#and the next time it comes up iirc is when he's beating himself up for not being strong enough to take down the androids or cell

[shannonsketches]

also REALLY love that super's manga continues the old manga's relationship between Vegeta and his title of Prince as something he's distant/passive with and it's either only brought up by other characters or when he's having a self-worth breakdown

shout out to Toya/Toriyama for using Toei's "I'm the Prince of All Saiyans!" as a line Vegeta throws out when he's intentionally trying to annoy his opponent, I laughed very hard about that

[neetily]

Omg you're back? Welcome back! I hope things have settled a bit for and that you're safe now!

And you have requests open? Would it be possible if I could request something soft and sweet with Sam, since IIRC he's your favourite? So happy to have you back, please take your time!

hi love!! its me, im back :D yippeee!!! everything is A OK for me again, thank you for asking! requests are open so that i can get comfortable with writing again, because it's been a while... so please excuse me if im a bit rusty!!

u never specified if u wanted smut to be included or not, so i hope just a little bit of teasing is okay since i tried to focus mostly on the soft n sweet aspect of ur request <3

thank u for the baby boy sam request, i miss him so </3 also sorry this took me a minute to complete, you'll see why at the end :D !! there's a surprise...

— ✧ warnings: established relationship, lewd, teasing, the morning after, more fluff than smut, smut implications — ✧ rating: fluff, smut 18+ — ✧ word count: 1,798

The best part about rearranging your guts the night before is not when you sobbed his name over and over again all whiny and needy, clawing at his back for a break as your hole milked him completely empty, causing his hips to twitch and stutter against you in a seeking of more of that good feeling. Nor is it getting to see your sloppy cunt utterly coated in his cum, glassy eyes glued between your legs to watch thick globs of it drip out of you and onto the sheets below to leave em all sticky and stained. And it's not the way you kept begging for him to continue, leaving him all dizzy and light-headed in love, a mess of a man with his cock all coated in cum. So cute when you're so needy for him like that, he can never deny you. But no, it's not any of those things. Although, there are many more things he loves when it comes to fucking your shape into the very same mattress you sleepily doze on right now, his absolute favourite part of it all just has to be when he wakes up right by your side the morning after.

All sleepy and heavy, removing his dead arm out from under your neck so that he can stretch the tiredness out from his bones without disturbing you too much. This, the peaceful look on your face, the messy head of bed hair, the slow and methodical rise and fall of your chest as you snooze silently next to him... This is his favourite thing in the whole wide world. Soft and sleepy, he's so in love with the vulnerability you so willing show him after nights like last night. He yawns with the warm morning sun kissing his skin, rubbing the sleep from his eyes only to witness the way the yellow hue turns you all golden and fuckin' pretty too. He wonders if he looks the same, then quickly decides it doesn't matter.

Not when he's sure that you're the prettiest thing in the world— it's no question.

He loves fucking you, absolutely. But spending lazing mornings in the big old farmhouse with you huddled under the sheets with him is the best. Nothing can ever hope to compare, his chest tight with some sort of homesickness the only your fluttering awake eyelashes can cure. Maybe he yawned too loudly.

"Mornin'." He rasps at you, sleep still yet lacing his voice with how hoarse it is— certainly couldn't be from how high pitched his whines got last night, right? "How d'ya feel?"

Honestly, he wouldn't mind if you just never answered him. Left him hanging in a state of heaven, instead allowing him all the time in the world to simply stare, to gaze upon your waking features, his heart skipping a beat every now and then when he realises just how lucky he truly is. Him? Waking up with the love of his life in the same bed? A luxury few have, surely. And one he secretly promises to himself not to take for granted.

But he's just so pathetically in love with you, he can't bear the thought of not checking in on you. Especially considering how rough last night was for the both of you, his body still feels the extra exhaustion you had him exert in an effort to make you cum again. And again, and again. Even after stretching as hard as he could! And even if he took the time to look after you immediately following last night, washing you up and cradling you in his arms with whispered sweet nothings down your ear, he wants to check in with you again. Something about hey, I love you. Let me look after you. Forever and ever. Even in the safe morning. Under the soft sheets. Rely on me, okay?

Because at the end of the day that's all he wants. All he ever strives for, really. Cooing softly at you when you mimic his earlier actions of yawning and stretching, giving you the space you need to properly wake up before answering his confession of adoration.

"Good." You smile at him, and not even the pleasant birdsong that fills the morning air has him cheesing as much as the sound of your voice does. Unable to hide his affections even a little, flashing you a toothy grin from his side of the bed with a followed good behind your own.

"Really good, actually." You giggle at him, all cute and shit— fuck. It's fuckin' stupid just how down bad he is for you, how the mere thought of your knowing laughter is enough to have his cheeks heating up in understanding; last night was pretty fun, huh? The worry burrowed deep in his tummy as he drifted off to sleep last night was for naught it seems. You look good this morning, facing him with as much warmth as the sun bathes you in— he thinks of you as his own personal sunshine.

And he wishes he could stay like this forever. All warm and fuzzy, doting upon you with flicks of his gaze, up and down your half covered frame— he can see the tip of your shoulders from behind blankets, still bare from last nights fuck, and his fingers itch to reach out to tickle gently. Lovingly. Oh, to be so in love... He couldn't stop looking at you even if he tried. So sick with it, actually. Embarrassingly whipped for you he can do nothing but adore.

At least, that is until you ruin the blissful moment. But even then, he can't muster up enough willpower to be mad at you, in spite of the memory your words conjure up.

"Do you remember our first time together?"

Automatically, a grunt escapes him. Followed by an intense eye roll as he flips onto his back, an arm coming up to hide his expression from your view as you giggle away to yourself. Of course.

Of fucking course he remembers the first night he spent with you in bed, remembers how fucking awkward it was to experience, never mind relive in such a wonderful morning. The recollection of how his mom for some fuckin' reason just had to show her face that night, forcing him to hide you under his sheets in a frenzied panic. "Don't— fuck—" He bursts into laughter at himself, how he had been so afraid about fucking up that he somehow ended up performing far worse than he ever thought possible, his cheeks heated at the memory of how the night unfortunately went. He can't remember how many times he's apologised for such a lacking first time performance, and yet his chest tugs for one more. Because you deserve it. "I'm still so, so fuckin' sorry 'bout that—" He huffs out more laughter in between his words, squeezing his bare arm against his eyes as if doing so would somehow push out the shameful memories from his mind.

So embarrassing to be an adult, and yet still under his mothers roof. Prompting you into hiding, something he never wants to do to you ever again, eager to show the world just how much he worships the very ground you walk upon instead. In part because you so graciously accepted his sorries, allowed him a second chance to show you exactly how much he loves you— because that first time in his old childhood bed was not his best display of... Well, anything.

Endurance, capability, dependability. God, he barely lasted more than a couple of minutes if he remembers correctly, too busy focusing on how warm and wet and fuckin' tight you were, how much you wanted him too; it was too much for him to bear at the time! And, he's sure, that if he hadn't been able to undress as quick as he did under his sheets all that time ago, he'd have came in his pants from just some light petting from you.

So really, he did better than most, he thinks. And yet still...

"Course I remember," He sighs, hot and heavy at the remembrance you've brought upon him this morning, rolling onto his tummy to look at you from the side now that he's flipped through the awful memory book and can finally face you again with resolve. "Remember wantin' t'make it up t'ya," He mumbles, pushing air out through his nose in thought. "I remember desperately tryin' again 'n again, jus' wanted t'make y'feel as good as y'made me feel, babe."

As always, it's what he's wanted to do from day one. Anything to make you smile, to make you feel as loved as you deserve. Which, in part, means gaining some sense of control over his dick so that he can at least please you in bed.

It didn't take him long to learn that though, a slanted smirk pulling on his lips when you hum gently back at him. You were a great teacher, and he always loves listening to you. Anything for you.

"Well..." You trail off into another yawn, and instincts beg him to pull you closer. Enough to have one of his arms drape over your waist, heavy weight keeping you pinned in place for the time being. A reassurance, though he's not sure who it serves. "I think you've just about made it up to me now."

Cheeky, he loves it when you tease him.

"Just about? Last night wasn't enough fr'ya?" He tuts back at you, and yet still his smile remains. Wider, if possible.

"Uh-uh."

You're smiling too, in the morning afterglow, sparkling under the sun. It's how he knows you're joking, nuzzling against the pillows sheepishly.

It takes him a moment to think of what to say, sleepy mind struggling to work through the haze your impish words place upon him. But he gets there, eventually. "Just you wait till tonight," He removes his arm from you, a small punishment for pushing his buttons— except it's not really a punishment, he knows you've got to start working on the farm soon enough, and it's his words that'll be really punishing you. "Will show ya just how much better I am. Promise."

You'll be thinking about it all day now, right? Even as he rests easily in your shared bed, under the golden glow while you toil away on the land. Not that he's any better, offering the sheets miniscule little humps of morning wood to ease the tension in his tummy.

He means it. He really loves you, and he intends on showing you that fact forever and ever. Even if you're just joking, he doesn't want to take any chances. Not when it concerns the love of his life.

[fadelion]

I'd really dig a Duke solo run right now. Or rather, a Duke focused run that shows off Gotham during the day again and has minimal appearances from other bats and established heroes. Something that shows how he runs things when it's just coming down to him. And brings the old Robin Crew back.

I admit, I feel like the curing of his parents was kinda anticlimactic. Like, if Metamorpho can synthesize a cure for Joker Gas, that guy needs to be on speed-dial. (Is he probably busy and hard to reach like every other hero trying to do this full time while maintaining a personal life? Probably? Would I offer him some of that Batman money to make some time every few weeks or so to examine all the various toxins and such used by multiple Gotham villains? Absolutely.) So, maybe that cure didn't work. Not permanently. A rare misread from Metamorpho, something that he could've and would've fixed ifnhed seen it. Maybe that gas mutates the victim over time, and if they stay dosed long enough, they start to relapse, even if cured. What if Duke's parents just have the occasional fit of mad laughter. Just an incident here, once or twice a month or so. But they seem to get longer each time, and then they start happening once a week. Twice a week. Every other day. And Duke is starting to freak out, running himself ragged on his off time to try to figure out what went wrong.

At some point, he recalls a case he was on that he never really got a chance to fully close out: The White Market. This place (seen in Batman - Case Files: Signal) was a whole villian swap meet, full of interesting gear, tools, spoils, and inventions, all hidden on a whole other wavelength that most people can't even see. Maybe some other villian has a cure-all for this kind of thing, or just something useful until Metamorpho gets free (the man muttered something about a "Danger Street" in one of the quickest phone calls Duke ever had, and Black Lightning and Katana are probably still on the same kind of stuff they were doing when Jason ran into them a few months back). Maybe, after some time has passed, they feel comfortable opening up a Gotham access point again, now that the heat seems to have died down.

Of course, there was a whole other half to that incident. Mainly that a Riko and Dax, somehow empowered by a tech billionaire, showed up to work the same case, Riko leeching Duke's powers to match the wavelength necessary to get into the White Market in the first place. Yeah, it ended with a blown cover and Duke getting beat bad enough that they were able to confirm he has a healing factor, but it's still unfinished business, and going toe to toe and blow for blow with people that used to be friends can't leave a good taste in his mouth. And it's not just Duke trying to figure it out. After all, you don't throw money like that into a project, and then scrap it, especially one of the steps in your plan is to jump a Bat (the new, daytime Bat, but still a bat). So they have to be still looking, right? If he can find a way into that tech guy's system, maybe he can get hold of some information he missed.

So, Duke has with a conversation with Tim about what Duke plans to do (because anybody else is busy (Nightwing running the Titans/League, Red Hood... "recovering"), out of the city (I think Batman is off world in comics at the moment? There's a current running comic about it. ), or might try to stop/join him (Oracle, Black Bat, and Spoiler, who have a Birds of Prey thing running right now, IIRC, and Robin, who's probably helping hold down the night shift). And Tim is all for it, willing to cover some things for him as long as Duke is sharing information and doesn't get himself killed. Duke makes sure Tim has Izzy's contact info and vice versa, and maybe emergency Hatch access, and he's out in the streets the next day, trying to find an access point for information on the place where he might find a cure for his parents. Only instead of a Bat over his shoulder, he's got Izzy in his ear and just his own skills in the field against assorted villians, another billionaire, and whatever he's still gotta deal with in the day to day to even have the time for this.

And all the while, there's a part of him thinking that maybe he can get the old crew back together instead. If they don't beat each other senseless on sight first, anyway.

Or maybe after. A win is a win.

[iloveschiaparelli]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: My Love Letter Part 1

Okay okay okay SO Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes longpost time just my whole opinion/analysis/love letter for the whole film beginning with my Wes Ball backstory so skip to the Ruin screencap if you want to skim past all that.

I haven't talked about it on tumblr yet but I'm actually like a huge fat fan of the Maze Runner cinematic series directed by Wes Ball. Really I'm just a fan of Wes Ball. It not only singlehandedly got me through my first year of high school but also became the reason I ended up entering the film industry. I've watched all 3 movies at least 4-5 times each. Probably like 20-30 for Scorch Trials at this point because it's my favorite. I can quote probably at least half of it from memory. I've watched all of the BTS content that was on the DVDs + the bloopers on youtube like i was obsessed ok.

2019 was like the second worst year of my life so imagine my distress in january 2019 when I found out about Wes Ball's next movie, Mouse Guard, got Super Hyped Up for the multimillion dollar mice-with-swords movie (I eventually read some of the comics btw it's insanely good) And then within the same week found out Disney pulled the plug on the project after acquiring 20th Century Fox. TWO weeks before production was scheduled to begin. I was livid. I'm still bitter about it. Wes Ball then released the demo reel for the film to the public which iirc also had temp music.

So anyway yeah that was awful but then! I think it was later in 2020 that it was announced that Wes Ball was going to be directing the 4th POTA movie. This kicked off me seeing the original 1968 film and then the trilogy and wow did doing so increase my excitement. In my opinion Rupert Wyatt/Matt Reeves' directing styles and Wes Ball's were/are very compatible. I also took the time to get caught up on as much of Wes Ball's old projects as I could get my hands on at the time, including his animated short Ruin (screencap below). Which is fantastic BTW and apparently was purchased by Fox for a feature film that was never made (???) I swear, filmmakers have their past works splattered all over the internet like body parts after a landmine explosion: Good luck finding everything.

