#because honestly it's absurd to me that they're not even mentioned there

[roguetelepaths]

Urge to write about Bifrost Incident!Narfi and Vali rising.

[6okuto]

Could i have the same headcanon of falling in love but for Mhin? Thank you 🙏 😭

MHIN FALLING IN LOVE

gn!reader | mhin time! >____< lots of mhin fans here... awesome world. in case anyone is wondering yes i do have vere in my drafts. meowww

predictably, a slowburn with angst.

hard to get to know, not because they aren't predictable, or because they're incredibly hard to read, but because they're Fawking persistent when it comes to keeping their guard up. which means you have to be even More persistent. an absurd cycle. but you can get there. You will get there.

i think something that slowly takes down(?) mhin's walls would be showing interest in them past working together and their secrets. asking something more mundane like what their favourite season or meal is, what kind of music they like, if they enjoy rain. they're wary to answer because ?? why are you asking. why are you being weird. but they realize it's nice to think of something else about themself other than being a monstrosity. wow. ow

^ and then maybe doing something with their answer! going out of your way to buy some sweets for them, asking if they're okay when it's super cold/hot because they mentioned not enjoying it. something they've forgotten you even know. it also makes them wonder what your answers would be. the first time mhin manages to ask "what's yours?" is !!!! woah!

another moment might be choosing to be sincere when you could've teased them for something. they give you a look (honestly more often than not, mhin's first reaction is always wary confusion/denial), and you promise you're telling the truth. and they might not thank you or anything, but it sticks in the back of their head while they try to ignore how flustered they feel.

another Little moment might be you catching them off guard by like. being mean. they've gotten used to you pestering and following them. they've gotten used to your list of questions and times where you're walking quietly. neither of you have spoken in 5 minutes, and they're rolling their eyes, thinking to themself "what an asshole" about some guy arguing with a server, and then you mutter "what a fucking asshole" out loud. and they just look at you like ?. and you look back like ?? like i'm wrong. and mhin can't help but snicker or scoff.

when they realize what's going on (waiting for you to find them, looking for you, enjoying your company, etc), mhin starts avoiding you like the plague. all that time learning your schedule/habits has made it easy to avoid you (until you realize what's going on, at least). even places that they enjoyed for themself, they time things so you don't cross paths. it's honestly impressive LOL

they kind of hate it though. they miss you. they tell themself they don't, but they do. yeah they avoid you, but you know, if you both happen to be shopping, they might trail you and notice how you're buying ingredients for your favourite dessert, or how your eyes linger on a necklace before moving on. they just happen to be taking a similar path as you, and it's not like they want something bad to happen, so it makes sense to watch out, even now.

i'm picturing a confrontation where they try to deny avoiding you, then say they're doing it for a reason... and then you ask what this is, what anything meant, if anything. and mhin thinks they've dug themself a grave already and tell you it was nothing, a mistake, you should go home.

and you can either wait for a second confrontation, or call out their bullshit there—they're a liar but it's obvious to you, so what's actually going on? and tension rises and you push a little further until they finally tell you of course they care about you! and their voice might break a little because they don't speak loudly often, and their words dawn on them and they purse their lips—that's why they're trying to stay away.

something something don't push me away, i won't let you push me away, the significance of promising to stay with them, to work through things together and not leaving them alone, of seeing them as something else other than a monster, of seeing them as mhin.

mhin falls in love with your kindness, your open heart that warms theirs until it remembers spring. not just in the way you help them, but the kindness you show yourself, the people around you, your friends. they fall in love with watching you see the world in a way they hope to one day.

they fall in love with someone who perseveres when things get hard, but reminds the both of them that pushing too much or isolating yourself won't help. they'll stand at your desk and watch until you put your things away, or frown when they find you asleep outside of bed, and they know you'll do the same with them. they believe you'll get better at this together

mhin falling in love is pushing themself out of their comfort zone and doing their best to speak, even and especially when they can't think of what to say. it's them finding you in a bad mood and getting you food and offering to listen if you need to vent. it's them opening up and being vulnerable about their past that still hurts them, letting you reach for their hand or hold them when all they can think is that they don't deserve it.

i've mentioned this before but in an established relationship, mhin is softer but...not? they're comfortable to the point that they enjoy when you rest your head on their shoulder, but also enjoy making fun of you and laughing afterward. they don't have to be cold or walled off!! you're getting the real mhin, all sides included!

in general, they aren't a very touchy person. whether this is because they're not used to it or actually don't enjoy it is up in the air in my head. either way, it makes moments of physical touch a little more special! leaning against you when they're tired, reaching for your hand in crowds, letting you tie or play with their hair, etc.

the first time mhin kisses you, you're asleep. it's just a little one on the forehead as they pull the blanket up a little higher. and they keep doing it, because maybe it'll make it easier for when you wake up. they don't realize that you've been awake for the past 3 kisses as you pretend to fall asleep.

they let you watch them do experiments, and if it's up your alley, will listen to your thoughts and suggestions! feel honoured because it isn't a place, or thing that they let just anyone see! even if you aren't very science-y, feel free to give your opinion. maybe something will click in their head, y'know. or just be like, what if you mix red and white to make pink. and watch mhin stare at you like. How did you pick the two that'd be the Worst possible combination. like okay sorry i like pretty colours woah /lh

saying i love you.... i think they'd try really hard. you've helped them so much and they really do care, even if they're scared to say they love you, they know they do, they don't know what else this could be. there's a few times you catch them staring at you weirdly focused, and they're making a face with scrunched brows and pouting lips, and you're like. What is happening. and they chicken out. and get angry at themself for a while.

it kind depends on you, of course, and what kind of person you are. if you're someone who says it easily but never pushes them to say it, they feel grateful but guilty. if both of you keep dancing around it, a little anxiety and insecurity creeps back in when they don't want it to.

it's kind of a big deal for them, so the first time you say it is at the same time. not like Simultaneously saying it, but the same. ...day. at least. LOL. although if they're the one to say it first (somehow??) and you don't say it back until later that night because ?? shock? processing? nervous excitement? they Will be having a rough time dealing with themself, even while they repeat over and over that you deserve time, too, and it's okay, and they shouldn't overthink, etc etc.

mhin is So visibly relieved when you say it back. "were you worried?" "no?" < their head was a cacophony of 27 ambulances and noisy garbage compactors

grahhh i forgot to make a new tag list form. friends. I will make one eventually. but u r still here 4 now. kyaaa | @screaming-wea-sel @semifilms @cvhenia @mitskiologist @leiiii-i @sweet-milky-tea705 @khalixvitae

[max-uhhhh-talks]

It's honestly insane how there are people who ship copiiia and act like the people who don't are the ones creating unsafe spaces in communities.

Ghost is a band that acknowledges the traumas that people have experienced, whether that be through music or speeches on stage. Everyone here knows that everyone has their own things they're going through or have been through. For the most part, the community is general safe and understanding of people who have been through stuff and thus have their reasonable dislikes for certain topics or dynamic portrayals.

That is, until the copiiia antis are the ones who dislike the ship and the amount of people supporting it.

So we're all clear, Copia and Terzo (including primo and secondo) are brothers. Canonically, they are blood related. It's a fact that is crucial to the storyline of the band, and one that should be acknowledged and respected. It's the bare minimum, yeah?

Countless times within the past year and a half, Copia has referred to Nihil as his dad. The movie, within the first like 3 minutes, states outright that Nihil is his father and Sister Imperator is his mother. This means Copia is brothers with Nihils other three children.

So tell me why so many of you support the ship of Copia and Terzo, knowing full well they're blood related brothers? And don't pull the "in my au, they're not" because that's even worse. You acknowledge that they're related in canon, but you do not respect it. You intentionally go out of your way to make an alternate universe in which they are not brothers. And what do you mainly portray within that "au?"

Incest.

Plain and simple, you portray incest in both romantic and sexual ways. And you see nothing wrong with this. Full grown legal adults, drawing, writing, promoting images of incest.

And what do you do when someone says "hey incest is bad?" You try to defend it with your "au." Keyword, try. Because no one with a brain is on board with that "defense."And what about the people who have their own negative experiences with similar subjects? "Not my problem," "just block if you don't want to see it."

So let's get this straight. You come into a fandom, one in which you know everyone has their own personal traumas. You create images or writings of incest, rape, etc. You tag those creations with the standard fandom tag, and then you get mad when people end up seeing it from that standard fandom tag and calling you out on it. You come into a fandom and create an unsafe environment for unsuspecting individuals. And you get mad others call you out?

Your sense of a moral code is so warped, you jump and leap and grasp at any straws you can at an attempt to defend yourself.

Create problematic content, expect to be called out for it. Come into a community in which the band themselves tries to create into a safe space, and post harmful and triggering content, often unfiltered? Expect to be called out. And that's not even mentioning you all, oftentimes adults, harassing people in their inboxes because they said copiiia is incest and bad.

It's baffling, the mental gymnastics you make at an attempt to seem like you're not creating disgusting content. And then to blame the ones saying it's harmful, to say that we're the ones creating an unsafe space? That we're the reason the fandom isn't safe?

There is no word to describe the absurdity within your audacity. And there's unfortunately hardly any saving people like you. You guys don't even deserve well thought out conversations on the matter. If this fandom is unsafe to you and your incest shipping, because people understandably do not want to be seeing any of that while harmlessly scrolling through art of all forms of their favorite characters, I have a suggestion.

Leave. You are unwanted here. You always will be.

[crooked-wasteland]

I just saw your essay on the codependency of FizzOzzie and it cleared up a lot of things I've been thinking about this ship and to be honest, I myself thought it was the most healthiest ship in the whole show even better than the trash that Stoliz is but well... (btw, I was trying to scroll through tumblr to find it but can you just link it for me so I coud read it again)?

It also brings me to an idea of the possibility brung up in two fics each with different ideas:

#1 if Hazbin's events every leak in Helluva's since they're the same universe, there's a possibility that Lucifer would want to have precautionary heirs for the defense of Hell and outright force Ozzie and any other relationships with lowerclass apart since it's "not compatible with angelic DNA" or some thing, so Ozzie could in fact leave Fizz because of his status

#2 Ozzie getting tired of Fizz... Ozzie is the sin of Lust after all and Lust can be ever-changing and capricious in its nature as a sin. Ozzie’s character, embodying Lust, might lead to a fluctuating commitment level, influencing his interactions and relationships. In biblical lore, he did end up causing a lot of sinful things like fucking a human named Sarah or so I remember?

