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dangermousie · 1 year ago

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Farscape rewatch 2x10 - My Three Crichtons

This is probably a lesser ep, objectively speaking, but one that to me presents fascinating foreshadowing and contrasts to what Crichton has been and what he will become (as well as first plays around with multiple Crichtons in a foreshadowing of such a major part of s3.) The summary is pretty simple and traditionally scifi. Due to an alien race’s attempt to capture Crichton for its collection as it had never seen a human before and the Moyans (of course) meddling with this, Crichton is now confronted with both a ‘prehistoric’ proto-Crichton, and a so-called ‘Future Crichton’ (aka Crichton as he would have been if he would be a product of humanity’s future development). But the themes that run through the episode (not to mention the seemingly inescapable fact that no matter what, any new ‘adventure,’ even a lesser one, is just further add-on to Crichton’s issues and pain, and mess) are something that just resonate in general. Here he is, as yet another entity attempts to disassemble and study him as a lab rat:

His horrified yet unsurprised “of course” reaction is honestly heartbreaking.

The man can barely walk and all he keeps asking for is a gun. I think what hits me here on rewatch is we haven’t even gotten past first half of s2 yet, the real horrors only just started, he has so much further to go and be broken as and he is already this messed up.

The way he is so different from wide-eyed Panglossian John of the start of the show...all that constant horror will do that to you.

There is the fact (which is starkly true from the Premiere episode to Peacekeeper Wars) that Crichton does not need to do anything different: his very alienness in the alien world, his very fact of being is enough to mark him, put him in peril, make him wanted. The alien race collecting specimens the way Victorians collected butterflies is merely another facet of the same obsession that drives Scorpius. They might not be about wormholes (are in fact ignorant and indifferent to them) but they go by the same principle: unique is always valuable. But by his uniqueness, Crichton is not made special and favored. Instead, it’s a Mark of Cain of sorts, and he is dehumanized and objectified because of his uniqueness. Scorpius wants wormholes and John is just a bug from whom he can extract it (though later this changes into a vary acknowledgment of Crichton’s almost equal status. Scorpius elevates Crichton to ‘opponent’ from ‘experiment.’) The alien race couldn’t care if they got John or an elderly German janitor. It’s being homo sapiens that matters to them. That is one of the things I love so about Farscape. Even the seemingly one-off episodes resonate within the larger themes and arcs.

Look at this throwaway bitter quip - this is a man whose mind hasn’t been fully his own since at least A Human Reaction and then got rifled through like a drawer by Scorpius and as the show goes on becomes more and more something exploited and manipulated and attacked and disassembled. Volition? Control? Privacy? What’s that, says the universe. (I always found it quite precisely brutal that John is largely attacked through his mind because that is his strength; while Aeryn is through her body because that is hers.)

To get back to something I mentioned earlier btw, this is the first ep that plays with multiple Crichtons and I want to scream into my hands, knowing how thoroughly and heartbreakingly this will get explored in s3.

But even in this ep, where it is a one-off where it is resolved, and we do have the “original” John and the distorted copies, we are left with a hell of a sting, with John confronted with the realization of how far he’s come from the man he was at the start and how far further he might fall.

I love the existence of ‘pre’ and ‘post’ Crichtons, distorted John mirrors of a sort. In some ways, the symbolism is pretty obvious: pre-Crichton is kind if not super bright, and he wears John’s discarded space suit, while post-Crichton is intellectual but heartless and is dressed in PK uniform. But I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. I find it interesting that it is Chiana who ends up interacting with ‘pre’ and Aeryn with ‘post.’ Because the reaction to ‘post’ Crichton is as much about Aeryn and Aeryn’s change as it is about anything else. In part, because Crichton’s slow descent to that side of the scale is prompted so much by his love and need for Aeryn (he wouldn’t have gone to the Base etc etc in S1 if not for her. His love for her is both his destruction and his salvation), but also because it shows us her change, her thawing and humanization. If you think about it, post-Crichton is someone that PK Aeryn would have liked the most out of the versions, someone she could have related to the most: ruthless intelligence and efficiency, not a spark of heart. But this new Aeryn, while someone who would likely be impatient with pre-Crichton (because she will never lose her feeling for efficiency and razor sharpness. John wins her respect and eventually love not just because he is ‘a nice guy’ but because he is incredibly smart and functions under pressure) sees through post-Crichton as a pane of glass and does not like him in the least.

(bwahaha only Farscape would go there)

And of course, it makes sense that it is Chiana who ends up bonding with pre-Crichton, Chiana who is the most ‘childish’ of the bunch (Rygel is a lot of things in his greed, gluttony and boredom, but he is not truly childish, not ever), the most open to just expression of emotion, and who is, probably, someone who misses the slow disappearance of Crichton who helped her under the burdened, cracked shell of Crichton the way he is now.

And of course, pre-Crichton’s situation reminds her of herself when she first was aboard Moya. It’s interesting, because in a lot of ways, Chiana is harder than Aeryn, but in a lot of other ways, she is just younger. She is never about justice, but she is about personal compassion. Even Aeryn’s compassion is tempered, controlled, different. But yes, the pre and post as symbolism for what Crichton was and for where he is going. That is perhaps something that scares John the most: that he can end up as another type of Scorpius, someone unfeeling, uncaring, willing to be ruthlessly expedient. But that is the thing, he never will become such, however he teeters on the edge. He is someone who is, in this episode, refuses to take the easy way out, to close his eyes to sacrifice, to let the post-Crichton do the dirty work and to try to absent himself and excuse himself.

He is willing to be the sacrifice, to walk into the sphere to death to save his shipmates, telling post-Crichton that if he is the future, he is glad he won’t live to see it.

And the thing is, this refusal to give his humanity, his feeling of guilt and his capacity for self-sacrifice is always there no matter how hardened he becomes. Even at the end, even as he blows up a nuke in ‘We are so screwed’ that ends season 4 or with his actions in Peacekeeper Wars, he will never be post-Crichton, because no matter how mutilated, his caring and humanity remains. He is someone who will weep in Aeryn’s arms at the destruction he has wrought. His actions might change, but his basic compassion does not. Post-Crichton is yet another ‘fractured future,’ a possibility, but not something that will ultimately come to pass and I love that Farscape, for all its darkness and horrors was never about girmdark but about hope.

#farscape

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kiekiecarrera · 1 year ago

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I finally got around to watching season 4 (I procrastinated on it for too long, lol)

Anyway..... WHAT HAPPENED THIS SEASON?!?! JIARA IS REAL?!? I did not expect us to get that much and akghskghagkskg it's too perfect!!! The ANGST and then KITTY HAWK?!?!?!?! I've watched that episode at least 3 times! I did not think we'd get a kiss this season, especially after watching the first couple of episodes and I'm just sobbing now.

On another notes, I was shocked with how hard Big John's and Ward's deaths hit. Like, they were both pretty bad fathers in their own rights yet their deaths were still handled emotionally. I think that just goes to show how well the show did at developing the characters because as an audience we can still feel something when their dads die just as they grieved despite having been put through so much shit because of them

JJ definitely needed a hug this season. Those scenes with him going "home" to an evicted house that was left in a mess. And he didn't have anyone aside from the Pogues. It was just heartbreaking.

Also JIAIRA!!!

Sorry for yelling about this in your asks, I know you've probably already gone through the feels but I need to throw my thoughts someplace.

Anon ngl that season 4 typo made my heart fall out of my ass but we move. Anyway. JIARA IS CANON. Every time I think about how much we got this season and their growth and storyline I feel even more feral than before. The fic-level angst was actually insane and KITTY HAWK WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY.

I was leaning more towards kiss, but I did not think it would be like this. I loved how sweet it was, and the relief they both felt when they did it, like it was the literally manifestation of FINALLY.

The dads' death hit, but honestly by that point Big John had taken too much screentime for me and he was mostly unlikable, so I had a hard time feeling anything more than relief. Like, I was sad for JB, but not that the character was gone. Ward's was a little bit more impactful because we spent 3 seasons with that character, but he's done so much bad shit that it was hard to be too sad about it. But the kids did such a wonderful job playing those scenes, and that's where the emotions hit.

JJ definitely needed a hug and more attention from his friends this season. So did Kiara. I hope they both get that in season 4 (FROM EACHOTHER!!!!! and also from the other pogues, they're both very underrated within the friend group).

Never be sorry for yelling in my asks, sorry it took so long to reply tho!!!!

#answered #anonymous #jiara #otp; did you tell jj #still feeling insane about s3 tbh

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melancholiaenthroned · 1 year ago

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amanda saw for the ask game :))

yayyyy tyyy<333

first impression: ok full disclosure i did NOT like saw the first time i saw it LOL. i thought adam was annoying and the bathroom was yucky and it was too slow paced. BUT i did like amanda she was like the redeeming quality to me. and once i watched saw ii i was completely sucked in she was everything to me. the way she claws at her face when she first wakes up like shes expecting the bear trap is such an acting moment of all time.

impression now: i love her so much shes the best apprentice her character is everything to me. i dont know what to say that hasnt been said before but i guess my most recent impression of her was in saw x and i just felt like her character, at the state in between saw and saw ii, was so well written. like her dependence on john but her reluctance to hurt people who she doesnt think fully deserve it... god... you can see the doubts starting to form like why are we doing this am i fixed is this what being fixed feels like... and shes so so scared of losing him... godddd. god. and her dykey outfit... i had some issues w saw x amanda was not one of them

favorite moment: DIFFICULT QUESTION hmmm all her moments r so good. i think the one that makes me craziest is i forget the exact line but in saw iii she tells lynn smth like "sure u can kill me but when john heres me cry out hell come running for me and rip off his heart monitor and then ull die" but later when shes bleeding out she looks up at john and reaches out for him and he just looks down at her and tells her its her destiny. COMPLETELY FUCKED. also obviously "fix me" and you know what can i just list all of saw iii as my favorite moment.

idea for a story: god. ok. like actual film wise i think we should move on from john kramer forever and honestly like over the course of the 4 movies shes in weve gotten a pretty good look at amandas character like it feels like theres limited room to fit in a new story. theres small things id like to see, more of her interacting and butting heads w the othe apprentices, but nothing like huge within canon bc i feel like it would throw off her arc. that being said idk how it would fit into a film but i would like to see her almost relapse post saw ii but discover that shes developed a fear of needles and instead of taking this as like. a fucked up thing. she tries to reframe it as like proof that traps work like she Is Fixed. but obviously this is right before saw iii and shes wavering but shes trying to tell herself that. developing ptsd over being thrown into a pit of needles. was a good thing<3

unpopular opinion: i dont rlly ship her and gabriela i see gabriela very much as a mirror of amanda but i dont rlly think its valuable or interesting to interpret that relationship as romantic SORRY

favorite relationship: ive said it before she and lynn have the craziest chemistry of any couple in all the saw movies like what was in the water on set that made them act that way... my only wish is that more fans made them insane rather then like. in lynn lives aus where theyre cute and healing together like no. they wouldnt do that. and then of relationships in canon obviously her and john have the most interesting and tragic thing going on (to be clear i dont mean relationships as in romantic here) but if i think about that too long ill start crying so instead lets just remember her and lynns crazy dyke swag.

favorite headcanon: oughh god idk... shes such a complete and basically perfect character to me i dont have a lot of big ideas about her outside of whats shown... like i said i think she has a phobia of needles after saw ii that she pushes through for the sake of traps that require it and then immediately goes and like throws up after. i think she bites her hand when shes really angry and sometimes draws blood. i think it reminds her of the beartrap and i think she pretends that gives her comfort. and i think at some point pre saw she dated the same vegan feminist punk that adam did<3

#tysm god i love her so bad i love talking about her #saw #poison.txt #ask

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blurhawaii · 1 year ago

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Yuletide 2023

dear yuletide writer,

hello and happy yuletide! thanks for checking out my letter even if you’re not my assigned writer and are just shopping around, welcome. all the prompts I offer here are just for fun—if you’ve got something else in mind, feel free to go for it.

also, sorry if this is a little more brief than my yuletide letters usually are, as I’m having to copy/paste a lot of this from my phone. I’ve asked for some of these fandoms in previous year tho, if you would like to check out my other letters.

likes:

dysfunctional relationships eg. codependency, messed up father/son dynamics, age differences, enemies to lovers, power imbalances.

vulnerability in men, uncertain intimacy.

UST, slow burn, first times.

supernatural/magical realism/cosmic horror. weird hints of it in an otherwise normal universe.

redemption arcs.

found family

loyalty kink. love it when trust is earned and kept.

praise kink.

open and honest communication between partners.

polyamory. it’s the journey of them getting together and making it work that’s interests me the most. or how a couple goes about bringing in a third person.

stories set in canon. or a divergence of canon. fix-it fics.

soulmate/soulmark fics. I’m mostly interested in unusual takes on these scenarios.

daemon AUs. i’m especially into the intimacy of touching/comforting each other’s daemons, them expressing thoughts they otherwise don’t say out loud.

dark/bleak fics. don’t be afraid to drag characters through the mud. happy endings are welcome but i like the struggle to get there.

I’m fine with anything gen to porn.

canon typical violence is fine and to be expected from my requests, honestly.

characters and the development of their relationships are more important to me than plot.

dislikes:

AUs that are completely disconnected from canon e.g. high school, coffee shop AUs.

established relationship, unless they are already together in canon.

crossovers.

genderbending.

feminisation of male characters.

fics that are entirely fluff.

A/B/O fics.

mpreg.

1st person fics (I have no problem with 2nd person fics tho if you feel like experimenting.)

The Departed (2006)

*Billy Costigan *Sean Dignam

Specific Likes:

dignam and his tough love attitude towards the job | billy’s increasing isolation | the codependency that forms between the person undercover and the person who knows the truth | dignam’s father/son dynamic with queenan contrasted against billy’s father/son dynamic with queenan | the idea that dignam was once an undercover who got out | how that could be both a hopeful thing and an irritant for billy to find out | the constant antagonism and fighting vs the rare moments when dignam softens around billy | good cop/bad cop dynamics | unexpected vulnerability | the weird loyalty that culminates with dignam killing sullivan

Prompts:

billy survives - anything that explores the angst of billy’s ‘where the hell were you when i needed you’ reaction following that ending, maybe dignam still kills sullivan and billy’s reaction to that, emphasis on the loyalty that implies.

i’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about the line ‘why don’t we meet up, sweetheart, let me buy you an ice cream,’ if you can write that into a believable, in character fic then you would earn my eternal respect and gratitude.

daemon AU & soulmate AU - these interest me because i wonder how they would work in a universe where someone goes undercover, how billy & dignam could lie about it or even use it to their advantage.

time loop/groundhog day fic - there are so many ways this film could go better or worse, i’d love to see them even if they don’t end the happiest

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

*Arthur O’Dwyer *Samantha O’Dwyer *John Brooder

Specific Likes:

the dry and brutal nature of westerns | brooder being a weird, vain, loner, dandy man type who is rude to pretty much everyone except the o’dwyers | the way brooder is nothing but respectful towards samantha despite being rejected by her in the past, and is quick to hold himself responsible for putting her in danger once she’s been taken | samantha’s competency as a doctor being a not-so-secret thing around town | arthur and brooder not being pitted against each other | arthur actually being a sap for his wife | arthur trusting brooder to escort his wife while joking about no flirtations | arthur being the only one to ever call him ‘john’ and brooder exclusively referring to arthur as ‘cowboy’ | brooder helping arthur down off his horse | the possibility of so much hurt/comfort, both physical and emotional post film, providing they all survive.

Prompts:

anything pre-film - the mentioned rejection, how they might interact on a day-to-day basis in bright hope, how they reached this weird and respectful level of fondness, how outsiders might view the three of them.

brooder lives AU - maybe they find him not quite dead and all three return home, maybe for convenience sake samantha sets brooder up in their home to recover, so she can tend to him and arthur at the same time.

something that explores brooder having to come to terms and live with the amputation of his hand, considering how vain he is. he explicitly states he’d rather die than live like that, so maybe the o’dwyers help him through it.

