#anyway forgive me for being so self obsessed i literally just am

[loverboybitch]

having two beautiful mirrors in my room means im never not paying attention to how long my hair has gotten.//.

[deargravity]

obsessed with hajun because he is so loveable but also deeply unlikeable. which is... literally the charm of his character. he's slightly strange and incredibly elusive and undoubtedly morally questionable but no less human. he's sharp-tongued and insensitive at times, but he's clearly trying to be gentler, and a little more aware in his manner when it's necessary. (congratulations on the cognitive empathy, hajun, i'm sure you'll put it to good use.) i like that his moment of vulnerability didn't soften him up but he's learned to be honest with the people he loves. i know hajun is very much in his senses when he does something wrong, makes someone uncomfortable / embarrassed but i also don't think he'd appreciate his actions being moralised. at the end of the day, he wants to be seen, known and understood for who he really is but he's afraid of baring himself that way. he doesn't want to be an open wound, his childhood home was not forgiving enough for him to express any kind of injury. i suppose he thinks, "if i am to be abandoned, i'd rather be abandoned like a house on fire, not a sick dog. something malicious, unsympathetic and worth remembering, if not possible to return to." he's kind of twisted like that, and it's endearing to me (unfortunately).

we don't know much about his childhood in the yeon household (he did move to japan all by himself when he was 13 - which is a whole another can of worms to unpack because can you imagine having to independently build a life at that age in a new country, learn a new language and stand on your feet after being thrown out by your family? can you blame hajun for being a razor-sharp hazard to society? his childhood was pitiless, the city was even more so, no wonder hajun's only constant companions were his isolation and the fangs he had to grow to survive.) but i'll make a reasonable inference based on dongha's experience. we see hajun as he is now, with his cold, precise anger but we also see dongha's wet, thrashing rage that hasn't realised its purpose or target yet. dongha is the closest we have to understanding the extent of the yeon's family cruelty. dongha is everything hajun would have been if he'd still been his parent's son, hajun is everything dongha could be if he leaves behind his family. which is still insane, if you think about it. and i think about it constantly.

the self-made cynic, as they say. i like that he's disarming, unsettling, insincere, insensitive, sadistic, self-serving, cunning manipulative etc. whatever people want to say about him, but i also like that he's his truest self with allen and anne, and doesn't plan on changing that. the world be damned, they are the only ones that matter because they've looked him in the eye without flinching or turning away. like... BAE are so everything...

anyways, i hope he continues to be perceived exactly as terrible as he pretends to be, and i hope the writers leave his beautiful, skewed moral compass intact because i love every single reprehensible act he commits. (for his next trick though, i hope he uncovers something to launch a billion-dollar lawsuit against yeon conglomerate and sink them into bankruptcy.) i hope he continues to cook for allen and anne, i hope he stays fiercely committed to protecting them and caring for them, because clearly everyone else is nothing and if there is one thing he has faith in, it's the family he chose for himself, the family that chose him right back.

hajun and his quiet, precise rage. hajun and the childhood he had to bury so he could evolve to survive in a bigger, crueller world. the childhood that taught him to be afraid, and the adulthood that hasn't quite unlearned it just yet, but baby steps. something about hajun and i get mean when i'm nervous like a bad dog. something about anne and allen embodying tell me every terrible thing you did and let me love you anyway, and hajun taking the risk of believing it. and taking the risk every morning until he doesn't forget. hajun and i am not brave enough to look those who love me in the eye. hajun and it's not a conscience that assures morality, it's the resolve to be a better person to people you care about.

but we can't unpack all this right now. if you suffered through all that and are still here, i hope you have a good day.

[hitsuzenhusbands]

hey! i hope you're having a good day! i just read your (amazing!) asoue fic "ashes to ashes," and i was fascinated by the way you portrayed kit and olaf. i thought i'd send this ask because i'd really love to hear more of your thoughts on their dynamic if you feel like sharing? but if you don't feel like expanding on it, i totally understand! thank you so much for sharing your beautiful work on ao3!

OHH anon you are so kind...i apologize for being so extremely late but i just finished writing a little analysis so i figured now's about the right time to write a semi-legible response. might have been scary and incomprehensible otherwise. but i am finally here to scream and cry and thank you so desperately because im SO happy you enjoyed them AND decided to ask for more info! <3

to begin, i'd be absolutely inconsolable if i didn't point you towards @virginian-wolfsnake's fic the eye of the storm, probably one of my fave k&o fics of all time that delves into the meat of their relationship through the years from the perspective of kit. they're young and still excited by missions and flirty and tender and genuine, and, in time, when the rest of their world collapses, so do they--messy and tense and so wonderfully realistic you have to read it and then read it again. honestly, if you don't want to read the rest of this but still want an answer, just read that. but also read it anyway

and now i have to ask you to forgive me...i have not read the books in a very long time and while i know the netflix series (in comparison) is bad and awful and terrible, i have watched it a million times. so if i'm wrong on anything. that's why.

to begin, the version of olaf i depicted in my fic is at the height of his...how do you say...pathetic misery. not including the spiral he has during the series. to me, the death of his parents are the beginning of his downfall into something-like-insanity, but he's still (and will continue to be) recognizably himself, if that makes sense. he's always been messy and emotional and dramatic (see the line: "...Kit has seen him in worse states and with a much better view..."), but only now does he reveal not a different side of himself per se, but a different angle of one that already existed.

im a fervent believer that olaf's always been a little self destructive and a lot crazy. hes spent the greater half of his life coming to terms with the fact that he is intrinsically not as noble as the rest of vfd--hes impulsive and obnoxious and self-obsessed, barely even literate at times--and it takes a special kind of guy to carve the insignia of the organization full of people he despises into his own front door. still, his parents' death was a catalyst, meaning he wasn't entirely opposed to vfd beforehand. he probably liked the missions and the secrecy and the dramatics, obviously the disguises and everything, but i think before the night at the opera it was really just a source of fun for him. he never truly grasped the reality of it, the nature of his actions and the weight of his involvement. whether that was out of naivety or pure neglect of the facts is up for debate. (there's a little bit of this in the shattering of thalia and melpomene if that interests you at all, beloved anon. see the line: "...[Esme] could never compare to the extent to which [Olaf] removes himself from everyone else entirely. How he spends so much time worrying about himself he almost forgets to worry about himself...Esme could never truly get lost in her own greatness. Could never turn a blind eye to the inner workings of V.F.D.")

kit, on the other hand, definitely did. serving as a volunteer was her purpose, the sole thing she had to cling to. she dedicated her life to it, making conscious decisions to go against her moral code in the hope that it all truly was for a greater good. i think, at times, she could fall into her own little fits of self-destruction, putting vfd above herself entirely (see the line: "This wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something she would never truly volunteer for...he’d still spent year after year watching her run off...to do something she could never speak of." "...she still returned with clenched teeth and knit eyebrows, as though she had no choice in the matter at all.")

to avoid any more convolution, in my mind it goes something like this: both are volunteers--olaf born and raised (along with beatrice), kit torn from her family and thrust into the thick of it so early on its all she knows. they grow up, probably-definitely know each other but dont know each other until, say, late teens-early twenties?

up until then, they've been everything previously described, but intermingling with one another changes this. olaf's easygoing approach rubs off on kit, partly because she finds more joy in his company than in missions, partly because he makes every attempt to keep her from leaving. i like to think she tries to keep his relatively flimsy moral code in check, or at the very least restrain his temper to the best of her abilities.

to me, they're a simultaneously great and terrible couple. at their best, they counteract each other in a positive way as described above and serve as a welcome distraction from the realities of a crumbling vfd, a little island of tenderness and domesticity in the ocean of turmoil that surrounds them.

and at their worst, their personalities combat so violently it's hard to see how they ever could have been together. olaf deals out the worst of it, prone to neglect and self-isolation, a deeply inset refusal to discuss anything with her, an inclination towards firestarting and an increasingly poor reputation with everyone kit knows. then again, kit isn't free of blame (if you can call it that), she's just as opposed to talking anything out as he is, and her isolation takes on the shape of running off to do as many missions as as she can before she's dead on her feet. she's pulled in different directions--a well-instilled hatred towards firestarers, only further influenced by whatever rumours olaf's growing list of enemies supplies her, versus her love for him, her knowledge of who he really is, a concept that is often tested. (see the line: "He’s reminded of a fight they once had, about something or other, that ended in her angry admission that it was easier to be upset with him when he wasn’t nearby.") 

anyway, the idea is they grow further and further apart both ideologically and physically/relationship-wise until the opera night and the crash following that (see: the whole fic!) and from then on i think they fall into something like an evil situationship. they barely see each other, complete opposite sides of the schism. i say situationship because i think when they do see each other (on missions, at events/in public, in private, etc.) it is just a terrible experience no matter what. they're both torn between hating the other for what they know about them/what they did (i like to think olaf finds out about kit supplying the darts) and reminiscing/yearning for what they once had.

for the sake of this i wont give my thoughts on whose baby kit has because that's a whole other thing (not really. its just more of a fun hc i think about on occasion as opposed to something concrete in canon or even my version of canon) but their scene in the end does make me insane. its a culmination of all the time spent wishing what happened didnt happen, almost as though theyre seeing each other for the first time once again, perhaps not blind to the past but looking away for (on olafs part) one final moment of normalcy.

i hope thats what you were looking for to any degree, anon. im a little rusty on my lore but they matter to me soo much. if i have to leave this on anything, its go read eye of the storm. kitlaf fic of all time.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #221

Have you ever hit an animal with your car? No, but in the last year, my mom hit a squirrel for the first time in her life while I was in the passenger's seat. I was fucking devastated, and so was Mom. It was either hit the squirrel or the car in the other lane, and the squirrel was panicking going back and forth so it just stayed in the road longer than if it had just run across.

Favorite ride at the amusement park? I don't go to enough of these to really know. I know I enjoyed the Ferris wheel the last time I went to one.

Do you have many followers on your Tumblr? On my main one I have *checks* 142. It's a rather small community (on Tumblr, anyway, they're one of the biggest international bands in the world) that I post about. On this survey blog, it's 21.

Do you tan easily? Absolutely not, I just burn.

Are you expecting something in the mail? No.

Do you inspire others? I cannot imagine others being inspired by me.

Are you healthy? No, I'm not.

Three things you try to avoid as much as possible: Confrontation, gaining more weight, and situations that give me anxiety.

Number of jeans in your closet: I haven't worn jeans since high school.

Do you follow fashion? Nope.

Do you have a big butt? No, I got that Hank Hill ass & I hate it

Do you count how long you and your gf/bf have been together? I do. I like celebrating anniversaries, so. I don't think time together matters much, but. I keep track anyway.

Rihanna or Lady GaGa? Gagaaaaaa

What's your worst interior design nightmare: Um... probably overcrowding. I've never thought of this. Or just REALLY obnoxious colors.

Are you one of those people that often feel sorry for yourself? Meh, not often. I think it's okay to sometimes, like sometimes you just get a really unfair deck to play and I think it's okay to be upset about it, but I think obsessing over it is a very negative move as far as self-care and acceptance of life goes.

Three persons you would like to thank: My mom, Girt, and the psychiatrist who really helped me get my life back after Jason.

Is your closet disorganized? No.

Do you like to cuddle with your S.O. or do you prefer your space? I am a massive cuddler with him unless I'm hot.

What TV shows do you watch on a regular basis? Literally only Naked and Afraid with my mom. It's our dinner thing if an episode is out, lol. I have no real idea how that became "our show" but it did.

Does it make someone a racist if they’re not attracted to a specific race? "That is not how I understand racism. Attraction can indeed be informed by one's prejudices, but on the flip side, there are plenty of bigots who are also very into the idea of fucking the people they're bigoted towards. Who someone wants to fuck is not at all a reliable litmus test for whether they respect those same people and the cultures they belong to." <<< I fully agree with this.

Are you happy with the size of your bedroom? It does the job for me, sure.

Do you add people you don’t actually know on Facebook? No, you have to be at the bare minimum an acquaintance that actually interests me as an individual.

What’s the longest you’ve liked someone without doing anything about it? Idr.

What’s the relationship status of the last person you talked to? My mom is single.

Think of the person from your past that hurt you the most. Is there anything you would like to say to that person? That I'm sorry for how I acted after we broke up.

Does your mom like the last person you kissed? She loves him.

Are you a forgiving person? I'm too forgiving and I know that for fact.

Who did you last have a heart-to-heart conversation with? Girt, I think.

Do you believe that there’s good in everybody? I don't think so. At least, I think people can become to where there's no longer good in them. I don't think people are born that way or something.

Do you use reusable shopping bags to reduce waste? No, admittedly. Granted, we always get our groceries picked up (employees bring our order to the car), so they're already all in plastic bags.

Where were you going the last time you were a passenger in a car? Girt was bringing me home from his house.

Do your parents have a strong relationship together? Hell fucking no.

When was the last time you attended a religious service of any sort? Many years ago when Colleen was going through an extreme devout Christian phase and I happened to be living with her at the time.

Do you think there are more dimensions than what we’re able to perceive? Meh, I don't think so. I don't completely reject the possibility, though. What do I know, if I can't perceive it?

Do any of your neighbors have loud children? I don't hear them, anyway.