Now, Finally Finally FINALLY!!!!!!!! Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is out. I meant to see it on the premier night but my boyfriend broke up with me 2 days before so I forgot. I saw it tonight instead! So now with the backstory out of the way I can finally talk about the actual movie.

First of all, the beginning of the film absolutely WOWed me!!!! It honestly feels like a callback to Ruin, the way that the buildings are overgrown and the post-apocalyptic setting is super evident and feels so delightfully reclaimed by nature. It's also really neat to see how far VFX has come since Ruin was released if you compare the opening shots of the movie with the wide shots in Ruin. Wes Ball himself is also a VFX artist, so it's really neat to see how that affects his work especially since Planet of the Apes is by nature a very vfx-heavy franchise. This movie absoutely popped off in that area but we'll get to that.

Secondly, I forgot how much I missed Ball's directing! Oh my goodness, the performances he gets out of the actors are always so authentic. I still have yet to see a performance by Dylan O'Brien that was as raw and believable as in the Maze Runner movies, and I'm like halfway through Teen Wolf already. In the action scenes especially, I love how characters in Ball's movies, you can really feel their pain. Since pain and physical discomfort aren't communicated directly through film, we often forget just how hard it is to get back up again after getting kicked down, but with Wes Ball you never forget. Ugh, when Noa was getting beat up on top of the bunker at the end of the movie, I caught myself catching my own breath when he coughed up blood. Like, yeowch!

Additionally, everything this man makes is just, like, a masterpiece? On a technical level at least. That's really the mark of a good director, whose job is not only to evoke a performance from the actors, but also to tie together the whole crew. And KOTPOTA really showed off how well the team worked together. Just the establishing shots alone in a lot of these scenes! Oh. My. Word. You can clearly see the fruits of labor of not only the concept artists, but also the VFX artists and production designers, and how they worked with the DP and actors to get the shot. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

There are more that I'm thinking of, but unfortunately without a digital release available yet there's a limit to the screencaps that I'm able to obtain. The shot where Noa is walking up the escalator following Raka and you see the plane in the background indicating that Raka lives in an airport is one of them. There's also one or two establishing shots in nature that just show off the setting. The opening shots, of course. And then the shot where it pans up and you see Eagle Village for the first time. There's also an aerial of Proximus Caesar's camp, but I'm unable to find that one as well. The main one I want to look at is the telescope.

Just, like, Hello???? It looks like an art piece. This screencap is a little closer in than I'd like, but in the full frame you can see the absolute mastery of composition that it is, you can totally imagine it as a painting. Which in my experiences usually means there's a painting behind it somewhere in the process, lol. Let's go concept artists!!! But then you see how the colors are just, perfectly balanced, the plant growth is realistic and accentuating the set, and so on and so forth. It was just absolutely breathtaking to see for the first time. I'm pretty sure I audibly gasped. I did a lot of stimming during this movie just to stay quiet and not start babbling about the film pipeline to my father in theater auditorium.

Even more magic happens when Noa steps onto the set, and starts messing with the telescope. Suddenly it's real, it's tangible, it's touchable. Transforming what was likely a matte painting at one point into a set that the actors can interact with, and then into a shot where almost everything is overlaid with VFX, and having it look so real like that is truly magic.

The ship also had me dumbstruck, but slightly less so because we saw a similar setting in The Maze Runner: The Death Cure in 2018. Although it was slightly different for sure. What had me going even more in this movie was how much the characters interacted with the ship, moving in and around it, and trading glances with one another from on the ground and up inside. In TMR:DTC, you really only see the decrepit ships in the background, and one is referenced as a plot point but the characters never actually physically interact with any of them. So it's much easier for our brains to categorize the ships as gimmicks to help us believe the scene.

It's when props like these are woven into the scene as tangible objects that our brains start to shut up about the CGI and really start to believe what's happening onscreen! and KOTPOTA did an amazing job at this. Please bear in mind like, I literally have zero specialization in VFX, it's not my field and although I draw, I've never done concept art for film. I honestly believe that I'm simply in an appropriate level of awe for what this film accomplished.

The other thing that amazed me was how stylized the setting was. The greenery was so green, the ocean felt like a painting, the ship was red, the telescope shot is very, very blue. Several of the shapes used in the ape's costume design are simplified. And yet, despite the stylization, it never feels cartoony or polygonal, it still feels completely grounded in reality, and I could really believe I'd see it in real life. I think this owes partly to the fact that we rarely inspect any of these simplified items at a close distance, aside from Raka's necklace which appears to be made of either bone or whittled wood. It also owes to absolute geniuses in color grading that kept the stylized colors realistic enough for our brains to believe. Overall I'd take the visual style of the film to be Impressionist. I love impressionism.

My main interest in filmmaking is writing/directing. However, most of my experience lies in costume design (Student films rarely need costume "design" so its usually coordination) and production design. As a result I spent a good deal of my time watching KOTPOTA zeroed in on the production design.

I love post-apocalyptic science-fiction/fantasy worlds like this partly precisely because of how much you can learn from the production design alone. When Mae enters Trevathan's room for the first time I swear I was eating it up. Every single prop in this movie was carefully thought out by the PD, which is why his room absolutely stood out from the rest of the setting that we had seen up to that point. It was distinctly "human-centric" as opposed to the rest of the movie. I remember seeing it in the theater earlier today, laying eyes first on the bed by the door, thinking that it must be something they set up for Mae, but then wondering why or how the apes would know or want to set up a human-style bed for Mae when we're so many generations removed from human-dominated society.

Next it was on many miscellaneous table objects, thinking to myself "That looks like how a human would treat a space. Apes are generally too big to decorate at that scale." and then my eyes roved on to the furniture, seeing a human-sized table, human-sized chair, human-sized junk everywhere! Slowly, by observing the room, I gained a stronger and stronger sense of "there is another human here," which upon observing the rows and rows of books became "a smart human like Mae, who unlike her can read" (Remember at this point we still believed that Mae and her mother were the only smart humans that Mae had known growing up, and that she had been pursuing the opportunity to meet other smart humans and join them).

It was only upon the instant of realizing that this was a smart human that Trevathan spoke and appeared on the stairs. It was absolutely perfect timing. THIS, guys, is exceptional production design. It was honestly my absolute favorite piece of production design in the entire film, especially because of how much it contrasted what we've become used to seeing in the series as humans have diminished in population and apes and nature have taken over the space instead.

That exact sense of change or "otherness", that noticeability of contrast upon seeing what is honestly a pretty "normal" human space if you look at it in the context of our existing society, is only present because of how well PD treats the rest of the movie. In order to make a completely normal space feel strange, you have to change literally every other space to something alien but consistent with itself. And KOTPOTA does just that. The job was begun in the original trilogy, with the decline of humanity depicted across decades, nature taking over the gas station and the dam and even the city. But this movie had the biggest challenge because of simply how many years had passed before the story even began. Society as we know it today is completely and totally obliviated in KOTPOTA's setting. In every set that the characters interacted with in any way, PD had to fabricate a space where humans had been but the virus, decades of decay and post-apocalyptic living, and ape encroachment had transformed it.

This also brings me into the subject of the rich culture we see emerging in the world of the apes through this movie. The original trilogy, especially the first and second film, was all about the ape's identity. In the first film Caesar wonders whether he is human or ape, and whether apes are pets or equals to humans. He eventually comes to the realization that humans are never going to look out for apes the way that apes will and decides to become that person. In the second film, Caesar and the other characters involved have to figure out what being an ape means. Does it mean strength is power? That humans are always an enemy to defeated? Or a similar species to live alongside? It's about establishing what the ape race's relationship is to the human race. The third film I didn't get to rewatch before seeing KOTPOTA, but iirc it was about whether humans and apes could ever coexist, which is a theme we see continued in this movie, albeit in a slightly different way. Either that or more likely it was about whether apes will repeat the same mistakes as humans.

Anyway, I digress. In the script we already see a rich culture emerging in hints, right from the start of the movie. It's in the hunt for the eagle eggs at the beginning with mentions of some kind of coming-of-age ceremony, followed by Noa reminding Anaya and Soona that they must "leave one egg always. It is the law." Already in the first five minutes we've established that this particular ape civilization not only has cultural traditions surrounding youth and coming-of-age, but also rituals and laws surrounding their relationship with and the conservation of nature. And through dialogue we extrapolate that these apes have bonded animals (eagles). It honestly felt like a crossover between Native American Indian hunting practices and How To Train Your Dragon, which is wild I know. (Also can we talk about how the eagles in this movie actually made eagle sounds???? And not falcon sounds! Finally we're breaking the bad habit of making up animal noises to sound cooler when the original already sounded super cool by itself.)

So in just a few minutes guys!! We already have so much. Then the trio heads back to the village and has their first encounter with the Echoes (Ekos? If anyone could get spelling on that for me that would be fantastic) but are too afraid (or law-bound) to get too close to or cross through the tunnel "into the valley below". So through these we establish that there is a taboo around not just humans but also around leaving the village. The clan has taken an isolationist approach wherein they not only forbid their young clan members from leaving but also withhold information about the outsiders from them until they've come of age. Guys the cultural system arising here is absolutely wild. Like sorry not sorry but I eat this stuff up. (Screenwriters-- this is prime example material of "show don't tell")

There's also all of the ape social communication rules that we've already gotten used to, mainly a variation of the palm-up/palm-down gesture as a means of showing respect (submission) and asking for permission/approval.

In this movie however the hands are mostly closed and the palms are down for the sub as well as the ape they're seeking approval from, as opposed to the trilogy in which the submitting ape always had their palm up. At first I chalked this up to cultural differences among clans since we learned that this clan is not the clan descended from Caesar's apes in the trilogy, but then Caesar's descendants were doing it this way too? So I don't really know what to make of it but I'm going to decide that it's just global cultural evolution (at least, as global as the real-world evolution of Old English into modern English).

Through the production design of the beginning sequence in Eagle Village, we see that the eagles catch fish and then the vast quantities of fish and the smokehouse indicate that fish caught by the eagles are the main source of food for the Eagle Clan. We also see feathers as a motif throughout, worn especially by the parents and the elders as a sign of social status (we know it's social status bc Sylva rips it off of one of the elders as an intimidation tactic and everyone audibly gasps, indicating it worked). That last bit is honestly more costume design, they popped off too but one thing at a time or I'm going to become incomprehensible. I will repeat myself. It is inevitable.

Then throughout the film we learn that not only do they adhere strictly to the "law", but that that law is set by the elders alone. We also learn that they primarily relate to their eagles by singing to them which!!! is just!!!! so!!! metal!!! I love it. The way it plays into the end scene with Proximus just AGHRGHJHRHGR GROWL BARK BARK FERAL NOISES>

ahem

Also we see them building nests at home for their eagles and they've figured out falconry tools for the aerie and everything on their own like??

Then in contrast we see what's left of Caesar's clan, it's descendants. Proximus Caesar, we learn later from Trevathan, has gone completely fangirl over the ancient roman empire and decided to emulate it because "he likes it" and it makes him "feel good" (yeah he's probably the most textbook tyrant I've ever seen in media), choosing to morph Caesar's teachings into his own new worldview rather than adhering to them properly.

So the culture of Caesar's clan is very heavily roman-influenced, often copying practices outright such as the insitution of slavery, a lot of the fashion choices and even the way that banners are put up around the camp and the way that Proximus dines at a low-set table filled with an overabundance of food. And he has a throne and crown, and there are roman numerals inscribed on both his and Sylva's necklaces. But we still see influences of Caesar's original society, most noticeably the persistence of the window symbol and the architecture of the dam. The architecture wouldn't be significant at all, instead being noted as a stylistic choice for the whole series, if it weren't for the fact that it's different from Eagle Clan's architecture.

If Eagle Village resembles those spaghetti bridges that engineers build for class, with thatched roofs, then the dam at Caesar Clan's camp is much more brutalist by comparison. Eagle Clan was very spindly and focused on height and lightness of building materials: many of the logs were thinner and longer, more spaced out, and sometimes rounded at the ends. By contrast, Caesar Clan's dam is built with stumpier logs, closer together, and spiked at the top. The dam is also shored up with soil and other materials. Which yeah, is typical of beaver dams but is also typical of the structures in the original Caesar's village in the trilogy.

Unfortunately, there's only one image currently available of Eagle Village and it's after it was burned down. But you can still see how it differs from Caesar's village, instead of being chaotic it's more organized, allowing for a more lightweight structure.

This (below) is the closest I could get to having a picture of the dam's architecture, but you can still tell how it's more similar to OG Caesar's architecture than it is to Eagle Clan's, even though it's using a completely different building material (scrap metal instead of hewn trees).

Eagle Clan's architecture is also a further effect of how their society revolves around making a life bond with eagles, which are flying creatures. So of course they would be inclined to taller structures, especially ones that are more lightweight and have structural patterns, imitating the way that birds are built (see above).

I'll continue in part 2 as a reblog because it's 1 am and I'm running out of steam but YALL I need you to understand: It's been 6 years since the last time I had a Wes Ball film to overanalyze and rave about. I have SO MUCH to say about this film.

[tiredassmage]

heehoohee, my time iS COME, @eorzeashan​ tagged me for FFXIV ocs but in SWTOR (no apology needed, I do love me some tags, lol) and... conveniently, I have a head start, of sorts, on this because I have already transplanted several of my XIV ocs into SWTOR, lol.

Also the amount of times I’ve threatened to government assign my friends WoLs a SWTOR class bc I’m nothing if glutton about this silly space dress up simulator, I mean rpg is... Well, it’s worked on one of them as far as actually bringing them over, hehehe.

Long post with pictures incoming because I LOVE showing off my pixel idiots.

Astor is my XIV main, on Sage since Endwalker dropped and I fell in loovvveeee, and previously a White Mage and then Astrologian from ARR-SHB and SHB-EW, respectively. Also I made him look way more fierce than average in this screen akdfnalkdsfs (I’ve been major slacking on XIV), don’t let that determined slanted eyebrow fool you, he’s a fucking softie who lets his unicorn eat his flowerbeds with no more repercussions than the 500th disappointed father sigh she’s heard in the last week.

