a story. You want to keep your characters' non-story-relevant hobbies kind of simple, especially when the character in question is a relatively minor side character who rarely gets much screen time. It's why Alix is only really into roller skating and why Nathaniel is only really into art. You don't want them to be more complex than that.

Even the main characters get this "keep it simple" treatment with Marinette only really being into fashion and Alya only really being into her blog. The girls don't need two demanding passions that would eat up all of their free time, but that's what Nino gets! Film and music are both incredibly demanding passions and it's hard to balance a character who is into both who is also an active superhero. That's a lot for one dude to do well!

I've actually seen fics that cast Nino as wanting to be a director and fics that make him want to be a professional DJ because canon really isn't clear about this pretty basic aspect of his character, but you do need to pick a lane when writing anything that gives Nino a career and so people seem to pick a passion at random.

My Version of Nino

By now, we're hopefully in agreement that canon has made a mess of Nino's character to the point where it's near impossible to say "this is who Nino is supposed to be." However, if you want to write Nino, then you do kind of have to pick a characterization to go with, so here's what I've come up with. Feel free to embrace it or reject it, but know that you will pry my version of Nino out of my cold dead hands because I utterly adore him.

Since Nino is Carapace, I base everything about him around the concept of "protect and defend" because he needs to feel like he deserves his heroic alter ego. I do not want to make canon's mistake of giving him a miraculous that massively contradicts his writing. Especially when that writing makes him feel interchangeable with other characters. At this point, no one from canon screams "turtle miraculous" unless you want to give it to Adrien since he's Ladybug's defender.

I also designed Nino around Alya and Adrien as those will arguably be his most important relationships. He should feel like a perfect fit for boyfriend and best friend respectively. I also took Marinette into consideration because he's going to be part of her team/friend group, so he should work with her, too.

What all that means is that I basically said "okay, this is where Nino is supposed to fit in the story and this is the dumpster fire that canon gave us, how do I pull pieces from the fire and paste them together to make a character that fits who Nino should have been?"

To really get into my version of Nino, I'd almost have to give you a fic to read, but that's way too much for a Tumblr post, so let's keep this high-level and just look at some of my notes on Nino from my lore Bible:

Nino is a major audiophile. He loves listening to music and watching movies/TV shows to study how they play with sound. He wants to be an audio engineer when he's older, but he also has a general passion for all things music and film. He’ll listen to any genre and watch almost any movie or show. He loves to take charge of the music at events so that the music really fits the crowd (and so it sounds good). It isn’t unheard of for him to go see an unknown band or an odd indie film on his own. This will become a major bonding point for Nino and Adrien because of the influence of Adrien's mother. Nino has seen all of Emilie's films and loves them. It will also bond him and Alya as his knowledge of film making will allow him to help her learn the art of filming now that she's doing complex things like actions shots and editing together multiple recordings.

Nino is generally pretty laid back and likes to hear people out. His reaction to confrontation is to try to calm everyone down so that they can get to the heart of the issue. He wants everyone to get along, but he's also not going to let someone take the blame when they shouldn't. Nino protects the innocent.

Nino is incredibly protective of the people he loves. If someone he cares about is in danger, his peaceful nature goes straight out the window. He’s the kind of person who would happily take a bullet for his friends and family. This will lead to him following Alya around once the hero stuff starts because he wants to keep her safe. Never let Alya go out alone if Nino is around or even just aware that a fight is happening. Alya thinks "scoop" and Nino thinks "my Alya sense is tingling." He's NOT there to stop her from doing what she loves, he's just there to be her spotter who lets her focus on filming while he watches for danger, though that will initially be a struggle for him. Treat this as his audition/training for Carapace where he learns to balance protective instincts with getting the job done so that he's ready to perfectly take on his miraculous.

When Nino’s folks split up, his mother insisted that the kids should go to therapy to help process things. They had individual and family counseling. Nino was actually pretty cool with the divorce as he’d seen it coming, but his brother was really affected by it, so Nino spent his time working on ways to help Chris (and being told that he was a brother, not a parent, but he still wanted to help). He learned a lot from going through it and it’s why he’s so good at dealing with emotional issues. He’s also good at not taking those burdens on himself. He wants to help, but knows that it's your battle. Marinette often looks to Nino for guidance on emotional issues because she knows that she's terrible at navigating them. She has given him full permission to stop her when she's too focused on solutions over support. All of the friends will help Adrien figure out social situations, but Nino will be the main guide as he's the one with the strongest skills in that area. Plus Adrien makes Nino's protective big brother instincts go crazy.

Nino’s a bit of a loner by choice. He has "weird" hobbies that easily lend themselves to being done alone and he doesn't have any interest in "forcing" his hobbies on someone who doesn't actually enjoy them, so he spends a lot of time by himself and rarely invites others to share in his interests. He only does that when he thinks that they'll actually enjoy what he's sharing. He doesn’t mind this, but he’s also a very welcoming individual who doesn’t like to see people left out, so he’ll come out of his shell when he sees someone who needs a friend. This usually leads to him making friends who soon become closer with others, but still view him as a casual friend. He’s cool with that. He's just happy that they found their people. Adrien will be the first friend who really stays Nino’s due to an understanding of Nino’s “weird” hobbies. After all, Adrien’s the son of an actress. He’s used to weird indie films and discussions of cinematography. I'd even say that he revels in it and realizes that he has missed it desperately since his mom got too sick to do that kind of thing. Basically, Nino will fill a spot in Adrien's heart that Adrien didn't even know was empty. Adrien can listen to Nino talk about cinematography for hours and never get bored. Before Adrien, no one knew that Nino was this talkative!

If anyone wants more insights into this topic, feel free to send an ask, but I think we'll call this post done now because it's SUPER long.

#nino deserves better #ml writing critical #ml writing salt

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tobyisave · 3 months ago

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Trust & Insecurity in Kiibo & Miu's relationship

(In response to @strawberrysweater ! Thanks for opening this can of worms and sorry for this huge post lmaooo)

To preface this: I do love them together!! I just enjoy looking for the places they might clash at times if they were actually in a relationship... So this is about the things that keep them from fully understanding/trusting each other. And ofc this is just my interpretation!!

My short answer:

(1) Miu only thinks she is valuable as an inventor and sexual object, (2) Most people only care about Kiibo as a scientific novelty, and (3) they both have JUST enough evidence to convince themselves that this is also how they view each other. Even if deep down they're only playing these roles in an attempt to get closer to another human being.

On top of that, even though they're especially vulnerable with each other, I think there's still a lot of misunderstanding between them that would be difficult for them to reconcile. First because they have some genuine points of conflict, and second because they each have problems communicating and reading people (i.e. reality distorting levels of abandonment issues & obligatory robot autism coding, respectively)

Elaboration under the cut:

PART A - Insecurities

You can see (1) and (2) a bit in their other relationships:

Miu is of course hypersexual at all times, and she gives inventions to Shuichi (FTE) and her fantasy lover (love suite) because, as she confesses herself, inventing stuff is the only way she knows how to show affection for other people besides offering them her body.

Her inventions and hypersexuality are also the only explicit points of connection between her and Kokichi, arguably the only other character she is remotely close to besides Kiibo and Shuichi.

So given that most of her onscreen relationship with Kiibo is sexual or scientific (or both) in nature, it’s easy for her to go on believing these are the only things she has to offer. It’s a bit self-fulfilling of course because she’s arguable the one controlling the direction of their relationship in the first place, and at this point I’m not sure she believes there’s anything else to her.

[Shout out to @cloudysonder for helping develop this take :P]

I get the impression Kiibo has met a lot of people over his life who only want to talk about how cool it is that he’s a robot, even though that’s not a part of his identity he initially likes to bring up.

In his FTE with Shuichi, he goes straight into 'demonstrating my functions' mode as if it's the only way he knows how to talk to people

We see him treated in this fetishized way in-game too: with Kokichi chasing him to be “friends with a robot”; with Kaede’s FTE asking him invasive questions and touching his buttons without asking; and in postgame with Kazuichi basically assaulting him and trying to take him apart out of scientific curiosity --- all of these within just his first or second interactions with these people!

So it's a BIG thing for him to willingly let Miu sit there and take him apart, when he already spends so much time fending off virtual strangers who don't respect his bodily autonomy. And he's not used to people taking a genuine interest in him as a person so he’s hesitant to let himself believe Miu is any different, especially when her interest is so explicitly centered around his biology.

Plus as long as Kiibo is physically dependent on Miu, there's going to be a lot of room for insecurity to fester on BOTH sides:

"Does Kiibo really need me or does he just need my technical skills? Does he want to do these favors for me or does he feel like he has to?"

"Does Miu really care who I am or does she just want to gawk at my body like everyone else does? Does she care who I am or am I just the first boy(?) to give her the time of day? Does she want to help me or does she just know she’s the only one who can?"

This is the biggest hurdle IMO because it's a necessarily unbalanced relationship, and it will have to continue for the foreseeable future, no matter how they feel about each other.

PART B - Respect/communication

Another thing is that I don't think they fully respect each other — kind of for the same reason the rest of the group doesn’t respect them either

Miu might not consider Kiibo a person. We know Kiibo was worried about this; when asking Shuichi to use the electrohammer on him he explains, "The outcome will settle once and for all how Miu perceived me." This, and the fact she says robots aren’t people in trial, make me pretty confident that she has never looked him in the eye and said "I consider you a person."

I think she has a complex relationship with Kiibo’s personhood. On one hand if he’s a thing then it’s much easier for her to control him (esp given what we see of their relationship) and this soothes her anxious heart by ensuring that he can’t abandon her.

At the same time, if this is the case, then his coerced/artificial love isn’t worth as much as it would be if it came from an autonomous human person — to her insecure mind, it becomes Miu alone in her room playing boyfriend girlfriend with a doll, if that makes sense.

To clarify, I’m not saying she BELIEVES he’s just an object, but it’s an idea that both comforts and torments her.

It's worth noting, too, that Miu doesn't always respect people's consent. This is especially risky when you factor in their mechanic-robot relationship (which already comes with a difficult power dynamic) and Kiibo’s naive/somewhat people-pleasing personality.

On Kiibo’s end: I think it’s safe to say he finds her rude/inappropriate at first (though I think it's really sweet that he uses the much more euphemistic description 'brash and spirited' after getting to know her). They also have some pretty stark moral differences --- Kiibo is distraught to learn that Miu wasn't above murdering their classmates, for example.

More importantly, I headcanon he has a lot of difficulty understanding her at all – on an emotional level, yes, and and on a literal level he just straight up doesn’t understand many of the sentences she says either

K: “Most of that was unintelligible nonsense, but…” after Miu explains her “secret woman weapon." IMO his decision to phrase this as an insult helps mask the fact he's not familiar with all the lewd references she just made

He also has problems understanding emotions from the start, and Miu is DIFFICULT to track because she cycles through emotions so rapidly.

+ he might find it hard to extrapolate that many of the things she does are part of a facade. The crass egotistical miu who says he’s not a person is equally as real to him as the deeply insecure miu wants to believe he is a person (if not more real…)

PART C

Also these bullets from my personal doc I don't have the willpower to expand on atm:

They are both so prone to misinterpreting people unkindly

They’re also both so misled about how committed a relationship is supposed to be. Like I think Kiibo would consider a confession from literally anyone to be tantamount to a proposal (based on his love suite scene). And Miu wouldn’t be quite so fast but i do think it’d still be a huge deal for her because she falls very hard very easily (based on her FTE). Which is all very cute but being plunged into a big commitment like that can be crazy stressful, esp for two teens who have never dated before (imo) and have no frame of reference. [I was actually just going to post about this part lol]

PART D

All that said... I love them together and I DO think they could make it work without too much heartbreak. A lot of the things I describe as problems here could easily be taken as strengths.

e.g. Their misunderstanding of how relationships work ironically makes them more compatible, since they're both ready to go whole hog (if Kiibo determines that he actually likes her that is). Miu's rapidly fluctuating emotions are confusing, but on some level I think he'd admire how deeply and obviously she is able to feel things. And of course Miu as an inventor has a deep (almost objectum like??) respect for machines that helps Kiibo accept that he can be a robot and a person at the same time, and is probably the only one in the class who understands just how impressive he really is.

Thanks thanks THANKS for reading if you seriously read all that!! Mwah!!!!

I would love to hear anyone's takes on my takes too :P I haven't been rotating them in my head for too long yet so I'm still developing my interpretations...

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #meta #danganronpa meta #kiiruma #miu iruma #k1-b0 #kiibo #kiibo idabashi #keebo #not art #text post #my posts #i edited this instead of studying OTL #it does feel very good to write A Fucking Essay About A Guy again though i have to say #drv3 spoilers #the tiniest of spoilers that is #also if this seems kiibo centric its because i love kiibo. im sorry

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ambermotta · 1 year ago

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Cleansing Basics – Crash Course

What is cleansing? When should I do it? How do I do it?

These are some of the questions I'll be tackling today. I hope this post will be useful to those who are not quite familiar with how to cleanse and why it's important for any witch or pagan practice!

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Long post based on my experience and research. Meant to be informative. I don't claim to know the absolute truth.

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What is cleansing?

Cleansing is clearing away energy from someone, something or somewhere.

When should I cleanse?

Whenever you need to clear away energy.

Personal opinion: you should cleanse yourself and your house at least weekly.

It is generally recommended that you periodically cleanse magical items and cleanse before and after any type of magical/ spiritual work. Cleansing before contacting deities (even if it's just prayer) is also considered "standard protocol" in some cultures, like in Hellenic paganism and Shintoism.

From my personal experience I do feel I can connect better with spiritual beings when I cleanse beforehand, but I believe my emotional state has a bigger influence on the matter. Cleansing generally calms me down too so –

Why should I cleanse?

The number one reason you'll see cleansing everywhere is because it is a way to help get rid of excess negative energy.

I'm not going to say you can clear away all of it because as living humans, we are constantly emanating energy and a lot of times it is "negative" energy. Which is okay, it's part of being alive. Plus, there are other factors that come into play.

However, cleansing often can help you stay in touch with spirituality and ease your mind since you'll be getting rid of excess (and oftentimes unwated) energy.

Cleansing also comes into play when you want to clear away any other kind of energy, for example, when you get a new magical tool (such as a tarot deck) or finish a magical working. You don't necessarily want the energy that was on that object or that spell sticking to you all day, you know?

How to prepare for cleansing?

First of all, gather your stuff. Gather everything you need and try to avoid interruptions.

I personally recommend you always do a physical cleaning up of whatever you are going to cleanse. Tidy up your house, take a shower, and clean your magical items (if possible).

Dirt and clutter feel bad, and it can distract the mind. Starting your cleansing in the physical plane can definitely make it more powerful in the astral too.

How do I cleanse?

Most cultures/religions/spiritual practices have their own way of doing things (ex: hellenic pagans have khernips), so first of all, do your research! And respect the fact that some things are out of your reach.

There are A LOT of techniques you can use to cleanse that are not particularly tied to a single culture and that can be done in many different ways. I'll quickly go through some of them, but it is by no means an extensive list.

Cleansing with the 4 elements:

Earth: I've mainly seen this in two ways, which are sending energy to the earth (something like grounding) and burrying objects.

Fire: commonly used together with air in smoke cleansing. There's also energy work that pulls energy and sends it towards the fire for cleansing (either a candle, a bonfire, or a visualization flame)

Water: mostly used for cleansing yourself or objects. It can be through herb baths and showers, rain/sea/river water, salt water, or sacred waters. For cleansing spaces, there are things such as water spray bottles and floor washes (though I've only seen this one being used in hoodoo). Careful with objects, some may not be resistant to water.

Air: generally the most common for cleansing spaces or people. Usually achieved by lighting up incense or herbs with cleansing properties and using the smoke to cleanse.

Sidenote: burning a herbs ≠ from smudging. Smudging is a native american practice that is closed to their people. Don't smudge, don't call some herb-burning smudging. It's not the same thing. Stick with what's appropriate for your culture.

Sun and moon: using sunlight or moonlight to cleanse (and often charge) yourself or objects. Always make sure what you are cleansing can actually be left in the sun and handle weather.

Crystals: Some crystals have cleansing properties, usually back ones (onyx, obsidian, black tourmaline), smoky quartz, and selenite, to name a few. Keep in mind that they usually need to be cleansed periodically, too.

Sound: Praying, chanting, singing, music, and using bells or drums are some ways you can use sound to cleanse.

Visualization: There are many techniques used for cleansing this way. While it can be effective, it is definitely not for everyone as a lot of people will find that using tools is easier and more consistent. Visualization requires some practice and a lot of focus.

What to do after cleansing?

That depends on your objective.

If you are cleansing a space, such as your home, and you want to keep it "clean" for longer, you can cast a protection spell.

If you are cleansing yourself or an object, you may want to do a Charging of some sort. When you cleanse, you are getting something out, which opens up space for the new, so you can use this as an opportunity to "fill in" with another type of energy.