What is the hardest part of your life right now, and what is the easiest? I think the hardest part is not having any sort of employment. I think I make it pretty clear I want to be a self-employed photographer, but that's not easy to achieve, at all. Not having a job plays a massive role in my depression, and for just being insanely fucking bored nearly all the time. Which further feeds my depression, and lately has been causing my anxiety to ramp up, too, because I'm so bored and understimulated that anxiety can just bulldoze its way into focus. Then there's the obvious factor to not having a job: I don't have my own money (I don't receive help from the government), which in our society, feels fuckin' bad. I can't help my mom (who I live with) financially, and she's deep in the fucking hole with money right now. We don't even have a working car right now. If our landlord wasn't who it is, I can assure you we wouldn't have a home right now. I kinda wish for my own sake Mom wouldn't even talk to me about this stuff because I can't fucking help. Uh. For the easiest part of my life... I'm sure SOME people would argue being unemployed, I don't have a lot of responsibility, but it's fucking hell and I promise you there's not a damn thing to envy. I'd rather be DOING shit and supporting myself instead of having to rely on my mommy for everything like a newborn. I guess in MY opinion... it'd be having a house at all? Mom and I hate it here, like a lot, but at least we're not sleeping in the cold or fighting for shelter from the rain. I don't even like talking about this, living on the streets is my biggest fear and it's just more terrifying knowing how easily that could be us. We were already homeless once, but at least we had people to house us. I'm in a bad mood after this question lmfao

If you are struggling with chronic illness right now, what are five of your worst symptoms? Anhedonia, negative self-image and thoughts, general sadness, lack of motivation, and existing in a haze sometimes/feeling like a zombie.

What is your favorite social media platform at the moment? Tumblr. I love the people I associate with there and I feel like it's a much more politically left place (yes I'm full aware not everyone is and dark corners exist) than the shit I see on Facebook and stuff. I USE Facebook more, but it's so easy to get pissed off there at the shit you see. I think Tumblr is definitely better at catering towards your interests and stuff. Like no, Facebook, I had no interest in seeing a proud-as-hell father and his son posing with bloody wolves they'd shot to look as if their corpses were smiling at the camera. (I might be banned from that page <333333)

Do you have trouble forgiving people who hurt you? I've always been too forgiving, but I've definitely gotten better at protecting myself and knowing letting people back in is not always a healthy choice.

What is something that is hard for most people but is easy for you? uh idk

What is something that is easy for most people but is hard for you? The most basic of social interactions. Being open about things I like, if it's not online (like I feel like that's a super exciting topic for most people irl???? meanwhile I wanna throw up).

What is your favorite color, and do you own a lot of things in that color? Pink. Uh... not really, I think.

List three things you have survived. A suicide attempt to be literal, asthma attacks, and homelessness.

When was the last time you had someone pray with you? hell if i know

List five of your favorite female singers. Sharon den Adel, Angela Gossow, Amy Lee, Alissa White-Gluz, and Maria Brink.

When was the last time you got ice cream from an ice cream truck? oh I have zero idea

Do you celebrate the 4th of July, and if so, how did you celebrate it this year? lol no, the U.S.A. can burn for all I care. Mom just made burgers and s'mores so I ate those and that's it.

Who was the last of your friends to have a baby? That I know of, Bethany.

Have you ever been pregnant? No, let's keep it that way.

What color was the last pair of flip-flops you wore? Mine are black.

Are you happy at the moment? Why or why not? No. I just haven't been lately.

What is one thing about your life you hope will never change? I hope I always absolutely adore and aim to educate on and protect animals.

How would you describe your journey so far in your 20s? Shit's sucked. Shit's been a rollercoaster. Shit's been frustrating as hell. Shit's been confusing.

What role does music play in your life, and are there any songs or artists that have had a significant impact on you? I fucking love music. Ozzy Osbourne and Rammstein are the only two I consider having had "significant" impacts on me.

What are some activities or hobbies that bring you joy and help you relax? Creating through writing, photography, or drawing, reading, playing video games, hanging out with my boyfriend, sitting on the porch swing at my sister's house with Mom and watching the kids play, watching a variety of YouTube videos, scrolling the Internet...

What are your thoughts on marriage and starting a family? Is it something you envision for yourself? I want to get married, but I don't want kids. I feel ready to move in together by now, but that's a very unfair thing to want, because then I'd be his financial responsibility instead of only Mom's. We've seriously talked about me and working and Girt really doesn't care if I never do (he's pretty fortunate with his job and he's probably going to keep climbing the ladder there), even though it's anxiety-inducing to him because he worries about what happens to me if he dies or something. But ultimately, he's fine if I'm a stay-at-home wife, which he knows I don't WANT to be and he very much encourages me to keep pursuing photography or art in general, but if that's how it happens, well. My point is though, I should really be patient.

Are there any specific skills or areas of knowledge you would like to develop or improve upon? I would like to become certified to handle venomous snakes, solely for the purpose of relocation if I know someone who needs to get rid of one. I'm very protective of all snakes, but I have a soft spot for venomous species since they're so quickly killed by people, even if they just SUSPECT it's venomous. Or if it's just a snake at all... I've taught myself to be able to identify all my local snakes (although I can't differentiate species of Nerodia, I just know a water snake when I see one), so I can guarantee I'd be able to recognize the venomous species that live in my area, and with certification, I could safely transport them away from where they could be harmed. I wanna point out that I would NEVER handle a venomous species with my bare hands; that ain't my jam. I would never go beyond a snake hook.

How do you navigate and make decisions about your career path and professional growth? lol I am not the person to ask this. I barely know what I'm doing. YouTube channels by self-made artists sharing their experiences save me

[likeadevils]

13 fave Taylor Swift songs released this year? (2023)

eh let’s just throw them all in there i had to type everything out before i could properly sort it anyways

is it over now (i just think she should just scream more)

now that we don’t talk (it’s just a good song in a self evident way and in lieu of explaining i will go on a personal tangent. so confession i saw the lyrics ahead of time in that blurry fucking leak that only showed half of the lyrics and the beginning of each line would be cut BUT i could make out the words red sea. personal tangent #2 when i was a toddler i was OBSESSED with moses from the bible to a degree that is genuinely insane for a pre verbal baby. so anyways when i saw the lyric something deep within me got so hyped)

(if hits different counts this is where it would be but i’m going based off first time officially released in any format and not just first time released on streaming)

the alcott (i misheard the lyric as did my love aid or abet you which is better but i’ll let it slide cause it’s not like i’m the one who pulled of the scarf reveal in the bridge of all too well after explicitly saying he kept it in the first verse)

you’re losing me (can i just saying learning that this was written december 2021 not only made the song better but all of midnights)

say don’t go (if she cut the “why’d you have to” parts in the prechorus this would easily be #1 but alas it still makes the top 5)

foolish one (genuinely should have made the album i think it really makes “please don’t be in love with someone else” in enchanted hit so much harder)

electric touch (it like pisses me off that this is too similar to sparks fly for them both to make the album but swiftie sin i would put this on the album and make sparks fly a bonus track also i like the idea to make this a duet and i like the idea of a fob feature but i don’t think she quite pulls it off. but i would forgive anything for that opening verse)

all of the girls (should this be higher? probably. am i still salty about this being released and not need? yeah. and like no i shouldn’t let that color my enjoyment of the song but here we are)

timeless (it’s good!)

when emma falls in love (somewhere out there is an alternate universe where taylor released a little ep of songs about her friends in 2010)

slut (can i just say i literally sent a voice memo to my friends the day before 1989tv dropped being like “okay nobody thinks aquamarine moonlit swimming pool what if all i need is you is from slut because that would be insane but what if slut is about her trying to make a relationship work in the middle of a media frenzy” and like i also predicted that the verses would be ethereal but the chorus would be scream-y so i wasn’t totally right but STILL I KNEW I SHOULD’VE POSTED IT)

i can see you (listen i should like this song and i want to like this song but i just don’t and like it’s not the john mayer of it all like i love ours but there’s just something in this song that’s not for me idk)

castles crumbling (to me this reads as more of a “watching too many vh1’s behind the musics and spiraling” song and while i find that charming i also just find it kinda trite. but it does make i could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me hit harder so i’ll give it that)

suburban legends (its fine. like it’s fine if this is for you i respect that and i wish i could agree but like. it’s fine it’s fine who amongst us has not had like like three quarters of a three separate great ideas and just smushed them together to get a pretty good product)

[strongfuck]

Sleeping at Last - Saturn, Venus, and 9

first of all you are so evil for suggesting sleeping at last to me, every single song i have heard from them has always driven me to misery (i don't actually think you're evil, i'm just IN PAIN OVER RHYS FEELINGS)

Who am I to say what any of this means I have been sleepwalking Since I was fourteen now as I write my song I retrace my steps honestly, it’s easier To let myself forget Still, I check my vital signs Choked up, I realize I’ve been less than half myself For more than half my life

Nine is making me go insane thinking about how Rhys felt he HAD to succeed at Hyperion or else he'd have wasted whole years of his life being there

So show me what to do To restart this heart of mine How do I forgive myself For losing so much time?

and how after the events of tftbl he tries to be more of himself. sure, he's never ENTIRELY himself 24/7-- but what is a sense of self, anyway? and how do you know that you're always true?-- but he's certainly more than he was when he was at hyperion. he gets to pursue his own interests. he gets to do good with tech just like he's wanted

To know and love ourselves and others well Is the most difficult and meaningful Work we’ll ever do

and considering he takes the time to get to know the people of promethea in canon-- the ordinary people that he chooses to protect, btw-- he's so aware that there are humans around him. that they aren't just population numbers. and as he gets to be more "rhys-like" in his everyday and starts to feel more comfortable in his skin, he feels genuine affection and duty for the people he's decided to dedicate himself to. man is literally the only CEO ever to choose protecting his company and his planet over seeking out a vault in the vault-obsessed borderlands, and i think that's significant

I couldn't help but ask for you to say it all again I tried to write it down, but I could never find a pen I'd give anything to hear you say it one more time That the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes

also GOD Saturn makes me think about Rhys missing his friends-- his friends who gave him the tools to realise he has worth outside being a hyperion stooge-- and how alone he is now as Atlas' CEO, because nobody around him knows him as Just Rhys any more, nor are they really interested in the "man behind the moustache", so to speak

With shortness of breath I'll try to explain the infinite And how rare and beautiful it is to even exist

and like-- the fact that he's dedicated himself to making a planet better? he fucking revived a planet that was worse than pandora and turned it into "the most advanced planet in the galaxy" in FIVE YEARS. he opened a vault and not only made atlas thrive with it, but also poured it back into the planet that atlas had forsaken. COME ON

I was a billion little pieces 'Til you pulled me into focus Astronomy in reverse It was me who was discovered

and VENUS, oh my GOD, this is rhys falling in love and i'm never going to forgive you for making me think about this in context of him. my tears are watering as i'm writing this even, lmao. there's something so innocent about love grounding him; rhys spends so much time with his head in the stars, thinking about the future and how to make things better for others, that taking a moment to stop and just... consider his own happiness? to consider the happiness given to him by another? is so quiet and gentle, every time

thanks anon. shit hurts

[eldriitchmurmurs]

amciwtv finale thoughts

heres your death lestat and then kissing armand was craaaazy like i love when women (louis) are insane. in this vein to me this is dyke drama. armand is a dyke (highest compliment a prettyboy can get) (also long hair and titties = woman) and lestat is like a very masc like passing butch that gets he himmed all the time despite being to me like literally afab im sorry but i look at sam reids face and ik "his" womb is fertile also lestat in general is just a woman. 1 self insert for anne rice = woman 2 having feelings = woman 3 liking men = woman 4 hair = woman 5 the whole thing with gabriele but thats incidental to it honestly anyway i love lesbian representitivity

i am not going to lie while i think the CAST did a phenomenal job with building tension and then having everything blow up i think the CREW could have supplemented them a little more better. idk something something with the cameras and the music and the shots in the like winding down the interview scene. like again with san fransisco its terrifying for a few secondes at a time and thats fun but the overall tone of the larger scene is a bit splotchy in ways that i dont think were intentional

louis girl your house is ugly as hell <3 but the i own the night scene was so fun i love girlbosses and i loved his fit in modern new orleans and i love like the use of yellow

i think its fun how theyre like cutting up the story and playing like refridgerator words with it. the new orleans scene being a forgival and reuinion scene vs like oh ewwwwwww icccckkkkk byeeeeeee is something that can b so funy im a little disappointed that there was no second baby eating

in that vein i think louis as a whole is much more sympathetic. like simply by virtue of having his backstory changed i think his actions change just by virtue of that + the other backstory shifts. which is something thats really interesting to see an adaptation do. like in the books and the movey louis was genuinely irritating #misogynymoment like literally grtow up but now im like hmmmmm he should get a gun <3 and like off the top of my head i do not think his actions like over the course of the story were substantially different based on my foggy recollection of iwtv i do remember him constantly burning down shit though which was very funny then but is very like sad and dramatic and shit now but also kind of a girl boss moment. which is like really femionist for amc to do

ok hottest take for last i saw that essay abt how it was probably not lestat who saved louis bc of all those smart bigbrain reasons and my hot take is that the essayist is wrong bc as much as armand loves being the sub in his and louios relationship he is still very much dickmatized by lestat is the thing. that he/him dick has got him acting unwise. and armand putting on a play where louis claudia and maddy are fried alive just to get back at lestat but then going ok shrug emoji and going with louis instead is imo very ic for him. he contains multitudes (of obsessions. lestat louis daniel blenders minecraft to name a few). also it adds to the horror of louis situation like. ik im typing a little fucked up but like i mean it

ok last last take for real and this ones pretty cold actually its just me bitching about them making so obvious the stakes of what killse ricepires. nopt their fault i guess idk if this is a straight carryover from the books, but like the idea that starvation would like literally kill kill kill a vampire instead of just dry them out for a while and then like idk you could bring them back with enough blood, seems silly 2 me. like theyre already dead, i feel like your clssic dracula or even folkloric vampire would be finme even if they didnt feed for decades theyd just lok and feel like shit and thats a different kind of horror vs like oh no tickicking time bomb until louis starves 2 death #coquette #cigarette but agaain thats just my oipinionnnnnnnn

[fairycosmos]

I spent 2 years developing a parasocial relationship with a guy I saw on my fyp. I know everything about his family, friends, his friends’ friends, his gf (and her friends) and ex gf (and her friends), basically everybody he follows on instagram. He doesnt even live in the same country as me, i know where he lives, his hometown, his parents, his interest, and his playlists. I woke up everyday for him. To check if he posted anything new. In the middle of a 2 year long depressive episode, he got me to wake up at 6 in the morning (time zone differences) and up for my 7 am classes. I spend all my time daydreaming of him and wishing I had the life his girlfriend has. Even if you take him out of the equation, she has everything I want. She’s 21, and completely moved out of her parents place, and into LA to support his career in modeling. She an artist, a creative, a lovely girl or atleast somebody that would warrant dozens of girl friends calling her an angel everytime she posts something. And that may not seem like a lot but as somebody living in a small town in a province in a SEA country, thats all I could ever ask for in life. Literally just employment, financial independence, a place of her own and she gets to share all that with her loving boyfriend. With all the stalking and sasaeng behavior I know I dont deserve to ask for anything but forgiveness atp but I’m so fucking jealous I could feel it in my chest. It eats at me every day for 2 years now I’ve lost so much weight I been look physically ill with supposedly no reason everyone around me is concerned and they want me to see a nutritionist but that not the problem the problem is i’m sick in the head and a jealous hateful bitch with nothing going on in my life but to obsess and stalk over two strangers who dont know I exist. I just want to have my own life so bad I’m sick of waiting things to get better it needs to start getting better and soon. The only thing I find comforting is lurking on his ex gf’s accounts bc maybe if she can move on I can move on too.

