#bc I’m like… what if it’s terrible or the premise is too dark and people think it’s weird and also what if it’s not even hot

[samaraxmorgan]

I need to “do it scared” my way into writing smut but I’m too nervous to even open a word doc skskskssk

[wlwanakin]

Kinda have to ask about cum (SAD!!!!) 🫣

for the wip title game!! this is the oldest one out of the bunch and also one that’s probably a tough sell to a lot of people lol. basically i became obsessed with the idea of anakin and sabé fucking for whatever reason. it’s just so fun to play with because at best they only tolerate each other and they’re both unhealthily devoted to the same woman, and then i came up with an au scenario where anakin doesn’t turn but padmé still dies and anakin and sabé hit rock bottom and wind up having awful terrible grief-fueled self-harm sex that isn’t really about either of them. i’m just really into the psychosexual weirdness of anakin fucking someone who looks like his dead wife and sabé fucking the dead woman she was in unrequited love with’s alive husband bc neither of them can get what they actually want and neither of them know how to exist without her!! and anakin is aggressively monogamous so it’s extra fun to write his pov on all this since it’s a scenario that a lot of people would consider inherently out of character.

here’s a little snippet:

“Kiss me.” “Sabé, I—” “Please.” She’s tugging at his arm now, all her rage melting into fervent desperation. “I need to know what it was like. I need to feel what she felt.” “I don’t want to.” “You do. You want her. I can be her. It’s—it’s all I know how to be. I tried to be someone else but I just couldn’t. And I can be her for you. And you just have to let me, and we’ll both get what we want.” Anakin looks at her, at her brown hair that isn’t quite curly enough and her brown eyes that are a few shades too dark and her eyebrows that are just slightly too arched. Her cheekbones are too sharp. She keeps her hair too short. The most she could pass as is a poorly-made death mask. He plunges his face into hers the second she leans in, and soon her arms are wrapped around his neck and his tongue is down her throat and with his eyes closed he can ignore how completely foreign her lips feel against his.

it's actually been years since i properly worked on it, but i recently started messing with it again because i really love the premise and i wanted to lean further into anakin being so utterly mentally destroyed by this and i also wanted to ramp up the morbidity. so if i ever do publish it it'll wind up being pretty unpleasant and cerebral lol. but that is that! cum. sad.

[livestock-and-bibles]

VERY curious about ur mouthwashing thoughts but also it’s been a while since ive seen the game so ive gotta rewatch a playthru augh

There’s a couple of reasons as to why I don’t have much interest in the game!!

1. Gameplay

I honestly cannot stand this new trend of horror games that are just the player talking to people, walking around, occasionally finding an object. I dislike this in the game Bad Parenting also. I’m like. Why does this have to be game? There’s no gameplays so what’s the point? I think it would’ve been more enjoyable as a novel or an animated series with the graphics it already has! It would be very striking. So yeah I find the actual gameplay very dull. Also the controls look really wonky from when I watched gameplay of it

2. Characters

I found myself not really caring too deeply about anyone? Like Curly is okay I guess, I like his design and the disability theming but his actual personality is so meh to me. Jimmy has potential but it never really explains why is inferiority complex is so deep so I’m just like ??? Barely any of the characters ever get and of their backstory or family life discussed except for Daisuke and Swansea but even then it’s very little (but those two are my favourite characters and I have very little criticism for them lol. They carried the game). I have so much hatred in my heart for the way they wrote Anya. It just feels so misogynistic to me. Like ofc the only woman on the crew has the rape as backstory + pregnancy plot. I’ve never seen that before /s. I’m just so tired of that being the only plot line women get in horror media. I understand the pregnancy is supposed to parallel with Curly’s disability but it’s still a very tired trope. Also her design is clearly ripped off of Wendy Torrance from The Shining lmao. There’s also a lot of other design elements that are kind of ripped off from Evangelion (the text on screen resembles the the title cards, Curly post accident resembles an Eva, etc.) so I just don’t really care about most of the characters and their relationships except for Daisuke and Swansea, and they don’t get enough screen time anyway lol

3. Plot

Most of the base plot is pretty good and interesting. It’s a solid premise. But I feel as though it’s kind of meandering until you get to the big twists. I was just watching like. When are we getting to the meat of the story. I do like the dual / non linear narrative, that’s always fun. Definitely some enjoyment was lost just bc I saw spoilers online, but I think a game is pretty weak if it’s enjoyment is completely lost because of spoilers, like I replay The Dark Descent all the time even though I know the ending because the story is that strong and the gameplay is fun. That’s where the game kind of suffers because the gameplay is so weak. Also I think the ending was kind of dragged out. I was watching the playthrough and I was just sitting there like. When will this be over. I get it Jimmy is terrible. We do not need five more scenes about this. There are some really fun moments though, like when he eats Curly’s leg or when Swansea mercy kills Daisuke (That’s always a trope I love) Though those are the only scenes I can remember where I was genuinely enjoying the game.

Overall I feel that the game was more style over substance, and a lot of it just wasn’t really my cup of tea when it comes to games. Don’t even get me started on how the fandoms seems to ignore Swansea (an old fat guy) and Daisuke (the only person of colour). Like y’all’s ageism, fatphobia, and racism is really showing guys. I see how y’all favour the white, conventionally attractive characters over these two,

I really wanted to enjoy the game. I really did. But alas. It just wasn’t really my vibe when it comes to horror games and I can be picky so it’s not to say that my opinion is the only correct one, it’s just how I feel. It was mainly the gameplay that I had a problem with, I just can’t get into walking simulator games lol

[cinnamonkittenz]

Rating the ninjago season based on what I’ve gathered from binging the show in 3 weeks while not paying attention 70% of the time

(Spoilers obviously)

Season 1 / Pilot: not often on TV but a very good introduction to the story, love the concept of the skeletons and Garmadon being a knock off Hades, I wish they continued with that instead of the snakes, sadly kinda too fast paced but hey it’s supposed to be a movie I guess, 9/10

Season 2: what my local kids channel played for 5 years on loop, a classic but I’m tired of it bc I’ve seen it too often, has a lot of plot holes and the snakes are too goofy at times for my taste, terrible animation in comparison to the newer seasons, 5/10

Season 3: not as good as I remember it to be but their outfits slap, we finally get to meet PIXAL our queen, the trip to space was kinda random and unnecessary, but the shock when Zane died tho???? 12 year old me was devastated, 8/10

Season 4: really interesting premise, I wish they had committed to Zane staying dead or at least staying away for longer tho, the tension is lost halfway through the season somehow, we need more Skylor content, 7/10

Season 5: Nya has powers now?? And oh it’s just the thing we need to defeat the ghosts???? And airjitzu????? Really?????? Great writing very wow, but Cole being turned into a ghost had me shook so that’s really what saves this season for me, gonna have to subtract some points again tho bc Morro is yelling so much and so loud and it’s annoying, 5.5/10

Season 6: I like the idea of the evil dschinn in a bottle but the rest?? Dschinnjago (how tf is it even spelled)?? What the fuck where’s the creativity, and I hate how literally no one gets character development besides Jay and Nya, literally everyone else had no personality and then gets sucked into that sword, if you’re a jaya stan good for you but this season was so boring to me, 4/10

Season 7: okay this is a hot take bc apparently people kinda like this season and maybe it’s bc I paid even less attention than usual but it was so bad,,,,, snakes again? Can we come up with something different please? Yes the time blades are a cool concept but the rest?? And the character design of the villains is so bad, like seriously what the fuck, my eyes are bleeding, 2/10

Season 8: I was kind of sceptical when they suddenly started with that royal family stuff but Harumi,,, my beloved, the one and only girl boss, I think she’s the best villain of the entire show (yes her goal is kinda cheap but the reason for it and the way she behaves is just top tier villiany), the motorcycle gang is kinda fun as well, dad Cole has my whole heart, and the ending???? BRO?????? 9/10

Season 9: in retrospect it’s really just 4 gays raising a kid in the desert, gives me big mad max fury road vibes at least the aesthetic (i haven’t seen the movie lol), the junk yard baron guy and the faith plot are kinda cringe tho and the HTTYD scene with Kai?? They don’t even try to conceal that it’s a knock off, same camera angle and everything, the plot in ninjago city is like,,,, bro is this still a kids show?? This is straight up ‚a bunch of teens try to fight the fascistic regime in a post apocalyptic world‘, the whole season feels like a filler tho so 7.5/10

Season 10: that Lloyd / Garmadon fight really is something, have the creators forgotten they’re making a kids show??? Don’t remember much besides Harumi straight up dying and thinking that Skylor needs more screentime besides being a plot device, 7/10

Season 11: the beginning is veeeery slow which is kind of annoying and what happened to the plot with Aspheera?? Did I not pay attention again or....?? but the rest? Chefs kiss, love it, Akita my beloved,,,,, I didn’t see Zane as the emperor coming at first (although it’s pretty on the nose now that i think about it) but it’s so dark and so well written I love it,,, like I said a thousand times without the advisor guy and them not having to make it suitable for kids it could have been even better, the ending was so rushed tho and the conflicts were resolved way too easily, that’s why I have to subtract a point, 9/10

Season 12: this season could have used so much more superstar rocking jay content,,, seriously if you give Jay yet another season then fucking commit to it, the second half of the season is literally s6 all over again and I hate it, yes we get it jaya rules but please,,, give the other characters some screentime and development, the way the conflict with unagami is solved is,, questionable??? Like that’s not how it works bro, 6.5/10

Season 13: not at all what I expected it to be bc I had seen so much amazing stuff on here so I was pretty disappointed bc it didn’t feel like Cole’s season, the evil dad trope is overused so pls stop it, the uply (???) and their animated short slapped, we need to see more of Cole’s mom,,, pleeasseeeee, 7/10

Season 14: what the fuck?? Is going on???? Is this even a season??? What’s up with the western colonizers club????? I know it’s set up for s15 but I really didn’t like it esp the portrayal of indigenous people as savages (at least it has the vibe), 1/10

Season 15: listen I’m just not a fan of non human species in the lego world, the snakes were okay but these sea bitches look horrible, the evil son had a great voice actor tho, and the ending,,,,,, bro i still haven’t recovered, I never expected them to commit to something like that, 6.5/10

[puppy-phum]

some heihua for the soul

so the update for Binding isn’t happening today bc my brain is complete mush after trying to aggressively finish my thesis yesterday and i decided to give my brain two days off bc of that. also, i promised @ashenwren some time to beta read the ending part (which they already did but! now i need some time with it myself) so i am leaving everybody to wait until saturday. 

meanwhile, i am offering yall a sneak peek/first look at my heihua fic which is very loosely tied to my pingxie. basically, this is just me playing around with hei xiazi as a character and his and xiao hua’s dynamic’s more... tender side. 

i know that @jockvillagersonly and ashen have already read this which has been amazing so thank you for your love ♥ but take this again ^^ also thanks to @cross-d-a for listening to me ramble about heihua and sharing this idea with me. and thank you to @i-am-just-a-kiddo​ who i’m doing all of this for ♥ you are the best parent-in-law for these two and this fandom!