Conclusion

Cleansing is very versatile and unique to each practice. There are a lot of things you can do that are fairly neutral, but in general, cleansing always has the same purpose and is done in a similar fashion.

Knowing what your tradition (if you have one) usually does to cleanse objects, people, and places can be very enriching, so do your research!

Thank you for reading!

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toomanythoughts2 · 4 months ago

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Dethklok Agere HCs: Toki Edition

🐰🐝🎸��🤡🐱🍭✈️🛼🎹🖍️🍼🍺💉🎁🤠🏎️🔫👯‍♂️🪽🌈🤮

I originally was going to do all of the members together in one post, but I realized after Toki that it was going to be obnoxiously too long for all five. So, I'm splitting them up into each member. Obviously, I had to start with my main man, Toki 🧸!

Everything is below the Keep Reading tab.

Toki

(My son, my pookie bear, my darling, my sunshine, my sweetheart, my Swiss cheese, my BABY!)

🧸 First, I think his age range is pretty narrow but the ages he falls into are drastically different headspace wise. Meaning, I think he can fall between a 2 to a 4, but how he acts as a 2 year old is a lot different than a 4 year old, so it's important to figure out what his headspace is before doing something.

🧸 Toki is a hitter!!! He canonically hits people in the show for attention and even hits Pickles in AOTD in the church. Having Toki show signs of realistic trauma-based regression is just so important to me, it makes me crazy! The boy is not well but he is working on it.

🧸 Speaking of which, Toki requires the most support regressing than any of his bandmates. He needs constant support from either the band (Pickles) or Charles (Listen, he never left in my eyes. THOSE ARE HIS BOYS, HE COULDN'T JUST LEAVE THEM!) Whether this means just babysitting when he's regressed and chilling or actively helping him complete physical or emotional tasks. He needs a lot of support in his regression.

🧸 Out of all the members, Toki's regression is the most recognized as age regression by the general, uneducated public. It's very obvious age regression. I say this because I think some of the other members regression is not recognized as regression at first glance, especially by outsiders. (Of course, within the band, they all know each other well enough to spot the signs.)

🧸 He wants to put everything in his mouth. The remotes all have screws in them now where the batteries are located and Pickles is constantly holding Toki's hands to keep them from grabbing stuff.

🧸 He utilizes supplies in his regression the most out of everyone in Dethklok. I honestly believe that Toki can go anywhere between baby bottles to an open cup (supervised), so his supplies are diverse and plentiful. I personally see him utilizing stuffies, specific clothes for regression, (canon) ear muffs, pacifiers, child friendly cutlery, child friendly arts and crafts, sensory supplies, and so many other odds and ends.

🧸 From what we see in AOTD with Pickles carrying a large duffle bag (alluding that it's for Toki), I do think that Toki uses diapers. HEAR ME OUT! I don't think it's all of the time, but I do think that if Toki regresses far enough, it would become a necessary part for him. (Homie is traumatized.) Pickles just knows what's up and is ready to care and defend his Norwegian baby brother.

🧸 He needs attention ALL OF THE TIME! Even if he doesn't necessarily want someone to be in his space, he still needs to know that they are available for him 100% of the time. (Playing by himself but won't let you leave the room without crying.)

🧸 Oh, he is the biggest crier in Dethklok (Skwisgaar is the second). He will cry if he hurts himself, he'll cry if he just finished his last piece of dinner he liked, he'll cry if he doesn't want someone to stop cuddling him. But he also cries over a lot of things he doesn't understand, like being triggered by sounds or phrases. The sound of a whip and an actual whip are not allowed on Mordhaus because of how scared Toki gets when he sees/hears one. (Aslaug, when I catch you, Aslaug.)

🧸 He will utilize his big blue eyes for treats. Do not be fooled, he's already gone to everyone in the band for the same treat and got one from them already. (Charles won't budge but he's gotten close.)

🧸 Loves to cuddle. Loves to be held. I mean, is this really a HC anymore, of course Toki loves to cuddle and be held. He's cuddling while playing, he's cuddling watching TV, he's cuddling while sleeping, he's cuddling while eating. He'll cuddle on the toilet if you let him. Nathan is the person Toki goes to the most for these cuddles because he's large, soft, and has a low bass rumble in his chest when he speaks that puts Toki to sleep instantly.

🧸 He can only play independently but wants to play with others. He just doesn't know how to do that yet. Pickles and Murderface have tried to join in on play time but it stresses Toki out too much. I HC this because Toki had no control over his environment as a child, so playing is a way for him to have that control. By having someone join in, it's inviting the inevitable that they might take over his environment. That alone makes him stressed because play time was the only time as a child that Toki had any control in, so it's going to be hard letting people in when he's regressed.

🧸 He is the bubble bath connoisseur. When he's big, he is spending time looking for new bubble baths, bath bombs, toys, all kinds of shit. He loves bath time, it's his favorite part of the day when he is small. It depends if Toki needs supervision/the level of supervision for bath time when he's small. He can go from needing help every step of the way to only needing help filling the tub and getting in and out. I do think he would love to have his hair played with and washed. To me, this is a Skwisgaar or Charles job. Pickles has tried but he's almost bald with dreads and has no idea how to wash hair anymore.

🧸 The lore he has with his stuffies is long, complex, and gory. He will NOT explain it though, it's too much of a hassle.

🧸 Speaking of, Toki does have very disturbing tendencies while regressed due to his trauma. I like to think he draws and colors a lot of his abuse and shows them to the band. I also think, while regressed, he falls into old fears about being punished, so if he does something that was "breaking the rules" when he was actually a child, he will completely spiral and hurt himself somehow. He also won't say anything if he is hurt because his injuries used to never be a big deal or were "deserved". Same thing with eating and drinking, he won't do them if he feels like he did something bad. I also think he "punishes" himself by stripping himself of his shirt and pants and laying somewhere cold (under a fan or on bathroom tiles), to mimic the feeling of the "Punishment Hole". The band is closely working with Dr. Twinkletits to keep tabs on all of this.

🧸 On a happier note, he loves to follow Skwisgaar around when he's regressed, and Skwisgaar doesn't mind too much. (He loves being Toki's favorite and gloats about it all the time to the other members.)

🧸 Stares. He loves to just look at people. It scares the band sometimes until they realize they can stare back and make Toki laugh.

🧸 He's a thumb sucker. I know it in my heart that he's sucking away on his grimy little thumb and Pickles is always yelling at him to get it out of his mouth. This only works half of the time because Toki just loves his thumb too much.

🧸 When he's too little to talk, he makes a lot of huffs and puffs to get his point across. Gets progressively less coherent the sleepier he gets.

🧸 He gets nightmares. Just like when Toki isn't small, he is plagued by nightmares. But, I do believe that if he goes to bed regressed, the daily activities ease him enough that he doesn't get them nearly as much or as bad as when he's not regressed.

🧸 He uses a nightlight. It's in the shape of a kitty head and casts a kitty shadow on the wall. His name is Elin.

🧸 Toki loves arts and crafts and usually has to have someone supervise him when he's in creating mode. (He will eat the uncooked macaroni and then get upset when there's none left to make his pictures.) He is no longer allowed unsupervised access to glue as he keeps trying to eat it. Scissors, he has no problem with.

🧸 Toki is known for some pretty explosive tantrums, which Pickles and Nathan have tried very hard to work Toki through so he doesn't end up hurting himself or others. He is known to hit, kick, bite, spit, and swear when he's upset. But a lot of it is superficial. Toki isn't aiming to hurt anyone or himself, he's just expressing his frustration in a physical manner that can harm people. He gets more upset after the tantrum when he realizes what he's done. The band can't be but too mad at him, he isn't in complete control. They've learned to help Toki work through his tantrums the best they can.

🧸 The band is not allowed to ignore Toki when he's regressed because that has been identified as a trigger for a tantrum. However, Toki has and can be put in 10-minute increment time outs to calm down from a fit or if the band needs to address someone else first. (Like, if Toki punched Skwisgaar in the nose, Toki knows he's not suppose to do that, so he gets put in time out while Skwisgaar gets his nose checked out.)

🧸 Murderface loves to teach Toki when he's regressed because he will sit and listen to him about everything. EVERYTHING! Even the most boring war battle facts, he will sit and listen. Pickles is a little worried about this because Toki is even more impressionable when he's regressed. He doesn't think Murderface would take advantage of Toki like this, but he isn't a fool. (Murderface would but only small things, like picking dinner plans.)

🧸 Murderface is also the only one that can play with Toki one-on-one the longest before it stresses Toki out. Murderface's improv during play time is funnier and more creative than the other members, but when it becomes too much improv, that's when it stresses him out and they have to stop. But before that, Toki is having the time of his life.

🧸 Toki refers to Pickles and Nathan as Mamma and Pappa. I believe that Toki had to refer to his parents in Norwegian as Mor/Far (Mother/Father) all of the time, but in English he just calls them Mom/Dad because it's easier to say. But Mamma and Pappa are informal terms and mean a lot more to Toki role-wise. They're like badges of honor. They earned those names by being the caregivers they are, before and after AOTD.

🧸 He wants all of the kisses! Forehead kisses, cheek kisses, head kisses, bed time kisses, good bye kisses, good morning kisses, hello kisses. He craves physical affection. And every time he gets a kiss, he stims happily. I also think he rubs that part of himself that got kissed because it "tingles" and he has to touch it.

🧸 After discussing whether Toki would use a crate or not, I think I like the idea of him having a permanent pillow fort in the corner of his room for when he wants some alone time the most. Or to decompress. Or if he's tired and wants to nap. Though, I am still down with the dog crate idea. Or the little kiddy tent! I love them all, honestly!

🧸 They have a playground installed on Mordhaus just for Toki. He loves the swing and will swing (or be pushed) for hours if you let him. He has gone through multiple swings in a short amount of time because of how much he swings. (This is projection. I have broken 4 swings due to swinging so much.)

🧸 Skwisgaar has inside jokes with Toki when he's small and only in Swedish. Toki giggles so hard when he gets a chance to whisper one of them to Skwisgaar that he almost cant get them out.

🧸 Toki has a bed time routine that he has to follow when he's small (with the help of his bandmates) because it helps him regulate his emotions and builds structure. The routine is simple: brush teeth, brush hair, wash face, go potty, get changed, pick out a bed time story, climb into bed. Nathan is the official bed time reader, but the band is usually with him when he's falling asleep. He needs his goodnight kisses otherwise he will be upset.

🧸 Toki loves having sleep overs in the other guys rooms. He loves Nathan's rooms the most because of the aquariums (low sensory, calming, general interest), then it's Murderface's because of the different devices in his room (low simulation and attention, general interest), then it's Skwisgaar's room because he has the window so he can see all the stars at night, then it's Pickles room. However, Pickles room is the coziest in Toki's opinion because Pickles is there, and he loves Pickles very much. He knows on one is going to get him in Pickles room.

🧸 Skwisgaar knows very little on how to cook, but the times he does cook, he utilizes Toki as a taste tester for his dishes. They have similar pallets, so Toki can accurately depict the dishes intended taste. Skwisgaar always sets him on the table and spoon feeds him whatever he is cooking (usually soup or stew) and asks for his opinion. Toki loves it and always asks for Skwisgaar to feed Deaddy Bear too.

🧸 Toki's age regression is public knowledge. He is unable to control when he regresses, so he has public appearances where he is regressed. This unfortunately meant that Toki had to address it to the press, despite Toki feeling uneasy about answering questions. They all know that the press love to ask intimate and personal questions, even if it makes him uncomfortable. The band and Charles were off to the side supporting him through out the whole press conference. After the initial interview, Charles would be the only one answering questions about Toki's regression, so that 1) Toki wouldn't have to do it and 2) Charles can't be bullied into giving out too much private information on the matter, he's a professional. This was greeted with mixed results at first but gradually turned positive as more information was readily understood by the public.

🧸 The Dethmoms have wavering opinions about Toki. Anja does not acknowledge it, or at least tries very hard not to acknowledge it. Toki does become scared around her when he's little and she knows that. Stella thinks most of it is made up and he's just looking for attention, but she does not outright ridicule Toki to his face. She'll play along for the sake of keeping him quiet. Servetta does not have an opinion either way, but she does like to dote on him from time to time (head pats, petnames) when she's able to get him to do something for her. Molly does not like it one bit and will not play along. She has gotten mad at Toki before and has "called him out" for it, but only to be met with 0 back up (Stella understands enough that Toki isn't her child, so it's not her place to call him out, only Anja's.) Rose is the only one in the group that absolutely adores Toki. She's read every book, every blog post, every piece of literature to try and make herself a safe space for Toki. Toki in return looks forward to seeing Rose and will ignore everyone in favor of her. Rose gives him all of the sugary sweet lovings that the boys can't quite give him, so they let him be coddled and coo-ed at from her. (Nathan isn't jealous of this at all.)

🧸 Toki has been known to hang out with Charles while he works. Sometimes he's as quiet as can be, completely oblivious to whatever Charles is doing. However, Toki has sat in Charles lap before just wanting to cuddle while Charles is on a phone call or web meetings. He has made multiple appearances during zoom meetings of just cuddling Charles or sleeping on his shoulder. The other members of the meeting have taken a regressed Toki in a meeting as a "Good Luck Charm" for whatever future endeavors they are about to talk/negotiate/revise about. They've even moved meetings forward/backwards with future partners when Charles has Toki in his lap because they have so much faith in his "Good Luck Charm" ability.

🧸 Charles has a board in his office just for drawings that the band has made while regressed. 95% of them are Toki's drawings though.

🧸 Abigail is still a big part of Toki's life, both regressed and not. I believe after the Metalocalypse, Abigail and Nathan did have a serious conversation about everything where Nathan apologizes for his behavior. Abigail accepts and the group + Abigail form a friendship. But a lot of it is between Toki and Abigail, where Abigail is able to take care or calm Toki down much easier and much faster than any one of them. Toki will wake up from nightmares demanding to call her to make sure she's ok, which she always answers. She understands Toki very well, and most of their time spent together is in quiet tranquility. He mainly just wants to cuddle with her and rest, sometimes babbling about stuff but most of the time is quiet. He finds comfort in her and she will lend him something that smells like her to calm him down if need be.

🧸 It's common to leave baby's outside to nap in Scandinavian countries like Norway and Sweden. When Toki wants to nap, he will ask to go outside and sleep on a blanket, which the band allows. However, when he wants to do it during the winter where there is snow, the band argues back with him, except Skwisgaar. He has to tell them that this is completely normal for Scandinavian children. He buys Toki the appropriate wear clothes and sleeping bag, and lets Toki take a nap outside in the snow. Skwisgaar will either join him or be near by to calm the rest of the bands nerves, especially Pickles.

🧸 Very very very few klokateers are allowed to care for Toki in the place of the band or Charles. Out of all of the klokateers, these people have to go through an extensive and grueling interviewing processes to get the position. Toki knows exactly who these klokateers are and understand that if Charles allows them to care for him, then they can be trusted. These klokateers also have the most amount of pressure on them. While their position won't kill them like other positions, if they betray the trust of Charles by hurting Toki, they are signing themselves up for a world of pain unlike they have ever known. Death would be too kind for those who hurt Toki when he is small.

🧸 Toki is also a biter. He likes to bite and nibble on people for attention. It doesn't hurt unless he uses his canines.

🐰🐝🎸🎮🤡🐱🍭✈️🛼🎹🖍️🍼🍺💉🎁🤠🏎️🔫👯‍♂️🪽🌈🤮

Ok, that's all for now! I hope you enjoyed these as much as I enjoyed putting them down. Obviously, my word isn't law so if you HC Toki differently than any of these, it's all good. In fact, I wanna read about them, lol! So yeah, thanks xxx

#toki wartooth #metalocalypse #dethklok agere #age regression toki #toki agere #dethklok #william murderface #skwisgaar skwigelf #nathan explosion #pickles the drummer #charles offdensen #metalocalypse headcanons #Age Regression Headcanons #Toki agere HCs

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aitadjcrazytimes · 1 year ago

Text

It's been a good run

But it's time to bring this to a close!

The saga is over, C, T and I are all together. T and I are in the swing of it, C approves as much as it is possible for him to approve of anything, everyone knows about the blog and is chill.

C is back at his rightful place of walking his sister down the aisle.

I'm getting everything I want, and we're all free to make each other miserable until the day we die.

I'm not going to be updating this blog anymore! Nobody else involved with the situation will be submitting any more AITA posts either, because they are either not on tumblr or agreed it would be annoying.

I will say that there is some stuff on here that I've alluded to that isn't necessarily 100% in the spirit of things, so I've included some stuff below the cut for the folks who have caught onto that. I would not suggest reading it if you like how all of this played out and want to keep it that way. I know that's incredibly vague, but I'm not sure how to phrase it without making it weird?