-🧧

i'm sorry you have had to deal with this feeling for so long and i'm sorry things are so hard, for real. i think it's ok to accept jealousy as a natural emotion, just like sadness or anger or hurt, and you don't have to crucify yourself for feeling it. it's alright that it's there. you can choose how you respond to it, even if practicing doing that takes a long time and progress is slow. that being said, it sounds like you're very self-aware about the fact that this has been having a really detrimental impact on your mental health and that you have been crossing boundaries in order to cope with processing that envy, which obviously isn't great. but you're not doomed to be stuck in that place forever. you can work on it, you put yourself first, even if it's exhausting and you don't want to and your life doesn't look the way you want it to look. it is completely normal to want love, financial stability, a place of your own - and you are just as deserving of all of that as this girl is. obviously, we all have wildly different lives, and some people are born into drastically better situations than others, but so much of the toxicity of parasocial relationships lies within the fact that social media is a complete fabrication, a smoke screen. even if these people do have things you want, which is totally understandable, comparing their performance to the world to your lived reality is never going to get you anywhere. and i think we all know that on some level, yet we often fall into that trap anyway, but grounding yourself in that daily may begin to shift your perspective over time.

do you think it would be at all possible to begin limiting your exposure to this guy and his girlfriend online? it sounds like you've developed a real dependency on living vicariously through them and watching their lives, and i'm not saying you have to give that up at all at once. i'm just asking you to consider maybe setting small goals with yourself regarding how much time you actually spend on these people - who are, like you said, total strangers really. it may be a good idea to start working on treating them as such, bit by bit. it seems like you have people in your life who care about you and who want you to be okay, who have noticed that something isn't right with your mental health lately. that's a good sign. whether you can see it or not, you are loved and seen exactly as you are. would you consider talking to someone you trust about what is going on? i know it can feel sort of embarrassing, and you don't have to go into detail about it, but like. just being honest about how unhappy you are with the way things are and having someone listen to that and take it in might be a really good place to start. i get that that's a big step, but i hope you know reaching out is always an option. you don't have to deal with this on your own. rather than a nutritionist, i think it may also help to talk to your family about getting a therapist or speaking with a mental health professional. i know there is a lot of stigma surrounding that, but at this point i think you need to see it as a form of treatment to regain your mental and physical health. having a professional guide you through the intensity of these feelings by listening to you and recommending specialised coping mechanisms can make such a difference. again, i know that's a lot. but i hope you never close yourself off to the idea of it all together, because there's truly no shame in seeking support.

by the way, as a sidenote, i'm not saying it's unreasonable to be jealous of extremely privileged people when you are relatively disadvantaged. like i said at the start, it's completely natural to resent those who seem like they are in the position to enjoy a level of comfort and fulfilment the rest of us have to fight to experience, if we ever even get to. and it fucking sucks. it fucking sucks to be single and exhausted and to feel so unloved. but i think it will do you good to really try focusing on what is actually in your control, what you can actually make of the material reality around you again. no, it may not ever look like dating this specific guy and having an apartment in LA at 21, but there is still a worthwhile life to live outside of that. there is still love around you, and experiences to be had. it may not feel like much consolation from the place you are in right now, but i do think it is a comforting truth. there are many ways to make your world feel more manageable. you said it feels like you have nothing going on in your life so you have to stalk and obsesses over these random people, and that's exactly why i think taking yourself away from the phone screen or the computer screen just a few times a day to focus on what is actually going on around you and where you can find a support network would be ideal for you at this point. i know it's hard, but this guy really is just Some guy. he's not the answer to your life's problems, or the solution to issues with your mental health. he is, at most a convenient person to project that stuff onto. if his ex-gf can get over him, you can get over the idea of him. with time, patience, external support and most importantly - self forgiveness. envy eats me up inside often, too. i get it. and it doesn't make you a bad person. i hope you're able to find the help you need, and i'm sorry for rambling so much. please take it easy. sending a lot of love your way. x

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on: Criterion's Neo-Noir Collection

I have written up all 26 films* in the Criterion Channel's Neo-Noir Collection.

Legend: rw - rewatch; a movie I had seen before going through the collection dnrw - did not rewatch; if a movie met two criteria (a. I had seen it within the last 18 months, b. I actively dislike it) I wrote it up from memory.

* in September, Brick leaves the Criterion Channel and is replaced in the collection with Michael Mann's Thief. May add it to the list when that happens.

Note: These are very "what was on my mind after watching." No effort has been made to avoid spoilers, nor to make the plot clear for anyone who hasn't seen the movies in question. Decide for yourself if that's interesting to you.

Cotton Comes to Harlem I feel utterly unequipped to asses this movie. This and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song the following year are regularly cited as the progenitors of the blaxploitation genre. (This is arguably unfair, since both were made by Black men and dealt much more substantively with race than the white-directed films that followed them.) Its heroes are a couple of Black cops who are treated with suspicion both by their white colleagues and by the Black community they're meant to police. I'm not 100% clear on whether they're the good guys? I mean, I think they are. But the community's suspicion of them seems, I dunno... well-founded? They are working for The Man. And there's interesting discussion to the had there - is the the problem that the law is carried out by racists, or is the law itself racist? Can Black cops make anything better? But it feels like the film stacks the deck in Gravedigger and Coffin Ed's favor; the local Black church is run by a conman, the Back-to-Africa movement is, itself, a con, and the local Black Power movement is treated as an obstacle. Black cops really are the only force for justice here. Movie portrays Harlem itself as a warm, thriving, cultured community, but the people that make up that community are disloyal and easily fooled. Felt, to me, like the message was "just because they're cops doesn't mean they don't have Black soul," which, nowadays, we would call copaganda. But, then, do I know what I'm talking about? Do I know how much this played into or off of or against stereotypes from 1970? Was this a radical departure I don't have the context to appreciate? Is there substance I'm too white and too many decades removed to pick up on? Am I wildly overthinking this? I dunno. Seems like everyone involved was having a lot of fun, at least. That bit is contagious.

Across 110th Street And here's the other side of the "race film" equation. Another movie set in Harlem with a Black cop pulled between the police, the criminals, and the public, but this time the film is made by white people. I like it both more and less. Pro: this time the difficult position of Black cop who's treated with suspicion by both white cops and Black Harlemites is interrogated. Con: the Black cop has basically no personality other than "honest cop." Pro: the racism of the police force is explicit and systemic, as opposed to comically ineffectual. Con: the movie is shaped around a racist white cop who beats the shit out of Black people but slowly forms a bond with his Black partner. Pro: the Black criminal at the heart of the movie talks openly about how the white world has stacked the deck against him, and he's soulful and relateable. Con: so of course he dies in the end, because the only way privileged people know to sympathetize with minorities is to make them tragic (see also: The Boys in the Band, Philadelphia, and Brokeback Mountain for gay men). Additional con: this time Harlem is portrayed as a hellhole. Barely any of the community is even seen. At least the shot at the end, where the criminal realizes he's going to die and throws the bag of money off a roof and into a playground so the Black kids can pick it up before the cops reclaim it was powerful. But overall... yech. Cotton Comes to Harlem felt like it wasn't for me; this feels like it was 100% for me and I respect it less for that.

The Long Goodbye (rw) The shaggiest dog. Like much Altman, more compelling than good, but very compelling. Raymond Chandler's story is now set in the 1970's, but Philip Marlowe is the same Philip Marlowe of the 1930's. I get the sense there was always something inherently sad about Marlowe. Classic noir always portrayed its detectives as strong-willed men living on the border between the straightlaced world and its seedy underbelly, crossing back and forth freely but belonging to neither. But Chandler stresses the loneliness of it - or, at least, the people who've adapted Chandler do. Marlowe is a decent man in an indecent world, sorting things out, refusing to profit from misery, but unable to set anything truly right. Being a man out of step is here literalized by putting him forty years from the era where he belongs. His hardboiled internal monologue is now the incessant mutterings of the weird guy across the street who never stops smoking. Like I said: compelling! Kael's observation was spot on: everyone in the movie knows more about the mystery than he does, but he's the only one who cares. The mystery is pretty threadbare - Marlowe doesn't detect so much as end up in places and have people explain things to him. But I've seen it two or three times now, and it does linger.

Chinatown (rw) I confess I've always been impressed by Chinatown more than I've liked it. Its story structure is impeccable, its atmosphere is gorgeous, its noirish fatalism is raw and real, its deconstruction of the noir hero is well-observed, and it's full of clever detective tricks (the pocket watches, the tail light, the ruler). I've just never connected with it. Maybe it's a little too perfectly crafted. (I feel similar about Miller's Crossing.) And I've always been ambivalent about the ending. In Towne's original ending, Evelyn shoots Noah Cross dead and get arrested, and neither she nor Jake can tell the truth of why she did it, so she goes to jail for murder and her daughter is in the wind. Polansky proposed the ending that exists now, where Evelyn just dies, Cross wins, and Jake walks away devastated. It communicates the same thing: Jake's attempt to get smart and play all the sides off each other instead of just helping Evelyn escape blows up in his face at the expense of the woman he cares about and any sense of real justice. And it does this more dramatically and efficiently than Towne's original ending. But it also treats Evelyn as narratively disposable, and hands the daughter over to the man who raped Evelyn and murdered her husband. It makes the women suffer more to punch up the ending. But can I honestly say that Towne's ending is the better one? It is thematically equal, dramatically inferior, but would distract me less. Not sure what the calculus comes out to there. Maybe there should be a third option. Anyway! A perfect little contraption. Belongs under a glass dome.

Night Moves (rw) Ah yeah, the good shit. This is my quintessential 70's noir. This is three movies in a row about detectives. Thing is, the classic era wasn't as chockablock with hardboiled detectives as we think; most of those movies starred criminals, cops, and boring dudes seduced to the darkness by a pair of legs. Gumshoes just left the strongest impressions. (The genre is said to begin with Maltese Falcon and end with Touch of Evil, after all.) So when the post-Code 70's decided to pick the genre back up while picking it apart, it makes sense that they went for the 'tecs first. The Long Goodbye dragged the 30's detective into the 70's, and Chinatown went back to the 30's with a 70's sensibility. But Night Moves was about detecting in the Watergate era, and how that changed the archetype. Harry Moseby is the detective so obsessed with finding the truth that he might just ruin his life looking for it, like the straight story will somehow fix everything that's broken, like it'll bring back a murdered teenager and repair his marriage and give him a reason to forgive the woman who fucked him just to distract him from some smuggling. When he's got time to kill, he takes out a little, magnetic chess set and recreates a famous old game, where three knight moves (get it?) would have led to a beautiful checkmate had the player just seen it. He keeps going, self-destructing, because he can't stand the idea that the perfect move is there if he can just find it. And, no matter how much we see it destroy him, we, the audience, want him to keep going; we expect a satisfying resolution to the mystery. That's what we need from a detective picture; one character flat-out compares Harry to Sam Spade. But what if the truth is just... Watergate? Just some prick ruining things for selfish reasons? Nothing grand, nothing satisfying. Nothing could be more noir, or more neo-, than that.

Farewell, My Lovely Sometimes the only thing that makes a noir neo- is that it's in color and all the blood, tits, and racism from the books they're based on get put back in. This second stab at Chandler is competant but not much more than that. Mitchum works as Philip Marlowe, but Chandler's dialogue feels off here, like lines that worked on the page don't work aloud, even though they did when Bogie said them. I'll chalk it up to workmanlike but uninspired direction. (Dang this looks bland so soon after Chinatown.) Moose Malloy is a great character, and perfectly cast. (Wasn't sure at first, but it's true.) Some other interesting cats show up and vanish - the tough brothel madam based on Brenda Allen comes to mind, though she's treated with oddly more disdain than most of the other hoods and is dispatched quicker. In general, the more overt racism and misogyny doesn't seem to do anything except make the movie "edgier" than earlier attempts at the same material, and it reads kinda try-hard. But it mostly holds together. *shrug*

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (dnrw) Didn't care for this at all. Can't tell if the script was treated as a jumping-off point or if the dialogue is 100% improvised, but it just drags on forever and is never that interesting. Keeps treating us to scenes from the strip club like they're the opera scenes in Amadeus, and, whatever, I don't expect burlesque to be Mozart, but Cosmo keeps saying they're an artful, classy joint, and I keep waiting for the show to be more than cheap, lazy camp. How do you make gratuitious nudity boring? Mind you, none of this is bad as a rule - I love digressions and can enjoy good sleaze, and it's clear the filmmakers care about what they're making. They just did not sell it in a way I wanted to buy. Can't remember what edit I watched; I hope it was the 135 minute one, because I cannot imagine there being a longer edit out there.