It’s a bad week for him. 

First, it’s the girl he finds while raiding a warehouse full of smuggled weapons and possibly, most likely, drugs. She’s maybe twelve, eyes wide and hair messy, bones poking her skin where Hei Xiazi can see her elbows flashing under her short sleeves. There are bruises around her wrists and burn marks on the inside of her arms. She doesn’t speak but she doesn’t have to, all of her screaming of experiences worthy of a hundred years instead of a dozen. 

She presses her face into her hands when Hei Xiazi fires his gun, and he feels something come loose inside of him at the broken, aborted noise she makes that rings louder than the shot itself. 

Hei Xiazi carries her kicking and screaming out of the warehouse, leaving behind the slowly ending gun fight and the smell of gasoline. She only goes silent once Hei Xiazi puts her down, flinching bodily away from him but not going far. She hovers, fingers slowly curling around the hem of his long jacket while they wait, shoulders hunching against the cold. Hei Xiazi offers her his jacket with a smile, buys her a sandwich which she then throws up, and helps her into a hospital once they’re safe to leave. 

No one else stays behind with her. All the other people they found from that warehouse scattered as soon as the fight began and only she remained, lost in the thought of having to leave the premises that had become her world. She has no family, no house, no money. Hei Xiazi watches her leave with the social workers, bones of her wrists like twigs threatening to snap even after some proper meals and eyes so big they seem to swallow the light around her. She still hasn’t said a word. Hei Xiazi doubts she ever will. 

Her pale face looks like a ghost as she turns to give Hei Xiazi one last glance over her shoulder, and that’s what she becomes to him once he goes home and puts that warehouse out of his mind. It’s hard and he feels himself haunted, and whatever it was that got loose in his chest rattles like the tail of a snake. 

Then, he hears about Su Wan. Hears about the mission that went south with the three youngsters. Hears about Su Wan getting hurt. 

It isn’t anything new in their line of business to get hurt, to even die. When he first met the boy in the desert, he predicted he would find him six feet under after only a day. There was too much softness in Su Wan, too much trust, too much naivete. He had a big brain and clever ideas but his core was gooey, leaking out in way too telling bursts, leaving nothing hidden. 

Su Wan had reminded Hei Xiazi of young Wu Xie. Even his floundering with his knife had reminded him of Wu Xie. Even his adaptability had been annoyingly similar to Wu Xie’s, and Hei Xiazi had questioned his taste in students. At least the boy had paid better. At least the boy hadn’t been wishing to die. 

He had not expected, after knowing all of that, to experience such fear when he first heard that Su Wan had gotten himself stabbed and had almost bled out in a cave, with only Li Cu and Yang Hao to look after himself and a saving bed of a hospital hours away. His hands had shook, making it impossible to hold anything while trying to breathe, and he had quickly been reminded of the little girl, torn open and going a bit feral just because she didn’t know what to do.

It was a surprisingly new thing to care. As surprising as the fact that he still knew of such things.

“I thought I had taught you better, kid,” he says as he goes to the hospital, in the middle of the night of all things, having to cover Su Wan’s mouth so that he doesn’t scream and wake up the better half of the city. The boy’s eyes are wide and heartbeat rapid under his fingers where he can feel it pulsing against Su Wan’s jaw. Then the boy is scrambling at his fingers to speak from between them. He pulls his hand away. 

“Hei-ye!” the boy whispers fervently, like an anchor casted in water. “I thought you were out of the country!”  

“I was until yesterday when I heard that you got stabbed,” he explains, voice leaning more towards mockery than any actual care. Su Wan knows what that means. The boy knows more than anyone else has ever known about a person like Hei Xiazi. It’s a strange thing but Hei Xiazi has come to almost like it. 

“I’m fine!” the boy chirps, lighting up like a lightbulb. Hei Xiazi helps him sit in his bed, snatching a chair for himself from the corner, and then evaluates the damage. Su Wan is smiling while a thick roll of bandages circle his stomach. There are at least thirty stitches there, curving along his side. Some more adorn his bicep where he tried to evade another blade. A darkening bruise is making his cheek swell, casting an extra shadow under his chin. 

Hei Xiazi sighs and closes his eyes when Su Wan starts to tell the story, his voice a soft whisper made even softer with lingering sleep. The beep of the machines tell Hei Xiazi the boy is alive. The painful thrum of his own heart tells him he’s alive too. 

Su Wan falls asleep holding onto Hei Xiazi’s sleeve. He cannot remember how the boy got the leather between his fingers but prying his hold away is like bending steel. It feels impossible and burns equal amounts. 

Finally, he slips back into the cold night. 

He doesn’t go to his apartment, the one he’s currently occupying, his few belongings strewn across the floor and nothing making the place feel like his. Even after years and years and years, some part of him still feels sick at the thought of emptiness. He’s tried his hardest to carve his bones empty and chest clean but after each year spent alone or with someone or wanting, he realizes it’s a battle he cannot win. There’s something terribly strong under his ribs. It refuses to die even before his curse of immortality and the knowledge that goes beyond his comprehension. It refuses to die even when facing the cold, cruel world. 

The walls surrounding the Xie Manor are high but not high enough to keep him at bay. If they were, he would’ve never come here. He would’ve never returned, not after he once left. 

Climbing up the wall of the manor to the third floor makes his lungs burn, but then he’s pushing the window open already, stepping silently onto the polished floor. 

“Xiazi,” a familiar voice says, not even pretending to sound sleepy. “It’s three in the morning. Is it really a suitable time to be visiting the head of Xie family?”

Hei Xiazi smiles, shrugging off his leather jacket and placing it onto the back of a chair beside him. The air in the room feels chilly with the window open but he likes to hear the noises from outside and he likes the line of silver painted onto the floor and across the luxurious double bed. He likes that he can pretend his vision is so clear just because of the moon. 

“Hua’er-ye,” he says back, voice like honey because he loves to tease this man and loves how the tone makes his perfect eyebrows pinch. “Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”

“I would dream you naked at least, not dripping mud all over my floors.”

“As you wish,” he says and reaches for his own belt before moving closer to the bed, toeing his shoes off on the first two steps.

Xie Yuchen is warm but firm when Hei Xiazi meets his body, crashing into his lips and then slipping hands down his silk covered spine. He hums, hiding his laugh. He’s always loved the absolute brilliance and practicality and strength of this man but under all that, Xie Yuchen is a little spoiled. A rich family head. A powerful man with more money than Hei Xiazi could possibly imagine. He’s never tried, not really caring. For all his acting, he’s never gone for Xie Yuchen for his money. 

He takes care of helping Xie Yuchen out of his expensive pajamas, kissing him wet and shivering after each uncovered piece of skin. There is something beautiful about Xie Yuchen in the stark light of the moon, eyes burning bright and the line of his throat like an invitation. Hei Xiazi wishes he could tell him that, sometimes, but he’s preferred to seal his lips. His poetry would not suit the ears of Xie Yuchen. 

He’s never been one for pretty words, crude and almost barbaric instead, tongue made out of barbwire and mind of a strategic plan. Between them, all those edges exist in harmony, and so he’s never felt the need for anything more, enjoying the simplicity of just being. 

Ironically, as the sun is already rising, coloring the horizon with its colorless light, he still descends into words. It’s like something is pulling them out of his chest, and when there’s a force outside of his control beneath his ribs, he cannot do anything but unravel upon Xie Yuchen’s white satin sheets.

“There was this girl,” he says, looking into the still remaining dark – or as dark as anything can be for his eyes, that comfort taken from him ages ago. “I saved her from a warehouse a couple of days ago. She didn’t speak, couldn’t eat because she’d been kept hungry for so long. There were burn marks on her arms, probably from cigarettes or a lighter. They told me she was thirteen. She didn’t look like she was thirteen.”

Xie Yuchen’s hands are on his back, brushing lightly against his shoulder blades, drawing something there. His heartbeat is steady under Hei Xiazi’s cheek and his skin burns, burns, burns. He remembers how he had looked at that girl in the eyes and seen himself there. 

“I remember,” he says quietly, closing his eyes, “feeling the same burn on my skin. I have no memories of when or why but I know there were cigarettes. I know her pain. I know the scars.”

“Were you a child back then?” Xie Yuchen asks, his body a strong, sturdy thing against him. A rock. A mountain. He never thought he would feel lost in this world but there is something about himself in every child he’s ever saved, in all of their wide, fearful eyes, in all of their screams, their desperate fight, their bared teeth and messy heads of hair. There’s something about him in all of their thrumming, wild panic, like a bird under their skin; in their desperation to get away, to find a place to belong, to find safety and food and trust. To heal a body that has not been their own or has felt like an enemy or a liability or a curse. 

He cannot remember the time he was a child, cannot remember the time before he went blind and began to see too much, cannot remember being anything but this eternal man on the outskirts of the world. He cannot remember ever having a family or feeling the absence of it. 

But then, there’s this echo in his mind. It rings back from the eyes of every child he’s ever tried to help. He thinks, maybe, he still knows how he lost. 

“I only remember being burned,” he says. “I only remember the pain and being afraid. And isn’t that a stupid thing to remember when it could be so many things?” He laughs, as much as it can be a laugh when something twists inside of his chest, bringing tightly together that something that was let loose. He chokes on it, feeling his voice die down. Xie Yuchen turns beside him so that they both lie on their sides, looking at each other. The line of the moon falls over Xie Yuchen’s hips and almost lands on Hei Xiazi’s waiting hand. 

“Bad things linger,” Xie Yuchen says with a certainty of a man who knows this to be true. During the years, Hei Xiazi has learned a couple of the bad things that happened to this proud man. “But you are turning them into something good.”

“And how much does it change to save a couple of children?” he huffs, tired of the heart that cannot leave him at peace.  

“For them, everything.”

[chadlesbianjasontodd]

[id: punkkibainuzuka: incredibly interested in the laura hale WIP. tell me tell me tell me. end id]

ok so back when i was a teenager, one million years ago, i watched teen wolf bc a friend was watching it, and i immediately latched onto laura despite her never really appearing onscreen bc i hate female characters getting fridged but i love when male characters are genuinely haunted by their female relatives and friends, i love that laura’s not derek’s dead little sister she’s derek’s dead big sister he will always miss and never measure up to.

anyway season two lydia’s storyline is awful to watch but she is a NECROMANCER technically and we were ROBBED??? nineteen-year-old me really wanted to write abt lydia bringing laura back to life and them both getting some very satisfying revenge on laura’s terrible uncle. the kind of revenge where maybe once you were the girl in a horror movie, the cold opening to a csi episode, running down the alleyway knowing something’s following you and unable to get away. this time, the inverse: now you are the curling shadows, the laughter in the dark, harrying a well-deserved target into a frightened panic....

that was like eight years ago now, and i never liked teen wolf all that much, not enough to really engage with it the way the fic i was going to write would have needed (all sorts of things abt derek and laura, scott who means well and tries hard and is the hero, for real, who is right, really, about how to handle things -- but getting slow and bloody vengeance on peter hale is right for lydia and laura, on a personal level, so.)

couple years ago, i was living with people i didn’t like and i was basically cut off from my old social circle bc of having moved and stuff, and somewhere in there i re-read anne carson’s translation of sappho, sat down and read the whole thing straight through and ---- something in that. what i ended up writing was dreamy, about sleep and sleeplessness, the edges of someone’s presence following you even when they’re not there -- you know how in movies, people or things just showing up out of nowhere is always bad? well, in real life, sometimes things that just appear in your life or in your head can be good, too. it’s more about lydia than laura but it’s about laura, about laura not being enchanting, magnetic, or even particularly clever, just being herself. a reversal, a redo, a mirror: where peter charmed and manipulated and invaded lydia into resurrecting him, laura’s just there. and lydia likes her, lydia wants her to stay, enough to bring her back from the dead.

it’s not terribly long, and the whole middle of it is still just not there, but i think i’m too attached to the premise not to finish it eventually.