Again this is the same guy who humiliated Blitzø in Ozzie, S2 just rewrote him completely (btw, in my rewrite I'mma change him to be more evil and instead give the whole "lovey-dovey Sin" idea to Satan who is female and thinks Asmodeu's "fake-love" is like a slap in the fact to her idea of realistic and true romance)

I'd just feel like Fizz would be better off with Blitzø tbh or Striker or all in a threesome... the possibilities are endless, and why is the show making love seem too fairytale and unrealistic?! Like Blitzø shouldn't have to fuck Stolas just because he was his arranged playmate for just one day??? The show did the childhood friends trope dirty and would be better if Stoliz was a thing until mid-teens broke up for [insert reason] and reconnect but honestly, Stolas should've had his own seperate season/arc dedicared to himself if HB was an anthology show

Also the fact that Asmodeus couldn't just burn the contract, one-shot the lawyer and go on a rampage to save Fizz is just beyond me... the Sins are supposed to be these scary demon lords so why aren't they, hm?

Sorry for rambling and what do you think or want to add?

Absolutely here you go.

The consistent failure of Vivziepop is to commit to a mature story. She describes her own protagonists as "Deeply flawed but understandably traumatized people who just need love to fix them" while the villains of her shows are "irredeemable" (and women, but that's a tangent).

I mentioned before that trying to use the excuse of the setting being Hell and playing that out to the logical conclusion would end up exactly like Good Omens. The whole moral of said show being that imperfect humanity is worth saving, that life is worthy and beautiful for its own sake of existence. That is why the story of Good Omens uses the Bible, angels, and demons to tell it's story, to make that point.

Why is Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel set in Hell? What is being said by the plot, themes and story? So far we have that demons are better people than the Angels in Hazbin. That sacrifice is the only virtue worthy of redemption and thus reinforces backwards Christian ideals of penance.

Personally, I would have made Hell less absurd. Less a place of debauchery and chaos and more a mere continuation of life. We see in the Hazbin Pilot a character falls from the sky and says "I'm alive?" Before being hot by Travis' car. The point being that people just transition from one life to the next and in that they keep living life the way they always have.

My personal criticisms of the series' use of Hell is that it established this idea that people only behave if they have a god to fear. Once in Hell, there is no salvation, so why bother. It's like a Christian asking an atheist why they wouldn't commit murder if they don't believe in God. The answer is that people like order and security. People dying would seek to maintain their status quo from life. A lack of salvation wouldn't change that for them.

And frankly, I wouldn't have redemption be a thing. This story and its messages are actively devalued by the act of redeeming sinners when the Angels are just the same as them. By having Hell just be a warped continuation of life on Earth, it makes the message more universal: Life is Hell. Life is suffering in a way Hell can never hope to be. Physical anguish and torment for all eternity can never amount to the pain of the fleeting and the terror of change and uncertainty.

I would have made it impossible to be redeemed because the fact is, regardless what you believe happens after death, what we know we have is life. We fear death so much we have created salvation throughout history, the wish to keep living forever in some way. But, especially for young people, life is harder now than ever before. It's more terrifying and uncertain and cruel and uncaring.

So if life is Hell, how do you be happy?

That would have been my thesis for the show. The message underneath is all about finding happiness in the absence of salvation. Even the idea that maybe salvation is something we should reject to really feel what it means to be alive. Giving up on our deaths and seeking our own fulfillment, and in that finding community, love, and hope. To see true humanity as something selfish and kind at the same time.

That's how I would have taken the concept.

[technicolorfamiliar]

D O U B L E F E A T U R E !

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Dir. Robert Weine 1920 // Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) Dir. Robert Wiene 1924

I recently watched both, Caligari specifically because I was invited on a friend's podcast to talk about the film (I was totally normal about it and definitely didn't make color coded note cards about the making of the movie… I did, I did make color coded note cards). So I figured I would lump these two in one post to switch things up.

--- Even though we talked about the movie for an hour and change, the conversation we recorded for the pod easily could have gone longer. There's so much to unpack about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Between its historical, cinematic, artistic, and cultural significance and legacy, but also the various players on and off camera, not to mention the film's genesis from concept to page to screen -- there's no shortage of rabbit holes to go down.

Something I wish I had brought up during the recording was the score: The score matters! These updated silent film scores really do affect the viewer experience, and they're so often hit or miss. Of course, the original score for Caligari has been lost to time, but I read that the premier of in New York had classical music (Prokofiev, Stravinsky, etc) played along to the screening; part of me thinks this would be fun to try to recreate. I have no memory of the music when I first saw the film in 2009, but when I rewatched Caligari about a year ago, early in my Conrad Veidt journey, I chose a version on Internet Archive (which is, as of late October, sadly still out of commission *cries in nerd*) and the updated score was almost entirely minimal strings, which created a suitably eerie effect. I couldn't find that exact version elsewhere, so I this time opted for the 2014 restoration that's on Kanopy. The 2014 score is… fine. It’s very busy, trying too hard to sound like a traditional movie soundtrack. There's another version with a really painfully bad guitar-heavy score that I couldn't sit through even 5 minutes of, and still another that's entirely synths. Apparently the new 4K UHD/Blu-Ray that was just released has two new options for the score -- hopefully at least one of them doesn't totally suck!

I noticed deep into my third time viewing the film that I hadn't reached for my phone once. These days, I'll occasionally pick it up and mindlessly scroll through social media while watching a movie. But I think Caligari and a few other silent films require closer attention since they're a purely visual medium. I found myself greedily devouring every frame of Caligari. No shot or scene feels wasted. Honestly, I feel like every movie should be 90 minutes long or less. Anything longer should be turned into a miniseries. But in all seriousness, Caligari is another film I want to physically walk into. It would be pretty easy to recreate these sets, life size in grayscale black and white. The more I think about this, the more I need it. So, so bad.

I also came away this time with a lot of questions, mostly about the main part of the narrative, the story Franzis is telling. But the framing device makes the questions pointless. If the main story is just Franzis's delusion, then the absurdity of the script is totally fine I guess? Except the script that Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer wrote didn't have Franzis as a patient at the asylum, they hated the framing story twist that was forced on their movie, so all those weird parts of the script and character choices that I'm overthinking and reading too much into are rendered meaningless. It's all in Franzis's head! The story and the characters in it don't matter! Or else are just part of his subconscious! Face palm. Eye roll.

Does the movie even work without the framing device? It would be interesting to show an edited version of the movie without the first and last scenes to someone who's never seen it. And if the twist ending was supposed to dumb down the anti-authoritarian message of the script, I don't know that it's successful. In the end, I still have empathy for Franzis. And we still have an ambiguous ending: Caligari/The Asylum Director looks at Mad Franzis and says, "I know just how to cure him," and there's a creepy iris wipe in on Werner Krauss's face that maybe leads us to think Franzis isn't as delusional as we think he is. So like… even if the whole Dr. Caligari with his sleepy twink in a box story is fake, whatever is happening at the asylum is probably just as messed up if not worse.

Speaking of the twink in a box, I love that Conrad Veidt's German Expressionism is totally different from Werner Krauss's German Expressionism. They both trained and performed with Max Reinhardt, so their foundations as theater actors in the 1910s and 1920s were likely similar. But, regardless or in spite of that shared experience, they are diametrically different human beings and that comes across in their performances in this movie. These two actors are like the textbook definition of "showing" your art vs. "being" your art. Krauss as Caligari is like "ooOOOoo look how ooky spooky and evil I am!", whereas Connie's performance as Cesare, even though it's hyper-stylized, is infused with something deeper, something primal that feels believable in the context of the film.

If Cesare has been asleep his whole life, waking only to be fed Chunky Campbell's Soup and commit murder at Caligari's bidding, then no wonder he reacts the way he does when sleeping Jane finally brings him out of his trance. When she freaks out, he freaks out too because he's had no opportunity to learn how to behave like a human or how to filter his primal emotions in a socially acceptable way. He hasn't lived his life except to be a madman's puppet. He reacts to Jane's panic on instinct and impulse, his desire and fear feel feral, like he's more creature or an animal than a human man. He may not actually want to hurt Jane, but he reacts violently because fight or flight is a basic human stress response! He runs away and eventually collapses because his body can't handle the sudden onslaught of stress and emotion he's never before experienced! And this internal, instinctual tendency to violence is subtly alluded to in the final scene when Asylum Cesare both caresses and slowly picks apart the flowers he's holding. Ahhhhh, I have so many FEELINGS.

And that said… Connie's performance here is wild, but it's real in a way that Werner Krauss's work could never be because Connie was a spiritual humanist who cared deeply for others and Krauss was an anti-semitic piece of shit who therefore could NEVER dig deep enough into his soul or into the collective unconscious the way Connie did to breathe life into his characters. So everything Krauss is doing here and in The Student of Prague is all surface, it's "showing" the audience his training and his actor toolbox rather than bringing a level of honesty and in-the-moment groundedness to these roles.

This is not to say Connie's intense commitment to his work couldn't be, uh, excessive. I really hope Lil Dagover was being serious when she said he would lurk around the studio in character when off camera. Can you imagine? You go up to the craft services table for a snack. Suddenly you feel like you're being watched. You look up and he's looming over you in the shadows, his unblinking glazed eyes boring into your soul. God, I hope this happened and I hope whoever it happened to peed themselves a little.

I also wish we had a behind the scenes photo of Connie in costume with the Cesare dummy. I can't believe someone actually had to make that prop. It'll haunt me forever. (The 1920 Cesare Dummy isn't real, the 1920 Cesare Dummy can't hurt me.)

Bottom line: It's an important film, I appreciate it for both its timelessness and timefullness. But it's not a movie I need to revisit often, regardless of how enchanting Connie's nostril acting may be.

---

The first time I watched The Hands of Orlac, I was floored by the visuals, the staging, and the heavy eroticism. Up until that point, I hadn't seen very many silent films, certainly few as visually striking. I think my initial impressions of this film were somewhat muted on a second watch, but that may just because I knew what to expect.

This time, I wasn't as swept up in the magic of silent era German Expressionist cinema, although stylistically I'm still absolutely 100% obsessed. Art direction wise, this is my favorite between the surviving Wiene-Veidt films (I haven't seen Furcht and I don’t plan to). Orlac is like the darker, sexier, more grown up sister to Caligari's mall goth teen. It's Vampira vs Lydia Deetz.

