#anyway the scene is quite long

[irenespring]

Finally finished the scene in my Hilson fic that was giving me so many problems, which I have affectionately titled "Scary Immunology Intern attempts Wilson-style 'comforting the distressed person,' 14 dead, 36 injured."

[benevolenterrancy]

May your hardened heart be woken By the soft and distant song Of all you left here unspoken All the shards we keep stepping on - Take this body home Take this body home Call the wind, and let her know Take this life outgrown Take this broken soul Call the stars, call them all And take it high, take it far, take it home

[felixravinstills]

Festus Creed and Sejanus Plinth Sassing Each Other at the 10th Annual Reaping Ceremony

—The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)

[starflungwaddledee]

some rather strong first impressions were made.

required reading for the magical "voice" headcanon and another for starstruck's signature in particular. asked by @trainerbob23 !

[beaulesbian]

⚔️ ONE PIECE || Zoro smiling & being silly - Fishman Island Arc ⚔️

[frankiebirds]

I love this scene a lot and it lives in my head rent-free. I can't really think of another way to interpret it other than that this is elle telling reid that the reason he can't get a date isn't because of something wrong with him that he needs to change but simply because he doesn't ask people out (or, more broadly, lacks confidence).

I have seen some spencelle shippers read this as elle saying "hey. ask me out" but i disagree, not because i don't ship spencelle (i sort of do, elaboration in the notes) but for the following reasons:

I think elle would have realised very early on that if she was going to wait for reid to ask her out, she would be waiting years

i don't think she gives enough of a fuck about gender roles to wait for The Man to ask her out

she generally seems confident

i lean more towards her being very new to the BAU in the early episodes. I don't recall right now if there's an official anti-fraternization policy or if that's a fanfiction trope, but even if there isn't, entering a relationship with a coworker that early on is an easy way to mess up her career.

i think she was waiting until she was more established to start anything, but then, well, everything happened, and she left before becoming established enough to feel comfortable taking a risk like that

[sandwichsapphic]

“an exceedingly pleasant and amiable young gentleman but… mentally he is negligible - quite negligible” is the Jeeves and Wooster equivalent of “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me”

[vagueeyes]

INSIDE NO. 9 | S6E2 "Simon Says" Costumes by Yves Barre

[musette22]

SO, I just watched Push (I know! go me) and I have some thoughts:

‼️ SPOILERS AHEAD FOR PUSH (2009) ‼️

1. NICK GANT YOU STUPID PRETTY BASTARD, let me tenderly hold your bloodied face and kiss the boo boos better I beg you 😫 Like seriously oh my god jesus christ he is truly the prettiest man on planet earth what the fuck, look at that face and those puppy dog eyes 💔

2. The plot didn't make a whole lot of sense to me but that may have been because I was CONSTANTLY distracted by Chris's mouth, which brings me to point 3:

3. CHRIS'S MOUTH 😭😭 that mouth could make angels weep, dear fucking lord. It's so lush and pink and kissable and completely fucking distracting

4. I think 86% of this movie was just Nick getting beat up or half-killed, and then him just walking it off somehow. Like he spent more time with blood on his face than not (and all of it in miraculously aesthetically pleasing ways too, no black eyes or broken noses or lost teeth for Nick), and I have to say, I am a BIG fan of that cinematic decision

5. The other 14% was just him strutting sexily in a white t-shirt or thin, baggy sweater that conveniently accentuated his delicious proportions. Like, not to objectify him or anything but: legs for daaaays, teeny tiny waist, ARMS, and do not get me started on that back and those shoulders or we'll be here all day

5. I got it wrong in that ask I answered yesterday, it wasn't him who cupped her face when they kissed but she who cupped his, which was SO MUCH WORSE 🫠

6. Dakota Fanning was wonderful 🫶🏼 And Cassie and Nick's friendship was so precious!

7. And finally: HELLO?? THE CATWS PARALLELS??? Coney Island being "their place"? Their memories being tampered with, her not remembering him and Nick, all bloodied and bruised and sad eyed going "You know me" while they were basically fighting to the death and he was (kind of) prepared to let himself be killed for / by her??? Oh my god, Chris is just destined to play this narrative over and over isn't he? And you can NOT tell me he didn't realize how similar those two storylines / scenes were when he was filming TWS, which means that he must've been very conscious of the fact that that kind of storyline had distinctly romantic connotations... No way he missed that

[somerunner]

He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “If you wanted to shame me before sending me off in defeat, you’ve succeeded. Do what you will.”

…

“I don’t want to send you off in defeat,” Lindon said honestly. He waited until Northstrider looked up to say, “I want to send you off in victory. You won a long time ago.”