The American Friend (dnrw) It's weird that this is Patricia Highsmith, right? That Dennis Hopper is playing Tom Ripley? In a cowboy hat? I gather that Minghella's version wasn't true to the source, but I do love that movie, and this is a long, long way from that. This Mr. Ripley isn't even particularly talented! Anyway, this has one really great sequence, where a regular guy has been coerced by crooks into murdering someone on a train platform, and, when the moment comes to shoot, he doesn't. And what follows is a prolonged sequence of an amateur trying to surreptitiously tail a guy across a train station and onto another train, and all the while you're not sure... is he going to do it? is he going to chicken out? is he going to do it so badly he gets caught? It's hard not to put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, wondering how you would handle the situation, whether you could do it, whether you could act on impulse before your conscience could catch up with you. It drags on a long while and this time it's a good thing. Didn't much like the rest of the movie, it's shapeless and often kind of corny, and the central plot hook is contrived. (It's also very weird that this is the only Wim Wenders I've seen.) But, hey, I got one excellent sequence, not gonna complain.

The Big Sleep Unlike the 1946 film, I can follow the plot of this Big Sleep. But, also unlike the 1946 version, this one isn't any damn fun. Mitchum is back as Marlowe (this is three Marlowes in five years, btw), and this time it's set in the 70's and in England, for some reason. I don't find this offensive, but neither do I see what it accomplishes? Most of the cast is still American. (Hi Jimmy!) Still holds together, but even less well than Farewell, My Lovely. But I do find it interesting that the neo-noir era keeps returning to Chandler while it's pretty much left Hammet behind (inasmuch as someone whose genes are spread wide through the whole genre can be left behind). Spade and the Continental Op, straightshooting tough guys who come out on top in the end, seem antiquated in the (post-)modern era. But Marlowe's goodness being out of sync with the world around him only seems more poignant the further you take him from his own time. Nowadays you can really only do Hammett as pastiche, but I sense that you could still play Chandler straight.

Eyes of Laura Mars The most De Palma movie I've seen not made by De Palma, complete with POV shots, paranormal hoodoo, and fixation with sex, death, and whether images of such are art or exploitation (or both). Laura Mars takes photographs of naked women in violent tableux, and has gotten quite famous doing so, but is it damaging to women? The movie has more than a superficial engagement with this topic, but only slightly more than superficial. Kept imagining a movie that is about 30% less serial killer story and 30% more art conversations. (But, then, I have an art degree and have never murdered anyone, so.) Like, museums are full of Biblical paintings full of nude women and slaughter, sometimes both at once, and they're called masterpieces. Most all of them were painted by men on commission from other men. Now Laura Mars makes similar images in modern trappings, and has models made of flesh and blood rather than paint, and it's scandalous? Why is it only controversial once women are getting paid for it? On the other hand, is this just the master's tools? Is she subverting or challenging the male gaze, or just profiting off of it? Or is a woman profiting off of it, itself, a subversion? Is it subversive enough to account for how it commodifies female bodies? These questions are pretty clearly relevant to the movie itself, and the movies in general, especially after the fall of the Hays Code when people were really unrestrained with the blood and boobies. And, heck, the lead is played by the star of Bonnie and Clyde! All this is to say: I wish the movie were as interested in these questions as I am. What's there is a mildly diverting B-picture. There's one great bit where Laura's seeing through the killer's eyes (that's the hook, she gets visions from the murderer's POV; no, this is never explained) and he's RIGHT BEHIND HER, so there's a chase where she charges across an empty room only able to see her own fleeing self from ten feet behind. That was pretty great! And her first kiss with the detective (because you could see a mile away that the detective and the woman he's supposed to protect are gonna fall in love) is immediately followed by the two freaking out about how nonsensical it is for them to fall in love with each other, because she's literally mourning multiple deaths and he's being wildly unprofessional, and then they go back to making out. That bit was great, too. The rest... enh.

The Onion Field What starts off as a seemingly not-that-noirish cops-vs-crooks procedural turns into an agonizingly protracted look at the legal system, with the ultimate argument that the very idea of the law ever resulting in justice is a lie. Hoo! I have to say, I'm impressed. There's a scene where a lawyer - whom I'm not sure is even named, he's like the seventh of thirteen we've met - literally quits the law over how long this court case about two guys shooting a cop has taken. He says the cop who was murdered has been forgotten, his partner has never gotten to move on because the case has lasted eight years, nothing has been accomplished, and they should let the two criminals walk and jail all the judges and lawyers instead. It's awesome! The script is loaded with digressions and unnecessary details, just the way I like it. Can't say I'm impressed with the execution. Nothing is wrong, exactly, but the performances all seem a tad melodramatic or a tad uninspired. Camerawork is, again, purely functional. It's no masterpiece. But that second half worked for me. (And it's Ted Danson's first movie! He did great.)

Body Heat (rw) Let's say up front that this is a handsomely-made movie. Probably the best looking thing on the list since Night Moves. Nothing I've seen better captures the swelter of an East Coast heatwave, or the lusty feeling of being too hot to bang and going at it regardless. Kathleen Turner sells the hell out of a femme fatale. There are a lot of good lines and good performances (Ted Danson is back and having the time of his life). I want to get all that out of the way, because this is a movie heavily modeled after Double Indemnity, and I wanted to discuss its merits before I get into why inviting that comparison doesn't help the movie out. In a lot of ways, it's the same rules as the Robert Mitchum Marlowe movies - do Double Indemnity but amp up the sex and violence. And, to a degree it works. (At least, the sex does, dunno that Double Indemnity was crying out for explosions.) But the plot is amped as well, and gets downright silly. Yeah, Mrs. Dietrichson seduces Walter Neff so he'll off her husband, but Neff clocks that pretty early and goes along with it anyway. Everything beyond that is two people keeping too big a secret and slowly turning on each other. But here? For the twists to work Matty has to be, from frame one, playing four-dimensional chess on the order of Senator Palpatine, and its about as plausible. (Exactly how did she know, after she rebuffed Ned, he would figure out her local bar and go looking for her at the exact hour she was there?) It's already kind of weird to be using the spider woman trope in 1981, but to make her MORE sexually conniving and mercenary than she was in the 40's is... not great. As lurid trash, it's pretty fun for a while, but some noir stuff can't just be updated, it needs to be subverted or it doesn't justify its existence.

Blow Out Brian De Palma has two categories of movie: he's got his mainstream, director-for-hire fare, where his voice is either reigned in or indulged in isolated sequences that don't always jive with the rest fo the film, and then there's his Brian De Palma movies. My mistake, it seems, is having seen several for-hires from throughout his career - The Untouchables (fine enough), Carlito's Way (ditto, but less), Mission: Impossible (enh) - but had only seen De Palma-ass movies from his late period (Femme Fatale and The Black Dahlia, both of which I think are garbage). All this to say: Blow Out was my first classic-era De Palma, and holy fucking shit dudes. This was (with caveats) my absolute and entire jam. I said I could enjoy good sleaze, and this is good friggin' sleaze. (Though far short of De Palma at his sleaziest, mercifully.) The splitscreens, the diopter shots, the canted angles, how does he make so many shlocky things work?! John Travolta's sound tech goes out to get fresh wind fx for the movie he's working on, and we get this wonderful sequence of visuals following sounds as he turns his attention and his microphone to various noises - a couple on a walk, a frog, an owl, a buzzing street lamp. Later, as he listens back to the footage, the same sequence plays again, but this time from his POV; we're seeing his memory as guided by the same sequence of sounds, now recreated with different shots, as he moves his pencil in the air mimicking the microphone. When he mixes and edits sounds, we hear the literal soundtrack of the movie we are watching get mixed and edited by the person on screen. And as he tries to unravel a murder mystery, he uses what's at hand: magnetic tape, flatbed editors, an animation camera to turn still photos from the crime scene into a film and sync it with the audio he recorded; it's forensics using only the tools of the editing room. As someone who's spent some time in college editing rooms, this is a hoot and a half. Loses a bit of steam as it goes on and the film nerd stuff gives way to a more traditional thriller, but rallies for a sound-tech-centered final setpiece, which steadily builds to such madcap heights you can feel the air thinning, before oddly cutting its own tension and then trying to build it back up again. It doesn't work as well the second time. But then, that shot right after the climax? Damn. Conflicted on how the movie treats the female lead. I get why feminist film theorists are so divided on De Palma. His stuff is full of things feminists (rightly) criticize, full of women getting naked when they're not getting stabbed, but he also clearly finds women fascinating and has them do empowered and unexpected things, and there are many feminist reads of his movies. Call it a mixed bag. But even when he's doing tropey shit, he explores the tropes in unexpected ways. Definitely the best movie so far that I hadn't already seen.

Cutter's Way (rw) Alex Cutter is pitched to us as an obnoxious-but-sympathetic son of a bitch, and, you know, two out of three ain't bad. Watched this during my 2020 neo-noir kick and considered skipping it this time because I really didn't enjoy it. Found it a little more compelling this go around, while being reminded of why my feelings were room temp before. Thematically, I'm onboard: it's about a guy, Cutter, getting it in his head that he's found a murderer and needs to bring him to justice, and his friend, Bone, who intermittently helps him because he feels bad that Cutter lost his arm, leg, and eye in Nam and he also feels guilty for being in love with Cutter's wife. The question of whether the guy they're trying to bring down actually did it is intentionally undefined, and arguably unimportant; they've got personal reasons to see this through. Postmodern and noirish, fixated with the inability to ever fully know the truth of anything, but starring people so broken by society that they're desperate for certainty. (Pretty obvious parallels to Vietnam.) Cutter's a drunk and kind of an asshole, but understandably so. Bone's shiftlessness is the other response to a lack of meaning in the world, to the point where making a decision, any decision, feels like character growth, even if it's maybe killing a guy whose guilt is entirely theoretical. So, yeah, I'm down with all of this! A- in outline form. It's just that Cutter is so uninterestingly unpleasant and no one else on screen is compelling enough to make up for it. His drunken windups are tedious and his sanctimonious speeches about what the war was like are, well, true and accurate but also obviously manipulative. It's two hours with two miserable people, and I think Cutter's constant chatter is supposed to be the comic relief but it's a little too accurate to drunken rambling, which isn't funny if you're not also drunk. He's just tedious, irritating, and periodically racist. Pass.

Blood Simple (rw) I'm pretty cool on the Coens - there are things I've liked, even loved, in every Coen film I've seen, but I always come away dissatisfied. For a while, I kept going to their movies because I was sure eventually I'd love one without qualification. No Country for Old Men came close, the first two acts being master classes in sustained tension. But then the third act is all about denying closure: the protagonist is murdered offscreen, the villain's motives are never explained, and it ends with an existentialist speech about the unfathomable cruelty of the world. And it just doesn't land for me. The archness of the Coen's dialogue, the fussiness of their set design, the kinda-intimate, kinda-awkward, kinda-funny closeness of the camera's singles, it cannot sell me on a devastating meditation about meaninglessness. It's only ever sold me on the Coens' own cleverness. And that archness, that distancing, has typified every one of their movies I've come close to loving. Which is a long-ass preamble to saying, holy heck, I was not prepared for their very first movie to be the one I'd been looking for! I watched it last year and it remains true on rewatch: Blood Simple works like gangbusters. It's kind of Double Indemnity (again) but played as a comedy of errors, minus the comedy: two people romantically involved feeling their trust unravel after a murder. And I think the first thing that works for me is that utter lack of comedy. It's loaded with the Coens' trademark ironies - mostly dramatic in this case - but it's all played straight. Unlike the usual lead/femme fatale relationship, where distrust brews as the movie goes on, the audience knows the two main characters can trust each other. There are no secret duplicitous motives waiting to be revealed. The audience also know why they don't trust each other. (And it's all communicated wordlessly, btw: a character enters a scene and we know, based on the information that character has, how it looks to them and what suspicions it would arouse, even as we know the truth of it). The second thing that works is, weirdly, that the characters aren't very interesting?! Ray and Abby have almost no characterization. Outside of a general likability, they are blank slates. This is a weakness in most films, but, given the agonizingly long, wordless sequences where they dispose of bodies or hide from gunfire, you're left thinking not "what will Ray/Abby do in this scenario," because Ray and Abby are relatively elemental and undefined, but "what would I do in this scenario?" Which creates an exquisite tension but also, weirdly, creates more empathy than I feel for the Coens' usual cast of personalities. It's supposed to work the other way around! Truly enjoyable throughout but absolutely wonderful in the suspenseful-as-hell climax. Good shit right here.

Body Double The thing about erotic thrillers is everything that matters is in the name. Is it thrilling? Is it erotic? Good; all else is secondary. De Palma set out to make the most lurid, voyeuristic, horny, violent, shocking, steamy movie he could come up with, and its success was not strictly dependent on the lead's acting ability or the verisimilitude of the plot. But what are we, the modern audience, to make of it once 37 years have passed and, by today's standards, the eroticism is quite tame and the twists are no longer shocking? Then we're left with a nonsensical riff on Vertigo, a specularization of women that is very hard to justify, and lead actor made of pulped wood. De Palma's obsessions don't cohere into anything more this time; the bits stolen from Hitchcock aren't repurposed to new ends, it really is just Hitch with more tits and less brains. (I mean, I still haven't seen Vertigo, but I feel 100% confident in that statement.) The diopter shots and rear-projections this time look cheap (literally so, apparently; this had 1/3 the budget of Blow Out). There are some mildly interesting setpieces, but nothing compared to Travolta's auditory reconstructions or car chase where he tries to tail a subway train from street level even if it means driving through a frickin parade like an inverted French Connection, goddamn Blow Out was a good movie! Anyway. Melanie Griffith seems to be having fun, at least. I guess I had a little as well, but it was, at best, diverting, and a real letdown.

