#climax 2017

[breezytealy]

Chapter two of the MarTen-centric fic is up! (Please note, tags have been updated)

Marron has second thoughts about a second date with Onri and considers a second option. Goten and Trunks explore why Goten is experiencing potentially romantic feelings for the first time.

Snippet:

As predicted a Shadow landed softly, the silhouette of a man braking with such skill the herbs in the atrium only swayed once in the displacement of air. Even in the gloom the eerie sight caused by the Allblack suit was impressive. Face on, no facial features stood in relief. The light from the hob hood lazily pooled into the workout area beyond the atrium, but remained unreflected from the suit. For all eyes, the Shadow was a hole in the world.

Trunks clicked the wristwatch and the Allblacks flickered and vanished, his more usual work slacks and tieless shirt uncovered, the afternoon's sports gear and slicked back hair a fever dream. Trunks up-nodded, then tried to slide back the door, finding it unyielding.

"It's locked," Trunks said, his voice muffled by the glass.

"Is it?" Goten took another mouthful of pork and slowly chewed.

"Are you going to let me in?" 

"Nope."

"You've had the week."

"Nearly a week." Goten swallowed. "Gotenks is in the diary for tomorrow. You can both diagnose me then."

In answer Trunks press-clinked his phone against the window, a text chat on the screen. "Fine but I need your input now. The longer I leave it the more suspicious she'll get."

She.

Goten shot forward and stooped to read. 

[wideeyedloner]

I've seen so many posts talking about the Honda scene being a visual metaphor for Deadpool and Wolverine having sex that I want to talk about the film as a whole for a second:

Deadpool & Wolverine is a romantic comedy.

There are a bunch of places (including this one) that describe the format of a romantic comedy, but the basic beats are as follows:

1. Introduction to your protagonist "Okay, Peanut, guess we're getting that team-up, after all." Deadpool and Wolverine opens on Wade digging up Logan's remains from Logan (2017).

2. The inciting incident "I'll do it." Paradox kidnaps Wade and blackmails him into locating a Logan to save his timeline. Cue "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls, featured in City of Angels (1998).

3. The meet-cute "You two going to fuck or fight?" After initially failing to resurrect his own timeline's Logan, Wade travels to several other timelines to find another in a montage set to Huey Lewis and the News' "The Power of Love".

4. The new reality/new world "Let's fuckin' go." Paradox sends them to the Void, ruled by Xavier's insane twin sister, where it turns out many other mutants have also been sent. They need to escape in order to save Wade's timeline and try to undo the events of Logan's timeline, which Wade has promised is possible. This requires them to work together.

5. The mirror moment/recommitment "I'm going to fight you now." Logan finds out that Wade lied to him in order to secure his cooperation, leading to the Honda fight scene set to "You're The One That I Want" from Grease (1978). Logan is demoralized but Laura convinces him that he's still needed. He really is; it's his compassion that convinces Cassandra not only to spare their lives, but to send them back to Wade's timeline if they're willing to take a leap of faith together.

6. The crisis/all is lost "They do not play nicely with each other." Cassandra is still insane, so she follows them because she'd like to eliminate all timelines and rule over everyone in the Void. To stop this, Paradox tells Wade and Logan that someone has to cut power to the device she's using at the guaranteed expense of their life.

7. The climax "I got nothin'. Give me this." Naturally, Wade and Logan fight over which one gets the privilege of sacrificing himself for the other. Logan initially wins him over with a heartfelt speech, but Wade gets Logan with a sneak attack. Wade struggles to make the connection between the terminals because they're further apart than the wingspan of a single human, but they're conveniently just the right size for two (ಥㅅಥ). Of course, the choir version of Madonna's "Like A Prayer" is playing here.

This scene encapsulated everything I enjoyed about this film: that it was stupid, emotional, action-filled, filthy, and obviously about romance between men. My husband is straight and he left the theater with me in full agreement that a) this was a romantic comedy and b) they had sex in in the Honda.

8. The resolution "Althea, this is--this is Logan." It's the end of the story, they're about to part ways, and Wade will never see Logan again if he lets him walk out of his life. So he takes Logan home and makes him part of the world he'd been telling Logan he'd been trying to save all movie long.

❤ The end ❤

The Soundtrack I can't tell you how excited I was about the soundtrack. It's full of old, romantic songs. "Only You (And You Alone)" has to be on like every doo-wop or "Best of the '50s" compilation album. "Iris" (oh god this song is old now) was featured in the romantic drama City of Angels. Everyone and their dog has covered "You Belong to Me", and the most famous recent cover has to be Jason Wade's version that was featured in Shrek (2001). Chris De Burgh may not be crazy about "The Lady in Red", but I think it's fucking sweet. I grew up on musicals and LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE "You're the One That I Want" from Grease (1978).

The Honda Odyssey Fight Scene I wanted to come back to this because there is so much to it. I'm bringing up "You're the One That I Want" again.

There are intentional parallels made between this dance number in Grease and the fight scene. It's about the flirtatious push and pull between Sandy and Danny throughout after she's made her superficial transformation into the 'bad girl' at the end of the movie. It's the same in the Odyssey between Logan and Wade. They throw each other in and out of the car as they fight (and sure, go in and out of each other).

Just look at this:

Yup, completely intentional visual metaphors for fucking galore. Logan and Wade even have a post-fight bondage scene.

Also! These scenes end with the couples in moving vehicles.

In conclusion: Deadpool & Wolverine is a violent romantic comedy. Of course they fucked.

[bnuuygrils]

47news interview with Tamifull

Earlier this month Tamifull, the author of Tsukiatte agetemo ii kana? AKA How Do We Relationship?, did an interview with 47news. I've translated the full text below:

Out of the innumerable manga published every year, there are always a few titles that one simply can't afford to miss. Tamifull-sensei's How Do We Relationship? (Shogakukan) is one of these. It's a story of young love and heartbreak, centering on college students Inuzuka Miwa and Sawatari Saeko. Though fiction, it has a powerful sense of reality that leaves one feeling as if the real Miwa and Saeko might just be out there somewhere right now. If Agasawa Tea's Ramparts of Ice (Shueisha) is the pinnacle of high school romance, then How Do We Relationship? is the pinnacle of college romance. With the help of supervising editor Watanabe Saori-san, we were able to secure an interview with Tamifull-sensei to discuss the story--now on its 12th volume, and at the height of its climax.

The story so far:

Soon after starting college, mild-mannered beauty Inuzuka Miwa joins the light music club and finds herself the center of attention from the boys at the welcoming party. Miwa, who "only likes girls", is rescued from the situation by the energetic Saeko. Saeko, who "prefers women (to men)", buoyed by liquid courage, asks Miwa out on the spot and the two begin dating. But the two are clumsy and inexperienced with love, and fail to be fully honest with each other. By the end of the year, their romance has ended in disaster. After maintaining a sex-only relationship for some time they return to being friends and even move on to new partners... Finally, as their respective relationships have both ended, the two look at each other anew, not as lovers, but as exes, and as absolute allies.

47: How Do We Relationship? has a very unusual structure. Shoujo manga tend to portray a dramatic path to the start of the relationship, but Miwa and Saeko begin dating at the very start of volume 1 and break up in volume 4. As we're now on volume 12, they've actually been exes longer than they were together.

Tamifull: Well, it has stretched a little longer than I expected (laughs), but the story is proceeding as planned from the start. I think rather than starting decisively with some sort of "All right, I'm falling in love now!" moment, real love tends to build up out of small things over time. I didn't want the relationships in How Do We Relationship? to start in this exaggerated, romance story kind of way.

47: And that helps with its sense of reality.

Tamifull: I don't believe dating and breaking up are things that we need to think about in such dramatic terms. It's easy to feel like every relationship has to be perfect, or that you need to have some sort of fated encounter, or that breaking up is a bad thing, something hopeless. Why shouldn't there be manga that throws away those stereotypes? Life is so much longer than a single relationship. It keeps going after you start dating someone, or break up with them. I think that's a message that I've consistently tried to tell with this manga.

47: Can you tell us how it got to be serialized?

Tamifull: It started out as a oneshot I did for Comitia (a doujin festival and marketplace in Tokyo) in 2017. Up until then, I had mainly been drawing yuri--manga about relationships between girls. And I wanted to tell a little bit of a different story at that event. Doujinshi are generally about 20 pages, so usually you introduce the main couple, have them confess, and wrap it up right around there. So I thought, what if they're already in a relationship and we watch them break up? I was basically thinking, "why not draw what I want to read!?"

Watanabe: Ashima Yuki-san, one of the first freelance editors, reached out to Tamifull-san then.

47: At the time, yuri was considered a pretty small market. It felt like unless you got into one of the specialized publications you'd have a very hard time, right?

Tamifull: That's true. There are a lot more varied works coming out now. At the time most of these stories were actually aimed at men, so the relationships would stay platonic, or at most they might kiss. I knew stories like that were easier to market and less likely to ruffle feathers, but I found myself thinking, "If we all settle for that, we'll never get to see what happens next! If no one else is drawing it, why shouldn't I?"

47: What did Ashima-san say to you?

Tamifull: She told me, "I've been wanting to read a story where the characters and relationship feel free like this". I do remember thinking it might be more marketable without the eroticism when I was developing it for serialization (laughs). But I ended up just being like, well, let's see what happens!

47: "Realistic" LGBTQ romance stories tend to end up falling into a handful of patterns. Whether it's manga or movies, you see a lot of stories that feel like "the tragedy of same-sex love", or that seem intended to make you feel sorry for the characters. Like the audience is meant to walk away thinking, "How thought-provoking! I really learned something". But How Do We Relationship? is pretty different, isn't it?

Tamifull: Rather than being "yuri" or being viewed as an "LGBTQ story", I want people to get into the story just because they see it and go "Hey, there's girls dating in here!". Sexual minorities aren't here to be instructional materials for anyone. LGBTQ people live in the same world as everyone else. I want the characters to seem like people you might meet anywhere, and to have relationships you might see anywhere. I want the fact that the relationship isn't heterosexual to just be a detail. That's why Watanabe-san and I decided not to advertise How Do We Relationship? specifically as a yuri manga.

47: Achieving that sense of reality must take a lot of care. I imagine you have to be careful to avoid the set phrases and compositions that readers see all the time in romance manga.

Tamifull: That's true. For example, in the scene where Saeko opens up to Mikkun, their male friend, about her dating Miwa, she asks him if he finds the two of them dating "gross, or wrong, or unnatural", and Mikkun, while looking away, asks in return, "What? Do I have to feel that way about you?". The orthodox move would be to have the handsome guy character looking straight out of the page, smoothly delivering some cool line. But in real life we don't have convenient handsome guys just lying around, and you're not usually looking people straight in the eye. It's not that staged. I think the casual nature of the lines, and the casual nature of the situation, actually make it all the more resonant. I want to keep that natural feeling to the story, and I go out of my way to avoid making it feel "romantic". I think my ideal is for it to feel like a movie.

47: A movie?