[nativemossy]

Cap-IM Rec Week 2019 - Thursday

Rec Week - Fluffy Thursday @cap-ironman

some of my comments on this one are shorter bc i was strapped for time but don’t mistake that for lack of care! these are all great fics that deserve some love!

Bath Time - by DepressingGreenie

Nightshade's cure for her werewolf serum did not work, it built itself back up in his system after a year. It never came back to its original extent, but now with every full moon Steve becomes CapWolf again.

After such a night, Tony finds himself having to clean Steve up after one of his runs.

why rec?: as stated earlier in the week, i’m a sucker for capwolf. also the tag “splish splash cap was taking a bath” makes me giggle every time I read it

Perihelion - by a_sparrows_fall

After the events of Like a Comet Streaming On, the Avengers—including their newest member—return home.

why rec?: kinda a riff off yesterday’s rec of Like A Comet Streaming On, this is a fic of that fic. I love this continuation, and honestly I love the psychic wolf premise. 

The Law Runneth Forward And Back - by Sineala

It's been three weeks since Tony saved Steve's life at Mount Rushmore, and they're not talking about it. It's going to drive Tony insane. But they've got bigger problems, because Nightshade has turned Steve into a werewolf. Again. And all Steve seems to want is to be near Tony.

why rec?: capwolf and Sineala? i’m all over this one.

Piece of Work - by orbingarrow

TITLE: How to Make Friends - T. Stark. - Age 6

OBSERVATION: People do not want to be friends with a know-it-all HYPOTHESIS: If I act less smart I will make friends. PREDICTION: If I let Jimmy Francis thinks he's smarter than me he will be my friend. EXPERIMENT: Gave wrong answer in class when Jimmy had his hand raised too and it was an easy question so he got it right. RESULT: Jimmy Francis sat with me at lunch after I got the answer wrong and he got it right. CONCLUSION: Hypothesis confirmed. I will make friends if I'm not so smart.

ADDITIONAL RESULT: Jimmy Francis ate the cookie Jarvis packed me. CONCLUSION 2: Jimmy Francis is a dick.

----

35+ years have passed and Tony's still waiting to be proven wrong.

why rec?: it’s fresh, its interesting, and it also has a dash of art history for flavor. Everything I never knew I wanted together.

dont know why it took me so long to see - by goodmorningbeloved

“Oh, watch this,” Natasha says, propping her chin against her knuckles and turning a sweet gaze on him. “Tony, what’s it like dating a superhero?”

Tony bristles in irritation. “We’re not dating,” he snaps. “Captain America probably thinks he can get into anyone’s pants just ‘cause he’s got a mask, costume, and reputation, but not me, buddy. That shield? Gotta be overcompensating for something.” He adds, a bit petulantly, “Oh, and all that blue? Definitely more Steve’s color than his.”

- In which Tony is a genius in all matters except recognizing his boyfriend past a mask.

why rec?: miscommunication trope at its finest, this is a super fun read.

Terrible Idea - by MountainRose & szzzt

Steve and Tony get captured by AIM. Steve can handle bad wine and worse monologuing, but when he gets back to the cell, Tony's not quite how he left him.

It doesn't slow them down much.

why rec?: disclaimer: the focus of this isn’t fluff but there’s plenty of fluffy bits throughout. this has a really fun premise and character assessments.

Turn Around Three Times and Lay Down - by ladyshadowdrake

Tony and Steve take a tumble through a portal of inky darkness. When they wake up, they're not exactly feeling like themselves.

why rec?: I bookmarked this back in september and haven’t read it again so I don’t have a clear recollection of it, but I have in my bookmark that it’s got a whimsical feel and a lovely dynamic. I have always been and will always be a sucker for capwolf. 

[the-quiet-winds]

Make a Move Just to Stay in the Game (part three)

hello and welcome to the new chapter!

in unrelated news, guess who just made a big fuckup at 8:30am! me. so have the chapter bc i’m upset. @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts i hope you’re having a better day than me.

also we love an ass in this story, so they are here, and they are horrible, and try to say / do horrible things.

[part one] - [part two]

[Part 3: I Can See the Pain in Your Eyes]

over the course of the next week, jane can hardly keep up with katherine.

parr is rigorous and thorough with her lessons, but never hesitates to answer any questions or explain something again.

they generally spend the mornings on latin and arithmetic, then history, trade studies, and latin again after lunch.

by the end of her first week with parr, katherine is breezing through paragraphs in latin, translations easy and nearly perfect every time.

mid-way through the second week, however, their second latin lesson of the day was cancelled.

“her majesty told me you’ve taken some music lessons before, is that true?”

katherine nods half heartedly, knowing that those lessons didn’t contain a whole lot of actual music. she fights a shudder at the thought of them.

“i reached out to some of my colleagues for a new music teacher, and one jumped at the opportunity. i think they should be here any minute-“

“good afternoon lady parr, lady katherine.” a suave voice greets, sending immediate chills down katherine’s spine. she’d know that voice anywhere.

low and behold, tall and dark henry mannox strolls through the door, a horn in one hand and a leather folder of papers in the other.

katherine prays he doesn’t recognize her, but he catches her eyes and winks, and she knows he does.

katherine jumps out of her chair, backing away. she doesn’t care how her behaviour seems to parr right now, all she cares about is getting as far away from mannox as possible.

“parr, i would like to leave,” she says, quietly and evenly, taking all her restraint not to scream or cry. parr looks incredibly concerned, glancing between mannox and katherine, clearly sensing katherine’s discomfort.

“is everything okay, lady katherine?” she asks. mannox waves a hand.

“i’m sure lady katherine is just nervous.”

“don’t,” katherine practically hisses. she doesn’t wait for permission, instead running from the room as fast as she can. months ago, perhaps, she might have stayed out of fear, but now she has someone who understands what she’s been through and won’t make her go back there with him.

katherine bursts into jane’s bedchamber with a clatter, surprising the queen.

“kat? what’s the matter?” jane takes a second look at katherine and her face drops immediately, seeing the distraught look on katherine’s features. “oh, love, come here.” she opens her arms and katherine flies into them, clinging to jane as tightly as she can.

“he- it’s him-” she manages to get out before bursting into tears, no longer needing to hold them in while jane is here. jane’s heart sinks as katherine’s words dawn on her; there were only a few people katherine would refer to as ‘him’, and none of them were good news.

parr was dumbfounded. katherine's reaction to mannox was visceral and nearly painful to watch. would her colleagues really have recommended someone that...bad?

she decides to follow katherine to the only logical place she could be going. mannox follows, and parr can't tell him no. maybe if katherine is properly introduced to him, then all will be well.

they enter the queen's chambers to find katherine holding onto jane like a lifeline. jane sees them enter.

"your majesty," parr starts, hesitance evident in her normally confident voice, "i did not intend to upset lady katherine. my associates recommended mister mannox here as a music tutor, and-"

jane doesn't hear the rest of parr's explanation. mannox is an instant trigger in her head, aided by katherine's increased trembling in her arms. she remembers a vague story of tiny eleven year old katherine and thirty six year old mannox and her face hardens.

"mister mannox," she begins with the regality of a queen, "i request you leave the premises at once."

mannox gives a low bow in an attempt to cover up his sliminess with a veneer of courtesy. “your majesty, i don’t know what you have been told, but-”

“mister mannox,” jane repeats, even firmer this time. “you will leave the premises right now, or I will have you escorted out by my guards.” she holds katherine even tighter, letting the girl cling to her and sob desperately into her shoulder. “i will not repeat myself again.”

parr realises there’s something more going on here, something she wasn’t aware of before, and she feels absolutely terrible to have played a part in it, no matter how unwittingly.

"your majesty," mannox tries to appeal again, "i don't entirely know what you were told by little kat-"

"don't you dare," jane absolutely seethes, "address the ward of the queen in such a way." she fixes him with a glare most murderous and then looks to parr. "if you wouldn't mind finding a few guards on patrol, lady parr, i think mister mannox here has some trouble with which way the door is," she says, voice sickly sweet and deadly sarcastic.

parr nods and steps into the hall. the absence of one more person causes katherine to cling to jane tighter. her hand finds the back of katherine's neck, teasing some of the hairs in what jane has found to be one of her most soothing measures.

"mister mannox," she says again, "you are very lucky that i am not trying you for what i know you have done to my ward. but if you ever step back on the land of any single royal property, i will ensure you are prosecuted to the fullest extent of our laws."

mannox’s face twists into a kind of snarl, but before he can say or do anything parr arrives, followed by two guards.

“escort this man off the premises immediately,” jane says coldly. “and make sure to it that everyone knows he is not to be permitted back.” the guards nod and take hold of mannox’s arms, pulling him roughly from the room. the door closes behind them, leaving jane, katherine and parr in silence.

katherine doesn’t let go of jane, even now, but her breathing evens out slightly now that mannox had been removed. jane continues to soothe her gently, whispering soft reassurances to her. parr hovers awkwardly near the doorway, unsure of what to do.

jane holds her close, katherine hiding her tear-stained face in the crook of jane's neck. it feels like forever before jane's quiet words and slow ministrations to her hair are enough to lower her heart rate back to where it should be.

"let me say," parr begins quickly, hands nervously fiddling with the material of her dress, "how incredibly sorry i am about whatever i just caused." she gulps. "i didn't know anything about him or his past, and i deeply regret not having done more research before bringing him in." in a bold move, she steps forward and puts a very light hand on katherine's shoulder. "i am very, very sorry, lady katherine."

katherine flinches ever so slightly and parr immediately drops her hand, looking regretful.

“i understand if you wish to remove me from my post,” she says quietly. “i failed in my duty of care, and for that i will never forgive myself.” she turns away, making her way to the door. “i shall collect my things and escort myself out.”

she’s halfway towards the door when a very quiet croak of a voice reaches her ears.

“don’t go.”

parr turns around to see that katherine had shifted slightly. she was still clinging to jane, but her head had turned to face her at a slightly awkward angle. katherine’s eyes were red and her cheeks tearstained, but she held parr’s gaze surprisingly firmly.