From (2022)

*Jade Herrera *Jim Matthews *Tabitha Matthews

Specific Likes:

jade herrera, this weed smoking, bisexual, arrogant rich man in his capri pants + open shirts, his cardigans + kitty cat shirt, his dark hair + big brown eyes | pushing people away, telling them to fuck off, then immediately coming back like a too proud cat | being manhandled | bursting into people’s homes uninvited while ranting about his theories| the town’s ‘what the hell is wrong with this guy?’ reactions | surprising violin skills and his willingness to play for victor | not talking down to ethan | the affectionate nicknames of ‘tea cups’ and ‘sparkplug’ | the way jade softens around maternal characters like tian-chen and tabitha | always believing he’s the smartest man in the room, with the mileage varying | offering up so many facts about himself and his past freely, and maybe even needily | jade carving a space out for himself within the liu household, and then later the matthews family | being one of the few to ask the real question of ‘what the fuck is a cromenockle?’ | characters being trapped in places overnight, being forced to interact | a town they cannot escape | being completely driven by finding the truth | the supernatural horror/creatures being lumped in with the mundane day-to-day life | prophetic drawings | mysterious symbols | characters sharing strange visions | their nightmares becoming reality | jade going down into that cave not just to find answers but because he thinks it might save julie | jade just being a very erratic man that needs a firm hand every now and then

Prompts:

as i’ve just shotgun blasted all my thoughts above, à la homer simpson’s make-up gun, my prompts are gonna be a little more wide spread. my interest lies largely with jade and the various ways he does and does not fit into this town and the other residents.

for a guy with such a horny and bisexual introduction, his hyperfixations have mostly been on figuring out the town. but what if he poured that same focus into trying to get laid?

jade/jim & jade/tabitha - jade sort of bonds with them both. calling jim ‘tea cups’, having someone around who understands tech jargon, building something together, and i’m thinking about what’s going to happen in s3 with jim now that tabitha is suddenly gone. love the mystery solving team jade forms with tabitha, the shared visions with the children, conversations had in kitchens at night. love all these characters still desperately looking for a way out. there��s also the fact that they all arrived in town on the same day, whatever importance that may have.

jade/jim/tabitha - what better way to fix a troubled marriage than bonding over a shared annoyance of being attracted to this horrible, rich asshole who is weirdly charming and keeps forcing his company onto them both? because, come on, from season 2, they are all living under the same cramped roof. maybe the best way to get jade to chill out is for them both to just wreck him, giving jade that firm hand he so often needs.

Indiana Jones Series

*Jurgen Voller *Klaber

Specific Likes:

Prompts:

first: while i do find it somewhat interesting that voller’s plan was actually to kill hitler and become a better leader through the war, i would rather there be little to no politics in any fic i might get. definitely no glorifying of nazi ideologies, please.

time travel gone wrong - i think it's more interesting to believe any slight variation of the coordinates could have spit them out at a very different time, past or future. feel free to go wild with that, the idea of them surviving the crash or successfully parachuting out and being trapped in time.

any exploration of klaber’s loyalty towards voller, how they reached this level of trust, able to give and follow orders wordlessly. maybe expand on a scene or add in a missing scene. klaber is very tactile throughout the film and i find it very interesting that voller allows this.

an exchange of knowledge - voller attempting to teach klaber german, or bettering his understanding of history, astrophysics, man landing on the moon, or just the moment when he explains the antikythera and its supposed use. set against klaber teaching voller more practical things like weapons, hand-to-hand self defence, disarming techniques. there’s just something about the contrast of brain and brawn.

+ and as a final note, i would be very happy and very grateful for any treats. :)

#yuletide #yuletide 2023

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tearsofgrace · 4 years ago

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endings are hard... but they aren’t impossible

tldr; the good place fucking nailed the finale, supernatural completely and utterly bombed it.

tags: wc--4.5k, gif heavy, spn meta, the good place, supernatural finale, spn wank, all gifs are mine, if you read til the end there’s a pretty gif

so i recently finished the good place (i was watching w my family and we finally had time to sit down and watch the last season) and god fucking dammit that ending is FLAWLESS. literally flawless.

and because i’m, well, me… i spent most of the time during that hour long finale thinking about how supernatural could have had even a fraction of that and avoided so much heartbreak.

anyways. i decided to compare them. to REALLY compare them. to get into the nitty gritty of why the fuck the good place ending left me feeling, as the finale is all about, sated and complete. and why the spn ending left me confused, lost, broken, betrayed, unable to even enjoy my comfort show at all until a dear friend finally just watched an episode (8.08) start to finish with me.

so without further ado (always wanted to say that) here’s the good place/supernatural finale meta that no one asked for

comedy

we’ll start small. both these shows have excellent comedy. in extremely different ways… but still

in the good place finale, the comedy was perfect. whether it was jason reappearing in the forest, michael trying to get through The Door, tahani reversing the “hot bod” bit on eleanor, every comedic moment was actually pretty emotional and added something to the show. they deepened characters’ meanings, added to their relationships, and made the audience think as much as they made the audience laugh.

in the spn finale… the comedy was the pie gag. the whole sam shoving pie into dean’s face. beyond this being… like meta as hell (the whole prank thing) it doesn’t have any depth to it.

and to add salt to the wound, this “hilarious” thing happens RIGHT AFTER salmondean have a conversation about missing jack and cas that is equal parts flat and infuriating. the brothers, in particular sam about jack and dean about cas, should care more. this is their family. and family is everything to them. but, no, by all means pie dean in the face.

last lines

this one IRKS me. okay.

the last line of the good place "I'll say this to you, my friend, with all the love in my heart and all the wisdom of the universe: Take it sleazy.” “All right.” is ICONIC. okay?

it’s a reference to season 1 that doesn’t feel fan-servicey. it’s kinda honestly emotional cuz it’s like a message to us, the audience. it perfectly completes michael’s arc. it captures the light-hearted vibe of the show while also somehow managing to be poignant. you can see it coming like the second before it happens but it’s also not the obvious choice. it’s just. goddamn it’s good.

the last line of supernatural…. is… “and cut.” not even said by one of j2. i mean i know it’s a meta show but COME ON ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??????????

now i hear you shouting wait but that’s just the end of the thank you message. okay fine whatever. in that case the last lines are “Hey, Sammy.” “Dean.” (i couldn’t bring myself to gif that moment)

i’m sorry but. that’s predictable. that’s obvious. that’s boring. that’s flat. sure, it celebrates the bond between the brothers. but like… that’s not what this show is about anymore. it’s not just about sam and dean winchester it’s about what they’ve created. it’s about the world they’ve saved, the family they’ve made, about how they always keep fighting but nope we get bland, boring, coulda seen ‘em coming from miles away lines for the very end. that’s fine.

montages

the spn finale is like 50% montages that don’t make sense and are poorly done and not emotional

the good place has a montage of michael being human that brought me to tears

timing

here’s another short section. the good place finale was 53 minutes long as opposed to the usual 20 minute long runtime of every episode. granted, the fandom of the good place is very different, but STILL there was no documentary telling the fans things they ALREADY knew (there was a short special after the ep, but the episode itself was still far longer than normal). it was 53 minutes of plot. of really fucking good not rushed plot.

the supernatural finale was… what 36 minutes long?? as opposed to the normal 40 minute runtime?? granted, we did get an hour long documentary of things we’ve all heard in cons and interviews a billion times so hey. take what you can get i guess.

character arcs

this is most of the meat of this meta. one thing we’ve all been harping on a TON is how they RUINED character arcs. soooo let’s go through and juxtapose some character arcs shall we

eleanor

eleanor shellstrop starts the show completely self-obsessed. she died getting hit by shopping carts while picking up margarita mix and let’s be real she’s a total icon. love her to death. she grows a ton, becomes one of the most selfless characters on the show, and starts to actually (jack forbid) CARE about things. it’s one of the most satisfying and relatable character arcs i’ve ever seen.

it’s not just her selfishness either, her character is super multi-faceted and complex, and i feel like even in the end we’re getting to know her better. she’s afraid of commitment, always worried about what others’ actions will do to her, loves the trivial side of life, is queer as fuck (as acknowledged by the show in a way that’s not harmful at all but also isn’t explicitly bi/pan/unlabeled/omni etc, allowing queer fans to see their own identity in her), and is all around a HUMAN BEING. her ending at the beginning of the show was her death. her stupid, trivial, meaningless death where she was, as she puts it, all alone. and her final ending ISNT that. yes, everyone goes before her. and i think that’s purposeful. to show that she’s grown enough that being alone in some sense is okay.

but she’s never TRULY alone. and in the end. the REAL end. janet is there. the whole time. because eleanor asked her to be!! she got over her crazy need for independence and simply asked for help. and eleanor dies an amazing person that has become selfless, has found joy in philosophy while still enjoying trashy content, has fixed her relationship with her mother, and has found a sense of completion. eleanor’s life ends on her terms, and it’s beautiful.

dean

alright. now just as you’re feeling all warm and fuzzy let’s look at dean winchester’s ending. you’ve heard it a million times, so i’ll be brief. dean was raised to be a hunter, a soldier, a killing machine with no feelings and no purpose. he was raised to die scared on a hunt, his life over because of some mistake he made because he will NEVER measure up. at least that’s what john and everyone else told him with the exceptions of some of his family (and family don’t end in blood). he started to accept that he didn’t have to have this. he started to realize that he could CHOOSE what his ending was.

the beautiful thing is, we never truly got to see what that was. i personally like to think it’s similar to the roadhouse michael locked him in while he was trapped in his own mind. a safe place for hunters, somewhere he (and cas in my opinion, but that’s not important) could settle down and still be in the life. it would be an amazing tribute to jo and ellen, and just all around a great ending. he wouldn’t have to be scared, but he wouldn’t have to conform to some apple pie facade of normalcy. and ya know what?? say that he died so he could have peace i dare you. because dean doesn’t find peace until sam is there anyway so i beg of you WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT.

dean winchester died scared. dean winchester died on a hunt. dean winchester died on one of john’s old hunts. dean winchester died not directly at the hands of a monster, but at the hands of a mistake. his mistake. dean winchester died without ever working through the trauma of his best friend in the entire world confessing his love in a final act of self-sacrifice. dean winchester died in a way that leaves a sour taste in my mouth and does not at all show the audience what he’s been through and how much he’s grown. dean winchester did not die on his terms, and he deserved better.

chidi

okay back to happy. chidi anagonye. by far my personal favorite good place character (don’t tell anyone i always say jason cuz he and i are very similar). chidi in the last few episodes is SO DRASTICALLY different than the chidi we meet at the beginning. he’s decisive, confident, self-assured, and it’s amazing to see. he’s not afraid of life anymore. he’s not afraid to make the wrong decision and forever alter his reality, because he’s okay with failure.

at the beginning, chidi was so petrified of life that… it killed him. and in the end, he’s completely at peace with every decision he makes, even the final one. yes, he considered staying for eleanor, but that just shows how his moral code and his compassion for others is still very much still intact. it shows the audience that you can be confident and decisive without being a selfish asshole.

chidi leaves the good place knowing that it’s the right thing to do. knowing without a doubt that his time has come. the old chidi never would have been able to fathom being that sure about something. it’s beautiful. it’s a development that can give the audience peace, can show them that this drastic of change is possible, and that chidi became a better person for all of it. chidi went on his own terms, and it was beautiful.

sam

… this one might be controversial… but sam winchester. god i hated sam’s ending. at first i was kinda okay with it. like, okay fine he got his normal life. but, really, in the end that’s not what sam wanted. he started to realize that he didn’t need that apple pie, white picket fence life. he didn’t need the wife and the kids and the backyard and the barbecues because that is NOT sam’s personality and i will throw hands on that.

that’s not to say he doesn’t want some sort of romance, maybe even kids, but not in that way. he lets himself see that he doesn’t need to be defined by his rebellion to john. doesn’t need to be defined by going to college or any of those “normal” smart kid things because it doesn’t fit him. and that’s okay! but how does sam’s story end? it ends with a wife (that isn’t even important enough to show her face). with kids. with a goddamn white picket fence. we think he’s still hunting to some extent… but it’s not the arc we were led to believe would happen. it’s not this amazing leader sam that we see in season 12-14, uniting hunters and organizing them.

he had SO MUCH potential and they throw it away on a vanilla ending that shows only surface level pain at losing his brother. he doesn’t even invite the rest of their family to the wake for fuck’s sake. jared did an incredible job. pls don’t think i’m saying he didn’t. but that script…. sam winchester’s arc was cut short. he didn’t go on his terms, and he deserved better.

jason

jason mandoza. the only character that has ever embodied my complete dumbass energy to the insane extent that it exists. he went to hell for his impulsivity. he never thought before a decision. i aspire to be as reckless as jason while on earth. but he LEARNED. he got better, just like they all did. and by the end of the show, jason doesn’t need to be impulsive anymore. much like eleanor being left “alone,” the show does a masterful job with making him be the first one to go, capturing his old impulsiveness. but he chooses to leave. he takes his time in deliberation, waiting until a feeling of peace, of completion, of well, ‘true happiness’ (sorry cas stans, i’m right there with you) has settled over him.

the ending of his story is one of growth, just like all these characters have been. and the best part? the show makes it comedic in the most poignant and beautiful way, because it’s jason, it had to be funny. we learn that jason has been in the woods for like, eons, just waiting to go through the door because he wants to give janet a necklace. he’s learned to simply wait. to be at peace with… nothing. his torture was being a monk, but in the end, jason embodies those ideals. his arc comes to fruition in an extremely satisfying way. jason goes on his own terms, and it’s beautiful.

castiel

this one is gonna hurt like a bitch. castiel is my comfort character. he’s my role model. he’s me in a lot of ways. i love him. so fucking much. so excuse me if this is slightly incoherent. i’m actually okay with cas’ ending… in a way. because his actual ending as an on-screen character? perfect. self-sacrifice while coming out and professing his love to dean winchester. a little bit bury the gays, but let’s be real, it’s supernatural. and “happiness is in just saying it” has to be the most powerful way to think of coming out. it takes away the fear, it takes away so much of the pain that can follow. because the joy is in just saying the words.

it’s how this was treated on the show that makes cas’ character arc terrible (and we haven’t even gotten to 15.20). YOU CANNOT JUST IGNORE A LOVE CONFESSION. that is god awful writing and i will never change my mind on that. cas deserved his family to care about him. to at least address and be sad about the fact he was gone. jesus fucking christ after everything castiel deserved at least that. and then we go to 15.20. cas is in heaven. cas is serving god. cas is right back where he started. now, i’m coming off a little strong.

if the show had decided to show us cas and jack in heaven makin’ the world a better place… i woulda come around to it. i woulda realized that that’s not REALLY erasing 12 years of character development and cas realizing that his whole identity isn’t just him serving heaven and isn’t just him being an angel and that he’s so much more than all of that and he could still be happy as a human… because really he’s with his son. but they didn’t show us that. they barely even mentioned him. and to me. that counts as a bad character arc. and i’m sorry if you disagree. castiel may have gone on his own terms, but they treated that beautiful sacrifice with disrespect and disdain, plus resolved his arc by putting him back where he started. he deserved better.

tahani

*deep breaths guys this is a long post i’m sorry* anywayyyy tahani!!! we love tahani obviously. let’s talk about her arc, because it always kinda bothered me. throughout the show, we see all the other character’s growing and expanding their knowledge of right and wrong. and, don’t get me wrong. we see tahani grow a lot. but she makes a lot of the same types of comments and shit like that. but it’s how she treats the reactions to those comments. by the end of the show, she laughs at the caricature of herself that the others see. she isn’t looking for vindication in name-dropping, she just does it. she is far less self-absorbed, and is genuinely interested in those around her. she fixes her relationships with her sister and her parents in a way that doesn’t feel forced and actually feels like a beautiful, healthy family reunion.