And I take him everywhere. Astor isn’t exclusively a XIV character, but rather an OC that’s stuck with me out of high school for something like... six years, I think? Going on seven? Astor’s always been a mage and, particularly, a healer of notable prowess; he adapted rather readily to being a Jedi Consular. I’d love to say badumtsss, he’s a Jedi Sage, but I did try it originally and just couldn’t jive with it, so “Astserses” (his SWTOR counterpart) is a Shadow/Sentinel. Because I’m a little a lot into the saberstaff that can be swapped for dual wielding sabers aesthetic and also trying to beat the Gemini Captain and that hell room of droids on Iokath was a BITCH when I was a baby Shadow who probably didn’t understand half of what would have helped me along.

Also because I’m a big scaredy cat for some reason about doing group content on SWTOR when I have done on-level extremes for XIV with no problem I don’t know, okay? I’m here for the silly space opera adventures, not to overly invest in learning job mechanics again, I think.

Next be Shay! Who’s a DRK/DRG/RPR in XIV and my original Sith Inquisitor in XIV! Shay’s entire arc as a character revolves around coming from a family that never really gave him the time of day; he spends a lot of his time avoiding relationships with others because of a series of heartbreaks and betrayals that mold him into a snappy, lone-wolf kind of bastard. The one thing he prided himself on was combat prowess. Even accompanying Airi (@fatewalker-phoenix fame) in their adventures as the Warriors of Light, Shay never really applies the title to himself; he’s the help. The get your hands bloody muscle, so she didn’t have to. I’ve toyed also with the idea of doing a Sith Warrior run for him bc the whole light/dark destiny dynamic is also incredibly his alley, but the raw power and rags to riches run of Inquisitor better suits his story. IIRC I just mirrored his Marauder into Sentinel.

He’s kind of overdramatic about being an angry bastard nobody should trust, tbh, so like... the drama of Inquisitor. I might yet have to revisit the Warrior thoughts though. He’d be interesting to pair with Vette.

Theo is my Rogue/Machinist I really need to get the hell out of HW afterstory already, but HW is SO LONG for me, anYWAY. The most recent of my transitions, Theo StarWar edition is a Smuggler currently on Mercenary because I really wanted 2 guns, but didn’t care for gunslinger and I seriously Cannot keep playing Operatives/Scoundrels, I just. I so would. I absolutely would. But stars, I need to do this variety thing.

Theo is the kind of character that lives rent-free in my walls. He’s chaotic. He’s “back at it again at the Krispy Kreme” energy. Smuggler is literally perfect. Deceptively, Theo was also rather smart. He spent several years studying various magical techniques after an injury blinded him in his left eye. One of his favorite ways to be a Nuisance is to switch fluently and without batting an eye between Lominsan Rogue’s Guild-speak to discussing aetheric relations in nearly perfect scholarly lingo. He’s just as likely to talk circles around his enemies as knife them.

Kres as his SWTOR counterpart is maybe a bit more blunt and slightly more impatient about the whole ordeal, but he would, in fact, still claim he could charm the horns off a Krayt Dragon. And I’d about believe him.

Which just leaves my bunboy Bas of my semi-main XIV characters that I haven’t actually taken over to SWTOR, but I also haven’t done a lot with XIV Bas to begin with. He’s primarily a SAM/RPR, but I think I picked up BRD on him, too bc I prefer ranged DPS in XIV. (Ironically I tend to prefer melee in SWTOR, it seems.) His story, in brief, is a former Dalmascan who was conscripted into the Imperial forces and eventually staged a bloody escape and prison break of several other prisoners he’d been held with before he made his way to Eorzea with somewhat disgraced and lost Garlean soldier Peregrine (again @fatewalker-phoenix​ fame) in-tow whom he’d eventually form an unexpected and odd, hard to describe friendship, almost mentor-ish relationship with.

Both of them suffer from identity crises, tbh. My strongest arguments would probably be Guardian Jedi Knight or an Operative Bounty Hunter. (I need a full on blade wielding tech class, SWTOR. Gimme.) Probably stronger favoring for Jedi Knight because of the whole crisis of place and purpose and destiny thing, but Bas did fashion himself as something of a Bounty Hunter between the prison break and falling in as an adventurer in Eorzea, so. It’d fit maybe aesthetics-wise, but less certain about the story part.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

REAL yeah ice types are very squishy and easy to kill oops I definitely overused ice beam as a TM…I remember trying ice dang too but sometimes it’d straight up fail so I gave up

FHE WAY I HAD THE EXACT THIUGHT ABOUT STEVEN STONE SHSHDJSHS I was like haha maybe it’s bc of Steven stone….(shut up I was also obsessed with Steven stone at some point this cannot be real I fr had my Steven stone phase wtf this is kinda insane) and REAL that’s exactly how I was imagining it LOL the wavelength is too strong today lowk it’d be interesting if nidoran was the first pokemon he met/chose for himself maybe it has/had some beef with the swanna/duck left his parents gave him if we’re talking about that character route for him….pokemon au has too many possibilities

LMAOO my only memories of kangaskhan are hunting for it in the safari zone and like wasting HOURS trying to spawn it galvantula hard carrying fr but yeah I’ve always kinda shied away from normal types because of the obvious typing disadvantages/lack of advantages oops…iirc against fighting its psychic flying and uhhh fairy……? So yeah galvantula for the win LOL

- Karasu anon

bro one fire or fighting type move and ice types are COOKED also in general they just tend to be very easy to one shot…okay wait this is kind of unrelated but i need to figure out what each gym leader/e4 member’s “type” will be

SHUT UPPPP the way we’ve had the same type since we were kids that’s insane 😭 smth abt steven stone was just sooooo idk idk i was just madly in love with him i think that it transferred to nagi (another pale haired emotionally unintelligent weirdo) instead of hiori though despite him being way more like hiori than nagi

i think his kingdra was his starter (as a horsea ofc) but lowkey i can see his horsea just being really docile and quiet and calm which makes hiori’s parents be like “wow he’s a prodigy at training 🤩 next champion right here 😩” so they go to yayoi and they’re like “our son is the most talented trainer in the world give him one of your best pokémon so he can be successful and credit you in his memoir” ofc yayoi’s like lmao no but hiori’s parents insist so she just gives them a ducklett she planned on releasing because its attitude was SO bad she didn’t even want to make tabito deal with it 😭😭😭 so instead of karasu complimenting ducklett when he first meets hiori he’s like “YO THAT’S THE FUCKING DUCKLETT” JFNDJSHDJS but he realizes that ducklett does listen to hiori so he does acknowledge that hiori’s talented at training…wait lowkey another interesting route could be nidoran having beef with ducklett even once they evolve into nidoqueen and swanna but swanna can basically evade all of her moves and is super effective against nidoqueen because she (like gyarados) is a water-flying type so the beef is more just nidoqueen despising swanna and swanna having a superiority complex as the self-proclaimed leader of the team (kingdra’s the ACTUAL leader but it doesn’t gaf abt what swanna is doing) up until hiori catches his shinx…swanna pushes baby shinx too far ONE TIME and is thunderbolted so hard it joins barou and his houndoom in hell 😭😭😭 after that the dynamic settles down since nidoqueen adopts shinx (both because she has maternal instincts and its a baby and because anyone who beats swanna up is her personal goat) and swanna decides to leave her alone after that

HELPP i think i was trying to come up with pokémon that can mega evolve but aren’t super basic (gyarados can but mega gyarados is VERY overused for ocs) so i was like ok kangaskhan ‼️ and reader’s starter might have been krookodile instead of houndoom i don’t remember that part…but mega houndoom is SICK and the houndoom/arcanine parallels are so good + i love houndoom so it worked out for the best that i had to give up on kangaskhan!! also YESSSS simply there’s not a single battle in the series where galvantula won’t be involved it’s literally a cheat code 😩 help imagine karasu challenges reader to a battle at one point 😭 his entire team is swept by galvantula except for garchomp and lucario 😰 but those two get easily packed up by gyarados (i forgot fighting types were weak to flying and also that gyarados is technically also a flying type so he’s perfect against both garchomp AND lucario)

OKAY GYM LEADERS TYPES/ORDERS:

dada silva: ground

adam blake: normal

anri: psychic

yayoi: flying

pablo c (deadass he has like 50 variations of his last name’s spelling and idk which to pick so in the miraverse he’s just pablo c): fairy

loki: electric

leonardo luna: poison

ego: ghost

E4 (i’ll just have them in the order that their NEL game was with noel noa taking the place of the pxg game)

lavinho: bug (since he has his butterfly shot or wtvr?? tbh bug is such a bad e4 type but eh it makes sense)

chris prince: fire

snuffy: fighting

noel noa: steel

now i just have to come up with teams but that’ll be a later thought 😩

[ascalonianlightbringer]

I did the next phase of the Orders of Tyria arc, "Track the Seraph," and got some information out of it.

Gwen went to get information from Lionguard Keene, who isn't actually part of the Order of Whispers, but more of ... an asset, I guess? He works with them and supplies information. There are hints of this in the usual open world conversation, iirc, but here he says outright that he and Ihan used to be in the Lionguard together before Ihan moved on. Keene helps because they're "in it for all of us, right?"

Gwen canonically said, "Makes sense to me," but I'm more like "hell yeah!"

Also, for some reason, I find it extremely difficult to imagine Ihan as a Lionguard. But anyway.

Gwen then went to a different haven to meet with Ihan, who with other agents, has been tracking our missing Seraph, Kellach. He's being followed by Zhaitan's minions. Gwen remarked that the Order of Whispers seems to "have eyes and ears everywhere." That's the idea!

Ihan basically says as much:

He adds:

"The dragons don't care if you're charr, human, or hylek, so we can't afford to draw imaginary lines between nations. The Order keeps watch, so that no matter where Zhaitan's minions show up—we know about it."

doitforhim.png

So they went to the have, which was under assault from more undead, and Gwen got her first sight of abominations—after mapping Orr, I got very used to them, but I imagine they're pretty horrifying and scary at first glance. But she's got nerves of steel, so she jumped down and irradiated them with her greatsword, as you do.

We then talked to a different Lionguard, for whom this was also a new experience. He said that a wild-eyed Seraph came along just before the attack, and he was muttering to himself about Orr, dragons, and Alastia Crow.

Ihan, predictably, knew who she is, or was—a pirate seer occasionally contracted by the Order of Whispers to read the future. At this point, Gwen burst out in sheer frustration, "When we find Kellach, I swear, I'm going to stick a bag over his head, beat him with a shovel, and bury him in a hill of fire-ants!" Ihan seemed impressed!

I incorporated this into Althea's story, but honestly, it fits Gwen's personality much better.

So then they went back to Divinity's Reach to consult with the other representatives and Logan. (All glory to waypoint travel!) Josir speculated that Kellach consulted Alastia Crow over something and Ihan concluded the information drove him mad—and that he's surprised that doesn't happen to Priory researchers, too. Teamwork!

Anyway, Josir reveals that Alastia Crow just died in an undead attack. Ihan guesses that since Alastia was a seer, she might have seen it coming and left behind information. Josir agrees, but has a different idea—he knows an accomplished priestess of Grenth who could summon Alastia's spirit and they could get the information from the source.

Ihan, interestingly, is appalled at the idea:

I mean, fair (and I think one of the cooler lines from this part of the story, prose-wise), but it's interesting for a spy/assassin type to be the one with qualms. Hiroki, meanwhile, is dismissive of the whole search and keeping the Vigil on guard against another attack.

Honestly, this makes perfect sense, and it's a bit peculiar that you earlier had to choose between the Vigil defending a town or the other orders uncovering answers. There's not really any reason that Hiroki and the Vigil soldiers couldn't defend Triskell Quay (the thing they're most equipped to do) while Ihan and Josir searched for answers. Maybe it's part of the general strife between the orders that they don't just cover all their bases cooperatively.

I've done the Order of Whispers choice before, and remember the pirate infiltration plot as rather silly (also, female characters are extremely scantily clad in the mission even though some pirates have great long coats). So I went with Josir this time, meaning Gwen will have worked with each Order by the end.

Also, I think Gwen would prefer to get her information from as close to the original source as she can get. She's very practical and a bit ruthless when she believes she's in the right. I don't think she's super comfortable about raising Alastia's spirit, but she's prepared to take the route she thinks is most effective. I've always imagined her as deeply devout even for a human, as well, so she can probably square it with her conscience by assuring herself that if a priestess of Grenth is willing to go through with the ritual, it's got to be okay by Grenth.

Ihan also seems to be very religious, interestingly. After Gwen made her choice and talked to everyone, he said he was kind of creeped out and would stay in DR to pray for her. He is a very strange personality, but I like him a lot.

Hiroki's take was "Bah on these library crawlers and sneak thieves," which I kind of love for her. <3

Josir, meanwhile, had explained that his priestess pal is greatly favored by Grenth and is consequently able to summon spirits (so the gods do have some involvement with their worshippers—which I guess makes sense with Gwen being blessed by Lyssa, but this feels like a bit more). Also, his very bright blue eyes turned green for no reason, which might be suspicious, but I suspect is just a glitch.

After Gwen's choice to follow his plan, he asked if she was sure, and she said it should be interesting. He very excitedly responded, "The Mists is one of the greatest unexplored frontiers. Think of all the things we could learn!"

Sure, Josir.

[kellyvela]

Has GRRM ever said in any interview or on his blog that he hates Sansa's complete storyline after 4th season? I dont really follow all of his fan/media interactions but from what I can recall he has spoken abt how LF in books wont give sansa to ramsay or how noone had issue when Jeyne was given the Ramsay storyline in books etc. Asking this question to you bcs you rightly point out how ppl misunderstood his interviews/posts ( sansans/targ stans etc) & I cant recall him ever saying he 'hates' sansa's story in the later seasons of the show ( not s5 in particular but even s6 to s8).