The Hit Surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Terrance Stamp flips on the mob and spends ten years living a life of ease in Spain, waiting for the day they find and kill him. Movie kicks off when they do find him, and what follows is a ramshackle road movie as John Hurt and a young Tim Roth attempt to drive him to Paris so they can shoot him in front of his old boss. Stamp is magnetic. He's spent a decade reading philosophy and seems utterly prepared for death, so he spends the trip humming, philosophizing, and being friendly with his captors when he's not winding them up. It remains unclear to the end whether the discord he sews between Roth and Hurt is part of some larger plan of escape or just for shits and giggles. There's also a decent amount of plot for a movie that's not terribly plot-driven - just about every part of the kidnapping has tiny hitches the kidnappers aren't prepared for, and each has film-long repercussions, drawing the cops closer and somehow sticking Laura del Sol in their backseat. The ongoing questions are when Stamp will die, whether del Sol will die, and whether Roth will be able to pull the trigger. In the end, it's actually a meditation on ethics and mortality, but in a quiet and often funny way. It's not going to go down as one of my new favs, but it was a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Trouble in Mind (dnrw) I fucking hated this movie. It's been many months since I watched it, do I remember what I hated most? Was it the bit where a couple of country bumpkins who've come to the city walk into a diner and Mr. Bumpkin clocks that the one Black guy in the back as obviously a criminal despite never having seen him before? Was it the part where Kris Kristofferson won't stop hounding Mrs. Bumpkin no matter how many times she demands to be left alone, and it's played as romantic because obviously he knows what she needs better than she does? Or is it the part where Mr. Bumpkin reluctantly takes a job from the Obvious Criminal (who is, in fact, a criminal, and the only named Black character in the movie if I remember correctly, draw your own conclusions) and, within a week, has become a full-blown hood, which is exemplified by a lot, like, a lot of queer-coding? The answer to all three questions is yes. It's also fucking boring. Even out-of-drag Divine's performance as the villain can't save it.

Manhunter 'sfine? I've still never seen Silence of the Lambs, nor any of the Hopkins Lecter movies, nor, indeed, any full episode of the show. So the unheimlich others get seeing Brian Cox play Hannibal didn't come into play. Cox does a good job with him, but he's barely there. Shame, cuz he's the most interesting part of the movie. Honestly, there's a lot of interesting stuff that's barely there. Will Graham being a guy who gets into the heads of serial killers is explored well enough, and Mann knows how to direct a police procedural such that it's both contemplative and propulsive. But all the other themes it points at? Will's fear that he understands murderers a little too well? Hannibal trying to nudge him towards becoming one? Whatever dance Hannibal and Tooth Fairy are doing? What Tooth Fairy's deal is, anyway? (Why does he wear fake teeth and bite things? Why is he fixated on the red dragon? Does the bit where he says "Francis is gone forever" mean he has DID?) None of it goes anywhere or amounts to anything. I mean, it's certainly more interesting with this stuff than without, but it has that feel of a book that's been pared of its interesting bits to fit the runtime (or, alternately, pulp that's been sloppily elevated). I still haven't made my mind up on Mann's cold, precise camera work, but at least it gives me something to look at. It's fine! This is fine.

Mona Lisa (rw) Gave this one another shot. Bob Hoskins is wonderful as a hood out of his depth in classy places, quick to anger but just as quick to let anger go (the opening sequence where he's screaming on his ex-wife's doorstep, hurling trash cans at her house, and one minute later thrilled to see his old car, is pretty nice). And Cathy Tyson's working girl is a subtler kind of fascinating, exuding a mixture of coldness and kindness. It's just... this is ultimately a story about how heartbreaking it is when the girl you like is gay, right? It's Weezer's Pink Triangle: The Movie. It's not homophobic, exactly - Simone isn't demonized for being a lesbian - but it's still, like, "man, this straight white guy's pain is so much more interesting than the Black queer sex worker's." And when he's yelling "you woulda done it!" at the end, I can't tell if we're supposed to agree with him. Seems pretty clear that she wouldn'ta done it, at least not without there being some reveal about her character that doesn't happen, but I don't think the ending works if we don't agree with him, so... I'm like 70% sure the movie does Simone dirty there. For the first half, their growing relationship feels genuine and natural, and, honestly, the story being about a real bond that unfortunately means different things to each party could work if it didn't end with a gun and a sock in the jaw. Shape feels jagged as well; what feels like the end of the second act or so turns out to be the climax. And some of the symbolism is... well, ok, Simone gives George money to buy more appropriate clothes for hanging out in high end hotels, and he gets a tan leather jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, and their first proper bonding moment is when she takes him out for actual clothes. For the rest of the movie he is rocking double-breasted suits (not sure I agree with the striped tie, but it was the eighties, whaddya gonna do?). Then, in the second half, she sends him off looking for her old streetwalker friend, and now he looks completely out of place in the strip clubs and bordellos. So far so good. But then they have this run-in where her old pimp pulls a knife and cuts George's arm, so, with his nice shirt torn and it not safe going home (I guess?) he starts wearing the Hawaiian shirt again. So around the time he's starting to realize he doesn't really belong in Simone's world or the lowlife world he came from anymore, he's running around with the classy double-breasted suit jacket over the garish Hawaiian shirt, and, yeah, bit on the nose guys. Anyway, it has good bits, I just feel like a movie that asks me to feel for the guy punching a gay, Black woman in the face needs to work harder to earn it. Bit of wasted talent.

The Bedroom Window Starts well. Man starts an affair with his boss' wife, their first night together she witnesses an attempted murder from his window, she worries going to the police will reveal the affair to her husband, so the man reports her testimony to the cops claiming he's the one who saw it. Young Isabelle Huppert is the perfect woman for a guy to risk his career on a crush over, and Young Steve Guttenberg is the perfect balance of affability and amorality. And it flows great - picks just the right media to res. So then he's talking to the cops, telling them what she told him, and they ask questions he forgot to ask her - was the perp's jacket a blazer or a windbreaker? - and he has to guess. Then he gets called into the police lineup, and one guy matches her description really well, but is it just because he's wearing his red hair the way she described it? He can't be sure, doesn't finger any of them. He finds out the cops were pretty certain about one of the guys, so he follows the one he thinks it was around, looking for more evidence, and another girl is attacked right outside a bar he knows the redhead was at. Now he's certain! But he shows the boss' wife the guy and she's not certain, and she reminds him they don't even know if the guy he followed is the same guy the police suspected! And as he feeds more evidence to the cops, he has to lie more, because he can't exactly say he was tailing the guy around the city. So, I'm all in now. Maybe it's because I'd so recently rewatched Night Moves and Cutter's Way, but this seems like another story about uncertainty. He's really certain about the guy because it fits narratively, and we, the audience, feel the same. But he's not actually a witness, he doesn't have actual evidence, he's fitting bits and pieces together like a conspiracy theorist. He's fixating on what he wants to be true. Sign me up! But then it turns out he's 100% correct about who the killer is but his lies are found out and now the cops think he's the killer and I realize, oh, no, this movie isn't nearly as smart as I thought it was. Egg on my face! What transpires for the remaining half of the runtime is goofy as hell, and someone with shlockier sensibilities could have made a meal of it, but Hanson, despite being a Corman protege, takes this silliness seriously in the all wrong ways. Next!

Homicide (rw? I think I saw most of this on TV one time) Homicide centers around the conflicted loyalties of a Jewish cop. It opens with the Jewish cop and his white gentile partner taking over a case with a Black perp from some Black FBI agents. The media is making a big thing about the racial implications of the mostly white cops chasing down a Black man in a Black neighborhood. And inside of 15 minutes the FBI agent is calling the lead a k*ke and the gentile cop is calling the FBI agent a f****t and there's all kinds of invective for Black people. The film is announcing its intentions out the gate: this movie is about race. But the issue here is David Mamet doesn't care about race as anything other than a dramatic device. He's the Ubisoft of filmmakers, having no coherent perspective on social issues but expecting accolades for even bringing them up. Mamet is Jewish (though lead actor Joe Mantegna definitely is not) but what is his position on the Jewish diaspora? The whole deal is Mantegna gets stuck with a petty homicide case instead of the big one they just pinched from the Feds, where a Jewish candy shop owner gets shot in what looks like a stickup. Her family tries to appeal to his Jewishness to get him to take the case seriously, and, after giving them the brush-off for a long time, finally starts following through out of guilt, finding bits and pieces of what may or may not be a conspiracy, with Zionist gun runners and underground neo-Nazis. But, again: all of these are just dramatic devices. Mantegna's Jewishness (those words will never not sound ridiculous together) has always been a liability for him as a cop (we are told, not shown), and taking the case seriously is a reclamation of identity. The Jews he finds community with sold tommyguns to revolutionaries during the founding of Israel. These Jews end up blackmailing him to get a document from the evidence room. So: what is the film's position on placing stock in one's Jewish identity? What is its position on Israel? What is its opinion on Palestine? Because all three come up! And the answer is: Mamet doesn't care. You can read it a lot of different ways. Someone with more context and more patience than me could probably deduce what the de facto message is, the way Chris Franklin deduced the de facto message of Far Cry V despite the game's efforts not to have one, but I'm not going to. Mantegna's attempt to reconnect with his Jewishness gets his partner killed, gets the guy he was supposed to bring in alive shot dead, gets him possibly permanent injuries, gets him on camera blowing up a store that's a front for white nationalists, and all for nothing because the "clues" he found (pretty much exclusively by coincidence) were unconnected nothings. The problem is either his Jewishness, or his lifelong failure to connect with his Jewishness until late in life. Mamet doesn't give a shit. (Like, Mamet canonically doesn't give a shit: he is on record saying social context is meaningless, characters only exist to serve the plot, and there are no deeper meanings in fiction.) Mamet's ping-pong dialogue is fun, as always, and there are some neat ideas and characters, but it's all in service of a big nothing that needed to be a something to work.

Swoon So much I could talk about, let's keep it to the most interesting bits. Hommes Fatales: a thing about classic noir that it was fascinated by the marginal but had to keep it in the margins. Liberated women, queer-coded killers, Black jazz players, broke thieves; they were the main event, they were what audiences wanted to see, they were what made the movies fun. But the ending always had to reassert straightlaced straight, white, middle-class male society as unshakeable. White supremacist capitalist patriarchy demanded, both ideologically and via the Hays Code, that anyone outside these norms be punished, reformed, or dead by the movie's end. The only way to make them the heroes was to play their deaths for tragedy. It is unsurprising that neo-noir would take the queer-coded villains and make them the protagonists. Implicature: This is the story of Leopold and Loeb, murderers famous for being queer, and what's interesting is how the queerness in the first half exists entirely outside of language. Like, it's kind of amazing for a movie from 1992 to be this gay - we watch Nathan and Dickie kiss, undress, masturbate, fuck; hell, they wear wedding rings when they're alone together. But it's never verbalized. Sex is referred to as "your reward" or "what you wanted" or "best time." Dickie says he's going to have "the girls over," and it turns out "the girls" are a bunch of drag queens, but this is never acknowledged. Nathan at one point lists off a bunch of famous men - Oscar Wild, E.M. Forster, Frederick the Great - but, though the commonality between them is obvious (they were all gay), it's left the the audience to recognize it. When their queerness is finally verbalized in the second half, it's first in the language of pathology - a psychiatrist describing their "perversions" and "misuse" of their "organs" before the court, which has to be cleared of women because it's so inappropriate - and then with slurs from the man who murders Dickie in jail (a murder which is written off with no investigation because the victim is a gay prisoner instead of a L&L's victim, a child of a wealthy family). I don't know if I'd have noticed this if I hadn't read Chip Delany describing his experience as a gay man in the 50's existing almost entirely outside of language, the only language at the time being that of heteronormativity. Murder as Love Story: L&L exchange sex as payment for the other commiting crimes; it's foreplay. Their statements to the police where they disagree over who's to blame is a lover's quarrel. Their sentencing is a marriage. Nathan performs his own funeral rites over Dickie's body after he dies on the operating table. They are, in their way, together til death did they part. This is the relationship they can have. That it does all this without romanticizing the murder itself or valorizing L&L as humans is frankly incredible.

Suture (rw) The pitch: at the funeral for his father, wealthy Vincent Towers meets his long lost half brother Clay Arlington. It is implied Clay is a child from out of wedlock, possibly an affair; no one knows Vincent has a half-brother but him and Clay. Vincent invites Clay out to his fancy-ass home in Arizona. Thing is, Vincent is suspected (correctly) by the police of having murdered his father, and, due to a striking family resemblence, he's brought Clay to his home to fake his own death. He finagles Clay into wearing his clothes and driving his car, and then blows the car up and flees the state, leaving the cops to think him dead. Thing is, Clay survives, but with amnesia. The doctors tell him he's Vincent, and he has no reason to disagree. Any discrepancy in the way he looks is dismissed as the result of reconstructive surgery after the explosion. So Clay Arlington resumes Vincent Towers' life, without knowing Clay Arlington even exists. The twist: Clay and Vincent are both white, but Vincent is played by Michael Harris, a white actor, and Clay is played by Dennis Haysbert, a Black actor. "Ian, if there's just the two of them, how do you know it's not Harris playing a Black character?" Glad you asked! It is most explicitly obvious during a scene where Vincent/Clay's surgeon-cum-girlfriend essentially bringing up phrenology to explain how Vincent/Clay couldn't possibly have murdered his father, describing straight hair, thin lips, and a Greco-Roman nose Haysbert very clearly doesn't have. But, let's be honest: we knew well beforehand that the rich-as-fuck asshole living in a huge, modern house and living it up in Arizona high society was white. Though Clay is, canonically, white, he lives an poor and underprivileged life common to Black men in America. Though the film's title officially refers to the many stitches holding Vincent/Clay's face together after the accident, "suture" is a film theory term, referring to the way a film audience gets wrapped up - sutured - in the world of the movie, choosing to forget the outside world and pretend the story is real. The usage is ironic, because the audience cannot be sutured in; we cannot, and are not expected to, suspend our disbelief that Clay is white. We are deliberately distanced. Consequently this is a movie to be thought about, not to to be felt. It has the shape of a Hitchcockian thriller but it can't evoke the emotions of one. You can see the scaffolding - "ah, yes, this is the part of a thriller where one man hides while another stalks him with a gun, clever." I feel ill-suited to comment on what the filmmakers are saying about race. I could venture a guess about the ending, where the psychiatrist, the only one who knows the truth about Clay, says he can never truly be happy living the lie of being Vincent Towers, while we see photographs of Clay/Vincent seemingly living an extremely happy life: society says white men simply belong at the top more than Black men do, but, if the roles could be reversed, the latter would slot in seamlessly. Maybe??? Of all the movies in this collection, this is the one I'd most want to read an essay on (followed by Swoon).