she has a list and she does everything on it. it’s worth noting, that the things on her list are not at all what they would have been at the beginning of the show. most of them are humble “labor” type tasks, and all of them are in self improvement. tahani’s end on the show is not the same as everyone else’s. she realizes that she doesn’t need to be done. that there doesn’t have to be an end to self-improvement. and she becomes an architect. the writers perfectly embody her transformation from a self-obsessed rich girl who has never done a thing for herself and laughs at the lower-class to a down-to-earth worker that simply doesn’t want the journey to end.

it’s incredible how perfectly the writers were able to close off these character arc’s without it feeling forced, and without ignoring their character development. imagine that. tahani chooses her own way, and it’s beautiful.

jack

jack’s ending may be the only one that i’ve actually somewhat come to terms with. it’s not terrible. it’s not great. but it’s not nearly as bad. because ignoring that awful monologue about every drop of rain and shit, jack really does end up helping people. he ends up doing something that he loves and that makes the world a better place. and he doesn’t lose his personality in it. but. i dunno, that’s still his destiny, right? to create paradise. and this is a show about ripping up the rule book, about choosing free will above all else… so to have every single character just fulfill their destiny is cheap.

still… i’ll try to be unbiased. because really at the beginning of jack’s time on the show, he’s unsure what he wants. and at least, in the end, he’s sure. he has a wisdom that he’s always had but he’s now using. and i’m good with that. but what’s NOT okay about jack’s ending is the lack of on-screen family. jack learns that family is important. sam, cas, dean those are the people he cares about. and you’re telling me he would just NEVER see them again? and be okay with that? i know he rebuilds heaven with cas, but we don’t even get a story about him rescuing cas from the empty. and he seems in 15.19 to not be that concerned about it (after the amazing emotional scene at the beginning). jack should have cared about his family. he did. but they ruined that for him. so jack kline deserved better.

michael

oh man where do i start. michael’s growth is the biggest on the show. i mean. he starts as a literal demon and ends a human. he gets better, he falls in love with humanity (*castiel fan in me sobbing again*) and he chooses over and over to be good instead of bad. his whole arc is a classic redemption arc, and every single beat just gets better. he chooses selfishly to side with humans but in the end it turns out to be the best decision he could have made. because he develops emotions, he develops compassion, he develops a moral compass.

and his end reflects that. because to complete this arc of a demon becoming more human… he literally becomes human!!!! it fits so well. and he’s allowed to make mistakes and be happy and gain all that humanity has to offer. this just shows that human!endgame for cosmic beings that become more human WORKS SO WELL (and it shoulda happened for cas and jack that’s all i’m saying). michael went on his own terms, and it was beautiful.

eileen

oh boy… this one stings. because they brought her back, used her up, and we never saw her again. eileen was one of the best side characters on the show, and they rarely addressed her arc. she comes onto the show as a hunter seeking revenge, and gets that revenge in the same episode. her s15 arc is focused on what’s real and what’s not, with her relationship to sam admittedly being a central part of her character because… it’s supernatural and women can’t exist without that. but still! eileen grows throughout the show and in the end… we don’t even know what happens to her. it’s as if her arc wasn’t important enough to even glance at.

it’s as if the connections the boys make outside of each other mean nothing when in reality they mean everything. they prove that the co-dependency is behind them and that family doesn’t end with blood and that real connections can be formed between people that last a lifetime. eileen was a disabled hunter that was shown to still be one of the best in the business, and they didn’t even give her the courtesy of a goodbye. eileen didn’t go on her own terms, and she deserved better.

janet

this is gonna unbalance my list but goddammit janet’s ending was perfect. she was a not-robot, not-girl that should have been incapable of feelings. but throughout the series we get to watch as she learns first-hand about human emotions and processes them. she cares about the humans in her charge and fights for them on multiple counts.

in the end, we see janet come to terms with both her cosmic being side, and her human side. she never stops being with the “cockroaches.” she sees them all leave, she’s there for them while they’re there, and she also continues to speak her mind and live autonomously. janet was a non-human character done right. she lived on her own terms, and it was beautiful.

some honorable mentions

spn ignored (in the finale) chuck, amara, stevie, charlie, jody, donna, garth, bess, the other angels, claire, kaia, patience, alex, and the list goes ON in favor of focusing on JUST sam and dean. did none of those characters at least deserve a quick goodbye??????

the good place wrapped up multiple arcs i had completely forgotten about in a totally natural and not forced way. mindy, doug forester, (the mushroom guy, i know, it took me a second), pillboy, donkey doug, kamilah, tahani’s parents, eleanor’s mother, eleanor’s friends, chidi’s best friend, vicki, shawn, glenn, simone and so many that i’m forgetting all got satisfying ends that they totally deserved.

they even fucking resolved FROG GUY’S arc and gave him a real frog. that’s right. frog guy (jeff) had a better character arc resolution than dean motherfucking winchester.

heaven and hell

obviously in very different vehicles, both shows explore in depth the realities of the afterlife. and lemme tell ya, at the end of the day, one sits a whole lot better than the other.

the good place finale ends this quest for the perfect afterlife by saying that everyone can improve and that an eternal paradise shouldn’t keep you from eternal rest. they pretty much make me wish that this is what our afterlife looked like. they handle everything with care so it’s balanced precariously in a way that doesn’t give you anxiety looking at it but instead fills you with peace and faith in humanity.

supernatural addresses this series long battle between heaven and hell by creating a heaven where you drive for forty years without seeing the people (cough cough cas and jack not his parents) that matter to you and drink beer that tastes like shit. a place you can’t be happy or find any sense of peace until your brother has died and he’s there too.

and hell… well they barely even address it. there’s a new queen of hell i guess? but so what. it’s still very much heaven and hell in a way that’s the worst and hey plus to them… makes me wanna stay alive thank you very much. oh and purgatory is in shambles and not functioning properly cuz all that eve bullshit.

loose ends

whenever something is ending, you gotta tie up the loose ends. not in a “oh, we must wrap everything up and leave no stone unturned” kinda way but in a “wow, we should probably try to make this unambiguous because this is the last time we will ever see these characters” kinda way.

the good place does that. so fucking masterfully. all these side plots with all these different characters were taken care of all while focusing on the main six characters. we get to see how their intervention has changed everyone else. for example, mindy’s arc is wrapped up perfectly, with eleanor going to save her.

plus different running jokes like “take it sleazy” are wrapped up, we revisit really old callbacks like the original neighborhood, and all of it feels natural and in the moment. it feels like full circle in a way that doesn’t erase growth.

supernatural, on the other hand, left a million loose ends open. what happened to the boys they saved? where the fuck are jody, donna, etc.? did eileen make it back? cuz sam was pretty upset about that. what happened to it “being loud” in the empty? hell, what happened to the empty? what happened to hell? what about chuck? it woulda been nice to see just for a second what became of him. did charlie and stevie make it (i’m very invested in that relationship)? if we’re taking the original ending… why the fuck is jimmy there? did kansas just all,,, die?

i’m not saying they needed to address everything… but god a few wrapped up storylines besides the brothers wouldn’t have hurt

coloring

can i just… real quick… as a giffer lodge a complaint

the good place has beautiful vibrant coloring in the finale

spn has like bland washed out whatever the fuck that is coloring. it’s not even the dark early aesthetic cuz they dropped that it’s just… ew. so. do with that what you will.

conclusion

first… while writing this i realized just HOW MUCH it’s not about destiel… like believe me. i knew i wasn’t just pissed about destiel. but holy shit it’s not destiel at all like did i even mention destiel that much???? this was never about a ship. this was just a trash finale.

in the end. the good place writers knew what they were doing. they knew their fans, they knew their characters, they knew their world, and they knew how to wrap it up in a way that was satisfying and sad and perfectly fit the tone of the whole show. it wasn’t out of character or rushed, basically every loose end was tied up without the audience even realizing that’s what they were doing, and i feel happy and complete having watched it.

the supernatural ending was a betrayal. flat out. to the audience that has stuck by it in a way bigger way than the good place fandom. to the characters that have helped so many people. to the actors that have given so much of their lives. to the other members of the crew, to certain writers… all of it was just a slap in the face.

we deserved better guys. there are better endings possible. so i’m sorry. i really am. but i guess… that’s what fanfic is for, right?

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nonclassyparty · 2 years ago

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I think I am at a loss for words to show my breathlessness at the reading I have just done. You've done it again, you've made me a passenger on the most turbulently beautiful roller coaster, with a myriad of highs and lows that made it truthfully memorable.

My heart won't stop thinking about it, and maybe skipping a beat or two waiting to read you again. I'll definitely be going back through this playlist, both written and musical. And how can I not? If every single thing you do is impossible not to love. It's in the emphasis of emotions, the visual and auditory dedication, the precision in the details, how from various things you manage to originate something new and fresh, the subtle references, ... It's such a unique creation, it says a lot about who is behind it, even if we don't know each other personally.

So I come to my favourite part of the acknowledgements I do.... The questions:

- Apart from using romcoms as inspiration, have you based any facts or characters on any person in your life?

- What was the thing that made you want to write this wonder? And how is your process of developing ideas (the writer in me is curious)?

- Do you have a specific photograph that inspired you to come up with the outfits for her? And if so, as I've seen with the skirt, and if it's not too pertinent, are they based on your own wardrobe?

- What's your take on love? Whether it's a specific setting, a song, a character you've written, a detail or anything really! We're so used to getting our eyes drenched in tears with the delicious angst of your stories, so it's interesting for me to know what a more erm... Loving? By this author (if your pronouns are female, if not, correct me!)

- How come every one of your Wooyoungs is so easy to love? There's no way to hate them. They are like an accumulation of characteristics that together form the most perfect combination, both in their flaws and in their virtues.

- In SVOH, at the end you bring closure to the protagonist's relationship with Wooyoung and introduce the character of Sunny, at what point in the timeline does this happen? After the end? I assume

I have many more questions but I'll leave them for another day, let's go little by little. I wanted to thank you for awakening an inner Sunny in me that I had, but for fear I hadn't let out. I will be stronger. Thank you so much for letting us read your amazing stories on this platform, it's always a joy to read you.

Best regards, love you author-ssi!

(I found the -ssi pretty endearing)

Nananon 🤍

well wait a damn minute. i had to sit down for this one. first of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH. i don't know what else to say because wow you talked me up way too much with this😭 thank you seriously💗

now for the questions;

errr i honestly don't know about the characters? they just wrote themselves for this one i guess BUT for the facts, when sunny said her dad's car broke down on the day she was born that was the experience of my father except his car lit up on fire on his way to the hospital so that was something i decided to add bc it just seemed to fit sunny😭

well when i posted wooyoung's svoh part a lot of people wanted me to do an alternative ending for it and i don't like those so i was against it but i still wanted to give a better ending for him so i decided to write this one-shot for him. and since obviously he got his heart broken in 'when you end it' i had to show how it affected him in this one and the idea for sunny's character came from there (also i'm a huge sucker for stories when one lead is gloomy and cynical while the other is a literal ray of sunshine 😭 ). im a big fan of john hughes' movies so i was inspired a lot by them for this story and recently i've been really into writing feel-good pieces, with heartwarming, sweet and a little bit cheesy moments bc i love reading stuff like that so i decided to give it a try. my process of developing ideas goes a little bit like this; i figure out the climax first for some reason and build everything leading up to it and following after it based on the climax. my drafts consist of literally each scene in the story described in a sentence or two when that's done, i decide on something completely random that i want to weave through the story to make it sort of tied together for example; in sr it's y/n's visions of her art in her head, for wooyoung's playlist it was sunny's radio show. i find that it makes the story seem a lot more put together and its also sorta cute to me😭

sunny's wardrobe was based on her character, i didn't have a specific style for her i just knew she wears whatever she feels like and doesn't stick to specific trends or anything. plus i love fashion so it's fun to pick out outfits for my characters and i know how someone dresses isn't a reflection of who they are as a person but in my stories IT IS! 😭 one more proof that i take a lot of inspo from movies bc i play a lot into the stereotypes from them when it comes to my characters but idk how to explain it, i think it just helps everyone imagine the characters better 😭 sunny's wardrobe was kind of based on my wardrobe but maybe 10x when it comes to how colorful it is lol

whew this one is kinda hard. but i actually have a winnie the pooh quote (😭😭😭) which i think describes it perfectly; “Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in our heart.” and that's just so true. little simple gestures can be done by anyone and yet they're not. which is why i think they're so important. they literally cost nothing but are worth a whole lot to me 😭

errrrr i am wooyoung's no.1 fan so i just think i'm incapable of writing him as anything but loveable no matter what. i watch a lot of atz content so i think i pick up things from that as well😭 he's very endearing

wooyoung's playlist takes time when svoh!y/n meets mingi and starts her relationship with him.

wow thank you so much for these wonderful questions, they were very fun to answer!!! and i'm really glad you enjoyed the story as well ❤️

#nana❤️

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dreamycloud · 3 years ago

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How about some Scott Tracy for the ask game? ^^

Thanks, @uniwolfcorn!

First Impression:

I don’t usually get attached to the main characters in shows, so I fully expected to be kinda neutral about Scott. And I definitely started watching TOS that way (my eyes were immediately glued on John, lol, so there was no room to be a little crazy about another Tracy brother).

Impression Now:

Scott has won my love and adoration after finishing the series and continuing to rewatch the show. He’s climbed to a solid #2, only after John haha. There’s just so much more to him than you think and it comes out when you’re really paying attention to him. He’s always eager to jump into action, just so so so incredibly restless, and yet a little unsure of himself at times. His voice totally kills me. Once I realized that Scott had a steady habit of muttering, I listen for it whenever I’m watching TOS. It just fills me with so much joy. I’ve never really seen a character do that—and a main character at that! Shane Rimmer just breathes so much life into Scott. I’m constantly in awe.

Favorite Moment:

One of my favorite moments is when Scott wakes up in the sick room after he and Virgil were knocked out by testing that’s cutting gas that turned out to be quite poisonous. His immediate reaction to opening his eyes is, and I quote, “Gee, that was… that was sure a good sleep. HEY. What’s with all this bedside manner stuff?” That is quintessential Scott Tracy.

Idea for a Story:

I am currently (and very slowly, sorry) working on my Scott/Brains fic, and I will hopefully be posting the first chapter within the next week or so. Within it, I’ll be exploring the pressure Scott feels as the eldest and leader next up after his father—as well as the self-sacrificing he thinks he had to do to keep IR insulated and protected. Idk I’m just really excited about it and getting to focus on Scott this time around.

Unpopular Opinion:

I don’t know… are there hot takes about Scott? I mean, fine, I’ll start something. I prefer TOS Scott Tracy to TAG Scott Tracy. Why? Because honestly I feel like we get a lot of downtime in TOS that helped expand on Scott’s character that we just never seen in TAG. I would like TAG Scott a bit more if we had gotten to see quiet moments where he could sit with the pressure of leading IR in his father’s absence, and being the Big-Brother-Turned-Father for his family. It’s implied, but I guess because it’s a kids show, the focus was on the action of the rescues rather than character development. But I feel like it’s a missed opportunity that would have made the reunion at the end of the series even more powerful.

Favorite Relationship:

Scott and Brains. You wouldn’t think there would be a particular brother who would seem to have a closer relationship with Brains than the others, but it’s Scott. It took me a few rewatches (I swear, I’m just constantly pulling up another TOS ep, they never get old). But I started picking up on little things like how often Brains and Scott stood side by side. How verbally supportive they are of each other on the regular. Don’t get me started on them rescuing each other haha. The big one for me was Scott and Brains’s scenes and exchanges in both movies, but especially in TB6 where Brains goes through a tough time, doubting himself, and then you have Scott defending Brains when talking to his father. It’s so subtle but lovely.