“please, i- i don’t want you to leave.”

parr’s gaze flits from katherine to jane, who is strangely silent. she seems to be letting katherine make the decision entirely, and considering what parr knew about jane, it was very likely this was the case.

parr nods once, hesitantly. "if that's what you wish, lady katherine."

katherine looks at her again, eyes red yet surprisingly tender. "please."

parr gives a small half-smile. "of course i will stay here, lady katherine." she looks to jane, who gives the solemnest and tiniest nod. "i won't leave, as long as you'd like me here."

katherine's lips twitch upward before she turns back to jane, letting the woman hold her, fingers lightly stroking up and down her back.

"i've got you, kitty-kat," jane murmurs very quietly. she kisses her temple. "mum's got you."

parr feels as if she’s intruding on the moment, but she stands dutifully as she was asked as jane reassures katherine. after a long while they finally break apart and jane retrieves a handkerchief, gently wiping away the tear tracks from katherine’s face. when she’s finished she places a quick kiss on the tip of katherine’s nose which makes the girl giggle slightly, even with her voice still hoarse from tears.

there was a rather large elephant in the room; parr, of course, didn’t know why anything had just happened, and she honestly wasn’t sure if she was going to get an answer. she certainly wasn’t going to pry into their business if katherine and jane didn’t want to tell her.

jane is immensely relieved when katherine calms down without too much more of an incident. katherine’s episodes of panic could be violent and destructive, no matter what jane did to help. but she knows that katherine knows, deep down, that she will never have to go with men like mannox again, and none of the will be able to hurt her. not while jane is around.

jane catches parr lingering by the door, feeling very out of place, and leans in close to katherine. “you’re under no obligation to explain, love,” jane says seriously. “it’s completely up to you what you want to do.” she turns her head slightly to kiss katherine’s cheek. “i’m with you always, kitty-kat.”

katherine nods silently, voice not quite recovered yet. she’s exhausted from such intense emotions of fear and then sudden relief, and she doesn’t quite want to let go of jane just yet. jane seems to realise this and sits down on the couch, gently pulling katherine with her. katherine curls up, almost on jane’s lap, as jane keeps holding her and playing softly with her hair. katherine turns slightly to look at parr.

“could-” her voice is hoarse and croaky, and she coughs to clear it. “could you sit down, please?” she rests her head against jane’s shoulder as parr hurried over to sit down on the chair opposite, her normally calm demeanour not having returned quite yet.

katherine looks ashen, very shaken up, and emotionally drained. kat asks herself if this is really the right way to go about this, but she does it anyway. the quick version, at least.

“before i started working here,” she starts, voice thick and heavy with clinging-on emotion and rasp. “when i was much younger, mannox was my teacher.” she coughs and continues. “he didn’t teach me much music, he was more focused on...” she shudders a bit, and jane strokes over her hair again, “...other things.”

parr’s face fell into confusion, then almost instantly into utter horror. “oh.” the word is spoken barely as a exhale of breath. katherine weakly nods her head.

katherine can’t say any more, can’t bring herself to go into any more detail, but she doesn’t need to. parr’s look of absolute heartbreak shows she’s understood every word.

“lady katherine,” she says, voice laden with sorrow. “i am so, so sorry. i should never have brought him here, and i will never do anything of the sort again.”

katherine is too emotionally drained to reply properly, but she can tell from parr’s compassionate eyes that she believes her story and actually doesn’t blame her. it’s strange, she thinks, to go her whole life without a single person who didn’t blame her, and now she has apparently found not just one, but two.

[theskyexists]

she-ra season 3

i LOVE scorpia

this show has a bit of tonal issue in my opinion. they keep going back to a very teen-parent relationship between the trio and mum - when there’s a terrible war on.

people get killed but generally it really does just feel presented like a game or a fight about curfew and sometimes thats a bit jarring. (or is it strange to expect the graveness of situations to bring out a quality of sincerity even during puberty?)

i don’t really understand why Adora would jump to the conclusion that Shadoweaver showing up means she’s changed

but Adora, you ARE stupid. lol

but the rest is too. ‘don’t listen to her Adora’ why not? is it so terrible to be from another world? the stakes are quite murky

Entrapta’s comments really go to show how shit of a leader Hordak really is. HOw the hell did he manage to create this empire when he’s so damn incompetent? OOOHHHHHH CATRA SAID IT!!! just after i wrote that sentence she SAID IT

Hordak is an idiotic beserker

so why didn’t they take their unicorn flying steed?

‘well yeah - but you said that while saving us - so - you can’t be all bad. what do ya say’

i love the voice actor for Adora lolololol. she is clearly having SO much fun.

and Adora has a small crush on Huntara and absolutely ruins her chances with the barmaid by popping up. totally did not expect that voice for Huntara tho

entraptak is.....real. wtf. it’s.....cute. Hordak is just trying to be Prime. Failing at it miserably, lashing out. jfc it’s an endless cycle  isn’t it.

‘know about she-ra? ahahahaha! I AM she-ra!’ THAT WAS BADASS. i love it when Adora is being rowdy and cocky

oh wow reversed chin-tilt with sword, and then lifting her head and soulful look? She-Ra really has chemistry with ALL the Princesses.

I LOVE scorpia. i loved that moment when Catra pushed her away nobly - i love how Catra has plausible deniability to herself. Love how the narrative reinforces that Catra is literally the most competent person around etc. (if they could get her for the Rebellion it would be over and out but hey)

surely Mara cut Aetheria off to save it from Hord-Prime’s war? Light-Hope wanted She-Ra to join the other She-Ra’s (’this world’s she-ra’) in the battle but she decided to hide the world and people she loved, breaking most of the magic-tech system. What I don’t understand is - the First Ones lived on Aetheria, but the people that populate it now are a different quality of organics, they can only survive in a specific atmosphere. The princesses are living components in the balancing of the tech-magic system...what are the people of the world? We don’t realise this most of the time, but all of them except for princesses, are animal-humanoids (and...kyle.....). What does this mean? Did the animal life unintentionally evolve? Were they an underclass - simply part of the system? (seems too edgy for this show).

‘why was i taken from my family? why was i forced to become a soldier?’ this line was GOOD

yesss!!! Mara! i love her already.

Scorpia is blushing lol. I am also liking Catra being completely off her shits careless and powerful.

Catra and Scorpia bonding yesssss!!!

ohhhhhHHH the magic of the planet is something of Aetheria itself! the tech is just latched on??? First Ones were colonisers (’settlers’)! but AETHERIA is what’s dangerous to the rest of the universe!!! (because it can be used as a weapon??) probably Aetheria would die as a result?

‘maybe it’s been a week, maybe it’s been thousands of years’ that is so fuckin sad

Catra being so hung up on acknowledgement is her greatest tragedy.

wow Scorpia really proposed a super cool thing and it could rearrange Catra’s WORLD

I want this show to stop repeating the same cycle after this last one time of Catra going: WAAAAHHH Adora made my life so hard now im going to do something inadvisable that might destroy us all as payback

Adora’s greatest tragedy is that she’s so self-centred that she doesn’t understand Catra at all.

if they have Angella and Glimmer fight and then have her mum die before they’ve made up i’ll be very upset (i’m not really loving Glimmer and Bow in this so far - they’re toeing the edge of annoying). and the fights about having to have plans and fighting or not fighting due to the fear of losing people - that’s always been uhhhh - well they always got away safe with shit plans and i just really don’t think that they’re meshing the commander-queen and daughter-mother stuff well. because there’s literally NO ONE ELSE in charge. there’s some magical queen and some villagers and a barely present guard. where’s the court, the advisors, anybody??

it would be silly to trust Shadoweaver (she did mercilessly torture you - no psychological effects from that stupidly enough), but i am hard-pressed to think of a reason she’d betray them.

still don’t understand how Frosta went from icy, frosty queen to idk a kid. i mean she can be both, but it was weird to see no uhhhh connection at all

I think this show is about how every single character is held back by their inability to grow and grow closer to others. Glimmer has disobeyed Angella SO often, why is she surprised at all? Why can’t she be honest and say: I am afraid! I am afraid I will lose you! I am afraid of that pain and I want you to take the risks seriously, to plan for them. I want to protect you!

That Glimmer would work with her torturer is of course a ridiculous notion. that is to say - if that kind of thing was properly given weight.

why fight Catra??? Why not just teleport to Hordak’s inner sanctum?? it’s stupid. why waste all the damn power

glad entrapta finally heard from Adora that she didn’t mean to leave her behind though.

‘you can’t fight them they’re too strong!’ ?? Glimmer just got sucked dry tho? like what. the way this show always postpones its fights on shitty pretexts is ....acceptable but pretty roll-eye-y

Catra burning all her bridges.

“there’s no choice” fucking bullshit, just teleport lol.

lol Catra feeds the anti-princess propaganda right back to Hordak. that’s poetic but jfc i really hope next season is going to be a little less *shuffles deck, cards end up in a million different hands, literally all cards feel betrayed*

so catra is willing to pull the annihilation switch on the universe just to one-up Adora just this once LOLLLL. if only somebody hadn’t ingrained a deeply seated inferiority complex in this cat

anyway i want her to feel the consequences of all that for a change

that animation on everything going VWWWWWWOOOOOOMM darkness was awesome

OHHHH the next episode has an awesome premise.

can i just say that i LOVE this episode. it’s so damn creepy and cool and kind of nostalgic. and i LOVE that it’s Scorpia and Adora who are remembering things - the ones closest to Catra. AND THEN THEY BOND!!!! and hold hands!!!!

reliving the betrayals. love the way the memories hit people, the way Catra goes from her old self, their playfulness, their casual violence ratcheting up at each other because that’s how they’ve been trained - to defend themselves, and then - the true Catra, the hysteria, gone so far off the deep-end. “i’d rather let the whole world be destroyed than let you win.” geeze that’s rooted deep.

angella and mica are so cuteeee. but angella really hasn’t changed has she? no tolerance for difficulty. she honestly is a bit of a shit queen. thought that was bc of grief and trauma but eh

he puts a truth spell on her but then he doesn’t believe her? does he think she’s crazy?

don’t think i’ve ever shipped something as hard in this show as Mica/Angella. i just LOVE royal woman x good man apparently. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. god why didn’t she kiss him on the lips>????

oh SHIT, MARA IS STILL TRAPPED INSIDE THE PORTAL LIKE ENTRAPTA SAID - THAT’S WHY SHE SAID: HAS IT BEEN A DAY OR THOUSANDS OF YEARS?

so...is there a reason that Angella is not faded?

wow that speech about bravery and cowardice. she truly. TRULY, ok they made something of her. I HATE losing Angella because the voice acting is INCREDIBLE. but that was actually an amazing end. (and she got to see Mica for the last time, at least)

ok so if i lost my mum forever i would be SCREAMING in pain but i guess these itsy bitsy tears from Glimmer will do?

that look of pure determination and anger and mercilessness in Adora’s eyes at Catra? nice. wish Catra didn’t go into a sulk at it but kept her goddamn FEAR (Adora was totally right, she vanquished another demon from her past - everything Catra did, she CHOSE to do. and her keeping on blaming others is simply - cowardice)

[booasaur]

I started watching in the dark and proven innocent Bc of your gifsets and I'm actually enjoying both so far, but I feel like both are gonna blow up on me eventually lol. In the dark Bc it's the CW so that's on brand, and proven innocent Bc it really does have an ominous thread to it. Maybe Bc I'm in shock that a show has a bi lead in a same sex relationship and she's actually the main character and it seems too good to be true?? Plus the premise of the show?? But I already love Wren...