Tamifull: That's right. I think one of the strengths of film is the ability to show the drama of everyday life. I always include backgrounds in my panels to try to get closer to that feeling. For instance, in a scene in volume 12, Saeko is on a boat at night looking out over the water with her girlfriend, Yuria. They're talking about breaking up. It's a very romantic setting, but the painful nature of their conversation blots out everything except for the blackness of the water. I want readers to feel like they're there experiencing it alongside the characters.

47: I see. The city you see at night while breaking up with someone certainly does feel different...

Watanabe: And Tamifull-sensei's art has really helped deliver that sense of reality to readers. There are no wasted panels: from the camera placement to how the viewer's eye is led, even the placement of the dialogue, everything serves to guide the reader to what she's showing. Due to my job I read a lot of manga, but there are very few manga artists as skilled as her.

47: Personally, as a reader, it's that sense of reality that has me praying for Saeko and Miwa to end up happy, so next I'd like to ask a little about about how you learned to imbue your writing with such reality, and what techniques you use.

Tamifull: I'll do my best (laughs).

47: First, the depth and internality of your characters. For instance, after breaking up with Saeko, Miwa dates the younger Tamaki. Tamaki is reserved and very low-energy. She's clearly at a loss with the more sexually-motivated Miwa, but nonetheless does her best to reciprocate in her own way. She's straightforward and can be a little childish, but has an intellectual side to her, as well. Accurately portraying such a complex, difficult character must necessitate having an incredibly keen eye for people. How did you learn to understand other people so well?

Tamifull: I think it was mostly my experience in school. In primary and middle school I was low on the pecking order, so I became very sensitive to other people's hostility.

47: Ah, the pecking order... That does happen, doesn't it.

Tamifull: Yes. I'd be in a group of maybe 5 or 6 friends in a class and then once every few months I'd get the silent treatment and end up being ostracized from the group, in this sort of rotation. I'd go through 2 or 3 groups and it would always happen. I think all the time I spent thinking about how to avoid being targeted like that played a big part.

47: Planning out the battle to make it out alive, so to speak.

Tamifull: I think that really helped cultivate my eye (laughs). Like, this girl's the ringleader, and these ones are joining in because they don't want to become the target themselves, but this other girl is actually nice so even when they're ganging up on me she won't join in.

47: I see. Even while you were being mistreated, you were trying to understand things from their perspective. Certainly How Do We Relationship? doesn't have any one character that you would really call a villain.

Tamifull: That's right. Take Kan, who tells Miwa "I hate you" in volume 2, or Tamaki's friend Nagi who calls her "gross" in volume 8. I think it would be too convenient if nobody was ever mean or unpleasant, so it's important to have such characters. But I also try to portray them as having their own reasons. It's not like everyone will be good to each other all the time, but for each person, there's a community out there somewhere that will accept them as themselves. I'm always including that idea, that wish, almost, as I write the various members of the music club.

47: The story has this warmth to it you can really feel, and I think that idea has a lot to do with it. That said, it sounds like you weren't always successful at avoiding bullying. That must have been difficult.

Tamifull: I spent a lot of time wrapped in my futon wondering, why do they treat me like that? As the days went by I'd end up sublimating my anger and frustration by telling myself, "They have their own problems so there's nothing I can do about it." Like, this girl might have a lot of stress at home, about her grades or other things, so she just feels too much pressure and gets pushed into bullying, or things like that. I really got in the habit of thinking about things from their perspective.

47: You are an incredibly kind person. I do think the eye you cultivated that way serves you well in writing characters. For example, in volume 3, we meet Miwa's first crush, Shiho. At home, we see Shiho being horribly mistreated by her parents, who only care for her more academically-minded younger sister, Maho. One day Maho snaps at her, saying "Don't talk back to me, moron! You know how much I have to carry thanks to your stupidity!?". But Shiho just accepts it, and keeps her unhappiness to herself. That's in volume 11, that we finally find out how Maho, who's caused Shiho so much pain, has been feeling.

Tamifull: Maho also feels a lot of pressure from their parents, and she's desperate not to fail. She's under a lot of stress from that. When they were younger, Shiho and Maho were actually very close--Maho loved her older sister--but as grades and examinations started to get involved that connection became twisted... I wasn't able to show all of this in the story, but I always think through these details before drawing.

47: That sort of thing does happen between siblings, doesn't it... Just remembering is a little painful.

Tamifull: But, as much as I analyze people like this, it's very difficult to put into words.

47: In what way?

Tamifull: If you say "Well, this person has this kind of background, so that's why they do these things" then everyone will be like, "And what do you know about them?". You'll end up hurting feelings. So I can't say it about real people, but with How Do We Relationship? I'm the author so I can draw whatever I want. When I hear readers talk about the "realism" I'm always like, "Really? You mean I actually did it?". I secretly get a little happy about it (laughs).

47: Did you always want to become a mangaka, growing up?

Tamifull: I did always like drawing. But when I was pretty young I read one of those "So you want to draw manga?" kind of books and I got very intimidated by all the different erasers and tones and things, and I sort of gave up (laughs). It wasn't until I'd completely retired from extracurriculars in college that I realized I didn't have enough to do and started drawing manga.

47: And then you became a mangaka as soon as you graduated?

Tamifull: Yes, that's right.

47: That's quite something. Not many people manage to do that, right?

Tamifull: The reason I started attending Comitia was because in college I finally learned that editors would be there. Up until then I was working with my childhood knowledge--I thought I had to submit my work to a company and then become an assistant before I could become an author myself. When I found out I was like, "Doujinshi will get me fans and even expose me to editors? What could be better!?". I had my heart set on it.

47: (laughs). What kinds of things were you inspired by when you were a child?

Tamifull: All the way through school I was into stuff that was a little different from whatever was in fashion. I liked watching slightly older anime on Kids' Station, for instance. Like, look at me! I'm not into the same stuff as everybody else! Aren't I cool? (laughs).

47: (laughs).

Tamifull: When everyone else was into Cardcaptor Sakura, I was watching Takahashi Rumiko-sensei's Ranma 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku. I remember when I read one of Ito Junji-sensei's works at a relative's house it left a big impression on me. When I was in college I bought the collector's edition of Tomie at Village Vanguard.

47: You grew up into a bit of an alt college student.

Tamifull: In college, going to Village Vanguard and fishing for manga nobody else had became something of a passion for me.

47: What about Takahashi Rumiko-sensei's work did you like in particular?

Tamifull: I especially liked the way she drew girls. In the early 2000s, when I was in primary school, it was very in fashion for girls to be drawn very slender and light, with delicate limbs.

47: Slenderness was certainly emphasized a lot back then, yes.

Tamifull: I preferred how Rumiko-sensei drew them--a little squishy. As far as the story goes, I loved the ending of Maison Ikkoku, how it portrays the characters moving forward in life. I read it over and over. I think that passion for people comes through a little in How Do We Relationship?.

47: In the afterword of volume 3, you mentioned that from middle school until about halfway through college you lost interest in manga, and were more into drama and music.

Tamifull: That's true. Sometimes I'd draw a buff Pikachu or something on the blackboard to try to get a laugh out of people, but that was about it.

47: A buff Pikachu? (laughs). I wish I could see it.

Tamifull: At co-ed schools I think girls mostly end up ranked by looks, but I went to an all-girls high school, so... It was really about who was the funniest.

47: So art was a way of giving yourself a gimmick.

Tamifull: That's right. That continued into college, so I always had the position of somebody who's just a little bit good at drawing. In college everyone was nice, though.

47: In that same afterword you mentioned that during the time you weren't drawing manga, you really enjoyed making things together with a group.

Tamifull: In high school I was in the school band, and we'd all put on plays together at school festivals. I joined the light music club in college. I did percussion in high school so I mostly played drums, or did vocals.

47: Oooh. What kinds of things did you play in the light music club?

Tamifull: Just normal rock. Popular stuff, like Go! Go! 7188.

47: I have an impression of you as being a little bit countercultural, so rock seems perfect for you (laughs).

Tamifull: In college I was also on the student festival committee, so I was doing double duty a little bit. And as much as I enjoyed making things with other people, I started to feel this hole open up, like inside I'd be thinking "I could do this so much better...". Then I started looking into manga again on a whim and realized everything had gone digital. You don't need to hire a bunch of assistants, and you can do tones with the press of a button. It was like this new environment where I could try my hand at manga by myself was prepared just in time as I came of age. I didn't have to hold myself back for anyone, and could do everything just how I wanted. That's why I've always worked alone.

47: What!? You don't have any assistants even now?

Tamifull: I don't.

47: Watanabe-san, is that normal?

Watanabe: It's extremely precious to us. She's really something, isn't she? I don't know how she puts out so much in just two weeks.

Tamifull: I want every angle and composition just so. I can't really express it well, so when I think about trying to explain it to someone else, I just feel like it would end up taking even more time... But then sometimes I'll be working from my storyboards and I'll be like, "Why did I make myself draw it like this!?" and end up suffering a little (laughs).

47: It's certainly a work that cuts no corners. The dialogue is always so well written and moving--do you start by writing the characters' lines?

Tamifull: Yes, I do. I'll write them all out at once, then adapt them to the storyboards as I go. I think all the time I spent agonizing in my futon when I was younger like "I should've said this..." or "And then they'd say that..." might also help here.

47: You always include afterword comics and omake in the tankoubon releases, so I get a sense that you're quite particular about manga books.

Tamifull: I love manga that includes a lot of little extras. And I want readers to enjoy How Do We Relationship? as much as possible, so I always go all out drawing them.

47: Your first announced works were around 2012, and in 2014 you made your commercial debut with Don't Call me a Goddess! in Bungeisha's 4-koma magazine Manga Time. The main character, Saotome-san, is a bit of a tryhard, and as much as that wins her respect from her peers, it also tends to alienate them. Into her life barrels the far less inhibited Ryou. After that, you had My Little Sister and the Sex Doll (Shueisha) serialized in Tonari no Young Jump, about an innocent and naive high school girl and a talking sex doll. Both manga were comedies.

Tamifull: How Do We Relationship? was a little bit of a break in genre, yes (laughs). My Little Sister and the Sex Doll also started as something I made as a change of pace for Comitia (laughs).

47: It's a very rhythmical work--the talking sex doll's lines are incredibly well crafted.

Tamifull: The editors at Young Jump really liked it. It was a little more crude than what I usually write, so I did have some doubts... but they were very kind in offering me the serialization. I had to exercise my vocabulary to the fullest.

47: As much as it made me laugh, I could also somehow feel your desire to break taboos coming through.

Tamifull: That's true. I was trying to make fun of dirty comics, while making a dirty comic (laughs). Even when there would be the setup for some sort of fanservice scene, with something sexual happening to the girl, I would always interrupt it with a joke and turn it into something decidedly not fanservice.

47: On the other hand, something about the relationship between Saotome-san and Ryou in Don't Call Me a Goddess! feels like it connects to Miwa and Saeko. Are you particularly fond of that sort of relationship?