Thank you all for listening and talking to me over the past few days! That's where I'm leaving it!

...

...Is everyone who wants to keep believing in the disaster polycule gone? Yes? OK!

So, this was fake. I made up the whole thing. TK and C and T and everyone else are fictional characters. Did I lie? Yes. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Q: All of it? Even the og AITA post? The followup AITA post? The screenshots?

A: All of it.

Q: Wh... Why did you do this...?

A: Well, first this all started as a Red vs Blue fanfic for the ship Chexer (Church/Tex/Tucker)-

It started as a fanfic for Chexer. However, I was already working on a different fanfic for RVB that was totalling about 15k words at this point (+ at least 90k to go), and I knew I would never have the time or energy to write this one. I thought: yknow. this would be really funny as an aita post.

Q: It was a fanfic of a Halo fanfic series.

A: Yep!

So, I submitted Tucker's perspective. I did not expect for it to get more than maybe 100 notes at most. I totally thought someone would call it out right away.

The funny part is, if I'd dedicated all this energy to a fic instead of this blog, I'd probably have about 15-20 thousand words of fic already, but whatever, can't ruin my personal day!

Also, I wanted to see how many people would figure it out/how long it would take for it to become too obvious that this was a fandom thing. I was dropping names and RvB lore since the beginning. A few people did figure it out, and I DMed them in private to let them know.

Q: But why make the blog then?

A: Because I love to lie and be a nuisance to the general populace! <3

It was always my intent to wait until Carolina's perspective got posted (i am honestly still shocked i got away with "Carey/Georgia/West Virginia/Alabama/Miss Louisiana 1988"), let it simmer for about a day, then come clean. Which is what I'm doing now!

The reason I'm coming clean now instead of dragging it out is because I don't want anyone to feel stupid or like they got duped. You're not stupid! You were a part of this story! This was, as one anon said, a creative writing project. It was a collaboration! Thank you so much for helping me!

That said, I'm sorry to anyone that finds this disappointing! I had a blast doing this, but I will not be doing it again. I have gotten my fill. I have had my taste of being an influencer, and now I can go on with my life without ever feeling like I need to start a youtube channel.

Q: How did you keep up with a consistent timeline?

A: I didn't, especially at first. But in my time as a liar who lies about things, I have found that usually people are willing to believe you when you say "yeah, i lied about that".

Q: Wait, what about the thing with your kid?

A: Yeah, I fucked up on this one. In the other fic I was/am writing, Tucker was around 33. So, when I was saying what Junior's age was, I subtracted it from 33 and got 18. It wasn't until I was showing my partner the blog and they said "Wait, he had his kid at 13??????" that I realized I had fucked up. Oops!

Q: Was it really ALL fake?

A: For the most part. I will say that I did actually drop chocolate cake all over my tits that one time and had to shower by myself like a fucking loser. That one was true. I did also get my nails done for the first time ever, which did actually affect my typing. And I am in a band (but so is Tucker, canonically)! There are a few other things as well, but I don't want to list all of them.

Q: DID you ever read homestuck?

A: Nope. And I never will.

Even the title, though I will say that the title I came up with was "Leonard "Alpha Bitch" Church's Decidedly Not Lo-Fi Beats to Get Nasty and Get Clean To: The Movie"

Q: So there was never a combination sex/bathtime playlist?

A: Maybe! But perhaps more accurately: the combination sex/bathtime playlist was inside of you all along. You can make it. There are only three songs on there that are canon to the lore of this blog. Those are No Children by The Mountain Goats, Take It Out On Me by Thousand Foot Krutch, and one unknown song from the album Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV by Coheed and Cambria (Yep, the call was coming from inside the house, I gave Church my music taste). I had intended this to be Wake Up, but it's out of my hands now. The rest is yours to fill in.

Q: What's your main blog, so I can follow you?

A: Hi, this is aitadjcrazytimes. You're not getting that.

Q: Your AO3 handle?

A: Nope, not that either.

You will never find me. And that's the way I want it. You will see me in every blog. Every new follower. Every stranger you meet on the street. You will look into your discord kitten's eyes, and you will absently wonder if he was the one behind aitadjcrazytimes. And you will never know for certain.

Q: But-

A: Let me live on in your memory. The only person who knows both who I am and the fact that I did this is my partner, who is not into RvB or commonly on tumblr. I am not a RvB blog. I am not a writing blog. I am a nobody on the fringes of tumblr society who's been here long enough to know how to remain in the shadows.

And, even if you do manage to find me, against all odds:

No one will ever believe you.

I am closing my askbox. I am also closing my messages. If you have anything to say to Tucker or Me (tumblr user aitadjcrazytimes), you are welcome to do so in the replies or reblogs, but you will not be receiving an answer. I'll keep this blog up for anyone that wants to go through after the fact and do a deep dive or what have you.

Thanks to everyone who made this into the wild ride it was! Live long and get fucked or whatever! Xoxo <3

#final post #if you don't say goodbye then aitadjcrazytimes isnt really gone #they're just not here right now #<-so that was a fucking lie -tk from the future

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brucewaynehater101 · 6 months ago

Note

"If it's closer to fanon Tim, he would feel guilty for Jason. Closer to canon Tim would either be indifferent to Jason's troubles or he'd feel glad (maybe even a little spiteful) that Jason is facing the consequences of his actions. He would, however, feel guilty for how the revelation affects the street kids."

I have to say I disagree with this. Firstly; with the whole post you're framing this as though Jason beat up a child... which like, true, but also Jason is hardly two years older than Tim. I know comics make him seem aged up, but its simply not the case. (dont @ me if u know this cuz u probably do know this already)

Secondly, Canon Tim.... doesn't hate Jason?? Like, really not at all. If there is any dislike, I'd see it as when Jason is acting particularly villainous, he treats him like any other rogue. Though they don't necessarily interact a lot when Jason is in his villain moments. It's other bats who take care of that, so there's really no beef there.

When Jason isn't having an evil moment, honestly a good word for what Tim feels for him is either pity at worst, admiration at best. With the admiration, I'm not talking about Tim liking him as Robin 'cause that's honestly pretty fanon, I'm talking about how Tim admires his tenacity and determination to keep going even when he feels like everyone is against him. And Tim wants to support him! He sees Jason struggling a lot and wishes Jason would accept help- hence the pity.

I sincerely doubt that Tim would ever feel glad or spiteful towards Jason. He's gotten him back for the whole 'beating the shit out of him' thing. Which really, wasn't really about Tim? Plus its far in the past at this point.

Not to mention Tim is one hell of a badass, he doesn't wallow in self-pity, and I don't think he'd want to interfere with RH's stuff and would probably stop the information leak himself, or even deny the rumors with something like "Oh that? It was just a disagreement/misunderstanding lol the rumors got out of hand,"

Sorry if this was too much, I like ur blog and the things u say, this one just felt really misinformed.

Thank you for letting me know. Reading the post back, I can see how I worded it wrong. I appreciate you giving me the chance to correct that and clarify.

Yes, Jason and Tim are close in age. However, Jason's age (as far as I'm aware) isn't known to civilians. Because of his helmet and bulkiness, a kid would view Jason as an Adult. If they knew his age and then the fight with Robin, that would probably be an acceptable level of violence for them. That's just two kids beating each other up, then. From their perspective, though, Robin is a Kid and Jason is an Adult. A possible solution to gain back their trust could be to disclose how old they were at the time (they might not even need to disclose any details or reasoning with that).

Later in canon, Jason and Tim start getting along. If the reveal happened at that point, Tim would not feel gleeful and spiteful. He'd feel bad for Jason. That is entirely my bad for not making that distinction.

Tim is, undeniably, an asshole at times. He wants to do good, tries to help people, and overall is kind. He's badass and I love him, but he can be an asshole (particularly to Steph). He, especially his inner dialog, sometimes makes asshole comments. This includes Jason. To add on, when Jason was beating him up and demanding Tim to answer if he thought he was good (skill wise), Tim answered yes twice. To me, this seems like a petty/spiteful response. That or Tim is just being honest af about his feelings, not giving a shit he's taking a beating.

However, Tim would not hold this grudge against Jason. One of his better qualities is to not hold grudges against most people (even those that he arguably should). It's why some villains/rogues/enemies become his allies or end up becoming fond of him.

Tim may feel glad that Jason is experiencing the consequences of his actions, but not for himself. This would be during his time as Robin exclusively. Red Robin would not feel this way.

Spiteful, though, was the wrong word to use. Tim, as the loveable asshole that he can sometimes be, might be sort of happy that Jason, in his villain era, is being shown the effects of his actions and possible wrongs in his ways. Happy also seems to not match, but the emotions wheel isn't really giving me an alternative.

Tim would, despite his feelings, hate the effect of this on everyone. The street kids, Jason, and the batfam would be negatively impacted by this, and Tim would try everything he could to stop or mitigate the outcomes. He would never release this information willingly nor stand aside to let it happen. Robin may internally say some shit about Jason and the situation if it blew up in their faces, but you're right that he wouldn't purposefully make shit worse. He would actively work to fix the entire mess.

I really am thankful that you helped me articulate this.

It's 100% my bad that I dropped the ball so hard. If y'all see me fuck up like that again, feel free to let me know. As long as you're not mean about it, I appreciate constructive criticism.

Imma edit the previous post this is about and link it to this one so that I fix the mischaracterization

#dc comics #tim drake #dc universe #thank you for the ask!!!!

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juicezone · 10 months ago

Text

Hi! I'm TL, and I do agere/petre art requests! You can find my queue # and open status on my header! You can also check out this link to see my current inbox details/scheduled posts! Please read the rules below, thank you! It helps to reblog this to spread it around :D

you must obey the dni of this account. especially please do not request or reblog if you are k!nk, nsfw, generally not safe for kids. you will be blocked.

If reqs are closed, you may DM me and ask me to send you a message/heads up when I re-open then!

please be kind when asking :) these are not commissions, i am not required to do them!

if your request is something i’m not comfortable with doing, i’ll priv answer so you have the option of sending another if you’d like! (this is easiest to do if you're not on anon/you leave an @ of your sideblog! If it's a nameless anon, it's likely to just be deleted, sorry ^^'

please put separate requests in separate asks! IE: if you ask for Character from Fandom A and character from Fandon B, please send two asks! (Unless you want them together which is fine :P)

not a rule but feel free to give suggestions! IE: “Can you draw character with a green paci” or “can you draw character as a fox pet-regressor?” or “can you draw character and character as cg + regressor?” "character in a dip" (just make sure to specify who is who!) Honestly, detail helps a lot with being able to draw and do the req!! (NEW 4/28) I will draw stuff like characters being upset, crying, ect. I'll draw characters in dips but atm i'm not necessarily comfortable drawing accidents themselves (unfortunately, i had a problem with one post i made + deleted being basically immediately snapped up by unsavory blogs ): so)

I’d prefer to not draw your persona/sona/ect! I don’t mind drawing in a “blank/YN” type character, but I no longer would like to draw personas/sonas/ect. Sorry! (NOTE: THIS IS EXEMPT FOR FRIENDS LET ME DRAW YOUR AGERE OCS/INSERT SO BAD)

Requests may take a while! I work 30-40 hrs a week on top of being a full time student. I might get it done immediately, it might get done in three months or longer. Usually I do them in order, but not always! If you come into my inbox and repeatedly ask abt it (esp if ur rude) i will delete it. and i will block you.

FANDOMS I'LL DO

I'll do most any media! It's REALLY best to just ask me!! Bluey, MCYT (characters ONLY. *), Star Trek, Pokemon, FNAF, Warrior Cats, Nintendo, Disney - Honestly, it's best to just ask! As long as the media isn't primarily NSFW in the 18+ way, I probably don't mind! Complex chars like in Genshin Impact are fine as long as you're okay with me simplifying/putting them in different clothes (free free to request them in diff clothes even!!)

*Will not do dsmp at this time or characters who are primarily based in that fandom - sorry! just not comfortable with it <:)

FANDOMS I WON'T DO

Harry Potter, Hetalia, IRL People (as in the Content Creator - see below for more detail), Attack on Titan, Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss, Country humans/Country balls/Anything based off the countries, Rick and Morty, DSMP

ABOUT IRL PEOPLE

Will do: MCYT for example! Because my design is based off their MC skin. It's like actors v their characters if that makes sense Won't do: Things like Sanders Side or Marki/plier ego stuff, because it's like. there's nothing there for referencing other than the literal person. idk its hard to explain TLDR: thats just my comfort level sorry ^^''

#agere art #sfw agere art #fandom agere art #fandom agere #sfw age regression #sfw petre #petre art

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titleleaf · 9 months ago

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so many words about historical men's corsetry

(This got way too long to send via Discord -- Dangimace in the Renegade Bindery server asked about men's corset sewing/resource recs so here is my half-assed and non-exhaustive rundown. Most of my historical sewing is focused on fashions of the UK, US, and Europe for the second half of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century, so that bias is reflected here; also disclaimer overall that "menswear"/"womenswear" are socially constructed categories and real people's bodies have always looked a wider variety of ways than fashion and other social forces would dictate. I sew historical garments with enthusiastic disregard for the historical gender binary and I'm barrel-chested, thick-waisted, and narrow-hipped no matter what I'm wearing.)

Onward, lads!

Ok wrt men's corsetry: there's a whole lot of fogginess around how historical men's corsets were constructed for a bunch of annoying reasons but that means there's lots of possibilities to explore in pattern drafting and project planning. Stays and other stiffened body-shaping garments have a whole complex conceptual relationship to the body basically as soon as they start appearing. 16th and 17th century garments do a whole lot of shaping (both compressing and building up) for men and women alike, but things really kick off in the 18th century in terms of the symbolic weight placed on stays and (later) corsets. Whole lot of stuff about gender, social class, race, fatness, morality, etc. getting projected onto these garments. So I'm a little leery about people taking obviously satirical illustrations of fashion-victim dandies or Gross Corpulent Libertines getting laced into corsets as truthful and indicative of the way men were really dressing -- scurrilous gossip and exaggeration are both a pain to sift through if we want to know which men wore corsets, what kind, and why.

In the very late 18th/early 19th century corsets were part of the repertoire for achieving highly fashionable shapes in menswear. (Along with a whole lot of padding.) They weren't mandatory for all dudes, but for fashion-forward dandies and equally fashion-forward military men, male corsets/stays were definitely a thing. The whole Romantic-era pigeon-breasted, narrow-waisted silhouette can be emulated by shapewear worn beneath the clothes, pads in the garments themselves, or both; in addition to waist reduction it helped to maintain smooth visual lines underneath close-fitting garments.

(look at these minxy 1830s dudes and their tiny waists)

As the century goes on the desired menswear silhouette becomes boxier and less fitted, and male corsetry recedes into the background; we start to see patents and advertisements for men's corsetry, so they still seem to have been worn, but there's a lot more language around vigorous manly athleticism and supporting the structures of the body. It can be hard to tell whether a particular piece is intended to be worn primarily for some medical purpose or for its perceived aesthetic benefits. This is giving me such flashbacks to trying to find post-surgical compression garments.

(Side note: there's also a vigorous tradition of fetishist writing about corsetry all through the 19th century, in fairly mainstream channels, which is fascinating. Due to the relatively private and deeply horny nature of fetish tightlacing we don't necessarily know as much about what those same letter-writers may have "really" worn at home, but I hope they were having fun.)

I've seen very few specifically men's corsetry patterns from historical pattern-makers-- not even really big names like Redthreaded. I sewed my 19thc menswear corsets from the men's underbust pattern in Laughing Moon Mercantile #113 which afaik is speculative rather than reproducing a specific historical garment, but it's not too different from the women's late-19th-century underbust patterns in the same pattern pack.

(image credit: LMM)

However, a lot of underbust and waist-cincher patterns from more general historical patternmakers could be made suitable with some minor alterations. Here I'd also rec books like Jill Salen's Corsets: Historical Patterns And Techniques and Norah Waugh's Corsets & Crinolines, though their focus is definitely on womenswear and you need to be relatively comfortable scaling up or drafting from pattern diagrams.

The structural features and desired results for a man's corset are pretty much the same as any other corset (back support, compression in some areas, etc.) even when the desired silhouette is different; commercially-created patterns are drafted with the expectation of certain bodily proportions so like with all corset-sewing it's important to make a mockup for fitting purposes. (I ended up liking one of my mockups so much I finished the process and made it a whole separate corset.) I don't know much about this area but I seem to see a lot more belt-and-buckle closures and criss-crossing straps in corsets designated as being for men -- this might be a byproduct of gendered differences in how people got dressed, but it might be nothing.