Orlac is just as much if not more of a cinematic feat than Caligari. The production design and art direction alone feels more mature and in itself tells more of a story.

Very early in the film, we're thrown into a very impressive, very realistic train crash. Opening the movie this way was a really interesting choice -- we don't get to meet the characters before the accident that starts Paul and Yvonne Orlac on their doomed and bizarre trajectory. There is a brief establishing scene of Yvonne reading a really horny letter from her husband, and one of pianist Paul at his final concert before returning home. Then there's a very long sequence of the aftermath of the train crash that almost kills Paul, and this scene brings a level of realism you don't really get in other films of this genre/done in this style. The set construction looks expensive; the mangled train cars piled up in heaps may have been fabricated in the studio, but because of the lighting in the night scene, the billowing smoke from passing locomotives and fires from the crash, it looks pretty damn real for 1924. It's extremely effective and harrowing, especially as Yvonne races to the site of the crash and climbs through the wreckage to try to find her husband. The chaos of the scene, made all the more disorienting by the movement of search lights and the haze of smoke and steam, feels true to life. People are running around, pulling bodies from the ruined train cars, carrying them away on stretchers. Survivors look around dazed, clutching their belongings in shock. It's such a well directed moment in the film, but maybe not the first thing people remember about it. And I think it's inclusion is important because it offsets how weird the movie's about to get.

And boy, does it get weird. However, the doctor does say Paul suffered a skull fracture, so it's not a huge stretch to think he also has some kind of brain injury. So I wonder if that has something to do with how the filmmakers chose to show Paul's intense fear and paranoia, as well as the movie's shift in tone and style after his accident. The nightmarishness of the film, from the exaggerated performances to the set design, feels like an extension of whatever might be going on in Paul's head as a result of his injury.

Regardless, I love the choices the art director made. The set, especially the Art Deco mausoleum the Orlacs have for a home, is so perfect. The huge, cavernous rooms are completely unnecessary, but they make the characters look and feel so helpless, like dolls in a doll house. The lines of the walls and the furnishings draw the eye through the frame with just as much intention as the painted sets of Caligari. Even places outside their house become symbolic and iconographic. The news stand is just a window cut out of a massive wall of loose sheets of newspaper that takes up the entire frame. The interior of Orlac Sr.'s house is like a old, drafty castle, looking more like the home of an evil, miserly king. The tavern where Paul is confronted by Nera feels dank and subterranean, just a lamp or two removed from literal catacombs. The outer world is fully a reflection of poor Paul Orlac's inner torment and despair and I AM LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

The new music composed by Paul Mercer is perfect, too. It's all skronky violins and cellos, ominous percussion and piano. It's just atmospheric enough, creating moments of soundscapes, echoing footsteps, aural suggestions of the oppressive cave-like rooms where the story unfolds. There aren't really any memorable themes like in the updated score for The Student of Prague, but that works for this movie. I would buy this soundtrack and actually listen to it on its own, it's that good.

Everyone in the ensemble is basically on the same page in terms of acting style, no one feels out of place or miscast. Connie of course steals the show, but Alexandra Sorina as Yvonne gives him a run for his money. She's a good match for him, delivering an appropriately desperate and hysterical (and deeply, deeply horny) performance as the touch-starved wife. Their scenes together are maybe some of the best on screen romantic moments of Connie's silent film work because these two are wildly hungry for each other. This movie is so funny, it tells you immediately how horny it is; in the first 30 seconds of the movie, Yvonne gets a letter from Paul that says, "I will feel your body beneath my hands," like they're telling you straight up this is going to Horn Town. And the way she grabs at him, presses her open mouth to him, hovers over him in his hospital bed, she is DTF anywhere any time. And no shame, no shade, good for her. This is a sex positive film, and we love to see it. But she's not just the sexy wife, she's also totally ride or die for Paul. She truly trusts him and believes his absolutely buck wild story about being blackmailed by a dead psycho killer. What a gal.

Then there's Paul, aka Eraserhead Baby… because when he wakes up from surgery covered in bandages, he looks like the Eraserhead Baby. Connie is doing some of his finest nostril acting in this role, I have to say. As always, I am fascinated by his physicality and the choices he's making with movement and gesture. When his bandages are finally removed, he reacts as though drugged, his movements slow as though underwater or in a dream. And when he confronts his surgeon after discovering the original owner of his newly transplanted hands, he holds them out and away from his body as if they were coated in something dirty or disgusting. As Paul's life and sanity unravel, his hands and fingers are in almost constant motion, curling, twitching, clutching; his body language becomes more creature-like, moving in a way that calls up Cesare the sleepwalker -- interestingly, the two characters both seemingly at the mercy of forces outside their control.

We don’t get to know what Paul was like before the accident, how much this traumatic event changed him. There's something this movie is trying to say about trauma and how it affects people. The doctor tells Paul, "Nature and a strong will can overcome anything." But if Paul sustained any kind of serious brain damage, who’s to say his personality wasn't affected, or that he wasn't fragile and suggestible to begin with? Either way, in the wake of the accident, Paul's vulnerability and circumstance makes him a perfect target for Nera's grift.

Even without being targeted by a sick weirdo con artist, it's no wonder Paul's really going through it. He tortures and punishes himself relentlessly for something that wasn't his fault! (Been there.) He puts on a recording of one of his old concerts and crumples in grief for having lost not only his livelihood but also his outlet for creative expression -- not being able to do what you used to creatively because of trauma is REAL. He's trapped in his misery. Even his handwriting is different, now a violent scrawl he imagines is due to the murderous acts his hands supposedly committed. He secretly retrieves the planted murder weapon in order to further convince himself he's somehow become evil, wielding it as through he committed the crimes of the dead man whose hands now belong to him. And the scenes where Yvonne comes to him, wanting to both devour and comfort him, he cannot bring himself to touch her. Clearly they love each other very much and their relationship was very physical, so the agony and yearning in his face when she embraces him is UGH IT'S SO GOOD. It's heartbreaking. There's a lot to unravel here about trauma, body dysmorphia, and intimacy that I'm interested to dig into during subsequent viewings.

Final thoughts: There's an annoying part of my brain that wants the movie to make sense, for the timeline to be clearer, for loose ends to be tied up. But I know that none of that really matters because this movie is better received as a dream or a nightmare. And by that logic, it doesn't have to make sense. The Expressionist beats are being hit particularly hard, but the surreal quality allows the filmmakers and cast to get away with it. For fans of Conrad Veidt, this is a must-watch, even before Caligari -- he gets more screen time in this film, gets to play with his silent film artist's palette, and gets to do pathos like he's the king of tragic, pathetic characters. He's gangly, glassy-eyed, and trembling like a small wet dog the whole time and it's superb. Despite not really getting a chance to know the Orlacs before they're thrown into their own personal hell of body horror and credit debt, they're both pretty sympathetic. From psychological commentary to the erotic visuals and tension, it's all very ahead of its time.

[vividlyaro]

i was on a bus with the rest of my class the other day (we were coming back from our last school trip before graduation) and several things happened in a span of a few minutes.

a. my queerplatonic bf (i'll call him A.) asked if he could hang on my shoulder. (the answer was yes. the answer is literally always going to be yes, because i crave physical affection to an actually absurd degree and also i love him.)

about five seconds later his head is on my shoulder and his arm is around my other shoulder, and i'm feeling like i've ascended to the heaven of the touch-starved. just an absolute rush of serotonin to the brain.

b. i mentioned how it's kind of funny how physical affection basically gives me the same "daze of happiness" type effect that adjusting to anxiety meds did last year. then we talked about how we're both somewhat touch-starved.

c. i forgot how it came up, but the person sitting behind us ended up asking A something along the lines of if he was dating anyone, i don't really remember.

and he was like, "i've actually been in a relationship since october". and she asked with who, and A kind of gestures to me. and it took her half a second to figure out who he was talking about, so i turned around in my seat and grinned.

also we're in a really, really small class, so this girl loses her mind. she starts turning around to the people around her going, "they're dating?? did you know they're dating??" and then she turns to the guy next to her (who was dead asleep) and shakes him, going, "[name] wake up, they're dating!"

and he kind of stares at us, exhausted, and he looks at me and goes, "didn't you say you were. like. disgusted by the thought of someone loving you?" which. definitely were not my exact words. but yeah, i did mention being aro to this guy about two years ago. (kind of surprising that he remembered, honestly.) so then i start trying to explain, "well, it's not, like, romantic-" and he interrupts with, "okay, i do not want to think about you two fucking-"

me and A immediately interrupt with, "ew, no!" at the exact same time, and i start saying that i'm not into sex, but he was still like half asleep, so idk how much of that he actually got. and the girl next to him starts asking us questions, like if we kiss (we don't) and so, "...what do you do?"

and then i tried to explain the concept of a qpr, but my explanation was kind of confusing, even with A helping out a little. and so the girl said something along the lines of, "that makes no sense to me, but i'm glad you two are happy."

anyways, moral of the story is that A is great and i love qprs.

[karamazovposting]

On incommunicability

I saw a post that mentioned how Ivan is so radicalized by child abuse and yet hates Pavel so much and I want to talk about it because I genuinely think about it a lot (I clearly have issues), but I'm making my own post because I don't want to randomly come rambling into a stranger's notes.

I've said it before, but Ivan is a paradoxical (I mean, other characters refer to him as such multiple times) person and that's exactly what I love about him and the dynamic between him and Pavel. In theory he wants to help people and in some instances he does, such as the whole making Dmitri escape prison situation and his encounter with the peasant in the snow, but when he has to get emotionally close in order to do so, like he would have had to do with Pavel, he doesn't. Ivan was the only one who could have helped Pavel, except he couldn't because he has issues and can only interact with others and love at a distance.

The difference between Dmitri's situation and Pavel's is that when it comes to the former, Ivan can still act at a safe distance and even through Katya and Alyosha, so it's not an emotional ordeal. There are a lot of feelings at play in this kind of situations and feelings are not something Ivan is good with, and I think it makes sense for him to feel such rage towards Pavel simply because that's what Ivan turns any feeling he doesn't know how deal with into, so I wouldn't exactly call Ivan a hypocrite as I think it's more complicated than that; pushing away people is all he does and it's coherent of him to do so with Pavel too. To me it also makes sense for him to fail to see the suffering children that the adults around him once were, as absurd that may seem. It's all about rage and the blindness that comes with it.