Capclave 2013:

A change that has repercussions for season 4 is Marillion’s tongue removal from the first season. Martin said that the change was made (from an anonymous singer being the victim of a de-tonguing) because they wanted Joffrey to maim someone the audience would recognize. He believes this is an issue because of the part the singer plays in Sansa’s storyline, how he affects her interactions with others in the book, and he doesn’t believe another character will be fulfilling that role on Game of Thrones.

—GRRM talks season 4 & beyond - Winter is Coming - October 13, 2013

2014 Fan Reports about Capclave 2013 (*):

In a convention panel this year, George said on the record that he had no idea what they were doing with Sansa or where they’re taking her storyline, which now makes sense perhaps. He was not pleased when he was talking about it, so who knows what’s going to happen with her! Knowing GRRM, that could mean they’re going off the canon reservation, and/or that they’re going to be making a lot of shit up

I have notes I’ll be responding to (thanks!) but enough people commented about Sansa that I thought I’d share that tidbit, since it happened back in September iirc (was the same panel where he criticized the exclusion of Tyrell brothers)

—starkalypse - June 3, 2014

GRRM’s comments at capclave about Sansa (which I was in the third row for, for those asking about legitimacy) were among others during the panel that had a general theme of dissatisfaction with show changes. He was not in good spirits for that con and didn’t really have anything positive to say regarding the show. So take it with a grain of salt; there are deviations away from the books in the episodes he gets writers credit for, so maybe they’re doing something stupid or they really don’t have a gameplan!

—starkalypse - June 4, 2014

(*) These reports were posted in June 2014, during the airing of Game of Thrones Season 4, about Capclave 2013 that happened in October 2013.

Just after the rape episode:

How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? Three, in the novel. One, in the movie. None, in real life: she was a fictional character, she never existed. The show is the show, the books are the books; two different tellings of the same story.

There have been differences between the novels and the television show since the first episode of season one. And for just as long, I have been talking about the butterfly effect. Small changes lead to larger changes lead to huge changes. HBO is more than forty hours into the impossible and demanding task of adapting my lengthy (extremely) and complex (exceedingly) novels, with their layers of plots and subplots, their twists and contradictions and unreliable narrators, viewpoint shifts and ambiguities, and a cast of characters in the hundreds.

There has seldom been any TV series as faithful to its source material, by and large (if you doubt that, talk to the Harry Dresden fans, or readers of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the fans of the original WALKING DEAD comic books)… but the longer the show goes on, the bigger the butterflies become. And now we have reached the point where the beat of butterfly wings is stirring up storms, like the one presently engulfing my email.

Prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, different requirements.

David and Dan and Bryan and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can.

And over here I am trying to write the best novels that I can.

And yes, more and more, they differ. Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose… but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place.

In the meantime, we hope that the readers and viewers both enjoy the journey. Or journeys, as the case may be. Sometimes butterflies grow into dragons.

—The Show, the Books - Not A Blog - May 18, 2015

Report about the last Game of Thrones Script that GRRM wrote:

No Wedding for Sansa and Ramsay: Without question, one of the most controversial changes the show made in trying to streamline the books was by slotting Sansa into the role of Ramsay’s wife and rape victim in Season 5. In the books, Ramsay marries and assaults Sansa’s best childhood friend, Jeyne Poole—who is being forced to impersonate Arya—instead. (You can actually see Jeyne briefly sitting next to Sansa in the show’s pilot.)

At the time Martin wrote this script, though, substituting Sansa for Jeyne was not yet the plan. Martin has Roose Bolton tell his bastard son: “We have a much better match in mind for you. A match to help House Bolton hold the north. Arya Stark.” It should be noted, however, that in Martin’s script, Sansa isn’t free from menace either. At his own wedding-day breakfast, Joffrey still threatens to rape the older Stark sister—once he’s “gotten Margaery with child.”)

—Game of Thrones: The Secrets of George R.R. Martin’s Final Script - Vanity Fair - December 7, 2018

A month before the Game of Throne S8 Finale:

Sansa’s story, in particular, has really deviated from the books. Ramsay Bolton — that marriage obviously was with a different character. When they start deviating like that, did you initially have any emotional reaction, even though you worked in Hollywood for many years yourself?

GRRM: Well, yeah — of course you have an emotional reaction. I mean, would I prefer they do it exactly the way I did it? Sure. But I’ve been on the other side of it, too. I’ve adapted work by other people, and I didn’t do it exactly the way they did it, so ….

Some of the deviation, of course, is because I’ve been so slow with these books. I really should’ve finished this thing four years ago — and if I had, maybe it would be telling a different story here. It’s two variations of the same story, or a similar story, and you get that whenever anything is adapted. The analogy I’ve often used is, to ask how many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? Do you know the answer to that?

I know it’s different in the book and the movie …

GRRM: Three children in the book, one by each husband. She had one child in the movie. And in real life, of course, Scarlett O’Hara had no children, because she never existed. Margaret Mitchell made her up. The book is there. You can pick it up and read Mitchell’s version of it, or you can see the movie and see David Selznick’s version of it. I think they’re both true to the spirit of the work, and hopefully that’s also true of Game of Thrones on one hand, and A Song of Ice and Fire on the other hand.

—George R.R. Martin on the Stark Sisters and Ending ‘Game of Thrones’ - RollingStone - April 22, 2019

James Hibberd’s Book:

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: Jeyne Poole was included in the pilot—she’s shown giggling next to Sansa—but she’s never seen or referred to again. I actually wrote Jeyne into “The Pointy End,” my first script, when Arya killed the stableboy. I had some stuff with Jeyne running to Sansa being all hysterical and dialogue in the council chamber with Littlefinger saying, “Give her to me, I’ll make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.” That was dropped.

DAVID BENIOFF: Sansa is a character we care about almost more than any other. We really wanted Sansa to play a major part in that season. If we were going to stay absolutely faithful to the book, it was going to be very hard to do that. There was a subplot we loved from the books, but it was a character not involved in the show.

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: I was trying to set up Jeyne for her future role as the false Arya. The real Arya has escaped and is presumed dead. But this girl has been in Littlefinger’s control for years, and he’s been training her. She knows Winterfell, has the proper northern accent, and can pose as Arya. Who the hell knows what a little girl you met two years ago looks like? When you’re a lord visiting Winterfell, are you going to pay attention to the little kids running around? So she can pull off the impersonation. Not having Jeyne, they used Sansa for that. Is that better or worse? You can make your decision there. Oddly, I never got pushback for that in the book because nobody cared about Jeyne Poole that much. They care about Sansa.

—Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series by James Hibberd - October 6, 2020

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: My Littlefinger would have never turned Sansa over to Ramsay. Never. He’s obsessed with her. Half the time he thinks she’s the daughter he never had—that he wishes he had, if he’d married Catelyn. And half the time he thinks she is Catelyn, and he wants her for himself. He’s not going to give her to somebody who would do bad things to her. That’s going to be very different in the books.

—Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series by James Hibberd - October 6, 2020

I hope it helps you.

Thanks for your message.

[szynkaaa]

as usual, I’m delivering quality content to the fandom in the form of bad memes ft. my OC

Fair warning, if you touch Brahms’ face - regardless whether you’re holding a sandwich or not - he will grab both of your hands and keep them there because our boy is t o u c h s t a r v e d.

Some Brahms headcanon

He’s a classical boy no questions asked - probably because he never really listened to anything else and his parents beat Mozart co into his head from very little on. I don’t think he’d be too willing to try to listen to new stuff, especially more modern things

I do think that he’d be more willing to listen to soundtracks though? I can see him taking a liking on Opera Maria and Draco (since Mozart’s Zauberflöte was playing for him too). Or piano pieces such as Valse D’amelie, some Ghibli soundtracks too. I don’t think he would like anything too omnious tho (like... the Bloodborne OST for example. good shit tho)

Ghibli movies!!!! iirc, the house didn’t have wifi and had bad phone reception. There is a landline phone, to which Brahms had access to control the line and cut it off any time. So it is safe to assume there Heelshires did not have a TV or computer in the house. But anyway, I do think that if introduced to movie entertainment, Brahms would love Ghibli movies.

He’s a crafty boy, he made himself a No Face mask the next day. I think that Princess Mononoke terrified him a little, with the boar god turning into a demon and stuff. Def a Spirited Away fan though. Maybe Arietty too, since in the movie the borrower family has to be very careful when moving around to not be discovered and I think He Relates (tm)

ok probably a fan of animations in general. I do think that he’d be picky about which one though - while he does strike me as a smart boy, he did live a very isolated life, so I think if he doesn’t get too many of the references, he probably will stop watching it. Like, I don’t think he’d be a fan of Star Wars the Clone Wars series for example. But Over the Garden Wall or Adventure time? probably more up his alley.

Also disney movies.

I think a lot about chucking the Harry Potter series or the Narnia Chronicles or the Hobbit at his head and tell him to read those too.

Touch starved but also Does Not Know How To Do Human Contact. idk about you but the way he dragged Greta away? Homeboy could have hurt her he could have just grabbed her around her waist and dragged her away.

Watch out, once you show him how to return a hug, you will be walking around the mansion with a 193cm backpack glued to your back.

He Is A 33 Years Old Virgin And This Is The Hill I Will Die On

Probably needs to be taught how to kiss properly too

moving on before things get too NSFW lmao another time maybe ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I don’t think he’d be very talkative. The most you’d hear him talk is when he is keeping up with the haunted house shenanigans using his child’s voice to make demands and stuff.

turns back to his OG voice when he is desperate and mad (as we know). It shouldn’t happen too often though as long as you stick to the rules and don’t leave him lmao.

In a scenario where he comes out of the wall more often to be close to reader/OC, he’d still be using his child voice to communicate, but it would mostly be three-word requests/questions. He’d be using head gestures a lot (nodding, shaking his head, tilting it sideways etc.). And probably gets grabby and physical too if he is displeased.

That being said, Brahms’s love language is physical touches for obvious reasons.

If you’d ask him to use his normal voice, he wouldn’t be used to it. Probably be very cracked and a bit shaky. He always talked to his parents in his child’s voice too - although I highly doubt that they really talked much over the years. Probably communicated a lot with knocking on the walls and with the parents shouting stuff through the room knowing he will hear it.

Ask him to spend his reading sessions with you face to face and have him read the chapters out loud to you in his normal voice to practice getting used to it. He can cuddle you while he’s reading as a compromise that should pacify him

whops that turned out a lot longer than I intended it to be  pls talk to me about Brahms I love him so much

[inmyarmswrappedin]

So, because Fatou’s season ends today and, as far as we know, Druck hasn’t been renewed yet, I want to go over the things I feel the team did well in this season and the things I hope they take with them when they sit down to write the next season (which I’m manifesting will be Ava’s).

I think that s5 and, perhaps to a bigger extent, s6, were the team’s attempt to address fan feedback for and criticisms of s3 and s4. So I have hopes that, after possibly the most scrutinized season of any Skams, they are still willing to read even more feedback and sit down once again to craft a couple more seasons (possibly even 3 or 4 more seasons!).

So, without further ado, things that were done well! (Do I have to add “in my opinion”? Do I??)

I liked that for both s5 and s6, the thorough-line for the season wasn’t made obvious or shared in a press release, but rather it was up to fans to connect the story threads for themselves.

I loved that the team sought to address one of the biggest criticisms of s3, that is, that Matteo was given so many symptoms of a mental illness, but it ultimately went unaddressed in the narrative. They did this by giving Nora a dissociative disorder, and Fatou dyscalculia. (Matteo has been headcanoned as being mentally ill and having a disability.) It allowed the teams to develop both fan theories into full-blown seasons and give each of them the importance they deserved.

I have said this already, but I really appreciate that the team chose misunderstood, misrepresented and underrepresented mental illnesses and disabilities. I feel like s5 and s6 will be referents for many years, because they really took the time to portray a dissociative disorder and dyscalculia in a down-to-earth, unhurried way that isn’t meant to shock and awe, but simply allow us to understand why and when Nora and Fatou will struggle. Druck got the viewers to anticipate when Nora and Fatou would struggle, and that’s the first step in being able to anticipate and accommodate the needs of the Noras and Fatous of the world. I really can’t overstate how important this is and what a difference it makes in a real, tangible way. These seasons aren’t meant to be enjoyed for voyeuristic reasons, but they will legitimately help people.

One of the biggest criticisms of s4 was that Amira and Sam didn’t connect as women of color. In fact, it seemed like in s4 Sam was treated as another white friend, when in s2 both she and Amira were the victims of Kiki’s racism. The team addressed this by giving us Ava and Fatou’s friendship, which I want to say might be the first friendship between main characters of color where their race is a substantial reason for their bond. (There are the Sanas with their Jamillas, but the Jamillas aren’t main characters, and then there are friendships like Jo and Megan and Zoya, or Imaan and Liv, or Luca and Yasmina, but iirc in every case their bond as women of color isn’t made explicit.)

Another criticism of s4 was the way Kiki turned into the world’s most understanding white friend offscreen. The team addressed this with the Ava and Mailin storyline, which I think was wonderfully and subtly set up in s5, then built on with the biology test leaked answers.

On the topic of race, I think a major criticism of s3 was that David’s ethnicity wasn’t acknowledged (to the point where a white actress was cast to play his sister gvhvhv). The team has made up for this with Josh (more in the s6 sm than in s5, but I still count it) and with Kieu My. Fatou and Kieu My bonded over being first/second gen children of immigrants, and in doing so, they acknowledged that these characters aren’t white and have different experiences than white Germans.  

The first 6 episodes of this season were some of the finest writing in the Skams. The storylines all connected and built on each other. The motifs were just so good and beautiful and fitting. The themes were all clearly defined and easy to follow.

The tortoise plot was one of the most fun and imaginative storylines in any Skams, it connected Fatou and Ismail in a believable way. And not to rave about a fucking tortoise, but animals can be really uncooperative and that tortoise delivered every fucking clip. Druck has a reputation for being one of the most depressive versions of Skam, but the Maike/Burger plot was just plain fun.

I feel like some of the old gen’s instas were a bit self-indulgent. I’m thinking specifically of Matteo’s memes and how they they weren’t necessarily the kind of memes a gay dude born in 2001 would pick, but someone a decade older. I think this is much better done with new gen. Fatou’s memes reflect her age and her sexuality, and not just that, but Ava, Mailin, Kieu My, Josh, etc. all pick memes and even focus on different aspects of recent news, based on their gender, race, personalities, interests, etc.