Oh, because of my gifsets? I’m flattered! But this is why I never actually straight up recommend the shows I gif, you just never know!

Actually, in the case of In the Dark, it feels rather not like a typical CW show? Not that that helps, in this case, that might actually be worse. But in terms of what’s on brand for the CW, the worst their f/f rep has suffered since 2016 (when they learned a LESSON) is poor screentime and lack of focus. No death and none of the especially offensive tropes. We can never be sure that might not change, maybe they (like other shows recently) will decide three years was enough of a moratorium, but I don’t fear a f/f death on the CW any more than any other network. And the ship here is so background, I don’t really see them getting much drama.

Proven Innocent is a very weird case. Like you, I am bewildered by how oddly central the f/f is. But at the same time, they do seem to minimize Wren herself. It’s almost as if Maddie having a gf is more important than the gf herself. But then other times they do focus on them together and her relationship with Wren kinda needs Wren to be present. It’s ominous, I think, because it’s such an earnest show that tries to cover such difficult topics and for them to matter, the stakes have to be high, so there’s no happy ending waiting.

But I don’t regret starting or watching them. I didn’t actually know there was going to be f/f in either when I started, which helps loads, watching a show for its own sake and not f/f, but also, I didn’t do anything wrong by expecting the shows to behave decently. If they mess up that’s on them. 

Like, your question made me think about The Purge and Star, from which I giffed f/f that later went south. And looking back now, it’s easy to say, how did I expect them to be better, but I’ve really come to dislike how we put the blame on ourselves, “Why’d, I get into this? I should have known better, it’s my fault really”. As the stories were happening, they really did sell these pining, romantic ships. Not perfect, there was cheating and angst, but it was The Purge and Star, that’s just everything was. And then what went wrong wasn’t because of the cheating or angst, they just abruptly and with terrible writing, ended them. That’s on them. 

I can’t just not watch everything in case it goes bad, then I’d watch nothing. And right after The Purge and Star, I got into a pretty goshdarn great ship, and I’d have missed a lot of the fun of watching a story unfold live if I’d waited to make sure it was “safe”. And even when I’m tentative about things, like I was with Will & Grace (and both these shows you mentioned, tbh), I’d still rather watch live and get at least some enjoyment before there’s nothing left to enjoy.

That’s me, anyway. I fully get that other people have other approaches and maybe for you, the comfort of knowing the fault is on the writers isn’t enough. I’ll keep giffing, in that case, and will let you know if a season ended in a good place. :P

[kabutoraiger]

usually i type up “final thoughts” posts like, immediately after i finish a show. usually i’ve already made up my mind about how i feel, i guess. but kr build is... a tough one to wrap my head around.

i went into build needing it to be really good. for me personally, rider hasn’t been truly great since fourze. i’ve definitely liked certain seasons in between. but i haven’t loved them. and so this was me kinda placing all my hopes on this 1 show to tell me that rider still had the potential to be incredible.

and... it was, in some ways. mainly in terms of character - it’s been a while since i’ve loved a main rider OR a secondary as much as i love our best match boys. their relationship is something i hadn’t realized how much we’d been missing in this franchise. we hadn’t had that powerful main/secondary romance fated connection since... decade, i guess, and nothing quite like ryuga & sento since kagami & tendou. even then, there’s only so far i can take that comparison. bc ryusen really is pretty incomparable to the rest of heisei rider relationships. build has a lot of showa leanings but it’s the main duo that reminds me the most of the olden days.

i mean tell me this isn’t some build lads dialogue right here:

and the rest of the cast has so many other standouts - sawa, who despite being severely underutilized is still wildly interesting and unlike any lady in rider in the past few years. gentoku and his several weird phases each of them iconic in their own way. evolt, who entertained me more than any central villain in rider ever has. (thank you papa dan the capitalist man for paving the road for more genuinely fun big bads. your contribution was invaluable)

soichi. though why i love him so much i’ll get into in a moment.

the way the relationships & connections are woven together in build is astonishing to me. the way misora’s childhood interests informed the fullbottles (ok, sure, a lot of That was half-assed as far as explanations go, but on the base level there are some affecting ideas in there). the way the best match ft. her favorite animal then named sento. the way sento & ryuga were seemingly destined to meet from early on. the way sento was built by evolt, and the way that was all slowly erased as he was rebuilt by people who loved him. the way evolt’s manipulation of his “proteges” so to speak mirrors nanba and his “children.” all these themes of being put on a preset path by some dark or terrible power or person, and having to fight to free yourself from it.

there are so many beautifully complex things going on in build. the ties into real world politics. the way the pandora box doesn’t turn people berserker violent but instead makes them lose their human empathy, makes them scheming and cruel. gives them imperialist notions of the ultimate satisfaction being war and conquest. the blatant “here, see for yourself, kids” about why wars happen - not for the greater good but because people in power want them to - and how innocent people will always get caught in the crossfire and be turned into little more than weapons to be disposed of at someone’s whim.

there is so much happening in build.

there is too much happening in build.

in the end, it throws so much at the screen that it was never all going to stick. you could make entire shows out of minor parts of kr build. the nanba children, ryuga’s origins, vernage and the dead civilization of fcking mars!! these could all be entire premises on their own. in build, these things are almost an afterthought. it’s dizzying, at best. frustrating, at worst. even moreso when you consider that clearly mr muto needed to burn time somehow before the endgame, which is the only explanation i can come up with for the collecting lost bottles nonsense and all that ungodly boring shit with sento’s dad.

how do you look at this show you’ve made, which has about 50 incredibly interesting ideas too many, and decide to ignore all of those in favor of dad drama, toku’s favorite dull as dirt oft-recycled plot concept? it’s mind boggling to me. and to think that time could’ve been spent deepening characters & relationships, too. letting sawa talk to utsumi. doing Anything with utsumi to establish some kind of consistent personality, to make us actually care when he’s revealed to have technically died in the human sense and had his free will stripped from him many episodes prior. letting misora & kazumi have a normal goddamn conversation for once. treating misora as a person with wants of her own and not just a cute little prop to stand around and cry over others.

letting soichi wake the fuck up!!

the intriguing tragedy of soichi is something that i kept hoping and wishing that build might address. being trapped inside your own body for a decade, watching someone pose as you, and with such a spot-on impression that no one notices at all. the helplessness, knowing that this entity is plotting something terrible for everyone on earth and just. not being able to do a thing about it. but the emotions most of all - what did he feel for sento & ryuga & sawa while he was trapped? was it real, if he had no say in it, if he could hear them but they couldn’t hear him? and what did he really feel towards evolt, his only actual 2-sided conversation partner for 10 whole years? how well did he know him? what wild knowledge of evolt’s weaknesses could he have imparted if he’d just WOKEN UP!!

and now, with the ending, it’s like it never happened at all. i suppose the idea going around is that someday they might remember. but that’s just... so nebulous. it’s not a merge of worlds if one is just gone. i’d hoped so much that certain outcomes might have carried over, just with different causes. gentoku’s father still being dead, for example. in the new world he wouldn’t have been killed by evolt but instead in, say, a political assassination.

it just all feels too simple. all that pain and strife just wiped away. maybe it’s hypocritical to complain about this as a ryuki fan, but. in ryuki, resets were established as a thing that could happen. and via the setup of the rider battle, what other option was there to end the series satisfactorily?

here in build, we were told that the worlds would combine, and that evolt would never have existed. but evolt was not the singular source of villainy in all the universe. this show which took so many thought-provoking risks early on is now apparently telling me that in a world without evolt, humanity is totally at peace. nanba was never affected by the pandora box’s light. he was just goddamn evil, because sometimes people are. i loved that about his portrayal. in a world with no war to profit off of, this man should by all accounts probably be trying to start one himself.

but that’s not the world we see in the final ep of build. instead, everyone is simply normal and happy, the terrible things that shaped them in another reality seemingly having never occurred at all, even the things (re: nanba children) that by all accounts still should have.

it’s a disappointment. it feels like the easy way out.

but at the same time holy shit that ryuga & sento romance ending and the idea of the others even just potentially getting their memories back is like my IDEAL tropey shit i am so into that stuff oh my god dude!!! i cried so fucking hard just thinking about it!!

... so. yeah. conflicted might be the word for all of this.

i wish build had been better. i’m not sure what exactly happened, in that 2nd half. rewrites, i guess? the command that it now had to be compliant with the setting of the next rider, and so whoops time to do a little reality smushing & for some reason throw out all the other plot points? demands to toss in even more fucking merch like it didn’t have enough collectibles and upgrades already, good lord, even kids can’t possibly keep up with toy schedules like this, can they, like by the time you convince your parents to buy you [x] it’s already goddamn obsolete in the show --

but it’s hard to deny that build affected me in a big way. i got tired of it, near the end. but i’m glad i watched it all the way through. and i’ll never forget the absolute euphoria i felt watching, like, ep 12 to ep 30 or so. that stretch was a highlight of this entire franchise for me. it was like i was watching something made specifically for me. it was beautiful.

beautiful just like the suits in this show. damn. 

if only sawa had gotten one.

[gurguliare]

If you're still in the mood, and if you haven't done him already, could you do túrin? Or Barahir, if you've already done Túrin/ if you'd rather!

HM okay I’ll do Barahir because I’m not sure I have the wherewithal for Turin at the moment

1-3 things I enjoy about them

Second son untimely promoted

I think literally every day about the lost tales version where he’s named Aegnor

idk sometimes I forget that “stay and defend a nuclear waste zone” was not actually Beren’s idea bc he took it to SUCH A DELIGHTFUL, LOGICAL EXTREME but Barahir is a fun dude, I like how he entrusted his preternaturally quiet 20yo son with key spying missions

Something interesting about them based on tenuous circumstantial evidence

idk I love that we get Barahir’s whole… compressed leadership arc in the background of, well, the ruin of Beleriand and the fall of Fingolfin; to me it’s one of the most cinematic uses of the interleaved relative timescales in the Silm, where it’s simultaneously like, one long, miserable battle, fluidly falling out from the eruption, the evacuations, etc., and also: Barahir inherits. Barahir receives Finrod’s oath. Barahir takes up the lordship of his house and almost simultaneously directs his people into exile, while resolving himself to remain. He recruits where he can. Fingolfin dies dueling Morgoth in a thunderous, operatic play-by-play, and the thing we come right back to is Barahir scrounging for some decisions in the newly-minted Forest under Nightshade. His band dwindles, his people escape, and if he half-expected reinforcements and a turn in the tide of the war, some kind of repayment for his incredibly additive sacrifices to date, then instead he gets the exact opposite of that—this unbelievable encroaching poison. It’s a lifetime in a couple of years, or at least a reign. This isn’t, like, an observation based on circumstantial evidence, I guess I should have put it under things I enjoy, but like, Barahir is not—Barahir is one character for whom the events of that chapter aren’t simply or manifestly hopeless, Barahir is like…. making tough calls while under the impression that there’s a future to plan against, and that’s interesting. It’s like having someone else’s version of the Darkening of Valinor happen in the background of Dagor Bragollach; for the Beorians, this is a kind of a first instantiating cataclysm of their lives in the west, obviously there was the terrible journey but (as with the Amanyar) I think that’s sort of faded out of immediate-immediate memory at this point, right, and besides was premised on the idea that this was going to be better, or at least different. So then darkness, fire, refuge, flight, and finally the bitter realization of the sheer extent of their betrayal, how utterly they’ve been failed by the land itself, all in a very different open space from that of say, the Noldor, who have been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s great. I really love this chapter.