Tamifull: Honestly, that was... completely unintentional. I think, when it comes to protagonists, I do like a character who is quiet, but unexpectedly stubborn... When I think about my time in school, I had a lot of experiences where there would be another girl, and she'd have this sense of separation, like a bit of a boundary around herself, but when I approached her she'd turn out to actually be really interesting. And I'd have this feeling of "Everyone else doesn't even know how cool she is!? I need to let everyone know!". I think that feeling, almost like wanting to become a producer for girls like that, has led me to write my protagonists that way.

47: You really love girls.

Tamifull: I may have spent long years in fierce battle with them at school, but when I translate it to manga they become strangely appealing. Even when they're a pain, their being a pain is good in of itself (laughs). It's true that characters who aren't straightforward can make a story more interesting, but I also think that's just how people are--you can't sum anyone up in a few words. Don't you agree?

47: Your manga, including How Do We Relationship?, really don't tend to have characters that you can sum up as "the cool one" or "the tsundere" or anything like that.

Tamifull: That's right. I don't want them to be symbols.

47: And that's exactly why, in each case--Saeko and Miwa, Miwa and Tamaki, Saeko and Yuria--when they break up, it's so emotionally impactful. You can't just point at one of them and say, "It's her fault."

Tamifull: Right. In reality, lots of people break up all the time without either one really being at fault. It makes me really happy to hear that people read the story as just being how things ended up for them. It's so easy to assume that when a relationship falls apart, it's because someone's in the wrong. I worked very hard to make sure that Tamaki and Yuria would be charming enough characters for readers to like them, and to accept it when I made them break up with Miwa and Saeko. I always look at readers' reactions and think carefully about how to proceed.

47: How Do We Relationship? really feels like you want to closely examine real, "normal" relationships.

Tamifull: I think it's a pity for the socially accepted image of love to be something so narrow. When two women date, and after breaking up return to being friends, I think people have a tendency to look a little askance at them. But why is that? I always find myself thinking, "Are you okay with living like that?". With How Do We Relationship?, I wanted to create a world where Miwa and Saeko and everyone else's desires wouldn't be crushed by those around them.

47: Especially during the first 3 volumes, you often shine the spotlight on the other characters around Miwa and Saeko. Is that also a part of fleshing out that view of the world?

Tamifull: Something like that. I don't want the idea of someone who likes the same sex to be something fantastical. I want to show that sexual minorities are all around--even around you. I want heterosexual readers to also get into the story, and I was very conscious of that early on in the serialization. I think whether you're gay or straight, you can still understand this story. These characters are just like you. That's the message I've tried to send.

47: It would be really wonderful if we could become a society where everyone views each other with respect. What would that take, I wonder?

Tamifull: Delusions, maybe.

47: Delusions? (laughs).

Tamifull: Yes (laughs). This is just my own experience, but when I meet someone and feel off-put by them, I always thoroughly imagine their background. By the time I'm finished whatever anger I felt has faded, and I feel ready to treat them better--maybe even to become close with them. And if you write stories you can come up with great material this way, so it's two birds with one stone (laughs).

[wings-of-fire-confessions]

continuing what i was saying, (i thought my mom was coming upstairs and deleted all my tabs)

i feel like flamesilks were hyped up too much in book 15 and then they weren't actually used at all, like, the FLAMES of hope? luna using her SUN SILK RIGHT AT THE CENTER OF THE COVER? i have the hardcover version and the quote at the back ends with "but she had to use this power now that she had it, didn't she?" ???????? and for her to just cut off the vine like that. idk. it kind of felt unsatisfying.

and continuing my rambles on how much i love arc 3 (it may be slop but it's MY slop 💖) i just. absolutely love love love the legend of the hive, the concept of the breath of evil (it inspired the main villain in one of my creative projects!), gosh, BUG DRAGONS? my autistic ass LOVES this shit!!!!! in fact I only read wings of fire at all because i saw how beautiful book 15's cover was at the library i was at and I wanted to see the build up to such an interesting climax, and for it to just, never happen??? >:(.

i have associative synesthesia (just like Whiteout!) and wings of fire is orange, very very orange. it smells like fire and air freshener, and it's the type of orange you see on a sun ray being casted through a window, onto wood, while the air is cold and the year is anywhere from 2014 to 2017. ive been trying to figure out what this feeling is called for a very, very long time, and I guess the closest thing is melancholy mixed with nostalgia? like the type of nostalgia for something that never happened, that you wish was real, like when you see something ancient, like thousands of years ancient? i came to this conclusion after finishing arc 1, and the next 2 arcs really did not disappoint in this. i don't know if this even makes any sense at all to other people but it totally does to me.

i also feel like wings of fire isn't ready for arc 4, in forge your dragon world tui mentions she doesn't outline the books, she knows the big twists beforehand sure but she just dives right in and. THATS NOT HOW YOU WRITE!!!!!! NO WONDER SO MUCH STUFF IS BADLY WRITTEN AND INCONSISTENT!!! like another user here mentioned, she can't go forward when there's so much stuff left behind. grr. i really hope she plans out arc 4 properly.

.

[evieskiesss]

could you maybe right something with like older tom like 2017-2023? i really don’t mind what it’s up to you!!!

I WANT YOU- TOM KAULITZ

𝙎𝙈𝙐𝙏 ,  𝙎𝙊𝙈𝙀 𝘼𝙉𝙂𝙎𝙏 , 𝙁𝙇𝙐𝙁𝙁 𝙀𝙉𝘿𝙄𝙉𝙂:)

𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟳 𝗧𝗢𝗠

𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙉𝙄𝙉𝙂𝙎: 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 (𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝙊𝙉 𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙀𝙍), 𝙋 𝙞𝙣 𝙑, 𝙗𝙡Ö𝙬𝙟𝙤𝙗, 𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙪𝙩, 𝙙𝙤𝙢!𝙩𝙤𝙢, 𝙨𝙪𝙗!𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧,, 𝙛𝙡𝙪𝙛𝙛 𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜:)

a/n: HIII, yesss ofc!! you ask & you shall recieve😇

-

    "Tom, she's going to find out!" you whispered shouted, over the phone as you approached the door to your house. You slipped your silky robe on, startled by the sudden call you received by your long-time friend who in reality, wasn't much of just being a friend.

    He huskily laughed on the other side of the phone, "no, she won't. now just open the door," he said, his voice sending shocks down your spine.

   Fuck, even through the phone he could make you nervous.

    You hung up, rolling your eyes before opening the door. His head perked up as he was leaning against the wall next to the door, his face lighting up. "thought you were going to make me wait all night," he joked with a smile, his hand coming to your waist as he slipped by you.

    You shut the door after him, locking it before standing there with your arms crossed. He scanned the place for a small moment as if he'd never been there before, his hands shoved into his pockets.

    "Tom, we can't do this anymore," you started. You kept your arms crossed, in a subconscious way to refrain yourself from coming any closer to him. "do what anymore?" he asked, faking confusion.

    He walked towards your neat kitchen, placing down the full plastic bag onto the island. You gave him a look as you joined him in the kitchen but kept your distance, "you know what i'm talking about."

    You could've sworn you saw a smirk almost pull at his pierced lip, a quick flash of memories seen through his eyes.

   Your body completely naked beneath him, your legs wrapped around his waist as you begged him for more. His neck buried in the crevice of your neck as he muttered words of encouragement, leading you to your climax.

    It hadn't happened just once. It happened eight times. Eight times in which he fucked you mercilessly, fucked you until the only words you knew were his name. Eight times in which he made love to you, then went back home to his wife.

      He gave you a nonchalant shrug, his eyebrows furrowed as he continued his innocent act. "I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not doing anything," he turned around, taking things out of the bag and setting them on the counter.

     His larger body blocked your view of the items, his black jacket making it harder to see. Wow, did it look good on him.

      You let out a small sigh, "you can't-", he cut you off. "I can't just watch movies and eat snacks with my favorite friend?" he moved to the side, revealing the pile of your favorite snacks.

    Chips, candy, chocolate, sweet drinks, and a bottle of wine, all laid out perfectly. He smiled proudly as he stood next to it, watching your face soften at the sight.

    He smirked at your sudden silence. "You've shut up now, huh?" he chuckled. You rolled your eyes at him, chuckling as a smile tugged on your lips, "shut up." He laughed back, holding his hand out for you to take.

    You took his larger hand into yours, letting him pull you close to him. The proximity between you two quickly declined as your chest nearly hit his, and with a swift motion, he picked you up, setting you down on the kitchen counter.

    He smiled, sucking in a deep breath through his noses as his hands met your thighs sweetly. "didn't say hi to me properly, gotta do something about that," he mumbled warningly before his lips met yours.

    You kissed him back softly, letting your body relax as you two kissed for a couple more seconds. He pulled away for a second, only to kiss you again. You indulged in his kissing for a couple of more moments before pulling away breathlessly, "this isn't watching a movie and eating snacks," you said matter-of-factly.

     He smiled again, laughing. "you're right, this isn't," he dramatically rolled his eyes with a huff before turning to take the snacks to the living room. "i get to choose the movie this time," you said loudly enough for him to hear as you hopped off the island.

    A small groan left his lips, "why?!" he pouted. "you chose last time so now it's my turn!" you replied, now pouting as well. He sighed, plopping himself down onto the couch, "okay then, i'll let you chose," he handed you the remote.

    You smiled, taking the remote from his hands to search for a movie while he opened the snacks, popping open the bottle of wine. You situated yourself closer to him, his arm wrapped around your shoulders as the movie started.

-

    Your hand came up to wipe a small bead of sweet forming on your forehead before fanning yourself for what seemed to be the 100th time. You moved your hair to the other side, trying to cool yourself off from the overwhelming heat.

     "you're really warm," Tom whispered, his thumb gently caressing your arm. "yeah," you breathed out, shifting slightly away from him to cool off, but to your dismay, it did not work.

    Tom's other hand reached for the hem of your silk robe which sat on your thighs, his face growing closer to your face, "why don't you take this off then?" he asked, his voice deep.

    Your eyes met his, they were staring at you intently. His fingers gently hiked the material up higher until it reached the top, your squishy thighs coming to his view.

      His eyes flickered up to yours momentarily, a soft smirk now wanting to play on his lips. His hand trailed up to the knot on your robe, gently tugging on it to set it loose.

     As he slowly shrugged the robe open, an amused hum came from his throat. He looked at your pretty body now uncovered, only in a spaghetti strap tank top, and thin pinkish panties.

    "so this is what you were hiding from me," he mumbled, slipping the silk off of you completely. You allowed him to take it off of you, completely following everything he desired.

    His body was now facing yours, your body still facing the TV while your head was turned to look at him. His eyes ate you up entirely, feeling slightly self conscious about it, you brought your knees up to your chest in a way to cover yourself.

    His hand came to your legs, pushing them back down with a shake of his head. "let me see you, don't get all shy on me now," he joked, his hand making its way to your inner thigh. "i-i'm not," you breathed out, feeling his fingers ghost over your panties.

     He hummed as his lips made contact with your shoulder, kissing it gently before his free hand looped around the strap of your tank top. "let me take this off, yea?" he asked, his breath tickling your neck. you let out a breathy 'yes'.