I appreciate that the team found a way to fit a sex scene between Fatou and Kieu My to add to the small catalogue of wlw sex scenes on Skams (I’m including the scene in lovleg or we’d only have two lol). While I understood the reasons eskam opted not to include one, I thought there were ways to feature a sex scene that didn’t sexualize the actresses and didn’t require nudity. Cases in point: the lovleg scene, and this scene in Druck.

And it also needs to be said. This is the first original season with a main of color, and the third season overall (after Liv and Imane) where 10 episodes are given to a character of color and no one else. Of the three, it’s certainly the season that loved and respected its main the most. The bar is so low it’s in hell, but Druck did clear that bar!

With all that said, let’s talk about the things I would really want the team to address in following seasons:

The thing I most want them to fix might be small or unimportant for a lot of people, but I think it’s at the core of why the season has been unenjoyable or certain plot points haven’t come across the way the team wanted, for many people. I am talking about the overly expositional nature of the writing.  It appears as if the team approached the writing of the clips with the intention of hitting each beat as noted in their agreed upon outline, and absolutely nothing else was to be added. This is an issue both in s5 and s6. It’s just less noticeable in s5, because s5 is setting up stuff for Fatou’s season, and possibly even seasons that haven’t been written yet. The fact that absolutely every second counts makes for a stressful watching experience for me, because the narrative tension is always heightened. Whereas with Skam, the narrative tension would build throughout the clip. Take the Pride scene in Skam, for instance. The clip allows for Isak and Eskild to get increasingly more agitated as they butt heads. I feel like if this Druck team had done the Pride scene in s5 or s6, the clip would’ve started with both Isak and Eskild already on edge, and cut much of the dialogue that got them there.

On the topic of naturalistic dialogue, this season doesn’t have it. Here is an example from ep 10 clip 2, Wieder vereint/Reunited 11:37.

Fatou: I’ll get a certificate too and bring it over to you. And I checked it, I only have to change one course and my schedule will work.

Teacher: Miss Jallow, you are not the first one to come to me with an epiphany. We could fill entire school weeks with the lessons you missed. In addition, Doctor Steinberg told me about your, well… activities. You don’t have a lot of arguments on your side. 

Fatou: But I’ve spoken to all of the teachers and they said they are okay with it. 

Teacher: You seem to have friends among the teaching staff. Mrs Pavlovic put in a word for you. Okay then, do it and go before I change my mind. [translated by @kieu-tou! Thank you!] 

Like. This is the bare bones version of a dialogue. This should be the first draft, not the final version. The coordinator goes from absolute no to yes, with just one line from Fatou. The coordinator gives reasons that would necessitate more than one sentence of counterargument, like Fatou’s absences and the Biology test leaked answers. The coordinator even says Fatou doesn’t have a lot of arguments on her side, and yet it takes Fatou one line to change her mind!

And of course we viewers don’t want or need a lot of time with the coordinator. And particularly at this point in the season, no one would enjoy a naturalistic dialogue with the coordinator of all people.  But my point is that this is an issue with the dialogue all this season (and last season as well, but this season has been more scrutinized), the reason I picked this example is because of how easy it is to see here.

Which brings us to the pacing of the clips, and specifically the Friday clips. Because the script goes straight to the information the team wants to convey to the viewers, skipping the build up to it, many Friday clips have fallen flat, felt abrupt, and have been, tbh, unsatisfying. Again, I had this issue in s5, but as that season went on, I felt like the team had a better grip on Friday clips. But then they did it again in the first Friday clip this season, and so I think this is something the writers really should work on. The first Friday clip in Isak’s season closes on Isak being sandwiched by Emma and Even on a bench, visually setting up the love triangle, or more accurately, the personifications of who Isak should want to hook up with and who he really wants. But in order to get there, we’re shown a good amount of info, from the way Vilde, Eva and Sana are handling Noora’s absence, to Chris and Kasper, Even hovering around Isak, Emma trying to impress Isak, Isak escaping and, like, draping himself on the walls because he’s so over it all. Isak playing a game on the bathroom to stall for time. The paper towel maneuver to immediately give us a sense of what a weirdo Even is. A conversation between Isak and Even that gives us some clues about Even’s shame, as well as establish interests in common (like weed), and this is all before Emma even joins them! Just think of all the stuff we learn about who Isak, Even, Emma, Eva, Vilde or Sana are as people, before we get to the point of the clip! Fatou’s season simply didn’t have that. Compare it with the first Friday clip of Fatou’s season where the cashqueens quickly talk about the leaked answers, one of the major storylines this season that only gets a couple lines, before Fatou says she doesn’t want to talk about school (Fatou’s struggles with school, another major storyline), and then we’re onto the point of the clip, which is that Kieu My likes girls too. AND FADE TO BLACK. When people say they want longer clips, what they mean isn’t artificially inflate the clip length or add more plot stuff. Just let us watch the characters interact with each other so that we get a feel for how they relate to each other. I know I wish we’d have gotten more of Ava and Fatou interacting with each other before things turned to shit, and Ava with the other girls, so that I know why they all like and value Ava so much. I wish we’d have gotten more of Kieu My talking to the cashqueens about, like, why she didn’t make use of the biology test answers, instead of getting it on a chat. Or food combos they don’t like. So it makes more sense that later on Kieu My actually thinks she and Fatou are friends.  And every line doesn’t have to count. In Skam España, the characters are constantly talking and not everything they ever talked about ended up being relevant. When one of the characters lied about her house undergoing renovations to hide the fact that she was poor, the characters joked about Italian marble and put on bad Italian accents and made that Italian hand gesture. None of this was important to the plot because those renovations weren’t real to begin with, but they made viewers feel like these were real friends joking around, instead of characters needing to hit every storyline beat in a clip.

I have this joke with my friends about Druck always going 🤪🤪 in the last third of every season, in which a season that was very tightly written and cohesive suddenly pulls something inexplicable and pretty much impossible to resolve in 1-3 episodes. Hanna’s season suddenly switching to Mia, Björn creeping on Mia in episode 9! of a total 10, David getting outed in episode 8 and then disappearing for a whole week, Amira’s season pivoting to Mia and Hanna. It has happened in every season except Nora’s, so I thought the team had learned its lesson, but then the forgotten date with Ava happened. To be clear. It really makes no sense that Nora would have hung out with Ava several times since Tuesday, and the topic of the cashqueens being officially introduced to Kieu My wouldn’t have come up. it’s just not realistic.gif I feel like at that point the writing for the rest of the reason became super contrived to keep Fatou miserable and apart from Kieu My and Ava to artificially delay the reunions until episode 9 and 10. Why add a cheating insinuation and the main checking her partner’s messages in episode 8 if you know you won’t be able to properly resolve it? Why make Kieu My mock Fatou’s “uhm” if it’s not going to be addressed in their reunion clip? Kieu My had taken the initiative for a lot of the relationship, so it’s okay for Fatou to take the initiative when it comes to making up. You don’t have to add things that can only be resolved through an expositional info dump. (Please no more exposition than it’s necessary! I think we’ve established that at this point lol.) In the case of Fatou’s season, this is even sadder because I feel like Kieu My’s intimacy issues could’ve been the reason to drive them apart for two weeks, rather than the Maya/uhm stuff. This could’ve also been resolved through Fatou and Kieu My explicitly negotiating their boundaries and how they want to be comforted and how they want to comfort each other, which I thought was the issue with Fatou rejecting Kieu My’s attempts to help while wanting physical touch, while Kieu My didn’t want to be touched but rather seen.  

There are going to be many thinkpieces on why a myriad of stuff didn’t work for people, so I’m going to keep this simple and address one last thing. I think that choosing to focus on Nora’s mental illness and Fatou’s disability is a great choice that doesn’t complicate the themes too much, but Druck (and all the Skams, but I’m invested only in Druck succeeding at this point) still struggles with being intersectional. This is the major reason why the Ava/Mailin storyline ended not with a bang, but a whimper. There just wasn’t enough work done to connect Fatou’s struggles not just to her disability, but also to her race (and even her sexuality). I think that if people really want (and lbr, it’ll be mostly poc who will put in that effort and work), they can see how Fatou’s race affected the way other people and especially adults reacted to her, but this wasn’t made explicit. If Ava and Mailin are going to argue about racism all season, why not connect that with Karin firing Fatou from Aquarius? As it stands, Karin fired Fatou because of a disability neither of them knew Fatou has, and that was the resolution to that storyline. Why not make it explicit that the Physics teacher had preconceived ideas about Fatou because Fatou is black? Why wasn’t Fatou’s disability addressed in the meeting with the coordinator? Why didn’t Fatou express to Mailin that Fatou, too, had issues with how Mailin was acting wrt racism? It felt like, with the way the season was putting so much emphasis on racism, all these threads were going to be connected. In the end though, it almost felt as if only Ava is affected by racism (aside from Mailin mentioning Fatou in the last episode). It’s not like talking about how racism affects Fatou is going to make the topic redundant for Ava’s or Ismail’s season. As a light-skinned black lesbian with a disability, Fatou’s life is going to be impacted by racism in a different way than Ava’s will, as a dark-skinned black fat straight cis girl, or Ismail’s, as a Turkish-German possibly Muslim possibly non binary person. All these experiences are specific enough, and different enough, that they can be touched upon in different seasons without becoming redundant. The fact that Fatou’s season almost seemed to forget at times that she is a black lesbian, doesn’t bode well for Ava’s and Ismail’s season to acknowledge all their struggles.

The bottom line is that this season really was great and did a lot of good, and I feel like the writing just needs to be tweaked a bit for further seasons to be even better and more enjoyable overall. I am very pleasantly surprised by how the team took s1-s4 fan feedback to heart and worked to implement suggestions, and so I really trust them and hope they keep working on the show. It’d be a shame if Druck wasn’t renewed, with this team at the helm.    

[partnersatfazbear]

Fazbear Frights: What We Found Analysis

Here’s my analysis for What We Found, the third story in Gumdrop Angel. I wrote this as I read so it may be a little different than my previous analysis where I read the story first and went back.

If you’re a Michael Afton fan I highly recommend this. Also, there’s possibly some insight into William Afton, Mrs. Afton, and Henry too, so it’s worth a skim.

Pg 144 '...a place thirty-some years forgotten' Just reconfirming FNAF 3 is 30 years past *one* of the FNAF closings, presumably FNAF 2 location.

Pg 145 "The whole building was giving him [Hudson] a headache." FIX THE VENTILATION BRUH

Pg 148 '...they were able to use salvaged derelict equiptment original to the old pizzerias.' Another confirmation of something we heard from Phone Guy.

Pg 147 "How old are you?" "Twenty-three, same as you." I think this gives us Michael's age during FNAF 3.

EDIT: This kept me awake last night. Obviously this is impossible because he has to be alive for at least 10 years before 1983, BUT maybe its just reconfirming FNAF 3′s year? 2023?

Pg 149 "Hudsan's dad died and his mom married Lewis, a ridiculous balding man who wore plaid vests and smoked a pipe" Did... Did this book just seriously imply Mrs. Afton left William for Henry? Really? (Yes, there's differences; the husband is dead and the man wears plaid 'vests' but it seems very odd to include that detail. This could just have been the writer's own imagination, though.) I have seen this as a fan theory and 100% explains the jealousy aspect of William, but I can't help but kinda hate it. I think this is very important, though, and probably Scott's intention. "This horrible little man [Lewis]... would make Hudson's next ten years a living Hell" This REALLY intrigues me given the context I just went over. The text implies Lewis was fairly neglectful to our main character / Michael stand-in Hudson. Maybe I'm wrong and for some reason Mrs. Emily left and went to William? XD Haha, I'm reading too much into this page. Maybe I'll come back to this later. I figure it's more of Scott possibly including double-details (contradicting stuff with the same character that really applies to two, which has been something I heavily pointed out in previous anaylsis on this blog) Having said that, I'm going w/the former because I can't imagine Henry being abusive (neglectful yes, abusive no) and he's never been portrayed that way in official works like William has in the novels.

Pg 150 "Hudson began to screw up in class...a product of spending the night in fear that his stepfather [Lewis]... [would] beat him just for the fun of it." Ooof. Big confirm on William actually being abusive. Unless we stick with the Henry theory for Lewis (combined with Midnight Motorist Henry theory / alcoholic). "...near-daily beatings..." "his mom started taking pills to get through the day..." So, whoever Mrs. Afton is, she was definetly not paying attention. But then, most people married to serial killers either don't notice because of denial (like this) or because the killer is so manipulative / careful they can't notice.

"Barry, who had red hair and freckles..." Yo?! Is that a description of Fritz?! These friends in the story could be the other kids Michael knew's stand-in's, aka the two gravestones with names he used (Fritz and Jeremy), as shown in the checks for the games and FNAF 6. I've long figured Michael was probably friends with the victims--it makes them easier, although riskier, targets [for William]. The two friends are male, too, like Fritz and Jeremy. If you're curious about Duane's description (our stand in for Jeremy), it's "tight black shirt... muscles... black hair long enough for a glossy ponytail..." I'm not sure if this matches anything found in the novels or contradicts them, though. (The novels = TSE trilogy)

"And so it went... until the night of the fire." For context, this is before FF burns down. We're learning of Hudson's life from his close friends in childhood, his father's death, his mother remarrying, to his abusive stepfather, to his grades slipping to this line. This would be a new fire not seen/mentioned in the games...

Pg 151 "...go to Charlie's for a sundae..." Really. Really Scott. Just gonna use this name again. OK. I'm not even gonna discuss this because it's probably irrelevant. *This is confirmed on pg 158 to be an ice cream shop. No lore relevance aside the annoying name coincidences Scott loves to troll with.

"This is not... an advance into enemy territory, a fight with demons, or a descent into Hell..." Uh, what? What is Hudson talking about? XD I'm only noting it because it seems so out of place. He's probably talking about video games or something.