There's some weird and wonderful historical examples, both extant and in images -- I appreciated this post at Matsuzake Sewing, "A Brief Discussion Of Men's Stays", and its accompanying roundup of images on Pinterest though the tone wrt historical fetishwear corsets in the blog post is a little snippy. I really want to make a replica of Thomas Chew's 1810s corset (which you can read more about here at the USS Constitution Museum) but it incorporates stretch panels made with a shitload of metal springs and I'm not ready for all the trial and error trying to replicate that.

(image credit: USS Constitution Museum Collections)

There's a pretty rich vein of modern men's corset patterns which seem like they could be easily pattern-hacked for historical costuming purposes, like these with shoulder straps from Corsets By Caroline or DrobeStoreUpcycling's waist cincher which also looks like it could be altered pretty easily to cinch with straps and buckles like some 19thc men's corsetry does. This pattern for a boned chest binder in vest form by KennaSewLastCentury is also really cool but I didn't get a chance to sew it pre-top-surgery. (I think I've also seen someone who made a chest-compressing variation on Regency short stays, but I can't find it now.)

In general a lot of underbust and waist-cincher patterns should work just fine for silhouette-shaping without much bust/hip emphasis -- my usual resource for free corset patterns (Aranea Black) recently took down all her free patterns but they're definitely still circulating out there. For general fashion purposes the sky is the limit and there are a lot of enthusiastic dudes in corsets out there. This Lucy Corsetry round-up shows a variety of modern corsetiers' styles designated as being for men or more masculine silhouettes (including a SUPER aspirational brocaded corset with matching waistcoat made by Heavenly Corsets that I'd love to sew a historical spin on) and you can see some commonalities and possibilities for body-shaping.

I can also give some more general corset-sewing resources but I'm very much in the learning process here and I'd love any recs or input from people more experienced in pattern-drafting and corset-sewing.

#historical sewing #more information than you perhaps require #long post

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antialiasis · 14 days ago

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: all of my thoughts (part 1)

All right, this is me, watching my way through my current obsession The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for the umpteenth time and rambling about everything that comes to mind as I go, which ended up with me typing over thirty thousand words because I am incapable of shutting up. Because that is truly excessive, I will be posting my thoughts in three parts; this is part one (covering roughly the first hour and thirteen minutes of the Extended Cut, up through the end of the desert/carriage sequence), and I'll probably post part two in a few days to a week, pending editing and such and some of the other things I should be doing.

Because that's a lot of reading to commit to without knowing what you're getting into, especially if you're here from the tag, here's what to expect in brief:

This is all of my thoughts, simply whatever comes to mind, but my thoughts on fiction tend to be heavy on in-depth analysis of characters, their motivations and how they tick, so a lot of this falls into that general category.

In particular, there will be a whole lot of thoughts on Tuco, Blondie, and their evolving character dynamic, which is my favorite part of the movie. I will not be looking at it through a shippy lens, for what it's worth (romantic shipping is not generally how I personally engage with fiction), but I hope anyone who finds their dynamic compelling in whatever way might still enjoy some of my thoughts on them!

In between, there's also a bunch of other commentary on stuff like the narrative function of scenes (especially on the scenes that were cut in the International Cut of the film and whether the film is better with or without them), directorial or editing or production design or storytelling choices, acting choices, foreshadowing and parallels, as well as some lighter commentary on bits that amuse me or bug me or that I particularly enjoy.

Sometimes I will just be making observations about random things I didn't necessarily notice or pick up on on my first viewing; many of them are probably kind of obvious, but if I didn't pick them up seeing it once, probably there's at least a chance they might be interesting for other people who have only seen it once.

This is not a recap of the movie, but I do try to quote lines or explain bits that I'm commenting on, so hopefully you can follow along if you've seen the movie at all. I don't know how coherent this would be if you haven't seen the movie, but if you choose to read a post like this about a movie you haven't seen anyway, godspeed to you.

Tuco's introduction

The opening scene sure is a microcosm of Sergio Leone's directorial style. Slow, silent close-ups, wide shots, unclear exactly where the scene is going initially, these unnamed characters eventually converge on a saloon -- and then instead of following them inside, Tuco comes crashing through the window and we freeze-frame. It's very drawn out (I had a bit of an "Is the whole movie going to be like this" moment watching it for the first time), but the comic timing of Tuco and the freeze-frame is great; instantly we go from this super slow, dramatic buildup to this fun, humorous subversion that really sets a tone. All that buildup was actually for introducing this guy.

In the process, we learn that 1) Tuco is someone at least three different people want to kill, 2) he's someone skilled and resourceful enough to manage to shoot them first and then make his escape through the window even after being caught unawares during a meal by three people working together, and 3) even in the process of doing that he brings his food with him -- probably actually pretty revealing about his background of poverty, not wanting to waste food when he has it. We'll of course see him introduced further a little later, but this really says a lot for only actually containing about ten silent seconds of him, and also benefits from being funny.

It's kind of amusing how bloodless most gun deaths are in this movie, considering it doesn't shy away from blood in other parts. The surviving bounty hunter does have some blood on his hand as he tries to shoot after Tuco, probably to convey that he's injured despite still being alive, but the others are just cleanly lying there with no signs of damage. Maybe it's paying homage to what other Westerns looked like -- the actual cowboy gunslinging specifically is very idealized, sanitized and almost cartoonish, compared to a lot of the other violence in the film. I remember being a kid and hearing about the trope of people in old Westerns getting shot and dramatically going flying as a result, despite that normal bullets are far too small for their momentum to send a person flying anywhere -- you don't actually see too much of that in modern movies, where everything tends to look much more realistic, but this movie definitely has a lot of very dramatic flailing and spinning around when people get shot in a way that looks pretty distinctly silly and cartoony today. Ultimately it meshes pretty well with the overall tone of the film, though; this movie is gritty in many respects, but it does not aspire to realism.

Angel Eyes' introduction

The way Angel Eyes just silently waltzes into Stevens' home and helps himself to some of his food while maintaining eye contact the whole time is so weird and uncomfortable, it's delightful. What an entrance.

Stevens has a limp. People who have fought in the war tend to be visibly scarred by it in this movie -- truly something that just permeates every background detail, that you don't really think about on a first viewing when you think the Civil War is just a setting backdrop.

There is zero dialogue in this film until more than ten and a half minutes in (though the first three minutes of that are the opening credits, so it's seven and a half minutes of actual movie with no dialogue). I think this is a very fun choice which contributes to the viewer really feeling how unbearable the silence is for Stevens by the time he starts asking Angel Eyes if Baker sent him - half of that silence wasn't even technically part of this scene, but it really intensifies it by making the silence here feel even longer than it is.

When Stevens says, "I know nothing at all about that case of coins!", Angel Eyes looks up with interest from where he'd been casually looking at his food. Evidently he had had no idea there was any case of coins involved, only that he was meant to collect a name, but once Stevens mentions it, his interest is piqued.

Angel Eyes casually offers, "Well, Jackson was here, or Baker's got it all wrong," while cutting off and eating a piece of bread with a large knife, sort of implicitly daring Stevens to try to say Baker's got it all wrong and see what happens. When he's got Tuco captured later, Angel Eyes does a similar thing of staying friendly-threatening as he casually asks questions, but once Tuco actually refuses to talk of his own accord, out come the claws. This time, though, Stevens does not take the bait, probably sensing that that would lead nowhere good for him.

He says, "Maybe Baker would like to know just what you and Jackson had to say about the cash box" -- this isn't the info he came for, but maybe Baker would be interested. Really it's Angel Eyes himself who is intrigued -- he'll go on to tell Baker that that's my bit. But he doesn't really bother pushing Stevens for it, instead moving on to admitting he's being paid for the name specifically. Probably he figures once he gets the name, he'll have all the info he needs to track him down anyway by his usual means (which it turns out he does).

The casual, grinning confidence of Angel Eyes' assertion that if Jackson weren't going by an alias he would've found him already, "That's why they pay me," really makes you believe it, doesn't it. It's exposition about what Angel Eyes does, but is also executed to work as a nice character-establishing moment about his competence.

Christopher Frayling's otherwise fun and informative commentary on the film talked about how Angel Eyes' missing fingertip was provided by a hand double in the final truel -- but you can see in this scene that Lee van Cleef's own right hand is definitely missing that fingertip (though I did not notice it at all until I thought to specifically look for it). Very curious where the notion of a hand double came from -- he even named a specific guy.

Angel Eyes casually announces that when he's paid, he always sees the job through, even though that's just going to make Stevens desperate -- Angel Eyes knows he can shoot first, no big deal.

He shoots Stevens through the table and the food, even. How does he aim.

Angel Eyes grabs his gun and turns around to shoot Stevens' son before he actually comes into view (specifically, we see him start to react to something about ten frames before we can first see the tip of the son's rifle). Presumably, in-universe, he heard him coming, but we don't hear him coming at all over the blaring background chord, so it feels like Angel Eyes just knows he's coming by some sixth sense. Very effective at making him seem even more threatening, especially since there's also generally a conscious decision in this movie to act as if the characters can't see anything that's out of frame for the viewer -- Blondie and Tuco get caught out by that rule a couple of times in amusing ways, but Angel Eyes actively defies the auditory equivalent.

(It's neat how the family photo, used for Angel Eyes obliquely threatening Stevens' family, also serves as foreshadowing for the fact he also has this second, older son we hadn't seen yet at that point.)

The fact Angel Eyes sneaks into Baker's bedroom when he's sleeping to report back is so extra. A normal person would just arrange to meet him the next morning, but no, Angel Eyes does the creepy stalker thing. Probably makes the murdering him in his bed bit a little easier, though, which also suggests he was definitely intending on that bit the whole time and didn't just "almost forget".

Baker's brow furrows and his eyes shift uncomfortably when Angel Eyes mentions the cash box; clearly he was hoping Angel Eyes would never find out about that bit (very reasonably, given what happens next).

All in all, Angel Eyes' introduction is super striking. The casual veneer and smug grins painted over a deeply tense sense of threat; the absolute deadly confidence; the fact he shoots Stevens' son too so easily and presciently, almost as a footnote to it all; casually walking out with the money that Stevens offered him for sparing his life; and then, on the ostensible basis that when he's paid he always sees the job through, casually killing Baker too.

Although he explains the murder of Baker as simply seeing the job through, though, Stevens didn't actually ask him to kill Baker; all he ever suggested he wanted was to be left alone, and all he said about the money was that it's a thousand dollars, after asking what Angel Eyes was being paid for murdering him. I expect Angel Eyes simply chooses to take it as payment for the 'job' of killing Baker for motivated reasons; that way, he can act as if the money is still 'payment' for him even though he rejected Stevens' attempt to bribe him, and it's much easier to go after the cash box himself if Baker's out of the picture, after all.

This creates an interesting ironic sense that while Angel Eyes effectively presents his own introduction as being all about his unassailable professional principles about always performing the job he's been paid for, and I took him at his word on my first viewing, he's not really all about those principles at all -- and as the movie goes on, indeed, he's simply pursuing the cash box for his own reasons rather than because anyone's paying him for it. His 'professional principles' don't come up again, because that's not really what this intro was telling us at all.

Which isn't to say he doesn't always see a job through after being paid (I can definitely believe that; if he has a reputation for getting the job done no matter what, that makes people more likely to pay him in the future, and he sure has no qualms about completing any job), just that that's not at all the main thing driving his character, as you might initially assume. The thing his intro is really telling us about him is that he's ruthless, terrifying, extremely competent, very interested in this cash box, and has absolutely no trouble casually murdering whoever might be standing in the way of accomplishing what he wants. And I think it's very effective at showing that.

Blondie's introduction

This scene opens with Tuco on a galloping horse in a way that naturally invites the viewer to assume this is following directly from when he flees from the saloon in his intro, and that's what I assumed on my first viewing -- but nah, not only does he not have the food and drink, he's wearing different clothing. Given the surviving bounty hunter from the intro will be appearing later and indicating that was eight months ago, and this is decidedly the most obvious place for the bulk of the timeskip to be happening, probably this is actually several months later. This film is not at all big on time indicators -- for the most part, we have no idea how much time is passing, everything feels like it's happening pretty much in sequence, and we can only vaguely infer that there must be longer gaps between particular events.

The straight-up photograph on Tuco's wanted poster is pretty hilarious. There's even a scene later with a little gag about the long exposure times for photographs at the time. Probably this is just a funny prop for two scenes to make it very obvious to the viewer that it is absolutely him on the wanted poster even as he adamantly denies it, but it's also very funny to imagine Tuco patiently posing for his own wanted poster.

Framing through it, all three of the bounty hunters surrounding Tuco when Blondie comes along are in fact going for their guns when Blondie shoots them, which makes sense -- for all that Blondie is not much of a noble hero, he generally does not tend to shoot people until they're at least starting to draw on him. (There's one notable exception, which will come up in part two.)

I enjoy Tuco's weird little nervous, disbelieving grin as he realizes this stranger just shot the bounty hunters but is sparing him. Tuco's own worldview, as shaped by his background, is dominated by self-interest; it's every man for himself, and it's up to him to do whatever it takes, tell whatever lies, betray whoever he has to, to get ahead. And yet, there's this endearing naïveté to him, where he's not really suspicious of other people's motives accordingly -- he's surprised Blondie would save him, but his brain doesn't immediately go to this guy just wants to be the one to collect my bounty. We see this a lot throughout the film.

We cut (with great comic timing) from Blondie sticking a cigar in Tuco's mouth to Tuco spitting out a cigar while tied up on his horse as Blondie takes him into town -- an edit that suggests continuity, like only a short time has passed and it's the same cigar that he just hadn't had the chance to spit out yet (sort of dubious if you really think about it, since surely it would've taken a bit for Blondie to tie him up and get him onto his horse). This reinforces our initial assumptions about what's happening, where Blondie would just have tied him up before riding straight into town, but given the con they turn out to be running, there must have actually been an offscreen conversation about it and the cigar is there as a bit of cheeky misdirection for the audience.

(It probably makes sense that when Blondie put the cigar in his mouth, he was actually about to propose they run this bounty scheme together -- as the movie proceeds, we see that Blondie generally shares cigars in more of a friendly sort of way, after all.)

"I hope you end up in a graveyard!" yells Tuco. They sure do all end up in a graveyard! This is some very cheeky foreshadowing and I love it.

Tuco yelling ineffectual threats about how Blondie can still save himself by letting him go, while actually tied up and completely at his mercy, is just extremely Tuco.

Then he shifts tack very abruptly to saying he feels sick and needs water, only to then spit in Blondie's face. Later he furiously calls the deputy a bastard just for walking out of a building, only to then immediately shift to saying he's just an honest farmer who didn't do anything wrong. Tuco often does this, shifting from one approach to the next in a way that makes it really obvious he's bullshitting, but he keeps doing this, just throwing shit at the wall to see if anything sticks, even when this is counterproductive to the whole effort. He is presumably playing it up a bit here, but it's still in its own way pretty representative of who he is and what he's actually like. He's so characterful.

"Who says so? You can't even read!" says Tuco about whether it's him on the wanted poster, which is some delightful nonsense hypocrisy/projection given we will later see that Tuco himself can only barely read. I love him. (And why would reading even have anything to do with it; he's obviously looking at the plain actual photograph of him right there. Love Tuco's absolute nonsense.)

Another absurd change of tactics: "Hey, everybody, look, look! He's giving him the filthy money!" - as if he's going to rally onlookers against the sheriff and Blondie somehow on the basis that money is exchanging hands, isn't that suspicious.

Tuco calls Blondie Judas for accepting the money (referencing the thirty pieces of silver, of course), which will get a fun echo later.

"You're the son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you!" I love that Tuco has invented compounding recursive bastardry just for Blondie. Not only is he a bastard, all one thousand men his mother slept with were also bastards. Glorious. (You can see Blondie's amused by this one; he actually smiles a little bit before throwing a match at him.)

I wonder if Blondie actively encouraged him to go quite this hard on the insults, to make them look less associated, or if he just did this. One would think it would be risky, on Tuco's end, to be this over the top in literally spitting in the face of the guy who could just let him hang if he happened to change his mind -- but then again, Tuco genuinely doesn't expect Blondie to double-cross him.

Tuco's crimes, as of this first hanging, are: murder; armed robbery of citizens, state banks and post offices; the theft of sacred objects; arson in a state prison; perjury; bigamy; deserting his wife and children; inciting prostitution; kidnapping; extortion; receiving stolen goods; selling stolen goods; passing counterfeit money; and, contrary to the laws of this state, the condemned is guilty of using marked cards and loaded dice! All this paints a picture of a pretty colorful backstory, but most of it is relatively petty; other than the murder (possibly of people like the bounty hunters we saw him dispose of in the opening), we can gather he's been scrounging up money through anything from cheating at cards up to armed robbery and kidnapping, he lied under oath (checks out), he set a prison on fire (presumably to escape), he ran off from his wife and kids and then married someone else he presumably also ran off from, and then there's "inciting prostitution" which I'm guessing means offering someone not previously engaged in sex work money for sex.