     He quickly got up from the couch before getting on his knees in front of you. His hands reached for your top, pulling it off your body to toss it somewhere. Your breasts were fondled by him, his thumb gently grazing your nipple.

    His lips crashed onto yours as he hungrily explored your body, you moaned as his fingers gently pinched your nipples. His hands trailed down to rub your sides as he kissed down your neck.

You let out small moans as his lips sucked and nipped at your neck, your hands finding his back to rub. Unsatisfied with the cloth blocking you between him and his bare skin, you tugged his shirt up, letting him unattach himself from your neck momentarily.

After a harsh bite to your neck, he trailed his kisses down your torso until he hit your thighs. With a swift movement, he pulled your panties off, tossing it behind him to join your top on the ground.

He spread your legs open, his gaze stuck on your already wet cunt. His arms looped around your thighs, pulling you closer to the edge of the couch. He pushed your legs all the way back and open, seeing your pussy open up for him.

"oh fuck," he groaned underneath his breath before tossing your legs over his shoulders and quickly wrapping his lips around your clit.

He sucked on it harshly, your hips shuddering from sudden pleasure. Your hands found his shoulders, gripping then tightly as his tongue worked its way to your hole. "so fucking sweet," he mumbled before sticking his tongue as far as he could into you.

You gasped loudly, your hands finding his hair that was held back in a messy man bun. He thrusted his tongue into you harshly, then coming back up to suck on your clit.

His tongue continued its motions before flicking at your now swollen clit with your tongue. You bucked your hips up, chasing your orgasm which was now approaching.

Tom took notice of your desperate chase, now flicking at your at your tongue harder & faster. He thrusted his tongue into you again, loving the whines that left your mouth.

"fuck! i'm gonna- i'm gonna cum," you groaned out, feeling the knot in your stomach grow tighter with each thrust of his tongue. "cum on my tongue," he groaned, his nose nudging at your clit as he continued to eat you out.

With a loud moan, you cummed on his tongue. Your legs shook, clenching around his tongue as he lapped up at your wetness. He moaned at your taste, how he loved eating you out.

He pulled away, panting for air as he nearly suffocated, not like he minded. His lips attached to yours again, the taste of you almost making you cringe.

Though, he absolutely loved your taste. "think you can be a good girl and suck my cock?" he murmured against your lips. You nodded eagerly with a smile, getting up with your shaky legs to kneel in front of him as he sat back on the couch.

His hands undid his belt, slipping it out of the jean holes before unbuttoning them. He pulled his jeans down enough until they hit his ankles, leaving him in his dark colored boxers.

The tent was large from his hard cock, waiting to be freed. You watched intently as his cock sprang free, his hand immediately grabbing a fistful of your hair to bring your face closer to him.

"go on," he mumbled huskily with a smile, his grip weakening on your hair. You looked back at him, clearly started and confused. He never let you do it on your own. He normally was the one the guide your head, fuck your face until your jaw hurt. But truthfully, you liked it.

You liked how he dominated you, no matter what you were doing. And to be honest, he liked it too. Fuck, he loved it. He loved how open you were to him, literally allowing him to do whatever he wanted to you. Something that he never got from his wife.

Your wide eyes told him everything he wanted, no. You wanted him to control you. He let out a chuckle, "what's wrong, baby? too shy?" he asked teasingly, his thumb playing at your lower lip.

You opened your mouth, allowing him to press his thumb flat against your tongue, sucking around his digit. He pulled it out with a small pop, a smirk on his face at your obedience.

His grip on your hair became tight as his other hand grabbed his cock, bringing the tip to rub on your lips. "open," he commanded, you immediately following his orders.

He pushed your head down on his cock, your tongue flattening around his girthy base. A deep groan came from him as you hollowed your cheeks out, now sucking.

Your hand held his thigh as he began moving your head up & down on his length, your other one pumping what couldn't fit. He threw his head back, a broken groan leaving his lips as you quickened your pace.

"what a pretty fucking mouth," he moaned out, your tongue now swirling around his tip. You moaned lightly from the praise, closing your eyes as tears pricked them. Your moan sent vibrations through him, making him groan again.

You held back a gag as his tip nearly hit the back of your throat, tears slowly slipping from your eyes and down your cheeks. "so fucking pretty," he murmured, drunk on pleasure.

His thumb came forward to wipe away the tears, enjoying the way he could feel your mouth happily suck on him. He let out a moan, his hips bucking up into your mouth as he held your head still.

He held your head still before thrusting up, fucking your face. You let out a whimper through your nose, trying to catch your breath, but letting him continue anyways. His cock twitched in your mouth as you knew he grew close.

He moaned louder, his voice strained as he said, "fuck- about- aboutta cum." You sucked harder now, your tongue massaging his veiny base before he let out a groan.

"fuck!" he slowed his thrusts down as he orgasmed, ropes of cum coating your tongue. You moaned, slowly bobbing your head to ride out his high. You pulled back, swallowing everything before sticking out your tongue, showing him that you swallowed.

He hazily smirked, pulling you up by your arms to lay you down on the couch. He caught your lips in a rough kiss, his hands spreading your thighs open. "you're so fucking good," he mumbled, aligning himself with your entrance.

Your hands flew to his back, your palms massaging his back muscles. With a swift motion, he pushed his length into you. A gasp which was broken into a moan left you as he surprised you by shoving in half of his length in one go.

He moaned lowly, his head dropping to the crook of your neck as he continued to slowly push his length into you. "god, i missed this pussy so fucking much," he groaned out, getting his entire cock inside of you.

You moaned as the base of his cock stretched you out, relishing the slight burning sensation. He pulled his hips back, quickly snapping them forward as he started with a rough pace.

"shit!" you yelped as he barely gave you time to adjust. "fuck!" he mewled, his cock rapidly pumping in & out of you. The sounds of skin slapping reverberated as he continued his rough thrusts.

You pushed his back down, pressing his chest against yours. He moaned as he felt you clench around him, a burning in his arms and hips beginning as he held himself up. But you felt so fucking good, he just couldn't stop.

Your leg wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer to help out his thrusts. You moaned loudly as his tip hit that spongey spot, a loud curse leaving your lips. "fuck! right there!"

He groaned at your noises, his hand holding your hip to position himself at a different angle before thrusting harsher. He threw his head back as he felt his tip graze your spot, giving him shocks of pleasure.

You kissed his neck, holding yourself back from sucking on him. It was a rule, no marking him. No scratches, no hickeys, no kissing with lipstick (to avoid kiss marks), no markings, no trace of you.

You helplessly licked at a spot you so desperately wanted to suck, it almost made you sad. Tom took notice of this, "suck, baby. it's okay, fuck- do it."

You heard the words, but you couldn't. You shook your head, a moan coming from you as he hit your spot again. His finger came down to your clit, rubbing it sweetly as you felt your abdomen grow tight.

" 'm close, cum with me," he said into your ear, nibbling on your earlobe. You let out a whimper as his cock shoved itself fully into you, his tip hitting your spot, his finger rubbing your clit and his lips sucking at your sweet spot, sending you to your orgasm on the spot.

He grunted as you clenched around him, shooting his pumps of cum into you. You moaned lightly at the sensation of his cum filling you up. You both panted as you came down from your highs, and it was always at this moment when you realized, that was it.

You two would hangout a little, he'd make you feel special. Make you feel like it was real. Then you two would fuck, hang out a little longer, then leave. He'd go back home to his wife, acting like absolutely nothing ever happened.

Your emotions came crashing down on you as he pulled himself off, gently panting. His arms came around your waist, pulling you to help you sit up. "you okay?" he asked, his thumbs rubbing your side.

You stared into his eyes, watching them dance over you to make sure he didn't go too far. "yeah," you replied flatly, now moving yourself out of his grip.

His eyes were beautiful. They brown, dark brown. He had the type of eyes that you wished you could wake up to. The type of eyes you wished that would look at you with more than just lust.

You turned to look at him again, his eyebrows slightly furrowed as he pulled his boxers on. His hand came out to rub your thigh, "what's wrong?".

You looked down at his hand, your heart stinging at the sight of his wedding band. A silver band that perfectly hugged his ring finger, his wife's initials carved into the side.

"i think you should leave," you muttered, now moving your thigh out of his sight. He was taken aback by your sudden change of mode. "what?" he sat up, no longer leaning back on the couch.

You let out a small sigh through your nose, pursing your lips as you wiped yourself with a napkin before pulling your clothes back on. "you need to leave, tom." you put your robe back on.

You said his name through gritted teeth, the name leaving a nasty taste in your mouth. His head jerked to the side by your tone. Your hands hurriedly grabbed the snacks, tossing them into the plastic bag.

"wait- what? can you just- slow down for a second!" he spoke louder, pulling the rest of his clothes back on. Your chest felt heavy as you collected the wine glasses, placing them into your kitchen sink.

You let out a frustrated sigh, your hands gripping the sides of the sink. "i said leave, tom," you said louder, hoping he would just listen. Tom scurried to his feet, joining you in the kitchen.

"baby, just- talk to me," he pleaded, his hand reaching to hold your waist before you shoved his grip off. "stop calling me that!" you shouted.

His eyes widened, his eyes rapidly going up & down your frame, searching for a sign that you were just joking. "what the fuck? what's wrong?!"

"go home, Tom. i said leave!" you shouted, walking back into the living room. You distracted yourself by tidying up the couch, organizing the tossed pillows.

"why are you kicking me out?! tell me what's wrong!"

"because you have a fucking wife, Tom!" you yelled, turning to look at him with wide eyes. "she's waiting for you at home, go back to her!"

"why the fuck do you care about her?! since when are you caring about her?!"

"since forever!"

He scoffed, rubbing his eyebrow. "well, you didn't care about her the last eight times we fucked. what's changed now? what, i didn't fuck you good enough tonight? is that it?" he asked, looking for the possibilities which might've caused you to react this way.

His words cut you deep. 'you didn't care about her the last eight times we fucked.' He had no idea. No idea about the guilt and utter shame you felt each time he left. Truly, it wasn't the guilt you felt for his wife.

You had to be completely honest, you hated his wife. And secretly, you loved fucking him behind her back. She was a bitch. A bratty woman who had no sympathy for others, simply because of her title in the industry.

It ignited something in you knowing that she couldn't satisfy him sexually the way you did. Which is why he always came back to you. But it wasn't what you wanted. You didn't want him to come back to you. You wanted him to come to you, always.

You wished the empty spots next to the door were filled by his shoes. The cold space next to you in bed longed to be warmed by his body. The dishes in the sink to be occupied by two plates instead of just one.

You scoffed at him and his ridiculous words. How blind and idiotic could he be to not see your feelings. You shook your head, feeling the rage bubble up inside you as tears glossed your eyes.

"get the fuck out," you scoffed out coldly. He shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes stern on you, "no. tell me what is going on."

"get out!" you yelled, walking back to your room. You stormed in, slamming the door shut behind you which was rejected by Tom bursting in, right behind you.

"i'm not leaving until you talk to me!"