It's important to highlight that it's explicitly stated that even Ivan himself doesn't know why he feels so angry towards Pavel; I've always wondered about the background of Ivan's change of attitude towards him, considering they used to have a civil relationship and it's mentioned that they used to have intellectual conversations as well, and honestly I think it's because of Ivan and his comfort zone: when things become too much, he distances himself. It's obvious that he knows what his brothers' childhoods were like, he even brings up the suffering of children at lunch with Alyosha, he knows that it ties them all together and that knowledge, on top of the abuse, has impacted him deeply. Having Pavel keep trying to get closer angers him even more and, personal opinion here, it reminds me of the way Fyodor tries to get Ivan to talk to him in some passages of the book. On the other hand, Pavel tells Ivan he's just like their father because to him Ivan is in fact just like their father: another person who discarded him. And it all stems from a deep mutual misunderstanding.

I can't really condemn Ivan, just like I can't really condemn Pavel (or Dmitri); they're a product of their environment and to me The Brothers Karamazov is also a book about misunderstanding and incommunicability: sometimes there's just some sort of invisible barrier between family members that nobody can really do anything about, and sometimes you find yourself in something that is so messed up, so tangled and so much bigger than you that you just don't know where to start to fix it (you can't, not alone at least) and I hope you get what I'm trying to say as it's difficult to explain the very specific and complicated mechanisms and feelings in such dysfunctional family dynamics.

I've said before that I don't consider Ivan's character and story tragic and while I still stand by that, this is to me the tragic thing about him: he, who has empathy for and wants to help those who've been abused, could've done something to actually help a (now grown) abused child close to him, in his own family, but couldn't even try due to being emotionally neglected (and therefore a now grown abused child) himself. In the end his inability to break the cycle, which is itself part of the cycle, digs his own grave and that's incredibly fucking sad.

[key-rk]

Have you ever thought of exploring Drake & LP’s friendship beyond their work of being hero & sidekick?

Mmmm, Personally, I don't think it would change much if they're working or not, since Launchpad tends to be pretty true to himself. Drake not so much, but around Lp, he tends to be quite honest with himself as well. I'm gon ramble a bit about something that bothers me a little when it comes to how the franchise sometimes treats their dynamic. n then go back to the q at the end! (⁠◔⁠‿⁠◔⁠)

One thing I've noticed, and it was incredibly apparent in the new 'Darkwing Duck' comics; was how easily Launchpad is dismissed. In one of the earlier issues (can't remember each one SOZ) Drake states he was going to retire his hero work again and in response to that fact, Launchpad walks out–to find a 'job' elsewhere. Which I think is incredibly absurd. But what's more absurd, is the fact that Drake AND Gosalyn just let him walk out. (DID WE FORGET THE EVENTS OF 'U.F.FOE' OR 'INHERIT THE WIMP'. Gosalyn was so upset by the idea of Launchpad leaving her life, to the point of tears / close to tears.) I just think it's out of character, even if they don't follow the same universe.

The second thing is the episode of 'Dead Duck'. 'Drake dies' and Gosalyn and Lp are left alone. While it isn't explored too much, Gosalyn is now entrusted to Launchpad. Pair that with the fact that that entire episode was Drake's subconscious (unconscious state), it means Drake is actually relying on Lp. He knows something might happen, and he trusts Launchpad to keep his little girl safe. Even if in another episode (?) Launchpad states he'd do just that "take care of Gos as if she were my own" and Drake is hesitant. "Don't give up your day job yet, buddy." Even if he doesn't acknowledge just how important Lp is to him, subconsciously he relies on his friend a lot.

Lastly, it's the episode of 'Time and Punishment', which honestly deserves its own post to ramble about but anyways. Just after Gosalyn disappeared, we were shown Drake in an awful state. Barely doing anything on his own, depressed and grieving. Launchpad stayed and tried hard to distract him (which is a good idea tbh, because a couple times has 'distracting' himself been a way to cope. Especially in this episode.) We also see Launchpad free, roaming amongst the patrolled streets of St. Canard. Which I think is interesting. Darkwarrior has locked away so many people for the most mundane things and yet he allowed Lp to roam free for so long. Subconsciously, at least for a while–he still cared a little for him. Even he, DARKWARRIOR didn't completely throw him away. (I'm a BIT salty about that comic volume😮‍💨)

Anyways.

I think, beyond their hero work, they'd be incredible close. They're a family and that's been expressed a lot. They need each other too. Even if we were to erase the hero/ sidekick job for one second, their characters go beyond that. They both have their desperate need to be needed and wanted, and not to mention how well they bounce off each other. With Lp not taking much to heart and often letting Drake rant and sulk without complaint. Drake needs someone like that. Drake needs someone in his corner to help him out of his little depressive episodes, give advice, to remind him of mundane things like PT meetings. Whereas Launchpad needs to be needed and to help (which was explored). And he would most definitly be needed in a family setting.

They really are a lot more than just Hero/Sidekick. They're family and it's hard to break that bond. The trust in one another is very strong. Drake would keep Launchpad around, raising Gosalyn because he's just as important to her as Drake is. Both characters bring out the best in each other, so I don't think Lp would be quick to leave, nor do I think Drake would be quick to let him go.

uhh yeah

basically, i feel their dynamic would remain the same. If anything, the hero/sidekick thing makes it stronger. Hope this answered it okay, ik I kinda went off and rambled about something semi-related, but I think it was important to point out :)

[mars-is-me7]

man, i have so many thoughts about qfoolish. he's just a silly little goofy guy but then when you peel away the first layer that you see of him and realize that he's rather a complex character. I feel like he's such a different type of character than what is usually shown. (and honestly, it's something that brings me a lot of comfort as i relate quite heavily to his very laid back nature that people will sometimes take as being unserious or even uncaring) Warning, this gets long (like 2.2k long to be exact) lol and i ramble a lot- also, disclaimer for my own sanity: this is an analysis of the characters! i adore any of the creatures mentioned here so please don't take any of this as a negative view on them! :D

Foolish's motivations are just very different than what typically motivates a character forward and in some sense it's really easy to skew what you think about him. As in, it's really easy to misinterpret his character i think. He express himself in a different way than i think most people are used to. He laughs in serious situations and is constantly just joking around. I think this causes people to think he cant/wont ever be serious, but the thing is that he's perfectly capable of being serious when he needs to be. For example, if he thinks that he and Leo are going into a serious situation, then he tells her to put her armor on. Really, just anything involving Leo he makes sure to be serious if the situation calls for it. Or like, fighting in dungeons only if he deems it dangerous enough to take seriously. but like, if he doesn't think a situation calls for it, then he just continues to be his goofy self. And sometimes when the situation calls for it, he is just in between those two points in a way that others aren't. He's just not afraid to joke around even when the situation seems dire (cellbit's kidnapping and rescue comes to mind. like, he played such a large role with his symmetry wand, but despite all the serious moments going on,, he was still just a goofy guy).

And one thing about him being so silly all the time is that even the other members on the island sometimes get a misconstrued picture of what they think foolish's goal and wants are. I think in some sense it's true to say that what motivates his wants is what the value of something he perceives is. For example, the sunbird he only wanted because of how cool it sounded and how rare it was. The cloud he wants because its something unique and useful. He wants Cucurucho's friendship because that's something no one else has and Cucurucho has access to items and is powerful.

But these wants aren't the most necessarily the most important things to him. Their something he has interest in, yes, but they're not more important than say his friends and family. Which, i feel like some people might not recognize about him. After all, he is constantly talking about wanting a cloud or how he'd have no issue in killing Bad (and holy shit is landduo and their relation something i could go on about for a whole more hour cuz there's so much there)

Because one vital thing that's so *so* important to recognize is that Foolish is very possibly one of the most loyal people on the island. And despite all of his flaws, he would never really want to truly hurt those he cares about. He is loyal to the people he cares about to an absurd amount. I think it's very clear to see his devotion for Vegetta and his adoration for Leo, but his loyalty also applies to his friends on the island. He would never *intentionally* want to harm anyone he cares about. I don't think some people understand that Mr. Mustard fell under that category as someone he cared about. The entire reason Cucurucho was able to lure him into accepting the mission It gave him is because it brought Mr. Mustard's name into the mix. It told Foolish that Pac and Mike were the ones responsible, and with nothing better to do, Foolish set out to complete this task.

To talk more about the recent events with him arresting Tazercraft: he would never truly want to harm or hurt them. However, when you're looking at the grand scheme of how things went down, he was manipulated and really had no other choice. Sure, he seemed to enjoy arresting them at first, but the thing is I don't think he really processed or even thought about how this action would be received by others. To him, arresting Pac and Mike sounded like enough fun, and it was coming from Cucurucho (who he's wanting to be friends with for actual months now, and Cucurucho literally called him friend in the book it handed to him) and being arrested sounded like something he'd enjoy. Again, like something *he'd* enjoy and that he therefore thought Pac and Mike would enjoy.

You have to realize, Foolish doesn't have the same perspective on these serious situations as some others do. And the thing is that he judges how others react based on how he would react to them. So, in that sense, he views being kidnapped/arrested as a good and fun thing! he even said today on stream, "apparently when you arrest someone, others won't find it funny". it might have just been one line, but in my eyes this gives a really clear insight into his character. To him, arresting Pac and Mike was only a positive thing because it would help him find his friend and it could be a fun event for them. His friend that he was told, by cucurucho, that had disappeared because of Pac and Mike. Foolish doesn't hold any ill intent, but that doesn't necessarily come across in others view of him. Although it might not be clear, he cares about Pac and Mike. Today he even expressed worries about them and said that he still considers them his friends (even though he's aware that they might not share those feelings about him anymore). He doesn't know about their past traumas, to him this was just a fun little event that would be fun for both them and him. When first accepting Cucurucho's mission to him, I'd say he doesn't realize the consequences his actions would have. That by arresting Pac and Mike, it'd leave the other members of the server doubting him and mistrusting him. That others would be angry at him for something that he hadn't realized the gravity of.