Favorite Headcanon:

If you’ve read my fics, you know I see Scott Tracy as a stress baker haha. He bakes some pretty impressive sweets and then eats them almost as soon as they’ve cooled from the oven haha. He’s just such a high-stressed creature, and I feel that this would be a fun way for I’m to burn off the anxiety he carries outside of exercising.

#thunderfam #thunderbirds #supermarionation #gerry anderson #thunderbirds 1965 #thunderbirds tos #marionettes #scott tracy

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jaesqueso · 3 years ago

Text

The Bachelorette: NCT Edition - Meet the candidates

The season of love is finally here! An interactive series where you’ll get to choose who goes home each week and ultimately who Y/N chooses in the end!

VOTE!!!

Use the above link to vote for your favorite candidate for that final rose and who should be the first five going home! You can vote for the first episode until next friday (11/06) and the episode will come out on sunday (13/06).

taglist: @skrtbabe @yutahoes @mel-yjh

If you’d like to be included in the taglist for the series do let me know ❤︎

☽ ・・・・・ ☾

The bachelorette

Hi, my name is Y/N and I’m looking for my prince charming!

I never had much luck with love so I decided to focus on work instead but my friends are all getting married and keep telling me to find someone too, so here I am!

I’m looking for someone nice who makes me laugh. Someone who cares about me and shows me a good time. Physically I’m not picky but I do appreciate a warm smile and kind eyes.

Hopefully this experience will help me find the person who I’ll get to spend the rest of my life with!

Moon Taeil

My name is Taeil and I’m a gemini.

I’m a relaxed guy who wants to live life peacefully and hopefully meet a girl to share my life with!

*winks*

I like to listen to music and watch movies, not very into physical activities because I don’t like when my muscles are in pain.

*laughs*

I usually notice someone’s eyes first, that’s enough to captivate me. Also I like cute girls.

Fighting!

John Suh

My name is John but everybody calls me Johnny. I’m an Aquarius.

I’m a nice guy who gets along with everyone and my motto is just to have fun! My friends may say I’m clumsy but I think things just get in my way!

*flips hair laughing*

I love reading, watching videos and taking photos. Who knows I may find my new photographic muse.

*winks*

I love cute things, and that includes girls too. I also love girls who smile a lot because I’m always smiling too.

Hopefully I’ll find someone to make my days even brighter!

Lee Taeyong

My name is Taeyong and I’m a Cancer.

People sometimes think I’m cold from the way I look but I promise I’m a kind and caring guy! I have amazing eyes and as you can tell I’m very confident.

*winks*

I don’t like dust and germs so I’ll make sure everybody keeps things clean around here. I’m a perfectionist so I might nag a lot, sorry!

*laughs*

I’m looking for someone who I can learn from and that makes up for my flaws.

Finger crossed I’ll meet someone good for me!

Nakamoto Yuta

My name is Yuta and I’m a Scorpio.

I’m a happy guy who cares a lot about everyone. One thing I can promise is that everybody has a good time around me!

*laughs*

I love to play football and working out, I don’t like sitting around doing nothing! If we can do things in the moment why wait?

*shrugs shoulders*

I like someone who has empathy towards others and doesn’t feel the need to “act pretty”, someone who’s real and humble.

Let’s go!

Qian Kun

My name is Kun and I’m a Capricorn.

I’m a very friendly guy and I’m always there for my friends. I love to cook and make my way into people’s hearts through food.

*winks*

I’m an intelligent guy and I love to do magic tricks so I think if I play my cards right I have a chance to get that final rose.

*wiggles eyebrows*

I’m usually attracted to more feminine women who are innocent.

Abracadabra pick me!

Kim Doyoung

My name is Doyoung and I’m an Aquarius.

I’m a very reliable guy, you can check with my friends! I don’t really like to go out, I’d rather stay in sleeping or eating so I’m looking for someone who’s ok with chilling and cuddling.

*winks*

I’m afraid of animals so hopefully we won’t have to do any interaction with any or I might go back home and take a nap.

*laughs*

I want someone polite that knows how to present themselves and that I can take home to meet the parents!

I’ll make sure she falls in love with me!

Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul

My name is Chittaphon but you can call me Ten because I’m 10/10! I’m a Pisces.

I’m the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet and I know how to make someone feel comfortable. Honestly I can’t see what’s not to like about me!

*shrugs shoulders*

I love sports, drawing and playing with animals. Throw me a cat and I’ll be happy!

*laughs*

I don’t really have an ideal type, but I like to get to know someone before love starts to develop.

I’m excited!

Jung Yoonoh

My name is Yoonoh but most people still call me Jaehyun which was my birth name. I’m an Aquarius.

I’m a happy and cute guy, but I also have a sensitive side. What can I say, I’m the perfect guy to take home to the parents!

*winks*

I’m very into sports and I’m a black belt in taekwondo so you know I’ll take down all the competition!

*laughs*

I like someone who is kind, calm and cute. Someone I can easily communicate with and who I can depend on. Extra points if they’re into sports too!

I’m not saying I’m competitive but I’m here to win this!

Dong Sicheng

My name is Sicheng but you can call me Winwin because if I receive that final rose it will be a win-win situation! I’m a Scorpio.

I’m usually a shy guy specially in front of the camera so I apologise for probably not talking much.

“scratches the back of his head”

I like swimming, watching movies and going on vacation, even though I have a fear of heights but I’m good as long as we stay on the ground! I don’t really like being touched but I can make an exception for a nice girl.

*winks*

I like someone who’s more quiet, like me, and also innocent. I want someone who I can laugh with.

Let’s Winwin!

Kim Jungwoo

My name is Jungwoo and I’m a Pisces.

I’m a sweet guy but I’m also funny, just let me entertain you with my on point impressions, you won’t be able to tell who’s me or the original person!

*laughs*

I like to watch and play soccer and I eat a lot of course to restore my energy!

*winks*

I like a bold girl who’ll take the first step. Someone who is determined, knows hat she wants and does everything to get it.

So come and get me!

Huang Xuxi

My name is Xuxi but I like to go by Lucas. I’m an Aquarius.

I’m a very outgoing guy and I always provide a good time in every sense of the word.

*wiggles eyebrows*

I love spicy food! I have a strong digestive system so I’ll eat a lot but maintain my figure because I also exercise much as you can tell.

*shows off his biceps*

I’m usually attracted to someone sweet, shy and innocent.

My lady c’mon!

Mark Lee

My name is Mark and you can mark me in your heart! I’m a Leo.

I’m a simple guy who likes to hang out with friends and play my guitar, that I obviously brought with me. Who knows, I might serenade someone special.

*winks*

I like to think I’m funny but it seems like others don’t get my jokes… Anyway! I am not great in the kitchen so like maybe it’s safer for everyone if other people take care of the cooking.

*laughs*

I want someone who’s honest and loyal, plain and simple.

Time to shine!

Xiao Dejun

My name is Dejun but you can call me Xiaojun. I’m a Leo.

I’m a more reserved guy, I like to be alone but I have a space saved in my life for a special lady.

*winks*

I like to read, watch movies and write songs. I can play several instruments too so I can write something special in several styles, there’s no way I can get that wrong.

*wiggles eyebrows*

Honesty can get you far with me because I believe that being humble brings more benefits. I also like a girl who can communicate well.

Let’s do this!

Wong Kunhang

My name is Kunhang but my friends call me Hendery so you can too. I’m a Libra.

I’m a very friendly and funny guy, everybody loves me, so I know this girl will too!

*shrugs shoulders*

I love to just take a walk and listen to music. Also I might start dancing when I talk so please don’t be surprised!

*laughs*

I like kind people who’ll help others in need. Also someone independent and family oriented.

Let’s enjoy this experience!

Huang Renjun

My name is Renjun and I’m an Aries.

I may seem like a soft guy but I know when to be cold and firm. I believe that you have to love yourself first to be able to love someone else and we need to love someone for who they are and not try to change them.

*smiles*

I appreciate arts. I like to dance and also to draw. I think I might draw us two together so she can see how good we’ll look and choose me!

*winks*

I like a witty girl who won’t be too sensitive to what I say because I like to be honest.

Let’s love ourselves and each other!

Lee Jeno

My name is Jeno and I’m a Taurus.

I’m an easy going guy that gets along with about everyone. Sometimes I may seem quiet and distant but in some situations I’d rather observe than participate.

*shrugs shoulders*

I like to think I’m funny, even if others say I’m not, I just hope at least I can make this girl laugh!

*laughs*

I’m interested in someone like me, easy going and with a good sense of humour! Also someone who can cook.

For love!

Lee DongHyuck

My name is Donghyuck but that’s the sane me, you can call me Haechan instead! I’m a Gemini.

I have a very bright personality and I can definitely cheer everybody up! I am also very affectionate so don’t mind me giving out free hugs and kisses!

*wiggles eyebrows*

I like tasty food, football and anything related to music. I love to dance and make up my own unique moves so please join me, I’ll teach you.

*winks*

I’m not very picky but I like a girl with good vocals and an easy to listen voice.

Ok cut!

Na Jaemin

My name is Jaemin and I’m a Leo.

I am a very bubbly guy and I might get a bit loud but it’s all in good fashion!

*laughs*

I like to dance and to play the piano. My favorite movie genre is horror but it’s ok if she doesn’t like that, she can always hold on to me if she’s scared.

*wiggles eyebrows*

I want someone who’s humble and that puts peoples needs first. It needs to be someone who I can share my heart with.

Wow, so sexy!

Liu Yangyang

My name is Yangyang, yes it’s not a nickname! I’m a Libra.

I’m an energetic and sweet guy. You can trust me with anything and I can give you a good laugh.

*smiles*

When I was a kid I wanted to be a racer, but now I just want to race my way into this girl’s heart.

*laughs*

I like an adventurous girl who’s affectionate and honest and will have fun with me.

I’m very happy to be here!

Osaki Shotaro

My name is Shotaro and I’m a Sagittarius.

I’m a cheerful and sincere guy, happiness is my middle name! I’m curious, impulsive and adventurous so hopefully I’ll find someone who can keep up!

*winks*

I like to watch mukbangs and to play football, but my favorite thing to do is dance so let’s dance together!

*smiles*

I don’t have an ideal type, I like everybody!

Let’s start the adventure!

Jung Sungchan

My name is Sungchan and I’m a Virgo.

I’m a serene and reliable guy, but I’m also a perfectionist and it’s difficult to convince me of things.

*shrugs shoulders*

I like to exercise and play games. I enjoy sunny days the best and maybe I can find some company to enjoy them with me.

*winks*

I’m just looking for someone that matches well with me.

I’m ready!

Zhong Chenle

My name is Chenle and I’m a Scorpio.

I’m a friendly, cheerful and confident guy, even if people get startled by my laugh.

*laughs in dolphin*

I like to play football, play the piano and cook. I am afraid of spiders so unfortunately it would have to be the girl saving me from them!

*scratches the back of his head*

I don’t have an ideal type.

Ok, let’s do it!

Park Jisung

My name is Jisung and I’m an Aquarius.

I may come up as an awkward guy but I promise I’m nice and funny once you get to know me!

*winks*

I have a good hunch so I’m very good at making decisions. I like to play soccer and video games, but not scary ones because I get startled easily!

*laughs*

The perfect girl for me is someone who I can be friends with first.

Let’s live this moment!

58 notes · View notes

aerialflight · 4 years ago

Text

Fic Recs (cause it's always nice to give a shout out and get people into things I'm into rn)

[The Magnus Archives] (I recently finished the podcast and I fell into a hole for a while so here you go)

Sing a Song of Sixpence by Kaiel

Ship: Jon/Martin

In which Jonathan Sims is a Siren, and he fails to notice any new abilities granted to him by the position of Archivist. Or really anything about the Entities at all.

Takes place in season 1 featuring Jonah Magnus’s slow decent into madness

(The new mythology interwoven with tma's worldbuilding is so freaking good and I love how all the characters change and develop because of these changes. Also, f you Elias)

Along Came a Spider by Dribbledscribbles

Ship: implied Jon/Martin

Sasha James is the Archivist, as expected. Martin Blackwood is menaced by Jane Prentiss, as expected. Elias Bouchard weaves his web, as expected.

All goes as it should.

At least until something calling itself Jonathan Sims steps in.

(Web!Jon in this makes me want to weep, it's so freaking good. A pretty long, very excellent oneshot on what could've happened if Jon got taken by the web when he was a kid. And Sasha as the Archivist is ALWAYS so cool, we love her in this house.)

A Break in the Clouds by Ash_Rabbit

“I’m eight.” the kid sniffs as if eight was any different from four, maybe not an unspeakable horror then, just a regular horror. “And I heard that the Magnus Institute deals with-” his little nose scrunches, cute. “-spooky things.”

“Do you have a-” he cracks a grin, and then rethinks it as small hands tighten against their burden.”-spooky thing to deliver?” gods he hopes not, it’s bad enough when adults walk in and lay out all of their baggage, but for a child-

“There’s a spider in this book.” the kid says solemnly, raising his textbook sized parcel. “It ate Evan Pritchard.” a bloody fucking Leitner. Of course an eight year old would find a murder spider book. “This seemed like the best place to bring it.”

(I never thought about what the Original Elias could've been like AND NOW I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT BECAUSE OF THIS FIC. I LOVE HIM, HE'S COMPLEX AND HE CARES AND JON CARES AND THEY BOTH CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER. THIS IS THE CONTENT I WANT, OMG. Also, Jon being even smaller than usual is adorable, so cute. No wonder Elias wants to hug him, a LOT.)

See the Line where the Sky meets the Sea by The_Floating_World

Ship: Jon/Martin, Jon/Oliver Banks

When Jon is a child he looks into the infinite abyss of space. The Vast looks back into him.

(One of my all time fave fics in this fandom, no questions asked. I have reread this three times and am open to doing it again, god. Vast!Jon, such a concept. It's written so beautifully and the relationships Jon develops, so good. ugh. My heart. Please please read.)

Sweet As Roses by Prim_the_Amazing

Ship: Jon/Martin

“Come in, Martin,” he says, not looking up from his notes.

“Hi, Jon,” he says, and Jon stops writing at the sound of his voice. “We’re out of the green tea, but we’ve got lemon?”

Jon looks at him. Martin smiles at him in his usual tentative way as he sets the mug of tea down on Jon’s desk. Heat spikes so sharply in his gut that he twitches with it.

“Thank you, Martin,” he says, mouth dry, and he stands up.

“Oh,” he says, sounding almost surprised. He smiles again. “No-- no problem-- um, what are you--”

Jon takes Martin by the shoulders, leans up on the tips of his toes, and kisses him.

(You have no idea how much I howled through this fic, my god. *buries face in hands* The number of times I wanted to cry from sheer hilarity and horror reading this good lord.)

Things Could Always Be Worse by theOestofOCs

Ship: Jon/Martin, Georgie/Melanie

Sometimes, the most horrifying thing of all is what might have been.

Somewhere, Jon could swear he heard a crowd laughing.

Or: in which Jonathan Sims is forced to swap places with his alternate self—a tall, chivalrous hero extraordinaire, who knows neither fear nor nuance—and is sent to the aggressively straight alternate universe the Magnus Archives was never meant to be.

“Whatever place this is,” Jon announced, “I just want to be sure it knows I hate it.”

(I will say this once, THIS IS THE MOST CURSED THING IVE EVER READ EVER. Like holy hell. I can't believe this thing exists. please read it oh please please please)

[Supernatural]

heard from your mother (she don't recognize you) by Schmuzz

Ship: Dean/Cas, Jessica/Sam

A man named Cas wakes up in 2003 with no memories, but he's able to piece together a few things:

1. Supernatural creatures exist, and most of them will hurt innocent civilians if he doesn't stop them; 2. He has abilities that no human hunter should have, but he knows enough about human hunters to keep that to himself, and finally; 3. He keeps running into another hunter named Dean Winchester, who seems to be about as lonely as he is if he's willing to put up with those former facts long enough to help Cas unravel the mystery of who (or what) he really is.