The Last Seduction (dnrw) No, no, no, I am not rewataching this piece of shit movie.

Brick (rw) Here's my weird contention: Brick is in color and in widescreen, but, besides that? There's nothing neo- about this noir. There's no swearing except "hell." (I always thought Tug said "goddamn" at one point but, no, he's calling The Pin "gothed-up.") There's a lot of discussion of sex, but always through implication, and the only deleted scene is the one that removed ambiguity about what Brendan and Laura get up to after kissing. There's nothing postmodern or subversive - yes, the hook is it's set in high school, but the big twist is that it takes this very seriously. It mines it for jokes, yes, but the drama is authentic. In fact, making the gumshoe a high school student, his jadedness an obvious front, still too young to be as hard as he tries to be, just makes the drama hit harder. Sam Spade if Sam Spade were allowed to cry. I've always found it an interesting counterpoint to The Good German, a movie that fastidiously mimics the aesthetics of classic noir - down to even using period-appropriate sound recording - but is wholly neo- in construction. Brick could get approved by the Hays Code. Its vibe, its plot about a detective playing a bunch of criminals against each other, even its slang ("bulls," "yegg," "flopped") are all taken directly from Hammett. It's not even stealing from noir, it's stealing from what noir stole from! It's a perfect curtain call for the collection: the final film is both the most contemporary and the most classic. It's also - but for the strong case you could make for Night Moves - the best movie on the list. It's even more appropriate for me, personally: this was where it all started for me and noir. I saw this in theaters when it came out and loved it. It was probably my favorite movie for some time. It gave me a taste for pulpy crime movies which I only, years later, realized were neo-noir. This is why I looked into Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and In Bruges. I've seen it more times than any film on this list, by a factor of at least 3. It's why I will always adore Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's the best-looking half-million-dollar movie I've ever seen. (Indie filmmakers, take fucking notes.) I even did a script analysis of this, and, yes, it follows the formula, but so tightly and with so much style. Did you notice that he says several of the sequence tensions out loud? ("I just want to find her." "Show of hands.") I notice new things each time I see it - this time it was how "brushing Brendan's hair out of his face" is Em's move, making him look more like he does in the flashback, and how Laura does the same to him as she's seducing him, in the moment when he misses Em the hardest. It isn't perfect. It's recreated noir so faithfully that the Innocent Girl dies, the Femme Fatale uses intimacy as a weapon, and none of the women ever appear in a scene together. 1940's gender politics maybe don't need to be revisited. They say be critical of the media you love, and it applies here most of all: it is a real criticism of something I love immensely.

[unhealthyfanobsession]

Master Post of things I wanted to post while reading ACOSF- mostly humour/ crack lol (Spoilers... Duh...)

First, general opinion: I liked the book generally. I knew it would be very Feysand friendly and I was prepared for that. Not my first choice but I get it. I really had to take a few hours off with the whole hiking scene. That really fucked with me to see Cassian so pissed and militant despite already knowing where Nesta was coming from and how betrayed she felt (ESPECIALLY once I learned that he had guessed they were mates already). I know that self loathing was a major theme but I do think it was laid on a little too thick for too long. I also think there was so much Nessian interaction when things were angsty and then when they were happy I was just WAITING for that full chapter of soft happiness and I feel like a lot of that got lost to Nesta’s relationship with her sister. Above everything though I gotta say that it BREAKS MY HEART that Cassian never actUlly says I love you to Nesta at any point in the book. I know it’s meant to be that he’s always loved her and it’s his actions that show it etc etc but it’s still kind of a blow for him to never say it... never even outright think it in his own perspective (go back and look the closest he gets is saying he’s acting like a lovesick puppy. We only get to see Cassian loving Nesta from her perspective as she realizes it which I get and is beautiful but maybe ONE DECLERATION THANKS). Anyway, I am hoping that opportunity arises in future books. Although.... I don’t think I will read the future books. Maybe I will, but honestly this was just SO MUCH. Like... I think there was too much in the book. Each of these quests could have been its own book and I was happy to keep going because I’m obsessed with Nesta, but I just don’t think I’d be interested enough in the other characters to read something so convoluted again (like I’m sorry the blood rite started with basically 100 pages left that is WILD). It was also so clear that so much of this book was setup for future books and that’s fine but it was kinda messy just being honest. ANYWAY onto more specific thoughts/ jokes:

Chapter 2:

Cassian: I just hope that Nesta knows we are doing this for her benefit, because we care.

Feyre: I don’t care this shit ends now. I’m burning your apartment to the ground.

Also Cassian: *Let’s Nesta fall down a flight of stairs*; *calls Nesta pathetic every day*; *tells Nesta everyone hates her*; *walks around slamming doors all pissy as if he’s the one being held captive*

Chapter 11:

Nesta:Rhysand is an asshole

Me:

Cassian: well everyone fucking hates you

Me:

The way that Cassian thinks about Russet Potato is just straight up not healthy. Like I get looking up to a sibling or whatever but I’m starting to think that Rhys is Cassian’s one true love. Cassian being THAT blind to every one of Rhysand’s flaws is a character flaw of his own. Even Feyre isn’t THAT blind.

Chapter 11 Pt 2:

Nesta from day one: I’m not training in that camp. I hate that camp. I’m not training there. Fuck that camp

Cassian: this is because you hate me, isn’t it?

Me:

Like I’m sorry did we really need Feyre to show up to help him crack that code???

Chapter 10 (and beyond):

My OTP? Nesta and the House of Wind.

It’s a solid enemies to lovers story (chapter 6 she says even the house hates her then later it’s her only friend and ally. Great love story.)

It reveals its heart to her before Cassian does

It knows what she needs

Gave her water on the steps instead of watching her fall down them

Pushes Nesta gently by keeping the fire so Cassian can see that she is afraid and haunted instead of empty and broken. Encourages her to go to dinner with people by barring the library but doesn’t FORCE her to go. The house does not judge her.

Spoils her and is silly with her while she has her sleepover.

Takes an active interest in something important to her and shares one of her hobbies

Side note- this book even has me pissed at the IC about how they treated a damn house!! Like how dare they say no one likes going there! How dare they be so rude to my new #1 favorite book character??? The house just wants to give you cake and books and run you a bath. Perfect partner IMO.

Chapter 17:

Me when Cassian does the bare fucking minimum and tells Rhys to calm the fuck down and stop threatening to kill Nesta:

Chapter 21:

When Rhys said that Nesta always has a choice here I said, out loud, “that’s fucking rich rice ball”. My dog looked up. That’s all.

Chapter 21 (and beyond) pt 2:

Prythian: mating bonds are very rare

Archeron sisters: survey says that was a lie

Prythian: fae fertility is very difficult. Conceiving can take decades

Archeron sisters: survey says that too was a lie

Prythian: No High Fae can survive the birth of an Illyrian winged baby

Archeron sisters: once again, the survey is not on your side here

Chapter 42:

Rhys: this is a bad idea

Cassian: that should be written on the Night Court’s crest

Me, wine glass raised to mouth, scoff more bitter than necessary: yeah it Fucken should”

Chapter 42 pt 2:

Yknow I was genuinely shocked by one thing in ACOSF. I was shocked that Rhysand and I agree on something.

He absolutely fucking shouldn’t be High King.

The mere SUGGESTION that Nesta’s power and fight and trauma and depression and war and entire FUCKING STORY has all been so that Rice cake and French fry can be a high king and queen literally set my blood BOILING at exactly the point in the book that I was starting to VIBE

Side note- Can we please just Fucken stop with the stars blinking in and out of existence in Rhys’ eyes. Like calm down. Rice pilaf has purple night eyes we get it. Just like... simmer please.

Chapter 46:

I GET that it shouldn’t have come out like that and that Nesta’s reasons weren’t right, but get ABSOLUTELY FUCKED RHYSAND for thinking that it is your right to HIDE THE DANGERS OF LABOUR FROM A WOMAN WHO DOES NOT KNOW YOUR SPECIES!!! This had me truly wildin and I think it was a disservice to Feyre’s character too that she didnt lose it more.

Chapter 55 (and earlier):

Cassian: *bows to death as Nesta emerges from the black depths on a throne to rule her undead armies*

Cassian: *watches bleeding as Nesta plucks the harp and wields her Made sword of death to murder Lanthys and claim the ability to stop time itself*

Nesta: So, now I go after the crown

Cassian:

Chapter 57 (and earlier):

Kelpie: You shall be my bride before you are my meal

Helion: *rides enchanted horse up to shoot his second shot with Nesta*

Lanthys: Tries to seduce Nesta into being his Queen even as he attempts to kill her

Eris: I’ll give you anything in exchange for Nesta as my bride

Cassian watching every male being in the universe trying to get with his mate:

Chapter 60:

Emerie: we’re not entering the blood rite, are we?

Cassian: Only if you want to

Brialynn:

Chapter 80:

Nesta: *Saves Cassian’s life in the war*

Rhys: I still hate you and will never forgive you for what you did in not hunting as a child.

Nesta: saves Feyre and Nyx

Rhys: I bow before no one and nothing but my crown and now I shall fall to my knees before you oh mighty saviour queen of all

Side note- can someone please compile a list of all the things that Nesta Archeron had done/retrieved/gone through for the Nigh Court because that shit is astronomical at this point and I really need everyone to start sipping their Respect Nesta Archeron Juice RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!

Anyway I’m emotionally wrecked but shoutout to anyone who made it this far into my ramblings!

[wokestraightpuffy]

Hallo, i hope you are alright and that my ask aren’t annoying but I wanted to ask do you have any c!puffy headcannons? —🤡

YOURE NOT ANNOYING AT ALL !!! NEVER THINK THAT ILU VERY MUCH. MUAH /p

as for c!puffy headcanons, i am not the best person to ever organize their thoughts properly but ill try my best >:’D

ahaha. this got. super complex and way too long and more of like an introspective study to puffy now instead of harmless fun headcanons so, uh. under read more <3 (also reminder this is all /rp and /dsmp)

* i like to think that she has a hero complex, but its a bit different since she never really sees herself as an ‘important’ part of the story, not the main character but a support one, hence ‘im fine with being the side character’ or how she’s said she doesnt care what happens to her and would gladly sacrifice(?) herself if there werent other people she had to protect. girl u need therapy urself <3

* though very open with how she feels and never afraid to say when someone/something is upsetting her, ‘opening up’ is still a whole mountain climb for her, apparently. like, she’d rant about the egg, get mad at the eggpire, let off some steam by committing arson or exploding stuff, she’ll rarely ever talk about how much the stuff that upset her actually HURT her. does that make sense? LIKE, she’ll lash out, she’ll get mad, she’ll take NO SHIT thrown at her face, but to show the kinda vulnerability of dealing with that? to cry about it talk about those feelings with someone? I think she’d rather eat her own foot lol

* adding onto the thing above, she doesnt necessarily actually realize this about herself. less of actively doing it and rather growing... used to the ‘cycle of violence’ in the smp as they call it. and the fact that rarely have people really asked, that no one’s actually available for that, w her losing her closest friends, bad and ant, sam being busy w the warden stuff... and niki. yeah. there’s foolish, but i doubt she’d ever see venting to someone she considers her son appealing

* also. puffy is just sometimes... really bad at conveying sadness. i think she’s a rare crier. id go as far to say that shes even more emotionally constipated than dream, lol (but maybe not while the guy’s in his prison arc) and that she’d be the type of person to tell you its okay to cry but beat herself up over something if she let a tear slip in a heated moment

* speaking of sadness. she’ll only ever actually Be Sad if she’s alone or with someone she doesnt necessarily care the opinions of. yknow how she mourned for tommy and blamed herself? those dialogue bits? yeah, those are only times shed actually be vulnerable

* puffy’s go to response to the egg and how its fucked up her relationship w her friends is pure fury. but, going off of her line about ‘failing bad and ant’ i like to think that she probably hates herself the most about it. THAT IS A STRONG WORD LOL BUT YEAH. she yells and curses and gets mad, but sometimes i wonder if the words she had spat before were more directed to herself

* THIS GIRL HAS SELF-IDENTITY PROBLEMS. CAN WE GET A HELL YEAH FOR THAT CHAT? outside of having no goddamn clue about where she came from, how she got here and who she even is, scrounging up a role for herself in a server with a war on the background and traumatized kids got her resignedly coerced into thinking that she is only a Parent. Only good enough when she’s actually doing something Useful for people. SO. when she finds that ship? of having a crew and having a curse? OF FINDING OUT SHE MIGHT HAVE/ HAVE HAD A MOM THATS WAITING FOR HER?  the sense of control she has on herself is absolutely crushed. shattered, and she’s left to pick up the pieces w no one to talk abt it with <3

* adding onto the above, it’s why the line ‘I’m supposed to be mama puffy. me.’ hurts me so much! so yes! please cry with me :D

* also to add more on the fact that she thinks she’s only worth something when she’s being useful, puffy literally contemplated leaving the server, thinking that it wouldnt matter leaving since no one really needs her anyway, since she’s failed so many people. bad and ant, tommy, dream. shes said how foolish can take care of himself on how tubbo and ranboo have each other, how she and niki have drifted so far away from each that it might as well be a break up.