"your wife is probably looking for you, now go!"

"i don't give a fuck! talk to me!"

"why do you wanna talk to me! why don't you go talk to her!" you yelled back. His hand tightly grabbed your arm, pulling you back to face him.

"because I don't give a fuck about her! i give a fuck about you!"

His hands held your shoulders tightly, his enraged eyes staring deeply into yours, his lips pursed with frustration.

You scoffed, still incredibly angry. "why do you give a fuck about me, i'm not your fucking wife!" you told him. Even though it hurt you saying it, it was the cold truth.

"but I wish you fucking were!" he yelled, shaking your shoulders lightly. He panted heavily, tired of yelling. Tired of the built up emotions. Tired of pretending.

"I fucking love you, Y/N! what don't you understand?!" he yelled again, even louder.

"what do you even mean?!" you replied loudly, completely and utterly taken aback. He groaned loudly, dropping his head low before back up.

"I want you! I want you, Y/N! it's always been you! fuck! for the past 12 fucking years, it always been you!"

You stared at him, eyebrow's furrowed with confusion, mouth slightly agape. He groaned again, shoving his face in his hands, throwing his head back.

He removed his hands from his face, looking at you with a dead-serious face. "i'm tired of pretending like i don't think about you everyday. im tired of pretending like i don't care. i'm tired of going back home to a woman that's not you!"

His words hit you like a truck. You watched his demeanor. Forehead slightly sweaty, eyes low as they watched you, hands balled while his arms flexed in frustration. He wasn't lying. He knew you were looking for a sign. A sign that he wasn't being truthful. That he was just saying this to make you stay.

He knew you, better than you knew yourself. He shook his head gently, stepping forward to take your face in his hands as he spoke softly. "i want you, Y/N. i- i need you," he begged, pressing his forehead against yours.

You stayed silent, your hands gently cupping his elbows as he held your face. You had questions. Why? If it was always you, why did he marry her? Why did he never say anything? Why now? Why not sooner? Why not save you & himself from all this pain?

He read your thoughts exactly as he sighed out from your silence, "i was lost. so lost. especially when you got engaged to that asshole i just- i didn't know what to do. and she.. she was just there. i thought i just had to move on," he confessed quietly, his voice cracking here & there.

You were engaged a while back, but soon broke it off when you realized you were doing a terrible mistake. You realized the day you tried on the dress, you imagined yourself walking down the isle. And in your head, you couldn't even bare to see another man standing at the altar, a man that wasn't Tom.

You caught his lips in a kiss, a passionate one. He sighed out with relief at your kiss, his hands wrapping around you tightly as he pulled you to the bed, hugging you tightly.

"i love you, i love you," he repeated against your lips inbetween kisses. The weight of holding his love for you had been lifted off his shoulders. You kissed him back, holding his face with your hands as your lips molded together.

Not with a single ounce of lust, just pure love. You pulled away after a couple of moments, both of you panting heavily to catch your breath. It was silent, a good silent.

"so.. what's going to happen with her?"

You asked him, your eyes flickering toward the wedding band. He looked at it too, then glancing back at you with a smile. He slipped the ring off, tossing it somewhere on the bed before kissing your lips again.

"you don't have to worry about her, i promise. i'll take care of that." he reassured you, a smile on his face while his fingers ran through your hair. You nodded, smiling gently.

"i love you," you both whispered in sync.

-

GUYS LEAVE IDEAS PLSSSS

a/n: what did y'all think ?:)

[angelic-ambedo]

The Weirdest Fucking Movies I've Ever seen Pt. 1

Okay so I sort of champion myself as a lover of weird movies. And it's funny because regardless of how many I've seen, every time I watch a weird movie I genuinely feel as if it is the weirdest movie I've ever seen in my life.

So, I decided to make a list which compiles all of said weird movies and then a description of why I find each so uniquely weird. If you find any of these descriptions or titles intriguing, I recommend you seek these movies out, because a weird movie = a good life ya know so yeah

If you have more weird movies please please recommend them im hungry for new crazy cinema bebesssss

Eraserhead (1977) - genuinely makes no sense.

Coherence (2013) - trippy scientifically interesting thriller

Some Velvet Morning (2013) - abusive cat n mouse relationship

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) - emotional violence

Greener Grass (2019) - let's shame suburbia!

Trash Humpers (2009) - people fucking the trash...?

Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) - mental illness be so sad and trippy

Gummo (1997) - literal photo album of a dysfunctional town

Slaughtered Vomit Dolls (2006) - bulimia PSA in disguise

Black Bear (2020) - art seeps into the "real" world

Begotten (1990) - god kills himself

Trouble Every Day (2001) - eating people presented as...a turn on?

Baise-Moi (2000) - punk feminist murderous women are sick and society sux

Palindromes (2004) - one character is played by a ton of different actors of different ages, races, and sexes

964 Pinocchio (1991) - so much vomit, even more cyberpunk lobotomy sex machine madness

Meet the Feebles (1989) - the muppets give each other STDs and commit mass murder

In the Realm of the Senses (1976) - a torrid, pornographic affair used to escape the horrors of a war-torn world

Enter the Void (2009) - going to the past, present, and future, POV shots that include blinking, going inside the body, taboo themes with a psychedelic style

Love (2015) - horny pseudo-porno about a misogynistic asshole who somehow pulls hot, sexually adventurous women

Climax (2018) - LSD fueled nightmare

Pink Flamingos (1972) - a competition to be the "filthiest person alive" (spoiler alert: the cool drag queen wins)

Vivarium (2019) - Suburbia is still creepy, guys

Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015) - can we please stop having erotomania like celebrities aren't into u babe :(

No No Nooky TV (1987) - Computers being cool and saying "boobs" and "clit"

The Piano Teacher (2001) - unsafe nonconsensual bdsm and sexual repression is...no. please no.

The Night Porter (1974) - stockholm syndrome and wild bdsm stuff with postwar themes

Belle de Jour (1967) - more bdsm themes

Titane (2021) - woman fucks a car and gets pregnant

Daisies (1966) - two girls cut up pickles and destroy the patriarchy

Creep 1 and 2 (2014, 2017) - murder has never been this funny

Garbanzo Gas (2007) - a human cow gets an all-expenses paid trip to a motel before it hits the slaughterhouse

Melancholie der Engel (2009) - ew.

In Our Garden (2002) - old men dicks + weirdest dialogue I've ever heard in my life

The Rehearsal (TV series) (2022) - this is the ultimate weirdest thing ever and I don't know how else to categorize it.

Trigger Warnings (all of these movies are weird/fucked up but some of them contain actual fucked up stuff that like. happened in real life. so below are the triggers for that kind of stuff. All of these films are genuine films, not the gore stuff the internet produces, but some of them because of the country/time period/transgressiveness include content that is inappropriate and/or ethically unacceptable, so I've included those movies below)

Baise-Moi - unsimulated sex scenes which includes SA scenes that actors consented to but characters did not. this proves a feminist point but is still incredibly upsetting and stayed with me for a while as there are close ups and its awful.

In the Realm of the Senses - Please look into this one more before you watch it, I'm not going to describe things in detail because it makes me so uncomfortable but there are some scenes that involve young actors that should not ethically have been in the situations they were put in. The movie is exceptionally well made and from what I know globally respected so I don't know why they had to ruin it for me but whatever.

Pink Flamingos - One infamous scene involves an actual chicken death. It was the early 70s (long time ago and no PETA) and they apparently ate the chicken afterward, so I felt less immoral about this one but still gross.

Melancholie der Engel - okay please genuinely never watch this movie unless you're super into traumatizing yourself and are very desensitized I guess. There's a ton of actual animal abuse in very very graphic/unnecessarily disturbing shock type situations. There's other bad unsimulated stuff but this is the worst of it from what I know.

Love and Meet the Feebles contain scenes that are transphobic and/or racist, which is gross. Slaughtered Vomit Dolls was made by a very bad person. A bunch of the movies also have unsimulated sex stuff, I don't know if that makes anyone uncomfortable but if it does I'm just putting it out there.

[zahri-melitor]

All right, I'm actually trying to tally this up: what are the actual storylines people can think of that are about Dick and Jason's relationship that feature them on page together? Ones where it's basically just them up against each other or working together, rather than intermixed with a lot of other family (so for instance, I'm not counting things like Tom King's scene announcing Bruce and Selina are engaged, or Batburger).

My immediate round up off the top of my head and a quick scan of appearances consists of:

Nightwing Year One

Jason's 1980s NTT appearances

EDIT: Batman #416

Brothers in Blood - Nightwing #118-122

Climax of Battle for the Cowl

Batman & Robin 2009 #4-6 and #23-25

Red Hood and the Outlaws Annual #2 2017

Blood Brothers - Nightwing Annual 2021

Maybe Joker War? But that's got Babs and Tim around as well

[starksinner]

Why Didn't You Stop Me?

Summary: You left and you horribly wish he would’ve forced you to stay.

Pairing: Trevor Philips x AFAB!Reader, Franklin Clinton x AFAB!Reader

Warnings: Smut, Sexual Content, Possessiveness, Fuckbuddies, Unhealthy Relationship, Average GTA Stuff

November 16th, 2017.

It was easy to regret not catching a ride back to Los Santos with Franklin in his sexy white Bravado Buffalo S. 

Regret is easy, regret you know. Regret can grow and grow it does as you make eye contact with the hillbilly jacking off next to the icebox in front of the Yellow Jack Inn. 

After a couple of days gallivanting around the desert shit-pile that was Sandy Shores, Franklin deemed that your weed-fuelled, fuck-filled adventures had reached a necessary end.

Despite his intriguing offers of more shenanigans and freaky sex once you both got back home, you weren’t all that keen on leaving the town of meth production and Republican rednecks just yet. 

“M’gonna go see him,” you sighed, resting your head back against the stained motel pillow. 

Moments before, as Franklin had fucked you raw into the cheap motel mattress, you were met with the smell of blood and piss and cum as your face was shoved into the shitty cushion.

Despite the abysmal scent, the man was taking you so good and so fuckin’ hard, you couldn’t force yourself to care. 

Now though, as you laid sated in your post-climax glow of sweat and semen, the smell against your cheek served as an unignorable reminder of your still bleeding heart. 

That man, that asshole, that meth-head-Trevor-Philips-piece-of-fucking-shit—goddamnit.

You still hopelessly, stupidly, selfishly loved him. The fucked kind of love.

Always caked in blood, smelling like piss after running off to get high and grinning like an evil bitch as he came all over your chin and tits. The smell of the Derelict Motel—the sheets, the pillow, the musty air—was all just a nauseating reminder of how much you missed him. 

Your therapist was gonna kill you. 

“You know that ain’t a good idea,” Franklin murmured, running his thumb over the plushness of your bottom lip.

Your eyes met his and you couldn’t help but shiver at the way he looked at you, his gaze so soft and so full of adoration. 

He made you feel like you weren't just a burning shitpile of flesh, bones, and substance abuse issues.