For his part, Dean's still (not) dealing with Sam's departure to Stanford, and figures distracting himself with a bit of mystery and intrigue is as harmless as it gets, right? Right.

(THE fic I'm most into right now, been following this from the very start and it's AMAZING. Cas has agency and is making friends and S1 Dean is growing out of John's influence and is becoming a Person and the both of them first being friends then more. The slow burn as their relationship develops, SO GOOD. SO SO DAMN GOOD. *screams* Seriously one of the best spn fics I've read in a long, long time.)

anamnesis by cenotaphy

Ships: Castiel/Dean, Sam/Eileen

Chuck is depowered, Jack is the new god, and the world is free. Dean and Sam get into the Impala and chase down the miles on an endless highway, and their story is finally, finally their own to follow. At least, that's what Dean tells himself. But the diners and motels and painted interstate lines are blurring together and the smallest details keep catching at his brain like tiny fishhooks and he can't quite shake the feeling that not everything is exactly as it should be.

* Fix-it/alternate series finale. Canon-compliant through the end of 15.19.

(THIS IS THE FIC THAT GOT ME THROUGH THE FINALE OKAY. WHY COULDN'T THIS HAVE BEEN CANON. It's Disturbing and honestly plot-wise this makes more sense. Why couldn't we have had this. *screams*)

[Avatar: The Last Airbender]

where the stars do not take sides by WitchofEndor

Ship: Sokka/Zuko

When Azula is nine, she becomes an only child. She hears the Fire Lord call for Zuko's life, and in the morning, her mother and brother are gone. Azula may be young, but she isn't naive. She knows what happened to them.

Which makes it all the more surprising when Azula tracks the Avatar down and fights his group of peasant friends, only to find herself staring into an eerily familiar face.

(The fact one of the tags in this fic is, "Sibling Dynamic: Fucked Up But Wholesome" should give you an idea what this fic is like. Chaotic as HELL and I just love Azula here, she loves Zuko so much in her messed up way and Zuko loves her back in the exact same way lol. It's batshit and I am Here For This.)

[Naruto]

Eclipse by AislingRoisin (JayBird345) for HybrisAnaideia

Ship: Nara Shikaku/OFC

"In life, it's easier to remain stagnant and wallow in your troubles. But life isn't merely about continued existence, nor is it meant to be gone through alone."

(This is a fic that's slept on and I NEED people to read this. A self-insert fic that I find really interesting in its approach and the worldbuilding for the post-third war shinobi world is fantastic. I feel like there's a certain pattern with self-insert fics, not that is a detriment in any way to how much I enjoy them, so this fic feels fresh to me in a way I haven't read in a while. I am waiting eagerly for this to get updated! Please read!)

On Freedom and Other Formalities by iaso

Ship: Kakashi/Genma/OFC

When push comes to shove, Hiwa Inuzuka doesn't go down easy. Reborn into a new, dangerous world? She puts her past life as a spy to work. Thrown into a war? Hiwa does her duty, for Konoha. And when she's forced into an arranged marriage? All there is to do is beat them to the punch and get married first. Thankfully, Genma Shiranui is willing to lend a hand. Literally. SI/OC

(Listen, LISTEN, it's about the slow burn, the longing, the communication (it both has and hasn't and isn't THAT great??), the messy way you fit three very different people together, it's so freaking good! Also, Kakashi is so Chaotic here this is my fave characterization of him, you can't change my mind. And Genma is a Good Boi who is Doing His Best, along with the Self-insert character who I LOVE SO MUCH, SHE'S FANTASTIC FNEIWOPAF. Sped past this fic in the speed of light, I could not stop reading!)(Honestly, read all of the author's fics, they're all really REALLY good!)

Building a Castle by WhisperingDarkness

Without needing anyone to tell her, Sakura knew that talking to someone no-one else could see or hear would make her weird. It would draw the bad kind of attention to her, something people could make fun of her for.

She didn’t like being weird, but she did like the voice. Her inner voice was helpful and it was a part of her that had always been there. The idea of it not being there would have been so much weirder than anything else.

It was during her first year at the Academy that Sakura realised the voice was not in her head at all, but that it came from a cloudy shape floating next to her.

(Basically a short-ish retelling of Hikaru no Go. Only with more Shogi and Nara and Ninja's)

(Sakura can see ghosts (I'm noticing this is a popular trope for her) and it's really cute haha! Her relationship with Tobirama is sweet and I just enjoyed reading this so much.)

[The Magicians]

So Long (And Thanks For All The Books) by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)

Ships: Quentin/Eliot, James/Julia, Quentin/Margo/Eliot

When Quentin is told Julia wasn't admitted to Brakebills, he realizes he has a drastic decision in front of him. If he tells Julia about magic, he'll have his mind wiped as well as hers. But he can't just leave her behind, either. He can't lose his best friend, and he can't let her life a life with her magical potential stolen away from her.

So he makes a third choice.

(Really, and I mean REALLY well-done canon divergent fic, this is the Quentin & Julia friendship fic I have been looking for forever. It explores so much of what could've happened and I just love Quentin here, I really really do. Characterization done so right. I also recommend the author's other works too. Been a follower of them for a long time, they're great.)

[Game of Thrones]

The Road to Victory by writing_as_tracey

Too late in preparing for the Night King and the Long Night, the last stand at Winterfell is close to falling. Bran takes desperate measures to ensure victory, and Jon, Sansa, and Arya pay the price for it in a time unfamiliar to them, on the cusp of another war. [GoT, time-travel fix it]

(I swear, this fic made me laugh so many times, all the Stark are BAMF and fantastic, and Rhaegar gets Wrecked lol. It's crack btw, and the plot goes in directions you'll never guess and it's amazing hahaha!)

[Haikyuu!!] (I am very very late to the fandom but here I am)

Ballare (To Dance) by MidnightSparks

Ship: Iwaizumi Hajime/Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru, and platonic Kageyama & Kentarou (really love their friendship)

Kageyama’s first love is volleyball. His second, however, is ballet.

In one world, Kageyama Tobio is left behind by his parents. In this world, the existence of soulbonds keeps Kageyama’s parents in Miyagi and leaves Kageyama in the care of his grandma and grandpa.

(In which soulmates exist and that changes everything and nothing at the same time.)

(*buries face in hands* I have fallen for this ship so hard and I can't get out fudge me. I understand now. Their DYNAMICS FIEWONPAF)

Kings of Tomorrow by bokubroya (liarielle)

Ship: Kageyama Tobio/Oikawa Tooru

On the eve of Tobio’s 16th birthday, he counts down the seconds to midnight, and emerges with Oikawa Tooru’s name on his wrist.

It’s been two years since then, and Tobio thought they had an understanding. A silent, never spoken about understanding that this thing between them is nothing, and they’re going to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Of course, it’s just like Oikawa to change the game and leave Tobio wondering what comes next.

(I am WEAK for soulmate fics between these two, I don't even really like soulmate fics half the times what is WRONG WITH ME-)(Please suffer with me, I'm begging you. Its a good fic, thumbs up.)

[Crossover]

Honey and Magic by JustARatherVerySillyWriter, White_Squirrel for Super Carlin Brothers

Fandoms: Matilda (yeah you read that right), Harry Potter

Everyone knew Matilda was a rather extraordinary child, but even she didn't know she was a witch. Matilda Honey receives her Hogwarts letter in the year of the Triwizard Tournament, and soon, she will leave her unique mark on the magical world.

(Do I even need to explain how amazing it is to have Matilda in the wizarding world? And Matilda is a HUFFLEPUFF AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL THIS FIC IS GREAT PLEASE READ!!!)

An Eye for an Eye by DpsMercy

Fandoms: The Magnus Archives, Welcome to Night Vale

In which Jonathan Sims is not from the UK but instead, if you took his origins and turned them sideways twice then flipped them over, he technically would be from the US, the town of Night Vale specifically. Elias can’t do shit about it and gets a headache and slowly creeping madness instead.

(Look, I know probably everyone has read this because if they haven't, what have you been DOING with your lives??? Jon interning at Night Vale is Incredible, nothing phases this man, it's Delightful. I laughed so many times reading this, I'm not even kidding right now. Read or perish.)

The Favour by R_Cookie

Fandoms: Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Ship: Original Percival Graves/Harry Potter

Percival is ten years old when his grandfather tries to tell him that he's ensured the greatness of the Graves legacy for him, that he ought to be eternally grateful - but the explanation is hijacked by a stranger who manages to intimidate Chester Graves with an ease never seen before.

or: Hadrian (Harry) Potter is the Master of Death, who grants Graves a boon. Nobody could have known that the Deathly Hallows didn't turn you so much into the 'Master of Death' as into the anthropomorphic personification of Death. And so, Death becomes Percival's guardian angel, and Percival does not spit out his cereal.

(Look, I don't know how I stumbled back into the FBAWTFT fandom either, it just happened and I'm grateful for that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have found this amazing fic. Their relationship is slow and strange and I just love how Percival is characterized here. Also, one of the tag promises that it deviates from canon so I am really, really excited for that! XD)

baby that's what i do by natanije

Fandoms: Naruto, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!

"Are you telling me," Hidan exclaims, incredulous, "that you collect money all this time to give to orphans?!"

Kakuzu pauses. He blinks a few times.

"Huh. I guess I do."

(Tsuna reincarnates as Kakuzu and it's HILARIOUS. HE'S SUCH A MOM HAHAHA)

#Fanfiction #AO3 #Fic Rec #Fic Rec List #Podcasts #The Magnus Archives #Supernatural #Avatar The Last Airbender #Naruto #The Magicians #Game of Thrones #Haikyuu!!#Crossover #Matilda #Welcome to Night Vale #Harry Potter #Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them #Katekyou Hitman Reborn

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insomniac-dot-ink · 5 years ago

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Books I’ve Read in 2020

AHello! I’m trying to read as many books as I can during the quarantine, here’s what I’ve finished so far:

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (literary fiction): a son writes a letter about his life to his illiterate mother. Breathtakingly beautiful with it’s way with words this book is lovely and real in the hardest and sweetest ways. The author’s combination of prose and poetry is dazzling and intricate, this book has stuck with me for days afterward. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (fantasy): a money-lender gets in trouble after bragging she can turn silver into gold and is kidnapped and ordered to do so by a fey creature. It may be that I am the perfect audience for this type of book, but it’s my favorite thing I’ve read all year. It’s a book that equally takes on the fantastical and real-world with compelling female characters at the center of the whole thing. A wonderful fantasy journey inspired by eastern-European Jewish folklore. 5 out of 5 stars.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (horror graphic novel): a series of short horror comics. Absolutely bone-chilling! This was a really fun type of scary story, especially the last one which made my skin absolutely crawl. Deliciously eerie, this was treat to read if not a little too short. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (magical realism): a young girl can taste other people’s emotions in their cooking and begins to understand her family in new ways. This was a weird book, but it has everything you’ve got to love about that combination of the surreal and mundane. It’s sense of character was electrifying and I had fun engaging with this type of off-kilter real world. I was a little frustrated in parts bc of some characters choices, but that too was true to life. 4 out of 5 stars.

Crier’s War by Nina Varela (steampunk fantasy wlw): about a Made automaton heir to a throne and her human hand-maiden that is trying to kill her. This was an easy read with a lot of tension between the two main characters that I liked, but the writing itself was very weak. There was waaay too much exposition in parts and the dialogue had some really hockey lines. I enjoyed the twists and turns in the middle of the book, but the beginning and end didn’t have much movement. 2.5 stars out of 5.

The Huntress by Kate Quinn (historical fiction): honestly, I’m a little disappointed. This book just did not hit my sweet spots, it wasn’t fast-paced enough for me to get immersed in the plot, and the characters weren’t real enough to be wholly invested in them. That said I adored Nina Markova and the Night Witches, so that did help. 3 starts out of 5.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White (horror sci-fi retelling): HAND IN UNLOVABLE HAND. A retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein from the perspective of Victor Frankenstein’s wife and my God! The characters! The plot was well-enough, but the characters took the whole show for being complex and compelling. The main character was breathtakingly layered and I was wholly invested in Elizabeth and her story and the triumph at the end of this story was tangible. 4 out of 5 stars!

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (fantasy): A story of a young woman who lives in a valley where a girl must go live with a wizard for 10 years. She is certain she won’t be chosen, but ends up having to be “uprooted” herself. I enjoyed most of this book! However, I think I liked “Spinning Silver” a lot more just because the ending of this one somehow lost me. The characters were good and plot compelling, but (SPOILERS) the big battle at the end seemed to drag and didn’t interest me somehow. 3.8 out of 5 stars.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (fantasy): excellent read! A story of a young woman in Jazz Age Mexico who goes on an adventure with a Mayan death God who is trying to regain his throne. A romp across the country absolutely brimming with likable characters and fairy tale twists. My only complaint would be that most of it felt a little predictable due to the fact we knew where we were going throughout the whole story, However, it was still greatly enjoyable for the heroine herself, Casiopea. 4 out of 5 stars!

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (literary): a story of two families in a progressive “planned” community, how their lives intertwine, their secrets, and a central question surrounding motherhood. Deeply empathetic to its characters and introspective, this is an every-day story of people in suburbia that reads like a thriller. I could barely put it down and felt deeply for its characters and situations, 5 out of 5 stars!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power (YA sci-fi suspense): a story of a group of girls at a boarding school on an island affected by the “tox” which alters their bodies in strange ways like giving them scales or an extra spine. This was an eerie, interesting read with a wlw romance! Watch out for the body horror in this one, but it was very gripping and held my interest. Some of the pacing was off in places (like the romance), but had a very creepy atmosphere that did it for me. 3.8 out of 5 stars!

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio (thriller-mystery): A thriller about a group of Shakespeare actors in their last year of college and one of their classmates who turns up dead. I enjoyed the murder mystery part of this novel more than I expected despite the fact I had guessed who had “done it” pretty early on. I really enjoyed the James-Oliver dynamic with its growing homoeroticism, but I didn’t like how the character of Meredith was handled at all. She felt like a one-note aside. I might have given this book four stars, but the ending was EXTREMELY frustrating for me and I did not like the “open-ended” conclusion. 3 out of 5 stars.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (literary humor): a weird character-driven comedy about an old grumpy man and a new family that moves in next to him. Warning for themes of suicide. Anyway, I don’t normally indulge in cliches like “I laughed, I cried, I loved one Cat Annoyance.” However, that’s exactly what I did. I laughed out loud, I cried my eyes out (THE CAT’S HEAD WAS IN HIS PALM), I loved this book. It was sweet and compelling and thoroughly immersive. 5 out of 5 stars!

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (historical fantasy): set in the early 1900s comes a story of a young girl and her experience with “Doors” that lead to different worlds. This book had a lot of great character development and really interesting descriptions, however, I didn’t like it as much as I wanted to. I found it hard to get myself to sit down a read it. There was just something missing with the push to “page-turn,” but it was still a really good book. 3.7 out of 5 stars!

Gideon the 9th by Tamsyn Muir (high fantasy, kinda gay): I AM FILLED WITH EMOTIONS. This was book was definitely a page-turner. I was very confused with it at the beginning, but the characters and their interactions were, forgive the expression, the life blood of the story and kept me wholly invested. The ending has CRUSHED my heart, but damn did I have a good time reading it. 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Harrow the 9th by Tamsyn Muir (sequel to Gideon the 9th): I really enjoyed this book. It was just as strange and twisting as the first book, though I think I enjoyed the first one a bit more since I love Gideon. It was fun ride overall, though the ending was kind of really confusing. So 4 out of 5 stars.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (historical fiction): Overall, I really enjoyed this book! The writing style was personable and grounded in reality. I found myself really liking the main characters and the exploration of the life of a bi main character was really well done I thought. A solid book with drama and glamor to boot. 4.6 out of 5 stars!