Another note, although I don't have a specific reference since it is mentioned off-hand many times, is that Hudson keeps referring to his "history" which is implied to have kept him from getting a well-paying job and a girl he's crushing on doesn't know this "history" which is good for him. Seems good old "Michael Stand-In" has done some jail time or something. Edit: On pg 154/155 the girl asks Hudson, "Did you do it?" Seems he may have killed his stepfather or been involved with something else just as bad. Edit 2: No, I was thinking too deep into it. This probably refers to Evan's death at Fredbear's. DUH.

Pg 156 describes an actual "prize corner" in FF! What am I even reading? IIRC this is in FNAF 3, too. So they just hand out these scary gift boxes to people that complete the attraction? (Hudson says he *would* have fun handing out the scary toys to kids when this location opens--kind of a bully thing to do, eh?)

"[Hudson] avoid[ed] glancing in any of the mirrors..." I'm only pointing this out because it could be reference to one of two things. 1) We know because of one of UCN's music tracks, William has a fear of his reflection. Michael probably shares this trait, especially since 2) after Ennard and all... and later on pg 157 it also says, "he never wanted to face: himself" Sounds like guilt, my guy.

Pg 157 "blonde hair... blue eyes..." Hudson shares an eye color with Michael. It's possible Michael had blonde hair as a child and it changed to brown (it's common, something I personally went through being technically blonde/ blue eyed myself)

"He [Hudson] knew from personal experience that toys could turn from fun...to torture ina heart-beat" Fairly self explanatory. Either Hudson's worked at a creepy location before or he doesn't like remembering Fredbear's.

*checks how much is left.* There's still 35 pages (not counting back/front) left of this... This is gonna be a lot of notes.

Pg 158 Hudson doesn't have a car. Poor Mike, probably having to walk everywhere. Especially as a corpse.

Pg 160 This page describes many physical issues Hudson has that prevents him from entering the Navy, all from the abuse of Lewis. Obvious paralell to Michael becoming an undead [because his father sent him to CBPR indirectly causing his condition]

Pg 161 "How's your granny, Hud?... ...Is she still alive?" "I don't think she can die." Does anyone in the Afton family really 'die'? XD

Pg 162 These few pages discuss Hudson's grandmother. She's described as "a seer who claimed to know the future... ...wore big men's plaid flannel shirts with baggy jeans" Um, more plaid / flannel? AGH. STAHP. Lowkey, I would totally headcanon my Aunt Jen like this, though.

Pg 163 "Hudson's mom... the way she was before Hudson's dad had died... never... particularly warm and fuzzy... but... effiencient and responsible..." More about Mrs. Afton, so that's kinda neat.

"Hudson's dad was fun and attentive." There's a good Dad in this series?

"Unfortunetly, he also struggled with mental illness." "invisible low points" (Pg 164) Kinda reminds me of how Henry is described after Charlotte's death in the books.

Pg 164 "When Steven got himself into a bad deal that cost him his small business... he'd taken his life." Oh, it is Henry! SMH. Way to use confusing paralells. So, from our understanding thus far, Hudson's real father, Steven, is our Henry stand-in. His step-father despite being described similar to Henry, is actually our William stand-in. Fair game, Scott.

Pg 164 "...he [Hudson] was locked into a supply closet..." Oh shit, you guys. So, let me go on a tangent here, because this IS important! I just watched a retrospective on Sister Location and FNAF 6 earlier and one theory for Midnight Motorist was the person in the chair was the mother and the kid was Michael. I think this little line may confirm that. In fact, the story may be the key to figuring things out. Obviously, the line is a paralell to FNAF 4's scene in which Crying Child was locked in the supply closet of Fredbear's. I know some people, including Matpat, believe[d] CC was Michael, and in this book's context, it sort of works. This does contradict Step Closer and 1000 other things that make Michael the older brother, but maybe it's hinting at MM? Abusive stepdad (possibly Henry... maybe William is gone at this point), checked out Mom (hey, grey couch lady with Foxybro's font). IDK, but its definetly something to think about.

Pg 165 Lewis is mentioned as calling Hudson "nothing" and saying "you're nothing" on several occasions on this page. Just more abuse, for those accurate fanfic writers like me. Also I kinda wanna watch Morel Orel again. Yall know my fav character is Clay. Yall know.

"You're smoke." <-- Lewis / The text later reads, "...there was some irony, given what eventually happened." BRUH. Why did your stepdad die in a fire? :V TELL ME.

"When his family's house burned down at the end of his senior year..." Huh. Is there a fire we don't know about in the game-verse? Could this explain what happened to the FNAF 4 house before MM house?!

"...it purged Hudson of Lewis and his mother." MRS. AFTON BURNED ALIVE, TOO? Bruh. I can't with this story.

The text later describes the fire is concluded to be man-made and Hudson was blamed for it. Can't say if this ties to Michael, but it IS interesting... TBF, there is a small paralell to draw between Henry in FNAF 6 and his history of suicide in the books, too.

Pg 166 "...this place's [FF] busted thermostat.." I just find this line funny.

Pg 167 "...after three weeks of keeping an eye on the place" Some more timeline context for FNAF 3. We know that Michael worked there a little while before we start playing the game thanks to one of the phone calls, IIRC, so this makes sense. If Michael was accused of [something] and also wanting to hunt down his father, then it makes perfect sense why he's working a dead end job at Freddy's over and over and over. Fun fun fun.

Pg 169 "He hated to think about a functional character [Foxy]" This line is in regards to Hudson not liking the set up of Pirate's Cove and Foxy's hook to scare people. Sounds familiar, don't it? (For Michael anyway.)

Pg 173 "Some big find is arriving tomorrow." SPRINGY BOI! COME ON BOOK, get on with the show?

Pg 176 "Granny was wearing a red-and-green plaid shirt and her baggy jeans." Nothing special, but it was specifically brought up twice. I'm kind of racking my brain trying to understand what the point of this character is outside of "woooo everything is haunted don't you know that" kind of character.

Pg 180 "...dropped the crate on the linoleum with a resounding thud." HEY. Poor Springtrap, just gettin' tossed around like the trash he is.

Pg 186 "If you weren't so stupid, I'd tell you more about it." Springtrap bringing the burn. =:)

"A voice with a burr-like rasp...hint of a Southern accent" I'm going to assume this is because it's Lewis probably in the suit in this story and not our old British lad.

"It's was Mr. Atkin's voice." THE MATH TEACHER? *goes back to check* 'The algebra teacher'. Okay...

Pg 190 Okay, so Hudson hear's Lewis' voice this time. Okay, I get it now. Springtrap in this kind of imbodies all of Hudson's old bullies, including the teacher. He also has PTSD, just FYI. IDK if anyone finds that important, but it's fairly obvious by the line "He wasn't in his bedroom. Lewis didn't just slam his head into a desk; his head had been slammed into the [arcade] game."

"Why did he hallucinate a scene from his childhood?" Oh, it's not PTSD, then. It's just the VENTILATION ERROR. lol Okay.

Just a note, as I'm reading through the more action-based stuff, I kind of feel bad for Michael if he had flashbacks like this guy. They're intense.

So, Lewis' voice finally comes out of Springtrap on Pg 213. There's that.

Pg 220 "You can just stay there [in his room]" Kind of a paralell to Midnight Motorist. Lewis is saying it to Hudson. I really feel like the kid in the MM game is Michael because of this story...

Pg 223 "Heat purges. Fire heals." I'm sure that's Henry's life motto.

The ending was stupid, but most in these stories are. Hudson is hallucinating and is implied to have burned himself alive in FF's oven. Meh? The first half of this one is A TRIP and a little insight into what I 100% believe is Michael's childhood. I think the saddest part of it all is that we never got Springtrap speaking to Michael in FNAF 3--and if it's ever remade I hope we get more of them interacting.

[contraststudies]

Thank you for tagging me, @tawnyontumblr​! I’m very bad at doing these writer meme things, so here goes nothing.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

45 and counting!

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

376,429. Holy moly that is a fuck ton of words (I only properly started posting on AO3 last May iirc).

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Four: Critical Role, Good Omens, Hades, and Kill La Kill.

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

This list is bookended by two PWPs, which I find hilarious given that I seem to have misplaced my smut brain cell sometime in the last couple of months.

On The Matter of Traffic Violations (Good Omens, E)

“Officer Fell,” Crowley says, and leans forward, enough to give Fell a good view of his décolletage. He tilts his head in the way he knows people find deliciously coquettish, glad that he’d had the foresight to apply some mascara before heading out. “I’m so very sorry about this,” he says, looking up at the officer through his lashes. “It’s late, you know, no cars around… Didn’t notice how fast I was going, that’s all.”

[Or: Crowley flirts his way out of a traffic violation.]

Unbinding (Critical Role, T)

This is a great honor, Essek reminds himself, trying not to recoil as fingers run through his hair, working through the tangles. A braid is made of three strands, symbolizing the inextricable bond between the soul, the den, and the Luxon. A recognition of an achievement by the drow who bears it. With each braid, the soul is bound ever closer to its den and to the Luxon.

It is a lesson Essek learned long ago, but one he is never permitted to forget.

[Or: the story of why the Shadowhand wears his hair cropped short.]

No Church In The Wild (Good Omens, E)

The stem of the wineglass in Aziraphale’s hand snaps cleanly in two, but no one seems to hear it—every eye in the room is trained on the redheaded dancer sashaying to the gleaming silver pole, centre stage for all to see.

Oh, Aziraphale thinks faintly. Good lord.

[Or: the one where Aziraphale gets assigned to the red light district.]

abide gold with me (Critical Role, T)

“Okay, Cay-leb,” Jester says, stretching out the syllables affectionately. “You sit right here so we can watch you and Essek try an orange for the first time.”

The Primal Scene (Good Omens, E - a collab with @lookitsstevie​!)

Harriet notices that there’s a crack of light at the end of the hallway coming from the door to the library, and her mood brightens considerably. Perhaps the tutors are still here, putting together their lessons for the next day before they leave for the night. She leans down to pick up a piece of cloth that’s fallen on the rug. Her breath catches in her throat when she realizes what it is – a necktie with a familiar tartan pattern.

She nearly drops the tie in shock at the unmistakable sound coming from the closed door of the library. A sharp, quickly stifled moan.

[Or: Harriet Dowling accidentally bears witness to divine ecstasy.]

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try. I really do. My friends (and maybe some of my readers) know that this is difficult for me, mainly because any sort of recognition reduces me to a gibbering pile of tears. I’m working on it though, even if it does take me a million years to respond to anything on AO3. 

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

God, which one do I choose. I have been referred to as an angst gremlin for a very good reason. I’m gonna go with The Remains of the Day, a Good Omens fairy tale AU I wrote loosely based on Bluebeard.  

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I HAVE. I wrote philtatos, a crossover of Good Omens and The Iliad/The Song of Achilles. It’s the only crossover I’ve ever written, unless we’re counting Variations of an Arrangement, which could loosely count as a crossover of the book/radio/TV versions of Good Omens.

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I have not. And hopefully never will.

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do, and it’s usually of the angst with a happy ending variety.

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Hm. How do we define stealing? Just kidding. The short answer is no.

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Got one in the works for Critical Role!

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes was actually the first ship I ever really got into, and they’ll always have a special place in my heart even if I never wrote anything for that fandom. Crowley/Aziraphale from Good Omens of course, and more recently Caleb Widogast/Essek Thelyss from Critical Role.

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Variations of an Arrangement. I loved writing it, and I still want to finish it one day, but it took a lot of brainpower to write and keep track of the plot and I feel like it’s beyond me, at least right now.

15) What are your writing strengths?

I… hmm. Judging by the way people are always yelling at me in their comments, I guess it’s that I can write stories that make people feel things very deeply.

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

I repeat words so often, it’s embarrassing. I use too many “-ly” adverbs. Also, I find myself using the same turns of phrase across several fics lmao.

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Language is a tricky thing. I don’t want to bore you with discourse. I try not to write dialogue in a different language (especially if it’s not one I speak myself) unless it’s absolutely called for, or if they’re just basic phrases and I’m 100% certain I won’t be getting it wrong. I have read fics where this was done very well though, and I’ve found that it really adds to the atmosphere in those cases.

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

It was for this old anime called Princess Tutu. I danced ballet when I was younger and loved it so much – I believe I was only twelve at the time?? But I think the fic may still be floating around on FF.net somewhere.

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

I wrote philtatos in a four-day fever dream. It’s not the most technically perfect fic I’ve ever written or anything like that, but I think it’s the one that reveals the most about who I am as a person. That is an incredibly cheesy thing to say, I know. I always joke that posting that fic felt like offering my still-beating heart on a silver platter to the void, but there you are.

For Critical Role, surprisingly enough it’s this ficlet I wrote called sinners, a small bite of Shadowdrei where I was parsing my ideas on Astrid and Eadwulf’s dynamic and where they stood when it came to Bren/Caleb and Essek. I didn’t realize how fully formed my thoughts were until I wrote that. Fascinating what your own writing will show you about the things that are in your mind.

Tagging with no pressure whatsoever: @naromoreau @jenanigans1207 @saretton @theseedsofdoom @musegnome!

[samwellwinchesterthebrave]

Because I can't let this go.

I've said before that the finale felt like the perfect ending for season 1 Sam and Dean and Cas not existing. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes and the more right it feels to me.

I'm also starting to think it was completely intentional.

There were so many callbacks to season 1 in that finale. From Jenny (who I didn't even remember until the flashback) to the clothes Sam and Dean were wearing in the final scene. It could have been a love letter to their beginnings. It could have been a "look where we started, look how far we've come" type of callback.

It wasn't.

Instead, to me, it felt like a deliberate attempt to -recreate- season 1. It was an attempt to roll back the entire story to that point, when Dean was 26 and Sam was 21. To when Sam was a boy trying to escape a life he didn't want and Dean was an older boy trying to live up to the ideals of an abusive, broken father.

To get meta about it, which it's Supernatural so why not?, the first season was about the only season where the show was under control. It was new, still trying to establish itself and find its legs and audience. The actors were still settling into their characters, filling in the silhouettes they'd been given.

Sam was still the angry, rebellious son who couldn't take being told what to do anymore when he desperately didn't want the life he was told to live.

Dean was still the one-dimensional party boy, never looking past the next burger, the next fight, the next woman. The dutiful son who did what he was told no matter how much it hurt.