Frank is a good friend, a great man, a nice fuck. He was always there to bring you back down to Earth. He was so easy to love and you sure as shit loved him a whole lot. Beautiful fuckin’ man. “He ain’t right in the head about you.”

“We both know he ain’t right the head about nothin’,” you argued, leaning your body over his. Beautiful man.

“And he’s a big boy. He can take it. Whatever I wanna throw at him.” Your legs quickly became tangled, Frank’s hands resting over your hips as you smiled and played with his chest hair. “He can fuck all the people he wants, but I can’t touch or look or fuckin' breathe around anyone but him? He’s a fuckin’ ass.”

“He fell for you, girl. T’s always been crazy an’ possessive, his shit ain’t nothin’ new.” Franklin snuggled your body closer to his, sighing softly as he pressed his face into the warm crevice of your neck. 

He couldn’t control himself, not when he had you like this. You were so hot and so sweet and just so fucking delicious. 

Shit. 

His lips lingered over the sensitive spot at the base of your throat, his tongue reaching out to tease a fading bruise. He did that. He made that. He marked you. 

Fuck.

He groaned as you gave him easier access by raising your chin, letting him worship you like the real fuckin’ princess he always thought you were.

“He was fuckin’ paranoid and possessive in all the worst fuckin’ ways, Frank. I fuckin’ hate him for how he acted when I said I was leavin’ but I still...miss him.” You hummed softly as you felt Franklin’s lips suck right over your pulse point, his teeth just brushing over your delicate skin.

You held down the urge to beg him to bite you.

“Yeah, you miss him, but ain’t nothin’ gonna be solved if you both end up killin’ each other...or fuckin’ each other,” Frank breathed roughly against the shell of your ear as his hand wandered across your stomach and down to your aching clit. 

He immediately preened at your wetness and teased the bundle of nerves with soft, circular motions. You gasped as you felt his cock harden and twitch against your thigh, begging for your pretty fucking attention.

He grinned and quickly shoved a finger into your cunt, making you moan and writhe oh so beautifully against him. “Jus’ come back home with me, baby…”

You could barely solidify your thoughts, whimpering like you were.

His motions were so smooth and perfect and rhythmic. Frank was good at a lot of things, but you considered his talent of fucking you mindless as one of his top three.

You immediately felt your wetness start to leak down your thighs. “If he still isn’t over it...I’ll fuck off, hitch a ride, meet you back at your place…yeah?”

“Yeah, baby,” he gripped your throat just how you like and shoved another finger into you, leaving you mewling and squirming in his grasp. You reached for him, hard and thick in your palm, and squeezed. 

The best girl.

If you were parting ways, Franklin was gonna have you one last time. He understood Trevor’s possessiveness. You were great company, a great fuck, a great woman.

Addicting, hell blazing, heavenly—you were everything. So fuck yeah, he was gonna have you as many times as he possibly could. “Lemme take care of you, babygirl, then you’ll be all good to go.”

The Yellow Jack Inn has never been known for its posh customers or regular demonstrations of human decency, but a man jacking it in front of such a fine all-American establishment is still a sight you couldn’t have properly braced yourself for.

As the ash of your blunt falls to the dirt, your eyes stay transfixed on the man by the icebox as he lets out a disturbing howl and drops to the ground.

His pants are stained, his dick disgusting and soft. He lets out a series of groans as he turns to lie flat on his stomach, his cock scraping against the sand.  

Jesus H. Christ. What a charmer. 

You manage to twist away from the scene in repugnance and perhaps a more sinister part of you in mild delight, settling yourself in the alley next to the bar.

You restlessly attempt to calm yourself against the brick, picking at its shoddy green paint job before you begin rolling another blunt. 

You’re stalling. Like a little bitch. It's embarrassing how much a man can turn you into such a conniving fickle coward. Perhaps not just any man. Your paranoid fuckin’ shitshow of a somewhat ex-lover. 

Embarrassing. Unbecoming. Completely mindfucked. 

You know Trevor’s inside. He’s an enigma, a loud, idiot one at that. Over the noise of clanked bottles and shitty laughter, you can hear him.

Stupid, how much of him you can hear. And see. And smell. And understand. In everything and anywhere and with anyone. He never leaves you even when he’s left you. He never leaves you even when you've left him. He’s a parasite that you’ve coddled, and cared for, and loved and fucked. 

The timber of his voice warms you in a special, fucked up kind of way. It’s familiar and it’s settling and it kills you to know that he’s spent fourteen months ridding you of it. Of him. His clinical insanity has rubbed off on you beautifully. You left and you horribly wish he would’ve forced you to stay. 

God.

Would he kill you? Kiss you? Fuck you? You’re still stalling.

Maybe all three?

Being the oil to a homicidal cannibal’s match, you could never really know what the fuck you were gonna get. You anticipate an explosion, but you’re clueless to its degree. 

You pocket your blunt, walk over the man with his dick in the sand, and open the door to the biggest health hazard in California. 

Chapter 2

a/n: found this oldie from 2021 that i was in the mood to refresh & post! i haven't written in literal years, be nice to me! also, happy ten years to this stupid fucking game. i love u. i feel old (i'm not) and i'm tired (constantly) and i hope you enjoyed (lie to me if you didn't) :3

✧ masterlist ✧ ao3 ✧ send me an ask / let's chat! ✧

[strscrossed]

mean dom hobo eren: a timeline

(feel free to point out any inconsistencies because it’s a lot and I’m adding/retconning stuff too)

eren:

march 30, 1990 - his birth

2005-2006 - he meets lara, his first wife

2006 - 2017 - eren and lara have an on again, off again relationship. he’s constantly breaking up with her and finding other girls. she’s basically always second choice

2017 - lara secretly baby traps him and he steps up and marries her. don’t remember if he cheats on her or not

~2018 - lara miscarries and eren tries to be there but then he overhears her talking to willy and he finds out that she intentionally baby trapped him, he leaves her. she refuses to divorce him. the tyburs are too powerful

2022 - eren meets mikasa in mid 2022

mikasa:

february 10, 2000 - her birth

october 25, 2010 - koji, her brother, is born

~2011 - 2012 - her parents die, either an accident or a double homicide. she and koji go to live with kenny/levi

~2019 - she moves out and takes full custody of her brother. she’s engaged to porco at this point and she moves in with him. all is well. but then she comes home early one day to find porco in bed with one of her bridesmaids so she immediately ends the engagement and the relationship

late 2019 - she starts working in a bookshop

late 2022 - she meets eren and he immediately hires her on the spot

eremika’s relationship:

mid - late 2022: the relationship is professional, though there’s attraction between the two of them

very late 2022: they have sex for the first time and the relationship keeps going even though they try to stop it multiple times

late 2022: april 2023: eren gets super involved in mikasa’s life and even enrolls her brother in the best school in the country and pays for the tuition.

may 2023: lara comes back into eren’s life again, asking to reconcile and saying that she will absolutely not sign the divorce papers

late 2023: she starts sniffing out that eren might be in a relationship with his secretary and she gets willy to do something about it

january 2024: willy threatens mikasa after a gala and forces her to move away. eren is shattered and desperately starts searching for her

july 2024: koji makes contact with eren and he finds them. and he brings them back.

august 2024 - june 2025: eren and mikasa are are back together but secretly while he gets his revenge on the tyburs via gaslighting and shorting their stock. this becomes the climax of the story.

september 2025 - eren and lara’s divorce is finalized

new year’s eve 2025 - eren proposes and that’s when mikasa figures out that they’ve been in a relationship for the last three years

february - march 2026: mikasa learns she’s pregnant

june 12, 2026: em are married in a private ceremony

october 1, 2026: their son, kai, is born

december 21, 2028: twins kane and hana are born

may 3, 2030: twins victoria and amelia are born

april 25, 2032: their daughter, emiko, is born

august 13, 2038: they have twin girls (no names yet)

[celestesinsight]

Salaar Analysis: Mahara Women!

We were introduced to the Mahara women and their plight when Deva entered Khanshar as Varadha's one man army. We watched a young girl being taken away in a vehicle, while another young girl was running after them. We got to know more about these women from Baba, when he described Mahara as poultry farms, except there were no hens. The meaning of this statement would later become clear, when Vishnu's disgusting actions were shown in detail. Even though, the scene explained about their conditions, we were still left clueless about their affinity to the three tribes of Khanshar.

This issue has been discussed too many times in the fandom and mostly ended with the conclusion that Mahara used to be one of Varadha's territory. Varadha used to have three territories, one Dora territory, Bhargat (that he gave up for Deva) and two Kapus, one of which was Pathran. But Varadha during the ceasefire voting, only held one vote as Kapus of Pathran. Hence, a common HC in fandom that Varadha lost Mahara before 2010. This theory could explain why Vishnu thought of humiliating Varadha by making him watch him assaulting those women. Another common HC in fandom is that Varadha's mother belonged to the Mahara.

There is a second theory about their origin that I have seen in a few YouTube videos. They speculate that Mahara women have some connections with Shiva Mannar and Shouryangas tribe. In the above photo, we could see that the bell-like ornament worn by Shiva Mannar, was also a part of Mahara women's attire. But neither Varadha nor Raja Mannar ever wore this ornament as Kartha, so it was definitely not a Mannarsi ornament. There was one thing that changed when the regime passed from Shiva Mannar to Raja Mannar, the decimation of the Shouryangas tribe. I have even watched a YouTube video stating that Shiva Mannar also had two wives like his son, one of them being Raja Mannar's mother and the other was a woman from Shouryangas tribe. And he wore that ornament to honour her.

I am not completely sold on this idea of Shiva Mannar's wife being a Shouryangas . But I do believe that there is a connection between them and Mahara women. And before I state my reasons, I want to point out something.

When the presence of Shouryangas was revealed during the climax of Khanshar, the cyan colour palette was used to portray them. Deva's Shouryangas heritage was also shown by colouring his upper body cyan. This colour is also used as a hidden clue in many scenes of the movie, pointing towards Deva being a Shouryangas.

During the promise scene.

During 2017 Deva's entry.

Again for a split second when he took the sword from the soldier before decapitating Naarang.

When Radha Rama asked the Mannar army to be alert in the entire Khanshar, depicting the rising Shouryangas threat.

So, when I was rewatching Salaar again last Friday, I noticed this colour again in the background during the 'Aaru Sethulunnaa' song, behind the Mahara women.

This shows that Mahara women have some connections to the Shouryangas tribe. Either they were the women from the Shouryangas tribe captured during the massacre and kept captives in Mahara all these years or they were a kind of sub-tribe, that forms a small part of the larger Shouryangas tribe. Or they could be people living in Shouryangas territory under their protection.

This could also explain Shiva Mannar wearing those bell-like ornaments. As the leader of the three tribes, he could wear other tribes ornaments to honour them or show his neutral stance.

Varadha's connection to Mahara is still a mystery. And I hope we get some clear answers about it in part 2.

[choueiyuusubs]

Climax Jump - Kamen Rider Girls Kamen Radiranger Hero Party 2017

[nympht4evr]

Hiii! Welcome to my little project! Happy to have you! ~♥

This is my attempt to archive an accurate portrayal of the 2015-2017 "nymphet" subculture as someone who was active in the community during those years which happened to double as its height/golden age!