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (historical fiction): A story of two sisters during WWII and their resistance to Nazi occupation. To be honest, this book wasn’t my cup of tea. It was compelling, but also wholly depressing and I felt like gloried in the pain of the two main characters too much. The history was wonderful and realistic, but it didn’t make me feel anything good afterward. It was just dark. 3 out of 5 stars.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (mlm romance): I finally finished this after the heaviness of The Nightingale. This is a story of the First Son of the USA falling for the prince of England. And it turned out to be a very fun and light hearted read! Some of it was kinda generic and too political, and it coulda been shorter, but I thought the romance itself made up for it. It just made me feel so sweet and lovely inside. 4 out of 5 stars!

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman (literary humor): I’m searching out heartfelt books and this one ticked off all the marks on my “sweet” list. A lovely book that made me cry more times than I would like to admit. Compassionate beyond belief, funny and heartfelt. I think I enjoyed A Man Called Ove slightly more, but this book was also dear to me and something I hope to reread in the future. 4.2 out of 5 stars!

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (sci-fi): A post-apocalyptical story about a group of traveling Shakespeare actors and a symphony. Overall, an excellent read that somehow pictures a more realistic or even softer version of the apocalypse. At first, I wasn't happy with the jumping around of the story, but as I progressed I grew fonder and fonder of the interwoven characters and their journey. A very fascinating read about a world that hits a little too close to home. The appreciation of the arts and preserving humanity was somehow very hopeful and I was fully engaged with this story. 5 out of 5 Stars!

Up next: The Hidden Life of Trees by by Peter Wohlleben (nonfiction science), The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin (urban fantasy), The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (fantasy)

#I'll keep this list updated!#am reading #bookblr #IA talks #I've mostly read books I've really liked this year!#then again I rarely finish books I don't like

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luninosity · 4 years ago

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Okay, so, some Falcon and the Winter Soldier thoughts (will have some spoilers) for episodes two and three. General non-spoilery comment first: I feel like these were both *okay* episodes - neither as good as the first, but I didn’t dislike them, either. I’m still really curious to see how we’re going to wrap this all up in three more episodes; it doesn’t feel like we’re halfway done yet!

Okay, more spoiler-y notes below the Read More, not in any real order, just as I think and type. I’ll probably forget some things, but for now, here’re some thoughts...

--I like ep 3 slightly more than ep 2, mostly because of Zemo!

--I actually really love Zemo here (I liked him in Civil War, too): complex, sardonic, enjoying poking at people, a villain we do feel sympathy for even as he’s still sharp enough to remind us that he is a villain. Daniel Bruhl has always done a fantastic job flipping between calculated cruelty, wry humor - the whole “I am a Baron” moment was great - and pain that for him is still raw, about the loss of his family. (Some things’re awfully cliche - look, the supervillain’s playing chess and reading Machiavelli in his cell? really? - but, y’know...sure. Why not. We expect some cliches in the superhero genre, and this is an inoffensive one.)

--also Zemo dancing. That’s it. That’s everything.

--moving on from that: I’m also really liking how they’re writing John Walker. He does have charm, and there’s a certain amount of sympathy - especially as we see him worrying about filling the Captain America shoes, in ep 2 - but we’re also getting this really subtle sense of wrongness about him. He’s clearly vindictive and angry when things (and people) don’t act according to his mental script for them, and he’s willing to use his name and power to do things like get Bucky released...which in context and given our sympathies for Bucky is a good thing, but...it’s also an indicator of his willingness to do what he wants, because he can. (To be fair, Steve Rogers also often did that! - but Steve earned our trust, both in narrative and character. From his first introduction to WWII leadership experience to all the Avengers stuff, Steve consistently acts to protect people, and he’ll also listen if someone else has a good idea or if someone needs to talk, like with Wanda.) So I’m really liking this slow-fuse character development.

--mixed feelings about Sharon. I love that the show’s acknowledging how much she sacrificed for our main heroes, with no reward. On the other hand, she also clearly knew the consequences that could happen; she said as much at the time. The level of bitterness seems like a lot. But I’m also interested in everything we still don’t know about her - if she’s not the Power Broker herself, she’s obviously Up To Something. So that should be fun.

--hey, look at that X-Men location, with Majipoor! Also a nod to Wolverine’s favorite bar there, I think?

--I love heist and disguise plots!

--I also really like Bucky’s having to revert to the Winter Soldier - Sebastian Stan does it so brilliantly, with so many layers of emotion: not wanting to, loathing it, recognizing the necessity, shutting off all emotion and just coldly doing it, hurting but covering it up...just fantastic, and you know I love some hurt/comfort, and this seems like such a great set-up for emotional hurt

--but! this also seems like...a weird plot hole, kind of? Bucky’s pretty famous at this point, right? I imagine the criminal underworld knows he’s been pardoned and deprogrammed, right? or do they assume Zemo, with his knowledge of Hydra, still has some special control over him?

--along the same “this seems like someone didn’t think this through” path, Sam, you’re a professional, turn off your phone on a mission. Oh my god. Face-palmingly stupid - and I think somewhat lazy writing, as the writers plainly needed a giveaway, and went for the first idea they had. Even if it made a main character look incompetent.

--the Flag Smashers and Karli are...fine. They feel very Generic Marvel Villain - not the big space alien type, but the other type, the “I have a personal loss and motivating pain so I’m a little sympathetic but also Clearly Evil, watch me kill civilians so the audience won’t ever find me TOO sympathetic” type. Meh. Fine. Zemo’s more interesting, but...fine.

--Anthony Mackie is such a fantastic actor - every bit of his reaction to the Isaiah Bradley reveal is so good. The anger, pain, frustration, ferocity...heartbreaking. Actually that whole scene is so good - his emotions at discovering this secret history are palpable, and it’s so painful, because we also understand why Bucky would keep the secret - as someone who knows about pain and trauma and being experimented on, and knowing Isaiah wants to be left alone - we feel really deeply for both characters here, and it’s great.

--I actually liked the abrupt swing from the Isaiah Bradley encounter to the casual everyday racism of the cops on the street - is it subtle, no. But it’s not meant to be: it’s meant to be standing up and shouting about how not that much has really changed, and about how pervasive racism is. I know some reviews were all, “this was just too much!” or “too forced!” but...look, it needs to be shouted sometimes for people to hear.

--Bucky’s notebook being Steve’s, oh, ouch, my feelings. If I had the time and energy to write fic...

--(also, if I had the time and energy to write dark!fic: where’re my fics in which Zemo’s implication about the Winter Soldier “doing anything you want” gets played with? what or who does Bucky have to do to keep the undercover charade going? so many Bad Wrong Kinky power dynamics and explorations of consent and what this would do to Bucky’s head, here, and honestly I’d totally read them all, just saying.)

--Sam and Bucky together...I don’t know. This is one of the elements that I’m not actually a huge fan of, but I think it’s partly a personal genre / sense of humor thing that’s not clicking for me, personally, again. Like...

--I don’t find people shouting aggrievedly at each other to be funny? I’m not sure why it is.

--I mean, I get that they’re doing, like, eighties buddy cop movies, but...it got old really fast then, and it’s not something we needed to bring back. It’s not clever, and it’s...well, shouty and annoying.

--(I say this as someone who genuinely likes the first two Lethal Weapon movies...but the significant difference is, I think, we’re also shown in both those movies that Riggs and Murtaugh care about each other. They don’t want to be partners initially, and they don’t get along initially, and they do argue over tactics**...but they immediately feel responsible for each other and act to protect each other even as they argue, because it’s the right thing to do and we’re shown moments of them awkwardly trying to connect, because they both have that deep sense of...protectiveness...that makes them Good People - like, if they learn something that the other person needs to know, they tell each other. They protect each other’s families / love interests. So by the end of the second movie, with that fabulous character death fake-out, Murtaugh’s initial shock and grief is real and powerful and painful, and so is his genuine relief when the worst isn’t true - and it’s all earned.) (**however, they tend to argue tactics *before* jumping in - “is it 1, 2, 3, go on 3? or 3, then go?” And then once that’s established, they go ahead. That makes a difference as far as...well...competence and teamwork!)

--(Sam and Bucky, as far as I can tell, don’t do the above, and just...maybe shouldn’t be working together?)

--I also don’t find grown men acting like my youngest nephew, when he’s having a temper tantrum, to be funny. Staring contests? Random insults? Sulking in silence? Oh, grow up.

--(Also, yes, writers, we see you with the “couples therapy” and “get closer and make your legs touch” and “landing on top of each other as they hit the ground” moments. I, at least, personally, am very tired of...I don’t know that I’d call it queerbaiting exactly, but this idea that we’re supposed to find these moments funny...because why? Because, ooh, they’re two men getting close to each other, physically or emotionally? Why is this a thing we need to draw attention to? Do you think you’re doing some sort of fan service? Please either make Sam/Bucky happen or stop doing this.)

--both Sam and Bucky are highly competent and professional agents, or they should be. They should know how to work in the field - even with people they may not like - and adapt to shifting strategy, make best use of available assets, include people in the plan, etc. I can’t help but compare this to something like, say, Leverage, which also has a team who mocks each other and makes jokes but clearly absolutely respects each other’s capabilities, has a plan going in and tells everyone what the plan is, and adapts (and trusts each other to adapt) on the fly as necessary, and does it all without random insults about someone’s (PTSD-related) staring and “robot brain”.

--one of the very specific moments that bothers me a lot is the ending of the therapy scene (yay for showing heroes in therapy! but also I’m pretty sure she’s...not a great therapist?). Bucky finally opens up and says something real, about his own self-doubt and wondering whether Steve was wrong about him....and Sam just...brushes it off and goes, “we’re done here,” basically. Not only does that feel wildly out of character for former counselor Sam, it feels cruel. I really deeply dislike that moment the more I think about it. Makes me want to scream.

--Sam insults Bucky way more than the other way around. It’s starting to feel very one-sided (it’d be better if more clearly reciprocal, though it’s still not a dynamic that’s my favorite), and again, feels out of character - maybe this is Anthony Mackie’s sense of humor, but Sam isn’t Mackie, and Bucky isn’t Seb, and it reads as...a weird unbalanced power-trip thing to me. And also out of character for Sam, who can be sarcastic (”If you guys eat that sort of thing,” about breakfast, when Steve and Nat have randomly shown up at his door) but that’s not the same as just throwing unprovoked insults at a person who’s trying to recover from trauma, and a lot of those insults seem to center on things that were done to Bucky, that he had no choice in (the staring, the arm, etc), and that feels....it just feels mean, to me. Make fun of things he’s had a choice in / can do something about, if you have to - hair, clothes, liking “old people’s games” like gin rummy or pinochle, not knowing who Beyonce is, I don’t know, there are so many options that aren’t cruel! Do that instead. Let Bucky have a good comeback for once, too!

--the action scenes are action scenes. Also fine.

--Sam might be right about destroying the shield, and the show may even be (unintentionally?) setting that up as the best outcome, but that’s a problem for the future, Sam; get it back first. Also it’s a problem you caused by giving the shield up - did you really trust the government to leave it unused in a museum? You’re not that naive.

--overall, it’s...a perfectly fine show, so far, I think? Solid, and interesting, but not great. I think some of what doesn’t work for me is because it doesn’t work for me personally, as far as the shouty insult-heavy action “comedy” bits that I’m not enjoying, but I think they’re doing what they aimed for with it, so in that sense, I guess it’s working? There’s a lot of really cool stuff around the edges - John Walker, Isaiah Bradley, that Dora Milaje stinger, the bigger world of a history interwoven with racism and superpowers, the chillingly effective use of Bucky’s past - but I wish I liked the central Sam-Bucky relationship more. Individually they’re wonderful - they’ve both had such powerful scenes dealing with family, trauma, and consequences - but I feel like, in the effort to do the buddy comedy dynamic, the writing has just made me really sure that they actually genuinely don’t like each other? To such an extent that if they show any affection / caring / interest in each other in the last three episodes, it won’t be believable. (I mean Sam and Bucky, not Mackie and Seb. Mackie and Seb’re adorable.)

--I just want to think about Zemo dancing some more.

#the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws spoilers #spoilers #fatws spoilers #thoughts

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norestwithoutlove · 4 years ago

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Hi, I just finished reading to build a home (quite literally just then) and it was one of the best stories I’ve ever read. everything was so cohesive and beautifully done and has inspired me to do some writing of my own. How did you manage to keep track of minor details and plots throughout the book continuity wise, with such a large word count, thats something most authours cant do and it made it feel so much more personal and immersive. this fic was a wild ride, sorry if this sounds weird btw i dont usually do this.

Hey !! sorry this one took me a while to reply to ! thanks so much for this message it made me beam - i’m glad the fic made you want to use your own voice as well! writing is such a balm especially in times like these, so i hope you’re loving it.

holy shit i’ve just gone over this and this is a LONG answer so i’m very sorry for the essay in advance. regarding continuity and minor details:

from like very early days (essentially day one of writing) i had a very clear vision of where i wanted the fic to go, and what the major plot points were (the night of the fight aged 18 and everything which caused it, even that it would take place on the roof, sam’s overdose happening in the middle of dean’s drunk love confession, the chapter 59 love confession which leads to them FINALLY getting together happening in front of the fire and cas giving dean his poetry book, the dedication saying ‘to dean, i still do, and always will’. all of that was just sitting rotting all other thoughts in my mind and so i had to type it all out at the bottom of the word document to get it down and make sure i didn’t forget. here’s an excerpt of that very early days plan (the scene where dean comes out to sam in the hospital!!! one of my absolute favourites):

other things came later, like the wedding + concussion scene, and the scene where dean waits out in the treehouse all night, which honestly was SO cruel of me and really added to the tragedy of the chapter 38, 40, 42 arc. but yeah as with the above they sat in my brain just waiting for me to reach the appropriate part of the fic to type them up from VERY early days of the fic. opinions on this vary but i don’t like typing out the scenes that i really want to type out if i haven’t actually reached them in the fic’s construction, (does that make sense? i’ve phrased it badly) because knowing i’m gonna get to write those scenes is what motivates me to actually write the scenes inbetween. i should probably switch this up a bit as everyone advises against this form of writing but also yeah changing routine is effort.

other things plotted in the fic came about in light of the events of the show. mary wasn’t originally gonna be such a distant mother but, as spn pushed that narrative of distance and withdrawal, i thought it would be weird for readers to read a fic which pushed the deified mary mother figure like early seasons spn. especially weird for the readers to read a deified mary fic when the mary they were watching on screen seemed to differ so drastically from the one in the story. so the mary-dean relationship (which was fortunately pretty ambiguous and stilted because of dean’s grief-brain in early chapters) had to change in tbah into the really complicated entity it became. honestly the formulation of that relationship is one of the things i was most proud of in the fic because it was so thorny and hard and felt tragically real for that reason.

other things the progression of the show impacted: dean’s relationship with jack. obviously he couldnt be a nephilim in the tbah universe(!) so i had to consider another angle which would stilt his relationship with dean in the fic. considering the fact that in the show dean’s aversion to him came from a knot of grief, anger and dean’s own upbringing, i transplanted that idea onto the fic and said okay, but here it’s not about cas, it’s about john. dean untangles much of his own trauma with john through his relationship with jack in the symbols of his father he can find in his life: driving, fishing, and building. but also in the symbols of jimmy: cooking, talking, teaching. dean gets to choose between being a john or a jimmy to his son, but the question isn’t so simple, because people aren’t just symbols, and actually dean ends up being a dean to jack, which is perfect.

weirdly, i also think music helped with continuity. i had a few songs in my head at the beginning of the fic and they became like thematic seeds which could grow and make threads to be picked up throughout. i’d listen to these as i wrote, especially as i wrote the scenes i deemed the most significant. same thing with literature.

also thinking about the fic just became really comforting to me ! so i’d play major plot points in my head like a movie before i went to sleep, which meant by the time i got to writing them they’d had a lot of time to develop and pick up earlier themes of the fic. essentially all of the fic was written in light of the future of the fic, which really helped continuity and direction but also the weird tangled traumatised nature of time in the story. this figuring of time became really important because i think tangled traumatised time is essentially just the reality of grief-time.

subconsciously i’m sure a lot of stuff bled through which was unintentional, the framing of events which repeat location (dean waiting in the treehouse all night as a teenager to say goodbye to cas before he leaves for university vs dean and cas going to the treehouse as adults and finding teens there who are saying goodbye to each other before leaving for university. confession 3 takes place a literal 10 years after confession 1. confession 1 comes from cas and happens on the roof just before he leaves for the uk, confession 2 comes from dean and happens drunken in the living room after dean has had an intense and ambiguous conversation/fight with his mother, confession 3 happens in the living room after dean has come out to his mother, confession 4 happens on the roof as castiel returns from the uk and repairing every sense of the rift confession 1 caused because this last confession ends in their engagement.)

once i realised this was happening i went back and combed through those scenes for lines to be repeated. an easy example of this is chapter 38//chapter 59. here’s a scene from chapter 38 as they enter the big white house:

and here’s them entering the house in chapter 59:

i think it’s about trauma and repetition (freud has a theory about this, see Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through) in that we return to sites of trauma; trauma is reiterated in memory and in the material, but in every reiteration, we grow and heal and understand the trauma and ourselves better. it’s like an upward spiral: the first confession goes so badly, the second goes better but not good, the third good, the fourth goes wonderfully (dean’s narrative frames it as paradise: “maybe this is the sound of the trumpets on the other side”). so yeah, part of the ‘continuity’ of tbah is just a traumatised cycle of reiteration, and i say this in the nicest possible way, because these cycles of repetition are how we heal. deep down, i think that’s what the fic is all about.

tl;dr: i had a scrawl of a plan at the bottom of the word document i wrote tbah on, i thought about it a lot because it made me happy, i had a pretty clear vision of where things were going from the very opening chapter, and i was a very gay english lit student.

anyway thanks for the ask lovely i am SO sorry it resulted in the borderline novel of an answer.