(just random thing i want to say here: honestly, if Foolish had any malicious intent towards Tazercraft, he could have easily made their arrest go unnoticed for at least a few days. just think about it: if he had said that the surprise he had was just for the two of them. if Jaiden hadn't accompanied them as a witness. people wouldn't of known then what happened to them, but the thing is that he wasn't thinking in this way because he would never seriously want to harm them. he even wanted Jaiden there as a witness)

I think he realized the backlash of his actions in the Favela when everyone seemed to swarm him and then when he got interrogated. In which, he never really lied. All things considered, Foolish is a rather honest guy. I'd even say that he almost never lies. Like, if he's trying to hide the truth about something, he often times will find a way to skirt around the question without lying. Like, just looking at the mess that was the interrogation yesterday (/lh) you can see that he doesn't ever actually lie. He just blabbers a bunch of nonsense and skirts around the issue without ever revealing anything. The issue arises when you look at the lie he did tell.

for those that don't know, Foolish gave Jaiden a rundown of what happened before arresting Tazercraft. and in this he tells her that Cucurucho gave him the option to either 'arrest Pac and Mike' or to 'kill Richarlyson'. Not even going to lie, when he said this is took me (and i think all of stream) off guard. because Foolish practically never lies in that way and so blatantly. because this was just 100% untrue. However, it makes sense why he did it. At that point, he realized that people were going to keep badgering him on why he arrested Pac and Mike, but at the same time he knew they wouldn't take him telling the truth seriously. He may care about Mr. Mustard but the truth is that the other members don't hold those same thoughts towards most the Capybaras in general. Like, just look at Fit's interaction with him today. Foolish literally reiterated the truth of why he did it over and over again, but Fit didn't believe him even slightly. Foolish didn't lie once about his motivations and yet he was just not believed.

I think he realized at some point soon after arresting Pac and Mike that people weren't going to trust the truth. Not from his mouth at least. So he lied to Jaiden because it's a lie that people will easily understand. it's a choice they'd stop questioning him about. Again, he doesn't do this out of malicious intent but because it's something easier for people to understand and relate to. It's something they're not going to hound him about, not like they will when he tells them the truth. This lie is more easily digestible for the island members and it also brings Foolish less stress if they take this and believe it. Everyone is willing to make sacrifices in order to protect the eggs. And he had to of realized that Jaiden was going to tell other people. The islanders almost always spread these types of details to each other, that's just how it goes. Telling this lie to her in secret makes it all that more believable when she goes and tells some of the others about it later cuz it's something Foolish told her in confidentiality. To the other members, it paints foolish only in a good light. Of course he wouldn't have actually wanted to arrest Pac and Mike, he did it to protect Richas! and that's all it takes to stop them from getting angry at him. All things considered, it's a smart move to pull. Although, I do have to wonder how this will come to bite foolish in the butt. Because i can only imagine that it will be revealed eventually, some way or another.

From what i understood, Cellbit immediately dropped his anger on Foolish once he was told it was to protect Richarlyson. When Jaiden tells him this information he doesn't even thing to consider that Foolish could have lied. After all, why reason would anyone have to lie about that? In my mind, i can only imagine that the lie will protect him for now and in the short term, but once revealed that it's a lie, i think there will be some repercussions against Foolish for sure. Like, even Jaiden doesn't know that he's lied. Jaiden, whom he's been telling everything about. Jaiden who is only one (aside from Leo) who now knows of Foolish's secret detective role. Jaiden, whose the one he's told almost the entire truth to.

An interesting thing to note though, is that I think Foolish's decision to lie to Jaiden was still rather spontaneous. like, it's not something he thought too much about. it's a fib that makes his life a little bit easier (a little bit less lonely) and right now it doesn't seem to hold any repercussions. the interesting thing, though, is that he hasn't repeated the lie at any point in time. and like, he also hasn't done any lying to reinforce the lie he's told. it'd be so easy to paint a story that he's being blackmailed, but he just *doesn't* even though it's a lie he's made himself.

Foolish, all in all, is someone that just acts or speaks before really thinking too much about what he's doing. About the possible side affects of his actions. He just *does* them.

I think it also plays in very well with the idea that he's lived for thousands of years. the things that affect the typical mortal just don't phase him in the same way, not when he's viewing everything as an adventure or an element that is fun. i think that also taking into consideration that he's lived for such a long time, it's rather surprising how easy he is to manipulate. Because that is what Cucucrucho is doing, when looking at the whole picture. cucurucho holds a lot of power and we all know that it easily could have arrested Pac and Mike without the intervention of Foolish. So why make him do it anyways?

Well we don't know that for sure, but we can make some guesses. To sow distrust between the members. To see how far Foolish was actually able and willing to go for the Federation. To place blame on someone aside from itself. All possibilities.

Regardless, Foolish has played right into their hands. He's a silly guy that's gotten himself into a serious situation. One in which he might end up having to navigate alone because even though he has Jaiden he's still lied to her, and even though he has Leo, he would never want to put his daughter into harms way. He said something at the end of the stream about how this might just end up being a lonely road he's taking and i couldn't agree more.

Anyways, that's all i got for tonight as it's late and idk what im getting at here, i just think Foolish is really neat and wanted to attempt to put that into words. :D

[drunkenskunk]

I've been really enjoying the last few Lancer sessions I've been in, and in a way, it's very funny to me, because... well, to put it bluntly: my character hasn't really been doing much. At least, nothing that involves moving the plot forward significantly.

See, here's the thing. There are a lot of Very Important Things that are currently happening in Calliope, Very Important People are involved, and there's a lot of Capital-P """Politics""" going on. And my character Scarlet is... not built for any of this.

I've mentioned this before, but Scarlet is basically "What if me, but Girl, and also mech pilot?" And as a result, she's an uncouth lout, an alcoholic, and... honestly, kind of a dumbass. Like, her skill triggers are [Apply Fists To Faces] [Assault] [Blow Something Up] and [Survive]. Scarlet is here to fight and get drunk, and that's about it. She's not good with politics, or diplomacy, or... polite company.

On the other hand, one of the other player characters, Fern Tiramisu, is absolutely in their element. They're an operative for the Union Intelligence Bureau and are basically a super-spy. At least compared to the rest of us. And it's led to some scenes that have been very extremely hilarious to me, if only in private.

For example: in the game on the 17th, our team went to the Icebreaker for a party held by the Kingdom Aniline. One of the (many) things that happened that night was Fern speaking with The Queen of Smoke, a powerful seer and mystic for the Kingdom. Very Important Plot Developments were had within an impenetrable and magical Dome Of Silence, that prevented anyone from outside listening in on their conversation.

And while all this was going on, Scarlet was on the opposite end of the ballroom, making a sandwich out of the hors d'oeuvre table, like Rodney Dangerfield in that one scene in Back to School.

Later in that same game, when she was getting a drink from a bartender COMP/CON, she ordered herself a Stygian Mining Charge, which in reality is a "Creamsicle Bomb." And if you're not familiar, it's this:

A shot of whipped cream vodka dropped in a glass of mandarin Jarritos. This is not the kind of drink you order at a fancy party. She absolutely knows this, and wanted to see what she could get away with around all the muckity-mucks.

However: the drink came with a napkin that had a message on it ("Amphion is lovely this time of year"), and even though this was clearly Important To The Plot, she couldn't make heads or tails of it. So she just took it over to Fern and, like the dumbass she is, said out loud: "Hey, you know about all this fuckin' spy shit, right? What do you make of this?"

And then, during the game yesterday, the SRT went to Chameleon to get "involved" with the Harrison Armory Situation. We had a meeting with Strike Captain Tsukuda, during which Fern was constantly probing, constantly testing, gauging reactions. What's the Captain going to do if I just go over to the wet bar without asking? Are any of these drinks poisoned? They claim the room is silenced, but are there any surveillance bugs? Are we being watched? Why is the Captain being so candid and saying these absolutely insane things so fucking openly? What's the angle here?

Meanwhile, Scarlet was like "Hot damn, free hooch!" the moment Fern offered to make a drink.

It was this moment of Very Intelligent People having a verbal sparring match, where this Harrison Armory Captain was blatantly and openly asking us to do Very Illegal Things for Unknown Reasons... and Scarlet is just quietly standing off to the side out of everyone's way next to the wet bar, silently sipping on her glass of liquor, thinking to herself "Christ the Buddha, this is some good fuckin' whiskey!"

I don't know, the last few sessions have felt very ridiculous and absurd in the best way, at least from my point of view. Like, I'm having a great time, and all I'm doing is fucking around, waiting for the shooting to start lol

[ming-sik]

Thoughts on Veronica and how most fanfics seem to blame her well... *gestures to everything about her* this because of her 'lack of education' and not how she (and her siblings) may or may not have been targeted by the Lesiegang faction due to her lineage?

Ik most fanfics make it out that she's insaine for wearing veils while in the fanfic Ahrensbach wears veils to 'protect themselves from sun's rays' and treat it like canon and for importing spices from Ahrensbach as this huge threat to the duchy because (insert 100+ medical reasons) and honestly? It reads like someone who's wanting to become a bit closer to their dead mother by practicing things her dead mother practised (and don't get me started on how yucky I feel everytime when Rozemyne superiorly tells everyone how spices are ruining their stomachs and the amounts of spice they eat is 'unsafe', conveniently ignoring how spicy South Asian food can get yet not many over there's forming stomach ulcers or on the verge of death because they smell 1 tokbokki-)

Anyways, I'd really like to know your thoughts on this!

So previously I did not know that much abt aob fanfic but.

IMO the answer is that AOB is classist/misogynist/xenophobic and fans end up either picking up on that or being drawn to it. It's a pretty simplistic answer but it explains a lot of the really strange behavior that goes on.

Veils are pretty clearly an attempt to invoke hijab which is by itself fine, YS is actually desperately lacking cultural differences between duchies, and if that's a Lanzenavian custom that's been imported to Ahrensbach that'd actually mimic how wimples are at least believed to originate from hijab. However even the way canon treats veils is really weird. Veils shielding you from the sun is actually mentioned in p5v6 during this Detlinde pov chapter

but since Detlinde and Georgine are veiled indoors, they're also almost definitely worn for cultural reasons. All of which is again fine... except that they're the evil duchy. The veiled characters we see are Detlinde, Georgine, Veronica, and Aurelia(Fraularm and Alstede aren't veiled, so this is presumably an optional cultural practice). Three of them are villains, while Aurelia's reason is that she's ashamed of strongly resembling Veronica and wants to hide her face, which would be an absurd thing to expect of her, except that Ferdinand never shuts the fuck up about Detlinde looking like Veronica so she probably would face discrimination for resembling someone in her family. There is not a single even neutral female character... well, in Ahrensbach, but also specifically who wears a veil except Aurelia who's wearing hers for a very specific reason unrelated to her being from Ahrensbach.