The show was supposed to appeal to the white, cis, straight male population. I kind of wonder if the showrunners and network hoped to pull viewers from the X-Files because the shows are somewhat similar. And, iirc, the X-Files ended around 2005? But it was supposed to represent a kind of red-blooded American male dream of the open road, classic car and music, burgers and fries, and willing women whenever you wanted. It was supposed to be the little guys' big damn hero moment.

But then it grew. Thanks in a lot of ways to Jensen Ackles and the depth he gave Dean. Also thanks to Misha Collins, later on, and how he portrayed Castiel.

And so, the show grew a life of its own, beyond what the creators had intended. Like Sam, it rebelled against the box it had been pigeonholed into. It decided, thanks to the wonderful actors and writers and fans who decidedly weren't the original demographic, that this wasn't all it was. New characters were introduced, changing the feel of it from the Sam and Dean show to a whole world. It changed and developed a soul of its own.

"Family don't end in blood"

"Always keep fighting"

These became the touchstones of the show, of what it had become. Against all odds and attempts to wrench it back, the show expanded. Side characters were loved, given prominence, given importance. An angel who was supposed to die after a 3 episode arc became a lead. Another angel who was meant to become a love interest died. (Essentially, they swapped places)

Which brings me back around to the finale. In 15.18, Castiel confessed his love to Dean. It had been there all along in subtext, in action, in expressions and body language. But now it was spoken aloud (no longer the love that dare not speak its name) and irrefutable. He did it to speak his truth, to acknowledge who he was, and to save the man he loved. He was also killed for it, a classic example of the Bury Your Gays trope. While his death was meaningful and accomplished a goal, it still followed the trope.

And because it happened so fast, Dean has no time to respond. Death, literally, is beating down the door to get to them. He has been taught all his life to repress his emotions, to swallow down anything that wasn't anger. This is also his best friend saying goodbye, to dying once again. And Dean had believed he wasn't worthy of love, that angels couldn't love in the same way humans did.

So we're left with resounding silence on Dean's end, a love confession heard but not responded to. We don't hear Dean's side but we see him fall apart after Cas is taken by the Empty.

Then 15.19 wraps up the season. We get Lucifer tricking Dean with Cas's voice over a phone call. Always before, when the devil is trying to gain entrance somewhere, we see him using the person's significant other. The subtext here screams. We see Dean bolting up the stairs to open the door, likely words burning on his lips, only to find Lucifer.

Dean never mentions the confession to Sam. But we do see him mourning. He also never says anything in return to the confession. There's a resounding silence on Dean's side as he tries to process losing Cas again. But he does use what Cas has told him, the words that changed how Dean views himself, to beat Chuck.

Then, in the finale, Sam brings up Cas and Dean doesn't take this opportunity to tell Sam either. He says that they need to live or Cas's sacrifice was in vain. Which, fair, but it still feels like not something Dean would say. No asking Jack if there's any way to get Cas out of the Empty, no research to see if there's a way? Nothing?

The writing has moved past the confession, burying it hurriedly and hoping to never refer to it again. It takes a hard turn back to season 1 with a monster of the week hunt. We see the brothers on their own, no found family or support around them. They have Miracle and it's adorable. But Sam barely notices the dog in the beginning, which always seemed off to me. Sam canonically loves dogs and he has nothing to do with the one Dean finally adopts?

They pull out John's journal again, looking for information and guidance from their father and his hunts once again. They fight vampires, Dean fumbling in the fight in a way we've never seen him do. Then he's killed by a piece of rebar in his back on a vanilla monster hunt and Sam goes on to live the apple pie, white picket fence life.

This would have been a good ending for who they started as. Dean dying on a hunt he'd dedicated his life to, saving innocents and standing for those who couldn't stand for themselves. Sam escaped a life he never wanted and lived the calm, normal life he'd always longed for with a family of his own. And later, they reunite in Heaven.

Just the brothers. No family, no extended family, no friends. Ignoring what the show has been saying, the core of its soul, for the past 10 years, at the least.

It felt like a last ditch attempt to drag the show back into the red-blooded straight American male wet dream no matter what. No matter who was dropped along the way and what themes and messages were ignored. Even Eileen was dropped, the woman Sam had been in love with throughout the entire last season.

It was a disconnect from the season. To me, it felt like it was trying to reclaim a personality that had long ago changed and grown. It was a regression and not just a fond callback

[severalspoons]

Liveblog: Rewatching Trigun, Episode 15

Warning: I’m having more and more difficulty figuring out what counts as a spoiler, much less avoiding them, so I recommend if you’ve just discovered this liveblog series you go back to Episode 1. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Also, it’s been a while since I’ve read the manga, so I’m not always sure whether I’m spoiling the anime or manga sometimes. Sorry.

-- Milly’s being such a brat. Actually, both girls are right now. You’re being carried on a litter like the queen of an ancient empire and you’re gonna complain about the pace? ::rolls eyes::

-- Look at Midvalley the saxophone player. He is such a bard. The kind who knows he’s gorgeous and tries to sleep with everyone, up to and including the dragon.

-- That’s a big cheesecake, Legato. You gonna eat the whole thing right here?

Legato has gone from eating a hot dog to eating something soft and sweet, which IIRC becomes his pattern from now on. No theories about Legato’s eating pattern, just interested.

-- Legato was named for his voice, wasn’t he?

-- I want to come off as chill as Legato...

It’s especially impressive how unflappable he’s acting right now given his (manga) backstory.

-- Sometimes the best way to annoy people is to completely ignore them.

-- “It’s not wise to be hasty.” He seems similar to Vash and different than Wolfwood in that way.

-- I’m kind of surprised the Roderick gang didn’t all try to jump Legato at once. They think of themselves like “brothers,” so they probably could’ve been coordinated enough. They’d have no way to know he could mind-control so many people at once. (When you consider that he has to concentrate a little bit to control each person, you can see how vast and well-controlled Legato’s attention must be).

-- That little Midvalley smile before he goes back to playing.

-- “At least now you know how much pain there is in living.” He’s the prophet of suffering.  

Legato is not the usual sort of person consumed by pain who loves to do unto others what was done to him. I’ve met people like this, who have a burning sense of resentment that they were treated unfairly. Even if their voice is cold, they’re clearly driven by anger. This sort of person makes sense. Hell, I could even imagine becoming like that. 

Legato, on the other hand, makes people suffer in an almost emotionless, casual way. As far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing unfair to be angry about here, suffering is just the way things are. 

So then, why bother hurting other people? Perhaps that’s why (he claims) he doesn’t usually bother.

-- Legato staring at his hand like it’s some new, fascinating species of insect, lol.

-- “I normally don’t interfere....it’s the way you look, Vash the Stampede.“ Huh? Vash’s facial expressions/mannerisms are so annoying they make you want to kill people and/or save kidnapped girls? OK...? 

-- At least the next line, “Your very existence causes me irritation” makes sense.

-- This mass Gung Ho Guns attack seems like overkill. Legato had it under control.

-- “Ladykiller?” Are women really that masochistic? :/ (No, I get it, it’s the hair). 

-- All but one Gung Ho Gun is here. Apparently there are rumors about this missing guy Chapel. Hm, wonder what they’ve heard. :3

-- “What’s wrong?” Haven’t you noticed there’s no people around? ::facepalm::

-- ...I guess the Roderick Thieves didn’t bury their brethren, after all.

-- Dominique the Cyclops is such an underrated character. Even if she’s the poster child for hubris. Her weird sense of honor...her perfect trenchcoat...her effortless cool...

-- “Call it a Spring cleaning of sorts...does that make you feel better?” Clearly not. Does it make her feel better?

-- Stupid button gag is stupid. Sometimes I forget this was made in 1998.

-- “I don’t want to hurt you.” Ugh, this part of Vash’s cornball persona is annoying. It’s in character that he’s still hoping to get out of a fight. I’ll just headcanon that he’s willing to be nice because she’s not crazy homicidal--she’s appealing to his sense of morality and wants a fair duel.

-- I’m enjoying watching Vash fight someone who can beat him in the areas where he’s used to having an advantage, so that he has to learn how to fight differently on the spot.

-- Vash mentally replaying a few key moments from the fight. Still not sure how he inferred her powers from those frames. I certainly couldn’t have. Vash spends so much time downplaying his intelligence that it’s easy to overlook, but I appreciate that he’s not a holy fool.

-- He blocks out her hypnotism by “focusing all senses only on pain.” Dominique’s not wrong to be stunned. It would probably take a normal human a lifetime of constant meditation practice for more than 3 seconds at a time to develop that level of control over his consciousness, at least. Keep this in mind when considering how he deals with life, compartmentalizes his feelings, etc.

Looks like this is the pain episode. Legato amuses himself and possibly exorcises some demons by killing people in horrifyingly painful ways, Vash survives and wins a fight by causing himself pain.

-- Really, Meryl? Every time I think she couldn’t be more oblivious, she reaches new heights.

-- Oh, Vash. If you want to scare your friends away, you can’t follow that up by going into goofy mode. It’s like the end of Abbey Road when the Beatles go from “The End,” a heartfelt goodbye that makes me cry every time, to a stupid rhyme, “Her Majesty.” It breaks the mood, diminishes the effect. 

No wonder Meryl doesn’t listen to you.

[trulycertain]

Unpopular opinion: god, Batman v Superman had some really good ideas that it chucked down the U-bend, and there are parts of it I really enjoyed. I don’t regret seeing it (and yes, I watched the Extended Cut. All three hours). I was just discussing this with @masutrout​, and here’s a slightly abridged version of my thoughts.

Look, I know no-one sets out to make a bad film, and with so many moving parts, a film getting released at all is a miracle. I know it’s not down to one person and (I’m quite glad) it’s not up to me, because I have no idea how to make films. But if I had, say, a magic lamp and a wish for an ideal BvS and DCEU in general... Here’s what I liked; here’s what I’d magically tweak in a parallel universe; here’s a rant. A 2.2k rant. An Extended Cut rant.

I know it's all desaturated and so on, but I genuinely really love Snyder's style. Dude can set up a shot, and he knows how to use chiaroscuro. In theory, I totally get why they'd look at him and go, "his shit is like comics brought to life, pick him." I wish he'd just... allow a bit more colour into it and let people colour grade properly, because the Metropolis/Gotham Clark/Bruce contrast could've been played up beautifully with visual language and colour too. I mean, I know he can do overwrought iconography and imagery, look at how they went to the trouble of CGI'ing Clark's cape in every scene because it was such a banner, and the pop of red. 

I'll admit, I wasn't always all-in on Affleck's performance, though it was one of his best in his back catalogue (I am one of the few people I know who has zero problems with him as an actor and tends to find it more the material, but I grew up on Kevin Smith films and his shtick works for me, even if he has a manner. I'm not too discerning). But. A Bruce who's tired and broken-down and greying and has lost even more, and still in the aftermath of that, tries to find hope and "I can't let this happen to anyone else" again, in the wake of one more death? God yes give it to me. A Bruce who's taller than Clark and just plain tall in general, because maybe Kryptonian ideals are different and because it'd give Bruce one more thing to desperately play down? God yes. Just... in general, middle-aged Bruce but without a lot of the Batfam stuff (which I like, I have a love for several of the Bats, but my favourite stories are always solo) with a regimen of painkillers and who's turned Wayne from an "I'll just jump into the water feature" jackass to a schmoozer and flirt and maybe a drunk. Take out the branding. I wanted Bruce as a broken idealist, not a fascist. It's actually way more fascistic than the original Dark Knight Returns, even. But goodness, the whole idea of an established, tired Batman is good. There’s a reason the comics and animations keep coming back to it.

"Superman was just a story. Superman was just the dream of some farmer from Kansas." I forget the exact phrasing, but everything about that idea, and this idea that Superman is as much an ideal for Clark to live up to as everyone else, and he’s daunted by it? Yeah. There’s something in there.

I loved everything about Jeremy Irons' Alfred. Seriously, everything. Tech guru, little less RP, little rougher around the edges, clearly has some scars of his own. Absolutely biting, even more than most incarnations, and gets all the best lines. Yes, keep that, it'll do.

I liked the voice changer... halfway. To me it makes way more sense than putting on a voice, which is a bit daft and way more variable. I just wouldn't have gone that heavy on the processing, so that Bruce sounded less like a hacker from 1999. I also thought it was a good way of representing how Bruce desperately tries to emotionally distance himself when he’s the Bat, and how his anger has made him colder.

Batman as just a rumour or an urban legend is great, and a wonderful contrast to Superman, who’s this bright, transparent... common god. Bruce never did it for credit, he did it to get it done. It’s stretching the bounds of credulity, sure, but in this strange, semi-operatic storytelling with heavy myth feel, it makes a bunch of sense thematically.

Bruce meeting Martha Kent, and their first meeting being him saving her life. Even this broken-down Batman who thinks he’s a mess. Actually, just more Martha in the DCEU in general.  I mean, I get why they didn't lean into it so much because they maybe wanted Bruce and Clark to feel more like equal peers, rather than Bruce being too dadly, but... god, again, more Martha. In JL, in something, if nothing else. Martha who's lost a son (Jason); Martha who later has a son in another city trying to do good and is worried as hell about them (Dick's canonically in Bludhaven PD at this point); Martha who is one of about five people in the world who knows who Batman is and hasn't spilt that information; Martha who saw Bruce at the cemetery and might have some really interesting things to say to him, angry or forgiving; Martha who is one of the few people who's seen the good in the Bat (when Bruce himself couldn't)... Man, I was so, so glad that fic leaned into that. I would read a regular comic book of just Martha and Bruce Being Reluctant Friends and Worrying A Little About Their Kids, But Maybe In An Enemies-To-Friends Way Because Holy Shit You Had A Fucking Spear What the Fuck.