It obviously checks out that he'd do anything for money, and bigamy and deserting his wife and children rhyme with his off-hand mention at the monastery later that he's had lots of wives here and there; in general, it tracks that he would make big commitments and then just break them. So all in all, these seem like probably a bunch of genuine crimes that he actually committed. (He also nods somewhat smugly at the marked cards and loaded dice bit.)

Blondie's MO seems to be to first shoot the whip out of the hand of the guy who's meant to be setting the horse off and then shoot the actual rope (and then random attendees' hats, for good measure). Better hope that first shot doesn't spook the horse.

It really is very reasonable of Tuco to want a bigger cut for being the one running the risks; you wouldn't generally want to do a job with a significant chance of getting you killed without being very well compensated for that. Unfortunately, Blondie doing the cutting means he's the one with all the power here -- if he's dissatisfied with his share, he can just pocket all the money and let Tuco die -- which puts him at the advantage in the negotiation, and he knows it.

I enjoy how in the middle of "If we cut down my percentage, it's liable to interfere with my aim," Blondie offers Tuco a cigar, this casual friendly move in the middle of what is effectively a threat.

Tuco does a little understated, "Hmm," of acknowledgement that makes it feel like this was genuinely unexpected. But then he just returns the threat: "But if you miss, you had better miss very well. Whoever double-crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing about Tuco." Which sets up his quest for revenge on Blondie after the double-cross, obviously, but is also fun to recall during the final scene: Tuco actively advised Blondie not to leave him alive if he was going to double-cross him.

Tuco why are you eating the cigar

Next time he's in the noose, it's for a whole new list of crimes that ends with, "For all these crimes, the accused has made a full, spontaneous confession." Yeah, he probably just went off spewing confessions to a string of colorful invented offenses as Blondie brought him in, didn't he, maybe hoping it would raise the bounty. (At the cinematic screening where I saw it for the first time, I missed the spontaneous confession thing due to no subtitles and spent half the movie experiencing some jarring mental dissonance over Tuco's growing goofy likability versus the offhandedly having been convicted of multiple rapes near the start thing. But it's actually pretty strongly telegraphed that the new crimes here are simply bullshit; a spontaneous confession to a variety of new things that were decidedly not on the earlier list, that he could not possibly have done in the implied presumably not very long timespan between the first and second hanging, mostly distinctly more dramatic crimes than the original set, all sounds strongly like a Tuco throwing shit at the wall thing.)

Tuco looks a lot more restless during the second hanging, where for the first one he was pretty calm -- probably a little bit nervous about Blondie's "liable to interfere with my aim" remark, even though they'd presumably come to an agreement to stick with the 50/50 split.

He notices a woman being scandalized, seems sort of put out for a second, but then growls at her to scare her more. What a Tuco.

Another minor character presumably disabled in the war: Angel Eyes' incidentally legless informant. (Whom he calls Shorty, like the guy Blondie teams up with later, who is definitely a different guy because that guy has legs -- sort of a funny aversion of the usual one Steve limit. Genuinely a bit puzzled by why they did that -- is it like that in the Italian version or just the English dub?) I wonder if the bit where he moves around by holding a couple of bricks and using them to walk on is something inspired by a real person or people at the time.

Calling him a 'half-soldier' is pretty rude, Angel Eyes.

Look, I'll accept that we're calling Blondie Blondie, sounds like that's what you'd call him in Italy, but there's really no excuse for "A golden-haired angel watches over him." The man's hair is brown. It's not even a light brown. What are you talking about, Angel Eyes.

But to not get too distracted by that part of the line: Angel Eyes obviously recognizes the con they're running. I think that's probably because he knows of Blondie and that this is a thing he does (he's presumably done it with others before), so when he notices Blondie's around at a hanging, he's like ah, yes, there's him doing his thing, guess he's running with Tuco now. My own feeling is Blondie and Angel Eyes basically only know of each other, though -- no direct evidence they're not more familiar or anything, but they don't really act like they have a personal history, I think, compared to Tuco and Angel Eyes who obviously do.

After the threat about a pay cut being liable to interfere with his aim, I originally figured Blondie missing the rope (or rather, it seems to have grazed but not severed it) might have been deliberate, meant to scare Tuco a bit and make him think twice about proposing that again. But ultimately, on a closer look, I'm pretty sure he really did just miss, both because his expressions and body language feel more in line with that and because Tuco's rant after they escape indicates that Blondie's explanation to him was that anyone can miss a shot -- if it was meant as a warning, probably he wouldn't then go on to actively make it sound like he'd just happened to miss.

(That line also indicates it probably wasn't that he did hit it dead-on but the rope was just sturdier than expected -- if Blondie said anyone can miss a shot, that sounds like he at least believes it's because he missed, and I don't see any sensible reason he would lie about that here.)

That said, I think it's fun to imagine that the reason for the miss was that that discussion really did interfere with his aim -- that little bit of tension with Tuco led to him being a little careless this time, even though he didn't mean to miss and thought he had it.

The thing that actually prompts Blondie to stop and leave Tuco is Tuco's rant about how nobody misses when I'm at the end of the rope and When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the devil bite your ass. For all that he explains it as being about how there's no future in this with a guy who'll never be worth more than $3000, there's a specific point where he stops his horse and decides to ditch him, and it's when Tuco's complaining turns into guilting him about missing and the experience of being on the other end. Blondie will not be guilted and does not want or need this; just going to ditch him and wash his hands of him and find somebody else. I get the sense that Blondie doesn't really want to think about that miss too hard, at this point, and Tuco won't leave him alone about it, and so he leaves him.

More echoes in Blondie and Tuco's relationship: Blondie specifically says, "Adios," when leaving Tuco in the desert, which Tuco will say back to him at the inn.

Tuco's reaction, once again throwing shit at the wall, goes from insults to angrily ordering him to cut the rope off and get off the horse (as if he has any power to make him do anything, standing there unarmed with his hands tied), to a series of hilariously off-the-wall threats ("I'll hang you up by your thumbs!"), to disbelief/desperation: "Wait a minute, this is only a trick! You wouldn't leave me here! Come back! Wait! Blondie! Listen, Blondie!" before the final ¡Hijo de una gran putaaaa! The last couple stages once again get echoed in the final scene. I enjoy the "You wouldn't" - Blondie's supposed to be better than this, even after he'd threatened his aim might suffer if he got less money. They were supposed to be friends, damn it! (Tuco really wants to believe that people actually like him, and often chooses to live in the world in which they do.)

I truly love the fact Blondie gets the freeze-frame and onscreen caption of "the good" just after ironically admonishing Tuco for his ingratitude after Blondie has double-crossed him, taken the money they were going to split, and left him in the desert with this hands tied. As I wrote in the post with my initial impressions on the movie, this is the most uncalled for, mean-spirited thing he does in the entire movie, and getting the caption right here makes it really drip with irony, which is exactly the right thing to do with it, compared to if they'd put it earlier when it might have looked like it was meant to be played straight. There's no gallant hero here, only this guy, who is kind of a bastard. Blondie genuinely grows to deserve the title more as we go on, and that's one of the fun things about the movie, but we have established that the base point is low.

Blondie's intro tells us a number of things: he's a very good shot, casually confident, silent and stoic and unruffled by most anything, happy to be a conman ripping off bounties by bringing in criminals and then freeing them again to repeat the same scheme elsewhere, willing to make oblique threats to get his way and to shoot first when anyone seems about to pull a gun on him, and enough of a bastard to leave Tuco behind in the desert. But he's definitely the most enigmatic of the three main characters; he doesn't talk or emote much, leaving exactly what's going on in his head pretty vague and open to interpretation, even as some of his actions are pretty striking and interesting. This has nerdsniped me, because I enjoy thinking about what's going on in characters' heads; please be prepared for an excessive amount of analysis of what might be going through his mind in almost every scene he's in.

Angel Eyes and Maria

The choice to open this scene with Maria getting thrown off a carriage with a bunch of drunk Confederates and the choked-up yell of "You filthy rats!" after them is probably largely just to get across the suggestion that she's a prostitute, making it easier to connect that she's the one Angel Eyes' informant told him about. But I appreciate that it gives her a little bit of a tragic existence outside the confines of the plot and makes her sympathetic even before Angel Eyes starts beating on her. (A secondary purpose for this is also probably to show some Confederate soldiers just being assholes; the film makes a point of featuring both sympathetic and asshole moments from both sides of the Civil War.)

Like with Stevens, while Angel Eyes makes his presence very threatening, he starts off nonviolently (well, relatively; the way he pulls her inside is not exactly gentle), just telling her to go on talking about Bill Carson -- but when she refuses to volunteer any information and just says she doesn't know him, the claws come out instantly. There's none of the veneer of casual friendliness he had with Stevens, though, just an intensely scary stare and threatening demands. (The scare chord playing in the background doesn't help.) All in all, Angel Eyes was already terrifying but he is even more so in this scene.

I do also appreciate that while the interrogation is brutal and deeply uncomfortable and thick with the danger of sexual violence, it does not go there -- he's physically but not sexually violent, he's only interested in the information, and once he has it, we see him just leave. This is a completely sexless film, and I think we're all very lucky for that; it's one reason The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has aged relatively well, compared to for instance some of Sergio Leone's other films. (That's not to say I have anything against portrayals of sexuality or even sexual violence in media in principle, but I've gotten the sense that back in the sixties, media that did portray it tended to be profoundly weird about it.)

Tuco returns to town

We don't get to see Tuco suffering in the desert, only making his way across the rope bridge and then stumbling toward the well and finally indulging, but I think it does get across that this was an ordeal for him, and that becomes easier to appreciate on a rewatch, after seeing Blondie go through it later. Tuco's skin has fared a lot better than Blondie's, but his lips are pretty cracked.

The gun seller looks so proud of his little selection of revolvers and is so eager to please him by showing him more. It's painful how long he keeps trying to be helpful in selling him a gun even when Tuco just grabs the bottle of wine out of his hands and dismantles half of his guns to put together a custom revolver. And then Tuco just uses the gun, with a cartridge the owner gave him, to rob him of the money he has in the till, oof.

Man, those targets just casually in the shape of Native Americans.

Sergio Leone just has a thing for characters shoving something in somebody else's mouth unbidden, doesn't he. Blondie sticks his cigar in Tuco's mouth during his intro, then Tuco puts the sign in the shopkeeper's mouth, and then it happens very memorably in Once Upon a Time in the West as well. I forget if it's in A Fistful of Dollars or For a Few Dollars More, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised.

The gun store scene is theoretically skippable (Christopher Frayling's commentary indicated it was cut in British prints of the film, though I gather it survived in the US cut), but it's pretty fun in its audacity, and is also doing some good setup work for Tuco's character. So far, apart from his intro suggesting some degree of scrappy ability to shoot before he gets shot, he's been shown in a pretty ineffectual light, getting ambushed and captured and raging helplessly with his hands tied. But here we get to see that Tuco really knows his way around guns and has implausible trick-shooting skills to rival Blondie's -- and, of course, that he really is an unrepentant bandit who thinks nothing of doing this when he wants a gun and some money, lest we were left too sympathetic to him when Blondie left him.

The cave

Tuco presumably bought the chicken with some of the $200 he robbed from the gun store; he presents it like having a single chicken by itself is amazing riches. Does say a lot.

I enjoy his very blatant talking to himself about how oh, he's so lonely, but he's rich, wonder where his friends are now. He clearly figures that Pedro/Chico/Ramon are there listening and just avoiding him. He talks like they were such great friends, but somehow the fact they don't come out until he starts loudly talking about how if only they were there he'd give them $1000 each doesn't make it seem like they ever had a relationship that went much beyond assisting each other in committing crimes to their mutual advantage -- and Tuco clearly in fact knows this, since he knows exactly what line to go for to lure them out. (But no, Tuco definitely has great friends, because he is a cool and well-liked dude who has definitely made good choices in life.)

I've seen people online suggesting that Blondie and Tuco ran their scam a lot more often than the two times we actually see, but this scene seems to make it explicit that they only did it exactly those two times: Tuco specifically indicates Blondie has $4000, which is simply equal to half of the first $2000 bounty that they split plus the entire $3000 bounty for the second time that he kept for himself.

This is one of the scenes added in the Extended Cut, despite having been cut even from the Italian version of the movie after its original Rome premiere. The primary ostensible purpose of it is just to establish where Pedro/Chico/Ramon came from (the featurette on the restoration makes it explicit that the guy overseeing the Extended Cut, John Kirk, just thought it was a plot hole and decided to reinsert the scene when he discovered it existed because of that, despite Sergio Leone himself having decided to cut it for pacing reasons). It is true I think I would probably ask myself some questions about Tuco's buddies if I'd seen a cut without it; Tuco's seemed like a lone wolf so far, and without it there's no indication at all of who these guys are or why they're working for/with him for this.

On the other hand, the scene kind of sets them up as if they're a lot more important than they are, and its internal coherence feels a little off: them only coming out when Tuco tempts them with money, despite that Tuco's been there for a bit talking at them about what good friends they were, actively suggests they don't actually like or trust him (which makes good sense!), but then it also has this dialogue about how they thought he'd been killed, which feels as if it's randomly offering up an unnecessary and somewhat contradictory second explanation for why we haven't seen them with him up to this point. The bit about them thinking he was dead doesn't actually connect to anything and seems to give undue weight and improperly conserved detail to Tuco's relationship with these guys, who are ultimately just some throwaway goons that exist in one scene before dying and never being mentioned again. I think probably the movie is actually better off without this scene, as Sergio Leone apparently concluded himself.

The inn

More of the war in the background -- this time with the innkeeper privately opining about how those rebels are cowards and it'll be better when the Yankees have beaten them as the Confederate army retreats out of the town, only to then yell "Hurray for Dixie!" as they're passing by. Not the only character in this movie who just pretends to support whichever army he's currently looking at. (We see more injured soldiers in the background here.)

Love the tension of the buildup here. Blondie's gun lying dismantled on the table at the start, the brothers approaching in the midst of all the noise, the close-up of Blondie's hand freezing and eyes narrowing at the clink in the sudden silence, straining to hear as there's nothing (the fact it stopped when the army did actively suggests someone's trying to be sneaky), then frantically loading the revolver with a second-third-fourth bullet as the background noise restarts and then juuuust managing to finish and shoot the three of them in rapid succession as they burst in. These silent close-up shots of his hands and eyes also deliver a rare moment of tangible alarm from Blondie; he's legitimately scared for a bit there and you can feel it, which is greatly appreciated from a character who spends most of the movie being stoic and enigmatic.

Enjoy Blondie choosing to explain how he knew they were coming by going, "Your spurs," just before firing the final shot (just giving this guy a little tip about where he messed up before killing him, as you do), but also I deeply enjoy that him firing that last smug bullet, which he probably didn't really need to when the guy was collapsing anyway, leaves him defenseless when Tuco draws attention to himself at the window. Blondie is very smart and competent, we've just watched him survive three people sneaking up on him while he's cleaning his gun because he managed to notice the tiny sound of a clinking spur and put together what it meant and load his gun in time, but then he makes this near-fatal mistake by getting a little too cocky about it, and that's definitely tastier than if he'd obviously needed all his bullets there.

I have seen it suggested that Tuco intentionally used the brothers as cannon fodder here, but I'm not sure the movie necessarily suggests that; presumably the idea was for them to successfully sneak up on Blondie and catch him completely unawares without the unexpected silence exposing the rogue spur clink, which wouldn't have had to involve any of them getting killed (heck, if they'd happened to be just a little earlier, Blondie would've still been in the middle of cleaning his gun). Tuco and the others had clearly talked about their approach ahead of time, so they were perfectly aware that they'd be going up there by the door and Tuco would be coming in by the window and presumably thought that sounded like a good plan. And we have no idea exactly at what point Tuco managed to make his way in, so we don't have any indication either way on whether he theoretically could have intervened to save them in some manner -- my first assumption would be he got in after Blondie had stood up, which is after he shot them. Sneaking up on him from two different directions makes sense either way. I wouldn't necessarily put it past Tuco to figure the brothers will probably get killed and do it anyway, but I don't think we can say that for sure.

Either way, I enjoy Tuco doing his quick little sign of the cross when he says "Those that come in by the door." He did in fact just get them killed by bringing them here, and while he's not going to say anything about that to Blondie, it shows him acknowledging it in a small way. Tuco's religiosity is a great little character trait that has no impact on the plot but just adds more color and dimension to him as a character -- it adds a really fun bit of visual irony to punctuate some of his various decidedly un-Christian actions, and it has a rich sense of being rooted in his background given his family was presumably religious.

Blondie's shrugging, "It's empty," feels like he's initially kind of expecting them to just talk: he takes Tuco wanting him to remove the pistol belt as a practical thing, just telling him to remove his weapon so he can put his away, and so Blondie removes it but tells him that's not really necessary because he can't shoot him anyway. Tuco could have shot him already if he were here to kill him, right? He probably expects, initially, that Tuco is just here to get his half of the money, or possibly all of it.