Also like, to be clear, I’m not arguing for this as the 1-1 equivalent of what happened in Valinor, part of what’s interesting about humans vs elves is like—humans carry it right through! if the Helcaraxe was terrible, how much moreso the whittling-down in Dorthonion; and Beren as the endpoint of that doesn’t find a new country to settle and a new purpose in battle, he’s thrown straight from [hideous trials made endurable by pride + grief] into the dream sequence of the various quests, and then again into death, without any delay—I don’t necessarily count the interludes with L��thien because that’s more like, regenerating the faculties he even needs to live, you know, rather than gaining some kind of established footing or time in which to prevaricate. It’s a very different destruction-for-renewal narrative from the Noldor’s in a lot of ways. But like w an echo.

Hmm do you think while Barahir was courting Emeldir he used to run into Andreth at Emeldir’s grandparents’ house and not. quite. understand why she was there. sitting by the fire, at noon, with the drapes shut. but he was too afraid to ask

A question I have about them

What did Beren do with his hand. Bet he wished he’d kept that

A random relevant line I like

~Their bedwas the heather and their roof the cloudy sky~

My preferred version, if there is more than one version of their story (or part of their story)

Im not saying Beren as Andreth and Aegnor’s secret baby is GOOD im just saying it’s FUNNY,

Favorite relationship(s)

Beren, Emeldir, Finrod, Gorlim, GRANDPARENTS IN LAW ADANEL AND BELEMIR no idk

Reaction to Tom Bombadil

“help” and then Tom Bombadil helps but his influence only extends to the blessed outskirts of Aeluin’s domain which is where they live anyway so like, thanks, Tom

[daily-yoificrec]

June 2017 Rec Roundup

Top ten list for fics that were updated/posted in the month of June that I recommended! I say top ten, but they’re listed in no particular order. 

Bc I’m so busy, I chose to post w/o additional comments. but all of these fics are ones I highly recommend as must-reads, and even ones that are wips you should def give a try. 

1. if this be error by alykapedia || Rated T, 7.8k (WIP)

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d

Yuuri Katsuki wants nothing more than to retire back to the country and busy his days with managing his family’s declining finances. At twenty-three, he is facing his fifth season in society unmated and with no prospects in sight.

At least until Lord Viktor Nikiforov makes him an offer he would be foolish to refuse.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that an unmated omega in possession of a not-inconsiderable dowry, is in want of an alpha.”

JFALKJDA;FJS;LA THE PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ECHOES. This isn’t a p&p au though, it’s a regency au, but still that first line had me right away. This has an absolutely delightful beginning, with background offered and hints of worldbuilding throughout. The interactions are lovely, the setup is lovely and just

just

♡✧( ु•⌄• ) super duper fucking recommended wip to follow

just read it oh my god (⌯⌅⌄⌅)

2. boy next door by wingchestr || Rated E, 4.8k

“Hi, welcome to the Green Bean,” Yuuri says, in the way that’s become something of a joke between them. “What can I get for you today?”

In which Viktor buys way too much coffee from the cute barista at the coffeeshop on the corner, and Yuuri has a terrible crush that Viktor never, ever needs to know about, and somehow it all works out in the end.

Really cute a/b/o and coffeeshop au! The author’s other fics are amazing, so I have really high expectations for this one. Yuuri and Victor have great chemistry.

3. What it feels like to be Loved series by tothebatcave53 || Rated M, 19.4k

Being blinded by love isn’t a bad thing, unless it blinds Victor to all of Yuuri’s less than subtle hints about being a dragon.

Comment: I love!!!! This series!!!!!!!! Really funny and really fun to read, with touches of worldbuilding and wonderful interactions between Yuuri and Victor. I reread the entire thing when I saw the fourth part go up. Magic realism is great, dragons are fuckin A, and I’m very weak for the idea of Yuuri hoarding Victor. The affection is just wonderful.

Heck. Read it please.

4. can’t count the years by counterheist || Rated T, 4.8k

A local magazine features Mila’s as the best breakfast spot in town one year after it opens. The opposite page is devoted to a pie shop Mila has heard of, but never been to. Easy as Pie gets a paragraph of text and three photographs. One shot is a slice of blueberry pie, another is of hands kneading dough. The last one is of a woman with long, dark hair and olive-toned skin holding an armful of large blue ribbons. Sara Crispino, the caption reads, owner and baker at Easy as Pie holds all six of her National Pie Competition blue ribbons.

Mila drives over the same day she sees the article, as soon as the breakfast rush ends.

Pls read this if you love saramila bc it’s so good and there aren’t nearly enough saramila fics in this fandom. There’s also side vicyuu! But seriously, read this for diner owner Mila and pie master Sara. I really love the dynamics built between everyone, especially Mila and Victor’s friendship.

5. learn to love the skies I’m under by LinneaKou || Rated M, 11.3k (WIP)

The day after the Sochi GPF banquet, Katsuki Yuuri disappears without a trace.

The day after the Sochi GPF banquet, Viktor Nikiforov finds a stray poodle and takes it home with him.

These two events are, oddly enough, connected.

Comment: Sadder than one would expect. The premise isn’t unfamiliar, as it’s inspired by another fic (which the author lists, and I’ve read) but the author still executes it really well. Expect feelings when you read this, no matter how soft some things may seem.

6. kiss and cry in the corners of my castle by unexpectedtrash || Rated G, 6k (WIP)

Yuuri only wanted to go back home to Hasetsu, where the ocean was warm and life was mundane and comfortable. Take it back, he wanted to beg. I never asked for this gift. Magic was a double-edged sword, and with Voldemort advancing, Yuuri wants to turn tail and run.

Only, Yuri might have a thing or two to say about that.

Comment: There are A Lot of Hogwarts AUs, but this one is setduring the events of the Harry Potter books themselves, and I love how it’s kicked off. Slytherin Yuuri vs. Umbridge, Angry Badger Yuri Plisetsky, and this makes me very excited about how they’re going to integrate the characters with the story.

7.Night is Young and the Music’s High by opalish || Rated T, 3k

“Best press conference ever,” the Japanese Nationals silver medalist says when asked. “Ten out of ten, would medal again.”

“I would die for Katsuki-kun,” Minami declares, with terrifying sincerity.

“He doesn’t need a shovel talk, he needs another gold medal. And that’s something I never thought anyone would say about Victor Freaking Nikiforov.“

“Freakingevich,” Yuuri corrects him officiously, adjusting his glasses. He’s been studying.

And:

“Well, it won’t affect me,” Victor says dramatically. “Not when I’m just Breakdancing Sensation Yuuri Nikiforov-Katsuki’s unnamed but spectacularly beautiful husband.”

“You’d better be Figure Skating Legend Yuuri Nikiforov-Katsuki’s unnamed but spectacularly beautiful husband,” Yuuri mutters, vowing to never dance in public ever again.

Beautiful hilarious characterization, dialogue that has me cackling, just in general this fic has me throwing it as a rec to various group chats as well.

Ten out of ten, would read again. 

*zooms off to do just that*  ≡ = -└( 。 >ω<)┐

8. a covenant with a bright blazing star series by seventhstar

The A/B/O Regency marriage of convenience AU no one actually wanted.

In which the reclusive and highly respectable Lord Yuuri Katsuki is offered fifty thousand pounds if he remains married to poor, scandalous trademan’s son Viktor Nikiforov for a year. Desperate for funds, he accepts.

It’s only one year, after all. What’s the worst that could happen?

comment: I am, admittedly, slightly confused as we still don’t have the background yet but so far this series is great omg. The vicyuu relationship promises to be great, the Pride and Prejudice influences make me bounce excitedly, and this is certainly a series to stalk if you don’t mind A/B/O fics.

Pride and Prejudice influences, people. tryyyyyyyy iiiiiiiit

9.  Driving Mr. Katsuki by CullinanKatsudon || Rated M, 13k (WIP)

Yuuri Katsuki gets into Victor Nikiforov’s car, mistaking it for his Uber ride…and Victor doesn’t correct him.

Comment: Oh my god this au and this fic are ridiculous but holy hell, the author has me fuckin invested as yell. I’ve laughed and pitied Yuuri and facepalmed at Victor and this fic is just a ride. Super duper fucking recommend, it’s hilarious and brilliant and I just. I laughed so hard.

10. cancel your reservations by renaissance ||  Rated T, 5.4k

Yuuri is a college student conducting private fencing lessons for a handsome, rich, and mysterious student. Viktor is not learning to fence because he does medieval reenactments.

ak;ljdskafl;jsa; I saw this prompt floating around only a few days ago, and the author’s executed it so damn well. Yuuri and Victor hit it off amazingly, Yuuri is amazingly oblivious to something other than Victor’s romantic overtures for once, and this is 10/10 recommend would read again.

[pea-green]

July’s books!! There’s a whole bunch because I’ve been travelling a lot this month and I get like 80% of my reading done on trains. 

This month: We Go Around in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire by Jules Grant, The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson, Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, Fair Play by Tove Jansson, and Birdbox by Josh Malerman. 

We Go Around in the Night and Are Consumed by Fire follows Mancunian lesbian gangster Donna and not to be hyperbolic but I love her and literally everything she says and does is Iconic:

A tragedy forces Donna to take in the book’s other protagonist, her 10-year-old goddaughter Ror, and the scenes where emotionally repressed Donna tries her best to do right by Ror (who thinks the world of her) are easily the best in the book. Women supporting women is a dynamic curiously absent from a lot of wlw books but is 100% present here; the network of northern lesbians, from the mean streets to upper society is wonderful to read. There aren’t many contemporary lesbian-themed books set in the UK, and I loved the style and language - the novel doesn’t use any speech marks which I’ve never seen before but worked perfectly. It’s a dark read, but I really, really recommend this one.

The Crime Writer is essentially Patricia Highsmith RPF. Before I read this book, the only things I knew about PH were 1. she was gay, 2. she wrote Carol, and 3. she was weirdly into snails. All three of those things feature quite heavily in this book, although it’s way, way less whimsical than whatever you’re imagining. Patricia is extremely messed up; all her relationships (with parents, friends and lovers) are in shambles, and while she’s definitely not the most sympathetic protagonist ever written, her slow unravelling is just the right amount of disturbing to be enjoyable. I mean, it’s about a vintage lesbian, I was always going to enjoy it, and there’s praise from Sarah Waters on the back cover - although I wonder if Waters thought certain bits of the plot were extremely similar to The Paying Guests (because I really did). 