Here I will be archiving images, music, films, and literature that were popular with nymphets, or at least popular with the nymphet that was myself! ~♥

In case you're new to it and wondering, the "nymphet" aesthetic draws its name from the name attributed by the antagonist/narrator of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita to the young girls he felt an attraction to.

Common elements include an overall aesthetic of girlhood and the more sensual elements of femininity. Common as well are vintage aesthetics, aesthetics of Americana, a very feminine, little girlish aesthetic, and a general focus on a light brand of sexuality that's not vulgar, but playful, what might be described as a "sex kitten" type of sexuality.

If you have any questions about the history of the subculture, own an image I posted and would like to be credited or have it removed, or just want to chat, please feel free to message me, I would love to talk to you! ~♥

Lastly, let me address something that I feel must be stated (CW under the cut for mention of s*xual abuse and p*dophilia.)

I was 15-17 years old during the years I was active in the nymphet community, so let me make this clear: I am not making this blog to try to bring back the unpleasant sides of the subculture; I do not condone and actively condemn relationships between adults and minors. I do not romanticize Lolita and view it as a horrific piece of literature about child abuse, and as a survivor myself, my love of Lolita as a teen can be attributed to how relatable, brave, and strong Dolores is, even when her story is only told through the lens of her abuser, and how throughout the novel she refuses to allow the horrific abuse she is enduring and the loss of her mother to kill her spirit and towards the climax of the novel we can see that after escaping her abuser she had found happiness against all she had endured. Lolita is a powerful exploration of the nature of sexual predators. As it was often said during those golden years: Do not romanticize Lolita. It is not and never will be a "love story."

[mondothebombo]

UR WISH IS URS TO KEEP BC I SAW UR REBLOG

Whats ur fav part of your wytyaa🫶

hello friend!!!

i have… a lot lmaooo. brace yourself for a rant

a few of those include chapter 4 with jay and his parents and the ninja replacements. i had a lot of fun writing ed and edna, they’re so special to me, and exploring jay’s relationship w ronin and skylor, even if only briefly, too was something i’ve always wanted to do.

i also really like all of chapter 5, the climax of the story and the s6 finale. i’m such a sucker for hurt comfort and it physically KILLS me the others forgot skybound so i tried to stretch that very short period of time where the team is in the know as much as physically possible. there’s.. a lot of moments between jay and the other ninja there if you didn’t notice asdfghjkl

but i think my ABSOLUTE favorite chapter is the newest one, chapter seven. it’s when nya finds out the full extent of what jay went through and jay finds out the extent of what nya went through, and, in my mind, it’s the start of their ACTUAL relationship that we see in s7 and on, bc there’s no more secrets between them and they fully understand each other, getting rid of the two’s not so great attitudes we see throughout the season

anyway i hope this makes sense asdfghjkl and thank you for the ask!!! i hope you won’t have to wait too much longer for the last chapter. there’s just SO MUCH i want to cover and i want it to be good. there’s a lot of pressure on my part to end something i started writing in 2017 to the best of my ability seven years later asdfg. sorry for the ramble BUT!! chapter 8 is abt half way done, and i can’t wait for you to read it💙

[mitchtheficus]

A Golden Lovers Timeline

PART 1: LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

The beginning of this story, covering the events leading to their first match and the forming of the Golden Lovers (2006 - 2008)

PART 2: LOVE AND SUCCESS

The Golden Lovers’ adventures in DDT (2009 - 2010)

PART 3: FALLING BEHIND

Their first foray into NJPW, the beginning of the end, and Budokan (2011 - 2012)

PART 4: THE GOLDEN LOVERS ARE NOT OVER

The end of their tag team, and Kenny’s last match in DDT (2013-2014)

PART 5: BETRAYAL

Kenny joins the Bullet Club and breaks Kota’s heart (2015)

PART 6: SEIZE THE THRONE

Kenny gets some new, sadder pants (Jan 2016 - June 2016)

PART 7: AND WAITING FOR HIM

The Pining Chapter (Aug 2016 - Sept 2016)

PART 8: WRESTLE KINGDOM 11

A wild Kota-lookalike in a tiger mask appears! (Oct 2016 - Jan 2017)

PART 9: I NEVER FORGOT ABOUT YOU

Kenny’s slowburn face turn (Feb 2017 - June 2017)

PART 10: RETURN

 Kenny says a lot of things about Kota being back in njpw (June 2017 - July 2017)

PART 11: A MEETING IN A HALLWAY

Kota tries to reach Kenny (July 2017 - Aug 2017)

PART 12: THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

Cody Rhodes enters our story (Dec 2016 - Dec 2017)

PART 13: WRESTLE KINGDOM 12

Kota reclaims the Phoenix Splash (Dec 2017 - Jan 2018)

PART 14: CRISIS

New Years Dash, January 5, 2018

PART 15: REUNION

New Beginning in Sapporo, Jan 27-28, 2018

PART 16: HOMECOMING

Immediate Elite fallout and Golden Comeback Documentary (Jan 2018 - Feb 2018)

PART 17: HONOR RISING

Shit hits the fan (Feb 2018)

PART 18: WHERE WAS HE

Matt Jackson’s Feelings

PART 19: STRONG STYLE EVOLVED

The Saddest Match Ever (Feb 2018 - March 2018)

PART 20: WE CAN’T TRUST THIS GUY

Kenny visits ROH and the bucks see Cody’s true face (March 2018 - April 2018)

PART 21: THIS IS WHAT LOVE LOOKS LIKE

The Lovers spend Wrestlemania Weekend in New Orleans (April 5-7, 2018)

PART 22: REACHING OUT

The bucks try to repair their relationship with Kenny (May 2018 - June 2018)

PART 23: THE POWER OF LOVE

Dominion, June 9, 2018

PART 24: VIDEO GAMES AND THE COW PALACE

The lovers play video games and Cody chooses friendship over power for once (June 2018 - July 2018)

PART 25: MARATHON

Kota fights his way through the G1 (July 2018 - August 2018)

PART 26: TWO PEOPLE THAT SHARE ONE HEART

G1 Climax Semi-finals and Finals (August 10-12, 2018)

PART 27: THE SEA BETWEEN US

The End

[NOW ON WORDPRESS]

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

The damage inflicted on the nation during Donald Trump’s first term in office pales in comparison with what he will do if he is elected to a second term.

NYTimes: By Thomas B. Edsall 8/21/24

How can we know this? The best evidence is Trump himself. He has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to tear the country apart.

“Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters,” Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton, writes in a forthcoming article in Liberties,

have made it clear that they will not accept defeat in November any more than they did when Trump lost four years ago. They believe that Trump is the one true legitimate president, that those who refuse to accept this fundamental fact are the true deniers, and that any result other than Trump’s restoration would be a thwarting of history’s purpose and a diabolical act of treason.

The authoritarian imperative has moved beyond Trumpian narcissism and the cultish MAGA fringe to become an article of faith from top to bottom inside the utterly transformed Republican Party, which Trump totally commands.

Like Wilentz, Laurence Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, does not mince words, writing by email:

All the dangers foreign and domestic posed by Trump’s cruelly vindictive, self-aggrandizing, morally unconstrained, reality-defying character — as evidenced in his first presidential term and in his unprecedented refusal to accept his 2020 electoral loss — would be magnified many times over in any subsequent term by three factors.

First, he has systematically eroded the norms and the institutional guardrails that initially set boundaries on the damage he and his now more carefully chosen loyalist enablers are poised to do in carrying out the dangerous project to which they are jointly committed.

Second, their failures to insulate themselves from electoral and legal constraints during the dry run of 2017-21 have led them to formulate far more sophisticated and less vulnerable plans for their second attempt at consolidating permanent control of the apparatus of our fragile republic.

And third, their capture of the Supreme Court and indeed much of the federal judiciary has put in place devastating precedents like the immunity ruling of July 1 that will license a virtually limitless autocratic power — if, but only if, they are not stopped during the epic struggle that will reach one climax this Nov. 5 and another next Jan. 6.

The most important reason a second Trump term would be far more dangerous than his first is that if he does win this year, Trump will have triumphed with the electorate’s full knowledge that he has been criminally charged with 88 felonies and convicted of 34 of them (so far); that he has promised to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family”; and that he intends to “totally obliterate the deep state” by gutting civil service protections for the 50,000 most important jobs in the federal work force, a central tenet of what he calls his “retribution” agenda.

Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, contended in an email:

The question is how much the Supreme Court presidential immunity decision will undermine institutional guardrails against Trump’s anti-democratic behavior. If there are no repercussions for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, intimidation of election officers, and casual handling of classified materials, then Trump will be emboldened to partake in such activities again.

Trump has made clear that norms of governance — e.g., civility, accepting electoral defeat, and treating members of the political opposition as legitimate holders of power — do not apply to him.

While Kamala Harris has pulled even with, if not ahead of, Trump in recent polling, Republican attacks on her have yet to reach full intensity, and the outcome remains very much up for grabs.

Bruce Cain, a Stanford political scientist, voiced concerns similar to Wronski’s by email:

Trump is more erratic, impulsive, and self-interested than your average candidate and is much bolder than most in testing the boundaries of what he can get away with. In political insider lingo, he is a guy who likes to put his toes right up to the chalk line between legal and illegal activity.

There is some evidence that his bad traits are getting worse with old age, but the more serious problem is the lowering of institutional and political guardrails that constrained him in the past. The decision in Trump v. the U.S. entitling a former president to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and “presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts” seems to me particularly problematic. The court left open the question of how to distinguish between official and unofficial acts. Trump’s personality is such that he will without doubt test the limits of this distinction.

Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale and an expert on the regimes of Stalin and Hitler, wrote by email in reply to my inquiry: “It would be closer to the truth to think about a second Trump administration beginning from the images of Jan. 6, 2021. That is where Trump left us and that is where he would begin.”

Unlike oligarchy and tyranny, Snyder argued,

Democracy depends upon example, and Trump sets the worst possible one. He has openly admired dictators his entire life. He would encourage Xi and Putin. The Russians make completely clear that a Trump presidency is their hope for victory in Ukraine. Allowing Russia to win that war, which I think is Trump’s likely orientation, destabilizes Europe, encourages China toward aggression in the Pacific, and undermines the rule of law everywhere.

Charles Stewart, a political scientist at M.I.T., warned in an email:

A second Trump administration would escalate the threat of authoritarian governance, most notably, by sanctioning politically motivated prosecutions. Even if the courts resisted the baldest of efforts, doing so will be costly to political opponents and also continue to silence dissent among conservatives who wish to have political careers.

In 2016 and for much of his first term, major elements of the Republican Party viewed Trump with deep suspicion, repeatedly blocking or weakening his more delusional initiatives. That’s no longer the case.