Aurelia also gets discriminated against for wearing a veil, which would've been a decent way to show a conflict where a likeable character ISN'T portrayed as the unambiguous good party except that the story doesn't seem to think this is strange. No characters really push back on the validity of this suspicion and Aurelia herself seems to accept it as a matter of course. The fact that fans have obviously picked up on the fact that veils are meant to be a strange exotic cultural practice and are writing characters that way themselves is pretty telling.

As you say, it's fine to veil. There are a lot of reasons to do it from the utilitarian sun protection to propriety to her being proud of being from Ahrensbach, which is in itself neutral unless you accept the premise that Ahrensbach is the evil duchy or you think veils are inherently suspicious.

Veronica's lack of archduke candidate education is obviously irrelevant because she managed to scheme enough to create the Veronica faction. The women had a phd in machinations and knowledge of enough archducal matters to function as the Aub's first wife, so either she got an archducal education once she was married or she just didn't need it which could be how it works because unlike female aubs, female archducal wives aren't expected to take over their husband's work when their husbands are pregnant. Even if she was uneducated enough that she struggled with handling administrative duties, how this would lead to her abuse is a problem we apparently have our strongest misogyny soldiers working on because those two things are unconnected. In canon characters outside of Rihyarda are pretty uninterested in why Veronica or Gabriele are the way they are, but most people aren't evil because they're stupid, they're evil because they have what they believe to be a completely valid motivation for whatever heinous thing they're doing, and the way YS treats faction politics definitely could've been a major source of her desperation to solidify her power alongside her stated internalized misogyny. (Her internalized misogyny isn't necessarily the story's misogyny, but it is strange that this isn't really pushed back on and the only victim who gets much spotlight is Ferdinand despite Veronica seeming to target women much more harshly.)

None of this is a defense of Veronica, I disagree with the thing where she systemicatically abused and ostracized a massive portion of the duchy and my condolences to her victims, but the ways AOB chooses to signal that especially female characters are villains is notable and by notable I mean falls into some patterns. This is mainly that damnable Ferdinand's fault because he 1) will not shut the fuck up about how everyone he dislikes is basically his mommy reincarnated and 2) hates women so much it's unreal, so the fact that he's Rozemyne's main source for a lot of characters colors that. You could argue that this is him and other characters intentionally being written as unreliable narrators, but if that's true then it's a little strange that the fandom is so united on taking his word as gospel, and when read it does not come off that way. Veronica's deal being attributed to stupidity might come from how Ferdinand treats Detlinde if I had to find a reason for it, but honestly the machinations of the AOB fandom are in some ways incomprehensible to me.

The spice thing is just straight up racist. It's racist in canon, the way that all spices are lumped together when both nutmeg and chili peppers are "spices" despite having wildly varying flavors and effects is in itself racist. We don't get a single named spice. Are they talking about peppercorns? Chili peppers? Nutmeg? Cumin? What about ginger? Even assuming we're talking about specifically capsaicin, spicy food causing ulcers is mostly pop science, and the health risks beyond short-term pain pale in comparison to, like, alcohol. Spice tolerance is a thing and Rozemyne might not like a ghost pepper, but shockingly yeah cultures with a lot of spicy food aren't pretending to enjoy it as an elaborate bit(tteokbokki are Korean but I know what you're getting at). If Ahrensbach people eat food flavored with fantasy bird's eye peppers from a young age they're not gonna experience any problems from eating spice unless they have unrelated health issues.

As with everything the defense of this is probably that the characters are unreliable narrators. I've spent a lot of time arguing with people on this so at some point I just have to say that if every sympathetic character in the story is parroting something and no conflict ever arises from the fact that they're incorrect then the story is just having a character say something that is true in universe, and the fact that Ahrensbach and by proxy Lanzenavian culture are treated the way they are is xenophobic in Ahrensbach's case and racist in Lanzenave's. Fans are Like That because they pick up on this stuff and either uncritically accept it as just a thing that's true about AOB's worldbuilding that's neutral or were already prejudiced and therefore had no conflict when the story confirmed those prejudices. Which is another thing. If these characters are meant to be unreliable narrators, you'd think the fandom wouldn't uncritically accept character testimony so often!

[bloodgulchblog]

Important question.

Which halo book is the most gay

Sorry this took a minute, I've been dying on the job lately and this ended up longer than intended. (I am under so much stress and writing absurd amounts about Halo canon is enrichment for me.)

First of all: Is anything in Halo hard-canon, completely undeniable, text-only no subtext, gay? The answer is: not much.

Cards on the table, jokes to the side, Halo is overall very sexless and, when it remembers sexuality exists and maybe a character would have a feeling about that, it's usually heterosexual. Halo was born in the early 2000s and is one of those properties that wears a "mature" coat of paint but knows that a huge percentage of its audience is probably teenagers and thus it's very scared of what would happen if their parents got mad. (This was even true when they were still making the games M rated.) The games have a lot of incidental dialogue with the marines and sangheili allies but it's the kind of thing of thing you know people let skate in 2007 because lol gay, hilarious.

It's one of those things where the only way to square it with, you know, the fact queer people exist in reality, is that queer people existing is commonplace and not taboo ergo it's not brought up. This isn't a great patch job and fixes nothing, but these are the hoops available to jump through if this is your chosen circus and you're trying to have a good time. Do the tigers at the circus have a good time? Probably not, actually. Let's move on.

There are two instances of the written Halo canon specifically and undeniably mentioning gay characters. (...Or at least there have been two for the longest damn time. If I blinked and missed something recent y'all should yell in the notes. The gay couple they kill in the TV show doesn't count.) They are both supporting cast characters in short stories written by the same author, Tobias S. Buckell, for each of the two short story anthologies.

The older story is "Dirt" in the Evolutions anthology, and there are two gay women in it. The first is Felicia:

The second is Allison:

Both of these characters die (Allison dies in an attack that happens literally seconds after this moment, but Felicia is important through the story until she goes). "Dirt" is good, contains the first mention of the Rookie, the most detail we've been given on ODST training, and is a love letter to Contact Harvest so it's following up on the messy pre-Covenant insurrection vs CMA vs UNSC tensions we haven't seen in as much detail since.

The second story is "Oasis" in the Fractures anthology and there is much much less here. The protagonist of "Oasis" is a girl whose remote desert community is being ravaged by a virus, and she's the only one able to set out across the desert in search of help (where she gets caught up in some infighting among the planet's Sangheili).

Nearer the start, she finds one of her neighbors burning the body of his partner, who has died of the virus. I'm not going to post it, it's very sad. They're one-scene characters and one of them is dead before we meet him.

Tobias S. Buckell is the only Halo writer who has given us canonically gay characters, and they're only supporting cast in short stories. I can't know why exactly (fuck if I know what has happened internally on Halo) but the why socially (society homophobic) is pretty obvious.

Honestly, I think the only other direct mention is there's a bit in the first YA novel where one of the kids teases another about whether a third is "his boyfriend" because they've been talking a lot and he's like no stoooop!! about it.

Anyway.

If we have to choose a gayest Halo book based on actual mention of gay people, the award goes to Halo: Evolutions because it has one story where a lesbian is a major character.

Having crowned this dubious king, let's move on to the subtext. It's fine. We're all on tumblr, we all understand having to descend into these mines to have fun.

There are a lot of very gay moments in some Halo stories. Certainly not enough to recommend a whole book to someone, because these are always incidental, but hey. I'm a master at chewing the scraps off the bones.

I'll lead with trying to answer the original question: What is the gayest Halo book?

I think to me, the most sustained gay vibe in a written-out Halo story is whatever was going on between Romeo and Dutch in the short run comic Helljumper.

The actual text of Helljumper is: Dutch has put in for a transfer to a non-combat post in order to be closer to his wife, Gretchen. Romeo is really upset about this and they have conflict about this through a big high octane ODST adventure that ends with Romeo saying "hey Dutch I've put in for a transfer too" while Dutch goes "oh uh, I talked to Gretchen about it and I canceled my transfer request..."

It's the intensity of Romeo's hurt feelings, and the obvious fondness between the characters. I'm not saying "Romeo/Dutch real." I don't like Romeo a whole lot (mostly due to later outings in the Buck novels) and Dutch is definitely very married to Gretchen. I don't actually care that much. But for the space of time where I was reading Helljumper thinking about it that way added more emotional interest and made sense.

For things that only last for moments, I have a little collection of bits and pieces.

First: The essence of the Lord of Admirals Forthencho oversharing with our poor boy Chakas about his Didact feelings. (From Primordium.)

A moment where you know how bad the Arbiter and the Rtas 'Vadum wish they could be reunited one day, from Shadow of Intent:

Also I think the strongest "oh you could build a romance out of that" moment with the Arbiter about the Chief is actually him fully prepared to tell Locke to fuck off over him in Halo 5, but having that conviction in the Arbiter's warrior crush on the Master Chief makes passages like the below (in Outcasts) fun:

Uhuh Thel you are commissioning art of him in your home? Tell us more.

(Yes, I'm playing, I know the saga wall is an important Sangheili cultural piece, I know-)

Zita, you may ask, do you have even a crumb for the lesbians?

Alright boss, best I got is probably Adriana-111 making tea for Melody Azikiwe after the Big Stressful Book Events have concluded (from Halo: Envoy)

Okay.

I think there might be more, so everyone feel free to use this post to shout out your favorite spots that you think are better if you read them gay.

[yuseirra]

Hey.. I finally watched a part of the anime S2's final ep(I needed to get Hikaru's color schemes)and I'm getting this..hunch..

Remember how the final ep's title is "Wish"? Remember how anime S1's ED, Mephisto is all about a "Wish" too?

Everyone made wishes at the shrine, didn't they? But none of them made the same wish mentioned in Mephisto: "I want my beloved's life to return. I want to see them again." I honestly think it's HIM out of all the characters that'd make that sort of wish, if anyone. If this guy has a wish, IT'S GOING TO BE EXACTLY THAT. HE'D WANT AI TO BE WITH HIM. HE'D WANT TO SEE HER AGAIN. What else would he want??

Hey, then could it really be that THIS guy made that sort of wish at a shrine or something but since that was an impossible type of wish, the god=star he made wishes on twisted it to make it seem like it could be accomplished if conditions are met and thus, THAT'S what's drove him into insanity?? The gods do seem to have some sort of power.