Waybound (Cradle book 12), Will Wight

[flow2024]

I wish you would write a fic about irreconcilable artistic differences on a movie set between Joe and Nicky.

not really irreconciliable as in not solvable at all but you know i had fun with this

Joe squeezes his eyes shut, covering his face with both hands, and leans forward. His shoulders tremble uncontrollably. He takes a short, sharp breath, and another, and another, but he can’t quite seem to get enough into his lungs. There’s a lump in his throat and a weight in his stomach. He leans forward with a low, wounded sound and–

“Cut,” Nicky says softly. Then, because it takes Joe a second to hear him: “Joe, stop.”

Slowly, Joe raises his head. Wipes at his eyes and takes a few deep breaths to steady himself. Nicky’s already up, frowning ever so slightly as he looks at the camera. 

“What is it this time?” Joe manages. His voice is hoarse; he has to clear his throat once or twice. Nicky doesn’t look up. The clock on the nightstand reads 01.34, but Nicky’s changed it a few times over the course of the shoot. He has no clue what time it really is, only that it’s dark outside.

It’s just the two of them in the room. Nicky had wanted to keep this one small, just him and Joe and the camera. The apartment they’re in is nice, if a little empty, though Joe supposes that’s the point. They’re in the bedroom, Joe sitting cross-legged on the bed, shirtless, sheets bunched up over his lap, a phone lying on the nightstand behind him. One entire wall of the room is taken up by a floor-to-ceiling window which lets the moonlight in, though there’s a few low lights set up behind Nicky to send bars of silver light across the bed, because the natural light hadn’t quite been strong enough for the effect Nicky wanted. It’s otherworldly; it’s beautiful. 

Nicky still isn’t looking at him, so Joe says again, “What?” It comes out a little harsher than he means it to, but it gets Nicky’s attention.

Nicky runs one hand through his hair. Joe can’t see him well, not with the light behind him and the shadows in the room. “I don’t know,” Nicky says. “It’s missing something.”

Joe has worked with Nicky enough times before. It’s not that he doesn’t like working with him - they’re friends - but he can’t fucking read him, and so after the sixth take of the same scene he can’t help but take it a little personally. 

Joe reaches for the bottle of water hidden just under the bed and takes a long drink, mostly to keep himself from snapping. What time is it? “I can try again, but I can’t do this indefinitely, Nicky.”

“I know, I know,” Nicky says, fidgeting again with the camera, “it’s not you, it’s just–” 

“What else could it be?” Joe interrupts. He’s not stupid. This scene doesn’t work if he can’t get it right, which means the entire film doesn’t work if he can’t get it right. More than anything else, this one depends on him. No music, no camera movement, no dialogue, nothing but him and the camera. And he wants to do it right, he loves this project almost as much as Nicky does, but there’s a hollow feeling in his chest and he’s spent the last however-many-hours having a near-complete breakdown over and over again and it’s still not right. And Joe doesn’t know what it is he’s doing wrong.

“I don’t know,” Nicky says quietly. Now he is looking at Joe, and Joe can’t tell if he’s disappointed, or angry, or – or what. He’s perfectly expressionless, as always. 

Joe loves this job. And he wants to get this right. But it doesn’t mean it’s not one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, and he’s tired.

“I don’t have much more left in me, Nicky,” he says, and this time he does snap. He wipes at his eyes again, can’t look at Nicky. He’s supposed to be making himself vulnerable, above all in this scene, but suddenly he can’t stand the way Nicky’s looking at him. “Pass me my hoodie.”

“Joe–”

“I can’t. I can’t keep doing this.” He kicks the sheets off and gets tangled trying to do it, grabs his hoodie when Nicky offers it, pulls it over his head in one fluid motion and gets out of there as soon as he can. Thankfully, there’s only Andy and Nile in the other room, Andy lying back on the couch with her feet up and Nile perched on the arm of it. They both look up at Joe as he enters, both look like they’re about to ask, and Joe can’t stand it, can’t be in here a second longer, can’t–

“We are done for the day, I think,” Nicky says behind him, startling Joe. He hadn’t realised Nicky was there.

Andy raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t argue. It’s already the second day of trying to shoot this scene: they’re running the risk of falling behind schedule. 

“We’ll find something else to do tomorrow,” Nicky says. “I’ll look over everything tonight. We will try this again on Monday.”

Andy and Nile look at each other. Nile shrugs. 

“Get some rest, Joe,” Nicky says. 

Joe shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t say a word.

–--------------------------------

He doesn’t get called in the next day at all, and he doesn’t interrogate it too closely. Takes the day off, pretty much, because they’ve only really got one scene left to film, and there’s not much more he can do for that. Nicky had wanted to leave it to the last, and Joe had agreed, at the time.

At about nine pm, someone knocks on his hotel room door, which is unusual on a day where they don’t have a night shoot to do. When he opens it, Nicky is on the other side. Joe lets him in without a word. 