I read a friend’s copy of Annie on My Mind years ago and, like a lot of people born in the late 80′s/early 90′s, it was the first LGBT-themed YA book I ever read. I’m really glad I reread it because it’s told retrospectively, and the beginning is more powerful when you know what’s going to happen, and while it’s definitely dated and full of what look like cliches today, the impact it’s had on gay-themed YA books that came after is obvious. It also has one of my all-time favourite scenes which still hits me straight in the heart: 

I went downstairs to Dad’s encyclopedia and looked up HOMOSEXUALITY, but that didn’t tell me much about any of the things I felt. What struck me most, though, was that, in the whole long article, the word “love” wasn’t used even once. That made me mad; it was as if whoever wrote the article didn’t know that gay people actually love each other. The encyclopedia writers ought to talk to me, I thought as I went back to bed; I could tell them something about love. 

I’d also forgotten how sweet the relationship between Liza and Annie is; the life-changing, all-consuming feeling of falling in love for the first time is described perfectly, and I wanted to be cynical about the likelihood of young love like that lasting the ages, but my edition of AOMM had an interview with the author, who is still in a relationship with the girl she fell in love with at high school. Having a much wider reference point for YA lit, I especially appreciated the relationships that Eliza and Annie have with their families (Eliza’s brother especially; why are siblings in lesbian lit always such dicks??), and also I’d like to petition for a book entirely about the amazing lesbian teachers.

Birdbox was recommended by my sister and isn’t gay (bc the only way to get me to read non-gay books is for Gabi to rec them) but I read the whole thing on a ridiculously long train journey and it was a really enjoyable way to pass four hours. It’s a horror/suspense novel set in America 5 years after the sudden appearance of unknown things which, when seen, immediately drive anyone who sets eyes on them to suicide. Society has crumbled and remaining humans live a survivalist existence where they mustn’t ever open their eyes outside of their windowless homes. The execution isn’t on the same level as, say, Stephen King - there were a few really frustrating plotholes and the writing was a little clunky sometimes, but the premise was really interesting and the story gripping enough to read in one sitting.

The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet was recommended by @anormaladdams and I am SO HERE for the socially progressive scifi movement that’s being championed by this and the Imperial Radch series (cute: Ann Leckie is quoted on the cover, calling it “great fun!”). It’s been endlessly likened to a less sexist/racist Firefly, which I think is fair - there is a lot of space-related plot, but all the best scenes are the ragtag band of misfits sharing a spaceship and navigating their relationships with each other. The characters are (nearly) all absolutely lovely, and getting to know them is a joy, but I couldn’t help thinking the narrative jumps around a little too much and might have been an easier read if there had been just two or three POV characters. The book’s a great, fun read in itself (including a wlw relationship! Human/alien relationships aren’t really my bag, but if you like Jenny/Vastra you’ll love this), but there’s a recent sequel in the form of A Closed and Common Orbit which I’ll definitely check out.

I already posted about how my amazing sister got me a signed copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day, but despite being a huge fan of David Sedaris (books and radio), I hadn’t read Talk Pretty before. It’s amazing. I deliberately read it at home rather than on public transport because I figured if it was anything like his other stuff I’d just be cackling away to myself the whole time and it turns out I was absolutely right. Like with his other books, it’s a series of anecdotes which vary from being ridiculously relateable (David being super gay, and also kind of terrible person a lot of the time) to outlandish (I mean, who hasn’t spent 6 months high on crystal meth and living with a man who made a nest out of human hair as an art piece??), but regardless of the subject they’re all brilliant. My favourite - because I used to get dragged along to Gabi’s speech therapy sessions and I suspect why she bought me this particular book - was probably the time he was forced into speech therapy and decided the best way to overcome his lisp was to just avoid the letter S altogether: “plurals presented a considerable problem, but I worked around them as best I could; “rivers”, for example, became either “a river or two” or “many a river”. Possessives were a similar headache, and it was easier to say nothing than to announce that the left-hand and the right-hand glove of Janet had fallen to the floor”.

I picked up Fair Play because it was by Tove Jansson, more famous for The Moomins, and figured that if Ali Smith had written the introduction, it must be gay. It is, but understated doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s a series of vignettes about Mari and Jonna, two artists in their 70′s who live on a tiny Finnish island together. It’s unclear how much of the book is autobiographical, and it’s definitely less cute than, say, Annie on My Mind or other books about girls falling in love for the first time; Mari and Jonna have been together for decades and they argue and compromise and know each other inside out. The theme of Art threads through all of the stories, but I’m a huge philistine and their visions and cerebral discussions didn’t do much for me. (haha they do a lot of sailing about and there are some storms, though, and that definitely did)

[psyclownsis-a-blog]

cyberyond replied to your post

piri i need horror movie recs it's been too long since i saw a good oNE

this ended up becoming Piri’s Ultimate List Of Horror Recs (2017 Version) so i’m putting it under a cut rip

note: this list has trigger warnings but i am operating under the assumption that you are okay with the standard level of explicit sexuality, vulgarity, violence, and gore present in mainstream horror movies

horror

original nightmare on elm street series, but especially 1, 3, 4, 6, and freddy vs. jason (tw for implied pedophilia and explicit child murder, tw for rape in #6)

friday the 13th (original and remake)

honestly all the friday the 13th sequels are A Treasure but if you want The Core Canon watch 1-3

my bloody valentine (original)

psycho (original) and tbh all its sequels (tw for sort-of-kind-of incest vibes)

psycho ii and psycho iv are my favorites because (1) meg tilly is adorable in psycho ii and (2) psycho iv has a harley/norman cameo and nobody can convince me otherwise

child’s play, child’s play 2, bride of chucky, maybe some sequels after that idk i haven’t seen them yet :(

scream franchise

not the mtv scream series

i mean s1 is decent but there are definitely other horror shows that i would recommend more

1-3 are the best, 4 is worth watching if you really like the characters but as a concept the series has p much run its course by then

tw for rape mentions in scream 3

predator

peeping tom

kenneth branagh’s frankenstein (tw for a graphic depiction of death in childbirth)

james whale’s frankenstein

bride of frankenstein

the phantom of the opera (1925)

the phantom of the opera (1989) (tw for a much grosser depiction of the phantom story than the 1925 or 2004 versions; i wanna say all tws are left at implication but i haven’t seen it in a while so i’m not sure)

alien franchise

the wolfman (2010)

darling (tw for rape)

house on haunted hill (original and remake)

final destination franchise

medium raw: night of the wolf (tw for pedophilia and child murder)

the babadook

the final girls [horror comedy]

the shining (tw for implied child abuse)

the cabin in the woods

hellraiser

heathers (tw for eating disorders, suicide, everything high school kids are insensitive assholes about)

from dusk til dawn

an american werewolf in london

the guest

it follows (tw for dubious consent)

nightwatch (tw for implied necrophilia/descriptions of necrophilia, self-mutilation)

re-animator (tw for rape, pedophilia mentions)

carrie (original) (tw for child abuse, religion iconography)

the remake had some interesting like... subtext/imagery but other than that it was pretty *wet fart noise*

the awakening

the craft

the blair witch project

honestly i loved the book of shadows: blair witch 2 bc it kind of parallels the crucible but i can admit that objectively it is Terrible

elvira, mistress of the dark [spooky comedy]*

american mary (tw for rape, (consensual surgical) genital mutilation)

fright night (original and remake)

jaws

halloween franchise

1-5 are the best imo but no matter what skip #3 because it literally has nothing to do with any of the other movies

not the rob zombie remakes, those are awful

let the right one in [swedish (?) film, watch with subtitles]

rosemary’s baby (original)

night of the living dead (original)

28 days later

suspiria

silent hill (tw for child molestation)

crimson peak (tw for incest)

the lost boys

interview with the vampire

the ring

one missed call

the raven (2012)

repo! the genetic opera

teeth (tw for rape, incest, t’s??????? about a girl who has razor-sharp teeth in her vagina and how that coincides with her sexual awakening as a very straight-laced religious person???? so idk like watch it for The Wild Ride if you want but watch at your own discretion)

american psycho (tw for rape, general misogyny)

sweeney todd

speaking from experience, this is much better live, the movie sucked out all the fun and humor that wasn’t literally written into the lyrics, so i recommend watching the original broadway cast on youtube or something

there’s also a 1936 movie but i haven’t seen it so i can’t speak to its quality BUT i would recommend it on the basis of it being made before the musical was created and thus being based more directly on “the string of pearls” novel which is where the sweeney todd urban legend was originally documented

abott and costello meet [insert universal horror monster here] [spooky comedy]

little shop of horrors (original and remake) [spooky comedy]

the last man on earth (1964)

adapted from the same book i am legend (2007) was adapted from but the last man on earth stays much closer to the original book

c. h. u. d.

ghostbusters (1984 and 2016 versions) [spooky comedy]

ghost ship

sick girl (tw for bugs, pregnancy horror)

misery (tw for torture)

puppet master (tw for rape)

the haunting in connecticut

zombieland [horror comedy]**

jurassic park series

lizzie borden took an axe

*spooky comedy: a comedy movie with a spooky premise that i am categorizing with horror movies due to the genre overlap, but that lacks the intense violence, gore, etc. of a horror movie

**horror comedy: a spooky comedy that does not lower the level of violence, gore, etc. that is standard in a horror movie

thrillers

stoker (tw for incest, has a scene in which the protag’s mother verbally abuses her)

m [german film, watch with subtitles] (tw for themes of pedophilia/child molestation/child murder, but it’s worth noting that the whole point of the movie is to condemn and demonize pedophilia)

also one of if not the very first detective movies

nightcrawler (tw for rape)

the vvitch/the witch/however the fuck it’s spelled

rear window (original)

zodiac

hannibal lecter franchise (tw for cannibalism, obviously)-- the silence of the lambs, hannibal, red dragon, manhunter

manhunter is adapted from the same book red dragon is (red dragon) except manhunter was made before anthony hopkins became The Iconic Hannibal Lecter(TM) so it focuses much more on will graham and francis dolarhyde

hannibal rising is worth watching for gaspard ulliel’s performance but the book was much better

the hannibal movie adaptation changed the ending of the hannibal book while still maintaining a really good and really compelling storyline so the book and movie are definitely both highly recommended by me

gone girl

shutter island (tw for asylum horror)

pan’s labyrinth

documentaries

cropsey (documentary on child murders)

urban legends (another documentary, by the same people, talks about how real-life crime affects the american psyche and lives on as urban legends/horror tropes)

the poisoner’s handbook

h. h. holmes

nightmares in red, white, and blue

his name was jason

never sleep again: the elm street legacy

television

bates motel

ahs s1 (tw for... literally everything)

slasher

similar basic premise as ahs, but imo ahs is v exploitative and builds the plot on violence and vice, whereas slasher builds the violence and vice on the plot

supernatural (LISTEN........ LISTEN....................... conceptually it’s the bees knees okay)

penny dreadful (tw for constant explicit sexuality, religious iconography/sacrilege, asylum horror)

criminal minds

bbc broadchurch

bbc river

bbc sherlock but literally only ep. 3.4 “the abominable bride”

rosemary’s baby (2-part made-for-tv movie)

podcasts

the black tapes podcast

small town horror

alice isn’t dead

king falls am [spooky comedy]

limetown

welcome to night vale [spooky comedy]

video games

until dawn

outlast series

[artlessictoan]