#anon #answered #LONG post sorry #to build a home #tbah #deancas

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lunarose-moonflower · 3 years ago

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Me actually writing an au that I have an idea for?? More likely than you think I had this funny little idea about Ranboo's dad being Edward and I kind of ran with it

Also this is a Fix-It AU so Edward doesn't die and Ranboo doesn't die and it's a bit different from Canon so yeah Canon divergence, also I apologize for any bad grammar or spelling mistakes or lack of proper punctuation

A past regret you cannot heal

Chapter one

the end was a cold place. quite literally actually with no sun to keep them warm it was quite chilly so enderman developed thick coats of luxurious fur, usually this fur is black with a purple tint, but sometimes there can be deviations. and that's what drew Edward to Jonathan an enderman of lower class than Edward but his coat was a luxurious pearly white and it was the most beautiful one Edward had ever seen. not to mention this young enderman was so different than him, Edward was from a high class family he spent most of his days rereading every book in the library, he was learning and he was classy but Jonathan was quite the opposite. he was a bit of a street rat kind of going around doing whatever he wished didn't really mention a family and his prize possession was a Golden crown, he told stories of it being a stolen crown from a king on the overworld. Edward didn't think it was true but he couldn't help but laugh on how cocky and excited John was. he remembers the first day John started really talking to him.

he was in the library like usual, it was his mother's private library which means no one but his family had access to it or at least that's what he thought. "hey Eddie!"he still remembers that voice excitable but deep he remembers looking up and seeing John through the window tapping on it and he remembers getting up and confusingly opening the window to let the other in "Jonathan what are you doing here??"Edward didn't understand how Jonathan could possibly get here "oh you know I was in the neighborhood and I wanted to visit my handsome little book nerd"always with the compliments he was quite the flirt but Edward couldn't help but find that charming "you know you're not supposed to be here" John laughed that beautiful lovely joyful laugh "well I've never been one to follow the rules after all!"John didn't have much interest in books he just spent time talking with Edward in his mother's library Edward remembers what it was like to feel like he was falling in love he was young and honestly stupid but he didn't mind. as time went on they got married with Edward's mother's permission, turns out despite his street rat nature she didn't mind Jonathan and thought he was a fine husband for her son. and after a while they wanted to have a child usually enderman would reproduce by themselves as they are sexless species but two enderman can pull their power together to make a pearl. and that's exactly what they planned to do. "are you sure this is going to work?"Edward remembers being pretty nervous he knows if this kind of thing goes wrong it can be bad for everyone involved "my love it's fine! that's what my parents did and I turned out fine we can do this"that was John always so supportive always so excited. Edward took a deep breath and he and Jonathan put their hands together and focused their magic. and suddenly between their joint hands after they both put a little bit of themselves into it there was a pearl "we actually did it!"he was elated Edward couldn't believe that he and the love of his life actually created a little enderling well a pearl for an enderling but it was step one. "I told you we can do it darling, and look there's more than one color in the pearl"Jonathan was right the Pearl was mostly the typical dark green but half of it was lighter almost a mint green "we should probably think of a name before they form"John suggested and Edward agreed "maybe Alistair?"Edward suggested "too fancy how about rainbow!"Edward tilted his head at his husband's answer "rainbow?" "well yeah the Pearl has multiple colors after all"Edward thought about the name the endarian word for rainbow is Ranboo and it did sound like a nice name "Ranboo.. it's perfect"Edward smiled looking at the little Pearl he couldn't wait for his child to form.

Edward woke up from his dream/ memory with a start he was sitting in his boat and the blade was out for the day so he was alone he let out a soft sigh before leaning back and chirping quietly

"Ranboo is a nice name"

#ranboo #au #dsmp au #Edward the enderman #a past regret you cannot heal #I should probably get an AO3 account to make this easier but for now this is on Tumblr #Canon divergence #implied character death #maybe kind of???

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Blacksad: Somewhere In the Shadows Review

Hello you beautiful people! I have a WEIRD relationship with Noir. It’s weird because i’ve never really dived into the films of type, though I really should, But as a kid I absolutely LOVED the tracer bullet arcs in Calvin and Hobbes, where everyone’s favorite hyperactive and imaginative six year old would plant himself as the hero in a noir pastiche.. ironically like myself Bill Watterson was also not a huge noir buff and just relied on Cliches but hey, it worked.

Still love these. So from fourth grade on it imprinted a lifelong love of a good bit of detective noir. Not enough to you know, get me to read any traditional noir books or watch any noir tv shows or detective procedurals but I still love a good mystery from time to time and some of my favorite comics such as Howard the Duck by Chip Zdarksy and Peter David’s second run on x-factor run on the genre while having fun with it’s cliches.

I also love anthropormphic animal stories. Dunno why, I just do, so once I found out about Blacksad, a comic that combines disney quality art from a former disney animator with gripping, adult noir that rips your heart out... I couldn’t resisit trying it. Telling the tale of John Blacksad, a cynical private detective and the cases he steps into via gorgeous, straight out of a disney storyboard art, the series is by Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist), the latter a former Disney artist who worked on several Disney films, meeting in the 90′s while working on licensed works and hitting it off, leading to this series. That’s.. really all I could find about the making of the series in English. The only other fact is the series is designed for first release in France, which has a huge comics market, hence the various volumes being called “Albums”, with them later being released in Spain and then english, currently in the latter through Dark Horse Comics, who last year collected the current 5 albums and some side stories into one big volume. And with Dark Horse having infrequent sales including Blacksad on comixology it’s easy enough to pick up all 5 volumes in one complete package on digital for 9 bucks, as it is right now. Seriously I’m not trying to shill for Comixology or Dark Horse, I just love these comics and suggest picking them up. The creators DO intend on new volumes... it’s just both have been busy with other work so they’ve been stuck in development hell since 2013. However given there have always been, if much smaller, the biggest being 5 years, gaps between the Albums, I don’t think the series is dead quite yet and with Dark Horse fully backing it, taking the series from only two volumes getting translated to both translating the first four AND translating the fifth within a year of it’s release, we’ll undoubtly get the next one quickly. The series has also spawned a game, Under the Skin, which i’ll probably also cover some day as i’m dying to play it, but i’m waiting for a sale because it’s around 30 bucks and I can wait. It’s also been nominated for an Eisner three times to no suprise and has had fans in Stan Lee, Jim Steranko, Tim Sale and Will freaking Eisner. Yes the GUY the awards were named after liked the series. So yeah, I love this series and highly support it, but the thought of covering it hadn’t occrued to me.. in part because I already had three comic retrsopectives going, my looks at The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Scott Pilgrim and New X-Men, and simply because I just hadn’t thought of it till Kevin, frequent patron and comissioner of the blog whose paid for tons of reivews, suggested covering the second Album, Arctic Nation, which has our hero searching for a missing little girl he feels has been taken by the titular white supramacist movement.. and if your wondering “Wait how the fuck does that work their animals”, John is black coded due to his black fur, while the white suprmacists are all Arctic Animals.. a touch I really like as I’d honestly never thought of that as a metaphor but it fits like a glove, especially given that most white furred arctic mamals are pretty agressive looking. So yeah I’ll be covering that one next month for Black History Month, among many other things, but I felt I wanted to cover the series in order and since again, it’s only the second of five and I had a free space on the schedule. So without further adew, join me somewhere in the shadows and under the cut as we enter the world of one John Blacksad.

We open as you’d expect for a Noir with a heady narration and a murder. John was brought in by Smirnov, the chief of police and an old aquantice who serves as his Commissioner Gordon. Since the victim is John’s ex, he was brought in to see if he knows anything and as you’d expect warned not to look into it further, as John dosen’t buy this was a simple robbery. His response is exactly what you’d expect.

I mean.. what did you expect? You called him out of bed to see his former lovers corpse, KNOWING he’s one hell of detective, dosen’t give up on things easy, and would probably be curious. For him to say “Cool gonna go smoke some reefer and take in a looney tunes short at the theater, call me when you find the murderer?” Also this series takes place in the 50s. Because of course it does.

So John goes back to his office to brood, reflecting that the office feels like the remains of an ancient civlization because “It seems to be all that remains of the civlized person I used to be”. Hell of a line.

We then get his backstory with the victim, Natalia. She’s a famous actress, who John first as a younger man when hired to investgate some death threats she’d received with a boquet of flowers. John shows off just how good he is at his job in just a few panels.

IT not only shows in just a few panels just how ferocious our hero can be when needed and how good he is at his job, easily having tracked down the man responsible and scared him shitless without breaking as sweat, but how fucking gorgeous the art is. I meant it when I brought up the old disney comparison, as Steranko even mentioned in his introduction to the collection of the first three volumes how it looks like animation cels on the page. IT’s utterly breathtaking and ONLY gets even more lush and beautiful as the series goes on and perfectly fits the noir stylings with it’s realisim, making it’s animal characters feel utterly human and real while still keeping their animal traits in perfect detail.

John impressed her, and as we see in the next page under his narration they not only had really steamy passionate sex, and why yes we do see them naked even if the bits are covered it’s still very much nsfw and we saw Natalia’s naked corpse earlier, so that ship had already sailed anyway, with Natalia taking him on both as her lover and her on staff detective and the two were much in love.. until the fame apparenlty got to her judging from the visuals, and the realtionship fell apart.

Before we move on i’d like to talk about the narration which CAN be a bit overwrought here or there and is a bit overused.. but does have it’s mometns of being utterly effective as with above, contrasting John’s statments about a sucessful job and being hired on.. with the beginnings of his and Natalia’s relationship and their passionate lovemaking. IT’s not BAD and it works for the setting, but it can be distracting, but thankfully the series levels this out as we go and they learned from it so no harm done. Just the kinda thing that happens early in a series life when the creators are getting a handle on things, so no harm done.

But naturally John isn’t going to take the love of his life, responsible for the happiest days of said life, being brutally murdered lying down and is going to find the bastard who did this. So he goes to an old friend, Jake Ositombe, a championship boxer and Nat’s former bodyguard who he recommended to her. Given we see him knock the shit out of his opponent without the slightest effort, yeah good call. Also yes we share the same name and no it’s not weird to type about another Jake, adventure time sorta.. knocked that out of me. Jake dosen’t know much since she fired him a long time ago as one of her lovers hired private security, and the last one he knew of was a guy by the name of Leon. John, naturally, easily finds the guy’s apartment, Leon Kronkski, a screenwriter.. but also rules him out as the guy lived in a humble apartment and clearly didn’t have the cash to hire his own hired goons.

He does find a clue, a matchbook for some place called the Cypher Club.. and another when the man’s sweet mouse landlady shows up, who John charms by pretending to be Leon’s friend and flashing a big smile, finding out a msyterious man with “big bulging eyes”, took him. This scene also to me is great in subtly showing off John’s skill. While the previous flashback showed how badass he is, shoving a gun down the throat of a stalking wannabe murderer with pure rage in his eyes.. here we see a lighter approach, how despite his serious and dour nature.. he easily slips into being cheery and looking like an average joe off the street. He bluffs the landlady not because the plot says so.. but because like any PI he’s just that good at slipping into whatever roll he needs to get the info he needs. He can be his dour self or a charming happy go lucky guy without missing a beat.

So with that he goes to the studio leon worked for where his boss.. is a walrus j jonah jameson?

But yeah J. Jonah Walruson wants pictures of spider-man.. moving pictures.. but he can’t film them with his star dead and his screenwriter indefintiely gone, with the same bulging eyed man having told JJ he’d be gone indefintely. Nothing suspicious about that!

So naturally John’s next plan is to find the guy.. who is already after him as you’d expect with both a knife to slash at our hero with and the fog covering him so he can hit and run. But unluckily for him .. well i’ll let john say it...

John headbutts the myserious snake, who only managed to get his coat before and tries to interogate him.. but gets a quick jab to the gut and the guy gets away.

We soon meet our big bag, who has a big speech about insects and things being usefufl.. and once they stop being useful.. they become dead and collectable, telling the snake man to back off John.. and sending his right hand man to go take care of the Snake who apparently took something from the office. Realizing his numbers up the Snake Man goes to a lizard bar, picks up a package from a friend and runs out the back, knowing he’s being followed.. and we get some hints there’s also racial tension between lizards and mammials here as the bartender, said friend, has the entire bar circle around the guy preventing him from following our mysterious bulging eyed man.

Meanwhile John goes to the Cipher Club, a wretched hive of scum and villiany. Given Nat was a glamorous movie star, it’s very clear she was here to hide from something or someone, and the bartnender, a wild pig.

No not you sweetie. The wild pig tells John leon was indeed here and a local rat, in both senses of the word, offers to take John to him.. though understandably John is supscious of the guy he just met in a seedy bar taking him anywhere except to get some heroin. Did Heroin exist yet? Questions for later. But he’s got a case so he follows. Though suprisingly the guy DOES actually come through and it’s not ENTIRELY a trap: he takes john to a tomb for Noel Krinsok.. an anagram for Leon’s name. Unsuprisingly he’s dead. And also unsuprisingly, two hired goons

Show up. As I said not ENTIRELY a trap but it’s obvious given the rat split moments before that our mysterious big bad knew where john would be headed next, and thus while giving him a clue, also set him up to get his head knocked in. And while John is badass.. these guys are a bear and a rhino, both stronger, bigger, and with suprise on their size, as well as a tombstone to knock john’s head into. They easily beat him senseless and hope he got the message, though john gives a defiant fuck you before being punched out for it. He returns home, feeling like he’s aged 20 years “But no one respects the elderly anymore”, PFFT, and heads home to his rathole, not literally this time, apartment to lay on his cot and think as he gets some rest.

And while the trail for Leon is cold. our mysterious murderer accidently tipped his hand: only someone with a LOT of money and influence could make a man disappear like this, and it tracks with what we’ve seen so far. The guy has multiple henchman and despite being a big star with plenty of clout, Natalia had to hide in a dive bar just to get away from him and even THEN clearly wasn’t so lucky given she and her new lover both wound up dead. But Blacksad has bigger problems.. he wakes up in a jail cell.