So.. didn't watch the ep in full but Ruby's "wish" is being emphasized in that ep, isn't it? Her actions in that ep must be her actions to make that a reality/what brings her closer to that particular wish she's made? and that had her shift pretty dramatically, under the influence of the black star? I do think that one may have the power to grant people's wishes but disastrously and unpredictably (which is why I keep bringing up that absurdity god mentioned in 144)

Kamiki's appearance near the end of that anime ep may indicate the same thing's been happening to him, that HE'S another character that's also made a wish. He did mention of wishes an awful lot as he appeared in front of both his children 147 and 153. AND that what he's being is in accordance to that wish. That part is quite confirmed, I mean, even if his analogy is very weird for your normal person to think of, he thought what he was doing was helping him get closer to Ai and feel her presence. This must have been HIS wish.

I think he must have grown insane after having made a wish to see Ai again. The two songs, Fatal and Mephisto basically have their speakers desiring the same wish in essence, they really, really want to meet this one important person in their life that's gone and they're willing to do anything to make that happen. That's why I believe it must be Kamiki who's responsible for the songs. When you look at the songs closely, there is an entity they are making the wish to, and that's a star. and if you look at Fatal, a dark one like that.

I will not stop to struggle on this stage I want to get closer to the only [ai] This foreordained destiny It's the darkness that fell out from the light of that star

この舞台で足掻くことをやめない ただ一つのアイに近づきたい 固く定まったこの宿命 あの星の光からこぼれた闇

I think;; he may have started to believe in this kind of "destiny" that doing whatever he's been doing would bring him closer to Ai after having made a wish on a star... that's what's happened!!! The star acted to fulfill his wish but it's something that couldn't happen in reality so it could have acted on his thought processes

If all my desires came true, oh, how I wish I could attain that I want to see you I wish upon the stars

あらゆる望みの総てを叶えたら　ああ果たせたら あなたに会いたい 星に願いをかけて

The bolded part of the lyric. I believe that's what this character's "wish" is.

If life returns to you, if it reaches you I don't care what happens to me But not every wish will be fulfilled And if that's not realized I shall become you

あなたに命が戻るなら　届くなら わたしはどうなろうと構わないのに どうやら総ては叶わない 叶わないならばあなたになりたい

and then it starts shifting to this other desire because it isn't a wish that can be granted.

This literally starts breaking him down.

星は砕け光る

The stars shatter and shine

that part of the lyric sounds like "Hikaru", so I always thought this song or at least this segment of the song had something to do with him ever since I listened to it.

I don't think this theory would be too much of a stretch because that's what's been happening in both songs. This guy WASN'T the type to do these things before. He REALLY wasn't; Ai is worried about him you know? He's the one guy she wanted to live forever with, you know? If I'm the author, I never make a character like that say such things without a reason. This was a guy that allowed her to say these things about. And he's completely lost it now. I don't think it's natural. I really think the extent of his change can only be possible if there's some possession or brainwashing that's involved. The black star does seem to have that sort of effect to a degree. It proves effective in terms of granting the user of its wants, but they drift far away from their usual kind selves as they do.

Even if there aren't some godly powers involved, Hikaru probably became destroyed because he had a desire that practically is impossible to achieve. But some beings can grant wishes and revive people in this manga. It's been presented from the very first chapter. Things start becoming more complicated in that case, those beings definitely would have to do with him one way or the other because it either intertwines or clashes with his wants.

In short,

Hikaru probably wished "to see Ai again".

and the entity that he wished to may have twisted him into become the person he is now.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Every other day I find more Kamen Rider nods/callbacks in Germa, and it's getting really obnoxious, I just keep wondering what sensei is trying to do with this. If he's just having fun because he really likes Kamen Rider and Super Sentai, this is kind of going overboard.

Maybe he's just trolling Toei with this nonsense??? Toei as a studio runs Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure (another magic girl show), and of course One Piece. Maybe he thought it'd be funny to make this bizarre combination of all the above and he just happens to really like Kamen Rider the most??

Sometimes the nods are too serious to be a joke, but on the other hand it's also super absurd at other times.

The Super Sentai team look is almost a camouflage, lore-wise they're definitely closer to Kamen Rider. Plus, Kamen Rider itself did have its "evil team" with rainbow scarves (all identical suits, though). Funky belts and scarves? That's the classic Kamen Rider's iconic look.

And then the Germa leader in the comic book resembling the military-looking guy (a KR villain commander). Based on the rough drafts that military look almost was designated to be how Judge actually looks before sensei scrapped it (too obvious, maybe?).

Kind of hard to see but in the screenshots you can also see the evil organisation's logo (on the floor in the middle of the table) looks like the Germa eagle symbol. And the setup of the "table under throne" in the left screenshot looks more specifically similar.

He's been mixing up various tropes from multiple seasons so it's just really

The term "modified humans" 改造人間 that was used to refer the the siblings is something that was characteristic of the Shouwa Riders (the really old ones from 90s and older). This is not "cyborg", by the way, just genetic modification. Like, in American superhero terms, Captain America or Winter Soldier would also categorise as 改造人間.

Sanji's backstory and the exoskeleton mods and even "evil twins" is more specifically Kamen Rider Black. The raid suit can transformation pose are the newer riders (Heisei Riders) from later in the 2000s onwards.

The original Kamen Rider villains, the Shocker group, were legitimately just flat out Nazis (or affiliated to them), and I honestly think the weird look in Germa is because of the Kamen Rider Easter Egg. Not because sensei was thinking "Germa = Germany".

Certainly we don't know when this stuff turned into this, as the old drafts proved that there was a time he designed "Sanji's family" to just look mostly normal. The father who was named Saint Germain looks just kind of like Pedro but human. Yonji looks like pre-timeskip Sanji but has a sword.

To me it felt more like he was going for the French/Saint Germain angle at first, then suddenly it became Kamen Rider and the Third Reich stuff crawled in. Sensei does a lot of research I'm sure, but I mean, most Japanese text usually calls Germany "Doitsu". Even the WW2 stuff would refer to them with something-Doitsu.

Unless he picked up a text with English words in them, he might not have really noticed Germany is spelled "Germany" in English. We don't know either way, that's why I don't like to assume for certain.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much of this can serve as a predictor. If it really is a straight reference, Sanji might then just adopt the mods completely. As mentioned above, the old Riders were "modified humans". The evil organisation were the people who forcibly gave them the powers they never wanted. They just reject the evil intent, but embrace the power because they're using it for good.

But if this is all just trolling, then scrap all that and now I know nothing.

[licncourt]

I totally understand your opinion about amc Lestat but don't you think this could just be Louis' perspective on him? Or Claudia herself? They portrayed Lestat as a demon in first book, I want to give a chance to the 2 second , the show plays a lot with things from point of view and memory, I think people are giving up too soon...

I've talked about this before, but it was over a year ago now so I'll explain again.

While I understand where you're coming from, I honestly don't think it would matter to me. Even if what happened in ep 5 was 100% something Louis or Claudia dreamed up, I would still have major issues because:

Even though ep 1 had a content warning for Paul's suicide, there was absolutely nothing before ep 5, something that the viewers had established trust with the creators to do. I think there's one now on AMC+, but that was added weeks later after backlash. The showrunners doubling down and the episode director almost mocking fans who were upset was incredibly tasteless as well.

The story as pitched by the showrunners feels very much like bait and switch false advertising. It was pitched to the viewers as a gothic love story that was "the most faithful adaptation of IWTV ever". Not to mention the insane tonal shift into something that moved from fantasy violence against NPCs to brutal domestic violence and the vampire version of sexual assault. Anyone coming from the books had no reason to anticipate this dynamic between Loustat, nor would anyone who checked out the source material prior to see if they would be okay with it

If they go the "Louis/Claudia imagined this/made it up/misremembered the events" route, I think that's a questionable at best and offensive at worst narrative to put forth about domestic violence victims since the showrunners seem to not see anything wrong with it. Portraying it is one thing, not seeing how presenting domestic abuse as "the fallibility of memory" is pretty messed up is another

Especially considering Rolin Jones' comments after one of the episodes that he wanted to "play with race" as a white man, I find the ep 5 events combined with the dynamic in ep 6 gross as hell. It's explicitly referred to as being like a master/slave relationship, that's insane considering the stated goal of the show was to make the story modern and racially aware. Obviously AMC wants Loustat to be romantic endgame, but they're starting off with a white man basically owning his black partner and child like animals

My problems with the episode also extend to Claudia's sexual assault. Again, not something that was in the book at all but rather added by a white male creator because I guess that's the only way women are allowed to face adversity in media. Claudia is already an incredibly tragic character, that was absurd to add for what, drama? Having Daniel make cruel comments about it to Louis and having Lestat (a canon sexual assault victim) mock her for it is the cherry on top.

Overall it was just a really shitty thing for the creators to do no matter what the ultimate outcome. Several of my good friends who are book fans were extremely triggered by the scene and totally blindsided by something that felt completely gratuitous and honestly like shock bait to be edgy and generate social media buzz. Again, unbelievably tasteless.

I don't have any faith in the good intentions of the creators anymore, and that sucks because there were a lot of good things about the show before that.