HOOOOOOOOOO OBOY . anon youve really given me the perfect chance to ramble huh? sorry for the rather incomprehensible brainrot, here’s more lighthearted headcanons about puffy asdhfkd

* she cannot stand still sometimes. she always has to be doing something extra, walking when the prime path is right there? shed rather go through tedious little holes or hop and balance onto fences to get where shes going. she’ll mindlessly fix up the path when there are holes or mismatched wood, and one time went on a long, long LONG journey cleaning up the paths tommy purposely DESTROYED near lmanburg and even added cobblestone sidings which werent there before

* puffys a bit of a sentimental person. writing in her log to clear her thoughts sometimes and cared enough to try and preserve lmanburg with the glass sheet and trying to find possible surviving artifacts of history to respect it, even though she’s never been a part of it. its also why, when doomsday happened and lmanburg got permanently poofed, she began to appreciate the buildings that are still standing and began taking more pics 

* she’s not used to being... what do you call it, um, cared for? she’d deflect compliments sometimes, when shes having a particular bad day, like, she’d laugh nervously and change the subject, sometimes she’d outright deny it, most days she’d jokingly say ‘staphhh it’ and add a very genuine thanks. my point being is, do something for puffy that is mildly nice and she’d keep that moment in her heart forever. 

* also funny story regarding the above. u know how karl is notorious for stealing her materials? and how puffy was contemplating doing something in retaliation for them? karl says hi for once when she joins the server and she goes ‘alright fine youre safe for saying hi’ LOL THIS WAS PROBABLY A BIT META WISE but something about this implying that the bare minimum or LESS is enough to make puffy forgive someone is very sad and funny at the same time for me. girl really said ‘oh you said hi to me? thats nice all the crimes youve ever done towards me is now forgiven. <3’ (this is a bit of an exaggeration on my part, ofc, i just think its funny LMAO) 

* ironically, despite being the ‘captain’, whenever riding a boat with someone, she prefers being on the backseat and letting them drive. ig shes just there for the ride i suppose, her and her uber drivers :3

 * she either has a rather unhealthy obsession with baked potatoes or she just doesnt wanna waste eret’s massive potato farm

* idc what cc!puffy says is c!puffy will always and forever be 5′2″ in my HEART. u are the shortest member, u cannot change this <3

* shes really fond of animals/ neutral mobs. she often baby talks to them and they help boost her mood a lot when shes having a bad day :D

* up to this day, the little secret rooms she’s created around the server have all been yet to be discovered, unless the one under bad’s house has been found. she rarely ever really keeps tabs on them, and more often than not they are just collecting dust. she still visits sometimes and cleans them up ofc

* she still genuinely thinks dream can change. cc!puffy’s line about that, ‘i’m his last hope.’ really makes me think about this a lot. 

* ive seen people talk abt it a bit but the headcanon that puffy acts as the server mom to fill the ‘void’ of her missing her mom makes me cry at night /hj

* she really likes her rainbow onesie! i headcanon that eret gave her that along w the sunglasses, but she started wearing that less when she found her old captains uniform. shes never really said why, though, and nobody ever really bothered to ask

* god bless this woman but sometimes the server members get on her nerves sometimes so she goes out of her way to traverse along far away from the main community to maybe commit a few crimes. let off some steam. these take a few days but she always returns

i probably have a lot more hcs but i cant remember them >_> THIS IS A LOT ANYWAY. HOPE U ENJOYED MY BRAIN VOMIT. IF U READ THIS FAR ILU THANK U

if there are mistakes it is bc i am crying and cannot see my keyboard and also i am sleep deprived /hj

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

AIGHT Y’ALL I wasn’t tagged but I’m doing this anyways because f u c k  i t

It's the year 2021 and you're obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?

Deadasss weird as fuck, my dude. Like...out of all the things I could’ve predicted happening in our lord’s year 2021, it definitely was NOT getting hyperfixated on a hammy gay ship with a punk and a nerd from a goddamn karate soap opera. And yet...here we are??? I will never understand hyperfixations, my guy. But I’ve met a lot of really cool people in this fandom, so I can’t really complain.

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?

I have never seen a single Karate Kid movie in my entire life. When I was a kid, it looked kinda dumb so I never got into it XD But then I saw my roommate watching Cobra Kai on Youtube Red one day (he has every streaming service known to man) and I was hooked. And...here I am!

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character:  

Literally EVERYONE except for Kreese, Yasmine, Kyler, and Tory, sorry stans

Okay but if we gotta pick, Johnny Lawrence is my Problematic Fave. Also I love my boy Daniel, he’s trying his best!!! And Amanda LaRusso, we stan a queen!!!

Among the kids, definitely Miguel, with Demetri as a close second. I also love Sam, Aisha, Moon, and Hawk (pre- and post-Bastardization Arc, anyways XD)!

Favorite ship:  

Take a look at my username and take a WILD FUCKING GUESS lmao Yes it’s Eli/Demetri because DUH, every interaction they have is so fucking gay and Eli fucking saved him!!! And came back to him!!! And betrayed the world’s most terrifying dojo with a WAR CRIMINAL SENSEI all for Demetri!!! And how Demetri was willing to forgive him for everything at the drop of a hat because he always had faith there was still good in his best friend??? That’s TRUE LOVE motherfuckers. Please let them kiss in Season 4. I will sell you all of my limbs. Sam/Miguel is a close second because they’re cute as shit and it’s just so lovely to see two people so unapologetically smitten with each other. They are in LOVE, and I will RIOT if they break up again!!! Keep Sam and Miguel together 2k21!!!

Underrated character:

SAMANTHA LARUSSO!!! The amount of hate my girl gets for acting like a normal teenager and fucking up occasionally JUST like the rest of the cast makes me want to start punching things. She cares SO MUCH about her friends!!! And she loves the shit out of Miguel!!! She hasn’t always been the best friend but you know what??? Neither has Hawk, and we still forgave his ass!!! Also LET HER BE FEMININE but also kick utter ass, my god!!! Femininity should not be synonymous with being weak, y’all! ALSO DEMETRI, like yes, he likes to complain and occasionally run his mouth, but guess what else he likes to do??? Never give up on the love of his life his best friend Eli Moskowitz and refuse to lose faith in him no matter how much of a little shit he’s become, and I for one think that’s very badass of him. Also the way he takes care of Eli pre-Cobra Kai in his own snarky bastard way makes me absolutely Weak and needs more appreciation. Like the dude has charisma and COULD have probably made other friends and left Eli behind if he wanted, but did he??? No, he wants the weepy loser with the lip scar in the polo shirts and dorky sweaters and will protect him as much as his wimpy ass is able!!!

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):  

Among the adults, Daniel/Amanda!!! Like maybe I just don’t watch that much tv, but it seems kinda rare to me to see a happily married hetero couple, and it’s just nice to see a married couple who genuinely love each other and where there’s not like...lingering resentment or some shit. I feel like this ship gets overshadowed by Lawrusso a lot (which like--okay, fair!!! Daniel and Johnny do have a ridiculous amount of chemistry, and the gay undertones are undeniable, so I get it), and it makes me kinda sad. I do love Lawrusso, but I don’t like when Amanda has to get her heart broke for it to happen, you feel? Among the kids, honestly YasMoon. Like I really love the idea of Yasmine trying to better herself because of Moon’s influence on her and because Moon like...inspires her to be a better person, I guess? With their pretty strong friendship, it just makes more sense to me for Yasmine to get a redemption arc through Moon than through Demetri. ALSO girls DO often pull the whole “mean girl” shtick to cover up being closeted lesbians, and Moon IS canonically bi, so it could work!!! I just think this one could be a really interesting Friends to Lovers take, and could make a really nice coming-out arc for Yas. And MoonPiper too, honestly!!! Like they only got 5 seconds of screentime so I understand WHY it’s underrated, but I still love what we DID get and loved that there was a canon gay ship (even if only for 1 scene lmao). I’m really excited to potentially see more of them in Season 4!!! Please, I’m begging!!!

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?

Sweep the Leg because it will always be deeply hilarious to me how Demetri took note of the first move Eli ever used on him and spent presumably weeks perfecting it OUT OF SPITE just to get him back with it at the soccer game MONTHS later. Just goes to show how OBSESSED Demetri is with Eli and their little karate rivalry which is just NOT straight, I’m sorry

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?

There’s something so funny about this pretentious little fuck walking around in fancy suits once he becomes a #SuccessfulBusinessman, and still occasionally trying to do karate in a full-ass suit (take THAT, Tom Cole’s boba!!!) I’m also a big fan of how he looks in his gi with his little headband. Still killing that look as a 40-50-something!!!

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver:

Tbh I have still never seen a single Karate Kid movie (they took them off of Netflix, RIP), so...I don’t really care if they bring anyone else back??? I’m invested in the characters we already have in the show, I don’t need some rando from the movies to make a cameo to have a good time XD The only character I really wanted them to bring back was Ali, and they already did, so like...I’m good??? That’s all I really needed, I can die in peace now XD

Scene that lives in your head rent-free:

Basically any fluffy Elimetri scene, but 5 in particular: ~Miguel first meeting Eli and Demetri at the lunch table, and Eli looking at Demetri like he hung every goddamn star in the sky ~Demetri going off at a terrifying, “unhinged” karate sensei on the first day of Cobra Kai because he made fun of Eli’s lip and Demetri is not about that shit ~ELI STEALING DEMETRI’S NACHO AND SMIRKING AT HIM, LIKE EXCUSE ME SIR PLEASE BE A LITTLE LESS HOMOSEXUAL IN FRONT OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND ~Eli yanking Demetri onstage during Valley Fest to hold a board, and Demetri being visibly like...extremely turned on when Eli breaks said board ~ELI SAVING DEMETRI DURING THE CHRISTMAS FIGHT, ELI APOLOGIZING, DEMETRI AND ELI KICKING COBRA ASS TOGETHER AKSBDCUWYVCBU

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?

I hope not! He’s kind of a funny meme character to pop up now and again but I don’t think he deserves a serious plotline when there are so many more interesting characters to follow.

You live in The Valley and are forced into the karate gang war. Which dojo do you join?

Miyagi-Do because Cobra Kai would eat me alive. Also I’d probably straight up get stuck and die in that cement mixer, if I even made it that far XD Besides, being salty that your friend who you have a crush on likes martial arts better than you and starting martial arts to impress them but also being too lazy to join anything TOO intense is a Big Mood and I am certainly not speaking from personal experience here, no sirree

What’s your training montage song?

"Shut Up and Drive” by Rihanna for a weight-training and bicep-flexing montage, “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons for a more intense punching-and-kicking-shit montage. I don’t know why this is, I just feel it in my heart.

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?

*Briefly panics because I don’t actually watch that much TV and most of the stuff I do watch is fantasy/sci fi shit that absolutely would not work for a CK crossover*

Hmmmm okay but ACTUALLY

You know what would be fucking funny as hell would be an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia crossover. Allow me to elaborate: ~The Gang goes to LA on vacation during the height of the Karate Dojo Wars. They literally can get barely anything done without all these goddamn karate-fighting teenagers getting in the way. ~They are all very annoyed by this. Even the most obscure of tourist attractions is eventually intercepted by karate fights. ~Mac tries to join Cobra Kai because he sees all this karate fighting on, and wants to unquestionably prove both his badassery and masculinity. Both Johnny and Kreese are like “Wtf are you doing here? Aren’t you like 30?” ~Mac gets a planet-sized crush on Johnny after all of 5 minutes and endlessly gushes to the gang about him. The gang mercilessly roast him about this and about how much of a pathetic loser with his life together in no way whatsoever Johnny sounds like. They proceed to have exactly 0 self awareness about this. ~The Waitress is in town visiting family or something, and Charlie is stalking her, as per usual. However, every time he’s about to go up and talk to her, a pack of battling Miyagi-Dos and Cobra Kais throwing punches and kicks everywhere blocks his path. One times, Mac is among one of these packs and Charlie is like “???? He didn’t get kicked out of that teen karate dojo yet???” ~Seeing how much the Kids These Days seem to like fighting, Charlie drops by a local high school to try and sell Fight Milk to the kids doing karate. Only Kyler and Brucks buy into it, and subsequently get the entire West Valley High wrestling team sick. Charlie is inevitably arrested, as Counselor Blatt thinks he’s selling the kids drugs. ~Dennis makes a plan to have sex with every hot chick he can in Los Angeles. He meets Ali on a dating app post-divorce, and inevitably tries to bang her. It doesn’t work. ~Frank crashes the rental car, and inevitably the gang ends up at one of Daniel’s dealerships. Dee quickly takes a liking to Daniel and is like “Watch, assholes--Imma homewreck this guy’s marriage.” She starts frequenting the dealerships to attempt to flirt with Daniel, until one day she walks in on him having sex with Johnny in a back room and she’s like “Is that the guy from Mac’s goddamn dojo?!?!” ~Dennis, of course, tries to sleep with Amanda. Amanda is not having it, and rebukes him in the most snarky, Amanda-esque way possible. Dennis is just like “Oh not AGAIN--the women in this goddamn diva city have too high of standards!” ~Later on, the gang is at the beach and Dennis spots the blonde lady he went out on an ill-fate date with, and decides to give it another shot--that is, until he sees her go up and kiss another woman and he’s like “IS THAT THE LADY FROM THE CAR DEALERSHIP??? STUPID-KARATE-KICK-COMMERCIAL’S WIFE?!? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.” ~Dee complains to Dennis about her lack of luck getting laid, and Dennis is just like “Oh come ON, is everyone in Los Angeles gay???” Smash cut to Hawk and Demetri having sex, Moon and Piper making out, Bert and Nate holding hands, Chris and Mitch doing oral, and Amanda, Ali, and Carmen having a threesome. ~Frank tries to scam Kreese into buying cheaply-made karate equipment for his dojo. The gang ends up having to leave LA because Kreese is quite literally plotting all of their murders.