“I wanted to apologise,” Nicky says, standing in the middle of the room and looking as uncomfortable as Joe’s ever seen him. “For last night. I was pushing you too hard, and I should not have done.”

Joe closes the door behind him. Nicky fidgets with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

“Sit down,” Joe says. 

Nicky does, settling himself on the edge of Joe’s bed, not quite looking him in the eye. Joe joins him, after a moment. 

“At the risk of sounding cliche,” Nicky says, “it’s not you, it’s me.”

Joe laughs, mostly because the phrase sounds so strange coming from Nicky and also because out of everything he’d thought Nicky might say, he hadn’t expected that. 

Nicky smiles slightly, too. Then he gets up and heads for the minibar. “Mind if I have a drink?”

Joe shakes his head. Nicky gets out a little bottle of wine, glances at the label, and takes a swig straight from the bottle without bothering to get a glass. 

“I can’t seem to get it right,” Nicky says. “You know I wrote almost fifteen different versions of that scene?”

The scene in the script itself is barely a page long. “No,” Joe says. 

Nicky nods. Rubs a hand over his face. “I wanted it to feel real. I thought if I could get it right, it would… help, somehow. I don’t know.”

It’s the exact same reason Joe said yes before he even read the script, when the whole thing was just an idea in Nicky’s head, when they were talking about it over drinks at Andy’s and Joe was in love with the idea almost immediately. He knew exactly why Nicky was writing it; he knows, now, exactly why it needs to be right. But at the same time – “I don’t know if that’s possible, Nicky.”

Nicky sighs. “I know.” He crosses back over to sit beside Joe again, takes another drink from the bottle. “But there is something missing, and I cannot seem to find it. And so it does not feel real. And I know this is not easy for you.”

“It’s not,” Joe says plainly. 

“But you know,” Nicky continues, “I could not have trusted anyone with this but you. If you had not said yes, I would not have done this.”

That, Joe didn’t know: he knows he’d been Nicky’s first choice, but he’d assumed that’s because they know each other well enough already. But it makes sense: the reason Nicky wrote the script is the same thing they’d bonded over. 

Even still, it’s a lot. “I don’t know if I can do it the way you want,” Joe says. 

Nicky looks up at him from where he’s been running his fingers over the label on the bottle absentmindedly. “If you want to stop, I can–”

“No,” Joe says quickly. “But I don’t think it’s ever going to be exactly the way you felt.”

Nicky looks away. “It is a lot to ask,” he says. “I know this.”

Joe doesn’t think; just reaches over and takes Nicky’s hand. “I know,” he says. “Trust me.”

Nicky takes a deep breath. Then he nods. "Okay."

[cementcornfield]

also like speaking of college joe'marr....one of my favorite headcanons is like, yeah, ja'marr probably hero worshiped/had a big crush on the new hot older super talented QB....but i also think joe had a very inconvenient little crush on ja'marr

like joe said himself that thought of his time at LSU as a master's/internship type program but for football instead of any real school curriculum (lol). he had just spent 3 years at OSU /not/ playing football and it was all he wanted to do. now that he had this chance at LSU he was going to buckle up and take it as seriously as possible (he took all online classes and spent as much time as he could at the facility, living and breathing football as much as possible).

so like, he did NOT plan on getting distracted by the cute freshman with the million watt smile and easy warm nature. this kid who would try to joke with him but never try to talk with him without justin or terrace around. this kid with all this god-given talent but no clue how to actually watch film and improve from it. but hey! nothing always goes 100% to plan!

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I've always felt that it'd be Killua who initiates the first hug we see between him and Gon

[piedoesnotequalpi]

92sies Crutchy, or: I Managed To Write About Newsies For An Actual Grade One Time And I'm Going To Make That Everyone's Problem

@chair-in-a-ditch, @make-friends-with-the-rats, and @echofive7567, ask and ye shall be received...or something. Disclaimer that I have no idea if this is particularly novel analysis; for all I know it's been discussed to death years before I joined the fandom.

So! 92sies Crutchy! You hopefully know him, you hopefully love him.

When I decided to write a paper for my disability studies class about disability representation in Newsies (i.e. about Crutchy/ie), I had to a) find relevant sources (surprisingly challenging) and b) rewatch 92sies and Livesies and take notes on every scene Crutchy/ie appears in as well as transcribe potentially relevant lines. Until that rewatch, I'd always had one question lurking at the back of my mind: why is Crutchy/ie the only newsie who bothers to pronounce Wiesel's name correctly? And through my research + reading an earlier draft of the 92sies screenplay + rewatching the movie with disability representation in mind, I found a potential answer that also explains (some of) what previously felt like inconsistent characterization.