Instead, Tuco responds with, "Mine isn't" -- he's deadly serious and he's not putting his gun away at all.

"Even when Judas hanged himself there was a storm, too." There's Judas again! Tuco originally called Blondie that while playing it up for the scam, but as far as he's concerned now, it's true actually. Love the furious energy of him sitting there having found this Biblical parallel and decided this is the specific revenge he wants on this guy and bringing a noose to arrange that. Blondie's never had a rope around his neck, never felt the devil bite his ass? Well, now he will. And he'll make him do it himself, because Judas hanged himself.

Blondie warily (and correctly) suggests the 'storm' is actually cannon fire -- because he decidedly does not want to be anywhere near the war, and by the time cannons are getting fired in the vicinity, he thinks they should probably be getting the hell out of there, and if Tuco agrees, then perhaps pointing that out is a ticket out of this pretty alarming situation he has found himself in. But Tuco, of course, is not really interested in entertaining that just when he has Blondie right where he wants him. He's going to hang him right here if it's the last thing he does.

Blondie goes along with it, slowly, silently, looking kind of wary and skeptical more than anything. When I was first watching this movie, I kept expecting him to do something, to distract him in some clever way and then lunge at him to disarm him or something, like you'd usually expect the main character to do in an action movie. But the thing is that's just not how Blondie operates. He doesn't do bold risky action-hero feats. He can absolutely shoot a gun with the best of them, but he has no particular physical skills, never even throws a punch in this whole movie unless you count the backhand slap on the tied-up Tuco earlier; when unarmed, all he's really got is his brains. Blondie gets by on being smart and careful and analytical. When Blondie finds a gun pointed at him, and has no leverage over the other guy, he will do what he's told, make no sudden movements, and wait until he sees some kind of actual opening, because otherwise he's just going to get shot. He buys what little time he can going along with the hanging while his brain silently whirs away evaluating his options for how he can get out of this, and that's about it for what he can do.

What are his options? He doesn't have a lot. Tuco is standing too far away to reach before he shoots but too close to realistically miss, never takes his eyes off him for more than a second, keeps his gun pointed squarely at him. It wouldn't be hard for him to get out of the noose -- it's a big noose, he's barely in it, his hands are free. But if he did, Tuco would presumably just shoot him instead. Probably his best chance, once Tuco says he's going to shoot the legs off the stool, is to try to make a move just when he fires, slip out of the noose and then probably make some kind of last-ditch attempt to overpower him before he's ready to shoot again, and I imagine Blondie was getting ready to attempt just that before they were interrupted. But even then, it's very questionable whether he could have actually escaped like that. All in all, things are looing pretty dicey for him by the time the rogue cannonball comes to his rescue -- but once it does, he's out of there fast, grabbing his chance now he's got it.

Either way, as little as he gives away as it's happening, Blondie's genuinely staring death in the face here for this whole sequence, and this experience clearly left enough of an impression on him for him to make a point of turning this specifically back on Tuco in the final scene, even though Tuco's going to torment him in a much more extended and agonizing way in the desert, so I'm enjoying the quiet implication there.

The cannonball is kind of interesting because this is absolutely a textbook deus ex machina. Usually I like the rule that a contrived coincidence can get the characters into a situation but ideally not out of it. This is definitely getting Blondie out of a situation, and definitely has that sense of being a little unsatisfying as the answer to how's he going to get out of this one. And yet, the fact Blondie really was helpless to do much about it is kind of the point here. If Blondie had actually won out in this encounter, it wouldn't have nearly the same meaning when he finally ends up turning the situation around in the desert, nor when he tells Tuco to get in the noose at the end -- narratively, we need this to be an instance of Tuco beating out Blondie and then toying with him for it to have the right impact, and hence, since he can't actually die here, he needs to get out without winning.

(It does also help a bit that the ongoing cannon fire was already set up and established, even if it just happening to hit the building is purely coincidental.)

Being saved by a cannonball, of course, is again the constant insistent presence of the war in the background, now coming into the characters' lives just a bit more directly.

Meanwhile, Tuco in this scene, man. He is finally the one in the position of power, just relishing having control and being able to order Blondie to do things and have him actually do them and the grim sense of justice in seeing him be the one in a noose for once. Cheerful lines like, "It's too big for your neck, huh? We fix that right away." Grinning as he explains that he'll shoot the legs off the stool. But then when it comes to actually doing it… he takes an extra breath, with this kind of hesitant expression on his face, before echoing Blondie's "Adios." As he points the gun, it's shaking a bit. Tuco doesn't feel totally right here and I love it a lot.

Tuco does absolutely want to see Blondie suffer right now -- we're about to see him chase him down again so he can torture him in an even more drawn-out and awful way, after all. But once he actually kills him it'll all be over, and he just goes back to his usual shitty bandit life, one more person that he'd once thought was a friend gone. This has been a couple of minutes of mildly satisfying catharsis, but not totally satisfying, too brief, too easy -- and there's probably some basic squirm of empathy there, when he's been in that position, can vividly remember the squeeze of the rope -- but the bastard deserves this for betraying him, so he's doing it anyway.

All in all, this is possibly the scene I have rewatched the most. This is significantly because I happen to have a big dopamine whump button in my brain labeled 'HANGINGS', but it's also just a sequence of masterful tension leading up to this delightfully twisted, tense and thoroughly loaded character interaction following on the previous scenes between Tuco and Blondie in fun specific ways that build up to even more fun things later. What a character dynamic.

The fort

I don't have too much to say about this one. It's a very impressive set, the war is brutal, the sarcasm of the Confederate captain Angel Eyes talks to and the ease of bribing him with some booze is nice foreshadowing and a parallel for the poor Union captain Blondie and Tuco will meet, but ultimately this scene is mostly about filling in how Angel Eyes learns about Batterville. (Or is it Betterville? The subtitles say Batterville and that's what it sounds like everyone's saying, but Christopher Frayling and the subtitles on him say Betterville.) This is a restored scene in the Extended Cut, which exists in the Italian version but was cut from the International Cut.

Angel Eyes pauses and swallows looking at the injured soldiers and later lets the captain keep the booze he brought, vaguely suggesting a glimmer of sympathy for their plight, which is sort of interesting but also a little divorced from the rest of the movie. Villains having different sides to them is neat, but I don't think we get a great sense of why Angel Eyes would be sympathetic to these men but also treat the prisoners at Batterville -- who are soldiers from the Confederate army just like these ones -- how he does later with zero remorse, so I'm not sure this is actually doing much for the movie on a character level in the end, and if anything may be a little counterproductive to the kind of extremely cold-blooded villain that Angel Eyes is otherwise set up to be.

I suppose the idea might be that Angel Eyes is theoretically capable of sympathy, but also capable of simply discarding it the moment it's useful to him. Alternatively, the idea could be that at the moment he feels in some sense that if the war catches up with him he could be in these soldiers' place, but then he goes on to enlist with the Union army to get into Batterville, at which point he's on the winning side so who cares. Angel Eyes does display nerves later at the truel, once he's in a situation he's not in control of where he might very well die, so maybe it checks out that while he feels not totally secure in not winding up like these men himself, their grim conditions get to him a bit.

I do think it is kind of nice to have this scene in terms of keeping Angel Eyes' storyline going and maintaining the sense that he's still out there looking for Carson, even aside from the added plot clarity; without it, he'd just kind of not exist for a very significant chunk of the film.

I've also seen it argued that it brings out the horrors of the war too early, given the film's slow progression from the war as simply backdrop for the plot to eventually spending the leadup to the climax with it in stark focus. I think that's a legitimately interesting point, but also that it didn't stop me absorbing that progression just fine when first seeing the film as the Extended Cut -- soldiers are injured here, yes, but they aren't truly lingered on, and all in all it felt mostly just like a logical part of the established war-as-backdrop at this stage.

All in all, I have some mixed feelings on this scene and what it contributes, but I'm tempted to conclude the film might be better without it overall.

The desert

Tuco tracking down Blondie by finding his cigars at every campfire is pretty hilarious. Imagine what Blondie could have avoided if he just stopped smoking like a chimney.

(It's sort of surprising Blondie got so far ahead of Tuco to begin with -- he wouldn't have had long to get downstairs and to his horse while Tuco was recovering from the fall and getting out of the rubble, so one would've thought Tuco could've been basically right on his heels. I guess Tuco went in the wrong direction initially and had to catch up.)

Tuco forbidding Blondie to shoot down Shorty, oof. Once again Tuco is fundamentally out for himself, and right now he wants to deny Blondie this more than to let this stranger live, so down he goes. (Nonetheless, he flinches watching it, again bit of instinctive empathy despite that he mostly suppresses it -- it hits pretty close to home.)

Blondie continues to comply with the orders of the guy who's pointing a gun at him, but he clearly doesn't feel great about this, apologizing, gaze lingering on Shorty even as he's preparing to stand up. Clearly his moral line lies somewhere between leaving Tuco to fend for himself (where he might die, but sometime later in the desert where Blondie would never know) and letting Shorty hang, dying right in front of him when he was expecting a rescue. Perhaps Blondie didn't even know he had this line until now.

A moment of silence for Blondie's original horse, whom he probably rode out here, but who is presumably just left behind as Tuco takes him away and never seen again. This movie does not really give a damn about individual horses -- the characters' horses repeatedly disappear and go unmentioned only for them to later manage to get a different horse somewhere without comment -- but as a former horse girl this is the sort of thing I notice and wonder about.

Blondie presumably initially figures Tuco's just taking him somewhere a short distance away to try to make him hang himself again or something. But then Tuco shoots the canteen out of his hands, and the hat off his head for good measure (love Tuco casually replicating Blondie's little hat-shooting trick just to rub it in), and it starts to sink in that no, that's not it, is it. Where are they going? On a nice walk of a hundred miles through desert. "What was it you told me the last time? Ah, 'If you save your breath, I feel a man like you would manage it.'" Tuco's not taking him anywhere; this is just torture, once again a very specific torture. Blondie made Tuco walk seventy miles through the desert? Tuco'll make him walk a hundred miles, or however long it takes before he dies a slow and agonizing death, and that'll show him. I deeply enjoy how in this movie, between the two of them, it's never just generic revenge, but always this hyperspecific replication of the other's previous cruelties.

Tuco's cute pink parasol is such a choice.

He's so utterly gleeful watching Blondie helplessly stumbling until he faceplants in the sand. Tuco relishes power and control when he can get it, not only for the Blondie-specific reasons (Blondie had all the power from beginning to end in their bounty scheme, and exercised it to leave Tuco helpless) but probably also because of his background -- poverty sure is a way to feel perpetually helpless and subject to external whims, and escaping it through banditry probably represented a sense of freedom from all that, where he can just go out and take what he wants and other people can be subject to his whims for once.

In the sequence added in the Extended Cut, the collapsed and dehydrated Blondie looks at Tuco's boot right beside his face, swallows, tenses for a heave of effort -- and then grabs the boot, only for it to just be the empty boot, Tuco cheerfully bathing his feet a short distance away. (Blondie is definitely suffering from the "characters can't see anything out of frame" thing here, but I kind of enjoy the literal implication that his eyes can just barely even focus and the boot manages to be all he can make out in his field of vision, even if it stretches plausibility a bit.) I do quite like this bit, not least because this is the one time we actually properly see Blondie attempting resistance. He silently went along with the hanging and he silently goes along with the desert walk, too -- which makes sense, because he's being ordered to at gunpoint, and as I went into earlier, he doesn't have action hero armor that'd let him do much to fight back in these situations without just getting shot, and he's generally too careful to try under the circumstances. But it means that he feels very passive in these sequences, and seeing this moment where he finally does think he has a chance to strike back, and the hate in his eyes and how painstakingly he gathers all of the energy he can muster to grab it, helps a lot to contextualize the rest and make him more tangibly an active character who cares what's happening to him for this. With this bit, it's easy to extrapolate that he has been waiting for any chance to take him down this whole time, and this is the one time he (seemingly) finds one. Without it, his character just has no sense of agency at all the entire time he's being tortured, which would mute the whole thing a bit.

(Well, okay: a little before this, there is this wide shot, where we can see Tuco stationary on his horse and Blondie walking towards him -- then stopping, extending his foot a little further forward and sort of pathetically lunging for that last step, at which point Tuco's horse just moves further away, and Tuco laughs. This might be, and is on closer examination probably meant to be, Blondie making some form of stumbling attempt to sneak up on him. But it's a wide shot so you can barely see him, it goes by in seconds, and it's hard to tell what he's actually doing -- he could just be trying to catch up to Tuco, which is how I think I'd mostly been taking it before I started squinting at this -- which makes it not really serve the same purpose.)

(I gather the script had a bit, which was filmed and possibly in a version of the Italian release in 1966 but lost today apart from a small fragment, where Blondie slides down a hill into an animal skeleton lying there and grabs a bone that he could use as a weapon, but Tuco shoots it out of his hand and warns him not to try that again. That would have also provided that bit of agency, but given that was cut, the boot scene was all that was left, and I do maintain that cutting that too is bad for the movie.)

After he realizes it's just the boot, and of course Tuco's not letting him get close, and he has no hope of getting one over on Tuco at this point, Blondie sort of slumps in defeat for a moment, and then looks up, and then starts to crawl towards the water. It's pretty painful to watch; the utter helpless humiliation of being so thirsty and drained of defiance that he would drink the water Tuco just washed his feet in is its own grotesque flavor of torture, and then Tuco won't even let him have that.

After that, Blondie manages to push himself onto all fours, looks at Tuco for a moment -- probably realizing that even if he tried to rush him right now it would accomplish absolutely nothing other than entertaining Tuco more -- and then just crawls away, finally going somewhere of his own volition. He's not going to make it far at this point, and if it looked like he might Tuco would just shoot him, but maybe he can at least die somewhere a bit further away from him.

Tuco stands up and initially reaches for his gun as Blondie crawls off, but then he just laughs, seeing that there's absolutely no danger of Blondie making it very far or shaking him off -- he can just casually pack up his stuff and then follow him at a leisurely pace.

In the Italian/Extended Cut, Blondie rolling down the hill is continuing from this, whereas in the International Cut, Tuco had just gotten off his horse to approach him after he initially collapsed, suggesting that collapse wasn't quite as bad and that he was just sort of continuing but on all fours -- gives it a little bit of a different air.

I do appreciate just how pathetic Blondie's crawl/roll down the hill is. He sort of picks himself up again after the initial stumble but then just collapses on his back, admitting defeat. He's going to die here and he doesn't have the energy to do anything about it. Tuco lets that bottle roll down and come to a stop by his head and he doesn't even react.

Tuco spends a moment just looking at him down there before bringing out his gun to put him out of his misery. Probably less out of desire to actually put him out of his misery and more out of seeing he's not going to be able to make Blondie walk anywhere further right now, and he's not going to sit around waiting, and definitely not leaving him alive.

Blondie barely moves as Tuco points the gun at him, just closing his eyes again and swallowing and accepting that this is it. At the inn he had a chance but this time is a full-on definitely thought he was going to die here and was powerless to stop it, and this is also something that Blondie turns back on Tuco at the end.

(And yet Tuco keeps pointing his gun to kill him and taking a while to actually fire it, doesn't he. Part of this is just the movie doing dramatic timing but part of it is a genuine slight hesitation on his part, as shown more obviously at the inn.)

But then comes runaway carriage ex machina, just in time! Tuco not just shooting him first before checking on it is another notable moment of hesitation on his part. Once again, we actually need a deus ex machina, because Blondie needs to have been totally helpless here or it would completely change the implications for what's being set up.

This is another good scene that I enjoy a lot, particularly Blondie getting ready to grab the boot, although I'm also just a big fan of exhausted, dehydrated men stumbling around deserts. It's very merciless and ugly (gotta love the energy of getting Clint Eastwood at his handsomest for your movie and then absolutely fucking up his face with the gnarliest-looking sunburn makeup), really thoroughly parses as torture where the hanging scene was more quiet buildup, and Tuco's absolute cruelty here versus Blondie's exhausted helplessness is very important in viscerally setting up why Blondie does what he does at the end. But I also enjoy how strongly Tuco's actions here are still rooted in the specifics of how Blondie treated him. I just really love the twisted, fucked-up way the whole chain of revenge is built up between the two of them, and how interestingly their relationship then develops with all that hanging over it.

The carriage

I appreciate that we see Blondie juuust prop himself up to look as Tuco goes to intercept it -- he goes on to discreetly crawl all the way to it during the sequence that follows while we're focused on Tuco, and briefly seeing that he takes an interest and has mustered a tiny bit of energy again helps set that up.

More of Tuco's religiosity as he does the sign of the cross multiple times over the corpse of the soldier who initially falls out… and then immediately loots the corpse. Oh, Tuco.