How I’d do Naruto Next Gen

okok I’ve been wanting to do something more in depth and organised than my usual ranting about how everything is terrible now, so here we go! (though lbr this is just my usual ranting but 10x longer)

for the sake of brevity ha and my own piece of mind I’m not gonna go into how unnecessarily hetro the ending was and how everyone should’ve been gay and hey not every couple absolutely had to get married and/or have kids and also nart should’ve gotten the opportunity to realise that becoming hokage wasn’t necessary to achieve his real goal of becoming someone loved and accepted by others and he deserved so much better tbh and why isn’t sak just running the whole show and why isn’t there more sand sibs, bc let’s face it none of that was ever gonna happen, so these ideas are mostly built with the premise that all the canon couples stay canon and all the kids are still around and the product of those ships and the big plot things that happened (like nart becoming hokage and the like) stay roughly the same

forewarning bc else someone’s bound to say something; if you enjoy the next gen stuff? not a problem! that’s great, people enjoying stuff is a good thing! I wish I could enjoy more stuff, bc enjoying things is far more fun than not enjoying things! everyone has a different taste though and for me – and a lot of other people – the way that the next gen has turned out has been a disappointment, this post is for those people, so we can talk about why we think it’s failed and what we would’ve like to see instead, if you don’t feel that way about it.. well just scroll on past this post and keep enjoying the things you enjoy! have an absolute blast, you’ve earned it!

under the cut bc I am apparently incapable of keeping my rambling concise, there’s 2000 words of only vaguely coherent thoughts and tangents, so maybe get yourself a cuppa and a snack before trudging through it (some of this I’ve said in other posts before but w/e)

---

first off lets change some of the kids’ personalities, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with any of them, but like….. 90% are carbon copies of one of their parents (and mostly their dads but I won’t get into that issue rn) which is ridiculous, bc personality traits aren’t genetic?? like my mum is super chill and sensible and my dad is short-tempered, but I’m an anxious mess and my bro is an anti-social control freak.. we didn’t get any of that from either of our parents

while it’s certainly true that you might be influenced by them (me and mum share a lot of interests and tastes), it’s not a hard and fast rule and I don’t find it realistic that EVERY kid takes after their parents, though I probably wouldn’t have such a problem with it if they were more a mix of both parents than just their dads, so here’s some potential alterations:

Boruto. good fucking lord, no, we did not need a clone of Naruto heading another series, if we wanted to see a rambunctious scamp who gets into trouble but loves his friends a whole lot and has a knack for giving inspirational speeches, then there’s already a whole 700 chap manga for that! one with a far more likable and interesting rambunctious scamp tbqh. so how about we make a few alterations, maybe instead of taking after Nart, Bolt takes a bit more after Hinata? a little quiet and a bit of a pushover, but someone who’ll quickly stick up for a friend and has an ease of communication that’s a bit more Nart? not shy so much as laidback and composed, maybe he isn’t all that interested in being a ninja too, like he’s quite skilled but is a pacifist and would much rather get a civilian job as idk a baker or gardener or something

Shikadai. only a few minor changes here bc I really do like the kid as he is, I’d just like to see him using Tema’s abilities too (and maybe also being just a bit more snarky and unyielding like his mum)

Inojin. I’m kinda torn on this one, bc I do like that he’s a lot like Sai (at least in the anime, he seems to have a pretty different personality from what little we’ve seen of him in the manga???), but I think it’d be pretty interesting if he was just not like either of his parents, maybe if he was very quiet and subdued, but also the mastermind behind all the kid’s pranks, has a mischievous streak that often shocks people, but his friends always love hanging out with him bc of it. also why doesn’t he have Ino’s powers? let’s give him Ino’s powers too

Sand Kids 2.0. ok so at this point we haven’t seen nearly enough of them to say much either way but I have negative faith in kishi and ike so I’ll just say that I want them all to be Gaara’s adopted kids (since it’s still unclear if it’s just Shinki or all of ‘em atm) and I want them to be exactly like this shameless plug for me and @spellfire01‘s versions of them which are the best fucking versions and I will protect my children with my life

now some changes to the original cast (this is where I’m gonna get proper bitter, prepare yourselves):

OH NARUTO MY POOR CHILD WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU I’ve already talked about this but let me just reiterate in as eloquent a way as I can; Naruto would never become a neglectful father. N e v e r. not after the childhood he went through, no matter how much work he had to do as kage, don’t dare fucking try and tell me that Naruto – "It's almost unbearable, isn't it… the pain of being all alone. I know that feeling; I've been there, in that dark and lonely place, but now there are others, other people who mean a lot to me. I care more about them than I do myself, and I won't let anyone hurt them… They rescued me from my loneliness" – Uzumaki would EVER neglect his kids. just fucking don’t. in this version Nart is a doting and involved dad (perhaps a little too much, to the point that his kids find him kinda exhausting and have to ask him to leave them alone sometimes) who sends his clones to work at the office while he hangs out with his family.. I honestly don’t know why he doesn’t already do that

let all the girls out of their houses to do some ninja work for the love of god

poor put-upon Shino-sensei is alright.. but we’ve already had that with Iruka, I’d honestly much rather see the Cool Sensei who keeps all the kids in line without even doing much of anything and has a knack for inspiring them and always has a line of students trailing after him asking to hear more of his awesome ninja stories and everyone always trying to show off when he’s around, bc Shino is literally The Best

have Sauce and Saku be divorcees. seriously, are even the people who ship them happy with how their relationship has turned out? they barely see each other and apparently it’s been that way since chap 699, so why not just have them split up? it really wouldn’t change much, just say that, at some point after Sarada was born, they realised that they were both gay incompatible personality-wise and they were both so busy with their individual work that there wasn’t much of a relationship to lose. not only would this be good for both their characters (there’s no reason they couldn’t still be good friends) and just more sensible all-round, but it would also be a nice way to show that not every childhood romance/first love works out and that’s perfectly fine and normal and they can still live happy, full lives afterwards!

speaking of Sauce, let him spend at least a little bit of time interacting with his friends and family in Konoha, even if he’s still mostly travelling around on important missions he should at least be taking every opportunity to visit his daughter when he’s in the area, seriously, c’mon

Temari got done so dirty in that one episode.. here’re some much better words than I could ever muster but generally I’d want her to be less the ‘scary, overbearing, harsh’ mother and more the ‘strict but cool and sneaky’ mother, like she’d honestly be the type to use reverse psychology and gentle manipulation, she’d make her boy do some seemingly meaningless task that somehow makes him have an epiphany and come back to her when he’s done like “I know what I did wrong now and I’m sorry” than just shout at him and refuse to make dinner (also I just really like to hc that she’s a terrible cook so it’s Shikamaru who does all the cooking anyway)

it’d be really great to see Hina either being the new clan head or at least otherwise involved in Hyuuga clan politics, so we could actually see how she’s working to destroy that whole slavery thing they’ve got going, rather than that plotline just being dropped somewhere around the end of the chunin exam arc and never picked up again (I mean I assume that it’s all supposed to be fixed by now, but that’s not the kinda thing that should happen entirely off-screen) and so we can see her life revolving around something other than Nart and her kids, she’s remarkably capable and had so much potential but she’s been denied every opportunity to really exist as her own character by the writers

Kiba…… what the hell is going on with Kiba? where is he? what is he doing? how’s he feeling these days? is he supposed to be married to that nameless cat lady we saw for a single panel? these are things we shall never know I guess. tbh what I’d really LOVE to see would be Kiba-sensei, just imagine him and Shino both being teachers who work in completely opposite ways, Shino is the quiet, inspiring, lowkey scary one and Kiba is the gigantic fucking dork one who cheers his students on way too loud and makes the classes super fun and joins in the kids games, him and Shino have a class rivalry and Kiba is constantly roping students into joining his attempts to prank Shino (they’ve never once succeeded but oNE DAY)

Ino should be the next head of Konoha’s intelligence division, I will fight kishi on this one

why the actual fuck is oroch still happily living it up in his penthouse lab?? kill the fucker. or at the very least imprison the fucker. just say that Mitsuki was an old project of his that somehow kept developing in his absence, or was a product of research carried out by some lackeys’ years after he’s gone, anything that means I don’t have to accept that everyone has apparently forgiven him for everything and knows that he’s still experimenting on kids but just don’t care

and on that last note: Justice for Yamato 2k17

right now let’s get onto the actual plot/story for this very self-pandering au

make Sarada the main char. while I can see why they would choose to go with Boruto, honestly Salad’s more interesting a character and! A Girl!! Main Character!!!! I NEED IT!!!!!! focus on her goal to be hokage and her struggles with her parents and follow up on that ‘restoring the Uchiha’ plot thread that just.. dropped right off the map somewhere between 699 and 700, her reconciling what her clan was with what she wants to make it

get rid of that weird demon-sensing eye thing that’s going on. and the demon thing in general. and also that jarring post-apocalypse future thing they’re building up. I didn’t slog through over a decade of kishi’s bullshit just so my kids didn’t get to live long, happy lives. make the plot just slice-of-life fluff, nothing more dangerous than a bully, just some kids trying to be awesome ninja in a world that doesn’t really need ninja anymore bc peace and all that

waaay more of Chocho, Himawari and Inojin (at least enough so they all get equal billing)

show how the ninja world has grown and developed since the end of the original series (not just technologically), what do ninja do now that there aren’t any wars and international relationships are at an all-time high? have missions completely gone from being combat and intel based to more about construction and assistance? are ninja numbers actually dropping, favouring civilian jobs in these more peaceful times? how well are people – ninja or not – adjusting to these changes? is learning ninja techniques still encouraged but in a way that’s more about culture and traditions than actual use in combat (in the same way that swordplay today is mostly practiced for performance, fun and sport, rather than out of any real-life practicality)? there are so many interesting things to explore that you don’t even need to be adding in new threats to keep the series entertaining

I’ve said this before, but I think it’d be really cool and cute if after the end of the war and with some drastic changes to the ninja world’s politics, this next gen is less about becoming ninja, than realising that they’ll never be ninja (at least not in the way that their parents were) and how they react to that. maybe they’re frustrated because they hear so many cool stories about the grand battles of the previous generation and they want to be able to do those things too damnit! so the kids are just going around trying to be super-awesome ninja in a world that doesn’t really need ninja anymore, picking fights and trying to make their boring d-rank missions seem more important and dangerous than they really are, maybe at some point they learn a bit more about how hard and traumatising that life was for their parents and why the world had to change, until they eventually decide that if the role of a ninja has to change, then together they’re gonna discover what that new role will be, what will being a ninja really mean in this new, peaceful world?

and, a final ending note: fuck ike’s sickening treatment of Sarada with regards to her sexualised presentation and the disgusting reveal that someone taught Boruto (a young child!) the sexy jutsu. Let The Kids Be Kids 2k17