Crutchy has no trouble being rough/rude amongst the other newsies/amongst peers - in Carrying the Banner, he fights with Mush and Blink; he's also one of the people who takes part in making fun of the Delanceys (albeit while surrounded by other newsies who would back him up in a fight and are saying worse things about the Delanceys than he is). Later, in The World Will Know, David argues against beating up scabs and claims they'll get a bad name for it; Crutchy cheerfully responds that their reputation can't get any worse ("Not only is Crutchy very aware of their already-poor reputation here, he's also happy to choose violence if it will further their mission."). Meanwhile (at least before Jack ends up in the Refuge), he is very polite to all the adults he interacts with, more so than the other newsies are: he is the only newsie who pronounces Wiesel's name correctly and says please when asking for his papes (even though he laughs at everyone else calling him Weasel), and he addresses Snyder as "Mr. Warden Snyder, sir." So, why the difference?

In one of the papers* I read as part of my research, there was a discussion of how well-rounded portrayals of disability can (and do) show how disability is not just due to impairments, but also societal factors (too many stairs, flashing lights, ableist attitudes from other people, etc.). Another paper** discussed the history of violence against disabled people (of which there is a lot) as well as how "viewing disabled people as being inherently vulnerable may cause them to be seen as 'weak' or 'helpless.'" Essentially, the way he interacts with adults is a matter of safety. In my paper, I argued that Crutchy's politeness is to keep himself from being a target for violence (which ultimately fails!): if he sparred with Wiesel, he'd draw attention to himself and potentially face consequences; if he openly defied Snyder, he'd be giving Snyder a reason to single him out in a negative way and potentially injure him further. Obviously the other newsies who do these things draw the same attention, but they are all able-bodied, which affords them a level of privilege/safety that Crutchie doesn't have (see above point about violence against disabled people being very common). This fear is verbalized somewhat in Livesies when Crutchie references the potential of being locked up in the Refuge, and obviously there he's only explicitly talking about his mobility or lack thereof, but I think there's a larger implication there of just not wanting to draw attention (and that being rude/sassy with adults while being disabled is especially dangerous, given that Livesies!Crutchie also pronounces Wiesel's name correctly).

(But Isabel, you ask, what about the sauerkraut incident? I'm getting to that.)

Going back to the quote about vulnerability, I think that ties into why Crutchy doesn't want Jack, or anyone, to carry him out of the Refuge - being carried would mean publicly acknowledging that he's a) not immune to needing help and b) vulnerable to being injured. Crutchy is for the most part treated as a peer amongst the newsies (and is asked by Jack to carry out multiple important roles in the strike, like starting a strike fund and carrying the news to other neighborhoods), and he probably does not want to lose that status.

Once Crutchy knows he's unlikely to get out of the Refuge anytime soon (and that his strategy of caution around authority figures did not keep him out of the Refuge (arguably, he was not being cautious when he was ripping up all those papers during the strike action, but see the above point about attacking when surrounded by people who will back him up)), only then does he try deliberately rebelling without the other newsies behind him: he steals a potato off Snyder's plate and spits in his sauerkraut. This still isn't open rebellion, though; this most likely happened out of Snyder's view. It is only once he is a) surrounded by other newsies, b) free of the Refuge/Snyder, and c) in a situation where the police are very clearly on his side that he is openly rude to an adult (the Delanceys don't count since they are close in age to the newsies): he tells Snyder to make friends with the rats, and gleefully slams the door of the police wagon behind him.

TL;DR: Crutchy/ie is a bastard (affectionate), but there's an added layer of calculation with respect to his personal safety that the other newsies don't necessarily have to make.

Anyway, those are my semi-organized, probably unoriginal thoughts on the matter. Enjoy, I guess.

--

*Holcomb, J., & Latham-Mintus, K. (2022). Disney and disability: Media representations of disability in Disney and Pixar animated films. Disability Studies Quarterly, 42(1). https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v42i1.7054

**Ralph, S., Capewell, C., & Bonnett, E. (2016). Disability hate crime: Persecuted for difference. British Journal of Special Education, 43(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8578.12139

[notquitedeadpod]

there are significant portions of NQD which involve laying about and talking about stuff, but vampires are predators and predators are ALL ABOUT just laying around, so I consider it important world building

[purplecelestial-buddy]

@kalpalatas and @kagiura-akira since we are so very commited to the ssmy hrkg idol au I have to recommend that you guys check, at least some episodes of the Tou Tiao Dou Shi Ta Manhua It's the funniest non conventional idol story I've ever read because it focuses on the inner working of the industry. For example, I remeber this one chapter where the main group is losing popularity or something so the mc drags his group mate to a shopping date so that photos get filtered and everyone starts talking about them. that's the kind of strategy only our wonderful and chroically online Miya could pull.