I remembered the amputee informant's description of how Bill Carson was missing an eye, so as soon as we saw one of the apparently-dead soldiers in the carriage wearing an eyepatch I was like ohhhhh!! The storylines are connecting!! (And we're more than an hour into the Extended Cut when it happens. This movie very slow-paced compared to a modern film and yet so thoroughly enjoyable.)

You can juuust see Carson starting to blink a bit as Tuco searches him.

Tuco standing there glancing to the right out of the corner of his eye when he hears a noise from the wagon, while by the rules of the movie he can't actually see anything over there, is very funny. He even waits a bit before turning around to point his gun, as if knowing whoever is there can't see him either until he turns.

Tuco interrogating Carson about the $200,000 while the latter begs for water is another truly painful scene; Tuco's only invested in the dollars and anti-invested in saving Carson's life ("Don't die until later!"), straining to get him to talk first for as long as he possibly can, until he figures the guy is going to straight-up croak before talking, at which point of course he switches tack. Presumably he thinks if he actually gives him water Carson's liable to change his mind about telling him anything, so he has to get it out of him first if at all possible.

I also enjoy his annoyance with Carson telling him about his name and having been Jackson before but now Carson; the audience needs him to say his name, and it's probably also helpful to mention he used to be Jackson, but to Tuco it's just a waste of time. "Carson, Carson, yeah, yeah. Glad to meet you, Carson. I'm Lincoln's grandfather. What was that you said about the dollars?"

Tuco repeats the name of the cemetery near the very end of the exchange with Carson: "Sad Hill Cemetery, okay. In the grave, okay. But it must have a name or a number on it, huh? There must be a thousand, five thousand!" - which means that, since Blondie doesn't know the name of the cemetery (unless Blondie did know it the whole time and just pretended not to, which I guess we can't really rule out), he can't have been listening in by this point. Directly after this, Tuco tells Carson not to die and goes to get water. So Blondie pretty much can't have caught any of the stuff about the cash when Carson said it originally, and can't have known the full strategic significance of talking to him beforehand.

Instead, Blondie probably quietly crawled after Tuco with the aim of maybe being able to get the jump on him while he's distracted with whatever this is, and he only got close enough just at the end to see Tuco talking to Carson and telling him to not die. Then, as Tuco ran off for the water, Blondie obviously could not follow him back there, but instead crawled the rest of the way to the back of the wagon to see who Tuco's so desperate to keep alive, where Carson managed to gasp out something about a grave marked 'Unknown', next to Arch Stanton, and that it had money in it (Blondie does definitely learn there's money, since he then knows to use that as leverage). This is supported by how Blondie just refers very nonspecifically to having been told a name on a grave. He's really pulling a bit of a bluff here since he doesn't (presumably) know what cemetery this grave is in, so if Tuco hadn't happened to have learned that bit (which Blondie can't know), this information would not actually be that useful to either of them. But so long as he can make it sound like he can lead Tuco to riches right now, he has an actual shot at surviving.

I enjoy the way Blondie manages the tiniest wisp of a victorious smile to Tuco's "What name?!" just before passing out. The moment he sees Tuco's furious desperation to learn the name he's talking about, he knows he's won and that Tuco's going to do whatever he can to ensure his survival. He can pass out in peace.

Tuco's shifty eyes and expressions as he has to reevaluate everything are great. Eli Wallach really, really just makes this movie with his performance. I love Blondie and all, and Clint Eastwood in his thirties is very attractive, but I think it's criminal that I had heard about this movie and about Clint Eastwood being in it but had never heard Eli Wallach's name. He's so good and singlehandedly makes Tuco the best thing about it. I love him.

And there comes the Tuco tack-switch! He's not just invested in keeping Blondie alive for the money; he's his friend! As if this is somehow going to be persuasive to the man he's just spent hours torturing and toying with.

I love this absolutely bonkers goddamn character dynamic. First Blondie saves Tuco from the bounty hunters, then he apparently turns him in for the bounty, then you learn actually they're running a scam together, then Blondie screws over Tuco in a way that makes you kind of root for Tuco to get back at him, then Tuco painstakingly, cruelly labors to punish him for it in the most specific twisted ways until you're anxious for how Blondie's going to get out of this, then this happens… and because Tuco is the character he is, of course it works. He is already the guy who switches tack on a dime when it seems to serve him in the moment. We've just spent this whole carriage scene building up how singlemindedly fixated he is on this money once he hears about it. There are already so many striking layers going on in the interplay between these two guys and it makes it delicious to realize we've just added yet another layer and the rest of the movie is going to involve them having to work together after all this. And because it's the cash box from the Angel Eyes storyline, we're following up on that too in the process, with the also-delicious implicit promise that that's how they're going to bump into him. This is just such a gleefully fun and satisfying moment where everything comes together and I love it.

(Continued in part two! Thanks for reading if you got this far.)

#the good the bad and the ugly #ramble #review #character analysis #blondie #the man with no name #tuco ramirez #angel eyes #sentenza #movies #my buttons

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hollowed-theory-hall · 7 months ago

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That theory in Riddle being sexually abused by a Doctor figure and the behaviours he depicted + the talk on unsympathetic victims... Kind of violently reminded me of Severus, and especially his Worst memory where the Marauders did what they did to him. Even his bond with Lily was this unhealthy dependency I think? Well not the right word. But Lily was the only thing keeping him sane and going I feel.

Anonymus: Adding on to the previous ask about Sev and Lily and unsympathetic victims. Do you think the Evans ever acted for Severus the way the weasleys did for Harry? A safe retreat? Do you think they ever tried to report Tobias? How do you interpret Sev and Lil's bond? I know a lot of the fandom thinks Sev was infatuated with her/ romantically loved her...but I often felt that Severus raised Lily to a holy Mary status, and that while he did in fact love her, it was platonic (in which case there is a comment to be made about the way platonic love between opp sex PPL is perceived and ridiculed)

I'm not the op of the post you mentioned, but yeah, Severus is a great example of an unsympathetic victim. Personally, he isn't a character I like all that much, but he is undeniably an interesting one. This turned out a little rambly, but that's what I got.

We don't know how SWM ended, but, yeah... not pleasant regardless of how far it went.

Severus was definitely a victim of abuse, both at his home and school and what he went through was awful. That victimhood doesn't excuse his treatment of students in his care. Like, I had a temporary position as an instructor for teenagers, and Severus' treatment of his students makes me want to throttle him a bit.

But as a child, as a teen — he definitely didn't deserve the life he got. Dumbledore has a tendency to turn a blind eye to abuse for various reasons, which ended up fucking a lot of people over, Snape included. (Tom and Hary too)

As for Severus' dependence on Lily, yeah, I think he was incredibly fixated on her. I agree with you that that fixation isn't necessarily romantic. Lily, was essentially Severus' first friend — his best friend. Lily was to Snape what Ron was to Harry in a way. The first person he felt he could trust.

I went through The Prince's Tale to refresh my memory on all of this, and I wanna talk about his friendship with Lily first, actually.

“. . . thought we were supposed to be friends?” Snape was saying, “Best friends?” “We are, Sev, but I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! I’m sorry, but I detest Avery and Mulciber! Mulciber! What do you see in him, Sev, he’s creepy! D’you know what he tried to do to Mary MacDonald the other day?” Lily had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the thin, sallow face. “That was nothing,” said Snape. “It was a laugh, that’s all—” “It was Dark Magic, and if you think that’s funny—” “What about the stuff Potter and his mates get up to?” demanded Snape. His color rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment.

(DH, 569)

Severus sees himself and Lily as best friends. He's happy when she dislikes James, but, he never makes any attempt to become romantic with her. It can be read either way, but personally, I like to read it as a close friendship.

(A little unrelated note about the above quote I saw someone mention once somewhere: Severus knows James fancies Lily, and warns her about it in that same conversation above, and It's interesting he raises Lily's potential romantic interest in James as a retort when she says she doesn't know what he sees in Mulciber. Is anyone shipping Mulciber/Severus? 👀)

I mentioned in this post how I believe Severus' Patronus is a doe because he sees Lily as his defender. Even after all these years. And I think, that too, can be about friendship. Because Liy was his first friend, his first defender. The fact that in SWM we see her step in to defend him suggests to me it happened before. That Lily stepped in to defend Severus, so when he calls for a guardian, in the form of a Patronus, it's still Lily.

And after SWM, Severus is less concerned about what happened to him, he's more concerned about losing Lily. That was the worst thing about that memory. Not his humiliation or assualt, but the loss of his first, and probably only best friend. I don't think he ever trusted someone else like he trusted Lily:

“I’m sorry.” “I’m not interested.” “I’m sorry!” “Save your breath.” It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just—” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice.

(DH, 571)

Is he a blood-purist who thinks Lily is a perfect muggleborn and therefore an exception to everything? Yes. Severus is in the wrong here about calling Lily a mudblood and thinking it's fine because she's a good mudblood, she's not like the other muggleborns. Lily has every right to cease her friendship with him over it.

But it's telling about his priorities the first thing he does is try to fix their friendship, to apologize to her.

Did he deserve to be hanged upside down and likely stripped in the middle of a large audience at school? Hell no. James probably didn't see it as a big deal, but it's so messed up I don't really know what to say, really. Like, I think Severus definitely fought back and wasn't always the victim of the Marauders, though. In the scene I mentioned above with Mulciber it's implied Severus and his Death Eater buddies are just as bad as James and the Marauders are. Their targets are just different. I think what James did is awful and inexcusable, but at the same time, I think, in the same way Tom Riddle hung Billy's rabbit to scare his bullies away, Severus tried to do the same, if less successfully. It's why he invented spells like Langlock (used in SWM on him) and Sectumsempra.

A lot of his demeanor is the result of abuse. He bullies and scares his students because he's mimicking his father, his abuser. he learned from him to control by force, with fear threats, and degradation. Because that's what Severus experienced as a child. Also, the fact he became a professor as young as he did, meant he felt had to force his students to take him seriously. Some of his first students probably saw him in his lowest moments as a student himself. So, he resorted to the fear and insults that his father likely used when he wanted to be taken seriously.

I truly think the loss of Lily's friendship is what stung the most about the whole ordeal of SWM. I mean, Severus has a lot of bad memories. I'm sure this wasn't the only time he was humiliated and assaulted. He was abused by his father. He was almost killed by Lupin as a werewolf during the prank. And then he joined a terrorist organization where he was likely tortured, where he likely watched people die. And in all of this, his worst memory is this one case of assault that I doubt was the only one? This doesn't make much sense to me, I think it's his worst memory not because of what happened to him, but because he lost his friendship with Lily over what he considers a "stupid slip".

And yeah, after Lily's death, in his mind, Snape raised her to a saintly status. He never has a mean thought about her, because he feels guilty over her death. He feels like he killed his only defender. So, of course, his memories of her are colored like she was perfect. That's how he wants to remember her so he can keep feeling guilty and hating himself over it. He feels like he deserves to feel that way. This is something you see with victims of abuse, they rationalize their abuse by convincing themselves they deserve it.

And Snape is a very bitter character who doesn't want to get better.

As for whether I think he found solace in the Evans household the same way Harry did with the Weasleys? The answer is yes actually. And there's some evidence for it.

Lily knew things weren't good at home for Severus:

“How are things at your house?” Lily asked. A little crease appeared between his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “They’re not arguing anymore?” “Oh yes, they’re arguing,” said Snape. He picked up a fistful of leaves and began tearing them apart, apparently unaware of what he was doing. “But it won’t be that long and I’ll be gone.”

(DH, 563-564)

And Severus mentioned later in that conversation how his father doesn't just not like magic — he doesn't like anything. Severus and his mother are very clearly implied to be abused by his father when his mother is mentioned. He doesn't describe much of what goes on at home, he tries to act fine, but I'm calling it abuse because of what it most likely is. Severus can't wait to leave home as an eleven-year-old. This isn't something that usually happens in healthy households.

Additionally, Severus spent enough time in their house it was conceivable he and Lily snuck into Petunia's room to find her letter to Hogwarts:

“You shouldn’t have read—” whispered Petunia, “that was my private—how could you—?” Lily gave herself away by half-glancing toward where Snape stood nearby. Petunia gasped. “That boy found it! You and that boy have been sneaking in my room!”

(DH, 566)

So, he probably stayed over with the Evans parents most of the day and only returned home to sleep. That's what I think happened. And, Lily's parents seem very kind and accepting of magic from what little we hear of them:

Lily glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her sister, and her voice was low and fierce

(DH, 566)

“You knew?” said Harry. “You knew I’m a — a wizard?” “Knew!” shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. “Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that — that school — and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!”

(PS, 41)

I think Severus preferred the Evans house over his own. His own where his parents argued and his father abused him and his mother. Where his parents both worked and left him wandering the streets as a young child.

As for whether the Evans parents ever tried to report Tobias, we just don't really know. I'd say no. Domestic abuse in the 1970s was still largely unrecognized and not treated legally and medically like it is today. So, I don't think they'd have anyone to report to even if they wanted to. Especially with where the Snapes lived, which was essentially slums that the police didn't bother with anyway.

#harry potter #hp #hp meta #harry potter meta #severus snape #lily potter #lily evans #hollowedtheory #asks #anon asks #anonymous

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i-used-to-be-a-spy · 1 month ago

Text

New Autistic Michael Westen Master Post

A) Special Interest

Michael's fixation on being a spy and getting his job back is def in special interest territory bc he values it A LOT. In the books, it's mentioned he blew stuff up just for fun as a kid to experiment and to get attention from his parents so spy shenanigans has always been an interest of his

B) Justice is something Michael feels very strongly about. He doesn't hesitate to help the little guy or families or anybody else who needs his help even tho he'll complain when it isnt convenient (which reminds me of Entrapta, a canon autistic character on a show, who gets annoyed when interrupted from her special interest inventing). Even when injured, he'll still help people. Michael wants to feel like he's a part of good in the world, helping right wrongs

C) Michael and relationships

He struggles maintaining deep relationships and doesn't always understand what people want from him. This is partly due to him struggling with processing his own emotions like for example his desire to be with Fi versus his desire to not see her harmed by being close to him.

He has a lot of miscommunications with his family over the years (not necessarily all his fault) and he doesn't know how to bridge the gap at first. Like how Maddie was mad at him for not reaching out on her bday but turns out he was in a hospital and it simply didn't occur to him to explain that

A great example of Michael not realizing how much he means to his friends is when he so readily believes they have abandoned him when Larry made it seem like they had to manipulate him.

D) Not understanding social norms and social queues or hierarchy

This is part of his problem up above but it deserves it's own section. A great example is when Sam asks for advice about marrying the love of his life and Michael says yes and then no and is just exasperated by what Sam wants from him

Michael simply doesn't give a shit about social hierarchies and will go straight through them to get shit done like when he talks back to the frickin head of the CIA in season 7

E) Most likely as a survival tactic growing up in an abusive household, Michael's ability to Mask and appear neurotypical while Undercover is a great example. He knows the human mind well and his friends are always shocked by how he's able to read strangers well but not his close friends and family. Michael is able to imitate people he's around well at least for the job

F) Repetitive behaviors & Sensory issues

Michael has at least two safe foods: yogurt and tuna tahini. We also know he likes spicy foods that have been mentioned throughout the show so he's likely a sensory seeking autistic.

He also really liked a deep pressure massage he got during a cover cause the bad guy had paid for the hour. Many autistics respond well to deep pressure even when they don't like light touch (Michael often seems touch averse outside of Fiona) which part of that is from being a spy but I think it's not liking unexpected touch (I myself like people to ask first then I like touch!)

There is another reason Michael may always wear sunglasses: autistics are more likely to have light sensitive eyes so the sun could be painful for him. He also has his fav particular glasses he wears which is part of his routine

G) Personality

Michael has a pretty stoic personality. He doesn't tend to have huge macro facial expressions when not undercover. It's the smaller smiles or tightening muscles around his eyes or a single raised eyebrow or throwing his head back that says how he's feeling. He also tends to not laugh loudly or out loud except for rare occasions. His humor is dry and sarcastic like many autistics

H) Demisexual

I do see Michael as existing on the asexual spectrum. He describes his attraction to Fi and also how he's never felt that way with anyone else in both the show and books. Demisexuals experience sexual attraction after forming a bond with people and I think that describes Michael well. He literally has hot women flirting with him all the time, especially villains, and he doesn't bat an eye or get tempted bc he's simply not into them.

And even tho he is attracted to Fi, he isn't always immediately as into sex as she always is like when she jumps his bones when he comes home from missions in season 5 look at his face as he tries to convince her to stop. Altho he gets into it eventually 😉

Many autistics are ace altho not every autistic is!