“The Republican Party is fully and totally behind Trump — the epicenter of election disruption — even after two impeachments, an insurrection and a criminal conviction,” Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton, pointed out in an email, adding:

The support that Trump received after Jan. 6, and the entire effort to overturn the election, demonstrates that much of the G.O.P. is fine with doing this. Now that the party knows what insurrection looks like and has given its stamp of approval by nominating Trump, we know that this is officially part of the Republican playbook.

One thing is clear: Trump would assume control of the White House in 2025 with far more power and far fewer restraints than when he took office in January 2017.

Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, argued that Trump’s near-dictatorial rule over the Republican Party and the absence of intraparty dissent will play a crucial role if he returns to the White House in 2025:

Democratic backsliding rests heavily on the absence of contrary messages within the party undermining democracy, because (a) this further radicalizes sympathetic voters (who take their cues from in-party politicians) and (b) makes the battle into an “us” vs. “them” partisan fight that is easily used by demagogues to justify further democratic backsliding.

Both Hacker and Frances Lee, a Princeton political scientist, pointed out that even with solid support from fellow House and Senate Republicans, Trump’s power and freedom to act will depend on partisan control of the House and the Senate.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. As Hacker put it:

The scale of the threat posed by a Trump presidency will rest far more than commonly recognized on the exact balance of partisan power in D.C. If Trump has both houses of Congress — along with, of course, a highly sympathetic Supreme Court — the pace and extent of democratic backsliding will be much greater than if Republicans “merely” hold the White House.

Given its role in appointments and its greater prominence, the Senate is the critical fulcrum. We saw in 2019-20 that Democrats holding the House helped keep the spotlight on Trump’s misdeeds and blocked some of Trump’s most egregious potential legislative moves. But House control is worth much less than Senate control, and a Democratic House may not be enough to prevent serious democratic backsliding.

If Democrats win a House majority, Lee wrote by email, “their control of the House would foreclose any opportunity for one-party legislating, such as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.”

In addition, Lee argued, “Trump’s proposals and priorities still do divide the Republican Party internally. Even though Trump has improved his position with the congressional wing of the Republican Party relative to 2017, he still faces pockets of intraparty resistance, especially but not exclusively on foreign policy.”

As a result, Lee wrote, “the remaining Trump-skeptic Republicans in Congress will have pivotal status in a narrow Republican majority. So the bottom line is that we don’t know much about the influence Trump can wield until we see the outcome of the congressional elections.”

Even accounting for Lee’s caution, however, Trump’s base of support has grown over the past eight years to encompass not only the MAGA electorate and the network of elected officials who have learned dissent is politically suicidal, but also the individuals and interests that make up the party’s infrastructure, especially the donors and lobbyists.

Just three and a half years ago, in the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, this wing of the party threatened to become a major roadblock to a second Trump term. Leaders of Wall Street and big business voiced seemingly deep concern over the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his followers, with many of these leaders vowing that they would never contribute to a Trump campaign.

“Many of the nation’s richest people said after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that they would never again back former President Trump,” David Lauter of The Los Angeles Times reported. Those concerns have dissipated.

In March, The Washington Post reported: “Elite donors who once balked at Trump’s fueling of the Capitol insurrection, worried about his legal problems and decried what they saw as his chaotic presidency are rediscovering their affinity for the former president — even as he praises and vows to free Jan. 6 defendants, promises mass deportations and faces 88 felony charges.”

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of Trump’s increasingly strong ties to his party’s financial establishment. His ability to shape the flow of campaign money is second only to the power of his endorsements, making obeisance to his authority even more crucial to political survival.

Trump’s shifting relationship with the Republican establishment’s major-donor community can best be seen in the changing composition of his financial backing from 2016 to 2024.

In 2016, many of Trump’s top backers, according to OpenSecrets, could best be described as marginal figures in the world of campaign finance:

McMahon Ventures, a consulting firm founded by the owners of World Wrestling Entertainment, $6 million; Mountainaire, a chicken producer, $2.01 million.

In terms of money, Trump today is a very different candidate. The corporate qualms that surfaced in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection have been subordinated to the prospect of billions in tax breaks for business and the rich if Trump returns to office.

According to OpenSecrets, of the $472.8 million Trump and allied PACs have raised through the middle of this year, a quarter, $115.4 million, has come from the securities and investment industry, the financial core of the Republican establishment. In 2016, this industry effectively shunned Trump, giving him a paltry $20.8 million.

“The leaders of major industries’ decision to back Trump suggests that the economic benefits of staying on the team will outweigh principled concerns about democratic norms should push come to shove in a second Trump term,” Eric Schickler, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote by email in response to my query.

There are several other factors raising the level of danger posed by a second Trump term in the White House.

When he took office in 2017, Trump had no clear agenda, just a collection of grievances, impulses and prejudices; no carefully prepared list of prospective loyalists to appoint to key posts; and in essence no understanding of the workings of the federal government.

These deficiencies kept many, but not all, of his destructive impulses in check as top aides and key party leaders repeatedly steered him away from the cliff.

If he wins this year, those checks on Trump will be gone.

Trump’s advisers and allies have put together a detailed agenda along with lists of men and women who are ready to do his bidding — developments that have been detailed in this column and elsewhere.

In his email, Schickler emphasized the crucial role played by Trump’s successful efforts to drive Republican opponents out of elective office. Now, Schickler wrote:

“Each Republican member’s own political survival depends on being loyal to the team.” He continued, “Republicans will stand by Trump in any potential impeachment battle — as result, there will be no chance for a conviction, essentially making any attempt to enforce accountability into just another partisan showdown.”

During his first term, Schickler noted, Trump “raised the possibility of taking a threatening action — such as sending in troops to arrest or even shoot protesters,” but he was held back by his own appointees and senior government employees.

“The big difference in 2025,” Schickler cautioned,

is that there is a much more built-out political operation supporting Trump. Appointees will be carefully vetted for their loyalty. When it comes time to implement an order that, for example, removes civil service protections from most federal workers, the top layers of executive agencies will be filled with people eager to follow through and weed out those with “bad” views.

Not only will Trump be more robustly protected if he returns to the White House in 2025; a key institution — the Supreme Court — is more likely to back his initiatives now that it is dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority, half of which is made up of Trump appointees.

That conservative bloc has already signaled its willingness to unleash Trump in its July 1 immunity decision, Trump v. United States.

The ruling gave Trump new grounds to challenge the criminal charges and convictions he faces and suggests broad approval for future Trump policies and initiatives. The president, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the 6-3 majority opinion, “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”

Robert Y. Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia, wrote by email:

Trump says he wants to replace the bureaucracy — part of the “deep state” — with political appointees. He wants to go after his political enemies, lock up refugees in camps, and implicit in all this he will appoint cabinet members and high-level officials who support what he wants to do instead of the “grown-ups” who constrained him at every turn during his presidency.

In this context, Shapiro continued:

The above threat to democracy has to be seen, on the face of it, as real, given that the Supreme Court has opened the possibility of immunity on any presidential actions, however criminal they might be. What Trump has said he will do, and what the Supreme Court has opened the door to — what he can do in terms of what would be criminal and not just impeachable offenses — pose an enormous threat to the nation and American democracy.

Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, summarized the risks raised by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in an email:

The court’s decisions have made it harder for the judiciary, Congress or other institutions to hold Trump in check. The immunity decision certainly enables an authoritarian presidency far beyond that envisioned by the people who wrote the Constitution.

The biggest difference if Trump is re-elected, Jacobson argued,

will be the absence of officials in the administration with the stature, experience, and integrity to resist Trump’s worst instincts in such matters. A White House staffed with sycophantic loyalists or white nationalist zealots who share Trump’s ignorance and contempt for norms and institutions will give him freer rein than in the first term.

As Sean Wilentz warns:

Trump, who does not speak in metaphors, has made it plain: “If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath.” This is a time for imagining the worst. Not a single loyal Republican official has objected to that statement or to similar MAGA warnings about an impending civil war.

Yet, Wilentz writes, “many of even the most influential news sources hold to the fiction Trump and his party are waging a presidential campaign instead of a continuing coup, a staggering failure to recognize Trump’s stated agenda.”

I am going to give the last word to Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian:

Trump is in the classic dictatorial position: He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power will do all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/21/opinion/trump-second-term-2025.html

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

Stats from Movies 101-200

Top 10 Movies - Highest Number of Votes

The Thing (1982) had the most votes with 2,313 votes.

The 10 Most Watched Films by Percentage

Shaun of the Dead (2004) was the most watched film with 69.30% of voters saying they had seen it.

The 10 Least Watched Films by Percentage

The Wicker Man (2006) was the least watched film with 67.02% of voters saying they hadn't seen it.

The 10 Most Known Films by Percentage

Friday the 13th (1980) was the best known film with only 1.04% of voters saying they'd never heard of it.

The 10 Least Known Films by Percentage

The Doll Master (2004) was the least known film with 88.49% of voters saying they'd never heard of it.

The movies part of the statistic count and their polls below the cut.

The Faculty (1998) You're Next (2011) Matriarch (2022) May (2002) Black Christmas (1974) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) Friday the 13th (1980) Jason X (2001) The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) The Tunnel (2011)

Scream 2 (1997) Climax (2018) Raw (2016) Tusk (2014) A Serbian Film (2010) Waxwork (1988) American Mary (2012) In the Mouth of Madness (1994) The Fog (1980) The Mist (2007)

Ginger Snaps (2000) Scream 3 (2000) House of Wax (1953) Shaun of the Dead (2004) Night of the Living Dead (1968) Basket Case (1982) Malignant (2021) Attack the Block (2011) Insidious (2010) Trick 'r Treat (2007)

The Wolf Man (1941) The Invisible Man (1933) The Invisible Man (2020) Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) Scream 4 (2011) The Last Broadcast (1998) Dark Water (2002) Dog Soldiers (2002) One Missed Call (2003) V/H/S (2012)

The Houses October Built (2014) Occult (2009) Willow Creek (2013) Savageland (2015) The McPherson Tape (1989) Waxworks (1924) Scream (2022) Possum (2018) Cemetery Man (1994) The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

The Thing (1982) Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) Night of the Lepus (1972) Puppet Master (1989) Gargoyles (1972) From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) The Fourth Kind (2009) Dead Silence (2007) The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) American Gothic (1987)

Netherworld (1992) The Bad Seed (1956) Satan’s Triangle (1975) The Creeping Terror (1964) The House That Would Not Die (1970) The Wicker Man (2006) Scream VI (2023) From Beyond (1986) Castle Freak (1995) Beyond the Gates (2016)

The Phantom Empire (1987) The Evil Clergyman (1988) Would You Rather (2012) Chopping Mall (1986) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) [REC] (2007) The Bay (2012) Happy Death Day (2017) Happy Death Day 2U (2019) Mayhem (2017)

Child's Play (2019) Freaky (2020) X (2022) Pearl (2022) Possession (1981) Possessor (2020) Hush (2016) Us (2019) Creep (2014) Creep 2 (2017)

The Witch (2015) Eyes Without a Face (1960) The Void (2016) Annihilation (2018) Color Out of Space (2019) The Thing (2011) The Relic (1997) The Doll Master (2004) Hellhole (2022) The Howling (1981)