For tagging, uuuuhhhhhh @jackonthelongwalk @soe-leo @max-eagle-fang @cc-tinslebee @backawayfromthegay @asphodel-storm do the thing, if y’all haven’t yet!

[alotsgonnachange]

Mystic Messenger Saeran’s AE Thoughts (.......And Prayers..) #Spoilerz

Hello, I just finished Saeran’s after ending and I have a lot of things to say and I am going to write it down while I'm still all keyed up about it.

First of all… Please DO NOT ask me how much money I spent to finish this as fast as I did…. I’m grown but my bank account is certainly going to have a good ole fashioned CHUCKLE at this….. It’s been a long quarantine I deserve a lil happiness as a treat methinks!

I have been playing this absolutely insane game since I think 2016? When I first started playing the deep routes had JUST come out I think? And I was just finishing up high school and am now a college grad...lmao

I’ve played all routes at least once except Jaehee but i’ve seen walkthroughs of her route (I’ve heard it makes you hate Jumin and he’s my favorite so um. hehe). V’s and Saeran’s routes I found to be so emotionally intense and just….a lot and I've been waiting a long ass god damn time for this after ending okay…. I would theorize and make up an ending in my head but i’m no writer so it was hard to figure out lol. I’m a Jumin stan mostly but I love everybody and yeah I should probably play that jumin dlc too but I need like a DAY to recover from Saeran’s AE. Enough about me HERE are my thoughts on it overall

Major Saeran AE Spoilers under da cut!

Can we please discuss V showing up to the C+R conference room with basically chloroform and made everybody Pass Out like??? I was alone in my room at like midnight just SCREAMING at my phone???? And the creepy ass CG ???? It’s like that gif of sarah paulson from ahs being like “I put arsenic in the wine….and the pasta”

Anyway I screamed at V a lot during this process!!

Loved RFA being sweet and kind to saeran (before V fucking drugged them…)

This is such common V behavior “I have to do it all myself...there’s no other way..” GIRL SHUT UPPP You do this every route....

SO many CG’s and I enjoy them a lot

Saeran’s sprite looks a little TOO crisp compared to everyone else but maybe its a glitch??? V next to him is in 480p while saeran is like 1080p

Hearing both Saeran and Saeyoung missing the other brother the whole time??? PAIN. All my homies know is PAIN

BOSS and his V for Vendetta ass guy fawkes mask??? I literally yelled “this game is TERRIBLE!!” several times at my phone

Their dad is so>??????? When he was sitting on the couch with saeyoung in that one CG while simultaneously telling him to kill himself?????????? Maybe chairman han is actually the best dad in this game somehow

When V and Rika were like we’re back together teehee teehee okay pack it up bonnie and clyde ..

When chairman han calls u and says hes jealous of u and saeran…..HUH????? I’m calling HR

When they go to the apartment and see boss and vanderwood and poor saeyoung is sitting there seeing his brother for the first time in years i wanted to D word sooooo bad like PAIN...PAIN….

Can we HAVE A DISCUSSION ABOUT JUMIN HAN BEING THE BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAME AND HE LOST EVERYTHING IN THIS AE……. he just took the blame and moved on jumin what the hell….. I love him so much r we serious? He watched his 2 closest friends betray him in the worst way and found out abt how Rika abused Saeyoung and Saeran???? I felt just AWFUL. Terrible ...Terrible….

Rika’s change in demeanor from Saeran's actual route is certainly a Choice. I find her much more bearable this time around and unfortunately i think I was too nice to her and ended up with a bad end LMFAO

I was happy to see Saeran stand up for himself and become stronger and confident. You go king!

The CG of Yoosung laying in Zen’s lap is everything to me…

HOWEVER YUP I sure did get a bad ending and I was so mad fdsafdskfdhsf ! (I would be happy to clarify how I got the good one the second time.) MAKE SURE To SAVE EARLY in days 2 and 3 bc the branches on day 4 is where the bad end will show up. For me it was the first day 4 chat and then a story mode titled “SAVIOR”.... If you see that RUN FOR THE HILLS!!

I was so mad! But I had saved in day 2 and replayed and MANAGED to get good end

I’m obsessed with everyone calling V and Rika “that psychotic couple” like…..its true its true…

No those two are so toxic… V’s route was torture watching them go on and on about the sun like yo can yall just call each other babe like normal people.

I respect straight people but not V and RIka that shit was just wrong… Straight marriage was a mistake

Oh lord i also FULLY Forgot Rika killed the twins’ mother…. Yeah that scene was um Certainly a lot but it needed to happen eventually

Like it’s good they know but damn that storyline is just so bleak

I think it was satisfying TO A DEGREE….To see Rika understand where she was wrong, why she was wrong, fess up and even APOLOGIZE! I was very surprised.

Saeran and Saeyoung are Certainly twins with the amount that those two self sacrifice in every route MY GOD…..

The scene with Jumin talking to his father and the other scene of him praying oh my god I cannot tell you how happy I was to see him begin to understand and address his own feelings in a route that was not his own. My main problem with Jumin’s route has always been the trapping MC in his penthouse aspect.. This way Jumin understands love and emotions without being overly possessive !!! YAY also loved seeing him be on good terms with his dad who was surprisingly profound

That last Story mode was Really a Lot…. and Strange things occurred which I will get into in just a minute

Jumin becoming a politician is so funny but ngl … i see it.

Yoosung going to france to study pastries ok king I see u! (it made more sense to me than the vet thing anyway)

Lastly Zen FURRY ERA

MY BEEF With the AE

I was happy with how they handled it for the most part. I think Cheritz heard our feedback about V’s after ending and was like okay….let’s try something different

HOWEVER

Saeran…. Sweet kind saeran… IS SO AFFECTIONATE HAHA….

He must have said I love you like 300 times…..very mushy gushy flowery language...and maybe that’s just his personality but for me it was like eating cake with buttercream cake. It means well, but god damn is it sugary and going to cause a stomach ache later.

He was just… SO MUCH! SO forward and ON all the time in his affections. I honestly felt kind of smothered and by day 3 and 4 I was sooooo over all the compliments… King you’ve come a very long way, but ur still putting MC on a pedestal and probably need to see a therapist.

Nextly….Rika and V….. Naw that knock out gas really ...that hurt lol. Coming from “I would do anything to protect RFA” V? Idk like…. EYE felt betrayed reading that. It was just hurtful. I can’t even imagine how the members would have felt as they were passing out. It was just so cruel. I suppose I understand why but like?? Just TERRIBLE

Them being in cahoots with the agency and the prime minister..HUH??? Also too much

V just felt so irresponsible like I do understand that he ended up in a weird web of secrets that’s hard to untangle but he’s so fucking stubborn he’s SO stubborn it makes me insane. Like sir… It seems like in other routes he wanted to try to protect Rika and the RFA.. But in this AE it seems more to me that he was like yeah i’m protecting Rika and That’s It… so fucking hurtful to me. Both of y’all apologize ESPECIALLY to the twins and Jumin..

The forgiveness thing…… Okay so I think some people will not like that Saeran decided to “forgive” the people who hurt him (Rika, V, Saejoong, his mother). I would point out that I actually think this was approached somewhat well. He says at one point that he doesn’t think they’re good or bad, just people. I think he sounded mature and like this was the way for him personally to accomplish his healing process. Would I have loved for Saeran to flip V and Rika off and kick Saejoong off a cliff? Yea I really would. But like…. If that’s what HE needs to do to heal then who am I to judge?

HOWEVER…. Everything Eye just said goes out the window when the scenes at the end with Saejoong come up… I was PERPLEXED. Like why did he HUG his deranged father who just kicked the shit out of him??? Also all the chat options that MC has with him r like blah blah you’re like this because no one loves you were so corny to me LMFAOOOO?

AND WHEN HE WAS IN THE ROOM LATER WITH SAERAN… i’m sorry but if that were me I would have called a nurse to deck his ass. Cool he turned himself in YOU SUCK SOOOO BAD AND I NEVER WANT YOU TO COME NEAR SAEYOUNG AND SAERAN AGAIN THANKS.

*scratches ass* I wish I got to see saeyoung and saeran finally sit down and have that first conversation after a long time and hug CG but the ending was fine I GUESS….. I dont care about ROMANCE I want those boys to be happy brothers together

Anyway that was really emotionally exhausting but I fr think I got it out of my system after literal years… And I can rest in peace knowing the choi twins are happy. THATS ALL I WANTED TO KNOW!!!!

[mollymarymarie]

hi there i was wondering how did you get into writing? were you always a kid who liked writing or did you grow into it as you grew up?

ps. do u have any tips on how to write better for school purposes

oh gosh, hi friend! this is a QUESTION. i am definitely going to be wordy on this ask, too, so forgive me in advance. i love telling stories and i am also a narcissist, so i love telling stories about me.

i got into writing because i loved reading. as a kid, i would CONSTANTLY fall asleep reading books. i have an uncle who was an author and we always connected (even as i got older, he liked Harry Potter, he liked Futurama, he liked the NERDY KID stuff i liked). when i was nine-ish, i distinctly remember writing a short story about a kid and his dog on this ancient program on my mom's computer and printed it out ON A DOT MATRIX PRINTER (that's how old I am) so that I could show it to my uncle because i wanted to write like him.

BUT i didn't get into fanfic until i was fifteen or sixteen (this is a whole story and i'm proud of it so get ready). i was IN LOVE with the Lord of the Rings movies - knew all the cast members birthdays, could quote all the behind the scenes (I can still quote Galadriel's intro on the Extended Edition Fellowship). because of this, I was a member of a Dominic Monaghan fansite. the girls on this site wrote collective fanfic on the message boards. each girl would add their own chapters (one girl was obsessed with the band HIM and I picked up that obsession, still feel so nostalgic listening to Sweet Pandemonium, remembering how dial-up internet loaded Ville Valo's voice one note at a time and i was FUCKING SMITTEN friend).

i decided i wanted to do that. i started a fanfic (literally feel free to throw things at me) about JOHN MAYER and it was totally a self-insert fic with me and my friends as OCs. As my obsessions changed, so did the love interests (i ended up with Benji from Good Charlotte) and the whole thing was like a BAD SOAP OPERA

i continued writing stories about girls dating the boys in the bands I listened to. One about Sebastian LeFebvre from Simple Plan, one about Adam Lazzara from Taking Back Sunday, one about Tony Lovato from Mest. All with my own OCs (less self-insert now)

when i got married (at nineteen by the way, don't necessarily recommend it but it's sort of normal to do that in the south, plus he was my best friend from high school, and anyway we're still married thirteen years later), i stopped writing fic because i thought it was "childish" and because i was writing about boys i had crushes on and i thought it was ... idk disrespectful to my husband to have a crush on anyone else but him (i still have a crush on him, but i can also simultaneously have a crush on dev patel okay), so i moved to fiction. I completed my own novel in a few years but never published it.

THEN ALL HECK BROKE LOOSE WHEN THE AVENGERS MOVIE CAME OUT. I wrote a Loki fanfic (never finished, never published). but i realized writing about fictional characters was WAY more satisfying (and made me feel less creepy) than writing for actual human beings, so I started writing for Marvel characters (mostly just Bucky, which then became Stucky)

at this point, i had never read harry potter (i went to private school, they taught us it would turn us into satanists and it was banned lol), so when i became an adult, i was like I'M GONNA FUCKING WATCH HARRY POTTER YOU DUMB BITCHES (i have a lot of religious trauma because of my school so this was a big fuck you to them). I FELL IN LOVE WITH THIS DAMN STORY. i went in knowing who would die, but not when. And when Sirius died RIGHT AFTER SAYING TO HARRY "Good one, James!" I CRIIIIIED

anyway, around then, i found Ao3, had posted some Bucky fics, was reading a lot of other HP fics and stumbled across Wolfstar. at first, it was WHAT REMUS AND SIRIUS??? BUT DIDN'T REMUS MARRY TONKS??? but i read one. and then another. and then another. and read the books and rewatched the movies and thought WOW WHAT THE FUCK THOSE TWO DUDES OBVIOUSLY LOVE EACH OTHER

anyway, here we are, 28 wolfstar fics later because i discovered that i could keep writing stories about these same two dudes in different ways and different situations and different lives, and i also found a community of friends who are super supportive and equally as talented in writing those same two dudes (and their friends).

the only tips i have for writing better is just KEEP DOING IT. even if you think you have no talent (i certainly didn't, my first fics were HOT GARBAGE), even if you think other people write better than you (there will always be talented people out there who you compare yourself to, i still do this). AND WRITE FOR YOURSELF. i've said this so many times, but write the way YOU want, write in the style YOU want to read, write the stories YOU want to read. technically speaking, I'm probably NOT a good writer, but i like my stories. And there will always be other people who like your stories, too.

AND READ. read all the fanfic you want. take note of the styles you like, the authors you like, the plots you like, the twists you like. and WHY you like those things. figure out why that sentence hit you in your gut so hard, why this fic made you cry, why that character makes you angry. conveying emotion is what makes stories powerful.

And find your niche. find the thing you WANT to write for, and write for it. i don't give a shit if it's a Rick and Morty crossover with Powerpuff Girls. you do you. for example, my first fic was mostly canon-compliant but i MUCH prefer AUs now because i can write these characters in whatever way suits my story.

p.s. i knew i was gonna get wordy i'm so sorrryyyyyyy

p.s.s (or is it p.p.s??) i'm happy to talk one on one about this stuff! though i'm probably far from the best teacher, i am a good listener!