I) overwhelmed episodes

Michael tends to not process his emotions until something really big happens that pushes him over the edge like when he considers shooting himself after Victor is killed bc solving his burn notice seems impossible or when he finally has to process that Fi is gone

J) Smarts

Many autistics are gifted in a specific area and I do think Michael's tactical mind comes from his autism

Have a photo of Michael's smile after Sam compliments his brains :)

The End

Thanks for reading 😁

#burn notice #michael westen #autism #autistic michael westen #meta #burn notice meta

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arcane-vagabond · 11 months ago

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Okay, so I've gone back and forth on whether or not to post this, but here we are. Long post under the cut.

I realize that I tend to post updates fairly often. However, I am not a machine, and I do actually have a full time job. The only reason I've been able to update like I have is because we've been in the off season. Eventually, things are going to pick up quite a bit and more than likely, I won't have as much free time to post like I do now. With that being said, I will try to get updates to you guys as much as I can, BUT there seems to be an attitude going around (not just towards me, but towards many other authors on here) that we should be updating almost every day. This is not feasible. Do I love that you guys love my stories so much? Absolutely! And I love talking about them with y'all. However, this is a hobby first and foremost. I am not being paid to write these stories and everything that I do post, I post for free. So, it's a little aggravating when I get asks in my inbox asking when I'm updating again after it's only been a week. It's a little aggravating when I get asks in my inbox for requests with not even a please or thank you, just a demand for something.

Which brings me to the next point. I don't mind taking requests. In truth, I'm a little backlogged right now, so until I can catch up, specific requests are closed. I will still talk about the stories with you guys, but I wouldn't necessarily expect a drabble until I can catch up on some of the ones that have been sitting in my inbox for about two months now. Along this same line, I really don't appreciate people coming into my inbox and telling me that you like my writing and then turning around and insulting it. I also don't appreciate when people come into my inbox and ask me to write an entire AU with specific scenarios while also insulting the way I write my characters. I love hearing about the different AUs you guys wanna see me do, but when you are sending me paragraphs of specific things you want to see in the AU, then it's no longer just an idea. At that point, you should be considering writing it yourself because it's not my original story at that point.

To clarify, there's a big difference between "I think it would be really cool if you wrote a mob AU and the reader could be a waitress or work in a bookshop or something" and "You should write a mob AU where the reader is a waitress and gets caught in a shootout and this character saves her! But then it turns out the waitress is secretly working undercover to bring down the mob boss and there's a shootout where this thing happens and then the characters have this specific conversation and then..."

I'm not trying to be a bitch, I swear I'm not. But it's frustrating when I can tell some of you don't even read the actual stories before ragging on them and then submitting a request in the same breath. It's also getting a little frustrating when I have the tag list at the top of my posts (with the trigger warnings) and I'm still being asked to add people to the tag list. I try to be accomodating and understanding, guys, but things have been a little much recently, and I just felt like I needed to say something. I know I'm not the only author on here experiencing this sort of stuff, and I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm speaking for them, but please start reading the author notes and the trigger warnings and what the author has posted before the actual story. And please stop pestering the authors on here about when they're posting. I know some people post daily, hell, I used to be one of them back when I was unemployed. But we have lives outside of this website guys, and a lot of us have plans with the holidays upon us as well as mental health problems with the changing seasons.

Again, I'm not trying to be a bitch, but I think people tend to forget that there are actual people behind these accounts, and while we love interacting with and giving you guys content, sometimes we need a break too. I know I have other hobbies other than writing, and sometimes I just need to take a step back so I don't get burnt out and stop writing altogether. Just show a little compassion and courtesy, y'all, that's all I'm asking.

Happy Holidays, and I hope to have something out for y'all this week if not a couple things. I have the entire week after Christmas off, but I don't know how much I'll be able to write given I have to go get my car fixed now and I have plans with some friends.

#long post #love y'all #just had to get this off my chest #but i'm very thankful for each and every one of you #liz rambles

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fogwitchoftheevermore · 4 months ago

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I want to see your team ups pls

HELL YEAH. welcome to the space zone.

explanations for the teams will be below the cut for the sake of your dash. because i have a lot to say about some of these.

TEAM "SCOTT'S WORST NIGHTMARE" (BIGB, JOEL, GEM)

i've talked about this team before, but this is the one i most strongly want to see soon. partially because i think the dynamic between the three of them would be awesome, partially because i think they'd be the rest of the server (but especially scott's) worst fucking nightmare, and partially because i think one of them would absolutely win. quickly going to break down why they'd all be scott's worst nightmare and then i'll get into their dynamics with each other.

gem-bree made this point better than i ever could so go read this post, thanks. gem can scare scott in a way no one else really can, and she knows how scary she is to him and just about everyone else. and it's awesome.

joel-literally self explanatory. you know what violence joel feels in his heart for scott. scott isn't actually particularly afraid of joel but joel with a team of people who he can convince to go after scott with him who he's actually afraid of would actually get his attention.

bigb-probably the most charismatic man on the server other than scott. can talk his way out of most situations, including talking scott out of stuff, which as we learned from sl!scott, freaks him out a bit! i think about "it's a lot easier to kill him when he's muted" literally everyday, i think it sums up scott's deal w/ bigb pretty much perfectly.

NOW with each other i also think this would be an awesome team. first of all, i think they'd have a really interesting dynamic. we've seen a fair bit of gem and joel on hermitcraft that makes me think they'd be a whole lot of fun together here, and i don't know exactly how bigb would contribute to the dynamic (because he's barely spoken to either of them in the grand scheme of the series), just their vibes as people make me think it'd be fun.

but also they're all very interesting people when it comes to their past teamups. bigb has wanted to be in on a close knit alliance for a really long time, but it so frequently falls apart for him, either because of his own trust issues or his bad reputation (or both). the notable outlier here is nosey neighbors, and generally i think bigb functions best in these smaller alliances with people who a: don't subscribe to/care about the baggage he comes with (the way cleo talks about him) and b: who can view him equally to the other alliance members. gem has no real preconceived notions about bigb, and joel is well aware of the last life and double life stuff, i'm sure, but i don't think he'd really... give a shit? so i think this would be a group that would welcome bigb in and maybe (in gem's case specifically) convince him that they trust him all the way through, or at least that they trust him as much as they trust the other guy in the alliance, because gem and joel have a relationship in hermitcraft, but not really in the context of the life series. because of their respective alliances last season, they were on opposite sides most of the time! none of these people have ever allied together before, and i think that fresh blood would be huge for all three of them.

joel also has a weird track record with alliances, having been a lone wolf until he was forced not to be in double life, at which point he realized having friends was awesome actually and has been desperate for it. i think joel and bigb are both desperate for friendship in a similar way but both want to be Cool about it, joel because he desperately needs to be cool all the time and bigb because all the times he's tried to actually hold onto people it's not worked out. so putting the two of them on the same alliance would, in my head, not necessarily force them both to confront their problems but would get them somebody who matches their freak. joel and gem also have a similar level of bloodthirst, joel has his violent grudges and gem doesn't necessarily get those grudges but she just genuinely has fun when she gets in fights. put them together and i think they would destroy.

gem's track record with alliances is hard to judge because uh. she's only had the one (i'm not taking real life into consideration for any of this because i 1. still haven't watched it and 2. don't see it as wildly indicative of how anyone would act in the actual series because no one was taking it or themselves seriously). but gem and the scotts were being held together with "glitter glue and a dream", as my buddy mcybree said that one time, so i think gem teaming up with two people who are uh. weird. about alliances wouldn't really throw her. bigb spending a ton of time on his own wouldn't stand to make her distrustful of him, though i think she would try to convince him to actually base with them (unlike the heart foundation). and then with joel who would like a friend please, she'd absolutely be down to hang out with him because they play off each other stupidly well. and she knows they do, so she's gonna make it work!

i don't know if any of that was comprehensible i will be honest. but just trust me THEY WOULD WORK AND IT WOULD BE AWESOME. and i think they'd be a really well balanced team, as well, hence me saying that i think one of them could win with this team. they'd be willing to put the work in to make sure one of them wins, and they have the skills to back it up (bigb with his silver tongue, gem with her pvp ability and weaponized reputation, and joel with his willingness to throw himself headfirst into whatever it is he wants). do you see the vision.

WORLD'S WORST POLYCULE (SKIZZ, TANGO, REN, MARTYN)

this would be, to me, a somehow even worse version of team BEST. because it's once again shoving two pairs of insanely close people into a group and hoping it works, but this time it's got the further layer of martyn's weird dynamics with skizz and tango (and skizz's dynamic with ren). literally the only people who have not, at some point, had a weird gay thing (or a weird anything) going on in this group are ren and tango, this is gonna be a nightmare.

so obviously we were all there for treebark, that's self explanatory. also if we're imagining this as next season, aka ren's triumphant return to the series proper, that would make this whole thing infinitely worse in ways i can't begin to comprehend. we were also all there for tango and skizz's three seasons in a row of teaming up and literal years of friendship and gay shit. also self explanatory.

but then there's more. so first of all, we have skizz and ren. skizz and ren also had some weird gay shit going on in third life, it's just usually overshadowed by the gay shit ren had going on with martyn (partially because him and martyn never got over it and partially because martyn lived with him and as such, got to be gay with him more frequently. and also the beheading.) but skizz loves to be a "loyal sword" (his own words), and he hasn't really gotten to do that since third life, despite his best efforts. because skizz wants to be a loyal sword to someone who acts like ren did, and no one else really wants to be a leader in that way, so skizz has to do it instead. skizz said this on the imp and skizz podcast- he has modeled every alliance he's ever had on the red army. that's that loyalty that never fucking goes away. skizz being in an alliance with ren again would be able to slot right back into the loyal soldier role he's so desperate to play with knowledge that it'll work, that he can trust the guy in charge to lead. and all of that is already insanely layered, but when we consider that, oh yeah, martyn's here, i don't think martyn would be too happy about this! it was fine in the red army because he was closer to ren than skizz, he was the right hand while skizz was the sword. he was an extension of ren in a way skizz wasn't. but here, we're starting over again, we're starting over after seasons and years of these guys not playing together or being in the same alliance, and martyn has gotten so much worse. he's going to have his jealousy on full display and it would be ugly.

and the "martyn's gotten worse" thing leads nicely into my next point, martyn and tango. to put it simply, tango hates martyn so much. so fucking much. he has held a violent grudge against him since about halfway through limited life that he's never been able to adequately get revenge for, because he just kept failing. and martyn also doesn't get it. just doesn't really get why tango's so mad about those two kills, which makes it worse for tango, i think. and so putting the two of them on the same team would put tensions at a high at all times between the two of them, but it would also make martyn and skizz's dynamic even weirder, because skizz doesn't really have anything against martyn, not in the grand scheme of things, but when tango's mad at somebody, skizz goes along with it. for example, in secret life when they're trying to recruit... i think it's bdubs, i can't actually remember, martyn gets whoever it is distracted so they don't talk to them, and tango instantly starts talking about how it's typical martyn behavior and skizz, despite not really having this hatred for martyn that tango does, skizz immediately agrees, saying "yeah, martyn ruins everything". so if the vibe on the team is going to be "tango at martyn's throat all the time while martyn is insanely weird towards skizz in regards to his relationship with ren", skizz is going to return that weirdness! and it would be funny. and also insane. unfortunately tango's violent hatred for martyn is the reason i think this team isn't happening. at least not until tango gets over it, but that would also make the team up less interesting to me. or less interesting to the public at large, i would still be so interested to see how skizz's loyalty would get split between ren and tango, but i don't think most other people would care.

SOUP GROUP REDUX (PEARL, IMPULSE, GRIAN)

look i want to see a soup group team as much as the next guy but i think this teamup would also be awesome. perhaps even better. we wouldn't be getting whatever insane yuri we got out of pearl and gem in secret life, yes, but we'd have whatever the hell these three would have going on. this is the team i could see happening the most, out of all the ones on the list. we technically got this team already at the end of limited life, but etho being there as well made the vibe different than what i think the three of them on their own would have, especially since pearl and etho weren't on good terms.

but we've seen grian with them in pairs before (impulse and grian in last life and grian and pearl at the end of limited life), and while we haven't seen pearl and impulse together in the life series before, it's soup group, we know they work well together. the teamups within the team that we have seen before have also been ones i've wanted to see more of. i loved the way impulse and grian played off each other with the wither in last life, and i've wanted to see a world where they teamup again to do that level of crazy but like, functional this time for ages. and i love pearl and grian all the time forever, but they were a ton of fun in limited life, i'd love to see them do it again and for longer this time.

i just don't really have the words to describe it but like! they have a really good and solid dynamic with each other! you've watched them, you know what i mean! this would also be a season i could see impulse winning, which is part of my reasoning for wanting to see this team so bad. pearl doesn't want to win again, and grian acts like he does and i don't think he doesn't want to win again, but i don't think it's gonna happen. but impulse would have a team of people who are just as good if not better than him at the game to back him up, who'd be willing to help him along to a win, and i could see it finally working out for him. as long as they don't get on team scott repellent's bad side. since that's the other team i could see with a chance to win, and being on the bad side of the actual winner and winner's allies (bdubs and desert duo in the third life, pearl and divorce quartet in double life, mean gills in limited life) has always been his downfall when he gets close.

OH JESUS CHRIST (BDUBS, CLEO, LIZZIE, SCOTT)

this would be. insane. you know it would be. this is another one that i can't see happening because i unfortunately can't see lizzie and cleo teaming up for a full season again. maybe near the end of the series when they were getting desperate, but i'm making up day one allies here, and that is not happening with this group. but we can imagine it together anyways.

ultimately, all the craziness here revolves around cleo and her insane relationships with everyone else in this group. bdubs loves to have undying and terrible loyalty towards cleo. shadowrot. scott and cleo are qpps that make each other so much worse. all of them have such unique relationships with cleo and i cannot even begin to imagine how it would mingle together but i know it would be wild.

there's also everyone else's dynamics, of course. i think bdubs and lizzie would just be really fun, vibes wise. i think they'd mingle together well and i don't really have any evidence here, i just know it in my heart to be true. lizzie and scott would also be a really interesting team to me, since they've got their x life and empires history but otherwise haven't interacted a ton in the life series. part of that is because lizzie hasn't been in the series much, but i want to see them interact more. i enjoy their dynamic outside of the life series a lot, and i'd love to see how that transfers here, especially since scott's main association with lizzie is everything he heard about the fairy fort from cleo after she defected, so uh... it's not a great image, i'll say. and also that time she tried to kill him and failed really badly in secret life. that doesn't help.

bdubs and scott have a fun dynamic outside of cleo, but because cleo is here i have to touch on widow's alliance. widow's alliance was made out of scott and cleo's total surety in how third life would work out, and scott was right, and he felt no real remorse about having bet on two people's deaths to be right about that. and i don't think cleo would've felt remorse so much as she would've mourned, had they been right, but they weren't. cleo went first. and scott, instead of. uh. having tact and being normal when he talks to bdubs afterwards. just tells him straight up "this wasn't supposed to happen. you're supposed to be dead, and this should be me and cleo." and that's already kinda deranged of him, but my favorite thing in bdubs response to that is that like... he doesn't really refute it. he just goes "yeah, that tracks, i thought she'd outlive me too" and they move on. and i would love to see what would result in these two being in close proximity to each other AND cleo from day one. lizzie would only make this worse and it would be great.

also i think this team would successfully get scott to care about them in a way that blindsides him ala jimmy (expecting their deaths and thinking he's prepared for it, only to realize how wrong he was) and as such make him perform worse. this is how we avoid another scott smajor top 5 performance.

SECRET LIFE AU (SCAR AND JIMMY)

secret life was great for scar AND jimmy in different ways and i recognize that scar definitely wouldn't have won if he and jimmy had been allies. but have you considered that i would kill for this. they were so fun during the empires/hermitcraft crossover. they play off each other in such good ways, since they're both guys who are frequently the butt of the joke and know how to play the butt of the joke, but they also both know how to be bitches. and they should be bitches more often, i love when both of them get snippy, because they're funny. scar is more comfortable getting snippy rather than letting himself be the joke than jimmy, and i think if we put them together jimmy would definitely be the target of scar's jokes a lot of the time, but i think it would also encourage jimmy to be more of an ass to everyone else. and i support jimmy solidarity's wrongs. i have no idea how these two would work out strategically. probably badly. but that's not important to me, what's important is the energy.

MUMBO'S BIG DAY (ETHO AND MUMBO)

do we all remember the best friend task. because i do. and i think a season that's literally just that for the entire time would be insanely funny. i also think mumbo would manage to be first out of the series in this hypothetical team, but he's a sacrifice i'm willing to make for the humor. i also think after mumbo died etho would just quietly add himself onto the bdubs/cleo/lizzie/scott team and make the dynamic infinitely worse, but that's not the point of this. the point of this is that this would be probably the most entertaining time i would ever have with a mumbo season, which is saying something.

#space rambles #trafficblr #apologies for how long this is. some of these teamups haunt me.

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