Turns out Smirnkov had him arrested.. but for his own protection as the case is getting too hot and while he was late on that front given John’s face is hamburger, it’s clear from his tone and demeanor that while he may of been harsh with John earlier.. the two are old friends, and the Chief is simply worried about him winding up dead, and John takes you know being thrown in prison in stride. Which while not a bad scene it is a BIT suspect that a black coded character was thrown in jail for nothing and it’s treated very lightly and as a simple protection between friends, though given they wouldn’t think of coding john like that till next volume, I brush it off as accidental implications in hindsight.

Smirnkov though also called John here.. because he needs his help. Since Natalia’s Murder Case is pointing very high up, so his superiors have ordered him to bury the case and as he puts it “the bastards know where to squeeze”. And given in volume 3 we learn Smirnov has a wife and children, it’s very obvious where they squoze and to the volume’s credit while we don’t know that yet it’s VERY clear from Smirnov’s body language they went after some form of family. So while he has to give it up.. John does not. So he brought him to jail to offer a proposal: John goes after this son of a bitch and nails him to the wall.. and Smirnov will FULLY protect John no matter what he has to do. Now naturally given the rightful reckoning for police that’s been going on for almost a year, this SHOULDN’T play well. You have an officer outright telling an outside party that he and his boys will cover up his crimes. But.. honestly even in that framework.. it still works. That’s because.. the system has failed here. The higher up and more corrupt cops put pressure on the honest and hardworking family man Smirnov to stop a legitimate investigation into a horrible murderer.. because the guy is rich. And even now we’ve seen time and time again how rich assholes effortlessly escape the consequences of their action: How our own president who actively asked other nations to interfere in our election escaped his first impeachment trial, but hopefully not the second, aquitted. How Jeffery Epstien took YEARS to bring down with his years of ellicit parties involving innocent women and children he fucking enslaved. How Bill Cosby got away with all kinds of sexual assault for decades. The rich are often literally above the law in this country, so having a down on his luck detective, who retroactively himself is a minority, go after him with the full support of an actually GOOD police officer who genuinely believes in these people being held accountable but is held back by his family’s safety.. it works. John isn’t able to skirt consequences BECAUSE of a corrupt system.. but because the system’s so broken and slanted in the rich’s favor, that the ONLY option an honest officer like Smirnov has is to go outside it. And when asked WHY he’s doing all of this, Smirnov merley replies

... I got chills, their multiplyin. So John plans to find the bulge eyed snake after a hot shower.. only for the guy to hold a gun to John’s head, having been waiting for him and wave the murder weapon, in a baggie around, the item he had retrieved, feeling John’s trying to replace him as number two. However before he can do anything our snake pal is shot full of holes by the rat from before, who John dispatches with his own gun.

So the Snake starts to expire.. but feels a kinship with John “We are nothing right cat? Spent so much time waiting for the right chance and when it happens it all falls to pieces”. The Snake explains his roll in things: He was one of the private security our big bad hired to guard Natalia. But being supscious he also hired the rat to follow her around, and thus found out about her affair, brutally torturing and murdering Leon and shooting Natalia in the head. And we finally get a name as our snake friend tragically expires.

The snake’s death and tragic dying moments are something I forgot about.. but damn if their not really good writing, taking a character who before was seemingly just a murderous goon.. and comparing him to our hero. Another working class joe, and one who just caught up with the wrong asshole at the wrong time. He easily could’ve been john in another life and vice vers and it’s a good parallel.

So John’s nightmares finally have name and he naturally goes to confront the guy since he has an almost literal get out of jail free card. Turns out Smirnov is the richest man in town, and has his own big tower. Huh.. sounds familiar, and John simply sneaks his way up and once Statoc’s guards from before hear him rustling about.. sneaks up on them and clocks both one at at time with a fire extinqusher.

Statoc warmly welcomes our hero inside, and has the fucking lizard balls, as he’s some sort of lizard himself, to offer John a JOB

I mean he’s clearly lost a lot of his goons and most of them were incompetent. He fails to realize that John can’t be bought, is here for vengeance and has no intention of selling his soul to some rich asshole who killed someone he loved for the creepiest and most asinine reasons imaginable. He says john’s Concisence is why he can’t pull the trigger and that he lacks “cold blood”.. before we cut to the next page, where John’s shot the fucker in the head and left a gaping hole where his lack of a brain was.

And again what makes this work is the aftermath: John is clearly shaken, having ONLY been able to pull the trigger beause of Statoc’s smug grin and clearly not taking the sight of Statoc’s dead body bleeding out well. And while Smirnov keeps his word, covers for him despite the two guards clearly providing an iron clad argument against john and knoiwng thier blatantly covering this up.. he’s not happy about it.

This is WHY the narrtive still works. Statoc stacked the law against the bad guys. .but despite this being a necessary evil.. it’s still an evil and subverting teh law at this rightly leaves him not in a great place mentally. John himself isn’t even if he plays it off as otherwise, as we get our final bit of narration and one hell of a closing line.

Final Thoughts:

Somewhere in the Shadows is a bit rough around the edges, leaning a bit too heavily into the noir pastiche and Blacksad being a harboiled detective, something the next volume would ease up on. That being said.. it’s still a masterpiece, with gorgeous art and masterful pacing. While it’s the shortest of the stories, like those after it the pacing is sublime and never feels like it has any down moments or stuff that could’ve been cut, and the mystery keeps you on edge the whole time. Having forgot a lot of the details since last read I was on the edge of my seat the entire story and loving every second of it. Somewhere in the Shadows is the perfect starter for the series, introducing an important charcter in Smirnov and the noir nature and giving us a case personal to John so we can see who he was before, what he is now.. and what he WILL be for the rest of the series. The moment that MADE him into an even harder man than the one we follows here.. when he took a life in cold blood. A masterful story, seriously check it and the other volumes out, on comixology, in stores, great stuff. Next time we look into john and as I said, he’s taking down some racists and we also meet his sidekick weekly for the first time. As for me tommorow I dive back into my Tom Luictor retrospective but hit pause on our boy for a bit to take care of some of the larger plot. Until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure.

#blacksad #john blacksad #Smirnov #noir #anthropomorphic #anthro #funny animal #somewhere within the shadows #comics #dark horse comics #france #french comics #igor statoc #Natalia Wilford

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solar-pxwered · 4 years ago

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A List Of Norman Reedus Movies/Shows I Have Seen And My Opinions On Them

1. The Boondock Saints

The Best. A classic. Bloody and inappropriate and if I remember my count correctly, contains 194 “fucks” or variations of it (this movie certainly illustrates the diversity of the word). Terrible Irish accents. A KICKASS soundtrack. Willem DeFoe crossdressing. Dropping toilets on people’s heads. Over the top action sequences. Cheesy dialogue. Campy as fuck. I freakin’ love it.

2. The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

Some people didn’t like this one as much as the first one, and I admit that I wasn’t as fond of the new detective in this one as I was of Smecker...but, overall, I really enjoyed it and I drove 2 hours to see it in theaters. I love Romeo more than Rocco. The humor was on point. It was nice to see the original actors for Doc, Dolly, Duffy and Greenley. There was more terrible Irish accents, another KICKASS soundtrack, cheesy dialogue, over the top action sequences, still campy as fuck. I freaking love it.

3. The Walking Dead

Cannot even describe how much I love this show. I have ALWAYS loved zombie related shows and movies so this show was right up my alley from the very beginning all the way back in 2010. I watched it religiously every Sunday. I adore this roller coaster ride of a show and I especially adore Daryl, Carol and Jerry. This show has it all: Comedy, drama (hella lots of that), tragedy and triumph...and it never fails to pulls me in and hold my interest.

4. Mimic

Honestly, I saw this a LONG time ago and I hated it because...well, because I have a cockroach phobia, ok?! Don’t judge. Norman’s part was pretty small, not one of his lasting impressions on me.

5. Six Ways To Sunday

This is a weird one. It’s about an overly innocent 18 year (played by Norman) who gets involved in the Mob and develops an alter ego that’s violent and his complete opposite. There’s murder, prostitutes and good ol’ fashioned mother-son incest and it wasn’t a movie I suggest for the lighthearted or anyone with those sort of triggers.

That being said, I watched the whole thing and didn’t hate it. It was just uncomfortable...as seems to be a theme with Norman Reedus movies.

6. Dark Harbor

This fucking movie...

Ok, so, I’ll be straight with you: I really enjoyed this dumbass movie. It had me guessing right up to the very end and it took me on a very strange ride along the way.

If watching someone sexually feed a woman a poisonous mushroom, lots of dark eyed staring scenes or Norman Reedus making out with Alan Rickman is your thing, then go for it.

7. Let the Devil Wear Black

It’s modern Hamlet. What else is there to say? If you like Hamlet, you’ll like this movie. If you like pre-car accident, baby face Reedus with the black hair, you’ll like this movie. I liked it.

8. 8MM

You know what the best thing about this movie is? Nicholas Cage. He steals the damn show no matter what movie he’s in and no one can even deny that fact. Norman’s part in this one is pretty small too but I liked this movie anyway because...well, Nick Cage. Enough said.

9. Bad Seed

I honestly can’t remember how this movie ends, all I remember was that it wasn’t at all how I expected it. I liked this movie because it’s a psychological thriller and that’s my most favorite genre of all time. The movie’s premise is a guy suspects his wife of having an affair and comes home one night and finds her murdered so he goes after her lover (Reedus) to try and kill him because he believes he was the one who killed her. It’s a cat and mouse chase sort of thing...now I need to rewatch it because I can’t, for the life of me, remember how it ends.

10. Gossip

Ok, no JOKE, this is the best movie I ever randomly discovered and I can’t believe how many people have never heard of it! It’s got some big names in it (Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, James Marsden and Kate Hudson to name a few).

It’s a psychological thriller/mystery drama in which three friends start a rumor at their school as a social experiment for their class. The rumor grows, however, and suddenly it’s out of their hands and spiraling out of control. People start getting hurt, reputations get dragged through the mud and then it escalates to the point of someone losing their life. The three main characters {Reedus, Headey and Marsden) try to figure out the truth behind the out of control rumors and discover more than they ever imagined, or ever wanted.

I HIGHLY recommend this movie. I really, REALLY do. The ending is one of the best twists I’ve seen in a LONG time.

11. The Beatnicks

This movie is so weird. It’s like...it’s just really weird. It revolves around two beat poets who find a magic box that somehow magically helps them get good at being poets but it’s like...an evil box and so they decide to only use it once and then get rid of it. Yeah, it’s a weird movie. Not my highest suggestion.

12. Blade II

Ok, if you’ve never seen the Blade Trilogy then I just don’t even know what to tell you.

My favorite of the three movies, Blade 2 gives us the glorious Reedus character of Scud, the pot smoking, horrible-shirt-wearing, mechanical genius and Blade’s sidekick. Not only is he precious and adorable, the movie in all is enjoyable and has a fun rave-esque soundtrack.

The one thing I hate? *SPOILER ALERT* Scud’s scummy betrayal.

13. Tough Luck

This is another one of those movies that I liked but it’s just so freaking weird.

It’s a psychological drama where a down on his luck con artist, Archie (Reedus), tries to rip off a carnival worker and gets caught. As punishment, he’s hired to work at the carnival to pay off the debt. He gets involved in a scheme to murder the owner’s wife, but falls in love with her in the process.

Things go to shit. He gets the short end of the stick. More plots and lies develop. It’s all twisted until the end and the answers fall into place.

I really like this movie, it’s one that I kept and still have my copy of.

A word of warning though, never leave this movie on your movie shelf for your father to find and watch while you’re away at college, resulting in your mother calling you and asking you why you have such a nasty movie. Because the sex scene at the end is OUTRAGEOUS. I mean, it is the FUNNIEST fucking sex scene I have ever seen in my life and I can’t ever watch it without cringing and laughing. My mother, however, didn’t think it was funny at all and my father was too shocked to even form a sentence.

I highly suggest this trippy as hell movie.

14. Octane

Ok, to be fair, this movie is actually alright, although Norman’s character gets the shittiest death possible. I mean, imagine dying because some psycho vampire kisses you and bites your tongue out. That’s one shitty death.

But, overall, this is a good thriller. Johnathan Rhys Meyers plays the villain and he’s always pretty quality. The story is basically a teenager has a disagreement with her mom and gets picked up by this drugged up, blood sucking, vampire wannabe cult and indoctrinated joining them. Her mother joins up with a tow truck driver (Reedus) whose daughter was also kidnapped years ago and who has been hunting the cult down ever since.

It was a cringe filled, yet interesting, movie and I didn’t hate it.

15. John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns

This is John Carpenter....OF COURSE I liked this one.

I won’t say what it’s about because that would ruin the story, but it’s part of an anthology and John Carpenter loved Norman’s role so much he STILL talks about it today and suggests Norman to people in the industry.

It’s a good one if you’re into horror shorts or anthologies or the genius of the legend that is John Carpenter.

16. A Crime

I had completely forgotten about this movie until I started making this post, but now that I remember...I REALLY liked this one!!

This is a pretty sad one, but it was very good and Norman’s acting in it is absolutely wonderful. His character’s wife was murdered and the suspect was never found so his neighbor, who really likes him, creates a fake culprit so that he can finally get some closure.

This is a good one. I suggest this one if you’re in the mood for a strange sort of romance movie that has underlying thriller tones.

17. Moscow Chill

I remember watching this one, and I remember enjoying it, but I honestly can’t remember anything about it except that it’s a Russian film in which Norman plays a computer hacker who gets hired to hack into a Russian bank and gets caught and put in prison. But I honestly can’t remember what happens in detail.

If you like foreign movies with hacking and subterfuge plots, then give it a try because I do remember enjoying it while I watched.

18. Red Canyon

This one is kinda fucked up. Imagine Daryl Dixon mixed with Breaking Bad mixed with Deliverance and you’ve pretty much got the story...

A brother and sister return to their mother’s hometown to settle things and put their horrible past behind them...but upon returning they end up reliving the nightmare all over again.

It’s a good thriller/horror watch, but there are scenes of sexual violence so if that’s not something you can handle, then don’t watch this one.

19. Hero Wanted

This. Is. A. GOOD. Movie.

Cuba Gooding Jr. is the lead and he does an AMAZING job. Gooding’s character is a garbage man who falls in love with a girl who never takes any notice of him. To get her attention, he stages a heist in which he is supposed to jump in, save the day, and win the girl...only the heist turns out to be real and he is shot and the girl is also shot in the process. He sets out for revenge and gets in way over his head.

Norman’s part in this isn’t very big...but HOLY SHIT, was it impactful. His character didn’t have a lot of screen time, in comparison to a lot of other people, but he had a solid backstory and reason for being involved and MY GOD did I cry about it. This was actually the first movie of his I watched AFTER discovering Boondock Saints and it solidified my love for his acting abilities.

A very good watch. Highly suggest.

20. Messengers 2: The Scarecrow

This one is pretty ok, actually, as far as lame horror movies go.

The plot is simple: Blonde, beardy, corn farmer Norman gets slowly driven insane by the haunted scarecrow in his field that he thinks putting up is a good idea for some damn reason. He starts to get more and more violent and rapey as time goes on until his family is forced to take up arms against him.

It’s not bad. Second part in what I THINK is a trilogy? I’ve only ever seen the first two. If you like horror movies then this one is a good watch. As I mentioned though, there is an attempted rape scene in this one so just be aware.

21: Pandorum

It’s an alien movie. Astronauts run into a species that is stronger and hungry for tasty humans. Shepard (Norman’s character) doesn’t make it out alive. If you’re not in the mood to see Norman get LITERALLY gutted or other characters get nommed by aliens, then don’t watch.

If you ARE, then go ahead and watch, because it was pretty alright.

#norman reedus #panja speaks #I just thought anyone wanting to check out more of his stuff should have a starting point

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