[spiderdreamer-blog]

2023 at the Movies: A Year in Review

2023 has been an odd year for American cinema in particular, between overall tepid box office outside of a few big hits and the combination of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes affecting release dates as well as promotional tactics. (Just so we're clear, this is a Union Solidarity Blog) But it was a fascinating year artistically nonetheless, especially on the blockbuster end. What this list aims to achieve is sort of a capsule review of the theatrical releases I saw (not counting streaming-only films even if I ended up seeing theatrical releases ON streaming) and how I felt about them in capsule review form. And even then, there's still stuff I need to catch up on like Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Oppenheimer, Elemental, or Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Anyhoo, on with my list, in chronological release order:

John Wick: Chapter 4: Much like its titular hero, there are perhaps some signs that this franchise could benefit from taking a bit of a rest. Some of the worldbuilding is going from knowingly absurd to just plain absurd, and a couple early action beats, while fun (NUNCHUCKS), are a little familiar in terms of director Chad Stahelski's neon-as-fuck aesthetics. Ultimately, it's not too much to derail things, as Keanu Reeves proves a capable grounding lead like always, and the Parisian third act is giddy, comically overblown violence in the grand John Wick tradition that reaches an unexpected poignancy. The supporting cast might also be one of the best in the series; while Asia Kate Dillion's unflappable Adjudicator is missed from the last installment, we do receive Bill Skarsgard doing an OUTRAAGEOUS French accent as a smarmy villain you really want to see dead by the end of this, Donnie Yen as a clever, funny spin on the blind swordsman trope, Rina Sawayama is both badass and touching, Shamier Anderson stands out by dialing down, and my beloved Clancy Brown has some of the best implicit "are you fucking kidding me" reactions I've seen in a while.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: I was honestly dreading this for a while. Illumination Entertainment is a perfectly cromulent animation studio who makes films that, with a couple exceptions, represent pretty much everything I dislike about American family filmmaking: loud, hyperactive, deficient of nutritional value, and did I mention loud? But the trailers started impressing me in terms of how well they adapted the candy-colored toybox Nintendo aesthetic to a wider theatrical scope. And if nothing else, casting Jack Black as Bowser would probably be pretty awesome (spoiler alert: he was). Thankfully, it manages to be an immensely entertaining, zippy adventure film that minimizes potential annoyances at nearly every turn. This is primarily thanks to a ready-to-play, enthusiastic voice cast (outside of Black, I particularly like Pratt and Day's brotherly dynamic and Anya Taylor-Joy doing a Disney Princess-esque comedy action spin on Peach), a smartly simple story structure, and leaving a lot of potential open for the future like Seth Rogen's lovable ready-for-spinoff-movies Donkey Kong. It may not rock the boat, but it was better than it had any business being, and that counts for a lot in my book.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: The Marvel Cinematic Universe and I are admittedly on a bit of a break. Not because they're doing anything WRONG per se, just that a lot of their shows and movies haven't enticed me as much in the past year. I did get out to see this, though, which is both the best all around MCU film since Endgame and very possibly the best film of its own trilogy. James Gunn pulls out all the stops emotionally for his Marvel swan song (godspeed to you over at the still-in-progress trashfire that is Warner Bros. Discovery, good sir), crafting a beautiful, resonant journey for all the characters. The ensemble cast fires on all cylinders, for one. While Bradley Cooper is the obvious vocal standout as Rocket takes center stage, it's assuredly the role of Chris Pratt's career (other non-Mario/Marvel directors, take note! You can in fact have this guy be funny, credibly tough, AND sympathetic instead of missing out on the other two), Zoe Saldana navigates a difficult emotional dance, Pom Klementieff finds real heart in Mantis, Dave Bautista is still one of our most interesting wrestlers-turned-actors in the choices he makes, Karen Gillan has slowly become of the MCU's MVPs as Nebula, Will Poulter is endearingly dunderheaded as a comedic take on Adam Warlock, and Chukwudi Iwuji proves a truly vile villain who exemplifies the maxim of "if you really want an audience to just HATE a motherfucker, have him torture cute animals". And of course Gunn's musical tastes remain impeccable, such as a Beastie Boys needle drop that prompts a truly bitchin' fight scene (oddly the second time this specific song happened this year in a Pratt-led vehicle). It's funny, it made me ugly cry at SEVERAL points, and I got to see a psychic cosmonaut dog beat people's asses with her mind. What more could I want?

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse: Into the Spider-Verse was a revolution and a revelation for what the American animated film industry could accomplish artistically and technically. How could a sequel possibly live up to it? Across does, against all odds, proving to be the Empire Strikes Back to the original's Star Wars in terms of going darker/more complex on the emotions and to greater visual heights (albeit with the caveat that maybe next time, we can manage the production better and not crunch people so much). Co-directors Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers, and Joaquim Dos Santos (who I've stanned as one of our best animation action directors from Justice League Unlimited through Voltron Legendary Defender) craft a propulsive narrative that asks big questions about who and what Spider-Man is. And while those will have to wait to be fully answered in the third installment, what it sets up is no less compelling or thrilling. Shout-outs in particular go to Hailee Steinfeld, who has to anchor this film with Gwen as much as Shameik Moore's still-iconic Miles; Daniel Pemberton for an outstanding score; Oscar Isaac for giving rich complexity to Miguel O'Hara, who could have felt like a boorish bully in lesser hands; and Jason Schwartzman for not just proving he transitions REALLY well into voicework between this and projects like Klaus, but being by turns pathetically funny and terrifying in ways I've never heard him be as the Spot. Can't wait to see where that goes next time in particular.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: "Pleasant surprise" comes to mind. While I never hated Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as much as most, it was definitely a little underwhelming as a possibly final Indy adventure. (Not helping is that Steven Spielberg immediately turned around and made an infinitely better indy movie in the form of The Adventures of Tintin) So I was curious to see how going to the well for seemingly the real final adventure would work this time around. Thankfully, director James Mangold proves he has a good eye for creative action, even if nothing here quite reaches the heights of the original trilogy, and Harrison Ford does some of his best acting in ages as a weary, burnt-out Indy; one always got the sense that THIS was much closer to his heart than Han Solo. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a terrific foil to him, joyously amoral (or so she says), while Mads Mikkelsen finds a new spin on coldly cruel cinematic Nazis; he has a tense reintroduction scene that had me squirming in my seat. Add in a slam-bang ending and a touching epilogue, and I'm pretty happy with where things end up for our favorite archaeologist. A solid B+, which we could use more of nowadays.

Also they Poochie-d Shia LaBeouf, which is hilarious to me on several levels.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One: The Mission: Impossible franchise has undergone a curious metamorphosis from where it started as one of many oldies TV adaptations in 1996 to a purposefully old-school action franchise. Director Christopher McQuarrie has become a pro at these over the last three installments, and Dead Reckoning (now no longer a part one, as the back-in-production followup will be retitled) has lots to offer both large and small for action fans even outside of the continued spectacle of Tom Cruise Possibly Wants To Die On Camera. Obviously the big stunt sequences remain a draw, like a terrific car chase through Rome or the climactic journey onboard the Orient Express because trains are ALWAYS bitchin' locations in movies. But just as good are pleasures like a tense cat-and-mouse game in an airport where nobody's quite sure whose side Hayley Atwell's thief Grace is on, Henry Czerny coming back to the franchise after 27 years and looking as shiftily patriotic as ever, Pom Klementieff on this list for the second time looking really hot as she whoops ass, and Cary Elwes getting an unexpectedly choice exposition monologue. Plus the whole deal with the A.I. villain ended up being, uh, fairly relevant.

Barbie: A brilliant human comedy from an unexpected source. This could have gone wrong in so many different ways, I can easily imagine a version that's WAY more lugubrious and, crucially, much less funny. But director/co-writer Greta Gerwig has quickly become one of our best talents between this and the wildly-different-but-has-more-in-common-than-you'd-think Little Women (I also still need to see to heard-it's-excellent Lady Bird). With an infinitely clever script (I love in particular that the "real world" is just as ridiculous in its own way as Barbieland) and Sarah Greenwood's impeccable production design, Gerwig and her cast craft a feminist fable that remains light and funny even at its most strident and angry. Margot Robbie has never been better, hilarious and gut-punching by equal measure, America Ferrera ends up as the unexpected heart of the piece, and Ryan Gosling is absolutely hysterical as Ken while still making him intensely sympathetic. He and Robbie deserve Oscar noms in particular. No, I'm not kidding. Might expand this one to a full review at some point tbh.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: I missed this in theaters and regret it immensely, given that this is a hilarious, cheerfully irreverent take on characters who've really managed a surprising amount of relevance in the modern age. Actually having teen actors voice the Turtles makes them feel so authentic, and they're matched well by an equally game cast like Ayo Edebiri's thoroughly modern April O'Neill, Jackie Chan as a more bumbling-but-heartfelt version of Splinter than usual, and Paul Rudd going full surfer bro as Mondo Gecko. And of course the scribbled-notebook underground comics vibe of the animation is a neat bit of full circle aesthetics if you know these guys' origins.

Wish: All of you are wrong and being dumb about this movie. It's not that I can't grok some of the criticisms as being legitimate, to be fair; for example, the songs, while very good on their own IMO, don't always hit the iconic level of a Frozen or Encanto. But the vitriol with which they've been expressed, and this odd narrative that Disney is in the toilet artistically and needs to nebulously "fix" things, is something I can't at all agree with. It's gorgeously rendered, for one; yes, I would potentially like to see a return to full 2D animated films for the studio at some point too. But if they're gonna experiment even marginally with CGI, I applaud co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn making it look this painterly as a starting point. And as with a lot of modern Disney, there's real richness and inner life to these characters. Ariana DeBose is a winning heroine as Asha, who feels distinct from other "princesses" by essentially being working class and unionizing the kingdom. And Chris Pine as Magnifico is a Disney Villain for the ages, blending real complexity in his relationships with scenery-chewing madness. (Also am I the only one who got major "studio executive/CEO" vibes off him?) If this is "mid" or "bland" Disney, I really question what some of y'all are seeing that I seemingly can't.

Also I liked the 100th anniversary references, sue me. The last one in particular gets points for quiet charm rather than grandstanding.

The Boy and the Heron: Hayao Miyazaki, anime's favorite grumpy old man, comes back out of retirement for like the fifth time. Seriously, remember when Princess Mononoke was supposed to be his last film 25+ years ago? I'll believe his "last film" is truly his last when he's in the cold, cold ground. Regardless of the continuing saga of Old Man Won't Retire Because He Seemingly Can't Be Alone With His Own Thoughts, this is a brilliant, haunting spectacle of animation that might be a new favorite for me. Some have called it confusing, whereas I go for "dreamlike", possibly his most to date. Nearly every frame is suffused with longing and melancholy (though this also has some of Miyazaki's best comedy in a while), and, oddly like Wish, this feels like a true career reflection, if a bit more fraught and questioning what legacy truly means. Joe Hisaishi contributes possibly his moodiest, most dissonant score, with little of the bombast or whimsical charm that typifies his music, but it works unfathomably well. Credit also to the dub, with Robert Pattinson as funny and menacing as you've heard, but Luca Pandoval is also excellent as our stoic lead Mahito, Florence Pugh manages to be both a total badass and a funny old woman (it makes sense in context, I promise), Christian Bale puts forth a fascinating two-step with his boisterous father, Gemma Chan and Karen Fukuhara nail some complex emotional turns, Willem Dafoe nearly steals the whole thing in under two minutes, Dave Bautista makes a real meal out of a part not much bigger than that, and Mark Hamill finds resonance as a tired old man.