No, really, wait, I’m going to go on about Martha again.  The scenes in BvS where she was basically saying, "God, don't kill yourself for them, come home, if they're gonna hate you they don't deserve you..." On the one hand she could've been a contrasting voice to Jon, but this way also makes sense. "I know you want to help but please don't kill yourself..." It was always both parents in the comics who affected him equally, even if the Donner films had his father's death, iirc. It was Martha who pushed to keep him, Jon who taught him not to break people and show off, Martha who taught him how to cook and be gentle with things and in Superman: Birthright, which MoS is heavily, badly based upon (I love that miniseries, time to read it again) she researches alien sightings in the hope he won't be alone. I get why they went for a more "grounded" Kryptonian uniform thing, but Martha made his costume, in the original canon. In all canons, she was a huge help in creating the "Clark Kent" persona (yeah, sure, maybe a woman would have something to say about making yourself quiet and shrinking in a room and having to look helpful and nonthreatening all the time, but Snyder and Goyer were never gonna be the kind of people to explore that and even Waid, whom I love, barely touches on it). Every other film or comic book is crap, dead, or crap and dead dads. Clark's relationship with his mother and father is hugely important.

Getting to see Bruce doing the society beat, and just a little more philanthropy would've been great. You don't have time to build that character? Sure, OK. Take out the Flash dream sequence and the sleeping-with-random-women, maybe don't have a totally unnecessary but kinda hilarious shower scene, and replace it with some identity weirdness where Bruce and Clark are stuck interacting as civilians a little more. Or something about what the hell happened with Jason and the manor, though I don't mind most of it being unexplained. There, still building character, still serving a purpose, you can fit a brief scene into your three hour movie. Civil War had a ton of "Steve Rogers and Tony Stark brood or sit in rooms talking to each other."

If they were going to throw away all the secret-identity potential, they could at least have done it interestingly. That scene at the gala made it clear how hard they both had to act, and Jesus, the idea of Clark eventually, finally finding someone else who has to lie and cut off what they can do, who has to bumble almost the way he does... That could've been interesting and also maybe worried the shit out of him. Or made him want to talk to this crazy billionaire who goes round combat-booting people in the face and try and get what his deal was, which could've led to more interesting misunderstandings. 

And then there's Diana, who's not a bumbler but a "nothing to see here, rich eccentric" type too (no wonder she and Bruce had weird insane chemistry in that "sizing each other up/I know exactly what you are" way), and why the hell does Clark basically never see her? I actually don't mind the whole "she's only here for her photo and never meant to get involved, so she's only needing to chase Bruce," that makes sense, but after Doomsday?! In Justice League?! She understands what it is for the world to be frightened of you, resistant to you, the urge to go and hide where it's safe with your family, the loneliness. I mean, just imagine MoS!Clark meeting her and the goddamn relief of it. And the way it could've played off the whole Jonathan Kent is a creepy "kill em all" weirdo now thing, if they insisted on keeping it.

Similarly, please god please show Clark being a journalist more. Perry chewing him out more. A mild hint of office politics. That's the perfect place to leaven a rough film with a dose of humour. People wouldn't have been so bothered by "Is she with you?", which is actually not that terrible a line next to some Marvel "zingers", except for it being so tonally inconsistent. A gentle thread, a few moments of it. Maybe have Clark save someone and have to scrabble to keep his identity a secret, like in MoS - maybe a minute, you could go for some physical humour or a mild sight gag. Obviously, this'd be pre-bombing the courthouse. Relatedly... 

Take out Nairomi and the branding. They serve very little purpose, story-wise, basically never come back into the plot, and only serve to make Clark and Bruce look like dicks unnecessarily when if you want to inject flaws, you have a ton of opportunities to do it with how they deal with people and their loved ones, how they deal with perps, and their brooding moments. 

Seriously, Bruce kicking the shit out of people and investigating shipments from the Black Zero and World Engine crashes would be enough to worry and piss off Clark, as would the whole "I am the night"/lack of transparency shtick. I mean, for a start, John Byrne retconned their first meeting that way in the 80s and that issue is actually great (Clark is trying to arrest Bruce when they meet, because he's young and idealistic and maybe a little up himself and he's been Supes for about five and a half minutes). Look: Clark is being revered and hates it. He blames himself for Black Zero, at least a little. He has excellent reason to be desperately projecting brightly-coloured not-a-threat and also hate that someone else is terrorising a city and violence is being revered, especially when Metropolis and Gotham are still so raw. I mean... Snyder and Goyer did the fucking stupid offensive 9/11 comparisons. Look at how that affected people and still does to this day; emotions run bloody high, and the entire point of Clark is that he's still human and terrified and guilty. And with Wallace O’Keefe and all the threatening notes... look, there's already a good plot in there! 

Meanwhile, Luthor clearly knows Bruce has been sniffing around the K shipments and could've just tipped off Clark about that as well, saying, "He clearly is gonna use it for his own power, and with how sinister and opaque and violent he's already been, he's gonna hurt people." Having his heritage used against people is one of Clark's worst nightmares, it was implied pretty clearly in MoS, and you'd still have the righteous anger. No branding needed. Kryptonian artefacts and the entire masked violent vigilantism are already enough "this is someone who thinks he's above people and can decide their lives" to piss Clark off. He could even investigate that as himself rather than Supes. You need it to be an unanon tip-off and Keefe wouldn't have access to that information? Sure, OK, just filter it through Mercy Graves and make her a "worried confidential source." I mean, she's in the movie and completely wasted. Why not actually, you know, do something with her? Clark wants to believe the best in people, and he might dislike Luthor personally, but he doesn't know Luthor's out to get him yet - or wouldn't, if the writing was better. Again, Birthright, the text Goyer repeatedly ripped from, did this brilliantly. The brand... it's overkill. Grimdark overkill.

I actually... look, I had a really fun, if baffled, time with this movie, but goodness I’d like to see what it could’ve been. And now all the film sites are waving goodbye to Batfleck again while running DC retrospectives due to Birds of Prey, and Cavill’s blue tights are in doubt, it seemed like as good a time as any.

[i-write-hurt-not-comfort]

“Sorry” - WIP

Pandora Hearts post-volume-15 series fic (chapter 1, unfinished) 

hey guys so i saw that wip wednesday thing pop up again and thought why the fuck not?? so i was searching through my fic folders and found this fic in my elleo folder. and i won’t lie to you. i don’t even remember what the premise of the fic was, and i don’t remember writing 1.5k words of it, but i’ve written that it’s ch 1/5??? so i’m gonna attempt to dig out the plans. meanwhile yeah, here’s this. it’s Leo and Vincent, mentions of Elliot... yeah, you can guess. 

PANDORA HEARTS SPOILERS UNDER CUT!!! 

Sorry ch 1 (incomplete) 

I see you around here lately, You smile brighter than you should. And me I've been so lonely, I'm glad you're doing good. 'Cause I can't forget, The way it used to be, And if I ever let you down, Well I'm sorry.

...

“Hey, Leo! Stop spacing out!”

Immediately, Leo was snapped out of his trance, glancing up at Elliot.

“You’ve been really out of it today,” Elliot commented, tilting his head at the valet with a perplexed expression. “Come on, we need to find that stupid woman’s cat.”

“Oh, right, yeah…”

Elliot was 100% correct; he had been out of it for most of the afternoon. Which, admittedly, had been spent running around Lutwidge Academy in search of the cats, once again.

He couldn’t help it. The smile stretched across Elliot’s face from ear to ear was truly, beautifully mesmerizing. No matter how hard be tried, he couldn’t conceal his enjoyment. And Leo just couldn’t take his eyes off him.

“Hey! You!” Elliot frowned at the cat, darting across the field and into the meadows. He echoed its actions a second later, chasing it into the field.

“Wait, Elliot!” Leo called after him, halting the blonde in his steps abruptly. “We have assembly in a few minutes! Why are you even bothered about the cat?”

“Well…” Elliot stammered, feeling his cheeks heat up – much against his will. “Shuddap! I… look, it doesn’t matter! Just… help me find it!”

With a roll of the eyes, Leo took off after his master, struggling to catch up with him. Elliot might not look like the typical athlete, but, his stamina was sure as hell nothing short of impressive. And considering Leo had spent most of his life clogged up in a library surrounded by books, it was difficult to beat.

It was only when Leo noticed that Elliot was no longer running in front of him that he was pulled back into reality.

But, not before he registered where the other had gone: on the ground, directly in his path.

“Wait, Leo-!” Elliot tried to protest, his valet halting his footsteps immediately. However, the moment he stopped, his foot slipped on the grass, throwing him off balance.

And he just had to land right on top of Elliot.

“Leo! I told you to stop!” Elliot yelped, frantically trying to shuffle out from under the other. Despite the blush painted across his face, his façade broke a second later, the same, overjoyed smile stretching across his lips.

Leo found himself chuckling in return, crawling off the other and landing roughly onto the ground beside him.

The two continued laughing almost hysterically for over a minute, lying in the grass. Even 2 minutes later, they’d barely regained their composure.

Slowly cracking his eyes open, Leo glanced up hazily at the sun, the bright yellow beams gradually dissipating. His smile faded ever so slightly, as his gaze shifted to the left to discover a dark, grey cloud, looming over the field; creeping over the sun and blocking out the light.

“We should… be getting back to school…” Leo pointed out, an uneasy feeling overwhelming him. He sat up wearily, standing up on one knee before extending an arm to his master.

“It’s raining, huh…” Elliot muttered, taking Leo’s hand and lifting himself up onto two feet. His gaze traveled off to the horizon, the smile dropping – much like Leo’s had a second ago.

Raising an arm, Leo nodded, feeling bullets of rain hitting his palm. “Yeah, it is…”

And then, despite what he’d just said, the blonde bolted off into the distance, the sound of his footsteps dying out.

“Elliot!!” Leo called after him, his pulse increasing drastically. The rain was growing heavier by the second, crashing down onto the field and creating a wall of water.

“Elliot!!!” He yelled again.

There was no response from Elliot, only a bolt of lightning followed by a crash of thunder.

“Elliot!!” He cried.

A feeling of wetness pooled around his foot. Eyes wide open, Leo shifted his focus tentatively to the ground.

“El…liot?”

The liquid was a deep crimson. Blood. That was it.

“Elliot!”

…

“Elliot!”

“Master, please calm down.”

Leo awoke with a jolt, shooting up, the sheets flying off his body in the process. A harsh breeze broke through the room, sending a shiver down his spine. Frantically scanning the room, he tried desperately to make his vision focus, his heart still racing. Sweat proud down his forehead, the pitch four walls surrounding him in pitch blackness only adding to the unsettling nature, courtesy of what he’d just seen.

Just a dream… he tried to reassure himself, finally spotting the shadow of a silhouette standing next to the foot of his king size bed.

“Elliot…?” he choked out, tears brimming in his eyes. His head was swimming. Elliot was alive, surely.

“No, not Elliot,” the voice replied, stepping out into the light with a sinister smile painted across his face. His mismatched eyes glanced softly down at Leo, as he tilted his head slightly; his blonde hair swaying in sync. “What do you remember, master?”

“Master…?” Leo echoed confusedly. “No… you’re wrong… I’m not… what?”

“You are Glen. Glen Baskerville,” the other explained, “I’m Vincent, remember? I swore to serve you, right until you grant my wish.”

“I… know who you are…” A shudder ran through him. “Elliot is… dead?”

Vincent nodded discreetly, the same, unreadable expression spread across his face. “Do you remember now? The incidents at Yura’s mansion?”

Leo sniffed, feeling the tears trail down his face, pooling on the sheets beneath him. Avoidantly, he lowered his gaze to his trembling hands, a strained sob making its way past his lips. “It’s… my fault.”

“You are Glen now, remember, Leo?” Vincent asked, his tone unchanging. It was unnerving, given how stoic he appeared to remain. “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

“B-but…” he stuttered, more tears flowing freely from his eyes, glinting in the moonlight which broke through the window. His breathing still wracked and unsteady, he asked quietly, “W-where am I?”

“The Baskerville residence. The current one, at least. I took you here, where you will fulfill your duties.”

“I… understand,” Leo responded nonchalantly, his breath hitching once more in his throat before the tears finally slowed down.

He was lying. What part of all of this was ‘understandable’? But, right now, he just wanted to get rid of Vincent. Who cared if he was his ‘master’? Leo didn’t want any of it. All he wanted was to be alone.

“You should sleep,” Vincent recommended, “It’s only 4am. There’s still a few hours before you must wake up.”

“Then leave.”

Sulkily, Leo threw himself back down onto the bed, burying his face in the pillow. There was no chance of him sleeping. He just wanted to be alone, for Christ’s sake.

“As you wish,” Vincent granted, placing his hand on his chest and lowering his head, before turning his back to Leo and proceeding to the door. “If you need anything, just call for me.”

Leo didn’t feel like replying that time, waiting for the door to shut and the echoing footsteps die.

He turned over, the springs of the mattress creaking underneath his body. This was his first night at this god-forsaken place, and it was probably the first time he’d slept more than 3 hours since certain… incidents occurred.

There was no point in sleeping.

Silently, Leo unraveled himself from the covers, swinging his legs off the bed. Legs dangling over the edge, he lowered his feet onto the floor, the floor creaking briefly. He flinched momentarily at the noise, carefully standing up before wandering idly to the large window on the adjacent wall.

Gold speckled, purple eyes drifted to the moon, the bright light breaking through the partially closed curtain. Leo opened the curtains further, leaning against the wall by the window, a stoic and unreadable expression spread across his features. Narrowing his eyes up at the sky starved of stars, he let out an inaudible huff.

Everything just felt numb.

Another shiver ran down his spine, a dull ache accumulating in his forehead as the recent events tried to resurface themselves in his memory. Unconsciously, his hand drifted to the parted curtains, ragged and cut; the fabric had been mangled. The feeling itself made him cringe internally.

He’d have to tell Vincent to stop doing that sometime.

Sluggishly, he pulled his hand away from the curtains, turning his back to the window and scanning the room for another distraction.

On the left side of the room, currently closest to him, there was a chest of drawers – most likely filled with hideous outfits picked out by Vincent conveniently in his size – and a desk. A plain, dusty desk. On the opposite wall to the oversized, there was the door, another couple of empty shelves surrounding it probably inhabited by a hundred spiders and their nests. Finally, on the far right wall, along with the door leading to a private bathroom, there was an enormous shelf of books; you could probably get away with calling it a library itself.

That was no use. He didn’t particularly feel like reading right now.

..............

and that’s all i’ve got :”) depending on whether i find the plans, anyone want me to finish it? iirc it was an addict!Leo fic...